The Family Feud III

Chapter Thirteen
“The Back Door Tunnel of Family Love”

STAR COUNT:
WENDY: 26
JAMIE: 29

As they exited the back door of the ride, Chris made the obligatory “I've always wanted to come out the backdoor of love.” Pinching his mom's butt at his double entendre.

“You girls want frozen bananas next?” Bill grinned as he asked an obviously rhetorical question.

“Thank you Sir, I think I am full from the generous corn dog you provided.” Wendy smiled knowing he was hinting they could repeat the dare with a frozen banana dipped in chocolate. She realized had it not been for the tight skirts they had pressing against the corn dog, they surely would have fell. Even with the clenching exercises her son had made her do and her natural ‘assets’ of a shapely ass, holding the corn dog would have been impossible. It gave her cold chills to think about the chocolate on the frozen banana melting, oozing down her ass and becoming slippery.

“You won the dare, so you get to make up a third choice for our next dare. It has to be interesting.” Bill grinned triumphantly like a man holding all the aces in the deck.

“Respectfully, I wanted to ask, wouldn’t I just vote for the choice I picked, Sir?” Wendy was a little confused by their poorly planned game. It didn’t surprise her that they were making up the rules as they went, they were getting much better about it. It seemed to her that if she could make up a dare AND choose one, she’d automatically choose the one she made up. She was noticing they were getting better at anticipating the loopholes that seemed so obvious to her. She was also noticing she was able to be less critical about their mistakes, seeing things from their perspective in practice. It must be difficult to come up with games and dares on the fly, she thought to herself.

“One of the things we have to give out letters for, is good ideas and catching mistakes like that.” Bill tapped his son on the shoulder to ask him to remember that. “Good job, Wendy. I guess so. Your little cunt of a daughter would pick the same dare as you suggested, and our two good choices wouldn’t get used.” Bill conceded to his wife.

“How about I get to pick the dare from two of them. One you make up and one my son makes up. That seems fair, since I won the last contest and all, Sir?” Wendy asked trying to be helpful.

“There you go trying to keep us organized. Don’t push it.” He conferred with his son quietly before turning back to her. “That does however sound like a good way to do it.” He grinned, quietly recognizing that she did have a point.

They walked through the midway. Wendy couldn’t help but get a nervous feeling in the pit of her stomach. The guys were quiet, and she felt more nervous than usual. It didn’t help that every step without panties reminded her just how exposed she would be if she bent over. The feel of her sore pussy lips against the fabric of the dress touching nothing else but night air.

“I think we may have only time for one dare, it’s a school night and all.” Bill told the family, noting that Uncle Creepy was keeping pace with them no matter how brusquely he urged them forward.

“Awww Dad, I sleep through the first three periods anyway.” Chris was half kidding.

“Don’t worry about me, Sir. I know we haven’t done a lot of games tonight. I am sure we can make it through at least two.” Jamie, recently re-energized from her affirmations and getting a second wind of overall positivity, tried to sound charitable and understanding. She also found it helped to hide that sinking feeling in her stomach that they were about to face some difficult and challenging dares towards the end of the night. She hated sounding like the straight A student who tells the teacher she wants to do the extra-credit homework over spring break, but she really did want those gold stars. She’d just have to suck it up in the morning and try to stay awake.

Bill nodded in agreement, but took note that Wendy had not said anything about how it would be for her in the morning. He assumed she’d “give it her college try”. He really disliked how Wendy could stay positive some times and use that saccharine sweet motto. She had not said it in a couple days, but used to say it a lot. Especially to him before the training began. It felt like a slap in the face since he hadn’t attended college to be told, “See if you can find a job today. Give it the old college try”. It was just such an unfortunate turn of phrase.

He disliked being so petty inside. Seeing his wife walking behind him, brought down a peg felt good. He kept telling himself despite her recent caring and generous, submissive attitude she was really a bitch inside. That she had rubbed his nose in her success, her beauty. That his friends laughed at him, because he had tried for a long time to find a job, while she met with nothing but success. He pushed those thoughts back down to the dark place inside himself where he kept them, and focused on thinking about what dare he wanted most. There were so many and so little time to do them all.

