Witchseekers

Author’s Note

            These narratives were constructed around the activities of an online community called Witchseekers, in 2004. It was an online role play/chain story built on members’ contributions, with significant events – especially the interrogation and execution of members “accused” of being witches – detailed in story form.

            My own role in the group was initially as Torturess, then, after staging a coup and toppling the Witchseeker General, I became the all-powerful Witchseeker General – until I too was overthrown and arrested.

            Things were just getting interesting when the group was shut down by its host.

            These narratives, disjointed and notably light on any kind of plot other than their basic formula of torture-confession-execution, are my only record of the Witchseekers story, but I wanted to share them with the BDSM community.

            Please note that there is little to no expressed sexual content in any of these works, so to many they will be more horror fiction than erotic fiction. But there are those among us who find these dark tales sexy indeed …

 

Kirsten – 19 January, 2007

           

 

 

            They drag Janet in; she is wearing only a flimsy petticoat; her hands in iron fetters behind her back, a blindfold over her eyes.  Barefoot, shrieking and calling out, she stumbles on the stone steps as they hurry her down into the labyrinthine dungeon.

            They release their grip on her arms only once she is in the torture chamber.  Although she can’t see anything of her surroundings, she is in terror enough to drop at once to her knees and cower, arms behind her, at our feet.  Her bare, slender arms are coarse with goosebumps of cold and fear, and her nipples thrust nodes in the silk of her negligee.  She is slender, almost skinny, her figure small-breasted and boyish, but I note a panther-like strength in her pale limbs.  She will not break quickly.

            "Remove her blindfold."

            Janet reacts in horror as the cloth is taken from her eyes.  She barely registers my presence, her huge eyes taking in the ghastly shapes that loom in my torture chamber, shadows shifting in the guttering oily light of torches.

            "Recoil you might, Witch," I tell her coolly, "for some of these instruments you will soon experience for yourself."  I move to stand beside her, and twist my fingers into the thick strawberry-blonde mane that falls no lower than her bare shoulders.  She struggles to free her fettered wrists as I force her scan the awful vaulted dungeon.

"There is the rack, by which I can rend your limbs.  There, the horse on which you may writhe.  There, a cage to squeeze your limbs, there a table to which you may be shackled; and there, a chair of such depraved torment you will think you have descended to Hell itself.  See the scourges, flails, irons, tongs, pears, branks, and vices, all tools I may select for your flesh.  I will ask many questions, and in your agony, you will gladly offer me the truth."

Janet is shaking her head in desperate terror.  "Oh God, no, please!  I am innocent of any wrong!  You have arrested the wrong woman!  Please!"

"I grant that you may not know yourself as Evil," I say softly, and at this, I release her hair, kneeling beside her, clearing the strays of hair from her face.  "But Evil you are, and I will help you see it for yourself.  Only then will you repent: only then will we allow the Fire to cleanse you."

            Janet's eyes turn to fix upon my face in bewilderment, as if she has heard more than she can bear to absorb.  I stand.  "It is late.  We begin tomorrow.  Secure her."

            The guards hoist Janet to her feet and drag her across the chamber.  "No!  N-noo!" she shouts, and despite her fettered arms, she struggles to get free.  But she is taken to a space in the chamber in which dangle black iron fetters on a long chain.  Seeing them, Janet again cries out, but she is one woman against three men, and she has no strength to resist them.

            The fetters on her wrists are released, and one of the guards draws the petticoat, the only preservation of her modesty, over her head.

            "No!" she shrieks.  "Give it back!  You cannot!"  Suddenly naked, she grasps for the garment, but the guard holds it out of reach, and her arms are quickly caught.  Her arms are lifted to the shackles on their chains, and the hard metal is closed around her slender wrists.  It is well known that a Witch locked in iron cannot cast a spell, and it is this that keeps me safe.

            Quickly, she is secured.  Two of the guards then cross to a windlass, and turn it slowly.  The wooden axle groans and creaks; chain clatters and clanks through a pulley overhead, and by the fetters upon her wrists, Janet's arms are lifted.  She looks at me through the diamond-shape of her own raised arms, fearful, vulnerable in her nakedness.

            The windlass turns again, her wrists rise, and quickly her arms are pulled straight above her head.  Then the fetters bite into her hands, and her head tips back.  I watch as her body extends itself involuntarily.  Her arms stretch and the hollows of her armpits deepen; her breasts rise as her ribcage lifts; her belly hollows, her heels are raised from the stone floor, drawing out the slender muscles of her legs.

            The windlass turns again.  She gives a moan as the metal on her wrists hauls harder, so that only the ends of her toes are upon the floor.  Then another turn, and her body is raised off the floor.  Her feet swing back, her body taut and stretched, swaying on the end of the chain from her shackled wrists.

            "Oh - oh!  It hurts!" she finally calls, and I believe her.  It hurts to hang by the wrists, and even as the windlass cranks her higher, the pains shoot from her wrists, through her shoulders. She lets her head fall forward, her mouth open in pain and dismay, now looking at her own fanned toes, and the ten inches of empty air below them.

            The guards lock the windlass.  Janet is helpless.

