Small Mercies
22 year old miss Francelle is standing in the dock before the good lady magistrate, awaiting sentencing for her crime.
The good lady magistrate, a fellow black woman in her early fifties, looks at the prisoner through her horn-rimmed glasses:
‘Erm…miss Francelle, you have been convicted of the crime of stealing from another woman’s purse, which is contrary to the Female Law. Do you wish to say anything in mitigation before I pass sentence upon you?’
‘Am I bovvered, though?’
Francelle’s friends and fellow, female gang-members in the public gallery whistle and cheer her, and stamp their feet in support.
The good lady magistrate smiles kindly at the unrepentant, female petty-criminal and continues:
‘Very well, I hereby sentence you to six strokes of the cane, to be administered right here and now in this very courtroom by a qualified officer from the Female Police. Do you have a male slave who can take the punishment for you, miss Francelle?’
‘Ha! Ha! Yeah – right! Ha! Ha! My man ‘aint no slave, your honour! My man is my man, you know what I’m sayin’?
‘Ha! Ha! Too right babe!’ shouts a lone black man from the front of the public gallery – Francelle’s man. He has been permitted into the public gallery, exceptionally, because he is the accused’s sexual partner. Or one of them, anyway.
‘Very well then…’ continues the good lady magistrate, who is still smiling favourably on the prisoner in the dock. ‘Bailiff Paramita, will you please fetch a whipping-boy slave from the cells?’
‘Yes madam; right away, madam,’ responds the female bailiff, a slightly-built Indian girl with a dark complexion which shows off her pretty, white teeth when she smiles.
The good lady magistrate turns again benignly towards the convicted, female prisoner in the dock:
‘Miss Francelle, would you kindly take up your seat in front of the punishment trestle, so that the whipping-boy slave may be punished on your behalf at your feet?’
‘Ha! Ha! Sure will, your honour! Ha! Ha! This is really cool, man!’
‘Ha! Ha! Yeah man, you go for it babe! Enjoy! Ha! Ha! Bring out the batty-boy!’ shouts her black boyfriend from the public gallery.
The good lady magistrate says nothing. She just continues to smile down upon the judicial proceedings from her lofty position on the Female Bench.
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Meanwhile 44 year old whipping-boy slave Malcolm, down in the basement of the imposing female building, wasn’t smiling! Nor was he, in actual fact, a ‘batty-boy’! He was just nervously awaiting his miserable fate in the dingy Court-cellroom which just so happened to be situated directly below the good lady magistrate’s feet.
Whipping-boy Malcolm hated his painful job – being punished in the stead of recalcitrant, young female criminals! Yes, it was an honour of sorts – to be beaten on behalf of a superior, young woman; to suffer her pain and disgrace on her wholesome, female behalf. But he would have much preferred one of the ‘dirtier’ slave jobs – such as being a public shoelick out on the streets of the Gynarchy; or even a down-in-the-dirt, humble street-licker – licking clean the dirty pavements where his female superiors had been walking.
Being beaten for a living had absolutely no such glamour to it. It was just painful. The only saving grace was that he was a whipping-boy in the Magistrates’ Court which only dealt with petty, female offences – shoplifting and the like. The maximum sentence he could be subjected to, therefore, was ten strokes of the cane. He was aware that some other poor sods were whipping-boys in the Central Female Criminal Court, where the sentences could be much hasher.
He must thank the goddesses, therefore, for small mercies.
The keys to his cell were suddenly jangling outside and he heard the cell-door open, only to be greeted by the beaming, Indian-girl face of the pretty, court bailiff – miss Paramita:
‘Ha! Ha! It is being time for your pain now, slave, isn’t it? Ha! Ha! Be getting up onto your hands and knees and be following me this instant! You are to be receiving six strokes of the cane! Ha! Ha!’
Slave Malcolm just wanted to get it over with, so he immediately did as he was told, and positioned his kneeling face directly behind the cheap plastic, flat heeled, shiny black, slip-on shoes of his Indian-female jailer, and followed her up the stone staircase that led from the cells to the courtroom above.
