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"Subathon" by Kellan Jansen

  • 2 days ago
  • 2 min read

She is doing the Subathon. Only a little cleavage when the timer gets low. And if that donator asks for those pictures, she shares them just for him. But the timer is getting low very often now. The V-necks become deep V cuts. The push-up bra, already doubled. She hates the ones who watch. Not earlier, when she played video games instead of staring at a camera, watching videos on YouTube she actually liked, instead of following her community. Growing dumber by the year, she thinks. Car crashes and bikinis and cursed meme compilations. She hates them all.


The timer is getting low. The rent is almost due. The jobs never pay as well. She’s looked, more than once. You can make $500 in five seconds here and $500 in a week there. So what if the camera has been on for several weeks now. So what if the sexualization is becoming more blatant. It’s still better than that. Here, at least, she’s worshipped. Here, at least, she calls the shots.


Always that other door, calling. What could actually make her wealthy beyond her wildest dreams. A very small thing, really. No videos, just tasteful, giving them what they want. Charging them for what they want, but directly. A small thing, and as the timer hits zero, she makes her decision. In fact, she had been taking pictures for some time now. Accumulating a backlog while her body looks like this. While they still care about it. The womb, a flat tummy; the chest erect.


When she announces it, the community splits. Half love her for it. She makes $10,000 in ten minutes. The other half calls her a whore. They say they always knew she was that way. They say it was only a matter of time. For the most part, she ignores them. The money is still good. But then, the next week, she only makes $2,000 on a set, even more risqué. No matter—plenty to pay her rent with. Years pass. $2,000 becomes $200 becomes $20. There are other women now, playing video games, whom they watch instead. She doesn’t even stream anymore. Just posts the videos.


Doesn’t talk to family anymore. Can’t. Doesn’t look for jobs anymore. Can’t. And she asks herself when that happened. It wasn’t so long ago that her mother suggested she stream, as a way to make some extra money. She was always playing those games, anyway. Always alone on the computer. And there was a time when she could convince herself that it would last. That she could make the small sacrifices without making the big ones.

But there were no small sacrifices left. Only those that were worse than any job she could find.


Outside, she logs off. The sun embraces her entirely.




Observed online, 2020s. Kellan Jansen's work has appeared or is forthcoming in Expat Press, BULL, and Frazzled Lit.
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