Witchseekers

Part 5 – Wendy

 

I have seen Wendy Satin's photograph, but I didn't expect her to be as beautiful as this.  Perhaps it's the wedding gown she still wears as Austin, Steve, and three guards drag her into the torture chamber. Sheer white satin-weave, from its strapless bodice to the long fitted skirt, it is a gorgeous dress. She wears no jewellery, but her blonde hair is tied in a perfect chignon and adorned with flowers; white, lemon, and pale green. There is a sprinkle of glitter across her cheekbones, a touch of rouge on her lips.

            "What the hell is this place?"

Wendy's eyes are wide in disbelief at the torture chamber before her; greasy stone columns, chains dangling on the walls and from the high, vaulted ceiling; obscene instruments of suffering that loom in the half-shadows cast by fluttering torches. The aromas of sweat and fear and burned flesh have become infused in the very walls.

"What do you want?  Why am I here?" Wendy finally asks, in a trembling voice.

"Quiet, Witch, or we'll rip your tongue out" one of the guards growls, butting her shoulder-blade with his hand. "You'll speak only when a question is asked of you."

Wendy almost fires a retort, her eyes blazing defiance, but she bites her lip instead. Her slim wrists are shackled behind her back, and it gives her an almost coy demeanour; the reluctant bride. The skin of her bare shoulders and décolletage is delicious and flawless, glowing with a golden tan.

"She's had a few hours in a cell to cool off," Steve tells me. "When she realised the trap we'd set to catch her, she went nuts. Tried to scratch Austin's eyes out, until we got the shackles on her."

Wendy tugs on her trapped wrists.  "It was a fucked-up trick to play," she spits at Steve.  "When I get out of here, you'll all fry for this!"

I barely hear the exchange.  I am so taken with the way she looks in her gown, the incredibly fine stitching, the gorgeous boning of its bodice, the sheen of the smoother-than-skin fabric, that for a few moments I fail to notice Steve's expectant look.

"You want we should strip her, now?"

Wendy:  "What?"

I hesitate - tempted by the idea of hanging her up by the wrists still in that dress.  But the reality of a night dangling in chains - the half-moon tide marks of sweat and the grey of soot from the torches that would quickly grubby the virgin fabric - prompt me to nod.  "Okay - but it comes off over her head, get it?"

The three guards and Steve look at me as if I'm mad, but then Steve shrugs and, as Austin moves off to prepare for Wendy's introduction to the torture chamber, gives the order.  Despite her protests and struggles, Wendy's wrists are unfettered, and her arms are forcibly lifted while the dress is unzipped and pulled off over her head.

"Holy smokes," one of the guards says.

As soon as the dress is off, Wendy clasps her hands over her pouting breasts to preserve her modesty; but all attention is on the delicate white silk panties she wears, and the white suspender-belt attached to sheer, translucent-white silk stockings that end high on her golden thighs.  She wears simple white slip-on shoes with two inch heels, and with her hair still prettily adorned and her flawless makeup, even I can't deny that she looks most appealing.

"Aww, come on, Boss," a guard implores Steve.  "You gotta let us have a piece of this one!"

"Yeah, please - while she's still in once piece," the first adds.

Steve looks shaken by Wendy's allure; I can see him thinking what a waste … but then his eyes catch mine.

"If anyone tries to deflower this bride, I'll have their balls in a vise," I snarl.  "We do not fuck the business."

Wendy's eyes meet mine, and behind the hatred, I see that she concedes a little gratitude.  "Thank you," she says in a low voice.

I look at her grimly.  "This has nothing to do with protecting you.  It's the men I'm concerned about  - fornicating with a witch is sheer stupidity."

Gratitude turns to anger.  "But I'm not a witch, damn you!"

"That's what we are all here to determine," I reply.

She looks at me dumbly, and then, finally, realises. Horror, for a moment, controls her expression, and she shakes her head. "No, no way! Are you all crazy? I demand you let me go!  I don’t belong in this place!"

 "Oh, for heaven's sake, get a grip," I tell her. "We have a process to follow, and you will be fairly examined, as every accused witch must be." To Steve and the guards, I say,  "prepare her."

She will be hung by her wrists for the next twelve hours.

So easy to say; so terrible to endure.  Wendy has little idea of the horror that lies ahead, as she is dragged over to the manacles that dangle on a long chain from the ceiling. Her eyes follow the chain, up through a ring moored in the high ceiling, and down to a ratchet-locked winch, at which Austin stands ready, and I can see that her heart quickens in fear.  The very concept of restraint in iron manacles is terrifying.

The guards miss no opportunities in readying Wendy.  'Accidentally' brushing a hand across her bare breast or her silk-clad buttocks; touching her stockinged thigh.  She curses and struggles as they force her slim and unmarked wrists into the cold fetters, closing and locking them so that her hands are trapped.

Steve nods to Austin, who slowly turns the winch.  Nobody wants to miss this; as the chain gradually rises, Wendy's slender arms are lifted up.  She is fighting to hide her fear as her hands are pulled over her head.  A few more turns of the winch, and her spine extends, her ribcage rising, and the pouting mounds of her breasts are lifted also.  Her belly hollows, her long legs grow taut, and, finally, with her arms pulled hard above her head, her heels are lifted out of her high-heeled shoes. Wendy grimaces, and I give a signal to pause.

Already, it is uncomfortable.  The iron bites into the bones of her wrists; her arms are taking much of her weight, and her muscles are tight to compensate.  There is a shine of nervous perspiration in her pale and smooth-shaven armpits, between her breasts; but a peppering of goosebumps down the corrugations of her ribcage, which shifts with her rapid, fearful breath.  Her rosy nipples are erect in the dungeon's chill.

She watches me with resentful eyes.  No woman likes to be as exposed as Wendy is right now.  Held on tip-toes with her arms upstretched means that she is on display, half-naked and helpless; and worse, her humiliation is to the delight of her captors.

I intend to rub that in. As is my preference, I circle her, now. I want her to feel her vulnerability, I want her to know my freedom.  I want her to know that I can do what I want; I can whip her, or I can caress her, she can do nothing.

Standing behind her, I admire the perfect structure of her back; the definition of her shoulder blades, the long gully of her spine, her figure's taper to a small and taut waist; her tight and perfect buttocks within the delicate white triangle of her panties, the suspender-belt around her waist. The feminine teardrop-shape of her sleek calves, her slender thighs. 

"Continue," I decide.

The winch creaks over, and the chain pulls.  Wendy stifles a gasp as the manacles haul cruelly on her trapped hands, and, by them, she is lifted from the floor.  She is at once swirling and reaching her toes, frantically trying to find some easement from the pressure on her hands and arms, but as the winch turns, she rises higher still; three inches, four inches, five inches, leaving her shoes on the floor below her swinging toes.

"Let me down!" Wendy shrieks.

I order the winch to stop at six inches.  Enough for her to be tantalisingly close to the ground, but knowing that she will never reach it.  Between upstretched arms, her face has grown dark with her efforts to endure the discomfort.  Her arms' muscles are tight in involuntary resistance to suspension.  It feels, to her, as if her body is already drawing longer.

"You bastards!" she shouts.  "It hurts!  Let me down, now!"

"You will be let down when we are ready," I tell her.

"Fuck you, you bitch!" Wendy shouts.  She kicks and pedals her feet, and her angry cries chase us as we leave her hanging in the torture chamber.

Instead, I watch her on the monitor in my room, knowing that Wendy's ordeal hanging by her wrists will be a battle fought over many hours.

