MING

©2005 by C.A.Smith

In collaboration with a real, live Ming

whose fantasy inspired the story.

Chapter 1

Was it bravery or boredom that had made her do it? Ming certainly wasn't the gambling kind. Or, at least, never had been. And she was not kinky! Not really. Not her real self. Not counting the stuff Lyle had brought into her life. But she wouldn't have done those things if it weren't for trying to please him . She just went along with it. Although she couldn't in all honesty deny that it turned her on. Some of it. Well, most of it, actually. Was it her fault that her body responded with huge orgasms? She had no control over that. She didn't want it to happen, but it did. And who could blame her for craving more of it, for letting him do those disgusting things to her when it led to such shatteringly delicious results?

"You need to come out of your shell," he had told her.

Well, she had certainly done that .

It had started out as their own private play, but it wasn't long before he made it obvious that if she hoped to continue their relationship she would have to start going with him to his "Club." Be his partner. His submissive. Expand their play to include his friends. And she had to admit she had agreed to it of her own free will. Partly out of curiosity, of course. And partly because her long suppressed wild side had been longing to break free, take risks! But the biggest part, the deal sealer, was her fear of losing him if she chickened out. He was too good a catch to let slip away just to preserve her preconceived notions of modesty.

Lyle didn't share those notions. He openly scoffed at her parent's old-world sense of decorum. Made it clear that he considered modesty and virginity useless traits. Worse than useless: unattractive and pretentious. What he valued in a woman was sensuality and a single-minded desire to please her man. In other words (words he never actually spoke, but clearly implied), if she wanted to keep the handsome Dr. Lyle Bach as her boyfriend (not to mention her dream of a more permanent arrangement), she needed to chuck her pre-Lyle concepts of propriety and adopt his.

So she did.

It wasn't so hard, actually, except for the first time she had to strip naked in front of a room full of people, then hang chained up and helpless as he hung things from her tits and stuffed things up her vagina for their amusement! But she got used to it. In fact, truth be told, it was probably the embarrassment of doing such intensely private things in public that made her orgasms so explosive.

Still, none of that was anything like this! This was monstrous! It made her tremble to think of it! It made her sick with fear. But it also made her damp.

There was a darker possibility as well that might explain why she had agreed to this new madness. Perhaps it was just her perverted way of expressing an anger she did not dare put into words. She had agreed, after all, as part of the lifestyle she had entered into with him, that Lyle was free to fuck anyone he so desired. He had made it clear that he didn't believe in monogamy and would not restrict himself to any one sex partner, nor should she, either. She had swallowed her pride and bought into it. Why not? She was young, sexually overheated and crazily in love.

But free love for all concerned was not how it played out in actual practice. As it turned out, he alone, as "the loving Dominant" in their relationship, would choose all the alternate sexual partners for both of them. In short, he could fuck every woman who struck his fancy and was willing to drop her panties, including God knows how many, nurses, colleagues, patients and casual pick-ups at God knows how many of the bars he popped into on the way home. Ming, on the other hand, was required to wait until it pleased him to offer her to a dinner guest or to one of the guys at the Iron Feather Club. Often she was presented in trade for some other woman's favors. Sometimes she (or more specifically, her cunt) was merely collateral in a poker game.

In fairness, sometimes the loan of her body worked out well for her. Some of the guys at the Club were hot! Two in particular, Jason and Kyle, made her leak rivers! Just thinking of them — their thick, curly hair, their hard muscular bodies, their mouths on her lips and throat and breasts, their teeth nibbling at her nipples — always made her tingle. But most of the Club doms were overweight louts breathing stale tobacco at her as they pumped away, oblivious to her discomfort and unconcerned that merely loading her little Asian vagina with semen did nothing to stir her own feminine libido. They assumed she had closed her eyes to enjoy the feel of their cocks slamming into her, hoping it would go on and on. When, in fact, she was hoping they would cum soon and get off her. When, in fact, she was trying to distract herself from the squishing and slapping at her crotch by envisioning Lyle's sweet square face and remembering his gentle touch. When, in fact, she was nursing a deepening resentment of the love he squandered on his many easy conquests, on the busty bimbos who clenched his manhood in their hot, wet twats and moaned in an ecstacy that he should have been providing her . That was rightfully hers!

Was that why she had taken this insane chance? Her desperate jealousy? Was her acquiescence just a ploy to win back his full attention? Well, of course it was. He named the tune and she danced to it. He hummed; and she — gowned and bejeweled, or naked and demeaned — danced.

Would taking this risk bring back the old loving Lyle? Was his promise worth anything? Would he really change? Winning the draw might or might not result in recapturing Lyle's wholehearted affections, whereas losing was a definite end to everything. There would be no going back. Death is permanent.

More than that, if she lost, hers would be no ordinary death. She had already witnessed what they did to three young women on three earlier occasions, three pretty girls who had also gambled. And who lost. Maybe they, too, had been trying to salvage a souring relationship. Maybe they, too, thought holding on to their lovers was a prize worth risking all to win. Perhaps they, like her, were reassured by the fact that the odds were greatly in their favor. Or maybe, like her, they found themselves strangely excited by the risk, whatever the outcome.

Was that why Ming hadn't put up more resistance? Did she get as much a rush out of the possibility of losing as the hope of winning? Was she that crazy?

At the beginning, of course, it seemed relatively innocuous. A harmless agreement to an enigmatic invitation backed by a thrilling promise. She remembered the conversation well.

"You've really been enjoying yourself at the Club lately, haven't you?" he had asked, his wilting rod still entrenched deep within her, slippery now with their combined juices.

"It's okay." Her gradually slowing heartbeat made her voice quiver.

"It's okay," he mimicked, licking her upper lip and the side of her nose. "Don't give me the 'it's okay' act. I've seen your eyes sparkle with lust and heard you scream."

"Women can fake stuff, you know."

"They can't fake the stuff that pours out of your pretty little love canal while you're getting worked up. Did you know you cream when I tie you up? You cream harder when I flog those firm little Chinese tits or cane that tawny ass or those shapely thighs." He ran a hand over her breasts and belly as he talked, letting it trail down through the little black furry patch. "You cream most of all when you're chained down to a mattress to be a whore toy to a bunch of horny bikers." He quickly clamped his mouth over hers to stanch the automatic protest before it could move from her dark almond eyes to her lips. "So don't give me that 'it's okay' shit," he whispered into her mouth, holding his lips firmly against hers, ready to bite off her words, letting his fingers slip between her labia, still slick from love-making, replacing his withdrawn member while stroking her still wet and swollen clit with his thumb, giving her little after-thrills. "Admit you like it my exotic little sexpot. Admit you enjoy watching me get hard binding you up and mistreating you like the lovely little Oriental slut you are. Say you love it!"

He lifted his face a millimeter to let her answer, feeling her lips brush his as they moved, her breath still slightly tinged with the fragrance of the ejaculate she had swallowed earlier.

"I love you , my darling."

"Not good enough, Ming. I cannot accept your profession of love for me unless you also confess to loving the places I take you and the pleasures I share with you. How can you love me if you do not love doing the things that give me pleasure? I love you, my sweet little Chinese tart, because you are different. You are daring. You wholeheartedly submit yourself to my desires. You give yourself without hesitation to the things I enjoy. You submit your beautiful, exotic body to whatever uses I desire because it turns me on and makes me love you beyond all reason. You know that the Iron Feather Club is one of my greatest pleasures and that in joining me there as my fully submissive partner you have given me great delight! So tell me you love it, too."

"I love it."

"You love what? Spell it out."

Ming squirmed under his weight, pretending to attempt escape, but he pinned her down. She sighed in surrender.

"I love to make you happy," she said. "Going to the Club makes you happy. So I love to go the Club with you."

"And if there were more I wanted of you? Other places I wanted to take you?"

"Whither you go, I shall go," she responded, vaguely quoting some famous remark she'd read somewhere.

"There is a place I want you to go. Want to take you to. It's very important to me. Will you go?"

"Of course. Where is it?"

"It's not so much a place as an organization. It's called the Millennium Group."

"What do they do? Is it more BDSM?"

"No. Quite different. It's a secret group. They meet quarterly for a banquet."

"So what's so secret about a banquet?"

"They do scary things at these banquets. Exciting things. But quite . . . illicit."

"Drugs? I won't do drugs."

"No drugs."

"So what's so scary?"

"I won't tell you. You'll see for yourself. If you agree to go."

"I've already agreed to go. But why won't you give me some clue as to what goes on that makes it so scary, and . . . what did you call it? Illicit?"

"I have my reasons."

"So maybe I'll change my mind. Maybe I won't go. Maybe I'm already too scared."

"You'll go because you love me. You'll go because it's what I want. Because if you go it will demonstrate that you are the girl I thought you were when we first started dating. When you moved in with me."

"I've always given in to you on sexual stuff, yes. And the bondage and discipline. Because I love you too much to say no to any of it. Even screwing other guys, since that's what you want. And only because you want it. But now you're talking illegal stuff. That's what you really mean, isn't it? Illicit means illegal. And when you say it's scary . . . well shit, that could mean anything. It's scary enough being tied up and helpless. What does this kind of scary involve?"

"Don't you trust me, Ming?"

"Yes, I trust you. You should know that by now, dammit! How often have I hesitated to do what you ask?"

"Because trust is a vital component of love. If you don't trust me, you don't love me."

"Jesus, Lyle!" She turned away so he wouldn't see the tears forming. "What do I have to do to prove to you that I love and trust you that I haven't already done?"

She knew it was the wrong question the instant it left her mouth. He couldn't have asked for a better setup.

"You can prove it by going with me without asking any more questions."

She sighed in defeat. Fear had become a standard ingredient in their relationship. Perhaps the most exciting part. She knew she was just blowing smoke. He knew it, too.

"You know what I think of monogamy," he said, clutching her to him and rolling on to his back, savoring the feel of her breasts pressing down on his chest. "So let me make this promise: if you have the courage, and if you love me enough to take this step into the unknown, I will from now on not so much as look at another woman. I promise. It's that important to me. Please, Ming, tell me you'll do it. That you'll attend the next Millennium Group banquet, no questions asked."

She doubted his sincerity about giving up other women, but she was intrigued.

How could a banquet be so important?

"Okay," she murmured as he caressed her back. "You know I'll go. You know I can't resist an offer like that. But please, tell me something about this group. I'm not asking you to reveal any deep, dark secrets; just a little something so I'll have some idea what to wear, how to prepare myself mentally."

"It's a worldwide organization that began in your parents' neck of the woods. Thailand, I think."

"My parents are Chinese."

"Whatever. The point is, they do something that no other group does. It's extremely erotic and exciting, and therefore illegal. That's all I'm going to tell you. But I stress again: this means everything to me, Ming. So if you decide to back out, I'll find someone who will. But you're the one I want. Please! It's what I want for us."

"It's not BDSM?"

"Not at all."

"I won't be whipped or chained up or made to do stuff?"

"Nothing will be done to you that you don't volunteer for. Only one thing will be required of you: that you eat what's served. And I promise: it will be delicious."

"What's the scary part?"

"I told you. You'll find out."

And indeed she had!

Lyle had not deceived her. It was not a BDSM group. She was not restrained or hurt in any way. The people were interesting, the activities were fun and the sex (lots of sex!) was entirely consensual and mostly in private rooms. The dinners were delicious, just as he promised. She was the only one who threw up (and only at that first banquet), but everyone was very solicitous and assured her that vomiting was a common reaction for first-timers. She soon got over her squeamishness.

Ming would have walked away from it all the instant she saw the first dead girl, but it was already too late. Lyle had seen to that.

Chapter 2

He had made her write out a statement in her own handwriting and sign it in blood. In her own goddamn blood! Made her cut the index finger of her left hand and drain blood into a little candy dish. He produced from somewhere an old-fashioned quill pen and had her dip it into the blood to sign the statement. The blood was for psychological purposes, of course. Ming knew that even then. What she didn't know was that the document was a legal bullet that would prove lethal if she ever betrayed Lyle or the Millennium Group. In it she avowed that she was "fully aware of what went on" at those banquets and that she participated in them of her own free will as a matter of religious conviction. She claimed to subscribe to "an ancient indigenous religion" for which the banquets and all attendant activities were "a vital part of worship."

She had no idea what she was confessing to, what really went on at the Millennium Group. Had she known, she told herself later, she would have backed out. Gone to the police. Turned them all in, Lyle included. But in her heart she knew that was rubbish. She would have gone with him anyway. Bitching and dragging her feet, to be sure, but she would have gone. Because he insisted. Because he had made a bright promise in the shadow of a unspeakable threat. He had promised her his exclusive devotion, forsaking all others, if she would go. He had also assured her that if she did not, he would find someone who would, someone equally as beautiful as she, someone unreservedly willing and eager to please him. Ming had no doubt he would find such a woman. He was surrounded by them! Her resistance, therefore, was minimal, a mere tickle and taunt show intended only to make him beg her with more ardor, convince her with his body. He played along charmingly, nibbling her ear lobes as she drew her own blood, licking the lips between her legs as she signed the spurious confession to a capital crime.

Ming could only hope that the Millennium Group was just another gathering of middle-aged professionals who like to treat themselves and their favorite tart to a fancy dinner followed by some kind of naughty entertainment. The first hint that "illicit" was an understatement came when Lyle insisted on blindfolding her as they drove to the location of the banquet. Time stood still for her during that long period of rolling darkness, but she registered every word of his chatter as the Mercedes hummed along unseen streets and roads. She was told the Millennium Group met three times a year at a private estate.

"How many members are there?"

"Worldwide? Several hundred. For these local banquets, we usually get a dozen couples or so. They come from all over the world."

"If you throw a banquet, they will cum. Is that it?" She made a finger gesture to illustrate the pun.

"That's part of it."

"But not the 'illicit' part."

"No. Consensual coitus is licit."

"So there'll be about twenty-four members?"

"Twelve members. At least twelve. Only the men are members. The women are their guests."

"Oh great. A men's club with bimbos. Or is it doms with their submissives?"

"Neither, exactly. You'll see. The only real purpose of 'membership,' per se, is to keep the contact list as narrow as possible. There's also a certain turnover among the women while the males remain pretty constant."

"Is that because the women don't like it as much?"

"Not at all. You'll see."

"Or maybe it's because the only women there are girlfriends and mistresses. The wives and kids get left at home."

"Could be."

"That way the Members can discard their old females for new models now and then. Bring fresh, younger cunt to the party."

"Now you're showing your insecurities. Honestly, I have no idea why your self-confidence is so low. You're incredibly beautiful! In fact, I'd love to hang that nude photo of you on my office wall, right opposite my desk. The one with you stepping out of the shower. As it is, I keep it in that top desk drawer where I can pull it out between patients and drink in your loveliness over and over."

The flattery would have been more enjoyable if she didn't know that his examination of the patients between claimed peeks at her photo were far more intimate.

"Yeah, right," she said. "My tits are too small."

She heard him snort in disgust. It was a sore point in her mind, a feeling of inadequacy she couldn't seem to shake. She had been told by plenty of men, including Lyle, that her breasts were firm and perfectly proportioned to her small frame. In fact, Lyle refused to let her wear a bra in his presence, insisting she let the pert nipples poke sexily against whatever top she was wearing. Yet she could not help but compare herself against the full-busted young women he examined every day in his office, women whose boobs were swelling with milk to feed the fetus growing in their tummies. Boobs he would carefully examine with fingers and eyes on every visit.

"Don't be absurd. Your tits are exactly right," he scolded for the thousandth time. "Your nipples are among the world's seven wonders! I never tire of flicking them and sucking them." He reached over and demonstrated by pinching her left nipple affectionately. "Your breasts will still be firm and perfect years after all the big-boobed babes who brag about their size D's are drooping and sagging to their waists. I love your tits and you know it! I love all of you, my darling Ming. I love you so much it's hard to sit here and drive and not jump over there and ravish you. You can't begin to know what it means to me that you've agreed to do this, to put your trust in me, to love me so much you would even sign that paper in blood. Now I know you're really mine and I can concentrate all my love on you."

These were words she had signed her name in blood to hear. But the comfort of the words began to wane once more as the miles and hours of darkness behind the blindfold wore on. She made sporadic attempts to relieve her doubts with talk.

"How long have you been a member of this group?"

"The Millennium Group? Five years."

"So you've brought other women?"

"Not since I've been with you. I've been waiting for the right moment to ask you."

"What was the right moment?"

"When you had proved at the Club that you loved me enough to submit to my wishes without complaint, even suffering pain if it pleased me. The ultimate proof of your love and submission was allowing me to loan you to others. That showed that you truly think of yourself as mine. Mine to love and even to loan to my friends if I wish. By unfailingly submitting to my will in order to give me pleasure, you have proved yourself the most perfect mate a man could hope to have. You are my ideal love partner. And you're proving it again right now by trusting me, sitting there blindfolded, not knowing where we're going or what will happen when we get there. God I love you!"

She basked in his words. Groped for his hand on the steering wheel. Found it and squeezed it in her own small hand. Brought it over and pressed it against her breast. After a while he slid his fingers out from under hers and combed them through the short black cascade of her hair, gently grazing the soft bronze of her cheek and neck.

"You'll mess up my hair," she said automatically as she leaned her head into his fingers.

"I love your hair."

"Most men prefer blondes."

"Most men are asses. Blonde can't compare with the soft natural luster of jet black hair. And I love the cut, the way it curves around your cute little face, frames it like the work of art it is, with those sexy black eyes and flawless skin. You have the clearest, silkiest skin it's ever been my pleasure to see and touch.."

And you've seen and touched plenty! she thought. Another unbidden reflex from the well of her insecurities. But it was true. An ObGyn gets to see and feel lots of tender feminine flesh. Despite her love for him, Ming couldn't help but be skeptical about his insistent dismissal of the endless daily flow of impregnated women as "mere clinical objects, young female animals of the human persuasion" who meant nothing more to him than the pictures in his medical texts. Trouble was, Ming knew from experience that he could never look at a woman with mere clinical objectivity. How could he do so when he was between their legs every working day, up close and personal with their vaginas, breathing in the natural perfumes of their sex, probing inside their sacred, grottos with his thinly gloved and lubricated fingers. How could the horny Lyle she knew not be aroused when he was feeling those innumerable breasts for prenatal lumps, kneading the milk-swollen mammaries for long, extremely attentive minutes. Did he really need to pinch and pull on the nipples to test their readiness for nursing? Did he really need to stand behind them, cup both breasts in his hands and knead them for two minutes to check for "asymmetrical anomalies?" She knew he did these things because once, in an unguarded moment of levity, he'd laughed about it, at how naïve they were, these sex-deprived baby carriers.

Ming had seen her hunky boyfriend around enough women to know how easily they fell under his spell, how they reacted to that magazine model face with its curly black hair and steel blue eyes. She had observed him in action many times at the Iron Feather Club, diddling those bosomy, oversexed subs for whom he had swapped Ming's services. She saw how readily they accepted their fate, how lustily they got into the spirit of being fucked by the incredibly good-looking doctor. She had also watched his eyes at work in stores, on the street, in malls, in restaurants, at the beach — every place where young women flaunted bare midriffs, precarious cleavage, tanned thighs and pretty faces. He never missed an opportunity to take it all in. She could see his mind working behind those sharp blue eyes: undressing, caressing, perhaps tying up, definitely entering one of their juicy young holes.

She felt she was in constant competition. Hell, she knew she was! And with only the most fragile of assets: her exotic beauty and a bright yet submissive mind. She was arm candy with a UCLA degree and a kink. She was a safe escort who would not embarrass him at social gatherings; a wanton slut who would not disappoint him in bed; a pliant sex-slave would not disobey him at the Club. Beauty, brains, submission. Those were the assets that had won him. Were they enough to hold him? Was Lyle really ready to embrace monogamy?

"Let's not waste the trip just talking," he was saying. She heard the telltale zip. His hand closed on hers and drew it over to the front of his trousers. "Pull it out for me," he told her. "I want to feel your warm fingers wrapped around me."

She knew he wanted a lot more than that, but the gearshift and armrest between their seats made it too awkward. He had lamented that obstruction in the past, although not enough to have traded in this zesty little sports model for an uncool sedan with a bench seat. Rather, he had learned to make do with the magic she worked with her neatly manicured hand.

Not that she herself didn't want to deliver the full treatment. Amazingly, before she'd begun dating the hot Dr. Lyle Bach she had been too shy to touch a boy's "thing," much less take it into her mouth. Looking back, she was appalled at how shy she was. A social mongrel, she was two-thirds California girl, born and schooled in the wilds of L.A., and one third Chinese, raised in the conservative home of a couple from Taiwan. How on earth she had managed to land the astonishingly sexy Dr. Bach, even as hordes of buxom blonde starlets and pheromone-drenched nurses threw themselves at him? Was she more beautiful than they? Hardly. It had to be the one-third of her that reflected her Chinese mother's unswerving subservience to Daddy. It had to be that she, more than any of his other open-thighed admirers, was willing to subordinate her own needs to his. She was his fawning Asian beauty, happily groveling at his feet, letting him rule the roost.

One aspect of their relationship still bothered her, however. What if she were to become pregnant? He kept "loaning" her to Club members. Few of them deigned to wear condoms. Would he accept a child of unknown siring? She had asked him, of course, but he only waved it off.

"Don't worry about it. When the time comes for us to raise a family, you won't be screwing anyone but me."

When the time comes? What did that mean? Aborting every conception until he's ready to settle down? The possibility made her sick to her stomach. But she dared not press the issue. There were all those gorgeous blondes ready to step in an take her place. Besides, she liked to assume that the other half of "you won't be screwing anyone but me" was that he wouldn't be screwing anyone but her. So she went along with the program. Whatever it was.

Including this trip to the mysterious Millennium Group. Whatever it was.

Lyle popped a CD into the Mercedes' sound system and hummed along with it as he hardened to Ming's touch, riding the slow buildup of the rush, Ming's experienced motions taking him in carefully managed gradations to the ultimate crest. She was ready with a tissue to collect his sperm at the climax, protecting his suit from the spurting. She hoped he would be satisfied with that. But, of course, he was not.

"Come on, my darling. You know how to finish."

Without a word she placed the tissue in her left palm, opened it up, raised it to her mouth and licked up the puddle of semen, swallowing it down.

"Good girl," he said. "Before this day's over, I'll do the same for you."

At the thought, an electric current surged up from her clitoris. It grew more urgent when he leaned over and kissed her ear.

She squeezed his cock to show her appreciation for his affection.

This was going to be a great evening, she decided.

Which just goes to show how naïve a girl can be.

Chapter 3

When the blindfold came off, they were inside a gated estate moving down a long, smoothly paved drive lined on both sides by towering ornamental conifers. How long had she been trapped in flannel darkness? She couldn't tell. Long enough for the damn thing to have become really annoying! Checking the dashboard clock didn't help; Lyle had covered it with tape. He'd also put the odometer on "Trip A" and reset it to zero. He obviously intended that she have virtually no idea of where they were, including how long it took to get there. She guessed it had been four or five hours because they had left right after an early breakfast and the sun was still high overhead.

Just before the blindfold was removed she had felt the Mercedes slow down, turn sharply to the right and come to a softly punctuated stop. The window on Lyle's side had hissed down, letting in a draft of warm air, sweet with the scents of grass, trees and flowers.

"Your card, please, Sir."

A male voice. Polite but not obsequious. Several long moments of silence, save for the call of distant songbirds.

"Thank you, Dr. Bach. They're waiting for you and Ms. Ming. Have a wonderful day."

"Thank you," her lover had answered. "I expect to."

It was less than a minute after that that he had removed the damned blindfold. She shook her head and tried to pat her hair back to a semblance of tidiness.

"Jesus Christ, Lyle! Do all the women who come here get this damned blindfold treatment? Or is it just me?"

"It's SOP for all newcomers, both men and women. After that, it depends."

"On what?"

"On whether they intend to keep coming back. For the men that means joining up as a member. The women who come back and participate in the activities become PG's. Privileged Guests. PG's only have to be blindfolded within five miles of the grounds. It's just a matter of security."

"So in other words, the women have to put up with blindfolds but the men don't?"

"In a word, yes."

"What the fuck does that mean? Women are greater risks than men?"

"As it happens, that's the case."

She snorted. "Oh great! Rampant sexism. But then, this is a men's club, isn't it."

He bristled. "No it's not. A men's club is a place where women are excluded so men can enjoy a purely masculine environment. In a 'men's club' women are invited only for special occasions, if then. The Millennium Group, on the contrary, is fifty-fifty men and women. It's just that the members, the men, are more vulnerable to . . . ah . . . legal complications than the women, so they're less likely to bring the wrong kind of attention to our activities."

"Those would be the 'illicit' goings on that you mentioned."

"That's right."

"And that you won't tell me about."

"Because it's better that you experience them yourself and not make prejudgments. At any rate, that's why the men are considered less of a security risk."

"So you're going to keep blindfolding me for these trips?"

He favored her with a warm smile. "As I said, if you decide you want to be my permanent guest and join in with the spirit of the group, it'll only be for the last eight or ten minutes of the trip. There are also a couple of other options."

"Like what?"

"I could put you in the trunk."

"Terrific! I can add discomfort to blindness."

"Or I can put you to sleep for the whole trip."

She eyed him suspiciously. "How would you do that?"

"I'm a doctor, remember? There's a certain serum I can inject. You'll be out like a light till we get here."

"And there's another serum to wake me up?"

"You'll wake up naturally, all refreshed."

"So why didn't you offer it this time?"

"Because you're much more fun when you're awake." He leered at her.

She gave him a little half-suppressed smile. "Yeah, well you can just get out the serum and keep yourself zipped up from now on."

"Look, I'm expecting you'll become a Permanent Guest right away, and surely you can put up with a blindfold for ten minutes. You endure lots more than that at the Club."

She made a small non-committal grunt, but what he said was obviously true.

"You should know," he went on, "that I intend to keep coming to these events and you're the one I want to have with me. I'm trusting that you want that, too."

He glanced over at her. There was no plea in his eyes. The meaning of his remark was clear enough. Her dream of a permanent connection to the good Dr. Bach hinged on how well she took to this Millennium Group, on how enthusiastically she embraced whatever shadowy activities went on here.

It was at that point Ming had made her fateful decision. She wanted Lyle at any cost. She prepared herself to accept whatever was coming. After all, how bad could it be if all these other "permanent guests" kept coming back?

As these thoughts filled her mind, the Mercedes emerged from the evergreen sentinels into a spacious curved arc that circled past the grand portico of an enormous three-story mansion. The massive roof of the portico was supported by six fluted Corinthian columns. It doubled as an ornate third floor balcony enclosed by a wrought iron balustrade. Six granite steps ran the length of the portico separating it's marble-tiled floor from the brick walkway between the mansion and the curve of the driveway. The wings of the building stretched out several hundred feet in both directions from the imposing portico. A multitude of huge marble-framed gothic windows lent an air of magnificence to the structure, abetted by dozens of slate-topped dormers and two rounded towers at the juncture of the wings to the main building. Ming had seen such ostentatious palaces in Europe and Asia, but never in the U.S. countryside.

Two couples sipping from cocktail glasses sat in lounge chairs on the balcony over the portico watching the arrival of the Mercedes. A burly man with only a trace of neck awaited them. His attire consisted of a bright red polo shirt that revealed massive arms, black pants packed to the bursting point with thick legs and a pair of black running shoes with the Nike logo. Lyle stopped the car where the man could simply reach out and open the door for Ming. He held it open but said nothing to her as she climbed out of the car. His eyes were cold, his demeanor somehow frightening. He closed the door and turned his glare on Lyle who had also climbed out of the vehicle. The man nodded without changing expression.

"Dr. Bach." His voice was oddly high pitched for such a huge body. He had apparently used up his quota of salutary conversation because he said nothing more. Simply waited for Lyle to exit the car, then slipped into it and drove it away.

It was at that point Ming had realized there were no other vehicles in view. She could hear laughter and conversation from inside the mansion and the two couples were still on the upper veranda, but there was no sign of how anyone had arrived. Belatedly she looked to see where the burly man was headed with Lyle's Mercedes, but saw only its rear bumper as it disappeared around the far end of the mansion.

She had little time to ponder the mystery because her attention was quickly lured away by the details of her surroundings. The mansion (she could not think of such an awesome structure as a mere "house") seemed to be set in the midst of a vast and lavishly appointed golf course. In fact, on a distant knoll, nearly hidden by the lush foliage of an ornamental garden, she spotted a greens flag. It was a golf course! As if on cue, another couple came trundling around the garden in a golf cart.

Lyle had taken her hand and was leading her up the great expanse of steps to a pair of bronze doors at least twelve feet high that marked the main entrance. The doors swung outward as they approached, as if triggered by a motion detector like those at supermarkets and Wal-Marts. Maybe they were.

The interior was as fabulous as the outside facade and grounds. She found herself staring open-mouthed at an enormous rotunda reaching up to a dome well above the third floor. An elegant marble staircase fanned out to collect visitors on the main floor and guide them upwards to the second floor landing before spiraling off to both sides for a stately double access to the third floor. The lower walls on the first level were adorned by alternating hand-carved doors and paintings. The paintings were larger-than-life portraits of men and women in classical poses, mostly nudes and all of an erotic nature. Ming felt herself being aroused by the vivid scenes. She wouldn't learn about the other gallery, the much larger one locked behind secret doors in the basement of the East Wing, until her second visit.

