Balls to the Wall

Shane Herman’s sweat-covered T-shirt was glued to his body. His basketball shorts were drenched in ball soup. His Nikes and socks were probably going to smell worse than a skunk’s asshole once he finally got them off at home. His thinning brown hair stuck up everywhere like porcupine needles. His heartbeats were deafening. His mouth reeked of acid. His lungs burned. All Shane wanted to do was collapse on the floor mat and sleep the rest of the day into oblivion.

The roar of the crowd nor the lovely TV hostess’s bombastic voice could keep him more than semi-conscious. He didn’t even look her in the eye, just doubled over and sucked on air-conditioned TV studio oxygen.

The blond, cocktail dress-wearing hostess enthusiastically said into the hard camera, “Welcome back, everyone, to the toughest athletic competition on television…”

“Balls to the Wall!” shouted the audience.

“I said the toughest athletic competition on television!”

“BALLS TO THE WALL!”

“Much better! I’m Morgan Burch and thank you all for joining us this half-hour. Our guest this afternoon, Shane Herman, made history today, but not in the way he would have liked.”

“Oh, fuck off,” said Shane before spitting onto the mat.

Ignoring him, Morgan said, “That’s right, ladies and gentlemen: Mr. Herman has officially taken the longest time to complete our obstacle courses at eight minutes a piece. That means he has only two minutes remaining to complete the final challenge…or else!”

Wiping the sweat off his forehead with his equally soaked arm, Shane stood up straight and said, “Listen, you crazy bitch…” He took a few more deep breaths. “I’m done with this shit. I’m fucking exhausted. I just want to go home and fall asleep on my bed with my girlfriend.”

“Well, it’s funny you should mention that, because…well…you’re not competing for five thousand dollars anymore,” said Morgan with a passive-aggressive tone and a wink to the hard camera. “We here at Balls to the Wall decided to give you a little more…incentive. Direct your attention over to the far corner of the studio, Shane.”

Slowly the wall flipped horizontally and the secrets it revealed to the audience had them gasping in hokey outrage. On the left side of the revolving platform was Ambrose Kaider, an intergalactic bounty hunter with his own TV show on the Pursuit network, a spiked Mohawk, more metal armor than he knew how to carry, and a big fucking plasma rifle with an itchy trigger finger. On the right side of the platform? The love of Shane’s life Georgia Cushing, shackled, ball gagged, and wearing Princess Leia’s metal bikini from Return of the Jedi.

Ambrose’s menacing stare as he smoked a cigar along with Georgia’s muffled pleas had Shane’s adrenaline pumping and his eyes bulging. “Let her go! You can’t do this! This shit’s illegal!”

“Correction, Mr. Herman: it WAS illegal until you signed a Hold Harmless agreement as a condition of competing on Balls to the Wall,” explained Morgan. She placed a hand on Shane’s shoulder and seductively scratched his back. “Remember, Mr. Herman: you have only two minutes to complete the final obstacle course. And if you don’t, Ambrose is going to turn your girlfriend’s head into a blood bomb. But…there’s always a but…the silver lining to all of this is…” She leaned into his ear. “You’ll have one extra hole to fuck! Are you ready, Mr. Herman?” She punctuated that last sentence by grabbing Shane’s ass.

Despite the obvious sexual harassment, Shane’s newly acquired sniper sight was locked onto Ambrose’s ugly mug. He had that mile-long stare that said, “Don’t fuck with my woman” without actually using words. Without giving Morgan the benefit of eye contact, he said, “You’re damn right I’m ready.” He then clocked Morgan in the face and sent her into darkness.

With the overhead Jumbo Tron counting down the obligatory two minutes and the audience booing him for his knockout punch, Shane’s nerves went into overdrive. He ignored all of his aches and sweats as he blitzed down the track on his way to the final obstacle course.

He flew off the diving board and grabbed a hold of the trapeze. His hands were so sweaty that he instantly let go and landed into a pool of scalding red water. The screams pouring out of Shane’s mouth had the audience laughing, Ambrose grinning, and Georgia screaming through her gag as she struggled in her chains. The fake bubbling lava had lit a fire under his ass, almost quite literally. He high-kneed it out of the pool and dashed towards the next obstacle.

