13.
The heat of the day has passed. It's now late afternoon and some time has passed since Lucretius exacted his cruel revenge on my womanly temple. That little act of vengeance took the form of a vicious, perfectly aimed underhanded stroke of his whip that broke directly over my mound, ripping and ravaging its way through the cleft between my labia. The pain was immediate and indescribably horrific, and even now … long after … I still hurt so much down there. At least, the gushing rush of blood seems to have finally stopped.
Lucretius and Markus have since worked their respective ways down the long line of crosses ... ordered by the Optio to turn their whips on the defenseless bodies of the other crucified women. The crowds have followed along to witness the fun, leaving me and my cross-mate to hang and suffer alone and in silence.
Too weak to struggle, she and I rest back-to-back against the heavy timbers that separate us. We re-establish our tenuous finger link ... a link as tenuous as our remaining grip on life.
How much longer we might last is an open question. Our breathing is shallow, ragged, rasping. We scarcely move anymore. Our extremities are numb. Every now and then a muscle cramp causes us to move enough to alter our otherwise listless pose, but for the most part we just hang. Only her occasional tweaking of my finger serves to remind me that she is still there.
I drift in and out of consciousness, losing interest even in slaking my raging thirst ... barely moving my lips even when a wet sponge is pressed to them.
For some unknown reason I rouse myself enough at one point to cast my teary eyes on the dark-haired girl crucified on the cross nearest mine. I see her in profile. The lowering sun brightly, almost radiantly, illuminating a sweat-sheened body, crisscrossed … like my own … with the blood-flecked marks left by Lucretius’ sadistic handiwork.
Her head rests against one of her outstretched arms, turned towards me. I realize that her stare is not vacant. She is, in fact, looking right at me. Her mouth moves ... once, twice, three times ... but I hear nothing. Then her eyes close and her head drops forward, a cloud of dark hair covering her face.
I will never know what she said. Were those her dying words? What message was she attempting to share? Does it matter anyhow?
“We are going to die soon … together,” I croak in a barely audible voice as I tweak the finger of my cross-mate.
“I know,” she replies.
TO BE CONTINUED