The Skunge by Jeff Barr Read Free Book Online Page A

going to be a long night , she thought.
    Sugar pouted and pretended to tear up, moaning about her lack of real friends (the sub-text being that her viewers were her real friends; that brought her twenty dollars or so in sympathy tips, which she accepted while swiping away tears), and that she couldn't find a good, date-able man anywhere. That part, of course, was true: Los Angeles was a moral tar pit, attracting those whose ethical and intellectual paucity mirrored that of the city itself. The men (and women) here were as sweet and desirable on the outside as chocolate Easter bunnies, and just as hollow inside.
    BRB ALL, GETTING TISSUES, SORRY, ROUGH DAY she typed. She moped off screen, and as soon as she was clear, gave her laptop the finger and hopped to the stereo to put on some music. Her fake depression was turning into a real melancholy, so she put on an old punk album to keep her energy up. She would have to pretend to bounce back from her sadness once the tokens reached an adequate level. The downside to the 'lonely-girl show', as she called it, was that she did tend to get a bit introspective. Maybe all of it was starting to get to her. She felt pressure building in her head. It was a feeling she had grown used to over the years; it had begun at the age of eight or so. A tightness at the back of her skull, a headache, and a rising urge to let off the pressure.
    She sang along with her MP3 players, a song about a girl who's afraid of the world so she stays at home. She poured herself a Diet Coke and made a face at her reflection, mirrored in the steel surface of the fridge. She looked tired. Maybe it was time for a vacation. She had saved enough for a tit-job, which she could leverage later into more roles, but her B cups were still pulling good money for 'teen' porn. More than the steroidal, frightening tit-queens with their tanned, taut, basketball-sized breasts.
    She didn't want to be off-cam for too long, but she needed a moment to herself, just to let off the pressure. She stole into the bathroom, and sat on the edge of the tub. She pinned up her hair, opened a drawer and brought out a rolled bundle of fabric. Unwinding it, she exposed razor blades, a lighter, and gauze pads. She flicked the lighter, fascinated as always by the licking orange tongues of flame. She held the razor to the fire. She held it, long past the point where the metal heated past discomfort and into the realm of pain. Her fingers sang with heat, the flesh growing red and tight.
    She reached behind her neck and ran the blade across the top of her neck, where the blond hair ended and her skin began. A quick line of pain, thin as spider-silk, burned across her neck. Then another. The sting reached her brain and sent tingles through the back of her head, like someone running their fingers through her hair. The pleasure mixed with the sting of the cuts, sending bolts of
    nostalgia
    some unnamed sensation down her spine. She sighed with real feeling; years of cutting, and the feeling hadn't yet lessened. Other than this, she felt nothing other than boredom or a loose, unfocused depression and a feeling of time passing like the white lines of a highway. She blotted at the burning red lines with the gauze, drawing the blood up and out. She set aside the gauze, red side up, counting the number of lines. Never less than four; she liked round numbers, but of course odd ones would do, if there were enough of them. Tonight she didn't have time for more than six. Six clean cuts, six hisses of pain and release, six blotted lines on the white gauze.
    A loud ping sounded from the computer in the living room. She sighed as she stashed away her cutting tools. She had set up a sound alert when one of her 'whales' entered her chatroom. She had a few; just enough to keep her busy without working too hard. Some girls had dozens. Whales spent lots of money on their favorite girls, and they were When she saw who it was, she smiled. HARDC71 was his screen name, and he