The initial discomforts are obvious; pain in her wrists, and the psychological torture.  Her full bodyweight is on those iron shackles locked below her hands, and the edges, although rounded, feel as if they're cutting into her wrist bones.  Her jaw is clenched in an effort to endure; she tips her head back and pedals her feet, swinging slowly on the end of the chain.  As much as she is able, she tries to move her hands within the shackles, letting the iron wedge against the heels of her hands and relieving some of the pressure from the bony parts of her wrists.

It is so sexy to watch.  This beautiful woman, hanging by her wrists in shackles, naked but for those delicate white panties and her silk stockings; stretching her toes towards the floor, kicking her feet about, staring up at the fetters in frustration.

Although she fights to hide it, Wendy is afraid.  She feels the deep, chilling dread of imminent torture.  She knows it will come, and she knows that, as long as she hangs there, she will be helpless to it.  It is that fear of the inevitable that drives her to escape.  She tries to see behind her, tries to reach her feet out for anything that might give her an opportunity, but of course, there is nothing.

Finally, after hanging for half an hour, she clenches her teeth and tries to pull herself up.  Her fingers close into fists, the muscles in her slender arms tighten and clench as she draws herself up.  All those hours in the gym getting into honeymoon shape seem to have paid off; shaking with effort, she raises herself until her eyes are level with the shackles.  It is then she sees that they are locked by a catch that requires the insertion of a screwdriver-like key.  She cannot open them.

So she looks upwards.  The chain from which she hangs stretches another six feet above her, through the ring in the ceiling, then down to the winch some fifteen feet distant.  Probably she knew all along that it was an inescapable restraint, but desperation drove her to try anyway.

Her strength hasn't failed yet.  The muscles in her arms are bunched and hard as she holds herself up, and now I see the feminine definition of her belly as she brings her knees up to her breasts.  She is attempting, in some pseudo-gymnastic manoeuvre, to get her stocking-clad feet up to the shackles and relieve the strain on her wrists and arms.

I watch in fascination.  Wendy struggles for several minutes, trying to kick her legs high enough, desperate to achieve any small victory; but as simple as it is, her restraint is inescapable.  With a final wail of misery, she accepts defeat, and drops clumsily back into a full hang, swinging on the end of the chain.  Once again her perfect body dangles slender and long, her skin now gleaming with a light sheen of sweat. 

But for Wendy, the fight is far from over.  I can see from the definition in her arms that she still isn't ready to surrender to her suspension.  She is hanging, and by now she realises that she can't escape that; but for now, she is still holding her body's weight with her muscles.

Less than an hour after being hung in chains, her muscles will be burning with fatigue, that same deep hurt that comes with doing too many repetitions on the pull-down machine in the gym.  I can see it in her expression, and by the gathering sweat on her body.  What was a feminine glow is now a cluster of droplets all over her bare skin.  The torch light of the torture chamber flashes off the liquid polish of her body, catches the slow drips that fall from her down-turned face.  It is the fiercest workout of her life, and it isn't going to stop just because she reaches the point of exhaustion.

Still, she fights.  For another hour she hangs, struggling to absorb the strain of suspension.  Her white panties are translucent with the sweat that has run down the groove of her navel, and now I can see the narrow shaved strip of her pubic hair.  Her stockings cling to her long legs.

I continue with my work, watching the monitor from time to time, and after two hours, the strength of Wendy's toned arms has finally been drained.  The limpness spreads through her body and she dangles unresisting; but her suffering has only just begun.  Her body's weight is held now by her ligaments alone; it is a bone-deep, gnawing, burning, unrelenting pain.  And there isn't a thing she can do about it.

The torture has begun, so I switch off the monitor.

Five hours later, when I turn it on again to check on her, it's as if there is a still-photo on the screen, rather than a live feed.  Only the flickering of a torch in the background of the image shows that it's actual footage.  Wendy's gleaming body hangs motionless, golden and half-naked in the torture chamber, her head almost resting on her chest, her hands curled into useless claws above the manacles.  It is only when I zoom in and catch the rapid shifting of her chest that I know she is still conscious, still in pain.

Her shoulder and elbow joints will, by now, be in agony.  The pain will feel fiery-hot, all the way along her arms, down into her ribcage.  Her wrists, too, will be burning from the manacles' grip.  And it gets worse and worse as the day crawls towards night; the more tired she gets, the worse the pain will seem.  Every minute is a lifetime to endure, a nightmare of pain and fear.

It will be no consolation to her that, in her suspenders and stockings, she looks utterly sexy as she hangs there suffering.

 

The Witchseeker General and the Chief Interrogator are among the delegation that assembles outside the torture chamber in the morning.  The guards, Austin, Steve, and a scribe are also present.  Word has quickly got around that the accused witch hanging in chains in the chamber is quite beautiful; although, of course, that is not the reason for the presence of my superiors.

"You have been remiss in your duties," Oberon had told me earlier.  "You are meant to present accused witches for inspection before putting them to the question."

So I have invited them to be present.  Austin unlocks the heavy door to the torture chamber and allows us in; I lead the procession across the floor to where our prisoner still dangles, after some fifteen hours.

Wendy is still beautiful, hanging from the manacles; her body shines as if with coconut oil.  The flowers are still in her hair, and the suspender-and-stockings set seem as virgin-white and pristine as when she came in.  The panties, though, have become transparent with sweat and cling to her hips.  She is so exhausted from her night of suffering that she fails to react as we gather in front of her.

"Bring her down," I tell Austin.

He lumbers to the winch and cranks it down a little.  Now, Wendy shows signs of awareness, her head lifting.  Her eyes look glazed with fatigue, but realising that she is finally being lowered, she reaches her stockinged toes for the floor; when she touches it, she gives a soft gasp of pain as the strained joints of her shoulders and elbows are relieved of her bodyweight.

Austin stops the crank with Wendy's heels an inch off the floor, so that she is forced to stand on the balls of her feet.  Her head rocks forward, but then, slowly, rises, her eyes filled with pain and defiance.

"You bastards," she manages to say.

"Strip the little upstart," Oberon says.

This task is mine.  Ignoring Wendy's ongoing curses, I release the snaps of her stockings, one at a time, then draw the sheer fabric of her left stocking down over her equally-silky thigh, then all the way off.  I do the same with the right, baring her long and tanned legs.  Wendy damns me to Hell, but exhausted and half-suspended as she is, she can offer no real resistance.

Oberon clears his throat and clasps his hands in front of him.

Next I hook my thumbs over the hip-strings of Wendy's damp panties and draw them down her legs, revealing the tidy narrow strip of her pubic hair, the tight orbs of her naked buttocks.  Finally, the suspender belt, and she stands stretched on tiptoes before the delegation, stark naked.

"She is ready," I announce.

"Oh, shit, here we go," Wendy moans.

They swarm over her, and Wendy's distress is apparent as she curses and struggles under the hands that grasp and prod.  Their faces are  close to her golden curves, their breath on her bare skin.  Several times a blemish is noted, and reported to the scribe.  Fingers probe between her thighs, separate her buttocks.  Not an inch of her body is missed, and the examiners are finally satisfied.  Wendy half-hangs humiliated.

"Very, er ... very good," Oberon says, his face flushed, evidently from his devotion to the task.

Tina is more cool, but her eyes flash venom that any woman could be this perfect.  "This witch should be interrogated thoroughly," she says.  "Whip her!  Then use the pear on her, and the breast-ripper!  And hot irons on her flesh!"

"No!" shouts Wendy.

"Woah, hang on," says Oberon.

"Maybe that's too much," Steve suggests.

"Aw crap," says a guard.

