I did not know why I had lied to Phoebe, but I had the whole afternoon to myself to think about it. I bought some fresh bread, cheese and a small jug of wine from a merchant and rode out of town to be alone and think. I found a comfortable bank beneath a tree and turned my horse loose to graze, and as I ate I allowed myself to deliberate upon my feelings for and about Phoebe. My lust for her was as strong as ever; I saw little point in trying to deceive myself about that. When she had thrown herself into my arms earlier that day the arousal I had experienced was urgent and demanding. More than that, however, Phoebe was a friend. More than that? I had to smile even as I thought it. There is nothing more demanding than an upstanding phallus, and in the arms of a willing woman few other considerations can coexist with the need to achieve and prolong copulation. Phoebe was my friend, that was true — a tried and loyal, loving friend. Too loving. There was my dilemma. I was a fugitive and, if I were caught, I would be a dead man. Knowing that, Phoebe, being the woman she was, would wish to share my odyssey, my roadside bed and my danger. That I could not allow in conscience, because, for at least two reasons — her station in life, and her marriage to Cuno — I could not think of Phoebe as a wife and therefore I could not expose her to risk for mere gratification of my fleshly urges.
All of this was highly philosophical, of course, and I enjoyed the debate thoroughly, but by the time I rose to leave, I had decided firmly that I would say nothing to her of the reasons for my journey, or of my destination.
When I met her again at the appointed time and place, Phoebe was almost dancing up and down with excitement. There was a drama at the amphitheatre that evening, she told me, and she had never seen a performance. Naturally, we attended it together.
The amphitheatre, which had been built just a few decades before on the outskirts of the town, was enormous. I cannot recall the name of the play we saw, for I spent most of my time enjoying Phoebe's pleasure in the spectacle, but I remember being impressed by the number of people the place would hold, and by the ease with which I heard the voices from the stage, even though we were seated far up on the raked terraces. Someone told me that the place held upwards of seven thousand seated spectators.
At the end of the performance, as we were leaving, a loud argument broke out close by me and I heard the word "Thief!" being shouted. I glanced to my right and saw the thief, a cutpurse, his bare blade still in his hand, coming towards me. He saw me notice him and dived backwards into the crowd before I could think to lay hands on him. The crowd was too dense for me to chase him, anyway, so I let him go. I turned my attention instead to Phoebe's prattling and thought no more about him. There was a profusion of public shops close to the amphitheatre, catering to the appetites of the crowds who thronged to the performances, and Phoebe and I managed to find one where the food, according to others, was very good. There, during the course of our meal and after her chatter about the performance was exhausted, I told her I was leaving on an extended journey and that we would probably never meet again. I begged her not to question me about my reasons, and then I relented and told her what had happened. I told her everything except my destination, and I told her, in answer to her entreaties, that I would not, could not, take her with me.
She was subdued for a while after that, and I fell silent, leaving her with her thoughts; for once in my life I had the acuity to do the correct thing. I sat and sipped my wine, trying not to be obvious in watching the expression on her face. Was there pain there? Disappointment?
Resentment? I could not tell. Her face gave away absolutely nothing of what was going on in her mind. Only her silence told me that she was thinking deeply.
As we strolled the short distance to her home, she held my hand in hers and made no further reference to my journey. Instead, she talked again about the evening's performance and about the pleasure she had had. Had I not suspected differently, I would have sworn she was the same merry, wild-eyed sylph who had thrown herself into my arms that morning. We stopped outside the building in which she had her rooms and she looked at me calmly. Then she reached up gently and took hold of my beard, pulling my face down to where she could kiss me, gently and chastely.
"Good night, my Publius. Go quickly and go surely and come back soon to me. And in between, think of me kindly, from time to time."
I turned to leave, and she grinned and held me by the beard. At one point, somewhere in the middle of the night, she rolled over and mounted me, riding me slowly, raising herself so high in withdrawing, and so slowly, that I found myself waiting constantly for her to lose her grip on me. But each time, when I was held in her by nothing but the merest clinging edges of sensation, she paused successfully and took me back, infinitely slowly, into the yielding, lubricated grip of her. It was an experience never to be forgotten. So sure was she of my reactions that she could stop exactly, anticipating my release by half a heartbeat, remaining motionless until the storm had receded and she could resume again. After one such lovely interruption, she sank down on me completely, bringing her knees up beneath her shoulders so that she squatted above me, her buttocks pressing into my groin. I was so deeply lodged in her that I could feel the end of my phallus jammed against the deepest recess of her living flesh, and then she began to rotate herself so that I moved around her like a stirring stick, churning the softness and the heated depths of her so thoroughly that I was afraid I must be hurting her. I said so, and she paused, grinding herself down onto me.
"Publius, sweet man, this is the kind of hurt I would gladly suffer all the minutes of my life. Are you enjoying it?"
I moved my pelvis upwards. "Do you even have to ask?"
"No. Believe this, magical man. The pleasure that you feel could not begin to match the pleasure I am taking in this. If I could cut you off and keep you here inside me like this for the rest of my life, I would die a happy woman and be buried with a smile on my face." She stopped and rose up again, letting me pull out almost completely before sinking back onto me and leaning forward to mouth a fierce, hot-breathed, tension-filled whisper into my ear. "This may be the last time I ever have you here in my body, Publius Varrus. I want to remember it, and I want you never to be able to forget it. You may have many other women after this, but you will never have one who enjoys you more, so I am being selfish. This night is mine. Your body is mine tonight. The milk of your balls is mine tonight. And this beautiful, lust-filled dagger of yours is mine to pierce myself with tonight, to die on, if I can suck it deep enough into me. So stab, Varrus! Impale me, you beautiful, rutting, rampant man!" It was too much for me. I groaned and convulsed, throwing my arms around her, clutching her close as I lost control and poured myself violently up into the depths of her.
In the morning, before the sun came up, she bathed me and fed me, and then she spread herself for me on the table before I left, so that I took the road again with the moistness of her in my groin and the scent of her juices clinging to my face and filling my nostrils. BOOK THREE - Westering
XV
I was two days out of Verulamium, making my way easily along the road towards the town the British call Alchester, when I ran into trouble. I was still feeling euphoric about my marathon encounter with Phoebe, and I was day-dreaming. In fact, I was lost in my imaginings to such an extent that it was almost too late for me to react when I finally noticed the group of five men drawn up in a line across the road about seventy-five paces ahead of me. I knew immediately that I was in trouble. They had that air of menace about them that stamped them immediately as malevolent. I reined in my horse and looked around me. There was open heath on both sides and nowhere to run to that offered any hope of safety. I glanced behind me then and was unsurprised to see three more men, slightly farther away than those ahead of me. Once aware of the danger, my mind automatically clicked back into legion days. Without even pausing to think, I slung my leg over my horse and dropped to the ground, unhitching my strung bow from around my shoulders with one hand and reaching for an arrow with the other. I wasted no time cursing myself for my carelessness. I merely nocked the arrow, drew, sighted and let go in one motion. Considering the speed with which I did it, I was lucky. The arrow took the central man of the five ahead full in the forehead and hurled him backwards, heels over head.