My Wicked Gladiators

by Hawkeye, Lauren

  As I watched, Marcus slowly unfurled his fingers and let his sword drop to the ground. The sand that it fell into puffed up a smoky cloud of dust that swirled away into the night as I watched, mesmerized.

  I brought my level of vision up from his feet, roamed over those sharply muscled calves and thighs, skimmed the worn leather of his subligaculum that blocked my view.

  Stopped on the fingers that rested on the fastenings of that leather. Jumped up to his face, which was serious and contained no questions.

  My nipples peaked painfully under his stare, and I could not move. I knew that all I had to do to stop this was simply shake my head, but I found that I could not.

  More, that I did not want to.

  I watched as he pulled on the strings that tied the sides of his leathers together. One tug, then another, and then the garment had loosened, held up only by his fingers. He pulled it out, away from his body, and I caught a glimpse of hipbone, standing out in sharp relief from the taut skin of his flat belly.

  Slowly, slowly, he relaxed those fingers, one at a time. The leather fell to the ground beside his blemished wooden sword, and his body—the tough, scarred body of a gladiator—was open for me to feast my eyes upon.

  I had not had much of a chance to look at him when we had fucked in the bath, or maybe I just plain had not paid attention. But what I saw now was no less than a work of art, and it took my breath away.

  Every muscle in his body was as hard as the rock that made up the walls of our home. I knew that the gladiators trained incessantly, all day, every day, but the reality of that extreme way of life was slapped into my face when I looked at this body, covered with skin tanned a deep brown from the unrelenting Roman sun. Scars crossed every which way over that skin, fine transparent lines over the nutty color, and I knew that each was, to him, a badge of honor.

  A time that he had lived, and triumphed over death.

  His cock was pale in comparison with the rest of this skin, an ivory that never saw the sun. It was veined through with blue and purple, and pulsed at full attention under my watchful eyes.

  I wanted to touch it. I wanted it in my mouth, under my fingers. I wanted it inside of me, pounding in and out.

  I could not have it.

  As I watched, he grasped the length of that cock in one of his hands. I bit my lip and fisted my hands in the amber lace of my tunic, pressing my thighs together to stop the ache.

  His fist clenched, then loosened, then clenched again. He twisted it around his cock, then began the slow ascent to the top. Just the head was visible above his fist, a dusky plum in the dark shadows, and it glistened in the straw-colored moonlight.

  He moved that fist down. I swallowed past a large, dry lump in my throat. Up. I rubbed my hands, hard, against my hips to stop the uncontrollable itch. Down, up. Up, down. He fisted his cock as surely as he had tongued my clitoris, and though I could see his muscles move with the pleasure of it, he never removed his stare from me.

  I saw his sack, which hung heavily in its nest of caramel hair, pull in toward his pelvis in the moment before he came. His mouth opened as the stream of thick salt spurted from his clenched hand, but no sound escaped, and I did my best to follow suit, though I had to raise my own hand to my mouth and bite to stifle the groans that pooled against my tongue.

  When his cock ceased its spasms, he released it from his grip. It fell, still swollen from the attention, back against the coarse hair, and was soon hidden from sight in the worn leather of his damned subligaculum. He tied it tightly, still staring up at me, and I felt tears prick the backs of my eyes with their tiny needles, though I could not say why.

  He broke that stare once he was again clothed. Leaving his training sword where it lay, he backed away slowly, until the darkness obscured him completely. I thought I saw the blurred outline of a second figure move toward Marcus in the moment before he disappeared from my sight, and wondered if we had been seen. But I blinked and the vision was gone, and so I concluded that it had been simply conjured by my mind.

  I stood there, on the balcony, long after Marcus was gone. There was nothing to see, and still . . .

  I could not tear myself away.

  The next morning I awoke slowly, heavily, feeling weighted down as if with opium. I wanted to curl up against my sheets, to savor the memory of what I had seen in the night, but knew that to lie abed longer than usual would arouse Lucius’ suspicions.

  The reminder of suspicions made me wonder, again, about the male sounds of pleasure that had come from his room the night before. I dismissed them once more, however, for he was perfectly entitled to do as he wished.

  But the fantasy of his flesh straining against that of Marcus again made me twitch with want.

  After forcing my heavy limbs from the bed, I blearily made my way to my dressing area. Drusilla, who would have hovered outside my curtain since her own early awakening, entered silently, and urged the fine webbing of the sleeping tunic that I still wore up and over my head.

  Knowing that I normally slept nude, I saw her cock her head slightly, as if questioning the presence of the tunic to herself. She did not comment, however, though from her I would have tolerated the questioning.

  “You should bathe.” Roughly raking her slim fingers through the sleepy snarls of my hair, I caught her eye in the reflection of the oval mirror that hung across from where I was seated.

  “I do not feel like it.” My response was churlish, but the purse of my girl’s lips irritated me. I did not need to be judged by my closest friend, not when I was already judging myself so harshly.

  Drusilla’s face softened as she continued to smooth my hair, but in her eyes I saw the stubborn streak that she had possessed since girlhood.

  “You smell of sex.” My mouth fell open at these words, which I would not have tolerated from anyone else. “If you do not bathe, Lucius will know of your actions yesterday.”

