Lora Caecilia
P.S. I got nothing, really. Just a habit, I suppose, writing these obligatory post scriptum. Hail & fare (& fight) well.
XI Aprillus
Dear Friend:
Hail. Crunch/crisis time/mode continues: no less than two of our most faithful servants have run away in the dead of the heat of the night, absconded in the wake of the Marius debacle! Oh how I wish you were here to deal with this dire & desperate situation. All’s in an uproar & I can feel one of my psychosomatic migraines coming on, the kind no potion or lotion or sacrificial slitting of throat of cow or goat will call to account. I’m coping, though. Doing my best to slay thoughts of unrest, to stay on top of all things domestic on the domestic front. (How my prose style wanders far afield. I must get a grip, keep calm, be strong, hang on—in-between crying jags & ragey flame-outs.) I asked Drusilla, via messenger, of course, for some leads on finding good help, which as you know, the economy being what it is these days (very strong), is so hard to come by. It’s not always the case that such members of the beau monde, the bon ton, as she will be in the know when it comes to picking acceptable domestics, or at least ones who aren’t too very sordid & corrupt, so I told myself not to expect much. All servants & slaves eventually betray one, as everyone knows. Recklessly, they do. Steal food, have affairs, commit murders, larceny, etc. This is a known known. So Dru sent over these two kids for me to interview. Blinking, abashed (as they should be), a bit hangdog like I’d already busted them for something. So very young & tender, too: they couldn’t have been more than XV or XVI or XVII—& had that unmistakable look about them, fairly clean-favored & not unkempt, but like they were fresh-off-the-raft, as it were. Well, barque, I suppose. Barque or raft, then. Hmm. Not quite raft people—a cut above that, perhaps. Hence barque. But real live refugees of some type or stripe, nevertheless. A waif & an ape. Girl waif, boy other. A brother & sister—or so they say. They don’t look too much alike. Could be from different fathers or different mothers. Hmm. Or perhaps in other cultures…oh, polygamy is the norm in some of them, is it not? Thought so. I had to run them through the slight gauntlet advised in Livy’s The Great Book of Hiring & Suppressing Servants So That They Work Hard, Steal Not, & Remain in Fear of Their Masters. I shall relate here a bit of my interview, conducted with me reclining on my fainting couch, the plush red velvet. The royal blue’s gotten so soft with all that lassitude I indulge in, admittedly, you’re right: I really need to hit the gymnasium one of these fine days. Me couched, as I say, them standing before me, quivering sometimes (I liked that muchly), quaking, even. Question I [to the boy]: “You there, you jejune & bloody young handsome fool—can you read & write?” I asked the mouth-breathing cretin of a dim-ass dumbass, the golden curly haired lad, me a-pantomiming reading, then writing, folding my hands like a book, then darning the air with right thumb and index digit. I have always thought, I may as well add, that curly hair was a sign of lesser intelligence; I’m sure Drusilla, for instance, straightens hers—or has her maid straighten it for her with hot tongs, kitchen steam, orange honey, & diluted tree sap; she can’t fool me. Shakes he his head, his lucent locks that fairly spray sunshine when they jounce & flip round. “No? You can’t? Not a stich?” “No. Alas, Domina,” he says, the fool, the stupid mouth-breathing bumpkin. “Good,”says I. “Very good.” Literacy, I think, & I am sure you will corroborate this, only gives them ideas that are far too grand for their pleby heads. Besides, with all our precious books lying round, what a temptation for them, to pick them up & thus put down their tasks. Not having that one bit. Imagine a slave or servant touching one of your texts, Caius? Horrors, of course. As bad as catching one putting his or her pert/impertinent bottom on one’s bed! “Question II: What about you, slut? Are you lettered?” I says as I turns to the bashful girl, trying not to oogle her nubile bosoms, trying not to think about her lips, their gorgeous symmetry, their plump, ripe, full, lush, bee-stung, feather-lined perfection. “I know my numbers, Domina,” says she ever so gently, ever so softly, & looks down, all coy & replete with eyelash-batting punctilio. Goats & monkeys! Flabbergasted, I was. The odd thing is, save when she’s a-fluttering them, her eyes, she looks like her great staring orbs never do close; & with her turned-down, provocatively contemptuous mouth & sweet cheekbones tall as Etna, she, as I’m a person, looks a right little lady, a gentlewoman & not the obvious peasant she indubitably is. Perhaps they’re both descended from unacknowledged noble lines. They’re certainly pretty enough to be well-born; it is