Altered States - New Story By Jedakk

[Deleted member jedakk]

Maia
I sucked from the sponge the guard – a different guard from the one during the day – held up against my lips. When I stopped, he moved on to others crucified nearby. The full moon was so bright that he didn’t need a torch.

With sunset, the crowd and the number of travelers passing by our crosses had dwindled until there was no one left to witness our suffering. Which didn’t make my agony any less. I had long since lost track of time, and while during the day there had been the lengths of the shadows to mark the passage of time, in the darkness there was nothing at all. At least it was cooler now, and the flies that tormented me during the day seemed to have gone wherever flies go for the night.

I heard the sound of water splattering on the ground nearby, Amara pissing from her cross. A little time passed, then I heard her groan, and the creaking of her cross as she struggled to raise herself on it. I heard her mumbling a kind of chant in her own language between gasps and groans of pain. I continued to hang by my wrists, squirming as muscle spasms drove me to move.

“What were… you saying?” I finally asked Amara, pushing the words out.

“Wh-what?” She asked, her voice weak.

“I heard you, some kind of chant,” I said, then gasped and moaned at a new spasm.

“I was praying to Waaqa,” she said.

“One of your Aethiopian gods?”

“Our highest god,” she answered. “The one who made everything. I hope he can hear me in this place of pain and death. I’m not sure there are any gods here, maybe only demons!”

“What would you… ask him for?” I asked, puzzled. “To… save you? To get you… down from… your cross?”

“I pray for death!” She said. “I pray that I never see the sun rise again.”

“Oh,” I said, “I hope… your prayers… are answered,” although I didn’t believe for an instant that she’d die before sunrise. A crucifixion victim that was still lucid and strong enough to move as she did must have at least another full day in her.

Some time passed, and my own agony and edge of panic that I couldn’t escape sent me groaning and struggling to raise myself on my cross.

Amara wants to die now, I thought, but I would pray for two more days on this cross. I need to feel it all, the full agony and horror of crucifixion.

I felt the wetness between my legs even as I was groaning and struggling against the pain in my feet to stay raised. My clit felt swollen and erect, and when I looked down I could see my nipples standing out hard in the moonlight. I would have another orgasm soon, a blessed but brief escape from suffering.

And so it went during the long night hours. I fainted from time to time, awakening to agony and confusion, surprised to find myself nailed to a cross until it all came back to me. Then I wondered how much time had passed, even which night this was. I was only aware of the time when the sky began to lighten in the east as dawn approached.

As the eastern horizon grew brighter, I automatically found myself singing the song my tribe had sung every morning since the beginning of memory to greet the returning sun and the beginning of a new day. Only this dawn, the singing was only in my mind, and the words came out as croaks from my dry throat.


Joe
Doc grabbed cat roughly by the hair and held her head still while he pulled her upper lip back had a look at her gums. She was moaning, struggling to pull away and saying “No! No! Don’t!” She was obviously reacting to someone else, not Doc; someone she was afraid to say “fuck you” to. He pressed on her gums and watched to see how quickly the pink color returned, then let her go.

“She’s hydrated well,” he said, “and she’s been urinating frequently enough, too, considering how much fluid she’s losing to perspiration,” he said. “Not counting how much has run out of her vagina!”

“Yeah, I know, I’ve never seen anything like her either,” I said, sitting down in my lawn chair. “What about her vitals?”

“Same thing,” Doc said. “Everything goes up and down cyclically. If I wasn’t looking at her and just had this data to go by, I’d think she was bouncing up and down on that cross. But it doesn’t coincide with activity, such as raising herself on the cross, so it’s not a response to her body’s demand for oxygen. Got to be essentially psychosomatic.”

“Her brain could be making her heart race for no reason?” I asked.

“Might not be ‘no reason’,” Doc said. “There are other things that make your heart race besides activity!”

“Oh yeah,” I grinned, “those other things!”

“Well, she’s been on the cross for a little over eight hours now,” Doc said. “That’s as long as she’s ever gone before. God almighty, she’s beautiful! I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of watching the way she moves on a cross!”

“If I ever do, check to see if I still have a pulse!” I laughed.

“Going to go take a cold shower now,” Doc said, got up out of his lawn chair, pointed his lance toward the door to the snickers of the others and followed it out.

 

[phlebas]

As the eastern horizon grew brighter, I automatically found myself singing the song my tribe had sung every morning since the beginning of memory to greet the returning sun and the beginning of a new day. Only this dawn, the singing was only in my mind, and the words came out as croaks from my dry throat.

..............

“Well, she’s been on the cross for a little over eight hours now,” Doc said. “That’s as long as she’s ever gone before. God almighty, she’s beautiful! I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of watching the way she moves on a cross!”

“If I ever do, check to see if I still have a pulse!” I laughed.

...............

I've always liked the idea of a fantasy that becomes reality, or at least reality in the mind of the subject. I've posted a couple of manips in the past on this theme. In this case the ordeal of bdsm crux has taken our girl to a new level. We get two stories, her own heightened experience in the ancient world, and the observations of her minders in the present.

There's an interesting contrast between her own dramatic and painful story, of a long difficult ordeal ending in probable death, and the rather more coarse and lighthearted story of her minders. Was that deliberate, Jeddak? I find it focuses me even more on her ordeal, on how it has shifted, on how her reality has changed.

She is far from Joe and Doc now.

 

[malins]

this is a big stretch for a lot of non-native English speakers

As one of those, I have to say it helps me very much, to read it in episodes, instead of one single PDF.

A document is useful to 'go back' later but I'll have to admit that when confronted with just a big document of 100+ pages I'll often fail.

where did that word come from?

That dream where I was called cat, it seemed so real, and that confused me. But this is real

That's another interesting thing to think of, cat is feeling what Maia experiences but in how far does the Maia-consciousness also have some hint that she is being 'visited'... and, when that consciousness evacuates its dying body... does perhaps a fragment of Maia find refuge inside cat's mind and return with her... to sometimes resurface... anyway cat is heading for something a bit beyond even the recognized phenomena of 'near death experiences'...

Kind of surprised that no one noticed.

