Roll Out The Barrel

Rounding a corner, he was startled to find himself face to face with Ben, on his way to investigate the crash...

Meanwhile Astra was not looking forward to the next ten minutes or so. If she succeeded in remaining on the barrel as she rolled it with her feet to the rearmost row of seats and back to the stage, then she would be forced to drink more of the ale. Inevitably there would eventually come a point when she would start to become tipsy. And there was also the effect on her bladder to worry about. But if she should fall instead, then she would have to submit to being groped. She wondered if the time had come when she should say "No more!" and submit to whatever punishment that so doing might entail. But she decided that things had not yet quite reached that point. At least by continuing to play the game she knew what she faced, whereas the penalty for refusal was unknown and might turn out to be even worse than what she faced now.

She managed to get the barrel rolling. She hoped that the floor would be level; any unevenness or slight slope would make things very difficult. She quickly found that her biggest problem was going to be keeping the barrel heading in a straight line. Because it was not a perfect cylinder but bulged slightly at the equator, each time she applied new forward propulsion it would tend to skew a considerable distance off line. So it was a rather winding course that the barrel took. The aisle was only about twice as wide as the barrel, so she did not have a great margin for error.

1. Seeing the problem that she was having in steering, some of the men sitting adjacent to the aisle starting sticking their feet out into it, effectively narrowing it. Before long, she could not avoid an out-thrust foot and was sent flying into the crowd.
2. She succeeded in reaching the end of the aisle. As she shifted round ready to return, she heard: "Ralph says come back standing on your hands on the barrel."
3. By some miracle, she succeeded in completing the round trip without falling and was "rewarded" by being required to sink another large tankard of ale.
4. The ale that she had already had was strong, and as she rolled the barrel she begin to feel its effects.
5. Meanwhile, back with Fred...

Add New Option

Go Back

View Forward Story Tree
View Back Story Tree