Ronnie

Fifteen years before the premiere

The sun was out, the air was dry, the temperature was comfortable, and it still felt like the most oppressive day Ronnie had ever lived.

She sat topless on the edge of the Harem Hotel pool, with her pants rolled up so she could dip her legs in the water. Tarin stood in the pool itself - the show had cursed Tarin with tits that expanded the longer she went without fucking the Master, and since he wasn’t doling out any action they were growing truly, comically massive. Tarin had arrived with a lean, wiry swimmer’s frame, but the giant knockers had turned her into a walking letter P. They so unbalanced her body that standing in the pool was the only way to keep her comfortable lately. Ronnie still wasn’t sure how the hotel made a swimsuit that fit the massive things, but so far Tarin’s seams were holding. It’s everything else that’s giving way. We’re losing our grip. Metaphorically at least. Tarin barely let go of them these days, and any anxiety Ronnie was carrying was passed immediately to her like a tuning fork. Ronnie tried her best to stop the tremor in her hands.

Tarin opened her mouth to speak, but when she did the words were garbled. Ronnie made an ‘I can’t hear you’ motion and Tarin nodded, letting go of Ronnie’s hand.

Ronnie took her nipples in each thumb and forefinger and tuned them like the radio knobs in her mom’s old Chevelle. Apparently the hosts of this show thought the Master was a breast man, and so the last round had been breast-themed. While Tarin’s breasts endlessly expanded, Ronnie’s became her connection to the world. Without ‘tuning in’ to a conversation partner, she could not understand what they said even if they were arm’s length away. Staticky bits of other conversations filtered through her ears until she was able to find and fix her ‘signal’ upon Tarin.

“Ok, I’m there.” Ronnie said as her lover’s voice came into focus.

“Are you ok?” Tarin asked.

“Are any of us?” Ronnie snarked, but saw on her face that wasn’t a helpful response. “Sorry, it’s just isolating when you can’t understand anyone. And now I have to have my tits out all the damn time just to try.”

“Oh yeah, your boobs are the real problem.” Tarin gave a weak smile, and the innocence flashing in her big blue eyes cut Ronnie deep. Ronnie tousled her blonde hair, partly to cut the tension but also so she’d stop looking with the big doe eyes. “I know that stinks, Ronnie, but who would you even listen to if you could?” Tarin asked, gesturing to the nearly deserted pool deck. Earlier in the competition, the Staff was out here at all hours frolicking and doing whatever the fuck, trying to keep the place seeming ‘fun’ and constantly offering things to make the contestants comfortable or more fuckable. But things had been going sideways since day one, and since the second challenge collapsed they’d been avoiding the contestants like they’d catch a contagious disease. No loss there. They’re just animatronic Disneyland people any fuckin’ way.

“Why don’t you get a few laps in? I think it will clear your mind.” Ronnie offered. Maybe mine too.

“They float too much.” Tarin tried pushing them down, but they popped right back up to the surface. She was a swimmer, of course they try to take what she loves until she gives them what they want.

“Try the backstroke maybe?” Ronnie offered, “It couldn’t hurt. You’re just tying yourself in knots, and that’s not gonna help.”

“But it’s my night with him, Ronnie!” Tarin said. “I’m already below zero, and it's the last night of this round. If he rejects me again…”

“It’s not personal. He’s rejected all of us at least once, Tarin.” Ronnie squeezed her hand tightly. “He’s rejected the entire show.” And the world. “Just swim, no one’s out here to care how your boobs look.”

“I just… don’t want to end up like her. Or the others.” Tarin nodded past Ronnie’s shoulder at the only other woman in the pool area. Ronnie didn’t have to look to know who Tarin meant, she could hear the woman coming. Ronnie adjusted her left tit until the voice came into focus.

“Come on world, get out the way! It’s your favorite cumslut, Mei!” The diminutive Chinese woman approached the pair in a forward handspring, ending in a roundoff to a split next to Ronnie that sent her cheerleader skirt up - way up. She had no panties on, she couldn’t wear them any more. Just this ridiculous white cheerleader outfit, all day, every day. The Master was kind of a manwhore in college, I guess they think having his alma mater stretched on a sweater across her chest will take his mind back there. But always with the fucking rhyming…

“I heard you, Tarin, I heard it all! Without some points, we’ll be his thrall!” She slapped her pom-poms together and kept smiling, but the worry lines around her eyes were a dead giveaway. The woman was on the verge of a total breakdown, and with good reason. She and Ronnie already had their chances with the Master the past two, and both had struck out completely. He would not budge.

