The Devil Finds Work for Idle Hands

Continued from Friday Night Lights

A month later and Kristin still hadn’t sorted out what to do with her Friday nights. What was that saying about the devil and idle hands? Everyone she knew was at the game where she could not show her face. Her Mom had gone into Pittsburgh for a work thing.  To think she would miss having her around! She was just hanging-moping actually. The football field was on a hill a mile out of town and when the air was right you could hear parts of the game from everywhere. And could see the bright glow from the  field on the horizon. And, critically, she was out of pot. Which she really needed right now.  Randy or Sheryll would both be holding but they were at the game. 

She had in mind a place to try.  Her ex-best friend Lynette Talbot usually had pot in their garage. They used to get high out there when they were friends. They had broken up over the summer. It was the usual: one boy, two girls thing; laid over that “other stuff” that Kristin didn’t want to think about right now. They’d each moved on to different crowds since then, and Kristin would have been happy to put whatever it was behind them-God knows she could use a friend or two now-but Lynette was beyond bitchy and seemed to enjoy keeping Kristin as an enemy. Being here in this garage made her a little sad and nostalgic for the times they had together. She had her new pack of tough girls though and was completely lost to her. . 

The two car garage was across the backyard from Lynette’s house. Kristin had been such a fixture at the Talbot house that she would have known her way around blindfolded. There were no trees or shrubs in the yard so the garage’s man-door faced the house in plain sight so that anyone in the kitchen would see her. Did her parents even know she and Lynette were on the outs? If she got caught skulking around could she just bluff her way through with a story about looking for Lynette? Maybe…but she was pretty sure everyone was at the game. The house was dark with the lone porch light glowing wanly. 

Still, she was as sneaky as she could be, playing it like a caper movie. She even flipped up the collar of her jean jacket. The garage was locked, of course. It was always locked but she knew where the key was hidden. She picked up the half brick beside the walkway and snatched the key from the dirt as she had often done. After wiping it on her jeans she slipped it into the knob and paused. She heard the pounding of the drums, then the marching band from the stadium. It must be halftime. She shook her head rapidly to avoid thinking about the routine that she wasn’t doing in front of a stadium full of people with all eyes on her. She would cry if she thought about it.

She went inside and closed the door gently behind her. The light switch was just to her right, but why chance it? There was enough street light filtering through the glass block windows to see by. On shelves above where the front of the car would be were oil cans behind which would typically be a small baggie with a couple of joints or some loose buds. That’s all she needed to get her through the night.  On tiptoes she felt around. There was something there…but… her heart almost stopped when she found the bag. It was not the small, fit in your fist baggie she had expected. When she pulled it from the shelf she needed both hands to cradle the gallon sized ziplock bag filled to bursting with what looked to be deep green buds. She was far from an expert but Kristin knew she was holding something special and probably valuable. This couldn’t be just Lynette’s.  Her first thought was to replace it and sneak out the way she came in. She was suddenly nervous and in over her head. 

Kristen was so focused and intent on what she was doing that she didn’t hear them until the overhead fluorescent flashed on. And by then most of them were inside.

“Kristin!” yelled Lynette, hand on the light switch and obviously startled  “What the fuck?”

Lynette’s pack this evening included Cassie Lawton, senior softball star who led the district in home runs for the last two years. Which meant little in the context of the garage that night, but what did matter was that she was as tall as Kristin and outweighed her by thirty pounds of muscle. Her arms were as thick as Kristin’s thighs.

“Get her, Cassie” growled Lynette. The big girl needed no direction, she had already circled to her left and grabbed Kristin by the arm in a  grip that virtually paralyzed the slim brunette. Kathy Lugar, another, but less fearsome,  softball player circled to the other side and grabbed Kristin by the other arm at the wrist, causing the bag to fall to the floor. It bounced softly, unharmed.

“Watch that for chissakes!” Lynette ordered. She was a tall, lanky girl with hair the color and seeming consistency of straw bunched in a rough ponytail. 

Kathy bent and picked it up, hefted it. “It’s OK.”

“Better be.”

“You’re ripping us off? Lynette asked loudly, surprised.

Kristin went from startled and nervous to frightened pretty quickly. She hadn’t been in a fight since grade school and she was poorly equipped to be in one now. The six girls who followed Lynette into the garage weren’t all softball players but they were all tough girls who ran in a completely different circle. This wouldn’t be a fight, it would be a slaughter. She recognized Glenda Thomas who actually worked in her dad’s gas station nights and weekends. Kristen didn’t think she was better than any of these girls, but she was different. At least she had been once. She had no idea who she was now.  Her stomach gurgled as she tried to imagine what it would feel like to get punched in the face. She needn’t have worried. Lynette stepped close, balled her fist and punched her hard in the stomach.

Kristin gasped a loud “OOF!” and would have bent double but for the girls holding her right and left. She squeezed her eyes tightly and tried to pick up her knees to relieve the pain in her middle. One of the girls holding her yanked her hair hard, lifting her face. Lynette punched her again and she gagged. When she regained her breath and opened her eyes she saw a familiar and maybe friendly face walk through the door.. It was Ben Bodine who everyone called Benji. A cutesy name for a pretty badass all-district wrestler. He wasn’t a towering beast like Frank Orsatti, their heavyweight, but one of the middle weights-around one hundred fifty tightly muscled pounds. 

She and Benji had shared freshman homeroom and a couple of classes. There was a time when she had helped him in Chem Lab and had gone to a couple of wrestling matches. He kept to himself and despite her gentle flirts had never taken the bait. He kept his hair super short and except for the bent nose, had soft features.  What was he doing with these animals? Their eyes caught and she saw something; disappointment, disgust, disdain, one of the dis’s. She wanted to look away but dared not, hoping to message a distress signal. Would he care? Was he one of them?

Lynette motioned as if to punch her again and Kristin sucked up her legs trying to shrink. “Please Lynette. No more.”

“No more? I’m just getting started.” Eyes flashing, Lynette stepped nose to nose with her captive and yanked her hair while staring into her eyes. .“You’ll wish I kept punching you”, she said menacingly before striding  off to a corner of the room where she rummaged through a pile of what looked like debris and wood scraps against the near wall. Finding what she was after, she straightened and turned, holding a stout little board about two feet long and as wide as the palm of her hand. The way she brandished it moving toward Kristen left no doubt about her intentions. 

“Turn her around”, she ordered. Kristin was alarmed at how easily the two girls handled her. 

“What are you doing?” she asked unnecessarily over her shoulder, her hair cascading over her eyes. 

“I’m going to beat your ass for ripping us off.”

“NO! Whatever I took I was going to replace once I hooked up.”

“You’re not going to replace this stuff”.Cassie growled in her ear..  Nobody has it. I had to go all the way to Morgantown for it..Too much time and money went into this to allow some baton princess to walk off with it. 

Oh God! thought Kristin. They’re all in on it. They’re going to kill me. “I wasn’t! I swear, I just wanted to get a little. I remember how Lynette kept a stash here. I just wanted to catch a little buzz. I didn’t know it belonged to all of you or I never would have…” She desperately pulled her arms and rolled her shoulders trying to loosen their grip, but it was useless. 

