Private Eye Read online

  Maya reared back, her mouth opening in shock. She turned to Lane, who was slowly coaxing Monica toward the door, even though she clearly didn’t want to leave. “Tell your little friend not to slam my door again.”

  Lane nodded, “Yes ma’am.”

  At the door Monica turned from his grasp and said, “Kierra,” in a desperate voice that might have broken Maya’s heart if it weren’t already in pieces.

  Maya turned to Kierra, who was turned away from them all. She was playing with her hair so that it covered her face, a move Maya recognized. She was instantly reminded of the first day they’d met, a week before classes started their freshman year of college.

  Maya had said goodbye to her mother and siblings the day before when she’d hopped on a flight from SFO to Newark. She’d gotten all of her crying out on the plane and the previous night alone in her new dorm room. So she’d recognized the soft rise and fall of someone crying, but trying to hide it, when she’d spotted the girl sitting in the back of the orientation hall. She was sitting alone, turned away from the room, using her hair to hide her face. Maya had sat down next to that girl. She didn’t speak, but she hoped that her presence was reassuring nonetheless.

  Maya turned to Monica and Lane and the sadness in Monica’s face made her anger evaporate. She’d assumed that Kierra was just fucking her bosses, but anyone who looked at her best friend the way Monica was looking at her now clearly loved her; or was well on their way to it. It made Maya’s heart ache. Because she wanted that. She’d foolishly wanted that with MasquerAsiaN. Not that she’d ever admit it to another living soul now.

  “Leave her alone,” Maya said in a soft voice. “Give her space.”

  Monica didn’t look at her or even acknowledge that she heard Maya’s voice. But when she finally turned away, Lane caught Maya’s eye. He nodded once, before softly closing the door behind him.

  “How long have you known who he was?” Maya wanted to console her friend, but her own broken heart needed answers.

  “They told me today,” Kierra whispered, her hand moving, Maya guessed, to wipe her tears away. When she turned to Maya, her eyes were red. “I told them they had to tell you. It wasn’t right.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  Kierra sighed. “But if you’d asked me before today, I’d have said that Kenny seemed like a really good guy. If it matters.”

  Maya took a deep breath in and shook her head. She couldn’t handle hearing that he might be the kind of man she’d been fantasizing about for six months. Not right now. “It doesn’t.”

  Kierra nodded. “Tequila?”

  Ah, Maya thought, now this was something she could deal with.

  ***

  Kierra was passed out on the couch. Like face down, mouth open, drooling and snoring. They had made a pact before the first tequila shot not to talk about the spies currently messing with their heads. Once, when they were sophomores, they’d gotten dumped on the same day. Tonight felt oddly reminiscent of that day and they leaned into the nostalgia of the moment. Apparently, a little bad dancing around the living room as they sang Chaka Khan songs at the top of their lungs and very much off-key was still the best way to momentarily cope with emotional drama.

  When Kierra had passed out on the couch, Maya heaved a sigh that was equal parts exhaustion and relief. It was one thing to nurse her own broken heart and a completely different task to do so while her best friend was just as hurt. Maya felt at her breaking point. Finding out that the only person she’d allowed herself to open up to in a long time had been deceiving her made every shot of tequila she drank feel like torture. She’d tried to hide the few tears that leaked from the corners of her eyes as she danced around their living room, swiping at them so quickly she could pretend as if they’d never fallen. If Kierra noticed, she didn’t say anything. And Maya didn’t say anything when she saw Kierra do the same.

  Maya threw the ugly quilt they kept on the couch over Kierra and walked to her bathroom. She took a short, hot shower, hoping to steam away her heartache. She stood in front of her mirror and wiped away the condensation to stare at her reflection as her mind replayed every dream about MasquerAsiaN she’d held secretly close to her heart. She brushed her teeth and imagined that all of those fantasies followed her toothpaste down the drain. She threw on a pair of boxers and a bralette, hopped into bed and pulled her laptop open.

