by Isa Mazzei
“Do you know which prizes go with which amounts?”
“No. It’s just random. Luck, or whatever.” I finished and leaned the board up against the table. It wasn’t the neatest board I had ever made, but I liked the rainbow pattern. “I love camming. I just feel like I’m not doing it right or something.” I felt the edge in my voice. “I want to start doing different types of shows.”
“Like what?”
“I dunno.” I sighed and lay down on the floor next to my whiteboard. I lifted my feet against the wall in a yoga pose my mom had told me was detoxifying. “Something cool.”
“Cool how?”
I hesitated. I knew what I wanted to say but I didn’t want Jonah to judge me.
“What would make it feel right?” he pressed.
“Art…maybe. Like, what if I did more performance art than porn?”
“You could.”
“I could! I could be an artist.”
“I always told you that you were creative.”
“No, you definitely didn’t.”
Jonah nodded at me, not really listening. “Let’s talk more later, I gotta go.” He stood up, tossing the crumpled potato chip bag in the general direction of the trash can. “Have fun with your show.”
“Thanks.”
I remained on the floor, staring at the ceiling. What did it mean to be an artist?
×××
Model: TheOnlyUna
Status: Online
Room Topic: Music + dance show. Tip 25 for spanks, 15 for song requests, tip menu in profile
Countdown: 0 until cumshow, Rank: 172
That night, I put on a Pink Floyd show. We listened to music and I spun slowly in a circle, dropping my white lingerie one piece at a time. When we reached the count, I lay back against my pillows. I was going old school. Hands only. I slid my fingers inside myself, watching my image in my video stream. Okay, so it was my fourth Pink Floyd show that month. At least I looked good.
Lord_several: i can see ur fat rolls when u sit like that
Lord_several: i can see hair thru your panties?!?!!?
I glanced at the screen, fingers still knuckle-deep inside myself. “My pussy is hairy because I like it that way, Lord. And if you want to stay, please be nice.” Demon used to be in charge of banning the bullies, but he was no longer my room helper.
Wild_West: Shut up.
bombNo.20: Fuck off, man. Let her sit how she wants.
FunnyGuy: Una, have you ever listened to Bela Fleck?
FunnyGuy tipped 2500 tokens
“Thank you so much, Funny! Shall I put them on?” I tried to focus on what I was doing and getting turned on again. Between Lord_several’s messages, viewers posted porn gifs and compliments. I focused on those.
Lord_several: well her whole job is to look hot u think she could at least do a good job of it
Private Message from BlueRune: Private show booking please
Private Message from BlueRune: thanks Doll ;)
“I am doing a good job, Lord. There are plenty of other camgirls if you don’t like what I’m doing.” I was getting irritated, I just wanted to finish the show. “Do we have to ban you?”
Lord_several: haha yeah well good job getting my tips, bitch
RomeoTurtle: Just ignore him Una
Mr.pickles: yeah just continue what you were doing ;)
FunnyGuy tipped 1000 tokens: I saw Bela Fleck live
I needed a room helper. I pulled my fingers out of myself and wiped them on the bed before typing a message to Bomb.
Private Message from TheOnlyUna: take the hammer
Private Message from TheOnlyUna: need someone to ban trolls
Private Message from bombNo.20: Sure. What happened to Demon?
I scrolled over and assigned Bomb room helper duties. I continued the show, letting my eyes close and the sound of tips work me up into a dizzy state of arousal.
Private Message from FunnyGuy: I don’t know why you haven’t answered my calls
Private Message from FunnyGuy: why didn’t you call me back
Private Message from FunnyGuy: what is your real name?
I blinked at the message from Funny. It was so brash, unexpected. I quickly typed back.
Private Message from TheOnlyUna: just been busy! Haven’t meant to ignore you. Sorry I don’t share my real name with anyone :)
I stared at his message, a sinking feeling draining every bit of arousal from my body.
