A Sacrificial Ball

Bella and her husband Douglas held a Gaelic themed party in the woods just south of their small town in northeast Ohio on the Saturday night before Halloween every year.

They called it a Samhain festival, or just "Samhain." Douglas pronounced the name with more Irish brogue than he normally used which caused Bella to roll her eyes.

"Samhain" was a festival that celebrated the transition from the end of the growing season to the time of dark cold nights, a tradition carried from the old country and some said a tradition upon which Halloween came into existence in America.

Bella, and her friend Ellen did the brunt of the preparations for the gathering. Ellen's husband Carl, managed a commercial insurance branch office in downtown Cleveland, where Bella worked as well. The four of them had once been good friends but Carl's excessive drinking had broken their ties.

The festival was one of merriment with lots of beer and cider; fresh breads; including the soda and pumpernickel variety. Of course there were plenty of cheese and meat-pies kept warm in foil wrappers on a large grill fired by cherry wood.

Sometimes, it was reported, if the night wasn't too cold and the bonfires (there were two) were roaring, some of the women would remove their tops when the hour of silence came to an end.

The attendees often wore Celtic warrior costumes. The women spent much more time putting together their costumes. They wore high leather lace up boots, leather skirts, hooded wool sweaters and beaded leather masks. Everyone wore a mask. But some of the thirty or so usual attendees came dressed as werewolves or goats, animals in the tradition of Druids, and still a few others came as goblins or witches wearing more traditional Halloween costumes. It was a tradition to stay up until the witching hour before retiring for the night usually to small camping tents set up in the woods around the perimeter of the festival.

They played games. They bobbed for apples in a big tin tub. Each apple had a naughty dare attached: "ask for a kiss from a stranger tonight" or "find a wench who needs a good spanking," or "everyone here would like to see you warm your bare bottom by the bonfire."

Of course some ignored their dares and others volunteered to do dares that weren't theirs.

Ellen liked to hang sugar donuts on string from tree-limbs. The winner was the one who could eat a whole donut without a piece dropping to the ground.

Individual card games were played at small tables often with naughty results. A set of old fashioned stocks were often occupied by a wench or a goat who sometimes had her skirt raised or his britches lowered their bare bottom well spanked while a small crowd cheered them on. It was all harmless fun. A chance for hardworking people to step out of their lives and into costumes, personalities and voices they did not normally inhabit.

This year though, Ellen was troubled. She'd called Bella on the Thursday night before the festival. They had, in past years, always met the Friday morning before the festival for breakfast to go over all the festival arrangements.

Ellen said she didn't know if she could make it. It was Carl, she said. He'd been awful to her lately, drinking more and getting loud with her. "I don't know if I can go. I can't find my costume from last year. I mean, I think he burned it. He's getting meaner and I don't know what to do."

She spoke with a dismay in her voice.

Bella listened. "He has a problem."

"He has another intern. You probably have seen him with her."

"I have."

"He screamed at me last night that he has to fuck young college women because he can't stand my fat ass."

"He's an ass. And a predator." Bella shook her head.

She convinced Ellen to meet the next day and they met where they always met at Ziggys in Amherst. They sat in a solitary booth in the back of the small coffee shop on 1st Avenue.

Bella stirred her coffee with a cinnamon stick and listened to Ellen, whose face had dropped and faded as she spoke. She grew teary as she confessed, talking quietly, distraught, a wire of shame in her voice, often blaming herself as she had read women whose husbands who were unfaithful often did.

'I've been walking about as if I were in a daze. I hate myself Bella. I hate who I've become. I hate who I am married to."

"No, no need for that. It's not your fault." Bella said reassuringly. She'd heard this kind of talk from Ellen a lot more lately.

"I need my red mask, my costume, to hide my face. I'm sure he's thrown it out." Ellen said.

"We'll get a new one tonight. We can go to that shop in Lakewood. It'll be fun. A new outfit. Who will you be?"

Ellen grinned but didn't speak. They shared a mutual smirk. There was a long pause. A long silence.

Bella stared at her. "What?"

Ellen's lips quivered and she erupted with laughter, loudly, almost crazed, "You know what Bella. You know what? You know what I've fucking done while that asshole husband of mine is fucking another woman . I've lost 22lbs. Yep. 22lbs in three months and in all the right places." she said, still talking loudly with a buoyancy that sealed over what she'd been feeling before.