            I like to inspect my prisoners, and I do so now, slowly.  Her slender body hangs taut, her head forward, feet drooping and pointing towards the floor.  The shackles have wedged against the heel of each hand, her fingers curled with the pressure of her body's weight.

            I circle to the front.  The corrugations of her ribcage are softened by the torchlight, but the goosebumps that cover her flesh add a fascinating texture.  Her nipples stand out, erect stalks in the chill dungeon air.  I note her pubic hair, a generous dark thatch, matched by the dark tufts in her armpits.  The light catches a streak of sweat from one underarm, running down her ribcage.

            I glimpse also the first tear as it rolls down her smooth cheek.  She hangs limp, but I know only too well the battle she fights.  For now, the only way she can manage the strain in her shoulders and elbows is to tense the muscles of her arms.  But in an hour, perhaps two, her strength will ebb, her muscles will burn with fatigue, and then, finally, will fail. Then she will discover a new pain: the slow, fiery menace of ligaments and tendons unaccustomed to taking her body's weight unassisted.

            By morning she will be in a nightmare of pain.  I would love to stay and watch, but I must leave and rest for tomorrow's work.

            I glance to my guards.  "Burn her nightdress.  We shall return in the morning."

            "No!  No, My Lady, I beg you!"  Momentarily forgetting her pain, Janet twists and writhes like a fish on a hook, her naked body swinging on the end of the chain.  But it is an utterly futile gesture, she cannot get free, and I barely give her a second glance as I lead my guards from the chamber, and we leave her to hang, alone.

 

            After breakfast, I assemble four guards, and we make our return to the chamber.

            This is another favourite moment.  When the Witch has already tasted torment, and yet knows nothing of what is to come; when the air is electric with possibilities and promise.

            Amidst the machines, the stone and dark wood of the torture chamber, hangs the pale, naked figure of Janet, suspended by her wrists above the floor.  Her bare skin shines with an oiling of sweat, the only outward sign of the agonies she has borne for nearly ten hours.

            “Bring her down,” I order.

            As her toes hit the floor, Janet’s body folds helplessly into the arms of two guards, her manacled and black-bruised wrists dropping loosely.  The fetters are undone, but her arms have no strength, and she is unresisting as the guards manacle her wrists together in front of her body, and lift her to her feet.

            “Bring her.”

            Janet is dragged from the torture chamber.  Though her arms are useless, she has enough strength in her legs to stumble along a dark, slimy corridor, then up a steep, narrow flight of steps.

            Doors open on a chamber perhaps thirty feet square.  Torches and braziers give light; directly ahead of the double oak doors is a huge table on a raised plinth, at which are seated two figures.  Oberon, the Witchseeker General, and his beautiful assistant, Tina.  Their faces are grim.  Books and papers lie upon the tabletop.

            I bow to them.  "My Lord Oberon, My Lady Tina, I present the prisoner for your inspection, Janet Halverson."

            It is Oberon who steps down from the plinth, and slowly circles the quivering Janet.  "Raise her arms," he orders.  A guard grasps the chains of Janet's wrist manacles and lifts it high, forcing Janet's arms above her head.  Oberon's scrutiny of her nude body is quick, but it is with practised eye that he notes every imperfection, every blemish upon her.  "Forward," he says.

            Pulling her arms down, the guards instead bend her at the hips.  Janet gives a grunt as she is doubled over, her buttocks and the hairy gully of her sex presented.  Oberon's inspection is intimate indeed, and I avert my eyes as he parts her lips, probes at the tight pucker of her anus.  Finally, he returns to the table, briefly washing his hands in a bowl of water.

            "Janet Halvorsen, you are here because you have been convicted of Witchcraft."

            Janet looks to me, and I nod, so she turns her eyes to the Witchseeker General.  "Sir, it is not true!  I am not a witch!"

            "Your name appeared in the Book of Shadows, which we found in the possession of the Witch Allielle.  And you know her fate."

            Janet's face dips long enough for all to see that she does know of the agony in which Allielle perished.  "I am not a witch," she whispers.

            "Save your protestations of innocence," Tina scoffs, "and for your sake, save your own flesh the agonies of the torture chamber by telling us what we need to know."

            "But - I don't know what you want," Janet wails.  To Oberon she pleads, "Sir, I beg you, do not let them hurt me!"

            "Tell us about the one they call Matmos."

            "Matmos?"  There is a flash of recognition on her face.

            "So you know him!" Tina pounces.

            Janet quickly shakes her head.  "No, My Lady.  I only know of him, and of his treachery.  I know that he preys upon young women, those for whom he lusts.  When they reject his advances, he …" Her eyes cloud with tears.  "He makes up stories about them, he has them taken away so he can do what he will with them … and then, so they cannot speak of what happened … they end up in agony, at the stake."  Her voice falters at the thought that she, too, was most likely destined for that fate.

            "Which women?" Oberon asks.

            "I know of one," Janet says.  "The one known as Daphne."

            "Daphne was a witch," Tina says.  "As are you."

            "No!"

            "As is Matmos.  Do not protect him, girl.  It will only bring you harm."

            "Why would I protect him?  He is not a witch, no more than I!"

