The tape: Chapter 7. Meanwhile and after (Jason's POV) (Jason Mendal x Reader)
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
Trigger warning: Leaked sex tape, description of what happened on the tape, grief (please tell me if I forgot anything)
Author’s notes: Can you believe it? It's the last chapter of my first finished multi-chapter! OMG. That's so cool. I really hope that you'll like it and the wait is paying off. Don't forget to tell me what you think about "The tape". It was really hard to write about something like this and I thought a few times that I didn't do a good job, but at least I really actually finished it.
Summary: While the woman he loved was fighting with the hardest challenge her life brought upon her, Jason was fighting for her too. From the dark, the way he could, using the tools he accumulated all this years, he tried to be the best version of himself for her.
Words counting: 5080
I believed in Devenementiel’s gem’s talent wholeheartedly. If there was a competition against her, she’d most probably win. If she didn’t, it was due to reasons way outside of her control. If the project was hard – she’d outsmart it; if the client was picky – she’d win them over; if she didn’t know how to approach the problem – she’d find ways; if she was down – she’d get back up.
The way we started to warm towards each other was a long, slow one. Little by little, banter by banter: hurtful words turned into inside jokes, eye rolls turned into searching eye contact all the time, mean comments turned into warm touches. And one night, after I tasted the sweetest and most desired lips my eyes ever fell upon, the universe decided to remind me that there’s no such thing as too much happiness. However, I had to remind the whole world, behind their smiles that they put on every time they saw me, I was cruel and ready to step into flattening everything that stayed in my way. It also meant to do this for the woman I li… loved.
Every time I couldn’t fall asleep, I remembered the multitude of people that had ever asked me how I slept at night, knowing all the questionable things I did. Every time, I gave them answers that were meant to ease their worry about my sleeping schedule, and worsen their worries about living in a world where no one paid for their deeds. But, being woken up at three in the morning by the buzz of the phone after trying, once again, for hours, to fall asleep, was, unfortunately, a normal occurrence for me. However, when the sender’s name seemed to be different from the woman’s with whom I spent the previous day, I groaned and rolled over. Though, everyone who ever had problems sleeping, knows that it’s not that easy to fall asleep after being woken up, especially by an unchecked message. So, despite what the sender probably intended by sending a message late at night, I checked it nearly immediately.
The sender’s name was a random combination of numbers and letters. The message he sent was nothing except a video. At first, I thought it was a virus, but the outline of the person in the video seemed familiar. Way too familiar. And instantly, I wasn’t just awake, I was also out of my bed, turning on my computer. The room had no source of light beside the screen and I still maxed the brightness of the screen, to maximize the visibility of the dark video.
There was a figure of a guy, visible from his torso down, naked, and the face of a woman. Her hair was held back by the guy’s hand, as she pleasured him with her mouth. I could see her jawline, the little bump she had on her nose, the barely seen displacement of her teeth, the way she smiled as she looked up through her eyelashes, the placement of her earrings. Everything screamed at me that I knew this woman that not even once looked at the camera. It was bad enough that I was sent this video, but the fact that the person in it not even once looked at the camera made it even more unsettling. I wasn’t supposed to see anything like this. It wasn’t even supposed to exist.
How often have I sent messages to someone at three in the morning? My parents had taught me not to call anyone before nine in the morning or after nine in the night. And being in the business world taught me not to message anyone either. However, there was an exception in my life that made me put away my self-taught lessons of conduct and not be polite, but comfortable enough to cause discomfort – and the person who did it was the person I cared about the most.
Call me if you need me – that was everything I could think about at that moment. Maybe it was too little, maybe I was wrong, maybe there was no way I knew the woman on the tape. I wished it was like this. But if that woman was really the woman I cared about, I couldn’t risk not doing anything to protect her. I couldn’t risk not being there for her when she needed me the most.
Firstly, I had to suppress my morals and watch the disturbing video again, to try to understand how far I could go, to try to understand how serious everything was, to try to understand what I was looking at, to try to understand at all. Was there a way to understand why anyone would ever do such a thing? Revenge. Revenge? There were better ways to take revenge. Some of them were legal, some of them illegal, some more-or-less moral, some could be made only by immoral people. I wasn’t moral, nor were my ways always legal, but even I had lows that I didn’t want to fall to. And this was one of them.
