Castaway Wife, Part 3

[photo: VictoriaAndrea]

This isn't a standalone story. If you haven't started it, go back and read part 1. Trust me, it's worth it.

4. The Buildup

The show didn’t start airing until a month after Chelsea’s return, which, given the polished production, was pretty good. In the run-up, the website published short, video bios on each of the sixteen contestants. Andy watched them all, although at the time, they really were strangers.

He watched Chelsea’s first, of course, and even that one almost felt like watching a stranger who looked like his wife. They had her sitting on a beach with the ocean stretched out behind her. Her hair was loose, catching in the breeze. She wore a pair of metal-framed librarian glasses that I’ve never seen her wear before—doubly odd since she’d had laser eye surgery.

These videos were always shot before the game began, when everyone was clean and bright and unprepared for what came next.

“Hi, I’m Chelsea from Philadelphia,” she introduced herself. Chelsea herself refused to watch any of this. Back then, she was too embarrassed to see herself on camera, and even as they watched the first episode together, she’d spent most of the time hiding beneath a blanket. “I’m 33. I’m a librarian at the National Constitution Center. I guess one of the things I love about my job is sorting and organizing everything that comes in. That’s going to be my approach with this game. If I understand where everyone else fits into the game, hopefully that’ll give me an edge.”

This was Chelsea, her greatest strength, and potentially her greatest weakness. People weren’t books to be categorized to be understood, especially when they were all coming with agendas. Andy had tried to coach her to think that way.

“I’m definitely an introvert, preferring to be around my books.” Her laugh was so cute, and like old times, she adjusted her glasses on the bridge of her nose. “I’m hoping that Castaway will help me get out of my shell some. I’ve been training hard for the physical challenges, but it’s the social element that… I just don’t know.” 

She hid her face in her hands as she laughed nervously. The video cut to her in a more composed state as it wrapped up. “I’ve been a fan since the first season. I can’t wait to play, and I’m bringing it all. Hopefully they’ll see this shy librarian and not see the real threat before it’s too late.”

Interspersed through the interview were scenes from the show, snippets of B-roll to give the viewers a sense of what was to come. Andy studied those more closely than he did her words. Of course, he didn’t know anyone at the time, but he saw her laughing with her ally, Kim. There was footage of her leaping into the water wearing her pale pink bikini. Any time there was another guy in the B-roll, though, Andy felt a jolt of nervous excitement.

Watching the rest of the videos, it was clear that almost everyone there was chosen not just for their diverse stories and backgrounds, but also how well they’d present on television.

Andy was biased, but he thought Chelsea was the most beautiful contestant this season. Being forced to see her the way the network presented her to the world, he really realized how lucky he was. 

Others gave her a run for her money, though. Brooklyn, a blonde from Texas who was identified as a former cheerleader, was hot in a more generic way. Kim, the petite redhead and later Chelsea’s friend, was cute and spunky. Janice was the oldest woman on the show at 44, and in the interview she worried that everyone would see her as the old and vulnerable member. It’s funny how relative age was, and how cruel media could be, particularly to women. Her “profession” was “Divorcee,” which just felt inherently wrong to Andy. Like all the rest, though, she was hot with her bob of short brown hair, her lithe body, her (probably) enhanced tits.

The guys were equally fun eye candy for those looking, covering the gamut of romance novel stereotypes. There was Todd, the Fireman, Kyle, the gym-going investment banker, Isaiah the young personal trainer. Andy glossed past most, other than thinking about all those buff dudes spending an extended time with Chelsea in a tropical paradise.

5. Episode 1

The first episode aired about a month after Chelsea returned from location. They watched it together, cuddled on the sofa in the dark, snuggling beneath a blanket. It was almost like it was before she’d left, although Andy could feel the change. He wondered if things would ever be the same.

“Wait, why are you wearing glasses?” he asked as “Chelsea, The Librarian” was introduced on the customary ship as it headed for the “deserted” island, along with the other 16 contestants. Molly Reynolds was there, getting to know the large cast by firing off questions.

