Author's Notes: If it's not made clear enough in the story, all of the people participating in sexual acts in this story are over the age of 18.
This story is a part of a larger series. It is not at all impossible to understand what is happening by reading just this installment, but I would suggest that you read the first one in the series at least to better understand the storyline and the characters.
Please, don't forget to comment, rate, and if you like it, favorite the story. Constructive critique and feedback are always welcomed.
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+++ An Irritating Conversation +++
"Do you think they would actually cancel today's broadcast?" Selena asked Michelle, who was still doing her best to keep half-ignoring her. The raven-haired beauty didn't care, further telling the blonde, "I don't know about you, but I'll get pissed off if that happens. This is supposed to be a serious enterprise. Or, at least, that's what..."
"Yeah, I get what you say, Santos," the rich girl replied, in a tone clearly betraying to Selena that a twist was coming. "We all have stuff that can drive us crazy, don't we?"
Selena just sighed.
Of course she had to say that.
"Look, sorry that we're in this awkward situation, but as I already said, I'm not changing my clothes," Selena replied, reinforcing what she had already made clear to her fellow contestant when this unfortunate situation had become apparent to them. "In this building, when I get dressed for an episode, that outfit ain't coming off until I'm getting laid. That's simply how it is. Ashton," she finished, with emphasis.
It had, by now, been four days since the last episode. It wasn't an unwelcome change of pace. The remaining contestants, along with their family members, and, Selena was sure, the staffers as well, only took that as an opportunity to settle even more fully into the routines they were finding themselves in in the studio building. Along with occasional visits to the always-welcoming hotel, of course.
Nevertheless, they weren't here to vacation, and so, when Jake had called to say that the next episode was to be recorded today, she quickly started happily preparing. Undoubtedly, the others were similarly ecstatic. Not that she could be sure, but her father, at least, shared her excitement.
Nevertheless, whatever the others might've thought and felt when they received the announcement, there was a generally positive atmosphere in the room when the Santoses arrived to join them.
Of course, when Michelle noticed Selena, that changed at least on that front, but overall, they were all looking forward to it.
So, they waited. And waited. And waited. Then, they realized that an hour had passed, and nothing was happening. They tried to call the staff, but it seemed that nobody was available, and a few of them started already talking about just returning to their rooms and leaving it at that.
In the end, they didn't do that. When, after half an hour, Amelia, the staff member who ended up being much more of a contestant than she would've liked thanks to Jake and their other colleagues, showed up and explained the situation to them, they realized that they should've done so. According to the Latina, everything was ready to go... and then it wasn't.
Something big had happened, and, rather scarily, it didn't seem to be purely technical. What seemed to be the entire management of the show, along with their superiors of course, was urgently needed to deal with the issue. Until that was at least partly dealt with, there was no chance of the show happening today. Curious as to what was happening, Marianne asked whether they were facing a hacker attack and whether she could use her brain to help, but Amelia just told them all that they were free to go back to doing whatever they were doing before and to wait until the show gets back on track before hurriedly leaving.
Notably, though, she didn't deny the slender blonde's theories either.
And so, with nothing else to do, most of the contestants just returned to their rooms. For the first few minutes, Selena and Eric just joked about the situation with Martina. Quite a few people online took it pretty badly, to say the least, when after days of waiting, a countdown to the start of a new episode had once again appeared on the show's official site, only to suddenly disappear just a dozen or so minutes before it was supposed to reach its end.
As nice as joking around was, Selena especially soon started feeling that it was time for the conversation to stop. Providing space for her parents to do what they've been doing every day ever since her mother came here, because of course they were in the mood to do it again, she left their "apartment" for the lobby, deciding to grab some snacks.
It was there, at the food stand operated by what she understood was an external company linked to one of the higher-ups of the company behind the show, that she once again met Michelle, the two of them now more or less alone. Not willing to let such a good opportunity to talk go to waste, Selena immediately started conversing with her after they both took the food they wanted and sat on the chairs around the closest circular, glass table.
The topics of the discussion were both the current circumstances of the show, which Selena was happy to theorize about, and the specific, uncomfortable circumstances the two of them had found themselves in, which the busty brunette had much less appetite to talk about, but she knew that her curvy, blonde conversational partner had her priorities set exactly opposite to hers.
"I'm not saying that you need to change," Michelle replied, after a pause to think up a way to respond to what Selena had said. "I'm just saying, can't you at least get a coat on or something? I'm sure that you have a lot of sexy ones, everyone has them nowadays, and it would give your fans something new to look at. A change," she insisted.
Selena just rolled her eyes.
The unfortunate circumstances that they've found themselves in, and which the pampered blonde kept on bringing up with varying degrees of passive aggressiveness, concerned the fact that both she and her fashion-aware co-contestant have found themselves wearing the same outfits.
Well, almost the same. Selena's corset was a darker shade of pink, but her asymmetrical green skirt had more pearls on it to compensate for the lost shininess.
"Oh c'mon Sant... Selena. I know that even you understand what this is about, and are just playing to piss me off," Michelle said. "Just look at us. How we look. I mean, seriously, we look pretty much the same! Body-wise, I mean, of course. If somebody took away your heads... and added some size to your breasts and a lot of curves around your hips and ass, then..."
"What exactly did you just say?" Selena asked, in a more agitated tone than the blonde was prepared for.
Nevertheless, she didn't change the answer she had already prepared.
"That you simply need to change your outfit unless you want our fans on the website to start confusing the two of us after some troll posts that we dyed our hair," she confidently answered. "That could easily bite us both in the ass."
