NOVEL WEB Chapter 45: Fox boy
"At least I'm not naked." I commented, looking at the various pictures I was in.
Apparently my pseudonym on the platform was Fox Boy, because I had a fox mask covering my features. It was utterly degrading and I shuddered just to say it, but at least the me of this reality had had the decency to cover his features, since anything uploaded to the Internet never goes away.
I also sighed a little relieved that I was not naked in any of the photos, just wearing clothes that some might consider a little provocative, but I never showed anything but my feet, which was absolutely terrifying since it was the photo with the most likes on my feed, with absolutely creepy comments that even if I thought they were said by a hot girl, they were still weird.
I didn't even want to read more than a few comments, I didn't understand how someone could find a foot sexually attractive. I always left it as a fetish that I didn't understand and didn't know why some women found it weird, sure, it wasn't the most common, but feet are aesthetic in an elegant way, so I always thought they were exaggerating, but now to be the target of desire actually felt strange.
I thought about deleting the pictures I had at my fingertips right away, but I thought about it before I pressed the three buttons. Maybe I should check the terms and conditions of the platform before doing anything? I never used this type of platform for this kind of content, but from time to time I would commission a story from writers, so as far as I knew, these images could be commissioned and no longer belong to me, or I would have to refund for removing them. It wouldn't hurt to check, it wouldn't take more than a few minutes.
Before that, however, I looked a little further and missed something, a pinned post that appeared to be some sort of bulletin board displaying what I could only guess was some sort of reward for donations.
It was written with pretty letters and lots of pink emojis and other colors.
Hmm~? What? You want to win a chance to have dinner with me? ara~ Well, it's your lucky day, if you donate enough, you can get it!
I cringed, not at the unnecessary addition of a Japanese word, but at the content of the message. He was offering dinner! How stupid could he be? Doesn't this guy know the dangers of the Internet?
However, my concern disappeared shortly after I read a little more of the message.
-$30,000 for dinner with me!
I couldn't help but snort at the absurd amount of money my reality self was hoping to get, I mean, sure, people who resort to these types of platforms are either desperate or have a lot of money, but neither, so there was no way they were going to try to pay $30,000 for dinner.
With that in mind, I started reading the other rewards.
-$500 for a call.
-$100 direct messages.
-$50 zings.
When I saw the others, I couldn't help but think that maybe the me of this reality was smarter than I gave him credit for; he had set up something absurdly expensive as a reward, and the others were priced very low in comparison. This was a fairly simple and well-known marketing strategy. To give an example, in a movie theater they sell large, medium, and small popcorn; the small ones might cost $5, the medium $13, and the large ones $15; it is the same, but applied in reverse, since nobody wants small popcorn, but the medium and large ones have little difference in price, so they choose the larger ones, thinking they are saving money, when in fact they are spending more.
Thinking I was smart, I quickly looked for a place where I could see people's donations. If it was profitable, maybe I should get into social media. I hadn't thought about it, but the streaming boom would probably start in a few years. I could get an inflatable pool and stream in a bathing suit and then sell the pool water, a quick and easy way to get rich... Actually I was just kidding, it was degrading and I wouldn't do it unless I was desperate. Getting back to the topic, I found a tab for the monthly top of what I assumed were donations, so I went in to see what I found.
My eyes immediately widened, and although I tried to avoid it, my mouth did too, and I almost dropped the phone at what my eyes saw in the top 1 donations.
"40 thousand dollars!!!. Who the hell is CallaMeMaybe!"
(***)
"Okay, Alex, breathe, this is... it's... it's just... absurdly disturbing."
I tried to calm down, I was not going to get anywhere if I started to get scared of the possibilities this could have. I took a deep breath and told myself that it couldn't be that serious, but try as I might, someone who gave you that much money was always worrisome, because either they were desperate and had a lot of money, or they were crazy and dangerous, I didn't really like to gamble.
With that in mind, I slid my finger down to my notifications inbox, or more specifically, my private messages. Vaguely hoping that it was simply a fanatical, philanthropic donor who wanted nothing more than my satisfaction and that the rewards were absolutely insignificant to her.
Almost prayerfully, I jumped in to check on the conversation.
"Hey, are you okay, do you need more money?"
"Is something wrong, I'm getting worried, Fox boy, you haven't uploaded anything in a couple of days."
But those were the least worrying, the most worrying were screenshots of her virtual wallet showing how she was sending me money,
"I don't know what's going on, but I'm sending you this just in case."
What scared me is how someone could waste money so easily, it had to be someone important, from some big company or... some mafia or something.
What should I do?