Читать книгу The Passion of Mary Magdalen - Elizabeth Cunningham - Страница 15

“Here is the way how to think of it, liebling,” said Berta.

We were all soaking together in the caldarium. I had grown up with springs and surf, but I had never been in hot water before (at least not literally). I was distressed to find myself enjoying the sensation; I was becoming Roman already. The big blonde, my fellow barbarian, had taken me under her wing; that is, she had a plump arm draped over my shoulder. The other whores sat across the pool, whispering and tittering as they eyed me and listened to Berta hold forth. Well, they could hardly help it. She had a voice as big as she was—the voice of someone who’d once lived in the open.

“You have been raped, yes? Who has not? I myself have been raped by a whole legion.”

“Oh, not the legion again,” said the little dark one. She caught my eye and winked at me.

“You know it’s true, Succula,” Berta scolded. “So. The Roman legion comes to my village. They burn the huts; they put the men to the sword, and they rape all the women. It is the same story everywhere. I was a virgin.…”

“It is the eve of her wedding day,” added a woman, who was blacker than anyone I’d ever seen, with coil upon coil of snaky hair.

“She hears the thundering of many hooves,” another woman continued.

I was shocked that they would mock such a terrible story. It took me awhile to understand. We all had terrible stories. Mockery kept the terror at bay.

“All right, all right,” said Berta crossly. “I wasn’t going to tell the whole story. I have a point to make.”

“So make it already,” the black woman said.

“If you would all shut up maybe I could.”

The others pantomimed sealed lips and made strangled noises.

“The point is,” Berta ignored them, “we have all had it stolen from us. Now we make them pay. It’s good. Yes?”

The lips came unsealed with general laughter and agreement.

I felt myself frowning. I was still tired and disoriented, but I knew something was faulty in their thinking.

“No,” I said, “Domitia Tertia makes them pay.”

They regarded me coldly, and I realized my mistake. I needed the good will of these women to survive.

“Well, at least she’s a woman,” I amended.

“And a whore,” Succula added.

“And a hardnosed, tight-assed bitch,” said the black woman.

“You got that right, Dido.” Everyone chimed in; this description was apparently a compliment to the domina.

“As you say, Red,” Dido added, addressing me directly for the first time. “She makes them pay. Does she ever. Nobody fools with her, and you won’t either, Hot Twat, if you know what’s good for you.”

Apparently these women identified with Domitia Tertia. I found their admiration perplexing.

“So,” said Dido, who shared a name with the fabled Queen of Carthage. “Are you really a novica? Never been a slave? Never done it for money?”

“I did it for passage on a ship.”

Applause greeted this admission.

“But it didn’t exactly work out,” I understated.

In fact, that was when everything had gone wrong. Maybe I was being punished—an unfamiliar and disconcerting line of thought for me.

“Don’t tell us.” Dido held up her hand. “The bastard drugged your drink and you woke trussed up and on your way to market.”

“And on the way he sticks you every time he feels like it,” added Berta. “Don’t feel bad, liebling. It’s not your fault. There is nothing you could have done to stop it.”

Yet that’s where the shame was, that it had happened to me at all. How could I have allowed it? How could I have been so stupid?

“Hey, none of us know until it’s too late: you gotta drug their drink first,” Dido answered my thoughts.

“That’s right, liebling,” Berta patted me and made comforting clucking noises.

Suddenly I was undone. Their unexpected kindness loosed my tears. I covered my face, expecting my weakness to be met with contempt. Instead I found myself surrounded by female bodies. Breasts brushed against my cheeks, bellies against my breasts. I breathed in the sweet, salty scent of women, the scent of home and I cried even harder.

“I was born,” I said when I could speak again, “on an island of women.”

“Only women!”

“I had eight mothers.”

“Sweet Isis!”

“And one old, old woman.”

“My granny used to take care of me,” someone sighed.

“And then the Romans came?” prompted Berta.

“No. No, Romans. The Romans will never find my mothers’ island. It is not in the same world.”

“Then why did you leave there? Why would you ever leave?” Dido sounded angry and wistful at once.

Why? I knew, but I could not begin to say.

