Click here for part one, here for part two and here for part three.
SPRING
It had been several months since Viola had walked out on Aria. Christmas had been and gone, the New Year didn’t feel so new any more and Valentine’s Day, that most romantic of commercial holidays, had passed by without so much as a card of recognition.
Triple Threat were now but a distant memory. Their fanbase had been dissolved, radios had taken their music off of their playlists and replaced them with new bands, and even the controversy surrounding their dissolution had been forgotten. Chantelle’s attempt at a solo career had fallen flat on its face, as she just couldn’t draw in the crowds on her own and her attitude made it hard for people to want to work with her, so even she was just a memory to most people. Viola had disappeared off of the face of the world entirely. She had sold her place in Camden and hadn’t been spotted out and about by any of the dirtrags, nor had she resurfaced on any television shows or radio stations. She was as a ghost.
New bands had formed. New movies had been released, new television series were trending and, in early March, the sun was starting to shine.
The world had moved on.
Aria had not.
To say that the Italian had been in freefall in the previous months was fair. She hadn’t been seen out and about in any of the papers either, nor had she made any appearances anywhere, she’d just kept to herself, in her apartment. She hadn’t even bothered to go to the family home for Christmas, though she had sent gifts and cards, explaining that she didn’t want to see anyone at all right now. She had been drinking. A lot. And sleeping. A lot. She had all of the classic signs of depression and having pushed her family away like she did, she had found herself completely and utterly alone.
It’s been said that it’s lonely at the top. Aria thought that it was much lonelier at the bottom, after you’ve been at the top. She’d had Viola as a friend before, and, even if she was a backstabbing snake, she’d had some good times with Chantelle, too. Then there were all the record label people that kept in touch, her personal trainer, and the millions of fans and followers that would bombard her with messages online and try to grab her for selfies out in the street and in bars. She couldn’t visit a nightclub in London without her presence being announced and the house providing free drinks (which she always found ironic, given that she had more money than almost anyone else in the club and could easily pay her way) and a lot of photography, but now she lived as a recluse, alone in her apartment. She still had a lifetime of wealth, with no shortage of money tucked away in her bank accounts, and as her apartment and belongings were all paid for, she had no need to go out and get a job. She could probably have lived off of just the interest her money accumulated, so she was free to just wallow in her misery. Each day, she would crawl out of bed at whatever time, move to the couch and watch whatever television show was on, or whatever series caught her eye and, as the day went on, she’d drink herself into a stupor and eventually crawl back into bed, only to start all over again the next day.
Aria had only been in touch with Viola once since she walked out. The very next morning, she had sent a single word text – “Sorry” – which said everything it needed to say, but had earned no response whatsoever. Out of respect for the goth’s wishes, she had unfriended her on all forms of social media and deleted the number from her phone, just to make sure she couldn’t accidentally contact her. Having seen the news of Viola’s place being sold, she now couldn’t even find where she lived if she wanted, meaning that there was absolutely nothing she could do. She had lost her friends from before she was famous already, and the people that she was “friends” with in London hadn’t been in touch once, with several unfriending her online the moment she stopped being famous.
The Italian had never felt so alone, so empty, and so utterly lost before, and while she knew her current lifestyle wasn’t helpful, she didn’t know what else to do with herself. Aria had alienated everyone she had known and driven away those that had been closest to her, and now didn’t know who to go to or how to approach them. She’d left pretty much all forms of social media, and anything that was “official” for Triple Threat had been closed under orders from the label. She had withdrawn entirely from the world.
Thoughts of suicide frequently cropped up, and cowardice frequently forced them back down, though the idea lingered in the back of her mind almost constantly. With her life as meaningless and empty as it felt, Aria couldn’t shake the notion that she was just waiting for death to take her and, rather than wait out the next fifty or sixty or seventy years, perhaps she should just get it over with now. They were not pleasant thoughts, but given that she had lost everything, and it really was all her own fault, what other kinds of thoughts should she have right now?
That she hadn’t yet come any closer to death than drinking until she passed out just left Aria even more frustrated, oddly enough. She felt like a coward for living, even if suicide was portrayed as taking the easy way out. The Italian couldn’t get her head together long enough to think about any of it properly, which was probably the only reason she was still alive right now.
The days, weeks and months had all blurred together. Aria didn’t know the date, she only had a hunch based on the weather and the adverts on television. The adverts for Valentine’s Day had passed, and they hadn’t yet reached St. Patrick’s Day yet, so she surmised that it must have been some time around late February or early March.
She was wearing a pair of grey sweat pants, with her hair pulled back into a loose ponytail and a baggy t-shirt to complete the outfit. Not a Triple Threat one, no, in a pique of drunken fury, she’d shredded all of her band merchandise one night a long time ago, this was just a plain black one. Her hair, once her pride and joy, always in exciting, funky colours, and always so glossy and bright, was now dull and boring. It had been so long that the pink dye had grown out and faded, leaving the Italian with her natural pale brown hair, a colour that she found to be tedious, but she didn’t care enough to do anything about it now. Her nails were unpainted, she wore no make up and she didn’t even bother to shower daily any more, after all, who would see her like this? The only contact she had now was the building’s concierge and the occasional delivery man, and even they visited much less often now. To begin with she had binged on everything – food, alcohol, retail therapy and the rest, to try to pick herself up, but it hadn’t worked. She’d gained some weight and that was all, weight that she had since lost once she started to replace most of her meals with liquids instead. Whether she had the strength of character to commit suicide or not, Aria was killing herself one way or another, and she didn’t care about that. Who would miss her now?