            "LIES!"  Oberon's voice is a roar that sends Janet into a shrieking cower, and he thrusts his finger towards the door.  "Take her!" he bellows to me.  "Take her and wrest the truth from her bones!"

            The guards drag the shackled, struggling Janet down the dark, steep stairway towards the torture chamber once more.  "Please, oh, please, I beg you!  Please do not hurt me!  I am telling the truth!"

            "You may believe it to be the truth now," I say calmly, following behind.  "But such is the power of magic.  It is only pain that will drive away the fog that clouds your mind, and allow you to see the truth."

            "No-o-o-o!"

            Her scream echoes still as we reach the torture chamber.  "The horse," I order.

            Janet gapes helplessly at the ghastly structure.  Five feet high, upon sturdy oak legs, a sharp wedge-shaped construction, its peak uppermost like the pitched roof of a Swiss chalet.  Deaf to Janet's shrieks and wails for mercy, the guards prepare her.

            Her wrists are unfettered, only to be secured again behind her back.  More shackles are brought; her elbows are wrenched together and fettered so that they almost touch.  With arms so brutally forced together behind her back, her breasts are thrust out, like meringues topped by ripe pink berries.  The guards are visibly aroused.  Lingering at their task, they fix a heavy shackle about each of her ankles, each with a large iron ring hanging from it.

            "She is prepared, My Lady," I am told.

            I motion for them to wait.  Again, a moment to savour.

            Janet is held between them, her arms painfully cinched and fastened behind her, her ribcage shifting hard as she pants breath, her face pale with fear, her eyes fixed unfalteringly on the terrible instrument before her.

            Finally, I nod.  "Put her on."

            Like noblemen helping a lady onto her mount, the guards guide Janet Halverson's ascent onto the horse.  She is lifted high, and hands guide one leg over; then she is lowered upon it.  She tries, of course, to brace her descent with her bare knees; but they can find little friction, and the sharp wooden edge seems to pry open her thighs as she slides down onto its unforgiving ridge.

            "Aaaiiii!!"  Janet's soft, furry sex crunches hard onto the horse's peak.  Her face at once screws into an expression of pain, and despite her back-bound arms, she begins to scrabble her thighs against the smooth wood, desperate to lever herself off.  "Take me off!" she shrieks.

"Weights!" I order quickly.

Even as Janet tries to scrabble off the horse, the guards fetch two heavy iron weights - twenty-five pounds to each - and in a matter of moments, hook them over the rings on Janet's ankle fetters. Instantly her slender legs are drawn and taut, the peak of the horse seems to disappear up into her lovely bush, and her eyes bulge.

            "Aaaaahhhhhh!"  Janet gives a long cry. It is unbearable, and she pitches forward - but it is only for a moment, as her labia and clitoris are crunched onto the sharp edge of the horse, causing even worse pain that snatches her breath away.  In a gyration of torment, she fights to tilt her pelvis back again, desperate to find relief from the pain.

Her eyes find me even as the sweat begins to bead upon her face and breasts.  "Please!  Take me off!  Take me off!"

"Give your confession.  Give us the names.  Give us the truth."

Janet bursts into tears.  "I cannot!  Oh, My Lady, I cannot!" she shrieks.  "Aaaahh!!"  Her head tips back and she bellows in pain and misery to the vaulted ceiling.  "Oh God, it hurts!"

            The tears spill freely; she is paralysed by pain but in too much agony to remain still.  As her head rocks forward again, she sees that I have led the four guards halfway to the door, and horror joins the anguish on her face.

            "No-o-o!  Don't leave me!!"

            The door slams shut on her cries.

 

            There are countless tortures at the disposal of an inquisitor.  Some are fast and brutal - brands, whips, amputation, burning.  True, they have shock value and have their place, but they are not my preference.  I go for the slow, the subtle; the tortures that build over time to an all-consuming intensity.

I give Janet three hours to suffer the horror of the horse before returning to the torture chamber, this time with a scribe to record every word spoken, and Austin, appointed chief assistant.

Janet is, as I expected, in agony.  Her body is wet, shining from head to toe with sweat. Her arms, manacled behind her back, are racked with cramps; her hip joints are tortured by the stretching effect of the weights.  But it is nothing at all compared to the pain between her legs.

For three hours, her bodyweight plus the fifty pounds of the ankle-weights has been forcing her labia and perineum down onto an unforgiving wooden edge.  No matter how she shifts, no matter how she writhes, nothing will ease the pain.  Indeed, the agony has grown and spread like slow fire, seemingly through her very bones, to fill her hips and womb and abdomen; to creep up her spine.

She is panting hard in agony as I draw near, and her face, pale with suffering, lifts slowly.  There are dark rings under her eyes.  The sweat is dripping from her brow; it streaks her ribcage and her thighs.

"Confess," I tell her.

Her head nods in misery.  "Tell me what I must say, and I will say it!"

"Say you are a witch."

New tears fill her eyes.  "If I confess that, I will be burned alive."

"That's true."  I look to Austin.  "More weights."

"Oh no!  No!  NO!"  New life floods Janet as adrenalin surges.  She sees the guards collect the heavy iron ingots, sees evidence of their weight in the men's grunts and heaves.   She is looking at me and begging, almost gibbering like a madwoman in her fear as they hook another twenty-five pounds to each of her ankles and, on Austin’s signal, let them swing.

