The State-Sponsored Tormentress
I have been sentenced to 7 days in the town-square stocks followed by life in the hard-labour mines. I am just beginning my first day of punishment in the public stocks. They are, of course, a deliberately humiliating, low-level set of wooden stocks – forcing me to kneel with my back bent and my head confined just a few inches off the ground. Forcing me also to look at the feet of my betters – the feet of the many female passers-by. But they don’t all just pass-by; many stop. They stop to have their feet kissed by the humble and penitent, male prisoner in the kneeling stocks. Just a quick, respectful peck to each feminine boot or shoe, and then they proceed on their merry way – happy in the knowledge that female justice over the male is being seen to be done. A few, however, do more than just stop. They stay. They bring along a chair, position it in front of me, take a seat, and stay a while. These are the state-sponsored tormentresses – paid by the Female State to torment hapless pris...