Chapter 13: Money for Nothing And the Chicks For Free

The sun hung low over Bikini Week, casting long, honey-gold rays over the chaotic town as Mr. Pearson, clutching what remained of his dignity, adjusted the last shreds of his once-immaculate business suit. His tie was long gone, his blazer hung off him like a cape in tatters, and the trousers he’d paid a small fortune for were now missing everything below the knees. Somewhere along the way, he’d swapped his Ferragamo loafers for a pair of cheap flip-flops he’d found abandoned on a jet ski rental dock.

He squinted through the chaos of the carnival, his sharp eyes tracking the sprinting figure of Emily—or Bunny, as everyone seemed to call her now. He’d been shadowing her for hours, watching her ricochet from one absurd escapade to another like a pinball with cleavage.

And yet, something had shifted.

“She’s ... not like the others,” he muttered, chewing the end of an unlit cigar.

The thought startled him. At first, Emily had been just another variable in the chaos of Bikini Week—a pawn, a player, a minor subplot. But as he’d followed her from the milk vats to the tattoo tent to the popsicle inferno, he couldn’t help but notice something different about her.

Unlike everyone else, who seemed to succumb entirely to the town’s bizarre, lust-soaked gravity, Emily fought against it. Sure, she stumbled, she got swept up, she even enjoyed it at times—but she fought. And watching that fight stirred something in Mr. Pearson, something he hadn’t felt in years.

Respect.

Well, respect mixed with ... other feelings. He wasn’t dead, after all.

Standing atop a makeshift tower of milk crates, he adjusted his sunglasses and peered down as Emily stumbled out of the tattoo tent, a wild, painted vision of defiance and exhaustion. Her fishnet bodysuit clung to her, streaked with paint, her skin shimmering with a mixture of sweat and humiliation. She clutched the “#1 Milkers” sash like it was the only thing keeping her tethered to sanity.

Pearson smirked, the corner of his mouth curling around the cigar. “Hell of a dame,” he muttered, then grimaced as the crates wobbled beneath him.

As Emily bolted through the carnival, her coconut bra clacking with every frantic step, Pearson hopped down from his perch and gave chase, his flip-flops slapping against the ground in a farcical rhythm.

“Why am I doing this?” he muttered under his breath as he weaved through the chaos, narrowly avoiding a banana-eater swinging her fruit like a sword.

Deep down, he knew why.

Emily wasn’t just surviving Bikini Week; she was resisting it, defying its pull even as it dragged her deeper into its absurd, hypersexual whirlpool. She was fascinating.

She was human.

Pearson’s reverie was interrupted when he collided with a runaway parade float—a giant, glittering milk carton on wheels. The impact sent him sprawling into a dunk tank, his shredded suit finally giving up the ghost.

He surfaced with a splutter, coughing up water as a crowd gathered to laugh at the now-soggy businessman. His once-pristine trousers floated away like a defeated flag, leaving him clad in nothing but a red Speedo that clung far too intimately to his middle-aged frame.

Pearson groaned, running a hand over his face as he climbed out of the tank, dripping and humiliated. “Fine,” he grumbled to no one in particular. “Speedo it is.”

But as he scanned the crowd for Emily, he saw her again—running barefoot down the street, her head held high despite the chaos around her.

And damn it if she didn’t look magnificent.

Her movements were frenetic but determined, her eyes wide with panic but burning with a fierce will to keep going. She wasn’t Bunny, not entirely. She was something rawer, something more real—a girl caught in a nightmare but refusing to give in.

“Gotta hand it to her,” Pearson muttered, pulling his Speedo up with as much dignity as he could muster. “Kid’s got guts.”

Pearson tailed Emily through the winding streets of Bikini Week as everything colluded in a colossal fubar of epic proportions. It wasn’t just one shenanigan, it was five or six all colliding with each other. Even in all his years of Bikini Weeks, he had never seen anything like it.

“Damn freak show,” he grumbled, sidestepping a vendor selling “erotic avocados” and nearly tripping over a statue shooting at least a gallon of breast milk out of its ta-tas... “Where the hell is all of this even going?”

His answer came when Emily stopped abruptly, her painted body heaving with exertion as she stared at something in the distance.

