NATIONAL EXPOSURE

Execution

    I don’t know who was more nervous. She was waiting for me to kill her so I guess she had a few butterflies but I was going to be performing my first execution on national TV. And I mean my first execution and not my first on TV. Oh I’d assisted with a few to get used to the idea of killing and I’d practiced on corpses but tonight was for real. 
   It started out well enough. She was brought in and I oversaw her placement on the post. With my own hands I tied her there. Nothing special, just the usual ropes around her waist, wrists, elbows, legs and ankles. You’ve seen it enough to know the placement as well as I. As I’d done it before I knew what I was doing and the many cameras didn’t bother me. I did two things different though. I marked the spot I would aim at as well as the location of her heart. And I gave her a blindfold in spite of what it would do for the ratings. Look, I know most guys like to watch the face during the start of things but it was just too bad this time. If things went well I could live with a few points off on the score but if I blew it I was out of a job. The last thing I needed was to have her flinch at the wrong time and screw things up. Hence the blindfold.
    My chosen weapon was a short sword somewhere between a large knife and a roman infantry sword. Sixteen inches of polished steel with both edges razor sharp it glittered in the lights. She had seen it before I covered her eyes so perhaps those watching got a little of what they wanted there. I took a few practice swings and sliced a melon in half to show how sharp it was before it was time. A few seconds to clean the blade and a handful of rosin so my hand would not slip and I was ready. A check to ensure she was reassured me there. With her arms and elbows tied behind the post her chest was forced out and up and with the belly rope holding her stomach in I had excellent exposure of her heart to the up thrust blade. Now to do it
    My client was an older woman, forty four to be exact, guilty of armed robbery. Kind of pretty in a hard sort of way with a fairly good body for her age. The tits were just a nice handful and her belly was still fairly flat. Compared to some of the downright ugly scags I’d seen other guys get for their first one I felt lucky. Maybe the ratings would be better that usual for a first timer. A lot of folks tune in just to see someone screw the pooch  and I was not going to do that. Some of the older guys can do the nice quick professional job that the bosses want but at the same time work in enough suffering to please the masses watching. I was not going to get fancy. Get a few good kills in and some job security and maybe then I’d try something fancy. I had thought about strangling her but was unsure if I could carry it off, it takes a long time to strangle compared with stabbing them and there are a lot of watchers that like the knife. Besides a old classic blade to the heart is sort of elegant.
    The sharkskin grip felt good in my hand as I moved into position. She heard me coming and whispered “Just don’t blow it boy, I’ll stand still so just get it over with, OK.” I don’t think the mikes picked it up so the element of tension was still there as everybody waited for her reaction to her impending death. I lined the blade up with the path I wanted. With the tip just short of her skin a drew back , held it just long enough to provide a bit of drama, and then plunged it into her.  Even with my practice I was unprepared for just how easily the sharp steel slid through her living flesh. I had planned to stab her and then slash the blade around inside of her body to make sure I cut something that would kill her quickly. Instead I drove it through her body and into the post. For just a second I thought about trying to pull it back but it was in so solidly there was no way without looking like a fool. As the panic passed I noticed she was trying to breathe. One short breath ended with a gout of blood from her lips. Perhaps I’d done OK after all. 
    Something inside of me took over then. Figuring to go for broke and hoping the blade was stuck in a solid as it appeared I took my folding knife out and cut her bonds and remover her blindfold. The body slid down the blade until it was stopped by the quillions. Her hands fluttered as if to reach for the hilt but she had not the strength. She did manage to lift her head enough to look into my eyes. Then she went limp. I let the body hang for the required tem minutes while the cameras  zoomed in for close-ups. After the time was up I lifted her head and slit her throat from ear to ear as a finale. 
    That was the start of a long rewarding tenure as an executioner. The numbers were good and just kept getting better with each execution. Through a little dumb luck and some quick thinking I had not embarrassed myself. We had both gotten good national exposure.