Pillory (PG-13)
Posted to "Come As You Aren't," house_wilson, housefic
Title: Pillory
Author: Dee Laundry
Pairing: House/Wilson
Rating: PG-13
Words: 4193
Summary: What we do for love
Warnings: Alternate Universe (very alternate), Violence
Notes: Created for karaokegal's "Come As You Aren't" fic event. Why this is different for me: Hurt/comfort; focus on description rather than dialogue; voice/language. With grateful appreciation to daisylily for beta, and fallen_arazil, nightdog-barksand perspi for their suggestions and encouragement.
I don’t mind the eyes on me. That part hardly registers. As a boy, I was always fair of countenance and charming in demeanor, and I became quite accustomed to eyes following me. As a young man, I learned how to turn that to my best advantage, the best words and actions to undertake so that the fairest of maidens would keep their eyes on me and in private times add their lips and hands.
It’s not the eyes upon me that are causing the turmoil as I chafe at the wood trapping my wrists and the leather around my neck.
The clock in the town square keeps time as perfectly as a metronome but today it moves more slowly than clouds on a windless day. Perhaps that is why the pillory was placed just here, to let the condemned keep close watch on the clock and so add another element of torture.
Fifteen minutes have passed since Greg led me up here, locked my wrists in the pillory, and chained the collar on my neck to the post. I clearly saw pain in his eyes before he moved away, but that may just have been from the arduous task of climbing the four steps to this platform. Foreman had offered to do it for him, but Greg just scoffed.
“The Code is clear. All aspects of the punishment must be carried out by the offended party.” He then yanked abruptly at my chain, punishing me for Foreman’s offer of help. An unjust indignity, but one I was in no position to protest.
The memory of that tiny indignity causes a bit of anger to flare within me, and I blow on it gently, hoping to stoke the flames higher. Anger is truth; anger is strength; anger is a masculine humor.
Instead, the flames are doused by the currents of shame that have filled me since the morning’s awakening. “It’s a half-hour,” Greg had whispered as he tightened his arms around me and pressed his chin to the top of my head. “One half-hour only, James; you’ll survive.” I had kept my cheek against his chest and closed my eyes again, willing the clock to move its hands backwards and then stop, to let us stay in bed together eternally and leave the rest of the damnable world to hang.
The clock did not heed me; it never does.
I attempt discreetly to stretch and ease the twinge in my back - this pillory was designed, of course, for frames several inches shorter than my own - and wonder idly why I had not wished for time to reverse fully back to allow me to refrain from my offense. There would be no need for this shame, this pain, this turmoil if I could return to that time and simply hold my tongue.
The thing is, I did it so thoughtlessly, the sundry men collected in that room provoking no caution whatsoever. I spoke my mind naturally, as is my birthright, forgetting completely that I traded my birthright for true love. Every day I make the sacrifice again.
My neck is jerked forward a fraction; Foreman has tugged lightly at the chain. “Eyes open,” he whispers, without turning his head toward me. He is not supposed to talk to me during this time and certainly is not supposed to protect me from further punishment. It seems remarkable that he is here at all; surely the stink of this shame is not one he wishes to linger about his person. He does not have friendship as his motivation; he hardly knows me at all, and while he knows Greg quite well, there cannot be said to be a friendship between them. And yet, this may be a show of loyalty. He is Greg’s most trusted overseer, after all. Through his own skill and Greg’s appreciation of it, Foreman has risen to a rather exalted position for a man of his age. Perhaps he feels his piety will countermand the shame of his employer’s family.
Foreman is intelligent with many useful talents. He is also a braying ass.
Without closing my eyes, there is no way I can avoid seeing the crowd in front of me. I have tried to keep my eyes unfocused, but it seems some part of me wants to know, wants to catalogue the humanity that has come to witness my confession and punishment. There are those that simply revel in sick pleasure whenever a fellow human being is brought to the pillory. They are easy for me to spot, and easy for me to ignore.
There are many more that are likewise pleased but for them the pleasure is that it is me on this platform. I see Thompson toward the back, Brown and his wives to the right, and Taylor and his family to the left. Nearer the front are Anne and Sarah. Not together; they barely know each other to speak. They are forever united, however, in their guilt over accepting my advances in earlier years. All five of these people, and more, many more, were shocked at my marriage to Greg and have never forgiven me for stepping back from my station in life. They see my sacrifice as perverted and worse yet, foolish. In my darkest hours, I cannot say that I always disagree with them.
Looking around further, on some faces I see a conflict playing, one that makes me think of the times that I have stood in the crowd as the woman at this pillory confessed her crime and received her punishment. To bring comfort to the injured and sick was my profession and continues to be my nature. As a healer, I could not stop the well of sympathy that rose as each lash of cane or birch fell upon the condemned’s backside. As a man, however, there was always a satisfaction in the confession and the discipline. For a woman to act beyond her station is a crime in our society and a trespass against the laws of nature. Order must be maintained or we descend into chaos.
