Ming

Chapter 7

A stocky, balding man not a lot taller than Ming strode into the room carrying a small travel bag. Ming recognized him as one of the Members but she had never been introduced to him and didn't know his name. He was followed by another man carrying a jug with a black covering over the top. Him she recognized. It was Lenny. His brutish appearance was even more scary under these circumstances.

"Good morning, ladies!" the first man said.

His audience murmured a response in which Ming thought she heard the name Tad. Or maybe it was Ted.

"It's such a beautiful day! Nice and warm. It would be a shame to waste it. So, we're going to have our lottery today in several stages, starting with a grand naval battle!"

Muted squeals of approval.

"We have an even twenty lovely contestants today, and we're going to start by dividing you up into two teams: the Red Team and the Green Team. Lenny here will pass amongst you with a jug containing ten red and ten green tiles. You will reach in through the top and pull one out. No peeking! The Red Team will assemble over there to my right; the Green Team over here to my left. I will follow behind Lenny and hand you your team collars which you will put on yourselves."

Tad (or Ted) began removing brightly colored, inch-wide dog collars from his bag. To each collar a short silk scarf of the same red or green hue had been attached. He looped the unbuckled collars over both forearms — red on the right, green on the left.

As he did all this, Lenny had ambled into the midst of the women. Ming could see now that the lid of the jug was rubber and cris-crossed with slashes to allow a hand to reach through without revealing the contents. The women, without exception, avoided making eye contact with Lenny as they reached in to extract their tile. Ming and Jade were among the last half dozen. Both drew red tiles. Before they could turn to join their team, the stocky man was handing them red collars. Ming buckled hers on as she walked to the Red side of the room. By the time she got there, properly collared, the man had resumed his original position.

"What is his name?" Ming whispered to Jade.

"Tad," she whispered back. "Theodore Orestes. He runs the lotteries."

"You look gorgeous, ladies!" he was saying. "I'm looking forward to a good show. Here's how it's gonna work. We're all going out to the courtyard pool. At each end of the pool there'll be a pole with a flag on it and five little boats. Inside the each boat is one short paddle. Now I gotta tell ya, there's no seat in those boats, and they're small and tippy. But you're gonna man them in pairs, fully dressed, just as you are now."

An eruption of giggles rippled through the two teams.

"Here's the deal. Each team will grab their own flag, get in their boats and head for the opposite end. The first team to plant their flag in the pole holder at that end wins the round and are free to enjoy the rest of the day and tonight's banquet. The losing team advances to the next test. But there's a couple of rules. You gotta be in a boat to plant the flag or it doesn't count. You gotta be in a boat in the pool within two minutes of start time, and you can't get out of the pool until the game is over. You'll also have to do your own team organizing during game time, which begins right NOW! GO!"

After a moment of startled inaction, pandemonium broke out. A few women on both teams tried to stop the inevitable rush to the pool long enough to get organized, including Jade, but it was useless. Half of each team were already running from the room and the would-be organizers decided to catch up before all hope of controlling the chaos was lost.

As Ming ran into the open courtyard, she could see the two poles Tad had described. They were nearly ten feet tall, the one on her right topped with a red banner, the other sporting the green version. Five impossibly tiny boats, like miniature canoes, rested on the poolside tiles at each end. The entire company of male Members encircled the pool area cheering the women. The corridor from which the women emerged was squarely in the middle of the pool's long side, so neither team had the advantage of being closer to their starting end. Ming saw high heeled shoes being kicked off ahead of her and did the same with hers as she approached the boats. The red flag was suddenly flailing about. Tia had grabbed it, plucked it out of its holder and was using it to assume command of the Red Team. Ming glanced at the other end of the pool. Katerina, on the Green Team, had done exactly the same thing. Ming could hear her yelling orders at the Green Team. But she shifted her full attention to what Tia was saying.