Chris stopped the family in front of one of the game booths. There were dozens of small fishbowls with festively colored water and goldfish in them. People were plinking dimes into the bowls from behind a wooden post in order to win the pets for themselves or their children.

“Okay, I think my dare is going to be Goldfish.” Chris announced his choice of game first. “This is going to be a fun game. You have to pick one of us to be your champion. You can even both pick the same person. Dad and I will take 10 dimes each. We’ll toss them in to the colored water, and see who wins the most goldfish.”

“There has to be a catch, Sir?” Jamie said skeptically.

“You know me too well, dear Sister!” Chris took a whiff of her scent for comedic affect and added, “Since you smell like fish already, you will hold the winning goldfish to the very end of the game in your open mouth hole. If you run out of space, you can pick which other hole they can fit in.”

“Gross!!” Jamie scrunched her nose instinctively and added a “Sir” on the end when she realized she had made a face.

“Hey, this is a great dare. Frat boys like BRAD, eat goldfish all the time in their sororities!” Chris teased his sister about his friend Gerald’s older brother that she obviously had a crush on.

Jamie fought the urge to correct her brother and say it was a fraternity. She even pinched herself to keep from saying something.

Bill could see neither Wendy nor Jamie wanted to do Chris’s gross-out dare. This is why he was happy to go second in offering the choice. “I am sorry if we can’t come up with dares to suit your seven deadly sins, and female shortcomings!” Bill said mocking how his wife’s often dramatic way of phrasing her own shortcomings.

“We’ve had gluttony, that corn dog you pigs chowed down on. We have addressed your vanity by painting you up pretty and making you dance around for entertainment. I don’t know what the other sins are off the top of my head, but I think mine will address some of them.” He said with a vague generalization, which had sounded more intelligent in his head before he said it.

The girls’ body language said he had their full attention. He was a little surprised there was not at least a small tell in how they reacted to his last statement that they could see he was making it up as he went. He decided maybe the affirmations did serve more of a purpose than he realized.

“You are even going to get panties for this dare. We’ll go on a little shopping spree in one of the shops, and pick you out something.”

This condition surprised Wendy and Jamie. They had accepted they would be going “commando” (without panties) anytime they were permitted to wear clothes. It seemed like one of the cornerstones of establishing the men’s control over their clothing. The only exception having been the few times they could wear the ones that had been used to gag them, and even then they were stained with saliva and dried cum.

“You will pretend to start a knock-down, drag-out fight between you two. The panties are for wedgies. I want you to really pull them up as hard as you can. This had better be a tit grabbing, hair pulling, name-calling catfight!” Bill said to his stunned wife and daughter.

“Alright, Dad!” Chris cheered his dad, hoping to see his sister and mom get down and dirty on the ground.

“What if we get kicked out of the fair for fighting?”

“Uncle Creepy is Security.” Bill pointed a thumb to the tall man standing dumbfounded behind him. “You saw a fight break out right where we were standing earlier. People surrounded them and cheered them on!”

Wendy was not convinced this was a good idea. She didn’t want to do the goldfish dare, but it was sounding better in comparison (only). “You want me to kick my daughter’s ass, Sir?” she asked incredulously.

“As if!” Jamie put her hands on her hips, as if to suggest that would be easier said than done.

“Not really. I want you to pull off each other’s clothes. The first girl to be fully stripped and pinned down loses. You can both stop fighting then.”

“I’ll give the loser an extra star for continuing to follow around the winner for ten minutes trying to goad her on, completely undressed. You have to act furious, like you want to keep fighting.”

“Yeah, All trailer park and scrappy!” Chris rubbed his hands together like an evil genius. He was enjoying this. To him either dare sounded good.

“What does the winner of these dares get?” Jamie asked. She was not sure what her mom would pick for them, or what she would pick if it were up to her. Both dares sounded just heinous and wrong to her, but she was trying to keep an open mind. After all, she knew going into the fair that the expectations were going to be heinous and wrong. They would be doing them, because of all the hideous things they had put the guys through in the first place when she and her mom had control over them.

