I am posting a few stories here that I wrote for a friend on this site. They are posted one after the other. I apologise for my English if it is a bit wrong in places.
Hope somebody might like them.
Kari

The Hanging of Piedad Sanchez in Holloway Prison, London.

The three women sat silently around the table in the cell. Two of them were wearing the uniforms of prison guards the third wore a white blouse and pale grey skirt. In age she was about midway between to two guards, the youngest in her early 20s and the older one nearer 50. All three were tense as if waiting for something to happen. The woman in the blouse sat with her head in her hands and from time to time she glanced at the cell door as if expecting something. She had just turned her gaze away from the door when it suddenly opened with a bang and a large man in a suit came in. She jumped up in shock tipping over the chair she had been sitting on. It hit the floor with a crash as the two guards grabbed her arms and turned her to face away from the door. Her arms were firmly held behind her and a leather strap was wrapped tightly around her wrists and secured. Then a thick leather belt was placed around her chest, just below her breasts and secured so that her arms were pinned to her body and she almost found it hard to breath. Her blouse was pulled so taught that the pattern of her pink bra beneath was clearly visible.
Other guards had now entered the cell and two of them moved the large wooden wardrobe that took up half one wall, rolling it aside to reveal a door. As the wardrobe slid aside the door opened and she saw a rope hanging from a thick beam. With the two guards on either side of her holding her arms she was taken quickly through the second door preceded by the man who she now realised must be the executioner. As they entered the room their feet echoed on the wooden floor. Within seconds she was standing on a wooden trap with the two guards grasping her arms on either side of her. They were standing on planks so they would not fall into the pit when the trap was sprung and there were two knotted rope handles on either side for them to hold on to so as steady themselves. Piedad stood trembling on the trap when suddenly a leather strap was wrapped round her ankles and they were forced together as it was tightened and secured. Another strap was placed around her thighs, slightly above her knees and pulled brutally tight making her wince in discomfort as it bit into the flesh of her thighs. She could barely keep her balance and was held upright by the two guards who were holding her arms. The executioner stood in front of her and she desperately wanted to beg for her life, to scream for help, or just in terror, but the only sound she could force from her quivering lips was the word “please”. Within seconds he had pulled a hood over her head and she was in darkness. Then the rope was slid over her head and secured tightly around her slim neck with the rubber washer just beneath her left ear. The rope was so tight that combined with the straps and the hood she relied on the steadying hands of the two guards to keep her upright. Suddenly the arms were removed. She rocked slightly for a second and then with a thud that echoed around the cell block the trap opened and she plummeted through. There was a sickening crunch as the rope brought her to an abrupt halt. The younger guard looked down and saw Piedad’s legs drawn up to her chest and then thrust down again. The woman spun slowly at the end of the rope for about two minutes. Her body quivered, her hands clenched and unclenched, and her stockinged feet pointed like a balerina’s. Finally a gurgling sound came from under the hood and then there was the trickling sound of urine as the poor woman’s bladder opened in death.
The guards and the executioner left the cell together. The executioner went to the prison office to collect his pay and the two guards went to a small room off the canteen where breakfast was waiting for them. They ate in silence and then reclined in their chairs smoking cigarettes for a while. Glancing at the clock on the wall the older guard stood up and said “Time to go”. They left the room and headed back to the execution cell. First they carefully gathered Piedad’s few possessions and placed them in a cardboard box. Then they went through the door into the death cell where the taught rope still quivered slightly. The older guard lifted a trap door in the floor and went down the steep stairs beneath followed by her companion. She flicked a switch and a light came on. In the centre of the room swinging from a rope was the hooded body of Piedad Sanchez. The youner guard moved a step ladder next to the body and looked at the older woman. “I’ll do it this time” she said and began to climb the steps. Once she was level with Piedad she began to undo the leather straps, ankles and thighs first and then chest and wrists. As she removed them she passed them down to her companion. Once Piedad was unstrapped she began to undress her. First she removed the blouse, unbuttoning the cuffs first and then the front. Then she unfastened the pink bra and pulled it off revealing the firm rounded breasts beneath. Descending the ladder slightly she undid the button and zip in the right hip of the skirt and it dropped down to be caught by the older guard. Carefully she undid the stockings from the suspender belt and slid them down Piedad’s tanned legs. Finally she removed the pink suspender belt and the matching panties and Piedad hung naked except for a hood and a noose.
The older guard climbed up the stairs and using a pulley lowered a rope down through the trap. It was pulled around Piedad’s chest under her arms and then secured. Pulling on the rope raised the dead woman’s body sufficiently for the young guard to remove the noose around her neck. Once the noose was removed the body was lowered down to lie on the floor of the execution pit. The older guard descended again and helped her companion untie the chest rope. They both looked down at the naked body. The wrists and ankles were only slightly marked by the straps but the upper legs and arms bore livid bruises from the thigh and chest straps. “Shall we have a look?” asked the older guard. In answer her companion reached forward and slowly removed the hood from the dead woman’s head. The first thing they saw was the deep rope burn around the neck and the blackened crushed windpipe. Then as the hood came off the whole face became visible. It was almost purple with a dark blue tongue lolling out of one side of a grimacing mouth, slight flecked with saliva. The eyes blood shot and bulging seemed to be full of terror and pain. The older woman placed her hands on either side of the head and jiggled it a little. “See her neck did break but not straight away. I wonder how long it took”. “Ah well she was a murderess” replied the other. “She got what she deserved”. And the two of them slid the naked body into a shroud and placed it ready for the burial party who would come for it later.

Piedad Sanchez goes to the chair
Piedad jumped slightly as her cell door opened and two female guards entered. The older of the two smiled at her and said quietly “It’s time to get you ready dear. We’ll take you down the corridor for shower and a hair-cut, then you will be able to wait in a new cell so you won’t have so far to walk.” Piedad thought that what she really went was that they wouldn’t have so far to drag her if she tried to resist when the time came but she didn’t say anything just followed them meekly down the corridor.
They went through a metal gate and a huge steel door. They were in a short corridor with two plain doors to the left and a green one straight ahead. Piedad knew that the execution chamber had a green door and she shuddered. They went through the first door and were in a small windowless room. There was a toilet and a shower cubicle on one side and a wash basin on the other. In the centre was a low stool. “Take off your suit dear and sit on the stool so we can cut your hair” the older guard said. Piedad obediently unzipped her orange jump suit stepped out of it and her prison slippers and sat on the stool. The younger guard produced a pair of battery hair clippers and began to shave Piedad’s head from the front to the back. When she had finished she asked Piedad to lift her arms, one after the other and shaved her armpits. The she told the shivering girl to drop her pants and stand with her legs apart. Reluctantly she complied and her pubic hair was shaved too. She looked down at the mass of hair on the floor and tears came into her eyes, but she did not cry. She would not let them get to her. Her lawyer had assured her that she would get a last minute reprieve and then be sent home to serve a few years in a jail near her family. The older guard now approached with a wet razor and a bowl of water. Carefully she lathered and shaved Piedad’s pubic area and then told her to sit on the stool again. When she had done so her armpits and head were also lathered and shaved. When that was done she was told to get a shower. She stepped under the warm water and was given soap and a flannel to wash herself. After 5 minutes in the shower she was given a towel and told to get dry. Once she was dry she reached for her bra and pants to get dressed again but instead was told to leave them and was taken naked out of the room into the corridor again. Once again she looked at the green door and shuddered slightly. The second door to the left was opened and they entered another small windowless room. There was a bench with a mattress on one wall and lying on it were some clothes. The guards told her to stand in the middle of the room and the older one picked up a black pair of pants from the mattress. As she approached Piedad she shook it and the condemned woman realised that it was a diaper. The two guards fitted it on her and fastened it securely. The she was passed a pale blue uniform dress to put on. It buttoned all the way down the front and was made of thin cotton. Once it was buttoned Piedad was told she could sit or lie on the bench to wait. She sat nervously for a short while and was vaguely aware of a humming sound from time to time. Each time the sound started the light in the room flickered. The humming sound happened about a dozen times and then stopped altogether.
Suddenly the door to the corridor opened and the warden came in with four male guards and her lawyer. The moment she saw the lawyer’s face she knew it was bad news. The lawyer who had been so full of confidence on previous visits said nothing but looked embarrassed. The warden stood in front of her and said ”We are ready for you now Piedad”. The two female guards took her arms and helped her to stand. She was wobbling on her feet as they led her through the door followed by the warden, her lawyer and the male guards. Once in the corridor the green door was open and she could see IT! The chair. Her legs seemed to lock up and the two female guards almost dragged her into the room, spun her around and sat her in the chair. Immediately the four male guards moved in and began strapping her tightly into the seat of death. Piedad trembled and wanted to cry out. To scream, to beg for mercy but her throat was to dry and she just made dull croaking sounds as she was strapped in. Her upper arms were strapped to the back of the chair, her forearms and wrists to the chair armrests and her ankles were slid into stocks at the base of the chair and strapped tightly. Then a strap was placed across her lap, around her waist and across the top of her chest above her breasts. The straps were tight and bit into her flesh but she said nothing. Opposite her and the chair was a thick curtain that ran the length of the wall. She realised that the witnesses would be behind it.
Once she was strapped securely a man in a suit approached her and strapped a copper connector to her right calf, just below the knee. When he had done that he placed a damp sponge on her head and then slid a leather cap with a copper connector inside over her head and strapped it tightly under her chin. Piedad watched with mounting terror as he fixed a thick cable to the leg connector He then went behind the chair and she felt him fiddling with cap on her head as he fixed the second cable to it. When he was satisfied that everything was secure he nodded to the warden and moved to the side of the room and stood behind a screen which would hide him from the view of the witnesses once the curtain was opened.
The warden nodded to a male guard and the curtain was pulled back and Piedad could see the four ranks of seated witnesses who had come to watch her die. They were a mixed group, men and women of all ages. She didn’t recognise any of them but she guessed that there must some relatives of her victim. She wondered which ones they were and if they would enjoy seeing her die.
The warden read the death warrant. “Piedad Sanchez you have been tried by a jury of your peers, convicted of murder and sentenced to death. All judicial appeals and requests for clemency having been refused you sentence will now be carried out. Do you have any last statement?” Piedad desperately wanted to say something but her mind was fuddled and her throat dry so she just croaked again. Just before a male guard came forward and pulled a leather mask over her face a young female witness in the front row mouthed “Fry bitch”. The mask was bolted to one side of the chair frame and she heard him clipping it to the other side. There was a small gap in it for her nose but it blotted out most of the light in the room.
She heard the whirring noise of an extractor fan starting and then the humming she had heard when she was in the next room. The humming seemed to go on for an age and then suddenly her whole world exploded in a flash. The witnesses saw her body jerk up in the chair, straining at the straps as her fingers shot upright from the chair arms and her toes pointed down. Her head hit the backrest of the chair with a thud. For about thirty seconds she quivered in the chair and then the power stopped. She slumped back down with a groan and went limp in the chair whilst the humming started again. After a minute it stopped as the second shock hit her. Again she strained against the straps as the voltage coursed through her body. This time her hands clenched into tight fists and her toes curled. After a minute of this the cycle stopped. Again she slumped in the chair and again the humming noise started. After a minute the third dose of current hit her and the witnesses saw her shaking and jerking in the chair as the electricity sought to cook her internal organs. This stage lasted two minutes and towards the end wisps of smoke started to rise from the connectors on her calf and head.
After the third surge she was left to cool for two minutes and then a doctor came forward to certify death. He bent over her and unbuttoned the prison dress to the waist and listened to the front and side of her chest with a stethoscope. After listening carefully for a minute he turned to the warden with a worried face and said “You’re going to have to do it again”. The doctor moved away quickly and the humming sound started again. This time it lasted for two minutes and then the witnesses watched as Piedad jerked upright in the chair as if she had been reanimated. The doctor had left her dress open and her breasts were clearly visible jerking and quivering as the power surged through her. Once again smoke started to drift up from the connectors and one of the guards picked up a fire extinguisher. After the two minutes the poor woman slumped again in the chair but they were taking no chances. The humming commenced again and after two minutes Piedad Sanchez got her fifth shock. Again her body jerked upright in the chair and quivered as her breasts bounced up and down. Again smoke rose from the connectors and blood started to ooze from beneath the face mask and from her erect nipples. Finally the power cut and she slumped in the chair for the fifth time. The doctor moved forward again after letting her cool for a few minutes and this time he was able to confirm that she was dead. The sentence of the law had been carried out on Piedad Sanchez.

