Chapter 7: Stealing the Show

Chapter 7: Stealing the Show

The main stage was not a stage; it was an altar. A circular platform of polished black marble, surrounded on three sides by steeply tiered seating that rose into the shadows. The fourth wall was the familiar, terrifying sheet of one-way glass, but here it felt larger, more absolute. The audience was closer, a breathing beast of masked faces and expensive clothes, their collective anticipation a physical weight in the air. I could feel their hunger. They knew this was a crucible. They had come for a sacrifice.

From a prime seat in the front row, I could just make out Julian’s silhouette. He wasn't trying to hide. He sat forward, a smug emperor in his private box, waiting for the lions to be released. His gaze was a tangible force, willing his script into reality.

Isabelle, his living weapon, moved to the center of the stage and lay down on a low, velvet divan, arranging herself in a pose of elegant repose. She was a work of art waiting to be admired, a beautiful, empty vessel.

The performance began with Julian’s first beat: Devotion.

I walked toward Natalie. My heart was a cold, steady piston, pumping ice through my veins. The fear was gone, burned away by the cold fire of defiance. Julian wanted me to play the part of the trusting, blind lover. So I would give him the greatest performance of devotion he had ever seen.

I didn't just act. I remembered. I channeled the frantic, desperate desire from that first night at the party. I drew on the protective instinct I felt when Julian first confronted us in the lounge. I knelt before Natalie, taking her hands in mine, and looked up at her with an adoration so complete it was suffocating. I kissed her palms, her wrists, the line of her jaw. Every touch was infused with a genuine, desperate sincerity. I wasn’t playing a part; I was weaponizing my truth.

Beside me, I felt Natalie respond, her body melting into my worship. Our chemistry, the spark that had started all this, ignited into a controlled burn. We built a world on that stage, a sanctuary of two that felt so real, so private, that the audience became intruders. We were lulling them, lulling him, into our trap.

Then, as scripted, my focus shifted to the divan. To Isabelle. The Unveiling.

I was supposed to look at her with confusion, then dawning horror. Julian’s script demanded my world break at the sight of her. Instead, I looked at her with the cool, appraising eye of a connoisseur. I let my gaze drift over her, from the curve of her hip to the line of her throat. There was no jealousy in my eyes. Only assessment.

I turned back to Natalie, and in that single look, we executed our betrayal. Not of each other, but of him. I didn't ask Who is she? I gave a slow, deliberate nod. A nod of approval. A nod that said, She is acceptable.

The story shattered.

Natalie understood instantly. She rewarded my move with a slow, wicked smile that was meant only for me. This was the moment. The Choice. Julian’s script demanded she turn from me and go to Isabelle, choosing the new over the old. And she did.

But it was the way she did it that changed everything.

She didn't leave me. She rose and walked toward Isabelle, but her every movement was a performance for me. Her walk was a siren’s song directed back at her true audience of one. She trailed her fingers along Isabelle’s body, but her eyes, blazing with triumphant fire, never left mine. She wasn’t choosing Isabelle over me. She was presenting Isabelle to me.

She was not the betrayer. She was the priestess, bringing an offering to her god.

The audience shifted, a collective murmur rippling through the tiered seats. This was not the story they had been promised. This was something new, something dangerous and intoxicating.

Now came my part. The Watcher. Julian’s grand finale for me. My scripted emasculation. I was to watch, broken and impotent, as Natalie and Isabelle found their pleasure without me.

I did not move from my spot. I did not rage. I watched. But my stillness was not submission. It was dominion. My gaze was not the empty stare of a broken man; it was the focused, commanding gaze of a director. Julian wanted me to be a powerless voyeur. I became the lens through which the entire scene was focused. My desire was the spotlight, and Natalie and Isabelle were the performers under its beam.

Natalie leaned down and whispered something in Isabelle’s ear. The puppet, programmed only for Julian’s scenario, could do nothing but obey. Isabelle’s cold passivity began to fracture, replaced by a flicker of genuine confusion, then fear. She was no longer a partner in a seduction; she was a pawn in a coup.

Natalie guided Isabelle’s hands, not to her own body, but to Isabelle’s. She forced her to become an object of her own display. This wasn't a duet of lovers. It was a masterclass in control, with Natalie as the puppeteer and me as the enthroned king for whom the show was being performed.

The theme was Betrayal and Submission. And we were delivering it in spades. We had betrayed Julian’s every intention. And now, we demanded submission.

I finally rose from my kneeling position and walked toward the divan. I didn’t touch either of them. I stood over them, a silent, looming authority. I was the intruder in their scene now, the one with all the power. I leaned down, my face close to Natalie’s, the scent of her hair and skin filling my senses. Isabelle was a warm, breathing prop between us.

“Is she everything you hoped for?” Natalie whispered, her eyes locked on mine, challenging me, escalating.

“She’s a beautiful start,” I whispered back.

Then I kissed her. It was a brutal, possessive kiss, a statement of ownership that claimed her, the stage, and the moment. Our passion was no longer a controlled burn; it was a wildfire. It was a devouring, defiant inferno that consumed Julian’s pathetic script and Isabelle’s programmed obedience. We used her body as the landscape for our fierce, defiant reunion. We didn’t exclude her; we colonized her. She was the symbol of Julian’s power, and we were breaking her, and by extension him, in front of everyone.

The scene climaxed not with Julian’s intended image of my brokenness, but with the raw, undeniable power of our connection. We were a single entity of defiant passion, a maelstrom that had taken his carefully laid plans and ripped them to shreds.

In the final moment, as our ragged breaths filled the silent arena, Natalie lifted her head. She looked past me, past Isabelle, directly at the one-way mirror where she knew Julian was watching, his world crumbling.

“Did you get what you wanted?” she asked the mirror, her voice a silken, venomous caress.

Then, the lights went black. It was over.

We walked off the stage, leaving Isabelle a trembling, porcelain doll on the velvet divan. We didn’t look back.

The silence in the Performers' Lounge was absolute as we re-entered. Every eye was on us. They had seen it all on the monitors. They had witnessed a public execution. Julian stumbled into the lounge moments later, his face pale, his eyes hollow with a fury so profound it seemed to suck the air from the room. He looked at us, and for the first time, I saw genuine hatred, stripped of all its arrogant theatrics.

Then, on the docket screen, the number appeared. It flickered once, twice, as if the system itself was struggling to comprehend what it had just witnessed.

A white, perfect, impossible number glowed in the dark.

A gasp went through the room. Not a 9.8. Not a 9.9. A perfect score. Something whispered about in the club’s lore but never actually seen. It was a myth. A legend.

We hadn't just won. We hadn't just subverted the game. We had broken it. We had achieved the impossible.

And in the stunned, hate-filled silence, I felt a new sensation. A different kind of observation. It wasn't Julian’s glare or the envy of the other performers. It was a cold, calculating gaze from somewhere far above us, from the very top of the pyramid. A gaze that was intrigued by the chaos we had created. The Founder’s Gaze. Our victory hadn’t ended the war; it had just summoned a god to the battlefield.