“She gets first pick of the next dare after that, which could be the very last of the night. She gets consideration in the ten star jackpot, and she gets a “Get out of Jail Free” card.”

They both looked confused about the last award. “It’s going to be in the new rules. You can use it to counter-act one correction. It nullifies one of the cards in the fishbowl and forgives your offense. If you use it, we take the card out of the bowl forever!” Bill smiled at his ingenuity.

Chris and he had a discussion when they were alone at the beer tent. They both agreed that while the stars as an overall prize was a good incentive they needed to expound upon Chris’s earlier idea about “Rice-A-Roni” prizes. The little gift that is provided in game shows that are more immediate and visceral. They could be small tokens or awards in the grand scheme of things, but they could serve as good motivators to get the girls to put that extra effort behind a game. Bill and Chris had really enjoyed their informal planning session together.

Chris had told his dad that at Christmas when he got a single high dollar prize, it was great. However, it wasn’t as good as when his Mom had given him dozens of simple little gifts. They cost less, but something about the fact it was “more things” had influenced him to judge that Christmas as the best Christmas ever. This seemed like a good tactic towards motivating the girls, without really giving them anything of consequence. Watching them do the dares was priceless, but watching them motivated to do the dares and running their asses off, nervously sweating on whether they did a good job was double priceless.

Bill didn't tell him that he had been the one in favor of a single high dollar gift. He chose to just acknowledge his son’s words back at the beer tent and try to come up with a way to use this clever tactic as a carrot to dangle before the girls to see them scurry and sweat to earn it. He reflected on that while his son tried to talk the girls in vain into the goldfish dare.

“Can I just add for your consideration,” Chris told the girls, “that under my dare, it’s possible we miss with every dime. In Dad’s you are definitely going home bruised and banged up.”

Wendy didn’t want to hurt Jamie, but the two of them had endured a great deal of pain at the hands of the guys this week. There wasn’t much she was going to do in a fight that would physically hurt much worse than the pain they had endured already.

Wendy had done a little kickboxing classes as part of her physical fitness regime in the past, but she really had never raised her fist to anyone in anger for as long as she could remember. The idea of hitting her daughter in a play fight really sounded surreal to her. It didn’t sound as bad as putting goldfish into her mouth, but it didn’t sound like her.

Jamie’s elfin face was smiling and almost taunting her, upturned button nose and eyes gleaming with a friendly challenge to ‘bring it on’. Hands on hips, it was obvious that her daughter was just as athletic as she was and had the energy for a physical dare. She could sense Jamie was up for the fighting dare and would try to give as good as she got from her mom in the exchange of blows.

“C’mon mom, I won’t hold your old age against you, when I hold you down and wedgie you.” Jamie’s taunt was a friendly jab, not a mean spirited promise.

“Oh yeah? Well, you are going down sister!” Wendy didn’t sound entirely confident, but she returned the cute barb in kind. “I’ve made my decision Sir, we’ll do the fight.”

Chris could tell his Mom and Jamie didn’t want to fight, or get banged up. They had endured bruises, lashes, and slaps all week though. “You DO realize that one of you has to be stripped completely for the fight to end. That means the other will probably be half undressed?” Chris warned them.

“I know this, Sir.” Wendy acknowledged. It was her choice and not her daughter’s to make but she felt Jamie was in agreement with her when she said, “We saw two girls rip each other’s top off earlier tonight in a fight. We’ll have to grin and bear it, I apologize Sir, but the goldfish dare just scares the crap out of me.” She said honestly.

Chris seemed disappointed his dare wasn’t chosen. He knew it probably grossed them out, but it didn’t stop him from wanting to see the two of them squirm with goldfish in their open mouths. “First rule of fight club, is don’t talk about fight club.” He told his mom and sister.

They didn’t get his reference to the film of the same name. Wendy just smiled politely and nodded as they were guided towards a kiosk that sold used DVDs, Sham-wows, sunglasses, and clothes. The trashy kind of clothes that one can only find at the fair. As luck or fate would have it, there was a basket of panties marked “Slightly irregular 3 for a dollar”.

