Free Sloppy Seconds by Wrath James White Page A

others that were pretty good as well, and still others that went from ridiculous to plain terrible. Many of you know what happened then, the first of a long series of bizarre controversies. Adam did not win. Brent did not win. And I took second place in what would become a string of second place wins in the gross-out contest. The winner read an esoteric poem and then threw a chicken. I had not even considered her in the running and, judging from the audience's reaction, neither had anyone else. But who are we to judge? She won fair and square, as bizarre as the whole episode was.
    In the years that followed, I took second place three more times and then a fourth-place finish after being penalized for running overtime without getting to the punch line. It had become almost hilarious to me. One thing I did notice was that the style I developed that night in Chicago had begun to take over the contest. The next year in Kansas City, I took second place to Cullen Bunn who read a story in a style almost identical to the one I'd debuted the year before, beginning what has been a record four first-place wins for him.
    I was quite flattered that he had chosen my style to emulate. There were a great many different approaches to the gross-out contest at the time, including bizarre props, full-length stories, poems, and true confessions. Cullen had taken what I started and elaborated on it, adding voices and sound effects. It was really good and has improved year after year. In 2007, I noticed something even more impressive: almost every entry that year (with the exception of the veteran participants) sounded - in pace, tone, description, and delivery - like the one I authored in Chicago of 2002. It was perhaps the best gross-out contest I have had the pleasure of participating in. The style had caught on. I had, evidently, started something.
    The contest in 2007 was a shoot-out between some of the heavyweights of the grotesque and the comedic: Cullen Bunn, Mark McLaughlin, Jeff Strand, and me, with me once again taking second place.
    In 2008, Cullen Bunn retired and instead judged the event. The lovely Rain Graves, another past winner, was the hostess of the evening. Jeff Strand and Cullen did a surprise gross-out duet that would have probably taken first place had they not been disqualified. Judges can't participate.
    The rest of the evening was filled with one derivative rip-off of Cullen's style or mine, or some hybrid in-between. Every story involved analingus or cunnilingus with some elderly, overweight, dead, or diseased woman proving that sometimes imitation is not the sincerest form of flattery. Sometimes it's just silly. The winner, the lovely and talented Whitney Lakin, was by far the most original, doing a story about being stuck in a fat farm with nothing to eat but cum-soaked candy bars.
    My story about a crackwhore in a leper colony once again took second place in what was my final performance at the gross-out contest.
    To commemorate this event, I thought I'd compile this little literary retrospective of my five years in the WHC Gross-Out Contest. In addition, I've included one of the most grotesque and horrific murder/rape/revenge stories I have ever written entitled "Hurting Him" which first appeared in an online webzine called Brutal Tales . This will likely be the last place this particular story will see print, so do enjoy.
    Since many of these stories had to be greatly truncated in order to fit the contest's five-minute time limit, this is the first time most of them have been seen or heard in their entirety. You will notice certain scatological themes repeated throughout these stories, along with an almost obsessive recurring theme of analingus and diseased, unwashed female genitalia.
    This repetition was not only unintentional, but I didn't even notice it until I put this little book together. I guess when I think of gross, putting my mouth on something covered in pus, feces, and disease is at the top of my list.