The movement of the clock’s hands is excruciatingly slow and yet, it is movement, after all. I can hear Greg’s footsteps, slow, heavy, and irregular on the stairs behind me. I wonder if he is allowing Allison to help him. Foreman has not moved from his post in front of the platform, facing the crowd, so he can be of no assistance. If Greg is allowing Allison to support him, that is fresh torture for me; I can feel my bile rising at the thought. At the very least, this particular torture can be passed on. My sway over Allison’s fortunes is near-absolute, second only to Greg’s. A small comfort even on the best days, but I cling to that prerogative as one of my few remaining rights.
As I wait for Greg to arrive at my side and give me leave to confess, my gaze and thoughts are drawn to those few in the crowd with sadness in their eyes. Cuddy, an old friend of Greg’s and of mine, separated from us now by time and circumstance. Such a friend, though, as to still regret the necessity of this situation. Cuddy’s counsel, when Greg and I discovered we were soulmates, had been that we should leave, find a home in another land and be free of our society’s laws. We had laughed, Greg and I.
“You propose that we both give up our positions, fortunes, and families? To head into the uncivilized wild? For what benefit?”
“So that you may both remain men,” was Cuddy’s reply. Greg and I had laughed again - the thought of living outside of our home country was quite absurd - and yet some portion of my heart held no mirth at all. Whispers always abounded of places in which men and women might share responsibilities and privileges, taking roles and positions based on ability and not station. Fairytales to frighten young boys, I had sneeringly surmised.
Too late, it is entirely too late to think of other possibilities, especially those based on whimsy and fantasy. We made our choice as if there hadn’t been one, and after much struggle I made my sacrifice to be with the one I love.
My brother of birth is the last person I see before Greg unlocks the chain and nudges my head up. It is awkward to try to stand to full height with my wrists still trapped in the wood, but I do my best.
Shame has filled me from sole to scalp. Breathing is difficult, as if I am drowning. The humiliation of this moment is overwhelming, and I want so desperately to blame it on someone else. It would be easy, quite easy to turn on Greg. He is the one holding the chain; he is the one who will deliver the punishment; he is the one for whom I gave up everything.
But I was the one who walked away from my old station. And I was the one who forgot my new station and made such a grievous offense.
My brother’s eyes are welling with tears. How can this be his shame? He has no tie to me any longer; I have left my family of birth. I miss my brother, it is true. His counsel, his laughter, and his strength were dear to me. He has his own estate to consider now that our father has died, and at least this ignominy is not upon him and the Wilson name.
“Speak,” Greg says. “The crowd is of no importance, but you must be loud enough for the other Councilmen to hear.” He nods toward the four men in robes standing a few feet away. Their faces are grave, and I almost laugh. They are at war within themselves, I know. On the one hand, the disgrace, however minor, of a fellow Councilman brings them disrepute. On the other, they have no personal regard for Greg at all. His plain tongue cuts them on every possible occasion, and without the wealth and power of his family estate, they would gladly toss him off the Council and into the street.
I silently thank Greg for that distraction, that second’s respite from my humiliation. Now I must confess, and declare myself, and accept forever that I am what I was not born to be.
“I am James, first wife of Gregory House. I confess, of my own volition and without coercion, to the crime of disrespect toward my husband. I spoke words that contradicted his, in disregard of my station as his wife, and in clear violation of the rules of our society. I humbly repent and submit to the punishment due me.”
Greg grazes a hand along my side, “inadvertently” touching me as he steps forward to make his declaration. In my overcharged state, I almost weep at his kindness. To the rest of the world, he is sharp and callous. I see his comportment as the shield that it is; I am the one he allows behind the mask. That he permits me to love him is the greatest joy I have ever known.
“I am Gregory House, citizen, Councilman, and patriarch of the House line. I accept the confession of my wife James. With this discipline, I forgive her of her trespass and on behalf of all citizens I provide her absolution.”
Councilman Deane steps forward and hands Greg the cane for my punishment. Now he has two, is my unbidden thought and I chastise that portion of my mind that is laughing. What is there to laugh at? The strong stick that enables him to walk? Or the thin rattan that will bring me pain, and then absolution?
Greg told me just this morning that he had practiced his strokes, not wanting to chance wounds deeper than required by the Code.
“On whom?” I nervously asked.
Laughing, he replied, “It is very fortunate for us that I had already imprinted your body on the trunk of the tree outside our bedroom.” I find it unbecoming to blush, but the memory of those sunny afternoons and our activities therein bid my cheeks to redden.