“It’s all right,” soothed Berta. “You will tell us your story when you’re ready, yes? Listen now, liebling. Let me tell you how we do things here. You stick by us, we stick by you.”

“Don’t try to act like you’re better than everybody else,” Dido explained.

“Don’t steal anyone’s regulars,” added Succula.

“And then we teach you everything we know. All the little tricks.”

“How to spit it out without him knowing.”

“The sure fire hand job.”

“How to keep your womb locked up tight.”

I was a long way from druid school.

“Don’t worry,” said Succula. “Tonight everyone’s gonna know you’re new. Novelty will make up for lack of technique. You’ll catch on.”

“So, are you with us, Red?” Dido fixed me with a deep black gaze; she was gorgeous. “We’re all foreigners here, except for Succula. She was raised in the house. What matters is we’re all whores. You can be out for yourself or you can be one of us. How do you want to play it?”

I looked at the women surrounding me, their impulsive kindness now replaced with wariness. If I got close to them, would they hold me back or would they help me? Part of me wanted to say, I am not one of you; I will never be one of you. You are slaves to the Romans, and you accept it. Then I remembered my beloved, prophesying in a druid grove. “Rome is not a place,” he had said. “Rome is cruelty.” And here, among these women, I had, for a moment, been back home on Tir na mBan.

“I’m with you,” I said.

“Good. Now let’s show her how we seal a deal.”

As one the women rose to their knees and dipped their forefingers into their vulvas. They waited until I did the same; then we all pressed our hands together, and each woman gave me a smacking kiss on the mouth.

“Now you’re a whore, liebling!” exulted Berta.

I felt like nothing so much as a pig ready to be roasted for a banquet. I lacked only an apple crammed into my mouth. (Though I did have wool and honey stuffed up my twat in case coitus interruptus failed.) Celts like jewelry well enough, being excellent metal workers and lovers of gold, silver, and bronze. And, yes, they do lime their hair and paint their bodies with woad for battle. But decoration is not the same as artifice. I had always taken my attractions for granted and done little more than run a comb through my hair now and then to keep the birds from nesting there. I’d never worn anything more elaborate than a tunic, and had a tendency to toss my bracelets and torques into votive wells as I found them cumbersome.

Now I was wearing very little—a filmy hot pink whore’s toga, a sexy imitation of what senators wore—but all the simplicity was gone. My breasts were jammed together and thrust up towards my chin. My hair had been wound into a beehive on my head, and it’s a wonder I wasn’t followed by a swarm of bees, I was so heavily scented. My freckles had been painted over, my eyes outlined with kohl; my lips and cheeks were almost as bright a red as my hair. All this binding and dabbing and fluffing had been accomplished by the horde of ornatrices who descended on us after the bath.

By the ninth hour—that’s three in the afternoon your time—we were all assembled in the receiving rooms, reclining on couches, striking poses as we leaned against erotic statuary, doing our best to look as languid yet alert, as soft yet potentially dangerous as the cats who rubbed against our legs or nestled against our breasts. As I gazed around the room I was struck again by the women’s variety—a small united colonized peoples with Domitia Tertia representing Rome as an equal opportunity exploiter. The rainbow display must be good for business. Bored Romans could fuck ethnic, and nostalgic foreigners could get a taste of home.

Clients began to trickle in, mostly regulars, it seemed. Bone played the genial host, but stayed near the door. No one could go in or out without encountering him. Bonia directed the little girls who fetched and carried trays of food and drink and she kept a sharp eye on the whores who did the actual serving—a form of foreplay. Figs and olives nestled in cleavage; grapes were held suggestively between lips. Frequent signals passed between Bonia, and the cashier. I later learned that dalliance in the lobby was not on the house. There was a charge for everything.

According to Bonia’s orders, I was to stay on the sidelines and observe as much as possible my first night on the job. If someone wanted a twosome, she would send me along to learn under another whore’s tutelage. If anyone insisted on having me or if there was a shortage, I’d be on my own to sink or swim. (Sinking meant back to the slave block.) Meanwhile Bonia was constitutionally incapable of tolerating idleness.

