“So the plan,” Diana said in a low, still voice. “Was to buy the Games, to get me to the finals, bring me here, seduce me, fuck me… and then what?”
Gael knew Diana well, too. He was well-aware of the tidal emotions swirling below her gaze, and his own eyes penetrated back into her with defiance.
“The plan,” he said, “Was to make you fall in love with me.”
A day ago, Rakesh would have scoffed at this. But now his palms clammed up. He’d seen that Gael was infinitely more seductive, and infinitely more Machiavellian, than he’d possibly imagined.
“I was going to tear her away from you,” Gael said to Rakesh. “Split you up. Steal her away. Ruin everything for both of you…”
Diana’s heart started to beat faster. Gael turned to her again.
“And then I’d dump you cold. Break your heart into a thousand shards…”
She was staring up from the couch with firmly anchored eyes.
“Just like you broke mine.”
The weight of Gael’s malevolent vision hung in the silence for several prolonged moments.
Then his voice crackled.
“Only…”
—
RAPID FLASHES…
Of the final challenge… Bringing Diana to Kama’sueh… Connecting deeply in the hot tub… Kissing… He bends her over…
—
“I couldn’t do it.” Gael shook his head.
“Why not?”
“Because… I didn’t realize…”
—
FLASH. Gael. Diana. The hot tub. Eyes locked as they connect deeply.
—
“That I’d fallen in love with you.”
The handsome movie star’s gaze bore into his ex, seated on the couch. She stared back, her body absolutely still.
“I realized — I’ve always been in love with you. I never stopped.”
Gael surprised himself as his voice caught in his throat. He felt a sheen fill his eyes, and sniffed it away.
Rakesh, for his part, felt a slim, icy tingle ascend from his feet planted on the tropical rug. The full import of Gael’s scheming crashed over him. For years — no, for decades — this man had harbored feelings for his wife. Feelings so strong that he had worked himself overtime to crystallize this moment into being. All along, he’d wanted one thing — to get Diana back.
The revelation seemed to pop a leviathan balloon in Rakesh’s head. The great movie star — this intimidating, handsome rake with the giant dick and the flashy toys and the five hundred million dollars and the thousands of fawning women — suddenly deflated into a small, fixated boy.
A rather pitiable one.
But Diana had a different reaction.
Calmly, she stood from the couch. She smoothed the knotted button-down. She looked from Gael, to Rakesh, and then back to Gael.
“That was an interesting plan,” she said, “And what’s even more interesting… is your recollection of events. Aren’t you leaving something out?”
Gael’s brow furrowed.
—
A BRIGHT ORANGE, PETRONI WESTERN FLASH OF COLOR washes the screen —
— As before, Young Diana is in her bedroom, phone glued to her ear. SPLIT SCREEN: Young Gael on the other side. The two gush and blush, youthful and flirting.
This time, however, Diana’s side of the screen wipes away. HOLD on Gael.
GAEL (ON PHONE)
“You’re mine. Only mine.”
His voice is intense and controlling.
FLASH!
— A balcony. The inky black sea laps the rocky shore far below. Gael and Diana kiss, deeply.
This time, we HOLD as their kiss detaches.
GAEL (beat, jealously)
“Who else were you with this weekend?”
FLASH!
— The two make love under the sheets in bliss.
Diana climaxes. Gael climaxes. The couple lay there in each other’s arms, catching their breath and glowing.
This time, we STAY as Diana’s phone rings. Instantly, Gael grabs for it, a manic glint spiking in his eyes.
GAEL
“Which guy is it now?!”
DIANA (on edge, mad, scared)
“It’s my mom, Gael!”
SWOOSH BACK TO THE PRESENT —
—
Gael stood there, stock-still.
His skin had faded to an ashen pallor, blurring his classically impressive features.
“Of course we started off well,” Diana said. “We were young, we were in love. But at some point all that we ever did was fight. Or have make-up sex…”
—
FLASH!
The CAMERA circles Gael and Diana in a cramped college bedroom. Screaming at each other, arguing, defending…
TEARS spring in both of their eyes…
—
“And goddamn,” Diana said. “Could you be cruel –”
—
TIME CUT:
Diana’s face is in her hands, crying her eyes out. Gael stands off to the side, steaming.
—
Diana shook her head. The memories of those days felt so long ago — were so long ago. A different life, inhabited by a different self. And yet they were now crashing into her consciousness like the fresh, raw present. She wiped a small tear.
“I tried to break up with you,” she said. “I didn’t do it very well, or very clearly. Can you blame me? We were so young…”
Rakesh watched his wife in silent curiosity. He could sense how, despite the chasm of time and life that had grown between the two of them, she still harbored a deep well of emotion towards Gael.
The feeling pricked the hairs on his neck.
“Either way, it didn’t take.”
At this, Gael nodded expressionlessly.