He continued, “As with a certain pleasure with which we are well acquainted, I have been instructed that proper technique is all in the wrist.” His subsequent demonstration of his wrist’s agility left me breathless and distracted me wholly from the future punishment.
My mind is racing away from this moment, grasping at any idea or memory that might provide an avenue of escape.
“James,” Greg commands, and I am dropped back into my body. The rumbling of the crowd rushes my ears, and the sun is far too bright. I see a small boy of no more than four in the crowd. He holds his sister’s hand, and I want to scream that this is no place for so small a child, but instead I hear a strange buzzing and a crack like ice on the river in the first thaw.
The warmth across my seat is not unbearable. It spreads out from the line of the cane’s impact, and I have survived the first of the prescribed four blows.
I imagine Greg’s arm pulled back again, but then the fire turns. It has become a scorching, and I lose my breath. A knot of aching develops deep in the muscle. Before it has a chance to grow, there is another buzz, another crack, and the flames have a new line on which to dance.
I had thought before this moment that I would give myself the pride of not shedding tears before this crowd. An earnest stoicism is an honored mien for both men and women.
In the face of this pain, I can no more stop my eyes from welling than I could stop my heart from beating. Of the two, I would move heaven and earth to stop my heart, for each thump rushes blood to my backside, to dance with fire along the cane’s loving lines on my skin and feed the tumors of ache that pulse in my flesh.
With the third stroke, the nerves in my back and legs begin to sing, counterpoint to the screaming from my seat. My arms ache from rigidity; I have bit my tongue; the skin at my wrists has been rubbed raw.
The buzz seems slower this last time, the crack softer, but it is only the roar in my ears dulling the sound. The cane’s last blow lashes lower, nearer to my thighs, and I imagine the burn igniting the hair on my legs, underneath my trousers. That foul, acrid stench would complete this picture so profoundly.
My head is pulled up; the collar slips off and falls to my feet. “James,” Greg says, and I would love to see his face but my eyes are having some difficulty focusing.
“James,” Greg repeats. “You are absolved.” From the warmth in his voice, that seems a good thing, but I am currently unable to remember what I should be absolved from. My own name as well seems an elusive dream.
Greg puts one hand to the back of my neck and rubs gently, and that at last brings me back. I see his face; I see his eyes; and I want nothing more than to melt into him.
“We’re going home,” Greg says, and I nod as he releases my wrists from their wooden encasement. At once, there is a warm body under me, supporting me as I stretch to a fully standing position. For a fleeting moment, it could be Greg, in front of me and beside me at the same time, but no. It is Allison, performing her duty. If I were to look at her, no doubt there would be tears in her eyes as well. Compassion is her trademark, her reason for existence. I will take the support, for I need it and it is my due from her, but the compassion I will spit back in her face at the first moment that I have the energy.
My legs are uncooperative, trembling and swaying. I lean heavily on Allison as we make our way down the steps. Her gasp at the pressure I exert pleases me.
Once down from the platform, Allison tries to lead me away, but I need Greg next to me. We are going home.
Turning back, I see that Foreman has deigned to move his pompous frame and is supporting Greg as he hops down the four steps. On level ground, Greg’s pace can be a match to any man’s, but today he slows to walk next to me, as I step cautiously like an old person, tentative and unsure.
He might touch me as we walk - an absolved wife might hold her husband’s hand - but that is not Greg’s way.
The walk back to our home takes far too long. The pain in my lower half ebbs and flows between agonizing and excruciating. I continue to press on Allison; she continues to do her duty - but I hope I am crushing the compassion out of her. She is the necessary evil of our family, and there is no need to bring emotion into it.
At last, we pass the garden gate; at last, we cross the threshold of home; at last, the bed that Greg and I share is in front of me. I no longer need Allison, and I push her away roughly.
Simply sinking into the mattress relieves some of the strain, dulls the pain the tiniest fraction. “Husband?” I call, never having considered that he might not immediately join me.
Greg’s voice murmurs low behind me, and I move so that I can look. He is speaking with Allison, standing far too close for my liking. If he touches her at this time, she will pay.
“Husband?” I repeat. “Should I go and get the salve?”
“Allison will fetch it,” he replies as he stretches next to me on the bed. His hand is on my back even before he is fully reclined, stroking and massaging with perfect pressure. I close my eyes momentarily, but force myself to open them again so that I can take in his expression.
The warmth and devotion I anticipated are there, but overlaying those is something else entirely. Amusement. It hardens my heart.
“It makes you merry to strike blows upon me?” I ask and turn my head away.
Greg’s hand pushes deeper into my back, in the one spot that always requires relief. I hold back from groaning my pleasure.
