The Crucifixion of Annia

The Third Day

Up and down. Up and down. All day long, until darkness had swallowed up all but the torches of the soldiers standing guard. And then on into the night.

Had she slept? It didn't seem like it. How could she sleep when the pain never stops, always grows worse, constantly demands a shifting of the body on its nails. First up. Then down. Up. Then down. Each movement such agony that it stops the breath, blocks the voice, rends the mind!

She ground her teeth. Hard! But it didn't help.

All through the long night nothing helped.

And the thirst! Building up. Drying her mouth. Cracking her lips. All she can think about is water. And the pain.

The moon crested the horizon, bright and almost full. She prayed to the goddess Luna for death. But Luna ignored her.

Sleep was impossible against the thirst and the pain. The grueling, helpless battle to breathe when all she wanted was to die.

Yet as the sun came up she emerged from a fragmentary sleep, from a dream about being in pain. Regained a consciousness she didn't want.

It had only been a tiny sliver of sleep, a transition from real pain to illusionary pain and back to real pain. But that's all the relief she would get. Short lapses of consciousness before the body forced itself to rise on the nails and the inflamed nerves of bone and muscle screamed at her! Waking her up! Making her keenly alert, maddeningly aware of the agony!

Ah, those Roman soldiers! How cleverly they had placed the nails. Miss the arteries and veins. Hit the nerves. Minimal bleeding, maximum torment! The body will do the rest. It demands the right to breathe!

She hoped for madness to blunt her senses, send her adrift into delirium, a fantasy world where there is no pain or thirst. But madness wouldn't come.

Please! Jupiter, Juno, Apollo, Diana . . . Is there any god who will take pity? What have I done to deserve such suffering? I don't ask for life or any worldly thing . . . only death. Please let me die!

Weeping. Moaning. Praying. Shifting up. Shifting down. Simmering pain growing to white hot pain! Up again so her body can exhale. Down again to relieve the agony. Her back raw and bleeding. Her hands and feet swelling angrily around the nails. Her tongue dry and swollen, her lips bleeding, her mouth filled with grit.

Please be merciful! Please let me die! I can't stand any more!

A soldier appeared at her feet with a bucket and a long pole. He stared up at her sex for a while, then dipped a sponge into the bucket and attached it one end of the pole. He raised it up and touched it to her mouth.

Water! She lunged at it like a dog seizing a piece of meat, sucking desperately at it, leaning into it, pulling against the nails in spite of the pain! Until there was nothing left except the damp, vaguely salty cells of the sponge. She fights the pain so she can rise up and breathe out the words she needs.

"More, please!" Her voice hardly audible. "Please! Have mercy!"

"Well ain't you the greedy bitch. You want more when all I got is this one bucket to go around for all this vermin. Tell you what. Why don't you come down here and suck on my cock for a while, like before. Anything you bring up you can drink."

Now she recognized him. She'd been afraid of losing her tongue. How trivial that threat seemed now. The quick pain of having the tongue ripped out was insignificant compared with this incredible and unending agony.

He laughed and moved off.

Her thirst slightly assuaged, she settled on the point of the spike to look around at her neighbors. The crosses had been spaced a good twenty paces apart along that portion of the estate bounded by the road. Soon parties of slaves from other farms and households in the area would be arriving to view this object lesson, as required by law. On her right was the boy, Quintupor, son of one of the cooks by a field slave. He had been writhing all day and all night as she had, pushing himself up, then going back down, over and over, accepting moments of intense pain to seek periods of relative relief. The old man on her left, however, had been hanging without movement since mid-afternoon yesterday. Perhaps he had worshiped a more merciful god than she. But how was one to tell? They're so capricious.

The sun was not far over the horizon, yet it was already very warm. It would be a hot day. Was that good? Bad? Would it hasten her death? Or just make her suffering more acute?

