To Love Again

by Bertrice Small

  He caught her chin between his thumb and forefinger, stunned by her honest declaration and moved by her passionate defiance. Tears slipped slowly down her smooth cheeks like tiny crystal beads. "My God," he exclaimed, "did you know that your eyes glisten like amethysts when you weep like that, Cailin? You break my heart. Cease, I beg you, my beauty! I surrender humbly before your feet."

  "I hate being a slave!" she told him desperately. "And why is it that you can penetrate the defenses I have so carefully built up around myself these last months when no one else could?"

  "I am a better tactician than any of the others," he told her teasingly. "Besides, Cailin, although you tempt my baser nature, I find you fascinating on several other levels as well." He brushed away her tears carefully with a single finger. "I have finished my wine now. We will become better acquainted in the bath. I promise I will try not to make you cry again if you will not be coy. Do we have a bargain, my beauty? I think I am being most generous."

  She could not be angry with him. He was really very kind, but she was a little fearful of him nonetheless. "I agree," she said finally.

  "Come then," he said, taking her hand and leading her from the atrium.

  Chapter 9

  The bath at Villa Mare was unique in that it was not an interior room. It faced the sea, and had an open portico that could be closed off by means of shutters in cold or inclement weather. The view from the room was both beautiful and soothing. The walls were decorated in mosaic. One pictured Neptune, the sea god, standing tall amid the waves, a trident in one hand and a conch shell in the other, upon which he was blowing. Behind him silver-blue dolphins leapt. A second wall offered a scene of Neptune's many daughters cavorting among the waves with a troupe of sea horses; while the third wall showed the mighty king of the sea seducing a beautiful maiden in an underwater cave. The mosaic floor of the bath pictured fish and sea life of every kind known to the artist. It was both colorful and amusing.

  There was a tiled dressing room off the bath, but the main room served all the steps necessary to bathing, unlike the elegant bath complex at Villa Maxima with its many different rooms. The bathing pool was set in sea-blue tiles, and the water gently warm. A corner fountain with a marble basin ran with cool water. There were shell-shaped depressions with drains for rinsing and benches for massage.

  Aspar dismissed the old slave who served as bath attendant. "The lady Cailin wishes to serve me," he told the woman, and she grinned a toothless grin that bespoke pure conspiracy, cackling as she departed.

  "Discretion is wasted here," Cailin told him, pinning up her long hair.

  "Remove your chiton," he said. "I want to see you as God made you, Cailin. Bent over as you were the last time I viewed your charms, I could see little of much note, so covered were you by those Northmen."

  "You may be sorry you did not buy one of them," she teased him mischievously, and slipped the simple garment over her head, tossing it carelessly upon a bench. Then she stood silent and still, amazed that she was not mortified; but then her stay at Villa Maxima had, she suspected, rid her of all false modesty.

  "Turn slowly," he commanded her quietly, his admiration obvious. Then he removed his own garments, unfastening the cross-gartering on his braccos and slipping them off, to be followed by his drawers, tunic, and fine linen chemise.

  As Cailin turned back to face him, she found Aspar quite as naked as she herself was. Startled by his action, she blushed. He stood quietly, allowing her the same advantage as he had had, and then he turned, too. Her first impression had been a good one. His body was firm, well-muscled, and kissed by the sun. He was not fat, nor was he large-boned. There was a solid stockiness to him that she found comforting. His arms and legs were hairless, as was his chest. He had longer legs than she would have expected, and a well-sculpted, hard torso. His buttocks were tight.

  His male organs seemed smaller than she was used to, but she suspected he was of quite average size. Her "barbarians" and Wulf had been the exceptions to the rule, Casia had assured her when they had once spoken on it. Her curiosity had led her to question the lovely courtesan who had tutored her so well in the arts of Eros. Casia had been a font of useful and rather fascinating information for Cailin, who was so lacking in practical experience regarding men and lovemaking.

  His voice brought her back to the present. "Do you find me as beautiful as I find you, Cailin?" he asked her.

  "Yes," she said quietly. He was an attractive man, and she saw no reason not to tell him so.

