Poppaea came closer, and then she saw me. She stopped in her tracks. I was holding the fiddle behind my back, so she couldn’t see it. I watched the expression on her face change from surprise to puzzlement to knowing sensuality.
“You saw Nero leave,” she guessed.
“I saw Nero leave,” I admitted.
“And you came back for me, you impetuous boy!”
Well, why not? As a reason, it would serve as well as any other. “I came back for you.” I made sure my voice was husky and insinuating.
“Nero would kill you,” she informed me. “Slowly,” she added.
“Then maybe I’d just better leave.” I started to edge towards the door, still holding the fiddle behind me.
“Has the courage which brought you so far waned now that the prize is within your grasp?” Poppaea murmured. “Take heart. Nero will be busy getting the pageant under way. He won’t be back until it’s time for him to fetch his instrument for the finale. We have oodles of time.”
It had to be. I stashed the fiddle carefully behind a large couch and approached her. She held her arms wide to receive me. We kissed for a long moment. The Roman candle sputtered and went out.
Poppaea set it down and we sank to the couch together. Her body was firm and warm and eager. My hands confirmed the memory of what my eyes beheld the last time I’d seen her. “My golden god of virility,” she sighed as I raised the voluminous gown she was wearing.
It was a bit much to live up to, but I did my best. In fairness, Poppaea inspired my best. The Roman Empress took to the couch as eagerly as a nymphomaniac who’d just escaped from a nunnery.
The hot flame of her tongue investigated my ear. Sharp teeth sank into my shoulder. Her breasts pulsed under the thin, silken material as I stroked them. They were soft and high, but the nipples were hard and straining to be freed.
I had the skirt up over her knees now. The flesh of her legs was warm and trembling. She thrashed about on the couch, her ample hips grinding, her small, tight derrière tensed and bouncing. She guided one of my hands to her belly and I could feel it rippling under the silk. Poppaea was whispering urgent Roman obscenities now and kicking her legs to free them of the folds of her gown. She clenched at me with one of her fists, then grabbed with both hands and shuddered with delight. As her fingertips trailed lower, I shuddered a shudder or two myself.
I pushed the gown all the way up to her shoulders. She pulled my face down to her breasts and I covered them with kisses, finally drawing one rigid tip deep into my mouth. Her nails dug into my bottom as I flicked at the nipple with my tongue. I let my hand wander up the inside surface of her flushed thighs and they parted to allow it and then clenched spasmodically as my questing fingers found their target. I parted the soft down and her “little man in the boat” leaped to the prow to bedew my fingertips. She cried aloud at the contact and her legs swung straight up in the air, swaying from the fulcrum of her excited hips.
She pulled me over her then and locked her legs around my hips. I lunged forward and it was like being gripped by a fiery vise. I could feel her muscles rippling over the entire surface of my golden love machine. The steady quivering against the tip told me I was right on target.
I stopped thinking about it then. We were both caught up in a wild rhythm that carried us from the couch to the floor without being aware of it. We were halfway across the floor when Poppaea cried her ecstasy aloud and my explosive release mingled with hers.
If I momentarily thought it was over then, I was wrong. Poppaea didn’t even break for a second. She kept right on going, her excitement carrying me along with her.
She scrambled over my body until we were juxtaposed and her long blonde hair trailed over my thighs. That old Roman dinner gong had rung. The feast of her nether chamber was spread before me and I raised up to sample its feverish honey. She responded by engulfing my edible root and I became dizzy with the delights provided by her womb at the top.
The means justified the ends. When it was over, I lay there like a stone, exhausted. I bounced back quickly, though, when the door opened.
Poppaea leaped to her feet and the gown rippled down to cover her body and flow over the floor. Fortunately it was dark and whoever had entered couldn’t see us as yet. Then the intruder spoke and his voice identified him as Nero.
“Why is it so damn dark in here?” he asked, annoyed. Ah, here’s a candle,” he added after a moment.
Still on the floor, I peered into the darkness frantically, seeking a hiding place. As the candle flickered to life, I chose the only one readily available. I crawled under Poppaea’s voluminous skirt and arranged its folds to conceal me. She squealed as my nose became wedged against the source of our recent mutual delights.
“What was that, Poppaea?” I could picture Nero peering over the candle flame.
“Nothing. You startled me. That’s all. I was dozing.”
“Dozing? Standing up? Like a horse? You must have centaur blood,” Nero decided.
“I mean I was daydreaming.”
“Why are you standing there like that?” Nero’s voice was closer.
“Like What? This is the way I always stand.” She let a little wifely annoyance creep into her voice. “Don’t pick at me. What are you doing back here anyway?”
“The orgy scene is due to start soon. And then the grand finale. I came back for my instrument.”
“Well then, take it and go and stop pestering me.”
“All right. It’s right on the ta— It’s not there. I was sure I left it there. Perhaps it’s fallen.” His voice was very close now and I guessed that he was on his hands and knees looking for the fiddle.
Despite his proximity, I remembered that I was there for a reason. I had to get that fiddle before he did. Thousands of Christian lives depended on it.
I reached out from under Poppaea’s skirt, groped behind the couch, latched onto the fiddle and pulled it under cover with me. The movement tickled Poppaea. She shifted her legs, pressed down against my face and giggled.
“What’s funny?” Nero was still on the floor looking for the fiddle.
“You are. Crawling around that way.”
“Where can it have got to?” Nero whined plaintively. “I can’t find it anywhere.”
“Be careful! You’ll set my gown on fire with that damned candle! Wait! What are you doing?”
“I just want to see if you’re standing over it. I’m just lifting your gown so—-”
The top of Nero’s head bumped against my chest. He raised his head, clipping my jaw and knocking my head back into Poppaea’s breadbasket. She grunted. I gasped. Nero found his voice.
“What are you doing here?” he roared.
“I dropped something,” I said weakly. “I was just trying to find it.”
“Poppaea!” The roar became a bellow. “What is this man doing under your skirts?”
“Quite well,” she replied with a sigh of mingled memory and resignation. “Quite well indeed.”
“So that’s it!” Nero stood up.
He towered over me. It made me feel at a disadvantage. I countered the feeling by standing up myself. “Now I know this looks bad,” I began placatingly.
“Bad! Bad! Man, there isn’t a seer in all Rome that would predict a future for you longer than about five minutes!”
“Now don’t jump to conclusions,” I suggested.
“Caesar has found you with Caesar’s wife!” Nero thundered.
“But Caesar’s wife is above approach,” I remembered.
“Nice try,” Poppaea granted.
“And what have you got there?” Nero stared. “My instrument! Ooooooohhhhh! Now you’re gonna get it! Caesar’s wife is bad enough. But Caesar’s instrument! That’s a sacrilege against the arts! Guards!” he roared. I sensed a lack of hospitable feeling in his tone. I had that uneasy feeling you get when your host begins to yawn, that feeling that says maybe you’ve worn out your welcome. Maybe I’m oversensitive, but when the two guards came through the door waving their swords, I decided to split.