CruxGirl
Magistrate
Extraordinary work, CruxGirl !!!
I eagerly await your next chapters!
Thanks Anklebiter. You're very kind!
Extraordinary work, CruxGirl !!!
I eagerly await your next chapters!
Thank you Frank Petrexa. I just love the freedom that this forum gives me to mess around and experiment with words.I will just say that your descriptive vocabulary is superb. You really add a lot of color.
Thanks again for a story original, witty, well written, highly arousing and full of humor.Part 11
“Oh! Good morning, Dr. Painjoy!” says the Sister with contrived breeziness. She points at the TV screen. “We’ve just been admiring your handiwork. Such ingenuity to use Erexacute on the crucified men … Cordelia Boundwell’s husband is putting on an – outstanding show. Perhaps you ought to hang a flag from his penis!”
The man laughs out loud and waves his hand in a dismissive, self-deprecating gesture.
“The Prime Minister asked me to give England back its spunk”. He speaks in a clipped and refined accent. “To stiffen the nation’s resolve. And I simply did my duty.”
He makes straight for the sink to comb his hair before vigorously scrubbing his hands under the hot water.
“But where’s your entourage, Doctor? I thought you were doing your ward round.”
“Still on their coffee break. It’s been a mad morning, Sister. Mad! We’ve been at it since 5 AM. And it’s getting madder by the minute. An extra twenty-seven women to process and nail up within the next couple of hours! So I told them to take an extra ten minutes. They deserve it –”
Cassandra hands him some paper towels, and he dries his hands very meticulously before putting an arm around her and drawing her slender figure towards him in a gentle hug.
“Lovely Cassandra! My Princess of Troy!” he intones in a sonorous voice. “Doom-laden Daughter of Prophecy. She came to me foretelling the downfall of Execution Ward Two – with talk of treachery and the Secret Police and crucifying one of our staff members and whatnot. And so – I thought to myself – I’d best bestir and show my face, and save the day for Sister Gently-Browning and her bevy of nubile young nurses –”
“I explained … to the Doctor … that …, '' says Cassandra, panting, and desperately trying to catch her breath, “... Miss Skreemings has been sick … And that a traitor in our midst has given her water … And … the Doctor …”, she swallows hard, “doesn’t think it’s going to be a problem.”
“Doesn’t?” The Sister looks searchingly at the Doctor..
“No! Not a problem at all”, he announces cheerfully. “The purgative will have done its work by now. Mercy Skreemings can be roasted alive, exactly as she is. After she’s been hung up as crux meat, naturally. But there’s certainly no need for any evisceration. And it’s high time she was given some water – plenty of it. We need to start building up her fluids, so that her meat will be tender and succulent.”
The Sister looks totally deflated. “Yes … yes, of course, Doctor. But - but - I thought ...”
“And, because she’s prime crux meat, she’ll need to be treated with particular care. She’ll need plenty of stamina for the hours to come. We can’t have her expiring from dehydration while still hanging from her cross – before she’s even been spitted.”
“No … no, of course not …”
The Doctor smiles benignly at the nurses and saunters off towards the neighboring beds, picking up Ophelia Coxwell’s clipboard and becoming engrossed in her notes.
The Sister sighs heavily, and Mercy hears her say to Sophie in an impassioned whisper: “we shall see what security has to say … the camera never lies.”
“Oh well …”, says Cassandra, suddenly becoming very relaxed and ebullient, “That’s that then I suppose. I’d best be reporting back to my ward. By the way, I'll be taking the afternoon off … My darling husband has bought two tickets for the crux show in the Park …” She puts a warm moist hand on Mercy’s bare thigh and strokes her smooth skin. “I’m sure you’ll put on a lovely show for us, Mercy … Remember my advice, and find your inner painslut –”
“Please stay just a little longer, Cassandra, dear”, says the Sister. “We’re about to calibrate Miss Skreemings’s cornu. It’s one of those new fangled smart cornua. And you know how psychologically distressing the calibration process can be …”
Cassandra gazes at Mercy with a new spark of excitement in her eyes.
“Ah … yes …hmm … Yes, I suppose she will require quite a lot of emotional reassurance during the calibration.”
She leans over Mercy with a triumphant smirk on her face. Mercy frowns in distaste as the therapist’s blue eyes travel up and down her bound and helpless body, lingering libidinously over her most intimate parts.
And when she pinches and tweaks Mercy’s nipples, Mercy jerks violently, and shrieks her objection against her rubber ball gag.
“Wow! She's very aroused. These nipples are like acorns!” Cassandra exclaims.
