She had spent most of Saturday afternoon picking the perfect outfit. She’d started one of her old band t-shirts as a base, but had trimmed off the sleeves and cut strips into the shoulders, which she had then braided and accented with wooden beads. The black corset did a beautiful job of showing off the curves of her bust and hips, even if it wasn’t one of the more striking pieces she owned. The studded choker was a Valentine’s Day gift from a too-eager fan at one of her shows, and her earrings were custom, two small chains that connected at three points across each ear and dripped lines of sparking jewels.

She’d spent nearly an hour perfecting her eye shadow, and the result was flames that sparked behind her eyes and complemented the shock of copper-coloured hair that was all that remained on her head after she’d shaved the sides and back. After spending another ten minutes deciding on a lipstick, she’d picked a black tar, then added thin lines of yellow to the bottom lip on a whim. Now Rachel was ready for her close-up.

As she stepped into the living room, she could feel Bertie’s eyes drift up from the book he was reading. He said nothing. She sat down in front of the computer, smoothing out her artistically shredded leggings, and opened the screen of her laptop. She spent another moment inspecting her image in the webcam.

“I don’t remember you getting this dolled up when we were still dating,” Bertie mused. He’d played at being an insufferable smartass since before they were together, but he’d been particularly bratty since the night last week where she’d stayed out with friends. She half-suspected jealousy that she’d left him overnight, but her late-night absences were not recent or novel. Her gigs tended to go until late in the morning, and his job required him to open the restaurant around the time she was getting to bed. She chased the thought out of her mind and turned to Bertie.

“I need you to be quiet for the next little bit, honey. Is that okay?”

He lifted his book with a smile. Satisfied, Rachel adjusted the frame on her camera. The lamp closest to the computer was giving off too much orange light and washed out her makeup. She turned it off, only to find she was now in the dark. The overhead light in the kitchen was the next closest…

“Try the dining room light,” Bertie suggested. “It’s a little bluer, but the space should diffuse it enough.”

She tried, and it worked as promised. She gave Bertie a thumbs-up, but he had already back to his novel. She checked the lighting settings one more time, ran a fingernail through her teeth to make sure there was nothing sticking out, took a deep breath – and started the webcam.

“Hi, fans! DJ Sparrow here, and I want to talk about what I’ve been reading in the news and on Buzzfeed for the last week or so…”

 ***

The vlog was a new idea of Rachel’s, hatched about two months before. Her work as a DJ kept her busy only a few hours a week, which left her with a lot of spare time, especially during the day. After one such day spent almost entirely on YouTube, she’d decided that she was going to spend one day a week in front of the camera, talking to her fans and having a live chat about music, the arts scene, makeup – anything that her viewers requested or that she had on her mind that day.

Her first show was short, with only a few people who knew her as a DJ watching. One of them had suggested she “dress up more” for her webcast, and she had embraced the idea fully on her second show. Her views had gone up exponentially since then, and the reviews had been glowing – somewhat to Bertie’s irritation, as she used his laptop to record her show.

During her last episode, she’d changed the format a bit and started talking about Gamergate. Though the controversy had been going for almost half a year, she’d only heard of it through complaints by her male friends that “feminists were trying to ruin video games”, and had dismissed it as another instance of crying Internet man-babies. But when she’d heard that self-admitted feminists were being attacked – harassed, stalked or slandered, even in the “real” world – she’d waded right into the debate. Many of her fans were uncomfortable with her talking politics on the show, but many more praised her for confronting the issue. And then there was HipHopGrampie.

He – she assumed it was a man – had started posting during the live chats during her fifth show. He clearly wasn’t there to make friends, and his first comment had been that “Womn who get respect don put on a face like painted ho ;)”. She’d blocked him from the site, but he’d continued to pop back up like a misogynist Whac-A-Mole.

“Whut the matter? U only like attention on ur terms?”

“Shut ur face, u not that pretty.”