very strange. How well & truly-sincerely I wish & wish you were here to see them, observe their ways. “Excellent,” I tells her & stands up & takes her sharp by the fine chin, a-stroking it. I could feel the fool boy fidget slightly, the sly, burr-haired, smiling-stupid hirsute eegit. He’s no brother o’ hers. They aren’t related any more than you or I. He’s rogering her nightly or my initials aren’t L.C. She looks me right in the face! What infernal effrontery! How brazen! I smile, & cock my head at her, all the more in overt, cruel appreciation of her loveliness, the stupid-beautiful lithe little nymph. “Let’s have a wee look at you, girl,” I says, you know, by way of sizing her up. Flinches she not. Then, turning to the boy & holding my gaze there, I ask (in I must say a quite commanding & queenly voice): “Question II [to both, me looking back & forth between them]: Thieves, are you? Going to steal from my larder, my household, snaffle food from out the innocent mouths of my two noble-born & precious, brilliant children?” “Oh, no, Domina,” says they, in tandem like, a sort of a vaudeville act/kind of motif: I half-expected them to perform a dance routine right there. “The alacrity & unthinkingness with which you have answered bespeaks your probably—I mean probable—proclivity for purloining,” says I tartly. “Huh?” the one, the idiot boy, so insolent, says flatly. “How dare you speak to me in that rude tone, presumptuous & brazen urchin!” says I, & rightly. “I meant, like, ‘What, Domina?’” goes cheeky he. The very nerve of the youth of today! I thought to my livid self. Then did I issue this unequivocal check: “You cursed rapscallion, you abominable right bastard son of a low-born slave of a spent Basque whore,” says I. Third & Final Question—going strictly by the book, as one doubtless should—being as follows: “Use a sentence in which you accuse & abuse the potential new hire, making sure to insert a possible nationality or race so that said putative servant will possibly proudly correct you & clumsily reveal the origin of his/her inferior nativity.” “Forgive me, Domina. Yes, Domina,” he says & bows low as he can go—quite prettily, actually, damn his epicene facial expressions, his soft speech, his darkly sparkling dreamy-pretty eyes. “I guessed right?” whispers I. “You are of the Basque race?” “Iberian, Domina,” he says. “Close enough,” says I. “I’m jolly good with Latin accents, actually,” I says & hopes I’m not blushing too very much. “You are, like, our goddess, Domina,” the girl says & prostrates herself, bowing down as though before Baal or some such sacrilegious iconography. “If you wish us,” adds she, obsequiously, & looks up at me. “Wish you what?” says I, bored now & a-playing with them, impishly capricious & playacting somewhat, my mind redolent with stratagems & schemes, as per my perverse usual. Quite keen am I to mess with their tiny little minds/brains: the young (& fetching) are so very easily fetched, as it were. “Should you, like, take us on, that is,” says she in a very naïve voice, gullible & innocent. She’s quite startlingly damnably pretty, the horrid, foreign, stunning creature. Gods damn her for a veritable charmer & exotic beauty. Shall I limn her, give you an expository picture? I shall. Clear light dreamy pale blue almond eyes, quite big & most engaging, & clean white teeth & fair hair & as I told you (five times now or so) great good high cheekbones—a lively visage, expressive & fresh. Such a fine, straight nose, as well—you could use it as a ruler—& smooth, creamy, tawny skin; touchable; it cries out somehow, it seems, for one to feel it. Pert, full breasts, pear-like, blanched peach-colored, ripe, plump, decolletagey. The boy—not so much, as in pretty: striking, handsome, nice straight teeth. She,
though. She’s so irremediably pulchritudinous in fact that I may have to scarify her a bit in case you, when & if you return, take a fancy to her. Scratch her across the face or perhaps have Cook hold with tongs a hot coal to her apple-like cheeks. That is, if I don’t in abject frustration dismiss her first. Or have her “taken care of.” She’s the picture of innocence—thus guilty as anything. I know her kind. I may just hie me out to your armory & take a scimitar from your spoils box & put it not-gently to her pink left cheek. Just the one. Just a nice long slash like a half pink moon on her as I said impossible cheekbones (they’re very high, but I think I may have mentioned that) for her to remember me by as I watch her flesh flower, the blood bloom as I watch in fascination, say, & the wound rises like bread baking brown & golden-hued & honeyish. The red blood pearls about her taut jaw & she recoils in horror & perhaps thrilling libidinal excitation. Does my behavior seem odd somehow? My intimations, I mean, my fantasies, hallucinations, etc.? I worry a slight bit, I do. I wonder if I am with child, Caius? Would you welcome a third bairn? I’m not so sure you would nor would I. Were I a man—& thank my stars & trusty talismans that I am not, despite my hatred of effeminacy of any sort!