Alone in the Suit
Read from the beginning at I Don’t Own My Likeness 1.
The keycard reader gave a soft green blink, and the lock clicked. Vince pushed the hotel room door inward with the side of his hip and stepped inside. The overhead light flickered once, then stayed off. He didn’t bother to flip the switch.
The room smelled faintly of citrus cleanser and freon, the kind of clean that wasn’t about care so much as liability. One king-size bed extended out from the wall, hospital corners tucked tight. Blackout curtains were drawn across a window that probably overlooked the parking lot. A bottle of cheap champagne sweated quietly in a too-small ice bucket on the dresser beside the TV. Placed there by some handler, he guessed, or maybe the local Pride organizing committee. The gesture made him feel like a guest of honor and a very expensive prostitute at the same time.
He bent over and slid his boots off, then dropped them onto the floor with two low thuds. The rest of the suit stayed on, snug and damp with sweat. He didn’t bother to peel it off or even unzip it. The spandex clung to him now like a second skin, warmer than it had any right to be. It smelled like beer.
He walked stiffly into the bathroom, the combination overhead light and exhaust fan whining to life in sputtering, white fluorescence. The mirror caught him. Captain Derek Vesta, still upright, still polished, but now ringed with the faint crust of dried sweat at the collar.
Vince tugged at the glove on his right hand, peeled it off finger by finger, then held it over the toilet bowl and gave it a firm shake. The small, candy-colored pill fell out with a soft plink and disappeared into the water. He watched the ripple fade, then took off the second glove and shook out three more pills.
Back in the room, he sat on the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, the weight of the day catching up with him all at once. Then wordlessly he tipped backward, arms flopping wide across the pristine duvet like he’d just been beamed directly to sickbay in defeat. His chest rose and fell. He didn’t unzip the suit. Didn’t shift. Didn’t exhale all the way.
The ceiling was blank, featureless white, meant to erase whatever happened underneath it. But Vince stared at it anyway, eyes open, breath quiet, his mind still crackling faintly from the static of the crowd.
He felt… not empty, exactly. The opposite. Overfull.
The buzzing in his head refused to subside. He rolled onto his side and reached for his phone, which was still wedged under his belt where the suit’s waist seam curved. The screen bathed his face in blue. He blinked at the brightness.
One swipe, one tap.
#DerekVesta was trending. The top post showed him mid pose on the float, both arms raised, sweat carving silver arcs along the lines of his jaw and temples. The caption read Vesta lives! Still got that COMMANDING presence. A hundred thousand likes. Six thousand shares. Reposted and stitched with sound remixed to a sped-up dance beat, with someone chanting “Activate me, Captain,” in the background.
He kept scrolling. Another photo of him smiling, two gloved fingers raised in salute, bore the caption, Derek Vesta can command me ANY day.
Another of his silhouette against the confetti storm read The legend returns.
There were hundreds more.
This is what a space daddy should look like.
Unf. The way that suit FITS.
He’s back. Daddy Vesta is so back.
Not one said Vince Karros. Not one tagged his personal handle. But every one of them had been liked by @Orion7Official.
He tapped their handle. Their account was busier than usual, sharing fan content, reposting clips, and engaging in the comments. There was even a polished still from the day’s event already posted: Vince on the float, confetti falling around him like stars. The legacy continues. #SpacedockOmega #DerekVesta #NexusAwakens.
They’d made his appearance into a real-time advertisement. They’d made him a living, breathing product. His thumb hovered over the like button for a second, then drifted down the page.
In the quiet of the hotel room, the voices of the crowd were gone, but their traces remained as textual fingerprints and pixelated desire. Post after post celebrated the return of the icon. The idea. The projection. He felt a dull ache behind his eyes, but not from sadness.
He wasn’t upset. He wasn’t even surprised. He was relevant. Vesta, not Vince. It should have bothered him. Should have registered as some kind of betrayal or grief. But instead, the thrill of relevance—of being seen and reshared—sizzled gently in his chest like the echo of applause.
He scrolled past more thirst traps and memes until one image snagged his thumb mid swipe. It wasn’t a professional shot like the others. This one was a selfie taken by a fan in the crowd, blurry at the edges but clear at the center. Over the subject’s shoulder, Vince was laughing, mouth wide, head tilted slightly back, caught in mid motion with his hands in the air and his eyes eerily locked on the camera. The lighting had hit him just right—filter from the phone, spotlight from the float, lens flare from his badge.
He looked invincible. Regal. Sculpted. Designed.
Even in the grainy mess of pixels, the line of his jaw was powerful. The tilt of his head was effortless. His skin glowed and his smile—God, his smile—looked real. Not performative. Not posed. He looked like he’d never left the screen.
He stared at it. He zoomed in. His own eyes stared back, alive, alert, and electric. Not tired or weighed down with unemployment and rejection. Not squinting from the sun or washed out by age. Not Vince.
Vesta.
The eyes looked right.
He wasn’t past his prime because prime was a construct, and Derek Vesta transcended constructs. Derek Vesta just was. Timeless and unreal.
Vince blinked, trying to pull back, but the image stayed seared to the inside of his eyelids. He stared at the like button for a few seconds. Then tapped it. The little heart turned red.
He hit save. Swipe up, tap, download to device. No hesitation. Usually it was to save screenshots of job listings or overdue bill notices or photo references for self tapes. But this one was different.
He saved himself. Not Vince Karros, lapsed actor. But Vesta. Laughing. Flawless. Lit by admiration.
For a moment, he held the phone still in his hand, letting the image imprint. Somewhere in the back of his mind, beneath the hum of fan chants and dopamine pulses, a quiet voice whispered: That’s the man they see. That’s the one they want.
God help him, maybe he wanted that man, too.
The screen dimmed in his hand. He blinked and tapped it again, not ready to let it go dark just yet. As the glow returned, a banner at the top caught his attention. 1 Unread Message.
It was from Randy. Sent hours ago. Knock ’em dead, kid. Get that paycheck.
Vince stared at it. Then reread it.
“Oh. Right.”
This was work. Paid work. There was a check waiting. Somewhere, in some envelope or direct deposit email or whatever.
He’d completely forgotten. All day, all night, he’d been chasing the spark. The applause, the camera flashes, the hands on him, the cheers—every moment had been saturated in attention.
He didn’t feel cheap. He felt distant from the idea of money altogether, like the payment was merely a footnote. The real currency had been the gaze.
He set the phone down on his chest, screen facing the ceiling, his fingers resting over it. The slight buzz of social media notifications kept pulsing against his palm, but he didn’t check them.
The silence pressed in around him. He didn’t move to shower. Or unzip the suit. Or peel off the compression layers underneath. He didn’t want to. The costume had dried in patches. The scent of sweat, liquor, and someone else’s body spray clung to it now. The fabric felt lived in.
He exhaled slowly, and in the hush of the hotel room, with only the blackout curtains breathing against the air conditioner, he looked up at the featureless ceiling and whispered.
“They missed me.”
Not Vince. Not the guy skipping rent and adding water to the dregs of off-brand shampoo to make it last longer. They missed the Captain.
A faint smile tugged at the corners of his lips. He closed his eyes and let the weight of the suit press down over him. Outside, the world spun on. But inside the costume, Vince Karros—no, Derek Vesta—lay still.
