Everything that's excellent

 Just a silly little tale...

 

“And so you claim you did not in fact pat the victim on the bottom?” the prosecuting counsel asked in a bored voice.

Her opponent leapt up from her seat at the other end of the leading counsels' bench.  “The alleged victim, M'Lady” she corrected.

“Alleged victim then” said the prosecutor, waving her hand wearily as if to indicate the distinction was barely worth the least effort.

“Oh no, Ma’am – and Your Ladyship” the man in the witness box replied with a nervous glance towards the judge.  “I would never disrespect a female in that way.”

“M'Lady”, the prosecutor said, directly addressing the judge.  “I believe the accused is lying and so in the interests of justice I request that he be fitted with a zapper.”

“A 'zapper', Ms Meadowes?” the judge replied, raising her eyebrows. “I am not sure I am familiar with the term.  Perhaps you mean an MMRS?  A Male Memory Recollection Stimulator?”

“I am indebted to Your Ladyship for the correction” the prosecutor murmured.  “An MMRS, indeed.”

“Well, I suppose if it helps us all get in with it” the judge grumbled.  “Clerk of the Court, would you be so kind?”

The clerk, a heavyset woman, stepped up to the witness box.

”Hands on your head, boy” she said brusquely.  Unhappily, the accused complied.

The clerk loosened his trousers in a practised manner then bused herself with wires and clamps for a minute.  The accused man let out an occasional mild yelp, but knew better than to remove his hands from their position clasped tight atop his head.

The clerk inspected her work, nodded, then stepped back and handed a small black object to the prosecutor.

“Thank you, clerk.  With your Ladyship's permission…?”

“Do get on with it, Ms Meadowes” sighed the judge, at which the prosecutor pressed a button and the courtroom was suddenly rent with a ear-piercing howl of anguish.  Her knuckle whitened as she kept the button pressed, while the man in the witness box thrashed frantically from side to side, screaming hysterically, all thought of maintaining his position abandoned in his agony.

Around the courtroom, pairs of female eyes watched this display intently, while the few males standing ready in the room to transport boxes of heavy files or serve tea mostly stared fixedly at the darkly varnished wooden floorboards .  A young stenographer, an intern intent on the heavy responsibility of taking the transcript for the first time in her career, paid particularly close attention, her eyes widening and shining and her breathing increasing in tempo as the screaming continued.  Nonetheless, her fingers continued to flicker over her machine, from which an accurate transcription of the courtroom sounds emerged, reading “OHHHHH!  OHHH GOD, PLEASE!  PLEEASE!!!  NO MORE, I can’t… AAARGHH!!!” and suchlike.

 

Ms Meadowes conducts a rigorous cross-examination.

Eventually the prosecutor released her grip and the screaming ceased abruptly, the only noise in court being the hoarse breathing of the accused, forced down by pain onto his knees in the witness box.

“Now, Jason” she said calmly.  “I’ll ask the question again – and before answering this time, I want you to think very hard about what happens to boys who tell lies. Did you pat her bottom?”

Terrified, the man just shook his head mutely.

“Could you speak up for the record, prisoner?” the judge asked.  “Ms Meadowes, would you mind?”

The prosecutor nodded and gave the button a quick press eliciting another howl.

 “No, Ma’am, Your Ladyship” he sobbed.  “I didn’t, I really didn’t… I never – “

And he broke off, into further shrieks of pain as waves of agony tore through his body.  The prosecutor was wiggling a dial on the control back and forth, while keeping the button pressed down, and it seemed to have a dramatic effect.

“Let me put the question in a different way” the prosecutor continued.  “Did you pat her bottom?”

Defending counsel jumped to her feet, waiting impatiently for a lull in the screaming in order to make herself heard.  The judge waved her hand in a downward motion at the prosecuting counsel and the button was released.

“M'Lady, that was exactly the same question as before!” she objected, indignantly.  “Surely the question has been put and answered – in the negative!  It is time to remove the MMRS and move on.”

The judge noticed a movement below her bench and glanced down to see the stenographer’s head turned around to look up at her, her eyes pleading mutely.

“I think we might allow Ms Meadowes to have a few minutes more” she smiled, indulgently.  “In the interests of justice”

In fact, it took less than three minutes for the accused, now writhing in agony at the bottom of the witness box, to admit freely and fully to the alleged crime. The prosecutor briskly set out, step by step, exactly how the crime had been committed, and the accused frantically agreed with her characterisation of every particular.

“The prosecution rests” Ms Meadowes announced happily, sitting down and waving the remote in the direction of the clerk.

“Your Ladyship” began defending counsel, rising to her feet.  “This is a most unexpected turn of events.  My client has changed his story while in the witness box and in order to defend his interests I believe I really must be allowed to press him on this topic.  I realise it is unusual for a defending counsel to seek to cross-examine her own client, but I believe you will find there are ample precedents, so in the circumstances…?”

