Chapter 38: The Date That Asked for a Confession
The Governors Museum Themed Restaurant on Knolly Street was a careful re-creation of a past that had never been gentle. Ceiling fans turned lazy circles above, stirring the scent of polished kauri wood and slow-roasted pork. Glass cabinets lined the walls, displaying carefully arranged colonial relics: tarnished silver tea sets, faded photographs of stern-faced men in uniform, and rusting agricultural tools labeled as ‘progress.’ The lighting was a warm, forgiving gold, meant to soothe, but to Lusiana, it felt like being examined under a lamp.
Varek had chosen a corner booth, upholstered in deep burgundy leather. He looked entirely at ease, as if he dined among curated ghosts every night. He’d ordered a bottle of pinot noir without consulting her. When the glasses were poured, the liquid was the color of a dark heart.
“Three days,” Varek said, leaning back. He swirled the wine, watching it cling to the glass. “The final selections for the TDC initiative. The candidates from Earth who get to step into Elarion. A rather monumental pivot in one’s life, wouldn’t you say?”
Lusiana’s smile was professional, a tool she’d honed in hotel lobbies. “It’s the opportunity of a lifetime. Everyone knows that.”
“Everyone wants it,” he corrected gently. “Very few will articulate why they need it. And even fewer will tell the truth about what they’re running from.” He took a slow sip, his mercury eyes fixed on her over the rim. “Let’s skip the brochure version, Lusiana. Tell me everything I need to know about you. And why, out of all the vividly complicated people in this city, I should choose you.”
The air between them thickened. The clink of cutlery from other tables sounded distant, muffled. This wasn’t a date. It was a dissection. She understood the unspoken terms: charm for candor, vulnerability for validation. A trap dressed as a privilege.
She took a fortifying breath, tasting the oak and black cherry of the wine. “What do you want to know? My grades? My volunteer hours?”
“I have your file. It’s satisfactory. I’m interested in the annotations.” He set his glass down. “Start with Taitusi.”
The name, dropped so casually, was a needle to a nerve. She felt her polished composure crack, just a hairline fracture. “What about him?”
“He’s your ticket into this drama, isn’t he? The reason you’re even on my radar. You’re connected to the Tavai family web through him. An interesting entry point.” Varek’s tone was clinical, not accusatory. “Do you love him?”
The question was so blunt it stole her breath. She fumbled for her wine, buying a second. “We’re together. We have fun.”
“That’s not an answer. That’s a restaurant review.” He waited, his silence more demanding than any shout.
“It’s messy,” she admitted, the words escaping before she could filter them. “Being with him is… it’s like living in a house where the previous owner never fully moved out. You find their hair in the brush. Their favorite mug is still in the cupboard. And sometimes, in the middle of the night, you’re sure you hear their key in the door.”
The metaphor spilled out, raw and true. She was surprised at herself.
Varek nodded, a slight incline of his head that meant proceed.
“Maraia,” Lusiana said, the name a bitter pebble on her tongue. “She’s the previous owner. She’s everywhere. In every family story, in every silent glance they give us, in every apology Taitusi makes that isn’t really for me. He looks at me and I know, part of him is checking to see if I measure up… to her. To the ghost.” Her voice dropped, quivering with a resentment she usually kept folded away. “I am so tired of being Taitusi’s present while Maraia remains his unfinished past. I am tired of being the replacement. The second choice. The one who’s here because she isn’t.”
She looked down at her hands, clad in their simple, nervous elegance. “I don’t want pity. I don’t want to be someone’s consolation prize. I want something that is mine. Undeniably, unquestionably mine.”
“And you believe TDC is that?” Varek asked.
“It’s a clean slate,” she said, fire returning to her eyes. “It’s a place with no history for me. No one’s shadow to stand in. On Earth, I’m… I’m the girlfriend of the guy who broke the sweet Tavai girl’s heart. In Elarion, I could just be Lusiana. My achievements would be mine. My future would be mine. Not a comparison. Not a rebound.”
The main course arrived—a perfectly seated mahi-mahi for her, a steak for him. The interruption was brief, a moment of mundane normality that made her confession feel even more exposed. They ate in silence for a few minutes, the weight of her words hanging between them.
