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Pasha saw me and lowered his gaze. He was embarrassed or ashamed or angry. I wasn’t sure which. He must have blamed me for the humiliation he was enduring. I
wiped at my tears and Bastian was there for me. After all he’d seen, after all he’d done for me, and after all I’d done to him, he was there for me. Even after my betrayal, my quite obvious infatuation or maybe even love for Pasha, Bastian took me in his arms and held me close to his chest.
“I love you,” he said. “I brought you here and I’ll help you get through all this. Stay with me and I’ll have your back every time. I still trust you.”
That made the tears fall harder. I couldn’t control my sobs and had to turn and bury my face in his shirt. Someone nearby patted me on my back. As usual, the neighbors of Erotic Mayberry weren’t judgmental even in their time of judging.
“It’s only tradition,” a woman said.
“Don’t let it hurt you,” a man said. “So many people have gone through this. It happens every year. You’ll get through it.”
“You’re one of us,” a woman said.
I was so grateful for their words but I needed to see Pasha, to see what he was going through, and when I turned to look at the stage I saw Kendall pull a blanket off of a giant spinning wheel with options written on it, like something you’d see on a TV gameshow.
“Pasha,” Kendall said, “Please spin the wheel so we can see what your punishment will be. The gods will determine your fate and your punishment will be carried out in the morning. As you know, many of these options are brutal, very painful or uncomfortable, and of course there’s the one blank option reserved for those the gods would like to see pardoned.”
Pasha looked at me and smiled. Bastian nodded at him and I knew it was his silent way of telling the man he forgave him. How could I have found the most perfect two men in all of Erotic Mayberry? I didn’t deserve either of them.
After a long, deep breath, Pasha grabbed the wheel and spun it as hard as he could. I watched as the multicolored wheel turned around and around. When it slowed enough to read I watched as options whizzed past the arrow. Walk on hot coals, 30 lashes, leech blowjob, sandpaper scrub down, 60 hours in the hot box, naked knee march, one year of sexual denial, and many other options came and went. The wheel slowed down to a crawl and barely passed the two that I thought sounded worst, the one year of sexual denial and the leech blowjob. It looked like it might land on the blank option, the one meant to pardon him, but then it floated past it and finally stopped on naked knee march.
Noises came from the crowd, none of them good, and I knew it must be a brutal punishment.
“First thing in the morning, at first light, Pasha will carry out his punishment. He will start at his house, naked on the street, and he will walk on his knees up and down every street in the neighborhood, no matter how hot or ragged the street is. It will hurt. His knees will be a bloody mess, but he and the community will be better for it in the end.”
Pasha nodded, put his hands in his pockets, and walked off stage with his head hanging low.
“Now, for the final event of the evening and the one I believe most of you have been waiting for,” Kendall said. “As we’ve been here at the stage, some of the community men have set chairs up in a circle out in the field. I will need all pets to please go take a seat in one of the chairs and wait for the drawing.”
Bastian took my hand and slowly walked me out to the field. The crowd was oddly quiet and I couldn’t quite understand what was going on. I would think people would be excited since a pet would become an owner. Then I realized maybe that was exactly why everyone was quiet. No owner wanted to lose his pet. This event meant breaking up a couple, setting them both up to find new pets, meaning going back out into the world to find someone new to love and bring into the neighborhood.
Yes, that was a sad thought.
“Are you worried?” I asked Bastian.
“Yes, a little,” he said.
“I’m sure it won’t be me,” I said. “Look at all those chairs. There must be a hundred of ‘em at least.”
“One hundred and four,” he said. “There are one hundred and five homes and only one of them right now is without a pet so there are exactly one hundred and four chairs. Those are your odds.”
“I don’t win shit,” I told him. “I never have. There’s a fifty percent chance I’ll win a coin toss and I lose every fucking time.”
He smirked and I knew he was trying to force a smile for my benefit.
“Hey,” I said. “Look at me. You asked me last night who I’d choose. I’d choose you.”
“You mean that?” he asked.
“I do. If I win, I will ask them to redo the drawing.” I said. “I tried taking care of myself once before and we both know how that turned out.”
He chuckled.
He led me over to a seat, one that was marked 76 and kissed my forehead before sitting me down.
“Why do you look so sad?” I asked. “I told you, I pick you.”
Around me all the other pets sat down. There wasn’t a single empty seat in all 104. Pasha was far from me so I couldn’t see his face. I looked back at Bastian once more.