I did notice that but just accepted it as part of the story, it makes it possible for cat to have three days on the cross

 

[Deleted member jedakk]

As the eastern horizon grew brighter, I automatically found myself singing the song my tribe had sung every morning since the beginning of memory to greet the returning sun and the beginning of a new day. Only this dawn, the singing was only in my mind, and the words came out as croaks from my dry throat.

..............

“Well, she’s been on the cross for a little over eight hours now,” Doc said. “That’s as long as she’s ever gone before. God almighty, she’s beautiful! I don’t think I’ll ever get tired of watching the way she moves on a cross!”

“If I ever do, check to see if I still have a pulse!” I laughed.

...............

I've always liked the idea of a fantasy that becomes reality, or at least reality in the mind of the subject. I've posted a couple of manips in the past on this theme. In this case the ordeal of bdsm crux has taken our girl to a new level. We get two stories, her own heightened experience in the ancient world, and the observations of her minders in the present.

There's an interesting contrast between her own dramatic and painful story, of a long difficult ordeal ending in probable death, and the rather more coarse and lighthearted story of her minders. Was that deliberate, Jeddak? I find it focuses me even more on her ordeal, on how it has shifted, on how her reality has changed.

She is far from Joe and Doc now.

Yes, I planned the characters' personalities with that in mind. Joe, Doc and cat are always joking around with each other and are the focus of the near-future part of the story. Whatever happened in that part of the story, I looked for ways to insert humor into it.

In contrast, the ancient Roman part of the story is grim, painful, dirty, and hopeless. Maia is masochistic, sad and suicidal, her life taken away by the Romans, she chooses to die on her own terms. She's the kind of personality that cat fantasizes about being. Ultimately, there is some humor from Maia and some fond memories. How is it that both cat and Maia have a clit piercing? That's not accidental or an unexplained oversight.

So in this story format where it's told by two narrators, there's an obvious contrast that should, I hope, serve to emphasize both sides of it, the humor and the horror.

 

[andy01]

Yes, I planned the characters' personalities with that in mind. Joe, Doc and cat are always joking around with each other and are the focus of the near-future part of the story. Whatever happened in that part of the story, I looked for ways to insert humor into it.

In contrast, the ancient Roman part of the story is grim, painful, dirty, and hopeless. Maia is masochistic, sad and suicidal, her life taken away by the Romans, she chooses to die on her own terms. She's the kind of personality that cat fantasizes about being. Ultimately, there is some humor from Maia and some fond memories. How is it that both cat and Maia have a clit piercing? That's not accidental or an unexplained oversight.

So in this story format where it's told by two narrators, there's an obvious contrast that should, I hope, serve to emphasize both sides of it, the humor and the horror.

"emphasize both sides of it" ... it is a marvellous device, switching from one to other.
And as Jollyrei said, the use of modern brain scanning adds a new dimension to the watchers' view.
We are drinking deep here.

 

[Deleted member jedakk]

As one of those, I have to say it helps me very much, to read it in episodes, instead of one single PDF.

I'm surprised by that! Your English is so good that I never thought this story would be challenging for you.

That's another interesting thing to think of, cat is feeling what Maia experiences but in how far does the Maia-consciousness also have some hint that she is being 'visited'... and, when that consciousness evacuates its dying body... does perhaps a fragment of Maia find refuge inside cat's mind and return with her... to sometimes resurface... anyway cat is heading for something a bit beyond even the recognized phenomena of 'near death experiences'...

Very perceptive! Maia sees cat as a hallucination or a dream that she somehow had while she was unconscious. She really can't account for these unexplained memories. And cat has been subsumed by Maia's personality. She is part of Maia now. Earlier in the story, Doc said that cat wanted to go into her altered state of consciousness and she might have to want to come back, too. It might not be automatic, that she'll just pop back into herself as cat again.

What happens when Maia dies on the cross? Will cat take this ride all the way to the end and beyond?

 

[Deleted member jedakk]

"emphasize both sides of it" ... it is a marvellous device, switching from one to other.
And as Jollyrei said, the use of modern brain scanning adds a new dimension to the watchers' view.
We are drinking deep here.

It's a challenge to write that way, trying to figure out where one narrator's part should end and another's begin, trying to avoid overlap or use overlap to look at something from a different perspective.

I first used that method with "The Serpent's Eye" after I read a book titled "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver, where she used four radically different narrators. That was very powerfully told, and I thought at the time that would be the way to write a crux story that is seen from all perspectives. I like it, I think it's much more engaging than a story that's all told from a typical third-person perspective.

 

[old slave]

I did notice that but just accepted it as part of the story, it makes it possible for cat to have three days on the cross

Yes I thought the same and remembered the previous reference to time, so assumed all would be explained.

My thoughts are now on, will cat survive? Maia is likely to die in {24hr IRL: 72hr Rome}, will cat's brain shut down as well? This gives added tension for me "next episode please". Then WTF for Joe and Doc? Or Will cat take this ride all the way to the end and beyond? Beyond will be interesting.

 

[andy01]

It's a challenge to write that way, trying to figure out where one narrator's part should end and another's begin, trying to avoid overlap or use overlap to look at something from a different perspective.

I first used that method with "The Serpent's Eye" after I read a book titled "The Poisonwood Bible" by Barbara Kingsolver, where she used four radically different narrators. That was very powerfully told, and I thought at the time that would be the way to write a crux story that is seen from all perspectives. I like it, I think it's much more engaging than a story that's all told from a typical third-person perspective.

It gives a tremendously compressed discipline as the focus switches from one to another.
I found myself swinging wildly in Kytheramne from one perspective to another, and the same problem of trying to avoid overlap. Worried that the language became repetitive.
But in cat's story the swings are so well judged, swinging us between sharp realities. It is not just a wonderful concept, but you use it so well to swing the reader from one world to the other. This is one of the best ever.

 

[malins]

cat has been subsumed by Maia's personality ... What happens when Maia dies on the cross? Will cat take this ride all the way to the end and beyond?

Hmmm... a voluntary ritual of crucifixion, where all minds are intensely focused on one willing sacrifice who's being catapulted to her ultimate desire ... completely yielding, with all her soul, to the utmost suffering - even if some of the experiences are, from the viewpoint of one side, a staged ceremony and not the real thing ... something that she to some degree still realized at the beginning but by now has completely forgotten ... that opens up a channel to another place and time, into another body, to another soul that shares in being drawn to that destiny... and then, two souls in one suffering body... how will it end ... can cat get back? - perhaps...

