Part37
Posted by Barbanne on October 10, 2002 at 00:18:36:
PART THIRTY SEVEN
WITCHCRAFT
Whew it was still hot!
Stinking bloody hot! And my bum still hurt, not so much now, but it was sure tender, that Alex didn't know his own strength. And my front bum was battered too. That man! Sex with him was like a workout, nice workout mind, but nevertheless a workout. Very physical.
"Get your mind above your navel Barb," I told myself.
Phew it was hot!
Alex was sitting opposite me working on his PC. We were waiting for Sibyl to arrive so that we could nut out the Witch set together. I would be writing the script and Alex would be directing and I also hoped to do some of the camera work or at least help out.
I scanned the list in front of me.
I was working out which girls I could have do this particular set. Like all places that relied on part timers for our models we had a turnover problem which in our particular case was not helped by the meagre wages we could afford. Laurise had left to get married and although she had told me she hoped to come back at some time I knew the guy she was marrying wasn't too keen on her doing Playdead stuff and I really didn't think she would ever be back. Sharlene and Veronica had moved on which hadn't surprised me as girls like that did modelling for a lark and they usually lost interest after a while. Deborah was working full time for an agency that dealt with the problems of her people and didn't have the time spare to work for us although Kathy was still available.
So, I looked at my list.
Sherilee, Kathy, Nadine and Jas. I hoped to be involved with the camera work for this set and would only be one of the victims if we got squeezed. I was hoping Sibyl would take some part but that depended on how she saw it working out. We had a new girl called Jordan who hadn't actually worked on a set yet. She had come through one of our ads along with a guy called Rom. I didn't know what we would do with Rom but I reckoned it was a good idea to have extra guys we could call on and this guy seemed very keen to work with me for some reason. Jordan was the biggest girl we had ever had, not so much tall but very big boned and very meaty. I could see her squishing a little squirt like me to death in some future unequal contest set but whether there was a place for her in the witch thing would depend on how the story line worked out.
I was still waitressing at the Fortune Court and so doing stuff like this had to be afternoons for me otherwise I missed out on my sack time and I needed my full eight hours.
Shit it was hot!!
"Hi! anyone at home?" Sibyl was downstairs.
"Come on up."
She did and I passed her on the stairs going down to latch the front door.
"Hello Sibyl, isn't it hot?"
"Sure is Barb."
She was wearing a lightweight, see through, short skirted dress and, with her height and grooming, looked cool and composed. I had on baggy shorts and a tee shirt, no bra and probably ponged again. I caught the hint of some subtle perfume wafting from between Sibyl's breasts and mentally kicked myself for being such a dag. If Alex said anything...................
When I came back up Sibyl was sitting with her endless legs crossed daintily, talking to Alex and I crashed into a chair and sat there staring at her.
She turned toward me.
"So Sibyl you're a witch?" I said not very gracefully.
"Wicca Barb, a benevolent spirit."
"You hypnotised me that time and then you did it to Jas."
"No Barb I used my spirit to unlock yours."
"Talk sense."
"I used my own life energy to help you release yours."
"I don't get it."
"Tell me Barb, did you feel better afterwards, did Jas?"
"Well yes but you and those ladies did something to me when I was out. Something sexual."
"No we didn't Barb and you weren't truly out as you put it, you were finding your own inner strengths."
"How come I felt like I'd had sex?"
"You're a very sexual creature Barb and your inner self seeks and finds arousal."
"Hmmmnnnn."
Alex was smiling.
"What are you grinning for?" I shot at him.
"You are a very sexy person Barb, but lets hear what Sibyl has to say about witchcraft and this set we propose."
"OK," said Sibyl, "witchcraft, Wicca today and commonly occuring in African and other communities, but the popular conception which dates from the Middle Ages is usually women and is normally associated with worship of Satan."
"Pointy hats and warty noses," I said.
She laughed, "Yes well, that's how they come across in popular fiction, wicked witch of the west and all that but in truth the seeking out and punishment of so called witches started in fifteenth century Europe. The first major witch hunt occurred in Switzerland in 1427. The first important book on the subject, the Malleus Maleficarum appeared in Germany in 1486, two years after the Papal Bull Summis Desiderantes of 1484 which authorised death for witches. The persecution of witches reached its height between 1580 and 1660 when witch trials became almost universal throughout Europe. Geographically the centre of witch burning lay in Germany, Switzerland and Austria although few areas remained untouched. Numbers vary but it is thought millions of people, overwhelmingly female, were accused and destroyed. In south western Germany alone more than 3000 women were executed between 1560 and 1680. Not all witch trials ended in death. In England where torture was banned only about twenty percent of those accused were put to death and that by hanging. In Scotland where torture was used nearly half of those tried were subsequently killed by being burned at the stake and three times as many witches were killed as in England. In the Dutch Republic no witch was executed after 1600 and none were tried after 1620. In Spain and Italy where torture was employed, all accusations of witch craft were handle by the Inquisition and only a dozen witches were burned out of 5000 put on trial. Ireland escaped witch trials altogether. Something like eighty percent of all accused witches were women, it being thought that women as the weaker sex would be more likely to succumb to the devil."
