Stiffed

"Come on," he coaxes, with nimble fingers that dance across the keyboard. "That can't be your real name."

"It is!" Her response flashes in his periphery. He's already taken her latest image - her mouth around a lollipop, petite body dressed in all white - and run it through the deep-fake program. He could pay to unlock the explicit stuff, but he doesn't spend money on his Onlyfans girls.

He suckles his bottom lip as he waits for the image to generate, and types, "No mother would call their daughter Butterscotch."

"I think it's cute." Her reply comes through at the same time as the deep-fake, and he pauses to indulge the naked pixels. He begins rubbing, but his enjoyment abruptly stops when he notices an inconsistency. The latest AI has endowed her with double-d's, but he knows full well that she's a c-cup. He closes the image, and sighs.

His fingers glaze the keyboard once more, drawing a fresh silver trail in their wake, "I bet your name's even cuter."

"I guess you'll never know."

He perks up, unfurling his rumpled body ever so slightly. "Let me guess then," he says, heart thumping.

There's a long pause. So long that he thinks she's logged off, but the green light still pulses, showing her online status. He's about to return to the AI image to continue his pleasure, until finally;

"You have three nights. As many guesses as you want before midnight, but you can't copy and paste from some list, they have to be actual guesses."

He straightens fully. Butterscotch loves her games, and it wasn't the first time she'd played a guessing game on the platform, but this time it was just for him. He felt seen. Whats more, this was as close as she'd ever come to an admission that she wasn't just a girl on a screen. "And if I get it right?"

Another long pause. She must be thinking.

"You can have all my content for free."

He closes the deep-fake. "Done-" but then he thinks better of it, backspaces, and types, "and if I don't get it right, what do you want?"

"Your first born child."

He snorts, "is that all."

"Just kidding. If you don't guess in three days then you have to pay to unlock everything I've ever posted."

He hesitates. That was over a years worth of content. From a quick scroll through her profile, he estimates that it would cost over two thousand dollars. More than two of his weekly paychecks. He hovers his finger over the send button, and in a swift motion seals his fate.

"Done."

PART 2

He spends the first night sifting through lists of names. He doesn't send them from top to bottom - that would be cheating. Instead, he picks names that capture a 'girl next door' essence, but with a little spice, like Elise, Bella, and Lani.

When none of the names come up fruitful he searches by birth year. She'd never tell, but he assumes she's a millennial, based on her emoji's and early Tumblr aesthetic. He tries Stephanie, and Emily, and is scrolling a list of names based on sitcoms when he recieves a message,"Time's up."

He book marks the list, leaves his conversation with her open to the left of the screen, and displays the folder of deep-fakes to the right. After a few minutes, he's more satisfied than he's been in months.

"Goodnight Butterscotch," he sends, before hitting the pillow.

When he comes home the next night, he decides to be less discerning with his selections. With only 29 hours left before his deadline, he simply couldn't afford it.

Having already disregarded the terms of their agreement, he uses copy and paste to send names in bulk, but he shuffles them, haphazardly, before hitting send. Over a hundred names hit her inbox before she interjects. "Woah there Tiger," she says, "what did we say about lists?"

He hunches closer to the mothlight, "but did I get it right?"

"No. And you've reached your limit."

A pang rings through him. "That wasn't part of the deal."

"Well, it is now."

Her response is uncharacteristically abrupt, and before he has a chance to reply, she's offline. He curses under his breath. In the empty chat, he types out an angry tired - something about her being a bitch - but then deletes it. He types an apology for breaking the rules, but deletes that too.

Shame makes it difficult for him to sleep.

He wakes groggy. Last night, he'd acted in bad faith, and in doing so had risked whatever good-will he had with her, and more importantly, he had wasted valuable hours. He'd be more thorough tonight. He calls in sick, and opens an incognito tab, were he writes, "how to find out someone's identity online."

The search results are unhelpful, "Search online using their name" ... well that wasn't going to work. "Check their social media." He'd tried that. For the better-half of the day, in fact, he'd been blowing up images of her, searching for details like names on a notebook, or an envelope with an address.

Of course, she hadn't left any such trail.

