Crucifying a Farmer’s Son

Kimmie Holland & Meeah Mackenzie

 

 

Billy knelt by the window where he'd been praying all night. He saw the hot red rim of the sun over the far field and he knew that his prayer would not be answered. Another day of scorching drought would further parch the already withering crops. He heard his mother's soft knock and the door behind him opened.

"Billy, your pa says its time to get started."

"Yes ma'am," Billy said, trying as hard as he could to keep the fear out of his voice. He knew how hard this was on his mom. It had only been six years ago that his older brother Jimmy had been unlucky enough to be drawn in the lot during the last drought. It seemed unfair that two Baker boys should be chosen but that was the luck of the draw as old Mr. Runk had said when he chose Billy's name from the drum and announced it aloud at the camp meeting.

Billy's mom had nearly fainted when she heard his name called. She gave a little gasp and there were murmurs of sympathy from the other mothers who rushed to comfort her but everyone knew how relieved they were that their own sons hadn't been chosen.

Billy's dad didn't so much as flinch. He kept a stoic look on his lean, hardened, sunburned face as the other men pumped his hand and thanked him for his sacrifice and congratulated him on the honor of having yet another chosen son.

Yes, Billy had been “chosen.”

Only two weeks ago he had been attending university pursuing a degree in agriculture. He hoped to help gather enough knowledge of the latest technology in farm management to help make the family farm prosperous again and to one day finally banish once and for all this archaic tradition of blood sacrifice. But what he learned at school, he realized, would never replace the old knowledge handed down from generation to generation, especially when times were tough and the people inevitably reverted to the old beliefs and superstitions.  The professors he studied under would never understand what farming was really all about: hard work, prayer, and sacrifice.

"Billy you weren't awake all night were you?" his mother asked, with habitual concern. The unspoken truth was that it hardly made a difference anymore.

"I think I slept a little," Billy lied. "I was just praying..."

"I know," his mother said sadly. "I prayed too.” She sighed resignedly.  “Well, I suppose Pastor Lentz would say they were answered. Just not the answer we would have liked to hear. Come on now. Your pa is waiting."

Billy knew she was right. He followed her downstairs to the kitchen wearing only a tight white thong. It was all he'd been allowed to wear since the day he'd been chosen. The idea was to help him get used to the idea of renouncing this world; if nothing else, being kept all but naked made it too embarrassing to leaving the house. There was little need for modesty now. In fact, all pretense that he was anything other than a sheep being led to slaughter was all but gone.

Only the day before Miss Mclane from down the road had come to administer his ritual cleansing. Miss Mclane was a strapping, matter-of-fact, rawboned woman a full head taller than Billy. She had never married and had no children of her own. She owned a small farm which she operated with the help of hired hands who, it was said, she ruled with an iron fist.

It was probably for the best that it was someone like Miss Mclane who was to give Billy his cleansing. She had seen a lot in her lifetime, was phased by none of it, and was all business. So when she ordered Billy to remove his thong he felt only a little shame as she examined his body the way someone examines a farm animal. First she shaved what little body hair Billy had, hosing him down with cold water when she was done, leaving him huddled and shivering on a patch of straw in the corner of the barn.

Then came the really humiliating part.

Bent over an old sawhorse, Billy had a hose nozzle shoved deep inside his bottom. Miss Mclane turned on the spigot and Billy felt the cold water flushing through his cramping intestines until his belly began to bulge. He grimaced at the discomfort and held back the words begging Miss Mclane to turn off the tap, knowing it would do no good to beg. Just when he thought his belly would rupture the taciturn woman turned off the water and left Billy draped over the sawhorse with the rubber hose hanging from between his ass cheeks and moaning from the pain of his twisting intestines.

Billy had known that this was part of his ordeal. He remembered when he was sixteen that Jimmy had to undergo the same preparations from Miss Mclane. His father had taken him into the barn to see his poor tormented brother, just as his father had brought Billy's younger brother to see him suffering the same ordeal. It was a dreadful sight Billy had never forgotten, so he knew what he must have looked like to Davey  bent over the sawhorse the way he was, belly distended, hose dangling from between his asscheeks like a  tail, groaning in agony.

Billy had begged his father not to have to undergo the humiliating ritual of the internal cleansing. He had been on a diet strictly of bread and water for the last two weeks and he even promised to swear off the bread if he could be spared the embarrassment of the hose. His father flatly denied his request.

"You don't want to go shaming yourself and this family up on that cross boy," he said. "It's bad enough when you lose your water. But that's only natural. Can't be avoided. But the other can be and will be. Not another word about it."

Billy knew there was no arguing. Besides, his father was right. Billy did not want to shame himself any more than was absolutely necessary. After all, everyone would be there watching. He wanted to die with as much dignity as possible. And if that meant suffering the present indignities of Miss Mclane's ministrations then so be it. At least she went about her business so efficiently that he hardly felt she even saw him as a human being.

At long last, shivering in spite of the unbearable heat and drenched in sweat, Miss Mclane permitted him to relieve himself in the big tin basin slid between his splayed legs for just that purpose. Without ceremony, she yanked the hose from inside his ass.

God, it felt so good to relax his sphincter. Billy blushed from head to toes as the stinky brown water poured from inside him, carrying with it all the filth and impurity of his sinful body.

