Now come days of worthlessness. Days of shame.
The complete confrontation with the reality of her exposure online shook her to her core. Before, when she'd first moved to Boston, she had been able to delude herself. It was life-ruining footage, already, but it would fade into the depths of the internet, and with a move across the country and a false identity, she would be able to eventually escape it for the most part. That is what she had thought. The virtual tour she was given in the hotel suite, nine months ago now, had shattered that delusion.
Her footage, her story, had caught into some internet zeitgeist. It was not going to go away. She had thousands of dedicated, some borderline obsessive, fans. They all were communally dedicated to virtual (and real-life) stalking of her. She would never be able to hide from them. They would duplicate and spread her footage, and endlessly seek to create more content of her. They wouldn't let her move again and change her identity. She couldn't go to the cops. They obviously didn't take her side one bit. She realized, only just now in her post-jail freedom, that she was completely and utterly fucked.
She sat on her bunk one morning in a women's shelter she had gone to while she considered what she could do or where she could go next. She wanted to be somewhere with no men. She hadn't gone outside in three days. She sat and stared up at the high window. She was utterly baffled with what she should do next. She seemed to have been pushed into an impossible corner. She had no money, no possessions. Her reputation was utterly ruined, socially and professionally. What could she even begin to do with herself? No matter where she went, it seemed like a dead end. Should she just kill herself? She knew she wouldn't, but she could think of no logical reason not to. She was finally accepting what her assailants had told her so many times -- that she had nothing to live for now except cock.
A disheveled woman with sunken eyes was sitting on the bed next to hers. She had a magazine of some kind in her hands. They had talked a couple times in the last few days, just a word here and there. Now she kept glancing from the magazine to Melody and back again.
"This your skanky ass?" she asked, and handed it to her.
It was called "Jailbirds," one of those garbage rags they sell for 75 cents at gas station checkouts. It was just a collection of recent mugshots in the county. The top of the page it was turned to was labeled "Prostitution." There, along with 20 old hardened hags and methed out homeless looking women, was Melody, clear as day, standing out so much with her youthful beauty, despite the wild hair and dried clumps of cum. "FREE BLOWJOBS" right across her forehead. "Melody Ann Ainsley, 26. Multiple counts of prostitution, drug possession, public indecency."
She didn't even have a response for the woman. She just stood up, threw the magazine on the bed, and walked out, as the woman watched her leave in shock and disgust.
She wandered the streets for two hours, worried all the while that someone would recognize her. If they did, they didn't say anything. Would this be how it would be every day for the rest of her life? How could she operate like this?
No money. No possessions. No phone. Nothing except the donated clothes on her back.
She hitched her way to a rest stop off I-95. From there she met a trucker, an older, rugged female, who agreed to let her ride as far west as she was going. Melody rode in the cab, glad she had found a woman. She spoke very little, and luckily the woman didn't press. She had no plans. She just knew she had to leave Boston.
The woman drove her west as far as Detroit. From there, she told her she'd be heading north into Canada. Couldn't tag along if she couldn't provide the documents to cross the border.
She hitched again further west, and then again, going wherever she could find someone willing to take her. It was mostly men who drove her, but luckily no one recognized her or sought sexual favors. For a moment she let herself once again begin second guessing the extent of her exposure. She had assumed people would recognize her everywhere she went. Maybe, just maybe, if she stayed off the grid she could get by like a normal person?
She quickly squashed the idea. She knew she was going down the same path of mental self-delusion as last time. It would only lead to a harsher reality check. She was a known, publicized, ubiquitous webslut. And real life slut. She just had to find a way to accept it. To live within that framework.
To reinforce the idea, she went into a public library when she was in Denver. She signed up for a library card, rather easy even with no ID, and then got a private booth to use the Internet. There were no restrictions on the browser. She typed in her name.
Page after page after page. All her. Just dozens and dozens of videos, hundreds or pictures, endless pages dumping all of her personal info, her history, everything. She found the page that documented every single square inch of her body in extreme HD, and couldn't bear to click on any of the images. Just the search "Melody" still had her on the first page.
Her heart was racing, despite herself. She already knew all this was there. Why did it elicit such a panic response to see it? She clicked on the fan forums dedicated to her. The board was very active. Guys posted every day. They loved digging up old pictures of her, old videos, and splicing them next to the most explicit content of her that they could find. The innocent vs ruined dichotomy.
They loved how she was reluctant now. They perceived her initial supposed consent to the gangrape in her apartment to be a one time mistake, a disastrous slip up that had spiraled far out of her control, that she didn't know how far it would go, and that she wished she could take it back. They loved that she was a punished whore, forced to keep living with the consequences of past fucks ups. Her reluctance was exactly what made it hot to them. She could tell they were all closeted sadists, cowards who had finally found a victim who couldn't fight back, who they could take out all their sexual frustrations and aggressions on without any consequences to themselves. The kind of thing they would probably love to do to all kinds of women they knew in their personal lives, but would never be able to. That's why she had developed such a dedicated fanbase online. She attracted every type of guy like that out there. She was the only person they would ever get the opportunity to take it all out on.