by Syra Bond
Fronto saw Rufo pushing his way through the crowds, worried at seeing his prize possession held at the edge of the arena. He was surprised when Fronto confronted him.
'Rufo! Rufo! I must have her! Name your price!' demanded Fronto.
'Lucretius Fronto. You have surprised me with your joke,' retorted Rufo.
'It is no joke Rufo. She is as good as mine. Tell me your price,' said Fronto, thumping one of his fists sharply into the palm of the other hand. 'Your price!'
'She is priceless, sir. Surely you would not begrudge an honest working man the joy of such a prize. She is my pension, sir.'
'Then you will live a life of poor retirement. Not only because you will no longer have your little tigress but because the tax collector will want his dues for all the years you have deceived him.'
Rufo's face changed from one of worried confidence to one of fear and dread, and he hung his head in the sudden dissipation of defeat. As soon as Fronto saw his threat had hit the target, he knew the tigress was his.
Chapter 9
The Forum Baths
Caristia looked up at the Temple of Jupiter, closed to the public for seventeen years since its structure had become unsafe after the great earthquake of 62 AD. Huge columns bore its huge roof, itself topped with a statue of Jupiter glaring down from its apex, and in the distance, behind him, sitting in the mist like a brooding giant in Jupiter's heavenly garden, the colossal mass of Vesuvius. A column of smoke rose from its centre and Caristia shivered as she imagined the mountain was an opening to hell and the smoke that ascended from its flattened cone was the breath of Satan himself.
'Caristia! Keep up!' shouted Arria Sulla as she marched ahead through the Forum. She held Innocenti on a thin leather lead attached to a leather collar buckled tightly around her neck, but Caristia was free.
She ran a few paces so she was right behind her mistress. She looked around, her sparkling blue eyes wide as she took in the activity around her. Tradesmen held out their wares to passers-by, slaves were beaten for tardiness or misbehaviour or simply because their mistress or master was bored. One man, grey-haired with a dark red toga, held a young slavegirl over his knee and spanked her publicly. Several people gathered around and watched as the pale skin of her bottom reddened under the harsh spanking. When he became tired he offered her to others, who were only too eager to take up the duty. She squirmed in pain as each one took a turn and they all laughed when, unable to take any more, she begged for mercy. Caristia dawdled, standing behind a marble pillar, watching until she realised she had been left behind again. She ran quickly to catch up before her mistress discovered she was missing.
They walked through the noisy throng until they reached the women's entrance to the Forum Baths, much smaller than the impressive grandeur of the Stabian Baths, but because of their proximity to the Forum, popular with all who wished to be seen. Also, unlike the segregation between men and women which was rigorously enforced at the Stabian Baths, those in charge of the Forum complex took a more liberal attitude. Arria Sulla instructed her Nubian slaves to wait outside.
They entered the dressing room and immediately Arria Sulla let go of Innocenti's lead and dropped her dress to the floor. She raised her arms and stretched. Caristia thought how beautiful she was; lithe, full-breasted with a flat stomach that led to the perfectly raised mound of her sex. She tensed her shapely buttocks, bringing them together so that a fine line separated them, disappearing at its upper end into the small of her gracefully curved back and at its lower end into the dark triangle that hid her flesh.
'You may undress,' she said casually to Caristia. 'Then you can undress this one that I have on a lead. I cannot trust her to do it herself.' Innocenti looked down in embarrassment. 'Get on with it!' shouted Arria Sulla.
Caristia undid the small clasps that held her tunic at her shoulders. The gauzy material slipped away, unveiling the nipples of her pert breasts, then as it fell, revealing her narrow waist and smooth stomach. The dress slipped past her shaved sex, over her legs and down around her ankles. She stood there for a moment, like a freshly exposed nymph, sensing Arria Sulla's envy of her youth, of her fragility, but most of all of her innocent humility.
