Witchseekers

Part 9 - Mele

       The first thing I wonder about Mele Sasagi is her lineage.

       I chastise myself at once for the speculation.  It isn't important.  So she has brown skin; a witch is a witch, and the evil of witchcraft can be found anywhere on Earth.  She may be African American, Native American, Indian, Asian; hers is a generic-exotic beauty.

       She is in her mid twenties.  A petite girl, barely five-foot-two, with black ringleted hair, large, dark eyes, striking bold eyebrows, high cheekbones and a flash of pure-white teeth whenever she speaks.  Small-breasted and slender, but with a soft feminine shape to her naked limbs, she has, of course, attracted the interest of the guards; but they have all been warned of the consequences of  inappropriate behaviour.  Witches are dangerous, and wield sex as a powerful weapon against men.

       Mele's wrists are manacled together behind her back with iron when she is brought in to the torture chamber, her eyes wide with fear.  Conventional wisdom is that a witch, when secured in iron, cannot cast a spell.  Certainly in my experience, no manacled witch has ever been able to work magic and free herself.

       She is surrounded by four guards, grim-faced and armoured.  A fifth man, a scribe, holds his clipboard and pen, briefed to carefully not every word spoken, every action taken.

       Mele is obviously very aware of her predicament.  Her almost-black eyes fill with tears as she looks around the torture chamber.  It is made to instil fear, of course; interior designers planned every impenetrable shadow, every ghastly stain, every slimy trickle of water down the musty stone walls.  The torches that flutter and flap in their high iron brackets are placed so that they barely illuminate the machines of persuasion, making them appear all the more gruesome and formidable. 

       Fear is seldom enough to extract the Truth from a witch, however.  All are aware of the consequences of being revealed, and a witch will always lie to save herself, until pain strips away any interest in self-preservation and she is compelled to give the evidence that will convict her.

       That doesn't mean that I shouldn't give her a chance. 

       "Welcome, Mele," I say simply, after she has stood for a time, wide-eyed and uncertain.  I pronounce her name melleh, which I understand to be the correct way of shortening her full name, Meleana.  She doesn't seem to appreciate it, looking at me with an expression close to panic.

       "Please, how long have I been in here?"

       "Does it matter?" is my response.

       "I want to go home."

       "That won't be possible."

       Her lip begins to tremble.  "Never?"

       "Never," I say.  "This is your new home.  As unpleasant as it is."

       "But É what did I do?"

       "Mele, you know what you 'did.'  You are a witch."

       "A witch?  No!!"

       "Prepare her for inspection," I say.

       Manacles dangle on a long chain operated by a winch in an open space of the chamber.  Mele is taken over to them; on sight, she begins to struggle and protest.  "What are you going to do?  You can't do this!!"

       But she is held firmly and her wrists are uncuffed from behind her back, only to be fixed, instead, in the cold, heavy iron of the dangling manacles.  With her wrists locked in them, she can only regard her own floppy hands glumly as one guard goes to the winch that will wind in the chain.

       Mele's arms are slowly drawn over her head.  As they are drawn straight, her body extends to accommodate; her breasts and ribcage rise, her back stretches out.  Her heels lift off the floor, until she is standing on tiptoes, much of her weight supported by her manacled wrists.  Between her upstretched arms, her face shows the discomfort and humiliation.

       "That is far enough," I say.  Any higher and she will be hanging by  her wrists.

       Next, the spreader-bar.  A necessary tool in the inspection.  It is an iron bar, three feet long, with a shackle at either end.  The guards draw Mele's slender legs apart - for such a small woman, it is an uncomfortable spread, and she has to stretch her feet to get her toes on the stone floor. 

       The inspection of a witch is a task which must be taken seriously indeed.  Too often I have seen men in this role simply start pawing at a woman's breasts or probing between her legs in an uncoordinated mauling that has nothing to do with inspection and everything to do with getting a good grope.

       My approach is methodical, slow.  I begin with her upstretched arms, trailing my fingers down as an aid to the visual inspection, stopping at any slight blemish or mole, and determining that it is not a mark of Satan, before continuing.

       Mele has been imprisoned for several weeks, denied clothing or any means of personal grooming.  A dark fuzz has grown in her armpits, which must be a dire humiliation to a woman as image-conscious as  she is.  No matter; chained as she is, she can't lower her arms and hide it, and I brush my fingers over the soft fur as my inspection continues; but there are no marks.

       Mele's breasts, although small, carry some weight, and on her raised ribcage have a fetching teardrop shape.  Her aureole are broad, milk-chocolate circles peaked by fat brown nipples that have hardened in the dungeon's chill.  My inspection of each breast is gentle, careful, missing nothing.  Then down her belly, soft but flat, to the gentle flare of her hips, the soft black pelt of her pubic hair.

       With her legs held widely apart by the spreader-bar, it is easy to inspect her; I kneel in front of her and briefly run my fingertips down the taut flesh of each inner thigh, then touch the softness of her brown vulva.  She actually gives a moan, and I look up in surprise; her eyes are closed, though whether it is in arousal or humiliation, I cannot tell.

       Her sex is unblemished, and I continue down the taut lines of her legs, to her petite, pink-soled feet.  There, just above her left ankle, is a small mark, which I note to the scribe.  It seems random in shape, but witch-marks can take on many guises.

       I stand, and this time inspect her back; lifting her woolly black hair aside and baring the nape of her neck, then following the ridges of her spine downwards.  There is a small mole just beside her left shoulder blade, and I note it carefully.  Mele's lower back follows a graceful arch to the swell of her tight brown buttocks.  Kneeling behind her, I inspect between, assessing the tight little star of her anus.  With legs held open by the spreader-bar, she cannot avoid my inspection; but there is nothing further to warrant suspicion.

       There are further matters we need to discuss, though.

       "Bring her down," I order.  "Return her to her cell, until I have decided how we should proceed with the investigation."

Mele's relief, knowing that she is not to be tortured, comes in an outburst of tears as she is taken from the chamber.

