MARA'S ORDEAL

BY ICON O'CLAST

She stood before the fence of rusted barbwire and rotting wood with a lump in her throat and a knot in her stomach. Beyond lay woods so dark and deep that the spaces beneath the trees seemed almost cavernous. Like something out of a storybook.

"Don't do it, Mara," her friend pleaded. "The Coopers will get you for sure!"

The Coopers. There were five of them, four boys and a girl. All of them big, mean and ugly. And bullies. Collectively, they were the terror of the schoolyard and ordinarily Mara wouldn't have set foot on their property for anything, but what choice did she have? She'd been late for dinner twice already that week and her father had warned her in no uncertain terms that she'd really be in for it if she did it again. Once again, she had lost track of time while playing after school and now the only way she was going to make it home in time was to take a short cut across the Coopers' property.

"I'll be all right," Mara declared, putting on her bravest face. She stood there, a cute little eight-year old girl in blue overalls and a striped red top, her long black hair shining in the afternoon sun.

"They won't even know I was there." With that she carefully scaled the weather-beaten fence and started on her way.

As soon as she was out of her friend's sight, Mara started running. She hadn't wanted to look like a coward, but she WAS scared. The Coopers had never paid much attention to her, but she had seen what they did to other kids who crossed their path. They never missed a chance to push someone in the mud, or steal their milk money, or just reduce them to tears by any means they could think of. They even pantsed one kid, and he was a fifth-grader!

So she ran. She ran until her sides hurt, then she walked as fast as she could.

She was being silly, Mara told herself. A real scaredy-cat. There was no one around. The Coopers were probably at their own dinner table by now, eating whatever their alcoholic mother had managed to prepare for them.

Just then a sound carried through the quiet of the woods that Mara was certain she hadn't made. It was just the snapping of a twig, but it made her turn and look all the same.

They were there. All five of them. They came bounding through the trees like a pack of hungry wolves. They all looked very much the same, stocky frames, dirty blond hair and clothes that could have done with even more patches than were already on them. No storybook Mara had ever seen contained monsters so frightening to look upon.

Tired though she was, Mara ran for her life. Roots and rocks reached up to try and trip her as she fled, but nothing would make her slow down.

When the tottering fence that marked the end of the Coopers' property came into view, Mara thought she'd never see a more welcome sight. Once over it, she might be safe. But the Coopers saw it too. They were yelling now, encouraging each other not to let her get away.

Mara hit the fence on the run, scrambling up one of its rickety posts. She was going to make it!

Then disaster struck.

Her overalls got snagged on one of the barbs.

Frantically, she tried to get loose, willing to sacrifice cloth as well as flesh in order to escape. But the Coopers were much closer than she realized.

Hands like the claws of beasts took hold of her and she was pulled back. Mara hit the ground hard, but had the presence of mind to get her feet under her almost immediatly. She crouched there while they encircled her, two of the boys moving to make sure she didn't try getting over the fence again.

"What are you doin' on our land?" Aaron, the youngest of the Coopers all but screamed his question at her. He was only a year older than Mara, but like all of his kin he was built like a pit bull and towered over her.

"She's trespassing! That's what she's doin'," Emily Cooper answered, a little out of breath. At sixteen, she was the oldest, a perpetually scowling girl whose full-cheeked face never seemed to show any hint of happiness unless she was tormenting another child. "You know what we do to trespassers?" she asked Mara, a malicious grin twitching at her pudgy jowls.

There were a few smiles and some knowing glances exchanged by the Coopers, but Mara didn't wait for an answer. Lunging for the biggest hole in their circle, she made a break for it and was off and running again. There was no time to worry about direction, no chance to think things through. Had she been able to, Mara might have realized that she was running in the wrong direction, away from the fence and deeper into the Coopers' territory.

She never saw the flying tackle that took her down coming. One minute she was running for all she was worth and the next she was face down in the dirt. They swarmed over her immediatly, not wanting to give her another chance to squirt away. Mara managed to rise to her knees even though they were pulling at her arms, her clothes and her hair, but her defiance was short lived. Emily punched her in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her, then she went down under the pile.

When she could breathe again, all Mara's energy went into crying. There was little else she could have done anyway. They had wrestled her onto her back and the immovable bulk of Josh Cooper was sitting on her chest. Someone else was holding her legs while Aaron pinned her arms down over her head. All the Coopers were panting from the exertion of having chased her down, but this didn't stop Josh from scooping up a handful of dirt and trying to feed it to the helpless girl beneath him. When Mara kept turning her face away, Josh's brother Kyle obligingly knelt down and held her head still so that Josh could force some of the soil between her tightly pressed lips.

"What are we gonna do with her?" Aaron asked while Mara sputtered and tried to spit out the dirt.

Emily moved closed and looked down at the tear-streaked and now dirt-smeared face of their captive.

"You still got that rope, Aaron?"

The youngest Cooper indicated that he did.

"Then tie her up."

