MARA'S ORDEAL

BY ICON O'CLAST

She stood before the fence of rusted barbwire and rotting wood
with a lump in her throat and a knot in her stomach. Beyond lay
woods so dark and deep that the spaces beneath the trees seemed
almost cavernous. Like something out of a storybook.

"Don't do it, Mara," her friend pleaded. "The Coopers will get
you for sure!"

The Coopers. There were five of them, four boys and a girl. All
of them big, mean and ugly. And bullies. Collectively, they were
the terror of the schoolyard and ordinarily Mara wouldn't have
set foot on their property for anything, but what choice did she
have? She'd been late for dinner twice already that week and her
father had warned her in no uncertain terms that she'd really be
in for it if she did it again. Once again, she had lost track of
time while playing after school and now the only way she was
going to make it home in time was to take a short cut across the
Coopers' property.

"I'll be all right," Mara declared, putting on her bravest face.
She stood there, a cute little eight-year old girl in blue
overalls and a striped red top, her long black hair shining in
the afternoon sun.

"They won't even know I was there." With that she carefully
scaled the weather- beaten fence and started on her way.

As soon as she was out of her friend's sight, Mara started
running. She hadn't wanted to look like a coward, but she WAS
scared. The Coopers had never paid much attention to her, but she
had seen what they did to other kids who crossed their path. They
never missed a chance to push someone in the mud, or steal their
milk money, or just reduce them to tears by any means they could
think of. They even pantsed one kid, and he was a fifth-grader!

So she ran. She ran until her sides hurt, then she walked as fast
as she could.

She was being silly, Mara told herself. A real scaredy-cat. There
was no one around. The Coopers were probably at their own dinner
table by now, eating whatever their alcoholic mother had managed
to prepare for them.

Just then a sound carried through the quiet of the woods that
Mara was certain she hadn't made. It was just the snapping of a
twig, but it made her turn and look all the same.

They were there. All five of them. They came bounding through the
trees like a pack of hungry wolves. They all looked very much the
same, stocky frames, dirty blond hair and clothes that could have
done with even more patches than were already on them. No
storybook Mara had ever seen contained monsters so frightening to
look upon.

Tired though she was, Mara ran for her life. Roots and rocks
reached up to try and trip her as she fled, but nothing would
make her slow down.

When the tottering fence that marked the end of the Coopers'
property came into view, Mara thought she'd never see a more
welcome sight. Once over it, she might be safe. But the Coopers
saw it too. They were yelling now, encouraging each other not to
let her get away.

Mara hit the fence on the run, scrambling up one of its rickety
posts. She was going to make it!

Then disaster struck.

Her overalls got snagged on one of the barbs.

Frantically, she tried to get loose, willing to sacrifice cloth
as well as flesh in order to escape. But the Coopers were much
closer than she realized.

Hands like the claws of beasts took hold of her and she was
pulled back. Mara hit the ground hard, but had the presence of
mind to get her feet under her almost immediatly. She crouched
there while they encircled her, two of the boys moving to make
sure she didn't try getting over the fence again.

"What are you doin' on our land?" Aaron, the youngest of the
Coopers all but screamed his question at her. He was only a year
older than Mara, but like all of his kin he was built like a pit
bull and towered over her.

"She's trespassing! That's what she's doin'," Emily Cooper
answered, a little out of breath. At sixteen, she was the oldest,
a perpetually scowling girl whose full- cheeked face never seemed
to show any hint of happiness unless she was tormenting another
child. "You know what we do to trespassers?" she asked Mara, a
malicious grin twitching at her pudgy jowls.

There were a few smiles and some knowing glances exchanged by the
Coopers, but Mara didn't wait for an answer. Lunging for the
biggest hole in their circle, she made a break for it and was off
and running again. There was no time to worry about direction, no
chance to think things through. Had she been able to, Mara might
have realized that she was running in the wrong direction, away
from the fence and deeper into the Coopers' territory.

She never saw the flying tackle that took her down coming. One
minute she was running for all she was worth and the next she was
face down in the dirt. They swarmed over her immediatly, not
wanting to give her another chance to squirt away. Mara managed
to rise to her knees even though they were pulling at her arms,
her clothes and her hair, but her defiance was short lived. Emily
punched her in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her, then
she went down under the pile.

When she could breathe again, all Mara's energy went into crying.
There was little else she could have done anyway. They had
wrestled her onto her back and the immovable bulk of Josh Cooper
was sitting on her chest. Someone else was holding her legs while
Aaron pinned her arms down over her head. All the Coopers were
panting from the exertion of having chased her down, but this
didn't stop Josh from scooping up a handful of dirt and trying to
feed it to the helpless girl beneath him. When Mara kept turning
her face away, Josh's brother Kyle obligingly knelt down and held
her head still so that Josh could force some of the soil between
her tightly pressed lips.

"What are we gonna do with her?" Aaron asked while Mara sputtered
and tried to spit out the dirt.

Emily moved closed and looked down at the tear-streaked and now
dirt-smeared face of their captive.

"You still got that rope, Aaron?"

The youngest Cooper indicated that he did.

"Then tie her up."