“Very well Ms Blaine” muttered the judge, apparently lost in admiration of the stenographer’s deft fingerwork as she tapped out the transcript.

“And if I may, er…?” defending counsel persisted, gesturing towards the object in her prosecuting counterpart’s hand.

“You want to zap your own client, Ms Blaine?” the judge asked in surprise.

“If I may make so bold, I imagine Your Ladyship intended to ask whether I wish to use the MMRS to assist him with his recollection? If so, then, yes, that is indeed my request, M'Lady. In the interests of justice.”

The judge’s eyes narrowed but she nodded curtly.  A barely-suppressed giggle of excitement seemed to emanate from the stenographer’s seat.

The next five minutes were a mirror image of the earlier cross-examination.  Ms Blaine initially gave her client a few good hard jolts, then proceeded to demolish the veracity of the earlier confession, point by point.  It finished with her client, curled up in foetal position in a pool of sweat and tears, having apparently retracted his confession and sworn to his absolute innocence.

“Well, this is all most unsatisfactory!” grumbled the judge. “The accused has at the very least committed perjury once, perhaps twice!  Do you understand the oath that you swore to the tell the truth, young man?  That oath should be absolute… no matter what, erm… pressure you might feel yourself to be under.  I hope you realise I intend to deal most severely with this, most severely. I cannot abide lying males at the best of times, certainly not in my courtroom!”

“Ms Meadowes, your witness!  Again!” she snapped, as the shattered male tried to control his juddering jaw sufficiently to stammer out an apology.  The remote was passed between the two lawyers and the screaming began again, more hoarsely this time.

Five minutes later, the judge was furious, the two barristers were almost physically tussling over who would next use the remote and the stenographer had a huge dreamy smile on her face, as she continued to tap out the transcript.

 

The stenographer - from a judge's eye view, so to speak.  Sadly, as she is not looking around, we cannot see her pretty eyes, but we can see her skillful long fingers, the rapid and delicate movements of which seemed to fascinate the judge.

The judge brought out her gavel and banged it repeatedly down in frustration.

“This is intolerable!  By my count the accused has now confessed and retracted his confession four times!  This court will not be made a mockery of – find a solution or I will declare a mistrial and we will all have to start again!”

“And I don’t mean by fighting over that thing like schoolgirls!” she added, as Ms Meadowes made a grab for the remote, which Ms Blaine foiled by whipping her hand high up into the air while hissing “Mine!”

“Sit down!  Both of you. And clerk to the court – please take possession of the zap… the recollection stimulator control.”

The two barristers subsided into their seats, Ms Blaine giving up the device with ill grace.

“Any suggestions?” the judge asked.

Ms Meadowes just sighed and blew her lips out with a  frustrated ppphhhh.

Ms Blaine looked thoughtful.  “We could… toss for it, Your Ladyship?”

“Toss a coin?” the judge replied in scorn.  “Allow the process of justice to be decided by the random fall of a piece of metal?”

“At least we’d have an answer, Your Ladyship”.

“And we’d all go home early” chipped in her prosecuting counterpart, helpfully.

The judge glanced down, to see the stenographer’s dark eyes once again gazing up at her.  How odd she’d never noticed before how deep those dark pools were, the judge mused to herself.  She could almost be lost in the…

“Your Ladyship?”

She jerked herself awake again.  “Oh very well” she snapped.  “Clerk of the court, do you have a coin?”

Less than a minute later, the verdict was in.

“The prisoner will rise” the judge said. “Help him please, ushers”

Two large uniformed women strode over to the witness box, leaned down and hauled the sobbing, shattered remnant of the accused to his feet and held him there.

Ms Blaine, contemplating her eighth successive defeat in court.  If she wants to improve her record, she really needs to stop defending males, as they are almost invariably guilty, but such cases can provide opportunities for a young barrister to develop her skills before she is ready to take on important cases for full citizens.

“Prisoner, you have been found guilty by a properly constituted court of law and the toss of a fair - well, anyway, you have been found guilty of a Category Two sexual offence.  For which the maximum sentence, which I do not hesitate to impose, is 12 years in a male reformatory camp, with hard labour.”

“In addition you have committed” - she consulted her notes – “seven separate acts of perjury, each of which carries a sentence of up to fifteen years.  Again, in the view of the rapidity and apparent insouciance with which you changed your story, while under oath, I have no hesitation in imposing the maximum penalty for each.”

“I would remind you that the purpose of the male reformatory camp is re-education, not mere punishment. I can only hope you make use of this experience to think about your behaviour and learn something, so that at the end of your sentence, in erm… let me see...12 years for the sexual offence, then seven times...

Ms Meadowes rose.  “One hundred and seventeen years, Your Ladyship.” she said.  Defending counsel politely clapped this display of mental arithmetic.

