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and credit to "theGreatxIam" is given and no alteration
is made to the body of the work. Copyright 2002,
theGreatxIam

The Fish Tank
in honor of ASSDÕs FishTank
Chapter 3 (of 5)
By theGreatxIam

Champagne was flowing freely back at the studio as the
producers celebrated.

Jon would be a perfect winner, all set to step onto
talk shows, sitcom cameos, even -- dared they dream? --
movies. And every appearance, every article would have
to note that he got his start on "The Fish Tank."

Janelle would lose in the finals, of course. She was
even more vapid than Jon. But she'd guarantee them two
more weeks of sex appeal and tons of diversity points.

One producer -- an androgynous being in a silver
jumpsuit -- noted cheerfully that they were even
squeezing a little extra drama out of Pete and Des. The
others nodded politely and got refills.

---- ---- ----

Though the living room of the Tank was spacious, Jon
and Janelle cuddled together in one corner of the white
leather couch.

Janelle had a special gleam whose source was no secret.
Night-vision binoculars were very popular with the
crowd, so everyone knew the couple had been celebrating
their success every night with a sexual display that
looked like ghostly gymnastics in the greenish screens.

Pete perched on the edge of a small hassock, hands
drumming on his knees.

As far from him as possible, Des sprawled in a plaid
recliner, feet not touching the floor. She ignored the
host during the intro, staring only at Pete with naked
fury.

As the floor director counted down to air, Pete bounced
up. "It's too damn hot in here with all those lights,"
he said, and he ran around the room flinging windows
open. He just got back to his seat when the count
reached zero.

Once the host's smarmy introduction was over, the
cameras swung to Jon. Before he could even open his
mouth, though, Pete was talking. When the cameras
refused to seek him out, he marched over and planted
himself in front of them.

Up to that point all he had been saying was that he
wanted to be heard. But then Jon tugged on Pete's
sleeve and quietly said it was his turn first. "We drew
lots, you know. Fair is fair."

Pete's hands flew out from his sides. "Fair? You're
telling me about fair? Ha! There was no 'we' drawing
lots. The producers told us they did. And we all
believe them, don't we? Because the producers would
never lie.

"No, not them. Not the same producers who fixed every
contest so Pretty Boy would win. Not the producers who
edit all the shows to make the audience hate the people
they want them to hate.

"And since when are you such a stickler for the rules,
Pretty Boy? You weren't so ethical when you told me
you'd give me a free pass if I made nice with the Ice
Queen."

Des had been staring in shock like everyone else, but
Pete's last comment snapped her out of it.

"Ice Queen? You think any woman who doesn't fall all
over you is frigid? Then the whole world must be
frozen, because I didn't see anyone trying to jump your
bones. Not even that airhead slut over there!"

"Hey!" Janelle simpered. "That's not nice. Tell them,
Jon."

"Yeah," Jon said, cuddling closer. "Be nice. Look,
we're all friends, right? It's been a long time in
here, and the pressure and all. We're all bound to be a
little cranky. But there's no reason to be nasty. I'm
sure Pete's sorry he suggested those things about the
producers -- right, Pete? You know the show's on the
level."

Pete smacked Jon with the back of his hand. "Shut up,
you obsequious moron. A six-year-old could see the
show's rigged. The whole thing's a crooked game. Like
those tours they sell. Jack up the prices for fleabag
hotels. Charge $25 for a T-shirt that fades in five
days. It's all a rook. Des knows. Ask her -- she was
talking about it last week. And is she getting a penny
from those 'Des the Destroyer' nutcrackers? Not a damn
cent! It's all a rip-off!"

"Stop it," Jon said. "Stop it this instant!" As he said
it while cowering on the couch, it wasn't very
impressive.

Des took a more forceful approach, leaping into the air
and landing on Pete's back. "You're a lunatic," she
yelled, hands around his neck. "Shut up or they'll
throw us out and we won't get anything! You may not
care, but I need that money."

Pete pried her off and advanced on the cameras. He
grabbed the lens of the one with the glowing red light
and stuck his face just inches away.

"Hear me, America! The only thing more unbelievable
than how phony this is, is how you nitwits swallow it.
Why are you watching this? Don't you people have
anything better to do? What, is wrestling too real for
you?"

In the background, Des had been tugging on Jon and then
the host, trying to get them to take on Pete. When they
refused, she clouted both of them on their heads and
ran over to the cameras, desperately unplugging cables
while shrieking at Pete.

As the light above the camera he'd commandeered went
dark, he abandoned the lens and strode to the closest
window.

Pete leaned out and shook his fist.

"You people are even bigger saps than the home
audience," he said. "What are you doing? Go home and
get a life!"

As he turned away, the last of the glowing lights on
the electronic gear winked out. Des held up the last
cable, wiping sweat from her brow.

A noise made her turn. They all looked -- players,
crew, the lot. The noise sounded like a tornado, or a
freight train. It grew and smothered them. Everyone
looked past the transparent walls.

As far as the eye could see, people were applauding.