I began untying the knots in her cord. If any passers-by saw me, I’m sure they’d be talking about how I was releasing this one’s soul.

... if such an 'unbinding' happens ... even if the executioners thinks nothing of it ... it might remind cat that there is a place for her to go when that body perishes ... another world, but not the underworld...

I'd say cat should come back, simply because otherwise, what they are left with is mostly just 'something went wrong and we don't know what', instead of figuring out together with cat what happened, whether they can believe it, whether cat brought something along with her ... and if they want to try again someday...

Of course this story uses more of a scientific approach, but it could also be looked at from ritualistic/spiritist viewpoint. And from a psychological viewpoint perhaps,how coming ever closer to that 'impossible' fantasy finally makes its own reality at least for the inside experience. Looking at it like that I do see some parallels to storylines I've dreamed up myself, so it's not surprising I'm reading closely

 

[Deleted member jedakk]

It gives a tremendously compressed discipline as the focus switches from one to another.
I found myself swinging wildly in Kytheramne from one perspective to another, and the same problem of trying to avoid overlap. Worried that the language became repetitive.
But in cat's story the swings are so well judged, swinging us between sharp realities. It is not just a wonderful concept, but you use it so well to swing the reader from one world to the other. This is one of the best ever.

I found it very difficult the first time I tried to use this technique to write a story, at least until I realized that I needed to think about which parts of the story were better told from a certain character's perspective and work out where their narratives would begin and end. I've never seen a "how-to" for this, but I know there must be some pointers for it out there that would make it easier.

Now this particular story wasn't that difficult for me to write that way. I decided that I'd tell it all as first-person from two viewpoints, and considering that it becomes two different story lines once cat goes into her altered state, the only other way would be to tell it all from a third-person point of view. When I think about that option, it seems like the whole thing would turn out to be boring as hell! I think the first-person option I used has much more impact, is much more engaging - or at least has the potential to be.

 

[Deleted member jedakk]

My thoughts are now on, will cat survive? Maia is likely to die in {24hr IRL: 72hr Rome}, will cat's brain shut down as well?

That's a possibility cat mentioned earlier - If I die there, will I die here too? If Joe, Doc and the others realize what they're looking at in those strangely-cycling brain scans and vital signs, and how far cat has actually gone in what her mind is experiencing, what do they do?

There are some real possibilities here; I hope the story does them justice!

 

[Deleted member jedakk]

... if such an 'unbinding' happens ... even if the executioners thinks nothing of it ... it might remind cat that there is a place for her to go when that body perishes ... another world, but not the underworld...

Good point! I hadn't considered that when writing this story; it was something I thought up for "The Serpent's Eye" probably ten years ago when I wrote the original version.

Now Maia is from one of the Celtic tribes in Britannia, and does not share in the Romans' beliefs regarding the afterlife. Her beliefs are that her soul will go to the "Otherworld" and live again there, and that she might be reincarnated to live again in this world in one form or another. How this might affect cat remains to be seen!

I'd say cat should come back, simply because otherwise, what they are left with is mostly just 'something went wrong and we don't know what', instead of figuring out together with cat what happened, whether they can believe it, whether cat brought something along with her ... and if they want to try again someday...

I'd hate to see this story end in a tragedy like that, with unanswerable questions, but so many stories have been tragedies. And the possibility that they might try this again, that these same characters could reappear in other stories... Hmm...

Looking at it like that I do see some parallels to storylines I've dreamed up myself, so it's not surprising I'm reading closely

I'm not the first to write a story where someone, somehow, experiences an episode in the past. This is just one way to do it - I'm sure others have their own takes on it.

 

[thehangingtree]

Good point! I hadn't considered that when writing this story; it was something I thought up for "The Serpent's Eye" probably ten years ago when I wrote the original version.

Now Maia is from one of the Celtic tribes in Britannia, and does not share in the Romans' beliefs regarding the afterlife. Her beliefs are that her soul will go to the "Otherworld" and live again there, and that she might be reincarnated to live again in this world in one form or another. How this might affect cat remains to be seen!



I'd hate to see this story end in a tragedy like that, with unanswerable questions, but so many stories have been tragedies. And the possibility that they might try this again, that these same characters could reappear in other stories... Hmm...



I'm not the first to write a story where someone, somehow, experiences an episode in the past. This is just one way to do it - I'm sure others have their own takes on it.

It is hard to write a story that spans centuries... The continuity of characters gets very difficult to maintain.

 

[Deleted member jedakk]

Maia's second day on the cross begins with a visit from Flaccus, the Carnifex. He examines Maia and Amara and decides that Maia has another two days left in her, counting this one. According to Flaccus, “Today she’ll still draw flies and a crowd with that ass and tits,” he said. “Tomorrow maybe just flies."

But he says that Amara will be dead by sundown. He tells Licinus, the guard not to waste any more posca on her and, “Whip this one’s tits and cunnus today, give the cocksuckers who stop to watch a show. She can still feel that, make her dance a bit maybe and hurry her on her way.”

And Maia knows that tomorrow, it will be her turn.

By the time her whipping is finished, Amara can no longer raise herself on the cross to breathe. She's had nothing at all to drink all day. Still, she hangs there and struggles for hours before Maia sees her breathing stop completely. And she sees how horrible death on the cross is, and what is in store for her when her strength runs out.

Meanwhile, Joe, Doc and the others play cards and watch cat, wondering what she's seeing. And cat has been on the cross for sixteen hours in the dungeon.

 

[Deleted member jedakk]

Maia
Carnifex, that’s the title the Romans give their executioner, and through a haze of constant pain, I heard his slaves call him Flaccus. He came just after dawn. I was lost in my agony, gasping for breath when he reached up and seized me by the hair, then fumbled around with my mouth as I begged him to stop, tried to pull away from him, tried to raise myself on the cross. Whatever he saw seemed to satisfy him.

He let me go, then went and did the same thing to Amara. I was surprised at how weak she looked, limp as a dishrag when he grabbed her.

“Don’t waste any more posca on this one Licinus,” he said to the slave who was guarding us. “She’s practically food for crows already. She’ll be dead by sundown today.”

