Chapter 7: Testing the Lackey
The sterile chrome of the Interrogation Room felt like a distant dream as Jessica followed Phallous through a service corridor that sloped downward. The air grew colder, damper, carrying the faint, sweet-sour scent of mildew and something else—cotton candy and motor oil. The walls transitioned from smooth composite to riveted iron, then to rough-hewn stone.
“Bingo is a recent acquisition,” Phallous explained, his voice echoing in the narrow passage. “A specialist in… atmospheric persuasion. His methods are unorthodox, but his results with stubborn subjects are statistically significant. I need to calibrate his effectiveness.”
Jessica walked beside him, her jumpsuit zipped up but feeling like tissue paper against her skin. Her body still hummed with the unresolved energy from the chamber. “So I’m your calibration tool? Feels like a promotion.”
“Consider it a field test. For both of you.” He stopped before a heavy, rust-stained door adorned with a peeling decal of a laughing clown face. “You will not inform him of our… revised arrangement. Your performance must be authentic. Any suspicion of collusion would invalidate the data.”
“You want me to scream like I mean it.”
“I want you to react,” he corrected, a sharp glint in his eye. “As you so vividly demonstrated you are capable of doing. He believes you are a captured agent resisting interrogation. That is the narrative.”
He rapped on the door—a shave-and-a-haircut pattern. From within, a tinny, recorded calliope tune played, and the door swung inward with a groan.
Bingo’s Funhouse wasn’t a room; it was a descent. The space beyond was a cavernous hall swallowed by darkness, punctuated by pools of garish neon and the sluggish rotation of disco balls that cast dizzying spots of color. Warped mirrors lined the initial corridor, reflecting Jessica’s form in grotesque, elongated, and squashed proportions. The air was thick with the ozone smell of old electrical wiring and the cloying, artificial scent of bubblegum.
“Doc! You brought me a playmate!” The voice was a high, wavering warble, part excitement, part wheeze.
He emerged from the shadows between two gigantic, cracked plaster lions. Bingo was tall and skeletally thin, swimming in a jacket of oversized, polka-dotted polyester. His face was a mask of white greasepaint, with huge crimson triangles over his eyes and a perpetually shocked, scarlet mouth. His own hair was a nest of vibrant orange spikes, but atop it sat a battered, tiny yellow hat. He moved with a jerky, jointless grace.
“This is Agent Gomes,” Phallous said, giving Jessica a slight push forward. “She is remarkably resilient. I am curious to see how she fares in your… environment.”
Bingo clapped his gloved hands, the sound muffled. “A tough cookie! I love tough cookies. They crumble so melodiously.” He leaned in, his painted eyes wide. “Do you like games, Agent Tough Cookie?”
Jessica forced a glare, summoning the ghost of her old defiance. It felt like putting on a coat that no longer fit. “I’ve had about enough of your boss’s games.”
“Oh, mine are better,” Bingo chirped, circling her. “They have prizes! Well, consequences. Consequences are prizes, really, if you think about the data.” He gestured grandly into the gloom. “Welcome to the main stage! First, we need to see what you’re made of. Literally!”
He scurried over to a console littered with mismatched levers and glowing, candy-colored buttons. With a flourish, he pulled one. Machinery whirred to life. From the ceiling descended a contraption that looked like a hybrid between a carnival strength tester and an industrial press. A huge, padded mallet was suspended next to a large, illuminated dial marked “GUTS-O-METER.”
Before she could react, two articulated arms with padded claws shot from the darkness beside her. They clamped around her biceps with a pneumatic hiss, lifting her off the ground. She kicked out, a genuine yelp escaping her lips as her feet left the floor. This was different from Phallous’s clinical restraints; this was a carnival grabber game made real.
“The Guts-O-Meter is so passé!” Bingo’s voice echoed from below as she was hoisted upwards. “We’re testing tensile strength today! And spirit!”
The robotic arms pivoted, carrying her effortlessly through the neon-striped air toward a towering structure she recognized. It was a High Striker, the classic test-of-strength game where you hit a base with a mallet to ring a bell at the top. This one was grotesquely modified. The bell was gone.
