Didi On
The Cross:
The Scandal in the Temple of Isis
"Isis, ... Isis"
you whisper numbly, while the Roman soldiers remove your clothes. Complete nudity
is mandatory for scourging and crucifixion, yet these louts seem to move disjointedly.
Your evening vestments, soiled yet hinting of a former radiance must fascinate
them. Nevertheless, how are you able, considering the cloud of terror enveloping
you, to wonder what will happen to these garments of lavender and purple? Most
likely, your clothes, your final earthly possessions, will be thrown to their
favorite drinking wenches.
Your garments
soon lay near the entrance of the cold dark room. You stand naked in the center,
your wrists bound overhead by separate chains. A signal is given and your arms
are pulled over your head until you are stretched just barely off the ground.
Two more chains are wrapped around your ankles to large iron rings set in the
floor, limiting the movement of your feet.
Your thoughts
run wild as you consider the hellish scene around you. You spy a mystifying
number of cruel whips, hanging ghastly upon the stony walls. The greasy smoke
from the oil lamps reduces your vision, but you hear soldiers behind you, planning
crude arrangements for your body. You close your eyes and shudder, contemplating
the past three days and your next three days, if you last that long. Your body
tightens and flinches involuntarily. You recall watching other men and women,
usually pitiless slaves or careless foreigners, experience the ultimate capital
punishment: crucifixion.
A crack races
through the air and across your buttocks. Aanother crack from the opposite direction:
two torturers. You scream as each lash flies in a regular pattern, criss-crossing,
from your lower buttocks slowly along your spine and across your unprotected
back. Your mind and body seeks salvation from the paralyzing pain. Your mind
wanders back.... to the spacious, urbane villa of Decius Mundus, seven days
before.
* * *
Mundus often asked
you to share his bed and the nights were full of passion and delight. Ever since
his father had freed you, Didi, from slavery on his deathbed, you secretly desired
to become the wife of Decius Mundus. All Rome held Decius Mundus in great regard,
a knight, ranked very high in the equestrian order.
One day, Mundus
unexpectedly spurned your advances. Dismayed, you coaxed him with words, with
alluring perfume and body paint, with soft sensuous caresses and sultry displays
of your body. None of these had any effect; he continued to ignore you. Finally,
Mundus confessed to you that he was in love.... with another woman.
You quickly recovered
from the shock, and with the reflex thinking of the former slave girl still
inside you, sorted skillfully through the possibilities you had at hand. You
became his counselor and consoled him in his grief in order to learn all about
this threat to your dream. A mixture of horror and laughter filled you when
you learned the object of his desires was the Lady Paulina.
Paulina, on account
of the dignity of her ancestors, and by the regular conduct of a virtuous life,
had a great reputation. She was also very rich; and although she was of beautiful
countenance, and in the flower of her age when women are the most gay, she led
a life of great modesty. She was married to Saturninius, who was in every way
answerable to her in an excellent character.
Mundus revealed
how Paulina was of too great a dignity to be caught by gifts, and had already
rejected them. You silently burned with envy as he described the abundance of
presents, how her rejection only inflamed his love for her, and finally how
he even offered to give her two hundred thousand Attic drachmae for just one
night's lodging. Mundus realized even offers of wealth could not prevail upon
her. He could not bear his misfortune, and he told you of his intent now to
starve himself to death on account of Paulina's sad refusal.
You grieved at
this young man's resolution to kill himself, and realizing the gravity of his
will, knew that he would accomplish this purpose forthwith. Your cunning slave
mind, skilled in all sorts of mischief, gradually settled on a devious plan
of action.
* * *
The pail of cold
water, pouring over your face and down the front of your body washes away your
memories, and drags you back into your world of pain. The skin all along the
back of your body is criss-crossed with thick welts, most of which have a thin
line of blood along the central ridge. The soldiers clean their whips methodically
until the smaller of the two, goes to a wooden box, digging for knick-knacks
and sundry items. You realize this is his "what if?" box, in which he throws
every possible implement of suffering. He stops digging, holds two thin objects,
almost transparent, in his hands and walks over to you.