Mr.pickles tipped 100 tokens: just relax una
Mr.pickles: let her get back to the show everyone my dick is getting chafed
Jiggy69 tipped 1000 tokens: Hi Una!
Rex213: lol chafe dick
Mr.pickles tipped 100 tokens: you should relax
“Thank you so much, Jiggy!” I waved a hello at the camera. He had been stopping by more and more frequently since my visit.
Private Message from FunnyGuy: you can’t be cute with me
Private Message from FunnyGuy: don’t treat me like your other viewers i am your friend
Private Message from FunnyGuy: friends share things with each other. What is your name?
Private Message from TheOnlyUna: Hey Funny, we are friends. You already get to talk to me on the phone which is more than most
I plastered a smile on my face. “Sorry! So many messages tonight! One sec, guys.”
Wild_West tipped 50 tokens: it’s cool Una
RomeoTurtle: we are good at entertaining ourselves
secret_bee: yay
Private Message from FunnyGuy: I have ways to find out
Private Message from FunnyGuy: if you won’t tell me, i can find it out
Private Message from FunnyGuy: i will have my friends look up your name Una
“Thank you guys so much, you’re too sweet!” My voice hit too high a pitch. I took a breath. I tried to steady myself.
Private Message from TheOnlyUna: Funny, stop.
Jiggy69 tipped 100 tokens
“Thank you, Jiggy!” As the ding of tips continued to fill my chat room, I watched for a response from Funny. There was none.
×××
“Well, that was fucking stupid,” I complained to Bomb over FaceTime later that night.
“What was?”
“Just fucking everyone. Calling me fat. Judging my pubes.” Threatening me…
“Aw. I’m sorry. They’re just stupid idiots.”
“Yeah.” I was sitting on my balcony under a pile of blankets, staring at the sky and feeling generally sorry for myself. I barely smoked, but I had found an old pack of cigarettes in the bottom of a drawer.
“You still did great, though. Everyone seemed happy with the show.”
“Yeah. I don’t know. I know they’re just trolls, but they are seriously getting to me recently. Like, not just the ones that call me fat, but also the ones that just say weird things.”
“Weird like what?”
“I dunno. There was that guy who told me I sounded like the chickens he had in his yard growing up. And then he told me his dad went on a rampage and shot all the chickens. Shit like that.”
Bomb laughed and rubbed his hand over his beard, a tic of his when he was tired. “Well, that is kind of disturbing. At least it’s creative?”
“I guess. But also like, I don’t get it. I’m providing a service. If you don’t like my service, go somewhere else.”
“When a woman takes her clothes off, a man begins to believe he owns her.” Bomb pulled off his glasses and rolled over in bed.
“That’s nice. Is that a quote from somewhere?”
“Probably.” There was a pause. I sucked on the cigarette, my first drag.
“Are you smoking?” Bomb laughed a bit, comfortingly. “You must be really upset.”
“No, I�
��m fine.”
“I don’t believe you.” His voice was lilting, teasing. I wanted him to hold me.
I breathed in the smoke spilling from my cigarette. My grandmother always smoked. She claimed she was a nonsmoker, but every single evening I would find her on her back patio, cigarette in one hand, glass of red wine in the other. The smell reminded me of her, of home, of Italy. It was the smell of safety.
“I’m so fucking tired of emotionally managing everyone.”
“Like who?”
“Like Funny. And Demon. Jiggy. Everyone. Everyone is so fucking needy.” I took another drag. Demon was moving to my town. Funny was threatening to get someone to dig up my legal name. I exhaled the smoke. “Thanks for being my room helper tonight, b-t-w.”
“No problem.” Bomb smiled at me. “Anyway. I believe in you. You gotta find a way to not let the haters get to you.”
“Haters. It sounds weird when you call them that.”
“Why? Am I not hip enough to say haters? Haterzzzzz.” Bomb drew out the end of the word and wagged his head back and forth.
I laughed.
“Aw…. there she is.” Bomb smiled. “Can I cheer you up?”
