The Muse: MMF Bisexual Romance

by A. Anders

  After the fireworks from the night before, the power never came back on. We guessed it meant that the pawns and food printers were dead. We couldn’t be sure about the pawns, but searching the kitchen for food proved we were right about the printers.

  Abandoning our hope for anything cooked, we searched the kitchen for anything edible. It was set up like it was once used for manual cooking, but all we found were printer supplies.

  After our failed search for food, everyone else filed out. I remembered the panther and looked for one last thing: a butcher’s knife. There was no way I was going back into the jungle unarmed. And preferring that Gray think I was defenseless, I pushed the blade through the seam in my pocket to hide it.

  I caught up with the others, and with just the guns, my knife, and the clothes on our back, we headed to the coast. I liked having everyone in front of me, so I took up a position at the back of the group. Thorin just ahead of me, and watching him, I remembered that I had a question for him.

  “You said that the chips in our heads are like the ones you implanted?” I asked him.

  “I can’t be sure until I look at them. But they have to be close,” Thorin explained.

  “Does that mean that there are people watching everything we do and listening to everything we say?”

  “Probably.”

  “And you said you thought the audience liked you?” I asked, getting to the heart of the matter.

  “I thought that was what Dan had said. But I can’t be sure anymore.”

  “Dan, the producer?” I clarified.

  “Yeah.”

  “So do you think that’s what’s happening; people are paying to tap into our chips to watch us die? Do you think that’s the premise of this game show?”

  Thorin looked at me with awe. “I… never thought about that. You might be right. Wow. Yeah, that works,” he confirmed with a growing smile.

  I didn’t share Thorin’s delight. I might have figured out why we were dying, but it didn’t stop me from becoming the next corpse. And dropping back from Thorin, I considering what this all meant.

  Literally, a million people could be seeing the world through my eyes, right at this very moment. They could have seen every private moment I had on the island. Every time I went to the bathroom. Every time I took a shower. It was a creepy thought.

  I guess that would explain why I never saw any cameras. We were the cameras. Maybe people paid to watch us like they paid for porn. You could choose one perspective for a certain price or pay more for multiple perspectives.

  It was all sick. I wasn’t sure how I had gotten myself involved in this insanity.

  It took twenty minutes to arrive at the coast. Once there, we followed it east. The elevation increased slowly, so an hour later, when we got to the fence, we were forty feet above sea level. Staring down the cliff face, we found that the chain link wrapped over the edge like a fan.

  “Over or around,” I asked the group.

  “Over,” Gray declared.

  “Yeah. I think over,” Brad agreed.

  I looked at Rose. She was staring intensely at the razor wire curling across the top. So as the others planned their route over, I subtly approached her and whispered. “What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing,” she replied, unable to hide the dread she felt.

  “You know you can trust me, right?” I told her with a comforting smile.

  “Can I?”

  “Yeah,” I reassured her.

  She looked away without a reply.

  “Rose, I’m gonna keep you safe. I understand that things are the way they are. None of us can help the way we feel. But none of that matters. You didn’t ask to be in this position. You’re a victim like everyone else here. And I want you to know that I’ll protect you.”

  “And what if I don’t need you to protect me?” she asked dryly.

  “Then I’ll have more time to catch up on my reading,” I said, playfully.

  Rose smiled. “Oh, did you bring a book.”

  “A book? No, no. I read the leaves and the stars,” I said with a coy smile.

  “I didn’t realize you were so into nature.”

  “Absolutely. I was born in nature. Nature is my favorite place to have sex.”

  “Nature is your favorite place to have sex?”

  “Naturally.”

  She looked at me, still smiling. “Wait. You like having sex in nature, or ‘naturally, you like having sex.’”

  “Absolutely,” I confirmed, teasingly.

  Rose chuckled. “Naturally.”

  Rose looked back at the fence with a big smile on her face. She thought for a moment before speaking again.

  “What if I told you what was wrong, and you couldn’t do anything to protect me. What would you do then?” she asked.