The pastor was right: the body was a temple of defilement. He hoped that somehow Miss Mclane could not smell the stench over the smell of cow manure in the hot barn but he doubted very much he'd been spared the humiliation of stinking. Well at least she was so hardened to her work that she didn't make it any worse by any nasty comments.

Billy was subjected to two more rounds of cleansing until the water that ran out of him was just as clean as the water put into him. From that moment on, he was not to touch another solid piece of food. The only thing permitted him was distilled water. He could have as much of that as he liked. In fact, it seemed that the more water he drank the better chance he stood of lasting long enough to make a fine sacrifice.

It was after the cleansing that Miss Mclane clapped the cage on him. Billy had known this was coming, too. After all, it wouldn't do to have him going off screwing around like a rabbit, which, as he very well knew, he and Tammy Sue would have done, once he'd been chosen to die. He needed to save his seed for the ceremony; it would be a sin to spill even a drop of his precious fluid in mere carnal lust.

If Miss Mclane hadn't been old enough to be his mother, and if he hadn't just undergone the humiliating ordeal of the cleansing, Billy might have been even more  ashamed than he was to have his genitals handled by this gruff, matter-of-fact spinster. As it was, he responded to her rough touch almost immediately even in spite of himself. However, one hard squeeze of her red, chapped hand, “corrected” him instantly. He deflated immediately and Miss Mclane had no more trouble stuffing him into the cage and locking it tight. Miss Mclane allowed him to put on his thong again and that was that. He'd have no more erections until the day of his sacrifice.

Billy had gotten so used to wearing just the thong around the house—and his family had grown so used to seeing him in it—that he was hardly aware of his nakedness anymore. His father approved, thinking that Billy's weakening inhibitions showed that he had totally accepted his fate and that he was full of the faith. Billy only wished he was full of the faith. It would make what he was about to undergo that much easier. But the truth was that he was painfully riddled with doubts. He felt so guilty about these doubts that he mentioned them to Pastor Lentz during their private conversations.

The pastor was kind and understanding and told him it was perfectly natural to feel the way Billy did. Even Christ, the pastor said, had his moment of doubt on Gethsemane. It would pass, the pastor assured Billy once he was raised up to the heavens and saw the appreciation of those gathered around to pray for him. The preacher spoke with  so much passion and conviction that Billy wanted to believe him but it was not the pastor who was about to be sacrificed. How did he know what Billy would feel when he was finally "raised up to the heavens?"

Billy had wept bitterly during his last “confession” with Pastor Lentz. No one had told him what to expect and for sure he'd never tell anyone either it was so shameful; it was bad enough that the Church Elders all knew, that they'd all witnessed, and worst of all, each had taken a hand in his humiliation.

One by one, starting with the pastor himself, they took their turn instilling within Billy the “Holy Spirit.” This they did with Billy bent over a special altar in the chapel and his asshole anointed with special oils. The pain of the first two or three cocks was excruciating, but after that he'd become so stretched out back there, his asshole and cheeks so slippery with cum, Billy became numb both mentally and physically to the repeated assaults on his virgin bud.

By the time his father's turn came around, Billy was practically in an altered state of mind. He might not ever have known it was his father who fucked him last if he hadn't heard one of the other Elders use his name and the man standing behind and over Billy answer in his father's voice. And then there was something about those hard hands and rough fingers splayed over his pale smooth ass, something familiar and knowing. He felt his father's big horny thumbs digging into his tender flesh and pulling open Billy's torn, swollen, gummed-up asshole.

Then his father's fat cock, seemingly the biggest of them all, plunged straight into Billy's bowels and his father started fucking him so hard Billy was moaning and babbling half out of his mind. Meanwhile Pastor Lentz was carefully writing down whatever Billy said. “Speaking in tongues,” the pastor called it, and Billy's hysterical monologue would be carefully studied later for clues about the future harvest and then stored away forever in the church archives, where for ever after it would become a part of the town's long history.

"Your father's out back," his mother said as Billy padded barefoot into the kitchen. Her voice was tight and he could hear her choking back her emotions. Billy paused for a moment, hoping she would say something to make it better, but there was nothing to say. "Better get on out there," was all his mother said.

Billy stepped forward to give his mother a last kiss, but she held up a hand to ward him off.

“Be brave Billy,” she said. “Make me proud.”

“Yes ma’am.”

So that’s the way it was to be, Billy thought, bitterly. Even his own mother rejected him now. Well, perhaps, it was better that way. No messy emotions. Everyone had taken leave of him in their hearts. To each and every one of them, he was already dead. Billy felt his eyes burn and fought back the tears. Dead to everyone…but himself. He didn’t feel dead, not yet. But the moment he opened the door to the yard and saw his father waiting another of Billy’s last remaining hopes flickered out.

Pa was dressed as usual in his bib overalls and work boots. But this morning Billy found him waiting with a long cord of rough hemp in his rough, reddened hands. He was looking down and Billy could not see the expression on his face. Ever since the night of his last confession, Billy could hardly help but notice that his father could hardly bear to look at him. Whenever he did, his father wore a jeering unpleasant expression; it was the same look of mocking disgust that his father always wore when talking about “fags” and “queers” and “sissies.” As if Billy were to blame for the gang rape he’d endured…as if he were responsible for his own father fucking him in the ass!

