Torn

Chapter 2
Thursday

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Chapter Description: Found out! But maybe things aren't so bad after all...

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May every maestro be as forthright with his secrets…

Richard Nolan’s secrets hung from a lanyard around his neck.

The orange flash drive had his name and address written on it, though the ink had partially smudged. It contained about a hundred clients’ contact information. He had smuggled the data out of the previous recruitment firm at which he worked in direct violation of a non-compete he’d signed back when he felt more charitable about the company to which he’d given nine years of his life. Rick had written his personal information on the label so that, in theory, the drive would be returned to him if he misplaced it. Its contents would be functionally meaningless to a less scrupulous Samaritan.

The red flash drive, on the other hand, Rick had left bare of writing. On it was the malicious code the 45-year-old office manager used to embezzle money from his current company, as well as several spreadsheets he used to track his ill-gotten gains. The scheme was subtle; he had actually gotten the idea from a Mike Judge film, and the sums he diverted were so insubstantial as to be practically invisible (hence the scheme’s nom de plume, “salami slicing”). Still, Rick took pains to cover his tracks, and the last thing he needed was his identifying information scrawled across the USB stick should it one day disappear.

The yellow drive was not only blank on the outside—it was partitioned, double-encrypted, and equipped with enough security measures to drive Kevin Mitnick apoplectic. Not all of its 32 gigabytes were spoken for, but the ones that were held the secrets Mr. Nolan guarded most avidly, the secrets he had gathered from the kinkier corners of the internet and those which relieved him during evenings of the self.

Even as he ran through the contents of the drive in his head, seated in his air-conditioned office miles from home and hours from his nightmare, Rick bore a glinting patina of sweat, this time accumulated not through or shame or fear but by excitement at the thought of the flash memory’s data.

Perhaps most treasured among all the drive’s media were the stories. There were a few strictly infantilistic tales, and Rick found them immeasurably hot from time to time… but only when age regression entered the picture did Nolan’s conker get wonked proper. Classics from the late Jennifer Lorraine and The Tainted Sins were in abundance, and corollary proclivities such as transformation and mind control colored some of the more interesting work in Rick’s library. Several of Rick’s favorite authors piled on the humiliation and added in sadistic twists like tying the MacGuffin to something like the orgasm of a self-dooming protagonist, horny in perpetuity, uncontrollably splooging his way back to potty training and seven o’clock bedtimes.

But the stories only scratched the surface of what was to be found among the wilds of the yellow drive’s memory. Videos, comics, drawings, chat logs that chronicled Rick’s delicious surrenders to helplessness at the hands of live partners… anybody who got a hold of the memory stick and was adroit enough to bypass its encryption and navigational hoops would find him or herself privy to the very detailed, severely peculiar, and oddly specific situations—mostly fantastic and therefore impossible—that would induce orgasm in Richard Nolan.

Confident that the drive was secure upon the lanyard, Rick resumed his workday responsibilities, rubbing yellow plastic between his index finger and thumb as though it were a worry stone.

“Keep going at it that hard and it’ll either break or melt,” chuckled Rick’s secretary as the middle-aged yet pathologically younger-looking woman set a steaming cup of coffee upon the desk of her superior.

“Funny,” Rick replied, “my mom used to say the same to me thirty years ago.”

Marie Darling laughed and it was genuine. Against all odds, Rick sensed very little sexual tension between them, and even less propriety. There likely would have been in any story other than their own. After all, Rick had only eight years on Miss Darling. She was widowed with child, and he had been freed from marriage years ago when he and his wife concluded mutually that she could not address his sexual needs. Rick and Marie shared a sense of humor and a work ethic. Who knows how things might have turned out had their friendship not come to be so resolute and lasting?

“I just wanted to thank you again for looking after Emily tonight. We can’t be sure how much time my father has left, but at least he’s been recognizing me lately.”

“I’m glad to hear that,” said Rick. “Seven o’clock sharp. I’ll be ready.”

“Thanks. Normally I’d bring Em with me to the hospital, but she’s been falling behind on her schoolwork enough as it is. She pushes the envelope any further and she’s off the squad.”

“It’s my pleasure, you know. Emily’s no trouble at all.”

Nor should she be, thought Rick. She’s seventeen years old.

-=--=-

Rick’s feeling of awkwardness vis-à-vis babysitting a girl of Emily Darling’s age had never completely dissipated. He understood Marie’s reasoning, though.

Samuel Darling had been a good man. Not only was he a faithful husband and father, as well as an excellent provider; he was talented in many fields and enjoyed perfect health. All of this in concert made his untimely death, when Emily was only twelve, particularly tragic. Sam had died in a home invasion when Marie and her daughter were at a Girl Scouts retreat.

Marie confided in Rick that, sometimes, her mind would wander to that night and wonder how things might’ve been different had the whole family stayed at home. Would all of them be dead? None of them? Would they have hidden in closets or defended their home? Might it have even been burgled in the first place?

Rick would listen politely, but his response was always the same—that reassessing the tragedy ad infinitum would accomplish nothing. And Marie would agree. Reluctantly.