The questioning and execution of Piedad Sanchez, heretic.
“I am innocent I swear it”. Piedad sat on the stool facing the table between two guards. Behind the table sat five priests. In the center was the Inquisitor, a hard looking man. “We have information Piedad. We know you are a Jew and a heretic” he said quietly.
“I assure you that I am not” Piedad replied, her lower lip quivering slightly as she desperately tried to work out who had betrayed her.
“Perhaps the woman is telling the truth your eminence” a hard faced little priest sitting at the end of the table said suddenly. ”Perhaps we should enquire further.”
“You may be right” the Inquisitor replied. “We will leave Farther Bernard to make further enquiries and convene again tomorrow.”
Piedad breathed an almost audible sigh of relief. They were unsure of her guilt. They would hold her for a few days and then release her. As soon as they did that she would leave the town and get as far away as possible.
Farther Bernard stood up and went over to a studded wooden door. “Come woman” he said to Piedad and she meekly followed him through the door and down a winding staircase followed by two guards. A the bottom of the stair was a narrow corridor lit with burning torches which led to another studded door. He knocked on it and a small hatch opened. “I bring Piedad Sanchez, a suspected heretic and Jew for further enquiries “ he said quietly. The door opened and the guards nudged Piedad forward. She was in a hallway with a series of barred doors down one side and a single wooden door on the other. A large man with a bunch of jangling keys in his hand opened one of the barred doors and pushed her inside. “I will return at dawn” said Father Bernard and went back the way he had come. The door thudded closed behind him.
Piedad sat on the bench in the cell facing the barred door. She wondered if they would bring her food or something to drink. Then there was the sound of a wooden door opening followed by whimpering and what sounded like something being dragged along the floor. In spite of standing up and getting close the bars Piedad could not see what was happening in the corridor outside.
“You have another” the jailer said. “Piedad Sanchez accused of being a Jew and a heretic. Father Bernard is returning at dawn”. Suddenly two huge muscular men, both stripped to the waist and wearing masks over their faces, appeared at the iron gate of Piedad’s cell. The jailor opened the gate and the two men grabbed her without a word and marched her down the corridor and through the wooded door. Her blood went cold and she shrieked in terror at what she saw there. The windowless room was lit by torches and around the walls were instruments of torture. In the center of the room another two muscular masked men stood by a long wood table. As she was pushed towards it Piedad had time to notice the thick leather straps hanging form a beam at one end of the table and ropes that were coiled around a large roller at the other. She tried to say something, to protest, to beg, but before she could get a word out of her terror dried mouth the men were stripping of her clothes. In seconds they had her naked and laying spread-eagled on the table. Two men strapped her ankles to the beam at one end and the other two pulled her arms above her head and fastened them with leather thongs which were attached to the ropes coiled around the roller.
Two of the men stood looking down at Piedad’s naked body as her full breasts bobbed up and down with her terrified breathing. Then there was a creaking sound and the roller began to turn. The two other men were working the windlasses that controlled it. The straps tightened around Piedad’s wrists and then her body was pulled up the table until the straps at her ankles prevented it from going any further. Slowly Piedad’s arms and legs were lifted from the table. “I am innocent!” she cried suddenly finding her voice. The men said nothing but smiled down at her terrified face and her taught body. There was a further creak from the rack and her body was lifted completely clear of the bed and held five inches above it between the beam and the roller. “Oh God help me! The pain! The pain!” the agonised woman cried. But she had felt nothing yet. The men turning the roller strained and forced it round another notch. Piedad’s body quivered as she screamed and then with two dreadful pops her shoulders came out of their sockets. Her whole body jerked as it stretched fully three inches and with a terrible howl she fainted.
They lowered her and revived her with vinegar pushing her shoulders back into the sockets. Her body ached but the pain was no longer excruciating. For a few minutes the men looked down at her heaving chest and terrified face and then they went to work again. This time Piedad knew what was coming and she cried in terror and begged for mercy as the roller turned. Her shriek as they lifted her body from the bed of the rack and held it taught between the beam and the roller was terrible but it was as nothing compared with the noise she made when they pulled her shoulders out of their sockets again. Her whole body jerked and quivered as if she was having a fit as her head twisted from side to side in her agony. She endured the horror for a few seconds and then fainted again.
Again she was lowered and revived as her shoulders were pushed back into place. “The clamps” said one of the men and again the begging Peidad with slowly lifted until she was held taught alternately shrieking with pain and begging for mercy. But this time there was something worse. They kept her taught without dislocating her shoulder while a metal device was laid on her chest, across her breasts. The two who were not working the rack began to turn screws on either side of the device and slowly the clamps tightened on the base of her breasts, squeezing and squeezing them. “Oh God no! Please, please have mercy. I have done nothing. I beg you”. But eventually the pain became too much and she just howled as those men tightened the clamps and her breasts were squeezed tight at the base and turned blue. As she lay howling one of the men went to a brazier and fetched a pair of red hot pincers. For a few seconds he stood looking down at the howling woman taught on the rack. The he lowered the pincers, gripped her hard left nipple that quivered at the end of her distended breast and seared it off. With perfect timing the two men working the roller gave it another turn and Piedad’s shoulders were dislocated for the third time. Again the room became silent as the poor woman fainted and again she was lowered to the table and revived with vinegar. This time however her pain was not just from her racked body but also from her distended breasts the tip[ of one of which, was still smoking.
The men began to get ready to stretch her again and the pincers were being reheated. As the man walked back towards her with them glowing red hot in his hand and the others started to turn the handles of the roller Piedad shrieked out “Enough! Enough! I confess. I am a Jew and a heretic. Please don’t hurt me anymore”. Reluctantly they unscrewed the clamps from her breasts, unstrapped her from the rack and dragged her back to her cell.
“You will burn in the morning woman”. The guard smiled as he said it knowing that Piedad would pass a sleepless night imagining the horrors to come with sun rise.
The poor woman spent the night recalling the one burning she had seen. It was a young woman sentenced as a heretic. She was brave when they brought her out and even when they had chained her to the stake. She refused the proffered crucifix and spat on it to the horror of the priest and anger of the crowd. But with the fire lit under her and the heat rising she began begging to be taken down, or at least to kiss the cross and be strangled. They did not grant her that mercy. Piedad remembered the poor thing shrieking and howling as the fire consumed her, licking up her tortured body which writhed and twisted in the chains. The whole process lasted an age and towards the end she managed to find words enough to beg for more wood to be added to the fire to speed her death. The executioner merely laughed. Caught in the press of the crown Piedad was forced to stay until the end when the poor woman’s skull exploded and her chest burst. Piedad could never forget the stench of the burning flesh and the shrieks and howls of the writhing woman. She vowed she would kiss the crucifix.
They came for her early, unchained her from the wall and placed a San Benito over her shift and a conical hat on her head. Then they bound her wrists behind her back and led her out. The crowd were eager to see her die and shouted abuse at her as she made the short walk from the jail to the stake. It was a thick wooden post placed on a low stone platform with a stone block in front of it for Piedad to stand on. When they reached the platform the San Benito and the hat were removed and Piedad was left shivering in the cool of the morning in just her thin grubby shift. The executioner seized her and bundled her up the steps to the stake. He pushed her up onto the block and untied her wrists pulling them behind the thick stake and tying them again. Then he wound a thick chain around her waist and pulled it tight securing it with an iron staple. Next her knees and ankles were chained in the same way as she trembled and shivered with terror. Once that was done the bundles of brush wood were placed at her feet. The priest approached her and offered her the crucifix to kiss. She gazed at it for a moment trying to find the courage to spit on it and then she meekly bent forward and kissed the feet of Christ. The priest stepped back smiling but the some voices in the crowd began to shout that she should burn alive and not be spared the scorching of the flesh. In one terrible moment of terror Piedad thought that the executioner might light the wood without strangling her but then she felt a coarse rope being looped around her neck and pulled tight. She closed her eyes and uttered a prayer. The rope began to squeeze on her throat and her eyes shot open and the pain started. Her bound hands twisted behind the stake as the rope dug into the soft flesh of her neck and she began to make terrible gurgling sounds. Her body went rigid, her gaping mouth drooled and her tongue was forced out of her mouth. Her struggles caused her shift to fall from her shoulders and slide down her quivering body until it reached the chain at her waist. As her tongue and face turned blue the crowd watched her breasts bouncing as she choked to death. One breast was tipped by a hard nipple, the other by a reddened scar where they had seared her with the red hot pincers. Finally she went still and the fire was lit. The flames climbed slowly up her legs charring the white shift and then her flesh. After a few minutes the shift burned completely away and the crown watched in silence as the naked body was reddened, the blistered and finally charred by the all-consuming flames. It took nearly half an hour for the fire to reach Piedad’s face and her hair blazed up. Finally the rope that had strangled her burnt through and her body fell forward into the fire, held up only by the chain at her waist. For a few minutes her head sizzled as her eyes melted and bubbling brain oozed from the eye sockets and then finally her head exploded with a terrible crack. The crown began to disperse although a few remained until the charred remains crumbled and fell away from the stake causing sparks to roar up into the stinking air. Piedad Sanchez the heretic had suffered her punishment.

Piedad Goes To The Wheel
Piedad stood trembling in the cart as it slowly moved through the crowd to her place of execution. Her hands were tied behind her with cord and the executioner, huge and menacing in his black hood, stood behind her with his hands on her shoulders. Slowly the platform came into sight and the cart rolled on over the cobbles towards the stone steps that would take Piedad to her meeting with death. And what a death! To be broken on the wheel! She had heard of it but never seen it carried out. She had no idea that it was the punishment reserved for women who poisoned. She had fainted in court when she was sentenced to be broken on the wheel and had not come to until she was back in the jail.
The cart came to a halt by the platform and Piedad was bundled out and hustled up the steps by the executioner. When she reached the top and she saw the wheel her body went rigid with terror and she wet herself. The executioner pushed her forward and she was grabbed by two men who held her arms firmly while the executioner untied her wrists. Then, taking her completely by surprise he grasped the hem of the shirt she was wearing and pulled it up over her head. Piedad was naked before she knew what was happening and being dragged backwards to the wheel as the crowd cheered and made ribald comments about her breasts. Piedad was spread eagled on the wheel and bound to it by her wrists and ankles. She shivered with a mixture of cold and terror. The wheel was angled at about 70 degrees and held in place by a stout wooden frame. This meant that Piedad’s body and everything that was going to happen to it was clearly visible to the crowd. A priest came forward averting his eyes from her nudity and gave her a crucifix to kiss, muttered some words and then left the platform.
The executioner approached Piedad carrying a black cloth and tied it tightly around her head over her eyes. Far from an act of kindness this was designed to make the woman’s mental torture even worse. With a blindfold over her eyes she had no way of knowing when and where the next blow was coming. Quivering with terror on the wheel she heard the crowd become silent as if waiting for something. A moment later she knew what it was. The thick metal bar wielded by the executioner hit her right hand smashing it to pulp and causing her to shriek and howl with the shock and pain. A slight break and then her left hand was smashed, followed shortly afterwards by her left foot and then her right foot. Piedad’s mind was a haze of pain and she howled and screamed as the executioner did his work. He applied two blows to each of her forearms and shins and then three each to her upper arms and thighs slowly and methodically moving around her body as he smashed it into a bloody pulp. The crowd watched in silence as Piedad suffered her punishment. Many found it hard to believe that the poor woman could howl with such intensity and wondered why she had not lost consciousness yet. Piedad herself was beyond thought her whole being focused solely on the dreadful damage and pain she was suffering.
The executioner paused to a few moments and took a drink of water. Then he motioned to one of his assistants who picked up a jar of vinegar and splashed some on the face of the prisoner. Then holding her head he pushed the neck of the jar between her lips and poured some of the liquid into her mouth. Satisfied that his victim was sufficiently revived the executioner returned to his work. First he broke Piedad’s collar bones and then her hips the poor woman’s breasts bouncing with each terrible blow of the bar. Piedad hung on the wheel, her limbs reduced to a bloody pulp and only her face and torso undamaged. The executioner lowered the bar and picked up a huge wooden mallet with which he would strike Piedad in the chest and end her pain. A roar of anger went up from the crowd who clearly did not want such mercy to be afforded to this woman and he placed the mallet down again as the roars of anger changed to cheers.
Helped by his assistants he lay the wheel and its load down on the platform. They carefully untied Piedad and removed her blindfold. Then as she moaned in agony he carefully braided her smashed and pulped limbs through the spokes of the wheel. When that was done the wheel was placed flat on a small stand and Piedad was left to the crows and ravens. Few could say when she died but those who stayed near the platform when the majority of the crowd had gone home said that she was still howling a few hours later when a raven pecked out one of her eyes.

The Gassing of Piedad and Kari.

Piedad sat on the bunk in her cell. She was wearing a white bathrobe and slippers with a white bra and pants beneath the robe. A door in the corridor opened and the two matrons with her grasped her arms and stood her up. The warden stood at the barred cell door and said simply “It’s time”. Slowly Piedad was led out of the cell and through a door on the right. The moment they passed through the door she saw IT. A sort of green metal capsule, octagonal in shape and about two metres in diameter with thick glass windows on all the sides bar one. That side facing Piedad had a thick steel door which was open revealing two metal seats less than a metre apart. By the time Piedad had taken all this in they were at the door and two burly male guards took over. The robe and slippers were removed and they firmly held her arms as they took her into the capsule and sat her down on a metal seat to the right of the door. Quickly and efficiently they strapped her wrists to the arms of the chair and her knees and ankles to the front of it. Piedad squirmed a little because the chair had multiple perforations that made sitting on it uncomfortable. The straps on her legs held them firmly in a spread position and there was a large triangular gap in the seat running from Piedad’s crotch to the front edge. Looking down Piedad could see a flask containing a clear liquid and, above and slightly behind it a small muslin bag hanging from a metal arm. The liquid was distilled water and the bag was full of cyanide pellets. When the other prisoner has been brought and strapped in acid would be added to the distilled water and then the bag of cyanide pellets would be lowered into it. Each chair had the same arrangement under it Piedad noted as she sat waiting for her companion in death to arrive.
There seemed to be a problem and one of the matrons went off for a few moments and when she came back, whispered something to the others. The only word Piedad could make out was “tazer”. A short while later it became apparent that the French girl due to die with her had suddenly put up a fight when they came for her and had been tazered. Two male guards appeared half dragging, half carrying a young woman and sat her on the chair next to Piedad and strapped her in. So this was Kari. She was young Piedad thought, early 20s. Pretty in a boyish sort of way, with short hair and quite attractive in her simple black bra and pants. A guard blindfolded the girl, and then Piedad, Seconds later she heard the door close with a metallic ‘thunk’ and the sound of a well-oiled lock as it was sealed shut.
Outside the deadly capsule the warden gave the order to allow the press in. There had been a huge battle to get places. Gassing a woman was unusual enough. But gassing two together, one of them a French citizen was a real event. The journalists, seven men and one woman, entered and were able to freely move around the capsule peering through the windows at two women strapped into the chairs. They immediately asked why the French girl was unconscious and the warden explained that she was just dazed by the tazer and the executions would commence in just a moment when she had recovered.
Inside the chamber Piedad became aware of what started as a trickling sound and then became a gush as Kari, beginning to come around, wet herself. The urine gushed down from the seat onto the muslin bag of cyanide below and slowly the colourless gas began to be created and to rise from beneath her. Already she was showing signs of stirring. Suddenly she seemed to realise where she was and what was happening. Desperately she began to struggle against the straps holding her in the chair. Those outside heard nothing but in the death chamber Piedad heard her companion shriek in terror and then her rasping breath as she struggled against the straps.
At this point the warden decided that she was now conscious enough to be killed and nodded to the executioner to turn the tap to allow acid to run into the flasks under the chairs. Each flask has to be filled separately and it took about a minute to fill each one. Suddenly Kari’s head jerked back and her body arched in agony as much as the restraining straps would allow and then began to quiver and jerk. Piedad too, was struggling in her chair now, gasping as small amounts of weak gas reached her. Panicking, once her realised that something had gone badly wrong, the warden ordered the handles to be pulled to drop the muslin bags into the acid flasks.
In the chamber Piedad was gasping and jerking in terrible pain as the cyanide gas slowly poisoned her. She struggled against the straps as she heard the ghastly gurgling sounds coming from the chair next to her. A few minutes later when the acid produced gas had filled the chamber she too, began to gurgle and rasp as she struggled for breath.
Outside the journalists and prison staff watched as the two women slowly died before their eyes. About six minutes after the pellets dropped, and eleven minutes after her urine started a weak gas release, Kari began to convulse. Foam poured from her mouth as her face turned blue and her convulsions caused her bra straps to slide off her shoulders, allowing the cups to release their bouncing contents.
Piedad was also convulsing and foaming at the mouth, her head moving back and forth so fast that some of the witnesses thought her neck would break. Unluckily for Piedad it did not and she struggled for several more minutes before going limp and releasing the contents of her bladder. Kari was limp now as well but there were occasional signs of life from both prisoners as they twitched occasionally. It was half an hour from the dropping of the pellets and fully 35 minutes from the first gas released by Kari’s urine before the women were declared dead.
The journalists were horrified by the awful suffering they had seen and it was decided that, in future, prisoners would wear a hood during gassing to spare the witnesses the distressing sight of their agonies.

