The Roman brings the board to your cell every day and you play for an hour, sometimes two, occasionally longer.
You are careful about your victories: you win occasionally, but not often. After your first three games, you realize you could beat her almost every time. You are exceptional at anything that involves strategy. Your father taught you everything he knew, when you were a child, and by the time you'd reached your sixteenth year, when the Romans were pressing closer and closer to your lands, you were among the most effective military strategists in your city.
Nobody knew that, of course. The elders would never have listened to a girl. So you would tell your plans to your brother, Charles, and he would present them for you. The accolades came to him, with you, always behind his shoulder, his valiant sister-in-arms.
At your twenty-sixth year, after a decade of deferring to your better instincts, Charles tired of taking your guidance and insisted he could develop his own battle strategies.
The first time, his plan worked. The second time, two-thirds of your army was killed and the remaining third taken prisoner. Charles counted among the dead. So did your lover, Wolcott. Had you known you would spend your next year on the road and in the Roman marketplace, and the following six years enslaved in a Roman brothel, you would have fallen on your sword to join them, gods' repercussions be damned.
But now, your skills in military tactics translate well to this game of latrunculi. Often, as you play, you decide upon your own best move and then upon the move Charles would have made. You make Charles' move every time. The Lady Myka is a strong strategist as well—her armies would have defeated Charles', you think bemusedly, but not your own. Still, she makes it easy for your losses to seem inadvertent.
"You're a very strong player at this game," you say to her, one day.
"I've been playing since I was a child," she replies. "My father hates it."
"Why?" you ask.
"He says it's not appropriate for a lady."
Your gaze shifts to her soldier's sandals and the gladius on her hip. "It seems there is much about you that is not… appropriate for a lady."
She smiles at that. "Indeed."
You cock an eyebrow, waiting for more.
"Pete, one of the trainers here, has been coaching me in swordsmanship for many years," she says. "Usually, when I visit you, it's before or after I meet with him, and dresses aren't convenient for practice."
"Why would a noblewoman such as yourself wish to train in combat?" you ask, giving her a look which, you hope, is an appropriate mix of scandalized and intrigued.
It seems to work. She smiles and looks down. "I enjoy it," she says. "And I. . . don't like to feel helpless."
"It's admirable," you say, as you slide your Eagle across the board in a gesture that seems evasive, but where you know she will pin it in five moves.
\\
Your back is at that late stage of healing where scabs turn to scars, and their itch is almost unbearable. During your game, the Domina notices your discomfort and asks you about it.
Later that day, Claudia visits your cell carrying a small pot of salve. The pot is ornate and you know it is not from the medical stores of the ludus.
"For the itching," Claudia says.
The lovely Roman has taken your bait.
\\
The healer says you must begin to walk. Claudia and Leena stop by once each every day and brace you as you walk slow circles around your small room. Domina does it, too. At the end of your daily matches, she slips her arm beneath your shoulders and lets you lean heavily on her as your knees wobble, working to remember how to support you.
"You're showing such fantastic improvement," she says to you. Her hand slides from your ribs down to your hip, shifting you higher, closer as you slowly move across the room.
"Thank you, Domina." You let your fingers tighten around her bicep.
\\
"I believe that's game," she says, as she slides her final piece into place. She's not looking at the board—she's smiling cockily at you, her eyes trained on your face for your reaction.
Your hand reaches out to cover hers before she can lift her fingers from the stone.
"Indeed," you reply, "that's game." You pick her hand up and turn it palm-up in yours. It's her sword hand, and your fingers trace over the calluses along her fingers, across her palm. Your eyes flit up to her face and she's not smiling anymore. Her lips are parted, gaze fixed on your fingertips. You trace a fingernail down one of the long creases of her palm, and her nostrils flare.
"Such a beautiful swordsman's hand," you murmur, before you bring your lips down to her pale palm, letting them linger there.
Her breath hitches. You bring your kiss to the tip of her first and second fingers, pressed together. Then to the soft inside of her wrist. Her forearm. Her elbow. The movement brings you closer to her, around the game board where she has trapped all of your pieces. Your hand wraps around her wrist and you feel her pulse thundering there, faster and faster.
