Looking back over the last few months, I never would have imagined myself in this position. I have a steady girlfriend I have been seeing since college. I have a good paying job in spite of the recession we have all been dealing with over the last year. And I consider myself better than average when it comes to my social life. While I've dated quite a few women over the years, I've pretty much been going steady with Sandy since we both graduated from Duke a few years ago.
Sandy is a pharmaceuticals sales rep and travels a good bit. I'm in sales too but all of my customers are in our region which limits my time away from home. We have talked about moving in together but right now we both still maintain our own apartments. Sandy is a gorgeous blonde with a killer little body. We met at a fraternity mixer and I have been smitten ever since.
I'm a huge basketball fan and invited a close friend of mine over to watch the second round of the NCAA Tournament a few months ago. Randy is a Tarheel, our nemesis when it comes to basketball, but he we both knew the "heels" were a much better team this year and we were both kind of hoping they'd meet up in the semis.
Sandy had already informed me she was going to be in South Carolina on a sales trip and would likely stay with her parents and be back on Sunday leaving me to fend for myself over the weekend. Given all the games that were on, there was little doubt what I'd be doing...or at least I thought.
I invited Randy over for some pizza and basketball Saturday. We had both settled in with a few cold beers and a little March Madness. Duke held off Texas in a score that was much closer than it should have been. I went into the kitchen when Randy yelled out if he could get on my computer to check out the bracket. I yelled back that my computer had issues and kept locking up on me.
Randy informed me while he wasn't a computer technician, he knew a thing or two and might be able to help me out. Thinking he certainly couldn't hurt it, I gave him my approval and headed back to the kitchen for salsa and chips. Randy sat at my computer station in the den and began typing away. When I returned, I looked over his shoulder to see screens and prompts I had never seen before. I was definately impressed.
I sat back down in the lounge chair and began taking in the next game. "I'm gonna' run a virus program on your machine. I think that's what's locking ya' up," Randy said as he kept typing away.
"Thanks," I replied taking a long swig from my cold beer. Randy got up from my station and returned to the couch as we both began watching the next game. He returned minutes later to check the status. I could hear him typing away as he set about fixing my computer.
"There's the problem. I figured you had a virus...probably something you downloaded from a file," he informed me. He continued to type away finally rejoining me on the couch. We must have polished off at least a six pack a piece when he looked over at me, "You need to be real careful on those sites you look at. Some of them are loaded with viruses and spyware that can hijack your computer."
Then it hit me. While I'm not gay and have never had sex with a guy, I had been looking at some free adult sites that featured both men and women, women and women, and yes... men and men. I'd never given much thought about guys before - never had an interest. But I have to admit, when I saw the frozen frame of the two guys going down on each the other night, I downloaded it.
Actually I had downloaded quite a few...and intended to delete them after I had viewed them. That is before my computer seized up on me.
"So I noticed quite a selection of videos you downloaded to Real Player," Randy said without even looking up at me.
My heart was thumping loudly in my chest. Shit, did this guy see those videos? Did he know I was looking at gay stuff on the web? "Yea, I downloaded a little. I don't even know what I have. Just sort of downloaded stuff on a site and thought I might get back to it later," I said. I hoped he'd drop it. Assume I didn't know what I was looking at.
"So, are you gay?" Randy asked bluntly, looking over at me after he took a drink from his beer.
"No man, why would you ask that?" I shot back indignantly.
"Well, that's quite a collection of queer stuff. I just didn't know if that was your bag or anything. I mean... I'm cool with it. I don't think less of you or anything," he went on.
"Look, I don't even know what's on there. I just sort of downloaded some stuff. I might have downloaded some gay stuff by accident," I said trying to get out of it. I hoped he drop it. Leave it alone.
"Hey look, don't worry about it. I just noticed your history has a lot of gay sites in your cache. You might want to clean it up. What would Sandy think if she saw the sites you visited... or does she know?" he kept up.
"Damnit, I said I'm not gay. I just downloaded a couple of videos. It's no big deal," I said feeling myself get embarrassed. I literally felt like my mouth was drying up as I picked up my beer and drew a long gulp of the cold brew.
"So, you did download it on purpose. You're curious huh?" Randy said with a smirk. "Look...Dale... It's no big deal. I'm not going to tell anyone. But you should know something...." Randy stopped.
I looked at him wondering where this was going. "I should know what?"
"I e-mailed my computer at home with a few of your sites. A little message from your mailbox to mine. Maybe you should take a look at it," Randy warned as a horror swept over my body. What had he done? I walked over to my computer and saw that he had opened my outlook program and there on the screen was a message that had been sent.
It was addressed to his e-mail and the subject read "Dale's Links". There in the e-mail he had pasted in some of the sites I had visited as well as the properties indicating the date and times. You could have knocked me over. "What the hell are you going to do with that?" I asked, feeling the heat in my face.
"Call it insurance. Nothing if you behave. But if you do something stupid... well, I might have to forward it to a few of our friends. Maybe Sandy too for that matter," Randy said as he stood up from the couch.
"Why are you doing this? What the fuck are you thinking?" I asked.
