Grey Skies

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Grey SkiesThe sky was grey and hung low and there was a wind blowing, although inside the courtyard it could not be felt. If it had been, it would have been dismissed as merely typical November weather. It wasn’t cold. The light was pale and thin, as always on cloudy days, and the courtyard was bleak, hard packed earth the consistency of concrete barren of any growing plants and surrounded by stone walls. The windows had bars on them. There were no windows on the first floor. A gate led outside to the street and stood open. A narrow door was the only other opening in the blank first floor. It was closed. There was a crowd gathered in the courtyard, making the usual crowd noise of aimless conversations, broken as all crowds are when waiting into groups that talked among themselves or simply ignored one another. A few stragglers continued to arrive. The crowd was not impatient.Towards one wall of the courtyard there was a strange sculpture, an abstract form of perpendicular lines. It was made of wood. A single bar rose vertically from a platform built up 6 feet from the ground, crossed about seven feet up by another and flanked by two boards, each with three holes cut in a geometric pattern. The people of the crowd looked at the sculpture on occasion expectantly, more often at the door to the building. It was almost noon.In the building an eighteen-year-old girl sat alone in a small locked room, waiting. Time seemed to pass with incredible slowness. There was no window for her to look out of, no one in the room for her to talk too. It was almost dark in the room. She felt cold. The girl wore a simple black dress made of thin cotton. Her arms were folded across her chest and she shivered slightly and her stomach seemed full of acid. There seemed to be no end to the long waiting. She needed to use the chamber pot, but she was too scared.The door in the blank wall opened and the people in the courtyard turned and fell silent for a moment, then whispered among themselves. 25 men dressed identically in simple work clothes and three women dressed in black dresses marched out in an approximate line, escorted by three other men. They stood in a line along the wall and faced the crowd and the sculpture, some of them sullen and some ashamed and some defiant. They were prisoners. The men who escorted them carried rifles. All the prisoners were connected by a long chain. Like the crowd, they waited, but their arrival signalled that the end of the wait was approaching.The girl faintly heard the sound of the door to the courtyard being unlocked and the orders given to the other prisoners echoing up the hallway and she felt the sudden shock of immediate fear. It was time. There was no more waiting, and suddenly she wished that the waiting would continue a bit longer as passionately as she had wished for it to end. She heard the sound of footsteps, coming closer slowly, two sets of them and they seemed to grow slower as they came. She could feel her heart. Her eyes shifted across the bars, but there was no way out. She had to wait.The warden walked down the hall slowly with his assistant, in step. His keys jingled as he walked. He was a large man, somewhat fat now that he was no longer the young man who had once been the strongest in Newark, in the whole county, he liked to think. He had worked in the prison all his life, and slowly made his way to the top. Outside the walls or behind the door of his office he was often almost pleasant, certainly not a man to fear unless he was very angry. Inside the walls, on duty, he seemed sometimes inhuman. He did not look forward to the next few hours, but you could not tell. He looked impassive.He stopped outside the girl’s cell door and said, “Come on. It’s time.” She looked back at him for a moment, frightened, and he had to work to hide compassion for her as she stepped forward and out of her cell. She searched his face for some reassurance or indication of what was to happen and found nothing. She looked at the other, younger and leaner and saw the leering, appraising look in his eyes. She felt sick. He was already picturing her bare breasts, and he would see them. The warden led her down the long dark hallway with his assistant behind her. They said nothing.When they stepped out the door into the courtyard a deeper silence fell, without whispering for the moment. All the people watched the three walk from the door to a ladder that led to the platform at the base of the sculpture, prisoners and guards and public all watching. Only the girl did not know what they were to see; she would learn her fate only as it was officially read, formally announced to the crowd that already knew. The prisoners knew by accurate rumour, the public and guards by official proclamation. An official of the court waited on the platform. The girl climbed slowly, weak and dizzy from the fear, her palms sweating and her muscles weak. The sculpture seemed enormous, overwhelming. It seemed to loom over her and dominate the world. She was frightened.When she was on the platform the court official said quietly to her, “Kneel and face the crowd.” The warden and assistant stood behind her, the official to one side. She knelt slowly, feeling as if