At first, the room was in complete darkness and his head spun as his senses were deluged by the musky scent of exotic perfumes so thick he could taste them on his tongue. A shiver ran through his body, but not one of fear. He heard a gentle rustling, which seemed to emanate simultaneously from both his right and his left, before the light of first one then a second tiny lamp pierced the gloom at opposite sides of the room. They were followed in quick succession by a dozen others until a paradise was revealed. The space before him was a vast treasure house. At its centre was a massive canopied bed hung with thick drapes of imperial purple. A hundred gold statues lined the walls, gods and goddesses vying for position with emperors and kings. But the object which drew his eyes was a human form, almost inhuman in its perfection. It stood naked on a plinth at the foot of the bed, the light of the lamps glinting yellow on the cold white of its marble flesh. From a handsome young face sightless eyes stared in concentration. The figure bent forward from the waist, his left hand close to his right knee and his right arm extended behind him, strong fingers curled round the discus he was about to hurl. With a genius it was impossible not to appreciate, the sculptor had created life from the lifeless. Each vein over his subject's tensed muscles stood out upon the flesh as if it pulsed with heart blood. Each rib was visible beneath the perfectly formed pectorals of his chest.
'Do you like my immortal?'
The voice close to his ear made him jump.
'He will always be as he is, frozen at his most beautiful. He will never grow old. His flesh will never wrinkle, nor his eyes grow dim.' Drusilla's voice was soft and Rufus could feel her breath on the back of his neck. 'If only human beauty could be so everlasting, instead of blossoming for a mere instant before fading into the ugliness of age. Do you think I am beautiful?'
Rufus hesitated, not sure he wanted to see what was behind him, but her hands descended gently on his shoulders and turned him to face her.
She wore a diaphanous robe that clung to her flesh like a second skin where it touched. Here too was perfection of the human form. Yes, he decided, she was beautiful, but it was a sharp-edged beauty that he understood could bleed him dry. He felt the heat radiating from her flesh and caught the slightest hint of the natural scent of her body in his nostrils. The robe highlighted shadows and clefts of unthinkable promise. For a moment, he forgot where he was and who he was with. Then his mind split in two. One part of him wanted what was about to happen with an urgency he had never experienced. Drusilla's blatant sexuality lit a fire in his lower belly that threatened to consume him. But there was another Rufus, Rufus the slave, who realized he was in more danger than he had ever been in in his life. And this Rufus was screaming at him to escape while there was still time.
'My lady, p-please…' he stuttered.
Her lips parted and her face edged towards his. Then her perfect nose wrinkled and she gave an unimperial snort.
'Yeugh. You stink.' She clapped her hands twice and from behind a curtain at the far end of the bedchamber emerged the girl who had let him into the room, quickly followed by a second who was her exact twin. They were short and compact, with hair so black it was almost blue, and their slanted eyes twinkled with mischief.
'Bathe him and bring him to me,' the Emperor's sister commanded, turning her back on Rufus and disappearing behind the drapes of the giant bed.
The two girls looked him over and nodded to each other. Then, while the first, whom Rufus identified by the red cord she wore round the waist of her shift, disappeared back behind the curtain, the second approached and motioned for him to remove his tunic. He shook his head. She reached to do it herself, and, alarmed, he pushed her hand away. With a grunt, she stepped back and stared at him, perplexed.
Drusilla's annoyance was clear through the thick drapes. 'If you do not remove your clothing, I will tell my brother I found you hiding in my bedchamber. I'm sure you would not want that.'
Reluctantly, Rufus complied, pulling his tunic over his head as the first sister reappeared with a small basin, but he still hesitated before giving up his loincloth.
He closed his eyes as they bustled around him, turning him this way and that. More disconcerting than his nakedness, or the touch of the soft, warm cloths they used on every part of his body, was the way they cooed to each other like a pair of mating turtledoves. He tried to keep his mind empty. This was just another ordeal a slave must endure. But the more places they found that needed their attention, the more difficult it became to ignore their ministrations and he realized with anguish that his shame was literally growing with each passing second. He swallowed hard and thought desperately for some escape route from this pleasurable agony, then opened his eyes wide in shock as he felt a delicate hand take him in its grip and raise him up so another could have access to his scrotum. The touch of the cloth there had a gentle urgency and now there was no hiding his desire.
'Waste not a drop, or you will have the flesh off each other's backs.'
The voice was answered by a delighted twittering from Rufus's tormentors. The girls took a step back and surveyed their handiwork. They must have been satisfied by what they saw, for the sister with the red cord took him and led him towards the bed.
Rufus stood before the purple curtain knowing what was required of him, but without the nerve to take the next step. A small hand pushed him in the back and he pitched through the thick cloth and landed in an ungainly heap on a soft coverlet.
At first he was dazzled. The area within the curtains was a gilded sanctuary, lit by four scented lamps suspended from the poles which held the drapes aloft. It was dominated by a huge bed scattered with soft pillows, and the poles were carved with graphic sexual scenes featuring combinations of male and female figures involved in various erotic acts, many of which seemed unlikely, if not impossible. But it was the slim figure on the bed which held his attention. Drusilla was lying on her back, completely naked, with the tawny mane of her hair draped around her head and her arms thrown above it. Her pale flesh glowed like molten gold in the lamplight. Not a single hair blemished the smooth lines of her body and Rufus's eyes devoured every curve and hollow of that beautiful form. She had faultless, rose-tipped breasts that rose and fell as she breathed; a smooth, flat stomach and generous, wide hips. She smiled at him from under hooded lids, and for the first time he was aware of the scent of her arousal and noticed the liquid sheen on the fingers of her right hand.
'Am I not beautiful, puppy dog?' she asked, in a voice husky with desire. 'Am I not the treasure you have dreamed of, but could never have?'
He tried to reply, but his throat was so dry he couldn't speak. He was kneeling near the foot of the bed, just close enough for her to reach him. She put out her hand, but the enormity of what he was doing had eaten into Rufus's brain and it in turn sent a panic-stricken message to his body. That which had been so impressive only moments before faded away from her.
To his astonishment she laughed lightly and sat up, her breasts rippling with the movement.
'Better still, puppy dog. I relish a contest, none more. First we must both relax.' She reached to the side of the bed and picked up a vial filled with a red liquid. 'A massage, I think.'
She gave him the bottle, which was warm in his hand, before lying back with her hands behind her head, exposing the full length of that sensuous body to him.
'Now, shoulders first. Come, place yourself over me, with one knee to either side,' she instructed him. 'Now!' The sharpness in her voice as he hesitated startled Rufus and he almost spilled the precious liquid. He did as he was ordered, aware of the closeness of her belly beneath him.