All sin tends to be addictive,
and the terminal point of addiction is what is called damnation.
W.H. Auden (1907–1973)

“You have to see it, Danny,” Greg Rill said to me Monday during break. “Jim was right. It’s fucking awesome.”

“Yeah?” Steve Marsh asked, totally unimpressed by Greg’s enthusiasm. “What’s so awesome about it? It’ll just be a bunch of cheap sluts plying their wares: tits and ass, maybe a bit of beaver; no different to any other skin site.”

“Just check it out,” Greg said. “You won’t believe it. Trust me. You’ll die when you see who’s on it.”

“Didn’t know you were such a porno enthusiast,” I said, grinning. “Come on, Greg, fess up, what’s the deal?”

“No way, man. You gotta see it to believe it.” Greg drained the last of his coffee, tossed his cup in the recycler, and left us to stare after him as he headed back to his cubicle.

“What the hell’s up with him?” Steve asked.

“Who knows? I’ve never seen him so jazzed.”

“You gonna check it out?”

I looked across at Steve and shrugged. “I’ve better things to do with my time.”

“Yeah, tell me about it,” he said, turning to face me. “Gillian kept us up all last night. If I get any free time I’m gonna sleep.”

“How is she?” I asked.

“She’s great, but I think she’s planning to grow up to be an insomniac.” He chuckled. “I’m dead on my feet.”

“Yeah, you look it.”

Steve frowned. “I don’t look half as bad as Jim did this morning.”

“Maybe it’s an overdose of porno,” I said, joking.

“Dan, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say ‘overdose’ wasn’t so far off the money.”

I just looked at him, bemused, the smile sliding off my face, as he walked away.

*

Back at my desk I couldn’t settle. There was no way Jim would ever do drugs. At seventeen his sister had died of an overdose. Her heart had stopped when the speedball hit; Jim’s had broken, scabbed over and hardened. He hated users; was rabid about pushers.

I picked up the phone. However, before I could dial his number I was interrupted. It was Natasha Mason and the sight of her drove all thoughts of Jim from my head.

I’d lusted after Nat for months. She was gorgeous. Five foot four, curves emphasized rather than hidden by the cut of her charcoal grey business suits; dark hair; heart shaped face, and so far out of my league it was untrue.

*

It was late Wednesday morning when I next thought about Jim.

“Hey, Dan. Wait up.”

I turned and saw Steve coming towards me. He looked upset. His tie was undone and hanging at half-mast, his collar pulled open; his expression harried.

“You OK, Steve? You look like hell.”

“You mean you haven’t heard?”

I shook my head. “Heard what?”

“Shit, Dan, where you been?”

All I could do was shrug.

Steve glanced over his shoulder and said, “Come on, let’s get out of here.” Then, without waiting for a reply, he headed off down the corridor.

Seated in Starbucks, café latté cooling in front of him, Steve slumped in the leather armchair and rubbed at his eyes. He looked shattered.

“Gillian keep you awake again?” I asked.

“Yeah. But that’s not it.”

He sighed and rotated his head on his neck, the tension audible as well as visible. He sat up. “Jim’s dead,” he said.

*

It had to be a joke. That was all I kept thinking as I sat at my desk, stunned by what Steve had told me. I just couldn’t believe it.

Jim dead. It had to be a joke.

Except it wasn’t.

Tuesday night Jim had gone home, undressed, put the barrel of his illegally obtained pistol in his mouth and pulled the trigger.

Mrs. Cranshaw, his next-door neighbour, had called it in. The eighty-four year old had heard the gunshots from Jim’s flat just as she was about to go to bed and had rushed around in her housecoat to bang on his door. When no one answered her frantic knocking, she called 999.

The police found Jim in his bedroom, naked, seated before the shattered remains of his PC. His walls covered with hundreds of downloaded, hardcopy images of junkies, each one more degrading and obscene than the last.

Steve had heard the news from his brother, Dave, who’d been on duty when the call had come in. He said the worst pictures were those Dave’s partner found in the mangled remains of Jim’s printer. Those had featured a woman clearly long dead, flesh yellowed and desiccated: her body used long after her soul had fled.

I felt numb.