she would faint. Something illegal bahis in the street outside made a clattering noise. The girl shivered, afraid and already cold in the cool air.The official turned and spoke to the crowd. “You see before you Mary Barton, convicted on the fifteenth day of November in this year of ten counts of larceny as detailed in the records of this court and sentenced on that day to receive upon her bare skin twenty one lashes for each offence, a total of two hundred and ten lashes, these to be delivered in the courtyard of the county prison by officers of the state in full view of the public. It is the further verdict of this court that Mary Barton be at this time also wear upon her outer garment the letter “T” ten times forevermore, and that she repay two times the full value of the goods stolen, some thirty two dollars and nineteen cents, or failing to make said restitution be sold as a servant for a term of seven years to whatever man bids the highest for her. Said sentence is to be carried out on this, the twentieth day of November.” The voice echoed from the walls of the courtyard and at the words the girl felt a sudden dizziness. Her heart beat faster. It was too much, it would kill her, they had never given so many lashes. She had expected twenty-one, like any thief, but not this. She felt like running, like trying to escape and instead she almost fainted. She moaned, “No…” The words echoed in the silence. After a pause, the official went on. “We are gathered now to see the sentence of the court executed.” He turned to the girl and said in a loud voice intended to carry throughout the courtyard, “Stand, Mary Barton, and prepare yourself to be punished.”The girl had trouble standing, almost fell. Her mind was still racing violently. The sentence was extreme, not right. They could not sentence her to receive that many lashes, no man even had received so many. She staggered slightly and the crowd mumbled. None of the men on the platform moved to help her stand, but, when she stood, the warden and his assistant stepped forward, the assistant directly behind her and the warden to one side. The assistant reached up and grabbed the back of the girl’s dress, pulling it apart and downward in a sudden movement that made the girl stagger slightly. She was caught by surprise. The dress ripped down the back and when the assistant let go of it, it fell to the ground around the girl’s ankles. She wore nothing underneath the dress, and instinctively she attempted to cover herself, but the warden and his assistant each took one of her arms.She was a beautiful girl and it was not common in that time and place to see a girl without clothing and so the crowd fell suddenly silent when her dress fell from her. They had not expected beauty; they had come to see punishment inflicted, many attracted by the severity and the savagery and their expectation had been of a girl who somehow looked deserving of such punishment. The girl who stood naked on the platform before them was slender and fragile, delicate and cultured in appearance and her instinctive modesty seemed out of place. The men stared at her, at her small delicate breasts that curved smoothly into her torso and her slender waist and thighs, at all the smooth and continuous curves of her body. Her skin was pale, made more so by fear. Those closest to the platform saw she trembled. The guards holding her arms turned her and led her to the post, now facing away from the crowd with her buttocks showing, as graceful as the rest of her.The warden looked at her from behind and to the side. She was beautiful, he suddenly realized, and, with shame he felt himself wanting her. He tried to force the image from his eyes but could not. He visualized his hand moving of its own volition to her breast, squeezing it gently and feeling the stiff erect tip of her nipple. The breasts were so smooth and round, so perfect and the imagined hand dropped to her waist, between her legs and he felt himself stiffen. She turned her head to avoid the stares of all the men in the crowd. Her eyes met his, bewildered and vulnerable and filled with tears, soft but like a knife through him. He’d whipped women before, and often, but she was different and his imagined caresses shifted from passion to comfort, from violation to protection. He suddenly wanted to hide her, spare her the agony he would instead inflict.It could not happen and she looked out and saw the silent open-mouthed faces of the men and knew it was. The cold air cut through her and her nipples involuntarily stiffened. They restrained her arms before she knew she had moved them. They were all staring at her. The air was cold; she felt goosebumps and she shivered and denied that she was naked on the scaffold and that all of the people were watching. She saw a friend, no sympathy there, and a man who knew her father laughing with his friends. She turned away, thinking suddenly that her father would be seeing her shame, driven by his idea of duty to help condemn her to agony and she saw the same a****l look in the warden. They turned her and she still felt the eyes burn into her and the shame. Fear suddenly replaced them as she saw the post.She had heard of the illegal bahis siteleri post, never seen it. She had heard the stories of the hardened