May Pole

Copyright Oggbashan April 2005

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

This is a work of fiction. The events described here are imaginary; the settings and characters are fictitious and are not intended to represent specific places or living persons.

*****

I lay back on the bed beside Lucina. I was satiated with a week of food, drink and sex. I had kissed and caressed and sucked her massive breasts, risking suffocation as she pressed my face deep into her cleavage and pressed her tits together behind my head. Frequently she had lifted and dropped a heavy tit over me thumping my head so that I seemed to have been punched many times. I had ridden her three times during the night pumping my seed into her heavy body while her legs and arms clamped me tightly. She had flattened me and demanded hours of pussy worship including sixty-nine. My face was beginning to relax after surviving the pounding her hips had given it. My tongue was numb. My ribs felt sore from supporting her weight and resisting her crushing hugs. I had managed to wriggle out from underneath her only a few minutes ago when she started to snore loudly.

Despite achieving both objectives, the overt and the covert, I had a vague sense of disquiet. Apart from the effort of satisfying Lucina night after night, it seemed to have been too easy.

I had come to this secretive country apparently as an anthropologist seeking surviving rites worshipping the Earth Mother. There had been vague hints that something had survived the cruel repression. I had found what I was looking for and tomorrow I would observe the whole ceremony from a secret hide.

Tonight Lucina had shown me the May Pole used for the women's rite and the special attachments at its top. The May Pole was kept hidden in a barn until May Day Eve. It seemed to be a couple of the roof beams but they were lowered the day before May Day and would be erected using a treadmill crane in the disused quarry at dawn. I had seen, handled and photographed everything. I had helped Lucina attach the fitments to the pole so I knew how they worked. They were spring loaded and when compressed formed a wooden version of an iron maiden. My fingers tingled as I remembered the feel of the dried blood. Pig's blood now but once it had been human. That May Pole radiated evil.

The other May Pole was already erected in the village square. Tomorrow young children would dance around it singing songs in praise of the dictator of this impoverished country. Once they had sung words in praise of Spring, words that meant one thing to the children with a hidden meaning that was very different. Now they sang turgid verses about 'The Protector of the People'.

Lucina, the proprietress of the village's only inn, had been willing to help me find out about the Earth Mother for payment in dollars and sex. She told me that she was named after the Roman Goddess of Childbirth. She looked like a manifestation of the Earth Mother, large, plump, rounded and earthily sexual. The dollars had been easy. Satisfying her sexual demands had been difficult but I had paid in full. How long it would take me to recover when I returned to civilisation I didn't know. What I did know was that it would be a long time before I wanted to experience a big beautiful woman again. Lucina had been too big and too powerful for me.

Lucina had kept her side of the bargain. Apart from the detailed revelations of the women's rites, she had told me exactly where the troops from the capital had dug an underground installation. I had managed to get close and photograph everything visible. There were missiles in silos under the abundant tree-cover. The staff in contamination suits confirmed the biological warfare nature of the payloads. Lucina and other villagers had reported finding violently contorted dead animals in the valley close to the site.

I had completed my covert mission. I had sent everything, covert and overt, twice by email to my superiors in London. All I had left to do was observe tomorrow's ceremony and get out of the country in one piece.

I reviewed what I knew about the May Pole. The attachments to the pole were hinged and spring loaded. They would be covered with a white globe of muslin held out with straws threaded through tunnels stitched on the inside of the globe. Once the pole was erected the globe would be about six feet below the cap of the May Pole. The wide ribbons were attached to the cap of the pole. As the dancers, who had to be pregnant women, twirled, the wide ribbons would cross the globe and gradually crush it. The dancers would lean out, pulling hard so that the ribbons would lash tightly.

As the entwined ribbons crushed the muslin globe, the hinged pieces would be pulled remorselessly inwards against the pole. On the underside of each piece were many hollow needles. They would pierce the stuffed pillows tied to the pole and sink into the concealed bladders of pig's blood and lock into place. The blood would pass through the needles and run down the ribbons, soaking them and the muslin globe.

When the dance had twined the ribbons below the globe, the hinged pieces would reveal their secret. They formed into a representation of the Earth Mother, heavily pregnant with massive breasts, her mouth open in the scream of childbirth. When the dance unravelled the ribbons the blood soaked muslin would remain, showing the Mother as a red horror.

Lucina had explained that originally the sacrifice strapped to the May Pole had been an eighteen-year-old male virgin. He would be overpowered and kidnapped before dawn on May Day by the newly elected May Queen and her attendants. He would be stripped naked. His mouth would be stopped with a cloth soaked in a virgin's menstrual blood and that was held in place by a white silken hood sewn on by the May Queen herself. Her long silver belt would bind his arms, her white stockings tied his feet and hands before he was fixed to the May Pole with her attendants' belts. Finally the muslin globe would cover him from view.

The May Queen and her attendants would replace their silver belts with golden ones. They would follow as the May Pole was carried to the village square and erected. They would watch as the dancers twined the ribbons round the May Pole crushing the muslin globe and killing the sacrifice inside the wooden statue.

In the early part of the twentieth century after a dearth of young men because of wars, the custom had been changed. The sacrifice became a serial adulterer who would be tried by the May Queen and her attendants. His offended wife would bind and gag him with her oldest underwear as the May Queen and others held him helpless. After the Second World War the authorities had suppressed the May Day celebrations, which still continued in secret, but with pig's blood replacing the human sacrifice.