"Quick! Get the boats in the water! Then one steadies the boat while the other gets in. But carefully! Both face the same direction. Back one paddles. Front one defends the boat. They're gonna try to stop us, so we have to tip them over, get them out of the way." She began stepping gingerly into a boat where another woman squatted holding on to the side of the pool as best she could. "You two boats!" She pointed at the two already mostly ready, including Ming's. "You go just ahead of me and clear the way. You other guys, you keep them from sticking their fucking flagpole in our hole!"

Ming ended up in the front position of her boat, though she didn't know why. She was concentrating of squatting down, keeping her center of gravity as low as possible, when there was a terrible scream behind her. She peeked over her shoulder, careful not to unbalance the boat. The scream cut off with a splash. Lenny was standing at the side of the pool glowering at a girl thrashing in the water. He held a cattle prod in his hand. Ming shuddered. Obviously Tad meant it when he warned them to be in the boats in two minutes. She noticed he was at the other end, also holding a prod. Her backward glance also enabled her to see that her boatmate was one of Candy's baby sisters.

"Are you Celine or Cherry?" she yelled.

"Cherry!"

"I'm Ming. Have you ever done this before?" Hoping the girl, young as she was, would have some idea what to do.

"No, but it's fun!"

Shit! she thought. The little twit thinks this is fun! Oh well, maybe that's a good thing.

On the other hand, Cherry was steering them straight toward the boat where Katerina, blond hair flying in the breeze, was clutching the Green flagpole, waving it in front of her in figure eights like a lance. It was something less fearsome than a lance, however, because the top end was tipped with a sponge ball. Ming hoped the arrogant Ukrainian beauty wouldn't have the sense to reverse the pole and use its more threatening blunt end. She didn't. She swung the pole at Ming's head. Ming, afraid to duck quickly lest she tip the little boat, reached up and grabbed the pole. She discovered that it, also, was covered with a spongy material. (Clearly, the Millennium Group did not want its meat bruised.) The material made it easy to hold on to the pole, but that also made it easy for Katerina to yank her out of the boat. A California girl who grew up around beaches and swimming pools, Ming had no fear of the water, so she hung on to the pole, halting Katerina's advance to the finish line.

But this adversary was not about to give up. She was as determined as Ming to avoid getting another step closer to being a menu item. She hauled herself along the pole hand-over-hand to where Ming was gripping it, pulling her boat with her. When she was within reach, she grabbed a fistful of Ming's hair and yanked it sharply back, pulling the Asian girl's head under water. As she had hoped, Ming instinctively let go of the pole with one hand to try to dislodge the painful clasp that would soon drown her; but as the two struggled to wrest the pole away from each other, Cherry, seeing Katerina's backup was committed to keeping their boat balanced, paddled up next to it, seized it by the bow and flipped it over. Katerina let go of Ming's hair as she plunged backwards into the water, trying to keep her own head above the surface while still holding on to the pole.

Ming's head popped up; she gulped air and in another moment had a death-grip on the pole with both hands. She tread water, having no interest in dealing with the tippy little boat again, only in keeping the green flag immobilized until Tia could plant the red one in its place. Where was she, anyway? No time to look. Here came Katerina again, eyes wide with rage, no time to lose. Her plan was obvious: she was bigger and stronger; she would use her superior muscle power and weight to twist the pole out of Ming's hands. But Ming was a second ahead of her. She turned her back on Katerina, put the pole over her shoulder and yanked it down hard in front of her as she brought her heels up behind her, catching Katerina in the nose. She turned face up, ready to ram her heel straight into Katerina's face again, but didn't need to. The blonde woman was backing out of range, holding her nose with one hand and the pole with the other. Blood began to seep between her fingers.

Two other boats lurched up to the pole and other hands began grabbing for it. But Ming had it tucked under her arm now and Cherry was whacking with her paddle at anyone who tried to attack her comrade. Ming had to admit the girl had amazing balance in that treacherous little canoe. She was even whacking at her younger sister who had ended up on the Green Team. Apparently neither sister fancied being eaten by the other tonight.

