Ava’s stomach had been squirming since she’d woken up. Today’s the day. This time tomorrow, the local news would be buzzing with the most embarrassing event of Ava’s life. An event so mortifying she felt like she wouldn’t even be able to show her face ever again.

“You’re twitchy today,” Jacky commented. “You good?”

“Oh, no,” Ava said. “I’m fine. I didn’t sleep much. Drank too much coffee. Have the jitters.”

Ava was getting better at pelting off lies, at her brain grasping for things to say in all contexts of a conversation. It had been two weeks since that first live stream, and her viewer base had grown slowly but steadily; last night, she’d pulled an average of fifty-two viewers. Clash had been an invaluable addition to that end. The days Ava patrolled without her, she pulled in somewhere around thirty percent less. Which stung Ava’s pride a bit, but at the same time, even Ava could tell the content was more entertaining with the uncontrollable redhead around. 

And two cute girls were better to ogle than one. Ava hadn’t forgotten who the majority of her viewerbase was, or why they came to her stream.

“What happened? TV binge again?”

That was a recurring excuse for Ava on why she’d failed to find a reasonable amount of sleep. “Nah, just couldn’t, this time. Laid in bed forever, staring at my ceiling.”

Jacky made a noise of sympathy. “Hate it when that happens. Did you try getting yourself off?”

“Ha-ha. Very funny.”

Jacky paused. “Hey, where’d Miss Blushes-At-Everything go? What the hell?”

“You can only make crude jokes like that so many times before I’m used to it, Jacky.” And I’ve been hearing a lot worse recently. In the best of cases, Ava’s chat enjoyed exercising their freedom of speech; she’d read some truly degenerate suggestions.

Or questions. Such as, have you ever used your superpowers to fuck yourself?

Which was a yes. Her scarlet-red blushing at Clash’s teasing over the question might have given her away, too. Her chat had been exceptionally delighted at the reveal. 

“That’s news to me,” Jacky said. “Damn. This sucks. Guess I’ll have to take things up a notch.”

Ava rolled her eyes and said, “Well, have fun with that. I’ma use the restroom before the next order comes in.” Mornings at Paradise Pizzeria were always slow, but once things picked up, they picked up. She wouldn’t be getting a break once they did.

Ava didn’t actually have to use the restroom; she’d wanted a second to check her phone and take a moment of peace. She sat on the toilet, flicking through her feeds.

Her small-time success on her stream was mirrored on her social media. Ava hadn’t even had a ‘small’ following before her stream; it would generously have been called tiny. Before Ava’s rebranding, she’d had in the ballpark of fifty Twitter followers, and a hundred and change on Instagram. Which weren’t numbers considered remotely impressive for a superhero—the exact opposite, in fact, seeing how easy it was for a super to gain attention, especially from their local city. In this case, Capital City, the largest local audience in the world.

Ava had hardly exploded in popularity, but she’d grown by a noticeable amount. Those fifty Twitter followers had ballooned into three hundred and counting, and the Instagram, up to six hundred. It turned out Ava’s constant, every-day efforts were providing dividends, even if they hadn’t hit the crux of their plan, yet.

Still a long, long shot from the hundred-million plus of the biggest S-Class superheroes, though. But she’d planted a seed, and took enjoyment in watching it grow.

She flicked through the scarce ats and replies, trying to keep her mind off tonight’s event.

 

[iniese0ei]: @spotlight_from_above Loved the stream! It’s so interesting watching a heroine go about her routine. And your dynamic with Clash! I adore you two. Excited to tune in tonight :)

 

Not all were remotely as polite. That one was an outlier.

It was probably what the standard would be if Ava hadn’t chosen to lean into the specialty she had—where she leveraged her body to get viewers. 

Was this really necessary?

She was seeing some success … not a whole lot, but enough that down the line, Ava could see herself wiggling her way into a burgeoning fanbase. And with every follower—every eye on Ava—she’d only grow stronger, and thus, shine brighter under the spotlight. The whole ‘sex sells’ thing … it was a great idea, undoubtedly effective, but did Ava want to?

Did she want to be that person?

Did she want to follow through on Brooke’s plan, tonight?

Ava closed her eyes. God. I can’t even imagine. What would her Twitter and Instagram look like, this time tomorrow? A wildfire. A total shit show. Brooke was viciously clever, and the idea she’d concocted would seize Capital City’s attention like a vice—at Ava’s detriment.

Ava sighed, releasing her breath and opening her eyes. She’d already determined to follow through. She’d been given a fantastical ability—an unheard of one, with almost unquantifiable potential—and Ava felt a moral obligation to use it to its fullest. Why would she labor in obscurity, simply so she could maintain her modesty?

And was maintaining her modesty really that important? Ava’s body was just her body. Hers—and hers to sell.

(Which maybe she wanted to.)

Ava sighed, clicked off her phone, and got back to work.

 

---

 

The funniest part—and which in Ava’s opinion, showed off Brooke’s brilliance—was that Ava didn’t even have to do anything shameful in the literal sense. Brooke had invented a publicity stunt where the rabid attention it seized could be created without Ava revealing any parts of herself she didn’t want to; like usual, Brooke’s first effort went to Ava’s comfort.

Ava had already laid the foundation. Now two weeks into streaming, Ava had ‘accidentally’ forgotten to turn off her stream twice, using the generic, clumsy excuse that the graphic interface was ‘way too confusing, guys’. Her stream had remained active all night, displaying the black insides of her supplies backpack until Ava had pulled it out—blinking in feigned surprise that it was still going—the next night, ready for her next stream.

But tonight? Tonight, she’d accidentally be leaving the stream on, and rather than the muffled sounds of Ava going about her apartment and shortly going to sleep, they’d be getting much more of a … show.

