This story is a work of fiction. Do not copy anything in the story.

CHASTENING DAY   Act I:   A BOY’S LUCK, A PRIEST’S CALLING

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Ch 1: A priest, a boy and a village

Pavel couldn't wait for chastening day. After years of imaginings, he was old enough, and fortunate enough, to join in the spring festival. There were so many girls he might be paired with. There were two or three who he had often imagined chastening. Many were astonished at his luck in being chosen at all. But to be chosen as first chastener? Pavel might be stunned to be thus chosen, but his legs went from under him when he heard who he would be chastening. Anja Salidef? Pavel was far from the only boy who had felt the lash of her scathing tongue.

All through the winter, notes had been dropped in the priest's box. Some anonymous, some not. Some vague accusations, some with detail. Many, more than likely, were untrue and had been written out of spite. There were notes from older men and notes from younger men. From bitter women. Sometimes even from the jealous friends of the girls themselves. For all of the accusing notes named the younger women. And most, if not quite all of these young women hoped that reports of their misdeeds would not be too numerous, would not be too heinous, would not be too false.

The girls, named in secret, were judged without defence. The village priest and a small group of elders, all men of course, annually assessed the accusations. A few days before the festival, the box was decanted, and each note was piled neatly next to the printed name of every qualifying village girl on a table in the vestry.

Though all girls included were now of age to be judged as adults, only those still unmarried could be accounted for Chastening Day, for chastening rights over married women fell by tradition to their husbands alone.

Parallel to this judging of the girls of the village of Crothin-Under-Heath was the judging of the boys. They, however, were judged on good deeds, not on bad. Deeds of heroism, of chivalry. Acts of strength and virtue were collected: not for the boys were there tales of misdeeds, not for them reports of spiteful words or questionable actions.

One young man on everyone's lips (though to look at his almost hairless face, one might think him still a boy) as most likely to be counted amongst the chivalrous was Marco Vance. Always courteous, often kind and, when backed into a corner, predictably brave, Marco was liked by fathers, by mothers and by girls of all ages.

Pavel, however, was not much liked at all. Nor so good looking. He had never once figured in the calculations of those who must weigh the good deeds of the youthful men. Until one day, not quite yet a month from the Chastening festival, his luck had changed.

He was walking on his own (for he was barely even popular with other boys and men) when he chanced to hear the cries of a young one. There was a river which chattered through a rocky gorge around the village. Pavel chanced to be trailing through blueberry bushes in the airy wood at the gorge's top.

The cries seemed to be close, so he stepped to the edge of the gorge and tried to see from whence they came. He looked up and down until he located a young boy who had slipped while trying to get a ball, with which he and his friends had been playing, from a fork in a birch tree which leaned out over the river far below.

The birch had proven weak, as its wood grows quickly. And, in the mist from the river, it had rotted, for birches prefer drier conditions.

With a scream from the boy, and panic from his friends, the tree's roots had loosed their moorings and had slipped, with a crack and a jerk, and another crack and another sickening jerk, out over the edge of the gorge. The boy had clung on in terror and was only saved from falling by clinging to the fork which had caught his toy. The ball itself he saw fall to the rocks, to be swept by the river away along the gorge.

The other young boys, in panic, had run to the village to try to find help, leaving their companion clinging desperately to the upside-down limbs of the fallen birch. And this is when Pavel heard his frightened cries.

Pavel had rarely done a brave thing in his life. He was not liked for a reason, for he tended to be sour of disposition, slow to contribute and, when all is told, often mean of heart. He was the kind of young man (but a boy so recently) who would rather stamp on a snail than watch its slow passage. Who would shoot at birds with his home-made catapult in preference to hearing them singing in the branches. Who would kick at a cat as soon as look at it.

But, for once in his life, he was moved to try to do something brave. He lay himself flat on the gorge edge and reached down for the boy. When his arm failed, by some distance, to reach, he looked for a vine or anything else to help him climb down, though he felt fear to do so, for he had never been a climber of trees, let alone rocks, and did not care for heights. Yet he managed to spy a route, a chance, and he climbed most bravely down the sheer face of the gorge, using whatever slim finger and foot holds he could find.

It was then that the running boys returned with their fathers, and with the frightened mother of the fallen boy. And there they found the least expected person in the village engaged in an act of genuine goodness.

With a little help from one of the fathers, who had thought to bring rope (of which there was plenty in the village, for the making of hempen ropes was one of the trades by which Crothin made its way in the world) Pavel managed to thread a noose under the shoulders of the boy, and knot it true, till the fathers were able to pull the small one up to safety. Then the grateful mother, when Pavel, with help and guidance, had emerged from the gorge, showered him with thanks and praise and kisses till the swarthy, awkward Pavel knew not where to look.

This one act of bravery was so spoken of, and had occurred so fortuitously close to the choosing time, that Pavel was leapfrogged over many a worthier boy to be installed, not just as one of the three chosen chasteners, but as First Chastener for the next month's spring festival.

He had, as had many young men, often fantasised about the Chastening, for talk of it pervaded the village for weeks beforehand. Who would not want to be allowed to strip, to spank on her bare bottom and to humble a pretty girl? (For, due to what some might say was the unfair way that the girls were chosen, it was often the prettiest, and on occasion the most arrogant, who were chosen.) But few boys ever got to actually participate. Those that did told stories, however, stories that, on occasion, grew with the telling, so that the young men who got, by their virtues, to participate, often had unrealistic expectations of the humblings that they would be asked to conduct.

Chastening Day, nonetheless, featured powerfully in the minds of both males and females of the village, and indeed of the surrounding region (for Crothin was not alone in its superstitions) to the point where it had, across the generations, set up a resonance between punishment and youthful thoughts of sex. At the Chastening festival, one could, if one proved extremely lucky, lay one's hands upon a girl who one might never in a lifetime get another chance to touch. In some inflated stories, these prettiest of girls were tied up. In others, it was even their breasts which were tied, and the girls led along by one chastener while a second whipped their backsides with willow or birch. Some tales had more than just juicy girls' arses being whipped. It all depended, so the common knowledge went, upon the priest who presided in the village at the time.

For it was the village priest whose job it was to supervised the chastenings. And Crothin's priest had recently changed.

It was to be their new priest's second year of supervising. And in his first, so the stories went, he had proven more liberal in his reading of the rules than had his predecessor of fifteen solid years. He had, it was said (though he’d been in the parish for a few short months) allowed partial stripping of the girls by Chasteners. He had let the boys bend the girls over, with their legs akimbo to boot. Some said, in hushed tones, that he had sanctioned a brief spanking to one girl’s breasts.

Encouraged them, that was the tale. He had prompted the chasteners to humiliate the girls. And the elders had chosen to accede to his direction. For obedience to the clergy was strong in Crothin.

What they did not know was that their new priest had lobbied his bishop hard for his appointment to the parish. Father Dominic had been a secretary under Bishop Fernandino, an organiser, a man who knew the inner workings of the church most intimately. He was party, as secretary, to knowledge of occasional shocking stories of misbehaving priests.

As secretary, he had access to accounts of the rituals which each local parish might host throughout the year. He knew, particularly, of the specific rituals of this backward heathy region. And he knew that, while these rituals might not be condoned by the Bishopric, they were, at the least, tolerated.

He had found, studied, and avidly researched tales of the rituals of this region. Some reports were recent, many were more distant, for the archives of the church went deep into time. There were tales of events that should not have been allowed. But, when reported to the Bishopric, so many had been simply filed away, swept under the carpet by a Diocese and Papacy averse to controversy.

This secretary-priest knew his bishop well. The man was a prime example of a sweeper-under-carpets. Some of the things hushed up by his bishop had shocked even the scandal-seeking Dominic. And Dominic was not a man who reckoned himself easily shocked. For he had come into the Church for entirely wrong reasons.

Being clever, and obviously so, he had found few impediments to his rising through the ranks. And, being quick in his understanding of others, he had been able to disguise his own intentions well, and cover the tracks of his past indiscretions, and always conduct his research under disguise of legitimate work.

Till at last he found a posting where he wished to work as a parish priest (for such was the only job that would place him in situ). And, due to his speedy progress through the ranks of the Church, he also found himself in an enviable position to manage that appointment.

Having chosen his path, he set about persuading his Bishop that his Lord now called him to minister to flesh and blood, rather than to ledgers in a library. And, though Dominic’s Bishop at first resisted, he had finally relented.

“But if you must needs travel,” the Bishop said, “then Dominic, be my emissary to Rome.”

But the secretary countered. “Most flattered though I am, my Lord calls me to minister to a humbler flock.”

“Then I will move you to the City,” said the Bishop.

“Your Grace,” said Dominic, “my Lord, I am clear, calls me to a simpler future. That future must be away from the rush and clamour of towns. It should be the post of humble parish for a man who is called to be humble himself.”

“Then I know of one nearby,” said the Bishop, “where I can still call upon you if your services are needed.”

“Your Grace,” said Dominic, “I would rather go to a place where I can not be called away.”

“Where, then?” asked the Bishop.

“Somewhere most distant,” said Dominic. “Somewhere where I may minister to the commonest of common people. Somewhere where the guidance of Rome, and of your own good grace, are not near enough felt.”

“Where then?” asked the Bishop.

“Crothin Heath,” said Dominic. “I have looked at the maps and have prayed to my Lord. He has found me somewhere obscure indeed. Crothin Heath,” Dominic argued, “has three slow and feeble priests who no longer have the energy for the job. Crothin-Under-Heath itself has a priest who, though he has been steady, is now ripe for retirement to a less stressful life. To a monastery, perhaps.”

And, when the Bishop at last relented to this strange request, in Dominic's hands, retired he soon was.

“But really, Dominic,” his bishop said on his final day, “why you wish to go amongst these peasants is quite beyond me. I have looked, since your insistent request there to be posted. They are fools thereabouts, with foolish beliefs.”

“Are not even fools the subjects of our Lord? Blessed are the meek. No lamb shall be overlooked.”

“Yes. Well. But when things get too dull for words, don't expect to come running to me for help. You can fend for yourself out there, man. You want this place, you must live in it and live amongst its foolish peasants. You hear me, Dominic? Short of a scruffy hand-drawn Christmas card arriving from it once a year, it's a place that, till you lobbied me to move there, I barely recalled existing. I believe, in fact, that I personally appointed your predecessor when first I came to the Diocese. The place caused me early trouble and, as I recall, took up precious time which I needed for letters to Rome and the the Arch Diocese. The folk of Crothin Heath are fools, as I said, with delusional beliefs! But, Dominic, should those fools get out of hand once more… on your head be it! For I would rather not know!”

But Dominic already knew, or hoped that he knew, what might get out of hand. Chastening Day. That was the belief which had the Bishop call them fools. It was Chastening Day which called Dominic to minister to this obscure and distant place. For Pavel and his fellows were not the only ones to fantasise about pretty young women being stripped and chastised.

For it was his resentment and, ultimately, his fear of women that had led Dominic into a celibate life. And yet, this was far from natural for him. For deprived of hope of nature’s normal intimacy, women manifested ever greater in his mind. He pictured them at night when his work was fulfilled, in the mornings over breakfast, and even on his necessary walks through the rambling bishop’s palace.

He never thought to picture the ordinary congress of ordinary couples. When Dominic knelt in his favoured aisle box pew (which Fernandino imagined he had chosen as a token of his humility) in silent meditation (which his Bishop felt essential for effective prayer) Dominic projected visions before him. In them, humility was reserved not for himself but for girls and women kneeling, heads bowed, before the communion rail with their skirts down at their knees. Or held bent over the gilded alter, paying proper penal penance for sinful urges offered up in confession.

The page had but to turn at the lectern for a new illustration to stir in his mind. For in the book of Dominic’s imaginings, strippings and floggings were but the frontispiece. Deeper in the tome moved pictures and descriptions of scenes most varied.

The most febrile spot in Fernandino’s rambling diocese, the likeliest to let Dominic’s hand scribe this, his imagined book, was obscure and distant Crothin-under-Heath.

This story is a work of fiction. Do not copy anything in the story.

CHASTENING DAY   Act I:   A BOY’S LUCK, A PRIEST’S CALLING

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Ch 2: The priest's gardeners

Dominic looked on in frustration as the third-placed boy, Joseph, failed to make any impression on the common girl, Misha. Perhaps he should have listened to the boy’s father. He could see it written all over the Joseph. Fazed at unexpectedly becoming first to chastise, blushing in front of the stiff and wary elders, Joseph barely managed to tap his home-made switch into pretty little Misha’s clothed peasant rear.

Adding to Joseph's ear-burning was the unexpected presence of other random men from the village. In recent years, he was sure, no-one had been allowed near Chastenings except for the village priest, the three chief elders, the three virtuous boys and the three unlucky Shrews.

About this, Joseph was right. Dominic, in truth, had been hugely disappointed by last year's festival. He had expected many more men to be in attendance. He had asked the elders where the rest of the village was when they assembled in the field behind the river, which by recent tradition had hosted the event. The priest had (for he had read of this) expected a crowd of jeering men, and all he had got were three spotty, nervous boys and three humourless, miserable elders. He'd managed to push things a little. By professing his ignorance, he'd teased out more from the elders, had tricked them into saying that the sins of the girls deserved a fuller response. He had got the whole scenario to pep up a little. But even so, it ran pancake-flat when compared to the visceral pictures in his mind.

This year, he'd made sure that things would be shaken up. He'd looked in the parish records. And the records did say that in the past, more men had been in attendance, and other locations than that annoyingly private field had once been used. So he'd paced Crothin and its surrounds, exercising legs that had scarce trod a road or path in years, till he found a place which suited his designs.

Using the heath as the ritual's location was, however, nowhere in the records. It became this year's location on Dominic's insistence. For to him, such a festival needed space, and the heath had space in abundance. Such a festival needed drama, and the heath had the drama of paths, of woods and glades, of heather and gorse. He had, simply, insisted that it must be used, and had over-ridden all objections from the elders. But, as the internal workings of these parochial meetings had always, by tradition, been kept within walls, Dominic's growing influence was not spoken of in public. At least, not by the elders.

He had pointed to remarks in the parish records to insist that other men should be let attend. For, he argued, if Chastening meant shaming, and shaming meant humility, then those who need experience humility would experience it better if more witnesses witnessed. And the elders, obedient to the church, though averse to change, had at last, reluctantly, followed his direction.

They had, however, in no sense expected the composition of the rabble who had actually turned up. For these men were not the hoped-for rich and respected worthies, but swarthy gardeners and rough-handed labourers. How they had chanced to be invited, the elders could not fathom.

They remembered larger crowds bearing witness in the past, before kind old Father Peter had come to the parish. Yet even before that fifteen-year rule, the attendees had been picked by their last priest’s precursor, of this they were certain. Surely it must be impossible for this rag-tag grouping of ne'er-do-wells and horny-handed sons of toil to have been hand-picked by an educated priest like Dominic?

In this they were entirely wrong. Dominic had, in fact, spoken to many unexpected men in the recent year. He had, particularly, spoken frequently to a gardener known as Jaxo, and another named Sturmer, who chanced to be assigned, ironically, by the elders themselves to tend the priest's garden. These two, it transpired, had not only witnessed past chastenings, they had actually participated.

“In our day, there was five,” Jaxo told Dominic conversationally as he'd tilled the priest's vegetable plot with a hand hoe. “Five Chasteners. Five girls needing shaming.”

At first, Jaxo had been nonplussed to be given the time of day by the priest, particularly one hailing from a rarified world. But as time went on, and the priest kept coming, he'd begun to relax. It took all sorts, he reasoned.

“I am intrigued,” Dominic had said. “It is such an unusual ritual. Who witnessed? Who else watched?”

“A few toffs, generally,” Jaxo had said.

“No-one of your persuasion, then?”

Jaxo had stared at Dominic suspiciously.

“No gardeners, no tradesmen?”

“No. Toffs.”

“I am not a great believer in class distinction,” Father Dominic had said in his educated tones.

That subject, talk of Chastening Day, seemed to creep into every conversation. They meandered there so often that soon Jaxo found himself drifting there unbid. A particular variation was talk of shamings in days long past. What did Jaxo, and Sturmer, if the priest could get more than a surly grunt from the other man, remember? What had their fathers, their grandfathers, said on the subject? What had others told them about what used to happen? How did the ritual vary in other nearby villages? What did the common folk think?

“The men are mostly for it,” Jaxo had said. “’Cept for fathers of the prettier daughters, sometimes. Understand it if a father don’t want his darling whipped by strangers. There's a few odd folks about as well, a few do-gooders.” He’d spat on the ground at that, then realised that he was talking to a priest.

“Please, carry on,” said Dominic.

“Sorry, Father… begging your pardon… but there's folks who thinks women should have equal say. Don’t they, Sturmer?”

“Is that,” Sturmer grunted, thrusting his hoe to split a clod of earth.

“But you don’t?”

“Best kept under thumb,” said Jaxo.

“Ah. Well, there’s many might agree. The council of elders are tending to reversion. Of the changes of the last few years. They wish to row back on Father Peter's reforms.”

“That lot? How so?”

The priest cleared his throat. “The council wish for more witnesses.”

“More toffs?” Jaxo had asked, not without cheek.

“Not at all. Not at all.” Dominic drew in winter air through flaring nostrils. “The elders might prefer such an outcome, but I myself… I’m more for the people. You, Jaxo, might be welcome. For instance.”

“Would I, now?” Jaxo considered. “That's unusually kind of you, Father. I should like to witness one more chastening before I shuffle off. How about Sturmer here?”

“I am sure Sturmer Breul would be more than welcome.”

“You hear that, Sturmer?”

The man assented by grunting.

Jaxo cleared his throat. “My casual crew, Father. Us, me and Sturmer, we been to a chastening before. Sturmer to two. We both, you know, did for a girl in the back field. Would have witnessed a couple after that, most likely, if that prig Father Peter… pardon my French, Father, but I meant no harm…”

“None taken,” Dominic had said.

“Before that Father Peter brought it right down to three on three and barely a spanking. Just him and the elders, eh Sturms? And, so it’s said, nary a tear from any bitch.”

“The old traditions must be preserved. Do you not think?”

“Well we’d be for it, Father. So would most men round these parts. There's often talk late at night of how it used to be. What might have been. What-ifs. And, eh…”

“Yes?” asked the priest.

“Well. If you take my meaning… there's many a thing goes on behind closed doors that you don't get to hear about. Not in polite circles. But you hear ’em in the taverns. Men boasting, suchlike.”

“Boasting?” Dominic had asked, quietly fired by the drift of the subject.

Jaxo's head had flicked up. He'd watched the priest's impassive face with interest. “Drink loosens tongues, eh Sturmer?”

A grunt of assent.

“Things they done to their womenfolk. Eh?”

“Things?” Dominic had fought to keep himself from asking specifics.

“More'n a spanking, father. A lot more'n a spanking. There's often talk of things like that. In a hushed corner.”

“Sometimes not so hushed,” Sturmer interjected.

“Aye, oftentimes not so hushed. Always a popular subject, if you get my meaning. A man might not be married to the prettiest woman. But he still gets a pint extra bought him if he tells how he keeps her scalding in check.”

Sturmer mumbled, “No-one round here wants a bitch for a wife.”

There had been a short uneasy silence, till Sturmer muttered, “Gets a few groans going round the tables, does a juicy good tale.” He'd sniffed and wiped his nose on his sleeve. Dominic had never heard him speak so many words.

“Yes?”

“The things some men can do to their wives. You wouldn't hardly credit it.” Sturmer seemed more engaged than he'd ever been, rubbing his lips one over the other.

When Dominic had said, “Fascinating,” Jaxo had added, “If you don't mind me saying it, there's some proper cruel things goes on, Father.” He'd even winked. “Funny cruel, if you’ve that sense of humour. There's a right cruel streak in the men around here. Isn't that the truth, Sturms? Funny things get done.”

“It is and they do,” said Sturmer. “I done a few myself.”

“For me, I'll not say. Not being polite, anyroad. Chastening day, though… its a crying shame it got weakened. Used to be stronger.”

“A lot stronger once,” Sturmer said.

Dominic knew it, from Diocesan records. He had worked out the codes that Bishops past and present used for such things. Dominic had taught himself to read between the lines.

Sturmer added, “One time, long past, it was more than just five of him and five of her even. In my da's da’s day, it used to be whole villages. Before the Church got hold of it. If you don't mind me saying. Every girl in ’em… And every lad, too. A rite of passage for the lads, my da’s da told my da.”

Dominic had learned a lot from that conversation. And he'd been true to his word. Jaxo and Sturmer had come up to the heath, the heath being open, unenclosed, and common to all. They'd even brought their casual crew. They'd told others too, the men from the taverns, to add to those Dominic encouraged himself.

The Elders, though. They revealed their discomfort in twitches and turns. Dominic could see it in their stiffnened silence. But Jaxo, Sturmer and the rest… they were doing what he'd hoped, and more. Providing a frisson. Making the whole event so much more voyeuristic, so much more potentially shaming for the girls. Or at least it would be if only these chasteners weren't so fucking weak.

Compared to Marco, Joseph’s weak efforts had at least hit a target. Pretty-boy Marco had pissed on the day like a horse pissed on a meadow flower. He was forgiving Marta Smolt, he’d said. The little pillock had no business forgiving her, that was Dominic's job!

He'd waited a year since that last useless festival. He'd gone in amongst these oiks and peasants. Relocated reluctant elders to the heath. Risked dissent by inviting the rough and unwelcome. And here was this weakling Marco de-bollocked by some tart's fluttering eyelids.

“Pathetic,” the priest heard Jaxo whisper.

Dominic got angry then. “Go home, boy!” he ordered. “Go home! Get off the heath! Whatever point there might be to this ritual, whatever you're doing isn't part of the thing!”

The boy refused to acknowledge that he’d been dismissed. But his father, who alone of the parents of the youths was present, pushed through the small crowd, took his son by the elbow and frog-marched him away.

So Joseph had had to be first to chastise. The boy seemed entirely fazed by the attention. He tapped he maid weakly till the priest called a halt.

Dominic tried to control his inner rage. He gathered the elders.

“You must take the second girl out of sight. And the third. Keep them on the heath. I will send for them and you.”

The elders seemed surprised, discomforted to be dismissed from their own village ritual.

Faltren muttered as they walked away, “Does he mean us to guard two unchastened girls?”

But, deferent as ever to the priesthood, he and his companions did as they were bid.

This story is a work of fiction. Do not copy anything in the story.

CHASTENING DAY   Act I:   A BOY’S LUCK, A PRIEST’S CALLING

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Ch 3: Pavel's invention

It was Pavel's turn. And, the priest hoped sincerely, Anja Salidef’s. The small crowd stood watching the two remaining boys (for Joseph Brozemann, though adjudged a damp squib by those present, was not yet the abject failure that the saintly departed Marco had been.) With the elders also gone, the priest addressed Pavel.

“Son,” he said, “you were marked by your deeds the most virtuous boy. And the girl in your charge is the shrillest Shrew. You must decide. How will she be chastened?”

Pavel's girl Anja was not showing fear. She looked down her nose at the awkward boy. He, for his part, rubbed his sweating hands on his trousers. He peered at the rough men and gritted his teeth. Though his voice caught as he spoke, he said, “I would shame her by removing her under things.”

Men murmured. One made to comment, “Good luck stripping off that one, boy.”

Pavel looked to the priest, but the priest remained impassive.

“I… may do so?” Pavel asked.

“You are her Chastener,” said the priest.

Pavel made a sign to Gunter Horst, who, to his surprise, had not been stopped from following to the heath. Gunter was Pavel's one real ally, the friend with whom he had openly shared his misogyny.

Gunter, with a tentative look to the priest, stepped up to take Anja's arm. And when she made to struggle, the priest bid Joseph take her other arm. He, with Misha gone, felt less embarrassment. He gripped Anja’s elbow and held it firmly.

Pavel looked to the crowd, who murmured their approval.  Stepping close, he began to strip the girl, tugging at the bow at the join of blouse and skirt. As it loosened, Anja screeched, swore, and began to kick. Her heel caught Pavel in the shoulder.

The men laughed. The priest’s face remained impassive: he had taught himself well to disguise his inner thoughts.

The crowd, entertained, egged Pavel on. He tugged at Anja’s skirt next. “Hold her up!” he told the other young men. And Joseph and Gunter lifted her feet up clear of the ground.

Pavel seized her ankle and pulled off a shoe. She kicked him in his ribs, but with her foot unshod, his hurt was not great. Anja cursed. She spat. She swore. Pavel tugged at her skirt again. A voice from the crowd called, “Go on, boy, see if you can tame the bitch!”

The priest said with a gesture, as if quoting a verse, “Pray, turn the young lady towards those who witness.”

Those men watched raptly. Laughs came, and guffaws, aimed not just at Pavel but at Anja now too. Pavel held her shod leg up and tugged the skirt down from her hips. She landed a blow with the unshod heel. He staggered back, but the skirt went with him. Anja's naked legs could now be seen.

“Go on, boy!” a fellow rumbled.

Another said, “Let's see between her legs, boy!”

Eyes turned at that to watch the priest’s face, but Dominic retained his impassive mask. Pavel, though his blood was up, felt shock, tinged with joy.

“Go on, boy! You give us a real show.” When Sturmer Breul rumbled, the priest met his eyes.

“I swear he twitched a smile at that,” the man said after.

Pavel’s heart was racing. He was not being sanctioned! The miserable elders had crept away. The crowd spurred him on. The priest had made him Chastener.

He would strip her naked! As Pavel came close to reach for her underclothes, Anja bucked, kicking out. Legs flying in the air, she tried to catch his crotch. He caught her still-shod foot with his arm, then grabbed for the gusset of her undergarments. She kicked him with her free leg: he lost his grip.

He reached in again. Her kicks had hurt!

“She's a wild one, ain’t she boy?” a fat man laughed.

Pavel’s lust and hatred flushed his face. He grabbed for Anja's underclothes, but grabbed too far and got more than just cloth. He could swear his fingers had slipped a little inwards.

She screamed blue murder and kicked him in the head with her still-shod heel.

“The boy’ll never tame her!” laughed a face in the crowd.

