The Emperor's Concubine

Chapter One My name is Calpurnia. Actually, it isn’t. That’s just the name given to me by the man in Rome who first bought me. My mother named me Astarte, after one of our goddesses, and I was born in Parthia, unfortunately in that part which was nearest to the Romans. There was always a threat of invasion, and one day the legions came, surrounding the whole town. It was a day of horror. All the men were marched out to an old silver mine and thrown down the mineshaft. Whether the Romans cut their throats first I don’t know. Usually they did. They killed all the children too. When the soldiers came I was working in the fields; my mother was at home. I feared that she too had been killed, but there was one chance. Sometimes the Romans took older women to work as cooks and washerwomen for the soldiers. Perhaps she was lucky enough to be spared, but I never discovered her fate. The older girls, including me, were rounded up and chained together, then we set off. None of us were in any doubt what our fate would be, if we survived that long. We were on the road for two weeks, a cruel time. They beat us with sticks to make us move faster. At night several of the girls were taken away and we would hear sounds of distress. When they returned they were reluctant to tell us what had happened; it was too shameful, but we knew anyway. I felt sorry for those girls. I think they were selected because they were not the prettiest, not the ones who were going to fetch the highest prices. One of the guards, who spoke a little of my language, told me I was lucky to be a good-looker. He justified what was happening by saying that you could hardly expect a group of rough, venal men to abstain from the merchandise they were transporting. But, he said by way of defence, all the girls would be kept alive; all had some value. Nevertheless, by the time we got near to the coast, the girls who were used by the slave-drivers each night were in a bad way. There were only three or four of them, and they were passed round among a score of guards. And the men were rough; often the girls had bruises in the morning. I suppose I was lucky, as the man said, though it didn’t really feel that way. Only once was I abused, by a guard I knew had been looking at me since my first day of captivity. He was an ill-favoured man, with a patch over one eye, which was evidently missing, and a scar across his cheek. It was clear that the guards were under strict instructions from the slave-master to leave most of us alone; presumably he did not want our looks damaged before we were sold. And the slave-master had ascertained before we left that I was a virgin. He had picked out several of us and taken us into a squalid little hut where there was an old woman, clad mostly in rags. Each of us was brought in front of her and made to lie on a bench. She put her hand roughly between our legs, then inserted her grubby fingers into our most secret and intimate place. When she did this to me I could feel her fingers moving around inside me, and it was quite painful because I had never previously been penetrated at all. I do not say that I was innocent of any s****l acts, because even girls like me who were brought up to avoid men and their doings were inclined to explore their bodies and discover certain things which were never to be mentioned but which were sources of pleasure. Anyway, the old woman spoke to the slave-master in terms which I did not understand, but evidently I had been pronounced a virgin, which indeed I was, and so of higher value that those girls who were not. The slave-master thereafter watched me carefully, as one of his most precious investments. But he could not watch all of us all of the time, and one night the one-eyed man managed to separate me from the other girls behind some rocks (we slept in the open). I think he had been drinking, because he smelled badly and his face was flushed, and there was something dangerous in his manner. The rest of the camp was quiet and he must have assumed they were all asleep. He fell upon me and tore my tunic open. He was strong and he began to force his legs between mine, even though I did my best to keep them closed fast. It may surprise you to know that a slave-girl could set such a high price on her chastity, but in fact I had always valued my virginity, in a manner perhaps not dissimilar to that of the slave-master. My mother and I had been the poorest of the poor, eking out a meagre existence by back-breaking work in the fields or mending and washing clothes. I had no education, nor any talents (that I was yet aware of). But I knew I was pretty and I thought that if I could keep myself intact a man of means might marry me, and assure me and my mother of a future. Thus I attained the age of majority still a virgin. Even though I was certainly no innocent, I had allowed no penetration, either of my v****a or my anus, though I had discovered the pleasures to be had from stroking my c******s and was already a practised masturbator. Later, I gave most of the boys in the neighbourhood a taste of the oral pleasure that they craved, and I quickly became a celebrated c**k-sucker in my own little circle. I studied carefully the different delights which I could provide a man by varying the use of my lips and tongue. More of that later. As well as fighting my assailant, I began to scream at the top of my voice. He tried to cover my mouth, but in vain. The noise was sufficient to wake the slave-master and he hurried to me, along with one of his assistants. They each carried a heavy stick and set about beating the man, so that he was obliged to let me go and defend himself. But in vain; they beat him most cruelly, until he was unconscious. The slave-master took me away. Though I did not speak his language I managed to assure him that I was still intact, which pleased him considerably. I think he believed that I was his most valuable asset. Later, when I was trying