Varek cut into his steak, the juice blooming red. “A powerful motive. Autonomy. But I need more than a beautiful escape story. I need utility. What do you bring? The Tavai family is imploding. Niyan is a lit fuse. Karavi is now a rogue element. Maraia…” He let the name linger, and a strange, knowing flicker passed through his eyes. “Maraia has just become the battlefield. Where do you stand in that war?”
Lusiana put her fork down. “You’re asking me to choose sides against my own boyfriend’s ex’s family?”
“I’m asking you to tell me where your loyalty lies when your survival is on the line. Not to Taitusi. Not to a memory. To yourself. To your opportunity.” He dabbed his mouth with a napkin. “You want to be chosen first? Then make the case. Not with sentiment. With strategy.”
She felt the gateway opening before her, dark and shimmering. This was the test. This was the real interview. He wasn’t asking for her heart; he was asking for her complicity. She thought of Taitusi’s charming evasions, of the way he still winced when Maraia’s name was mentioned in certain tones. She thought of a future here, forever in that shadow, and then she thought of a future elsewhere, bright and undefined.
“Taitusi is loyal to Taitusi,” she said, her voice cooled and clear. “He uses charm as a delay tactic. He’ll apologize, he’ll promise, he’ll make you feel chosen, but it’s a performance to avoid consequence. I know the script. I’ve starred in it. If… if the situation with the family escalates, he’ll fold. Or he’ll flee. He won’t protect anyone, including me. My loyalty is to the path that doesn’t end with me being left behind, holding the pieces of someone else’s chaos.”
Varek listened, and for the first time that evening, a genuine, appreciative smile touched his lips. It wasn't warm. It was the smile of a curator finding an unexpectedly perfect specimen.
“Good,” he said softly. “That’s the kind of clarity we value. The understanding that love is often just shared utility, and that survival is the ultimate priority.” He pushed his plate aside slightly. “So. You want TDC because you want to be chosen first. Not for who you’re connected to. Not as a substitute. But for your own ruthless, self-preserving potential.”
Lusiana held his gaze, her heart hammering against her ribs. She had shed the polished girlfriend, the business student, the cheerful hospitality worker. What sat before him now was the raw, ambitious core, laid bare.
“Yes,” she said. The word was a vow.
Varek raised his wine glass in a subtle toast. “Then remember this conversation when the chaos comes. Remember that you asked for this. And be ready when your name is called.”
He didn’t smile again. The interview was over. The trap, she realized, hadn’t been in the questions. It was in the answers she’d willingly given. She had just handed him the blueprint to her own manipulation, and in the warm, golden light of the colonial museum, it felt like the purest freedom she’d ever known.
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Prince Albert Restaurant & Terrace, Grand Pacific Hotel, Suva, Fiji — at 584–618 Victoria Parade, overlooking Suva Harbour.
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Prince Albert Restaurant & Terrace, Grand Pacific Hotel, Suva, Fiji — at 584–618 Victoria Parade, overlooking Suva Harbour.
The terrace was a world of polished teak and whispering linen, suspended between the colonial grandeur of the hotel and the dark, breathing expanse of the harbor. Salt air mingled with the scent of frangipani from a nearby planter. Varek had chosen a table at the very edge, where the balcony lights ended and the vast Pacific night began. Maraia sat across from him, looking small in the wrought-iron chair. She hadn't touched her water glass. Her hands were in her lap, fingers knotted together so tightly the knuckles were pale moons against her skin.
She had walked here. The two-mile journey from her aunt's guesthouse felt like crossing a desert. Every step had echoed with the rustle of ferns, the memory of bark against her spine. She had showered, changed into a simple dress, but the feeling of violation was a film she couldn’t scrub off. It clung to her, internal. When Varek’s summons came, she knew she had no choice but to sit here, under these soft lights, and pretend she was still a person negotiating for her future.
“Two days,” Varek said. His voice was quiet, almost lost in the rhythmic wash of waves against the sea wall below. He wasn’t looking at the menu. He was looking only at her, his gaze a physical pressure. “The final selections for the crossover are made in forty-eight hours. I’d like your final statement.”
