Chapter 31.

JASON

The morning is quiet, soft sunlight leaking through my blinds, dust motes gently drifting as I roll over. The sharp ping of my phone pulls me out of my first good night’s sleep in ages. Cate’s number, a message that stuns me before I open it:

I blearily wipe the crud from my eyes and flick over to my email.

Then two attachments, and a link:

My breath catches. I almost drop the phone, hands shaking with excitement. I take a deep breath to calm my nerves as I walk into the kitchen and brew a coffee pod, anticipating my future after the praise from Cate and Dr. Laird. I can’t help but grin a little as I sit at the table, take a sip, and take one more deep breath, skating my palms gently over the wood veneer to settle myself.

I flip open my laptop and pull up the email, opening the letter first. It’s glowing, perfect, everything my career could ever need. The metrics I’m already plenty familiar with, but they’ve thoughtfully included historical data, clearly demonstrating the 300% engagement lift from my work along with well visualized charts to leverage. It’s a slam dunk.

I scroll down to the link, cursor hovering. I’m not sure why I click. Maybe I already know I have to.

For a second I hesitate, hope blooming in my chest. Maybe it’s Parker’s speech. Maybe she’s-

The video opens on Parker – no, that has to be Verena – smiling into the camera. Her hair is swept back, robe falling open, the promise-ring barbell gleaming on her bare nipple, the fresh tattoo crest above her hip. The camera holds on her body, moving up from bare feet to her parted lips, lingering on every mark: bites, bruises, the flush of excitement. Then it lands on her eyes. There’s no shame in them. Only a terrible, dazzling pride.

“Thank you for believing in me,” she says, voice low, eyes soft and proud. “Tonight, I want to give you everything. For the project. For all of you. For him.” She doesn’t say my name, but for a second her eyes seem to find the lens – find me. My heart flips, hope and dread colliding.

The shot widens. She’s surrounded by men: actors, donors, some I recognize, some I don’t. There’s Noah, already shirtless, muscles flexing under the studio lights. Chase, grinning eagerly. The others are older, heavier, hungrier. Cate’s voice, off-camera, is silk and threat: “Let’s show them what Persephone can do.”

The men approach in a slow, circling choreography. One hand traces Parker’s jaw, another slips into her hair, another glides possessively down her back, following the curve of her spine to rest on the flare of her hip, the thumb deliberately grazing the new tattoo. She’s kissed, not gently. A hand cradles her skull as another man’s mouth claims hers, teeth flashing, Parker yielding, gasping into him as a second mouth finds her neck.

The first hands strip her. Slow at first, almost reverent, then rougher, yanking the robe off her shoulders, pushing the fabric away until she stands naked, shivering.

She’s paraded before the room, turned slowly. The men’s hands roam, stroking the small of her back, fondling the weight of her breasts, thumbs circling the silver jewelry, fingers spreading her open to display her pussy for the camera. Someone leans in to kiss and suck her nipple. Another hand slides between her legs, finding her wet, Parker arching shamelessly into the touch.

Laughter rumbles, a dark chorus.

I can’t look away. My hands are ice, my face burning. My cock stabbing, a monument to my humiliation. I shouldn’t watch. But my fist moves, hungry, savage. My breath is ragged. Shame pulses through me, acid and sweet.

The lights blind her briefly, but she stands tall. Every hand on her body is a spotlight, a celebration. Each grope, each leering gaze, is proof she is wanted, adored, chosen. She opens her mouth, lets herself be turned, posed, displayed. She loves the power of it. The way they crave her, the way their touch both uses and uplifts her. She hopes he’s watching, that he sees her glory.

The camera zooms tight on her face as someone behind her spreads her legs wider, two thumbs pulling her open, the pink folds glistening. There’s a close-up as another hand dips lower, rubbing Parker’s clit with a slick thumb, her breath stuttering, hips tilting forward into the attention. Her eyes flutter – half-shut, mouth open, cheeks burning. But she never pulls away.