"I would prefer not to mar her body unnecessarily," I say, to be diplomatic.  "Once she is a confessed witch, she may be tortured for information with impunity, but until then, we must consider her future welfare."

Wendy inserts hastily, "for God's sake, I'm not a witch!"

I ignore her.  "May I suggest we christen a device I have recently had constructed?"

"By all means," Oberon says, in some relief.

"Please," Wendy tries.  "Please, you don't have to torture me, I am innocent, I've told you, I'm not a witch!"

"It is expected that you will deny being a witch," I say calmly, as the guards unfasten her bruised wrists from the shackles above her head, "until pain prevents you from uttering any more lies."

With arms pinioned again behind her, protesting still, Wendy is wrenched across the torture chamber in my wake; followed by Oberon and Tina.  When her eyes fall upon the device on which she is to suffer, what little strength remains in her knees is drained, and she sags in the guards' grip.

"Oh, shit," she groans.

It is called a chair, but bears only a passing resemblance to one.

The focal point of this 'chair' is a vertical spike.  Iron, twelve inches tall and five inches diameter at its base.  A toothed iron rail forms the 'back' of the chair, mounted on which is a narrow carriage, fitted with manacles for wrists and elbows and a leather strap for the torso, with a hand-crank so the torturer may raise or lower it a fraction of an inch at a time.

There are other features; a chute beneath the 'seat' of the chair leading to an insulated firebox, and an adjustable series of vents in the seat itself, to channel hot air.  But these intricacies are lost on Wendy, whose eyes are fixed only upon the terrible spike.

"My God, you're all sick!" she erupts.

"It is only through pain that the Truth will emerge," I tell her.  "Guards, secure her for questioning."

"You fucking perverts!  Let me go!"

Screaming and struggling, Wendy is wrestled to the chair and forced to straddle it.  The deadly spike stands between her spread legs, its tip barely two inches below her anus.  She gives a long wail of dread as her arms are pulled behind her, forced into the manacles of the raised carriage at the back of the chair.  Elbows, first; squeezed cruelly together behind her, barely four inches apart and restricting her ability to struggle.  The strain is evident in the tension of her pectoral muscles, the definition of her triceps; but more distracting is the way her ribcage and breasts are thrust up-and-out.  Her wrists are snapped into the lower two manacles, pressing her spine against the adjustable carriage.

The leather strap, also anchored on the carriage, is passed around her lower ribcage - securing her torso as Austin pulls it tight.  Her feet are forced into the ankle manacles, low on either side of the chair's base, spreading her thighs.  It takes her off balance, putting most of her weight on her arms, and I can see panic on her face at the realisation of how helpless she is.

Steve gives the bindings a final check, then signals the all clear, and the guards step back.

Wendy looks magnificent.  Her naked body straddling the chair, the spike poised below her, her arms cinched tightly together behind her.  Her thrusting breasts are heaving with fearful breath, her nipples standing in defiance of the chill air, while a cold sweat creeps over her exposed body.

"You should be proud, Wendy," I say.  "You will be the first to suffer upon this delight of persuasion!"

"You don't have to do this," Wendy gasps, a last-ditch effort to save herself. 

"Yes, we do," I reply.

"You're all out of your minds!  If I confess, you'll burn me alive at the stake!"

"Of course we will," I reply.

"But ... what kind of choice is that?"  She looks up at me in growing despair.

"When the pain has torn away your ability to think, there won't be a choice.  There will only be Truth," I tell her.

Tina and Oberon nod in sage approval, and Wendy gives a sob of misery.

I move behind the chair.  The crank of its carriage, to either side of which Wendy's elbows and wrists are manacled, is fitted with a wooden handle, and I close my hand around it.  With my heart pounding in anticipation,  I give it the first turn.

Smoothly, slowly, the carriage descends the first quarter-inch, and Wendy is lowered fractionally towards the spike.  It takes her by surprise, and she gives a shriek, struggling to raise her hips; but the nature of her restraint affords her little movement.  I turn the crank again, forcing Wendy lower still, until the iron tip of the spike is poised in the gully between her buttocks.

            "You fucking psycho, let me go!" Wendy spits at me.  But I turn the handle again, the carriage impels her lower still, and the spike's inquisitive point nudges Wendy's clenched asshole.  The horror of its touch brings a new wail from her, and I can see she is struggling to get free, but to no avail.  Another turn, and she is lowered a little further, the cold iron penetrating her anus by a quarter inch.

            "Oh God, you'll rot in Hell for this!" Wendy shouts.

            "Me?  You're the one who'll burn," I respond, and punish her with several more turns of the handle.  Wendy sinks a whole inch down onto the spike, the iron spreading her sphincter and probing deeper inside her.

            "Okay!  Stop!"  She twists her head to try and see over her shoulder.  "For God's sake let me up, I don't deserve this!"

            "Tell us the Truth," I insist.

            "The truth is I'm not a witch!  I'm not, I'm not, I swear!"

            So I crank the handle and the spike drives another half inch into Wendy's rectum.  She gives a grunt as her internal muscles flex and spasm around the intrusion in a reflexive action, but she cannot eject it, and I give another half inch to make that fact clear.  Wendy gives a shout of pain, followed by another obscenity; her sphincter is spread an inch already, uncomfortable but technically not pain.  She can feel the iron tip more than two inches inside her, and we have barely started.

"Confess that you are a witch," I urge.

            "If I confess, you'll just hurt me more!"

            "Yes, but this will stop," I say, as I turn the handle.  The carriage descends on its track, forcing Wendy further down the spike, and she gives another groan.  Sweat is shining between her perfect breasts.  With her arms so savagely twisted into the manacles behind her, every muscle strains.

            I crank her down two more notches, and she gives another moan as she is further violated by the unforgiving iron, three inches inside her  It is not merely the physical aspect that causes her such distress, but the utter humiliation of suffering on such a device.  Her audience watches, enthralled at her pain, entertained and aroused by the chair's slow violation of its beautiful victim.

            I give her four slow notches: with each click, the carriage descends minutely, forcing her down.  The ever-widening circumference of the spike slides into her rectum, stretching her sphincter, and the pain is growing incrementally.

            From behind, Wendy is quite a sight.  Her tanned and slender arms manacled together to the chair's carriage unit; her shoulder-blades jutting and pushed together.  I can see the flare of her hips, and below her, the spike, its upper end disappearing up between her buttocks.  Sweat is gathering in droplets across her naked back.

            Click.  Her head rocks forward.  "Oh, God, please stop!"

            "Confess that you are a witch!"

            "No!  I won't lie!  Fuck you!"

            Click, click; the hard iron drives another half inch into her asshole, and this time she gives a moan of pain.  Her internal muscles are cramping and spasming urgently, and the chair is beginning to deliver its potential.  The veins on Wendy's neck stand out in her efforts to endure; she is breathing fast.

            Click.  Her body shifts further down the spike and she gives a shriek.

            "For God's sake, stop!!"

            Click.  Four inches inside her, and she cries out again.  Her anus has been spread nearly two inches, and it must hurt.  The tears begin to spill from her eyes.  "Please," she calls out.

            But I cannot let compassion influence me.  Pain in the extreme is the only way to cut through the lies a witch tells to save her flesh; and Wendy is not even close to suffering the way she eventually must.  I give her body time to adjust to the latest intrusion of the spike, then, firmly, turn the handle again; click, click.

            Wendy is forced another half inch down onto the impaling spike; its tip probes deep inside her bowels while its circumference forces her anus wider, and she gives a cry of pain.  "Oh, God, stop now!  Stop!"

