Shameful
by Kinto Mythostian


The disc arrived in an envelope delivered by a private courier.

The company receives amateur submissions all the time, and many of them are fakes. It is my job to authenticate them before publication; we have a reputation to maintain.

The video loads, the first frame appearing on my screen with no preamble, waiting for me to press play.

On the screen a girl sits in a periwinkle blue fitted sweater. In her arms she holds a lion plushie, hugged tight to her modest chest, and around her neck dangles a plain gold cross on a matching chain. She appears to be sitting at a desk, facing the camera - likely on a computer - set to record. The background looks like a bedroom, with pink walls and gauzy white curtains over the windows.

She is an ungulate of some kind, but not a species I recognize right away; there are so many of the things. Her fur is ivory white, except for a shock of dark brown headfur on the crown of her head, nestled between a pair of black horns that show the first signs of developing a corkscrew twist. Getting that tight sweater on over those must have been quite a feat, I think to myself. I make some notes on my pad to help me determine her species later and hit play.

"H-hi." Her first word, quiet and uncertain. She takes a deep breath, and tries again, her voice louder now but still soft, and clear: "Hello. My name is Tamar, I am s- eighteen years old, and I am going to kill myself. Please do not try to save me. If you are watching this, then it is already too late. Do not pity me. There can be no forgiveness for what I have done. No one else can give me the punishment I have earned, and so it falls to me alone. This is what I deserve. This- this is how it has to be."

She speaks as though reading from a script; she must have been planning this for a while. Her voice is flat, audibly straining to keep her tone free of emotion. There is a slight tremor of hoarseness, as though she has already cried herself dry several times over. I wonder how many takes it took, how many times she spoke those terrible words of suicidal intent before she could get through them without breaking down.

"To my parents, I am sorry for all the pain and disappointment I've caused you. I've picked out the clothes I wish to be buried in and laid them on my bed. I hope the money I have saved is enough for a coffin. Please, once I am gone, try to forget about me. This is my dying wish.

"To - I want you to know this is not your fault."

I pause and rewind.

"To - I want you to know this is not your fault."

My ears weren't deceiving me. There is a distinct skip in her speech. Someone has already seen this video, and edited out the name she just spoke. I press play again and let Tamar continue. 

"There is no innocent blood on your hands. Everything that has happened is because of my own actions. The fault is mine alone. The consequence is mine alone to suffer. My death is my responsibility."

She squeezes her leonine plushie tighter. For a moment it looks as though she might burst into tears, but she swallows it down and finishes her prepared speech in the same sad monotone.

"I have no defense for my actions. I am ashamed. I stand ready to accept God's Judgment. Though I fear what I know awaits me, it is no less than what I deserve.

"Goodbye." She stands and steps away from the camera. Behind where she had been sitting a coarse rope noose hangs above a short white-painted stool in the center of the pink room. The rope extends above the top of the frame; it cannot be seen what it is tied to.

I quickly hit pause again, leaning in closer to my monitor gaping at the noose in the center of the screen. This girl really is an amateur. It's all wrong. The rope, the knot, all of it is wrong. A knot tightens in the pit of my stomach, something that may never happen around her neck. She cannot possibly be aware of what is in store for her. It will not be quick, it will not be clean; if she does go through with it, it will kill her - eventually - but it will be agony for her. 

I turn my attention back to Tamar, paused in the act of turning away from the camera. Her shock of brown headfur continues into a single braided plait that hangs down her back nearly to her waist, tied at the end with a ribbon, periwinkle blue to match her sweater. Below her sweater she wears a black knee-length skirt and sheer black tights, the creamy white of her fur faintly visible underneath; I hit play again and her tail comes into view, the tufted end adorned with another periwinkle blue ribbon tied in a bow.

She walks to the bed where an aggressively plain black dress rests on top of the pillowy pink comforter. On the pink wall above her bed big white cheerful letters spell out the word PRINCESS. Tamar sets her lion plushie down on the bed beside the black dress she has chosen for her burial; she tenderly places one empty sleeve across the toy's back in a mock embrace and places a pillow over its head, hiding its face. She removes the gold chain and cross from around her neck and places it on the dress. She picks up a strip of black cloth.