She watched the black flies, horse flies and mosquitos accumulate on her body, drawn to the mixture of sweat and dried blood. Some were at work burrowing into her exposed genitals. If she were not in so much greater pain elsewhere, she would have been distressed at the many bites from these and other insects, at the stinging and the relentless itching left by their toxins. That she was helpless to discourage these tiny predators in any way was only part of her despair. If only she could die! Why wouldn't her body let her die? How had the old man on her left accomplished it?

The crowds had begun to gather and, like yesterday, a large contingent of men and boys had stopped to ogle her. There was not much about her anymore that was attractive. Her breasts and belly were a patchwork of scars and welts. What she could see of her once glorious golden hair was hanging in dirty strands. Her face was permanently twisted in agony. Yet there they were, staring agape at her. No, not at her. At that part of her that only the most privileged could have seen if she had not been nailed to a cross. Let them stare. She was no longer human. She was only meat. And pain. What did it matter?

Bright red stripes had appeared on her arms and lower legs, radiating from the nails by which she raised and lowered herself. She knew what it was. Eventually it would turn to gangrene. Maybe it would speed her death.

A group of boys detached themselves from the crowd. They talked conspiratorially among themselves as they gazed at her sex. One squatted down and another climbed up and sat on his shoulders. When the boy below stood up, the boy on top could just reach the enticing lure of this blonde female's secret grove. He wriggled his fingers past the spike and into that forbidden cave. He giggled joyously. He had never been inside a girl, even with his fingers. Annia groaned. Damage from the spike and sun made the invasion a new source of pain. The boy continued to wiggle his fingers inside her vagina, finally drawing them out and sniffing them. She watched all this with a strange detachment. As long as he only added a little to her physical suffering, she could bear the added shame. She was beyond caring about shame. She felt the fingers return. More of them this time. The boy was ramming three or four fingers into her sunburnt passage. She whimpered. She didn't need this much extra pain. She began the agonizing process of pushing herself up to escape the boy's fingers.

"Hey!" he yelled. Then, seeing his first access to a cunt drawing out of reach, he made a last-ditch jab at it, his fingernails tearing the delicate tissues. A satisfying smear of blood appeared on the ends of his fingers and he dismounted the boy who had lent his shoulders to the enterprise. He moved off to study the girl blood, to taste it with the tip of his tongue.

Another pair of boys began a second human ladder, but a patrolling guard spotted them and bellowed, drawing his sword. They quickly disentangled themselves and ran off.

Annia noticed that for this second day on the cross most of the troops had departed, leaving only a small deployment of guards to keep the condemned safe from rescue or mercy killing. But before the troops had departed last evening, they had offered up a final grim spectacular for the blood-lusting audience. The hapless Tullipor and the two runaways had been dragged past the entire line of crucified slaves, some of whom spat at them from their crosses. Because the road curved off behind her, Annia could not see more than a few crosses in that direction, but the distant cheering of the crowd indicated they had been given an especially entertaining grand finale.

As the sun climbed and grew hotter Annia became increasingly aware of the painful burning of her face, body and exposed female tissues. She looked down on her breasts and belly and saw that they were bright red from a full day of baking under yesterday's unimpeded sun. Her arms, shoulders and the tops of her splayed legs were the same angry hue. It was to be expected, of course. Almost every hour of her ten years plus six had been spent inside (except for those tree-shaded trysts with Master). Her duties as a house slave mostly involved cleaning and polishing — walls, floors, furniture, dishes, vases, pots, all the articles that comprised her owner's indoor comforts. Along with satisfying his sexual whims. The concubines, Rufa and Laila, had similar household duties, but had their own private chambers and a real bed where Master Fortunatus could enjoy their charms at his leisure without interference from his wife, who was forbidden to enter those rooms. Annia, who slept on straw in the women's dorm of the slave quarters, had always envied the two beautiful concubines and longed for the same pampered life. Fortunatus had often promised to elevate her to it, usually just before he burst forth with his seed. Now, as she began again the horrific process of pushing herself up off the crotch nail, she longed for the bed of straw.