“Stealing from me is fine, huh? Just not from all of us”

Lynette pointed the paddle at her menacingly. “This is breaking and entering…”

“I didn’t break in. EVERYBODY knows where your key is Lynette. 

“Enough of your shit. Bend her over the workbench.”

Again, Kristin could offer only token resistance as, feet barely touching the floor, she was moved to the workbench. The edge dug into her hips as they pushed her over and flattened her onto it. She heard someone say “Get the phone out of her pocket. Her jeans were tight so whoever was digging around had to struggle to pull it out. Then Cassie said, “We should take her pants down.” 

Kristin panicked and tried to kick backward. Someone dropped to the floor and grabbed her legs. With Cassie draped across her back and Kathy holding her wrists she was effectively immobilized. She had a vision of being mauled by dogs as what seemed like fifty hands clawed at her. Someone reached around her waist and yanked at her belt, unbuckling it. There was absolutely nothing she could do to stop them from pulling her pants off. From stripping her naked if they wanted. 

“NO! PLEASE LYNETTE, DON’T DO THIS”. Her voice was ragged and breathless. 

“I’m over here sweetie”, said Lynette slipping into Kristin’s sightline and waving the paddle. “It’s not me…I’m just watching the show.”

She screamed in frustration. Her zipper was down and she felt her waist loosen. Her  jacket and T-shirt had been pushed up so her lower back was exposed. Feeling the air on her  flesh-even her back-heightened the panic as she struggled. Whoever was on the floor reached up and began tugging at the beltline on one side while someone else was pulling on the other side.She would be bare ass in seconds. 

“O PLEASE DON’T!….”, she was crying now, something she had hoped to avoid. 

“Stop!” The only male voice in the garage cut through the rabble and all hands pawing at Kristin’s clothes froze in place. Kristin opened her eyes but couldn’t lift her head as there was a strong forearm across it pinning it to the bench. 

“Stop what Benji?” Lynette fairly snarled.”I AM going to beat her ass. 

“Leave her jeans up”, he said evenly. He hadn’t liked Lynette punching her while she was being held. He thinks he might have stopped it if he was inside when it happened. Whatever, there wouldn’t have been a third punch. 

Nobody spoke for a moment and Kristin could feel the tension in the room and hear feet shuffling.

Lynette said, “Tell me you don’t want to see this little thief’s bare ass.”

“Why don’t you describe it for us? I’m sure you have fond memories.” 

There were a smattering of “ooohs” and a giggle or two. Kathy Lugar scoffed. 

“You forget who’s holding the paddle.” Lynette said, trying to maintain control. 

“That can change in a fucking instant.” Again, his voice was devoid of emotion which chilled the garage further. Kristin held her breath.

“I don’t know what your game is Benji. You think she’s going to thank you for this?. Give you a friendly blow job or a little fuckey-fuck” She jabbed the paddle roughly up between Kristin’s legs. “This princess is too stuck up for you. And us. We’re ok to steal from….” 

“Her jeans stay up,” he said in a tone that ended the conversation. 

“Alright. Fine! I’ll just hit her harder. Pull her jeans up tight”. Kathy and Cassie pulled her jeans up higher than they’d been and held them there, the seam splitting her uncomfortably. Someone patted her cheek firmly “There you go,” Her jeans clung  to her butt like denim paint. 

Kristin didn’t have time to be relieved about not being stripped. .She was too conscious of her bottom being set up like a target. After an anxious moment,  the first swat landed with a ferocity that blew all breath out of her open mouth. She was too stunned to make a sound. The next was equally solid. She yelped a loud “OWWW” following the third. She had in the back of her mind thought that her mother’s hairbrush might have prepared her for this, but she was sorely mistaken. That had been a spanking from someone who loved her.. Sound, but still a spanking. This was a beating by someone who only wanted to hurt her, and struggle as she might, she couldn’t avoid or stop it. Cassie felt her rocking back and forth, struggling to lift herself off the bench. “Don’t fight”, she whispered into her ear. “Don’t tense-don’t clench your ass it will be worse.”

Kristin heard the words from far away. She howled pitifully. She tasted blood and knew she had bitten her lip but really couldn’t feel it. She could barely breathe and feared she might pass out. The pain had settled to an overall numbing burn, accented by the relentless impact of the board, swat after swat. She tried to gag hoping to puke which she saw as her only defense right now. Maybe if she could pee herself, they’d stop but she had no conscious control of anything. 

Then suddenly, it stopped amid a shuffle of feet and a loud “Hey” from Lynette. What Kristin couldn’t  see was Benji stepping up and grabbing the paddle on the backswing. “Enough”, he said, wrenching it from her hand. “Owww”, she whined, grabbing her wrist.

“Enough. You made your point.” Reacting to the change in the room, Cassie, careful not to push on her, rose, giving Kristin the first full breath she’d had since she was pinned. Kathy Lugar released her wrists then strangely patted her head and slipped a lock of hair, damp with tears and sweat off Kristin’s face and behind her ear. “Sorry”, she said, a tiny puff in her ear. “That was efff’d up,”

She Lay where she was, crying softly as the drama played out behind her out of sight. 

Lynette was clearly enraged but not unhinged enough to make the mistake of getting up in Benji’s face. His glare put her back on her heels. His eyes never left hers as he reached out with his empty left hand and said, “Gimme”.

Shayla Brooks, a solid little girl in a leather jacket and biker boots handed him the pillow sized bag of dope. His eyes slowly surveyed the room, 

“We’re all  friends here, ” he said in a flat tone that indicated the opposite might be true. It was lost on no one that he was still holding the paddle and pointing it generally at everyone as he spoke, lingering on the softball players who had held Kristen down. Cassie, never one to back down, shrunk a little as her cohort Kathy shuffled a half step behind her. 

“We’re supposed to split that up!” Lynette complained, trying to keep the shrillness out of her voice. Benji looked at her as if trying to place a stranger who might have looked familiar. “I recall”, he said slowly. “Thank you. This pot belongs to all of us, but it was my cash that fronted it. I might be starting to doubt somebody’s judgment…or temperament to manage this deal.”

He pointed the board directly at Cassie and Kathy. “You remember what we talked about, yes?”

“I do”, said Cassie. 

“You’ll take care of it, right?”

“Yep.”

He tossed his head, indicating Lynette. Go with her, she has my scale. Do what we discussed.”

“You got it, Benji”, the big girl nodded. 

He was about to toss her the baggie but pulled back. “I’ma take a little off the top..if nobody minds.” he opened the baggie and stuck his nose in. “Ahhh, this is the shit.” He sighed, performing a little. “ I need a bag.”

Marie Quintana  petite, brown and beautiful green lipstick matching her eyes,stepped from the shadows and pulled a baggie holding a single joint, out of her back pocket. She tucked behind her ear where it disappeared behind a fall of tight black curls. She handed Benji the baggie. He smiled his sweetest thank you and reached into the big bag, pulled a small healthy pinch out, stuck it into the smaller bag.