“It amuses me that you call out ‘husband.’ I thought that word to be among those forbidden between us.”
“You are my husband. Proven and paid for. Why should I deny it?” He continues to knead firmly into my back, providing a relief that contrasts the ache and sting still suffused within my seat.
“No one asks you for a denial. But if I had wanted a woman in your place, I would have taken a woman.” Greg pushes my shirt up; I pull it off over my head, hissing when stretching so tugs at the muscles of my bottom and thighs.
“But I am a woman,” I reply when the pain subsides to its former throbbing level. “Did you not hear my confession?”
As I am speaking, Allison enters the room with the jar of salve in her hand. She stretches toward Greg, but I reach out and claim the jar. When she begins to protest, she learns from my face how little welcome her words will be. With only a fleeting glance toward Greg, she departs, closing the door behind her.
Greg snorts and continues our conversation. “You now have the station of a woman." His hand gentles, its movements becoming caresses. “But your mind is a man’s, your heart is a man’s, your body is a man’s. Well, your body is two men’s - yours, and most importantly, mine.” He places a kiss between my shoulder blades.
“As is my heart, as is my mind, as is my life, as dictated by the law, for I am your wife.”
It has never in the months of our marriage hurt me to think of Greg as my husband, as odd as that may sound. To declare myself wife is what causes the sting. In my mind, I have been comparing it to the searing from a fire’s errant ember; after today, I have the memory of the cane’s lash as a better illustration. Although, after today, I am committed to dulling the prick through repetition and acceptance.
Vigorously, Greg exhorts, “Allison is my wife. You are my partner, my equal. That is why I chose you and why you chose me. Speak no more of being a wife.” His hands are at my waist now, loosening my pants.
“My husband, is that a command?”
“Yes, it is.” Greg eases my pants down gently, and sucks in a sharp breath. The lines across my seat must be fierce and raw. He continues, “It is a command as one brother of choice would give the other. Why do you persist in this?”
Gently he smoothes salve across my flesh, and tears well in my eyes once again. The pressure of his fingertips, light though it is, brings a fresh sting of pain, which is soothed by the chill of the salve. I wonder if blood is raised in the welts, but do not truly want to know. I found the best salve; that is all I can do to help myself heal.
The matter at hand is convincing Greg that we can better protect ourselves by changing our language and mindset. “For form’s sake, we should -”
“When have you ever known me to care for form? What other men think is of no consequence whatsoever.”
He has laid his right hand gently on my thigh and is now placing small kisses all along my back. With my pain, and this matter of importance open between us, how can such desire be coursing through me?
I steady myself and reply, “I believe that perception has been proven false today.”
There are light, feathery touches, as of butterfly wings, tracing along my inner thighs. An unfair distraction. Greg’s voice is growing husky as he says, “The laws have consequences, of course. We must follow them. But form, another man’s estimation, that is another thing entirely. And in our chamber, and in other places between ourselves, there are no witnesses to the law, so it ceases to exist. We become the law.”
Heresy. Heresy to the point of apostasy. Greg is too clever by half. He knows things that he should not know. I cannot help but love him for it.
“You would have me carry two minds?” I have turned my head toward him and found his lips with my own. My words are spread between kisses, between licks across his tongue. “One way of speaking and behaving in private; another way out in the world?”
“Yes,” he replies, sighing at the touch of my hand on his chest. “As the activities of the bedroom stay in the bedroom.”
This makes me smile, my first smile since evening fell yesterday. “Yes, we are proficient in restraining those activities to the bedroom. Or the bath. Or the kitchen. Or the garden. Or on one occasion, our esteemed neighbor’s stairwell.”
I attempt to shift to my side, to get closer to Greg, but my worn flesh screams against the move, and I drop back onto my stomach. Greg sniffs, impatient, and reaches out. I have to close my eyes against the jolts of pain as he grabs my hips and turns me toward him. The flaring subsides after a moment, however, and the pain curls up like a cat.
Before I can open my eyes, Greg’s mouth is on mine in a probing kiss, and his arms are pulling me ever closer. The feel of my bare skin against his rough clothes is an excitement I can barely stand. I lean into our kiss, making my own pursuit, but Greg pulls back.
He puts an inch of space between us and my body feels the deprival. Looking into his face, it’s clear he has a destination in mind. I am lost, but as always will trust in his certitude.
His eyes hold mine for a long moment, and then he speaks.
“James, I want evermore to have by my side the person to whom I made a lifelong vow. Your wit, your intelligence, your strength are the essence of you. I will do whatever it takes to ensure you are always with me.”
His eyes are on me, and his hands and his lips, and the world may fall to Hell. Today is fading rapidly - the humiliation, the shame, the pain: what are those to endure, when my home is in the arms of one such as this? I will risk the pillory a thousand times more if this moment will be the result.
