Whipping Post

WHIPPING POST by Neil McCall

Emma woke and looked at the clock; two in the morning. Only
half-an-hour since she had last woken, dipping in and out of strange
mediaeval dreams which left her fretful and unrested. But she now knew
what she had to do; she rose, put on bra and knickers, concealed her
scantiness of clothing with a raincoat and left the house.

The streets of the historical market town where she lived were
totally dark and silent; how unlike London, Birmingham, or other cities
in which she'd lived or studied. This was by local common consent; the
centre of the town emptied soon after pub closing time, and the only
nightclubs in the area were at out-of-town locations. It was seen as a
low-crime area, a good place in which to bring up children, and Emma
had secured a prize job in the local authority's archive department.
But Emma thought she was unlikely to bear children, for she had known
from an early age that she wasn't pretty. "Men don't make passes at
girls who wear glasses!" her mother had chided, emphasising that in
order to reel in Emma's father she had had to prise her ample figure
into layers of corsetry whilst tottering to the dance halls half-blind.
But what a sad specimen she had snared on the matrimonial hook, a
slumped, beaten, beery figure who had bequeathed Emma his huge beaky
nose to go with her mother's weak eyes and dumpy build. Fortunately,
there are other options for a modern girl; Emma had immersed herself in
books, gained a first-class honours degree in history, a postgraduate
qualification in archive administration and had put in unpaid hours in
museums and libraries to give her a practical grounding. She had been
described as a "bluestocking", a phrase she had thought sounded
romantic and seductive until she realised it meant the exact
opposite.

Recently she had been involved in cataloguing and attempting to
preserve ancient parish records and, as secretary of the local
historical society, was permitted a regular column in the local
newspaper to bring to public attention interesting fragments gleaned
from her work. She had unearthed and perused an ancient list of
miscreants whose minor crimes - drunkenness, confidence trickery,
coin-clipping, Sabbath-breaking, and so on - had earned them a session
at the whipping post. She had been surprised at the number of female
names recorded amongst the men, occasionally for the above sins but
more often for an unspecified "lewdness". "Agnes Dunnock ? spinster,
aged 19 ? twenty lashes" she had read, and wondered about poor Agnes,
whether she had merely been young and pretty with a mind of her own,
and whether she had spurned the advances of some priest or local
dignitary ? she pictured herself, working in her office above the Beast
Market when the mediaeval worthies burst in, how they noted the slight
wisp of lipstick, the skirt showing a few inches of calf, and, fearing
the intelligence in her eyes magnified by the thick lenses, they
dragged her towards her punishment, market-day crowds jeering and
salivating, for this was the main attraction of the day ? she had in
the archives a woodcut featuring the local whipping post occupied by
one "Lantern Moll", whose trade could easily be presumed; Moll was
naked above the waist, her back arched against the scourge and a
nipple-tipped breast protruding; good material for the local schools'
history pack, though the nipple would have to go in the reproduction ?
time for a coffee, her mind was wandering ? but the thoughts had
flooded back after hours and seeped through her dreams.

The market had long moved to more spacious premises, but the
whipping post and pillory still stood in a square fringed with twee
bookshops and cafes where, during the day, Japanese tourists took
pictures of each other arraigned in the torture exhibits. It was a busy
thoroughfare during working hours, a pathway between the railway
station and the central shopping area but, in the depths of night, was
secluded and almost sinister. But Emma knew no fear, rather she was
strangely excited as she threaded the deserted alley and approached the
darkness-shrouded whipping post. She opened the front of her raincoat
and let her body slide against the cold wood, worn smooth with the
suffering of centuries; almost seven hundred years ago, young Agnes
would have felt this very wood against her exposed breasts as they
wrenched her hands roughly and tied them ? Emma closed her eyes and
crossed her wrists ? and then froze in shock as her wrists were quickly
seized and bound for real! Framed in the dull glow from closed shop
displays and the small streetlights at the exits from the square stood
a man, his face in shadow beneath a wide-brimmed hat.