And so, as she lay on the couch, feeling the cool night air tickle her toes, she flicked idly through channel after channel. She spent as much time channel-hopping as she did actually watching television, often plagued by a sense of restlessness that wasn’t satisfied with just doing nothing, but a desire without enough power to get her up and doing something else. Besides, the drink would eventually make such desires subside and then she could settle on something to watch until she collapsed for the night.
On this occasion, something caught her eye as she flicked through the channels. It was one of those out-take programmes, which were usually good for a laugh, so she stopped on it. The current batch of clips were all from dramas and serious scenes in soaps where actors were unable to stop themselves corpsing, despite allegedly being asleep, unconscious or dead. She had gotten used to watching soaps, despite never caring for them before, as their regularity provided some kind of a structure to her evening, so she recognised a lot of the actors involved and wasn’t too surprised to find that a number of them were chronic gigglers. Judging by the clips, this was a from about a year ago… a time when Triple Threat were just getting started. It was from a simpler time, she sighed, before taking another sip from her glass. What had once been vodka and coke was now made with less and less coke and more and more vodka, and as she swilled it, the ice cubes bustled around in the glass, clinking against the walls like boats lost in a storm.
The segment finished and they then moved on to a new section, talking about the hazards of presenting, and how they had two simple rules – never work with children or with animals. Except that they had shown plenty of clips over the years where scenes were ruined by children and/or animals, with little mention of a third entity, one just as unpredictable and dangerous, and especially familiar to presenters of children’s television…
The first few clips were all pretty similar, involving someone taking a pie to the face or a bucket of gunge or some other form of mess and slipping up as a result, leading to everyone involved breaking out in fits of uncontrollable laughter. A lot of famous faces were shown, from a young Johnny Martinez, though to bigger names like Arielle Free and Stephen Mulhearn, along with plenty of guests and members of the public that had taken a tumble as a result of something gooey coming their way.
The segment ended with one longer clip, that had actually been broadcast on live TV about a decade earlier. In the scene, Kate Heavenor had been talking to the new co-presenter of Get Your Own Back, Lisa Brockwell, and while Kate had been assured that Lisa had come on her own, Dave Benson-Phillips, the long-running host and practical joker, was clearly in the studio too and up to his usual wacky antics. Lisa had been on the Friday episode of CBBC from the start, effectively co-presenting alongside Kate, all while Dave was shown sneaking around, making noises and throwing things at Kate, only for Lisa to say that she hadn’t seen anything.
It was obviously building towards something messy and, nearing the end of the show, Lisa announced that, as they couldn’t take Kate to the Gunk Dunk, she’d brought a miniature version of it to the studio! There was a paddling pool blown up and filled just shy of the brim with a mixture of green and purple goop, along with a stool just on the edge of it, all just to give the Scottish hostess could get an idea of how it feels to look down at the mire. Kate wasn’t given any forewarning about any of it, so that all of her reactions were genuine, and, despite some reluctance, she did slip off her trainers and socks to sit on the stool, with her bare feet submerged in the gunge. Everything was going to plan so far, and the call was for Dave to jump out and tip a bucket of gunge over Kate to complete things.
Except it didn’t quite go to plan. Kate was so nervous that, when Dave jumped out, she reacted in terror, shrieking and trying to jump up. Her head hit the bucket Dave was holding, her feet slipped on the gunge, and she lost her footing, knocking over the stool and landing hard on the floor, with her legs out-stretched in the pool. Dave dropped the bucket, which poured over Kate and then bounced off of her head, all while gunge flowed out of the pool and out on to the studio floor, where it got into some of the electrical equipment and shorted out several cameras and microphones. The clip ended as it had done when it went live – in a black screen and several swear words. They had a few photos taken afterwards and footage from another camera that had been running from a poor angle, out of the way of the gunge. They then interviewed both Dave and Kate, and it transpired that, during her slip and fall, Kate had managed to sprain her ankle, and give herself a wedgie all at the same time. She’d taken it in good humour, it was clearly an accident too, but she explained she’d made sure not to get involved in anything similar again!
The show then went to adverts, but the image of Kate, her hair saturated with purple gunge, the shriek and the look of panic on her face that quickly turned to disgust as the gunge oozed over her… it all stuck with Aria. She muted the adverts, staring into space as she thought it over and replayed the scene. Obviously, the end wasn’t quite as it was meant to be, but otherwise, it was great, and Aria found herself thinking about gunge for the first time in months. Since Viola had walked out, in fact, because after that, she’d swore she would have nothing to do with gunge ever again. Yet, as she sat there, alone, she couldn’t help thinking about it and how, even when it wasn’t anything to do with her, she was still excited by the sight of the gunge on television and how she felt something inside of her that was more than just excited, it was aroused, instead. She’d barely had any libido at all since that night, and this was the first time she really felt her body ripple in that way. Whether she wanted to admit it or not, Aria was in no doubt over the fact that for the rest of her life, she’d have to consider gunge to be a turn-on. She sighed out loud and drummed her bare toes on the floor as such a realisation dawned on her. “Fuck,” she muttered to herself with a wry smirk, before un-muting the television as the adverts came to an end.
Aria left the television running as she picked up her laptop. It had been a long time since she’d thought of such things, but seeing the gunge, the anarchy and, above all, the fun of it, even for a presenter with a sprained ankle, Aria found herself missing it. In her current, miserable state, all Aria wanted right now was a bit of silly fun and as she thought back to Saturday Madness and Get Your Own Back, and even her backfiring plan to gunge Chantelle, she found herself missing all of the bright colours and the laughter and the excitement.