You hear your
breath panting, as he puts his hand under your left breast, covered with perspiration.
You watch as his fingers center on the nipple, pinching and rolling it. He admires
the arousing red nipple paint you wear. Then you gasp as he pulls your left
nipple straight out, takes a fishhook the size of his thumb, inserts the point
directly underneath the nipple and straight up through the top side. He rolls
the hook backward so that the point is now aimed straight towards him. Your
body tenses from the needle, your fingers strain against the chains.
He repeats the
process for your right nipple, and now you hang, suspended, as they joke about
your new body jewelry. Fishing string is threaded through the large eye of the
fishhooks, each dangling an elongated pyramid, a simple lead fishing weight,
by a finger length of string. Your breasts, tortured at their sweet points,
rise and lower with each breath. You remember the now distant past, three days
before.
* * *
Decius Mundus
stopped his grieving and listened intently to your plan. You gave him your promise,
knowing that you could certainly gain for him an evening with the Lady Paulina.
His joyful response was hardly tempered when you told him that you wanted no
more than fifty thousand drachmae to entrap this virtuous young woman. The money,
however, was for not for the Lady. She could not be tempted by money. No, you
would have to capture the Lady Paulina's soul.
Both you and Paulina
shared a devotion, the worship of the goddess Isis. Knowing this, you went to
the temple of Isis and secretly met with three of her priests. You tried to
persuade the priests, first by words, then by promises of sexual favors, but
as you guessed, they did not fall for that. So, you offered the money: twenty
five thousand drachmae in hand, and that much more when the plan was completed.
You told them about the passion of Decius Mundus, and persuaded the priests
to use all means possible to beguile the woman.
Accordingly, the
eldest priest went immediately to Paulina. When he was inside her residence,
he told the Lady he desired to speak with her alone. In private audience, the
priest related how the god Anubis, had fallen in love with her, sent him, and
enjoined her to come to Anubis. She took this message in great joy and thought
highly of herself upon this heavenly condescension.
After the priest
left, she quickly told her husband, Saturninus, of the message. She proudly
described how she was to dine with, then make love to, Anubis. Saturninus, never
questioning the chastity of his wife, agreed to her acceptance of divine intercourse.
The Lady Paulina
went to the temple that evening, and after she had dined, and it was the hour
to sleep, the priests shut the great doors of the temple. In the holy part of
the temple of Isis, Paulina waited in darkness. Then, Decius Mundus, who had
been hidden inside a secret part of the temple, leaped out, adorned as the god
Anubis, and enjoyed the full measure of the Lady's body and soul. All night
long, she was at his service.
After Anubis left,
before the first light of dawn, and, before the priests (who knew nothing of
this stratagem) were stirring, Paulina went straight to her husband. She told
Saturninus how the god Anubis had appeared gloriously before her. Among her
friends, also, she declared how great a value she put upon this favor.
Paulina's friends
partly disbelieved the whole thing. When they reflected on the divine aspects
of it, they truly felt amazed at the tale. However, considering the modesty
and dignity of the Lady Paulina, they had no reason for not believing it.
* * *
The emperor's
soldiers have satisfied their brutal fill of your flesh. It seems as if almost
every orifice of your body has been explored and reamed, then pumped full of
semen during the night. A soldier unties you from the sawhorse where you spent
the night, bent over for their enjoyment. They push you to the center of the
room again, and while you stand naked and defiled, a crossbeam is put upon your
shoulders. Your arms are held out, behind and over the top of the beam, as the
soldiers wrap chains to hold them. While you bear this heavy wooden beam, a
soldier expertly wraps a long white cloth between your legs and around your
hips. He has fashioned for you a crude loincloth, adding a little modesty for
the procession to the cross.
Laughing, the
soldiers tug one more time on the weights dangling from your bleeding nipples.
