Chapter 28 - The Punishment Commences, 7:40am May 12th 1864
Without warning Lieutenant Sampson kicked the crate out from under his captive.
Hanging full stretch, by the wrists, her footing lost, Catherine fell and the appropriately positioned sedile impaled her in a single thrust.
"Noooooooooooooo!" She wailed as the impact of the brutal penetration pierced her core.
There was no cheer from the crowd just a simple, dramatic awestruck silence.
For a moment or two she felt nothing, but then the tortured girl cried out in agony as she writhed and thrashed, tugging and twisting at the manacles trying to free herself... but she soon gave up, leaving the skin of her back and shoulders stretched irrevocably tight... and her thighs opened... ready for the whip.
The bound girl's finger nails dug deep into her palms, as tears of defeat shimmered in her eyes. Choking back a distraught sob, her breasts heaved in slow, quivering breaths. From out of the corner of heavy-lidded eyes she saw the guards depart and the bare-chested brute who was to flog her, encroach.
Catherine could feel the sedile deep inside her body. It had hammered through her hymen without a pause and filled her so full. It felt huge, swollen... she was immovably hooked.
General Sherman turned his gaze away. He should put a stop to this... the Lieutenant seemed to be pushing things too far. But yet... He knew how important it was that they get to the bottom of Catherine's nefarious activities, but that wasn't what was focusing his attention, as the unwanted swelling in his army combat pants signified. He was finding the manhandling of his beautiful Goddaughter an extremely stimulating experience, and he was not minded to bring things to a halt... at least not yet.
"The Lord is with you chil'" A lone voice of support came from the onlookers, no doubt the words of loyal Mary.
Sherman looked up. He regretted the manner in which Catherine had lost her virginity, but collateral damage in times of war could not be avoided. His focus was on the bigger picture, it always was.
Catherine's forehead fell against the post as she gripped at the chains with her flailing fingers... a useless attempt to haul herself upwards and away from the insidious wood carving. She was awash with unwanted sensations rocking instinctively against the invasive appendage. Hoping against hope that she did not respond to the already invasive stimulus caused by the profound infiltration of her body... silently begging for blackness to descend, but that was not going to happen... not yet. For now, she was to perform for her audience, a pornographic doll chained to a wooden stage... this was what they had reduced her to.
Catherine felt her hair being heaped over her shoulder, freeing the entirety of her back ready to be properly beaten. Lieutenant Sampson shouted out the words almost everyone wanted to hear, words that she had been dreading.
"Begin!"
Chapter 29 - Whipped, 7:57am May 12th 1864
Her mind was numb, her body aching like never before... as she waited.
Just waited...
The silence was deafening. The chained girl could only hear the sounds of ordinary life, noises that came from nature; The swooping yellow and black bobolinks pecking at the crops, the rustling of the trees and the fields of corn. Only the occasional nervous cough from the viewing crowd broke the sounds of silence, every watching body now high beyond measure on anticipation.
Shepherd the overseer maintained the whips at White Orchard, and stiffening wax rendered this bullwhip taut as a rod. Moaning with distress at her appalling impalement, Catherine jumped as the lash was cracked against the dusty ground, soliciting an audible gasp from the onlooking gathering.
The warming sun poured down piercing the sparse cloud, burning into her pale, unprotected skin. Anticipatory tremors shook her, small beads of sweat forming on her forehead and upraised forearms. The more conscious she grew of the punishment she was about to take, the more difficult it would be to remain silent.
Distracted by a sudden breeze blowing specks of dust around the base of the platform, she glimpsed back, and saw that the man whose half-naked body already glistened with sweat, had taken up position behind her.
Panic induced terror infused her spine and stiffened her body. Why was he waiting? Was he was sizing up her tolerance for pain, how long she would last under the rigors of his lash?
As she twisted her head just a little more, his eyes met hers, bewildered, vulnerable and filled with tears. Time seemed to close in around them. As he put a leather glove onto his right hand, his gaze never wavered from her hanging body, that was still... just waiting.
"Pl... pl... please..."
"You wish to tell me something?" the Lieutenant moved closer to the chained girl, a quiet inquisitiveness lingering in his tone.
"Y... you don't...h... have to do this..." she begged, gazing back at him with doleful eyes, her face tight with a sudden, desperate, weak smile.
He waited for her to say more... she did not. It was time.
The blackest despair Catherine had ever known came upon her. To her rear a ready fist gathered round the gleaming handle of the shining lash, just waiting to be deployed...
"Commence the first round." It was Sampson's clear instruction that issued the dreaded command.
"... Oh God, help me please..." she wailed in horror, each breath more shallow than the previous one, as her bare back tensed in a futile attempt to limited the impending damage.
Too numb with fright, too shocked to even plead or beg, Catherine heaved her chest, breasts pushing against the post...
The approach of footsteps made her heart race. The brute of a man unfurled the whip as he moved. The taut, wiry lash came alive in his hand, slithering as it sprang forth, bouncing lightly, lithely tapping the dusty floor.
The stiffened lash, whisked up with a quick, fluid whistle, and came down with a sharp, snapping slash, sending a cloud of dust into the air... an horrendous test of her nerve.
Catherine was frantic. Releasing a cry of terror in anticipation of the pain that never came, she sobbed, the deceptive stroke stirring a wild panic inside her mind. She pressed her smooth, bare thighs together, squeezing the sedile, her body twisting and squirming, unwanted sensations mixing with the growing sense of fearful apprehension.
Once again, he lifted his fist, and the sound of the whip whistled with cutting clarity. This time she thrust her gaze forward, wincing, lips parting in disbelief, trembling, breathing fast. He let the whip fly through the air and she clenched her fists. With eyes closed tight, she prepared for the worst... and felt the whip curl around her body with a loud crack leaving a deep, thin burn on her flesh.
Stoically Catherine confined her reaction to a gasp, her face twisting with the intensity of pain... grinding the wood against her stiffening clitoris.
Chapter 30 - At the Whipping Post, 8:34am May 12th 1864
Mary, the House-Slave, could watch no longer. Her face buried in her hands as each cry extracted from her beloved Mistress brought about another wrench to her own body.
"Oh Lordy, deliver her from this evil I beg of you," she beseeched. But a peeked glance from between her fingers told her that wasn't going to be the case.
General Sherman, Catherine's Uncle Billy, saw every curve of her body as his Goddaughter writhed and squirmed, her flesh welted and opened before his very eyes.
The first round was over. Had she had enough? Would she tell them what they wanted to know? Most of him hoped so... most, but not all.
With her consciousness barely returned, Catherine hung from the post gasping for breath, the weight from her stricken body shared between her wrists and the point of impalement between her legs. The torment was all consuming.