“Gamergate isn’t about sexism, dumbss. It was started by slut like you who couldn’t keep track of all the diks in her mouth. #Gamergate #Notallhoes”

“If u think I hates womn, you should see all the open porn sites on my browser. #Donthatetheplayer #pimp #thuglife”

The last screed had followed Rachel, calling him out in the comments. His behaviour had encouraged several other such trolls to follow him to the site, and she’d received private messages from her other viewers that they were jumping ship because of it. She’d appealed to her web host to try to drive them out, but the host was slow to respond and the trolls quick to repopulate even after being banned.

In frustration, she’d once shown Bertie some of the messages she’d been receiving from HipHopGrampie and his ilk. He’d scanned through the pages of correspondence, deliberating over some of the more graphic or incomprehensible entries.

“You see what I have to deal with?” she’d asked.

“If that were you making those comments,” he’d replied, “I would put you over my knee.” She’d blushed at the thought - even if it wasn’t directed at her, he’d made good on such threats before. Besides, that wasn’t the point.

“It’s probably some kid," he added.

“So what if it is? He has to learn that you can’t treat people like that, even online. I should call the police and report him for something.”

“Criminal harassment, maybe?”

Bertie shrugged.

***

Rachel leaned back in her chair and brushed her orange hair back. It had felt good to air her grievances on the show like that. Discussing Gamergate had been the perfect segue into talking about how trolling affected women like herself, and publishing the messages from HipHopGrampie had provided all of the examples she’d needed to make her point. Satisfaction washed over her.

Her phone rang. The number was unfamiliar. Purely out of curiosity, she answered.

“Hope you’re hungry,” was all she heard.

Thirty minutes later, the buzzer to the apartment rang. A delivery driver had arrived with six pizzas, all triple meat. After being informed – repeatedly – that they hadn’t placed any order, Bertie agreed to take half of the pizzas and the matter was dropped, a compromise that left none of them happy.

“It’s that HipHopGrampie,” Rachel decided, pacing the carpet. “It has to be.”

“Did you mention that you were a vegetarian on your show?”

“Maybe. I don’t think so.”

Bertie grunted and started portioning off the slices into freezer bags. With only him willing to eat it, the pizza would last for weeks.

“Did you say he called you before the delivery?”

Rachel’s hands flew to her mouth. “You think I’ve been doxxed?”

“He’s got real-life information on you. Probably not much, just your address and phone number. Those are listed…”

It got worse. Both of their phones started ringing every half hour, each time with a new image from a hardcore porn site. By the end of the night they’d turned away two more deliverymen, a policeman checking in on a domestic squabble, and a lesbian escort. Rachel was crying, the glitter from her makeup running down her face in a sparkling rivulet. Bertie had discussed their legal options with the policeman when he’d come by, but the cop had said that his department had no way of tracking HipHopGrampie’s IP address, even if they knew that it was him who had sent the human conga line to Rachel’s door.

The buzzer was finally silent by two AM, and a very bleary-eyed Bertie had finally given up and gone to bed. He’d invited Rachel to join him, but she was still shaking with anger and told him she would still be up for some time.

Once she knew he was asleep, she pulled up her own laptop and started combing through her contacts page, looking for one name in particular. During a high-school co-op at a graphic arts school, she’d met a programmer named Brett who dabbled in private detective work. They still spoke on occasion, usually late at night, and she had known that there would come a day that the seedier side of his work would come in handy.

“Brett? It’s Rachel. You remember my vlog? I’ll send you a link. Listen, I’ve been having some problems with this really nasty troll, and he’s found out where I live. I need a favour.”

It took a little pleading and a little flirting, but they came to terms. Two hours later, Brett e-mailed her a package containing all the information he’d been able to pull from HipHopGrampie’s profile. It seemed that the troublemaker was a retiree from Florida, an old man with old grudges and a disturbingly large criminal record, mostly for domestic battery. Now he lived with his daughter and her two sons in Pensacola.

Brett had added a note of his own at the bottom of the package. Now what?

She went back to the phone and said, “Now here’s what we’re going to do…”

 ***

The phone started ringing again at eight the next morning. Rachel could feel the vibration under her pillow, but ignored it, expecting another stream of obscenities from HipHopGrampie.

