Li

Li was her only name, the only name she ever knew or had. She had sometimes been referred to as ‘Li X,’ as some cultures list people with no surname, but this wasn’t really correct. She was simply Li. Attractive, possibly even beautiful, she was a heroine to some, a terrorist to others. In the end, those who said ‘terrorist’ seemed to get the final word.

Some Background:
Li came from a war-torn country on a backwards world, a country which had been pulled into the international community of the planet by war and geography. The international war had since moved on to other, larger countries south of Li’s home, but purely internal conflict (with occasional outside intervention and frequent infusions of foreign weapons and equipment) continued. From this, the Dau Authority emerged, a near-fascist government which ruled by force out of the necessity of at least stemming the flow of blood. While it committed atrocities on occasion and allowed for no political opposition outside its own ranks, many believed that the Dau’s centralization of authority and enforcement of something resembling a legal code made it a vast improvement over the weaker, more provincial governments of the past. However, while many believed this, many did not. And it was in this situation that Li lived.
Her parents were provincials. For that matter, so was everyone in the country; but Li’s parents were of that group which supported the more traditional and “provincial” governmental tradition that had been swept aside by the Dau. Li grew up in a small village, where she imbibed a fiery hatred of and contempt for the Dau Authority almost literally from her mother’s breast. She received no education other than in the traditional arts of cleanliness and beautification (a.k.a., washing and basic beauty care) which every provincial girl learned. At age fifteen, she saw an opportunity to join a guerilla, and from then on was a dedicated member of one of the several small factions which stood in opposition to the Dau.
She was a successful guerilla but her faction was both poorly led and under-equipped. And so, though skilled, Li was eventually outdone by the Dau solders.

***

It was a bright, moonlit night at the end of the rainy season. It was somewhat cool, with plentiful animal noise; the leaders said it was perfect for a raid. Li was seventeen, turning eighteen the next day, when she and five other young people (two boys, three girls) were chosen to attack a Dau outpost near the border of the eastern jungle. Two of the girls would pose as prostitutes and get inside the walled compound near the edge of the village. They would then disable the lights and unlock several doors to allow their fellows to get in.
Li led the other three down to the edge of the village. She wore a bra and underwear of local plant fiber, plus a tight-fitting short-sleeved tunic and long, loose trousers of similar material. While the underwear were un-dyed white, the outer garments had been dyed a deep, dark green. Li checked the safety on her rifle, wishing she had more than one clip and that it was automatic, like the soldiers’, not a bolt-action weapon. Her second in command, an 18-year-old boy, slid forward to kneel next to her.
“How do we tell if they did it right?”
“We don’t.” Li’s voice gave hint to her inner doubts about the intelligence of her mission. “If things have gone well, Tilyu and San will have blown up a shed or something to get more soldiers posted on the wall near the village, but we can’t see that from here.”
She thought for a moment, then shrugged. Nothing to do but keep going. She waved her people forward the gate that should have been unlocked. Li waited for a moment, then took a breath and pushed the postern door. It opened.
Li and her fellows crept inside. As they crept across the courtyard, the door slammed shut and two thousand-watt spotlights blasted down on them from atop a security tower. Soldiers rushed out and surrounded the guerillas.
Li and her three companions were roughly disarmed and searched, then hustled into a warehouse. Outside though, the guards paused and turned the guerillas to look at a newly built structure on the wall: a gallows.
Two bars came out from the wall just below the catwalk, about ten feet apart and fifteen feet above the ground. On top of them was a heavy crossbeam. The way it was built, the bar was held three feet out from the wall at the foot level of the people standing on the wall. Two rings were on the underside of the crossbeam, with the end of a rope tied in each. Each rope was around seven feet long and dipped down some, then came back up to where the other end was tied in a noose around the necks of Tilyu and San, respectively. They were kneeling, with their torsos erect, still clad in the gaudy robes worn by many prostitutes, though the robes were soiled and torn. Bright lights illuminated them and everything in the compound. As the horrified guerillas watched, their compatriots were unceremoniously pushed of the wall, falling almost headfirst towards the ground. They had been pushed in a diving position so that they hit neither the bar nor the wall on their descent.
The ropes went taut, arresting the girls’ fall and causing their legs to swing out from behind them to in front of them. Tilyu’s neck audibly snapped, but San seemed to still be alive. However, the nature of their fall made them swing up and out from the wall…then come swinging back down and slam into the wall with a sickening thud. Tilyu’s expression of terror, now vacant in death, remained unchanged. However, San had been fully conscious upon hitting the wall. Her face, the prettier of the two (though Tilyu’s had been pleasing to look at) changed from one of desperation and horror to one of sick pain, and her eyes rolled up into her head. Her mouth, which had been open as she gaped for air, now hung wide open as her jaw muscles relaxed. Her body continued to twitch in a macabre dance as the two guerillas swung back and forth, but she was clearly no longer conscious. Her face darkened.
As the bodies continued to swing, the surviving guerillas were jostled into the warehouse and bound, but they were so shocked that they barely resisted.

