Author's Note 1: Things have been quiet in email land lately. If I were in a mental place where I was wondering if I was wasting my time, this would have crushed me. Luckily, things are going well as far as this anthology goes. Manley Paint starts in two weeks, after the final chapter of Death Game. It revolves around the murders that happen in the eponymous locale in three different time periods, and is the set up for a much bigger project.
Author's Note 2: My much bigger project. Pickering's Island is now on hiatus. Starting my literary debut with a world forging prequel is just not a great move. Project Orange (not the title, just a designation) is going to be a YA series, set in the world of the Violet Shift (Night Terrors is the scary/sexy stuff that happens in the background of that world.) It's about a high school student who learns of the dark side of the world, when he's forced to live with his grandparents (whose jobs involve helping people survive and cope with the darkness), and does what he can with his surprise birthright: being a battery for the supernatural.
Author's Note 3: I'm actually terrified starting something new this late into the time I'm taking off to pursue writing. I'm afraid of running out of backup funds before finishing a book. If it happens, it's back to the workforce I go, and everything goes back to a crawl.
Author's Note 4: I'm looking to expand my readership for this series. I'd like to post this other places on top of this, but I don't know where.
Please consider donating to Nifty so they can continue to host the content you want to read.
^^^
Death Game – part 8
Rafael left the room and returned in moments with a plastic folder that was tied with a ribbon. He looked excited as he brought it to me. He set it down and opened it. What he presented from inside made my breath leave my body at once.
"Wow," I mouthed silently. When I noticed I wasn't actually breathing, I sucked in some air.
"Your type?" Rafael asked. It was, of course, a picture of him, still alive, and the most beautiful Latin man I could have ever conceived of. "Yes," I squeaked.
"That was back in '82, before I was infected. I did modeling work for a company in L.A., along with some gay porn on the side to make some extra cash. I was young, beautiful, and full of life. All I had to do back then was crook my finger and men would be on their knees in front of me. And they were, then, in droves. No one could tie me down and nothing could stop me.
"Then, people started to die around me. Friends, lovers, one night stands...they were all dropping like flies. The day I started to get sick, I knew I was next. Everything I had build for myself, everything I was, my perfect life – it was all ending.
"That's when I came across...," Rafael struggled to push out a word, but it wouldn't come. "That's when I met our Host," he finally said. Apparently the Host's real name was off limits for him to say, which made sense. "He had seen me at parties, watched my films, kept track of my comings and goings."
"He was stalking you," I supplied.
"I guess," Rafael said. He shrugged. "So many people were stalking me then, I thought it was normal. Anyway, it was only after I got sick that he introduced himself to me. He said he was a scientist, working on finding a cure for the disease that was killing everyone. He asked if I wanted to help him, by testing his cures to see if they worked. I was too stupid to say no. I had no idea what failed experiments on a human guinea pig could do to a person."
"Now, I had a certain type back then. Young, trim, and athletic, but not overly-muscled. Basically, you," he said, looking into my eyes. I felt the blush again. "Don't feel too flattered. Back then, I would have fucked you and then moved on to the next boy who looked like you. So, when I met this scientist, who also had that body type, but was slightly older – mid-thirties I would have said – it was easy to go with him, to trust him, even to fuck him.
"We spent our days in his lab and our nights in his bed. At that point, we didn't know that we were sending the virus back and forth between us. I was, of course, much farther along in the disease than he was, but he still made love to me every night,even as I was wasting away into a skeleton.
"We worked for months, trying to figure it out, but I finally gave out one day. To my surprise, I awoke the next day in a lab I didn't know, with my lover next to me. He explained that we had failed to save me, but we had been close. All he needed to finish was his special hidden lab – the one we were in. He had brought me back to life with his special potions and powers. He wasn't exactly the scientist I'd thought he was.
"My love was an Alchemist, mixing science and magic to create the most fantastic results. In his secret lab, he quickly finished the work we'd started, and was able to take the cure himself. He also used it to flush the disease from my body."
