Courted (6 page)

Sighing, Octavia studied the brightly colored
mosaics that decorated the walls of her courtyard. The nymphs being
ravished by satyrs failed to inspire her. As did everything
else.

It was springtime in Rome
and
April sunshine poured into the
peristyle like the nimbus of a god. Buttery rays of light danced
along the surface of the water in the fountain making happy-seeming
spangles on the nude figures of the Camenae, the goddesses of
wells, who frolicked in their flowing bath. Every freshly budding
flower reached toward the sun like an eager lover. The only thing
in the garden that was still withered or wintery was her
heart.

The expression on Aemilia's round face was
sympathetic. ”I know you’re still grieving, Octavia. I know. But
Symmachus would not have wanted you to be alone like this. It’s not
healthy. You don’t want your fossa to fill up with mud, simply
because you won’t let anyone dredge it. You can get hysteria that
way, you know.”

Octavia’s mouth quirked at
the crassness of Aemilia’s comment about how her “ditch” needed
digging out. Calling a lady’s privates
a
fossa was such an uncultured thing to do, but vulgarity had always
amused her.
Symmachus was right. I have the
sense of humor of a clodhopper.
A clear and
sudden memory of Symmachus laughing with her and teasing her as
they lay together talking after dinner on warm night, caused a wave
of sadness to wash over her, and she mourned his loss for what
seemed the millionth time.

Nevertheless, Aemilia was right and she
needed to rejoin the land of the living. Everyone knew if a woman,
especially one who had once been married, went too long without
having her womb moistened with a man’s seed, she could become very
ill. It wasn’t just a lack of orgasms that could be dangerous.
Without coitus, and in particular pleasurable coitus, her uterus
might tear loose from its moorings and wander throughout her body,
wreaking havoc wherever it went.

Then there was the fact she
was failing to uphold her duties to the Temple. Like the other
members of the Cult of Isis, she believed that sex was a sacred
act. It was not something that should to be lightly dismissed from
one’s life. Married people were encouraged to reserve their
libidinous impulses for their spouses, but a widow was not expected
to stop living when her husband did. It was considered more
unnatural to be continuously celibate than to take a lover. Octavia
was one of the most consequential supporters of Isis in Rome, but
despite the fact her husband had died more than three years before
she had not even
tried
to find companion for her lonely bed. Not even in a temporary
capacity.

Aemilia reached over and touched Octavia
gently on the arm. “I also know that sorrow can keep ‘the hoopoe
bird from raising its crest’, so to speak, but it is equally true
that once the crest rises happiness often comes with it, at least
for a short time. Don’t you think that would be worth the
effort?”

Octavia took a deep breath. “What do you
recommend? Because I cannot think of anything or anyone who would
... interest me.” Octavia just could not bring herself to speak
even euphemistically about something so profoundly naughty as the
clitorous.

“I think you should find a
gorgeous gladiator and let him sheath his sword in your scabbard
until you are
dēfutūta
,” Aemilia stated matter of factly.

Having just taken a sip of
her wine, Octavia choked on it. When she caught her breath, she
wheezed, “I should do
what
?”.

Her friend laughed at Octavia’s shock. “You
know very well that I have several gladiators in my stable. As does
my husband. Mergus and I even share a few! It would be a simple
matter to bring one to you.”

Octavia couldn’t help but be both appalled
and yet intrigued by the idea.

The men of the noble and
equestrian classes frequently looked at gladiatorial schools as
exclusive brothels where they could purchase delightfully muscled
flesh for their enjoyment. So did the women, although they had to
be more discreet about it. Everyone in Rome knew there were
liaisons between rich women and gladiators, but as long as the
women were subtle in their conduct, almost everyone indulged in the
polite fiction that they didn’t know the women were getting
gladiatorial swordplay on the sly. Nevertheless, until Aemilia
brought it up Octavia had never
considered
hiring one as a lover for herself.

The ranks of gladiators were
mostly made up of enslaved men, and the occasional enslaved woman,
trying to earn money to buy their freedom. More rarely, an already
freed person was willing to risk his or her life for the financial
rewards. While the fighters could become ludicrously famous, and
could even become wealthy if they found rich sponsors or were paid
vast sums to advertise products, they were so far down on the
social ladder that Octavia had never even met one. They were, like
actors and prostitutes,
infamae
. They had no honor, no
“reputation”. For her, gladiators existed only as a part of the
background, either as bodyguards for the wealthy or as sexual
playthings being paraded around by their proud and tacky
patrons.

She wasn’t a noble or
equestrian. Nor was she like Aemilia, the rich wife of an upwardly
mobile mogul. She was
patrician
. Her ancestors had been
appointed to the Senate by Romulus himself. She was descended from
two gods on her mother’s side and three on her father’s. Patricians
might indulge in orgies or other sexual endeavors in the same way
as their affluent plebeian neighbors, but they had to remain
circumspect. Patricians were expected to be more virtuous and more
in control of their baser urges than those who were made of more
common clay. If she were to be caught failing to maintain patrician
standards, she would be tried in the court of public opinion. Her
reputation would be thoroughly besmirched.

If she were going to take a
lover, he would have to be an
acceptable
partner. Not some infama.
At minimum, her lover should be a Roman citizen. Preferably, he
would be another patrician, or at the very minimum a noble. That
sort of liaison was infinitely forgivable if it were discovered.
But for her, a woman whose natal family was older than history
could record, to use a
gladiator
... it was only a small step up from
bestiality.

But oh, she was tempted.

She had to admit to herself that the idea of
taking such a wild man to her bed made long dormant needs begin to
stir between her thighs.

“I have to think about it more,” she finally
said.

“Why don’t you come with me to the final game
of the Ludi Megalenses?” Aemilia enthused. “That way you can look
them over and see if one tickles your little fancy.”