She’d never quite made peace with the idea of having a gunge fetish, it still felt clumsy and awkward to suggest, even to herself, that she was turned on by the gloopy goo, but she was in no doubt that it was associated with fun and laughter and good times in her mind. The whole of Saturday morning television was based on bright colours, loud noises, an acceptable level of anarchy and a lot of fun, it was meant to help kids kick off the weekend right and as Aria thought back to it, she realised just how grey her own life felt by comparison. Even her apartment, which was a good, high-end apartment, decorated by experts, with nothing done on the cheap, failed to excite her. The walls of her lounge were white, with black and chrome furniture, and while monochrome was always in style, it didn’t convey much fun. It was impressive, and mature, and oh so chic, but looking at it as if for the first time, Aria couldn’t help thinking that it was all a bit boring if she was honest. Her bedroom was similarly dull, with a muted rose pink and champagne colour scheme, and while her bathroom had a rich blue mosaic border around the middle of the tiled walls, the rest were brilliant white. Sure, she had a few paintings on the walls, but almost everything here was dull, or washed out or muted, it was all so subtle and so restrained… perhaps that was why gunge held such an appeal for her? It was bright, garishly coloured, and wholly unapologetic. It was loud, and obnoxious, and in the same way that a circus clown wore neon trousers and a clashing shirt, Aria understood now that sometimes life just needed a splash of colour in it to make it worth living.
In these few lonely months, Aria had watched a lot of television, and countless films, and so many of them were shot in dark tones. Yes, it might suit a post-apocalyptic nightmare to be dark, or a vampire film, but it washed out all of the colours and left everything dull, and the period pieces, set in Salem during the witch trials, were even worse with everyone dressed in black, white, grey or brown. A lot of what she’d watched hadn’t been great – services like Netflix seemed to go for quantity over quality – and some had been outright boring, but she’d sat through it because she had nothing else to do. The sorting algorithms of such services then promoted more of the same drab shows to her, and so, in a sort of inertia-based Stockholm Syndrome, Aria had continued watching these things. She hadn’t watched anything silly or funny in what felt like a very long time and it was dawning on the Italian just how much she was missing out on that sort of thing in her life.
So she fired up her laptop, and, repeating her actions from months ago, she started searching for gunge online. She found the same forum she had visited before and, in a moment of minor triumph for modern technology, her laptop had saved both her username and password, so she could get logged back in. Surprisingly, for a user that had only made a couple of posts over six months ago, Aria had a few messages, profile comments and even friend requests, all from people she knew nothing about. It confused her for a moment, before a wry smile crossed her face – she hadn’t filled out her profile, but she had given herself the username of “Gunkette”, and these were obviously guys keen to approach any woman they could find. Thankfully she hadn’t given any further details and, as she skimmed the messages, they weren’t anything too offensive – a lot were just awkward attempts at conversation and some were just greetings and nothing more. None of them did anything to pique her interest, and so she quickly typed “Aria” into the search bar, just to see if the forum had responded at all to her past antics and the media’s reaction.
Sure enough, Aria’s search returned several threads, but all of them were a few months old, with no recent posts. It seemed that, even with the controversy surrounding her, Aria was old news here, too. Maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.
Scanning through the threads, there were a few comments from people declaring/suggesting that the band were all wammers again, or at least that Aria and Viola were, with equal numbers of comments authoritatively stating that such notions were absolute nonsense. Once the newspaper piece came out, a date Aria would never forget, the tone changed a bit, with less support for the “Triple Threat are wammers” theory, on the grounds that if it’s in a tabloid newspaper, it must be rubbish. The thread then went quiet and had a brief resurgence about a month later, when it appeared that the band were dead, and that was it. It was very much old news now and but a distant memory for those on the forums, although Aria did suppose that their particular brand of merchandise-driven, teenage-oriented, punk-pop wasn’t likely to appeal too much to the users of a forum with a minimum age requirement.
So, with a drink in hand, Aria started exploring the rest of the forum. She hadn’t really paid too much attention to most of the site during her first visit, but found that it was split into several sections – messy, wet, bodily fluids (a sub-section she did not explore), off-topic, classifieds and a section for adverts. Of them, the messy and wet sections were what she expected, the off-topic was more active than she expected, and the classifieds were a worrying mix of naively open and painfully desperate. The part she found most interesting was the adverts, as she had assumed that the site was just paying for itself through normal adverts, but instead found that these were adverts for people that were producing and selling their own messy scenes. Some looked very amateur, with bathtubs and buckets, but others had gunge tanks and scenery and paid models, with HD footage as good as anything Aria had seen on television. She hadn’t even thought about it, assuming that people were just making do with televised gunge scenes, but to know that there was a community producing their own scenes was something of an eye-opener. Ther was not just demand for the types of things shown on television, but more adult and special tastes too, like the obligatory nude scenes, but also for scenes starring models with a certain look, or wearing certain outfits. Even for models that were smoking during filming!
Aria took a sip from her drink and hummed out loud to herself. She had money, plenty of it, and she could easily find a bit of warehouse space somewhere to do something like this herself. She could pay for models, or even do it herself. It was a ridiculous idea, and it would mean admitting her fetish to the world, so why was it so compelling? Why did she find herself wanting to be a part of this community? Why did she want to actively contribute to a group that didn’t even know she was a member?
She shook her head, trying to shake such thoughts. She may have become estranged from her family, but she couldn’t imagine publicly admitting to her fetish because of how they would react. She couldn’t imagine telling her parents that she was turned on by being gunged, and she was sure that the media would catch wind of it and then everyone would know and her parents would be shamed. They were quite “proper”, and they certainly wouldn’t understand the fetish, and having their neighbours and all of her aunts and uncles know… they were ashamed enough at the rumours that she denied, having it confirmed would be terrible. Then there was Viola, too, to consider. If Aria admitted it, would they tar Viola with the same brush, too? The last thing she wanted was to make things worse for Viola, even if the two weren’t talking.