“You realize you’re already getting your cut”, Lynette said, not being able to help herself. 

“Yep. This isn’t for me” Slipping the paddle, which all the girls at least glanced at, under his arm, he wrapped the bag tight, licked the top and folded it over. He closed the big pot pillow and tossed it to Cassie. “See you at my house sometime tomorrow.” She nodded. 

Lynette, frustrated and steaming, left first banging through the door followed by her doubting minions heads down except to nod at Benji. The softballers left last with a nod then a look toward Kristen who was standing uncomfortably in front of the workbench her back still to them. “Kris”, said Cassie, which some people called Kristin. The beaten girl raised a hand in acknowledgement of the gesture and the last two girls left. 

“All gone”, said Benji and she turned stiffly, taking tiny shuffling steps. Her face was a mottled ruin of tears, snot and blood below her lips. Benji handed her a bandana from his back pocket. “It’s clean”, he said. She wiped, dabbed and blew and went to hand it back.

“Keep it”, he said. 

“Thank you…I guess.” she said. 

“No worries.”

“No, really. If they would have gotten my pants off….” She shuddered. 

“Yah, that was a tough one. 

“Why?”

“Lynette was right. I REALLY wanted to see your bare ass.”

Kristin pulled a face that was equal parts grimace and grin. “You missed your chance. I’m sure you don’t want to see it now.”

“Now I have to see it. See what kind of damage she did back there.”

“There’s something for sure…burning and squishy” When she tied to straighten to her right, she winced and caught herself back on the workbench.

“Why did you let them do that to me?” she asked on the verge of crying again. 

“Took me a few minutes to get the lay of the land. My thought, ok? Walking in on this? Was some kind of lover’s spat.”

“We’re not…! she protested.

“….I know you guys are a thing-at least you WERE-I’m not up on the latest jib-jab. But you broke in. You were taking her shit.  You deserved something, you know? Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time…So she wanted to swat your ass, fine. But she was taking it way too far. But it only happened because you came here to steal from her. 

“I wasn’t…Then she caught herself and started sobbing raggedly. “My life is so fucked up right now Benji. I don’t know what I’m going to do. 

As smoothly as he would have on the mat,  he took a quick  slide step and was immediately in front of her. He underhooked her arms and gave her a firm hug-across the back and shoulder blades-all warmy friendly and not lusty pervy. “Your life is what you want it to be. Past is not prologue. You will write your own story starting tomorrow.” he said into her ear.

She sniffed. “I got snot on your shoulder.”

“Had worse.”

“Are all wrestlers philosophers?”

“Hell’s  yeah-we try to keep it a secret though”. When she looked into his face, beside the naughty glint in his eye she saw real concern. And that was the look she responded to.  

“Now”, he said stepping out of the hug, “lets have a look at your butt.” 

To Be Continued…

Friday Night Lights

Kristin lingered across the hall pretending to read her phone waiting for the bathroom to clear. She was using the girl’s down by the shops which was usually empty. It was Friday so she was in avoidance mode. The standard harsh light inside was overwhelmed by the morning sun flooding through the  frosted windows. The girl in the mirror looked positively garish. The chestnut brown hair was still there-the red highlights especially stunning but pointless now. She looked closely into the brown eyes above the smattering of freckles. Not too bloodshot. Drops would help. She pulled them from her bag and threw her head back, not being able to resist the head shake that was a part of the dance routine that the rest of the majorettes would be doing at the game tonight. She should be out in front-just left of center-high stepping as the stadium lights glinted off the red in her hair, the color chosen to match the tunic she would never wear again. 

Among certain circles, Kristin Kelly being kicked out of the majorettes was THE news of the football season. A senior, five-eight, and leggy, she had been a majorette for four years. She would have been captain, too. She wasn’t a big time pothead. Just a little now and then to “even things out”. Sure it sounded stupid, but that’s what she’d said. Then to have been caught with a joint in school and everything changed.

“What were you thinking?” Her mother had shouted. Donna Kelly had been a majorette herself in high school and went to football games only for the halftime show. Not yet forty, in the right light, she could be mistaken for Kristin’s older sister. She kept herself in trim with a fanatical devotion to tennis and a three hundred dollar monthly check to a personal trainer.. 

When Kristin had come home and told her mother what had happened Donna caught herself in mid swing. Kristin flinched, shocked that her mother had almost slapped her and frightened that her hands seemed to be shaking. “To your room NOW!” Kristin scampered up the stairs two at a time. She knew what her Mom was capable of but she’d only been threatened with spankings for the last two years. Threats had been enough to keep her on the straight and narrow. Her last one had been very unpleasant. 

Kristin had no sooner flopped crying onto her bed than she heard her mother stomping upstairs then into her bedroom for a hot second, then stomping down the hall and bursting into Kristin’s room. A bad sign; her mother was a knocker-protective of her daughter’s privacy. Not today. She had one hand on the doorknob and in the other was her large hairbrush which as far as Kristin knew only had one function. 

“No, Mom…Please!”

“Turn over!”

Seeing the fire in her mother’s eyes she hesitated only a moment before rolling onto her belly. There was a long pause.

“Are you going to do it or should I?”

“Mom…” It was essentially the same question  she had asked two years before. “You or I?” , she repeated. Then, as a recalcitrant fifteen year old, she had stubbornly held her tongue having Donna yank down her pajama bottoms-scratching her leg with a nail in the process- and pull her over her lap so the hairbrush could do it’s work. 

This time, careful not to say or do anything that would further inflame her mother, Kristin reached under and unbuttoned her khakis. Then, lifting, pushed them and her underwear down almost to her knees. She pulled her pillow tight to her face. At least she wasn’t making her lay over her lap which would have been humiliating.  Kristin recalled thinking once that if her mother did follow through and actually spank her as a fully grown seventeen year old, it would be more embarrassing than painful. She was wrong.

The first swat Donna landed was loud and solid-ringing up her arm to the shoulder. Kristin cried out loudly and of course her mother was torn between, “Jesus! That HAD to hurt” and “GOOD! That really hurt!” 

After a dozen solid smacks, Donna took note of the bright red backside and heaving shoulders and her eyes stung unexpectedly. She called the punishment over and sat gently on the bed. The pillow under Kristin’s face was wet with tears of frustration, shame and hurt. 

“I’m sorry, Mommy” She  sobbed into the pillow. 

“I am too honey.” said Donna, sitting beside her daughter in a strangely tender moment.  “I’m sorry about this” she gingerly patted Kristin’s hot bottom.  I was just so mad and disappointed for you as well as in you. I thought I had to do something.”

“It’s alright Mom. I deserved it.”

“Maybe if I’d have done it before…instead of just threatening”

“Not your fault…”

“We’ll just have to find something else to do on Friday nights.”

“Not this, OK?” Kristen said with a smirk into the pillow. 

“Well, that will be up to you, young lady”, she scoffed, happy to lighten the mood. She squeezed her daughter’s ankle and got up. “This was hard work. I’m going down stairs to have a drink. Feel free to join me when you pull yourself together.”