Her scream is terrible.  Her exhausted legs are stretched by fifty pounds at each ankle; between her thighs, the horse bears all of that weight along a single, sharp ridge, and suddenly it must feel as if she has been cleaved in two. The dark triangle of her pubic bush seems to be split by the horse’s cruel peak.

"Confess!" I shout.  "Confess, and it will end!"

"No, no, no, no no!" Janet shrieks.

A quick motion of my hand, and Austin leads his guards from the chamber.  I follow them, chased by Janet's wordless cries of pain.

            The door booms shut

            The fourth hour of torture upon the horse is a hundred times worse for Janet than the previous three.  Every minute feels like a hundred.  The pain is comparable to laying a red-hot iron between her legs, but wonderfully, one that endures far longer.

            When we return, Janet is twisting and pitching in constant agony, crying and shrieking at the ceiling, riding the horse so beautifully that one of Austin’s guards momentarily forgets himself, a hand wandering to his groin.  I decide to let it pass; I have more important matters to address.

            Even as I am half-way towards her, Janet begins her desperate pleading.  "Stop the pain, take me down!  Please, take me down! Oh, God, it hurts!"

            "Witch!  Do you see the truth now?" I call.

            "Please, mercy, please!" Janet cries in desperation.

            "Tell me about Matmos," I demand.

            "Please -"

            "Tell me!"

            Janet gives a cry, pain and defeat, and finally concedes.  "He's a witch!  I confess it!  Ohh, the pain!  Please - take me down!  Matmos is a witch, torture him instead!"

            "Believe me, I will," I promise.  "What is his standing amongst the witches?  What do you know of his activities, of his whereabouts?  How did you come to know him?"

            "Oh, have mercy, I cannot say!  I cannot!  Please, take me down!"

            "Talk, witch!  What of Matmos?  And who else have you seen?"

            "I don't remember!"

            "Look at where you are, Janet," I shout at her.  "Do you think it will end, for you?  Remembering is the only thing that will save you!"

            Janet's response is a long wail of pain, and her head droops for a moment.  Gleaming, naked, arms twisted behind her and legs stretched so that every muscle is defined and taut, she straddles the horse's cruel ridge.  Sweat streaks her ribcage, drips from her face; her hair clings to her neck and shoulders.  The apex of the horse seems to have forced its way right up into her dark pubic bush, bisecting her most tender part.  Those sweet, shining meringue breasts heave in her agony.

            "More weights," I say to Austin.

            "No-o-o …"  It is more a wail than a scream, sick with dread.  "No more!"

            "What of Matmos?  And who are the others?"

            "I don't know!"

            "Do you know of a witch called Kathy?"

            "Yes!  Oh, please, question her, she will tell you more than I!"

            "And what of Matmos?  The truth, Witch!"

            "No," she weeps.  "Please."

            "Add the weights," I say.

            The mere threat was not enough.  Now, as Janet's cries escalate into a frenzy of panic, Austin has his guards hook another weight to each ankle.  Seventy-five pounds hanging off each ankle, her hips are stretched as if on the rack, near the point of dislocation, agony spearing the joints, tearing like fire along the very bones of her legs.  But even worse is the wooden edge grinding up into her cunt.

            Janet screams like one touched by the flames.

            "Matmos is the leader!  He is the one in Black!  Oh, I beg you, take me off!  Take me off!"  Her confession dissolves into a long scream.

            "What is your association with him?"

            "He seduced me, oh please, he seduced me and had his way with me!  Allielle, too, I was her concubine, but I swear I am not a witch!  Please, stop the pain!  Stop it!"

            "It will stop when you have answered my questions," I say, and Janet screams on in desperate agony.  "Tell me about Matmos!"

            "I don't know!" Janet shrieks, over and over.  "I gave him favours, but when I learned of his treachery, I hid!  Oh ... oh God ..."

            "Speak of his treachery."

            "Evil," Janet gasps.  She is overwhelmed by the pain, now, and I know that she will soon become insensible to questioning.  "Likes ... to see .... the witches ..."

            "Fetch water," I order.

            Austin draws a pail of icy water from a well in a dark recess of the dungeon, and flings it over Janet's sagging form.  The shock brings a shriek and then a long wail of agony from her.  Her hips are audibly grinding from their sockets, her body giving up its struggle to endure.

            "Tell me about Matmos," I insist.

            Janet's voice is little more than a whisper.  "He betrays those who will not give themselves to him ... casts a spell so that they will not offer his name, even under torture ... then he acts as witchseeker and torturer himself ... to see them suffer ... to see them burn at the stake ..."

            "And you?" I ask.  "Are you one of his betrayals?"

            Her eyes, barely able to focus, find mine.  "I am not a witch."

            For now, it is enough.  The scribe, behind me, writes furiously.  There will be more: Janet will see the truth, but this is not the session.  I finally nod to Austin.  "Bring her down.  Give her water and secure her until I am ready to resume her interrogation.”

 

            Janet is chained to a stone column in the torture chamber, sitting naked on the cold floor, her wrists manacled to an iron ring above her head.  The way her hands droop from the fetters tell more than anything else; she has acquiesced, she has been broken, and she will condemn even herself when the torture resumes.