Pearson squinted, following her gaze, and felt his breath catch in his throat.

A portal.

It shimmered, a jagged tear in reality that flickered and sparked like a glitch in the universe. Beyond it, Pearson could see flashes of another world—a mundane world of offices and apartments, gray skies and fluorescent lights.

Emily stared at it, her lips parted, her body trembling.

As Emily reached out, her fingers trembling toward the portal, Pearson felt a pang of something he hadn’t felt in years—something he couldn’t quite name.

Protectiveness.

Pearson’s heart stopped as he stared at the portal. His first instinct had been to brush it off as another piece of Bikini Week’s insane theatrics, some neon-lit distraction meant to sucker in tourists or fuel another risqué competition. But the flickering edges of the tear in reality told a different story.

He muttered, his voice low and sharp. He stubbed out his cigar with a trembling hand, his normally cool demeanor cracking at the edges.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. The rules of Bikini Week were simple—seduction, indulgence, transformation. The narrative bent, yes, but it always held. It was elastic, resilient, like the perfectly calibrated suspension of a luxury car. But this?.

This wasn’t a game.

This was destruction.

And it wasn’t the first time he’d heard about it...

His mind flashed back to a conversation he’d had years ago, one he’d tried to forget.

The refugee from Camp Morning Wood.

Years ago, in a smoky corner of The Wet Spot, Pearson had met someone who didn’t quite belong. A man—or maybe a woman; the details were hazy now, distorted by time and the narrative’s influence—who had spoken with a haunted edge, like someone who had seen things no one was meant to see.

The stranger had claimed to be from another world. Not Emily’s world. The stranger’s eyes had been wild as they recounted the fall of Camp Morning Wood.

“It unraveled,” the man ... or maybe the woman had said, their words teetering on the edge of hysteria. “We all thought it was just a fluke at first—an overambitious counselor trying to spice things up for one week. But it spiraled. She tried to do it all, man. Everything. Like she was trying to be the camp itself but ALL AT ONCE!”

Pearson hadn’t believed him at the time, dismissing it as drunken rambling. But now, years later, the refugee’s words echoed with haunting clarity.

“She was the camp cook, dishing out stew by day and sneaking off to ‘seduce’ the counselors by night.

“She organized the panty raids but also played the girl being raided. She dressed in one of those lacy, impractical numbers and screamed when the boys burst in, only to wink and start a pillow fight that somehow turned into a strip tease.

“She wanted to play the plucky underdog in the softball game and the sexy referee who got ‘accidentally’ pantsed.

“She was the mysterious midnight skinny-dipper and the horny ghost haunting the camp’s abandoned boathouse.

“She was the camp nurse, faking sprains and bruises so the guys would have excuses to strip down and ‘recover.’

“She hosted the talent show, did an erotic ribbon dance as a ‘surprise act,’ and somehow ended up the judge as well.

“She organized the prank wars, played the ‘innocent victim’ of a prank gone wrong, and then plotted the revenge schemes, complete with water balloons full of whipped cream.

“She crashed the girls’ slumber party in nothing but a towel and a devilish grin, then ran across camp to crash the boys’ circle of truth, where she dared everyone to kiss her.

“She was in every cabin, every scene, every gag—playing prude one moment, seductress the next. She even set up a mock wedding between herself and the camp mascot—a stuffed bear named Chesty—and made it a full-on bachelor party fiasco that ended with her and the entire softball team who needed motivation to win the big game.”

The refugee had stopped then, his face pale, his breath coming in short, sharp gasps. “She was too much. She did too much. And the world couldn’t take it.”

Pearson had scoffed. “The world couldn’t take it? Come on, buddy, what are you, a screenwriter pitching me a flop?”

The refugee had fixed him with a dead-eyed stare that sent a chill through Pearson even now.

“It wasn’t just the camp that unraveled,” the man had whispered. “It was everything. Every single trope, every gag, every cheesy 1980s sex comedy cliché—it couldn’t keep up. She darted through the portal and once that happened our world was doomed.”

The Emptiness. Pearson had chuckled at the term back then, but the refugee’s haunted look had stuck with him.

