Chapter 142: Trial 11 - Part 2
The silence after Chris’s scoring felt permanent, a vacuum where sound went to die. The only movement was Fatima, finally straightening her clothes with a stiff dignity that fooled no one, and Briv, rooted to the spot, the phantom weight of twenty unearned points crushing his shoulders. He couldn’t look at Alya. The image of her hollow stare was burned onto the back of his eyelids.
Chris, having re-knotted his persona with seamless ease, clapped his hands once. The sound was a gunshot in the quiet.
“The leaderboard is a living thing, people! Twisting, turning! And we are far from done.” His eyes, predatory and bright, scanned the remaining women. They had dwindled to a petrified few: Alya, Nicola, Carmen, Bianca, Diletta. Each stood isolated in their own private dread. His gaze, like a spotlight, found its target.
“Next to spin the wheel,” he announced, his voice dripping with a cruel, sing-song anticipation, “will be Alya! She’s paired with… Jim.”
A collective, subtle shift. Jim, the nineteen-year-old porn addict with the socially awkward grin and the unnervingly long dick, perked up like a puppy hearing a can opener. He shuffled forward, his movements all jangling nerves and bony elbows. “Alright! Yeah, okay,” he mumbled, a feverish glee in his eyes. For him, this was not a trial; it was free premium content, with him in a supporting role.
Alya didn’t move. The sound of her own name seemed to come from very far away. She saw Briv finally turn his head, his expression a complex mudslide of jealousy, pity, and a desperate, competitive hope. He wants me to fail, she realized with a cold clarity. Or he wants me to do something so awful it justifies what he just accepted. The mutual breakup felt like a childhood memory, quaint and irrelevant. They were enemies now, armed with the other’s humiliation.
“Alya, darling, the wheel awaits!” Chris prompted, his smile widening.
Her legs, heavy as sandbags, carried her forward. The colored segments of the wheel pulsed under the sun, a chaotic mosaic of every fear she’d concocted since this nightmare began. Gangbang. Bukkake. The Virgins. Her mind was a silent scream. She just wanted it to be simple. A single person. Something she could dissociate through. She thought of Emilia’s cold focus, of Fatima’s strategic performance. She was an actress. She could do this. She could separate the girl from the role.
She placed a trembling hand on the cool metal rim. The sea breeze lifted a strand of her brown hair, tickling her cheek. She took a breath, held it, and pushed.
The wheel spun with a familiar, grinding whir. It was a kaleidoscope of potential ruin. It slowed, the clicks echoing the frantic thud of her heart. It passed ‘Sex with a Bodybuilder.’ It passed ‘Sex with the Host.’ It drifted, languidly, past ‘Double Penetration.’ Her eyes locked on the slowing blur. It ticked, once, twice.
It stopped.
Challenge #7: SEX WITH A PERSON YOU HATE (FROM OUTSIDE THE SHOW).
The air left Alya’s lungs in a soft, punched-out oh.
“Oh, a juicy one!” Chris crowed, clasping his hands. “Psychological depth! Method acting required! The judges will be looking for authenticity of emotion, visceral reaction, and, of course, the compelling execution of the act itself. Twenty points, Alya. Who do you hate?”
Alya’s mind went blank, then flooded with faces. A high school teacher who’d told her she’d never make it. A director who’d groped her in a callback. The faceless, leering men from a hundred auditions. But hate? True, consuming hate? That was a rare and specific poison.
Then it came to her. A name. A face. A specific, curdled feeling in her gut.
“Marcus,” she said, her voice surprisingly steady, though it felt thin and brittle. “Marcus Devlin.”
Chris’s eyebrows shot up, impressed. “The theatre critic? Ouch. The pen truly is mightier than the sword, until today.” He spoke into a small comms device at his wrist. “We have a request. Marcus Devlin. Priority retrieval.”
Alya felt the world tilt. They had him? They had Marcus Devlin on standby, or could get him? The scale of the show’s reach, its malignant resources, was a bottomless pit. Jim was practically vibrating beside her, his eyes wide. “Dude, the guy from ‘Stage & Screen’? He ripped your Medea to shreds! This is gonna be epic!”
Briv was staring, his earlier calculation gone, replaced by a dawning horror. He knew about Marcus. He’d held her while she cried furious, frustrated tears after that review was published. ‘Alya Vance delivers a performance as shallow as a puddle, mistaking frantic shouting for tragic depth.’ It had cost her the part, and more importantly, a piece of her confidence. The hate was pure, professional, and deeply personal.
They didn’t have to wait long. A speedboat appeared from around the far headland, cutting a white scar across the turquoise water. It hissed onto the sand, and a man stepped out.
