An Execution

“Do you know how they used to execute people in old Sri Lanka?” he asked as he wrapped his good arm tightly around her bare shoulders. His seed still clung sticky, warm, and white to her hand. Glistening trails in the hair and skin of his sex formed in the wake of her slow caresses. It twitched from the sensations, but she could see that it was collapsing, growing smaller and smaller, indicating that relations were at an end, as if the question he just asked wasn’t indication enough.

“No, master,” she said, politely enough. She was scared of him, but he had been kind enough to her that she had been able to maintain her composure around him. It wasn’t just his size, for he stood at least a head taller than any of the other men in the mansion she and the other girls lived, but his arm. She couldn’t tell what had happened to form the mass of scar tissue and bone that formed his left arm, but it couldn’t have been very pleasant. A harsh looking metal armature ran the length of it, secured to his shoulder with straps and ending in a three-fingered metal claw of a hand, reflecting the three fingers remaining on his natural hand. Secretly she wondered at the workings of the device, but even though she hadn’t left the grounds in years, not since men in three-piece suits and cheap masks had abducted her off the streets a few weeks before her 14th birthday, she still heard about some of the things he had done with that metal arm of his, and this made her afraid to ask about it. Afraid she might hurt him by reminding him of his disfigured arm, afraid he might hurt her by using that same arm. She was especially cautious recently as she was a month late and she could potentially be responsible for two lives now.

“They’d bring the doomed man out to where he’d meet his fate,” he said, “and laid him down on the ground, guards standing all around him in a large circle. Suddenly, a few of the guards would step aside, opening the circle to allow the executioner and his weapon of choice through. The poor bastard pissed himself when he would look up and see what was approaching. Perhaps he would get up and try to run, but the guards, with their long staves and cruel whips, would be ready for this sort of behavior, having seen it happen many, many times, and would beat him back onto the ground. The executioner would see all of this happening and smile a grim smile. He never grew tired of dispensing royal justice. He carried no axe, nor sword, nor any other weapon you might think of. That’s not how they’d kill this poor soul, oh no. The executioner rode into that circle of death on a large elephant, painted white, a god in the flesh.” Here he paused. “Let’s go to the showers.”

The showers connected between his bedroom and hallway where the girls slept and it was there where the girls usually saw their master. They’d come in, by themselves or with others, and, every so often, a simple bath or shower would end in the master’s chambers. Sometimes they wouldn’t even get that far.

They passed by a washroom used only by him. A mirror spread over most of the wall above the sink. As they passed she glanced at her belly in profile, hoping it was as flat as always, hoping there was no way for him to tell in the bright, piercing fluorescent lights that she was pregnant. She couldn’t see a difference and looked ahead at her master. He had grabbed a towel and was wiping at himself.

“The elephant would move forward, placing one foot gently on the man’s chest and…” He stopped for a moment, turning his head to look at her. “Do you even know what an elephant is?”

She shook her head no. He looked defeated, annoyed. She had heard stories and vague references to the extinct animal but natural history wasn’t her primary interest when she had still gone to school. “Imagine a four-legged animal with a long tube in place of a nose,” he said, continuing to wipe as he spoke. “Now, imagine that this animal is two stories tall, with legs this big around.” Here he put his arms in large circle. “For teeth they had large spears, but the executioner wouldn’t let the animal use them. That’d be too easy; too quick.”

He walked over to a large panel, stainless steel like most of the room, in the wall and pressed a small white button situated next to it. The panel slid open and the white towel he used soon disappeared into the gaping hole in the wall. She’d seen him strip and throw the clothes into the same panel many times when she’d come here to shower. The clothes he’d thrown in there were never seen again by her. She’d wondered if it was just her imagination and so she’d tried to get some of the other girls to keep track, but they weren’t much help to her. The chute for their use was nothing more than a hole in the floor at the end of their hall, covered by a simple plank, connected to the floor with a hinge. They always saw their clothes again. He moved on towards the showers without closing the panel. She thought about closing but decided to simply move on and stay close to him, rather than straggle behind.

They soon entered the shower area proper. Shower heads and water jets were arranged all over. A large tub, reached to by two small steps, was attached to the wall on her right. Straight ahead was the door that led back to her room. How badly she wanted to get some sleep, but she kept following him to the left wall.

He sat on a bench that had been built into the wall, and in a moment the sensors triggered the shower head above him. Hot water poured over him and ran down his body to the floor, sloped ever slightly to let the water run under a shorter bench and into a small floor drain a few feet away. He closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the wall as he motioned for her to sit in front of him on this shorter bench. She sat down in front of him, getting used to this ceremony over the years, and reached over to a small nozzle built into the higher bench and pulled, dispensing a pale yellow lotion into her hand. The amusing comparison momentarily flashed in her mind before she let go of the nozzle and began applying the lotion to her master’s body. He was getting hard again.

“The elephant would place its foot down on the man. It wouldn’t crush him, not yet, but it would roll him around on the ground like a log. If you can imagine the way the branches of that log might snap and break as it’s forcefully rolled around, so, too, would the man’s limbs.” He was fully erect now. “When the executioner tired of this, he made the elephant stop rolling the man around, but still keep him pinned. The command would be given and the elephant would wrap that long nose of his around the broken limbs, and pull. One by one the elephant would tug at his appendages and one by one they’d be torn off, leaving bloody stumps on a bruised and battered torso.” She moved faster. “He would probably still be alive at this point, maybe dead, maybe passed out from shock, but maybe not. Maybe he was awake this whole time, screaming in agony, begging for it all to end. With a tug at the reins, the executioner would grant him this wish. The elephant would put one foot onto the man’s head, with the other on his chest, and lean forward, crushing both. Blood and entrails mixed with his arms and legs.”

His head rolled forward with a moan and he looked down at her while she continued. “What do you think of it?”

She glanced up at him quickly. “It sounds horrible.”

He brought his leg up and swiftly kicked her hard between her breasts with the heel of his foot, sending her sprawling on the hard steel floor. It took her a moment to get her breath back. Her shoulder had scraped against the drain cover, and she couldn’t tell if it broke skin or not, but before she could even sit up he was already standing on top of her with one foot planted on her stomach with all of his weight pressing down. She tried reaching up to pull him off of her but before she could get a grip he grabbed one of her arms with his own mechanical one, and then he pulled. She screamed in agony, begging for it all to end. Soon, it would.