Gore Vidal’s Caligula (9 page)

“How will they receive me at Rome?” Tiberius asked his grandson as they walked.

Whore’s piss! So the old bastard was really planning to return!

“With joy,” Caligula sighed tenderly, smiling his most affectionate smile.

“They ought,” snapped Tiberius. “I have done my best for my people. I swear I have.”

He watched Caligula closely as they entered the groves and glades of the villa, looking for signs of disaffection, but Caligula spoke pleasingly about the triumphal reception Tiberius was sure to receive. All Rome would come out to greet him, walking as far as the thirtieth milestone or farther, Caligula promised, and Tiberius accepted this as Vesta’s own truth. The most patrician of the Senators would be dispatched to Ostia, Caligula vowed to escort Tiberius’ trireme to Rome. Statues of Tiberius would be erected all along the banks of the river Tiber, and they would be wreathed in laurel leaves fashioned of the purest gold. The wreaths would then become Tiberius’ property, of course.

“Of course,” murmured Tiberius.

No expense had been spared to make Tiberius’ retreat as “rustic” and sylvan as possible. Olive trees shone silvery-blue next to the feathery plumage of honey locust and acacia. Willows stared like Narcissus at their reflections in hidden pools. It was a setting worthy of those mythological creatures, the fauns, nymphs and satyrs.

It surprised Caligula not at all therefore, to come upon a young satyr making love to two nymphs in a sun-dappled glade. The boy, whom Caligula guessed to be about eighteen, stood with his hind hooves braced, his tail against a tree. Bending before him, small round buttocks presented to his cock, was one of the most delicately beautiful creatures Caligula had ever laid eyes on. Her hair was of palest gold, wound round with a coronet of woodland wildflowers. Her diaphanous dress, pulled up to her waist, seemed woven for a divine nymph. The girl’s hands were braced upon her knees, so that the thrusting of the satyr’s pole would not topple her. And pole it was, Caligula saw with a stab of envy—fully ten inches in length and correspondingly thick.

Another nymph stood next to the satyr, her back against the same tree, as though waiting her turn. Her hands cupped the mighty genitals, and she rubbed and fondled them as he fucked. This nymph’s hair was jet black and hung free down below her waist. Her thin gown was pulled off one shoulder, exposing a round breast at which the satyr suckled with evident enjoyment.

When the trio caught sight of the Emperor Tiberius, the dark girl turned her body so that it faced the Emperor. Without taking her breast from the satyr’s mouth, she lifted her dress and spread the lips of her cunt for him to see. Then all three creatures froze in position, like an erotic frieze on the walls of a house of prostitution.

Tiberius stopped to admire the trio. “Lovely, aren’t they?” he commented.

“Yes, Caesar,” agreed Caligula sincerely. “New?”

Tiberius strolled around the three young bodies as though they were statues. He patted a curve here, a hairy appendage there, inserted a finger, stroked a lock of hair.

“The satyr is from Illyria,” he told Caligula. “This nymph is from . . . from . . .”

“Britain, Lord,” said the blonde girl softly, not rising from her bent-over position. The satyr was still deep inside her.

“Speaking
statues.” Tiberius beamed at Caligula, like a child with a new plaything.

“The best kind,” avowed Caligula. He too took a stroll around the “statues”, admiring the cunning way that the horns, hooves and tail had been fastened on the satyr, and eyeing the nymphs. He was almost afraid to touch them—they were Tiberius’ property—but he loosened the top of the blonde girl’s tunic, freeing her small, pointed breasts, and touched one stiff, rosebud nipple gently, then the other.

“You prefer nymphs to satyrs?” Tiberius asked him curiously.

“I like both,” Caligula replied. He gave the hairy balls of the satyr a squeeze and ran his fingers over the crack of the boy’s ass.

“One needs both to keep healthy,” advised Tiberius. He clapped his hands.

At once the statues came to life again, forming and reforming into intricate erotic combinations. As he watched, Tiberius thrust his hand under his “crutch’s” loincloth manipulating her clitoris.

Before him, on the grass, the blonde and the brunette were lapping at each other’s cunts, and the satyr was buggering the dark girl’s anus. In a few minutes, her cunt was impaled on his cock, her legs wrapped around his waist as he fucked her in a standing position, while the blonde crouched beneath them, her tongue licking at them both.