As she took it all in, a couple in casual attire headed directly toward them, the man grinning, the woman — hardly more than a girl — walking less steadily and looking flushed. Both held cocktail glasses and Ming had the impression that the girl had filled hers once or twice too often. She couldn't have been more than eighteen. Her light brown hair was in some disarray. Ming suspected they'd been making a little mid-day whoopie. The man — mid thirties she guessed — clapped Lyle on the shoulder.

"Hey, man! Glad you finally showed up. And this little stunner must be the legendary Ming."

He grabbed her right hand by the fingers and made a cartoonish display of kissing the back of her hand, but finished by licking her knuckles.

"Good to see you again, Max," Lyle said. "This is, indeed, the lovely Ming I have mentioned to you on other occasions. But let's not dredge up maudlin recollections of good times past," he added quickly, "when we have a whole afternoon and evening to create brand new ones. I see Brandi made it through the lottery. Been doing a little celebrating?"

"You bet!" Max said. "Guess who won it tonight!"

Lyle's face hardened a little. "Max . . . Ming is a newcomer. This is her first visit. She doesn't know all our little secrets yet. Okay?"

"Hey, I knew that!" He turned to the girl, who looked like she might tip over at any moment. "Isn't that right, Brandi? We're here to welcome the new lady and make her feel at home. Right?"

Brandi's focus, such as it was, slid over to Ming. "Mmm."

"So all I was going to say," he made an exaggerated excuse me for living gesture, "was that Kelsey won the jackpot this afternoon. You remember Kelsey, don't you Doc? Raymond's girl? Hot little number! Well, she'll be even hotter tonight."

Max sniggered. Brandi giggled. Lyle frowned and put an arm around Ming's waist. Began to turn her away.

"We're headed for the Perennial Garden," he said. "Catch you later."

Ming found herself being hustled away, all too clearly an unsubtle effort to get her away from Max's big mouth.

"So what's wrong with Kelsey, whoever she is, winning the jackpot, whatever that is?" she asked her lover.

He was leading her through one of the ornate doors, down a plushly carpeted hallway and out to a patio where several couples sipped drinks around a large pool.

"I don't want to sound like an endless loop," he replied, "but you'll find out soon enough. Max and Brandi have only half a wit between them when they're sober. They've obviously been celebrating her luck with a little too much gusto."

"Her luck at losing this lottery, you mean."

Lyle paused for a beat. "Do you love me, Ming?"

She drew in her breath.

He repeated the question. "Do you love me?"

"Of course I do. You know I do. And yes, I agreed to come here with you and yes I'll be coming back again because I know you want me to and it's a condition of your loving me monogamously and I want that more than anything in the world and whatever the deep dark secret is here I'll go along with it because you want me to." She took a breath. "It's just . . . I just . . . I'm only human, Lyle. I'm nervous because I don't know what you're getting me into. But I promised you I'd do it and I will do it."

He examined the determined set to her jaw, then swept her up and kissed her. A prolonged, wet kiss. When he broke it off, his right hand was clutching her breast and they had drawn the rapt attention of three couples on the patio.

"So are you going to undress her and ravish her right here, or would you like to introduce her first?"

It was a woman's voice, but Ming hadn't opened her eyes fast enough to see who it belonged to.

"This is Ming," her lover announced. "She's new and a little tentative because she's not yet aware of the nature of our group. But she'll soon be one of us."

"Excellent!" It was one of the men. He stepped forward and offered his hand. "Welcome, Ming. I'm Tom. This is my wife, Katerina. She's from Ukraine and she's been a Permanent Guest now for two years."

A slender blonde woman of indeterminate age — somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five — drew closer and took a turn shaking Ming's hand.

"Welcome to Millennium Group, dear," she said. "I was afraid, too, when first here. But it is such lovely place. So much to do. Such wonderful dinner. And you get used to taking chance. It is exciting! You will see."

The others gravitated toward Lyle and Ming and soon a drink was in her hand. She was on her second bourbon and ginger ale when one of the couples doffed their clothes right there on the patio and jumped into the pool naked. Soon others had joined them. Ming instantly spotted the gleam in Lyle's eyes and knew what he wanted. The Iron Feather Club had long since inured her to public nudity, so she smiled seductively at him and began peeling off her sun dress. A few moments later they were both in their birthday suits and in the pool where an impromptu game of water volleyball had begun. It was not the kind of game where the score mattered, or anyone bothered to keep track. It was just a lot of fun and shouting and splashing around.

Over it all a man's voice boomed.

"Well, look who's here!"

A stentorian voice, full of itself.

Ming was just resurfacing from a failed attempt to reach the ball. She shook the water out of her eyes to see a tall athletically slim man approaching the side of the pool with a very pretty young woman in tow. The man had a typically Nordic look, but the conversion of his blond hair to silver was well under way. The girl was of Asian extraction, her swarthy skin tone a startling contrast to his pallid whiteness. She was much younger than he, young enough to be his daughter, although the racial disparity made that unlikely. They were both as naked as the volleyball players.

"Yo, Taylor!" Lyle shouted back from the other side of the net. "Come join us! Either team could use a ringer."

Taylor let go of the girl's hand and jumped in on Lyle's side of the pool. The girl slid into the water more gracefully and took up a position beside Ming. She was immediately loquacious.

"Hi. My name is Jade. Yours?"

"Ming. I love that name, Jade. It's so pretty. Suits you, too."

"Thanks. I picked it myself. My original name can't be pronounced by Americans. I was born in Taiwan. When my folks moved here, they changed it to Jenn. But I changed it again, to Jade."

"Wow! You're from Taiwan! So are my parents. Taipei. But you sound so American!"

"I arrived before my first birthday, honey. My mother divorced before I was two and married an American, so English is all I've ever really spoken."

"Where do you live?"

"Originally Sacramento, but I've moved around."

"When did you change your name? In school?"

The girl laughed as she reached up to stop the ball and poke it over to Ming, who slugged it back over the net with a small closed fist.

"No, not school. When I went to work for Lady Fox's Escorts."

"Escorts?"

"I was a working girl, sweetie. A call girl. How about you?"

"Me? No! I mean, I've never done it for money." Ming felt herself heating to scarlet in spite of the cool water, regretting her rude choice of words. "Not that I have anything against . . . working women. Why should I. God knows I've got nothing against sex, paid or free. If a girl's gonna put out for a lotta guys why not make them pay for the privilege? Right?" She was rambling, making it worse, but couldn't seem to stop herself. "I mean, I go to a BDSM club and get screwed by all kinds of guys. And that's just because my boyfriend wants me to. So in a way I guess I'm on call without getting paid for it. Better to get paid for it, right? I mean, I don't earn a helluva lot at my work, so I could use the extra cash."

She stopped, intensely aware of Jade's amused expression and embarrassed at her own vacuous blathering.

"I'm sorry," Ming said. "I'm making a fool of myself. It's just that I've never met an actual call girl. I didn't want you to think I'm judgmental about that sort of thing. Really, I'm not. Actually, I'm fascinated. Will you forgive me? Can we start over?"

Jade laughed. A light, musical giggle tinged with girlish glee. "You're cute," she said, and laughed again.

Ming was both relieved and taken aback. "Cute? Is that good or bad? Have I offended you? I didn't mean to. Really!"

"You haven't offended me, honey? Like, if I were sensitive about the issue, I wouldn't have mentioned it, okay? I mean, what the fuck difference does it make in this place, right? What we do here makes fucking for money seem like Sunday school in a nunnery, right?"

"What do you mean?"

Jade gazed at her for several long seconds, comprehension dawning visibly in her eyes. "Oh shit. You're the newbie, aren't you?"

"This is my first visit, yes. My boyfriend . . . that's him on the other team, the one your friend was talking to, Lyle . . . he talked me into coming here. But he won't tell me what you guys do here."

"Yeah. That figures. Don't worry about it, sweetie. It was the same here." She paused to return another ball, driving it to the far corner beyond anyone's reach. Ming was amazed at her skill. "Taylor insisted I come here. I had just agreed to be his mistress, which was a lot better than fucking five or six strangers every day when any one of them might be a cop or a psycho with a knife. I mean, Taylor's richer than God! And when he offered to take me on and support me in the style to which I wanted to become accustomed, it was like, Halleluia! No way I was about to fuck up that arrangement! But part of the deal was that I be his regular guest here. That was two years ago. And I'm still here. So far so good."

"What do you mean?"

"You'll see."

"Christ! That's what Lyle keeps saying! Why won't anyone tell me what the big secret is?"

"Are you Lyle's mistress, or do you work?"

Ming suppressed her frustration at the obvious redirection, but went along with it.

"I work. Lyle and I live together, but I work for a restaurant in LA. I'm a chef. He's a doctor."

"You're a chef?" Jade's eyebrows rose in some kind of astonishment.

"Yeah. Studied in Paris and everything."

Jade laughed as though it were the most comical thing since Seinfeld.

"What's so funny?" Ming asked.

"Oh, nothing. It's just a little . . . I don't know. Ironic? You'll see soon enough. Your boyfriend, Lyle: you're hoping he'll propose, right?"

"It wouldn't hurt my feelings."

"You love him."

"Of course I love him."

"And you'll do anything for him."

"I even let him blindfold me for the whole damn trip here."

Jade giggled. "Me too. The first time. But I'm in too deep now for them to bother about that. Besides, I love this place. I always have fun here. I've especially come to love the banquet part. It stimulates the hell out of me. It's a much bigger high than sex. I guess I'm a thrill seeker by nature. I like risk. Maybe that was part of my getting into the call girl business. That and poverty."

Ming wanted to scream! All these tantalizing hints about the Millennium secret, but still no explanation! Ming had an urge to shake Jade, get her back on the subject! Ask what the hell was risky and thrilling about a goddamn banquet? But their conversation was interrupted by an extended, watery volley, as lengthy as it was exhausting. When a couple of the players begged off to go pee, the others hopped out of the pool to recover and reclaim abandoned drinks. Some wrapped themselves in towels. Others did not. Ming and Jade remained among the nude and found a table where they could continue their talk in the warmth of the sun.

"So you're a chef?" Jade said after refreshing her drink, a martini from which she had already consumed the olive. "That should give you a better head start than most of us had." Before Ming could ask what that meant, Jade rushed on. "The only carcass I'd ever seen up close was this guy who called the agency and asked for the youngest girl they had. That was me. So when I arrived — it was a motel room on Avenida de Mayo in San Diego — he had all this stuff laid out on the bed. A collar and leather harness, a butt plug with a red tail, whips, all that shit. I started to tell him no deal, I don't do submissive, when he says no, no! He wants me to be the dom. Ride him and whip him and lead him around like a dog. So we did all that shit for half an hour or so until he was ready to cimb aboard. But then, just as he reaches orgasm, he grabs his chest and starts gasping and turning blue! He's having this fucking heart attack while he's still inside me! Finally he collapses on top of me and lies there like a beached whale. I pry myself out from under him and shout at him to wake up, but it's no use. He don't respond. I didn't know what the fuck to do: call for help or run. I mean, I sure didn't wanna be there if he's dead and the cops arrive. And he looked dead as hell to me. So I called my boss at Lady Fox's and she told me to get the fuck out. Which I did. Turns out he was a state legislator. I'd a been plastered all over the media if I'd called for help. That kind of publicity me and Lady Fox's didn't need. I met Taylor shortly after. At first he was just another client, but he was nice and when he offered to take me away from all that shit, I jumped at the chance."

"You seem awfully young," Ming observed, the added alcohol loosening her curiosity. "How old were you when you . . . started escorting?"

"I was seventeen. My boss thought I was eighteen."

"So now you're . . . ?"

"I'm twenty."

"Jeez. You look, like, fourteen."

"I have good genes. My mom looks twenty-five."

"Forgive me for saying this, but I can't help wonder. Isn't Taylor quite a bit older than you are? Not that it's any of business."

"Sure he is. A lot older. But I'm not going to marry him, so what's the difference. He's as generous as a billionaire at the pearly gates, and that's all I need. Besides, he's plenty big where it counts when I'm in the mood for it. And when I'm not in the mood, so what? He fucks and I fake."

Ming laughed. "You live with him?"

"Hell no. He's married, honey. I'm strictly his mistress. His fuck toy. He's set me up in a gorgeous downtown apartment. But to be perfectly honest, my biggest value to him is my willingness to be his partner for these jaunts to the Millennium estate and their scrumptious barbeques. Now tell me about your BDSM experience. What was that about?"

Ming, light headed with three drinks and delighted with her racy new friend, put aside for the moment her doubts about the Millennium Group and launched into an account of her escapades at the Iron Feather Club. Soon they were both giggling at the more outrageous absurdities of BDSM play. By the time Lyle and Taylor joined them, Ming was into her fourth drink and had forgotten her fears.

Clothed again to ward off the hot sun, they spend the balance of the afternoon dabbling in golf, croquet, badminton and frisbee. Every now and then the delicious aroma of cooking meat wafted their way. Something she couldn't quite recognize.

"What is that wonderful fragrance?" Ming finally asked, as they headed indoors again and on into a large room filled with chattering couples. Her tongue was becoming a little slurry. "Is that our dinner?"

"Indeed," Lyle replied. "Would you like a little preview? A bit of an hors d'oeuvre?"

Before she could formulate an answer, a young woman in a red dress appeared with a silver tray. In the center of the tray was a delicate bowl of Japanese porcelain containing a paté. The bowl was encircled by a variety of crackers on a bed of parsley. Lyle took a sesame seed cracker, dipped out some of the paté with it and placed it on Ming's tongue. She chewed and swallowed.

"Mmm. That is good! What is it?"

"It's made from the same meat we'll be enjoying tonight at the banquet." He turned to the girl in red. "Candy. Ming here is a chef. See if you can purloin a small strip of the roast they're preparing for tonight. We'll see if Ming can guess what it is, despite the seasoning."

"Yes, Sir." She placed the tray on a side table and strolled smoothly away. Something in the way she looked at Lyle and moved told Ming that this girl was no mere servant. But she was glad for the hors d'oeuvres because she hadn't eaten anything since breakfast and was famished. She had munched four more of them before Candy returned with a small plate containing a thin slice of meat about the size of an old-fashioned silver dollar. It was juicy, steaming and oddly colored — somewhere between the oyster white of pork and the dark red of filet mignon. A small fork lay beside the plate. Candy smiled serenely as Ming picked up the slice of meat with a dainty scoop of the fork and slipped it into her mouth.

"Well?" prompted Lyle.

"It's wonderful! Amazing!" Ming said as she swallowed the last of it. "And I still have no idea what it is. It's definitely not beef, or deer, or elk, or bison. It's not chicken, or turkey, or ostrich, or emu. In fact, the texture is wrong for any foul I know of. It might be pork, or veal, but the flavor is subtly different from either. Is it some sort of exotic animal?" Is that what this dark, illicit secret is about, she was thinking? They eat endangered species?

"In just about half an hour you'll find out, my sweet." Lyle placed his mouth over hers and worked his lips and tongue on hers in the way that always started her secretions flowing. In any normal social setting she would have pushed him away before her response became embarrassingly obvious to others, but this place was hardly normal. Tom was over by the windows with a hand up Katerina's skirt, and another man had his blonde companion backed up against the opposite wall with her dress top pulled aside so he could suckle her breast. Max and Brandi, the first couple she'd met on arrival, were visible through the archway to the vestibule walking up the grand stairway hand in hand and stark naked, apparently fresh out of the pool.

Candy, the girl in red, was offering Ming another drink.

"Thank you, no," she managed to say, waving it off.

But Candy didn't move.

Lyle held Ming's face in his hands, turned her to face him and looked straight into her eyes. "You need this one, sweetheart. Please take it."

"Jesus, Lyle! If I have one more drink before dinner, I'll never make it. I'll keel right over. Listen to me. I'm slurring my words!"

"I know. But this is a special concoction to help reduce the effects of all that alcohol. You don't want to fall into your plate at the banquet, do you?"

"No. I . . . a special concoction?"

"To help sober you up a little."

"Made of what?"

"Drink it. When you're sober enough, I'll tell you."

Suddenly she didn't feel like arguing about it any more. Her mind was becoming fuzzy. The words getting too hard to form. The hell with it! She took the glass and chugged it down. So there! The red-dress girl smoothly took the glass from her fingers as Lyle bent to Ming's mouth and kissed her. The room was spinning a little. When did that start?

From nowhere a feminine arm wrapped itself around her shoulders and gently guided her to another room, a quieter room. No din of conversation. No one was attempting intercourse against the walls or offering her snacks and drinks. Heavy drapes. Sofas with soft cushions. She sat down on one of them. Looked to her left. Jade was seated beside her. Smiling as though she knew something. What?

"So you're a chef. Fancy restaurant?"

Ming nodded.

"You go to college to learn how?"

With an effort Ming forced out, "UCLA. Culinary Arts. Then Paris." It was badly slurred. L's were so hard. Her tongue wasn't curling properly.

"Wow. Did you get to butcher the animals you cooked?"

"Some. In Paris. Learn the cuts. Mostly watched."

Lyle's concoction seemed to be clearing her mind a little, but it had done nothing for her ability to talk."

"So butchering carcasses is nothing new for you, right?"

"No. Been there. Done that." She giggled.

"Fresh meat. Fresh meat is best, right?"

"Abso . . . solutely." She'd have to avoid long words. "Yes. Fresh. Fresher the better."

"Ever cooked a whole animal? Like a pig?"

"Luau. Apple in the mouth." She giggled again.

"Rammed that rod right up their ass and out the mouth, right?"

"That's how. Has to be done right, though. Slow. Low fire. Keep turning, basting." The words seemed to be pouring out now of their own accord.

"What if I was to tell you that's what we're having tonight? A succulent spit roast with all the trimmings. Don't that sound great?"

"I love a . . . a good roast."

"And I'll bet you know just how it should be done, you being a high class chef and all." Jade put her right hand on Ming's nearest thigh and began drawing casual circles with the tips of her fingers.

"Has to be slow," Ming answered. The fingers soothed her, made her tingle. She forced out another few words. "Gotta have the right spices. Good stuffing." She felt the warmth of Jade's hand close over her thigh, the circles widening.

"And you've done that, haven't you? Cut it open and taken out all the entrails. Cleaned it out. Stuffed it."

"Yeah. Lots of times. Luaus."

"Then after it's roasted over the fire pit . . ."

"Slow. Gotta cook it slow."

"Yeah, slow. After it's slowly brought to perfection you present it on a nice big platter in the center of the table, right? So everyone can enjoy the sight of it, all golden and shiny from the bastings and the juices seeping through the skin. And the wonderful smell of it!" Jade's hand moved higher, approaching the critical juncture. "That kind of stuff, the whole carcass cooking and served on a spit, that doesn't bother you at all, does it." Her warm hand under the dress, sliding over silky skin. Closer.

Ming shook her head, making the world spin. She could barely breathe, much less talk. That warm hand under her dress was sliding upward. Closer. Then they touched the cleft of her sex, wiggled between the wet lips. Touched her clit. An electric charge surged through her pelvis and up her spine. She shivered. She wasn't into girl love, but her body wouldn't move to resist it. O God! She was enjoying it! But she mustn't! She liked Jade. But not that way! Yet she didn't want to hurt her feelings, reject her. So she let the fingers slide inside her. Let the fingers excite her. Let them become slippery within her. Allowed herself to moan in pleasure, the conversation forgotten, her body seized with spasms as the orgasms raced through her! Blinding thrills that made her buck and jerk. She heard herself keening!

Suddenly the fingers became still.

Settling down now. Momentarily satiated.

A man's hand on her shoulder. Familiar lips kissing her closed eyes.

Oh God! Lyle! And here I am with Jade's fingers up my pussy!

Yet she didn't move. Couldn't summon the energy. Didn't care. (Except for some part of her way back there who was mortified. Strange.)

A gong sounded. Distant. Deep throated. An exotic, irrefutable command. An invitation too majestic to resist. Too ominous to ignore.

Her lover's voice in her ear. Far away.

"Come along, Ming. Time for dinner."

Chapter 4

What the hell had Lyle put in that drink?

Ming's mind seemed to be working, but at a far distance. He said his "concoction" would sober her up. Didn't he? She couldn't quite remember his exact words. But if he did, it wasn't working. Just the opposite! She was totally hammered, unable to focus on anything. Unwilling to try very hard. Nothing seemed important enough to think about.

Except the orgasm. God! That had been unlike any she had ever experienced! She was still having little aftershocks, her own juices still dribbling down her inner thighs. She wondered for the briefest moment if something in that last drink had contributed to it. There was something Lyle and Jade had said to each other. Something about heart rates and spreading her blood. Or was it through her blood? She couldn't concentrate. Couldn't remember. Didn't care. It was all so ridiculous, the whole scene. Nothing made sense any more. The harder she tried to think about what was happening around her, or where she was, or who she was, the more absurd it all became. When she laughed, it made echoes. Or was that others laughing with her? Or at her. As if it mattered.

Another funny thing: she had lost control of her body. She could feel it, hear things, see, taste and smell, but she couldn't make her body do anything. She was up and walking, Lyle on one side, Jade on the other, but she had nothing to do with it. She didn't know where she was going or how to stop.

They were still talking to her, walking her along, their arms linked through hers, ignoring her post-orgasmic tremors. It was all too hilarious! Did they realize she was blasted out of her skull? Out of control? In a far-off corner of her mind she caught occasional phrases.

. . . keep your eyes down . . . you're gonna be a great asset, hon . . . doing fine . . . so beautiful . . . everyone understands . . . first time . . . we've all been through this, sweetie . . . don't look up . . . keep moving . . . almost there . . . you'll see . . . you'll see . . . .

But they were so distant from her, so disconnected, that she couldn't help but laugh. Had they no clue? Couldn't they see she had left the room? Lights on, nobody home. Engine running, but no one in the car. She giggled at the incandescence of her wit, at the foolishness of her escorts. Serves them right for getting her so drunk!

They walked down an endless corridor, doorways to the right and left, ignoring them all. Treading on a thick oriental runner. Oriental. Very funny! she thought, although she didn't know why. She wanted to look around, see what this place was like, but she couldn't. Keep your eyes down. She had obeyed him at the Club, but that was different. She had chosen to obey. Now she couldn't do otherwise. Her body was on autopilot and she didn't know the program.

The carpet ended and the surface beneath her feet changed to tiles. They had emerged into a vast space. Outdoors, yet indoors. She wanted to look up, see what it was going on, but could only stare at the floor tiles. They kept walking. Others crowding around. A heady aroma of roasted meat and spices. Sounds of appreciation. Ooo! Look how they've done the presentation! What a beauty! Prettiest one yet! Can't wait to get a taste! Ahh! This must be the banquet. Why could she only study the damned floor? Don't look up! A flash of frustration and anger welled up from some deadened part of her, but soon evaporated.

"Sit down, Ming."

A disembodied voice. Lyle? A total stranger? No matter. She felt herself sitting, as though lowered into the chair by invisible wires. Peter Pan floating about the stage. Perhaps she would fly to the ceiling where she could keep her eyes down and see the whole assemblage at the same time. But all she could see now was an elegant setting of white china with delicate blue scroll work around the rim, set off by heavy silverware and a linen napkin.

"Keep your eyes on the plate, Ming. Don't look up."

An overpowering lethargy settled over her. There was convivial discussion all around her, but none that included her. There was much clinking of glasses, scraping of chairs on tiles, laughter and commentary about sports, sex and food. But she couldn't join in, couldn't even follow it. She couldn't even remember what she was wearing. Couldn't bear to look. She could focus on only one thing. Her plate. Much as she wanted to tear her eyes away from it, she could not. Keep your eyes on the plate! Don't look up!

The flash of a red dress caught her peripheral vision. The girl who had given her Lyle's concoction was now serving appetizers to the guests, small dishes containing stuffed artichokes. Once she would have been curious as to how they were prepared and stuffed. Now she could only keep watch over her plate. A woman's hand — Jade's hand — lifted the little dish and placed it in the middle of the plate. The artichocke swam into focus. Tempting. She knew she should start eating it, pulling the green petals off to scrape away the flesh with her teeth, but she lacked the energy, the will to move.

"Eat it, Ming." Lyle's voice again. "Enjoy it. But keep your eyes down. Don't let your vision stray beyond your own food and drink."

I'll look where I want , she would have said if a thick torpor hadn't mired her tongue.

To her surprise, she was able to reach for the artichoke and begin disassembling it. In a few minutes she had finished it off — petals, stuffing and all. She realized she was famished. The tiny hors d'oeuvres she'd had earlier had only whet her appetite, and the rich fragrance of the freshly cooked roast somewhere beyond her field of vision was making her mouth water almost faster than she could swallow it. Yet she could not so much as reach for her tumbler of water. He limbs simply would not function by her volition alone, any more than she could lift her chin off her chest or raise her eyes beyond the circle of her plate, utensils and drinking glasses. They were no longer hers to command. Keep your eyes down!

She noticed an increase in dinnertime commotion around her. Even through her mental haze she knew what that meant. The elements of the main course were now being laid out — all the vegetables, fruits, breads and salads that would complement the centerpiece of the entrée: the roast itself. She waited patiently, nearly drooling, her senses awash in a barrage of delectable odors, glaring at her plate.

In a blur it was whisked away, but another had already taken its place, this one laden with meat, garlic potatoes and buttery broccoli. Irresistibly delicious as it looked, she simply could not lift her hands out of her lap. Not until Lyle's voice melted the invisible block of ice in which her body had been frozen.

"Ming, as tonight's newbie, you are our favored guest. Therefore, please do us the honor of taking the first bite of tonight's special roast. And since you are a highly regarded chef yourself at a well-known L.A. restaurant . . ." (a murmur of interest traveled through the crowd) . . . "please give us a professional critique of tonight's presentation."

"Do as he says, but don't raise your eyes."

Lyle's quiet addendum in her ear produced the most astonishing reaction! The lethargy that had all but paralyzed her dissipated as suddenly as a flock of starlings at the appearance of a cat. Without a moment's hesitation she seized a fork and plunged it into a thick slice of the roasted meat. In another moment she had taken up the knife from the other side of her plate and was cutting off a generous mouthful of the meat. Forking it into her mouth with her left hand, in the English style, she moaned ecstatically as she chewed and swallowed. After a sip of Chardonnay to wash it down, she closed her eyes and pronounced in a clear, serene voice, "Magnificent! I've never tasted a better roast. And I don't even know what it is."

This elicited howls of laughter, cheers and applause.

Ming was puzzled. What was so funny? On the other hand, who cares? One mouthful had hardly made a dent in her hunger. She opened her eyes and, gazing intently at her meal, dug into the remaining meat, savoring it, spacing it out between portions of vegetables and salad. By the time she had finished and her plate was bare, she realized she had regained control of her body. She was able to look around and take in her surroundings.

She was seated between Lyle and Jade on the far side of a banqueting table in the shape of a horseshoe. The room was huge, about the size of a baseball diamond, with glass walls and a glass roof probably forty feet high that gave the impression of being outdoors without risking the disappointment of bad weather. The roasted animal that had provided this meeting of the Millennium Group with the sensational meal she had just enjoyed was displayed on a spit in the opening of the horseshoe. Most of the meat had been carved away so that pretty much all that was left was the skeleton. Ming squinted, trying to identify the unknown beast.

But there was something very wrong about this carcass.

The head had not been removed so that the roast could be presented with an apple in its mouth. Very traditional. The shaft had been removed to accommodate the apple. But the head was not right. It was certainly not that of a pig. Most of the meat had been carved off the animal's legs, rump and underside and was heaped on platters placed within easy reach of the banqueters who, in turn, had already transported much of it to their own plates and stomachs. The belly of the beast had been sliced completely away so that leftover shreds of stuffing could be seen still clinging to the ribs and pelvic bones.

The stuffing itself now filled several large bowls scattered around the table.

Ming squinted at what was left of the creature, as if squinting would help burn off the remaining cobwebs from her mind. She also noticed that she was drawing an increasing audience: eyes following her belated efforts to identify her dinner amidst the laughter and chatter, eyes watching for her reactions. A knot was beginning to form in her guts, a vague sense of apprehension building with the slow assimilation of clues.

The now mostly skeletal carcass had been presented in a crouched position, like a cat preparing to pounce. But the articulation of the limbs was not that of a cat-like creature. It was much more like that of an ape. Yes! An ape in a kind of Buddhistic prayer posture, on forearms and knees. Now she could make out the hands and feet, crisped nearly to black during the roasting and half buried in a bed of parsley. All its hair had been singed off, of course, but the head was round with small ears. Exactly like an ape.

An ape!

Ming's first reaction was a surge of anger that further cleared her mind. Was that the deep dark secret here? They were slaughtering and eating apes and God knows how many other exotic animals and endangered species?

But as her mind sharpened, she realized there was still a discrepancy. The features were too delicate, the legs and toes too short. It was almost human in proportions.

Lyle and Jade, observing her closely as she put the pieces of the puzzle together, stood up, one on each side. They picked her up by the elbows and gently moved her back, away from the table.

An instant later the truth dawned on her. She realized what she was looking at. It was the remains of a human female.

That was when she had thrown up.

Chapter 5

"You bastard! You prick!"

They were sequestered in one of the innumerable rooms in this vast building, well out of earshot of the throng still lingering over dessert and after dinner liqueurs. Lyle was comfortably ensconced in the soft leather embrace of an upholstered chair. Ming was pacing the oriental carpeting and ranting, her face livid with fury, her body and still shaky from the effects of the spasms that had hurled the contents of her stomach to the floor of the dining hall.

"You tricked me! You drugged me and tricked me, goddammit!"