Another giggled, “Pavel Panchun was a failure in waiting!”

Pavel looked to the priest once more. In the space when he looked, the flat of Anja's other foot slapped up around his head.

He tried to reach in and she kicked him once more. The men laughed louder. They were getting a show!

Joseph's grip seemed suddenly to weaken. It was Gunter’s strength that held Anja back.

Pavel ordered, “Grab up her legs!”

First Gunter, then Joseph did as they were bid. Joseph got her under her arm, and he reached for her knee. Between them, they lifted her up off the heath, knees apart, crotch to the fore.

The priest stepped forward and held up his arm. He said, “All of the devils of hell are in that girl! She surely must be tamed, Pavel, not least for the blows that she has landed on your head! If she is not tamed, her husband will suffer! If she is not tamed, she may lead the other women!”

“How?” Pavel asked. “How must I tame her?”

“How?” the priest asked. “How do you tame a hellcat? You are the Chastener!”

The rough men of the parish stared at the priest with attention as rapt as they'd shown for the fight.

Pavel ducked back. He clenched his teeth. He looked to the ground. Then he grabbed in hard at the fighting girl's crotch.

She spat at him. Her spit hit his eye. The men laughed at his predicament. One said, “Three of them and they still can't top her!”

In a fury borne of shame, with his breath coming hard, Pavel rent Anja's underclothes.

With a sudden pang of guilt, he looked back to the priest, but no word of sanction came from that quarter. Emboldened, he turned and ripped them wider, exposing her hidden parts to the crowd.

Gunter and Joseph held her knees to her shoulders. The garment could not come off that way. So to hoots from the men, Pavel put his head in close, to tear at the edges of the cloth with his teeth.

They ripped, at last, and Pavel held them up in his hand, to mocking cheers from the gathered men.

Behind him, Joseph's grip failed once more. Anja's leg got free. Her heel thumped Pavel in his back. He went staggering and fell.

He sucked air between his teeth. His hand had hit an old dry clump of gorse. He got to his knees and looked at his shaking palm. Ten, perhaps twenty small gorse needles had detached and were stuck there piercing his skin. Pavel swore below his breath. He started pulling the needles out and tiny pricks of blood welled up.

The men were laughing. Anja was naked from the waist to her feet. She should be shamed, but she was still, despite all, resisting him.

Pavel asked of the priest, “Father, what must I do to tame her?”

The priest shook his head. “You do not need my advice here, Pavel.”

Face flushed, heart racing, Pavel asked, “I may do what I wish?”

“You are the Chastener!” roared the priest. “You need ask me nothing!”

Pavel went close to Gunter’s ear. “Stand her over a gorse bush,” he hissed.

Gunter nodded. He led Joseph in manoeuvring the struggling girl.

“Put her feet down.”

When they dropped the girl's legs, her shod heel alone touched gorse, and she was ignorant. Pavel stood in front. She kicked out at him with that still-enclosed foot, but he caught her leg and wrested off the shoe. She pulled the leg back and her heel hit gorse. She squealed in anguish.

“Which man has a rope?” Pavel asked of the crowd.

There was laughter, there were comments. The fat man with the big pot belly offered, "You may use my belt, boy, though my breeches may fall!”

Sturmer Breul growled, “Nice touch, Arnath.”

The fat man slipped it out and tossed it over. Pavel bade Gunter move forward, and stood between Anja and the spiky bush. He wrapped the belt around her upper arms, pulling elbows close, so tight that one touched the other near her spine.

Even so, her fingers caught his crotch. She dug in as hard as she could with her nails.

Squealing like a girl, Pavel strove to prize her fingers off. When free at last, he stood prone to hold his balls. The pointing men laughed and mocked him cruelly, bent near double. Even the priest could not cover his laugh.

Pavel finished tightening the belt when he could bear to, standing awkward with his crotch held out of Anja's reach. He made sure to leave no corner of the thing protruding.

“Now walk her back!” he hissed to Gunter.

The crowd had managed to right themselves, but still they laughed. One called to Pavel, “Stick your arse out for her foot, boy! That’s the way to tame her!”

Pavel, shamed, turned to the man. “You think I can’t tame her?” He motioned his friends to let her go. Gunter did so when Pavel frowned, fierce. Joseph copied, though he knew not why.

She was shocked enough to be released that she hesitated for a single second, cautious as she was for her injured foot. She glanced at the bright yellow flowers below. They adorned the tip of the low, brittle bush. It was tall enough that this tip was a foot, no more, below her naked crotch.

Pavel swept Anja's legs out from under. She screamed and fell, hips dropping like a stone.

Then her scream became a screech.

This story is a work of fiction. Do not copy anything in the story.

CHASTENING DAY    Act II:     A POOR GIRL, A RICH BOY

© smack magnet

Ch 4: Joseph, Jaxo & Dominic, Misha

Joseph Brozemann felt the weight of his father’s expectations press upon him daily.

“Look to the horizon, boy! Head up!”

Joseph was the eldest of five. His sisters mostly escaped scaldings from their father’s tongue. Joseph envied them, though the girls themselves felt the pain of it, for they were simply ignored. It was the youngest child, the second boy, who was the apple of their father’s eye. It seemed to Joseph that little Ezra could do no wrong. He would cheek their father and their father would laugh. He would play silly tricks and their father would indulge, even encourage him.

Joseph could not remember ever having had the same freedom. Right from the start his parents had fretted over his every move. They would chide when he did not stand in a way that they approved of. When he was not sufficiently co-ordinated, though its lack was simply a function of youth. When he failed to find joy in his father’s favoured sports.

“Stand straight, Joseph. Stop looking at the ground all the ruddy time!”

But at his feet were tiny flowers, twining stalks, bright bugs and patterned spiders. He had tried to explain this once to his father, but it only back-fired.

“Flowers? You look at the pretty flowers? What are you, some kind of a pansy, boy?”

To Joseph, the things at his feet were starting to make sense. That leaf was the same shape as the leaves which clung to the stems of buttercups. So the ground-creeping leaves must come before the stems. And even without flowers, they must be the same as buttercups.

This climbing stalk, angling first one way then another, which clung with fine tendrils to nearby grass stems, had small flowers so like the peas that his father’s gardeners grew that it must be related. Had garden peas come from a plant like this?

“You slouch so, boy. Look at your brother! Less than half your age and he’s more of a man already!”

Joseph liked Ezra, but being told that Ezra was more of a man than he was hurt. Jaxo the gardener saw Joseph’s baleful stare.

He said quietly, once Mr Brozemann was gone, “Not the child’s fault your da’s never happy with you. Maybe the little lad’s just not lived long enough to disappoint yet.”

Jaxo had been tending the Brozemanns’ big garden since Joseph was barely older than his brother. At first, Joseph and his sisters had resented Jaxo. For he was not old man Strattam, who would always have a sweet for them in his back pocket and a smile playing under his hairy moustache. The sisters never knew why Strattam had gone, but Joseph worked it out from things he overheard.

“Can’t have a commoner having influence. Ruddy socialists!” His father never spat, but he’s spat when he’d uttered that word, even though he’d been standing with Joseph’s mother. “Talkers and stirrers feeding sweets to my children.”

Still, it had taken Joseph a while to add two and two together. At first he hadn’t known to whom his father was referring, as the comments came in the evening and he’d last seen Strattam late in the morning. He did not yet know that he wouldn’t reappear. Nor did Joseph know what a socialist was. He hadn’t quite known what a commoner was, just that Brozemanns weren’t commoners and other people were. His father said a lot of people were common, even some as rich as the Brozemanns themselves.

But when Jaxo and his silent shadow Sturmer first started creaking cold-frame lids and hacking winter swedes from the frozen soil, and neither man was Strattam, Joseph was confused.

His second sister moved the first magic lantern slide in Joseph’s head. She’d gone straight up to Sturmer asking, “Where’s Strattam?” When he’d only shown her his back, she’d turned blinking to Jaxo. “Have you got a sweet for us, mister?”

For Joseph, as for his sister, sweets had resonance. And then the memory of his father’s words was there. As were the questions. Why would these rude men not talk to to his sister, when Strattam had always talked so much?

“Can’t have a commoner feeding sweets to my children.” Joseph remembered.

The young Brozemanns quickly learned to ignore the new gardeners, much as the gardeners ignored them in turn. The girls forgot old Strattam, and Ezra grew up barely knowing that gardeners could converse at all. But Joseph remembered. And Joseph resented.

Over the years, Sturmer remained consistently taciturn with the boy, but after a little while, Jaxo did begin a halting dialogue. Though it was noticeable that Joseph’s father was never present when such fragmentary exchanges took place.

It was, in fact, Jaxo who finally told Joseph what a socialist was, one day when Joseph’s father was out on business and his mother sipped tea indoors with the old priest Father Peter.

“Socialist, is it? You’re wanting to know the meaning of it? Thing is boy, it’s the monied who have all the power. But the point there is, there isn’t so many of ’em. Their power comes from their money and what it can buy. Loyalty included. Only Socialists, they see strength not in money but in numbers. They notice there’s an awful lot of poor folks, but scarce so many rich folks. So Socialists think, why should the few have all the power when the many have none?”

Joseph sensed, as Jaxo knew well, not to talk to the gardener when his father might see. He would wait till neither could be spied before inching up for a quiet word. What did Jaxo think of this? What did he think of that? Did he know why the new priest had come, why Fr. Peter had gone? Fr. Peter hadn’t been as old as all that, had he, really?”

“I think we may find out soon enough. He’s a change in the weather, is that Dominic from the busy East.”

Joseph, like all the young people around and about, knew when Chastening Day was coming close. It was a herald of spring. As the weather warmed and the insects flew, the boys looked for willow to weave into whips and the skirts of the girls grew shorter by the week. Young people, like wildlife, flitted and flirted in the warming winds.

The good weather also saw Joseph’s name feature on notes to the Priest. Not for one outstanding golden deed, like Pavel Panchun, but for a rangier clutch of smaller eggs. He was noticed, and commended, for helping an older gent up from the ground when he was shied by a horse which had spotted a snake. The man took note of the boy’s name, wrote it on a slip and dropped it in the vestry box.

Joseph was commended next by a local landowner for getting his siblings to round up the fellow’s small flock of sheep. They’d escaped from a pen when a drystone wall shed its shape in a squirling wind. Joseph, touring wildflowers in a meadow in the calm of the morning, was first to see that the sheep were gone, and he worked out himself how to get them all back.

He’d even climbed a tree to fetch down the kite of a landowner’s boy. Been reasonably attentive in school. Asked a gardener what a Socialist was.

When the elders discussed the potential Chasteners, they could all agree that merchant Brozemann’s eldest seemed generally polite and kind to all. It was narrow as squeak. He was third, and only just. But picked he was, by three to one.

“Jaxmund, aha. We have our males. Should you be interested to learn now who is favoured?”

The priest had wandered in a slow meander, surveying borders and beds, to the gardener once more. Jaxo was not surprised by the inclusion in the list of every elder’s favourite, Marco Vance. “You’d almost think that boy hunts down commendations.”

He next reacted with predictable surprise, followed by a thoughtful raise of the eyebrows, to the shock inclusion of Pavel Panchun. “Wild card, that one, eh? Who knows what you’ll get there?”

But the name Joseph Brozemann brought a gleam to his eye.

“Young Joseph is it, Father?”

“You know of him, Jaxmund? But of course, your name was on a scrap in the box.”

“Know of him. Know him. Me and Sturmer grows his daddy’s greens.”

“It is a small world,” the priest remarked. “And how do you think of him?”

Jaxo leaned on the rake he’d ben working to drag tangles from the winter grass. “I like him fine enough, Father.”

The priest offered, “The family seem respectable.”

“They are that, and by a mile.” Jaxo wrinkled his nose.

“But the boy… I have a doubt. His own father… he was less than enthused.”

Jaxo considered. “I believe I shouldn’t never make to say such a thing. But I wonder if I find myself liking the boy rather more than I find the same like for his da.”

“So… how might you think… re Chastening day?”

Jaxo tipped his head. “Not a terrible cruel boy, Joseph. Not as such.”

The priest had learned when to wait for more.

“Private, this, Father. Serious. There’s a touch of bad blood between him and his da. I hear the squire thinks the boy… weak. A sissy, that’s the word the lad said his sire had used for him.”

The gleam in the priest’s eye showed him on track. “And is he, do you think? A sissy?”

“There’s ways to watch a lad’s eye for the girls. I see him drawn to the prettier friends of his nearest sister.”

The priest tipped his head. “May we judge him the same as most men, then?”

“Aye, of that I’m sure. And the girls, that lot seem to like him well enough. When he’s not on one of his shy days, anyroad.”

The priest took pause. “His father knows that he has been chosen. Elder Quare was made worried by the tone of his scorn. The man is sensitive to such things.”

“Scorn?” Jaxo prompted.

“That the boy would do well. He gave his assent. Though reluctantly, and not without some bluster. Peasant beliefs, I believe he termed the festival.”

“Does the boy know of his father’s words?”

“No, and I ask for your discretion. Do you think that Joseph might stand to swing a whip?”

Jaxo thought. “I’d hope. His da weren’t born here, so he doesn’t feel it. But Joseph was. The family might keep its nose in the air, but that lad’s a local. He snorts the same air as me and mine, and he’s sniffed it from birth. I’d say he’s one of us lot, sure.”

Dominic looked, and Dominic smiled. Jaxo spoke, and Dominic learned.

“Now my mind is more at rest,” he said, “I am wondering who to pair with whom.”

“Got the Shrews picked out as well then, Father?”

“I should perhaps not reveal,” said the priest. “I see in the records that certain past females ran and hid, who discovered their fates too early.”

The gardener still marvelled that the priest deemed it fit to speak to him at all, let alone to seek his advice. “Though men talk in the taverns, others can sit on their thoughts,” he said.

“And which might you reckon yourself?”

“I’m one who can pick and choose. Such as when to speak out and when to keep private.”

“Foreknowledge is such a dangerous tool that I beg your silence.”

“As you bid. You’ve shown faith in me and Sturmer, Father.”

The priest drew air through flaring nostrils, then threw out, “Anja Salidef.”

Jaxo smirked and looked to the ground.

“But as First Shrew, she should by tradition be paired with First Chastener.”

“Good luck getting that lad to top that one,” Jaxo said wryly, incorrectly assuming that Marco would be automatic choice as First.

“And Marta Smolt,” said the priest.

“Oh aye? We seen her looking haughty enough. A friend of the other, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Third is Misha Spinnet.”

Jaxo’s head started. “Jack Spinnet’s daughter?”

“You know her?”

“She’s a sauce,” said Jaxo, as he looked away and laughed.

“May I ask? You seem amused.”

The gardener said, “I was thinking of her paired with young Joseph, Father.”

“And how does that pairing look? In your mind’s eye?”

Jaxo briefly re-engaged his look with the priest’s. “Well his father wouldn’t like it much!”

“How so?” asked Dominic.

Jaxo shrugged. “Or maybe he would, who knows? What I hear is, his da don’t much like poor folk mixing it with rich folk. But maybe if he’s whipping her?”

The priest was thoughtful. “And the boy?”

Jaxo’s face went through a shape or two. He said, “I’ll tell you something honest, Father. There’s two folks who I’d not expect to confide in me, who makes to confide in me nonetheless.” He looked to the distance. “I’m nobody. I’m a common man without even a secret silver spoon hid back of his mother’s bobbin drawer. One who speaks to me so is yourself, sir. The other is the Brozemann boy.”

“He confides in you, Jaxo?”

“Don’t tell his da, I ask you most kindly. Last gardener talked free to that lad found himself out on a stone-scuffed ear.”

“My discretion is assured, as I hope is yours. To the nub… As a pairing for the Brozemann boy. Marta Smolt or Misha Spinnet?”

Jaxo smiled. “The Smolt girl is fine to look at, I suppose, for them who likes ’em tall. Finer than Spinnet, some might argue. Only them with looks aplenty may not find need to work on how they meet the world. That Smolt girl I reckon rich in looks and poor in her person. Misha Spinnet, now. She’s t’other kind.”

“Not so pretty?”

“Depends who’s looking. She’s rich in character. Got more up here too,” he said, tapping his head. “And a whole lot more cheek.”

“So… she’s one of you lot?”

“Haha! You have it. You know what I’d like to see there, Father? I’d like to see our Joseph try and resist that Misha Spinnet’s sauce.”

Dominic said, “Ah…”

“And I’d fancy seeing his da’s face turning purple if she won!”

Misha stood with the third girl in the view of the three elders. She whispered, “Feels more like past times than recent, this.”

Marta Smolt twitched her head, “What does?”

“Us. Here. It feels more like the stories you hear. Of past times.”

“What stories?” Marta asked.

“You know. Of Shaming Day.”

Marta frowned, then huffed. “I don’t know why they still call it that. It’s a stupid day.”

Misha looked sidelong. “Not lived here all your life now, have you?”

“I’m wishing I didn’t live here now.”

Misha said bluntly, “Lived here long enough to know consequences, though. Played a dangerous game, you and your friend. You must have knowed how the folks round here think, surely?”

Marta snorted. “I knowed it, did I?” Then she shut her mouth and turned her head away.

Misha brushed her good dress down, ignoring Marta’s sarcastic tone. She said, “Might have walked across the heath enough for a month of Sundays, me. But I never once figured I’d be up here for this.”

“Hush, girls.” Elder Quare’s voice sounded reedy thin behind them.

In a moment, a second, deeper voice said, “This is all far from dignified. Father Peter would certainly not have approved.”

“The Church knows best,” said Elder Quare. “Father Dominic worked for the Bishop, you know.”

The second man cleared his throat. “I very much doubt if Bishop Fernandino pays heed to the heath from one year to the next.”

“But that cannot be so, Faltren. Or why would he send us his right-hand man?”

A third, mid-range voice, said, “We only have the priest’s word that that was the form of his former job.”

Misha turned her head to sneak a look. None of the elders was impressive now. She remembered Elder Urmsrow from village fȇtes: a man with a great booming voice and a barrel chest. Quare was so slight by comparison, so thin of voice, they could hardly hear him through a rustling wind.

He is our Priest,” said Quare like the squeak of a mouse. “That is how it is.”

They men fell silent. Misha rolled her slight shoulders and looked to Marta Smolt, but the taller girl would not acknowledge her.

Elder Faltren said, quietly, “Does it strike you, Runnel, that we have been dismissed from our own ritual?”

Runnel had a small mouth which he barely opened even for speech, making every word sound prim and humourless. “It is not our festival, Faltren, but a festival of youth.”

“Should one of us not have remained with the Shrew?”

Runnel quoted, “One good Adam for one poor Eve, one Elder to guide each youthful pair.”

“It’s you who’s First Elder, Quare,” Faltren said.

Quare’s voice quavered. “But Dominic specifically asked me to leave.”

Runnel said, “It is the common men of the village who should not have been allowed. Undignified, quite undignified.”

Quare’s voice piped up high. “Yet Father Dominic seems to know his histories, gentlemen. Is he not a scholar and a thinker? He showed to me the records of past ritual days. Witnesses were always present!”

“The participants’ fathers,” Faltren grumbled. “They should have been here. Where are they, Quare? I cannot name one!”

Quare said defensively, “Miss Smolt’s mother may have come if she was let.”

Faltren snorted, “Her mother! Where is the girl’s guardian?”

Elder Runnel said primly, ”I believe he does not live close enough to attend. Is this not correct, Miss Smolt? And Miss Salidef’s father favoured her presence, yet declined to grace us with his own. She cheeks him as well, I fear.”

“And the Spinnet girl’s sire is permanently absent. We all know the story. Where are the fathers of the other boys?”

“Squire Vance was present.”

Faltren huffed. “We all saw how Aldred Vance was shamed into leaving with his idiot son.”

Quare said, “I must say, I rather found the boy’s intentions chivalrous and kind.”

“The Smolt girl was chosen. The boy acted the fool. That’s where the balance was first tipped wrong. Quare, should you not be over there?”

“But Father Dominic said…”

At this precise moment, two screams reached the party in quick succession. The first contained a sudden fear, the second went beyond. Its tone was so chillingly shrill that Misha felt her knees go weak.

“Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear!” Quare gibbered.

Runnel pursed his mouth and froze.

Faltren sputtered, “What in God’s name?”

The first screams were followed by rhythmic, panted squeals, which reached them thinly over heather and gorse.

“He, ah, he said that we must wait!” said Quare. “With the other young shrews! Oh dear, what can have happened there?”

“They are murdering her,” Elder Faltren hissed.

“Um. Yes. Or… well, severely chastising,” Runnel said.

“We should all go,” said Faltren.

“But if we go,” Quare asked, “who will stand with the other shrews? Might you not go yourself?”

Faltren sputtered, “Me? It should be all or none! Quare, the Salidef girl is your charge!”

“Oh. Well.” Quare took a hesitant step forward, then two, then a new shrill scream echoed out from the heath, and his feet halted fast.

But a different pair of feet unfroze. The tall Misha Smolt was suddenly a blur, passing Misha, knocking Quare down to his knees. Away she scrambled in her pretty dress from the Elders, from the boys and the common men, out over the rise, away even from the village.

Misha, heart racing, watched Marta run a ragged path ’tween low stands of gorse and knee-high heather. Her own legs felt weak and drained of action, and a sigh of indecision left her tightening throat.

Quare pushed his creaking frame once more upright. He brushed his dusty fingers one against another. “Oh dear, oh dear,” he said querulously. “Shrews who run may be caught. And those who catch a Shrew may chasten a Shrew, whether Elder or Priest be present or no.”

This story is a work of fiction. Do not copy anything in the story.

CHASTENING DAY    Act II:     A POOR GIRL, A RICH BOY

© smack magnet

Ch 5: Two girls

Dominic had not seen this coming. The incensed anger of Pavel Panchun. The sudden, shocking felling of Anja Salidef. The primal nature of her squeals and grunts as she tried to extricate herself from the bush.

The crowd groaned, they sucked in their breath. They swore, they pointed. The priest stumbled back.

Too much, too extreme! Too soon. The spit ran dry in Dominic’s mouth.

Anja tried to get up. She couldn't lift herself, not with her elbows tied tight behind her spine. When she sought purchase with her hands, they pressed cruelly into thorns.

Face reddening, tears streaming, she rocked forwards. She raised herself up several inches, then fell back into gorse with a granulated screech.

Such guttural sounds started pumping out with each short breath, like a young pig stuck. Dominic found his own jaw open. All around him flowed swear words.

The girl, squealing mightily, rocked herself again to roll off the bush. Pavel, a picture of zealous joy, caught her by her hair and pulled her back down.

More swearing, more gasps! At least two men laughed a groaning laugh. One called, “Pavel has found a wicked turn on shaming games!”

A voice remarked, “See how many thorns she had stuck in her arse there?”

Another snorted, “In her privates, most like!”

The priest felt his face flush. His heart was racing. The elders, at least, were well out of sight. Though Dominic saw shock on the faces around him, caught startled eyes flicking in his direction, mostly what he saw was amazement, half-empathic groans and a wicked upwelling of schadenfreud. The once haughty Anja's squeals had turned feral. Tears blurred her eyes, snot streamed from her nose.

When Pavel turned to soak up the crowd, Anja rolled, with an effort, onto her knees. She ended with a shoulder scraping bare earth and her hips left high.

Pavel turned back as the crowd reacted. By chance, he was behind her, so had a clear view of her under-hips. There were gorse thorns spiking everywhere. All across her buttocks, the inch-long, needle-tipped leaves-turned-spines stuck into her skin. Some had snapped clean off the at their bases, some were bent and crushed. There were more between her legs, embedded in her inner thighs. They poked into her lower lips. Short side-twigs of gorse had sheared away as she rolled from the bush, and they clung to her still.

Her quaking hands, tied up at the elbow, were flailing her buttocks, scraping at thorns. Her fingers tried to pull, to pluck, to knock them away.

The men were pushing in close at the back. This they must see!Pavel, Joseph, Gunter and the girl were pressed in tight by every man. Some strained to peer over others' shoulders.

A voice guffawed, “There's a needle stuck right in that Anja's arsehole!”

“Pavel, you're a fucking bastard!” said another.

Pavel looked once more at the priest. “Do I stop?” he asked.

The priest seemed not to know what to say. Then he cleared his throat, and his mouth fell open. But no words would come.

Seconds later, he heard himself say, “This is all new, Pavel.” A hint of a squeak came through in his voice, and a breathy cracking. “You have made something new!”

“Don't stop, Pavel!” The voice sounded jovial.

A different voice, a disturbed voice said, “Surely this is more than enough for any shaming day?”

The first voice, with the sing-song inflection of a Punch and Judy man, called, “No, it isn’t!”

Then a third and fourth rose up high, calling, “Killjoy!”

The priest looked to Pavel, to Anja scrabbling at the myriad thorns. It’s too much, he thought. Gone too far, too fast. He opened his mouth like a fish in a bowl. He must stop this, pull it back to the safe! What would be the upshot when his Bishop learned the truth?

But the girl's frantic movements took his eye, and he found himself squeaking, “She’ll pull them all out!”

Pavel stared at Dominic. The priest stared at Pavel. You're the Chastener, the priest had said. Ask me nothing.

And he wasn’t being told to stop.

“Help me pick her up!” Eyes wide, he said this to Gunter, and Gunter obliged.

The surrounding men retreated a step. Pavel and Gunter scooped Anja up by her armpits and thighs. They flipped her over so her bottom was closest to the ground.

She began to squeal afresh. Her legs kicked wildly. Pavel dropped a thrashing knee, then fought to catch it up again.

“There's more gorse over this way!” a figure pointed.

The men parted as the swarthy friends carried Anja, struggling and panting between them. As they came up to a fresh stand of gorse, she began to scream, a proud girl transformed.

“Let's have another look first!”

The shout came from behind them. They turned her again to face the men.

“Look at her privates. Fuck a duck.”

Pavel’s eyes sought the priest’s, which were now more distant. But as he met them, the priest’s flicked away. Then his head did the same. Next, his body followed.

Pavel’s victory made him swell with cruel pride. He was gleeful, spiteful. He felt no remorse as the erection grew most full in his pants. He could do what he wanted!

