My Roman Crucifixion (Part 1) - Broken, Nailed, and Displayed

Strike 1 – Across the upper right shoulder blade

Right across my upper back. It was white-hot. I howled. My muscles spasmed. I felt blood almost immediately.

The thongs landed with a wet snap, followed by a tearing pain, sharp and immediate. I felt something peel away. Skin, maybe. Blood rose quickly. The weight in the thongs, lead or bone, tore a shallow trench across my shoulder.

I gasped. I was determined not to scream. 

Strike 2 – Diagonally across the left back, from shoulder to ribs

The second struck my flank, coiling around and gouging my side. I twisted. The rope bit deeper. A cross-cut, clever and deliberate. It intersected the first, slicing a fresh line across the grain of muscle. I felt the skin break, blood running warm between my ribs. My knees buckled slightly, but the rope held me up.

The executioner didn’t pause. He rained down the lashes in a rhythm—shoulders, spine, ribs, thighs, even down to the backs of my knees. Each one tore skin, raised welts, peeled flesh. Blood ran freely. I could hear the crowd reacting to every blow.

“Again!” someone shouted.

“Teach him what Rome does to filth!”

Strike 3 – Horizontal, lower back, just above the hips

This one came in flat, fast, and wide. The thongs curled around my side. I felt pain on my stomach too, from where the ends snapped around and struck flesh not meant to be touched. It burned. The weight tore skin. I tasted iron in my mouth.

Strike 4 – Upper spine, down the middle

A strike aimed to cut vertically, straight along the line of my spine. It landed like fire. One thong hit the vertebra directly - it felt like something inside me trembled. I grunted, teeth grinding. Blood now ran freely.

Strike 5 – Right side ribs, angled upward

They circled me slightly. The blow came from the side. I didn’t see it coming. It struck just beneath the shoulder, the thongs biting into the ribs, pulling skin upward like tearing parchment. I cried out. The crowd didn’t react. I couldn’t keep quiet now, I was losing control. 

Strike 6 – Across the lower left back, wrapping around to the flank

The lash caught my side again. Lead weights slammed into the side of my torso, and I felt something inside twist - an organ? A rib? I couldn’t breathe for it a moment. My body hung limp, pain boiling behind my eyes.

Strike 7 – Upper arms and neck

A misstrike, or intentional. The lashes bit into the back of my arm, and one thong caught the base of my neck. It ripped, shallow but hot. Blood trickled from the cut. My muscles twitched.

Strike 8 – Middle back, overlapping previous wounds

He aimed for pain. The blow reopened what had already been torn. The thongs sank into blood-slick flesh, and when they were yanked back, they pulled tissue with them. Not just skin, meat. I screamed, loud enough to echo.

Strike 9 – Left buttock and upper thigh

The ninth landed lower, across both buttocks. That one made me yell, a sound more like an animal than a man.

A low stroke, wide and angled. It struck flesh not yet broken, and I felt the sting as new skin ruptured, nerves waking to agony. One thong curled between my legs. I flinched. Shame burned with the pain.

The crowd collectively laughed, I heard one girl shout “did it hit his man bits, did it hit them?”, another replied “they are not easy to catch, they are so small”. 

They all laughed. 

Strike 10 – Across both shoulder blades

Heavy. Slow. It landed across the back like a closing door. I sagged. My body was a map of open wounds, my breath ragged, my mind fraying.

Strike 11 – Right side, wrapping around ribs to stomach

The lash came fast and low, curling around my right flank and slamming into the soft belly. I felt the weighted tips thud into my abdomen, just above the hip. It left no clean tear—just a deep, bruised welt, pulsing with nausea.

My stomach convulsed. I retched, but there was nothing left.

Strike 12 – Left side, curling around to the front

Another side-blow. This one struck higher, wrapping around my left ribs and biting into the hollow just beneath the chest. The ends of the thongs dug into my sternum. Skin tore in crescent arcs. I screamed through my teeth.

The pain stayed this time - sharp and stabbing. I couldn’t twist away.

Strike 13 – Lower back, curling beneath and between the legs

A man near the front called out, laughing, “Mark him where he hides his pride!”

And then a lash landed between my legs. Not fully, but enough. I screamed and lost control of my body. Urine trickled down my leg. The crowd saw.

The shame of that moment - not just the pain, but the knowledge that Rome had stripped me not just of clothes, but dignity - it broke something inside me. I stopped begging. I stopped resisting. I sagged, limp, trembling.

I didn’t see it coming. The thongs hit the base of my spine, then slid between my thighs, striking where no man should ever be struck.

The iron weights snapped into my groin.

My body convulsed. I sobbed. There was no sound left, just breath, raw and wet.

I nearly blacked out.

Strike 14 – Upper thigh and scrotum

He aimed lower again. A precise blow. The thongs whipped across my inner thighs, then upward, one of them slapping across the testicles.

My knees buckled. My breath stopped. My vision narrowed to a tunnel of red and black.

I cried out like an animal. I had no shame left. Only pain.

I heard the drowned-out laughter from the crowd. 

Strike 15 – Mid-back, horizontal across open wounds

This one was cruel in a different way, it struck the raw channels carved earlier, reopening the blood-slick strips down my spine and shoulders. The thongs stuck for a second, then ripped free, pulling clots and skin with them.

My back felt like it had been flayed.

Strike 16 – Right armpit and ribs, curled under

He circled closer. The blow came almost vertically upward, into the right armpit, thongs snapping into the tender ribs and underarm.

It felt like a knife. A burning slash. I gasped. My body jerked reflexively, and that movement made everything worse.

Strike 17 – Left buttock to inner thigh

A low, slanted lash. The lead tips hit hard across the left buttock, and one thong snapped into the crease of my thigh, where skin folds and nerves are most alive.

I felt warmth down my leg. Blood, or something else.

Strike 18 – Belly and hip, wrapping far around

Another wrap-around strike, wide and deliberate. The blow landed across my belly, then curled up along the right hip. The flesh there was untouched before. Now it pulsed like an open wound.

The blow knocked the breath out of me. I sagged in the ropes.

Strike 19 – Between the legs again

This time he meant it - a calculated blow. The thongs whipped under and upward, full into my groin.

Someone shouted, “perfect hit, empty his sack”. A woman retorted “that sack has always been empty, it’s too small to hold anything useful”. 

I screamed like a dying thing, my head snapping back, neck cramping. Pain shot up into my spine, into my chest. My stomach clenched. I vomited bile onto the ground.

I could barely stay conscious.

Still, the lashes kept coming. Blood mixed with dirt. My back was a mess of red and purple. My buttocks shredded, legs striped with welts. My chest, where the whip wrapped around, was torn and raw. My genitals swung freely, a target of jokes, ridicule, and the occasional flick of the whip.

Strike 20 – Across the chest

I don’t know if it was mercy or cruelty. He stepped in front, reared back, and cracked the whip across my bare chest. The ends raked across my nipples and ribs, leaving a mess of thin, bloody welts. One thong tore across my collarbone.

I hung limp. Broken. Exposed. My body shook. My mind frayed.

Every breath now scraped like glass through my throat.

They left me tied to the post, trembling. My skin burned. My limbs dripped. My groin throbbed. The air itself hurt.

I knew they would unbind me soon.

Or maybe not.

I no longer prayed. I just waited—for the next blow, the next hand, or death.

They untied me.