Another man kneels at her side, mouthing up her thigh, licking a line over the tattoo, her head tips back, eyes rolling, as he drags his tongue up to her hip. Someone else guides her wrist, wraps her fingers around his cock, coaxing her to stroke him for the camera. The room is a tangle of arms and hands, cocks bobbing at her lips, pushing her hair out of her face so her reaction is visible.

Stage lights flare sulphur‑yellow; Cate’s silhouette forks like a three‑road sign at dusk. Witch‑queen, midwife, executioner. Cate’s voice is a purr: “Show them, Persephone. Show them what you’ve learned.”

Parker drops to her knees on command, hair tumbling forward. Four men stand around her, cocks jutting; Noah’s heavy and hard, Chase’s thick and ruddy, two others with eager, lusty grins. Parker lifts her chin, offers her mouth to Noah first, her tongue flicking over the tip, eyes locking on the lens as she wraps her lips around him and sinks down.

Her jaw flexes as he pushes in deep, making her gag, spit leaking from the corners of her mouth. The men cheer, another hand guiding her head, controlling the pace as her cheeks flex, saliva running down her neck and pooling between her breasts. One of the other men shoves his cock into her hand, and she strokes him while Noah fucks her throat.

Another man kneels behind her, spreading her knees wider, rubbing his cock between her thighs, the camera lingering on the messy slickness between her lips as he ruts against her. Parker moans, the sound muffled by Noah’s cock, her eyes brimming with tears, spit bubbling and dripping onto the hardwood.

The shame is gone. There is only the heat, the ache, the need. Her mouth is full, her jaw aching, but every thrust, every command, feeds her, makes her more. She feels all eyes on her: on the screen, on the stage, in the crowd. She opens wider, gives them everything. She is their prize, their idol, their creation.

My hand is on my cock. I’m not even conscious of it at first; only noticing the pulse, the ache, the horror that is somehow, grotesquely, arousing. Somewhere in a freshman ethics lecture I once swore art was empathy, but empathy is bleeding me dry, cock‑stroke by cock‑stroke. I’m the janitor of my own arousal, mopping a mess Cate won’t stop spilling. My fist moves in time with the rhythm on screen, with the sight of Parker on her knees, spit and cum smeared on her lips, her hair tangled, body gleaming under studio lights.

Noah tastes like salt and power. His cock fills her mouth, heavy and insistent, the blunt head forcing her jaw wide. She looks up at him through her lashes, lets him use her, her tongue swirling as he thrusts deep enough to make her eyes water. Behind her, rough hands spread her ass, another cock sliding between her thighs, then up, rubbing wetness over her puckered hole. She wants to be filled everywhere, wants to give them more. There’s no fear left. Only want.

The camera circles, closing in on her face as another man steps forward, cock glistening. He presses it to her lips. She opens, lets him slap her face with it, lets them spit on her, the sting and humiliation sending a shudder through her. They don’t speak, they don’t need to. She’s theirs, mouth open, eyes shining, spit and precum drooling down her chin. The donors cheer, the air thick with the sound of bodies and lust.

They take turns, lining up – one cock down her throat, another in her hand, her cheeks stretched, lips raw and red. They worship her and degrade her in equal measure: praise and filth, laughter and gasps, their hands never still.

Chase pushes her down, shoves her to hands and knees. The camera zooms on her ass, the shimmer of lube on his fingers in sharp focus as his cock slides into her dripping pussy below. He starts with two, pushing them into her tight, virgin hole, working her open as she arches her back, trembling, ass high and shameless. Her head drops, breath coming in short, hungry gasps.

The stretch burns, then blooms. Pain and pleasure blur, making her gasp, then melt. This is the last threshold, the final surrender. She wants it to hurt – wants it to mark her, to be something she can never take back. She grinds back against his fingers, moaning, her gaze catching the camera. She hopes he’s watching. Hopes he sees what she’s willing to give, what she’s become.

