Obvious disclaimer: this is purely a work of fiction.
16 years is a tough age to be.
You can finally drive! As if there were that many places to drive to! Small town America has the roads, not the destinations. School sucks. You can’t wait to be done and move on to college. Explore the world. You’re not cut for the rural life. And neither are your friends. Y’all walk up and down the 3 blocks of Historical Downtown dreaming of the lights of New York City. Oh, yes, your friends? Do they actually like you? Will they stick together for life? Or will you lose them in a couple years time? Will you make new ones?
Yes, 16 is a tough age to be. You yearn the touch of the boys. At night. In the dark and the silence. Only the crickets and your hard breathing echoing through the starry sky as you go at it. The blankets rustle like feathers at your soft gentle touch. Then you tense up, and release it all, before falling asleep, finally relaxed. You don’t have a boyfriend. The last one was months ago. He wanted one thing, and he wanted it after buying you the smallest size pop at McDonald’s! Oh the horror! You have almost given up on it. College is when it’s at. You’re not curvaceous, and that’s all the boys want here. Cows and curvaceous girls. As if they couldn’t quite tell cow from human.
But you have a secret. At night, when your parents go to sleep, you don’t follow suit as you should. You turn on your computer, log onto Reddit and start posing. You started almost by chance a few months ago. You heard the boys at school talk about it: “on this website you can look at boobs” “No it’s free”. You were curious, who wouldn’t be, and so you went ahead and looked at boobs yourself. Until you found your home: PetiteGoneWild. “Yes”, you thought to yourself, “this is perfect”. Tiny frames, small boobs, it was like looking at yourself in a mirror. But instead of the smallest size pop, those girls got validation, attention, approval, compliments.
But you could never, now could you? Point the camera at yourself, smile seductively, and.. “click”. It took 3 days before you even took your bra off. A week before you finally pressed the button, only to immediately delete the photo in horror. Finally, two weeks in, you caved. You made an account, took the best photo you could, and uploaded it. “Veri[18f]ication” the title. Oh, yes, obviously you had to lie about your age. 16 is such a tough age to be, one can’t even go on Reddit without lying about it.
And now, you’re a regular. Spring on the way, the clothes fall off almost naturally. 3, 4 posts a week. The comments come in. The upvotes. “You’re gorgeous”. “I want you so bad” Heart emojis. So do the dick photos, of course. You have learnt to deal with it. The attention turns you on anyway. This is what those curvaceous girls feel. But it’s even better for you. The farthest their fame spreads is next town over, your boundary is the world. You have received digital love, a “tribute”, from Norway.
Everything was perfect, until you clicked on your inbox. 12 messages. Slow night.
“Baby you’re beautiful. Fuck me”
“Let’s fuck”
“My dick needs sucking”
“Hi Lisa”
“Let’s meet on Tinder and make memories”
“I want to..” – “wait, what?” You go back and read it twice. Three times. “Hi Lisa”. You check. No, your username does not include your name. No, none of your posts do. No your comments don’t either. DMs? No. No, you never told anyone your name. How does this person know? You’re flustered. You look out the window. No, nobody there. It’s as silent as usual. But now you’re not safe, comfortable, validated. Now you’re confused. A bit scared even. “Hi Lisa”. That’s you. Lisa. And nobody should have ever figured out. Reddit was supposed to be safe. Anonymous. And now someone knows. What will you do? You could ignore it. Block this person. But that wouldn’t help. They’d make a new account. You know what? They meant it for someone else. They just slipped up. You’ll message back. “Wrong person, buddy”. There. Fixed. He will now go away, never to return.
The icon is red again. What now? I haven’t even posted for the night. Tonight you were going to show your smile. But now, now you don’t know if that’s a good idea. And the icon is red again. Same person. “Definitely not. Hi Lisa.” he said. Your phone rings. A text. It’s.. the same words. “Definitely not. Hi Lisa”. From: “Tim”. “Fuck, how did he find out”. At least now you know it’s him. He is probably going to get you in trouble. Snitch on you. No, can’t let that happen. You’d be grounded for life. You’d be 40, married with 3 kids and still grounded. You close Reddit, log out, delete browser history, anything you can think of. You’d purge the computer with fire if you could. Delete all the photos you took. Yes, you should have done that before. Yes, you were dumb. And now you’re rushing to erase the evidence.You text back. “Hi what’s up?”. He has no proof. No evidence. You can still play it dumb, right?