Arria Sulla threw her head back haughtily, unclipped the lead from Innocenti's collar and stared hard at Caristia. Caristia had learnt to respond quickly when her mistress glared at her like that, and immediately she stepped out of the tunic that encircled her feet and started untying the ribbons that held Innocenti's pale pink smock. She felt Innocenti tremble, as though she had suffered so much she could feel nothing now except fear. Caristia stroked her shoulders as she undid the ribbons and Innocenti bit her lip as she fought back tears. Caristia drew the girl's dress down, allowing the backs of her fingers to rub against her nipples, letting them catch between her fingers, tightening slightly against them so that they had to tug to getaway. They were small but hard and pink, and they sprang back as each one was caught then released. Caristia knelt and started to take the dress down over Innocenti's hips. She did not need to, it would have fallen easily, but Caristia wanted to look closely at the sex lips now in front of her face. She wanted a reason to linger, to see them revealed, to feel their gentle heat, to inhale their delicate scent.
The flesh was perfectly shaved, not a wisp of hair remained, it was completely smooth. The sight of it, so close, so delicate, caused Caristia to catch her breath. She moved her face towards it and her mouth opened; she could not help herself. She inhaled the sweet fragrance that arose from the contours. She wanted to press her cheeks against it, to its perfume filling her nostrils. She held Innocenti's dress around the girl's thighs, not allowing it to fall, maintaining the spell a little longer, holding onto the delightful anticipation of her nakedness, capturing the present as if she was freezing time.
She wanted to lick, to taste Innocenti's fragrance, saturating her senses. She reached forward a little, urging herself towards the fleshy cleft, the close folds that allowed only the slightest sight of the hidden clitoris. Only the faintest darkening of the soft pink hue as it led towards the enclosed, moist interior. Caristia felt a wave of anxiety, as if her desires had turned to fear, as if the loss of this moment would bring destruction, as if she was exposed on the edge of an abyss.
Suddenly the spell was broken as Arria Sulla yanked Innocenti's lead. The girl toppled sideways and choked as her mistress pulled insistently on the tight leash. Her dress was ripped from Caristia's hands, and tore before she could let it go. Arria Sulla kicked out aggressively at Caristia.
'I said undress her, slut. Not put your tongue inside her. Look, your little lover is in tears. Perhaps it is passion. Perhaps she has not yet had enough of your attention.' She yanked the lead again and scowled at Innocenti. 'Bend over girl! Your little friend is going to punish you for letting her down. You see, she wanted to lick you, to fondle you and you pulled away, and so abruptly. Yes, you do deserve to feel the heat of her hand. Here! Over this bench!'
Arria Sulla pulled Innocenti over to a smooth marble bench, its white edges glistening and wet. Innocenti stumbled sideways, looking back at her mistress only for a second before she knelt on the mosaic floor and bent obediently across the wide bench. Her small breasts squashed against the cold surface as she stretched her arms forward compliantly and gripped the opposite edge with her fingers. Her narrow back blended with the oyster-white marble but her fragile form was picked out in all its features by soft shadows in the hollow of her back, between her shoulder blades and the dark valley of her buttocks.
'You shall use this,' said Arria Sulla, handing Caristia a flat leather blade, about the length of Caristia's arm and the width of her hand. It was shaped into a handle at one end, and when Caristia wrapped her fingers around it the weight of the blade made its length spring in her hand. 'And you shall know what it is like to be a mistress. Now begin. I will watch and check that you do it correctly, and if you do not then it will be the worse for you, and your little friend.'
Arria Su
lla reached down and took Caristia's left nipple between her finger and thumb. She squeezed hard then twisted it until Caristia opened her mouth to cry out. Arria Sulla let go and laughed. Several other women gathered around and watched as Caristia stood nervously behind Innocenti's exposed bottom.
She held the leather paddle in her right hand, tipping it slightly to feel its weight before lifting it back. She saw Innocenti's bottom tighten in anticipation. She knew what it felt like, that moment before the smack landed, that second of waiting before the swish of air and the slap of contact. She wanted to be in Innocenti's place, she wanted to tip her own bottom up as she heard the leather cutting the air, and she wanted to tighten her buttocks together, to narrow the dark cleft between them as much as possible so that when it landed she could absorb all its fire.
