Before the First Stone Falls

Chapter XVII: Before the First Stone Falls

The morning sun hit the water at a sharp angle, turning the chop into silver-edged triangles and making the whole bay look hyperreal, like someone had cranked the contrast past the point of taste. Andy sat cross-legged on a bleached rock formation, a stick in his hand and a series of loops and hashmarks sketched out before him, the marks erased every time a wave hissed up the beach and licked them away.

He was always restless when he was nervous, and anxiety was definitely the driving **** within him today. The mail had temporarily displaced it, but it was back now, in full ****. Only hours to the challenge, and one of the eight women he cared for would be sent home, replaced by someone else. And so, he had come to the beach. When he was younger, and far more of a nerd, he’d work out his nervousness by writing ASCII translations of people’s names—friends, crushes, anyone who was occupying his headspace at the time; but then, he didn’t have private access to a tropical beach at the time. This was far more soothing.

He felt hungover, not from the wine or the aftershocks of Marissa’s soft laughter in his ear, but from the letdown of a long night ending too soon, and the knowledge that he’d woken to a different world than he expected. He’d never planned to have sex with Marissa. Last night, for a minute, he’d almost managed to convince himself he was just the host, an accidental tourist in someone else’s life. But the memory of her, the taste of her on his tongue, was unignorable. Andy tried to draw a line in the sand to mark the difference between guilt and hunger, but the ocean erased it before he could finish.

He looked like hell, even by his own standards. His hair was still wild from sleep and sea breeze, salt now sticking it up in whorls; he wore a gray t-shirt that clung with damp, and his jeans were rolled up, his shoes sitting on the rock near him. He looked like someone who had walked out here on purpose to avoid going anywhere else.

It was not far from the truth.

He stabbed the stick into the sand and thought about the women, one by one, as if they were figures drawn in sea foam. Dawn, with her bright-eyed need to please, the way she always pretended to be calm but vibrated with barely-concealed worry every time Andy spoke to her. He could see her smile, the nervous way she’d bite her lip when she thought no one was watching, and he wondered what would happen to her if she lost the next challenge.

Claire, who never said a word out loud, but still managed to fill every conversation with more meaning than most people managed in a lifetime of sentences. He remembered the way her hair had fluttered in the wind, her notebook always held like a shield, and the blue clarity of her eyes when she looked up from the page and into him. He wondered what Claire felt within him, and why she didn’t run.

Emi, gentle and strange, always half in the present and half in whatever dreamworld she was painting in her head. He’d watched her six arms dance through the air, making origami, folding and unfolding her feelings into tiny paper animals she left on the windowsills and in the corners of the lobby. He wondered what Emi would become if she ever let herself take up real space.

Liesa, who glided through rooms like she was trying not to touch anything, but who couldn’t stop herself from drawing portraits even when she had no pencil in hand. Liesa’s pain was hidden, but not well enough; he caught glimpses of it in the way she tucked her chin or looked for exits.

Erin, stubborn and brittle, the way she’d braced herself with humor and hardness, then shattered the second she realized she wasn’t in control of her own body anymore. Erin had lost more than most, Andy guessed, but he doubted she’d ever admit it, least of all to him.

Sam, his old friend, her sarcasm a mask for an unspoken loyalty. Sam had always seemed invincible, but even she had vulnerabilities: her need to protect, her fear of being left behind. Andy wondered what would happen to their friendship if he let her down.

Norah, all sharp lines and quick glances, who disliked him and needed him in equal measure, though she’d die before she’d ever admit either. He replayed every conversation with her like a chess game he’d lost in the first three moves. He wondered what she thought of him now, after their night.

And then Marissa, last night’s revelation. He’d expected awkwardness, or at best the clinical detachment she brought to every conversation. Instead, she’d been alive, warm, even playful. He was surprised by how much he’d enjoyed her—the softness of her body, yes, but also the way she’d let herself laugh and forget about being “the therapist” for a few hours. Those walls would be back, he knew. He was familiar with guardedness. But he felt a kind of aftershock now, a quiet gratitude, and also a guilt that made him wonder if he’d ruined something precious by moving too fast.

He traced a new shape in the sand, absently. His hand stopped when he noticed the faded string of Laura’s friendship bracelet on his wrist, the colors now pale and muddied by time and sun and sea water. For a long time, he stared at it, thumb rubbing the worn thread, thinking about the girl who had given it to him and the fact that, even now, he’d never figured out how to let her go. Perhaps it was the bracelet, perhaps seeing Emi again, but he realized he had thought of her far more often, since coming to the island.