Marcus Devlin was in his late fifties, dressed in chinos and a rumpled linen shirt, as if he’d been plucked from a brunch terrace. He had a patrician face, thinning silver hair, and a perpetually skeptical downturn to his mouth. He blinked against the sun, his expression one of profound annoyance and confusion, which morphed into stunned recognition as he took in the scene: the cameras, the semicircle of near-naked, traumatized people, and Alya, standing before the garish wheel.
“What is the meaning of this?” he demanded, his critic’s voice accustomed to command. “I was told there was an exclusive interview regarding offshore production funding…”
“And so there is, Marcus!” Chris beamed, striding forward to clap him on the back. “You’re the special guest! Today, you’re not a critic. You’re… a co-star.”
Chris quickly, gleefully, explained the rules. Marcus’s face cycled through disbelief, outrage, and a faint, disgusting flicker of interest as his eyes traveled over Alya’s slender form. “This is grotesque. I will not participate in this… this pornographic circus!”
“Contractually, you will,” Chris said, his voice losing its warmth. He nodded to a hulking security guard who had emerged from the trees. “You signed the appearance waiver. All inclusive. Or would you prefer we discuss the tax irregularities your publication has been so keen to ignore?”
Marcus paled. He looked at Alya, and the professional disdain she remembered crystallized into something more active, more cruel. He smoothed his shirt. “I see. Very well. If it’s a performance she wants, it’s a performance she’ll get.” He turned his critic’s eye on her fully. “Let’s see if you can take direction better than you take notes, my dear.”
The words were a slap. The old fury ignited in Alya’s chest, burning away some of the numbness. You arrogant prick. This was no longer just a challenge for points. This was a duel.
“Get naked, Alya,” Chris instructed, his tone businesslike.
Her hands went to the tie of her bikini top. Her fingers fumbled, clumsy. She saw Briv look away, then force himself to look back, his jaw clenched. She saw Jim licking his lips. She saw Nicola’s cool, analytical stare, taking notes for her own survival. The fabric fell away. She pushed her bottoms down, stepping out of them. The sun and the breeze felt alien on her bare skin. She was completely exposed, not just her body, but her hatred, there for everyone to see.
Marcus surveyed her with a detached, appraising air, like he was judging a piece of subpar sculpture. “All surface, no substance,” he murmured, just loud enough for her and the microphones to catch. He began to undress with fussy precision, folding his clothes neatly on a nearby rock. His body was pale, soft around the middle, with a sparse thatch of grey hair on his chest. His erection, when it emerged, was unremarkable, almost pathetic. But his power had never been physical.
“The scene,” Chris announced, “is a casting couch. But you’re not an aspiring actress, Alya. You’re a desperate one. A failed one. And he’s the man who broke you. Action.”
Marcus didn’t touch her at first. He circled her, his gaze crawling over her skin. “You wanted this,” he said, his voice a low, theatrical sneer. “All those emails, begging for a second chance. All those tearful voice messages. This is what you were really after, wasn’t it? A private audition.”
“No,” Alya whispered, the role settling over her like a shroud. The shame was real. The fury was real.
“Louder!” Chris barked. “We need to hear it!”
“No!” she said, her voice stronger, laced with venom.
Marcus stopped in front of her. He grabbed her chin, his fingers pinching. “You’re a pretty little thing, I’ll give you that. But pretty is cheap. You have no depth. No craft. Just a vacant, needy stare.” He leaned in, his breath smelling of stale coffee. “But I suppose you have other… apertures… for expression.”
He shoved her, not hard, but with utter contempt. She stumbled back onto the sand, landing on her ass. He loomed over her. “On your knees. Let’s see if your mouth is more convincing than your acting.”
Trembling with a rage so pure it felt like clarity, Alya obeyed. She knelt before him. He presented his cock. It looked ridiculous, but the context made it a weapon. “Go on. Persuade me.”
She opened her mouth and took him in. The taste was bland, soapy. She felt nothing but a cold, focused disgust. She moved her head, mechanically. Her mind was elsewhere, in the dark theatre where he’d destroyed her.
“Uninspired,” he sighed, his hand coming to rest on her head, not guiding, just resting, a patronizing pat. “All technique, no feeling. Just like your Medea.”
A bolt of white-hot anger shot through her. She sucked harder, using her tongue with aggressive precision, wanting to hurt him, to make him feel something other than disdain. He gasped, his composure cracking for a second.
“Ah, there’s a spark,” he grunted. “A hint of something almost real. Too little, too late.”
He pulled himself from her mouth, a string of saliva connecting her lips to his tip for a moment. “On your back. Let’s get this over with.”
Alya lay back in the sand. It was still warm from the sun. She stared at the blue sky, disassociating. She felt him kneel between her legs, felt his hands roughly push her thighs apart. He didn’t prepare her, didn’t touch her. He just positioned himself and pushed.
