Ruled by the Rod (20 page)

When he had
recovered his breath, and adjusted his bishop's apron to cover his
loins again, he pronounced himself much taken with the principles
already established for our care; that women, being weak, needed to
be constantly restrained, and that suffering was a sure way to
salvation, or at least, an aid to avoiding damnation.

He had spent
some time in Imperial China, and offered to instruct our guardians
in alternative methods of female control to those already
practised, so that comparison might be made of their efficacy.
While we were, naturally, flattered and grateful for his interest,
I for one could not suppress a chilling shudder in my belly at the
thought of more, and greater, ordeals to come. I strove to control
my weakness and express proper thanks for what we might be about to
receive.

These gifts of
care were not long in materialising. The bishop had acquired many
mementoes of his years in China, especially it seemed, of those
instruments used in the imperial harem for the better regulation of
females, a subject on which he seemed to have made himself somewhat
of an expert. He had expressed a desire to meet us again as soon as
may be, and a few days later returned to dine with us again.

This time he did not come empty handed. After dinner he
produced a curious device which, he assured us, was called in
China, where it had originated, a
Kang
. It was a circular piece of wood,
or rather made up from several pieces of timber fastened together.
It was a form of wooden wheel, some three feet or more across and
over two inches thick, made from teak or other dense hardwood, and
very heavy.

The disc was
split along a diameter, with a hinge at one end and a hasp at the
other. In the centre was a circular cut-out, of a size to fit a
female neck and, on either side, nearer the rim, two further,
smaller openings suitable for a woman's slim wrists. He proceeded
to demonstrate on Marion. As eldest she found it her privilege to
pioneer nearly all the various means our guardians took such
trouble to provide for our better regulation.

With her neck
carefully positioned in the centre hole, and her wrists in the
flanking pair, the device was closed and a padlock slipped into the
hasp, making it impossible to remove without the appropriate key.
Now she had lost the use of her hands entirely, and it did not take
us long to begin to appreciate the true horror of the position.
Fixed thus, a woman could not fend for herself in any way. She
could not feed herself, nor even brush a fly from her face, nor
spilt food from her chin, since her hands could not reach in that
far. The width of the wheel meant that she could not pick up
objects, even from a table, nor do anything to repair her
toilet.

Moreover, she would be entirely dependent on others for those
natural functions that must inevitably arise during any prolonged
incarceration in the
kang
. Either she must humiliate
herself by asking another to hold up her skirts while she squatted
to pass water or relieve her bowels, or she must foul herself as
she stood. In either case, she could not clean herself after, and
must ask another to wipe her between her legs, or in her
cleft.

Sleep was not
easy, though one learnt to lie on one's back with the edge of the
wheel wedged into the angle between head board and mattress, though
the position was precarious and any movement in one's sleep was
liable to have one rolling sideways and waking in terror and
discomfort.

Just to wear the hideous device for any length of time was
torture, one's neck and arms beginning to ache after only a few
minutes, to burn after half an hour, to scream in agony after half
a day. We each of us were sentenced to periods in the
kang
from time to time,
sometimes even to days at a stretch, and we rightly came to fear it
greatly. I for one never quite overcame the shame and humiliation
of having to ask another woman, or perhaps especially my own
sister, to lift my skirts for me to relieve myself, since she must
necessarily stay holding my clothing while water gushed from my
slit or, horrors, while I strained to empty my bowel as quickly as
I might, to shorten the ignominious performance. Sometimes even
this was not possible, for my inhibitions froze my bowels, even
though but minutes before, I had abandoned my vain efforts to keep
their exigencies in check, and begged my sister to aid
me.

And then,
ultimate shame, to have to bend or squat, opening one's thighs
while someone else plied wet cloth between one's nether cheeks,
washing away the traces of one's degradation from one's fundament.
Or employed a drier portion of material to wipe the last warm
golden drops where they dripped from between the plump lips of
one's sex. I often came nearer to tears from these degrading acts
than from the most aching cuts in my behind from whip or cane. The
shaming of it was bad enough, the helplessness of the position
added to it tenfold, and we all feared it greatly.