  I thought for a moment. “I’d probably die trying,” I said, still smiling.

  “Yeah, I’m sure you would,” she replied ambiguously.

  Rose paused again.

  “I don’t think that I can make it over the fence,” she admitted.

  “You don’t think you can climb it, or…?”

  “The razor wire. I don’t think I’m tall enough. I think I’m gonna try to climb over it, but I’m gonna fall onto the razors. I don’t think I can get over it. But please don’t say anything. Okay?”

  “Rose…”

  She cut me off. “Please don’t. You know what? I shouldn’t have said anything. It was a mistake. Just forget what I said.”

  “Rose…?

  “I’m fine. Okay? I’ll handle it. I’m fine,” she protested before joining the others at the fence.

  I watched Rose as she slowly disappeared behind her mask. As she shook the fence testing its strength, I considered what I could do to help her.

  “I think we should go around,” I announced grabbing everyone’s attention.

  “Yeah, right,” Gray scoffed.

  “No. I mean it. We’re going around.”

  Brad approached me presenting his usual charm. “Ford, it’s a forty foot drop. Don’t be ridiculous. We can just go over it.”

  “And you’re outnumbered,” Gray pointed out. “Besides. I’m in charge, and we’re going over. All of us.”

  “No, we’re not. I’ve been over this fence. The razor wire got me pretty bad. If it wasn’t for the magic dust I might have died.”

  I decided to leave out the part of the story that didn’t help my argument.

  “And now, the pawns are gone, and our magic dust is gone. That means that whatever injuries we get from here on out, we keep. So I’m gonna scale the side of the cliff. And I’m taking Rose with me.”

  “No, you’re not,” Gray declared.

  “Yes, I am,” I said, not giving him an inch.

  Gray sized me up. When he realized that he would have to go through me to stop me, he wisely backed down. I could see him boiling on the inside.

  “We’ll go around,” Gray announced. “Bob you go first, followed by Rose, and then the rest of us.” He turned to me. “You’re goin’ last.”

  I wasn’t sure what he was doing there. If he thought going around was dangerous, he should have had me go first. What else did he have in mind?

  After a quick search, I found a path that scaled the cliff face. It was narrow, but it dipped below the chain link and spanned the crumbling limestone. My guess was that it had been used for the fence’s construction. As it was only wide enough now to hold the balls of our feet, I was sure that they had tried to destroy it after the fence was complete.

  Bob was the first to test the path. It held under his heavy weight. Grabbing onto the grass above, he worked his way down. When the grass was out of reach, he gripped the pockets in the limestone.

  Methodically securing each hand before shuffling his feet, Bob moved slowly. It was dangerous. The explosions as the waves crashed onto the jagged rocks below sent my heart racing.

  Rose glared at me as she prepared to go next. I wondered if she thought I betraye
d her. When I offered her my hand to help her onto the path, she refused it. She didn’t even look at me.

  Kneeling in front of me, she gripped the grass. She matched Bob’s movements exactly. Stepping onto the small crumbling ledge, she slowly descended out of sight.

  Next up was Brad. Thorin and Billy followed him. And when it was Gray’s turn, he took a hard look at me. There was something dark behind his eyes. I was expecting for him to pull out his gun, but he didn’t.

  With Gray working his way across the cliff face with everyone else, it was finally my turn. Heights had never been a problem for me, but as soon as I let go of the tufts of grass and transferred my weight onto the path, I knew I was in danger.

  Without magic dust, falling would mean death, so when the ledge wobbled beneath me, I sunk my fingertips into the limestone. The stone crumbled in my hands, and I pressed my chest against the rock.

  Even as my pulse thundered in my ears, I knew that I couldn’t stop or turn back. So I took another step. As I did, the crumbling path sent me to my toes.

  When the stone ledge collapsed from under me, the limestone crumbled in my hands. The cliff face rushed past me in a cloud of dust. My heart was in my throat as I fell. As I struggled to grip onto anything, my face hit the wall, whipping my head back.