"Drugged you? Yes. Absolutely. We often do that for newbies, to keep them from going off the deep end. But tricked you? Rubbish. You knew there was a deep, dark secret — as you put it — and you came here anyway. Even signed that phony confession so I'd let you come, a confession that will stand as legally valid in a court of law, should it come to that. You signed it, you came and now you know the secret. And since you are now an accomplice to what the Law calls a Class A felony, you may as well stop calling me names and let me show you the bright side. "

"The bright side! Jesus Christ! What you're doing here goes way beyond criminal . It's an abomination!"

"Nonsense." His voice was as relaxed as his demeanor. "Cannibalism has been around for thousands of years. Right now it happens to be illegal here. So what? Sex outside of marriage is a capital offense in some places. Does that make sex evil if it's not State certified? Of course not. Sex is sex regardless of religious and legal restrictions. Likewise, meat is meat regardless of what species it comes from."

"Cannibalism is not just a religious restriction. It's an abomination everywhere on earth!"

"You're wrong. Hundreds of people belong to this organization world wide. There would be hundreds of thousands if we could publicize it. You yourself, before you knew what you were eating, were delighted with the flavor. Admit it, if you have the courage. Girl meat is delicious. Furthermore, every aspect of the process — from obtaining it to preparing it to serving and eating it — is immensely erotic and satisfying."

"Jesus! This isn't just cannibalism. It's murder!"

"Don't be silly. Not one girl has been eaten here who did not participate voluntarily. Did you think that Sherri, the girl whose flesh we consumed tonight, didn't know we'd be doing so? Hell, she planned the whole menu, including how she would be cooked and presented."

"I don't believe that for one minute! She was probably tricked the way I was. Tricked and drugged!"

"Pure nonsense. Sherri has been a Permanent Guest here for quite some time. She knew exactly what we do and had participated enthusiastically."

"She knew she was going to be eaten today? And came willingly? You expect me to believe that?"

"She didn't know this would be her day to be on the menu until she got here, but she knew there was always the possibility. She found it exciting. They all do."

"All?"

"Every one of the women here. They all participate in a kind of lottery when they arrive, to decide which of them will have the honor of being the featured course of the day."

Ming gaped at him. "All the women here do that? They volunteer to be cooked?"

"No. They voluntarily take the risk. For the thrill of it. Today, for example, their chance of winning the honor was only one in twelve. Excellent odds. A small risk, but still enough to make your heart pound! Talk to Jade. She'll explain it to you."

"Jade?! She was in on this trick of yours! Why should I trust anything she says?"

"Don't put any special onus on Jade. Many of the women here were eager to take her role. You're a lovely new addition to the group, after all."

"I'm not in the group!"

"Oh yes you are. But I decided on Jade because you and she seemed to bond well, right at the start."

"She betrayed me!"

"On the contrary. She helped initiate you into our group. You're now one of us and . . ."

"No I'm not!"

"Yes you are, and despite your current state of anger, you'll come to realize two things. That you have no choice. And that you wouldn't have it any other way."

"What do you mean no choice ?" She glared at him, seething, afraid she already knew the answer.

"Right now you're upset and angry with me because whatever you thought the 'secret' of Millennium might be, this wasn't it. But the fact remains that you love me. You love me enough that you wrote out and signed a statement saying you knew all about the Millennium Group activities and took part willingly. You did that prove to me that your love for me goes far beyond the perishable love of ordinary people, that you love me so completely you're willing to put your life in my hands. I accepted that proof of your devotion and brought you here because I love you with an equal passion and knew that the proceedings here would bind us together forever. If you continue to honor me with such unconditional love, I no longer need nor want any other woman in my life but you."

O God! Words she had waited so long to hear! The promise of fidelity for which she had swept away all her trepidations about the letter, about coming to this place. He had just offered her all that she had hoped for. The red hot anger that had boiled away her resolve to win her handsome doctor began to cool. A voice roared at her from the part of her mind that had longed for this moment. You've won! Don't blow it! screamed the voice. Still, it was not able stop one last attempt to vindicate her fading ire.

"But cannibalism is wrong."

Lyle rose gracefully from the chair, wrapped his arms around the still frowning Ming and drew her tightly against him. "Your reaction to the consumption of human flesh is understandable since you've been brainwashed from infancy to think it's wrong. But that's mere nonsense. Eating human flesh is as ancient a human practice as fishing and was part of every prehistoric culture. Christianity even uses the concept in the Eucharist: we become one with God by consuming the body and blood of Christ. Deep in your soul you know that the human body is simply meat and bones, like any other animal, and the most intimate thing we can do with that body is to bequeath it to our friends to share in a joyous feast. Your feelings of anger are only temporary, my sweet darling. In your heart and soul you still love me and want our partnership to grow closer and deeper. If it were not so, you wouldn't have bothered to hang around and scold me, now that the secret has been revealed."

He kissed the back of her neck. She made no physical response, but neither did she try to push him away.

"You sure don't make it easy to keep on loving you," she said. "And you're wrong that I wouldn't have it any other way. If we could back up and start over, I'd never sign that goddamn paper."

He nuzzled her hair and kissed her ear.

"Sure you would. Because you want us to be together forever, exclusively together, and that paper would still be a necessary step. Coming here would still be the next necessary step. Our love would still have to go through this little trial by fire before our union could be complete and permanent." He paused to kiss both her eyes. "The final step is for you to agree to continue coming here as my loving, permanent guest. At that point we will be, to my mind, more than married. Our souls will be inseparable. We can follow it up with a legally binding wedding if it pleases you to do so; but what happened here today and what will happen during all our future visits here will be the sine qua non, the marriage rites that count."

Sine qua non . Without which, nothing. He was predicating his promise of eternal love on her acceptance of the Millennium Group.

He continued to place delicate kisses all over her neck and face as he let made her fateful decision.

"Is that supposed to be a proposal?" she finally whispered.

"You may think of it that way. But in actuality, our love is taking us on a journey in which marriage is implicit and inescapable. We're already two thirds of the way there. All you have to do is stay the course. Asking you to marry me is as superfluous as asking an infant to suckle. But if you need the traditional ritual to feel well and truly engaged, then yes! I'm asking you to marry me. Will you marry me, my sweet Ming?"

She buried her face in his shirt and began to weep. After a few minutes, she sighed, pulled herself together and asked in a voice that already signaled surrender, "We'll have to keep coming here?"

"Yes, my love. If you're willing to do that for me, for our marriage, I'm more than willing to be your lover exclusively, forever. That's the deal."

"And if I'm not?"

It was Lyle's turn to sigh. "Are you happy with what we've had so far? Boyfriend and girlfriend. Weekends at the club. No strings. No commitment. No future?"

"No."

"Tell you what." He kissed her firmly on the mouth, running his tongue over her lips, feeling her breath shudder. "We'll spend the night here in the luxury suite they've reserved for us. That'll give you time to think about it. Talk with some of the other women here. Get their take on what it's like to be a PG. Maybe it will help you decide whether you really want to be Mrs. Lyle Bach."

He turned her, took her arm and led her out of the room and down the hall away from the festive sounds emanating from the Dining Hall. They ascended the marble staircase to the second floor, traveled another plushly carpeted hallway and stopped in front of a teakwood door bearing a brass plate with the number 113 engraved on it. Lyle drew a plastic card from his pocket and slid it into a slot under the door handle. A lock tripped with a soft click and he opened the door revealing the most sumptuous bedroom suite Ming had ever seen. Flocked wallpaper in subtle blues and greens, natural wood furnishings that included a sit-down vanity with huge three-way articulated mirrors, upholstered chairs and sofas, a partner's desk and a gargantuan flat-screen TV mounted on the wall opposite a four-poster king-size bed beneath a ceiling mirror of the same size. As Ming entered the room, nearly tripping in the depth of the carpet, she could see that similar luxury had been lavished on the bathroom. She spotted the gleam of gold in the fixtures through the open door and twin shower heads on the far wall of the tiled room.

"I'll leave you to change your clothes," Lyle told her. "Come on down to the Great Room when you're ready." He gave her a gentle kiss, lingering until he felt her begin to react. He put his left hand over her right breast, put his right hand in the small of her back and pulled her in tightly against him. Almost immediately she was chewing on his lips and pressing her pubis against his leg, moving her hips slightly. He knew he had her. He broke it off with a light kiss to her throat, smiled at her in that way that promised rapturous lovemaking to come, and let himself out of the room.

Twenty minutes later when she had taken a shower to rid herself of the last traces of vomit and was making the final adjustments to a sexy new dress. It was a dark yellow sleeveless model with green trim around the arm holes and all other edges. The bottom hem was just above the ankle but wide cut-outs up each side turned bottom half of the dress into front and back panels, exposing the entire sides of both legs up to the curve of the hip. A standup collar was pinned at the throat with a horizontal wooden dowel and another cutout in the form of an oval dropped down to midway between the breasts to reveal a modest but tantalizing cleavage. Contiguous oval cutouts down both sides made it clear she was wearing nothing underneath.

The hot shower and fitting her lithe form into the stunning dress had helped divert Ming's attention from her residual anger. A part of her still argued that this was all wrong, that killing and eating humans was the worst kind of evil. But another part of her loomed larger every minute. That was the part that Lyle had aroused with his promise of lifelong singular devotion to her, if only she would go with him to the Millennium Group's triannual banquets because, after all, hundreds of members of the Millennium Group did, and such feasts had once been a perfectly normal part of human society, and the women they cooked were all volunteers, happy to share their bodies as meat. Which part of her was right? Or did it matter? Was aversion to cannibalism simply a cultural taboo based on nothing more than squeamishness? Was adhering to that taboo worth losing Lyle? Since she had already eaten human flesh, was there any point in pretending she was innocent?

As she stared semi-focused at the dresser mirror there was a light knock at the door behind her. It opened just wide enough to admit Jade's head, reflected in the mirror.

"May I come in?"

Ming's sense of anger rekindled at the sound of her voice.

"You're half in now. Why bother to ask?"

It was a childish bit of rudeness but Ming had no intention of sparing this woman the venom she had failed to inflict on Lyle. But if Jade was fazed by the acerbic invitation, it didn't register on her face or in her body language. She entered the room and plopped herself in the most comfortable chair as blithely as if she had never collaborated in the terrible deception.

"You feeling better, sweetie?" she asked, sugary as you please.

"I'm feeling betrayed!" Ming snapped back. "By you and by Lyle!"

Jade laughed. A short, bright little chirp. "Oh hon, we all felt that way at first. Well, most of us. Some of the girls here knew what to expect before they got here."

"And they came anyway?" Ming was astonished.

"Sure. It's exciting as hell! Getting into the lottery and waiting to see if your number will come up. Shit, there's no other rush like it! Better than sky diving. Better than sex!"

Ming didn't know what lottery she was referring to and found herself curiously reluctant to probe. Instead she barked, "And it doesn't bother you that you're eating people ? Human beings?"

"Fuck, no. It's just another kind of meat, and pretty damn tasty. And don't give me any shit about how you didn't like it, too. I heard you pronounce it 'wonderful' and 'amazing' when Candy gave you that sample. I saw you digging into it at dinner. You loved it! Till you threw it up, of course. Yuk!"

Ming tried to hold on to her outrage, but the memory of vomiting in front of the entire room swept it away in a wave of shame. She felt her face grow hot.

"Oh don't worry about it, sweetie," Jade soothed. "The staff had it cleaned up in seconds. They kind of expect that reaction from newbies and they're ready for it."

"Others have thrown up?"

"Of course."

"You?"

"No, but I've seen a lot more shit in this world than most. Besides, my first time here they didn't have the carcass right up there in front of us on a bed of veggies. She'd been carved up into steaks and stuff. It was only when I saw her tits on a platter that I figured out what the mystery meat was. By then I was too loaded to care."

"Why on earth did you come back after you found out?"

"Like I told you, hon, Taylor was my ticket out of the life . Whoring ain't exactly how I wanted to spend the rest of my days. I mean, I was doing okay, making a pile of money; but it was running through my fingers like water. Clothes, booze, drugs, parties, classy cars, fancy San Fran pad, you name it. And I gotta tell you, playing hide the salami with an endless stream of jerkoffs could act like you're dog meat gets to be a real drag. Taylor was phenomenally rich, extremely generous, a real gentleman, not bad looking and willing to set me up for life. All I had to do was agree to come with him three times a year to this fantastic estate. Big risks, big thrills, all kinds of fun, terrific dinners and a huge payoff. A no-brainer."

Ming's embarrassment at the memory of the vomiting episode had leached away most of her anger. She sat down and studied the relaxed young woman who obviously had no qualms about having teamed up with Lyle to turn her into a cannibal.

"Doesn't it disturb you at all that you're eating other human beings?"

"Trouble with you is you're still caught up in the propaganda you've been fed since you were born. Human meat is no different from any other kind of meat, except it tastes better than most."

"But you're killing people! That's murder."

"Not at all. A woman has to die to give up her meat, that's true, but she's not murdered. Every woman at the Millennium Group is here by choice. Taking part in the lottery goes with the territory. Actually it's an incredible rush! There's always the chance, however small, that you'll be the one on the table."

"What the hell are you talking about? What is this lottery ?"

"That's how we chose our meat, sweetie. By lottery."

"Explain that, please."

"All us Permanent Guests arrive here sometime before eleven a.m. on the day of the banquet, or maybe the night before. We all enter a lottery at eleven o'clock sharp that determines who's going to be the main course. Whoever wins it is escorted to the kitchen and converted to meat."

"You all do this?"

"That's right. All of us. No exceptions."

"The men, too?"

"No, hon. Men's meat is terrible. Too tough and stringy. They cook only girl meat. That's us."

"That's horrible!"

"It's exciting! I've been coming here two years now — tonight was my sixth banquet — and every time is more of an adrenalin rush than the time before. And the sex afterward is through the roof! I'm all wet now in anticipation."

"You actually look forward to coming here when any at any visit you could wind up slaughtered and eaten?"

"Ming, you think you know what you're talking about, but you don't. Until you've spent time with the knowledge that you're only meat on the hoof and that at any time you could be called upon to be converted into a roast or a boiled dinner for your friends, you can't begin to understand the thrill of it."

"My God, Jade! It may not be murder when someone voluntarily enters a lottery to be killed and eaten, but it sure is a kind of suicide!"

"So what? There are young men and women voluntarily blowing themselves up all over the middle east just to spread fear by killing other people at random. The people who talk them into it call them martyrs. The bomb carriers no doubt think of themselves as martyrs during those last panicky minutes of their lives. Why is it so bad that we Millennium women choose to risk being turned into meat? We're not killing other folks. If we do win the lottery, we're feeding our friends with a beautiful, highly personal gift of our own sweet flesh, cooked to perfection and served elegantly."

"Jesus!" Ming was dumbfounded.

What had she gotten herself into? On the one hand, it was a relief to learn that the girl she had helped to eat was not an innocent victim the Millennium Group had snatched off the streets and murdered. She had willingly gambled her own life away. On the other hand . . . .

"Did I hear you right, Jade? Do all the women here, the Permanent Guests, do they all have to take part in this lottery?"

"Absolutely. If you wanna dance, you have to pay the piper."

"Sounds like a good reason not to come."

"Millennium women are required to attend at least two banquets a year. Doesn't have to be here. There are other facilities. But this one's the best. Best grounds, best chef."

"And what if they don't?"

Jade smiled. An oddly sad smile. "They do."

"But what if they don't?"

"Ming, sweetie, you don't need to bother your head with that. You're gonna love it here! There's lots to do, the accommodations are marvelous," she gestured at the room to prove her point, "you'll come to love the meals and you'll even be amazed at how addictive the high is when it comes to the lottery. It's scary, it's exhilarating, it's way beyond exciting!"

"My God, Jade! You're telling me that if I start coming here, I'll not only have to be part of a lottery which, if I win, means I'll be slaughtered and eaten, but I'll have to keep coming back two or three times a year and doing it all over again!"

Jade stood up and walked over to Ming's chair. She sat on the right arm of the chair and took both Ming's hands into hers. They were cold as ice.

"Ming, honey. You'll be coming back because you love Lyle and he wants you to come back. He's promised to be yours alone if you do that for him, and he means it."

"Mine alone until my luck runs out and I'm eaten, you mean! I won't do it!"

"Sweetie, you've already done it."

"What?"

"You've already been here. You have to come back."

"No! I don't have to come back.! I won't! Why should I?"

"You're not that naïve, Ming. The Millennium Group has a lot to lose if there are loose canons rolling around out there."

"Loose canons? What do you mean?"

"You can't really believe they'd simply let you wander off unchallenged with what you've seen and heard."

"How would they stop me?" A cold dread began to grip her heart. "You said they don't murder people here. You're all volunteers. You don't mind being eaten. Well I do mind! And I'm not volunteering."

"When you and Lyle arrived, were you met by a brutish looking man who parked your car?"

"Yes."

"Well, hon, his name is Lenny, and parking cars is only one of his duties. His real value to the Millennium Group is retrieving rebellious young women who might prove to be a security problem."

"Retrieving them?" The dread was turning into alarm!

"Bringing them back. Or, if that's not practical, creating accidents for them that solves the problem. Permanently."

"And when he brings them back?"

"The solution is just as permanent, but less wasteful."

"You said the meat here all comes from volunteers!"

"I said all the girl meat for the banquets comes from volunteers. Retrieved security risks end up as frozen cuts shipped all over the world."

Ming's heart was pounding. "I don't believe you. This is another one of your tricks. What you're saying is I'm trapped! That they'll never let me out of coming back over and over until I lose the lottery. Lyle wouldn't have brought me here if it were a trap. He was always saying if I came back, if I decided to be his permanent guest here. If, if, if! 'If' means I have a choice!"

"In other words, Lyle loves you. You do believe he truly loves you, don't you?"

"Yes!"

"Because he does. With all his heart. And he absolutely intends to do what he's told you, to be faithful to you as his one and only love partner. To marry you, even. If you come back."

Ming started to jerk her hands free of Jade's grip, but Jade held on.

"Listen, Ming! Let's forget Lenny for the moment. He don't matter. Just think about your life with Lyle. Do you really want to go back to what you had? Sharing his dick with a hundred other babes? Going to the Club so he could swap your body for still more fresh cunt? Stringing you along until he finally finds a hot little snatch so eager to become Mrs. Dr. Bach that she agrees to be his Millennium Girl? Then he dumps you. Is that what you want?"

Caught between two horrors, Ming couldn't answer.

"You wanted him bad enough to go way out on a limb and come here, not knowing what you were getting into. That was love coupled with courage. Now is not the time to turn chickenshit. Now is the time to put real Living into your life."

"Short as it may be, you mean," Ming interjected bitterly.

"I'll tell you this, sweetheart. I would never go back to life without Millennium. Life as a rich girl with plenty to spend and no worries is like a decorated egg: pretty on the outside, hollow on the inside. Easily crushed. These trips to the Millennium estate make life a Farrari racing along a mountain road! Sure it can fly off the edge, but godfuckingdamn! What a ride! See what I mean, hon?"

"What I see is that you're telling me I have no choice, so I better rationalize a way to get used to it."

"I'm telling you you're a lucky girl. There are scads of others who'd be more than happy to toss their name in the lottery to earn a lifetime in Lyle's bed."

"A possibly very short lifetime."

"Or a very long one. Look at me! I've breezed through five lotteries and I'm already revved up for the next one. I know Millennium Girls who've been coming to banquets for nearly ten years and still going strong. Shit, Ming! You could be hit by a truck and killed on the way home. Or blown to bits by some asshole terrorist. Or raped and murdered while walking home from work. No one gets out of this world alive. We're all gonna be dead in a while no matter how safe and boring we play it. So don't be a drag. You've got the good doctor wrapped around your finger. Have fun with that! He's yours!"

"He's mine? Or am I his? His little trapped animal. Killed and quick-frozen if I try to escape, slaughtered and cooked in style at a future banquet if I stay."

"Look hon, it's time to be practical. You can't go backwards, so concentrate on the pleasures ahead. Eat, drink, be merry and play the game. The stakes are high, sure, but the odds are in your favor and the rewards are tremendous. Come on! Let's drop the long faces and go down and mix with the other ladies. Find out what living on the edge does for the party animals in us!"

On the edge, indeed! thought Ming as Jade led her briskly out of the suite toward the noise of the Great Room, already filled with well fed, well oiled revelers. These women have lots to celebrate. By surviving today's lottery they've won three more months of life before they have to come here again. Only next time she'd be among them. One more Millennium Girl from whom Lady Luck would chose dinner.

Chapter 6

It took a long time, two and a half months in fact, before Ming could begin to admit to herself that she still loved Lyle. In those weeks the change in him was extraordinary. He came home promptly from the office and hospital, took her out frequently to dinner, showered her with bouquets of flowers, flew her to the Bahamas for a week of sun and surf. He even refrained from bondage sessions and visits to the Iron Feather Club until she asked for them herself, and then stayed strictly within the boundaries of play that gave her pleasure. And when she finally allowed him to make love to her again, he did so with orgasm-saturated passion that swept away all her residual resentments.

Only once had she confronted him with Jade's claim that the Millennium Group would see to it that she either return to the estate or end up as an accident statistic. When he had brushed it off ("What's the point of discussing that, since you've already promised to come back?"), she let the subject drop. His failure to deny it confirmed it, as far as she was concerned.

Now she was committed. Committed to Lyle. Committed to a wedding date in six more weeks. Committed to following her heart regardless of the cost. And committed to another Millennium banquet in a matter of hours. This time she would be no innocent newbie given a free bye for the lottery. This time she would be in the lottery, along with all the other Permanent Guests.

The four months that had elapsed since that initial debacle had given her emotional trauma time to heal. She had finally been able to get past her anger, self-disgust and terror, and learned to live with the reality of her situation. The reality was that she loved Lyle too much to give him up, whatever the cost of keeping him might be. The reality was that she herself had helped set the trap that had snared her as future meat for the Millennium Group. She had willfully ignored the clues: the signed confession, the blindfolded trip and the sidestepped questions. You'll see. You'll find out soon enough.

Well, now she saw. Now she had found out something about herself that she loathed but could not in truth deny. She had not only learned to live with the fact that she had eaten human flesh, but had actually enjoyed it. Given time to reflect on the affair objectively, she realized that in all her professional training and experience as a gourmet chef she had never tasted any meat nearly as exquisite in flavor and texture. Girl meat , Jade had called it, from young and tender females only. Much as she reviled herself for her depravity, Ming could not in honesty deny that she had begun to look forward to another taste of that extraordinary substance. Unless, of course, she herself turned out to be the young and tender female.

Yet, even as to that possibility, time had created an unexpected ambivalence. While the instinctive, self-preserving part of her trembled at the thought that in less than eight hours she could be dead, her guilt-drenched conscience welcomed death as an appropriate punishment for her moral collapse. While her fearful human side longed desperately to escape the fatal trap she herself had helped set, a still emerging part of her hidden psyche had begun to savor the unspeakably erotic image that stirred her loins: a mental picture of being seized, bound up and led off to the kitchen to be stripped, slaughtered and processed as meat.

How could such a thought give her sexual jolts? The whole notion was monstrous! It made her tremble to think of it! It made her sick with fear. But it also made her damp.

These thoughts roiled in Ming's mind as her lover pulled the Mercedes over to the side of the road and gently slipped the blindfold over her eyes.

"Is this really necessary? What do I have to do to prove I'm one of you now? That I'm ready to be cooked and served up for dinner?"

"Just another few visits, darling. That's all."

"But this may be my last visit. I may be on a spit this very afternoon."

"Don't be silly, my love. There will be at least eighteen couples here tonight. Eighteen other women in the lottery. Your chances are at least seventeen out of eighteen to be at my side enjoying the feast tonight. So stop fretting about it," he said as he kissed the hollow of her throat. "I love the scent and taste of your skin." He kissed his way up to the underside of her chin.

"Yeah, right," she said with an unconvincing pretense at annoyance. "You're just wondering what I'd taste like en brochette."

"That, too," he admitted, working his way to the corners of her mouth.

"Tell me," she teased, "what turns you on more: the prospect of fucking me tonight or eating me this evening?"

"Hard to say." He nibbled on her lower lip. "Sheathing my sword in your sweet scabbard, taking you in every conceivable position, is always a delight. And we've had many glorious orgasms together, you and I, haven't we? But when I picture you steaming hot and delicious, a mouth-watering masterpiece at the center of the banquet, it's a high beyond all comparison!"

"Even though it can only happen once and puts an end to all those glorious orgasms?"

"Being inside you is always deliriously exciting. But having you inside me , absorbing you into my body, means you will be a part of me forever."

"But I'll also be part of everyone else at the banquet."

Precisely. You know how I enjoy sharing you as a gift, even when it was only your vagina. Imagine how much more proud I'll be if and when I have the opportunity to offer you as meat to our friends. Your willingness to do this makes me burst with love for you!"

He silenced any further discussion of the issue with a long, deep kiss and strategically employed fingers. After she had shuddered through his masterfully engineered orgasm, he slipped back to the driver's side of the Mercedes and resumed their journey.

But her fear remained. It twisted in her gut as the heavy car rolled the last several minutes through unseen twists and turns, past an unseen gatekeeper and up to the Grand Portico of the Millennium mansion.

Once again Lenny was there to open her door and park the car. This time she studied him more closely. She noticed that there was nothing obsequious about the way he looked at her. Nor was there anything remotely lustful in his cold gaze. His were the eyes of a predator sizing up its prey. She had no doubt he had organized many an "accident" to eliminate reluctant guests.

This arrival was distinctly different from her first. The lottery had not yet been conducted and the women were gathered in an anxious, chattering group in the Great Hall. Jade spotted Ming's appearance at once and rushed to greet her.

"Hi, sweetie! Glad to see you back! And Ohmygod! Here's that fabulously good-looking boyfriend of yours. If you and Taylor would just turn your backs for a minute, I'd hustle him off to one of the zillion bedrooms in this place and screw him blind!"

She embraced first Ming and then Lyle with her usual ebullient enthusiasm.

"Oh well," Jade went on, "maybe he'll get to eat me tonight. Would you like that, blue-eyes?"

"Jade," he answered with a lecherous smile, "if it weren't for my darling Ming, here, I'd eat you cooked or uncooked."

Jade laughed hoarsely and grabbed Ming by the arm. "Come on, sweetie! Let's mingle among our fellow prospective entrées. The lottery is less than an hour away and everyone is wound up tight as a drum."

Lyle kissed Ming again, patted her bottom and sent her off with Jade.

"How do they conduct these lotteries?" Ming asked as they entered the Great Room. "Do we draw straws or what?"

"Every banquet is different. They never tell us in advance. Sometimes it's done in one round, and sometimes with two or three playoff rounds."

"How do you mean?"

"The first round is always pure chance. But depending on how its done, there might be more than one winner. Then there's a runoff contest or two of some sort that pits the finalists against each other."

"With everyone trying to lose so they don't wind up on a platter?"

Jade laughed. "No!" It was the familiar musical laugh Ming remembered from her first visit. "It's the other way around. They rig it so the winners get to enjoy the banquet. The loser becomes the main course."

"You seem awfully relaxed. Aren't you scared?"

"Course I'm scared, honey. I'm only human. I don't really want to die. But we're all going to die sometime, so why not get a rush out of the experience? Go out with the mother of all orgasms!"

Ming chuckled, remembering the previous night's bedroom frolics, pleasure magnified by a heady admixture of excitement and fear of what the next day might hold. Now she was wishing Lyle had stayed with her to help her through this waiting. But there were no men present at all in this room. She asked why that was so.

"I don't know," Jade answered. "They never hang out here with us until the actual lottery. Maybe they can't stand the suspense. They're probably all in the main bar getting fortified with pre-lunch martinis."

"How can they do that? Drink martinis when one of their women is about to be chosen for slaughter!"

"Don't worry. They'll all be back to watch. Besides, they have to be here for the ritual goodbye kiss."

"A kiss of death kind of thing? Like the Mafia? Or Judas?"

Jade giggled. "No. It's Millenium's way of officially turning you from a free woman to a meat animal. Kind of a sentimental touch. It's the cue to take you off and prepare you to be the main attraction for the feast."

Ming felt a rippling of erotic excitement in her genital region. "God! What must go through a man's mind when he does that to his girlfriend? If he cares for her, I mean. Giving her the kiss that will send her to her death."

"I gotta tell you, honey, watching their girl cooked and served at dinner is a huge turn on! Especially when she's a real beauty."

"And what about the loneliness afterward?"

"Well, that's what Candy is for."

"Candy?"

"The girl in the red dress. She fills in."

"Fills in?"

"You know. The guy's just eaten his girlfriend. He's turned on and distraught at the same time. She helps him get through it, at least for that first night."

"She sleeps with him?"

"That's what she's paid for, hon. That and for serving drinks and hors d'oeuvres."

"She's a whore?"

Jade winced. "Hey, she's a personal services professional, okay? Same as I was. Let's not use demeaning words just because she gets funded up front for fucking guys. At least it's an honest deal; everybody gets what they want; no strings. To me that's more honorable than using sex as bait to get a guy to put a ring on your finger, then cleaning the poor bastard out with the help of some bottom-feeding lawyer."

"Okay," Ming countered quickly. "I'm sorry. You're right. I shouldn't use that word. I guess I'm on edge thinking that she may be fucking Lyle tonight instead of me. But the way I look at it, I take the risk and get put in the oven; she tosses her blond curls and gets the goodies."

