The nooses hung swaying gently in the wind from a simple cross-beam gallows above a wooden scaffold platform, atop which stood three stools, each one for my wife. We were Fundamentalist Mormons, attracted to the Sandran colony by the promise of religious liberty, religious liberty which, in the North, only existed nominally at the time. While Fascist Southern Sandrans openly persecuted religious dissenters, Northern Monarchists always seemed to find other means of ridding themselves of us. Three of my four wives were arrested on suspicion of Socialist Activities, and after a quick military tribunal, were promptly sentenced to hang.
I said goodbye to them for the last time that morning, now I was waiting to witness their execution which would take place at King’s Square in Eaven Moore, the Monarchial Capital. A large crowd had gathered to watch my wives hang that day, at least three hundred or so people. My fourth wife, Sophia and I stood in front of the crowd, unsure of how to feel, we were both sad of course but neither of us knew how to watch our three family members die in such a painful way. I didn’t know if I would have the strength to watch my beloved girls kick and thrash violently in their respective nooses, as they were sure to do.
Tears were streaming down Sophia’s cheeks from her brown eyes. Sophia was a large woman, not fat, but large; her size was proportional to her figure and I thought she was beautiful. She was the best of my wives in bed, and certainly seemed to enjoy sex the most. She definitely wasn’t innocent when she joined our family as she had been a prostitute before she converted to our sect of the restoration, so she new how to please someone sexually. I must confess that although I was completely miserable about losing my three other wives, I was secretly glad that of my four wives, Sophia was the one who was to survive. Sophia acclimated to plural marriage quite easily, perhaps more so than most Fundamentalist Mormon women. She loved her sister wives, she was never jealous, she never tried to cheat her them out of their respective nights with me, and she never complained of being underrepresented by the family, and all of the other wives, while they occasionally feuded with each other, never had a quarrel with her.
The mumbling of the crowd suddenly picked up, Sophia and I looked back toward the prison and saw Jocelyn, Mary, and Elise walking with their heads hanging low, eyeing the ground. Their hands were already bound behind their backs, they were each barefoot and wearing raggedy black prison dresses with necklines that would probably be acceptable to the average protestant, but definitely not to us. They were each flanked by an imposing member of the Imperial Life Guard holding them tightly by the shoulder. Coincidentally they walked in the order in which I married them, lead by Jocelyn, my first wife, followed by Mary—my second—and Elise. The crowd parted to allow their deathly procession to pass through to the gallows, the parting of the crowd meant that they passed very closely, within a few feet, of where Sophia I were standing. As they passed us, Jocelyn and Mary gave us parting glances before ascending the four stairs leading to the scaffold platform. As Elise passed us, she stood before us for a second, looking into my eyes with tears streaming down her own. She was the youngest of my wives, only eighteen when she died.
Her face always conveyed her innocence; she had been assigned to me when she was still very young, and I did not make love to her until her 18th birthday, but most men in our sect were not so proper; in this way she always thought herself fortunate to be assigned to me. She had wide, green eyes with long, straight, light-brown hair, and was very petit with small but noticeable breasts. At any rate she was more of a younger sister than a wife, though I was growing to have certain sexual affection for her as she matured. After a split second of looking me in the eye she suddenly, taking her guard by surprise, rushed toward myself and Sophia, throwing her arms around me. Sophia and I both embraced her in a hug from which her guard, after a brief struggle, finally managed to pry her.
By this time, Jocelyn and Mary were already waiting behind the stools which would be the last thing atop which they would stand. Elise was escorted by her guard to a similar position behind the remaining stool. All three of then stared directly into the nooses that would soon end their lives. Elise started to sob, and unable to wipe her tears as her hands were bound behind her back, her tears fell to the wooden platform. Mary was shaking, not with fear, but with her attempts to overcome her fear with a determined since of bravery. Of all of my wives, I always thought Mary to be the most beautiful. She was my age (25) and everything about her physical appearance was beautiful, with a perfect figure not too thin, not too large, with breasts that perfectly complimented her size. I could never describe her face in words, it was just gorgeous, with curly dark-brunette hair and brown eyes. Were she born of another religion I would say that she was sent by Satan to tempt men, I was quite glad that she was assigned to me, and I must confess that I enjoyed being with her in the bedroom almost as much as I enjoyed Sophia, but she was selfish. She was almost sinister in her dealings with her sister wives, always trying to cheat her wives out of their nights with me with the excuse that she was trying to get pregnant, although as a result I do have three c h i l dren by her.
My first wife, Jocelyn was definitely not the most physically attractive of the three, but of them all I must confess that I was mostly in love with her. As my first wife, ours was a very special relationship that none of the other wives could possibly understand. Although I should have loved them all equally, I could never love them the way I loved her. She was a selfless, compassionate, pious woman with long, curly, bright-red hair, green eyes, and a plain face that was somewhat negatively effected by the acne she had in adolescence when we were first married at 14 (well she was 15 at the time). She was also very thin and tall with small, barely noticeable breasts; she was not really my physical type but that did not matter to me, she was truly beautiful to me in so many other ways. She was definitely the bravest of the three, calmly stepping atop the stool before the other three. Once she stood atop the stool her guard, having to slightly overextend his arms, placed the noose around her neck and removed her hair from within it before slipping the noose to where it rested below her right ear.