  Sure that the jagged rocks below were about to break my fall, I held my breath. When I did, I realized that I had stopped. My arms were stretched and my fingers were hooked. I was hanging onto a limestone pocket. I was alive.

  I scrambled, knowing that my new supports could break at any moment. My foot scraped the wall in search of a hole. I found one, and relieving some of the pressure from my fingers, I loosened my hold to find a better grip.

  My heart slammed against my chest as I caught my breath. I understood why Gray had wanted me to go last. His plan was to get rid of me.

  “Are you alright?” Rose yelled down.

  “Yeah, I’m good. Just keep going. Don’t look down. I’ll be alright,” I said, unsure if I would be.

  I gathered my thoughts with a few deep breaths and then quickly assessed my injuries. Nothing felt broken, though my face stung. Also, the butcher knife in my pocket had drawn blood. Other than that, I was fine.

  I next looked around gauging my options. I could either climb down and hope that there was another way up, or I could climb back up now. I thought about Rose being left alone with Gray and immediately reached up in search of a divot.

  With my chest flat against the rock face, I slithered back up. It was hard. My forearms and calves burned. About halfway up, my legs wobbled, and I stopped, not sure if I could continue.

  “You can do it,” Rose yelled from above.

  I looked up. She was staring down at me from on top of the plateau, and she looked terrified.

  Rose was scared for me. Not for herself, purely for me. I hadn’t realized until that moment that she even cared. After that, all I wanted to do was wrap my arms around her and hold her.

  With my muscles still burning, the only thing I could do was hug the wall. I looked down. The waves roared as they crashed on the sharp rocks below. I didn’t think I could survive that.

  So, unable to go up and not wanting to go down, I closed my eyes and centered myself. I took a deep breath and cleared my mind. I knew that I was running out of time. I had to make a decision. Either I was the type of guy who gave up or the type that didn’t.

  With my legs no longer shaking, I looked around for another pocket. I found one. It was easier to reach than I had thought it would be. I stretched out my leg and touched it. And pressing my chest against the stone, I shifted my weight across and stepped up. I had done it.

  I felt a surge of energy come over me after that. Everything seemed easier. I looked up again. They were all across the fence, looking down at me. Almost everyone was holding their breath.

  Less than five feet from the top, I stopped. I knew that only one thing could prevent me from getting off the cliff face.

  “Everyone who dies brings you one day closer to death,” I yelled up. “If I fall, it could be you tonight. If I live, it’s probably me. She hasn’t told me that she loves me. Remember that.”

  No one responded, and I didn’t move. It was a standoff.

  I looked up again. They were all staring down at me speechless. Everybody, except for one person.

  “Are you just gonna stay there, or are you gonna get your ass up here?” Gray asked angrily.

  He had realized that I had been talking to him. I didn’t know what he was planning, but he would only have a couple of reasons why he would have wanted me to follow him. Most of them involved him tossing me off the cliff.

  I reached, finding another limestone handle. One step at a time I inched up until finally there was nothing but grass to grab. I felt a hand around my wrist and knew it was Gray’s. The moment had come.

  I shifted my weight to his hand and felt a sudden drop. I wasn’t falling. It was the transfer of weight to his grip. He slowly pulled me over the edge, and when I was on solid ground, he released me.

  “Now, let’s go,” Gray ordered resentfully.

  It took a while for my exhausted muscles to stop trembling. By the time I stood up, Rose was the only one still waiting for me. She had stared at me blankly the entire time. It felt like she was going to tell me that she loved me, too, but she didn’t. She offered me her hand. Her gesture moved me.

  Rose and I walked together for four hours before Brad called for a men’s meeting. I looked at Rose for her reaction and found her hugging herself vulnerably. Men’s meetings made her uncomfortable, but it couldn’t be helped. She held our lives in her hands whether she liked it or not, and that was at least worth its own support group.