Men pointed, men groaned. Some giggled like schoolgirls as Pavel let a tip of gorse kiss the down-facing cleft between Anja's cheeks.

“Go on, give her the bounces!” a laughing voice coughed.

The priest took another step away. He swallowed hard as Anja Salidef’s guttural gargle rent the air, and the hoots of the men took a rhythmic turn.

Joseph Brozemann stood watching, mouth agape, separate now from the whooping crowd. The priest stumbled up and turned him by an elbow. He spoke without pause, finding words leaving his mouth in a rush.

“What has happened is new! This is not in the records, this year is different. It’s new, all new!”

The priest sought out Jaxo with his eyes. The man was paused at the edge of the crowd. Dominic lifted a single high hand, and Jaxo turned and strolled towards him.

“Bring the Spinnet girl back now,” said the priest. “Tell the Elders to stay with the Smolt girl, Jaxmund.”

Jaxo tipped his head and raised an eyebrow. “You want that I give instructions to our elders?”

“They are my instructions,” Dominic said.

“Ah,” said Jaxo. “Well then I shall tell ’em.” He paused. He turned his head to the crowd. “Most interesting Shaming Day, Father,” he remarked, then winked at the boy.

“Jaxo,” said the priest, “when you have her clear… please tie her elbows like the other.”

“Hah!” Jaxo tipped his head back. “If you’d like, I can do it.”

The elders were still at sixes and sevens when Jaxmund Urmsvend came across the heath. Misha Spinnet had to lock her knees and grit her teeth to keep herself still. In her mind’s eye, pictures of Marta Smolt’s flight played over in a loop, as if willing her to follow.

“Who is this man coming?” Elder Runnel asked.

Quare peered out. “The priest’s gardener, I believe,” he said.

While Runnel’s two hands sought each others’ nervous company, Faltren seemed to growl.

When Jaxo was close enough, he said, one eyebrow raised, “Looks like you’re short a body here.”

Faltren said, “We are elders. We should be addressed as such! Pray, whose business is it?”

“I am sent to fetch the Spinnet girl. At Dominic’s request.”

“Father Dominic to you,” Runnel said primly.

“Ceremony or no,” Jaxo intoned, “I am sent to fetch Misha Spinnet, Elders.”

Faltren said, “If she is to be fetched, then so must we. One Elder to guide each youthful pair.”

“I know it,” said Jaxo, tipping his head. “Yet the girl alone was called for, gents. Dominic bids the Elders stay to guard the other Shrew.”

Elder Faltren waved his hand out, pointing. “The Smolt girl fled.”

“You let her run then,” Jaxo said.

Faltren blustered, “We did not let her! She simply ran!”

“Aye. But this one didn’t.”

“This girl is our charge!”

The gardener laughed. “And so was Marta Smolt.” He looked directly at Misha with the faintest of smiles. To Quare he said, “The priest has bid me bind her arms. ’Tis how the other is held now, Elder.”

“Quare?” Faltren asked, aghast.

“Oh dear,” said Quare, “oh dear!”

The gardener’s firm hand was on Misha’s arm. She flinched, but Jaxo crooned quietly, “Calm now, Mish. Best not try and follow that other.”

He made short work of binding her arms back close to her spine. She was young and pliant enough that the tips of her elbows easily touched. Jaxo prompted Misha forward. With no Shrew left amongst them, first Quare, then the others, started to follow. Jaxo turned and held up a hand.

“Your charge is fled. Your job is done.”

Runnel said, “This man is not on the Council. Quare, you must tell him!”

“I will go,” said Quare. “I… believe I should.”

Faltren looked vexed, Runnel prune-faced. But another short screech, with ungenerous laughter of common men mixed, froze both in their places, and near stopped Quare’s halting progress as well. But Jaxo urged a trembling Misha forward, and Quare came after, unsure, to one side.

The eyes of the priest looked startled and wild. “The First has chosen this punishment, Joseph. What then must you choose?”

Joseph felt the blood in his ears. “I must gorse Misha Spinnet?”

They could now see her coming. Arms back, chest pushed up, she was shadowed by the Jaxo, trailed by Quare. Too distant to see the look on her face, Joseph remembered.

The procession had been slow. Elder Jacob Faltren kept complaining.

“Surely this is far enough? We cannot see the village from here!”

“A little further only, Elder.”

The priest led on regardless of the man, till they reached a spot where a way post stood and rough paths crossed. At last the party paused.

“We are here?” piped Elder Runnel. “I must say, I see very little difference to before.”

But at Quare’s nervous prompting they arranged themselves, each directing a Shrew to stand before him. A short way off, the Priest spoke to the Chasteners, while straggling witnesses wandered up.

“Pavel, as First, you may choose your order. Who will chasten first, and who chasten last?”

Marco Vance looked shocked indeed. “Is Pavel Panchun First Chastener?” he asked.

“You are Second,” said the priest.

Marco was not the only one shocked. Pavel’s mouth hung open by an inch.

The three young Chasteners stared at the Elders. They stared at the girls. There was Quare, who all knew to be First amongst Elders. Anja Salidef stood before him, aloof. Did that not mean that Pavel would chasten Anja?”

The priest said, “Marco, you will chasten Marta Smolt.”

Joseph sneaked a look at the girl on the end. At the maid who sat on the dairy wall up steep Bramble Lane.

“Why is he First?” Marco whispered this sidelong to Joseph. “My father is sure that I will be First!”

Joseph looked to Marco’s father, who he recognised from fȇtes and from parents’ days at their school on the hill. The man stood aside from everyone else, his face mask-rigid.

Joseph’s own father had refused to come. But with a shock of recognition, Joseph spied Jaxo. He stood a short way behind Squire Vance. Jaxo winked back.

Pavel was still amazed. “You mean I get… Anja Salidef, Father?”

The priest intoned, “Yes, boy.”

“Third,” Pavel said. “Put me third.” And once he had spoken, his mouth refused to close.

“If you chasten third, who must chasten first?”

Pavel’s eyes shifted from Marco to Joseph. Then back. He said, “Vance.”

Marco muttered again, “It should be me! I should go third!”

But the priest said only, “So be it.”

Though he seemed fazed, Marco let the priest direct him. He had woven a fresh willow wand and threaded it through with coloured ribbons, as all of them had. Marco, standing facing Marta Smolt, held his whip to the sky and said the words:

“A wicked tongue may cause much hurt,

and hurtful wives will sap mens’ strength.

Men without strength may break and fail,

each failure failing to protect.

This shrew’s tongue-lashing needs control,

so lashing needs control her tongue.

Each maid must learn before she’s wed,

or failure stalks her marriage bed.”

“Fairy ribbons for a fairy boy.”

Joseph’s father had said this when he spied his son threading bright ribbons, which his mother had bought for him from the little village needlework shop, through his fresh-made willow wand.

His father’s voice dripped sarcasm. “Try hanging that twig with a bunch of pansies.”

Joseph had cried angry tears. Not when his father was present, though his face had flushed red enough. He cried when Mr Brozemann left his room with a snort of derision. As his footsteps receded and the tears burned through unbidden, Joseph beat the braided whip against a pillow. This was not to imagine its effect on a girl. He was trying to break it, but the whip ploughed deep divets into the cloth and would not shatter. Joseph pulled it back to smash it on his bed stead, but a bodily sob took over first. Shuddering, he wiped at his eyes with the back of his hand, the whip still whole and firm in his grip.

“I forgive her. Marta Smolt, you are forgiven your shrewing.”

These words pulled Joseph from his reveries. Muttering had broken out, men were shuffling uncomfortably. Marco’s face held a foolish grin as he nodded to the girl, who blinked and looked shocked.

“See?” he said as she looked around her at the rough men of the village. Then Marco tried to snap his willow wand. It curved, strong and flexible, so he pushed on it harder, till at last it bent into a dog-leg shape. But it failed to snap, though Marco, surprised to feel embarrassment rising, next bent it back the opposite way.

There was muttered swearing from the village men. Squire Vance turned his head away from his son, and would not turn it back.

“Go home boy! Get off the heath!” The careful priest showed his tact no longer. He was angry and it showed. “Whatever point there might be to this ritual, whatever you're doing isn't part of the thing!”

“That’s not right,” said Marco. “I’m a Chastener. That means I can say what happens. I forgive Marta Smolt!”

But his father pushed through to take his son’s elbow. With a jerk, he tugged his son from his spot, though Marco tried for a moment to resist. But the angry words that were hissed in his ear set the boy’s feet shuffling. He was frog-marched away.

With a sudden shock, Joseph found it his turn. The priest pushed him forward. The girl from the dairy was led up too, by a frowning Elder Faltren. Joseph hardly knew what to do.

“The words, boy,” the priest growled.

He couldn’t remember. He had to be prompted.

“A wicked tongue,” Elder Faltren said.

“A wicked tongue may…” his mouth felt stiff. Every cruel comment his father had made was drying it up.

“May cause much hurt…”

“…much hurt, and hurtful wives will…”

They chivvied him through the rhyme, Elder and priest, but Joseph’s hand trembled as he held his ribboned whip.

“Um,” he said. It was time for him to turn his Shrew. He was looking directly into her eyes.

“It’s alright,” she whispered.

He turned her. She folded forward, slowly, and placed her hands on the dress at her knees. He wanted to lift where it hung at the back. His hand reached for her rump.

“Aya aye,” said a random voice from the crowd. Joseph clutched the hand tight and pulled it back.

The girl from the dairy had turned her head. She caught his eye. She gave a wry grin, as if to say, we’re both in this. He took a deep breath, and tapped with the wand.

“Fucking pathetic,” said a different voice.

“Give the boy some space, Bob Dummet.” Joseph recognised Jaxo’s cadence.

He tapped. His fathers words…

“You can try it harder if you want,” the girl whispered.

He’d never even talked to her. She and her friends used to sit on the wall. The dairy maids chose to break their morning chores as the boys climbed Bramble Lane up to the private school. It was a game for them to bait young gents from monied quarters. The boys had little choice but to traipse past each morning, since their only other route went a mile more around.

Misha was, at once, rosier than most other maids, while near as vocal as the loudest. Joseph, if he couldn’t hide behind others, blushed crimson as he climbed the rough-paved street. Bolder boys might stop to flirt, or to trade silly insults (perhaps gathering tales for the priest’s confession box) but shy Joseph Brozemann never had. He generally hoped they wouldn’t be there, delaying his climb for as long as he dared, but often it was like they were waiting just him.

“Look now, here comes that shy one again.”

“Hey boy, fancy a peek up our Misha’s skirt?”

“See his ear blush red there?”

“Josie Brozie, that’s his name.”

“Josie Brozie, Josie Brozie.”

It was worse when they watched him pass in silence. He resented them all, pretty Misha the most, though he’d wished he could look up her skirt alright.

Yet here on the heath, she seemed almost nice. She smiled, she told him he’d be alright.

But she wasn’t smiling now. The girl had heard Anja's screams and screeches. She was in a state, trembling, terrified by those guttural cries from the boldest shrew on all the heath. Misha’s arms had been trussed, as Dominic willed it, elbow to elbow behind her back. She seemed to sweat cold fear into her pretty clothes, trailed by arthritic Elder Quare.

“Father Dominic!” Quare’s voice trembled as his neck strove to see through the backs of the men around Pavel and Anja. “Dominic, what is happening? What have those beasts done to the Salidef girl?”

Dominic held his hand up to the man. He said to Joseph, “The shrew has returned. Will you chasten her now?”

Joseph tried to meet her eyes. But, hidden nearby, Anja let a squeal out, long and feral.

“Dominic! Dominic?” Scrawny Elder Quare’s head ducked left and right to peer through the backs. “Dominic, this is most distressing! What is happening there?”

A few faces turned to look behind. The village men seemed wilder now, their eyes at once brighter and more wickedly cruel.

Joseph blinked at Misha’s face. She wouldn’t look back. Anja squealed again.

“Dominic! Dominic?” Old Elder Quare was most agitated. “This is irregular in the extreme! What are they doing to her?” The priest quelled the Elder with a firm flat palm.

There was muttering amongst the watching men. The other elders were edging closer. Faltren and Runnel stepped hesitant and quiet, as if fearing attack. But they still had position in the eyes of the village. As muttering spread, the group around Anja slowly moved. With their prize so caught, they preferred to keep her there by adding some distancing to the sources of authority.

Dominic peered at Runnel and Faltren. He asked of Quare, “The Smolt girl? Where is she?”

“The girl has run!”

“Marta Smolt has run away? And you did not stop her?”

The priest was suddenly shouting at the elder, who shuffled back in shock. Then Dominic was gone from Joseph’s side. In his absence, Jaxo pushed Misha in her back.

“This one’s yours now, boy.”

She did not expect it. A sob left her throat as she stumbled forward. When Joseph caught her shoulders, he was shocked to feel her trembling.

The priest turned back once, fierce. “The Spinnet girl must be chastened, boy! Tell me you will chasten her!”

“I will chasten her, Father,” Joseph husked.

This story is a work of fiction. Do not copy anything in the story.

CHASTENING DAY    Act II:     A POOR GIRL, A RICH BOY

© smack magnet

Ch 6: Mister Jaxo

Though the main group was receding, a few men remained. Sturmer stood there, looking down. Other stragglers leered.

“A second shrew,” a portly man said. “What for this one, eh?”

“Want some help there, boy?” a second man jested.

Joseph nervously handled his willow switch. The men stepped closer. The first one said, “A thrashing first s it? ’Fore that other thing?”

“Show us a look-see between her legs, eh lad?”

The third voice was Jaxo’s. “You’re her master today, boy. Bob Dummet speaks the truth. You want her naked, you can have her naked.”

Misha’s torso shuddered as Joseph stared.

“Prob’ly wants her private,” the fat man said.

“Private, is it?” Bob Dummet asked. “So private two blokes can’t stand and make suggestions, eh? Go on boy, let’s see her privates.”

Joseph looked, unsure, to the man Misha knew as Jaxmund Urmsvend. “Jaxo?” he asked.

“We’re not in your father's garden now, boy. Out on the heath, I'm Mister Jaxo. So say it, eh?”

Joseph opened his mouth, non-plussed.

“Say it or you won’t get no present off me.”

The boy’s eyes flicked to Misha, then back. “Sorry,” he said. “Mister? Jaxo?”

“Faster, boy.”

“I’m very sorry, Mister Jaxo.”

Sturmer grunted, half way to a laugh.

“Go on, boy,” said the fat man with the jowly face. “Give us a show. There’s only us to see.”

Dominic had the elders near out of sight. Joseph and Misha, Sturmer and Jaxo and the other two stragglers stood on their own.

“Easy, Arnath,” Jaxo said. “It’s first time for the boy. It was first time for us, once.”

“Tell him to get on with it,” the second straggler said.

“Patience, Dummet. Now, lad. You fancy doing her, right?”

Misha flicked Joseph a frightened look. Joseph nodded, faintly, to Jaxo.

“There’s a maid in your bed, eh? You can have her two ways. Clothes on or clothes off. Which might you fancy?”

Joseph’s voice barely made a sound above a whisper. “Off,” he husked.

“Go on then, boy.”

He hesitated. Misha tried to catch his eyes. But a harrowing squeal came distantly from Anja, which had Misha flinching weak at the knees. Joseph reached in, unfastening the bow which was tied at her waist.

It was different with Jaxo, different watched by Sturmer. These men were Joseph’s familiars. Though Arnath and Dummet mumbled to themselves and muttered to each other, Jaxo held them both in check. Gone were the jeers of the other rough men. Joseph, near gently, lowered Misha’s skirt.

“No need to stop there, boy.” That was Sturmer, one of precious few phrases he’d uttered to Joseph. Though Misha flinched, Joseph slid his thumbs inside her under garment’s rim. The skin of her hips felt warm to his touch.

“Do it, boy,” Bob Dummet said.

Joseph lowered them, sinking as he did so. Then, responding to a mime from Jaxo, he prompted the girl in the small of her back. As her sensible laced shoes shuffled forward, her skirt and under clothes stayed back on the ground.

“What think you now, boy?” Jaxo asked. “Take a good long gander.”

Joseph looked. Misha proved to have no thick thatch of hair between her legs. Just neat blonde wisps, fine and silky, with a sweet little kiss curl curved at her cleft.

“Fair up top and fair below.” Jaxo laughed, winking. “Just one thing more, boy. Show us how you’re fixing to do her.”

Misha’s eyes flicked in fright from eye to lusting eye. With her elbows held by the thin hemp rope, a thin line of snot dribbled downwards like a snail. Joseph, not knowing where to start, wiped it away with his own silk cloth.

Jaxo chuckled and said, “Good lad.”

“Um,” said Joseph. He took Misha’s elbow. He turned her back towards Sturmer and the stragglers. Then he pressed it down till she bent at the waist.

“Her wicked tongue come a cropper now, eh?” Arnath’s laughter jiggled his belly.

At a prompt from Jaxo, Joseph swished his willow whip, air into air.

Bob Dummet asked him, “This ’un shrewed you with her tongue did she, boy?”

Joseph nodded. “Yes.”

Jaxo flicked his head back. “You can stuff all your da said up his back pipe now, boy. My guess is this. You’re born here, of here. You’re one of us, lad. You can prove it, can’t you?”

As Misha flickered a darting eye, Joseph’s stayed locked on Jaxo’s. The gardener grinned a left-side grin, then popped his brows wide.

“Right lad? So do her!”

Joseph cracked her buttocks with his ribboned willow. The wand was close to a yard in length, three strands of pliant twig, each plaited one about the rest, with red and blue ribbons threading spiral up the stems. It cracked tight cheeks and cannoned straight back.

Sturmer growled his quiet approval.

Jaxo said, “There. A lad of the heath.”

As Misha sucked her breath in sharp, and flinched and jerked, he flicked in more.

“There’s my boy now,” Jaxo said.

From the distance, a squeal floated up to them.

“But just so our priest don’t have me for a fool… that other game. Show us you remember it, eh?”

Joseph breathed harder. He turned, stepped away. He pulled on Misha’s elbow, straightening her, walking her backwards.

A grating scream came distantly. Misha’s arms trembled and her breath came ragged. Joseph wouldn’t look at her face. He stopped her close to a fresh clump of gorse.

He looked to Jaxo. “How should I do it?”

The gardener rumbled, “You could force her, boy. Some might do it that way. But she bent for your whip. Maybe see if she’s willing.”

Joseph’s breathing came faster. He moved one of Misha’s legs out from the other. He jostled her back another step.

He said, “Misha? Lower your hips for me, please.”

Misha seemed confused. She blinked at him, then at Jaxo and the stragglers. Then down between her legs. She shuddered, once.

Sturmer mimed pushing her down with his hand.

The juvenile bush between Misha's legs was both younger and smaller than Anja’s had been. But its needles were fresh and pin-sharp green. Misha’s knees locked.

Bob Dummet growled, “Go on, lad. Drop the bitch in it!”

Joseph tightly shook his head. He looked the frightened girl directly in her eyes.

“I want you to lower your hips,” he said.

She stared back. Blinked once, blinked twice, her pupils dilating. With a faint little squeal, she lowered her hips, by hands and by inches, till the needles found their mark. And there, though she shuddered her shoulders and clamped her teeth locked, she strove to hold her pose.

Joseph stepped back to take in the sight. He’d always loved the vivid yellow of flowers of gorse, loved their welcoming shape. Made for bees to impregnate, like the delicate lips between the legs of a girl.

The yellow flowers kissed Misha’s pretty lips as her body shuddered strongly from the sharp prick of thorns.

Jaxo said in a quiet aside, “We’ll be moving on in a minute, Sturms. We’ve other business elsewhere now.”

“The Smolt girl. Done a runner, ha’n’t she?”

“She has.” Jaxo pointed. “Ran yonder way, so Faltren said.”

“Who’s chasing?”

“No man, not yet anyroad.”

Sturmer clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Years since we had a runner.”

“Your second chastening, wa’n it?”

“You know it. Mizzy Polder.”

“You caught her an’ all. I recall the tales.”

“Me and Arnath there. And another lad or two. Arnath weren’t half that fat back then.”

Jaxo laughed, quiet and low. “I still sees her about, that Mizzy Polder.”

“Aye.” Sturmer spat. “She still ha’n’t forgive us.” He chuckled. “Mind, neither would I, if she’d a done to us some o’ what we done to her.” He laughed again, remembering. “Round up the other casuals, should I?”

“You figure anyone else has clocked she’s a goner?”

Sturmer turned his head to peer at Pavel’s receding pack. “Got a bird in the hand, that lot, ha’n’t they? Coming, then?”

“Quick word with the lad first,” Jaxo said. He pulled a thin hemp rope from his shoulder and called, “Here, boy. Catch.”

He tossed it to Joseph. Taken by surprise, the young man fumbled it. He stooped to picked it up, blushing briefly as he glanced back at Misha in her stoop.

Jaxo stepped closer. “What you might want to tie, boy… up to you, that is.”

The boy nodded, blinking at the length of rope.

“You see I’m here as well, eh? Got no boy of our own, me and Zelma. Girls only. Someone got to.”  Jaxo was now standing close to the boy while Sturmer spoke to Arnath and only Bob Dummet leered down at the girl. Jaxo rumbled in Joseph’s ear, “If you fancy my suggestion, you tie her baps up good and tight. Near to the chest. Several loops. Don't stint on the loops, boy, or you might risk damage to the things they bind.”

“Thank you, Jax… Mister Jaxo.” Joseph’s eyes were wide. "You are very kind to me."

Jaxo looked back. “Kind, I dunno. I’ve a soft spot for you, boy. Feels right. That’s the truth.” He chuckled to himself. “And ’cause you've got the gist now, here's a second present.” He pulled something from his back pocket. “Just in case you might want to get intimate.” He handed the boy a pair of stout leather gardening gloves. “They’re not my big ’uns. I took ’em off Arnath. See the man with the belly? Arnath might look big with that gut of his, but his hands are half way to a woman's. These might just fit your piano player's mitts.”

Joseph looked at the gloves, then his hands. He said, “Thank you, Mister Jaxo. What are they for?”

Jaxo ruffled the boy's sandy hair as he’d sometimes done when Joseph was little. “Nothing I wouldn't do.” A sly, lopsided lust tweaked his mouth. “Which ain't a lot, maybe. Though we never used gorse when I was a lad, ha! Look at her a minute.”

Joseph stared at Misha, who was beaded with sweat as she fought to keep her hips low.

“You know what, boy? She ain’t tried to run, not like that Smolt girl. You told her to drop, and the beauty’s stayed dropped. I heard her a few times, she’ll talk till she’s blue. But push comes to shove, she’s docile enough. Do a lot worse than a docile girl. How d'you feel about her, eh? You sweet on her yet?”

Joseph blushed. He shook his head.

“She look at you wrong once, did she then?”

With a pause, Joseph nodded.

Jaxo's voice dropped low to a growl. “You want to do her proper, do you boy?”

The boy’s breath huffed out quick through his nostrils. He nodded imperceptibly.

“Know what?” Jaxo said, conspiratorial. “Sex is good. Fucking a bird is good. But this… what you got here… what you might just do to this one now... I tell you boy, there's nothing like it. Nothing in the world. When it was my turn, it was the biggest rush I ever had. And we didn’t stand for no namby-pamby tip-taps, not the way we done it then. All that crap came later, and how weak and sad it feels to this day. But today… things just changed for wilder. You can feel it. I say feel it, I can fucking hear it.” In the distance, on cue, Anja’s squeal echoed raw. “You make sure you take advantage, eh? Savour it. And here’s my final point, if you’ll bear a few words more. Don't you go too fast.”

“I won’t,” Joseph said. “I don't want to.”

“’Cause we can’t see the future. Worst comes to worst, this may only happen once. For me? One chastening, and that was my lot. So remember, slow. The slower you go, the longer you can make her last.” Jaxo sneaked a look behind. His voice dropped to a whisper. “You know what I think? You should take her some place quiet. Where it’s you and her and no man else. My pick, that would have been, if I’d only had the choice. You take this chit somewhere private and you tell her not to scream. Bit of silence and the riff-raff oughtn’t be attracted to you.”

He peered at the girl. He winked at her.

“She's docile enough, I see it straight. She might do you proud, if you don’t use her up. So enjoy yourself, boy. ’Cause my guess is, once you start… you won't want to stop.”

This story is a work of fiction. Do not copy anything in the story.

CHASTENING DAY    Act II:     A POOR GIRL, A RICH BOY

© smack magnet

Ch 7: Spun hemp

The screeching of the other girl terrified her. What had the bastards been doing to her? What could make Anja’s voice grate raw like that?

And the boy, these men? If they could make proud, rich Anja scream, what more might they do to a no-one like her? Misha had nothing. No father would get angry for her. She’d last seen him leaving with a sack on his back and a trudging gait, which lengthened and sprung as he grew more distant.

Her mother was poor. She scraped a living washing clothes for other folk near as poor as she. But Misha had work now, of that she was grateful. It was decent enough, indoors for the most part, in a great stone dairy churning butter and cheese. But her skills were not so great that she’d be long missed even there.

She feared the men who stood around as she forced herself, squealing inside, to bear the gorse tips. She feared the hidden words with which the rangy gardener counselled the boy.

Joseph. His name was Joseph Brozemann. Josie Brozie, Josie Brozie. Would he do to her what they’d done to Anja? What exactly were they doing to her?

The gardener, Jaxmund, ruffled Joseph’s hair like the boy was his son. A common man, a rich boy. How?

They were staring at her. She fought to keep herself from moving.

“You know what, boy? She ain’t tried to run, not like that Smolt girl.”

But should she have run? Should she even run now? No. Her mother’s words…

“She’s docile enough.”

Docile. Like the cows Misha milked. She flushed at the insult.

“She look at you wrong once, did she then?”

She saw the boy nod. Those times he’d walked past, blushing crimson. He must hate her. Despise her.

“You want to do her proper, do you boy?” The gravel in these words, the threat of do her proper made Misha’s entrails tense in fear. And again, the boy nodded.

As the gardener growled in the rich boy’s ear, another squeal echoed raw from afar. Misha was lost in her own head again, in the fear she felt, in the need to keep calm.