The bloody ribbons would be removed, cut into lengths, taken out of the quarry and handed to the unmarried girls of the village. The girls would use their ribbon to tie the hands of any unmarried man they wanted and would lead him to the railings surrounding the former church. There the man would be tied to the railings. If he proposed he would be led inside the church, now the Party office, to register for marriage. He had to wear the bloody ribbon wrapped around his right arm until the marriage was consummated. If he refused? The girl would leave him tied to the railings. He was then fair game for any other girl. If he refused all of them he would be left until a female relative untied him at dusk. The female relative could demand a week's labour for releasing him and he had to wear the ribbon around his left arm until he had completed his task.

If an unmarried girl did not want to marry anyone, she could tie the hands of one of her close male relatives and attach him to the strings of her apron. He could be released if another woman wanted him in marriage or by agreeing to serve his female relative for the week wearing the ribbon on his left arm.

Why didn't all the men take off for the whole of May Day? Any man wearing a bloody ribbon on either arm was considered to be sacred. He could ask any married woman for sex and her husband could not object. The wife could refuse if she didn't want that particular man but only if she agreed to find a suitable replacement within twenty-four hours. If she couldn't find a substitute she had to provide the sex herself.

The secret May Pole would be left standing until dusk, then lowered and washed in the river. The hinged pieces would be removed and hidden. The pole would return to the barn after dark. The muslin globe would be sold, piece by piece, to any woman who wanted to conceive. She had to conceal it under her bed sheet when she made love to her husband.

I could be at risk from the May Day celebrations as an unmarried Westerner who was much richer than any local man and a passport to freedom and plenty. I knew all this but I still wanted to see the dance. Lucina assured me that I would. She had agreed to smuggle me out of the village as soon as the May Day events were complete. My luggage was waiting in a hut beyond the hill and a taxi would come from the capital to collect me. Lucina had prepared a secret hide overlooking everything. I had to be there an hour before dawn and stay there until well after dusk. She promised that she would wake me in time, yet here she was sleeping soundly beside me. I trusted her sense of timing. I rolled over and went to sleep.

Lucina's plump hand shook me awake.

"Get washed," she ordered. "I've brought some coffee to wake you up."

I washed with the ewer of hot water. I sat down on the bed and sipped the coffee, the local version of Turkish, sickly and sweet. It seemed slightly different this morning.

"I'll be back with some breakfast in a few minutes," said Lucina. "Finish your coffee."

I drank the coffee and put the mug down. I felt light-headed. Surely it would pass in a minute or so. I slumped back to the bed. Lucina would rouse me when she came with breakfast. It wouldn't matter if I dozed for a few seconds…

My eyes opened blearily as Lucina returned. I tried to move. I couldn't.

"Good," she said. "It's worked. Come in."

'Come in?' I thought. No one should come in. I'm naked.

Five women came into the room. Lucina pushed me to the centre of the bed. The women stood around me. I realised with concern that they were wearing the costumes of the May Queen and her attendants, silver belts and all.

"Good Morning, Western Spy," Lucina said. "You wanted to see the ceremony of the Earth Mother. You will. You are an essential part of the rite."

Lucina turned to the others. "Take him." she said in the local language.

The women lifted the sheet off the bed and carried it and me out of the hotel. They put me down on a cart. Lucina climbed beside me.

"I used what you Westerners might call a 'date-rape' drug. Your muscles are useless. You won't be able to use them for half an hour and by then it will be too late."

At the quarry they lifted me out and placed me against the horizontal May Pole. They used their silver belts to strap me to the pole and placed the spiked attachments carefully. Lucina stuffed my mouth with a bloodstained cotton cloth and held it in place as the May Queen sewed a silk hood over my whole head, forcing it tight over my face and around my neck. I could see through the silk as the women donned their golden belts.

The May Pole was raised slightly. I could see the hollow needles pointing at my eyes, my cheeks, and dozens more ready to pierce my body. The muslin globe was pulled over the top of the pole and down beyond my feet. It was lashed to the pole and pulled up over my body. Just before it covered my face Lucina appeared again.

"It will be dawn in fifteen minutes. We know you sent your email but the information you have is useless. We let you find out and see only what you were meant to see. The missiles and the biological agents are not where you saw them. You saw a carefully staged scene in an abandoned mine. My superiors thought at first that we should let you escape to confirm your story. I persuaded them that if you were to disappear your message might be taken more seriously.

So all your efforts were for nothing. When the music starts you will have about ten minutes left to live. We will have a good harvest this year. It has been a long time since we sacrificed for real. No one except us six women will know and we are all good Party members. Who would suspect us of human sacrifice? Goodbye. Thanks for the dollars and for trying in bed. If you'd been better…"

The muslin was pulled up and lashed above my head. The pole rose jerkily to the vertical, sliding into its hole with a bump that jerked my body. I was standing on a small ledge but I was strapped so tightly to the pole that my feet supported very little of my weight. Past the cruel spikes all I could see was the light beginning to glow through the white muslin. I could feel the effects of the drug wearing off. I pulled ineffectually at my bonds.

What had Lucina said? My efforts were for nothing? I had sent an accurate description of the May Day events. My descriptions of the missiles and the hint of biological warfare had included a couple of prearranged phrases that showed that I didn't believe the elaborate scenario that she had presented to me. I had known that she was the local Party leader. I was a decoy for the real spies who did know exactly where and what was happening. Unfortunately for me the decoy had been taken for the real thing and I was about to suffer for it.

The musicians began to play a quiet introduction. I could hear the shuffle of the dancers' feet as they moved into position. The musicians started the dance music and the May Pole quivered as the ribbons were drawn tight. I tried to memorise the tune as the white globe above me began to constrict but I couldn't divert myself sufficiently. I was screaming soundlessly into my gag as the dance continued relentlessly…