“Indeed”, says the Sister with a simper, “clearly your counseling work has been very – effective, Cassandra”.
“Yes, it has … I suppose I could stay a bit longer, if you think I might be useful. My superiors are always very happy for me to help out on the Execution Wards… and it’s such a busy day for you all today … Yes, I shall stay – until lunchtime.”
“I’m much obliged, Cassandra …”
“In that case, Cassandra”, says the Doctor – without looking up from his clipboard – “perhaps you could do something about these two ladies over here … Miss Coxwell and Mrs Treadmill are not scheduled for the meat auction, so we’ll be able to scourge them Roman style with the flagrum on the main square. The Prime Minister has a keen interest in seeing that happen. They’ll be going out in about fifteen minutes. And after their scourging they’ll be crucified on the Avenue leading up to the Park. Unfortunately, they’re both totally unresponsive. And we can’t be sending zombies out to be executed, or the spectators will demand their money back. I’m tempted to inject them with a cocktail of stimulants. But see if you can cheer them up a bit first, Cassandra.”
“Yes of course, Dr. Painjoy. I’d noticed them looking very sad and dejected. But I’m sure I can raise their spirits.”
“Splendid. Any kind of emotional response would be better than this blank stare.”
Mercy looks at the two women. Destiny Treadmill and Ophelia Coxwell were once - just like Mercy - employees of Crucible News. Now they are lying motionless, wrapped, mummy-like, in their sheets, hollow eyes staring vacantly into the middle distance.
With a new bounce in her step, Cassandra seizes a chair, flounces over and plants it in the space between the two women’s beds.
“Hello ladies …”, she says, “feeling a bit down in the dumps are we …? My name’s Cassandra and I’ll be your psychotherapist for today. I’ve come to have a little chat with you, before you go out for your whipping and crucifixion …”
Ophelia Coxwell had been Crucible’s chief political correspondent. And it was her interview, a couple of weeks before the General Election, with Augustus Oakbeam, leader of the MEGA Party – and now Prime Minister of England – that determined Mercy’s fate. Not to mention the fate of the entire English nation.
Mercy’s flesh crawls as she recalls what happened. And she knows exactly why Oakbeam is looking forward so much to the public scourging of her erstwhile colleagues. For him, there’ll be a kind of poetic justice in it.
If only Mercy hadn’t been standing where she was, directly in Oakbeam’s line of vision, during the interview. And if only she hadn’t made eye-contact with him at that precise moment!
Over the preceding weeks Oakbeam had been riding high in the opinion polls, carried along on a wave of anti-establishment populism. But his interview with Ophelia was going very badly.
One of the best TV interviewers in the game, Ophelia had a political intelligence as sharp as a fileting-knife and she was in the process of eviscerating her interviewee. One by one, she was shredding his manifesto promises on the economy, exposing him to the English public as a con man, a charlatan and an unelectable moral vacuum.
Mercy happened to be in the studio at the time. She was standing in front of her weather map, getting ready for her forecast immediately after the interview, looking particularly stunning in a canary-yellow print dress, with matching heels and bright red lipstick.
As a rule, she took little interest in politics, but the spectacle of Augustus Oakbeam flailing against the ropes, pummeled by Ophelia’s relentless questioning, piqued her curiosity.
She gazed across the studio at him in pure fascination.
“Give me one good reason why the English people should trust you with their country”, Ophelia demanded with barely concealed triumphalism in her voice.
Oakbeam remained silent, staring sardonically at Ophelia, his resentment of the mainstream media oozing from every pore.
“Come come, Mr Oakbeam, you’ve promised to make England great again. Give me one example of how you’ll do that.”
And then he raised his head and fixed his cold undersea eyes directly upon Mercy, as she stood off-camera: a vision of loveliness, eighteen years old, sexy, delicate and vulnerable in her pale summery dress.
His eyes drilled into her, as his brain slithered through a jungle of intricate political calculation. She was paralysed – just like Mowgli under the hypnotic gaze of Kaa the python. And Oakbeam just stared and stared at her, seeming to draw inspiration from the distress in her eyes.
“I seem to have stumped you, Mr Oakbeam”, said Ophelia. “It’s a perfectly simple question.”
Then the man’s lips began to curl, and a malignant smile crept over his reptile face.
“Not at all, Ophelia”, he said with perfect equanimity, his oleaginous voice dripping with venom. “The answer is very simple.”
“And what is the answer, Mr Oakbeam?”