With him pistoning away at her dripping slit, she jerks like a marionette whose strings are fire. The first climax punches out of her in a ragged sob – half pain, half exultation – and her cunt grips him while the VIPs roar their approval. After a beat, Chase yanks his cock from her while he continues to work her ass open. Three fingers now, twisting, stretching her wide, Parker’s mouth slack around Noah’s cock. The men murmur, low and eager, egging him on. Lube glistens as he finally presses the blunt head of his cock against her asshole. Chase lines himself up behind her, one hand gripping her hip, the other prying her cheeks apart. He spits, slicks her again, then pushes in, glacial at first, the fat head spreading, then splitting her pink asshole open as if in slow-motion, her breath catching in a ragged sob.

The camera lingers on the ring of stretched flesh around his glistening cock.

The men are silent for a heartbeat, drinking in the image of Parker, splayed wide, trembling, knuckles white on the sheets.

He buries himself deeper, inch by inch. Parker’s back bows, face slack with shock, pain and something deeper, hungrier, flooding her features.

Parker screams, a sound raw with pain and pleasure, her body quaking as he buries himself in her ass. Her fists clench on the sheets. Noah shoves his cock into her mouth again, hips snapping forward, balls slapping her chin. He holds her head steady, both hands tangled in her hair, jaw forced wide, spit and tears dripping down her cheeks. The men cheer, some jeering, some urging her on: “Take it, Persephone. Prove you can.”

Chase bottoms out, grinding into her, and then the fucking begins. Slow, forceful, each thrust making her body jolt forward, her moans muffled around Noah’s cock.

The burn is exquisite. A bright, searing pain as Chase fills her, stretching her where no one ever has. But underneath, something shatters and reforms, the agony mingling with a molten pleasure. Noah’s cock is a lifeline. She sucks him greedily, letting the pace build, letting herself drown in sensation. The crowd is gone. There is only the camera, only him watching. Only her power.

I am sobbing now, hips bucking, lost in a haze of self-loathing and need. I can’t stop jerking off. My shame is total, my pleasure toxic.

She feels herself come undone. Every muscle quivers, every nerve on fire. Her ass is stretched, burning, filled – her mouth used, her soul stripped bare for the camera, for the donors, for him. There is no going back. Only this – this surrender, this power. She rides the pain, welcomes it, is crowned by it. Let him watch. Let him know what it costs to be worshipped.

Chase’s tempo turns brutal, fucking her ass with hard, punishing thrusts. Each stroke pushes her forward, Noah’s cock battering her throat, her breath reduced to animal grunts and gags. The soundscape is obscene: wet slaps, choking gasps, the men’s encouragement blurring into a chorus of ownership. Parker’s second orgasm slams through her hard enough to bow her spine. This time she moans into the mic, owning the sound instead of choking it down.

I am a mess, drool and snot slicking my face, hand pumping my cock so hard it aches. I want to turn away – I should – but her cries, her tears, the filthy pride on her face, hold me prisoner. I hate my hand for moving, for its flagellating betrayal. My shame is alive, devouring me, but so is my need.

Chase finally pulls out with a wet, sucking pop, cum and lube oozing down Parker’s ruined hole. The next man – older, broad-shouldered, bottomless and hairy, donor badge still clipped to his shirt – grips her waist and shoves in without hesitation.

Someone else slides under her, lining his cock up with her raw, flooded pussy. Both holes filled, stretched, claimed. A third crest builds without warning, triggered by the obscene double‑stretch; her hips buck and she actually laughs, wild and bright, as her ass spasms around the cock mined deep inside. Another donor kneels beside her, pulling her nipple until the ring glints and Parker sobs, then moans.

Phones are everywhere, donors crowding in, some stroking themselves, some jeering, some crooning praise. Smart‑phone LEDs paint her skin a nicotine‑yellow every time a flash recharges. “That’s it, Persephone. Show us what you’re made for.” A hand slaps her ass, loud, a red handprint blooming across it. Another palm lands on her face, smearing tears and spit.

Cum drips freely out of her ass, out of her cunt, painting her in streaks of white and red. Her hair’s falling in her face, just like the first time I kissed her. Now it’s stuck to her cheeks with spit and cum. The camera moves in, lingering on the glinting barbell, the battered, leaking holes, the look in her eyes: hollow, shining, alive. The gravestone of every promise we shared in drive‑through queues in her smile.