It had fallen
to my lot, in a wholly natural manner, to service the bishop, just
as I had serviced that other man of the cloth, dear papa. Since, as
I have already remarked, the right reverend gentleman was possessed
of a more than usually adequate manhood, the act was painful for
me, a matter of no consequence of course, I being only a female.
But much more importantly, difficult for the bishop to inaugurate,
although once entered, he made good shift to ram me thoroughly to
his complete satisfaction.

He opined
that, while a tight ride was a blessing, we might all suffer some
easement of our fundaments without sacrificing our efficacy as
extractors of their harmful effusions. Having obtained our other
guardians' agreement, he undertook to provide the means for this
easement for, he assured us, the problem was not unknown in the
imperial palace, and methods had been devised there to cure the
condition.

Accordingly,
some three days later, for the bishop had formed the habit of
calling at least twice a week to see to the care of our souls, we
found ourselves required to prepare a buffet meal, that could be
set out beforehand, and to come to table, ourselves, devoid of
gowns and petticoats, wearing only our stays and gartered
stockings. In a mixture of curiosity and trepidation, for a novel
summons always heralded some new pain or humiliation for us, we
complied, though woman-like, our curiosity ensured that quite apart
from the obedience we owed, we would never think of balking at the
call to duty.

We found that,
besides the sideboard full of cold meats, bread fruit and wine that
we had set out previously, the dining room now contained a stout
wooden bench, quite wide and long enough for three to sit on, with
space to spare between.

And these
spaces were well defined for us. Set into the bench were three
cones of dull bronze, perhaps an inch across at the tip, which was
adorned with a ball of the same diameter and swelling at the base
to at least two and one half times that dimension. The cones stood
about eight inches high and were formed, at their base, into a wide
flange which appeared to be attached to the bench by screws, thus
ensuring it and the very solid timber frame were effectively one
piece. In contrast to the ancient oriental aura of the standing
bronzes, this underpinning of plain stout timber was obviously from
the shop of some local joinery.

We were
instructed to line up with our backs to the bench, and the meaning
of the order did not allow for much doubt as to the next
proceeding. Marion appealed on behalf of us all.

'Sirs,' she
pleaded. 'If we are to be stretched, these unfeeling stumps of
bronze may tear the linings our tender rear tubes, unused as they
have been for three days now. May we not at least use a little of
the butter set for your repast, to ease their entry, and thus spare
us actual injury? I do not believe it will interfere with the
expansionist capabilities of the treatment.'

It was fairly
said, and the gentlemen listened to her prayer with care. After
consulting the doctor, the judge gave his permission, and we each
took a little of the fresh farm butter, set out on a silver shell,
and applied it to our threatened anuses, which had been cringing at
the thought of penetration by the monstrous phalluses that menaced
us.

Now we resumed
our places, and the bishop gave the order we had been expecting,
and dreading.

'Set your
fundaments against the stretchers,' he commanded, 'and let your
weight come on them, until they sink into your bellies.'

Lubricated as
we were, the first part was comparatively easy and cost us but
little pain, the smooth balls sinking in under our weight with
little difficulty. As we sank though, so the discomfort grew. Not
only were we painfully stretched by the increasing girth of the
pillars of bronze, but they seemed to fill our bellies, causing us
to breathe with more and more difficulty. We still wore our
steel-bone corsets, that constricted our ribs. Now, with our belies
filled with cold metal, even our diaphragms were impeded, and our
shallow breath came in short rapid pants as we sat with heads
thrown back, and open mouths.

