Bijou in Malhaven

[fauxface]

Chapter XXVIII: Mentor and Student​

The two men grabbed the sides of Alina’s patibulum, and rapidly walked her to the stipes on the left of Bijou, only a few yards from the crucified girl’s right hand. It was all the brunette could do to keep up with them, trotting along as they pulled her, doing her best to avoid being dragged. Once they reached the vicinity of Alina’s stipes – for it was Alina’s stipes, now – the men began to lower the crossbeam, and the girl collapsed into a kneeling position, still facing the wooden post. The men released the beam, allowing it to drop to the ground, and Alina’s body arched backward into an almost gymnastic pose, her shoulders and knees on the rocky ground, her lower legs bent beneath her, her feet alongside her hips, turned outward next to her upper legs. Her hip joints flared with sudden pain from the stress, but before she could adjust her legs, the centurion straddled her, pinning her legs to the ground. Alina cried out with pain from the stressful position, but no one cared.

Carl busied himself removing the ropes from the dark-haired girl’s left wrist and elbow. “We’ll leave her shoulder tied for now, and the other arm, too,” he said to David. “She’s pretty well immobilized by the ropes already, no need to have anyone holding her other arm down.”

He looked to David. “Okay, first thing to learn is where on the patibulum to position the wrist. I’ll show you the extremes, first. Let’s say you extend the arm straight across the patibulum, like this.” He demonstrated. “Think of this as a zero-degree angle, although there will always be some angle once all the weight is on the nails. Anyway, you do that, there’s not going to be much of a hanging effect. It’s incredibly stressful and painful for the girl, so it’s got that going for it, but the problem is, she’s not going to last very long that way. Half an hour, maybe, unless you provide some other way of supporting her body so she can get a full breath; more on that tomorrow. I’m not saying you should never do it that way; you crucify enough women, sometimes it’s a nice variation. I’m just letting you know the downside.”

Alina’s black eyes widened in horror that the manner in which she was to suffer could be discussed so clinically and academically.

“The other extreme is to put the hand right here,” Carl continued, moving the girl’s wrist so that it was adjacent to her shoulder, bending her elbow so that her forearm and upper arm were pressed together. “Ninety degrees to the horizontal. You do that, she’s going to hang straight down. The thing to be aware of is that she’ll be a lot lower on the cross, of course, because she’ll be hanging from the entire length of the arm, vertically. She’ll have more strength, and will be more able to pull herself up for a full breath when she needs to, so survival isn’t as much of an issue. But aesthetically, some people don’t like it; it just doesn’t look as nice as when they’re spread out. Also, the upper arms will be right up against her face, that close to the head, and they can hide part of her face sometimes, at least from certain angles. I have to admit, I like it on occasion, though.” Carl smiled slightly, remembering some of the occasions.

“So those are the two extremes, zero and ninety degrees, and generally you won’t use either of them very often. Basically, what you’re usually wanting to go for is some position where the angle between the girl’s arm and the patibulum is between about thirty and sixty degrees. That’s the sweet spot. Now let me show you how to do that.”

He once again extended Alina’s arm its full length along the patibulum, then bent the elbow bringing her wrist as close to her shoulder as possible, comparing the segments of her arm. “Look. Notice that a girl’s forearm is pretty much the same length as her upper arm. A little bit less, but close enough.”

He pulled her wrist back until the arm was once again fully extended along the wood. “Here’s the rule of thumb… or ‘rule of forearm,’ I guess. Look how long her forearm is. About nine inches, I’d guess, from wrist to elbow. Now, mentally, divide that length into thirds; you don’t have to actually measure and do any math, just look at her forearm on the wood, and take note of the spots on the wood that more or less line up with the points on her arm that are about one-third from the elbow and one-third from the wrist.”

David nodded, not sure where this was going.

“Okay, so you pull the wrist in to the first spot, one-third of the way in from where her wrist was,” Carl continued, adjusting the brunette’s arm, demonstrating. “If you nail it right here, you’re going to get about a thirty-degree angle. Move it in two-thirds,” – he repositioned the girl’s wrist to the second spot – “that will get you forty-five degrees. Finally, move it all the way in to where the elbow was, the last third, and you’ll get about sixty degrees. That’s usually the lowest you want her to hang unless you’re going for extremes.”

He paused. “I could show you the trigonometry, but I’m pretty sure it’d bore the hell out of you. The angles aren’t exact, but they’re within two or three degrees; close as you could tell by eye, which means aesthetically, you’re getting what you need.”

