“There’s always dancing at banquets,” said Succula. “Why do you think we’ve been practicing that routine?”
“I don’t know these things,” I groaned. “I didn’t even know I was going to a banquet till yesterday.”
“That’s right,” Berta said. “It’s your first time out. You’ll learn.”
“Didn’t I tell you to stop stuffing your face, Red?” said Helen, who had joined us for a swan song performance. “No, stulta!” she raged at the ornatrix who was arranging her hair. “Not like that. I told you. I want it exactly like the domina Livia’s hair. Ouch!”
It seemed Anecius’s slave—or his wife’s—did not like being ordered around by another slave and a whore at that.
“Do you really think that’s wise, Helen?” asked Dido. “Do you think the first lady of Rome wants to be imitated by a tart?”
“She’ll be flattered,” said Helen with unshakable confidence. “Besides, the style will look better on me than it does on her.”
Bonia was right. Helen was stupid. Domitia Tertia was not. She was unloading a dumb whore at a premium price. In a few years, when Helen’s looks were gone, she’d be a dead loss.
“Don’t worry, liebling,” Berta clucked over me. “So you eat a little too much at a banquet. There will be that much more of you to jiggle so prettily.”
I groaned. “If I jiggle too much I’m going to be sick.”
“Ew.” Helen moved further away from me. “Then go to the vomitorium. Now.”
“The what?”
“Red, don’t tell me you don’t know,” said Dido. “All the best homes have a vomitorium. I’m sure Aetius is having one built specially for Helen. How else do the best people keep their figures? If they’re going to gorge every damn day, they have to disgorge.”
“They make themselves vomit?” I was horrified. “They waste food? On purpose?”
“It’s not such a big deal,” said Helen. “Everybody does it.”
“I’m not going to do that.”
“Honey,” Succula came over and put her arm around me. “I think maybe you better, just this once. You don’t look so good.”
“If you vomit on the purple during the dance, you’ll end up looking a whole lot worse,” said Dido, “and Domitia will never let you out again.”
“I’ll go with you,” said Succula.
“Thanks, honey, but there are some things I’d rather do alone.”
“It’s actually considered a social activity,” Dido informed me.
One of the house slaves had to escort me or I would have been hopelessly lost. When we finally arrived, I found that Dido was right. The vomitorium was the place to be seen. Anyone who was anyone was there. I hung back for as long as I could, hoping not to be recognized by any of the aging nymphs from the baths. When the traffic thinned, I took my turn. Kneeling before the gutters that were being continuously sluiced by slaves, I imitated the best people, stuck my finger down my throat, and gave most of my dinner the old heave ho.
I had to admit I did feel better. I rose and stretched, began to take a deep breath, then thought better of it. It really didn’t smell very good in here despite the unceasing efforts of the slaves. Ignoring the woman retching next to me (how did people manage polite chitchat when they were puking?) I headed out.
“You!”
How did I know so certainly that “you” meant me? And why didn’t I keep walking anyway? One of those reversals of fortune you could say. I turned. I did not immediately recognize the woman in the gold colored, purple-fringed stola. She had a jeweled filet over dark hair coiled and wound up and around so that it added inches to her height. On the swell of her pushed-up breasts flashed huge stones that I now know to be sapphires. In fact, it was her breasts that I recognized first.
I’d had one brush with them already.
“What’s your name?” she demanded.
No way was I telling this woman my true name. For the first time I was sincerely glad that I had a nom de twat.
“They call me Red.”
“What kind of dye do you use to get that color?”
“I don’t.”
“Come on now. All whores dye their hair.”
“How do you know I’m a whore?”
The woman threw back her head and laughed. She had a very long white but somewhat thick neck. Her breasts bulged almost to her collarbone.
“What else could you possibly be?”
I decided not to answer that.
“All right.” She smiled at me, a smile that could have been used to illustrate the word “seductive.” I knew she had practiced it for hours in front of a mirror. “I want proof.”
As she started swaying toward me, I realized she was drunk. I backed away, but not fast enough. She grabbed my toga and lifted it.
“Oo la la!” she giggled.
And before I knew it, she had her hand between my legs. I had been a whore for months now, but I still hadn’t quite grasped the fundamental fact that to a member of the aristocracy, all slaves are up for grabs. Before I could stop myself, I slapped her face.
She withdrew her hand and put it on her cheek and stood there open-mouthed, too shocked for a moment to speak or even breathe.
“I may be a whore,” I said. “But I’m not your whore.”
“I could have you flayed alive for what you just did.” Unfortunately she’d found her voice again.
I shrugged. “That’s up to Domitia Tertia.”
I turned and sauntered away with confidence, though my escort had fled.
“You haven’t seen the last of me, you red-bushed slut.”
I didn’t answer, but suddenly I realized that I had given her all the information she needed to find me again. That was the problem with having a smart mouth. I had a tendency to shut it a moment too late. Oh well, she could have found out where I came from simply by shaking her tits at Anecius. So it didn’t matter what I’d said. What mattered was that I had assaulted her, a senator’s daughter.
In all honesty, I can’t say I was very sorry.
All right. Let your imagination run to glitzy stereotype. We did look like a Las Vegas version of middle-eastern belly dancers minus the stage and the high-tech lighting. Oil lantern is flattering as lighting goes, and certainly would not make us sweat. The rooms that opened onto the atrium where the guests reclined in various groupings (the drinkers and gamers, the literary and the philosophical crowd, the randy young men, the matrons with their virgin daughters making a show of spinning wool) were heated with charcoal braziers, but the atrium, open to the stars, was downright chilly.
I was in a bad, bad mood as we huddled together in a corridor awaiting our cue. My first day and night out in the big Pomegranate had made one thing clear to me. Rome was nothing but one big brothel. I existed for the entertainment of the senatorial class, just as the charioteers did. That we were good at what we did only made it worse.
“Red,” Succula pinched my cheek. “Stop scowling. This is the fun