“You will present your panties when you are done with the fight to Uncle Creepy” Bill informed the women as he started scanning through the panties for some suitable ones. Wendy wasn’t as concerned about what he would do with their panties. She was already wearing clothes he probably did all manner of unholy and disgusting things to that she didn’t want to think about. She was more concerned that this dare would involve them being naked at the end, and this time in the most populated and well-lit part of the fair.

Even with that condition, she still thought it was better than the goldfish dare.

They had themed ones, “Hunchback of Notre Dame” a Disney film, but in adult size. They had ones that said, “If you can see this, it’s your lucky day.” but in children’s sizes. It was obvious these were the kind of panties that no one had any good reason to buy.

Except of course tonight, since they would be worn for giving the girls another layer to be yanked off during the fight and to hopefully wedgie each other. Pulling them hard up out of their skirt, to cause each other pain.

The Taylor men sifted through the panties with pictures of cherries, or Barney on them looking for just the right size and choice.

Wendy whispered to her daughter, “Are you really ready to fight me?” she was feeling nervous. She had grown accustomed to a certain level of nervousness tonight, but it was time once again for her butterflies to remind her just what she was doing, where she was, and who with.

Jamie seemed confident. “It can’t be too bad. I mean, I’ve never been in a fight, but wrestling is all fake. We’ll just sort of do it like that.” She wanted to wing it, put on a good show and make her dad and brother happy. That in turn would make her happy to get her stars.

“You think they’ll pick the right size panties?” Wendy whispered in reply.

“Not a chance.” Was Jamie’s amused response.

They hadn’t done a terrible job approximating the right sizes of the girls. They held up a pair of “Scratch and Sniff” panties with the scent printed (hopefully by accident) on the back of the panties in Wendy’s size. The ones for Jamie read “Wetter is better” and had a picture of what may have been the children’s doll Strawberry Shortcake sliding down a water slide.

The third pair displayed a dog with a bone, and the words “lick, don’t bite” underneath. “This one is just in case we need another pair”. Bill explained pragmatically. It was three for a dollar, and he wasn’t going to waste money just getting two.

The men paid, and the girls slid their panties on right in the kiosk. A woman watched the two of them do it and Wendy kidded, “It’s funny how you can get up in the morning, go all day without them, and realize you weren’t wearing them hours later, Ma’am.”

They were marched into an area of the busy midway that seemed relatively free of buckets, wooden boards, walls, and things they could trip over and bang their heads on while they fought. Both girls felt an increasing fear of having to suddenly be aggressive with each other. They didn’t have any ill-feelings towards each other, their competitiveness with each other had always been friendly. Trying to summon the feelings to fight each other, was harder than it sounded.

Chris ordered them to “Go to it” and stepped back with his dad and Uncle creepy, the three men watching from a safe distance.

“You whore, you have my panties on!” Wendy said loudly in the most unconvincing first line of a fight ever.

“Nuh-uh, these are mine. My Dad just paid for them. You were right there with me!” Jamie’s loud response just as cheesy as her mothers had been.

No one stopped. People just walked past the two of them as they attempted to set the tone for their scuffle. It is possible no one heard them, or that hearing two girls feud over something the other owned was so common at the fair that no one thought much of it.

“Well girl! I am going to show you they are mine!” Wendy yelled a little louder, hoping that there would be a ring of people forming around them. Bill expected they provide entertainment and a spectacle, and she was going to give it her patented ‘college try’. Try as she might, the ring of spectators wasn’t happening, despite them being surrounded by people who must have clearly saw the two girls facing off against each other.

Bill waved his hand as if to say, “Just start, already.”

Wendy wasn’t sure whether to throw a punch, a kick, or what to do. Her instinct was to reach out and slap her daughter in the face. Jamie put up her hands defensively and slapped back. The two of them were quickly locked in a slap battle.

It seemed very epic to the Taylor girls, each getting stingers across their face. Aside from one guy stopping briefly to snap a picture on his cell phone, and one or two people who paused, no one paid this kerfuffle any mind.

Bill decided after three minutes of watching the pathetic slap fight, to put an end to it. They had managed to tug each other’s skirt waistband and jerk their half-shirts down past their shoulder, but they had proven neither was capable of hurting the other. They were both actually smiling at the end of the fight at each other.