            But this is nothing.  Inserting the pear would hurt more. I give her another two notches, and the carriage wrenches her down, the spike penetrating deeper into her ass, five inches now.  She wails with pain and humiliation.

            Oberon and Austin are discussing how well the chair appears to be working; Tina comes and stands beside me, with gentle fingers clearing a loose strand of hair from Wendy's pain-flushed face, collecting droplets of sweat from the witch's tanned shoulder.

            "Why not just crank her all the way down, right now?" Tina asks me, and her eyes, meeting mine, have a mischievous gleam.  "That would get a reaction!"

            "Too fast, and she'll tear," I reply, and find the next notch.  Wendy's body is shoved down onto the spike, and she barks in pain, her head rolling.  "It has to be done slowly, so her body has time to accommodate it."  Click. 

            "No-o-o-o!" Wendy wails.

            "She'd confess," Tina tells me confidently.

            "She might not - and if not, she must be allowed to go free without life-threatening injuries."

            Click.

            Wendy shrieks again, and now I can hear an edge of true pain entering her voice, not just the shouts of discomfort and dismay.  The sweat is rolling off her body.  I savour the next turn of the handle - click - as six inches of iron are buried up inside her ass, her tender asshole spread two and a half inches.

            She is halfway.

            Click, click; as Wendy is impaled further, the pain grows and spreads.

            "No!  No, I can't take it!" she howls.

            It doesn't deter me: I give her another notch, and the iron slides another quarter inch into Wendy's rectum.  She screams again.

Like the rack, or the pear, or the boots, my chair delivers incrementally-greater pain, letting the prisoner suffer mental anguish as well as physical as the torture worsens.  Wendy cries out endlessly in pain and horror as, over the next twenty minutes, I slowly give the handle turn after painful turn.

An hour after first being manacled to the chair, she has eight inches of iron spike impaling her.  It fills not just her rectum, but the tip of the spike has begun to probe and distend her colon.  It is an invasive, terrible pain.  Her anus has been stretched around its circumference, spread by three-and-a-half inches.

            But she is only two-thirds down, and the remaining inches are going to hurt more than anything she has experienced in her life.  As the next notch pushes her another quarter inch down onto the spike, she gives a scream of pain.  The sweat is a gloss over her naked body; her muscles are hard with her body's efforts to cope, her thighs quivering as she tries unsuccessfully to brace her slow descent.  Her pelvic floor muscles are convulsing and pushing to try and eject the iron intruder, but it only adds to her pain.

            Another notch, and Wendy's mouth opens wide; she screams in pain.  The spike brings agony; it stretches, distends, twists and distorts her internal organs, causing exquisite agonies.  But it will not permanently injure her.

            Click.  Wendy's scream echoes from the stone ceiling.  "Please sto-o-o-op!"

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

            Wendy gives a howl of misery.  "You'll burn me at the stake!" she squeals.  "How can I confess?  Oh please, please, stop torturing me!"

            She is still capable of rational thought; the Truth is not yet laid bare.  So I crank the handle again, and, with a creaking sound, Wendy's ass sinks further onto the spike.  She gives a long scream of pain, and I watch a rivulet of sweat slide down the groove of her spine.  Her shoulders are shaking with her pain-wracked sobs.

            Nine inches.

            The mirth and entertained smiles of earlier have gone from my audience, now.  They know that this has entered the realms of true torture.  Even Tina, earlier dubious of the chair's ability to bring swift results, is looking impressed.  Wendy suffers beautifully, and as the next notch pushes her further down the spike, she gives a contralto scream of pain, her head back, her mouth wide.

            Click.  Where the spike disappears into her anus, it is four inches across.  Wendy's sphincter is dilated grotesquely, her rectum stretched, the pain driving deeply into her abdomen with the huge intrusion of the spike.  Click.  Wendy's screams are long and loud, her sweat-wet breasts and ribcage heaving with her anguished breaths.

            It has reached the point where each notch of descent onto the spike brings significantly greater pain, and when I turn the handle again, after giving her organs another five minutes to adjust, Wendy screams anew.  Already her voice is becoming hoarse; but fatigue is to the torturer's advantage; it heightens the prisoner's perception of pain.

            Click.  More than ten inches.  Gradually, leaving ever-longer periods of adjustment, I lower the carriage on its rail, impelling Wendy, by her pinioned arms, further down onto the iron spike.

            As the eleventh inch of iron disappears into her agonised rectum, Wendy shakes her head over and over.  Her voice is weak, now; the sweat drips from her lowered face, streaks her naked body.  She is shaking.

            Click.  Wendy bellows, but even the slight motion of her diaphragm is creating fresh agonies through her distended colon, and she tries with all of her strength to stifle her own cries.  But when the carriage forces her another quarter inch down onto the spike, and her buttocks finally kiss the iron seat of the chair, she cannot help but scream once more.

            Click.  Wendy's body spasms violently as the agony of the shifting spike racks her organs, but her head is lolling, and her scream trails out to a long groan.  She coughs, wails with the agony it brings, and then vomits up a small trickle of liquid; it spills down her defined belly.

            Click.  Just when we thought there was no suffering left, Wendy finds voice to scream as she is pushed down onto the spike again.  Her anus is stretched five inches; the iron spike buried twelve inches inside her.  It has taken an hour and a half, but finally she is all the way down.  Releasing the handle, I step around to regard my victim.

            Wendy is panting.  Her head is lowered, her mouth open, her eyes wide in disbelief at the pain that fills her lower body, sweat dripping steadily from her face.  If there is blood, it is minimal; none seeps from below her.  Her breaths come in shallow, panting gasps, the pain preventing her from anything more.

            "Say that you are a witch," I demand.

            Wendy manages a groan, then slowly shakes her head.

            She believes that she has endured the worst that can be inflicted upon her by the chair.  In truth, she has simply been prepared for the real torture.

I look to the guards.  "Anvil.  Rope.  Tar.  A pail of water.  A woollen blanket.  And a lit candle," I say.  As the three men go, I mouth to my remaining audience the words, ten minutes.  Wendy's confession is close.  Drawing near her gleaming body, I grasp her bundled hair, still adorned with flowers, and lift her head.  Her face is running with sweat; her eyes, heavy-lidded and barely focusing, fight to fix on my face.

"It is time for the Truth, now, Wendy," I say quietly.  "Nothing else matters."

"Please," she gasps.  "Oh, God … it hurts …"

The guards bring the heavy anvil, sixty pounds of solid iron; along with the other items.  It is placed alongside the chair, and I carefully release the shackle around Wendy's right ankle.  "Hold her for me."

Pain from the spike draws another wail from Wendy, and she is all but oblivious as the guards place her heel on the anvil.  With the dark, oiled rope, I bind her ankle and lash it to the iron, her leg sticking straight out from the chair, her foot vertical.

Her toes are perfect, even sexy.  Delicate and slender, each nail painted with an opaque white varnish, sculptured and buffed into shape.  Not a single imperfection.

For all the diabolical and sophisticated devices at my disposal, there is still a place for the most rudimentary methods of persuasion.  I have been given a tub of tar, and a small brush; carefully, I daub some of the thick, black ooze over Wendy's smallest toe.  Her foot twitches and shifts at the brush's touch, so I hold it steady with my hand, casually continuing.

Another spasm wracks her impaled bowels, and Wendy gives an unprompted cry of agony. 

I thickly coat each toe with tar; taking care to cover the pad, to brush it in between the toes, over the knuckles and nails.  Wendy knows that something is happening to her foot, but she is dazed by the unceasing agony of the spike.  Even so, I am careful to explain to her what will follow.

"I'm going to set light to your toes, now, Wendy.  The tar will make sure each one burns to the bone.  But before they have all burned, you will confess."

