That Summer

For What It's Worth...

"What the hell could she possibly be talking about?!" Emma was pacing around the main room of the suite.

"I don't know, but she wouldn't be calling if it weren't serious." Stevie squeezed her hand as she dialed the number and put the phone on speaker. After three rings, Karen finally picked up.

"Stevie?!" She asked from the other line.

"Hi Kar, I have Emma with me, what's going on..." Stevie tried to sound calm.

Karen let out a sigh. "Stevie, please spare me the details of what I've missed, I really don't want to know, and it's none of my business. But someone leaked pictures of you to TMZ..."

Stevie chuckled nervously, "Karen, that's it? It was just this dumb couple earlier today...I saw them take the picture! I was walking down the hallway..."

"No, Stevie. There's that picture, yes, but...there's more."

Emma looked at Stevie with wide, terrified eyes. "What do you mean 'more...'" Stevie narrowed her brows.

Karen let out another sigh. "Stevie...I really don't know how to explain this in better terms." Stevie felt her stomach tighten in knots; Emma was stone faced.

"The walls of your hotel are clearly very thin...it seems someone in a neighboring room recorded you...and Emma...on video. They were apparently filming so they could use it to complain to the hotel and get moved to another room...but when they saw you today, they realized who was staying in the room and – it appears – they sent both the video and the pictures of you to TMZ. They just leaked the story about five hours ago."

"Oh my fucking god." Emma slid down the wall into the fetal position on the floor, mortified.

"Karen...how bad is the video." Stevie asked in a serious tone.

"It's bad, Stevie. I would play it for you over the phone, but I honestly can't bring myself to hear it again."

"What am I saying?!" Stevie raised her voice.

"Stevie..."

"KAREN! What the hell am I saying? How identifying is it? Does this affect Emma at all?"

"You can hear...moans, screaming, you're shouting her name a few times...look, Stevie, you can hear a solid two minutes of whatever you two were doing, your...orgasm..." Karen was clearly disturbed by the entire thing.

"Dear god." Stevie wailed, "Well is that it? Just those two minutes?"

"Um..." Karen paused.

"What?! It's already terrible, just let it out, Karen!"

"There's about 30 seconds of Emma climaxing...shouting profanities, I don't think she says your name, but there's a photo of you two in the lobby, very close together...I mean the good news is that they don't have Emma's full name. You're just shouting 'Em' in the video when you aren't shouting profanities or 'baby...'"

Stevie was mortified. She looked over at Emma, who was crying quietly and trying to hide her tears.

"Karen, I don't know what I can do from here, but I need you to either take care of this or have Liz take care of it. Sheryl. Someone! Make it go away! Spin it somehow, make them think it was fabricated. Whatever you have to do..." She looked at Emma the entire time until she finally caught her gaze, mouthing "It'll be okay" to her in an attempt to console her.