Maraia’s throat was dry. “My statement.”
“Yes. Tell me everything I need to know about you.” He leaned forward slightly, the candle flame reflecting twin points of light in his mercury eyes. “And why, after everything that has just happened, I should choose you over anyone else. Convince me.”
A waiter glided over, but Varek dismissed him with the barest shake of his head. The silence returned, deeper now. Maraia felt the urge to perform, to craft the story of a resilient fighter. It’s what he probably wanted—a tale of triumph over trauma, of steel forged in fire. She opened her mouth to offer that version, the palatable one.
The words wouldn’t come. They were ash.
She thought of the staged photo he must have taken in the gardens, the one that had started this descent. She thought of her phone, still screaming silently in her bag with Niyan’s unanswered calls. The performance felt not just impossible, but obscene. So she let the pretense fall away. Her shoulders slumped, not in defeat, but in a kind of weary honesty.
“I’m not the strongest candidate,” she said, her voice barely above the sound of the water. “I know that. I’m not the loudest. I’m not the cruelest. I’m not… I’m not the easiest person to use.”
Varek’s eyebrow lifted a millimeter. This wasn’t the expected script.
“Taitusi loved the idea of me,” she continued, her gaze fixed on the dark harbor where a single container ship’s lights blinked like a dying star. “I was stable. I was quiet. I was good for his image, until I wasn’t fun anymore. He left a version of me behind like a shell. But he didn’t break me. He was just… careless.” She took a shallow breath. “Niyan loves the responsibility of me. I’m a project. A piece of our family’s honor to be guarded. His protection is a cage where he gets to hold the key. But it didn’t protect me. It painted a target on me.”
She finally looked at Varek. Her eyes were clear, haunted, but utterly dry. “Viviana loves the herd. The unit. The family as a single entity. I’m a piece of that puzzle. My happiness is valid as long as it fits the picture she’s building. Her control is a warmth that can smother.” She unclenched her hands, laying her palms flat on the cool table. “I’ve lived inside Taitusi’s carelessness, Niyan’s protection, Viviana’s control. I’ve been shaped by all of them. But I am not owned by any of them.”
She paused, letting the hum of the night fill the space. “You want to know what I am? I’m the person they all talk to when the masks come off. Taitusi confesses his guilt to me at three a.m. Niyan whispers his fears about failing us. Viviana shares the true cost of holding us all together. I am the repository for the truth they show no one else. Because I don’t judge it. I just… absorb it.”
Varek was perfectly still. The charming strategist was gone, replaced by something more akin to a scientist observing a rare, unpredictable reaction.
“I saw Karavi today,” she said, and a faint tremor entered her voice, which she steadied. “What he became. The ugly, broken thing Niyan’s betrayal unleashed. I felt it.” She didn’t elaborate. She didn’t need to. The rawness in her eyes was testimony enough. “And part of me understood it. The rage that comes from being a sacrifice. I could easily turn into that. Bitter. Vengeful. A monster forged from someone else’s choices.”
She leaned forward now, her intensity matching his. “But I won’t. Because when I looked at him, even in that moment, I also saw the boy who fixed my bicycle when I was twelve. Who cried when his dog died. Who has spent his whole life feeling unseen. The ugliness doesn’t erase that. It just… coats it.”
Varek said nothing. He just waited.
“So choose me,” Maraia said, her final words dropping into the quiet like stones into deep water. “But not because I’m resilient. Not because I’m strong. Choose me because I can enter something ugly, something broken and violent and cruel, and I can still remember what people are beneath it. I can hold the truth of someone’s damage without becoming a monument to it.”
She sat back, exhausted. The pitch was over. It was not a sales pitch. It was a confession.
Varek watched her for a long time. The ship’s light vanished behind the headland. Finally, he gave one slow, almost imperceptible nod. It wasn't approval. It was acknowledgment.
“Two days,” he repeated softly, his eyes never leaving hers. The meeting was concluded.
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Suva, Fiji. Varek's hotel room.
