Chapter 3: The Desperate Return
Sheila spent the next three days in a self-imposed purification ritual. The horror of that morning—the vomit, the shocked recoil from her own reflection, the digital evidence staring back—had seared itself into her nerves.She deleted the forum bookmark. She cleared her browser history so violently she almost cracked the mouse. She stripped her bed, bundled every item of clothing from the floor into a industrial washing machine, and scrubbed her skin raw in the communal showers until it was pink and stinging.
Yes, she had experienced an incredible orgasm. For those blinding, convulsing moments, the whispering chorus of butter face had been drowned out by a louder, baser roar of approval.She hadn’t felt ugly.She had felt worshipped.But the cost. The pixelated afterimage was a swarm of grotesques.Fat, disgusting, perverted men. Their usernames—ThroatGoat69, DickDamage, LoadMaster—echoed like obscene nursery rhymes.Her private message inbox had been a sewer. The unsolicited dick pics, dozens of them, slack and veiny and angled poorly against stained bathroom tiles or hairy stomachs, would have made any woman gag. One had been captioned simply, ‘This is for that pretty starfish.’ She had dry-heaved over her keyboard.It was a moment of profound weakness.A breakdown. A chemical reaction of heartbreak and alcohol. She vowed, with the frantic fervor of a convert, to never visit that forum again.Her life would return to its proper axis: studies, work, routine. The quiet, ignored girl in the baggy clothes.That was safety.That was who she was.
She became a ghost in the library. She arrived at opening, claimed the same carrel in a shadowy corner, and left only when the final announcement echoed through the stacks. She filled notebooks with precise, meticulous script.She highlighted textbooks until the pages glowed neon. She drank black coffee and ate protein bars, fueling a machine of focused erasure. If she could just fill every waking second with the dry, clean syntax of academia, she could smother the memory of her own choked screams, the feeling of cold air on unprecedented skin.
On Friday afternoon, the library hummed with the lazy pre-weekend energy she usually found comforting. Her Philosophy of Law text was open, her glasses sliding down her nose.She was underlining a passage on precedent when she heard it. A familiar, light laugh, tinged with a performative cleverness.Derek.Her pen froze. Her blood became a slow, cold sludge in her veins.She didn’t want to look. She must not look.But her head, as if tugged by a malicious string, lifted an inch. Across the open study area, near the periodicals, Derek leaned against a table. He was close to a girl—a waifish blonde with a high ponytail and a lavender sweater dress that clung to a frame so slight it seemed sketched.She was pretty.Delicately, conventionally pretty. She was laughing at something he said, touching his arm.
Sheila’s heart didn’t break.It sank.A stone dropped into a black, icy well inside her chest. It had been less than a week. A handful of days since he told her she was “sweet but not stimulating,” since he packed his things from their shared off-campus apartment and left her with a pat on the shoulder.And here he was, already curated a replacement. A prettier, skinnier, better model.
As if sensing the weight of her stare, Derek’s gaze flickered away from the blonde girl, scanning the room.It passed over Sheila’s corner. It swept across her hunched form, her mousy hair, her glasses, her oversized cardigan. There was not a flicker of recognition. No guilt, no pity, not even the faint irritation of seeing a forgotten obligation. His eyes moved over her as if she were a piece of furniture, a stack of unremarkable books, and returned to the bright, smiling face of the girl in the lavender dress.
The dismissal was absolute.It was more final than any breakup speech. In that effortless non-glance, he erased her entirely.
A high, thin whine started in Sheila’s ears, the precursor to a scream or a faint.She couldn’t breathe. The careful world she had rebuilt over three days of frantic study shattered like cheap glass.The library’s warmth turned suffocating. The words on her page blurred into a gray smear.She snapped her book shut. The sound was too loud, a gunshot in the quiet.A few students looked up, annoyed. Derek and the blonde girl did not.
She stood, her legs shaky, and shoved her things into her backpack with clumsy, violent motions.She didn’t zip it. She just hugged the pile to her chest and walked, fast, eyes burning, towards the heavy glass doors. She kept her head down, tears already spilling hot and silent onto the cover of her textbook. She pushed through the doors into the crisp afternoon, and then she ran.
Sobs wracked her body as she stumbled across campus, barely seeing the paths, the students, the blooming trees. The images collided in a sick montage: Derek’s indifferent face.The blonde’s slender wrist on his arm. The filthy comments from men whose names were jokes. Her own naked, wanton body arched over a desk. They were opposites, these two rejections—one cold and aesthetic, the other hot and obscene—but they fed the same black hole inside her.She was nothing to Derek. She was only a body to the forum.Either way, she—the person—was irrelevant.