You trail your nose over the fabric of the toga that covers her shoulder. Your lips—soft, now, from the beeswax that Leena brought you—press gently to the curve of the base of her neck. You feel her harsh intake of breath against your shoulder, and you open your mouth, wetting her skin with your tongue.
A strangled sound comes from her throat, just inches from your lips, and you feel her arms wrap themselves around you. She falls back on to the blanket and pulls you with her, fingers of one hand slipping themselves into your hair, cradling your head as your teeth and tongue pepper her neck.
"Helena," she gasps, when you latch on to her earlobe. You flick its sensitive tip with your tongue and her hips press upward into yours; you shift so that your thigh settles between hers and you give her an answering push down.
Your fingers drift downward, finding the opening of her toga and beginning to pull the cloth apart, when her hands bring themselves to both sides of your head and lift you away.
"Helena," she says softly, the irises of her green eyes dilated, nearly blackened with desire. "Helena, I—I hope you're not doing this because… I know some domini demand… things… of their slaves but I hope you know that I… I would never…"
You quirk your eyebrows at her. She swallows, combs her fingers through your hair, tries again: "You have no duty to share your body with me, Helena. I would never demand that of you. If we… if we do this, it has to be because you want it, too."
You smile at her with your lips and bring them to touch hers before she can see it doesn't reach your eyes. Her mouth opens hungrily to yours and she pulls at the belt of your simple tunic even as she arches up to give you space to untangle her from her toga. Your lips leave hers flushed and swollen to latch themselves to her neck, again, as your fingers trail down to caress her chest, her abdomen. When you cover her breasts with your palms she whimpers and arcs up to you, covers your hands with hers. She likes this, then. You play—first gently, and then firmly—with her nipples, until her entire form is taut and melodious as the tuned skin of a war drum. She wants this—wants you—so badly that when your fingers slip between her legs, when they ease inside her, your thumb need only circle once, twice, three times before she comes apart beneath you, teeth sunk into the flesh of her own forearm, your lips mouthing at the inside swell of her breast.
You shift to roll onto your side, beside her, but she stops you with a hand on your hip. Her eyes blink back into focus and her fingers slide back and down your thigh as she encourages you to lift your knee, and then she's sitting up under you and your legs are parted over her lap. You didn't expect this—for her green eyes to gaze up at you, wide and trusting and wanting, brow furrowed as she watches you while her touch travels your skin. She watches for smiles and shudders, for the dilation of your pupils, for the sounds and shivers that say yes, there, right there.
She is inexperienced at this, you can tell, but not a complete novice. Her lack of finesse is compensated by her earnestness. She licks and teases delicately at your breasts while her hands caress your sides and buttocks. Your head tips forward against her shoulder when her hand trails down your stomach and between your thighs. She cups you gently, then wets two fingers in her mouth and slides them over your clitoris. It's been a long, long time since you last did this with someone who cared about your pleasure and you let yourself sink into her tenderness. Your still-weak thighs burn as your hips move against her hand, and her mouth presses warmth behind your ear. You reach down to guide her fingers to exactly the right place.
"Is this good?" she asks, and you respond by biting her shoulder and rocking once, twice more against her touch before your orgasm, short and rich, overtakes you.
You move to recline together on the blanket, on your sides facing one another. She has covered you both with the second blanket. She smiles fondly at you. Long strands of her hair have come loose from her tight knot, and you twirl one of them between your fingers.
"That was…" she says, and shakes her heads like she has no words. Her fingernails trace up and down your forearm.
"I know." You grin at her, conspiratorially. You lie quietly for a moment, and then you ask, "If you don't mind my asking, Domina—"
"Myka," she cuts in. You raise your eyebrows at her, and she clarifies: "Lying here like this, after what we've done, is not a time for titles. You should call me by my name. And, please, ask your question."
You nod, once, demurely. "This wasn't your first time, was it?" You know it wasn't. You've endured enough first times to know what those feel like. But she doesn't know that, and you know she's not married. There are strong prohibitions in Rome against sex outside of marriage for women.