The thought of Jim getting off on dead junkies made no sense. How could he even look at that shit? It was sick. And telling us about it was made no sense at all.

It was then that I remembered Jim hadn’t been the only one raving about the site.

*

The deluge was biblical in intensity and freezing cold. By the time I reached Greg’s terrace and knocked on his door I was soaked to the skin. Water ran into my eyes, plastered my hair to my head and blurred the shop lights into a neon mist.

I knocked again, louder this time, and wiped the rain from my face. Patience has never been my strong point and, as I knocked a third time, louder still, I called out for him to open the goddamn door.

After what seemed an eternity, I heard the sound of the security locks being unlatched.

Greg slumped against the partially open door. He looked like he hadn’t slept in months. His face was grey and slack. His eyes were bloodshot and raw, and dark blue crescents bruised the skin beneath them.

“Greg…” I said, at a loss for words. I couldn’t believe the contrast from his normal dapper appearance.

“What do you want, Dan?”

“Are you okay?” I asked, stepping forward. “Nat Mason said you’d called in ill today.”

“I’m fine.”

“You look like shit.”

Greg shrugged.

“Look, can I come in?” I asked.

He shook his head, searching for the right words, but also answering my question. “It’s a bad time.”

“I wouldn’t normally hassle you, Greg, but I’m worried, you know, after Jim?”

“Believe me,” he said. “I know all about Jim.”

He looked like he was about to be physically sick.

“Greg?”

“You better come in,” he said.

The house was modern, minimalist in its décor: the walls glacial white, the floor bleached hardwood, the furniture all chrome and black. I removed my wet overcoat and draped it over a coat tree made from twisted steel bars and followed Greg into the living room. He dropped onto his couch and, as I sat in the chair opposite, leaned forward and put his head in his hands. His shoulders shook and it took me a moment to realise he was laughing and not sobbing.

“It’s hilarious isn’t it?” he said at last, lifting his head from his hands to look at me.

I frowned. I didn’t know how I was supposed to answer and yet, from his expectant look, the question obviously hadn’t been rhetorical.

“It’s Jim’s fault,” he said pointing to the iBook at his side. “You know that, right?”

I nodded, my eyes switching back and forth between Greg and the laptop. The screen was turned away from me, but it was obviously online.

“Because of the site?” I asked.

“The site?” he said, spitting the words. “Of course it’s the fucking site. Every time I look it’s more dreadful than the last. But can I stop? Fuck no. It’s too strong. I’ve tried to resist. I’ve tried to not give in, but it eats away at you. It fucking gnaws at you until you can’t stand it. So you look. And it’s too awful for words, but you look anyway. You look and you look and you look and you keep looking until it burns out your fucking eyes and melts your brain.”

He was hyperventilating. Tension radiated from him in waves.

“It’s just pictures,” I said, completely out of my depth. “They’re sick, sure, but they can’t hurt you.”

At my words, Greg’s face filled with horror and desperation. “You haven’t seen it, have you?” he said. ”Jesus Christ, you’ve no idea what I’m on about.”

“Greg —”
“No,” he said. “I thought you could help me. I thought you knew.”

“I do. I —”

“No you don’t. You haven’t a clue. Not a bloody cl—”

“It’s dead bodies,” I said. “Images of dead and drugged up addicts.”

“Who told you that shit?” He seemed genuinely puzzled.

“That’s what they found in Jim’s room,” I said.

“Bullshit. It ain’t dead chicks on that site.”

“Then what is it, Greg? What’s the problem?”

“You don’t want to know, Danny. Trust me.”
“I want to help.”

“You can’t.”

Greg stood up. “I think you better go.”

*

As soon as I arrived home, I booted up my PC. I had to know what was going on, what it was about this site that screwed people up so badly.

I typed the address and hesitated, finger poised above the commit, as I became aware of a sense of foreboding growing within me. I had a sudden feeling that something very bad was going to happen, very soon, unless I stopped what I was doing.

The cursor blinked, mocking me, my gut twisting with unease as it ticked away the seconds.

I didn’t know what to do, so I hit commit.

There were no words. No advertising spiel or banners, just the page name and the most unbelievable pictures.