“Good!” Licinus replied. “One less stinking bitch to water. What about that blonde one?” He asked, jerking his chin toward me.

Suddenly the focus of their attention, I tensed, wanting to hide. But how can you hide on a cross, an instrument on which nothing was hidden? The last thing I wanted was any further attention from the Carnifex.

“Edepol! Well, she has some nice tits there, nipples hard as pebbles. She must enjoy being crucified!” Flaccus grinned at me.

Reflexively, I tried to press my thighs together, but the way my feet were nailed, and with that damned sedile in the way, it was impossible to close my legs.

“Today she’ll still draw flies and a crowd with that ass and tits,” he said. “Tomorrow maybe just flies. Time then for her to have those tits whipped.” He turned back toward Amara, considering. “Whip this one’s tits and cunnus today, give the cocksuckers who stop to watch a show. She can still feel that, make her dance a bit maybe and hurry her on her way.”

I heard sobbing and saw Amara’s body, dark skin gleaming with sweat, shaking.

“Oh, you heard that, did you?” Flaccus grinned up at her. “We’ll see how much you’ve got left in you when the whip stings those sweet round tits of yours!”

He turned back to the guard and said, “I don’t have to tell you to wait until there’s a crowd to watch, do I Licinus?”

“No, domine, I’ll wait until about the sixth hour. Lot of people on the road then,” he said.

I sagged down on my cross and even though I was ashamed of it, I couldn’t help thinking, gods! better her than me!

It got miserably hot as the sun rose higher, and I kept having to ask Licinus for a drink. Amara moaned and begged pitifully whenever he held the sponge up to my lips, but he ignored her. I supposed he’d heard so many crucified suffering on the cross that there was no mercy left in him. Would I be the one to whom they’d refuse a drink tomorrow or the next day?

The hours dragged by, measured in throbbing agony, punctuated by my panicked struggles to raise myself when the smothering feeling of not being able to get enough air overwhelmed me. My life was reduced to nothing more than this unending fight against the pain, every muscle in my body tense, tight as a bowstring, on the edge of spasm.

When I was hanging by my wrists, it was all about time and increasing agony. It was about how long I could bear the pressure of those nails that pulled against the wounds in my wrists like claws, stretching my arms out taut, feeling like they were tearing my shoulders out of their sockets. How long I could keep pushing the air out of my lungs so that I could have another breath, my stomach concave and pulsing below my expanded rib cage, hips rocking back and forth as my abs contracted and released. It was about whether I could bear it long enough to rest my exhausted leg muscles.

And no matter how long I managed to rest my legs, I knew the time would come when they’d be so exhausted that I’d have no strength to raise myself, and I’d have to hang there helplessly until the cramps in my legs faded, until I got some strength back to raise myself again. My only other option was the sedile, if I could manage to get my bruised pussy up on it before my legs failed again.

When I had to raise myself, it was about having the will power to push and pull up without giving in to the agony as nails twisted inside wounded wrists and feet, as I had to force my feet down against the nails and hold them there, not give up, not let go, keep pushing, pushing. It was like holding your finger in a candle flame and not pulling back even though it was blistering, blackening.

When I was raised on my feet, it was about trading agony there for air to breathe, for just a little relief for my wrists, knowing that if I couldn’t bear it, if I gave up, I’d have to do it all over again soon.

And then there was the sedile. Easing my body downward on exhausted legs, feeling its narrow edge slide between my lips and go deeper into my pink softness until it found the edge of my pubic bone, the flesh already so bruised and sore that I could hardly bear its touch. Groaning in agony as I let my legs relax the last little bit so that my body’s weight came down on it fully. I was trading screaming agony in my pussy for the chance to breathe freely, to take the pressure off of my wrists and feet for as long as I could force myself to bear it.

Over and over again, all of it, with no end, no escape.

And then, from time to time, there was the fluttering, pulsing feeling deep inside my abdomen, and pain became pleasure for just a little while as I climaxed. No matter how humiliating it was for the crowd to see me, laugh at me, make fun of me, the blessed moments without pain were worth anything, whatever I had to pay.

When the shadows pooled around the bases of our crosses and the sun was overhead, Licinus began making preparations to whip Amara. She hung low on her cross, too exhausted to raise herself, her strength sapped by heat and thirst and the unending struggle. Apparently, the executioner looked at her sluggishness as not providing enough of a show of punishment for the onlookers, and that had to be remedied.

Amara moaned hoarsely and struggled weakly as Licinus wrapped a long rope around her hips, crossed the ends behind her and pulled her ass back hard against the projecting end of the sedile, knotting the rope across the back of the cross. Then he brought the free ends of the rope around to either side, looped them around her knees, then cinched the rope around the back of the cross to pull her knees back and spread her legs wide apart.

Amara could not have been more vulnerable and helpless to protect herself. When we hung by our wrists our asses were almost touching our heels. With her hips pushed forward by the end of the sedile and her thighs pulled out to the sides as they were, I could see that her pussy lips were stretched apart, the moist folds of her deep brown inner lips dangling completely exposed. And with her hips bound as they were, she could barely squirm. She’d be helpless to evade the whip when it came.

That’s the way I’ll be tomorrow, I thought. He’ll whip my breasts and pussy, and there’ll be nothing I can do about it. The prospect both terrified and excited me and I squeezed my thighs together, feeling my warm wetness.

A crowd had been gathering and growing since Licinus began preparing Amara for the whipping, and now they were murmuring and urging him on, anticipating what was about to happen. Amara’s dark skin glistened with sweat. Her breathing was rapid, panicked.

Licinus took his stance in front of her cross and uncoiled his whip. It was short, only about four feet long, a single braided leather tail on a wooden handle with a pair of smooth, thin leather poppers on the end. He flicked it deftly a couple of times with just his forearm and wrist, making it crack loudly, adding to his victim’s fear.

Depending on how skillful he was, he might be able to use those poppers to sting and bruise, make it cut, or anything in between. It might be perfect for soft breasts and pussies, or cocks and balls as well, where the object was slow torture rather than just quick and brutal mutilation.

Amara’s cross was only about eight feet from mine, so I had a close-up view of what he was doing to her. Licinus flicked the whip lightly so its tips brushed her left breast to measure his distance. She flinched and moaned, her body quivering as the whip’s poppers brushed her distended left nipple.

