Chapter 39
chapter thirty-nine
Natalia
Mateo and I both agreed to take a short hiatus after the wedding to enjoy married life, go to a beach that wasn’t Pompano, and focus on each other fully. Which meant three weeks of long nights, content filming, and finishing the projects we were contractually obligated to.
During the day when his parents were home, Anna and I had coffee together. I showed her how to use Pinterest for all of her decorating ideas, and built her a wall of boards for things like recipes and holidays. She broke out the ironing board that was collecting dust in the hallway closet to teach me a skill I’d never bothered to learn. When I was younger the dry cleaner took care of it, and when I was in my early twenties, I wore wrinkled clothes or threw rumpled outfits in the dryer for an extra cycle hoping that would magically fix them. One day, I showed her how to use the streaming remote, because she’d only ever had cable, and Spotify so the radio wasn’t her sole option. She came home from the store with a floral spiral notebook the next afternoon and sat at the counter writing all the meals Mateo grew up eating in perfect cursive with ingredients and measurements and left it next to the stove for me.
Most of the time, though, Anna and David were busy like Mateo and I were. After the wedding they still had to go back to New York and sell their house and pack it, which would take a few months. Angelo would be there to make the transition as smooth as possible, but things were moving at a pace that both scared and thrilled me. When they were out of the house I worked in the privacy of a quiet bedroom.
Our inbox was flooded with requests after Vegas. I’d never gone more than twelve hours without checking the messages or updating myself on subscribers, so being gone for two days set us back. I was writing skeleton scripts all day, testing lighting, choosing costumes, doing my solo client requests in between, and faking so many unearned orgasms I was lightheaded. My clit was chafed from the vigor of my wand vibrator.
Immersing myself into my work was the only thing that kept my mind off everything else. But it had to have been a good thing that a week had gone by without a phone call from my parents, right? Every time the screen lit up I had a small panic attack, my lungs seizing and my muscles stiffening. There was no way that level of anxiety was good for my body, being in full fight or flight mode constantly. Part of me wished that if they were going to out me, they would just fucking do it already instead of pawing me around like a toy. But this was probably part of the satisfaction, having something to hold over my head until they felt like kicking me in the cunt.
Slipping into one of Mateo’s long, soft robes I crossed my legs and sat in the computer chair to edit the week’s worth of scripted content we’d filmed. I got to have fun with the pre-filmed scenes during the mixing and polishing process. I always liked the look of the videos more with cuts in time, specific framing, and at least two angles. I could tell a story artistically, make it more eye-catching, the sounds more pleasing, the payoff even grander at the end. When I analyzed the viewership and interaction data, I knew exactly what videos did the best, and could replicate our best performances visually and physically.
For example, our most popular video included zip ties; a sloppy, spit-string face fuck; my tits; and an impressively long cum shot. I was more than happy to find a plethora of ways to reinvent the wheel there if it meant keeping our viewership as happy as they were when that one hit the internet.
I knew I’d never get my sisters to applaud my work. The same way I’d never want to see one of them having sex, though I’d absolutely walked in on Camilla with a hand beneath her sheets when she was in high school. I was too young then, but I shuddered at the thought now. It did give me hope, though, that my oldest sister wasn’t as frigid and uptight as I’d thought. She did indeed have a pulse, and sometimes it even thrummed between her legs.
But would curiosity get the best of me if I’d found out one of them had a popular porn business? Would I need to entertain that little piece of my mind wondering what the hell it looked like?
A twinge of discomfort built in my gut, spreading like static on a limb after lying on it for too long. That tingling, gnawing sensation found its way into my ribs, and then my throat, and before long I was scrolling through our recent subscribers, searching for an email I recognized. I found nothing, but they also would have never been stupid enough to subscribe to our page with their real names. If they could even find it.
Their only lead was Matthew and Natasha, and one thing Mateo had done when we first started filming content together was bury the chances of anyone stumbling upon us in a preliminary Google search by manipulating the SEO.
That didn’t sway me from falling down a search bar rabbit hole.
We were lost somewhere in the deep web all thanks to Mateo. The only results I garnered were other couples with similar names, several hyperlinks to that one unethical competitor site, and a barrage of cooking blogs claiming to have the “Easiest, Best-Tasting Italian Meatballs.”