  The last place she wanted to be was in her chatroom. She actually had a hard and fast rule not to engage with any of her viewers while under the influence. She wouldn’t have shown up to a day job drunk, so she wouldn’t do it on her channel. But something drew her to the chatroom. Not something. Her heart.

  His private message request came as soon as she logged in.

  Her finger hovered the cursor over the red button to dismiss the window. She could see her chatroom moving quickly, her viewers excited to see her unexpectedly online. But the only viewer that mattered was him. And she hated herself for it.

  She accepted his request. The box prompting her to set her rates and time limit for their session popped up. She was feeling spiteful so she typed in an amount for half an hour that was triple her normal rate. Maya blinked when Kenny accepted her quote immediately.

  MasquerAsiaN

  I’m sorry

  ThickaThanASnicka

  You said that already.

  MasquerAsiaN

  I’ll say it as many times as you need me to.

  ThickaThanASnicka

  I don’t need anything from you but your money. And if you’re just going to apologize, I don’t even want that.

  It was easier to type the words than to say or mean them. Maya’s heart was pounding in her chest. She wanted to cry. But she’d spent the last few hours stopping the tears building at the back of her eyes from falling by pure force of will. She wasn’t going to lose that battle now in front of her webcam, where he could see. But after the surprise of finally seeing MasquerAsiaN in person and realizing she’d been deceived and three shots of very expensive tequila, she was growing too tired to fight off her own emotions. This was a mistake, she thought to herself. She was just about to end their session when his face appeared on her screen.

  They’d been chatting online for months, but Maya’s view of their conversations had consisted of a large window of herself and a white chat box. So when her own image shrunk to a small box in the upper right-hand corner and the larger window filled with his head and shoulders, a dimly lit room behind him, she didn’t have the strength to stop herself from crying out. She’d literally been dreaming of what this moment would be like; to finally see his face fill her laptop screen. She hated him for ruining the moment now that it had arrived.

  “Can you hear me?” He asked her slowly.

  She rolled her eyes in response.

  “I’ve wanted to do this for months,” he said.

  “But you were lying to me so you couldn’t. Shame.”

  “I never lied,” he said quickly, leaning toward his computer.

  Maya took note of his five o’clock shadow, and the way his nose bent slightly to the left – her left – as if it had been broken at least once, and the way the light of his computer screen seemed to dance in his eyes, which she begrudgingly acknowledged were a beautiful brown; the same color of rich, wet earth.

  “Everything I ever told you about myself was true,” he said.

  She laughed bitterly. “That’s because you barely told me anything.”

  He opened his mouth to respond, but she cut him off with a raised hand. “I don’t want to talk about this. So tell me what you’re into or I’m leaving.” She looked at the clock in the bottom left-hand corner of her screen as it counted down the time of their session. They were approaching the five-minute mark, which would take an automatic refund off the table.

  Kenny took a deep breath and dropped his head into his hands.

  Maya let her gaze wander over his large hands and long fingers and hated him even more because they looked as if they’d feel go
od inside of her. She licked her lips and realized that while three shots of tequila weren’t enough to get her fucked up, when her heart and her pussy were at war, those were three shots too many. She moved her hand, ready to end their chat again, when he raised his head and their eyes met.

  Her mouth fell open in a silent gasp.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Okay what?” She tried to sound bored, but at this point her feelings, her mind and her body were in the same building but on very different floors, so she hardly knew what she sounded like to his ears.

  “Okay, I’ll tell you what I want.”

  She sighed, assuming he would just start talking about his feelings again. Maya was fully unprepared for what he said next.

  “I love watching you,” he whispered, almost too low for her to hear. Almost. “But I want you to watch me for once. Is that okay?”

  She nodded immediately and held her breath.

  Her eyes widened as the camera angle shifted to his lap. And then they bulged out of her head when he lifted his hips and pulled his sweatpants down, exposing his dick to her gaze. He was semi-hard. He grasped his penis in a firm grip and started to stroke himself slowly. For her.

