Chapter 23

It took Lila a long time to stop her wild thrashing. It was exhaustion that stopped her, not a conscious effort.

After she stopped thrashing, her head lolling on her chest, Lila remained, hanging, with her eyes closed, for long minutes, conscious only of the pain in her wrists and her feet, where all her weight was resting on the nails piercing her flesh. For a long time, since her nailing started, she belonged, body and mind, to the nails that pierced her flesh, to the pain that took over her body. Now, hanging quiet, her mind returned to her body; the pain, while still unbearable, decreased a fraction, so long as she did not move. She tried to take a deep breath, but she could not. Her lungs, in her hanging position, remained expanded, mostly filled with air. To inhale, to breathe, she would have to empty them, to expel the stale air that filled them. She would do that, she knew, later; not now.

She opened her eyes. Manu stood in front of her, watching her.

She hung from her wrists; arms outstretched, the only movement were the tremors that agitated her fingers. Twin rivulets of blood dripped from the nails in her wrists. Her arms, carrying her weight extended from the nails, to join her body. Her struggles to breathe, without moving, caused her breasts, and the rings hanging from them, to lift and fall, as her chest flailed, up and down, trying to move air in, and mostly out of her lungs. The nipple rings quivered on her breasts; Manu wondered if she could notice them.

The afternoon sun shone on her sweat, surrounding her body with a luminous halo. Her skin already turning pink from the sun's scorching rays seemed almost radiant. His eyes noticed her armpits, gloriously exposed by the arm bones bulging underneath.

She remained silent, breathing, looking at her lover and executioner.

He watched her silently. There was such beauty in her suffering, he could not deny it. Her body, racked on the cross, pierced by the cruel iron spikes, barely moving, shone in the early afternoon sun. He became aware of a stirring in his groin. He saw her open eyes and was glad that his loose pants covered his incipient erection. He could not hold her eyes and his sight strayed down to her belly, sucked in by her suspension. Her thighs, splayed open by her nailing, exposed her sex obscenely, and the small red scar, at its top, that brought back memories from that first day. He knew then, already, that she was special.

His eyes wandered down those long, perfect legs, to find the nails on her insteps. His vision blurred with unshed tears.

The sky began to darken, with the approaching storm. A few sentinel drops fell on his neck and he looked up at the threatening sky, at the rapidly forming, towering clouds that blotted out the sun. He was glad for the shade that the storm would provide for his beloved, glad for the cooling rain that would soothe her overheated body. He was angry at the sky that, by clouding the sun and cooling the air, would extend the suffering of the girl that writhed on the cross.

He approached her, leaving Aisha behind.

"We will be offering you water in a little while," he said. "Try not to drink it, if you can."

She turned her head to look at him; silently she mouthed the words, "Why?"

He had to steel himself to answer, tears threatened to break out of his eyes again, "It will extend your suffering."

She gasped again for air. Soon she would have to raise herself to take a real breath. She would be able to speak then. One more gasp; he was so near, might as well do it now.

She screamed when she pulled herself up, the nails on her wrist bruising the nerve against the bone, and the nails on her feet, tearing at her, when she pushed on them. She held herself up, muscles cramping, air rushing out and into her lungs.

"This is so hard on you love; you don't have to stay," and, with a whimper she dropped back, to hung from her arms.

He kissed her cheek, tasting the salt of her tears, and of her sweat.

"I shall never leave you," he said, stepping back.

The rain began to fall, harder.

"Take cover."

The little slave girl obeyed, running to the house, the thin fabric of her clothes already sticking to her skin.

Thunder rumbled in the clouds overhead. Manu looked up at the turmoil in the sky, and prayed that a bolt of lightning would strike his beloved and end her agony.

The rain pelted him with increasing fury, the drops stinging his skin through the cotton of his shirt. Her nipples now erect from the cold rain, she pulled herself up once more.

"Go!" she said.

But he did not.

He stayed out, standing in the heavy rain that drenched him. The sight of Lila, crucified, shivering in the rain, whimpering in pain every time she raised herself up on the cross to breathe, both excited and appalled him. How could he leave her out here, after nailing her on the cross? How could he miss even a moment of her pain, when he caused it?

She closed her eyes against the pelting drops of rain. The pain that radiated from her wrists and feet extended all over her body. Mostly her arms and shoulders, unnaturally bearing most of her weight, burned and hurt. The pain in her legs, mostly when she was holding up her weight on them, was mild in comparison. Dropping down on the cross, as slowly as possible, she felt, for the first time since her arrival, a measure of relief.

"It is over," she said to herself.