At their sister's command, the Cooper boys set to doing this,
binding Mara's ankles and wrists with lengths of rough brown
rope. At first she tried to fight this, but then Emily produced a
pocketknife and opened it up. Mara froze. Oh God, she thought,
they wouldn't...

Emily though had turned away from her and was scanning the
surrounding forest for something. Upon spying it, she said,"When
you get her trussed up good, put her over that log."

Then, as much to Mara as to her brothers, she declared,"We're
gonna teach this brat a lesson."

While Emily strode off, the boys finished their work. Josh got up
off of Mara, then helped his brothers pick her up. They
half-carried, half-dragged her over to a huge oak tree that had
been uprooted in a recent storm. There they stood her up and she
was spun around to face Billy. Josh and Kyle stood to either side
of her, holding onto her arms. When Billy stepped closer, they
lifted her tied hands above her head and held them there.

"You never shoulda come onto our land," Billy told her, standing
so close now that she could feel his hot breath upon her face. He
unsnapped the clasps on her overalls, flipping one strap over her
shoulder, then pausing cruelly before doing the same with the
other. The denim garment was then pulled roughly down to bunch
around her bound ankles.

The boys took a moment to leer at her standing there in her too
short red top and the white panties that it failed to cover. The
latter had yellow duckies on them and they laughed at much at
this as at their prisoner's plight. Then it was over the log with
her.

The tree had been an ancient one, so big in circumference that
when Mara was bent over it her feet no longer touched the ground.
Aaron quickly hopped over the log and with another length of rope
tied the girl's hands to a sturdy branch that extended out from
the trunk of the fallen tree.

Now there really was no escape.

While Aaron stepped back to admire his handiwork, Emily
reappeared at his side. She had a long, straight willow branch
that she had stripped of its leaves. It made a vicious slicing
sound when she waved it in the air.

"We're gonna teach you a lesson you ain't never gonna forget,"
she said, patting her hand with the switch like an angry
schoolmarm.

Trembling with fear, Mara felt another sensation building inside
of her. It burst from her as they moved around to the other side
of the log, drenching her crotch in warmth. "Look! She peed
herself!" one of the boys cried, bringing a chorus of laughter
from the others.

"Baby!" they called her, and teased,"I guess you shoulda wore a
diaper!"

Their taunts meant little to Mara though. Humiliated and
frightened though she was, she knew the worst was yet to come.
"Please don't," Mara begged when she felt her urine-soaked
panties pulled down, revealing her little eight-year old bottom
for all to see, but they only laughed. They laughed and Mara felt
the first biting swipe of the switch.

Mara's screams filled the forest, drowning out even the raucous
cheers of the Coopers. Emily whipped her without mercy, laying on
lash after lash until she had worked herself out of breath, but
Mara's punishment didn't end there. They kept her there for more
than an hour, each of the Coopers taking a turn as the torturer.
Sometimes they laid on the blows fast and furious, other times
with cruel and precise deliberation. They broke three switches on
her butt, but there were always more to be had from nearby trees.

When at last they had their fill and Mara's agonized yelps had
died away to pathetic sobs of misery, they left. They didn't
bother to untie her. They just left her there over that log, her
tiny buttocks crossed with hundreds of angry red welts, some of
which had broken open and started to seep blood.

It was almost dark when Mara finally returned home. Her ass felt
as if it was swollen to twice its normal size, but the pain had
started to subside and she could walk without discomfort.

Her father was waiting for her in the kitchen. "Come over here,
Mara," he said, the harshness in his tone making her suddenly
remember that she was late. Very late.

"Just where have you been?"

She stood in the doorway, struggling to get the words, ANY WORDS
out. When she failed to answer, her father grew angry.

"COME OVER HERE, NOW!"

The wooden paddle he had carved was in his hand now. He had
threatened her with it before, but never actually used it. This
time though...

Dazed and unable to believe what was happening, Mara moved
obediently to where he sat. "When I say don't be late for dinner,
young lady, you are gonna learn not to be late for dinner!" He
undid the clasps of her overalls as he said this and brusquely
pulled her over his knee. Next, her panties came down, the spots
of dried blood which had stuck the fabric to her wounded flesh
making her moan in pain as they were peeled away.

Her father paused and for one fleeting moment Mara thought she
was saved. The welts!

He would see what the Coopers had done to her and then she would
be able to explain. She would tell him everything and instead of
being punished she would be hugged and kissed and felt sorry for.

But it was not to be.

"You were bad at school, weren't you?"

In a panic, Mara blurted out,"NO, papa. I wasn't. It was the
Coopers, they..."

"DON'T YOU LIE TO ME!" her father shouted, silencing her last
desperate entreaty. "I can see all too well why you were late.
You were bad at school today and your teacher kept you after to
punish you. Looks like she did a pretty thorough job, too. Well,
Mara, if you had just told me the truth from the beginning, that
would have been the only whipping you would have got today."

The paddle landed with a resounding CRACK!, sending fresh waves
of pain through Mara's already tortured bottom. She cried as he
spanked her and though she would not have believed it after her
ordeal with the Coopers, she still had more tears to shed.