Bertie was getting dressed for work. “Is that your phone?” he asked.

“Leave it. It’s that asshole again.”

Rachel rolled over in bed, and Bertie leaned in to kiss her. At the same time, he snatched up the phone from under her bed.

“Rachel’s phone, Bertie speaking.” She growled at him under the blanket, but he either didn’t hear her or wasn’t listening. He passed the phone back to her. “I think you’re going to want to hear this.” He tapped on her volume control so that she could hear clearly.

She groggily accepted the phone. The number was definitely long distance, but not the same as the one that had been texting her throughout the previous night.

“Hello?”

“Uh, hi. Is this the lady with the hair who does that show on YouTube?”

“Probably,” Rachel grumbled. The speaker sounded like a woman only a little older than herself and spoke with a thick Southern accent that took Rachel a moment to understand.

“I’m sorry to call you early, I don’t know what time zone y'all got there. I want you to know, we got a visit last night from the police. An anonymous tip that my father, he’s seventy-five, you see, that he had a gun in violation of his parole. They’re set to cart him back off to jail when my younger son Curtis comes up to me crying. He says that this is his fault, that he’s been bothering this woman on YouTube, sending the police to her door and that he’s been using his grandpa’s computer to do it. Was that you?”

“I’ve been having someone harass me online, yes. The police told me that they couldn’t do anything about it.”

“Well, I have. He may be eleven, but he’s not too old for a whupping. Isn’t that right, Curtis? Now apologize to the lady.”

A young voice murmured an apology over the line.

“You best be sorry. I taught you better than that.” A loud smack sent the second speaker yowling away from the phone. “Anyways, I’m sorry too. This won’t be happening again, I guarantee.”

“Thanks.” Rachel bit her lip. “You said that you got an anonymous call?”

“Yeah. Somebody in the neighbourhood he pissed off, they figure. It was a local call, my daddy’s fine now.”

“That’s good. Thank you for calling.”

She hung up. Bertie was adjusting his tie in the mirror, nearly ready to leave.

“Sounds like it’s done, then? We can celebrate when we get home,” then added with a smile, “Maybe we should order a pizza.”

She grabbed a pillow to swing at his head, but he was already gone when she turned back. The troll that had made her last week into Hell was vanquished, her life restored to normal. So why didn’t she feel any better for it?

***

It should have been a victory, she told herself. She should feel vindicated, elated, light as a feather – she’d even dressed the part in a dappled, flowery sundress. But there was something missing as she sat in front of the webcam, still trying to summon the spark of inspiration that would start her on her show.

By the time Bertie returned home, that spark still hadn’t lit.

“No more calls?” he inquired. He doffed his coat, then slid off his necktie and looped it over a hook beside the door.

She shook her head.

“I guess the little brat learned his lesson, then.”

“Bertie, this is serious…”

“And now the kid knows that. Problem solved, right?” He leaned in for a kiss, only for her to stiffen and turn away from him. “Why so glum?”

“I don’t know,” she snarled. Bertie seemed to think that it was funny – not that they’d been tormented by a sixth-grader on a power trip, but that he’d been defeated so easily. If only he knew how… and that was the truth that was eating at her. She’d prevailed over a dumb kid by stooping to his level.

Should she admit it, even just to Bertie? In hindsight, she knew she could justify it to herself. If he hadn’t been forced into taking accountability, HipHopGrampie – Curtis, she supposed now – would have continued to pester her in increasingly extreme ways until he’d had her broken down. Bertie knew that, too. And even if her methods had been questionable… It’s not the right thing, baby, as the song went, but the right thing suits so few. Remembering the lyrics brought a smile to her face. She’d had what Bertie called a “DJ moment”.

Bertie took the grin to assume that her frustration had abated and brought his arms around her, hugging her from behind the chair.

“It’s alright, honey,” he murmured in her ear, “We’ll get past this. I’m going to get dinner started in a minute, you just sit there.” He grinned mischievously, “Sitting’s something he probably can’t do right now.”

