Epea tried to adjust herself a little to get more comfortable on the wall. The high relief sculpture of the wall held her cruelly in its grasp. It was the kind of wall that was carved from a single giant piece of stone, the sculpture carved into its face making an ornate and beautiful wall. She looked up to see the strong thin rope that was looped over part of the stone grape vine over her head and tied around her wrists. Her long shining brown hair, that was usually hanging in carefully arranged delicate curls, was now a mess of wild corkscrews. Some of the curls were wet and matted to her skin with sweat as the late morning sun beat down on her catching the golden highlights in her hair beautifully.
The sculpture of the Greek God Dionysus grinned back merrily at her as she looked upon its face. Her body was impaled harshly upon its erect stone phallus. Her weight and the manner in which she was tied making it difficult for her to move, let alone get comfortable.
Epea pushed against the sculpture with her feet and legs, trying to hold herself up off of the phallus so it didn't split her quite so wide. Her legs flexed trying to hold herself for some relief from the pain like a person who was rappeling but got stuck on a sharp rock outcropping. Every time she let her legs rest, then her weight would pull her down so harshly on the phallus that she would weep from the pain of it.
Dionysus, the God of Wine, also called Bacchus by the Romans. The God who caused madness in women, and men to chase the wild nymphs through the forest in hopes of capturing them for a bestial mating ritual. The same God that was thought to be more beautiful than classically handsome, even androgynous to a point in how fine and pretty His features were. Yet Dionysus was definitely male beyond a shadow of a doubt in anyone's mind.
Epea looked on His smiling face and felt very insecure in her own beauty. She wasn't a gorgeous girl, nor an ugly girl. Epea was rather a plain, quiet girl, but her heart was far from being plain. She was a person who was very loving and would give whatever she could to help others.
She heard a scornful voice behind her as a man passed by. "Idiot! Always doubting the Gods! You should be punished for your crimes against them."
She wept softly there, with her head resting against her arm and her wild hair veiling her face from the sight of others, the phallus painful inside her tight sex. White marble streaked with grey and well greased to make sure it penetrated her deeply. Her body felt bruised and aching from the two-inch thick shaft and settled down the entire nine inches of length. Her sex was a blossom of pain after hanging there on that wall for so long. The city went on about its business behind her as if life were normal, because for them, it was.
Every day the people of the city saw new people mounted on the Wall of Pride. Sometimes they died there from the exposure, thirst, or from the pain. Sometimes they lived to tell the tale, but if they lived, they were always changed somehow. When the priests and priestesses from the temple asked what had occurred, they refused to answer. The clergy felt that their method of rehabilitation was therefore working well as these people would go on to become model devotees of the Gods.
Her tears stopped being able to come to her eyes and the thirst increased in the early afternoon sun. She hadn't had any anything to drink since shortly before they led her from the temple. The priestesses laughing at her and then dunked her head in wine, when she asked for water, holding her head under the surface of the wine until her lungs burned with the need to breathe. Still begging for water they finally let her drink, but not near enough to slake her thirst. The water wasn't enough to carry her through the day in the full light of the hot sun and her throat felt parched and scratchy.
A little while later a group of people stopped behind her, and she looked down over her shoulder to see a young extremely handsome man standing in the same ropes she wore and nothing else. The priests and priestesses had come out of the temple and were escorting this man to the wall where she hung.
The man stepped forward and looked up at the wall. He raised his face for Epea to see in the full light of the sun. Dark curling hair, with even darker eyes, dark browned skin from many hours in the sun, and a pair of cherubic lips that seemed to tremble as he looked up high at the empty places on the wall beside her. His body was strong, and well muscled as if he spent long hours doing hard work. From the way he stood and from his coloring, she was reminded of some of the olive farmers that lived not to far from her.
An ancient-looking man stepped forward from the knot of clergy around him and spoke loudly for all to hear this fresh faced young man's crimes. "For your offenses to the Gods, for hubris in comparing yourself to Apollo's shining glory, and for daring to say that you rivaled His skill with the lute, you are sentenced to be mounted and hung on Apollo's likeness here on the Wall of Pride." The very old priest announced as two young priestesses made sure the man's ropes were tight around his wrists. "Do you have anything you wish to say in your defense?"
"I can play the lute as well as Apollo." He said defiantly. "Just hand me a lute, I will play and see if He dares to show to challenge me." The young man's eyes fell on a slightly older man with long chestnut brown hair and well-tanned skin, but without the muscle definition that comes from hard manual labor.
The priest that the defiant man looked at turned away. His face reddening noticeably until he pulled his hood around his face.
The priests and priestesses gasped at the statement. Even Epea, hanging on Dionysus' erect stone phallus winced at the way the youth pushed his luck.
