Gulliver's Travels: The Broligarchy
Journal Entry 9 | Between the Lines
The corridors beneath the hollow halls of MaraLardo are lined with exposed wiring, the floors a dull grid of maintenance panels, and the air has a mechanical hum, as if the building itself is a sleeping beast. Marco leads me through a series of back doors and narrow passages, his movements quick and confident. His hand is wrapped around mine, his grip solid and warm, a lifeline in the gray space between the party above and the truth below.
"We're almost there," he whispers, his voice soft, barely a ripple in the quiet. "Stay close."
I do. His hand feels like the only real thing in a world made of screens and scripts.
A Glitch in the System
An unassuming panel in an unassuming wall becomes a door with a subtle touch, and the world opens up into a service hallway lined with frosted glass panels. Marco presses his finger to his lips and slows to a halt. The moment vibrates, or perhaps it’s me, my fingers hot under his touch. And then I hear them, and my eyes widen as he turns to me with a sly grin.
“What happens behind the screens -- literally…” he says, his voice filled with intrigue and something else.
Voices filter through the glass, low and rhythmic, and as we move deep, passing opaque screens as if we’re behind the scenes at a movie set, I realize what we were hearing. The panels aren’t panels at all -- not even windows of frosted glass; they’re monitors, the glass displaying live feeds from private rooms, each scene a vignette of indulgence and control.
I’m suddenly tuned to the sounds, as if the key of me is being played by a symphony, and I groan with a rush of something I’ve never quite felt before. It starts just behind the hem of my dress, that deep core that I so rarely showed to anyone anymore, and it radiates out in every direction. My nipples harden, and my legs tremble, and I wonder again at the cocktail they jammed into my tits back at the OptimizationLounge™.
When Marco turns, I jam my tongue into his mouth, and all I can think of is how much I want to be fucked right now. But he spins away, turning me, and forcing me against the wall. A tiny window before me, my hips grind against him as he presses his body in tight, holding me in place. “Watch them,” he whispers, and I whimper as I press my ass against the bulge in his pants.
It’s a window into a world I’ve never seen, and the moment I see it, I can’t look away. My body can’t stop aching for Marco, but the images I can see through the brief gap in the wall consume what little brain power I have left.
Screen after screen after screen after screen. A hundred. A thousand points of darkness and light.
My skin is electric as the serum from the OptimizationLounge™ begins to take hold. It pulses through my blood like a second heartbeat—slow, thick, wet. Every moan from the screens elicits a moan from my own lips. Every light. Every sound. Every movement drives a hunger I struggle to control.
I barely register the mechanical figure in the middle of the room, its many arms manipulating a dozen keyboards, optimizing feeds, zooms and multicams. Faces and bodies and mouths and cocks. Living. Breathing. Moaning. Everyone is fucking, and all I want is to fuck, too.
A man and woman are locked in a continuous kiss—unmoving, eyes open, a perfect image of passion. I look closer and wonder if they aren’t just avatars frozen by algorithmic stasis. Below the screen, a ticker reads: "Top Loop of the Day – 37 Hours Watched."
A woman reclines on a plush chaise, her body draped in velvet and gold, while a man in a mask whispers into her ear, his hands moving in soft circles over her skin as his cock slides into her ass.
Another screen shows a group of Titans™, their suits undone, their laughter a muted echo, as they watched a holo-performance, the dancer’s movements looped and stuttering, a program glitching for their pleasure.
On the far wall, I see a room filled with bodies reclining in chairs, wires leading from their heads up into an iridescent black box. They twitch and moan, tongues licking wet lips, hips gyrating — their real bodies lost in some kind of techno GigaOrgy™.
My eyes fall on a larger screen depicting ten women in identical latex GigaSchool™ uniforms kneeling in front of their desks in a glass box, performing the same sexual act in sync while a digital voice quizzes them on optimization stats: “What’s the conversion rate of guilt to desire in men over 45?” Each mumbles an indistinct answer and the quiz continues, their scores perfectly “0” hovering over their heads.
The mechanical thing keeps typing as I feel Marco’s grip tighten, his fingers digging into my skin. I glanced up to find his face taut, his jaw set in a hard line.
“I want—” I start, but the words slide out of my mouth like silk soaked in oil. I don’t even know what I mean, but I know what I want. I can taste it, like strawberry syrup on sticky fingers. I want to suck and lick and taste every drop.
“You want what they want,” Marco says, his voice low, bitter. “That’s what the serum does.”
Between the Lines
Marco drags me away, and it’s no telling how long before I register we’re moving.