Mele Part 2

       Perhaps Mele Sasagi expected to be questioned while under torture; but there are alternatives.  Following accusations that my methods of inquisition are unsound, I have called a session of the Moral Court, so that the evidence might be presented openly and fairly.

       The courtroom in the Chateau is grand, its walls and furnishings made of timber, with an oval bench at which the Inquisitor may sit.  For this occasion, I have pulled out a set of judicial robes from the wardrobe of the Witchseeker General, and, adorned in their black finery, I take my place at the bench, my notes ready.

       When Mele is brought in, she is stark naked again.  Her arms are bound, but this time with rope, not iron.  The ropes are passed about her upper arms and torso, and then, by more rope, her wrists are lashed high in the middle of her back.  The effect is to fold her arms behind her, a most effective means of restraint.

       There are thirty or forty people in the court, observers as well as the court staff.  Mele stands, shy and exposed, naked before them all.

       "Meleana Sasagi, you understand why you are here?"

       "No, Ma'am," she says in a small voice.

       I clear my throat and turn to my papers.  "I have in front of me a report, made by an agent of the Witchseekers.  I will not name her here, because it is in the interest of ongoing investigations that she remain unidentified.

       "On August 29th this year, our Agent was at a nightclub known as 'The Beast Pit.'  I understand you are familiar with it, also?"

       "Yes, Ma'am," Mele says.

       "In fact, on the night in question, you were there, were you not?"

       Mele thinks for a moment, then nods.  "Yes, Ma'am."

       "What do you remember about that night?"

       "Not much," Mele says.  "Dancing É meeting people É just a normal night out."

       "Do you remember what you were wearing, that night?"

       "A É boob tube, I think, and a denim miniskirt.  Low heels.  Is that a crime?"

       I smile.  "No, I'm sure you looked very fetching.  Do you remember what you wore around your neck?"

       Mele shakes her head.

       "Our Agent maintains that, on that night, she approached you and began a conversation.  She complimented you on the item you wore and asked what it meant.  Do you remember, now?"

       Realisation.  Mele slowly nods.  "Yes."

       "What was it you wore?"

       "A pendant.  In the shape of a pentacle."

       "And what did you tell her it meant?"

       Mele looks awkward.  "I É told her it was an ancient pagan symbol."

       "Didn't you also tell her," I say, reading from my notes, "that it relates to Nature worship É but that it also represents the power of the female - of the Divine Goddess?"

       "I'm not sure," Mele says.  She is frightened, now.

       "Didn't you tell her, also, that it could be used as part of powerful magic spells?"

       "I was drunk!" Mele bursts out.  "I didn't know what I was saying!"

       "Didn't you tell her that it could be used for spells?"

       "Yes!  Yes, I did!"  Mele's eyes are wide with her growing fear, and she looks at the faces that surround her.  Naked, bound, and vulnerable, she has nowhere to hide.

       "What did you say next, Mele?"

       "I can't remember," Mele wails. 

       "Oh, I think you can.  I think you just don't want to admit it.  You told our Agent that you are a Witch."

       "No!  It's not true!" Mele shrieks at me.  The tears begin to run down her cheeks.  "I never said that, I didn't!"

       "We searched your apartment after you were brought here," I tell Mele.  "We found a book describing Pagan rituals and spells.  Do you know how it got there?"

       "It's not mine!  It belongs to a friend!"

       "Which friend?"

       Mele cannot answer, and shakes her head.

       "We talked to  your friends," I tell her.  "And they all said the book was yours.  If it belongs to someone we haven't questioned, tell us her name.  Tell us, and you could go free."

       "I É I can't," Mele sobs.

       "Let me guess why.  Because if you betray your witch friends, nobody will be able to rescue your spirit as you burn at the stake.  And you will die.  Am I right?"

       Mele gives no reply.  But that alone is enough to confirm her answer.

       I shake my head.  "Mele, the evidence here is sufficient for you to be burned as a witch.  But if you cooperate with us, your journey might be made easier.  Tell us the names of your sister witches.  Tell us how we might find them."

       Mele sighs heavily, and looks at me, her dark eyes now showing plainly her despair.  "No, I will  not."

       I give a not.  "Very well."  To her guards: "take her back to her cell, and in a few days I shall decide what to do next."

Mele Part 3

       

       It has been decided to question Mele further under public observation, in open court. This is an unprecedented move, but after being accused of unnecessary sadism in the torture chamber, I have decided that open scrutiny of my procedures should ease the public conscience.

       The set-up is simple; a single, long chain passed over a high wooden beam in the ceiling of the court, ending in open shackles.  Early morning, three hours before the proceedings are due to begin, Mele is brought in.  Still naked, her hands manacled behind her, the witch shuffles fearfully towards the dangling chain, her eyes looking to me for answers.

       But I say nothing to her, simply addressing the guards:  "Secure her," I say.

"Please, what are you going to do to me?" Mele squeals.  The guards unlock the iron manacles on her wrists, and at once she tries to pull her arms free; but they are grasped and held, and brought instead before her body.  Her slim wrists are enclosed in the iron shackles, which are locked tightly, trapping her hands.

A second set of shackles, heavy black iron joined by just a single link of chain, are placed around her ankles, locking her feet together.  This, to stop her kicking.  Finally, I nod to two guards holding the free end of the chain, which dangles down from the wooden beam overhead.

"No!" Mele squeals

The guards haul on the chain; it clatters over the beam, and draws on Mele's wrists, lifting her arms.  I can see from the tension of her muscles that she is trying to resist, but quickly her arms are pulled hard above her head, stretched up.  Just as she had been during her examination, Mele is quickly made helpless.  But this time, the guards haul again, and Mele's bare toes clear the flagstones of the courthouse floor.

"Uhh!!  Let me down!!"  Her voice sounds slightly strangled, her face compressed by the pressure of her arms on either side of it, her body elongated as she hangs.  Though her ankles are shackled together, she lifts her knees, swinging her legs about like a mermaid's tail, desperate to find some kind of relief from the pain in her manacled wrists.  But she cannot relieve it, and her legs drop to dangle freely again.  The guards fasten the chain's free end to an iron ring in the floor, leaving Mele swinging.  The chain creaks overhead.