The final moments of Piedad and Kari.
The sun beats down upon the dusty town square of this Spanish colony in the heart of South America.
The air is tense, the crowd silent but for the occasional whisper or the sound of a child being hushed by anxious parents. The governor sits upon his dais, his cold eyes surveying the scene with a mixture of satisfaction and disinterest, as if this were but another task to be completed before the day's end.
Piedad is the first to be led forward. Her hands are bound before her, and despite the brave face she attempts to present, her body betrays her with its subtle tremors. The soldiers, hardened by the governor's command, show no mercy as they tear away her simple white shift, leaving her exposed and vulnerable lying on her back on the ground.
Kari, her eyes wide with terror, is brought forth next. The same cruel hands that stripped Piedad now undress her, and she is forced to lay face down, atop Piedad, her back exposed to the unyielding sun. Their wrists and ankles are secured with coarse ropes, and then, with heartless efficiency, the soldiers attach these bindings to the long ropes extended from each of the four horses. The two women are spread-eagled face to face for death.
The square falls into an even deeper silence as the sentence is read aloud, the words hanging in the air like a foul miasma. A drum begins to roll, its beat a countdown to the inevitable. At the signal, the horses are whipped, their muscles straining against the weight of the two women.
Kari and Piedad are lifted slowly from the ground, their bodies stretching and contorting in ways no human form should ever endure. Their cries fill the square, a symphony of suffering that sickens the soul. The ropes pull taut, and the women's bodies quiver with the strain, their skin stretching to the point of translucence. Their heads twist from side to side in their anguish. Their faces reflecting the horror that their bodies and minds are undergoing.
The horses, driven by the soldiers' relentless lashing, do not relent. The sound of rending flesh fills the air as first Piedad's, then Kari's shoulders dislocate with wet pops. Their screams reach a crescendo, their bodies twisting in a futile struggle against their bonds.
Finally, with a sound that will haunt the dreams of all who hear it, their arms are torn from their bodies. Blood spurts from the gaping wounds, painting the ground in a grotesque tableau. The horses, now pulling the severed limbs, drag them away, leaving the torsos.
The legs of the two women, still attached to their torsos, twitch with residual nerve impulses, a macabre dance of muscles no longer bound by bone and sinew. The ropes, now slick with the blood of Kari and Piedad, continue their pressure on the remaining limbs until finally the left legs are separated from the torsos with a plopping, ripping sound and as the torn limbs are drawn in one direction the torsos with a single leg attached to each is pulled in the other.
The execution is over.

Piedad Sanchez goes to the block
The guards who had escorted Piedad through the raucous crown left her at the foot of the scaffold. Piedad hesitate a moment and then began to climb the eight steps to her meeting with death. At the top she glanced briefly at the block with the straw liberally scattered around it. She barely had time to take in the scene before she was grabbed by the executioner’s assistant and pushed forward towards the centre of the scaffold. He held her arms at her sides while his black hooded master approached and began to unlace the ties on the front of Piedad’s black gown. Once they were free the assistant pulled it down and Piedad stood in her bright red, low cut shift shivering with a mixture of cold and fear. Almost immediately she was pushed forward again to stand before the block and then a white scarf was tied tightly over her eyes. Now she could see nothing. She had seen the last of the low winter sunlight and the faces of the crowd. Hands on her shoulders pushed her down and she knelt on the straw. The assistant knelt behind her placing his legs over hers to keep her still and with his lower body pressed tightly against her pushed in the back her so she bent forward. As she bent she explored with her hands and made contact with the hard, unyielding wood of the block. Carefully she settled her neck upon it and hugged it with her arms. For a few moments she knelt there, bent over the block, with the assistant executioner’s lower body pressing tightly against her bottom. Then she heard a rasping sound as the executioner pulled out the axe from the straw he had used to conceal it. Piedad counted to five, took a deep breath and thrust her arms out to the sides to signal the executioner that she was ready and to brace her neck for the stroke. She jumped slightly as the cold metal of the axe touched her neck, then it was swung up and came crashing down. There was a ghastly crunch and a groan from Piedad whose arms dropped to the side of the block. As the blood flowed the executioner extracted the axe from Piedad’s neck, lifted it again splattering blood over the scaffold and then struck a second blow. This time Piedad bade no sound as the axe thudded into the wood of the block, but still her head did not fall. It hung over the edge of the block, stump uppermost as her body held firmly in position by the assistant pumped out its life blood. The executioner lowered the axe and slid it back and forward several times in a sawing motion. Eventually the small string of gristle that stopped Piedad’s head from falling was severed and her head rolled onto the straw. The assistant released her body and it crumpled on the scaffold. The executioner bent down and lifted the severed head. As he did so the blindfold fell off and the crowd were treated to the sight of Piedad’s staring, horrified eyes and her still moving lips as he cried out “Behold the head of a traitor. So perish all the Queen’s enemies.”
The New Witchhunt.
Times had changed with the new president. Witchcraft, once a harmless pastime for many wiccans had now become a capital offence. Kari Trules, a young French girl living in the country had caught the attention of the Witch Hunters and after a brief investigation in private had admitted everything. She had been sentenced to death and was due to be burned at the stake in the Central Women’s Prison the following day.
Piedad Discalca, a friend of Kari’s had just received an official summons to witness the execution. Piedad looked at the official paper and wondered who else had received one. She supposed that Kari must have named her as her personal witness, not having any family in the country. Did Kari know Piedad wondered? Had they told her that she had less than 24 hours to live or was she still in ignorance, hoping that diplomatic approaches by her government would save her? If she did know, how would she spend her last night. Piedad had heard that part of the executioner’s payment was the sexual favours he might receive from his victims the night before their death. She tried to imagine what it would be like to have sex with a man who was going to kill you in a few hours. She knew that Kari had fantasised about burning at the stake and that watching it in movies or imagining it made her really excited. But fantasy and reality were very different. Would Kari be receptive to a man who was going to put her to death in such a way? She supposed that perhaps the desire to please the person who had complete control over how long and how painful your last minutes on earth would be might be some encouragement. But would it be any use? What was the value of promises made by a man in the throws of ectasy when carrying out his duty of putting a witch to death? Piedad pulled herself out of her reverie and started to pick out clothes to wear to her friend’s death. She too fantasised about executions, sometimes as the victim and sometimes as the executioner but burning was not one of her fetishes. Would she experience excitement when Kari burned or just sadness and horror?
The following morning Piedad woke early after a restless night and got herself ready. She set out earlier than necessary and found herself in front of the prison half an hour before the designated time. There was a small café across the road and she decided to wait there. The café was empty and staffed by a single waitress. Piedad ordered a coffee and sat at the bar occasionally glancing across the road at the grim gates of the prison. “There is an execution today,” the waitress said casually. “They are burning a witch. I saw the lorry delivering the wood earlier as I opened up. When they burn them you can see the smoke curling up above the prison and if the door is open you can hear the screams. It’s best to keep it shut though. The smoke stinks terribly.” Piedad shuddered slightly as the woman spoke, picturing the scene in her mind. She would shortly have no need of imagination. After some mundane conversation Piedad finished her coffee, looked at her watch and left the café , crossing the road to the prison and ringing the bell next to the gate. A small door in the main gate opened and Piedad handed her summons to the hard faced female guard who stood there. She was ushered in and told to sit on a bench with some other people. After a few minutes another guard, young and quite pretty came and told them to follow her. After passing through a series of locked gates and doors they were shown into a sort of cloister on one side of a courtyard. It had a roof and a low wall surmounted by thick bars through which they had a clear view of the courtyard. What Piedad saw there made her blood run cold. In the center was a concrete platform about ½ a metre high and 2 metres square. In the center of the platform was a thick metal post with chains dangling from it at various levels. In front of the post was a wooden stool and Piedad wondered if Kari would be seated for her burning. Presumably that would make it quicker for her. To one side of the platform was a pile of neatly tied bundles of brushwood. Lots of them! On the other side was a brazier with glowing peat bricks in it, two torches as yet unlit and a bucket of something black with what she guessed was the handle of a brush poking out of it. The other witnesses sat on a low bench that ran along the back wall of the cloister. Piedad did the same. No one spoke.
After a few minutes a door in the side of the courtyard opposite the steps to the platform opened and Kari appeared flanked by two burly female guards. She stopped dead when she saw the post with its chains but then shuffled forward again at a prod from one of the guards. Kari clanked as she walked. Her ankles were joined by a short chain which was itself joined to the irons that held her wrists together. Kari did not look once at the witnesses to her left. Her whole attention was focused on that deadly post towards which she was shuffling. At the foot of the steps she hesitated again, and then with a nudge from the guards she clanked up the three steps towards her preview of hell. Once on the platform her arms were held firmly by two assistant executioners while the guards removed her chains and and then pulled the condemned woman’s tabard over her head. Kari stood for a moment in her black bra and thong and then as the female guards left the platform she was hustled to the post, half lifted, half pushed to stand on the stool with her back to it and an assistant behind the post pulled a thick iron chain tight about her waist and secured it. Kari winced slightly as the links of the chain bit into her flesh. Further chains followed. Around the top of her thighs, her knees and her ankles. Then a chain was crisscrossed between her breasts and over her shoulders to ensure she stayed upright. The assistants pulled her arms behind the stake and they were manacled together once again. Finally a loose chain was placed about Kari’s neck. The woman sitting next to Piedad suddenly began whispering to her male companion, a note of worry in her voice “Won’t that choke her?” “No” he replied “It’s loose. It’s to stop her banging her head against the stake and knocking herself out.” “Ah right “she said with relief in her voice. “I’ve never seen a burning before.” Once Kari was firmly secured the executioner came forward to check her chains. Appearing satisfied he bent and pulled away the stool on which Kari was standing. She gasped and grimaced as the chains took her weight and she was left hanging at the stake, nearly a metre above the execution floor. Then he left the platform, walked over to the brazier and picked up the bucket. He returned to stand before the prisoner and taking a brush out of the bucket began to streak her legs with thick black stripes. “What is he doing?” The woman next to Piedad whispered to her companion again. “He’s putting pitch on her to help her to burn.” “Won’t that speed up her burning?” the woman asked. A definite tone of anxiety in her voice. “Not really” he responded. “They’ll keep it away from her head and face to stop her asphyxiating. It will just insure that her skin burns properly.” The executioner had streaked the shuddering Kari’s arms and stomach by now and he then pulled down the front of her thong and coated her blonde brush with the black goo. Pulling the thong back up he moved his attention to her chest. Kari’s bra was pulled down, revealing her firm young breasts, the nipples hard with a mixture of fear and cold. He slapped pitch on them and then tugged the bra cups back up to cover the now black orbs.
The pitching accomplished he scattered straw around the stake beneath the condemned girl’s body and then made a small pyramid of faggots in a circle right round the post. Their upper ends were centimetres from Kari’s chained feet. Surveying his work he picked up the pitch bucket and returned it to its place next to the brazier. Then he picked up one of the torches standing there and carefully rolled it in the brazier ensuring that it was burning properly. When the torch was fully alight he walked slowly, holding it up like a banner, towards the platform and the bound girl at the stake. Kari’s eyes, wide with terror, followed his every movement. Her pitched body quivered in the chains. The executioner mounted the steps and stood for a moment before his victim relishing the terror in her eyes. Her lips formed a single word “Please” and then he bent slightly and circled the post and its prisoner dipping the torch into the straw and setting it alight. As the flames built in the brushwood faggots Kari began to struggle as much as the chains would allow. Her feet were wriggling as the heat from the fire began to warm them and her hands twisted in the manacles as she jerked her arms in a desperate but futile attempt to free herself. For a few minutes the witnesses could see the flames climbing up the faggots and see the struggles of the victim but then finally a tongue of flame licked over Kari’s toes. Her body jerked rigid and her head thrown back she let out a shriek of agony and then cried her last words. “Shit! It hurts. It hurts. Help me someone. Help me.” The flames were now curling over the tops of her feet reddening and then blistering the skin. The blisters burst with gentle pops allowing Kari’s own fat to fuel the flames. Her shrieks and howls were terrible as her head twisted from side to side in a horrific exhibition of her anguish. Slowly but steadily the flames climbed the chained body as that small space around the post became Kari’s preview of hell. The executioner used a billhook to add new faggots to the blaze as the old ones burned away and the horrifically slow assault on Kari’s body was maintained. The flames crept up the soft flesh of her thighs eating into them as her feet and calves charred to bone which occasionally cracked with the heat. When the flames reached her thong the poor young woman screamed with an intensity that seemed demonic as her pitch coated bush flamed up and the tongues of fire probed her most sensitive parts. For a few seconds the screech was replaced by a ghastly gurgling as her stomach undulated as much as the chains would allow. But the screams and howls soon returned as the flames began to lick across her stomach and eat into her hands bound behind the post. Fat dripped from her finger tips and hissed in the flames. Poor Kari’s body was being melted and reduced to bubbling fat, but still she screamed and suffered.
The cups of her bra began to smoulder and then burst into flame, her pitch coated breasts bounced slightly as the flames licked them and bit into her hard nipples. As her breasts began to sizzle and burn, her legs now reduced to charred bone crumbled and fell from her body into the fire causing a torrent of sparks to fly up. Kari must by now have been driven insane by the pain and the horror of what was happening to her body but still she shrieked. The pitch over her breasts burned well and eventually her left breast burst with the heat allowing more of her fat to fuel the fire. A few minutes later her right breast did the same.
Kari’s voice was cracking now. Her screams reduced to moans. Her mouth was dry from the heat of the fire and dreadful screams she had been uttering. The executioner put a liquid soaked sponge on the end of his billhook and pushed it towards the mouth of the burning woman. As soon as it reached her she began to suck desperately at the reviving liquid. It quickly had its effect and Kari recovered her senses only to realise her horrific position as one of the newly damned. The shrieks began again as the flames licked gently at Kari’s chin and her hair caught fire. For a few seconds the howling girl was crowned with a halo of fire, but then as the flames on her head died back she began to foam at the mouth, her screams stifled. Her body shuddered in a dreadful series of convulsions and her eyes became fixed and staring. Suddenly with a hiss they were forced out of the sockets and ran down her soot streaked cheeks followed by bubbling grey brain matter. When the sockets were no longer sufficient to release the pressure caused by Kari’s boiling brain her skull exploded with a dreadful crack scattering bone and boiling brain around the courtyard.
Kari’s suffering was over but the witnesses were required to remain there while the charred arms dropped from the torso and the chest burst. Piedad’s last memory of her friend was of some roasting entrails hanging from her split chest cavity hissing as they roasted in the flames.
The witnesses filed out of the cloister and were led back through the locked doors to the main gate. Piedad was the last in line. As she reached the door two men blocked her way. “Piedad Discalca, you are known to have consorted with the Witch Kari Trules. You will be detained in this prison for further enquiries. ” Within minutes Piedad had been escorted by two guards to a cell on the second floor overlooking the courtyard where the remains of her friend still bubbled and burned. She sat on the bed and sobbed.