When she had risen as far as the nails in her wrists allowed, she glanced over to the boy on her right and saw he was doing the same thing, whimpering as he struggled upward. She called out to him, hoping to be able to comfort him in some way, but he did not respond. Perhaps her voice, hoarse with thirst and pain, could not be heard. Or perhaps he was too wrapped up in his own misery to hear. She understood. Pain of that magnitude tends to monopolize the mind.

His heels had been nailed together with his knees pointing in Annia's direction so she could not help but let her eyes drop to his genitals. They had only begun to develop. There was a slight hint of pubic fuzz above the penis. Annia remembered that at his age she had already developed a small bosom and had her first period. The kitchen slaves had shown her how to pleasure herself by rubbing that little button at the top of her slit. She had spent many hours working herself up to those wonderful thrills that made her wet in that secret place. Then the Master had discovered her doing it one day, and made her demonstrate it for him. That was when he introduced her to the extraordinary experience of inserting the male thing into her "love sleeve," as he called it. It was a considerable improvement on doing it alone.

She had seen the male thing before, of course. She was probably nine or ten when one of the stable boys had shown her his in return for seeing hers. Later there had been clandestine meetings in the hay bins to look and touch. Several times the boys talked her into sucking on their things and making them hard. But Master Fortunatus had been the first to do it right, to treat her like a real woman. Why hadn't he made her a concubine as he had promised? Hadn't she pleased him? What more could she have done?

As the morning wore on the wind shifted, blowing in from her left. It carried with it a distinctive odor. The smell of a dead animal. No, not an animal. It was the old man on the cross next to hers. His name was Martianus. She wasn't sure exactly what he did, beyond the fact that he was Master's dresser. Every morning he would bathe Master and help him into his clothes. He also attended to Master when he did his rounds of the farm. Once again she wondered what gods he worshiped who would take pity on him and let him die before the worst of the torment.

As the heat built up toward midday the attacks from the insect world and the odor from the dead Martianus redoubled. The positive side of this increased misery was that the leering crowds tended to move on more quickly to get away from the stench. The negative side was that a trio of ugly carrion birds began circling overhead. One of the birds, large and black with a crooked neck and hooked beak, landed on the dead man's shoulder. Annia tried to look away but could not. To her horror, the bird jumped up on the man's head and pecked out first one eye, then the other. She looked away, feeling sick, but could not avoid hearing the clack of the bird's beak against teeth and bone as it began tearing away the soft flesh inside the open mouth. The other birds, encouraged by their partner's success, circled closer. Finally one landed on the man's right arm and began feasting on it. The third member of the squadron continued to circle, but had located an exclusive target of its own. Annia saw its shadow first, then felt the talons dig into her left shoulder. With more strength than she thought she had left, she cried out and tossed her head. The creature released its grip and flew off.

Her heart was hammering, oddly erratic. Maybe it would fail. Oh gods, she hoped so! But it did not. It slowed to a faint, jagged thump. In spite of the agony, her body refused to grant her release.

But the thought of being eaten alive by vultures kept her moving. Slowly up. Hold herself there to take some deep breaths until the pain soared beyond bearing. Then down for the infernal pain of the spike in her cunt and wrists. It was getting harder. Her strength was ebbing. She could no longer cry. Her eyes and mouth had dried out in the ravaging thirst. Even her sweat had dried up on her seared skin.

The day ground on, the stink from partly devoured corpse growing stronger. The sun rose to its most punishing height, cooking her as surely as if she were roasting on a spit. Blisters formed on her breasts, arms and thighs. Her skin was a sheet of fire, registering every grain of sand that blew against it, and every rock thrown by the passing throngs of boys from the village.

One group gave her a special taste of hell by pausing for a throwing contest. First it was accuracy: who could score the most direct hits on her nipples. Then it was strength: who could make her gasp the loudest. A guard finally put a stop to it when a rock hit her on the forehead, opening a gash.

"All right, boys, move along. There's plenty of other targets down the line. Some nice pussy, too. And take it easy with them rocks. This lot'll be tossed on the dung heap soon enough. If you speed things up with them rocks, you'll wind up on a tree yourself. Then your buddies will be throwing rocks at YOU. Got it?"