"It hurts!" she complains.

"We will begin questioning at ten," I say, with a glance at my watch. 

Watched over by four guards, Mele is left to hang for two hours before the courtroom is opened to the public.  For the first hour, she struggles and sobs, twisting her body about, tugging one foot and then the other against the ankle-shackles, as if trying to walk in mid-air.  The definition of her arms' muscles tell of a battle to absorb her own weight.  To relax is to transfer her weight to ligaments, a hot and savage pain.

But as the first hour passes and the second creeps, minute by minute, her strength wanes.  Hanging by the wrists is as taxing as pulling weights in a gym, and soon, Mele is exhausted.  Her muscles fail her, her head droops forward onto her chest, and she is left dangling like a carcass.  The pain is obvious: a sheen of sweat glosses her dark skin, her defined ribcage shifts rapidly with shallow breath.

To Mele Sasagi, two hours must feel like a lifetime.  But finally, the doors are opened, and the public are allowed in.  I have already heard that some are critics of mine, and are determined to be horrified by what they see.  Others come with an open mind, simply wanting to know how the process of questioning might unfold.  And some, I know, are simply here to watch a young woman suffer.

Mele is a fetching candidate for that.  Her deep-coffee skin, smooth and flawless, oiled with sweat; her petite and slender body limply dangling.  Her deep-black, curly hair tumbling down her back, matched by the soft brushes of dark hair in her armpits, the tight thatch between her thighs.  Her breasts, lifted by the strain of her suspension, but still slightly weighted on her ribcage, heavy at the base, while her dark nipples jut into the air.

The murmur of voices, the curious remarks and observations from the gallery, cause Mele to finally lift her head.  I can only wonder how it must feel, to be the lone victim, hanging naked by her wrists, before an impassive audience.  It is more than just humiliation and helplessness, it is a kind of social rejection that must fill her with shame and despair.

At least, that is the ideal.

Even after the seats are full and the crowd is growing impatient, I wait.

Despite her lack of noise or movement, Mele is in pain.  The sheen of sweat over her body gets heavier, until it looks as if her brown skin has been smothered in coconut oil.  Her black hair clings to her back.  Every now and then, a fat droplet of perspiration slides down her ribcage from one armpit, or from beneath a breast, or drips from her down-turned face to splat on the floor below her dangling toes.  Being hung by the wrists for hours on end brings pain similar to that of the rack; a deep and intense ache in shoulders and elbows, and a hot, fiery pain along the ligaments and tendons that is bone-deep and crippling.

This is the beginning of breaking her resistance.

When I finally make my entrance to the courtroom, Mele has been hanging for more than three hours.  I have divested myself of the constricting judicial robes in favour of my favourite working outfit; my black silk baby-doll dress, shoestring shoulder-straps, backless but for a cris-crossing of slender straps, its hem flirting dangerously high on my bare thighs.  Interrogation can be hot work.  No jewellery, but simple slip-on shoes with one-inch heels.  It pays to be well presented.

There is a gratifying response to my arrival: a burst of conversation, then silence as two guards enter behind me, pushing a trolley laden with implements.  Its wheels rumble slowly on the stone floor.  The gallery sees what is laid out on the gurney before Mele does, as its approach is from behind her, but she twitches her toes and shifts her head weakly in distress, knowing that her ordeal is close.

The gurney is parked to her left, and Mele casts fearful eyes towards it.  It looks like the equipment array of a mad surgeon; all manner of clamps and pliers, corkscrews, pincers.  Several whips and crops.  A pear.  Thumbscrews and toe-screws.  And, on the bottom shelf, more than a hundred pounds of iron weights.

Mele gives a whimper.  There is a reaction from the crowd; some giggle, some coo in sympathy, so I raise my hands for silence.

"Order, please.  You are invited here today to witness a formal interrogation, which will be carried out in accordance with the standard rules and guidelines.  Some of what you see may be disturbing to you.  I remind you, however, that you are here simply to observe.  Please maintain a respectful silence, and if you wish to leave, do so quickly and quietly."

I cast my eyes across the gallery.  All eyes are fixed on me, and Mele dangling naked and shining beside me.  I nod, and turn to the prisoner.

"Mele.  Time to answer some questions."  Even suspended, the petite woman's face is only a little higher than mine, and I put my fingers under her chin, lifting her head so that she is forced to look at me.  "Just so that we are clear on this: I need to know the names of your sister witches.  Because you have chosen not to tell me, I have to torture you until you give them.  Do you understand?"

Her face framed by her upstretched arms, Mele's eyes fill with tears.  She shifts her shackled feet weakly, setting herself swinging, a reminder of her helplessness.  "I have nothing to say," she whispers.

I nod.  "Very well.  Torture, then."

Mele gives a sob, and the tears begin to roll down her cheeks, but she is hanging helpless and can only watch as I gather the first tools of interrogation.  The nipple clamps comprise of small, serrated jaws that open and close with the turn of a screw; but turning the screw also thrusts a spike the size of a knitting-needle forward.  As the jaws crush down on her nipple, so the spike will pierce its end and drive inwards.  The damage, initially, is minimal, but the pain is most intense.  Beneath each clamp dangles a small iron ring.

I do not explain this to Mele.  She will learn it soon enough.

I cup my hand under her right breast and feel its weight.  As I suspected from her breasts' teardrop shape, and the way they droop slightly on her chest, it is heavy and firm.  With my thumb I brush the chocolate disk of her areola, and the brown nub of her nipple.  In an involuntary response, her nipple stiffens a little.

Mele groans and clenches her teeth, tips her head back to look in despair at her own fettered wrists, by which she hangs.  She cannot even control her body's response to my touch.  My gentle nudges and tweaks of her nipple encourage it to grow, until it peaks her breast like a fat brown berry, half an inch erect.

I place the jaws of the clamp over Mele's nipple, and twist the screw.  She gasps and jolts the moment the teeth begin to close on her nipple, but I turn it again quickly, and her nipple is already trapped.  Mele twists from the manacles, reaching her toes for the floor and trying to tug her breast from my control, but I have her already.  Another turn of the screw closes the clamp's jaws hard onto her nipple, and the end of its spike jabs into her sensitive flesh; the pain is obvious, and Mele sucks her lip, still twisting in the manacles.

