CHAPTER 4

 THE VIDEO BEGAN with a man and woman in bed on a missionary position.

They were both stark naked and the camera was on their right, probably on top of a table or in the wall. The video had no sound. It was a dim room so it was difficult to really recognize the individuals in the bed. Still, if the camera would focus on their faces, Misha would recognize if the man was Soren. But unfortunately, the camera was fixed and not moving. The two persons in the bed seemed hungry for each other as they couldn’t get their hands and mouth off each other. And there was an exchange of saliva every time their mouths met. Misha focused temporarily on the man, and yes, it resembled Soren’s built and height. She couldn’t really see his face as he spent the first few seconds of the video kissing the woman’s neck while he humped and thrust.

Misha blinked and suddenly, the room was bright and she could now clearly see the two persons in bed. She gasped and covered her mouth when she finally recognized the man—it was Soren indeed. The video seemed surreal as both bodies sparkled with golden beads of sweat amidst the golden light that seemed to fill the room. Finally, Soren lifted his face off the woman’s head and Misha could now see the woman’s face. She brought her phone closer to her face and her eyes almost popped out of her head when she identified the woman.

“Oh, my God!” she exclaimed as she stood bolt upright.

The woman was her.

Her fingers trembled and the phone slipped through her hands and dropped to the floor. She slumped on the edge of her bed again and stared at the gadget on the floor, thoroughly confused and horrified. She was hesitant to pick it up again. How could it be? Why was she on that video? It was only today that she and Soren met. Did they have a one-night stand in the past that she had forgotten? No, no, she shook her head, she would remember it if they did. No woman could ever forget a one-night stand with someone like Soren.

Wait, what was she saying?  She was a virgin, for Christ’s sake! She had a boyfriend before, in college, but nothing serious happened and they only kissed and hugged and it was a very short relationship.

She gathered the courage to pick the phone up again and she sat back on the edge of the bed and slowly looked at the video that continued to play.

And when she saw the woman’s face, her face, again, she screamed and shut her eyes hard.

She didn’t know how long her eyes had been closed when she opened it again.

Her bedroom’s ceiling greeted her eyes; she was on lying on her bed.

She felt a bit disoriented—what happened?

She remembered going inside her room and sitting on the edge of the bed and browsing through Soren’s F******k account. And did she really see a video of her having sex with Soren? She bit her lip and vigorously shook her head. That would really be impossible. She looked for her phone, saw her on the bed, grabbed it and watched the video again. Two gorgeous individuals, a pretty woman and a man that resembled Soren, were having sex in a bed. The video was only twelve seconds long and it was a dim room so it was difficult for her to pinpoint if the guy was really Soren. But the man’s height and built really resembled Soren. And the face, yes, it also looked like him, but it was shown only for a second so it was hard to make any conclusion.

But the intended message of the video had been relayed to the not-so-discerning viewer: He was caught in camera having sex. Therefore, he was kinky. He let the video go out, thus shaming the woman. Therefore, her was a scumbag.

So what was that other video that showed she was having sex with Soren?

She smiled sheepishly while her ears felt hot—it was just a dream.

She felt so tired after browsing through Soren’s F******k account and reading those comments and accusations against him and watching that video that she fell asleep. And she carried the rumors and her suspicion that it was really him who was on the video in her dream. But she had no idea why the woman in the video became her in the dream. She browsed through Soren’s F******k account again. The video, the real one and not the one in her dream, was posted by somebody not surnamed Cortez on F******k, but Kayla Cortez, Soren’s sister, commented on it.

Shameful! No wonder he’s a pariah now, no one wants to be friends with him except those poor starving hustlers, Kayla commented, and in another comment, she narrated how some of her jewelry was stolen by Soren despite the fact that he had his own money. Her comments got many laughs and wow reactions, although she didn’t provide any proof. And why was Soren not deleting these comments? His second to the last post—another motivational quote, this time about not giving up despite the adversaries— was created two months ago. She went to Kayla’s account and saw that unlike Soren, she was active on F******k. Her posts were mostly about her ostentatious lifestyle, about her travels, her jewelry, the luxurious things she had, and her equally flamboyant friends. And yes, her family and relatives was omnipresent on her account but no sign of Soren.