Continued…The Devil Finds Work for Idle Hands

Ridge Runner

Trees, stumps and boulders that he knew well enough to find in the dark appeared as apparitions then faded behind as he stormed up the slim hollow away from the cabin down on the flat river bend. Boiling clouds of wet morning fog clutched at his feet and pulled at his arms as he worked to climb above them.

Halfway to the ridge he slipped around an outcropping and paused to breathe near the copse of stunted torch pine that seemed to grow right out of the rocks. Later in the day, with the sun high overhead, this was a favorite sunning spot for copperheads but now only golden tendrils of sunlight had begun to tear at the gauzy curtain around him. Through an opening shard of green, the cabin looked like a small car from here. From up top it would be a matchbox.

Flight was more an instinct than a planned strategy. No doubt when she said “GO!” she meant out of the room but by the time he yanked his jeans up and cinched his belt, “OUT!” was all he was thinking.

He heard his name, clear as a crow’s call across the valley. Once. Then again. His heart, settling back into its rhythm, pumped the blood that coursed through the welts that he knew crossed his backside. He felt the burn that had been dulled by the run up the mountain. The searing pain that had forced him to bite the pillow.

But worse than that, he felt the wet spot in the front of his pants, that small drip that came when he was hard in spite of-or because of-his humiliation and pain. How could that be right? The first time she’d laid hands on him he felt it.  Did she know that? Could she tell? Is that why she stopped taking him over her lap and made him lie across the bed?

He wasn’t hard just then, thinking about it. But he wasn’t altogether soft either. With none but the trees to see, he rubbed his hand along the back of his jeans feeling a slight charge from massaging a spot at the top of his leg. Just as he was about to loosen his belt to slip his hand inside, he heard his name again. Sharper this time. Jabbing. Then, “It’ll be twice as bad if you don’t get back here right now!”

His heart beginning to race again, he turned his back downhill and continued to climb.

No Redemption Without Damnation

(Continued from The Colonel Comes Home – Memories)

“You’re Sylvia Palacios?” he growled in a guttural lowland accent.

“Yes Captain”.

Garcia squinted. “You know me?”

“No sir. Your braid is the mark of a Captain. My husband was a soldier, sir.”

“We know. At this moment, that’s the only thing saving your life.”

Garcia flipped his good leg over and hopped to the ground. He loosened the ax from its’ bindings. With a few barked orders the soldiers dismounted and spread through the property and into the house.  She didn’t move as he strode by her, as if immobility made her invisible. “Did you know my Antonio?”

“No. The Colonel suddenly has a soft spot for widows of those who died under his command.”

She jumped but didn’t turn at the crash of the first ax blow. Then the second-she knew what he was doing. A few more then the door, in shards, was tossed aside. A window shattered as a chair flew through it. She directed the men with what sounded like grunts and coughs. The dialect was strange to her, but she thought she heard the word “treasure.”

“Where is the gold?” he asked, suddenly back at her shoulder.

“What gold Captain?”

He leaned and rumbled into her ear. “Remember I said your life has been saved for the moment. It’s a gift that can be withdrawn any time.”

She turned and met his eyes but for a moment. “Bedroom closet. Under the floorboards.”

He turned his head and barked. She heard the rumble of men rushing through her house then the crashing of axes.

“What’s to become of me?” she asked having turned away again.

“If you live, it’s shit-town for you”, he said distracted, paying attention to the two bags that his men were bringing out of the house. The little she knew of shit-town was it was the bottom of the bottom caste. Natives living naked in the jungle occupied a higher rung on their society’s ladder. At least the band of outcasts and ne’er do wells that lived along a downstream slough of the river had a function. They managed the rudimentary sewage runnels that the viceroy had invented years before to relieve the highlands of any town’s most vexing and continuous need. And they washed soldier’s uniforms and the army’s bandages in large boiling pots well upstream from the shit pipes. The other lore she ignored for the time being. She would know soon enough.

He brought the bags to the table beside her and emptied the smaller one. “Not as much here as I thought there would be.”

“I’ve been living off it, since Antonio died.”

“There’s more?”

“There was. That’s all that’s left. I swear.”

They were old coins imprinted with the name of a Spanish king who had rotted away decades ago. Impossible to know when, or where, Antonio Palacios had made them his own. But it didn’t matter, they belonged to the Colonel now he thought, as he put them back into the sack. Most of them anyway. He left enough on the table for his men to pick up. They would notice there were exactly three per man and would take their share. Everyone had ways to ensure a soldier’s loyalty.

“You gather everything you can carry in a pillowcase”, he told her. As she entered the house, the soldiers walked out carrying Laurencia’s clothes. Deadened to what she might see, she didn’t even gasp at the ruin around her. Tables, chairs, dressers, all smashed and scattered. She found another dress, like the one she wore, in a pile. Also trousers. Sandals, underclothing, boots…all jammed into a sack. Turning from the shattered room she saw the captain-silhouetted in the sunshine from outside- standing between her and the door. He was unfastening his belt. “Oh”, was all she said.

“Remove your dress and lay over the bed”, he said simply. That’s when it registered to her that the bed was the only piece of furniture in the house left undisturbed. She turned her back to him and pulled the rough cloth over her head, letting it fall to the floor. “Your rump has all the colors of the sunset, Senora.” She knew as she lowered herself that the bruises were fading but still very much in evidence.

“The Colonel was very thorough”, she said situating herself over the foot of the bed, feet on the floor. “I deserved it”, she repeated her mantra.

“Well, there will be no whipping today”, he said.

She turned her head to look back over her shoulder. His dark cock, long, and slender, pointed to her bottom like a compass needle finding true north. Again, even in her shame, she felt a flutter in her breast. She had nothing not grown in the garden between her legs for years. Her rounded backside was large and heavy enough to well cover her treasures. “Spread these”, he said stepping between her legs. She wriggled to comply and felt his surprisingly gentle finger over her dry slit. She pushed backward trying to open as he wriggled against the opening that seemed impossibly narrow.

“There is lotion”, she said quickly. “If you can find it. It was in a jar on the dresser.”

“You would like that”, he said rubbing back and forth. “It would be easier for you.”

“And for you”, she said. “Would you rather slip through butter or grind through sand?”

She felt his hand on her bottom cheek as he pushed away and shuffled to where the dresser lay, its drawers having vomited their contents in a swath across the floor. She rolled onto her side and pointed to a spot near the wall. “There”, she said. “The green jar.” He picked it up and she settled back onto her stomach.

“And it’s not broken”, he said chuckling. “I’ll have to speak to my men.”

The joke did not register as she pulled a pillow to her face and opened her legs. She gasped as first one, then two fingers, worked their way up and down then, well-greased, entered her. She lifted onto her toes to better accommodate him as he oiled and stretched her with a few minutes of thorough fingering. She felt him move closer against her before he withdrew his hand and roughly grasped her hips. Pulling as he pushed forward, he sheathed himself-in a single slow thrust-as completely as possible into her secreted vagina. He pushed harder trying to get all the way in but her bottom-as pleasant as he found it to rub against-was an impediment to complete penetration.