A fresh company of soldiers forcibly turns you around, sending the weights spinning
under your breasts. A soldier barks at you to walk forward through the gates
to the streets outside. Frozen in fear and pain, you do not move until a whip
dances on your back. Slowly, you carry your beam outside, wincing at the bright
morning light of the summer sun.
Crowds lining
the streets hoot and holler at the spectacle. Are these your neighbors, even
your friends, you wonder? Where is Decius Mundus? Won't somebody help you, a
half naked woman, frightfully scourged, nipples tortured by hanging lead, carrying
the instrument of her final torture, to the most dreadful of punishments designed
by man?
The painful wounds
of your scourging throb intensely; your back and legs scream to stop walking.
The hesitant pace of your march causes the weights to jerk at your nipples,
highly visible due to the residue of nipple paint and blood oozing from the
entry points of the hooks. You gaze into the faces of the crowd as you walk
by: crying children, forced to look at your example by their reproving mothers;
drunks and beggars, enjoying the free entertainment; wide-eyed men, envying
the satisfaction of the soldiers on the night shift.
As you leave the
gates of the city, you raise your head and view the scene on the hill, toward
which you move closer and closer. The spiny vertical stakes populate the hillside,
with people scurrying around and between them like ants amongst blades of grass.
The unfortunate crucified souls still living occasionally wiggle. They writhe
spasmodically, to the top of the pegs they are fastened to, gasp for air, then
moan hoarsely as they slide back into their grave delirium.
You reach your
destination, the last point where the dirt of the Earth-Mother touches your
feet. Soldiers unchain your arms, remove your beam, and mechanically begin their
preparations. You gaze falls on three of the four crosses closest to the intersection
of the two main roads of Rome. The pain-racked bodies of the priests of Isis
are nailed to these three dead trees. The fourth cross is for you.
* * *
Since the clever
execution of the carnal plan, love blossomed blissfully for you. Decius Mundus
was fully satisfied and he beamed with pride at his own performance. As he held
you in his arms again, you secretly hoped that now he would entertain the possibility
of marriage to you. If you could arrange the unlikely match of a god and a woman
so skillfully, anything was now possible. However, the noble honor and equestrian
rank of Mundus could not contain this mischievous contrivance. Three days after
the otherworldy coupling, Mundus met Paulina by chance in public.
All Rome buzzed
with the brazen words Decius Mundus spoke to the Lady Paulina that day. You
heard second and third hand, in abject horror, what Mundus bragged, "Ho! my
Lady Paulina, you saved me two hundred thousand drachmae. You could have added
greatly to your family's coffer. But I do not have to give you money, for you
service me these days at my own request." Paulina listened in shocking amazement
as he continued boasting. "You reject me in an instant if you think of me as
Mundus. It does not matter now. I don't care about using that name anymore since
I rejoice in the pleasure I reap when I wear the name of Anubis."
You heard about
what transpired after he left, how the Lady Paulina turned livid, right there
in public, tearing all her garments to shreds. She went directly to her husband
and told him of the horrid nature of this whole affair, begging him to avenge
her honor. Saturninus immediately went straight away to the emperor Tiberius
who quickly ordered a detailed investigation of this matter.
The imperial investigators
were ruthless and soon uncovered the shameful happenings about the temple of
Isis. Tiberius himself judged the priests and their testimonies were found wanting.
He ordered them to be crucified, the temple of Isis destroyed, and her statue
thrown into the river Tiber. The soldiers came and arrested you. That evening,
you stood beside Decius Mundus, before Tiberius Caesar and his court.
Trembling in your
evening clothes, you watched in awe as the emperor banished Mundus from Rome,
but with no other punishment. Tiberius Caesar exclaimed that the crime committed
by Mundus was done out of the passion of love. Thus, Tiberius could excuse this
behavior for a Roman knight. But for you, Didi, the former slave girl, there
was no family, no title, and no claim to property that would alleviate the injuries
caused to the reputation of Lady Paulina. Since you were the occasion of the
perdition of the priests, you, too, must be crucified.
