By Jada Fire
Part 1
Harold Sidlowski lived a dull life. Almost every waking moment was engaged in some sort of commerce or electronic entertainment. He shared the pasty pallor of the invalid, the pedophile and the jailbird, despite being mostly harmless.
His daylight hours were spent shifting fields of data from one theoretical container to another in an endless litany of database migrations. He dealt with systems that were too convoluted and old even for the Artificial Intelligences to figure out and often spent hours simply retyping information from ancient systems. He was a button pusher, a computer monkey. George Jetson with an anxiety complex and no family.
His job was so fundamentally uninteresting, that even when friends and relatives that were tempted to ask what he did, he couldn’t tell them. If he did, they soon regretted it as they were bored into submission by the minutia of data migration. Given this clear cut feedback, Harold took to inventing job titles for himself like, “Compu Knave” and “DSL Mage”, when queried about his occupation. At least then he could tell them interesting stories.
Although Harold had spent years in the shifting sands of data, and first-world monotony, he was not yet a complete drone. There came a day when his few remaining defiant brain cells drew him to the small ray of sunshine creeping through a crack in his inbox’s junk-mail filter. The subject of the email read “HELP ME!”, the sender was listed as “Olivia Johnston.”
He did not know any Olivias and the email bore the look of a typical third world scam. An abrasive call to action that invited the user to click where they shouldn’t. Did you get my message? Something about “pussy” or “nudes”. Viagra. Cialis. GIRLS GIRLS GIRLS. These were the digital landmines laid for the computer worker and he had avoided them all so far.
One of his main jobs was recovering fragged databases for stuttering old men without the courage to have an affair. Men who had clicked on the wrong porn link just once and then had gotten fucked by the Russians. It was not the sender Howard feared, but the faceless masses of hackers who cut and paste girls on screens to lure lonely men. It was because of this that he decided to report the email as junk. Somehow on the way to doing this however he clicked and it opened.
“PLEASE WATCH THIS VIDEO”, was the next directive. The words ran above a thumbnail of a beautiful, classy looking black woman at a dark wooden desk. “Yep, definitely a porn scam” Harold thought to himself but did not look away from the eyes of the woman in the thumbnail. What was it about those eyes? As a secret romantic, and long-time comic book reader, they looked to him like the eyes of a superherione who was proud but hurt. The woman looked down at the camera, almost impervious to his judgement. She was not smiling as so many porn girls seemed to feel they had to.
Harold suddenly realized that he was at work and had been staring at a junk email for longer than considered normal and he shut the browser. Back to the code. Back to the characters that stood for something else. These characters could also be translated into a language that made the whole world turn. Human value. Ones and zeros.
Later that evening Harold inevitably found himself in front of his computer screen. What would it be this evening? Quick wank and then off to Reddit to talk politics? Upvotes, flame wars, MMOs, he wasn’t a drinker but a digital heroine addict. At least a drinker might make some friends and potentially get laid once in a while. That was not Harold’s bag, he preferred to interact with the world through his portal mostly. The fear of bad conversations and general social anxiety were enough to keep him away from his fellow humans and welded to his safe glass teat.
The human body can only stand so much sitting and staring at artificial light before it starts to self destruct however. Carpal tunnel syndrome and generalized anxiety disorder are the hallmarks of the internet addict. Add in a computer job and it takes a heroic, Herculean effort to stay on a device for the remainder of your waking hours. Many do however, as they interact in our contemporary public forum.
Harold felt like he was melting into the seat at the end of that Friday night. The roulette of sites had left him tired and empty. He was browsing drones when that email popped into his mind again. “HELP ME” and a video. He quickly opened the email and scanned the link for viruses. It wasn’t actually a video but a link to a live cam feed. Already sketchy. Harold ignored the screaming voices in his brain and clicked on the link.
She popped onto screen in HD video. Not 4k but good enough to show off her many attributes starting with her white shirt. “Typical sexy librarian look” thought Harold, and he was right except the woman didn’t look at all dumb and sexy like the archetype. She surveyed him with brown eyes that radiated intelligence and were not at all diminished by her glasses.
“Hello Harold how are you?”
