it put to practical use. Soon she was walking down its twisting high street past a few small shops. A dozen or so inhabitants, both human and animal, were going about their business at a leisurely pace. Alice kept her eyes low, walked in the gutter and tried to look resigned and slightly bored. She sensed a few eyes on her swaying breasts and rolling buttocks, but otherwise she passed by unnoticed.
The locals were all oversized as she had come to expect, so that by comparison she was about the height of their children, a pair of whom she saw bowling a hoop along down a side road. All the animals she could see were of similar height or smaller than the boar ploughman. There was a familiar mix of species but fewer of what she thought of as the ‘cuddlier’ types, which was perhaps in keeping with the Looking Glass story’s slightly darker mood.
A crossroads marked the village centre, beside which was a pub – The Cross Bells. High up on its outside wall, supported by iron brackets, a heavy black wooden X-shaped cross leaned out over the pavement. Chained to it was a spreadeagled girling. Her mouth was closed by a broad strap gag held in place by narrower straps that ran under her chin and over her nose, joining to cross her head from front to back. Wide resigned eyes stared out from over the gag. She had long blonde hair platted into two braids. These had rings tied into their ends which had been hung over hooks screwed into the side of the upper arms of the cross, pulling her braids tautly up and out from her scalp. Perhaps this was to help keep her head up but it also made it impossible for her to hide her face, should she still harbour any lingering trace of shame about her circumstances.
To represent the rest of the pub name, three golden bells about the size of large pears hung from her body. Two were suspended from rings that pierced her nipples, the firm rotundity of her breasts lifting the bells outwards and allowing them to dangle freely. The third hung between the girls widespread thighs from a ring that pierced both her plump shaven outer sex lips. Alice wasn’t sure how heavy the bells were, but she could see the girl’s nipples were stretched into long points and her labia pulled down in a taut pout.
Knowing from personal experience how exposed and humiliating yet also desperately exciting it was to be a living sign, Alice felt a fresh stirring in her loins as she wondered what it would be like to swap places with the girl. But she had to keep going.
Not wishing to appear hesitant, Alice boldly took the road leading away from the cross that seemed to be heading in the right direction. After a few minutes the houses and gardens became sparser, merging into another belt of open fields. After a mile or so this cultivation gave way to more open ground with scattered dwellings interspersed by spinneys and clumps of thicker woodland. In the far distance beyond the largest wood, like some vast curtain falling from heaven, was the hazy wall of the edge barrier dividing Uffish’s square from the next.
Her back aching slightly under her load, Alice continued on along the road until it began to bear steadily to the left, looking as though it was going to run parallel to the barrier. It might change its way further on, of course, but how far that might be she had no idea.
Alice paused in the shelter of a tangled hedgerow, shrugged off her bundle and pulled out a few sticks to lighten it. While she considered which way to go she squatted down and peed, delighting in the freedom to perform the act in the open so naturally, then wiped herself off with a handful of soft lush grass.
The road was the easiest route but longer, while the straightest course over the common land might be slower going. If only she had a map to guide her. She began to realise how incredibly unprepared she was for her journey. For all her powers the Red Queen had given Alice nothing to help, even though it was in her best interests that she
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