 

Awesome stories! Thank you so much! I will post mine one by one if it's okay.

 

Kari goes to the garrote
© Piedad Descalza

Kari knew they would be coming for her soon. She had spent the sleepless night talking to the matrons that kept her company for the last week. Their efforts to convince her to sleep a little had failed, she just couldn’t, knowing what was to become of her. So they spent the night chatting, even if sometimes the conversation took somber tones and Kari would start crying silently. They dried her tears and offered her more chamomile tea. It was difficult to cheer up a condemned woman just hours away from execution.
The beautiful blue eyed, fair haired french woman had gotten herself in quite a pickle: she had fallen in love with a basque young man and before she knew it, she was tangled in his clandestine politic affairs. She hid weapons and explosives for him and soon swore loyalty to his cause. When a Guardia Civil raid caught them red handed in their love nest, she could not believe it. She was arrested and interrogated with nearly the same harshness as he was, but there was little she could tell them. When Kari was informed that she would be prosecuted as a full-fledged terrorist it became apparent that the powers that be wanted to make an example out of her. Her embassy did not do much except to visit her and advise her during trial, because her government did not want to antagonize Spain over a woman in her mid-thirties who had a fling for a terrorist. They both sat in different booths during court sessions, so they could not exchange information, but were made to stand next to each other for sentence. They both got the death penalty. Kari was still processing the meaning of it when she was hastily taken to the prison van and sent to a detention center in the south of the country. She never saw him again, but she knew he was alive: they were scheduled to be executed simultaneously.
And this was the day, she could not escape from it. When the skies began to clear outside the bars in her window, the matrons advised her to make herself ready. Kari finished the tea and then removed the bedroom robe and the nightdress she had kept on all night. A pile of clothes for her to wear was laid on her cot: Kari immediately recognized the white long sleeved shirt and the knee length brown skirt she had worn during trial, they had stored them for all these months! She dressed the freshly pressed clothes, feeling a bit better than wearing the heavy grey prison dress assigned to female inmates. Of course, her high heel pumps and nylon pantyhose were withheld, but the creme brasier was folded between the shirt and the skirt. The matrons told her to wear the same bedroom slippers which was customary to wear in her cell.
The matrons made Kari sit in one of the chairs and gently started arranging her hair without much explanation. Kari preferred to have her hair loose, but they convinced her to trust them:
- It's for practical reasons, dear, but trust us, you will still look good.
True to their promise, they arranged her hair in a bun at the top of her head. They seemed proud of their work and Kari smiled faintly, trying to seem thankful. Then they sat with her and remained in silence for a while.
A key turning on the door broke the silence. The nervous Kari stood from her cot, followed by the two matrons, who surrounded her closely with soothing words:
- Be brave now, cooperate with them.
The prison warden and two male guards entered the cell, looking gloomy. The warden cleared his throat and unfolded a sheet of paper, reading out:
- Kari Trules, you were found guilty of terrorist association and sentenced to death. All appeals for clemency have been exhausted, so the sentence of the Court is to be presently executed in the manner recognized by the state. May God have mercy on your soul.
Even expecting it, Kari was in shock to hear these words and panted in anguish before the attendants. The matrons hugged her closely and kissed her cheeks with whispered words of goodbye and encouragement, while the male guards used this distraction to cuff her wrists in front and fitted a set of heavy leg irons around her ankles. Then, the warden stepped out to the hallway, with the guards supporting Kari closely following. The prison chaplain joined the group, right behind Kari, intoning psalms of hope and deliverance a few steps away from the overwhelmed woman. Only his words and Kari's leg irons rustling on the ground broke the silence so early in the day. Kari was astounded at the prospect of her execution, and by such a gruesome method, to make things worse. She could not gather enough coherence to articulate thoughts or words of regret or resistance, so she just let herself be taken down the hallway like a bale of hay.
The procession went down the hall until reaching a large gate that led to a small yard. A few people stood in the far corner of the yard, facing a strange wooden post in the middle of the area. The post itself stood out from a small wooden platform and had a small seat on its lower section, but it was the top section that made Kari shiver: it sported an open metal collar, ready to receive her neck, connected to a screw that sprouted out the back of the post. Kari's legs gave way but the guards supported her and carried her to the garrote. She was made to sit on the small seat and with rehearsed proficiency, the guards began to work on her: one of them linked the chain from her leg irons to a hook on the base of the post and the second released her wrists from the cuffs only to bring them to the back of the post and recuff them there. Then they both stepped back and let a stocky middle-aged man take care of the last preparations: he slipped a leather strap around her elbows and then strapped her torso to the wooden post with a leather belt just below her breasts. Then he pushed Kari's head to the post and closed the steel collar around her throat. Kari finally understood he was the executioner and she was at his mercy.
The chaplain advanced with a crucifix for the condemned to kiss and Kari did it reflexively as he pressed it to her lips. Then the warden called her name and asked the usual formula:
- Kari Trules, do you have anything to say before the sentence is carried out?
Kari battled with herself for a couple of seconds to muster enough coherence and say something meaningful, but the only words she could utter were an emotional plea:
- I want to go home...!
The executioner cut the pitiable declaration short, by producing a black hood and pulling it over her head. Kari started crying under the hood, at such time the executioner took his place behind the post and held the screw lever with both hands, waiting for the signal from the warden. At a wave from the warden, the executioner quickly turned the handle six times, pulling the collar against Kari's throat. The misfortunate prisoner, a nervous wreck, had her head tilted forward by the advancing steel collar, which turned her sobs into a sickening groan, then into a gurgling sound and finally silence when the handle stopped turning. Despite being firmly strapped and cuffed to the seat, Kari could still thrash her legs enough to kick one of her slippers through the air, and the low-gazing witnesses could see her toes curling in agony. After a few shudders, the prisoner remained still, the only movement visible being the droplets of urine dripping from the seat onto the cement ground under the garrote. The executioner finished his task by tying the upper handle of the screw to the post with a short rope, so it would not budge.
Kari, the french international terrorist as the papers called her, had served her sentence, but would still have to sit in the garrote for one hour before the prison doctor could register the time of her death. Despite her last wish of going home, she would only get a cheap coffin, a few shovels of quicklime and an unmarked grave in potters’ field, at the local cemetery.

 

beautiful stories

 

One of my favourites. I loved the way you executed me.

 

Like a torch
© Piedad Descalza

Kari had no way of knowing if it was night or day. The cell she was locked in was so deep into the castle’s underground. There was no lamp or candle to let her even see her surroundings, so most of the time she just cowered in fear in a corner of the cell, only reaching out to get a drink of water from the jar they had left there for her. On the other side of the cell there was a bucket for her necessities and Kari could reach it by touch.
She was alone in the cell and the occasional company were rats that came close to her to get her breadcrumbs or bugs that she could not avoid crawling over her while she slept. She could not even see the jailer, who came from time to time to leave her a loaf of bread or to refill her jar, but she had no idea if he came daily or weekly.
The poor eighteen-year-old girl had been tried for witchcraft and unceremoniously thrown in this dungeon, all because she said she could guess the weather by the flight of the birds. At least that was the reason the magistrate had evoked, but somehow Kari imagined the fact that she had rejected the parish priest’s advances had some weight in her prosecution. The old corpulent priest had become infatuated with her, a fine maiden in her prime, blue eyes, fair hair, generous shapes that the crude peasant dress did little to conceal. She had noticed his stare during mass and at least twice she had seen him peering through the bushes when she bathed in the stream. He scared her, to be honest.
Then one Sunday after mass, Father Tybault called her to the vestry and made his disgusting advance, talking of God and angels while touching her crudely. Kari instinctively rejected him, pushed him away and ran home as fast as she could. But after that day Tybault followed her everywhere, not just with his eyes but tailing her during work, at the market, in the village. It was during a conversation with fellow shepherdess Mahaut that she said she could predict the weather by observation of the birds’ flight. Tybault was too close and the next day the militiamen came to arrest her for practicing black arts.
Unfortunately for Kari, there was no Inquisitor available in the region to analyze her case so she was handed over to the secular court, which afforded her even less protection than an ecclesiastical court. Despite her pleas for innocence, Kari was tormented and tortured into admission that she had dark knowledges and, without any defense, she gave them the answers they wanted. The magistrate seemed pleased with her confession and promptly sentenced her to hang. But Father Tybault had other ideas: he pressed the magistrate to have the sentence reverted to burning at the stake… so the poor girl’s soul could be purified, of course.
So this was Kari’s predicament as she laid on the cell’s hard floor. Sentenced to be burned at the stake!

