The Secret History: A Novel of Empress Theodora by Stephanie Thornton Page B

none of your business.” She turned on her heel and stormed away.
    How the mighty had fallen. I’d best make sure Comito stayed on Petronia’s good side. I shook out a lemon-colored silk stola with orange ribbons on the sleeves, a gift from the senator Comito had bedded the night before, one with more hair on his back than on his head. She complained Hilarion worked her like a rented mule, but I knew she adored all the attention. My sister was busy all night, every night, but so far no man had come forward to proclaim himself her patron. An African ivory merchant had already booked her attentions tonight.
    I’d be a liar to claim I didn’t envy Comito her new silks and baubles, but what I really begrudged was the new company she kept. While I waited for her in alleys, she dined in sumptuous villas with imperial magistrates, merchants from foreign lands, and Constantinople’s politicians. Men who had power. Yet all she ever recounted was the type of snails on the menu or what position the man preferred in bed.
    “Not as many curves as her sister.”
    I almost dropped the yellow stola. Two male slaves in identical blue tunicas had snuck up behind me and now eyeballed me like a slave in the market. The one who’d spoken was broad shouldered and tall, not unpleasant on the eyes.
    “They say her sister will take it any way you like.” His friend wore a boy’s tunica with short sleeves like mine. “I’ll bet this one would, too.” His upper lip had a hint of fuzz, but it was the wart on his chin that was most memorable, one with a thick black hair in the middle standing at attention.
    “I take it all sorts of ways. If you can pay.” I pulled myself to my full, nonimpressive height and gave them an imperious stare. “Which I know you can’t.”
    “How much?” The one with the wart looked me up and down. I could see his reaction under the tent of his tunica.
    “A
tremissis
.” The outrageous sum ensured they’d leave me alone.
    “Deal.”
    I laughed. “You must take me for a fool. You’re slaves.”
    “And you’re a theater tart.” There was a flash of gold as his friend pulled the coin from the purse at his hip. “My master won’t notice his donation to a good cause.”
    I really needed to learn to keep my mouth shut. Yet here was a man offering me the same coin Comito made. I couldn’t go onstage, but there was nothing to keep me from earning a wage as my sister did, with the added benefit of choosing my own johns. If Comito could do it—
    I swallowed, hard. “The performance ends soon. You’d best be quick.”
    It burned like the fires of Gehenna when the tall one entered me, and his whole body stiffened when he passed my maidenhead. I cried out, but his mouth devoured the sound as he pressed me into the cold wall. The scrapes on my back would sting the next morning as if I’d been scalded, but it probably could have been worse. The crowd above erupted into cheers as I wiped my blood and their seed from my legs as best I could, sore and filthy as Wart retied the belt that held his undergarments. His friend had kept his back to us, but he turned now and tossed me the
tremissis
. I almost dropped it when he tossed me another coin the size of my fingernail. Tarnished bronze to add to the gold.
    “What’s this for?”
    He cocked an eyebrow at me. “Something extra for your first.”
    My cheeks flared with shame. The battered flesh between my legs throbbed, and I wanted to scrub my skin raw, rid myself of the smell of sex. I could never undo what I’d just done, but I desperately wanted to. I’d sold myself for two grimy coins.
    The slaves were scarcely gone when I heard a cackle of laughter and Antonina sauntered toward me, her eyebrows touching her hairline. I made a show of smoothing my tunica, despising the heat that spread across my cheeks and the sting in my eyes.
    “A true alley cat, aren’t you?” Antonina chuckled. “It takes a special sort of tart to please the lowest of the low,