“Please…” I heard her beg. “Please don’t, just let me die, please…”

Licinus brought the whip back over his shoulder, then forward, the tail just a blur. It cracked and made a sharp popping sound when it struck her breast, just off to the side of the areole. Amara screamed, her body trembling in agony. Her dark skin swelled into a darker-colored welt almost immediately where the whip had struck. A few tiny beads of blood oozed where the skin had broken.

Licinus concentrated on one breast at a time, beginning with her left and taking his time between strokes to get the most effect from each one. When Amara fainted, he stopped and waited for her to regain consciousness before proceeding. When her nipple split and blood dribbled down, he did not stop.

“Those brown nipples make pretty good targets, Licinus!” A man in the crowd laughed, and others joined in.

“Yes they do!” Licinus chuckled. There was yet another crack and slapping sound as he brought the whip forward to land on Amara’s left breast again. “These tits are big enough that it’s hard to miss anyway!”

“Come on Licinus, I want to see you do her cunnus!” Another man said.

“Ecastor! If she’s got any life left at all, that’ll drag a moan out of her!” A woman said.

“Guess you’d know about that, Myrtis, since you’ve got one of those yourself!” A man laughed.

“And a fine and tight one it is! You can judge for yourself for two sestertii!” She giggled.

“What’s your hurry? I’ve got another tit to do yet!” Licinus replied, hands on his hips in mock exasperation.

Even in my own agony, I watched what was being done to Amara in horror. Tomorrow she would be food for crows and I would be the one having my breasts and my pussy whipped without mercy. I clasped my thighs together protectively at the thought.

And even though I was horrified by what I was seeing, my pussy was wet and slippery at the prospect of having it done to me. I wondered for the millionth time what the hell was wrong with me.

That’s what got me on this cross, I thought.

And it didn’t matter anyway; by sunset tomorrow it would probably all be over for me.

Licinus stopped from time to time to get himself something to drink, piss against the base of an old cross, or make his rounds with his bucket and sponge. The shadows had stretched away perhaps a foot from the base of our crosses by the time he was finishing up with Amara’s breasts, maybe two hours. The whipping left them corded with dark, swollen welts, bleeding and bruised, one nipple split. Still, every stroke made her moan, her body shuddering with agony.

Licinus turned his attention to what was between Amara’s legs, drawing a murmur and yells of encouragement from the onlookers. He made a great show of reaching between her legs to pull her inner lips down, then run a finger between them from back to front to separate them and expose their inner sides to the whip.

I watched in fascination as Licinus changed his stance, moving in front of Amara’s cross and a little to his left so that he could bring the whip straight up between her legs. She shivered when he used an underhand motion to flick the whip up between her legs, measuring his swing.

I heard the sound of her urine splattering on the ground. Amara was terrified. I could hear her sobs, see her trembling hopelessly in anticipation, her legs straining against the ropes that held them apart, butt cheeks clenched, wanting to protect her pussy but helpless to do so.

As weak as she was, when the whip cracked against her pussy, she shrieked and shook in agony, groaning loudly with every breath. I squeezed my thighs together and moaned, imagining how excruciating that must have been to have that leather sting and bruise her pussy like that. It horrified me, but oh gods, it excited me, too!

All at once, Amara’s straining body went limp, sagged down against her bindings and her head fell forward on her chest as she fainted. Licinus grabbed her by the hair, lifted her head and peered into her face for a moment. He let the whip slip out of his other hand to hang by its wrist loop, reached between her legs, took hold with his fingertips and pinched hard. From where I hung on my cross, I wasn’t able to see well, but I knew he must be pinching her clit. He searched her face for some reaction, any sign that she was only pretending, but her body remained limp and unresponsive.

My body, on the other hand, was too responsive! The sight of Licinus pinching Amara’s clit sent a shiver through me. I could feel what I saw him doing to her between my own legs, his fingers squeezing my clit. Gods, I was so wet! And I could feel the pulsing in my womb building once again.

Gods, not now, not with the executioner right here, please, no! I thought, squirming, trying to fight back the sensation. I closed my eyes and strained to hold it back, gasping, trying to quiet the fluttering inside me.

“You’re a different kind of girl, aren’t you Maia?” Licinus said.

I opened my eyes, still fighting back the orgasm that was about to explode in me.

“Seeing this done to this black bitch is driving you crazy! You want some of this whip yourself, but it’s not your time yet. We’ll see how you like it when you get it tomorrow!”

I was staring at him, straining to hold on, when Amara began to stir and moan. He watched, and when he judged that she was conscious enough, he drew the whip back and brought it up underneath her again. She screamed again and clenched her butt cheeks, trembling. He waited until she had settled down some before delivering the next stroke.

And so it went, slowly, on into the afternoon. When he wasn’t satisfied with her responses to his strokes, he would pop her on one of her most sensitive places, her asshole or the opening to her vagina. If that didn’t satisfy him, he’d pop her on her clitoris. She fainted several times.

When he popped her on her clitoris and she barely responded, he decided that she was done. He put the whip away, untied her ropes, and left Amara to die.

She never raised herself on the cross again after that, but it still took her hours to die. She continued to fight for breath, making desperate strangling sounds. Sometime around sunset, I peered over at her and realized that Amara’s abdomen had stopped pulsing, and her chin was resting on her chest. Maybe ten minutes later, I heard a splattering sound and smelled shit. Amara was dead.

Crucifixion looks sexy, but death on the cross is hard and ugly, and it stinks.

Joe
“Your deal,” I said to Jim.

He shuffled, then dealt us each our cards. cat moaned and turned her head as if she was looking at something, even though she was blindfolded.

“Are you sure she can’t see anything?” Andrew asked.

“No, I’m not sure she can’t see anything. But I don’t see how she could,” I replied.

“Well, she sure looks like she’s seeing something,” Jim said.

“She is,” Doc said, “just not with her eyes. Her visual cortex stays lighted up all the time on the bMRI, so it must be seeing images. Whatever those are, I think they’re what she wanted to see.”

“How many times so far?” Jim asked.

“How many times what?” I asked.

“How many times has she come?”

“Crap, I don’t know,” I said. “A lot!”

“Eleven times,” Doc said, studying his hand. “All of them recorded in the data from the bMRI!”