“Here.” She came around to my hideout behind a potted palm. “You might as well learn how to pit and peel. You’ve noticed how the men love to have little morsels popped into their mouths.”

She gave me a brief demonstration, then left me to my task, which I found oddly soothing, though I didn’t see how I was to accomplish it without becoming sticky. My fingers tips were soon black with olive pulp. The grapes were no less messy and much juicer. Also I could not resist sampling my wares, and my lipstick wore away, replaced with darker stains. I was so absorbed in my task as I sat in my dark little corner that I did not notice a man approaching me until he spoke.

“And who is this fresh, new delicacy?”

I looked up and saw a man bending over me. Instead of a purple fringe, his toga was trimmed in gold braid.

“General Fullanus!” (Yes, that really was his name.) “Always a pleasure to see you, General.” Bonia’s emphasis on his title was clearly for my benefit.

“And you, Bonia, and you.” He addressed her with perfunctory respect. “I heard rumors that the house had acquired a novica. She seems in need of some assistance. Permit me.”

He knelt and began to lick the olive and grape juice that had spilled onto my breasts. I saw Bonia make a hurried signal to the cashier; then she turned back to me and made silent gestures I didn’t understand—or chose not to. Having my body tongued by a total stranger was apparently part of my job description, but I just wasn’t used to it. Then—I couldn’t help it—staring down at his shining crown while his Roman nose tunneled between my breasts, I yielded to temptation. As subtly as I could—no one could say I spat—I dropped a fleshy olive pit on his pate.

Before the general could figure out what had happened, Bonia swooped in and whisked away the evidence of my insolence.

“The flies,” she explained. “They’re dreadful at this time of year.” She narrowed her eyes at me, her lips disappearing in a tight, grim line.

“Oh, yes,” he said vaguely, surfacing for air. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance she’s a virgin?” He spoke to Bonia but he kept his lusty little eyes on me.

“I’m afraid not, general. It’s almost impossible to buy a virgin these days. You have to raise them.”

“Ah, well,” he sighed. “At least at the Vine and Fig Tree you know you get honest wares—no fakery, no stitches and chicken blood. I don’t suppose any of the current crop are ripe yet?” he persisted.

“No,” said Bonia. “Not presently. You know how strict Domitia Tertia is. But you can put your name on the list of bidders and we’ll send you word when there’s an auction.”

“The last time you auctioned a virgin I was away on a campaign. Of course, to afford one of Domitia’s virgins I’d need to conquer another territory.” He turned his attention back to me. “Tell me about this one.”

“I hardly know what to say, general. Fresh off the block, untried.” Bonia sounded hesitant, reluctant. Then she leaned closer to him and whispered, “I’m afraid she’s a bit of a savage, sir.”

I felt sick: Bonia wasn’t protecting me. She was pitching me.

“She’ll need a firm hand then,” said the general, as if he were buying a battle horse. “Do I understand correctly that I will be her first in what we all hope will be a lucrative career in this illustrious house?”

Bonia beamed and signaled the cashier. “There’s an extra charge for that privilege as I’m sure you know, sir.”

“Of course,” he shrugged. “Though by rights you should pay me for breaking her to the saddle.”

“No doubt we should, general,” Bonia laughed. “But that’s how it works.”

“Well, I don’t come to the Vine and Fig Tree unless I’m prepared to bleed gold.”

All during this exchange I hadn’t said a word. I was cornered. Outnumbered and outmaneuvered. If I fought, I would be raped again and sent back to the slave block for worse. I was running out of options. I prayed to the goddess Bride for inspiration.

“So where is this barbarian beauty from?” the general inquired.

“She’s a Gaul, sir.”

I opened my mouth to correct her, then stopped myself in time. It would be very stupid to let on that I came from the unconquered Celts and could have intimate knowledge of a druid stronghold. I might be an exile, but I would not be a traitor.

“Ah, the Gauls. An undisciplined and unruly people.” He licked his lips. “Has she any Latin or Greek?”

“Very, very little.” Bonia skewered me with her eyes. I got the message. Keep your mouth shut.

“Good. I rather like it when they can’t talk. This one reminds me of a wild mare.” He was very unoriginal. “Yes, Bonia, I believe I’ll take a ride.”