            I give her a day to recover from the horse.  Despite her agonies, no lasting damage was done, and she is quickly ready for the interrogation to continue.

            "Prepare her for the pear," I say.

            There are numerous ways a witch might be presented for this torture.  I have ordered that she be secured at one end of the torture-table, standing with her legs spread, on tiptoe, ankles tied widely apart to the table-legs.  Then, with wrists manacled behind her back, she is forced to bend forward at the waist, so that her breasts and belly kiss the table-top, her naked haunches and hairy cleft bared to the room.  A single rope, fastened loosely but securely about her neck and tied to adjacent iron rings in the table, prevents her from rising, or indeed from moving with any freedom within her bondage.

            She looks as if she is presenting herself to be fucked from behind.  The guards all look strained by the lust they feel at seeing her young, fertile body so exposed.  Clearly visible in her spreadeagled position, her labia are still swollen from her torture upon the horse, resembling arousal. The tight brown star of her anus is clear to see.

            I let her remain like that for almost an hour.  She knows that torture is inevitable, and her sobs and moans of dread echo off the unfeeling stone walls.  She cannot see behind her, though, and when the torture chamber door opens and I walk in, accompanied by Austin and his two guards, my mentor Tina, and the scribe, she flinches at the sound.

            Tina is, as always, calm; but by the flickering of torches on the walls, I notice a slight flushing to her face, tiny sparks of sweat along her hairline.  Only moments ago, she admitted that she has never witnessed the use of the pear, as other methods have always proven effective.  Nevertheless, she has agreed to provide guidance during the interrogation.

            By the nature of her restraint, the witch Janet is forced to look along the tabletop, towards the two objects that will so utterly consume the next hours of her wretched life.

            One is an hourglass, one foot tall, in a crafted mahogany frame.  It is filled with the finest white sand.  The second object is of brass, and in shape resembles an enlarged version of the fruit whose name it bears: the pear.  It is beautifully ornate, filigree-carved.  From its narrowest end, a long turnscrew protrudes.

            I move into Janet’s view, and her eyes wildly seek out my face.  Terror fills her expression; the tears have washed clean trails down her grubby cheeks.  She makes no sound as I pick up the pear, holding it so that she can see it well, and slowly, gently, I turn the handle.

            Like a flower blooming, the four segments of the pear gently part and spread; gleaming brass petals that open out until easily ten inches across.  From behind Janet, Tina cannot suppress a gasp.  I can see in her eyes that she is shocked by the reality of the pear, and of the damage it could wreak.

            She composes herself, and strides slowly to stand alongside me.  She bends down, fixes eyes full of compassion and sorrow to Janet.  "Sweet girl, please tell us what you know.  Otherwise, this will truly hurt.  I don't want that to happen, any more than you."

            "I can vouch that it hurts," I say.  I turn the pear slowly in my hands, inspecting its gleaming open blades.  "Imagine this inside you. Scraping. Tearing. Filling you with unbelievable agony. And when I start to move it around … I may need both hands, and all of my strength - but oh, it will be terrible. You will hear it, as your insides are shredded to a juicy pulp.  Just think of your body convulsing, writhing … and yet, there is not a thing you will be able to do, but scream, and beg me to stop."

            Janet begins to cry.  "No," she pleads.

            "I cannot tell you what to say," Tina says to her.  "As there is no way I can fathom the treacherous depths of your soul.  Tell me everything."

            Janet's composure, shaken from the start, crumbles.  "I don't know what you want to hear!" she shrieks, and throws herself into a desperate struggle to get free.  Her wrists jerk on the shackles, her ankles on the ropes that hold her legs spread; she fights to pull her head from the loop of rope about her neck.  But Austin has tied the knots himself, and Janet has no chance of escape.

            Tina has her hands on her hips.  "I see she still needs persuasion.  Please proceed, Kirsten.  We must wrest the truth from her."

            "As you wish," I say.  I screw the pear back to its normal position.  All the while, Janet tries her best to, quite literally, save her arse.

"Please," she begs through her tears, "don't do this.  Please, don't hurt me.  What you hear will not be the truth, merely the words you want me to speak!"

            "The truth will be torn from you, whether you believe it true or not," I insist.  Twisting within her bonds, Janet tries to see what I am doing behind her, as Austin holds out a pail of lard.  I collect a heavy wad with my fingers.

            The spread of Janet's slender legs presents the gentle valley between her buttocks nicely, the star of her arsehole, and below it, the dark hairy secret of her pussy.  Firmly, I smear the pat of lard directly over her anus.

            "No-oo!!"  Janet shrieks, and bucks again against her restraints.  "Please, please, if you have any mercy at all ...!"

            "It's because we have mercy that we give you this chance to discover your faults, and gain some redemption before you burn," I tell her.

            I run my fingers over the cool filigree of the pear’s closed metal bulb.  The tip, where the four petals meet, is shaped like a nipple.  It is this which I place first against Janet's anus, and she jolts at the cold touch in such a sensitive spot.

            "Don't," she pleads.

            "Confess that you are a witch, and I can stop it now," Tina urges, her eyes promising kindness.