Title: Pillory
Author: Dee Laundry
Pairing: House/Wilson
Rating: PG-13
Words: 4193
Summary: What we do for love
Warnings: Alternate Universe (very alternate), Violence
Notes: Created for karaokegal's "Come As You Aren't" fic event. Why this is different for me: Hurt/comfort; focus on description rather than dialogue; voice/language. With grateful appreciation to daisylily for beta, and fallen_arazil, nightdog-barksand perspi for their suggestions and encouragement.
I don’t mind the eyes on me. That part hardly registers. As a boy, I was always fair of countenance and charming in demeanor, and I became quite accustomed to eyes following me. As a young man, I learned how to turn that to my best advantage, the best words and actions to undertake so that the fairest of maidens would keep their eyes on me and in private times add their lips and hands.
It’s not the eyes upon me that are causing the turmoil as I chafe at the wood trapping my wrists and the leather around my neck.
The clock in the town square keeps time as perfectly as a metronome but today it moves more slowly than clouds on a windless day. Perhaps that is why the pillory was placed just here, to let the condemned keep close watch on the clock and so add another element of torture.
Fifteen minutes have passed since Greg led me up here, locked my wrists in the pillory, and chained the collar on my neck to the post. I clearly saw pain in his eyes before he moved away, but that may just have been from the arduous task of climbing the four steps to this platform. Foreman had offered to do it for him, but Greg just scoffed.
“The Code is clear. All aspects of the punishment must be carried out by the offended party.” He then yanked abruptly at my chain, punishing me for Foreman’s offer of help. An unjust indignity, but one I was in no position to protest.
The memory of that tiny indignity causes a bit of anger to flare within me, and I blow on it gently, hoping to stoke the flames higher. Anger is truth; anger is strength; anger is a masculine humor.
Instead, the flames are doused by the currents of shame that have filled me since the morning’s awakening. “It’s a half-hour,” Greg had whispered as he tightened his arms around me and pressed his chin to the top of my head. “One half-hour only, James; you’ll survive.” I had kept my cheek against his chest and closed my eyes again, willing the clock to move its hands backwards and then stop, to let us stay in bed together eternally and leave the rest of the damnable world to hang.
The clock did not heed me; it never does.
I attempt discreetly to stretch and ease the twinge in my back - this pillory was designed, of course, for frames several inches shorter than my own - and wonder idly why I had not wished for time to reverse fully back to allow me to refrain from my offense. There would be no need for this shame, this pain, this turmoil if I could return to that time and simply hold my tongue.
The thing is, I did it so thoughtlessly, the sundry men collected in that room provoking no caution whatsoever. I spoke my mind naturally, as is my birthright, forgetting completely that I traded my birthright for true love. Every day I make the sacrifice again.
My neck is jerked forward a fraction; Foreman has tugged lightly at the chain. “Eyes open,” he whispers, without turning his head toward me. He is not supposed to talk to me during this time and certainly is not supposed to protect me from further punishment. It seems remarkable that he is here at all; surely the stink of this shame is not one he wishes to linger about his person. He does not have friendship as his motivation; he hardly knows me at all, and while he knows Greg quite well, there cannot be said to be a friendship between them. And yet, this may be a show of loyalty. He is Greg’s most trusted overseer, after all. Through his own skill and Greg’s appreciation of it, Foreman has risen to a rather exalted position for a man of his age. Perhaps he feels his piety will countermand the shame of his employer’s family.
Foreman is intelligent with many useful talents. He is also a braying ass.
Without closing my eyes, there is no way I can avoid seeing the crowd in front of me. I have tried to keep my eyes unfocused, but it seems some part of me wants to know, wants to catalogue the humanity that has come to witness my confession and punishment. There are those that simply revel in sick pleasure whenever a fellow human being is brought to the pillory. They are easy for me to spot, and easy for me to ignore.
There are many more that are likewise pleased but for them the pleasure is that it is me on this platform. I see Thompson toward the back, Brown and his wives to the right, and Taylor and his family to the left. Nearer the front are Anne and Sarah. Not together; they barely know each other to speak. They are forever united, however, in their guilt over accepting my advances in earlier years. All five of these people, and more, many more, were shocked at my marriage to Greg and have never forgiven me for stepping back from my station in life. They see my sacrifice as perverted and worse yet, foolish. In my darkest hours, I cannot say that I always disagree with them.
Looking around further, on some faces I see a conflict playing, one that makes me think of the times that I have stood in the crowd as the woman at this pillory confessed her crime and received her punishment. To bring comfort to the injured and sick was my profession and continues to be my nature. As a healer, I could not stop the well of sympathy that rose as each lash of cane or birch fell upon the condemned’s backside. As a man, however, there was always a satisfaction in the confession and the discipline. For a woman to act beyond her station is a crime in our society and a trespass against the laws of nature. Order must be maintained or we descend into chaos.
