“Oh my god…” says Gigi, who, like me, has caught on.
“What is it?” asks Max. “What am I missing?”
“What if… we make them think we’re shooting a film?” Twyla grins at Lamé.
“Like, this whole place is a set?” Max is catching on.
“Exactly.”
“We’ve got a ton of extras.” Twyla’s spitballing.
“Other roles, too.” I look at Benji, who’s in jeans and a T-shirt. “You could be crew.”
“I call costumes!” yells Lamé. “I wasbornto do costumes.”
As everybody shouts out ideas, too fast to keep track of, my brain starts rolling through options. We could transform the camp pretty easily, make the spaces into things they’re not. We’d take down the pet pens and turn the Sex-o-drome tent into an outdoor eating area. Cast stays in the cabins, the tents are extras. The only overtly kinky areas, like the Dungeon, would have to remain what they are.
Which is fine, given the leaked footage. The film will have to have a kink element.
“What if you’re undercover in a kink club?” Twyla asks, proving that we’re headed in the same direction. “It’s a big ask. Can we make it stick?”
“What if we go on the attack,” Gigi joins in. “Say, I get both your PR teams to reach out to one or two outlets. Like, I don’t know,Entertainment Tonightor something. And let them come in and film.” Liev opens his mouth and Gigi pushes right through. “Specific areas only.”
“Show the bench where I was spanked. Set up lights and so on to make it look real.”
I meet Liev’s gaze. “It’s a lot of work.”
“We can do it.” Lamé stands tall.
“Everyone’ll pitch in,” Benji agrees. “Hell, aren’t BarbieMoll and Kenwah roadies for some huge band? Isn’t that their day job? Those people get shit done.”
“This means trusting everyone,” Grace says, watching me closely. “This means opening your life up, to the other campers, at least. It means going to them with the problem and letting them help solve it.”
I nod. “I know.”
“It means sharing the load, Zion. Opening up. Being real. Can you handle that?” Liev and Grace and Lamé wait, knowing what a huge step this is for me. They want to be a big family? Where I come from, family’s equivalent to nothing but pain, loneliness, shame. On a baser level, it’s hunger and filth. Dirt poor’s an expression for a reason.
I look from one face to another—Benji, Max, Gigi, Lamé, Grace, Liev…Twyla.
“We can handle it,” she says in the steady, rich voice that feels like floating on my back in warm waves, looking up at the stars. She’s watching me, her eyes blazing with their singular combination of soulful and kind, bratty and strong. There’s an inner power to Twyla that shines through, no matter what she does. A strength that’s bone-deep.
And she’s mine. Not just to play with and pretend with like we do here, like we did out there in an entirely different way, but for real. Right here, in this moment, she’s giving me something greater than just her body, her career, her pleasure. This is faith. Belief. In me.
“Yeah?” I ask and then, because she’s so damn solid, I turn and look at the others, too. “We can do this.”
Twyla smiles and I swear the crash of thunder overhead’s a direct response from the sky. An agreement. A confirmation. “We can. Together.” She strains up and tilts her head back and, without thinking I bend down and meet her lips with mine. I ignore the gasps from the people around us and focus on the hot press of her mouth, the quick flick of her tongue, the scrape of teeth and then one word that seals my fate to the end of my days. “Mine.”
The room breaks out in applause, Twyla smiles against my mouth, which turns into a giggle that I sip at like fine wine. “Mine,” I whisper back, certain, for the first time in my life, that everything I want is right here.
“Y’all better wrap that up if we’re gonna do this,” says Gigi, grinning like a fool.
“Yeah.” Lamé gives me a slow up and down. “Someone needs to make you look like a movie star.”
* * *
Eighteen hours later…
Twyla