            "Please, I beg you," is all Janet can say, so I push the pear in.

            It is a simple technique; holding the pear at base and handle, leaning my whole body into the task and aided by the lard, I force it in.  Her sphincter spreads to allow the full diameter of the pear, and it draws a long groan from her throat.  Its entry is painful, and her bowels automatically spasm and resist in an urge to eject the intruder.  But she can do nothing. As the pear is pushed into her rectum, she begins to shriek in pain. I drive it ever deeper into her bowels, her anus clenching and distending around the broad metal barrel, until finally it is buried all the way inside her, her sphincter tight around the pear’s neck. Little more than the handle now protrudes.

            "It hurts, it hurts!" Janet shrieks.

            "Reminds you of the demon cock, does it, Witch?" one of the guards calls, and his colleague breaks into nervous laughter.

            I see the tiny sparks of sweat appear on the downy skin between Janet's shoulder blades; the muscles in her arms shift as she struggles to break free.  The unbearable pressure in her arse makes her gasp and heave in her throes of discomfort.  Firmly, I give the screw a twist; deep inside Janet, the four segments of the pear separate a fraction, minutely distending the walls of her rectum.

            It is only a hint of what will come, but already it is equal to the worst bowel pain she has ever felt; invasive, intrusive.  Her eyes are wide in shock and disbelief, her mouth open.  I twist the handle again, and this time Janet gives a scream.

            "Oh God!!!  Aahhh!!"  The agony easily doubles with just the tiniest change in the pear's spread, sweeping up through her bowels and driving a curtain of sweat over her entire body.  It is intense, engulfing, far more debilitating than the horse; she is paralysed by it, capable of nothing but screaming.

            So I give the screw a full turn.

            This time, Janet screams as loudly as she can scream, her voice echoing off the walls, reverberating through the torture chamber.  This is pain beyond imagination, and she is so overwhelmed by it, she is incapable of rational thought.

            I open the pear wider still, and Janet's shrieks become painful to the ears.  Already there is a subtle shift to the angle of her spine, the device pressing on her lower vertebrae.  She is calling out to God, to Jesus, sheer blasphemy from the mouth of a witch; the words ride on flecks of spittle, her eyes and the veins on her neck bulging with the immense agony of the torture.

            I slowly circle the table.  Every muscle in Janet's young body is rigid with suffering as she screams.  I grasp her hair, wrench her head up off the table, sending more shock waves of pain through her body.

            "I will give you half an hour before we resume," I tell her.  "Pray the truth reveals itself before the sand in this hourglass runs through."  Before her pain-glazed eyes, I turn the hourglass over, and the slow trickle begins.  I look to my companions.  "My Lady Tina; Austin; we will leave, for now."

            For half an hour, Janet suffers.  Her screams become hoarse and slowly ebb: after a time, there are only wails and shrieks coming from the tortured witch.  Even from another room, we can hear the echoes of her misery. The conversation is of procedures, the ethics of the witch hunt; but I am distracted, somehow excited by the prospect of returning to my work.

            Finally, it is time to return.  We walk into the torture chamber as the last of the sand runs through the hourglass.  From a table laid out with implements, I gather a thick cane as we pass.

            Janet is whimpering in agony.  Her body is shining wet.  On the floor below her, a puddle of urine, forced from her bladder by the pressure of the pear.  Down the inside of one taut thigh, a thin line of blood runs from her anus.  On hearing our approach, she begins wailing in new distress.

            "Please," she begs, "please take it out, take it out!  I'll talk, oh for the love of God, I'll tell you anything, just take it out!"

            "Say you are a witch.  Confess it," Tina tells her.  "Please tell all you know, or there is greater pain to come!"

            Even in her agony, Janet hesitates, and it is my cue.  Raising the cane high above my head, I swing it down with all of my force on the small of her back.  It smashes with a CRACK!! across her flesh, a shock wave through her body and distended innards, and she gives a screech of pain, followed by utter silence, the very breath driven from her lungs by agony.

            Finally, her head nods feverishly, and when she finally catches breath, she gasps, "I confess it!  Oh, I confess it!  I am a witch!  Please, no more, hurt me no more!"

            "You confirm that you are a witch?"

            "Yes!"

            "You can provide details?"

            "Yes!  Yes!"

            "And what of Matmos?  And Kathy?"

            "Please, I have told you all I know!"

            "I don't think you have," Tina responds, and she glances at me.

            Janet begins screaming anew even as I brace one hand on her sweat-slick lower back and grasp the turnscrew of the pear.  I twist the screw, and Janet's voice pitches upwards in a roar of agony.  Odd creaking and popping sounds, muffled and deep, sound from her bowels as the cruel petals blossom outwards.

            Janet’s screams are animal, barely human, shriek after shriek.  The bulge of the pear is discernible in the otherwise-sleek line of her body.  With my hand still on the turnscrew, I push and pull, shifting and rocking the expanded device inside her, and her fingers spread in maddened pain at every excruciating movement.

            Finally, another half-turn of the screw, and Janet's hoarse screams continue.

            I turn the hourglass.  "We will leave her like this.  She will talk soon."

