Chapter 29.   Day of Reckoning

A few days after my meeting with Masterson I had called the referral he had given me.  An interview was quickly scheduled with Ben Silverstein for a possible accounting job with Silverstein and Associates, Public Auditors.  The interview had gone very well and a few days later they had called me with an offer.  I told them that I wanted to take a week to think it over.

The week since the trial had passed quickly and the day of public punishments for these people had arrived!   I was to have my vindication for what these people had done to me!  I told myself that I was only going to attend these punishments because the judge expected me to do so.  But there was a secret part of me that was going to enjoy this! 

Bill had an important business commitment and could not go with me.  I did not want to be alone for this so I invited my tennis friend Becky.  I had just renewed my friendship with her after a lapse of nearly two years.  She had been with me at the tennis courts on that day when I was served the legal process that was to begin my enslavement.  After I won my freedom I learned that Becky had tried several times to visit me when I was a slave at Masterson Automotive but was informed that I was allowed no visitors.  After I regained my freedom Becky and I spent much time catching up.

On the way with Becky to the crucifixion site I ran into Edgar Miller.  He was wearing clothing!  He was not wearing a slave collar!  I introduced him to Becky and asked him to fill me in about his good fortune.  

“Edgar”, I began, “my lawyer had mentioned to me that you were also seeking your freedom.  In fact your lawyer and mine shared some of the legal research expenses.  Would you mind filling me in on what happened?”

“Sure Steph”, he replied.  “I read all about your case on the internet news services.  In my case I had to bring an action against Leland Bank & Trust and against Morris Leland personally for getting me convicted of embezzlement on perjured testimony.  My attorney succeeded in getting my conviction nullified.”

“So the Court then ordered you freed?” I asked.

“Not quite.  There was a complication because Masterson Automotive Group then owned me, they had not been in any way complicit in my false conviction and they had purchased me in good faith.  The Court could not legally just take Masterson’s property without just compensation.   So the Court had to first call in a licensed slave appraiser who recommended to the Court what would be a fair price for me to be paid to Masterson as just compensation.  Leland Bank & Trust was then ordered to pay Masterson that amount and then to set me free.”

“Were there any criminal penalties involved for what was done to you?”  Becky asked.

“Yes indeed.  That is why I am attending this public punishment today!  I actually won criminal convictions against Morris Leland and against Sally Rigers.  Leland was the one who plotted to frame me but Ms. Rigers testimony was perjured and was the main evidence used to convict me.  After my conviction Rigers came over to Masterson and became my supervisor.  I think you may remember how she humiliated me there.  Leland and Rigers are to be publicly humiliated today and I am very much looking forward to it!”

Indeed I could remember all too vividly how Sally Rigers would make fun of Edgar’s obesity, flick his penis this way and that with her whip handle, and imply that the ridiculous thing probably wouldn’t even work.

“Will these two be home free after their public punishment?”  I asked.

“No way!” he replied.  “Today is just the prelim punishment.  I am due back in court in another week for sentences to be handed down as to their permanent punishments.  The Court is allowing me to determine how many years slavery each of them must endure.”

“Sort of like how the Court is letting Steph determine the permanent punishments for her oppressors!” Becky exclaimed.

“Exactly!” Edgar replied.

We were now coming up on the part of Central Park where the punishments would take happen.  The place of humiliation for Jenkins, Duncan, Cheryl Clifford, Morris Leland, Sally Rigers and the two teenage boys named Kim and Erin would be a kind of fairgrounds setup with an elevated exhibition stage at the edge of Central Park.  This was considered to have sufficient educational value that public indecency laws with respect to the prisoners were suspended for this event, by the Mayor, in order that any interested persons, including children, might attend. There were tents setup with various vendors selling all manner of food and drink. Excited crowds made their way toward the main exhibition platform where the crosses were placed. 

“Wow!  This is like a carnival!” Becky exclaimed.  “This event must have been heavily advertised!”

“Not only that”, I interjected, “but the Court assigned staff to compile lists of all the friends, enemies and business associates of each of the prisoners, and then to send out special invitations to all these people to attend today’s “Punishment Fair”.  

I knew that there was no way of knowing how many in this excited crowd had some such personal relationship to one or more of the prisoners.

We had come to a place near the exhibition stage.  I saw that it had a floor, a roof, a back wall, and the means to glass in the front and sides in case of inclement weather.  Today was a bright sunny day and the temperature was comfortable so all the glass panels were retracted out of the way in the base of the stage.  Guards had, pursuant to the Court’s order, reserved for me a space on the lawn commanding a very good view of all that would happen.  Becky and I spread out a blanket we had brought and invited Edgar to join us.  We took our seats and passed around a thermos of coffee.