“I didn’t say pillow fight, like you are at a sleep over” Bill expressed his disappointment in their performance during the fight.

“I am sorry Sir, we will try again, Sir. Let us go down the way a little and start over.” Wendy couldn’t stop laughing at her daughter as she asked for a second chance. The two had managed to get a small adrenalin rush from their fight, and couldn’t stop giggling. Wendy’s eyes were red from laughter, as her cheeks were red from her daughter’s quick slaps to the face.

“No, give your panties to Uncle Creepy, you don’t deserve to wear them. Those are for fighting bitches. You two cunts couldn’t fight your way out of wet paper bags.”

“Yes Sir, right away.” Wendy stepped out of her panties to hand them to Uncle Creepy on the midway. Try as they may to be noticed while setting up and enacting their fake fight, dropping out of the panties did turn heads. Several people watched her and her daughter slide down the twisted pair of panties and step out of them.

“Here you go, Sir. Would you like to sniff my sweaty, filthy panties?” Wendy asked seductively of Uncle Creepy.

He took them without a word, his mustache only moving slightly in what may have passed for a thank you.

“Have mine too, please Sir. I hope you enjoy the scent of my cunt and ass.” Jamie, who had calmed down from her short little workout said as she handed him her pair. Creepy casually brought the panties to his nose, before pulling them back to his waist, balling them up tightly in his fist, and looking straight ahead.

“Why don’t cunts like you get to wear panties?” Bill asked his daughter for Uncle Creepy’s benefit.

“We have lost the right to that privilege to help us remember our place in the house, as sluts, and to keep us from having a feeling of privacy and comfort, Sir. It amuses my brother and father, to keep us pantyless and without bras, so we jiggle and bounce.”

“Good answer, piggy.” Bill gave his daughter praise before announcing “You two fight like, well you fight like girls. You’ll do the goldfish dare or you’ll come up with something suitable to amuse us, of equal or greater entertainment value.”

Wendy and Jamie could not think of anything at that moment. They looked around the fair, most of the dares that came to mind seemed simple by comparison. Wendy’s first thought was trying to balance pretzels on their nose, or tie cherry stems in knots. Jamie’s thoughts were all far worse, vague scenarios involving dicks and pain and things that were nasty, and she preferred not to try to visualize them, much less describe them.

“How does the goldfish thing work again, Sir?” Wendy asked exasperated.

“You will pick me or Dad as your champion. You can both pick the same person. Dad and I take ten dimes and try to plop them into the fish bowl. If we win you take a goldfish, and put it in your mouth until the end of the dare.”

“If we both take the same person, and you win only one goldfish, how would that work, Sir?” Jamie asked of her brother.

“Cut it in half?” Chris guessed.

“I guess it means that you can alternate. So if you want to be sneaky little bitches, which I know you both are, you will use that loophole to each pick the same person.” Bill didn’t seem angry, he was trying to be helpful in expounding upon the rules.

“What happens to the goldfish at the end, Sir?” Jamie asked her father inquisitively.

“Swallow them.” He said pragmatically to the girls whose faces suddenly went pale in empathy with the poor little fishies. “Oh stow it. These goldfish cost the fair less than 10 cents each. They live to be given to a little boy who will shake the bag all night until he gets home and his parents find it dead. Then they’ll run to the store in the morning and buy another goldfish so they don’t break the little boy’s heart.”

“Is that what happened to Milton my goldfish?” Chris asked his Dad warily.

“Sorry you had to find out that way.” Bill laughed at his son’s question. “Yeah, I spent about 30 bucks buying you a tank and then you forgot to feed it, after a week. I bought you a replacement, and you forgot to feed that one, before I just gave up.”

“That explains a lot. I just thought Milton changed colors.” Chris seemed to be lost for a moment reflecting on his long lost childhood pet.

“You would be doing them a favor to not be shaken all night, to end up in your gullet. It’s a quick and painless thing.” Bill instructed his two sluts.

“C’mon mom, you’ve swallowed a lot worse.” Chris was kidded his mom playfully. He noted her smoldering eyes, and he quietly let that off-color joke sink back to the place it came from.

