27.
Stan hadn’t seen a scene that looked quite like the one that awaited him in the former prison gymnasium since his high school days, though, here, instead of cheesy disco balls and strobe lights was a mock-up of the Roman Coliseum. The stage set, constructed mostly by a crew of inmates out of scrap materials, using the old bleachers from when the space had hosted inmate basketball games looked like the original would have if Rome truly had been built in a day.
However, it wasn’t really the bleachers that drew Stan’s eye. Rather, it was the pair of heavy wooden crosses that stood at one end of the arena floor, presumable anchored into the concrete that lay under the sand that had been laid over the surface. Stan tapped his glasses to turn the camera on for a quick pan of the scene, before tapping them again to stop the recording. He figured he’d better save the memory capacity for the undoubtedly juicy later goings-on.
Stan shuddered looking at it, remembering the crosses those girls-Reggie, his old boss, wasn’t around to make him say women-who had been crucified in those abandoned warehouses in the Bronx. That was the case that had capped his career and begun his relationship with Barb. He feared that the Warden and his guests would not be satisfied unless somehow or other she ended up on one of those tonight.
Stan’s concern was not assuaged when one of the doors opened and the Warden led in a party of men, approximately twenty in number. They were carrying plates laden with food that, by the smell, had originated in a kitchen far better than the one that served the prison cafeteria.
“I’m impressed. Very decadent, like the last days of Rome,” one of them exclaimed. Once they had deposited the food at their seats, they made their way to the bar which had been set up along one end of the bleachers. There, one of the guards mixed drinks to order from what appeared to be an array of top of the line liquors.
Stan decided it was time to circulate among the celebrants. After all, he was supposed to keep an eye on things and he hoped he could get some video that would identify the culprits when he busted this whole scheme open. However, as he got near them and was about to tap his glasses to turn the camera on, he could see they were all wearing masks. ‘Shit!” he muttered to himself and decided to save the memory for later.
While he couldn’t recognize them in their disguises, Stan was sure many of them were men he had read about in news stories over the years-hedge fund titans, CEOs, politicians. The chatter he could make out was a mix of business talk and excitement over the upcoming orgy. He wondered how much they were shelling out to attend this soiree-no doubt it was several years of a Correctional Officer’s salary, though many of them probably made that much in an hour or two.
One man’s voice seemed familiar, though Stan couldn’t place it at first. Then it hit him-he sounded like Judge Pennyworth the one who had given Barb the terribly harsh sentence to this place. His pudgy figure matched Pennyworth’s also. ‘It just figures,’ Stan said to himself, shaking his head. The judge, if that was who he was, didn’t give any hint that he recognized Stan in his disguise.
After a little while, the Warden announced that the contests were about to start and asked everyone to return to their seats. Once the guests were seated, a door opened and Matron Armstrong, looking almost attractive in a toga and sandals, despite her bulging arm muscles, accompanied by several female guards, similarly attired, led in a group of inmates. The inmates, a couple of dozen in all, were dressed in flowing robes, like what he imagined the Vestal Virgins would have worn, though Stan was pretty sure that none of them were virgins.
Stan went over to get a closer look. There was Barb, along with her cellmates Buckner and Rodriguez and her nemeses Morton and Chao. He thought two of the inmates looked very much like the video footage he had seen of Tabitha Small and the other woman from their area, both of whom had also been sent away by Judge Pennyworth.
After the girls were paraded around the arena a couple pf times, to whoops and wolf whistles from the guests, the Warden announced the contest. It was going to be some kind of gladiatorial contest in which three teams of combatants would be armed with whips with the goal of beating the other teams into submission. And the worst part was that the team that finished third would spend some unspecified time on the crosses that loomed over the arena like the sword of Damocles.
Stan was pretty sure that Barb would end up being one of the fighters and he wasn’t surprised when the teams were announced. She was being paired with Deb Morton, against a team of Buckner and Rodriguez and a second pairing of Cindy Chao and another inmate whom he only knew was named Greene and had arrived at the same time as Barb.
Stan wondered how Barb would manage to work with someone who hated her for having gotten her sent to this hellhole. He knew they would have to find some way to do so in order to avoid a fate that neither of them wanted to even imagine.
Stan tried to get close to Barb, to wish her luck, which, no doubt, she would need, but the Matron shooed him away. “You take the others up into the stand, Porter,” she ordered. “Make sure they behave and do whatever the guests want.” She handed him a heavy prison leather strap. “In case they need encouragement,” she said, winking at him.
He climbed up into the bleachers and helped the other guards assign each of the inmates to a client. Several of the guests got quickly into the spirit of the event by pulling down the tops of the women’s togas, exposing their breasts and fondling them lustily.
