The Hotwife Games Ch. 25

THE HOTWIFE GAMES - CH. 25

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This is the final chapter of 'The Hotwife Games'.

It's a pornographic thriller about naughty wives and their husbands participating in a very kinky game-show.

My sincere thanks to every reader of this erotic odyssey, to the many folks who sent private e-mails, and to anyone who engaged with it in the comments in good faith. Thanks to some of you for lavish and delightful praise, and others for supremely helpful constructive criticism. And as always, I must thank the five closet-cucks who troll this section with your whining rants, for valuable lessons on the dynamic interplay between pearls and swine. :)

Take a deep breath, and remember: This is a work of fantasy, designed for the dirty-minded...

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CHAPTER 25 -- EXIT MUSIC

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They scoured the ocean all night. By sunrise, the boat was sputtering through the last dregs of its fuel tank. Against the purple dawn, they spotted the peaks of the Miranda archipelago.

They were drawn from sleeplessness and adrenal fatigue, but Benny knew where to go.

The coral-ringed central isle housed a small but fully equipped aircraft facility. The hangar held a private Gulfstream G650. It was owned by Gael.

A pair of middle-aged pilots who asked no questions and spoke little English took them aboard. By afternoon, they left for Sicily.

They crashed into an airborne slumber. They alighted in a Southern port city. The ease of their entry surprised Diana and Rakesh, but Benny had assured them of a smooth admission. It was a thinly concealed secret that the super-rich navigate the world differently than the rest. Fixed-base operators never ask for a passport, let alone a visa.

For a couple fleeing a grisly murder scene that would explode into a global scandal, the anonymity was perfect.

They rode a public bus down the coast. It was a six-hour drive.

They sat in the back row of the nearly empty vehicle. Occasionally, a passenger or two from the rural outskirts would step on board, keep to themselves, and alight at their stops in small, coastal villages.

As the bus turned past Noto, the collective weight of the last three days crashed over the couple like a tidal wave.

Diana and Rakesh reeled from her rapid, tumultuous love affair with Gael. They were rocked by the movie star's hot-blooded murder -- his blood still fresh on Rakesh's hands. Benny, too, felt a conflicting grief at losing his oldest friend -- although he knew he was really only grieving the person he had thought his friend to be. And then there was the aftershock of the Hotwife Games -- a spiritual and emotional erotic odyssey that the pair had, at a humongous cost, actually won.

"What happens to the five million dollars?" Diana asked as the bus rounded the sun-spackled outskirts of Ispica.

"You could go back to claim it. Legally, I'm sure it belongs to you," Benny said. "Of course, legally, Rakesh is probably going to jail for life."

Through his bushy beard, Benny gave a small, grim smile.

"When we get to the village, I'd think about new names. New identities," he went on. "It's a small fishing hamlet, and the locals mostly mind their own business. But I'd be cautious."

"So we're going into hiding," Rakesh said rhetorically, gazing at the passing Mediterranean countryside. "For the rest of our lives. We'll never be able to --"

A small brain-wave washed over his face.

"Wait. No, we will. My work credentials -- I still have access to the KraftBank server! If there's internet in the village, I can transfer our funds invisibly. Wipe all trace of our accounts. That'll tide us over -- at least a few months until we --"

"I wouldn't worry about finances," said Benny.

The couple looked at him.

"Whose villa do you think we're going to?" Benny asked. "He owned properties all around the world. A lot of them in secret. Different names, different organizations and title-holders. I was his financial manager. He trusted me with them all." Benny gave a sad little shrug. "You won five million dollars. Gael was worth five hundred million."

Benny looked back at the pair.

"I figure, after what he put you through, you deserve at least a chunk of that."

Diana stared at Benny. He never had to help them flee in the first place. Now he was going out of his way to set them up for the rest of their lives. Gratitude poured out of her eyes.

"I'm so fucking glad you never charge your phone," Diana said.

She chewed her lip in contemplation. She looked about the bus. The few others who had come aboard had already alighted at their various rural destinations.

In the back row, they were shielded by the other seats. Should the bus driver cast a glance into his rear-view mirror, he wouldn't see her if she lowered her head enough.

Diana whispered in her husband's ear.

The hairs on his neck stood up. He looked back at her, his eyes gleaming with surprise.