"Wait, are you telling me he cured AIDS back in the 80s?" I asked incredulously. "Why keep that a secret? Why let so many people die?"
"He's not a good man, Cameron," Rafael said.
"The time wasn't right," the Host said, defending himself. "The right moment is coming, but not yet. My plans reach much farther than you know, either of you. The winner of this competition will be an integral part of those plans."
"So this is an evil genius thing," I noted. "Let millions die to further your own agenda. You're going to pay for this."
"I already have," he replied sadly. "Anyway, you two enjoy each others' company. I have work to do before the next challenge."
We were quiet for a while. I was trying to figure out how the events in the hotel linked up with the events from their previous lives. "Do you still love him?" I asked for a second time.
"After all of this, would you?" Rafael replied. "I need him if I want to remain alive...ish. Without him, I will crumble into dust."
"Do you want to be gone?"
"Sometimes," he said, "but I can never bring myself to ask for it. Self-preservation always kicks in and I move on with my business."
We went on like that for hours, telling stories to each other about our pasts. I tried to ignore the minutes ticking away, counting down to either my or Conrad's death.
When the time came, Rafael left to fetch a metal table, solid and heavy, that he had to wheel in. The first thing I noticed on the table were the big red buttons, the same ones from the third challenge with the tanks. There was one on each end, just close enough to the edge that our chained, gloved hands could hit them. In the center was a sliding lever that could either go toward Conrad or me, but was currently in the center. The underside of the table was a mess of tubes, wires, casings, and moving parts.
Rafael folded up the cheap table and wheeled the heavy one into its place. I could see that the vat in the center of the room was now empty. It had been such a smooth and gentle process that I hadn't noticed when it ended. He hooked up both ports on Conrad and I to the tubes in the machinery below. By this point, I knew it was designed to pump one of us into the other.
Rafael pushed a stimulant into Conrad's intake port and the other man slowly awoke. "It's time," Rafael said softly to the man.
"Let's get this over with," Conrad said flatly.
"You know those red buttons and what they do by now," the Host told us. "Pushing them at any point ends your own life and gives it to the other person. No games, no bullshit. The lever in the middle does the same, but it's one that I control. If I have Rafael push it toward you, you take the life force of the other person, along with everyone they've collected. Basically, we will all have a say in the outcome. We're here to decide who deserves to be the one who lives."
"Jonathan deserved to live," Conrad said, his voice even more hollow than before. "You didn't give him a choice, except in how he wanted to die."
"Hit the red button and your heartbreak and outrage goes away," the Host told him flatly. "Otherwise shut up. Cameron can at least talk about something other than Darren, and they knew each other just as well as you and Jonathan when you think about it."
"Maybe I have a bigger heart," Conrad said. "More feelings. Deeper love." He was crying.
"Hmm, fair point," the Host replied. "What do you have to say about that, Cameron?"
"I say that how much we love isn't something that can be measured, especially against each other. Maybe he's right and maybe he's wrong. There's no way to know for sure. I did like Darren, but we were together for all of a half an hour before he died. Conrad and Jonathan had been together for at least a day, side by side. I would have love to see how things would have turned out between them in the real world. It would have made me happier than you could imagine to see Conrad publically come out to his fans and the entire world to declare his love for Jonathan. You took that away from me, and from him."
Conrad looked over to me, gratitude mixing with the tears that were falling from his eyes. "Thank you," he told me. "I would have, too."
"What if you go free?" the Host asked. "Would you go and tell your fans you like men, now that you don't have him in your life?"
"What would be the point?" Conrad asked.
"The point would be telling the truth and living out in the open. What's the difference whether you're in love or not?" the Host questioned. "What about being in love with him would have made coming out any safer?"
"It would have been for him, so he wouldn't have to hide to be with me. Without that, I don't need my sexuality known. It would hurt my career."
"That's true," I supplied. "It's easy for me to be out, since people automatically assume I'm gay just because I'm a nurse. But for celebrities, they can lose out on work for being gay. They can even lose their entire careers."