So what could she do? Dye her hair, put on a mask and a daft accent? Would she be able to convince anyone it wasn’t her? After all, if it was recorded and out there on the Internet, any slip in her disguise or accent would be picked up by someone and then the rumours might start flying again. How would she do it and keep it secret? She shook her head, she was being ridiculous, after all, she had none of the equipment required and she had no idea where to go to get any of it. Yes, pipes could be bought from a hardware shop, and she could get the glass panels there too, but what else did she need? A pump, maybe? Some sort of nozzle? No, she was out of her depth, and it was a ridiculous idea anyway – did she really want to become a gunge model?
Aria yawned aloud, it was getting late and she’d spent almost two hours looking through the site already. She blamed her thoughts on the drink and closed the lid of her laptop, heading off to bed for the night.
—
Aria’s life did not miraculously change that night.
She still woke up the next day, moved to the couch, turned on the television and remained there for most of the rest of the day, but there were some subtle changes over the days and weeks that followed.
Subtle changes like a bright red bedspread, and a colourful Spanish-style painting of a black bull in an arena that now hung on the wall above her television. Several potted plants turned up, but rather than being peace lilies, or white orchids, or just green leafy plants like she had before, these were hibiscuses and bromeliads and indoor roses all in vibrant yellows, reds and oranges. Now when she looked around her apartment, Aria could see splashes of colour from the new flowers to the paintings to the bedding and cushions. Perhaps it wasn’t as chic as the monochrome had been, but she certainly found it all a lot more appealing. It was her apartment, after all, why should she be listening to anyone else about how it should look? If someone thought it was childish to have such bright colours in her bedroom then they were entitled to their opinion, but she’d gladly tell them where to stuff it. The twenty-something Italian had spent her entire life being told what to do, what to think and how to behave, and now she was doing and thinking for herself, and as long as she liked the outcome, other people could keep their opinions to themselves.
Over this period, Aria had become a more frequent visitor to the site. She was checking it daily and joining in with the discussions where she could. She’d been swapping private messages with a few users too, and, while she had kept her actual identity a secret, she did feel a genuine sense of acceptance here. She wasn’t a big contributor by any means and there were a lot of threads about old TV shows she’d never seen, so she couldn’t join in, but she was trying to post where she could, and there wasn’t any hostility. There were plenty of threads from people that had discovered the site and their fetish through various ways, to those that were preparing for their first messy session and were looking for tips on clean up. Aria was by no means a gunge veteran, especially not compared to some of the people here that had been producing photo shoots and clips since before she was born, so there was plenty of sage advice for her to take in, especially in regards to avoiding certain substances like flour that would ruin a model’s hair.
She knew she could never come clean about her real identity. She didn’t actually mind the people on the site knowing and she wondered just how soon she’d be inundated with requests to do shoots with the producers if she did admit it, but she knew it wouldn’t be kept to just this website and just these specific people. She had already learned the hard way that the dirt rags scoured these types of sites for a good story, and given that one had already been to this site and picked up on the murmurs that she and her bandmates might be fetishists, she wouldn’t risk it happening again.
All the same, after a few weeks of mingling and posting, Aria felt compelled to tell her story, or at least part of it. She made no mention of the band, or that she was a celebrity (a term she still struggled with), but simply explained that she had a “sensitive” job and so her privacy was paramount. People would likely assume she was a teacher, perhaps, or a care worker, or maybe she worked for a local council or something like that, she’d seen others on the site phrase it similarly when they needed to make sure that their clean identity was never associated with a fetish site. She also didn’t feel she could really admit to having appeared on Get Your Own Back even though such a thing would ensure that she had celebrity status on the site. Revealing that she had been dunked on the last series, coupled with her age and gender (both of which were on her profile now) would mean that she was either Aria Donati, end-of-series celebrity victim, or Ellie, the blonde-haired older sister whose crimes against cooking had seen her sent for a drop in the slop earlier in the series, and that was getting a little too close to the truth for comfort.
What she could do, however, was talk about her thoughts and feelings. She was able to explain how she hadn’t thought about gunge or slime since she was a child until something came up “at work” a while ago that led to a gunge vote. One of her colleagues had won, and she’d found herself disappointed at escaping clean, so when another opportunity presented itself for her to get gunged, she’d made sure of the result this time and been given her messy baptism. It had served as an awakening to her about the fetish and what it meant, and it was what had led her to this site before, but when she’d gotten drunk with her also-gunged colleague, she’d misread the signals and thought she was into it too, setting up a messy boudoir scene that missed the mark by quite some distance. Aria also explained that she had not seen or spoken to the friend since, as they now worked different jobs, and moved in different circles, and while she understood why it had missed the mark and that her approach had been incredibly naïve and clumsy (even for a drunken idea), she was still struggling with feelings of guilt. Should she try to apologise to someone that told her to never talk to her again, or should she respect their wishes? She went further, explaining how this woman had been one of her closest friends and she now felt very alone, and even though she knew it was her own stupid mistake, she blamed some of it on the fetish and wished she had never been nominated for a gunging in the first place. No good had come from it.
Aria was a capable writer, able to express herself well enough, but she had a habit of rambling. Run-on sentences and massive paragraphs were normal for her and here, when she was trying to write something that she didn’t entirely understand, she was even more prone to stream-of-conscious style writing. She talked about how she was a young woman that had been happy, but she had been raised to be somewhat repressed and “ladylike”. Was being into WAM a rebellion against that? Or was it something she would have felt anyway, but had been pushing down inside of her because of the parents, teachers and other authority figures in her life that had encouraged such things? She explained how her bisexuality hadn’t come out during her teens like most people, but it was something that had come out when she was finally out from under her parents, and her mind was finally free to wander. She briefly mentioned her own flat, and how it had initially been decorated by everyone but her, and that it had been “chic”, but it had never felt like hers until she put up a bit of colour herself in the last few weeks.