"It's not quite like that, Ming. She's in the lottery, too. Candy takes as much risk as we do. In fact, she brings along her two younger sisters, too. That's the pair of blonde girls she's talking to now. They're fourteen and fifteen. Celine and Cherry. Which, incidentally, helps to improve the odds for the rest of us. Including you, sugar tits."

Ming backed down. "Okay. Remove foot from mouth and apologize. I didn't know, okay?" She squinted at the two girls, both as pretty as their older sister; one with a long pony tail, the other with a train of golden hair flowing down to the top of her buttocks. Both wore revealing dresses that displayed their budding assets to the edge of nudity. She spoke aloud the obvious question. "Millennium lets girls that young take part in the lottery?"

"Sure. The younger the meat, the more tender."

"They're barely past puberty. Do they realize what could happen to them?"

"Yup."

"Jesus! Did Candy supply their partners, too?"

"No partners. There's a big demand for threesomes here and the little sluts are happy to help out. They're too young to take risk seriously, but they sure know how to screw and have fun!"

"I should think that would make them really high security risks. Teens aren't known for their ability to keep their mouths shut."

"They were given an orientation course by Lenny. Teens may think they're immortal, but they can be made to appreciate the need to avoid serious pain."

As they spoke, the woman in red noticed she had drawn their attention. She broke away from her sisters and moved across to Ming and Jade, balancing a silver tray on her left hand. It was crowed with long-stemmed glasses filled with a slightly murky liquid.

"Hi. You're Ming, right?"

Ming nodded, momentarily chagrined, wondering how much she'd overheard, trying to keep her eyes off the young blonde's outrageously spectacular frontage.

Candy flowed right on. "This is your first lottery, so I imagine you're pretty tense. Please, have one of these. It helps."

"Thank you," Ming said, concentrating on appearing cool as she lifted one of the cocktail glasses from the tray. "What is it?"

"A daiquiri. Would you prefer something else? I'll be happy to mix it for you, if I can."

"No, no. A daiquiri is fine. I'll probably need more than one, though," Ming said with a chuckle, hoping it cancelled whatever impression of hostility the woman might have picked up.

"I'll be watching. Just signal."

Ming let out a sigh of relief as the low-cut red dress and its curvaceous occupant glided away on dangerously high heels. Why was she feeling jealousy towards this woman? What difference did it make if Candy or anyone else screwed Lyle if his former girlfriend's leftovers were being scraped into a garbage disposal? No difference, of course. Yet there was on question she could no longer leave unasked.

"There's something that's been on my mind, Jade."

"Yeah? What?"

"Lyle's been here before, hasn't he?"

Jade looked away, pretending to survey the room, stalling for time to find the right words. But there were no right words. She turned back to Ming.

"I presume you're asking if he's brought anyone else here to the Millennium Group."

"Well, has he?"

"Ming, dear, Lyle was a Member when he brought you here as his guest. How do you suppose he got to be a Member in the first place? Guys can't come here alone."

The obvious answer, yet Ming felt as though she'd been kicked in the stomach. "How many others?"

"Lyle was a Member before I got here, sweetie. I've only seen him with one other girl, though. Her name was Layna, I think."

"Was?"

"She was the main course for my first banquet here."

"What was she like."

"Delicious!"

"No, I mean . . ."

"I know what you meant, sweetheart. Look, all that counts is that in the end, she made a beautiful presentation and was enjoyed by all. She chose to be live-spitted and roasted whole, pretty much like the girl you ate at your inaugural banquet, except she had them wrap her head in aluminum foil so her hair didn't burn off."

"Live-spitted? You mean she was alive while she cooked?"

"For a while. She lasted for almost an hour."

"She chose that?"

"Sure. I think I might choose that, too. God! I'm about to come just thinking about it!"

"You get to chose how they cook you?"

"Yeah. You make out a will and have your partner sign it."

"But I don't have a will yet."

"You should. Otherwise it's Chef's Choice, and they usually take the easy way out. Cut your throat and butcher you into rump steaks, loin cuts, filets, fried tits, ribs and so forth. Makes for a nice variety, but lacks the visual impact of a whole roast or boiled girl. If you make it through this lottery, be sure to ask Lyle to help you make out a will. You're a professional chef yourself, as I recall. You should be able to design your entire meal. I hope I'm around to enjoy it!"

"And I hope you're not!"

Jade laughed heartily. "Well, if I go first, be sure to put your dibs in early for a slice of my tits. Tits go fast. Taylor will get my crispy cunt lips, of course. That's traditional. But I'll tell him to give you a nibble. Cooked pussy doesn't have much taste, but it has high impact as symbolism. It's considered an honor to be offered a piece. It will be my last gift to you."

But Ming wasn't really listening. Her mind had fastened on the fact that Lyle had brought another woman to the Millennium Group. Layna. Probably others before her. Was that all Ming was to Lyle? Another ticket to the banquets? Replaceable as needed? Caught in an endless loop of doubts, she drained her daiquiri and raised her hand for a second. The red dress was instantly beside her with another loaded tray, held at the same level as the blonde tart's barely restrained bosom. Ming selected another drink at random and turned to Jade, interrupting whatever she was going on about.

"That means Lyle has already slept with Candy, doesn't it?"

"Huh?" Jade lapsed into an exasperated silence, then sighed. "Exactly why to you care, Ming?"

Ming was hard-pressed for an answer. Why did she? She was obsessing. It was a stupid and useless waste of time and energy. Yet, even with the possibility of death only minutes away, the image of Lyle and Candy copulating burned in her mind.

"Because I love Lyle," was the best answer she could muster. "And it hurts to find out I'm just another piece of meat he's brought to the party, with good old Candy standing by to comfort his boner. It hurts, goddammit!" She shook her head to ward off an immanent threat of tears.

"Oh, hon." Jade gathered her up. "What if Lyle was a widower? What if he had three kids in tow? Would you be unable to fall in love and marry him because he'd loved another woman before you, and shared her bed? Would you?"

Ming buried her head in Jade's shoulder and let the tears begin to flow. She shook her head.

"Of course not. And would you care that after he lost his wife, he had taken solace in the arms of another woman or two, just for the sex, just to relieve his loneliness?"

Ming shook her head again, sniffling.

"Then stop this silliness. Lyle loves you, and I think it's great news that you and him are getting married! When's the big day?"

"Six weeks."

"Fantastic!" Jade tightened her arms around Ming and hugged her ferociously.

"If I'm still around," Ming added.

"O for chrissake, girl! There are twenty women in the lottery, counting Candy and her sisters. If the prize was fifty million bucks, you'd be thinking how small your chance of winning is. Which means your chances of not winning are huge. So lighten up. Are you planning a big wedding? Church, white gown, bridesmaids, all that shit?"

"No. Small." Ming pulled away from Jade's embrace and took a deep swig of the daiquiri. "But Jade, how do I know that Lyle didn't pick me to be his girl only because I was willing to be his partner for these Millennium banquets? How do I know he really loves me, and he's not just stringing me along until I'm put on a plate?"

"Are you still on that subject? Fuck, girl! He's marrying you! He doesn't have to marry you. You're locked in to Millennium anyway; you can't back out now; one way or another you're a permanent guest. He's marrying you because he loves you, dummy! Look, do you think I don't know that Taylor will replace me with some other young chickie once I'm sent to the kitchen? Of course he will. That's part of the kick, hon: knowing that we're just human cattle, me and you and every female here; that our irreversible destiny is to take our turn as food." She closed her eyes. "God! I'm getting wet again!"

"But if Lyle thinks of me as mere meat . . ."

"Jesus! You are not 'mere meat.' You are unique meat. You are his own sacred meat. The more you love each other, the more meaningful it will be when he incorporates you into his own body as food." Jade laid a palm on Ming's cheek and spoke with a soft intensity. "Sweetheart, me and you are incredibly lucky! Most women eke out boring, humdrum lives where the biggest thrill is gossip and movies. They plow through day after day of dreary routines, trying to make ends meet while they cope with a herd of mouthy brats, sicknesses, abusive husbands and painful divorces. They watch their husbands grow old and fat and indifferent, and it all finally grinds to an end with some miserable disease. Me and you, on the other hand, can look forward to fast paced lives of obscene luxury and great sex, spiced every four months with an event so exciting it makes me cream just thinking about it. I'm telling you, Ming, if Taylor dies before I do, I'll keep coming back here anyway. Maybe I'll put in for Candy's job." She laughed.

Ming looked at her with astonishment. "If you really want to be meat, Jade, why don't you just volunteer, save everyone else here the anxiety for at least one banquet?"

"Because the anxiety is the best part! The suspense! I wouldn't dream of depriving us of that. Hon, I've done a lot of dangerous things in my twenty years, flirting with death all over the place. But being part of the lottery here is by far the most sensational high of all! Come on, admit it. The possibility of being hauled off to the kitchen, cooked where everyone can watch and served for dinner makes you tingle where it counts, doesn't it?"

"Everyone can watch?"

"Absolutely. Every detail, from slaughter to garnish."

It was true. Ming was already tingling. But she couldn't bring herself to confess out loud to such an aberrant reaction, so she simply drained her glass, compressed her lips and nodded.

"Of course it does!" Jade reconfirmed jauntily. "And the other part of it is that if fate lets you off the hook this time — as it most likely will — you get to enjoy the delectable flesh of one of these other lovely young women. Maybe even me. So let's stop wasting time worrying about whose time is up and how much extracurricular poon our lovers have enjoyed. Let's circulate."

Jade waved at Candy who promptly appeared before them with still more drinks. Ming, whose tension was by now largely displaced by a pleasant buzz, took a third glass. She even smiled at Candy who seemed, somehow, less of a threat now. More of a colleague.

Jade led her a few feet deeper into the midst of the throng where they were immediately halted by a tall young woman with long, dark blonde hair and a radiant smile.

"Jade! I didn't realize you were here! What fun! And who's your friend? No wait! This is the girl who was the newbie at the last banquet, right?"

"Right," Jade responded brightly. "Tia, meet Ming. Ming, Tia."

The blonde turned directly to Ming. "And your partner is the handsome Dr. Bach, yes?"

"Yes, indeed," Ming affirmed.

"And now her financé," Jade threw in. "They're getting married in six weeks."

"Hey, that's wonderful!" Tia exclaimed. "We need more wives in our group."

"Tia is married to Seth," Jade explained. "You'll meet him later. Tia, here, has been a Millennium Girl longer than most. You're what? Twenty-six, Tia?"

"Twenty-five. This is my sixth year."

"So how many banquets does that make this one?" Ming asked.

"I don't know. My eighteenth, I think."

"Don't you worry that your luck is running out?" Ming couldn't stop herself from asking.

Tai's eyes sparkled. "So what if it does? I'm ready. I know just how I want to be prepared. I've got it all planned out."

"And you're not nervous?"

"A little. But I figure my chances are just as good now as they ever were, so why pee my pants about it." She chuckled, patted Ming's cheek, and moved on to another cluster of women.

Jade and Ming were immediately confronted by another face vaguely familiar to Ming.

"Hi, Brandi," Jade said, solving the mystery. Ming remembered. Brandi and her partner Max were the first couple she met on that first visit. Unlike the voluptuous Tai, Brandi was diminutive, even smaller than Ming, with short, light brown hair and an upturned nose. Once again Ming was struck by her apparent youth. She seemed no older than thirteen or fourteen. And, just as before, she seemed to be thoroughly sloshed, a drink in her hand, swaying slightly.

"Nice to see you again, Brandi," Ming offered.

"You got a watch?" the girl asked. "How long now?"

Jade glanced at her wristwatch. "Just a few minutes. "You're not scared, are you?"

"Well, yeah!" the girl wailed. "But I'm hyped, too. Max said he'd make sure they follow my instructions, if it's me. I want to feel every inch of the spit as it goes through me, but I don't want to suffer in the fire, y'know? There ain't much to my tits, though. I hope Max ain't too disappointed. That's what I'm afraid of. I'm only thirty-two B."

"Hey, that's what I am," Jade lied. "Thirty-two B. The smaller tits taste the best, you know that. Taylor says as long as the nipples suck up tall in life, and there's enough tit to fill half his plate at dinner, what more can a man ask? Anything more than that is flab. Yuk."

Brandi nearly collapsed in a cascade of giggling. Jade surreptitiously moved Ming along to a nearby group. One of the group was Katerina, the Ukrainian blonde.

As Jade rattled off the introductions, Ming tried to absorb the new names, but the third drink had mellowed her mind to a fuzzy mush and nothing stuck. She found herself staring at Katerina, an ideally formed young woman without a visible trace of excess fat. Her hair had probably been golden as a child, but was darkening as she grew into her late twenties, early thirties. Ming wondered how such a strikingly pretty woman had been talked into offering herself as meat. After a few minutes of pointless chatter, and bolstered by an alcohol based recklessness, she asked the question artlessly and directly.

"So, how did you come to be part of all this?"

"This?"

"The banquets. The lottery."

"Same as you, I imagine: to please my man. Tom."

"So how did he talk you into it?"

Katerina's answer was immediate and serene. "By assuring me I could indulge my special passion here."

"Which is?"

"Eating beautiful young women like you."

Ming managed not to blink. Was she being hit on, or had a gauntlet been thrown? She took a sip of her drink to think about it, then licked her lips and said, "I understand completely. This is only my second visit here, of course, but roast girl is already my favorite meat. So, how do you plan to have yourself cooked?"

Before Katerina could answer, a soft gong sounded. The room fell silent.

"It's time," Jade whispered to 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.

Chapter 8

Looking back, Ming could only agree with Cherry's assesment. Not only did live spitting present by far the most dramatic and erotic banquet scenes at Millennium, but the meat of the female human was at its savory best when the carcass was roasted whole, turning slowly over a low fire. Variety is good, of course, and she had certainly enjoyed the two banquets she had attended since Celine's. There was no question those women were perfectly cooked, elegantly presented and very tasty. Still, she had to admit that neither had lived up to the excitement and appeal of Celine's roast.

The next banquet menu after Celine's had featured Tai, the pretty, dark blonde wife of Seth. She had been a Permanent Guest for six years and had just turned twenty-six. Her luck had run out at her nineteenth banquet.

In the first round of the lottery, all the women had been brought blindfolded into the Billiard Room, one by one, without knowing what to expect. They were told to choose either Table A or Table B , sight unseen, reason unspecified. Just choose. After making their arbitrary choice, they were led to the billiard table, given a billiard ball and ordered to roll it toward the opposite rail with the object of having it come to rest as close as possible to that far rail. The five women whose balls stopped farthest from the rail would have to go to round two. Trouble was, they didn't know whether they were standing at one side (A) or at one end (B) of the table. Tia had guessed she was at the end and rolled it hard, but she was wrong. The ball bounced off the opposite rail, rebounded again off the near rail and stopped close to its starting point. (Ming had also guessed B and rolled it just hard enough to go the length of the table. In her case B was the right guess and her roll was just good enough to keep her out of round two.)

The second round among the five finalists had been a game of strip poker. All five had all started with nineteen officially itemized articles of clothing, including jewelry and their lives. Tia was down to her wedding ring and panties in nine hands. She lost those and her life in the tenth.

She was not big on pain. She opted to be slaughtered and butchered with the different cuts of her meat cooked according to her own and her husband's personal preferences. Her choice for death was by guillotine. Naked, gagged, her wrists bound behind her, converted to livestock by her husband's kiss, she was led to the kitchen where the guillotine awaited her in one corner. A cushion had been placed in front of it for her to kneel upon. A plastic pan had been set on the other side to catch her head and the initial gush of blood. She hesitated, shivering, then sank slowly on to the cushion. Ming, watching all this from the observation window, spotted a tear trickling down one cheek. A kitchen assistant gently pushed Tia's head down so that her neck rested in the indent of the block. The top bar was dropped into place over the back of her neck and latched down, holding her firmly in place. A second assistant stood to one side of her head, careful not to obstruct the view of the observers in the window. He nodded to the first assistant who pulled a small lever. The heavy angled blade of the guillotine slipped down its track and sliced through Tia's delicate neck. As her head fell toward the pan, the assistant there instantly snatched it up and turned it so that Tia, still alive for a few more seconds, could see her headless body fall over on its side and lay still.

The execution of a beautiful young woman, especially if she's naked, bound and helpless, is always erotically charged, and Ming trembled with the full effect of it. She watched Tia's head thrown carelessly into the garbage bin where her entrails and meat-stripped skeleton were soon to follow. She watched the kitchen staff butcher the woman with whom, just an hour before, she had been engrossed in a lively conversation about husbands and sex. A woman no longer. Just a carcass now, quickly reduced to steaks, filets, loins and chops. The were breasts lopped off for special treatment. The lips of her sex were snipped off to be deep fried and served to Seth, her sponsor and widower. Tia had carefully specified how every part of her should be prepared, down to her favorite seasonings and sauces. She had designed and starred in a lovely dinner.

But for Ming it lacked the sensual impact of Celine's live roast.

The next banquet had been emotionally wrenching for Ming, but at the same time extraordinarily erotic. The first round was decided by roulette. There were fourteen players. Everyone picked red or black. Ming picked black. The wheel spun; the ball rolled the opposite way, slowed, dropped into a slot. Black. Now she was one of six players, including Katerina (again) and her friend Jade. A second spin: odd or even. Ming chose even. The wheel spun; the ball rolled, slowed, dropped into a slot. Even. Now there were three; Jade, a raven-haired girl named Cheyenne and herself. Her heart began to pound.

"Now ladies," the Lottery Master was saying, "I will ask you to follow me to the Brandenburg Room for our final elimination round.

Ming, Jade and Cheyenne, one of them a test away from the end of her life, were understandably wired. The crowd that followed behind them, however, was relaxed and ebullient. The men were wondering which of these babes would be on their plate tonight. The women were happy it would not be them. Especially Katerina who had the feeling her own date with the Millennium Chef was closing in.

Ming's tenseness was not eased by what she saw when she entered the Brandenburg Room. The center of the high-ceilinged room was dominated by a platform. Above it a half dozen ropes ending in nooses hung from winches in a straight row. The three contestants were led up a flight of steps to the platform where Lenny, following behind them, positioned each of them beside a noose and ordered them to step out of their shoes. Jade was in the center with Ming on her right and Cheyenne on her left. Starting with Cheyenne, Lenny bound each woman's wrists behind her with plastic restraints, then dropped the noose over her head and snugged it around her neck. There was a humming sound as each winch pulled the noose upward until its occupant was standing on her toes. Then, beginning with Ming and traveling down the line in the opposite direction, Lenny placed an object firmly in each contestant's right palm and taped it in place. To Ming it felt for all the world like a very short dildo: round at one end and flat at the other. Something protruded from the flat end. A button? Lenny also reached under their dresses and pulled their panties down to their ankles and ordered them to kick them off the stage along with their shoes. They did.

"Now, ladies," the Lottery Master intoned, "here's your challenge. In a moment the nooses around your pretty necks will ascend just far enough so that you can't touch the platform. Most women can last ten to twenty minutes in a slow hanging situation like this before they strangle. In your hand, however, is a remote switch. If you brush it with your thumb you'll feel the button. If any one of you presses her button, you will all be lowered to the platform so you can stand again and breathe. The catch is: whoever presses the button first will be our dinner this evening. So, if you'd prefer to be dining tonight, rather than dined upon, hold out as long as you can. If any of you pass out before someone presses a button, we'll try to revive you when it's over. If all three of you pass out before a button is pushed, the first to lose consciousness will be our dinner. In the event of a tie, the first one to lose bladder control and pee on the floor will be it. That's why your panties were removed. But be advised: we will only be cooking one of you today. Anyone else who passes out and cannot be revived will be butchered and sold for dog food. Literally. Good luck!"

The moment he stopped talking, Ming felt the rope tightening around her neck and lifting her up. A few seconds later her feet were dancing in air and the noose was clenched tightly around her throat, choking off her air supply. She fought off panic, concentrating on finding ways to drag air into her lungs. It was fiendishly difficult! She heard herself making gurgling noises in a desperate effort to work her throat open enough for small gulps of air. But the grip of the noose tightened relentlessly, making it ever more difficult. She realized she was still kicking her feet, trying to find the floor, an involuntary reflex she had to stop because every movement of her body helped the rope slip a little more in its hangman's knot, making the noose smaller and tighter. She stiffened her body, forcing it to be still. She was twisting slowly, and eventually her companions came into view. Their faces were contorted with desperation, their mouths gaping open, tongues protruding, eyes bulging, bodies twitching as they struggled for air. Ming knew she looked exactly like them — mouth open, tongue out. She could also see the cluster of onlookers smiling up at them, sexually stimulated at the sight of the hanging women. But she didn't care about that. In her struggle to drag in another tiny bit of air her lucidity was rapidly yielding to despair. This isn't how she wanted to die! Not as a Chef's Special ( why hadn't she made out a damned will? ) and certainly not as dog food. She wanted the whole Millennium enchilada: the ceremonial farewell kiss, the public stripping and march to the kitchen at the end of a leash, right through to the traditional presentation of her crispy cunt lips to her new husband. If she could only hang on until one of the other two pushed the button, she could still plan her own party, go out in erotic style. But if she waited too long, her life, her death and her body would be wasted. Minutes went by. Drool ran from the corner of her mouth because she couldn't swallow. The hangman's knot jammed painfully against her right cheek and ear. Her lungs were burning, but taking even a tiny breath required a tremendous effort. More minutes dragged by. She wanted to drop the remote device in her hand, get rid of it before her thumb took action on its own and pressed the button; but she couldn't. It was taped in place. Tremors began to shake her body. The movement made the noose tighter. More time elapsed. An eternity of it. Her vision began to break up, filling with twinkling lights. At the same time she felt a familiar sensation growing in her genitals. It traveled up her belly, expanded to every extremity of her body, electrified her brain! As darkness closed in, a rattling sexual climax swept away her cares, her desperation. Her pelvis was thrusting, her legs working, she couldn't help it. The noose buried deeper into her neck. Her final thought was one of regret, not that she was dying, but that Lyle was not inside her to share this last tumultuous orgasm.

A noise roared through her, a bleating, jolting her back to consciousness. She was gasping, gulping in air. Someone was holding her up by the waist, but she could feel something solid under her feet. The noose had been loosened and was being slipped over her head. With a snip her wrists were freed from the plastic cuffs. The tape holding the button device to her palm was ripped away. She opened her eyes and stood upright on shaky legs. The Lottery Master was supporting her with his left arm, tossing away the used wrist restraint with the right. He let his hand graze up over her breast as he released her.

Reason began to flood back into her mind, like blood flowing into a numbed arm, reviving it. Jade, next to her, was standing with her wrists still fastened behind her and her head bowed; Lenny was removing the noose from around her neck. Beyond them Lyle was lowering Cheyenne down to the platform on her back. He knelt beside her, bent over her and pressed his lips against hers. Kissing her. Deeply! A surge of anger burned through Ming, shocking her into focus! But with that focus came understanding. He was giving the girl mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

Her mind clear now, Ming put the pieces together. It was Jade who had pushed the button. It apparently set off some sort of klaxon, accounting for the bleating noise. Cheyenne must have passed out from strangulation even before Ming. Now Lyle — the doctor in the house — was trying to revive her. Yet it seemed to Ming to be taking an inordinately long time . . . his lips on hers, his hands cradling her mouth, his breath mingling with hers! But eventually the girl stirred. Ming turned her anger on herself. Why was she doing this? Why was her mind filled with doubts and resentment instead of pride in her man? She walked over and knelt next to him, caressing him lovingly as he made sure his patient was recovering properly. When Cheyenne's eyes blinked open and she smiled up at the two of them, breathing on her own, they both helped her to her feet and down off the platform, careful to avoid the puddle of urine she had released when she lost consciousness.

It was not until she was off the platform that Ming remembered with a pang of guilt that she hadn't spoken to Jade. She glanced back. Jade was still up there, along with Lenny and the Lottery Master. Lenny had shoved a gag in Jade's mouth and the smaller man was beginning his spiel.

"Well, we have found our featured menu item for tonight! A lovely young lady of Taiwanese extraction who has been one of our most loyal, lively and effective PG's, having been instrumental in the matriculation of several of our newest guests. I'm confident that at this elegant nineteen year old will also prove to be an exceptionally tender and tasty oriental treat. She's sponsored by our old friend Taylor, and I'll ask him now to come up on the platform here for the formal conversion ceremony."

The tall, elderly man who had rescued Jade from her days as a teenage call girl strode up the steps. Taking hold of her upper arms, he turned her so that they were both in profile to the audience below. He looked directly into her eyes and grinned.

"Jade, hon, I'm sure gonna miss you. But don't you worry, I'll see to it that you go out just the way you wanted. And you can rest assured that I and all your friends here will enjoy every last morsel of you, right down to your pretty little toes." He kissed her forehead, turned and descended the steps. Ming suspected he would be dialing a high-class out-call service for a new mistress before Jade was fully digested.

"Members and guests," the Lottery Master was saying, "Jade as a person and a valued Permanent Guest is no more. She is now livestock and the property of the Millennium Group. Jade did leave us a Will." He waived a paper overhead. "To sum it up, she requested that she be live-boiled as a centerpiece in the Banquet Hall. In accordance with her wishes, preparations will begin immediately in the kitchen. Immersion in the boiling tank should take place in the Hall around 2:00 PM. As usual, anyone who is interested is invited to observe any and all stages of the preparation and cooking. The banquet will be served at 7:30 PM."

While he spoke, Lenny had been cutting off Jade's favorite black cocktail dress with its intricate red trim and the matching Victoria's Secret undies. She looked pained as he tossed the ruined remains on Cheyenne's puddle of urine where they could be used to help mop it up. But her eyes sparkled as he buckled the dog collar around her neck and pulled on the leash, leading her down the platform steps and out the door in the direction of the kitchen.

Moving along with the following crowd and holding fast to Lyle's arm, Ming considered the look she had just seen flash across Jade's face and reconsidered her earlier feelings of guilt. Jade was obviously having the time of her life! This was exactly what she had fantasized about during her long talks with Ming before and after the previous banquets. In fact, they had both created numerous fantasies in which they were the star attraction: naked, bound, gagged and led to their slaughter through a throng of amused party-goers.

Thinking back on the hanging, Ming recalled the look of excitement on the faces in the crowd as she strangled in her noose, helpless and terrified. Nothing strange about that, she realized. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions of people over the centuries had gathered at public executions to watch in fascination as other people died. The hanging (or stoning or burning) of pretty young women had always been especially popular. Sex, violence and death. The universal elements of entertainment. Watching it was exciting; but to be the principal player — the victim star, the life about to be extinguished — had to be the ultimate of orgasmic experiences

Ming felt better now. Jade was frightened but happy, committed to a death scene she herself had written, with no way out.

Watching her friend through the kitchen observation window meekly accepting the debasing enemas while her audience made jokes and sipped cocktails, Ming reflected on her own high and low points during the last four months.

The wedding, though quiet and intimate, had been a dream come true. The wedding night was an excess of debauchery that must have rivaled anything the courtesans of antiquity could have devised. All three orifices had been sore for the next two days, a fact which did not, however, discourage additional and frequent nuptial romps during the Bahama honeymoon. Indeed, it provided her horny new husband a continuing excuse to soothe her sore pussy and nipples with his soft wet tongue for hours, sometimes under a blanket right out there on the beach. Not that she required any reason beyond sheer lust to permit such service. For a whole month he seemed content to devote his body and soul entirely to her, just as he had promised. She had become so confident in his love that she decided to give him a treat. She asked him to take her to the Iron Feather Club for some bondage and whipping.

"Treat me like the naughty slut I am," she had told him in a husky voice. "Punish me in front of everyone. Show them I'm your love slave and pain slut, and that you're my Lord and Master."

He had been delighted to take her up on the offer. The flogging she received while her wrists were chained to an overhead beam was playful and only really painful the few times he flicked the cat at her slit and tits. But he didn't stop there. He invited other club members to molest her in any way they chose. While some only fondled and sucked her tits, others drove their fingers into her pussy or actually fucked her standing up, making her wrap her legs around them while hanging by her wrists. During it all, her husband watched, getting hard. But that was all right. She was pleasing him with her obedience. She was proving her love for him, that she would do anything for him. Their club visits became weekly. The whippings became more lengthy, harder, more painful. Other tortures were added: nipple clamps, labia clamps, tongue clamps. She became the Club fuck toy, loaned to friends and strangers alike. Still, she accepted these things, began to look forward to the humiliation, the enforced sex, even the whips, canes, alligator clips and electrical torture, because it always led to an aftermath of frantic sex with Lyle, and torrents of loving attention. Sweet rewards for her willingness to endure his erotic whims. And although he shared her body with countless others, he remained true to his own promise of exclusivity to her.

Until a month ago.

It happened so naturally, so easily. With her own blessing.

An impossibly good looking young couple had approached them at the bar before the scenes and games had begun. The two were diametrical opposites. He was big, blond and blue-eyed. She was petite with dark brown eyes, darker hair streaked with highlights and eye-catching cleavage. He was clearly a workout freak with muscles barely contained by his shirt and pants. She was lithesome and curvy with pouty lips and perky nipples that begged attention from beneath the clingy fabric of her top. They introduced themselves: Keith and Rebecca. A warm couple, intelligent, funny, exuding sexuality. After the minimum ubiquitous small talk, Keith got directly to the issue.

"Would you two like to join Rebecca and me in one of the Play Rooms to get better acquainted?"