  "Take up the strigil, now, and scrape me," he ordered her. "I am filthy from my ride. The roads are particularly dusty at this time of year."

  Cailin picked up the silver bathing tool and began to remove the sweat and grime that his ride in the heat of the day had deposited on his skin. She had watched the bath attendants at Villa Maxima at their trade, for Casia had warned her that men frequently enjoyed being served this way by their lovers. Slowly, carefully, she worked, moving from his shoulders and chest, down his arms and back and legs.

  "You have a skill for this work," he said softly as she knelt before him, carefully running the bath instrument over his thighs.

  "I am a novice at such a task," she said, "but I am glad I please you, my lord." She rinsed him with a basin of warm water taken from the bathing pool, and he took the strigil from her hands. "I will scrape you now," he said softly, plying the tool. Cailin stood very still as he moved the strigil gently over her delicate skin. She found this love-play rather charming. His restraint in claiming his rights was very reassuring. She sighed as he rinsed her, and turning to face him, she said, "Now, my lord, I will wash you before we enter the bathing pool."

  He stood in one of the hollowed mosaic shells in the floor. Cailin placed an alabaster jar of soft soap on the floor nearby and took up a sea sponge. Scooping some soap from the jar, she spread it over his shoulders, and then worked up a lather using the sponge. Slowly, carefully, she washed him, working in an efficient manner, turning him about as she knelt, adding more soap, scrubbing with the sponge. She blushed self-consciously as she bathed his manhood, but to his credit he said nothing, remaining quiet as she worked. Cailin stood, swirling the soapy sponge over his belly and up his broad chest. Finished, she rinsed him again with warm water, relieved the ordeal was over. She had never bathed a man before. Wulf had always washed himself, usually in the fast-running stream near the hall, even in winter.

  "Now you may enter the bathing pool," she told him.

  "Nay," he answered her, and took the sponge from her hand. "You must be washed first, my beauty." Bending, he rinsed the sponge in the bronze basin, and tipping the dirty water out, refilled it with fresh.

  "I can bathe myself," she said shyly.

  "I'm certain you can," he said, laughter evident in his tone, "but would you deny me the pleasure serving you will give me?" Not waiting for her answer, he dipped his three fingers into the alabaster pot and began to slowly spread soap over her shoulders and back. The slow, circular motion of the sea sponge on her skin was almost mesmerizing in its sensuous movement. She thought she felt his lips touch the back of her neck, and then the soapy sponge swirled over it, leaving her confused. Kneeling, he washed her buttocks, kissing them first, and then moved on to her legs. "Turn," he said, and she obeyed, although her body was already beginning to feel heavy with desire. How lovely all of this was. Bathing with a man was most pleasurable.

  He lifted her left foot and washed it, then the right. The sponge swept slowly up her legs, which were tightly closed. Gently he pushed them slightly apart, the sponge sliding over her sensitive skin. Cailin turned her head and looked away. She was unused to seeing her Venus mont so pink and smooth, devoid of its little curls, but only men, peasants, and savages, Jovian had assured her, kept such body hair. A woman must be silken all over. Her stomach knotted itself as his hand rubbed soap over the quivering flesh. Cailin closed her eyes as the sponge rubbed round and round and round.

  His hand gently drew her forward,
and Cailin gasped, startled as his mouth closed over the nipple of her right breast. His teeth lightly scored the flesh; his tongue teased insistently at her; and then he suckled hard on the tight little nub even as his left hand caressed then crushed her other breast until her knees began to buckle. Standing quickly, he pulled her hard against him, his mouth finding hers with a burning kiss that left her breathless. Then his gray eyes held her in thrall as he rinsed her slowly, being certain that every bit of soap was washed away. Finally placing the basin down, he took her by the hand and led her down the steps into the bathing pool.

