Easy AI

**Warning: Contains strong language, sex, themes of sexual abuse, depictions of violence, substance abuse, mental health issues, and other scenarios that readers might find uncomfortable to read. Reader discretion is advised.

what have you done???? what tf have you done??!!!

I threw my phone across my room, desperate for the screen to crack. If I  looked at that video one more time, I might’ve thrown up–again. But something about it kept pulling me back. Something just didn’t click in my brain at that moment. That nagging feeling to  double-check because maybe, just maybe, my life wasn’t over.

Then again, maybe it was. 

I felt my skin get hot. The damp spot on my bottom lip made no sense until I pulled my finger away and saw blood. A clawing inside me scratched just beneath the surface, prodding me to jump down from my bed and pick up my phone and–

“God…” 

There it was. Me. Naked and on all fours, my face shoved up to the camera at the most unflattering angle possible, with a bloody nose and eyes rolled back, while a faceless guy went to town. I looked ghoulish. I looked euphoric. I looked real…

My arm went limp and dropped the phone yet again; it thudded against the carpet face down. A disgusting sob got trapped in my throat, trying to break free but it was muffled by my hand just in time. My roommates couldn’t hear me crying. How could I even begin to explain that it wasn’t me, when it so clearly was me letting a guy do whatever he wanted. 

My phone buzzed and lit up the floor.

holy shit, Mari, is that you??? 

A second buzz. 

NO WAY. Girl tell me you didn’t…

A third. 

wtf is that Liam? what are you doing? did he hit you?

Of course it wasn’t him. It wasn’t him in the video, and it wasn’t him texting me, or the phantom number that sent me the link. It was everyone else, which meant everyone else got the SinnerFlix link that I just got. My breath was coming in short as I refreshed the page. 115 views. 115 views in less than two minutes–and comments. 

I keep tellin y’all, the bra makes them look different lmfao

I thought she’d be hotter than that…?

wtf  is that Mari Debrow? 

Is that Mari????! 

i had no idea she was into that dayummm

I watched the little floating balls bubble up and down as new comments come in by the second, conversations within themselves rating everything–how I looked, how I sounded, how I winced…I scrolled back up to the video just in time to see the guy pull me up from the bed, toss me down onto the floor, and tip my chin up to look at him. My eyes look glassy, like I’d been crying, or gagging. They even got the heterochromia in my left eye. 

It wasn’t me–and yet it was.

*

Two weeks had passed and still all anybody could talk about were my nipples. 

In the video, they were pierced. They also happen to a source of pain–something my AI-self was clearly programmed to enjoy. In real life, that couldn’t be further from the truth. I will admit, out of the thousands of views my video now had, I could claim ownership over about half of them. I watched it in full, glorious, horrifying detail, in as many states as I could–sober, drunk, enraged, amused, exhausted, bored. During my darkest, drunkest moments, I considered if it really was me and Liam and I was just too messed up to remember. I liked Liam enough. Maybe in a moment of pure weakness brought on by one-sided love, I would’ve done it…It became my new Netflix until the site finally pulled it down, and in the void it created, I became stupidly, wildly jealous. The girl in the video was someone I wished I could be–submissive, breakable, soft. It was the kind of girl Liam wanted. 

“We slept together once,” I finally said. My friends Emily and Taylor stared at me, wide-over, over their cheap beers and free chips. They talked me into going out to a pub as far away from campus as we could possibly get with an Uber we could all afford. Still, I was hiding behind my hood. I couldn’t even bring myself to look in a mirror before leaving my dorm.

“Well, he clearly recorded it,” Taylor said, grabbing a chip and double-dipping. “I can’t believe it. I thought he was such a good guy. You guys were high school sweethearts. What happened?” 

“I don’t know.” I swallowed hard. “We only slept together once, after graduation, and that was not it. It was his parent’s basement. We were on his pool table, not on…whatever the hell that was.” 

“It just looked like some dirty mattress on the floor,” Emily said, grimacing at the thought. “Did you see anything like that?” 

“No, but…” It didn’t take long for my head to fall into my hands. “Goddamnit… I should’ve known something was off. He didn’t take it well when I told him I didn’t want to do stuff like that.” 

“Wait, so…he asked you to do that crazy–”

“Yeah, and when I said no, he broke up with me.”

“You mean…” Taylor began carefully. “You mean, he broke up with you after you tried it?”

We stared at each other from across the table. 

“That wasn’t me,” I said as their eyes dropped from mine. I felt my heart beginning to race. “Oh my God…neither of you believe me?” 

“Mari, come on…” Emily said, her voice soft and low. “It was clearly you. It’s not like it was a picture or something. I mean, it even sounded like–well, it was your voice. AI is good, but it’s not that good.” 

“How are you guys doing?” The perky waitress came up to our table already holding a pitcher. “Round two?”

“We’re not judging you or anything!” Taylor quickly said, her face flushed. She shook her head at the waitress who just shrugged and went to the next table. Taylor’s eyes darted from me to Emily, who looked less sure about that. “I mean, God knows I’ve done some crazy stuff before. And sometimes you just drink too much and you don’t care and you don’t remember–”

“What the fuck?” I snapped, slamming my hands against the table. “It wasn’t a night of drinking too much. It wasn’t a night of wild sex. It wasn’t me.”

They said nothing. They only stared at me–them and half of the pub. A slow murmur picked up as I felt myself sinking back into the torn-leather seat. 

“You know what? I don’t need this…I’m going home…” I grabbed my bag from the booth, reached in for my wallet, and remembered I didn’t even have money for drinks. All of my money went to a lawyer, who basically told me to chalk it up to college experience. It was supposed to be their treat–to make me feel better. “I thought you guys would know me better than that.” 

