Forward:
The outcome of the trial was never really in doubt.
As the first glimmer of dawn begins to lighten the sky, a newly constructed scaffold awaits its role in our ambitious new drama.
Five nooses have been prepared, already tied off at a fixed length.
Beyond the street below, the sounds of keys turning locks.
Prelude, The Hang-woman:
The Deputy for the women's block tried hard to keep her face impassive. Despite that, she could feel warmth in her cheeks that she knew meant color was creeping in. Next to her the Director of the county jail was obviously uncomfortable. Across the table, the county Sheriff was scowling. Next to the Sheriff, his church advisor had a small "mona lisa" smile. Or was he smirking?
The Director shifted in his seat and sat up slightly, about to say something. The Sheriff cut him off, saying: "I don't want to hear it. We have two of the four women from the episode at the Library, and they have been found guilty of seditious behavior. The others are accomplices, as far as I'm concerned. And that's an end to it!"
The Deputy tried to focus on something other than the Sheriff's face. Her eye fell on the badge on the front of his uniform. She noticed that the small center that used to portray a U.S. flag now showed a symbol of the church. She heard her own voice say: "No chance of reprieve?"
"None," barked the Sheriff. "We hold Susie what's-er-name downstairs. She'll be able to lead us to the others in the subversive cell. She may not realize she knows who we want, but we'll get it out of her. And then we'll have more business for you!"
Apparently the head of the jail was still trying to work up the nerve to say something. Before he had a chance, the churchman quietly said: "I suggest we proceed. It's that time." His suggestion was obviously a command. The Sheriff rose. The Deputy for the women's block stood up as well. The situation was out of her hands. She would do her duty.
As soon as the four of them stepped into the hall, she hesitated. "Will you excuse me please?" she muttered, and stepped into a nearby ladies room. In the privacy of the small lavatory she grabbed at the corner of the stall, and held on tightly. Her knees seemed weak, her heart was pounding, and her stomach was churning. She knew what it was. On those few occasions when the county held these executions, she always felt like this.
When the Deputy for the women's block went out the scaffold, she would find the five young women already bound. Waiting... Terrified... It would be her job to put the nooses around their necks. It would be her job to give them the push in the small of the back that would propel them off of the scaffold. It would be her job to hang five women.
And out in the audience, her husband would be watching. Her husband. The man who found her job so exciting. He would be secretly filming the entire event. Digital snap shots. Digital motion for the actual drops. And tonight, she would put on the red camisole and panties that he found so exciting. Together, they would sit at the computer in the bedroom, and look at all the images he had captured. And while they watched, he would gently stroke her body. He would run his fingers over all the sensitive spots in her neck... her breast... her thighs... between her thighs...
She was already feeling the tightening in her pelvis at the very thought of his touch. He would have loved her without this, of course. But he did get so aroused when he saw a woman hang... And he was so eager to share his pleasure with her, that she actually wanted to do her job despite her own revulsion for it.
Her hands were not quite shaking as she dug into her pocket. She pulled out the small ovoid vibrator, and the small battery back connected by a fine wire. She lifted her skirt up around her waist. Then she pushed down her panties around her thighs. With two fingers she stroked the tender flesh of her labia, and felt the tension in her pelvis tighten slightly. Digging one finger into her vagina, she found that she was already damp inside. It took only a moment to spread her bodies natural lubricant over her labial lips. Then she slid the small vibrator inside. Scarcely larger than a tampon, it would be easy to forget it was there... except... She pulled up her panties, and clipped the battery pack to the panties' waist band. And turned on the vibrator.
The impact of the vibrator nestled in her most intimate recesses sent a shock of welcome arousal throughout her body. She gripped the upright again, as the waves of shuddering rolled down her body to her pelvis. After several deep breaths, she was able to control herself enough to straighten her skirt. There was a tiny bulge where the skirt lay over the battery pack, but it was too small for anybody to notice.
The Deputy for the women's block took several deep breaths to compose herself. Then she turned to the door. She stepped out of the ladies room, and turned down the hall to walk to the scaffold. She had a task to perform. For her County. And for her husband.