Shane’s wobbly legs did a piss-poor job of balancing his body across a high beam, which was suspended above a pit full of scorpion-like alien creatures. As soon as he hit his nuts on the metal beam, the scorpions scrambled underneath him, clicked their claws, and came green liquid out of their tails. Shane held on for dear life while simultaneously doubling over in agonizing pain. Slowly he pulled himself across the metal beam. When he finally made it to the other side, he didn’t have the strength to pick himself up and hung upside down over the pit. The Martian scorpions drooled and came some more.

The overhead clock reached the one minute mark and Georgia’s screams overpowered those of the ravenous audience. Ambrose snapped, “Shut up, bitch!” before smacking her ass.

Another burst of adrenaline rushed through Shane Herman’s veins. He clenched his teeth, reached down for a handful of scorpions, and sat up before throwing the creatures out into the audience. He flipped them off and spit on the ground before continuing the course.

His balls were aching so badly that Shane coughed up some blood during his last hoorah. Black visions took over his mind and he was ready to fall asleep right there. I knew I shouldn’t have eaten that Snickers bar before the show, he said in his mind. His blood coughs turned into a full-on vomiting session while the overhead clock reached the thirty second mark. He had one more obstacle to clear: a platform jump. He wanted to get up and rescue his girlfriend from a cruel and arguably illegal fate. “How far will I go for the girl of my dreams?” he mumbled to nobody. And then…”Clearly, I have my limits.”

Shane spun around and landed flat on his back in a puddle of sickness. Not even Georgia’s banshee screams could snap him out of his laziness. Not even the booing crowd could awaken him from this living nightmare. Not even the buzzer sounding could jolt him into action. Not even the sound of a plasma rifle discharging could…wait a minute…

Georgia emitted one final scream that caused Shane to tightly close his eyes and the audience to gasp in mock horror. He failed her. He wasn’t the superman he professed to be when he signed up for this reality show. He simply just gave up when it got too inconvenient. However…

“Today’s your lucky day, you dumb bitch. You’re free to go,” said Ambrose before the sounds of chains snapping echoed in Shane’s ears. “Go on back to your man…if you can call him that.”

It was illegal after all. The whole thing was a sick and twisted motivation technique. Even when the pressure mounted, Shane gave up and the audience couldn’t love him for it. Neither could Georgia as she stood over Shane’s prone body with angry tears in her eyes.

“How could you?” she asked while wiping her eyes with her arm. “That monster could have killed me! That woman grabbed you! And you just…let it happen?! How could you just quit like that?!”

Spitting out a small chunk of blood-covered vomit, Shane said, “Fuck this superman shit. I’m not a goddamn athlete. I never was. If you hadn’t spent all of our money on trips to the beauty salon, I wouldn’t have to torture myself for five thousand dollars. No woman is worth the pain I went through today.”

“The pain YOU went through?! Excuse me?! I’m in a metal bikini! I had a ball gag in my mouth, you idiot! I could have died today!”

“I could have died too!”

Shane and Georgia gazed at each other with sad, puffy eyes. They set the bar too high for each other. They both fucked up. And now it was time to part ways.

“I’m sorry, Shane…it’s over.” Georgia wiped away snot with her fingers and took off from the scene, leaving her now ex-boyfriend to fend for himself.

He held his hands over his face to unleash tears of his own when suddenly, Ambrose came over with his plasma rifle and said, “Cheer up, quitter. You haven’t given up on life completely. You probably should considering how high the hospital bill will be. Plus, I’m sure Morgan Burch is going to sue your ass for punching her in the face. With a beaten up body like yours, that’s a debt you’ll never work off. You still want to quit? I’ve got one in the chamber for you, for real this time. What do you say?”

Staring down the barrel of the plasma rifle, Shane nodded at Ambrose and said, “Go for it.” It wasn’t even a hard decision at this point. He would have welcomed it even before beginning the final obstacle course. So tired…so exhausted…Whoever said, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead” obviously had Shane Herman in mind.