The message arrived simultaneously on their phones, a digital chime cutting through the humid Suva night. The text was identical for both. Come to my suite at the Grand Pacific. Now. The decision is imminent. For Lusiana, reading it in Taitusi’s cramped apartment, it felt like a trumpet blast. For Maraia, staring at it from her sterile bathroom where she’d been scrubbing her skin raw, it felt like a sentence.
They arrived within minutes of each other, the plush floral carpet of the hotel hallway swallowing their footsteps. Lusiana had put on a bold red dress, armor for battle. Maraia wore simple linen trousers and a loose shirt, a shield of normalcy. They avoided each other’s eyes as Varek opened the door, already wearing a silk robe, a glass of amber liquor in his hand.
The suite was vast, all colonial elegance and dark wood. The ceiling fan spun slowly. French doors stood open to a balcony overlooking the black harbor, the sheer curtains lifting in a spectral dance.
“Sit,” Varek said, not unkindly. He did not sit. He stood before them, sipping his drink, his gaze moving between them like a metronome. “Your final interviews were compelling. In different ways. Lusiana, you presented a case for ruthless self-actualization. Maraia, you argued for resilient understanding.” He set his glass down on a teak side table with a soft click. “It has presented a genuine quandary. How does one measure a sharp blade against a deep well?”
Lusiana’s knee jiggled. Maraia’s breathing was a silent, controlled exercise.
“So,” Varek continued, untying the sash of his robe. “We will use a more primal metric.”
He let the robe fall. It pooled at his feet. He stood naked before them, his body lean and powerful for a man of his years. He was already half-aroused, a cynical display of physiological anticipation. The air conditioning kissed their skin.
“Stand up,” he instructed. “Get naked. Both of you.”
Lusiana was first. This was a performance, and she was ready. Her fingers went to the zipper of her red dress with theatrical slowness, letting it slide down her body to reveal matching lace. She stepped out of it, kicked it aside, then unhooked her bra. Her breasts were fuller than Maraia’s, a fact she emphasized by arching her back slightly as she pushed her panties down her thighs. She stood straight, defiant, her skin pebbling in the cool air.
Maraia moved like an automaton. There was no seduction in her motions, only a grim, procedural compliance. She unbuttoned her shirt, folded it neatly over the back of the chair. She stepped out of her trousers, did the same. Her plain cotton underwear and bra were removed with detached efficiency. She faced him, her arms held stiffly at her sides, her gaze fixed on a point just beyond his shoulder. The faint yellowing bruises from Karavi’s grip were visible on her hips.
Varek looked at their bodies, his expression one of clinical appraisal. He gestured to himself, to his now fully erect cock. “The choice is yours to force. The filthiest slut gets the first chance. Show me who wants it more. Show me who’s willing to debase themselves for a ticket out.”
Lusiana didn’t hesitate. She dropped to her knees on the carpet, the posture practiced. “You want filth, sir?” she said, her voice dripping with venomous sweetness. She looked at Maraia’s pale, still form. “Look at her. She’s just a cold, broken doll. I bet she’s still loose from whatever gutter fuck she just crawled out of.” She crawled the few feet to Varek, her eyes on his. “My mouth is clean. Eager. I’ll suck your soul out through your cock.”
Maraia flinched at the words. A tremor ran through her. Then, something inside her cracked, not into pain, but into a dark, echoing hollow. She too sank to her knees, her movement less a crawl and more a collapse into the arena. “You think eager is what he wants?” Her voice was a scrape of stone. “You’re just a cheap copy. A loud, desperate substitute. He wants real. He wants used. I am used.” She looked at Varek, her eyes finally meeting his, and they were terrifyingly empty. “I’m already ruined. I can be whatever you need me to be. She’s just playing a part.”
“You sanctimonious cunt,” Lusiana spat, surging forward. She wrapped a hand around the base of Varek’s shaft, claiming territory. “You think your pathetic victim act is special? It’s boring. He doesn’t want your damaged goods. He wants a fucking winner.” She leaned in, her tongue licking a broad stripe from root to tip.