“Don’t you run, girl!” her mother had warned her. “In the olden days, some girls, they ran. And of them what ran, most all got ’emselves caught. All them girls what got caught… they was in for it bad. Bad, girl. Rotten!”

But Anja hadn’t run, and Anja was screaming.

“You take this chit somewhere private and you tell her not to scream.”

Misha shuddered at the whisper. Then the gardener even winked at her. Jaxmund Urmsvend. Her father had known him. Chastening frinds, they’d been chastening friends.

“She's docile enough, I see it straight.”

Misha wanted to scream.

“’Cause my guess is, once you start, you won't want to stop.”

She flinched as the touched her arm to make her rise. There were after-stabs of pain as she straightened her hips. Then a movement from the older man made her jerk tense. She thought he’d push her into the thorns, but he’d patted the boy on the back instead.

Jaxmund turned as Sturmer Breul came back to Arnath with a callow young man. The boy, whose name was Prit, leered at Misha’s nakedness.

“In front. Walk in front.” The rich boy’s eyes wouldn’t meet her own. A faint breeze blew between her naked legs as she stumbled forwards, unsure of where he meant her to go.

A peal of cruel laughter sounded from behind. The gardeners had shared some unpleasant thought. But as her head shuddered back, she saw Jaxmund Urmsvend take Bob Dummet by his shoulders and turn him away. It was only the boy who was following her.

“This way. To your right.”

“Which…?”

“That way. There.”

She could run! She could run like Marta, but her legs felt too weak.

Something scraped her leg. She flinched and looked. Heather. Low, safe heather.

“Left, now.” The boy’s hand prompted, pressing.

Darker. The dusk was not yet on them, but the stand of trees they’d entered blocked much of the light from the sky above. She heard a whimper leave her throat. He pushed her forward. She stumbled on a root and thumped to her knees on the loamy path.

“Oh, sorry. Didn’t mean that.”

The boy had started to help her up. But he hesitated, seemed unsure of where to put his hands. Then he wrapped one arm around her shoulders, put his other hand under her still-tied elbows. He kept that hand on the rope which cinched her arms as he guided her forward through the gloomy wood.

They walked. The sounds changed. She could no longer hear the other girl’s shrieks. They took another path, turned another way.

Then they were in a glade. Out into light, surrounded by young trees. Open to the sky once more. Hidden from everyone. Misha strained to hear cruel laughter, but all she heard was a blackbird singing high above.

“I need to do something.”

The boy pushed Misha towards a tree which leaned back at an angle. Then he was behind her, unlacing her blouse. Then pulling it down at the front, till her breasts spilled out and over. Her tied arms prevented the garment’s removal. She wondered what would happen to her bow-tie skirt.

His face, concentrating. His brows, pinched and furrowed. He pushed her gently till she was leaning back on the angled tree, with the small of her back resting down on her hands. He was looking with a frown at her breasts. Her nipples tensed in the open air.

She was not the biggest girl in the village, but she was still big enough to take a rope. Joseph muttered Jaxo's words.

“Tie 'em tight, boy.”

As he leaned in with the gardener’s rope, his arms had to stretch.  He sniffed. He tried again, his knees touching hers. But the frown on his face was not venomous, like she’d seen on the face of Bob Dummet and others. As he leaned in again, she parted her knees to let his find the tree.

“Oh.” He looked down. He reached forward. He was closer to her chest. “Um. Thanks.”

Close enough now to press the rope’s end to the middle of her breasts, to make a loop around one.

She tried to smile at him. But she was still afraid, Anja’s screams had seen to that. Her lower lip trembled. “I’m sorry,” she said.

He’d leaned in closer as he tried to make a second loop. He moved back a fraction.

“Sorry for what?”

“For whatever it was I done to you. What made you hate me. I don’t remember what I said.”

“Said when?” he asked.

“Them times you walked up Bramble Lane. I must have said something proper rotten to you.”

He was blinking at her. “I don't hate you, Misha. Honest, I don’t.”

“Everyone out there hates us,” she said.

He frowned. “Not everyone. I don’t.”

He was staring at her breasts again though, working out how to get the second loop to catch and hold the first beneath it. Jaxo was right. The more loops he used, the better the rope gripped. The boy scratched his head. He was talking to himself.

“I’ve seen them do it. Tie a rope to a fence post. I’ve seen them make the loop.”

Misha shuddered.

He made it tight, then moved the free part to the middle of her chest.

“Sorry. Takes a bit of time,” he said.

He started to pull the length of the remaining rope through the loops he'd made around her first-tied breast. Then he fed it through again. He stopped. He seemed to think. He did it once more for good measure.

Then paused. He was staring, close, trying to work it out. Leaning on her. Misha felt his trousers pressing up between her legs. She peered at his face. His eyes flickered up, unsure. She felt his growing erection pressing her crotch to the tree.

“Hello,” she said.

“Um…” He half lifted away till she barely felt him. “I wanted to say hello. In Bramble Lane.”

She tilted her head.

“I… think I was shy.”

Then he blinked, and frowned, looking down again. The rope thing seemed to be taxing his brain. He started on her second breast once… unlooped his loops… started another way. Unlooped them again. He relaxed against her crotch again, almost like he’d forgotten it was there.

“Oh.” his eyes moved. “Yeah.”

“What?” she asked.

“Um, just a rope thing. Working out a rope thing.”

“Oh. That.” She softly rolled her hips.

He started to tie the far end to her second breast, counter-clockwise to the first loop’s clockwise. How many loops had he done before? He looked, he counted.

“Still working out the ropes?” she asked.

“Yes,” he said. “Oh!” He wouldn't be able to tie the little loops at the end to hold the bigger loops in place. “Bollocks.” He unlooped again.

She giggled, nervously. “Don't mind,” she said.

“You're not supposed not to mind.”

“I know. Joseph?”

He cleared his throat. “Mister Joseph.” He'd decided she should call him that after Jaxo had made Joseph call him Mister Jaxo.

“Oh. Mister? Joseph. It's just… I'm a bit scared to ask… what did you do to that other girl? To that Anja? To make her squeal like that?”

“I didn't do anything to her,” he said. “Well… I did, a bit. I got roped in to help. It was Pavel who made her scream though. And Gunter.”

“Gunter Horst?”

Joseph nodded.

“But he wasn't a Chastener.”

“Oh I know. Only Father Dominic didn't seem to mind. When Pavel got him to help.”

She frowned. She thought for a moment. “Joseph?”

“Mister.”

“Mister Joseph then… I don't want you getting angry… But, what did they do to her? To make her… you know… I mean, really scream and scream like that? It made me near piss myself!”

He stopped moving. Her saying that had made him think of her groin. Of his against hers.

He sighed. He looked down at the rope instead of her.

Her voice caught. “Will you have to do it to me, as well?”

“I don't know… I think I might,” he said.

“Why?” He could hear the edge of panic in her voice.

He got angry. “Because if I don't, the priest will… I don't know... ex-communicate me or something!”

“Jose… Mister. Joseph. What did I do to you, please? When he asked you… that gardener… did I look at you wrong, you know? What did I do to you?”

Joseph fiddled with the rope again. “I don't know. You didn't… I think all boys hate girls. A little bit.”

“Do they? So, you hate me then?”

“Look,” he said, “you know I'm not… my parents are rich. Aren't they? My dad's this merchant.”

“I know he is,” she said.

“Well. Yours aren't, are they?”

She frowned. “I don’t have a da. Not since he buggered off, anyroad. My ma’s poor as a church mouse, that’s no secret.”

When he didn't offer more, she looked away. He did things with the rope. A bit angrily, she felt.

“So… what? All that means you’re not allowed even to like me, if you wanted?”

“I don't know…” He wouldn’t look up. “Yes. Probably.”

She sighed. She dropped her head back against the trunk. “You’ve no plans to tell tell me then? What they did to her?”

His eyes stayed down. He shook his head.

“And that’s ’cause you're planning to do it to me?”

He hesitated. “I want to do things to you.”

“Do you?” Her voice rose to a squeak.

“But not that.”

His eyes flashed hers, then flicked aside. Was that shame she’d seen?

“I don't want to tell you. What they did.”

“Why? Please?”

“Because… it wasn't… it was way too much.”

“Oh.” She blinked.

“Just… I don't want to think about it. When I think about you.”

She breathed. Blinked. Tipped her head to one side. “Girls like me don’t get to talk to boys like you. Not proper. Not… slow.”

His loop didn't work. He stamped a foot in frustration. Then hung his head against her chest.

In the pause, she shifted her hips a touch. “Sorry,” she said. “Itchy.”

He lay against her. With his head against her chest, he must surely catch her scent. His head rose and fell when her chest rose and fell.

“I know why I got picked,” she said.

He said, “I bet I got picked because my dad told his friends to make up fake brave stories about me.” But even when he said it, he knew it wasn’t true. It was more like he wished it was true.

She’d giggled, though. He felt it through his groin.

“You're not like that other one. I hope,” she said. “Not like that Pavel Panchun. At least you used to look at me. And I think you tried to smile at me. Sometimes.”

“Well you're pretty.” He said this without lifting his head.

She looked down. Close up, the light caught his hair. “I am?”

He didn't reply. Then he nodded his forehead against her chest.

Misha sighed. “Anja Salidef says I'm… she calls me names. Nasty, some of ’em.”

“I bet my dad hoped I'd get paired with her. Or that Marta.”

“Really?” she said.

“Yes,” said Joseph.

She didn't want to ask. "Did you want it to be them? Would you rather them than me then?”

In a moment, he shook his head.

“They're pretty too, though.”

“I didn't want to get picked at all.”

She stirred her hips, sighing. “You know why I think I got picked? I think that Anja Salidef and her mate Marta and all their friends and their parents got everybody else to write tell-tales about why they all hate me so bloody much.”

She didn't talk like his family. She talked like the villagers. His mother would have made scornful comments after hearing her rattle out her words like that.

“Think that sounds right, do you? Mister Joseph?”

He looked up at her face. He nodded.

“So do I,” she said. She glanced from his one eye to the other. “Please don't get angry. But I think you might be nice.”

It made him laugh. “I don't think you're supposed to.”

She shrugged. She smiled, then nodded to her chest and said, “What's it to be then, Mister Joseph? Are you going to finish tying up my other tit, or what?”

He worked it out. Left a short length of the far end of the rope draping down between her breasts. Tied big loops around her second breast. Used the short length from the end to make holding loops around the bigger loops. All of which left a long central loop hanging down between both newly-bulging breasts.

“So, is that to pull me along with?” she asked.

He nodded, looking down. “Yes. Probably.”

“Oh. Alright.” She shifted her hips once more under his. “So am I like, your slave now or something?”

His head was still down. “That’s the idea.”

“It's alright,” she said.

“Is it?”

“If you really got to do…” She looked down herself. “You know… what they done to her.”

He stepped away from her. “I said I don’t.”

“A bit,” she said.

He scowled.

She drew in a breath. “Was it gorse? Like, when you made me squat? There was smashed gorse…. oh… fuck!”

He looked away. He nodded.

“What happened? How did they do it to her?”

“Well, they… you know… they dropped her. In it.”

“Fucking hell, no!” she said. “No wonder she fucking screamed! Where did they drop her?”

“In… you know… in a gorse bush.”

“Where on her body, stupid?”

“You really want to know?”

“Yes!”

He swallowed. “Between her legs.”

“Fuck off!” she said.

He peered at her, confused. “Down on her arse, and between her legs.”

“Fuck… off! Just a bit, or…?”

“No, fucking loads!”

“Fuck! How?”

“They just… I don't know… dropped her in it!”

“No, fuck off! From just a few inches, or..?”

“No, from… standing height!”

“Fuck… off! What, like… right up her crack then?”

“Yes! They fucking dumped her, they dropped her, right in a massive great gorse bush! With her legs spread wide open!”

“With her clothes on, or…?”

“No, stark fucking naked!”

“Fuck off! Fuck... off! Fucking brilliant!”

He was staring in horror.

“So that Anja Salidef’s got, like… hundreds of them nasty little gorse prongs stuck right up her twat now?” She shut her eyes and tipped back her head. She crowed, “And all in her arse cheeks and fucking in her legs! And right up her fucking arsehole!” She laughed at the sky. “Oh, fucking brilliant! Serves the cunting bitch-cow right!”

“She was really badly hurt,” he said.

She looked straight at him and lifted her chin. “Well, I certainly hope so!”

He stared. “That's disgusting.” He gripped the loop of rope hanging down between her breasts. He wrapped it around his wrist. “Get up. Stand up!”

She stared right back. “Go on then. Make me. Joseph.”

When she refused to move, he had to pull her up. Then she wouldn't walk on when he told her to. He had to keep pulling on the rope to make her run.

This story is a work of fiction. Do not copy anything in the story.

CHASTENING DAY    Act II:     A POOR GIRL, A RICH BOY

© smack magnet

Ch 8: Under oak

At last, he’d found an oak with a long horizontal branch and a snapped-off side branch sticking up and out at an angle. He'd been looking for the thing for twenty minutes as he coaxed a sultry Misha by the loop of rope. Her breasts, ballooned, were showing some colour.

The broken branch was too high. He could see he wouldn’t get the loop up and over it.

“I’m going to tie your shoelaces.”

“Think I'll be running away, Mister Joseph?”

“Well,” he said. “I don't know. Don't want to find out.”

“There's worse than you out there today.”

He tied the laces, checked her arms were still firmly cinched and went to drag some wood close as a platform. She didn't try to run. She hobbled after him.

“What you up to, then?” she asked.

He couldn't believe it, Jaxo was right when he'd said there's a lot worse things than a docile one.

And the priest, what the priest had whispered Joseph. The two of them, just him and Dominic, when Jaxo had gone to fetch Misha Spinnet. It had seemed so odd from a man of the cloth. “They are dirty,” he'd said. “These girls who must be chastened, they are temptresses. You must make them suffer! Like the filthy things they are.”

He found some wood, a fallen log, and dragged back it to the horizontal branch, back past the hobbling Misha. She turned to watch. He dropped it under the bough and ran back.

“You seem ever so busy,” she said as he passed.

He disappeared behind a fringe of trees.

“Mister Joseph?” she called. “Mister Joseph!” She shuffled towards the wood.

He grabbed a second log and began to pull it, in jerks, till it freed from a tangle of bramble. He pulled it out past Misha.

She said, “Don't go off like that and leave me!”

He dumped it under the oak bough by the first, then ran back for a third. She stayed still to watch, then turned to shuffle towards his wood pile. When he’d pulled a third up, he pushed the first two together and lifted the third up on top of the others.

“You want me on them, then?”

He couldn't believe it. She was coming towards him. Shuffling in mincing steps. He went to fetch her. She tipped her head in a question. Then his arm, emboldened by their earlier contact, went down between her legs, and he lifted her up onto his shoulders.

“Oh my,” she said, “aren't you the strong one, Mister Joseph?”

He put her down on the highest of the logs that he’d piled into a pyramid.

“So?” she said.

“Yes. So.” He undid her laces.

“I don't mind them tied.”

He looked up as he released her feet. She moved one leg out to take a wider stance. Above him was her naked mound, with its silky wisps of pale blond hair. The smooth curve of her belly was kissed by the trailing loop of rope which fell from between her reddening breasts. She had a teasing grin playing at her mouth.

“You seem to think I'm nice,” he said.

“Aren't you, Mister Joseph?”

He stepped up on the log pile and stretched the loop up to the stub of branch. It wouldn't reach. He tried to pull the bough down with his other arm. Still it wouldn't reach.

“Whyn't you lift me up a bit?”

“What?”

“Lift me up. Like just now. It might go over.”

“You're trying to help?”

She shrugged. He tutted. Balancing on the logs, he took her around her thighs with one arm, held the top of the loop with his other. He pulled the long bough lower with his stretching hand. Misha, who was high enough, leaned her body weight against the bough. At full stretch, he snagged loop top over branch stub. He wanted it to fall to the other side. She'd be held in place and he could put her feet back on the log pile below.

The triangle of logs shifted under him. Suddenly, he went down in a heap. But Misha didn't. She had no choice. The loop pulled taut, its top not yet fully over the stub, but stuck in a fissure. She screamed a shrill scream.

Joseph was flat on his back. Above him, Misha, naked but for shod feet and a pulled-down blouse, hands tied elbow to elbow behind her back, squealed and struggled and kicked thin air. She spun high above, held up only by her bulging breasts.

Joseph stared, open mouthed. Misha screamed. She kicked and struggled, trying vainly to reach the logs below. In a panic, he piled them back in place, but she still couldn't reach them.

He started to run. “I’ll have to get another log!”

She screeched, “Don't leave me!”

Panicking, she rocked and spun. The oak bough wavered up and down. He turned back.

“Hold me up!” Her panic scared birds into sudden flight. He tried to catch her struggling legs. In her fright, she kicked him. He climbed back on the branch pile. Again it gave way.

She squealed, and squealed.

He got up, straddled the logs, put his hand up under her buttocks.

She was not a tall girl, and her backside jutted out from the top of her thighs, curving out and back in a slope towards her spine. Anja and her crowd had mocked its size, though in truth it was merely proudly curved, not fat and ugly as their jibes cruelly claimed. But Joseph had never heard those cat-calls. And even if he had, he would not have agreed. Joseph had wanted to stroke Misha’s bum, to squeeze it and hold it. Her breasts, her cheeky face, those quivering globes. Those were what he thought of when he looked at her. Her fantastic, curvy cheeks sang his libidinous song.

He tried to lift her up by them.

“Help me! Joseph!”

The priest had said, “You must make them suffer! Like the filthy things they are.” He’d added in a mumble, “For they are all sluts.”

But Misha wasn't a slut, not to Joseph.

With one hand below her buttocks, he braced the heel of his other palm into her crotch. He pushed her upwards to relieve her breasts.

He could see how the rope was snagged in a groove.

“Pull it up!” he said.

She squealed. Her hands were tied.

“Do it with your teeth!”

She actually tried, but she couldn't reach.

“Hang on,” he said. “Please, hang on a minute!”

He let her down a little, then strained to boost her as high as he could. But her body fell backwards, taking most of her weight on her breasts again. Joseph tried standing on the single shifted log, but he still couldn't get her high enough.

The log was wet, and his foot slipped off. She swung unsupported, kicking out, rotating chaotically. Her squeals shrilled out truly terrified now.

“Hang on just a minute!”

Leaving her struggling. He fought to reposition the logs. The central piece he lifted out. The other two logs, he picked up and pushed close.

She was panting, hyper-ventilating. He glimpsed a gleam between her parted legs when she kicked and strained. Her breasts looked swollen. He hoisted the third log back on top of the others. He prayed they wouldn't shift again.

He grabbed her again by bum cheek and crotch. Then pulled his crotch hand back in shock, afraid she must be bleeding.

His palm was clear. It glistened wet.

“Please, Joseph!” she squealed.

How could she be wet between her legs? He hadn’t seen her piss herself.

“Hurry, please!”

He pressed his palm back into her crotch. Shoved her upwards with a jerk. She squealed.

He moved his bum hand. His palm heel sat right against her back passage now. Her weight shifted back, caught between it and her breasts. He shifted the crotch hand, tried to grab again.

He'd turned his hand. His thumb, against her glistening slit, was suddenly inside. She gasped. With his fingers, he gripped her pubis. There had been no resistance. His thumb was buried as deep as it would go.

“Sorry!” he said. “Shall I…”

“Push!” she said.

He pushed her upwards. “Try to get the loop with your teeth!”

She was panting. Her weight now leaned forwards against the ropes, her breasts pressed against the long oak bough. She turned her head sideways, breathing heavily. “Push me higher.” A hint of gravel was in her voice.

He lowered her slightly, then jerked her up. Arms straining, he held her at close to full stretch. She grunted. She groaned.

She rested her chin against the up-pointing stub, trying to bite for the rope. “Can you go any higher?”

He made another jerk like a weight lifter till his arms fully locked.

“There’s no higher left!” he panted.

With her breasts still against the big oak branch, she snagged the rope between her teeth. She lifted it clean. Then she spat it out. It fell behind the branch stub.

“Mister Joseph,” she said. “Let me down please, Mister Joseph!”

He did so carefully, expecting the rope to be still in her mouth. It wasn't. His arms shook as he rested her toes on the topmost curve of the triangle of logs.

She said, “You've got a big thumb there, Mister Joseph.”

He looked. Her purpling breasts pulled the oak branch lower. She stood with her legs apart. She even bent her knees, lifted a foot again and put it down a touch wider than before.

“Fuck,” he said.

She made a nervous smile.

“I thought you'd pull it off.”

“It slipped,” she lied. She smiled again, nervous. “I thought it’s what you wanted? No? Mister Joseph?”

This story is a work of fiction. Do not copy anything in the story.

CHASTENING DAY    Act II:     A POOR GIRL, A RICH BOY

© smack magnet

Ch 9: In the glade

Georgi Brozemann did not, unlike his son, hail from Crothin-under-Heath. The merchant did in fact hail from the distant diocesan city in which Dominic once worked as Bishop’s Secretary.

They had moved to the heath when Georgi’s own father, himself born a humble man, found a business opportunity beckoning. Hemp was needed for shipping, and shipping was an expanding field. The fast clippers of the merchant fleets of empire needed rope and sails not by the yard, but by the mile. By chance, the region surrounding the heath, poor in so many other resources, was perfect for hemp, which grew tall and fast in its impoverished soils.

So a group of investors from the city founded a factory there, which fast became two. And Georgi’s father won a contract not to manage production, but to facilitate the supply of their products to the ship-makers.

Georgi, Joseph Brozemann’s father, became a man in this trade. And when Georgi’s own father at last grew too frail to make arduous journeys, then swiftly too decrepit to do more than sit in a bath chair remarking on the inclement weather, Georgi was ready to take up the slack. His firm, by now, traded in significantly more than just rope. He brought back cotton from the clippers on what would otherwise be empty in-bound wagons and barges, plus tea and spices, and anything else that he could conjure up a market for. And thus, a man born into a poor part of a distant city became a man of import, in both senses of the word, in Crothin Heath.

But it is oftentimes the new rich who make the worst snobs. The Brozemanns were not, as Joseph grew, quite the richest family about the heath, but they made sure to rub shoulders with those who were.

To bolster this family puffing-up, young Joseph was subjected to more than huffed-out orders from his father to hold his head up straight. He was enrolled, protesting, to the private Ballards School, which failed, through misplaced obsession, to hit its stated aim of preparing boys for the military, while in parallel teaching them little else, barring numeracy and letters, of much use at all. Yet Ballards was the right place, where those with pretensions must be seen to send their sons.

At least Joseph managed, through chance of living proximately, to escape the poisoned chalice of attending as a border. But for penance, he was dragged by his parents to the formal dinners and florid parties of what passed for heath society. For these he was dressed in neck-tight suits and paraded, penguin-stiff, for ruddy-featured lovers of port and odd-smelling dowagers. He was required to spend tedious hours with insipid girls wearing too many bows, who prattled incessantly about pointless stuffed toys and pretty ponies.

And throughout all, with regularity, he was frowned upon by his father, chided by his mother, and patronised by their acquaintances.

Marjorie Brozemann: “Do try to make your smile look genuine, Joseph, the lady on the steps is an important connection!”

Georgi Brozemann: “At the very least, try to act like a man, even if you may secretly aspire never to become one.”

A crinoline-hooped widow smelling of mothballs: “And how do you find my grand-niece, young Joseph? Is she not the most pretty and bright thing here tonight?”

Formal, stiff, tedious and false. Joseph must daily play this sad game of class, and collude with every other snob that the company present were superior to all, and their opposites unconscionable. Reminders of the failings of all those beneath them dropped from his parents’ lips like regular drips from an ill-plumbed tap.

Marjorie: “Joseph dear, come away from that urchin, he may have lice.”

Georgi: “Did you hear how that dreadful oik spoke, boy? What an ill-taught mangling of the language, eh?”

Marjorie again, high-pitched, face-reddeningly audible: “Do not stare at that chit, young man. The girl’s mother is likely a slut, and so shall she be!”

His mother with her cohorts, with Joseph required to sit head-drooped and bored, in a stuffy parlour taking sips from bone-china: “And the Spinnet woman, deserted by that… pimp of a husband!”

“Oh yes indeed Marjorie, and her slattern daughter! Ladies, we should not wish to taste the cheese that that girl churns! Who knows what it might have been touched by? And more times than once, we can all be sure!”

Joseph stared at Misha’s blonde pudenda, at eye height before him, just inches from his face. “You're a… you’re a slut!” he said, blushing quickly at even having uttered the word.

“Am I? Truly?” Misha asked this sadly.

“Yes. You were wet! Between your legs!”

“Oh dear.” She looked down to the offending spot. “Most likely still am, then.” She caught his eyes. She smiled, or tried to. Her heart was in her mouth. Why had she done such an idiot thing? To trap herself here as this virgin boy’s toy?

Joseph was busy pulling on the gardening gloves that Jaxo had given him. The proud oak's little clearing flashed yellow with stands of juvenile gorse. He quickly stepped away, approached a bush,  and snapped a long, stringy branch off from close to its base. He cleared away needles to give himself a hand-hold. He held it like a bouquet, his breathing ragged.

“Really?” she asked. “Must we?”

“It's Pavel’s invention. I think I’m supposed to do it to you."

Her half-smile slipped. “Are you though? Really?”

“Yes. Because Pavel Panchun was First Chastener. Because the priest says you’re…”

“What?”

He whispered. “Um… dirty. Sorry.” His brief look of guilt flickered up to her eyes.

“Am I? Really?" She found tears forming.

"I think I've got to. I’m really sorry.” He thought. He looked down, then back up. "But I can pull the spines out after, if you want.”

She squeaked back, “Can you?"

"If you want me to. Do you want me to?"

She tried to smile again. "Yes. Please."

He held the gorse frond out like a whip.

His father had been, as always, scornful. When Priest and Elder had called with the news, the Priest had made sure to wave Joseph in close. This before his father proved Dominic wrong by banishing the boy from the reception room. He’d stayed close as he could though, to listen in, with the door to the study left barely ajar.

