Faith Chapter 14: Race

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This entry is part 14 of 18 in the series Faith

Both carts approached the crowd of clients. An announcer, a nicely tanned brown haired girl, held a wireless microphone and explained the program of the evening.

“Dear honored patrons, we have tonight the two eternal rivals. The Norwegian Goddess Helga is defending her crown for the 4 night in a row and will be pulling crowd favorite Yoko, whom many of you ate Sushi from earlier tonight. I know, I recognize many of you from the event. Returning contestant is our Nubian Princess, Kayla, who was just freed from the cage two of you put her into last night. I see you Jake and Ahkmed, we know you did despicable things to her for having had the nerves of losing your money last night! Did you try your chance again or did you pick the crowd favorite? Well, for those how picked our contender, I have an excellent news! Our newest recruit, Faith, is in the seats! A Miami native, she is still too young for active duty, but surely a girl that young will be lighter than Yoko and help your pick win? It’s not too late to bet, but remember, once the carts are seen, bets are worth only half their values!”

I could hear the murmur in the crowd, and quite a few of the men looked at me with visible desire in their eyes. I was disgusted, but fortunately, I don’t think they could really see my expression.

Suddenly the presented resumed talking but in what I can only assume was Arabic. I heard a few words like the names of the people involved, so I can only assume she was simply repeating the introduction.

As soon as she was done, she wished Good Luck to the girls, and the two so-called rivals went side by side on the track. We were on the outside, and Helga and Yoko were on the inside.

“And now, we will compensate for the outside track”.

The presenter went to Kayla, and pulled on her harness gently for her to follow.

We moved ahead until we reached a tape on the ground. I know that the presenter said something to Kayla, but it was off mike and I couldn’t hear it.

“Ok, so, Yoko and Faith, hold on to your seat! If you fall on the track, your Pony will be disqualified, but if you fall off the boat… well, try not to fall off the boat!”

I decided to hold on tight to the structure on each side of my seat.

The crowd laughed, and when the text was repeated in Arabic, the rest of the crowd laughed.

“Ok, so Ponies, ready? On your set? GO!”

And with a furor, my cart began to move forward, initially slowly but it quickly picked up speed.

I could see that Kayla was actually leaning forward to user her weight to help pull the cart!

I looked behind us and saw Helga doing the same, except that I could see a ton of saliva dripping from the bar in her mouth. Some went on her breast, but the majority went on the ground and she had to be careful not to slip on it.

I tried to look down in front of my but I couldn’t see much. Did Kayla produce less or did I just not see it?

We were clearly ahead, so I began encouraging Kayla. “We are way picking up speed, keep going!”

Kayla slowly reduced the number of steps she took, but increased their length! We were now at the steady pace and I felt like we were gaining ground on Helga and Yoko.

“Keep going, we are faster then they are! You can win this!”

We had one thru almost half of the length of the boat and we went in front of a kind of hallway going to the interior where a few witnesses were watching the race. I briefly saw Georges and Francine in the lot, but I am not sure they saw me.

We kept going, but Helga had accelerated and Kayla seemed to be struggling.

“Don’t give up! We can do it!”

No, I could sense it, Kayla was indeed slowing down but not Helga!

Suddenly, Kayla turned left: we weren’t yet at the end of the boat but we were approaching the front.

Was this a strategy? Cut the corner at a reduced speed?

I held on tight: Kayla turned abruptly once we cleared the wall and I heard Yoko yell behind us!

I took a look and could see that Helga had negotiated the turn too fast and hit the wall on the external side of the walkway!

The presenter said “Oh, that’s a costly mistake… let’s hope they can recover!” over the speakers.

We turned the next corner to be on the return trip without seeing Helga clear the front, but Kayla hit the ground running!

“They hit the wall and had to stop I think, keep going, I think you are seriously in the lead!”, I yelled at her.

I could swear I saw her nod, but did she really?

At about a quarter of the way, I saw Helga’s cart pull out of the front area, but she had almost no speed compared to us.

They only managed to get some momentum by the time we reached the middle section and saw again a crowd looking at us, including, Georges and Francine who, this time, waved at me. Oh, I thought, they heard the announcement! And the boat was much narrower than wider, so crossing the middle like that was probably only a few seconds while we had to run all around the front.

We were slowing down and it didn’t feel like this was because of approaching back of the ship. I think that Kayla was beginning to be exhausted, but Helga at the back was gaining ground!

“Hurry, you are almost done, one last turn and you can win! Don’t give up!”, I yelled, but definitely didn’t get a nod or a reaction.

The turn went well, but Helga had pulled up behind us by then and her shorter turn (she was in the middle, remember), meant that she had shorter to go!

By the end of the turn, Helga was next to me, side by side with the cart and going faster than Kayla!

The finish line was just in front of us: a paper ribbon was just a dozen yards ahead and Helga was still gaining ground!

“Don’t give up!” I yelled.

Both girls were almost side by side when the ribbon was cut, but it was clear that we had won!

The presenter had narrated the last stretch of the run, but I only paid attention to her now. “And our Nubian princess is now our title holder! Congratulations on all of the people who places a bet! Ahkmed, you get the joy of handling our winner, but remember, you do not get Faith! No one does. She is too young for your perverts… And remember what we say here? We love perverts!”

I saw Yoko step down from the cart, and I do so too. She came to see me. “Let’s get away you and I, while the crowd is excited..”

I nodded, and she pulled me toward the back, where we went into the storage area where the carts had been, and closed the door behind us. There was light above.

“It usually puts everyone in a rather emotional mood. The Ponies are used to it, but I could you could use some quiet.”, she explained.

“No kidding… that was something! Did you get hurt on the turn?”

“No, I told her to calm down, but she wanted to win the first stretch to her her crown”

“Yeah, it showed, but the rest of the race was rather tight!”

She laughed. “Of course, the second half is rigged!”

“What?”, I said, shocked.

“Who ever clears the front first wins the race, but we always try to get a photo finish. It’s more exciting.”

“So the race is rigged?”

“No, not at all, but only the first half is a race, the rest is just for show. The girl in second always almost catches up, but not quite. Sometimes, we fake a reversal, like Kayla could have slowed down to let us catch up, but we would have slowed down in the last turn to let her win.”

Wow, no wonder she slowed down!

“So what did the presenter say at the beginning to Kayla then? It wasn’t to rig the race?”

“Oh, she tells both girls the value of the bets on them. Sometimes, a girl will choose to lose because winning isn’t worth it, but visibly, tonight it was!”

No kidding…That was one hell of a run!

“So”, Yoko replied, “will you race tomorrow evening?”

“You can bet I will!”. So I guess I was staying at least one more day!

It’s only then I saw that Yoko had a pink bead next to a yellow one.

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