  The warm water lapped softly at their bodies. Cailin felt weak in the sudden heat. Seeing how pale she was, he drew her against him again. When he felt her trembling, Aspar said softly, even as he began to place little kisses all over her face, "I do not want you to be fearful of me, Cailin, but you must know I want to make love to you. Do you know how sweet Iovemaking can be between a man and a woman, my beauty? Not that ugly animal coupling you were forced to endure at Villa Maxima, but true passion between lovers. Tell me, were you a virgin when you first came to Constantinople, or did some other lover initiate you into the wondrous sweetness two people can create?" Tenderly he nibbled on her earlobe, and then he looked directly into her violet eyes.

  "I… I had a husband," Cailin told him.

  "What happened to him, my beauty?" Aspar gently encouraged her.

  "I do not know, my lord. I was betrayed into slavery," she told him, and then went on to explain briefly. "Jovian says that Wulf was probably told I was dead," she finished. Several tears slid down her cheeks. "I think he is correct. I just wish I knew what happened to our child. I am so afraid that Antonia may have sold it, too, if indeed it lived, but our child would be strong. I know it is alive!"

  "You cannot change the past," he counseled her wisely. "I understand that better than most, Cailin. If you will trust me, I will give you a happy present, and your future will be everything you could ever want."

  "It would seem, my lord, that I have no choice," she replied. Trust, she thought, wryly. Why were men always asking you to trust them?

  "Oh, my beauty," he said with a smile, "we always have a choice. It is just sometimes our choices are not particularly pleasant. Your choices, however, are. You may love me now, or you may love me later."

  Cailin giggled. "Your choices, my lord, bear a great similarity to one and another." She already liked this man. He was kind, and he had humor. These were not bad traits in one so powerful.

  He smiled back at her. She excited him very much; rousing him in a way no woman really ever had, even his beloved Anna. It had been a long time since he had really desired a woman, although he had visited Villa Maxima quite regularly. He firmly believed that a man should not allow his juices to be pent up for too long. To do so foggled the brain and made a man irritable. He knew, however, looking at this beautiful girl before him, that he would never visit Villa Maxima again.

  "I like it when you laugh, my beauty," he said softly.

  "I like it when you smile at me, my lord," she responded, and then she kissed him on the lips, quickly, without passion, but sweetly.

  In answer he cupped her head in one hand and began to kiss her face and throat with warm lips that sent tingles of pleasure throughout her entire being. She moaned low in the back of her throat, arching her body as his other hand began to knead at a breast and he pushed her back against the side of the pool. He ran his tongue over her lips, nibbled at her eyelids, tongued the column of her straining neck. His hand dug into the tightly bunched curls pinned atop her head, and then he groaned as if pained when her body pushed against his lower torso. Her arms slipped about his neck. Cailin, returning his kisses with fervor, realized she had no need to employ Casia's tricks with Aspar. She felt his hungry arousal against her thigh, pushing, pressing with urgency.

  "I want to wait," he half sobbed, "but I cannot, Cailin!"

  "Do not, my lord," she encouraged him, tightening her hold about his neck as he slid his hands beneath her buttocks and sheathed himself within her passage, sighing with deep relief. He pumped her with long slow strokes of his weapon, and she felt him, hard but loving, within her body. She murmured low as he moved inside her over and over again until he could bear no more and his lover's tribute exploded in hot bursts of passion that left him weak and Cailin shocked that she had felt nothing but his physical presence. She shuddered, horrified.

  Aspar opened his eyes. "What is the matter?" he asked her. "You had no pleasure of it, did you, Cailin? Yet 1 think I do not displease you, my beauty, do I?" He was free of her body now, and they stood together facing each other, her back still against the bathing pool.

  "Is there only pleasure with a husband?" she asked him, honestly confused, and needing desperately to know. "I felt no pleasure when 1 was forced to couple with Jovian's trio of Northmen, but I thought it was because I did not love them, because what they were doing to me was wrong. You are not my husband, but you are kind to me. I want to serve you like a wife. Should there not be pleasure then, my lord? You do not repel me! You do not!" Her voice cracked, and she began to weep wildly. "What has happened to me, my lord, that I can feel no pleasure with you?"

