Thank you. So many "thank you"s".My sentiments exactly!
Jolly, I get all teary every time I read your story. It is filled with so much pathetic sadness, I can barely stand it. I hardly have the words for how I feel for Thessela. The image in my mind of this lovely, terrified young woman sitting on the ground, semi-naked, and having to watch and listen to all the preparations for her crucifixion -- her cross being assembled, the casual conversations of the executioners -- it's almost too much for me! It is truly terrifying thinking about it from the perspective of the victim!
I have a lump in my throat and I'm tearing up again as I write this...where is my box of tissues?!!!
And the description of her being stripped and nailed to the cross -- oh Jolly, I choke up reading this part. The poor, innocent girl; I want to save her so badly. But, alas, no...she must die. I know it...there'd be no story otherwise. The innocent always suffer the most, don't they?
The details of the story are wonderfully explicit and erotic; and so sad to read…very difficult at times to read, in fact. I achingly wish I could comfort Thessela…show my love for her… along with Korinna, in those brief few minutes before she must submit to the awful reality of her crucifixion.
Oh yes, all the wonderful details: Thessela carrying the crucifixion nails on a length of twine around her neck so they dangled between her breasts as she walked along, her walk of shame carrying her patibulum to the execution site, her sitting huddled with Korinna as the awful preparations are being made, her final stripping, her loss of bladder control when her wrists are nailed, and all the horrible details of her hanging on the cross. Jolly, you wrote a masterpiece!
Oh, dear Thessela, you died so bravely!!! I love you too!!!
I would classify myself as weak-hearted romantic, but really, with all this weeping, you people are consuming the handkerchiefs too quickly!
First: remember that good Thessela went more mercifully than to be expected. Without thorough flogging, she might have been writhing on the cross much, much longer. But, caused by careless procedure in execution,
and she was gone with the day.
And as mercy to her mind, she went knowing: even in the last moments, were those who loved her.
But most importantly, we must remember that in a world that belongs to masters, her fate was self-inflicted.
She was enslaved, but clung to the belief that she could continue to set boundaries.
A slave wanting to decide who will use her or not, who set herself above another onw, who is even half a rung higher on the ladder of hierarchy - that is arrogant and risky, not? Maybe if she had served a long time on the estate, she could have learned to circumvent inconveniences; but as being a new slave, much the first thing she did, was rebellious.
Oh yes, she was exposed to most undesirable lustings of the majordomo, but then what is slavery? Who would not sign up for slavery, if they were ravished ever only by the most attractive Apollo or Adonis- slaves make no choices but when they do - beware of master's choice, in turn!
A thought is however, had it been that Ampelios was not known for leniency, he would not have felt his credibility as master to be in question. Perhaps whipping would have been enough, then.
So when you go up to the selling-block, slave, perhaps it is to hope for the harsh but just master, not the lenient one...
Much thanks to Jollyrei & Thessela for a tale well told...
I appreciate these comments, and I did realize the need to explain away a faster death, but at the time I thought (rightly or wrongly) in the context of the story that a long-winded description of days on the cross would be somewhat gratuitous. The slave scenes are not "classic perfect", no, and in some ways the girls behave more like school girls in a dorm than real slaves. I wrote in a "progressive" master who finally realizes that his wife's desire to treat her slaves as companions and his own leniency are his downfall. This is clearly not a guide to proper slave conduct. Thessela, as a slave, should probably not have rejected the majordomo, and Korinna should not have been so sympathetic, perhaps, but then some of the emotional impact would be lost, which I wanted to keep for various reasons.
In the end, it is what it is. I was pleased with it in the end, knowing some details were differently portrayed than they would have actually been in history. Some of (most, actually) the characters were types, but I hope not too one dimensional. I will write something different next time (not so romantic, perhaps) and we will see. I may try a comedy.
Cheers.
About time, too.Harsh, Malins, but points well made.
I shall dry my eyes!