At this new, awful threat, Wendy finds a fevered lucidity, lifting her head to look in anguish at her trapped foot, her tar-coated toes.  "Goddamn you," she sobs.  "I swear, I'll get you for this!"

I extend my hand for the candle; the guard hands it to me, and I carefully shield the flame, my eyes drawn to its steady, bright teardrop-shape.  Then, grasping Wendy's foot again, I lower the flame to Wendy's smallest toe.

"No!" Wendy shrieks in horror and panic.  "No!  No!!"

The bright candle-flame embraces her tar-covered toe, licking intimately.  The tar smokes, then lazily catches alight with a fluttering flame.  I release Wendy's foot, and at once she is rocking it from side to side, but the tar is alight, and flames quickly spread from her smallest toe to the next, black smoke ribboning up into the air.

The pain hits.

Wendy jolts violently, wrenching herself on the spike as the pain explodes up from her foot.  She screams.  The bird-flap flutter of growing flames is quickly joined by the hissing and crackling of her flesh burning.  Another toe, then another; then all are alight.  Wendy shrieks and screeches in agony, her struggles rattling the carriage to which her elbows and wrists are fettered; she twists her body on the impaling anal spike; her leg shudders and jerks as she tries to pull away, but she is helpless.

The flames jump six inches into the air from her immolated toes, and Wendy screams and screams in agony.  She can not speak, nor think, she can only thrash about, skewered on the hideous spike, all but dislocating her own arms in her efforts to escape the pain.  Smoke and flames twirl up from her burning foot.

And then, from her shrieks, words barely-formed: "I confess, I confess, I confess, I confess, oh Jesus, I confess ..."

"You confess that you're a witch?" I cry.

"I am!  I confess!  I am, I am!" she howls, over and over as her toes burn brightly.

It is what we needed to hear.  I quickly drape the woollen blanket over her foot, smothering the flames, but Wendy still howls and shrieks as the hot tar cooks to the very marrow of her toes, an unfathomable pain.  I pick up the wooden pail of water, and pour it over the blanket.  There is the deep muted hiss of the hot tar being extinguished.

When I lift the blanket again, a puff of steam rises up.  Wendy's two smallest toes seem to have melted away, the others are curled and gnarled, the tar burnt into her flesh.  Her chest shudders in great, whooping breaths; her shining breasts jiggle, the tears streak her face.

"Her confession is enough, for now," I say to the scribe, but then I look to Steve.  "Bring a brazier and place it behind her.  Heat enough coals for our purposes.  We will return in a few hours."

Steve nods.

 

            The chair has been christened, but not fully tested yet.  This fact is to be much to Wendy's misfortune.

            Two guards still stand watch over Wendy as I make my return, accompanied by the usual observers, as well as Austin, and Steve.

            The confessed witch has been secured on the chair for hours.  Her bowels have been distended to accommodate the huge intrusion, and cramps spear through her constantly, drawing groans, her head turning in endless anguish.  Her burned toes, too, must be a source of almost unbearable pain.  Fixed naked on the chair, her body gleaming, even the flowers in her blonde hair seem to have wilted from the torture.  Her arms, cruelly twisted and pulled together behind her back, must hurt almost as badly as in strappado; but the way the restraint lifts her ribcage and presents her pouting, rosy-nippled breasts still draws longing looks from the men.  Her ankle has been returned to its shackle at the base of the chair, her deformed foot  curled to guard her ruined toes from knocks or touches.

            Three yards away, a brazier has been filled with hot-burning coals, the air shimmering above them.  A fresh pail of water stands beside the chair.

            "Wendy, we  need to talk again," I say.

            Wendy is too exhausted to show much fear, but her eyes flutter open and she looks at me as I draw near.  "We need you to reaffirm your confession that you are a witch."

            She nods.

            "You confirm it is true?"

            "I'm a witch, I admit it," Wendy says weakly.  "Please, just let me up …"

            "That's the problem, Wendy," I say.  "We know that witches don't learn their craft without help.  We know that you'll have friends, other witches, people you know.  Before we let you find your release at the stake, we want you to tell us everything you know."

Wendy looks bewildered through her pain.  "But I don't know anything like that!"

"It's my job to help you remember," I say.  To Steve; "will you kindly stoke the coals and make them ready?"

"Oh, God, no," Wendy pleads.  She is desperate.  "I have confessed, damn you!  Just get on with it, just let me die!"

"And take all your secrets with you?  I don't think so!" I respond.  "But perhaps you can remember, now, some details which may save you a lot of suffering?"

The tears begin to spill.  "I swear, I don't know!  You're all fucking monsters!  Tell me what I have to say, I'll say it, just tell me!"

"It doesn't work that way," I say.

I move to Wendy's side, aware that Tina has joined me, eager to watch this next stage of the torture.

At the back of the chair, from its base, is a chute of sorts; it provides access and ventilation to a firebox beneath the spike.  While Wendy strains to see what is happening, I give the nod to Steve, who, wearing heavy industrial gloves, scoops from the brazier a shovel full of glowing and flaming coals.  Embers and sparks drift brightly to the floor, grey smoke trails his approach.

I bend close to Wendy's ear, near enough so that I can see the drops of perspiration that crawl down the side of her face.  I put my hand gently to her upper chest, and feel the rapid knocking of her terrified heart through her clammy-hot skin.  "Soon, you will feel pain unlike anything you have experienced yet."

I am so close to Wendy that I actually see the tiny blonde hairs on the bare nape of her neck rise at my words, and a moment later, Steve pours the coals into the chute, filling the firebox beneath her.  She erupts into tears.  Not just weeping, but bawling, shaking her head, her feisty spirit broken.  I step back, and watch.

There is a glow from the firebox chute.  The coals, piled against the foundations of the spike, are starting to heat the iron.  That heat will travel all the way up, warming the metal inside Wendy's bowels; a truly cruel addition to the torment she already suffers.

For several minutes she sits and sobs, the rest of us wait.

"Please, tell me what you want from me," she tries.

"Details," I say.  "Names.  Places.  Evidence of your guilt."

"Evidence?  Like what?"

"Tell us about your liaisons with Satan," Oberon contributes.

"I don't know anything like that," Wendy moans.  "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, please, I don't know anything!"

She is beginning to squirm, and I realise that the spike is hurting more as its iron grows warmer from the coals.

"Have you fornicated with the Devil?" Austin asks.

"No!" Wendy says, then gives a whimper; the muscles in her arms and belly tense as she endeavours to pull herself off the heating spike.  "Oh God … yes, maybe …"

"Describe what you did," Austin urges.

"Tell us names," I hiss at her.  "Those who deserve to burn!"

Wendy's eyes are open wide, now, the panic showing on her face.  Her fingers are fluttering beyond her wrist manacles.  Her feet are twisting in their shackles.  The spike is getting hot.

"Names?  The names of anyone?" she asks.

"The names of witches," I say.

"I don't know the names of witches!  Oh, God, take me off, please, please, it's burning me now!"

I rest my hand on the crank that holds her in place, but do not turn it.  "Talk to us, Wendy!  Tell us the Truth!"

Wendy's mouth opens, but words do not come.  Instead, she breathes rapidly as the pain builds inside her.  I can smell a singeing, sweet odour, as the sweat between her buttocks evaporates around the iron spike in her anus.

Wendy jolts.  Her head snaps back, then sinks forward.  She gives a shout.  "Oh Jesus, take me off!  Take me off please, I'm begging you!  I can't bear it!  Aaah!!"