Price of Conspiracy Part One, Sandra:
As I wait in my cell, I'm unaware of foot steps and the swooping sound of a door opening. In that instance when I see the officers of the court in front of me. I rise and smooth out the wrinkles in my skirt. As we walk down the newly waxed floor, toward the door that opens onto the courtyard, all I hear is the tapping sound of my new high heel shoes. As the guard opens The door and we step outside I can't help but think to myself..........
I did not mean to drive drunk. I have always been a responsible person, and a devoted wife, and mother. But It must have been the stress of work that made me forget myself at the Thanksgiving office party. I really felt ok when I drove home, I told the officer that. I did not mean to hit that boy on his bike, but he just came out of nowhere , and I'm sorry I went thru that stop sign, I don't remember it being there last week when I drove the neighbors girls to school.
"Imagine that" Sandra thinks. "Me, a lowly drunken driver hanged on the same stage with those famous conspirators".
She nearly swoons at the thought of all those people watching her hang from the scaffold along with the others. A dream come true.
The jailers open up Sandra's cell and enter to pinion her wrists behind her back. Then they escort her out of her cell for her long walk.
The jailer who took the photo is puzzled. He thinks, "Why is she smiling? Most prisoners are terrified and some are often screaming and crying at this point. What's up with this particular young lady?"
Pausing for the last time, Sandra gazes at the crowd of hundreds of people assembled to watch the grand spectacle. She'll see many more faces of those people once she's climbed those steps.
I wonder how long I will stay alive, once I begin to hang. I shudder with simultaneous horror and titillation as I imagine myself chocking to death, my body struggling uncontrollably, in front of this crowd. Will any of these men and woman who have come here today, enjoy watching me die in this way.
Sandra climbs the steps and calmly walks to her position. She hears the hang-woman approaching. The hang-woman checks Sandra's restraints.
Night time is finally gone. The scene continues to brighten with the unseen rising sun veiled by the dense overcast clouds. Sandra Scott's dream has come true. There she is. Perhaps now her dream has become too true for her liking. It's not a dream anymore.
Price of Conspiracy Part Two. Cindy :
No mattress, just a foam pad glued to the metal bed frame. The bedframe itself is mounted on the wall. A single blanket with rip-stop reinforcing; so she can't tear it into strips and deprive the hangwoman of her lawful charge.
The thought keeps running through her mind: It wasn't supposed to be like this. It wasn't supposed to be like this. It wasn't...
All she had wanted to do was make a simple statement in favor of greater freedom of speech. She had made up her flyers on the obsolete photocopier in grandfathers garage. They had said that they could could help. They had said it would be best on that particular Saturday afternoon. had suggested that park next to the closed library. It had made sense, in a way. The church had closed the public libraries under the third revision of the counter-terrorist laws. Public meeting place - too many people together - risky target. But the libraries had stayed closed. A good place to make a statement about freedom of speech.
So she had gone there that Saturday. She had passed out her seemingly harmless flyers to the people in the park. She had no way of knowing that they had more in mind.
It wasn't supposed to be like this.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. It wasn't...
When the resistance had broken open the library, and flung open the doors, Cindy had been as surprised as anyone else in the park. The gesture seemed to be having it's intended effect on the crowd. The three resistance women had stood out there, and pleaded with the people in to make a stand. Then, of course, the police and the church deacons arrived. Cindy fled with everyone else. But someone pointed her out to the church men. Accomplice, they said. Drew in the crowd, they said. Part of the conspiracy, they said.
They had helped her pick what to wear. Her small wardrobe had little enough to offer. Once she started getting ready, her habits guided her hands. She went through all the motions without really thinking about what she was doing. When she stood, dressed and made up, she was momentarily puzzled at the lack of anything to do. She gently chided herself for daydreaming.
But it all seemed so unreal. They couldn't really hang her could they? Could they?
The young miss Miller had never seen a public hanging. She really had no idea what to expect. Her puzzlement at her idleness was abruptly replaced by a huge sinking in her heart and an enormous sense of dread she had never before experienced. The sound of doors opening in the distance, footsteps approaching.
Two guards unlocked her cell and entered. They took Cindy by the shoulders, forcibly turned her and pinioned her wrists behind her back. Then, holding her by her right arm one of the guards led her out of the cell and escorted her out of the building and down the alleyway to the foot of the gallows.