  He took her in his arms and soothed her as best as he could. He was not a doctor, but he knew that the mind was probably the most powerful weapon that God had ever created. He had seen strange things happen to soldiers in the field, particularly after a cruel battle: Men, normally hardened and fierce, who would break down weeping. Men who could never look at weapons again without breaking into a fit of trembling sweats. Perhaps the brutal savagery Cailin had endured had hurt her in a similar way. He remembered the blank look in her eyes the night he had attended the entertainment at Villa Maxima. She had, in a sense, removed herself from what was going on upon the stage because it was the only way she could survive it.

  "What has happened to you since you left Britain has hurt you in some unseen manner," he told her comfortingly. "If you will trust me, I will help you to heal yourself, my beauty. I very much want you to have the same pleasure of me as I have had of you. Unlike most men of my age, I have a rather unusually large capacity for lovemaking, Cailin. We will continue on until you, too, are pleasured, no matter how long it takes." He took her hand. "Come now before we are so weakened that we are washed away in this bath."

  He led her from the bathing pool, and they dried each other off. Then, taking her hand again, he brought her to their bedchamber. Cailin was surprised to see that her pretty, narrow little couch had been removed from the dais and pushed against a wall. In its place upon the raised platform was a large striped mattress and several large, colorful pillows. Aspar began kissing her again, and shortly they fell to the bed, their limbs intertwined. The sensation of his body against hers was totally different here than in the bathing pool. He seemed harder.

  "Lie still," he commanded her, and pushing two of the pillows beneath her hips to raise her up, he told her, "I want you to spread your legs wide for me, my beauty," and when she obeyed him, he leaned forward, gently spread her nether lips with his thumbs and began to touch her lightly and softly with his tongue.

  Cailin gasped with shock and surprise. Her first thought was to push him away. This was an invasion of such a deeply intimate nature such as she had never experienced. Yet there was a tenderness to it, and a sweetness that hypnotized her so thoroughly that she found she was unable to deny him his way with her. His tongue gently caressed her flesh, then began to tease at the tiny core of her very being. Cailin felt heat suffusing her entire body, yet she shivered. The little nub began to sharply tingle, the sensation growing in intensity until she thought she could simply bear no more, but for the life of her she could find no voice to beg him to stop.

  She let the deliciousness take her, and she heard herself, as if from a distance, moaning with her own pleasure. Her limbs were heavy with a longing she had never experienced but did not find unpleasant in the least. The feeling was building even more with
each passing moment, until finally an intense sweetness swept over her like a wave from the sea, and receded as quickly, leaving her weak, but most strangely satisfied. "Ahhhhh," she exhaled breathily. Then quite unexpectedly, she began to cry softly.

  Aspar pulled himself up and gathered the girl in his arms. He said nothing. He simply stroked those riotous little auburn curls, marveling at their softness as his fingers became tangled amid the silk of her lovely hair. She pressed herself against him as if seeking his protection, and he was overwhelmed by his own desire to keep her safe from all the cruelty of the world. No matter what had happened to her, Cailin was in her heart an innocent. He was not going to let her be hurt again.

  Finally her sobs subsided and she said, "You received no pleasure, my lord, yet I did. How can this be? I did not know a woman could be pleasured in such a way." She looked up at him, and he thought that her beautiful eyes resembled violets, wet with a spring rain.

  "There is pleasure in just giving pleasure, Cailin; not perhaps as intense for me as when I am encased within you, but pleasure nonetheless. There are many ways of giving and receiving pleasure. We will explore them all. I will never intentionally do you harm, my little love," he told her, stroking her cheek with a gentle finger.

  "They say you are the most powerful man in the empire, my lord. Even more powerful than the emperor himself," she said.

  "Never say that aloud to anyone else, Cailin," he warned her. "The powerful are jealous of their power, and would not share it. My survival depends upon remaining a good servant of the empire. It is really the empire 1 honor. God, and the empire. No man. But that, my little love, must remain our secret, eh?" He smiled at her.

  "You are like the Romans of old, I think, my lord. You honor the new Rome, Byzantium, as they once honored the old Rome," Cailin said.