MSTGMA
Magistrate
The sun had finally set beyond the horizon, which meant Camilla had now been dying for five and a half hours. It'd taken her a little while to work that out but now her latest attempt to distract herself from the horror of her situation had ended and the pain was still there. More than ever, in fact. She'd thought it'd get easier to bear over time, that her senses would dull to it from exhaustion or just familiarity. The opposite had happened. The stabbing pain of the nails pinning her to the instrument of her death had been joined by a less sharp but more insistent ache as every muscle in her body burned from exertion. Her throat was sore, long screamed hoarse. Her wounds were throbbing, as was her head. It felt as though another set of nails was being pounded into her temples.
Camilla would have welcomed that. Early on in her torment she'd tried to knock herself unconscious by slamming the back of her head into the cross but she'd remained stubbornly aware of her body and what had been done to it.
It was a strange thing, she thought, to wish for death. In truth, she was still terrified of her young life's impending cessation, but by now if it meant an end to her agony she could accept that.
She wanted to die...and she couldn't. Her body would not let her. She'd tried hanging still, just letting the darkness take her, but the pain had only grown until she'd once again raised herself up on trembling, nailed legs to draw another breath. Her exertion had been accompanied by laughter, taunts and jeers. She'd still had an audience, then. Cheering, shouting insults, a cacophony of voices, a clatter of dice...
…
"These new taxes will be the death of us!", Andreas complained loudly, waving his wine-cup in the air and spilling half of its contents. The old oil-trader had been drinking for quite some time already, and Camilla thought it was probably time to cut him off. She looked around for her uncle, but he was nowhere in sight.
"I agree, but what can you do?"
That was Decimus pulcher, who kept a vegetable stall on the other side of the marketplace. A lot less pretty than his cognomen would suggest, he was a veteran of the legions who'd decided he'd rather settle down here in Syria than return to his native Ancona. His service had left him with a few missing teeth, a broken nose that now sat a bit crooked and a vivid red scar across his cheek. "This new Caesar has grand plans, apparently. Expensive plans. And our dear governor..." he continued, his voice dripping with sarcasm (and wine), "well, he won't have it said that Syria did not contribute its share, oh no!"
The third man at the table laughed loudly at the jest. As always, the laughter was a bit too loud, a bit too fake. He was the reason Camilla would have preferred to let uncle Demetrius handle them. Marcellus Rufo, the red-headed bastard. He sold pottery, but rumors about other, less legal sources of income had never quite ceased in spite of his best efforts. She realized her mistake then, but it was already too late. He had made eye contact and, with a too-wide grin on his face, called her over. "Camilla, darling! More wine here!"
Forcing a smile onto her face but inwardly grimacing, she picked up a jug from behind the counter and walked over to the merchants' table. "Demetrius, uncle Demetrius, save me from this", she thought...
…
...Demetrius. No, he wasn't there. He was dead, blood pooling on the tavern floor, reflecting the light of the flames. They were all dead. And so was she.
She couldn't breathe, no air, she was drowning...in blood? In pain. The blood was liquid pain, running into her, carrying the fire with it into her chest...she had to do something, swim up but the current was too strong and she couldn't move her arms...
Camilla returned to reality with a gasp, painfully raised up on her legs. Air, cool night air, came rushing through her burning throat and at least for the moment eased the horrible crushing pressure in her chest.
A dream. A nightmare? Had she truly fallen asleep on the cross? Camilla shook her head to clear it and immediately regretted the movement. Agony painted bright flashes and black clouds across her vision. The pain from her feet was horrible but even worse were the cramps starting up in her legs. She had to lower herself again...slowly, slowly...
Her abused legs gave out under her and she slumped back down, her nailed wrists once again taking all her weight. She wanted to scream but only managed a hoarse hissing noise.
As agony overwhelmed her she took some small comfort in the thought that surely the end had to be near now. Half-remembered conversations flashed through her head. "...can't hold himself up anymore, see?" "...how you can tell..." "...shame the dance is almost...almost..."