On the day the militiamen came for her, Kari was fast asleep. Not even the sound of voices and keys jingling on the lock were sufficient to awaken her. It was the brutal touch of the militiamen’s rough hands, grabbing her and pulling her up to her feet, that did it. The guard that pulled her up saw her shape at the lamplight and whistled:
- Ah this one is fair, I swear to God! Too bad she is for the stake! Perhaps we can have a little fun with her… - he said feeling her breasts.
- I don’t know about you, Jehan, but I am pretty sure fucking a sorceress will make your stick dry and fall off in a fortnight! – said the jailer – She is to burn for a reason, you know?
Jehan quickly let his hands off her after this and proceeded to apply heavy chains on her ankles and wrists. Next the guards grabbed her by the arms and pulled her out of the cell and up a winding stair onto the prison’s ground floor. She shielded her eyes from the light of day, which she hadn’t seen in God knows how much time, even if the day was a grey, cloudy one. A diet of bread and water made poor Kari too weak to stand on her own and the heavy iron restraints made it even more difficult to keep balance, so the guards just let her sit down while preparations were being finalized. When her eyes got used to the light, she looked at herself: she was covered with filth and grime from the dungeon cell, her only attire was the same loose-fitting burlap shift they had made her wear after confiscating all her clothes during trial. The shift was now dirty and torn, the hem well above her bare feet. One of the guards brough a sheering scissors and cut Kari’s dirty blonde hair into a rough bowl cut. Kari did not protest, she barely had strength to sit still. Next, he pulled a wet rag from a bucket of water and scrubbed the dirt off Kari’s face, with the scornful words:
- We got to show it’s really you under there, don’t we, witch? The populace mustn’t have doubts.
Kari heard hammering in the castle’s courtyard and wondered if they had changed their minds and were taking her to the gibbet after all.
After the noise stopped, the militiamen grabbed Kari and carried her to the courtyard, where she could see what the hammering was all about: the castle’s woodsmith had been working on setting a manure kart’s wheel straight. Kari recognized it as the kart used to collect cow and horse dungs from the town’s streets. And now they were going to use it to transport her to the stake!
The guards raised her and unloaded her onto the kart’s platform. The kart’s driver pulled her up by the chains on her wrists and linked them into a nail on the rail, forcing her to stand. A look around made Kari understand the kart was still dirty with remains of the usual fecal cargo. She could not tell if the stench came from the kart or from herself, though. It made little difference.
Four cavalrymen took positions to escort the tumbrel and the ride started. Unfit for human transportation, the kart made Kari bounce and tremble as it rode under the castle’s gate arch and into main street. All the town’s folk had gathered along the road to witness the death of a hated witch. Kari wobbled and looked around for a friendly face but all she could see were hateful grimaces staring at her. All of a sudden a voice cried:
- Carried in the manure kart, like a proper dung!
- She is the Devil’s turd, that she is!
- Die, you Devil’s harlot!
A rotten piece of fruit was thrown from the crowd toward Kari, hitting her on the chest and staining her already dirty shift. More projectiles followed: tomatoes, cabbage foliage, apple cores and stones. The captain of the cavalrymen shouted:
- No stones!
Kari knew why he said that: a few years ago a witch was being dragged to the gallows and someone unknown in the crowd threw a stone at her, with such precision that she was killed as it hit her on the head. Her corpse was gibbetted but the crowd was foiled from seeing her dance at the end of the rope. The captain would not have that!
At the end of main street, right in front of the church, the stake was erected, sprouting from a hill of timber about one and a half man high. A ladder was leaning against the timber and two men worked atop the pile of wood making final preparations for the witch. Kari whimpered softly when she saw the instrument of her death, and even more knowing it was going to be terrible. But she was so numb and weak that even her unrest was minimal.
The kart stopped at the base of the wood pile and Kari’s hands were released from the railing. She was dragged from the kart’s platform and half-carried to the awaiting ladder. One of the men who worked on the timber approached her, checked her iron restraints and with a single movement, carried her over his shoulder and started climbing the ladder. The crowd cheered in amusement when the short burlap smock shifted over her back, exposing Kari’s plump buttocks.
- What a waste, that this witch be so fair!
- You should be quiet, she is bound back to Hell!
On a nearby scaffold sat the mayor, the magistrate and Father Tybault, watching Kari’s undoing. The frail, weak girl was stood against the post and one of the burly men brought a bucket and proceeded to smear its content over the burlap smock with a large brush. Kari recognized the substance for its peculiar odor: olive oil. A set of heavy chains started to be wound around her body, binding her to the wood. The heavy chain wrapped around her from ankles to neck and pulled tight by both men, making Kari gasp and grimace as the pressure mounted against her body.
- Please… you’re suffocating me…
One of the executioners whispered to her:
- Trust me, child, it would be better if we did.
Two large nails were hammered on both extremities of the chain, keeping the young woman immobile by constant, overwhelming pressure. Then both men climbed down the ladder and grabbed two lit torches, waiting for the orders of the magistrate.
The magistrate stood and began reading from a parchment:
- It came to the attention of this tribunal that Kari the shepherdess was seen and heard displaying mastery of the Black Arts, learning secrets from birds and controlling animals as she spoke, and therefore she was brought to our presence and put to the ordinary question. The girl agreed to all charges, and more, to be noted: intercourse with the Devil, summoning the sabbath, seeing the devilish signs in nature, disregard for the authority of the Church, non-observation of Christian teachings. Admitting to one charge alone would already condemn her, but the whole list leaves us no choice but to hand her a sentence of death on the stake. We now release her to the town’s executioner custody so that he may carry out the sentence of the court accordingly. And may God have mercy on your soul!
With these words he waved a hand at the executioners and both of them, at the same time, began to touch off the fire on the wooden pile with their torches. The highly flammable wood sap and the oil they had sprinkled over it served as a powerful fuel to set off the fire. In not time the wooden pile began burning as a whole and releasing toxic clouds of smoke that curled over towards the stake. Kari was highly affected by the smoke but could only cough weakly as she was so tightly chained to the post. Nevertheless, the fumes were so toxic that she began to cough convulsively and drooling heavily down her chin. The smoke got in her eyes and she rolled them in an effort to calm the irritation, exposing them even more in the process. Tears began flowing down her face, and floating ash began landing and sticking to the wet skin of her face, darkening her features. As some point, even before the flames rose from the pile of wood, the constant coughing and convulsions made it look like she would asphyxiate, which rose angry protests from the crowd:
- She is a witch, she must burn!
- Don’t cheat the Devil, whore!
The flames rose higher and higher and Kari felt their heat before she saw any of it. Her eyes were blind and stinging from the smoke but her feet could feel the licking of the hot flames. The poor shepherdess went into a panic and cried aloud for mercy:
- Please… it’s starting to burn… Mercy, please! I did not know it was wrong…!
The flames got to her feet and to her despair she could not even move away from it! Her head rolled from side to side, screaming as the heat became unbearable and her bare feet started to char from the fire. She released her bladder from the panic but none of it sprinkled down the flames, instead it rose in the air as vapor when the fire climbed onto her legs. Kari must’ve also shat herself but the excrement remained inside the burlap smock. The flames went up her blackened calves until they reached the oil-soaked burlap, immediately igniting it. The whole garment was set ablaze and turned to ashes while the fire consumed it in just a few moments, leaving the now naked woman’s skin blistering in sight of the laughing populace. Kari’s skin crisped all through, boils of human fat popping from her flesh, while the miserable wretch could do nothing but scream more and more and move her head around franticly. After consuming her smock, the flames began enveloping her, turning the metal chain into red hot links cauterizing what remained from her peeling down skin. Her nose was charred by the fire and soon her short hair curled and burned into nothing. Her eyes, rolled up and completely dry by the heat, boiled in their sockets and finally bursted, but Kari did not scream anymore, she just let her head hang with a gaping, silent mouth. Her feet were gone, her shins had turned into charcoal and crumbled into the fire. Her thighs were dripping fat into the brazier below, almost consumed. Her body was only held in place by the now slacking chains around her. Underneath those chains, the flesh of her breasts started to heave and suddenly both globes exploded, sending chunks of melting blubber into the flames. At this point, her head turned upwards and an inhuman squeal left her lipless mouth and then it fell forward over her chest.
The crowd was now silent as they watched the bones from her legs fall and then the slack chain allowed her torso to slide a little down the post and the flames finally engulfed it for good, feasting on the sufferer’s corpse. The townspeople began to disperse but Kari’s corpse remained sizzling over the brazier for the whole afternoon, disjointed little by little. Sometimes it seemed to come alive again, as the bursting of sinews and muscles made it shudder violently. The last to drop into the charcoals was the charred skull, with just a few remains of flesh. And at the end of the afternoon there was nothing left from Kari except a few blackened bones at the bottom of the burnt down stake. For good measure, the magistrate ordered the executioners to collect them, crush them down to dust and deliver them to the waters of the passing river, to be forgotten.

 

Wonderful

 

Good

 

I agree with the two previous commentators.

 

In my first days on this In my early days in this matter of executions I remember well the stories of mercy specifically when mercy was executed by garrotte. Undoubtedly a unique character and full of stories in this guilty pleasure that many of us share.
Piedad a hug for you, be well!

 

Quote by karl Anton

In my first days on this In my early days in this matter of executions I remember well the stories of mercy specifically when mercy was executed by garrotte. Undoubtedly a unique character and full of stories in this guilty pleasure that many of us share.
Piedad a hug for you, be well!

thank you so much karl. it's been such a long time since those early days...

 

Kari goes to the chair
(this is was heavily influenced by authors like Elain, Toe Tag and Morbidia!)

