Chapter 57: Last Round 1, Trial 5 Duels
The phantom taste of his own come seemed to linger in the back of Briv’s throat, a bitter, metallic ghost. He couldn’t shake the image of Nicola’s steady hand, the defiant glint in her eyes as she swallowed, the slow, deliberate lick of her lips that felt less like seduction and more like a brand. He had been used as a tool of her punishment, and the weight of it felt greasy on his skin.
He sought out Alya’s gaze in the dispersing crowd, but she was already being swept away by Revan and Raze, their laughter a sharp, exclusionary sound in the twilight. She didn’t look back. The distance between them felt oceanic, uncrossable.
“Don’t dwell on it.”
Briv started. Patricia was beside him, her doll-like features soft with a concern that felt alien in this place. “It’s just the game,” she said, her voice low.
“Is it?” Briv’s laugh was a hollow rasp. “It feels like we’re all being pickled in it. Like it’s seeping into our bones.”
Before Patricia could answer, Chris’s voice, artificially bright, cut through the murmurs of the retreating group. “Hey! Who said the fun stops? We’ve got one more duel in us tonight, don’t we? Let’s keep this party alive!”
A collective groan was stifled by the relentless glare of the cameras. People turned back, their movements sluggish with resignation.
“For our fifth duel of the evening,” Chris announced, his eyes scanning the weary contestants with gleeful malice, “let’s have… Naseer and Dariana versus Joaquin and Carmen!”
The named individuals moved forward. Naseer, the intimidating billionaire from Dubai, looked bored, as if this were a tedious board meeting. Beside him, Dariana, the athlete, bounced on the balls of her feet, her energy undimmed, a stark contrast to her partner’s apathy.
Across from them, Joaquin puffed out his chest, his machismo a visible aura. “Do not worry, cielo,” he said to Carmen, flashing a white-toothed grin. “We will win this easy.”
Carmen, tall and pale, wrapped her arms around her slender frame. She offered Joaquin a thin, strained smile that didn’t reach her dark eyes. “Sure,” she murmured.
“Alright, teams!” Chris chirped. “Dariana, you’re up first. Show us what you’ve got.”
Dariana didn’t hesitate. She strode to the box, her movements efficient and powerful. She didn’t rummage; she plunged a hand in and pulled out the first card her fingers touched. She read it aloud in a clear, flat tone. “You and your partner gotta make out, right now.”
A ripple of something—anticipation, weariness—went through the crowd. This, at least, was a known quantity.
Naseer finally showed a flicker of interest, a predatory smile touching his lips. He opened his arms, a king granting an audience. Dariana walked into them without ceremony. It wasn’t passionate; it was performative. She tilted her head back, and Naseer crushed his mouth to hers. It was all teeth and force, his beard scraping against her skin. His large hands gripped her ass, pulling her tight against him, kneading the firm muscle through her shorts. Dariana met his aggression with a practiced intensity, her tongue tangling with his, a public display of friction that was entirely devoid of warmth. After a long, uncomfortable minute, they broke apart, both breathing slightly harder, their faces masks of competitive satisfaction.
“Well, that’s one way to do it!” Chris crowed. “Alright, Joaquin, Carmen. The ball’s in your court. You draw a card to challenge, or… well, you know the alternative.”
Joaquin stepped forward immediately, his chest puffed out. “We will draw. Of course we will draw. We are not cowards.” He gestured for Carmen to go.
But Carmen didn’t move. She stood her ground, her tall frame seeming to shrink. She looked from Joaquin’s smug face to the box, then to Naseer, who was watching her with a cold, appraising stare.
“Well?” Joaquin prompted, his smile tightening. “Go on, bonita.”
Carmen’s jaw tightened. She shook her head, a single, sharp motion. “No.”
Joaquin’s face fell. “What? Why?”
She turned to him, her voice low but carrying clearly in the quiet night. “You already have too many points, macho man. You don’t need me to win you more. I’m not playing your game.”
Joaquin’s expression twisted from confusion to anger. “This is our game! We are a team!”
“Are we?” Carmen’s question was a whisper that seemed to suck the air from the space between them.
Chris clapped his hands together, his delight palpable. “And there it is! Carmen refuses! That means Naseer and Dariana advance to the next round! Carmen, you know what that means. You gotta drink a cup of Naseer’s semen!”