…
"...Gods above, child, you almost killed him!"
Her uncle's expression was hard to read. Anger, concern and fear all fought for a place on his wide visage.
"He shouldn't have...", she started, then stopped as she felt the blush begin. "He shouldn't have grabbed me...there", she finally continued, not wanting to say the words.
"My cunt", she thought. "He grabbed my cunt. That's the word. I should say it."
Say it with all the revulsion and disgust the word engendered in her mind. Say it with the memory of Marcellus' greasy finger, stabbing into her private place. Say it, she silently yelled at herself. But all she could manage was "...there."
"Certainly not while she was holding that jug", Andreas remarked drily. Decimus had taken it upon himself to help the dazed and bleeding man back to his home where he'd hopefully sleep it off. "Learned an important lesson, I hope."
Uncle Demetrius wasn't in the mood for levity. "He won't soon forget this, that's the problem" he said, his voice grim. "And he's got friends."
"So do you, pandokeus", the older greek replied. "Don't you worry, we'll make sure he keeps his distance from now."
He poked at the remains of the wine jug. "Just a shame about the booze..."
She watched as it dripped off the edge of the table, red in the lamplight, red like blood reflecting the fires of a burning market, red like another life fading away...
…
She'd been breathing in short, shallow gasps. Something came loose in her windpipe and she was wracked by a violent coughing fit. Her whole body shook with the convulsions, sending fresh stabs of agony through her wrists and ankles.
She spat out a glob of slime and blood, watched it land on the dusty ground in front of her cross...
...there was someone standing there.
She tried to blink away the dried tears and grime in her eyes but the shape remained indistinct in the moonlit darkness. The guard, maybe?
No. The guard was bigger. A shudder ran through her as memories welled up, too recent and yet lifetimes ago. The stink of the man...
"You do not have much longer."
Her visitor was a woman, her voice soft and smooth. A voice like silk, wasn't that what the poet had said? A voice like silk, a body like...
She shook her head, eliciting another sharp burst of pain behind her temples. No poetry. Not now. Who was this? Why was she here? Where was...the man?
"The guard? He is fast asleep."
The response confused Camilla. Had she...she must have said those last thoughts out loud, maybe?
"But it is you that I am here for."
"Wh..." Camilla fought to get her abused vocal cords to obey her, finally managing a weak "...who?"
"Just a traveller."
Her vision had finally cleared to the point that she could make out some details. Her nightly visitor was a young woman, her face nubian-dark, a cloak concealing her body's features from sight.
"Just...hah..." Camilla's attempt at a sarcastic laugh turned into another agonizing coughing fit and she had to pause to catch her breath before continuing "...hnhh...just watching...me die?"
"To watch you dance." There was a tinge of amusement in her voice.
Even through her agony and exhaustion, Camilla felt her anger rise, her muscles tighten. Black splotches once again danced around her vision as she exerted herself.
"Go...fuck...y...fu..."
…
"...fuck her already, Antius! It's almost noon!"
The approaching voices made her shiver in the dank cell. She'd heard the stories of what happened to girls who got dragged into the carcer underneath the garrison. "Please pass me by, please not me, someone else, take someone else..." she thought to herself, then felt a pang of shame at wishing harm on other prisoners. Not that there were many. Roman justice had been swift after the riot. What was left of the mob after the legion had been unleashed on them had been marched outside the city to die while the last of the fires were still burning.
She hadn't given them any thought. She hadn't been thinking of anything, really. Still dazed from the night's events, staggering around the ruins of the market, asking anyone she could see for help pulling her uncle out of the rubble, her dear uncle Demetrius who'd taken her in...
The sun had been setting when the soldiers came for her. "That's the one," their leader had simply said and she'd been grabbed. Her protests of innocence, her questions about her fate, all were ignored. They'd marched her into the garrison, through a yard where a man was howling in agony under a scourge's lashes, and down into this damp, filthy cellar. At first, she'd shouted, yelled herself hoarse, trying to get someone to tell her what she was accused of. It'd been futile. The guards patrolling outside her cell had simply ignored her.