Carl paused. “So for these two, let’s go forty-five degrees, just like we did for Bijou.” Carl gestured upward with this head, indicating the Korean girl above them. He pointed to a spot on the wood along the struggling Algerian girl’s arm. The patibulum was pocked with nail marks from earlier crucifixions, making it easy to find a landmark. “This right here,” he said, indicating a mark on the wood, “looks to be about two-thirds of the way up the forearm.” He slid the girl’s wrist to the designated spot. “This is where we’ll nail her.” Alina squirmed, but Carl held her fast.

Carl paused. “Okay, so we’ve got the hand placement down. Now the next thing is, where to drive the nail. Now, despite what you’ve seen in the old paintings, you can’t nail through the palm itself. You do that, it will tear right through once her weight’s on it. If you nailed through the hands themselves, you’d have to tie the wrists to the patibulum, and the nails would be just for pain and show; no actual supporting function. So you’re looking more at the wrist. I usually go right into the wrist bones. That’s what I did with Bijou, at least on her left wrist. But that’s a little risky if you get it wrong, and since this is your first time, let me show a safer way, and that’s to drive the nail between the two bones of the arm, as close to the wrist as you can.”

Carl pressed down with his left hand on Alina’s forearm, holding it in place at the edge of the wood. Then he reached for her hand with his right and, positioning his grip at the base of her thumb and little finger, squeezed it hard, pulling her thumb and finger together to touch, and slowly flexed the girl’s wrist back and forth. Alina gasped; it didn’t hurt, but she was so high-strung now that everything triggered a reaction.

“See that?” Carl indicated the girl’s wrist. A ligament stood out in sharp relief as he adjusted her hand. “The spot you want is just inside that tendon, on the little finger side of it, right at the spot before it disappears into the wrist; just follow it back from the wrist an inch or so, maybe a tad less. Can’t fail. Okay, hold her now.”

 

[fauxface]

Chapter XXVIII: Mentor and Student (cont'd)​

David took over, pressing Alina’s arm and hand to the wood, as Carl positioned one of his custom-made nails over the spot he had just located. The point dimpled her white skin. The Algerian girl was now hyperventilating in terror

“Not to belabor the obvious, but this part is critical. When you drive the nail, it will go through her flesh, and even her wrist bones if we were nailing there, pretty easily. But it’s essential that you keep going; you have to continue driving the nail until it’s well into the wood, so the woman can’t pull it out in her thrashing.” He lifted the hammer, and Alina began to whimper.

The air rang with clangs of iron against steel, in counterpoint with the Algerian girl’s screams, as the hammer drove the spike through the soft flesh of Alina’s wrist. The sounds rang sharply at first, then settled into a deeper percussive note as the steel nail burrowed into the wood of the patibulum. After a half-dozen blows, Carl spoke. “Okay, you can let go.” David did so. Alina’s arm was firmly, but not tightly, nailed to the wood. “It’s a good idea to leave just a little bit of space between the arm and the nail head,” Carl advised. “You hit the nail when it’s already pressed against the arm, you could break the bones, and affect the ability of her arms to support her. As long as the nail’s secure in the wood, she’s not going to be able to get loose, and that’s all that’s important.”

Alina was sobbing in agony now, and the men now crossed over to her right hand. David glanced over at Piper, who had gone pale with stark fear, watching Alina being nailed to the wood, knowing her turn was to come.

Again, Carl positioned the brunette’s wrist, showing David the procedure once more. “Usually, you use the same position for both sides,” counseled Carl, “but you don’t have to. If you move one wrist further in than the other, her head will go to the side with the smaller angle, and with the feet obviously nailed in the center, her body will take on a curvature that can be kind of sexy. But let’s keep it simple for today.” Again, David held Alina’s arm in place as Carl drove the spike through her flesh and into the wood below; again the air was filled with the percussive sound of hammer and steel over Alina’s operatic screams.

“Okay, we don’t need these any more,” said Carl, untying the ropes that still bound the Algerian girl’s shoulders and neck to the patibulum. He gestured to the girl’s legs, still pinned beneath her, and handed one of the lengths of rope to David. David understood. He took the rope from Carl and pulled Alina’s left leg out from under her, then tied a loop around her ankle, as he had done with Bijou the day before. The centurion stepped away to give David room. He, too, was listening attentively to Carl’s instruction. It was always nice to hear a master holding forth on his art.