Still, Billy couldn’t help but burn with shame; had his father seen the way his caged cock strained to become erect while the men fucked him? How, in spite of its restraint, his organ grew swollen and moist with juices, like a fruit about to burst its seed? And at no time more than when his father plunged his big thick cock into Billy’s ass.

Maybe Billy was a fag, after all. Maybe that’s why he’d been chosen to die. Perhaps the Lord really did abhor a homosexual, just as Pastor Lentz had said.

"Come on. Let's get on with this boy," Pa said gruffly.

Billy took a deep steadying breath, stepped forward, and held out his hands, wrists together. Perhaps by facing his fate with courage Billy could win back the old man’s respect.  His father quickly looped the scratchy hemp around Billy’s wrists and pulled it taut, cinching Billy's hands so tightly he felt his fingers tingle with the sudden lack of blood.

"Walk,” his father barked, in the same voice he’d use to a farm animal being led to the butcher. He nearly yanked Billy off his feet with the lead on the rope. His father’s boots crunched effortlessly over the hot gravel of the path but it was difficult for Billy to keep up the pace in his bare feet. Dressed almost identically to their father, Davey was following closely behind, idly kicking stones with his boots, and playing with the Gameboy he’d inherited from his soon-to-be-dead brother.

Billy remembered the conversation they’d had only a few days ago, when all this seemed like a dream there was still time to wake from. Davey had wanted to know if Billy was scared and if what they were going to do to him would hurt. Billy tried to be as honest as possible without scaring Davey or causing his little brother any unnecessary worry. He said that it would probably hurt some but that it would all be worth it for the good of the community which was more important than any one person’s life. He told his little brother that it was an honor to be chosen. Yes, he admitted, he was a little scared but Pastor Lentz himself told Billy that it was only natural to be a little scared. But that Jesus Himself would help him in his hour of need.

It was more or less the same talk Billy had six years ago with his older brother Jimmy. Now he knew what Jimmy had really felt on the eve of his sacrifice and knew how he’d been trying to spare Billy's feelings just as Billy was now trying to spare his brother’s. Well, it must have worked, because Davey was trudging along behind them, seemingly without a care in the world, totally engrossed in the action on his Gameboy.

Davey was the lucky one in the family. As the third and last son, his name would not be put into the drawing, if another drawing ever became necessary, when he came of age. No, god willing, he’d survive to full manhood and reap the fruits that grew from the earth watered by Billy’s sacrifice. The farm and all that came with it would be passed on to him. The community would never dream of taking a man's last surviving son.

For Davey, it was all just another holiday, another day off from school. The day his brother Billy was raised up to the heavens.

Billy looked off to the left and saw the fallow field where just yesterday he'd helped his father dig his own grave. The graves were only tentatively marked with plain brown stones, one at the head of each otherwise invisible grave. Each stone bore only the tiniest scratch marks to indicate who’d been buried where, and when. The graveyard was a strictly-kept community secret. It was only marked at all so that the family of the dead could come and plant wildflowers on it and also so that the Elders knew where to dig the next grave.

Anyone passing would never recognize the field as a cemetery.

Billy's grave would be right next to his brother Jimmy's. The field itself was communal property and one day, when it was filled, it would be plowed and planted, its crop fertilized by the bodies of all the young men buried there, the profit evenly divided among the farmers who’d given up sons to the community. Billy’s father would get two portions now.

The sun was nearly at its zenith, high and hot, as it had been for the last three months. Billy was pulled along a path that gave him a grim view of the reason it was necessary he be sacrificed: field upon blistered field of wilting corn, drooping alfalfa, scorched barley. As they walked, Billy realized that folks from other farms had stopped what they were doing to watch him pass. Some began to follow and others joined the growing processional. Soon what seemed like the whole community—men, women, children, and even a few farm dogs—had gathered at the crossroads post where Billy, according to custom, was to be ritualistically scourged.

He could hear the people talking excitedly all around him. They were discussing the weather, mostly, how hot it was, how the forecast had predicted more heat, how the crops were done-for. But he also heard the hopeful remarks that their sacrifice would be accepted and the naïve certainty in their voices made Billy feel proud in spite of himself and distracted him a little from the terrible ordeal to come.

By the time they reached the crossroads post Billy was thirsty, dirty, and sweaty. His poor battered feet made every step he took a torture. He was almost glad to be able to stop, even if it meant the promise of fresh pain soon to come. While he caught his breath, his father threaded the rope binding his wrists through the high iron ring in the crossroads post and pulled Billy up on his sore and dusty tiptoes. His father tied the rope tight to an eyebolt buried in the ground several feet away and that forced Billy's belly to pressed against the rough wood of the post.

Pastor Lentz was there, wearing dark glasses and his black Sunday suit. He recited from a special book of prayers but everyone knew it was all just a preamble to the real business at hand—the ceremony they’d all gathered together to see. It was Mr. Jenkins, the mechanic and jack-of-all-trades, who would deliver the forty blows. They couldn’t have made a better choice if it was there intention to make Billy suffer. Mr. Jenkins  was a huge man, six-foot-six and well over three hundred pounds of hard-packed fat and dense muscle; he wasted no time getting to his work.