“Your ass, senora…It is in the way…” he caught his breath and bit his tongue.  Though an older man, he spent little time with women these days and concentrated, concerned that he might come too quickly.

“I could lay on my back”, she offered.

“No”, he said pulling out. “I like it back here. But I think I’ll switch holes.”

Before she could panic at the prospect of being violated in a way she hadn’t for years, the head of his cock was pushing at her tiny brown button. As a child she was told if she opened her mouth wide, it would open her back there. So, feeling the searing burn as the Captain stretched his way into her top hole, she opened her mouth wide and said nothing as he filled her completely with his length and breadth.

“Better…” he grunted pushing deeply. He saw the woman’s hands shaking as she clenched the bedclothes and knew her mouth was full of pillow. His strokes, for the most part, were shallow and quick. Not until he felt himself gathering at the gate did he drive deeply, grinding into Sylvia Palacios’ ass. He didn’t care any longer about coming; would prefer to get it over with. His job here was complete-he could report her well used.

Backside aflame, her ears rang with the slapping sound of skin on skin as he bounced off her bottom. Hurry damn you! she thought holding her breath as he quickened pace for a moment then stiffened with a grunt and shudder. He collapsed atop her as his throbbing cock painted her insides with ill sown seed. He lay still until his breathing recovered then pushed himself off her to stand.

“Come on”, he said after wiping himself with the end of the sheet. “We have to be off.” He picked up the dress and her sack and strode out the door. She knew he meant for her to follow him naked into the yard but she refused, finding a limit to her appetite for punishment. Moving stiffly, she wrapped the soiled sheet around her and shuffled through the door.

When he saw her, he barked a quick order and the soldier nearest her ripped the sheet from her with such force she almost tumbled. “I can’t ride like this!” she cried, her alabaster body gleaming in the sunlight.

He gave another quick order and two soldiers took her roughly and tied her feet and hands with coarse rope that had been thrown over their saddles. She didn’t resist knowing struggle was fruitless and allowed herself to be lifted and thrown bottom up over the saddle like a bag of corn. She watched the ground mutely as they tied her hands to her ankles and with another rope, fastened her to the saddle.

“There”, he said standing beside the burro and patting her upturned bottom strongly. “You think you can ride like this?” She said something he didn’t hear. “What?”, he asked.

“I’m leaking you bastard!”, she whispered raggedly. Knowing what she meant he tore a slice from the sheet and shoved it roughly between the cheeks of her ass. “There”, he said patting her again. “That should save the saddle.” Then, struck by an idea, he stepped to the fire pit and took a piece of charcoal. He brushed her bottom as one might a table to clear crumbs and with the charcoal wrote in fine script, “Sylvia Palacios” and below that “Madre Horrible”. He stood back admiring his handiwork before mounting and tying Sylvia’s burro to his saddle horn. “Now let’s ride.”

The soldier in the lead headed off on a neglected trail that led directly to the river. “Not that way”, the captain said turning his horse to the well-worn path. “Let’s go down through town.”

Her humiliation complete, Sylvia Palacios wept. The Captain leaned over and spoke softly to the back of her downcast head. “There can be no redemption without damnation, Senora.”

(Thus ends Chapter One of ‘The Colonel Comes Home’)

The Colonel Comes Home – Memories

(Continued from The Colonel Comes Home – 4)

Sylvia Palacios sat on a hard stool in the courtyard of her home and let her eyes flow over the untended garden and the darkness of the ever-encroaching jungle. Years before, they’d cut many trees in clearing this land. What she knew is that trees, like memories, were never gone. You could drop the thickest tree, cut it into logs and send it down river or burn it for charcoal. With a strong mule and harness, maybe a little dynamite, you can be rid of the stump and with dirt fill, the ground would look fine. Would look strong. Would be strong; for a while.

But over the years the roots below ground would be eaten by insects; would rot. Would disappear and become voids where there was once strength. The voids, unseen on the surface, would create sinkholes that lay in wait to twist a knee, crack an ankle or crumble a house. That is what memories are: voids from the never-forgotten past that open sinkholes in the soul and she had fallen into one and gotten horribly twisted.

She could not grasp why she did what she did. Even now, in the light of day, she could barely remember it. But when she finally awoke this morning and found Laurencia gone, she knew what she had done. She was strangely composed as she changed from her night clothes into an old, shapeless cotton house dress: a fitting garment for her last day on earth. She deserved no better. She wore no underclothes in case there would be another whipping before her execution.

Her long hair was tied in a braid to make it easier for the hangman’s noose or, God forbid, the chopping block. She’d heard of beheadings-horrific stories of tribal warfare-but had never seen one. If they were to shoot her, she hoped it would be against the front wall so the last thing she would see was the garden and the purple mountains beyond. That was her preference, she supposed. Antonio had been shot. In battle, yes. But shot.

These were her thoughts as, with a rumble, the soldiers rode into her yard. The first of the riders, a tall one with gray hair, had an axe strapped to the side of his saddle. Had she eaten anything in the previous days she would have lost it from one end or the other. Idle rumination of one’s imminent demise are one thing; seeing the instrument of your own end riding in, is was quite another. As it was, her stomach empty and feeding on itself, she only stared, bowels roiling.

(Continuing…)

The Colonel Comes Home – 4

(Continued from The Colonel Comes Home – 3)

A short, sharp, duo-tone whistle reached the ears of Captain Miguel Garcia, the head of the Colonel’s house guard. Captain Garcia, a widower who had ridden with the Colonel since the beginning, looked older than he was but he was still older than the Colonel. Still fierce but with a diplomatic side-a trait that made him valuable to the Colonel in a different way than the soldiers garrisoned across the river or the berserk warriors guarding the poppy fields.

Garcia, limping slightly from an old lance wound, materialized at the end of the veranda. He was tall with a proud leonine head and wavy gray hair combed straight back giving him a patrician air that belied his low country roots. He was not the type of man to be summoned by a whistle like a dog but since losing the hearing in his left ear from cannon fire on the savannah years before, it worked.

“You know the girl’s mother, right?”

“Yes. A Rondon. Breed of pigs, you ask me. The young one” he nodded toward the house “is the last of a misbegotten line.”

With a flick of his wrist the Colonel offered wine which Garcia happily accepted. He sat, stretching and rubbing his gimpy leg.

“What do we know of her father?”

“The girl’s? He was one of ours. Died in the Battle of Marzipan some years ago.”

“Did I know him?”

“I doubt it.” He shrugged. “Decent soldier-otherwise undistinguished.”

The Colonel pulled at his lip. As always, more information complicated things. “How did she come to be living in a stone house halfway up the mountain?”

Garcia shrugged. “Maybe he was a thief.”

“You think he stole from us?” he asked sharply, the question rife with dark import.

“No”, replied Garcia. “He kept his head until he lost it. There are endless places for a soldier to steal if he’s a mind.”

“But”, said the Colonel finger raised for emphasis “Doesn’t all treasure won in conquest belong to all of us?” Garcia shrugged uninterested in that debate. Easier to legislate against soldiers shitting than stealing. The Colonel let it lie. “Otherwise he served us well?”