She'd drifted off into a fitful sleep, haunted by the memories of a night of violence. An argument over the new taxes had turned into a brawl as more men joined in, stones had been thrown. A man had been stabbed, and a furious mob had howled for the blood of the killer. And then they'd stopped caring and all that mattered was the blood. So much blood. Decimus' skull cracked open by a thrown flagstone as he stood in the doorway. Andreas drowning in his own blood after a frenzied madman rammed a pitchfork through his chest. And Uncle Demetrius, taking blow after blow from the rioters, holding the doorway to the storeroom she'd hid in shut with his body until the flames brought down the roof...
In the morning a jug of water had been wordlessly pushed into her cell, then she had once again be left alone with her fear and grief. And now they were here to...
She shuddered again. Maybe they would pass her by. Maybe they did mean another woman, maybe...
The key clattered in the lock. The door opened. Dimly lit from the tiny slit window above, they seemed more like the monstrous giants of legend than men to her. Two of them entered her cell, a third took position outside. "Be quick", the shorter of the two whispered to his comrade, "and remember, you're volunteering for guard duty."
"I won't forget", the other hissed back, clearly aggravated. "Now let me have my fun, I won her fair and square."
Camilla had shrunk back into a corner as they entered, now she was trying her best to squeeze into the cracks of the wall's rough brickwork. "Please, I..."
A kick to the stomach knocked the air out of her and shut her up. Before she could recover, rough hands grabbed her and began tearing at her chiton. She tried to fight back and received a ringing slap across the face for it. The chiton was torn open in front, her breasts spilling out. Not all that big, but shapely. She'd always liked how they looked. Now she hated them for the way the big one leered at her, wished they were gone, burned away, reduced to ugly scars just so these brutes would not look at them like this anymore.
Another tug and the rest of her dress tore open.
And then he was on top of her, coarse-haired, sweat-dripping, his hot breath smelling of sour wine and rot. The other man held her wrists, made sure she could not use her hands to defend herself. Her legs were forced apart and she felt something hot and stiff poke around between them.
Other girls had talked about men's cocks as something to be desired and she had nodded and giggled along with them because...you had to, didn't you? It was expected. And yet, she'd always secretly found them loathsome things. There had been suitors coming to call at the tavern and not all of them had been terrible but still the thought of lying beneath one, having that vile member pushed into her, into a place that hurt when she'd gingerly explored it...
And now it was happening. And it was no lovers' tryst, nor the consummation of a marriage.
She was being clumsily raped by a brute who cared only for his own pleasure.
"Spit on it, it'll go in easier," the shorter soldier advised his mate.
"Shut it, I don't need...hah!" the big one - Antius, was that his name? - replied as she felt him finally find her entrance, the wound she bled from every month. Camilla had given up on begging for mercy, but was unable to stifle a whimper of fearful anticipation of what would come next.
With a grunt of effort, he pushed past what meager defences her body could muster. Pain stabbed through her abdomen as she felt something inside her tear. Her piercing shriek was loud enough to give the rapist pause.
"Shut. Up. You. Stupid. CUNT" he told her, each word punctuated with a blow from his heavy, callused fist.
She did as she was told. There was no fight left in her, only a hope that it would be over soon.
Camilla barely even noticed as Antius started thrusting into her, over and over. It didn't take long - yet it seemed an eternity - before his grunting breaths grew faster along with the thrusts and then...
"GrraaaargGGHHH! Shit! Take it!" he yelled as the...the thing inside her pulsated and swelled and something was unleashed in there.
Antius slumped down on top of her, crushing her with his bulk, suffocating her with the stench of his sweat.
"So, worth it?", his comrade asked with a nasty chuckle.
"And how..."
Antius, clearly satisfied, rolled off her. She felt the worm-like monster, now shrinking rapidly, pulled from her abused insides, leaving sticky slime and blood behind. The taste of blood in her mouth mixed with bile as she retched and heaved in revulsion.