Standing at the foot of the gallows, Cindy felt a moment of disorientation. This couldn't really be happening. This couldn't be real, at all. Who were all these people? What was she doing here?
The guard gave a shove on Cindy's arm, forcing her forward. She tried to lift her foot to the step, but her body did not want to respond. She almost tripped. With an effort she managed to mount the step. Then another. And another. Her mind slowly began to back away from what was happening. Her body moved of it's own accord, propelled by the guard. Her thoughts went back to the refrain that had rung in her thoughts since the trial.
It wasn't supposed to be like this. It wasn't supposed to be like this. It wasn't - - -
Suddenly, she found the noose in front of her face. The noose that would be placed around her neck. The noose that would kill her.
Price of Conspiracy Three: Emily
Emily Worthington paced slowly and nervously within the close confines of the cell where she was brought last night after dinner, if that's what it was. It was disgusting and inedible. She thought again how perfectly rediculous this all was. They said that she was part of some conspiracy with that awful Sandra Scott.
They must be insane to think that she would willingly do anything with that tramp; as Chairwoman of the Junior League's biggest formal affair of the year she had a couple of business lunches with the caterers, and Scott was their rep. She was just a little tart with a BA from a state school in bad shoes and too much makeup. How could she know that Scott had been protesting the government's new limits on political activity? Emily always voted, of course, but her clubs and charities took all of her time otherwise. She wasn't a bit political. But they had been seen in long and close discussions where a lot of notes were taken.
It was all perfectly insane to think that she, Mrs. Arthur Worthington III, was a conspirator. Why, they contributed generously to that old fool who was their Congressman, and had done so for the last 5 elections. Even if he was a flatulant old fool, and not at all above the occasional pinch or grope if he got into close quarters with the club ladies, he still delivered the Government funds for the many projects pushed by local leaders like Arthur. Why, he had even been to their house for campaign fund-raising dinners.
She was indignant, but not very concerned when they had arrested her. How could she take it seriously? It was terribly humiliating of course. She had been lunching with several dear friends when 4 of them had marched in and clapped her into handcuffs, announcing to the whole restaurant that she was a traitor. She was furious, but she knew that Arthur would call his political friends and pull strings. Surely this absurd charge would be overturned and she would be released quickly, as quickly as a few phone calls.
But as the hours dragged on in a cell, she started worrying more. The word at the jail was that several conspirators were rushed through an investigation and a sketchy hearing. Under the new rules, real trials seemed to be a thing of the past, appeals were nonexistent, and executions were speedy. "Well," she thought, "people like that don't deserve the consideration and trouble of a full trial. Why that could take months or years. We'd be feeding those people for nothing. Better to just get it over with."
But even Arthur wasn't allowed in to see her, and that was troubling. Later the family lawyer, who was a senior partner at the best law firm in town, did get in, and he seemed very worried. It turned out that all of their frantic political string pulling had failed. The Congressman was being ch@ll?ng?d in the upcoming primary election by an opponent who claimed that the incumbent was soft on crime, soft on defense, and soft on Homeland Security. To protect himself, he had advocated a speedy trial and execution of all traitors, and explicitly avoided talking to Arthur or any of their friends. He let it be known that he could not appear to be supporting Emily, and if pushed, he would deny any past relationship. He was very sorry, of course, and sincerely hoped that the charges were untrue. Fat lot of good he was. And the local party leaders were apparently taking their cue from Washington party headquarters.
The lawyer didn't stay with Emily very long, and was vague about his plan for her defense. Emily had the feeling that he might be regretting getting involved. She wasn't accustomed to gentlemen rushing off before she gave them leave to go, but he acted like Emily had a contagious disease. She decided to make Arthur get a new lawyer.
Not long after the lawyer left, someone came to her cell and said that all of the conspirators captured so far were being moved to a military prison and would be hanged in the morning. Then he said that she would be moved after dinner. Her shocked protests that she hadn't been tried yet were screamed to his back as he indifferently walked away.