“Very good, general. Bone will have someone escort you to her chamber while I have a brief word with her.”

“You speak the barbarous tongues, eh Bonia?” He was sharper than I’d thought.

“The language I speak, all the girls understand. I’ll send her right up, sir.”

As soon as he was gone, Bonia grabbed my arm, pulled me to my feet, lifted my toga and smacked my bottom—hard. “Now listen, you silly little twat, you try anything like that again and you’ll be back on the slave block so fast this place will seem like a lost dream. The only good way out of here is to fuck your brains out, that is if you have any. And if you play your cards right, there’ll be plenty of opportunity to spit on men—and to piss on them, too, but they have to ask for it, and they have to pay for it.

“All right, then, dearie,” she softened slightly. “Don’t be afraid. He won’t rough you up. House rule, and all our gentlemen respect it. Just do whatever he wants; that’s good enough for now. Your room is upstairs, third on the left where the blank plaque is hanging. When we find out what your talents are—if you have any—we’ll write ‘em up. Remember any woman can spread her legs—a classy whore knows how to put on a show. Speaking of that, wait a minute.” She turned away, rummaged in a wooden chest, then returned to me with several lengths of rope. “You might need these. Do you know how to tie a knot? Good. Off you go then.”

I walked across the atrium and up the stairs as slowly as I could, the sound of the fountain lost in the noise of general carousing. As I passed Succula and Berta on the stairs, they giggled at the sight of the rope.

“Oh, I bet she’s got the general. Don’t worry, Red. You’ll be all right. Have fun.”

Fucking a Roman pig? Fun? I fumed as I climbed the rest of the way and came to the door of the room Bonia called mine. It was veiled in gauzy material and strings of beads. Inside, the general belched. I closed my eyes for a moment.

It’s not just before death that your whole life flashes before you—or maybe it is. Crossing that threshold would be a kind of death. All the life I had known before rushed in with one breath and sang in my blood. The woman-shaped isle of Tir na mBan, my mothers, the druid groves, my classmates, my kind foster-father King Bran, the black-robed priestesses of Holy Isle. Yet all that dear life was just a mist that swirled around a boy with eyes dark as the well where the salmon of wisdom leapt. When I breathed out, I let it all go. Back. Down. Deep under the hard layers of Rome, to bedrock, molten rock, dark rivers.

I stepped though the veil, so to speak, into a tiny chamber. By the light of a lamp—whose base depicted a coupling so complicated that it could put your back out for life—I saw the general waiting for me. He no longer wore his gold-trimmed toga or anything else that would distinguish him from any other body. He lay spread out on the bed—a shelf built into the wall with a mattress and several layers of removable coverings—arms behind his head, legs splayed, all his vital organs exposed in what I found a confusing mix of arrogance and vulnerability.

I had seen naked men before but never one so utterly on display. So I inspected him, from his hard face with the softness of dissolution just under the surface, to the muscular arms and chest, just beginning to lose their tone with age, his still-trim waist and, of course, his appendage. Having grown up on an island where the only males were animals, I had always felt that penises were a sort of afterthought on humans. The general’s was large, soft, flopped over on one side, and—I peered more closely—hooded. You understand, of course, that the only penis I knew well was circumcised. (You don’t want to hear about that penis? Better stop reading.) Under my interested gaze the general’s appendage began to stir and poke its purplish head out of the foreskin. The general’s breathing quickened.

“Barbarian bitch!” His voice was hoarse. “You have captured me. I am utterly at your mercy. Now what are you going to do to me!”

Clearly this was my cue. Never mind that I could think of plenty of things I’d rather do to him than play with his appendage. If I didn’t want to go back to the block, I’d better get on with the job.

“Roman dog,” I said in Celtic, remembering that I supposedly didn’t speak Latin. I advanced on him with the rope. “First I will smear you with honey and let the ants swarm over you like the armies of Rome,” I continued as I took my time tying him up with fancy Celtic knots. “Then I will marinate you in excrement for three days and three nights. After that I will roast you slowly until you are almost dead. Then I will feed you alive to the swine.”