“I was here once last winter”, Becky offered, “when it was quite cold.  The crowd huddled on the lawn in their heavy coats to watch the show.  The stage was fully enclosed with non reflective glass panels and apparently heated so the prisoners could still be naked.”

“There are a lot of school age kids here!” Edgar noted.  “You can get some idea of that just from the number of school busses parked over in that lot!”

“Yes”, Becky responded.  “The schools consider this educational.  That is what I read on the internet.  They believe a field trip to a public punishment will teach the kids about crime and punishment and hopefully the kids will never be tempted into a life of crime after witnessing today’s exhibition. “
 
I knew that the schools also had the responsibility to teach Capitallian values about the importance of bodily modesty and boundaries between people of all ages.  Children needed to understand the real reasons why people did not go about exposing their genitals in public.  It wasn’t just a religious taboo and it wasn’t based on people being ashamed of their bodies.  Quite the contrary.   I thought it important to say a few words about this to my fellow spectators.

“It isn’t just the physical discomforts”, I said.   “If the children can begin to appreciate”, I said, “just how punitive it is for these prisoners to be forced to expose their private parts in a public setting perhaps they will then begin to understand Capitallian social values.   Sometimes people have to lose something – in this case the right to modesty – in order to appreciate just how precious it is.”  

Soon a cheer was heard.  Guards were bringing in the seven prisoners.  The prisoners were all naked but for loincloths.   Each nearly naked prisoner was prepared by firmly banding their wrists, biceps, and feet with firm leather straps containing magnets.  Each prisoner was then hoisted up on a high tech metal cross, well above the head level of the crowds, with arms and feet secured by magnetic fasteners.  

Each prisoner was positioned with arms spread wide horizontally on the crossbars, secured at both biceps and both wrists, and with legs drawn up on the lower beam so that the feet are magnetically latched to each other and to the vertical beam while the knees fold outward, one to each side, so that the thighs are well spread – making the most complete display of the prisoner.   There were no nails driven through any prisoner, or anything that would cause loss of blood.  A strong cord was looped around one knee of each person, run behind the vertical beam and secured to the other knee.  This was to ensure those knees and thighs would remain wide open.  

“My God!” Becky exclaimed.  “They are cutting the loincloths off those prisoners!”

Indeed a guard went from one prisoner to the next.   Each loincloth was then, after a brief moment of suspense, drawn briskly aside with a flourish and a small bow to the enthusiastically applauding spectators.  This guard was quite a showman.  Soon we heard hilarious laugher from all the young boys in the crowd.

“It’s Cheryl Clifford they are laughing at”, Edgar observed.  “They are laughing because they can see a tampon string descending from her now exposed vulva.”

When Kim lost his modesty there were giggles from some nearby girls that I estimated to be seventh graders from a girl’s academy.  They were laughing at his meager package.  Kim could see and hear these girls laughing at him and appeared to be dying of mortification.  Then we heard this same gaggle of girls cooing and whispering to each other.   

“It is Erin who just lost his modesty”, Becky remarked.  No doubt those girls are fantasizing what it would be like to have this well-hung lad inside them.  I could get into that fantasy myself!”

“Becky!  He’s only 16 years old!”  I exclaimed.

“It is only a fantasy”, she replied.  “There is no harm in a fantasy, right?”

Suddenly we heard raucous laughter and jeering followed by rhythmic clapping.

“Wow!” Edgar exclaimed.  That banker Leland just lost his covering and I love it!”

I felt good for Edgar that he could have his vindication against Morris Leland.  I suspected many in the crowd had dealt with this banker when they needed a loan or had their home foreclosed.  Now they saw him as a pathetic creature with his genitals just barely visible beneath his rolls of fat.  They delighted in seeing him humbled in this manner.  

When Duncan and Jenkins were bared to the crowd the reaction was more muted because their bodies were in no way exceptional and their private parts were also in no way exceptional.  Jenkins was portly and Duncan was a tall middle-aged man.  Still I saw some adult single women nearby who were suddenly fanning themselves.  When Sally Riger’s cloth was pulled away there was laughter at the tattoo she had on her shaved pubis.  It was so incongruous with her present situation because it was the symbol of female supremacy.  No doubt she never anticipated that anyone but a submissive lover would ever see it. 

“Oh my!” Becky exclaimed a few minutes later.  “Now they are all doing ‘the dance of the cross’.  I read about this on the internet.   It is very difficult for a person suspended in this manner to breathe.  As long as the body’s weight is being carried mainly by the arms the diaphragm is stretched in an unnatural position.  To breathe a person must relieve that stretch by taking much of their weight on their feet.  This requires tensioning the muscles and tendons of the thighs and calves.  This becomes painful and can be held only so long before weight must be shifted back to the arms.”  

“Not only that”, Edgar contributed.  “A prisoner on the cross must fall into a rhythmic flexing and unflexing of the leg muscles that usually has the effect of making those legs more interesting to the spectators.”
 