No sooner was the last "amen" out of the pastor’s mouth than Billy felt the bullwhip slash his back. There was no need to make any effort to hold back his cry of pain; the horrible shock of how badly it hurt had crushed even his ability to beg for mercy.

The second blow hurt even worse than the first. Billy couldn’t imagine how he’d ever survive forty blows! He had no doubt he was going to die right there on the post. He wished he could. Would that render the sacrifice void? Would he have died for nothing? At that point, Billy didn’t care. The heavy whip came down again, and then again, wrapping itself halfway round his body, its tip flicking a nipple, or catching one of his balls, and causing him to bleed wherever it touched his tender skin.

Billy futilely tried to dance away from the worst of the blows, but being on tiptoe and so tightly bound, avoidance was all but impossible. Billy felt the whip dig into his thighs and buttocks, ripping through the thin material of his thong, until it hung from his narrow hips in bloody tatters, which lewdly fluttered and twitched with every step of his dance of pain.

Billy was certain that he heard his mother crying out over the admiring murmur of the crowd as Mr. Jenkins worked himself and his whip into an easy, regular rhythm. There was a moment of almost blissful pause between blows, which Billy learned to savor, and then the whip fell again, crashing over him with a fresh wave of blistering pain. The sheen of sweat that Billy had worked up on the walk to the post only added a new dimension to his agony as it seeped into the great bloody slashes on his naked back and thighs.

It was possible that he blacked out for parts of the whipping. Billy couldn’t be sure; the ordeal seemed to last an eternity in any event. His knees had buckled several times and left him dangling from his bound wrists, his arms bearing his full weight until they felt like they were being pulled from their sockets. He struggled to regain his footing if only to take away the pain in his arms. But that effort was rewarded only with another crack of the whip across his back. He thought he could hear Pastor Lentz counting out the blows. He tried to make out the numbers 38, 39, 40. It seemed to Billy that they would never come.

In the end, Billy leaned forward and pressed his sweaty forehead to the post where so many other young men had pressed theirs before him. He had survived. Somehow he had survived. He felt Pastor Lentz symbolically lash his flaming back one extra stroke with a handful of nettles and then shake the blood in all four directions over the gathered crowd while muttering an invocation.

Billy gritted his teeth against the pain. Yes, he had survived the scourging. But that was hardly anything to celebrate. He’d only earned the privilege of suffering some more. What awaited him now there was absolutely no chance of surviving.

Billy was released from the post and his hands were retied behind his back. Then another rope was tied around his neck and he was led to the sacrificial meadow where he would be raised up to the heavens.

This time, though, he was not pulled brutally along.

His leash had been given to his old English teacher, Mr. Carmichael, another Church Elder. Mr. Carmichael led him along at an almost leisurely pace. The cool grass felt so good under Billy's hot bare feet and the green shade of the meadow helped soothe the flaming pain raging across his bloodied back. Yet even in spite of the leisurely pace, Billy stumbled once, for which transgression Mr. Carmichael pulled on his bound wrists, but not altogether unkindly. Billy scrambled to his feet as best he could. He didn’t want to disappoint Mr. Carmichael in return for his kindness.

It was turning out to be one of the hottest days of this brutally hot summer and Billy was parched with thirst. He remembered what he'd been told about drinking lots of water, how it would help him last longer. He wasn't worried about lasting longer right now. He just wanted to ease the torture—only one of many he was suffering—of the infernal thirst raging inside him.

At last they came to the place in the meadow where for centuries the community gathered to make their sacrifice to god and there Billy saw the cruel instrument that would raise him to the heavens. It was a large, heavy cross made of an ancient rough-hewn wood and darkened with the sweat and blood of those innumerable victims before him who’d been, including his own brother Jimmy.

"Let the sacrifice appear naked before the Lord," Pastor Lentz intoned.

Mr. Carmichael came up and pulled away what was left of Billy's bloodied and shredded thong. Then he took a small key from his pocket and undid the lock on Billy’s cock-cage. Billy’s organ, damp and wrinkled, but so long neglected, started to engorge at his English teacher’s most imperceptible touch. Billy was now completely naked and half-erect in front of the crowd. He should have been embarrassed, but he was beyond shame now. To his family, his friends, and his neighbors, he no longer had a name or an identity. He wasn’t even a human being anymore; he was a naked sacrifice and he knew what that meant. 

He had only a purpose: to die and bring rain.

Now Mr. Carmichael and Mr. Jenkins took him up by the arms and led him unresisting to the cross that had been laid down in the grass. Billy didn't need to be told what to do. He knelt beside the cross and said a prayer, a prayer apparently longer than necessary, because Mr. Carmichael and Mr. Jenkins picked him up bodily and laid him back on the rough wood before he was even finished.

It was almost pleasant to be lying there after what he'd been through, although the splintered wood dug into the flesh of his wounded back. They untied Billy’s hands one more time and retied his wrists to the to the arms of the cross. Then they did the same thing with his ankles, bending his knees upwards so that the torn soles of his bare feet rested flat on a small triangular-shaped wedge of wood. Billy had planned to close his eyes for the next part but somehow he just couldn't. He turned his head and watched in morbid fascination as Mr. Jenkins place a thick iron nail against his wrist.

Pastor Lentz had begun reading from his black book again and the hammer fell.

