Lucy's Passion Play
"Where are we going?" Lucy asked the men, dressed as legionnaires, as they stepped out into the church corridor and turned toward the city exit instead of the inner courtyard where the Passion Play had always been performed.
"Well, I myself have only just learned that the president will be visiting our city today and is interested in seeing our show. The bishop will be coming too. Our vicar has told me these news just ten minutes ago. That is why they have moved the cross from the middle of the church courtyard to the middle of Freedom Square and we will be performing there," Matthew replied.
"There will be a lot more people than usual, but it is not the first time you have played the role of the Crucified, so you can do it, right?", he added.
"But this is the first time you were going to nail me with real nails. We have not tested that yet," Lucy muttered glumly, but obediently nodded and allowed herself to be led out into the square, where at least a few thousand gawkers had gathered instead of a hundred or so parishioners like in previous years.
The ceremony began with the greeting of the honorable guests and an introductory religious chant, during which the capture, judgment, and scourging of Jesus were shown, briefly and symbolically, using only pantomime. Only when the chants ended and Lucy, with the cross beam on her shoulders, approached the prepared pole lying on the lawn in the middle of the square, did the actual performance begin.
The patibulum was removed from the condemned woman's shoulders and placed on the pole. Then Michael removed the robe from her shoulders and hips and froze in surprise. Leaning over to the girl, who was covering her lower abdomen with palms, he asked in a whisper:
"Lucy, you... you're not wearing your loincloth!?"
"No... I'm sorry, when we were discussing the color yesterday, the director said it couldn't be white, and I didn't have any other fabric... so in the end I didn't bring the white one. But you were supposed to bring some, Michael? Tie it around my hips."
"I brought the brown one to the costume rehearsal yesterday, remember? But the director said it was too dark colored. He told us he would bring the proper one himself, remember?"
"Yes, he did," Matthew said, disguised as another soldier, when he finished nailing the patibulum to the post.
"Then give me the dark one, we have no choice," Lucy said impatiently.
"But he forbade me... so I didn't take it!"
"Are you kidding me?" Lucy asked, frozen in horror.
Michael looked around.
"John?"
"He's not here," Lucy said. "The director had called me this morning and told me he wouldn't come because he was sick."
Michael hesitated. Matthew took him by the arm and, pretending to explain some technical details of the crucifixion, said emphatically:
"We can't stand there and wait, everyone is staring, the TV is filming us, the president is watching. We can't go look for a costume now! Do something immediately, or... Maybe we should tear off a piece of that robe?"
"But they just read that text from the Gospel where it says that the soldiers cast lots because they didn't want to tear the robe. What would it look like if I tore off a piece the size of a scarf from it now...?"
"Too bad, we can't wait another second, because everyone will guess that we screwed up," Matthew finished, straightening Lucy's crown of thorns, which had become askew.
"For now, lie down, and we'll try to improvise something," Matthew whispered to her.
"Don't do anything anymore. Let it be like this," Lucy whispered to him and covered her blushing face with her hands, thus revealing her nakedness to the audience and the camera lenses. This bought them half a minute of extra time as everyone in the square stared at Lucy's body, reveling in the sight of her humiliation.
"Deus sic vult," she added. "The God wanted it, obviously. Or at least I have to believe it's true."
"Are you sure you know what you're signing up for?" Robert asked doubtfully from behind, where he was standing, holding hammers and nails. "Can you last half an hour in these conditions and not break down?"
"I don't think I can last. I definitely can't last. I'm definitely going to break down", the girl sighed. "But who cares? After all, when you nail me down, I won't be able to stop the performance anyway. Even if I break down and am no longer able to play Messiah's role, I will still perfectly play the role of the crucified woman who has broken down and is unable to bear so much suffering, because it will not require playing at all. And even if it will last an hour or three instead of few minutes, I still won't descend from the cross, right? I will hang there, whether I am crazy from pain or not, until the very end."
And she dropped her arms to her sides. This bought them half a minute more.
She looked at the VIP box, from which the president, the minister of culture and art, and several secretaries and bodyguards were watching her, and then at the television camera placed on the platform. The image from the camera, displayed on a large billboard, showed a close-up of her body, moving slowly from her face to her breasts to her stomach to her hips to her knees to her feet and back again.
Lucy tried to breathe deeply to control the panic that was taking hold of her. But instead of calming down, with every passing second she became increasingly aware of the terrifying spiritual and physical suffering that awaited her, and she felt that she was getting closer to fainting. With all her strength she refrained from turning around and starting to run screaming from the scene of the terrifying spectacle. Just a few more seconds and strong male hands would grab her and hold her, preventing escape and any resistance, but for those few seconds she still had a chance...
"I know that in a moment I will howl with pain and shame, moan for mercy and tear myself away from despair," she whispered, "so hold me tight and nail me solidly, boys. Humiliate me, debase me, destroy me. Show me absolutely no mercy! Give them the show they expected!"
Matthew and Michael looked at each other and without further discussion they began the show. First Michael stood before the girl, pretending to bow respectfully to her. Michael repeated the same gesture. Then they both straightened up and slapped the condemned woman few times. Michael touched shamelessly her nipples and Matthew kicked her between her legs with his knee, while Robert kicked her in the ass with his iron-shod military sandals. When they finished, Matthew once again slap her in the face and then fixed her slipping crown of thorns.
And then both soldiers took the nails and hammers from Robert, and, grabbing the defenceless woman under the arms, threw her unceremoniously on the cross and began to nail her to the wood, ignoring her cries of pain and the agonizing spasms and cortonsions of her naked, fragile body.
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