It is a while since we had a good story, so here is one about an 18th century judicial birching. It seems that sometimes the birch was applied to a young woman
standing at the whipping post, as this drawing shows:
And this is the position adopted by Altea and her friends in this story. Rather than just one post the whipping column sometimes had a crossbar, again as in this story. I have modified it here and there so that she is birched only across her bottom and thighs, and of course
Altea is my own fantasy recipient. Enjoy.
Ariel
was first to descend, and tried to push away the hand of the man who would have
helped her down. But he, with a coarse laugh, touched her waist and lifted her
down, pressing against her lasciviously as he muttered, “Aye, lass, you'll soon
be begging for gentler caresses like mine than what Master Dickon will dole out
to you, I wager!”
Altea and
Beatrice had tried to control their sobs and tears, learning that the
implacable Queen was to watch their martyrdom. The friar ascended the steps of
the scaffold with them, his prayers ringing out in the silence of the attentive
courtyard. Ariel's eyes widened as she saw two buckets, in which sheaves of
birch switches, bound and gathered and of varying thicknesses and lengths, were
thrust. Buckets of brine, so that the withes would sting the more fiercely
against naked young flesh. And there was no sun, only the gray leaden sky. The
day was as mournful as their fate indeed.
They were
on the platform of the scaffold now, the friar beside them, and the executioner
and the assistant were off to one side, stooping over the buckets, verifying
the condition of the rods selected for the castigation of these three young
high-spirited rebels, whose caprice of a moment was to cost them so dearly. And
now there ascended the steps the Lord High Constable, a bluff, red-bearded man
in his early forties, with ruff and wig and sword and doublet, holding the
imposing document signed by the Queen herself. He read it out sonorously, while
the soldiers below played their drums in a low, muffled, continuous cadence,
like that which is played when the condemned are brought out to face the firing
squad or the noose.
It was a
repetition of the sentence which had been read to them in the Tower. The young
women stood, their backs turned to the palace, so that they would not have to
face the mocking gaze of the Queen who would gloat over this atrocious hour.
The Lord
High Constable now turned to Ariel and demanded, “Your age, Mistress
Clarisson?”
“Twenty-three,”
the beautiful young redhead responded with a steady voice.
“By the
decree of Charlotte Sophia, then, Mistress Clarisson, you are to receive three
and twenty cuts of the birch upon your naked body. And your age Mistress
Digby?”
“Twenty—twenty-one,”
blonde Beatrice tearfully stammered, then bowed her head as the tears ran down
her cheeks.
“And you,
Mistress Balmadge?”
“T-twenty,”
brunette Altea responded faintly.
“You will
mark that, Master Dickon,” the Lord High Constable admonished, and the hooded
executioner inclined his head in respectful acknowledgment. “You will begin
with the youngest, then. Let Mistress Balmadge be prepared for punishment!”
The
terrible moment had come. And Altea Balmadge, with a cry of fright and shame,
fell on her knees before the executioner and sobbed, “Have mercy, not naked, oh
my God, not naked, whip me if you must, but don't expose me to all these
people, in the name of mercy!”
The burly
executioner moved towards the buckets containing the brine-soaked birch rods,
and his young assistant, Tom, now approached the terrified brunette who was to
be first to endure this public flogging. Seeing him approach, Altea uttered a
cry of terror and, still on her knees tried to scramble to the edge of the
scaffold. With a mocking laugh, the brawny young rogue seized her by the elbows
and lifted her to her feet, weeping piteously. Then he hustled her forward to
the cross-armed post to which she was to be tethered for punishment.
Master
Dickon, stooping now, picked up a length of hempen cord and tossed it to his
assistant who deftly caught it with one hand. Then taking a knife from the
pocket of his leather breeches under the black hood which garbed him from crown
to hips and thus made him the more terrifyingly sinister, Tom cut the cords
binding Altea's wrists only to seize her left wrist in his left hand and draw
it up high to the metal ring set in the crossarm. He turned to the executioner,
who tossed him another length of cord, and this served to tie Altea's other
wrist to the ring, so that she stood on tiptoes, painfully posed and helpless.
