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"That's supposed to be me?" I said and watched as a man, naked except for a leather jock strap, wrapped ropes roughly around the woman's hands, before hooking them up to a winch on the ceiling. The camera swung around to show the young woman, who was clearly Lisa. While we watched, the man began to strike Lisa, slapping her across the face. Then, he took a riding crop and began to slap her breasts with it, laying a dozen smacks across one and then the other.
"That's clearly not me," I said, and turned to Lara. "I would never do that. Not at that point. I'd already decided several years earlier that I didn't like inflicting pain on my submissives, which was one reason the three of us didn't work out. She's with someone else in this video. That's clearly not me. I don't have that much hair on my chest and back. I never wore a leather jockstrap."
"I know," Lara said. "The problem is that you don't ever see his face. You see some dark hair and a dark beard, but there isn't a single camera angle that reveals the guy's face. It's impossible to prove it's you – or prove it's not you."
"Is there a time stamp on the video?"
We looked more closely, and down at the bottom corner was a time and date. It fit with the time I had met with Derek and Lisa. A year before I met Kate.
"I don't know what we can do to prove that's not you, except check what you were doing that day. I suspect that Lisa already figured out that you'd have no alibi for that date or there's no way they'd release that if we could prove you weren't there."
"Great," I said. "Why are they doing this?"
"To deflect guilt from her onto you and Derek."
The video ended, and so I went back to her small seating area and flopped down, rubbing my forehead.
"What's our strategy?"
"Let's check that day in your Daytimer. I have a record here of yours from the year before you met Kate. We'll see what you were doing and who you were with. Hopefully, you have someone who can corroborate that wasn't you."
Then, Lara opened a file and started to skip through the pages, which I assumed were photocopies of my Daytimer, which I'd given Lara before Kate and I went to California. She flipped through for a few moments and I remembered the images on the video. I hoped that I had something on that night so that we could easily refute the video, but if that night was my normal, I would have come home from work at NYP, had supper, and then gone to bed by ten.
"What day was that?" I asked, wondering if it were a weeknight or weekend. On the few occasions I played with Derek and Lisa, it was a Saturday night. During the week, I had either practice with Mersey or a meeting with my submissive.
"You were between submissives at that point," Lara said and stopped at a particular page. "According to your Daytimer, you worked late that night and then came home and went to bed."
She glanced up at me. "I was hoping you had something to show so we could prove you weren't with her when that video was taken, but according to this, you had nothing planned at least. Unless you did something on the fly. Can you remember back to that week?"
&n
bsp; I made a face. "What month was it?"
"November. The week before, you had a conference in Southern California on Robotic Neurosurgery. San Diego."
"Oh, yes, I remember that week. I was exhausted that week. I seem to recall coming home every night and just going for a run or watching television so I could catch up on my sleep." I shrugged. "Sorry I don't remember anything on the fly but even if I did, I wouldn't have written it down in my Daytimer."
"Yeah, too bad." She closed the file. "Oh, well. It's not like you're going to be charged with anything even if that was you. She was a consenting adult, and the police already know she's a nutcase. It just makes her appear more sympathetic with the jury, who might think her being used by adult professional men was exculpatory."
"Do you think they'll feel that way?" I asked, a sinking feeling in my gut. "She's locked away in the Kirby Forensic Psychiatric Center. That's got to show that she wasn't of sound mind when she got involved with Derek -- and me. That is probably exculpatory."
"She knew the difference between right and wrong enough to try to cover her tracks and create this huge fiction around you being involved in the attack on Kate."
"It's just noise, Drake. And besides, she just wants to hurt you and thinks this will accomplish that. You have to write this completely out of your mind. Ignore it. We'll find out who that is. There must be some record of who he is. I mean, they'll learn who took the footage and contact them, find out who it was. It wasn't likely Lisa. It was likely the Dominant who took those videos. Hopefully, someone will come forward and either prove it wasn't you or say it was them."
"In the meantime, my reputation will be even further shredded in public," I said wearily.
On her part, Lara nodded and came over to where I sat. "Nothing to be done about it, but at least we have seen the footage and can plan our response. I think we should find one of your former submissives who's willing to come forward and say that wasn't you. Let me see if there's anyone who might be brave enough."
"No," I said, shaking my head adamantly. "I don't want anyone exposing themselves just to bolster my reputation. They might be in danger as a result. You know what Joe Public would do -- they'd go after whoever it was and hound her. I don't want that on my conscience. We'll just put out a flat denial and leave it at that."
"I agree that would be for the best. It'll be a scandal for a while but then we can leak a photo of you showing your relatively bare chest and six pack. You do keep up with your crunches, I hope..."
I rubbed my stomach. "I try. Being a new father has been a bit taxing on my enthusiasm for weights but I do crunches regularly."
"Good. I don't imagine you have a photo from your time in San Francisco that might just exhibit your wonderful chest and abs, do you? I could leak it to a friend I have at the paper. They'd love to run a picture that had to do with the case. Great clickbait."
I thought to the photos Kate had taken of me with Sophie on the beach. Surely one of them captured me in my swim trunks, showing my chest and stomach. I did not have a beer belly.