“Never forget, Caligula, that Rome is a republic and that you and I are simply plain citizens,” said Tiberius piously. He leaned forward to stroke the buttocks of the young satyr. “A bit more conviction, please.”

The satyr became more frenzied in his movements ramming so deep that the dark girl moaned in pain.

“But you are a god, Caesar,” protested Caligula.

“No!” came the sharp retort. “None of that. Not even when I’m dead.”

Caligula could tell that Tiberius meant what he said, but he couldn’t understand why. Not want to be a god! Not want to be apotheosized, lifted from this mortal earth into the immortal pantheon of the blessed gods! It was beyond him.

“But your father and grandfather, Julius Caesar and Augustus, they are gods now . . .”

“So we
say,”
replied Tiberius. “And so the people like to believe. But we are only men, Caligula. With one short life to lead.” His face was serious, almost dignified despite the sores.

They were now heading toward a dark, almost hidden grove, where the weakening rays of the sun could scarcely penetrate. Dimly, Caligula could make out three struggling figures. As they drew closer, Tiberius added, “So make life full.” He waved a hand in the direction of the grove indicating to Caligula that he was to enter.

Now the three struggling figures were clearer. All were naked. There were two tall black men, and one stunning white girl, slender and with the fairest skin that Caligula had ever seen. Celt, of course. Only the Celtic race combined eyes as blue as hers with hair so black and skin so white.

The girl was being taken by force. The taller of the two men was holding her twisting body off the ground, bracing her against his chest while his large hands forced her legs apart. The other man stood between her parted legs, raping her brutally. Caligula watched, his mouth open in lust, his tongue licking feebly at his dry lips. The girl squirmed and struggled, begging for mercy, but the rapist continued his pounding for several minutes before he withdrew, still hard, and grinning in pleasure.

The lovely girl’s trials were only beginning. Now she was hurled to the ground, moaning softly as she sprawled on her hands and knees, her large breasts hanging down. At once, the man who had held her prisoner took his turn, ramming her cruelly from behind as she knelt. The other man stationed himself in front of her and thrust into her mouth, forcing her to suck him. Then the two men changed positions again, handling the crying girl as if she were no more than a pillow or some other inanimate object. One man lay flat on the grass, his erect penis pointing up. The other man lifted the girl high in the air and lowered her reluctant body directly onto the hard cock, letting it slip between her round white buttocks and drive deep into her anus. She screamed in pain, and both men laughed.

Now the man who had lifted her knelt between his friend’s legs and aimed his abnormally thick penis at her cunt, pushing with all his might. The girl, stretched to the point of agony, begged for mercy. She could not receive this fresh assault; he was too big.

Caligula’s own cock was hard as granite under his own tunic, and he longed for relief. God, how he wanted the heavy lips of Tiberius’ “crutch” to ease him off.

“I think he’s the best of my stallions,” Tiberius remarked with a connoisseur’s judgment as he watched. Then he turned to Caligula and resumed his political lecture.

“Serve the state well, even though the people in it are wicked beasts.”

“They love you, Lord,” Caligula croaked, his eyes on the spectacle before him.

“No,” The Emperor shrugged. “But at least I’ve made them fear me.” He turned to the weeping girl. “You can take it all,” he told her gently. “But you must relax.”

The girl obeyed at once, stretching herself out on the first man and opening her thighs as wide as she could. The other man immediately crammed his full length into her, and the three bodies began to sway in rhythm.

Caligula stood hypnotized, watching them. He couldn’t take his eyes off the girl’s pale loins, filled in both holes by heavy, thrusting flesh. The girl was moaning again, but they were deep moans of pleasure now, and she bucked and jerked enthusiastically. Then twisting her head, she sought the mouth of the man beneath her and thrust her tongue deeply into it.

Caligula saw that the dark fingers of Tiberius’ “crutch” were under her loincloth, busily working in the moist center of pleasure they found there.

Only Tiberius seemed unmoved by the action. He turned to Caligula, willing the younger man’s eyes away from the performance. “I had no choice,” the Emperor continued.

“But, Caesar . . .”

“I actually wanted to restore the old republic. No one believes me. But I really did want to let the Senate govern. The way we still pretend it does. But . . .” Tiberius shrugged again, eloquently.

By now the trio of entwined lovers had come to their climax. Sobbing grunting all three fell into a sweaty heap.