  “We should each get some private time with her,” Brad suggested looking directly at me.

  “That’s a good idea,” Gray agreed.

  I understood why they wanted it, but I had liked keeping her close. It was the only way I knew she would be safe.

  “How do we know someone isn’t gonna try and hurt her,” I asked, unintentionally looking at Gray.

  “What could someone do?” Gray asked.

  “There’s a lot, actually,” Brad countered with a smile.

  Gray thought for a second. “Rose is a smart girl. And something tells me that she could defend herself. Besides, I think everyone remembers what happened to Carl. Who’s gonna risk being anything but nice to her?”

  He had a point. No one left was that stupid. “Okay. I’m on board.”

  “Then it’s agreed. And since it was my plan, I’ll go first,” Brad announced.

  Clearly, Brad had some type of plan. I figured that Rose was probably safe. The rest of us, though, we were screwed.

  Having drawn the short straw back at camp, it was my job to tell Rose about our plan. When I did, I learned that her feeling of guilt had its limits. She looked at me challengingly and was about to object when I mentioned that Brad would be first.

  Once she heard that, her mood changed. Joy washed over her, and she was suddenly excited about the plan. The shift rattled me. Why was she so happy to spend time alone with Brad? I didn’t like that.

  Brad stepped up, took Rose’s hand and dropped behind the group as the rest of us continued walking. I looked around at the others. Everyone looked tense.

  They were probably all jealous. I certainly wasn’t, but I guess, they all had a right to be. She had professed her love to them. So, of course they were going to be jealous.

  Also, who does that? Who tells five different guys that she’s in love with them? Just the thought of someone tossing around feelings so casually made me mad… No. It made me…

  Wait, was I jealous?

  Why? I had no reason to be jealous. This was all just a game. Nothing happening on the show was real, except our dying, of course.

  Maybe that was it. Maybe I was scared of dying.

  I thought about it as I continued to walk. Never in my life had I wished harder to be sca
red of dying, but I knew that wasn’t it. She had gotten her grips into me, and I cared about her more than I felt that I should.

  I was willing to sacrifice my life to keep her safe, even if she didn’t feel the same for me. I was hooked on her. And the damn thing was that every guy here was probably just as hooked.

  Gray looked at me when I growled under my breath. I ignored him, but his gaze reminded me how much of an idiot I was for feeling anything for her at all.

  Hell, a part of me was hoping for another animal attack. At least with blood-thirsty predators, I had a chance of walking away in one piece. Against Rose, I was becoming defenseless.

  I mean, not that I was falling in love with her or anything. I was just feeling jealous, and the only reason I was jealous was because… I don’t know. I enjoyed being with her. I felt good whenever I talked to her. And she was beautiful. Yeah, she was really beautiful. And she has a strength about her that… Oh, crap! I’m in love with Rose.

  I immediately forced myself to think about something else. Certainly, I had more important things to be focusing on, such as a way that we could shorten our trek.

  Better yet, someone needed to start thinking about food. I was beginning to get hungry, and some of the plants around us had to be edible. Of course, the only person who knew which ones were edible was our botanist, and Brad was spending alone time with Rose, damn it.

  “Hasn’t it been thirty minutes?” Thorin asked to the chorus of five men grinding their teeth.

  “I think so,” I said casually.

  I needed to get Brad away from Rose. Out of everyone, Thorin was the least threatening. If Rose’s desires were keeping us alive, then Thorin was probably safe. As the only person who knew how to get the chips out, she wasn’t going to eliminate him, but I could never imagine her actually having feelings for Thorin the Pale.

  “You should let him know his time’s up,” I said, encouraging Thorin.

  When Brad returned to the group, he was sporting his familiar smile. I was beginning to hate that smile. He caught up to me and slapped me on the shoulder. Gripping my neck, he pulled me to him in a brotherly gesture, that bastard.

  “We’re gonna need food,” I said pulling away from him. “Which of these can we eat?”