In its place, a complex web of straps and padded cuffs dangled from the summit. The arms deposited her into this waiting embrace with unsettling precision. Cold leather snaked around her wrists, her ankles, her thighs. She was maneuvered onto her back, suspended horizontally about fifteen feet up, legs spread wide toward the main column of the machine below. The pose was brutally exposed.
“Comfy?” Bingo called up, his painted smile a crimson smear in the gloom.
“Peachy,” Jessica shot back, her voice tighter than she intended. She tested the bonds. They were firm, unyielding. Her heart began a frantic drum against her ribs, a mix of primal fear and that traitorous, eager heat Phallous had unlocked.
Phallous himself stood off to the side, a datapad in hand, observing. “Note the subject’s respiratory increase and pupillary dilation. Baseline stress response. Proceed.”
At the base of the machine, Bingo skipped over to a large, polished counterweight. It wasn’t a wooden block or anvil. Mounted on it was a sleek, formidable silicone phallus, glistening under a spotlight. He patted it fondly. “This is my special mallet! The harder the swing, the higher the prize goes!”
The true horror, the perfect absurdity of the situation, clicked into place. The “prize” at the top wasn’t a bell. It was her. The “hammer” was aimed right between her spread legs. A cold wave of dread washed over her, followed instantly by a surge of liquid warmth that pooled in her belly. She clenched her muscles uselessly.
“You’re insane,” she breathed, the words lost in the hum of the machinery.
Bingo didn’t hear. He was now hefting a massive, actual sledgehammer. He took a practice swing at the counterweight lever. “The game is simple! I hit the target! You try not to scream the access codes! Or do scream them! I like the music!”
The robotic arms that had placed her now retracted with a whir. She was alone, tied to the pinnacle of this terrible toy. Her mind fractured cleanly in two. The agent assessed the drop, the bond strength, the angle of attack—all useless data. The woman Phallous had remade just stared at the glistening tip pointed at her core, her breath coming in short, sharp gasps. Terror tightened her throat. Arousal soaked the thin material of her jumpsuit.
“Wait,” Phallous commanded, his voice cutting through the noise. Bingo paused, hammer held high. The scientist studied his datapad, then looked up at Jessica. Her chest was heaving, her lips parted. “Her metabolic readings are… atypical for sheer terror. Fascinating. Proceed.”
Bingo let out a gleeful cackle. He spit on his hands, gripped the hammer handle, and with a running start, slammed it onto the launch mechanism with a resounding CLANG.
The counterweight dropped. The phallus-mounted platform shot upwards along the guide rail with a vicious, metallic SHOOM. It was a blur of silicone and polished steel aimed directly at her center.
Time dilated. Jessica sucked in a breath, every muscle rigid. This was going to break her. This was going to be agony. A sob caught in her chest.
The impact was monumental.
It wasn't pain. It was a brutal, deep, full invasion that stole the air from her lungs. The force drove the breath from her in a silent scream, quickly morphing into a choked, guttural moan as the device buried itself to the hilt. The sensation was a shockwave, a brutal trespass that instantly ignited every nerve he had ever sensitized. Her back arched against the straps, a lightning bolt of pure, undiluted sensation frying her higher thought.
She heard a wild, ragged scream echo through the Funhouse. It took her a full second to realize it had come from her own throat. It wasn’t a scream of pain, but of overwhelming, violent stimulation. The platform held her there, impaled, for a suspended moment at the peak of its travel. A tiny light on the side of the machine flashed green. “WINNER!” a recorded clown voice declared.
Then it dropped. The sudden withdrawal was its own exquisite torture, a hollow, aching vacancy. She gasped, shuddering, her body convulsing against the restraints. The platform settled back at the base with a heavy thud.
“Ooh, a solid seven on the impact gauge!” Bingo cheered, checking a dial. “Good form! Ready for round two?”
Jessica could only pant, her vision speckled. The deep, throbbing ache between her legs was already craving the devastating force again. She bit her lip until she tasted blood, trying to cage the wanton sound fighting to get out. Phallous was right. She was broken. And she was, gloriously, perfectly, his.