Isaak Soreau’s Still life with strawberries (1604–1645)

The CW

The following story is an excerpt from Parasocialite, available through Dream Boy Book Club.

In college, I uploaded a photo of myself in my underwear to Instagram. The picture went viral—not because I looked particularly good, but because I had failed to notice a string of period blood dribbling down my left leg. I took control of the narrative by claiming that I had meant to show off the bright red stripe all along, in service of normalizing menstruation and also platforming reproductive rights and also taking a stand against capitalism. I got thousands of new followers from the incident—including teen heartthrob [CW star]. 

To DM or not to DM? That was the question. I had never watched his show; his cherubic cheeks and innocent eyes would have failed to seduce me under other circumstances. Yet I was enticed by the fact that we weren’t so dissimilar anymore, he and I. Maybe a conversation with the face of young Hollywood would teach me how to handle my new life in the spotlight. 

“So I take it you’re a feminist,” I messaged him one fateful night (after posting a selfie in a low-cut crop top). 

“I consider myself a lover of women.” 

He went on to tell me that he was in town, shooting a low-budget indie. He was nervous, he said: it would be his first rom-com. I assured him that he had nothing to worry about: even if he flopped on the acting front, his good looks would cover for him. 

“That means a lot coming from a gorgeous girl like you.”

And thus he transformed me. I was no longer an awkward freshman whose grainy mirror pic had somehow reached an audience of 70,000 instead of 700—I was a model, the perfect partner for an actor like himself. I assuaged his fears, typed in trembling lowercase; he rewarded me with words like cheek kisses. His praise sanded down my jagged edges and rounded out my uneven curves, turning me into a sculpture of a woman. As we talked, I almost convinced myself that I had let the blood trickle on purpose: not as a demonstration of solidarity, but as a power play. 

Day turned to night. Plans were made. He wanted to pull me into his hotel room and lick my thighs dry—but first, he wanted to tell me a secret. 

“Go on,” I said, imagining his scarlet lips on my earlobe. 

“I raped someone last year.” 

The words were my induction into a cult I’d spend the rest of my life trying to outrun.

I asked why he was sharing this information with me. 

“You seem like a kind person. Like someone who will listen.” 

“How come I haven’t heard any allegations?” 

“I have a good PR team.” 

I Googled “[CW star] + rape.” The top result: “[CW star] appears in PSA addressing sexual assault.” 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m not trying to scare you. I just needed to get this off my chest.”

“No,” I told him. “I’m sorry.” 

Quaking, I hit the “block” button. 

Eventually, his pearly grin appeared on my Twitter feed. Underneath it, a headline: [CW star] Claims IG Account Was Hacked. 

I followed the link for his statement. 

I apologize for any distress caused. A malicious party gained access to my account and proceeded to wreak havoc. My fans know that I would never intentionally do anything to make anyone feel uncomfortable or disrespected. Stay awake, stay alert—and tune in to the CW next Wednesday for a new episode of [Show], which incidentally addresses the timely issue of cybersecurity. 

I will be taking a temporary hiatus from social media. 

As the text burned itself into my brain, I vowed to step away from Instagram as well—and I kept my promise. Yet weeks later, I found myself opening up a private browser and logging onto Omegle. I spent hours chatting with strangers, often wearing the same set of panties that had gotten me into this mess. I regaled them with games of Truth or Dare, always leading up to the same question—“What’s the worst thing you’ve ever done?” 

Typically, the boys—men, really—laughed and looked away. “I don’t think you want to know.”

Brittany Menjivar was born and raised in the DMV; she now works and plays in the City of Angels. In 2019, she wrote the short film "Fragile.com"; it was developed through the AT&T Hello Lab Filmmaker Mentorship Program and is currently available for streaming via ALTER, where it has over 2 million views. In 2022, she was named a finalist for the Best of the Net Award in Fiction. In 2023, she co-founded Car Crash Collective, a poetry and prose reading series partially incited by a near-fatal car accident she suffered; Car Crash was recently profiled in Office and named an official co-host of the 2024 Storyfort literary festival. Parasocialite, her debut short story and poetry collection, is available through Dream Boy Book Club.