The last of the oil is removed. Rising, he looks at me. In my master’s dark gaze gleams anger and lust that seems almost too powerful to be denied.
Yet he turns away, lips tight, hands fisted at his sides and strides toward the heated pool, the caldarium. Following, I kneel and strap on the sandals needed to protect the soles of his feet from the hot floor beneath the water. Glancing up, I see the bead of liquid slide from the tip of his phallus and run down toward the base.
I cannot stop the soft moan that leaves my throat. My lips are suddenly dry as ashes and when I lick them my master’s eyes flare.
With a harsh growl, Gaius Antonius steps past me, and descends the steps into the steaming, chest-high water. Stooping, he ducks beneath it, remaining fully immersed for a few long moments before rising. Slicking his hair away from his face, he moves to lean his back against the side of the pool. I kneel behind him on the edge, use a bowl to catch cold water from where it flows into the caldarium and pour over his head.
The cool liquid flows in rivulets along the glorious lines of his neck and down to his shoulders, where muscles ripple beneath smooth golden skin. Light plays across the surface of the pool, turning the room into a secluded green and blue-hued grotto. Beneath the water my master’s body floats, free and weightless, and I imagine myself floating with him. My fingers itch to touch him again, my lips long to sip at the water droplets beading his flesh. What new level of ecstasy would be experienced if I were to go and wrap my legs around him, join our bodies face-to-face?
With a shudder of desire vibrating in my belly I turn away, bend forward to catch more of the cool water. There is a ripple of sound, a movement of the air, and my master’s hand is suddenly beneath my tunic.
Hot and wet from the caldarium, it slides along the back of my thigh, and I freeze, gasping. The bowl falls from my hand as his fingers slip across my labia, linger for a moment on my throbbing clitoris, then press into my cunt.
“I could smell your lust.” His voice is quiet, angrily echoing in the balneae as he withdraws his fingers. “You are insatiable.”
I can find no words to answer as, using his hands to level his body out of the water, he rises to stand above me. On my knees, shivering with need, I clasp the edge of the caldarium, trying to steady my tremors. But what can I use, what talisman or incantation can serve to steady my heart? I do not understand his rage, or his pulling away.
“What do you do when I am away from home, and on the nights I do not call for you?”
Confused, I look up at him and can only shake my head. What is he asking?
There is fire behind his obsidian gaze, and rage draws his lips to a straight, tight line. “When I am in Londinium taking care of my business there, do you open your legs for one of the other slaves so they can scratch the itch between them?”
Shock sends icy tendrils through my body and my voice quavers as I cry, “I am yours, Master. Faithful, body and soul, to you alone.”
Laughter reverberates through the balneae, rough, without humor. “You expect me to believe that—when I am gone sometimes for a fortnight at a time and whenever I touch you, you are wet with lust? Do you think me a fool?”
Hands lifted, I beseech him, reiterating the truth of my existence. “I am yours alone. When you are away, no one touches me.”
Yet as I speak, I can no longer hold his gaze. The lie hangs heavy in the balneae, making the humid air almost too thick to breathe. Silence between us lengthens, grows ominous. The trickle of water flowing into the caldarium sounds like the rush of a waterfall, and tears well in my eyes, turning everything to a blue-green blur.
How long we stay trapped in this frightening tableau, I cannot tell. Time has no meaning. The words clamoring for release from my throat are jumbled, chaotic, and all in my own language, for fear seems to have cost me my command of his tongue. I pray my master will speak, and in doing so somehow release us from this strange, terrifying place we have traveled to.
Gaius Antonius turns his back.
“Leave. Send Yanos to me.”
Implacable, his words lash across my heart. I want to stay, to argue, to apologize, although I know I have not done anything so wrong. But my master has ordered me from his presence and I go.
But I will not leave without letting him know the full truth.
At the door I pause, and look back. The rigid lines of his body are enough to make the tears I have been holding back flow freely down my cheeks.
“Sometimes, when my longing for you becomes too strong to be endured…” My voice falters, and Gaius Antonius raises his hand as though to stop me from speaking. For once I disobey his silent command and continue, “Sometimes, I touch myself.”