Chelsea wore a pale pink blouse and a cardigan, an absurd outfit for a deserted beach, along with a pair of roundish, metal-framed, granny glasses.

She said, “They told me it fit the librarian persona for me.”

“But… you got LASIK…” Andy didn’t get it.

“The glasses were fake. Not corrective. They were just for effect. I also don’t wear cardigans like that. And Melody on the end there doesn’t really wear flowy dresses, but her persona was ‘hippy chick.’ Mine was ‘nerd girl librarian.’” She shrugged. “It’s part of the fiction.”

“So, like, is any of this real?” Andy asked

“The show? The contest? Definitely. The competitions were real. Most stuff happened, just…” And here’s the thing that stuck with Andy as he watched all twelve episodes of Castaway. “...don’t believe all of the drama. A lot of that is creative editing.”

On the show, Molly pointed at Chelsea. “Tall woman with the glasses, how are you feeling right now?”

Beside me, Chelsea laid it out. “See, that’s how they boiled me down to at first.” She giggled, good-natured about it all. “Tall Woman With The Glasses. At least it wasn’t like my high school gym teacher—big girl with braces.”

On screen, Tall Girl With The Glasses answered the question. “Right now, honestly, I’m feeling overdressed.” The rest of the contestants laughed as she plucked at her cardigan.

“Go ahead and take it off,” Molly said. “Out here, on Castaway, it’s time to leave your old life behind.”

Chelsea looked uncertain about what she was supposed to do as she unbuttoned the cardigan. The pale pink blouse beneath was sleeveless, baring her toned arms which were already starting to brown from the sun. Then, in an act of pure impulse, she threw the cardigan over the side of the ship, into the choppy waters below.

Even Molly Reynolds seemed surprised. “Okay, yes! Shed it all, girl.” She pointed to a man who the screen introduced as Todd, The Fireman, but who Molly addressed as, “Guy with the blue uniform, with the tattoos. What do you think about that?”

Todd looked over at Chelsea and grinned. “She can leave more of her past behind if she wants to.”

The contestants laughed. Molly rolled her eyes, but smiled. When the camera switched to Chelsea, she was blushing, but didn’t curl up into a ball. “And you?” Molly probed. “Are you ready to come out here and play for a million dollars?”

Todd, The Fireman, answered confidently. “Past, future, present. I’m always ready to play.”

6. Episode 5

The first time that Todd and Chelsea started working together, in secret, came in the fifth episode. Andy would rewatch it again, later, when its full significance became clear. Even in the moment, though, it was visceral.

Chelsea’s closest ally at the beginning, Kim, had left the game the previous episode. What she didn’t know at the time, but what the editing made clear, was that the others were scared of Chelsea. They saw the tall, quiet librarian as a threat and wanted to neutralize her early on.

Chelsea was sitting alone on the beach, staring out at the horizon, wearing nothing but her bra and boy-short panties. By episode 5, Andy was almost desensitized to this state of undress.

Todd came along and took a seat beside her. He was shirtless, too, although mercifully he wore his trousers, which were already frayed at the cuffs. “Hey, you okay?”

Chelsea took a deep breath and turned to him as if just noticing him for the first time. “Honestly? No. This sucks.”

“It’s hard when you don’t see it coming,” Todd agreed. “For what it’s worth, I didn’t write Kim’s name down.”

“And I’m supposed to believe that?” Chelsea was in a really bitter mood.

“No, but you should.”

They sat there quietly. The show cut to a different camera, shot from out wide, showing the two of them alone on the wide swath of beautiful beach.

It was Todd who spoke at last. “You looking for another partner?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think I can do this much longer. These people… it’s all so… <bleep> hard.” Chelsea clapped her hand over her mouth and laughed. “I’m sorry.”

Todd put an arm around her, and Chelsea turned into his embrace, letting herself be hugged—hugging him back. 

