The first message appeared in her inbox at brunch. It asserted itself about halfway through the mimosa flight and dominated her thoughts for the rest of the morning. Later, when she thought back, Judy would remember its frank simplicity. Short. Unadorned. Her name and address in the subject line.

At the time, Judy didn't give junk mail a second thought. She had eyes only for an anticipated offer from Undine Publishing. She was a shoe-in for the new editorial position, she had been told, and a salary proposal was said to be imminent.

Finally, a new email appeared from Muriel Kay at Undine and she hovered over it.

“It's here,” Judy said.

“What are you waiting for, betch? Open it.” Madison was praying her older sister would receive a rejection; she thought it was high time someone knock her off her pedestal. But Judy was the one paying for brunch, which necessitated some enthusiastic acting on her part. “You know you got this.”

“Oh my God, I'm scared,” Judy confessed. “What if they give it to the girl in the mail room with the labia piercings? The one who did double anal with the marketing director and the janitor?”

“You know you're more qualified than some cum dumpster.” Madison elbowed her sister in the ribs. “Don't be a pussy, dude! Fuckin' open it! God!”

Judy clicked on the email.

“Dear Ms. Jaynes,” she read aloud. “I am pleased to offer you the position of Associate Editor for Undine Publishing. This is a salaried position, which starts at $48,000 annually, with a robust per diem and comprehensive health coverage after a period of ninety days.”

“No cap, that price is crazy,” Madison snickered. “Why don't you go be a greeter at Y'allmart? Deadass, that's pathetic.”

“It's more than I make now,” Judy reasoned. “Besides, I'll get to work alongside Muriel Kay.”

“Big whoop.”

“It is a big whoop, brat. Muriel Kay paved the way for female authors everywhere. Her work in citizen journalism changed the game.”

“Whatever curls your toes.” Madison yawned and drained her champagne flute. “Why you got that face on you're so excited?”

“What face?”

“That haunted face.”

“I do not.”

“You do too, you always got haunted face. Some bitches got resting bitch face, you got that Rami-Malek-if-he-was-a-ghost haunty face. I swear, you been like this for, like, a year now. I don't know what Roy did to you, but ever since y'all broke up, you got that I-just-got-caught-with-a-trumpet-in-my-cooch look about you twenty four seven. Sussy Baka, betch. Yer weird.”

“You're delusional, kid.” Judy's voice cracked as she spoke. There was a weak lilt to her words, the byproduct of remembering, of knowing her sister was right and knowing why she was right. “Just go to the bathroom and rearrange your face while I pay.”

“WTV,” Madison said, strutting across the restaurant to the powder room.

She knows too much, Judy thought. Little bitches her age are always gossiping. Someone's probably told her something, probably something false or only half-true, something over-exaggerated from being passed around sewing circles and water coolers. Jesus god, what could people even be saying at this point?

Just as she attempted to force this thought away, Judy idly clicked on the email with her name and address on it. When she thought about it later, she could hardly believe she hadn't deleted it immediately. Emails with your name and address in the subject line are almost always scam messages of the sort purporting to be from Nigerian princes. So why then did she click on this one? Self-sabotage, she would later realize. Judy Jaynes knew she was guilty and she had to atone for her actions.  She had to be punished.

The message was simple as can be, offering neither absolution nor damnation. Rather, it offered only a fact:

I saw when you gave that hummer.

There was no sign-off, no identifying features. The message had been sent from an encrypted email service, which masked the name and IP address of the sender. There was no way of knowing who had seen her or what their intention was. Only that Judy Jaynes had been caught with her mouth full and now she was fucked.

She leaped from her chair, the tablecloth catching in the band of her sweatpants. Her well-developed breasts jiggled in their plissé hammock as she flailed back, sending crystal stemware clattering to the floor. The glass shattered at her dainty feet, reduced to a fine dust that fell on her slender pink toes like snow.

“Oh fuck,” she said to herself. “Ellen. Gary. Roy.”