She wasn’t sure what sort of reaction she’d get, but when Aria next checked later that day, she’d had a few conciliatory messages, most of which didn’t say anything too insightful, but there were a couple of longer messages, some from other members, one from a name she recognised as a producer, and one from a moderator on the forum. They spoke of some of their own experiences, but were almost all in agreement that, given her age and what she had explained so far, they felt that Aria was “growing up” in a sense, now that she was doing and thinking for herself, and so it was natural to have strange thoughts and new ideas. They also agreed that while her friend had taken it very badly (though Aria had perhaps spared just how much she’d tried to force it), it wasn’t too surprising, given the approach. Opinions were more split on whether or not she should try to get in touch, but even those suggesting it didn’t hold much hope for her feeling the same way towards Aria after what had happened.
The Italian sighed, it wasn’t what she wanted to be told, but it was what she had been thinking herself, and it was nice to have a few other opinions, too. Aria then saw that she’d received a few private messages, none of which were entirely crude, though some were a bit banal. One was from the producer that had replied to the thread, offering a willing ear if she needed it and said that he’d screwed up in just about every way possible when first getting into WAM, so he had plenty of experience to share. While slightly wary that he might have just been out to “recruit” her, Aria replied all the same and then went to make something to eat.
She was already eating better than she had been, and she was making much more effort with herself to undo the damage she’d done during her period of mourning. She was an adult, and she needed to behave like one, too, but that didn’t mean that she had to be the adult other people were trying to force her to be, she could be herself instead. From the messages she’d seen, the overwhelming feeling she took away from those forums was that she didn’t need to be ashamed of that, and she wasn’t wrong to want to be herself, or to do her own things, and even to make her own mistakes. She just couldn’t go and force those things on other people, which, in the cold light of day, made a whole lot of sense.
When Aria checked back the next day, she found more responses, and more private messages from people that were offering support, sharing their own experiences and mistakes, and just telling the Italian that she wasn’t alone. It was exactly what she needed to hear, and she found herself welling up as she read some of the messages. For someone that had been in self-enforced solitary confinement for months on end, and someone that had alienated and pushed away all of her old friends, it meant an incredible amount to find that not only was she not alone, or some sort of freak, but that there were strangers that cared enough to message her. She’d been drunk when she admitted her fetish to Viola, and she’d done it badly, and probably at the wrong time, even though she was opening herself up and being vulnerable with the goth. She had done the same thing here, but in a more controlled manner, and it was paying off for Aria. She sniffled and rubbed at her eyes, unable to hide the smile that was forming from the sheer amount of positive wishes she was receiving.
The same producer that contacted her the day before had replied again. Aria was still wary, but he did seem genuine and while she didn’t want to be as naïve as she had been before, especially after how she had believed Chantelle was actually her friend, she found herself warming to this guy. There was one other message that stood out, from an American WAM model who was also a WAM fetishist, and not just doing it for the pay cheque. She was one of those incredibly liberal people, no doubt either a result of the job, or a cause for it, Aria mused, but she appeared to be open to trying almost anything once, and she was always full of positivity and enthusiasm when she posted on the forums, and her private message was no different. She was openly pansexual, and had been involved in the WAM scene longer than Aria had been in England, and she was also twice divorced, and had overcome a brush with breast cancer, too. From what Aria had seen of her before, she found Mars (real name Marianne) to be both intimidating and inspirational, because she was had been through so much and come out of it smiling, and she never seemed to have a bad word to say about anyone. Aria wanted to be more like that, and at the same time, she felt unable to even compare herself, because this woman was in a totally different league to the Italian. Even reminding herself of the fame she had once had, Aria still felt like she fell a long way short of what Mars had done and overcome, but perhaps that was just perspective.
All the same, Mars’ message was everything Aria would have guessed and then some. The first thing she noticed was that this was definitely written from the heart. There was no mincing of words and also no attempt to berate the Italian, it was just a warm, encouraging missive from a woman that had been around the block a few times. She promised Aria a warm bed and a roof if she ever found herself in Seattle, and repeatedly told her that she shouldn’t let this all get to her, that she was a beautiful, intelligent, wonderful woman who had made a mistake. From almost anyone else, Aria would have struggled to take it seriously, looking for sarcasm, double meanings or even just insincerity, but the way Mars was, the way other people spoke of her and the way she wrote (she was one of the few people on the forums that was worse than Aria for rambling and she had a habit of writing how she spoke – dropping consonants off the ends of all manner of words) convinced Aria that what she was reading was honest truth, and that it was meant from the bottom of her heart.
The Italian re-read the note again and broke down in tears. She hadn’t realised just how much she needed to be told these things right now, and even though they were coming from a total stranger, she could feel the warmth and the love with which they were meant. She felt an urge to fly out to Seattle and meet this woman herself, but held back for reasons of sanity.
She carried on swapping messages with Mars, and with the producer, Eric, along with several others over the next few days. They all diagnosed the depression she’d been experiencing, and she had several pointers on what to do to try to pick herself up. Some ideas were better than others, some were certainly more practical, but as time passed, she found herself feeling more like her old self, but not quite the same. She was stronger, more opinionated, and less afraid to admit to what she wanted.
