Vacant

Valeria stared from a distance as the slim figure was dragged up the tall weathered stipes. Even from afar she could hear the screams as the nails tore at her slender wrists. Blood flowing from beneath the wood slats and running down her arms as she kicked and twisted her body in a vain attempt to get a hold of something, anything. Screaming louder as the patibulum was set in place. Her body feeling the vibrations on the wood she was attached upon.

Valeria stood frozen in place as the guards roughly took her legs and spread them wide. The crowd roaring with laughter and shouting obscene comments to the splayed woman. The guards setting the wooden rod of the sedile in place before letting the woman loose to impale herself. Her face contorting more as the thick roughness entered her most private of areas. The crowd got louder.

Still, her legs were free. The guards taking each ankle as the woman cursed them. Forcing her to bend her legs at the knees as they placed one sole flat against the stipes. The other foot place tight on its top. Another guard touched the long nail to her top foot. The woman began pleading with him to spare her this additional nailing. Apologizing, promising him pleasures she was not in any position to give him on this cross. The guard said nothing, but quickly raised the hammer and let it fall hard on the nail head. Driving it into her feet again and again. The woman's body jerking. Her head slamming against the wood as she screamed out in pain once again.

The guards stood back and admired their work, The condemned woman had been attached to the cross in a most obscene way. She was stark naked. Her body was covered only with sweat - besides the countless welts and other marks of torture. Her thighs parted enough to display her womanhood and the wood that disappeared between her folds and inside her. Still she cursed at the men that had done this to her. The guards continued scourging their victim, causing her to rise and fall on the thing inside her as the mob howled their pleasure.

Valeria had worked her way forward through the audience to the upright. Being a young noble woman, she should not have been on a place like this among the plebeians. But she didn't care. She could not turn her eyes from the slender, contorted woman that danced in pain upon this cross. She felt her heart beating heavy against her chest. She noticed with fright her inner feelings that in some way that pain-racked, twitching female body looked ... beautiful.

When the fatigued guards took a break, Valeria was standing at the base of this woman's cross staring up with wonder and fascination. Looking over every detail of the woman's torture. Watching intently as blood flowed from the nail hole and dripped from the woman's feet. The tortured woman opened her eyes and looked around. Valeria looked up. The woman returned Valeria's gaze. She tried to laugh, but she only managed to grimace from exhaustion. Her voice was hoarse and very low, and Valeria was not sure whether she heard it correctly.

"You'd like to know how it feels up here, wouldn't you? Look back! That stake behind you is still free! It could be for you!"

Her eyes were penetrating while looking down at Valeria.

"You'd look pretty nailed there, I'm sure."

Valeria turned round abruptly. She glanced at the tall bare stipes. She felt something happening inside her. Definitely anger at what the brazen woman had said to her, but it was more than that. She ran passed the guards who sat in a circle throwing dice for the few belongings of the convict. She threw some copper coins to the men.

"Torture her!" Valeria yelled as she ran passed, and added,  "thoroughly...and for a long time!"

Fighting her way through the crowd. She covered her ears to block the sounds of the screams from the crucified woman. The sounds of the lashes beating flesh. The haunting echo of her words ringing through her brain. Tears running down her cheeks. She moved hastily and didn't dare to look back. She left the crucifixion site.

This story of mine was just a fragment, but was made complete by the wonderful help of Mistress Lady Catherine.