She floats on a sea of sensation, anchored by pain and fullness, by the roar of the crowd and the slap of flesh on flesh. Each man is a wave, cresting and breaking inside her. She is the vessel, the altar, the sacrifice and the goddess. Power thrums in her veins. There is no Verena to become. there is only Parker – Persephone – reforged like a fresh promise, and she is all of this now. She barely remembers the boy in the shadows. She knows, finally, that she was always meant for this, and this is hers: her body, her triumph, her hunger, her fate. She belongs to nothing and no one but herself.

The final act is chaos, a tangle of limbs and cocks and hands. Parker is spread wide, legs hooked over shoulders, ass raised, pussy and ass gaping, overflowing with cum. Men jostle for space, trading holes, faces, bodies. They coat her in semen, painting her – breasts, belly, face – even her hair drips white. Someone holds her head still, mouth open, tongue out, and they feed her their loads one by one.

The camera never looks away, catching every angle; her mouth overflowing, her asshole leaking, the silver barbell trembling as her chest heaves, tattoo ink smeared with sweat. The men are groaning, shouting her name, chanting “Persephone, Persephone,” as she rides the onslaught, body shuddering, eyes locked on the lens.

The men think they’re finishing her; in reality, she’s finishing them. Riding their cocks like a queen astride war‑horses, Parker throws her head back, eyes locked on the camera. A single crimson bloom of pleasure detonates, rising through a body now lacquered with sweat and absolute in her triumph. She comes. A shrieking, exorcising wail; tears and cum streaking her cheeks, arms flailing, spine arched. The shockwave rolls through the room; men spill themselves in answer, inside her and across her, marking her as theirs. As everyone’s.

I finish in my own fist, body wracked with ugly sobs. I try to close the window, to make it stop. It won’t stop. It’s still playing, close god damn you. Fucking close! Code is supposed to be idempotent. Repeatable, safe. But this video is a runaway recursion: every frame spawns a darker copy of me, until the original Jason is noise on the stack.

My hand lashes out, and the laptop flies, crashing into the wall. The video keeps playing, broken and glitching, Parker’s moans and the men’s cheers warping through cracked speakers. I curl up on the floor, the sound an endless, twisted lullaby.

She’s a goddess, a whore, a masterpiece. She’s ruining me.

I can still see the screen, lying sideways on the floor in the corner, the interminable fucking reaching a distorted peak, Parker’s breathless encouragement ringing in my ears, and I can’t make myself move. The warming linoleum sticks to my face as I sob noiselessly in a sunbeam.

Mercifully the volume finally drops as the men pull away, leaving her splayed and leaking, the promise-ring barbell heavy on her nipple. For a second, she finds the lens, eyes glassy with tears and triumph, and I know – she’s saying goodbye.

The screen fades out on Parker: ruined, triumphant, dripping, smiling, promise ring gleaming and the crest tattoo angry above her bruised and leaking pussy. She is everything now, everything I am not. The last thing I see of Parker before the screen flickers to black is her smile. Genuine, unafraid. Forever out of reach.

Then, as the video cuts and the Theta StageLights logo burns onto the dead screen, a faint, distortion seems to snake from the laptop’s dying speakers, so low I almost miss it. Cate’s voice, cold and sibilant, an artifact from the raw footage: ‘Persephone… crowned at last. And Pirithous? Forever chained to the shadows he tried to conquer…’ Or maybe I imagined it, the words tumbling only in the ruin of my own mind.

The sun creeps across the floor. The laptop goes dark. All I have left is the taste of salt and loss in my mouth.

Chapter 32.

JASON

The dorm room is a wreck. Light stabs in through the blinds, illuminating dust, broken plastic, a splatter of coffee on the wall. My laptop lies on the floor, screen fractured, Parker’s voice – her cries – recursive feedback inside my skull. I haven’t slept. I’m not sure I ever will again. The room feels emptied, haunted.

Hours might have passed. My phone is dead. The world outside my grimy window is probably moving on, but in here, time has fractured. Eventually, a dull ache in my legs forces me to move.

