Dixus is summoned to the villa for a surprising encounter.
Terms: A little bit about Ancient Roman swear words: "Fuck," or futuo, was not always pejorative. Instead, another word was considered far fouler: landica, for clitoris (equivalent of the c-t word in nastiness). "People swear about what they care about, and the Romans cared about the clitoris. They thought that both male and female partners in intercourse had to achieve orgasm for conception to occur, a wrong, but gallant, idea."
catamite: insulting term for passive partner in homosexual encounter
mingo: piss
digitus impudicus: flipping someone the bird
The mouth was considered a sacred body part, so anything to do with it, such as a foreign substance or object going into it was seen as very vulgar. In addition because Clan bloodlines were so important, the implication that someone was a bastard was a great insult.
Source: Holy Sh*t: A Brief History of Swearing by Melissa Mohr
Dixus followed the young woman, one of Domina Deanna's body slaves, delving into a part of the palatial villa where he had never been before, deep in the recesses of the family apartments. When he'd visited petitioning Regulus for a place in his ludus, it had been to the formal meeting room used for business on the first floor next to the another room he had been in, the triclinium, the large dining room with its elaborate mosaic tiled floors and brightly painted walls.
In days past, before his mother's death, their whole family had celebrated the festival Saturnalia in the House of Monroviatus, but those carefree days were long gone. His father had used wine and dice to drown his sorrows over her death until he just faded away to nothing, leaving what little of their former fortune that remained for Merlonius to squander.
She led him to a small chamber with a sunken pool of clear water, white blossoms floating on and steam rising from its surface.
"Cleanse yourself well and don this." Tara ordered, pointing to a white Egyptian cotton garment draped over a stool near the door, "Then wait here until you are summoned."
"Summoned?" Dixus asked, reaching for the cotton, but she made an impatient noise and stopped him by stepping between him and the stool.
"Your hands?' she admonished, making him look down at them.
They were filthy. Bloody blisters and calluses that came of handling the short sword gladius, from which the gods of the arena derived their name, and several gashes, cuts and bruises, into which the dirt of the training ring was ground in, mixed with the oil from his rub down.
He could see why she didn't want him touching the pristine white cloth yet.
"Apologies." he mumbled shyly and took an awkward step backwards, bowing his head and shoving his hands behind his back.
"You really are the sweet one, aren't you?" Tara mused, one side of her cheek creasing in a little smile.
Dixus didn't know what to say to that.
"Try not to tarry. You will be summoned." Tara advised and backed out of the room, closing the door behind her.
Dixus looked around the room's luxury, wondering again for what reason he had been brought into the villa. The Domina's slaves had said it was about love... dare he hope it had something to do with the one he cared for above all others?
Stripping off his minimal clothing he stepped down into the fragrant pool, wincing at the burn against his wounds of whatever bath salts had been dissolved in the heated water, but quickly pain turned to pleasure as he immersed his body. For too many months he'd been ordered to take only the cold plunge to reduce the swelling from his many bruises and swollen joints. The heat felt like it soaked through to his weary bones and he grew drowsy, closing his eyes in pleasure.
"I would share her chambers this night if her fool of a father hadn't accompanied us here." Edgelus bragged, downing another cup of the heavy red he'd brought a wine-skin of and had decanted into the large silver ewer on the table, ready for even more refills.
"Domina Deanna will also make sure niece keeps milky thighs closed until after wedding." Merlonius agreed, raising his cup in a lazy toast.
"Old landica Aunt better stay out of my way." Edgelus sneered, reaching for the blonde servitor slave girl who was bringing more delicacies to the table and dragging her by her arm to her knees in front of him.
She almost dropped the tray, but at the last second twisted so she could set it on the table without spilling a thing. She knelt, shaking slightly, her head down, waiting for his command.
Edgelus released the fibulae pins holding her gown together at the shoulders and the soft cloth parted, exposing her high firm pale breasts, small waist and wide hips to his hungry gaze.
"Care to join me?" He invited, looking over at his dining companion with eyes darkened by lust.
"I will stay; if only to temper you—it will not do to leave another body behind while you are in this House." Merlonius admonished. They'd had to lay out an overly large sum in compensation to the last brothel owner when Edgelus had brutalized and killed one of the proprietor's most profitable girls.
