Brobdingnag

Copyright Oggbashan January 2004

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.

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Editor’s Note:

This is the fifth chapter of the parts expunged from the published Gulliver’s Travels.

Chapter Five

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Griselda conveys me to the trial. The trumpeters assail my hearing. The prisoners and their guards enter. The steaming cauldron is a warning. The traitors plead and the King decrees their several fates. Griselda places me in an embarrassing situation.

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I awoke to find that my dream had turned to near reality. Griselda was cradling me in her hand and her lips were pressed against my body, covering my body from head to toe.

She desired me to don the translucent corset. The Lady Petrova had ordered that I should be immobilised and silenced lest by any inadvertent movement or outcry I should interrupt the solemnity of the trial of the traitors.

I signified my reluctant consent but requested that Griselda should return me to my cabinet to make my ablutions. She instructed me to perform my toilet with dispatch because it was imperative that she reached the great hall of parliament in time to obtain a convenient vantagepoint. She placed me in her formal apron’s pocket as she opened my cabinet.

I was distressed to find that a modification had been made to the pocket since yesterday. A slit had been made to the rear of it, not as large as the slit in the Lady Petrova’s apron, but large enough for me to pass through.

Griselda listened to my uneasy protestations and explained that this slit was provided in case there was any possibility that I might be discovered. I could be passed through the slit to be concealed between or indeed beneath her breasts safe from accidental harm or official inquisition. No court officer would be likely to pursue enquiries into such a delicate part of even a maid’s anatomy. She would position me in her cleavage as we approached the court and replace me in the pocket when she had reached a suitable place. To provide cover for this adjustment she would have a small lace handkerchief in the pocket.

Once I had completed my hasty toilet Griselda fitted the corset to me, locking my arms by my side. I accepted the necessity for the gag with diffidence. Griselda adjusted it with nimble fingers before replacing me in her apron’s pocket and covering my head with the severed lace glove finger. I could see from my lofty perch yet I would be invisible to Brodingnagian eyes.

Griselda made her way to the parliament building at speed. I had never moved so fast in any means of locomotion. Had I not been cushioned by her ample breasts and suspended in the pocket the motion would have shaken my frame to its limits. I was bounced against her yielding bosom as if against a pile of the softest down filled mattresses.

On arrival in the vicinity of the parliament she reached her hand into the pocket and pushed me through the slit into her cleavage. It was fortunate that the press of people forced her to walk slower or the movement of her massive mammaries would have crushed me. I was sorely squeezed by the time she reached the gallery reserved for those of lower status.

She reached through her pocket and retrieved me under cover of her handkerchief. Once I was placed where I could view the proceedings she withdrew the handkerchief from the pocket before replacing it around me.

She was seated in the front row of the gallery. A yawning gulf stretched below us. The drop seemed as deep as the cliff that Shakespeare is reputed to have used in his drama of King Lear. I began to feel dizzy at the height. This was an unusual sensation for me as I have climbed many a lofty mainmast while at sea. Yet such a mainmast would be of little use to the people of Brobdingnag except perhaps as a knitting needle.

The crowd of nobility below were buzzing with conversation that struck my ears like rumbles of distant thunder. The King and Queen’s thrones were in position at the end of the hall. Before them a large railed off space was reserved for the prisoners.

Griselda found that her neighbour was Richenda, an old acquaintance in another Lady’s household. I gathered that they had not met for some months. While they exchanged gossip I found that the drone of their whispering voices was soporific. I bent my legs and dropped down into the pocket for a doze while we waited for the proceedings to commence.

I woke as the noise in the hall beneath us was silenced by a blast of heralds’ trumpets. Had my hands been free I would have covered my ears from the painful impact of the brassy sound. Restrained as I was, all I could do was to thrust my head through the slit and muffle my ears in Griselda’s cleavage. She leant forward to observe the heralds. Her breasts swung together presenting me with an urgent dilemma. Either I could withdraw my head and be deafened or I could remain where I was and be suffocated. Fortunately for me the trumpeting ceased while I had breath. I resumed my position with my covered head protruding from Griselda’s pocket.

The King and Queen entered followed by the Royal Justicars in procession. They ascended the dais. The Justicars positioned themselves either side of the thrones at a lower level. The King raised his right hand. The prisoners were brought forward. Each was secured in a translucent corset with their hands fixed at their sides and each was wearing a translucent gag. Restrained as I was in miniatures of their bonds I could pity their condition. My concern increased when Richenda whispered that they had been confined like that since their womenfolk had overpowered them.

