Total pages in book: 32
Estimated words: 29556 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 148(@200wpm)___ 118(@250wpm)___ 99(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 29556 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 148(@200wpm)___ 118(@250wpm)___ 99(@300wpm)
My chest ached as I studied the faces on the screen. Uncle Logan had come to visit us in Eureka over Christmas, just a few months before my dad was sent away. I remembered all the shops and restaurants decorated with white lights and wreaths. We went out for dinner at the Oberon Grill in Old Town, and my dad asked the server if she could take our picture. The three of us squeezed together on one side of the booth with me in the middle and all of us wearing broad grins.
We were happy then.
The desire to be nestled between the two most important men in my life made my throat clench. But it wasn’t going to happen; my dad had made sure of that. I forced myself to click the browser app, covering up the family photo. My uncle already had over a dozen saved tabs open. I opened a new one and successfully logged into the school’s website. The course database was laggy and confusing, so I opted to download the course catalog instead. Unlike my laptop, the option to go directly to the Downloads folder didn’t pop up, so I had to go hunting for it.
Opening the file explorer, I scanned the list of recently used files and folders, my gaze catching on a folder labeled “Palo Alto Footage.” My uncle often took pictures and videos of the important moments throughout our lives. I recalled him making one last recording of the empty apartment in Palo Alto right before we moved here. A wave of nostalgia pushed me to click on the folder.
I expected to see files labeled after holidays and vacations. Instead, I found more folders organized by month. I clicked on “March” and was surprised to see what looked like hundreds of files with names like “Living room” and “Kitchen” followed by the date. I clicked on one randomly and gasped when an image of me slicing a bell pepper at the kitchen island appeared on the screen.
That was…weird. I knew that Uncle Logan had security cameras pointed at the entrances, but this camera was angled to record the interior from somewhere slightly above eye level. I closed the video player and opened another file, and then another, and another. Before I knew it, I’d watched snippets of over a dozen videos, all taken from various places in the apartment. I was in every single one of them, doing random, mundane things.
Backtracking through previous folders, I realized these recent videos were just the tip of the iceberg. The recordings appeared to go back years, as if he’d been secretly filming me ever since I moved in with him.
“Why would you have these?” I whispered, incredulous. My hand trembled around the mouse.
Closing out of a video of me reading on the couch, I clicked into a subfolder labeled with what appeared to be a bunch of random letters and opened the first file.
My breath caught in my chest.
“What the actual fuck?”
The image of me in my old bedroom filled the screen. I stood facing away from the camera, at the foot of my bed, dressed in my underwear and bra. Confusion and disbelief swirled in my belly as I watched myself reach back to unclasp my bra.
Had my uncle actually sat at his computer and watched me take off my clothes? He must have. I mean, why else would he record, let alone keep, this footage?
I didn’t think it could get more invasive, but I was wrong.
There were videos of me showering and masturbating at the old apartment and here in this house—all in HD with clear sound. My moans filtered through his high-quality speakers as the oblivious past version of me rubbed her clit and rode her fingers. I’d never taken photos or videos of myself like this. To watch my own face contorting with pleasure as I reached orgasm was so bizarre it almost didn’t seem real.
Overwhelmed, I paused the video and sat back in the leather chair. My muscles ached from the stress of everything I’d just witnessed. I held my face in my hands and tried to remember how to breathe.
Why would my uncle do this? Did he enjoy invading my privacy, or was he disgusted by the things I did to myself in my bedroom? Did seeing me naked and vulnerable turn him on? I waited for the repulsion I was supposed to feel at the thought of him sitting right here, in this very chair, with a hard-on. But instead of disgust, I felt a pang of arousal.
What if I wasn’t the only one with inappropriate thoughts?
“Hailee?”
I jumped out of the chair, my heartbeat slamming against my ribs. From this side of the house, I hadn’t heard the garage door opening.
“Hails?” Uncle Logan called again from somewhere not far off.