Innocenti did not move when Caristia brought it down the first time. Perhaps it was not hard enough, she thought. Perhaps she had held back. The second blow was more powerful; she held her arm in the air longer and took aim with more care. When she drew back it left a panel of redness, the same shape as the paddle, across the girl's pale skin. The next blow she brought down with intention, with a determination to redden the skin even more, to double up the fire that had already started. The next she brought down quickly, hardly allowing her hand to pause before she pulled it back towards its target. She felt her chest tightening as it swept down, tensing herself so she could put all her power into it. The smack was like a screech in her ears and, as Innocenti jolted beneath the blow, Caristia felt a wave of delight spreading deep within her. The next was even harder and Innocenti yelped, the next harder still and, with the next as hard as she could make it, Caristia felt a warm flow of moisture wetting her thighs and cooling the swollen flesh of her heated labia.
Innocenti jerked with each blow, her fingers tightening against the edge of the marble bench, the skin of her bottom and the backs of her thighs reddening as though on fire. Caristia saw from the corner of her eye her own hardened nipples, and they began to ache as though her witnessing their tension was a signal for their increased sensitivity. The women looked on, urging Caristia to hit harder, bending down and looking at Innocenti's face, watching her biting her lips, witnessing her squeezing her eyelids tightly, analysing her expression, examining her suffering. Caristia wanted to kneel behind her victim, she wanted to open her legs and rub her own cunt across the skin of the girl's bottom, to feel its heat, to absorb its pain, to cover it with her own passionate wetness. She wanted to lick it, she wanted to open the girl's legs and delve the tip of her tongue into the wet centre of her victim's juicy vagina.
Caristia dropped the paddle to the ground and straddled Innocenti. She felt the heat from the girl's reddened bottom rising between her legs, meeting the wetness of her flesh. She reached down and placed her hands into the small of Innocenti's back, pressing her harder against the bench as she lowered herself. She felt the contact of the red skin of Innocenti's bottom as it touched her swollen cunt and, as her body filled with the girl's heat her eyes closed. She rubbed her sex against the girl's bottom, forward and back to expose her own hardened clitoris, side to side to open and expose the moist centre of her slit. She felt Innocenti lifting her bottom, responding to her touch, and Caristia dropped forward and laid her tongue against Innocenti's neck. She tasted her skin and, as Caristia arched her back and forced her exposed clitoris against the red buttocks beneath it, she felt a wave of delight running within her. It arose from her clitoris like a single flame and quickly spread throughout her body like a fire borne on a tempest. She licked the girl's neck again but her excitement was too great, she could delay no longer. She reared up as her orgasm gripped her, contorted her in a vicious seizure and forced her to arch her back in an ever-tightening convulsion of unstoppable delight.
'Stop!' shrieked Arria Sulla. 'Stop!' Caristia hardly heard her. 'Stop!' Arria Sulla screamed in a frenzy as she grabbed Caristia's hair and pulled her off Innocenti. 'You act as though you are the girl's mistress!' she shrieked. She flung her to the floor and kicked her. 'You are a wilful bitch. Driven more by the heat between your legs than the orders of your mistress. Do you want me to toss you into the street?'
'Mistress. Please forgive me. I thought—'
'You thought!' Arria Sulla's face reddened with rage. 'You do not think! You serve!'
She grabbed Caristia's hair again and pulled her to her feet. She slapped her sharply across the face then bent her across her knee, folded an arm around her waist and underneath her stomach, and smacked her bare bottom hard. Caristia winced but the pain was not enough to take the pleasure she had felt with Innocenti away. Arria Sulla smacked her until her hand was sore, but even though Caristia relaxed her buttocks, opening the dark fissure between them and exposing the shape of her sex lips, it was not enough to divert her from the delight she had just experienced. Arria Sulla sensed it, pursed her lips and dropped her slave to the floor.