***

Li was the only one left. Her companions had been stripped to the waist and shot through the back of heart by machine gunners at dawn, each one receiving a full 5-round burst at point-blank range. However, Li was special. As the leader, she was to be sent into the Dau capital, Sinyal, to be executed.
Li was taken, bound and with a bag over her head, to the distant city by a six-hour truck ride. She slept during almost the entire ride and arrived in the morning, two days after her capture. Once there, she was roughly hustled around until, in the end, she arrived in a windowless room which gave the impression of being underground. She was uncuffed and the bag was taken off her head.
There were various objects in the room, including one which looked sort of like a gallows, only too small, with the upright too thin, and with a swing-down crossbeam. There was also a desk, at which sat a man in a white coat. A female guard of about 25 in a sharp, neat uniform stood behind Li, next to one of the two doors. At a motion from the man, she walked out, though the door was such that she would hear any scuffling or disturbance.
The man shuffled through some papers, then came up with one which he set on top of the others. He took out a pen, and looked up at Li.
“You are the terrorist, or guerilla if you prefer, from Gaolyi Province. Correct?”
“I am from Gaolyi Province, yes.”
The man looked up sharply, and stared at Li for a few seconds. Then he shrugged slightly. “I can see I won’t be getting anything else out of you. Well, get undressed.”
“What?”
“You heard me. Strip. Use the shower over there” he gestured to a corner, “And dry off with the towel next to it. The bar in the alcove in the wall is soap.”
Blushing, Li stripped off her dirty clothing and walked over to the shower, which she had never seen before. She managed to discover how it worked, then gave a small shriek when the cold water hit her. The female guard outside poked her head in, then seeing the cause of the noise went back out.
After she washed and dried, the man motioned for Li to come back in front of the desk. He told her to stand straight and breathe normally.
“Why?”
“I’m the prison doctor in charge of certifying you. I have to do a standard examination.”
He then took her heartbeat. After this, she was told to do a series of things.
First, she was put on the little gallows and told to stand up straight.
“What is this?”
“A scale and…what is the name? Anyway, I’m going to weigh you and measure your height.”
He did this, mumbling as he went “109 lbs…and 5’6”. Well, you’re certainly slim.”
He determined her waist size (“zero”) and bra size (“B cup”), whatever that meant.
“Your name?”
“Li.”
“Li what?”
“Just Li.”
“Ah. Your age?”
“Seventeen. No, wait, eighteen today. Or yesterday.”
He then told her to wait for a moment. He poked his head out the door and told the guard something. She went away, and the doctor waited at the door while Li fidgeted, conscious of her nakedness. She dismissed the thought of resisting; the one idea beaten into every guerilla’s head was that the Dau were extremely powerful in Sinyal. You didn’t attack Sinyal, and if you had to go there, you behaved yourself completely. If you were arrested, you answered their charges and didn’t panic, because unless you had done something really stupid you would just be fined or jailed for a few weeks. But if they found out you were a guerilla, you were screwed; they could probably find enough evidence to convince them you weren’t framed, and guerillas were all considered guilty of high treason. Not only that, but it was the only crime for which you could be convicted, condemned and executed without a trial. It was also one of the few crimes which guaranteed the death penalty.
After a few minutes, the guard returned and said something to the doctor. He repeated it in a surprised voice, then came back in.
“Well, Li, it looks like you won’t have to wait long. It’s just 10:47 now, and they want you executed at 11:30 or thereabouts. Little before noon.”
Li took the news with nothing more than a quickly suppressed shiver.
“So, I’ve got to take your heartbeat again.” He did, and then took a pen or stylus or something and drew a black X on Li’s tawny-skinned breast where he had placed his listening device.
He then paused, looking somewhat embarrassed. “Ms., ah, Li, I have to…insert an anal plug. For sanitary reasons. Would you bend over the table and spread your legs?”
Li did so, only to feel the invasive and painful feeling of a stopper being shoved into her. She gasped, but the instinctive submissiveness of a guerilla in Sinyal kept her from doing more.