—I should want to do such things to her—our Laura—as I know not how to put. She’s quite dishy. Diabolically so, in fact. You know how someone can be too beautiful? That’s her. Most fetching. It’s distressing. Do you still find me attractive, Caius? I’m not asking out of vanity, but from mere narcissism & genuine interest. I know I have put on some weight since Julia. I know I’m vain. I know that. & I know you tell me all the time how much you want me, love me, crave me, need me. But is that just your julius talking? I do wonder, you know. It must be hard for you, only having men, men, men around all day on tour. I mean, I wouldn’t mind that much! Hahaha! Only joking you, Caius. “One’s too many & a hundred’s not enough”—isn’t that what they say? Oh, that’s about wine, not men. My mistake. Similarly applies, though, don’t you think? I do. Now I think of it, I could do with a bit of “the grape” just about now. I’ll go clap for a glass & be right back… Okay, hail again. That’s better. So refreshing. Am so parched all the time. Thirsty. Yum! So good. Our Roman winemakers really are the best in the world, don’t you think. I mean, I’ve never had glass nor goblet that’s come from anywhere else, but still? Can you imagine it—bloody Franks making vino? Or Spaniards? Hahaha. Ludicrous. Anyway, I had better give this “other Laura” thing a think. I’m most vexed right now, you’ve no idea. Well, some. How depressingly insecurely I have elevated her to “rival status.” You know how haughty-envious I can be—you have seen it! Many-a-time, I shouldn’t wonder. Another thing I wonder is whether Drusilla sent her so as to not have her in her (Drusilla’s) own household, knowing full well what a little minx & temptress she’d easily turn out to be with the least bit of enthusiastic venereal encouragement, surely. Gods know Drusilla’s husband’s randy as a goat in heat & a big fat pig as well, outrageously unfaithful, an utter satyr—& everyone knows it. Makes nary an attempt to mask it, even. He’d make a pass at a plinth had it a vagina or a spare pair of breasts or puckered bumhole. He’s a right shark if he’s anything at all, that one. A proverbial wandering eye, the guy’s got. As all men have, surely. Pigs & dogs all, every one. One could set all the men in the world in a line & saunter down it going “Pig, pig, dog, pig, dog, dog, dog…” till the end of time. Pigs &/or dogs, every one. Save you, of course, husband dearest. Were I personally the Sapphic type, a girl “from the Isle,” as they say (of Lesbos, that is, in case you are too thick to catch the allusion, dear friend; a lesbian, in other words)—& I am most assuredly not from there; no way!—I’d have her, this new piece with the fatuous “brother,” in my vast soft plush red bed in a trice. ’Twouldn’t be so very hard to corrupt her & teach her the ways of the world. Hmmm. I wonder. Seriously now: in all candor, what the Hades should I do with these two? Not quite sure. I may take them on on an “on trial” sort of basis. Don’t know, really. I so wish you were here to advise & counsel & chastise me. Read: spank me silly. Oh, Caius, you’re so wise—in a sort of silly, duncelike, dum dum way. Hahaha. No, seriously—I mean it. Well, anyway. How d’ye do? What’s new with you? You faring well & staying alive? Acquitting yourself on the gloriously vainglorious fields of superfluous battle? I hope so. Were you faring well, that’d make one of us, at least. I’m kerfuffled here; banjaxed to the max; I really really really have no idea how to do damage control on this whole Marius-killing-himself-thing. Everyone’s aflutter. It’s like some kind of nightmarish phantasmagoria round here. We’re all like these oversized birds, flapping round, pecking at things, each other esp. Kids freaking, servants wailing. Word does travel fast: Aurelian came home from the field trip to Pompeii (with a lump of orangey lava rock as a sort of souvenir, I suppose; I hope he didn’t spend too many denariuses on that nonsense; I mean, I could’ve sold him a stupid rock from our rock garden much cheaper, I’ll warrant; bet you any money he doesn’t even use it as a papyrusweight) & the first thing he asked was where neighbor Marius “did it,” if you can believe that! He wanted me to show him; then he went round looking for all the blood stains! He wanted the servants to act it out for him like it was theatre! Mercury & Mars! Who bloody told him?! If I find out, someone’s in for a disemboweling & a half. At the least a verbal one. I wish I had something pleasant & jolly to relate, convey, relay, impart. I don’t, more’s the pity. Still, I remain
Your (somewhat) faithful Lora Caecillia
XIII Aprillus
Dear Friend:
