Even when I was younger, I knew that I was a complete freak. Before I was eighteen it was in completely innocent ways, like me being unable to talk to teachers without being sassy or something, but I think something in my hormones just decided to scream, "Ariel is going to become obsessed with sex as soon as the clock strikes 18," like I was some weird sex version of Cinderella.
So, of course, I discovered masturbation once I was an adult but made up for lost time and then some, and from that point on I was set. I had a button on me that gave me good feelings when I pressed it, and the more I discovered about my body, the better the feelings were.
And then I was told about the Holy Grail of it all -- if you got a boyfriend, and he touched it for you? You were set. It felt even better, and you could just sit back and enjoy it. What's more, his dick? Goes inside you. Feels unreal. Best feeling on the planet.
The only problem? I sucked at talking to two people in particular: people older than me - basically any kind of authority figures, which wasn't that bad since I barely had to; and boys I was crushing on. And you needed to have a crush on a boy to make him your boyfriend, and he needed to have a crush back. It was kind of hard to figure out if he had a crush on me if every time I so much as looked at a boy I liked, I'd turn pink, look back down at my desk and start giggling to myself.
Any other girl would be worried about that. They would be seen as a weirdo and their popularity would be in danger. Fuck that. Who gives a shit if you're popular? Once you have your own little circle, you're set. You're good. Wanting to be liked by everyone was reserved for little babies who couldn't handle anyone thinking you're anything less than the little princess you're clearly not. And no one, in all of Hazelwood, understood this better than the Media Gang.
I loved the Media Gang. We weren't really a gang, or even a club, but just the people that took ComTech in junior year and fell in love with it. Anything, from the morning announcements to whatever got posted to the school's YouTube channel, was handled by us. We knew nobody gave a shit, but parents did, and anytime Hazelwood's mouth spoke, parents would shower the school with praise. AKA, they showered us with praise.
I was not the leader by any means, but the Media Gang was such a family that the word 'leader' was just a formality anyway. To the family, I wasn't just another student interested in media, I was just Ariel. And what's more, I didn't just have that family... I had another.
Outside of my career at school, I was crazy interested in two things -- penises and making videos. I couldn't do anything but fantasize about penises, so in my off time, if I wasn't playing with my pussy, I was making videos, usually YouTube videos. I would watch video essays (a type of video where adults talked about how bad children's media was for close to an hour), get ideas, then make my own, and had done that for basically the last three-ish years, and that's what landed me my second family.
There was this group of review YouTubers -- basically YouTubers that liked to review movies and stuff like that -- called The Amazing Channel. It had kind of a dumb name, but they found my channel after only thirty-ish videos and 2000 subscribers and, above all, assumed I was out of high school. They offered me an in on their channel, and offered to pay me as long as I could keep producing 'quality content.'
(I was screaming about how bad NeverEnding Story's editing was for about five minutes straight in my last video. Quality content.)
The only problem was, I obviously wasn't out of high school yet, even if I was eighteen. And who was going to wait months to graduate? This was the internet age, baby. In a few months, these people would forget I existed. I had to do something, anything, to navigate this little problem.
***
Abraham was a complete bro. With a name like "Abraham," he was never going to be popular, so he resigned to his fate and pursued his hobbies instead, which landed him in our little Media Gang family. More importantly though, he was never judgmental. He wasn't the best-looking guy on the planet, but we didn't care about that. We were usually too amazed by the fact he was always picking up new skills in his off-time and talking about them casually.
I leaned over his shoulder as he worked his Photoshop magic. "It's all about making sure it has the same texture," he noted out loud, maybe just to himself, as he made a new layer over this fake ID we were making.
I had to admit, it looked really real. Still, I didn't want to boost his ego too much. "Make the age nineteen," I demanded, gesturing to the age. "They're gonna think I'm lying if I set the age too high."
Abe shook his head. "Trust me," he replied. "If you're nineteen, one, they're just gonna baby you, and two, what if they like to hang out and drink with each other?"
I gave him a weird look. "Um, they're strangers, Abe," I replied. "I'm not going to meet up with them IRL."
"Ugh," Drew groaned from two computers down. "Just say 'in real life.'" He had his computer headphones on, so his fedora sat next to his keyboard. We teased him about it, and I would never admit to him that he's the only guy I met that could actually pull off the fedora look. It helped that he kept his face shaven and cut his hair. Any less dedication to looking clean-cut, and a fedora made you look like a cringelord.
Abe ignored him. "I'm just saying, I bet The Amazing Channel does video calls, and if they think you're too young to, you know, indulge, they're gonna baby you."
"Nobody here babies me," I pointed out.
"We wouldn't dare," Drew laughed, now in this. "Damn Abe, that actually looks professional."