Ming's clit was already beginning to itch. She knew Lyle would never turn down such an invitation and was envisioning what it was going to be like being fucked by this gorgeous hunk of male. She could hardly wait to see him naked, hoped the bone would be worthy of the meat.

"Sure thing," Lyle said.

The Iron Feather Club had four Play Rooms. Three featured king-sized beds with old-fashioned iron head and foot boards. End tables on either side contained drawers with a convenient supply of ropes, chains, handcuffs, collars, candles, condoms and other useful implements for one or two couples, or perhaps a threesome. The fourth room was much larger — orgy size — and contained no bed at all, just a thickly padded wall-to-wall mat with three or four sofas and a half-dozen ottomans scattered around. All four rooms had voyeur windows for the amusement of passers by, which were discretely nestled among the myriad of mirrors coating the walls and ceilings. There was no such thing as privacy or modesty at the Iron Feather Club.

The two couples chose one of the smaller rooms.

"Tell you what," Keith said the instant the door closed behind them. "To make our getting acquainted less stuffy, how about we start by getting rid of these clothes."

There was not the least disagreement among the others.

"And how about we do it by each of us undressing the other person's mate?"

His blue eyes bore into Ming as he made this additional suggestion. She felt her pulse picking up speed.

"Sounds right to me," Lyle agreed, and squared off with Rebecca who smiled and began to unbutton his shirt.

"Okay with you, princess?" Keith asked Ming, who was so eager to feel his hard hands unzipping her dress that she could only give him a goofy grin.

Keith did everything in slow motion, letting his fingers brush her skin as the zipper descended, then again as he drew it slowly over her head, never breaking eye contact. He put both arms around her to undo her bra, pulling her into him to do so, letting his fingers caress her back as he worked the hooks apart. The scent of his body and steel of his chest muscles inflamed her. She knew her panties would betray her readiness for what was coming. He pushed her away slightly to slide the bra over her arms and drop it on the floor. But instead of reaching for her thong, the last scrap of material on her body and now damp at the crotch, he grinned back at her and said, "I'm feeling a little over dressed, here."

Ming snapped out of her daze. She would have been happy to stand there all day and let him do unto her whatever he wished, but suddenly the idea of undressing this living Ken doll made her even hotter. She reached for the sides of his polo shirt and began lifting it. He was much taller than she, so he helped by shrugging out of it. He was now bare to the waist and Ming was practically shivering with need. She hoped he would throw her on the bed and ravish her right then and there! As she fumbled with his belt, he stopped her.

"You'll have to remove my shoes first."

She settled to her knees before him and bent down to untie his running shoes. The subservient position felt eminently right. In that moment she faced the reality of who she was and what she wanted. What she craved! Her body was demanding to be seized, dominated, abused, raped, hurt, destroyed! Eaten!

Disemboweled, cooked and eaten.

She'd been fooling herself. It was not just Lyle she wanted. It was what Lyle had shown her. The thrill for her was in the submission. Submission to Lyle. Submission to this blond god before her. Submission to anyone willing to use her. Submission to debasement, pain and death. She craved the ultimate submission waiting for her at Millennium: that final terrifying act that would satisfy the yearning! End the craving! End everything. And the most wonderfully erotic aspect of it was that there was nothing she could do now to escape it or prevent it! She had already submitted.

Still on her knees, she straightened up, drew down the zipper of his fly and lowered his pants to his ankles. He stepped out of his shoes and pants; kicked them aside. The bulge against his briefs was almost frightening. With trembling fingers she reached inside to fish out the cause of the bulge, then lowered the briefs past it. The enormity of his organ, fully engorged, made her momentarily breathless.

"Take it in your mouth."

He need hardly have given the order. She licked longingly at the purple glans, then took the shaft, inch by inch, into her mouth until she gagged. She let her throat get used to the incursion, then impaled herself further on its magnificent length, until it would go no deeper. She mewed, rocking back and forth, letting it slide on her tongue and lips, drenching it with saliva.

"Ready for it now?" Lyle's voice in her ear. "Ready to take it between your legs?"

She nodded, not releasing it, sucking gently.

"But this time we have to be fair. This time we both share. You with Keith, me with Rebecca. Are you ready?"

Another nod. Sucking harder. Breathing more ragged. She needed to cum!

"Do you agree? You with Keith, right now? Me with Rebecca?"

She nodded vigorously, making little animal noises around the huge shaft.

Keith pulled out and rubbed the tip of it on her pursed lips. He picked her up, laid her on the bed and straddled her body on his hands and knees, letting his organ, slippery now with her saliva and his own pre-cum, slide up and down her slit. Starting to enter, but not quite. Teasing.

"Do you agree, Ming? You fuck Keith. I fuck Rebecca and you fuck Keith right now!"

"Yes! Yes!" she cried, her brain sizzling! "Everyone fuck everyone! Now! Please! Yes!"

Keith pulled her legs up to his sides, opening her squim wide, and entered it with a single thrust. They pounded against each other, Ming screaming with pleasure, digging her fingers into his sides and the rock pillars of his arms, flailing her feet in little circles as the mass of his pelvis rammed against her crotch, forcing her legs wide, until they both exploded in climax! She felt surges of hot semen spurting against her cervix, bathing the entrance to her womb. She rode a dazzling series of aftershocks on his continuing and gentling thrusts until they had both melted into a joyful pool of contentment.

That's when she opened her eyes and became aware of Lyle and Rebecca on the other side of the bed. Rebecca was making soft grunting noises, her hands clutching the bars of the headboard, her legs splayed up and out. Lyle was between her thighs, thrusting energetically, kneading her breasts with both hands. Lyle's promise of exclusivity had proved as solid as a bag of sugar in the rain.

But wait. She had agreed to it. Or had she been tricked? Had he set her up? Taken unfair advantage of her obvious lust?

No. She had definitely agreed to it. Over and over. Specifically: Keith to take care of her itch; Rebecca for his. Her need to be ravished had been stronger than her need to hold Lyle to his promise. So how could she blame him? It was meant to happen. It had opened her eyes. She now understood who she really was and what she really wanted.

She wanted to be where Jade was. She wanted to be on the other side of the observation window. She watched in growing envy as Jade climbed up on the table and assumed the position to be strapped down. Her expression, as they cinched her in place, was a wonderful complex of calm and fear.

The Chef did not torment her by showing her the scalpel. He simply plunged it into her belly and sliced her open from pubis to breastbone. She squeezed her eyes shut and bit hard on the gag as they spread open the long gash and began pulling out her organs, severing them from her body and cauterizing the wounds. When her abdomen was empty, instead of filling it with stuffing as they had with Celine, they inserted a large balloon-like object.

"What's that?" Ming asked Lyle.

"It will keep the scalding water away from direct contact with her heart and lungs. Enables her to live several minutes longer," he answered. "After she dies, they'll pull her out of the tank and remove it, along with her heart and lungs. The heart and liver are edible, so when they put her back in the tank, they'll throw those in, too. Then they'll bring the water to a full boil for the balance of her cooking time."

The kitchen staff unstrapped Jade and sat her up on the table. Her arms were drawn behind her back and her wrists bound with cord. Her legs were folded up with the ankles bound to her thighs. A band of fishnet was wrapped around her mid-section and cinched as tight as a girdle ("to hold her abdomen together," Lyle explained). Her legs were spread wide and a bar was attached between her knees to hold them apart, providing an obscene view of her sex. Her pussy was already shaved but the Chef ran a dry razor over the area anyway to eliminate any stubble. The lips would be sliced off at the banquet and deep fried for formal presentation to Taylor. The Chef finished by inserting a finger into her gaping vulva and massaged the swollen clit. He looked pleased at the strong orgasm it triggered. Despite having been gutted, she was still sexually responsive.

Ming's envy intensified.

Jade was placed on a stainless steel cart and rolled out to the Banquet Hall. A rectangular tank with glass sides had been placed in the center of the hall. It was a three foot cube sitting on a three inch high heating element. An iron lid, split into two halves through a neck-sized hole in the center, had been placed on a nearby table. Jade was lifted from the cart by two members of the kitchen staff and lowered into the tank in a kneeling position. The two halves of the lid were closed around her neck and locked together on the top of the tank. A soft gasket around the rim of the hole served to prevent damage to her neck. Cotter pins through steel rods at each corner of the tank held the lid securely in place. A hose was connected to a filler tube and water began pouring into the tank.

"The water is cool," Lyle told Ming. "It will take a while to heat up. The gradual rise in water temperature enables her body to adjust better. She may well last right up to the boiling point."

Ming wanted to go over to go over to her friend and kiss her goodbye, tell her how great she had looked in the kitchen and how sexy she looked now, bound up and trapped in her glass cauldron as the water rose around her. But Lyle warned her off.

"Jade is already gone," he said. "She doesn't exist. What you see in the cooking tank is meat. The rules strictly forbid approaching the meat during prep and cooking." He insisted that she would "really, really regret it" if she broke the rules.

So she did the next best thing. She kept the required distance from the tank but walked to where Jade could catch sight of her, then waved and blew her a kiss.

Jade nodded and made a sound through her gag that was unintelligible.

"Lyle tells me I'm not allowed to touch you," Ming called across the space between them. "Can't touch the meat, he says."

Jade shook her head, no. Ming couldn't decide whether that meant, "No, you can't ," or "No, that's wrong." She tried again.

"I wanted to kiss you goodbye, but I can't."

Jade blinked both eyes at her. What did that mean? Ming decided that this attempt to communicate was not workable. The gag and the "rules" were designed to isolate the livestock from their former lives, to underscore their new identity as meat animals. Ming decided let Jade return to her own thoughts, to living out this last extreme experience of her fantasy. Still, she couldn't leave without offering some kind of reassurance, some word of endearment.

"I just wanted to say, sweetie, that this was a great choice. It's making me so horny I can hardly stand it! I'll stay here with you till you're . . . till you've gone, but then I'm going to drag Lyle off and pounce on his bones!" She chuckled, but immediately regretted the flippancy. "No, really, you look fabulous in there. And I'm really looking forward to the banquet tonight. Want to find out if you taste as good as you've always said you would. But I know you will. And just think: after tonight you'll be part of me forever." She blew another kiss and hurried back to Lyle, mentally rehashing the shortcomings of her little speech, thinking of all the things she should have said.

Gradually the incoming water reached the underside of the lid so that Jade's entire body, up to mid-neck, was immersed. For twenty minutes she hardly moved, only shifting a little to relieve her knees. As the temperature gauge passed the 120º mark, she began squirming with increasing discomfort. At 150º her skin had turned red and she started to thrash, trying to break her bonds, trying to push the lid up with her shoulders, trying to get out of her watery hell! As the temperature climbed still closer to boiling, she went into mad convulsions, her face contorting in agony, her head snapping back and forth, her breasts bobbing up and down wildly as she danced on her knees in the tank, hands opening and closing as if trying to grasp a fiery rope. Tiny bubbles had begun to rise in the water.

Ming's body was shaking, too. Lyle's hand had found its way under her skirt to her mound of Venus and the sweet valley below it, his fingers entering her secret place. She leaned back against him and let her pelvis buck against his hand, making small deposits of secretions. When Jade finally slumped and became still in the boiling water, Ming reached behind her and tore open Lyle's zipper, grasped the hardened flesh inside and caught his ejaculation in her own hand. Heedless of the snickers around them, they turned to face each other, linked their rights arms at the elbow and licked each other's palm clean.

That night — her belly filled with Jade's succulent, tender meat and her love sleeve overflowing with the warm, creamy proof of her husband's affection — she began to talk to him about her own will. Having observed three girls prepared, cooked and served in three very different ways, she now knew exactly how she wanted to be done.

When her time came.

Chapter 9

The fourth time around was no easier than the first. Maybe worse. "When you think about it," as she told Lyle on the long trip in, "each lottery you survive means you're that much closer to the one you don't survive."

"And yet you say the prospect . . . or rather, the knowledge that you will be turned into meat at some point is irresistibly exciting."

"Yeah, well . . . it is."

What else could she say? Was she brave or just a fucked up? Did the extreme high she reached at the beginning of another lottery mean she was high spirited or loony? Did it really matter? She had never thought of herself as a gambler; but then, this was a convoluted kind of gambling where winning was a relief but the prospect of losing was a giddy, erotic blast-off. Nor did she think of herself as kinky. Not her real self. She would never have gotten into any of this — the bondage and sado-masochism, the feasting on human flesh — if she hadn't been trying to please her lover, if she weren't in constant fear of losing him to one of the many female temptations in his life. Even marriage had not substantially reduced that fear. Yet, the truth of it was that everything about this bizarre and precarious life did turn her on. The humiliation, the pain, the sex with strangers, the lotteries, the banquets and the knowledge that sometime in the future, maybe even today, she would be dragged to the kitchen, cooked and eaten. Especially that! It was monstrous. It made her sick with fear. But it also made her wet with anticipation.

"That was fun, last night," Lyle was saying. "And you came five times while we were doing it. Don't try to deny it."

"Only three, you asshole," she said, punching his arm. But he was right. Five glorious orgasms! Maybe six. She snuggled up to him as she relived it in her mind.

They had been lying naked on the bed working on the Will she would submit to Millennium today. He kept trying to put it aside so they could take care of a certain tumescent body part.

"Relax," he had said. "There's plenty of time to tweak your Will later, probably years."

Probably years. Was that supposed to be a comfort, that the odds favored later rather than sooner? Did she want comfort, or did she prefer the thrill of uncertainty. In any event, she didn't want to go into a fourth lottery as a potential Chef's Surprise. The Millennium Chef's surprises were boring. She was a pro herself and wanted to be a truly memorable entrée when her time came.

She had cleverly managed to parry Lyle's growing efforts to plant his body part in her garden by diverting his attention to the different ways girl meat should be prepared, but he had employed some cunning of his own.

"So where are the best cuts?" he had asked. She was about to answer when he held up a hand. "Wait! I've got an idea."

He was out of the bed and the bedroom before she could protest. He returned with a black marker — the water erasable kind used on white boards. He plopped himself back down on the bed beside her, propped himself up on his left elbow and grinned down at her.

"Since you're the expert in the kitchen and I'm the ignorant layman, how about a graphic illustration of where the meat cuts are in a tender young woman such as yourself, using your own lovely and well-proportioned body as the model? You show me the cuts, and I'll mark them off."

"Oka-a-a-y," she drawled, sizing up the game and where it might lead. She placed her hands demurely over her bosom.

"These are the breasts," she said with the air of a culinary arts professor. "They are by far the most popular cut of girl meat, partly because of their unique flavor and texture, but mostly because they are, after all, when all is said and done, tits. They are exceptionally sweet, as meat goes — even sweeter when they're filled with milk, if one happens to cook up a nursing mother. Or so I'm told, although I've not yet had the opportunity to try it. But the texture is very thin, similar to pork fat, so it's important to slice the breast vertically and include part of the underlying brisket. Combining the denser and lighter meats makes a succulent mouthful."

She began flicking her nipples with her thumbs, making the nubs spring erect.

"These dark pink protuberances are the nipples and are considered a delicacy, but they have to be prepared properly. Otherwise, they have little flavor and are quite rubbery. They are tougher than the surrounding skin so that babies and grown men can suck on them. And they're loaded with nerve endings that connect directly to the brain's pleasure center so that the female, in life, enjoys great stimulation when they're suckled. On a whole-body roast they crisp up nicely; otherwise, it's best to deep fry them separately in girl fat. Either way they make nice crunchy treats. But again, I'm going by what others have told me because I've never had a chance to taste them myself. The men snatch them up too fast. Got all that?"

"Breasts and nipples," he echoed, quick study that he was. He drew circles around the firm rise of her mammary glands and wrote BREAST within each circle. Then he drew smaller circles around the teats with the word NIPPLE and a little arrow next to them.

"By the way," Ming purred as he worked, "the best tasting breasts are the small firm ones, like these, not the big floppy melons."

"Like Candy's, you mean?"

"And Katerina's, and a lot of others I've see you ogling. They may get a rise out of your naughty bit when a girl flaunts them in your face, but when cooked they melt down to a greasy pile of sludge."

"Noted," he said, giving each of her breasts a gentle squeeze. "Actually, I agree. Huge double-D titties are rather eye-catching, but these babies are perfect handfuls, ideally sized to your exotic Chinese form. They're delightful for suckling 'in life,' as you so temptingly put it, and ideal for their eventual gourmet destiny in my tummy." To cap his point, he licked and kissed the erect nubs of her nipples, being careful not to smear the circle enclosing it.

"You're a good student," she said, giving his jewel sack a friendly squeeze. "Now stop distracting the teacher and pay attention." She tapped her upper left arm with her right hand. "This is the upper foreshank, the whole upper arm between the elbow and the shoulder. The meat can be a little tough if the girl has worked out a lot and built up the muscles, but the flavor is rich. The lower foreshank is below the elbow and there's some tasty meat there, but also a lot of tendons and gristle. It's best for stews and sausage."

"Upper foreshank," he said, and drew an oval encompassing the soft biceps of her upper left arm. "Lower foreshank." He drew a smaller oval between her elbow and wrist. He kissed the center of each and wrote in the labels.

"Now this," she used a finger to trace an invisible path around her entire rib cage, "is where you get the ribs. Girl ribs don't usually have much meat, but what's there is well marbled and juicy."

Lyle drew a line around the area and dutifully labeled it RIBS .

"Aside from the breasts, the tenderest girl parts are the loins." She rubbed her hands around her waist from the small of her back to her sides. "Especially the tenderloin here." She patted her sides. "Again, you should avoid the athletic types with hard bellies. The best tenderloins and sirloins are from soft, lover type girls." She leaned over, licked his chin and brushed her lips back and forth over his, immersing herself in the incredible blue of his eyes.

Their lips still touching, he said, "How about cute Asian girls whose husbands adore them and pamper them with honeymoons in the Bahamas, palatial homes and exciting banquets at exclusive and luxurious country mansions? Are their loins tender?"

"Theirs especially."

He spent a few minutes delving deeper into her mouth, then rolled her over on her belly and drew a broad oval stretching from one side to the other. He wrote SIRLOIN across her back, and TENDERLOIN on both sides.

After letting him wet her sirloins and tenderloins with kisses for a while, she rolled over again to be face up.

"Now this part," she patted her belly, "is called the flank. Lots of flavor, but best if the girl has spent her life stretched out on a couch watching TV."

"Or getting screwed?"

"That too."

Lyle drew a rounded square around her belly, kissed the area thoroughly and labeled it FLANK.

"Not to doubt your expertise," he said, "but isn't the flank sort of on the outside, like the outside of your thighs?"

"Only to arrogant ignoramuses who mistake military malapropisms for proper culinary terminology," she replied, and bit his nose.

"I feel your point," he said, and nibbled her upper lip.

"Anyway. We now arrive at a most delectable part of the female anatomy. This part here." She rolled over and patted her bottom. "It's called the rump. Again, one should choose a girl who has led a pampered, sedentary life to be assured of maximum tenderness; but the flavor from this cut is outstanding in any event."

She sighed in contentment as Lyle drew a large circle around her buttocks, kissed them lavishly and wrote RUMP on each cheek.

"Now we come to the hams," she said. "See the backs of what you lay people call the thighs?"

"Yes."

"Well, those are the hams. The taste is terrific, and there's plenty of it. More so on some, of course."

"Gee," he said. "You seem to be deficient in that regard."

She reached behind and swatted him.

"What I meant," he said, kissing the back of her thighs, "is that your legs are too elegantly shaped to provide as much ham as some others. Like Candy, for example."

"And Katerina?"

"Certainly Katerina. She has much hammier legs."

"A true connoisseur," Ming pronounced.

As Lyle wrote Ham on the back of her thighs, she continued.

"Finally, there is the hindshank, or calf as you amateurs refer to it. Extremely tasty and excellent for stews and such, but a little tough if eaten straight off the leg."

She allowed him time to mark it off and label it on each calf. Then rolled over face up and said, "And that, my dear student, is how one carves a girl up into her component edible parts."

"But what about the leftover parts? These pretty feet and hands, and that lovely neck?"

"Oh, there's some meat there, too. It's considered scrap meat and the best way to utilize it is to grind it up with the edible organs, like the liver, heart, womb, kidneys . . ."

"And tongue?" He touched hers with his index finger. She licked the intruding digit, kissed it and pretended to bite at it. He withdrew it quickly.

"And tongue," she amended. "You can blend it all together and make nice sausage meat out of it. Nothing has to go to waste, even the bones. What can't be eaten by man or dog can be ground up for fertilizer."

All this talk of being eaten and the sight of her body all marked up for butchering had brought Ming's hormones to a boil. At that critical moment, Lyle had spread her legs and drawn a circle around her freshly shaved sex.

"And what about this part? Anything useful here?"

"As I recall, you found a good use for it last night."

"Foodwise, I mean."

"You did a pretty good job of eating it out, too."

"You know what I mean, you slatternly wench."

"Well, there are certain afficionados who think the lips of a girl's cunt, when properly seasoned and fried, are a delicacy."

Lyle scuttled down to where he could address that area closeup, opened her labia with his fingers and nibbled lightly, first on one side, then the other, then on the little button hidden in the cleft above them. He felt a series of tremors rack her body, heard the slightest of moans and, at the same time, his mouth became slick with her telltale secretions. He capped the marker and slipped it deep inside her birth canal, now dripping wet.

"And how about here?" He wiggled the marker about and flicked her clit with his tongue. Her spasms became more pronounced, the moans louder.

"Yes!" she hissed. "Yes! Yes!" She was clutching and pulling at his thick black hair.

"Yes what?" His voice impish.

Her spasms became rude thrusts, her answer a series of impassioned cries, devoid of sense but full of meaning. "Ah! Ah! Ah!" By the time he pulled out the teasing marker, she was panting and urgently needful of the real thing. When he crawled obligingly upward over her body, she grabbed at his manhood and pulled it into her. She dug her fingers into his back and pulled him down on her, heedless of the damage his body was doing to their carefully constructed chart. When he withdrew and flipped her over to assault her from the rear, the last of the chart of her future reduction to meat was erased against the bed sheet and his own belly.

Four orgasms? Five? Twenty? Who counted? The delicious memory of the lesson kept her mind occupied and her gonads humming for the duration of the long trip to the estate, including the final quarter hour behind the blindfold as she nestled against Lyle's strong right arm.

"You called me an asshole," he complained many miles belatedly.

"Mmm. You're a gorgeous asshole. And if you stop this car, I'll rim it for you."

She heard him chuckle.

"I'll take a rain check on that. As soon as we get to Millennium, you're on."

"Like a dog on liverwurst!" she murmured.

Some time between that loving exchange and when they cleared the front gate and Lenny had whisked away the Mercedes, Ming's thoughts had shifted to the secret gallery in the basement of the East Wing. It was now only mid-morning, leaving plenty of time before the lottery for the Members and guests to amuse themselves with various pursuits. For some that meant a quick (and possibly last) fuck. For Ming, still satiated from last night, it meant a need to revisit "The Hall of Feasts." Taylor and Jade had introduced it to her on her second visit to the estate. Now, for some perverse reason, she felt compelled to see it again.

Lyle's thumb print opened the lock.

The lighting came on automatically as they entered the gallery. Ming remembered her first reaction on entering this room, the eerie mixture or awe and foreboding as she walked slowly around the perimeter gazing on the faces of young women who had preceded her as Millennium guests and whose tenure had ended in the ovens, or in the roasting pit, or the cauldron. The gallery walls were subdivided into a large number of sectors, at least fifty, each one arrayed with a collection of photos featuring a woman who had provided the main course for a past banquet. The pictures were partly candid moments captured by hidden cameras of happy times spent with friends around the estate — in the pool, on the volleyball or tennis courts, out on the golf course, at the stables and at the banquets. Mostly, however, the montage included a photographic record of her final day, including the lottery, slaughter, cooking and presentation in the Banquet Hall. Pointedly missing were the names of the women. Jade had explained that omission during her first visit.

"Honey, when your number comes up and your man gives you that last kiss, you don't have a name any more. You're just a piece of meat, and that's all. Christ! Every time I think about it I want to rub my cunt until I explode!"

As she toured the Gallery once again, Ming counted the women whose contribution to the banquets were recorded there. An invisible hand gripped her bowels as she approached the last three. There they were: Celine, Tai and Jade. Numbers 53, 54 and 55. In Jade's pictorial, Ming recognized her own face in two photos. One was taken during her first visit. She was in the pool beside Jade, both of them nude, playing water volleyball. The other showed her hanging from the Brandenburg Room gallows with Jade and Cheyenne. She shuddered at the memory of it. At the same time, the sight of it was incredibly erotic. No wonder people used to flock to public hangings!

Poor Jade. Lucky Jade. Entrée number fifty-six at the Millennium Estate. How she would have enjoyed seeing her photo layout! How poignant she looked in the photo as the Chef began to slit open her belly! How sexy she was, tightly bound and on her knees in the glass cauldron as the water began to boil up around her!

But it was not Jade's pictorial that electrified Ming the most and made her private places prickle with excitement. It was Celine's. Ming stared at the images of Celine being disemboweled and packed with spiced stuffing. Her memory of the event flooded back as she gazed once again at the gleaming spit jutting from the girl's cunt and mouth; at her carcass glistening with coats of buttery basting as it turned over the fire; and at the final presentation in the Banquet Hall where she lay stretched out, rump up, dark brown and steaming, with an apple in her mouth.

Ming squeezed Lyle's hand, then pulled it to her sex so he could feel the heat of her excitement. She did some math in her head.

"There are fifty-five girls pictured here who have been cooked for banquets. At three a year, that's over twenty years of dispatching and eating beautiful young women. And there have probably been a lot more killed than that if we include Lenny's enforcement activities. So, my darling husband, how have you guys been able to keep all this a secret for all these years?"

"For one thing," he said, fingering the valley of her womanhood right through her dress, making her squirm with little thrills, "everyone here, except the newbies, is a seasoned cannibal. We eat the flesh of our own friends and lovers, a fact no one is eager to reveal about themselves to the outside world. That tends to keep mouths sealed. That and the fear factor. Meaning Lenny. Furthermore, if anyone does come snooping around, it's unlikely they'll find any evidence. All the scraps and leftovers, all the cast off clothing, everything —is all incinerated in a crematorium adjacent to the kitchen and Banquet Hall. We also prepare convincing documents for every one of our PG's that logically explains her sudden disappearance when she eventually wins a place in this gallery."

"Oh? How about me? Where will everyone think I went?"

"Not for you to know. Enough for you to know that I plan to screw your brains out after we've dined on the next girl to be honored here."

"Actually, anyone searching the joint would certainly find this gallery and it's a treasure trove of evidence. Shows you killing, cooking and eating all your guests."

"Not all of them."

"Right. Only the female guests. But you gotta admit: this is all fairly graphic evidence. These aren't paintings; they're photographs. There's Tia having her head cut off. There's Celine impaled on a spit. There's Jade having her guts ripped . . . "

He put his fingers on her lips. "Okay. Point taken. Look overhead, Ming. See those little sprinkler spigots? They aren't there in case of fire. They're there in case a fire is needed. If any law enforcement types ever show up with a search warrant, those spigots will spew a flammable liquid all over this room. A few seconds later an electrical spark will turn it into a furnace. All the cameras around the estate are digital these days and the server with the hard drives is in a cabinet in that corner. It'll melt in the holocaust."

"Okay, but what if cops show up while one of us girls is on the spit, or being chowed down by her friends?"

"There's a series of formidable barriers any law enforcement party has to get past between the perimeter of the property and the mansion. It leaves plenty of warning time to clear the kitchen, the roasting pit, the ovens, the cauldron and dining tables of all traces of human meat. It all goes straight into the crematory chamber. If necessary, the kitchen and Banquet Hall can also suffer a tragic fire. It's all been designed into the structure of the building."

"How about any telltale teeth or bone fragments that survive the crematorium?"

"This is not your ordinary crematorium furnace. The fire is much hotter, and once started, it can't be stopped without a special computer code. Or it runs out of fuel. In short, nothing comes out but fine powder."

In actuality, Ming didn't care much about Millennium's whiz-bang security features. She didn't want to be saved by a SWAT team when her turn came. But there was one tiny burr that caught in her craw. It was stupid, but she couldn't resist niggling at it.

"Show me which of these girls were your previous guests, before me."

Lyle's face darkened. "Why would you want to know that? Haven't I told you how deeply I love you? Haven't I promised to cherish you till death do us part? Why stir up jealousy over dead predecessors?"

"Because they're part of you. You were as intimate with them as you have been with me. And you ate them as you will eat me someday. Maybe even today."

"Don't talk like that. There are eleven other women in today's lottery. The odds are way in your favor. We'll have lots of time together."

"I just want to know. I'm not competing with your earlier girls. They're gone. But can't you understand my curiosity? These are my sisters, in a sense. We've shared your affection and your penis. Eventually I'll be a part of your cells, as they are already. How many are there?"

"Only two."

"Let me see their faces."

After a long moment, still dubious, Lyle said, "Nothing good will come of showing you who they were."

"Oh yes it will," she said, too close to satisfaction to give up now. "Show me the first one and I will give you a blow job this afternoon that will uncurl your hair. Show me the second one and I'll call in Candy's little fifteen year old fuck-tart, Cherry, to help rev you up for that screwing you promised me tonight."

His eyes lit up. "Okay, you're on. But if your little green-eyed monster shows up now or at any time in the future to throw this in my face, I'll call Lenny and have you hauled off for dog food. You hear?"

"Got it. Dog food."