"I've been watching you for some time," he said softly. " I saw your
light go on and off, and wondered whether you would come out at
night."

Emma realised that she had attracted a stalker, not a silly
scribbling fantasist but a determined man who had staked out her home
in the early hours of the morning and now, at last, had her at his
mercy. She ought to be terrified, yet something was perversely
stimulating; only celebrities and beautiful women had stalkers, or so
she had thought. She stayed silent.

"You give yourself away too easily," he continued. "That latest
article on the whipping post ? full of passion and imagination, quite
unlike your usual dull little offerings."

Emma jerked as though stung, and her wrists strained against the
rope.

"How dare you!" she said coldly. "Untie me and let me go at
once!"

"Ah, so you can be roused!" he said with a hint of amusement. Then,
more contritely: "I'm sorry I criticised your work, that was uncalled
for. All right, I'll untie you, let you go, make sure you get home
safely and then you'll never see me again. Is that what you want?"

All Emma's sense and rationality cried out for her to grab her
escape route before the man thought better of it. But the finality of
the phrases "let you go" and "never see me again" pierced her
unexpectedly.

"No," she said quietly, and waited to see what he would do next.

He moved behind her and lifted the raincoat slowly, and Emma winced
as her cellulite-dimpled thighs were exposed to the night air and the
stranger's gaze. He made a soft sound, but to her it didn't sound like
the expected snort of disgust; no, not at all, not by a long way.

He spoke with a voice now taut with emotion.

"I think you know what I'm going to do now, don't you?"

"I've a fair idea," confessed Emma. If he had been intent on rape he
would have acted sooner and more brutally, and talked far less.

"I'm not a monster, though; tell me to stop and I stop."

He slipped the folds of raincoat into its fabric belt, then reached
forward and tightened the belt against her waist. Then he raised his
hand and delivered a stinging slap, hard on each of her buttocks.

The sound echoed through the enclosed square and Emma gasped; her
parents hadn't believed in smacking, and this was a new and painful
experience. But the sound died away, and no one came running through
the alleyways to her rescue. When there was no reply, the man continued
to deliver wide, swinging slaps up and down her bottom, changing from
right hand to left hand when it began to discomfort him, and she gave a
stifled cry every time the handprint reinforced an earlier one. Just as
she was about to beg him to stop he did so of his own accord, and
untied her.

"That was very brave," he said approvingly. "I could have had a
whip, you know!"

"True. But you're not a monster, are you?" she countered.

He walked her home through the dark, silent streets. When they
reached her street he made no effort to go any further but promised to
watch from the corner until she was safely indoors.

"If you want to explore the pillory tomorrow night, I'll meet you on
this corner at two. Now sleep well!"

In the sanctuary of her house she slipped her knickers off and
examined the damage in the hall mirror; the stinging and throbbing were
already lessening, and she felt a warm glow suffusing her reddened
behind. She liked the way in which the man's fingermarks could be seen
round the edges of her bottom and across the top of her thighs; she
wasn't going to sleep just yet.

Next morning she woke up later than usual and wondered whether she
had had a mad dream brought on by too much reading. But, no, there was
the evidence, a pair of slightly damp knickers in the hall and a tender
rear which caused her to pull on a fresh pair quite slowly and
carefully. Not another crazy dream then, but an insane reality fraught
with terrible risk; she could easily have been murdered! But
immediately she knew that wasn't really the case, and she also knew
where she would be at two o'clock the following morning.

