Sex Sells

Sex Sells

By Jason Halstead

Published by Novel Concept Publishing LLC at Smashwords

©2011, ©2012, ©2013

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This is a work of fiction. Names, places, characters and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, organizations, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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Cover art © 2011 Valerie Tibbs

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ISBN: 978-1-4524-6397-1

Chapter 1

My victim was a pretty brunette. I guessed her at about 5’4" and 105 pounds, which was near perfect. I hated the really short ones, they complicated things and made my hobby to difficult. Hobby, hell, it was more than that, it was my job.

The best part about this was that I’d preyed on her before. Of course she didn’t know. They never did. That was part of what made me so damn good at what I did. Nobody ever noticed me anymore. I blended in perfectly. Average looks, average height, average everything. It didn’t matter that my hair was a shade darker than sandy blond. It didn’t matter that my eyes were sort of a boring brown. It never occurred to anyone that my modestly tanned skin was the perfect shade to indicate I was a tanned white boy, a Mexican, Native American, or maybe even a mulatto. My voice? More of the same generic everyday tone that blended into the background noise.

I used to hate being Mr. Nobody. It was miserable. Girls wouldn’t notice me or remember me unless I really went out of my way to do something embarrassing. Guys never picked me to be on their team in gym or even to hang out and be friends. Oh sure, it came in handy when teachers ignored me most of the time, but that had also cost me to really have to fight to get an incomplete grade replaced my sophomore year in college because the professor just couldn’t remember me attending his class. In a world rife comic books, graphic novels, and movies portraying super heroes and villains it was just my luck that my super power was to be the Invisible Man, in the worst of ways.

My junior year of college, halfway through a pint of Seagram’s Seven and a two liter of 7 Up, I figured it out. What could I possibly do with my complete lack of distinguishing characteristics? Where could I be successful in life if I had as much chance of making a lasting impression at an interview of a piece of silly putty retaining a newspaper heading? Where is anonymity cherished?

I thought about being a reporter. If nobody thought much of me maybe I could get some great stories. But then I cast it aside quickly. You needed charisma to be a reporter, something that interested people and made them remember you so they could want to learn more about you. Hell, I can’t even write in an interesting way!

It’s true, I write with the passion of a tree stump. This story may be about me, but I had the wisdom to seek some outside assistance in having it written. I liked what the author had done with some other pieces he had written so I figured what the heck. Even this paragraph has been treated with heavy artistic license to make it more appealing. You think I could come up with an allusion to a tree stump?

So then, being a reporter was out. What about the military? G.I. Joe was just a guy in a fatigues. Who better to blend in than a guy who doesn’t even need the camouflage? Maybe even something cool like being a sniper or a spook gathering intelligence behind enemy lines! Then I remembered how out of shape I was. And how I hated taking orders from people. I fixed the former, slowly, but the latter was going to stick forever. I hit the gym three times a week, but no matter how hard I worked out or what I ate, my genetic needle pointed at strong and wiry, not buff.

So a legitimate path to fame and fortune was not to be mine. I’d accepted it, but I couldn’t live on student loans forever. An email popped into my computer, distracting me from my future plans. I glanced at it and realized it was spam, pure and simple. Voyeur spam, something about hidden cams in a dressing room or something. I looked at it, sure. I may be Mr. Nobody, but even Mr. Nobody has hormones!

My finger hovered over the delete button. A couple of the women looked to be putting on a show. Real girls can’t act like that unless they’re being paid, right? But a third one caught my attention and she looked like the real deal. Real as in I have no freakin’ clue that somebody is filming me while I try on these bras. I studied her for a long minute and wondered where and how they managed to get her on film.

I deleted the email. Sure, that kind of stuff gave me a thrill. What guy isn’t a voyeur? I felt bad for the girl too though. Talk about an invasion of privacy! Sure, girls love to dress up and look sexy and I was convinced that they like it when guys look too. But even so, there’s a line that just shouldn’t be crossed. Or so I felt at the time.

The thrill wouldn’t leave me though. I was interested. Damn that spam mail! I opened my browser on my computer and started typing in search terms in Google. Forty five minutes later (and the rest of my whiskey), I gave up the search. It was endless, all the websites featuring hidden cameras promising incredible shots of unsuspecting victims. Damn near every one of them was playing it up though. They knew, and they were doing it to make a buck.

It clicked. Sure, my brain was fuzzy with alcohol, but if they could make a buck, than anybody could make a buck. Or at least nobody could. Mr. Nobody, that is. I thought about all the girls I knew, wondering who would agree to it. The problem was I didn’t know any girl that well. Certainly not well enough to ask them to do something like this! Even the ones who were nice to me would slap me. Then again, most of the ones who were nice to me looked like someone who’s have to pay to get someone to look at them without their clothes on anyhow.

It only took a few more moments for me to make the obvious connections. Why should I have to split my profits with a girl? There was a reason I was a virgin, and it wasn’t because I was repulsive. It was because I was a fly on the wall. My looks had taught me at an early age to just watch others. I’d even caught myself being excluded from conversations my parents held right in front of me when I was younger. Conversations that were about me!.

With that kind of charm, why couldn’t I become the best paid peeping Tom in America? The alcohol caught up to me pretty quickly, but when I woke up the next day my computer monitor was still frozen on half a dozen pages full of spy cams and eavesdropping equipment.