“The answer, Ophelia, is that the public’s faith in me is unshakable. They would follow me towards greatness, along whichever road I chose to take them. And on that road I promise to entertain and excite them in ways they have never even dare to think could be possible. I would entertain them in a way which, at present, finds expression only in their dirtiest, darkest, most secret little fantasies –”
“Could you be more specific? I doubt that our viewers have any idea what you’re talking about –”
“I’ll give you one example”. Once again he raised his head and met Mercy’s riveted gaze. “If the English public makes me Prime Minister, I promise to ensure that your weather girl over there – whatever her name is – will be crucified naked in public on live television.”
Ophelia screwed up her face in disbelief. “Did you just say – ‘crucified’!? Our – weather girl!?” She faltered and brought her hand up to her earpiece. “If – that’s meant to be a joke, Mr Oakbeam! – it’s in very, very poor taste! – Sick! – Do you think you can win by –”
“I’ve never been more serious, Ophelia. If I become Prime Minister I will ensure that your pretty little weather girl – I believe her name is Mercy Skreemings – will be stripped naked, raped in public, and paraded through the streets of one of our cities. I haven’t decided which city yet … probably Romcaster. She’ll be flogged and then nailed up on a wooden cross, just as the Romans used to do. And Rome was a very great power, you know. Roman emperors knew how to keep their citizens properly entertained –”
“Augustus Oakbeam, I am – terminating this interview! Our viewers will – draw their own conclusions – about – your sanity – from what they’ve just heard! And – your fitness for office! I’m also pretty sure that you'll be hearing from our lawyers – very shortly – And – no doubt – the police as well!”
As Ophelia did her best to wrap up the show, mayhem was breaking out off-camera. Mercy could see Destiny Treadmill – who was the floor manager – gesticulating frantically at two security guards, urging them to lay hold of Oakbeam. And with a calm smile on his face, Oakbeam allowed them to escort him out of the studio.
Then Destiny rushed up to Mercy and put an arm around her, asking if she was alright.
“Yes, yes, I’m fine”, she replied. She was trembling in shock.
“We can pull your forecast. You don’t have to do it.”
“No - no really! I’ll be fine.” She was fighting back the tears. “I’m not going to let that – fucking psycho stop me!”
“Mercy, are you absolutely sure? You’re live in thirty seconds.”
“Yes!”
As she did her forecast Mercy felt carried along by an amazing surge of energy. Her body and mind were fizzing with a new sense of excitement. What had just happened to her was deeply, inconceivably, traumatic, and yet … and yet, she sensed that its outcome would be good for her. It would trigger an enormous wave of sympathy and love for her. It might even propel her to a new, stratospheric level of fame and popularity. She would be the darling of the English public. They would take her to their hearts …
Lost in these memories, Mercy is startled when the ward doors fly open. Fearing that it might be the crux team, her heart starts pounding. But a girl in a black mini-skirt walks in, whom she recognizes as Helen, from the Gallows Room. Helen is leading another woman by a black leash attached to leather dog collar. The woman is naked apart from a pair of precariously high stilettos, and her hands are tied behind her back. She is very curvy, with a slim waist, broad hips and huge breasts, and Mercy recognizes her as one of the two ladies sent out to be hanged earlier this morning.
“Ah! Here she is at last!” the Sister calls out, “Mrs Cordelia Boundwell! Saved by the Prime Minister from the hangman’s noose! What took you so long to bring her over, Helen?”
Where do I vote?I promise to ensure that your weather girl over there – whatever her name is – will be crucified naked in public on live television.”
Thank you so much, Blue. Positive feedback from you is very encouraging! I loved your 'Dancing Dove' story.Been waiting for this!
Nice bit of backstory and setup for the next entry. Something tells me Cassandra might regret her decision to stay a while to help out...? Or does she have something on Painjoy?
Thanks carloscruz, your feedback is very stimulating. Cassandra is a very naughty girl. I'm pretty sure she'll get her due punishment before the endThanks again for a story original, witty, well written, highly arousing and full of humor.
Please, keep going Cruxgirl! I still hope Cassandra gets her cross!
Thank you, Doragon! I enjoyed your Alisa Foxen stories very much, and I look forward to reading 'A Roman Love Story'.Such an amazing story! Really looking forward to read more of this.
Thanks spedoman. I hope to find the time to write it pretty soonI loved this part and cant wait for the next one!
Thank you so much, Oqo68s! I'm glad you're enjoying my work!Fantastic entertainment as usual Cruxgirl! Simply wonderful.
Thank you.
Pleaaaseeee!!!!Thanks spedoman. I hope to find the time to write it pretty soon