Then she’d be quick to add: “One thing’s for sure. I’m never leaving Emily alone.”

“With me for a friend,” Rick would say, “you’ll never have to.”

Richard Nolan glanced at the kitchen clock as soon as he’d finished arranging a spread of taco ingredients on the granite countertop. Everything was set for Emily’s arrival, and Rick still had over sixty minutes to spare.

He could feel his heart rate creep upward slightly as his breathing shallowed.

Rick slipped into his study and removed the secrets from his neck.

He plugged the yellow flash drive into his desktop computer.

Rick smiled and unzipped his pants.

-=--=-

DING-donnnnnng.

The sound came at 6:16 PM. Not seven. Rick checked the clock, just to be sure.

DING-donnnnnng.

6:16.

DING-donnnnnng. DING-donnnnnng.

Richard seethed. While tardiness sometimes bothered him, early birds pissed him off always.

He sat at the computer in his study with his pants at his ankles and his dripping cock curled in his right fist like a flashlight. Rick had been cycling through a multitude of windows—a story, five photographs, three drawings, a comic, and a partridge in a pear tree—with his free hand, which was now Alt-F4ing itself silly.

Take it easy, Nolan. It probably isn’t even them. You can probably just let it go.

DING-donnnnDING-donnnnDING-donnnnDING-donnnn--

Alright, dammit! Fine!

…Just get whomever it is to hit the road.

Rick dried his hand off on a sock, pulled up his pants, tucked his dwindling unit inside, and started shambling toward the front door. He barely had the portal to his house an inch open before it burst free the rest of the way and a blurred shape, which took Rick a few moments to recognize as Marie Darling in an uncharacteristic hurry, forced itself into his foyer.

“Richard! Thank God you’re here.”

“What is it? Calm down, Marie! Calm down and tell me what it is.”

Emily came in straight away and dropped her bags off in the hall. “Can I use your bathroom?”

“Fine, fine!” Rick told the girl. His gaze never left Marie. “What is it, Marie!?”

“The hospital called. Dad’s had a stroke.”

“Oh, shit, I’m sorry—how is he?”

“They don’t know. They wanted me down there right away to say my goodbyes in case they can’t stabilize him.”

“Go, go,” Rick said, gently nudging the woman out the door. “I’ve got Em. Everything’s fine.”

“You don’t mind?”

“How could I mind? Go!”

Then, just as abruptly as she’d appeared, Marie Darling departed Rick’s early evening.

Taking deep breaths to steady his heart, Rick Nolan picked up Emily’s bags and ushered them upstairs, where he deposited them in the guest bedroom. He heard the toilet flush once while he was on the second floor and again as he came back down the steps.

Sounds like Em’s having a bad GI night, the man thought, and he started making his way towards the kitchen so he could put away the taco ingredients he had intended on using for that night’s dinner and replace them with some simple comfort food that wouldn’t test an ill stomach.

Another flush. It sounded farther away than Rick expected.

A terrible feeling crept into the man’s heart as he dropped a loaf of bread onto the counter and left the kitchen, turning down the hallway that included one of the first floor’s two bathrooms.

The feeling that weighted down Rick’s heart collapsed into his stomach with a splash. There was no one in the hall bathroom.

Which means that she must be using the one in the—

When Rick arrived at his study, Emily had already turned out the lights in the bathroom leading off of it. She appeared to be all smiles.

“Emily—” gasped Richard, swallowing what little air he could manage in his panic. “Don’t tell me you—”

“Did a little snooping?” The teenager’s smile was not one of malice. Richard couldn’t place what it was. “Fake-flushed the toilet a few times to delay you just enough? What kind of woman would I be if I just wasted water like that for no good reason?”

Rick glanced at his computer. Though the desktop was clean, the yellow flash drive was sticking out of its USB port… lanyard, companion drives, and all. He lunged for it, ejected it, and returned the lanyard to his neck.

“Em…” said the man, quietly. “What’s on that flash drive isn’t—”

“—Any of my business,” Emily finished.

…Seriously? I nearly gave myself an aneurysm… for nothing?

“But it’s not Greek to me, either,” she continued. “I may only be seventeen, but I’m plenty worldly. One can’t be an internet-savvy Millennial and not be.”

All that encryption, rendered worthless by a single moment of absentmindedness. A hundred emotions assailed Rick at once. He was scared. He felt violated. Self-conscious. Sexually humiliated—and not in the good way, he regretted to acknowledge.

“I… I don’t know what to say.”

Rick wished he was furious. At least that would have made sense to him.

“Come with me to the living room,” said Emily. Still, the girl smiled. Rick’s only solace was that it was not the smile of a sociopath or even a gossip.

If he didn’t know any better, Richard would say he almost detected in it…understanding.

-=--=-

“You shouldn’t be ashamed of who you are,” Emily Darling said as she sipped on a Diet Coke. Richard Nolan, armed with a Dogfish Head 90 Minute, chuckled and scratched the back of his head.

“I’m forty-five years old,” he replied. “I’m not ashamed of who I am. I haven’t been ashamed of such a thing since before I found the internet communities.”