Before his anger overwhelms us both I do as he has ordered, and leave.
Chapter Three
“I was there.” Salacious enjoyment is obvious in Marcus Valerius Priscus’s voice, and it sends a wave of revulsion down my spine. “I watched as that Iceni bitch was flogged for her temerity.” With a wet gulp, he finishes his wine and gestures for me to refill his goblet. I approach his couch with reluctance. Of all the men assembled in the triclinium, he alone fills me with unease. While serving him food or wine I am constantly subjected to his hands on my buttocks, brushing against my breasts. “She deserved it. Imagine trying to steal from the Emperor?”
“Perhaps not the wisest course she could have taken.” Gaius Antonius’s temperate reply mingles with the music of Yanos’s harp. “But she would probably say she was only trying to secure the future of her daughters and her tribe.”
“Stupid barbarian.” Marcus Valerius laughs and, as he does, I feel his thick fingers on the back of my thigh, beneath my tunic. With a start I pull away, spilling wine upon the dining table. One of the other slaves comes forward to mop it up and I murmur an apology, wishing I could upend the amphora on the merchant’s greasy head.
As though hearing my thoughts, Marcus Valerius looks up at me, a grimacing smile exposing ratlike teeth. “You should beware, Gaius Antonius. This slave of yours reminds me greatly of that red-haired Iceni lupa, Boudicca. Careful you do not nurture a viper to your bosom.”
Anger flares so suddenly in my belly it makes me gasp, and I must tighten my grip upon the amphora so as not to fly at him, scratch his face, tear out his tongue for the vile implication.
“I doubt Laelia is Iceni.” There is amusement in my master’s words, but when I look at him heavy eyelids mask his eyes, hiding the expression. “When I bought her the slaver said she was originally captured in Hibernia, and as she did not speak the vulgar tongue I have no reason to disbelieve him.”
“Hibernia?” The merchant’s voice rises, and his gaze travels over my body. The piggish eyes gleam, and the tip of his tongue darts out to wet his lips. “Just as bad, if not worse. I hear the women there fight, bare breasted, alongside their men in battle. And this one has the look of a fighter.” Leering, he turns to my master. “If you decide she is too much for you to handle, let me know. I may be persuaded to take her off your hands. I am sure I can tame her.”
“I will remember you made this offer, Marcus Valerius.”
Gall, bitter and sharp, rises in my throat. I look to my master, trying to glean whatever I can from his face. Gaius Antonius is smiling, hooded gaze fixed on his guest.
Fear, which has been my constant companion, arises once more in my chest. Since that day in the balneae almost a week ago my master has rarely looked at me or pronounced my name.
And he has not summoned me to his bed.
Would he sell me? Has he already grown tired of my service?
After his guests have left, I re-enter the dining hall to clear the table. Still reclined upon his couch, my master watches me in silence. Although I do not raise my eyes from my chores I feel his gaze, his rage, like the whip of a hot wind. The room fills with it, heating my skin, slowing my movements to near inaction.
“Who were you, before you came here? What were you?”
The harsh question startles me into
a swift reply, and I cannot stop anger from coloring my words. “I am not Iceni.”
“That is not what I asked.” Why does just the sound of his voice, even low and dangerous as it now is, have the power to weaken my knees? “I saw the look in your eyes when Marcus Valerius questioned your loyalty to me, as though you would tear him limb from limb. How can I reconcile all I have seen of you? Which is the true Laelia, the meek, the insatiable, or the warrior?”
Mistrust adds another layer of anger to his words, and suddenly I am aware of the complexity inherent in my character. I am all that he has named, and more, yet I cannot find the words to explain. Indeed, there can be no answer that would please him. I know this—and seek to avoid the question altogether. “Everything I was serves only to make me what I am now.”
“And what is that?”
“Your slave.”
“My slave?” Midnight dark humor shimmers beneath the words, mockery warring with ire. “Then come here, slave.”