I sit in the wreckage, numb, not even sure what I’m looking for – some sign, some proof that last night was a fever dream. My hands are moving before I know what I’m doing, stacking her leftover textbooks, shoving her toiletries into a bag. Under her pillow, my fingers brush something solid. A notebook. Leather-bound, edges worn. I know it at once. Her diary.

A part of me wants to throw it into the trash: burn it, smash it, anything but open it. But my hands betray me. I crack it open. I have to know. The pages smell like her, and yet not-her: grapefruit, ink, the hint of perfume. Not the vanilla perfume note though, this carries that same bitter-dark-fruit-wine scent, and also an earthy, mossy undertone. It seems almost unrecognizable. The margins bloom with little highlighter halos, once sunny‑lemon, now dulled to bruise‑yellow by tear‑drops and time. The words are Parker’s, but already, from the neatness of the script, I can tell it’s not the Parker I knew. Not the one I thought I knew.

I turn to the latest page: last night’s date.

JASON

I feel sick. Bile rises hot in my throat. The note – the last words I clung to, the only thing that let me hope – it was theater. Stagecraft. Cate’s hands in every line, every comma.

The “exquisite” performance, my tears, my idiotic apology to Cate. Oh god, she laughed, didn’t she. She hadn’t just fooled me; she’d played me – they both did – with Cate directing every scene. The sickness is a writhing thing inside me now, coiling tighter. Reading more is perverse.

Why won’t I drop it? Throw it? Burn it?

I flip back further through the pages, my heart jackhammering. The next entry leaps out – dated only days before. Oh shit, our first. My hands shake as I read.

JASON

I want to vomit. I retch, a dry, hacking sound. My throat burns hotter. The room spins. The shame – the humiliation – burns through me, down to the root. My mouth tastes sour, “metallic tang” filling my senses again. It was them. She knew. She knew and she let me… she made me… A wave of nausea so profound I nearly black out. ‘His failure.’ The words are a brand on my soul.

I keep turning pages, searching for some scrap – any scrap – of the girl I loved.

JASON

The stained underwear. The ignored texts. Her exhaustion. Noah’s reply. It all clicks into place with sickening clarity. The world tilts. I knew, deep down, but seeing it in her hand, in her words – it destroys me. Every word a fresh thrust – jesus, not a thrust – a stab into my heart. My hands are trembling, the diary trembling with them.

I feel a strange detachment, my fingers flipping further back, almost mechanically. An entry from after our fight.

JASON

The cold calculation in her words chills me to the bone. Was I always a pawn? Was this her design all along?

Lost. The word plummets through me, an anchor to the depths. My hands feel unreal. Like they belong to someone else. Like they’ll pass through the pages, unnoticed. I almost can’t turn to the last entry – but I do. One more, older, before everything broke.

JASON

I close the diary, hands numb, heart a stone in my chest. There’s nothing left.

Not hope. Not love.

Soaked in the remnants of her words, the proof of how completely I’ve been erased. I look at her empty bed, at my own reflection in the window, and I see a stranger. My life was a story I told myself. Parker wrote the ending, and left me behind.

---

The sunlight bleeding through the blinds feels like an accusation. A dark thought sweeping through, but my limbs are leaden, and I can’t even make them move – much less stir them to hurl myself to the street below. No. There’s no simple escape for me.

Half‑numb, I open my phone’s mobile terminal and tap my root password – muscle memory older than yesterday’s lies. StageLights replies with a cheerful pop‑up:

My code, my love, my life: all returning a 403.

My reflection in the dark screen of the broken laptop is a stranger. A ghost. Pirithous, indeed. Chained to the shadows she’d so eagerly claimed.

Epilogue

JASON

Years later. A hotel atrium glazed with corporate light, faceless, beige and yawning. I slouch by a potted ficus in a rented suit, conference lanyard prickling my neck, the back of my badge still showing a faint ghost of StageLights magenta. It’s late, but the lobby pulses with activity. Suits, gowns, branded lanyards, laughter echoing off marble.

