“Felix, more wine,” Cassia commanded her slave. He poured the golden liquid from the amphora into her alabaster cup. An errant drop landed on her tunic and stained the pristine expanse of white silk. Time seemed frozen as she stared at the small yellow circle on her abdomen, expressionless. Her thin lips contorted into a vicious snarl.
“By Jupiter’s balls!” she shrieked. “I will have you flogged!” And she did.
Felix endured the punishment stoically, his only reaction a tightening of his jaw muscles with each blow. Cassia watched the valley between his sun-bronzed shoulder blades moisten with blood, while the valley between her legs moistened with an altogether different fluid. Her husband, Marcellus, had been on campaign in Gaul for two years and would not return for another two. She had not enjoyed a man’s touch in all that time. Longer than that, actually, since Marcellus was twenty years her senior and his little centurion rarely paid him the respect of standing to attention any more.
She had, on occasion, allowed herself the comfort of her hand maiden’s ministrations. As pleasurable as Alba’s warm tongue and slender fingers might have been, there was something missing. Cassia enjoyed feeling the weight of a man pressed against her. The sinewy texture of taut muscles rippling just beneath the flesh. The earthy, leathery smell that emanated from a man’s pores as a patina of sweat formed on his abdominal muscles as he pushed himself into her. A smell that bespoke strength and confidence. She found that her left hand had slipped between her thighs as these thoughts raced breathlessly across her mind. Only the thinnest raiment of cloth now stood between her fingers and her swollen vulva.
She could feel the heat radiating beneath the silk before withdrawing her hand and running it through her hair. Cassia had no time for such indulgences just now. It was December 10th. Only a week remained before the start of Saturnalia. There were costumes and gifts to be bought; the menu for the feast to be planned.
When the night finally arrived, Cassia slipped into the costume of a handmaiden. For seven days, Rome was turned upside-down when all the members of society engaged in role reversal. Felix was dressed in a gold-embossed tunic and maroon toga that belonged to her absent husband. Alba wore a blue satin tunic that had to be let out to accommodate her generous bosom and adhered to her curves tightly. The table was laden with oysters, snails, figs, persimmons and other finery. Cassia stood nearby holding an amphora of the finest Falernian wine to slake the thirst of her servants at their command.
“Cassia, these oysters are not fresh!” Felix called and swept them off the marble table to the ground. Cassia bent down to pick up the mess, but Felix lifted the back of her tunic, spread her thighs apart and pushed his swollen member inside of her while Alba showed her what fresh oyster should taste like.
Literature in Small Doses 