A shadow drifted over him, and Andy turned to see Claire standing just behind, notebook clutched to her chest, wearing a pale blue sundress, hair in a messy bun. She looked like she’d been walking forever, or maybe like she’d only just arrived at the edge of the world and was deciding whether to jump in.

He nodded at the sand beside him. “Hey,” he said, voice a little hoarse.

She sat, her movements careful, then crossed her legs and balanced the notebook on one knee. She didn’t open it right away, just stared out at the water, her lips pressed tight. After a while, she let her head rest on his shoulder, light as a feather, and Andy felt the tension in his own neck dissolve a little.

They sat like that, breathing in the salt and the sun, and Andy wondered how long it had been since he’d just… existed with another person, without expectation or pretense.

Finally, Claire opened her notebook, uncapped her pen, and wrote a line before tearing out the page and passing it to him.

I thought you needed company. Felt like it.

Andy smiled, surprised. “You felt it?”

Claire nodded, then scribbled another line.

You’re sadder than you pretend. But you’re also nicer.

He laughed, soft and surprised. “You’re the first person who’s ever accused me of being nice,” he said.

She looked at him with a wan smile, then reached up to push her glasses up her nose, the gesture quick and practiced. She wrote again, then handed him the page.

I’m scared. I know you are, too.

Andy hesitated. “Because of the next challenge?” he guessed.

She nodded, then paused, writing more.

I don’t want to leave. I don’t want you to forget me.

He read the line twice, then folded the page and tucked it into the pocket of his shorts. “I’m not going to forget you, Claire. Even if I tried, you’d probably leave messages everywhere.”

She gave him a grin, and it transformed her face, made her look younger, and for a second, Andy felt the urge to hug her. He settled for letting his arm drape across her back, palm resting against the curve of her shoulder.

Claire reached up, brushing a strand of hair from her cheek, then took a deep breath, as if preparing herself. She wrote, then turned the notebook toward him, holding it out:

I know what you did last night.

He blushed, despite himself. “Is it that obvious?”

She shook her head, then wrote again.

Not to anyone else. But I can feel it. It’s part of my transformation. I’m connected to you now. I can feel when you’re happy or hurt, or when you want something. Last night, you wanted Marissa. I’m glad you got her. She needed it.

Andy didn’t know how to answer that. He stared at the page, then at Claire, then at the horizon.

“She’s not the only one who needed something,” he said, barely above a whisper.

Claire shook her head, and she reached for his hand, wrapping her fingers around his in a way that was deliberate and slow, as if memorizing the shape of it.

She wrote: I’m not jealous.

He looked at her, disbelieving.

She tapped the words with her pen, then wrote underneath:

I like the other women too. If we win, we will all be bound to you. But only I will ever know what you really want.

Andy stared at her, then let out a breath that felt like it had been stuck in his chest for days.

Claire watched him for a moment, then wrote, This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever done.

He laughed. “Me too.”

She set the notebook down, then turned to face him fully, tucking her legs under so she was almost kneeling beside him. Her hair whipped around her face in the wind, and she didn’t bother to fix it.

“If you make it through the next challenge,” he said, “I’ll take you on a real date. We’ll do whatever you want. No rules.”

She looked at him, eyes bright, then stole a quick kiss before he could react, and wrote:

If I make it through, I want to find out how it feels to have sex with you while I can sense every feeling you have.

He felt his face go red again, but Claire just laughed silently, then leaned forward and pressed another kiss to his cheek, her lips cool from the breeze.

She pointed up the beach, toward the hotel, where the other women were probably already awake and plotting their strategies. She mimed walking, then pointed at him, then at the distant outline of the hotel.

He understood. “I’ll be there soon,” he said. “But I wanted to have this with you first.”

She scribbled one last note:

Check on Erin. She’s not okay.

He nodded, then watched as Claire rose, dusted the sand from her dress, and walked away, pausing only once to look back and smile at him.

Andy sat for a while, staring at the note in his hand, the imprint of her lips still tingling on his cheek.

He wondered, not for the first time, if maybe he’d been wrong about everything: that the game was about winning, that he was supposed to choose, that he was only ever meant to have one person by his side. Maybe the only way to fix himself was to let all of them in, and hope they could hold each other up when the world started to tilt. Because he knew that perhaps, by supporting each other, they could cover for the part of him none of them could ever have.