For Andy, at home, that hug felt like the realization of his worst nightmares and most intense fantasies. They were friends, but also not. He’d not paid much attention to Todd until then. Now he did. The fireman was a handsome guy in a gritty, working class kind of way. He had tattoos up and down his arms and partially across his right shoulder. His muscle-hewn upper body was hairless other than a trail from his navel down into his pants. He had a square jaw, a nose that looked like it had been broken once or twice, and looked good with a week of growth on his face.

Worst of all, he looked good with Chelsea and her tall, dark beauty. Andy could imagine that hug turning into something more. Chelsea in her bra, her full tits compressing against that bare chest, only fueled the fantasy.

It didn’t go there, of course. The hug ended without more affection. It was supportive, yet the editing work suggested that maybe it was more. It captured Chelsea’s blush, and Todd’s furtive look into her cleavage. It captured the awkward clearing of throats between the two of them.

Andy looked at Chelsea on the sofa beside him. Was she flushed now? He couldn’t quite tell in the dark, and when she felt his eyes on her, she shifted over to him. “The editing makes it look like more than it is,” she said.

“It’s okay.” They were the right words for Andy to say at the time, but also a huge lie.

Back on screen…

“Let’s work together,” Todd continued. “But in secret. People see partnerships as threats, and here’s the thing—no one’ll see us coming. No one will suspect. The fireman and the librarian? It’s perfect.”

“Okay, let’s do it. What do I have to lose?”

The show cut to an interview with her alone on a different stretch of beach. She looked more relaxed now, less forlorn. “Do I trust Todd? No. I don’t trust anyone. Trust needs to be earned, not freely given, and right now, all anyone’s been able to do is lose it. But right now, I’m going to keep my options open, and see where this one goes.”

After that episode, Andy dove into Todd’s background. He went back and watched the intro video of him more carefully—fireman from LA, 35-years-old, single, used to be in the army, then joined CAL FIRE to battle in California before “settling down” with the Los Angeles Fire Department .

“Everyone’s going to see me as a physical threat, but I’ve got social game,” he said, adding with a grin, “Especially with the ladies.” His followup laugh wasn’t one of embarrassment.

7. Alliances and Betrayals

As the season progressed, Todd earned Chelsea’s trust, alerting her to a possible vote against her that she was able to avert. Secretly, he armed her with information that she could use to manipulate to their advantage. It helped that Brooklyn and Kyle’s very open relationship—and to a lesser extent, the two gay guys David and Harry’s—were focusing most of the attention on them.

The internet didn’t miss Chelsea and Todd’s secret alliance, though. Andy spent a lot of time on the Castaway subreddit, where there were whole threads each week dedicated to them. Andy would obsess over those posts, torturing himself as he poured over them, jerking off over them when he was alone.

“Chelsea and Todd should just get it on already. They clearly both want it!”

“I know this sub loves BrooKyle, but I’m all in on whatever the fuck’s going on with Todd and Chelsea. Love all the tension.”

“It’s like one of the best RomComs—opposites attracting, everyone knows that they should get together except for them until the very end. It’s delicious!”

Reading that stuff, the virtual cuckold shame was real, and yet he couldn’t stop reading it, again and again, week after week. He was saved from having to deal with it in real life, though, for the most part. The people that he worked with didn’t care about the reality TV game show, he wasn’t close with his family, and didn’t have any close friends.

He did wonder about Chelsea’s work, though. They almost certainly watched it, if only out of curiosity about where she’d been for six weeks. Did they tease her, too? Did they have the guts that Andy lacked, asking her what was up with her and Todd?

But he didn’t have the guts, and Chelsea wasn’t volunteering any insight beyond what was aired. She leaned heavily on the NDA that she’d signed, and how she wasn’t allowed to share anything.

Still, he couldn’t help but notice that she was always down for sex after watching an episode. He wondered what she was thinking about behind her closed eyes, and secretly hoped that she was thinking about Todd.

***

And then, episode 11 arrived, one of the most consequential and talked about episodes in Castaway history. Only five remained. Chelsea and Todd were now openly working with one another, and were in a strong position to make it into the final three. Just one last hurdle. But this was when paranoia set in. It’s what made Castaway such a success despite being on for so many years. There was only one winner. Even the strongest alliance could crumble in the end.