He could not focus on the early detail, but he clearly heard his father’s bitter laugh. “That boy? You’ll be lucky if he makes any mark at all!”

The priest’s reply was even. “Nevertheless, he is chosen, Mister Brozemann. If you will but consent.”

“What, chosen to whip at some cheap little slattern?”

Elder Quare was clearly offended. “There are two girls at least from good families, sir! ’Tis an honour to be chosen, for the boys at the least! A long and proud tradition of it!”

“Just peasant superstition.”

“It is true enough though,” said the priest, “that locally, past Chasteners are held in high regard. Many men of good counsel have charted their courses from early recognition. Selection as a Chastener marks each boy so chosen from the featureless crowd.”

There was a pause, until the Merchant uttered, in low tones, “He will shame me.”

Joseph’s hearing was by now well-attuned, and the sleight hit him hard.

The priest asked, “By participating?”

The merchant huffed. “By failing. By being too weak. He is soft as French cheese.”

Said Elder Quare, “He shall not be required to be overly hard.”

There was a second brief silence, till the priest tacked back. “It may make him, perhaps. Help set his path. To deny him opportunity guarantees failure. And you do not yet know that the boy must fail.”

A third painful silence, till Joseph, with surprise, heard his father give reluctant consent. “Very well. I suppose we shall all see. But don’t be surprised if he picks a pretty posy and sniffs its pretty petals in preference to whipping the little tart’s arse.”

The Elder said, “As the Chastener’s father, you may, of course, attend as witness.”

“I will not!” said the merchant.

The priest offered, “We must hope that the boy may surprise you still.”

“Not if there’s anyone looking he won’t. He’ll crawl into a hole first!”

Misha couldn’t crawl into a hole even if she wanted, not strung up like a game bird, trussed like a Christmas turkey. “Go on, do it then!” She clenched her teeth. “If you got to do it, do it quick!”

“Your bum.” He’d stepped behind her. “I really, really like your bum.”

That paused her. “Anja always tells me how it's so big it’s ugly.”

“Anja was looking pretty ugly herself. Got an arse full of these."

He flicked the gorse twig into Misha's right cheek. Yes! He’d done it! She screamed, short and high, gabbling, “Fuckin’ hell, oh fuckin’ hell!”

Joseph drew the switch away. It pulled briefly at its moorings. He flicked it at her other cheek. She was his! She was willing!

As he flicked and swatted, teased and hesitantly poked, Misha flinched and writhed above him. She danced a dance of tensing buttocks, of jerking thighs and of trembling, twitching toes. She squeaked and swore, she squealed and cursed.

“Oh fuck you little sod, ow! Joseph, Mister Joseph… naah!”

Her staggered breaths might run to brief, tense laughs or let out sudden squeals of anticipation.

“God, why’d I fuckin’ do it? Jesus!”

“You shouldn’t take such names in vain.” And he’d tease between her legs with needle-guarded flowers.

Such teasing was broadcast. Misha wouldn’t, or couldn’t, keep low her cries of anticipation, keep contained her gasping, nervous laughs or explosive curses. And Joseph, given license by her actions, cared nothing, as caught in the moment as his dancing partner.

But his glee was frozen by a rustling, then a crashing. Two gangling youths broke out into the clearing. Joseph jumped, turning.

“Fuck,” said the shorter one to the taller one.

“That’s that Joseph!” said the tall one. “Ain’t it, Skudes?”

“And Misha Spinnet, look!”

“Course it is. He won her, di’n’t he?”

“Fuck,” said the short one. “Fuck a bleeding duck, Vons!”

“See how he’s strung her up by her tits! And what's that in his hand?”

Joseph had half hid behind Misha’s legs, his heart running fast. His voice came too quiet. “It’s a Chastening game. The priest has allowed it.”

The shorter boy stared. “That's allowed, then, is it?”

“Yes,” said Joseph.

“Just bugger off!” said Misha.

“Let’s have a go, though.”

“No!” she said shrilly. “Mister Joseph won me!”

“Oh, Mister Joseph, did you won her then? We can still have a bit of a go though, eh?”

The tall one said, “Chasteners got rights, Skudie. Lest he fancies he might let us, uh?”

The youths were circling. Misha’s voice came high and quiet. “Joseph?” she quailed.

She was scared. So was he.

“Just a flick and a bit with your frond thing, eh?”

“It’s fucking gorse, look Skudie!”

The short one’s voice wheedled. "Maybe on her tits then, eh?”

“No,” said Joseph, half frozen, too quiet. He heard Misha breath in sharp as he stepped to the side. It looked, and felt, like a step away. “You should go off and find your own,” he said faintly.

“We should geauh auf end faind eur hown,” mimicked Skudie.

“Course we fuckin’ can’t,” the tall one said. “Besides, Mushy Mishy’s up there now.”

“Joseph?” Misha was running quick to panic.

The boys exchanged looks. They stepped in closer, one to either side.

He had to make himself. He knew these boys. They’d called him names, they’d threatened him with nettles once. He’d been smaller. He’d run. He remembered them laughing as they spat at his back.

His legs felt like lead.

“Please? Mister Joseph?”

He stepped forward, legs lumbering. He made himself stand between Misha and the boys.

“I’m so scared,” said the short one. “What do you care anyway? Mushy Mishy’s just some cheap slut.”

“There's a girl who anyone can punish,” said Joseph.

Misha squeaked behind him.

“A girl on the heath. She’s called Marta Smolt. Any man can punish her. Because Marco Vance wouldn’t, and then she ran.”

“Who said that?”

“The priest.”

“Bollocks. Load o’ bollocks,” said the tall one, spitting. “What do you care about that slag up there, anyroad?”

Joseph’s heart was in his mouth. He stared as the boys stepped closer still, both tensing up. He made himself say, face rigid, voice quiet, “You can both go and look for the girl on the heath. Or try and come through me. And I know there’s two of you. And I know I’m not a fighter. So you’ll probably win… But I swear. I’ll do my best to hurt you both. I won’t fight fair. I’ll gouge in your eyes and I’ll tear at your ears. And if I catch your balls, I’ll rip ’em straight off. Because Misha’s my girl and you come through me to get her. And you don’t ever call her a slut again.”

He held the gorse frond tight in his glove. His stomach was tense, his face was pulled tight. But the postures of the boys had loosened as he spoke.

“God… believe anything, you would!” Skudie said.

“Yeah, fucking serious him, ain’t he?” Vonnie said.

They were flapping their arms, tipping their heads back.

“So this girl, em,” said Skudie. “Is that for real or’s it all a stupid wind-up?”

“Like the wind-up what we was doing to him, Skudes?”

Joseph said quietly, “All I heard was what the priest said.”

“Don’t need to stand like that still,” said Skudie. “You know we was never like, meaning to wotsit.”

“So, like… is it like anyone can do it, eh? What you done to Mushy Mishy?”

“Misha,” said Joseph. “You call her Misha. Or Miss Spinnet. I just said so, didn't I?” Joseph heard her shift behind him. He was suddenly frightened that Misha might slip.

The short one tapped the tall one. “Zeldie Chype,” he said. “Zeldie Chype's of chastening age.”

He turned and asked Joseph, “Can we do Zeldie Chype, Joseph?”

“I don't know who she is,” he said.

“Yes,” Misha said, “just go away and do Zeldie Chype!”

Joseph was looking from one to the other. “All I said was, when a shrew girl runs, then the girl who ran off can be chastened by all.”

“Would Zeldie Chype run?” the short boy asked the taller one.

“Don’t know. She's a proper shrew though,” the tall one said. “She’s always been a shrew.”

“Well… yeah… yeah. Well we can go and do her then, can’t we? If anyone can do ’em. ’Cause we know where she lives! Don’t we, Vons?”

They nodded to each other. Then they turned and ran, without looking back.

Joseph’s hand was shaking. “Crap,” he said. “I thought they’d jump me.”

“I thought it myself. And I was terrified you’d run.”

He turned, looking up. “So was I.” He hugged her legs, pressed his cheek against her silky down.

She said, “Mind them spines, eh?”

“I’m so sorry. I could have got you… fuck. Oh, Misha…”

She said, “Nice if I could hug you back. So, um… interesting, that. What you said to them boys. I’m your girl then, am I?”

He buried his nose in the cleft at her thigh tops. He nodded, silent. Then looked up past her breasts. “Do you think they’ll do her? That other girl?”

“Who, Zeldie Chype? I shouldn’t think so. That's just Skudie and Vonthurm, all mouth and no trousers.”

“Who's Zeldie, anyway?”

“She's their neighbour… They won't do her. They haven’t the balls.”

He touched the gorse frond lightly to her buttocks. She jumped, then laughed till he thought she might slip. He cradled her legs.

“So, how do you know? They’re all mouth and no trousers?”

Misha stayed silent till he flicked at her bum.

They were turning too dark. He'd got her so worked up, she’d lost her footing. He just had to touch her and she’d flinch and rock, putting strain on her breasts.

“Let me down! God, let me down now, please!”

The dusk was growing anyway. He picked a few stray needles from her bum. He’d teased between her legs as well, but stroking with his fingers revealed smooth skin.

He stood on the logs. They had to get the loop of rope loop back off the broken stump.

“Mish, I'm going to lift you up. Grab the rope with your teeth. Then lift it up and over. We’ve got to get you down!”

He began to hoist her up. With a croaking voice, she said, “Joseph, hold me like you done it before.”

He cupped her pubis with his fingers. Placed the palm of his left hand in the middle of her buttocks.

“I know you’ll think me a slut and all… but do it with your thumb in me…” She sighed as he pushed her upward with it.

She told him when she was high enough. It took her a while to snag the rope. He could tell when she had it, tell by her voice. He braced himself again for another snatch-and-jerk, to lift her all the way. He heard her straining, trying to get the rope pulled up.

She grunted when she was high enough. He slipped out his thumb in case it might break as he lowered her down.

“You got it?” he asked.

She grunted what he took for assent. He lowered his arms, but she came just so far. With a scream, she was left behind, legs kicking in the air, the rope snagged once more in the the cleft of the stub. He slipped off the log and fell on his back. She spun above him, turning so her breasts were revealed.

“Joseph, please Joseph!”

Then he was up, standing, trying to get his shoulder between her flailing legs, trying to take her weight off her purpling breasts. He snatched at the ropes that held her arms behind her back. He couldn't see them, couldn’t understand the knots in his panic.

“Please, get me down!” She was dangerously panicked now.

“Hold your arms still!”

“Please,” she said, “just… please get me down!”

Then he had it. A knot. He pushed, he was getting Jaxo’s rope to unthread. A coil flopped loose. He pushed again. She wobbled above him.

The rope at her elbows dropped free to the ground.

“Lift the loop with your arms, Mish!”

Her hands wouldn't work. They were numb, and the feeling took time to come back. Then her fingers squeezed in his hair.

“Please, get yourself free!”

She lifted stiff fingers. She scrabbled at the branch stub. With an effort, she jerked the rope from the cleft, then clung to the stub as he lowered her.

“I’ve got you. Let go now.”

She released. She slipped down, till he caught her over his shoulder.

He placed her slowly on the ground. Her breasts were so dark, he needed to know that they would be alright. He scrabbled to untie them as she let her head flop into the grass, staring up at the empty bough above. She groaned as each breast was released from its grips. He rubbed, kissed, tried to stroke each back to life. The rope marks were imprinted deep.

It wasn’t planned, it just seemed to have happened. Her arms around his neck. Her kissing him. Him kissing back. Her hands stroking down through his flowing hair. Then he was pulling down his trousers. He couldn't get them off. She tried to help him. She rolled, she groaned. He spooned her from behind.

He slipped inside her easily. His hands were cupping her warming breasts, were squeezing them and stroking them. His head pushed into her hair, he breathed hot in her ear.

“Are you good? You’re not injured?”

“I’m alright now.” She pushed her hips back.

They were on their sides. With his arm, he made a pillow for her. She rolled her hips against his thighs. He was buried deep. Moaning, breath catching, he started to climax. She shuddered and moaned when he shuddered and moaned.

When their shuddering stopped, he made to withdraw.

“Don’t. Leave it in! It’s right where I want it.”

They lay still, his chest to her back, with one hand snug between her warm breasts. She curled up tight. He curled in around her nakedness. He breathed through her hair. And there, he drifted on a wave of sleep, and she quickly followed. Their breathing grew deep and slow as they dreamed, spooning in the warm spring night, oblivious to distant screams.

This story is a work of fiction. Do not copy anything in the story.

CHASTENING DAY    Act III:     RIVAL ELDERS, HALF A RESCUE

© smack magnet

Ch 10: Faltren and Runnel

Elder Faltren always knew when something was right and when something was wrong. He knew what was wrong now. Dominic was wrong! When Dominic had come from the busy East, Faltren had been first in line to praise the well-mannered, erudite priest, so recently Bishop Fernandino’s personal secretary. A connection for the heath! They might even merit a visit from the Bishop.

Dominic had moved quickly to quash this expectation. “The Bishop is a very busy man. Travel, unfortunately, takes time, and His Grace, sad to say, does not travel well. I fear that a week on the road and three days on a barge would not suit his constitution.”

A disappointment, but Faltren reasoned that at least Dominic would have the ear of his bishop. While Elder Runnel bemoaned the untimely exit of gentle Father Peter, Faltren had (though he would never have admitted it) worked quickly to ingratiate himself with the new priest. When Dominic mooted rowing back on certain of Peter’s reforms, Faltren had smiled his tight, brittle smile and quickly supported.

“Yes, well as you have said yourself Father Dominic, uncorking a stoppered bottle early may save an unfortunate explosion later! Of course tradition is a fine thing. It should always be supported.”

Elder Runnel had, by contrast, simply pursed his disapproving mouth and wrinkled his nose.

Faltren and Runnel did not get on. To outsiders they might seem like similar blends of the same basic soup. But place the two in a room on their own and each became the tip of a separate magnet, identically charged but deflecting and repulsing, prevented by their sameness from seeing eye to eye.

In council meetings, each spoke to Quare alone, and neither to the other. They needed Quare to be able to co-operate at all. Though weaker than either, the benign and genial older man acted as a mirror, angled just so, letting Faltren speak to Runnel, and Runnel to Faltren. Quare ummed and aahed and shrugged and simpered, unaware that he was irrelevant except as a convenient proxy. He’d become First Elder by default, since neither of his peers would ever have stooped to voting for the other.

Faltren recalled how the most recent festival had gone. Last year’s Chastening had been… yes, well it had been a little looser than in Father Peter’s day, hadn’t it? Faltren had found himself… uncomfortably stirred by the sight of that buxom girl’s… well, of her buttocks. That was it, her buttocks, wasn’t it? He hadn’t been expecting to see that, eye to flesh. But then, he’d thought at the time, they were the Village Elders, after all. Elders accompanied by an educated priest. Well spoken, his voice so much clearer than the thick island drawl used by old Father Peter. The very soul of authority to watch over three virtuous boys and three compliant girls. In the back field over the river. Private, with its steep grassy slope, high top wall and bank-side trees to shield them from curious eyes and insolent alike. Where no-one could see in, in short. Including Faltren’s wife. So she’d never get to hear of any unexpected stirrings.

But the heath? In the open? With common men present? Just arriving under their own steam, as if they had every right to be there? Tell them to go away, tell them no! Those were the instructions Faltren sent Dominic silently, resentfully, as they climbed up to the heath. I don’t want to feel any stirrings in public!

Last year… if it had gone on like that, the private field, just the elders and the priests… Faltren had… well, he’d had thoughts in the year since. That buxom girl’s buttocks dancing to a rod. In the pictures in his head, she’d be the one he’d have to guard again. In his pictures, when the boy wasn’t sure what to do, Faltren would have to show him. Have to demonstrate by example. And the boy, well he’d be needing a good deal of help now, wouldn’t he? One virtuous boy, one shrewish girl, one elder to guide their halting attempts.

But some council meetings past, the priest had gone and changed all that.

“Pray tell, why do we use the small field beyond the cut stone ford for the Chastening Festival? I have looked, and it is not in the parish records.”

“The back field?” Quare’s querulous voice, his simpering laugh.

“Yes. The back field.”

Runnel had tipped his nose up. “Father Peter chose it. Didn’t he, Quare?”

The priest, pushing. “I am told that there once were processions. In past times. They are missed, say my confidantes. A source of sadness in the village, they say.”

Faltren had spoken, clack-loom fast. “Yes well there was a sort of a procession once. Wasn’t there, Quare?”

“Ah, yes, ah…”

“Though it was needlessly public,” Runnel pouted, speaking snail-slow. “So thought father Peter, and I believe we did all agree to that sentiment.”

“So he hid it away?” asked Dominic. “Then there is the sadness. Such festivals belong to the people, do they not?”

Faltren, fast. “Yes well a procession perhaps. We knew what it looked like, don’t we Quare? Quite a short procession, really.”

Quare, musing to his nervous laugh. “The boys walked with willow wands held up before them. Each girl walked in front.”

The priest had scribbled a note. “It is Easter morning. Processions are traditional after mass.”

“’It is surely long forgotten,” Runnel bemoaned.

“Not forgotten, no,” said Dominic. “I am told it is mourned.”

Faltren asked, “Perhaps down The Alley to the cut stone ford? Then up to the back field?”

“Barely a quarter of a mile, Elder. And the same route as last year, anyway.”

“Yes but then it was just us and the youths. And we did go quite fast. We might let people… witness? A little. At least to the gates of the back field. Eh, Quare?”

“Ah?”

Runnel said, “In the field, it ought to be private.”

Yes! thought Faltren. Tell him, man, yes!

But Runnel spouted slowly on. “The villagers, simple peasants. We should not put wrong ideas into superstitious heads.”

Silence. Then Dominic had tipped his head to one side. “I believe these ideas predate us, Elders, for surely that is what tradition is. They were here before we came. They are extant today and living in the memory. But bottled up. Festering behind doors. Is it not more cruel to keep a living thing locked in a darkened room than to let it breathe under open sky?”

Quare quavered, “A wound, it should breathe?”

Dominic gently nodded, then looked to Runnel, looked to Faltren. Runnel had sniffed and turned his head away. Faltren had said, “Surely the back field is quite firmly under the sky, is it not?”

The Priest lifted two hands and looked up to heaven (or the ceiling of the village hall, at least.) “’Tis a narrow patch, Elder. Is there not some place where distant clouds may skim the horizon?” And he’d widened his arms.

More silence. Thinking. Then Quare had tottered into Dominic’s trap. “We are low here in the valley, hmm? Trees, and hills. Buildings, all around? There are places perhaps, on the heath?”

“The heath?” mused the priest. “Why indeed, on the heath one may see all about. There is a thought there.”

Quare had almost giggled. “There are places one may stand where one might even see the sea!”

No privacy! These… these common men, looking, jeering! It was Dominic, it was Dominic’s doing! Faltren saw the priest’s true colours as he’d railed at Marco Vance.

“Go home! Get off the heath! Whatever point there might be to this ritual, whatever you're doing isn't part of the thing!”

The man must be mad! He’d outright dismissed Crothin’s most favoured boy. And Squire Vance, shamed, had had to march that same silly son down and off the heath. Then the Brozemann boy, he’d tapped that dairy slattern just as the boys in the back field had done to last year’s Shrews. But that, apparently, was still not enough! It ran through Faltren’s mind obsessively, the insult of him being dismissed from his own village ritual. Sent packing by the priest to guard two unchastened girls.

Then the screams of the third. That… that mere gardener coming to tell village Elders what to do! They’d all gone back to the way post under… well, the orders of that insolent commoner! He should protest, he should protest!

“The Salidef girl should be protected, Dominic!”

There! He’d said it! Dominic might be marching them away from the Shrews, but he wouldn’t get away with it for very much longer! Faltren dug his heels into loam. Stopped being herded, held fast to his spot. “Will I have to go back amongst those… oiks on my own?”

“Yes, aah… yes?” Quare was such a weakling, he needed pushing into every decision!

But Dominic stopped, turned to Faltren. Called his bluff. “If you feel that you must, then why not, Elder?” He swept a slow, black-clothed arm. “Of course, you may go.”

Nothing from the others. Faltren blushed. “Quare!” he said.

“Yes, aah…”

“We should all go back together, Quare!”

Dominic had found his calm outer face. “I believe Elder Quare is minded to consult the village records.”

“Aah, yes, aah, yes I had said that, hadn’t I? I must do so, I must!”

Faltren stood stock still, blinking. “Quare, ask Runnel what he means to do.”

“I aah… he is there beside you, Faltren!”

Dominic looked slowly to the prune-faced Elder.

“It is not right,” said the man in response. “Quare, it… Faltren…” He pursed his mouth to its very tightest. Tapped a finger. Stared at his feet. “I… Fal… Faltren is right. He is right!” And for the first time in a month of Sundays, Runnel looked Faltren directly in the eye.

“Right,” said Faltren, clipped. “Right.” And he turned. Started walking back the way they’d come. Stopped. Turned his head. “Coming, Runnel?”

A pause. Nose up. “Yes,” said Runnel. “Yes, I will come…”

“Quick now Runnel. They cannot be far. You hear?”

Runnel pursed his mouth, hesitated, stepped behind. “What is the plan, Faltren?”

“Plan? We must manage them.”

Runnel’s mouth pouted. “Manage?” he said. “But they will not want to be managed.”

“Yes well they will have to accept it. If I have anything to do about it.”

Runnel spoke under his breath. Faltren said, “Speak up, man! You always mutter!”

Runnel cleared his throat. “It is a silly thing you say,” he said.

A frown. “Make sense, Runnel.”

“If I have anything to do with it. You say it, but what does it lead to? In my experience, when you have anything to do with anything, nothing results.”

Faltren stopped and stared at the other. “Typical,” he said.

“Typical?”

“Maybe if you’d back me up sometimes, things would happen. I can’t do everything on my own now, can I?”

Runnel lifted his chin in the air, turned his nose to one side. “You do nothing anyway.”

“Oh we’re back to this, are we? Let’s just stop talking to each other again and see how far that gets us, eh?”

“There is no plan.”

“There is a plan. We go over there and stop them.”

“They won’t listen.”

Faltren sniffed. “What is it then, Runnel? Are you frightened, man?”

Runnel twitched his face away.

“Is the great village elder scared of some superstitious peasants?”

“You are scared yourself.”

“I’m not, I’m… concerned. Yes well alright, but… it’s not right! They need… a bit of managing.”

Runnel pursed his mouth.

“So?”

“We might… come on them from two different sides.”

“Or we might both go together and show a common front.”

A pause from Runnel.

“Eh?”

“Yes,” Runnel said.

“Come on then. Yes?”

Runnel sniffed. “Yes.”

They set out again. Bursts of laughter, little bouts of jeering, guided them. The girl’s squeals and screams were no longer audible. They saw heads of common men before any sign of Anja.

They men seemed to be down now in a cleft in the earth. A stream bed? No. A disused quarry, a remnant of mine? Runnel and Faltren drew close, coming from above without being noticed. With the low evening sun directly behind them, they had the advantage of height and surprise.

Faltren peered. The watching men were gathered in a circle around Pavel Panchun, his friend Gunter Horst and, huddled naked in a protective ball near a small stand of gorse, that poor Shrew Anja Salidef. The girl was smeared with dust, marked by scrapes, her hair quite dishevelled.

Faltren said to Runnel, “Girl looks like she’s been dragged through a hedge backwards.”

Runnel cleared his throat. “I imagine she has.”

“We must do something, man.”

In response, his counterpart cleared his throat once, twice, a third time.

The men below laughed as Pavel took the girl’s hair, pulled her up and dumped her onto her hands and knees.

“Go on,” a figure called below, “do it, boy!”

Pavel looked, laughed with a snort and began to unlace his breeches. The girl, cowed and terrified, strained to see him over one shoulder, then the other.

Runnel cleared his throat in a chain of increasingly strident glottal grunts. Faltren turned his head, peered at the man from the side.

“Well,” he said. “Well I suppose it will have to be me then.” And he turned back to the men below. “You there!” he called. “You, men!”

Though he did not call particularly loudly, one or two who were closest turned to look up. Faltren and Runnel made more of an impression than they ought to have since, standing above at the rim of the old quarry cutting, they were framed as silhouettes against a mackerel sky. Lit from behind, edged on one side by a low sunlit rim, their identities were hidden. This imposing sight was lessened by Faltren’s voice, which gabbled high, fast and thin.

“That’s not in the spirit of the thing, men, not at all!”

“Who’s them?” said a figure below.

“Dunno quite,” said another.

Pavel had not heard. As he lowered his breeches, Faltren peered, then shuddered. He had always vaguely suspected, from his wife’s muted responses in their once a week routine, that he might not be the most… gifted of men. But the sight of the spotty, awkward boy’s protruding tool hit him like a body blow. If his own mass was doubled, then doubled again, it would still not come close to the size of the boy’s. Faltren felt suddenly sick. His words were reduced to soundless fish-gulps.

Runnel cleared his throat with the most force to date. He finally spoke. It was not particularly loud, for Elder Runnel had not been brought up to express himself freely. But pent-up anger filtered through. With jaw-clenched intensity he growled out, “Stop that! What… the hell… makes you men think you have the right to do… that… to an innocent girl?”

Faltren was stunned from his silence by the swearword. Mild though it might be by the standards of others, it came unprecedented Elder Runnel’s lips. “Yes,” he squeaked out, “Yes, all of you stop. Disband! Go away!”

More heads had turned, more shirts were being pulled to look. One called, “Bugger off! Pavel’s her chastener, he can do what he likes!”

“Not that though,” another voice muttered. “Forbid, is porking, in chastening rules. For good reason, no doubt.”

But Pavel was too taken by the moment to pay heed. He dropped to his knees behind the broken girl. Pulled the foreskin back from his swollen glans. Grabbed the squealing girl’s hips. Lined himself up by eye. And thrust.

Two things happened in different places. At the top edge of the hollow, Runnel pushed past Faltren. Though no longer young, he scrambled down the cutting, oblivious of dignity, sliding on his backside, calling, “You… will not! Stand away!” Faltren, spurred to follow, picked his way more gingerly.