"You look great. It's not your fault." Bella said. "Come let's do this now. It's our little ritual."

They were silent again. They needed to get into their familiar headspace. They clasped hands across the table as if they were praying like evangelical Christians often do. They both giggled as they unclasped their hands They'd done this together since they were eighteen. They'd done it mostly at restaurants or coffee shops but sometimes on park benches or at the beach in the summer and once on a ski resort mountaintop when the once travelled out west together. They sometimes even did it with lots of people around. Most often they did it in a quiet hidden away booth like they were in now at Ziggys.

They each reached between their legs and, down the fronts of their jeans and caressed themselves.

"Easier to get your hand down your pants today?"

"You bet," said Ellen, "and my libido has skyrocketed too."

"Sure, ...yes that's one of the less talked about benefits of weight loss," said Bella as she closed her eyes for a moment concentrating. Ellen did the same. They mumbled and groaned and grinned working themselves with their fingers in their own private way.

They were silent mostly, concentrating on themselves, lifting their chins, closing their eyes, then, unselfconsciously, after just a few minutes, Ellen came with a huff, then Bella groaned long and low saying the words, "me too," as she came.

They shook their heads in mock dismay. "We're so bad." Ellen laughed and Bella responded affirmatively. "But it feels so good."

Standing at the car Bella asked, "you'll be at the festival right?"

"Yeah. I will. Of course."

"Something tells me there will be a reckoning soon. The moon is full this year. That's a sign. You know they used to do sacrifices at these festivals in ancient times."

"Yeah let's sacrifice my husbands balls." Ellen cackled as she turned and walked away towards her car.

Bella made the long drive from Amherst to downtown Cleveland and arrived at her office at noon. In the reception area she spied what looked like a costume that laid on an end table behind the receptionist desk. Bella thought that was unusual. It looked like a Celtic costume. While their festival was not a secret event it was by no means an open party especially for fellow employees.

She reached for the red leather mask and held it up looking it over. "This is Ellen's," she knew that.

The receptionist spoke up . "Elise, the new intern came by and dropped it off. She was in a hurry. She wanted to put it in Carl's office but his door was locked. She told me to give it to Carl when he came in."

A rage formed in Bella that stilled her. She thought for a few moments, and said, "I'll take it ," I'm meeting Carl at a client site in an hour."

A note in an envelop fell to the floor as she lifted the costume into her arms.

She read it in her car.

It was a note from the intern, Elise, to Carl. She'd written that she would not be attending the party. She'd be out of touch. Her father was sick. She and her husband were going to visit him in Columbus. No texts please.

"I won't be waiting by the pond for our planned rendezvous at Midnight. Soooo sorry. Elise"

Bella met Carl at the clients. Afterwards she told Carl she'd run into the Elise who was on her way out of the office. She told me her father was sick. She and her husband were traveling to see him.

"She said to tell you she'd still be at the party." Bella lied. "How does she know about the festival? Did you invite her?"

Carl grew defensive and irritated. "Of course I didn't tell her. I have work to do and need to go back to the office."

Carl had a bright corner office that looked out over Lake Erie. He'd worked his way up from an administrative assistant to managing sales and underwriting for the entire office. He was not well liked.

Bella worked in administrative services though she was not a direct report to Carl.

With most of his staff Carl was cool, bored and uncommunicative. He considered most of his employees unintelligent, narrow and lazy. He was on the look out for their mistakes and was quick to remind them of their failures especially after they'd had some success.

With upper management Carl was adored. He almost always exceeded his corporate goals and was terrifically charming and deferential with his boss, a Vice President out of Kanas City, who had the job he wanted.

His staff understood he was a company man and was well liked by the powers that be so they adapted, like most employees do, to his overbearing, tiresome, self possessed style.

Six years ago Carl started a program bringing in students from John Carroll University to work as interns. Every year he'd interview many and pick one, always a female. He took them under his wing, often taking them out for long lunches and on a few occasions arranged for them to travel with him to Chicago or Kanas City for overnight trips.

Someone had once reported the unnatural amount of time he spent alone with an intern to human resources and their response was, "We need specific evidence of an inappropriate relationship."