I can see the faces of our audience; their eyes shining, hands clasped, as the torture of the chair begins to take hold.  Wendy's struggles become more frantic.  Her rectum is beginning to sear from the heat.  The pain, already bad even before we started, is now beyond her threshold to endure.

She shrieks.  Her shoulders make loud cracking sounds as her back-twisted arms are wrenched agonisingly by her struggles.  Her anus, where it clenches around the spike, is beginning to burn.

Ah, the music of a witch truly screaming.  Now Wendy is drawing breath only to yell dementedly in agony, every exhausted muscle straining to rid herself of the crippling, unbearable pain inside her.  As I see the first signs of smoke curling up from beneath her buttocks, I grasp the crank handle and turn.

The iron carriage to which Wendy's arms are shackled rises, drawing her upwards and off the spike.  Her scream mellows into a shrill wail as the iron seems to slide endlessly out of her ass, steaming.  Her natural internal lubricants allow the spike's smooth exit, and her head rolls to one side at the incredible relief.

"Oh - oh God - oh God …" she squeals, panting hard.  I raise her up until only a few inches of spike are still buried in her rectum, then stop the handle.

"Names, Wendy.  Tell us names.  Confess your fornications with Satan!"

"I confess!" she wails.  "I had sex with Satan, I was his whore!  I did it all to him!  I'm sorry, please, please, I admit it, don't torture me any more!"

"What of other witches?"

"I …"  Wendy doesn't know what to say.  Fear screws her face into an expression of abject suffering as she realises what will  happen, but she does not give an answer.  So I turn the handle, cranking her downwards again.

The spike is driven into her asshole,  hissing and squealing as she is forced further and further down.  Her descent is swift, inch after inch sliding into her, and steam escapes from between her ass cheeks as the hot metal fills her bowels.  Her screams are frantic, maddened with agony, the chair rattling as she thrashes and struggles.  She can only scream, oblivious to everything but pain.

I let it burn her for ten terrible seconds, then turn the handle again, lifting her off the obscene spike.  This time there are unspeakable residues on the iron, proof that she is taking damage from the torture.  Her body is shuddering with her agony, her eyes rolling.  She releases a dribble of urine and it boils and steams in a quickly-evaporating puddle on the iron of the chair beneath her.

"Talk," I command.

Wendy's tanned body is wet with sweat, helplessly held in place by the shackles about her wrists and elbows that cinch her arms behind her back; her raised breasts and ribcage heave desperately.  Every muscle is stark with her pain-maddened struggles.  She sobs and shrieks but gives no information, so I turn the handle again.

Down Wendy goes; the hissing spike is again forced into her ass as she is impelled lower and lower by the cruel chair.  The shrill soprano of her screams fills the torture chamber.  The coal-heated spike explores deep into her colon as she is forced down onto it.  This new impaling is a thousand times worse, as steam is forced up into her lower intestine, bloating it, creating agony more terrible and debilitating than the pear ever could.  The sheer magnitude  of pain forces the air from Wendy's lungs, and she simply gasps at the ceiling, her eyes bulging, her body shaking violently, to the sound of her own intimate parts hissing against hot metal.

Almost at once, I am raising her again.  Her head drops forward, she whoops air and then manages to howl in agony as her ass is lifted off the spike.  Even as the iron slides out of her, I am shouting again:

"Name your sister witches!  Name them!  Name them, or you will have the spike inside you again!"

"Nooooo!" Wendy shrieks in abject horror, and, as I begin to crank her down again onto the spike, and its searing circumference fills her tortured rectum once more, she begins to gibber desperately.  "I know them, I know the names, I just can't remember, I'll give you names, oh God, don't torture me, I'll give you names!"

The spike is part-way inside her ass, and I pause.  The agony must be unbearable, but Wendy, between shrieks and howls, begins spilling out names.  It is a long list, and none of them mean a thing to me, until Tina shouts out -

"Wait!  Did she say Stacy?"

"Witch!"  I shout at Wendy, halting her babbling, "did you say Stacy?"

"Yes!  Stacy!  She is a witch too - aaaahh! - she is, I know it!"

"Stacy Sambilay?" I demand.  That is one name I have encountered, and Wendy could be the lead we have been wanting.

"I …"  Wendy looks confused, turns her face to Tina for prompting, so I crank the handle.  The spike is glowing at its base now, the metal radiating savage heat, and as Wendy is forced down upon it, it rends her insides with a horrible squealing and hissing.  Smoke and steam billow from beneath her as she is impaled again, and she throws her head about and shakes her straining shoulders, sweat droplets flung from her body, her screams shrill and maddened.

The chair fucks Wendy's ass slowly and deeply with its savage, heated spike while she struggles and screams; when I raise her off it again, she finally sags, her head rolling forward.  The heat and shock of her ordeal is taking its toll, and I know she won't last much longer.

"Think, Witch!  Is her last name Sambilay?"

"Yes," Wendy groans.  "Yes, yes, yes … "

I nod.  "Very well."

The torture is over.

I bend to the pail of water by the chair, and tip it in a cascade over Wendy's sweat-wet body.  She gasps at the chill relief, her skin coarse with goosebumps, the water splashing and hissing across the iron below her, taking the edge off its cruel heat.

"Guards, we are done here," I say.  "Take the witch off the chair and return her to her cell.  I will send a physician to tend her."

As Wendy falls into a faint, Oberon, Tina, Austin and Steve nod approval.  I allow myself a wary smile and for the first time realise that my own body is wet with perspiration.  This was as much a test of my own performance, as it was the chair's.  But the accused witch has confessed, and has named another; it is all we need.

 

Execution day. My outfit says don't fuck with me in big, bold letters.

A black leather bustier, lace-up in front, pushing my breasts into pouting, teasing mounds, and leaving my midriff exposed.  And a long black silk sarong-skirt, split on the left so that my whole leg is effectively left naked, giving the lucky few an occasional glimpse of the black leather thong bikini underneath.  High heeled sandals.  It feels dangerously sexy – and, judging by the enthusiastic applause that rises up from the thousand-odd spectators filling the amphitheatre as I climb onto the scaffold, it looks pretty damn good too.

I stand alongside the chopping-block upon the wooden scaffold.  But Wendy will not be granted the mercy of beheading.  It has been made clear already that her execution will be lengthy and agonising.

Not fifty feet away, Steve is arranging the last of the wood and straw around the stake at which Wendy will finally die. Nine feet tall, surrounded with a low scattering of wood bedded on brush and kindling. High on the stake, a single bolt has been fixed, from which dangle two short chains, open manacles at their ends. Those, and only those, will be her restraint for execution. Nearby stands a brazier in which coals lazily burn, and a tar-soaked torch to light her pyre.

Beside me on the torture scaffold, iron implements shimmer in the heat of a brazier.  Its warmth wards off the autumn chill from my bare limbs.

Over at the Chateau, the main doors swing open, and the execution party emerges. My dungeon assistant Zell heads half a dozen guards; in the midst of them is Wendy.  She is stark naked; her wrists are roped tightly behind her back, her head is down and her face is streaked with tears. She hobbles badly, one foot injured by torture, and her more delicate parts scorched and raw from her suffering upon my Chair. At the rear of the group comes Austin, his bear-like form swathed in robes.

Wendy's eyes find the high scaffold quickly, and alight on me.  I see fear on her face for just an instant, before it is replaced by hatred.  She mouths a curse at me, but I simply smile.  She can curse me all she wants; I will be watching her die.

Seeing that Wendy is finally being brought to her execution, the spectators give voice to their excitement; a surge of applause, calls and cheers, shouts of abuse.  Her complicity with the Witchseeker General Oberon has raised her to the status of Villain amongst the members of the Witchseeker group, and all are eager to finally see her face justice.