            When we return, the only sound is Janet's ragged gasps for air.  Her body, wet, is steaming in the chill torture chamber.  Her back shifts in spasms with each breath.  Her legs remain stretched and bound to the feet of the table, her wrists manacled at her back; the handle of the pear protrudes grotesquely from her anus.  A fresh trickle of blood streaks the inside of her thigh.

            Her face shows of a battle for her very sanity, against unending agony; it is an expression that brands itself upon me. Her brow is furrowed, her eyes barely focused, her mouth open, a rope of saliva hanging to the table beneath her chin.  Tina gently takes out her handkerchief and dabs at Janet's trembling lips.

            "Janet, dear, it is time for you to tell us all."

            I move behind her, to where the handle of the pear extends from her clenched arsehole, and gently put my hand upon the small of her back.  Even that small pressure makes her convulse and groan in agony.

            "Well?"

            "Ask anything, and I will tell," Janet manages to say, her voice shaking.

            "What of Matmos?  How have you observed him to be a witch?"

            "He bewitches women," Janet says.  "He fills them with lust and corrupts them, so that they abandon their husbands and their clothes, and offer themselves to him.  Those witches who refuse ... he betrays."

            The scribe writes. Tina listens. I hover my hand over the handle of the pear.

            "Go on," Tina urges.

            "He speaks of ‘Little Matmos,’ but his cock is anything but little.  That is the secret to his power.  With it, he has seduced women and witches, sorceresses and succubae."

            Tina and I exchange a glance.

            "What of Kathy Linyd?"

            "Like me, she fell for Matmos' charm."

            Tina mops the clustered droplets of sweat from Janet's suffering face.  "One more question, dear," she says.  "Where are they?"

            "I don't know," Janet says.

            My hand closes on the pear's handle, and I twist.  Within her, the device blossoms, and the scream explodes hoarsely from her throat, long and agonised, her body jolting with the severity of it.  When her screams subside, she pants, "a ranch, it is a ranch, I can show you on a map!"

            I look to Tina, who examines Janet's face, then nods at me.

            Finally, I begin screwing the pear closed again.  Our work with Janet is done.

 

            One week after her confession, it is time for Janet to burn.

"No-o-o! No-o-o-o!!"

Janet's terrified screeching climbs above the jeers of the crowd as the executioners pull her hands behind the stout wooden stake. She struggles, but torture and imprisonment have weakened her, and she is easily restrained.

The manacles that join her wrists behind the stake are enough to hold her in place; the stake's diameter is such that her back-twisted arms only just encircle it, her shoulder blades tightly against the wood, her buttocks pressed to it.

            "I don't want to di-i-i-ie!" she hollers out.

            With Janet secured, the executioners pick their way off to the side. The wood-pile is small, barely two feet high. The fire will not grow quickly, and the flames may not reach any higher than Janet's heaving breasts, but it will be enough.

Oberon, the Witchseeker General, calmly begins to list the charges, and the noise of the crowd fades. Each charge is followed by the words; "and to this, she has confessed."  Only the ongoing cries of Janet, oblivious to all but her own terror, compete with Oberon's authoritative tone.

            All eyes are upon the young woman. She is attractive, even in this dishevelled state; her figure slender and petite, her breasts small and high upon her ribcage. Her hips are narrow, her legs are long and lean. Between her thighs, the dark triangle of her pubic hair is dainty despite her time in the dungeon.

            Finally, Oberon speaks the words all have come to hear: "for this, the Witch, Janet Halverson, is sentenced to burn." There is a huge cheer from the crowd, drowning Janet's frantic pleas for mercy, for bargain, for reconsideration.

            From the brazier that smokes alongside the woodpile, Oberon draws a fluttering torch. The naked Janet tries to shrink back even from that small fire, her eyes wild, hair half-veiling her face, her bare breasts shining with perspiration. "No! No! Put it out, oh, put it out!" she shrieks.

            Almost with tenderness, Oberon lays the torch in the outermost scatterings of straw, well beyond Janet's feet. The crowd falls silent. Even Janet lowers her voice to a whimper, as all eyes watch the birth of the witch's fire.

            Flames jump, sputter in the tinder around the torch. A twist of blue-grey smoke. A crackling twig. Then, the flames begin to take, spreading, jumping, creeping towards their prey. Janet's panic reawakens at the sight of it, and she begins to buck against the restraint of her own arms: if she could tear them from their sockets simply to escape, she would.

            The crowd begins to jeer and shout again, as if encouraging the fire. It seems to respond, spreading rapidly beneath the tinder: there are loud pops and crackles as wood catches alight, as the flames leap up through the gaps. They are only four feet away from Janet's bare legs, and she can already feel their warmth.

            "No, no, no, no!" she is shrieking, and suddenly, with her bare feet, she is trying to kick away the bundles of wood. I glance at Steve and Austin, the executioners, but Austin signals me to leave it. If she succeeds in kicking away the fire's fuel, Janet will merely prolong her own agony.

            Despite Janet's efforts, the fire grows, building quickly to her left. A slight breeze catches a swirl of smoke, guides it up around her face, and she turns her head away, coughing, her plan to kick away the wood forgotten. A moment later, a twig pops and tiny embers ride up on the hot air current, several of them touching Janet's naked flesh. She shrieks and flinches from their searing touch.