The studio had cut off the live feed before Pete even
began. No one watching on TV saw any part of the melee.

That meant they could not understand what had happened
when the final live shot showed Jon and Janelle being
voted out of the house almost unanimously.

---- ---- ----

The studio conference room was just two eye gouges and
a knuckle flick away from a Three Stooges scene. Two
producers were slugging it out atop the table until one
of them skinned his/her knuckles on the other's chin.
He/she fell back in pain while she/he staggered in the
opposite direction. They both fell off opposite ends of
the table onto pileups of other producers. There have
been mosh pits with fewer tumbles.

From the tumult, occasional bits of coherent speech
emerged: "How could they do that?" "Who fucked up the
polling?" "All the money we got, couldn't we have
gotten Janelle a damn personality implant?"

In time, they were able to discuss things calmly. The
polling had been accurate, as far as it went, said a
producer who either had long sideburns or a seriously
bad beautician. What the survey had missed was a
last-minute stampede to Pete and Des based on a belief
that they would rip each other's guts out if caged up
in the house for two more weeks.

"And ours," someone in the back said.

"Huh?"

"Exit polls indicate the crowd bought Pete's
accusations of us. In short, they think we're cheating,
and they wanted to shove it up our ass."

The director groaned. "What's their problem? Did we get
every conspiracy nut in America? What else do they
believe? That Oswald didn't act alone and Elvis is
alive?"

The room burst into laughter. One producer curled up a
lip in a sneer.

---- ---- ----

It was traditional -- if anything can become
traditional in four years -- for the big glass house to
get a thorough cleaning the morning after the final two
players were chosen. That part went according to plan.

It was also traditional for the cleaning to be followed
by a series of photo shoots as every magazine and news
service vied to be the overkill straw which broke the
smelly camel that is public fascination with a
celebrity.

That tradition, however, did not survive. Pete flew
into a rage when the photographers arrived. As it would
have been impossible to hide from them in the Tank, he
didn't try. And as the shooters would have been quite
happy to get close-ups of him biffing a fellow
photographer, he didn't act out his anger. He simply
sat. For hours. Staring blankly, coldly. Most
definitely unphotogenically.

This caused the frustrated legions to descend on Des.
She wasn't camera-shy -- no one could survive the Tank
if they were -- but she quickly grew tired of the
attention. She had cameras following her whatever she
did, drawing them like a dead bird does flies. This
metaphor, in fact, was one she herself uttered when
flashes greeted the successful conclusion of a trip to
the bathroom.

She begged Pete to loosen up, but he wouldn't even look
at her. The lenses, on the other hand, wouldn't look
away. She scratched, and a dozen cameras zoomed in on
her butt. And no 63-year-old butt, she said, no matter
how well maintained, is going to look good in a zoom
lens.

Only the end of the evening brought some relief, as the
photographers packed up and left. The pros, that is.
The shutterbugs in the crowd outside kept the night
twinkling with flashes. It was cold comfort that the
flashes, bouncing off the glass, would wash out the
photos. By 10 Des looked haggard and flinched with
every flash.

She dragged herself to bed -- with everyone else gone,
they got the master suite at last. The first night she
had slept in her own bed anyway, apparently leery of
sharing sheets with Pete. That second night, it wasn't
an option. The clean-up had included emptying the other
bedrooms.

Even if Des had an objection, she looked in no
condition to battle. With pronounced bags under her
eyes and a stoop in her step, she shuffled toward the
big bed and settled blissfully under the covers.

Bliss lasted 15 seconds. Pete stormed into the room and
ripped the covers off.

"Cotton sheets?" He wadded them up and threw them into
the hall. "Des the Desirable deserves better than
this!"

Des, who had been flung to the floor, sleepily
protested that cotton was good enough.

"Not even close," he shouted. "If the chiselers running
this show think they're going to give you cheapjack
trash because they didn't get their way with the vote,
we'll show them. No cotton crap for my Des. It's silk
or nothing."

He raised a fist to the nearest camera. "Do you hear
that, you lousy bastards? If you know what's good for
you, you'll get some decent sheets in here first thing
tomorrow!"

Des gathered her nightgown around her -- a
flower-patterned cotton -- and crawled back into bed.
As she curled up into a fetal position, she sighed.
"Fine," she said, "forget the sheets. Let's just get
some sleep. I'm going to be out 10 seconds after my
head hits the pillow."

The accuracy of her prediction wasn't tested, for Pete
yanked the pillows away before she could put her head
down.

"What are these?" He pounded the goose-down pillows.
"Put your head on these and they flatten out. That's
not a pillow."

Again he addressed the unseen producers. "Can't you see
how tired Des is? And what do you give her? These
pillows are flatter than Kelly Ripa's chest. If you
can't provided decent foam pillows with some support,
why give us anything at all?"

He threw the pillows after the sheets.

Des started to protest, but she looked like a beanbag
with all the sand running out. She sank back, cradling
her head in her hands as she closed her eyes.

A thump made her open them. Pete had slammed a fist
onto the bed.