Billy was instantly blinded by a wall of white pain. The hammer fell again and Billy nearly passed out. Nauseous, he stared in mute amazement at the end of the big spike protruding from his wrist. There was something unreal about it all, as if what he was seeing couldn’t possibly be happening. The spell was broken only by the pain shooting up his right arm as a second spike was nailed through his other wrist.

Billy's first reflex was to pull his arm away but, of course, it was literally nailed firmly in place. He turned his head wildly to and fro to see the heads of the big spikes pinning his wrists to the wood. He didn't even think to resist when he felt them setting the points of the unforgiving the spikes against the tops of his bound feet.

The blows fell one after another, sending shock waves of pain up his legs, into his hips, all the way to the roots of his teeth. He felt as if the bones of his feet were being crushed, which in fact they were, and he wondered if it did start to rain, and by some miracle they let him down, if he was already crippled for life. As he was needlessly worrying about spending the rest of his life a cripple, several men rushed up to lift the cross from the grass and set it in the pre-dug hole. The sensation of being lifted, the pain caused by involuntarily sagging against the spikes, and the sudden drop into the hole made Billy puke a little. He remembered with relief that he really had nothing in his belly to throw up. He spit up a little bile and that was all.

It was midday and Billy hung in the center of the meadow, the shadows thrown by his cross making divinatory patterns on the ground, like a great sun dial. It was still early in his crucifixion so he had the strength to lift himself up and draw some air before sagging back down on his brutally ruined feet. Still, each time he pulled himself up, he already felt himself growing weaker. Of course, the heat only made it worse. Billy was fair-skinned and had to take extra precaution against the sun when he worked the fields—something his father had always belittled him for. Now he was naked and the sun burned his white flesh mercilessly.

And then there was the obscenely protruding knob of wood which, Billy’s body nailed just-so, was positioned to push into his stretched-out rectum every time he sagged down to regain his strength. Up and down, up and down, as he struggled, shimmied, and fought against his crucifixion, Billy was unavoidably fucking himself in the ass with the wooden phallus, putting on a show of unmistakable lewdness for everyone to see.

His hair was matted with the sweat that ran unresisted into his eyes, sizzling and blinding him with pain. And yet he still saw too much.

There, watching him intently, a pert little smile on her pretty face, was Tammy Sue in a halter top and shorts, her soft pretty feet in a pair of flat sandals, her toenails painted bright red to match her lipstick. Standing next to her was Ned Taylor and seeing Billy’s pained glance momentarily flick their way Ned made sure that Billy saw him throw a possessive arm around her.

For a moment, even the appalling pain of the crucifixion vanished—replaced by a greater anguish.

Tammy Sue was his girl. Well, she was his girl until his name was picked and he’d been married to this cross. Now Billy had no right to any girl. He had been raised up to heaven.

Unless…he could make it rain.

Billy had no reason to think so, perhaps it was just wishful thinking, but he told himself that they might let him down if only it would rain before he died. If it rained, he wouldn't have to die, right? He’d never seen or heard of such a thing happening, but Pastor Lentz hadn’t outright said it couldn’t. So that meant there was a chance, didn’t it?

The pastor was now exhorting Billy to pray that he would make an acceptable sacrifice but Billy was hardly paying him any attention. He was staring up at the pitiless sky and begging it to rain. He hardly knew what words he was mumbling through his pain. Just so long as the dark clouds arrived to save him from this torment.

Meanwhile the crowd dwindled, returned, dwindled again. They came in groups and singly, in cars and pick-ups, on tractors and on foot. They had a smoke, talked politics or sports; others even made a family picnic out of it. More than a few came up to take a closer look, watching as Billy struggled on the cross. And it was a struggle. Alarmingly, his strength was draining away faster than he could have expected. He had lost all sense of time, but by the way the sun was moving overhead he figured he’d been on the cross for nearly three hours. He was having a lot of difficulty now lifting himself up to take a sip of hot air. More and more of his time was now spent virtually seated on the wood phallus which set deep inside his bowels. He was so frightfully thirsty. He begged nearly everyone who approached him for something to drink but with no success.

He was happy to see Tammy Sue disentangle himself from Ned's grasp and sashay coquettishly to the foot of his cross. She was holding a pair of her panties in one small fist which she’d soaked in Coke. These she speared on the end of a pitchfork and held up to his cracked lips.

Billy sucked greedily and thankfully on his ex-girlfriend’s panties. For a moment he felt better, but then the pain seemed to hit him twice as hard.

"Oh god…please…please…rain…"

Billy croaked out the words, his voice barely audible, like a hot wind through dead stalks…

Billy's ordeal continued for some hours to come. People continued to come and go. Billy's father didn’t stay long. He had a trip to make for fertilizer and pesticides. Pastor Lentz and Billy's mother stayed longer than anyone, but even they took a break every hour or so. Among those who didn’t spend much time watching him die was Tammy Sue. Billy's heart sunk when he saw her heading off, hand-in-hand, with Ned Taylor. They climbed into his brand-new Corvette and Billy figured it would be the last time he ever saw her.

Then, some time later, he was brought out of his agonized stupor by a soft voice coming from below his disfigured and sunburned feet.

"Billy are you still alive?"

"Yes," Billy said, startled by the rasp of his own voice. He'd had to use almost all his strength to back his way up the cross to speak.

"You are going to die soon, you know."