Was Soren his family’s black sheep? If he hadn’t met him and somebody would tell her that he was a douchebag, she would instantly believe it because he thought Kayla and Andrew and their father were also weren’t nice, and that nastiness ran in the family. No one among them assisted her family and relatives when they were looking for her uncle and investigating his disappearance. No one among them helped, instead, they all looked annoyed by the investigation, not a bit worried that a person was missing and could be dead. Even Soren’s mother, she didn’t reach out to them during those difficult moments.

And Soren, they also didn’t see him during those times.

She decided not to unfriend Soren in the meantime. She took a shower and went to bed to sleep. She thought he had found a new friend in Soren and her assumption that he was an absolute boyfriend-material excited her. Now, she wouldn’t even dream of having him as a friend.

Sex addict… drug addict… kleptomaniac…liar…

Jesus!

Who wanted to be friends with that kind of guy? Who wanted a guy like that for a boyfriend? The sex addict part, she could probably tolerate that as long as he was only addicted with having sex with her. She grinned with the thought and put her cell phone down and lay on the bed to try to sleep.

But Soren’s handsome and amiable face crawled repeatedly inside her brain like an uninvited slippery worm, drilling a hole there. And her first impression that she was a good guy kept flashing in her mind. He probably owned the most amiable male face she had seen and her first impression about people was rarely wrong, but then there was always an exception to the rule. His family’s impression on him would, of course, weigh heavier than anyone’s impression of him.

She shut her eyes tighter and imagined picking up the slithery worm that kept slinking and circling inside her brain. She imagined throwing it out of her head, and when it tried to again crawl inside her head, she picked it up again and squished it with her two fingers, and the way it squirmed and struggled was probably the saddest thing she had watched, but she just kept squashing it, until it stopped moving.

And finally, at around four in the morning, as no worm working for Soren had appeared again, her eyelids grew heavy, and she became unmindful of everything.

Misha woke up at around ten in the morning. And like she always did whenever she was at home and had no work, she cooked lunch for her family.

It was a Saturday so everyone was home, perfect time to talk about the accident and Soren.

 “Two men on motorcycle hit Claire but luckily spared her daughter,” Misha began narrating what happened. Her family was complete on their round dinner table. She was flanked by Jaden and Ruth while their parents sat side by side in front of them. “They tried to escape but Soren blocked them and hit them with his truck.”

“Admirable,” praised his smiling father.

“Still, the two men were able to run away,” she continued. “But they abandoned their motorcycle and Soren took picture of it and its plate number. Then, we took the mother with her daughter to the hospital. And the motorcycle was with the police now.’

“Was she seriously hurt?” asked her mother.

“Leg fracture,” Misha said. “Soren promised to bring the perpetrators to justice.”

“What a nice guy,” Ruth commented, beaming.

Misha smiled sarcastically—that was what he also thought until he discovered who Soren was— but she was certain none in the family would see that it was sarcastic. “We left the hospital when Claire’s husband and father arrived,” she added.

“How old is Soren?” her mother asked.

“I’m not sure, probably mid-twenties,” Misha answered.

“How does he look? I mean, is he a cutie?”  Ruth asked, grinning.

“Yes, he’s a certified cutie, probably the cutest cutie you’ll ever see.”

“Wow!” Ruth exclaimed with wide eyes. “Is he still single?”

“I was too shy to ask her,” Misha said.

“You should have gotten his F******k at least.”

“I got it.”

“Wow!” Ruth exclaimed again excitedly.

“And that’s how I learned that he was a Cortez.”

“A what?” her father asked.

“A Cortez,” she repeated. “He’s the son of Fredrick Cortez.”

And all of a sudden, no one in her family could talk. And her parents, both their faces had turned grim.