Harold quickly realized that the email had been sent to his work account and that’s why she knew his name .
“Fine thanks, Olivia. It’s not nice to send help messages through email if they aren’t real.”
“Oh I do need your help Harold, that is why I contacted you.”
“Stop using my name, that’s a bullshit sales technique.”
The woman shifted slightly in her chair and recomposed herself.
“Look Harold, this is a free channel that I made. I would like to tell you more about why I need help but I don’t have much time.”
She shifted forward and whispered into the mic.
“I will email you a code to my cam. It’s the only way I can talk to people for longer periods.”
“What do you mean “cam”, you’re a cam girl?”
“Yes, I’m a cam girl. It is what I do to get by, but I am in trouble.”
Harold couldn’t quite place her accent. It sounded a little bit Carribean-American, South African? The Queen’s English well polished but with a lilt of somewhere else. Harold was feeling antsy about the whole thing. How could he believe this beautiful person on the other side of a cam link? What did he know about her? She seemed sincere but her demands were vague.
He replied “Ok, ok, cam link got it, have a nice night lady.”
“Ok Harold, you too”, and she leaned forward and kissed the camera. Harold was too overwhelmed by the glorious sight of her cleavage to offer much after that. He signed off and rolled over into his bed not quite sure what had happened.
The next day found Harold feeling slightly better than usual. Usual was vaguely suicidal however, so he was still below the norm. However it was that the normals calculated these things he was unsure of, but he was sure of the fact that he was below their middle line. He breezed through his morning work and went off to huddle in his favourite coffee shop. It was awkward entering a cam link in a crowded coffee shop but Harold had his back to the wall and 45 minutes to kill. The girl who popped up on screen was very different than the one that he had seen before. Whereas she looked like a sexy secretary beforehand now she looked like a sad clown. She had bad makeup on and she was wearing a black neglige with black ruffled cheerleader skirt.
“Oh Harold, I missed you!”
The familiarity was annoying. Who was this woman that was trying to hustle him?
“It’s nice to see you too, I am just on my lunchbreak, do you want to hear about my job, or do you know what I do too?”
“Oh I am sorry that I contacted you the way I did but my only link with the world is emails sent at random. Messages in bottles.”
“So I found your bottle, I clicked on your email, I followed your cam link, what is the payoff for all these click-throughs?”
“Are you alone?”
“No,”
“Then call me tonight on Skype when you’re alone. Bye”
Harold finished his lunch with a slight sense of irritation. Why the fuck was he following this woman down the rabbit hole? The answer came pounding into his head with a surprising certainty. You are sitting in a coffee shop where you know no one. You like this. You live in a building where you know no one, you also like this. No awkward conversations in the halls. You suspect that your few friends haven’t abandoned you because they are secretly worried that you’re a suicide risk. Your family relationships are stilted at best, largely based on tradition rather than kindred feeling. How did you become this person and what the fuck have you got to lose?
These thoughts were the quickest way to Downsville for Harold so he quickly abandoned them. He had over the course of time built up enough strength to avoid his depression like a bad friend but not enough to eradicate it completely like the unwanted pest it truly was. He worked quickly in the afternoon and checked out with a sense of adventure. This goddamn internet apparition was hooking him. Harold was smart enough to know what a Succubus was and felt that one was currently drawing him into a binary jungle.
Home. Food. Cam link.
“Harold, you look well.”
As always the words were said in a musical voice, by a beautiful lady in a new costume. This time it was “The Maid”. How trite. She had on the lace tiara with the familiar black and white costume, ruffled skirt, lace on the wrists. She was always so well lighted in her high definition world. The overall effect was very compelling. Still, Harold felt as though he was conversing with a reality show contestant or doing an interview. “How bad do you need my help and what are you prepared to do for it?” he might have said. Suddenly the show had become pornographic in his mind, why not in his reality too?
“So you are a cam girl hey?” Harold said abruptly,“I can pay you to do stuff?”
“Yes Harold.”
“Stop calling me that, what’s the minimum?”
“10 dollars on my Patreon.”
She typed out the code on screen and he sent the money.