“Okay, okay. This entire thing squicks me out, Sir.” Wendy changed the subject using the term ‘squick’ which Chris had taught her meant ‘being grossed out/turning your stomach’ years earlier. “My only other concern is will you hold it against us, for not picking you?”

Bill and Chris seemed confused.

“Let’s say Jamie and I pick one of you, that means we are betting you are terrible at throwing, because we don’t want you to win. You are asking us to bet against you.”

“You think too much, woman!” Bill said disgusted, but conceded her point.

“Could we both pick Uncle Creepy, Sir?” Wendy used the name very gingerly. She didn’t want to imply anything negative about him. She knew they felt comfortable mocking him, but given they saw Creepy as her superior in all things since he was male, she didn’t know how they would feel about her calling him that name.

“Can you throw dimes?” Bill said slowly to Uncle Creepy, pantomiming the act of flipping dimes into fishbowls as if he were deaf.

Uncle Creepy did not answer. He simply led them back in his own quiet way to the goldfish toss game they had passed earlier. There were people already throwing dimes on all four sides of the booth, trying to win themselves a little orange fish.

When they got there, Chris changed three dollars into dimes with the carnie running the game. “This is the new rule, if Uncle Creepy doesn’t make any, you have to do however many goldfish that Dad and I win!”

Jamie seemed alarmed, “No fair, changing the rules as you go, Sir.” She said as respectfully as she could to register her concern.

“You asked if Uncle Creepy could play. It’s only fair, all things considered.” Chris silently implied that Uncle Creepy may not be playing with a full deck/incapable of hitting the bowls.

“I see your point.” Wendy acknowledged her son and asked her daughter, “I’ll still take my chances, do you want to bet on your Dad or Chris instead?”

“Uncle Creepy for the win!” Jamie cheered enthusiastically.

Bill gave her a look, before silently deciding it was okay for them to refer to him as “Uncle Creepy”. He didn’t know his name and under the circumstances he really didn’t care.

“Okay, are you sluts ready?”

“Our mouths are open and ready, Sir.”

Bill, Chris and Creepy flung their first dimes in unison. There was a satisfying ‘chinking’ sound as the dimes found their way down to the bottom of the stand with the hundreds of other dimes from past attempts by customers to win a goldfish.

“Yay, Uncle Creepy!” Jamie did a quick jump reminiscent of her cheer routines.

The second dime toss had the same result. “Just getting our bearings, sluts!” Bill declared to the smiling Wendy and Jamie who were anxiously hoping they would continue to miss.

A handsome guy with his sweetheart on his arm was close by throwing dimes as well. He threw his last one and his girlfriend cheered. “Yay, we don’t have to bring home any goldfish!” Showing mock excitement at her boyfriend’s loss at the game.

“Yeah, yeah, but you love me anyway.” He chided the cute girl with a caress.

“Honey, I know you’d get me a goldfish, but what would I do with it?” she looked in his eyes lovingly before kissing him as the two walked away holding hands.

The lover’s exchange had the added effect of reminding Wendy just how abnormal and twisted her relationship with her husband had become. Instead of romantic gestures, she was waiting to find out how many goldfish she had to hold in her mouth.

The third and fourth dime suffered the same fate of the first ones. Skittering on to the dirty game floor, or landing in a glass ashtray that had been set out next to one of the many red, blue or yellow fishbowls that were the targets.

The girls sighed relief. Things had been so dim, one unfortunate event after the other. It was about time lady luck gave them a break!

“plink” Uncle Creepy made his shot.

Bill and Chris did a high five, as a goldfish was provided in a bag of clear water by the carnie tending the game.

“Wendy, you first.”

Wendy took the bag, and untied it. “Just reach in and take him out?” she asked, making a face that implied ‘You actually want me to touch it’?

The delicate goldfish couldn’t have been more than 2 inches long, flecked in golden scales it darted back and forth in the bag, oblivious that his fate was being decided even now.

“Give me the bag!” Bill grabbed it, spilling some of it’s precious life giving water as he did. He was a seasoned fisherman and it was second nature for him to grab the delicate fish. The life of the fish meant about as much to him as the live bait he’d use to catch bass would.