And in the hollow, Pavel Panchun, mid-thrust, squealed like a girl. He froze. Stared down. Then pushed Anja away, stumbled to his feet and reached down to finger his still-engorged prick.

He should have known. He should have thought. The way to Anja’s tunnel was not an open path, he had seen to that himself. Though she’d tried to scrabble the worst of them away, gorse thorns had touched her in numbers. One nasty little clump, settled just inside her opening, was now embedded in Pavel’s purple glans, with an inch-long thorn angled up the small slit of his urethra.

Anja might be in agony herself, but the sound of Pavel’s scream moved her mind for a moment. Yellow flowers were close, ahead of her face. She reached and folded one fist around a twig. Gorse is brittle. Though the girl was weak from pain and exhaustion, she still found strength enough to pull. It snapped off from its host. A last strip of bark held, tore, detached.

She turned weakly on her knees. Pavel, still moaning, stood close above her, breeches at his ankles. With a shaking hand he had plucked away the thorns, watching horror-struck as tiny dots of blood oozed from four points on his most sensitive skin.

This hiatus was short-lived. Anja Salidef, caring nothing for any hurt to her hand, jabbed her fist full of gorse up into prick and balls.

Runnel was down, stumbling over, his breath coming ragged. Flailing small arms, he shouted, “Get away from her! Get away!”

He was not a big man, but of medium height and medium weight. His neck had begun to tilt forward with age. His belly was not big, but still it sagged a short way past his belt. But his face, bright red, told a different story. The anger in him, anger of frustration, though habitually constrained, showed now hot in his cheeks. He had turned bright red, and its strained intensity caused men to shuffle back. Those who weren’t laughing (whilst clutching their balls empathetically) blinked in shock at the elder.

Faltren clomped up too with little steps like a child’s. “Yes, yes, get away from Miss Salidef,” he said. “Martyn Clozeby, I see you, you get back! And Jerzy Inmar, you’ve been seen! You mark my words! You get back, or things will go badly for you in the coming year!”

One elder they might have ignored, who knows? But two surely tipped the scales. Most men retreated, grumbling, but they knew which side of their bread was buttered. Elders bearing grudges would not serve them well. Elders knew land owners. Land owners might listen. Common men were cheap and easily replaced.

The exceptions were Pavel and Gunter Horst. Pavel himself was insensible with pain. If he’d screamed before, he was screeching now as he stared at his rapidly detumescing prick. Gunter, meanwhile, was looking into Runnel’s eyes. The elder stared directly back. The young man was held, though he wanted to run.

There was more than anger in Runnel’s stare. Gunter saw something inside the anger: a roiling, clamped-in madness which never saw the surface, but floated now like an unmoored boat. Gunter found his mouth running dry. Gulping caused dry-swallowing to follow. He grabbed Pavel by the elbow and pulled the boy sideways, though torturer-turned-tortured could only screech afresh. With his pants at his ankles, small buttocks squeezing tight, and thorns stuck where thorns ought not to be stuck, Pavel hobbled stiffly, keening, out of range.

In a short space of time, the elders were alone with the chastened girl. Faltren asked, “Well, Runnel? What next?”

The other met his eyes. Faltren peered back, blinked twice, and, shuddering, broke the gaze.

“Ah,” he said, “ah, well yes, yes well I think we should ah, get the girl back to the village. Dear oh dear er, what a mess. Yes, goodness me. Ah…”

“Crookmount is closer.”

“Eh?” asked Faltren.

“Crookmount,” Runnel growled. “Closer than Crothin.”

“Yes ah,” said Faltren. “Yes well I suppose that just might be better for the girl. If the walk was shorter. If she didn’t see her ah, parents? Just yet?”

“Father Melchin. Lodgings close.”

Faltren helped Anja, who seemed dazed to be kneeling with just the elders about her, onto her feet. Her mouth came open, she seemed intent on speech, but the only escape was a quiet whimper.

“Well yes, you do look the worse for wear.” Faltren held a clammy hand out, trying to maintain his distance from her nakedness. She tried to take steps. But she limped so badly he took pity and caught her under her arm.

“Carry,” said Runnel.

“Eh?”

Runnel shuffled up, pulling Anja’s left arm around his shoulder. Once there, he held her wrist with his own right hand. “Other side,” he rumbled.

Faltren hesitated, stared at Anja’s close-up breast, moved the arm he held up and over his shoulder. Runnel’s voice had changed, and Faltren felt most odd in its presence. Gone was the pouting, mealy-mouthed prude. This clipped, verb-free grating added in to Faltren’s queasiness.

He’d assumed they would be merely helping Anja to walk. But Runnel took her left knee in his free left hand. They moved on a step, Anja hopping on her right,. She looked down, blinking rapidly, till Runnel growled, “Leg.”

“Yes ah, yes I suppose, ah…” Elder Faltren took up Anja’s other knee. The girl let out a quivering moan and Faltren quickly dropped it.

“Leg!”

“But she will…”

“Leg!”

“Yes ah, well yes if you insist, I suppose…”

Faltren lifted her knee again. And between them, they carried her up and out of the old quarry cutting, legs well apart, her offended areas cooled by the dusk.

This story is a work of fiction. Do not copy anything in the story.

CHASTENING DAY    Act III:     RIVAL ELDERS, HALF A RESCUE

© smack magnet

Ch 11: Lemon Dressing

How Runnel knew the way to Crookmount, when Faltren himself was unsure where even Crothin lay, he could not fathom. But though Runnel chose each path without thought, their progress was still halting. More than once they stopped to adjust the way in which they carried the girl. More than once she tried to walk, part-supported. But her feet seemed too sore, though she offered no words, and they always returned to their odd fireman’s lift. As the sun sank, then set, they walked on, now down, till they crossed a small stream spilling down off the heath. There they let her chill her feet in the water till her shivering started to worry Faltren. The looks she gave each man he could not interpret. She tried to smile once or twice, but the smiles led to twitching, then fragments of incoherent speech, till Faltren said, “Yes well, I’m sure you’ll get your meaning out soon.”

They set off uphill on a narrow path between broom and heather.  Here they could not carry Anja between them, so they took turns to ferry her on their backs. She clasped their necks like a child as they held her knees with forearms, walking slowly, though in truth she was not particularly heavy.

Faltren, walking behind as they climbed a steep rise on a narrow, eroded path, found the girl’s naked backside to be level with his face. The light was now poor but, conflicted, he stared. Looked behind him as if his wife would be watching. Peered up at the back of Runnel’s head. Gave in to his instincts. Stared so avidly, frowning, that he failed to see Anja’s own eye looking back.

“We are close. She grows heavy.”

“Yes ah, yes but the bushes leave no room for me to pass. Just ah, now… A little higher?”

Crookmount slowly revealed itself, roof by roof, a short way beneath them as they circled the hill. Their path was still rising when Faltren took his turn. Runnel, showing his age in his stoop, climbed slowly ahead. But at last they reached a crest. The church, on a narrow level field, perched below. The priest’s cottage was closer. Able to walk abreast again, they hoisted the wordless Anja between them by her arms and knees for the last hundred yards. A rough wooden gate sat in a hedge of flowering hawthorn. Faltren pushed. The gate’s creaking reflected in an echo off low cottage walls. They carried the girl to the black-painted door beneath its open wooden porch. There Faltren paused.

“Knocker,” said Runnel.

“Ah, her feet?” said Faltren. He put the one he was holding down on the ground.

“Lift it,” said Runnel.

“We are visiting a priest!”

“She’s hurt.”

“She’s in flagrante!”

Runnel turned his head. Faltren turned to meet its gaze. Shuddered. And quickly lifted Anja’s knee.

He tapped the knocker with his free hand.

“Louder.”

“Eh?”

“Knock!”

Faltren knocked louder. They waited.

“Knock again.”

Faltren hammered, though he winced as he did so. Waited. Felt the sweat on one palm where it gripped the underside of Anja’s knee. Continued to wait. Then, with a shunting of bolts, the door creaked inward. A shortish priest, half dressed in dishevelled black vestments, with a dog collar hanging half off at his throat, stood framed in the doorway. He looked. Focused. Focused on breasts. Looked down at Anja’s crotch. Sputtered, then laughed out loud. Peered at Faltren. Peered at Runnel. Tipped his head.

“Ah!” he said. “Is it Easter, already?” Then he cackled a second laugh, backed into his home and waved a hand for them to follow. “Come in, come in! Would you fancy a snifter or two, my friends?”

They followed him inside, turning sideways with Anja. Faltren led. Runnel pushed the door shut behind him.

In his low front room, the priest was clearing a space on his table, a wide slab of oak mostly covered in a mess of cups and gravy-crusted plates.

He plonked them with a series of clatters on the floor, till all that was left were a few rough-piled papers. These he swept off with a flourish of an arm and said, “Plop the poor girl down on that then, won’t you?”

As the Elders moved to position Anja, lowering her with her back to the table, the priest bent his head close. The light in the cottage was poor. A candle burned in a stick on stand where the priest had been sitting in his armchair by the fire. A newish log spat embers, its red light glowing in the fireplace grating. One weak gas lamp burned white in a tarnished brass bracket on a wall behind. The priest peered close to see anything at all.

He laughed. He laughed louder. “Fuck!” he said. “Is youse lot from Crothin-under-heath? Is your man there getting settled in? What’s his name again, now?”

“Dominic,” said Runnel.

“Fuckin’ Dominic, that’s right! I heard he was in. Has that eejit Father Peter fucked off now for good?”

Faltren found himself pursing his mouth, much as Runnel had habitually done for years. “Father Dominic…” He cleared his throat. “Yes, Father Dominic has been in Crothin for a little over a year, or more. Father Peter has retired.”

“Ha!” said the priest. “So he’s gone? And now this?” And he pointed, unabashed, at Anja’s injured crotch. He squinted over at Faltren’s face. Laughed again. “That fuckin’ Peter was a pain in the arse! Back to the old then, is that your man Dominic?”

“I fear… yes. Sadly.”

The priest rolled his shoulders and head, made a rising, falling, sing-song sound. “Sadly is it, then? So who’s got to clean the girl’s bits out, I wonder?”

“Ah?” said Faltren.

Father Melchin peered at Runnel. Spied the small spark of madness as it rolled between his eyes. Jerked his head back. Said, “Fuck, is that Albemart Runnel? Fuckin hell man, how long?”

Runnel’s St Vitus stare leered directly back.

“Good lord,” said the priest. “A drink! You’ll want a drink.”

“Runnel doesn’t care to drink,” Faltren said. “He always says, he doesn’t mind others drinking so long as they drink in moderation. But that doesn’t mean he feels the need to drink himself.”

“Does he not, now?” The priest lifted a finger, pointed it loosely at Runnel’s nose. “I bet he will tonight though. Am I right, or am I right?” He turned and crooked a finger behind for Runnel to follow.

Runnel dropped Anja’s leg down with a thump. Pulled her arm off without ceremony. Followed the priest to a dresser by a wall. There the priest glugged out two fat glasses of whisky. Picked one up himself. Gave its counterpart to Runnel. Chinked his glass.

“How long is it, then?” he asked the man.

Runnel cleared his throat. Said slowly in that new-found gravelly voice, “Nine years. Six months. And thirteen days.”

“To the day then, is it?” A doubt passed over the old priest’s face. It was subsumed in a quick-spreading grin. “Still, about feckin time, eh? Have a snifter with your old pal Father Melchin!”

The priest knocked back a glug. Runnel stared at the swirling in his glass. Put his nose close. Flared his nostrils. Drew a breath in, deep. Sighed voluminously, shut his eyes. And tipped the glass’s contents directly down his throat. Then he rocked on the spot as the fire hit his belly. He smiled, long, slow and broad. Flicked his eyes to Melchin’s bottle. Held his glass out for another shot.

He would get no help from either man, Faltren saw it clearly now. He stared at Runnel, now sprawled in an old, tatty armchair opposite Melchin. Legs akimbo, head lolling, his pose was unrecognisable to Faltren.

Melchin had angled his chair so he could still get some fire warmth, but also watch the naked Anja on the table.

“I’d help you,” he said, then giggled. “I’d come and feckin help you out. But I’m not sure I can stand!”

“Yes well there’s no need,” said Faltren primly.

“Got a wife,” said Runnel.

“Has he, now?”

“A nag in a village where nags are all banned.” The abnormal sound of Runnel laughing sent a queasy shiver up Faltren’s spine. That laugh hadn’t trilled like a normal laugh.

“If she could only see him now, is that the kind of thing?” asked Melchin.

“She’s a nag, she’s a nag, she’s a hag of a nag.”

“In Crothin? Ha ha! And him the village elder, is it?”

Faltren snapped, “He’s an elder himself.”

“Is your wife a nag, Runnel?”

“She’s dead,” said the other.

“Is she dead now? A pity. She was alright, your Ella. I always liked her whatsits… what was that biscuit she baked now, man?”

“Ginger,” said Runnel.

“Oh deary me yes, they was top now, ginger biscuits! I can taste ’em in me mouth as I sit in me chair!” He turned his head, blurry-eyed. “How’s your man doing with them tweezers, now? Are they working out for youse?”

Faltren licked his lips. He stared at the girl’s face. He’d tried to make her comfortable. Taken bedding off the old priest’s single bed, placed it under her back to protect her hips and spine. He’d found candles through a half-directed rummage in the kitchen. Found a decent candelabra with a central holder and a flower of four. Each white flame flickered bright above half inch wicks.

“It’s embarrassing I’m sure, but it’s got to be done.” Faltren parted Anja’s legs by several inches. All Anja could manage was a shuddered, breathy moan as he bent to look closer and extract a tip of thorn.

“Alcohol,” said the priest.

Runnel let a burp slip.

“For the chit. Some kind of alcohol, that’d prob’ly do it.”

“Do what?” asked Faltren.

“Where them gorse pricks went in. You should clean her up proper.”

“Where is it, then?”

A pause. “Where’s what?”

“The rubbing alcohol.”

“What rubbing alcohol?”

Faltren turned his head. “You said you had alcohol. To clean her up. Where is it?”

“Who told you that?” The priest took a sip. “How should I feckin know, what would I be wanting with rubbing alcohol? Sounds like a feckin waste to me.”

“But…” Faltren found his jaw working oddly. “How… If she needs cleaning up, how should I clean her up?”

Father Melchin blew a breath out with a noise like a horse. “Jaisus, man!” he said. “Have you not noticed? You’ve got a feckin gorgeous filly there on her back with her legs apart. Is there much left to your imagination there? So, feck, does that not leave you some imagination over? What are them pounds of grey between your ears?”

Faltren sniffed in anger, stared down, looked up. “Yes, well,” he said to Anja. Looked away. “I don’t suppose I want to.” Then he stared at her directly, his decision in his eyes. “But we’ll just have to get you properly clean. We can’t have things down there going septic. Can we?”

“That’s the talk man,” said the priest.

“His wife,” grunted Runnel.

“A pillar of pious prayer and afternoon teas?” The priest spilled a laugh. “Feckin priceless if she pictured him now though, eh Runnel?”

Faltren left the girl on the table and clattered once more in the cluttered-up kitchen. When he couldn’t find each thing he wanted, he sniffed, shook his head and improvised. He came back with a pile of things on a tray.

Runnel still sat immobile in the armchair. His chin was flopped against his neck. His eyes were open but he glared at the fire.

The priest looked him up and down. “Well, you’re no fun,” he said. He blinked at Faltren. Blinked at the girl, who had pulled the blankets tight up around her. “Eh, non o’ that!” He staggered to his feet. Came up to the table. “Did you not have her in the position, man?”

“Well she must have been cold,” Elder Faltren said.

“Did you get out all them whatsits? Gorse thorns?”

“One or two. Not nearly all.”

“Ah! Excellent! Let’s look, eh?” He whipped the blankets back off the girl. Slapped a foot. Said, “Right, eh? These’ll want to be back!”

Faltren looked horrified. The girl’s face clicked towards him, clicked back to the drunken priest.

“Go on,” said the priest. “Get your legs behind your head!”

“Get her…”  Faltren’s mouth hollowed.

Anja whined, began to move.

“Do it fast!” said the priest. “Do we look like we’ve got all day, or what?”

The girl knew to move. She’d been traumatised, broken. She barely whined as she rolled her legs up above her hips. Her knees she kept locked. But the old priest scuttled to the back of the table. Grabbed her ankles, pulled them backwards.

“Now, steady!” said Faltren.

“Steady what? Have you not got to see what you’re doing?”

He pulled Anja’s knees wide apart, pushed them down to touch the table either side of her shoulders. She was young and she was flexible. He grabbed her right hand and clamped it to her ankle. Did the same with the left.

“There,” he said. “Can you see things, now?”

Faltren’s mouth was opening, closing again. He stared at the girl. She trembled her mouth but the words wouldn’t come, though her journey to Chastening Day on the heath had been caused by sniping words. The preponderance of notes in Dominic’s accusation box had been for Anja. She’d had more notes than any other, almost more than the rest of the girls lumped together.

“Stay like that,” said Father Melchin. To Faltren he said, “We heard about this one even up here in Crookmount. Down in Crook, over that ways, I bet they heard of her there as well. Can you not talk, girlie?”

Anja’s glistening eyes just blinked at the man. He stared straight back.

“I’m needing a piss,” he said suddenly. He shuffled about and headed for the kitchen.

Faltren called after, “If you’re thinking of helping, Father, wash your hands!”

The priest grunted as he left.

Faltren stood back. Pursed his lips. Looked at the girl. “Well yes,” he said, “yes well we have to have some access I suppose. Improper, I know, and I’m terribly sorry. I suppose one must think it necessary, though.”

He bent close to Anja’s hips with tweezers clasped in faint-trembling fingers. Picked a thorn. Peered closer. Clamped it, slowly. Pulled it out.

Quare had returned to the village of Crothin. He shuffled quickly (for Quare, at least) down its main cobbled street. Then pulled to a stop, and listened, his head turning, bird-like, this way and that. He was sure something had sounded. There was silence. Nothing.

“Hello?” His thin voice quavered as he listened for an answer, as the hairs on the back of his neck stood up. In the distance, something fell, a pot lid perhaps, and rolled on its rim before clattering to silence.

“Hello?” His voice rose up to a squeak as he spoke.

No reply.

“I am ah, only walking on. I carry no money.”

Turning his head, he shuffled forward on stick-thin legs, heading quickly as he could for the village hall. Reaching it finally, he went in through its tall gate, up the stone steps behind, and reached for the place where the elders hid its one ancient key (for its great door and lock had been rescued from a crumbling mansion higher up the hill, upon which grounds Ballards School now stood.) But, finding the key absent behind the loose brick, his knees began to knock.

Clenching withered old buttocks, Quare approached the door itself, which stood incongruously now in a wall near too small to accommodate it. With trembling fingers, he tried its handle. Turned it. Pushed it with just the right amount of force (for, as First Elder, he had opened it up many times before) but found it would not shift. He pushed again. Turned the handle the wrong way. Pushed.

“Oh dear, oh dear,” he muttered, rather high in register. Then turned back to the street, descended the steps, and, looking in fear up the hill and then down, he shuffled away on his sparse-muscled legs, head twitching left and right too often to count.

Till at last he reached his residence and, entering by its sticking back door, pulled it to with a thump and locked it fast behind him. Then he rushed upstairs, divested his day clothes, pulled on his night clothes, quickly used his chamber pot and clambered into the high, lumpy bed. And there, pulling knobbly knees up to his chest, he slid heavy bed clothes to his scrawny neck and shoulders. Snuffed out his bedside candle. And blinked at the dark with saucer-wide eyes.

He did not normally feel this frightened. Something was amiss, and the worry of it settled in his ancient bones. What kind of a change had Dominic released? What kind of a world would he find in the morning? He would not sleep till dawn, of that he was certain, as he worried and fretted at the day’s strange events.

Old Father Melchin was back in his study. He leered at the girl. “Feck,” he said. Then, not standing on ceremony, he dipped his head close between Anja’s legs like a stiff wooden toy. Stuck his fingers out. Took a grip of a delicate inner lip. Pulled it this way, pulled it that way. With his other hand, he pointed. “There,” he said. “There’s a couple of the little feckers right there.”

“It’s improper!” said Faltren.

“What is?” asked Melchin.

“The way you speak! Doing…. that! You’re a priest, man!”

Keeping hold of the lip, the old man turned his head. “Improper?” he asked. “And was you lot not this girl’s responsible elders?”

“I was… not, it was Quare!”

“Still,” said the priest. “You was one of her elders, no? Improper? Have you noticed? She’s thorns stuck square in her cunt there.”

“Your… speech!” said Faltren.

The priest held up a finger on his free hand. “I never swear in sermons! There’s thorns in her arse here as well. Give them feckin tweezers over, eh? They’re me only pair.”

“I should… use them myself.”

“Ah, roight then. So do it. Get your nose up this little slut’s fanny, man.”

Faltren huffed. Faltren muttered. But he came in close, with the priest’s hand still pulling on the girl’s pink lip. A thorn’s short tip was sheared off, embedded. Faltren couldn’t get a grip. Melchin squeezed with finger and thumb tip to help push it out. The girl whimpered, voice catching. When Faltren couldn’t find a grip, Melchin pulled the tweezers closer, though Fatren’s own fingers were still holding on, and clamped it on the flesh, at an angle, to either side of the buried thorn.

“There!” he said. “The end’s poking out!”

“You’re pressing on the tweezers!”

“You’ve fingernails, I see ’em. The length of a girl’s.”

Faltren muttered. Tried to get his face in close. Tried pinching the thorn against his finger with a thumbnail.

“I can’t see!”

“So bring the candles close!”

“Ah, no. I’ve got it.” Faltren pulled.

“Show us,” said the priest. He peered at the tiny snapped-off thorn. “Not big. But nasty. They should all come out. I tell you what,” he said. “She’s your Shrew. It’s my cottage. And candles and whatnot, and all these bits and bobs on your tray.” He glanced behind at Runnel. “Plus, him over there, he’s on a different planet, so he’s no use. But the chit needs mending. So I’ll do this side, and you do that side. It’ll go a lot quicker. And we’ll both share the fun.”

Faltren’s head jerked, offended. “Fun?” he asked.

“Ah, ya mealy-mouthed cunt. She’s gorgeous! Feckin’ look at her! And no fear, she needs attention, am I roight? It’s gotta be done, roight? isn’t that how it is, girl? You want these pointy feckers pulled out o’ your flesh, eh?”

The old priest peered at her face, head tilted back over wire-framed, half-moon reading glasses, which he’d slipped on in the kitchen.

“See? I seen her nod there. But you man, you pretend like it’s more than a chore. A chore? There’s her gorgeous young breasts man, and here, here’s her fanny! I’m an old alco priest. I admit it, I’m hardly headed straight for St Peter’s gate. But it’s not often gorgeous girls spread their legs up on me dining table. So me, I’m up for enjoyin’ meself! You, you sorry cunt, you can feel what you like. Now shove us your tray and let’s see what we’ve got.”

Things went quicker now the priest had got involved. He fetched a pair of kitchen chairs and pulled them up close. Faltren found a cushion to prop under Anja’s up-tilted hips. The priest went behind, wangled Anja’s knees even further down, behind under her shoulders. Clamped her hands back on her ankles. Shoved her forwards. On the blankets, it was easy to push her this way and that.

Faltren started working on the girl’s left buttock, Father Melchin took her right. Where the elder tried to move carefully, find a thorn, come in close, use the tweezers, clip and pull, the old priest was far less circumspect. He found a thorn, squeezed the flesh. Pulled it up, squinted, poked with a finger nail. Gave it a scrape. Pinched it harder. Used his teeth when he could. The girl was flinching, emitting short squeals.

He went out to the kitchen again. Had a rummage. Brought back a pot filled with water. Hung it from a hook just over his hearth, so flames licked its underside. Went out. More rummaging. Came back. Dropped things down in the pot. Took some pieces from the tray, dropped them in the boiling water.

“Are ya doin’ alroight then, Jacob Faltren? Are ya havin’ some fun yet?”

Faltren was a touch more engaged by now. Seated on his chair, he worked steadily, moving over Anja’s skin inch by inch. “There’s one I can’t get out,” he said.

“Sure now, I had a couple o’ them. There’s sewing needles on the boil back here. I was told a thing by this visiting doctor. Wee beasties, he said. The feller had this fearsome glass for seeing roight up close. Made me old feeble eyes feel thirty years younger. He said, he said we’re covered. With these miniscule beasties. Made me skin crawl, but they’re everywhere, he said. These tiny bastards, on your skin, on everything else in the world as well. Germs, he called ’em. And trust me, he said, you don’t want the buggers gettin’ under your skin. Sterili-something, that’s what he said. You know what’ll work?”

“Work for what?” asked Faltren.

“For after we pull all the gorse thorns out. For sterili-whatsit. So she doesn’t get infected? Mind out.”

He bustled Faltren aside. He’d a thing in his hand. He sat down. Held his hand close to where he’d been working. Looked up at the girl.

“Just remember,” he said to her, “this is for your own good.”

And he pressed his hand to the patch he’d been working. Rubbed it in, rubbed it up and down. Anja inhaled sharply, panted, screamed. Her hands clenched fiercely around her ankles. Her winking holes clenched clam-tight shut. Melchin held a cut yellow object out to Faltren.

“See, lemon’ll clean the little bastards out her skin.”

Faltren sniffed. The poor girl keened. The priest dipped his head with a wicked, giggling smile.

Faltren might feel angry and guilty, but he soon saw the sense. He’d seen grazes infected. They could lead to far worse, lead even to death. This should never have happened to the girl. What had happened was offensive, worse than wicked. But now that it had, she had to be helped. Some pain in the short term could protect her in the long term. And better it was him and this lecherous priest now than leaving things to fester. So he flared his nostrils, found thorns, plucked them out, then scrubbed Anja with lemon till the  tears stung her eyes.

This story is a work of fiction. Do not copy anything in the story.

