5: On the Torture Bed
The questioning began. Again, questions about Father – no theological niceties now, though, to the Romans he's a terrorist, I'm a terrorist suspect. They want to know every detail of my life since I first started getting messages from him, when I went to the river to be purified by Joanna after my owner had raped me – 'Joanna the Cleanser they called her – Joanna the scrubber more like!' sneered Aemilianus.
At first I was thinking my answers and confessions were okay – perhaps I'm satisfying him, I might be spared the horror? But bit by bit his tone became impatient, harder, angrier... He started asking me about weapons – what weapons did we have? Where were they hidden? What weapons were we trained to use? I tried to explain that Father's kingdom is a kingdom of peace, that he uses no earthly weapons. "So you have magic weapons?" he snarled triumphantly, "We can add witchcraft to your charge-sheet!"
And then he turned to the Torturer. “Begin!”
“Ahhhh!” The first taste of pain – I’ll never forget, though much worse was going to happen to me, this is the one that sticks in my body’s memory. It screamed right through my body as I was jerked up from the bed and stretched taut between the pulleys, a burning, tearing sensation through the muscles of my arms, shoulders, flanks, hips and legs. I heard my own shrieks high, piercing: all through the dungeons the prisoners will know what’s happening to me.
After a few seconds of severe stretching, the Torturer eased the tension slightly, his control of a wheel below the bed had complete power over the torment of my body. A small movement of his hand was enough to send another shock of agony tearing through me, a little more and he could dislocate my shoulders, even break my spine – but he was skilled, he knew exactly how to bring me to the pitch of pain without causing permanent injury.
The Centurion went on questioning. He wanted names – names of all my friends, not just the Twelve – they knew all about them already, but every one I've had any contact with since I was enslaved, and even before that, even friends of my dad and mum and the names of little girls in the village.
If I hesitated to answer, the Torturer touched the wheel and inflicted more spasms of pain, shocks, ten, twenty, thirty seconds each, with brief gaps in between. My hair swung wildly, head shaking side to side, teeth snapping, as I yelled incoherently, trying to mouth some answer that would satisfy Aemilianus and earn me some respite.
Between the torturings he went on questioning, threatening, shouting. As soon as he saw me relax a tiny bit, my heart-beat slowed, he'd order further Torture for me. I was held in constant terror. Soon I was in such a state of tension that Aemilianus had only to nod to the Torturer for me to start screaming – not just in anticipation, I could already feel the pain before the Torturer's hand even touched the wheel. I was quivering in fear, and yet I felt a strange sense of security, even a kind of thrill in my defenceless nakedness, my utter helplessness.
Still the interrogation went on and on. I swore I’d told him all I knew about Father, all the names I could remember: “Liar! You little whore, You're going to remember every dirty little secret that you’ve tried to hide!”
He signalled to the two soldiers who were enjoying my performance, they each took a blazing torch from the holders in the chamber wall and brought them either side of me. My body heaved in terrified awareness of what was coming next – the fierce heat held against my stretched flanks, my violent twisting, quite unable to escape the torment, the manacles tearing at my wrists and ankles as I writhed. Only a few seconds, but it seemed endless.
Then I watched with horror as one of them rekindled his torch in the brazier, brought it back over, pointed it between my legs. I was shrieking, begging him not to.... Oooooooow! It didn’t last long, he drew it away when Aemilianus was happy no trace of hair was left, my skin was red and raw, my tenderest parts throbbing with pain.
I tried to shield my dearest friends – Mary and Martha – but that was a bad mistake, he soon detected that I was lying. "Punish her!" With a flick of his hand, the Torturer released the tension on the pulleys and my body dropped down on to the bed – but it was not just the wood that greeted my bare back – a forest of sharp little nails had been raised up through the boards that pierced my hide. I jerked, leapt about, kicked wildly, my shoulders and buttocks sprang up off the bed, while Aemilianus plied the whip, viciously, across my breasts, ribs, fanny, thighs – a different kind of pain, a more raw, more elemental variety of agony. Thirteen strokes, my bare skin stinging, criss-crossed with weals, great purple bruises, red patches of internal bleeding...
They watched me for a few minutes writhing from the whipping, while being ripped on my bed of nails. Then I was jerked up again and stretched. I gazed, desperate-eyed, at Aemilianus and the Torturer. My youthful body was no longer my own, they'd made it a toy that moved at each touch of the wheel, jump, jerk, sharp squeals came out of it. In between the inflictions, I screamed, begged them for mercy, I pleaded again and again, “Let me confess!” They laughed, “We’re in no hurry, slut, we’ve hardly started on you, you're going to suffer much, much more!”
At last, a smart young slave-woman in a short tunic brought in a small roll of papyrus – my confession, written out in readiness. They paused from torturing me, released my hands, made me sit up so I could read it - “Read it out loud, so we can hear you!” Then they made me scrawl, shaking, my name. It made me cry, just seeing my poor name, scarcely legible, all I’d got left that was mine, even that was breaking apart! “You must remember your confession – every word – so you’ll repeat it while we torture you, over and over.”
Just a little space, they let me lie there, sweating, gasping, sobbing, begging for water... they refused. Besides the pain in my limbs and torso, I was shuddering in my breasts, womb and genitals, gripped with cruel orgasms. Aemilianus fingered me, my eyes pleaded helplessly as he felt inside: “A fine, healthy cunt, I think you're ready now for the Honeymoon of Pain!"