Setting
his hand to the neck of her dress, he ripped it to her hips, and Altea uttered
a scream of shame and terror: “OHHHH OH NO, NOOO! PLEASE—MERCY—MERCY!”
Beatrice,
still on her knees, watched with horrified despair as she saw in this scene her
own following ordeal. Only Ariel remained courageous, standing straight, her
hands bound behind her, her back turned to the window from which the Queen
watched with greedy eyes and smirking lips.
“Courage,
Altea, courage. It will soon be over,” she murmured consolingly. But the
brunette could take no consolation from the words. Her head strained back over
her shoulders, dragging wildly on her bound wrists, she tried to twist her
creamy body away from the executioner's young assistant as, chuckling lewdly,
he seized the rent gown at the hips and ripped it down to the hem. It festooned
at her ankles, and now she was seen in a white chemise with elegant lace trim.
This too went the way of the gown, and Altea uttered another piercing cry: “OH
NOT NAKED, NOT ALL NAKED!!” as she pressed herself frantically at the whipping
post, glancing feverishly back at the hooded man behind her.
She was
presented now in white batiste drawers, and a short white camisole which
concealed her uptilting, conically shaped breasts, whose hard, dark coral tips
nuzzled the thin material in the wild, sporadic panting of her terror.
Now the
camisole was torn away and the glories of her virgin titties were displayed to
all. Altea Balmadge's skin was a warm, ivory-cream in hue, satiny soft and
finely sensitive in texture. Now that one could see her naked bubbies, one
gaped at their beauty, for the lovegourds of Altea Balmadge could be fondled by
one's glance, even if no mans' fingers had as yet encountered their satiny naked
resilience.
Widely separated, set high on her creamy chest, they were proud and
firm, arching upwards and out. The aureolae were narrow and brownish-coral, and
one could see also the shallow, wide niche of her belly-button. Stretched in
cross as were her arms, the soft nooks of her armpits were displayed to all
those lusting eyes, silky down with soft black hair in tangled little curls.
Her
stockings were of gray silk, held up high on her thighs by mauve garters,
flouncy rosettes which could well have furnished some aspiring lover a
delicious and provocative momento. Her legs were long and beautifully curved,
the thighs gradually ripening as they neared the base of oval-cheeked but ample
buttocks, gradually furrowed by a deepening cleft which led to both temples of
her virginity, that of Venus and that of Sodom as well.
Naked now
except for her drawers, garters, hose and shoes, Altea bowed her head and burst
into hysterical sobs. The sides of her titties pressed against the rough wood
of the whipping post's upright stake, impinging upon her the awful reality of
this despairing situation, this public humiliation and awful degradation.
The young
assistant halted a moment, perhaps so the spectators could feast their eyes on
the lascivious nakedness of the lovely young brunette. Her curls were piled
high on her forehead and at the top of her head, then tumbled in a thick,
shimmering black swathe to her shoulder blades. Her eyes were closed
desperately tight, but tears edged beneath the fluttering lids. Her delicate
nostril wings flared and shrank, and her lips twisted as they sought to
suppress the sobs and groans and supplications which surged to her creamy
throat.
“Go on,
man,” Master Dickon softly growled, as squatting beside the buckets containing
the birch rods, he turned to watch his young assistant.
“At once,
good Master Dickon,” the young assistant retorted. He put his hand to the
waistband of the drawers, and with a despairing shriek, as she futilely ground
herself against the whipping post, Altea Balmadge announced that this veil of
modesty had just been torn from her shuddering, ivory-white body.
Now she
was naked except for hose, garters and shoes, and her buttocks were delectably
vulnerable and palpitatingly tempting in the morning light. The cool air made
the flesh shrink, and the ample oval cheeks tensed and contracted violently as
the unfortunate young woman strove with all her might to hide the most intimate
regions of her person from these libidinous eyes.