The struggle raged with increasing fury and Ming was either under water or fending off hoards of attackers so much of the time that she never did see how Tia was able to reach the Red end and plant the Green flag. But it all came to an end with the shrill blast of a whistle. The bedraggled contestants were helped out of the pool and Ming was allowed to remove the collar and slosh off to her apartment on the arm of her proud finacé.

After stripping off her soaked dress and undies and a quick shower to wash the pool chlorine off her skin and out of her hair, she put on a sexy sundress and went back to the Great Room to join the gathering spectators as the losing Green Team, still dripping wet, their clothes plastered to their figures, stood waiting for their next opportunity to postpone their inevitable date with the kitchen staff.

Katerina had managed to staunch her nosebleed and looked as defiant as ever, despite her disheveled hair. Her black and gold dress, already indecently brief, was now little more than a coat of paint on her spectacular body. For the first time, Ming realized she couldn't help but think how pleasing it would be to see that woman being carved up on a platter. She amused herself as she waited by designing appropriate side dishes to accompany Roasted Breast of Katerina.

Then Tad and Lenny were back to announce the next ordeal. Lennie had rolled out a card table with a deck of cards in a tray and a machine the size of a shoe box on one side.

"Ladies," Tad began, "that was quite a show. Quite a show. And it pares the field down to you ten lovelies. Hey, you may not be all that good at naval warfare, but I gotta tell ya, I've never seen a more gorgeous lot of finalists! Unfortunately, we can only use one of you beauties to grace our table tonight, so let's get down to that final selection. That battle, as much fun as it was, took longer than we anticipated, and the kitchen staff is getting antsy. You know how it is. The Chef . . . well, he wants to make sure he does our winner justice. You wouldn't want a rush job, right? On your big night? So, we'll have to cut right to the chase. Here's what we're gonna do."

In his right hand he brandished a pack of playing cards with the Millennium Group logo on the back: a stylized silhouette of a nude female figure embracing a flame.

"This is a normal playing card deck. Fifty-two cards. Four suits. I'm gonna put the deck in this mechanical shuffling machine . . ." (he placed the deck in a tray) ". . . and let it shuffle the deck three times."

He gave a red button three taps and the machine jumped to life, splitting the deck and shuffling it together three consecutive times. He removed the deck and placed it on the table in front of the ten women.

"Then I'm gonna invite each and every one of you to step up and cut the deck, if you choose."

Six of the women, including Celina, Cherry's sister, did. Katerina was among those who didn't move.

"Now I want you to form an arc around three sides of the table. I'm gonna deal out three cards to each of you. Leave them be until I tell you otherwise."

Ming wondered what would happen if one of them disobeyed. Instant "winner," she supposed.

When the thirty cards were dealt, face down, Tad said, "Now chose one of the three and turn it over. If you have a spade, stay where you are. If you have any other suit, step back and join our observers."

All ten women hesitated, selected a card and turned it face up. Two spades were showing. Katernina and Celine. The other eight made various sounds of relief and stepped far back, glad to be out of the running. Ming found Lyle and hugged him, hanging on for long moments, letting her fear drain away.

"Do you want to leave?" he whispered. "You don't have to stay for this."

"Oh yes I do!" she whispered back. "I want to what to expect when it's my turn." And she wanted to see Katerina get hers. She turned with her back against Lyle and held his arms, keeping them wrapped around her for comfort.

Katerina was staring at her Ace of Spades transfixed. How could this be happening? This day was turning into the nightmare she had long denied. Her chances of seeing another dawn had just dropped to fifty-fifty. In the corner of her vision she saw Lenny moving into position behind Celine and her. Waiting.

Celine's eyes were bright with excitement. She was breathing rapidly, overdosing on adrenalin.

Tad spoke up. "Now that we're down to our two finalists, here's how it will go. You're going to be turning over one more card. I will deal out three new ones, or you can stay with what you have. Your choice. Remember, the rank of the card doesn't count. Only the suit. Ties don't count. There has to be only one Spade turned up in the round. Understand?"