Carl paused. “If you don’t mind, David, I’d like to give this one a little send-off. The blonde is all yours, okay?”

“Of course,” agreed David, standing aside. Carl removed his trousers and laid atop the dark-eyed beauty. It was common for him to fuck a woman he was crucifying. In the case of Bijou, he had reserved that privilege to David as a matter of deference. As a result, he had been suffering a fierce case of blue balls since yesterday, and was looking forward to relief. Like Bijou, Alina resisted pathetically, but there was really nothing she could do. She gasped from the sudden additional pain as Carl entered her; Logan’s whip had often landed between her legs, and her cunt was bruised and tender. Carl paid no heed to her moans of pain, gradually increasing his thrusts until finally climaxing. Alina sobbed in pain and shame as Carl, now spent, collapsed atop her, regaining his breath.

A few moments later, he rose and collected himself, and was all business again. “Ready to raise her?” he asked. David answered in the affirmative, and the two men lifted the brunette to her feet. She cried out at the sudden surge of pain in her wrists as the nails began to bear weight. This part was familiar to David, having participated in Bijou’s raising yesterday. Carefully, the men walked in a slow circle, rotating the woman until her back was to the stipes. Together, they walked the girl backward the short remaining distance to the tall wooden post, until she was positioned with her back against the wood. Carl gave a small nod, and together they ascended their ladders, lifting the screaming woman off the ground, efficiently sliding the crossbar into place at the top of the post. David, being on the side with the roped ankle, bound it to the cleat as he had seen Carl do with Bijou, while Carl bolted the two wooden members together, as he had done with Bijou’s the day before.

Alina now hung from the cross, gasping and howling in pain, her right leg free and thrashing wildly, her left twisted around the wood and secured to the back of the stipes.

“Okay, now the feet,” began Carl. He grabbed Alina’s gyrating right ankle, extending the leg to its full straight length and pressed the back of her knee firmly against the wood of the stipes. He gently but firmly pushed Alina’s foot toward the surface of the wood. “As you can see, you can’t get the sole of the foot flat against the wood unless you bend the knee.” Continuing to grasp the trim ankle in his right hand, he reached behind the knee and pushed outward, at the same time drawing her foot up the wood until its sole was flat against its surface.

“This is pretty much as far as she can extend her leg once her foot is nailed. If we were to nail it here, she would barely be able to push up; maybe a little, if you leave enough space between the top of the foot and the nail head, but even still, not that much. So my practice is to move the foot somewhat higher, at least half a foot’s length, and because I usually don’t want both feet to be at the same level, I go twice that on the first one, so a full foot’s length.” He pulled Alina’s ankle higher, bending her knee further, so that the girl’s toes were now at the point where her heel had been just a moment earlier. “This will make a little more sense when we do the second foot,” continued Carl, “just trust me on it for the moment. Can you hold her?”

 

[fauxface]

Chapter XXVIII: Mentor and Student (conclusion)​

David grasped Alina’s leg with one hand and pressed down over her toes with the other, as he had with Bijou the previous day. Again, he felt the strangely erotic wriggling of the suffering woman’s toes against his palm. Carl now held the third nail, and pressed its tip into the top of the brunette’s foot, where the instep met the ankle joint. “You want to put the nail right here, right at the joint, and almost straight in, pointed downward just a little. If you nail much lower on the foot, and the girl has enough strength left,” – at this point he looked up at the squirming girl – “and I’m not sure about this one, she could pull the foot clean off the nail. The foot bones here, the metatarsals, they’re all parallel and run right down to the toes, pretty much like the metacarpals in the palm of the hand. The foot is essentially a piece of meat around the metatarsal bones with the toes sticking out of one end. You give an energetic enough pull – and some of these girls can be pretty energetic when you drive a nail through their feet – and they can pull it right through that layer of flesh.”

He checked again the position and angle of the nail. “Now here, you’re going to go straight through the bones of the base of the foot. You can’t go between the leg bones like we did nailing her wrists.” He paused, pulling away the nail for a moment before he continued. “Actually you can. You can nail the ankles through the tibia and fibula bones, just as we did the arm between the radius and ulna. But if you want to do that, you’ll need to nail them to the side of the stipes, not the front, and then, unless you take additional steps, the girl will have no support from her legs. She’ll die in something like twenty to thirty minutes. So, not recommended.”