As the execution party reaches the bottom of the steps, I pick up a cat o'nine tails.  It is heavy; from its stout handle, the yard-long lashes swing, each made of hard, braided leather into which platinum wires have been woven.  Adding to its weight, while letting the lashes move freely.

Wendy struggles as they reach the top of the steps, and her eyes settle first on the whip in my hands, then on the implements heating in the brazier.  Finally, she looks at me, the fear obvious in her eyes.  "Just burn me, you sadistic bitch!" she hisses.

"And deprive everyone of a good show?  I don't think so."  To Zell I order, "secure her for the whip."

The gallows doubles as a whipping-post: the rope dangling from it today is far more slender than a hangman's. Zell unties Wendy's wrists from behind her back.  Her arms are quickly brought in front of her, re-bound, then lifted to the free end of the rope.  It is fastened about her wrist bonds, and two guards loosen the other end of the rope from its iron stay.  They make short work of pulling it through the high metal ring, so that Wendy's arms are wrenched up over her head.  Her face briefly shows pain as the rope bites into her wrist bones, and by her wrists, she is drawn up onto her tiptoes.

Wolf whistles. Shouts. Secured like this is immensely flattering to Wendy's body, drawing her lean and long; her ribcage and breasts are lifted, her belly hollowed, her back gracefully curved to the taut swell of her buttocks, her thighs and calves defined.  From this close, I can see the rapid shifting of her ribcage.  And in the cold air, I can see the goosebumps on her naked body.  With deliberate tenderness, I collect a simple hair-tie from Zell and, standing behind Wendy, secure her blonde hair into a ponytail.

I whisper, "so that it doesn't get in the way of the whip."

With Wendy prepared, I let her half-hang there while I turn to address the crowd, raising my hand for their attention.

"I will not bother to read aloud the official charges against Wendy," I tell them, "since they are widely known.  She is a confessed witch, she conspired with Oberon to burn her innocent cousin, and she has done her best to spread dissent through the group.  Her crimes are many, and today she will be punished for them."

I continue.  "Wendy will be given thirty strokes of the whip, after which her sinning flesh will be purified with red-hot iron, before she is burned alive at the stake."

Wendy must have known what awaited her.  But hearing it, her head drops forward and she releases her breath in a groan of despair.  Her crimson hands close into fists above the binding ropes.

I find my position on the boards behind her, swish the whip in my hand a few times to measure the distance.

"Whip her hard!" I hear from the crowd.

"Flay her alive!"

I throw the first lash.  Whistling, the cat lands hard across Wendy's smooth upper back, and she is thrown forward, giving a shriek of pain.  I give her a few moments; the strike of the lash is an intense, severe, crippling pain that briefly flares and grows worse before it eases.  Then I strike again.  The sound is almost as sharp as the ringing crack of a single-lash; but I know that each of those braided tails brings its own line of hot agony.

Wendy shrieks again, and then comes the sweat.  It is a basic physiological response to intense pain; the heartbeat increases, the adrenaline flows, and sweat appears.  I see it emerge onto Wendy's naked flesh in tiny, clustered dewdrops after only a few strokes of the whip.  The next lash raises a fine spray into the air.

            "Oh God, stop!" Wendy screams in her pain.

I make each stroke count, flinging the lash with all of my strength, in a slow progression from the backs of her shoulders, down her slender back, towards the top of her buttocks.  Each blow of the whip leaves a score of tiny welts, as if her skin has been lightly trailed with a scalpel.

When I have given her ten strokes of the cat, I step back.  Wendy is hanging heavily in the ropes, her head forward, her body gleaming, her ribcage heaving.  Rivulets of blood trail down her back.

Zell is next to take the whip. He bows his head gracefully to me, positions himself behind Wendy, then slices low. The leather braids cut across the back of Wendy's thighs, and she shrieks, picking her feet up off the scaffold and swinging freely on the rope. The crowd gives a cheer of approval.

"Mercy!  Please!" Wendy shrieks. 

But Zell will not be stopped.  He whips Wendy's bare legs; her thighs, her calves, her feet, the lashes curl around her like serpents, leaving welts that encircle her legs.  The pain must be hideous, and Wendy cries and shrieks with each blow.

The second ten lashes are delivered, and Zell hands the whip to Austin. 

Swiftly, Austin casts off the heavy robes, to reveal black executioner's trousers and a bare torso.  A powerful and muscular man.  He swings the lash to test it a few times, then, moving to stand in front of Wendy, aims it for her breasts.  There is a whistling sound as the whip swings, then the sharp impact as the wire-braided leather lands on the firm globes of her breasts; hitting them with such force that they bounce upwards.  Again, then again he lashes her breasts, and Wendy can only scream.

Austin spares a few strokes for Wendy's undefended belly, angling the lash across her naked hips, but it is her breasts that suffer the most, and when he is finished, they are almost cut to ribbons, blood running down her ribcage.

Wendy hangs in the ropes, sobbing in agony, her body bloody and striped from the whipping.

"Bring her down," I order.

The rope is freed from its stay, and Wendy collapses, a sweating, tortured wretch, into the arms of the guards.  They free her wrists from the binding rope, but at once re-tie them behind her back. This time, a rope is also passed about her elbows, wrenching them together into a cruel restraint, preventing her from struggling.  Her whip-scored breasts are forced high and proud on her arched ribcage.

"Lay her on the block!"

Wendy is made to lie on her own bound arms, across the chopping block.  Her head is held back, arching her naked body like a bow, with her breasts uppermost.  Her nipples stand upright in the chill air, in defiance of the cruel whipping Austin gave.  The position is painful, and she can barely breathe; but that is the least of her worries.

I pull on a heavy gauntlet.

"Now," I call to the crowd, "let the iron punish her flesh."

I draw a heavy set of pliers from the brazier.  Their end glows a vicious orange, the very outline of the metal seems to be soft-focus with intense heat.  I can feel its warmth on my bare skin.  I move to the block over which Wendy is bowed, and look down on her heaving, helpless breasts.

"This," I say, "is for your impertinence."

"Oh God, no-o-o!!"

As the pliers close on her left nipple, it seems to explode.  With a loud pop, a burst of steam jets from her nipple.  Then Wendy is screaming, struggling, agonised as smoke rises up from her searing nipple.  I twist the pliers about, corkscrewing her breast for almost a full minute, until the pliers unexpectedly come free.  A black, smoking wound marks where her nipple used to be; the remains of her sensitive flesh smoke as an oily residue on the pliers themselves.

I return them to the brazier and draw out a fresh set of pliers.  Again they shimmer and crackle in the air.

"Kirsten, I beg you!  Don't, please!  Forgive me!" Wendy shrieks as I draw near.  But I am not interested in her false words and pleas, and I crush the pliers onto her right nipple.  The squealing and hissing of her burning flesh is joined by her shrill and agonised screaming, and in half a minute her right nipple is but a charred remnant.

"Reposition her," I say.

I have never heard a woman beg as desperately as Wendy begs now. Turned onto her front, she is bent over the chopping block with her naked ass in the air, her legs held apart. The intimate anatomy of her vulva and anus are presented to the sky, open and vulnerable. 

"Kirsten, don't, oh God, don't do it, don't, please, don't do it …"  On and on.

I draw out, first, the most slender iron.  It glows with heat.  I know Wendy's rectum still suffers the wounds of her time on the Chair; now I will finish its job.

"This," I tell her, "is for your treachery."