Kari Trules woke up from a nightmare drenched in sweat. She sat on her cot and regained her breath, trying to calm down. She maintained her eyes closed, trying to imagine her predicament in these last few months was only the recollection of a bad dream. But when her breathing steadied and she opened her eyes, she was still inside her cell with concrete walls. A pair of eyes watched her from the observation slit on the steel door and Kari came to terms with the fact that it was all real, after all. She was in death row, scheduled to die in the electric chair for her crimes!
Kari had come to the US as a college student and eventually ran into economic difficulties. The money she had saved for her studies was quickly squandered in partying and drugs, so she had to give in to her drug dealer’s demands and became a pusher to maintain a steady income. At first it seemed easy, but then her actions became suspicious to one of her teachers, Mr. Hamel. Mr. Hamel addressed her and told her he would not take matters to the police if she paid him to keep his mouth shut. Left without a choice, Kari complied with the blackmail, which soon caused trouble with her suppliers due to the revenue coming too short. The rough gangster gave her a choice: either she terminated Mr. Hamel’s situation or she would find herself in grave problems. She was handed a small caliber gun to make things clearer.
It was relatively easy to lure Hamel into a trap: Kari convinced him to receive part of her debt in sexual favors, to which the corrupt teacher happily agreed. They went for a ride in Hamel’s car and parked in lover’s lane, where Kari proceeded to shoot Mr. Hamel twice through the throat and left him to bleed to death in the scene. Unfortunately for her, Mr. Hamel was a meticulous man and kept records of her payments and meetings. The police came for her in a matter of days. Her being French did not work well with the jury and soon after a grueling trial she was sentenced to death.
And now she sat in that cell, waiting for execution, which was just hours away. She had been read the dismissal of her last appeal the day before. She was lost now.
The steel door was unlocked and in came Roberta and Alexia, the matrons assigned to watch over her. Roberta, whose eyes she recognized as the ones having just spied through the observation slit, was a bulky, squared-jawed afroamerican woman. Alexia seemed to be of latino extraction, also portly, but with a rounder, softer face. They were both taller than Kari and could easily overpower her if needed. But Kari had never tested their limits, so they had always handled her with compassion.
- Are you alright, sweety? – Alexia asked – Are you feeling alright?
Kari wiped her sweaty hands on the legs of her jumpsuit and nodded nervously.
- Y-yes… it was a nightmare… I was close to a panic attack but managed to hold it off.
Alexia came close to her and held her wrist, measuring her pulse while checking her watch.
- Yeah, seems you managed to calm down. – she nodded to Roberta – We’re gonna need you calm, honey, and cooperative. You know we’d prefer if that way, don’t you?
The unfortunate French girl nodded silently. She was sure they’d handle her rough if she gave them any trouble. She didn’t want to spend her last moments like that. Roberta spoke to Alexia:
- Ok, let’s get things ready. – they both left the cell - He’ll be back in a minute, hon.
The two matrons returned a few minutes later and spoke to her through the observation slit. Roberta ordered Kari to strip and she removed her orange jumpsuit with little hesitation. The condemned woman stood in front of both women wearing her prison-issued bra and panties, to which Roberta shrugged and spoke again:
- All of it, Kari. The underwear too. And shove everything into this bag. – she slipped a black plastic bag through the observation slit. Kari stripped her undies and bra and, reaching for the plastic bag, dropped all the prison issued clothes inside. Kari felt a shiver when she read the words “For Incineration” engraved on the surface of the bag: her personal effects were being disposed of, permanently. Like her. Roberta remarked:
- Good. Now, leave the bag on the floor and go sit on the stool, facing the wall, until we say otherwise.
Kari obeyed and sat facing away from the matrons and staring towards the cell’s concrete wall. She could hear as the door was unlocked and both matrons walked in, pacing towards her and pulling her wrists behind her back to be cuffed. There was a sound of chains jingling and in just a few moments the naked prisoner was restrained with cuffs and leg irons, a short chain linked them both under the stool and making it impossible for her to move at will. Immediately, a barber’s apron was swept over her shoulders and the unhappy woman realized with dismay she was having her head shaved for the electric chair!
- Steady now, dear. – Alexia spoke sympathetically. The buzz of a hair clipper was heard, and it started sliding over her head, reducing her long, blonde hair to a degrading stubble. Kari felt shocked as she noticed her hair dropping around her feet, strand by strand. Soon, there was nothing of it but a bundle on the floor, which Roberta gathered with a small broom and dropped into the black plastic bag where her clothes had been shoved. Then, Kari felt her head being lathered with a creamy substance and Alexia produced a shaving razor.
- Close your eyes, hon, and keep very still. This won’t take a minute if you do like I said.
Kari closed her eyes and felt the sharp razor sliding over her skin, from her crown to her nape. Alexia paused to wash the foam and stubble in a basin Roberta held out for her. To finish neatly, the matron, shaved Kari’s eyebrows, leaving her head completely bare for the headpiece. Having finished her work, the apron was taken out of her shoulders and her restraints loosened so she could stand from the stool. As Kari stood up, she saw herself in the mirror and gasped in shock: she was totally bald and the absence of her eyebrows left her featureless, like a shop window mannequin.
- You even took my eyebrows…
- We had to, Kari. The less hair you have left on you, the better… for your sake. – Roberta spoke with commiseration in her voice. - Ok, shower time.
Kari was used to being restrained to be walked to the shower, so it was no surprise her fetters were not removed. However, Roberta produced a black hood and placed it over Kari’s head, obscuring her face from view.
- Wait… what is this?!? - Kari shouted from under the hood. The chains restraining her hands and feet made it impossible to take the hood off.
- I’m sorry, but you must be administered an enema before the shower. For security reasons you must remain hooded for the whole process.
Kari calmed down and said with a trembling voice:
- Perhaps it’s for the best… I’m sorry… I’m just scared… Please, help me.
Both matrons held her by the arms and started guiding her towards the infirmary at the opposite end the hallway. Kari’s face was flushed with shame at being walked down death row in the nude and under total control of the matrons assigned to watch her. The hood made her completely vulnerable to whatever they determined to happen to her.
The miserable inmate wobbled along the hall with short, clumsy steps. At some point the matrons directed her through a threshold and she felt the floor turning from cement to tile under her bare soles. “This must be the infirmary”, she thought. Aside from the rustle of her restraints, everything was silent. Alexia spoke:
- We are going to lay you on your back on a gurney, just relax and trust us.
Kari nodded to them, asking herself if they had noticed it because of the hood, and complied as they laid her on her back over the soft gurney. Then one of the matrons grabbed the chain connecting both her ankles and raised it above the padded surface, leaving the prisoner’s legs as wide as it allowed, exposing her perineum.
- Lift your hips a little, hon. – and as Kari obeyed, some sort of pillow was shoved beneath her to further allow access to her private parts. – Stay very still now, Kari. Just let us work on you, ok?
Again, Kari nodded silently. The fact that they were gently caring for her made her cooperative. She reacted a little to something cold and gooey being spread over her anus, but quickly regained calm when she realized she was being lubricated for the nozzle. An unknown finger slid in and out of her rectum and finally a third female voice said:
- Hand me the long, white nozzle, please. – and seconds later, something smooth slid past her anus and settled on her rectum. Moments later, Kari felt as a warm liquid slowly began flowing into her bowels. It was too much even for her, and she wept softly at the humiliation of being handled like a child by these women. All that went through her mind was “Oh my God, I’m getting an enema!”
The unknow voice again spoke softly:
- 5 minutes for each bag. Time enough to shave her.
Kari again heard the electric buzz sound which she immediately recognized as the hair clipper and felt it swooping over her exposed pubic mound. She sniffled and spoke with a dismayed tone:
- You’re shaving my pussy…
Alexia’s voice answered:
- Yes, Kari, we must. Like we told you earlier, the less hair you have, the easier it will be for you.
Kari cried harder, her sobbing making her shake, compelling their hands to sooth her into stillness again.
- Be still, hon. I must clip the rest of your hair and besides, your first enema is midway through. If by convulsing you expel the hose, we’ll have to start from scratch.
The condemned woman sniffled once again and tried to calm herself down. The hair clipper started buzzing again and went on sliding over her mons pubis. The steady flow of warm fluid into her bowels was relegated now to the feeling of having her pubic hair permanently removed from her. The unknown voice spoke again:
- The first bag is empty. Finish it. We need to switch to the second bag. – after a few more sweeps, the hair clipper got quiet, and Kari felt the nozzle being gently pulled from inside her. The voice again spoke – Please, hold your sphincter tight, Miss Trules. If you let the fluid out, we’ll have to start over again.
Kari gasped and nodded silently. She felt the intrusive nozzle sliding out of her anus and almost immediately being replaced by a second one. As soon as the team was satisfied the second nozzle had settled well up her rectum, one of the matrons spread a generous amount of shaving foam over Kari’s pubic stubble and prepared for shaving it.
- Be still now, hon. I don’t want to cut you.
The fear of being cut or spilling the enema and starting all over made Kari even more obedient and submissive this time, and though she went on crying she did her best not to move or sob too much. In a couple of minutes, the shaving was finished, and her tummy felt expanded from the two consecutive enema bags, so the team was ready to proceed.
- Alright, hon, I’m sliding the nozzle out now. Take a deep breath and hold tight. – as the voice spoke, the second nozzle was smoothly removed from Kari’s anus - There we go, dear, all done. We need you to lay there quietly for a few minutes and let the enema do its job.
- Yes, Ma’am. – she answered, with a whimpering tone. Kari felt utterly mortified: her most intimate cavities had been defiled, her pussy was shaved by a stranger’s hand, and she had been deprived of vision and touch throughout the whole process. And now she had to wait further, fully exposed, while the warm solution inside her dissolved her bodily waste so it could be properly expelled! “They are doing this to break me, that must be it. And they managed it!”
After ten minutes, the matrons carefully made her stand and walked her to a steel toilet behind a partition in the corner of the infirmary. The matrons forced the naked, restrained prisoner to sit down and advised her, with soothing words, to release her sphincter. Kari complied and began to noisily expel the contents of the enema into the bowl, along with a foul odor. Crushed with embarrassment, Kari said from under her hood:
- Oh, ladies… I’m so sorry about the mess… the smell…
- Don’t worry, hon, we are used to it. – they patted her shoulders - Just relax and let it all out.
They watched as poor Kari struggled to push out the last of the enema solution in a series of loud wet farts. The degraded condemned felt glad the hood was still over her head to conceal her teary, flushed face.
- Looks like she’s done. Let’s head for the shower, Kari.
Without further delay, the prisoner was stood from the toilet and the foul-smelling contents were flushed. Though Kari tried to remark that she needed to wipe herself clean, her protest was quietly disregarded as she was led just a few steps into a shower booth. There was a fumble with her restraints and suddenly the hooded Kari felt her ankles and right hand free. The hood was removed from her head, and she saw herself inside the shower booth with her left wrist cuffed to the shower faucet. They were not taking any chances with her. A middle-aged nurse, which Kari perceived as the owner of the unfamiliar voice, watched her from across the plexiglass.
- You have 5 minutes, Kari. Wash yourself.
The water started pouring down on her, feeling warm and gentle. Kari started washing herself, running her hands over her shaved head and pussy, wiping away all the leftover hair that pricked her skin. The matrons and the nurse kept watching her as she did it, even giving her liquid soap as she had trouble getting to it, with one hand cuffed to the faucet. Kari felt peaceful under that water, and cried her last tears disguised in it. She was so close to the end now…
When she was finished, she stood and wiped herself with a towel the best that she could, with just a hand free. Then it was time to get dressed again, and Kari was released from the faucet and brought out to the infirmary room. The nurse approached her unfolding a small plastic package to reveal a diaper. Kari whined in disbelief:
- Come on… not that as well…?
- You have to, Miss Trules. We must make sure…
The unhappy woman resigned herself and spread her legs while the nurse adjusted the diaper around her waist and then closed it by means of fastening tapes. Then she was given a customary orange jumpsuit and slipped into it without further protests. As Kari slipped into it, she noticed the left leg on the uniform was cut away from beneath the knee. Her inquisitive look spoke volumes so Roberta explained it to her:
- I know, dear… It’s for the electrode. So there’s less fuss about attaching it in there…
Kari swallowed hard and resigned herself. After the uniform was on, the matrons reattached the heavy restraints to her wrists and ankles. Roberta bent over to lay the flip flops she had brought from the condemned cell for her to wear upon return. While Kari slipped into them, the nurse pressed her shoulder in a silent goodbye and then the matrons took her back to her cell. While being escorted down the hall, Kari felt mortified to hear the embarrassing sounds the diaper made when brushing against the coarse fabric of the loose jumpsuit. Discreetly, she glanced at her shadow on the concrete wall and realized the lump around her backside was clearly visible: everyone would notice she was diapered when she sat on that awful chair!
Upon being returned to her cell, she was not released from her restraints and quickly understood she was intended to keep them until her execution. Both Roberta and Alexia seemingly felt relieved she asked no questions about it. The bald French woman just sat silently on her cot and stared at the floor, knowing there was nothing she could do but wait to be taken to the instrument of her execution.
She didn’t have to wait long. In less than 20 minutes, hurried footsteps down the hall announced the coming entourage that was going to take Kari to the chair. The matrons lifted her by the arms, made her stand and walked her outside, handing her over to a couple of burly male guards.
- Goodbye, Kari… God bless you.
- Be brave, hon.
- Adieu, mes dames. Merci pour tout.
And the march began, slowly because the condemned woman was hampered by the heavy restraints, forcing her to drag on her flip flops. Adding to the humiliating sound of the fabric against the diaper, the missing left leg was as unbearable as her shaved bald head for the embarrassed prisoner. At the end of the hallway, a door opened, and Kari saw the ugly chair waiting for her, its straps dangling from it, waiting to hug her tight. In front of it, a window from which the customary twelve witnesses stared at her. Kari was paralyzed by shame and fear. Knowing this, the guards carried her forward, sat her down on the chair and began to tie the straps: two for each leg and arm and two for the chest. The guards were experts at the operation, releasing her from the metal restraints as they replaced them with the chair’s straps. They were not gentle while doing it, buckling the ends tightly and with no slack at all. The chest strap buckled under her breasts, standing them out under the orange fabric, making it evident to the witnesses that Kari was not wearing a bra.
One of the guards knelt and removed her flip flops, then rose Kari’s left leg and the dazzled condemned woman thought for a moment he's going to kiss her bare foot, but all of the sudden he started smearing conductive gel over her left calf before buckling the electrode and strapping it to the chair. The other guard stood behind her and smeared her bare scalp with a generous amount of gel before lowering the hideous helmet over her head. Instinctively, she tried to crouch to evade the headpiece, but before she realized, it was being buckled under her chin, pinning her head to the back of the chair. She was startled to feel the wet sponge inside the headpiece, dripping water down her forehead and temples. “Comme etre baptisee pour la mort”, she thought.
Suddenly the guards moved aside, and the warden approached her. He formally read the death warrant, into a microphone so that the witnesses could listen. But Kari didn't hear it, she was already very far, terrified that at any moment now the current would be turned on and surge through her body! He asked her if she had anything to say before the sentence was carried out. Kari looked at him, trying to articulate some words to say in English but could only blurt out “J’suis desolee”. Then a pair of hands came from behind her and slipped a leather gag across her lips. A sponge protuberance on the inside of it filled her mouth, immobilizing her tongue. The hands disappeared and Kari’s eyes travelled from one side of the execution chamber to the other to see where they went, but there they were again with another leather strap in front of her face. This one was different, larger, wider, with a triangle space to fit her nose through and two round pads on the inside, like two eyes, and she soon discovered that they served to cover them when the hands fastened it around her head.
Kari couldn’t talk anymore, she couldn’t see anymore, but she could hear footsteps moving away and when they did she felt the urge to plead for her life! Suddenly, she tried to explain, beg, ask for a few more moments, but all she could let out were pitiful moans! Her heart shot in her chest, her breathing quickened, and all the pores of her skin exuded sweat. In utter panic, she peed her diaper, fulfilling its purpose. She heard the sound of a switch being thrown and lightning flashed through her brain on that moment, showing her a whole range of different colors, even though her eyes were blindfolded. Her whole body seemed to burn as if she was tied to a stake and she desperately tried to move, to escape, but of course, she couldn't. Her toes curled, her fingers clasped the arms of the chair and her chest slammed against the tight torso straps. The current ran through her for half a minute before being cut off, letting her slump on the chair.
Her heartbeat was uneven, weak, but her brain was already gone, fried by the ravaging electricity. At the second shock, 45 seconds long, her body tensed up, but she no longer felt anything, her nervous terminals gone. Because of the incredible temperature her body had reached, her fluids boiled. Saliva foamed from her lips clasping around the gag, dripping down her chin under the mask. The blood vessels on her nose, standing through the orifice in the facemask, ruptured and rivulets of scarlet started running down the leather surface, adding to the saliva stains on the fabric over her breasts. Her eyes swelled on their sockets, only kept in place by the padded facemask: otherwise, they would have popped off beyond her eyelids. Finally, the last remnants of the enema solution inside her bowels were evacuated to the diaper as her sphincter gave way. A faint thread of smoke departed from under the headpiece, telling the execution team it’s time to cut the current again. This time, even before electricity was shut down, her heart had stopped once and for all.
Just in case they gave her a third jolt of 15 seconds, but it's just so the witnesses could see that Kari was indeed dead. A few more wisps of smoke came out from under the helmet and the calf electrode, but her body did not respond at all.
The witnesses were dismissed, and Kari was left to cool down for half an hour before being unstrapped and taken out of the chair. As the facemask was removed, her face was a pitiful sight: the once beautiful blonde had a burn mark on top of her head, her face was distorted by fear and pain, bulging eyes staring through open eyelids, bleeding nostrils and lips covered with dried foam, her mouth gaping and contorted as the gag was removed, revealing a protruding tongue. Roberta looked at the inside of the mask, stained with Kari’s dried blood and saliva, and announced she was taking it to the toilet to wash out all that dirt. Kari was taken to the morgue, undressed, her soiled clothes and diaper added to the plastic bag that came from her cell. Her poor naked body, with a noticeable burn mark also on her left calf, was washed and analyzed by the forensic team, everything done in accordance to the law, and then wheeled to the prison morgue.
Later that week, Kari Trules’ remains laid unclaimed inside a morgue drawer. A cardboard coffin was brought from the detention center’s warehouse and her nude corpse was laid inside it. Two bags of quicklime were sprinkled inside the coffin and then the lid was taped shut. She was buried in a corner of the prison’s cemetery, in a spot marked only with a numbered wooden plaque.
Kari Trules had paid for her crimes.

 