That drew my attention to the prisoners’ escorts. All were noble ladies in court dress. One or two held the manacled arms of each man. The Lady Petrova’s husband was the prisoner at the head of the procession closely held by a lady at each arm. Another two ladies pulled him with leashes attached to his neck. Griselda informed her neighbour that these were indeed his four mistresses.

I was surprised at this overt display of matriarchal power, so foreign to the apparently male dominated Brobdingnagian society. It seemed incongruous, yet not a matter for remark among those assembled in the gallery, that such apparently powerful men were pinioned and guarded by women.

The prisoners were paraded in a line facing their Majesties and led to the back of the railed off area, close to the audience, but at the furthest possible distance from the thrones.

One of the Justicars stood forward, bowed to their Majesties, and then announced the punishment that would be meted out to rebels and traitors if convicted, viz. breaking of the limbs followed by slow drowning in liquid pig excrement while laying at the bottom of their open graves. He then made a sign to the trumpeters. One sounded a single note.

Every person present, including their Majesties, applied a handkerchief to their nose. Griselda did not use the small lace handkerchief in the pocket with me but a large one that had been tucked in the apron’s waistband. As she lifted it a strong pungent but pleasing scent wafted over me.

There was a heavy rumble of wheels from the main entrance. Four men appeared dragging a huge steaming cauldron containing a brown liquid in a quantity that could have floated one of our largest men-of-war. It was pulled directly in front of the prisoners. Each woman guard buried her nose deep into her handkerchief. The prisoners had no such relief; nor did I.

That was the only time I smelt Brobdingnagian pig excrement. I never want to smell it again. As fast as I could in my encumbered state I thrust my head through the slit and into Griselda’s cleavage. The stench penetrated even there but was slightly ameliorated by the perfume on her skin.

The cauldron remained in place for about five minutes before it was taken out of the great hall. After its departure there was much flapping of fans and waving of handkerchiefs. Griselda later informed me that every person present had been obliged to change their clothing as soon as they could because the stench of the pig excrement was clinging and persistent.

The Justicar stood forward again. He announced that the prisoners had been shown the implement of their demise should they seek to be tried and were then convicted. He emphasised that there was no lesser punishment provided for in the laws of Brobdingnag. Each prisoner, one by one, starting with the apparently lesser offenders, had their gag removed and was asked whether he wished to enter a plea and stand trial or whether he would admit his traitorous designs and throw himself at their of their Majesties’ mercy. Every one agreed to plead for mercy.

The Queen whispered in the King’s ear. He nodded and then stood up. The crowded hall held its breath. He announced that all except the chief offender, the Lady Petrova’s husband, would suffer the same punishments.

The first part was that each would be taken to another Lord’s demesne and would become the servant of the meanest female scullion on that demesne. They would have to obey that scullion in everything. Their sustenance, their apparel and even their lives would depend on that scullion’s whim. They were to be restrained as they now were for not less than twelve hours a day and any liberty beyond that twelve hours was to be at the scullion’s discretion. The scullion was to be paid a small monthly allowance from the royal treasury and given orders to make the prisoner’s life unpleasant. If the scullion did not make the prisoner’s life sufficiently unpleasant in the view of the local magistrate who would be required to make unannounced visits the prisoner and the allowance would be passed to another scullion.

The King paused while the Justicar read out the name of each prisoner and the demesne to which they would be sent.

There were groans and giggles as it was realised that each had been sent to the demesnes of Lords who had no cause to love them.

This part of the sentence would be for a minimum of five years and would be reviewed after that date by the King’s Justicars to see whether the offender had been sufficiently punished and was appropriately contrite.

The second part of the sentence was that the offender was immediately and forthwith declared divorced from his wife. In recognition of her part in the foiling of the plot she would retain the offender’s rank, title and estates as long as she did not attempt to communicate with the offender. After five years the condition would lapse but the wives were warned not to attempt to rehabilitate the offender without specific permission from the King’s Justicars.

As for the principal offender, he was also divorced from his wife, the Lady Petrova. She would inherit his lands and estates but not his rank and title which were declared abolished, along with his name, and were to be stricken from the record of nobility. The Lady Petrova, in recognition of her major part in foiling the treachery, was awarded the rank and title of Princess and was adopted as a Royal sister to their Majesties.

This statement was greeted with popular acclaim that was so loud that I was obliged to bury my ears deep in Griselda’s bosom.