"Looks like she loved it too!"
The cruel jest got a laugh from Antius, while Camilla tried to keep her sobs quiet so they wouldn't hit her anymore.
"Want a go? You helped, so..."
"Thought you'd never ask!", the shorter guard cheerfully replied.
Fear like daggers of ice ran through her spine as she understood that her ordeal was not yet over.
The other man rolled her over onto her chest, then grabbed her hips with both hands, pulling her ass up and leaving her half-kneeling, half-lying prone, cunt exposed for all to see. "Now watch this, Antius. You wanna really make a woman squeal, you grab 'er right there...", he said as his rough fingers seized a tender little piece of flesh his comrade had entirely ignored and pinched. Camilla screamed in pain once more as he tugged and twisted and tugged and touched and rubbed and...
…
She returned to the present with another agonizing fit of coughing. As before, the realization that she was still nailed to a cross and dying struck her together with the pain, except...
...the feeling of pressure on her little button was still there.
Camilla opened bleary eyes and cast them downwards, only to meet the gaze of the strange traveller. Piercing eyes gazed up at her as the stranger's lips gently caressed that spot, sucked it in, stroked it with a skilful tongue...
She gasped at the unexpected sensation and the new violation. Had she not yet suffered enough indignity? At least the strange woman...stronger than she looked, was supporting her somewhat, making breathing easier. And the feeling was not as bad as it had been in the dungeon, it was more like when she'd rubbed herself at night...
The strangers lips and tongue were cool and soothing but she felt warmth rise between her legs. Blushing, she realized. It felt like blushing. But why would I blush down there, she thought, where nobody would see...
Amidst such strange and confused thoughts the caresses went on. She'd still felt the pain of her rape when they'd raised her cross, but it was now fading away, replaced with...something. A tension, a pressure, a rising heat. It felt...different from when she'd touched herself. Was that her pain, her dreamlike half-dead state, that made it feel so good, she idly wondered, as her whole being became centered on that place between her legs. The agony of her wrists, her feet, her every muscle still remained but somehow had become less important than what the woman looking up at her was doing with her mouth, and...her fingers now, gently opening her lower lips, exploring between her folds, soothing pain and bearing pleasure. One finger slipped inside her opening and there was no pain, just a strange yet not unwelcome sense of pressure. A second finger joined the first, and a brief stab of pain from the remnants of the morning's torments made her tense up momentarily. Immediately the second digit was withdrawn, to caress outside her wounded opening again.
The pressure was mounting, the heat building up. Something was running down the inside of her thigh, except unlike the slime that had dripped from her as she'd staggered towards the site of her execution it felt...right, somehow? She felt her breathing grow faster, lungs aching as they struggled to keep up but it didn't matter. None of it mattered, only that divine touch, that mouth, that finger which had found a hidden place deep within that raised the tension to yet another high. Something rose within Camilla and she tried to keep it down, confused and afraid but it was inexorable, a river, a flood, an ocean and...
...the dam burst and it broke free. A strange energy flowed through her body, every muscle tightening and relaxing at the same time, her mind went blank and all that was left of the universe was this one perfect moment.
It didn't last. The last tingles died away and the pain returned...no, it had never left. It just hadn't felt important for a few glorious moments, but now it was back. Leaden exhaustion weighed her down, dragged even more heavily on her crippled wrists as she hung limp.
"You deserved that much", the visitor said with a smile, her lower face glistening wet. Something in the far reaches Camilla's mind, some part of her that was somehow unaffected by agony or ecstasy, tried to get the rest of her to pay attention. Something about that smile...
Her hair was tied into countless neat little braids, Camilla noticed. It was beautiful. All of her was, the hair, the face, the skin so smooth and dark, the eyes that seemed to see into her soul...
"Th...thank you", she finally managed.
"It felt unfair for you to die, having never truly lived."
"Life...'s not...not fair."