The movement of the clock’s hands is excruciatingly slow and yet, it is movement, after all. I can hear Greg’s footsteps, slow, heavy, and irregular on the stairs behind me. I wonder if he is allowing Allison to help him. Foreman has not moved from his post in front of the platform, facing the crowd, so he can be of no assistance. If Greg is allowing Allison to support him, that is fresh torture for me; I can feel my bile rising at the thought. At the very least, this particular torture can be passed on. My sway over Allison’s fortunes is near-absolute, second only to Greg’s. A small comfort even on the best days, but I cling to that prerogative as one of my few remaining rights.
As I wait for Greg to arrive at my side and give me leave to confess, my gaze and thoughts are drawn to those few in the crowd with sadness in their eyes. Cuddy, an old friend of Greg’s and of mine, separated from us now by time and circumstance. Such a friend, though, as to still regret the necessity of this situation. Cuddy’s counsel, when Greg and I discovered we were soulmates, had been that we should leave, find a home in another land and be free of our society’s laws. We had laughed, Greg and I.
“You propose that we both give up our positions, fortunes, and families? To head into the uncivilized wild? For what benefit?”
“So that you may both remain men,” was Cuddy’s reply. Greg and I had laughed again - the thought of living outside of our home country was quite absurd - and yet some portion of my heart held no mirth at all. Whispers always abounded of places in which men and women might share responsibilities and privileges, taking roles and positions based on ability and not station. Fairytales to frighten young boys, I had sneeringly surmised.
Too late, it is entirely too late to think of other possibilities, especially those based on whimsy and fantasy. We made our choice as if there hadn’t been one, and after much struggle I made my sacrifice to be with the one I love.
My brother of birth is the last person I see before Greg unlocks the chain and nudges my head up. It is awkward to try to stand to full height with my wrists still trapped in the wood, but I do my best.
Shame has filled me from sole to scalp. Breathing is difficult, as if I am drowning. The humiliation of this moment is overwhelming, and I want so desperately to blame it on someone else. It would be easy, quite easy to turn on Greg. He is the one holding the chain; he is the one who will deliver the punishment; he is the one for whom I gave up everything.
But I was the one who walked away from my old station. And I was the one who forgot my new station and made such a grievous offense.
My brother’s eyes are welling with tears. How can this be his shame? He has no tie to me any longer; I have left my family of birth. I miss my brother, it is true. His counsel, his laughter, and his strength were dear to me. He has his own estate to consider now that our father has died, and at least this ignominy is not upon him and the Wilson name.
“Speak,” Greg says. “The crowd is of no importance, but you must be loud enough for the other Councilmen to hear.” He nods toward the four men in robes standing a few feet away. Their faces are grave, and I almost laugh. They are at war within themselves, I know. On the one hand, the disgrace, however minor, of a fellow Councilman brings them disrepute. On the other, they have no personal regard for Greg at all. His plain tongue cuts them on every possible occasion, and without the wealth and power of his family estate, they would gladly toss him off the Council and into the street.
I silently thank Greg for that distraction, that second’s respite from my humiliation. Now I must confess, and declare myself, and accept forever that I am what I was not born to be.
“I am James, first wife of Gregory House. I confess, of my own volition and without coercion, to the crime of disrespect toward my husband. I spoke words that contradicted his, in disregard of my station as his wife, and in clear violation of the rules of our society. I humbly repent and submit to the punishment due me.”
Greg grazes a hand along my side, “inadvertently” touching me as he steps forward to make his declaration. In my overcharged state, I almost weep at his kindness. To the rest of the world, he is sharp and callous. I see his comportment as the shield that it is; I am the one he allows behind the mask. That he permits me to love him is the greatest joy I have ever known.
“I am Gregory House, citizen, Councilman, and patriarch of the House line. I accept the confession of my wife James. With this discipline, I forgive her of her trespass and on behalf of all citizens I provide her absolution.”
Councilman Deane steps forward and hands Greg the cane for my punishment. Now he has two, is my unbidden thought and I chastise that portion of my mind that is laughing. What is there to laugh at? The strong stick that enables him to walk? Or the thin rattan that will bring me pain, and then absolution?
Greg told me just this morning that he had practiced his strokes, not wanting to chance wounds deeper than required by the Code.
“On whom?” I nervously asked.
Laughing, he replied, “It is very fortunate for us that I had already imprinted your body on the trunk of the tree outside our bedroom.” I find it unbecoming to blush, but the memory of those sunny afternoons and our activities therein bid my cheeks to redden.