“What went wrong last night?” Tarin asked, “Why couldn’t you get any points?”

“I tried all night, I tried my best! But Master said he passed the test! I begged the Master, said pretty please! I even went down on bended knee!”

“And nothing?!” Tarin had switched from feeding on Ronnie’s anxiety to Mei’s and it was becoming overpowering. Ronnie needed some distance from it to think.

“Tarin, seriously, if you go up there as a ball of panic you’re going to make him shut down even worse. Please - swim, run, drink, get high, masturbate, do something to relax.” Ronnie gently pushed her shoulders to get her floating away from the pool edge. Tarin gave her a wounded puppy look as she floated away like an elder on an ice floe, but she obediently attempted a backstroke. She had to swing her arms around those bazookas to complete motion, but at least it seemed to help her somewhat.

“Come Ronnie, make me shout! If I don’t get five points, I’m out!”

“Girl, you know I would do it for you, but they don’t give points for repeats.” Ronnie hissed through her teeth. Mei continued smiling and waving her poms as she bounced to her feet, but a single tear sliding down her cheek exposed the truth of it. Ronnie felt just as helpless as she watched Mei cartwheel away and inside.

There’s nothing left that I can do. That we can do together. Ronnie never really explored her bisexual urges before coming to the hotel, but… watching what they did to people here… I really wish I’d had the chance to explore that before we were all under the gun. We needed points… But we started too late. They’d pulled all the blood they could from that stone. Ronnie shook her head at the thought of a ‘wish.’ What good is it if I can’t use it on anything I really want? I can’t save my friends, I can’t unbind myself from this asshole and go back to Michael… It’s pointless. All of this is fucking pointless, no one wants to goddamn be here and no one wants to watch, so why!?

Before Ronnie could completely lose herself in rage and self-pity, Colt and Al emerged from the hotel, deep in some kind of argument that she couldn’t hear. They hadn’t noticed her or Tarin doing a back float at the far end of the pool, equally oblivious to the hosts. Ronnie slipped quietly off the deck into the water, ducking her head below the surface where she couldn’t be seen from where they were standing. With her head still below the surface Ronnie grabbed her nipples and tweaked them again, trying to hear the fight. If the boobs work like a radio, maybe they can pick up at a distance like one. She wasn’t sure if it would work, but she was **** for any kind of news or clue as to what she could do to change this impending disaster.

“...that goldurn limp-dicked bastard you gave me is gonna wreck this whole thing, Al!” Ronnie managed to find the signal, Colt’s twangy voice came through clearly, though when Al responded his voice was much harder to parse among the bursts of static. Ronnie held her hands steady on her breasts, trying to keep the signal fixed rather than risk losing both of them.

“He’s - monk - gotta remind him - he’s a man under there.”

“That Silas boy ain’t no monk, Al, a year ago if you asked him to spell buddha he wouldn’t get past the ‘b-u-d.’”

“-said - you wanted challenge - improve the ratings.”

“The ratings are through the floor, Al. And it’s your fault.”

Ronnie held out as long as possible, but she needed air. She carefully allowed herself to break the surface of the pool and poked her head out to see what was happening. Colt and Al were standing far back against the rear wall of the hotel and were nearly nose to nose, somehow, since the lanky Colt towered over Al. They couldn’t have looked more opposite, something Ronnie suspected was an intentional costuming choice by the mysterious producers they seemed to fear. Anyone with power like Colt’s getting scared… That’s real terror.

Only Colt’s voice gave it away, his appearance was the same every time. Colt always wore his white rhinestone cowboy get up and matching ten-gallon hat, with a gold bolo tie that always seemed to be reflecting light into your eyes. Possibly for that reason, Al was always wearing sunglasses and his coal black suit, no matter the heat or time of day. Two men, separated by body shape and a century of fashion, but together in being disgusting pigs.