My head is floating high above me, watching the girl who would expose the world one investigation at a time. She moves past the screens, the images slipping into her periphery, a slide show of decadence, each frame a reminder of where she is—and how thin the line is between guest and prey at the Alpha Summit. She reaches for the bodies, claws at Marco’s arms, like steel bars around her waist propelling her forward and through, away from the cascading orgy of flesh that threatens to pull her in like Charybdis.
At the end of the hall, Marco pushes open a door, and we step into a utility room, the space filled with cleaning supplies, stacks of folded linens, and the soft hum of ventilation fans. He lets go of my hand, his skin leaving a warm imprint, and rummages through a box, his face in shadow. I hesitate, but my dress drops to the floor, my pulse a soft thud in my throat, the air around us settling into a tight silence.
"Whatever you want," I say, my voice small, the words slipping out as I drop to my knees and open my mouth.
He turns and looks at me then, his eyes dark, the soft blue light brushing the edges of his face. "I know."
Then he steps closer, and before I can even register what he’s doing, my eyes locked on his cock and hoping he’ll free it now, later, anytime he wants -- I’ll be ready and waiting for him to give me the word -- he jams a syringe in my neck and the world goes black.
De-Optimization Layer
Marco runs a hand through his dark hair, the motion slow, measured, like he’s pulling threads from a tangle. "Back so soon? Usually it takes longer."
I look up, feeling smaller somehow, less than I was, but maybe more. The wall -- I’d seen it building around me, like glass, as if I’d been dropped into an aquarium, the tank filling with water and me just swimming there waiting for someone to tap on the glass. My mouth is dry, but I don’t want to speak. Every word in my head feels like a moan, an OptiMAGA mating call I can’t stop responding to. It had threaded my skull like a silver wire, tugging at the base of my spine as I fell to my knees and begged Marco to make me his own personal GigaBabe™, complete with user manual.
His lips curl into a half-smile. "I see you thinking it through. Good. You’re back." He lifts a hand, letting me not answer, which is a relief at the moment. “It’s the serum. I saw ✨DAX™️✨ send you to the OptimizationLounge™, and I knew you were gonna be in trouble. But you didn’t fold right away, and I knew we had a chance.”
“We?” I feel confident I can get a single word out without begging for his cock. Even now I can’t help but glance down and think about it, but I realize that it’s me who wants it now — not Optimized Samantha, the GigaBimbo™.
“We — yes, we. I can’t do this without you.”
“Do what?”
He looks up, glances around the small storage room, and for the first time I realize I’m on a couch along the back wall wrapped in a blanket. My dress — what’s left of it — sits in a heap on the floor.
“My —,” I start, and I pull the blanket back, and my breasts are — normal. When I look up, Marco is trying not to look, and I quickly pull the blanket back into place. I’m naked. I knew I was. I know, I mean. I groan, my head aching from exertion. “Marco,” I plead and lay back, closing my eyes.
“It’s okay.” Suddenly his voice is close, and I feel the weight of his body on the cushion next to me. “I have someone coming with clothes, food — you’re going to need to eat and drink. The drugs are no joke, and the anti-serum is no funnier.”
I look up into his concern, and I wonder what I’ve gotten myself into. But my mind is already racing ahead. “The Alpha Summit?”
“Begins in three hours. You’ve been asleep for longer, which is good. You’re gonna need it for what’s next.”
📢 "NEW OPPORTUNITY: YOUR PATH FORWARD IS UNSTABLE. PROCEED WITH CAUTION."
My ID band vibrated, a soft pulse against my skin, and I felt the world settle back into its framework, the lines of the system reasserting themselves, the reality of GigaLand folding back over us like a second skin.
🔥 End of Journal Entry 9.
Author’s Notes: For a while here I was going to have this be a major sex scene. I was thinking — and I know this dates me — of the scene in Caligula, when the two girls are looking through the peephole at the emperor having sex with his sister. Yeah, it’s that kind of flick. But when I got to this point, something just clicked and it felt exactly right that the serum would overwhelm Sam — why wouldn’t it? — but Marco would show restraint because he’s all about something else.
It’s weird, but it almost felt like a little victory to NOT have them have sex. I think the story itself is better because of it. It’s the little things, the little moments when you’re writing when you think something will happen, then it just doesn’t, but it was the right thing. Like, you can feel it as a writer — oh, I made the right decision there.
Anyway, this is where we are. Sam has overcome her second major obstacle in less than ten episodes, but this time she needed help. There are many more to come, and a big one is just ahead and is going to create a major shake-up.
Hope you’re enjoying these. I really am, and while I have an idea of what’s coming over the next 20 or so episodes, who really knows? That’s the fun of the way I write — I just let the story and the characters decide, and sometimes I only find out when I type the words.