criminals screaming at it. She had heard of the terrible pain. Now she saw it for the first time and the world seemed to spin suddenly and she without realizing it walked towards it with her escorts, staring at it in fear and without understanding, the number 210 suddenly ringing through her again. They had never given that many, certainly it was a trick to frighten her, a mistake. The walk seemed endless and to short and the young warden was suddenly tying ropes around her ankles then forcing her legs apart, into two holes in a board like stocks two and a quarter feet apart. She felt again helpless. like fighting and unable to fight and the boards were closed and her feet were trapped and now the young warden stood in front of her looking hungrily at her and she realized again in a sudden pang her exposure. He tied her hand tightly together and to a rope and then suddenly pulled it upward with all of his energy, pulling her arms over her head and then tight, so that her ankles were straining against the stocks and her body tightened. She felt the tightness, felt her back tense involuntarily and her buttocks tighten and herd the faint sound of the crowd and the grunt given by the assistant as he wrapped the rope around and through a ratcheted wheel, tightened it another two notches. The girl felt as if her feet would break and as if she were being pulled apart; pain shot down her back from her shoulders and through her legs. She moaned, closed her eyes in fear. The ropes around her ankles had also tightened. She felt her long hair lifted gently from behind and cut at the top of her neck. The young warden stepped back and around her and in the unnecessarily loud voice of ceremony stated to the warden, “The prisoner is prepared for punishment.”The warden looked on with pity and desire fighting within him as the girl was prepared, feeling in some part of him the humiliation she felt when her legs were spread and the ropes tightened to highlight every curve of her body, feeling some of her fear while at the same time staring with mounting desire at the tight muscles of her back and thighs and buttocks. He had never seen such a beautiful girl naked, certainly never whipped one. They always seemed to be fat and ugly. Not this one. He again felt the strong desires and the need to touch her, cover her with his body. Even in the tight ropes she trembled. Her skin was covered with goosepimples. The warden felt a sudden unreasonable anger, as if she had no right to be there, to make him feel so foolish. He asked the ceremonial question. “May I carry out the sentence?”The court official nodded. “Let the will of the people be carried out upon this sinful flesh.”The warden lifted the whip. It was a long whip with a twenty-inch wooden handle and eight braided horsehide lashes each three feet long. He was well experienced at handling it. The first blow, he decided, should strike the buttocks. The anger was strong now and he felt no pity for the trembling girl. He brought the whip up sharply, making a swishing sound, over his head with a flourish and then suddenly down in a violent, sharp arc. The whip whistles as it came down, the tips vibrating in the air and then suddenly they cut perfectly across the girl’s buttocks, trailing brownish red welts behind them and bringing out a scream. The stroke was savage, angry. The girl writhed against the ropes and boards, unable to move. The muscles of her back and buttocks crawled. There was a murmur of approbation from the crowd, the instinct towards v******e rising. The warden was satisfied. The court official said calmly, “One,” his voice carrying, following the scream and murmur.The girl heard the formal statements and replies wishing that they were over, that they did not exist and that they would go on forever. This was not real, it was a dream. Everything seemed to move too slowly and far too fast. The sound of the whip being raised came to her with unnatural clearness and it was all she heard the faint sound of the whip passing through the air. No, they would stop it. It was not real. They could not do this, not to her, not for such a little thing and she heard the sound of the whip swinging downward, the rustling sound of the air and it also went on too long, he was being gentle and she felt an instant of relief and the pain burned in a sudden explosion across her buttocks, up through her. She was on fire. She felt each of the tips bite, tear along her flesh and when they hit she instinctively tried to run, to get away. She heard herself scream. The voice drifted from somewhere far away saying, “One,” and she thought 210.The whip stayed still for a long few moments, the warden counting out the five breaths and picking his new target. Her shoulders now, a higher shot. He brought the whip up, breathing in and down with the same explosive force, again drawing the tight pattern of welts. The girl though that he was waiting forever, that he was horrified at what he had done and when she heard the whip rise again she was terrified, straining against her ropes and then feeling the canlı bahis siteleri new explosive pain across her shoulders, as bad or worse and the same cold, “Two.” Too many, too much pain. They would kill her. She lost hope and defiance and was crying.The pain