The video started from the middle. It wasn’t too long. Just enough to understand what happened, take a look at the woman’s profile, understand that the filming wasn’t discussed priorly and get utterly disgusted by the human-kind. How could anyone do anything like this to another person? How could a man do something like this to a woman?
By the fourth time I rewatched the video, maximizing it on the woman’s face, I found a freckle that didn’t seem to stay where I was used to in real life; the color of the hair seemed to be a different shade, even if the video changed the colors and hues of everything around due to its bad quality; the smile seemed a little bit strangely angled. A few times I debated with myself if I had to delete the message I sent to the person I cared about the most. Though, by the time I arrived at a conclusion, I fell asleep in the chair at my desk.
When my alarm woke me up, my first thought was to check the messages and see a message that would debunk every fear I had during the night. But, my message had the stamp Seen and no response. Instead, the message from the person who sent me the video was still there. For a second, I had to fight the urge to throw my phone against the wall. Why was it happening to her? Why couldn't I do anything to prevent it? Was there anything that I had done to call this upon her? Was there anything I could have done to protect her? Was there anything I could do at all?
It was a little past six and a half and I barely slept the entire night. However, I couldn’t stay put anymore. I had to move. I had to do something. I had to at least take a shower and clean away all the dirt that the night brought upon me. Was it dirt? Only a night before I felt like a lovestruck teenager who didn’t want to wash his face ever again after finally kissing the girl he had dreamt about for weeks – no – months. Now, I felt like I didn’t have the right to show myself in society, afraid that someone would smell on me the crime another man did.
As I walked naked by the mirror, for a second my eyes met the reflection in it and a wave of disgust washed over me. Someone who had the same complexion as me did something to the woman I loved and cared for. Someone, who she trusted, cared, and loved, sent a video in which she was the most vulnerable. I could never do anything like this to anyone else. I could never fall so low. I could never. But what could I do?
I didn’t want to look at any part of myself, afraid that I could see any similarity between me and the monster. Have I ever done anything just as bad? Was my moral system better than his? Was I better and cleaner than him? Was I a monster?
But I didn’t have the time to answer all of this and fell into self-loathing. There were things that I could do to help the person I loved and if it wasn’t me who’d do them, then who? Firstly, fuck the not calls before nine, not calls after nine. There were attorneys I knew and I would secure a meeting with at least one. A woman. A woman attorney. Otherwise, things could get even more uncomfortable. A woman attorney who worked with sex leaks. A woman attorney who worked with crimes against women. An empathetic woman attorney. That was what I needed and if it meant to search for one through people that I didn’t get in contact with in years, then that be it. I was ready to contact my exes, my mom, even my mom’s husband if it meant for me to get the best empathetic, experienced, woman attorney.
With the toothbrush in one hand and my phone in another, I was searching through my contacts, to refresh my mind regarding who I could ask for help. There were a few people from the system, but their specialty was to take businesses out of dirt. I even had the contacts of a few divorce attorneys. Why didn't I know anyone ready to take a case like this? Useless. That’s how I felt at that moment. But no. I didn’t have time to feel useless. I sent messages to everyone who could help me.
And there was someone else who could be of great help. There was someone I had to talk about even if I didn’t want to at all. Thomas Rheault. If someone could find who it was behind the random combination of numbers and letters, it was him. My pride had nothing to do here. His pride too. He could hate me as much as he wanted to. But it wasn’t about me. It was about someone whom we cared about together.
Message me asap. It’s urgent. I need your help.
It wasn’t about my pride. I really needed his help and I knew that the person for whom I needed this help wouldn’t ask for it. And I knew that if I were in her place, I wouldn’t have either. But I also knew that I couldn’t leave her alone. She wasn’t alone. She wasn’t fighting alone. I had to make her know that I was there for her. That nothing could stop me from being there for her.
In the meantime, someone answered my messages about the attorney and I even convinced the assistant of the empathetic, experienced, woman attorney to meet me for five minutes as early as possible and give me the business card and a few answers.
I didn’t care about the price. I would pay everything, even the price of the Goldreamz. I didn’t care about the inconvenience I caused. I would even call the president of the country for this. I didn’t care about being disparate. I was. Driving to the other side of the town, looking disheveled and without an explanation speech prepared – it didn’t matter. It was for her. I would do everything for her.
The sharp edges of the business card the assistant gave me were hurting my palm, as I held onto it while driving and waiting for the most precious person to appear near me. Being late to work didn’t matter if I knew I gave her the little help I could. Being seen by all the Devenementiel workers didn’t matter as long as one special one saw me too.