Periodically, guests would forego their groping of the female inmates to make their way to the betting table. Stan wandered by and heard a few bettors place “ten on team one” and one place “ten on team three”. He assumed that in this crowd that wasn’t ten dollars, but more likely ten thousand, or, God knows, maybe ten million. No one, so far as he saw had bet on team two, Barb and Deb.
Meanwhile Stan watched as a few of the guards stripped the combatants down to loin cloths. He envied them their seniority which earned them that assignment rather than being exiled to the bleachers. The almost naked women were then roped together with their teammate. It looked from the bleachers as though Barb and Deb Morton were having some disagreements about their strategy, something which didn’t augur well for their chances. Neither did Buckner’s powerful upper body or the mean scowl on her face.
Finally, all the bets had been placed and the guests were all fed and watered and snuggled down with a female inmate or two, their hands grasping a bare breast or ass, while the inmate’s hands were inside their pants.
The Warden yelled, “Then begin!” a horn sounded and the teams began their three way dance stalking each other while trying to fend off attacks which could come from any quarter. Stan was pleased as Barb got in the first strikes against Greene, but his joy was short-lived as Greene’s partner, Cindy Chao, counterattacked, forcing Barb to retreat into Buckner’s range.
Buckner delivered a slashing blow across Barb’s back. Her shriek of pain chilled Stan’s soul. But that was nothing compared to the agony she must have felt when the advancing Chao struck her across the breasts that Stan had so often caressed during their lovemaking, driving her to the ground. It was all Stan could do not to rush to her aid.
Bravely, Barb got up, but she and Deb were caught in the crossfire between the two other teams, who rained blows down on them remorselessly until they were on the ground in the fetal position trying fruitlessly to protect their most sensitive areas from the searing lashes. They were finished, done for, and would, all too soon be affixed to the crosses to suffer naked for the enjoyment of the fat cats who were paying to watch this awful spectacle.
But, before that happened, the Warden called a thirty minute intermission. The lights were dimmed and a full-scale orgy broke out in the stands. Stan wanted badly to go down onto the arena floor to try to somehow comfort Barb as much as he could without breaking his cover. However, his services were needed in the stands.
“Guard! Give me that strap!” one of the guests ordered, holding out his hand. Stan wasn’t sure this was permitted. He looked at one of the veteran guards who nodded and shrugged his shoulders. Stan handed over the implement of punishment, then tapped his glasses to turn the camera on.
“Hold her down!” the man ordered, indicating a naked female inmate who was stretched out face down on one of the benches. These VIPs weren’t used to being told no and Stan didn’t think this was the time to start, so he sat down on the girl’s back, facing towards her very attractive ass.
The dude lifted the strap over his head and slashed it down across the girl’s butt cheeks, causing the flesh to jiggle madly. Stan didn’t think the man was as strong as Matron Armstrong, but he hit hard enough to cause the poor woman to howl and struggle madly, forcing Stan to press down with his full weight to keep her from wriggling free.
“Keep the bitch still!” the man ordered, delivering another searing blow to her poor butt cheeks. He kept going for some time, delivering lash after lash. The girl’s struggles eventually diminished as she exhausted herself from the pain and frustration and eventually she just lay there moaning softly.
The man eventually got bored beating a non-responsive victim and told Stan he could get up. The flogger quickly divested himself of his clothes, as he no doubt would a non-performing business asset, displaying a very large erection. He climbed on top of the inmate, spread her beet red butt cheeks and, with considerable difficulty, managed to finally insert his penis into her rear passage. The poor girl was too drained to resist or even complain, despite the obviously painful entry.
“Larry, you want the other end?” the man asked as he rutted away. His friend disengaged from his copulation with one of the other inmates, knelt in front of the flogged girl and stuck his penis in her mouth. Stan turned away in shame at the behavior of his fellow humans.
As he walked down the row of benches the row, he almost stumbled over the man he assumed was Judge Pennyworth reclining against some pillows, his pants down around his knees, Tabitha Small sitting at his feet, his cock buried deep in her throat. ‘It just figures,’ Stan said to himself, shaking his head.
Stan tapped his glasses to turn the camera off. He figured he would need the memory to capture the upcoming events in which Barb and Deb Morton would star.
And as the lights came up, it looked like their turn at stardom was imminent. And since the Warden called the guests down from the stands onto the arena floor, Stan could contrive to be near Barb to give her what comfort and assistance he could in her hour of need, even if she looked more shocked than soothed when he came to stand next to her.
When he lifted the cross, Stan was impressed with how heavy it was. He remembered that it was Barb’s musing on where the Bronx crucifiers had obtained the wood that led to the eventual solving of the case and wondered idly where the Warden had gotten the wood for these two.
He would have gladly carried the heavy structure for Barb, but he knew that wouldn’t have been permitted, so he settled for helpfully showing her the easiest way to move it, though she probably knew that herself and was stalling for time.