She was then told to get back up and given the clothes she was to wear. The pants were simple, loose trousers, simple tubes of thin white cloth. The waistband had a drawstring which she was told to pull snug and tie securely. She was also given a T-shirt of the plain white fabric. It was short-sleeved and very, very thin, and while it was long enough to cover the tops of her hips, it was very tight-fitting, especially across the chest. Her nipples, her navel, and the X on her chest were clearly visible through it.
This done, the doctor told the guard to come back in. The woman did and cuffed Li’s hands behind her back. The doctor gave the form he had filled out and two other sheets of paper to the guard, and nodded twice, once briskly to the guard, and a smaller goodbye nod to Li. Li was walked through the building (which appeared to be a jail or prison, mostly underground) and out into the glaring sunlight. She was in a courtyard with the hulking prison on two sides and a wall on the other two. The gravely dirt was hot and sharp on her bare feet as she was taken to a truck. The truck had a driver’s seat and a passenger one facing front, then in the back had two seats facing backwards. Li was hustled onto one of the back seats, and her hands were uncuffed and then secured to cuffs on either side of the seat. In the other seat was a young girl, maybe 15, of what was still quaintly known as “Middle Eastern” or “Indian” extract, just as Li and most people in the country were of “Asian” or “Oriental” extract. The girl was short, 5’4” or so, with hair cut shorter than many boys, and curled up on top. She had a thin but well-defined figure; well-formed (if somewhat small) breasts, and nice hips and legs.
The guard handed Li’s forms to a soldier, who read them, handed one to an aide who carried it inside, handed another to a doctor standing nearby, and put the other in a folder under his arm. Then he motioned, and a sign with words written on it was placed around Li’s neck. A similar sign was put around the girl’s.
After a moment, Li said quietly, “What do they say?”
The girl looked at her, then said in a quiet, slightly shaky voice, “Yours says ‘Terrorist and Traitor, captured by loyal soldiers and sentenced to die.’ Mine…mine says, ‘Thief and Dissenter, sentenced…to death, as well.”
After two minutes, during which neither Li nor the girl felt any desire to speak further, another truck moved through the gate. Their truck followed, and a third followed them. The trucks drove through the streets of the crowded city, and then slowed as they entered an area filled with crowds. The Trucks stopped at a high wall at the edge of a square filled with people, and Li and the girl were unshackled by guards and taken off the truck. Their signs were removed, and Li felt very self-conscious of her thin shirt. Their hands were pulled behind their backs and secured with handcuffs. Li saw that the truck behind them had held two other condemned women. One was Asian, like Li and the guards and most of the crowd, but pale-skinned and at least 5’9” tall. She looked to be around 20. The other woman was “Caucasian,” with pale skin, brown eyes and hair, and a few freckles. She looked to be the same age as the other girl in Li’s truck, about 15.
They were then turned around, and Li saw two things; one was that the truck ahead of them had held all military personnel, including a doctor. The other was the gallows.
It was on a platform maybe five feet above the level of the square and up against the wall. The platform was around eight feet long and ten or twelve feet wide, with the front four feet designed to swing down. The crossbeam was supported by two uprights about nine feet above the swing-down trap, with four nooses hanging from it. The nooses were wire, appearing around 1/8 inch thick and looped through a ring at the free end to form a very simple slipknot.
The four women were frog-marched up onto the gallows and positioned so that a noose hung at about the chest level of each, directly in front of them. On the left was the tall Asian, then Li, then the Caucasian, then the girl from Li’s truck. Next, the guards pulled their elbows together and secured them with leather cuffs, forcing their chests up and out. Then a noose was pulled over each one’s head. Those with long hair (all of them except the Indian girl) had it pulled through, as well. The nooses were pulled quite tight above the Adam’s apple, at the top of the throat. They were positioned so that the rope came up just in front of the left ear. After a brief pause, a voice began to speak loudly (the crowd, which had cheered loudly when the trucks pulled up and as the girls were shuffled onto the gallows, was now quiet).