On the way up the stairs he caught the occasional glimpse of Indian-girl, thinning, black-socked heels beneath the hems of her smart, navy-blue, court-bailiff-uniform, trouser hems.
Again, he must be thankful for such small mercies!
He crawled into the courtroom to a cacophony of jeers from the public gallery, and was lead by the pretty, Indian bailiff’s cheap-looking shoes and socks over towards the wooden punishment trestle, where he was obliged to watch those selfsame, all-powerful – but petite and dainty – black, feminine shoes and socks creasing and folding beneath his face as she secured him face first over the trestle.
It was only when miss Paramita’s shoes and socks finished what they were doing, and deftly stepped to one side, that he was able to focus in on the feet and footwear of the female convict who was now seated directly in front of and above him.
She was a black girl – young, early twenties; long, permed, black hair; nonchalantly chewing gum; and scantily clad in a short, white top which exposed her soft, if slightly podgy, brown, tattooed midriff; a black leather mini-skirt; scruffy, black, calf-length, lace-up combat boots; and a pair of dirty-white, calf-length, thick cotton bootsocks with blue and black hoops across the tops.
The creased tops of the black girl’s calf-length tube socks were actually only visible inside the open tops of her black leather combat boots thanks to the thick, black, upper laces of said boots being rather sloppily undone. Still, at least it would mean that whipping-boy Malcolm would be able to admire all six of the girl’s black and blue sock-stripes whilst he himself was being striped black and blue!
Again – he must be thankful for small mercies.
Miss Paramita now spoke to him, and to the assembled Court, in her role as court bailiff:
‘Slave, be kissing the prisoner’s boots and socks, and be praising and blessing her for committing the crime for which you are about to be being punished, isn’t it?’
Slave Malcolm knew he was in no position to argue with the female court bailiff – just one of his many betters in the Female Courtroom – seeing as how he was now bent over forwards on the wooden punishment trestle; and so he instantly obeyed the Indian girl and performed the humiliating and degrading ritual for everyone to hear and witness:
‘Oh pray mistress-prisoner in the dock …kiss…kiss…God bless you mistress-prisoner… kiss… kiss…truly this whipping-boy slave is indebted to the mistress… kiss…kiss…and praises and blesses her for breaking the Female Law…kiss...kiss… that he may be justly punished in her stead…kiss…kiss. Oh pray mistress-prisoner! Oh pray! Pray enjoy witnessing my punishment, most respected mistress-prisoner…kiss…kiss.’
He kissed her boots and socks all over; he kissed the dirty, scuff-marked, round-shaped, reinforced toes of her black leather combat boots; he kissed the leather uppers of her boots; he kissed the plastic eyelets through which her thick, black laces ran; he kissed the dirty and dusty, black bootlaces themselves; he kissed all around the black hoops on the tops of her calf-length tube-socks; he kissed all around the blue hoops on the tops of her socks; he kissed the white sock areas in between the various hoops; he kissed her shapely, if somewhat grubby, white-socked ankle bones, just accessible to his trembling lips inside her partially undone boots.
And all the while he was demonstrating his admiration for the prisoner-mistress seated before him, she, for her part, was unconcernedly chewing gum and verbally berating him:
‘Ha! Ha! What a loser! What a dork! Ha! Ha! You is gonna be well-whipped, man! Ha! Ha! I is gonna enjoy this, though! Wicked!’
Her manly boyfriend, and their fellow girl-gang members, shout some further words of support from the public gallery:
‘Ha! Ha! Go Francelle! …Go Francelle!…Go Francelle!…Go Francelle…!’
Francelle smiles back at them and, playing up to the public gallery, blows a huge bubble with her bubble gum until it pops back inside her slapping mouth.
The courtroom is in stitches. Everyone is laughing – apart from the about-to-be-whipped slave.