"Oh no - no, no, please, no!!" Wendy shrieks.  Her little brown sphincter twitches in dread and anticipation.

I touch the tip of the iron to her hole.  It burns and squeals and Wendy screams; then I plunge the poker deep inside.  Wendy's scream erupts into a long, shattering howl of agony as steam bursts out around the iron, her rectum searing and burning.  Her body thrashes and strains in the grip  of the guards, but she is utterly helpless.  She can only feel the agony, and scream and scream.  The crowd cheers and roars.

When I pull the iron free, it brings the smoking char of her flesh with it.  Even if she were not to be executed, her wounds now would eventually be fatal. 

But it is not over.

Wendy lies there, her body shuddering and heaving air, sobbing, her body so wet with sweat that it looks as if she has been hosed down.  Steam rises from her naked flesh in the cool air. With her elbows roped together and her wrists bound, she cannot struggle, but her fingers are curled into little claws of suffering.

I draw out the thicker, heavier iron.  It shimmers and smokes, orange-hot and savagely crackling.

"This," I announce, "is for your complicity with Oberon."

With the tip of the iron, first, I touch Wendy's clitoris.  She gives terrible shrieks as her most secret place blisters and burns. I lift the iron, then plunge its entire fiery length into her vagina.  The crowd gives a mighty cheer of approval as Wendy bellows in utter agony.  Steam and smoke curl up into the air.

When I tear out the iron, Wendy falls into a half-faint.  Smoke still rises from between her legs, but I order the guards to prepare her for the final stage: her tongue, which formed so many treacherous words, but also gave Oberon pleasure.

On her back again, with her head resting on the chopping block, Wendy is helpless as the guards force her mouth open and hold it for me.  I prepare the final iron.

"This is for all your lying and deceit," I tell her.

Wendy's eyes bulge and she makes incoherent noises.  But I put the red-hot iron inside her mouth and press it down onto her tongue, and she screams and howls around the cloud of steam that billows up from her mouth.  The traitorous witch will speak no more.

I shove the iron back into the brazier.

"Secure her at the stake and let her hang there until dusk," I order.

Wendy is barely conscious as they carry her down from the scaffold and drag her to the tall wooden stake. Even her restraint is unusually cruel: she is lifted up, so that her slim wrists can be enclosed in the shackles, leaving her hanging naked against the wooden post, her toes dangling a foot above the wood-pile. Her head droops onto her chest, her body shining and motionless.

The crowd disperses.  Oberon and Tina are taken quickly back to their cells beneath the Chateau.  I post half a dozen guards to watch over Wendy.

 

I know, as dusk begins to fall and the crowd returns to watch the evening burning, that Wendy will be anticipating death as much as she dreads it.  The pain of the hot irons has not ebbed as the hours crept by, nor that of the lashes on her body.  In moments of near-delirium she may well have imagined herself whole again, free again, with a life still ahead of her.  But the choices she made have instead led her here, to this.

It is cold, and still in my two-piece outfit, I shuffle as close as I dare to the straw and wood scattered below Wendy's dangling feet, hoping for a little warmth once it is lit.  There is no ceremony, no announcement; Steve simply brings a burning torch from the brazier and touches it to points around the circle of tinder.  Fluttering and dipping in the cool breeze, the little flames scatter and spread and climb on their slow, lazy trek towards the gleaming figure that hangs from the tall post.

            The fire grows, clambering up through the dry branches, translucent veils of grey smoke drifting up.  Sparks float up on the warm currents of air, sap pops and crackles. 

              I can barely begin to imagine what Wendy is going through, during these long, long minutes while the fire grows. The humiliation of being hung up by her wrists before a huge crowd, knowing that she is soon to be in unbearable pain, knowing that she is soon to begin dying - and that her death is what the throngs have come to see.

I can see the gleam of nervous sweat amidst the week’s stubble in her underarms. I can see every intimate detail of her terror in the downwards-curl of her mouth, the quivering of her lips as she battles the urge to scream out her misery.  Her eyes search the crowd, a mixture of hatred and pleading; she loathes them all, but she would give anything for one of them to douse the flames whose smoke now spirals and teases around her helpless body.  The growing fire is reflected in her sweat-polished skin.

I feel the warmth as the flames crackle and whoosh ever-higher. Their heat begins to sear Wendy's nude body, and she moans aloud. With a long-handled rake, Steve guides and nurtures the fire, making sure the flames stay low, and it is not until fifteen minutes after the fire was lit that the first little razor tongues lick at Wendy's dangling toes.

She is too weak from her tortures to struggle or lift her legs, but she is not too weak to feel, and as her skin shrinks back, as the oils ignite, she finds her full voice again. The piercing screams of her agony ring out across the amphitheatre, met by cheering and shouts from the crowd.

The fire remains low; her feet and ankles burn slowly while her naked legs blister and sear.  The scant triangle of her pubic hair chars rather than flames, and the sweat steams lazily from her suspended body as the air around her shimmers.

"Burn, Witch!" I hear from the crowd.

"You get what you deserve!" comes another cry.

Wendy still screams out in her agony and misery: despite her suffering, she doesn't want to die.  But she can feel the flesh-tearing horror of fire stealing her life away, minute by agonising minute, and her terror at what waits beyond the gaping maw of death enters her screams.

Steve lets the fire climb a little higher, so that the flames flay and gnaw at her lower legs, her thighs glistening with oils drawn from the skin, her belly and breasts polished.  But even after half an hour, she is not dead.

Her screams ring out as Steve adds fuel. The hungry fire eats at her buttocks, and I wince as the slow-burning flames corkscrew up around her pubic mound. The iron already destroyed her most intimate parts, but now fire eats what remains, agonising tongues that lick into every crease and crevice, tear away her womanhood and pare her to the bone.

Her hands drawn down hard into the now-blackening manacles, Wendy hangs screaming in the fire, insane with agony, her screams broken and harsh. Flames curl and flutter in the small of her back, lick up her shining sides, cauterising the myriad wounds laid open in her flesh by the whip. Her already-tortured breasts are cupped by fire, until they seem to melt.

Still she screams.  Flames are leaping now at her arms, licking and blistering her armpits and curling around her shoulders, and then her hair catches alight.  It is a brilliant flare, as hair burns; Wendy flings her head back and forth, shrieking madly in pain, and I hear the thunk of her skull hitting the stake again and again. The flames char her scalp, and wrap around her naked arms, the steam of vaporising sweat joining the smoke that now coils up from her twisting body.

Her feet are charring deeply; I hear the distinctive pops of bones splitting. Her lower legs, too, have burned to the bone, the natural oils have turned her flesh into a candle that feeds the flames consuming her. I hear the deep cracking sounds of her leg-bones bursting, and she hangs screaming in the midst of the inferno, still throwing her head about, but now completely engulfed.

More than an hour after she first felt the fire, Wendy finally loses her voice to it.  Suspended by her wrists in the inferno, engulfed, devoured. The shimmering wall of flame and smoke obscure her hanging, writhing figure; now only Wendy's fingers can express the utter agony that still enfolds her.  They spread and stretch above the manacles, as if reaching for salvation.

Then there is only the roaring of the flames, the squealing and hissing of burning flesh. Her body is alight, her once-perfect breasts exploding in a gruesome burst of hot fat that scatters some in the crowd, and they jump back with shouts and laughter.

Finally, Wendy's shaking fingers curl over, the flesh reddening as flames finally reach them.  Then there is no more movement, and as the minutes pass, the likelihood grows that the witch has died.

Into the night, the dead witch's body continues to burn, like a slow candle, until, piece by piece, it falls into the ashes and is consumed to nothing.

Justice has been done.