Emma worked with an intensity born of immediacy and authenticity;
she had now shared the pain of Agnes and the others, though she knew
that a few smacks hardly compared with having your back bloodied by a
long-thonged whip. By midday she felt that she had worked so well that
she could take a slightly longer lunch break than usual. Regretfully
she would not have time for a hairdo or to see the optician with regard
to the contact lenses she had just promised herself, but she could at
least try to make the best of herself for the man. She passed a clothes
shop, and her eyes were drawn to the scarlet mini-skirt in the window;
she would have given anything to be able to walk through the town in
that lovely little skirt, but knew that her thighs needed to stay
hidden; they were definitely not her best asset. But from ankle to knee
her legs were really not all that bad ? five minutes later she had
bought a brown suede skirt which, although knee-length, had nonetheless
become the shortest item in her wardrobe, plus a cream blouse which was
less opaque than her usual. She hesitated before the exclusive lingerie
shop; normally she bought her underwear from chain stores and didn't
like showing her body even to her own sex, but her mind was alive to
the possibilities of the night ahead; she plucked up courage and
marched in. The saleswoman, a lady of middle-age, was full of tact and
kindness; she persuaded Emma to be fitted for a bra, explaining that a
lot of women determine their bra size as teenagers and then so rarely
bother to be refitted. She measured Emma and told her she had long been
squeezing herself into unsuitable bras that allowed flesh to spill over
the edges, and that she was now a double-F cup size. Emma's heart sank;
fantasies of a flimsy, wispy object which would float away at her
lover's skilled touch were replaced by the horrid realisation that more
solid undergirding was now required. But the saleswoman returned with a
bra which, whilst fitting perfectly and being of necessity underwired
and wide-strapped, had delicate see-through floral tracery on the
upperparts. It felt lovely.

"We've got a matching briefs and suspender set in your size," said
the saleswoman hopefully.

From her vantage in the upstairs privacy of the fitting room, Emma
could see across the square to the pillory; it currently held a
schoolgirl who was yelling in mock protest as her boyfriend tickled her
at will whilst other schoolchildren urged them on; Emma felt a hungry
ache in her loins. She glanced at the assistant, who was dangling the
wide briefs in one hand and the suspender belt in the other.

"Yesyesyes ?" thought Emma.

"I'll take them," she said, ignoring thoughts of sinful extravagance
and reaching for her credit card.

During the afternoon she read up about the pillory; it would make a
good follow-up article to the one about the whipping post. The pillory
in itself was not too drastic a punishment, being more an instrument of
humiliation than torture, although offenders could be badly injured if
the crowd chose to throw stones rather than the usual collection of
rotten fruit and vegetables. She surmised that the pillory would have
been a greater humiliation for those ancient generations which set a
premium on issues such as shame and honour; nowadays, like the
schoolgirl, people would queue up to be the object of dishonourable
attention, especially if the event was to be televised. Though perhaps
not if, as sometimes used to happen at the pillory, the victim's ears
were nailed to the backboard.

Emma spent the evening quietly, and tried to get some sleep before
the alarm clock summoned her at half-past one when she rose, showered
and put on her new clothes in preparation for the time ahead. The man
was waiting at the end of the street and wordlessly took her hand in
his. She was trembling by the time they reached the pillory, although
the late September night was not unduly cold. There were three holes
set in the wooden frame, a large one for her neck and two smaller ones
for her wrists; the man lifted the top part of the frame, Emma took her
place and the man fastened the catch at the side. He stood before her,
his face still in shadow.

"I take it that you are conversant with the purpose of the pillory?"
he asked.

"Humiliation," she replied promptly, "prolonged public humiliation
in the presence of your family, friends and neighbours. And also your
enemies."

"Good!" the man replied. He ran his hands under her new suede skirt,
along her wide thighs and gave a sharp downward tug on her briefs but,
being unworn and well-elasticated, the briefs contracted and hung
bunched around her knees. Then, without warning, he approached her,
removed her glasses and embraced her roughly, his mouth sucking on to
hers and his tongue slithering around her own, depriving her of speech.
A young couple appeared, silhouetted in the sparse sodium glow of the
street light which marked the way to the railway station.

"Good on yer mate, give 'er one for me!" encouraged the youth. His
girlfriend thumped him softly for his rudeness but giggled compliantly.
They staggered off into the darkness.

The man released her mouth and stood back.

"Now where were we? Ah, yes, the pillory. I visited the Asian grocer
this afternoon and he was most co-operative once I explained that I was
on my way to heckle a British National Party march."