With her hair back to its natural colour, and a lack of stage make-up, she found that, when out and about, most people didn’t notice her and those that did didn’t seem to say anything. She wasn’t really of interest now, plenty of new bands were on the scene and Triple Threat would just be a footnote in pop history for most people now. She was fine with that, too, able to accept that she’d had her time and her fun, but it wasn’t her life any more and she had to find something else to do with her life now. The only issue was that her name was a little bit too much of a giveaway now, as there weren’t a whole lot of Aria Donatis in England to begin with and it was enough of a prompt to make people take a second look at her and recognise someone that they’d likely seen on television once before. If it was the occasional person, then fine, but if she worked somewhere and everyone on the staff knew her name, it might be too much to handle. The obvious answer was to change her name, which wasn’t a decision she took lightly, but it also seemed like the right thing to do. She was changing – she had changed already – and she wasn’t the same Aria Donati she had been before, so maybe a new name would be appropriate.
She contacted her family to explain what she was doing, and why, though she neglected to mention the fetish side of it. She needed a fresh start, so even if she was always Aria to her parents, the rest of the world would know her by a new name instead. They said they understood, though the Italian wasn’t sure that they really did. It changed nothing, though, her mind was made up and she had even settled on her new name – Renee Fiorenza – a name that meant both rebirth and blossoming, two words that fit well with this point in her life, while also giving a nod to her Italian heritage.
While it took some time for the forms to be finalised and declared official, Aria was free to go by her new name immediately, so she did. With a new name she was soon able to make reservations and appointments without having to worry about who else might turn up if they saw her name on a guest list. She even went as far as to get a haircut, and with much less make-up than she wore before, Renee really was a new woman.
With a new name and a new attitude, Renee found herself able to settle into a more ordinary life. She found herself a job, and while it didn’t pay particularly well, she didn’t care, because what she wanted more than the money was the sense of purpose, and a way to spend time with people. As an animal lover, she was delighted to find a job going for a receptionist at a veterinary surgery. Even though she had to blag it a little bit in regard to her work history, she was able to convince them that she had the right computer skills and telephone manner to do the job, and her enthusiasm got her the rest of the way.
In time, Renee settled into her new name and new life. She even joined a gym, which she attended a few nights a week with one of the veterinary nurses from the surgery. Under her new name, she found herself free from the restraints of expectation and was able to meet new people and make new friends. She found a local theatre and signed up with them, providing both a creative outlet and a source of new friends, and she even signed up to a dating site. Nothing much came of it, but it got her out in the world, and she was able to meet new people and try new things. Sometimes people commented on how much she looked like Aria Donati, and Renee would just laugh and tell them that she’d been told that before. At which point they’d laugh, or tell her about another celebrity lookalike that they worked with, or even just a celebrity they’d met before. Renee sometimes had to be a little conservative with the truth regarding such aspects of her own life, but it didn’t stop her convincing them that she wasn’t Aria Donati, and that was what mattered.
She was a new woman now, and she felt like a new woman, and a woman that she wanted to be. Even at the height of her fame, she was being bossed around by people. There were strict rules about what she could and couldn’t do in public, and she was constantly under pressure to look good, so she would spend hours in hair and make-up and have to go to the gym almost daily (with her trainer telling the label if she missed a session!) just to make sure she stayed slim. Aria still did go to the gym a few times a week, and while she wasn’t doing several hours a day now, her body wasn’t any worse for it. In fact, she’d filled out a little bit and thought she’d actually picked up some rather attractive curves now that she didn’t look as if she might be suffering an eating disorder.
Above all, though, she felt free. She had some constraints, like a job, which she took seriously and cared deeply about, and the theatre, but those were constraints she wanted in her life. So she couldn’t go out drinking on a Tuesday night until 4am because she was in work the next day? Why was that an issue? At least on a Friday and a Saturday she could if she wanted to, but if she just felt like staying in all weekend and watching television then she could do that, too. There was no pressure for her to be seen out and about, she didn’t have to keep up her celebrity status, and when she did go out, she wasn’t being watched any more. There were no record label agents keeping tabs on her, or tabloid photographers hoping for a drunken slip, it was just her, and her new friends.
Even more than that, her new name meant that Renee had no direct ties to her family or to her former fame and bandmates. Anyone looking for Renee Fiorenza would find very little information about her, and even less relating to Triple Threat and anything else from her past life. Yes, there was an official record, but who would go looking back in such detail without a very good reason? She had closed all of her old social media profiles, and, only at the behest of the theatre group had she rejoined Facebook just so that they could more easily send updates. She even had a new phone, with a new number. The only thing left, in fact, was her flat, and, deciding that it had never truly been hers in the first place, and that it was not at all in keeping with her new lifestyle (a receptionist living a penthouse apartment was the kind of odd that might make people do some digging – and the kind of odd that meant she couldn’t invite any of her new friends over for a drink, too) and so she sold it. She got good money for it, not that she had any money worries whatsoever, and bought a smaller, less ostentatious new build flat about a twenty-minute walk from where she worked. The flat was smaller and simpler, but Aria was able to start with a completely blank canvas and decorate as she wanted – with plenty of colour!
With her new name and life, Renee was also a little more open online, too. Her past was behind her and that was where it would stay, but she was now able to open up to the people that she was close to, so that it wasn’t all a huge secret. These were the people that had helped her to realise who she really was, and what she really wanted and they were as good friends as she’d known in years – they weren’t latching on to her because she was famous or because they thought she had money, they were just people that had tried to help someone in need.
So it was only natural that, when the group was hosting a lunch in the capital, Renee signed up for it. She was nervous for she had mixed feelings over whether or not she might be outed again, and undeniably so this time, and she wasn’t sure what these people would be like, either. Even as someone that identified herself as having a gunge fetish, Renee still found the idea of meeting a group of fetishists to be… uncomfortable. It was a label, that was all, but she couldn’t help worrying that she was about to meet a group of depraved animals. She was aware that, as a young woman, and not a particularly tall or strong one at that, and she felt a little vulnerable as she made her way from the tube station to the pub. No-one in the group would recognise her, so she could enter the pub, scope them and then approach from afar if she liked the look of the group and, if she didn’t, she could finish her drink and leave. At least she was trying something new, she told herself.