The principal offender whose name no longer existed – an aside – I have not mentioned his name at any time in this account because it is forbidden to recount it by the laws of Brobdingnag – was to be conveyed secured as he was to the female prison. There he was to be the common servant to the female prisoners who were housed in the common dormitory to do whatever they commanded. If one of them were to kill him unaided she would be rewarded with her freedom but the other prisoners in her common dormitory would each have their sentences increased by the length of sentence that the killer had received on conviction. The female prisoner who killed him would have to call three witnesses from her fellow prisoners to swear that she had killed unaided.

There were several intakes of breath as the fiendishness of this unaided killing penetrated. The killer would have to have her act witnessed by prisoners that by witnessing would increase their own sentence.

The King continued that if the malefactor were to be killed by more than one prisoner or die by any means than natural causes then all the prisoners would be sentenced to life imprisonment. The malefactor was to be treated as a menial and for any other purpose the women prisoners wished but his life was to be prolonged if necessary by intervention from the prison authorities so that he could know the despair of unending degradation.

The King signed that he had finished his sentence. Masked guards came forward to relieve the Ladies of their manacled former husbands or lovers. The prisoners were led through a side door to the dungeons beneath the great hall until they could be sent to their specific fates.

The King and Queen withdrew and the crowd began to disperse muttering to themselves.

Griselda was beside herself with excitement. She was bouncing up and down so much as to incommode me greatly. Richenda congratulated her on her elevation to the principal maid to a Princess and Royal sister. To my ears Richenda’s words seemed false and tinged with jealousy but Griselda took them at their face value.

Griselda walked slowly back to the Lady, no, now Princess, Petrova’s residence. I could sense that she wanted to express her excitement and even I would do but she couldn’t walk through the thoroughfares of Brodbingnag’s capital city talking to her bosom.

Once back inside Griselda released me from my gag and confining corset. She set me on her bedside table while she hurriedly stripped her polluted clothing. I stripped as well. The stench of pig excrement still pervaded my garments. She stuffed our stinking clothing in a basket and carried it to the laundry room.

I thought that Griselda would fetch a change of clothing for me but she rinsed the miniature corset and gag in a hand basin, dried them with her lace handkerchief and refitted them on my naked body despite my protestations.

What use were my protests? If a man is so small that he fits into a woman’s hand is she likely to consider his preferences? The Lady, now Princess Petrova, was considerate. So was my nurse Glumdalditch but Griselda’s behaviour toward me was the norm in Brobdingnag. To most of the natives I was little more than a curiosity or an animated doll.

Gagged again I could do no more than wave my legs as she gently inserted me into the gigantic translucent dildo. She lay back upon her bed, spread her legs and pleasured herself with the tip of the dildo. My englobed head partly entered between her hairy lips and withdrew. The dildo was vigorously rubbed around her private parts. I felt that I was sheathed from danger but the noise of her hair scratching against the hardened tip was similar to a pencil on a slate but many times louder.

Griselda thrust the dildo bodily inside her. I was plunged into Stygian darkness and the warm scent of her privates entered through the breathing holes. I admit that the scent was arousing but incredibly strong. As the dildo was manipulated the malleable section grew warmer and deformed slightly to hug my body. I began to imagine that I was not encased in a manufactured item but actually in direct contact with Griselda’s interior.

My imagination stimulated me as she continued to excite herself. The heat grew, the scent increased and my senses began to reel with the intoxication of being wholly engulfed by an attractive woman. I regret to admit that I was unable to restrain myself and I ejaculated against the pressing wall confining me. Even then I remained enveloped in her throbbing flesh. In my spent state I relaxed and let her thrusting hand put me wherever she wished.

I began to daydream that I was not within her portal but actually within her womb surrounded and nurtured by her bodily fluids. That fantasy was encouraged by the warm wet blackness holding me. She persevered with her autoeroticism for what seemed to me, her body’s prisoner, an extensive time. I could not have maintained sexual self-stimulation for so long without exhaustion or reaching the natural conclusion to such activity. By the time Griselda had satisfied her needs I had ejaculated twice more and was drained of fluid and emotion.

I scarcely noticed when she withdrew the dildo from her vagina and eased my body out of its container. She wrapped me carefully in her workaday apron and conveyed me to my travelling carriage, placing me gently on my cot where I fell into a deep sleep. After many hours of repose my sleep was visited by dreams of massive women engulfing me or of myself riding as a foetus in a pregnant lady’s womb. The tightly wrapped apron binding me probably aided these delusions. I was only vaguely aware when Griselda returned, unwound the apron from my body, and placed me under the covers of my cot. I resumed my dreaming and slept until the following morning.

End of Chapter Five.