“Alright, then—let me rephrase. You shouldn’t be ashamed that I know who you are.”

The two of them were sitting on opposite panels of Rick’s living room couch, a third panel separating them.

“It’ll take some getting used to.” Rick shuddered and a fresh crop of goosebumps prickled his skin. “I can barely bring myself to look you in the eye.”

“Look, Mr. Nolan. For a few months last year I dated this guy named Hyung-Gee. You remember him?”

“Nice kid. Not terribly bright, right? Near as I can recall, you had to carry the conversation.”

Emily laughed. “You have a good memory. Anyway, he wore diapers at night. Didn’t make me think any less of him. I seldom thought about it at all.”

“That’s different. He probably had to.”

“Maybe. At first. But then he started wetting while conscious. Wearing while we cuddled up with movies and stuff. Had me change him. Feed him. It was some of the best sex of my life.”

“I really don’t want to hear this,” said Rick, taking a long, searing gulp of his IPA. “I’m old enough to be your father. Besides… it’s still different. This is my secret.”

“I’m good at keeping secrets.”

“Like Hyung-Gee’s?”

Emily blushed, shrugged, and took a sip of her soft drink. “Touché.”

Silence for several moments. Rick was grateful for it.

“So do you wear diapers?”

“Hey!” said Rick, nearly choking on his beer. “That is so far from being your business, young lady! Besides, there’s a difference between age regression and infantilism. They don’t always cross over.”

Emily nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I know. I’m pretty well-read. Just trying to make conversation.”

“I’m not convinced conversation would cheer me up,” Richard said, his voice weak with stress and beer. “With the several hours left between now and your bedtime, I’d just as soon retire for the evening and allow you to get caught up on that unfinished homework that’s gonna get you kicked out of cheerleading.”

Again, a few moments. Then, Emily beamed.

“That’s it!” she hooted, setting down her half-empty soda can. “You stay right here. We’ll get you cheered up.”

“That’s not really neces… hello? Emily?” Richard sighed and finished off his bottle. She was already up the stairs.

-=--=-

Richard Nolan wondered how much of his attraction, if any, derived from the buzz he had going.

Emily Darling’s cheerleading uniform was freshly-pressed and colorful—an orange frilled skirt served as foundation to a blue-and-orange top, and the same color scheme breathed zany life into the girl’s pom-poms.

Rick felt no harm in admitting to himself that the young lady was quite attractive. He often admitted the same thing about his secretary, whose friendship meant the world to him; as her daughter, Emily felt almost as much a daughter to him.

But a cheerleader’s uniform is a cheerleader’s uniform. And Em’s body filled it out nicely.

“My name is Miss Darling,” Emily announced, standing in the center of Nolan’s living room. Rick, as curious about what was coming as he was nervous, gave an encouraging smile from the center panel of his couch. “And this… is improv.”

Emily danced and twirled, shook and bashed her pom-poms into the air.

“S – E – C – R – E – T – S!

SE – crets, SE – crets, are the best!

When you’ve got a friend you trust,

Sharing SE – crets is a must!

Take those bur-dens off your shoul-ders…

…why be YOUNGer? It’s better than OLDer!”

Rick laughed despite himself and clapped with total sincerity. So it wasn’t Longfellow. It was pretty good for off-the-cuff, the man thought… and his mood was, to his pleasure, improving.

“D – I – A – P – E – R – S!

Onesies and various states of undress!

Rattles and bathtime and breastfeeding too!

Why stop what you’re doing when you gotta poo?

Time off from adulthood makes every man happy!

Feel strong in your heart, and stiff in your nappy!”

He blushed and rolled his eyes good-naturedly. The moment was just too surreal. He wasn’t even conscious of the movements that brought his balled-up fist to his face and pushed the stiffness of his thumb between his lips. But, when he felt it there, instead of spitting it out, he suckled softly upon it. Perhaps Emily truly understood him after all.

“W – I – T – C – H – E – S!

Their magic is gen’rous and it will not rest!

The purest of heart will be strongest of voice,

And one day he will have to make his own choice!

If you don’t believe in their magic, dear squire,

Just give it some time and see what transpires!”

Richard felt drunk. Drunk and tired. Not drugged—but at peace. And a smile curled around his thumb as he sucked upon it… a smile that traced his body all the way down as it gently fell sideways onto the couch.

Emily, her cheer completed, set her pom-poms down and approached the peaceful form that was her mother’s boss. She removed his shoes, lifted his ankles up onto the couch, and covered him with an afghan she found on a nearby rack.

Rick’s smile had faded with his unconsciousness, but his thumb remained in his mouth. Emily marveled at how such an innocuous gesture rendered so toddleresque the appearance of a middle-aged man.

Her evening almost complete, Emily Darling carefully removed the lanyard from around Richard’s neck. She returned to his study and liberated her own 64-gig flash drive from her purse. After several minutes of its owner’s quiet patience, the USB stick duplicated all the contents from Mr. Nolan’s lanyard, hastily segregated into folders labeled “Orange,” “Red,” and “Yellow.”

--to be continued--

 

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