Season 20, Episode 10 The Book of Luke, Vol. 2 #3
A bathroom stall. Shawn’s bare back arching, tiger tattoo drenched in purple light.
One knee on the toilet lid. Barnes roughly inside him.
“Your cock feels so good… Pull my hair…” The hand of the viewer passes Barnes an opaque vial of poppers.
Barnes shoves it against Shawn’s nostrils; he inhales deeply.
“Too much?” The frame tilts to reveal the viewer’s hard cock, a hand with a beaded bracelet massaging it. “Fuck no, more.”
Imogen clutched my wrist, my pulse pounding in my temples.
Barnes pulls out and cums on Shawn’s back, teeth bared. Shawn drips with sweat, eyes dilated and wild. “Don’t stop, I didn’t cum yet.” Barnes regards the viewer, voice spent: “Want a turn?”
“What?” Troy gasped.
These are strangers, I recited. You don’t know them.
You don’t care about them. But I did. I cared about Shawn so much and I despised seeing him like this, so vulnerable and compromised, oblivious to being recorded.
But then I understood I was right: I didn’t know this person.
This wasn’t the Shawn I knew. The Shawn fighting to change.
The Shawn I would do all in my power to protect from this.
Tile floor fills the screen as the phone changes hands. “You want my dick?” a voice says. “I don’t care who, just fuck me,” Shawn replies.
“You sure?” Barnes asks.
“He’s had so much G he won’t remember who fucked him, just that it was a good time,” the man says, face still off camera. “I texted the guys at the bar. Full party.” Hands grab Shawn’s ass, and the man enters him, two quick thrusts until the camera pans up to reveal Troy in profile. “You like it—”
Barnes ended the video.
Troy’s eyes were so wide I thought they’d tumble out his skull. “You—”
“Kept filming and only sent you the first half?” Barnes supplied blankly. “Yeah. Ironically, I thought it’d be risky for you to possess the rest. You know, since you’d just signed Shawn to his first season of Endeavor the week before?”
And there it was. “Troy, you are officially removed from this set,” Zara said, her customary certainty revived. “Fortune, take him outside until security comes.”
Fortune wrapped a bear paw around his shoulder, but Troy was fixated on me, voice dripping acid on his way out. “You’re beyond stupid if you think he came here for you.”
Barnes regarded me tentatively, but I kept quiet as Troy passed us by.
“You know, I see why you didn’t get cast on Lobby Boys, Troy,” Greta sighed, watching his departure in the handheld’s viewfinder. “You really aren’t that compelling on camera.”
The aftermath of Troy’s exodus proved anticlimactic.
While she waited on guidance from the network brass, Zara paused production.
No cameras, no mics. Imogen shoved frozen pizzas in the oven, while Fortune played solitaire with Winston’s old cards and Greta grumbled into the void.
“I just don’t see why I’m in quarantine too. Aren’t I a free bird now?”
“Maybe they’ll let you back in the game since Troy was blackmailing you,” Imogen said.
Greta affected an uncannily good Drew Ecklund. “‘And now, free from the shackles of her extortionist, welcome back good old Greta…’”
“They’ll never mention Troy,” Barnes said, peering out the window almost in a trance, his first words since Troy had left.
“And they definitely won’t scrap the whole season with one day left.
They’re just figuring out how to cover it up.
” I wondered if Barnes had at last given up.
On me, on everything. After all, I’d now learned every lie he’d told, the indelible details of the life he’d lived for years beneath our own.
I finished my pizza and reached for Erika’s plate as well. “I’ve got it,” she said before walking off. Apparently our detente ended once Troy was vanquished.
Zara eventually entered, a PA following with reams of paper. “Okay, I just spent two hours on the phone with network legal, and I’ve been sent NDAs for each of you, which JoJo will distribute.” The suddenly christened PA waved sheepishly.
“I’m not signing anything without my lawyer’s approval,” Barnes replied blankly.
“I don’t have an NDA for you,” Zara shot back. “These deals are ‘most favored nations’ for Luke, Imogen, Erika, Fortune, and Greta. The network wants to speak with you personally, Barnes. I distinctly recall the word ‘fraud’ being used.”
His face fell, and I silently watched him march to the executioner as Zara began outlining the documents. “Essentially, you’re releasing the network from any responsibility for what Troy did, and in exchange you’re each being offered a $1 million settlement.”
“Holy shit,” I murmured. I’d have enough money to provide for the kids for years, but I still sensed a catch. “And if we don’t sign the NDA?”
Zara grimaced. “You’d be barred from competing tomorrow in the finale or appearing in future seasons of Endeavor… or any other show on the network.”
The room exploded in protest until Greta cut through the din. “So our careers hinge on letting Troy off scot-free? Do our corporate overlords know I already can’t compete tomorrow?”
Zara pursed her lips. “The network is aware of that, Greta. And while the settlement fee specifically is capped, that doesn’t stop any of you from negotiating additional terms… Maybe right of first refusal on Beverly Blonde as long as it airs, or even a role on—”
“A scripted show?” Greta whispered, awestruck.
“I’d also request a producing fee for the finale. There’s nobody I can get here by tomorrow who knows this beast like you. I can’t believe I’m asking this, but will you help me?”
“Fine,” she said. “But just because I’m behind the scenes doesn’t mean I’m not the star.”
“What about the other cast?” Imogen asked. “Shouldn’t they know what Troy did?”
Zara shook her head. “The network wants it locked down. Limit the impact.”
“They don’t think it impacted Shawn?” My voice was louder than I intended.
“Shawn’s getting a settlement too, along with Melange. That should close the loop.”
“I need to tell Shawn first,” I insisted. “He can’t hear this from some random lawyer.”
Zara nodded, then addressed the room. “I hope you all sign. This business is vicious, but it would be worse without each of you.” She caught my eye. “Even if only for one more day.”
She brought me to call Shawn while everyone else perused the paperwork, but it was a formality. We would all sign, me included. Prize money aside, I had promised Erika I’d compete, and I wasn’t going to deny her. As long as there was a final, I would be in it.
“Just so you know, the NDA doesn’t prevent you from leveraging what happened in your divorce settlement,” she said, firing up her laptop in the production office. “What he and Troy did is fair game as long as you don’t comment on it publicly. I made sure.”
“I’ll deal with that apocalypse after this one,” I sighed. “But thanks.”
“I’d also be shocked if Barnes isn’t competing tomorrow. The network has him over a barrel, and he’ll agree to anything to avoid a lawsuit. If it’s even a pale imitation of the deal he signed in Shanghai, then it will affect you, understand?”
“You can’t say more?”
She paused, debating. “Just remember there’s more to your life than this show.”
Neither her riddle nor her loaded expression comforted me, but I didn’t want to seem ungrateful, especially when it was only getting later in California.
The laptop camera lit pinprick green, and Shawn’s confused face materialized beneath the popcorn ceiling of his apartment, a dreamcatcher on the wall behind him with Polaroid photos tucked in its web. A joyful gasp escaped him before his face fell. “You got eliminated.”
“No, that’s not it.”
“Oh, thank God, sorry, I’m just surprised to see you. Wait, let’s start this over properly…” He smiled, eager and soft and heartbreaking. “Hi.”
“Hi.” I’d fallen in love with him. I had. No stupid video would change that. That wasn’t this person. This was my person, and I was about to devastate him. “Shawn, something happened, but before I tell you, I need to say something else.”
He cocked his head, dread washing back in like the tide. “Okay?”
And for one second, nothing else mattered. “You can’t know how much I miss you.”