  Maya clenched her thighs together and absentmindedly circled her hips. She wanted to touch herself, but she didn’t want to give him the satisfaction. Besides, his long penis had claimed all of her attention and she didn’t want to tear her eyes away for even the milliseconds it would take to reposition her body for maximum masturbation comfort.

  So she watched his large fist glide up and down his shaft in sure, slow strokes, his palm sometimes covering the head. She watched his hard abs jump as his excitement grew. She chewed her bottom lip in anticipation. And then she moaned when a string of his saliva slowly descended into frame and landed on the head of his dick, his palm instantly using it to ease his movement.

  Maya bit her bottom lip harder, trying to stifle the moan building in her throat, begging for release. She tore her eyes away from the screen just long enough to shove her hand into her boxers. She was happy he couldn’t see her because she was fully incapable of caring about his months-long deception right in that moment. Her body and mind had been completely overtaken by her own lust.

  “Faster,” she whispered before the word even formed in her mind.

  He complied and began to pant.

  She rubbed her clit and imagined his head resting on the chair’s headrest, eyes closed, his mouth falling open in ecstasy. She had become so good at imagining what he was doing at any given moment that it almost felt like second nature by now.

  Her gaze was trained on the head of his dick, which had turned an angry shade of red that Maya felt she could relate to. She slipped two fingers into her pussy. She hoped he hadn’t heard her squeak of surprise at her own touch.

  But then he moaned and she had to close her eyes and clench her thighs tightly together again, her back tensing as the orgasm built and then finally washed over her in gentle waves.

  Thankfully she opened her eyes just in time to watch his own orgasm overtake him. She tried to focus on the speed at which his fist seemed to cajole his release out in forceful spurts, landing on his stomach messily. She filed that beautiful sight away for later. But then she made a mistake. Her eyes caught on his other hand as it shakily rested over his heart, just barely in frame. She came again; a deep, shuddering moan escaping her lips.

  She logged out of her ChatBot account immediately and turned over in her bed to cry.

  three

  Kenny needed to focus. If he didn’t make sure to keep his grip tight and his aim straight, he could shatter his wrists in a heartbeat. He punched with his right and then left gloved hands, stepped back and kicked the bag with the flat of his bare foot, dancing out of the danger zone of its sway.

  He wore a simple pair of running shorts, the cool blast of the gym’s air conditioning hitting all of his sweat-covered skin. He moved around the bag, skipping out of its orbit more than he punched, his eyes alert, his pulse pounding, letting his body distract him from his emotional pain; refusing to think about her.

  Kenny’s phone started ringing again from the floor at the edge of the mat. He ignored it. He’d been ignoring it all morning and all last night. He punched the bag low with his left hand, rammed his left shoulder into it and then pulled his knee up to connect with the bag at what would be about gut level for an average-sized man.

  Someone cleared their throat behind him.

  Kenny spun away from the bag and his eyes landed on Lane. He grunted and turned back to his workout.

  “Well good mornin’ to you too.”

  “Go away,” Kenny said, a punch punctuating each word.

  “Is that how you talk to your supervising agent?”

  “I’m assigned to Monica, not you.”

  “Then is that how you talk to a senior agent?” Lane asked in a playful voice that infuriated Kenny.

  “Why are you here?” Kenny had to grit his teeth together – grinding out each word – to stop from screaming. He was throwing a tantrum and in the wrong direction. He knew that. But he couldn’t stop himself. He wanted to wallow in the mess he’d made of the situation with Maya alone. He wanted to punish his body until he couldn’t stand so that when he went back to his hotel room tonight, he wouldn’t be tempted to log onto ChatBot and watch her being beautiful and sexy and funny for her viewers; reminded of everything he could never have again.

  “I’m here because the mission doesn’t wait for your fucking feelings. You’ve got a job to do and if you want to impress my wife, you better get your shit together and do it.”

  Kenny was the son of two soldiers. His parents met in Basic and had been together ever since. They had exactly one child, reasoning that two active service soldiers could manage to raise only the one. There was some shuffling to his grandparents’ home amidst the regular transience of military life and the sometimes sticky situations that arose when both of his parents happened to be deployed at the same time. But through it all, he had had a stability that was rare for a child in his shoes, because his parents were meticulous in every part of their lives; everything and everyone in its place. It was a trait that Kenny respected and had thankfully inherited. And it had always served him well in The Agency.

