Back with some more flash fiction (1k words or less). Find more like this at ZxStories.art

'Thank-you so much for doing this, Margot,' says the host, grinning magnanimously.

'Oh, don't mention it. You should really thank my agent and my contractual obligations.'

The audience chuckles along with the joke, but careful observers may notice that Margot herself isn't smiling particularly convincingly. She readjusts almost instantly into a more suitably televisual expression and the moment passes, but it had been there.

She looks stunning, of course, as she always does, but in the silver-pink Barbiecore dress, she looks particularly dazzling. Surrounded by pink set dressing, sparkling sequins and bubblegum coloured logos, she still manages to stand out.

The other thing that stands out is the gunge in the glass tank just beside her. It is also pink, of course.

'Well,' the host continues, 'I appreciate it regardless. We appreciate it, don't we?' The crowd agrees vociferously. 'So, if you wouldn't mind, we should probably make a start.'

'Right. Right.' Margot gets up from the comfortable-looking couch, smooths out her dress with great care. What she has signed up for will be embarrassing enough; she doesn't need to add Wardrobe Malfunction to the inevitable list of Youtube tags.

Margot makes the short walk to the glass cuboid tank as slowly as she feels she can get away with. She doesn't want to seem too reluctant, wouldn't want to come across as a bad sport, but she cannot deny to herself that she would rather not submit to this particular bit of brand awareness. A week ago she had never even heard of Slime a Seleb, but now here she is. The fact that she is by far the most well-known figure to take part so far is only a tiny crumb of comfort.

Finally, the host opens the door for Margot, who ducks inside and stands with her arms by her side. For once, she looks as though she isn't sure what to do with herself. She fidgets a couple of times, trying out a few different poses before settling on resting her hands against her shapely thighs.

'Is there no other way of doing this?' Margot murmurs to the host, inaudible to anybody else. 'CGI gunge or something?'

The host replies, equally quiet, 'CGI? Where do you think you are, honey? No, I'm afraid we're all analogue here. Real gunge.'

Of course, the host's smile never wavers, and she looks almost like a ventriloquist with her lips barely moving. Nobody is paying attention to her, though. The cameras are all centred on Margot and her dress, and the studio audience is similarly focused.

'Once again, I'd like to say a huge thank-you to Margot Robbie for being such a good sport,' the host continues. 'Now all that's left is for me to push this button, and' she trails off and pushes the big red button the side of the tank.

As if Margot's plight needed more attention drawing to it, an obnoxiously loud klaxon blares and various colours of light start to flicker on and off, all pointed directly at the famous actress and her glass prison. Margot freezes on the spot, her toothy smile quickly changing into a giggling, nervous grimace.

The tank opens and the gunge starts to pour through a small vent, roughly the diameter of a coffee mug. While this means that the gunge cannot exit all at once, there is still room for a thick, continuous stream. No sprinkler effect here, no drips and drabs to get things underway gently. Margot's pristine, long blonde hair is immediately assaulted by bright pink gunk, and her mouth instantly turns into a big round O of shock. The sound is drowned out by the klaxon, but it is easily imagined.

The gunge continues regardless, though. Her hair is ruined, matted to her head in seconds, and the pink slime domes out from there, splattering her shoulders, streaming down her face and between her partially exposed cleavage. A second or two after that, the rivulets running between her breasts and down her stomach emerge from the bottom end of her dress, streaking down her her knees, calves, and eventually starting a puddle on the ground.

Still Margot barely moves. She shudders a little at the slimy sensation, but she does nothing to try and block the flow or get out of its way. It's impossible to say whether she is still trying to play along or simply stunned into inaction, but either way the gunge continues to flow. She shudders again as a trickle begins to run right down her spine. Since her hair is saturated by this point, the gunge has to keep moving and her dress, though beautiful, offers next-to-no protection from the gooey onslaught. Her skin, of which plenty is visible, shines pink in the bright lights. Her breasts in particular have an inviting sheen of luminous pink to them.

After fifteen seconds or so, the tank is finally empty. Margot is completely slathered from head to toe, her underwear is every bit as soaked in slime as her hair, though at least nobody can see that. The bottom of the tank is several inches deep, meaning that her feet are almost entirely drowned in the slop.

Eventually, Margot moves, wiping some of the still-oozing gunk out of her face. She flicks her wrists to dislodge it from her hands and then does a full-body, dog-like shake. This mostly happens without her thinking a sub-conscious attempt to get rid of the icky feeling. Gunge splatters the insides of the tank, which is unfortunate for the audience because the wriggling motion also make her cleavage bounce tantalisingly. Luckily for TV viewers, a camera rigged into the ceiling of the tank captures this in all its jiggly glory.

'Truly incredible,' the host announces. Nobody watching could possibly disagree.

At last, the door opens and Margot steps out, dishevelled, uncertain, but even more stunning than before albeit in quite a different way. She manages to reclaim her smile just in time to wave goodnight to the camera.