Hail & let’s forget for a moment about all pleasantries & formalities. & besides, the morning light’s blinding me something terrible, if you know what I mean. It’s got me in a mood most foul & pestilent, I’ve no doubt about that. Very in need of et capillus de canis, is what I am trying to say. Was most deep in my cups last night and oh if I’m not paying for it dearly now. Head’s ponging like a out-of-tune gong. Apropos of how I signed off at the end of my last? Scratch that bit about “your (somewhat) faithful,” I am sorry to tell you the new servant girl, whose name, as I think I related already, is also Lora, though she spells it wrongly: “Laura”—she & I fooled around a little bit this afternoon while the kids were down for a nap in the hot heat of midday. Damme, I don’t know how or why that happened. Maybe the increasing temperatures had something to do with it. People are more amorous & frisky, they say, in warmer climes. On our honeymoon to the Amalfi Coast don’t you remember how many times a day I wanted to “do it”? There—remember you wanted me to describe our wedding holiday? That should do for you. Ha! Anyhow, I am quite certain that it is getter hotter every twelve-moon that goes by. I wonder what the soothsayers would have to say about the heat rising in old Rome these days. Even though I don’t care, I wonder what it’s like in other cities as well, or if they say that more & more rivers & lakes dry up all over the known/mapped world. Anyway, Laura & I—I reckon it’s just “something that happened,” Caius, & I’m… I don’t know what I am, really. I don’t… Is it considered cheating when you’re with—you know—someone who’s of your same…? I mean, after all, you did have your own Grecian thing with that blasted camp boy. Just the once? & does that quote-unquote make you Greek? To have let him take your julius into his…I can’t even write it! Okay: mouth. There, I said it. Or wrote it, rather. Same diff. I wonder now if, subconsciously, I may be trying to exact a bit of what they call sweet revenge here. Psychology, I believe they call it: when you do something equally heinous to your partner to get him back for the heinous thing he did, like letting a dirty-filthy & attractive Greek camp boy take your julius “just the one time” into his mouth. Egads, I am making myself mental here! Must stop. Must eat. Must drink. One sec. Be right back…. Okay, where was I? Perhaps the right & the wrong of this, the ethics (or morals?) will emerge if I just tell you what happened—or try to. My version & everything. Without too much sensationalism or embellishment or commentary & what you might deem a kind of insta-nostalgia. You know: a trumped up & salac
ious account like how the gossip papers they sell at the market talk. Well, talk isn’t the right word but you know what I’m saying. I am just so fuzzy (& warm) right now so you’ll have to pardon my Latin or what-you-will. Okay: here goes nothing. A-dusting & a-watering the house plants, she (Laura) had knocked a little vase over—not one of the antiques, but something I was nevertheless quite partial to, the chalk-white, aquamarine, & purple thing with capering revelers & horned, mythopoeic beasts. Know the one I’m referring to? Good. It didn’t even shatter—but it might have done. Livid, I was. Plus excited as simply keening, just gasping for a chance to upbraid, reproach, brickbat, etc. the young hussy or her so-called brother. “Oh, this is nice! Most excellent handiwork! Bloody clumsy child,” says I, wonderly wroth, as you might expect; not happy at her at all at all. “Come forth, imbecile thing,” I, fulminating, says to the stupid twat. She does. Comes she forth, within slapping distance. “Do you realize what you have gone & almost done, klutz?” “No, Domina,” says she. & so, to help her, show her, I cuffed her very very hard & she bled at the mouth, the full brunt of my untrimmed nails finding then raking red her olive-dough-fresh skin. “Forgive me, Domina,” sobs she, chuntering now, & blushing prettily. Well the red trickle from her plump lips & the profuse and soft tears in her enormous eyes I daresay fairly undid me & I told her quietly now: “Be still, you insolent little fool,” & I wiped the salt red blood from her fine chin & licked it (boy, did I ever wax erotogenic at the sight of her fighting back tears, sobbing & pleading with her big & kind & truly beautiful fuck-me eyes). Then I put my still-blood-covered finger in her mouth—kissed her ever so softly, full flush on the mouth, & lead her to my chambers. By the wrist—& so tight she bled again. “Ow,” she said. “You are, like, hurting me, Domina!”she said. “Undress, whore!” I commanded. “You don’t want to get blood on your outfit now, do you?” I said. “& stop saying ‘like’ every flipping other word! You sound like a cretin, talking like that, you, like, know? Like, totally!” Of course it was a total ruse. She acquiesced, undressed. “Now—lay