His favorite was Revenge Porn, though Josh Dunnigan used the photos for a slightly different reason than the uploader intended. He didn’t like the revenge aspect of Revenge Porn, which to some might seem counterintuitive. To Josh though, he saw the photos in their earlier state, a state that, to most viewers, was veiled in dark voyeuristic misogyny. But that’s not how Josh saw them. The malicious, slut-shaming messages that were fastened posthumously to the photos were in reality the result of the entropy created out of their respective break-ups.

The thing that coaxed Josh into to his fetish of choice was his awareness of the immortal preservation of an intimate moment. In that solid, whole section of space-time, cemented in place by the millions of pixels, there existed a nonreplicable moment of intimacy; sometimes even love.

Her eyes. Her smile. Her lust. Her passion.

Josh was already hard and he hadn’t even opened up the browser. He excitedly entered his favorite Tumblr feed and squirted a handful of lotion into his left hand; scanning and clicking with his right. Immediately afterward, Josh would always feel creepy and lonely and pathetic, but in the moment his whole body was charged with the familiar voyeuristic rush aided by the warm pulsing of anticipation. As he tethered himself to the intimacy confined inside the two-dimensional boundaries of the photos, he began to stroke.

He didn’t read the headlines of posts since he found them terribly demeaning and exploitative: cum slut ex takes my load, skanky bitch likes it in her tight ass. Josh tried to pretend that the words didn’t even exist. Instead, he melded with the point of view of the photographer, imagining that he was living out that moment.

Stopping on a photo of a tattooed brunette with loving hazel eyes, he began to stroke faster. Behind the girl, the room was draped in haphazard layers of assorted clothes and he began to cobble together an image of her personality. He was assuming it was her room and not the boyfriends, or maybe they lived together, but in his mind they did not. This was her apartment and she was wild and kinky and messy and passionate. The look in her eyes confessed the desire she felt for the photographer, now Josh. He pulsed even harder. He imagined whispering loving words to her as the moments, birthed by the solitary still photograph but expanding inside his mind, began their imaginary movement. She would talk back to him. They would feel connected to one another.

He stopped.

He was close; too close. So he started scrolling again. There were a bunch of photos in succession that were more sad than they were erotic. He hated ones that featured women who were clearly coerced into the pictures by their significant others. He could always see it in their eyes, that unwillingness, and it hurt him and prematurely started those feelings of being creepy and pathetic and exploitative that usually only presented themselves after he came.

And then he found a girl in her home bathroom. She’d taken the photo herself in the reflection of the mirror and was smiling; beaming. It filled him once again with that longed for feeling of affection, connection, and desire. She had wide realistic hips that he assumed meant she was a mother.

That turned him on too.

She was playfully pulling open her green and black flannel shirt to reveal her, probably milk-filled, breasts that he wanted to caress and snuggle into. Her pastel purple panties hid most of the hip tattoo that was some kind of Chinese symbol. He imagined stroking her womanly hip as he jerked himself with his left hand. He panted and whispered to the image of the woman in her bathroom. He imagined the photo was intended for him. He imagined she loved him.

He stopped again and resumed scrolling and then the anger took him.

It was her!

How could it be her?

He wiped the lotion off his left hand with some tissues by the computer. He pulled his chair in closer and stared calculatingly at the image to be sure. He blew the image up to inspect more closely and then he saw the birthmark.

Anger replaced his lustful voyeurism and he scanned the image for clues.

He knew that apartment. It was that guy he’d warned her about. Josh was sure of it. She’d invited him to that apartment not long after she’d moved in with that asshole. He’d never liked him and now he was overwhelmed with a need to avenge the desecration of someone so important to him. He’d warned her and she’d discounted it as simple jealousy. Of course his concern for her was potently imbued with his unrequited longing but he had been right not to trust that asshole.

He’d heard that they’d broken up recently and that she’d moved to her own place but now she was also on a Revenge Porn site, blowing this repugnant monster.

Josh felt sick.

Should he call her? Let her know that there were photos of her on the internet sucking hungrily on an undeserving cock? He thought and thought, staring into the pixels of an image he’d imagined for years in his mental fantasies. And then he decided what he was going to do. What he had to do.

He pulled his pants up and threw on a shirt.

* * *

He kept buzzing the apartment but it was over 10 minutes before a tired voice answered: “Seriously, what the fuck?”

Even the man’s voice caused the charged darkness to pulse, larger and larger, stronger and stronger from Josh’s insides.

Josh couldn’t bring himself to say his name so he just said, “I need to talk to you.”

“Who the fuck is this?” The man’s voice held it’s own disdain. “It’s fucking 2 in the morning.”

“I saw the pictures you posted,” Josh was pressing the talk button so hard that the bed of his fingernail was a sickly white. “That was wrong. She loved you. I saw in her eyes how she loved you and you fucking posted it for everyone.”

“What the fuck are you talking about?”

“I saw them. Let me in.”

“No. Go away.”

For the next few minutes there was no response to Josh’s continued buzzing but then a livid voice snarled: “You want me to call the cops you fucking psycho?”

“Sure. Let’s do that. Let’s tell them how you posted intimate photos online without the consent of all of those involved. How about that?”

“What?”

“Just let me in. I wanna talk to you.”

“About what?”

“You heard me. I saw them. I know you posted them. I know it was her and I know they were taken in your room. If you don’t let me in I’m going straight to the cops.”

There was silence for a while and then a mechanical click as the door unlocked.

Josh walked inside and started up the stairs.

* * *

“So I posted them. So what?”

Seeing the man in person almost made him finish things right then but no, no he wanted to wait for awhile.

“You had something,” Josh paused, “someone so special and wonderful and lovely-“

The man cut him off. “Dude, if you came here to preach at me over some pathetic obsession you had for her you can just fuck off right now.”

Josh grit his teeth together.

“She loved you and-“

“Blah blah blah, fuck that sappy shit, loser. She was a fucking sweet piece of ass while I was fucking her and now that we’re not I thought I’d spread a little of her ass around to others. What’s it matter to you anyway? I mean I know you wanted her man, everyone knew you wanted her, including her.”

Josh was silence while the man continued.

“She told me how clingy and psycho you were. She was kinda afraid of you man.”

Josh’s face went pale and he felt like his knees might buckle.

No. She wouldn’t say that. He’s fucking with you.

“She’s special and she’s-“

“A fucking pussy. She was good while I was drilling her, but now I’m not anymore. Now I’m pounding some other slut’s pussy. What of it?”

“I saw her feelings for you in her eyes and you just-“

“Wait, did you jerk off to it?” The man laughed. “You totally did you pathetic freak. You probably finished, felt guilty, and then came over here to take the moral high ground by confronting me but you know what? You’re just as fucking guilty for beating off to it you pervy sicko.”

He’d wanted to wait a little longer but it was involuntary. Josh shot his hand out from his pocket and stabbed the man in the throat with the knife he’d been concealing inside.

The surprise on the man’s face was definitely worth the future consequences he knew would follow shortly.

As the life drained from the man’s eyes, Josh whispered: “she is the most special and perfect woman. You should never have been blessed with the intimacy you so flippantly discarded.”