“Enough!” She pushed him away, trying to concentrate on the screen in front of her. A crash sounded from behind her, and she spared a glance over her shoulder. Being half folded over the chair to embrace her, Bertie had lost his balance when she pushed him, and had tripped over his own coat. Seeing him ass-over-teakettle on the floor with a dazed expression on his face brought another smile to her face, and Rachel found herself laughing despite herself.

“That’s funny, is it?”

Too late, she realized he wasn’t joking. Seizing her wrist, he pulled her out of the chair and sat himself down. As he yanked her back toward him, she saw what he had in mind for her. Quickly she planted her feet in the carpet and dug in – as small as she was, Rachel was surprisingly strong and knew how to use a low centre of gravity to make herself practically immobile. She’d done this before in mock-wrestling matches with Bertie… and he simply picked her off the ground and hauled her over his knee.

“Ow!” The smack on her bottom echoed across the room and made her jump.  The sting set in quickly, as her flimsy dress afforded her little protection. He worked himself into a staccato, her bum jiggling under his practiced hand. The spanking wasn’t meant to hurt so much as to get her attention. It was what she’d earned – but not what she needed.

He halted, his attention moving to the hem of her dress. She could feel the fabric start to creep up the back of her thighs.

“Bertie, wait.”

“I’m not sure that I can. I think I’m going to like what I’ll find behind the curtain.” He lifted up her dress and whistled as he discovered that she’d neglected to wear anything beneath. “You didn’t want panty lines, did you?”

“Bertie, hold on. You heard that Curtis confessed because his grandpa got doxxed, right? That was me. I did it.”

He was quiet for a moment. Lowering her head, Rachel lay bare-bottomed and with bated breath across his lap, waiting for judgment.

“Was it worth it?” he asked. She shrugged. Bertie shucked her dress up to her waist and resumed his task with vigour. Rachel yelped as he lit a fire in her backside. She seized his leg, holding on for dear life.

After two minutes, her bottom felt like it must be glowing. Bertie kneaded her rosy cheeks, squeezing out the heat. He asked again, “Was it worth it?”

Her words came as a gasp. “I don’t know.”

And so he continued. Tortured by the scorch building up in her rear, her writhing turned into kicking the air, and Bertie trapped one of her legs in a scissor hold. The awkward pose forced her to rub against him each time his hand came down, and she hoped that he didn’t hear the moan escaping her lips.

“Was it worth it?” he asked again, determined.

“Yes!”

She felt the hold on her leg vanish, and Bertie helped her into a standing position. She winced as the dress fell back across her burning seat. Brushing a trace of moisture from her eyes, she looked into Bertie’s face, still caring, still confused.

“Is that what you needed?” he whispered.

She nodded and noticed the swell in his trousers. “You know what else I need?” She brushed a hand over his crotch. Bertie smirked.

“No.”

“No?”

“I’m going to make dinner, sweetie. Why don’t you find yourself a spot against the wall, and keep that dress up.”

“But…”

“Butt is right, I want to see yours on display while I’m cooking. Off you go now.”

Pouting, she raised her dress, folding the hem behind her as she stood in the corner. She wiggled her reddened tush, hoping to catch his attention, but if he appreciated the gesture, it didn’t show. She sighed, hoping that he wouldn’t insist on keeping her there until they were ready to eat, and knowing already that such hopes were in vain.

Out of the corner of her eye, she caught a green light blinking on her laptop. The webcam… had she left it on? Had she just recorded the last five minutes? She imagined reviewing the footage, watching her own behind jiggle and pinken as she was spanked. She snuck out a hand to turn the camera off…

“You don’t need a reminder, do you?”

She withdrew. Better Bertie didn’t know about the footage anyway, he’d insist on keeping it. Maybe she’d save it as a “present” for later. As she settled in for the long haul, she spared one last thought for HipHopGrampie: She was sure he hadn’t taken his own whupping as well as she’d just taken hers.