One Bride for Five Mountain Men

The waitress looks at me. “Everything okay, honey?” she asks. “You want anything else?”

“Not right now, thanks,” I say brightly.

“You want the bill? Up to you. There ain’t nobody else in here, so you can stay as long as you want.”

“I think I’ll just hang out for a bit, thanks,” I answer.

“Suit yourself,” she says, and walks away, purposefully wiping a few tables as she goes.

I wish things were simple. Why didn’t I just learn how to deal with life, and death, in a normal way? Do other people?

The envelope stares at me.

I pick it up, run my fingers over the seam. My finger flirts with the folded paper, going into the opening. It gives way a little, and a little more. It becomes a challenge to unstick the fold without ripping the paper. Can I do it? I slowly, slowly pull one side from another. Ahh! A rip.

You’re just stalling, Jordan. Knock it off. It’s Kelsey’s voice, ringing out loud and clear in my head. Open the fucking envelope.

I take my knife and slide it into the crease and pull, and the envelope opens cleanly. I tap the paper out and open it, smoothing the paper on the table again.

Dear Jordan

If you’re reading this, I’m dead. I hope you never read

this otherwise, because you’d kill me. The first thing I want to say is that I apologize. I don’t know what to tell you, but I hope that in some way giving you all the money I earned—and I’m using that word ‘earned’ loosely—basically all the money I have will ease the pain of the truth.

I swallow, hard. What the fuck Kelsey, what did you do?

I can see your face right now, and it’s killing me. You know I love you right? I do. I love you tons. But I have a secret.

You see, when I met Graham—you remember him, in high school—he gave me this idea, and I couldn’t get it out of my head. He said that if I just filmed myself at home and put it on the internet, that people would pay to follow me and see me just do normal things, and some not normal things, like shower and you know, stuff you do in your bedroom. Anyway I thought he was crazy, and I still do, but that was a really exciting idea for me.

So anyway, I didn’t want to do it myself, unless I knew it would work. So I decided to use you as my guinea pig. Don’t be mad! Please! At first, I just hid a small camera in your room, and I just streamed it for me. It was exciting to see you when you didn’t know I was there, and I realized the idea had potential.

Then I put a few more cameras in your room. And I made a website. I told a few people in the industry, and they passed the word along. It was a pay subscription. And I started pulling in money. More than you could ever imagine. So I did more. I put a camera in your bathroom, and a few more in your apartment, and more money started rolling in. I got pretty excited about it, and started investing, saving, and... spending.

Remember when I bought you those great shoes from Jimmy Choo? And you walked around your bedroom naked in those shoes? They paid for themselves a million times over. You might wonder why I bought you a few more pairs of shoes. Well that’s why.

Don’t kill me, Jordan! I know, I’m dead already. But don’t be mad. You’re famous! In certain circles, anyway. You’re a big star. And people love you. So I’m giving you all the money you made, and I’m giving you control of the site, so you can redirect the cash to yourself.

Of course, you can shut the whole thing down if you want to. But once you see how much money you can make, you might not want to. At least that’s what happened to me. I hope you understand. I feel really bad about it, but that’s why I’m giving you all this that’s left, and the info to make more.

One more thing. Your fans really get off on the idea that you don’t know they’re watching. So unless you want to lose a lot of fans, don’t change anything you do. Okay?

Have a great life, and do something fun with the money. Didn’t we always talk about going to Paris? You should do that.

Love, Kelsey

My heart is racing. I don’t know what to say, or what to do. I’m filled with terror, anger, rage. Oh my God, I’m going to puke. I push myself out of the booth and race to the bathroom, and I’m kneeling in front of the white porcelain, when the few bites of pie and the coffee I drank spill noisily into it.

My head is swimming. I grab some toilet paper and wipe my mouth, throw it in the bowl and flush. I stand up and stars float around my head. I grab the counter to steady myself. My face is white. I look ghoulish in this false light. My eyes are sunken and dark.

My chest is rising and falling rapidly, and I try to slow down my breathing. I don’t want to faint here in this bathroom. It’s disgusting for one thing. But at least it’s private, my brain reminds me.

Something you haven’t had for years. Privacy.

Holy shit.

Every moment I’ve been in my room, I’ve been watched. Not by one person, but potentially thousands. Hundreds of thousands. My face burns as I think of the embarrassing things I’ve done. Things we’ve all done when we thought we were alone. Images flash through my mind: I’m masturbating, crying out; I’m trying on clothes, pinching my fat roll, or oh God, in the bathroom, number two, my period. Showering. It’s horrifying. Why would people pay so much money to see that? And a quarter million has to be only the tip of the iceberg. Kelsey had lots of new clothes, lots of money when she needed it, and of course, her Karmann Ghia. That had to cost a lot. How could I have gone so long being a patsy to her schemes, and not even know it? Why would I put my trust so completely in another person and have them take complete and utter advantage of me?