She burst into her dormitory, flew up the stairs, and fumbled her key into the lock. She slammed the door behind her and slid down it, her backpack spilling its contents across the floor. She drew her knees up, buried her face, and wept great, heaving sobs that felt ripped from her core. The room, her sanctuary of studied normalcy, now felt like a sarcophagus.The neat stacks of books mocked her.The empty coffee cup was a monument to wasted effort.
After a long time, the storm subsided into hiccupping shudders. She was empty.Hollowed out. The shame from the forum, which she had tried to bury with discipline, was now dwarfed by this new, more public humiliation. Derek hadn’t just moved on; he had demoted her to a non-entity in his world. And the only people who had ever looked at her with anything resembling desire were the grotesques online.
A cold, clear resolve crystallized from the emotional wreckage.It wasn’t resolve to be better. It was resolve to be something else.
She wiped her face with the back of her hand, smearing tears and snot.She stood up on unsteady legs. She walked to her closet and pushed aside the baggy sweaters, the shapeless jeans. From the very back, she pulled out the only thing she owned that wasn't meant to hide: a little black dress, bought for a cousin’s wedding two years ago and never worn since.It was simple, but it was cut close. She shed her cardigan, her t-shirt, her khakis.She let them pool on the floor.
She looked at herself in the full-length mirror taped to her closet door. The woman reflected was a stranger—puffy-eyed, hair a mess, but her body… her body was full and soft and, in the muted light, undeniable.The dress slid over her hips with a whisper. The fabric strained slightly across her breasts, the neckline plunging just enough to show the shadowed valley between them.It ended mid-thigh.She had never shown so much leg.
She didn’t put on any other clothes.Just the dress. She dug through the discarded laundry pile and found the black lace thong from that night. She put it on, the sensation a dark whisper against her skin.She didn't bother with shoes.She walked to her desk.She opened her laptop. The screen glowed to life, a portal.She did not open her school portal. She opened a private browser window. Her fingers, still trembling but now with a different energy, typed in the forum address from memory.It loaded.The familiar, crude banner.The list of threads.
The list of threads. Her own was still there, bumped down but not gone.The title, ‘POST YOUR PIC. GET HONEST FEEDBACK.NO HOLDS BARRED,’ now looked like an indictment. She clicked it.The page loaded, a cascade of images and text.Her images. Her exposed flesh, frozen in digital submission.The comments had continued without her.
Her breath came in short, sharp pulls.She scrolled past the old vulgarities, the ratings, the demands. Her cursor hovered over the reply box.What could she possibly say?What was left? Derek’s blank face swam before her eyes.The blonde’s laughter echoed. The hollow ache in her chest expanded, a void that needed filling with anything—any feeling, any proof she existed.
SHEILA DON’T KNOW WHAT TO WRITE, SHE SAT AT HER LAPTOP IN TEARS. SHE CAME BACK TO THIS FORUM DESPERATE FOR VALIDATION. ALL SHE WROTE WAS, “I FEEL LIKE A FAT DISGUSTING COW. THIS DRESS LOOKS RIDICULOUS ON ME”
She hit post. The words, a raw slab of self-loathing, appeared at the bottom of the thread.For a moment, nothing. Then, the page refreshed.A reply.Then another.
User: ThroatGoat69: There she is.My slut came back.Post a pic of the dress. Let us be the judges.User: LoadMaster: You’re not fat, you’re perfect. You’re a fucking meal.Show us the dress.Now.
User: DickDamage: Bet the dress is fighting a losing battle against that ass.I want to see it stretched tight. Post it, cow.The word ‘cow’ should have felt like a knife twist.It did. But it also felt like an acknowledgment.They saw her.They named her. Their commands were immediate, a script for her to follow. The tears were still wet on her cheeks, but a different heat was gathering low in her belly. She stood up, stepped back from the desk, and turned her phone’s camera on herself.
The photo captured her full length: puffy eyes, trembling lip, the cling of black fabric over her heavy curves.She looked devastated and voluptuous. She sent it.The forum erupted.User: Rex_Havoc: FUCK.YES. That dress is begging to be ripped off.You look incredible.User: DankKnight99: See?Not ridiculous. Tits look like they’re gonna spill out.That’s a good thing.
User: ThroatGoat69: Good girl.Now take it off.Slowly. We want to see everything the dress was hiding.Her hands shook as she reached for the side zipper. The metallic sound was loud in the quiet room. She peeled the dress down her shoulders, letting it catch on her breasts before pushing it further. It pooled at her feet, leaving her in only the black lace thong.She took another picture, her body pale and trembling in the monitor’s glow.
“Thank you,” she typed, the words feeling absurd and necessary.
User: LoadMaster: You’re welcome, slut.Now the underwear.Take that filthy lace off your fat cunt.