* * *

Gary was showing off in front of some sorority sisters at the neighborhood beer garden when Judy showed up. The irony of demonstrating muscular strain while accepting an IPA bottle was lost on him. It was Friday and he was already half in the bag after initiating an all-day drink-a-thon with his buddies from the car dealership.

“Admit it,” he said to the dude pressed against his left flank. “If negging was a sport, I'd be team captain, bro.”

“You do got a way with tearing a chick down,” his co-worker admitted.

“It's like an art,” the other one chimed in. “I particularly like, 'Hey girl, that face is jacked up, but you got some blowjob lips on you.'”

“I tell it like it is.” Gary stretched. “She's got a butter face, you gotta come correct. That way, she knows she's gotta do something else with that face if she wants to pull numbers.”

“Charming,” Judy said as she approached with Ellen in tow.

“You're cheating on me with teeny-boppers now?” Ellen asked hoarsely.

Gary tried to act casual, taking Ellen's hands in his and sweeping her up in a one-armed embrace.

“Ellen baby, I was just tellin' these two Chads how to land a top-shelf chick like you.”

“Yeah, sure.” Ellen rolled her eyes. “You totally weren't gooning over high schoolers.”

Ellen Slivers wasn't the type of chick you cheat on. She came from old money and thrived in high school; she was the prom queen, the athlete and the cheerleader all rolled into one dynamic WASPy package. Guys didn't cheat on Ellen Slivers, they negotiated a mutually beneficial relationship clause. Gary knew this, Gary would never cheat on her, not in a million years.

That would piss off his dad, the automotive tycoon of Newport and the guy who had strategically arranged Gary and Ellen's play dates when they were children. New money always seeks out old money. They were fated to be a power couple, Gary liked to say. No, Gary would never cheat... but he sure liked to pretend.

“Not even,” he lied. “What do I need some inexperienced baby for when I got a distinguished piece of pussy like you at home?”

“I'm a piece of pussy?”

“Legit.”

“I hate to trample on chivalry,” Judy interjected, “but this is not a pub crawl reunion.”

“What the fuck's this wet rag doing here?” Gary snarled. “I thought she was muff-diving at Vasser.”

“I went to Fordham.” Judy narrowed her eyes. “Not all of us can afford to bypass a higher education and go straight to owning the orange properties.”

“It's a Porsche dealership, Judy.” Gary stood over his girlfriend's one-time BFF, looking down on her both literally and figuratively. He wanted to punch her in the fucking teeth, but the sorority sisters were watching, and so, too, were the meatheads from Omega Sigma House. “I don't sell real estate, I sell dreams.”

“You sell lemons.”

“What do you want, Judy? I thought we agreed that we'd never have to see each others' faces again?”

“Yeah, well, things change.”

Gary fixed his eyes on Ellen where she stared back at him from behind dark shades.

“What is this bitch talkin' about?”

“I need a drink,” Ellen said, snatching the IPA from Gary's sinewy grip.

“I'm here because someone saw.”

“What're you babbling about?”

Gary motioned to the bartender for another beer.

“I'm talking about that night.”

Gary leaned down and pressed his wrinkled nose to Judy's. He spat as he addressed her through gritted veneers.

“Shut your mouth before I put you in the ground, you understand? That was the deal. We take it to our grave. Remember?”

Judy said nothing, only stared Gary down with her big, brown doe eyes.

“Remember?” he growled again.

“Yeah, I remember. How could I forget? You pulled this same nonsense back then. Still fishing your spit out of my ears.”

“Don't make me fuck you up, Jude. I'll fucking kill you, and your bestie'll help me bury you tits up. Tell her, babe.”

“Chill-ax,” Ellen whined. “She got a threat.”

“What kinda threat?”

“An email.”

“So what? Some bitch-ass trolling Judy? What do I care?”

“It's about you,” Ellen explained. “About all of us.”