"I am satisfied with both of your answers," the Host said. "Now for the next one. Pretend none of this ever happened to you and everyone else were still alive. You find out that magic is real, that alchemy is real. I come up to you on the street and offer you a chance to study it and help me work with it. You can get powers and do things you never dreamed would be possible. What would your response be? Think carefully and answer honestly."
"I've never been the studying kind," Conrad said. "I'd probably say that it's cool and offer you some financial backing so you could hire a real researcher."
"For me, it depends on if it was a job or an internship," I answered. "I can't afford to quit my job without some form of income, no matter how interesting the subject. That's just the real world getting in the way."
"If I were to provide you with room and board, along with spending money?"
"Just the job? No..extras? I don't need a sugar daddy," I told him.
"We could discuss sexual matters on the side. The position would not be contingent on them," the Host countered.
"It would probably interest me, then," I admitted.
"Very good," the Host said. "The reason I ask these things is because I plan on wiping the memory of the winner. A lot of trauma happened to you both, and I don't want it to make the transition into your new lives more difficult than it needs to be.
"Conrad, if you win, you will continue your career, but you will know of all of the best items I have and what I'm working on. You won't remember Jonathan, but you will be aware of your newfound longevity. You will be the face of my new company, as well as a partner, making millions, if not billions, on both fronts. The more famous you are, the more we will both make. While you're doing that, Rafael and I will work in the lab, constantly pumping out new products to benefit mankind. This includes the cures for AIDS, cancer, and several other diseases I have already solved.
"That's why I never made any of these discoveries public: I was waiting for my company to get off the ground, so I could make money off of it."
"Benefitting off of the pain and suffering of others," I spat. "That's the definition of profiteering."
The Host laughed. "After all you've been through here, do you really think that separating the desperate from their money is something that bothers me?"
He had a point. "Next to mass murder, it's pretty tame," I admitted.
"Still, if you win, Cameron, you would have a say in all of that. You wouldn't just have a cut, like Conrad would, you would have control of marketing and distribution, because you would be a part of what gets developed. Your medical knowledge would be a great asset in what gets made, and I would insist on you learning more to become an expert. Your memory wouldn't be wiped, only altered, to remember this as an unfortunate accident of mine that you didn't have the knowledge to prevent – but you could learn what you were lacking and more to keep me from making any more disastrous mistakes.
"You would know that, in the accident, you were granted a greatly extended lifespan at the loss of the lives of the men who died here. You would know that it's a process you wouldn't dare to repeat for anyone else, for any amount of money. You would learn all of my secrets, and have moral authority over what goes forward and what gets scrapped."
"Why not give Conrad the moral authority as well," I asked.
"Conrad barely passed biology and chemistry in high school before he dropped out and moved to Hollywood. He doesn't know his head from his ass in a lab, just as you wouldn't know the first thing about blocking and lighting and remembering lines. He wouldn't know what's an acceptable level of risk, or what avenues would be cost-effective to pursue. Honestly, once his use as a marketing tool was over, he'd be little more than gorgeous arm candy, living a life of luxury as my lover."
"Do you think I'd actually sleep with you?" Conrad asked.
The curtains Rafael had been going through parted to let a new man in, who walked up and stood next to Rafael. He was small, half a head shorter than Rafael and I, and a full head shorted than Conrad. He was slender, without being emaciated. While he wasn't the prettiest guy I'd ever seen, I'd still say yes to him in a bar. He had on a white button down shirt that was so small that the buttons were just barely holding it closed. The bottom few buttons were open, so it pulled away from his lower abdomen, showing smooth, hairless, unblemished skin beneath. The black leather pants and black shoes he had on completed the look that screamed he wanted to be fucked. "Tell me, Conrad, do you think you'd sleep with me?" he asked in a silky voice, followed by a cocky chuckle.
Conrad blushed and looked away. "What's with that reaction, I asked, but Conrad didn't answer.