“Did you watch the video?” she asked me when I finally saw her. She asked me if I watched the video and I didn’t know how to tell her that I did so that I could find the smallest proof that it wasn’t her. Not because I was disgusted by what she had done in the past with her boyfriend. But because I didn’t want her to be the victim of something that cruel. I didn’t want her to have to fight against something like this. She was strong. She was strong enough to go through this. And she wasn’t alone. But why her? Out of all the people in the world, why was it her to have to go through something so awful? Why couldn’t I do anything to protect her?
All I wanted to do was to take her in my arms and hold her till she understood that I would always be on her side, till she understood I would do everything for her, till she understood that she could lean on me. But I didn’t. She didn’t look like she could bear someone’s touch on her. And when I saw that muscle-for-brain trying to touch her, the angry energy I had been running on since waking up nearly made me run to him and hit him. But it wouldn’t make anyone, including the person I did this for, trust in me more. So, instead, I drove away to the office and tried to do the bare minimum at my work in between trying to fix what a monster did to the person I cared for the most in my life.
A call. At first, I nearly ignored it, thinking it was a client. But then, I thought that it could be the attorney. Instead, the name I expected the least, but wanted nearly as much as my loved one’s, appeared on my screen – Thomas Rheault.
“Ioan Mullioz,” were the first words that Thomas said. I didn’t care. He could call me an asshole, but if it meant I would get the information needed from him, I wouldn’t bother to clean my name. Plus, it wasn’t as if my name was that clean. That was the reason why I needed Thomas so much. He didn’t care that much about using ethical and legal ways to do what he wanted to do. The only difference was that he was on the side of a company that had a “clean” reputation, the reputation of never playing dirty. Out of all of them, he was the only one with ways dirty enough to fall into the gray area. At least in this situation, he could understand and help me better than anyone else.
“Do you need any more information?” Thomas continued. When I opened my mouth to answer, I understood something. And it hurt… I thought things couldn’t get any worse. But… I didn’t tell Thomas what exactly I needed. All I did was to tell him to contact me. I never said why I needed him. But he knew. So it meant only one thing.
“How many people got the video?” I whispered, too afraid to say it allowed. Too afraid to know the answer.
“I hacked into the account that sent it,” Thomas explained with a barely hearable voice. I knew something awful would follow. “He sent the video to all her followers above eighteen years.”
My phone slid down and fell on the ground. I looked at it for a few moments, as the screen showed that the call was still going. Family, friends, clients… Why would anyone fall that low? Why would anyone hit that low? Why would anyone like this exist at all?
“What do you plan to do next?” the hacker asked.
“Can you keep your eyes on her, to make sure she is okay?”
I heard him click his tongue: “What makes you think I’m… everyone at Devenementiel is not doing it already?”
“Please, tell me if she’s not okay. I’ll come as soon as she needs me, just tell me when.”
After a few seconds that felt like torture, Thomas finally mumbled an “Okay” and ended the call. I was ready to do everything he asked me if it meant I knew she was safe and okay. How okay can a person who found out that there was a secret sex tape with her by it being leaked to everyone around her be? How bad could she feel? What was she feeling at all? She didn’t answer me when I asked her if she was okay. She didn’t answer any of my messages. Even if in the past we spent hours talking.
But I didn’t have time to cry about the past. I had to find justice in this dirty world. I had to be the justice that she couldn’t afford right now. I had to fight, so she could concentrate on herself.
Ioan Mullioz. Ioan Mullioz, you’d be a dead man. Believe me.
She is very distracted, barely doing any work.
Ugh. Of course she was distracted, Thomas. Did you expect her to have the same efficiency as before this?
I think she doesn’t believe yet that it is her on the video.
Was it a good or a bad thing? Also, did I have to contact Ioan first, or act from behind his back? Whom could I contact firs… Wait a second! I remembered she once told me that Ioan used to sleep with more women at the same time, that she was cheated on and he even had a fiancee. I wasn’t a warrior for justice, I wasn’t Batman or Spider-Man, or any other superhero Man. I was just me, just Jason Mendal who promised to his father to be happy. I was just me who didn’t see any problem using dirty ways to achieve my goals. I didn’t double check anyone’s emotions and feelings while walking on their heads. But it didn’t stay quite right with me. Who was Ioan Mullioz’s fiancee?