“I will never vote to cast you away,” Chelsea told Todd. 

The cinematography couldn’t have been better. Up there on Andy and Chelsea’s large television, the cameraman had the scene framed perfectly—the two sitting on the beach as the sun set, alone and bathed in orange light and shadow.

Andy watched, enraptured, along with the rest of the viewing nation. Only he had Chelsea at his side—the real Chelsea, back from the game, shifting beside him and refusing to look his way.

On screen, Todd answered Chelsea’s commitment with his own. “And you know I won’t write yours down, Chels.”

Andy squeezed the real Chelsea’s hand. “It’s okay,” Andy told her. “I’m okay.”

“Andy, I…” He hated how guilty this made her, especially as he sat there with his own confused excitement.

“Seriously, Chelsea, I get it. You like him.”

“I liked playing the game with him.” It was a knee jerk clarification. Andy knew it, but left it alone, turning back to the television.

They both knew that there was more to it than that, but both left it alone, turning back to the television.

“We can do this,” Todd said. On screen, Chelsea looked at Todd as he looked off at the setting sun. It wasn’t gamesmanship in her eyes, but genuine affection. When he turned to her, she averted her gaze down into her hands. “We make it through this next vote and we should be able to walk into the final.”

The show cut to a confessional—Chelsea sitting on a log with a stretch of white sand behind her. “I don’t know what to do.” There was emotion in her face. “They are coming for us. If I stick with this alliance, it could be me going home. But if I vote for him, I lose my closest ally and… “

She didn’t finish the sentence, instead looking away from the camera and shaking her head.

“I don’t know what to do,” she repeated before the scene cut to Todd’s much more optimistic beach confessional.

“We’ve got this. Chelsea and I are going to go down as the greatest couple on Castaway.” He grinned. “Not that we’re actually a couple, but hey, a guy can dream, right?”

As Andy watched the series of scenes play out, it felt like someone had fastened a belt around his chest and was slowly tightening it. It became hard to breathe. He started to feel dizzy. It wasn’t entirely unwelcome.

“He likes you,” Andy said. When he looked over at Chelsea, she was flushed. Before she could deny it, he moved on. “You know, that’s pretty… cool.” He was going to say ‘hot’ or ‘exciting’ but chickened out. “It’s got to feel good knowing a guy like that’s got the hots for you.”

“And you know what?” she asked, crawling into Andy’s lap. “He doesn’t get me.” She wrapped her arms around him. “You do.”

They started making out as the show rolled on in the background. Both of them forgot all about it, the outcome inevitable. Chelsea wore a gray, ribbed top that was not only tight over her full chest, but scooped low enough in the front to display more cleavage than she’d ever shown before the show. 

Beneath that, she wore a new bra that she’d purchased since coming back. She’d replaced most of her lingerie since then, and Andy was loving it. This one was lacy white with pink and yellow flowers at the fringes, and did an excellent job pushing her tits together. 

“How are you still so tanned?” Andy asked, admiring the contrast of white against her bronzed skin.

Sheepishly, she admitted, “I’ve been going to a tanning bed. I know, I know, it’s terrible, but the live show finale is in two weeks.”

“Is it bad to say that I love it?”

She ran her hands over his shoulders, caressing my neck. It wasn’t hard to wonder if she was doing this to compare him with Todd, and it was even easier for Andy to conclude that he’d come up short in that comparison. That feeling of inadequacy fueled his lust for her even more.

He kissed her, running his fingers down her smooth body. His cock thickened, and she had to have felt it there against her knee.

Tanning wasn’t the only change that he’d noticed in the last three months. Since the show, she’d gotten herself back up to a healthier weight, although she now jogged every morning and was more regimented at the gym and in her diet. The results were undeniable. She was in the best shape of her life.

The question that wormed its way into Andy again and again was: who was she looking good for? Herself, most likely, and also for him, for an audience eager to see her again on the live show… but also, for Todd?