"I know," Billy said, and tears ran down his stiff and painfully sunburned face.

She grinned slyly. "I'd give you more soda but I'm not wearing any panties.”

"s'okay" Billy whispered hoarsely. Even though he was literally dying of thirst, not to mention slow asphyxiation, it was no use trying to get anything to stay in his stomach. The last time his mother had tried to give him a drink, he'd almost immediately  suffered the most terrible cramps and thrown it all up.

"Maybe this will help," Tammy Sue said, still grinning her sly sexy smile. She stepped forward and reached up towards Billy's groin. Very gently, she cupped his hot swollen balls in her soft hands. With her long cool fingers, she began stroking his cock just like she used to do when they went to the movies on Friday nights. They had rarely gone farther than that and Billy sorely regretted it now that he hadn't been more insistent. But then, he'd thought he had all the time in the world. Patience was a virtue...so he'd been taught.

"How's that feel," Tammy Sue asked in her innocent babydoll voice, but she was far from innocent. She knew exactly what she was doing. The evidence of that was jutting up from Billy's groin.

Billy was surprised that even in spite of the pain and his dire condition he was fully erect. Maybe even stranger was the fact that he wasn't in the least bit ashamed to be naked and fully aroused in front of the small crowd who happened to be gathered at that hour of the day, among them his grieving mother. He was beyond that kind of concern now. In fact, he was only dimly aware of anyone but Tammy Sue smiling up at him from the base of his cross, fondling his genitals, adding ecstatic waves of pleasure to his pain. The small gathering had noticed Billy stirring on the cross and drew closer, buzzing with renewed interest.

Tammy Sue stared thoughtfully for a few moments at the spikes driven through the tops of Billy's feet, the blood dried and still dripping between his toes.

When she looked up at her ex-boyfriend's puffy, sweaty, pain-and-lust filled face, she had an expression of barely suppressed excitement, her eyes sparkling, electric.

"That must really hurt," she said.

"Oh god it hurts so bad," Billy groaned.

"I'm sorry Billy," Tammy Sue then said out of the blue. "I really am. But I have to go."

“Go?” Billy croaked. The word hardly held any sense to him under the circumstances.

“Yeah, sorry.” She instantly dropped her hands from his crotch.

"Please...don't," Billy rasped. He had to fight for each word, each one costing him one of the last precious breaths he needed to stay alive. "Please...stay...with...me..."

"I can't," Tammy Sue chirped in a cheery voice. She reached behind her neck and re-tied the bow of her halter top, pulling it a bit tighter under her tits, baring a little more of her sexy tummy. Billy stared down hopelessly into the   sweet cleavage between the snowy white mounds of her young breasts. "Ned's taking me on a picnic with his family and then he's taking me to go shopping at the new mall in Briscoe. Anyway, I hope to see you later. Please promise me you won't die before then."

Billy watched, shocked and speechless, as Tammy Sue walked off through the tall grasses surrounding the meadow and into the trees. She'd answered her cellphone and was no chattering happily away with one of her friends, maybe even Ned himself.

Life goes on.

Billy raised himself up on the cross with what seemed all of his remaining strength. The wood slid a little way out of his ass. The nails ripped and reopened the wounds in his feet and hands.

"Oh god, this is so unfair," he shouted to the blazing skies. "Why me? Why me?"

Minister Lentz tried to provide some scriptural answers to this eternal existential question but Billy wasn't listening. He was too lost in pain and grief. All the religious explanations in the world sounded like so much gibberish to him. This whole ritual was foolish. He'd been to the university. He knew there were other ways to survive a drought. This tradition was based on nothing but superstition and stupidity. There was no point to it at all. There was no god. He would die for nothing.

“I hate you god, I hate you!”

"You are going through the moment of extreme doubt," the pastor intoned dogmatically. He was used to these blasphemous outbursts from crucified boys and like to think that he knew how to coach them back into a more reverent attitude before they gave up the ghost. "Let it flow through you,” advised. “ This, too, shall pass. Didn't Jesus Himself feel forsaken by  His Father at the moment of His greatest tribulation on the cross?"

"Oh god," Billy groaned, desperate for some corner of sanctuary to escape from his suffering.  “Help me…”

His early years of religious conditioning and unquestioning faith were at last kicking in. There are no atheists in foxholes, it’s been said; there aren’t many nailed to the top of crosses either. Maybe the reverend is right, Billy thought. I am just having a moment of doubt. I must find my faith. If I am going to die up here, anyway, I should at least do so in the belief that it will serve some greater purpose. Something more important than just myself. And maybe, just maybe, if I pray hard enough it will rain…and they'll let me down.

Almost to the very end, Billy could not help but hope that at the penultimate moment the Lord would let the bitterest cup of all pass from his lips. Billy was, after all, only human…

He shouted out to the blazing hot sky. "Oh please god almighty in heaven let it rain! Please let it rain!"

It was a desperate hope, as most hopes are, but hope (and prayer) were all that Billy had left.

The pain in his wrists and ankles had spread until his whole body throbbed with an unendurable agony refreshed with each and every heartbeat. He hardly had the strength to lift himself up on his blood-soaked toes to draw air. He mumbled incoherently. Sometimes out loud--if he had any breath--but mostly inside his own mind. He heard his mother, at last giving way to emotion, weeping piteously beneath him. His body was soaked with sweat even now that  the sun had declined beyond the fallow field of sacrificial graves to the west. His body was wracked with violent chills and seizures. His teeth chattered. Perhaps he sensed it; perhaps not. He was dying.