you down, part your legs, & close your eyes,” says I. “On your bed, Domina?” she said, all small. “You wanna do it on the floor?” says me, & doubtless a half-mast-eyed look of unmitigated concupiscence descends upon my thrilled & pleasure-anticipating visage. “I, I, I…” she charmingly stammers. “Are you a virgin?” asks I. “I think so,” says the idiot. “If you mean…” “Shut up, you alien slut,” says I. “What doth it matter? Lie back & let me taste you.” Good gods was she ever sweet: just the right admixture of sweat & the juice of her, the way her mons foamed & the hot sweet liquid dripped down her “taint,” & the half-moans & little cries of pleased surprise & clutchy “oh-oh-oh’s” from her pink mouth drove me half mad, I tell you. Afterward, as we lay back laughing the way one does post-coitus, sharing young figs & an opium pipe between us & giggling like naughty little girls, I very delicately & decorously asked her if she had ever felt such intense pleasure, in such a way. She gave a look askance like—as though searching for the right answer, as though I were asking her a trick question. Which (the look she gave) only meant of course that she had been gone down on so to speak before but didn’t like to admit it lest I vainly flatter myself & assume I was her “first,” as it were. So of course I up & slapped her again. Which admittedly rash action only pricked to the quick my enflamed desire redux & at we went it once more, this time with me a-sitting on her smiling-lovely lovey face, gyrating like one of the Furies, possessed. I call her “Spider.” She calls me that, too. “Hello, Spider,” I say to her. “Hello, Spider,” she says right back & blushes & looks down & I brush her cheeks with the backs of my hands, left, right, back, forth. Why, I wonder, haven’t we pet names for each other, you & I? It’s a mystery. Quite, quite strange. I wonder if it means we… Well, I reckon we’ve been too busy with our respective busynesses to get round to it, pet-naming. Hm. If I send this missive—& that’s a big, big if; I mean, I must be insane to confess this, tell you this, when the servants who heard & maybe watched are forbidden under pain of death to breathe a word of it, even if they’re tortured on a rack or hung or hanged from their empurpled thumbs—I hope you will forgive me, dear. I was only carried away & merrily on the swift storm clouds of thundering lust. I wonder if we (you & I) didn’t—you know—perhaps entangle/entwine our lives, get married too soon, too young, or if you were just… I’m only wondering here. Just a big heap of harmless hindsight, don’t you know. Go on & arrow me verily through the heart of my heart if I’m out of bounds here but… I mean, gosh. You know how Pandora-like I am—wondering what “it” is like for men. Why else do you think I’m every once in a while pleading with you like anything to let me put the sheeny leathern stick I use for a you-know-what up your nice big Roman man-bum? & you never permit me to! Naughty Caius, naughty man. Let me reiterate—I don’t want to be one, a man, that is (so many of my contemporaries, so many Roman women these days seem a bit resentful that they weren’t born with a big, fat, hairy prick & a yen to go campaigning & subduing “infies” hither & yon, up hill & down dale, across the Tyrrhenian & the Adriatic; “It’s a man’s world & we only wait at home in it,” they say & all that nonsense (stuff like, “This wouldn’t have happened to me if I had a penis,” or, “If only I weren’t pregnant again” & all of that), but I do wish to understand their (your) sensibilities & sensations. & so I tried cunnilingus. Kill me &/or divorce me or have me poisoned or strangled if you wish to: I don’t mind. Boil me in oil or a vat of bubbling fat; trip me & laugh long & loud as a stampede of livestock goes booming down our alleyway; club me over the head (from behind, grinning insanely) with a marble bust of mighty Hercules, as I am lifting my fair face to let the fat old sun shine upon it; on tippy-toes & snickering as you steal into my chamber while wearing a Grecian mask of some sort, cut my throat in my silken sleep; have me slowly disemboweled with a rusty trowel; plunge a dust mop down my gullet; bung me in with innumerable woebegone & greatly wailing Christians & have me thrown to the lions, tigers, panthers, hyenas, Jews, armed dwarves, mad bulls, etc.; force me at sword point off or heave me or have me hoved backward from a tall cliff above a veritable Charybdis or Scylla, or lower me (screaming, shrieking) into a pit of pythons, vipers, Cleopatras, or crocs; dunk me with a swift trip & without warning or a clean set of clothing into a dark, dank, dirty dungeon (is there any other kind? I mean, whoever heard of a nice, well-lit & spruced up hole-in-the-ground?); & lastly, take me to court & take me for everything I’ve got: I don’t care.
Your Caius Aquilla Page 8