Oh sure, I’d like to say I started out with the right gear and knowing what I was doing. The truth was far from it though. My career as a professional voyeur started with a small cell phone equipped with a camera that I managed to hack to turn off the sounds on. Fancy, I know. And I got caught a couple of times too, or at least chased off or suspected of doing something inappropriate. Seems department stores don’t often take kindly to single men hanging around near the women’s changing rooms. Especially with an electronic device held in a suspicious way.

That was then. These days my favorite tool of the trade was an expensive camera, very small, and with a shaded lens to prevent any glare. I had various ways of hiding it too. The cuff of a specially modified pair of jeans, a custom shopping bag, the body of a thick pen changed to stick on to the end of it, and a few other handy concealment tricks.

Today I had the shopping bag. I was in the mall, where else would I find hot young ladies dressed as scandalously as possible? The Scottsdale Fashion Square mall, just outside of Phoenix, was my preferred hunting ground. Three stories and full of retail therapy for the most jaded of spoiled princesses from the wealthy families nearby. Oh sure, there were plenty of the girl-next-door type too. In fact I preferred them, but I always felt even more guilty afterwards because of it. They didn’t seem to be showing off, to me, even though the story beneath their blouses or under their skirts could indicate otherwise. Still, they were working class and having that in common with them sometimes made me feel bad. Sometimes.

Right now though, I saw the girl I’d labeled as Cindy. All my victims had names. I doubted they were ever their real names, but I labeled them all the same. Cindy was pretty in a don’t-bother-me sort of way. Sure you know the type. Great body, hair, clothes, shoes, everything, but the face is either angry, determined, or just has a look that says, Fuck off! Yeah, that girl. Oh sure she had a smile, and it was a killer one too, but it was a smile reserved for her friends only. Not for somebody like me.

I lusted for her and I hated her, which made it that much easier to lust for her. Her clothes were nice, name brand stuff. Her jewelry was simple but effective. She had money, I could tell. I guessed her at around twenty, so probably still in college and living off of Daddy’s money. And god bless escalators, she was headed for one now.

No friends today, it was just her. I’d caught her before wearing a dress that looked like a shirt and skirt at first glance. Grey top, black on the bottom. It fell to just past the middle of her thighs and was loose enough to let her take a full stride. She wore some nice sandals without much of a heel. Comfy shoes, I suppose. I wouldn’t know, I’m not much of a shoe guy.

This time though it was different. Strappy top with a deep plunge to show off plenty of cleavage. Light blue in color but I didn’t know much more beyond it. Well, other than the fact that it must have had a bra built into it, since there were no straps above or visible during the quick glimpsed I got of her excessive cleavage. She wasn’t showing anything illegal, nor was she stacked like Pamela Anderson. Nice and reasonable size bulges in that shirt, I’d guess a C cup if I had a clue.

The skirt that, that was a different thing entirely. It was shorter than last time, but not nearly as tight. I’m not sure what the word is, frilly maybe? It was white with some patterns on it, flowers and leaves and vines and stuff I guess. Not overpowering, they were small and rather pretty. Colorful, yet I still felt certain the skirt could not be considered anything but white. Whatever the case, it was one of those that a hefty breeze could blow up, ala Marilyn Monroe. Not too many breezes in the mall though I suppose.

And underneath that skirt? Well I just didn’t know. Not yet, anyhow. Last time it had been a very thrilling thong. My camera had some light compensation on it for shadows and dark places and that helped me realize just how racy the g-string had been. A string in the back and her important parts were covered, sort of, but the part of her lips was visible through the transparent material. No hair to get in the way either, or at least no hair on her lips. She might have had the popular landing strip or some other design up top, but to see that I’d need to purchase a camera with x-ray vision. I keep shopping for one, but nothing’s come on the market yet.

Oh, the time before that one she’d been wearing something else that was racy. Red and very skimpy, definitely from a Victoria’s Secrets. That one just whetted my appetite though and put her on the short list of girls I looked out for when I went on my bi-weekly hunts.

This time? Well this time I wouldn’t know for a while. I had to hook up a USB cable to the camera and download the movie when I got home. That was the problem with my business venture, it was sort of like fishing. For all I knew the random women I stalked could be wearing granny panties or worse - they might be wearing none and be sporting a bush large enough to qualify for a federal relief fund should a match come near it. Or, in what happened one time when I was desperate to find somebody to trail behind, it might be a guy in drag with his dick shoved between his legs. Okay, okay, (s)he was a pre-op transsexual complete with long hair and nice boobs, but I still had nightmares about that one.

I walked up behind her, timing my arrival just right so she made it to the escalator just before me. She glanced back at me and looked away, which only made me smile. I was Nobody, remember? She certainly didn’t. I held my bags close and turned partially away. That was the trick, if I was looking elsewhere and my bag brushed against her calves on accident, she might turn and look but as long as I wasn’t paying attention to her, she wouldn’t mention it. Or at least usually they didn’t. Either they didn’t want to talk to a nobody or they figured it was a careless mistake and not something worth bothering about. Especially with such a boring and plain guy like me.

The escalator rose to the second floor and she stepped off, walking away without looking back. I watched her for a moment,