Colt rested his hand on the pearl-handled six-shooter that he always kept holstered on his belt, flexing around the grip slightly. Al didn’t seem phased by it, but Ronnie sure as shit was. The first time she’d seen him draw it was the night of the premiere. Phoebe was Silas’ old social worker, from before he’d found “religion.” She’d fucking lost it when Colt tried to explain the game. Who could blame her?

And then, right in front of everyone, Colt draws and blasts her. Not with a bullet, that would have been a mercy by comparison. That gun magicked her into a fucking sex bot. A grown woman, with a degree and a husband and a career and friends and a dog and a whole ass life, made into a whimpering little thing begging Silas to “Put it in her quivering fuckhole.” Who even says shit like that?!

As all the other women huddled together in near blind panic, Silas simply sat there like a rock. Unmoving, unmoved. “I hope she finds peace.” He said, like a complete goddamned asshole. Who even says shit like that?

Colt continued to fondle the gun with his figners, but whatever power he had over the women didn’t appear to extend to Al. Or Al didn’t think he’d use it - He didn’t flinch.

“I did what - wanted - followed orders. -wanted to see something different - should have asked for it-”

“This audience wants to see action and you found me a dog that don’t hunt.” Colt was growling at this point, but to Ronnie it sounded more like a cornered animal than a vicious one. “Pheobe follows him from room to room, so that boy orders her to take a walk. His bitch of an ex Gwen has her ankle chained to the bed, so he sleeps on the couch. His sister Louise-”

“-Tiffany-” Al corrected. “Louise - neighbor.”

“Who fuckin cares what she is?!” Colt yelled, which old Ronnie could have heard even without using her tits as a spy radio. Ronnie glanced over at Tarin still floating at the other end of the large pool, but between the piped-in music playing and having her ears underwater, she hadn’t noticed. “All that matters is she’s a big-titted blonde who wants nothing more than to drain his balls, and the boy runs from her like she’s a diamondback!”

“-Tarin’s night - she has a chance.”

“The last chance.” That was enough for him. Colt drew his gun and clenched his hand on the grip like he was about to do something rash, but then spun it on his finger and holstered it again without pointing it at Al. “Got the call today. That boy don’t find his cojones tonight, and we’re done. Canceled. Adios.”

“-you gonna do?”

“I can’t do a thing, Al. The Producers’ wanna see him figure it out his dang self, they said I already interfered too much. But what the hell was I supposed to do?! I gave that boy a whole challenge where the girls went down on him one after the other, but he would not pop. The girls have had to go down on each other just to get some action ‘round here, but this ain’t **** Lesbian Hotel. The viewers ain’t goin’ for it.”

“-Lost your temper- you shut - challenge down too early.”

“The Producers didn’t think so. ‘That’s not the show we wanna watch’ they said.”

“-be a little more subtle-”

“It’s too late for that.” Colt said. “They’re watching me now. Circling like buzzards.” Colt pulled his gun again and scanned the sky above him as if he was looking for literal predators. Al cleared his throat like he was building to something, so Ronnie risked losing the signal to pick up Al.

“Want me to talk with Tarin?” He said. “They said you can’t interfere with the Master, but maybe I can boost up the girl. She ain’t without some fuckability, we know he’s a tit man and she’ll barely fit through his door by tonight.

Colt looked back at Al and considered his offer with obvious deep suspicion. He did more gun twirls like a dickhead as he thought it over.

“No… They’ll be watchin’ for that too.” Colt jammed the gun back into his holster hard enough that it looked like the belt might snap off his waist. “Imma check in on an ol’ buddy of mine, maybe he’ll have somethin’ to get me out of this jam.”

“Want me to watch the fort, chief?” Al asked.

More suspicion, more twirling. “Nah, I want you to come with me.” Colt’s eyes narrowed. “Call it a learnin’ experience for my intern.” Even from that distance Ronnie could see Al grate under the insult, and the iciness between the pair. But both of them gone at the same time… “You could use the advice anyway, seeing as it was your idiot idea to build this casino in the first place. Everything was going fine ‘till we moved the operation here.”

“Everything was going fine until this season.” Al finally had enough to push back on him. “Don’t you blame me. You lost your edge, Colt. You started blasting contestants and screwing up challenges.”

