Courted by Sylvia Ketrie

delight.
    “Ass,” Octavia said with
affection. “A gladius is a short sword, and if his penis is short,
I don’t care how mighty it is, I won’t bother to hire him. I am not
risking my reputation for anything under seven inches. Furthermore,
if one of the fighters slips up and kills his opponent, then I
won’t be filled with lust, I will be expelling bile. I will vomit
in your lap like a drunken cavalryman, and then it’s you who will
be perfututum. ”
    Aemilia shrugged. “I’m willing to be totally
fucked if you are.”
     
    ***
     
    As she joined her friend in the Flavian
Amphitheater, Octavia had to admit that Aemilia’s plan had been a
good one. She had gotten a full treatment at the surprisingly
luxurious facilities of the bath where Aemilia had left her to
wait, and it had left her feeling blissfully rejuvenated. She had
been thoroughly oiled and scraped, gotten her nails trimmed, and
had even had one of the bath beauticians give her hair a henna
application to hide the grey. Octavia had swum laps in the bath’s
pool for half an hour, and was now enjoying the pleasant ache of
well-exercised limbs. She had taken a long soak in one of the hot
tubs and had emerged from it with tranquilized nerves and a relaxed
body. She had also followed Aemilia’s advice and gotten a lengthy
massage, with a cinnamon and clove scented pomade slathered all
over her at the finish. By the time Aemilia’s slave had arrived to
tell her it was nearing the start of the first gladiatorial fight,
Octavia was mellow to her bones. One simply could not be that upset
or tense about attending the games when one smelled delicious.
    Moreover, Octavia was
feeling cheerful because she felt she looked as young and pretty as
a forty-three year old matron with grown children could look.
    Several of her personal attendants had
accompanied her to the bath, because a Roman woman, especially a
Roman woman of her class, did not go out in public without
weapons-grade enhancements and styling. Her make-up artists had
applied her cosmetics with deft hands, making her eyes look
brighter and deeper set than they actually were. Her hairdressers
had arranged her locks in a seemingly simple top knot with becoming
ringlets surrounding her face. With her tresses brightened to their
youthful chestnut brown, she thought the style made her look almost
girlish.
    “The color of your stola looks fabulous on
you,” Aemilia said approvingly when Octavia had joined her. “I
cannot wear that shade of amber; it makes me look like I died three
days ago. But you, you glow in it.”
    “Thank you,” Octavia couldn’t help preening a
little. “It was made for me last year, but this is the first time
I’ve had occasion to wear it.”
    Octavia was aware of several admiring glances
as she sat beside Aemilia and her friend’s retinue. It had been so
long since she had been out in public that she had almost forgotten
how pleasing it was to be seen as attractive. With Symmachus gone
she had feared she would never be looked at with masculine
appreciation again -- or that she would never want to be.
    “It’s about time you got out of the house and
showed off a bit,” Aemilia said. “Where did your dressmaker get the
ribbons for belting? They match the garnets in your earrings
exactly.”
    “Akila got them specially
dyed.” Octavia replied. “I wasn’t sure about the trim at first but
Akila was right; she always is.” The red wine color of the silk
belts that girded the stola under her breasts and around her waist
stood out sharply against the ripe-wheat hue of her gown, and drew
attention to her fashionable figure. The fibulae that clasped her
stola together on her shoulders were gold pins topped with buttons
of blue-lace agate. The palla she wore draped around her body
should have been white by tradition, but like most Roman women she
often ignored this convention. Her palla was instead a dusky deep
pink that echoed the highlights of her ribbons, and the