  I felt an emotion that I could not quite define rising in my chest, and I stood, pushing Drusilla’s hands away. “Do not judge me, Drusilla. Why are my actions so dreadful? Lucius fucks whomever he chooses, whenever he chooses. Why should I be miserable, simply because my husband has ceased to desire me?” I felt tears causing my throat to swell as I spoke, and to my mortification, I felt a hot trickle of tears spill down my cheeks.

  Drusilla drew me into her arms for a hug, rubbing the flat of her palm up and down my back. I resisted the embrace momentarily, not wanting to be touched in my embarrassment, but her familiar touch relaxed me, evoking countless comforting embraces in the past.

  She held me until my body relaxed, then led me back to the stool upon which I sat while being groomed. Deftly working through the length of my hair, she spoke softly, lest anyone be passing by.

  “I do not judge you.” I started to protest that she absolutely did, until I realized that she had voiced no such thing. “You have lived a long time without love. You have had long-held desires go unfulfilled. I do not blame you for taking happiness where you find it, though I do think that perhaps this man was not the wisest of choices.”

  I winced as the truth of her words struck home. She had always been the wiser of our pairing, and though she had always insisted that it was the trait of a slave—always in the background, always observing and nothing more—I had always thought that her soul was simply older than that of most.

  Though I was still in no mood for a bath and allowed Drusilla only to sponge water over me, I acquiesced to this, knowing that, as always, she had only my own interests at heart. Though she may not approve of where I had slaked my desire, she would always support me, and to refuse this support would be churlish.

  “Thank you.” I murmured the words as the water sluiced over my skin, the words applying to more than the makeshift bath. I saw the reflection of the dark-haired woman in the mirror, nodding crisply before continuing with her task, and knew that her feelings
were my own.

  Lucius would not have approved of my sponge bath—he would have called this quick cleaning a whore’s bath and have insisted that I use our large, expensive marble bath. But I knew that I would never again be able to immerse myself in the liquid there without thinking of my gladiator.

  Still, civilized people bathed, and so I allowed the musk of sleep—and of sex—to be rinsed from my skin. Lucius would never know the difference, for all the attention that he paid me now. The droplets of water that coursed down my frame, tickling and tempting, were no better than the bath, for they teased my already heightened state of need yet again, as did the brush of the coarse fabric of my towel as Drusilla rubbed it vigorously over my exposed and freshly clean skin.

  Lucius entered as Drusilla was helping me on with the loose tunic that I intended to wear that day. It was the lightest that I owned, a thin wisp that was just a few threads away from transparent, and was a defense against the insufferable heat of a Roman summer.

  I winced at his entrance. I had rather hoped to hide the fact that I had slept longer than normal. I felt certain that my guilt was painted over my face.

  “Alba. I thought that you would be ready for the day already.” Though his words were curious, his eyes avidly sought out the pucker of my nipples against the ethereal fabric.

  Knowing very well why I had chosen to lie abed, I felt my skin flush, and looked down in an attempt to hide it.

  “I . . . I was not feeling at my best this morning.” This was true enough.

  Lucius noted the flush of my skin. “I fear that this heat is not agreeing with you.” His voice was fussy, the bother that my lack of readiness for the day brought him overriding the concern of husband for wife. Though I supposed that the fact that he had noticed something was amiss was more attention than many wives received from their husbands—he was not entirely disengaged from our life together. “Still, I need you to pull yourself together and come to my office.” He made to leave, but I let my curiosity overcome me.

  I was never called to his office. It was a meeting place for the men.

  “Just come, Alba. And quickly. We are to meet with the doctor.” With those words, he pushed through my curtain and left, leaving me intensely curious and a little apprehensive.

  We never had the doctor to the house, not unless it was an emergency of some sort. We employed a full-time medic and dietician, to ensure the continued health of the gladiators, and the man was quite capable of looking after most mild ailments that occurred.

  Drusilla, noting my agitation, did her best to hurry as she dressed my hair. I had planned to have her bind the thick coils of night-sky black against my skull, tied tightly down with gauze, and on top of it arrange the mass of fashionable yellow hair that I had purchased a month earlier, for yellow was what the noble ladies currently deemed fashionable. Both the heat and my curiosity overcame the desire. I had Drusilla finish combing it through and bind it up simply while I stepped into the leather sandals that I wore while at home, and as soon as I was presentable, I wound my way through the halls to the corner where Lucius’ office lay.

  Drusilla squeezed my arm as we parted ways, a gesture of support. With a quick glance around to make certain that we were alone, I leaned in and brushed a hot, dry kiss of appreciation over her cheek before slipping through the curtain that blocked the entrance to Lucius’ office.

  The room was dim, as always, with weak, pale beams of light filtering in from the small window carved out of the graveled wall. Justinus, the slave who handled the majority of our bartering, and the local doctor were seated across from Lucius, crockery cups of wine in hand. A platter of glistening, ripe red grapes sat on the table, drops of wetness glinting fatly in the straw-colored light, and a grumble low in my belly reminded me that I had yet to break my fast.

