12 Hours

April O'Neil stood at the counter, pouring coffee like it might fix the day ahead. The clock said otherwise. When she dropped into her chair she told Alana to start talking. Alana had barely hit the first slide when a message flashed across the corner of her screen—two naked girls, fingers buried deep, faces slack with pleasure. One of them was her. She slammed the lid so hard the table jumped. A muttered apology, then she cracked the laptop open just enough to type: "What the hell do you want?" She knew blackmail when she saw it. The word husband pulsed behind every thought. By the time the meeting ended she was out the door and running. A folded note lay at her threshold. It told her exactly which lingerie to wear and warned her to keep her curtains open. Inside, her phone buzzed again: two women. Tonight. Fail and your husband sees everything. Georgia Jones didn't pick up. April paced, cursed, chose stockings anyway. Every minute felt stolen. The doorbell rang and Georgia stood there red-eyed. She'd been given the same ultimatum. While they traded panic, Jenna Sativa knocked with a brown parcel—webcam and lube inside. A fresh message ordered her to join them or suffer the same exposure. Resistance lasted seconds; Jenna's livelihood rode on silence too. Under the red eye of the camera they stripped, touched, fucked like performers on a private stage. Mouths, fingers, wet sounds filling quiet rooms. When they finished, phones stayed dark. Relief came first, then the slow dread that someone, somewhere, still held the tape.