They took a seat at a booth by the bathrooms. Judy handed her phone to Gary. He read from the screen with difficulty. Finally, he looked up and smirked.

“Big shit,” he said dismissively, slipping the phone between Judy's voluminous bosom. “I don't see why this is my problem.”

“It's about what we... did,” Ellen whispered.

“All I see is white girl bummer,” Gary spit. “The message seems pretty clear to me: when you gave that hummer. Dude could be talkin' about Judy gobblin' anyone's knob. We have nothing to do with it.”

“Did you send it?” Judy hissed.

“OMG,” Ellen said, suddenly throwing her relationship of fifteen years into doubt. “Did you?”

“Are you two dense? I'm the one who said we never talk about it. Why the fuck would I be flaming Chesty Bennington?”

Ellen shot Gary the stink-eye.

“Don't be a tard, Gary. It's obviously addressed to all of us.”

“Nah,” Gary intoned defensively, rising from the plush leather booth. “Leave me out of it. I didn't get any email. This is between Joe Anonymous Jerkoff Artist and Mud Flaps over here.”

Judy gave Gary the finger, which he lapped up. He blew her a kiss and slipped his Oakleys on.

“C'mon, Ellen. You can give me a ride to the gym.”

Ellen didn't like to take orders from anyone, much less her dumb jock fiance, but the thought of girl time with Judy turned her stomach. She couldn't look at her old friend the same way since that night, couldn't imagine them hanging out without picturing the things she had done. The girl she remembered from childhood, who obsessed over ponies and fishing and Cartoon Network was dead and the person that remained was a stranger to Ellen.

She slipped her sunglasses back on and followed Gary's lead as he headed toward the front of the bar. Judy couldn't believe the betrayal. Based on the evidence, Ellen didn't think she merited so much as a second glance or a sorry. But Ellen would be sorry, Judy suspected. Pretty soon they'd all be.

It was half past midnight at the Superset and Gary was rubbing one out in the shower. He liked the showers at the Superset because they were designed by and for narcissists. Each stall boasted a floor to ceiling mirror and a mirrored ceiling with accent lighting that caught every well-toned contour of his bod. As he worked the in-shower body lotion up and down the rigid shaft of his pulpy wand, he marveled at his broad shoulders and the ropes of brawn that held up his head, watching as each muscle tensed and untensed with his every stroke.

The mirror created the perfect projection of his well-manicured groin, reflecting the pristine waxing job that resulted in a cock worthy of a statue—rock hard and well-shorn, gleaming in the neon light and dripping with water. If he could suck it, he would. He would consider it an honor.

He was a master of the universe, a god among men, and the thought of his own excellence turned him on better than any piece of pussy on two long legs.

Nobody's better than you, he thought. Nobody can fuck me like I can fuck me. C'mon, baby boy. Give it up.

He ceased stroking and reached down, recovering a bottle of K-Y from the shower rack and turning it over in his hands. He squirted a liberal amount in his free palm, then set the bottle down and picked up a borosilicate glass dildo wand big enough to serve as a battering ram.

That is when he heard the music come on at full volume, echoing out on the other side of the shower room's frosted glass door. The melody was hauntingly familiar. Kim Carnes' “Voyeur.”

Gary's netherrod drooped as he choked off the water and stepped out of the stall in haste, grabbing a towel off the wall and hurriedly wrapping it around his waist.

“Who the fuck's there? Why's the music so loud?”

There was no answer.

“C'mon, bro. Play some Top Forty! Nobody wants this Boomer shit!”

The music grew louder, piercing Gary's ears and bringing on one of the migraines he'd been experiencing since injuring himself during a high school lacrosse match.

Still lookin' for a strange and sweet caress.

“On God, you better turn that shit off or I'm gonna beat someone's ass!”

Out in the locker room, the music was even louder. Gary punched locker doors as he crossed to the other side. But no one was there to witness his aggression. All he found were damp towels discarded on benches.