The meaty advice comes in the form of a comment, deep in the bowels of a Reddit forum. Two users discuss reverse image searching, and he knows he's on the right track. He follows their crumbs, all the way to a place he's never been before; the dark-web.

To his credit, he hesitates before going there, but only for a moment. Within the same hour, his story, and Butterscotch's Onlyfans link is shared on a forum, and like flies in heat, the users gather.

"Share your message history," one says, "there might be clues there." He does. "Include the time stamps," leaves another user, "we can get an idea of her location." He does. "Send the deep-fakes," says another, "we can use them for reverse image searches."

He does.

There's a goldrush as girls are linked to in the comments, and more users are drawn in by the intruige. "This could be her if she were thinner," says one user; "This her?" asks another, "Different hair, but could be a wig."

The girls appear in quick succession, but he knows from one glance that none of them are his. Still, he sends through the names of some of the more promising look-a-likes, but to no avail.

"Can I have a clue," he tries.

"Hmm..." there's a pause, "I'll give you a clue one hour before the deadline, how about that?"

He looks at the clock. It was just after ten. The painstaking research meant that he hadn't moved since noon, and his limbs were so stiff that he feared unfulring them would wake the whole neighbourhood. Could he withstand another hour of this torture?

"I really need to get some sleep."

"So you forfiet?"

"No," he says. On the right of his screen, he watches as the comment section cascades with more girls. After correcting some of the less likely matches, the new girls are looking more promising. "But can I transfer the hours to tomorrow?"

"Nope, now or never."

He doesn't like her tone.

He sends more names, knowing they won't be hits, and then tries his luck on a bargain, "double or nothing?" He doesn't have the money, but he's quite sure it's only a matter of time before he'll have what he needs. "If you win, I pay double, if I win, you show me something you've never shown anyone before?"

There's a long silence. Almost an hour passes, and he wonders if she's fallen asleep. But then, an hour before midnight she responds, simply, "no."

"Where's my clue?"

"I don't think I want to give you one."

This time he does unfurl. "Don't be like that."

"I'll be however I want."

Somehow he's made her mad. This happened on occassion; moments in which her sweetness was overshadowed by something that he couldn't predict or understand. She was being petulant, but endless nights of keeping her company meant that he held grace for her. He wouldn't push it further.

He half-heartedly sends names as they come through, up until the last moments before midnight, were he sits, heart in his throat, hoping.

Midnight comes. It's not the grand win he was hoping for, and he wonders if maybe she'll reward him anyway, given his efforts. But, true to her word, she doesn't, and she ends the game with a tense, "time's up."

He closes their conversation, and is about to close the forum when something catches his eye.

"Huh."

PART 3

He wears a suit that day, and cologne that he forgot he had. It's a special day, afterall. He commutes to a coffee shop. He walks in, noticing the waitress beyond the counter. She's lovely, with dark auben hair and familiar cherry-red lips.

Her name badge sits atop her breast, reading "Lilly." He chuckles to himself - old habits die hard.

"What can I get you today?"

Her tone is lovely, too. Not quite like he imagined; there's a slight husk to it that he wouldn't have associated with such a petite woman. He isn't displeased."Do you do syrups?" He asks.

"Sure," she says, with a smile, "we do vanilla, caramel, and chai."

"What about butterscotch?"

She coughs, "do people do that?"

"I suppose not," he says, laughing. "Just a cappuccino then, no sugar."

She types it into the register, and he notices her nail polish. It's the same red from her latest photoset, only it's been warn and chipped away, probably from working the coffee press.

"That'll be $7.20."

He rummages through his pocket, and pulls out an envolope. It's fat. He places it on the counter, and she lifts it open, then slowly pulls back.

"Sorry sir, I don't think we have change for hundreds."

"Oh, that's okay." He pushes the envolope closer, "there's smaller change in there too. Two thousand, eight hundred, and thirty to be exact. Oh, plus the seven twenty for the coffee."

She looks awkward, fidgiting with the edge of the envelope as if he's going to make her sift through it for the change. He chuckles again, "it's yours."

Her doe eyes flutter, searching his for an explanation.

"A promise is a promise. Keep the change, Bethany."