It's cold. Very unpleasantly so - the breeze nips at my skin, and the ground I kneel on digs into my legs and threatens to freeze me to the bone. I'm wearing nothing but flimsy panties, the rope binding my arms behind me, and a bag over my head; exposed but obscured.

I pick up the muffled sound of heavy boots scuffing in a circle around me, and I can sense the presence of a crowd at a distance. A few jeers emanate but they're quickly quieted - this isn't an occasion for audience participation.

My head is jerked up roughly, and the darkness of the bag is ripped away. Blinking in the sudden light, I'm confronted with the cold, soulless glass eyes of a plague mask, the sharpened steel tipped beak close enough to scratch my cheek as I instinctively turn my head away.

For a moment I take stock of the scene around me. I'm in the middle of a town square, a jumble of cobbles surrounded by old buildings and statues. The current scene has attracted onlookers - not enough to fill the square completely, but enough to leave me feeling helpless, surrounded, and very observed.

The figure crouched in front of me studies me for a moment before standing. He is shrouded in black, the intensity of his mask matching his clothing down to the leather gloves and imposing boots he wears. Beside him stands a thick wooden post; tall and smooth, yet stained with smudges of dirt and the telltale brown hue of dried blood.

In a swift movement he grabs a fistful of my hair and drags me towards it. My knees scream at me as they're scraped across the rough stone and I follow suit - letting out a ragged cry of fear and pain as my shoulder is slammed against the post.

With a grunt he hauls me to my feet & presses his body into mine so firmly that the air is forced out of my lungs, my ribs pinned between him and solid wood. He exhales heavily in my ear, as if he's mocking my shallow attempts to breathe, the whimpers that escape my lips. No words spoken - just hot breath, bubbling from under his mask and steaming in the cold air.

His hands move to my wrists and the ropes that bind them slacken, and for a brief moment I feel relieved - only for my arms to be forced around the pole, hugging it, and then bound back together firmly. I try to pull my hands away but the rope bites into my wrists; trying to escape just causes me more pain. Which, judging by the keen observation of the masked man, and the not-so-subtle readjustment of his trousers, is very much intended - and enjoyed.

I try to crane my head around to watch him as he circles me, but he steps into my blind spot behind the post. I hear the thwang of something whipping through the air, and the crowd falls into utter silence - straining to hear its sound.

He moves back around me, and as he crosses my peripheral vision I see the cane grasped in his hand. Long, black, graceful and terrifying. My mind panics with anticipation of the impact; the thought of the pain makes me shrink internally.

As I tremble, the cane slowly traces its way up my legs, over the curve of my arse and rests on my lower back. It raises goosebumps as it passes, the delicate touch from such a deadly thing sparking my nerve endings.

In a flash he's grabbed a fistful of my hair again, wrenching my head back and pressing his masked face against mine. His voice, low and controlled, dances into my ear.

'If you scream, I will not care. If you cry, I will not care. If you beg for mercy, I will be merciless. You will take what you deserve - nothing more, and nothing less.'

A whimper escapes my lips as he releases his grip, stepping back while my body tenses and trembles. I try to bury my face in the post, as if the wood could open up and swallow me whole and save me from this predicament. My senses are heightened but my perception has tunneled, focusing on him and his movements. Though I'm shivering, the cold air no longer bothers me - I shake in fear.

There's a moment of stillness. Pure tension, my vision fuzzes in anticipation and all is silent beyond the blood pounding in my ears. And then - an echoing crack as the cane reverberates against my skin. I register the noise first, and then the pain - the world suddenly coming into focus as the firey sting cuts through my senses. I gasp in freezing air only to let it back out in a cry as the second hit lands, slightly lower than the last, in that horrible no mans land between ass and thigh. My knees threaten to buckle but my arms are firmly pinned to the post, my wrists aching as I try to wrench myself away. With a swish another hit lands, and I cry out once more, my vision blurring as my eyes water. I look around desperately, seeing the onlookers pointing and whispering to eachother, smirking at my pain.

Bootsteps clunk behind me and he strikes again from the other side, a fresh crack of fire that shoots all the way down to my calves. My scream pierces the air, fizzling away to nothingness like the tears being swept off my cheeks by the wind. It takes everything in me to stay upright, stay present. My whole world shrinks to nothing but pain and anticipation, each strike blurring into the next. Im aware I'm making noise, but I'm too overwhelmed to process what it is - I'm just barely conscious of the fact that air is leaving my lungs with force.

In this altered state, it takes me a moment to realize he's stopped. I freeze, my breath hitched, waiting for the next… and it doesnt come. Instead, the last conscious part of me hears him chuckle? I have no capacity to speak, I cant beg or ask why. But I realize I don't need to, as in a few beats I register the warm liquid trailing down my leg, and the familiar growing sting of split skin.

'Shame that,' he grunts, poking at the wound with the end of the cane. 'You're damaged goods now.' And with that, he steps back and hits me again, landing somewhere on my lower thighs, eliciting another cry. The echo of his laughter burrows into me, and I feel myself starting to fracture, my sense of self breaking down into shards that shamefully burrow themselves into the ground beneath me.

Im hanging off my arms now, my legs losing the will to support me through the onslaught. My face grinds into the post, a mess of tears and spit soaking into the wood. As the next strike lands I feel my lucidity crawling away, darkness edging into my vision. It feels comforting and quiet, drowning out the whimpers of my own making as my body heaves and shakes.

Another kiss of the cane brings the world into focus, for a brief moment, until it fades entirely. I feel myself fall, almost dreamlike, as my legs collapse underneath me and the world fades to black.

xx