“Ma Yingtao, 20 years old, sentenced to death by hanging for Murder!”
At this, the crowd roared and cheered for a few seconds, then quieted.
“Li, 18 years old, sentenced to death by hanging for Treason and Terrorism!”
Again the crowd roared, and its sound struck Li like a blow. Here these people were, cheering as the evil Dau announced her imminent death!
“Talia Galprin, 14 years old, sentenced to death by hanging for Dissent and Conspiracy against the Government!”
Again that terrible roar.
“And Bahareh Jamshidi, sentenced to death by hanging for Thievery and Dissent!”
The crowd roared yet again, then became very quiet. The girls stood for two minutes, wondering when it was going to happen, hoping it wouldn’t hurt much, and trying not to think of how exposed their upper bodies were. Then, the trap swung down, and Li felt a rush of terror as she fell.
She didn’t fall far; the drop was only half a foot. She felt the rope go taut around her neck, felt the sudden pain and the choking sensation, and suddenly was unable to breathe. Li’s mouth opened, even as her feet waved back and forth searching for the ground, and the crowd cheered as her tongue protruded. She didn’t care anymore, didn’t care how erotic she looked, didn’t care that her nipples were fully erect and that the straining pulled the fabric even tighter across her bosom. She just needed to breathe.
Li felt her face redden and the blood pounding in her ears. She began to kick, searching for the ground. Then she began to turn her body, twisting her shoulders from side to side whiles she kicked. After two minutes, Li no longer heard the crowd. She brought her knees up to her chest and kicked down hard. She repeated this over and over. Her eyes felt like they were popping out, her tongue seemed swollen and heavy, and her lips cold and immobile.
The crowd watched as the girls swung. Li fought the hardest, and was the most impressive. Bahareh in particular, though, strained her chest as she tried to breathe, thrusting her breasts and their erect nipples out. She ran on air more noticeably than the others, as well, her legs windmilling. Ma undulated; there was no other word for it. She brought her knees up and kicked down, but then after each kick she rippled her body. What this was meant to do, the crowd didn’t know; but it was erotic in the extreme, possibly even more arousing than Li. Talia was the least erotic or impressive, though she was still very much so. She swung her legs back and forth slightly and in circles, keeping her knees straight and her toes fully pointed, trying to reach the ground. She also jerked her chest in and out, forcing her hips back and forth slightly, and gaped for air, her tongue full extended.
All the girls’ faces darkened, and their necks stretched. Their heads were pushed to the right, and their tongues protruded. They lasted an amazing amount of time; Bahareh convulsed once after about seven or eight minutes, then hung slack, then Talia went limp shortly, though she continued to twitch for a minute or two. Li lasted eleven minutes, and Ma stopped twitching after twelve.
The crowd loved it; who knows how many orgasms that particular execution caused. At very least, the officer who read the sentences and the doctor who had come along to verify the criminals’ deaths both experienced erections. After fifteen minutes, the doctor brought out a stepladder and put it in front of Ma. There was no need for him to take of the girl’s shirt; he could se the X faintly but distinctly through the thin, stretched fabric. He could also see her erect nipples, which gave him another erection as the first was dying down. He checked her heartbeat and found none, then went on to the other three. By the time he was done, he was flushed and sweaty-palmed. For Bahareh, he had to pull her shirt up to find the X against her dark skin. After he was done, he rolled the tight-fitting garment all the way back down, to the disappointment of the crowd.
“The sentences have been carried out, sir,” he said, his voice giving only the slightest hint to his excitement. “Ma Yingtao, Talia Galprin, Bahareh Jamshidi, and Li, uh, ‘X’ are dead.”
The bodies were left hanging for a day, then taken down and buried next to one another in an unmarked mass grave, still in their brutally simple white garments.

Copyright by NewB (2006).

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