"Names, Mele.  Give me names," I say.  Mele says nothing, so I turn the screw again.  Her nipple is compressed and the spike drives deeper, its tip piercing crinkled brown skin.  A tiny droplet of blood appears.  Mele suppresses her shriek with a groan.  The muscles of her arms and the tendons through her dark armpits are taut with her efforts to endure.

I do not expect her to break easily anyway; not if she believes her soul will be lost forever if she betrays her sisters.  So I turn the clamp once, twice, three times.  On the third turn, Mele gives a high-pitched shout of pain as the jaws mash down onto her tender nipple, and the spike impales it by a quarter inch.  The pain is heavy and fierce, intense and focused, enough to bring new droplets of sweat over her helpless body.

"Oh - God, take it off!" she gasps.

"The names, Mele."

"I can't, I can't!"

I give the clamp one more turn, and Mele shrieks again.  As I turn to the implement table for the second clamp, she gives a wail.  "No-o-o!  Please don't do it!"

But her left nipple is as defenceless as the right, and she jolts in panic as, with fingers and thumb, I caress it into full engorgement, so that it sits swollen and firm atop her quivering breast.  The parted jaws of the clamp slide over her fattened nipple, their embrace gentle; but as I turn the screw and they crush down onto her nerve-rich flesh, the spike penetrating her nipple's core and sending pain deep into her breast, she squeals again.

"Oh God!  Stop!  Stop it!!"

"Give me the names of your sisters, Mele!" I demand.  "Tell me now!"

"No!  No!" Mele shrieks.

I twist the screw again, and the clamp crushes down.  Mele screams, then stifles her shrieks, but sobs freely with the pain in her breast.  Unlike a spring-closed clamp, the screw clamp can be closed with ever greater force.  I can, if I choose, destroy her nipples completely, causing immense agony in the process.

But, for now, I choose to minimise the damage.  Instead, I bend to the lower shelf of the gurney, and select out two melon-sized iron balls with hook attachments.  Each weighs ten pounds, and Mele's dark eyes fly wide with horror.

"Oh please - no!!"

I look into her eyes, seeing the anguished look on her sweat-clustered face, as I hook the first weight over the iron ring of the clamp on her right nipple.  "This is going to hurt a lot," I tell her simply.  "Give me the names."

"Ohhh!!!"  Mele pedals her feet desperately, casts her head back to stare up at her dough-lump hands, crunched hard into the manacles from which she hangs.  I take that as a 'no' and let the weight drop.

It thuds into her ribcage and stretches her nipple down as if it was made of rubber.  Mele gives a scream of pain, and renews her thrashing, but it only makes the weight swing, a heavy pendulum on her mashed nipple.  The added drag on her breast draws it down her chest.

She is so lost in pain, she doesn't even notice as I hook the second weight to her left nipple clamp and let it swing.  But its wrenching torture gets a response, a fresh scream, a scream whose pitch and timbre shows that the pain is beginning to wear her resistance down.  It is only a matter of time.  And application.

Mele swings about on her manacled wrists, squealing and sobbing, her breasts distended and drawn by the heavy iron balls that dangle off her stretched brown nipples.

"The names, Mele.  Give me the names," I remind her.

She groans, her brow furrowed, her white teeth bared as she shifts her head back and forth endlessly between her up-wrenched arms, helpless in the clutches of such pain.  No sign that she will betray her sisters yet.

I lift, from the trolley, heavy iron tongs.  The jaws are slightly ridged for grip.  They are simple, but brutal; their sole purpose is simply to squeeze and pinch soft flesh.  I fix my eyes on a target that few in the court would consider a viable one for torture.

Framed by the arch of her raised ribcage, the heaving hollow of Mele's solar plexus is soft brown skin on a bed of firmer muscle.  The sweat that runs on Mele's body follows the slight gully down its centre towards her navel, patterned by the nap of tiny hairs that make her skin like chocolate velvet. 

Mele is too distracted by the pain in her tortured nipples and breasts to express much dread as I step close to her.  Bracing one hand against her sweaty back, I push the tongs into the resistance of her upper belly, then crushing them closed.  A thick fold of her flesh is caught between the iron jaws, and as I squeeze, Mele gives a wail of pain.

"The names," I remind her.

"No, no, no," she breathes through her anguish.

I twist the tongs, corkscrewing her flesh, and Mele gives a long scream of pain.  The agony penetrates deep into her abdomen, spreading like fire through her organs as an interconnecting sequence of nerves is shocked awake by the savage twisting.  Mele kicks her feet, shrieking in pain as I turn the tongs in the opposite direction, her flesh twisting like toffee in the jaws of the tongs.  Her dark eyes are a storm of agony and confusion at the pain that suddenly overwhelms her, and the tears spill down her cheeks.  The heavy iron weights hanging off her stretched nipples knock against the tongs as I hold her flesh twisted, letting the heat and fire of the torture sear deep into her body.

Then, I release.  Deep claw-marks are impressed upon the smooth skin of her solar plexus, but I don't give her a chance to recover; again I grapple the tongs onto her flesh, crushing, and then twisting hard.  Another scream is driven from Mele's lungs as she feels the fiery tendrils reach deep into her body from the twisting action of the tongs.  With her flesh screwed almost a full three-sixty degrees, I simply hold it, while the pain radiates through her like a terrible heat.  Even her legs are shuddering, as if an electric current surges all the way down them, her toes fanned out as they swing back and forth above the flagstones.

Finally, Mele gives a whimper, and her head falls forward.  She has fainted.

I loosen the tongs and replace them on the implement trolley with just a glance at the watching crowd.  Some are surprised at Mele's intense reaction to the torture, but my techniques are well grounded.  Mele hangs limply from the shackles.

