Dead Famous

DAY TWENTY-SEVEN. 10.00 p.m.

They had been inside the sweatbox for a few minutes now, waiting for their eyes to get used to the darkness. It was useless trying to see anything, however. The blackness was complete.

“Let’s play truth or dare,” Moon’s voice called out of the darkness.

“Dare?” said Dervla. “Jesus, what more of a dare could we think of than this? We’ve already had to strip naked, for heaven’s sake.”

“I can think of a few things,” Gazzer grunted.

“Well, keep them to yourself, Gaz,” Dervla replied, managing to make her voice sound almost prim, which was some achievement considering the situation they were all in. “Because I’m not shaggin’ any of yez.”

Dervla’s voice and intonation were getting closer to Dublin with every syllable she spoke. She always took refuge in the comfort and protection of the tough, highly credible accent of her childhood when she felt vulnerable. “Jesus, me mother’d kill me, so she would.”

“All right, then,” Moon conceded. “Let’s just play truth, then. Somebody ask a question.”

Now another voice rang out of the darkness, a voice that was jarring and bitter. “What would be the fucking point of asking you to tell the truth, Moon?” It was Sally’s voice, and it struck a disturbing note. Its hard, nasty edge cut through the drunken badinage.

“Hey, Sally,” Moon replied, angry and defensive. “I were having a fookin’ laugh, all right. Get over it, why don’t you?”

“What’s that, then?” Garry asked. “What’s been going on with you birds?”

“Ask Sally,” said Moon. “She’s the one who can’t take a joke.”

But Sally remained silent. And would not get over it either. She had no intention of getting over it, ever. Moon had done a despicable thing. She had hijacked the terrible suffering of the abused and the mentally disturbed to score cheap points. One day Sally intended to make Moon aware of the offence that she had caused.

“Oh, fook it, then,” Moon continued, “and fook you, Sally.”

There was a movement in the box. Somebody was leaving.

“Who’s that?” Hamish asked.

“Who’s got out?” said Jazz.

Sally was already outside the box. “I’m going for a slash,” she said.

“Well, make sure you come back,” said Jazz. “We all have to do this or we all fail.”

“I know,” Sally assured him.

In the monitoring box they watched as Sally came out of the boys’ bedroom and crossed the living area to the toilet. Sally had not bothered to take up a sheet to cover herself, but Geraldine was less than thrilled.

“Well, not bad, I suppose, but she’s hardly one of the lookers,” she moaned. “And, anyway, we’ve seen her bloody great kajungas hundreds of times. What we need is Kelly or Dervo to give us a full frontal.”

Geraldine stared wearily at the screen. “And I do wish she’d get that bikini line done. I mean, look at it. It’s just not necessary. I’ve known lesbians with beautifully styled fur burgers.”

Bob Fogarty reached for a comforting pound or two of chocolate.

While Sally was away Moon resumed her theme. “Come on, are we having a truth game or what? Let’s have a juicy question.”

And of course Garry asked the inevitable one. “All right. We all have to say who we’d shag in the house if we had to do it or die.”

“Dervla,” said Jazz, and as he said it he realized that he had responded rather embarrassingly quickly. He was rewarded with a chorus of “Whoos”.

“Jazz fancies Dervo. Jazz fancies Dervo,” Kelly chanted drunkenly.

“Well, I’m very flattered, Jazz,” said Dervla, “but as I said I’m not after looking for any nookie, so I’m not.”

“But if you were, Dervs,” Garry said, pressing his point. “Who would it be?”

“You have to answer,” said Moon. “We all have to answer.”

“Oh, all right, then,” Dervla replied. “Jazz, I suppose, but only because he’s been a gentleman and named me.”

“Me too, I’ll have him after you’ve finished with him,” said Moon, “’cos I reckon you’re dead fookin’ lush, Jazz. I can say it in here because it’s dark and I’m pissed and you can’t see me going red, but at the end of the day I’d bang your fookin’ brains out if I had a chance, so fair play to ya ’cos I think you’re brilliant.”

“Bang his brains out? That’d take all of ten seconds!” shouted Garry.

“You’re just jealous, Gazzer,” Jazz shouted back, “because it’s two nil to me! Two nil! Two nil! Two nil.” Jazz had turned his score into a chant.