Danica. I had to ask Danica to find her.
Try to work. Check on her through Thomas. Go home. Go to Devenementiel to make sure she looked acceptable. And again. And again. And again.
I could see how her eyes lingered on me for shorter and shorter periods in the morning, as her clothes got longer and longer. Every morning, she looked paler and paler. Thomas even told me that she seemed to snap at everything, even the way she was typing on her computer seemed angrier. Of course she was angry. I was angry too. I couldn’t imagine the intensity of the feelings she was going through.
“No, Jason. Leave me alone. Can’t you see that all of it happened because of you? That you were the one to destroy my life?”
Of course, she was angry with me. Everything started after our date. Of course, if I was better, if I was stronger, if I was different, this wouldn’t have happened. But, what exactly was she blaming me for? What exactly could I change so that she would trust me again? What could I do and what did I already do?
I was afraid to touch her. I didn’t want her to think all I needed was to see her naked while pleasing me. I didn’t need anything like this if she wasn’t safe and cared for. Firstly, I had to be sure she knew she was loved and important to me. Later, everything else was her choice.
So, when she took a step closer to me, I had to take a step further. To prevent myself from touching her, not to forget that her safety was first, and my desire to make her feel safe second. It was about her and her needs, not about me and my wishes.
Before having the right to call myself her man, I had to do something for the woman I loved. I had to make her feel safe, to show her that I was fighting too, to win over the right to hold her, the right to make her feel safe. And giving her a business card for an attorney wasn’t enough.
Ioan Mullioz’s fiancee
That’s what I wrote to Thomas after the string of messages he sent me regarding how she was doing. I wasn’t answering them, but he knew I was reading them. He probably knew I was in front of Devenementiel every morning. He probably also knew that the first day I wasn’t there, it was because of a meeting with Ioan Mullioz’s fiancee.
“I think I know why you are here,” the young woman told me before I even told her anything. I gulped. Thomas and Danica told me she used to work at EMPC too and left a few days ago. Something wasn’t okay. It made me freeze for a second. I wasn’t a super-hero, but there was something utterly wrong that I couldn’t just ignore.
“Someone I care about just got hurt by your fiancee,” I finally uttered.
“He’s my ex-fiancee now,” the woman said, as she entered the cafe we decided to talk in. “And I know what you are talking about. I also received the video.”
The woman bit on her lower lip and looked at her nails the entire time she was talking. A few times, she took deep breaths and tried to steady her voice. She didn’t tell the waiter what she wanted to order, so I took it upon myself to take two cups of green tea.
“I found the tape myself and thought that it was a recent one. I promise you, I didn’t recognize her at first. I thought it was another one of Ioan’s affairs. I didn’t want it to go that far. I was jealous and afraid everything was falling apart. I promise you, I didn’t ask him to do it!” she started crying. Maybe she wanted me to comfort her and tell her it wasn’t her fault, but I didn’t have it in me to help her. She wasn’t the main victim in this situation. She wasn’t the one I cared about, even if she also didn’t deserve to go through what she had gone through. But I didn’t have that many feelings to give her some too.
“He told me he did it to show me how he loved only me and everyone else was just for fun,” she continued. I clenched my teeth so hard they started to hurt. The guy was lucky I didn’t ask him to see me. I had no idea what I would have done if I saw him after all the disaster he caused.
“I broke up with him at that right moment. I have nothing to do with what happened. I promise you. I am afraid he has something like this on me too. If you find ways to put him in jail, I’ll do everything I can to help you.”
I gave the woman the paper towels from the table. The waiter looked at us from afar a few times, but I couldn’t care less. The only reason I didn’t leave as soon as I heard her story was because I had the faint hope that she could give me more information. However, she was just afraid I would put blame on her too, waiting for me to convince her that I wouldn’t. But I wasn’t a superhero. I didn’t care for her tears when the woman I cared about the most was suffering.
The next few days, Thomas was updating me on how many projects were taken by a single, broken person. It was a matter of time when she would break down. I wanted to be there for her, but I couldn't show my face when she didn’t want me there. She had her reasons to think I was to blame too. So, why put more stress on her? Instead, I worked with the attorney to make a folder with every piece of evidence we could find on Ioan Mullioz.
Devon gave her medical leave because she got in a fight with a former Goldreamz client.