CHASTENING DAY    Act III:     RIVAL ELDERS, HALF A RESCUE

© smack magnet

Ch 12: Crookmount

It took at least two hours. The pair of them, Priest and Elder, went over Anja Salidef’s buttocks, groin and thighs with a fine tooth comb, pulling with tweezers, pinching with nails, dousing with lemon, poking with sewing needles to extract the thorn tips which had broken off inside her skin.

Part way through, the silent Runnel rose, went behind the girl and tended to her feet and her hands. He worked for half an hour, barely saying a word. Used a full half of lemon on each of her appendages. Then still without speaking, sat back by the fire.

Father Melchin ran his old callused fingers up and down Anja’s narrow patch of blonde pubic hair.

“Can’t tell if there’s any of the feckers even in there. Still, no doubt we’ll find out later.”

He found some more candles, lit one, dribbled a small pool of hot wax just to one side of her thatch. The girl screeched a brand new tone to that, her eyes blinking repidly. He pressed candle stub to flesh. It stuck for a moment, but a shiver in her stomach had it fall towards her belly. He picked it calmly up, considering his options. Picked the wax away. At its edge, it caught some hairs. There it pulled, but wouldn’t lift. He giggled to himself. Yanked up hard. The few hairs came away with the wax as the girl choked out a squeal. Melchin giggled, dripped a lot more wax directly on her central mound. He covered most all of her thin pubic hair. Then stuck in the candle, pushing down with its stub.

“There’s not enough light, not by half,” he observed.

This time, it held firm. He got another candle, dripped down more wax. Stuck the candle to her downy pubic mound. Got a third. Did the same.

“See? Light.”

Then its purpose was revealed.

“There’s some up her cunt, eh Faltren?”

“I… don’tt know. The boy seemed very rough, he wasn’t a nice sort of a boy at all, though Runnel and I never saw him… at his business with the girl. They… yes. It’s always possible, isn’t it Runnel?”

The man by the fire stared at flames and did not answer.

The priest sighed. “Ahhh…” he tutted. “Dear oh dear. It’s a tough old job, but someone’s got to do it. Eh? So, Faltren. Here’s the poser. Shall I poke on me own, or’ll you fancy pokin’ with me?”

“Poke?” Faltren asked.

“In her hole. I’d do it on me own. But she needs to be spread there.”

“It’s improper.”

“It’s got to be done, man.”

“Yes well. Well.” He sniffed. With a face as frozen as a china doll, Elder Faltren moved his fingers to the rim of Anja’s slit. There they hesitated, dithering.

“Well go on, man. Pull her open!”

“Ah…” He let his fingers touch, lifted them like it shocked him, dithered, touched back down.

“We don’t have all day, you squirmy lizard.” The priest pressed his own fingers over Faltren’s, pressed down, pulled them outwards.

“Really!” said Faltren.

“Ah go on. You’ll relax in a minute… A virgin she isn’t,” the old priest observed. “I know. I’ve seen. I wonder if her da knows. Could you pull a mite wider?”

Faltren glanced at the priest, hesitated, pulled a tiny bit outwards. Then the priest shifted Anja, sliding her forward. Wax spilled down to her mound. Looking uo at the ceiling, he started to poke with one finger in her hole.

“Eh… nails,” he said.

“What nails?” asked Faltren crossly.

“Your nails,” said the priest. “I can’t find the grip. There’s thorns, I can feel ’em. Move your fingers off her hole, man. I’ll pull, you can push.”

He batted Faltren’s hands out of the way. Pressed his own down. Shoved two of each hand in, one knuckle deep. Pulled outwards. With a moan and squeak of shame from the girl, her intimate opening showed its insides.

“So, there. In you go. For her own good this, remember, man.”

Faltren wrinkled his mouth and nose. Then he dipped an exploratory finger, barely touching the girl.

“Go on. Right inside.”

Faltren huffed out air. He said, “Really!”

“Get on with it, man.”

The elder pressed a finger to the girl’s insides. Moved it slightly to the side.

“Ah. Yes ah, yes, here one is.”

He blinked, frowned, blinked. “I don’t believe I can… maybe… no, ah…”

“Go on, stick your thumb in. Or you’ll not get a grip.”

Faltren tried to dip his thumb in as well, with a pouting mouth like the Runnel of old. “Goodness me. It’s not so easy.”

“Just get the fecker out, man.”

Faltren’s tentative fingers got more forceful as he dipped. He seemed to grip a thorn. Pressed in. Got it out at last, found another (he’d touched several).

“I’ll have to… out of the way man, out of the way!”

He pushed Melchin aside and got himself lined up. Pulled her open with one hand, dipped inside with the thumb and first finger of the other. Found a thorn. Gripped it. Worked it out.

“Some of these are… in quite deep. I’ll ah… nearly…”

As time went on, he abandoned the tentative nature of his actions. He started grunting as he delved inside Anja’s young pussy. He started pulling her about, stretching her wider, digging in deeper.

“There’s… another… goodness me!” He pulled out his fingers.

“What’s the matter now, man?”

“They’re… they’re wet!”

“Ah. Now then.” The priest smirked at the reddening face of the girl.

“But… why…”

“Are you married man, or what? Have you never seen a girl getting wet between her legs?”

“Is she injured?”

“Jaisus! Serious? Your wife… she’s never?…”

“Never what?”

“Feck man, surely? It’s just her! She’s a filly! After all them feckin arseholes did, she’s got wet for your fingers.”

“Wet for…?”

Melchin blinked, incredulous. “Well she’s not like to stop you doin’ what you’re doin’, man. Go on. Get on.”

Elder Faltren had turned red. His bald head showed the glow of it right to his scalp. He frowned, looking angry. Touched the edge of Anja’s pussy. Glanced up at her face. She met his eyes, looked away, flicked them back.

“Well,” he said. “Well. Yes, I haven’t got them all yet.”

He stared at his fingers. Huffed a sigh. Pushed back in.

Five minutes later, he had all fingers of his right hand buried. His face was still red, only this time it was from all the effort. How the last thorns had got this deep, he dared not imagine. Pavel was a beast who’d deserved a worse fate than what the girl had done there down in the hollow.

He grunted. Pushed. Still couldn’t reach. She wasn’t in an ideal position. Without thinking, he turned her with his deep-delving hand. It was after he’d moved her that it hit him what he’d done. Pulled the poor girl around by her… even in his head, he couldn’t say cunt. But his head exploded with the thought of what he’d done. His hand started trembling. All along, he’d been clear. Yes, the girl was fine to look at. He was… delving in her… yes, but for a purpose. For the good of the girl.

He’d pulled her by her… lady part. His heart was racing.

“I can… nearly get it, nearly, ah…”

He closed his eyes tight. Pushed in, pushed forwards. The girl slid away by a couple of inches. She was on a blanket, after all, and the surface of the table was really quite smooth.

The priest had sat off to one side. He stared avidly. A smile crept slowly around his mouth like a vine around a pole. There, he thought. There’s your man. Now I see him.

“I think I’ve nearly got it, ah…”

The girl was shifted forwards on the table. She squealed a small squeal that had not been entirely engendered by fear.

“Yes it’s… nearly… ah, ah…”

Anja shifted sideways.

“I can’t quite…”

She was shifted back the other way. Then forward, half off the near edge ofthe table.

“Yes ah, nearly there, nearly…”

Push her away, that was what was in his head. Push her back towards the other edge. But instead, he’d shifted close to a foot. She squealed.

Faltren froze. He stared in horror. His eyes had bugged as wide as they would go. And the girl, she’d started to pant, moan pant. She blinked at the elder through blurred, fazing eyes.

He stared at his hand. It was not a large hand. He had hardly done a day’s heavy work in his life. It was barely bigger than an average woman’s. But nevertheless, it was in her to his wrist.

“Have you found them last thorns, eh?”

“Ah… no, ah… I might have…”

“P’raps you’d better keep on poking her then? She’ll thank you if you find ’em, eh?”

“God. Oh, God,” said Faltren.

“Go on, man! Dig in deep!”

Faltren’s jaw clamped. His eyes squeezed tight shut. And he jerked the blurry-eyed Anja towards him. She clung to her ankles, knees pressed to the blanket, legs as wide apart as they could possibly go. The tallow spilled from the candles as she slid back and forth, splashing down onto her belly. As Faltren pulled towards him, his fist half popped out. As he pushed away again, it went deeper, cloaked and heated by her liquid flesh. She was jerked and jiggled from the fulcrum of her snatch, and she pushed back with her hips, squeezed his wrist tight with her muscles.

“Is that not a bunch of nasties in her tits I can see?”

Faltren grabbed a breast. He kneaded, stroked, manhanded. Pumped the girl’s flesh with his other hand. Pushed, pulled, pushed and pulled. The movements got shorter, the girl moved ever shorter distances. Her spare breast jiggled as the frequency got faster.

“Nearly got it… nearly got it…”

With a spasm, he jerked the girl right to the front. At the same time, he jammed his trousered crotch to her buttocks face colouring purple. The girl let out a scream and started shuddering from her hips to her head.

“God. Oh, God.” The waves were lessening, storm nearly over.

“Have you got ’em all out, man?”

Faltren opened rolled-back eyes. Tried to focus on the priest. Blinked oddly. Stretched his face. Looked down to his embedded hand. Pulled another face. Worked the muscles round his jaw.

And pulled out his hand with a suck and a plop. Between finger and thumb was a tiny tip of gorse thorn.

Faltren was yawning, overwhelmed by a sudden need to sleep. Father Melchin pointed the way to his bedroom, and Faltren, stiff-legged, stumbled out, with a lazy dab of a hand at some stickiness in his trouser region.

Runnel still brooded in his comfy chair. He’d kept the fire alight by adding more logs. More than when Melchin had sat there alone. Enough to keep a naked girl warm.

The priest turned to the girl. “Well I’m glad you’ve had a little fun. Been a horrible day. Just a little reward. And a lesson for a man who surely needed a lesson.”

He turned his head to the kitchen door through which Faltren had bumbled.

“You’ve got to be tired. You must be exhausted. But, ah… Well. There’s still a little work to be done, eh? We’re closer, that’s true. But, ah… my kind of fun…” He winked his face. “Might not quite be the same as that last feller’s was.”

“I’m going for a walk.”

These words came from Runnel.

“Are ya? Sure now?”

“There’s a moon.”

“Well, it’s easter, roight?”

Runnel stood. He cleared his throat.

“Would you maybe like a coat? It’s night.”

Runnel took one off a stand in a corner. Slid it on. Half looked back.

The priest said, “I’ll just be finishing her up. There’s still a few thorns to go yet, but.”

“Yes,” said Runnel. “Yes, I’m aware.”

“Make sure no part of her gets infected.”

“Very good,” said the elder. “Just don’t… let things get out of hand, please. Not too loud.”

“Ah,” said the priest, “we’re a ways away from the nearest houses. Plus, it’s only the night after chastening day. There’s a few screams might float about down in the village. From scornful wives of the odd hard-nagged husband who’s been counting infringements for nigh on twelve months.”

“Yes,” said Runnel. “Yes, I may keep an ear out. If that’s the way I go.”

“Night then,” said the priest.

“Yes, good night.” Runnel sipped into the hall. The door to the outside opened, creaked, shut.

Father Melchin stood up. He went into the kitchen. His footsteps disappeared. A door creaked faintly. Another creaked, closer. Then the door to the kitchen and hallway was closed. The priest winked at the girl still lying on her back. She’d relaxed her position, taking hands off ankles and lowering her feet.

“Ah now,” said the priest. “Are you thinking we’re finished?”

She looked. Shook her head.

“Shuffle over,” said the priest, ”while I fix them blankets under your back.”

She shuffled. He picked the blankets up. Straightened them and doubled them. Laid them back on the table. Said, “Back on ’em now, alright? Good girl.”

She moved herself back so the blankets were directly beneath her.

“Now eh… Might be we could do this with you on your knees. But them candles on your mound, I wouldn’t want them to burn the wrong way. So eh… ankles up in your hands again, girlie.”

She rolled them back, without protest this time. Knees wide, touching the table. With the blankets doubled, they went lower by three inches or more.

“That’s the ticket,” said the priest. He pinned them down under her shoulders again. She took hold of her ankles. But the priest went to a drawer. “I know you’ll keep still,” he said. “But I’ve rather a penchant for making sure.”

He had a strap in each hand. The girl blinked at them, moaned. He strapped one wrist where it pressed against an ankle. Tied it tight enough so her hand was trapped tight. The girl let a little whimper escape. He did the same with her other.

“Ah,” he said. “Now, that’s what I call a lovely sight for Chastening Day.”

He put an extra pillow under her head, explaining how he liked to see a girl’s eyes. He stuffed two more in under her hips. Grinned a grin to himself. Grinned a grin to the girl.

“A proper shrew. We’ve heard of you here. There’s fellers in Crookmount have had first-hand pleasure of your choice use of words. Now, eh… here, I’m on a hill. There’s a hilly curve below, then another curve. All the houses are pretty much well out of earshot, I’m the highest place around here. Your man Runnel has gone. Your man Faltren’s had his oats, so. He’s way down the end of the cottage now. Through four wooden doors and walls as broad as the width of a pig. So ah… feel free to scream now, if that takes your fancy.”

“Clean?” asked the girl.

“Oh my lord, does she speak? For sure, oh I will. Every fuckin’ last prick of bastard gorse is comin’ out. And you’re going to be ever so clean by the end. Clean as new, bight and sparkly. First though, eh? Them nasty little evil thorns.”

There were tools that Faltren just hadn’t thought to use. With the turn of events (Faltren’s hand caught in the cookie jar) Melchin hadn’t had the chance. But now, he did, and no-one would stop him. He took up some tongs. They had a finger hold and thumb hold one side of a fulcrum, then went down at an angle till both sides curved flat. You could have stood them on those flat ends like a pair of scissors with feet and no blades. He’d made sure they were clean. He’d boiled the rust-free metal by the fire.

“Now then,” he said. “Are you ready for them thorns to get pinched out, girl?”

She let a little whine of fear out. She licked her lips wet. And the priest set to his work. There were thorn stubs left around and about. He did his job. He’d find one and make sure he got it, proper. But wherever he found them, her flesh got squeezed by those devilish tongs. He’d grab her by a chunk of skin, the thorn stub in the middle. He’d see if he could squeeze it out. Sometimes they came. Sometimes they didn’t. When they didn’t, he’d set to with the tweezers, pinching closer. But still pinching with the tongs, out wide. He’d use his teeth. Use a needle if that didn’t work, making her flinch again and squeal again. And always after, he’d rub her with a lemon. The agony made her throat grate raw. There were plenty of thorns and more after them, since Pavel and Gunter had not known restraint.

If she squealed too loud, he’d tell her off and pinch somewhere else. Her pert breasts ended with quite a few pinch marks, though mostly on these he used fingers and thumbs. Occasionally twisting.

It took him a while, but he got every thorn on her thighs, bum and belly. Apart from the ones in the middle of her thatch. Faltren had extracted quite a few. The man was systematic. But he’d also kept to his side, apart from the session when he’d grubbed inside her pussy. That left plenty for Melchin.

He set to work on her pussy lips. These were delicate, thin. He wouldn’t use the tongs on these. You didn’t want to damage your prize exhibit, eh?

“Let’s have a good root around these things then, shall we?”

He started to pull them about with his fingers. Poke them rough with his other hand’s finger and thumb.

“Feck! I found one! Right deep inside, eh?”

He picked up a needle. Squeezed the thorn. Started poking. Her squealing came out rhythmically.

“Well now, wonderful! We’ve got it!”

He readied the lemon half. Squeezed out some drops. Pressed it into her labia. The girl screamed a shriek out, then quickly started panting.

“Haha! Does that smart now?” He pressed down with the lemon on the other side of her pussy hole. She screeched again.

Melchin found plenty of thorns and more around the poor girl’s bottom. Ah my lord, he thought. What had those lads been doing to her? Her arsehole must have got some particular attention. He’d seen it all along. Watched Faltren from the corner of his eye. The man must be queasy about bottoms, Melchin realised. Her bumhole was the one part Faltren had avoided. Both sides. All around.

She was clean. She was sterile. He’d cleared every thorn he could find, all over. Just this pucker hole left. Her last crown of thorns, he thought. Feck, what had them bastards been doing to this chit?

They’d bounced her. Straight after they’d felled her that first time, they’d bounced her. Found a fresh bush, with the men gathered round.

“Give her the bounces, Pavel!”

“Yes, give her the bounces!”

They’d had her off the ground by her arms and legs. She was shocked, distraught, hysterical, screeching. She’d never dreamed there could be such pain, such complete degradation. The gorse pierced directly up between her legs. Some stuck, some just kissed. Some scraped, some left their tiny, painful needles behind. The bounced her up and down for a minute or more till the bush was half smashed, though they never quite dropped her to the floor like before. Then they carried her away. Dominic was left behind, with some others.

She was barely aware, all her consciousness was in her flushed face, in the crowd of jeering strangers, in the laughter of the men as she was ritually humiliated. Their vile suggestions, their sniggering comments.

They dropped her to the ground. Her dignity had been pierced and popped like a water balloon, blown out in all directions. Her arrogance and confidence had been shredded in a moment. She’d always been keen to try and look her best. She was queen of the village, she was queen over boys and queen over men. She was haughty and aloof. Full of sexual promise that those men would never taste.

Her dignity was shredded. When they dropped her to the ground, she’d clawed at her behind. She’d reached between her legs and she’d reached around her backside. All in front of a dozen guffawing, pointing men. She had to get the needles out!

“Fuckin’ god,” said one voice which penetrated her haze of terror. “That’s fuckin’ Anja Salidef! The bitch of the village! I used to be scared of that silly fuckin’ cow! Only every time I see her from now, I’ll picture her pulling fucking needles from her arse!”

They’d watched her debase and degrade herself. When the laughing died down, Pavel Panchun and Gunter Horst picked her back up. She tried squirming away, and even half escaped, but found herself pushed between a circle of men. As she staggered and fell into them, she’d get groped at her breasts or groped between her legs. But her breasts got more attention after more than one man found his fingers pricked by painful thorns.

The party still drifted. They got further from the fork in the paths where the mile stone stood between Crothin, Crook and Crookmount. They tried to make her perform for them. But by now, in her trauma, she could hardly understand their rough country words. She barely knew what they wanted at all. Except to terrorise. Humiliate. Laugh at someone helpless.

When the entertainment flagged, it was time for Pavel’s invention again. Four men took her up by her arms and legs, with Pavel directing. She was naked head to toe, not a stitch on her remained. They held her up between her. She was too weak from crying and screaming to resist. She was held with her legs spread as wide as they’d go. And the crowd of men were invited one by one. They’d all, or mostly all, felt the scorn of her tongue. Some remembered vaguely. Some remembered word for word.

“She called us all pricks! So who wants to prick her?”

Men pulled twigs off nearby bushes. Some dangled them close, repeated Anja’s stale insults, flicked or touched with their needles. Some were meaner, jabbing sharply. But none was as mean as Pavel Panchun. He was First Chastener, after all.

“Here Gunter, pull the slut’s dirty bits open for us!”

Gunter had her leg on one side, another man had the other. They grabbed a handful of arse cheek each.

“Don’t you prick my hand there, Pavel!”

He pretended he was fencing. Flourished twig, thorns and flowers like a rapier. Held his other hand out back like he’d seen some off-duty soldier do. Pratted backwards and forwards. Stabbed her arsehole with his weapon. Again and again, stabbed her arsehole and her fanny. Anja’s screeches and screams rang all over the heath, so that Misha Spinnet nearly wet herself in fear. So that Marta Smolt ran.

They drifted again, till they found themselves down in a hollow below the line of the heath, an old quarry working long since abandoned. They dumped Anja on the ground again. Pavel made to kick her in her arse, but the girl crawled up in a foetal ball. Then the chant started up.

“Prick her, Pavel, Prick her!” Till it somehow got distorted. “Prick her, Pavel, prick her with your prick!”

He’d responded to that. He pulled the rolled-up girl by her hair till she had to uncurl, then he shoved her down on her hands and knees. He slowly started to unbuttoned his breeches. Did them half up as a joke, then undid them again, egged on by the men. Dropped them to his ankles. Got down on his knees like a pig behind a sow, all ready to mount. Lined up, Looked at the men who were egging him on. Failed to see some looking up to the rim. And tried to stick his prick in Anja.

Pavel was not the brightest of boys, and Pavel’s invention backfired on him, badly.

Screeching, he pulled back in agony, with half a dozen gorse thorns embedded in the tip of his prick. He staggered to his feet, tried to claw them away. Got them out. Saw the blood well.

Saw a flash of yellow gorse coming up from below. Then he screeched till their ears rang.

Pavel was pulled away by Gunter Horst. He could barely walk, he was in so much pain. His friend dragged him on.

“There was elders, Pavel! Fuckin’ elders, come back!”

“My prick,” said Pavel.

“Pull your pissing trousers up! You are a prick, you fucking prick.”

Disorientated, eyes squeezing tears, Pavel let him lead. Though Gunter surely didn’t know where he was going. They blundered till they bumped into some former companions.

“How’s you balls feelin’, Pavel?”

“How’s your prick, you silly fuckin’ prick?”

They were laughing at him, Pavel knew. But at least they pointed the way to the village.

Gunter wanted to speed them up. But Pavel couldn’t move without feeling the needles. They must still be stick in there. The thought passed that he might never get erect again.

It seemed to take forever. Gunter sniped with his words and called him foul names till Pavel felt lower than he had in his life. Till he found himself crying in chunky, lumpy sobs.

Gunter stopped. Turned back. Pulled a face. “You pissing child! You great wet! Just fuck off and suck your dummy, little girl. I’m embarrassed to be seen with you!”

Pavel found himself abandoned on his own. Still sobbing, he stumbled his way back to his home. His mother was insensible, as usual. Her blurry, drifting eyes barely focused on him once.

He went to his room. Took his breeches off. Inspected his prick. Pulled out all the biggest needles. Tried to get at some tips that had broken off.

The skin of his glans had been pierced in several places. The special, sensitive skin looked wrong, sort of blotchy around the prick points. He rubbed at them. Shuddered, cried his lumpy sobs. And rolled up on his bed, still in his top clothes.

In the morning, he was sorer than he’d been the night before, only this time it was throbbing. He wouldn’t come out of his room, though his mother knocked and knocked again and asked if he was feeling alright.

“I’m ill,” he groaned, and wouldn’t come down till nearly night.

Hunger drove him to the kitchen when he knew his mother was out. But when he’d scoffed down a small chunk of cheese, some stale bread and cloudy water, he hid back in his room. He lit up a candle. He inspected his balls, his wrinkled shaft, the tip of his prick. He didn’t like the way it looked. It was yellow where the needles had punctured. He shuddered. Tried not to think about it. Slept.

In the morning, he woke with a vicious hard-on. His prick felt twice the size it ought to be. He rolled out of bed and headed for the window to take a piss on the bushes outside. In the cold light of dawn, he looked down at the thing. He pulled at the foreskin. It hurt, it hurt like buggery. He didn’t want to pull it more, but he shut both his eyes, grit his teeth and just did it. The agony was awful.

He opened up his eyes. Pressed his hand to his mouth. Wrong, it looked all wrong. The skin around the pierce-points were showing red-raw. All the colours were ghastly. He felt suddenly sick. Pulled his prick back inside, leaned out and threw up what was left of his supper. Snorted vomit from his nostrils. Leaned back in, knew he had to look at his prick.

The head wasn’t all that was throbbing and swollen. He lifted his wilting shaft out of the way. Peered down at his balls. Saw the hardening lumps. Touched one, squealed. The agony was dreadful, it throbbed like a bastard. This lump was turning a funny colour, not pink, but yellow and sickly black.

Pavel started to scream. Then he started to screech. “Mum?” he gargled. “Mum? Come up here, come and help me! Come up here, come up and help me! Muuum!”

This story is a work of fiction. Do not copy anything in the story.

CHASTENING DAY    Act III:     RIVAL ELDERS, HALF A RESCUE

© smack magnet

Ch 13: Old priest, young priest

He washed his hands. He got himself settled. He stared at the girl. Then he took half a lemon and squeezed it into the dip around her bumhole. The way she was positioned, that hollow would be acting like a pond, pointing up towards the ceiling.

The girl began to whine, then suck and hiss rapidly through her teeth. He didn’t blame her, he’d have whined himself if that’d been him. But that didn’t stop the priest start up giggling like an eejit.

“It’s all for your own good. You know that, girl, don’t you? You’ll be roight as rain in a couple of days.”

He squeezed in more lemon. Giggled wickedly. Squeezed even more. He’d been given a bag of the fuckers by an orchard owner. What feckin use were lemons? Melchin had thought. The man’s giving them away cause he’s nowhere to sell them. Of all the feckin citrus fruit…

But that was the thing with lemons, eh. They weren’t like your oranges, weren’t like your grapefruit. Them two, both of them were sticky. They left sticky feckin everywhere. You needed a wash after eating a grapefruit or all your feckin sugar would be glued to your hands.

Lemons, though. Roight enough, now he could fathom the use of a lemon. There was no stick after a squeeze with one o’ them. The feckin juice cleaned off every drop of dirt and shite in a hurry. It was better than feckin water and soap.

But it stung like a bastard. You got it rubbed into a graze or a cut, and you feckin well knew about the lemon alright. Mind, the cut… well it stung. But it never seemed to fester. The sting of the lemon was more or less it healing the wound. Because all o’ them nastys, them invisible bugs, like that doctor had showed him, well they couldn’t be liking its acid now, could they? The girl on the table was suckin’ through her teeth. And he couldn’t deny it, he was lapping up the sounds. But she wouldn’t have afters, he was certain of that. He was doing her a favour. He was saving her a barrel of strife. She’d heal, she’d be fine. At least in her body. Where her mind might be wandering, he didn’t like to speculate.

Ah, the lemon! He sucked in its smell, mixed in with the girl’s. She was squirming like a fish out of water, screeching like a banshee on heat. He was loving every minute of it.

Ah, this feckin heath! He hadn’t even heard of the place before they feckin sent him here. Out of the way? He was fuming, incensed. It was halfway down the road to nowhere at all. He’d ambition, back then. The big city in the east with its lights on feckin poles. The call of the arches and avenues of Rome.