Her final steps are robotic, trancelike, her gaze fixed on the floor, afraid to look at the noose she has already prepared for herself, moving soundlessly and of her own free will to her self-imposed Golgotha. 

She steps up onto the stool and finally now has no choice now but to confront the waiting snare, dangling right in front of her face. For the first time since the video started there are tears shimmering in her eyes.

She hesitates, staring at it as though she has never seen it before, but only for a second. Then in one motion she grabs the noose with both hands and thrusts her horned head through, without ceremony and as swift as ripping off a band-aid. She draws her long braid up and out of the loop and snugs the crude slipknot against the nape of her neck. The rope is now set around her neck, right below her jaw. Her braid falls back into place resting against her back.

My penis, twitching at half-mast since I started the video, swells to full girth inside my underwear as the girl nooses herself.

With shaking fingers she hurriedly places the black strip of cloth over her eyes and knots it tightly under her chin, blindfolding herself. She lets her hands fall to her sides; though she is clearly trying to project an air of stoic obligation her lips part and she can be heard to choke back a tiny whimper.

She seems unsure what to do with her hands; apparently, she could not obtain any handcuffs, or simply never considered this aspect. Her fingers flex and fidget. Her left hand rises uncertainly to paw at the rope around her neck, as though to confirm it is really there, and then abruptly jerks away, and then clenches into a fist held close to her breast, which is rising and falling rapidly. Eventually, her right hand joins it, both hands now clenched together on her chest, so tightly the white of her knuckles shows through the thin fuzz of fur.

She is shaking her head slightly, as though in intense internal debate. The timestamp shows it is now more than three minutes since she placed the noose around her neck.

"Don't do it. It's not too late. Please, don't do it..." I whisper to myself, even as my erection pulses with anticipation, my warped libido eager to see this poor girl hang.

Tamar speaks, suddenly but clearly, with a tone of dreadful finality, the most emotion her voice has born since her video began, "No. This is how it has to be." By the set of her brow, she is squeezing her eyes shut even behind the blindfold.

She draws in one last deep, trembling breath, mustering the fortitude to take that final step. She holds her jaw straight and level, her mouth closed in a grim mien.

She kicks back, hard. 

The stool thumps softly on the carpeted floor.

I gasp.

A short drop, and a sudden stop, the noose pressing into her throat but not properly cinching tight.

"Glhk! Ghhk! Kggk!" Ragged aspirations as she begins to choke to death.

Her hands fly to her neck, hooffingers clutching at the rope digging into her flesh, clawing raw red marks into her white hide. Her legs kick frantically, but find nothing but empty air.

My erection strains against the confines of my pants and I reach down reflexively with one hand to encourage it. Tamar has done her job effectively if not efficiently; nothing now save a miracle from God Himself can prevent her death.

"Glhk! Hglk!"

Her ribboned tail lashes from side to side.

The end of her plait thumps against the small of her back.

Her ears are pinned back, flat and stiff against her skull in pain.

Her self-adjudicated sentence is merciless. 

"Gggk! Hhhgk!"

Despite the noose around her neck her tongue and lips are still red, her ears still flushed pink. It is not a clean death she has given herself; it is slow, and it is ugly. 

"Hhhgk! Glllk!"

"Ghhghk!"

"Khhghkhhk!"

The timestamp attests to a full ten minutes of agony before Tamar's frantic struggling finally induces her poorly crafted slipknot to live up to its name, abruptly jerking down to pinch tight against her spine, squeezing her trachea with her own entire weight. "HNGGK!" she exclaims, her limbs going briefly rigid, hands clutched at her throat, elbows flying out to her sides, her bright red tongue shooting out from her mouth.

At that moment I spurt my pent-up load, soaking my underwear with my cream at the sight of the dying girl's suddenly intensified agony. But Tamar is not finished yet, nor is my perverse arousal.