Edgelus laughed, an ugly dark sound and flashed a digitus impudicus at the other man.
The slave girl gave Merlonius a pleading look, but there was little he could do to help her, short of trying to keep her alive because she was valuable property of the House. He poured two more glasses of wine, knowing if Ed was drunk enough it could render him impotent, which was the best either he or the girl could hope for.
God he hated this mingo mouthed bastard...
But if the House of Dixus was to ever rise again, it would be on his back, not on the shoulders of his baby brother, who was trying, this very night, to become a fucking gladiator.
"Darol?" a soft voice pierced through Dixus' lethargy as he floated in the heated pool.
Only two people had every called him by the shortened version of his birth name: his mother and...
"Carol?" he whispered back his pet name for her, the rhyme amusing them one day as they talked. They used the fond names between them when alone ever after. His eyes came open and he saw her, a vision, kneeling at the edge of the sunken bath, her red curls pulled back off her face with a silver comb and tumbling down her back, blue eyes sparkling, dressed in some sort of filmy, almost transparent blue gown held together at her shoulders with silver fibulae in the shape of five petaled flowers. A wide silver belt measured her slender waist and also served to draw the top of the gown more closely to her body and he could clearly see the outline of her small but full breasts beneath it.
"Did you fall asleep?' she asked, sounding amused and a bit put out, a tiny pout on her full pink lips.
"Apologies... I... I..." he stuttered, sitting up more fully in the water, unable to keep his hungry eyes from staring at her loveliness.
She held up a large square of white cotton cloth used for drying and motioned for him to stand, blushing as he did so to see the entirety of his body, its heavy arousal already very much in evidence.
Embarrassed to have embarrassed her, Dixus took the towel and gave her his back as he wrapped it around his hips and secured it by folding the hem under and around his waist.
"Dearest one—what is this?" she cried when she saw the still healing lash wounds forming scars starting at his muscular shoulders and running down to the small of his back.
He stepped up and out of the tub and she came up behind him, her hands fluttering with the need to touch him, not wanting to cause him further pain, tears forming as she imagined his suffering.
"It is nothing." he assured her, but kept his back to her, unable to face her disappointment in him. The lash was used in training when one was too slow, too weak or too stupid to learn the day's lesson. At the start of his time here he'd been all three and Doctore had not stinted on his punishment because he'd been a Roman.
Carola saw the tension in his shoulders; his hands clenched into fists and knew he needed her comfort, even if he didn't believe it so. She stepped closer, her hands closing over his biceps above his elbows while at the same time his lips found his shoulder covering it in delicate desperate kisses, trying to ease him.
Dixus dropped his head and made a low growling sound deep in his throat, but it didn't deter Carola. She continued to cover his back with tender kisses and gentle caresses until he couldn't take it anymore and turned to face her, capturing her hands in his.
"Stop... I don't deserve—" he began in a gravel laden sad voice, but she freed her right hand from his grasp and raised her fingers to cover his lips.
"My love?" she asked, her voice shaking with emotion, "For that is all I thought to give you."
The simple straight forwardness of her declaration floored him. He stared down at her earnest perfect heart shaped face, but then shook his head at her in denial and stepped back, putting an arm's length of distance between them.
"You are betrothed to another." he said flatly.
"If it is so, you know it is against my will." she told him hotly, angry he would doubt her feelings for him. "Have you so little trust in me?" She stepped back to him, placing her hand over his heart. "In our love? Do you not want me anymore?"
The touch of her soft hand on his bare damp skin sent waves of desire through him. When her thumb innocently brushed over his erect nipple he closed his eyes and groaned.
"Darol?" she raised her other hand to his chest and tilted her head back so she could see his face.
"Carol..." he tried to stop, to keep his passion for her in check, but everything was falling apart and she was right here, with him, touching him, telling him she loved him...
Dixus wrapped his arms around her and pulled her flush against him, forcing a sharp intake of breath from her lips when his fully erect cock nestled against her belly, giving her no doubt as to his state of arousal.
"This is how much I want you." he told her, bracing himself for her rejection. For all her seeming boldness since she'd come to him just now, he knew she was an innocent sexually. For his part, though he'd taken women before, he'd never felt this way about one; he'd never felt so anxious to please and protect, to give and to take, craving her every word and look. She was everything he'd never known he wanted.