"You call this a mattress?"

Des groaned.

---- ---- ----

There is no need for alarm clocks in a glass house,
because there is no escaping the sun. It invades every
inch, poking and prodding at eyeballs until sleep is
burned away.

Des blinked, stretched, and froze. Arms, not her own,
were wrapped around her. She wiggled a bit and her jaw
dropped open. She pried the arms off and scrambled to
her feet as nimbly as she could after a night spent
sleeping on the floor. She looked down and shrieked.

Pete opened one eye lazily and looked up at her. "What
is it?," he drawled, scratching himself in various
places. The scratching was easy to accomplish since he
was utterly naked.

Des backed up until her legs hit the empty bed frame.
"You -- That -- Oh!" She shook her head.

Pete glanced down at his morning erection. "Oh, this.
Sorry, did it bother you? Gets that way sometimes.
Especially when I've been cuddling a sexy woman like
yourself."

He eyed her lasciviously. She clutched at her nightgown
and stomped to the bathroom.

Curious feature of the Fish Tank: The pipes provided
colored water. Except for the supply to the washing
machine, all the hot water ran red, the cold blue. Made
quite a spectacle as it coursed through the clear
plastic pipes.

The shower was running a darkish purple when Des let
her nightgown drop to the floor and stepped in. She
closed her eyes and let the water cascade off her skin.

When she opened them to find the soap, two brown eyes
were staring into her blue orbs. She backed away and
shouted, almost slipping as she slammed into the shower
wall.

Pete, on the other side of the glass, just smiled and
kept staring.

Des grabbed for the controls and twisted them savagely.
The water turned blood red. Clouds of steam filled the
shower stall, coating the walls with a vision-obscuring
fog.

Pete laughed and walked away.

---- ---- ----

Wondrous smells filled the air: Bacon, maple syrup, hot
coffee. As Des toweled off, she sniffed and smiled.

Wriggling into jeans, pulling a T-shirt over her head,
she almost skipped as she approached the kitchen. A
puzzled frown crept onto her face, though. She broke
into a trot, grabbed a wall to swing into the kitchen.

The room was full of delicious aromas. What it lacked
was food.

There was nothing on the table.

There was nothing on the stove.

Countertop: Nothing. Sink: Nothing. Fridge --
Plexiglas, of course: Nothing.

She tracked Pete down in the living room, a feat
accomplished simply by looking through the wall. She
stood in front of him, tapping her sneaker-shod foot,
for a full minute. (Try that sometime. It's a lot
longer than you think.)

Finally he looked up from his book.

"What?"

She glared at him. "Breakfast?"

"I threw it out."

"What?"

"Threw it out. Eggs, bacon, pancakes, the lot."

"Why?"

"No good for you. Damn producers. I told them. Give us
granola, we can talk. Wheat germ. Bran. Lots of bran.
Skim milk, none of that 2 percent swill. My Des
deserves healthy food."

"No. I don't. Let them kill me with cream cheese. I
want breakfast!"

Pete rolled over and sat up straight. "Don't sell
yourself short," he said. "You should have only the
best. And I'm going to make sure you get just what you
deserve."

Des started to turn away in disgust, then spun back.
"Wait a minute. You threw it out. But I smelled cooked
food."

"That's right. I ate some first."

She tried to speak several times before she found
words. "You son of a bitch! What about that stuff not
being good enough? I thought we deserved better?"

"That's you," he said. "Me, I'm nothing. It's all about
you, Des.".

---- ---- ----

Time was when Des was so feared by everyone that even
the people on the other side of the glass got nervous
when she was near, as if her eyes could shoot death
rays. Then Pete pulverized her image and some people
put up hate signs. But after a few days of dealing with
Pete one on one, it got really bad.

She drew pity.

Signs saying "Chin Up, Buckaroo" sprouted everywhere.
At night, when dew condensed on the outside walls,
little kids drew happy faces for her. Fourteen old
ladies tried to slip fudge past the guards, and when
Des burst into tears one day the entire crowd broke
into a chorus of "You'll Never Walk Alone." When that
didn't cheer her up, they did the Wave.

The sympathy seemed only to make her feel worse. She
would rage at the walls, stick her tongue out, give
them the finger. All it got her was a group "Awww."

Des took a running leap at the glass, but the crowd
didn't even flinch.

Pete had come up behind her; he saw the whole thing. As
Des let her fingers slide down the wall, he stepped
around her and pulled open the window.

"Stop it," he shouted. "She doesn't need your sympathy,
you assholes. Des doesn't want your pity. She's a cold,
bitter old woman, not some flighty girl you have to
protect.

"She can protect herself! She's nastier than any one of
you, and twice as mean. It's an insult for you to treat
her like a weakling.

"I've known plenty of women in my day, but none as
vicious as Des. You get on her nerves, she'll rip your
guts off. And you people are getting on her nerves. So
back off!"

He slammed down the window and stalked away.

"Thanks," Des said to his back. "Thanks for ... Hey,
you said ... Hey!"


To be continued...

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