SMALL SACRIFICE

BY CHRISTOPHER TOILKIEN

The sun beat down with even more debilitating heat than normal as the little sacrifice struggled to carry here heavy load from where she had been chastised. Dust raised by every faltering step, choked her parched from screaming throat and the executioner switched parts of her body he had missed when she stumbled and valiantly tried to rise unaided.

They had chosen her by lot from the valleys preteen girls. Everyone of them from the rich merchants to the meanest dirt farmer had his youngest females name written on a piece of broken pottery and after collecting them in a great earthen jar, the priest had picked the first one out. That morning she had been delivered by her patents into the arms of the city executioner who had immediately stripped her and hung her from the whipping post.

As written she received thirty lashes with a wetted flogger as her parents and the rest of the valley inhabitants watched. Then after being taken down, thanking the executioner for doing his solemn duty by performing feleto on him, her parents coming up on the punishment platform and tied the horizontal beam of her cross across her ravaged shoulders.

It was a long walk for the heavily burdened girl and she fell to her knees more often as they approached the hilltop. The priest had forbidden anyone to assist her and the crowd howled for her to get up and on with it as the heat of the day was getting unbearable.

By midday she managed to make it to the stony top of the bare hill, the executioner temporarily freed her from the heavy load, and the priest poured watered vinegar down her unprotesting throat.

But then her rest was over and they lay her across the heavy oak beams and set about wrapping first her wrists and then her feet with wide cuffs of the finest leather craftwork. Then these were used to fix her to the cross; arms pulled out their widest, legs stretched to their limits, over the deliberately rough cross. Her father and her brothers assisted the executioner to hoist the cross up and set it into its posthole with a thump that tore a scream from her parched lips, wedging it in place with small handy rocks.

Many at first stayed and watched her through the heat of the day, but as the cool of the night came, they started to wander away until finally only her family, the Priest and the executioner were left around a small fire. Sometime after the moon should have risen, she cried out for her mother, but the men had prevented her from attending. Then they stood thunderstruck as a torrent wiped out their fire and swiftly drenched them to the bone. “Release her”. Screamed the priest against the storm that threatened to sweep them all from the bare hilltop. “Her sacrifice has brought the rains” As fast as they could, with the storm making purchase of rock and wood extremely difficult they lifted her cross, gently setting it down, and releasing her still living body. The high priest him self, lifting her exhausted body up wrapping it in his own garment. And carried it down to the city below. Headless of the rain, stinging his exposed flesh. The priestess’s took her battered body, bathed it in tepid baths. Rubbing her abused tiny preteen body with medical oils and keeping her warm through the nights and days of fevered shivering that followed with their own nude bodies. Eventually she returned to both life and health. Wrapped in Egyptian cottons and silks from far away, she was presented to the people on the same stone platform her were body had been chastised. As she felt the soft touch of a moist breeze against her body, through the diaphanous clothing that barely concealed her as yet to begin blossoming body. They stood around her, as they had before, but this time praising her and honoring her name. The finest artisans showered her with silver and gold jewelry and the greatest cooks vied to present her with their finest creations. A new palace for her rose beside the temple filled with items donated by all.

When finally asked what they could do to please her, she begged that the executioner be allowed to attend to her needs. The young powerfully built male smiled; he had seen her tips swell and her quim leak under his lash. He had been well trained to punish females just enough to bring pleasure as well as pain. Everyday she sat as her supplicant people came to beg her opinion on things that affected their lives. Every night he strung her up or stretched her out giving her the level of pain inducing pleasure she could only reach under his hands. As her body blossomed into womanhood, she continually begged him for greater pain, offering use of her body as payment. He eagerly took her payment for doing that which brought him his greatest pleasure.

What more could any male want?