The production assistant was already moving. Naseer didn’t need any further instruction. He unzipped his pants with a casual arrogance, his eyes locked on Carmen the entire time. There was no theatricality to it, no performative effort like Thomas. This was pure, unadorned power. He worked himself with a few brisk, efficient strokes, his gaze never leaving Carmen’s pale, still face. He came into the cup with a soft grunt, a businessman concluding a transaction.
The assistant presented the cup to Carmen. Her hand trembled as she reached for it. She looked at the thick, opalescent fluid, then her eyes lifted, scanning the crowd. For a moment, they locked with Briv’s. In them, he saw a reflection of his own hollow feeling from earlier, a shared understanding of this degrading economy. Then the moment broke.
She took the cup. She closed her eyes. And she drank.
It wasn’t a defiant gulp like Nicola’s, nor a violent rejection like Fatima’s. It was slow, methodical, a grim acceptance. She swallowed once, twice, a visible shudder running the entire length of her tall body. When she was done, she lowered the cup, her lips glistening. She opened her eyes, and they were glassy with unshed tears she refused to let fall.
Without a word, she handed the empty cup back and walked away, not towards the villas, but down the beach, towards the dark, endless ocean, leaving a stunned silence in her wake. The game was winning, and they were all losing, piece by piece, swallow by swallow.
===
The game was winning, and they were all losing, piece by piece, swallow by swallow. A heavy, spent silence blanketed the beach, broken only by the indifferent crash of waves against the shore. The air itself felt thick with the residue of violation, a cocktail of salt, sweat, and despair.
Briv watched Carmen’s receding figure until she was swallowed by the darkness, a tall, pale ghost vanishing into the night. He felt a strange, protective surge, entirely useless here. Patricia touched his arm, a brief, grounding pressure, before she too melted away towards the villas, her own unearned victory likely feeling as hollow as his.
“Nobody leaves!” Chris’s voice sliced through the fatigue, a whip-crack of forced enthusiasm. The cameras, their red lights like malevolent eyes, swiveled to focus on him. “The night is young and the drama is ripe! We’ve got one more pairing to make the island tremble.”
He let the pause hang, milking the collective dread. “For our sixth duel… Jim and Nicoleta versus Andre and Elena!”
A snort of disbelief came from somewhere in the crowd. Jim, the nineteen-year-old porn addict, flinched as if struck, his entire gangly frame tensing. His eyes darted around, wide with a mixture of terror and a flicker of sick excitement. Nicoleta, the goth influencer, rolled her dark eyes so hard it was a miracle they stayed in their sockets. “You have got to be fucking kidding me,” she muttered, her voice a low, venomous growl.
Andre, the moody, muscular man, simply grunted, his imposing arms crossed over his chest. He looked like a boulder, unmovable and unimpressed. Elena, the enthusiast of Korean culture, offered her partner a weak, sympathetic smile that did nothing to mask her own apprehension.
“You know how this works by now,” Chris said, his smile a sharp, white gash in his tanned face. “One team draws, the other faces the consequence. Or, you know, refuses and takes the drink. Andre, Elena? Who’s feeling lucky?”
Elena looked at Andre, then at the box, then at Jim’s nervously twitching form. She had just watched Carmen walk into the ocean after her punishment. She had seen Bianca’s grimace, Fatima’s violent revulsion. The calculation in her eyes was swift and decisive. She shook her head, her long dark hair swaying. “I refuse,” she said, her voice quiet but firm.
“Elena refuses!” Chris announced, as if she’d just won a prize. “That means the pressure is on you, team Jim and Nicoleta! Draw a card, any card, and you advance. The floor is yours, Nicoleta.”
Nicoleta stood frozen for a moment, her tattooed arms rigid at her sides. The confident, bossy femme fatale was gone, replaced by a woman facing a uniquely personal hell. She took a slow, deliberate step towards the box, her platform heels sinking into the sand. Every line of her body screamed resistance.
She pulled a card from the box as if it were coated in acid. Her eyes scanned the text. For a second, there was nothing. Then her face contorted, a mask of pure, unadulterated horror. “No,” she whispered. Then, louder, a raw, furious scream tearing from her throat. “No, no, NOO! NOT WITH THIS VIRGIN!”
Jim shrank back, his shoulders hunching, a pathetic whimper escaping his lips. The crowd stirred, a wave of morbid curiosity overriding their exhaustion. What card could possibly provoke such a visceral reaction from the unflappable Nicoleta?
“Read it aloud, sweetheart,” Chris prompted, his voice dripping with faux sympathy. “The audience is waiting.”
Nicoleta’s hand trembled. She glared at the card with pure hatred, then spat the words out like poison. “You gotta suck your partner’s cock until he cums in your mouth.”
A collective, sharp intake of breath was followed by a few stifled laughs. The humiliation was exquisitely tailored. The most dominant woman paired with the most socially inept boy, forced into the most submissive act.
“Well, there you have it!” Chris said, clapping his hands together. “The game doesn’t discriminate! Nicoleta, the stage is yours. Or, you can always join Elena in a refreshing beverage.”
Nicoleta’s dark eyes swept over Jim, from his awkward posture to his terrified face. A terrifying transformation occurred. The panic evaporated, replaced by a cold, terrifying calm. The bossy femme fatale was back, but now she was a general preparing for a distasteful but necessary campaign. She wasn’t going to refuse. She was going to dominate this, to own it, to twist it into her own fucked-up narrative.
“Fine,” she said, her voice dropping to a low, commanding register. She pointed a long, black-nailed finger at the sand directly in front of her. “Here. Now. You. On your knees is too good for you. Lie down.”
Jim stared, paralyzed. “W-what?”
“I said lie the fuck down, you pathetic little worm,” Nicoleta snarled, taking a step towards him. “You wanted this, didn’t you? All those hours jerking off to pixels on a screen. Well, here’s your fucking reality. Get on the ground.”
Trembling, Jim lowered himself onto his back in the sand, his limbs arranged like a broken puppet’s. Nicoleta stood over him, a vengeful goddess silhouetted against the night sky. She didn’t kneel with reverence. She positioned herself between his legs, one knee on either side of his hips, looming over him.
She didn’t look at his face. Her focus was entirely on his pants. With brisk, efficient motions, she unbuttoned his jeans and yanked them down, along with his boxers, to his thighs. His cock, long and thin, sprung free, already half-hard from a mixture of fear and a lifetime of porn-sick conditioning.
Nicoleta let out a sound of pure disgust. “Pathetic,” she muttered, not even bothering to lower her voice. She didn’t use her hands, refusing to touch him more than necessary. Instead, she leaned forward, her dark hair cascading around her face, and took him into her mouth with a brutal, mechanical lack of passion.
It was not a blowjob; it was an extraction. She worked him with a ruthless, rhythmic efficiency, her head bobbing in a merciless tempo designed for one outcome only. There was no art to it, no seduction, only the raw, clinical mechanics of making a boy come. Jim gasped, his hands fluttering at his sides, unsure where to put them. He moaned, a high, reedy sound, his back arching off the sand.
“Don’t you dare touch me,” Nicoleta growled around his cock, the vibration making him whimper. “You don’t get to touch. You just lie there and take what you’re given. You’re nothing. A tool. A fucking sperm-dispenser.”
She increased her pace, her jaw working, the wet, slick sounds obscenely loud in the rapt silence. Jim’s breathing became ragged, frantic pants. “I’m… I’m gonna…” he blubbered, his eyes squeezed shut.
Nicoleta didn’t pull away. She deep-throated him with a final, punishing thrust, holding him there as his body seized. He cried out, a short, sharp yelp, as he erupted into her mouth. She held still, her body rigid, until the last pulsing spurt was done.
Then, and only then, did she pull back. She didn’t swallow immediately. She sat up, looking down at Jim’s spent, trembling form with utter contempt. She made a show of it, letting the viscous, pearlescent fluid drip from her lips for a moment before she finally, with a grimace of ultimate distaste, swallowed it down.
She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, a gesture of profound defilement. “There,” she spat, getting to her feet and brushing the sand from her knees. “Happy?”
Chris was beaming. “Thrilled! Jim and Nicoleta advance! Which means, Elena, you know what that means for you. You gotta drink a cup of Jim’s semen!”
The production assistant was already there with the cup. Jim, looking dazed and ashamed, was forced to provide a second sample, a process that was quick and messy. The assistant presented the cup to Elena.
She looked at it, then at Andre’s stony, indifferent face. She looked at Nicoleta, who was staring at the ocean with a thousand-yard stare. She looked at Jim, who couldn’t meet her eyes. There were no more tears, no more protests. There was only the inevitable.
Elena took the cup. She brought it to her lips. And with the resigned air of someone taking bitter medicine, she drank Jim’s come down.