showed you the picture?”
“Yeah, he was proud of it—said he was going to use it as his cover shot. He said something about it ‘showing human nature in its truest form,’ or some gibberish like that. He got a good shot of me laying in bed, too. You should see it. My tits look great. Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“It’s a nice photo, Ash. I wouldn’t worry about it. You have that natural, wild look going on, and the green really suits you, matches your eyes. Plus, you look like such a cute couple. I need to spit. I’ll catch you in a bit.” She turned and walked away, looking over her shoulder before she turned the corner, probably to make sure I hadn’t fainted or thrown up.
That was it. My fate was sealed. My break would come with the firm reputation of slut. Either my celebrity status would be short-lived, or I would become the next Kim Kardashian, famous thanks to a well-timed controversy, destined to accomplish nothing remotely useful in my whole life.
Instead of a role in an important film, I would get a season of some late-night reality show, watched by brainless teen girls, and horny teen boys whose parents didn’t subscribe to the porn channels.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
At the Chow Hall, everyone was gossiping as if we were back in high school. As I approached tables, conversations lowered into whispers, and as I walked by, the men burst back into flurries of gossip and snickering.
“Yo, Daniels,” Private Hastings said as I passed his table. “Take a seat.” He nudged an empty chair out from under the table.
I ignored him and continued towards the kitchen window.
“Scrambled eggs okay?” Ramis asked. “You’re late. You missed the bennies.”
“Scrambled is fine.”
“I heard you fucked Ashley King. It true?” he asked, looking up at me with wide eyes for a quick moment before looking back down at his hotplate.
“Just worry about the eggs, Ramis.”
“I’m glad it was you and not someone else,” he continued, ignoring me. “Had it been Hastings, I wouldn’t be able to watch Daytona Beach ever again, without imagining his slimy dick sliding in and out and in and out of—” He used the spatula to simulate the motion of Hastings’s hypothetical cock.
“—Worry about the eggs, Ramis,” I said, cutting him off.
“In a few years, when she’s famous, you can tell everyone you fucked her when she was still an unknown. I bet not too many people can say that, huh? She’s got that innocent look to her—I think that’s what makes her so sexy. Maybe she was a virgin. Did she say anything?”
The eggs started to burn. “The eggs, Ramis.”
“Oh, shit. Sorry. I’ll cook you some more.”
“Those are fine.”
He plated the eggs, gave me a couple slices of toast, and I went to sit at an empty table across the room, ignoring Private Hastings’s attempt to wave me down. It did no use though—he uprooted and moved to my table.
“You know, we were startin’ to think you were a gay,” he said.
I looked up at him and imagined punching him in the face. His expression dropped, as if he could read my mind.
“I mean—not actually a gay, just a figure of speech, you know?” he said awkwardly with a stupid smile. “But seriously, way to go. You hear she’s like famous or something?”
“I heard she was on a TV show, yeah.”
“No, no—her Playboy shoot went viral. She’s blowing up on the internet.”
I continued eating my burnt eggs.
“You know what you should do? You should film yourself fuckin’ her. There’s this company called Starz that buys celebrity sex tapes for like, millions of dollars.”
“Thanks for the suggestion.” His jabbering, horny voice was giving me a headache, like it usually did. Hastings was the epitome of what I didn’t want to become—some kid who turned to the military because he had nothing better to do,
Natalie Whipple
Susan Sontag, Victor Serge, Willard R. Trask
Darynda Jones
Susan McBride
Tiffany King
Opal Carew
Annette O'Hare
William Avery Bishop
Tristan J. Tarwater
Robert Jordan, Brandon Sanderson