Slowly, Rakesh nodded his head.

Diana turned to Benny, who was seated on her other side.

"You know, Benny, all the way back in college, when I was dating Gael... I saw how you looked at me."

Benny was flummoxed. She put a hand over his chest and gazed at him. Completely sincere.

"You're an incredible human being. We can never thank you enough for what you've done," she said.

Her hand traveled softly down his sternum. Benny gasped as she began to unbuckle his jeans.

"But I can try."

Rakesh watched Diana fish Benny's fast-stiffening dick from his boxers. He watched as she bent down and put the thick member in her wet mouth.

Benny flung his head back, fighting the urge to groan out loud as a fantasy he'd nurtured for years was coming true at last.

Rakesh knew Diana was going to fuck Benny, right there, right on the bus seat in front of him. His own cock hardened and he took it out of his pants, too.

Rakesh had to shake his head in amazement. Despite all they had been through; despite the fact that their entire existence had shape-shifted, never to be the same again -- his wife still had to suck and fuck another man in front of him.

It only hardened his erection.

Diana was always going to be his naughty little hotwife.

--

The scandal of Gael's murder rippled across the globe in a media shockwave.

Piece by piece, the hidden chain of events that had led to the movie star's demise began to emerge.

Rakesh and Diana became internationally wanted criminals.

The existence and architecture of The Hotwife Games surfaced into public knowledge. Footage of the contests, once firewalled to all but a hungry, clandestine streaming audience, spread widely on the internet.

Pundits furiously and thoroughly condemned the Games' existence. Terms like "the fall of Western civilization" figured into vehement rants about morality and fidelity. Diana was branded every polite spin on the phrase "black-widow whore", and Rakesh was tarred and feathered as a murderous cuckold.

The public ate it up. They were outraged, intrigued, titillated.

But a tantalizing hole burned at the center of the uproar...

With the fleeing couple at large, the crime was still technically unsolved. They had Gael's bullet-riddled body, hours of footage of the Games, and the scorched husk of an electrical shed.

What no one could ascertain was the inciting moment or cause of the murder. What had caused Gael, or Rakesh, or Diana, or all three, after all that sexual interaction together at the Games, to suddenly snap?

A Hotwife Games security guard swore to have seen a "Third Man" as the couple departed in a speedboat. His eye-line was compromised by the raging storm, and his testimony treated as iffy. Then small fragments of Gael's obsessive mementoes emerged from the shed's rubble, deepening the mystery. Conspiracy theories abounded.

Benjamin Khalif, Gael's best friend, had always stayed out of the public eye. Now he issued a brief statement through his attorney, asking for privacy in his grief. He moved to a quiet flat near the beach a few kilometers south of Goa, India, far from the prying media. The mystery persisted.

The posthumous release of Gael's last film broke box-office records.

And his murder cast an inescapable shadow on a show that would forever be linked to the bloody slaying.

The Hotwife Games was shut down forever.

--

They moved into Gael's cozy cliffside villa. Quietly, they settled into the glacial pace of life in the little seafront village. They lay low.

Over the summer months, the media circus eventually crested, and rolled over.

Diana found out she was pregnant.

Happy years passed. A quiet life. A deep one.

No dazzling spotlights, just the languorous satisfaction of raising a small family in a simple, ancestral fashion.

Their son grew up. They entered their middle age.

The Hotwife Games were now a minuscule, historical blip, a distant echo in the faraway annals of their lives.

Then the past came calling.

--

When Gael died, Lawrence Änswer made out like a robber baron.

He was both the chief investor and executive producer of The Whiskey Phantom, the last film Gael had made before his passing. The posthumous release was a cultural explosion. Gael was acclaimed as a genius -- a haunted, disturbed, and enigmatic Orpheus for our times. The movie went stratospheric.

Larry made more money that year than the gross earnings of every other independent producer in town, combined. In the gladiatorial, dick-swinging hallways of Hollywood, Änswer's cock was swinging the lowest.

He soaked it all in. He basked brightest in the hot, jealous stares of his rival producers, as he'd waltz past at some Hollywood gala with one stunning young actress on his arm after the next. He bought an island near Fiji. He became part-owner of a major football team. He took long, decadent, sex-fueled vacations in the South of France, at historic palaces around Asia, or aboard his new 100-meter Lürssen superyacht.