went on, each stroke adding to the background after first exploding across her consciousness until all she felt was pain. There was not the room for any other feelings in her. The warden continued his silent work, each stroke feeling strong; he had lost feeling for the girl, saw her only as an object. He carried out his task well.At fifty strokes to younger warden took over. The warden chose him because he was a brute. He enjoyed the infliction of pain. He whipped the girl left-handed, reversing the direction of the wardens stokes in order to cover her more thoroughly. The girl’s back was raw now with the whipping, soon starting to ooze blood. He smiled to see the blood. Good. It was his job to hurt her, he wanted to hurt her, she deserved the pain and he was the one to inflict it. His strokes were savage.There was nothing to her world but pain now. It throbbed through her, lay over her like a blanket and at regular intervals that always came too soon and seemed as if they would never come the pain blazed up again in a sudden overwhelming intensity. By some cruel trick she still felt each tip bite her flesh at each stoke. The pain never seemed to numb her to that. She heard the voice counting, focused on it, recalling its importance if not it’s meaning. It measured hell. Two hundred and ten. The number alternated with the pain in her mind, almost as important. It would indicate the end of this. She no longer remembered anything else, only the pain and the number. “Seventy eight.” They switched again at 100, and when they did they gave the girl some water and poured more, salted, over her back. She was shivering in the cold now, not fully conscious but conscious enough to feel the shock of cold water. Her eyes were both glassed over and desperately appealing. They earned no sympathy; the warden had chosen to insulate himself with anger and the other was too cruel to even feel pity. When the water was poured over her she groaned; when it was put to her lips she swallowed greedily, feeling as if there was a chance at salvation. She was aware only of survival now.Time continued. The crowd grew restless with the constant repetition, the blood lust fading, rekindled occasionally by the sight of a new trickle of blood. The girl’s breasts oozed blood slowly, nicked by the tips of the whips. Her sides were raw, her back and buttocks now a mass of blood. The count crawled onward, reached two hundred and another moment of salvation. The girl was amazed that she was still conscious with so much pain, or would be when she regained enough sense to be amazed again.”Two hundred” and the pattern stopped, she did not feel the next blazing of the coals but instead she found something gentle touching her lips, something cool and wet and necessary and she drank greedily even as the sudden coolness and the wash of a different, deeper pain came over her back and touched her front, where she could still feel almost pleasure, though she new it was cold and hurt. Her eyes focused again, she saw the warden and in confusion tried to smile at him, he was nice and gave her this coolness and life back.The warden felt a shock at the smile. It was a c***d smiling. No understanding. Pain; no c***d should suffer such pain and he knew he was wrong. He felt a sudden sickness. He should touch her, comfort her. No sexuality now, though he could look down and see the hair between her legs, the breasts now nicked and bruised and still perfect. He wanted to hold her, take her away where she could be safe and she saw the kindness flicker in his eyes and the smile became more real.As was the correct thing the warden took over at two hundred, walking around the girl feeling sickened by himself and society. The crowd, each should feel a bit of her hell. Him, especially. She should take her vengeance on him, might if he had not reduced her mind to the incapacity of a c***d. She was a woman, an adult, a guilty one, not a c***d. It was not his fault. He took the new whip and applied it as savagely as before, hating himself and her and the world. She screamed at the first stroke.She heard the magic number spoken. Two hundred and ten. She was out of hell. No more sudden blazing pain. No more agony. The throbbing continued unabated and as real as ever. She sobbed. Not right, it should end.They gave her water again, washed her back gently. She moaned, tears falling. When the warden released her arms she nearly fell; she had to be half carried as she was turned around to face the crowd, but her eyes were open and she could stand after a moment. She stood uncertainly, still dazed by pain. When she turned and saw the crowd she suddenly remembering enough to be ashamed.The girl collapsed in a pile and was unaware of the bidding, brief and pathetic; no one wanted a thief who might well die. Only one person bid. He bought seven years of her for a few cents plus the costs of punishment, came to the stage and took her still naked to his cart and put her under the blanket in the back on her stomach, where she lived in a state without real consciousness until he reached her home and took her in and made her comfortable near the fire and let her lose consciousness entirely. She slept. She was at last out of hell.

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