Many of the townsfolk had now returned, their chores for the day done, having heard that Billy was passing over. They began to sing hymns of thanksgiving and praise to the Lord. A bonfire was lit to warm them from the night chill. The first stars pierced the slowly purpling sky. Cider was passed out; candied apples for the children. Tammy Sue was back and Ned Taylor had his arm around her slender waist, bare under the denim jacket she now wore, pulling her close. Billy’s eyes fluttered open and a look of sweet gratitude that she’d returned gave his features, though tortured, a look of almost feminine beauty. 

He knew that Tammy's tiny wrists and delicate feet would never know the cruel devastation of the iron spikes and he was glad for that. He was even glad that Ned was an only son in a family of girls. He wouldn't wish the pain he felt now on anyone; and Tammy Sue obviously found comfort in his arms. God bless them. Let his death enrich their lives, too. Let it make them happy. Let it make the entire community prosper.

Billy's father was one of those who had returned. He’d concluded his business unexpectedly early and had returned in time to see his son die. Tonight the boys at the bar would spot him to as many drinks as he could get down. Good times, not to be missed. It wasn’t every day a man had the honor. He’d had it twice and now never again. He hadn’t even had time to change his clothes. They said the boy was going fast. Figures, the faggot. He wasn’t forgetting how the boy had responded to that…damn, what did the preacher call it?...instilling the Holy Spirit, something like that….a gangbang up the poop-chute is what it was. A good old-fashioned cornholing and the boy took to it like he’d had that road traveled before. Queer as a hen with horns the boy was. Knew it for a long time now, too. He didn’t mind losing him, not at all, and was glad the pastor didn’t stand on ceremony when he suggested fixing the lottery so that Billy was chosen.

Now, with half the community watching, Tammy Sue once again stepped forward from the crowd. Everyone knew that she and Billy had been something of an item a while back in high school and many fully expected they would marry as soon as Billy graduated college. But Tammy Sue being a ripe girl and all—well, it wasn’t natural to expect her to wait. Besides, she let it out to just one or two friends and from there it got around that Billy wasn’t exactly all-man. He had this thing for Tammy Sue’s panties, see. He liked to get into them. Just like all the boys, you say? Not quite. He liked to get into them just like a girl gets into them. Well, that wasn’t Tammy Sue’s things. She was all-girl and she liked them all-boy.

Enter Ned Taylor. 

Country people were not sexual prudes contrary to popular belief. They see sex all the time. In the fields. In the barns.  It’s as natural to them as the rain—and as necessary.  And, when it came to ritual, of course, there was nothing off-limits. So they all watched with a mixture of sage appreciation and barely suppressed excitement as Tammy Sue shucked off her denim jacket and, in nothing but her revealing halter, daisy dukes, and sandals walked slowly and sexily towards the cross where the suffering boy was now in the process of dying.  She reached up and took Billy's limp cock in her soft white hand.

This time she wasn’t just trying to revive him or keep his spirits up-it was far too late for that. Billy's skin was burned an all-over bright pink, as if he’d been boiled, and he now made only the most rudimentary and occasional attempts to push himself up for air. No, this time Tammy Sue wasn’t engaging her doomed ex-boyfriend in a little playful sexual teasing. This time her job was to bring Billy  orgasm. To get him to voluntarily give it up—his seed and his life.

Tammy Sue took him in her small velvety hand and stared up into Billy’s tortured face.

She was actually quite taken aback. He looked positively awful, but Tammy Sue forced herself to smile anyway.

"Try to relax and enjoy this Billy," she said, with unaccustomed seriousness. "We need you to do this for us."

Tammy Sue gave a first-rate handjob and her technique did not fail her now. She began by slowly tickling the underside of Billy's glans; his penis responding in spite of his dire physical condition. As one, the crowd murmured its approval. The appreciative murmur grew steadily louder as Billy's erection began to build. It was a miracle—the crucified boy was fully erect, rock hard, his cock straining upwards from his tightened ball-sack even as he gasped for air, essentially suffocating. Tammy now had her hand gripped firmly around Billy's shaft and was slowly pumping his cock, the pad of one thumb on the little “trigger” of flesh just beneath the glans. Billy felt wave after wave of pleasurable sensation bathing his pelvis and spreading its euphoric warmth inexorably over the rest of his suffering, broken body. He felt an immense gratitude to the glory of the Lord—and, of course, his instrument of grace: Tammy Sue.

He had only one thought: please don't let me die before I come. His body stiffened in the grip of pleasure and that drove him up on his bloody tiptoes. He stayed there as long as he could and took one last deep gulp of oxygen.

Tammy Sue sensing how close Billy was to coming signaled to Miss Mclane who quickly strode forward with a special lambskin sheath to fit over Billy's cock.

"Hurry or he'll lose it," the older woman said between her teeth, though Billy well beyond hearing anything at this point.