"Well, there's some truth in that," I thought.
"All the aspects of witchcraft crossed over to the Americas with the European settlers and forty people were executed in the English colonies between 1650 and 1710, half of them in the now famous Salem witch trials. Witch trials declined in Europe after 1680 and the last recorded execution was in Switzeralnd in 1782. Beginning in the 1920's witchcraft was resurrected and became Wicca, the practice of pre-christian religious devotions. So there you are that's witchcraft." ***
"So," I said, "we have hanging and burning."
"Of witches, yes and they were all innocent of any liaison with the devil, just young women unjustly accused for reasons as wide spread as sheer misogynstic hatred to ignorance of their healing powers."
"So we make our victims sympathetic?"
"Yes, but surely burning is out?"
"Sibyl, you leave the photography to Alex and me. You'd be amazed, should I say you will be amazed, at what we can do with coloured filters to make these poor girls look well roasted."
"And hanging?"
"Yeah we won't actually hang anyone either."
"How do you fake that?"
Camera angles, cropping, stuff like that. Maybe even some digital manipulation."
"Alright so we need a story line."
Yeah a witch trial with our girls coming up one by one and then being consigned to the flames or the noose and then dying bravely and, of course, sexily."
"Alex?" Sibyl turned to him.
"I think so. I'd like to think through the photography maybe story board some of it."
"OK," said Sibyl, "the injustice of witch killings, here we come."
I would have high fived her but it was too damned hot so I grinned instead.
I started in on the witchcraft set.
My witches were Sherilee, Nadine, Kathy and Jas. The fact that Kathy was a dark girl made little difference as witch accusations were made against women of all shapes, sizes and colours. Scriptwise I was working on a special finale finish for Sibyl as our resident witch expert.
I worked with Dave setting up the studio for the two different scenarios we would be using. For the burnings I had obtained several sheets of red, yellow and orange cellophane paper and we scrunched these up and made them into a neat looking conflagration at the base of the pole we had erected and to which the girls would be tied. For lighting we used two studio flashes angled at forty five degrees to the model with the main flash being on the right. We also had a low down reverse flash, slave operated, which would shoot light into the cellophane making it light up flame like. We shot a couple of tests with me standing beside the pole and they worked a treat. For the hangings we had a noose suspended from a beam against a black background with a main light directly overhead shooting down onto the victim. To pick updetail we used fill flash on the camera. I stood with the rope around my neck and poked my tongue out and we tested the lighting out and it too worked really well.
The day of the shoot we had some rain early on and the heat cranked down a few notches to just unbearable.
I had been able to add another witch, a girl called Corinne. A mid thirties redhead, divorced and looking for a bit of extra cash, she had the most freckles I have ever seen on anyone and very small breasts, flatter even than mine and masses and masses of fierce red hair and a nice muscular body. I explained what we were doing and she put her hand up right away to play a witch.
I went through the storyline with Alex and Dave and then Dave started shooting with Alex directing both him and the models.
Nadine led off and I stood beside Corinne telling her what a model was expected to do and watching with her while Nadine did her thing.
We had a filmy black, see through, open weave gown that all of the girls would wear.
Nadine, wearing this, faced the camera as she was convicted of witchcraft. Pleading futilely she was led away and stood on the scaffold and the noose was placed around her neck and then she dropped into eternity. Dave shot pics of her hanging and Nadine poked her tongue way out and bugged her eyes real bulging like and hung there and wet herself with the assistance of some make up until, when Dave and Alex felt they had enough, she was taken down by Larry (playing a helper) and me (playing an apothecary's assistant).
I stripped Nadine and laid her nude body out and the black gown went to Kathy who was convicted, plead pointlessly and was duly tied to the post and then writhed in agony as the cellophane and flashlight flames consumed her.
Sherilee and Jas went through our summary court and then they too were burnt, writhing sexily, at the stake and then Corinne, who had asked to be left to last, was convicted looking very frightened and led to the noose again looking wonderfully terrified (she was a natural actress) and then was noosed up and dropped and did a wonderful struggling death before rolling her eyes way back inside her eyelids and letting her tongue slide slowly out until it hung drooling down out of the side of her mouth and there she was dead and Larry and I carried her away and I slowly and tenderly stripped her to nude (she had freckles EVERYWHERE!) and laid her out beside Nadine.
Sibyl was last and she was magnificently regal and went to the stake with great dignity where she writhed a little and died bravely eaten up by our cellophane flames.
The set was great and the deaths combined the right amount of pathos, dignity and sexiness. I thought it looked good.
Very good actually and Alex agreed with me.
As the girls were collecting their money I spoke to Corinne and asked her to come back on the weekend as I wanted to do a gladiatorial set and had lined up the new guys Rom and Jordan and with me and Corinne I planned a great fight and death scene.
I cleaned up and then Alex and I ran the shots and the witches set was one of the best I had known us to do.
I finished up at the Fortune Court at the end of the week and to my great relief a cool change came through as I was leaving work promising much more pleasant conditions on the weekend.
I looked forward to being a dead gladiator!!!
***With thanks to a "Dictionary of the Occult" for the facts quoted here.