Priya and Elias were putting dirty dishes in the dishwasher. They had just finished lunch on a quiet Saturday.
"This was nice," he leaned in for a kiss. "I love you, kitten."
"I love you too, bear," she said.
He smirked at her. He really loved her. He felt lucky having met someone like her. Beautiful inside and out. Her hair was long, wavy and dark brown. Her eyes were grass green. His beautiful kitten.
"I was thinking..." He started.
He was cut off by the door bell ringing. They weren't expecting anyone. They walked out together and opened. Priya's 3 years older brother Seth stood there. He sneered at both of them and pushed his way inside.
"Why don't you come inside, Seth?" Priya asked sarcastically.
"What the fuck is wrong with you?" Seth asked loudly.
"You want a complete list or just the headlines?" Priya asked.
"Shut the fuck up!" Seth snarled.
"Hey, quit it!" Elias cut through. "You can't just barge in here and..."
"No one fucking asked you, ape man!" Seth yelled.
"Ape man?" Elias asked confused.
The irony of that weird insult wasn't lost on Elias. He and Seth looked a lot alike with their long hair and full beards. Now wasn't the time to point that out. Seth was clearly upset over something.
"Calm down and tell me what's wrong," Priya said.
"How the fuck can you let him treat you like that?" Seth asked.
Priya looked confused. Elias felt just as confused. He hadn't treated her wrong. He loved her and treated her the way she deserved. They were equels in their partnership.
"I have no clue what you're on about," Priya said.
"I saw you!" Seth growled.
Seth's eyes flickered as if he knew he had said something wrong. He quickly ignored his own first statement and corrected himself.
"Someone told me!" Seth kept his voice loud. "He treats you like a fucking dog. He has you crawling around on your knees performing all kinds of humiliating things. He's sick, Priya. He needs professional help. Dump his sorry ass and let me help you."
Priya and Elias looked at each other and couldn't help but smirk.
"First of all, I'm not his dog. I'm his kitten," Priya said.
"What?" Seth asked.
"Second of all, it's called roleplay and I fucking enjoy it, Seth. It's really none of your business what we do in the bedroom," Priya said.
"But," Seth paused a second. "It's wrong. It's disgusting."
"To you, maybe," Priya said.
"Seth, it's really inappropriate for you to come in here and yell about things you clearly don't understand," Elias said.
"Shut the fuck up!" Seth screamed.
Seth's eyes were big and scary. He stepped up as close to Elias as he could and poked his index finger into Elias' chest.
"You're sick!" Seth snarled. "My sister will not stay in this house with you. I will make sure of it."
"Okay, you can leave now," Priya said.
Seth looked over at Priya, nodded, and finally stepped away from Elias and walked out the front door.
"You know I'm right," Seth said. "Once you're ready to leave this abuser, you can move in with me."
"Yeah, you'd love that. That way you can control her," Elias mumbled.
"Goodbye, Seth," Priya said.
Priya closed the door and locked it. She looked over at Elias and shook her head.
"That was fucked up," he said.
"Don't I know it," she said.
"He's always tried to control you. This behavior of his really needs to stop," he said.
She nodded and walked out in the kitchen with him following behind.
"Who do you think told him? Who even knows we're into this?" He asked.
"I think we need a glass of wine out in the backyard," she said.
"We should really talk about this," he said.
"And we will," she said. "Over a glass of wine."
She gave him a look he couldn't figure out. Clearly she wanted out of the house. He nodded in agreement. There was no point in arguing where to talk about things. She opened the fridge, took out the open bottle of white wine, and poured the remains of it in two glasses. She handed him one of them and they both walked out in their backyard and sat down.
"Seth came over last week," she said.
"I know. You told me," he said.
"He was acting weird but I couldn't put my finger on it," she said.
"And now you can?" He asked.
"I think he might have placed a camera in our home," she said.
"What?" He asked.
She took a sip of her wine and sighed.
"It's the only thing that makes sense. He shouted back there that he saw us. What did you and I do last night?" She asked.
She smirked at him and he smirked back.
"So he watched us perform live?" He asked.
"No, then he would have been over right away. He must have just watched it. He gets Saturdays off work. He gets up around 8, goes for a run and then goes home to do some workout. Time wise it fits with when he watched and then arrived here," she said.
"So let's tear the house apart and find the camera," he said.
She sighed again. She emptied her glass of wine and put it down on the café table between them.
"I know my brother. When he's angry, he does fucked up shit," she said.
"He does fucked up shit regardless of his mood," he said.
"True," she said. "So we need to come up with some sort of plan. If he finds out we're on to him, I'm afraid he's gonna use that footage for something. I don't know what but it's gonna get ugly."
"So what do we do?" He asked.
She took out her phone and looked through the phone book for one specific contact.
"Step 1," she said. "We call Big E."
She clicked the green botton and put the phone on speaker. It didn't take long for him to pick up.
"Hello, sunshine," he said.
"Hi, E," she said. "I need your help."
"Who am I to turn down a damsel in distress?" He chuckled.
"Let's say someone put a camera in my house," she said. "How do I find out where it is without alerting them? There might be some footage of me that I don't want them to release."
"Crap, who the fuck did that?" He asked.
"My brother Seth," she said.
"Of course," he sighed. "I'm coming over. I need you outside of the house so that he doesn't see me and put two and two together. He doesn't know who I am so he might try and figure it out if I show up on camera."
"We're in the backyard. Walk around the house," she said.
She hung up and smiled at Elias.
"Big E will know what to do," she said. "Big E can fix anything when it comes to things like this."
"Remind me again how you came to know someone like him," he said.
"Top secret information," she grinned. "He may or may not have had a thing with a roommate back in the days, and somehow I won him in her and mine divorce when we moved away from each other."