He kissed her harder. He grabbed her ass, tugging at the waistband of her tight leggings. She wore a matching thong beneath, cleaving her ass and highlighting just how good her round butt was. He filled his hands with them, squeezing her, drawing her closer to him as their kiss deepened even more.

She grabbed his shirt, clawing to get it off, to feel his skin against her own. Efficiently, she reached behind her back and twisted open her bra, shrugging it open Andy kicked off his pants and boxers.

She didn’t take her thong off. She couldn’t wait any longer. She just pushed it to the side, grabbed his cock, and sank down on it. Andy held her closer, her pillowy tits against his chest as she rode him.

Behind her, the final discussion before voting was happening. Molly Reynolds was asking probing questions, getting the five remaining contestants to reveal how they were feeling and who would be going out. Andy was only vaguely listening until he heard something Chelsea said on screen.

“…what you don’t realize watching this on TV is how real these emotions are.”

“Tell me more about that,” Molly probed.

On-screen Chelsea answered. “Like, when you’re not part of all this, it seems so easy to know the right way to play, or the right strategies at the moment. But at home, you’re only seeing one limited angle, and you’re not feeling what we all feel. The five of us… we’re all close. They’re like family.”

Andy looked past Chelsea, towards the TV just as it cut over to Todd, who was watching her and nodding. The camera cut back to a grimier version of Chelsea. She was wearing the pale, pink blouse that she wore from the beginning, now tied beneath her breasts, leaving her stomach bare.

“How do you decide to cast away your family?” she posed. Whether it was editing and splicing footage together smartly, when the camera cut to a closer shot of her face, weary from spending weeks on the beach, she seemed to be looking at Todd. And her eyes were full of sadness as she did so.

Andy tightened his hands on her ass. His cuck angst grew, and his dick swelled with it. “Ah, Andy!” Chelsea cried, tossing her head back. She bounced on him faster, oblivious to the show now. Oblivious to the emotions that she’d once had, or the ones roiling Andy now.

On screen, each player got up to write down a name. They had to write a name. That was the rub. They were family, but in the end, one of the family needed to go. On-screen Chelsea looked so forlorn as she scribbled down a name that the camera wouldn’t show, frowning. When she returned to her seat, she wouldn’t meet Todd’s eyes.

“Uh!” Andy’s balls seized. He tried to hold back. He tried to last just a little longer. “Oh, Chels…”

“Andy!”

Beyond her, Molly Reynolds reviewed the votes. “It’s always tough when we get to this part of the game. You’ve had a good run, but you’ve been cast away…” She paused for dramatic effect. Chelsea was bouncing hard in his lap, and Andy was only half able to focus. “…Todd.”

Everyone gasped, on the show and in living rooms across America. On screen, those who were cast away previously, and who’d ultimately decide the winner, were also shocked. Chelsea had turned on her closest ally. 

“Andy!” she gasped, back in the present. “Andy, come. Come!”

She ground her hips into his lap, taking all of him into her as she squeezed her head and drew him against her chest. Tossing her head, she came hard.

Behind her, Andy saw another version of his wife stand in her seat as Todd gathered his things. She was hurt. She was in pain. She took him into her arms as the camera panned in. “I’m so sorry,” she said to him, so quietly that the show displayed the subtitles at the bottom of the screen. “So, so sorry…”

At first, it didn’t look like Todd would return the hug. He looked just as stunned as everyone else. But that hesitation only lasted a moment. He grinned, folding his tattoo-sleeved arms around her.

“We could have gone all the way, Chels,” he said. Again, the subtitles were there. “Good luck.”

Andy came before the on-screen hug ended. It felt like being struck by lightning. It was like every jolt he’d felt as he watched the show, every spark and sizzle that traveled along his spine, had been balled up into one bright-white bolt of energy. His whole body seized. He rocked backwards on the sofa, thrusting his hips up into Chelsea. He held her hips as the world went woozy. He came and came, emptying all that stored up angst into his wife.

The show was in a commercial by the time he crawled back to some form of sanity. Chelsea was still there, huffing and gasping over him, her body draped over his. He held her close. She was real. She was solid. And she was with him still.