And he pulled something out of a paper bag and threw it, at point
blank range, into Emma's face. It was a rancid tomato; it hit her on
the forehead, and festering juice trickled down her face. A second
tomato hit her in the eye, and she opened her mouth to speak. Big
mistake; the third tomato hit her smack in the mouth, and she was
forced to taste the rottenness; some shot to the back of her mouth and
down her throat.

"You bastard!" she croaked, spluttering and retching.

"Bastard, am I?" he declared smoothly. " In that case I'll be off
home. Good night."

And he slid her glasses back on to her dripping face and receded
into the shadow, his footsteps echoing to silence.

Emma considered her position; it was far from a good one. Her coat,
with her purse and house keys inside, sat out of reach behind her. She
was beginning to feel the night grow colder; she could shout for help,
but was there anyone to answer? And if they did, what would they do
when they saw that she was helpless, her underwear invitingly lowered?
She envisioned the cleaners doing their early morning duties and
finding her, numb with cold and tomato-spattered, in the light of dawn.
Maybe they would just laugh and free her. But maybe they would ring
their bosses at the council, which happened to be her employer also.
And maybe they would ring the police. Or even a tabloid newspaper. It
didn't bear thinking about. But after ten or fifteen minutes the man
reappeared and stood before her again; he had obviously been watching
Emma from a vantage point outside of her limited view.

"Ah yes, the lesson of the pillory. Not only humiliation, but also
well-founded fear and utter helplessness. And, of course, a degree of
pain if called for, as it is at this moment." And he lifted her skirt
and promptly began to spank her, harder this time, on her bare, icy
buttocks and thighs, for, unlike the previous night, this was for
punishment rather than experiment. After five minutes of constant and
mounting pain, she realised that he was going to continue until she
begged for mercy; but as soon as she pleaded with him to stop, he
unfastened her, pulled up her briefs and held out her coat in a
strangely gentlemanly gesture.

Wordlessly they walked back to the corner of her street. Then:

"Kiss me again, just like you did at the pillory," she said
daringly, and closed her eyes in anticipation. And he crushed her to
him and forced her lips back against her teeth as his tongue once again
explored the whole of her wide wet mouth. Eventually he pulled back and
tilted the hat to shadow his face once again.

"Do you want to come back and have sex with me?" she persisted. No
point making pretence about coffee or chitchat.

He glanced down at her, his face expressionless in the shadow of the
hat.

"Thank you, but no. Please go home; again, I'll watch until you're
safe inside."

She pulled away from him and ran down the street before he could see
her tears, the bitterness of rejection churning her stomach as much as
the rotten tomato. She threw herself into her house, sobbing. She
examined herself cursorily in the mirror; tonight her livid red
buttocks and thighs were mottled with bruises, but she was not aroused;
she threw her dirty blouse into the wash, dropped her skirt, stockings
and expensive co-ordinated underwear set into a careless pile and sank
into bed, where she slept, curled into a ball of misery, until
morning.

But the world did not stop for unrequited love; indeed, it spurred
her to even harder work, cataloguing, copying and writing feverishly
until late into the evenings.

"The victim of the pillory would be wise to keep his (or her)
counsel, and appear suitably repentant, " she wrote from experience,
"for an opened mouth presents an irresistible target for those armed
with the rotten sweepings of the market-floor, and an idle or abusive
word could see the humiliation being crowned with a flogging." Her
newspaper column was complete. She twisted and wriggled in vain to find
comfort on the hard council chair, but all day her behind throbbed in
sympathy with the miscreants about whom she was writing. She wondered
how to contact the man, and whether he would seek to contact her; after
all, he knew where she lived and worked and, by contrast, she knew
nothing at all about him, not even what he looked like. During the next
week she often lay restlessly until the early hours of the morning, and
would dress and take a stroll down the street to see if he were
watching on the corner; once or twice she ventured as far as the old
market square but all lay sunk in quietness and gloom, the instruments
of her pain and humiliation lying veiled in the deepest shadow. She
sighed for lost opportunity and got on with her work.