“How?”
“Well. I could sing you a song.”
“What song?”
“The song I wrote you. For your birthday.”
“You don’t know when my birthday is.”
“I know, so I wrote one just in case.” Bomb’s face filled the screen. His green eyes were warm and smiling. “Okay…” He hesitated and picked up an acoustic guitar. “Do you wanna hear your song?”
“Yes.”
“If you want to hear it, you’re gonna need some background first. Have you heard of Regina Walters?”
“Who?”
“Okay, Google her. I’ll wait.”
I pulled up a picture of a pale girl with short dark hair. She was stepping backward, blocking her face from the camera.
“Who is this?”
“Okay, so she was killed by this serial killer. And that picture was taken by him right before he killed her. Well, tortured her.” His eyes remained warm, teasing.
“Jesus, fuck.” I clicked back to her photo. She looked distressed, horrified. I wanted to save her.
“So I wrote you this song,” Bomb continued. “It’s a love song. To Regina Walters. From the point of view of her killer.”
“Oh my God, B. You did not.”
“I did.”
“That’s so fucked.”
“I couldn’t write a love song to you, that’s too forward.” He grinned. “Anyway, I just thought it was interesting. Because you know like, what if he loved her and that’s why he had to kill her. Like, his love was too much for him?”
“Is this a foreshadowing of the part where you murder me?”
“Maybe.” He shrugged. “Do you want to hear it or not?”
“Yes.”
Bomb began strumming his guitar. “Hey, by the way,” he added, “my name’s Aaron.”
“Hey, Aaron,” I said softly, waving my fingers. “My birthday is in February.”
Aaron’s gentle voice spilled over me. Holding my phone close, I closed my eyes and breathed in cigarette smoke.
After Bomb had gone to bed, I made my way back inside. I opened my laptop and scrolled through the chat room from that night’s show. There were a lot of things viewers said that bothered me. The funniest line was simply “ZOOM PANTY” repeated over and over, in all caps, by a user named giant_p3n1s. Since his comment wasn’t directly insulting, he had slipped past Bomb’s watch. I copied the line over to a notepad. Okay, fuck the haters, like Bomb said. I would write a poem. I was going to start a collection. I wrote a poem using actual things said to me in my actual cam room. It was titled “Zoom Panty.”
ZOOM PANTY
A poem by TheOnlyUna
U like 19 inch dick?
Rated and admired u sweety
now i wanna fuck that ass
hello sexy lips!
every time you suck your thumb, I cum
baby, you’re getting all worked up,
how come 90 people are watching this
your tits look like my ball sack
wow you got a really awesome set of tities babe
nice stalkings.
this is weird shit.
would you piss please in your face?
close up bellybutton for me
ohh i wanna lick ur asssssssss
IS THAT FRENCH POLISH?
I wish I could cream pie u pregnant
oh yes baby you suck it so well
ZOOM PANTY ZOOM PANTY ZOOM PANTY
wow. U suck
I smiled at my work. Jonah was right. Bomb, too. I was good at camming. I didn’t have to take everything so seriously. If I could turn the trolls into a poem, I could start experimenting with other aspects of my show, too. Maybe I could even push some boundaries. I needed to find a way to fall in love with camming again. It was time, it seemed, to become an artist.
…Baby One More Time
I had always considered myself artistically inclined; at least, until Jonah convinced me I wasn’t. Before that, I had a particular knack for creepy art. I enjoyed drawing bats and girls with wide eyes and broken necks. I wrote stories about monsters. I wanted to define myself as different, carve an identity based on taste and expression. In middle school, I sewed lanky dolls with button eyes and red-yarn smiles. I made my dad give one to Hilary Duff as a gift. There’s a photo of her holding it between two fingers, smiling thinly, eyes unsure about whether the doll was a death threat or an actual gift.