* * *
As you look up
at their crosses, you notice the cruel agonies of the priests. Each of the four
crosses stands on a corner of a busy intersection outside the gates of the city.
The eldest priest hangs silently on the cross diagonal from where your stake
rises. He is close to death and the soldiers have hammered a large spike straight
into the wood for him to sit on. His arms are nailed out straight to either
side and his feet are nailed to the upright just under his buttocks through
the heels so that his knees point to the cross on his right.
The priest on
your left hangs crucified in typical fashion, arms nailed in a wide-open angle
above the head, knees bent towards you. His feet also are nailed through the
heels, one over the other, so that he can stand as if on a narrow ledge. The
youngest priest, across the street from you is crucified in the same fashion,
but with his knees pointing to you from the right. Both scream whenever they
pull themselves up to relieve their cramped chests, to slide back down and hang
by their pinned wrists. Only their heads move, as they moan in utter futility
for their mothers.
The soldiers pull
you back into reality and offer you a drink to numb your senses. Lifting the
bowl, the chains around your wrists jangling, you gulp as much as you can swallow,
barely able to stomach the strong bitter taste. Then the soldiers drag you by
your arms to begin the crucifixion.
The soldiers pull
a tall stake completely out of the ground and fasten the beam you carried on
to the top. Another rips off your loincloth, so you stand naked again, this
time in the hot morning sun. They throw you down, reopening bloody wounds upon
your shoulders. Your arms are quickly chained straight out to the side. Through
the haze of the pain created by your scourging and pierced breasts, you know
your immediate fate is being manufactured to fit your body. Roman executioners
love to add variety to their crucifixions.
Your head hangs
off the top edge of your stake. You strain to lift your neck to see the soldiers
at work. One brings a basket of nails and mallets and goes to work fashioning
small crossties of wood, to prevent your wrists and feet from pulling off the
spikes. You can hear the hammer strikes starting the points of the nails into
the wood and out the other side. Another soldier carries a small sinister saddle
with a horn mounted at the end.
A centurion opens
his writing tablet and stands beside your nude prostrate body, chained to the
cross. "Didi, a freed slave girl of the house of Mundus, you have been condemned
by the emperor Tiberius to be crucified, naked before the people, for the crime
of perdition. Your body is to hang here as a sign to all such evildoers and
workers of mischief. The emperor, the gods, and the people of Rome condemn you
for your idle wickedness."
With a nod from
the centurion, soldiers pull your hands straight out, stretching your shoulders
cruelly. You feel the points of the nails press into the hollow points of your
delicate wrists. Suddenly your body heaves as the mallets hammer the spikes
through, pounding and pounding until the wooden ties press hard against your
throbbing wrists. You shake your head, buzzing with instant insanity, trying
to escape this violent madness as the soldiers remove the chains.
Two soldiers grab
your legs by the ankles, lifting them high in the air, spreading and revealing
your most private parts. The soldier carrying the saddle inserts the horn into
your anus and forces it in until your butthole will take no more. Then he nails
the base of the saddle securely to the stake.
The soldiers then
force your knees to bend, your legs forming a flattened diamond. They position
your heels, one on top of the other, just below the base of your saddle. You
can feel your pussy lips parting as they flatten your knees apart, but broken
by the pain along your arms, you are unable to resist. The last soldier, taking
the third piece of wood, an iron spike already started through it, begins pounding
away with giant rhythm, driving the slender point through both heel bones and
into the dead tree trunk. The pain is white hot in intensity, incomprehensible
in meaning. Never have you tolerated this much pain. The pounding continues
until you feel the wooden crosstie squeezing your feet together.
Then they pick
up the three ends of your cross, your head and hair hanging off the end, and
while you scream, almost upside down, they carry the cruel engine to the hole
by the road, insert the bottom of the upright stake and push the cross up until
it falls into the rest of the hole. A loud roar of approval from the watching
crowd is the last sound you hear before blacking out.