It was
the young assistant executioner who would flog Altea Balmadge. Brawny Master
Dickon squinted at the ivory bottom-cheeks of the weeping young sufferer, and
then judiciously selected one of the half-dozen birch rods soaking in the
brine-filled buckets before him. It was a rod composed of half a dozen long,
supple switches on which the green twigs could still be seen. A black cloth had
been neatly and tightly wrapped around the heavier ends to form a grip for the
wielder's hand. It was neither too bulky nor too thin, but in the opinion of
the head executioner, an ideal instrument of fustigation for the proportions of
Altea's ivory-sheened bare bottom.
Fighting
her apprehension, her eyes tightly closed, her body pressed convulsively
against the heavy upright piece of the whipping post, the naked young brunette
awaited her birching. The cool air tickled her skin, sensitized her nerves and
made this tension-filled moment before the actual first stroke and
interminable, indescribable agony. With all her might she pressed her loins
against the rough wood of the post to hide the thick black curls over the
prominent fig of her virginity. One could see the rippling spasms up and down
her thighs and along her stockinged, supple calves as she prepared herself for
the first bite of the birch rod.
“I will
mark it for ye,” Master Dickon muttered to his young aide, who nodded and took
his place behind the shuddering naked brunette, standing at her left and
brandishing the rod. He gave it one or two preliminary swishes in the air to
test its efficacy, and the whistling sound made Altea Balmadge gasp and shrink
herself with even more convulsive anguish against the rough post. Arching up on
tiptoe, her arms dragged out in cross, the magnificent sculptuary of her white
body stark against the leaden sky, against the brown planking of the scaffold.
And now a collective hush had fallen upon the absorbed spectators. Ariel
watched from where she stood, her shoulders still straight and her head high,
while poor Beatrice Digby remained kneeling, weeping, head bowed, afraid to see
the fate of her companion because it would foretell only too torturingly her
own.
Tom
lowered the rod to the floor of the scaffolding, measuring his distance,
appraising the firm, ample ivory ovals of that luscious naked bottom given up
to his flagellatory skill. Aware that Charlotte Sophia herself was watching, he
determined to acquit himself with valor, for this might be an opportunity to
win royal favor and rank as high as the man to whom he had been apprenticed
these four years. He watched the young woman's buttocks tighten and shudder, as
all her muscles came to her defense, and he waited his time, to prove he was no
novice at this art. When he saw the cheeks of Altea's bottom relax their
contraction, he suddenly drew back his strong young right arm and swung the
birch out horizontally, taking a step forward, so the withes fell fantail
across the upper summits of both naked bottom globes.
The shock
and the surprise of the first cut overcame what remained of the brunette's
already dispersed courage. With a convulsive jerk at her bound wrists, her head
fell back and her mouth gaped in a raucous scream: “AAHHRR!!! OH SPARE ME, IT
HURTS ME DREADFULLY, OH SPARE ME, I'LL NEVER DO IT AGAIN!”
“One!”
Master Dickon imperturbably counted. He had risen, standing at the victim's
right, his muscular, hairy arms folded across his chest, and his eyes glistened
through the slits in the hood. He was a burly rogue in his late forties,
heavily set and stolid, and it was his boast that he had broken some of the most
distinguished criminals in all England on the wheel and made them linger longer
than his predecessor, who had been a valorous dispatcher of criminals for the
greater glory of the Crown.
He
watched critically now, for his own skill was indirectly tested. It was he who
had taught Tom how to apply the birch as well as the cat, and it must be done
slowly and dramatically, spinning out each possible nuance of torment and
terrified anticipation of the next stroke, until the victim's nerves were
completely attenuated. The cries and the bodily movements of the culprit during
chastisement would be the best clue to the efficacy of the flogging.
This
first stroke was well placed, he silently approved, as he eyed his young
assistant. Bright pink stripes formed vivid parallel upon the ivory escutcheon
of Altea's naked behind. Now that she had had a taste of the lash, she would be
the more vociferous and mobile under the following cuts. Squinting at his aide,
he waited to observe how Tom administered this first of three whippings before
the eyes of the Queen herself.
The birch
was lowered to the floor of the scaffold now, as Tom again gauged his distance.