“Is it really?  Goodness me. I’m grateful, Ms Meadowes.  Hmm.   Yes, well, as I said, prisoner, I hope you will be reformed by this generous allocation of the state's resources to your rehabilitation.  If not, it is my duty to warn you that your custodial sentence may be extended at the state's pleasure: consider yourself warned. And I do not want to see you in my court again.  Take him down!”

The prisoner sobbed quietly as he was dragged off to the waiting prison van.

***

(Later that evening)

Finding the day to have been tiresome, the judge had retired early to bed in her chambers behind the courtroom.  The stenographer lay beside her, dreaming of the brilliant legal career that lay ahead of her as the girlfriend of a judge.  The judge snored contently, dreaming of the stenographer.

***

Counsel for the prosecution and defence, when not in the courtroom, were Harriet and Suzie, and were enjoying a glass of wine at the home they shared. 

“Sorry about that” Harriet smiled.  “But 'win some lose some', eh?”

“I suppose so” her counterpart recently for the defence sighed.  “I really thought this one was innocent, though – he seemed quite convincing.”

“Men often do – lying little toads” remarked her friend, reaching for the bottle and in doing so knocking her document bundle off the sofa, strewing papers across the floor as the red ribbon bow gave way.

“Chump” remarked her friend, helping gather the scattered papers. “Hey, what’s this?”

“Probably nothing”, Harriet replied, making a quick grab for the document, but as with the zapper control in court, Suzie was too quick for her.

“Statement of Ms Yvonne Headly” Suzie read.  “Attesting to the presence of the accused, Jason, in my bedroom at the time of the alleged – hey!  This is an alibi.”

“Arguably… very circumstantial.” grumbled Harriet.

“But… but….this is exculpatory evidence!” Suzie gasped.  “Proving my client’s innocence!  You should have disclosed this to the court!”

“Mmmm… s'pose,” shrugged Harriet, refilling her glass.

“Well, I’m sorry, Hattie” Suzie went on.  “But this is serious.  Very serious. You deliberately withheld evidence material to the proceedings.  That is a severe breach of professional ethics!”

“You don’t mean you’re going to…” her friend replied, her eyes widening in shock.

Suzie nodded primly.  “I think I have no choice, do I?  I can’t let this go – it’s not just the innocence of my client.  There must be consequences: as a fellow barrister I have to uphold the integrity of the profession.”

“Oh please, Sooze” Harriet replied.  “Surely you can – “

“My duty is clear and I won't let you talk me out of it!” Suzie declared.  “Take off your knickers!  Now!”

“You mean you’re going to – “

“I’m going to spank your bare bottom, Hattie! Spank it until….”

“Until we both come?” asked Harriet eagerly, easing herself over her friend’s lap.

“I was going to say ‘until you’ve learnt your lesson’” giggled Suzie.  “But your idea’s good too.”

*** 

I believe this stage of the legal process is called 'oral pleadings'.

And far outside London, a locked van rattled down a dark country road.  Inside lay Jason, his genitals now pierced in multiple places with a permanent and more powerful version of the courtroom zapper, bouncing around naked on the bare metal floor with fourteen other moaning bound males.  He was trying very hard not to think of what his life would be like from now on – and failing miserably.

And with that, dear reader, we shall bring this little tale to an end.

 

(Epilogue) 

In the middle of the night, while all our other female protagonists were fast asleep in post-orgasmic bliss, the clerk to the court suddenly awoke with a jerk.  “Hey - I never got my fucking coin back!” she blurted out, to no one in particular, and turned over angrily to fall back to sleep.  Beside her, her husband froze in terror, and spent a sleepless night staring at the ceiling, wondering what it was that had annoyed his beloved so much and desperately, hopelessly praying that this time it was not his fault.

Beast

Rather uniquely for me, this is a lesbian BDSM tale. No really: it’s not going to be another one of those where it seems to start off with some kind of femsub vibe but then has a (entirely foreseeable) plot twist in which the tables are turned and a male ends up being punished. There are simply no males in the story to end up in that position. So if scenes of the superior sex being spanked distress you, even when the spanker is another member of the same superior sex, don’t read this.

It's a schoolgirl scene. Obviously, the two schoolgirl characters have both just passed their eighteenth birthdays, conveniently enough. They should be understood to be at the sort of posh British girls’ boarding school that features in old fashioned British school stories. The girls there are all jolly good sports, of course, but occasionally… just occasionally one of them might do something to offend another and be accused (in a cut-glass British accent) of being ‘an absolute beast!’.

Beast

“Oh I say” Harriet said to her friend admiringly. “You’ve put on your school prefect’s tie! It looks awfully smart on you.”

“Thanks” Angela smiled, fingering the garment around her neck, whose thin yellow stripe superimposed on the normal school colours symbolised her newfound rank. “Miss Gorman put up the list of new school prefects today, so it’s official.” I've got this room too, all to myself.