Both contestants nodded, their eyes fixed on the cards.

"So, Katerina. You want to go with the two remaining cards you have, or shall I deal you three new ones?" He had already collected the cards of the eight former players, repatriated them with the deck and run it through the shuffling machine.

Ming could see that Katerina had begun to perspire. Her nerves on edge.

"I'll stay with these," the buxom blonde decided.

"Same here!" said the fourteen-year-old beside her.

"Then turn over another one," the Lottery Master said.

Katerina turned a second card face up.

"The deuce of Spades!" Tad sang out.

Katerina could barely breathe! When would this string of bad luck end?

Celine turned one of hers over.

"The Jack of Spades!" announced Tad.

Another stalemate. For the first time Katerina seemed on the verge of collapse. Celine appeared ready to jump out of her skin, eager to go on.

"Well, ladies?" the Lottery Master said. "New cards or old."

"New!" shouted Celine. Three more cards were placed on the table in front of her. She glanced up at Katerina, her face flushed.

Without a word Katerina made the opposite decision. What were the chances of having three spades in a row? She slowly turned over her third and last card. The eight of Clubs. She clutched the table and willed her pulse to slow down.

Celina, her face a crazed complex of fear and teenage daring, flipped over the middle card in her newly dealt cluster. The nine of Spades. She gasped and stopped breathing. In an instant Lenny was behind her, pulling her wrists behind her back and securing them with plastic handcuffs.

Tad's voice boomed out: "Ladies and gentlemen, Members and guests: the winner of our lottery today and our newest Novitiate in the Millennium Culinary Hall of Fame is the lovely Celine."

The circle of Members and guests broke into enthusiastic applause. For them the tension was over and the fun could begin. Katerina, regaining her composure, straightened herself up, shrugged at Celine — a shrug that said You knew the risks, little girl, so enjoy the consequences! — and joined the surrounding spectators.

Celine's expression was a mad complex of dumbstruck fear and feverish excitement. When Lenny held a red ball-gag in front of her face, she obligingly opened her mouth to let him push it in. He had to shove it hard to cram it into her small mouth and strap it in place, making her grimace a little. But she offered no complaint. She even lifted her chin a little so he could replace the team collar she was still wearing with a more sturdy leather collar to which a chain leash was clipped.

Allowing no dead air as the applause faded, Tad continued: "Celine has been attending these banquets as a Permanent Guest of her older sister, the equally beautiful Candy, our ravishing hostess. I therefore ask Candy, as Celine's official sponsor, to step forward and complete our ceremony."

Still wearing the red dress now plastered to her body from its pool soaking, Candy separated herself from the gallery of onlookers and moved as through mud toward the doomed girl, trying to hide her feelings of guilt behind a mask of pride. A moment later the two sisters stood face to face, the one a picture of unspeakable anguish, the other unable to speak the feelings burning behind her gag. Candy, her eyes leaking tears, gathered Celine into her arms, held her for a minute, gently rocking, then kissed her on the left cheek. She let go and walked slowly backward into the crowd, weeping.

Celine registered no distress that Ming could see. The gag distorting her mouth precluded most facial expression, but her eyes remained bright and alert. When Lenny produced a large pair of shears and began cutting off her dress, she watched his progress with fascination, even lifting her cinched arms behind her to help him strip away the material.

Tad waved a paper over his head to regain the attention of the gallery.

"Thank you, Candy, for having brought us this wonderful contribution to our triannual feasts. The former Celine is now officially the meat for our banquet tonight and preparations will begin shortly. Celine left behind a Will which we will be happy to honor. I will post it on the kitchen viewing window so that anyone who wishes to do so may verify that we are preparing and cooking her in the manner she desired. In short, she asked to be spitted and roasted live. For those interested in watching, body prep will begin in the kitchen immediately. The actual spitting will take place in about an hour. She will then be transferred fully mounted to the outdoor roasting pit. Dinner will be served at 7:00 PM. In the meantime, for those who require a little something solid with their afternoon drinks," he paused for chuckles around the room, "a light lunch will be served until 12:30."