"Yes... please..." she moaned, pressing even more tightly against him, sliding her hands outward and digging her fingers into his bulging biceps, the feel of her aroused tight nipples rubbing against his chest through her gown shocking him.
"Stop..." he tried again, warning her; afraid she didn't understand what she was asking for, but couldn't find it within himself to set her away from him again.
"I want this... to share pleasures with you; only with you... please my love..." she pleaded.
What was he supposed to do? How could he refuse her?
"You are a maiden... I have no wish to cause you pain..." he tried a different tack. Surely she understood what she was asking of him?
"The only way you could cause me pain is by refusing me." she said vehemently, "Would you rather Edgelus—"
"Futuo! No!" he exclaimed, sick to think of her in that brutal man's bed, her virginity taken with what was sure to be cruel callousness. If he could do nothing else for her, he could at least give her this, to be taken with love her first time.
Her eyes shining with grateful tears, she lifted her hands to hold his face, rising up on her toes to press her lips to his in only their second kiss.
Had anything ever tasted so sweet? Her mouth was like the purest honey, warm and dripping from the comb. Darol licked at her lips as his hands moved to cradle her nape and the back of her head, holding her still, his fingers tangling in her soft curls, tilting his head to the side and slanting his mouth across hers insistently. When she whimpered and gave a little desperate gasp he groaned, bucking his hips against her and plunging his tongue into her opened mouth, taking her breath away with the mastery of his kiss, foreshadowing how things would proceed if they continued.
The door behind them opened and someone cleared their throat discretely.
"Your chambers are prepared, niece of Domina." the body slave Tara said quietly, but with an underlying tone of amusement.
Carola reluctantly eased away from Dixus and turned to the girl, her telling flushed face and the pulse rapidly beating at her throat revealing everything she was feeling.
Tara looked Dixus up and down rather impudently, nodding in approval at his finely honed muscular physique, lingering on his still obvious erection tenting the loose cotton cloth secured around his waist and hanging to his knees.
"He looks well enough equipped for pleasures." she nodded thoughtfully, "But does he understand how to bring them to a maiden?"
"Watch tongue girl, if you wish to keep it in your head." Dixus scowled at her. How dare the chit presume to lecture him on pleasing a woman?
"Can you use tongue well, Gladiator to be, or do you wish me to join your bed?" Tara offered. To be a third was a skill she was often called upon to give to guests of the House, though in truth she preferred sharing pleasures best one on one.
"Hold tongue, girl, I share my love's bed with no one." Dixus retorted, wrapping his arms around Carola from behind protectively.
"So it really is love?"Tara asked, canting her head to the side with the question. She'd thought at first Domina was merely showing a kindness to her niece by gifting her with the handsome gladiator's time in her bed before forced marriage to such an abhorrent man as Edgelus, but when Dixus had told Minerva his reason for joining the ludus was love, she'd started to wonder.
Dixus leaned down and kissed Carola's neck, but kept his eyes on Tara's in challenge.
Carola's hands came up and covered his, keeping him close, raising her chin and pinning Tara with her glittering stare as well.
"Follow me then." Tara nodded, backing towards the door, "I will see that you are not disturbed in your chambers until he is called for his bout preparations."
Carola looked stricken at the reminder that he was supposed to face Tyresius in the ludus practice ring in a few short hours to determine if he would be allowed to join the Brotherhood.
"I am selfish!" she cried, twisting to look up at him, "You need to rest before contest!"
"I cannot fail, if rise to bout from your bed, my love." Dixus said, nuzzling her curls and kissing her neck to quiet her. Then he swiftly bent and scooped her up into his arms.
"Darol!" Carola gasped, throwing her arms around his neck and hanging on, but squirming to be let down at the same time.
"Stop." Dixus admonished her. "You will not sway me, sweetling. My heart is bent on having you for my own."
Carola frowned at him, opening her mouth to argue, but he chased away any further protests with a searing kiss. When he released her mouth she sighed and leaned her head against his shoulder.
"As is mine, my love." she murmured, making Dixus smile.
"Lead on." he ordered Tara, who grinned approvingly at them.
I love Tara, LOL! Telling Darolus like it is.
More sexy times and surprises to come! Thanks for giving this one a chance.