He partied nightly, and partied hard. His bourbon, cocaine, methamphetamine, oxycodone, and Cialis habits accelerated simultaneously.

It was a familiar story. The elephantine nest egg born out of Gael's murder began to shrivel. Hundreds of millions of dollars steadily torched into vapor.

He announced a new production banner. He combined his name with the late star's in a portmanteau he claimed was a tribute to the actor who was his dear friend. He called the company "Gael's Änswer". The announcement was met with universal scorn.

The Hollywood trades sat up eagerly, curious to see if Änswer could hack a grand comeback sans Gael.

One of the six films he released nearly recouped its budget. The others were dismal flops.

Änswer's fiery bravado in the press was seen for what it was: the straining death-cries of a man who had once had everything and was swiftly losing it all.

Larry sunk deeper. The partygoers withered, but the partying continued. He was no longer at fancy premieres with ravishing supermodels on his arm. He was in seedy East Hollywood motels, paying a couple of sex workers to finger his asshole while he told himself he was king of the world.

Larry caught a rare form of Legionnaire's disease. The doctor told him the booze and drugs would have to go, or, soon, his heart would. Larry dumped the sauce.

He lay low. He slowly beat the disease.

Years passed. Quiet years. Dark years. An empty life.

Änswer rented a small flat in the San Fernando Valley, outside L.A. Long gone were the mansions and island estates.

He watched his name become a sixth-string punchline on late-night television. He watched the legendary death of Gael Sankur enter the public hallows as a major historic event -- a glamorous, sex-soaked mystery that seemed like it would never be solved. He watched his own Hollywood legend enter the discourse heap as a pitiable joke, the sorrowful but amusing tale of the village idiot who had briefly hallucinated he was the emperor.

His old friends disappeared in cartoon smoke. His peers and rivals -- once reduced to green-eyed snakes or cowering mice by his formidable rule -- now sneered and celebrated. He was bruised, battered, defeated. He grew old. Hollywood, and the world, moved on.

There was nothing left for him. Nothing but the mystery of Gael's murder. As time wore on, that mystery consumed him.

He keenly followed Diana and Rakesh's disappearing act. He begged favors from an old contact -- an FBI consultant on a political thriller series he'd produced in the early aughts. He slowly, methodically, followed one lead after the next, adhering to the maxim that had sparked his stratospheric success in Hollywood in the first place:

Always follow the money.

He maxed out credit cards. He bribed his way into bank records and sales documents. He hit dead-ends and brick walls that stymied him for months, then years.

Eventually he narrowed in on a small Sicilian hamlet by the Malta seas. The village barely registered on a map. It could only be reached by water or dirt roads. In it, an old sea-facing villa belonged to a distant organizational branch of Vicem Alteram Estates, a European property firm in which Gael appeared to have once made some nominal investment.

Of course, the investment hadn't been nominal. The numbers had been dressed. Tracks had been covered, and covered well.

But no one fucked with a cash-flow sheet better than a Hollywood shark. Larry knew he had found them.

He remembered how the world had lusted, rabidly, for a resolution of the scandal. Nothing had ever held a higher profile in the public consciousness.

Had it really been that long ago?

But there was another side to the story, yearning to be told. He knew that whoever told that story would offer the solution to one of the most publicized murders in history. He knew it would be a filthy, controversial, incendiary tale -- and perhaps, to the weak sensibilities of some, a repulsive one.

But he knew they wouldn't be able to turn away.

Like a predator nearing its prey, he felt all the hairs on his back stand up. If he did it right, it would be a phenomenon. It would resurrect his career. It would give him his second act. His redemption. His revenge.

But he knew he had to get it straight from the woman at the very heart of the maelstrom.

--

They were at the mercato in the village square, doing their Sunday shopping.

The noontime sun sparkled on the streaks of white running through her shortened, shoulder-length hair as she examined a head of fresh carciofo from a local farmer's stall. Middle age had lent her features a baronial touch. She was still exquisitely beautiful.

A gravelly voice said a name she hadn't heard uttered by anyone but her husband in nearly two decades.

"Diana," said the voice.

Her blood ran cold. She dropped the fragrant vegetable. She tried to wipe the shock from her face. Finally, she turned around with a placid smile.

