Chapter 1
I grow accounts for a living. Three, sometimes four at a time. Ten thousand followers. A hundred thousand. I feed them, polish them, make them desirable, then sell them the second the numbers peak. My own page stays small on purpose. Quiet. Almost anonymous. The job already steals enough of me; I don’t need another place where people can reach in and take more.
Lately the noise has been getting louder. The clients. The DMs. The constant performance. I start thinking about a second account—something private, something that belongs only to me. A place where I can post without calculating engagement or pretending to care about trends.
The notification slides across the screen one Tuesday night.
Interactions ↑ 30% since last week.
I almost ignore it. Then curiosity wins. I open the post that caused the spike—a stupid, half-asleep joke I threw up two weeks ago and forgot. My eyes skim the likes. Midway down the list a profile picture stops me cold.
Dark hair. Soft mouth. Eyes that look like they already know something I haven’t said yet. The upper half of her face is clear; her hand covers the rest, elegant fingers resting against her cheek. Something in my chest tightens.
I know that face.
Not from a dream. From the nights I quit porn and learned to get off on pure imagination. I built her in my head—exact bone structure, exact eyes, exact way her hair fell. I came to her more times than I can count. And now she is real, or at least real enough to have a username.
amelia_63