"And FYI, Lenny's standard procedure for slaughter, after he rapes his victim, is to torture her, then string her up and skin her alive. He does her arms and legs first. Then he starts a three inch wide strip over her left breast and begins winding her skin on to a stick in a continuous strip, going around and around her body, all the way down to her cunt. After the skin is all peeled off, he starts carving off slabs of her meat. He avoids the main arteries and veins, so the girl can last ten or fifteen minutes before she bleeds to death."

"Considerate. Lenny's such a charmer."

"He is. And just so you can fully appreciate his dedication and the consequences of bad female behavior, let's first go over to the display showing him at work on a girl who made an unfortunate decision."

"Which was?"

"That she didn't want to be a Permanent Guest here."

He took Ming's hand and led her across the gallery to a block containing six photos featuring a slightly younger Lenny and a pretty dark-haired young woman whom Ming guessed to be not much more than twenty and about five foot nine. She was suspended by her wrists with her ankles spread and tied to ring bolts in the floor. Even stretched out to a taut X it was obvious she had a lush figure with long shapely legs and the firm, upright breasts of youth. In the first photo Lenny was grinning into the camera and holding up a bowl filled with four huge pine cones. The girl looked both angry and terrified, an expression that changed to sheer pain in the second photo as Lenny forced a pine cone into her pussy. In the next one he was holding up four fingers of his left hand; the same four fingers of his right hand were deeply imbedded in the girl's sex. Her head was thrown back in a scream. Blood was flowing over his hand and streaming down her thighs. The bowl, now on the floor, was empty. Four pine cones jammed inside her most sensitive place? Ming shuddered. The third picture was worse. The girl's face was a mask of agony as Lenny stripped the skin off her left arm. He had made a shallow cut all the way around her wrist just below the rope and another around her shoulder. A long slash from wrist to armpit joined those two cuts and he had peeled the skin nearly down to her shoulder. In the fourth photo both arms and both legs had been skinned. He had moved on to her torso and was on his second trip around her body, rolling a strip of skin on to a baton, exposing a horizontal swath of raw meat from just below her throat to just under where her nipples had been. In the fifth photograph Lenny, covered in blood, stood beside a still living girl whose skin had been entirely removed, except for her hands, feet and head. It reminded Ming of the anatomy drawings in her biology textbooks: the musculature and mammary glands of the human female in vivid, gory color. Lenny looked pleased with himself. The girl was clearly beyond agony, waiting for the blessed release of death. In the sixth and final photo he had removed most of the meat from the girl's frame and her intestines had tumbled into a pile on the floor. Her meat was piled on a table, her skin draped over a rack. All that remained of the beautiful young woman was a picked-over skeleton.

Ming was fully aware that Lyle had shown her this grisly montage to cow her into a docile acceptance of her situation. He was obviously afraid that seeing the actual faces of her predecessors would break the love spell he had cast over her, that she would see herself as merely his latest contribution to the livestock inventory at Millennium. But the pictures of Lenny's brutality had just the opposite effect. The prospect of being strung up like that and used so cruelly was intensely exciting to her. She knew she would not be able to bear such extreme pain, but the idea that it might be forced upon her released a powerful rush. She smiled up at Lyle, her face aglow with the adrenalin surge.

"Wow! How many lucky girls has Lenny flayed and butchered alive over the years?"

"Many." Lyle couldn't tell if she was serious or facetious.

"And all that good meat goes for dog food?"

"Well, no. A lot of it is eaten here between banquets, or frozen and shipped to our affiliates around the world. We don't waste the good stuff."

"Meaning the younger girls."

"Precisely. Now, do you still want to see your ghostly rivals?"

"More than ever."

He led her to a display about a dozen pictorials before Celine's. Ming's mouth fell open.

"My God! She's Chinese! Or looks it. Is she Chinese?"

"Yes. What's so amazing about that?"

"I don't know. I guess it just hadn't occurred to me that I wasn't one of a kind for you, that you might have a thing for Asian women. She's lovely!"

"Was. These photos are all that's left of her now."

"What was her name?"

"Liaohongmei."

Ming cocked an eyebrow at him. "Spell it."

He did. "She was from Zhenzhen, China. I called her Lia for obvious reasons."

"How'd you find her?"

"On the internet. An international dating site. She was eighteen. I remember her blurb, word for word. 'The beautiful, well educated and kind me is a girl who cherishes love, likes adventures and persistent in affections. Hope to find strong man who likes into same and takes new places of me.' How could I resist a sales pitch like that?"

"Tell me about her."

"She was about five-one, weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet, had cute little boobs and a radiant smile. Just like you see in that first picture."

"She couldn't have provided much meat for this crowd."

"No, but the kitchen supplements with meat from the freezer when they need to. And she did look great on the spit, as you can see. Had wonderful flavor, too. Very juicy. She had herself cooked à l'orange ."

"How old was she at that point?"

"Twenty. She'd been a PG for two years."

"She didn't object at all?"

"Well, sure. At first. Most do. But she wanted to please me more than anything. And once she got into it, she enjoyed it here. Until she lost the lottery, of course."

Ming was studying the picture of her roast. "There's no head."

"No hands or feet, either. Just little cuffs with ruffles. European style."

"Guillotine?"

"No. She wanted to be treated like a livestock animal. So they hung her up by the feet, cut her throat and bled her out."

"And the supplementary meat from the freezer: would that be one of Lenny's contributions?"

"Probably. Or sometimes a PG fails to survive a preliminary lottery round, like when you were hanged."

"They told us we'd be dog food!"

"Which might well happen. But first you'd be butchered and put in the freezer. Any meat that stays in there too long they eventually sell for dog food. They're going to be amending their meat storage policy, though, because some Members and PG's object to the frozen stuff. They're converting a block of rooms as a dungeon to hold Lenny's retrievals and keep them alive until needed. That way they'll have a ready supply of fresh meat to supplement the featured presentation. There's even talk of going to double features when needed, one girl supplied by the lottery and the other from the dungeon, so that we'll always be assured of a live spitting."

As he spoke, Lyle moved Ming further down the line of displays until they reached one featuring a young blonde woman with huge blue eyes and a bosom that triggered Ming's instant envy.

"This was Layla," Lyle said. "She was from Odessa, Ukraine. I got her through the same dating site."

"Is that where you'll go for my replacement?"

"I'm counting on not having to replace you for years to come, my love. But yes, it's an ideal venue. A girl brought in from another continent who has no resources of her own and barely knows the language feels isolated and dependent. Those handicaps, plus the potential of a visit from Lenny, are highly persuasive factors in her decision to go along with the program."

"To accept the pleasures of cannibalism and the thrill of being a future dinner, you mean."

"Exactly." He kissed her, pinching her nipples through her dress.

"She was from Ukraine, you say. Same place as Katerina?"

"Same country. Different city. Katerina is from Donetsk."

"Did Tom find Katerina through a dating site, too?"

"Matter of fact, yes. Same site."

Ming's attention drifted from Layla's cleavage to her hair. "So, you don't always go for the raven-haired Asian types."

"I have eclectic tastes."

"And you don't always prefer small, firm boobs."

He crushed Ming's in his hands. "Variety is the spice of life. But I'll admit, you were right on the money about tits. Layla's jugs were as soft and mushy in bed as they turned out to be on a plate. Whereas yours are an infinitely more arousing mouthful. I can only imagine how scrumptious they'll be when properly cooked."

He leaned down as if to bite one off. Ming backed away coyly.

"I see, also, that she had herself all tucked up on the spit with her legs folded under her up against her belly, and her wrists bound together under her shins. That looks very sexy."

"Yeah, but the Chef hates it. Hard to roast the carcass evenly. And when they do it that way, they have to run the spit through her asshole instead of her cunt."

"So what's the problem with that?"

"The hot metal spit helps crisp the labia. When it's not there, they have to cook the cunt lips separately. Not as dramatic a presentation as when they slice them off right there at the carving table."

"Was she spitted live?"

"You bet. She was one scary pain slut! From her first introduction to the Iron Feather Club she could never get enough whippings and canings. She loved to be left on display for hours in a severe hog tie, often with heavy weights clamped to her nipples. She loved tit torture, cunt torture, tongue torture, you name it. I hung her by her hair once for fifteen minutes. I'd hobble her, hands and feet, and chase her around the house with a whip or a cattle prod making her scream for mercy. The next day she'd plead with me to do it again. I hung her by her wrists for a whole weekend once. She'd made me promise not to take her down no matter how hard she begged, so I strung her up in the cellar and went off to a golf tournament. But I left a camera to record her suffering, which was considerable, to say the least. She watched that tape over and over, reliving the agony. She practically went nuts when I brought her here! Couldn't wait for her turn. Didn't take long, either. The final test of her second lottery was a joust on a plank. She let herself get knocked off it by a girl six inches shorter and thirty pounds lighter. I'm sure she did it deliberately, because she stood up and winked at me as Lenny cuffed her. Her meat was good, too. Not as tender and sweet as Lia's. More gamey. But good."

"How old was she?"

"Eighteen when I brought her over from Ukraine. Nineteen when she was spitted."

"They wrapped her hair in foil."

"Yeah. She was very concerned about that. Her wild blonde hair was her greatest glory and she wanted it saved from the fire so it could be wrapped in a bun and pinned with a red rose for her presentation at the banquet."

"Very pretty." She sighed. "I guess I may as well say it. I've decided I don't mind being third in your line of edible girls. I don't even mind that there'll be more after me. In fact, that makes it even better. Being your wife is nice and I love you for granting me that, but knowing that it's just a cover for my real relationship to you, that secretly I'm your property, soon to be turned into meat just like your previous girl properties, makes me hot as hell!"

"I'm glad. But actually, Ming, you're the property of the Millennium Group. I just have you on loan until it's your time to be our meal."

"That makes it all the more deliciously erotic! Think about it! They own me now, just a piece of livestock, because you brought me here and gave me to them. You can only give away what you own. And you do own me Lyle, or did. I insist. Come here!"

She grabbed him with both hands by the waist and drew him in, kissing his neck and mouth voraciously. Then she dropped softly to her knees, zipped open his pants and pulled out his fast responding manhood. She was still sucking and licking it with fervor when another couple entered the gallery. Lyle grinned sheepishly at them but Ming never let up until he gasped, bucked into her face and jetted hot spunk into her throat. She continued to swallow and suck feverishly as the couple turned away, smiling, to peruse the pictorials.

She cleaned him off meticulously with her tongue, so well, in fact, that he started to rise for more. She tapped it with a finger.

"No, no. That's enough for now." She tucked it back in his pants. "Save it for tonight. You promised to fuck my brains out, and since I'm only on loan, you'd better try to keep me happy."

"And you promised me a threesome with Cherry."

"All the more reason to keep something in reserve." She zipped him up and stood. "Come on, dear doctor. Let's find Cherry and set it up."

They found her on the tennis court lazily returning lobs from a sweating Member four times her age. She was wearing her usual thin cotton ensemble of low cut, high-riding top over low-riding micro shorts over nothing at all, affording her opponent plenty of distracting glimpses of ripening fifteen year old body parts. When the older man had finally suffered enough humiliation and left, they fell in step with her on the way back to the mansion.

"You booked for tonight, Cherry, after the banquet?" Ming asked.

"Maybe. Maybe not. Why?"

"Cause me and Lyle thought it would be nice to get to know each other better. Y'know?"

Cherry eyed them. "You? And Lyle?"

"Yeah. If you're free."

"I'm hardly ever free , honey. But you did say Lyle, huh?"

"Very definitely Lyle."

"Yeah. Okay. Tenish, okay?"

"Tenish. In Suite 207."

"I'll be there!"

Ming bet she would! It was her experience that all women everywhere wanted a piece of the wickedly handsome Dr. Bach. The best piece, of course. The very piece she intended to monopolize herself for the brain-devouring sex he had promised to deliver tonight. She would have to work on how to accomplish that with the busty and bouncy Cherry competing for it.

Hand in hand, Ming and Lyle wandered into the center courtyard. The grounds crew had strung a half dozen cables between two horizontal beams about twenty feet off the ground. Ropes dangled from pulleys at each end of the cables, a distance of some fifteen feet. To Ming each cable looked for all the world like a dog run set up for a dog at each end. It had obviously been put up for the lottery. She tried to imagine how it would be used.

At that moment the gong sounded.

All conversation, all activities on the estate ceased.

It was a chilling sound for every female there. It tolled the beginning of another lottery, another trial to determine which of them had eaten her last breakfast, put on her last dress, made love for the last time. Ming felt her heart skip a beat. Eros and fear gripped her with equal and opposite fervor. Risk was so enthrallingly exciting! But death was so frighteningly permanent.

The women of Millennium, pressed on by their lovers and sponsors, arrived in the Great Hall dutifully, if not with great enthusiasm. Within five minutes all were accounted for.

"A warm welcome to all our beautiful ladies," the Lottery Master, boomed. "For our two newest Permanent Guests, Ashley and Tanya, I extend a special welcome. My name is Tad and I know you two are probably a bit nervous, this being your first lottery; but chances are, you'll have a long time and many wonderful banquets to get to know us all. Right now, though, it's time to find out which of our twelve sexy and delectable young women here today will feed the rest of us tonight?

"Today's lottery has been divided into three parts. The first part will be a physical contest that will eliminate half of you. For that we will divide you into two teams: the Yellow Team and the Purple Team. Lenny is holding a sack containing twelve boxes. Pull one out and open it up. The color inside will determine your team."

Lenny appeared at Tad's side holding a sack open with both hands. He made no effort to move among the women, so they began to approach him, reaching into the sack to extract a small cube. Ming was the third to pull one out. It was about an inch to a side and hinged in the middle, the two halves kept closed by a tiny catch. Ming popped hers open to reveal a small swatch of purple material. When all the women had obtained a cube, the Lottery Master spoke again.

"Lenny will pass amongst you with a silk scarf matching your team color. Don't put it on. Just take it and assemble with your team, Purple on my right and Yellow on my left."

Lenny had yellow scarves draped over his left arm and purple ones over his right. Ming took a purple scarf and joined her team. It consisted of Katerina, Candy, Brandi, Tanya and a veteran PG named Apple she'd seen at the previous banquets but only knew by name.

Tad waited until the teams were fully assembled, then ordered them to follow him to the main courtyard. Ming figured she was about to learn the purpose of the six overhead cables. It wouldn't be good.

Lenny and a member of the grounds crew lined up the two teams at opposite ends of the cables while the Lottery Master resumed his oration.

"What you see here, ladies, are six trolley cables. You're going to be tethered to those cables by the ropes hanging at each end. The ropes are hanging from pulleys so you'll be able to move along the path of the cable. You're also going to be equipped with some special mittens and mounted on very special steeds. First, let's attend to those mittens. Gentlemen?"

Lenny appeared with three other male staff members, each carrying a large box. The boxes were filled with puffy oval mitts which he and his assistants began fitting over the women's hands, binding them on with duct tape. The gloves were thumbless, thick and as soft and spongy as nerf balls. Someone could hit you in the nose with one of these, Ming thought, and it wouldn't hurt. Her purple scarf was draped over her left arm.

When all twelve women were mittened, Tad continued.

"Now it's time to mount you on your steeds. Bring on the steeds!"

On cue, all the Members — Lyle included — emerged from another part of the mansion into the courtyard. They were strapped into white straight jackets like a dozen Hannibal Lectors. The women broke into nervous laughter at the sight of them. Lyle came straight to Ming's side.

"This preliminary elimination round," the Lottery Master said, "will be played piggyback with your sponsors as horses. Two members of our kitchen staff have kindly — I might even say eagerly — volunteered to be horses for Candy and Cherry, our lovely Permanent Guests at Large. Now, mount up, ladies!"

The men knelt down so their female partners could climb aboard. Unable to grip anything because of the mitts, it was a clumsy and humorous operation. Nor were their partners able to help because of the straight jackets. But eventually all twelve women were mounted piggyback, albeit precariously. The "horses" stood up carefully. A few of the older men needed some help.

"Now then, ladies, please be patient while Lenny and his helpers tether you to the trolley cable and add a couple of other items."

With the aid of step-stools to boost them up, the four men looped the ends of the ropes around the women's necks, tying them off with almost no slack. It was immediately apparent to Ming that if she slipped off Lyle's shoulders, she would be hanging from the cable. Oh no! Not again! He obviously couldn't help her because of the straight jacket. She tried to snug her legs more securely around his neck, locking her ankles together. She put her forearms under his chin. Now the groundsman was stuffing a ball gag in her mouth and buckling it in place. The last thing he did before moving on to the next horse and rider was to tuck her purple scarf under her left buttock.

Tad resumed. "While the last of you gals gets a noose around your pretty necks let me explain the other two items. The gag is so you can't communicate verbally with your horse. I mean, that would be silly, wouldn't it? Who talks to horses? We don't gag our Members, of course, but they know that horses don't talk either, and if they attempt to talk to you, you're an automatic loser. Let's hope you're on good terms with your horse." He stopped to chuckle at his own drollery. "I'll explain the purpose of the scarf in a minute. Just make sure you don't let it slip out from under your cute little ass.

"Here's how it's gonna go. This is not really a team thing. It's one on one. You ladies will do battle with the gal at the opposite end of your cable. The object is to force her off her mount. Your horses are not allowed to trip, bump or otherwise participate in the battle, except to carry you to where you can do it yourself. You, on the other hand, may employ whatever artifice you can devise to unseat your opponent. If your opponent winds up swinging in the wind with her scarf on the ground, you win. If you both are unhorsed, the winner will be the one whose scarf hits the ground last . So I repeat: keep your little butt down tight against it. Lenny and I will be watching those scarves real close. If there are any slackers, by the way, if anyone decides to just hang on and not fight, Eddie over here, our chief groundskeeper, has a cattle prod he loves to use. Needless to say, although I'll say it anyway, the six winning riders will be free to enjoy the rest of this fine day. The unhorsed six, on the other hand, will go on to the next round. So . . . are you ready, ladies?"

The facial expressions among the women ranged from grim to terrified. Only Katerina responded to the question, raising both mittens high and glaring at her opponent. But all the "horses" gave quick, affirmative nods on their behalf.

Ming noticed Tad had said nothing about when and how the hanging girls would be rescued. But there was no time to worry about it now.

The LM raised an arm. "All right girls, here we go. Ready . . . Set . . . CHARGE!" He chopped the arm downward.

Lyle lurched forward. Ming clung more tightly to his neck and head, suddenly conscious of how slippery the scarf was under her butt, the silk sliding against the fabric of his straight jacket as his body swayed. She looked up at the girl coming toward her, sizing her up for the first time as a mortal enemy. Her name was Ashley, one of the newbies at the last banquet. Unlike Ming, she had not thrown up when she discovered what she was eating. After a stunned "Oh-my-God!" or two with her clapped hand over her mouth, she loosened up, joined in with the general laughter and dug into a second helping. She was quite young, seventeen as Ming recalled, and tall — several inches taller than Ming — with a riotous cascade of curly reddish hair tumbling down over her shoulders. She had the supple and powerful figure of an athlete — perhaps a swimmer or a tennis player — without an ounce of excess fat. The chef in Ming dismissed her as a poor prospect for a tender meal; but the survivor in her warned that this hard-bodied teen was a serious threat.

As if that weren't bad enough, Ashley's "steed" was a Millennium Member named Evan, a man she knew to be an ex NHL pro whose fortyish body was still formidably massive. If push did come to shove, despite the LM's stricture against horse participation, Lyle was pathetically out of his weight class. A thoroughbred vs. a Percheron.

The gap between them was closing quickly. Ming had to come up with a plan fast or concede the initiative to Ashley. She pictured Ashley's strong arm suddenly around her neck, dragging her easily off Lyle's shoulder. She couldn't allow that to happen! She decided her only hope was a preemptive attack. She ached to tell her intentions to Lyle, but the damned gag converted all her words to useless groans. Instead, she spurred him with her heels, hoping that would convey the message.

Lyle picked up on the clue and plunged suddenly toward the oncoming couple, trying to move left of them so Ming could use her stronger right arm for whatever she planned to do, but Evan blocked him. This brought the two women face to face and within reach of each other. Both threw simultaneous hard, roundhouse right hand punches into the other's face. Ming was rocked back by the force of Ashley's more powerful blow. It had landed squarely on her nose and pain flared through her face in spite of the mitt's spongy padding. She flung a left hook counterpunch, but reaction to the pain had delayed it a fraction of a second too long and Ashley blocked it, landing her own left against Ming's right ear. That didn't hurt, but threw her off balance, forcing her to spend a half-second readjusting her body so she wouldn't slide off Lyle. That was just long enough for Ashley to fling her right arm around Ming's neck, exactly what Ming had feared most.

Seeing his mount had a firm lock on Ming, Evan swiftly began backing up. He had to be careful not to move too far right or left lest she be pulled off by the tether line around her neck. He could see that Ming was leaning precariously forward, both arms around Ashley's waist and scissoring Lyle's neck so hard with her thighs that his face had turned bright red. She was trying to stay on him without losing the silk scarf under her bottom, but it had dragged him off balance, making him stagger. Evan knew a thing or two about breaking and holding tackles and hoped Ashley was as sharp as she was beautiful. Without warning he reversed directions and bolted past a surprised Lyle. He couldn't go far because the pulley's over head collided on the cable. He could feel Ashley's body pulled upward, her legs nearly decapitating him as she tightened her grip. But he also saw Ming wrenched sideways, her purple scarf flying, her legs tearing past Lyle's ears.

Horrified, angry with herself, Ming clung tenaciously to Ashley, hoping to pull her down with her. But it was a useless cause. What would she gain by that? She could see Ashley's yellow scarf still pinched between her thigh and Evan's shoulder. Just barely, but still there, making her the winner of this little contest. Reluctantly, knowing it would mean slow hanging again, she spread her arms and let herself swing away from Ashley, feeling the noose bite into her neck. She also felt Ashley's fingers brush her cheek, saw the look in her eyes. It was not a triumphant look. It was a wan, sorry about that look. A please don't take this personally look. I only did what I have to do to stay alive. Just like you .

Ming was swinging gently, twisting, her feet kicking, searching for ground, her hands unable to grab the rope, climb it, loosen it, her body desperate for air. She could see four other girls hanging, twisting and kicking like her. The scarves made purple and yellow splotches on the flagstones. Then a fifth girl fell away from a grappling match, dragging her opponent with her. Six women hanging, thrashing. But now all Ming could think about was air! Black dots were filling her vision. Drool ran from the corner of her mouth. She felt a bump against the back of her thighs. Something forcing its way between them. A voice broke through her focus on the need to breathe.

"Open your legs, Ming! Open them for Chrissake so I can lift you up!"

Lyle's voice! With her last ounce of rational thought, she made her legs obey, spreading them so her lover could insert his neck between them and rise from where he had squatted beneath her, lifting her and alleviating the deadly grip of the noose. She made mewling noises as she struggled to suck in and expel air past the loosened but still tightly cinched rope. Bless you my sweet, darling Lyle! she wanted to say, but, of course, could not.

Half a minute later the winches holding the cables taut let it go slack and all six hanging women were on the ground, their legs shaky as they gasped in air.

"Well, that was fun!" the Lottery Master announced. Congratulations to our six successful combatants! As soon as your steeds have been relieved of their straight jackets, they'll help you out of your mitts, gags and nooses so you can all order some well-earned drinks and watch our six semi-finalists compete in Round Two. Those semi-finalists are . . ." he paused for dramatic effect and pointed them out: ". . . Katerina, Apple, Ming, Candy, Kayla and Amanda. Beauties all! Any one of them will make an excellent dinner for us tonight. We'll give them a few minutes to recover from their hanging and then we'll proceed to the Rembrandt Room for the next phase of the lottery.

The Rembrandt Room turned out to be two doors down from the Brandenburg Room. It was long and narrow, its walls lined with reproductions of famous 18 ^th and 19 ^th century paintings. Hence the name, Ming assumed. And perhaps some of them were not merely reproductions. But the room's dominant feature was a path about a yard wide and ten yards long that stretched nearly its full length. The path consisted of copper disks, about a foot in diameter, laid out in ten rows of three disks each between foot-high rails. To Ming they looked like round metal flagstones.

Lyle had walked her to the room with his arm around her, murmuring reassurances in her ear. "Don't worry, sweetheart. You've still got a five out of six chance to be romping with me and Cherry tonight. In Vegas that would be considered spectacular odds! No sweat."

But there was sweat. Her nervous system was on full alert! She knew as well as he did that her real chances of ending up on a platter had suddenly dropped from one in twenty to fifty-fifty. God knows what would happen here, but it didn't look to her like it would be a matter of pure chance. Any contest involving skill was skewed, good or bad. In the case of the piggyback fight it had been disastrous. Ming was no fighter, and certainly no match against that strawberry blonde Valkyrie and her linebacker horse.

The voice of the Lottery Master took charge once again.

"All right, let's separate our contestants from their fan clubs. Spectators to the left, contestants to the right!"

Reluctantly, Ming let Lyle's hand slip out of hers as they moved to opposite sides of the path.

"First, ladies, I want all of you to step out of your shoes."

When all six contestants were in their bare feet, he continued.

"This contest is going to test your intuition, ladies. There are thirty copper plates in that pathway there, all wired to an electrical system controlled by a computer. At any one time six of those plates will be hot, but you won't know which ones. The computer will randomly change the configuration for each one of you. Those who travel the whole path from one end to the other without getting shocked are free to go. Those who step on a hot plate or outside the path will go on to the third and final round. Oh, one other little detail. To make sure we know if you've stepped on an electrified plate, we'll be attaching a grounded alligator clip to your body. Where? Well, we'll give you your choice: either your tongue, or one of your titties. You decide. To choose the order of appearance, you will draw one of the playing cards Lenny has in his hand. They're numbered one to six, the ace being number one."

As before, Lenny stood still and let the women come to him to draw their card. Ming was pushed aside by Katerina who made the first choice. Ming managed to draw one of the last three. She turned it over. The four of diamonds. It made no real difference who drew first or last, of course, since it boiled down to pure chance. Still, Katerina's aggressiveness was beyond rude. As it turned out, Katerina had drawn the ace and would go first. Was that good or bad? Ming couldn't help but hope it was bad for the snotty blonde.

Lenny led Katerina to the end of the path nearest the door and picked up an electrical alligator clip attached to a wire that ran along the floor the length of the path.

"Tongue or tit?" he asked in a flat voice.

Katerina pulled the scoop neck of her dress down over her left shoulder and lifted an ample breast out over the fabric. Lenny dipped something out of a small jar with his index finger and smeared it on Katerina's nipple, then snapped the jaws of the clip on the sensitive nub. She winced. Ming would have been pleased at Katerina's well deserved suffering, but knew that she, too, would be making that same choice, suffering the same pain. To clip that thing on the tongue would be far more painful.

Lenny led Katerina through a shallow depression in the floor filled with water. There would be no question of either foot or breast making a solid electrical connection if she stepped on the wrong plate. He brought her to the start of the path. If she entertained any thoughts of procrastination, his hand on the cattle prod at his belt erased them.

She took a deep breath, decided on the center plate in the first row and stepped on it with her right foot. It was benign. Taking advantage of her long legs, she stepped over the second row of plates and on to the outside left disk of the third row. Still okay! She took two more long strides, skipping rows, choosing plates at random. On her forth stride she screamed, clasped her left breast and leapt out of the path.

"Oops," said Tad. "Looks like Katerina will be in Round Three."

Lenny was instantly at her side clamping on ankle cuffs. Any future strides would be twelve inches or shorter and any attempt to escape would be in slow motion.

"By the way, girls," the LM chortled, "it's no use memorizing which plate was hot. The computer has already reshuffled the deck. Okay, who's next?"

Kayla held up her deuce of diamonds. She was a twenty-two year old heartbreaker of medium build with dark, exotic eyes, short black hair and a quixotic temperament — sometimes aggressively boisterous and adventurous, other times quiet and inexplicably shy. Ming had played a game of badminton with her at the last banquet (losing badly) and learned she had a wonderfully variegated genetic background, a mixture of Native American, Asian, Latino, French Canadian, Middle Eastern, North African and Scandinavian. This was only her third banquet and while she was a rapt observer of the cooking process and an enthusiastic dining companion, the lottery filled her with profound dread. Ming could see the card tremble as she held it aloft, trying to be brave.

But when Lenny approached with his clip and his choice of "Tongue or tit?" she backed away.

He looked surprised, then closed the gap and asked again. "You want it on the tongue or on a tit? Speak up!"

Again she stepped back, shaking her head. Ming groaned inwardly. Big mistake! Besides the cattle prod, Lenny carried a Taser which he now whipped out of its holster. Before Kayla could react to it, he fired. She crumpled like a dropped marionette. It took half a minute for her to regain her senses and the function of her body, more than enough time for Lenny to cuff her hands behind her, stuff and lock a spreader between her jaws, clamp the alligator clip to her tongue, grab her by the neck and stand her up again. She staggered as he dragged her through the foot bath and growled in her ear.

"Now you're gonna walk down that fuckin' path, you stupid bitch! If you hesitate so much as a second, I'll ram this fuckin' prod up your dumb cunt! Now GO!" He shoved her on to the first row of plates.

Her legs still wobbly, she stumbled down the path with scant effort to pick and chose where she put her feet. Astonishingly, she emerged from the other end unscathed, except for a sore tongue. Once disconnected and uncuffed, she ran from the room.

Shit! thought Ming. Maybe that's the secret. Just blunder through it. What's the point of trying to outwit a computer?