And now here she was, alone in her cell in the middle of a sleepless night. From the time the lawyer had left, it had been completely surreal. Things like this didn't happen to good law-abiding citizens, certainly not to people in her class. What's the world coming to when the better classes couldn't get a few favors in return for their generous campaign contributions?
She had been forced into very heavy shackles and a hood over her head for the move. It had been beastly and she had cried hysterically for most of the time in the police van. They gave her an enema as soon as they arrive at the prison, and then let her put her own clothes back on but with a heavy diaper on instead of her panties. They wouldn't allow her to use the telephone, so Arthur wouldn't even know where she was. She now had to face the reality that they intended to hang her in the morning, and no one was doing anything about it.
The thought gave her the strangest feeling in her guts. It was a tingling kind of tightness which combined a breathless excitement with a sick feeling that she might throw up or sh!t into her diaper at any moment. Her hands became fluttery, and she didn't know what to do with them. She couldn't stop thinking about what it would be like to hang to death. They told her nothing.
Her cell had a solid door instead of bars, so she could see nothing outside her cell. There was some noise all night long, mostly the sound of women screaming or crying. Emily wondered if these were the conspirators, and wondered if she knew any of them. She very much hoped that Sandra Scott was one.
She had lost all track of time since they had taken the jeweled Rolex watch that she had worn to the luncheon, but it must have been hours later when noise at her door roused her from her bad dreams. No one entered but there was a bit of commotion, then the metallic sound of a door, and then the most piteous crying and screaming of some poor woman just down the hall. More commotion, and then the noise diminished as the procession moved away down the hall.
Emily had been chilled to the bone, first by the woman's screaming, and then by the realization that the hangings must have started. She hugged herself tightly to help choke down her own screams, and then wondered in a panic when they would be coming for her. She felt an overwhelming wave of nausea, and quickly bent over the t0ilet in the corner where she suffered a spell of dry heaves which left her feeling exhausted. Then she had to pull down her diaper quickly to urgently empty her bowels and bladder.
While she was still sitting there feeling totally miserable, the noise started up in the corridor again. She froze and held her breath until the noise passed her cell once more. Too fast, they were going too fast. Surely that other woman could not have been hung already. She resumed breathing again when the next woman was dragged past her door. Mind racing, she blamed Arthur for his failure to save her. He had apparently deserted her also, and now she would hang in the next few minutes. The bastard!
Feeling abandoned and helpless, she pulled up the diaper and straightened her skirt. She noticed that her suit jacket was stained on the arm where she had been leaning on it while throwing up. "I can't wear that," she thought, "that's got to be cleaned. It's my best Chanel suit." Then she started laughing hysterically at herself for worrying about that at a time like this. "Focus, Emily, focus," she thought. But she neatly folded the jacket and laid it on the cot.
She couldn't sit down anymore, and her hands were fluttering about again in a replay of her previous panic attack. She tried to pace around, but the cell was only a step or two in any direction. Finally she found herself leaning against the wall farthest from the door with her head in her hands weeping and kind of choking.
And then they were there for her. A bolt of fear froze her against the wall when she heard the cell door open. Without saying a word, the guards unceremoniously walked in and pulled her arms behind her back. Emily found herself screaming just like the other women when she felt them tying her wrists so tightly.
All her thoughts of preserving her dignity melted away as she was dragged out of the cell and turned down the dim corridor. Ten steps down the corridor, Emily smelled vomit, and realized that she was walking through one of the other woman's vomit, and in her newest Ferragamo shoes. That was it. Emily bent forward, and was wracked by dry heaves again. The guards half carried her through that section of the corridor, and then stopped at the end of the corridor while a rather nice-looking young woman, blotted her face with a cold wet cloth, murmuring something soothing that Emily could no longer take in.
They moved on and Emily saw the open door in front of them, and realized they were going out. For a moment she felt a burst of hope that maybe there was a car out there to take her away from this awful old prison. Then they were outside, and no car was waiting. Instead she saw in the predawn light the gallows, a crude dark wooden structure with five nooses waiting and 2 women already there. It was too, too much. Emily went limp, slipped out of the grasp of the guards, and fell on her face in the snow.
The smell of ammonia close under her nose quickly brought her around, and in less than a minute the guards now firmly supporting her marched Emily towards the waiting gallows.