to sleep after my ordeal, I heard the slave-master speaking to the two soldiers who accompanied us. I think he told them they should “dispose” of the man who had attacked me. I had by now some experience of the Romans and their ways, and I had formed the conclusion that they had a great talent for killing, which they performed with great efficiency and without remorse. Their other great talent I was to discover only later. It was of course their talent for s*x, which they pursue with more vigour and imagination that any other peoples I have ever heard of. We set off again the next morning and by nightfall we had reached a small harbour on the coast. There we embarked on a leaky old ship which smelled of fish, but at least we no longer had to walk. In the daytime we lay under an awning erected to keep the sun off us (apparently the Romans did not like their slave-girls sunburnt). We were not bound, since where could we possibly escape to? They gave us water and some stale bread and a few olives, and eventually some dried fish. It was a poor diet, but it kept us alive. At last, after two weeks of sailing, mostly within sight of the shore, we reached what I later learned was Ostia, the port for Rome. Drawn up alongside the quay were three wooden carts, pulled by oxen. The men put us in the carts and chained us together, then we set off the few miles to Rome. As we drew near, all of us girls stared in amazement at the city, the sheer size of it, the magnificence of its marbled buildings, its paved street, statues everywhere. And the people! Never did I imagine so many people existed in the whole world. People in rags, people in richly embroidered clothes, beautiful women and beggars disfigured by sores. Eventually we drew up outside a large building with barred windows. We were taken inside and unchained. The light was dim but gradually I perceived a large room with mattresses on the floor and tables at one end. The first thing that happened to us was that we were stripped naked by a group of women evidently there to take care of us. Our clothes, or rags as they truly should be called, were taken away to be burned. We were conducted into the next room, where three large tubs had been filled with steaming hot water. We were invited to bathe, a luxury that we had all but forgotten. The women provided soap and lotion to wash the hair, and when we emerged from the tubs, clean and pink, each of us was dried and put upon a table to be rubbed down with perfumed oils. After that we were led back into the large room, where the tables had been set with food; a fragrant stew of meat and vegetables, with fresh bread and fruit to follow. And there was even wine, a whole glass each. For many of us, this was luxury, the food and drink of a quality far above what we were used to. But I quickly realised that this was not provided for us out of the kindness of our masters’ hearts. Instead, after a rough time on the road and at sea, and before that a hard life, we were to be fattened up, not for the slaughter, I hoped, but for sale. Once our scrawny figures had filled out a little, our skin become soft and smooth, our hair glossy, we should be presented to a public eager to possess us for themselves. For a week we were well fed, groomed, kept clean and fit. Every day we were taken out for a long walk. This was in part to keep us active. But it was also a way of alerting the public to the fact that a sale of slaves would shortly be happening. The slave-master made sure the merchandise was well presented. Each of us wore a brightly coloured tunic, in pink or green or white. These tunics, unlike those of respectable Roman women, reached down barely halfway between our bottoms and our knees, affording men in the streets something they could rarely see in public, half-naked females. Nor was the top part of the tunic any attempt at modesty. It was supported by thin straps over the shoulders, leaving them bare, and revealed ample amounts of bosom, so much that I feared my breasts might pop out at any moment. Eventually the time came for the sale. We were paraded on a wooden stage in a courtyard, having first been well-groomed, our hair oiled and perfumed, our bodies rubbed with scented oils, our faces decorated with kohl for the eyes, and rouge for our lips. Each of us was given a cheap anklet to wear, not of silver but of tin, and another for our necks. Only those men who were considered serious participants in the auction were allowed up on to the platform to inspect us at close quarters. Men of some means, perhaps even rich men, walked down the line pausing here and there to squeeze a breast, to put a hand between the legs or lift the tunic up over a bottom. I tried to make no reaction as I was prodded and poked, knowing that if I proved to be difficult I should incur the slave-master’s wrath. After a while there was a stir and the throng parted to allow the passage of a tall, distinguished-looking man in a purple toga. I knew little then of distinctions of wealth and status among Roman society, but it was evident that this man was privileged. He stopped in front of me, the slave-master in close attendance, and made a gesture. The slave-master lifted my tunic and indicated I should stand with my legs apart, I shuffled into position, determined not to give any of these men the satisfaction of thinking I felt shame, though I was of course naked under the tunic. The man put his hand between my legs and said something to the slave-master, who replied, nodding his head. The man thrust a finger up into my cunt, a gesture so obtrusive that I almost recoiled in anger, then just in time controlled myself. I felt the man’s finger moving around inside me, probing. Then he withdrew. He held his finger up to my mouth and said something. I knew what he wanted; he required me to lick his finger clean, and so I did so, but not without a vow that one day if opportunity presented itself I should repay him for his insolence.