Haunted Mirror Ch. 07

As they talked, Vivian logged onto her laptop. It didn't take her long to find the website. Sure enough, there was her smiling, topless figure in all her splendor! She was on the front page! Even though the article had been posted only two hours ago, the view counter showed the article had been getting plenty of traffic.

"Holy shit, there I am! Oh, geez... do you think my nipples look a little TOO large in that pic?"

"Large and in charge! No, seriously, it's kind of impressive! I really like what your nipples have been doing lately! I'm kind of jealous of them. And I might have to... you know... 'use' that picture later if we don't end up seeing each other tonight. You wouldn't mind, would you?"

"I have a funny feeling you won't be the only one 'using' that picture. But, sure, you have my permission on one condition: You have to tell me about every naughty thought you have while looking at my picture... in explicit detail."

"Oh dear. That could be a bit personal. But it's a deal!"

"I look forward to your full report! Maybe... OH MY GOD!!! OLIVIA!!! HOLY SHIT!!!"

"What? What?"

As they had been chatting and joking, Vivian had decided to check up on her Instagram. She had gotten some good publicity that day, which she was hoping would reflect in her numbers.

"I GOT TWO-HUNDRED NEW FOLLOWERS SINCE THIS MORNING!!! And they're still coming in!"

"Whoa, congrats! Sounds like your publicity stunt paid off."

"I think I might have hit a threshold! Holy shit, Olivia, I think this might be it! I might get monetized! Shoot, I need to get to work. It's not just followership they look for, but engagement, too. I need to reply to these people."

"All right, superstar! You go address your adoring fans! Good luck, and congrats again!"

They ended their call. This was going to be a while, so before she got started on her notifications, Vivian got up to grab a seltzer water from the fridge, but reconsidered and uncorked a bottle of wine. She had had enough alcohol today, but she figured half a glass was in order. Still grinning from ear to ear, she sat down and got to work.

As she read through the new comments, nearly all of them referenced the news article. Most of them were praise for her brave, inspiring words during the interview. There were a few comments calling her beautiful, and a few were a bit hornier. There were also a couple of comments attempting to shame her for "attention whoring" and going "full slut." Well, she was quite used to criticism, and followers were followers. She responded to the positive comments and ignored the rest.

But as she scrolled through her notifications, she saw a comment that made her heart skip a beat.

"Is this the same girl that got her boob stuck to a pole?" the comment read. 'stuck to a pole' was a hyperlink. There were several comments following it.

"HOLY SHIT LOLOLOL! htf u get ur boob stuck to a pole in the summer?"

"Super glue?"

"It was a prank dumbass. It was a fake rubber titty. I saw a TikTok where some kid did the same thing with a rubber tongue."

That wasn't good. Though she feared the worst, she hovered her mouse over the hyperlink, and it seemed to direct to a website called The Manhattan Expositor. She hesitated, then forced herself to click. Once the website loaded, she slapped her hand over her face and cringed.

XXX-MAS STORY:

Topless woman gets stuck to a pole... IN AUGUST???

Below the embarrassing headline was a full screen, censored picture of her from the incident. Most fortunately, her face was blurred out. Her left nipple had been covered up with a blushing hearts-for-eyes emoji, while the right had been covered with a tongue-stuck-to-a-pole one. The cartoon tongue stretched all along the length of her nipple until it connected with the pole. Though all the nipple was covered, the visible portions of her breast were clearly stretched like taffy.

There didn't seem to be any personally identifying information in the brief article, though 'topless girl wandering around the streets of Manhattan' kind of narrowed it down, especially to anyone who had seen both articles. The website seemed like some small-time trash rag, but with no view counter, there was way to tell how many people had seen this. There were several comments, all of them showing the maturity and grammar skills one would expect from visitors to news sites like this.

"SERIOUSLY? God dammit, Abigail!" she groaned, and slammed her forehead down on her keyboard.