I circle the unconscious witch slowly.  The hair in her armpits is matted and wet.  Perspiration runs in a slow rivulet down the gully of her spine, from the saturated curls of her black-wool mane of hair, to the cleft of her buttocks.  I can smell her: the musky-tangy scent of naked skin and sweat and fear is a fragrance that no perfume could ever hope to capture.

Standing before her again, I slap Mele's face.  It is a sharp, hard, open-handed blow that cracks through the courtroom, and Mele stirs her feet almost instantly.  Then comes a long groan of agony, and her head lifts slowly.  The nightmare of her interrogation floods back to her.

"Lift her feet," I order one of the guards.

He catches the iron shackles about Mele's ankles, and lifts her legs up behind her, so that her pink soles face the ceiling.  She continues to mewl and weep in agony, and barely bothers to tug against his grasp, knowing now that she has no choice but to endure each torment as it is applied.

The device I gather from the implement trolley this time consists of two narrow, serrated iron bars brought together by a single threaded screw.  It is a simple matter to pass the device over Mele's two big toes, just beyond the knuckles, and then twist the screw so that the bars clamp lightly down.  Too late, Mele wriggles her toes and tries to tug her feet free, giving a wail of horror.

"Mele," I warn, and twist the screw again, "I want those names."  Another twist; the little bars press with ever-more force on the flank of Mele's toe-knuckles, and despite the agony in her tortured nipples and the ache of her solar plexus, she twists from her manacles, quickly discovering a new level of discomfort.

I turn the handle.  The toe-screw crunches down onto her toes.  Mele yelps as a wall of pain hurtles up her legs.  And that is just the beginning; another twist, and the little iron bars seem to be burying themselves into her brown toes, compressing flesh and tendon and bone.  Mele shouts in renewed pain.

"Names!" I call, and even as Mele is shaking her head, sending fresh rivulets of sweat down her brown back, I turn the screw once again.  She gives a new shriek of pain.  Another twist, and I hear a creaking sound, as the iron presses with immense force on bone.  The ends of her toes are rapidly turning purple.  Her legs are shaking.

I have my fingers and thumb on the turnscrew, looking at Mele's bare glistening back, the corrugations of her ribs rapidly shifting as she pants in panic and pain.  "Mele, give me a name, one name, and I won't turn it again."

Mele's only response is a high squeal of agony; but when I twist the screw, rewarded by the dull crack of her toe's knuckle fracturing, she instead screams with the full strength of her lungs.

I let her feet drop.  Still crying out with the  pain in her toes, Mele swings her feet forward, raising her knees towards her belly for a few seconds, as if she can somehow escape the pain ravaging her now-fractured toes.  But slowly her legs drop again, and she sobs in her anguish, returning to a fully-limp hang.

I turn towards the gallery.  I take a moment to scrutinise the many faces; some watch in awe, or perhaps distress.  Others have a peculiar intensity.  A few are smiling.  The only sounds are Mele's sniffling and whimpering, the creak-creak of the chain by which she hangs.

I say, "Ladies and Gentlemen, you have witnessed the preparatory stage of interrogation.  A subject with any degree of resistance is unlikely to break yet, but we have reached the stage at which she is quite overwhelmed by pain.  She can no longer focus her thoughts, retreat into her inner sanctum, nor draw on reserves of hope or courage.  She is growing weak, and any additional pain will quickly be beyond her threshold to endure.

"She will be left like this for another hour before the interrogation will resume, with a far greater intensity."

Mele Part 4

I sit at the Judge's bench and jot down my own notes, additional to those taken by the scribe and stenographer.  In the gallery, people are moving from their seats, some choose to take a break, heading outside for fresh air or a cigarette.  Others remain seated, watching Mele's endless suffering.  It is certainly fascinating, the way her wounded nipples have extended and stretched to more than an inch in length, still firmly held in the little crushing-impaling jaws of the clamps, by the heavy weights that hang off them.  Her breasts, too, dragged grotesquely downwards.  As painful as it must be, none of what I have done to her will leave any lasting damage.

An hour is time in which the pain in her breasts will mature and deepen.  An hour is time in which the immediate fiery agony of crushed and skewered nipples will spread into an ache at the very roots of her breasts, where their tissue is anchored on a muscular base.  An hour is time in which the pain of her thumbscrew-crushed toes becomes an unbearable ache as the surrounding tissue swells.  From time to time, Mele shifts in her agony, the heavy iron shackles about her ankles clinking, her pain-filled face showing her unceasing battle to endure.  An hour is time in which Mele's cerebral desire for self-preservation will be worn down by the constant agony, and all she will care about is escaping the nightmare of her torment.

After that hour, the crowd has returned to fill the gallery.  Now, though, there are more; cellphone calls and text messages have summoned others, and as the people settle down, there is a flurry of camera-flashes that reflect off the mirror-shine of Mele's sweat-wet chocolate skin.  I scan the expectant faces; seeing Zell, Austin, Kelley, and others. 

As I step out from the judge's bench, silence quickly falls.  I keep my announcement simple.  "Ladies and gentlemen, the interrogation will resume with the next stage."

I move without hurry to Mele, dangling limp and greasy by her wrists in the centre of the large hall.  I put my hand to her chin and slowly lift her face.  Her eyes are those of a woman already experiencing Hell, dark with suffering.  Her fragrance has mellowed, sharpened somewhat; her fear is growing sour as the old sweat on her body is chased by new.

"Tell me the names of your sister witches, Mele," I urge.  "And save yourself more suffering."

"Please," she whimpers, "I cannot!"

I take my hand away, and Mele's head droops forward again.  A quick signal to the guards, and they go to the secured end of the chain from which she hangs, releasing it from the iron stay.  The chain rattles over the beam above, and Mele's tortured body drops to the floor.  Her screw-crushed toes touch first, and the agony brings a bark of pain from her, as her legs fold and she tumbles heavily, her shackled wrists slamming to the floor and the chain spilling across her body, the heavy iron weights clamped to her nipples all but cracking the flagstones with their impact.  She lies, panting and whimpering with the agony in her bashed toes.

"Fix her hands behind her," I order.