Mary was the next to step up to the noose, still shaking while trying to overcome her fear. She gave a slight gasp as the noose was placed around her neck and slipped down to rest below her right her. Her manufactured bravery was definitely beginning to fail as her knees began to buckle under the strain until suddenly, she fainted falling backwards against the noose. Before she could fall off of the stool her guard managed to steady her until finally her composure returned and she steadied herself.
When Elise refused to step up to her stool, her guard had to be assisted by Jocelyn’s in lifting her up to the stool and placing her noose around her neck as her head swayed from side-to-side resisting. When she was finally noosed, she managed to steady herself but she still sobbed violently. Amidst her sobbing a man in a Monarchist Military Uniform stepped to the forefront of the scaffold, unfolded a piece of paper, and began to read.
“Jocelyn Harris, Elise Romney, and Mary Jeffs,” the man began. “The Courts-Martial of the Army of Central Sandrany finds you guilty of treasonous misconduct and hereby orders each of you to hang by the neck until you are dead. Guardsmen, do your duty!”
Immediately after he read, Jocelyn’s guard saluted the man who was walking off to the side while returning the salute. Jocelyn’s Guard then bent down and took hold of her stool. Jocelyn, while still maintaining a sense of calm suddenly closed her eyes as the stool was suddenly pulled from below her bare feet. She fell no further then six inches before the rope snapped taunt and her bare feet were left dangling above the wooden platform. At first the look in her eyes as the rope bit into her neck was one of shock and she remained perfectly still. Soon her face began to contort in pain and her feet began to spasm, and then spasms turned into downright kicking.
By now Mary’s guard was in the process of removing the stool from under her feet. Mary made an audible gasp as she fell about as far as did Jocelyn. Unlike Jocelyn who stood still as the rope first bit into her neck, Mary was kicking and thrashing violently in the noose from the moment the rope went taunt, in her eyes was a look of sheer panic as she kicked and fought against the noose, her feet desperately trying to reach the wooden platform, and not more then a foot above it. Elise was watching horrified as Mary and Jocelyn struggled when her stool was finally removed from under her feet. When the rope went taunt, Elise closed her eyes and her face immediately contorted. She then suddenly opened them widely as her feet began their dance of death.
Suddenly Sophia and I could not peal our eyes from our hanging wives. While I’m sure they were in immense pain and that none of this was very erotic or pleasing to them, to us, it almost seemed as though they were dancing… as if they were dancing… for us. My mind went back to that night when we all slept together two nights after Sophia joined us—it was her idea. The four of them danced erotically for me each coming up to me one and a time while I sat in an easy chair, removing an articles of clothing as they approached me. The night was not finished before I not only made love to every single one of my wives, but before every single one of them made love with each other (it was not exactly something the church would have sanctioned), it was the most erotic moment of all of our lives, and somehow watching my wives strangling to death brought my mind back to this moment.
One may, of course, judge me for this reaction and perhaps quite rightly so, but I would assure my judges that both Sophia and I were heartbroken about their deaths, and both of us tried to fight these feelings of eroticism, and yet neither of us could. It was very confusing for both of us, we were in uncontrollable fits of tears as we collected their bodies the next day for burial and yet when we arrived home that night we could not refrain from making love, and both of our minds were on witnessing my beautiful brides dancing in the noose.
Jocelyn did not last long, she kicked for about thirty seconds before her facial contortions gave way to relaxations and what were violent, continuous kicks became more spasms. I was told that it took her ten minutes to die but from all accounts she was unconscious after less than a second. It must, however, have been an eternity to her. She then hanged with a calmness I had never seen before, even in her (she was a relatively calm person). Her eyes were open and looking nowhere in particular, her feet were relaxing at a fourty-five degree angle pointing downward, and she seemed… relaxed… in the noose, as if she was at peace.
Mary was not so lucky, she thrashed, and thrashed, and thrashed, kicking and fighting uncontrollably, audibly trying to gasp and gurgle until her face became discolored and her tongue began to bulge from her mouth. It was a good three minutes before she stopped kicking, and even then her feet continued to spasm, until finally a few drops of yellow liquid falling from under her dress indicated that she lost control of her bladder. She then hung calmly and relaxed with her eyes half closed and half opened and her tongue barely protruding from her mouth, her bare feet, unlike Jocelyn, pointed almost directly at the platform.
It was as if Elise was making up for the fact that our relationship had been less erotic than with the other three. She was't kicking terribly hard, she wasn’t thrashing violently, her feet just moved and kicked slightly. She was dancing, not fighting. I’m sure she was quite panicked but to Sophia and I, she may very well have been an exotic dancer. Her dance lasted only a minute or two before her feet hung motionless and her face relaxed—oddly enough not that painfully contorted or discolored, though her eyes were wide open. After Mary’s fight with the noose was over they were left to hang on display for a day. Sophia and I were the last in the crowd to disperse, not only because they were family but because we could not tear our gaze away from them; there was a certain beauty to the way they had danced (especially Elise) and, please don’t judge me too harshly, they seemed in those hours they hanged to be more beautiful to Sophia and I then they had ever been before.
Sophia and I decided the next day after their burial to join the Monarchist Army with the goal of becoming executioners. And although I, of course, have moral reservations about our work, I cannot but confess that Sophia and I had never been as erotic as we were when we served in that capacity, and we so served the Northern Provinces until the Socialists took power in 2000.
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