"Conrad has seen me before," the Host said. "Not only does he find me attractive, he's been inside of me. He saw me in a bar, gave me a line, and took me home. He got to fuck a twink that was completely his type, and I got to get plowed by one of the hottest celebrities out there. So, it's pretty obvious what I'd be getting out of picking him, and how much he'd love serving me if we looked like we do for the next thousand years."
"And he won't remember that you're a complete psycho," I pointed out. "Yet, you're willing to keep everything with me on a business level. Why is that?"
"Two reasons," he replied. "First, I respect your mind and want it as free and unfettered as possible, so I'd want as little manipulation of it as possible. Second, as cute as you are, my type will always be hunks like Conrad, so I'd end up cheating on you if we were a couple. We'd match better as business partners and colleagues who fuck once in a while.
"Your value to me is what you can bring to the lab and to my research. Despite what I've done, I have dreams of making the human race far better than what it was, and you have the vision and caring nature for that. Imagine making mankind into the best it could possibly be, just you and me, against the world."
"You, me, and Rafael," I corrected.
"He'd be useless to me with you around," he said flippantly. "The ingredients to keep him up and running cost over half of what my business earns right now. I only maintain him because I need a silent and dependable operative to take care of unpleasant matters like this. Once this is over, I'll have no more need for criminal activity. The only reason I'd keep him around with Conrad is because Conrad will increase my profits high enough to be able to afford the luxury of an undead servant."
I looked at the horror on Rafael's face and my heart broke. Without considering it any farther, I slammed the red button in front of me. With my chained glove.
Nothing happened.
"And there we have it," the Host said.
"Have what?" Conrad asked. "Why did you hit the button, Cameron?"
"I couldn't do it," I said my eyes wide as the reality of what I'd just chosen to do sunk in. "I was holding on to figure out a way to get all three of us out of here. When he said it was my life against the both of yours, I just reacted. I'm just not that important to throw both of you away just to save my own skin."
"But you couldn't do it just for me?" Conrad asked. "My life wasn't important enough to you to save on it's own, and you needed him to threaten to abandon his corpse puppet to get you to react? You're sick in the head, Cameron."
"And there's the other half of what I was trying to verify," the Host said, dropping the seductive pose and standing rigid, cold, and heartless, like the mad scientist he truly was. "I needed to know if Cameron was willing to lay down his life for Rafael. I still care for my old lover, more than he knows. I have no intention of letting him go. Also, the cost of keeping him going is about a hundred bucks a year.
"On the other hand, you, Conrad, didn't even see him as a person. Plus, you just showed how much higher you place your own life over Cameron's. Did you even consider letting him live, considering the millions of lives he can save?"
"I don't want to die," Conrad pleaded, his voice quivering. "I'm scared, don't you understand that?"
The Host closed the distance between himself and the lever at the center of the table. "No! Don't!" I yelled. "That wasn't a fair test! Don't kill him!"
"You won, and you still plead for the loser," the host said to me, hand gripping the lever. "Rafael's life is no longer in the balance. Do you still want to trade your life for Conrad's?"
"Yes! Please! Kill me instead! Just don't hurt him!"
The host threw the lever...toward me. "And thus ends the test of Pride," he said and walked away. Conrad's body stiffened as the machine began pumping his dick. "You see, Cameron," the host said over his shoulder. "it doesn't matter how much good you could do for the world. Conrad would never have saved your life. If Jonathan were in your seat, across from him, instead of you, Conrad would still have killed him to save his own skin. I knew his imminent failure at the beginning of these games. He was never going to win." He walked through the curtain and out of the room.
Conrad began bucking as his orgasm started blasting out of him. I started crying as I helplessly watched what would be his final moments.
The Host walked back in with a new syringe. "Here," he said, a new compassion in his voice. The syringe had a needle on it, and he injected the contents into my bicep. The world started to fade around me. "I'm going to save you the pain of watching your idol die. When you wake up, you'll be in your new life. All of the men from this event will be a part of you. Good night, Cameron.
^^^
As always, you can contact me at jaycemarvel501@gmail.com
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