My jaw dropped.

Greg had been right. There were no dead girls here.

What there was, was Nat Mason, the girl of my dreams, stripped bare and on display for the entire world to see. Her body posed; captured on film in every position imaginable. Image after image: legs spread and stretched wide, sex thrust at the camera, every inch of her exposed. Wet. Pink. Glistening. Her face twisted in the throes of passion, as sweat beaded her brow and ran down her neck, the rivulets pooling between pink tipped, pert breasts.

Oh, God.

I snapped the browser closed. Embarrassed and confused, I staggered to the bathroom.

For the rest of the night I tried to drive those images of Natasha from my mind.

I failed.

By the morning I was a wreck. My eyes burned. I felt sick to my stomach. Too many mixed emotions churned within me: guilt, shame, lust, and all I could think about was hitting the site again. I almost called in sick, but I managed to catch myself as I accessed the number.

My mind refused to focus. No matter how hard I tried my thoughts spiralled back to Nat: naked, writhing, her secret places exposed for my eyes to devour. Her —

Stop it! I told myself, slamming my fist into my leg. Stop it right now.

I needed some air.

The day was overcast and bitter cold, with the wind chill edging toward minus figures. I pulled my overcoat close as I left home and joined the crowds. I hoped being outside would clear my head. I looked up and ahead of me saw Steve Marsh. He was unshaven and his clothes were rumpled. He shuffled along the pavement in a daze, head down, lost in thought, and no matter how bad I felt, he looked worse.

I stopped dead in my tracks.

What the hell?

I pushed through the crowd and caught hold of Steve’s arm.

He recoiled and, for a second, I thought he was going to lash out at me. He looked haunted, hunted, like a cornered animal. Then recognition dawned.

“Jesus, Dan,” he said with a sigh. “Don’t do that.”

“Sorry. Didn’t think.” My smile didn’t reach my eyes. Steve worried me. He reminded me of Greg.

“No kidding.” He looked away and sighed again. “Look, Dan. I gotta go.”

“Steve….” I stalled. I needed to find out what was going on. Tell him about Greg. Find out if he’d heard any more from his brother.

“What?” he asked, pointedly glancing at his watch.

I shook my head, searched for an opening, and came up with nothing more than: “Are you okay?”

“No. I’m screwed. Totally fucking screwed.”

My question may have been redundant, but I was still shocked by Steve’s response: more by the lack of inflection than the expletive.

What the hell was going on?

*

In Starbucks we sat in the same two seats we’d occupied on Wednesday, our coffees untouched between us.

“Kate has thrown me out,” he said.

Stunned silence was my only response.

“I’ve moved my stuff into Dave’s apartment.”

“But you always seemed so happy.”

“We were.”

“I don’t understand,” I said, but I did.

“It’s that site. It’s fucking evil!”

He smashed his fist down onto the arm of his chair and I flinched at the sudden explosion of violence. The edge in his voice had intensified with each word until it seemed all his rage and frustration had been contained in the final exclamation.

“God damn it, Dan,” he said, his voice filled with despair, “what am I gonna do?”

I shook my head. I had no answer.

“There’s gotta be something wrong with me,” he said. “I’m married to a hot babe, got a beautiful baby girl, what do I need to be visiting some skin site for? I tell you, I don’t. So how come I can’t stay away from it? How come every waking moment it’s in my head, burning behind my eyes, making me want to puke with the shame of it? It grinds you down, Dan, little by little it erodes your resistance, corrupting by degrees, until it takes you, body and soul, and you’re fucked.”

None of what Steve said should have made sense. I had seen pictures of Nat Mason, not whatever the others had seen, but already the site had sunk hooks into my head; the urge to connect was becoming harder to ignore. I needed to know what was going on, before it was too late.

“I’ve seen the site,” I said.

“You’ve what?” he said, snapping. He suddenly looked genuinely scared; what little colour he’d had drained from his face. “When?”

“Last night.”

“And that was the first time?”

“Yeah. I —”

“You haven’t been back?”

“No, I —”

“Don’t.”

“Steve?”

“You heard me, Dan. Don’t go back. No matter what, don’t look at that site again.”

