Chapter 5: The Rotisserie Spins
The cold was inside his bones now. Jacky stood dripping, the soaked boxers a frigid, transparent film that might as well have been nothing. His skin prickled everywhere, a map of goosebumps under the studio lights. The huge wheel, "The Rotisserie," waited, its black-padded spokes looking less like safety features and more like restraints.
Vanessa gestured with a sweep of her arm. "Assume the position, Jacky."
Two stagehands, their faces neutral, guided him to the wheel. They positioned him against the central hub, his back to the cold metal. Leather cuffs, cool and stiff, were fastened around his wrists and ankles, pulling his limbs out to the spokes so he was spread-eagled against the giant circle. The position was vulnerably open, a starfish pinned for display. The padding against his spine did nothing to soften the sensation of being mounted.
"Comfortable?" Vanessa asked, her smile gleaming.
Before he could form a lie, she continued. "Rules are straightforward. I ask a trivia question. You answer. Correctly, the wheel stops, and you get a point. Incorrectly..." She trailed off, looking at the women who had gathered around the wheel's rim, each finding a handhold. "Our contestants encourage a faster pace. The wheel spins. The next question gets harder. Physics does the rest."
Sloane cracked her knuckles. Mira tested the wheel's rotation with a push; it turned smoothly, silently. Tasha gave him a little wave. Ivy just watched, her fingers tracing the steel rim.
"First question," Vanessa announced, reading from a tablet. "In classical mythology, who was the goddess of the hunt?"
Jacky's mind, numb with cold and fear, scrabbled. He knew this. He did. "Artemis," he blurted.
"Correct!" Vanessa said without enthusiasm. The wheel remained still. A muted sigh came from the audience. Disappointment.
"Second question. What is the atomic number for gold?"
"Seventy-nine." Faster this time. A flicker of hope.
"Correct. You're smarter than you look." The barb was gentle, practiced.
"Third question. Name the playwright who wrote 'The Crucible.'"
His mouth was dry. The lights were so hot. The wet cotton chafed his inner thighs. "Arthur Miller," he whispered.
"Louder for the microphones, Jacky."
"Arthur Miller!"
"Correct." Vanessa’s eyes flickered to the women. "Let's raise the difficulty, shall we? Question four. What is the capital of Kyrgyzstan?"
The air left his lungs. Geography. His worst subject. The names swirled—Central Asia, Stan countries. He stammered. "Is it... Bishkek?"
A long, terrible silence. Vanessa tapped her tablet. The screen behind her flashed red. INCORRECT.
"The answer is Bishkek," she said, sighing with theatrical pity. "You had it. You just didn't trust yourself. A shame."
Sloane didn't wait for a signal. She threw her weight into the rim. The world lurched. The studio became a streaking blur of light and color. The force plastered his body against the spokes, the centrifugal push immense. His scant clothing was no barrier; the wet boxers were mashed against his skin, and the relentless pressure, the dizzying motion, triggered a traitorous, instinctual response in his groin. He felt the flush of blood, the tight swelling against the cold, clinging fabric. He squeezed his eyes shut.
The wheel slowed. He was upside down, blood rushing to his head.
"Next question," Vanessa's voice cut through his vertigo. "In quantum mechanics, what does the Schrödinger equation describe?"
Upside down, disoriented, his mind was soup. "I... the cat," he mumbled.
"Specifics, Jacky."
"The... the wave function?" It was a desperate guess.
Red. INCORRECT.
This time, Mira and Tasha pushed together. The wheel shot into a faster spin. The blur became a nauseating smear. The force increased, pressing him harder. Every rotation, his body was slammed against the restraints. The audience's laughter was a Doppler roar, rushing in and out. He was painfully, undeniably hard now, the physical reaction beyond his control, outlined starkly by the soaked fabric for anyone who cared to look.
"Focus, Jacky!" Vanessa called, her voice spinning around him. "Fifth question. What year did the Berlin Wall fall?"
"Nineteen-eighty-nine!" he screamed into the whirl.
CORRECT.
The wheel slowed. He was right-side up, panting, trembling in every limb. The relief was vomit-sour in his throat.
"Final question," Vanessa said. The women were all at the rim, hands ready. "A simple one. Name all five of your fellow contestants. Full names. You have three seconds."