Tammy Sue didn't need to be told. She vigorously pumped Billy's swollen—and now condom-encased—cock and felt him stiffen again, arching his spine, and throwing himself backward against the cross in spite of the devastating pain it cause his pierced hands and feet. The first jet of semen hissed satisfying into the condom. Tammy Sue felt the sudden warmth of the rubber. The second jet of cum was even stronger and more copious than the first. Tammy Sue gave a gleeful little cry. The crowd around echoed her excitement.

The pain his orgasmic spasm caused him forced Billy to cry out sharply—but whether in pain or pleasure he could no longer tell, the two were so perfectly married as one, just as he was to his cross. Thy will be done, Billy thought, as he squirted into the rubber, each convulsive wave of pleasure-pain a small ecstasy as Tammy Sue pumped the last bit of semen from his rapidly deflating cock. When she was certain that Billy was drained at last she let go and Miss Mclane stepped in to remove the condom in her typically brusque efficient fashion. Miss Mclane handed the little sack of creamy semen to Minister Lentz who declared it the seed that heaven sent down to refertilize their fields.

With such seed in hand, the Lord surely intended that the rain would follow soon.

The pastor said more, it was what pastors did at times like this, to make it all official but Billy heard little of the preacher’s words. He was still trying to struggle upwards for breath, at least in his mind, for his body was finished. He was still hoping against hope he could somehow, miraculously, survive. But it was not to be.

He heard the men conferring with his father and it was decided that it was time for Billy to be raised up to the sky in spirit as well as flesh. Mr. Jenkins came up with a short, thick iron pipe. Billy heard his mother wail but her cry was only briefly audible, spiking momentarily, and then quickly drowned in the cheers from the crowd. This is what they’d all been waiting for.

The sun was just a sliver of red in the west. Just the opposite of what Billy had seen that morning. It had all come full circle. It seemed so appropriate. That was the thought he had when Mr. Jenkins swung the short iron pipe twice. Each time breaking one of Billy's legs at the knee caps.

Billy gasped, all the air forced from his lungs. He’d bitten through his tongue and blood warmed his lips. He could no longer shimmy up the cross to gain any air, either to breathe or beg for mercy…not even to pray. The wooden cock, the god’s cock, as he came to think of it, was now buried to the base in his ass. Billy looked once towards his father. The old man’s face was taciturn and stoic to the end, giving up nothing. He glanced at his little brother Davey, who was watching him the way he would something cool on television. He glanced over to his mom, who was already proudly beaming, being congratulated by the other women of her circle. She must be so proud of her son…

And last, but not least, Billy scanned crowd at his feet for Tammy Sue. When he picked her out, she was smiling serenely, looking at him, but her shapely body pressed cozily against Ned's.

So that was that. Well, then, so be it.

No longer strong enough to hold it up, Billy let his head fall to his chest. At least no one could see his face at such a humiliating moment. For the pressure in his bladder had built up to the point where he knew the inevitable was about to occur. Maybe such modesty was misplaced at a time like this, after all that had already happened, and so much of it witnessed by so many people…but Billy was hardly in a rational state of mind.

He remembered his father telling him that he didn't want to embarrass himself on the cross. By which the old man meant he didn’t want Billy shitting himself in front of everyone. And now Billy was thankful for the fast he’d been made to observe, for Miss Mclane’s enemas, even for the thick phallic wood buried in his bowels since they would all help to spare him the final humiliation of making a smelly mess on himself in front of everyone. It was bad enough that he felt the hot piss burning the already burned skin between his thighs, running over his straining calves, splashing, already cold, on his pierced feet and bloody toes.

Once started, the rush of urine seemed to go on forever. He expected to hear laughter from the crowd, and there were some snickers, mostly from the younger kids, naturally, but for the most part, he heard only that now familiar murmur of approval. He supposed it was probably because losing his water this way signaled that Billy had at last surrendered, that he was finally about to die and that was the moment that they were all waiting for.

Indeed, it was rather surprising how many of them began shuffling off the moment after he pissed himself. The last drops hadn’t fallen from his limp and shrunken penis when they began leaving, like fans in the closing minutes of a game that’s already been decided. Either they thought he'd already died or figured that once a crucified boy pissed himself the difference between life and death were a mere technicality—he was as good as dead.

His father and brother had already left. Pastor Lentz along with his black book and droning voice had left. Mr. Carmichael and big Mr. Jenkins soon followed, trudging off to their pickups. Miss Mclane spent a spell chatting with Billy’s mom, and then the two of them left.

One by one, they all left by the time the sun slipped below the horizon, leaving Billy alone in the cold blue twilight. The air chilled his sunburned flesh and his trembling intensified. He felt death creeping up his from his frozen toes like a numbing tide of ice-cold water. He knew it would be soon now. He had long stopped even trying to lift himself up. His mouth was gaping open, but no air came in or went out. He was suffocating. He wasn't scared. He wanted it now. He wanted to leave his broken body behind and be raised to heaven.

And then something so unexpected happened that it changed everything. Something beautiful…and horrible, too.

Suddenly Billy wanted to lift himself up again, not just his spirit, but his body, too. He wanted to draw one last scorching breath, the air like burning gasoline in his lungs, and to shout it out.

The good news.

Maybe he could be saved after all.

He had felt it…once, twice, three times, several at a time….and then too many to count.

Raindrops

It was raining…yes, thank god, it was raining!

It was raining on a bluish corpse hanging from a cross in a meadow at twilight.

–the end—

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