“So what do you want me to do?” She asked. Suddenly getting up and slowly walking around the room. It was an office made of old wood, to worn to be impressive but still respectable. Harold had the benefit of being in a low position as she walked in front of the camera. “Can I do this for you baby?” She bent over the desk showing her delicious lack of panties. Harold was repelled by her use of the word “baby”, but mesmerized by the heavenly creature bending over in front of him.
Harold’s next choice was largely made for him. His reptile brain surged into being and overtook his cerebral cortex and deployed an erection. He had no choice.
“Yes. Do more please.”
He sounded so awkward and desperate. Even his cam game sucked. Thankfully she didn’t seem to care as she stood back up straight and sat back down in an old leather chair that was very close to the camera, leaned back and stuck one of her legs behind her ear. She then smiled the prettiest smile Harold had seen in a long time. She was sending a message and Harold’s reptile brain was wide awake and receiving. Young, pretty, fit, she can do the leg thing. His mind stuttered out the words before his mouth had the chance to stop them.
“Tell me more about your troubles?” Why did he just say that? Was he a fucking priest? What did he care? All of a sudden he had a strange urge to protect this woman.
“Well, you know, I don’t want to do this forever Harold. I want a better life for myself.”
The fact that she had turned around and was shaking her ass while she said this drove the point home in strangely emotional way. Strange in that he was still aroused but now also felt like he was a part of this woman’s downfall.
“So what do you want to do Harold?” She had gone back to dusting things sexily. Harold was lost in a strange world of hormones and emotion, he felt like a goddamn teenager.
“Uh, I don’t know. We could just talk some more. Why do you need help?”
“I am being abused Harold, my boss isn’t good to me. He hurts me.”
“How does he hurt you?”
“I can show you videos Harold.”
“Ok, show me.”
Olivia looked to the side of the screen and clicked. The video was shot from a headcam. It showed a trendy modern apartment with a view of the ocean. Harold realized that it was not Olivia who was wearing the camera when she came into screen laughing with some friends. The voice of a man shouted gruffly “Girls have some drinks with me!” Olivia replied with clear hesitation in her voice, “OK daddy are you going to be nice?”
The camera jump cut to three women in party dresses sitting on a couch drinking wine. The POV was from the left of the couch. All of a sudden the wearer of the headcam grabs Olivia by the back of the head and forces her head down to his crotch. “What the fuck?” shouts one of the girls. They are horrified. The headless hand lets her head up and the voice continues “Unless one of you would like to suck it?” The girls jump up from the couch leave poor Olivia with her tormentor. For whatever reason they didn’t try and help her. The video ended as she started to give the man head.
“Do you see why I can’t have any friends?” The screen cut back to Olivia with wet eyes.
“That is pretty fucked up.” Harold replied, although he had a secret burning desire to be the type of man that had the power and amorality to do the same. “He shouldn’t treat you like that.”
“On cams it’s different. I don’t like being mistreated in real life. This asshole owns the equipment I use to make a living. It’s terrible.”
Harold suddenly snapped back to the fact that he was talking to a panty-less cam girl wearing a maid costume, who even now was sitting down and showing him her vagina either purposefully or through negligence. He could not look away.
“So do you resent people like me?” Harold asked timidly. Shut up, shut up, shut up. The voice in his head screamed at him. Why the fuck did he always have to ruin this sort of thing? A man’s man he would never be.
“No I need customers like you to pay my rent, but no one takes me seriously. You are the one Harold. You are special.”
Harold had heard this sort of thing before from advertisers and scientologists alike. Yes, everyone was special, everyone was a unique snowflake. Now buy this oh-so-unique product especially designed for special people like you. The problem was that when snowflakes breed themselves into the billions everyone starts to look, and feel, a little less than special. He knew what she was doing but he didn’t care. He accessed the part of his brain based on pure genetic survival and used it to destroy his remaining doubts.
“Ok so what do you want me to do?”
“Just be my friend for now. OK?”
“OK.”
(Please comment if you want to read part two. I wish you a Happy Reddit!)
Source: reddit.com/r/eroticstories/comments/5tataz/help_me_or_the_cam_girl