  Kenny wasn’t sure if Lane knew much about his past, but he was sure that the way his spine straightened gave some of that away. But Kenny couldn’t help it; he believed in duty, responsibility and respect for the hierarchy. And Lane had cut right through the anguish and self-pity he was feeling to pull out those elemental parts of his personality.

  He exhaled loudly. “She’s not going to let me anywhere near her.” The words felt like acid coming out of his mouth. “So unless you have another cam model for us to recruit, we’re going to have to go back to the drawing board.”

  Lane just smiled. He shoved his hands into his pants pockets and nodded at the punching bag. “We have a meeting at Command in exactly one hour. I expect you to be there.” He turned to walk away.

  Kenny called after them. “Why did you come? Why not Monica?”

  Lane turned back, the smile on his face not reaching his eyes. “You weren’t the only one who had a bad day yesterday.”

  ***

  After Lane left the gym, Kenny halfheartedly swatted at the punching bag, wondering if maybe he shouldn’t just leave and request a new assignment from The Agency and wait out his dismissal somewhere as far away from Maya as possible. But after a few minutes, he’d thrown his t-shirt over his head, slipped on his shoes, grabbed his phone and jogged the few blocks back to his hotel. Because training under Monica was still his professional dream. And – embarrassing as it was to admit to himself – a small part of his brain still hoped, foolishly, that if he stayed close to Maya… He couldn’t even let himself finish that thought, it was so far out of the realm of possibility. But still, he buried it somewhere deep inside himself and held onto it with everything he had.

  When he pull
ed up to the wrought iron gate outside of Lane and Monica’s house, he thought he would hear Kierra’s voice again, but it was Lane who greeted him today.

  “You’re almost late.”

  “Sorry, traffic,” Kenny said.

  Lane’s grunt was his only answer before the gate opened.

  He didn’t see Kierra’s car in the driveway. He walked to the front door and tried the handle. He was just stepping inside when the gate began to whir as it inched open again. Kenny turned and watched as Kierra’s car pulled into the driveway. As she parked, Kenny felt his heart begin to beat faster in his chest, because she wasn’t alone.

  When Maya stepped out of the car, she avoided looking his way. Her gaze flitted everywhere but in his direction – toward the ground, the side of Kierra’s car, back out onto the street.

  But Kenny’s eyes never moved from her. He felt just as he had yesterday when he finally saw her in person after dreaming about just that for months: complete and utter awe. She was everything he’d always thought she would be: smart, funny, quick-witted. She wasn’t afraid to say exactly what she felt. And on top of all of that, watching her swivel between the surprises they brought to her doorstep while still exhibiting an intense care for her best friend made him slide just a few more inches under her spell. She was literally the woman of his dreams.

  He also realized just how much of herself she kept from her viewers. He took his time to watch her in profile. The way she chewed on her bottom lip, which he’d come to realize she did a lot. Like everything she did, it was layered and context-specific. Yesterday, she’d done it, dragging him under her sway with a few simple, smoky words, as her teeth nibbled at the edges of her mouth, as if she was telling him that he’d enjoy being able to do that. And he would. But today he watched as she pulled her entire bottom lip into her mouth, worrying it much like her nerves were probably worrying her. It felt like a condemnation and he internalized it, berating himself for being the cause of her distress.

  He watched her walk around the back of the car and hated himself for the way his gaze slid down her body. She was in black head to toe, the deep v of her t-shirt giving a perfect peek of her cleavage, while her joggers were just baggy enough to seem casual, and just tight enough to remind him that her hips were not small and would likely be the perfect size for him to grip when he was inside her. He also realized that he liked her in casual clothes, maybe even more than he did the sexy lingerie she wore during their cam sessions. He would like Maya in whatever she was – or wasn’t – wearing. He still wanted her today as desperately as he had yesterday. Maybe even more.