“Amazing,” Andrew said. “And it’s been what, fifteen hours so far?”

“Sixteen,” Doc said.

“Sixteen hours! Damn!” Jim said. “How’s she doing?”

“Best I can tell from her vitals, she’s doing fine.” Doc said, “Her heart rate is elevated some, but I’d expect it would be as she gets tired and has to work harder.”

“Well that’s for sure,” Andrew said. “What about those odd cycles in everything? That still seems damned strange to me.”

“Me too,” Doc said, “Damn, her pain levels go so high that they’re off of the normal scale! I mean, a ten on the pain scale is supposed to be bad enough that it makes you faint. The software is extrapolating hers up to around twelve. It doesn’t actually have anything in its database of brain scans of people in pain to compare against!”

“And yet,” Doc continued, “she’s not fainting from that pain. If that was happening, I’d advise that we shut this down now, but it’s not. Damned strange, but what about this isn’t strange?”

“No shit!” Jim said. “Not that I don’t enjoy watching cat crucified. I just wish to hell that we could see what she’s seeing.”

“I don’t know, hanging on a cross, what can you see anyway?” I asked. “To the front, you have a bunch of assholes watching you, look to either side and you can see your own hands with nail heads sticking out of them and maybe some more assholes watching you. Can’t see behind you, where there are probably more assholes watching you.”

“Yeah, but if you look down, you can see tits!” Andrew said, laughing.

“And damn nice tits, too…” Jim said, looking at cat speculatively, and all of us laughed.

“Oh, and one more interesting thing,” Doc said, “along with all of that brain activity in her pain centers, cat is showing activity in areas that indicate erotic stimulation.”

“So cat is getting off on the pain?” Andrew asked, looking incredulous.

“Maybe not purely because of the pain,” Doc answered, “but about where it hurts and why it hurts. It’s that business about good pain and bad pain, depends on how she feels about it. That’s another reason why I feel like we can keep going with this.”

 

[andy01]

Maia
Carnifex, that’s the title the Romans give their executioner, and through a haze of constant pain, I heard his slaves call him Flaccus. He came just after dawn. I was lost in my agony, gasping for breath when he reached up and seized me by the hair, then fumbled around with my mouth as I begged him to stop, tried to pull away from him, tried to raise myself on the cross. Whatever he saw seemed to satisfy him.

He let me go, then went and did the same thing to Amara. I was surprised at how weak she looked, limp as a dishrag when he grabbed her.

“Don’t waste any more posca on this one Licinus,” he said to the slave who was guarding us. “She’s practically food for crows already. She’ll be dead by sundown today.”

“Good!” Licinus replied. “One less stinking bitch to water. What about that blonde one?” He asked, jerking his chin toward me.

Suddenly the focus of their attention, I tensed, wanting to hide. But how can you hide on a cross, an instrument on which nothing was hidden? The last thing I wanted was any further attention from the Carnifex.

“Edepol! Well, she has some nice tits there, nipples hard as pebbles. She must enjoy being crucified!” Flaccus grinned at me.

Reflexively, I tried to press my thighs together, but the way my feet were nailed, and with that damned sedile in the way, it was impossible to close my legs.

“Today she’ll still draw flies and a crowd with that ass and tits,” he said. “Tomorrow maybe just flies. Time then for her to have those tits whipped.” He turned back toward Amara, considering. “Whip this one’s tits and cunnus today, give the cocksuckers who stop to watch a show. She can still feel that, make her dance a bit maybe and hurry her on her way.”

I heard sobbing and saw Amara’s body, dark skin gleaming with sweat, shaking.

“Oh, you heard that, did you?” Flaccus grinned up at her. “We’ll see how much you’ve got left in you when the whip stings those sweet round tits of yours!”

He turned back to the guard and said, “I don’t have to tell you to wait until there’s a crowd to watch, do I Licinus?”

“No, domine, I’ll wait until about the sixth hour. Lot of people on the road then,” he said.

I sagged down on my cross and even though I was ashamed of it, I couldn’t help thinking, gods! better her than me!

It got miserably hot as the sun rose higher, and I kept having to ask Licinus for a drink. Amara moaned and begged pitifully whenever he held the sponge up to my lips, but he ignored her. I supposed he’d heard so many crucified suffering on the cross that there was no mercy left in him. Would I be the one to whom they’d refuse a drink tomorrow or the next day?

The hours dragged by, measured in throbbing agony, punctuated by my panicked struggles to raise myself when the smothering feeling of not being able to get enough air overwhelmed me. My life was reduced to nothing more than this unending fight against the pain, every muscle in my body tense, tight as a bowstring, on the edge of spasm.

When I was hanging by my wrists, it was all about time and increasing agony. It was about how long I could bear the pressure of those nails that pulled against the wounds in my wrists like claws, stretching my arms out taut, feeling like they were tearing my shoulders out of their sockets. How long I could keep pushing the air out of my lungs so that I could have another breath, my stomach concave and pulsing below my expanded rib cage, hips rocking back and forth as my abs contracted and released. It was about whether I could bear it long enough to rest my exhausted leg muscles.

And no matter how long I managed to rest my legs, I knew the time would come when they’d be so exhausted that I’d have no strength to raise myself, and I’d have to hang there helplessly until the cramps in my legs faded, until I got some strength back to raise myself again. My only other option was the sedile, if I could manage to get my bruised pussy up on it before my legs failed again.

When I had to raise myself, it was about having the will power to push and pull up without giving in to the agony as nails twisted inside wounded wrists and feet, as I had to force my feet down against the nails and hold them there, not give up, not let go, keep pushing, pushing. It was like holding your finger in a candle flame and not pulling back even though it was blistering, blackening.

When I was raised on my feet, it was about trading agony there for air to breathe, for just a little relief for my wrists, knowing that if I couldn’t bear it, if I gave up, I’d have to do it all over again soon.

And then there was the sedile. Easing my body downward on exhausted legs, feeling its narrow edge slide between my lips and go deeper into my pink softness until it found the edge of my pubic bone, the flesh already so bruised and sore that I could hardly bear its touch. Groaning in agony as I let my legs relax the last little bit so that my body’s weight came down on it fully. I was trading screaming agony in my pussy for the chance to breathe freely, to take the pressure off of my wrists and feet for as long as I could force myself to bear it.