Lenny had snipped through and removed the last of Celine's clothing. She stood nude before the group as Tad finished his speech, shivering a little during his description of what was about to happen to her, what she had wrought in her own words. Being displayed totally naked like this with her wrists bound, her mouth gagged and a collar and leash around her neck, all contributed to a delicious sense of having been degraded to less than human. To meat. She reveled in it! At the same time, her adolescent mind was beginning to grasp the fact that in just a few hours her life would be over, she would no longer exist; that she had set herself up not only for death but for some seriously severe pain. And that it was all completely irreversible. Yet, paradoxically, that last fact, that nothing could save her now, was what made it all so incredibly erotic!

Ming could read all this in the girl's eyes — or most of it — because she could see her own reflection there. One day she, too, would be standing here: naked, demeaned and helpless — unable to stop what she herself had started. It was terrifying and immensely arousing!

"Will they really let us watch her being prepared?" she asked Lyle.

"Of course. But are you sure you want to do that?"

"Why wouldn't I? Shouldn't I know what the future holds?"

"You don't have to sign up for that kind of procedure. The initial prep can be quick and painless. Besides, that could be years and years away."

"Oh really? I don't see very many seventy year old PG's around here. Matter of fact, I don't see any female over the age of thirty-five. Where do you hide them all?"

"After a certain age they don't have to come to the banquets any more."

"Ah. So then how does Millennium get them to keep their mouths shut about this place?"

Lyle looked distinctly uncomfortable. "Ming, the Millennium Group has an excellent system of continuing incentives, but I am not at liberty to disclose what they are. The bottom line is, there are no aging and disgruntled ex-PG's wandering around out there. So let's just leave it at that and concentrate on the here and now. We've got a lot of living and loving to do before we need to bother about that stuff. Anyway, I thought you wanted to watch Celine's prep."

He pointed and Ming followed the direction of his finger to see Celine being led out of the room by Lenny at the end of the leash. They followed, along with several other of the spectators, including Cherry who looked like she'd been punched in the stomach. Ming had no illusions about the reasons for Lyle's discomfort and evasions. There was no doubt in her mind that Millennium would allow her to live only as long as she was a reasonable risk, a loyal banqueter and a worthy potential meal. Well, she had signed her own warrant in blood; there was no point picking at the scab.

Besides, today's experience had given her a taste of living on the precipice. She could see that life as a Millennium girl would be as edgy as a high wire act over Niagra Falls. A girl could get addicted to the adrenalin rush.

When they reached the kitchen complex, the observers were shunted to an observation window. As Ming took up a position there, Celine was being bent over a kind of trestle in a corner of the kitchen. Her leash was wrapped around tethering hook at the base of the trestle to hold her in place. A large enema bag was suspended to one side of the trestle and the nozzle was quickly inserted into her rectum. As her belly swelled with the contents of the bag, a wheeled toilet was rolled in behind her. By the time the bag was flat, emptied of its liquid, Celine was squirming in extreme discomfort, her stomach distended alarmingly. The staff had used the type of nozzle with an inflatable ball that holds it in place without help from the patient's overstressed sphincter, so there was no leakage when they loosened her leash, raised her up off the trestle and sat her on the portable potty. Not until they deflated the nozzle. It popped out with the sudden release of the pent up liquid stretching her intestinal tract. They went through this procedure three times, cleaning her out.

Next they cut off her plastic handcuffs and strung her up by her wrists and ankles with padded cuffs, stretching her into a vertical X, her feet a few inches off the floor. She was scrubbed clean with soapy brushes and hosed off. Another hose was inserted into her vagina. Her expression, in spite of the gag, suggested that the high pressure nozzle did not provide a pleasant experience.