Camilla wanted to laugh but couldn't find the strength to do it. This was it, then. There was no way she could raise herself again. When the darkness came next, it would be for the last time...
"And yet we all wish to go on living."
The strange woman continued.
"Do you want to? In spite of it all, the pain and the shame and the weight of the world? Do you still wish to live?"
Camilla tried to think about it but the world had begun to spin again and again and again she fell forward into the dust...
Camilla would have welcomed that. Early on in her torment she'd tried to knock herself unconscious by slamming the back of her head into the cross but she'd remained stubbornly aware of her body and what had been done to it.
It was a strange thing, she thought, to wish for death. In truth, she was still terrified of her young life's impending cessation, but by now if it meant an end to her agony she could accept that.
She wanted to die...and she couldn't. Her body would not let her. She'd tried hanging still, just letting the darkness take her, but the pain had only grown until she'd once again raised herself up on trembling, nailed legs to draw another breath. Her exertion had been accompanied by laughter, taunts and jeers. She'd still had an audience, then. Cheering, shouting insults, a cacophony of voices, a clatter of dice...
…
"These new taxes will be the death of us!", Andreas complained loudly, waving his wine-cup in the air and spilling half of its contents. The old oil-trader had been drinking for quite some time already, and Camilla thought it was probably time to cut him off. She looked around for her uncle, but he was nowhere in sight.
"I agree, but what can you do?"
That was Decimus pulcher, who kept a vegetable stall on the other side of the marketplace. A lot less pretty than his cognomen would suggest, he was a veteran of the legions who'd decided he'd rather settle down here in Syria than return to his native Ancona. His service had left him with a few missing teeth, a broken nose that now sat a bit crooked and a vivid red scar across his cheek. "This new Caesar has grand plans, apparently. Expensive plans. And our dear governor..." he continued, his voice dripping with sarcasm (and wine), "well, he won't have it said that Syria did not contribute its share, oh no!"
The third man at the table laughed loudly at the jest. As always, the laughter was a bit too loud, a bit too fake. He was the reason Camilla would have preferred to let uncle Demetrius handle them. Marcellus Rufo, the red-headed bastard. He sold pottery, but rumors about other, less legal sources of income had never quite ceased in spite of his best efforts. She realized her mistake then, but it was already too late. He had made eye contact and, with a too-wide grin on his face, called her over. "Camilla, darling! More wine here!"
Forcing a smile onto her face but inwardly grimacing, she picked up a jug from behind the counter and walked over to the merchants' table. "Demetrius, uncle Demetrius, save me from this", she thought...
…
...Demetrius. No, he wasn't there. He was dead, blood pooling on the tavern floor, reflecting the light of the flames. They were all dead. And so was she.
She couldn't breathe, no air, she was drowning...in blood? In pain. The blood was liquid pain, running into her, carrying the fire with it into her chest...she had to do something, swim up but the current was too strong and she couldn't move her arms...
Camilla returned to reality with a gasp, painfully raised up on her legs. Air, cool night air, came rushing through her burning throat and at least for the moment eased the horrible crushing pressure in her chest.
A dream. A nightmare? Had she truly fallen asleep on the cross? Camilla shook her head to clear it and immediately regretted the movement. Agony painted bright flashes and black clouds across her vision. The pain from her feet was horrible but even worse were the cramps starting up in her legs. She had to lower herself again...slowly, slowly...
Her abused legs gave out under her and she slumped back down, her nailed wrists once again taking all her weight. She wanted to scream but only managed a hoarse hissing noise.
As agony overwhelmed her she took some small comfort in the thought that surely the end had to be near now. Half-remembered conversations flashed through her head. "...can't hold himself up anymore, see?" "...how you can tell..." "...shame the dance is almost...almost..."
…
"...Gods above, child, you almost killed him!"
Her uncle's expression was hard to read. Anger, concern and fear all fought for a place on his wide visage.
"He shouldn't have...", she started, then stopped as she felt the blush begin. "He shouldn't have grabbed me...there", she finally continued, not wanting to say the words.