Following my Mistress

I am Kari, maid to Piedad, a noble lady who was caught spying for the barons on her foreign birth country. Unfortunately, my lady used me as a courier and I was found just as guilty as she was and we were both sentenced to death. But she, as a noblewoman, had the right to the sword and I as a maid must submit to the edge of the axe, or the rope.
I am waiting in my cell, sitting on a cot and in chains. Yesterday I said goodbye to my lady, she passed by my door and we shared a look and a touch of hands before she went out to die. She was beautiful, although defeated, she was proud of her fate and ready to die bravely at the scaffold. From my cell, I could hear the crowd jeering when they saw her head fall. I wish I could have seen it. But soon I will know how it is like.
Soon a strong man comes to the door of my cell, looks at me and orders the guards to open the door.
“You must know who I am by now…”
I look up at him:
“Yes, I know who you are, I saw you yesterday with my lady Piedad, and now you come for me, I suppose, because you will be my executioner, just as you were for her.”
“Yes, it is my job… They gave me the order, which was to execute two women. One of the nobility, with a sword and the other, a commoner. I came to talk to you, to tell you what you have to wear and how to prepare yourself.”
He hands me a linen tunic, white and simple like those worn by the shepherdesses of my hometown.
“You have to wear this.”
“Do you want me to change my clothes now? And my other clothes, should I give them to you?”
“Yes, go on, change…”
I take off all my clothes and after being naked I show myself to him. Now he can see my neck more closely, so he can see what kind of implement he could use.
“Lift your hair up and show me your neck… to see the girth of it.”
I grab my long hair and pull it to the top of my head, leaving my neck bare.
“So you can see my neck, headsman? It’s slender, it won’t give you much trouble, I hope...”
“Turn over, turn around…”
I obey. I feel his hand, callous from the contact with axe and sword, rope and wood, but I feel it tender on my back.
“It really is slender, but strong… Yes, a commoner’s neck, a life of service… You can let your hair down, I know what I’m going to use.” Suddenly, he stopped. “Do you know how you are going to be executed? Your mistress went with a sword, but you will not…”
“I am not a noble, like Milady Piedad, so I am aware that the gallows or the axe await me.” I secretly cringed at the thought of dancing above the crowd suspended by the rough rope, like I had seen commoners do!
“The king wants your head. That is why it will be with the axe.”
“If the king wants it, he will have it, sir… And it will be quick?”
“Yes, it will be quick, but you will have to stretch your neck well, keep still… Do you understand?”
“Yes, sir. Can I get dressed now?”
“Yes, go on...”
“Here are my clothes, sir, they are worth little but you will get some money for them. My leather slippers are almost new.”
“Thank you...”
“Should I go barefoot to the scaffold?”
“Yes, barefoot, and with your hair loose.”
“Would you like me to braid it, to make it easier?
“It is not necessary. I will set it aside when you bend to the block.”
Then the executioner cleared his voice and spoke in a more serious tone:
“It is customary for the condemned to forgive the headsman for his sad task…”
“You say you want forgiveness for my death...?”
“Yes. To keep my conscience clear, since I do not decapitate anyone for pleasure, I do it because it is my task. So I promise that I will do it as well as possible so that you do not suffer anything. It will be a clean death, without great pain, I promise you.”
Tears fill my eyes.
“Then kneel to receive my forgiveness...”
He does so, solemnly. I extend my right hand over his head and murmur:
“You have my forgiveness, headsman: I die for my sins, do not let them fall on you... God and my king, want it...” Then he stands up and I ask him: “Now, tell me, how did my mistress die?”
“When she walked to the scaffold, she went in a blood red dress. Against my directions, her hair was pinned up, revealing her neck and nape. She looked me in the eyes, with insolence, and forgave me too. She knelt and refused the blindfold on her eyes. She spoke to me clearly, asking me if her neck was right for my sword. I answered yes... it was perfect.”
I smiled slightly:
“She was very flirtatious... And then?”
“She said loudly... 'Executioner, cut off my head when you are ready!', she looked straight ahead, raised her neck, stretching it as best as possible and waited for me to finish my job and her life. I took my double-bladed sword, placed it in the middle of her neck, touching it very lightly, I saw how he shivered, I brought it back, and with a swing I pierced through the nape, cutting through muscle, bone and skin, in one blow. The head stayed still on the neck for one moment and then fell slowly, until it rolled on the wood of the scaffold. The body fell to the left side, shaking for a short while. I grabbed the head and I lifted it up and showed it to the people. As customary, I pointed it was the head of a traitress.”
“I am amazed! You must be very talented. Thank you for telling me the truth. Three more questions, please...”
“What do you want to know?”
“Is it true that her head is placed on a spike at the Traitors’ Gate?”
“Yes, by order of the king I put it there. Yours will also go next to her, the spike has already been placed.”
“Then that answers my second question... I know that as a commoner, my body will be
thrown into the mass grave, but I would like to ask you that my head accompany my mistress’s in our deserved end. Please, make sure that my head remains next to hers, although a little lower, of course... And finally, one more question. Please forgive me, but I am a woman, weak-willed and I do not have the courage that my mistress had... So I ask you to blindfold me when the time comes...”
“I will do so, do not worry.”
“So if I can, let me gather myself in prayers and at the appointed time I will be ready to follow you and deliver myself into your hands...”
“Yes, I will come for you a little after dawn.”
“See you soon, headsman...” I knelt down and try to make peace with God. Time passes slowly. In my devotion I pray for the soul of the executioner, that God forgive him for his many deaths, for his strong arm and accurate blow.
I see the sun rising through the bars of my cell. The time is coming. I release my hair as the headsman ordered. I have no comb so I use my fingers to straighten it a little and I am finishing it when the door opens and the headsman enters: I stand, amazed by his appearance. Before his mask and black suit, leather gloves and jackboots, I am just a fragile woman, barefoot and dressed in a condemned woman's white tunic. A dove in front of a crow.
But I react and offer him my hands:
“Should I be tied?”
“No, even if you resist you will be easily subdued.”
“I surrender myself to your hands, headsman, take me out to die.”
The headsman grabs my arm and says:
“Your time has come. Go ahead of me, walk to the central courtyard.”
“Yes, executioner...” I walk out of my cell. It takes me a little while to get out of that place. Then I walk down the corridor, as if in a dream... To the left and right, more cells, behind them, other unfortunates await their turn, to go to the gallows or the block... Like me. I go out into the light of day, to the central courtyard. I turn to the right, look back, he shows me the way. He puts his hand on my shoulder and for the first time, I shudder.
There is the scaffolding platform! I am going to see the block! I feel the touch of his hand:
“Go up the stairs. Go up, don't stop.”
With my hands, I raise the tunic a little as I climb up so as not to trip on it. My naked white legs and bare feet show as I go up the steps. My loose blonde hair moves in the wind. The axe is next to the block... all around there is a lot of straw and the basket where my head will fall. I look back again, as if looking for the headsman. He says to me:
“Stand on the straw, next to the block. Here, come.” He stops me in front of the block. I look at that terrible piece of wood, riddled with cuts, each of them meaning a life taken from this world.
“Must I kneel now, headsman?”
“Yes, now.” I obey him. The straw softens the contact of my knees with the hard wood of the scaffold a little. Under my tunic, my bare soles peek out, a little dirty from the walk from the dungeon. He comes up behind me and I feel his hand run along my neck and back, his touch as tender as a lover’s caress. He grabs my hair and pulls it over my left shoulder, leaving my neck exposed to the fatal blade. Then he says to me:
“With your permission, lass, a small indiscretion is needed for everything to go well… I must bare your shoulders…”
“Do it, headsman.” I answer, without hesitation. “I give myself into your hands, headsman… I am yours. Do it, please.”
Without another word, he slides his fingers under the collar of my tunic and with a single tug he tears it open until my neck is bare down to my shoulders. I blush when I realize that the slightest carelessness could expose my breasts now… and that is probably what will happen. With a shiver I ask him:
“Executioner, before the blindfold… show me the axe that will end my life!”
Without a word, he nods and takes the fatal instrument from underneath the straw to show it to me. I look at it, dazzled.
“May I… kiss it?”
“Yes, try how sharp it is!”
“No… I don’t want to cut myself, sir. I believe your word.” I plant a humble kiss on the cold metal blade. “Thank you sir, I appreciate it. It will do for me, by the way. Tomorrow I will be with my mistress!”
True to his promise, the headsman places the white cloth bandage over my face, covering my eyes, from nose to forehead.
“Ready?”
“Yes…” I lean forward, stretching my neck across the block and pressing my chin into the edge, my head just above the straw basket. I grip the stump with both hands, so as not to be tempted to run away, as if it were my last lover, as if my life depended on it. I hear the silence and know that I am close to the end. As I try to position myself better, I feel my tunic loosen and move past my shoulders, leaving my breasts bare, crushed against the wood of the block, but that shame no longer matters. The only thing that matters now is to die well.
“Don’t move…”
“Yes…” My voice trembles… “Goodbye, executioner…” My skin crawls as I feel the touch of the blade, rehearsing the blow. In my last moments I occupy my mind with prayers but… as I feel the touch of the blade on my neck, one last thought passes through my head: in a moment, the blade I kissed is going to penetrate me! My neck is totally exposed to the axe… I feel fear, but I hold on… And I wait for the blow!
The axe falls on my neck with a whistle, its blade cutting through skin, muscles, and bone in one go. The blow, I barely felt. My head rolls and falls into the basket, with a thud. My body rises on its knees, frightened, the stump of my neck gushing blood from the severed veins, staining with scarlet threads the breasts that in the meantime have become bare to the view of the crowd. Then it collapses on the platform and remains still, suffering from one tremor or another, while it bleeds slowly.

Epilogue:
That same night my head was stuck on a spike next to my Mistress, above the Traitors' Gate. I think I looked very well on the spike: my open eyes looked towards the horizon, while down in the streets below the subjects went about their business, and my long blonde hair contrasted with the fine, black locks of my Mistress. My Mistress's poor head had, it is true, a special place, for she was of noble birth, and she also maintained the same majestic bearing that had beautified her in life, but the crows had already devoured her eyes. She had beautiful dark eyes, but the heads of traitors always end up as food for the crows, and they, i tis known, always start with the eyes. Now all that peers from her ashen face are two bloody holes. The next day, it was the crows' turn to feast on my faded blue eyes... However, long after our noses, ears, and lips had been devoured, and the rain and sun had dried our skin, those who passed below in the streets could still see the two patches of hair, one dark and the other blond, dancing in the north wind that whistles between the spikes.

 

Thank you. Beautiful. But why doesn't the executioner in the next story use his ancient right to have sex with the condemned woman on the eve of her execution?

 

Quote by vadim59

Thank you. Beautiful. But why doesn't the executioner in the next story use his ancient right to have sex with the condemned woman on the eve of her execution?

would be greeat to read something like that

 

Could be fun

 

Kari, excellent stories.

My favourites are the Holloway hanging, very well written, and the two electric chair stories.

The hanging is the best of them all, because I love stories that stick to real historical settings, and your story does almost perfectly matches the real accounts (the only poetic freedom you took being her legs drawn up after the drop, which did not happen in modern hangings, but it is a matter of tastes).

The EC stories in their non-fantasy parts are also gripping and excellent.

It is not a problem to draw inspirations from other authors, if the inspiration is good.

 

Thank you.

I'm glad you enjoyed them. They were written for a friend but we decided to share.

K

 