Tamar thrashes her horned head from side to side to relieve the pressure, the motion exaggerated as it propagates down her long braid; but the rope only digs deeper with every motion, rubbing harsh abrasions into her skin. She strains to inhale through her crushed throat, hooffingers striving and failing to dig in beneath the noose, her chest rising a minuscule amount only through intense effort.

Her hooftoes flex at the end of flailing legs, straining tendons visible through the translucent material of her tights. A dark stain spreads across the front of her skirt as she pisses herself even as she still struggles with conscious effort.

"Hhhk. Nggk." 

"Hgglk!"

Her tongue protrudes from her gaping lips, turning first purple, and then blue, thick drool dripping down to stain her straining periwinkle breast. 

"Ghhg."

"Hhk."

"Gh."

Every strangled vocalization is a sign that she still lives.

"Hnng!"

More than that, a sign that she is still conscious, suffering through every second, cognizant of every moment of torture. Encouraged by my hand, my penis pulses in time with every thin breath that escapes her gasping lips.

"Hgg."

"Hhhg."

"Hkkg."

Is she pleading for help? For death? Crying out in regret? Or remorse?

It hardly matters. It is too late now for anyone to soothe her.

Her hooffingers still clutch at the instrument of her torture, but feebly now.

Her head begins to loll senselessly.

"Nhhk."

"Hh-"

Her head jolts sharply, as though she had been drifting off to sleep and then suddenly awoke. "Hhhngk--!" a strangled gasp of distress as the pain of her slow death breaks over her anew, and her midair struggles take on fresh vigor.

"Hnggk."

"Grrhk."

"Hlllk--!"

This horrific process repeats again, and then a third time, her struggles weaker and shorter with each iteration, her body growing heavier in the noose. Each time her energy resurges, my erection throbs anew, spurting increasingly watery seed into my saturated groin.

"Hhh."

"Hgghh."

"Hhhhk--!"

By the final repetition her legs no longer kick and her arms fall to her sides to dangle uselessly, literal deadweight, too heavy for her to lift; and yet still her fingers clutch weakly at nothing, cruel mockery of her instinctive fight. 

Weakened by death's slow and inexorable progression, all she can do now is hang, and wait, her final moments spent in complete, abject misery.

"Gllg."

"Ggg."

Her horned head slumps at an awkward, uncomfortable angle, appearing at last to be still for good, aside from the sporadic random flutter of an ear. No more drool drips from her engorged black tongue. The ribboned end of her braid rests against her back. Down below, her hooftoes continue to twitch, mindlessly. 

Her shoulders droop, the last of the tension leaving her body that now hangs slack below her enlengthened antilopine neck.

"Ghh."

"Gg-"

At last, her choked attempts at breathing fall silent. Yet even still it takes a long time for her to fall totally motionless, for her hands to cease their feeble clutching, for her ears and tail to fall limp, for her legs to stop their twitching, for her young breasts to stop straining beneath that periwinkle blue fitted sweater. One final spasm, and patient death takes her.

Tamar set out to kill herself, and she has succeeded.

I am suddenly conscious of the mess I have made in my pants and feel a surge of shame. This girl is dead by her own hand, her suicide so poorly execu-poorly carried out that it took full thirty minutes for her to lose consciousness. What I have just witnessed was wretched, disgusting, and deeply, deeply sad. Part of me wants to close the video immediately and never so much as think of it again.

Quality control policy, however, demands that I watch the entire recording. The video runs for nearly another hour after Tamar's last sign of movement. An hour of a corpse, hanged from a rope in a pink-painted bedroom with the word PRINCESS on the wall, swaying ever so slightly. A girl, who hid the face of her favorite plushie so it wouldn't have to watch her die. A corpse, primly dressed and lifeless, the peacefulness of the tableau belying the violent tragedy that preceded. A girl named Tamar with a bow on her tail, a person, who died believing that her act of self-destruction would condemn her to eternal damnation, and believing it was what she deserved.

The video stops abruptly just before the timestamp reaches 2 hours. I feel ill. My job is still not finished, though.