She smiles a little, sadly, and rolls onto her back. You wonder if you've upset her, and the possibility that you've so easily brought a flash of pain to the heart of a Roman lights a flare of pride in your chest. But it wouldn't do to perform that, so you pull your lips into a frown and murmur, "I'm sorry, Domina—Myka—I didn't mean to offend, or to pry."
"No," she says, "It's fine." She lies quietly for a moment and you watch the gentle rise and fall of her chest beneath the blanket. "I was engaged to be married, once," she says, finally.
"Oh?" you ask.
"Sam was a wonderful man. Kind, and smart, and handsome. He respected me, respected my interests. He was the one who first taught me to handle a gladius." Her face offers a small smile. You lean forward and rest your chin on her shoulder; she carefully curls her arm around your back.
"He was in the army. A truly talented soldier, climbing the ranks. When we became engaged, he was set to be promoted to oversee a fortress on the borderlands of the empire, in Gaul. We were going to travel there together. But before we could be married he was called away to settle a Germanic uprising just north of here." She's blinking faster now. "Apparently the battle was far more difficult than anyone anticipated," she says, finally. "Our army won, but many good soldiers died."
She leaves it there, lets you make the tiny connection between her sentences. You cannot help but wonder how many Germanic casualties fell to the near-unstoppable Roman military.
"We were together a few times, after we were engaged and before he left," she finishes. "It was five years ago."
"I'm so sorry," you say, and her face indicates that she believes you.
You lie quietly for a moment, and you're feeling rash so you begin again: "If I may ask another question, Domina—"
"Myka," she says firmly, squeezing you closer. "And yes, of course."
"Was this your first time with—"
"—a woman?" she finishes for you. "No."
"I was going to say a slave, actually."
She lies quietly for a long time. You think she won't answer, and you won't press. Just as you've given up, she takes a deep breath, and says, "No, it's not my first time with a slave, either."
You can't help but tense up before you can convince yourself to relax.
"It's not what you think," she says. "I—gods, I shouldn't be telling you this. If people knew…"
"Come, now," you say, with the best smile you can muster. "Who could I possibly tell? And who would believe me if I did?"
She closes her eyes and lies still for a long moment, and again, you think she will not continue. But, again, she takes a deep breath, and says, quietly, "I went to a brothel once."
Your force your body to remain relaxed, to subdue the reflex of revulsion and flight that strikes you.
"Which one?" It's an improperly abrupt question, but you need to know. You wonder briefly if it's possible she might have been in your bed sometime in the past; if her face could have disappeared into the litany of faces with whom you… spent time.
Her head turns and she looks at you. Her brow furrows, and you can all but see the pieces sliding in her head, drawing conclusions about you and your past.
"Sykes,'" she says, eventually. "Across the city, where nobody knew me and I could be discreet."
You let out a breath. You were at McPherson's, though you knew some women who had worked for Sykes before McPherson bought them.
Her eyes narrow a little as she gazes at you, like she's trying to see through your eyes to the whirling mind behind them.
"I was overwhelmed with grief, after Sam," she says, as she lies back again. "And I was so lonely, so desperately lonely. So… I went. I asked for a woman because it seemed safer, less scandalous. She was beautiful, and she was tender with me. Her touch felt wonderful, but... it was different. Without desire for the other person, it just felt rehearsed, somehow. Hollow. Not like with Sam." She pauses. "Or with you."
"Hmm," you say, and you lift yourself up on your arms to kiss her, gently, while you think about the woman at Sykes' brothel whom Myka had, however unwittingly, abused.
"It didn't occur to me until much later that she was a slave," she says, caressing your face after you pull back. "Of course it felt hollow. She had no choice about being with me. That's when I swore I would never…" She trails off, looks away, and then back at you, the edge of something frantic in her eyes. "You wanted this, right?" She squeezes you, caresses your naked hip with her fingertips, under the blanket. "Tell me you wanted this."
You smile down at her. You imagine the slave whose body she purchased, the Germanic villages her fiancé undoubtedly slaughtered. You stare at her blind innocence at the center of it all. Your head tips down to her as your hand slides up and rests across her fragile throat, where her pulse beats hard against the heel of your hand. And you kiss her, instead of answering, before she can see the mayhem in your eyes.