Emily was still dazed and walking slowly now in the grip of the guard towards her dire fate. She felt like she was in a dream world, where everything ran at half speed. Mrs. Arthur Worthington III can't really be bound and walking in this snowy courtyard of some near-medieval prison to her own public hanging. That's crazy, she must be dreaming or hallucinating. What would her Junior League ladies think if they saw her now, an accused traitor, arms tied, blouse stained by her vomit and drool, out with no coat, icy water from the slush ruining her designer shoes? But it was only a bad dream, wasn't it?
But the dread gallows drew closer, two other women already stationed by a noose, 3 more nooses waiting to claim their next victims. Where did this dream come from? She had never seen a gallows. She should be waking up soon warm and secure in her own bed, snug under their down comforter. But surely she can't dream the feeling of ice water leaking into her shoes.
Suddenly she came out of her daze to the realization that it was all real. She was at the foot of the wooden stairs up to a gallows platform. They were asking her to just climb those well-worn wooden stairs. Her arms really were tightly bound behind her. They did mean to hang her and she couldn't do a thing to prevent it.
The guard was pushing Emily forward, and she reflexively lifted a foot and set it on the first rung. She didn't want to climb the steps, but she didn't know what else she could do. All her life, Emily had someone smarter or more experienced at her side to advise her on all of the important things. Now there was no one for Emily. What could she do but go up the steps?
At the top, another guard was waiting and took her by the arm and firmly drew her across the platform. Emily was feeling like someone under a spell, and found herself unwillingly stationed by the middle noose. She felt like she must be losing her mind, when she realized that she was inspecting the noose to see if it had been made right. As if she would know, but she felt that she deserved the best, even in nooses. Go first class or not at all was her habitual saying.
She looked at the other women, and recognized just one: Sandra Scott. "Good," she thought, "that little bitch deserves what's coming to her for getting me into this. Its all her fault." But then she faced forward, contemplated "her" noose, and wondered what it will be like to die by hanging. She felt a strange and unexpected frisson of excitement, and a tightening feeling in her pussy area. It was kind of pleasant, but "What in the world........?" Old Arthur had slowed down a lot in the bedroom department, and the sensations were very welcome, if totally inappropriate under the circumstances.
Emily felt her self becoming flushed from the realization of her own arousal. Then she noticed the nearest guard observing her with a bit of a smirk on her face, which made Emily's embarrassment all the worse. "Oh this is so awful to be hanged by a bunch of cheap bitches I wouldn't even allow in my house, except maybe to clean or serve at a party."
Price of Conspiracy Four Hilary:
Deep inside the county jail a young lady stands alone in her cell. The sounds of doors opening and footsteps approaching. A bright smile lights up the young lady's face. "A visitor at last!", she thinks, "I've been so lonely." "Maybe it's my lawyer again."
Hiliary is gratified and terrified at the same time when she sees who the turnkey escorts in.
"Susie," she exclaims. " What are you doing coming here? Don't you know the administration's spies are looking for anyone even remotely connected with the freedom movement?
The two meet in the center of the room and embrace.
"Hiliary, considering how close we became in college, roommates, sorority sisters, lovers, do you think I would leave you here alone? I know you would do the same for me."
"But the risk...."
Hiliary breaks down into tears, the first she has allowed herself since she was arrested, brought here and interrogated. She hadn't given-in to her emotions until now, in the warm, comforting arms of her friend, lover, and alma-sister.
"Hiliary, have they told you....?"
"Yes, very soon, just how soon I don't know..."
There is a knock on the door to the cell, the turnkey comes in with an armload of bedding and an assistant brings in a narrow cot, barely large enough for two.
"This is better than a traitor like you deserves, but your friend paid enough to see you don't have to sleep on the floor anymore"
After he leaves, the two girls make-up the bedding on the cot, sit down next to each other, kiss, than with Hiliary leaning her head on Susies shoulder, cries herself to sleep.
Hiliary and Susie awaken. Hiliary is still shaken at the thought of being hanged.
They comfort one another. The echoes of doors opening in the distance. The sounds of approaching footfalls. Footfalls from a group of people approaching. These footfalls sound very different from all the footfalls Hiliary has heard since she was brought to this place. She cowers with a sudden sense of dread. Her executioners are coming for her.
