Part 4 # The Colosseum
"Y'know," Graverobber grumbled as the limo pulled up across from the Colosseum, "we could have just walked."
Amber looked over at him with a somewhat pained expression, under which he instantly felt himself starting to shrink. "Do you have no concept of how to make an appearance at all?" She rolled her eyes. "No, don't answer that. C'mon."
She grabbed his arm before he went so far as to open the door for himself, shaking her head at him in half-mock despair.
"Watch and learn, baby." She grinned, letting the valet let her out. "Watch and learn."
It was a good thing, Graverobber thought, that he was feeling tolerant. But then, he was coming to learn a lot about compromise - he was having to to make living with Amber anywhere near bearable. Compromise meant he could object as long as he then did what she said. Still, it seemed to have become the unspoken rule between them that she was the boss of him by day and he took his turn by night, or, indeed, at any other time he wanted her; that is to say, far too often for his sanity.
He stepped out into the glaring sunlight, squinting, feeling like a blot on the landscape, especially next to Amber, who was tossing her cloak to a tolerant valet and turning round in a swathe of blue and purple silk, looking for all the world as though she would have been right at home here 2000 years ago.
He grinned at her. "Why, Ms. Sweet, you're beautiful."
She blushed and looked away half-shyly for just a split second, pushing a tendril of hair from her face, before recovering, looking up, and shrugging at him with utter assurance. "Well, duh!" She beamed. He held out his arm to her and she took it, smiling faintly ironically, as if to suggest that really she was only playing at taking his arm.
"I don't know much about it," he began as they walked towards the building's looming and golden lower arches, "but shouldn't there be more people around?" It was only them and the guards about as far as he could see.
"Oh, I didn't tell you? I bought the place out for the day." She shrugged. "Well, I could hardly be expected to queue, could I?"
He blinked at her, an expression that she knew by now stood for "Are you for real? Oh god, you are, aren't you?" He was silent for a moment, then turned to her, curiously, wondering,
"Don't you ever get tired of this?"
"Of what?"
"This - being special, being seen, having people around you all the time. Doesn't it…y'know…bug you?"
She thought for a moment, then shook her head.
"I guess it might," she said slowly, "if I'd ever known otherwise. But I don't. I guess, if you mean, 'Do I ever get tired of being Amber Sweet?' then no, I don't, that's why I chose to be her - me, that is. Why? Would you rather I was someone else?"
He shook his head quickly, but smiled to hear her talk so thoughtfully about herself. She's changed too, he realized, made her own compromises - some of them even to him.
"Not in a million years." He smiled. "I love you, Amber Sweet, always have done, always will."
It was more than he meant to say, and he swallowed hard, embarrassed. She squeezed his arm fondly - happily, he thought. He saw her eyes sparkling on their own, without the aid of Zydrate, and it occurred to him that she had gone without since early yesterday. He knew it was too soon to get too hopeful just yet, but still, he couldn't help but be a little.
"Still," he said hurriedly (it was too early in the morning and too public to get too intimate just yet), "do you ever feel defined by what you are - by who people see you as, I mean?"
She laughed a little. "Well, what else would I be defined by? Who I am is what I am, not the other way around, and what people see on the outside of me is so much an expression of what's on the inside that it is me - as much as I want it to be. You see?"
He saw, fascinated by the multi-layers of Amber Sweet; she just kept unfolding like a flower.
"Besides" she went on, "aren't we all defined by appearance in some way?"
"I'm not." He shrugged.
She snorted. "Oh, come on, you're worse than anyone, Graverobber - you've even named yourself for what you do. You can't step into a street without being recognized straight away for who you are and what you do."
"Or what I am and who I do," he finished. "Fair point." He shrugged. But if anyone else had made that point, he would probably have killed them dead, run away, or both. He had never particularly liked being understood, let alone psychoanalyzed - only Amber could ever have gotten away with it, and he had had no idea that she thought about things quite this much.
"There's nothing shallow about appearances," she concluded; "it's about as deep as you can get. There's more to be found in a person's face and makeup than in the depths or their soul. I should know."
"You've never lost your soul," he pointed out.
"No, but I'd rather keep my face any day."
"I knew a chap lost his soul once," he began.
"Yeah?"
"Yeah…" he frowned, contemplating. "But it wasn't very funny."
Amber stopped dead for a moment.
"Graverobber?"
"Amber?"
"Are we having a *conversation?"
He frowned again. "Huh. Guess we are."
"Shall we stop?"
"Good with that"
"Oh, look!" She jumped off suddenly, making for one of the stalls beneath the arches. "Shiny things!"
He rolled his eyes and followed her slowly. "Guess I *could use some shades," he grunted.
A few moments later they arrived at the entry tunnel, Amber doubled over, laughing like a drain, and even the valets having to try hard not to smirk - after all, they've been looking good in shades for some time.
"Yes, yes, very funny," Graverobber muttered, adjusting his shades self-consciously; but he stopped dead when he caught sight of himself in the entryway window. "Oh, god!" he howled. "You're right! I do look like a dick!"