He continued, “As with a certain pleasure with which we are well acquainted, I have been instructed that proper technique is all in the wrist.” His subsequent demonstration of his wrist’s agility left me breathless and distracted me wholly from the future punishment.
My mind is racing away from this moment, grasping at any idea or memory that might provide an avenue of escape.
“James,” Greg commands, and I am dropped back into my body. The rumbling of the crowd rushes my ears, and the sun is far too bright. I see a small boy of no more than four in the crowd. He holds his sister’s hand, and I want to scream that this is no place for so small a child, but instead I hear a strange buzzing and a crack like ice on the river in the first thaw.
The warmth across my seat is not unbearable. It spreads out from the line of the cane’s impact, and I have survived the first of the prescribed four blows.
I imagine Greg’s arm pulled back again, but then the fire turns. It has become a scorching, and I lose my breath. A knot of aching develops deep in the muscle. Before it has a chance to grow, there is another buzz, another crack, and the flames have a new line on which to dance.
I had thought before this moment that I would give myself the pride of not shedding tears before this crowd. An earnest stoicism is an honored mien for both men and women.
In the face of this pain, I can no more stop my eyes from welling than I could stop my heart from beating. Of the two, I would move heaven and earth to stop my heart, for each thump rushes blood to my backside, to dance with fire along the cane’s loving lines on my skin and feed the tumors of ache that pulse in my flesh.
With the third stroke, the nerves in my back and legs begin to sing, counterpoint to the screaming from my seat. My arms ache from rigidity; I have bit my tongue; the skin at my wrists has been rubbed raw.
The buzz seems slower this last time, the crack softer, but it is only the roar in my ears dulling the sound. The cane’s last blow lashes lower, nearer to my thighs, and I imagine the burn igniting the hair on my legs, underneath my trousers. That foul, acrid stench would complete this picture so profoundly.
My head is pulled up; the collar slips off and falls to my feet. “James,” Greg says, and I would love to see his face but my eyes are having some difficulty focusing.
“James,” Greg repeats. “You are absolved.” From the warmth in his voice, that seems a good thing, but I am currently unable to remember what I should be absolved from. My own name as well seems an elusive dream.
Greg puts one hand to the back of my neck and rubs gently, and that at last brings me back. I see his face; I see his eyes; and I want nothing more than to melt into him.
“We’re going home,” Greg says, and I nod as he releases my wrists from their wooden encasement. At once, there is a warm body under me, supporting me as I stretch to a fully standing position. For a fleeting moment, it could be Greg, in front of me and beside me at the same time, but no. It is Allison, performing her duty. If I were to look at her, no doubt there would be tears in her eyes as well. Compassion is her trademark, her reason for existence. I will take the support, for I need it and it is my due from her, but the compassion I will spit back in her face at the first moment that I have the energy.
My legs are uncooperative, trembling and swaying. I lean heavily on Allison as we make our way down the steps. Her gasp at the pressure I exert pleases me.
Once down from the platform, Allison tries to lead me away, but I need Greg next to me. We are going home.
Turning back, I see that Foreman has deigned to move his pompous frame and is supporting Greg as he hops down the four steps. On level ground, Greg’s pace can be a match to any man’s, but today he slows to walk next to me, as I step cautiously like an old person, tentative and unsure.
He might touch me as we walk - an absolved wife might hold her husband’s hand - but that is not Greg’s way.
The walk back to our home takes far too long. The pain in my lower half ebbs and flows between agonizing and excruciating. I continue to press on Allison; she continues to do her duty - but I hope I am crushing the compassion out of her. She is the necessary evil of our family, and there is no need to bring emotion into it.
At last, we pass the garden gate; at last, we cross the threshold of home; at last, the bed that Greg and I share is in front of me. I no longer need Allison, and I push her away roughly.
Simply sinking into the mattress relieves some of the strain, dulls the pain the tiniest fraction. “Husband?” I call, never having considered that he might not immediately join me.
Greg’s voice murmurs low behind me, and I move so that I can look. He is speaking with Allison, standing far too close for my liking. If he touches her at this time, she will pay.
“Husband?” I repeat. “Should I go and get the salve?”
“Allison will fetch it,” he replies as he stretches next to me on the bed. His hand is on my back even before he is fully reclined, stroking and massaging with perfect pressure. I close my eyes momentarily, but force myself to open them again so that I can take in his expression.
The warmth and devotion I anticipated are there, but overlaying those is something else entirely. Amusement. It hardens my heart.
“It makes you merry to strike blows upon me?” I ask and turn my head away.
Greg’s hand pushes deeper into my back, in the one spot that always requires relief. I hold back from groaning my pleasure.
“It amuses me that you call out ‘husband.’ I thought that word to be among those forbidden between us.”