Cracking my knuckles I pushed away from the desk on squeaky chair wheels and dropped onto the bed on my stomach, scooping up my cellphone from the fluffy sheets. My finger hovered over the group chat with my bridesmaids, but after everything that went down I didn’t know how to casually converse with all of them as if the entire wedding party hadn’t self-imploded.
Ophelia’s text chain was pinned at the top of my messages and I clicked into it.
Me
Do you think my sisters are snooping on my page?
Phee
What makes you say that?
Me
Because it’s the perfect ammo to humiliate me
Phee
Is it more humiliating to be the one getting dicked down by your man, or to be the one watching your sister get dicked down by your brother-in-law?
Me
It depends
Phee
??
Me
Maybe they’re watching the one where we’re dressed as Bo Peep and Woody from Toy Story
Phee
The kid’s movie?
Me
Bo Peep and Woody are ADULTS
Phee
There has to be some kind of copyright law against that
Me
Then the people at Pixar would have to explain how they found it in the first place
Phee
Talk about covering all your bases
We had covered all our bases. I had absolutely nothing to worry about, and yet I couldn’t shake that feeling that somehow Bella was using her lawyer connections to find and compile a damning testimony against me and my nether regions. If not to bring it in a binder of hot-off-the-press computer paper to our parents, then to present it back to me as a form of reverse revenge porn self-reflection.
Ophelia texted me again.
O
You should just ask them
Me
I haven’t even talked to them in over a week
O
Maybe they’re waiting for you?
The last thing Mia said to me was that she’d try to talk Bella and Cami into letting me do my own dirty work. They could have agreed and were waiting for me to hold up my end of the bargain. If that was the case I still had some time left to convince them not to ruin our family, because if they thought I’d be outing myself to anyone before our wedding reception was over, they'd be sorely mistaken. That way I could fuck off forever and never have to show my face to anyone in the Russo lineage ever again.
It’d be for the best.
It would also haunt me until the wedding if I didn’t find out what was going on with the three of them and where we really stood in all this. They were still my bridesmaids; no one had rescinded their invitation. We were possibly the most dysfunctional bridal party in America, but at least there was no groom-cheats-on-bride-day-of-wedding drama like in the movies.
Mia was the most receptive, if you could call it that. I singled her out and decided to skip over waiting for a text back and hit the call button in her contact. It rang enough times for me to question whether or not she would pick up, but on the fifth ring she did.
“Hello.” Her voice was low, but soft. A jingle in the background sounded like her car keys rattling around on her finger.
“Hey,” I said, letting out a deep breath. “I don’t want this to be weird.”
She punched out a laugh. “That’s a good way to not make it weird.”
“I don’t want you to get penalized for finagling with the enemy. But if I have to be in the dark about what’s going on for another hour I might scratch myself out of my skin.”
Her heels clicked against the pavement. It was the middle of the afternoon so she was probably coming or going from a property showing. “Have I become the more approachable older sister? I made a wrong turn somewhere.”
“ Approachable isn’t the word I’m thinking of, but empathetic, possibly?” I squeaked. “The only one who might pick up the phone, at least.”
“I was worried about you,” Mia said. I was taken aback by it, and before I could catch up she filled the open space. “What’s the verdict on that guy Angelo punched? Is he pressing charges?”
“No, thankfully. I think he sobered up and nearly shit himself when he realized there were four more men waiting for their turn. Angelo got a ticket for disorderly conduct, but that’s far from the first time for him.”
Mia was quiet on the other line for a moment, a short hum sifting through the receiver. “So that guy harassing you was…what? A…fan?”
“A subscriber. Former subscriber.”
“I’d say.”
“That’s never happened to me before, just so you know,” I rushed out. “I’ve never met a person from my online life in my real one, and neither had Mateo. It was all such a freak coincidence. I’m sorry again that you were there for that.”
“Doesn’t it scare you?” she asked quietly. It was the furthest thing from accusatory—more profoundly concerned, and whimsically curious. “That these men are complete strangers but they think they own you? The parasocial aspect of it has to fuck with you.”