“Adequately. Died well-at the front of a charge.”

“A horseman?”

“No.”

“No?”

“One of the human waves we sent at them, on the Sun Plains.”

“Ah”, said the Colonel. “A glorious day.”

“Not for him.”

“He was probably out in front to get to the gold first.”

“There is that.”

“Serves him right then. Why can’t I remember him?”

“You’ve commanded hundreds—thousands–over the years Colonel. You can’t remember them all. “

“Aye”, he waved it away like a bug. “No matter. Her house is ours now. You want it?”

“I’m happy where I am Colonel.”

“Leave it empty then. Take the doors and windows off so the mountain can reclaim it. Let her collect everything in a single sack that she can carry. Bring the livestock and anything else you can find here. It’s off to shit-town for her. Let them deal with her.”

“As you will Colonel”. He finished his wine in a swallow and stood. “Will she be coming back? Or is this a one-way trip?”

“Up to her, I’d imagine.”

“Very well.” With a nod that could have been interpreted as a bow, Garcia turned to take his leave.

“And Miguel,” the Colonel added softly. Hearing his given name, the Captain stopped and leaned back. “Use her, my friend. You won’t take her house, take her. With my permission. No, even at my insistence.” He would use words like this sometimes to disguise orders.

The Captain nodded and was off.

 

(Continuing…)

The Colonel Comes Home – 2

(Continued from The Colonel Comes Home)

Sylvia Palacios had obviously spent the morning preparing for her audience with the Colonel. The daughter’s hair and cheekbones must have been her father’s but the black eyes came from the one standing across from him. He hadn’t asked her to sit. She was his height, wide shouldered and rounded of hip. Her breasts, no doubt she thought her best feature, were bound up, pressing proudly against her bodice. She was not striking or beautiful as Laurencia was becoming but pretty enough in her own right.

“Did you ride the burro up?”

“No Colonel. I have a pony-left me by my husband. It’s old but knows the trails.” She had walked the pony slowly, so as not to sweat in the oppressive heat of the day. And even if she did, she had powdered and oiled enough not to offend. The breezy deference that she showed upon entering the veranda began to wither as she wasn’t offered a seat. Nor was there a glass for her as the Colonel drank what looked to be wine. She expected a work table full of maps, plans and papers but it was clear and spotless. Just the Colonel’s glass and a pitcher and the wine. She was thirsty and growing nervous.

He looked at her from the side-as if cocking his head from the smoke of a cigar.  “That is some daughter you have there, Senora.”

“Oh yes, Excellency. She is my pride.” So, she thought, this IS about Laurencia. The girl had told her they’d just talked-that the Colonel was too busy to do anything else. Had she lied? She had better not have lied to her.

Muffled shouts from the river below and the buzzing murmur of estate chatter joining the cicadas, birds and monkeys in a blanket of sound made the silence settling between them that much more uncomfortable. “Are you alright Senora? You look to be sweating”, he asked as he poured himself another cup of water. Her upper lip glistened in the sun and a tiny drop slid from her armpit as she watched him drink. “Here”, he said rising. “Let’s walk over to the railing-look out over the river. There’s a breeze.”

He stood aside as she passed but leaned in toward her hair. “Whatever is that scent you are wearing?”

“Guava”, she said surprised and a little confused. Given the cool reception she hadn’t expected a compliment. “I make it…”

“Very nice.”

He led her gently to the railing where the valley and the river from eastern bend to western bend opened to her. “Beautiful, is it not?”

“Yesh”, she slurred slightly, her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. Should I ask for water? she wondered.

“Here, here”, said the colonel taking her arms from behind and placing them on the railing, leaning her a little forward. “Breathe”, he told her helpfully. “Take deep breaths.” He sucked air puffing his chest to show her and she followed suit hesitatingly. “Still not enough!” he fussed. “Here”.

He took her hand and placed it along the bracing board below the rail causing her to bend completely over, the rail digging at her waist. “Let your head hang…” She dropped the other hand to the board but uncomfortable, tried to stand. The Colonel lay his hand-as firm as a locust post-across her back.

“You do not move Senora”, he said sternly all cordial pretense gone.

“Colonel…?” she asked trying to look back over her shoulder. She was startled to feel her dress and slip pushed up over her head and the air of the veranda play against her underneath.

“Excellency!” she cried.

He slapped her rump firmly as he might a recalcitrant donkey and she yelped.

“Silence!” he barked rubbing her ass, his calluses catching on the silken undergarments. They were not cheap. Nor too tight. With a yank he loosened them, then worked them down over her bottom. Below her knees, her legs were slender-like a girl’s-but thickened at the top. She whimpered lightly as he ran his hand over the deep dimples on her backside and thighs. Her skin, the color of clam shells, mottled pink with his handprint.

She had clenched her cheeks together so he forced the flat of his hand between her legs pushing and slapping at the inside of her thighs. She reluctantly shuffled her feet apart releasing the soft scent of eucalyptus.

“Colonel”, she begged. “Everyone will see.”

“Yet, you would send your daughter up here for me to use? Would you be so modest if it was she bent over the rail here?”

She flinched at his rough touch between her legs; he squeezed the thickness of them then pressed the side of his hand against her dry slit. “Is this how you would have had me use her? Here? Like this?” He prodded with his finger.

“No Excellency! You are mistaken! I never….”

“Maybe here?” He slipped his thumb into her deep crevice and pushed firmly at her anus.

“NO!! Please…”

“Which of your daughter’s holes would you have had me enter first?” He slapped her again, the loud report echoing. The second handprint-like a discarded glove-appeared over the first as he unbuckled his belt.

She began to blubber when she heard the slithering snap of the leather being pulled from his trousers. It was a sound she remembered too well from childhood. “I’m sorry Colonel” she cried.

“No doubt you are. You will learn from this.” He kneaded her with his left hand. “Do not clench-it will be worse, trust me.”

The first cut of the belt stole her breath-she couldn’t scream as the soft leather stroked equally across both globes with enough left over to snap at the side of her hip. Her lungs filled as the burn spread and she cried out at the second stroke startling a screaming macaw into flight. The third stroke was better aimed, snapping at the center of her right cheek leaving a bright strawberry kiss.

After the sixth stroke she settled into the reality of her thrashing, biting her lip and grunting at each blow. Through her tears she saw peasants across the river pausing to watch the Colonel whip a white woman. Behind her most of the staff had scattered. The women never wanted to be around when the Colonel was in a whipping mood lest some forgotten transgression be remembered. The men nearby might pretend they weren’t watching but would see what they could until their hardness became unbearable and they retreated to the darkest corner of the barn or a willing maid for relief.

Buenila, on the other hand, stood contentedly beside the stone fireplace, bony arms crossing her flat chest. She wouldn’t miss a stroke. If it were up to her, he would whip more of them. If she were capable, it was a job she would be happy to undertake.

