The Saga of a Naughty Lady

Chapter Two-2

“No, you will not!” Jolie answered. “Release her and I will tell you anything you want to know.”

The crowd stirred excitedly as the argument continued; but now was hushed to a stray cough, or a whispering parent silencing their child. In the middle of the throng, a tiny baby squalled; but he, too, was quickly quieted, forced to his mother’s teat where he happily consumed his dinner. All were focused on the tense moment between the Judge, the accused and the unhappy witness.

“You’re prepared to testify against yourself?”

“Only if this woman is freed. She is innocent in these matters and I wish no harm to come to her.”

“Please, milady no!” Jacqueline shouted. “They will murder you!”

“No, Jacqueline, they cannot kill me.”

“But…”

“Silence, wench!” the magistrate declared. “Captain, set the witness free.”

“I think we should detain her should the accused have lied to us.”

“The accused has already condemned herself. Let the woman go.”

Jacqueline breathed defiantly, as she was released from the whipping post. Her entire being burned with indignation, but she would not say a word—not when her mistress had so determinedly put her body in place of hers. She cast a scornful glance at the magistrate and his court, offered the same to the crowd, and then a compassionate glance toward her lady. She wanted to speak again.

Jolie shook her head, ‘no’ and then smiled. “I’ll be all right,” she mouthed silently.

No, she wouldn’t, the sad maid understood, but there was no dissuading her mistress when her mind was set.

“Tell your tale, ma’am,” the Judge ordered.

“I have no tale to tell, sir. I am guilty as I have been charged, of carrying on a s****l liaison with a man who is not my husband. I pleaded for mercy when this trial began, I plead now.”

“You have justification for your behavior?”

“Nothing but a loveless marriage.”

“That is no excuse for fornication,” the magistrate decided.

“Then I am guilty, sir.”

The gavel landed with a thud to quiet a crowd clamoring for revenge. The commotion died and the magistrate spoke again.

“The accused has been found guilty of adultery. She is to be stripped, caged for humiliation and then publicly flogged. Following this sentence, her husband will determine her fate, and his wishes will be carried out. Captain, you may proceed now.”

Jacqueline had disappeared, her husband had fled the scene long ago—having been little more than a tentative passerby—and Prince Tasio by design had never showed. Jolie was utterly alone hearing the sentence passed, but was strangely at peace.

Her future was unknown to her. Certainly, her husband would not keep her after this public rebuke. His ego was as powerful as hers, and easier to break. The marriage was permanently tainted by her prurient lust—and her inability to keep the affair a secret. If only she’d been less impertinent and more cautious. If only she’d listened to her lover’s counsel. If only she’d let his wisdom speak, and led her life as a reasonable woman—with her mind, not her heart and her mutinous attitude. Ah, but that does not happen with a wild one the likes of this fair-skinned redhead.

Pulled from the box, Jolie stood before the crowd to be humiliated, to be stripped of her garments and paraded naked through the marketplace as she was returned to her cage. This was a daunting moment. Fear seeped through every pore. Her nerves were mangled. But oddly, her body was jumping with excitement as the Captain of the Guards stood behind her and cut the neck of her dress in three places with his knife. Then, reaching around, with a hand on either side of the low-cut bodice, he ripped the emerald satin from her, exposing her breasts to the gaping eyes of the impatient crowd. They leered, jeered and laughed, as the once proud noblewoman was displayed before them.

Jolie quaked to her core, while she bit her lip trying to avoid the great embarrassment this exposure caused.

However, the unveiling was not finished. The Captain of the Guards reached in and cut her skirt with his knife, ripping the beautiful garment into shreds. Tossing the pieces at the crowd, horny young bucks surged toward the platform to claim a fragment of the lady’s attire and a better look at her creamy white thighs and the pink triangle of curls at her crotch. Every bit of cloth from her outer garments to her underclothes disappeared, pocketed by a throng that relished each indignity perpetrated on this disgraced woman.

Marie Jolie Gabrielle Antoinette was not without feeling—though she did her best to disguise the horrible sensations the unmasking produced. Her insides ground as though sharp-toothed dragons were having a vicious war. One dragon wished to die, while the other laughed in its face. Despite this miserable consequence the strangest feeling of thrill brewed within. If it would have served her purposes, she might have shook her fist in their faces. Instead, she remained calm to the insistent crowd who wanted more of her to revile. But there was no more. Her face, her breasts, her p***y and her ass, all her privates were available for their inspection. She had no more they could take from her.

“String her up now!” the crowd shouted. “String her up!”

She was to be taken to her cage—lodged there for several hours to be jeered at and further humiliated. But the crowd would not allow that. They wanted more.

“String her up!” they cried in passionate unison.

String her up, yes. But that was not all they wanted. The throng rushed forward wanting to take her from the platform and stone her. The kill was in their blood; their history filled with adulteresses punished by a painful death for illicit fornication.

The gavel sounded. Then the Judge’s staff followed, pounding against the floorboards of the stage. The crowd fell back, but just a step, while they lowered the volume of their insurgent message a few degrees in volume.