Masturbate. Ava was going to masturbate, providing a delightful audio show—but not visual—to her audience, under the guise that she had once again forgotten to turn off her stream.

And not even masturbate, not literally. Brooke’s plans had simply been to pretend, to give her audience an excruciatingly embarrassing story to spread like wildfire in the communities that followed low-level superheroes like Ava. Because how mortifying, right? Who wouldn’t delight in sharing that story to their friends, in online circles, and for even news outlets—the one willing to run raunchy stories like that—to have a field day with the once-in-a-lifetime mistake. Poor young superheroine Spotlight; what a mortifying situation to have stumbled onto.

And she sounded like she was having fun, Ava’s less-appropriate fans would delight in. Ava would make sure to really lay it on. She’d have to keep it believable, still … which could be tricky, because she didn’t think most people were noisy when they fucked themselves, but it wasn’t outside the realm of believability, either. 

Ava had accidentally thrown a wrench into the plan, too. She’d told Clash, their first day together, that she lived with a roommate. Now, Ava herself, and probably most other people, would have thought nothing of the statement. Brooke, on the other hand, excruciatingly attentive, had realized it would slash into the perceived truthfulness of Ava’s loud, excited activities. Brooke had arranged a situation where she’d be walking into Ava’s room near the end of the night and telling Ava that she was leaving to see a movie, giving Ava time to ‘do the deed’ under the guise she’d finally gotten a moment alone to herself. If anything, it lended the whole situation more verisimilitude.

Where would she be without Brooke?

Not an hour away from moaning into an audience of dozens of people, to be Capital City’s laughing stock for the next week. 

And also not about to be one of the brief hottest sensations of the news cycle, either. All without having to show an inch of her skin, or even have to masturbate at all; she just had to put on a pretend show.

“Are you sure you want to do this?” Brooke mumbled.

Ava twitched. She’d been lost in thought, standing in the kitchen, staring down at the counter. “Huh?” Ava moderated her voice; Brooke had mumbled for a reason. The microphone was actually fairly strong, and though it almost certainly couldn’t pick up their voices through walls—it was in her backpack, in her room, leaned against the bottom of her nightstand—it was smarter to be safe than sorry. “Yeah, of course I am.”

“We can call it off.” Brooke squeezed Ava’s hand. “You definitely don’t need to do this. You don’t feel like you have to, right?”

Ava waved her hand. “I’m nervous, obviously. But I made up my mind a while ago.” Surprisingly, she meant it. She’d had plenty of time to come to terms with her fate. 

“Okay …” Brooke said. “If you’re sure.”

“I am.”

Brooke nodded. “Remember, give them a show, but don’t go over-the-top. Enough to fan the flames, but if people catch on to the fact it’s a publicity stunt—well, there goes the publicity.” She paused. “Or, the better portion of it. Something like this is going to make rounds no matter what.”

Well. That was good news, Ava guessed. “Can we move it forward by an hour? I’m just standing here lost in my head.”

Brooke nodded immediately. “That’s fine. It’ll still work. Go do something for twenty minutes, then I’ll be in to say I’m leaving.”

“Okay.” She breathed in, deeply. “Okay.”

Time to get it over with.

For twenty minutes, Ava sat on her bed, trying to sketch one of the supervillains she’d fought the day prior from memory, and failing utterly, because of her nerves. It turned out rather horribly. Ava kept shooting glances at the backpack she’d discarded to the side of her nightstand. They could probably hear her shifting around on her bed, even the rasping of her pencil on paper. The two times she’d left it in the bag prior had been test-runs as much as anything, to see that the microphone would pick up what it needed to.

Eventually, Brooke walked in. They made their easy, pre-planned conversation about her dipping out to go see a movie with some friends. Ava’s door clicked shut behind Brooke, and she strained her ears, listening as Brooke grabbed her keys and the front door opened, then shut.

And then it was time.

Ava sat alone in an apartment, with a career-defining moment looming over her head.

And a bizarre thought hit her, not more than two seconds after Brooke left.

It doesn’t have to be fake.

Ava could fuck herself. Not fake, but real. What better way to guarantee a feeling of truthfulness to the whole thing? Why risk Ava’s moderate acting skills bungling the plan?

And if the world was going to think Spotlight had fucked herself into a moaning, silly mess on stream, recorded for perpetuity, then what was the difference between faking and not faking? Brooke had suggested faking it for obvious reasons: Ava’s comfort. But what if Ava didn’t care about Ava’s comfort?

What if Ava liked this squirming in her stomach? This deep, sinking feeling of shame? The one that accused, in sneering words, whore. Sell out. Slut.

Ava’s lips parted as her breathing started to pick up, chest raising and lowering as an intense flush settled across her face.

Even Brooke would assume she’d faked things—that was the plan, after all. As far as anybody in the world was concerned, whether Ava fucked herself or pretended to, there was no difference.

So why not have fun?

Why not relieve some of this pent up stress that had been building for two weeks straight, in anticipation of this event?

What if Ava wanted her small audience—the few that had stuck around in a pitch-black stream, only shuffles of Ava’s daily life keeping them company—to be rewarded for their diligence?

Their diligence undoubtedly spawned from wanting to catch something exactly like what Ava was about to provide.

What if Ava wanted her moaning to serve as the tantalizing catalyst of their fantasies—and not have it be a ruse? Would they be getting themselves off in time with her? That was why her viewers lurked a website like the one Ava streamed on, after all. For lust. Relief.

Would news get out fast? Would her viewership explode even while she was thrusting a hardlight dildo in and out of her? 

If she took a long time, probably.

If she went for more than a single round, probably.

Ava’s shirt hit the floor, then her pants, and finally, bra and underwear.

Time to give them what they want.