Having crapped out, I stepped back to the outer fringes of the game. I stood a moment, trying to get my bearings. It wasn’t easy to orient myself. My surroundings —time and place—-were too alien to me. It was a relief to stop trying to figure things out when I was distracted by a friendly voice at my side.
“Have you gone broke?”
I peered into the dimness and made out the figure of a young man in his twenties. He was wearing a flowing toga and a laurel wreath on his brow—the hallmark of the Roman upper classes. He was slim and good-looking with a patrician face creased by a smile.
“I’m afraid I have,” I told him.
“You must be from Carthage or beyond.” His dark, piercing eyes swept over my Sheban garb.
Yes. Geographically he wasn’t far off. The city of Carthage, on a penisula in the Bay of Tunis on the northern shore of Africa, would not have been situated too far outside the bounds of the ancient Sheban empire.
“You must have great influence with Augustus to be allowed to travel to Rome. Citizens of Carthago usually only rnanage to get here in chains. Unless they are very wealthy and important merchants. Are you a merchant?”
“After a fashion.” I was noncommittal.
“Is this your first visit to Rome?”
Yes. I decided to capitalize on his curiosity by trying to satisfy my own. The city is strange to me. I’m not even sure where I am right now.”
You are a hick. He said it good naturedly. “You’re standing just outside the courtyard of the Forum itself, the most famous edifice in the civilized world. Look. If you crane your head, you can see the statue of Marsyas in the courtyard.”
I looked. I could indeed see the statue of the legendary Phrygian satyr. I recognized it immediately because I’d seen it before—-or rather after, to be accurate. On a June day in 1963 an artist friend of mine had pointed it out to me as we strolled past the Villa Albani in Rome and told me something of its importance in the history of art. The statue, known as The Flaying of Marsyas, was a prime example of Greek neorealisrn, a school of sculpture which had flowered under the reign of the Emperor Augustus when Greek sculptors had been brought to Rome to practice their art.
Since Augustus’ rule had begun in 30 B.C12 ., the existence of the statue told me that the time period in which I found myself must be later than that date. My companion had mentioned Augustus, implying that he still ruled. I’d been a good history student. I remembered that Augustus’ reign had ended in 14 A.D. This narrowed down the time period for me. Subsequent events would narrow it still further and I would be able to pinpoint the year as 7 B.C.
“So that’s the Roman Forum.” I mused aloud. The shadows the famous structure cast seemed to shimmer in the just emerging moonlight, almost as though it was about to crumble into the ruin I’d once seen. I squinted. The illusion was the result of many people moving about in the shadows. “What’s all the activity over there?” I asked my companion.
“The whores are plying their trade.” He chuckled. “In the evening they all congregate in the courtyard of the Forum and sell themselves to soldiers and any other men who wish to buy. Are you in the market?”
He didn’t ask it like he was a procurer, but rather as an idle question. “I’m afraid I can’t afford it,” I told him. “If that’s all that’s stopping you, then you’re in luck. I can render you a service and you can render me one at the same time.”
“What do you mean?” I wondered if he was fruity and edged slightly away.
“Don’t be alarmed.” He chuckled as if he was reading my mind. “There is a noble lady who waits in the shadow of Marsyas for something exotic to stir her perhaps jaded appetite. It would be to my advantage to help satisfy her pleasure. She is my patroness. I think she might be pleased to know a man from Carthage.”
“All right.” What did I have to lose? I followed him into the courtyard of the Forum and up to the base of the statue.
It was shadowy there, but not so dark that I couldn’t make out the lady sitting propped against the pedestal. Indeed, anyone passing by would have been able to discern her figure, if not her features. Not her features because she had pulled her toga up from the bodice to conceal them. My companion knelt beside her and whispered something. Then he turned to me.
“I’ll wait right over there.” He gestured and strolled off into the shadows.
“Approach, man of Carthage.” The lady spoke.
I moved towards her. There was the rustle of material and I saw that she had pulled the toga all the way up over her shoulders. Only her face was concealed. Her body stretched out naked in the mud of the courtyard.
“What has Carthage to teach Rome?” Her voice was muffled by the folds of material, the tone teasing.
“What has Rome to learn?”
“I think not too much. But don’t be a defeatist. That way surely lies disappointment.”
I stood over her now. Her body was womanly and voluptuous. She wasn’t fat, but her hips and breasts were quite heavy. Her legs were well shaped, although a bit plump at the thighs. Her arms were stretched down the length of her body, the hands stroking the inner surface of the thighs. The area where they met was shaved clean and her mons veneris was clearly visible.
Mons veneris, Mound of Venus—it was aptly named where she was concerned. It was a smooth, palpitating round of flesh, neatly bisected and marked by a tense, blood-red arrow pointing the way to the pink arches marking its gateway. Her hands moved towards it as I knelt, fluttering sensually, making the skin beneath their light touch flush.
“Come, oh Hannibal of Carthage and storm the Roman citadel!” Her eyes glittered at me over the folds of the garment she’d raised to conceal her face.
I began to “storm the Roman citadel.”
“Ho-hum!” She was bored. “Has Carthage no more to offer than the most common Roman soldier then?” She yawned.
It made me mad. A man has his pride. Few things shake it so strongly as a woman who doesn’t respond to his lovemaking. I assaulted the citadel again with renewed vigor.
“You’re energetic,” she granted. “But—” She yawned again. “Is there nothing new to stir a woman’s fires?”
It was a challenge. My entire manhood was being questioned. I knew her type well. Outwardly a nympho, but inwardly frigid and incapable of being satisfied. She was the kind of woman to drive men dotty!
“Maybe the fires are dying down with time,” I suggested nastily.
“All they lack is a torch capable of igniting them.” She was just as nasty.
I redoubled my efforts. Angry, I pulled away, bent over her and flipped her roughly so that she was lying on her stomach. I switched targets by a scant inch and assaulted her again.
To no avail. “Anal is so banal,” she yawned.
Really bugged now, I flung her on her back again. I pushed her legs in the air and stretched out my body crosswise to hers. The new angle made for more direct contact with the most erogenous of all zones. It also gave me more leverage which enabled me to pound her even more violently. Still she didn’t really respond. Until—
A horse belonging to a soldier occupied with a prostitute on the other side of the statue had broken loose from its tether. Unnoticed by us, it had ambled over to where we were and now stood with its back to us, its hindquarters directly over the folds of the garment covering the lady’s face. Suddenly the horse relieved itself. The results almost buried the lady’s head.
“Now! Now! Now!” She went wild.
I felt myself drawn in, swallowed, submerged in molten fires which were erupting with an all-out vengeance. I met her halfway. Then it was over. I regained my senses. For the first time the aroma hit my nostrils. Somehow it ruined the esthetics, if you know what I mean. I reacted instinctively. I scrambled to my feet and backed away from my dung-covered passion flower. Her perfume, to put it mildly, was not to my taste.