“String her up!” the Judge’s voice rang out loudly. He was just one step away from giving her to the crowd—a sacrificial lamb for their lust to feed on. But this was a civilized country, which had pulled itself from the dark ages of its history. They should be counted on to see these trials through with some decorum, some decency. No, he would not make a mockery of progress letting his own urges get the better of him and the mob have her. “String her up!” he repeated, to get the roused Captain of the Guards moving quickly. He would quell the frenzy with the first stroke of the lash.

Jolie was manacled at the wrists, her wrists then attached to a free-hanging hook high above her head. Unlike the way Jacqueline had been bound to a whipping post, there was no post to comfort this criminal. Almost as if she hung suspended, her body was accessible on all sides to the assault of the punishment.

Two executors appeared on the platform, each armed with the implements of her torture. They appraised her, both carefully strolling around her body, both viewing with delight her pendulant breasts and their tiny n*****s, seeing the glorious taper of her waist and how her luscious buttocks bloomed like two full petals of a summer rose. There would be lots of flesh to punish here. Jolie’s thighs were resplendent, quivering, and beauteous. How would they look marred from the cuts of a lash? Her appeal as a woman was clearly apparent now. To cause her death would defeat the purpose of such womanliness. Her charms could be enjoyed now in a way few would ever see in such a gratifying manner.

One executor held a two inch wide strap, the second held a flogger with six dozen falls of braided leather. They began in tandem, one on either side of her, lashing at her body with subtle easy blows at first and working their way up to hard-hitting strikes against the soft surface of her skin. From breasts, to belly, to thighs in front; from shoulders to buttocks to thighs in the rear. They began with a moderate rhythm, then increased their intensity as they moved around her, the strap now in front and the flogger behind.

The pain bit, but not viciously to start. This simple pace was almost too good to be true. Though it didn’t last. What sensuousness erupted from her desirous body made her arousal soar in delightful anticipation as her mind disengaged. But then the punishment stung, and stung more, as her tormentors paced around her delivering blows she could not absorb and love. If they paused, she might retrieve some of the pleasure; but then it was gone, as the executors revived themselves and worked her body harder still.

A whip appeared in one man’s hand, replacing the single strap. Continuing his task, this new implement nipped bites in the victim’s reddened skin. Then, it swooshed through the air and landed just short of cutting the skin… She jumped lively with every cut, dancing as if delighted—or when anguished, as if she could run away.

Stopping to appraise his target, the executor sneered bitterly, then cracked the whip through the heated air at full force—the cracker hitting nothing but the steamy emptiness. But the crowd gasped. In turn, the bound beauty jolted defiantly at the sound alone. But realizing that her body had not taken the blow, she eased and held on, gritting her teeth, sure that the next crack would tear her flesh away. Her punishment was just beginning.

While the flogger continued to prime one side of her body, the whip made blade-like cuts to the roughed and tender surface. Their combined method made her mad with fear—at the same time, curiously desirous of more. The pain no longer mattered. Her body had been lifted from the anguish, delivered into another state of feeling where all her senses melded together and each new strike brought more sensate wonder.

She took pride in her ability to contain her cries. And as her breathing deepened, she believed the punishment could last forever in this blessed way.

This was a foul thing for a condemned woman to assume. Her executors understood their power to raise such feeling in some women—and they knew the path beyond that.

The whipmaster, sporting an evil grin, reared back as he’d done before and let the whip fly forward, wrapping the side of Jolie’s hip. The frayed end cut like the blade of a knife.

“Eeeeeeawwww!” she shrieked.

The whip wrapped her other hip.

“Eeeeawwwww, noooooooooooo!” she bellowed from a deeper well of passion.

This pain did not diminish, it didn’t die away, didn’t ease in seconds as the other blows did, but lingered long, biting and cutting, as if there were teeth burrowing into her insides.

The sharp snaps continued to places more used to pain, and her breathing and fear abated for a time. But then the pace picked up with strikes snapping off her back and ass in a frenzied rhythm. Faster, sharper, meaner… more and more so that she was delirious and crying for mercy, wailing for the end.

The crowd quieted as the merciless punishment continued, as if they were so mesmerized by the awesome nature of this spectacle that they could not believe the horror of it, or the beauty of that horror. It struck even the hearts of brave men, and wounded the souls of women unused to witnessing such abject woe. Would it be them next convicted of an inconsequential crime?

Suddenly, without warning, the punishment stopped.

An uneasy quiet reigned. For minutes, not a murmur, not a single cough, or sigh, or whisper issued from the audience. There was not a single sound from the victim—nothing until the executors shuffled off the platform and disappeared with their whips and floggers.

The victim, the beautiful Marie Jolie Gabrielle Antoinette, hung limp, not fainted, but barely conscious. She paid no mind to the flies that buzzed the air or the chill that rippled against her skin. Her flesh was stained with the consequences of her lust, streaked with red, and a few fresh dabs of blood where the whip had broken the skin.

In time these wounds would lessen, the red would fade and the welts diminish. Some would bruise to leave lingering remnants, and feel tender to the touch for many days. Some red splotches would remain as well, and over time fade to the natural creamy pink of the lady’s skin. Her limbs would ache, her shoulders feel tight; and because she’d been so strained in the position, her wrists would bear a few scars until they also recovered.