“They’re only images,” I said, repeating what I’d said to Greg, albeit I was no longer quite so assured of my words.

“No, they’re not.”

“Then what are they?”

“Bait.”

I must have looked as shocked as I felt.

“That’s how it works,” Steve said. “It gives you a taste of honey, gets you hooked, and then sticks it to you.”

“What did it show you?” I asked. “Why’d Kate throw you out?”

Steve shook his head, the expression in his eyes distraught.

“She caught me —” His voice cracked and broke.

I waited.

“They were little kids, Dan,” he said at last. “She caught me looking at… they looked like….” He couldn’t finish and the anguish in his face was unbearable.

“I don’t —” It was all I could manage.

“At first they were teenagers,” he said. “They were just like Kate was when we met. It was sexy, erotic stuff, no way hardcore. Then it changed. The girls got younger and younger, the sex harder: more brutal, and it started to take over until it was all I could think about. The more degenerate it became, the more perverse and sickening the images: the more I weakened; the more I succumbed and the stronger it became. It’s killing me, Dan. My life’s over.”

“You’ve got to fight it.”

“It ain’t that easy, Dan. Even after only one visit you should know that.”

And I did. I was a believer, but that didn’t mean I was going to give in like Jim and –

“Oh shit, Greg.”

When we arrived at Greg’s house it had become a circus. Paramedic and police vehicles choked the kerbside and an officer the size of a house blocked our entrance into the building.

A crowd of neighbours and passers-by milled about on the pavement, rubbernecking and gossiping as a stretcher was brought out. At the sight black body bag my stomach lurched and I knew we were too late.

I pushed through the crowd.

“Sorry Sir,” the policeman said, uncrossing his arms. “No can do.”

“Please, it’s a friend.”

The officer’s eyes narrowed. “Name?” he asked.

I told him.

“Wait here,” he said. “Someone will be right down.”

*

By the time the police had finished with me I felt ill. What Greg had done sickened me. I couldn’t believe he’d been driven to such atrocity. Whatever he had seen on the site must have been truly terrible to make him do what he had done. Just the thought of it made me want to throw up.

Outside, the ambulance had gone and so had Steve.

*

The door to Dave’s apartment was ajar. I pushed it open and peered into the darkened hallway. The walls on either side were lined with framed photographs: snapshots of family and happier times.

I called out.

My heart pounded and I felt the hairs prickle on my neck. The darkness inside felt wrong: expectant; somehow charged. Even the silence felt unnatural.

I forced myself down the hall.

The guest bedroom door was open and a dim, crimson light shone out. I turned and froze.

The walls were splattered with blood. It pooled on the floor beneath Steve’s seated form; dripped from his wrists in slow, steady drops. His LCD monitor, bloody hued from arterial spray, displayed the final image Steve had viewed. It burned like vision of hell; seared itself into my head like a brand. More than the body of my friend, more than the gore-clotted knife at his feet, it was that indelibly imprinted obscenity, which left me in darkness.

When I opened my eyes, I was by the front door, backed against the wall, tucked into the corner, with Dave’s phone clutched in my fist.

Less than twenty minutes later Dave Marsh burst through the door, frantic with fear, and pushed past me. I closed my eyes when I heard him cry out.

“What’d you do?” Anger radiated from him in waves, as he slammed me into the wall, his fists bunched in my coat. “What the fuck did you do?”

I spluttered something incoherent and he let go, his rage spent: snuffed out as fast as it had flared.

“Jesus, Dan,” he said, staggering. “Jesus, how am I going to tell Kate?”

“You can’t,” I said. “You can’t tell her.”

He looked at me, the misery clear in his face.

“It’s her husband… my…. I have to tell her….” He choked, unable to finish.

“You can’t tell her why,” I said in an attempt to explain.

“Tell her why? I don’t fucking know why.”

“You didn’t see it?”

“See what, Dan? All I saw was blood.”

“The image?”

He just looked at me.

“You know why Kate threw Steve out?” I asked.

“No. I didn’t ask.”

“Then you need to see what’s on that screen. You won’t believe me unless you do. Then we have to destroy the evidence before anyone else sees it.”