For my first art show online, I mustered all that artistic talent and channeled it into A Really Good Idea™. Focusing on climbing further in the ranks would just mean more of the same. More men demanding more of my time, energy, caretaking. More trolls. Longer hours. There was nothing left for me if I kept pushing in that direction except a slightly different number. If I was going to keep camming, I needed a new motivation.
Model: TheOnlyUna
Status: Online
Room Topic: 50 tokens
Countdown: 0
I sat on my knees in front of my laptop, scrolling through the weirdest songs I could find. I settled on something ethereal and repetitive, “I” by Aphex Twin. Low, melodic tones filled my room like organ music in a haunted church. I threw a purple cloth over my lamps and dimmed all the lights. I assembled all the props I might need: several packs of gum, a jug of water, a vacuum cleaner, an oven rack, a half-deflated basketball, any and every strange object I could find.
I didn’t want to announce what I was doing, didn’t want to explain it. I simply tweeted “online in 5” and waited, not broadcasting, as my room slowly filled up. Normally, I sent out at least some sort of clue: a Snapchat, a photo, a song that might hint at what I was doing. Tonight would be different, and I had remained silent on all fronts. Commitment was key: if I smiled or broke character, it would be a failure.
Once my room hit fifty viewers, I hit “broadcast,” and my softly illuminated face and body filled the screen. I had chosen pale lingerie for the occasion—a simple backdrop for a simple show. There would be no countdown. There would be no sex. I was doing exactly what I wanted.
I say who. I say when. I say how much.
1NerdyGuy: Nerd in the hauzzzz
secret_bee: hello una
DustydAn: Hello, everyone
bOBMANder: what’s going on here?
I sat on my knees, staring silently into the camera. I said nothing. The room continued to chat.
bOBMANder: this music is trippy
PaBLOPickax: hi all
S2303: should someone tip?
I remained sitting quiet, the song starting over again on a loop. I couldn’t say anything. I wouldn�
�t do anything until I was tipped.
bOBMANder: ummmmmmmmmm
Jiggy69 tipped 100 tokens: hi
__9gaslight_: someone tip 50
Jiggy69 tipped 100 tokens: how’s it going Una
I let my eyes flick to the camera for the briefest moment to acknowledge the tips. My face remained blank, however, and I did not say anything. Finally, after several moments, Bomb took charge.
bombNo.20 tipped 50 tokens: let’s see what this does
“Thank you, Bomb Number Twenty,” I said, smiling right into the camera. “Thank you, Bomb Number Twenty. Thank you, Bomb Number Twenty. Thank you, Bomb Number Twenty.” I kept my voice flat and monotone, my smile a fake cheesy grin. “Thank you, Bomb Number Twenty. Thank you, Bomb Number Twenty. Thank you, Bomb Number Twenty.”
Wild_West: oh no you broke her B
RomeoTurtle: wth someone tip again
Jiggy69 tipped 100 tokens: ok stop now
Wild_West tipped 50 tokens: it has to be 50 I think
At the sound of Wild’s tip I let my face go slack. Then I reached for a pack of gum and began chewing a piece. Then I added another. And another. And another. And another. And another. I chewed slowly, deliberately, smacking my lips and keeping my mouth partially open. I added another piece of gum. Another. Another. I opened a second pack. Added a piece.
Glitchez22: woah what
One2Three: I don’t get it…
One2Three: am I supposed to get it?
I added another piece of gum. My jaw ached, unable to close even halfway with all the gum. I added another piece. I was running low. I steadied my breath. Even pace.
Yoyochap: Perhaps a commentary on consumerism? Consumption?
bombNo.20 tipped 50 tokens: what’s next?
I opened my mouth and let the ball of gum fall onto the floor in front of me. Then I sat still, as before, staring at the camera.
__9gaslight_ tipped 50 tokens: fuck it
I reached to my right, to the jug of water. I hoped I was far enough away from my computer. Oh well, no time to hesitate. Looking straight into the camera, I turned the jug upside down over my head, forcing my eyes open as the water ran down my face, sending mascara and eyeliner sliding down my cheeks.