There was no question regarding the topic for the next meeting of
the local history society; the newspaper articles had aroused a great
deal of interest and there was a packed hall to hear Emma's illustrated
talk on the old market place, focussing specifically on the pillory and
the whipping post. Suddenly Emma felt strong and in control; people had
come in droves to hear her speak! She explained how the pillory was
raised and angled such that the victim had to face the jeering crowds
full on, and that the presence of the pillory was once mandatory at
every market square in the land, much as the burger van and the man who
sells spare parts for computers are in our own age. Polite laughter
ensued. She moved on to the whipping post, and outlined the long list
of minor infringements for which a whipping would be prescribed. She
explained that in mediaeval society women were by no means exempt and
showed the picture of the unfortunate Lantern Moll, her suffering, as
originally captured in the woodcut, now immortalised in the OHP acetate
she had produced. Suddenly she glimpsed something familiar at the back
of the hall, maybe the angle of an elbow or the flecks of profile
revealed as another member of the audience turned their head. It was
the man; she was sure of it. As their eyes met he saw the dawning
recognition and got up to leave.

"Oy, where are you off to?" she bawled rudely, startling some of the
older members. "Come up here!" she ordered.

Furtive exit was now impossible; the man had to decide whether to
stay or flee, and do so publicly. He chose to stay, and slowly
approached Emma. Tonight he was hatless and in bright light, and Emma
was shocked to see the vivid scar which disfigured his face. That
explained a lot, she thought, but he still had to give account for
leaving her to shoulder the entire burden of rejection without any
explanation. She dragged him up on to the raised platform.

"You notice how my partner here was trying to creep out," she
addressed the meeting, "well, that's because I've co-opted his
assistance for a little demonstration. If you excuse me a second ?" And
she unlocked the door to the adjoining town museum, and disappeared
inside with her shoulder bag. But in thirty seconds she reappeared.

"Ladies and gentlemen, if you could kindly follow me to the old
market square, we will begin the final part of our meeting in
approximately ten minutes." Emma swept out, holding her man firmly by
the wrist; there would be no escape this time!

The old market square was comparatively well-lit in the mid-evening,
for the surrounding cafes and wine bars were still open and washed the
pillory and whipping post with yellow and orange light. When all the
party were assembled, Emma resumed her lecture. She explained how being
pilloried in winter was bad news, as you were likely to get a painful
fusillade of turnips and frozen potatoes. But as this was still early
October ? at her nod, the man took off his coat and allowed Emma to
lock him into the pillory. The crowd began to grow; this could be the
last al fresco entertainment of the year until the Salvation Army band
came to herald the approach of Christmas.

"Anybody got any rotten fruit?" asked Emma. Nobody had.

"Just as well, perhaps; we don't want to leave too much mess for the
council to clear up!"

And with that she drew a carton of eggs from her shoulder bag and
cracked them one at a time over the man's forehead so that the gooey
mess would trickle down his face. A few onlookers cheered, and drinkers
came to the wine bar and caf? doors to watch. Emma explained that the
victim would normally have been pilloried for an hour or two but
tonight she would cut it short as time was getting on. She released the
man, who began brushing eggy strands out of his face and hair.

"Now the shirt off, please!" she ordered briskly.

The man hesitated, whether through cold or awareness of the raising
of the stakes.

Three young girls who had just exited the wine bar, sensing feminist
sport, began to chant: "Off! Off! Off!" they roared, and the crowd
joined in.

Emma made his decision for him; she began to unfasten his shirt, and
the crowd hooted.

"Ooh!" squealed the wine bar girls as a muscular chest and arms were
revealed, and Emma suddenly felt giddy with the realisation that she
now had a man in her power whose body other women lusted after.

She then fastened him to the whipping post; the crowd quietened,
wondering what would happen next. They soon found out; Emma reached
into the shoulder bag and pulled out a whip fashioned from rope and
horsehair with several long, wicked-looking thongs.