A violent shiver ran through her.This was it.The threshold. She hooked her thumbs into the sides of the thong and pushed it down her hips.She stepped out of it, naked. The air was cool on her skin, raising goosebumps.She was completely exposed, more than last time. There was no whiskey blur now, only a terrible, sober clarity.She took the picture. Her pubic hair was a dark triangle.Her folds glistened faintly.She uploaded it.
User: DickDamage: Perfect.Now touch yourself.Show us how wet you are for us. Let us see.Her obedience was automatic now. She sank into her desk chair, the wood cold against her ass.She spread her legs wide, aiming the phone between them. Her fingers parted her own lips, revealing the slick, pink flesh within.She clicked the shutter.The response was instantaneous.
User: ThroatGoat69: FUCK.I can smell that through the screen.Rub your clit. Make that fat pussy juice for us.She did. Her middle finger found her clit, swollen and throbbing.A low moan escaped her as she began to circle it. The physical sensation was a roaring counterpoint to the emotional wreckage.It was all that existed.
“I’m so wet,” she typed with her free hand.
User: Rex_Havoc: Prove it.Put your fingers inside.Get them messy.She pushed two fingers into her cunt. It was a tight, wet slide. She pulled them out, coated in her own slickness, and held them up to the camera before slowly pushing them back in. The squelching sound was obscenely loud.User: DankKnight99: Goddamn. I want to taste that.Bet you taste like heaven, you dirty cow.
“I want someone to taste me,” she wrote, the fantasy forming as she typed it. “I want a fat, hungry man to eat my pussy until I scream.”
User: LoadMaster: That’s what you need. A real man who appreciates a feast.Are you fucking yourself with those fingers?
“Yes,” she replied.Her fingers worked in and out, faster now. Her thumb pressed hard on her clit.User: DickDamage: Add another.Stretch that hole. Think about a thick cock fucking it open.A whimper broke from her lips.She forced a third finger inside herself. The stretch was intense, burning, perfect.Her hips bucked off the chair, driving her fingers deeper.
“It’s so full,” she typed, her words becoming fragmented.
User: ThroatGoat69: Now play with your ass.You remember.Touch that tight little starfish.
Her breath hitched.She pulled her soaked fingers from her cunt and reached behind. The tip of her middle finger found the clenched, forbidden knot of her asshole.She pressed. It resisted, then yielded just slightly.
“I’m touching it,” she reported, a fresh wave of shameful arousal drenching her.User: Rex_Havoc: Good slut. Now imagine it’s my tongue.Imagine me spreading your fat ass cheeks and eating both of your holes.
The image was visceral, crude, overwhelmingly arousing. She pictured a large, anonymous man behind her, his face buried in her, his hands gripping her hips. Her finger pushed deeper into her own ass as her other hand returned to her clit, mashing it in frantic circles.
“I’m gonna cum,” she typed, her vision blurring.User: LoadMaster: Cum for us, cow. Squirt that juice all over your chair.Make a mess for us.The command unleashed her. Her body locked, back arching violently. A raw, guttural scream tore from her throat as the orgasm detonated through her, a seismic wave of pure, degrading release. Her cunt clenched around nothing, pulsing wildly, as her asshole tightened viscously around her invading finger. Wetness gushed from her, soaking the chair beneath her with a hot, shameful flood.
She collapsed forward, forehead smacking the desk, sobbing. The physical convulsions subsided, leaving her hollowed out and trembling.The screen was still alive with their praise.
User: DickDamage: Knew she’d gush.Perfect slut.User: ThroatGoat69: Mine. All mine.She could not move.The stickiness between her legs cooled. The hollow feeling returned, wider and deeper than before, now lined with the slick evidence of her compliance. She had fed the beast.It was still hungry. And so, she now understood with a terrifying certainty, was she.
And so, she now understood with a terrifying certainty, was she.
Sheila closed her laptop.The sudden silence was a physical weight. She caught her breath, the air sharp in her lungs, tasting of salt and her own musk. Her body was a map of wetness, the chair beneath her cool and sticky.
Her phone went off, a jarring synth ringtone that sliced through the quiet.She flinched, fumbling for it on the desk. The screen read MOM.She swallowed, trying to force her voice into something normal. “Hello?”
“Sheila!Hi!” Her mother’s voice was bright, tinny through the speaker. “Don’t forget, Uncle Barry is dropping off some of the FAFSA paperwork today. At 6 PM today.Be nice to him, honey. He’s doing me a favor.”
Sheila’s eyes darted to the clock on her screen.5:42 PM. Her blood went cold.“Today?Now?” she stammered.“Yes, today! I texted you this morning.Did you not get it?He should be there any minute. Just sign where the yellow tabs are and he’ll take it back to me. Love you!”
The line went dead.That was in 20 minutes.No, less.Now.