He resumed, once again positioning the nail at its target at the top of the foot. “So, nail almost always goes here, at an angle like this. Now, you’re always going to be going through bone here, and the same bit I told you about following through to the wood is important. In fact it’s probably more important here, since the bone fracturing is more painful than just going through the arm flesh, so she’s really going to try to jolt; and the leg muscles are the largest set of muscles on the human body, so you want to make sure you get the foot secured to the wood. Ready?”

“Yes,” answered David shortly, pressing Alina’s foot more firmly against the wood. Above them, the brunette began to whimper in fear and anticipation. Out of the corner of his eye, David could see Piper looking on, wide-eyed, her face an expression of horror.

“Okay,” responded Carl. He raised the hammer and brought it down, rapidly and repeatedly, driving the nail through the girl’s bones and deeply into the wood beneath. Alina screeched in agony, trying desperately to pull her foot away, but David held firm, and in only a few blows, Carl had gotten the job done.

“Again, notice the head isn’t all the way down to the top of her foot,” he shouted to David, over the howling of the woman on the cross. “It gives a little more play, and helps her push up a little more. She’ll be needing that. Okay, let’s do the other one.”

David untied the rope from the cleat behind the stipes, and almost immediately, Alina tried to kick. It was a pointless gesture, of course, but instinct dies only slowly. He grasped her ankle firmly and brought it around to the front, removing the loop of rope as he did so.

“Thanks,” said Carl. “Now, like I said before, I like the feet to be offset a little. That makes the girl’s inner thighs visible, and I really like that. So, let’s put this one here.” He slid the struggling girl’s left foot into position, sole flat against the wood, so that her heel nestled into the midpoint of the foot already nailed. “Now, remember before, when I said the lowest you can pretty much nail the foot was about a half-length up from where it first goes flat against the wood? That’s where this one is now. The reason I did the first foot a little higher is that you want to nail the higher foot first, so it’s out of the way when you nail the second one.” He paused. “They don’t have to be so close together, either, by the way. Let’s move this one out a little.” He shifted the foot he held horizontally, two inches away from the one already nailed, maintaining the same height. “Now she’ll be spread a little; that’s kind of nice. Here, hold her.”

David grasped the slim ankle and pressed down once again on the struggling girl’s toes. Carl set the nail and hammered it down, through the girl’s foot and deeply into the wood behind it. As the nail penetrated her foot, Alina gasped deeply before letting out her scream; in that brief instant of silence, the men could hear the bones crack as the nail pushed its way through the girl’s foot.

With the Algerian nailed into place, all that was left was to affix her titulus, which Carl swiftly did. Unlike Bijou, Alina was being put to the cross as a simple expedient, to end her time at Malhaven, and the legend carved on the wooden placard reflected this aspect:

Alina Sofia Bensoussan
Femina consumitur​

Femina consumitur: “The woman is depleted.” The men were done with Alina. She was used up, and this is how she would be discarded.

Alina cried out in additional pain as the vibrations from her titulus being nailed above her shook her cross.

It was done now; Alina’s crucifixion was complete. The men stepped back and looked at the raven-haired girl, writhing on her cross. Carl continued his commentary. “Now, a lot of what I’ve shown you here is personal preference. There’s room for a lot of variation. Once you get the hang of it, don’t be afraid to experiment. I like the offset feet, for example; not everybody does. And I like them as extended as they can be; I think it makes the legs look nicer. But that’s just me. Some guys like to bend the knees much more; it’s all a matter of taste.”

With a sense of satisfaction, the two men looked up, taking in their work. Two brunettes now hung suffering from their crosses: the brown-haired Korean girl, Bijou; and the black-haired Algerian girl, Alina.

“I think a blonde would look nice up there right about now, don’t you?” Carl asked. They both turned to look at Piper, now frozen in fear.