Moving slightly more to the left and a step back, he now drew back his right
arm, hovered the rod in the air, then lunged forward. There was an angry
Swishuish as the withes sang through the air and curled with an angry and
crisp impact against the very middle of both nether hemispheres. Altea Balmadge
stiffened, her head twisted back and her eyes dilated and filled with tears,
then she jerked frenziedly at her bonds and arched forward, grinding her furry
cunt against the whipping post as she shrieked: “EEEYEEOWWW!!! I'M ONLY A
GIRL, OH THE PAIN, THE PAIN, FORGIVE ME,
OH HAVE PITY!”
“Two,”
Master Dickon remarked and, catching his aide's eye, gave the youth a brisk nod
of approval. The vivid tracery of the switches against that tender nacreous
flesh dramatically and lasciviously accentuated all the immaculate ivory beauty
of Altea's nakedness. Ariel slightly turned her head, and she saw that those
seated in the pavilion were craning their necks to absorb the spectacle before
them. She did not lift her eyes to the second floor of the palace where
Charlotte Sophia broodingly watched the carrying out of her heartless decree.
Huishhhh!
The
second cut was placed perhaps twenty-five seconds later and again without
warning, as the executioner's aide whirled the rod overhead and then stepped
forward to send it slashing across the base of Altea's naked posterior. Once
again the young body jerked convulsively at the whipping post. The knees bent,
the loins ground feverishly, with a kind of salacious suggestiveness of
self-masturbation, against the chafing rough wood of the whipping post. Then
that agonized and lovely face was turned back over Altea's bare white shoulder,
bathed in tears and contorted in indescribable suffering as her mouth gaped to
emit the piercing scream of “AIIII!! OH, MERCIFUL HEAVEN, I CANNOT STAND SUCH
PAIN, HAVE MERCY ON A POOR HELPLESS GIRL!!”
“Three,”
the executioner proclaimed. Now, content with his apprentice, he directed his
contemplative gaze at the two remaining victims, both of whom he personally
would birch. The Lord Chamberlain had this morning personally informed him that
the red-haired baggage was the guiltiest of all and must have more than her
share of the switching. By the Rood, she would without fail. The haughtiness of
her attitude, coupled with her vivid and sensitive beauty, stirred in the cruel
heart of the royal executioner a satanic resolve to break her spirit, to humble
her more than her companions. He would save the full strength of his arm for
that saucy backside of hers. He would shame her and make her beg for mercy.
That was Master Dickon's resolve.
By now
the count had reached six, with fourteen lashes left. But already, distributed
as they had been from the tops of Altea's ivory hips to her thighs, her bottom
was furiously inflamed with the horrible striata which Tom had inflicted on her
tender flesh. Her reactions delighted the spectators. There is always a sort of
lustful enjoyment of such scenes, and from the dawn of time man has lusted to
see his fellow man agonized by torment and by execution. The morbid festival of
lust is always in vogue, regardless of the era of the setting. And the delicacy
of savoring the lovely nakedness of this unfortunate beauty at the whipping
post served to inflame the male spectators the more.
In places
like the Bridewell, prostitutes and new offenders sentenced for a stipulated
period of confinement received the “Welcome” given usually with the birch, or
sometimes with a leather strap. In such cases where the quality of the prisoner
was of low degree, the governor of the prison would decree the number of
strokes to be inflicted. On Tuesdays and Fridays, the whipping day at the
Bridewell, ladies and gentlemen of quality attended in large numbers. It was a
rule that the female bottom was bare only for the birch, never for the pizzle
or the cane or the strap; they would wear whipping drawers in the prison for their
thrashings. But Master Dickon regretted only one thing in this most unusual
chastisement: he would have given a year of his life, if the truth be known, to
have had the affair staged at Tyburn, where all could see.
Moreover,
in such a sentence as that pronounced on the trio, the phraseology indicated
that the birch might be inflicted all over “the naked body” as set forth in the
edict signed by Charlotte Sophia. At the Bridewell, whipping was given only on
the thighs and the buttocks predominantly, although at times the prison matron
might apply the strap over a lazy or insubordinate prisoner's shoulders,
dispensing as many cuts as she deemed advisable to bring about discipline.
