CHAPTER 1 – MY SECRET IDENTITY #2
Dad doesn’t look up. “Your boss treating you alright? You’re not letting those lawyers run you ragged, are you?”
I smile. “They’d fall apart without me.”
He grunts, which in Dad-ese is basically ‘proud of you, kid.’
Mom leans in, lowering her voice like we’re plotting a heist. “Your cousin Matt got engaged. His fiancée is a dental hygienist. Isn’t that nice?”
“So happy for them,” I say, because that’s what I’m programmed to say.
Mom seems about to launch into a wedding registry tirade while throwing in hints about why I should think about getting my own fiancé, but I cut her off gently. “I’ve got a huge presentation to prep for tomorrow. I might go upstairs, if that’s okay?”
“Of course, honey. We don’t want to keep you,” she says, and Dad echoes it with another grunt, this one indicating permission to leave the table before the end of Wheel of Fortune.
I clean my plate, rinse it, and thank them both in the same breezy, undisturbed tone I’ve honed over years of hiding my frays. I’m three steps up the staircase when I hear Mom already phoning someone to share the news that I have ‘a big day tomorrow.’ If only they knew the truth.
Once I’m inside my bedroom—still pink around the edges from a previous life—I flip the lock, then wedge my desk chair under the handle for insurance.
The walls are plastered with reminders of who I was supposed to be: honor roll certificates, a watercolor of Lake Itasca, a shelf of decapitated Breyer horses.
I ignore them, heading instead to the closet, where I kneel and feel for the false panel in the floor.
Underneath: a steel box, a webcam the size of a robin’s egg, two ring lights, and a battered makeup kit.
I know it looks like I’m John Wick retrieving weapons and cash from a buried vault, and I am in a way, except that my weapons aren’t guns and ammunition.
My weapons are lights, camera, and action, and I love it.
Don’t get me wrong because the first time I set this up, my hands shook so badly I nearly dropped the camera.
Now it’s a ritual: I snap the tripod together, check the angles, make sure nothing in the background will betray me.
My laptop comes out next. I place it on my desk, angled so the camera never captures my face, only from the chin down—shoulders, collarbones, the necessary flesh.
I shed my work uniform as my heart races: blouse unbuttoned, skirt peeled away, hose abandoned in a limp coil.
Next comes the transformation. Smoky shadow on my lids, a perfectly-drawn cat-eye, and a pink lipstick that emphasizes my pillow pout.
I strap on a black lace bra that hugs my huge girls, and a matching G-string that bisects the perfect peach of my ass.
The ring lights go on, and poof! Eliza Shaw vanishes.
In her place is BunnySnowGirl, performer extraordinaire.
I breathe in once, twice, and let my heartbeat settle into the rhythm of anticipation.
Then I open my laptop, navigate to the cam site, and log in.
The username is one nobody in St. Cloud would recognize, but in certain online circles it’s practically a legend.
I see the private messages lighting up already: three regulars, two new ones, all eager and chatty.
Their requests range from the vanilla to the super X-rated.
I check my boobs, tuck a golden strand of hair behind one ear, and then smile coyly.
When the chatroom window opens, I say, “Hey, darlings. Did you miss me?” My voice is lower, breathier, the first real part of me to show itself all day.
And just like that, the day’s numbness slips away.
Here, no one asks about my cousin’s engagement, or if my boss is nice.
Here, I get to choose who I am, every second.
The ticker at the bottom of the screen jumps as the first tip lands: twenty bucks, just for saying hello.
I keep an eye on the time, but for now, in this hot pink haze, I am entirely, gloriously, myself.
The light from my ring lamps is hot on my skin, making every inch of me brighter and more forgiving than real life ever allows.
I’ve set up the camera so it frames only what matters: my throat, my chest, my thighs spread on the edge of a pink IKEA chair I’d never have picked if not for the way it makes me look edible.
Anonymity is the whole game, and I play it like a pro.
Not a single pixel of my face has ever made it onto the screen.
The chat is already busy, my regulars falling over themselves to be first noticed.
There’s BigBen82 (“GODDESS, HOW WAS YOUR DAY?” in all-caps, always), and QuickSpooner, who never says anything except emoji but tips like he’s buying influence in a banana republic.
Then there’s HughRules. I have a complicated relationship with that username.
He pays for private sessions, but only to watch.
He never types, never even throws a tip until the show is half over, but when he does, it’s a bomb—one hundred dollars, boom, just for a full view of my arching spine or the curve of my hand on a bottle of lube.
Tonight, I want to give them a real show.
I start by running my palms up my thighs, letting the camera catch the shimmer of my stockings and the way the lace edges bite into my hips.
I say, “Hi, darlings. Hope you’re hungry,” in a tone that would get me fired before the echo died at Gibson Grant. My voice is part promise, part dare.
They eat it up. The room goes from thirty viewers to seventy in less than three minutes.
Tips pop up at the bottom, twenty here, five there, another thirty for a special request. I move slow, letting them get their money’s worth, always keeping my chin dipped, hair falling to shadow what little the camera might betray of me.
BigBen82 says, “Can you use the big one tonight?”
I know exactly what he’s talking about. With a sultry smile, I reach down, slow as honey, and pull a fat purple dildo from my prop drawer.
It’s intentionally ridiculous, a challenge to physics and modesty alike.
The chat goes wild with pings, emojis of fat dollar bags appearing.
I trail the tip up the inside of my thigh, making a production of shivering at the contact, and say, “You want this, Ben? It’s gonna take work. I hope you’re patient.”
Another fifty comes in, this time from a lurker I haven’t seen before. I acknowledge it with a wink and a “Thanks, mysterious stranger,” then lube the thing up, caressing the ten inch length with my fingers while turning it so the light glistens across its bulbous head.
In real life, I’m methodical and organized to a fault, but here, I let myself get messy.
My moans are real, and attuned to the frequency of the room.
I massage the dildo sensuously with my fingers before lifting it to my lips for a taste, my breath coming faster as the chat fills with filth and additional dings.
I keep an eye on the little preview window, make sure I’m never showing anything above the bottom of my nose.
Control is everything, even when I’m being watched by a hundred anonymous eyes.
QuickSpooner wants the show to move faster.
He wants to see the dildo stretching my pussy, and he tips ten, then another ten, piling it up until it’s clear he’s not going to stop until I deliver.
I oblige, giving the dildo one last hungry lick, and then press it between my legs, letting the tiny head tease my wet hole.
The messages start to blur together: “FUCK THATS HOT,” “QUEEN OF TEASE,” “how much for a custom vid?” I let them all ride, laughing breathlessly into the mic and dragging out every syllable. Every minute is money, and every money is a step further from the life I’m supposed to be living.