Panic, clean and visceral, erased the lingering haze of desire.Sheila scrambled. She shoved her laptop off the chair and onto the bed.She righted the toppled whiskey bottle from three nights ago and shoved it under the bed. She grabbed a used towel from the floor and swabbed frantically at the damp patch on the seat of her chair. The framed photo of her and Derek facedown on the rug she kicked under the desk.She didn’t have time to change. She couldn’t be naked when he arrived.The little black dress was a damp heap by her feet. She snatched it up, the fabric clinging to her sweaty skin as she yanked it back on.The thong. Where was it? She saw the black lace a few feet away, a puddle of sin on the industrial carpet.She picked it up and stepped into it, pulling it up her thighs.
Her pussy was still soaking.The evidence of her orgasm slicked her inner thighs. The thin lace immediately absorbed it, becoming a soaked, transparent web against her skin. The sensation was unmistakable, a secret shame pressed flush against her.Uncle Barry was a large, fat man. He had always creeped her out at family holiday dinners.His hugs lingered. His small eyes, buried in a florid face, seemed to track her movements from the corner of the La-Z-Boy. He smelled of cigarillos and peppermint chewing tobacco.
Sheila stood in the center of the marginally cleaner room, her heart hammering. She didn’t know why, but she walked to her small dresser mirror. Her reflection was a mess: tear-streaked, hair wild, eyes wide with panic.She looked unraveled.Exposed, even in the dress.
She opened a makeup bag.With trembling hands, she applied concealer under her eyes. She swept on a blush, too bright, like two fever spots on her cheeks. A slash of red lipstick, something she never wore, completed the mask.It wasn’t an improvement.It was a transformation. The plain girl was gone, painted over with something desperate and vivid.
The dorm’s entry buzzer screeched through the room, harsh and final.She jumped, her whole body electric.He was here.
She stared at her reflection, the stranger with the red lips and the soaked lace between her legs. The hollow ache inside her, the one Derek left and the forum had only temporarily filled, yawned wide open.It was a void that demanded to be filled, by anything, by anyone. The memory of the comments—a feast, a meal, perfect—echoed not from the screen now, but from the buzzing intercom downstairs.Uncle Barry was a large, fat man. A man society overlooked.A man who might crave.She took a deep, shattering breath. Then she walked to the door, her heels clicking on the linoleum, and pressed the button to let him in.
Then she walked to the door, her heels clicking on the linoleum, and pressed the button to let him in.
She stood behind the door, listening to the heavy, labored footsteps ascending the concrete stairs. Each thud was a countdown. The knock was three blunt, meaty raps. She opened the door.
Uncle Barry filled the frame, his bulk blocking the fluorescent light from the hallway. He was sweating lightly, his polo shirt strained over a round stomach. His eyes, small and dark, didn’t meet hers. They traveled down, a slow, deliberate scan from her smudged eyes to her red lips, over the tight black fabric stretched across her chest, down to her bare legs. A thick smile spread across his face.
“Wow Sheila, so you have a hot date tonight? Or going clubbing? With an outfit like that looks you’re dressed to impress.”
His voice was a wheezy baritone. Uncle Barry had always repulsed Sheila. The memory of his damp hugs at Christmas, the way his gaze always seemed to settle just a second too long on her chest during summer barbecues, filled her with a cold dread. She would normally cringe at this, but Sheila was starved for attention and validation, even if it was from her creepy uncle. His blatant, undisguised stare didn’t feel like a violation in that moment.
It felt like a confirmation.
“No date,” she heard herself say, her voice oddly steady. She stepped back, granting him entry. “Just… trying something on.”
“Well, hell, it works.” He lumbered in, the small room shrinking instantly with his presence. He carried a manila envelope. The smell of old cigar smoke and spearmint gum clung to him, cutting through the room’s musk of sex and cleaning fluid. His eyes continued their inventory, lingering on the sharp line where the dress hem cut across her thighs.
Sheila closed the door. The click of the lock was deafening. He stood awkwardly in the center of the room, his gaze now drifting to her unmade bed, the single desk chair still slightly askew. “Your mom said you had some papers,” she said, just to say something.
“Right, right.” He thrust the envelope toward her. “Yellow tags. Just sign where it’s flagged.” His eyes were back on her, on the pronounced sway of her hips as she took the envelope and placed it on the desk without looking. Her movements felt performed, conscious of an audience.
“Thanks for bringing them,” she said, turning back to face him. She leaned against the edge of the desk, consciously arching her back just a little. The forum commands whispered in her head. Show us what you have. Let us see. Barry’s tongue, faintly pink, darted out to wet his lips.
“No problem. No problem at all.” He shifted his weight, his hands burying themselves in the pockets of his khakis. A strained silence ballooned between them, thick and charged. “So… things okay? With school and all?”