The images were black and white and had the grainy appearance of an old movie. The screen was small and the Reverend realized immediately that he was viewing a security monitor and that somewhere in the garage behind him, the camera was pointed at Jessica. Looking deeper into the screen he saw how the bright lights reflected off the shiny concrete floors and how the screen's hazy images cast an eerie and macabre shadow across the scene.
Along the perimeter, he could make out the shape of a large machine, what looked to be an old and dilapidated snow plow, resting dormant, like a prehistoric mammoth caught and worn by the ravishes of time. Strewn about the screen's frame there were racks of shovels, buckets and stacks of burlap bags; everything appeared old and antiquated. It was like he was looking back into time, or into a museum where time had stopped but the sloth and callousness continued to thrive even when life had stopped. It was what he could expect from this back woods maintenance facility and everything appeared quite normal, except for what the Reverend saw in the center of the screen.
The camera was focused on a large wooden table. The officer stood next to the table, he was shirtless and beads of perspiration glistened on his body. Strewn about the floor, he saw Jessica's shirt, torn and heaped next to her shoes. Several black leather objects lay on the floor, as if carelessly dropped. The Reverend could not identify them; they looked to be items one would find in a horse barn or a blacksmith's shop. Curled on the floor, the Reverend recognized a bull whip, coiled like a snake ready to strike.
Jessica was on the table. Her hands were behind her back, shackled together with the officer's handcuffs. Her long hair had been pulled back in a crude pony tail and bound with a rope. The other end of the rope wrapped around her handcuffs and pulled her head back unnaturally, stretching her neck. Her skirt was bunched about her waist and she was kneeling on the table. Her face and breasts smashed against the table, her ass lifted in the air. Stockings still encased her legs. Nowhere did the Reverend see her panties. Her posture looked unnatural, she was contorted; restraints held her upper body down and only her will held her lower body up, open and exposed. Her ass was splayed upwards and she looked inhuman, like a circus freak with the neck of a bird and the webbed toes of a fish. The stretch of her back formed an angle to the table and her ass pointed like a cannon towards the sky.
He saw her face in the camera. Her eyes and mouth were scrunched in indescribable emotion. Her face was filled with both surrender and passion. She seemed at peace but did not wear the look of serenity or calm, rather beneath her quaking flesh it was as if she had found, after a lifetime of searching, a lost happiness that had been buried under a lifetime of silt and she was desperately clawing her way downward towards it, searching for a lost treasure. Each shudder of her body moved her a little closer a little deeper. Her mouth was forced open by a gag, her legs spread apart and her body obeyed her forced position but it were her eyes, only her eyes betrayed her. They were clenched closed. They remained defiant and would not open.
The Reverend struggled for understanding. The officer stood beside the table. In his hand was a flogger and the strips of leather dangled and flew through the air at her body. Redness like sunspots blurred her back, legs and her ass. She was not bleeding but heat seared her skin and lightning bolts sizzled across her flesh. The man swung, the leather fluttered and slammed against her exposed ass. Again and again the officer swung the whip. Again and again he lashed her body. The Reverend gripped the desk.
There was no volume and he looked about the desk probing deeper into this visually horrifying scene. Below the screen, a label worn and blackened with grime, read "audio." The Reverend flicked the switch and the sounds from the garage filled the room.
"Yes, this is what good little girls like," the man chanted with malice in his voice. His whip whistled through the air and a sharp "crack" resounded in the speaker. Jessica did not scream, only a muffled sound could be heard, like air pushing of air out of a pillow as it is struck with a fist. The Reverend knew he needed to do something but remained frozen in his chair. The officer lashed her and taunted her. First on one thigh, then the other he whipped her. Then, between her open legs the whip struck and her whole body shuddered. Still, there was no sound, only muffled air exited her lips.
The Reverend studied the woman on the table, the woman whom he had recently fallen in love with. He struggled to understand. He was witnessing a scene out of a medieval torture chamber, and although her body was contorted and bound in an unnatural fashion, there was a primitive essence to what he was seeing; he was watching the most basic of urges, animalistic and natural and it sprung from a time before we learned to cover our bodies.
He gazed at her face and pleaded for understanding, for a sign, for a shard of insight into this spectacle. The whip coursed across her body, stopping only momentarily as the officer dragged the leather across her flesh or he moved about the table to find a new area of skin that did not glow in redness. He expected her to fall flat on the table with the power of each stroke. Each blow of the whip was sent with the same strength that pushed the Reverend into the dirt back on the highway, yet Jessica held her ground.
Her body shuddered and she stood firm, lifting her ass into the air after each "crack," repositioning her self, readying herself, exposing her ass for another strike. Though her eyes remained clenched, there was peace in her face, like the calm of a skipper who resolutely held the wheel of an endangered ship as the storm's fury broke over its bow, wave after wave, crash after crash.
It was then that he realized that she was enjoying this. The man struck and she received. Her knees were splayed open on the table and after each crack of the whip she arched her back and pushed her ass higher, reaching for each lash, beckoning the whip's force with her exposed womanhood.
A strange emotion enveloped the Reverend. He was swished away in a dark tunnel, back in time. There, he saw himself in a dark booth staring at a screen, much like the one he was watching now. The tiny room was dank with the foul smell of rotting semen and he dared not touch anything. In front of him was a tiny camera and images filled the screen. Inside, he saw the pretend dungeon of a pornographic movie and watched as men dressed in leather whipped beautiful women bound in rope, chains and sexy clothes. It was in these booths of his youth, that he let go the veil of decency that seemed to choke his life and where he held his penis in his hand, stroking it feverously and furtively, in his tiny black cell, staring at the screen, impatiently pulling for an orgasm, trying to coax his seed onto the screen, into the movie's dungeon, on the body of the waiting woman who was tightly tied, spanked and penetrated.
The Reverend could feel the blood begin to flow in his loins. His balls were swollen from the impact to his groin but the warm feelings grew as he watched Jessica in voyeuristic pleasure. It was like the old days there in the porno shop and he felt his hand move instinctively towards his pants. He felt ashamed of what was happening but felt powerless to stop his hand. The Reverend fought these feelings, but he knew from experience, once it started, he was doomed. The primal force would overtake and overcome him. It would win. His hand moved towards his crotch and he felt the hardness of his cock straining against the cloth. It was happening. He was entering the forbidden zone. Yes, he was a sinner. He was drawn into the screen.
The officer moved to the end of the table. Crouched on the ground, almost underneath the table, the Reverend noticed Pamela, the dispatch woman. He had not seen her before. She did not move but watched the action. A look of fear and longing filled her face. The officer dangled the whip between Jessica's legs. He slowly danced the leather strands back and forth in an arc, swinging their tips back and forth against her exposed pussy and inner thighs. After each rotation, Jessica seemed to open her legs further guiding the implement away from her legs and centering the attention on her open lips.
The whip gathered momentum and he struck harder and harder. Jessica's muffled puffs became moans, the leather lashed her pussy and the man whipped her again and again. The Reverend watched her body shake after each blow. She involuntarily tried to close herself when the whip hit, each time reopened her legs, pushed her pelvis back towards the man, and opened her vulnerability. The peace in her face was contorted and the Reverend watched as Jessica writhed on the table, bound with no attempt at escape. She lay peacefully on the table and through this penance; she tried to cast off her body in a lost effort to find release.
