A STORY by NAT RAUM
A New Bombshell Enters the Villa
Love Island Villa, Fiji, Summer 2040A light breeze stirs the air around Luna, and Maverick sighs in euphoria next to her. Today is still, sticky, and the wind dries the sweat beds forming at Luna’s hairline. Her bikini consists of two tiny triangles stretched over the areolas of her fake D-cups, and the bottoms leave little to the imagination. Still, Luna perspires like her body doesn’t know she is supposed to be impressing Maverick with her many flawless attributes, odorless body among them.
Suddenly, a loud chime is heard throughout the villa, and Braelynn yells “I got a text!” from the kitchen. The islanders skitter out from their perches in the villa’s various alcoves, all of which are bestowed a name in the form of a neon sign; River and Miami stop making out in Soul Ties, while Jagger and Jennifercaitlin come running from the newest hidey-hole, Crank That Hog, which had quickly become a favorite of theirs. The mass of other islanders on the pool deck, Luna and Maverick among them, gather around as Braelynn brings her phone over.
“Islanders,” Braelynn projects. “Today’s challenge, ‘Shoot Your Shot,’ will have you going for the goal and showing hole.” The boys chortle; the girls titter. They each retreat to their gender-segregated dressing rooms and don their respective slutty soccer outfits, one for every color of the rainbow. The girls sport a cropped pinnie and teeny athletic shorts, while the boys squeeze into the same shorts, with no shirt.
The camera cuts to all twelve islanders, six boys and six girls, skipping towards the camera in unison as Irish narrator Rowan O’Dowd sets the scene.
“Today’s challenge is Shoot Your Shot!” The camera pans over an elaborate soccer-field set. “Here’s how it works. Each boy will choose a goalie of the opposite sex. The goalie has to block his shots using only her rear end. Once he’s made three shots, he will run over to the bleachers, blow his horn, and grab a girl of his choice for a kiss under the water cooler.” The camera continues to show the various details of the set, a mostly-pink capsule on an otherwise verdant isthmus in the South Pacific. A shrunken goal and turf setup takes up most of the space, with an automated water cooler in the corner rigged to tip over and drench each couple in slime during their kiss.
“First up is Zayn,” O’Dowd continues. Zayn lines up with Jennifercaitlin as his goalie and blows a kiss to Braelynn, who lets out a whoop from the bleachers. Jennifercaitlin tries to anticipate Zayn’s movements, but she doesn’t know he was a soccer star in high school. He easily nets three goals and runs over to the bleachers, triumphantly sounding the oversized plastic vuvuzela. He grabs Braelynn by the waist and she wraps her legs around him as he takes her to the water cooler station, immediately broaching her mouth with his tongue as blue slime rains down on them.
Next up is Jagger, who can’t seem to fathom the concept of not using one’s hands when playing soccer.
“No, Jagger, you have to use your feet,” Jennifercaitlin yells from the bleachers after he throws the ball into the corner of the goal. Jagger acts confused, and goalie Luna laughs and says “What the fuck is he doing?” Eventually, he figures out how to kick the ball into the goal, though it takes him a while to rack up three scores because he keeps staring at Luna’s bubble butt.
“I’m not gonna lie,” a cutaway talking head of Jagger says. “It was hard to concentrate.”
On set, Jagger finally completes the challenge and dips Jennifercaitlin into an old Hollywood-style kiss under the slime. Maverick lines up in front of the goal, and the rest of the challenge follows a clear shoot-score-blow-suck face cadence until its conclusion, with Braxton pinning Cleo to the wall under the water cooler rig.
The camera then cuts again to a slow-motion shot of a man walking, wearing yet another color booty short.
“Little do the islanders know,” O’Dowd says, lilt in his voice almost sinister. “This team just gained one more player.”
“Hi, I’m Augustus. I’m 24 years old from Dresden and I’m not here to play by the rules,” his voiceover says. Augustus is six foot three, shredded like parmesan, and boasts a panty-dropping German accent. When he jogs onto the set, Braelynn lets out an involuntary shriek, much to Zayn’s chagrin. The other girls follow suit, with whispered “what the fuck”s peppering back and forth among the boys.
“Say hello to Augustus!” host Monique Smith bellows.
“Oh, shit, Monique’s here,” Maverick says. Indeed, the drop-dead gorgeous, ten-out-of-ten multi-hyphenate Monique had emerged from behind the water cooler, now gliding towards the islanders seated on the bleachers. All goes silent as she takes her place in front of the goal next to Augustus.
“We thought you all could use another player,” says Monique, devious in tone. “Well, you know the rules. Augustus, choose your goalie.” He chooses Miami and everyone ooooooohs. He sinks three easy shots and charges over to the bleachers for the vuvuzela.
“I was so shocked and excited,” admits Miami in her talking head. “Ain’t no way I was gonna block those shots.”
Augustus throws down the vuvuzela and reaches for Luna’s hand. She playfully covers her mouth as she takes his hand, and the chorus of ooooooohs intensifies. It circles around Maverick like a maelstrom in his mind as the German bombshell pulls Luna over to the water cooler station and envelopes her in a passionate kiss. The pressure and pain builds in his chest while Luna kisses back, wrapping her left leg around Augustus’ muscular body. Maverick’s sweat grows cold; his breath grows short.
“Shit, dude, are you okay?” says Jagger, noticing Maverick’s discomfort only moments before he falls off the bleachers onto the ground. For a moment, the melee of the challenge eclipses the horror unfolding, but slowly, the islanders move their attention away from Augustus and Luna’s steamy makeout to the paramedic team rapidly surrounding Maverick as he writhes in pain on the ground. Luna and Augustus are the last to notice, immediately thrust into disaster from the throes of ecstasy. The medivac hovers in the distance as the paramedics furiously touch Maverick’s neck in a desperate search for a pulse. Braelynn and Jennifercaitlin both scream, and Luna’s jaw drops as River says “Whoa, what the fuck is happening?”
“Time of death: 14:38,” one paramedic declares to the others.
nat raum (b. 1996) is a bisexual Aquarius seeking casual connections with good communicators. Find them online at natraum.com.