Over and over again, all of it, with no end, no escape.

And then, from time to time, there was the fluttering, pulsing feeling deep inside my abdomen, and pain became pleasure for just a little while as I climaxed. No matter how humiliating it was for the crowd to see me, laugh at me, make fun of me, the blessed moments without pain were worth anything, whatever I had to pay.

When the shadows pooled around the bases of our crosses and the sun was overhead, Licinus began making preparations to whip Amara. She hung low on her cross, too exhausted to raise herself, her strength sapped by heat and thirst and the unending struggle. Apparently, the executioner looked at her sluggishness as not providing enough of a show of punishment for the onlookers, and that had to be remedied.

Amara moaned hoarsely and struggled weakly as Licinus wrapped a long rope around her hips, crossed the ends behind her and pulled her ass back hard against the projecting end of the sedile, knotting the rope across the back of the cross. Then he brought the free ends of the rope around to either side, looped them around her knees, then cinched the rope around the back of the cross to pull her knees back and spread her legs wide apart.

Amara could not have been more vulnerable and helpless to protect herself. When we hung by our wrists our asses were almost touching our heels. With her hips pushed forward by the end of the sedile and her thighs pulled out to the sides as they were, I could see that her pussy lips were stretched apart, the moist folds of her deep brown inner lips dangling completely exposed. And with her hips bound as they were, she could barely squirm. She’d be helpless to evade the whip when it came.

That’s the way I’ll be tomorrow, I thought. He’ll whip my breasts and pussy, and there’ll be nothing I can do about it. The prospect both terrified and excited me and I squeezed my thighs together, feeling my warm wetness.

A crowd had been gathering and growing since Licinus began preparing Amara for the whipping, and now they were murmuring and urging him on, anticipating what was about to happen. Amara’s dark skin glistened with sweat. Her breathing was rapid, panicked.

Licinus took his stance in front of her cross and uncoiled his whip. It was short, only about four feet long, a single braided leather tail on a wooden handle with a pair of smooth, thin leather poppers on the end. He flicked it deftly a couple of times with just his forearm and wrist, making it crack loudly, adding to his victim’s fear.

Depending on how skillful he was, he might be able to use those poppers to sting and bruise, make it cut, or anything in between. It might be perfect for soft breasts and pussies, or cocks and balls as well, where the object was slow torture rather than just quick and brutal mutilation.

Amara’s cross was only about eight feet from mine, so I had a close-up view of what he was doing to her. Licinus flicked the whip lightly so its tips brushed her left breast to measure his distance. She flinched and moaned, her body quivering as the whip’s poppers brushed her distended left nipple.

“Please…” I heard her beg. “Please don’t, just let me die, please…”

Licinus brought the whip back over his shoulder, then forward, the tail just a blur. It cracked and made a sharp popping sound when it struck her breast, just off to the side of the areole. Amara screamed, her body trembling in agony. Her dark skin swelled into a darker-colored welt almost immediately where the whip had struck. A few tiny beads of blood oozed where the skin had broken.

Licinus concentrated on one breast at a time, beginning with her left and taking his time between strokes to get the most effect from each one. When Amara fainted, he stopped and waited for her to regain consciousness before proceeding. When her nipple split and blood dribbled down, he did not stop.

“Those brown nipples make pretty good targets, Licinus!” A man in the crowd laughed, and others joined in.

“Yes they do!” Licinus chuckled. There was yet another crack and slapping sound as he brought the whip forward to land on Amara’s left breast again. “These tits are big enough that it’s hard to miss anyway!”

“Come on Licinus, I want to see you do her cunnus!” Another man said.

“Ecastor! If she’s got any life left at all, that’ll drag a moan out of her!” A woman said.

“Guess you’d know about that, Myrtis, since you’ve got one of those yourself!” A man laughed.

“And a fine and tight one it is! You can judge for yourself for two sestertii!” She giggled.

“What’s your hurry? I’ve got another tit to do yet!” Licinus replied, hands on his hips in mock exasperation.

Even in my own agony, I watched what was being done to Amara in horror. Tomorrow she would be food for crows and I would be the one having my breasts and my pussy whipped without mercy. I clasped my thighs together protectively at the thought.

And even though I was horrified by what I was seeing, my pussy was wet and slippery at the prospect of having it done to me. I wondered for the millionth time what the hell was wrong with me.

That’s what got me on this cross, I thought.

And it didn’t matter anyway; by sunset tomorrow it would probably all be over for me.

Licinus stopped from time to time to get himself something to drink, piss against the base of an old cross, or make his rounds with his bucket and sponge. The shadows had stretched away perhaps a foot from the base of our crosses by the time he was finishing up with Amara’s breasts, maybe two hours. The whipping left them corded with dark, swollen welts, bleeding and bruised, one nipple split. Still, every stroke made her moan, her body shuddering with agony.

Licinus turned his attention to what was between Amara’s legs, drawing a murmur and yells of encouragement from the onlookers. He made a great show of reaching between her legs to pull her inner lips down, then run a finger between them from back to front to separate them and expose their inner sides to the whip.

I watched in fascination as Licinus changed his stance, moving in front of Amara’s cross and a little to his left so that he could bring the whip straight up between her legs. She shivered when he used an underhand motion to flick the whip up between her legs, measuring his swing.

I heard the sound of her urine splattering on the ground. Amara was terrified. I could hear her sobs, see her trembling hopelessly in anticipation, her legs straining against the ropes that held them apart, butt cheeks clenched, wanting to protect her pussy but helpless to do so.

As weak as she was, when the whip cracked against her pussy, she shrieked and shook in agony, groaning loudly with every breath. I squeezed my thighs together and moaned, imagining how excruciating that must have been to have that leather sting and bruise her pussy like that. It horrified me, but oh gods, it excited me, too!

All at once, Amara’s straining body went limp, sagged down against her bindings and her head fell forward on her chest as she fainted. Licinus grabbed her by the hair, lifted her head and peered into her face for a moment. He let the whip slip out of his other hand to hang by its wrist loop, reached between her legs, took hold with his fingertips and pinched hard. From where I hung on my cross, I wasn’t able to see well, but I knew he must be pinching her clit. He searched her face for some reaction, any sign that she was only pretending, but her body remained limp and unresponsive.