“I couldn’t let go of you,” he said quietly.
—
FLASH!
A modest Chinese restaurant. Diana is at dinner with some other YOUNG MAN.
Gael barges in, and angrily beelines for their table…
—
Gael’s eyes shone wetly. He gazed at Diana, painful memories tumbling through his brain like a herd of wildebeest.
“So, yes…” Diana said, her lambent gaze trained on her ex. “I cheated on you.”
—
The Arcana hot tub.
The gerberas on the grass.
The steam from the hot tub.
Diana, in heated congress, and Gael watching ruefully from the shadows.
—
“And yes…” Diana’s voice stuck in her gullet. “I was wrong for that.”
Everything was still in the grand game room.
“I stopped talking you after this. I broke up with you, suddenly. That was my own guilt. I was wrong for doing that, too.”
Still an uncertainty trembled in her tone. In fact, uncertainty seemed to vibrate through everything in the room, that tropical expanse that had seemed so massive some minutes ago, but now felt small and dense with the evanescent smoke of all those locomotive memories.
“But –” Diana continued, standing taller on her bare feet. “So were you.”
Gael looked back, still seemingly rocked from the emotional barrage. Several years of insight had just crashed into him in the span of minutes.
Slowly, the famous movie star nodded. He unconsciously steadied himself on the vintage Taito game behind him.
“I’ve had a tendency.”
The words came slowly from his mouth. His realizations were being processed in realtime.
“I’ve had a tendency to conquer things… To conquer everything with power. And when things didn’t go my way… to burn them to the ground.”
The words hung in the air. Yet Diana couldn’t tell if they contained a hint of an apology, or if they were another defense on the part of the egoic actor.
Then Gael looked at her sincerely.
“I want to change that.” Softly, he added, “For you.”
The three of them stood silently at their posts, letting it all wash over them.
Rakesh’s understanding of Gael continued to peel off layer after layer. It was a realization that Diana must have intuited a long time ago: just how much armor Gael had cloaked himself in. All the stratospheric success, the Caligulan sex, the wads of fuck-you money — they were merely layers upon layers of teflon and titanium, engineered to keep the world from seeing what Gael was, at his softest core.
A scared and rejected boy.
The notion seemed to knock the wind out of Gael, who had had the same realization. He fell backwards on his couch. His breaths shortened.
And while the idea had sucked all the superheroism out of Rakesh’s perception of him, it had cast a harsh reflection on his own inner failings. Rakesh had been so insecure around Diana’s ex that he’d smashed all the bonds of their trust to pieces.
Diana turned towards her husband.
“I did you wrong, Rakesh. I know I shouldn’t have cheated on you. You pushed me to this idea of being a slut wife for you — and I took it all the way.”
Rakesh stared soulfully back at his wife, wondering — with more than a small shred of dread — where she was going with all of this.
“What I’m saying is — I have a dilemma. My ex rigged an underground contest to get his revenge on me — but he stopped before he did. And my husband just showed me her didn’t trust me at all — and in a way, he was right not to. Except, he wasn’t right tonight…”
The young wife wrestled with her thoughts, mired in the murky morality that had swallowed them all like a tar pit.
“What I’m saying is… I can’t pick. Rakesh or Gael.”
Rakesh’s heart sank right through the floor. The room went silent.
“You can’t pick…” Rakesh intoned in a hollow voice. “Who you want to be with?”
It was a half-hearted inquiry. Rakesh already knew from Diana’s tone that she was utterly, deadly serious. Gael, in contrast to the pallid husband, sat up with a sudden tinge of hope in his gaze.
The young wife’s eyes panned slowly from one man to the other. She felt genuinely lost, a lamb in twin headlights coming head-on.
Diana looked at her husband. Once so steadfast and trusting, his smaller, athletic frame grew slightly huddled as he regarded her with a quiet fear.
Her eyes traveled back to her handsome ex. His muscled body seemed charged with energy, each tendon flexed in her direction as though imploring her to choose him. His chiseled features were vessels for his searching eyes — boyish, soulful eyes that bore memories, romance, sorrow…
As Diana’s gaze tracked slowly back towards Rakesh, they halted mid-path. The deep background between the two men appeared to crystallize into sharp relief…
—
The CAMERA racks to DEEP FOCUS, on a distant object…
—
“I have an idea…” she said.
The men barely wanted to acknowledge the others’ existence. But, simultaneously, they locked eyes. Their eyebrows raised.
—
The LENS closes in… The BILLIARDS TABLE racks into focus…
—
“We’re going to play a game.”
Diana stared at the blue felt of the billiards table, sitting off in the distance behind the men.
“The last game,” she went on, “Of The Hotwife Games.”
And with that, Diana marched right between the two, across the room, towards the table.
—
Chapter 11 will be posted in quick succession.