She did what? Of course, she hated me when my former clients were making her life a shitshow. I had never deserved to be near her and help her. But, at the same time, I couldn’t back down now. If it wasn’t me, then who would help her right now? Maybe someone else could do better, maybe they had better connections, maybe they wouldn’t have let the situation escalate this much. Though, what if not?
I didn’t really have any appetite, nor did I want to do any work. Instead of staying late in the office, I was out, walking a few kilometers from the office to my apartment, trying to think of everything I could have done better. Every time I felt hungry, I entered a delivery app and forgot about myself, ordering food at her address instead. Every time the attorney called me about details, I had to take a few deep breaths to stop myself from telling her everything that was wrong with the world.
Showering was hard because I didn’t want to think that someone else who had a similar body to mine could do something that awful to the woman I loved.
Working was hard because I didn’t see any reason to work then the woman I loved was suffering.
Sleeping was hard because the frames from the video appeared in front of my eyes every time I closed them, as if they were tattooed on the inside of my eyelids, reminding me how I watched something that wasn’t even supposed to be filmed.
Waking up was hard because I didn’t want to be a part of the world that caused so much pain to the person I loved the most.
Spencer was saying something that I could barely hear when my phone rang. It was the only contact that had a different ringtone and could pass by my do-not-disturb mode. It was her.
“Good morning,” I said, not even sure what time of the day it was.
I could barely hear what she was saying. Was she talking in general or just breathing on the phone? But even if she was staying in silence, I was ready to go to her. She called me. She needed me. I existed for her. So, I would run to her every time she needed me.
Before she could say a single word, I took the keys of my car and ran down the stairs to the parking lot.
“Are you alright? Do you want me to come?” I asked, as I unlocked my car and turned on the engine.
“I just want… I am hungry and I thought that you could keep me company while I eat,” she whispered and the sentence got quieter and quieter by the end.
“Yes, yes, of course,” I answered as I closed the door of my car and put on the belt.
I didn’t know what to talk about. I felt cold. So, I talked about the weather. She didn’t answer. But I knew she was still there. She was probably cold too. Cold and alone, thinking that no one cared about her anymore, thinking that no one was fighting for her, thinking that everyone was against her. “Do you wanna build a snowman?” I asked, before thinking. Pfff… It had been so long since we talked, especially about nothing. I knew it wasn’t nothing, it was everything right now. But I missed her so much. I gulped and chuckled to scare away the tears that were slowly making their way into my eyes. No, no. I had to be strong for her.
The door to her house was unlocked and a few different packages from food delivery were in front of it. I had no idea if I ordered all of them or if they were from someone else too. I forgot so many things that I did on auto-pilot in the last weeks.
She was in the kitchen and I called her by her name. It had been so long since I called her by her name. It felt like coming home to say it again. It felt like love. She looked so small and weak. I wanted to touch her, to make her feel like she belonged with me, but I was afraid I didn’t deserve it yet. But when she grabbed my shirt, I knew that I had to let her know that she wasn’t fighting this alone, she was strong, and I could be strong for her too.
I couldn’t hug her properly, too afraid to scare her away, but if she could feel the smallest part of my love for her, it was enough.
May my trust in your power reach you, so that you can feel strong and powerful again?
While she was in the shower, I did to her kitchen what I couldn’t do to mine: cleaned it. There were a few things in her fridge that I could use to make us something to eat. It most definitely wasn’t as good as delivery, but it was something. It was our first step to walk this path together.
“Can you help me dry my hair?” she asked me when she left the bathroom. I thought she would like to eat, but just like me, she had too many things in her mind to have space for food. So, I took the blowdryer and let its heat warm her up from the exterior, while I tried to warm her soul with my touches.
My phone buzzed in my back pocket as I watched her eat what I prepared. At first, I wanted to ignore it, but the caller was insistent. When I checked its ID, it was the attorney. Putting a reassuring hand on the precious woman’s shoulder, I excused myself.
“The moment she’s ready to write a complaint to the police, we are ready to fight against the person who did it,” the empathetic, experienced woman attorney said.
Finally, finally my life continued again.
“Will it be a big problem if I punch the guy in the face just once?”
A big sigh came from the other end of the phone. I knew her answer. She would remain professional. But I wasn’t. I wasn’t a superhero. I would do everything for the woman I loved. Sometimes, I just had to accept the darker part of me that was way more vengeful than her. At the end of the day, I promised my father I would be happy and successful.