“Or maybe I just had bad help.” Colt spun on his bootheel and waved for Al to follow like a child, despite the obvious fury on his face, Al followed. Ronnie watches as the duo departed through a gap in the hedges that she couldn’t even see. Ronnie took one look back at Tarin before deciding not to bring her along. She can’t know or they’ll know, I have to do this alone.

Ronnie knew she’d find Louise on the contestant’s floor despite her elimination. After she’d been remade by Colt’s revolver, she’d become **** for attention. “A siren without a horny sailor is just a lonely bitch on a wet rock,” Al said. But Silas consistently ordered her away. She could no longer refuse him, and where else was there to go? When the elevator doors opened, sure enough, there she was - swinging around and around the stripper pole in the center of the room. Her tanned muscular thighs poked out from her one piece swimsuit that looked so, so much like fishscales. They gripped the pole, allowing her to lean all the way back parallel to the floor, stretching out her arms to their full length. Louise’s dyed purple hair flowed out from her head as she spun, her face a mask of pure relaxed bliss.

It’s all over for her. Look how easy it is when it’s all over…

Wait. Don’t look, Don’t look. Ronnie said to herself, but Louise’s moves were just so compelling. Watching her go around and around and around… Just a little. For a moment. How could it hurt? The pole was surrounded by semi-circular couches, and Ronnie felt herself being drawn to the closest one to watch.

Mei was already sitting there, herself entranced but trying to resist as well. She sat with her high-socked cheerleader legs spread shamelessly wide open. On her right leg she had propped up what looked like a dense physics textbook and she was holding it open with one hand, while she was using the other to bury her fingers into her cunt. Her juices leaked to the bottom of the skirt, and the couch, and got onto the pages of the book when she turned them. But she didn’t seem to care about any of that, her face shared the same defeated contentment as Louise as she struggled to split her attention between the sensual show and the dense chapter on quarks.

Ronnie sat next to her, sliding her own hand down the front of her pants. She felt some lingering shame about touching herself, but Louise was working so hard on the pole. It would be rude not to finger my pussy. Ronnie thought. The shame felt a little different this time though, and Ronnie had enough sense of self to ask why. It couldn’t be because Mei’s right here. We already ate each other out, we girls got no secrets left between us. Ronnie’s brows scrunched. Secrets.

“Mei, what are you reading?” Ronnie asked without looking away from Louise. She wasn’t sure she could look away from Louise. But it would have been bad form to, especially while masturbating to the girl, so she didn’t try.

“One last day to read my books! Once I’m out, I’ll be all looks! Can’t find points, I’m out of luck! Nobody left around here to fuck!”

Is that why I came up here? It’s hard to remember. Ronnie watched Louise more, and then it was obvious. Right, I came up here to finger myself. Duh! Don’t be a bimbo, Ronnie!

Louise opened her eyes and noticed that Ronnie had joined the party. She loosened her leg grip on the pole, allowing herself to slowly corkscrew around the pole to the bottom. Once her butt gently landed on the platform, she swung her legs in a wide arc to bring them around, then lifted to her feet with supernatural grace. Louise was taller than Ronnie, which wasn’t saying much since everyone was, but in her case the height difference only served to make her walk - her sashay - that much more hypnotic. Louise smiled and reached out to stroke Ronnie’s cheek, even this small touch was enough to set Ronnie’s nerve endings alight. Then when she opened her mouth, to whisper words Ronnie desperately wanted to hear…

Static burst in her ears. Ronnie blinked and shook her head to clear it, the unnatural sound giving her just enough clarity to push the influence out of her head. She pulled her hand out of her pants and used it to shove Louise back, using the other to shield her eyes.

Focus on the facts! Ronnie collected herself. Louise. She was a Lifeguard. Found Silas’ hungover ass under the Santa Monica Pier. Ronnie felt around blindly to Louise’s upper arm and grabbed it, pulling her along towards the elevator. Got eliminated two nights ago, now she’s some kinda goddamned Greek siren. Meant to turn us all into drooling sluts whenever we see her. Can’t look, can’t listen. But she doesn’t affect me as static. Louise reached over to Ronnie’s nipple, apparently trying to tweak it to tune herself in, but Ronnie slapped her hand away.

Mei yelled something after them that sounded disappointed, but Ronnie naturally couldn’t make it out. She pressed the call button and roughly shoved Louise inside.

