The scene jolts onto another. This time there’s a burst of noise and visuals — it seems like many of us are talking over one another. A sinking feeling inhabits my stomach when I realize exactly what we’re looking at. The perspective threw me off, but there’s the creep of recognition as I watch myself punching Adam in the mouth. It’s a good punch. But I try not to commend myself on my boxing skills — which appear to be on-target and almost enough to knock Adam out. Then Adam’s bloodied face hogs the entire screen, his eyes as large and forlorn as any kid’s on a charity commercial at Christmas.
But the last clip is one that grips me with the shock of its existence. There are audible gasps as it’s shown to the others. It’s me — again. I don’t remember it — in fact, I was pretty sure I’d switched the camera off by then. But maybe I didn’t, because fuck, there’s my face on the big screen, my lips sucking Kat’s clit into my mouth like I’m devouring it. The noises Kat makes are wild and intense as she scrabbles to grab purchase on anything she can — the edge of her bed, the twisted sheets, my messy dark hair. There are phantom pains to my head as I remember how hard she pulled, and how surprised I was at enjoying this manhandling. That combined with Kat’s shaking legs on screen is enough for me to grind my palm against my rock-hard cock in the boardroom. The relief is almost shatteringly sweet, and it takes every fiber of my strength to stop myself from squeezing my cock into my fist.
The scene seems to go on forever. It certainly lasts longer than all the other clips; it goes on for so long that it becomes awkward. The room fills with the wet, slick sounds of me eating out Kat. Every so often, my eyes slide up to meet Video Kat’s off-screen and smile at her.
Next to me — in reality, not memory — Kat’s hands are covering her face, shielding her eyes from the humiliation she’s being forced to endure.
What am I doing? I should be protecting her.
It’s enough to wake me the hell up.
In a cold voice, I tell the Merksworths, “Turn it off.”
Unexpectedly, Carla does so. She presses the square stop button and raises the remote control to the lights. “Yes, that’s quite enough of that,” she says, clearing her throat and sounding flustered.
The fluorescent brightness is a shock to my system, but I can make out a pink flush on Carla’s cheeks. She looks unusually disheveled, as though she hadn’t been expecting to become so engrossed in the video.
I try to quash my male ego.
Kat’s moans consume me, reverberating in my skull. I’d forgotten the detail of our encounter; the softness of her thighs around my shoulders, her shouted ecstasy as she came in my mouth. Beside me, Kat’s hands still cover the majority of her face, though her eyes peep between her fingers.
“What a pity,” Merksworth says, uncrossing his legs with panache. “I was rather enjoying that.”
Ignore him, I tell myself, emptying my mind and focusing on my breath.
“As you can see,” Carla begins, “you’ve been quite a busy bunch.”
“Quite a naughty bunch, as well, seeing as we only really gave you one direct instruction.”
Carla presses the button to go onto a new slide of her sick presentation.
The words NO SEX flash up in screaming red letters.
I don’t know what thrusts me over the edge — them speaking to grown adults like we’re five years old, the huge NO SEX banner, or perhaps the shock of watching myself, yet again, in accidental porn star mode. Orgies, cunnilingus, whatever — apparently the camera just loves me so much that it simply must take recordings of me whenever I’m doing it with someone.
I’m struck by the absurdity of this entire situation — so much so that a strange thing begins to happen.
Genuine laughter bubbles up from my chest.
All I can do is laugh. It feels like it’s something pure and good that MCM can’t threaten to take away. Maybe that’s it, the constantly rationalizing part of me thinks; maybe that is actually the reason for this minor rebellion.
Laughter is the one thing they can’t control.
They can’t touch this. They can’t stop our laughter.
And it is truly our laughter, I realize. For the first time in so long, Conor is laughing in delight, as though he’s just been told the world’s greatest joke. I love the sound of his relaxed, happy laughter — it’s so infectious and freeing, as though he were designed to make people laugh.
We catch one another’s eye over the other’s heads and grin, ignoring the fact that everyone else is looking as though we’ve thoroughly lost it.
I don’t feel anything of the sort. If anything, I feel as though I’ve gained something.
Perspective.
17. KAT
THEY’VE GONE STARK-raving mad.
I can’t tell who’s more insane: Leon and Conor, who are currently engaged in the world’s first laughing battle; the Merksworths for being twisted enough to screen what they just did; or the rest of us, all of whom seem to have been cowed into paranoid silence.
Silence must be what the Merksworths prefer. They seem as confused as we do by the laughing gas those two have inhaled.
I am desperately trying to pretend the last few minutes did not happen. I didn’t think a person could be scarred by their own sounds, but yep, I sure as hell never want to hear another moan by me again. Next time — and there’s something genuinely hilarious: as if there’s going to be a “next time” for any of us after this — I will be having... relations... with a gag around my mouth.
“If you don’t stop laughing,” Mr. Merksworth begins in an eerie, silky tone, “you will be suspended from Royal Element with immediate effect.”
I shudder at that slippery voice. He speaks with such a sinister nature at times, it’s as though he’s hypnotizing you. But I mull his words over — if people are still able to be suspended, does that mean there’s a chance that violating their ridiculous NO SEX rule will go unpunished?
And although Merksworth’s threat is enough to gradually quell Leon’s laughter, Conor — if anything — laughs even harder, tears springing from the corners of his eyes.
I stare at him, astonished. What is he playing at? Even Tarek, sitting beside him, appears troubled: he digs the point of his elbow into Conor’s side.
“Do it,” Conor says with a carefree smile. He leans back in his chair, a picture of pure joy. “Do it, please, I beg you.”
Merksworth narrows his eyes. “It doesn’t have to be like this, Mr. McLelland. Your indiscretions were minimal compared to others.”
They still want him, I realize. It’s all an act. They need Royal Element — the money that they generate — much, much more than Royal Element needs them. Right?
It reminds me, bizarrely, of that clip of Tarek and me. Tarek waving my camera out of reach, teasing me with it, and me seeming pretty helpless. But in the end, it was me all along who held the power to getting what I wanted. All I had to do was persuade it out of him.
“No, seriously,” Conor says, this time swinging on the back legs of his chair. “What do I have to do to get kicked out the band?”
Adam looks at him, eyebrows raised. I think my own expression matches his.