“You know what’s up. Reddit”
“Reddit, what?”
“No playing dumb.” Well, that certainly thwarts the plan, right? Can’t play dumb now anymore. “Meet me tomorrow after school at the river.”
“Are you telling anyone?”
“Meet me tomorrow after school at the river”
Your bedtime routine involved laying down, putting the blanket on yourself, and letting your hand wander, slowly, until the pace picked up, until nature demanded its dues of your fingers. And then you slept. Happy. Relaxed. Fulfilled. The dirty DMs, the filthy comments buzzing through your head, filling your dreams. Not this time. This time there was no wandering. No sleep. No happy dreams. No tense body, no gentle soft moan of release. Just shame. Fear. Guilt. And school, school in the morning a torture. Math is usually boring, but today much more so. At the river. You let your parents know you’re going to be home late. School project you called it. Yes, you should have told them earlier. Yes, you forgot. No, you don’t need materials. What does he want? Has he told your parents yet? Does everyone know? Are they looking at you different? You can’t stop thinking, wondering. You keep looking around. Do the teachers know?
The river. You know exactly where Tim means. You used to hang out there years ago. Just out of town, turn off the interstate, hang a right, half a mile and it’s right there on your left. It’s enough of an incline that you can’t see it from the road. The locals pride on it as some kind of a secret. The truth? Nobody cares, nobody ever gets off the interstate unless they need to, and even then, it’s not to seek the river. But for you and Tim, that was the place to go play. It was a hike, an adventure, and that’s what made it so much fun.
And now, Tim is already there, waiting.
“Took you a while”
“What do you want?”
“I want to know what the hell you were thinking. You can’t post nudes on the internet. You’re young, and it’s not OK”
“Did you tell anyone?”
“No, I didn’t. You need to stop”
“Don’t tell me what to do! You left! You can’t boss me around anymore”
“I didn’t leave! My girlfriend got pregnant and I did the right thing. I am still your brother. I can tell you to stop being stupid”
You don’t have any angle. He shows the pictures to mom and dad, they will recognize you if he did. If not you, the room. They will figure it out. He can get you in trouble if he wants. But, but, you do have an angle. He was looking at naked girls on the Internet. The girlfriend, right. Does she know?
“Bet Sarah doesn’t know you look at porn” you blurt out.
Tim blushes, you have a point. He stutters.. “Well, no, someone recognized you, I checked.” Right. Good excuse.
“You look at porn, don’t you? Gross!” You start jumping around him pointing fingers “You look at porn”.
He grabs your arm. “Stop! I am not joking. I won’t tell anyone. You won’t tell anyone. You need to stop”
“Why? Why would I stop?”
“Because it’s bad. It’s wrong. You’re young. It would kill our parents. Is that what you want? At least wait until you’re in college. Move out of this town. Don’t make my mistakes.”
He has a point, doesn’t he? You pause. To think. He has a point. Leave here. Don’t get left behind as the girl that went wild at 16. You’re beautiful. Attractive. Sexy. Now you know. It’s this stupid town that doesn’t see it. College. The big world out there. A new beginning.
“I had a good run, uh?” you say. You’re on board with the plan.
“Yes, you did” Tim says, a bit too enthusiastic and sincere. Definitely more than a brother should, given the circumstances. You catch it. He does. “Wait, ” – you ask “you mean you looked at everything?”
“I had to make sure”, an excuse that sounds as hollow and false to you as it does to him.
“Oh my God” you scream, “you liked them”. Tim, he was one of them. One of them country boys. He liked them curvaceous, just like everyone else. Liked one enough to forget condoms. And get in trouble for it. He too wanted to leave. But she got pregnant right out of school, and he stuck around. It’s been almost a decade now. He accepted his life. He has a job, a wife, and a kid. But he is not one of them at heart after all. “You liked them” she repeats. It’s gross. Offensive. Dirty. And the most validated she ever felt. One of them country boys. He liked her. Wanted her enough to go through months of posts.
“You can’t tell anyone”
“Then it’s true”
“Yes” he admits, his head bowed in shame and loathing.
Part of you wants to beat him, drive away and never see his face again. But it’s not the part that wins. Because validation and approval wins over common sense. Always.