I comply, stopping when he gestures me to stop, standing at the foot of his couch. He takes a sip of wine from his goblet. Raptor’s eyes, gleaming with cruel intent, watch me above the golden rim. Shivers of awareness slide across my skin, prickle my nipples, vibrate deep into my cunt.
“Kneel.”
I need no thought to take me to my knees; my body obeys without question.
“Kiss my feet, slave.”
He seeks my humiliation but will not find it in this way.
I love his feet, love every part of him. After these many sad and lonely nights having permission to touch him anywhere fills me with joy and relief.
Leaning forward I lay my lips against the arch of first one foot, then the next. With reverent sips, slowly, thoroughly, I cover the curving line from heel to ball, burrow beneath his toes to the soft flesh there. Each digit receives my adoration, kisses sprinkled on his skin like salt to season my passion.
“Lick them.”
At his growl I use my tongue, lave each toe above and below and between. Curling and twisting to bathe every tiny inch of skin, I explore the power of the unknown. There is no other contact between us—just my mouth on his foot—yet arousal flares wild and hot.
“Suck them.”
A rush of wetness floods my labia as I take one toe between my lips. With my tongue wrapped around it I suck, finding a rhythm redolent with lust, one that echoes the pulsing need of my body. That toe becomes his cock, my mouth transforms to a greed-filled cunt. With my tongue and lips and cheeks I fuck him, seek and find a new pitch of desire.
I look at him through my lashes. His cheeks are slashed with red, his phallus tents the front of his toga and he holds the stem of his goblet so tightly the bones show white through his skin. I suck harder and his hips rise as his toe curls in my mouth.
“Ah, ah!”
I would remain like this all night until we writhed into the whirlwind of release. Nothing else exists now, at this moment, but master and slave, heat and wetness, his rigid flesh conquered by and conquering my yielding orifice.
“Ah,” he cries. “Ah!”
And he pulls his feet away. I shudder, bow my head and wait. Our rushed breaths unite, becoming a point of contact just as surely as my lips on his flesh were.
“Rise. Take off your tunic.”
Again I obey without hesitation. As my rough woolen garment falls to the floor he gestures me to his side, close, closer, until my shins press against the edge of his couch. When he commands me to place my knee on the cushion beside him, cool air rushes across my labia and my legs become liquid with need.
Gaius Antonius laughs. A harsh crack of sound.
I know what he sees. On his command all hair has been removed from my body. My cunt has no shield to hide behind. The lips pulse with each beat of my heart, my clitoris surely visible between them, stiff and seeking. The cream of desire glistens over it all, even down my thighs. Musk rises, permeating the air around us. His nostrils flare, the smile fading to a scowl.
“Touch yourself, slave, as you say you do when we are apart.”
Compliant, I cup my breasts with hot, trembling hands. Pinching and shaping, I let my hands become his, make them rough and demanding, plucking at the tips until they ache for sweet relief. I lift them, bend my head to tongue first one nipple then the other, making them gleam.
“Lower.”
He wants to be the one touching me. I suddenly know this explicitly, and that knowledge fires the lust between us as my fingers slide slowly, inexorably toward my labia. I use one finger only, let it slip along the swollen outer lips, tilting my hips so there is nothing impeding his vision. Over and over I tease, feeling the contractions of my womb strengthen, become more insistent.
“Inside.” The breath of rough sound is almost enough to bring my orgasm to fruition. “Put your finger inside your cunt.”
I shift my legs, putting my foot flat on the cushion and turning my knee outward so as to open myself to him fully. The pulse of my clitoris mirrors the wild cadence of my heart. Slowly I penetrate just to the nail, then to the first knuckle. Gaius slides down on the couch, positioning himself to better see. His lips are pulled back from his strong white teeth. The goblet of wine falls from his hand, forgotten.
“Further—” his breath rushes, hot as fire, across my thigh “—more.”
I press, feel the wet strength of my cunt envelop my finger, pull it in, squeeze. The heel of my hand brushes my clitoris and I moan. His eyes scorch my flesh, his gaze invasive, arousing, devastating. How much longer will my legs hold me?
“Again.”