“Well I hope your new importance won’t turn you into one of those stuck-up prigs!” Harriet replied, smiling back. “You’re still Ange to me and we’re still chums, I hope.”

Angela’s expression turned serious. “Well, I hardly think it’s conducive to maintaining good discipline if I let you call me Ange, I’m afraid. ‘Angela’ from now on I think. Or even ‘Williamson’”

She burst out laughing at her friend’s crestfallen face. “I’m joking, silly! Of course I’m Ange!”

“Although… she went on. “In all seriousness, I have now taken a vow to uphold the school rules, you know, Hat. And I do intend to do my best to do that.”

“Of course” her friend replied. “Rah rah and up the jolly old school, what!”

Angela smiled, more thinly this time.

“No. But I do have an obligation to report any rule-breaking I hear about, Hat. If I were to learn that anyone had been… for instance… sneaking out to buy chocolate without a pass and storing it at the back of her locker.”

Harriet’s mouth formed a perfect ‘O’ of shock.

“You wouldn’t! Would you, Ange? Anyway, I gave some of it to you – just yesterday, for instance. You’d get in trouble too!”

Angela shook her head slowly.

“Nothing in the rules to stop a girl accepting a present from a friend, Hat. I didn’t sneak out, did I? No… I’m afraid…”

“Surely there’s something I can do…” stammered Harriet. “You can, you can have all of the rest of the chocolate, if you – “

“Attempting to bribe a prefect in the performance of her duties” tutted Angela, still slowly shaking her head. “No, Harriet, I’m afraid that won’t do at all. However, I am prepared to resolve this without taking it to any of the teaching staff, as a special favour to you, given our long friendship.”

And she reached over to a table, to where her gym kit lay strewn and picked up a plimsoll* and eyed, it thoughtfully.

Now it was Harriet’s eyes that formed perfect ‘O’s as she stared at her friend gently tapping the thin rubber shoe against the palm of her hand.

“Surely… surely you don’t mean…” she stammered.

“One of the more unpleasant duties my prefectorial responsibilities require of me, I’m afraid.” sighed Angela. “Of course, if you’d rather I took it to Miss Rathbone…”

“No…no” Harriet burst out desperately. “Please don’t tell on me Ange. I’ll let you – “

“I think we will make it ‘Angela’ now, just for this” her friend interrupted. “And it’s not about letting me. Confess your crimes and ask. Politely.”

And she went to sit down on a small armless chair and stared up at the other girl expectantly.

“Ange… ela I, erm, I broke school rules by sneaking out to the shop without a pass, to buy sweets.” Harriet said, in a low, hesitant tone.

“Dear me.” Angela replied. “Whatever shall we do about that, Harriet?”

“I’d like you to punish me, please Angela”, Harriet replied, her face turning crimson with shame. “To… to smack me with that plimsoll.”

And, trembling slightly, she held her left hand out, palm up.

“Don’t be ridiculous, kiddo” Angela said curtly. “You’re going over here”.

And she indicated her lap, where her knees and lower thighs lay bare, beyond the length of her pleated school skirt.

“You’re going to… going to…” Harrier stammered.

“Smack your bottom.” nodded the prefect. “And don’t think you’re keeping your knickers on, either.”

“You want me to take my knickers off?” Harriet replied in horror.

“Or I can do it” shrugged Angela, reaching up.

“No, no, I’ll do it” shrieked her friend, hurriedly hooking her thumbs into the elastic and pushing down.

Before the shapeless blue cotton knickers had reached her ankles, she found herself being pulled across her friend – former’s friend’s – lap.

“Oh you beast, Ange” she said bitterly.

“Now now” Angela replied, briskly folding Harriet’s skirt up across her back. “Less backtalk.”

“Ange, please, I – OWWW! Ow, that hurt, Ange you – OWWW!”

And so it began.

 

Forty minutes later. Two piles of schoolgirl uniform lie untidily beside the bed. The plimsoll sits abandoned on the equally abandoned chair. The bed, designed for just one person, is clearly full beyond capacity, though, as what seems a single shapeless mass gently moves under the covering blanket. A nearby listener (there are none) would hear soft murmuring.

 

Beast. Beast!

Oh, you deserved it. Anyway, you asked me to do it.

Only because you said you’d tell on me if I didn’t! My bottom’s going to be sore for a week! Beast.

Didn’t I kiss it better enough, then?

And that’s another thing! I’m not a lesbian, you know!

Really? You gave a very good impression of one. Twice.

I hardly had the choice, did I? It was… it was rape is what it was. I can’t believe you did that, you beastly thing. After we’ve been chums all these years without ever… ever… well, you know. I should tell Miss Rathbone you raped me. Twice.

Oh…well, I suppose if you're going to do that, you might as well tell her it happened three times.  At least... C’mere, kiddo.

