Page 88 of Masks and Mishaps

We’re surrounded by the very people who cannot find out what we’re doing, and the final days of this arrangement will be surreptitious and rushed.

Done.

***

“The reactions are…mixed,” Cora says, as she studies her laptop screen. The rest of our friends arrived at Hawthorn Hall after dinner on Wednesday, and Valeria, Cora, and I (and Pierre) immediately started our end-of-month camming data deep dive.

“They’re positive,” I clarify.

Her eyebrow rises. Cora is brilliant and has a brain for research—and I do realize when I’m being annoying.

“People who are angry are more likely to express their anger through comments because they have nowhere else to do it. People who are happy have two ways to express their feelings: comments or through their money. Look at the profits per viewer.”

Cora’s eyes scan the screen. “Well, shit. Nice job, babe.”

“Can attest,” Valeria chimes in, “that adding a dick to a stream increases profits.”

Right then, Dalton enters the estate’s library where we’ve set up our laptops. He’s holding a plate of cookies and three cups of coffee, and his face lights up when he sees me.

“I’ve been wandering the house for, like, eight minutes looking for you three.” He pauses before he places the plate on the end table between our armchairs. “This is one of those moments when it’s clear I’m super out of touch, isn’t it?”

“Shocked you can hear us over the sound of your portfolio going to the moon,” Cora replies, all sarcasm as usual.

Valeria reaches over and takes one of the cookies. “Dalt, Essie was showing us the numbers from your streams. Congrats.”

Dalton fist bumps her. “Hey, thanks,” he says before he scoops me out of my armchair, sits, and stations me on his lap.

When I shoot him a look, he shrugs. “You’re not worried someone is going to walk in?”

“To the library?” He frowns. “Why would someone come to the library? To…read?”

“Anyway,” I cut in before Cora can verbally flay him for the question, “we’re ahead on my revenue projection.”

He parses the numbers on my forecast spreadsheet. “I hate that cut. Do you three seriously give the site that much moneyevery time?” He reaches over to pet Pierre’s head, giving Valeria a break from guarding the cookies. “I wouldn’t stand for that shit.”

“There’s no alternative. This is the largest camming site and the customer base is here,” Cora replies.

“Which is frustrating because this isn’t complex tech. It’s video and image hosting with payment transactions. I could replicate it in a couple weeks—tops. Any compsci major could.”

“At least they give you the analytics,” Dalton mentions.

“No, I steal that,” I admit. “I figured out a login to the developer portal, and I pull the data every month.”

Dalton’s eyebrow could high-five commercial airline pilots. “Wait, so the only reason you three were able to have a productive business conversation just now is because you took data that should have been yours in the first place,” he recaps. “But you’re stuck with this site because they own the market.”

“Basically,” Cora replies while Valeria nods.

“That’s predatory as fuck.”

“We know,” I assure him. “Our bodies bring the customers. If we all went to another site, this one would be worthless. Their entire business model relies on us.”

My comment is met with silence. We all know the problem: There’s no alternative. We’re stuck with a single option we’ve learned to make work, but it doesn’t allow most women to make camming into a career without questionable data acquisition and the expertise the three of us bring.

Exhaling, Dalton slides me back onto the chair and goes over to a glass cabinet built into one of the shelves. “Exploitation makes me tense,” he explains before he selects an old liquor bottle and freezes. “What the fuck? This is, like, half-empty.”

Valeria, Cora, and I glance at each other.

“Who did this to you?”he hisses before he looks at us. “I bet it was Everett.”

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