If we had
thought our position unbearable we soon had cause to think of it,
in retrospect, as the very pinnacle of comfort. Each of us in turn
was made to lift up her knees. A length of broomstick was passed
under them and we were made to pass our forearms under the stick
and clasp our hands around our lower legs, where they were seized
and secured together with thongs. Now every ounce of our weight was
on our bottoms, and our high drawn knees ensured the cones were
forced to their utmost depth into our protesting bowels. We groaned
collectively as we tried to adjust ourselves to this ultimate
penetration, not believing that there could be worse to come.

'Although they
are well stretched,' the bishop was saying, 'the effect can be even
more pronounced, and accomplished quicker, if the woman can be
induced to move about a little, to work the wedge in her bottom,
altering the angle at which the stressed sphincter lies, and
moulding it into shape.'

Dear God, I
thought, I could no more move than fly. Even now the strain is
killing me, and even the slightest movement would be
excruciating.

As if he could
read my thoughts, the bishop continued his homily.

'Unfortunately, it is sometimes difficult to convince the woman
that she should make the effort. They seem stubbornly reluctant to
obey properly given instructions in the matter, while so impaled,
on what the Chinese describe so picturesquely as the "Enhancer of
Perfumed Fundaments", and it is usually necessary to provide some
additional encouragement.'

I shivered at
what this might imply, then froze again, even the mere trembling
that had shaken me arousing fresh degrees of discomfort in my poor
stretched bottom.

The bishop
came forward but, with my head back and my eyes half closed as I
concentrated on my private pain and breathless apprehension, I
could not well tell what he did. There was some movement below the
bench, a flare, as of a match being struck, I could smell the
sulphur, and then silence for a while.

Slowly I
became aware that the cold shank of metal in my anal opening was
warming. Some of the chill had gone out of it already, from contact
with the wet inner warmth of my body, but now I was convinced it
was actually more than just matching my own body heat, but
beginning to exceed it.

Within a
minute I was sure of it - the bronze wedge was definitely getting
hotter!

Another two
minutes and the heat was beginning to get uncomfortable, and still
it increased. And in another minute I could stand it no longer,
despite the anguish I knew I would cause myself, and I wriggled on
my perch to try and move the heat to another part of my tender
ring. Judging by the groans on either side of me my sisters were
also experiencing the same effect, and were equally helpless to
escape the inevitable consequences.

'You see,'
remarked the bishop, a note of smugness in his voice, 'nothing
elaborate. A simple candle set below the bench, and heating the
bronze though a prepared hole. They cannot resist its influence,
and I'll warrant we'll see them dance a merry jig before we're done
taking our repast.'

And so we did,
and sang them a mournful song to go with it; moans and groans and
piteous cries of, 'For pity's sake, sir, remove the heat. It is
burning up my belly. I shall be ruined for all time,' and much else
besides from each of us, for the pain in our tender passages was
unendurable.

And the
gentlemen took no notice of us.

'Rest easy,
gentlemen,' the bishop reassured them. 'The candle is nicely
calculated to scorch them without burning. True, they will be a
little discommoded for a few days, when passing their motions, but
there will be no permanent harm done, and see how vigorously they
work their tight rear tubes against the expanders. An hour a night
will quite suffice to ease them, and we may enjoy the first
benefits at once.'

And so they
did, immediately they had finished their brandy and cigars, pushing
the debris of their meal aside for us to clear when we had
recovered sufficiently to resume our duties. In the meantime those
duties were to consist of offering our tortured anuses for their
use.

But first they
must be extricated from the appalling spires on which they were
impaled. It was not as easy as it was to set them on those hideous
pricks, for we had near lost the use of our arms and legs, even
when they were released from the thong and poles that had held them
rigid and useless for so long.

At first we
could do no more than try and stretch them, moaning afresh as
setting our feet on the floor altered the angle of our bodies to
the invasive cones and awoke new torments in our bottoms. But
gradually we eased enough that we could raise ourselves slowly off
those brutal bronzes and, with our guardians' help, stand swaying
weakly.