The entry was dry, uncomfortable, a blunt invasion. She gasped, a sharp, genuine sound of distaste.
“Tight,” Marcus observed, a note of surprise in his voice. He began to move, short, shallow thrusts. “And empty. Nothing going on behind the eyes, is there? Just a pretty, vacant shell.”
Each thrust was punctuated by his verbal jabs. “You’ll never work in this town.” Thrust. “You’re a forgettable face in a sea of them.” Thrust. “This is the only performance you’re suited for.” Thrust.
Alya’s hands clawed at the sand. The physical act was almost secondary to the psychological evisceration. He was fucking her with his contempt, and it was far more penetrating than his cock. Tears of pure, hot fury welled in her eyes, blurring the sky. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. She bit her lip until she tasted blood.
But her body, traitorously, began to respond. The intense, conflicting storm of emotions—the hatred, the humiliation, the rage—created a perverse friction. A low, unwanted heat began to smolder in her core. She tried to stifle it, to lock it away.
Marcus sensed a change. His thrusts became deeper, more purposeful. “What’s this?” he sneered, panting now. “Is the little actress finally feeling something? Is hatred the only thing that gets you wet?”
“Fuck you,” she spat, the words guttural and real.
“That’s the idea,” he grunted.
His pace quickened. The slapping of their bodies became a rhythm. Alya’s breath came in ragged gasps. She was losing the battle on both fronts. Her body was betraying her, a flush spreading across her chest, her hips giving a minute, involuntary jerk to meet his thrusts. The pleasure was an atrocity, a violation deeper than the physical act. It was her own biology siding with her enemy.
“That’s it,” Marcus taunted, his voice losing its polished edge, becoming ragged with his own building climax. “Come for me, you talentless slut. Come on the critic’s cock. Let’s see your review now.”
The command, the utter degradation, tipped her over the edge. A climax, brutal and unwanted, tore through her. It wasn’t pleasure; it was a system overload of shame and anger and physical release, a convulsive wave that made her back arch and a raw, torn scream rip from her throat. It was the most authentic performance of her life.
Feeling her convulse around him, Marcus let out a choked, guttural sound. He plunged deep, holding himself there, his body rigid as he emptied into her with a series of shallow jerks. He collapsed on top of her for a moment, his weight smothering, his sweat dripping onto her skin.
He rolled off almost immediately, as if touching her for a moment longer was beneath him. He stood up, brushing sand from his soft body, his face already recomposing into its mask of bored superiority. He dressed in silence, not looking at her.
Alya lay still, the waves of her climax receding, leaving a vast, cold emptiness inside. The unwanted heat was gone, replaced by a chill that started in her bones. She felt the wetness between her legs, a mix of him and her own treacherous response. She felt utterly, terminally defiled.
Chris stepped into the frame, his face alight with professional admiration. “Bravo! That was… compelling television. The emotional arc! The authenticity!” He turned to the camera. “Judges, your scores, for Alya Vance.”
He paused for dramatic effect. The whole beach was frozen.
“For authenticity of emotion… raw, palpable, just breathtaking. Full marks. For visceral reaction… the physicality, the tears, the climax… masterful. Full marks.” He looked down at Alya, who was now pulling her knees to her chest, a broken doll on the sand. “For execution of the act… technically proficient, but let’s be honest, the real performance was the psychological breakdown. We’ll call it eighteen.”
He grinned. “Alya scores nineteen points! Jim scores nineteen points!”
The board flickered. Alya’s score jumped from 175 to 194. She was still in the lead, but the number was meaningless. Jim’s score, irrelevant to everyone but him, shot up. He whooped, jumping in the air. “Yes! Dude, that was so hot! You were amazing!”
Alya didn’t hear him. She slowly, painfully, got to her feet. She didn’t look at Marcus, who was being escorted back to the speedboat with a look of distaste, as if the whole island had offended him. She didn’t look at Chris. She didn’t look at Jim.
Her eyes found Briv.
He was staring at her, his face a mask of horror and a strange, devastated understanding. He had seen it all—not just the act, but the unraveling. He had seen her hate, her shame, and that final, terrible, authentic climax. The competitive calculation was utterly gone from his eyes. There was no jealousy left. Only a shared, nauseating comprehension of the price.
Alya held his gaze for a second, her own eyes hollow, stripped bare. Then she turned, walked to the water’s edge, and waded into the sea. She needed the salt water to touch her, to try and wash away a stain she knew was permanent. The game hadn’t just swallowed them. It had shown them the monsters they could become, and the monsters that had been waiting for them all along. And the wheel, garish and immovable, waited for its next turn.