“It started small,” the man continued, his voice dropping to a whisper. “The edges of the camp got ... fuzzy. People would walk toward the lake and never come back. Then the fuzz spread. The softball field turned to static. The cabins went next, vanishing one plank at a time. By the time we realized what was happening, it was too late. Then it wasn’t just fuzzy, the Emptiness came and it devoured it all. Counselors, campers, the lake, the cabins, the campfire—it swallowed them whole. Friend and foe alike, wiped out in minutes. I can still hear their screams as they just ... became Empty. A hole would be something. Blackness would be something. They just became Empty...”

The refugee had downed his drink in a single, shaking gulp, his eyes glistening with tears. “I ran. I ran like hell. The Emptiness was everywhere—eating the counselors mid-kiss, the campers mid-prank. The pranksters themselves, caught with pies frozen halfway to their targets. Even the camp legend—the guy with the chainsaw and the creepy hockey mask? Gone. Swallowed by the Emptiness.”

The man’s voice cracked as he gripped the edge of the table. “I could hear it coming. Like the sound of a tape rewinding, getting closer and closer, faster and faster. The camp was shrinking, collapsing in on itself. There wasn’t going to be anything left.”

He’d paused then, his face pale, his hands trembling. “And that’s when I saw it—the TV in the owner’s cabin. ‘My Dumb Bikini Summer’ was on. Some dumb movie playing on the camp’s only channel, static flickering at the edges. I thought ... maybe. Maybe if I dove through it...”

Pearson had leaned forward, unable to look away. “And?”

The man let out a bitter laugh. “And I woke up here. In Bikini Week. Alive, sure. But no one here knows me. No one cares about who I was. I used to own the camp. Now I’m just another guy.”

He’d looked up at Pearson, his eyes hollow. “As far as I know, I’m the only one who made it out.”

Pearson had shrugged it off then, figuring the guy had been through some bad acid trip or, more likely, was just a washed-up nobody spinning tales.

But now, as he stared at the shimmering portal and the world beyond it, those words came rushing back.

If Emily went through that portal, she might not just leave Bikini Week.

She might tear it apart.

“No...,” Pearson muttered, his blood running cold. “Not my world. Not to my girls, not to my guys, not to my life.”

And he ran, sprinting after her as the carnival lights blurred around him, his feet slapping against the damp pavement.

“Not again,” he whispered, his breath ragged.

Unlike the refugee he wasn’t running from the Emptiness.

He was running to stop it. And Emily, already having seen the portal collapse while he was frozen in shock, was running to Blaine. She had to be. If he knew he was part of the narrative’s main drive, she had to as well. Blaine was the center of this world, the axis around which everything spun. If anyone could stop Emily, it was him.

He didn’t hesitate.

Pearson’s breath came in sharp, ragged bursts as he pushed himself to keep up, his aging body screaming in protest. The streets blurred around him, neon lights smearing into streaks of color as he focused on the girl ahead.

Her painted skin gleamed under the flickering glow of the portal, her fishnet bodysuit a net of shadows and light. She was everything this world loved—over-the-top, ridiculous, a mix of sexy and absurd.

And she was going to destroy it all.

“Damn it, kid,” Pearson muttered, his feet pounding against the pavement as he forced himself to run faster.

He thought of the refugee again—the haunted look in the man’s eyes, the way he’d clutched that bottle like it was the only thing keeping him tethered to reality. Pearson wouldn’t end up like that. He’d fought too hard to build a life here, clawing his way from obscurity to relevance in a world that thrived on spectacle.

And as much as he hated to admit it, Bikini Week had grown on him. The absurdity, the chaos, the endless parade of contests and parties—it was home now. He at times hated it, sure, but who loved their job every second of every day?

He wasn’t going to let it fall apart.

Not for her. Not for anyone.

Pearson’s flip-flops skidded against the wet cobblestones as he veered down a side street, his heart hammering in his chest. He needed to reach Blaine before Emily did, needed to warn him about the portal, about what she might do if she made it through.

Blaine wasn’t exactly ... nuanced. He was a force of nature, all muscles and swagger and unshakable confidence. Would he even understand the stakes?

Pearson clenched his fists, his mind racing. If Blaine couldn’t stop Emily—if he couldn’t stop Emily—then Bikini Week might end up like Camp Barely Clothed.