The night of the festival Bella planned to arrive just before midnight when the silent hour began. She wore Ellen's costume, the one she'd retrieved from the receptionist at the office. The costume was slightly oversized so the fit was good enough. She had told Ellen the whole story about finding it at the office with the note. She'd read the note to Ellen and then told her she had a plan. Carl will be in for a very big surprise tonight she said.

Bella arrived and slipped off to wait by the pond. She didn't want to confuse guests who might mistake her for Ellen. But she'd made sure Carl had seen her. She waited at the foot of the big hill at the back of the pond.

The midnight rendezvous was on. Bella called Ellen. She and Douglas and another couple would listen.

At midnight Carl approached Bella. He was drunk. He staggered slightly. She wondered if the intern knew Carl was an obnoxious drunk.

"Ah my girl is here for daddy to play with. I knew you'd come. Couldn't resist could you?"

Bella put her fingers to her lips to shush him. It was the silent hour.

"Fuck that silent stuff."

Bella wagged her finger as if to say she wouldn't speak.

"Fine. Fine. Turn, turn around you lit...you little bitch. Hold. No bend over."

Bella stood still frozen, refusing.

Carl moved closer breathing heavily, grinning, his jaw loosening for a moment as if a melancholy might overtake him and his aggressive noxious state would switch to a maudlin obsequiousness . "What's wrong?" He cooed.

Bella shook her head.

Carl stopped. He summoned a cohesive set of words he spat out with a kind of alcoholic pride.

"Awww...Don't be a bitch. I know you're playin, play, but if you don't want the way daddy... wants..." Carl listed and stumbled, "you won't... have a yab come Monday morning...that'll be a prob..." he trailed off

There was a pause. Silence. Then a grunt, a louder grunt and the crackle of branches breaking.

Bella cried out. "Help.'

Within minutes Carl was pinned to the ground by her husband Douglas and two other men. They dragged him to the bonfires area and put him in the stocks.He stayed there until the silent hour was complete. He was locked in, his head and wrists secured, his legs spread apart by a metal bar.

Douglas announced that Carl was a festival prisoner. That he had betrayed the clan, "He has betrayed what's decent in a human community and will be punished when the witching hour arrives."

Three young women came forward and stood near Douglas. The first one spoke up tearily, pointing at Carl and said, "This man hired me as an intern, at the insurance firm and then threatened that if I didn't sleep with him he would fire me and ruin my chance of completing my schooling." The other two young women from the college made similar accusations though the third went further saying that Carl raped her one night in a hotel in Columbus.

When the witching hour arrived Carl had sobered up enough to realize his dire circumstances.

Douglas spoke. "Our tradition is one of peace, a way of finding our way back to the earth from where we came and to where we will return. Our festival is a tradition of merriment that goes way back through our ancestors." He slowed his speech and looked at Carl, "but in the past it has also been one of sacrifice. Tonight, we have decided, for the good of the clan and for human decency, that you, Carl, shall have one of your testicles branded with a large "P" for predator."

Carl's head dropped. "No, that's wrong. I've done nothing wrong. You can't do this. It's assault."

Douglas spoke to Carl and the Crowd, "Bella has the embosser tool heating up in the fire. But before we brand you I would like to offer the young women the opportunity let you feel their pain by giving you a well deserved kick in the balls."

Only the last young woman who spoke, who said he'd raped, her agreed to do it.

She got behind Carl swung her leg back and kicked hard, smashing her black boot between Carl's legs. He howled for a moment, then gulped and seemed to faint from the pain. He quickly came to.

When the witching hour arrived, a hush went over the group which was more than 40 people. The small metal piece glowed bright orange. Ellen his wife, stood near wearing a leather glove. She bend behind him and yanked his balls out tightly, pulling them back as far as they would stretch. His ballsac was lit up by phone flashlights.

Carl whimpered agonizingly. "You won't, no, please, I'm sorry, please. you can't,' The wind was light in the trees. Both fires had died down considerably.

They waited. Finally someone in the back of the small crowd said, "it's time."

At 3am the "p" was seared into the thin flesh of Carl's ball sac.

It is said that his scream was heard all the way across Lake Erie in Ontario.