He is so close now I feel the shaft of his word against my clitoris and my hips jerk. Lust cannot be denied, cannot be withheld. I remove my finger, add two more, plunge them into my cunt.
“Ah, ah!”
Yes.
I fuck myself for him; let him see and hear the sounds of my cunt grasping and slurping at my fingers, my moans and cries of pleasure. Let him smell the sweet/salt scent of my desire, feel the shaking of his couch as my body shudders toward a collision with the sublime.
“Ah, ah!”
It is a groan, a growl. It tells me he regrets his restraint, but it is too late. These rules are his, and by them we will play until the game has run its course.
Faster, faster, flies my hand. Wetness flashes from my fingers to fall upon his face. The tip of his tongue flicks out, captures a drop. The look in his eyes flays, destroys me. Bowing back, I am a sapling caught in the storm of my orgasm. He is the wind and hail, thunder and lightning.
Rough hands catch me before I fall to the floor. With a crash silver platters and goblets strike the tiles, and the unyielding wood of the table is suddenly beneath my back. The couch is kicked aside and my master tears at his clothing. Toga and tunic are soon but rags upon the floor.
His face is caught in a rictus of need. His phallus strains upward, the glans red, angry, testes tight to the root. As I watch his skin trembles, shivering over muscle and bone. Jerking my thighs apart, he steps between them, his eyes fixed on mine.
I tilt my hips, unashamedly whimpering with longing.
There is a beast in the room. It stalks us, intent on devouring reason and habit and mores. I surrender to it, as I always do. Gaius Antonius will not without a fight. One day, if he does not take care, that beast, desire, will rend him limb from limb.
As though awakening from a stupefying sleep, I suddenly recognize the struggle taking place inside him.
My master will not lie between my thighs, will not allow me to see his face, touch his body when he takes me, for I am his slave, his thing. He believes the pleasures of my body should be kept separate from the pleasures of the mind, of the heart. Yet he is drawn to me, just as I am drawn, inescapably, to him. Only by limiting himself can he keep the beast, which has him by the throat and claws at his chest, from overpowering this conviction.
It is my place to accept, to take what he would give, expect nothing more. But I cannot help imagining what could be.
Put your mouth on me. Use your tongue to satisfy my flesh. I will scream for you, flood your face with my pleasure, quench your thirst, drown your anger. Look into my eyes as you fill me with your cock, watch as you take me beyond the realms of desire to ecstasy. The Goddess will reward you, beyond your wildest dreams.
With a curse he steps back.
“On your stomach, slave.”
My heart breaks as I do his bidding, but my heart has naught to do with the demands of my body. I curl my fingers around the edge of the table, and hold on.
Gaius Antonius drives forward, stretching my cunt with his cock, and the sensation of our flesh joining, slamming, sliding together, shocks me anew with its erotic force. It is always this way, even after these many moons of living in his house, being the recipient of his attention. He was made to fill me, every vein and sinew of his phallus was created to perfectly complement a place inside my body. Instinctively we match, connect, destroy each other with our lust.
The beast roars and I answer with a scream of pleasure. Caught in its maw, I quake, twist, push, rock, feeling the bite deepen. Against his will, Gaius is sucked into the wildness, too. His cock grows thicker within me; each breath leaving his throat is expelled on a grunt. He shouts, tries to curtail the sound, but I feel the Goddess move in me. My cunt tightens around him, ripples, nips. A curse breaks from my master’s throat and when he slams forward the force of it causes the table to shudder.
In that moment reason leaves and his spirit, surely guided by the Goddess, takes command.
A twist of his fingers in my hair pulls my head back, anchors me in place for his power-filled thrusts. All I can do is grip the wood beneath me, cry aloud my thanksgiving at once more being united with my master.
His fingers slip across my hip, between my thighs, and find my clitoris.
I cannot move, cannot scream, cannot do anything except strain with the orgasm, ride the excruciating ecstasy. Rigid and frightened, I am dying from the power of his mastery, the force of my pleasure.
Silently, shuddering, covered by the hot breath of the beast, we find release, but no peace.
Glorious Enslavement Page 2