"My cunt", she thought. "He grabbed my cunt. That's the word. I should say it."
Say it with all the revulsion and disgust the word engendered in her mind. Say it with the memory of Marcellus' greasy finger, stabbing into her private place. Say it, she silently yelled at herself. But all she could manage was "...there."
"Certainly not while she was holding that jug", Andreas remarked drily. Decimus had taken it upon himself to help the dazed and bleeding man back to his home where he'd hopefully sleep it off. "Learned an important lesson, I hope."
Uncle Demetrius wasn't in the mood for levity. "He won't soon forget this, that's the problem" he said, his voice grim. "And he's got friends."
"So do you, pandokeus", the older greek replied. "Don't you worry, we'll make sure he keeps his distance from now."
He poked at the remains of the wine jug. "Just a shame about the booze..."
She watched as it dripped off the edge of the table, red in the lamplight, red like blood reflecting the fires of a burning market, red like another life fading away...
…
She'd been breathing in short, shallow gasps. Something came loose in her windpipe and she was wracked by a violent coughing fit. Her whole body shook with the convulsions, sending fresh stabs of agony through her wrists and ankles.
She spat out a glob of slime and blood, watched it land on the dusty ground in front of her cross...
...there was someone standing there.
She tried to blink away the dried tears and grime in her eyes but the shape remained indistinct in the moonlit darkness. The guard, maybe?
No. The guard was bigger. A shudder ran through her as memories welled up, too recent and yet lifetimes ago. The stink of the man...
"You do not have much longer."
Her visitor was a woman, her voice soft and smooth. A voice like silk, wasn't that what the poet had said? A voice like silk, a body like...
She shook her head, eliciting another sharp burst of pain behind her temples. No poetry. Not now. Who was this? Why was she here? Where was...the man?
"The guard? He is fast asleep."
The response confused Camilla. Had she...she must have said those last thoughts out loud, maybe?
"But it is you that I am here for."
"Wh..." Camilla fought to get her abused vocal cords to obey her, finally managing a weak "...who?"
"Just a traveller."
Her vision had finally cleared to the point that she could make out some details. Her nightly visitor was a young woman, her face nubian-dark, a cloak concealing her body's features from sight.
"Just...hah..." Camilla's attempt at a sarcastic laugh turned into another agonizing coughing fit and she had to pause to catch her breath before continuing "...hnhh...just watching...me die?"
"To watch you dance." There was a tinge of amusement in her voice.
Even through her agony and exhaustion, Camilla felt her anger rise, her muscles tighten. Black splotches once again danced around her vision as she exerted herself.
"Go...fuck...y...fu..."
…
"...fuck her already, Antius! It's almost noon!"
The approaching voices made her shiver in the dank cell. She'd heard the stories of what happened to girls who got dragged into the carcer underneath the garrison. "Please pass me by, please not me, someone else, take someone else..." she thought to herself, then felt a pang of shame at wishing harm on other prisoners. Not that there were many. Roman justice had been swift after the riot. What was left of the mob after the legion had been unleashed on them had been marched outside the city to die while the last of the fires were still burning.
She hadn't given them any thought. She hadn't been thinking of anything, really. Still dazed from the night's events, staggering around the ruins of the market, asking anyone she could see for help pulling her uncle out of the rubble, her dear uncle Demetrius who'd taken her in...
The sun had been setting when the soldiers came for her. "That's the one," their leader had simply said and she'd been grabbed. Her protests of innocence, her questions about her fate, all were ignored. They'd marched her into the garrison, through a yard where a man was howling in agony under a scourge's lashes, and down into this damp, filthy cellar. At first, she'd shouted, yelled herself hoarse, trying to get someone to tell her what she was accused of. It'd been futile. The guards patrolling outside her cell had simply ignored her.