Oh!  Oh, Ange, you... you b... b... - Oh.  Oh, yes, there!    Oh Ange!



The next day

“Oh, Harriet! Would you mind taking Angela Williamson this book” Miss Lavery said brightly, as the girls filed out of her class. She held out a book. “She’s in your dorm, isn’t she?”

“Happy to, Miss Lavery” Harriet replied. “But of course she’s got her own room next to the dorm, now. She’s a prefect, you know.”

“Oh yes, of course” the grey-haired teacher replied. “Well done her. How’s she taking to it?”

Oh, erm… all right I suppose, Miss” Harriet replied, her hand fluttering back as if to pat her skirted bottom for reassurance, before being firmly stopped in an effort of the will. “I suppose it’s quite a lot of responsibility… for enforcing the school rules and suchlike. It’s a bit weird, for those of us who are friends with her too.”

“A lot easier than it was when I was at school” Miss Lavery laughed. “You know, back then prefects were allowed to discipline the students directly. With corporal punishment. At least you don’t have that to worry about!”

“Aren’t prefects allowed to discipline the other girls any more then?” Harriet asked, forgetting the customary ‘Miss’ in her confusion. “I thought…”

“Good lord, Harriet, of course not. This isn’t the 1960s you know!”

“No… no of course it isn’t” replied Harriet thoughtfully. Then she brightened up.

“Thanks Miss!” she said cheerfully, and rushed out of the classroom, holding the book.

 

Later on

“What are you doing in my room? Very serious business entering a prefect’s room without permission, Hat! I hope I don’t have to… to…”

And Angela’s voice trailed off in confusion, as she stared at her friend, who was seated in the chair in the middle of the small room, holding the plimsoll in her right hand and tapping it gently against the palm of her left.

“As serious as violently assaulting a fellow pupil with something like this?” Harriet replied coolly. “And then forcing her into lesbian sex - repeated lesbian sex - all on the pretext of prefectorial powers that were abolished forty years ago? That sounds pretty serious to me... probably would to Miss Rathbone, too.”

Angela stood in silence. Harriet sighed.

“Whatever shall we do about that, Angela? Hmm?”

She did not wait for a reply, instead simply pointing to the other girl’s waist and flicking her finger downwards in an unmistakable gesture of command.

“Oh…” gasped Angela, as with bottom bared and with hot tears of shame welling up in her eyes, she found herself slipping over her friend’s lap. “Oh you beast, I – OWWW!”

And so once again it began. And there, dear reader, we will depart the scene and leave the two chums to it. Whatever ‘it’ might be and whatever other ‘its’ might follow.

 

Epilogue – ten years later.

Angela is a lawyer in one of the smartest City firms of solicitors; Harriet a journalist writing features for a trendy magazine. They share a flat near Edgware Rd in London and although both lead busy professional lives, they make sure that at least twice a week they return to it in time to spend a full evening together. One or other will cook, usually something quick and simple, and they eat quite hurriedly. Hanging up in the cupboard in their bedroom are two school uniforms: the same school uniforms, into which they both still just about fit . Harriet now finds her blouse rather tight, but Angela says she prefers her like that, so Harriet squeezes herself in.
 

But the two ties are different, so a choice must be made. One of the ties bears simply their old school colours, while the other displays the striking addition of a thin yellow stripe, betokening higher status. Sometimes, they have already agreed who will wear the prefect’s tie. If one of them, for instance, forgets that it is her turn to take out the rubbish on dustbin day, she might lay the prefect tie out for the other to possess, in a gesture of apology. If neither has any particular reason to accept to wear the ordinary tie, they might discuss over dinner whose turn it is. But they can rarely agree, so it often turns into a sudden rush for the cupboard and to the victor who grabs it first, the prefectorial spoils. Of course, having been the beneficiary of an expensive education, the loser always puts on her less colourful tie without argument… but sometimes, just sometimes, if she feels the tactics by which the other had seized the prefect’s tie were a little... underhand, she might hiss out a resentful “Beast!”

And then it begins. 

 

[THE END]

 

Is this a picture of Harriet and Angela during their school days (before Angela got her prefect's tie but after, just to reiterate, their eighteenth birthdays)?  Hard to say... it certainly looks like them.  But those skirts aren't regulation length, they're both wearing blazers that are clearly several sizes too small for them and those shoes!  I mean quite apart from not conforming to the school's heel length policy, they're thoroughly impractical.  How would the girls join in a jolly lunch-break game of British Bulldog (Angela especially used to love being one of the bulldogs: grabbing other girls as they tried to run past and holding them tight), wearing those monstrosities? So I think it must be two adult porn models who just look a bit like them.

 

 

* A 'plimsoll' is, or was, a British sports shoe: a simple canvas upper over a rubber sole.  Like a trainer (or even a 'sneaker')  but thinner, much less complicated and never, ever fashionable.  But they had their uses...