The court bailiff, miss Paramita, then calms things down by resuming the punishment procedures:
‘Please to be bringing forth the punishment cane!’ she declares.
Behind his bent-over frame, slave Malcolm is now vaguely aware of a navy-blue uniformed, knee-high-booted, Female Police Officer moving over to stand, with her sturdy-looking legs astride, behind him. Her navy blue, police-uniform trousers are tucked fetchingly into the tops of her boots, but he can see from the skin tone of her chubby, right hand – which is holding the thin, whippy, punishment cane – that she is, like miss Paramita the court bailiff, from somewhere within the Indian sub-continent, though she is slightly lighter-skinned, and wearing a white dupatta-style headscarf around her pretty, plump face; so she may well be Pakistani, rather than Indian, in her ethnic origin.
Worryingly for the slave, the presumed-Pakistani girl looks to have a strong, right arm; she is considerably taller and stockier in build than the sweet and delicate miss Paramita, and her white dupatta headscarf seems to frame a determined and serious demeanour.
Slave Malcolm, the public whipping-boy, braces himself as the courtroom falls silent with excited anticipation, and he feels the tip of the cane lightly tapping several times against the backs of his bare thighs below his plain, white, flimsy-cotton slave-shorts. The uniformed, stockily-built, Pakistani, female-whipper is concentrating hard on measuring him up. She will not be aiming at his shorts, but at the fleshy parts of his thighs just below the shorts. He knows that from his previous experience of courtroom canings. But he knows equally that his flimsy, white cotton shorts will afford him next to no protection against any ‘stray’ strokes of the cane should they occur!
Some female whippers from the local Female Police are better, and more accurate, than others – and he does not recollect having been caned by this Muslim, Pakistani police-officer mistress before! So, though she is clearly attempting to take careful aim, who knows where the tip of her whippy, rattan cane may end up!
Miss Paramita gleefully continues:
‘Police Officer miss Daliya, will you kindly be proceeding to punish the slave? The sentence is being 6 strokes of the cane, please!’
The last thing whipping-boy Malcolm remembered seeing, before his punishment for the crime he didn’t commit began, was the dusty, blocky heel of his knee-high booted, female-Pakistani caner’s right leg twisting upwards to one side as she put all her sweet, feminine effort into raising the cane up high behind her right shoulder and then bringing it down with all her Pakistani-female might onto his bare, white thighs.
His screams echoed around the courtroom – six times in total.
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When it was all over, just 30 seconds or so later, miss Paramita released him from the courtroom punishment-trestle prior to making him kiss, in turn, the knee-high boots of the now much more relaxed-looking, white-headscarfed, Pakistani Female Police officer who had so expertly acquitted herself in court; the black leather combat boots (and black and blue striped, calf-length tube-socks) of the bubble-gum blowing, convicted, female prisoner – who was now free to go; and then the smart, shiny, white leather courts and finest-denier, white nylon stockings of the middle-aged, Afro-Caribbean, good lady magistrate, who had pronounced female judgement upon him.
The latter in turn, demanded that the whipped slave then kiss the cheap, shiny-black plastic, flat, slip-on shoes of the Indian court-bailiff, miss Paramita, though sadly there wasn’t enough of her plain, black socks available beneath her navy-blue uniform trouser hems for him to kiss.
At least he once again got to admire – albeit this time through tearful, blubbering eyes – the contrast between the faded black of the backs of the Indian girl’s short, black socks, and the shiny black of the backs of her cheap, plastic, slip-on shoes, as she lead him unceremoniously back down the cold, courtroom stairwell to his dingy basement cell-cum-recovery room.
He was, as ever, grateful for this small mercy – the sight of the backs of miss Paramita’s beautiful, black shoes and socks; for it was the only type of mercy he ever received in this place – small.
And rightly so; for he is just a common or garden, two a penny, 44 year old whipped slave whose sole function in life is to humbly ensure that female justice in the Gynarchy is seen to be done!
The End