Graverobber stood roughly in the centre of the coloseum, looking up at the tiers of seats and the crumbled architecture of the upperrows. It was fascinating, he supposed, but not as much so as the little blue and purple figure flitting through the arches along the edges, the silken swathes of her dress billowing out behind her and fluttering through the pillars. She was like a large, bright butterfly, fully aware of the effect she presented - she had, after all, dressed with the sheer aim in mind of appearing exactly as she did right then, and he tried very hard not to be captivated by the beauty of the picture she wove, but found himself horribly, hopelessly caught in her web. He half-wished he could be having more important thoughts than these in a setting like this, rather than just plain wanting Amber, getting hot from more than just the sun. His cock started to throb painfully from wanting her, and that morning's fuck on the bathroom floor seemed a lifetime ago. He wondered if he would ever have enough of her, and no longer hoped that one day he would.
He watched her ascend to the upper tiers of seats and walk around the edge, singing loudly and unashamedly as she went. Trust her, he thought, to get as high up as she possibly can be.
She stopped and waved at him hugely from above, and he shaded his eyes to look up at her.
"Can you imagine the audience?" she yelled down at him. "Imagine all the people you could fit in here!"
"There would be people," he called up to her, "if you hadn't bought the place up!"
She flipped him the bird from above and started to float down through the rows towards him. All he could see was her, and all he could feel was heat, starting to sweat with it in the sun and dust of the arena. He half-found himself thinking that this was the way a gladiator would have felt with a wild beast coming towards him - frightened and exhilarated by its power over you and your power over it. Luckily, the Amber-beast was one he knew just how to tackle.
"If there was an audience," she said, up close to him now so he could feel her breath, "what kind of a show would you give them?" She looked up at him, almost coyly, big eyed, smiling that wicked smile of hers that had teeth and a challenge in it. It was almost unbearable; he pulled her against him hard and tangled a hand in her hair, yanking her head back to look down at her, her pretty face gazing back up at him. Her eyes smarted and she bared her teeth; still, she hissed in his grasp, "What kind of game would you play?"
"The kind I'd win," he growled, lips close to hers, before he kissed her fiercely, with teeth as much as lips and tongue, holding her crushingly close; but she didn't struggle for all the discomfort, surrendering herself happily to his embrace, to his lust, her own lust washing through her and pooling warm and glowing between her legs. She moaned softly and gave into him completely, without even a fight, and he wanted her too purely and completely even to object to her lack of resistance. He pushed her down into the dust, pulling her dress down from her shoulders roughly to expose her breasts, kissing and caressing them savagely and hungrily, unable even to speak and tell her what he wanted, so choked up by lust as he was then. Still, she knew what he wanted well enough, could feel his cock pressing demandingly into her thigh, and she reached between their legs to caress him through his jeans, loving being able to make him groan like that. She felt like a sacrificial victim, here in the middle of so much, and she loved the feeling. She could almost hear the shouts of an ancient, imaginary crowd at this, the latest battle to played out on these sands, could smell the blood on the sand, feet the vibrations of the earth…
"Inside me," she gasped between fluttering breaths and her raging heartbeat. "Want you inside me!"
He would have told her that that was exactly where he wanted to be if he had had breath to spare, but he didn't. He freed his cock with hands that almost trembled too much; were his need not so great, so near to agonizing, he felt he might die if it wasn't satisfied. They both screamed when he penetrated her, shoving into her fast and hard, her body welcoming him completely, making it easy for him to impale her, stabbing and thrusting into her violently again and again. They screamed - raw, ragged, inelegant screams, the very touch of the other igniting their skin and the feel of him inside her stroking her into a frenzy as he slammed into her hard enough to leave bruises, however wet and wanting she may be.
He fucked her brutally, almost afraid of the violence of his own need. It was so hot, so hot under the sun; their bodies were wet with sweat and sliding together, and it made him feel like he was drowning in her. Sliding inside her was like diving into a cool, delicious stream, and he wanted the pleasure of it to last forever, or at least for as long as at all possible. It was strange to be out here, so exposed - in many ways such a far cry from the shadowy alleyways of their early liaisons; and yet, in terms of lust - of how he wanted her then and wanted her now, of how good it felt then and still felt now - really, very little had changed. So much space, so much room to scream in, and still the same guards nearby, who knew to look away now better than they ever did before. Their role, he knew, had changed now, so that they still protected her from everyone, just everyone except for him; though it crossed his mind that perhaps she *needed protecting from him, more than from anyone else. In moments like this it would be all too easy to martyr her to his lust; but then, he was a victim of it, too, and he slammed into her all the harder for being afraid of what he could do to her, how badly he could hurt her. The pained, ecstatic contractions of her cunt drew him divinely deep inside her and she raked her nails down his back, screaming her passion and release to the sky. Somehow, here, he was not afraid to cry out with her, no longer felt the need to bite his tongue and swallow his cries, and it felt as though their screams would shatter the earth and bring this monument down around their heads. They were neither of them sure, in that moment, if they would have noticed if it had.
They fell back, breathing heavily, gazing up at the sky. She felt her body shaking down into calm and reached, blindly, for his hand. She found it straight away and squeezed as she shuddered out the last of her trembling; he squeezed back, too breathless to do more. She exhaled, deeply and slowly.
"Wow," she said, and he grinned.
_x_
And that is all I have for now people – thank you for bearing with me – I may find more at some point.
Thank you again to Wandergirl108 for beta-ing this fic and who is basically the reason it is back up!