I’m here for the tech conference. A keynote, panels, a handful of old contacts who shake my hand and forget my name. There’s a luxury gala sharing the hotel tonight: posters everywhere, velvet ropes corralling a crowd of black dresses, tuxedos, and camera crews. In the bustle the worlds overlap, and I watch a few alumni from Parker’s old program drift past, name-dropping donors, half-recognized from a thousand social media posts.

I’m almost out the door when I hear it: a rising pitch, the crowd drawing breath. Applause – tidal, familiar, impossible to ignore. My body reacts before my mind catches up. I turn and see her.

Parker – no, Parker St. James, headline name, now – emerging through a swarm of cameras, radiant beneath the crystal chandeliers. The crowd parts around her, every head pivoting, the air gone electric. Cate walks beside her, perfectly composed, hand light on Parker’s back, a subtle guide, as practiced as a conductor with her star soloist. Journalists cluster past me, microphones thrust forward, camera flash popping like distant fireworks. I hear one of them, sotto voce “There’s Hecate herself shepherding the starlet. Careful – she’ll hex your NDA if you get too close.” A pair of reporters leaning together conspiratorially. A reporter’s press badge swings past, the serpent‑wrapped ‘H T M’ glinting before I even register the acronym: Hecate Talent Management.

Parker inhabits a red dress, deep as arterial blood, the fabric nearly sheer, high slit shimmering, gold clasp catching every flash. The pomegranate necklace glints at her throat, the same faceted garnet I watched Cate slip into her palm before the gala. Sodium vapor down‑lights highlight everything in a familiar jaundiced golden tone, making her crimson outfit flare like a match head. The smell of cologne and champagne rides the air, sharp as memory. As she turns, I see them through the fabric: the silver barbell gleaming on her left nipple, a new gold twin flashing beside it, each a cruel bookmark in her story.

My heart stops. The sight slices through me like glass. For a split second, I’m back in the old dorm, in that greenroom tent, at the bottom of every nightmare I can’t forget. The cool sting of betrayal, the white heat of shame, all of it acid inside my chest. My knees actually lock. The chatter and laughter around me warps, muffled and slow, as if I’m underwater. I want to look away, but I can’t. Sweat beads at my collar despite the chill of the lobby AC. My shoes squeak on polished marble, the sound huge and humiliating in my ears. My badge twists on its plastic lanyard – half-hidden, half-forgotten, a dead credential for a different world.

That barbell, the jewelry made from the promise I once gave her, shines brighter than the cameras, and it’s no longer alone.

Her hair is up, lips matte red, her posture all elegance and power. For a second the world hushes – every gaze, every lens, every longing pulled toward her.

She’s changed, but some things are exactly the same. The way she stands: head high, chin set, smile sharp enough to draw blood. The same smile that once lit up the dark of my old dorm, that once belonged only to me.

She scans the crowd with that dazzling, rehearsed smile. Her eyes sweeping right past me. For the barest instant, her gaze passes over mine. There is nothing in it: not recognition, not apology, not the faintest ripple of memory. I am just another face in the crowd. Insubstantial. Her warmth is for the cameras, for the donors, for everyone and no one. She looks away, and I understand – whatever we were, whoever I was to her, is already lost.

I want to call out. I nearly do. The syllables burn the back of my throat, but nothing comes. There’s no velvet rope this time – no barrier but the certainty that I am not, will never again be, part of her story.

Cate and Parker glide past, Cate’s hand steady at the small of Parker’s back, already captured by the next camera, the next world. Neither of them sees me at all. She says something to Parker I can’t hear; effortlessly steering her away through the doors. Parker doesn’t look back. On the air as they pass is a cool, mossy fragrance with a heart of dark rose and that bitter-wine-fruit note that I now recognize as pomegranate seeds.

I watch as she disappears into the crush of VIPs, a crimson and gold silhouette burning itself into my vision. The applause rolls out from the ballroom as the doors close, a storm surge swallowing everything, then itself swallowed by uncoverable distance.

I stand rooted to the marble, the cold soaking up through my shoes, bound. A shade in chains, forgotten.