Kota stared at the message on his phone for what felt like forever, the screen's glow casting a weird blue light across the dim living room.
Eight new members.
Just like that. Beckett's cult—sorry, the Arch-Anal Coalition of Seminal Indulgence, had ballooned from three to eleven in under an hour. He tried to picture it:
random guys out there in Houston, scrolling through whatever cryptic invite Beckett had sent, reading about onyx monoliths and seminal retention and chakra alignments, and actually hitting "yes." It didn't compute.
Part of him figured it had to be a joke or some glitch in whatever encrypted app the kid was using. These things didn't happen overnight.
Recruits needed time to think, to back out, to realize they were signing up for a Sunday night ritual with a robot-voiced teenager and a giant black rock. No way they were showing up today. Probably next week at the earliest, or maybe never if they came to their senses.
Kota set the phone down on the coffee table, shook his head like he could physically dislodge the thought, and reached for the remote. Love Island was still playing in the background, the dramatic music swelling as another contestant stormed off in tears over some fake betrayal. Perfect. Mindless noise to fill the quiet apartment while Khalil was still out grinding through overtime.
He sank deeper into the couch, legs stretched out, bowl of leftovers long since empty beside him. The show had that perfect rhythm confessions to the camera, awkward poolside chats, someone always yelling "I just feel like we're on different wavelengths!" It was easy to zone into.
For the next two hours he let it roll, episode bleeding into episode without him bothering to check the time. One islander got dumped, another coupled up with the guy everyone knew was trouble, and Kota found himself half-smiling at the absurdity of it all.
In a world where half the population had vanished and the other half walked around with planetary asses clapping every step, this manufactured drama felt almost comforting. Normal problems. Tiny stakes. No eight-foot crystals, no tether bites, no sudden cults recruiting strangers while you were just trying to eat rice and beans in peace.
He laughed out loud once when a guy tried to explain his wandering eye as "exploring my emotional availability," the sound echoing off the empty walls.
His phone stayed dark on the table. No more pings from Beckett. No frantic texts from Theo asking if the crystal had possessed him yet. Just the low hum of the TV and the occasional creak of the building settling around him. Two full hours slipped by like that, easy and uneventful, the kind of lazy stretch he rarely got anymore. By the time the third episode wrapped with a dramatic fire-pit ceremony, Kota's eyelids were starting to feel heavy, the earlier panic about the new members fading into a distant "whatever, not today" shrug.
The phone rang sharp and sudden, cutting through a commercial for some lube brand with cartoon asses bouncing across the screen. Kota glanced at the caller ID—Beckett—and felt a flicker of annoyance mixed with resignation. He answered on the third ring, voice already guarded. "What now?"
Beckett's voice came through flat and clinical as always, no hello, no pause for breath. "Too bad. I kinda told them we had a meeting today so you gotta come. Also drink a lot of water because you might need to cum for all eight of them including me."
Kota's brain short-circuited. The words hung there, simple and impossible, like Beckett had just read off a grocery list that included world domination. "WHAT?!?!" He jumped up from the sofa so fast his knee banged the coffee table, sending the empty bowl clattering to the floor. His heart slammed against his ribs, a hot rush of panic flooding his chest. Eight of them. Today. Right now. Cum for all of them. The images crashed in uninvited strangers filing into that big empty apartment, eyes hungry, Beckett standing there with his blank face and black robe explaining vibrational attunement while pointing at Kota like he was the main attraction.
He was pissed, the kind of sharp anger that made his fists clench and his jaw lock. Beckett had just volunteered him, no warning, no ask, just "too bad" like it was nothing. "You can't be serious," Kota snapped, pacing the small living room in tight circles, free hand raking through his still-damp hair. "You told a bunch of random dudes we have a meeting and now I have to... what, service the whole group? Including you? After I just hauled your damn rock all afternoon?"
He kept ranting for a solid thirty seconds, voice rising and falling, the frustration pouring out in a stream of "this is insane" and "you don't get to decide that" and "I barely know you people."
But underneath the anger something else shifted—resignation, maybe, or the weird pull of that tiny micro-smile he'd seen earlier, the one that made Beckett seem almost human for half a second.
The cult was already happening.
The members were real. Walking away now would just leave Beckett to handle whatever chaos he'd started, and somehow that felt worse than stepping up. Kota stopped pacing, took a deep breath that tasted like leftover hot sauce and defeat, and forced his voice steady.
"Fine. What time are they coming?"
Beckett answered without hesitation, the same monotone delivering the news like it was the weather forecast. "Now. And they are already at the parking lot."
"Shittt! Fuck!"
The words burst out of Kota before he could stop them, raw and loud enough that he glanced at the door like Khalil might somehow hear from across town.
His stomach flipped hard, a fresh wave of panic spiking through the calm he'd built over the last two hours. They were here. Right now. In the lot downstairs, probably climbing out of cars, adjusting their clothes, wondering what the hell they'd signed up for. Eight strangers expecting...what? him?. His cock.
His load. After he'd spent the whole afternoon thinking it was weeks away. He hung up without waiting for more details, heart hammering so loud he could hear it in his ears. The TV was still babbling in the background, some islander crying about trust issues, but it felt a million miles away now.
Kota bolted to the kitchen sink, hands shaking as he grabbed a glass from the cabinet. He filled it to the brim and chugged it down in one go, the cold water hitting his stomach like a shock. Refilled. Chugged again. The third glass went down slower, but he forced it. Fourth one he sipped while leaning against the counter, eyes closed, trying to breathe through the rising swirl of nerves and disbelief. Four full cups. His bladder already felt the pressure, a heavy fullness that matched the instructions Beckett had casually dropped. Drink a lot of water. You might need to cum for all eight of them. The sentence looped in his head, absurd and overwhelming, making his face heat and his pulse race faster.
He set the empty glass down, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and stood there in the quiet kitchen, staring at the faded linoleum. His mind raced through half-formed thoughts, how many would show, what they looked like, whether any of them had second thoughts like he was having right now, but he pushed them down, focusing instead on steadying his breath. In through the nose, out through the mouth. Get into the headspace.
The same one that had carried him through the principal's office, through Theo's desperate begging, through every unexpected twist since the pantsing in the hallway.
He could do this. Had to do this. The apartment felt smaller suddenly, the walls closing in with the weight of what was waiting downstairs. Kota rolled his shoulders, flexed his hands, and tried to summon that calm, dominant focus he'd stumbled into before. It was shaky at the edges, edged with fresh panic, but it was there. He glanced at the clock on the microwave—numbers glowing soft green in the dim room—and felt the seconds ticking louder than they should. Any moment now the knock would come, or the text, or the sound of footsteps in the hall. His body hummed with the water he'd forced down, a strange mix of readiness and dread settling low in his gut. He wasn't ready, not really, but the meeting was happening whether he stepped out or not.