A guard releases the manacle from one wrist, revealing flesh deeply-scored and grazed from five hours' hanging, and instead pulls Mele's arms behind her back, re-securing them.  I signal the two guards at the free end of the chain to pull it in once more.

By the wrists, the brown girl's arms are drawn up, behind her, and she writhes in pain, suddenly scrabbling to get her knees under her, but hampered by her fettered ankles and crushed toes.  She ends up in an awkward kneel, her arms extended up, her breasts stretched downwards by the weights that torment her skewered nipples, her head drooping forward, with her face veiled by the tumbling black mane of her hair.  Her shoulder blades jut sharply with the awkwardness of her position.

I crouch alongside her, put my hand on the slick, burning skin of her bare arm.  "Mele.  Save yourself any more suffering.  Tell me the names."

Mele slowly shakes her head, her hair sweeping on the floor.

"Raise her," I order.

The guards haul on the chain, and Mele's arms are wrenched high up behind her shoulders.  She gives a shriek as her body is pulled up off the floor, the nipple-weights swinging, her tortured feet dragging forward; and, a moment later, she is hoisted up into the air, leaving a patch of sweat on the floor.  Swinging on her back-wrenched arms, she bares her clenched teeth for a few seconds, but suddenly can bear no more, and lets out a wail of pain. 

Strappado is terrible indeed.  The pain is huge and overwhelming; from the forearms and elbows, hot lines of fire seem to sear along the bones and deep into the joints, spreading like molten lead down the muscles of the back and sides.  Mele is discovering an entirely new level of suffering.  Although she is slightly doubled-over, her arms are almost straight up behind her, the muscles of her shoulders and triceps pulled into strong definition, as if she's pumped up after hours in the gym..

Her face, downwards, is dark with agony, and the sweat drips freely as she swings slowly back and forth in a wide ellipse, her toes now several feet above the floor.

"Ohhh Ð aaaahhhhh!!!"  Her shriek echoes through the courtroom.  The pain is so great that she can't even struggle or move about, but simply hangs, still swinging back and forth, the weights hanging off her nipples swaying,. making her breasts shift agonisingly with every small movement.

The sweat is dripping from her.  She barks like a seal in her agony. The strappado has reduced her awareness to nothing more than this moment of time, this whirl of pain.

Standing before Mele, I look up into her eyes.  "One name, Mele.  One name, and I'll bring you down."

"I can't!" she erupts, the tears spilling freely.  "I can't, I can't!  He'll take my soul for ever!"

"Who Ð the Devil?  You don't believe in that rubbish, do you?  You can save yourself now Ð just tell me!"

"Ple-e-e-e-ase!" Mele bellows miserably, her mouth twisted in misery, mucus bubbling from her nose.  She screams again in pain.  I can sense restlessness in the gallery; people are disturbed by Mele's frantic wailing. 

She's close to breaking.  The lead ingot I drag from the lower shelf of the gurney is the size of a brick, but weighs twenty pounds.  It has an iron clasp at its end.  Mele doesn't react to it, until I bring it towards the little device that clamps her fractured toes.  Then, she begins to squeal in terror.

"No - no - no - no - no É"  Over and over again.  But I seize the screw in one hand, and Mele's words dissolve into a scream as her broken toes twist; I latch the weight to the screw, then let it drop.  Creaking sounds come from Mele's wrenched shoulders as her body is stretched and torn in all the wrong ways, and she screams and shrieks in ear-shattering agony.  Her head bucks up and down in mindless paroxysms, her fleecy black hair whipping about in a spray of wet.

"Talk, Mele!  Talk, or it will rip your arms from your sockets!" I shout at her.

She can't talk.  She can only scream.  So I heft another weight to her; it is painfully heavy simply to lift it, God knows how she's going to endure it.  With all the combined weights on toes and nipples, it'll be more than half her own bodyweight again.

As I kneel, grunting with the weight of the ingot, by her dangling feet, her eyes fly wide; staring down at me, her scream becomes a dread-filled crow-caw for mercy, but it's too late for that.  I hook the weight to her mashed toes and let it drop.

Even in strappado, Mele's body visibly stretches with the extra weight.  Her arms, wet and defined, are wrenched almost vertically behind her head, her body slowly twisting on the end of the chain.  She is unable to move, paralysed by the hideous forces that strain her shoulders the wrong way.  Any moment, we will hear the sudden, muffled crack of her joints dislocating, and her shoulders will pitch oddly.

Mele howls and screams in pain.

There is no hurry.  I return to the bench, and sit, calmly writing down my account of the session's progress.  All eyes are on the shrieking witch, her brown body grotesquely suspended and stretched, the weights hanging off her nipples and toes. 

       Twenty long minutes pass.  Mele's screaming becomes high whimpers and shrieks, sobs and gasps.  Every muscle in her naked young body looks stark and defined, her shining thighs and calves taut and rippling with the forty pounds that hangs off her toes.  Her shoulders still haven't popped out of joint, and probably won't, without a little encouragement, so I finish my sentence, put down my pen, and step down to sashay slowly towards her again.

       "Do you have those names for me yet, Mele?" I demand.

       Her response is a croak, a rope of drool hanging down from her open mouth.  So I stoop to the implement trolley, and, puffing and grunting, drag out another twenty-pound lead weight.  But as I bring it to her, I hear Mele's voice, thin and high pitched;

       "Oh God - no, no - please - kill me!  Just kill me!"

        "I'm not going to kill you, Mele.  I'm going to add another weight, so that your shoulders burst out of their sockets and you discover a whole new meaning of suffering.  I'm going to have you raised up, and then dropped, again and again, until -"

       "No-o-o-o!!  I'll talk, oh God, I'll tell you anything, please, no more!"  Her eyes are fixed in terror on the weight in my arms.  The pain has finally broken her, it is beyond her endurance, she would rather be cast into the fires of Hell than endure another minute of this.

       "A name.  Give me a name," I say.

       "Brenae É Brenae Bailey É aahhhh!!  É Brenae is a witch É I know it É!"

       "Who else?  Give me another."

       "Catherine Prynne!  She is one, too!!"

       "Who else?"