She was then taken down and laid face up on a narrow stainless steel table, her arms strapped tightly to the sides at the upper arms, elbows and wrists. Each leg was strapped down separately at the crotch, knee and ankle. Another strap was cinched across her rib cage just under her breasts, a second over her neck and a third over her forehead. Everything was tightened down so that she was totally immobilized.

At that point two surgically dressed men stepped up to the table. The Chef and an assistant, Ming presumed. They rolled in trays containing the equipment they would need. One of them (the Chef, Lyle informed her) picked up a scalpel, inserted it into Celine's chest at the breastbone, just under her breasts, and made a smooth, deep slice all the way down to her shaved pubis. Her body vibrated as she reacted to the pain, but the straps were too tight for any serious motion. He returned the knife to the same starting point and did it again, slicing even deeper into the wound. The assistant pushed the two halves of the incision apart, ignoring the girl's agony and the flow of blood.

Now the white of her intestines was exposed. The assistant reached in and began pulling them out, dumping them into a hamper that was part of the implement tray. He removed yards of viscera until only the two ends remained, one connected to the stomach, the other to the anus. Two quick slices with a scalpel severed those two connections and the last two sections of intestine slithered out of the girl's belly and down into the hamper. More organs were removed in fast succession by the Chef — liver, kidneys, pancreas, stomach, spleen, bladder, gall bladder, uterus — all the those organs that work tirelessly out of sight and mind to support life, no longer needed now with less than an hour of life left to support. As each piece of her was sliced free and disposed of, the assistant used a cauterizing gun to seal its former connection to her body and stop the bleeding. When every internal part had been removed except the lungs and heart, the hose was once again brought into play to clean out the emptied abdomen. Care was taken to avoid damaging those final two vital organs.

Ming saw that a stream of tears was pouring from Celine's eyes. No doubt her suffering was horrendous. But Ming's sympathy was mitigated by the fact that live evisceration was apparently part of the "live spit roasting" she had stipulated in her Will. You get what you ask for, she supposed. A point she would remember.

The assistant fiddled with something at the foot of the table and pushed outward on Celine's ankles. The bottom half of the table split open into a V with each of her legs strapped to its own extension. Her legs were spread open so wide that Ming wondered if they had broken her hips in the process. Didn't matter, she supposed. What's a little more pain after you've been gutted live.

The Chef scooped a yellow substance out of a bowl with two fingers (butter, Ming guessed), inserted the fingers into the girl's widely exposed sex and rubbed it all over the vaginal walls and labia. As he lubricated this entrance to her body, the assistant removed from a wall bracket a long, steel spit about two inches in diameter, and brought between the legs of the waiting girl. The Chef buttered its pointed end with a brush and carefully inserted it into the vagina, glistening with its own lubricant, as the assistant steadied the shaft in a horizontal position. Once the lips of her sex had swallowed the tip of the spit, the assistant began to push and twist it at the same time, screwing it into her body while the Chef added more butter to each inch of the metal just before it slid out of sight between her genital lips.

Ming saw the point of the spit reappear inside the hollowed out abdomen, a gleaming metal spike where the young girl's virginal womb had resided only minutes before. The Chef shifted his buttering efforts to the point of the shaft as it advanced through the empty space. When it began to enter the thorax, the Chef bent down, his head almost inside the empty abdomen, and slid a hand up the shaft and into the rib cage.

"What's he doing?" Ming asked her physician-lover.

"He's guiding the spit past her heart and between her lungs. Doesn't want her to die prematurely and miss half the fun."

"Fun? Wouldn't it be more fun if they gave her something to kill the pain? She's obviously in a lot of it."

"Nope. Narcotics are strictly forbidden. Taints the taste of the meat. But don't worry about Celine. She's a pain slut. She's loving this! She knew exactly what's involved in live spitting. Watched the whole process three times that I know of. And she knows the worst is yet to come."

It was already becoming much worse for her. Her eyes were afire with pain as the spit worked its way toward her neck.