While Sylvia Palacios sobbed silently through her thrashing, tasting the copper of blood from her bitten lip, holding still was impossible. She jerked at each stroke, raised on one toe, then the other. Squatted-straightened, balanced on the rail spreading and thrusting-all modesty gone as she revealed herself openly to anyone with eyes. The Colonel, his rage dampened, aimed well, raising new welts and crossing old. The tops of her legs were not forgotten. The senora was bucking like a heifer in a branding cage when he stayed his arm to take stock. Her backend was crossed with pink and red stripes decorated with starbursts of purple. She bent, spent and sobbing, over the rail this time welcoming the respite of his rough hand surveying his handiwork.

“I think my work here is done”, he said rubbing and closely inspecting. He hadn’t broken the skin which was good. This was the jungle after all and any wound was an invitation to infection. The Colonel gently took her slip, then her dress and dropped them over her naked behind.  “Come, Senora,” he reached out a hand. “Arise. Come on. Up, Up…”

She stood on shaky legs and accepted the clean, silk handkerchief the Colonel offered. Her face, as red as her bottom, was smeared with tears, powder and snot. She worked at it, sniffling as he led her to a chair.

“Here”, he said. “Sit.”

She snorted lightly into the handkerchief. “Now you offer me a seat?”

The Colonel’s mouth twitched; the ghost of a smile below his mustache. “It’s canvas”, he said. “Look-it will be fine.”

She smiled ruefully with her eyes at least and sat, lowering herself lightly, gripping the chair arms. It took a few wriggles and adjustments before she could sit, listing to one side.

“There” he said.

Then she noticed the fresh pitcher of chilled water and a cup in front of her. She reached, then stopped. “May I?”

“By all means” He poured himself a glass of Port, also new to the table, and without much prodding heard the story of Sylvia Palacios. At least the rehearsed, well-told story. About how her father had given her for use to her uncle, then when he grew tired of her she was offered to a provisional reagent whose name escaped the Colonel. As she droned on his attention was pulled to her white underpants lying on the dark wood like a dead gull. It was curious that the sight of the discarded silk aroused him more than her naked bottom had.

He had tired of her story-and tired of trying to fathom how much truth was in it.

“Your father”, he asked. “Is he still alive?”

“No Excellency.”

“Your uncle?”

“No. They both died in the last war.”

“Pity. I would have liked to kill at least one of them for you.” Then, after a pause “What do you think about what happened to you today?”

She looked at her hands and tried to fashion words that would have the ring of truth. It took but a few moments. “I was wrong, Excellency. And deserved everything you gave me. I insulted you…”

“Your daughter…”

“My daughter. And should have been whipped. I apologize.”

“Not to me. Go now. Prepare a meal for your daughter and apologize for being such and awful mother.”

“I will Excellency. I will tell her….”

“You will tell her nothing. You will show her-by attention, by doing everything moving forward to show her how important she is to you.”

“Yes Excellency.”

“Now go. I’ve spent enough time this week with Palacios women.”

She rose gingerly and looked toward the rail spotting her underwear. She went to retrieve them.

“Leave them”, said the Colonel, not sure why.

“Yes sir.” She looked away from them like they didn’t exist and with a slight curtsey, disappeared from the veranda, across the patio and was gone. The voices of the house, stilled for a while, began to buzz again.

At the gate Sylvia Palacios wondered about the hard, worn leather of the saddle. She had no choice, it was too far to walk. Placing one foot in the stirrup she put the other one over and sat. No, she thought, wincing, as the pony started to walk. Her bottom felt burned and shrunken. She stood in the stirrups trying to look regal as she passed everyone who knew why she wasn’t sitting astride her little pony.

That little bitch will pay for this, she thought darkly. My shame will be her pain.

 

(Continuing…)

Chelsea – 3

 

(Continued from Chelsea – 2)

“CHELSEA!” Geneva cried as she was coming up the hill from the apple trees. “THE WORKSHOP!” Chelsea looked up to see her running and pointing behind her. She spun to see smoke rolling out of the open door. “SHIT!” She dropped the mower deck and ran into the smoke.

Fresh sawdust smolders for a long time before bursting into open flame. Chelsea figured she had not very many more seconds before the smoke bomb would have become a conflagration. As it was, she didn’t even use the fire extinguisher, just turned the hose on it. By the time Gennie came gasping through the door, it was out, leaving nothing but the smoky cloud behind.

“Shit, Chel. What happened?”

She was too shaken to just laugh it off. “I don’t know. I had a cigarette…”

“You were smoking in here?”

“No! I mean…I was smoking out there-working on the mower deck-then came in here for a wrench. Must have laid the cigarette…”

“Jesus!” Gennie was nervously circling. “Okay, okay…we won’t tell him, right? We just won’t say anything.”

“Sniff, girl. Smells like fire in here.”

“We’ll open the loft door. Then get rid of it-the sawdust. Everything that’s burnt. We’ll take it back into the woods.”

“It’ll still smell in here.”

“Fire up the saws. Fresh sawdust will cover the smell!”

“Gen, that’s not going to fool him. I’m fucked.”

“No. Come on!” Geneva grabbed a shovel, “Get that bucket, both of those…”

Chelsea wasn’t moving. “I’m not lying to him Gen. I’m not.  Is that what you want to do?”

Gennie came up short. “What? No…I didn’t mean that…” She shut up with the crunch of the pickup on the gravel outside. She hadn’t even heard him coming up the driveway. “Aw, Chelsea. We are fucked.”

“Not ‘we’. Not ‘us’…this is my problem, not yours. I’ll deal with it.”

Chelsea ached, not at what she was pretty sure was coming, but at the changing light of his face as he came toward them. Behind the taciturn mask was a smile of joy at seeing them, then a concern over their serious faces followed by the darkening clouds of anger, disappointment and dread of what might have happened. And now, what was going to have to happen.

She had caused this stormy weather. If not for her they would all be standing around talking, laughing, planning the evening. But they weren’t. Because of her. She had never forgotten how it felt to deserve to be punished.

(Continuing…)

A Whipping – Part II

(Continued from A Whipping)

The Punisher regarded her coolly, hiding any feelings behind an implacable mask. He had never wavered in his responsibilities or shirked his duty though the things he had been offered in this room would send a priest pounding for entry at the doors of Hell. He was looking beyond the woman on her knees before him until, deciding, he pushed away from the bench and strode purposefully toward the steps; not pausing as he took one, then another up toward the courtyard.

“Noooo Roger, please!” she bawled and sprawled prostrate on the cold floor crushing her silken beret against the stone. “I’ll die Roger! I will die up there in the courtyard…” She wished suddenly that she wasn’t as strong a woman so she could swoon like some stricken damsel and impress him with her desperation. It wasn’t to be, though. All she could do was weep openly on the stone floor and beg.

She heard the door’s heavy bolt slide definitively closed. Then the cross beam fell securing it. She snuffled and fell silent lifting on an elbow. Roger appeared back down the staircase and crossed to her, reaching down to offer a hand. “Come, Ellie, get up…”

“But Roger…” she took his hand.

“We won’t be going up into the courtyard. And no one will be coming down.”

She held onto his hand but couldn’t rise, slipping down onto her haunches-a hollow husk, completely drained by the cold fear that had filled her totally.

“But what…what will happen?”