It was the only defense I had but I took it and left. My only other option was to stay where I was surrounded by people who didn’t know me at all, yet knew what I looked like completely naked, bruised, and begging for more. 

*

The cat calls, moaning, and taunting follow me down the street, down the hall the next day, before and after each class, and into my dorm. It was written in the condensation on the mirrors after my shower in the common bathroom. It was left on my dorm’s corkboard. My new name was Snuff. It’d been a month since that video had come out, two months since Liam and I broke up, and still, it was relentless. What hurt the most, however, was that he was still, masochistically, the person I wanted to turn to. 

But I didn’t. I just made myself disappear instead. 

One would think they would see how much weight I’ve lost, or how ugly my skin looked, or how thin my hair had become, and take it as a sign to stop, but somehow, it only fueled their anger. How dare I be a slut and have the audacity to be ugly at the same time? The guys were brutal enough in their own ways, but the girls were worse. Like it was my fault their boyfriends saw me–or someone’s idea of me. It was my fault that they clicked on the link and lingered around long enough to get a good look. 

Although, if I’m being completely honest with myself…some of it was flattering. At least until I remembered that the AI didn’t factor in the flaws–the stretch marks, and the stray hairs, and the burn scar on my inner thigh. It was a sobering thought, until I realized it didn't matter. None of it mattered if I was the only one who knew.

*

A knock at my door close to midnight one night woke me up from my late-night Bridgerton marathon. I glanced through the peep hole to make sure it wasn’t another bag full of shit and condoms, and pulled away dumb-founded when I saw that it was Deb, the strange, twiggy, wide-eyed girl from my class. She lived a few doors down from me, alone. No one talked to her. I think everyone was a little scared. Admittedly, she did have a very X-Files vibe about her. I think it was the kindred outcast within me that made me open the door.

“What do you want, Deb?” I said, yawning. 

“I know it’s not you,” she said.  That woke me up. 

“How?” 

“Are you kidding?” She laughed, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “The lines were all wrong. If you zoom in, you can see it. You’re stitched together, like a little rag doll,” she said, sewing into the air. “You can tell they just deep faked your face onto some porn star’s body. Although they chose a nice body. I’ll give them that.” 

I could only manage a shocked scoff. “I can’t believe it,” I finally said. “No one believes me. God! Deb… would you mind helping me explain it to everyone? It’s been awful. And I think people would believe you because, you know, you’re…” Weird. Terrifying. Smart. “You know, good with all that stuff.”  

“I don’t think so,” she said. My heart dropped into my stomach. “But I know a way to have fun with it, if you want.” 

*

By the third month, Deb wasn’t just my new best friend–she was my business partner. 

We had made about $10,000 on TamedBaddies, programming my AI-self to do ridiculously painful albeit sexy things. She would come over with Chinese take-out, exhilarated because she heard a rumor of something outlandish that I had done, which of course I’d never do, but my AI-self would. And within a few hours, my AI-self was. The rumor mill had become our idea generator, and we were set to make another grand by the end of the week. 

It was remarkable, the sheer artistic genius she had hidden behind a bunch of code. She made me look gorgeous. “Turn your face like this,” she said, mimicking it behind the camera, and I dutifully followed her instructions. She smiled and snapped the photo. It was supposed to be just 20 pictures, just to get all the angles in, but it turned into a full photoshoot. 

“How much do you think this would sell for?” I said, leaning forward to show off my best cleavage. 

“At least a million,” she said, “after I’m done with it.” 

Our nights usually ended with empty cartons, two blunts, and wild fits of laughter. Our legs were intertwined on my couch under my favorite blanket, giggling about everything–stupid professors, dead dreams, lame exes. We nearly died of glee when Liam texted me one night, asking if we could try again, as this new side of me was “something I never expected, but something I’d like to see more of ;)...” We toasted the next blunt to him. 

One night, some poor fool actually signed up for our golden tier membership and sent us $5,000 for just five deeply personalized photos. Deb finished it in an hour. She got so excited she leaned over and kissed me on my open mouth.

*

“Did you hear that Emily and James broke up?” I asked Deb one night, after we had made love. She was up looking at herself in the mirror and I was still wrapped up in my bed sheets, admiring her. My ex-friend had reached out to me in the midst of heartbreak. Apparently she was sent a video that showed him plowing her sister in Emily’s bed back at home. Both of them denied it happened, but she had video proof. The whole campus did. He was even recorded saying how much better her sister felt. “Did you see that video? It was brutal.” 

“See it?” Deb laughed. “I created it!” 

I swear my heart stopped. “You what…?” 

“She was a total bitch to you, right?” She said, staring at me through the mirror. “Like, they totally abandoned you when shit hit the fan?”

“Well, yeah, but–”

“Well, it’s a win-win,” she shrugged. She pulled my brush off my dresser and started to comb her hair. “She hurt you. I like James. Now he’s on the market!” She couldn’t be more pleased with herself and I couldn’t be more pissed. 

“Are you insane?” I said, wrapping myself up in my sheets and walking over to her. She spun around innocently, wide-eyed as ever. 

“What?” She asked, then she laughed. “Mari. Think about the power we have here. Why stop at porn? We can get anything we want.” 

She went on and on about how blackmail wasn’t so bad, how it was just a matter of tipping balance back into our favor. Human beings have done it for centuries, and we have technology now, and I wouldn’t do anything to betray her, right? And all I could think to myself was….what have you done, Mari? 

What the fuck have you done?