Once she heard the doors close, Ronnie followed Louise’s arm to her wrist, then grabbed her hand and pushed the button for the Master’s Suite. As a contestant, Ronnie wasn’t allowed to use the elevator to go up there unless it was her night. But an eliminated girl… well she could go there any time she wanted. And an eliminated girl has to obey a contestant.

Upon arriving at the Master’s floor, Ronnie heard more static as another of the eliminated women approached. She couldn’t risk opening her eyes, but she needed to talk to the other woman, and that meant having to risk hearing Louise. She tried to tune in blind, praying not to hear a siren’s call and being pulled back into that loop. Fortunately, she found Pheobe’s voice first.

“How can I help you?” She asked with her obnoxious perky voice. The pitch was so high it grated on Ronnie’s nerves, How could Colt think anyone could go for this?

“Where’s Silas?”

“Master is out on the balcony… Ooooh I wish he’d take me over the railing and just fuck me until I can’t remember my name! Can you ask him to? Pwetty pwease!”

Half the time she probably can’t anyway. Ronnie shoved Louise in the direction of her voice.

“Fine, I’ll ask. Take Louise into the bedroom. You two and Gwen stay busy for a few minutes.”

“You will! Thank you! Thank you! Right away, Ronnie!” Phoebe took Louise’s hand and they bounced off. When she heard Gwen’s squeals of delight from the bedroom a few moments later, Ronnie opened her eyes just enough to push that door closed. She shoved a nearby chair under the handle to lock them inside, which would buy her a few minutes.

The Master’s Suite looked impossibly tidy, given that five people were technically living in it. His four **** girls didn’t have anything else to do but clean the place. They’d even “made the bed” on the couch where he’d been sleeping, though presumably at his insistence the pillows making up their “beds” were set up behind it, out of his view. He’d spray painted a white-line on the floor around the couch like a salt ring from a horror movie. Guess he ordered them not to cross while he slept.

Silas on the balcony, facing away from the door. He was tall, and had to bend well over to rest his elbows on the railing. Despite his long, lean frame, he wore loose tan joggers and a long knitted boho shirt that still managed to reach his thighs, which to Ronnie’s eyes made him look like a kid in his dad’s clothes. Ronnie had seen him in that shirt several times now, and she always wondered what kind of guy it was originally cut for. He had shaved his head shortly before the show started and continued throughout, steadfastly refusing the host’s offers to help his scalp tan. So it retained that unsightly bare whiteness, which he drew attention to by rubbing it all the time when stressed. As he did just now, speaking without turning when Ronnie emerged.

“I ordered you to leave me alone.” He said. “Return inside.”

Ronnie didn’t have to tune him in, the Master was always audible to her. They don’t want me tuning him out. So she heard him just fine when he grumbled “Can’t even follow simple orders.” He was at least still copping to some decency by lowering his voice.

“I don’t have to follow that one just yet.” Ronnie pushed down the anger at his dismissiveness and tried to keep her tone light. If I come at him hard then no telling how he’d react.

Silas whirled in surprise, and she saw the cigarette in his hand before he could think to hide it. He looked as if he was going to toss it off the balcony and pretend it wasn’t there, but shrugged and took another puff instead.

“Clean body, clean mind, clean soul?” Ronnie asked, repeating back his annoying mantra with a smile she hoped came off as non-judgmental. But it is judgmental. Prick.

He flashed his infuriating smile. “Guess pobody’s nerfect.” He shrugged, before offering Ronnie the cigarette to take a drag herself. As soon as she took it, he opened his pack and lit a new one for himself. Again, prick! “So, what can I do for you?” His voice was wary, as she’d expected. He also took a glance at her bare breasts which was not as sneaky as he’d thought it would be, also as expected.

“I just wanted to talk to you,” Ronnie leaned over the balcony, which invited him to do the same.

“Thank goodness,” he sighed. “Everyone’s making demands of me these days.”

No shit. “Like Mei?”

“Like Mei.” He took a long inhale off the cigarette. “She threw everything at me. You tried too when it was your turn, and I forgive you for it.” PRICK! “But with Mei there was an intensity to her desperation that made me despair. It was almost as **** a struggle for me to resist.”

Can you blame her? Look at what happened to everyone else! Ronnie couldn’t hear the sounds of what was surely a depraved orgy happening in the Master’s Bedroom, but she could sense it.