He stood, brushed the sand from his legs, and started up the beach, already thinking about how he’d apologize to Erin, and what he’d say to Claire when they were finally alone again.

The walk to the Inner Gardens was longer than Andy remembered, mostly because every turn in the path seemed to introduce a new set of flowering hedges, or a statue, or a pointless little bench: Arabella’s idea of scenery was to turn the world into a series of photo backdrops. He was halfway through cursing the latest topiary (a rabbit, if he was not mistaken) when he heard the sound of Erin’s voice, low and pissed, coming from a stone nook behind a tangle of wisteria.

He found her on a weathered slab of bench, elbows on her knees, picking at the hem of her leggings like she was trying to tear them into threads. There were dark moons under her eyes, and her hair, always straight and sharp, had gone frizzy from humidity. She didn’t look up when he sat beside her.

“Hey,” he said.

She made a sound in her throat, then risked a glance at him. “Hey.”

He nodded. “Claire told me you were having a hard time.”

Erin rolled her eyes. “Of course she did.” She leaned back, arms folded tight. “Not like I was keeping it a secret.”

Andy waited, letting the air fill with the scent of wisteria and the distant drone of tropical birds.

After a minute, she said, “This is so fucked, Andrew.”

He shrugged. “Most things are. You want to tell me why in particular today?”

She didn’t answer at first, fingers fidgeting with the seam of her sleeve. “You ever been **** for something, but so ashamed of needing it you’d rather die than ask?”

He considered. “Yeah,” he said. “I think everyone has.”

Erin let out a short, humorless laugh. “Not like this.” She pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes, then looked at him, face suddenly raw. “I tried, Andy. I tried to ignore it, or just wait it out, but the longer I go the worse it gets. It’s like the only thing my body wants anymore is... ” She stopped, too furious or humiliated to finish.

“Release,” Andy offered, softly.

She winced. “God, don’t say it like that. Like I’m some broken machine.”

“I don’t think you’re broken,” he said. “You’re just dealing with the shittiest possible version of biology.”

She snorted, then scrubbed at her face, eyes blinking hard. “It’s not just the need, Andrew. It’s that I can’t do anything about it unless—” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Unless you’re there. Unless you’re watching. That’s the only way it works.”

Andy felt a weird mix of empathy and shame on her behalf. “Have you tried… I mean, there are ways to make it less embarrassing. If you want.”

She glared at him. “Don’t. Don’t pretend this isn’t the most humiliating thing you’ve ever heard.”

He was quiet, then said, “I get it. You don’t want to be seen like that.”

Erin shot him a look, half grateful, half furious. “No, I don’t. But that’s not even the worst of it. You’ve seen me in bed, after all. The worst is, every hour I don’t, I feel less like myself. It’s like I’m getting erased a little at a time.” She stared at her hands, jaw clenched. “I don’t want to be this person. I don’t want to need you.”

Andy watched her, saw the way her fingers trembled on her knee. “You don’t have to do it alone,” he said. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want. But if you need help, I can help. You can keep your clothes on, if that matters.”

She looked at him, incredulous. “What, you want to just… sit here while I jerk off behind a bush?”

He shrugged. “If it works.”

Erin shook her head, biting back a laugh. “You are the strangest man I’ve ever met.”

“That’s saying something,” Andy said.

They sat in silence. A bee circled the flowers by their feet, and Erin watched it, her face softening a little.

Finally, she said, “Will you look away until I say so?”

He nodded, solemn.

She shifted on the bench, angling herself so the arm of the bench hid most of her body from sight. She stared at him, waiting for him to turn, and he did, fixing his eyes on the tangle of purple flowers overhead.

There was a long, awkward silence, broken only by the thump of Erin’s foot against the stone as she fidgeted. After a minute, she said, voice strained, “You can look now.”

Andy turned, keeping his gaze at shoulder height. Erin’s breath was shallow, her face flushed, her lips pressed in a hard line. Her hands, out of sight behind the arm of the bench, moved in a nervous rhythm.

He tried to make it easier. “Want to talk, or…?”

She shook her head, eyes locked on his face. “Just… be here. That’s enough.”