They sauntered off grumbling.

The guard looked up at Annia. "Don't you worry, honeypot. We'll protect you from them dungheads. We want you to enjoy a nice long life up there so you can entertain all the good folks who've come to see the show." He snickered and wandered off to keep his eye on the boys.

The sun slid to mid-afternoon. Annia couldn't keep herself from glancing up at the circling scavengers and their vile hooked beaks. The original three had multiplied many times over into a fearsome cloud of hungry birds. For the most part they remained intimidated by the host of humans wandering about and the shuddering up and down movements of their potential meals. Determined not to be mistaken for carrion, Annia writhed on her four nails, rising up, dropping down, lolling her head about. She also used the presence of the birds to divert some of her attention from her agony — counting them as they flew past her line of vision, or singling out a single bird to follow its course.

That vision became increasingly impaired by swarms of flies and other insects drawn to the blood that had caked in her eyebrow and eyelashes from the recent gash. She felt them dining on the flesh laid open by the rock, crawling into her eye, but was too weak to shake them off. It was hard enough to keep them out of her mouth as her efforts to exhale deteriorated to shallow grunts. She wept in bleak frustration, but there were no tears under the scorched lids.

By late afternoon she realized she was weakening fast. She could barely push herself up off the cruel point of the crotch nail, or evade the long pointed sticks that the more despicable gangs of boys shoved into her cunt and twisted until they drew blood. Two boys had found a ladder and when the guards weren't looking propped it up against her cross. The most daring of the two scrambled up the ladder and put his mouth over her left nipple, sucking hard. A guard two crosses away yelled at him and drew his sword. The boy sank his teeth into the nipple and bit if off before scrambling back down the ladder. They were well away by the time the guard arrived. Almost with indifference she watched the blood drip off her mutilated breast and cascade off her open thigh on the way to earth. Now there was a fresh banqueting place for the clouds of insects that emerged from the shelter of the nearby fields as the sun sank behind the distant trees.

The endless up and down motion against the upright of the cross had torn much of the skin from her back, slicking the wood with her blood. Every new push against the nails in her heels was more painful than the last. It was common knowledge, of course, that the soldiers could end her torture anytime simply by breaking her legs, making it impossible for her body to push her up for another breath. Although it would try. She yearned for that final agony that would end all agonies. But it wouldn't happen. If she were a free-born criminal with a family rich enough to bribe the Captain, she would be dead by now. But no such mercy was available to a slave.

The approach of dusk brought three small blessings. The procession of witnesses and tormentors dwindled. The carrion birds, who would be blind in the dark, departed for their night's lodging. And the guards arrived with their buckets of water, sponges and long poles — not out of kindness, but to help prolong the punishment. Humans can live for many days without food, but lack of water summons death quickly.

"Hey, you with the golden pussy!" one of them called up to her. "How'd you like some of this?" He dipped a cup into the bucket, raised it to his lips and sipped it noisily.

"Please," she croaked. "Water."

"Oh, you do want some?" He tipped his head back, lifted the cup over his mouth and let water fall into it. Then made a show of licking his lips.

"Please!" she begged in a broken whisper. "Please, Sir. Have pity."

He watched her writhe for a while, mouth open, gasping, pleading with her eyes.

"Gods! You're a mess. You know that? What happened to your nipple?" He wrinkled his nose in exaggerated distaste as he slipped the cup under his leather skirt. Annia heard the sound of his pee filling the cup. When he had finished, he saluted her with the cup, immersed his sponge into it, attached the sponge to the pole and lifted it up to her lips. Without hesitation she grabbed it with her teeth, drew it into her mouth and greedily sucked every drop of urine out of it.

Then begged for more.

The guard snorted. "Tell you what. Next time I have to piss, I'll give you first crack at it. And if you're real good, you can even eat one of my turds." He laughed, picked up the bucket and continued to the boy on the next cross.