The Chef, apparently satisfied that the shaft was well aimed, transferred his attention to her head. With the touch of a latch, the portion of the table to which her forehead was strapped swung down, forcing her head back as far as it would go without breaking her neck. The Chef removed her gag, but the extreme angle forced her mouth to remain open. The instant the gag came out, a wail of agony penetrated the thick walls of the kitchen and the double glass of the viewing window, a chilling testament to the girl's agony. The scream ended abruptly, however, as the shaft pierced her windpipe and cut off her breathing. Her body bucked futilely in its tight restraints as she went into respiratory distress. But the Chef calmly sliced into her lower throat to open up a hole in her trachea below the entrance of the spit to let air into her grateful lungs. She quieted somewhat, but trembled and wept as the point of the shaft tore a gash along the roof of her mouth. The Chef inserted two fingers into her mouth — the same two that had lubricated her vagina — and pried the point of the spit down from her upper teeth, so it wouldn't break them as it twisted past. A moment later it emerged from her mouth. The assistant at the other end continued to twist and push it forward until about a foot of shaft extended beyond her mouth. The Chef wiped the blood off it with a paper towel, along with the bloody saliva now dribbling from the corners of her mouth. He packed another paper towel between her lips and the spit to absorb the flow.

A large container filled with a substance that looked for all the world like stuffing was brought to the table. Sure enough, the Chef and his assistant began pushing handfuls of it into the girl's gaping abdominal cavity. When it was all in, they forced the edges of the skin back together and sewed them up. Her belly was flat again and, except for the stitching, looked perfectly normal.

The freshly stuffed girl was unstrapped and washed off on all sides. By now she was incapable of offering any meaningful resistance to anything they might do. A short cross bar was affixed to the spit at her knees and her legs were wired together and to the bar. This would keep her turning with the spit when she was over the fire. Her ankles were also wired to the shaft. She was flipped over on her stomach and her wrists were wired together, then secured to her body with a strand of wire around her waist. Her hair was coiffed into a bun and a metallic shield placed over it, like a bonnet. Apparently she had stipulated that her hair not be burned off as she cooked. There was attempt to save her eyebrows and eyelashes, however, because, as Lyle explained, any shielding would leave clownish white stripes. But it didn't matter, he said, because shortly before or after she died, her eyes would split open and shrivel from the heat, letting her lids close. When she had finished cooking, her face would be so browned that the absence of brows and lashes would not be noticeable.

Two assistants, one at each end of the spit, picked it up and placed it on a set of brackets nearby. The Chef and his assistants began brushing a viscous yellow sauce flecked with green specks all over her body, turning her slowly. Some kind of spiced butter, Ming surmised. When her entire body was shimmering with it, from her face to her toes, the same two assistants picked up the spit again and carried it toward a door at the far side of the kitchen.

"Come on," Lyle said, unwrapping his arms from around Ming and taking her by the hand. "They're finished here. They're going to mount her in the roasting pit now."

The group of window observers moved with them down a corridor that led to the outdoor courtyard containing the bar-b-que pots and the open roasting pit. Another group had already gathered there, drinks in hand, waiting for the arrival of the cooking staff with their star menu attraction. The conversation was spirited and jocular, the glasses already drained of more than half their contents. The women were giddy with relief at yet another reprieve from their own date with the kitchen staff. The men were eager to ogle the latest girl-ke-bob. Several had already seasoned her with their sperm at earlier banquets. Now they could watch her suck on the steel dildo as she turned over the fire.

Jade and Taylor were among those waiting, Jade chattering away with Celine's sister, Cherry. Any vestige of grief in Cherry's demeanor was gone. She was all smiles now. Smiles and giggly expectation. She had changed from her soggy dress to a sexy two-piece number with a large diamond-shaped cutout in the top that extended from the choke collar to the bottom trim, which in turn was a good three inches above her gold navel ring. A minimal, low-riding, matching skirt and spike heels with knee-high, cris-crossed lacings completed the fuck-me ensemble.