       "No more!  That is all!  There are only the three of us!!  Oh God, have pity, please, take me down, take me down now!!"

       "Who else, Mele?"

       "No others!  That is all, I swear, I swear, ohhhh!!"

       "If I take you down, you will tell me, and the Court, details of these witches.  Where to find them.   What they have done.  How you know them as witches."

       "Yes!  Yes!  Aaahh - yes!!" Mele yelps.

       She is broken.  She betrays her sisters, and the way to destroying her witches' coven is laid open.  I signal the guards.  "Bring her down."

       The clatter of the weights, then the softer tumbling of Mele's flesh as she lands on the floor, her arms falling behind her, the weights on her nipples cracking down against the flagstones.  Mele's ribcage and belly heave as she sobs and wails, but the instruments of torture are removed one by one; the screw from her toes, the crushers from her nipples. She lies there, broken and wretched, stinking of sweat and fear and pain, just another condemned witch.

       I face the gallery, once again.  "Ladies and Gentlemen, you have witnessed the successful interrogation of a witch.  Despite appearances, she has suffered little injury, and will be fit to burn at a time of our choosing."

       Mele wails in horror at that announcement, and bursts into a fresh flood of tears.  But such must be the fate of a witch.  I order the guards to provide a chair, and to chain Mele to it so that she may give us details of the witches she has given up under torture.

Mele Part 5 Ð The Burning

       Mele Sasagi is definitely not prepared for her execution.

       She is totally hysterical with fear as the execution party brings her out into the late-autumn daylight.  The day is chill, too cold to be without clothes, but Mele is naked nonetheless, with wrists manacled behind her.  Despite her two big toes being black and swollen from the mashing grip of the screws during interrogation, she scrabbles her bare feet on the gravel as she is half-dragged towards the open amphitheatre.  She can see the sea of expectant faces, she can hear the almost carnival atmosphere; she can see the tall wooden stake, with the blackened manacles dangling on their chain.

       "No!  No!  No!  I don't want to die!" she screeches pitifully, the tears coursing down her face. 

       She looks like a little brown animal, her body greasy and grubby after weeks without bathing, locked naked in dungeon cells, her black hair in crazy disarray.  I heard that she hasn't slept since her interrogation, but has instead spent her time sobbing and calling out in her cell, living in dread of this day.

       It has been a harrowing week for her; arrested, then put through the humiliating and intensely painful ordeal of questioning under torture in an open court.  She gave the names of two other witches, one of whom has now been arrested.  The other, still  at large, has been offering hymns of salvation for Mele.  It will be a relief when she is finally dead. 

       I watch from the scaffold, overlooking the stake and the woodpile, the eager crowd, as Mele Sasagi is dragged before them.  A cheer rises up.  I can see Mele begging them, a generic imploring plea for mercy.  But she is a witch, and witches must burn.

       The executioner Steve stands near the woodpile, tending the brazier.  Zell and Austin are in the front row of the audience.  I can't see Kelley; perhaps she didn't come, disappointed that Mele isn't to be tortured before her execution.  I know there are others, too, who would have liked to see some extra agonies inflicted upon Mele's young flesh.  But I see no need for it; burning alive is a horrible enough punishment.

       "Oh God, no-o-o!" Mele bawls, as they reach the stake.  One guard clambers up onto the woodpile, and half-drags her up, as the others push.  Pieces of straw and wood tumble under Mele's scrabbling feet, but soon she is forced with her back against the stake, and her wrist cuffs are unlocked.

       Her bare arms are caught, and raised up.  Mele squeals endlessly as her wrists are fastened, one at a time, in the manacles.

       "Don't do it!  Don't do it!  Oh God, please, please, please!" she shrieks.

       The final touch is a rope about her ankles, looped then around the base of the stake,  to stop her from lifting her feet out of the fire.  Mele is secured, and the guards clamber down from the woodpile, leaving the naked witch twisting and howling, half-hanging from the manacles.

       There is no hurry to light the flames.  Plenty in the crowd are craning to get a better view of Mele, snapping off photos.  A sexy witch always attracts extra interest.  Mele's petite, naked body is the colour of rich creamed coffee, skin smooth but for the dark fuzz in her armpits and the tightly-curled triangle between her thighs, the ringleted mane that tumbles around her face.  Her breasts, small but weighty, rest on her lifted ribcage, their dark-chocolate nipples erect in the cold outside air, apparently no worse for wear after the tortures inflicted upon them.  Her skin has the slight gloss of natural oils and old sweat. 

       She hangs against the stake as the long minutes pass, weeping in fear.

       I have seen many witches burn, and always I have wondered how those final terrible minutes before the fire is lit must feel.  For some, perhaps, it is a daze, a kind of dream-like disbelief, which softens the reality.  But Mele, I can see, is very much aware.  I know she feels everything; the cold, hard grip of the iron about her wrists, the rough wood of the stake pressed between her shoulder blades and against her buttocks, the ache of her body's weight through her shoulders, the coarse bark and straw beneath the soles of her feet.

       She feels, too, the chill air on her naked body; but I can see the glistening sweat in her armpits, a clue to the terror that churns inside her.  That must be the worst sensation of all.  Her heart will be at the base of her throat, pounding and thudding inside her ribcage; her belly will feel hollow, her bowels weak.  Her legs will be trembling.  It's just as well she is held up by her chained wrists, or she would probably collapse from the sheer weight of her dread.

       I let the crowd admire and photograph Mele for quarter of an hour, giving her ample time to anticipate her coming torment, before unrolling the paper that I have prepared.  I raise my hand for the crowd's attention, and silence slowly falls.

       "Witchseekers! Citizens!  Ladies and Gentlemen!  Although we are now rid of corruption from our group, there is still work to be done.  There are still witches to be found and destroyed.  The witch before you today, Meleana Sasagi, has been found guilty of wearing a pentacle, of creating spells, of owning books on magic, of associating with other witches, and of attempting to seduce innocent women into the ways of witchcraft.

       "For these crimes, she has been sentenced to die.  Let Meleana now be put to death by fire!"