Tiberius looked down at the spent bodies. Stooping to caress the girl, he murmured, “There . . . That wasn’t so difficult, was it?”

The exhausted girl could only smile wearily and nod.

“Men
want
to be slaves.” As he continued the political education of his grandson, the Emperor beckoned the two black boys to their feet. “They want a master. They hate him, of course.” He ran his aged hands down the backs of the two men, fondling their buttocks. “And heaven knows it’s thankless work. For us. But when we die . . .” His hand weighed the two pairs of balls, and then he pulled lovingly at the two penises. “Or are killed,” he went on, “why, they’ll just go and choose someone exactly like us. I got these two blacks from Nubia. Ten gold talents for the pair. What do you think?” he asked Caligula.

Ten gold talents! It was an Emperor’s ransom. “A bargain, Caesar,” responded Caligula smoothly. “They’re . . . dazzling.”

Tiberius nodded without emotion. “I can do very little nowadays. But I’m an excellent audience.”

And an insatiable one, Caligula knew. Having watched two performances, not to mention Tiberius’ “shoal of minnows”, he was quite willing to settle for a quick orgasm, a slow bath and a good meal. But Tiberius was not yet sated.

The next grove yielded up a special treasure, a group of acrobatic dancers from Crete. There were four boys and two girls, each with a startling physical resemblance to the others; they were brothers and sisters. With lightning precision and swiftness, they performed for the Emperor and his princeling a sexual ballet of remarkable complexity. Their bodies were so supple, so athletically trained, that they could hold the most astonishing positions with no sign of strain. Caligula really had to marvel at their skill, while Tiberius positively glowed with pride.

First, the boys formed a daisy-chain with closed ends, each boy fucking his brother ahead of him. Meanwhile, the smaller of the sisters flipped herself onto her hands in front of the other girl and remained balanced upside down, so that they could perform a standing sixty-nine. Tiberius was moved to polite applause.

The next trick was a pyramid. The two strongest of the boys braced themselves side by side, while one sister knelt in front of them. Onto their shoulders leaped the other two boys, their cocks facing their brothers’ mouths. The boys on the bottom hoisted their remaining sister to the top of the heap. When they were all in position, the kneeling sister sucked the cocks of the two boys before her. The brothers in the row above thrust their cocks into the mouth of the brothers below, and took turns plunging their tongues into the cunt of the top of the pyramid, their baby sister.

Caligula felt the juices in his mouth begin to flow. He, too, wanted to suck on something—a nipple, a ball, a cock, but something! He cast an agonized glance at Tiberius, who gave him a tolerant nod of consent.

Leaping forward, Caligula tore at his tunic until his throbbing erection was exposed. Coming up behind the taller of the boys on the bottom, he plunged his cock deep into the boy’s ass. Ahhhhhhhhh, it was soooo good! Orgasm soon released him.

Satisfied, he returned to Tiberius’ side, continuing to watch the sexual acrobatics as the Emperor went on with his political lecture and life story.

“I never wanted to be Emperor. All I wanted was a private life. I loved my first wife.” This at least was true; all Rome knew it. Tiberius had cast such longing glances after Vipsania on the street, even after he’d been forced to divorce her, that his mother Livia, the Emperor Augustus’ wife, had sent Vipsania out of Rome, and Tiberius had never laid eyes on her again. “But Augustus made me divorce her. Made me marry his daughter. I hated that woman.” That was true as well. Almost everybody in Rome had fucked Julia behind Tiberius’ back, until her father the Emperor, enraged, had exiled her for life. “But I had to marry her.” Tiberius was almost maudlin now. “Just the way I had to become Emperor . . .”

Genuinely curious, Caligula dared to interrupt. “Why did you
have
to become Emperor?”

The Cretan dancers were now reaching the climax of their act, but Caligula had lost interest. Only Tiberius watched closely as they formed a series of living tableaux of perverted sexuality. One by one, all the animals in the barnyard were created out of their own living flesh. When they formed themselves into a horse by joining their bodies together in incestuous union, they looked in outline so convincingly like a horse that Tiberius clapped his hands in glee. Then they made a camel and a giraffe.

“To save my life,” he replied to Caligula, still keeping his eyes on the giraffe. “Had someone else succeeded, I would have been killed. The way you will be . . .”