His brain short-circuited. He saw their faces, knew them by their cruelty, but the names? In his panic, they vanished. "Sloane... Tasha... Mira... and..." He blanked. Ivy's name, the one he’d mistaken for kindness, deserted him completely. "...and..."
INCORRECT.
Sloane let out a grunt of effort. All five women pushed as one.
The wheel became a violent gyre. The studio was a crazed carousel. The g-forces were unbearable, crushing his chest, wrenching his gut. The world tilting, spinning, wouldn't stop. Saliva pooled in his mouth. A sour, acidic burn climbed his esophagus. He tried to swallow it back, failed.
A thin, hot stream of bile shot from his lips, spattering his own chest and the padded spoke between his legs. The wheel kept spinning, smearing it.
The audience roared, a sound of pure, unadulterated delight.
When the wheel finally creaked to a stop, he was hanging sideways, trembling violently. Strings of drool and vomit connected his mouth to his chest. The cold air hit the mess, making him shiver. The leather cuffs were unbuckled. His legs gave out and he collapsed onto the polished floor, retching dryly.
Vanessa approached, stepping delicately around him. "Well. That was a performance." She addressed the audience. "Our boy failed the trivia, failed to remember his new friends, and failed to keep his lunch down. Punishment round is upon us. Options?"
The screen lit. Option A: A bucket of ice water poured over him. Option B: Replace his current... attire... with the official "Last Man Standing" sequined g-string.
The vote wasn't close.
A stagehand wheeled out a thin, decorative screen—three panels of rice paper stretched over a bamboo frame. From Vanessa’s hand dangled a tiny swatch of black fabric, sparkling with sequins. It looked like a fragment of a costume, insubstantial as a thought.
"Privacy is a luxury, Jacky," Vanessa said, not unkindly. "But we grant it. You have sixty seconds behind the screen to change. What you do with your... soiled... current wear, is up to you."
He took the offered scrap of fabric, his fingers barely feeling it. The screen offered only a symbolic separation. The studio lights blazed through the paper, casting his every move in sharp, detailed silhouette upon it. A thousand people watched his shadow.
Behind the screen, the world condensed to sound. His own ragged breath. The hum of the lights. The muffled, eager murmur of the crowd. His fingers, clumsy and cold, hooked into the waistband of his ruined boxers. They peeled away from his skin, the wet fabric tugging at his hips, down his thighs. He stood naked for a second in the cold, shivering, exposed even in this fragile shadow-play. He glanced down at himself, at the traitorous evidence of his body’s humiliating betrayal, now soft and pathetic in the cold.
The sequined g-string was a joke. A thin black strap for the back, a barely-there triangular patch for the front, all dotted with cheap, sharp sequins. He stepped into it, pulled it up. It was shockingly intimate, riding high on his hips, the central strip a tense line between his buttocks. The front covered nothing fully, merely framing and presenting. The sequins scratched his skin.
He balled up the wet, stained boxers, not knowing what to do.
"Time!" Vanessa called.
He emerged. The air felt different on this new expanse of skin. The women’s eyes were immediate, a physical touch. Mira’s eyebrows rose. Tasha bit her lip, a giggle escaping. Sloane’s gaze was a clinical assessment. Ivy’s eyes lingered on the sequins glittering against his pale hip bone.
Vanessa circled him. "A definite upgrade. More aerodynamic for the next challenge." She plucked the balled-up boxers from his lifeless hand. She held them aloft by a finger, the damp, stained fabric unfurling slightly. "And we'll just keep these as a memento. A trophy of your first real… loss of control."
She dropped them into a large, clear glass jar a stagehand produced. The boxers lay coiled at the bottom, a grotesque exhibit. The jar was sealed with a click that echoed in the quiet.
"Now," Vanessa said, turning back to the cameras, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "For the next game, we're going to need those hands free, Jacky. And those legs. But don't worry. The g-string stays. It's part of the uniform." She smiled. "We're going to play a little game called 'Keep Away.' And the object you'll be keeping away? Is this."
She pointed to the jar containing his boxers.
"The only rule is you can't use your hands to cover yourself. They'll be… otherwise occupied."
Jacky stared at the jar, then at the hungry faces of the women now fanning out across the stage, his heart a frantic, trapped bird in the cage of his ribs. The sequins dug into his skin, a constant, glittering reminder of how little there was left to take.