Then some trouble with his trousers. And old Bishop Georgi had some turgid objections and decided to send him to coventry. Almost literally. All he’d done was diddle a lay reader’s wife. It happened all the time. He’d met, or been told of, a good hundred priests who’d either got away with, or better, been promoted out of shite that had lasted six times as long, or been far feckin worse. But what happened to him? One feckin wife and his bishop blew up like a firecracker popping.

So Melchin got sent all the way to the heath. From the start, he resented every inch of the place. He was grumpy when the coach dumped him down in mid June. He was grumpy as he sweated in the heat of feckin summer. He was grumpy watching suiciding leaves after Michaelmas. He got wasted at Christmas. He resented feckin spring.

And then it was Easter. “What’s this Chastening shite?”

He knew he’d been dumped and ostracised. Bishop Georgi made it clear, don’t write, don’t ask favours, don’t expect any help. Stay out of my way. Just feck off, that was the gist of it. So he’d had to feck off. And once fecked, he’d stopped caring what impression he made. What difference would it make? He’d be better dropping out of the priesthood altogether.

In the Church itself down the hill, well, alroight. Some folks believed all that twaddle and shite. He’d half try for the believers. What had them poor sods ever done to him, but? It was only half their fault they had cloth between their ears. And the services were Latin, so who’d even know if he swore in the lingo as he trotted out feckin mass after mass? He’d do his job to a minimum. The official feckin minimum. But, out and about, or in his own gaffe, he’d just say what he felt like, he’d act how he wanted. If the powers-that-be had him shorn of the cloth, then so be it. He’d take it on the chin, find some nice squeeze of a widow for a wife. Near a year he’d grumbled and sworn and talked shite. His piss had been generally more alcohol than water.

Until it was Easter.

“A festival, father.”

He didn’t have a junior priest. They’d never give him that, not now. So he made do with this eejit called Rab, feckin short for Rabinowicz, what kind o’ feckin name was that? He just seemed to always be there, at the church or turning over Melchin’s cottage borders. It was nigh on nine months before he clocked that the lad was actually the verger. He was digging a grave, that was when it clicked for Melchin. He’d just thought he was an enthusiast.

“Sure, it’s only Easter. Feckin bunnies,” said Melchin.

“Yes, our Easter. For fertility.”

“Oh, fertility, is it? Like, your easter eggs, all that?”

“So our girls may be fertile.”

Melchin pulled a face. “Your women? Not crops and fields and feckin chickens?”

“Not the married women. Girls.”

“Oh…” He’d frowned. “So, chasten, that’s like… chastity, roight? Only, how’s that s’posed to make ’em fertile? By abstaining?” He’d wrinkled his face up as he thought it out.

“Chastening is… chastising, father.”

“Chas… what? Chastising? Like, crackin’ a cane? On your feckin girls?” He was scratching his head. What the feck? Make some sense!

“Young men whip them with switches.”

And that’s when it changed. When the heath stopped being his nag and his burden. He was standing in the vestry. He found himself sitting with a thump down on a bench chest. “You… whip at them with switches? What?”

“On Easter Monday, every year. All the girls of age who are not yet married. And virtuous boys.”

“In the church?”

“A procession. Everyone in their best clothes.”

“And you switch ’em? What’s a switch?”

“They are paired, those of age. The most virtuous boys and most shrewish of girls. A switch is a rod. Made from twisted strands of willow, tied with ribbons, topped with bows.”

“Oh so loike… pretty sorts of canes, then. For tapping, for show?”

Young Rab looked confused. “No, the boys whip the girls.”

Another deep frown. “You mean, proper whipping? Only, over some thick costume dresses or something? Have you done this yourself, son?”

“Of course. Haven’t you?”

“Eh? Well that sort of thing, it didn’t happen. Not a lot. Not where I come from.”

The young man tipped his head. “So how do your girls make sure they are fertile? Before they are married?”

“Eh… round our way, it’s like, suck it and see. So who whips the married lassies?”

“Their husbands, of course! That’s their right because they’re married.”

“Their roight? To whip their women?”

“On Easter Monday. But many do so at other times.”

“Sure. Feck. So, it’s just the young lads who whip the young lasses? Sort of, one on one?”

“And sometimes in a roundel. We played different games in different years.”

“Proper supervised, roight?”

“Of course! There are elders to watch. And you, of course.”

“I’m there?”

“As parish priest, of course!”

He said, “Feck.”

“There are pictures. Paintings. Father Gorman had them taken down. Father Albemard, before him, collected many pictures. Drawings, illustrations. They used to be displayed in the village hall.”

“Old Gorman was a bit of a prude then, was he?”

“He was here two years and died. He had terrible gout. He put the pictures in the seat chest you are sitting on.”

He’d never even bothered to look in the thing. But up he’d got, and in he’d rummaged. And out came the pictures. The younger Melchin had found his hands trembling as he picked through the first, and the next, and the next. Some were illustrations made as inserts to books. Some were framed. Some looked amateur, but an amateur with an eye for a figure.

“Father Albemard drew these himself,” said Rab.

There were piles of notes, and sketches of what were labelled ‘Chastening Games.’ One, a picture of a priest who was wielding a whip. “Did he ever, ah… join in, this old priest? As it were?”

“Father Albemard? Of course. Particularly with the more shrewish of girls. And infertile couples might come to him for blessings.”

“Blessings meaning beatings? Feck,” said Melchin. “And these used to hang…”

“In the village hall. Some in the village were most distressed when Father Gorman removed them.”

“Well,” Melchin tutted. “You can’t mess with tradition, eh? Would you like to see them up again?”

Rab’s face had beamed a healthy smile.

“So these ah… games. These processions. Can you maybe think to describe one to me, Rab?”

And the lad, his young verger, had set off reminiscing. About how all the unmarried girls of age would line up, and boys the same. The girls in bright spring dresses. The boys carrying home-made whips as they walked alongside. Processing through the town, lined by anyone else who cared to look. Around the village once or twice, then into the field they used for fêtes. Younger children had their own easter games at the other end of the village, with as hunts for painted easter eggs.

When their of-age siblings got to the fête field, the elders would be waiting, including elder females, plus the priest and other helpers. It started with roundels. Six to ten girls would be dancing in circles. There might be several circles, depending on how many girls there were that year. The boys were divided up and stood around in outer circles. It didn’t matter if there were a few too many or a few too few, since in roundels the boys just stood where they were, and whipped at the girls as they danced on by.

“They whipped as they danced?”

“The village band played tunes.”

“Serious? The brass band? Oompah tunes?”

“Traditional tunes. With a beat for the girls to skip to, yes.”

“Ah, roight. On you go.”

The elder women kept an eye out for girls who turned their hips to particular boys. The elder men spotted the same for the boys, such as who whipped at whom with a little added ardour. They also kept a close look for the girls who tried to avoid all blows. Or who sassed at the boys. Or worse, sassed the elders.

Obvious pairings might be singled out. A part of the field was used for short little goes at one-on-one whippings, with the elder ladies supervising, since they often had an eye for who blushed the right way. But they wouldn’t always let the youths stick in just the first pairing that happened, though. They might try them this way, try them that.

But the ones who kept trying to avoid the roundel whips, or got angry or talked back, plus the boys who didn’t end up in any of the pairings, they got sent to the top end for a different set of games. Though it wasn’t completely fixed at that point, as girls from the pairings could get singled out for some little infringement and sent up for the tougher games. And the other way around if a pairing seemed to happen amongst the intransigents and loners.

They were Fecunds and Fallows. Girls at the lower end where pairings were tested were Fecunds. Girls who flinched too much or were cutting with their tongues at the top of the field were Fallows. That was just in Crookmount, Rab told Melchin. In Crothin-Under-Heath, they called those girls Shrews.

“And Crook?”

“Their festival is different as well.”

“Roight. The whole heath, then. Ah… The Fallows. What went on, then? Up the top end?”

Rab told him that that was where the helpers came in. The younger married men, sometimes married young women, stood around the Fallows like fielders in a game of cricket. The Fallows comprised both Flinchers and Tongue-Lashers. If the Flinchers ran, they helpers knew to catch them. If the Tongue-Lashers lashed, they were there to call the girl out for extras.

The girls had to stand out in threes, and three boys, picked at random, had to stand behind them. The girls had to lift their skirts this time. The oompah band played, and the boys were meant to whip in time with the music.

It wasn’t just the girls who got singled out. A weak-whipping boy could be labelled a Dud. Firing blanks, it was called. By tradition, Duds were paired with the worst Tongue-Lashers. The idea was to see if they could get a rise out of the weakest of the whippers. Maybe spur them on to show a bit more spunk.

“Or just basically humiliate the silly feckers. How many games were there, Rab?”

“Oh it went on into the afternoon. There were lots of different games. Or, were for many years under old Father Albemard.”

“Good job that other fecker died quick, am I roight?”

Rab had blinked at Father Melchin.

“It’s tradition, eh? A village needs tradition. Two weeks to Easter, Rab! Tradition feckin rules! Eh… how does it end? This festival of yours?”

And Rab had told him. The best fecund parings were encouraged to flourish. Many hearts found their twins starting out at an Easter Chastening Day. The Duds they tried to shock into action, but sometimes they just kept on firing blanks. It was shameful for a boy.

“And the Tongue-Lash girlies? What of them?”

The girls who talked back had the Devil of Spite. If the Duds couldn’t be fired to try to tame them, they were sent home in shame, and the Elders took over.

“And the priest? By any chance?”

“Father Albemard, yes, he would often whip the spiteful girls.”

Melchin winked. “That’s the ticket. And your flinchers? Your runners?

The Flinchers got it worst of all. It did seem a little bit cruel to Father Melchin. Cruel, but sort of funny as well. The girls who really hated it, they were the ones who ended up getting it worst. In a village where fertility was linked to being willing to bend when for a whip, the girls who shied away had the Devil of Avoidance.

At the end of the day, those who still flinched and cringed and were not yet in a pairing, were made to strip bare, or were stripped by the helpers. Some years there were just one or two, some years more. (And for some girls, the torture ran on and on, for each year, those not married were required to return, till at length they reached an age to be declared old maids.)

Many pairings might have gone off a-courting, some might stay. But most girls tried to get their boys to leave, since there were tales of girls who got dropped by their beaus and pulled in late as Flinchers, or labelled Tongue-Lashers.

All the elders stayed, all the helpers and catchers. Quite a number from the village might drift in to watch. There was always a crowd for the final act, when the Lashers got taken and whipped by the Elders. That drew its own crowd, especially if a certain girl was resented.

The rest of the crowd wrapped round tight as the unpaired boys, who were surely not duds, and the boys who’d tricked their pairing partner to come up and watch, just to dump her in the middle, had their way with the screaming, naked flinchers.

Each year it would be different. Father Albemard thought variety the spice of life. There was one dry year when the girls were told to run the gauntlet. He lined up the crowd in an avenue, left and right. The Flinchers had to run to the end with the the crowd all having a go at them. Whipping and spanking, sometimes holding them back and giving them extras. The last one through that year was tied to a whipping stool and thrashed by the priest. Then crowned with donkey ears and made to bray.

Another year there were five girls and a heaving crowd, despite a week of rain. Albemard had the helpers make a circuit, around which the girls had to race against each other. There was more than one round. The winner of each round was let off, but the losers had to go again, only this time it was two laps, instead of just one. And so it went on, with the girls getting fewer and the laps getting greater.

Rab was staring into the distance. “I was one with a whip. There were six of us for five flinching girls. We chased them around. If they slipped in the mud, we whipped them on their bottoms and thighs till a helper helped them stand. When each winner was reprieved, us six boys could still stay on the circuit to chase.”

Rab licked his lips.

“The very last girl was Mariam Cherrer. She had to run five circuits, with all of us still chasing. The priest had decided it. Mariam always tried to run, but she covered her bum and her breasts with her hands. Her bum because we whipped it, her breasts because they wobbled. She was worst of the flinchers, which always slowed her down. So when she was last, she was turned into the donkey. The priest made the helpers tie her forearms to her upper arms.”

Rab showed Melchin what the girl’s arms had looked like. Tied tight to the sides of her body, with her hands flapping loose up just above to her shoulders.

“She’d have pulled ’em around to cover up her tits though.”

“They were also tied together with a strap around her back.” The boy blushed, looked embarrassed. “Her breasts stuck right out!”

“Feck off,” said Melchin.

“She had big, heavy breasts. They bounced when she ran!”

“Was she big at the back too?”

“Oh, yes!” said Rab. “She was big at the back, but bigger at the front! But she wasn’t really fat. Her waist was there for all to see, she had curves and curves again!”

“And she ran her five circuits?”

“She tried. It was muddy. Some villagers protested, but the crowd bood them down. They said she’d had enough, but everyone else wished to see her be the donkey.”

“They’d put ears on her head, then?”

Rab nodded. “So she ran. Only now she couldn’t cover her parts. We all chased. Pushed each other out the way to get shots in. It got quite rough. I was pushed into her by another boy, I knocked her over.”

He looked into the distance.

“She fell flat on her breasts and she couldn’t stop her fall with her arms… The filed was full of mud then. She was winded, but we pulled her up. She slipped in the mud on her bottom quite often.”

“It went on a while, then?”

“Yes, the crowd were excited. So we carried on chasing and carried on whipping. She was the donkey, she must bray like an ass!”

“Jaisis,” said Melchin. “Has she got any kids? Is she fertile, or what?”

The lad said, in all seriousness, “Oh, yes, it worked!”

“Something feckin worked. Your elders. I thought they was a bunch o’ feckin prunes. You know, wrinkly. Slightly sweaty. Are they into this stuff?”

“I’m sure they would be happy if Father Gorman’s restrictions were… put away.”

“Roight. Jaisus. I can half imagine that happening, Rab. Old Gorman sounds like a right feckin prick, you’ll be glad he shuffled off. Did she get to the end then? Of your five feckin circuits?”

“I chased her to the end! We were pushing each other to get to her bum! Everyone was cheering, laughing. We were cracking her buttocks and cracking her thighs! One chaser twisted his ankle though, another got an elbow in his eye. We were being quite rough, pushing and jostling to get to Mariam Cherrer. There were five of us, then four. My friend made us talk as Mariam Cherrer ran on through the mud. ‘Let’s stop pushing and shoving each other!’ he said. One boy was left-handed. Another right-handed. They should chase her from behind, said my friend, one whipping from her left, one whipping from her right.”

“But there’s only two buttocks.”

“Yes, but Gerd and me were to walk in front.”

“Doing what?” Melchin asked.

“We’d heard shouts. Some men calling. ’Spank her front as well!’ they’d called.

“You could… spank her feckin breasts?”

“The priest had not said. But the men were calling.”

“So you manned a tit each.”

Rab nodded. Licked his lips.

“For how many circuits?”

“I’m not very sure if anyone was counting. The way they bounced… they were very firm. They came to points which stuck out in front. Great fat cones, says Gerd. They were covered in mud from when she had fallen. We played games to slap the mud off. When it all came off, the lads behind tripped her. I felt sorry for her sometimes, but her squealing was so funny!”

“And the elders? The priests? Did they not say to stop?”

“Oh no,” said Rab. “They were busy whipping Lashers.”

“Ah. Roight.” His eyebrows lifted. “Got you.”

“We kept pulling her up and starting her running, even though she squealed and squealed. The brass band were still playing. Gerd and I slapped at her breasts from above as the tuba notes went up and down. He took the up note, I took the down note. Our friends with the whips made her run and run.”

“You kept her running?”

“She believed she would get to the end of her circuits.” Rab fell silent.

“Go on. Spill the beans. I’m only your priest.”

“The dusk was growing. We were chasing on and on, most had seen all they wanted. Some had drifted away. Many were talking. Or laughing. Many drunk. And she was the donkey, the loser. Nobody cared what happened to the donkey. The boys behind started slapping up between her legs. Gerd and I saw it. She tried to hold her legs together. Gerd and I held her knees wide, made her carry on going. Then someone from the crowd brought a short pole with straps attached to its ends. It was from a past game, in another year. We tied her knees apart with it so she could still run, but couldn’t close her legs. Now the boys could spank between them and spank her cheeks apart as well. Sometimes both together so her bum was opened with each twin slap.”

“Sounds lovely,” said the priest.

Rab carried on his tale. “Gerd and I, we started pulling Mariam Cherrer around the circuit by her breasts. We each took a tip, and marched her along. The band marched behind. The slappers behind slapped in time with the beat, taking turns, or together. And Gerd and I pulled her breasts, left and right.” The lad’s face looked entranced. “We’d pull, then push back. We came off the circuit and nobody minded. We marched her up to the top of the hill, then we marched her down again.”

“How long were you at it?”

Young Rab sighed. “Till the sun had gone down and the band could not blow.”

Melchin tipped his head. “Is she still in your village?

Rab blinked his eyes. “She is married to my friend. To Gerd.” He half smiled. “She still flinches when I come to their house, and hugs her breasts.”

“Feck, he married her. Why?”

Rab grinned his odd grin. “He wanted to. Because no-one else would have her.” He hid his face, then looked shyly up. “I think, because he can do what he wants. He sometimes ask me to supper.”

“Ah… roight?”

Rab looked embarrassed, turned his head, as if to see if anyone else was listening.

“I’m your feckin priest. Have you noticed?” said Melchin. “If you’re planning to confess, you’re with the roight man.”

“Sometimes after supper, we both spank her breasts.”

“For old time’s sake, eh?”

“Yes. One to each side. He can make her do nearly anything.”

“After all that feckin marchin’ about, I’m not feckin surprised. Is she turning to fat? Has she kept her figure?”

“Oh, yes! He makes her exercise!”

“And the baby?”

“There are two. Two boys. They’re very happy little boys. I take them for walks. Gerd asks me. So he can spend a little time with Mariam.”

The younger Melchin had laughed. “I bet she looks forward to you comin’ around! Get the kids out of her skirts for a bit!”

Seven years he’d had, after that enlightening talk. Seven glorious years with no interference from man nor priest. Those feckin Crookmount peasants! And their girls were all gorgeous. Buxom, pretty, rosy. Curvy like they’d all been bred for it. The festival had gone back to how old Albemard had had it, quick-snap. Melchin had a few other sweeties as well, on the side as it were, more all-year-round. He often had the buttocks of the girls beneath his rod. Melchin found he had a quite a taste for the likes of all that. The years rolled by…

Then Father feckin Peter, the Crothin killjoy and his orders from the new feckin bishop. Fernandino, same as now. This all has to stop, the orders said. That prune-faced little pillock stuck his oar in everywhere it wasn’t wanted. He found an ally in Doddery old Michael from Crook, down the road a ways from Crookmount. In Crothin, his parish, he stopped everything but a handful of tiny taps on a trilogy of shrews. Why he didn’t stop that vestige as well, Melchin never worked out. But Peter gave Michael in Crook leave mothball Chastening Day entire. And came down like a feckin ton of bricks on Melchin.

Letters to the Bishop. Melchin came within an inch of being ousted to a monastery. He’d clung to his job by his fingernails. Had to shrink the village parade to a few sorry girls and a few scrawny lads. Stopped the games, stopped all of that lovely fun and feckin games. It was the culture of the thing, that was what he was trying to stamp out.

He even stopped Melchin whipping in private. Though a few girls were still snuck in on the quiet by childless husbands or vindictive mothers. Peter couldn’t see everything, and he couldn’t stop what he couldn’t see.

Fifteen feckin long years though, that’s how long that arsehole had ruled. More than twice as long as them lovely fun and games, back there at the start.

Melchin grinned down at the squirming Anja Salidef. Naked, on her back, knees bent under shoulders, wrists tied to ankles.

“Are them candles getting a bit too low, I wonder?”

He’d dripped wax on her short blonde hairs, stuck three candles upright on her pubic mound. The extra light let him see her pussy, bright and pink, apart from where dribbles of wax had run down. Still, all in the cause of cleaning her up. Getting every last needle of gorse out, roight! The candles were down to the stub now though. She must be pretty warm under there. She was moving her hips oddly, that was for sure. Making interesting groans, producing fascinating shivers.

“So, that Dominic? Your priest? How’s that new man working out?”

Feckin Father Peter had been retired himself now. Just like he’d nearly had done to Melchin. The sod was locked behind monastery walls. But this new man, he’d sounded like a Fernandino special. Posh, he’d heard. Feckin educated, erudite. An insider at the Bishop’s Palace, no less. More feckin dullness and misery, Melchin has predicted. Only… here was the shrewest of all lovely Shrews. Melchin saw it straight now. Dominic, feck, that man must be clever if he’d gone and sneaked right in here under the wire! If your man knew what the heath was, or what it had been, and he’d got himself assigned to it. Pulled the necessary strings. Made the palace puppets dance.

Melchin hadn’t met him, though that fart of a fool Father Michael had. He’d not approved, Melchin heard that much. He’d expected one thing, Michael said, found another instead. Said he’d written a letter to the bishop in protest. Good luck with that, thought Melchin. Dominic was Fernandino’s man, and Fernandino had always left the running of the heath to Father Peter. So he’d likely leave the lot to Dominic as well.

Melchin smiled at Anja’s twitching bumhole and blew out the candles perched on top of her mound. He let the wax solidify. Reached forward. Worked a finger under a corner of the stuff. Smiled down at the girl. Said, “Alroight, now?” Pulled up.

She screamed. He looked at the half inch of wax in his hand. Oh yeah, there were a few of her short and curlies. He started teasing more hardened dribbles away. Got them half way up. Saw the skin pulled at points where the hairs were engulfed. The girl’s eyes were watering. He’d propped her head up back there on a pillow. He could easily see her tweak-twitching face.

He pulled sharp. A nice reaction! Ah, feck, this was wicked. He’d not had this much fun for more than fifteen years!

Rip! Oh look at her face, at them tears rolling down. She’s blinking and squeezing.

Rip! Jaisis, that was a loud groan there. Now she’s looking. Trying to smile, get some sympathy from me.

“Please?” she says, her inflection all up-rising. Feckin wicked, she’s begging.

“Eh… No?”

Rrrip! Feck! That was half of her pubes that are left there, at least! Her screeching’s atrocious! Now she’s blubbering, heaving, her whole body’s in it. Can I get this last lot ripped out in one go?

“Are ya ready?” he asked. “One last big one! Can you maybe keep the noise down, though? The neighbours…”

He pulled up the wax. Watched her skin pulled about as she shuddered and sobbed. Teased the girl, pretended, half-way yanked, made the holes between her legs flinch.

“It’s got to come off, now. Hasn’t it, lovely?”

Slow and steady. Look at her skin come. Look at her shudder. Little jerk… Now she’s squealing, I’ve got her.

Rrrrip!

She screeched the house down. Screeched again and again.

“Didn’t I say to be quiet for the neighbours?”

Her fat, bald mound with its row upon row of pert little goose bumps where all but ten seconds past hairs had poked out. Bright red, shiny, glowing. He couldn’t resist! He spanked her fat mound with a wicked abandon.

“I said quiet, and you weren’t! You directly disobeyed me!”

His big hand rained down smack after smack. He could feel the heat building, right there where her nerves were. He smacked and smacked again till her mound was bright red, then he smacked where her mound met her legs to either side.

“Now. How’s about a wee drop of lemon on that?”

He cut open a fresh one. Went at her pudenda with both halves at once, squeezing and rubbing till the girl’s screams made a glass fall of the mantle piece. Then he rubbed around her bum hole again. All them nasty little feckers, the thorn stubs, time to get the last of ’em out!

Pulled the tray up. Got his implements, the tongs and the tweezers, and went at her arsehole. All the little stubs of thorn that Fatren had avoided, surrounding her hole, stabbed in by that evil Chastener boy.

“You’ll be wanting it finished now quick-snap, roight? Best go fast as I can then, shall I?”

He pinched, poked and pulled, he twisted and squeezed. Used a needle tip to poke when the feckers were stubborn. Used his fingernails. Used his teeth whenever he could get them to reach. If he saw some clean skin with no thorn, he’d still give a bite with his tongs, or nip it with his tweezers, just to see her bumhole spasm and cringe.

The girl was a mess. She was snuffling, crying, squeezing her eyes tight. More than just the once, he wiped away her snot with a cloth.

He was coming to the end. He couldn’t find a single thorn left. But the girl didn’t know it. So he happily pinched her and poked her some more. Fr the fun of it, really. Then he knew it was time for his last feckin lemons. He’d do her all over. Make sure she was clean as the day she was born.

He cut three. Used the lot. Squeezed one around her arse. Another all around her pussy lips. The third one for every last thorn-prick on her skin. Rubbed them in, rubbed them hard, so the rind got distorted. Tears streamed from her eyes. Her throat sounded raw. And her pussy and bumhole, they danced for their supper.

Three days later, Pavel Panchun was still in terror for his cock and balls. The local apothecary tutted and sniffed. He boiled up some stinking concoction, daubed it on hot and made the boy screech. Served the little shit right. Got ready to lance with a lancing needle. The pus smelled atrocious. His cock looked quite ghastly. The man wondered if the boy would survive it at all.

Three days later, Anja Salidef sat quiet as a mouse. She jumped every time she heard the tiniest of noises. She was using some speech, just yeses and no’s, but sometimes longer sentences. Her mother said, “Well really it serves you right. I always said, you can’t talk the way you used to talk. Around Crothin, that’ll get you a very sorry come-uppance, Anja. Didn’t I say so?”

The girl had to nod. She sat in a window seat, watching the spring. She was sore still… a little. But the scratches were healing. She’d picked away at the odd tiny scab, though her mother told her not to. But her mum had been careful to inspect her daughter thoroughly. The girl was hardly saying much. Her mother had heard some of what those beastly boys had done.

You could hardly see it now, though. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to tweeze out all the thorns and clean her daughter’s skin to a shine. A priest. She’d heard that information had come from an elder. A priest up on Crookmount, far side of the heath. She must bake him a pie as a thank you present, Mrs Salidef thought. Maybe send her daughter to carry it, so the girl could thank the old fellow in person.

Oh yes, she’d be fine now, right as rain, would pretty Anja. With her shrewing put to bed, with her brought down a peg or two, or even three, she might even make some lucky lad a halfway decent wife.