Apologies to Jedakk for flagrant plagiarism, plangent flagellism, and man other sins
So now the real competition begins. I’m feeling proud of myself, grateful to Cruxslave for her tip on tactics for the cross-carrying course. But now I must focus on a different discipline, Crucifixion itself. A trembling in my loins, I know my pale cheeks are belying my cocky stance.
The young monks approach, I give them as a convincing a smile as I can summon up, flick back my blood-clotted forelock and tuck it under my crown of thorns. Best to ingratiate them, I know they can always make things worse for me, though a girl has to be canny – if I make myself too sexy, I’ll just get their peckers up and they’ll be all the more sadistic.
“Are you ready, Eulalia?”
“Yes, Brother,” I bow my head humbly, a blood-drip trickles over my lowered eyelashes.
“Will you position yourself, or must we do it?”
“Please let me, Brother, I know how.”
Indeed I know how. I’ve had the honour of being trained by Sister Lucilla, Novice-Mistress at Crosshageul, former Scottish National Champion Crucifixa, she still holds the amazing record, she’s been crucified eleven times! She makes sure all us young novice-nuns get plenty of experience of hanging on crosses, tall ones, short ones, T, X and Y ones, upside-down ones, we’ve dangled from them all.
I turn at look for a moment at my X-cross lying ready to receive me, its limbs stretched like mine are destined to be, the valley where the beams meet proclaiming how my young girlhood will soon be remorselessly spread wide. I silence a sob, lift my breasts in pride, this is my country’s cross, my nation’s pride!
I straighten my whip-sore back and walk resolutely, not glancing at Messaline and Thessela, who are stuggling and moaning either side of my destined place. There’s a murmur of approval from the congregation, the churchmen look with favour on a virgin martyr who walks calmly to her cross without a struggle.
I sit myself down on the cross and position my body as Sister Lucilla taught me. Straddling the centre-post, I carefully ease my bare bottom down onto the timber near the place where the beams intersect, taking care to avoid any splinters. I spread my legs - there’s murmur of male approval from the cloister walk, silenced by the Cardinal’s frown. I feel no embarrassment, I’ve prepared myself for this humiliation with rigorous penance and ascetic self-denial.
Next I locate my feet, one at a time, on the beams in the places where they must go when I’m crucified. I lean back, and using my arms I lift my hips and slide my buttocks down a bit further, fitting myself to the X-shape.
When I’ve set myself in place as I know I have to, I sit there for a moment with my eyes closed, breathing deeply, offering up a final prayer for strength to face what I know I must endure - or maybe I’m just playing for time, putting off the beginning of my torture a little longer? Who knows what’s really going on in a situation like this, even in her own mind? In any case, I know, once I lie back on the cross and submit to my Executioners, I’ll be helpless, and the slow Torture of the Cross will begin.
But I can’t put it off for long. The two monks are poised with their ropes, ready to tie my wrists. Even though they’re professed monks, I know their patience won’t last long. After a moment, I give up a sigh, lie back, and stretch out my arms along the upper beams of the cross, palms up, curling my fingers into fists. I don’t have to wait at all.
I sigh as the coils of rope draw my wrists down tightly against the timber. The ritual of Crucifixion has begun, and there’s nothing I can do to put it off any longer. I don’t resist, only watch as the monks kneeling either side of me methodically rope my wrists securely in place, making sure I won’t be able to work them, free no matter how desperate my struggles become during the coming hours, even days.
They leave my feet feet loose. I realise I’m going to be hanging by my wrists when they raise my cross – Sister Lucilla told us they sometimes do it that way, it’s especially cruel.
Now the two monks move to opposite sides of the X, and prepare to lift. The crossbeams that form the X have been mounted on a single post at their intersection. As the monks lift, the old sexton uses a shovel as a brace against the base of the post, so it will pivot and slide into its hole.
As I feel the cross beginning to move, I moan, I can’t help it, knowing that the long, drawn-out agony I’ve prepared myself for, so many times over, during my rigorous training, is now about to begin for real...
As the cross begins to tilt upward, I pull my feet up, flexing my legs, planting the soles flat against the post.
A hush falls over the crowd, everyone watching knows as well as I do what’s coming. When the cross is angled steeply enough, it will fall into the hole, and I shall fall with it - and when it hits the bottom, even though my hands are only bound with ropes, it’s going to hurt. I know there’s nothing I can do that will really help, yet instinctively I try to brace myself against the wood in readiness for the jolt.
Everything seems to be happening in slow motion, even though it all happens in a few beats of my pounding heart. I stare down at the socket, as the cross slips into it a little at a time, sliding and stopping repeatedly as it approaches the vertical.
The monk-executioners continue to lift my cross, angling it down into its hole. I press my feet firmer, anticipating the sudden jolt I know is coming, but as the cross nears vertical, it becomes harder and harder to do. At first I manage to support my weight against the small, sudden drops. But as the cross rises higher, my soles begin to lose their purchase on the slippery, splintery wood, I feel my arms straighten and stretch more and more.
Unable to support myself with my legs, each jolt sends my body sliding farther down the wood. Each slip downward draws a whimper of fear, as I anticipate the final drop and the pain of the impact. And now my arms are stretched tight against the ropes that are biting into my wrists.
I ball up my fists and struggle to hold myself up. When the cross reaches its highest point, it suddenly tips forward and plunges the final two feet into the hole. My whimpering turns into a scream of panic as I feel myself falling, then there’s the solid deep thump and rattle of the cross as the heavy timber hits bottom.
The impact jerks my arms, shoulders and chest taut - like a blow to my stomach, it drives the air ot of my lungs, so that my scream’s interrupted by something like a loud yelp before being cut off completely. My shoulders feel like they’ve being torn out of their sockets. If my wrists had been nailed instead of tied, I’d surely have fainted from the white-hot pain.
My cross has dropped into its hole, but it continues travelling forward under its own momentum, slowly rocking forward past the vertical, until it slams into the forward edge of the hole and jerks to a stop. But my body, now hanging only by my bound wrists, keeps moving. I’m swinging forward and back, feet flailing in the air, shuddering and groaning in pain.
When my bum hits the still shaking wood at the crossing-point, I squeal - Sister Lucilla said it wouldn't hurt much, but it does. Perhaps when she experienced it, her hurdies hadn't taken laldie from Abbess Ailsa's tawse!
All the onlookers are watching in silent fascination, I’m so helpless, my naked body so utterly exposed to their eyes, drinking in their pleasure in watching me as I begin to suffer the endless, unrelenting Torture of the Cross.