Octavia shook her head. “I don’t like
watching the untrained gladiators murder each other. I don’t even
like seeing the criminals being thrown to the beasts. It makes me
feel ill even to think of it.” Like many others who found value in
stoic philosophy, she admired gladiators for their acceptance of
fate but despised the games and the typical mass of
knuckle-dragging cretins who came to cheer for slaughter and
death.

Aemilia excepted, of course.

“Don’t come to that part, then. You can go to
a bath and wait, have yourself a nice soak and a massage. I can
send a slave to get you when the gladiator fights are about to
begin. There is a very respectable bath not two miles away from the
amphitheater and a fast slave can make that trip as quick as any
hare.”

Octavia hesitated before she
agreed, still not completely sure that she was ready to resume her
sex life, and even less sure if she wanted to use a gladiator for
her inaugural
futuō
. “Alright, I’ll come to a game. Let me be clear, however,
that I am not committing myself to picking a gladiator out and
letting him pound me like a cheap cut of meat against a wall. If,
and only
if
, I see
one I think is worth a try, then I’ll want him to come here. I
would prefer having him rattle my teeth out of my head in the
comfort of my own bedroom, thank you very much.”

Aemilia grinned and said, “That’s what you
think. We both know that there will be one who is so handsome you
won’t be able to resist him. He’ll slaughter his opponent, and you
will be overcome with lust for his manly manliness and his mighty
gladius. You’ll wind up having him top you off in your litter while
the poor bearers stagger around trying to keep balance.”

She then made a credible pantomime of a
litter bearer trying to keep his footing and match the rocking of
an enthusiastically copulating couple. Octavia laughed until she
had to wipe away tears, much to Aemilia’s delight.

“Ass,” Octavia said with
affection. “A gladius is a short sword, and if his penis is short,
I don’t care how mighty it is, I won’t bother to hire him. I am not
risking my reputation for anything under seven inches. Furthermore,
if one of the fighters slips up and kills his opponent, then I
won’t be filled with lust, I will be expelling bile. I will vomit
in your lap like a drunken cavalryman, and then it’s you who will
be
perfututum.
”

Aemilia shrugged. “I’m willing to be totally
fucked if you are.”

***

As she joined her friend in the Flavian
Amphitheater, Octavia had to admit that Aemilia’s plan had been a
good one. She had gotten a full treatment at the surprisingly
luxurious facilities of the bath where Aemilia had left her to
wait, and it had left her feeling blissfully rejuvenated. She had
been thoroughly oiled and scraped, gotten her nails trimmed, and
had even had one of the bath beauticians give her hair a henna
application to hide the grey. Octavia had swum laps in the bath’s
pool for half an hour, and was now enjoying the pleasant ache of
well-exercised limbs. She had taken a long soak in one of the hot
tubs and had emerged from it with tranquilized nerves and a relaxed
body. She had also followed Aemilia’s advice and gotten a lengthy
massage, with a cinnamon and clove scented pomade slathered all
over her at the finish. By the time Aemilia’s slave had arrived to
tell her it was nearing the start of the first gladiatorial fight,
Octavia was mellow to her bones. One simply could not be that upset
or tense about attending the games when one smelled delicious.

Moreover, Octavia was
feeling cheerful because she felt she looked as young and pretty as
a forty-three year old matron with grown children
could
look.

Several of her personal attendants had
accompanied her to the bath, because a Roman woman, especially a
Roman woman of her class, did not go out in public without
weapons-grade enhancements and styling. Her make-up artists had
applied her cosmetics with deft hands, making her eyes look
brighter and deeper set than they actually were. Her hairdressers
had arranged her locks in a seemingly simple top knot with becoming
ringlets surrounding her face. With her tresses brightened to their
youthful chestnut brown, she thought the style made her look almost
girlish.

“The color of your stola looks fabulous on
you,” Aemilia said approvingly when Octavia had joined her. “I
cannot wear that shade of amber; it makes me look like I died three
days ago. But you, you glow in it.”

“Thank you,” Octavia couldn’t help preening a
little. “It was made for me last year, but this is the first time
I’ve had occasion to wear it.”

Octavia was aware of several admiring glances
as she sat beside Aemilia and her friend’s retinue. It had been so
long since she had been out in public that she had almost forgotten
how pleasing it was to be seen as attractive. With Symmachus gone
she had feared she would never be looked at with masculine
appreciation again -- or that she would never want to be.

“It’s about time you got out of the house and
showed off a bit,” Aemilia said. “Where did your dressmaker get the
ribbons for belting? They match the garnets in your earrings
exactly.”

“Akila got them specially
dyed.” Octavia replied. “I wasn’t sure about the trim at first but
Akila was right; she always is.” The red wine color of the silk
belts that girded the stola under her breasts and around her waist
stood out sharply against the ripe-wheat hue of her gown, and drew
attention to her fashionable figure. The fibulae that clasped her
stola together on her shoulders were gold pins topped with buttons
of blue-lace agate. The palla she wore draped around her body
should have been white by tradition, but like most Roman women she
often ignored this convention. Her palla was instead a dusky deep
pink that echoed the highlights of her ribbons, and the tell-tale
stripe on it that marked
a citizen who had
given her husband (or husbands, considering the divorce rate) at
least three living children was the same golden umber as her
tunica.

“I need to have Akila help my seamstress make
me a new stola for the Matralia in June. Maybe two new ones, since
I’ve got to go to at least three weddings that month.” Aemilia
said.

“Of course Akila will help,” Octavia assured
her friend. “She brought home a gorgeous bolt of deep grey wool
that she suggested I give to you as a present, because it would be
such a good color on you. We could use that to start.”

“Grey?” Aemilia looked skeptical. “I don’t
know if I want grey.”