Hiliary looks at Susie, smiles quietly and says
"I think its time. Thank you for coming - you are braver than I ever could be."
Susie is crying, Hiliary bends over, tenderly kisses away her tears.
"Don't cry for me. I am ready. I pray they won't come after you next just because you were here with me."
The warders enter and Hiliary rises and faces them.
"Is it time?"
They nod.
"Anything I should do?"
The chief warder answers, "Turn around with your hands behind you."
Quickly, efficiently her wrists are strapped together, the torso harness is secured in place above and below her breasts, and her elbows are pinned together behind her back as well as her wrists being tightly held to the center of her spine. Hobbles are on her ankles.
The other warder, a female, gently presses on Hiliary's shoulder and they exit into the corridor to the courtyard, and Hiliary's last view of this Earth as the sun rises.
In the cell, Susie gets ready to leave, but when she tries the dor, she finds it locked.
She collapses on the bed as she hears the loud creak of the trap on the gallows open and the "snap" of the rope suddenly tightening, and a softer "snap", and she knows that Hiliary is beyond pain and fear.
Is it her turn now?
I see that I am to be denied the dignity of a private, solitary execution within the prison itself.
It is to be on the "show gallows" in the outer court of the prison where the entire town can watch our deaths - and they will not be easy deaths as this scaffold does not have trapdoors or a hinged trap to drop us -- rather on the far end from the ladder is a crank connected to a winch on the top of the gallows and our nooses are secured to them. From having seen executions on this scaffold in the past, I know that we will be winched up until the tallest one of us is totally off her heels and barely on her toes, and that is how we will hang -- no broken neck, very slow strangulation.
I am fearful but resigned, as i listen to the last minute prayers and comments of my fellow condemned. Only one thing worries me -- who is the extra noose for?
Are they going to execute Suzie on general principles for her just coming here? Or was someone else captured and held for execution today?
Price of Conspiracy Five Ruth Ann :
The woman stands alone in her cell. She's heard the sounds of neighboring cellmates being led out of their cells in the early morning. The lady is mature; she expects to be the next one. She doesn't know for sure. The recent events have rattled her senses.
I am Ruth Ann. So here I am with my four other conspirators. Conspirators - HAH! A drunk, two barely committed semi revolutionaries, and a socialite who thinks I went to her party looking for appetizers. Of course, I'm here too. That's not good because unlike them I know for sure what's waiting at the end of the hall, through the door, and up the stairs. But there's nothing to do but wait for it. Wait with at least the knowledge that my two true co-conspirators have safely established their identities in the Ministry of Morality. And the seekers have been bought and brought in. Lovely little mechanisms that they are. A fingernail scraping, a drip of saliva, a tiny dandruff flake. That's all a seeker needs to program the DNA targeting module. They'll be watching us dancing at the ends of our ropes - the Deputy Ministers and the Grand-High Hypocrite himself!! Oh, our feet will be tapping out a tune on air while they look through their binoculars and laugh. And they'll think that they've been bitten by mosquitos, and they'll slap at their necks, and they'll stop looking at us and look at each other bug eyed while the seekers swim into their brains. I wish I could see the looks on their faces, but my consolation is that they won't live to see when I stick out my tongue at them, involuntarily though that will be. I hear the guards coming. It must be about time. I think I'm the last to leave her cell. A drunk, two barely committed semi revolutionaries, a socialite... and me. The dance is about to begin.
OK. Here we go. I guess that I should feel guilty at taking four "innocents" with me. And I do. A bit, anyway. But taking out the Ministry of Morality, oxymoron that it is, is important to the revolution - to getting rid of the theocratic tyranny that has dominated this poor land for nearly a century. So four others end their days at the end of a rope, I'm suffering the same fate. Soon I'll know the answer to whether there truly is a heaven or hell. Or maybe it's just oblivion. I wonder what the last thing that we'll feel will be - burning neck, busting head, or just the feel of toes trying to touch the platform that is just out of reach. Why speculate? I'll know all too soon
So that's it, eh? Seven steps up to the platform, one more big one to get to the rope? The guard asks me if I'm sorry that I did what I did. I just shrug. A glance to the left shows the other four waiting for the hangwoman to fasten the nooses. A glance through the gaps in the steps shows me that the usual crowd of gawkers and cretins have assembled to watch the show. A glance at the window of the Ministry Building shows me... nothing, they're one-way to prevent snipers from getting a good target. Too bad for them that the snipes are already inside. Now if only I can get my feet to move, maybe we can get this over with.