“I can’t let you off Ellie. Can’t do it.”

“No! No! You shouldn’t. As I said-I fully expect to…

“I will cane you right here and now.”

“Oh Roger, never will anyone so happily accept a caning as I will today.”

“Best save your gratitude. This will be…more than last time.”

“Yes Roger, I understand. What must I do?”

“Go. Behind the screen”, he pointed to the standing divider in the corner.  “Disrobe to give me access to your bottom. Bare from waist down…cover the rest as you will.”

“Yes, Roger”, she gasped, hurrying lest he change his mind.

She quickly doffed the beret and the veil hanging them on a hook. The dress came off simply enough and she at least had the good sense not to have worn a corset. She pulled at her slip, then her knickers. It was endless! Which is why the serving class was not allowed underclothes when they worked. Their chastisements were so regular that the time expended undressing and dressing again would be too great.

Bare on the bottom, she rubbed her hands along her thighs and backside feeling strangely chilled. Since Olivia, her topography had changed a bit and she suddenly wondered what he would think. It was vain, she knew, given all the women he has seen in this room. She thought of taking her top off over her head but decided to leave it-not wanting to seem too wanton. She doubted that Roger expected to see her walking nude from behind the screen. So, with a deep breath, she stepped from behind the barrier.

Roger was a man of discipline in more ways than one. He locked eyes with Eleanor as she stepped toward him, having no need-or apparently desire-to see what was below her waist. Her heart swelled at his gallantry.

“This way Missus”, he said, being more comfortable in the formality of his office for the time being. She took his hand and allowed herself to be led to the bench. He showed her how to kneel on the platform which placed her legs a little wider than her shoulders and helped her to bend forward across the bench.

“Would you prefer to be bound, Missus?”

She feared that the pain might make her a coward. “The legs, yes. And across the back. Leave my hands free if you would.”

“As you will”, he said formally.

She was conscious of him behind her affixing the straps around her thighs. She could feel his warm breath on her bare bottom as he reached between her legs for the buckles. The thick belt cinched her waist to the bench and she was set.  Once bared and bound she had naught to do but wait. Her insides roiled as she lay her cheek on the leather padding. Her last caning had been a simple ‘bend over and lift your skirts’ affair; almost a lark between old friends. This was more like…

(Continuing…)

A Whipping

“A whipping Roger?”, she asked surprised. “Are you sure she said a whipping?”

“Yes, Missus”, the big man replied. “She was very specific.”

“Well…” Eleanor cleared her throat. Her hands shook a little and she paused to try to cover the quiver in her voice. This certainly was a deviation from plan.

“I’ve never been whipped Roger.”

“No missus. Not many of those anymore.”

“Don’t get me wrong. I expected some chastisement. Perhaps a caning-six of the best maybe-I had gotten that a couple of years ago, remember?”

“I do missus. Four years ago. Before you were Mrs. Plumm.”

“Yes! Yes…and that was a tight caning, if you’ll recall. You laid it on well.”

“I do remember. Didn’t really enjoy that, you know.”

“Oh, I know that, Roger. You made that clear at the time and I appreciate it. I did deserve it, I’ll admit. Still hurt like the devil.”

“The cane-especially applied wet- is wicked…”

For months she had feared her needs growing slowly from a tiny worm that tickled her belly to a fearsome serpent that constricted her from the inside stealing her breath and clouding all good thoughts. She glimpsed it once in the looking glass, flickering its cold, red tongue from behind her eyes. The vision so roiled that she’d smashed the glass with a pot later explaining that she’d dropped it in her own clumsiness.

Her weakling efforts to assuage her own urges were akin to bailing a sinking vessel with a teacup. With little Olivia at the maiden’s quarters she was alone to subject herself to whatever she thought might relieve the pressure that rang in her ears.

Their manner of dress made it easy to cover the marks she left on herself. Her natural reticence made the time alone in her home seem less conspicuous to anyone who might care, but she knew in a warm recess of her consciousness that standing naked in the cold woodshed, face pressed to the rough wall, swatting her bare thigh with a wooden spoon or coming perilously close to touching herself with a hot poker from the fire was leading her down a path she might not want to travel. Thus her plot to land in the Punisher’s chambers, which seemed to have worked too well.

“We’ve know each other a long time.”

“Since we were toddlers, Missus.”

“We played together!”

“Simpler times, Missus.”

“Please Roger, call me Ellie, as you used to.”

“Yes Missus.”

“In all that time have you ever known me to do anything that would warrant a…”

“Please Missus, leave me out of that part of it. Only one person decides the punishment for ladies of your class and it’s certainly not me. I just carry out the sentence.”

“But a whipping…” she gasped, realizing. “…Roger-is it to be public? In the square?” She held her hands to her breast, eyes like saucers.

“No…not in the square, per se.”

“Per se?”

“In the courtyard. Right up the steps there to the crossbar beneath the oak tree.”

“Whipped in the courtyard?” her voice carried an edge of desperation.

“They’ll be no announcement made! Nothing to draw a crowd. We’ll just go up.”

“When?!”

“Well…now, I suppose.”

“It’s midday Roger. The courtyard will be full of workers taking their ease!”

“What am I to do?” his voice too carried an edge. “The time is the time!”

“I’m a wife and mother! Have lived inside these walls all my life! Everyone knows me!  To be stripped naked and whipped in the courtyard is unacceptable!”

“With cause Missus! There is cause.”

“I know that! Cause for punishment-a caning, a strapping, even the birch-but not for that!” The tears that she was holding, only letting one at a time slide down her cheeks, began to flow freely.

Eleanor slid closer and hissed, “You know a whipping isn’t right. You know what she’s doing, don’t you? She wants to get even for…”

“Again, Missus, I don’t want to get into that!”

“Call me Ellie, please! It’s me. Ellie, Roger. Please…”

“What would you have me do?”

“Anything…nothing…something other than a whipping in the courtyard.”

She knew that by reputation the Punisher was incorruptible. That he had been plied with all manner of wanton offer over the years was assumed-that he had accepted any of them was universally and vociferously denied.  But he was also Roger Peterman, her childhood playmate who had stolen a kiss or two before they knew what class meant in the kingdom.

He was leaning against the bench she had only heard of. Padded on top and on two kneeling platforms attached to the legs. Higher on one end than the other, it canted ever so slightly downward so once positioned upon it, the unfortunate’s bottom was the highest point of her anatomy. Straps hanging from the legs and left no doubt about the forbidding furniture’s usage.

The gossiping whispers over tea of this one or that one having to visit the Punisher’s chambers became less titillating when faced with the hard reality of a spanking bench and the man leaning against it truly contemplating her fate. That she had been a part of those leering gaggles was undeniable. Knowing that she would be the subject of them was unimaginable. “Naked in the courtyard”, was all she could think of. As her cold serpent coiled, she felt she might puke.

The oppressive silence of the big man’s contemplation pressed down on her until she-without planning to-dropped to her knees onto the cold stone floor. “Anything Roger, you know that, I will do anything to avoid walking naked up those stairs. Please, sir. I am begging you.”

(Continued…)