“What did you like the most?” you ask
“Wait, what?”
“What was your favorite photo?” you ask again, your voice a bit coarse, dry.
He is taken aback. He wasn’t expecting it. “Why? Why does it matter?”
“I want to know”
It doesn’t take him long to settle on the answer. “It’s that one where you are laying down on the bed, one tit is out, but your hand cups it, only the nipple visible through your fingers. It just feels so erotic. Like one could feel your soft skin on their fingertips” he feels the need to add at the end.
“Like this?” you ask, as you grab his hand and push it to your breast, under your shirt, under your bra. It’s electric. For you. For him. Like a million volts. Like a spark. He recoils. In horror at it. Panting. You stand there. Your breath heavy. Your cheeks flushed red.
“Like that” he whispers, the sound of his voice barely audible over the water and the birds. It’s not too late to turn around. But it really is. Too late. It’s unavoidable at this point. “Like that” he says again, as his hand makes a move towards you. It doesn’t recoil this time. It’s cupping your breast. Gentle. Soft. You gasp at this touch. Your heart pounding in your chest. This is what it should be like. This is what all those men on Reddit wanted. A moment like this. You take your shirt off. Your bra off. “Recognize anything?”
“I recognize everything” he says before leaning in to kiss you. His mouth is eager. He is a starving man finally given a succulent meal. The meal his sister’s lips. Your tongue flicking against her. The soft skin of your neck. He nibbles. “Careful” you say. No marks.
He grabs you by your hand, walks you but a few feet away, to a tree. He makes you lean against the wood, a shirt on your back to protect your skin. Takes your pants off, your panties. He kneels before you. Spreads your legs. His head between them. His tongue flicking your clit. Teasing it. You never had this before. It’s daylight, your eyes are closed shut, and yet you can see the stars. You grab his hand, as if driven by instinct. You never want him to stop. And stop he is not. He is licking. Drawing figures on your pussy. Your moans like a song and dance. You want release. And you want this moment to be forever. You can’t have both, and forever is brief. Your orgasm intense and sudden. Your hands pushing hard. Your legs locked hard on his head.
“Fuck me”. You can’t believe you said it. But you did. “Fuck me, Tim” you say again, urgency in your voice.
“No”. “No” he says. Twice. Stern. Harsh. As if saying it for himself more than for you. But you can’t take no for an answer. Not now. Sure, he is stronger than you. But you’re motivated by lust. You push him to the ground. Unbutton his jeans. He isn’t really putting up that much of a fight, really. Did he not expect it? Does he want it? Both? He is hard. Hard like all the guys on the Internet. But this one is real. This one is not a picture. This one is warm, veiny, throbbing. Real. This one pushes against your mouth as you start licking it. “No. No.” he says. You can’t hear. Lust owns you now. And you own him. You lower yourself on him. You start riding. There is no school that teaches you these moves. Only nature. Up. Down. Up. Down. He is begging you to stop. You won’t listen. Your pace is perfect. He is hitting all right spots. All those photos. All those comments. All those nights with your fingers for a boyfriend. All leading to here. To fucking your brother in the wild.
“I am close” he says “get off me”. You may be young, and a bit naive. But you know what that means, don’t you? He is about to cum. “Is that what happened with Sarah?” you ask him, the thought getting you off. “Yes, yes it is. Get off” he says once more.
“No. I want a baby. Fuck one into me”. You are one of them after all. The big city. The lights of New York at night. You’re about to give them all away. You’re about to end up stuck in your little town, an unwed underaged single mom. All for a perfect moment. For the perfect moment where you push Tim deep inside of you as his hips push deep and he lets it all go. His hand clutch the grass, his orgasm beautiful and painful. He knows what he is doing. He couldn’t stop it. He hates his weakness as much as he loves the pleasure.
No words are spoken. No words can be spoken. He helps you clean up, get dressed. He walks you to your car. “Goodbye” he says. “Goodbye” you say. What else would you say? Everything that happened was wrong. And yet you loved it. And so did he. The consequences are for another day.
Source: reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/amssgu/mf_nc_inc_preg_veri18fication
Is this a contemporary critique of reddit and social media and how we use them for attention and brief pleasures with no concern or understanding of the long term consequences?
well written and thought through