I zoomed the camera to get a closer view of Camille's face. She looked so beautiful in her ordeal.

I have a romantic view of martyrs, one I was fed in school, in the church and the movies. Suffering elevated to the sacred.

There are emotions involved as well. I noticed my tendency to feel emotional towards those girls who were in trouble. Those wonderful damsels in distress I found in the movies and the comics.

I am not alone in this, of course. There wouldn't be an industry if I was, but way back then I did feel alone and odd.

The image I projected was so different. I was the cute kid, the gentle, intelligent kid. Friendly, loved by all, popular.

I was not odd. And yet I had the feeling that I had to be odd because I had this preference in life.

My mind was reeling with thoughts as I was in the process of creating, formulating, visually articulating an image I pursued for years, an image that I could not find the way I wanted it.

I was overcoming a long held frustration. I was expressing a desire. I was creating art in the form of a performance and passing it to video. I was making my odd little film, the one I never saw in the silver screen. And with a VHS!

I had a strong motivation. The recording of the very images I was always looking for and could never find. Camille was providing with the face, the expression, the body and she was doing it so well.

She was Leticia and Eulalia and Julia and all of those crucified martyrs I read about or invented in my dreams.

Camille was making this fantasy a reality and if this was the last time I worked with her I was going to get the best out of it.

I was motivated, my arm was motivated, the whip had the force of my motivation, my groin was swelling and feeding my motivation. I was having so much fun I felt guilty.

Leticia bore her punishment with dignity, she didn't cry for mercy even if sometimes the whip made her scream and cry in pain. She didn't squirm like a worm begging to be killed at once.

She took her punishment for herself and for her husband, her dear, beloved husband, victim of a conspiracy he knew was growing within the ranks of the most terrifying elements of the ruling senate.

He was worried that a plot was emerging to eliminate Ceasar, he had confided his fears to a very few, trusted friends.

Perhaps one of them or all of them were part of the plot, perhaps that's why they killed him and they knew Leticia was aware of their plot because she was the lover and confidant of the young senator.

That's the reason why she was suffering the execution reserved to slaves.

If her husband had simply imagined what was to befall them he would've made sure to eliminate his enemies before they got to him but he didn't know who his enemies were.

At first Leticia thought that the crime was one of passion. She suspected that her poor faithful servant was in love with the senator. The way she looked at him, the glow in her face when he walked into a room where she was.

She was his servant before Leticia married him. She served his house since her childhood, practically growing up with the senator. She was his playmate as children and maybe his secret lover when they were teenagers.

She watched him become a man and a senator and one day she saw Leticia, the princess from a foreign land, enter their life.

And it was very moving to me that she was giving herself to me in this way.

She shook and swayed to her side trying to avoid a direct hit. She didn't like it as much.

She preferred the whip on her back and legs, even if I hit harder. She could resist a leather belt on her buttocks any time, but the whip on her breasts were her biggest complaint. And yet she resisted.

I directed the whip to her nipples, knowing full well of the consequences. I knew she would want retribution and I knew what part of my anatomy was the center of her revenge.

Still I went for it.