“Tarin’s going to try as well. I know that much.” He continued, sucking down his cigarette almost as fast as it could burn. “I worry I won’t have the strength to say no.” He gestured to the cigarette, “As you can see my resolve is failing somewhat.”

“Why did you turn Mei down?” Ronnie asked. “If you had to fight yourself so hard to do it.”

“For her benefit. And yours. Why do you ask?” He thinks I’m trying to break through his defenses. And he’s not wrong about that, but he’s off on motive.

“I’m not trying to trick you or anything,” Ronnie said, though in a sense she was doing exactly that. Switch to flattery. “I’m just trying to understand your discipline. You seem so… committed to your beliefs. I want to know how you do it.”

Worked like a charm. She felt him relax next to her once given the chance to talk about his favorite subject: himself. “Well, Rhonda, I know what it’s like to fall and hit rock bottom. The point where you realize the only paths are to climb or be annihilated.” Ronnie thought about Mei, once a tenured physics professor reduced to a bubbly, bare-assed cheerleader. This motherfucker doesn’t know shit about rock bottom. But she smiled and nodded for him to continue. “I was a man of hedonism and unrestrained pleasure, kinda like Sid as I think about it now.”

“Sid?”

He gave her a smug look. “Siddharta, the Buddha. Surely you’ve heard of him.” Ronnie felt the very un-Buddhist, un-Christian instinct to grab his ankles and flip him over the side, but instead she just shook her head.

“Don’t know much about him, really.”

“He was a child of royalty. Could have had anything in life that he wanted, but he gave it all up to seek enlightenment. I won’t say my parents were that rich, but I didn’t want for much. But I squandered it. Got arrested for sleeping under the Santa Monica Pier after another bender, and the court ordered me to begin seeing Phoebe to sort my life out. She suggested I find a higher calling, and I did. I realized that I must renounce these earthly pleasures.” He opened his arms to gesture broadly at the hotel.

“I can respect that,” Ronnie said. “I’ve surely seen people struggle with their impulses, but doesn’t this seem like a special situation?”

“How do you figure?”

“Well, this time refusing to indulge yourself has consequences for other people.” Ronnie took the calculated risk in breaching this topic, but she needed him to address it before Tarin said the same thing that night. He reached his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close, even though she had not invited him to do that. His grey eyes seemed like they were looking through her, not at her.

“Ronnie, do you have a higher calling?”

“I have a husband at home, a family, a career that I love which is finally going somewhere.”

He chuckled. “I mean something meaningful.” Ronnie grit her teeth and **** the smile to stay on her face, and he took that and her hard-fought silence as a no. “Consider what my way - the noble eightfold path - offers. Right Conduct, the 4th way, is about rejecting those immoral desires regardless of their source. Colt and Al try to push those into my mind directly, but that only changes the difficulty of what I must achieve. It doesn’t change my goal - to achieve a transcendent mindstate. You can get there as well, Rhonda. I believe in your power to overcome the desires of your weak earthly form. All of you females can. You just need to cease focusing on the carnal and instead embrace the spiritual.”

Ronnie was legitimately uncertain whether her plan would work up until that moment.

“But how can I do that?” Ronnie gave him her best enraptured student eyes. “It’s just so difficult to say no when it feels so good to say yes.”

He squeezed her shoulder in his patronizing way. “I know it is for you. First you need to stop fooling around with the others. It’s distracting you from your path.”

“But Tarin is so pretty.” Ronnie whimpered. “I know you were able to turn me down. And Mei.” And every other woman begging for her damned life. “But Tarin? I don’t know if anyone is strong enough for that.”

He puffed out his chest, a move so transparently calculated that Ronnie nearly laughed.

“I will. I am strong enough.”

“I…have to go.” Ronnie said, “ But please, tomorrow you’ll teach me? How to be strong and transcendental and everything?” Ronnie took his shirt in her hands, pulling him close, looking up into his eyes like the weak, lost girl he thought she was.

“I will do that too, my child.” He patted her head as if the four-year age gap between them had suddenly expanded to forty.

“Thank you, Silas. Thank you so much for showing me a new way.” Ronnie hugged him, then scarpered to the exit while she could still restrain her nausea.