 

Something like this... although these don't look very clean.  I'm sure well brought-up English schoolgirls would never spank one another's bottoms with a plimsoll that had seen outdoor use.  After all, there's always the hairbrush...

 

Yes, Madam Minister

 

 

In the so-called 'real world' the new female PM of the United Kingdom is having a difficult start, having accidentally killed off a beloved monarch in her first week and then hurtling downhill from there. In a better-run parallel world, however, a newly-elected counterpart is getting on with some much-needed legislative reforms.  The email below reached me through a trans-dimensionoodly doohickey gizmo, so I thought I'd pass it on to you.

 

 

The woodsman and the findomme

In one of the comments in the last few days, someone was kind enough to say that my little captions sometimes manage to be both witty and erotic.  I mention this, not to show off (but it was a very kind thing to say, as this is usually exactly the combination I aim at) but merely as a segue to allow me to note that the tale below is neither witty nor erotic.  

On the contrary, it is a thoroughly unpleasant story (and not in a 'good' way).   Femdom-themed in parts, but not sexy.  Sorry.  Don't say you weren't warned.

Once upon a time there was a poor woodsman.  Every day he would rise with the sun and haul his axe off into the forest to chop trees and branches to sell for a few coppers in town.  It was hard work but he loved being outdoors, whether in the warm sunshine of the summer or even the fresh morning frost of the autumn.  In winter, he holed up in his snug cabin, a fire always burning merrily in the hearth, and rested and dreamed.  He was well-liked in the town for he was known for his bravery and had several times wielded his axe to help clear fallen trees, to rescue townspeople from collapsed buildings and even on one occasion to save a child from her burning home, delivering her safely to her crying, grateful mother.  Yes, although poor, the woodsman was contented with his life.

There was only one shadow over his happiness, one yearning he could not fulfill: the woodsman craved to be humiliated and ruined by a findomme.  Yes, when finally resting exhausted after a day chopping wood, or when snuggled down in his warm winter quarters, the woodsman’s hand would move down to his hardening cock and he would dream of spiteful, vicious young ladies taking everything he owned, on nothing more than a whim, and laughing their golden tinkling laughs at his humiliation and shame.  But the woodsman knew that no findomme would ever be interested in raping his meagre coin-purse for the few coppers it contained, or in demanding nine-tenths of his monthly income to spend on fripperies, as even with the last tenth added, few fripperies indeed can be bought for the proceeds of a woodsman’s labour.  And so the woodsman could only dream, but his dreams at least were rich – with humiliation, cruelty, beauty and disdain in equal measure.

Now, one fine spring morning the woodsman was far from home, seeking out an oak of great girth for a special commission from a rich merchant in town, who wanted a table made from a single tree-trunk.  (How the woodsman envied the merchant the wealth he could glimpse through the gateway of his grand house; how he would have loved to lay the titles to that fine house and all its rich furnishings at the feet of a beautiful and contemptuous young lady, to be picked up and taken without a word of thanks or even acknowledgement!).  After three hours, he came across a clearing, where stood the greatest oak he had seen in all his years of toil: seven yards around at least.  He took his axe from his backpack, took position next to the gnarled wood and prepared for the first of what he knew would be hundreds of hard, biting strokes, when an ethereal voice rang out across the clearing.

‘Woodsman spare my home!’ it called and a shimmering green shape appeared somehow formed from the change movements of the leaves of the tree.  A beautiful young lady, fine featured and elegant, yet with a face formed into a cry of horror and fear.

He knew of such things, although had never before seen one.  A spirit of the tree - a dryad - was here and if he chopped down the oak, she would live the rest of her days stunted and deformed, trapped in the bare and chastened tree trunk that would remain after the glory of the living tree had been lost.  Some woodsmen believed dryads to be evil spirits, others held that they were noble princesses imprisoned by some magic from the deep times, but all respected their power.  Our woodsman simply had no desire to deprive any creature of her home, no matter how humble or exalted, so he put down his axe.

‘Ah, and now you claim your reward! A wish, that I must grant to clear my debt to you.’ the dryad sang out.  But he merely smiled, shook his head and prepared to resume his search for an oak of the size he needed.  He wanted no part of a magical bargain, having read too many fairy tales to believe that any good would come of it.

‘Oh?  Is there nothing you yearn for?  No deepest wish, no secret heart’s desire?’

The woodsman paused, a vision of a shapely foot, clad in a delicate jewel-encrusted shoe that would have cost more than ten generations of woodmen could ever earn, had forced its way to the forefront of his mind.

‘Ah – I see there is!  Tell me, tell all!  By the nine sacred branches of Father Oak, I command it.’

And the woodsman poured out his heart to her – at first reluctantly but then with increasing enthusiasm as the images tumbled one atop the other in his mind’s eye.  He spoke of feminine radiance and contempt, of pay-piggies crushed beneath elegant heels, of priceless gifts spurned, of bodies and souls broken on the wheel of girlish cruelty and indifference.  In short, there in the otherwise empty clearing, he spoke of his dreams of financial domination and sang of the findomme princess of his dreams.