"Yeah, trouble is, we need to print it on a good material," he thought out loud. "Plus there's that reflective stuff that goes over top."
"Does that matter? I'm just gonna be sending a picture of it," I pointed out.
"Trust me," Abe said simply.
"Do you think I pass for a twenty-one-year-old?" I asked Drew.
Drew looked me over, moving his mouth to the side in thought. "I mean, no, but I already know you. If you just say you look young for your age... especially if you've got the ID to prove it..."
***
"Wow, you were not kidding," the guy murmured, looking at the picture file I sent. "You do look young for your age."
I decided not to be too opinionated (AKA too Ariel) in my first meeting with the guy, so I shrugged. "Is that a bad thing?"
"Oh, definitely not," he replied immediately. "To be honest, I bet viewers will really like that. They're expecting some young girl but then a grown woman opens her mouth and they're all like 'oh, this is not what I expected. I wanna listen.' You know?"
I smiled at him, though probably not for the reason he thought.
"Anyways, all this checks out. We'll be using PayPal unless you need us to use something else. All we'd need from you is a video uploaded every two weeks. And obviously, try to make them good. Eye-catching thumbnails, interesting ideas, all that. I'm not gonna tell you what to do, but I mean, this is YouTube, so if you really wanted a winner, all you'd have to do is wear a, you know, lower-cut shirt in the thumbnail and guys will flock to it. I'm not tryna be weird or sexist, I'm just saying, that gets the views."
I raised my eyebrows. Wow, this guy was direct. A little creepy, but I was me, so that only intrigued me. Still, I was a freak, not dumb. If it somehow got out I was in high school and joined this company, the worst I would get was a slap on the wrist. If I appealed to online strangers' horny levels when I was only eighteen, I'd get in serious shit.
"We obviously won't punish you if a video flops," he continued. "It happens. But if videos keep flopping or you don't get the views we thought you would, we have a right to revisit our deal with you. It's all in the contract, so be sure to read it over."
I already did, before the call began. I wasn't thrilled with the idea that this guy basically got to own my content and could cancel at any time even though I couldn't. Plus, I was eighteen and... well, to be frank, my videos were already better than his. It helped that I actually knew how cameras worked -- white balance, aperture, you name it. This guy knew how to buy an expensive camera at Best Buy and find the record button. Still, the money was good, and it was clear I wasn't going to find this level of exposure anywhere else, so...
***
As soon as our useless ComTech teacher, Mr. Whittleton, left the room, Abe busted out the champagne. "Go team!" he chanted, opening the bottle ceremoniously. Drew, Raven and Harmony all cheered, while Greg twirled a finger above him sarcastically, not turning around from his computer.
Raven was a cool guy, if a little misunderstood. He wasn't really good at... anything involving media, but he was also 5'3 and a boy, so where else was he going to go? He had everything going for him to be trendy at Hazelwood -- mixed-race, good fashion sense, visible abs -- but not height. Poor guy.
Harmony was your typical nerdy-looking girl. Not like, "ooh, she's nerdy" nerdy like dumb boys drool about, but like, actually nerdy. A full lisp to her voice, thick glasses, one eye that always looked in a slightly different direction, and all the crippling insecurities and self-doubt that came from boys repeatedly bullying her about those things over the years. In here, she was confident, and it was actually kind of a shame. When she was confident, she actually had some pretty good charisma, and probably could have found some cute boy to date, but, well, her options were kind of limited here.
I'm not saying the guys here were undateable, but it wasn't like they were nice guys that happened to look weird. Abe liked proving people wrong, Drew had an 'um actually' problem, Raven was like most blank-slate trying-to-be-popular guys -- boring -- and Greg thought he would lose street cred by actually taking interest or something. We knew he cared deep down, but Greg had this habit of only ever talking to people to make a joke at their expense or something. It actually kind of sucked that he was the best-looking out of all of us, because he could have actually done something with that. Instead, he always set out to neg people or rib them or whatever. The end result was that over time, you'd push back, and then Greg would point out, in front of everyone, how "defensive" you were. Ugh. Nobody but me actually insulted him back, but hilariously, Greg would defend himself with this faux chuckle every time someone did hit him back. Like it was so funny that someone was attempting to do what he did to him. He had the thinnest skin I'd ever seen on a guy. In small doses though, he was funny and even kind of sweet, and actually good intentions. So I only ever allowed myself to experience him in small doses.
We quickly gave out plastic cups to everyone -- even Greg -- and poured the champagne. It wasn't real champagne, just some alcohol-free sparkling beverage. We weren't stupid enough to have alcohol out in a classroom. We did this kind of celebration all the time -- the last time was when Drew got his driver's license. We were a family. We liked celebrating things together.
After drinking and celebrating, most of the Media Gang just went back to work, although Harmony and I got to talking.
