But I digress. In any event, Sabina had told me that later in the week there would be gifts, games, a suspension of work, and general revelry. The household would even sit at a banquet served by our masters; the meal, however, would be prepared by us, the table cleared by us and the dishes cleaned by us.
As usual in those first days after my injury, I was late getting to where I was supposed to be. I limped through the vestibule, trying to get my pileus placed securely while struggling with the staff. It had been a bad day for my leg: I had already been on my feet too long. Pio was not about to let me shirk my duties, and I was not about to ask for any favor that might put me in his debt. I leaned up against the wall to catch my breath and peered out at the group huddled outside. My glance fell on Sabina standing behind the soldier Malchus, her hands lightly resting on Livia’s shoulders.
They were both wearing the pileus.
Somehow, three-year old Marcus escaped the far side of the carriage even before it had stopped. With delighted screams he came racing around the back and right into the young senator’s entourage of six armed horsemen. Pio stepped forward with surprising speed. He placed his left hand on the snowy chest of our owner’s horse (the beast came to an immediate halt) and with his right arm whisked the kicking bundle of male energy into the air. Only when Crassus had leapt from his white stallion did the chief of staff put Marcus down. The little treasure turned and kicked his savior in the ankle as hard as he could before rushing past his father to get back to the carriage.
Children.
Crassus was even more intent on reaching Tertulla than his son. As the door opened, he scooped the boy up, hung him upside down by his own ankles (an apt punishment until I saw how hard it made little Marcus laugh) and dropped him, gently, back into Pio’s arms. Marcus began to struggle; Pio whispered something to him and the boy lay still. The senator grasped the big man’s shoulder in gratitude, then with a whoop, turned and leaned inside the open door. There sat Tertulla, young and elegant, a wide-eyed baby boy in her lap. Crassus reached underneath his wife with both hands, and accompanied by her shouts of delighted protestations, gathered both mother and son up in his arms. He spun twice round in the gravel, the two parents laughing so hard we who watched could not help but smile.
“Welcome Tertulla,” Crassus cried, “queen of this house, of our assembled familia, and most assuredly of me!” He set his wife down as we cheered, then reached for the baby. She whirled away from him, her ice blue eyes on fire. Realization dawned on the master and he apologized deeply, with only his enthusiasm to blame. She turned once again to face him, standing an arms-length apart, formally erect. All became terribly still as Tertulla bent and placed the baby at his feet. It squirmed uncomfortably, its swaddling picking up bits of gravel, but did not cry out.
If the paterfamilias walked away, the child would be taken to the outskirts of the city and abandoned. A father could legally do this if the babe were female, deformed, or if the idea of another screaming mouth in his house were just too tiresome to bear. The practice was the same in Athens.
No such thing would happen to this child. Crassus swept him up in his arms, lifting him high over his head. “I give you Publius Licinius Crassus!” he cried. “Io Saturnalia!”
“Io Saturnalia!” we all shouted in response, I less enthusiastically than most of the others. I mean, honestly, it was freezing. Truth to tell, Pio returned little Marcus to his mother’s arms with remarkable tenderness. I would be moved, if I cared a whit for these strangers. What were they to me?
I looked over at Sabina. She had removed her cap. We began to follow the family back into the house. I waited for Sabina to pass but when I tried to speak to her, with eyes averted she mumbled that she was needed by the master and hurried past.
One son of Marcus Crassus would marry and grow old with little to remark his passing. There was, however, one disturbing exception: he became, for a time, quaestor to Julius Caesar. It was one of life’s small, ironic blessings that Crassus did not live to see his progeny in the service of his enemy.
The other child was doomed to die a hero’s pointless death.
Before I could reenter the domus, I was waylaid by Ludovicus. He was five years younger than Sabina, a hard man with a soft center. I always liked him. Except on that day, when he threw an extra cloak over my shoulders and led me into town. Somehow he had come by the knowledge that when it came to women, I had none. He had taken it upon himself, in a festive, holiday mood, to rectify what was, in his opinion, a dreadful oversight. I don’t care how smart you are, he told me cryptically, you’ll never understand how little you really know till you’ve had a woman.
I do not wish to speak of the incident, only to tell you that it was a failure of less than spectacular proportions. By which I do not mean to employ a double negative, nor to imply that it was in any way a success. We arrived at a house with which Ludovicus was well-acquainted and his custom well-received and appreciated. My guide through these dark waters even supplied the coin to tip the ferryman. Which only made matters worse: is a man who does not pay for his whore less of a man? If he is twenty-three, terrified, and the cerebral sort who cannot help but take this simple, single string of reasoning and obsess about it till he has built a smoking Vesuvius, then yes, he is less of a man. And being thus diminished, by definition, therefore, he is less capable of performing this manliest of acts. Why couldn’t we just go home? I looked in vain for Ludovicus, but he had already paired and departed for the bounteous paradise of his favorite Ligurian, leaving me to my personal Hades.
The longer you keep your virginity, the harder it is to get rid of it. If you are male and past a certain age, the more concerned you become that nobody wants to relieve you of it. Which makes it more difficult to perform when given the opportunity. Which confirms your original supposition. Which makes you still more afraid that nobody wants it. And so on.
For a young boy who has not spilled his first seed, sex is a frightful and abhorrent thing to contemplate. As a young teen, it is the only thing worthy of prolonged consideration. A visit to the brothel or an early marriage quickly dissolves both tension and ignorance. But what if chance, lack of opportunity or becoming a spoil of war interrupt the natural progression into adulthood? Then, the difficulty of the mathematics of prolonged virginity rises exponentially with age. Until you solve this equation, it will remain a barrier between you and the rest of the world of men.
The girl was sweet enough, the room relatively clean and quiet. She took my hands, guided me to her pallet and bade me sit. Standing before me, she slipped from her tunic, her oiled breasts and thighs bronzed by the lamplight. She began touching herself, hardening her nipples between thumb and forefinger and making little animal sounds, either of pain or appreciation. Her facial expressions indicated the former, but I could not be certain. Her hips moved in ways that no man could mimic. Was it arduous practice or some differential physiognomy that enabled such gyrations? Her movements and her hands began to converge about the darkness between her legs. What did she expect of me? Was I supposed to sit and watch or wait for an invitation to become an active participant? And what was I to do exactly? I had no idea and was too embarrassed to ask. I did not know where to look; my eyes darted about, dragonflies flitting over an exotic pond where no resting place promised a safe landing free of humiliation. My confusion was compounded when of a sudden her ankle bracelet began to jingle; she pivoted, dancing in a slow semi-circle till her glistening buttocks gyrated just inches from my face. The oiled dimples of her taut lower back were shining eyes, pleading with me to do I knew not what. Finally, since it was easier to find courage when direct eye contact was not a further dissuasion, I gathered what little I could salvage from my trembling core and in a small voice spoke to her undulating backside, admitting my lack of experience and need for guidance.