CHAPTER ELEVEN
Melanie
Ah, Virginia. It was nothing like California, the sun mild instead of bright, the quad filled with leafy trees and imposing stone buildings. I liked it. I’d forgotten how regal Trinity was, the elite, private school feel permeating my bones.
I logged onto my computer and immediately received a “ping” in gchat from a user named johnc1995.
“Hey girl,” the message read. “Shake that a$$, luv seeing you on-screen.”
Whatevs. Probably just some horny dude in Indonesia spamming whoever and whatever, hoping to get a reply.
But another anonymous chat request came in minutes later, this time from Bobbyboy321.
“So is your stage name MelMelMel?” read the text. “Or was that just a random tag?”
What the? Who were these dudes and what were they talking about?
“Lauren,” I called. “What were the names of those two frat boys you mentioned over the phone?”
“Matt Parker and Rick Donovan,” she replied, glancing up from her textbook. “Why? Did they contact you?”
“No,” I replied. “But two anonymous dickheads just spammed me. Probably just randoms,” I sighed.
To be sure though, I flipped over to Trinity’s online facebook and looked up the two Sigma Chi guys. They were meatheads, typical frat boy types wearing backwards baseball caps with sloppy grins. Good-looking in their own cocky way, but definitely not desperate enough to be sending misspelled, poorly punctuated gchat texts.
But things just got weirder as the day went on. As I walked to campus for the exam, people stared at me, standing in huddles, stopping to whisper as I walked past. Wtf? Maybe it was my imagination.
But it was even worse when I walked into the classroom. A hush descended over the crowd, and people literally turned around in their seats to look at me, craning their necks my way. Fortunately, the exam was about to begin, so I took a seat in the back and pulled out my blue book, reminding myself to focus on the task at hand.
But the whispers and weird looks started up again after the exam was over. Walking back to my dorm, again I noticed hushed voices and curious looks from total strangers, people I didn’t know. Okay, this was definitely not my imagination and was getting seriously creepy.
When I got back, Lauren stopped me at the door, her face pale.
“Mel,” she said slowly. “There’s something you need to see.”
She swiveled her monitor so that it faced me, and surfed over to a website called Nubile Girls. Oh my god. She scrolled down to a still, and all I could see was a cunny held apart by fingers, the folds dripping and wet. Frankly, it looked kinda hot.
“So what?” I asked. “What does this have to do with me?”
Instead of answering, Lauren pressed play. Moans began to filter out … breathy, sexy, feminine, and all too familiar. I froze in shock, desperate to stop this from happening, telling myself this was some kind of horrific nightmare. But the camera panned up, tracing over that creamy body, lovingly zooming in on the brunette’s breasts before capturing her face. It was me! There was live video of me on the internet, masturbating for the world to see!
“What the fuck!” I screamed. “This is my audition video for the Donkey Club! How could it have gotten out?” I shrieked.
“I have no idea,” rushed Lauren. “I swear, I don’t know. It must have been that skeeze Ralph … but Mel, I have no idea why. I mean, he sees dozens of girls a week, he’s gotta have hundreds of these videos. Why would he leak yours?”
The blood drained from my face and I hyperventilated, an iron vise constricting around my chest, my heart beating so loud that it thundered in my ears. I sat on my bed, trying to think straight while images of my naked, flushed body continued to twist on screen.
Holy fucking shit. This is why people had been staring at me. I’d been outed as a stripper, or even worse, as a porn actress. How had this happened? I started crying, my shoulders heaving uncontrollably, the sobs so hard and fierce that they made my chest hurt, my throat squeezing shut so I could barely breathe.
“I’m going to be labeled a stripper and a whore! My life is over,” I wailed, not caring who heard in our dorm.
Lauren came to sit beside me.
“Mel, calm down,” she pleaded. “I mean, I’m sure we can get the tape back, ask the site to take down the video, whatever. It’s not that bad.”
That didn’t make me feel better and I turned on her in a rage.
“Not that bad? What the hell are you talking about? This is your fucking fault!” I screamed. “I only did the audition because you said everything was going to be fine! And now look what’s happened … I’m a whore for the entire student body to see!”
“I know, I know, I know,” she soothed, trying to calm me. “I swear I had no idea. Ralph has a tape of me as well, I don’t know why he leaked yours.”
But I was inconsolable.
“What do I do now?” I shrieked, the hysteria making my voice shrill and harpy-like. “Tell me! Tell me what I do now with my life since I’m the official Trinity fuckslut!”
“We’ll call Ralph,” she said hurriedly. “I’m sure he can pull some strings and get that video taken down.”
I sat on my bed, sobbing as my head spun. Ralph was a mid-level manager, seedy and disreputable. The people that I needed were my brothers … stet.
“Get out,” I snarled at Lauren. “Get out of my sight, now.” And she scrambled away, trying to get out of the line of fire, giving me my space.
When Saxon picked up, I was already hiccupping into the receiver.
“Melly? Sister?” he rumbled, his voice concerned. “What’s wrong?”
“Brother,” I said pitifully. “Someone … someone leaked my audition tape for the Donkey Club to some porn site, and now everyone at school thinks I’m a porn star,” I cried into the phone. “People were looking at me like I was some kind of slut, a dirty ho,” I sobbed pitifully.
“Shhh, shhh,” he soothed over the phone. “I’m sure it’s not that bad. What site is it again?” he asked.
“Nub … Nubile Girls,” I sniffled, the tears still coming hard and fast. “Brother, it’s so embarrassing! I thought it was just my imagination that people were staring at me today. But strangers are pinging me on email with dirty messages, asking questions like “how does your pussy taste” and texts like that,” I wailed. “How am I going to finish my degree here?”
I could hear my brother typing away as he looked up the site.
“Damn that motherfucker,” he growled. “I’m going to take care of this. Melly, don’t worry,” he said. “Stryke and I are on it. Just sit tight and don’t worry about a thing.”
I hiccupped and said goodbye, weary and mentally exhausted, getting in bed despite the fact that it was only 5 p.m. I could hear pings on my laptop, the relentless dings becoming a veritable storm of chimes until in a rage, I got up and slammed the lid shut.
I knew what it had to be. Thousands of dudes reaching out, commenting on my tits, ass or worse. Now that my body was in the public domain, it seemed that the world owned me, shaming me, groping me with its metaphysical hands.
Oh god I moaned, burying my head in my pillow, hot tears starting again. How could this have happened? I was an innocent girl, a freshman at Trinity, trying to earn money for tuition. How had it gone so wrong? How would I ever face my peers again? I cried myself to sleep, the devastating revelation only subsiding as the darkness of sleep took over.
But things were only worse the next morning. As usual, a copy of USA Today was delivered to our door and I opened it up to find the headline screaming: “IVY LEAGUE STUDENT TURNS PORN STAR: Have tuition increases driven our girls into a life of sin?”
With trembling hands, I forced myself to scan the article. Oh my god, I was on national news, dubbed “The Trinity Whore.” Plus, they had slipped in my real name, Melanie Jones, and given away my address. I’d been doxed. The floor came rushing up at me as I collapsed into a heap.