I sat up straighter on the bed, crossing my legs into a pretzel. I pulled my phone away from my ear to check that it was in fact Mia I was on the phone with before placing it back. This was not the way I thought this conversation would go. It wasn’t even the way I was hoping it would, but I was more than happy to continue because in a screwed-up way I liked that she cared. That she even wanted to be on the phone with me to begin with.
“It used to,” I told her. “When I started, I was doing it alone and had no idea how easy it was to be taken advantage of, even behind a screen. Once I realized how liberating the power was, that I was the one in control of everything and I could be any person that I wanted to be, it wasn't scary anymore. I’m not in any danger, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“I’m just still trying to wrap my head around it,” Mia said. “You’re my baby fucking sister. In my head you’re still playing dress up in Mom’s formal gowns and cutting your hair with the kitchen scissors.”
“That’s the problem,” I sighed. “I’m twenty-six years old. I’m not trying to say that means you should have known I was a cam girl, and I’m not even saying you should accept it. What I’m saying is, if I’m doing adult things, as an adult, I should at least get a proper hearing before being voted out.”
“You really shocked us,” she said.
“I know. I totally get that, and it’s been a week of well-deserved silent treatment. Now I’m in wedding panic mode, and spiraling, so I guess what I’m asking is, is there a world where we pretend nothing ever happened and everyone is none the wiser?”
She made a small, exasperated noise. The chirp of her keys unlocked her car and the heavy door whooshed open and thudded closed before the radio blared to life. Mia quickly dialed the volume down as the engine in her BMW thrummed to life.
“You know I can’t speak for Cami and Mia. I also can’t say that this isn’t questionable at best from my point of view. I mean, are you dead set on making America’s Horniest Home Videos for the rest of your life?”
A laugh escaped me. “Who knows?”
Not even I did. Tomorrow I might wake up and decide that I never wanted to make any new content ever again. That creative bug inside me could die, Mateo could change his mind about it, I could put my energy into working behind a camera instead of in front of it. Life could become busy in other ways.
“All I’m really asking for is solidarity,” I said. “Does that work?”
“If that’s what you need,” Mia said. “Don’t mention it, because this is as much for me as it is for you. God knows I don’t ever want to be on the receiving end of John Russo’s wrath. I’m stockpiling karma points.”
My lungs lightened. There was a breath caught in my throat that I pushed out heartily. I hadn’t won anything, but it felt like I should be crossing a finish line, or at the very least finishing a very tumultuous leg of a race.
“I'll win them over.” Though it was an inside thought, I spoke it out loud.
“Is that why you called? To figure out how deep of a hole you had to crawl out of?”
“Because my wedding is in three weeks, and I needed to know if I had to hire stand-in bridesmaids off Craigslist.”
“Your saving grace is that this wedding is a reflection of the entire Russo family. If we don’t look like one cohesive unit, it tarnishes Dad’s image, heaven forbid.” I could hear her eyes rolling. “He’s been way more self-aware lately, so don’t hold out for a drunken rehearsal dinner speech.”
“What’s the point of the dinner then?”
“Spending a thousand more dollars as quickly as humanly possible.”
“Oh, I did have one more question.” I pinned the phone between my shoulder and my ear and played nervously with my cuticles. “You didn’t try to look me up online, did you?” A beat passed, and my fingers stilled, eyes widening. Her non-answer was all the answer I needed. “Mia!”
“How are you going to drop on us that you’re some high-profile sex worker with people recognizing you out in Las Vegas nightclubs and not expect a little research to be done?”
She had a point, but it didn’t make it any less difficult to swallow. My tongue felt like a paperweight in my mouth. “And?”
“And we didn’t find anything, so you can unclutch your pearls.”
Relief rushed out in a sigh. The very first thing I was doing when Mateo got home was kissing his perfect cybergenius mouth. “More reason to leave Mom and Dad out of this. They would literally never know.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Mia’s voice bottomed out. “I have to go. I’m meeting a seller to take photos for a listing. My advice is to give the other two time. Bella is a snob, but she’s not without compassion. Camilla needs to get laid. Don’t go on Craigslist.”
“I won’t,” I replied with a little too much hopeful glee. Very kid in a candy shop with an empty plastic baggie and a dream. The line dropped and my phone plopped onto the comforter, me going right down with it and burying my face in a pillow to let out a dramatic muffled scream.