"Scusi?" she said. "Si sbaglia, mi chiamu Patrizia--"

"You can cut the shit," said the man. "I ain't here to get you in trouble."

Diana studied the stranger with the same careful regard she had given the stalk of produce.

He certainly didn't seem threatening. He was a foot shorter than her, with faint, snowy wisps of hair on a liver-spotted pate crowning an old, pock-marked face. Thick, yellow prescription glasses covered half his lined visage. A cheap tweed sweater hung from his emaciated body like a sandwich bag.

He looked like he had lived six lifetimes, most of them hard.

Only his eyes burned with a powerful fire.

"I gotta talk to you about Gael," he said.

Diana held her breath. She looked past the man's bony shoulders, towards the basilica across the cobblestoned piazza. Her husband was making small talk in Sicilian with the local butcher, an acquaintance.

The rural life had been good to Rakesh. He was even trimmer than before, his skin lined and tanned by the Mediterranean sunshine. His hair was salty on both sides. Diana found him ravenously attractive.

He hadn't yet noticed the insistent stranger standing in front of her.

"Chi è chistu?" she said, more curtly this time. "Mi dispiaci, ma nun--"

"Please," the man growled. "Level with me, Diana. You're gonna be glad you did."

He took off his glasses.

She'd never met the man before, and in his present form he was nearly unrecognizable from the imposing, corpulent figure she'd seen blasted across the news, eons ago.

But there was no mistaking those blistering eyes.

"I knew Gael too," Lawrence Änswer said.

--

CUT TO BLACK.

DIANA (V.O.)

"He spent a month convincing us."

FADE IN:

EXT. PIAZZA CATERINA - AFTERNOON

Rakesh and Diana sit across from Änswer, who barrels through espresso and cigarettes.

ÄNSWER

"-- the world's first macro-budget, quadruple-X, porno thriller. I'm talkin' a major motion picture, a flick like nobody's ever seen before --"

DISSOLVE TO:

EXT. VILLAGE CITADELLA - ANOTHER DAY

Änswer speaks as the three walk the sea-facing promenade. More cigarettes.

ÄNSWER

"-- Beg. Steal. Borrow. Suck a thousand titanic horse-dicks from the back -- whatever I gotta do, I am doin'. I'll stake my life to fund the thing. Because, believe me, I know it's gonna come off, and come off fuckin' humongous --"

DISSOLVE TO:

EXT. OLD TOWN - ANOTHER NIGHT

The trio eat charcuterie near Byzantine ruins. More espresso, more smoke.

ÄNSWER

"-- The main thing is to have it straight from the source. Right from you, Diana. The woman who knew him best --"

RAKESH

"Look, it's just too big a risk --"

ÄNSWER

"I'll plan it all, airtight! Hand on my heart I will. You'll stay in hiding, alright? I'll scrounge up every last connect I still got. We'll set up proxies. Slather it in legalese. This will work."

He leans close. Deadly sincere.

ÄNSWER

"Just think about it. This is your chance to tell the world what really happened, that night in Kama'sueh..."

Rakesh and Diana look at each other, racked with conflict.

FADE TO:

EXT. CLIFFSIDE VILLA - MAGIC HOUR

Diana's skin is bathed lilac by the glorious seaborne sunset. She waits in the arched stucco doorway.

DIANA (V.O.)

"He sold us line after line like an old Hollywood pitch-slinger."

She watches the two men ascending the stone path towards the villa.

DIANA (V.O.)

"But what finally convinced us... was none of that."

The man moving up behind Rakesh is OUT OF FOCUS against the idyllic Sicilian evening.

DIANA (V.O.)

"It was him."

RACK SLOWLY to the other figure: a strapping lad of eighteen.

DIANA (V.O.)

"The older he gets, the more questions he has about our sequestered life here."

Diana studies her son with a tranquil love in her eyes.

DIANA (V.O.)

"We've told him what little we can, but he knows there's a whole universe that we're omitting."

The men move closer. She sees the bountiful afternoon catch, pleased.

DIANA (V.O.)

"Any day now he's going to trample on the truth. I know it'll be hard -- impossibly hard -- but he deserves to get the whole picture, from us, before the world fills it in for him."

They reach the door. Diana kisses a smiling Rakesh. She hugs her son.