When you regain
consciousness, you are staring into the sun, your head hanging off the back
of the cross. You feel the extreme contortion of your limbs, and the pressure
point inside your ass, your arms knotted and strained by the nails pulling your
wrists out to the ends of the beam. The pain is so real, your nerves scream
for relief. Moreover, your feet, your precious feet have been pierced through
the heels by that hideous iron spike. Absorbing all pain, you lift your neck
up, so you can look upon your broken body.
You fall forward
until the horn in your ass catches you, together with the three nails. Your
matted hair frames your face as you gaze downward upon your nudity. Your breasts,
spread by the tautness of your arms, point upwards and outwards. You stare at
the cruel pointed fishhooks that transfer the load of the weights to your nipples.
The weights swirl and twirl with your breathing, twisting your damaged nipples
this way and that way.
Your gaze focuses
on your sex, never before seen in public, and you notice how the spreading of
your knees opens the pink interior of your pussy, letting the hot intense sunlight
sear it like raw meat tossed on a heated grill. Runny white semen slowly oozes
from your open pussy down your spread-open crack and onto the probing horn in
your asshole. You gaze, in hypnotic transfixed wonder, at your clitoris, publicly
displayed for all to see. You try in vain to flex something in rhythm, trying
to match body movements in unison with the shocked waves of shameful sensations
flooding that prominent and throbbing button of nerves.
Your feet, dirty
and pitiful, are held together by that single cruel spike, just underneath your
buttocks. You scream in pain as you try to move and find that you can only wiggle
your toes, the pressure of the wooden bar preventing you from moving your legs.
You realize that just as you have surveyed your splayed sex, so has everyone
else traveling through the busy intersection.
You jerk your
head up, and look around, slowly with great effort. A cacophony of sounds riots
in your ears; a mixture of foreign tongues, women clucking about the justice
you richly deserve, the screams of the men nailed to the other crosses. Soon,
you become aware that your cross is the tallest of the four. Gradually, it dawns
on you why the soldiers crucified the others so peculiarly: the priests have
the pleasure of dying while watching your spread open nakedness. Your head drops
down only to stare at your bloody body and your privates. As your crime exposed
the dignity of the Lady Paulina to one man, so yours is to be displayed to all
men.
Your head bounces
jerkily as you look towards the other crosses. The old priest moves slowly,
green excrement falling to the ground. The other priests continue their moaning,
able to move their heads only with minimal effort, wagging side to side in agony
and shame. Occasionally, they stare at you for a few moments and you wonder
if their purple penises, grossly swollen, dripping bloody urine, can stand erect,
engorged in lust for your helplessly displayed sex.
You look at the
crowd and notice older men pointing out the parts of your body to adolescent
males. Foreign women cluck in horror while their men chastise you in strange
tongues. Distraught devotees of Isis throw rocks until the soldiers threaten
to hang them as an example.
You hear cheering
from some when you realize you are urinating. The water stream falls to the
ground, mixed with blood, in front of you. Your tears fall onto your breasts,
mix with the sweat and blood and dust of your body. Slowly, they wind down to
your nipples, stinging the piercings you have endured, then collect and drip
from your nipples past your bloody feet, hitting the ground at the foot of your
cross.
* * *
Poor Didi, the
freed slave-girl of the house of Mundus, you still hang crucified, naked and
writhing, and waiting in shame. Can anyone release you from your endless agony
upon the most vile of mankind's engines, the Roman cross?
Is the Lady Paulina
out there amongst the crowd, or is she standing on her portico justly savoring
your crucifixion from a decent distance? Her sacred temple defiled and destroyed,
where is Isis to save you from this most terrible of fates? Whatever happened
to Decius Mundus? Couldn't a brave Roman knight such as he claim you and take
you alongside him into exile? Do you deserve to die this way, Didi, crucified
for love?
Adapted from Book
XVIII, Chapter III, The Antiquities of the Jews, by the secular Jewish historian,
Josephus. The events detailed here occurred about 30 CE in the city of Rome.
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