She grabbed Innocenti's lead and ordered Caristia to follow. They went through a broad arch into the coolest room, the frigidarium, and Arria Sulla plunged into the cold water pool at its centre. Caristia and Innocenti stood silently by the side of the pool, neither daring to look up. As Arria Sulla climbed out her smooth skin was goose-pimpled and her nipples were shrunken and hard. She threw her auburn hair back and the cold water arced in a rainbow as it glittered in the light that flooded in through the high open roof. Still naked she grabbed Innocenti's lead and marched through another arch into the first warm room, the tepidarium, then through a heavy door into the hottest, the calidarium. Caristia gasped as a waft of heat hit her face. It stung like a smack and took her breath away. Women reclined on benches around the walls, naked and covered with sweat as their servants attended them, oiling their skin, cleaning them, offering them goblets of wine, licking their nipples and some extending their tongues between their legs. Two women lay on a marble bench, each with their tongue delving the other's cunt, their legs entwined around each other's head, squirming with passion, consuming each other's heat. Caristia watched them and listened to their moans as one, the younger of the two, looked up and caught her eye, before slipping her tongue back into the pink slit of her companion's fleshy vagina.
Arria Sulla made her way to the back of the tepidarium and entered a dark passageway. She glowered at Caristia to follow, and yanked Innocenti's lead when she held back fearfully. Caristia could hardly see as she fumbled her way along the dark tunnel. It was a duct for the hot air that came from the fires below, and was even hotter than the calidarium. Her feet felt as if they were burning and she screwed up her toes to keep back the pain. They emerged into another hot room - the men's calidarium. Female slaves attended to the men who reclined on stone benches, most naked but some with togas draped across their shoulders and some with towels around their waists. Two girls sat at the feet of one, reaching up as they oiled his body, embrocating every part of his flesh, rubbing oil into his erect cock, licking along its venous length and sucking its swollen glans. Another nearby was washing her master, ladling cool water over his body then rubbing him with fragrant oils. One man, lean and grey-haired, stood in a pool of water up to his waist. Two naked girls, both short-haired and small-breasted, kept plunging beneath the surface, tipping their bottoms up as they dived, taking it in turn to suck his cock until, still giggling, they had to return to the surface.
'Madam Sulla,' said the man easing himself up onto the side of the pool. 'I see you have brought some entertainment.'
'Severus, I have brought a slave with an appetite for pleasure but who needs a lesson in obedience.'
Severus laughed as one of the girls sucking his cock pushed her friend away and latched her full lips around its burgeoning tip.
'Then perhaps you would like me to take a hand in her discipline. I have never yet failed to curb the desires of a disobedient slave.'
'You may try, sir, but I warn you, she has a strong appetite.'
'Set her in the water here and we shall see how strong
her appetite is!'
He pushed away the girl who was sucking him.
'Caristia,' said Arria Sulla coldly, 'get in the water. You have a new master to please; Severus. Let us see if he can make you more responsive to my orders.'
She snatched the lead that led to the collar around Innocenti's neck as Caristia dipped her toe into the water. It felt cold in the hot air and she pulled it out again, shivering. The two girls with Severus giggled, but when he scowled at them they stopped obediently and looked down.
'I see what you mean, madam. Already she disobeys you. And with such a simple instruction. Girl!' he shouted. 'Get in the water! Now!'
Caristia did not hesitate, his tone so forceful, his orders clearly to be followed. She reached her foot into the cold water again, bent her knees, then reaching behind her and gripping the side of the pool, she slipped into the ice-cold water. It chilled her body and her nipples hardened as waves splashed against them. She felt the outer flesh of her cunt contracting and the pressure squeezed against the tip of her clitoris, making it retract even deeper behind its protective covering. She stood on tiptoe and the water settled just below her breasts, She dropped her gaze and stood before Severus.
'What a pretty mouth you have,' he said as he reached out and circled it with his fingers. 'Open it, child. Let me see its size and shape.' She did as she was told and stood stiffly in the water while he scrutinized her. Goose-pimples surrounded her shrunken nipples and there was a tinge of blueness around her mouth and beneath her eyes. 'Good. Now, and I make my instructions clear, bend down and place that pretty mouth around my member. It is hard and thick, as you will find out, but you will get it in. Then, when you have your lips sealed around it you must lick with your tongue, along the sensitive underside. And suck it. Yes, and suck it diligently. I want to feel the tip of your tongue and the pressure of your cheeks as you encourage it to fill you with its goodness. I want you to take it into the back of your mouth, so that when you extract its precious liquid it does not pause on your tongue but goes straight down your throat.'