Sally returned from the toilet. There was much groaning and giggling as she squeezed her way in among the naked bodies.

“I’ll tell you one thing, Jazz,” she said. “Listening to you and Gazzer I’m glad I’m a lesbian.”

“Yes, you’d better watch it, Jazz,” Dervla added. “I’m thinking about changing my vote.”

“Well, I’ll have Hamish, then,” Kelly shouted. “Because he’s a doctor and you’ve got to respect that, haven’t you?”

Actually Kelly fancied Jazz, like all the other girls except Sally, but she nominated Hamish because she wanted to be nice to him. She had been feeling guilty about the strange half-formed suspicion that she had harboured after their drunken night together and in particular about the fact that she had spoken to Peeping Tom about the matter. Not in so many words, of course, but she had gone to the confession box to ask whether anything had happened, which was a pretty clear indication of what she was thinking. That had been really bad of her. It must have looked to everyone like she was worried that Hamish had attempted to take advantage of her drunken state. Kelly knew that was a pretty major thing to imply about anybody, particularly a doctor, and particularly since she had by now definitely decided in her mind that nothing untoward had occurred in Copulation Cabin that night. Kelly wanted to make amends, and she reckoned by naming him as her preferred partner she was making clear that she harboured no further suspicions.

Hamish was thrilled. He had noted Kelly’s unscheduled trip to the confession box and had been horribly disturbed by it. Now, however, he knew that he was safe. Kelly had named him as her partner of choice, and if she had been harbouring any suspicions about his character or conduct she would scarcely have done that, would she?

“Besides which,” Kelly continued, “doctors have such sensitive hands, and a girl does love a gentle touch.”

Garry and Jazz cheered drunkenly. Hamish gulped at the hot salty air. “Sensitive hands”?… “gentle touch”? Was it a coincidence? Did she know? Had she been conscious all along and enjoying his… his explorations, his… digital penetration?. It was possible surely, after all Kelly was quite a wild one. Hamish smiled broadly, a big happy smile which nobody could see. It was all going to be all right, maybe even better than all right. Maybe he might even get another chance at her.

“Cheers, Kelly!” Hamish shouted out. “I’m deeply flattered and most certainly reciprocate the nomination.”

“And I shall join you, my son,” Garry shouted. “No offence to the other girls, but it’s got to be Kelly, ain’t it? I mean just for the knockers alone.”

“Forget it, Garry,” Hamish replied. “Personally I’m not into threesomes.”

“Listen to these two!” Kelly shrieked. “I’m being fought over, girls. I think it’s dead romantic” Which, considering she was sitting naked in a communal sweatbox, showed how drunk Kelly had become.

“What about you, then, Sally?” Jazz asked. “Who’d you have if you had to have someone?”

“I’d have Dervla, thank you very much,” Sally replied quietly. “I think we’d make a lovely couple at the next Pride Festival.”

“Well, I’m delighted and flattered,” said Dervla from somewhere in the darkness. “I think that’s a terribly sweet thing to say, Sally, and if I batted for your team I should take you up on the offer without further ado.”

“All right!” shouted Garry. “Can I watch?”

“So you’ve got two nominations then, Dervo,” said Jazz. “Impressive score, girl. Equal to the Jazz meister.”

“Do lezzo votes count, then?” asked Garry. “I mean, I’m not being homo whatsit or nothing, but I’d have thought they’d be in a different category, wouldn’t they?”

“What absolute rubbish, Garry,” snapped Dervla, “and you are being homo whatsit.”

“No way,” Garry defended himself. “I’m a big supporter of lesbian love. I could watch it all day. In fact I’ve got some excellent videos if anyone’s interested, for when we all get out.”

This comment put Kelly in mind of David and her little secret bit of knowledge about him. So Garry collected porn. She wondered whether he had any of the Fuck Orgy series. “Who do you nominate, then, David?” she asked.

“To have sex with, out of our little group?” David replied, his voice being heard in the pitch-black sweatbox for the first time. “Why, who else but myself? For me sex is nothing without love and commitment, and you all know that I love no one on this earth so much as I love moi.”