It only takes a quick web search to quash the last glimmer of hope that this video is an elaborate fake, finding the death notice confirming an addax - I add this to my notes - named Tamar Pygarg died only two weeks ago in an affluent suburb out west. The obituary is succinct, and tellingly short on specifics. As I suspected, she lied about her age. A little more searching with fraudulent login credentials turns up the police report and autopsy, confirming in clinical exactitude the sort of details that would be indecorous to publish in a newspaper but must nevertheless be immortalized in the sterile file systems of the local precinct. The report states the hard drive of the computer in the room was wiped clean, they assume by Tamar herself. The case has been closed with no evidence of foul play; there is no mention of a video. 

A longer and more thorough search of some very unsavory IPs confirms this video exists nowhere online.

Some digging on a private forum where morticians with questionable ethics like to show off their handiwork to each other produces the money shot: Tamar in the white satin creche of a coffin, dressed in black in accordance with her final wishes, her gold cross necklace around her throat, her plushie lion tucked in under one arm beside her. The poster brags about how much work it took to hide the bruises around her neck.

I mark the video AUTHENTIC, and attach my notes for categorization and tagging. With all the fakes out there, it is gratifying to receive something real every once in a while. I prepare to send it up the chain to the editing department; within 48 hours it will be on the company's website where it can be viewed by anyone with enough money. All I have to do is hit ENTER.

I hesitate.

Am I really going to allow this video to be published? Where everyone can watch this poor, miserable girl take her own life in shame? An intensely private moment? There is nothing erotic about Tamar's death, she derived no pleasure from it, felt no angelic lust; what she experienced was the polar opposite. And yet I know our viewers will "enjoy" it regardless. I certainly enjoyed it, and feel incredibly ashamed of the fact. Part of me knows it would be just as easy to label it a fake, delete everything, shred the disc, and never let it see the light of day.

This video should not exist.

And yet. 

And yet if it was so private, why did Tamar record it? She wanted someone to see it. Wanted someone to know. Wanted someone to understand why. Someone made sure this video found its way to us. Was this her doing? If not her, then who? 

Even as she condemned herself to her grave, she took steps to ensure herself immortality. Our viewers will watch her die, and watch her die again, and again. They will all know the name Tamar, and jack off to her terminal anguish. Her shame will be her fame. Her shame will be our profit. 

This can't be what she wanted. But she filmed it. Filmed her suicide for someone.

I watched it. I came to her death throes. Part of me badly, badly wants to watch her die again. I know for a fact I will never again look at a periwinkle blue fitted sweater and NOT think of her. I can close my eyes now and picture her; she was a beautiful creature, snuffed out in her prime by her own hand, facing her self-imposed execution with as much dignity as she could bear, hanged in the security of her pink bedroom.

What could a girl like her have possibly done to make her believe this was the only option? Who taught her she deserved damnation? If there truly is a god that would consign poor, pitiable Tamar to eternal torment, they are not a god that deserves any worship. A god like that should be begging her for forgiveness. 

The way she struggled, and fought, and suffered. She shouldn't have died like that. Her death should have been soft, and gentle, a death befitting a girl whose parents called 'Princess'.

She shouldn't have died at all, my atrophied conscience objects, and I feel ashamed that wasn't my first instinct.

But.

She did. She is dead.

The video does exist.

The way she struggled, and fought, and /suffered/. Our viewers will want to see it. Her innocence, her beauty, her naivete; they will want to see that snuffed out, harshly, painfully. It is real, and raw, and tragic, and ugly, and beautiful in a way no staged simulacrum could ever be.

Videos are meant to be watched.

Maybe some videos even need to be watched.

This is wrong. That part of me that reveled in her protracted decimation, that wallowed in glee when she placed the rope around her own neck, that thrilled to every futile shudder of her breast within its cashmere shroud, that orgasmed when the noose bit, that part of me that was excited to see Tamar kill herself is wrong.

But it felt so /good/.

My finger hovers over the ENTER key.

I shouldn't. 

I press it, shamefully.






Started May 11, 2021. First draft finished April 3, 2022. Editing completed June 4, 2022.