She'd drifted off into a fitful sleep, haunted by the memories of a night of violence. An argument over the new taxes had turned into a brawl as more men joined in, stones had been thrown. A man had been stabbed, and a furious mob had howled for the blood of the killer. And then they'd stopped caring and all that mattered was the blood. So much blood. Decimus' skull cracked open by a thrown flagstone as he stood in the doorway. Andreas drowning in his own blood after a frenzied madman rammed a pitchfork through his chest. And Uncle Demetrius, taking blow after blow from the rioters, holding the doorway to the storeroom she'd hid in shut with his body until the flames brought down the roof...
In the morning a jug of water had been wordlessly pushed into her cell, then she had once again be left alone with her fear and grief. And now they were here to...
She shuddered again. Maybe they would pass her by. Maybe they did mean another woman, maybe...
The key clattered in the lock. The door opened. Dimly lit from the tiny slit window above, they seemed more like the monstrous giants of legend than men to her. Two of them entered her cell, a third took position outside. "Be quick", the shorter of the two whispered to his comrade, "and remember, you're volunteering for guard duty."
"I won't forget", the other hissed back, clearly aggravated. "Now let me have my fun, I won her fair and square."
Camilla had shrunk back into a corner as they entered, now she was trying her best to squeeze into the cracks of the wall's rough brickwork. "Please, I..."
A kick to the stomach knocked the air out of her and shut her up. Before she could recover, rough hands grabbed her and began tearing at her chiton. She tried to fight back and received a ringing slap across the face for it. The chiton was torn open in front, her breasts spilling out. Not all that big, but shapely. She'd always liked how they looked. Now she hated them for the way the big one leered at her, wished they were gone, burned away, reduced to ugly scars just so these brutes would not look at them like this anymore.
Another tug and the rest of her dress tore open.
And then he was on top of her, coarse-haired, sweat-dripping, his hot breath smelling of sour wine and rot. The other man held her wrists, made sure she could not use her hands to defend herself. Her legs were forced apart and she felt something hot and stiff poke around between them.
Other girls had talked about men's cocks as something to be desired and she had nodded and giggled along with them because...you had to, didn't you? It was expected. And yet, she'd always secretly found them loathsome things. There had been suitors coming to call at the tavern and not all of them had been terrible but still the thought of lying beneath one, having that vile member pushed into her, into a place that hurt when she'd gingerly explored it...
And now it was happening. And it was no lovers' tryst, nor the consummation of a marriage.
She was being clumsily raped by a brute who cared only for his own pleasure.
"Spit on it, it'll go in easier," the shorter soldier advised his mate.
"Shut it, I don't need...hah!" the big one - Antius, was that his name? - replied as she felt him finally find her entrance, the wound she bled from every month. Camilla had given up on begging for mercy, but was unable to stifle a whimper of fearful anticipation of what would come next.
With a grunt of effort, he pushed past what meager defences her body could muster. Pain stabbed through her abdomen as she felt something inside her tear. Her piercing shriek was loud enough to give the rapist pause.
"Shut. Up. You. Stupid. CUNT" he told her, each word punctuated with a blow from his heavy, callused fist.
She did as she was told. There was no fight left in her, only a hope that it would be over soon.
Camilla barely even noticed as Antius started thrusting into her, over and over. It didn't take long - yet it seemed an eternity - before his grunting breaths grew faster along with the thrusts and then...
"GrraaaargGGHHH! Shit! Take it!" he yelled as the...the thing inside her pulsated and swelled and something was unleashed in there.
Antius slumped down on top of her, crushing her with his bulk, suffocating her with the stench of his sweat.
"So, worth it?", his comrade asked with a nasty chuckle.
"And how..."
Antius, clearly satisfied, rolled off her. She felt the worm-like monster, now shrinking rapidly, pulled from her abused insides, leaving sticky slime and blood behind. The taste of blood in her mouth mixed with bile as she retched and heaved in revulsion.
"Looks like she loved it too!"
The cruel jest got a laugh from Antius, while Camilla tried to keep her sobs quiet so they wouldn't hit her anymore.
"Want a go? You helped, so..."
"Thought you'd never ask!", the shorter guard cheerfully replied.