The entrance of the kitchen assistants carrying Celine impaled on the spit was a cause for a chorus of oo's and ah's, with Cherry's delighted squeal carrying over it all. At about that moment, Jade spotted Ming and Lyle and, grabbing Cherry by the elbow, came over to join her.

"Look at Celine! Isn't she awesome?" Cherry gushed with a 15-year-old's enthusiasm. "Wow! That's what I want when it's my turn! That's so-o-o cool!"

"Were you there when they prepped her in the kitchen?" Ming asked, knowing that she had not been, but wondering how she would explain her absence.

"Oh no. That's gross. But I can imagine what it feels like. Getting pumped full of hot, soapy water until you think you'll bust open! Feeling the knives slicing you open and cutting out all your guts and stuff! And then having the spit rammed into your cunt and all the way up through you and out your mouth! God! What a rush! That's what I want!"

"You're not concerned about the pain?"

"I can take pain. I can take a lotta pain. I like pain. It makes me cum."

"And you want to be alive when they place you over the fire?"

"Yes, yes! That's the best part! Feeling yourself starting to cook! Knowing it's too late. You're just meat roasting, and everyone's watching because soon they're gonna be eating you. Omygod! It's so incredibly awesome! Don't you cream your panties just thinking about it?"

Perversely, it was having just that effect on Ming.

"Okay," she acknowledged, "but won't you miss your sister?"

"Well, yeah. But we talked about this a lot and she really got off on it. We decided this was what we both wanted. So I'm happy for her. I've signed up for it, too. It's so amazingly awesome!"

"And what about your older sister, Candy? Is this what she wants, too?"

"Oh she's such a fucking prima donna. Can't bear the thought of her precious skin turning all brown and crisp as a corn chip. She wants to be boiled."

"Boiled? Like in a pot?"

"Yeah. Well, sorta."

"Hey, what's wrong with boiled?" Jade chimed in. "That's what I'm doing. You last a lot longer and you're really tender and juicy when you're done. The meat practically falls off the bones."

Cherry sniffed and tossed her head. "Yeah, well I happen to prefer roast girl. We have more flavor that way. And I like the crunchy texture and taste of the skin with all those seasonings they baste you with. But most of all, watching a girl roasting on a spit is much, much sexier than watching her boil in a tank." She nodded her head toward the fire pit where the kitchen personnel were positioning her sister over the preheated coals and engaging the motor that would keep the spit slowly turning. "You gotta admit, there's nothing like watching a girl roast to stir up your sex juices!"

As if to illustrate the point, she put her hand in her crotch and began to grimace with self-induced pleasure. Ming's first instinct was embarrassment at public masturbation, but then realized that at least two other women among the spectators were doing the same thing.

The spit began to turn. Celine's face rotated up to where she was looking directly into Ming's eyes. The spit had distended her mouth so that she could move only the middle portion of her lips, which did, indeed, make it look as though she was trying to suck on the shaft. Ming searched her eyes for a sign of the torment she must be suffering, but instead was startled to see one eye close and open again. Celine had winked at her! She was actually enjoying this! The Chef turned up the gas jets under the bed of coals and the spitted girl's skin gradually began to turn pink, then red as she turned over and over above the intense heat.

Ming felt her genitals responding to what she was witnessing, felt moisture beginning to run down the inside of her thighs. Without wanting to be, she was on the verge of an unbidden, unreasonable and utterly unstoppable climax. As she watched the girl's eyes dance happily with accumulating agony at every rotation, her own body suddenly stiffened in Lyle's arms. He held her from behind, his hands massaging her breasts, his own turgid member rubbing against her buttocks, as wave after wave of orgasms shook her small frame.

Celine's body had turned a golden brown and had been basted four times before her eyes dulled, clouded over and finally burst. In that length of time Ming had decided how she wanted to be cooked when her time came.