When he had finished the dryad was silent for a moment.

‘I see’ she said at last.  ‘Not quite what I am used to, I have to say.  But I suppose it’s doable.’

‘You can bring a findomme princess here, to ruin me now?’ he asked eagerly.

The dryad laughed and her laughter was like the breeze moving through autumn leaves.

‘What would be the point in that?  You’re not rich.’

‘Well, you could… make me rich.’ The woodsman replied.  ‘And I could give it to her.’

‘Perhaps’ the dryad remarked.  ‘But there is little humiliation in simply handing over a pile of gold that I magic up here.  In any case, that would be two wishes, technically.  No: leave it to me.’

And she disappeared, leaving only a tree – more massive than any other in the forest but still only a tree - and a very bewildered woodsman.  He waited for an hour to see if she would return, then went off to seek another oak to cut.  He was lucky and soon found one, worked all day, dragged the heavy cut trunk into town and received a small silver coin for his efforts.  Still fired up by his visions from earlier, he immediately went to hand this to one of the town prostitutes hanging around behind the main square who, knowing his desires, slapped his face and threw it down to the ground for him to pick up and offer to her more humbly.  Then she took the coin, kicked him in the face as she knew he liked and walked off, wishing she were young and pretty enough to make a career of this, rather than the blow-jobs and late-night knee-tremblers in the nearby alleys that were her stock in trade.  And the woodsman went home.

Two days later there was a knock on the door of his forest hovel.  On opening it, the woodsman was amazed to see three men dressed in the livery of the local lord.  He was still more amazed when they explained that he was the distant heir of a minor branch of the local nobility and that all the land around – the forest, which covered three valleys and innumerable hills - belonged to him.  One of the men was a ‘financial counselor’ and promised to help the woodsman decide what was best, to manage his newfound estate.

It was all very complicated.  More complicated than chopping wood, the woodsman decided, with bewilderment.  The land itself was valuable enough, worth a greater sum than the woodsman had imagined, but the annual returns were low, since few of the farmers or woodsmen who paid tithes had much income, although their numbers were many.  Better by far – the financial counselor explained – to sell or lease it for ‘development’.  This was a word the woodsman was unfamiliar with, but it seemed to mean bringing in machines and many people to extract the riches that lay beneath the ground.

‘Gold?’ the woodsman asked, eagerly, thinking of grovelling before an indifferent goddess and offering her gleaming jewellery from shaking hands.

But the counselor laughed and shook his head.  Better than that, he explained: there was oil in great profusion, albeit locked inside shale beds that needed fracking to break open, and perhaps veins of heavy metals that could be leached from their deposits with the correct application of the right chemicals, in sufficient quantity.  The woodsman understood little of this, but the counselor mentioned some financial figures ‘Just as a minimum, ball-park estimate’ and the woodsman realised that he could become one of the richest men in the kingdom.  With wealth like that at his disposal, all of the most beautiful women in the kingdom would be queuing up to spurn him and treat him with the contempt he so craved.  He barely paused, before grabbing the proffered pen and signing up to become a 50 % joint venture partner in a company called ‘Deposit Resource Yields – Advancing Development’, which would carry out these exciting plans.

Whoever owned the other 50% seemed not to need the woodsman to do anything, because later that same day a convoy of yellow vehicles and machinery arrived, all emblazoned with ‘DRYAD’ on the side and they began their work.  Great bulldozers cleared trees at a thousand times the rate even an army of woodcutters could have managed.  The lumber was machine-cut and ground into sawdust to make chipboard for cheap furniture, while steamrollers flattened the land for mighty roads laid down by hot, towering asphalt-burners, which lit the sky with their flames while pouring out the sticky black tar that coagulated to form the surface of the roads.  Along these roads came more machines, to construct buildings for the many workers whose shouts and obscene jokes filled the air as they too laboured, to install drilling and injection machines, across the three valleys and the surrounding hills.  The sky darkened with the fumes from their activities.

Then the drilling began, with a roar like ten thousand shrieking banshees, and great vats of chemicals were positioned to be pumped in to the ground, to lubricate the drills, to crack open the seams of slate to liberate the precious oil within and to leach heavy metals from their deep veins, to be collected by mighty open-cast mining rigs.

The trees that had not been turned to sawdust lost their leaves within days, birds died in their hundreds or fled, the streams and rivers first bloomed with sickly algae, which then itself died back leaving nothing but black water stinking of corruption and decay.  After a couple of weeks, the air stank of smoke, of choking chemical fumes, of electrical discharges and of death.