They all laughed, as David had hoped they would. He was perfectly well aware that he must have been coming across to the public as extremely vain. He always came across as extremely vain, and the reason for this was because he was extremely vain. But the funny thing about David’s vanity was that it was both his most irritating and his most charming feature. There was something almost endearing or at least comical about how much David loved himself, and as people got to know him they began to see the fun in it. David hoped that this would work for him in the house. All his life he had progressed from being the one people simply hated, through being the one people loved to hate, until eventually ending up being a person people hated themselves for loving. It was a complex equation, but it was pretty much how things worked socially for David, and he thought he might have a similar relationship with the public. He imagined that his little joke about sex with himself (should it be broadcast) would do much to improve his standing with the voting public. David was an acquired taste, and he believed that once the penny dropped with people that he knew how vain he was, they would start to like him more.

“Not bad, not bad,” said Geraldine crouching over the monitoring controls. “At least they’re talking about sex. Got some lovely stuff to broadcast there. I loved David’s wanking joke. He’s really coming into his own. Might put a few quid on him to make the final three. Wouldn’t that be a surprise?”

“I hope they continue to speak up,” the sound editor said. “Don’t forget they aren’t wearing their radio mikes. We’re relying on the ones dropping from the ceiling.”

“I know that, but what could we do? You can’t fit bloody battery packs onto naked people. They’d get in the way. Besides, what would you hang the mikes off?”

“All right, come on, then,” said Moon. “Another truth question. Who’s got one, then? Here, I’ve got one. Has anybody ever paid for sex?”

“Fahkin’ hell, Moon,” Gazzer laughed. “I’ve paid for it the next day all right, when I told the girlfriend I’d just knocked off her sister or her best mate or whatever.”

“No, I mean paid money for gratification. Been with a tart or summat.”

The reason Moon was asking became clear with her next comment. “All right, then. Who’s ever been paid for sex, because I know I fookin’ ’ave.”

This revelation definitely caused a flurry of interest.

“I’m not proud of it or anything, but at the end of the day I needed the money, right. I were doing arts and social studies at Preston uni, when it was the poly, and I hadn’t got the fees, and I were fooked if I was going to stand behind a bar all night making the same money I could get in twenty minutes lying on my back.”

Everyone was enjoying themselves except Sally. She hated Moon so much, her endless boasting and storytelling. So what if she’d been a prostitute? Who cared? Besides, Sally didn’t believe it. She didn’t believe anything that Moon said any more, and she never ever would again.

“I’ve been in a porn movie,” Kelly said. “Does that count as being paid for sex?”

Silent in the darkness, David tensed. Where was she going with this?

“Well, it depends if you’ve actually done it for the camera or not,” Garry said. “I’ve got this film, it’s called LA 100 and all it is, right, you’ll never believe this, but it’s true. All it is is this bird shagging a hundred blokes in a row. Can you believe that! I couldn’t till I saw it. One after the other. In you go, my son, wallop, thank you very much, lovely jubbly, we like that! Next!”

“I don’t believe it,” said Dervla. “You couldn’t shag a hundred times, it would be impossible.”

“No, no, honest. It was all kosher, they had authentic adjudicators with clipboards and everything. This bird really did do the ton. And at the end of the day, fair play to her, I say.”

“Yeah, well, I never actually had sex in the movie I did,” Kelly conceded. “I wouldn’t do that. You can forget it, they’re all such sleazy bastards, those porn actors. You wouldn’t risk it. I was just an extra, you know, a pair of knockers in the background. I had to kiss this other girl’s nipples, but that was it and we just had a laugh about it, but there was plenty of them actually at it, let me tell you, and it was disgusting: shagging and sucking and slobbering and all. The star took it both ways at the same time. I could not believe it, both ways, bonking and being bonked. I mean, come on.”

“Not easy rhythmically, I would imagine,” Jazz opined. “I should think you’d need a metronome, or there could be a nasty pile-up.”

“You wouldn’t know whether you was coming or going!” Garry roared, and they all roared with him.

Except David. Where is she going with this? he was thinking, his fists clenched with tension. Where is she going with this?

“He was called Boris Pecker, and he just stood there poking away at these girls in front of him while he got poked at by these blokes from behind him. Unbelievable, it was.”

David was already sweating profusely, but if it were possible he actually began to sweat a little more. Was she about to reveal all? Was this common, ignorant cow going to give him away? David longed to reach out into the darkness and shut that big fat mouth up before it could say any more. He longed to gag it, to ram it shut, to silence it for good.

It was obvious to David that Kelly was directing her remarks at him, and it was a bitter blow. He had almost begun to relax about that whispered moment of recognition that they had shared together in the hot tub. It had shocked him deeply at the time, but as the days wore on and she did not mention it again he had started to imagine that perhaps he had heard her wrong, or at the very least that his secret was safe with her.

And now…

Now she was teasing him, no, taunting him, with her knowledge of his secret, the secret that could destroy his dreams for ever.

Because there was only one thing in David’s life that really mattered to him and that was his acting. All he had ever wanted, all he ever would want, was to be an actor, a celebrated actor, of course, a star. At one time in his life, just after he had left RAD A, it had almost seemed as if this dream might come true. He had won prizes, got some decent first jobs, and his talent was spoken of highly amongst influential casting agents. But somehow it hadn’t lasted. While others in his graduation class had found their way to the National Theatre, the RSC, and even Hollywood, his flame had sputtered and dimmed.

But David still believed from the depths of his soul that he had a fighting chance. He was a good actor, his was surely a talent too rare to go unnoticed for ever. What was more, he was handsome, achingly handsome. All he needed was a break, and that was why he had applied to join House Arrest. He knew, of course, that it was a pretty desperate final gambit, but he was a pretty desperate man, a completely desperate man, in fact.

After House Arrest David would be a telly name. He simply could not believe that this would not get him somewhere, a nice little Shakespearean lead at the Glasgow Citizen’s, or perhaps the West Yorkshire Playhouse… and then, if the notices were good, a short London transfer would follow… and then… then he would be back on track!

Back on track to catch up with all the bastards from his year who were doing so much better than he was. Back on track to be able to open the arts pages of the newspapers once more without having to curse every single fucking profile of some bastard ten years younger than him who had just redefined the art of playing Shakespeare in a promenade production in a garden shed on the Isle of Dogs.

But none of this would ever happen if people knew that David Dalgleish, actor, artist, man who took no job unworthy of his talent, was in fact none other than Boris Pecker! Olivia Newton Dong! Ivor Biggun!

Then he would be a laughing stock. “Porn star” was not a label it was possible to shake off, particularly not the type of porn star that he had been, a fuck and suck man. Oh, certainly, a little bit of Polanski or Ken Russell early in one’s career was fine. Without doubt one could bare one’s youthful arse for a name director with impunity; it was actually considered rather classy. Even an early dabble in soft core classics was survivable, particularly if you were a girl. A daringly graphic Lady Chatterley rarely did any harm, nor did a corsets-off Fanny Hill.

But not Fuck Orgy Eleven.

Not The Banging Man.

Not… Pussy Picnic.

David wondered where Kelly was sitting. It was difficult to tell inside the hot, rank darkness. It crossed his mind that if he could reach her, he could strangle her where she sat and nobody would notice.

That would shut the bitch up.

But Kelly did not need shutting up, not immediately, anyway, because as time ticked on in the darkness of the sweatbox she made no further mention of David’s secret. She had been having a laugh, teasing him. He certainly deserved a bit of winding-up. Kelly’s inside knowledge did not have remotely the significance for her that it had for him. She had no idea of the emotional turmoil and hatred that she was causing, and soon the conversation moved on.

Now a series of fumbling, stumbling drinking games developed. Much booze was drunk and even more was spilt as the plastic bottles were passed about in the darkness. The alcohol hissed and steamed as it dripped between the hot wooden floorboards and onto the heating units beneath. It turned the sweatbox into a kind of sauna, using wine and spirits to create the steam instead of water.

David began to relax a little, but only a little. He believed that Kelly had been warning him, warning him to be nice to her and not to nominate her. Showing him that she held his future in her hands and that she could deploy her weapon whenever she chose. Well, if that was the case, David thought, she was playing a dangerous game. He was a proud man. He could not and would not put up with being blackmailed, particularly by a know-nothing nonentity like Kelly. But he would have to bide his time.

The drinking continued. There were songs and jokes, nice ones and dirty ones, some too dirty even for Geraldine to be able to broadcast.

And the atmosphere was slowing down. Slowing down and heating up. The heat, the booze and the housemates’ utter disorientation in the darkness were beginning to take their toll. People were getting lazier and bolder, their defences were evaporating like the alcohol that was dripping onto the heaters.

“OK, then, let’s see how well we really know each other, eh?” said Jazz in a hoarse, slurred voice. “We’re all mixed up and totally out of it, right? So everybody feel about with their left hand and when they touch someone, they have to identify them, right? But just by feel – no talking till you know.”

A mighty, boozy cheer greeted this suggestion, although, drunk as she was, Dervla was not too sure about it. However, everybody else seemed to be greeting the idea with such enthusiasm that she felt bound to go along with it. She did not want to end up on everybody’s nomination list for being a killjoy and a prude.

“OK,” said Jazz. “Everybody knows where I am ’cos I’ve been talking and I would like to be identified by my donga, not my voice, on account of the fact that I’m hung like a Derby winner, so I’m just going to slide around a bit, mix us all up good, right? Then let the feeling begin. Here I go, these are the last words I will say…”

There were drunken cheers, whoops and groans as the others felt Jazz’s smooth, taut, sweating body moving about inside the tight, slippery little group of cramped and naked forms.

The observers in the monitoring bunker could scarcely contain their excitement. The translucent plastic walls of the sweatbox bulged and heaved. Even in the eerie blue light of the night cameras there were clearly discernible body parts constantly emerging and then disappearing in the shapes in the plastic. Elbows, heads, buttocks – sexy, exciting buttocks. There seemed to be a real possibility of an orgy developing.

“We should have made the plastic completely transparent,” Geraldine drooled. “The sad cunts would have stood for it too, except Saint fucking Dervla, of course.”

“I don’t agree,” Fogarty replied. “Firstly, we couldn’t have broadcast it if we’d done that. Secondly, it would have been all steamed up anyway, and thirdly, it wouldn’t have been half as exciting even if we could see, because it’s the anonymity that’s so intoxicating. We don’t know who’s who and nor do they.”

“When I want your opinion, Bob, I’ll ask for it.”

Inside the box the darkness was as intense as the excitement. Dervla felt Jazz slide across her. She felt his taut skin and beautiful rock-hard muscles against her own bare flesh.

“My God,” she thought. “He doesn’t know it’s me he’s sliding over.”

Jazz was pretending to be a snake, hissing and writhing. She could feel his muscular stomach in her lap as he giggled and wriggled across her and then… then she felt his penis dragging across her thighs, big and heavy, obviously already semi-hard. She could not resist it. Through the darkness she placed her hand in its path, palm upwards, deliberately letting him glide into it.

Then very gently she squeezed. It felt wonderful in that coal-black anonymity to be doing something so outrageous. She could feel herself sweating all the more as Jazz stopped his wriggling and slithering for a moment and allowed the object of her attentions to grow bigger and harder in her hand. In that moment, for Dervla, Jazz was no longer the beery-leery jack-the-lad fly-boy king of clubbing cool that she knew and was beginning to rather like, he was a Greek or a Roman God, a living, breathing version of all those wonderful works of art she saw on her summer holidays in Europe. He was a fantastical nighttime love muse.

Then she heard his voice and of course it was only Jazz. “Is that you, Kelly, you naughty, naughty slapper, you?”

“What?” said Kelly’s voice from the vicinity of Jazz’s feet.

“Ah,” said Jazz. “So not Kelly, then.”

Dervla gave a tiny gasp and let go, shocked at her audacity!

She had been gripping Jazz’s penis! That was terrible! Absolutely terrible. She would have to face him at breakfast in the morning! Her, the chief objector to crudity. The Lady High and Mighty. The good girl of the group. What if he knew it was her?

He did know.

Her tiny gasp had given her away. Even amongst the general grunting and giggling, Jazz had caught its tone.

“Who, then, I wonder,” he said, and then he sang a line of “When Irish eyes are smiling.”

Dervla felt herself go crimson in the darkness. What if he told Peeping Tom? What if he went into the confession box and told the nation that she had grabbed his penis in the darkness and squeezed it until it was hard? Then her thoughts were interrupted, because Gazzer made them all roar with laughter.

“Fuck me, I’m glad Woggle ain’t in here!”

Everybody shrieked. It was such a terrible, terrible, madly hilarious thought, to be stuck in a crowded sweatbox with Woggle. To have to feel him, smell him.

Dervla laughed too, and suddenly she didn’t care about having touched Jazz. In fact she was proud of it. She hoped he did tell. She knew the other inmates thought her a prude, and it was certain that the public thought so too. It wouldn’t do her chances of winning any harm at all to add a bit of generous, good-humoured ladette behaviour to the mix. Jazz thought that she was beautiful, he had made that clear often enough, and she was beautiful.Why shouldn’t she touch his dick? He had loved it, it had made him hard. And the truth was she had loved it too, it had felt terrific. Having that big, strong, veiny piece of male flesh in her small soft hand had turned her on like a tap. As the waves of laughter that had greeted Gazzer’s observation began to recede, Dervla topped them.

“Hey, Jazz,” she called out jubilantly into the darkness. “I just felt your willy!”

“Any time, fine lady, any time!” Jazz shouted back and again they all roared.

In the camera corridor the one operator on duty recoiled as if he had been electrocuted.

Larry Carlisle had been covering the entrance to the sweatbox viewed across the living room and through the open door of the boys’ bedroom, which had been left slightly ajar. Now, as he twitched involuntarily, the lens of his camera swung wildly upwards covering, for a moment, nothing more interesting than the ceiling. Fortunately for Carlisle nobody in the monitoring bunker was watching his camera feed at that moment because a much better picture of the shadowy box was being supplied by the remote hot-heads in the bedroom itself. Quickly Carlisle regained control of his camera and returned its focus to the proper place.

But he still had to struggle to stop his hand from shaking on the controls. Carlisle could scarcely contain his bitter anger. His girl, the gorgeous but prudish girl behind the mirror, the girl who was so careful to never show him anything, had just gripped the black one’s cock! It was outrageous, it was disgusting. It was a betrayal of the purity of the relationship that they had established together.

They shrieked, they laughed, they whooped. Nobody could quite believe that Dervla had been the first to get so specifically raunchy. It emboldened them all, seeming to give the whole game genuine class.

The cleverer, more manipulative people in the box realized that Dervla’s sudden sexiness was a pretty clever trick in terms of the public’s perception of her. There was nothing that kept up audience interest better than surprises, particularly sexual ones, and Dervla’s grabbing of Jazz had certainly been that. Moon, David, Hamish and Garry all realized that Dervla had raised the stakes and they would have to lift their game accordingly.

Moon decided then and there that she would later confess to Peeping Tom that she had had intercourse inside the box and had no idea with whom it had been. She resolved to admit to this whether it had happened or not, but actually she thought it probably would happen, because now the touching and feeling began with a vengeance.

“So are we going to play this identification game or what?” shouted Jazz.

“Yes!” came the reply.

“OK, then, go for it!” Jazz shouted. “Everybody move around and nobody talk, OK? And when you’ve had a really good squirm, cop a feel and guess who you’ve got.”

Suddenly it was all shrieks and giggles and boozy lust as they slipped about together.

Hamish was almost beside himself with excitement. This was the reason he had come into the house. Like Moon, he wanted to have sex, and then he wanted everyone to know about it. With Kelly, preferably, but frankly any female partner would do. He felt a hand stroking his back, gently teasing his sweaty spine, gently running all the way down to the cleft of his buttocks. Was this the one? Should he turn about and try to make love to whoever was touching him?

He heard a whisper in his ear. “Sally?” It was David’s voice.

“You’ve been in this house too long, mate,” Hamish whispered back.

“Fuck!” David barked, snatching his hand away as if Hamish was a red-hot stove.

“Shhh!” whispered Jazz from nearby.

David was annoyed. His mistake made him feel vulnerable. He wondered if Kelly had heard. All his doubts flooded back once more. Was she laughing at him in the darkness? Was she thinking to herself that Boris Pecker would not have minded at all who he found himself feeling up? Would she tell? Would she suddenly blurt it out and tell? David wanted to leave the sweatbox there and then, he wanted to run. But perhaps that in itself might provoke Kelly.

“Funny how he couldn’t take a bit of sex,” she would say. “I would have thought it would have been right up his street.”

“Up his arse, more like,” Gazzer would say after Kelly had explained, and then David would be a laughing stock, a national joke. David decided he had better stay put. He reached for one of Geraldine’s artfully placed plastic bottles of warm, strong booze and drank deep.

Hamish was not going to make the mistake that David had made. It was a woman’s thigh he was holding, for sure. So soft and smooth and not too firm. Kelly? he thought. Possibly, but just as easily Dervla or even Moon. Not Sally, he was delighted to conclude, and probably not small enough for Dervla, but you couldn’t be sure. Whoever it belonged to it was fun to touch and squeeze. Hamish was feeling much better about himself now. Kelly’s kind gesture earlier in the game had truly put his mind at rest, and now he felt safe and powerful and ready for anything.

He let his hand slip around from the outside to the inside of the thigh that he was holding. The flesh was hot and slightly clammy, it seemed almost to tug gently at his fingertips as he slid them across it. Whoever’s thigh it was, and he was sure now it wasn’t Dervla’s, she seemed quite happy to be touched. Her opposite leg was moving, her other inner thigh gently brushing against the back of Hamish’s hand. Hamish’s lips brushed against a soft shoulder. He kissed it.

There were hands on Hamish now. Someone was stroking his buttocks, but he ignored it. The girl he was holding was the one he wanted.

Kelly was now very drunk. As drunk as she had been the week before, when she had passed out. She had had to get drunk in order to get into the sweatbox, and she knew that if she didn’t get into the sweatbox she would lose the game. Now that she was inside and this hand was touching her she no longer really felt a part of her body, it was as if she was hovering above it and some other Kelly was being touched and caressed. It was not an unpleasant feeling, just slightly detached and uninvolved. This was how Kelly always felt about sex, possibly because she was always drunk when she did it. She liked sex, she was pretty sure of that, but somehow she always ended up wishing that she liked it more. Secretly she was sure that the missing ingredient was love, and she knew that she would have to wait for that. You couldn’t plan it.

The hand was being more daring now, working its way up to the very top of her thigh. Kelly didn’t think she minded, although she knew that she would probably stop him quite soon, whoever he was. On the other hand, why not let him play? This was what you did, wasn’t it? If you were a top bird, a mad-for-it, gagging-for-it personality like she was? You didn’t bottle out. That wasn’t what it was about at all, was it? You went for it, you lived it large. One thing you weren’t was a killjoy.

Now the hand was brushing at Kelly’s most intimate self. Now she would stop him, move the hand away. But she didn’t. She had become distracted. Something in her memory was stirring.

Hamish moved his hand and touched the little metal ring hidden within the folds of Kelly’s private flesh. And now he knew who it was he was touching. He was thrilled: this was who he had hoped it would be: Kelly, the one he fancied most, the one who had named him as her choice if sex were on the agenda. Well, sex was on the agenda. This was his chance.

He found her ear and whispered into it and as he whispered he gave the little ring the gentlest of flicks with his finger.

“Kelly,” he said, with a big broad smile.

And at that moment, in that very instant, they both knew.

Kelly was certain that she had not told a soul about her pierced labia, not even the girls. She had been specifically holding the information back to use as a triumphant, sexy revelation at some strategic moment later in the game, when she felt the need to shine.

But the voice in her ear knew. The voice of Hamish. Hamish knew because the moment he had touched that tiny wire he had whispered her name. And now Kelly saw the truth. The bastard had touched her vagina before. The half-formed suspicions that had troubled her aching head the morning that she had woken up in that horrible little sex cabin were suddenly turned to cast-iron facts.

“My God!” Kelly breathed, momentarily more surprised than angered. “You felt me up when I was passed out. You fingered me. You knew I was pierced.” Her voice was a whisper; the shock of the revelation was still sinking in. All of the other people in the box were busy with their own affairs.

Nobody heard her. Nobody heard.

Like Kelly, Hamish had realized the moment that he said it, in the instant that he breathed those two giveaway syllables “Kell-y”, that he had made a terrible, terrible mistake. But as yet it was still a secret. Only they knew; the others were all too busy with their own giggling, their own fumbling.

“Please,” Hamish pleaded into Kelly’s ear. “Don’t tell them.”

But in the way her body recoiled from him he knew that she would. How could she not? Why should she not? She would tell the others, she would tell the world, and he would be finished. Of course, he would deny it, it was her word against his, but people liked Kelly, they would believe her. The minimum he could expect was national shame, and the worst… prosecution for sexual assault. For digital penetration. His career was over, that was for sure. Doctors could not afford that kind of scandal. What woman would trust him with her body now?

He almost laughed. Here they all were, pawing at each other like animals in muck, and he was in danger of being prosecuted for sexual assault! Hamish’s blind black vision turned red with fury. The slag! The disgusting fucking slag! She had been happy enough to let him feel her up just then, to let him finger her. And yet now she would ruin him utterly for having done exactly the same thing before.

Hamish’s rush of fear and fury were fully matched by what Kelly was feeling. She was outraged, disgusted. She wanted to be sick. This bastard had mauled her while she lay unconscious! Put his hand inside her. Had he raped her? He could have raped her. Probably not, Kelly’s fevered brain was telling her. If he had raped her she would have known, for sure. But would she? Perhaps he was small, perhaps he had been very careful. She remembered the sensation with which she had woken up. That discomfort, the sudden overwhelming urge to dive into the pool. Had he put it in her? How would she ever know?

“Please, don’t tell,” Hamish whispered once more, and suddenly his hand was at her mouth.

Now Kelly was struggling to get out of the sweatbox, pushing herself through the laughing, groping bodies that surrounded her, trying to find the exit flaps.

“She’s getting out!” thought Hamish. “What will the bitch do?”

David was also aware that it was Kelly who was rushing for the exit. Kelly, the woman who with her special knowledge of him held his fate in her hands… The bitch, the one who had been taunting him. “What’s on her mind?” he thought. “What will the cow do?”

Kelly passed Dervla in her panting, sweating struggle to get out. Dervla knew it was Kelly, because she could hear her hurried breathing. To Dervla’s mind she sounded excited, almost triumphant. What had she to be so excited about? Dervla thought about the message that she had read in the mirror that morning. “The bitch Kelly still number one.”

Did Kelly know that she was number one? That she was winning? Was that why she was so excited? Dervla felt a massive surge of irritation towards the silly young woman who was squirming across her. What was so special about Kelly? She wasn’t particularly bright, her morals were not very impressive, her dress sense was questionable and yet there she was, seemingly unmoveable in the lead. All the confidence that Dervla had felt before about playing a longer game than Kelly evaporated. Kelly was going to win.

She was going to grab all the fame and she was going to grab the half-million quid, too. The half-million quid, about which Dervla had privately been dreaming since the day her application had been accepted. The half-million quid that would save her family… her beloved mother and father, her darling little sisters, from disaster.

Dervla wondered why Kelly was running out so suddenly and so breathlessly. What was she up to?

Sally shrank back into the corner of the sweatbox in which she had been hiding since almost the moment she had entered it, pushing away any hands or limbs that intruded on her space. Sally pushed Kelly away as she passed, and as she did so Sally thought to herself, “That girl’s in a hurry to get out of the sweat-box.” And with that thought, despite the heat, Sally’s blood ran cold. For a memory had come upon her and claimed her for its own. It was the memory of her mother, on the only occasion in her life when Sally had ever spoken to her, sitting behind a glass screen speaking through an intercom.

“I don’t know why a person like me does the things she does,” Sally’s mother’s voice had crackled. “You just get stuck in the dark box and then it happens.” Suddenly Sally believed she knew how her mother had felt. She too was stuck in the black box. The black box was real.

Gazzer was thinking the same thing that he always felt about Kelly. He kept it well hidden, but one day he intended to get even with that bitch. Inside the house or out he would pay her back for what she had implied about his little lad, his wonderful Ricky. Telling the whole nation that he was a selfish, scrounging, absent father who didn’t give a fuck. That was basically what she had implied. Well, Gazzer would show her. Sooner, or later. Or sooner.

Kelly was past them all and out. She gulped down the fresher, cooler air that hit her as she emerged from the flaps of the sweat-box, and, with her bile still rising in her throat, she rushed out of the boys’ room and headed for the toilet.

A few minutes later Geraldine and her editing team watching the monitoring screens saw somebody appear at the front of the sweatbox, swathe themself in a sheet and follow Kelly to the toilet, pausing only to pick up a knife. And kill her.