He made a mental note that he had never taken Chris fishing before. He’d have to see if the boy wanted to go. It may be another chance for ‘father-son bonding’.

He could see in his wife and daughter’s eyes the tiny wriggling fish, flapping and fighting within his hand to be returned to water was a “cute little fishy”.

That is why it amused him so much to order his wife, “Open that big mouth of yours and keep it open.” Because the look of pain on her face was deeper than any pain he had given her with the paddle. It gave him an instant boner.

“Your next, baby girl!” He pointed to Jamie, who was even now forming a tiny little tear in the corner of her eye.

Chris at first had seemed sensitive to the idea of the baby fish being yanked from its bag. He had the same pained expression his mom and sister did. But seeing how his mom was dancing in place, wrestling with the notion that wriggling under her tongue was a living gold fish expiring in her mouth gave him a boner too.

His mom kept her mouth opened wide, holding her tongue over the fish. Wendy was making an “Ahhhhh” noise the way one does when the doctor places a tongue depressor in your mouth to have a look. Her eyes were clenched shut and she had a pained expression, but she held herself bravely in place.

The sixth dime landed in place just as the last one.

“Hot Damn!” Bill clapped his hands enthusiastically.

The carnie shrugged handing the goldfish to Bill, who accepted it for Uncle Creepy. It was obvious the scruffy carnie didn’t care what anyone did with the goldfish. He had just handed a bag to a little boy who spun himself like a helicopter until he was dizzy and let the bag explode on the ground only moments before.

“Here you go lucky six.” Bill named the goldfish for the number of dimes it took to get him, and just as quickly plopped it in his daughter’s waiting mouth. “Like a daddy bird, feeding its baby”

“Urrkk” Jamie covered her mouth with her hand, eyes wide, and dancing nervously just like her mom.

“Hands to your side.” Bill pulled her hands to her side, like pulling open the spring jaws of a bear trap. Chris snapped a picture of the girl’s in an absolute pandemonium at the same time.

Seventh dime. “Another winner, the man is on a roll!” the dirty carnie added a third goldfish to their winnings.

Bill just as quickly grabbed it from the safety of its watery bag and thrust it into his wife’s open mouth.

“We need those ring gags, you know the ones that prop their mouths open?” Chris noted as both Jamie and Wendy struggled to hold the wriggling orange fish in their open mouth as he snapped a picture on his cell phone.

His dad agreed, thinking the fair probably sold kinky little leather toys like that at one of the many booths. It was too late for this dare, but he would have to remember that for next time.

Creepy was on a winning streak. His eighth dime landed on the mark as well, a perfect throw.

“Oh c’mon Jamie, this is funny.” he plopped the next wriggling, little fish into his daughter’s mouth, right past her naturally straight white teeth and on to her pink tongue.

“Oh Mrrmmrmm” was all she could muster, it almost sounded like pleasure unless you knew it was more a gargle of terror muted by the fact she was still holding back a still living goldfish in the last of its death throes. Jamie instinctively locked her hands on her mouth to keep the new fish from hopping back out of her mouth. Her brother had to pull her hands away from her face and hold them at her side as she gyrated uncontrollably to the “icky” feeling winding its way down her back.

Ninth dime, just misses its mark and falls on the ground. The guys let out an agonizing groan like their favorite team just missed an easy kick at the Super Bowl.

The tenth dime soared up, almost didn’t make it, hit the edge of the bowl and plops into the bowl at the last possible second. “YES!!” the guy’s triumphantly shouted like their team managed to win that Super Bowl game by the skin of their teeth.

“Open up, baby!” Bill held this little fish by its tail so she could see full length as he slowly brought it over her open mouth.

Wendy groaned, her eyes saying “No, No” there were two fish in there already.

“Get your mouth open wider, or point to what hole you want the third one in.” Bill grinned evilly.

She was in tears, several of the other players nearby were watching as Bill dropped the final goldfish into her now fully extended mouth as she held herself as wide as she could possibly get.