The three of diamonds turned out to be Candy and she seemed to have reached the same conclusion. With the electrode attached to her left nipple, she started a sprint across the copper stepping stones. She made it almost three quarters of the way before she shrieked, grabbed at her breast and spun off the path, tangling in the electric wire. A few minutes later she was standing in the corner with Katerina, shackles hobbing her ankles.

Now it was Ming's turn. She, too, chose to have the clip attached to a nipple, but she had to slip out of her dress to make it accessible. That left her standing naked, except for her thong panties, contemplating how she should do this. Run wildly? Pick and choose her steps? Logically, if she ran, she could take long enough strides to avoid half the rows. That would increase her chances of missing the hot ones, wouldn't it? In addition (and arbitrarily) she decided to stick to the plates on just the left side. Why not? She breathed deeply, gathered her courage and started her run. Her second footfall was into a pit of hot lava! A lightening bolt ripped through her from her foot to her breast! Howling in agony she jumped off the track and landed on the floor. Before she could stand, she felt cold steel enclose her ankles. A sharp pain burst from her breast as the clip was removed from her nipple.

Shit!

She stood quietly in the corner between Katerina and Candy. Her dress had not been returned to her. All she could think of was that while they were still attired in their elegant cocktail dresses, she would be forced to go into the third and final round dressed only in a transparent thong.

Remarkably, Amanda — a tall, slim woman in her late twenties with light brown hair, striking grey eyes and an addiction to the Letterman show — picked her way through the path without connecting with a hot plate. She joined her boyfriend-sponsor among the spectators to watch the last semi-finalist, Apple, try her luck.

As it happened, her luck was as bad as Katerina's, Ming's and Candy's. Worse, in fact. The very first plate she stepped on bit back.

"Looks like we got ourselves four fine conductors, folks," the Lottery Master said. "Their tit meat has already been warmed up, so let's go to the Burgundian Room and see which of them Lady Fortuna picks out to be tonight's dinner entreé."

The four finalists shuffled out into the corridor, their steps limited by the length of their ankle chains, all of them contemplating the dark reality that their chance of surviving the day was now only one in four.

It was a short trip. The Burgundian Room was next door and roughly the long, narrow dimensions of the one they just left. The decor, however, was starkly different. No paintings. No furniture except for a large wheel at one end of the room and a small enclosure at other that resembled the prisoner's dock in a British court. The wheel was about four feet in diameter with wooden handles bristling from its rim like the helm of a ship. Its hub was at about the level of Ming's shoulders, its surface flat and compartmented into pie-shaped wedges, at least two or three dozen of them. The dock was enclosed on three sides by a waist-high railing, including the side facing the wheel.

Katerina leaned toward Ming with a half smile. "Worried?"

"Aren't you?"

"Not at all. I've got a seventy-five percent chance of enjoying a nice piece of girl meat tonight. Maybe yours. How do you plan to be cooked?"

"Roasted," she snapped back. "How about you?"

"I'm going to be seasoning you with salt and freshly cracked pepper, slicing you into delicious mouthfuls and washing you down with Chardonnay. Lyle will probably need a little extra comforting, too. I'll be sure Tom and I sit next to him. Tom's only good for one bounce in the sack, so I'll be able to spread a little comfort in that department, too, later on. Maybe even a lot!"

She winked at Ming, whose effort to deliver a worthy retort was cut short by the Lottery Master. He had stationed himself beside the wheel to address the four shackled women.

"Ladies, this final round will involve neither skill nor intuition, nor will any of you have an advantage or disadvantage in terms of size, weight or coordination. It's strictly a matter of chance. I'll explain it to you in stages so everything will be clear. First of all, I am writing each of your names — or rather, your initial — to one of the segments of this wheel. You won't see it, however, because I'm using a special crayon." He proceeded to write something on four equally spaced pie segments. Then stood well back. "Now Lenny will turn on the ultra violet light, the so-called black light. Go ahead, Lenny."

The ceiling lights instantly dimmed leaving the wheel glowing eerily. Four bright purple letters were now clearly visible: M . . . A . . . C . . . K. Tad chortled.

"Couldn't help myself. Those letters just begged to spell out something."

The lighting returned to normal and the LM stepped closer to the wheel.

"Now here's the good part. I get to spin the wheel and you get to throw darts at it. Thing is, though, you don't want to hit a segment with your own initial on it. If you do, game's over. You're off to the kitchen and the rest of us get to go have some fun. 'Course you won't be able to see where your name is on the wheel, but that makes it all the more exciting, right? Doesn't matter where else you hit — a blank segment or someone else's name — except that every time you take a turn your name will be added to another segment.

"Couple of other important rules: pay attention, now. If you hit the bull's eye, your name gets put on two segments instead of one. If you miss the wheel entirely, you earn a spot on three more segments. And if you somehow hit any person in this room, including Lenny and me, you're instant meat.

"You'll be standing in that dock, there. It's twelve feet from the wheel. If there's any one of you who feels she can't throw a dart that far, let me know now and we'll move the dock two feet closer."

None of the four moved or spoke. Ming wondered if it was confidence or fear of looking like a wimp. At what point did self-preservation out rank vanity?

"All right," Tad said after a decent pause. "That's it, then. The first thing we'll do is choose the order of play. We'll do that by giving all of you a free throw at the wheel. Each segment is numbered. Your actual turns will start with the lowest number hit and work upwards. Ming, you're at the beginning of my anagram; you go first."

Ming's heart skipped a beat, but she forced herself to be calm. This was not for real; it was just to establish the rotation. Not that her place in the rotation would not be important. The later she wound up in the order the better the chance that someone would spike their own name before she did. But she mustn't think about that now! She shuffled through the open side of the dock, her ankle chain clanking, and one of the kitchen assistants handed her a dart. All eyes were on her now, making her exceedingly conscious of her naked breasts. She caught herself puffing out her chest, but immediately chided herself. If her size C's weren't boob enough for her oglers, tough shit!

Tad gave one of the handles on the wheel a strong downward shove and Ming was looking at a spinning blur. What the hell! She hefted the brass dart to decide how hard to throw it, drew back her arm and flung it at the wheel. It made a satisfactory smack about six inches from the right edge. She would have to sharpen her aim. Tad stepped on a brake pedal and the wheel quickly slowed to a stop. He peered at the number near the rim and pulled out the dart.

"Seventeen for Ming. Apple, you're next."

Apple was even more petite than Ming. She had a clear Mediterranean complexion with dark brown hair, large almost black eyes and sultry lips. Barely five feet, she was tiny from the waist up but her hips and legs were thicker than Ming's, although shapely enough to turn heads at any party. Ming couldn't help but envision them on a carving platter. Apple's heave barely made it to the spinning target. It landed on twelve.

Candy's appearance in the dock triggered in Ming the same self-critical comparison it always did. The girl was breathtaking. Even fully covered, her breasts were spectacular. Her perfect, movie-star face and softly flowing blond tresses topped a body that would fit anyone's model of ideal. She was serene as she tossed her dart and nodded her acceptance at the result. Number twenty-two.

Katerina, always vaguely arrogant, flaunted an air of confidence that matched her own uncommon beauty. It annoyed Ming no end. Smiling jauntily, Katerina fired her dart as if to nail it permanently to the wheel, then tossed her head and put on a "who cares?" expression as Tad announced the number.

"Thirty-four."

Now the game began in earnest where every throw could be the fatal one.

Beginning with Apple.

She was tense, but she'd been through this kind of thing several times before. She threw. The black light came on. She'd hit a blank. She shrank a little in obvious relief and shuffled out of the dock as Tad wrote an A on another segment.

Now it was Ming's turn. She could feel her blood pressure climb, but reminded herself that there was a lot of blank wheel to throw at. She closed her eyes, visualized all that safe space, opened them and let the dart fly. The black light came on. She had hit the segment bearing the letter K. Katerina's. Too bad that wouldn't send the blonde bitch to the ovens. She knew she shouldn't think mean thoughts, but couldn't help it. She could feel her blood pressure falling back again as she turned and clanked out of the dock, conscious of the LM adding her M to another segment. And conscious again of being the only one in the room who was nearly nude.

The voluptuous Candy was next. She should be the one flashing her tits! Ming thought, then chastised herself for lapsing into envy. Candy — even with her mighty knockers — was a nice young woman. She had been around a while, too, and took these lottery risks in stride. She squared her shoulders, took a bead on the rotating wheel and hurled her dart. The black light revealed that it had landed harmlessly, as she had expected it would. Another C was added to the wheel.

Katerina's turn now. Her habitual self-satisfied smirk was still in place. Could it be that this haughtiness was her way of coping with her nerves? That it was all just a show? Even the shuffling steps and the clinking of her ankle chains seemed to have no effect on her aplomb. Without a moment's hesitation she snatched up the dart proffered by the assistant and flung it at the wheel. The wheel braked to a stop and Lenny turned on the ultra-violets. She had pinioned one of Ming's segments. She smiled sardonically at Ming. Tit for tat.

Ming was up next. Her second round. She returned Katerina's smile with what she hoped was an enigmatic smile, a fuck you, lady, my odds are just as good as yours smile. She tried to match Katerina's bodacious performance, concentrating on the fact that most of the space on the wheel did not contain her initial. It was extremely unlikely that she'd hit one of the two segments that did, right? The assistant handed her a dart and she deliberately took even less time than Katerina to whip it into the target. The wheel stopped, the black light came on. The dart was stuck in a blank. Ming suddenly realized she had stopped breathing. She let out the air and left the dock with as much dignity as the rattling chain and her solo nudity would allow.

A third round went by. Then a forth and a fifth. Twenty-four of the segments now had names attached — more than half. A sixth round. A seventh. Ming could feel her blood pressure going higher, her heart pounding harder each time she returned to the dock. Her hands were becoming so sweaty she was afraid she'd drop the dart. At the end of the ninth round all the segments contained an initial. That answered the question of how many there were. Nine throws times four throwers: thirty-six. Made sense. It would provide equal space for groups of two, three or four.

Tad spoke up. "Well, looka that! Every tile on our wheel is taken and you're all still here. Well, don't you fret, girls. It won't be long now. I can almost smell dinner cookin' already!

"Hey, I know what you girls are thinking. You're thinking, 'all I gotta do now is hit the bulls eye or miss the target or fail to make it stick and I've got me a free round because there's no place left to add my name as a penalty.' Sorry, that ain't the way it works because at this point the rules change. From this point on if you do any of those things, I'll put your initial on a segment of the girl who went just before you and erase hers. You'll also have to take another shot. If you stall a second time, my friend Lenny over there has a motivational tool that will get you back in the right frame of mind real fast. Ain't that right, Lenny?"

The man with no neck patted the cattle prod clipped to his belt.

"Plus," Tad plowed on, "you get two more extra throws. Two more chances to end the lottery. So don't even think about it. Unless, of course, you're bored with life and ready for the ultimate excitement." He pointed at Apple. "Your turn again, sweetheart. Step right up. We need to resolve this. The Chef is getting antsy."

Having survived so many previous lotteries, Apple had come into this one with a certain amount of cool; but this was the most extended one yet and her nerves were wearing thin. Candy, too, had lost her sanguine sexiness and taken to drumming her long red fingernails on her teeth between turns. Even Katerina was chewing on her lower lip, her smugness more fragile with every passing round. The same unspoken thought occupied the minds of all four: how long could their luck hold? Apple closed her eyes for a moment as she accepted another dart from the assistant, trying to blank out negative thoughts. She took a deep breath, held it, and hurled the dart. The wheel slowed to a stop and the black light came on. The dart had lodged in one of Candy's segments near the point of the pie between two of her own. An eighth of an inch either way and her time as meat would have come. She made a small audible gasp and backed away from the dock, tripping over her own ankle chain. Ming, who was next in line, caught her and held her up until her legs stopped shaking.

Now the Lottery Master's finger was pointed at Ming.

"Our little Chinese cookie is next. Don't keep us waiting, dear. Let's keep rolling. It's a beautiful day and we don't want to waste it."

Ming didn't want to invite a motivational prod from Lenny, so she let go of Apple — who managed to stand on her own — and stepped into the dock. Her heart began pounding again. Her initial was in nine of the wheel segments, but there were twenty-seven safe segments. Three chances out of four that she'd be getting her brains screwed out by Lyle tonight. Great odds! Right? Another brass dart was placed in her right hand, the wheel already spinning. She stared at it fixedly. There was no avoiding another temptation of fate. She had to throw the dart. Three out of four. How could she lose? Sweat was running into her eyes, stinging them, but she had no sleeves to wipe it away. She used her fingers instead. Someone was going to die today but three out of four segments said it would not be her! She blinked away the sweat, drew her right hand behind her, being careful not to drop the dart. She glared at the whirling target as if somehow she could find the safe places to plant the dart, as if she could hit a moving target at a distance of twelve feet, even if she could see it. She let out a shaky breath, bit her lower lip and drilled the dart at the blur of the wheel. It made a resounding thunk. Tad stepped on the brake, slowing the wheel to a stop. She squinted at the placement of the dart as the lights dimmed and the letters on the wheel sprang into purple luminescence. She blinked. She blinked again as her heart crashed into her throat and her bowels threatened to let go.

"Bingo!" said the Lottery Master. "We have our winner! The lovely Ming will be gracing our dinner menu tonight."

Chapter 10

Ming stared at the dart, its point buried in one leg of the letter M, unable to accept what she had done. Her arms were pulled behind her back and hard steel closed around her wrists. Still she stared. The lights came up bright and the M disappeared, leaving the dart stuck impotently in a blank wheel. But she remained captive, shackled hand and foot, her destiny sealed.

Rough hands seized her upper arms and turned her around to face the Members, guests and staff who would be dining on her tonight. Assistants were removing the shackles from Apple, Candy and Katerina whose faces were aglow with relief and anticipation of an afternoon and evening filled with fun, entertainment, sex and good eating. The earlier silence of tension quickly gave way to a babel of conversation and laughter around her, even as a ball gag was pushed into her mouth and cinched in place, silencing her own words and laughter forever.

The Lottery Master was talking but none of his gibberish broke past the roaring in Ming's ears until he spoke her lover's name. Lyle separated from the spectators and came directly toward her, a sweet, desolate smile on his face. "Sorry, darling," he said when he reached her. "I really was looking forward to you and Cherry tonight. But I'll see to it that all your wishes are carried out, including all the special technical details we worked out." He bent down and kissed the side of her mouth, officially converting her to meat, then backed away.

Tad took over again. "Members and guests, Ming as a person and a valued Permanent Guest is no more. She is now livestock and the property of the Millennium Group. Ming did leave us a most interesting Will, however," he waved it, "which will assure us not only of a delicious and unusual dinner this evening, but a unique presentation as well. It utilizes a high tech medical device which her sponsor, Dr. Lyle, arranged to purchase for the Millennium Group a few months ago and had modified to satisfy the request she put into her Will. I won't give it away because I think it will be more fun as a surprise, but the procedure it calls for should provide a most entertaining spectacle. So unless you have other urgent pleasantries to attend to, I strongly recommend you plan to spend the next half hour or so at the kitchen observation window to watch what happens."

As Tad was speaking, Lenny buckled a dog collar around Ming's neck and attached a leash. He used shears to snip both sides of her thong and yanked it through her crotch, dropping it into a sack which an assistant hustled away. Ming was now entirely naked. Strangely, it felt right. Her lover had just turned her into a meat animal and her nakedness confirmed it.

Lenny pulled on her leash, leading her through the crowd and out of the room. He had not removed the ankle chain so she had to do a fast, noisy shuffle to keep up. No one spoke to her, just smiled in amusement as she passed by. Three of the men reached out to stroke her breasts and sex. It was demeaning and erotic at the same time. This was what she had fantasized: being led to the kitchen for slaughter like a common animal. She couldn't hold back a sexual rush and heard lewd comments on the fluids leaking down her leg.

She was pulled through the entryway to the kitchen, a place no female guest ever entered more than once. The door slammed behind her. Her heart was beating fast, and yet she felt oddly calm now that this final journey had begun. The terror was still there, but it seemed to float on an electric current of sensual pleasure. Her very helplessness was thrilling! This was the finale she had worked out with Lyle between intervals of mad passion. No longer the observer at the window and celebrant at the feast, she was now the sacrificial lamb. An infinitely more intense experience!

There was the trestle with the enema bag hanging next to it, the portable commode waiting to one side. She was led directly to the trestle, bent over it, her head forced down nearly to the floor, her leash wound around a hitch at the base. The shackles were removed from her ankles, but replaced with cuffs that attached them to the legs of the trestle. She felt the nozzle penetrate deep into her rectum and the balloon expand painfully to hold it in place and seal her anus. Three times she had watched this procedure through the window, wondering what it felt like. Now she saw faces peering in at her as the hot soapy water rushed into her bowels. Within seconds she needed to expel it, but couldn't. It kept pouring in, filling her belly, bloating her impossibly! She writhed on the trestle as the need became extreme! She begged them to stop, it was more than enough! But neither mouth nor tongue could move and the words came out as groans. She gnashed her teeth on the hard rubber ball as her torment grew way past bearable. She was going to burst! The need to relieve the pressure had become agony! She barely felt it when her leash was unwound from the hitch and she was lifted off the trestle and dropped backwards to the seat of the commode. The balloon in her rectum collapsed and the hot fluids inside her tortured belly exploded from her, propelling the nozzle ahead of it like a pellet gun. Her bladder emptied at the same time. The relief was so gratifying that she hardly had the mental energy left to appreciate the humiliation of her performance, the laughing faces at the observation window, the holding of noses and moving lips issuing scatological wit.

Then it started all over again. Back on the trestle. Hot water gushing into her, scalding her insides. Filling her to the point of bursting! Ending with another explosive flushing into the portable potty. Then a third time! Gallons and gallons of hot, searing pain, making her sob and wail, this time running out clear. There would be no accidental spillage of fecal matter during the next stage of her preparations. The fatal stage from which there was no turning back.

But first there was the external and vaginal cleansing. She was strung her up by her wrists and ankles, stretched into an X, scrubbed clean with soapy brushes and hosed off. The nozzle was then inserted into her vagina. She remembered the faces of the other girls she had watched, and understood now the pain they were going through as the needles of hot water under high pressure reamed out the delicate tissues inside. It also reminded her of last night's far more pleasant intrusions into that same place and the multiple creamy deposits Lyle left there. She remembered wondering whether he would be able to taste traces of himself on her cunt lips if they happened to be the ones served the next day. Guess not. Not after this kind of wash out.

When it was over, she was taken down and laid out on the stainless steel table, her shoulders extending just beyond the top end of the table. Her right arm was pinned to her side by straps above and beneath her breasts. More straps were tightened down over her abdomen, hips, thighs, shins and ankles. Her left arm had been strapped down separately, her hand taped to a side extension, palm up. A rubber garrotte around her upper arm raised a vein and a needle was inserted into it. A long plastic tube was fixed to the needle and blood began flowing through it. A special extension had been attached to the table for her head which was strapped into a padded vice. She was totally immobilized. Aside from her eyes and some nervous clenching of her fingers and toes, the only movement of her body was the rise and fall of her chest. Despite her determination to remain composed, she began to perspire. Several minutes went by. Her heart was pounding so hard it hurt. Then it began to skip beats. She felt light-headed, woozy. And why not? They had drawn a lot of blood. Might as well. It would just be wasted.

She knew who would be coming in next and what he would do. Movement in her peripheral vision telegraphed his arrival. A moment later he was looking down into her fear stricken eyes. He smiled. That soft enigmatic smile of his. Trying to relax her. Caressing her eyebrows and lips. A gentle stroke to each breast, a love pinch for each nipple. She savored the stirring that ran from her nipple to her belly, then back up her spine. One last taste of it. He wore no mask or surgical gown. No need for that. Infection was not an issue. He did pull on latex gloves as he'd told her he would. Millennium insisted on it. A security thing. No good having the blood of your missing wife under your fingernails, should anyone happen to check.

She saw the machine roll up to his side, pushed by a kitchen assistant who hovered just out of sight. She could hear it humming, ready to go. She couldn't move her head; only her eyes. She saw the scalpel appear in his right hand, something else in his left. Tubing filled with red fluid. It was the tube that had been draining blood from her left arm, now filled and ready for a new purpose.

"This will hurt some," he said, "but I'll try to make it quick."

She felt the pressure of his hand on the left side of her neck, then a sharp sting as the blade sank into the flesh, swiftly severing the . . . what? The jugular? The carotid? He knew. She didn't care. He had promised it would work. She had wanted to indulge her own fantasy, her own morbid desire to watch every moment of her transition from sentient human female to meat on the plate. And he had promised it to her. A surge of burning pain! Then it faded and she saw his beautiful face leaning over her, felt his hand on the right side of her neck. Another sting! Another burning pain. Then it was over. He stood up straight and gazed down at her.

"It's time."

She blinked.

"I'm so sorry, babe."

He disappeared from her view and she heard the clunk of equipment being locked in place next to her face on the right. This was it. In a few seconds all hope of being saved from this madness would be gone. She heard the snap of a switch and heard a motor grinding quickly up to speed. In a single second it had achieved the monotone of a constant speed and began to draw closer. She cut her eyes to the right and caught a glimpse of it, the saw blade whirling, closing swiftly on her neck. She actually watched it, mesmerized as it lunged through her flesh, it's pitch lowering slightly in the split second it took to chew through the hard bone of her spine, then ripping the rest of the way through her neck, before returning to its starting place via the same path. A shower of blood, tossed high by the circular blade, fell back down on her face and in her eyes. The pain had been sharp, intense and over in the same brutal moment.

The gag in her mouth came out. She saw the strap over her forehead fly off. The pressure on her ears disappeared as the padded head vice opened. She felt Lyle's hands under her jaw and around her face raising her up. Intellectually she had known what to expect, but the horror of its reality hit her like a hammer! Her body lay on the table, her neck a gaping stump, gushing blood. NO! she screamed! No! Put it back! Please! I didn't mean it! My beautiful body! Please! Put it back together! But no one listened. No one could hear it. They were busy moping up the blood, unstrapping the body, getting ready for the next stage of preparation.

It suddenly occurred to her that this was the last thing Tai saw when they plucked her head from the basket of the guillotine. Her own gruesomely headless body. But Tai hadn't been warned she would live several seconds beyond her beheading or be shown such a dreadful sight. Ming, on the other hand, had planned all this in detail months ago. She had only herself to blame for her shock. But it was too late to retreat. Her body was now beyond salvage for anything other than meat and the machine which was keeping her head alive could only do so for up to eight hours.

Things were being done to her — the pathetic fraction of her that was left, the vital part that housed her thoughts, memories and feelings — but her range of view was limited to where she could turn her eyes. There was no sensation below her chin, which was undoubtedly a mercy given that Lyle had said he would have to cauterize the entire stump of her neck to stop the bleeding. She could just catch a glimpse of the machine that was now circulating blood through her brain and refreshing it with oxygen. Gradually the toxins would build up, of course, and she would slip into a final sleep. In the meantime, she had to stop feeling sorry for herself and live this fantasy death to its conclusion.

Saliva was building up in her mouth as Lyle continued to adjust her head in the cradle that would hold her head upright for her last hours. She felt a moment of panic when she was unable to swallow it, but remembered that her swallowing mechanism was gone. But it didn't matter because she couldn't choke on it; she no longer had lungs. She felt the saliva drooling from the corner of her mouth and hoped Lyle would notice it before he took her out to the banquet hall. When he was finally finished fiddling with the head-holder, he cleaned the blood off her face. His tenderness broke her heart.

Misreading her eyes, he said, "Don't worry, sweetheart, I'll have someone come in and fix your makeup and hair before you leave the kitchen."

She wanted to speak, tell him of her regret in having to leave him, thank him for his kindness and his love. She wanted to tell him one more time that she was honored to contribute her body to the banquet in his name, that much as she loved life, she loved giving it up for his pleasure even more.

He adjusted her so that she had a clear view of the preparation table, kissed her eyes and left the kitchen. Her heart ached for him to stay with her, but her voice was gone, her semi-paralyzed mouth and lips unable even to shape the words.

The Chef and his assistants were eviscerating her body. They had slit it open from breastbone to pubis and the assistant had pulled out an armload of her freshly cleaned out intestines which he plopped into the garbage pail. He had already severed them from her anus and pulled them out by the yard until he reached the stomach. A quick slash with his knife and the last of the links snaked into the pail. Another slash and out came the stomach. She wondered if any of her breakfast was still in it as he chucked it into the garbage. The organs she had specified for the stuffing and sausages went into a large pan — the heart, liver, kidneys and womb. As the Chef flipped the hollowed out body on its side and hosed the interior, Ming found herself thinking of it not as her lost body, but as a carcass. At some point, she had stopped grieving for it and begun to think of it more as meat. She watched critically as the Chef rubbed granular salt and minced green onions into the body cavity to add extra flavor to the ribs and flanks while an assistant worked seasonings into a large basin of freshly prepared stuffing. When all was ready, they packed it all into the seasoned abdomen and closed the skin back over it. She was pleased to see that they sewed the flap shut as she had stipulated, rather than stapling.

She would never know what it felt like to have a thick steel rod shoved up her cunt and through her body, neither the erotic thrill nor the terrible pain; but it was fascinating to watch them turn her body on its stomach, spread the legs and ram the spit into the vagina, pushing and twisting until it emerged from the neck stump.

The most difficult part of the preparations for Ming to watch was when the Chef used a small circular saw to lop off the hands and feet, dropping them in the pan with the edible organs. It was a moment of inexpressible sadness. Somehow it was the final indisputable degrading of her body from human to animal. Her twenty-two years of cleansing it, nourishing it, toning and pampering it had ended. She had given it to her lover, who had severed her head from it and turned it over to Millennium. What was left of it, the thing on the table, was just a carcass being readied for roasting.

She watched them wire the forearms behind its back, the legs to the spit and the knees to the short crossbar that would keep it turning with the spit. She watched them lift the spit on to a set of trestles and begin to brush on the first coat of the sauce Ming had specified in the Will. At the same time an assistant carried the pan with her hands, feet and organs to a far corner of the kitchen where the assistants began to strip the meat from the bones. That meat would be chopped up finely along with the best parts of her organs, then grilled with garlic, onions, spices, bread crumbs and sugar to create a serving sauce.

One of the assistants came toward her and disappeared out of sight behind her. He reappeared a few seconds later pushing a dolly on which a spool of electrical cable was mounted. He pushed it through the kitchen and out the door into the courtyard in the direction of the fire pit. As he went, the cable unwound from the spool, leaving a trail of black wire. A minute later he returned, still pushing the hand truck, the spool now laying down a second trail of wire parallel to the first. Just as he moved out of sight again behind her, Lyle suddenly appeared directly in front of her.

"Hi, babe. Everything's going well."

Where the hell have you been? I need you with me. I'm scared. Please don't leave me! She reached for his hand. Could have sworn she felt its comforting warmth in hers. Could have sworn she still had hands.

"I had them run a power cord out to the roasting area so you can watch yourself cook. This life support machine has no battery backup, so we need to keep you plugged in."

She felt a slight jarring. The room began to move. She was being moved along the path marked by the electric wires. Was Lyle pushing or was it the assistant chef? It was weird rolling along on a device she couldn't see. Her eyes were at the level of Lyle's chin, much higher than she was used to.

Lyle was still talking.

"I've been lecturing your audience, explaining what's going on. I told them how you wanted to be roasted whole, but also wanted to live long enough to enjoy the whole banquet scene, right up to the after-dinner brandies. I explained how we decided to detach your head to keep your brain and eyes from being cooked, and how this machine keeps the blood we took out of your body circulating through your head and supplies it with oxygen. It's working well, too. With any luck you'll not only live to see all of your meat served and eaten, you'll even get to see how successful your dessert choices are."

The rolling stopped about eight feet to one side of the roasting pit. The gas burners had been fired up in advance and the bed of coals was already cherry red. Two kitchen staffers arrived carrying the loaded spit. The Chef followed behind with the trestles and set them beside the pit as a temporary support for the spitted carcass so he could baste it away from the heat of the fire. Another assistant followed with a pot filled with the viscous red sauce they would use. It was a recipe Ming had appended to her Will: a traditional Chinese blend of herbs, spices and butter that would turn her roasted body a light shade of red rather than the ususal golden brown.

Most of the spectators who had watched her toss the fatal dart and stayed on to observe her decapitation and kitchen prep had assembled here as well. They were not so much interested in the start of the actual roast as the opportunity to get close up to the grotesquerie that had once been Ming. Was still Ming, in a bizarrely abbreviated way. They crowded around, blocking her view of the basting, touching her face, waving their hands in front of her eyes. Was it really alive? Asking foolish questions.

"What's it feel like having no body, seeing it over there with no head?"

"You gonna get to eat any of yourself?"

"Do you have any feeling in your face?"

"Can you still have orgasms with just visual stimulation?"

Lyle patiently explained that she had neither breath nor vocal cords to answer questions. It was Katerina who suggested the obvious solution: eye blinks. One for yes. Two for no. Ming was deeply grateful that someone had finally come up with it, even if it was Katerina.

"So," Katerina said, bestowing her patented enigmatic smile on Ming. "Are you in any pain?"

Two blinks.

"Are you excited about the banquet? Watching yourself being cooked?"

One blink.

"If Lyle could keep you around indefinitely like this, would you approve?"

Blink, blink.

