Melissa dropped gracefully to her knees and stroked me. “In your case, I guess it’s type casting.” She chuckled.
“I guess so.” I pushed down hard on the back of her neck and she was prevented from replying.
“Not too much,” Nero called, cautioning Melissa. “We don’t want this scene to end prematurely.” Melissa ceased her ministrations. “Now rise and embrace,” Nero ordered. “No! No! No! Not like that! Can’t you cheat? Cheat on the embrace so that the golden focal point won’t be missed by the audience. That’s it.” He beamed momentarily, and then his expression changed to a frown. “Now what’s the matter? Why have you separated?”
“It’s this damn oil. It’s very slippery.”
“It’s hard to maintain a grip.” Melissa backed me up.
“You’re supposed to be actors!” Nero stamped his foot. “You’re not supposed to let minor mishaps throw you off your performance. Now try again!”
We tried again. It was a difficult business. I clasped my hands behind Melissa’s back and she leaned far backward, both of us arching our bodies so that the fulcrums making contact would be visible. The trouble was that we kept skidding off one another’s oiled surfaces.
“Try it horizontally,” Nero suggested.
We stretched out. But as soon as I climbed over Melissa, I slid down the length of her legs and landed on my rump. “We’re just too well oiled,” I told Nero.
“The Greeks of Troy managed it,” he pointed out. “I don’t see why you’re having so much trouble recreating the scene.”
“Do not distress yourself, Caesar.” Poppaea came up behind him. “We’ll just skimp on the oil for the pageant. And when their bodies are actually locked in lovemaking, it won’t be so difficult for them to maintain contact. Their own natural passion will keep them from skidding.”
“Do you really think so?” Nero asked.
“I’m sure of it,” Poppaea reassured him.
“Very well then.” Nero clapped his hands for attention. “We’]l break now,” he told the orgy assemblage. “I want you all to get a few hours’ rest. Remember, the pageant starts just after sundown. Everybody be at the Colosseum by then and you’ll be assigned your order of appearance in the program and placement for the tableau. That’s all for now.”
Melissa stretched and got to her feet. “One nice thing about working for Nero,” she told me, “is that he isn’t one of those octopus producers who crawls all over a girl. I hate that type who are always trying to mix business with their sex life. It makes a girl feel cheap. With me, business is always business!”
“That’s the best way,” I agreed.
“Yes. Well, I’ll see you later at the orgy.” Melissa shot me a parting smile of a friendly co-worker and left.
“You there!” Nero was pointing at me.
“Yes, Caesar?”
“Come along with us.”
I fell in with Nero’s entourage, walking directly behind him and Poppaea, the centurion at my side. We left the arena ballroom and walked through the hallways of the royal palace. “What does he want me for?” I whispered to the centurion.
“He’s going to have your hair dyed golden to match your you-know-what. He says it will be just the touch for the tableau.”
“Is it true blondes have more fun?” I wondered aloud.
“You’ll find out,” the centurion assured me.
“It’s true.” Poppaea, having overheard, turned around and smiled at me. She tossed her blonde curls seductively. Nero didn’t notice. He was busy expounding on his own latest train of thought. “I was wondering about the finale and I’ve just had an inspiration,” he informed Poppaea. “When my oral recitation is over, I shall play music. First, I will create the illusion of a conflagration behind me, and then I shall play while it blazes. It will be magnificent!”
“I really wish you wouldn’t play with fire,” Poppaea told him.
“Don’t worry. It’s perfectly safe. I know what I’m doing.”
“It could be dangerous,” she insisted. “It could get out of hand.”
“Nonsense!” Nero waved her objections aside. “It will be just the finishing touch to make the pageant a master-piece. My playing, of course, is the crux of it.”
So there it was -- spelled out for me. If Nero couldn’t make any music, there would be no fire to blame on the Christians, no reason to package them for lion food. The whole problem centered on Nero’s fiddle. If he had no fiddle, it could be stopped. It was up to me to get that stringed instrument away from him. But how?
It was quite a while later before I was pointed towards an answer. In the interim, I was taken to Poppaea’s hairdresser to have my locks bleached. When the process was completed, I was directed to the Emperor’s apartment to show him the result.
I found Nero and Poppaea in the lavish sitting-room between their two boudoirs. Nero was pleased. “The perfect finishing touch,” he enthused over my platinum pate.
“My dear, it’s done wonders for you,” Poppaea cooed.
“Thanks.” I held my hands in front of me like a makeshift fig leaf. I felt as if my scalp was crawling with neon.
Poppaea continued to gurgle over the transformation. Nero, however, turned his attention elsewhere. I watched as he opened a chest and removed from its velvet-lined interior a stringed instrument. He picked it up with loving care and nestled it against his chest as if it were the most precious and fragile of infants. He drew a bow across it lightly. It was the tenderest of caresses. “Ahh,” he sighed.
“You lavish more love and attention on that catgut than you do on me,” Poppaea complained.
“There is no instrument like it in the world,” Nero told her. “Without it, I would be lost. There would be no finale to the pageant. It will kindle the spark by which the glorious and fiery downfall of Troy will be brought to life again for the Roman people.”
I eyed the instrument. If I could get my hands on it before the pageant . . . But how? 1 was still pondering that when Nero dismissed me.
“Rest up,” he told me. “I want your finest performance tonight. And be at the Colosseum before midnight. That’s when the orgy scene will be enacted. And right after that, the grand finale of music and flame.” He began to play wildly.
He was still playing, and Poppaea was holding her ears, as I left their chambers. Out in the hall I had a sudden inspiration. There was a small storage room directly across the hallway from their apartments. I darted over to it and entered, leaving the draperies across the opening slightly ajar, so that I’d have a view of that other door by which I’d just left them. I intended to bide my time, awaiting an opportunity to slip back in and snitch Nero’s noisemaker.
There was a lot of time to bide. I don’t know how many hours went past before I saw Nero exit to oversee the start of the pageant. I was in luck. He didn’t have the fiddle with him.
Of course that still left Poppaea, but I took the chance that she’d be resting in her boudoir. When Nero had vanished down the hall, I crossed over and entered the sitting room once more. It was dark there and it took me a few seconds to orient myself.
I groped my way over to a table at the far end of the room. Dimly, I could make out the fiddle lying there. I had just picked it up when the flicker of a candle appeared at one side of the curtain.
I froze.
The curtain parted and Poppaea appeared carrying the candle. She looked for all the world like Lady Macbeth. She was wearing a loose, flowing, white robe which spread out like a tent to the floor. Her blonde hair had been undone and combed out so that its length spread over her shoulders and breasts. Evidently I must have made some noise to attract her attention. Now she peered through the darkness, her blue eyes questioning over the flickering candle.