       The cheer rises up, met by Mele's frantic pleas for mercy.  "It's a mistake!" she is shrieking out to anyone who will listen.  "I'm sorry!  I didn't mean to do it!  Please don't burn me, I don't want to die!"

       She has suffered enough.  I signal Steve to begin the fire that will reduce the young woman to ashes.  He takes the torch from the brazier, and lays it in the straw at Mele's feet.  Hanging from the manacles, she cries and cries, her teardrop-breasts jiggling, as little tentacles of smoke twist and curl up into the air from the newly-lit fire.

       The first flames are tiny, excited little creatures that jump and surge through the tinder, and draw screams of horror from Mele.  She tries to draw herself up by her manacled wrists, her ankles working in the ropes that bind them, but she is held secure.  She is forced simply to watch, to watch and wait, as the fire builds and grows.

       Larger twigs begin to catch alight with a crackling sound, and tiny sparks drift up.  I smell the sweet wood-smoke.  Mele's body begins to take on that familiar shine of sweat as fear and panic grip her: she pees herself, an undignified stream trailing down the insides of her legs, and the wood of the stake.  I can't imagine the powerful forces of terror that would drive someone to lose control in front of a crowd of onlookers.

       The flames are sneaking underneath the stacked branches; I can see their bright flicker in the depths of the woodpile, and smoke weaves its way up, to curl about Mele's feet.  She can surely feel its warmth, now, and she makes strange whooping sounds of fear.  With her upstretched arms hugging her head, she can't properly see the fire's progress, but she knows it is building rapidly beneath her.

       Iam disturbed to  find myself watching such abject suffering with a nonchalance approaching boredom.  Far from the pounding heart and sweaty palms of my first execution, I am now quite relaxed, almost blasŽ about it.  The shrieks and screams no longer horrify me.  I fold my arms and watch as the fire advances slowly.

       "Aaaah!!"  A wave of heat touches her, and Mele tries to lift  her feet up, but the rope about her ankles holds them in place.  Less than a minute later, the first flames jump up between the branches and bite at her soles, gnawing at the ends of her toes.  Mele jolts and arches and gives a terrible scream of pain, her flesh left weeping and blistered from the flames' scourging touch.

       The fire climbs around her, flames flutter and wrap themselves about her feet, encircling her heels and ankles, rope and flesh alike giving off smoke.  Mele screams in the most terrible agony, unlike any torture, as her skin of her feet is split and flayed by the fire.  Fire is licking between her toes, slithering up her glistening calves; I can hear a whooshing sound as the flames build in strength and speed, flying up through the wood around her in an orange blur, flinging up sparks that touch her naked, helpless body.

       Mele jolts and thrashes and struggles madly, shrieking and crying, as the heat intensifies the oily shine of her flesh, the flames mirrored in the polish of her brown skin.  The first sweet tang of burning flesh reaches me, and I wrinkle my nose against its odour.

       "Oh Go-o-o-od!!  Mercy!!  Kill me, please!" Mele roars in her agony.

       Flames bite and snap at her knees, eager to clamber up her thighs.  Smoke is wisping up through the tight curls of her black pubic mat, and for all its thick abundance, it won't insulate her sex for long.  Mele's fingers are fanned out above the shackles, helplessly reaching for some kind of escape.  Her buttocks and thighs are beginning to blister, brown flesh turning crimson as the heat cooks her.  Still she screams and howls and begs in her agony.

       The flames begin their slow ascent of her naked thighs, razor-hot tongues flickering up between them to set her pubic hair smouldering.  As the savage heat torments her most intimate parts, she begins to shake and shudder in spasms borne from utter agony.  Her screeches sound barely human.  The redness is spreading up her heaving belly, steam curling from her ribcage and her bouncing breasts, the currents of heat stirring her woolly black hair.

       The fire is consuming her feet, turning them to blackened claws enveloped by flame, the bones splitting and marrow sizzling.  Unable to support her weight, Mele hangs heavily in the shackles, twisting and wailing in her ongoing torment.  She has her face turned towards the sky to avoid the blistering heat that now thunders all around her; while the lower parts of her body turn to tallow and ignite in lazy rolling flames.

Fire licks now between her legs, scourging the delicate flower of her sex, ripping away the fragile layers of tissue,  flaying her flanks and cupping her wriggling buttocks in an agonising embrace, tearing her skin and melting the flesh beneath, as her body's fluids boil to the surface.  The underside of Mele's plump, drooping breasts begin to sear and steam, and fire fills the hollow in the small of her back.

       Mele Sasagi keeps screaming as the whipping tongues of fire thunder up around her torso, fluttering now at her breasts.  They redden, and seem to swell as the heat enfolds them; her nipples blacken and split and the sweat hisses away in clouds of steam that mix with the rising smoke of her burning body.  Mele's head is flung back between her upstretched arms; the hair in her armpits finally singes away to a black stubble, as smoke drifts up and her arms begin to blister.  Her black cascade of hair ignites, a huge whooshing fireball that whips about her face and delivers her into the final stages of her awful death.

       Her screams sill somehow ride above the roar of the fire, but when she next draws breath, flames fold into her mouth and sear her lungs, and the next sound that comes is a harsh croaking.   Her eyes, cast upwards, are fixed on the iron manacles that hold her in the midst of the flames, her own hands curled and trapped beyond them, the only part of her body now untouched by fire.

       Mele Sasagi is hanging from the shackles in the heart of a bonfire.  The heat is such that I can feel it from twenty feet away.  Her body twists and turns in its restraints, but it is only instinct that drives her to thrash about, as if she could somehow shake off the pain that screams through every inch of burning flesh.  She is embraced and held by fire, it billows and flows around her body and throws oily rolls of black smoke into the air.  Her breasts have burst, the fire hisses and roars and spits with the juices of her body as she burns.

       Slowly, Mele's head falls forward between her upstretched arms, and her charred silhouette hangs, drooping and motionless, in the fire as the highest flames now leap beyond her clawed hands.  Meleana Sasagi is dead.

       Another witch is burned at the stake, and the crowd is satisfied for a while.

Kirsten Smart

       13 November 2004