Jamie wins!

“What a great race!” Laura told the audience. “Congratulations, Jamie.”

Alice felt a pit form in her stomach. It had been such a close race and yet she’d lost. Her heart raced as she waited for Laura to read out what would happen next.

“Alice,” Laura continued, “you’re lucky, this one isn’t too bad. You’ll only need to take off your bra.”

From what I’ve seen of this show, that’s not that bad, Alice thought.

Still, the prospect of having to strip anything off was not something she looked forward to. Her heartbeat quickened. The hot lights left her nowhere to hide. Reluctantly, she reached behind herself and unhooked the simple, pink bra. Skillfully she slipped the straps off while keeping her white blouse on. The bra dropped below her shirt, flooding her face with heat as it did. Her plump breasts hung weightily on her chest.

“Alice, how are you feeling?”

“I’m nervous,” she answered. “It’s so much harder here than when you watch on TV.”

“Would you give the wheel a spin?”

Alice grabbed the wheel with one hand and gave the wheel a medium-strength spin. The wheel came to rest on a red wedge that Laura then plucked and opened.

“Alice, for twenty-five thousand dollars, your next challenge will be tug-’o-war. We’ll need a member of the audience for this one. Jeannie Malcolm, seat number 210, please come down to the stage.”

Her opponent was a rather portly woman in her late thirties or early forties with dark brown hair. The crowd cheered her on while the stagehands brought out a thick, brown rope with a piece of red ribbon tied in the middle. Two small cones marked the boundaries of the challenge area.

“Alice, Jeannie, please take your spots. The person to get the ribbon beyond their cone is the winner.”

Alice grabbed the rope and pulled it taut with her opponent. She exhaled and tried her best to block out the sounds around her and focus solely on the task at hand.

“Are you both ready?” Laura asked, snapping her to attention. She nodded that she was. “Ok. Three. Two. One. Pull!”

With a heave, Alice pulled on the rope, only to be met with an equal resistance. She leaned backwards and dug her feet into the wood-planked stage as much as she could. The rope did not budge. She slackened the rope slightly to try to tire her opponent, but the rope slowly began to move as she did. She could not afford to give anything less than her all.

Alice jerked on the rope, but the woman on the other end stayed strong. The rope moved ever closer to the cone that would signify her loss. She would have to do something in order to pull out a win for this contest.