My body, on the other hand, was too responsive! The sight of Licinus pinching Amara’s clit sent a shiver through me. I could feel what I saw him doing to her between my own legs, his fingers squeezing my clit. Gods, I was so wet! And I could feel the pulsing in my womb building once again.

Gods, not now, not with the executioner right here, please, no! I thought, squirming, trying to fight back the sensation. I closed my eyes and strained to hold it back, gasping, trying to quiet the fluttering inside me.

“You’re a different kind of girl, aren’t you Maia?” Licinus said.

I opened my eyes, still fighting back the orgasm that was about to explode in me.

“Seeing this done to this black bitch is driving you crazy! You want some of this whip yourself, but it’s not your time yet. We’ll see how you like it when you get it tomorrow!”

I was staring at him, straining to hold on, when Amara began to stir and moan. He watched, and when he judged that she was conscious enough, he drew the whip back and brought it up underneath her again. She screamed again and clenched her butt cheeks, trembling. He waited until she had settled down some before delivering the next stroke.

And so it went, slowly, on into the afternoon. When he wasn’t satisfied with her responses to his strokes, he would pop her on one of her most sensitive places, her asshole or the opening to her vagina. If that didn’t satisfy him, he’d pop her on her clitoris. She fainted several times.

When he popped her on her clitoris and she barely responded, he decided that she was done. He put the whip away, untied her ropes, and left Amara to die.

She never raised herself on the cross again after that, but it still took her hours to die. She continued to fight for breath, making desperate strangling sounds. Sometime around sunset, I peered over at her and realized that Amara’s abdomen had stopped pulsing, and her chin was resting on her chest. Maybe ten minutes later, I heard a splattering sound and smelled shit. Amara was dead.

Crucifixion looks sexy, but death on the cross is hard and ugly, and it stinks.

Joe
“Your deal,” I said to Jim.

He shuffled, then dealt us each our cards. cat moaned and turned her head as if she was looking at something, even though she was blindfolded.

“Are you sure she can’t see anything?” Andrew asked.

“No, I’m not sure she can’t see anything. But I don’t see how she could,” I replied.

“Well, she sure looks like she’s seeing something,” Jim said.

“She is,” Doc said, “just not with her eyes. Her visual cortex stays lighted up all the time on the bMRI, so it must be seeing images. Whatever those are, I think they’re what she wanted to see.”

“How many times so far?” Jim asked.

“How many times what?” I asked.

“How many times has she come?”

“Crap, I don’t know,” I said. “A lot!”

“Eleven times,” Doc said, studying his hand. “All of them recorded in the data from the bMRI!”

“Amazing,” Andrew said. “And it’s been what, fifteen hours so far?”

“Sixteen,” Doc said.

“Sixteen hours! Damn!” Jim said. “How’s she doing?”

“Best I can tell from her vitals, she’s doing fine.” Doc said, “Her heart rate is elevated some, but I’d expect it would be as she gets tired and has to work harder.”

“Well that’s for sure,” Andrew said. “What about those odd cycles in everything? That still seems damned strange to me.”

“Me too,” Doc said, “Damn, her pain levels go so high that they’re off of the normal scale! I mean, a ten on the pain scale is supposed to be bad enough that it makes you faint. The software is extrapolating hers up to around twelve. It doesn’t actually have anything in its database of brain scans of people in pain to compare against!”

“And yet,” Doc continued, “she’s not fainting from that pain. If that was happening, I’d advise that we shut this down now, but it’s not. Damned strange, but what about this isn’t strange?”

“No shit!” Jim said. “Not that I don’t enjoy watching cat crucified. I just wish to hell that we could see what she’s seeing.”

“I don’t know, hanging on a cross, what can you see anyway?” I asked. “To the front, you have a bunch of assholes watching you, look to either side and you can see your own hands with nail heads sticking out of them and maybe some more assholes watching you. Can’t see behind you, where there are probably more assholes watching you.”

“Yeah, but if you look down, you can see tits!” Andrew said, laughing.

“And damn nice tits, too…” Jim said, looking at cat speculatively, and all of us laughed.

“Oh, and one more interesting thing,” Doc said, “along with all of that brain activity in her pain centers, cat is showing activity in areas that indicate erotic stimulation.”

“So cat is getting off on the pain?” Andrew asked, looking incredulous.

“Maybe not purely because of the pain,” Doc answered, “but about where it hurts and why it hurts. It’s that business about good pain and bad pain, depends on how she feels about it. That’s another reason why I feel like we can keep going with this.”

Starting to obsess about those "odd cycles" - as is no doubt intended.
You'd better have a damn good explanation Jedakk.

 

[Deleted member jedakk]

Starting to obsess about those "odd cycles" - as is no doubt intended.
You'd better have a damn good explanation Jedakk.

LOL! Certainly! Let's see, it's actually in the next exciting episode, which I guess I'll post sometime around midnight my time, which would be about 5 a.m. your time on Thursday.

Going to be a bit of a problem posting after that, as I'm going to be off to meet my new great-grandson Thursday through Monday. Might not be able to post any until I get back, and there will be about twenty pages remaining to finish up.

 

[old slave]

Going to be a bit of a problem posting after that,

That's too bad.
Leaving her hanging there.
I can only play cards so long, then I get bored. And unlike cat, I'm not constantly coming.

On the other hand, it might do us all good to get out of that shelter and experience real life over the weekend.

 

[Deleted member jedakk]

Amara's whipping was a preview of what was in store for Maia. Now it's her third day on the cross, and she knows it will be her last. Like Amara, Licinus has tied her hips in place, taking the weight off of her arms so she can breathe but is helpless to move and avoid the whip. He uses the rope to pull her knees out to the sides so that she is completely exposed.

He begins with her right breast.

Meanwhile, Joe and the others can hardly bear cat's agonized screams that go on and on. There's nothing that they can see causing the horrific pain that is evident in her brain scans.

And then Andrew figures out the explanation for those odd cycles of pain and vital signs that they've been puzzling about for hours. And they realize what's really been going on and what cat has actually endured.

I think this is the last post I'll be able to make until Monday as I will be off on the road for a few days. I will be checking in from time to time, and as always, feedback is appreciated.