So Renee made her way to the bar, hopped up onto a stool and waited to be served. She ordered a vodka tonic with lime and then glanced around the pub. It was fairly open plan, and she could see a few groups, and, as she had arrived about an hour after the official start time, she was sure that they would already be ensconced somewhere in the building. She was on the lookout for a yellow and black striped scarf (the colours of Barnet FC) in the middle of the table to identify the group and, fortunately, she didn’t have to look too long or too hard to find it. From the bar, she was able to spot them without having to look in an awkward direction and draw attention to herself, so for now, Renee could see that they had pushed together two tables and had six men and one woman sat at them. She didn’t recognise any of them, but this wasn’t a meeting for models, whose faces she would have been better acquainted with, it was for ordinary people, which she supposed was what she qualified as now, too. They looked like any other group in the pub, really, the woman was talking to a couple of the guys, one of the guys was staring at the television above the bar and the other guy was glued to his phone. Ordinary people, indeed, she thought.
Renee finished her drink, and then ordered another. Dutch courage was the order of the day, and as soon as the bartender passed her her drink, she slid off of the stool and made her way across.
“Room for another?” she asked, mostly looking to the woman, as if there might be some female solidarity between the two of them. She cleared her throat, “I’m Renee.”
“Ah!” said one of the men, pulling a piece of paper out of his pocket and unfolding it. He quickly scribbled on and stood up to offer his hand, “I’m James – also known as James316 – it’s nice to meet you.”
His was a name that Renee recognised and, as he held out the piece of paper, she saw that it was a list of the people that had expressed an interest in going. James was the organiser, so it seemed natural for him to have such a piece of paper and he’d asked everyone attending for a real name prior to the event – too many people calling themselves “Gunkette” or “SlimeBoy” would surely end up being overheard and drawing attention of the wrong sort.
The rest of the group introduced themselves – Steve, Brian, Ken, Adrian, another Steve and Tracy.
They quickly budged around to let Renee sit next to Tracy. The Italian surmised that Tracy had 15-20 years on her, though some of the guys might have only been a few years older. James let her check the piece of paper for their usernames, so that she could better match them up mentally, but these weren’t any of the people that she’d really gotten to know before. James was a producer, though a lot of his stuff was in the “messy pornography” category and wasn’t really to Renee’s tastes, while Tracy had done a bit of modelling in her younger years and was now a producer, too. The other guys were all just followers, ostensibly the same as Renee was, and while she too started checking her phone – three new friend requests already from the table – she was able to match up a few details and even posted on the thread that she’d arrived.
“I sort of expected more people,” said Renee. “Is this a normal turnout?”
James shrugged his shoulders. “It’s hit and miss. It’s a Saturday afternoon, so for some people, it’s not a great time, because they’ll have families and partners to see, or they’ll go to the football instead, and while we always ask online for people to confirm their interest you get plenty that say they’ll come and drop out, and a good number that turn up unannounced. Some of us stick around all day, but you get a lot that come for an hour or so, especially if they do live locally, and then they go back to their own lives.”
“We used to always hire venues,” added one of the Steves. “Function rooms in pubs, one time we booked out a private area in a restaurant, but pubs see their arses with you if you book a private area and then spend almost no money because you’ve got seating for thirty and there’s only ever half a dozen people at one time.”
“It’s easier to just do it in the pub like this,” added James. “People are better at signing up to the specials, they understand the need for a head count.”
“This is just meant to be a trip to the pub,” said Brian, looking up from his phone. “It’s supposed to be easy, and nothing’s booked so there’s no money spent. People will come if they want, but if they get a better offer then they’ll take that instead.” He shrugged, “Sitting in a mediocre pub with some strangers isn’t always everyone’s idea of a good time.”
People came and went throughout the afternoon. From starting with two Steves, they went down to zero and back up to one, and while people did drop in and out, the group never got beyond a dozen at any one time. There were groups of people that were obviously already friends and had arranged to meet up, arriving all at the same time and then leaving together, too, and while some were a little clique-y, on the whole, everyone was nice enough. No-one was too forward or too creepy, and, even though this was a meeting of wammers, they kept such talk to a minimum, given that it was a public place. A lot of it was ordinary conversation, people talking about people, holidays, sports, films and even work. Given the varied age ranges and accents, this group of people could have been any group of people, from anywhere, with any interests.
James, as host, stayed through the rest of the day, and Tracy stayed for most of it, but had to head off in the late afternoon. As afternoon moved into early evening, the group started to dwindle again until there was just five of them. James was still going strong, as was Renee, along with Alice and Liam, a couple that had produced some amateur videos, and Shane, a man that knew James from the past and had modelled in some of his co-ed bedroom scenes. Alice was especially friendly, making sure that Renee was alright and wasn’t left feeling either vulnerable or left out. Alice wasn’t into WAM herself, but Liam was, and she found it to be fun, so knew all too well what it felt like to be a fish out of water, but she’d been to enough of these meets now that she could assure Renee that she had nothing to worry about and that guys like Liam and James would make sure she was safe. As it turned out, Liam and Alice only lived a few stops down the tube line from Renee, so she swapped numbers with them and made her departure at the same time, catching the same train back so she wasn’t travelling alone.
“So,” said Liam once they were on the train, “Your accent says you probably weren’t born here. Certainly not in London, at any rate, and your name’s Renee, which isn’t the most English of names.” He squinted and rubbed his chin, “I’m thinking you might be French.”