“You are my husband. Proven and paid for. Why should I deny it?” He continues to knead firmly into my back, providing a relief that contrasts the ache and sting still suffused within my seat.
“No one asks you for a denial. But if I had wanted a woman in your place, I would have taken a woman.” Greg pushes my shirt up; I pull it off over my head, hissing when stretching so tugs at the muscles of my bottom and thighs.
“But I am a woman,” I reply when the pain subsides to its former throbbing level. “Did you not hear my confession?”
As I am speaking, Allison enters the room with the jar of salve in her hand. She stretches toward Greg, but I reach out and claim the jar. When she begins to protest, she learns from my face how little welcome her words will be. With only a fleeting glance toward Greg, she departs, closing the door behind her.
Greg snorts and continues our conversation. “You now have the station of a woman." His hand gentles, its movements becoming caresses. “But your mind is a man’s, your heart is a man’s, your body is a man’s. Well, your body is two men’s - yours, and most importantly, mine.” He places a kiss between my shoulder blades.
“As is my heart, as is my mind, as is my life, as dictated by the law, for I am your wife.”
It has never in the months of our marriage hurt me to think of Greg as my husband, as odd as that may sound. To declare myself wife is what causes the sting. In my mind, I have been comparing it to the searing from a fire’s errant ember; after today, I have the memory of the cane’s lash as a better illustration. Although, after today, I am committed to dulling the prick through repetition and acceptance.
Vigorously, Greg exhorts, “Allison is my wife. You are my partner, my equal. That is why I chose you and why you chose me. Speak no more of being a wife.” His hands are at my waist now, loosening my pants.
“My husband, is that a command?”
“Yes, it is.” Greg eases my pants down gently, and sucks in a sharp breath. The lines across my seat must be fierce and raw. He continues, “It is a command as one brother of choice would give the other. Why do you persist in this?”
Gently he smoothes salve across my flesh, and tears well in my eyes once again. The pressure of his fingertips, light though it is, brings a fresh sting of pain, which is soothed by the chill of the salve. I wonder if blood is raised in the welts, but do not truly want to know. I found the best salve; that is all I can do to help myself heal.
The matter at hand is convincing Greg that we can better protect ourselves by changing our language and mindset. “For form’s sake, we should -”
“When have you ever known me to care for form? What other men think is of no consequence whatsoever.”
He has laid his right hand gently on my thigh and is now placing small kisses all along my back. With my pain, and this matter of importance open between us, how can such desire be coursing through me?
I steady myself and reply, “I believe that perception has been proven false today.”
There are light, feathery touches, as of butterfly wings, tracing along my inner thighs. An unfair distraction. Greg’s voice is growing husky as he says, “The laws have consequences, of course. We must follow them. But form, another man’s estimation, that is another thing entirely. And in our chamber, and in other places between ourselves, there are no witnesses to the law, so it ceases to exist. We become the law.”
Heresy. Heresy to the point of apostasy. Greg is too clever by half. He knows things that he should not know. I cannot help but love him for it.
“You would have me carry two minds?” I have turned my head toward him and found his lips with my own. My words are spread between kisses, between licks across his tongue. “One way of speaking and behaving in private; another way out in the world?”
“Yes,” he replies, sighing at the touch of my hand on his chest. “As the activities of the bedroom stay in the bedroom.”
This makes me smile, my first smile since evening fell yesterday. “Yes, we are proficient in restraining those activities to the bedroom. Or the bath. Or the kitchen. Or the garden. Or on one occasion, our esteemed neighbor’s stairwell.”
I attempt to shift to my side, to get closer to Greg, but my worn flesh screams against the move, and I drop back onto my stomach. Greg sniffs, impatient, and reaches out. I have to close my eyes against the jolts of pain as he grabs my hips and turns me toward him. The flaring subsides after a moment, however, and the pain curls up like a cat.
Before I can open my eyes, Greg’s mouth is on mine in a probing kiss, and his arms are pulling me ever closer. The feel of my bare skin against his rough clothes is an excitement I can barely stand. I lean into our kiss, making my own pursuit, but Greg pulls back.
He puts an inch of space between us and my body feels the deprival. Looking into his face, it’s clear he has a destination in mind. I am lost, but as always will trust in his certitude.
His eyes hold mine for a long moment, and then he speaks.
“James, I want evermore to have by my side the person to whom I made a lifelong vow. Your wit, your intelligence, your strength are the essence of you. I will do whatever it takes to ensure you are always with me.”
His eyes are on me, and his hands and his lips, and the world may fall to Hell. Today is fading rapidly - the humiliation, the shame, the pain: what are those to endure, when my home is in the arms of one such as this? I will risk the pillory a thousand times more if this moment will be the result.