Maraia moved then, a quick, snake-like strike. She pushed Lusiana’s hand away and took the head of his cock into her own mouth, sucking hard. “He has a winner,” she garbled, pulling off with a lewd pop. “He has someone who knows what real degradation feels like. You just read about it. I fucking live there.”
“You bitch!” Lusiana shoved her, hard. Maraia fell back but scrambled up, her numbness igniting into a competitive fury. They were on him then, a tangle of hands and mouths and hissed insults. “Soulless whore!” “Plastic slut!” Their tongues and lips fought over every inch of him, wet, sloppy, and frantic. Lusiana deep-throated him until she gagged, tears in her eyes, a triumph in her glance. Maraia licked and sucked his balls, her fingers digging into Lusiana’s arm to pull her away.
Varek watched. He let their competition build, his hands finally settling on their heads, not guiding, just possessing. He fucked Lusiana’s face for a while, his hips pumping, watching her mascara run. Then he turned and did the same to Maraia, his grip in her hair tight, her body limp but her mouth obedient. The room filled with the sounds of their struggle: wet sucking, gulping breaths, the slick noise of penetration, and the raw, ugly poetry of their mutual hatred.
“Enough,” he grunted, pulling them both off. He was panting slightly. He pointed to the large, upholstered ottoman. “Bend over it. Together.”
They obeyed, movements clumsy now. They stood side-by-side, bent at the waist, their bare backsides presented to him. Lusiana’s was smooth and round, Maraia’s marked with the faint blooms of fingerprints. Varek picked up the bottle of lube from the side table, slicking himself with a harsh, slapping sound.
He took Lusiana first. He drove into her from behind without preamble, a single, brutal thrust that made her cry out, her fingers curling into the fabric of the ottoman. “Is this what you wanted, you desperate cunt?” he growled, setting a punishing rhythm. “This what you traded your dignity for?”
“Yes!” she screamed, the word a sob and a cheer. “Fuck yes! Better me than that dead thing next to me!”
He fucked her hard, the slap of flesh echoing, before pulling out, glistening and wet. He immediately shoved into Maraia. She was tighter, drier. She gasped, a sharp, pained inhale, but made no other sound. Her body absorbed the invasion, her face pressed into the upholstery.
“See?” Lusiana taunted, her voice ragged. “Nothing. She feels nothing. You’re fucking a corpse.”
Varek hammered into Maraia, his own breath coming in gusts. “Is she right?” he demanded, gripping Maraia’s bruised hip.
“No,” Maraia choked out, pushing back against him with a sudden, shocking violence. “I feel everything. I just don’t give a fuck anymore. Use it. Break it. It’s yours.”
That defiance, born from absolute-zero emptiness, seemed to inflame him. He moved back to Lusiana, then to Maraia, dividing his attention, keeping them both on the edge, a degrading game of switch. Their insults devolved into guttural, panting grunts, words fading into animal need.
Varek’s movements became erratic, his control slipping. He pulled out of Maraia for the last time, his cock slick with both of them. He stood back, stroking himself fast. “Where do you want it?” he demanded, his voice thick. “Who earns it?”
Lusiana spun around first, dropping to her knees, mouth open like a hungry chick. “My face! Mark me! Let her see who you chose!”
But Maraia was faster. She shoved Lusiana sideways with a surprising strength and threw herself forward, not aiming for her face, but catching the first hot, pearling jet on her tongue, in her hair. “It’s wasted on her!” she snarled, licking her lips as more spurts landed on her cheek, her chin.
Lusiana howled in frustration, grabbing Maraia’s head and trying to wrestle her for the dwindling pulses, kissing and biting at Maraia’s semen-smeared skin, trying to steal it. They writhed on the carpet, a naked, sticky, fighting knot, until Varek was spent.
He stepped back, watching them pant and grapple in the aftermath. He picked up his robe, shrugged it on. He looked down at them—Lusiana crying angry, frustrated tears, Maraia wiping his cum from her eye with a frightening calm.
“That was helpful,” Varek said, his voice returning to its smooth, measured tone. He retied the sash with a precise motion. He did not say his decision.
He simply walked to the suite’s bedroom door, opened it, and stepped inside.
The click of the lock echoed in the silence he left behind.