And this time, there wouldn’t be any survivors.

No. Pearson shook the thought from his head, his jaw tightening. He wasn’t going to let that happen.

“Hang on, Blaine,” Pearson muttered under his breath. “I’m coming.”

Blaine’s world had been an enticing pair of ivory tits, encased as they were in a shimmering gold dress.

Then all of a sudden, the world had come to him.

His little beach bungalow was crowded with urgent visitors: Veronica. Pearson. And of course, and of course ... her. Bunny was so much more than the woman he remembered her being, but also everything he’d always known she was. The contradiction would have been enough to give any man a headache. Wesley would’ve taken that headache on, for sure. But Blaine was, increasingly, an uncomplicated man. The ideas skimmed his surface like the kiss of a well-waxed board on the tide, with nothing weighty to plunge deeper.

Because how could he contemplate anything other than the heaving yellow titties in her ridiculous coconut bra? How could he possibly focus up on the larger implications of what was going on when there were big letters on Bunny’s body that said she belonged to a white boy like him, deserved to be used by a white boy like him? BWC Only? He was BWC!

Dimly, he felt an urge to dig deeper into it. Or at least, an idea that he should want to delve deeper. It was the last gasp of something else in him, something that was rapidly losing purchase as everyone yelled at him about who to fuck. At least they’d picked a subject where Blaine could have some well-formed opinions.

But it was getting too complicated. And Blaine ... Blaine was a simple man now.

“Everyone shut the fuck up.”

If the movie hadn’t already richly earned its R-rating, his delivery would’ve done the job. It was utterly commanding, the kind of masculine assurance that came from knowing that he was in his domain, in his element. Not just his house, but this beach, because he owned this Bikini Beach. He was this Bikini Beach.

He pointed to Charlotte the Harlot first. “You. One sentence, go.”

She looked surprised by the restriction of the one sentence, but quickly composed herself. “Fuck me right now as a binding contract to sign over your property to Mr. Pearson and make you very rich in the process.”

Blaine nodded. That seemed reasonable enough. He saw Bunny wanted to speak next, but he let his blue eyes skip over her. She was obediently silent. Good girl.

He pointed next to Pearson. “You. One sentence.”

Pearson, who had somehow wound up in a speedo that he couldn’t pull off nearly as well as Blaine, looked apoplectic. “The existential crisis we’re facing cannot possibly be summed up in a single sentence, but if you stick your dick in that bitch, we’re all gonna get rewound into the empty void before the video tape.”

He looked like he wanted to say more, but a scowl from Blaine stopped him from speaking. He at least seemed to understand that billions of dollars wouldn’t help you against someone sufficiently motivated and musclebound.

Veronica Valmont broke in. “I just want a chance to--”

“Yeah, whatever, Side Character,” Blaine said rudely, turning at last to Bunny? Emily? Bunny?. His mind kept flickering back and forth between the two, as if he were seeing a dress in both black-and-blue and white-and-gold configurations at once. Both there, both plainly visible to him, both real.

But only one could be true.

“Fuck me, Blaine.” And that was it.

That was all it had to be.

Because she alone had a hold on him, no matter how desperately the other bitches on this beach threw themselves at him. Her exquisite almond-shaped eyes, her delicate porcelain-doll frame, her cartoonish cleavage, her increasingly oversexed face and body language ... all of it wasn’t just an invitation to the world. It was an invitation to him, specifically. The tattoos said it all, didn’t they? They told him exactly what kind of girl she was: the best kind of girl. His.

He was ready to make the choice.

He reached for his girl, grabbing her not especially gently by her slender shoulders. Her wobbling tits sent his white cock straining against the bounds of the magenta speedo made for a man much more modestly endowed than he. He started to lean down to her, feeling her body already beginning to melt into his musculature. That assent made him want to descend upon her like he was a predator and she his exquisite prey.

He could see the mounting terror in Pearson’s eyes, knowing full well that a lunk like Blaine would always, always think with his dick. He could see the mirrored despair in Charlotte’s and Veronica’s faces, as they both mourned getting their shot with a stud like him despite their different reasonings for it.

But before he opened his mouth to give her his assent, he stopped.