Marilyn Todd: I, Claudia

He hadn’t missed the way that strong-backed slave Junius had looked at her either. She was certainly a woman to love, was Claudia Seferius, rather than a woman to merely make love to. She’d make a man possessive and if she was in Marcus Orbilio’s bed he wouldn’t want her underneath him. Oh no! He’d want her on top, straddling him, so he could see every luscious curve of her body. It would be daylight, too. He’d watch her arch her back and thrust out her breasts. She’d throw back her head and… Realizing the prospect was arousing him, he turned on to his side and cupped his hand over Vera’s breast. Claudia’s breasts were fuller and rounder.

‘Marcus, I’m trying to sleep.’

His hands began to explore.

‘Leave off.’

Vera shrugged her shoulder but he pulled her roughly on to her back. Yes, much fuller and rounder. His mouth closed over her nipple. Underneath that brittle veneer he was sure he could sense a pulsating passion in Claudia Seferius.

‘Marcus, stop it!’

‘Claudia!’

‘Who?’ Vera tried to roll over on to her side, but he pinned her down. Claudia had long legs, they would be slender like her arms and neck. She would call out his name.

‘Claudia!’

He climbed on top of Vera, who was frantically pushing at his shoulders. ‘Get off me, you self-centred, two-timing, double-crossing lizard.’

If he closed his eyes, he could pretend it was Claudia wriggling underneath him in the throes of passion, not Vera fighting him off. Except with Claudia it would be long and slow, not a few quick thrusts like this. It would take from midnight until daybreak just kissing and arousing her, then when dawn finally broke, when sunlight flooded the room, the rhythm would begin. The age-old rhythm that would have them sweating and groaning and panting and screaming…

‘Oh, Claudia, Claudia!’

The last words Orbilio heard before he climaxed was a woman’s voice snapping, ‘I’m Petronella, you stinking, slimy bastard.’

Sliding into her seat, Claudia felt the same old sensations take over. The racing pulse, the trembling hands, the brightness in her eyes. A ripple of pleasure shuddered her body as she surrendered to the excitement ahead. Good old Apollo. Eight delicious days in his honour. The last games, the Fishermen’s Games, were a month back and a decidedly inferior affair too, lasting one mingy day. High spots of colour rose in her cheeks as the babble around her increased. The raucous chuckles of the men, the high-pitched giggles of the women, the delighted squeals of the children. Well, if any one of them extracted a mere fraction of the pleasure Claudia would get, they could count themselves jolly lucky. She smiled to herself. That Gaius was beside her, unaware of her cravings, added a certain piquancy, to the occasion.

‘Seferius!’

One of his business associates clapped him on the back.

‘Seeing as how you’re here early, I don’t suppose you could spare me ten minutes?’

Gaius and his colleague settled into an animated discussion about wine-quantities versus price-while Claudia absorbed the atmosphere of the amphitheatre. It was filling up now. Amazing how so many working people still managed to squeeze in the time to attend these lavish spectacles and she wondered whether that ferreting investigator Orbilio had found time to indulge himself today. Probably not, he’d be too busy grubbing around in filthy tenement slums to relax with simple pleasures. She wished him joy.

While musicians sought to make themselves heard above the din of the crowd, Claudia adjusted her cushions and drummed her fingers, impatient for the entertainment to begin. Gaius had secured seats near the front, reflecting his privileged status, but not for Claudia the savage thrill of the bloodlust. She began tapping her foot and glanced round for the seventeenth time to catch the eye of her slave, Junius. As usual, the muscular Gaul was watching attentively and signalled acknowledgement with a slight incline of the head. He was a good boy, was Junius. Knew precisely what to do.

The parade began as the lump of lard that was her husband resumed his seat, chortling because he’d talked his colleague into taking another two hundred amphorae without so much as dropping his price by one copper quadran. In a flurry of gold and purple cloaks, the gladiators strutted round the arena, followed by slaves holding aloft their plumed helmets and weaponry. That was typical of Gaius, she thought. So damned shrewd. Through sheer hard work and enterprise he’d amassed a veritable fortune-yet he saw nothing contradictory in spending the same amount of money on a small consignment of Black Sea caviar for his banquets as he did a yoke of oxen for his farm. Both were justifiable expenses in his eyes, and he’d flay her alive if he learned she was squandering his money on fripperies.

Except that her gambling was no idle pastime. It had become an addiction, a monster of Olympian proportions, forever ravenous and totally out of control, and not for nothing did Claudia Seferius spend more time on her knees propitiating Fortune than any other deity.

The gladiators marched out, the musicians upped their tempo and, to a crash of cymbals, an elephant lumbered into the arena to be matched against a bear. Claudia felt her whole body tense. Already her mouth was dry, her heart pounding. Using a secret signal, she indicated to Junius, ‘Bet on the elephant’, and wiggled five fingers, intimating the bear would be dogfood within the space of five minutes. The way she tilted her head told him to bet two quadrans. She always started low, it was part of the game. Small bets gradually became large bets which in turn became almost impossible bets and, dear Diana, she couldn’t help herself, the daring was all part of the exquisite torture. The same way your heart freezes as you wait for the dice to land, or when your charioteer tries a tight manoeuvre at the end of a circuit and you just don’t know whether he’ll make it.

Unfortunately Fortune seemed deaf to her prayers, or perhaps Minerva had thrown in her might with the moneylenders. Either way, Claudia’s debts had spiralled. She’d tried to stop herself, but be it a simple game of knucklebones or a full-scale race at the circus, she was there and it wasn’t unheard of for Claudia Seferius to be hanging around the training schools, betting on the practice fights. What, initially, was a straightforward case of syphoning off the household expenditure fell at the first hurdle when Gaius had begun to comment, and thus she set out to find another well to dip into. The answer when it came, was amazingly simple.

To pay for her own vice, others could pay for theirs.

Not that hers was a service she bandied about. On the contrary, these clients had been carefully cultivated for their unusual proclivities and little could she have envisaged the scale on which it would take off. Magistrates, merchants, high-ranking civil servants were suddenly queuing up to be spanked or whipped, tortured or humiliated, and whilst they didn’t deserve to die for their perversions, Claudia had scant sympathy for them. Except maybe Quintus, for no one deserved the indignity of being found in that frightful flyblown room.

She signalled to Junius. Two quadrans on the panther tearing the lion’s throat out within four no-three minutes. It would be a lie, of course, to say Orbilio’s visit on Tuesday afternoon hadn’t shaken her. Probably the best thing was to go back to that dreadful dive, in full view of everybody, and confound the boots off possible witnesses. And she’d have to do it pretty smartly, she supposed. Memories, in slums like that, would be relative to their lifespans. Meaning short in the extreme. Tomorrow morning? Why not? Let me see, that would make it the, ah yes, the Nones of the month, she could excuse herself, if necessary, by pleading attendance at one of the ceremonies. Splendid.