Actually I was beginning to enjoy myself—just a little. I pulled the knots tight. It was true. He was at my mercy. At least for this nanosecond. Suddenly I was overcome with a sense of absurdity. My mothers had once captured a man and ravished him against his will. (The true story of my conception—a truth I found out too late.) Now here I was with a man who was paying to be ravished, and it was my job to do it.

“Bitch!” Romans certainly lacked the verbal prowess of the Celts. My poor, mad, dead father would have been eloquent at least. “Naked, savage, barbarian bitch,” he prompted desperately, straining against the ropes, his appendage swollen to near bursting.

Oh, all right, I thought, struggling to get out of my silly garment. I felt much better naked, almost free. I had to stifle a war cry as I pounced on him. Then I played with him cruelly, dangling my body over him, not quite letting his appendage touch me.

“Bitch,” he screamed. “Let me have it!”

He was so loud, I was afraid Bonia would come charging upstairs. When I finally lowered myself onto his weeping cock, I have to admit it filled me quite satisfactorily.

“Take any pleasure you can,” I heard my namesake Queen Maeve of Connacht whisper in my ear. “If there’s no Fergus around it might take thirty men to satisfy you.” She paused a beat. “But it looks like you’ve got all night.”

It was all over in a few strokes. He sighed and looked so relaxed I caught a glimpse of the child he might once have been.

“Untie me now,” he commanded. The Roman general was back.

I considered not comprehending. I was a savage, after all. But what was the use. I was trapped here. One of the old women came in with washing water and towels.

“Mistress Bonia wants to know, will you be wanting another half hour.”

“Yes, yes,” he said. “I believe I will. My compliments to the house on a fine new acquisition.”

When the serving maid had gone, he got out of bed and gestured for me to lie down.

“Now then my hot little barbarian. Your turn.”

And so began my life as a professional. Before the night was over I understood what many people don’t: whoring is hard work. I’m not going to give you a blow by blow description of all my engagements that night. I did not have thirty men in succession as Queen Maeve boasted she had, but I did service quite a few. When I came back downstairs after the general, my sister whores feted me, feeding me grapes and figs and pouring me a cup of unwatered wine. Then it was back to work up and down the stairs with men, old men and young, fat and thin, handsome and ugly.

Twice I went with another whore. As promised, Berta gave me instruction on the care and feeding of the male member. No doubt he paid extra for being the object lesson of a novica’s education. When I went with Succula, we took over the bed while the man watched. I had never made love with a woman before, but as my first experience of orgasm had been with two snakes in a cavern deep in the earth, I was open to the unexpected and to the naturalness of what other people might consider unnatural. After the clumsiness of some of my customers, I felt nothing but admiration for Succula’s skill and a desire to improve my own.

As I look back on that night, I see choices I didn’t recognize then. I could have disavowed my body. That’s not me straddling the general. That’s just my body. Or I could become my body, its opening and resistance, its capacity for cruelty or compassion. But there is another possibility, and I think I sensed it even then: that I—this fraught ecstatic coupling of body and soul—could become the conduit of some wild force, the mediator of it, the priestess.

I don’t remember how that first night ended. I suspect, after finishing with some man, I just didn’t get back up again and Bonia, in her mercy, let me sleep. I do remember the dream I had near dawn.

I am standing by a river that swirls with mist. The reeds rustle with the wind. Then I see something floating on the water, parting the mists, a wooden box, wider at one end than at the other. A coffin. Suddenly I know he is in that box, my beloved, floating down the dark river. I rush towards the coffin but the waterweeds bind my legs. The current flows past me and I float helpless, my arms streaming towards him.

I woke disoriented in close, airless darkness. Maybe I was in the coffin. I could still hear the sound of the river and the wind rattling through the reeds. Then I saw grey light leaking through the gauzy curtain covering my doorway. I got up and stepped out onto the balcony. Below me the fountain played, and an old woman swept with a broom made of sticks. When she saw me she smiled toothlessly.

“Go back to bed, my sweet,” she said. “Isis love you! It’s much too early for a whore to be up.”

A whore. By Bride’s breasts, she meant me.