 

[fauxface]

Chapter XXIX: Reflections​

From her vantage point on the cross, Bijou had watched Alina’s crucifixion in morbid fascination. The Algerian woman’s body had been arrayed on the ground with her head away from the stipes, and Bijou suspected it was to facilitate her own view of the horror unfolding beneath her. To Bijou, it was almost an out-of-body experience. She could not help but empathize with the other dark-haired girl being laid out and immobilized, just as Bijou had been; nails driven through her wrists, just as nails had been driven through her own wrists the day before. She recognized her own helplessness and terror, watching Alina being raped for a final time. She saw, as Carl savagely thrust into Alina, the girl’s contorted face of pain, the prominence of the tendons under her arms, the hands curving into talons as the girl strained ineffectively against the spikes that held her in place, and Bijou knew that she herself must have appeared much the same. She watched the woman’s flailing legs as she was lifted atop the stipes, and relived how she herself had been raised onto the cross only yesterday. She saw herself in Alina as the Algerian girl’s face contorted in agony; she heard her own voice in the woman’s screams as the spikes were driven through her feet, and in her rhythmic cries of pain as her titulus was pounded into place.

And now, looking at Alina, crucified on her right, she recognized herself in the woman’s writhing body, still new to her crucifixion, not yet comprehending that there was no escape, not yet realizing that the best she could hope to do was to minimize her pain by remaining as still as possible.

Bijou now realized the purpose in the sweeping curved line of the stipes’ arrangement. In this way, each woman on her cross could look at the other crucified women, and see herself in them. They were displayed as much to one another as to the audience below. Unable to take any more of Alina’s suffering, she forced herself to look away – just in time to see the men approach her best friend and drag her to the stipes to Bijou’s left.

 

[fauxface]

Chapter XXX: Friends Reunited​

Piper gasped in fear as Carl and David seized her patibulum and pulled her, half dragging her, to the stipes to the right of Bijou. There was never any question that Bijou remained the star, and would be in the center; the two new girls would be crucified on either side of her. Swiftly the men pulled Piper to the ground and readied her to be nailed. Carefully, they positioned the blonde woman so that her legs were pointed toward the area between Bijou’s stipes and her own. The Korean girl would have a clear view of her friend being crucified.

Bijou was horrified to see that David was now taking the lead. She could see him position the blonde girl’s wrist and look to Carl for confirmation. Carl nodded and held Piper’s arm in place for David to pound the nails. Again the harsh sound of the hammer filled the air. Bijou shut her eyes tightly. She couldn’t keep out the sound of the nails, or of Piper’s screams, but she could keep out the sight.

The sounds of the hammering abated, although Piper’s screams continued. Reluctantly, Bijou opened her eyes. She could see Carl nodding with approval. Then the men crossed to the other side and repeated the process. Again, David positioned Piper’s arm and drove the spike through the girl’s slender wrist into the wood below. My god, Bijou thought, the way Piper bucked, thrusting her groin up with each blow! Bijou felt ashamed, knowing that she’d done the same in her agony, pushing her loins against the man who was torturing her to death.

The sound of Piper wailing, as David began to rape her, was intolerable. Bijou could not bear to watch, and yet she was unable to look away, looking at her friend squeeze shut her eyes, suffering this last indignity.

And then suddenly, Piper’s eyes were open, looking past David’s shoulder as he raped her, staring fixedly at Bijou in accusative despair. You’re the reason I’m here, the blonde girl’s expression seemed to say. If I wasn’t so associated with you, I would not be nailed to this plank of wood now! Bijou was once again overcome with guilt. Then Piper’s eyes closed again in her suffering, as David finished the rape.

The two men then lifted the patibulum, pulling the blonde girl her to her feet and spinning her around so that her back was to the stipes. Bijou was shocked at the extent of the damage to Piper’s body. She had seen that her friend’s chest and belly were crisscrossed with welts and lacerations, but her back was far worse, a bloody mess. Piper’s scourging, Bijou realized, must have been horrific.

The men pushed Piper back to the stipes, as Bijou watched helplessly. She saw them raise her friend, shrieking as her wounded back was dragged up over the coarse wood of the post until she hung atop it. She saw and heard Piper’s screams, arching her bloody back as David pounded nails through her feet, Carl nodding approval as he did so.

There would be no standardized titulus for Piper. Once David had identified her as his former consort, Carl recognized the young blonde as the woman who had been so often tortured alongside Bijou. It wouldn’t do for her to go to her execution with the generic inscription used for throwaways like Alina. He’d quickly had a customized placard made for this one, hurriedly carved while Alina was being put on her cross.

He grinned and displayed it to David before handing it to him to be installed:

Piper Robyn Littleton
Sodalis in angor​

Sodalis in angor: “Companion in pain”. It was an apt description, thought David, as he nailed the placard in place above Piper’s head.

At last, they finished. Bijou now hung between two other crucified women, still crying out in their pain.