He thrust the swinging door to the main room open and found the gym itself likewise abandoned, save for a disinterested Gen Zer listening to earbuds at the front counter, their face glued to a tablet displaying advanced mathematical configurations.

“Hey,” Gary yelled, but the kid was oblivious. “Can you turn this shit off?”

Suddenly, as if on cue, the music stopped.

Gary looked to the speakers on the wall suspiciously. The kid behind the counter didn't budge. Pop music blared from his earbuds. Gary might as well have been alone.

“Whatever,” he sighed.

He went to turn, but a gloved hand struck him in the small of his back, sending him hurtling onto a treadmill. Before he could right himself, the same hand shot out and activated the treadmill, setting the incline to grade. Gary's towel was off and he was running in place at a speed of ten miles per hour.

As his arms and legs struggled to cooperate with the demands of the machine, his bare buns were lashed with what felt like a bullwhip. The gloved hand had a death grip on Gary's towel and used it to lash him once, twice, three times, until he could take it no more.

Gary's knees gave out and he fell face first into the belt. In a fraction of a moment, the treadmill had deposited him onto the vinyl floor in a bloodied heap. His face stung from the impact and his eyes watered from the searing pain in his forehead.

He turned on his back and that's when he saw the source of his pain—the man in the raincoat, his face obscured by a pair of black sheer stockings. He held Gary's sleek glass dildo wand in one hand and his towel in the other.

“The fuck,” Gary barked.

The man in the raincoat reached for Gary's face, but the former lacrosse champion wasn't having it. He kicked the man in the face and rolled away from him, scrambling to his feet and motioning wildly to the kid at the front desk.

The kid's vision was obscured by a cloud of vape juice as Gary abandoned hope of his intervention and ran straight for the front door. His dick flopped this way and that as he crossed the threshold. Once he'd cleared the doors, he turned back and looked through the glass for his pursuer.

The man in the raincoat was nowhere to be seen.

Gary wasted no time in making a run for his cherry red Porsche. But no sooner were the keys in the ignition than Gary was eating broken glass.

The man in the raincoat had driven side long into Gary's company car with what looked like a postal delivery truck. And he was backing up for another go.

Gary shoved his ankle through a web of broken glass and dove out of the way just as the truck made second impact. That's when he heard a pop and felt his ankle bend at an unnatural ankle. Then he felt the sensation of warm blood pooling between his legs.

He tucked his chin into his chest and what he saw next frightened him nearly as much as the sight of the man in the raincoat clutching his dildo wand—his once proud pecker split down the middle. His slide across asphalt had resulted in a gash that bloomed as wide as a truck stop hooker's money maker.

“Oh my Gah” was all he managed before the man in the raincoat appeared before him.

The man knelt down and held a gloved hand over Gary's throat. And before Gary could call for his creator, the man reached down and inserted the glass dildo wand deep within Gary's open mouth. The one-time lacrosse champion squeezed his eyes shut in dreadful anticipation as he took all twelve inches. And then... nothing.

Gary's eyes flitted open, only to find his field of vision empty but for a black sky and a street lamp. The dildo wand protruded from his open orifice, but it did not pierce anything, only bobbed there where it had been abandoned.

But he could feel something other than glass in the back of his throat. He recognized it from childhood, from a time when you would sooner digest notebook paper than get caught passing crude notes in home room. It was paper.

He spat out the dildo and reached into his gob, removing what appeared to be a crumpled sheet of printer paper. His bloody saliva had stained the page, but the writing was clear and unmistakable:

I saw when you gave that hummer.

Gary Brautigan didn't know who had done this or why, but he realized one thing. Judy was right, and it was no longer someone else's problem. Now, it was personal.

There was a picture of Judy in Roy Collins' bed, but it wasn't a photograph. It was a poorly enlarged, poorly photocopied simulacra of her high school yearbook photo, and it was crudely fashioned into something approaching a Halloween mask.