"This is a genuine fourteenth-century whip designated for use at
this very whipping post," she announced, "good sturdy technology of its
day!"

And with that she raised the whip in the air, swung it round a
couple of times and brought it down, with a whistle and a crack like a
firework, on the man's bare back He gave an audible gasp, as did
several of the audience. But she ignored him and, instead, examined the
whip for signs of damage. Finding none, she repeated the exercise,
causing a louder gasp. She peered at the thongs for another few
seconds, then she smiled and delivered a third slashing cut, and this
time the man howled with pain. The crowd stood stunned; you couldn't
see this sort of thing on the telly, even if you subscribed to the
X-rated channels. But then Emma, with a great show of reluctance,
released the man and replaced the whip in her shoulder bag.

"If the museum curator finds I've damaged this unique artefact it'll
be my turn at the whipping post!" she exclaimed with a chuckle.

"I'll be first in line for a ticket!" replied a wag, and the crowd
laughed nervously.

"It can't have hurt that much," said the wine-bar girl with the crop
top as they tottered off, "he just stood there and took it!"

"Looked real to me, once he was locked in he had no choice,"
disagreed her leather mini-skirted friend.

"What I want to know is, how does an ugly bitch like her pull
something fit like that, even if he has got a scar?" asked the third,
summing up the prevailing issue for the three of them as they sought a
taxi to the distant night-club.

"So, before you disperse, ladies and gentlemen, spare of thought for
Agnes Dunnock and Lantern Moll and the people in the parish records
who, as we have heard, suffered so much in this jolly little corner of
our town! And please give a round of applause for my partner, who was
such a good sport!" declared Emma as she closed the meeting.

The crowd clapped and cheered, then dispersed to slake their
thirsts.

"Excellent evening, Emma!" said the society chairman, "but is that
real blood on your shirt, young man? And are you two coming for a
drink?"

"Have to give it a miss, I'm afraid," said Emma. "Too many late
nights and early mornings planning this presentation."

"Never mind," said the chairman, "your show's been the talk of the
town. Will do your career no harm, no harm at all, young lady!"

Emma and the man left the square and strode hand-in-hand until they
reached the corner of Emma's street, where the man hesitated. Emma gave
him a long, steady gaze.

"The offer still stands, you know," she stated. The man said
nothing, but instead tightened his grip and they ran together towards
her front door.

Once inside the bedroom, the man removed Emma's thick glasses and
gently kissed each eye closed. Then he traced her large nose with his
finger. She thought it an unwanted bequest from generations of
Brummies, but the man declared it to be the nose of a fighter, an
overcomer, a proud warrior princess from the Near East. She in turn
traced his scar and told him it reminded her of a pirate, though it
had, he confessed, been the outcome of a stupid teenage knife fight. He
unfastened her blouse and weighed her undergirded breasts, finding the
fabric covering the nipples delightfully thin. She removed his shirt
for the second time that evening, and winced at the criss-cross of red
weals, some of which had indeed bled slightly. But he told her it
didn't matter, and began to slowly stroke her thighs. She leant forward
and kissed him, favouring the scarred cheek. He told her that when he
had declined to sleep with her for fear of her revulsion at seeing his
scar, the whispering slither of taut nylon as she fled sobbing was the
sexiest thing he had ever heard in his life, and it had broken his
heart. So she guided his hand past the wide-stretched stocking tops and
inside the elasticated boundary of her briefs. Then she paused.

"I ought to tell you now, I'm still a virgin," she said meekly.
Funny how one generation's badge of honour and purity should so soon
become a shameful confession of inexperience and unwantedness, she
thought.

"Good," he declared unexpectedly, "after a hard day at the whipping
post, there's nothing a bold-hearted rascally pirate looks forward to
more than a debauched deflowering!"

She glanced up sharply to see whether he was making fun of her but,
if he was, it was affectionate and gentle-spirited. Then she began to
laugh, a joyous, fluting, carefree sound that rose like incense and
enveloped them both, filling and resounding through the whole
house.

"I'm called Richard, by the way," said the man.