For a moment Dave looked at me like I’d gone mad, then he nodded and said, “Show me.”

I wasn’t sure I’d be able to go back in, I could already feel the site’s pull, but Dave needed to know truth. I averted my eyes from Steve’s body, concentrating my gaze on the wall above the desk, and stepped in.

“Mother of God,” Dave said.

I didn’t want to look. Not again.

“Turn it off,” I said. The room was suffocating. I grabbed at Dave’s arm. “Turn it off.”

He hit the switch and the air seemed to rush back into the room. The two of us staggered out into the corridor like a couple of geriatrics and collapsed against the wall. I slid down until my butt hit the floor.

“How could he?” Dave asked. “His own fucking daughter.”

He lurched away and vomited.

By the time he’d finished retching, his anger was back. It boiled behind his eyes as he said, “You better tell me what you know about this, Dan, and you better tell me right fucking now.”

So I did. I told him about Jim and Nat Mason; I told him about Greg and the piano wire noose; and I told him about Steve.

I’m not sure he’d have believed me if he hadn’t seen it for himself. The hardcopies at Jim’s wouldn’t have had the same impact; they lacked the taint of personal evil the shot of his niece had contained.

“It has to be stopped,” was all he said when I finished and fell silent.
He left and called the suicide in.

Twenty minutes after the police finished up, the apartment was locked and we were on route in Dave’s unmarked.

“How’d you stop a site?” I asked.

“I don’t know, but the tech guys at the station will.” He accelerated. “What I really want to know,” he said, “is the names of the sick bastards running it. It makes me puke to think some twisted fucker is drooling over Gillian.”

“They won’t be,” I said. “Anyone else accessing it would see something different: something unique to them. That’s how it works. It shows you your own personal kink, then twists it, until it’s too dark and demented to stand.”

“That’s not possible.”

I shrugged. Steve had said the site was evil. Perhaps he’d meant it more literally than I’d thought.

*

“This is Manjit Patel,” Dave said, introducing me to a young Asian guy in a white lab coat. “He’s the station’s main tech head.”

“What can I do you for?” Manjit asked, shaking hands with me but looking at Dave.

Dave pulled up a chair and sat down, indicating I should do the same. “There’s a site I need taking down. I told Danny here you were our guy.”

“Paperwork?”

“No. This is off radar.”

Manjit looked between us; nodded. “I heard about your brother, man,” he said. “This is linked?”

“Oh yeah.”

“What you need?” Manjit asked, as his hands worked his keyboard, opening up a multitude of programs and windows.

“Details. These pieces of shit fucked with my family.”

“This right?” he asked me, pointing at a line of address code. My skin felt hot, feverish; sweat beaded my brow as I nodded and he hit enter.
This time there was no Nat Mason. No dead junkies. No pictures of Gillian. Splayed across Manjit Patel’s monitor was a gay sex site.

“This it?” he asked, a tremor in his voice.

“Yes,” I said.

“Okay,” Manjit said to Dave, typing as he spoke. “It’ll take some time to hack the data you want.”

“Soon as. I want them dead.”

“Soon as, man. No delay for family.”

*

Dave dropped me back at my place and left to see Kate. I had no idea what he planned tell her.

I poured myself a drink. The mix of vodka, stress and no food, made the room spin. I closed my eyes. My thoughts felt sluggish, disarrayed and disjointed.

Sleep. I needed was sleep. It was up to Dave now. There was nothing more I could do.

As I moved through the living room, the glow from my PC ensnared me and, before I could escape, pulled me across the room with its promised panacea for what ailed me. All I had to do was connect and all my dreams would come true.

I watched in horror as I sat and my fingers caressed the keys, settled over the mouse and called up the browser. My mind screamed in denial as I began to type in the address.

“No!”

I swept the keyboard aside, flinging the monitor and processor across the room. I threw over my desk and, in frenzy, kicked at the wreckage until it was nothing but cracked plastic and littered components.

My adrenalin rush crashed. I felt drained. I sat back down and stared at the debris-strewn floor and sobbed.

