That wasn’t a good answer either, but atleast it probably put it in the gray area. “Okay, have them email my secondaryaccount. What did you tell them about me?”
Most of the time we had specific protocolsfor dealing with interesting jobs. I’d use my middle name and a completelyprivate email account to start…and I only worked by referral from a selectgroup of people I’d known for years.
Shane might have gotten in with the moneyand political clout crowd, but I knew more than a few interesting people too.The only difference was they weren’t trying to end up on the gossip channels.
Eddie grinned entirely too widely. “Thatyour name is Michael and you’ve done sites similar to this before and you’renot an asshole.”
“Thanks.” I rolled my eyes. “If thisbackfires on me, I’m going to make sure all your porn accounts magicallyvanish.”
Laughing, Eddie didn’t look bothered by thethreat. “You’re going to owe me more than a few beers after this one.”
How much was this guy going to pay?
“We’ll see.” I sat up. “Why aren’t youdoing it?”
“Too busy.” He answered quickly enough thatit seemed honest. “I’ve got a few things going and I don’t have any free timeat this point.”
That sounded legit.
“Alright, have them email me with morespecifics and any questions they’ve got.” I groaned when Eddie finally lookedguilty.
“I might have already done that.” He gaveme a casual,I’m too cute for you to be mad atgrin. “I knew youwouldn’t say no and there wasn’t anyone else I trusted with this.”
There were holes I could drive a truck throughin all this bullshit but I trusted the asshole, so I nodded. “Fine.”
He grinned. “You’re going to have a blastwith this.”
“I’ll settle for boring and pays well,thanks.” But judging by his expression, I wasn’t going to get that.
“Money’s no problem. He’ll pay your regularside job rates.” Eddie’s response had one of my concerns alleviated, but therewere plenty where that one came from.
There were only a handful of websitedevelopers who’d do the more specialized sites, so it wasn’t a cheap endeavor. Itwasn’t so much that people had no idea how to do it; mostly it was just aboutlooking down on people who were more unique. There were assholes in everyprofession, but the watchdogs had done a good job of making anyone outside thevanilla box look evil.
But it left more fun for the rest of us, soI probably shouldn’t complain too much.
Some days, however, I was really curious ifthe government knew how many sites with hidden content like the kink porn wereactually out there. But I wasn’t curious enough to ask Eddie because he’dprobably hack some system just to figure it out.
I was leaning toward them deliberatelyignoring what was really going on so they didn’t have to actually legislate it.Most people were blind to the layers of fun on the internet and the governmentwanted to keep it that way.
“Okay.” I wasn’t going to ask any morequestions until I’d touched base with the guy, so I changed the subject.
“Hey, you still talk with that beta youintroduced me to a few years ago who had the dungeon? I tried looking him upthe other day and the old email I had didn’t work anymore.” I wasn’t going downthe rabbit hole looking for him if Eddie already had the info.
Eddie sighed, his excitement finallyfading. “His alpha got married to his boring little omega who’s so traditionalit’s scary. So Jim closed down the dungeon and moved. A combination of memoriesand worried if the asshole would out him.”
“Did he out him?” Shit, his dungeon hadbeen amazing and he had the most interesting friends who’d come over to play onthe weekends.
Eddie shook his head. “No, but I wouldn’twant to take the risk, so I get it. He moved clear across the country from whatI heard.”
“That’s rough.” It wasn’t surprising, butit sucked to hear about it.
From what I’d seen of other couples in thelifestyle, that wasn’t uncommon. If it was a bad breakup, there were alwaysfears about what could go wrong. Sometimes they were unfounded, butoccasionally there were asshole exes that made things difficult.
From what he’d said, Eddie had startedhacking originally to get some pictures and rumors off the net after a friendin college had gotten outed as an alpha Dom. The guy had ended up changingschools, but Eddie had made sure the rumors hadn’t followed him.
Things like that were one of the reasons Iliked to keep my preferences and needs to myself. It was also why I wascautious about who I dated and why I’d been single for so fucking long. When abad breakup could ruin your business and out you to the community at large, itmade some people cautious.
“I’ll let you know if I hear of anythinglike that, though.” Eddie looked as frustrated as I felt. “But it’s been superquiet lately.”