“Italian, actually,” replied Renee, smiling to herself. A year ago, and she would have been hounded by people who knew her name, age, birthplace and the rest whenever she stepped out in public and now someone thought she might be French. She smiled again, “My family moved over here when I was fairly young, so my accent’s not all that strong any more,” she shrugged, and with a knowing smile, she added, “I can’t do much about my name, though.”
If Renee had ever felt uncomfortable about her fetish, she had forgotten it now. If she had ever felt like a freak for being into gunge, then spending time with other people that felt the same was the best tonic. These were all normal people, and there was nothing weird, or freakish of even remotely scary about them. Which, by extension, applied to her, too. This fetish, which had brought her through the full roller coaster of emotions and indirectly changed her life in a huge way, did not make her any less of a person. She was no worse than anyone else for having messy thoughts and urges, and she wasn’t alone in feeling this way. Even people like Alice, who didn’t “get” the fetish didn’t see it as anything so awful and, perhaps now, Renee could accept herself as she was. She had made mistakes, but she had learned from them too, and she felt confident that she was a better person for it now.
And so life went on as it always did. Renee carried on working her job, rehearsing at the theatre and visiting the WAM forums online. Days turned to weeks, then to months, and in that time, Renee lived a normal life, far removed from her celebrity past and, as Triple Threat faded entirely into obscurity, Aria Donati went with it. Renee’s freedom continued to be the greatest blessing she’d ever known, and she was free to indulge herself as she wished. She was a more and more prominent poster online, though she still refused to model or take photos where she could be identified on the forums, and she made a point of attending the London meets when she could.
As Renee browsed the forums one night, many months later, she saw a thread about an upcoming meet in the States. She clicked on it out of curiosity, but had no particular desire in travelling to Florida just for a meet. She recognised a few names already signed on to the guest list and had even met one of them before, and, of course, Mars was going to do her damnedest to make an appearance. It was another dry meet, so people were encouraged to be respectful and not to draw attention to themselves, same as the meets Renee had attended, but as she scrolled through the thread, there were the usual comments from people declaring interest, wishing they could go, and wishing those that did go a good time, and then the thread took a little turn.
A few people were asking why this wasn’t a messy meeting, as there hadn’t been one on the East Coast for several years. Other people were quick to respond, explaining that the logistics were difficult, but mostly that the expense of such an endeavour was the real reason it wouldn’t happen. To hire a venue, arrange messy activities, provide showers, drinks, lighting, heating, post-event cleaning… it wasn’t cheap by any means, and as much as there was interest in such an event, to break even, people would need to buy tickets and when it came to sticking their hands in their pockets, people had very strong opinions. Obviously people understood that such things cost money, but it also cost the individual, too, for transport and possibly hotel stays, just to attend the event. Compared to the cost of private messy sessions, it wasn’t entirely viable, as at least a private session would definitely cater to the tastes of the individual and ensure that those who wanted to be gunged, were gunged.
Renee could sympathise with both sides. It obviously couldn’t be run for free, even the top end of the producers weren’t living in mansions, and as the organisers were ordinary people too, they couldn’t be expected to just fork out for it all, but at the same time, the numbers being tossed around were substantial, and knowing how far her own salary went (or didn’t, sometimes) then Renee could all too easily understand the problems.
Scrolling further down, the thread continued with people suggesting ways to lower the expense of hosting such an event. Some suggestions were more practical than others and one of the more practical ones involved hiring a few models (further expense) and then filming the whole event, or at least, running a few cameras pointed at the messy events. The models could then take part with/against those that wanted to be gunged (or were keen to gunge someone else) and by filming it, the clips could then be sold online to subsidise the event costs. This would mean that those eventually selling the clips would have to fork out initially, but could recoup costs later. Except it meant more expense for a small number, with no guarantee of a return, as such clips would likely not be of great quality (as they weren’t filmed under studio conditions) and they would cost money in editing and the rest, on top of venue hire and model fees.
Then some people complained about their personal privacy being intruded upon, as they wouldn’t want to be at the event if there were cameras and videos. This was a private matter, they didn’t want their co-workers or families to know about their fetish!
Renee sighed, she understood that feeling far too well.
Then there were more complaints, about the inclusion of paid models. Yes, some were very attractive (and attracted more people to attend by extension) and some were used to being gunged or pied and knew how to take it, but the complaint was simple. A paid model wasn’t a wammer. If this was a meeting for wammers, why were paid models being invited along that didn’t have any interest in it beyond a job? They would be there, doing a job, to be paid, and while they were sure to be all smiles for the punters, they weren’t really there to embrace the mess properly.
Renee shook her head. From that point on, the thread degenerated rapidly into arguments back and forth over how much anyone enjoys anything when they get paid and then into further arguments about everything from the cost to the location to the colour of the sky.
Tapping her chin, deep in thought, Renee pulled out the key points from the discussion and made a little note of them. It was an odd list, some parts of it seeming contradictory, and while this particular event was in America, she recognised enough of the people wading into the conversation as being from outside the states, too, so it wasn’t a uniquely American problem.
People wanted a chance to get together with other, like-minded wammers.
People wanted the opportunity to get messy, or to mess up others.
People wanted to be afforded privacy, so that no-one could trace their fetish back to them.
People wanted to be able to share images from it within the community online.
People wanted it to be good, but didn’t want to pay out a fortune.
People wanted it to be for wammers, and people that wanted to be messy, or to mess others.
It was quite a list, but the cogs were turning in Renee’s mind. She had an idea. She’d need a little help, but she already knew that the community had the right people within it to help her, and all she needed to do now was to get them on-side. The Italian bit her bottom lip at the thought.
This little fetish community wouldn’t know what had hit it.
.
as she said the last part of the sentence. As she waved to the camera she handed Kelly a laminated piece of paper as the credits rolled.