Fear like daggers of ice ran through her spine as she understood that her ordeal was not yet over.
The other man rolled her over onto her chest, then grabbed her hips with both hands, pulling her ass up and leaving her half-kneeling, half-lying prone, cunt exposed for all to see. "Now watch this, Antius. You wanna really make a woman squeal, you grab 'er right there...", he said as his rough fingers seized a tender little piece of flesh his comrade had entirely ignored and pinched. Camilla screamed in pain once more as he tugged and twisted and tugged and touched and rubbed and...
…
She returned to the present with another agonizing fit of coughing. As before, the realization that she was still nailed to a cross and dying struck her together with the pain, except...
...the feeling of pressure on her little button was still there.
Camilla opened bleary eyes and cast them downwards, only to meet the gaze of the strange traveller. Piercing eyes gazed up at her as the stranger's lips gently caressed that spot, sucked it in, stroked it with a skilful tongue...
She gasped at the unexpected sensation and the new violation. Had she not yet suffered enough indignity? At least the strange woman...stronger than she looked, was supporting her somewhat, making breathing easier. And the feeling was not as bad as it had been in the dungeon, it was more like when she'd rubbed herself at night...
The strangers lips and tongue were cool and soothing but she felt warmth rise between her legs. Blushing, she realized. It felt like blushing. But why would I blush down there, she thought, where nobody would see...
Amidst such strange and confused thoughts the caresses went on. She'd still felt the pain of her rape when they'd raised her cross, but it was now fading away, replaced with...something. A tension, a pressure, a rising heat. It felt...different from when she'd touched herself. Was that her pain, her dreamlike half-dead state, that made it feel so good, she idly wondered, as her whole being became centered on that place between her legs. The agony of her wrists, her feet, her every muscle still remained but somehow had become less important than what the woman looking up at her was doing with her mouth, and...her fingers now, gently opening her lower lips, exploring between her folds, soothing pain and bearing pleasure. One finger slipped inside her opening and there was no pain, just a strange yet not unwelcome sense of pressure. A second finger joined the first, and a brief stab of pain from the remnants of the morning's torments made her tense up momentarily. Immediately the second digit was withdrawn, to caress outside her wounded opening again.
The pressure was mounting, the heat building up. Something was running down the inside of her thigh, except unlike the slime that had dripped from her as she'd staggered towards the site of her execution it felt...right, somehow? She felt her breathing grow faster, lungs aching as they struggled to keep up but it didn't matter. None of it mattered, only that divine touch, that mouth, that finger which had found a hidden place deep within that raised the tension to yet another high. Something rose within Camilla and she tried to keep it down, confused and afraid but it was inexorable, a river, a flood, an ocean and...
...the dam burst and it broke free. A strange energy flowed through her body, every muscle tightening and relaxing at the same time, her mind went blank and all that was left of the universe was this one perfect moment.
It didn't last. The last tingles died away and the pain returned...no, it had never left. It just hadn't felt important for a few glorious moments, but now it was back. Leaden exhaustion weighed her down, dragged even more heavily on her crippled wrists as she hung limp.
"You deserved that much", the visitor said with a smile, her lower face glistening wet. Something in the far reaches Camilla's mind, some part of her that was somehow unaffected by agony or ecstasy, tried to get the rest of her to pay attention. Something about that smile...
Her hair was tied into countless neat little braids, Camilla noticed. It was beautiful. All of her was, the hair, the face, the skin so smooth and dark, the eyes that seemed to see into her soul...
"Th...thank you", she finally managed.
"It felt unfair for you to die, having never truly lived."
"Life...'s not...not fair."
Camilla wanted to laugh but couldn't find the strength to do it. This was it, then. There was no way she could raise herself again. When the darkness came next, it would be for the last time...
"And yet we all wish to go on living."
The strange woman continued.
"Do you want to? In spite of it all, the pain and the shame and the weight of the world? Do you still wish to live?"
Camilla tried to think about it but the world had begun to spin again and again and again she fell forward into the dust...
.
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