The guard ponders the nature of her charge. "This is one tough cookie.", she thinks. "She reminds me of someone. Someone in an old movie. Hmmm.
Got it. Jimmy Cagney in 'Angels with Dirty Faces' ! Such a tough guy facing the electric chair. I wonder if she'll wake up and drop her tough guy act and suddenly recoil in horror and start resisting and screaming like Cagney. Naah. None of the younger women did. One can always dream though. (Sigh)
My job is so dull. All these ladies I escort up to the front but then I go back to the rear and never get to see the executions. (sigh) I know. I'll go back to my quarters and call up the "Vocational Guidance Counselor" sketch by Monty Python. Yes. This will be a fun day after all. (sigh)
Price of Conspiracy, Again the Hang-woman:
Her heart was pounding in her chest. And between her hips her belly muscles seemed to be pulsing in response. She struggled to maintain a professional appearance as she walked out the door into the execution court. Her high heels tapped out on the hard stone. Heels were not the most practical thing to wear, but they did do nice things to her posture. Her husband liked them.
The Deputy for the women's block glanced at her watch. It was only minutes before official sunrise, but the sun would not touch the court for a long time because execution court was bounded on all sides by government buildings. The jail. The new court house. And of course the Ministry. She spared a glance at the Ministry. She had never understood why they had built an important national facility in this city. Or why they had built it overlooking the new Execution court. Had they wanted the view of the court? Were there important persons in the Ministry who would be standing behind those mirrored windows watching? It was not a government ministry exactly; but His Grace the President had made certain that it received enormous federal funding. It had no official function, exactly; but it's pronouncements on proper living tended to become law in most counties.
Despite the early hour, the reviewing stands were full. Family and friends of the condemned, if they had the courage to be noticed. Official witnesses, and specially invited persons such as her husband. Of course, there was always room for the paying public; those religious fanatics who wanted to see "God's work" done. How many of them found religion just because they liked watching hangings?
The public liked watching hangings. The Deputy for the women's block performed them. Like an actress on a stage, she performed hangings for the viewing public. In her heart, though, she was not performing the hangings for a viewing public of family, and officials and fanatics. She was doing it for a viewing public of one; her husband. It was a secret that she and her husband shared in the privacy of their bed room. He liked to watch women hang. And she hanged them for his pleasure. That was why she had the small vibrator nestled inside her belly. That was why she wore short skirt, hose and high heels, instead of her duty uniform. She wanted her performance to arouse her husband.
As she approached the scaffold, she could see five women standing on the edge of the platform. One of the senior warders was acting as assistant hang-woman, and had already positioned and bound the five women. The Deputy could see the rustle of their short skirts as the gentle morning breeze wafted through the court. Following her normal routine, she walked under the platform, and visually inspected the lever and release mechanism, the hinged forward section of the platform, and the counterweights that would keep the drop from bouncing back. She had tested it all with heavy sandbags the afternoon before, but she always checked anyway. It added to the drama of the performance for her audience.
The small vibrator she had slid inside her intimate recesses was insistently making its presence known. If he had done as he had promised, he too, was wearing a vibrator. His was connected to a series of penis rings tucked in his briefs. She had asked him if he would be able to watch the event without staining his trousers. He had admit he might have a problem with that. The idea of him having a messy orgasm in his pants excited her. She had to restrain herself from reaching one hand down to her skirt, because she wanted desperately to stroke her pubic mound. No, what she really wanted to do was drop her skirt and apply herself to some serious self satisfaction. Now wouldn't that look good for the rest of the mob in the reviewing stand? She suppressed the urge to laugh at herself, as she suppressed the urge to touch herself.
The Deputy for the women's stepped resolutely to the scaffold stairs and placed a foot on the bottom step. Showtime
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