Live, Laugh, Locked Ch. 06

Tuesday morning, I gave my key back to Claire as planned.

The night before, I'd made full use of my key until my body was entirely worn out. Since I was about to make my commitment to chastity known to the world, I felt unashamed that I spent all of yesterday evening on my back on top of my plush bed indulging myself. By the time I'd finished, I was sore and sweaty, feeling like I'd rubbed myself entirely raw. I couldn't remember any other time that I'd wasted so much time, touching myself until I felt exhausted. I'd planned to sleep without my belt on as well, figuring I could just wait until morning to recommit to this lifestyle, but I actually struggled falling asleep without it. Over the past few weeks, I'd already grown so accustomed to feeling the locking mechanism's firm embrace around my waist. After an hour or so of trying to fall asleep without it, I got up and allowed it to hold itself against my body and locked it in place. I quickly fell sound asleep.

In the morning, I still felt completely satisfied, like I'd worked my body so hard the night before that I'd emptied out all of my urges completely. This made it easy to hand my key back over to Claire. Not only was I still satisfied, but I also had time to think about all of the time I wasted yesterday reaching that satisfaction. I know I'd given myself a pass yesterday, but it still reminded me how I can behave in private without the belt. A pure, upstanding woman like me can't spend hours penetrating herself. She especially can't moan like I did last night, as if there was no risk of her neighbors hearing her and judging her for it. All of this was such a good reminder of why exactly I had to hand my key over to her for safe keeping.

When I handed my key to her, she zipped it securely inside an interior pocket of her purse and asked me when I'd want it back. "Let's say two weeks from now?" I replied. She smiled and pulled out her planner, writing "Bring Holly's key" down on the agreed upon day. I blushed seeing the plan actually being written down like that.

"I just want to be sure I don't forget," Claire said, noticing my embarrassment

"It's fine, Claire, really. There's just a lot to get used to. Thousands of people will know soon enough, seeing it written down really shouldn't be any big thing for me"

"I'm uploading that video on Sunday night, right? I know you told me not to ask, but I'd feel like a bad friend if I didn't ask just one final time if you really want to go through with this."

"Yes, Claire. I'm absolutely sure." Any other day I would have been annoyed at her for asking. I made her promise to just go through with it so I didn't have a chance to back out from what I knew I had to do. Today, however, was the perfect day to ask; with my behavior last night, I had no reservations whatsoever.

It wasn't until I began the drive home that it really dawned on me that I wouldn't see my key again until after the video went up. After then, anyone who cared to look would be able to watch me look into the camera and confess my masturbation habit and share the details of the new belt that solved my embarrassing, shameful problem. There's sure to be some of the usual rude comments from online trolls who randomly find my video, but I was sure most of the few thousand views we'd get would be from people who at least understand why I'm doing this. Besides, my fears about the video were probably just my pride talking again. My most popular video ever was still sitting at just 200,000 views; I'm not famous enough to draw that much attention. How many people could possibly care about one girl talking about how she doesn't want to masturbate as much?

I would find out how much people cared in six days, on Sunday night. I couldn't think of much else until I did.

*Monday Morning*

I woke to my alarm Monday morning. In the middle of the night, I'd rolled over onto my stomach on top of my padlock, leaving its rectangular imprint on my soft skin. It took me a moment to gather my bearings, forgetting for a few blissful moments that this morning was different from any other Monday morning. I stretched as my memories quickly came together to remind me that the video had gone live at midnight, while I slept.

I reached for my phone on my nightstand, my stomach in knots in my throat, totally unsure what I might see. My heart sank immediately when I opened the screen; there were more notifications on my screen that I'd ever seen. Dozens of emails, texts, and missed calls along with hundreds of comment notifications. The video had only been up for a few hours in the dead of the night so far, what could possibly have happened?

I checked my missed calls first, most of them were from Claire trying to get ahold of me in the middle of the night. She'd left multiple voicemails, but I ignored them; whatever their contents, I knew they couldn't be good. Her most recent text was from just a half hour ago telling me that half a million people had already seen the video. I was stunned. I felt like I was about to pass out. How could so many people have seen it already? This was more views that I usually get in months and they'd all come in in a single night.

Gathering myself, I called Claire. She'd clearly been watching this happen, she'd be able to fill me in. She answered the phone, sounding panicked, on the verge of tears. I tried to keep my voice as calm as I could to help reassure her, but there was only so much I could do to suppress the fear when I asked "Claire, what's happening?" She stumbled through her explanation that the video had exploded, thousands of views a minute and I'd just started trending on Twitter. I nervously asked if she could tell how it was being received.

"Everyone seems to be taking it... better than I expected." She replied. I could tell she was sincere, but the weighty pause in her response made it clear that she had pretty dire expectations when she first saw all of the attention.

"Oh, well, that's good to hear..." I said, automatically. My mind was already racing to a million other things. "Claire, let's cancel filming today. We've got a lot to figure out first."

"Oh, about that," Claire replied, "Mr. Gardner already called me and said we shouldn't film anything else until we meet with him. He wants us at his office Wednesday morning. He said we aren't fired, but he hung up right after. I... I'm really sorry, Holly." Mr. Gardner was the owner of the network that supported us. Without him, our channel could never make the money it needed to to be close to viable.

"Okay, I'll see you then I guess." I said feebly, before hanging up and burying my face back in my pillows. I laid there for an hour with thoughts coming and going so fast that my mind felt entirely blank, enable to grab hold of any one though for more than a moment. Even while I had my face hidden to the world like that, thousands more people saw my confession. Why didn't I think this was a possibility? Before Wednesday, I'd have to start sorting through the fallout, figuring out what exactly the situation was before meeting Mr. Gardner. How could I possibly explain this to him? I'd have to figure that out soon, but for now, all I could do was stay here and hide from the attention I'd wished for and now received.