Chelsea was right. In the end, Todd didn’t get her. Andy did. But that didn’t stop Andy from wondering, as always, what if…

8. Episode 12

The penultimate episode aired a week before they were to travel to LA for the finale—the episode in which Chelsea was finally cast away, the fourth and final member of the voting crew.

Andy didn’t know that, of course. He watched from the edge of his seat as the final four played a game of paranoia and deception. As an outside observer, it was obvious that the only two real players left who could win the votes of the castaways was Jason or Chelsea.

He asked her about that as they watched episode 12. “Did those other two know that they were just being taken along because they couldn’t win?”

Chelsea didn’t answer. She didn’t even acknowledge the question. She looked white as a sheet, eyes wide, staring at the television while somehow not seeing it.

“You okay?” he asked.

She realized that he was talking to her, and snapped out of her daze. “Yeah, I’m… what did you ask?”

“Just that it’s you or Jason here.”

“Oh, yeah. I think we knew it, but you never want to tell someone else that they can’t win. You need to pump up their egos and downplay your own.” She said it so matter-of-factly, like she’d been manipulating people her whole life.

They watched the final physical challenge, a long obstacle course that ended in a life size slide puzzle. Whoever won this would be guaranteed a spot in the finale, and as things seemed to be going, Morgan needed to win. Jason had already convinced the other two that she was the biggest threat.

Andy held Chelsea’s hand as she raced through the course. Her hand was just as clammy as his, her body just as tense, even knowing the outcome. 

Chelsea had the edge over Jason. She’d won three other immunities before this moment. She was good at puzzles. She flew through the course, arriving at the puzzle first. But one of the others was right on her heels, and in a critical misstep, Chelsea fell behind.

“You’ve got this,” Andy whispered from the couch. “You’ve—”

But she didn’t. She was a step too slow. Molly Reynolds declared the other contestant the winner, Chelsea slammed her hands on the puzzle in frustration.

“Damn,” Andy swore. “I thought you had that!”

He had started to believe that she actually was one of the finalists, and that when they took the trip out to LA next week, it was to see if they were newly millionaires. He figured that was why she was being so cagey. Without the safety of immunity, Chelsea’s time was over.

Even still, the show did a masterful job keeping him on edge, right through the votes. Despite it seeming like Jason had everyone in his pocket, Andy stayed on edge, right up until Molly announced that she’d been cast away.

“I’m sorry, Chels. I thought you had that.”

When he finally looked away from the television, he found Chelsea sitting quietly beside him, wringing her hands, her face pale despite all the trips to the tanning bed.

A pit formed in Andy’s gut. Something bad was brewing. 

“What is it, honey? Everything okay?”

When she didn’t immediately smile and write it off with the wave of her hand, his blood pressure rose and his chest tightened. This wasn’t just about her getting voted off. For Chelsea, that moment happened months ago. This was something else.

Chelsea couldn’t even meet his eyes at first. She took a shallow breath, squeezed her fingers together, and said, “I need to tell you something.” 

At last, her eyes met his, and it was like he’d been rocketed into the stratosphere, where the air was thin, where he couldn’t breathe fast enough. Giddy and defensive, he made a dumb joke. He leaned in and said, “You fucked Todd.” 

Just uttering those words felt like a rush, his stomach rising into his throat, the thin air of his imagined stratosphere dropping away as he plummeted. Even though he knew that wasn’t it—that it couldn’t be it—stating his greatest fear and fantasy aloud felt so dangerous.

Then he saw her face, the look of surprise, the way her mouth parted and her eyes went wide with fear. She said, “How…?”

“Wait.” No. No, no. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “You really did?”

“Not….exactly. But something did happen…”

Oh, God, oh God!

“…on the last night at Rescue.” A tear rolled down her cheek. “I’m… I’m so sorry.”

***

What a cliffhanger! I don't think you even need a preview of next week. I think we all know where this is going. Part 4 will release next Tuesday, May 7, 2024. Hope you're enjoying this one. It was thrilling to write it.