When In Rome – 03

Author’s Notes
Back to Callia&Cassius – although no one gets pregnant in this chapter, there IS mention of it. So, fair warning if that’s not your thing.

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CHAPTER THREE:
Scene 01: Callia – Sex? No.
Scene 02: Cassius – Sex? Yes.
Scene 03: Callia – Sex? Yes.
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CALLIA

It was her third, and probably final, bath of the day.
Callia could finally relax. Her day was supposed to be over, and it had been a good day. Every inch of her body had been used, and physically, she was exhausted. But her mind would not stop.
She’d slept in a bed. That had never happened before, at least not in the part of her life that she could remember. She’d woken up with Cassius wrapped tightly around her body. He was kissing her neck while he slept. He confused her beyond her wildest imaginings. Sometimes he did things that were so strange to her, so foreign that she couldn’t wrap her head around it.
First, his kisses. No man had ever kissed her before, but that didn’t confuse her that much. Men liked to have their mouths on her body, and they liked for her to have her mouth on their bodies. So it made logical sense that he could be aroused by their mouths touching. After all, Cassius was aroused by strange things. She accepted that as part of who he was.
Second, the fact that he would be angry about other men touching her. That’s what whores were for after all, but it made sense to some part of her that if men had to get his permission that meant he owned her. Men liked to own beautiful things. Everyone told her she was beautiful. Thus, it made sense that he wanted to own her.
Third on the list of “Confusing Things About Cassius” that she was composing in her head was that he’d wanted her to sleep in his bed. This is where things started to hurt her head. She understood that he’d wanted to use her body when he arrived home, but he could have chained her to his bedpost. He could have told her to sleep on the floor like she was supposed to. It had occurred to her that maybe he had wanted someone to catch her disobeying her father’s rules so that she would be punished, but Cassius wouldn’t have been home to watch her be punished, so what would he gain from that?
Fourth. He hadn’t used her when he came home. He hadn’t even woken her. He must have picked her up and put her in his bed, because she was positive she’d fallen asleep on the floor. She woke up in his bad with his arms around her, and he wasn’t inside her. He hadn’t been inside her – she would have felt it. She would have still felt it in the morning. This is what was really prying at her mind. It seemed strange to her. She couldn’t imagine that being huddled over someone else’s body could have been a comfortable way for him to sleep, or why he would want to share that exquisitely soft bed with anyone. He could have stretched out with all of the warm blankets all to himself, but instead he was rolled half on top of her.
That’s when she realized that she must have done something wrong. She must have moved in her sleep, gotten in his way. Maybe he had placed her somewhere else and she’d moved, and then she interrupted his sleep.. Except he hadn’t been angry in the morning. At least, not at her. He’d been preoccupied, but he’d kept her in bed and fed her from his own plate before sending her to Father.
She sank down under the water as she realized she was wasting her time. Trying to understand her oldest brother was an exercise in futility. The other four were easy to understand. So was father. She knew exactly what it was they wanted from her, and she’d been trained on how to give it to them. She also knew that her life meant nothing to them. Atticus liked to tease her about it while he fucked her, remind her that any day could be the day that one of them killed her. That no one would miss her. When she was younger, that used to make her cry. He’d enjoyed that. But now she was old enough to accept it as a fact of life.
/Do you think I’d let that happen?/
Would Cassius miss her when she was gone? Whenever she remembered his words from that day, her belly did something funny. It felt like, birds and butterflies dancing inside her. It made her smile. She didn’t have a name for that feeling.
Fear was when you thought someone might kill you, or hurt you worse than you could handle. Happiness was the feeling of having a cock inside you. Sadness was when the other slaves in the cells cried themselves to sleep. Pain was when you were being beaten. Sympathy was when you saw someone else hurt or cry.
Those were the only emotions she knew.
She didn’t have a name for what thinking of Cassius made her feel. And there was no one she could ask.
She stood to ask someone to dry her body, but before she could ring the bell, the door swung open. Galla, the old woman in charge of cleaning and prepping the whores for clients looked grim faced.
“Sweetheart.” She paused, and Callia was puzzled at the sympathy apparent in her eyes. “I’m sorry. Cassius has asked for you again. Come.”
The birds and butterflies in her stomach dive bombed, and she turned away from Galla to hide her smile.
Whatever this feeling was, she enjoyed it.

*

CASSIUS
“Don’t bother chaining her,” Cassius instructed as he slipped back into his bath.