Edgar was right of course.  After some hours the position becomes extremely fatiguing.  The prisoner grows faint as his or her circulatory system has more and more difficulty pumping blood up from the legs.  As the prisoner weakens he or she can no longer do the “dance of the cross” as well and breathing becomes more difficult.  These factors eventually lead to death if this was a literal crucifixion, but death often takes as long as three to four days.

Jenkins, Duncan and Leland and the boys were sentenced to spend three days mounted on their crosses.  But the Court did not want it to be a death sentence, so it was ordered that whenever they fainted the crosses were to be hydraulically tilted back into a horizontal position for an hour-long relief period, or until a doctor certified they could safely be again in a vertical display position.  This allowed for just enough relief to their circulatory systems and to their lung and chest muscles.  They were also given generous amounts of water.  In this way the hurt and the humiliation could be drawn out for as long as three days if need be.

After about an hour of watching the prisoners ‘dance’ a street vendor selling sandwiches and wine came near and the three of us purchased what we needed to keep our strength and spirits up.   We settled back in a more reclining position on our blanket to watch this drawn out process with some feeling of satisfaction and vindication for what these men, women and boys had put us through.    We had almost drifted off to sleep when we heard loud cries of anguish.

“Wake up guys!  Guards are whipping the genitals of the prisoners!” Edgar exclaimed with some excitement.

“I can’t believe it!” Becky shouted.  “Some of the males are becoming erect!”

“The Clifford bitch and the Rigers bitch are juicing!  And have erect nipples!  Edgar announced.

I knew from a pamphlet the court clerk had given me that, in the earlier stages of the process, before the prisoners became too weak, that male erections and female juicing might be evoked by the light whippings.   These prisoners were being forced to have public orgasms.   When one of the male prisoners would ejaculate in response to the whipping, this would usually evoke some applause from the spectators.  It was their way of complimenting the guard on his skill with the whip and thanking him for the entertainment.

After a few more hours, partly as a result of all the water that had been given the prisoners, one after another disgraced themselves.  When one of them would start to pee the spectators would take up rhythmic clapping until they finished.

It must have been about an hour after this when there was some commotion up on the stage.  Morris Leland’s cross was being hydraulically tilted back into a horizontal position.  A doctor was checking his pulse.  

“He’s not breathing!” someone shouted.

Then electric paddles were brought out and the prisoner was shocked until his heart started beating again.  He was released from his cross and secured to a gurney and carried off the stage.

When sundown finally came the remaining prisoners were released from their magnetic restraints, given new loincloths to replace the ones cut away earlier, and led away by guards, presumably to spend the night resting in their jail cells.  Most had to be supported by a guard on either side and led out with their feet barely touching the floor as they were too weak to stand.   By the end of this first day I had enough of this spectacle and resolved to return only at the end of the third day for the final coup de grace.
 
At the end of the third day I appeared, this time accompanied by both Bill and Becky, just in time to see a female doctor attend to Tom Jenkins.  I noted that Morris Leland was back on stage sitting naked in a chair facing the crowd while the others were all back on their crucifixion crosses.  Evidently the judge, learning of his heart attack on day one, had modified his punishment for the other two days.

The young female doctor had a copy of the Court’s Order for Jenkins’ castration and it was her job to execute this provision.  I had my lawyer petition the Court for him to be spared this but now I was convinced the Court had not granted my request.  She swabbed his genital area with alcohol, and then gave an anesthetic injection.  After waiting a few minutes for the anesthetic to kick in, she affixed and tightened up some small clamps to cut off the flow of blood into Tom’s scrotum. Then she brought out a very sharp looking razor and was ready to cut Jenkins.  He gave out a blood-curdling scream of fear.  Just then a special messenger from the Court arrived and presented some paper to the doctor.  She nodded her head in recognition.

“You are one lucky son-of-a-bitch” she said to Jenkins in a voice loud enough for those close to the platform to hear.  The lady you raped has persuaded the Court to spare you this!  Go figure!”

“Why did you do that?”  Becky wanted to know.   “I was so looking forward to seeing my first castration!”

“She spared him for a business reason”, Bill said to Becky and declined to further explain.

With that the doctor began packing up her tools and Jenkins fainted.  Then Duncan, Jenkins and the two boys who had violated my rights were cut down, as was Sally Rigers who had violated Edgar.  The Banker, Morris Leland was released from the chair where he had been placed naked and handcuffed since his heart attack on day one.  They were all too weak to stand, so they were frog marched back to a jail holding cell where, I was told, they would be fed and receive further medical attention.  Bill, Becky and I stopped for a drink in a nearby pub and then went our separate ways.  

I had my fill of public brutality and just wanted to go home alone.

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