Tom.
after a brief pause, dragging his gauntleted left hand over his perspiring
forehead, he laid the birch across Altea's naked, tautening thighs, patting
them as if to impart to the sobbing young woman where the next cut was to fall.
Then, drawing back his arm, he inflicted the stroke with full vigor, and once
again Altea Balmadge uttered a wild cry of pain and lunged against the post,
her striped posteriors lunging and lurching from side to side in a most
suggestive display.
“Seven,”
Master Dickon announced.
The next
three lashes were more slowly dealt. Tom applied them from the dimpled hollow
of the satiny, creamy waist to the tops of her long thighs. Each left angry,
blazing stripes against the tender, sensitive white skin, and each drew sobbing
cries, heartrending pleas and plaints which attested to Altea Balmadge's
suffering. By now, though she still strove with all her might to hide her pussy
against the wooden upright of the whipping post, she was beginning to forget
the shame of her posture and attire, for the birch had generated a most
discomforting heat in her tender flesh.
Ten cuts
remained. Tom studied his weapon, observed that some of the ends of the
switches were frayed and some of the twigs scattered in his vigorous
application. He dipped the birch into the bucket of brine, shook it out, and
some of the drops fell on Altea's naked hips and sides, making her groan and
sob even more piteously.
Satisfied
that the rod would suffice for the remaining ten lashes, the young assistant
once more resumed his place at the girl's left, and now extended the rod to
press it against the plumpest parts of Altea's ivory botoom.
“Ohh,
n-no, no, merciful God spare me such suffering,” the girl sobbed piteously.
Swissh! With all his strength, as if he
had determined to draw the very plaudits of Charlotte Sophia with that single
stroke, Tom applied the rod viciously against her lewdly presented buttocks. Altea
Balmadge lunged madly against the whipping post, dragging on her bound wrists,
head fallen back, eyes rolling and glassy with tears as she uttered a wild,
wordless cry of torment.
Nine cuts
remained. Slowly, seeming to prolong the interval between lashes, Tom inflicted
the next six to the prisoner's naked bottom cheeks. But this time he applied
the lashes diagonally, first attacking the right hemisphere, leaping the
switches over the tightening, shadowy furrow which led to her virgin bottom hole,
dealing thus two strokes from right to left.
Again he
paused, and moved to the right. He inflicted the last two lashes from left to
right, leaping the rod across the huddling, inflamed hemispheres. Each of the
strokes drew piercing screams, incoherent pleas for mercy.
Despite
the severity with which he had flogged the naked brunette, Tom glanced at his
master to call the latter's attention to the fact that nowhere had he broken
the skin. It was purplish and inflamed at many points where the twigs had
nipped and where the long, slender withes had crisscrossed the previous marks.
As he lowered the rod, Tom considered his handiwork and was secretly pleased
with himself. This young bitch would have a difficulty in sitting down for
quite some days. And she would need plenty of unguents and soothing salves
before the skin of her bottom would lose the fiery heat he had engendered.
At Master
Dickon's sign, two of the guards ascended the platform now, untied the
half-fainting brunette and, forcing her to her knees, bound her hands once more
behind her back. She must wait to watch the birchings of her two companions in
crime, Beatrice Digby and Ariel Clarisson.
Swaying
on her knees, head bowed, her naked titties heaving under the sobs she could no
longer control, poor Altea Balmadge writhed and wept as there, kneeling naked
on the platform in view of the small but highly appreciative audience, she
exhaled her agony. Nor was she conscious that as she knelt, she exposed to
glittering eyes the thickly furred oasis of her virgin cunt and the pucker of her oh-so-tight bottom hole.
The two
guards now came forward to aid Tom in his preparation of Beatrice Digby, but he
waved them aside with a contemptuous gesture. Bending toward her and seizing
her wrists by the cord which bound them, he whispered, “On your feet, you
yellow-haired vixen! You'll have Master Dickon to deal with.”
Using his
knife again, as before, he freed her wrists, while the executioner tossed him
two lengths of cord. As with Altea, Beatrice found herself with wrists cruelly
and tightly bound to the metal rings of, the crosspiece of the whipping post,
and then her own shameful martyrdom began in earnest.