*

As Friday morning dawned, the need to connect burned through my every fibre. I had barely slept. Whenever I closed my eyes I was tormented by longings that sickened me. Even alcohol refused me release, although from the look of the face that starred back at me from the mirror it hadn’t held back its after-effects. The two nights without sleep, the stress, grief, and soul deep disgust had all taken a toll: I looked like I’d aged a decade.

The urge to visit the site hadn’t waned, if anything it was stronger than ever and I contemplated calling in sick, but, as the walls started to close in, I thought it best to distract myself from the gathering weight of my obsession.

I grabbed my coat and was almost out the door when my phone rang.

“Dan?” Dave asked, his voice beyond weary.

“Is it dead?” I asked.

“Yeah, Manjit did the deed, although he failed to find me the names, and the host won’t play ball without a warrant.”

“It’s gone though?” I wanted him to say it out loud. It wouldn’t be true until he did.

“It’s gone,” he said. “But it’s not over. I still want the people behind it.”
“Can you get a warrant?”

“Not without going official.”

“So what’s next if they won’t talk?”

“Oh, they’ll talk.” I didn’t doubt it.

“Look,” he said, “I gotta go. You take care.”

Dave cut the call.

It was over.

The nightmare was over.

So why had my sense of foreboding refused to dissipate? Why was the familiar gut twisting compulsion still there?

I looked over at the empty space on my desk and felt panic flood my system at the realisation of what we had done.

*

By Monday I was in hell. Saturday and Sunday had passed with an excruciating slowness that had me climbing the walls. I was crippled by fatigue and sleep eluded me. I was irritable and agitated. I hadn’t eaten and felt hollow with hunger, and yet I had no appetite for anything other than the site’s content.

It had to stop. It was killing me.

I’d thought it would be all over by now and I’d be clean, but I felt worse than ever. I needed help and the only person I could think of was Dave. I’d tried calling him Sunday, but his cell had gone unanswered. When I called the station they told me nothing more than he was unavailable. All I could think to do was go over to his apartment and hope he was there.

As I left the Underground the sky had only just begun to lighten, although the lobby of Dave’s building felt deserted rather than asleep.

I pressed the intercom on Dave’s door.

“Shit, Dan. You know the time?”

“Sorry, I didn’t know what else to do.”

The door clicked and swung wide.

Dave looked like shit.

“Come on in,” he said, not waiting for an answer.

“It’s never going to end is it,” I said. It wasn’t a question because I already knew the answer.

“Oh, it’ll end,” he said, turning back to me.

“You said Manjit couldn’t –”

“Manjit’s dead,” he said. “He cut his dick off.”

I felt sick.

“He found a new address; tracked it to a new host.”

“The site’s moved. You’ve seen it?”

“You think this is grief eating at me?”

“What do we do?”

“You go home. You stay away from it. No matter how much it hurts. Just forget about everything.”

“I can’t just bury my head in the sand.”

“You can and will. The alternative’s death. It’s that simple.”

“You planning to give up and die?”

“No. You don’t give up on family. I plan to make those bastards bleed.”

“Let me help,” I said.

“You want to help? Go home, Dan.”

As I stared at Dave, trying not to look at the room where Steve had killed himself and failing, I noticed a pale blue radiance through the gap between the door and the jam, and realised I was on my own.

*

I found out about Dave’s death two days later. Like Jim he’d eaten the barrel of a gun.

On Thursday I bought a new, top of the range, laptop and I began this record.

I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold out for long. Like Greg said, the site gnawed at you. I’d tried to get my fix elsewhere, to wean myself off it, but nothing worked. Not magazines. Not skin flicks. Not prostitutes. Nothing.

It’s only a matter of time, but at least by writing this I can warn people. It’s all I have left. My only desire, beyond the call of the site, is to save people from this fucking terrible, terminal addiction. It has to be stopped. Too many people have died already because of it.

When the authorities find my body, when they see what I have become, I only hope they take this record seriously. All I want is for people to know the truth, so they can fight it.

It’s Friday night now, two weeks from when Jim first mentioned the site. I can’t hold out much longer. I’m dead either way. I was damned from the first look. There’s no escape from obsession, from addiction, from sin, and so, when I finish here, I’m going to print this record, open my browser and search the net for a final fix.