He watched her, doing his best to ignore the heat in his cheeks or the strange throb in his chest. Erin’s face was a war of emotions: shame, anger, and something else—relief, maybe. She looked at him like she was waiting for judgment, or a punchline, or both.

A minute passed, then another. Erin’s eyes squeezed shut, and her mouth twisted as if in pain, but then the tension bled out of her, and her shoulders slumped. She opened her eyes, and for the first time that day, Andy saw a flash of peace on her face.

She let out a shaky breath. “Okay,” she whispered. “That’s… better.”

He nodded, not moving. “You did it.”

She laughed, weak. “Yeah. I did.”

Masturbated in front of the Master! +2 VP
First! x2

They sat in silence, letting the world come back into focus. Erin tucked her hands into her lap, face flushed but calmer.

After a while, she said, “You’re not going to make a joke?”

Andy shook his head. “No. Not about this.”

She looked at him, really looked, and he could see the gratitude in her eyes, sharp as glass. “You’re a better man than I thought, Andy.”

“Low bar,” he said, smiling.

She snorted, then nudged his knee with hers. “Still.”

He waited, not sure if he should stay or go.

Erin surprised him by reaching out, looping an arm around his shoulders and pulling him in for a brief, hard hug. “Thanks,” she said, muffled.

Hugged the Master! +1 VP

He patted her back, awkward but sincere.

When she let go, she wiped her eyes and gave him a crooked grin. “Don’t get used to it.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it.”

They sat for a minute longer, the air lighter now, the smell of wisteria sweet and grounding.

Erin stood, brushing dust from her leggings. “I’ll see you at the challenge, okay?”

He nodded.

She walked away, and Andy watched her go, feeling strangely proud, like he’d actually done something right for once.

He stayed on the bench, listening to the birds, and wondered what it would be like to need someone so much it almost destroyed you. He hoped he’d never find out, but if he did, he hoped someone would be there to keep him from falling apart.

He stood, stretched, and started back toward the hotel.

He took the long way back to the Suite, following the winding paths that cut through the hotel’s impossibly lush grounds, letting his mind run over every interaction, every flash of pain or longing he’d seen in the last week. There was something building behind his ribs, some pressure that felt like grief, or hope, or maybe just a memory of what it was like to want things without knowing how to ask for them.

Andy had always thought of himself as the outsider, the unchosen, but as he traced the map of the women in his life, he started to see himself reflected in all their wounds. Claire’s silent strangeness—her inability to connect except through the safety of a page, even before losing her voice. Erin’s pride, turned inward until it strangled her. Dawn’s relentless optimism, stretched thin over years of hospitality, and using it as a mask to hide her past. Liesa’s fear of loving too hard, of losing everything if she let anyone in, and her complicated feelings about her past. Sam, whose armor was sarcasm and whose loyalty was her only way to love. Emi, who drifted on the edges of every scene, afraid her real self would drive people away. Norah, burning with the need to be respected and never believing she could deserve it. Even Marissa, who spent her life fixing others because it was the only way she could forgive herself for her own failings.

He realized, with a jolt, that he wasn’t so different from any of them. Maybe that was the point—the universe had dropped him on this impossible island, surrounded by broken women, to show him that he could love them and, maybe, be loved in return. If they deserved happiness, maybe he did too.

He reached the elevator to the Master’s Suite before he was ready, the sudden brightness of the lobby almost enough to blind him. He stepped inside, expecting the room to feel empty or cold, but it felt like home, the air heavy with the faint trace of Marissa’s perfume and the soft hum of silence that follows a night of honesty.

Katherine’s painting hung over the fireplace, as always. But today, her eyes seemed gentler, less teasing. She stood in her painted meadow as always, arms folded beneath her breasts, watching him with a look that was almost proud.

“Hey,” he said, voice steady.

She lifted her head, hair spilling behind her like a curtain. Andy sat on the couch, facing her, and for a minute he just let himself breathe.

“You’ve been watching me,” he said. “What do you think?”

Katherine tilted her head, the smile on her lips a little wider.

“I think I’ve been an idiot,” Andy said. “I think I spent so much time trying not to get hurt that, for so long, I stopped letting myself care about anyone. But it’s not working anymore. Not here. I’m starting to care, and I can’t put it back in the box.”

Katherine stretched, her painted body a study in grace, eroticism and longing. She looked at him with something close to approval.

“I wish I could hug you,” Andy said, and meant it.