  “Eat, Alba.” Lucius, with a halo of agitation surrounding him, pushed the large plate of grapes close to where I took a seat, the edges of the wooden chair digging uncomfortably into my hips, but I shook my head.

  “I am not hungry.” If I admitted to hunger, Lucius would send for more than grapes—for bread, for meat—simply to show his ability to do so in front of the doctor. The men would then wait to talk until I had finished eating—they would wait until I had swallowed every morsel to begin the conversation, and my curiosity was too rampant for that.

  As it was, I had to wait for Lucius to cease his pacing. Back, forth. Back, forth. The room was too small for it. All three men seemed somewhat agitated, actually, or at least anticipatory, and their mood dripped on top of mine, smothering it and changing it.

  But it was not appropriate for me to start the meeting, so I had to wait. Finally, Lucius sat, his chair cushioned with a soft pillow, and reached across the expanse of the table between us. He took my hands in his.

  The touch made me start. He so very rarely touched me anymore. There was no need to, not when I could not bear his child.

  “We have very nearly secured the patronage of Baldurus.” I smiled, a real smile, as a frisson of excitement shot its fizzy way through me.

  “Excellent work, husband.” As a client of Baldurus, one of the wealthiest men in the city, the costs of keeping our ludus would be greatly lessened—the cost of keeping the men was a financial burden that we could, at times, just barely meet. Though they were slaves, they required food and frequent medical attention. Also, law decreed that they were entitled to a large share of their own winnings. So though Lucius’ family had managed on its own for generations, the patronage of Baldurus would be more than welcome. Baldurus would, in return, receive a percentage of the money that we made, and we anticipated much coin at some point with our potential new champion, but we, too, would make more.

  Patronage was not something that Lucius’ father, Junius, ever would have considered, and so long as he was alive, the tradition of patria potestas forbade Lucius from going against his father’s wishes. A man was not considered to be the pater familias until his father was dead. But Junius had passed nearly a year earlier, and ever since then Lucius had been negotiating with Baldurus. His efforts had wrought an excellent situation, and I knew that Lucius had worked hard to make it happen.

  He did not look nearly as pleased as I expected he would, and I remarked upon it.

  “Yes. Well.” He raked a hand through his hair again and exchanged a knowing glance with Justinus. I fought to swallow a morsel of irritation that a slave would know something before I did—I, Lucius’ wife—but said nothing.

  Seeing that Lucius would not, or could not, speak his mind, Justinus spoke for him. “There is a condition to securing the patronage.”

  Lucius cast him a look of irritation, for Justinus had clearly spoken out of turn. A slave did not take charge of a conversation that involved his master, and I was surprised that Lucius let it go with little more than a raised eyebrow.

  “Yes,” Lucius continued as if his slave had not spoken, “Baldurus, as you know, considers himself very much a family man.”

  I nodded. This was true. Baldurus himself had sixteen children with his wife and had climbed many rungs on the political ladder by endorsing the strength of a large Roman familia.

  It was suspected that soon he would wear the purple-edged tunic of a senator.

  “He is very interested in the profit that his patronage to us would bring, but feels that he has a certain . . . reputation . . . that he must uphold. Politically speaking.”

  The pleasant expression that I had assumed while listening froze on my face. I suspected what the next words would be, and they stung like a thousand tiny needles pricking at my soul.

  “He will not enter into an agreement with us unless you can become with child.” The force of the words, though spoken flatly enough, felt like a huge blow to my stomach.

  I was barren. I could not have children, though I longed to do so. It seemed cruel that Lucius would even bring this matter to
my attention. If we needed a child to secure the patronage, then the deal would never be struck.

  “Do not cry, Alba.” Lucius knew me well enough still, despite the growing distance between us, that he recognized the shimmer of tears before they fell. “I mean no insult. It is . . . it is just that when in consult, the doctor, here, suggested a notion to me that had not before occurred.” He gestured to the third man in the room, the one to whom I had paid not a whit of attention. I recognized the man, whose name I believed was Pompeius, from the time that a visiting patrician noble had fallen on our slick steps and twisted her ankle, and it would not have done to have her treated simply by our gladiators’ medic.

  The doctor cleared his throat before speaking, and he seemed to make a point of looking at me, not at my husband.

  “You are aware, I believe, that your husband has . . . relations . . . with your slaves?” I flushed and nodded. This was not a topic of conversation with which I felt comfortable.

  To his credit, Lucius looked uncomfortable, too, and even slightly guilty. It warmed my heart, just the smallest bit, to see that he wished me no heartache, even though he was well within his rights to sleep with our slave girls.

  “In discussing matters with your husband, as we tried to find a way in which you might become pregnant, it came to my attention that . . . ahem . . . the good man Lucius has not begotten any offspring with any woman.” My hand jerked violently, and knocked Lucius’ cup off of the desk. It lay upended on the small, brightly woven rug that covered part of the stone floor, its position echoing my view of the world as it had become in the last few moments.

  This was true. This was absolutely true. Why had I not ever thought of it? Possibly because I never thought, at all, about the children of my slaves, or to whom they belonged. That shamed me, even as a wild hope welled up, twining with confusion and reaching into my lungs to steal my breath.