At their sister's command, the Cooper boys set to doing this, binding Mara's ankles and wrists with lengths of rough brown rope. At first she tried to fight this, but then Emily produced a pocketknife and opened it up. Mara froze. Oh God, she thought, they wouldn't...

Emily though had turned away from her and was scanning the surrounding forest for something. Upon spying it, she said,"When you get her trussed up good, put her over that log."

Then, as much to Mara as to her brothers, she declared,"We're gonna teach this brat a lesson."

While Emily strode off, the boys finished their work. Josh got up off of Mara, then helped his brothers pick her up. They half-carried, half-dragged her over to a huge oak tree that had been uprooted in a recent storm. There they stood her up and she was spun around to face Billy. Josh and Kyle stood to either side of her, holding onto her arms. When Billy stepped closer, they lifted her tied hands above her head and held them there.

"You never shoulda come onto our land," Billy told her, standing so close now that she could feel his hot breath upon her face. He unsnapped the clasps on her overalls, flipping one strap over her shoulder, then pausing cruelly before doing the same with the other. The denim garment was then pulled roughly down to bunch around her bound ankles.

The boys took a moment to leer at her standing there in her too short red top and the white panties that it failed to cover. The latter had yellow duckies on them and they laughed at much at this as at their prisoner's plight.

Then it was over the log with her.

The tree had been an ancient one, so big in circumference that when Mara was bent over it her feet no longer touched the ground. Aaron quickly hopped over the log and with another length of rope tied the girl's hands to a sturdy branch that extended out from the trunk of the fallen tree.

Now there really was no escape.

While Aaron stepped back to admire his handiwork, Emily reappeared at his side. She had a long, straight willow branch that she had stripped of its leaves. It made a vicious slicing sound when she waved it in the air.

"We're gonna teach you a lesson you ain't never gonna forget," she said, patting her hand with the switch like an angry schoolmarm.

Trembling with fear, Mara felt another sensation building inside of her. It burst from her as they moved around to the other side of the log, drenching her crotch in warmth. "Look! She peed herself!" one of the boys cried, bringing a chorus of laughter from the others.

"Baby!" they called her, and teased,"I guess you shoulda wore a diaper!"

Their taunts meant little to Mara though. Humiliated and frightened though she was, she knew the worst was yet to come.

"Please don't," Mara begged when she felt her urine-soaked panties pulled down, revealing her little eight-year old bottom for all to see, but they only laughed.

They laughed and Mara felt the first biting swipe of the switch.

Mara's screams filled the forest, drowning out even the raucous cheers of the Coopers. Emily whipped her without mercy, laying on lash after lash until she had worked herself out of breath, but Mara's punishment didn't end there. They kept her there for more than an hour, each of the Coopers taking a turn as the torturer. Sometimes they laid on the blows fast and furious, other times with cruel and precise deliberation. They broke three switches on her butt, but there were always more to be had from nearby trees.

When at last they had their fill and Mara's agonized yelps had died away to pathetic sobs of misery, they left. They didn't bother to untie her. They just left her there over that log, her tiny buttocks crossed with hundreds of angry red welts, some of which had broken open and started to seep blood.

It was almost dark when Mara finally returned home. Her ass felt as if it was swollen to twice its normal size, but the pain had started to subside and she could walk without discomfort.

Her father was waiting for her in the kitchen. "Come over here, Mara," he said, the harshness in his tone making her suddenly remember that she was late.

Very late.

"Just where have you been?"

She stood in the doorway, struggling to get the words, ANY WORDS out. When she failed to answer, her father grew angry.

"COME OVER HERE, NOW!"

The wooden paddle he had carved was in his hand now. He had threatened her with it before, but never actually used it. This time though...

Dazed and unable to believe what was happening, Mara moved obediently to where he sat. "When I say don't be late for dinner, young lady, you are gonna learn not to be late for dinner!" He undid the clasps of her overalls as he said this and brusquely pulled her over his knee. Next, her panties came down, the spots of dried blood which had stuck the fabric to her wounded flesh making her moan in pain as they were peeled away.

Her father paused and for one fleeting moment Mara thought she was saved.

The welts!

He would see what the Coopers had done to her and then she would be able to explain. She would tell him everything and instead of being punished she would be hugged and kissed and felt sorry for.

But it was not to be.

"You were bad at school, weren't you?"

In a panic, Mara blurted out,"NO, papa. I wasn't. It was the Coopers, they..."

"DON'T YOU LIE TO ME!" her father shouted, silencing her last desperate entreaty. "I can see all too well why you were late. You were bad at school today and your teacher kept you after to punish you. Looks like she did a pretty thorough job, too. Well, Mara, if you had just told me the truth from the beginning, that would have been the only whipping you would have got today."

The paddle landed with a resounding CRACK!, sending fresh waves of pain through Mara's already tortured bottom. She cried as he spanked her and though she would not have believed it after her ordeal with the Coopers, she still had more tears to shed.