Ming

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.