 

[fauxface]

Chapter XXXI: Reconciliation​

The hilltop was nearly silent now, broken only by the occasional low moan of one of the crucified women. It had taken a few hours, but both Piper and Alina had finally come to understand that their screams and their thrashing did nothing to alleviate any of their agony; it anything, it only intensified it. The three women now trembled quietly in pain on their crosses.

Bijou looked at the blonde girl on her left, and hoarsely called to her. “Piper…”

Slowly, Piper turned to look dully at Bijou, her mouth hanging languidly open from the inconceivable pain.

Painfully, Bijou, sucked in air and spoke again. “I’m… sorry,” she gaspingly apologized.

Confusion mixed with the evident pain on the blonde girl’s face. “What…” she began; “What for?”

Bijou agonizingly inched herself up. “If not for… me… you wouldn’t be here,” gasped the Korean girl, “on the… cross.” Having said her piece, Bijou fell back, hanging once again from the nails in her wrists.

Understanding dawned on Piper’s face. “Oh, no, Bijou,” she whispered, “If not… for you… they’d have done this… long ago.” She spoke haltingly. She’d only been on the cross for a little over an hour, but it was nearly as difficult for her to draw breath and speak as it was for Bijou. Piper’s scourging had been severe.

Now it was Bijou’s turn to be confused. She looked at Piper without comprehension.

Piper prepared herself once again for the ordeal of speaking from the cross. “They only let me live… to be tortured with you. You’re the only reason… I’ve been kept alive for so long. Without you… would have been crucified years ago.” She spoke softly and haltingly, and many of her words were slurred or cut off, but Bijou understood. The meaning she thought she had gleaned from the expression on Piper’s face, when the blonde had laid on the ground, staring up at Bijou as David raped her, was all in her mind. Most importantly, Bijou would not go to her death thinking her best friend hated her. It was a small gift exchanged between the dying women.

The two fell silent again. There was nothing more to say, and the cost in pain of speaking was far too high.

 

[fauxface]

Chapter XXXII: Second Night​

The shadows of the three crucified women lengthened as the sun fell behind them. It would be dark soon, and Carl and David prepared. A copious amount of wood was stacked neatly around the fire pit.

“It’s going to be a chilly one, tonight, David,” said Carl. He laid the sleeping bags near the fire pit as David assembled the wood to start the evening’s fire. “We’re going to need to sleep in the bags, not just on top of them like last night.” The two sat down to enjoy their dinner as the three suffering girls looked on.

At last they finished, and Carl took the plates and utensils away. It was beginning to get dark, and David busied himself starting the fire as Carl made the rounds watering the girls, replenishing their fluids with the drug- and nutrient-laced liquid; enough to get them through the night. Carl was right, thought David. With the sun down, the temperature had dropped precipitously. He was grateful for the warm sleeping bag next to the campfire. He looked at the women, naked on their crosses. It was about to get a lot worse for them, he realized.

† † †​

None of the girls slept, of course. The pain was too intense, and as the sun slipped away, the frigid night air added the cold of the desert night to their suffering. Bijou, having been awake for more than a day, found herself slipping away for a few seconds occasionally, but the pressing need to breathe and the ever-present agony only gave a brief instant of relief. Alina and Piper had not even that tiny mercy; this was their first night on the cross, and they’d not yet earned their exhaustion, as Bijou had.

It was a cold night, but it felt freezing to the hapless women. The campfire burned brightly, taunting the crucified women with its distant warmth. Not only were they nude in the frigid night air, but, crucified, they were unable to pull their arms around themselves; even that small self-comfort was denied them. They hung on their crosses, spikes through their wrists and feet, trembling spasmodically through the night. The women’s soft whimpers reached the men as lullabies, gently putting them to sleep around the flickering fire, warmly snug in their thick sleeping bags.

At last, a crack of pink light appeared on the horizon before the girls, slowly growing into brilliant vermilion streaks as the sun rose through the steely clouds. Gradually, the sun reached out to warm them. After the frigid desert night, Bijou felt gratitude for the aprication; but she realized that the warmth, this early in the day, portended that the midday would be one of a hellishly blistering heat.

If she lived that long. She was nearing her limits, Bijou knew. This was her third calendar day on the cross; and sometime today she would cross the forty-eight hour point. Every breath was agony. The strength in her legs and arms had faded; and what little was left had nearly ebbed away during the freezing desert night. She doubted she would live to see the sunset.