            Her body is shining. Sweat drawn from fear, drawn from heat, as the air around her begins to shimmer. Her ribcage heaves in frightened breath. She is all but exhausted, having fought with all of her limited strength to break free. Now, all that remains are her pathetic efforts to avoid the fire by pushing herself back against the post, rising up on tiptoes and turning her face away.

            Still the fire spreads. The flames grow and leap and catch, crackling and hissing, now less than two feet away from her. Carried on the quick-rising air, several tongues of fire flick out around her knees, searing her skin, and she screams in pain, kicking and stamping her feet. There is a wild cheer from the crowd.

            I can feel the heat of the fire on my face, now, and I shuffle back. For a few moments I can imagine her abject terror. Seeing the flames rise like hungry beasts, unstoppable. I imagine that heat on my bare breasts, on my belly, on my thighs. I am mesmerised by Janet's fear.

            She is squirming, unable to stay still, unable to get free. Her feet stamp and paw endlessly at the wood that surrounds her, frantic attempts to somehow stave off the advancing flames. There is less smoke, now, as the fire burns hotter and cleaner, rising air stirring her strawberry-blonde hair, like a breath of summer wind. Sweat drips from her face, clusters in droplets on her bare breasts.

            Another gust of wind, and fire jumps at her. A flurry of flames lick at her left thigh, there is a quick puff of smoke and steam, and Janet gives a shout of pain. She sags slightly as the flames briefly subside; but just as quickly, they pick up again. The fire darts up through the twigs and sticks, and as it begins to lick and hiss about her feet, Janet turns her face to the sky and screams.

The fire rallies and surges, faster, more furious, crackling and popping beneath the sounds of Janet's shrieks. Her shining calves show reddened welts from the scorching touch of fire, and though she tries to pull away, she is trapped and helpless to it. Flame, bright and orange, wraps around her leg, flutters up one thigh, fuelled by the downy peach-fuzz. Quick wisps of black and oily smoke spin up into the air as skin blisters and creeps back from the fire's touch, and Janet shakes her head in maddened agony.

            Suddenly, I can smell her burning. The sweet smell of roasting flesh, the odour of singed hair. Pain has suddenly given her strength, and she is tugging and tearing at her manacles again, trying dementedly to pull free of the fire, but she is held in place.

            Savage, hot flames slither up the stake below her, flickering up between her thighs like the fiery tongues of demons, and her beautiful pubic bush flares and is gone. Her buttocks are briefly embraced by fire; her flesh reddens and steams, and Janet twists and bellows in her agony.

            She is still stamping her feet, and the movement drives up drifts of sparks that scorch her skin and twist into the air like fireflies.

            The fire grows. Hotter, faster; now it begins to roar in its anger, a deep rumble beneath the shrill screams of the burning witch. I can see that her feet and lower legs are alight, the oils of her skin burning like a candle. Her arms and ribcage and breasts are reddening from the heat, although the flames still jump no higher than her waist.

            A fluttering burst of flame sputters up between her thighs again, and licks her scorched pussy. Janet howls and jerks in the fetters. The fire is hungry, a savage, cruel lover, tearing her most tender parts like red-hot iron files. Her genitals are suddenly sizzling and steaming, smoke funnelling up from between her thighs, flames intimately licking into the cleft of her buttocks, burning her loins. She flings her head about, her screams manic, shrill, demented, her struggles crazed. Her feet and lower legs are truly on fire, now; it has reached the point where, even if the flames were doused, she would not survive. I can hear a new sound, the hissing and crackling of her burning flesh, the popping of bones in her feet as they burst in the heat.

It is a gruesome and terrible way to die, but it is the way a witch must perish.

            Janet twists and screeches endlessly; the fire is too small to finish her quickly.

Slow minutes pass. The fire consumes her lower body, ravaging flesh, until her legs have no life, and she is held in place only by her back-twisted arms about the stake. The shimmering heat half-disguises the awful ravages being wrought upon her face and body, but I catch glimpses of her hair turning to char, her flesh roasting, her naked breasts splitting and cracking. Her body itself has become a torch, her flesh becoming tallow and burning in slow, oily flames.

            Some in the crowd have seen enough, and leave, knowing that the witch is all but dead; with her beauty destroyed by fire, there is little to witness but her final throes and struggles. Although she still wails aloud, she seems dazed, bewildered. It is now, some say, that a dying witch finally speaks the truth; fire has torn away all the baggage of life, experience, and the weight of consequence, leaving only the naked soul of the newborn. But Janet has no words, only moans. She knows she has lost the battle to live, and now she can only wait for death.

            But death is a long time coming. Even as the drifts of smoke from her burning body turn dark, and the hissing turns to a crackling, roasting sizzle, the Witch still moves about, her head lolling from one side to the other, her shoulders pitching about.

She dies slowly, so slowly.

An hour after the fire was lit, Janet Halverson's head sinks slowly forward. She does not move after that, and the fire enfolds her entire body, the flames turning bright, the smoke rolling skyward heavy and grey.

            The Witchseekers' work is done, and the witch known as Janet Halverson is dead.