"Why not? I think it would be cool. He could mount you in the bedroom. A real trophy wife!" She laughed, her eyes sparkling at the mental image. "You could keep track of all his little groupies, see which ones get the full treatment and which ones get a test fuck and then out the door. He could line you up with all the other winners and let you glare at each other all day the way you're glaring at me now." She laughed again. "Did you know you're drooling?" She scooped up some of the saliva draining from Ming's mouth with the side of her index finger and flicked it into Ming's eyes. "Oops! Sorry. Hey, I'll bet you're drooling because you're thinking about how tasty you'll be tonight. I can hardly wait, myself. Lyle promised me a big fat juicy sample of meat. Said it would ring all my bells!" She put her mouth to Ming's ear and whispered, "At least I think it was your meat he was referring to." Another peel of laughter, and she turned away, gliding over to where Lyle was chatting with Max.

Anger roiled Ming's thoughts as she watched Katerina place a friendly hand on Lyle's arm as she complimented him on his "brilliant idea" of preserving his wife's head. She let her hand slide up and down his arm in an even friendlier fashion, ending her little visit with a still more friendly pat on the ass. She accepted a cocktail from Candy, who was circulating with the tray, and winked back at Lyle in a clear invitation to join her later for further escalation of their friendship.

It occurred to Ming that this must be the hell to which paraplegics are condemned: a mind swirling with the thoughts, desires and emotions of the healthy human animal pinned atop a body that's essentially dead, kept functioning by a machine. In some ways she was more fortunate. Her body was about to be put to good use and her frustration would come to an end in hours, rather than dragging on for years.

The Chef had finished basting her body. It shimmered in the mid-day sun with a thick coating of her own special sauce. Putting on mitts to protect their hands from the heat of the fire, two of the kitchen crew lifted the spit off the trestles and carried it the short distance to the roasting pit. They dropped the ends of the spit into the U-brackets and it immediately began to roll on the ball bearings, seeking a natural balance. They stopped the roll and attached a sprocket and chain to the foot end of the skewer, connecting it to the drive motor. With the flip of a switch the body began its slow rotation over the gas flames and hot coals. It would continue turning all afternoon as the meat gradually cooked to perfection. One of the staff would baste it every twenty minutes or so with Ming's buttery sauce to make the skin crisp and flavorful — seared to keep the juices in, but not burned.

It was strangely erotic to watch her body endlessly turning in the fire pit, steam rising from the skin. Every curve of it so familiar to her. The pert swell of her breasts — firm, not flopping about as the body made its rotations, the nubs of the nipples still proudly erect. How she had loved it when Lyle flicked them with his finger or tongue! The smooth tapering of her thighs and calves, the dimples in her knees, the trim ankles now sadly missing their feet. She could see the top of her slit as the front of her body rotated by and remembered the many sweet hours she had spent exploring and exploiting the exquisite pleasures hidden within. Yet that same body was abstract now, a distant, detached thing. She could already smell the aroma of the sauce mixing with the first hints of skin reaching cooking temperature. It was a familiar kitchen fragrance, a meat scent she knew well from hours around stoves and barbeque grills.

Candy approached with her cocktail tray.

"I don't suppose you can drink anything," she said. "I mean, where would it go? But maybe you can still taste it. Like a sip?"

Ming blinked twice. Candy looked confused, then brightened.

"Oh yeah! You can blink for yes and no, right?"

Ming blinked once.

"Wow! Cool. Well, I have to say this is fascinating. I mean, having you here, able to talk, sort of, while you cook over there. This is what I'd do, for sure. You'll get to be here for the whole thing. Kind of like being at your own funeral, only better. No crying and sadness and all that shit. Everyone's having a good time and you're the star as well as the main course. But Tad wants me to be live spitted, so I guess that's that. It is very exciting to watch and thinking about it gets me all hot, but I should think it hurts quite a bit. Thing is, though, Tad says Lyle is working on a way to numb the body from the neck down without using drugs, at least during the cooking part. Course the girl will only last a half hour or so before the heat kills her, but no one hangs around the roasting pit for the whole six hours, right? A half hour is all you need. By the way, you did a real good job at that piggyback fight this morning. Too bad they paired you with that Amazon. I'm surprised Lyle didn't have Tad match you with someone your own size. But he must've had his reasons. Shit, he could've . . ."

She stopped short, a cat-out-of-the-bag look in her eyes.

"Well, I . . . ah . . . gotta go, hon. See ya later, at dinner."

She scurried off. Poor Candy. All gorgeous body and no brains, Ming thought. Just the opposite of her own situation. Could Lyle have effected the outcome of the piggyback battle? If so, why hadn't he? Or maybe he did. Had Lyle tired of her already? Had he set her up for an early demise so he could move on to fresher meat, bring in Number Four? Why? She looked at her body turning slowly over the fire. It wasn't spectacular like Candy's or Katerina's, but it was a beautiful body by any reckoning: curved and hilly, soft and hard in all the appropriate places. Her skin had been silky, her complexion clear with that tawny Asian hue the Caucasian girls spent hours in tanning booths to acquire. Maybe she was too dumb for him, unable to carry her weight in his intellectual medical crowd with their Harvard degrees and obfuscating jargon. No, more likely she was too sharp, too prone to crossing swords with him on matters of politics or art. Didn't men tend to prefer women who were not quite up to their mental snuff, someone who was just obtuse enough to let them show off their own superiority? Could Candy be his next little chickadee with her luscious body? Or worse, Katerina! It would be just like that bitch to taunt the outgoing damsel turned dinner. But Katerina was already called for, wasn't she? On the other hand, it wasn't much of a stretch to picture the well-endowed Ukrainian bombshell chucking out Tom in favor of Lyle. Would Millennium allow that? Candy, on the other hand, was unattached. But if she and Lyle had been playing bury the sausage, it certainly didn't show in the red-dressed blonde's bumbling behavior just now.

Ming itched to confront Lyle about all this, but she didn't know where he was. He had disappeared from her range of view. Of course, even if she knew, she would not be able to call him over, or bring up the subject, much less ask the questions.

It was at that point that anger and frustration butted heads with reason and reality. What the fuck difference did it make? She was already gone. Her body was gutted, stuffed and roasting over the fire. Her head was good for another few hours, and then it, too, would die, extinguishing her consciousness forever. So why fret over how it all happened and who collects the spoils? Lyle had sweet-talked her, fucked her and/or fucked her over for the last time. The future adventures of Lyle were merely curiosities for her expiring mind. She decided to devote these last hours of her existence to enjoying the show she had planned and for which she was, after all, the featured attraction.

If she had expected Lyle to remain by her side during these hours, she had been way off the mark. It was two hours before he materialized again before her, dripping wet with a towel around his hips, like Adam with a terrycloth fig leaf. He had been in the pool and was back to check on whether his machine and what was left of his wife were still functioning. Ming found herself reverting to her customary reaction to him. She hoped he would doff the towel and grant her one last look at his magnificent body in full monty mode. He didn't. Instead, he fussed with something under or behind her that caused a strong throb in her head, then reappeared in front of her.

"You seem to be doing well, so far as I can tell. In fact, with some tinkering, I might be able to keep you going like this for years. Would you like that?"

Katerina's taunts had suddenly taken an horrific turn. She blinked her eyes twice. Then twice again.

Lyle laughed. "Okay. Your call, but I had to ask. Most people want to live, no matter what. But I can understand where you're coming from. A life of total helplessness is not an appealing option. So tonight will be it. You'll be with us for the feast, then off to sleep. You may be the last as well as the first girl to do this, you know. I think I've found a way to keep a girl alive on the spit for almost an hour of roasting or boiling time free of pain, without using drugs. It involves a surgical procedure on the spine. She won't get to share in the banquet itself, like you, but it should make live spitting and boiling much more popular choices. Gotta run, now. I'll check back in a couple hours. You look lovely, by the way. I'll bring a mirror next time so you can see how beautiful you are on your pedestal."

He kissed her brow and was off.

How could she love this man who could not give up a single afternoon of fun to be with her during her final hours, who could have helped save her during the very first part of her lottery ordeal, but did not? Yet, insane though it was, she loved him still.

Nevertheless, as she watched the Chef's assistant apply yet another coat of baste to her body, she could not help but wonder at his earlier failure to tell her what he'd been working on. Candy knew about it, and presumably others. Why did he keep it from her? Was it because she had pushed so hard for him to come up with a way to keep her alive during the entire banquet? Did he feel it would simply confuse the issue for her? Or, as Katerina had hinted, did he have extended plans for her now that she was helpless to refuse his whims?

Maddeningly, he was true to his word and didn't return for two hours. He did bring her compact mirror with him, salvaged from her purse — an obscenely expensive thing he'd given her for the honeymoon trip. (She wondered who would inherit that . It was far too beautiful to throw away as part of her disappearance. She hadn't had the heart to ask before. Now she couldn't.)

"Here, Ming, take a look!"

He held the mirror in front of her face. What she saw was the makings of an optical illusion. A head, a perfect replica of hers, seemingly without a body, set upon a stainless steel cabinet, the neck hidden by a multiple layer of colorful scarves. Surely her body was inside the cabinet. Maybe this whole episode was just a bad dream. Lyle would open the cabinet doors and there would be the rest of her, ready for a night of fabulous sex, including a little Cherry on the side. As if on cue, Lyle opened the cabinet and tilted the mirror so she could see for herself. Her body was not there, only a tangle of tubes, tanks, pumps, switches and a computer monitor. The reality was that her body was still turning on the spit several feet away, rosy red and filling the air with the savory odors of roasting meat and Chinese sauces.

"Neat, huh?" he said.

She gave him a polite blink. There was no way she could express her doubts.

Then she noticed that Lyle hadn't come alone. Cherry was clinging to his left arm and giggling. They were dressed in their tennis outfits.

"Hi!" the girl chirped when she saw she had caught Ming's eye. "This is so-o-o-o cool! So much better than just chopping it off!" She hugged Lyle's arm. "You're a genius, Lyle!"

Could this frothy fluff of vacuity be the one he had lined up for Number Four? Was it possible her brilliant husband of six months was already so bored with her that he had arranged to throw the first round of the lottery in hopes of hastening the day he could switch to this demi-child less than half his age? She recalled his instant enthusiasm for her suggestion of a threesome.

As if reading her mind, Lyle said, "Remember that lovely two-on-one you set up for tonight with you, me and Cherry? Well, you'll be happy to know that Cherry has agreed to go on with it anyway, in your honor. It won't be the same without you, of course, but she's found someone willing to stand in for you. You'll be there too, in a way. Your body will be in our tummies and your head will be proudly on display."

"It will be so-o-o cool!" Cherry gushed, oblivious to her lack of originality.

"So, anyway," Lyle said, "what do you think of how you look? Not bad for a gal whose body has been cooking over a low fire for three hours, right?"

In fact, she looked frightfully wan. Whatever that machine under her was doing, it was not enough. So how should she answer him? Yes , I'm still alive thanks to your miracle; or No , I'm a horror movie caricature of my former self. Before she could decide on one blink or two, Cherry piped up again.

"We gotta hurry, Lyle. We're gonna be late."

"Okay." He patted Cherry's ass. "By the way, Ming, thought you'd like to know, I've gotten a lot of positive feedback on this. I mean, there have been other girls who've had their tits and ass and limbs amputated to be cooked and eaten while they watched, but you're the first one to do it as a whole body roast. Hey listen, Cherry and I have a doubles match to get to, but we'll be back for the banquet. See you then, sweetheart."

They rushed off. Lyle charging full bore into his new life before hers was even completely snuffed. Another hour slipped by. And another. The kitchen staff began to spread linen on the tables and lay out the china and silverware. Ming was beginning to feel a little sleepy. Probably the toxins Lyle had mentioned. Building up. She fought it off. She had gone through all this to be at her banquet and she was determined to see it through.

Then an all too familiar figure came sauntering into view. Katerina, cocktail in hand, and from the looks of the slight misalignment of her steps, it was far from her first. She came directly toward Ming sporting her usual smirk and wearing a minimal top consisting of a band of cloth draped around the back of her neck and crossing in front to form a belt at her waist, providing a perilously unstable covering for her frontal globes. It would take only the briefest inattention to good posture for those glorious beauties to escape their silken captivity and, knowing Katerina, they had probably already had several tumbles into the open air already.

"Well, look who's still with us," she cooed as she drew close. "You are still here, aren't you sweetie? Yes, I can see your eyes move. I've always envied you those eyes. Black as pitch. No pupils, just deep, black holes into the abyss." She took a sip, her gaze boring into Ming's eyes. Searching for a clue to her thoughts? "I saw that gorgeous boyfriend of yours talking to you a while ago. Him and Cherry. Did he tell you I'm standing in for you tonight?"

Ming tried not to react to this news, but apparently her effort was not successful.

"Oh, oh. I see that he didn't. Poor Ming. He didn't tell you, did he."

A statement, not a question. She blinked twice.

"Guess he must've forgotten, huh? Well, it's true. I'm your stand-in, although I don't plan to be standing much. I've been itching to do the dirty with your hunky boyfriend ever since I first clapped eyes on him. I never thought he'd turn you into dinner this quickly, though."

Another sip. Katerina's smile grew even more lopsided. "What? You thought these lotteries are all on the up and up? You're quite the little Chinese gull, aren't you sweetie? You must have figured out by now that your piggyback battle was a complete mismatch. I bet you even thought all those slippery little hankies were placed equally for all of us, didn't even notice that they'd practically shoved Ashley's up her tight little twat. And those copper disks? Did you really think there was any way you could run that stretch without getting burned? Shit, hon, they program that computer. How hard do you think it is to make sure you get a hotfoot and a fried tit? The only part of the deal they couldn't rig was the dart throw. That was pure chance; we all had the same odds. You fucked yourself with your own dart, sweetie. Course, Lyle did tell me he was surprised you could hit the target at all, you being such a soft, uncoordinated little marshmallow. Shit, you're so dumb, I bet you even think your marriage was real."

Ming glared at her. She didn't want to hear any more. But there was no way to stop Katerina, who simply laughed at her and took another sip.

"Fuck, hon, don't you know the Millennium Group don't allow Members to bring their wives here? Think about it: if a wife disappears, the first — and usually the only — person the cops suspect is the husband. Hell, Lyle had that precious marriage certificate of yours drawn up by one of Lenny's contacts. You look aghast. Well, ask yourself this: has Lyle ever formally introduced you to anyone as his wife? Outside of here, I mean. Think about it some more. Small, low key ceremony — in other words, secret . One witness, a Millennium Member. Nice trip for just the two of you with lots of sun, surf and sex; in your mind, a honeymoon. For others? A hot couple sneaking off for sex, sex and sex. So what do we have? Fake certificate. Fake Justice of the Peace. Fake wedding. Fake honeymoon. Fake marriage."

She waited for Ming to respond, but Ming, her mind in a savage turmoil, only stared back at her.

"And just to make sure, there's already a letter ready for mailing, signed by your computer-copied signature, that tells your family how glad you are that you two never actually married because great sex turned out to be not enough for either of you, especially given his insatiable need to womanize. So you're off to some Godforsaken place in mainland China to hunt down your family tree. Unfortunately, you'll never return. Those damn Asians; just can't trust 'em. Probably kidnaped you and sold you into slavery in some Thai sex factory."

Katerina tapped Ming's nose, as if she were a pet poodle. "Well, hon, it was nice knowing you. And you smell absolutely yum! You're making me hungry as hell. Can't wait to chow you down. I'll think about you when Lyle's gun is inside me tonight, all cocked and ready to fire."

One of Katerina's boobs had peeked out behind the strip of cloth. She tucked it back in and ambled off.

Ming's paradigm of world order was crashing down around her. Lyle had lied to her about everything. He had not actually condemned her to death — she had done that with her own dart — but, if Katerina were to be believed, he'd made sure she reached that final leg of the lottery. And it was true, he had been strangely circumspect about who they told of their marriage. For tax purposes, he had said. What did she know about the complex tax problems of doctors? Part of her knew she should be incensed about all this. But a growing part of her didn't seem to care much any more.

As her two parts struggled to sort themselves out, the gong sounded.

She looked over at her carcass. The cooks were lifting it from the roasting pit — the skin glistening red and crisp, dripping with fat and juices. They set it down on a long metal platter and began snipping the wires that restrained the arms and pinned the legs to the spit. As soon as the limbs were free, the Chef started capping the wrist and ankle stumps with festive ruffled paper frills. At the same time, other members of his staff began carrying side dishes in from the kitchen to the three tables which were already dressed with linen cloths and elegant place settings of china and silver. Since Ming had planned this banquet around a Chinese theme, chop sticks had also been laid out for the purists. The platters were heaped with vegetables and fruits, the tureens filled with traditional Chinese soups and sauces. Covered silver chargers were brought out which Ming knew contained hot sausages made from the meat of her organs.

The twelve Members and guests began arriving and choosing their tables as the Chef and his assistants began extracting the spit shaft from the carcass. When it had been removed, the Chef picked up a small apple and approached Ming's head. To her surprise, he carefully spread her jaws open and pushed the apple between her teeth. The severing of her neck had left her with practically no strength in her jaw and tongue, so she could neither bite down on the apple nor push it out. This was not something she had planned and at first she was deeply mortified as the dining crowd laughed and applauded. But it came to her that this was appropriate and inevitable. Had she been roasted with her head still on her body, this is exactly what the Chef would have done. So she would die with an apple in her mouth. So what? There were worse things.

Like Lyle's betrayal.

As the diners attacked the many appetizers the Chef and his assistants armed themselves with long carving knives and began slicing into the carcass. For Ming it was an extraordinary sensation to watch the knives systematically carve her body into slices of hot meat. Within a few minutes both her rumps and the backs of her legs were carved down to white bones. Then they went after the sirloin and tenderloin cuts around her waist. When that was gone and her spine visible, they turned the body over. The sutures holding the belly together were severed in a single slash and the slabs of abdominal meat sliced free. The stuffing was scooped out and loaded into four bowls, one for each table. The shank meat was stripped from the arms, leaving only bare bones.

The final items to be removed were reserved for the Chef's personal attention. He moved to her breasts and with fewer than half a dozen strokes sliced off both nipples and then the entire breasts, right down to the ribs. The nipples were placed in a small serving dish. One breast was sliced in half and served on carving boards to Tables Two and Three. The other breast was served whole to Table One. Moving south, the Chef carefully carved the labia from below the mound of Venus, placing them in a dish along with the two nipples. By then all Ming's meat had been distributed to the four tables on heaping platters and all that remained was the formal presentation of these special treats to the Member of Honor at Table One. The Chef, who always reserved this Grand Finale for himself, handed over the small dish of crispy nipples and cunt lips to Lyle with a flourish, basking in the enthusiastic applause from the rest of the banqueters.

Ming had been so engrossed in the carving of her body that she had ignored the noisy revelers at the tables. Now, however, her attention was focused on Table One and it's preening Member of Honor. Lyle was making a show of selecting one of the nipples, inserting it delicately into his mouth and biting down on it with a crunch. He gave an approving, "Mmm," as he chewed it up and swallowed it. He turned his eyes on Ming and winked at her, smiling. Those ice blue eyes had always before turned her belly to jelly. Now, nothing. Was it because she no longer had the adrenalin to fire up a rush? Or was it that separating her brain from her sex organs had finally cleared her mind?

Lyle magnanimously offered the second crispy teat to the Lottery Master. His co-conspirator? Tad chewed it up and licked his lips. Good to know she was tasty.

Lyle hoisted the dish still containing her cunt lips. "I'll save these little devils for dessert," he announced to a round of chuckles.

"I thought I was dessert," someone said. A girl's voice.

Lyle bent down to the person on his right. It was Cherry.

"A man should have as many desserts as he likes, don't you think? And as often!"

He licked his tongue across Cherry's lips and she giggled. "Besides," he said, "I frequently enjoyed this particular part of Ming for dessert. It's a tradition. And now I don't even have to be careful of how hard I bite."

More laughter! He glanced over at Ming with a big smile. A few hours ago she might even have appreciated the joke, even stuck atop this cabinet with an apple in her mouth.

Everyone was digging in, now. The cooks had come to each table and sliced the breasts into equal portions (small portions, she couldn't help but notice) except for Lyle, who got the extra quarter tit. Gentleman that he was, however, he divided that extra segment among all four banqueters at his table — one of whom, Ming suddenly realized, was Katerina. She and Cherry had started out facing each other across the table, as had Tom and Lyle. But as the banquet went on and the meat disappeared and the wine flowed, both females had somehow edged toward each other around the curved perimeter of the table, gradually sandwiching Lyle. Tom must have noticed this himself, but obviously didn't care. Katerina, well lubricated at this point from the many earlier sips of Candy's drinks, kept rocking with gales of laughter and tossing her blond hair around, resulting in numerous cameo appearances of her tits. Cherry, whose teenage inhibitions put up even less resistance to the fruit of the vine, soon abandoned all efforts at subtlety and kept punctuating her reactions to Lyle's jokes with blatant grabs at his crotch. Of the four, only Katerina made it a point to keep track of Ming's responses to all this, glancing frequently over her shoulder at the amusing sight of the severed head with the apple in its mouth and a tortured look in its eyes.

Just as the kitchen crew rolled out the dessert cart, Lyle stood, picked up the dish containing Ming's cunt lips and strolled over to her head.

"It's dessert time! I'm sure you all agree that Ming planned an unusual and delight filled menu for us, topped off by meat that was absolutely delicious!" Hoots of approval and applause. "Now it's time for the ceremonial closure snack. Just as we give our darlings a kiss in the beginning to turn them into meat, we feast upon their most sacred part at the end to absorb their memory into our bodies and hearts forever."

One at a time, he held up each lip in front of her eyes, popped it into his mouth and chewed it up with an audible crunching.

"So when do you snuff her?" a male voice asked. "I mean, there ain't much left of her. Just a head and some leftovers."

"Which will make some great sandwiches, hash and stew," the chef shouted from the kitchen doorway.

Lyle waited for the general laughter and commotion to settle down. "Sorry to disappoint you but I'm going to let nature takes its course. I need to find out how long a head can last on this machine. As a guess, though, I figure she'll be gone by midnight at the latest. If you really want to see her die, you'll have to join Cherry, Katerina and me tonight in my suite where we'll be keeping tabs on her. On second thought, it would be better if you wait and watch the video clip in the gallery."

He winked and the banquet hall broke out in lewd commentaries as everyone began to disperse, Lyle among them, his two new female conquests hanging on his arms.

No one bothered to take the apple out of Ming's mouth.

She watched as the staff cleared the tables, scraping the scraps from the plates into garbage bags and dumping the platter leftovers into a single container to be recycled for lunches and future meals. Sleep began to fuzz her thoughts again and this time she did not resist. Except that she was jarred awake again as the cabinet began to roll. Someone was pushing her out of the Banquet Hall and through the corridors that led to the suite she had occupied with Lyle. There were a couple of pauses as her life support system was unplugged from one electrical extension and plugged into another.

Eventually she was rolled into the room she had shared with Lyle. Forward movement came to a stop about six feet from the side of the bed where they had made love the night before. The closet door was open and all her clothes were gone. So far as she could tell, nothing of hers remained in the suite at all, not even her purse and luggage. Whoever had pushed her into the room was no longer to be heard. She seemed to be alone. It wasn't long before she began to succumb again to a growing need for sleep.

But then the door to the room crashed open again and she heard the entry of the three people with whom she was apparently about to spend her last hour. Cherry was the first to come within view as she ran toward the bed and jumped on it, bouncing up and down and laughing. Quite drunk now. Lyle was right behind her, grabbing her ankles, tipping her over backwards to the mattress, spreading her legs and diving to her crotch. He took her thong in his teeth and pulled it up over her legs, whipping his head back and forth like a dog killing a freshly captured squirrel, until he ripped it off her. She giggled hysterically.

Katerina came within sight, smiling at the roughhousing on the bed, then turned to face Ming. "Lyle," she said, still watching Ming. "Can you lower this contraption a bit?"

"Sure thing, honey tits," he said, and jumped up off the bed to tinker with something at the side of the cabinet.

Ming saw the floor coming closer to her.

"Stop there," Katerina ordered, and the downward movement stopped. Ming's eyes were now at the level of her breasts. She moved closer. Just a few inches away.

Oh great! Ming thought. Now I get to admire her fabulous boobs. Doesn't she realize I don't give a shit anymore?

Katerina gently pulled the apple out of Ming's mouth, studied it a moment, then placed it between her own teeth and bit slowly into it. She chewed up the fragment and swallowed it, tossing the rest of the apple on the carpet. Moving in slow motion, she hooked her fingers under the strips of cloth that cris-crossed her bosom and pulled them aside.

Okay. Huge, perfect tits. So what? Go play with Lyle and Cherry. They'll still appreciate them.

Using her left hand to pull down Ming's jaw, Katerina pushed her right teat into Ming's mouth and rubbed it back and forth across her tongue. Then did the same with her left breast. "Like that?" she asked. "Don't think I don't know you like girls, because I saw you with Jade on your first visit. You two were really getting it on! You could've got a taste of this if you hadn't been so stingy with your boy toy. And look where that got you. Now I've got him whenever I want. Most likely he'll become Cherry's sponsor and she don't care who she shares him with." She leaned into Ming's ear. "But even if he brings in new meat, it don't matter. By the time I'm finished with him tonight, I'll be all he can think about." She straightened up. "He's already forgotten about you, now that your tits and pussy are all fried up and eaten."

Katerina gasped as Lyle suddenly jumped up behind her and grabbed her by her exposed breasts.

"Now these are some humongous melons!" he said. "Yours were firm and succulent, Ming, just as you predicted, but these babies are in a whole different class of sexy! In fact, the hell with waiting till they're cooked! I want to find out how succulent they are right now! Get out of those clothes, woman, and get on the bed. I need to succulent them right now!"

Katerina made no attempt to obey, instead backed up into him, unbuckling his belt and zipping down his pants as they backed up against the bed and fell on to it. The next several minutes were a giddy circus of ripping clothes, tumbling bodies, wet tongues and laughter that was half frolic, half sexual tension. Soon they were all naked. The two females worked his body and love-shaft mercilessly while he returned the delightful torment with an abundance of brief and shallow implantations in all the proffered orifices. Then, without preamble, he sprang off the bed, held them off with both hands and made an announcement.

"As a going away gift to Ming, who generously gave us all a special dining experience tonight, including her entire body to feast on, I have decided to let her go out feasting on a part of me. So as not to waste my cum, however, since she cannot swallow, I will allow her only to bring me to the edge. Then I will transfer to one of you."

"Which one?" they asked in unison.

"The one who earns it." He reached under the bed and brought up a cane. "The one who asks for and actually receives the most strokes of this cane, strokes to be delivered by the one who loses the bid."

The two eyed each other. Ming kept herself awake. She wanted to see this.

He reached in the drawer of the nearest bedside table and pulled out two pads of paper and two pencils, giving one each to Katerina and Cherry.

"Now, write down the largest number of strokes you think you can handle, along with your initial; then hand the paper to me."

Both women eyed each other again, turned away from each other and wrote on the pad. They passed the sheets to Lyle.

"Interesting. Cherry says she can deal with ten strokes. But Katerina believes she can endure twenty. Very well. Katerina wins the bid. If she is able to last through twenty strokes from Cherry without begging off, she will receive my cum. Otherwise, it goes to Cherry." He handed the younger girl the cane. "Katerina, bend over the arms of that chair and hold on to the chair legs. If you let go or ask to stop, you lose."

Looking distinctly unhappy, Katerina slid off the bed and walked to the chair in question. It was a wooden captain's chair with slightly curved wooden arm rests. She stood beside the chair, thinking about it for a moment, then sighed and draped herself over the arm rests, one supporting her pelvis at the point where her legs began, the other holding her top end up by the armpits as she reached down to grab the chair's legs. An uncomfortable position, but soon to be the least of her discomforts.

Armed now with the cane and looking determined to end this quickly, Cherry ambled over the chair, appraised the raised naked rump, drew back and struck it as hard as she could. Katerina's first reaction was to look stunned at the loudness of the smack, then as the pain seared in a half second later she screamed and bucked on the chair. Shocked somewhat by what she had wrought, Cherry backed off and gaped at the now weeping Katerina and the dark purple welt rising on her butt. And that was only the first blow. Suddenly infused with a heady feeling of power, she stepped back up to the chair, reached back with the cane and delivered another blow with all her strength to Katerina's pale bottom. Another slight delay, then Katerina howled in agony, leapt off the chair and tumbled to the floor, wailing and writhing as the pain roared through her body.

"No! No!" she screamed. "I can't stand it! Please, no more!"

Cherry seemed to fold in on herself at the sight of the distraught Katerina and the second purple wheal rising on her previously flawless rump. But guilt gave way to a feeling of triumph as she remembered the promised spoils of her victory.

Lyle chortled and lowered Ming's cabinet as far as it would go. Her mouth was now directly opposite his engorged manhood. Knowing her mouth would have dried out by now, he pried her jaws open with one hand and sprayed the inside with an aerosol can of canola oil from the same bedside drawer. Then he pushed himself into the mouth, still holding it open to avoid cutting himself on her teeth, and began a slow thrusting, gradually picking up speed. As he felt his orgasm approaching, he leaned into Ming's ear and whispered, "Don't worry, sweetheart. Katerina will get hers, and soon. She doesn't know it, but her luck is about to run out and her end will not be pleasant. No matter what that bitch told you, I love you and I always have." At that point he withdrew and turned to the bed where Cherry was waiting for him, on her back, legs spread wide.

Katerina knelt by the bed, sniffling, watching, gently rubbing her sore ass.

Ming smiled to herself, closed her eyes and went to sleep.