Katherine’s face softened, and for a second, she looked almost sad. She pressed her hand to her heart, then reached it out toward him, palm flat against the canvas.

Andy reached out, mirroring her gesture, his hand hovering just above the painting’s surface.

“You’re the best friend I’ve had here, aside from Sam,” he said. “You’ve kept me honest, even when I didn’t want to be honest with myself.”

Katherine’s smile broke into a full grin, and she tapped the canvas, twice—her way of saying thank you.

He let his hand drop, feeling lighter than he had in years.

“I think you’d give a great hug,” he said.

She rolled her eyes, then leaned her shoulder against the edge of the canvas, shaking her head at him with affectionate exasperation.

Andy laughed, a real laugh, the sound bouncing off the walls and making the Suite feel even more alive.

“I have to go,” he said softly. “There’s a challenge today. Probably elimination, too.”

Katherine nodded, and then, with a flourish, reached out to him with her arms.

He blinked, a lump rising in his throat. “I’ll take it,” he said.

He looked at her for a long moment, then stood and walked to the door, feeling the weight of her painted gaze on his back.

As he reached for the handle, he glanced back. Katherine gave him a thumbs-up, her face radiant with mischief.

Andy smiled, took a deep breath, and stepped out into the light.

By noon, the shore had gone almost blinding with heat, every grain of sand a reflective knife, every breath of wind a promise quickly broken by the glare. The white-wood gazebo, which had vanished after the day they had arrived, now had returned at the high-tide line, looking like it had been teleported from a wedding catalog and then left to bleach in the sun for a hundred years.

Eight white stools formed a semicircle before the throne.

Andy walked down the lawn path and up the wooden steps. As he approached, each woman’s attention snapped to him in turn.

Dawn was first, sitting primly at the far left, knees locked, hands smoothing her lemon-colored sundress over and over until the fabric had no more give. Her foot jiggled, and she watched him with a smile that was too bright to be real.

Claire sat next, upright and rigid, her battered leather notebook balanced on her lap, pen uncapped and poised for action. Her eyes were huge behind her glasses, and she kept darting glances at Dawn, at Andy, then back to her own trembling hands. She gave him a tremulous, encouraging smile.

Emi was third, legs crossed, one arm bent shyly up to her cheek, the other five splayed in various positions—two in her lap, one draped along the back of the stool, the last curled protectively around her torso. She looked like she might fold into herself at any moment.

Liesa leaned forward, hands clasped, her face calm but eyes darting to every woman in the row, as if cataloging expressions for later. She gave Andy a small, private smile, then went back to her work of silent observation.

Erin sat in the center, arms on her knees, chin tilted up in a show of defiance that was only slightly ruined by the softening around her eyes. She looked at Andy, and for the first time, he thought he saw peace there, or at least the ghost of it.

Sam, hair freshly dyed an electric blue, slouched with arms folded, one leg kicked out, sneakers tapping a slow rhythm against the wood. She met Andy’s gaze, smirked, and did an exaggerated eyebrow waggle, as if to say: nice job surviving the morning, loser.

Norah, second from the right, wore a tailored blazer despite the heat, her arms crossed so tightly her knuckles showed white. She looked away, jaw set, but the lines in her face were softer than before.

Marissa anchored the right end, back ramrod straight, hands folded on her lap like she was preparing to deliver a eulogy. She didn’t look at Andy until he was almost to his seat; when she did, she gave him a brief, appraising nod that said everything and nothing at once.

Arabella appeared as if on cue, radiant in an emerald cocktail dress that shimmered in the light. She didn’t walk—she seemed to glide, every step perfectly timed. She stopped beside the throne, hands clasped, her face the picture of pleasant anticipation.

Andy took his seat in the throne. It was unnecessarily tall, forcing him to lean back and splay his arms on the rests in a posture that felt half regal, half ridiculous. The women faced him, forming a perfect crescent.

He looked at each in turn, feeling the weight of their stories, their hope, their terror. He realized this was the moment: the performance, the reckoning, the hour when everything would change and someone would be cast out.

He wasn’t ready, not really, but maybe that was the point.

Arabella cleared her throat, drawing all eyes to her.

She swept her gaze over the women, then to Andy, and let a slow, bright smile unfurl across her lips. “Welcome, everyone,” she said, and the world seemed to hush, waiting for the next word.

Andy braced himself, knowing that whatever happened now, nothing would be the same after.