And then, it happened. Since his appearing in the prison, she had been perfect in calling him Officer Porter except when they were certain of not being overheard. But Deb Morton had heard; he could tell by the look on her face. She certainly must hate him for busting her and her pal Cindy, as much as she hated Barb.
Would she blow his cover? And what would happen if she did? These were powerful men who obviously had no fear of the law. Would they hesitate to kill him? Perhaps have him hang on the cross next to Barb instead of Deb? At a minimum, they would search him carefully and find his camera and confiscate it so that what he claimed to have witnessed could be disregarded. And that would leave Barb stuck here in Newtown at the mercy of a very pissed off Warden and Matron.
So Stan just had to hope that Deb would keep her doubts to herself. And she did, at least as the two women made their way agonizingly slowly, stumbling under their heavy burdens, abused and mocked by the wealthy spectators and the guards, whipped when their progress slowed, to the far end of the arena.
And as they were bound to the whipping post, arms raised to the sky to expose all their most vulnerable parts to the cruel lashes, Stan saw Deb turn to Barb and say something. He couldn’t hear it above the taunts of the crowd, but he was almost certain it was to let her know that she knew their secret.
But, before Deb could say anything to anyone else, had she even intended to, the heavy whips struck her and Barb, bound together as sisters in pain despite their differences, slamming their bodies into the wood. Stan knew that any breath that had not been driven from Deb’s body would be used to howl her agony to the heavens, rather than to betray him.
The scourging was truly awful-nothing like the play that he and Barb indulged in down in their basement. It was much worse than the whippings the Russian mobsters had administered to Barb and their other two captives, because they had been obliged not to damage the girls too badly so as to maintain their value to the eventual buyers.
But here, no such constraints applied. The baying VIPs wanted blood. That was what they had paid for and that was what they got. Stan couldn’t watch, but he couldn’t avoid hearing the slash of leather against sensitive girl flesh and the screams of the two helpless inmates.
Finally, it was done and the two bleeding women were released, but only for a moment, as they were thrown onto their crosses. Stan, torn by his love for Barb and his need to stay in his cover, helped tie one of Barb’s arm to the crossbeam. He hoped that his gentle loving touch would provide her a tiny bit of comfort in her hour of despair.
Then, the Warden announced, “Time to ravish the condemned!” The lines formed, guests jostling for a place in the line for whichever of the two lovely penitents took their fancy. Stan considered getting in line for Deb Morton, since he had enjoyed watching her perform with Barb and the other women and with that cult leader during their sting operation. However, he noticed that none of the other guards were joining in-this was pleasure for paying guests only. Besides, that might have prompted Deb to blow his cover.
Then, that asshole Judge Pennyworth had the brilliant idea to use nails. Stan couldn’t believe his ears, but when the rich assholes all started shouting, “Yeah, nails!” that idiot of a Warden bowed to their pressure. Somehow, Matron had been prepared for this-she must have been a Boy Scout back in the day-and materialized carrying a sack of spikes and a large hammer.
Stan assumed that she was going to do the honors, but, to his great shock and consternation, she handed them to him! Stan had always done well at undercover operations; he knew you sometimes had to do illegal and distasteful things in order to win the confidence of the targets, things that you sometimes haunt you late at night, long after the sting was completed and the bad guys safely locked away.
But this? To nail the wrists of your lover to a piece of rough wood? That was too much. Yes, he had set up Barb and gotten her a caning from Matron in order to win the confidence of her and the Warden and the other guards. But this was too much.
Everyone was staring at him expectantly. He took the bag and the hammer from Matron. To refuse would risk blowing his cover, but to do it, would be something he knew he would regret the rest of his miserable life.
The other thing he would regret the rest of his life was that he stood there watching that creep Pennyworth sticking his prick into Barb as she lay there totally defenseless. Every bone in Stan’s body wanted to strangle His Honor right there in front of everyone.
But, Stan didn’t. Instead, almost robotically, he knelt beside Barb and extracted a long spike from the bag and placed the point against Barb’s wrist, against the faint scar that remained from her earlier crucifixion in the Bronx, a crucifixion from which he had saved her. Had he saved her then only to crucify her now?
He sensed dozens of eyes on him as he raised the hammer. If he didn’t do this, the crowd might bay for his blood. But if he did it, he would no better than the Romans or the guards at Auschwitz, or the criminals he had busted over the years. His arm was frozen.
Finally, mercifully, for him, if not for Barb, Matron shoved him aside, grabbing the hammer from his raised arm. Stan couldn’t look as she raised the hammer. He ran from the room, Barb’s screams ringing in his ears and didn’t stop running until he got to the bathroom and crouched over the toilet, emptying his guts into the porcelain bowl.
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