Kari in Changi Prison, Singapore
© Piedad Descalza

Kari barely slept that night, she just lay on her mattress and stared at the ceiling, wondering about how wrong her life had gone. That travel to the Far East was a pleasure trip until she met Ravi, who charmed her and convinced her to earn a few thousand pounds by taking a package along with her to Singapore. Kari was not stupid, she knew it was drugs, but what the hell, it would allow her to stay in Bali for months, enjoying the beaches! Besides, it was hidden inside the lining of her luggage, what were the chances of the authorities spotting it? But inexplicably, they did…
Drug trafficking in Singapore draws the mandatory death penalty, so for her desperation Kari did not stand a chance, even being a french national and an EU citizen. The overwhelming evidence made it possible that she was quickly sentenced and sent to a special wing in Changi Prison. She stayed there in total isolation, in a 3x3 meters cell, with no furniture but a mattress serving as a bed, a bucket for washing up, and a squat toilet in a corner of the space. The front of the cell was a sequence of steel bars from ceiling to floor, allowing her little privacy when she needed to use the toilet or wash herself intimately. With time, the french woman had foregone illusions of doing anything privately. The tropical heat made her white cotton uniform, consisting of a loose t-shirt and trousers, more than enough. The prison issued her a pair of cheap plastic sandals, but she only wore them when she was taken out of her cell, either for a shower, a visit from her lawyer or a short exercise in the isolation yard. But those were rare occasions.
Despite the several months of boredom and angst she had endured since sentencing, things had changed in the last week: suddenly the kitchen personnel allowed her to make requests and prepared special plates for her. Also, a small trolley with a TV set was rolled to the front of the bars on her cell and after such a long period of apathy, she could binge on any programs she wanted, provided that the content was not disturbing or crime-related. The french prisoner knew why they were suddenly so considerate and caring for her: the day of her execution was nearing. The isolation and the lack of a calendar made her lose notion of time, but the warden had met her a few weeks ago and told her the execution was scheduled for a certain date, so this must it. Any day soon they would come for her.
An inmate that served as the prison hairdresser paid her a visit at the urge of the matrons. Kari had to be manacled not to take advantage of her tools and hurt herself or the ones surrounding her. The chinese prisoner was nice and talkative and they chatted while Kari had her nails and toenails cut. Then, the young beautician got a set of scissors and proceeded to cut Kari’s blonde above the jaw line. No explanation was given, or asked for, and the hairdresser went away with a wish of good luck to her.
Both matrons that kept a watch on Kari announced that she would have a visit soon, which excited her. She was escorted to the visitation cell in emotional turmoil, expecting to see her mother, but was instead greeted by an elderly nun known to visit prisoners sentenced to hang. The kind lady saw the disappointment in Kari’s eyes as she nearly cried of frustration, but still they remained talking much beyond the time allowed by regulations. Kari felt relieved she was not pushed any religious stuff, instead the nun just talked about courage and resignation. Kari asked her what day was this, and realized by the date given by the nun she was on the eve of her execution. That’s when she broke down and cried.
Returned to her cell, Kari watched a score of meaningless tv shows and eventually grew uninterested and slumped back on the mattress. But as stated, she was barely able to sleep that night.
The next morning came and before long, the matrons announced the arrival of the warden, an hindu man dressed in uniform. Kari winced when she saw him. He politely asked how she was today and she shrugged silently. Then he took the death warrant from his pocket and began to read in a solemn tone:
- Kari Trules, you were found guilty of trafficking in forbidden substances in an amount statutory for the death penalty. Your case having been reviewed and no reason for lenience having been found, the sentence is upheld by the Court and is today to be executed as prescribed by law. And May God have mercy on your soul.
Kari just stared intensely at him at first and then felt a chill up the spine. She laid her face on her hands and began sobbing, then raised her eyes towards the warden and asked in a pleading voice:
- Is there any chance I get a pardon? A reprieve, even?
The warden lowered his eyes and shook his head awkwardly.
- I am sorry, Miss Trules.
She curled into a ball on her mattress and turned to the wall. She was left alone and spent some time facing the reality of her situation. The matrons assigned to her returned bringing her a light breakfast. Kari reacted to this and nibbled at it at their encouragement but soon said she was not hungry.
Next the matrons brought a screen and a package that Kari could tell had been sent by mail. The matron with the hijab opened the package and started taking out the contents: a white blouse, a black skirt, black pumps, dark pantyhose and underwear set, black bra and thong. After a short hesitation, the muslim matron exchanged words with the other one and the pumps and pantyhose were returned to the package. All the rest was handed to Kari.
- Your loved ones sent you this. Wear them.
The poor french woman shuddered with emotion, understanding her family had purchased her favorite sort of clothes and shipped them to the prison authorities. Under the vigilance of the matrons, Kari undressed completely and put on the clothes. In a way she felt really good about exchanging her shabby prison uniform for proper, smart clothes. The blouse sat nicely on her, it was the finest thing she had tried since her trial. When she finished getting dressed, the hindu matron activated the camera on her cell phone and persuaded the condemned to pose for her:
- It’s for your family, Kari… take heart and cooperate. They will be thankful…
I was difficult to look smart and relaxed in front of the screen, while the matron took a few shots. The matrons encouraged her to smile, but she could barely manage due to the circumstances, and when she could, the dark circles under her eyes and the tired look betrayed her dismay. When the somber photo session ended, the matrons showed Kari the photos they had taken from her. Kari felt grateful they had some notion of style and took them all in portrait format, avoiding the awkwardness of showing she was barefoot during the whole session. The islamic matron then ordered Kari to strip once again and give back her clothes for storage, which outraged her.
- But… you’re not letting me keep this?
- No chance, Kari, those clothes are to be sent back to your family with the photos we just took of you. If you wear them… we cannot send them.
Reluctant and frustrated, Kari undressed for the second time and again donned the depressing prison uniform, realizing she was going to die in it, after all. The matrons returned the clothes to the package, placed it on the kart with the television set and rolled it out of the hallway. A few moments later they returned, entered her cell and gently pulled her up and made her face the wall. Before the surprised Kari could react, they had cuffed her hands at the back and were taking her out of her cell.
- Hey, what’s the matter…?
- Stay calm, Kari. – said the woman with the hijab – This will take but a few moments.
Kari was taken down the hallway towards a gate at the end. The hindu matron tapped on it twice and immediately it slid open with a screech that startled the poor prisoner. The gate led to a small room where the warden, the elderly nun and two male guards were waiting around a second gate on the opposite wall. The matrons made the startled Kari advance to the middle of the room and, with a hint of compassion in their voices, patted her shoulders while making way for the male guards to escort her:
- Selamat tinggal, Kari.
- Be brave, Kari.
The male guards held Kari with a firmer grip. Their imposing presence caused her to sheepishly cower in their midst. The warden spoke:
- Miss Kari Trules, it is time. Do you have any last words before the sentence is carried out?
Kari had rehearsed a statement in her mind time and time again but fear had erased it from memory, so her confused brain could only produce words of regret:
- I… sorry… I truly… - she hesitated – J’suis desolée… vraiment desolée… Je demande pardon pour ce que j’ai fait!
The warden nodded and one of the guards pulled a black hood over her head, leaving the poor frightened woman completely sightless to the rest of the process. The gentle nun started praying in a low toned voice and the second gate was slid aside, revealing the gallows room beyond it: it was a well-lit, white painted cell with a black painted wooden trap on the floor and a noose hanging above it, a heavy metal lever a few steps away. The hangman, a malay middle-aged man, waited by the trapdoor.
Kari’s eyes darted around inside the hood, trying fruitlessly to make out what was happening through the small holes on the fabric. The angst of not knowing exactly what was going on made her hyperventilate and sweat profusely. The guards half carried her, half pushed her, to the trapdoor, made her stand there and kept her in place while the hangman crouched behind her to tightly strap her ankles and then her knees together. In the meantime, the matrons remaining in the other room slid the gate close, blocking the sight of what was to happen from themselves and the still praying nun.
The hangman stood in front of the hooded woman and, grabbing the thick noose, slid it across her head and snugged it around her neck, placing the rubber washer under her left ear. Kari gasped at feeling the thick rope around her neck, and the nervous shock made her lose control of her bladder instantly, a yellow stain growing in her groin. Losing no time, the hangman grabbed the lever, releasing the safety switch, signaling both guards to retreat from the trapdoor and, when satisfied they had done it, pulled on it with both hands. The trapdoor fell and Kari plummeted through it, her terrified scream muffled by the mighty clash, only to be cut short when she reached the end of her rope, halting her drop and knocking her head to the side. The guards at the edge of the pit looked down and saw her strapped legs kicking wildly in the throes of agony, tossing her cheap sandals down to the cement floor beneath her. After a few seconds she stopped kicking and just hung from the swinging rope, suffering a few spasms and quivers.
The hangman and his team left the room and locked it from the outside, observing the regulation hour, after which they returned to process Kari’s body. The hangman carried a stepladder and raised it parallel to Kari’s hanging corpse, ordering one of his rubber-gloved assistants to climb and release her from her straps, then strip her from her clothes. The guard proceeded to the operation: first he unlocked the handcuffs, letting the hanged woman’s arms hang limp from the sides of her body. Then he unbuckled the knee and ankle straps, delivering them to his partner after sealing them inside a bag, since they were wet with urine. Afterwards, with the help of a pair of scissors, he cut open the shirt and pulled it out of her torso, exposing Kari’s 75B breasts. Throwing the ruined shirt down to the floor, he descended a few steps and cut the urine-stained trousers with precision, letting them fall down as well. Finally, a more delicate business: as he cut off Kari’s underwear, the smudged interior was revealed. Kari had shat herself on the rope, it was nothing unheard of. So he slipped the underwear carefully and threw it on the pile of clothes on the floor. His colleague on the floor wrapped all the rags into a ball and threw it into a black bag for incineration.
Both assistants then stepped aside while the hangman connected a hose to a faucet on the wall and proceeded to wash Kari’s still suspended body, with special attention to her legs, groin and backside, taking all the excrement down and pushing it into a drain hole on the floor. Kari swung naked in the pit, all wet and dripping, wearing nothing but the hood and the noose, but at least her butt was now clean.
In the meantime, one assistant had gone upstairs to the gallows room and used a block and tackle to descend Kari’s corpse by the hanging rope. The executed french woman was laid on the wet floor and the hangman expertly unfastened the noose from around her neck. At his order, the now loose noose was hoisted back to the gallows room to be used in an upcoming execution. With careful respect, the hangman removed the dark hood to reveal the effects of death by long drop hanging: Kari’s head hung limp from her bruised neck, twisted in an absurd angle, her lips frozen in an unnatural grimace and her chin stained with dried saliva. Her complexion had turned blueish, and her eyes were half open, with a sleepy expression. A protrusion on the skin of the neck showed where her vertebrae had snapped and the hangman announced in malay it had been a clean fracture.
A metal gurney was rolled to the pit and Kari’s poor naked body was placed in it, next to the black plastic bag with her soiled clothes, and all were transported to the prison crematorium. In a few hours her ashes would be in a sealed pot, ready to be shipped to her family in a box with her printed photos and the outfit they had bought for her at the prison’s request.

 

I love these stories, thanks for that

 

Kari meets the widow
© Piedad


The sun had just risen. The door to Kari's cell opened and the two matrons entered the cubicle. Before Kari could awake, they rushed to her bed and shook her arm.
- Kari. Kari, wake up.
The woman rose from the bed, rubbing her eyes and yawning. Then, scratching her blonde hair, she looked at both matrons without understanding.
- Are we off to mass? Is it Sunday again?
The matrons shook their head silently and one of them, the eldest, spoke gravely:
- It’s not that, girl. Your time is up.
Kari’s expression turned from confusion to shock, and the matrons patted her shoulders with sympathy. The young woman started crying and whimpering and the women, used to her company after spending months on watch over her, sat down for a moment and hugged her compassionately. When Kari finally calmed down a little, they helped her out of bed, made her stand and started helping her out of her nightgown and into a set of clothes they had brought: a white long-sleeved shirt, a long dark skirt and a pair of thigh-high wool stockings. The youngest matron helped her into the stockings and finished by placing a pair of felt bedroom slippers on her feet.
Then the older matron brought a tray with a bowl of coffee and a thick slice of buttered bread. Kari accepted the coffee but refused the bread.
- I can’t bring myself to eat it. Offer it to Florence in the next cell.
The matron shrugged and did as she said. As Kari finished the coffee, the matrons advised her to prepare herself and then left, making way for the chaplain, who came to comfort Kari. He talked briefly but softly to her, asking for her to sincerely repent and to resign herself to her punishment when the time came to be led to the scaffold. Kari confessed her faults and asked forgiveness for her sins, and then the chaplain absolved her and offered himself to make her company until they came for her.
Time was running short for the condemned woman. A couple of guards entered the cell, one of them coming forth and placing a big pair of scissors on the small table while the other made the prisoner stand and cuffed her hands at the back, leading her to a stool brought purposely for the task. Kari was made to sit and the first guard started clipping her blonde hair really short, a bit above her ears, in a way its length would leave her neck totally bare. To finish off these preparations, the guard used the same scissors to cut away the shirt’s collar, leaving her shoulders further exposed.
After her haircut had finished, the younger matron came in and offered Kari a shot of rum, which the poor woman drank quickly once it was raised to her lips. Then, they all remained silent for a while and Kari was about to ask what was the motive for this wait when a tall man, with top hat and long coat, entered and said:
- Mademoiselle, I am the court representative and it is my duty to read the sentence to you before it is executed. - he took a piece of paper and read: - Kari Trules, you were considered guilty by a court of law of the murder of your lover, Maurice Pond, and you are therefore sentenced to be put to death on the guillotine, your head being severed from your body and thus suffering natural death. May God have mercy on your soul! Have you something to say before the sentence is executed?
Kari spoke, her voice trembling with anger:
- You completely ignored that he was beating and abusing me! You are killing me for defending myself! Vous etes des salauds!
All had been said, it was time to go. The walk to the guillotine must commence. The two guards stood by the sides of the condemned and got hold of her arms, standing her up and preparing to lead her out of her cell. Kari tried to compose herself as much as she could, knowing that she would not get the chance to walk on her own to the guillotine. The matrons crossed themselves and whispered a prayer when she was led out of the cell and walked past them with a glance of goodbye. Preceded by the chaplain, chanting psalms, the cortege went down a low-lit corridor towards the gate to the courtyard. Kari walked between the two guards, her eyes gazing at the end of the hallway, her nerves starting to break down. Nothing could have prepared her for what she saw in the courtyard.
There was a considerable crowd of curious people gathered in a corner of the courtyard, waiting to see the criminal die. They all turned their heads to see the misfortunate woman appear, under escort, but Kari's eyes saw nothing but the blade suspended over the lunette. Suddenly, she stopped and looked down with a whimper: a large stain was darkening her skirt, wetting down her thighs and forming a puddle around her slippers. It was not the first time a condemned woman peed herself in fright on her way to the guillotine. The spectators noticed the growing stain in her clothes and scornfully commented on that shameful display of fear. The guards compelled Kari to walk on to the horrible machine. There, two men in top hats and black long coats awaited her: the executioner and his assistant.
The guards dragged the terrified woman to the instrument of her death. When she was being led to the upright bascule, she noticed a coffin-shaped wicker basket placed by its side. It was full of straw and sawdust. “That's meant to soak my blood...”, thought Kari. This realization toppled off what little was left of her bravery.
- NON, PAR PITIÉ, NE ME FAITES PAS ÇA! JE VOUS EN PRIE, JE NE VEUX PAS! AYEZ PITIÉ, JE NE VEUX PAS MOURIR!
Chilling as they were, her screams were ignored by the execution team. Kari was pushed against the bascule and strapped tightly to it at the shoulders, thighs and ankles. Then, the executioner and his assistant tilted the bascule to its horizontal position and made it slide to the lunette.
- AYEZ PITIÉ, MESSIEURS, AYEZ PITIÉ! JE VOUS EN PRIE!
Kari saw the opened lunette getting near and a hand that grabbed her blonde hair and raised her head to avoid being hit by the lower part. Once past it, she felt the upper part being lowered and bolted by the executioner. Her teary blue eyes looked down and saw the basket filled with straw, waiting to soften the fall of her beautiful head.
- NOOON NON, NE ME COUPEZ PAS LA TÊTE! PAS MA TÊTE! NOOON, NO***
Kari was still screaming for mercy when the executioner released the blade and it rushed down the sliding posts, slicing through Kari's nape, vertebrae and windpipe. The unhappy woman's head immediately fell into the basket, while her buttocks, despite the tight straps, humped back in a shudder of death, and the twitching of her stocking feet made the wet slippers fall to the ground.
Kari felt herself tilting onto the basket and in a split second she was surrounded by straw. For a moment, she didn't understand what had happened to her, but just for a moment. Then, as soon as she realized, she felt her head spinning, the world turned dark, and she slipped into oblivion.
The executioner's assistant freed the body from the straps and rolled it into the wicker basket, followed by the wet slippers thrown randomly inside. Meanwhile, the executioner took the head from the straw, grabbing it by a fistful of hair and showing it to the crowd. Kari’s blue eyes were half open, in an awkward sleepy expression, and her parted lips exposed her white teeth. Some high society ladies came forward to soak their handkerchiefs with the blood that still dripped from the condemned's head, each of them tipping the executioner with a silver coin. Then the executioner placed the head inside the wicker basket, between the corpses' feet, and closed the lid over it.
Kari was buried later that day, in an anonymous grave, at the prison cemetery.

 

I appreciate the way that Kari was screaming when her pretty head was chopped off.

 

Quote by Danny Lapince

I appreciate the way that Kari was screaming when her pretty head was chopped off.

Thank you. It seemed appropriate for the occasion

 

Indeed it was.

Kari

 

WOW! the story "Following my mistress" was simply Perfect! as a beheading fan, I prefer it over "Kari meets the widow" because the more personal touch of an executioner wielding his tools over the mechanic perfection of the guillotine. And also loved the heads being propperly displayed, a must when you claimed such beautiful trophies (when mounting them in a wall is not available

 

But what I like the most is the interaction and collaboration between you two, girls.... that gives a special (and arousing) touch that is really hard to find.
Thanks for sharing your works and keep writing!

 

Quote by Robert

But what I like the most is the interaction and collaboration between you two, girls.... that gives a special (and arousing) touch that is really hard to find.
Thanks for sharing your works and keep writing!

thank you so much Robert. the best thing is this cooperation came out naturally as we began to chat

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