“Okay babies, you can swallow!” Bill said as if the girls were making too big a production as they choked and gagged with the fish still flopping around.

They couldn’t do it. The girls couldn’t choke the fish down without water. Wendy pointed to Chris’s big root beer mug, and pantomimed choking with her other hand holding her neck.

A very large black man had finally seen enough. “I don’t know what your game is, but it seems very disrespectful.” He addressed Bill and Chris, coming to the girl’s aid.

First Jamie buckled at the knee, then bent over and vomited up the two goldfish she was holding in her mouth. A very dry heave, only expelling the fishy water spit and the now deceased gold fish.

Then Wendy succumbed to the gross fish in her mouth, expelling the contents of her mouth on the dirty clay beneath their feet.

“There are sushi houses where they pay big bucks for that stuff!” Chris joked as he watched the two women spray the contents of their mouths on the ground.

The black guy was furious, “That is completely disrespectful. How dare you talk like that. I’ve been watching you guys treat these women like dogs and I am not standing for it!” His speech had a sermon like quality to it, as he registered his righteous indignation with the family.

“Relax, it was a bet, and they lost.” Bill tried to sound calm, but he was quietly balling up a fist. He wasn’t as big as this guy, but he was ready for anything.

“Bet my ass.” The black guy said, “I am here tonight with my son, I would never let him disrespect women like this, and I don’t appreciate it. Not at all.” the guy only became more angry with every word.

As Wendy recovered and staggered to her feet, she scooped up the now Dead goldfish in the palm of her hand. The Chang twins had applied some eye make up to her before she left their store, and it was now running down her face from the choked tears.

“I think you had better back down.” Bill said defiantly to the man who was intruding on his family fun night.

“Or what is going to happen?” The body language of the big black man shifted to someone who was inviting Bill to take a swing.

“It’s okay, it was fun. See?” Jamie said from behind Wendy. She had also stumbled her way to her feet and stuck one of the goldfish in between her teeth, leaving half the fish’s tail exposed. She approached her mom and embraced her,

awkwardly.

Wendy at first wasn’t sure why her daughter was sticking the fish in her face, and then realized Jamie was diffusing the tension between the men. “Yeah, we didn’t think they could win any goldfish, so we have to swallow whatever they catch in ten tries.” Wendy smiled at the large man who didn’t seem to be buying her story.

As further proof, she put her lips next to her daughter and took the fish out of her mouth, transferring it to her mouth.

“May I have some of your root beer, to wash it down sir?” Wendy implored her son.

He didn’t hesitate to hand his mug to her and she washed it down, nearly choking at first. “Kind of like a sardine.” She noted as if it wasn’t that big of a deal.

“Ready to try, Jamie?” Putting one of the goldfish she had dropped onto the dirt in her own mouth the same way, she transferred it back to Jamie, who, taking several gulps of her brother’s root beer, got the fish down.

The entire time she had her eyes shut, trying not to picture the cute little orange fish from “Finding Nemo” as she did. When she finally choked down the fish, she opened her eyes brightly with a smile, and looked right at the guy who was challenging her father. “Wow, I had forgotten what root beer tasted like.” She smiled as she licked her lips. She had drank mostly flavored waters before the training and only plain water after. This would be her first root beer since her dad took her to get root beer floats when she was eleven years old.

“C’mon Reggie, white people be crazy.” The big man backed down, seeing that the women didn’t need him to rescue them from distress. As he took his son in hand, the teenage boy with him turned to smile and wink at Wendy. It was Reggie, the boy who worked at Wendy’s and whose dick she had sucked the week prior.

Wendy was surprised but waved to him, still holding the two remaining fish in her hand. It made sense, since the fair wasn’t too far from the poor side of town that he’d be here. She wondered if he would tell his father what he had seen her do. It made her shudder almost as much as holding the slimy fish in her hand did.

Bill was quiet for a full minute after Reggie’s dad left. He gratefully acknowledged the girls, “Thank you both for that.” and he just left it at that. There was an unspoken appreciation that the girls had stepped up and taken one for the team, which is why it made him feel just a teensy bit guilty.

A teensy bit guilty to insist they finish the fish the way they had begun.