Looking sadly out over the blackened, blasted hillside one day, the woodsman remembered the townspeople, in shock.  He put on the protective rubber boots and respiration mask that the workman respectfully offered to him and hurried down into town.  He walked down the main street, seeing no one.  Most of the houses were boarded up, and when he knocked on those that were not, he was greeted only with cries of hatred and rejection, when the inhabitant realised who it was.  The townspeople knew of his inheritance and how he had delivered their land and their livelihoods over to destruction, for personal gain.  

The woodsman came to the place where the prostitute had plied her trade, but there was nothing but a bare stretch of ground, worn and marked by the high heels of generations of prostitutes but now unoccupied. He caught a glimpse of movement out of the corner of his eye, and looked up to see a haggard shopkeeper, grimly winding down his store-front blind, eying him with contempt.

‘Wait!’ the woodsman called.  ‘Did she… I mean where has…?’ and he gestured helplessly at the empty pavement.

The shopkeeper shook his head, slowly.  ‘Syphilis’  he replied, hoarsely.  ‘The workers who came with the machines… soon enough all the working girls got it.  Not a pretty death.  But then – what death is?’

And he resumed winding down the blind, keeping eye contact until he disappeared from view behind the blank screen that left the woodsman feeling utterly alone.

He wandered back towards his home, meeting on the way a cart piled with the meagre possessions of what must have been at least three families: the children and infirm grandparents clinging grimly to it, while adults walked and took turns to push, alongside.

‘Hey’ he called out desperately.  ‘Hey there!’

The sad little procession paused, and all turned to look at him.  One of the women lifted her chin slightly, staring straight at him as if to appoint herself spokeswoman for them all.  But none said a word.

‘I… I can help!’ he cried out.  ‘See – see I have money!  I can help.’  And he drew out a soft kid leather bag of thick gold coins and started to untie the cord, with shaking hands.

The woman stepped forward, lowered her head and spat, once, at his feet.  Then she turned away and the group resumed their trudging, all without speaking or even looking back.

Back at his hut the woodsman looked out at the blackened, poisoned hillside where once had been trees and flowers, butterflies and birdsong, life and laughter.  Beyond it, in the valley, huge machines rumbled and roared, shaking the ground and blackening the sky.

‘What have I done?’ the woodsman cried out in horror at the ugliness of the outside and his sudden realisation of the ugliness of the soul inside him that had created it. ‘Oh, what have I done?’

And he collapsed to the ground, sobbing helplessly in his shame and his chagrin.  His tears fell from his hot, quivering cheeks and splashed onto…

…a shapely foot of greenish but flawless complexion, girt with an ankle strap of golden twine.

He looked up in shock, at the beautiful face of the dryad, gazing down on him with an indecipherable expression on her face.

‘I… I only wanted to be rich!’ he gasped.  ‘So I could… you know, be ruined by a callous female.’

‘But you were rich’ smiled the dryad.  ‘You were rich in the forests that surrounded you with beauty; you were rich in the gratitude of the people whom you had helped; and, above all, you were rich in the contentment you enjoyed, in a life that you knew to be worth living.  You were rich beyond the dreams of kings and emperors.’

‘And now…’ the woodsman groaned, slowly, the dawning realisation in his reddened eyes…‘Now I have…’

‘Nothing.’ replied the dryad.  ‘You have nothing.’

‘Nothing’ he acknowledged, hollowly.

There was silence for a moment.

‘Would you like me to put things back how they were?’ the dryad asked, sweetly.  ‘Before you visited my clearing, before you made your wish, before you destroyed everything in your desire for a findomme princess?’

‘Yes – yes, put it back how it was!’ the woodsman cried desperately.

‘Hmm’ the dryad replied.  ‘Maybe.'

'Beg.’

The woodsman kissed the ground before her feet frantically, piteously begging with all the humility and desperation that filled his otherwise empty existence.  He pleaded and beseeched with all his soul, shaking with the guilt and the helpless self-loathing that was all he felt inside.

‘Hmm’ she said again.

He paused, the despair within him somehow burning still more painfully now there was a tiny flicker of hope in his aching chest.

‘I don’t think so’ he heard, and then felt an explosion of pain that blotted out his vision.  She had kicked him in the face, harder than anyone had ever kicked him before.

And when he came to, she was gone and the woodsman lay alone, spots of blood from his nose and tears from his eyes discolouring the ground beneath him, surrounded by the blackened hell that was the world he had chosen for himself. The flicker of hope in him had died, leaving nothing but darkness and despair.

He was ruined.

 

 

I did warn you. Unpleasant, not 'unpleasant in a good way, full of vicious but exciting femdom torture like Serena and Alice'.  Just nasty and mean-spirited - and predictable too, right?  

 Here's another very unpleasant story that my readers hated, if you want something else to dislike.

 

When I write nicer stories I try to illustrate them with pictures of pretty ladies that are at least somewhat relevant to the plot but for this one... well, I only found this and I think we can all agree this is not how the dryad looks: