Caveat Emptor

Angela Caperton

Brennus smelled her perfume all the way down in the pit, the Empress up in her box, beside her toad of a husband. Ranging along the side of the throne, the Empress' servants stood eclipsed by her glory, their beauty a reflection of their mistress, lush leaves to frame the empire's flower. Together, they were the most beautiful women in all the world, but it was the Empress who watched him with shadowed eyes, her luxurious hair like rich, dark fur, now curled and braided in an attractive styling, where only a few hours earlier it had flowed wild down her back, over her shoulders, teasing her nipples. He could not read the Empress' expression, but Brennus trusted the scent that reminded him of her seductive words.

His arms and legs hung heavy as lead, the weight of the night's joy upon him in the bright Roman morning and the heat of the sun near the center of the sky took more strength than Brennus had to give.

The Empress sweated in the heat too, as she had in the night, and as sweet flowers reached down to Brennus and tickled his nose, her promises made in the darkness of the rude stall where he slept echoed in his memory.

"Please me," she whispered, "and you will not die."

The German might, of course, kill him in spite of the Empress' promise. There was little she could do if Brennus lost his head or his gut. The German was a master of the trident and he had half again Brennus' reach. Brennus knew his only hope would be to get inside the giant's span, within the circle of the trident and strike true.

He hefted his sword, shrugged his arm guard into place and turned to meet the German, still drunk on the Empress' perfume.

Brennus inhaled the scent of fresh straw and remembered the summertime of his tenth year, four years before the Romans came. The fields in Saxony smelled like this, the green grass drying in the sun when he hunted beside his father, whose own father had been a chief.

But then the Romans came and Brennus became a dog to pit against other dogs.

The arena keepers had scrubbed the stone of his stall and made a fresh straw pallet at the back of it. He gave the Romans their due. They were clean masters.

They weren't barbarians, he thought, and chuckled at his own wit.

Ten fights, six of them to the death, and Brennus had earned the gold and gratitude of a dozen of the richest men in the empire including, his trainer told him, the Emperor himself. Another fight, another ten perhaps, and Brennus might buy his own freedom with the gratitude of sporting men.

Once free, he would return to Saxony, bury his face in the spring earth, and never leave his home again.

His keeper provided him a single chair and a small table where he ate. Sometimes they gave him wine and a whore, but never the night before a fight, so curiosity had him standing at supper's end, when the stall door opened and the soft whisper of silks reached him a moment before the achingly alluring scent of moonflowers.

In the smoky light from his little lamp she seemed a phantom made of fire mists, her robe gathering gold and spilling it down her in shimmering lines. The Patrician wore a mask that covered the upper half of her face, the countenance of the goddess Venus, white enamel, immaculate, but her plump red lips were even more inviting than the perfection of the mask.

Brennus had heard of such things--noble ladies who visited the gladiators. He rose and bowed, feet apart, his hard chest swelling with breath. He hardly dared look at her and he was conscious of being almost naked before her, clad only in his trunks. He had the tunic that slaves wore when the trainers took them to the market or to a tavern, but the Patrician stood inside his room between him and the chest that held the garment.

She stopped in front of him, close, her breasts brushing his bare chest a hand's breadth below his nipples. Her scent filled his senses, a sensual mixture of flower and musk. The feverish heat of her skin turned his blood thick in his veins. Such skin, perfect and pale... He struggled to restrain his hand from sliding beneath the robe, thin as water.

The sheer cloth fell from her shoulder, flowed like molten gold over the taut, full breasts, pooled around her lush hips, then slid with a shush down long, tapered legs. She intoxicated him, his gaze traveling over her, feasting, his mouth watering as he fixed upon the dark triangle between her legs. She leaned close, almost touching him, naked and warm, a goddess Brennus wanted only to worship.

Sweat beaded in the hollow of her neck, below the edge of her white mask, glistening on her breasts like oil. Brennus drew a deep breath and her nipples brushed him, sending a jolt of desire straight to his cock.

She gestured to him and stretched her arms high over her head, the unmistakable invitation to free his desire.

He touched her hip tentatively. He had never touched a woman so smooth. She caught his wrist and he did not flinch but let her guide him, moving his hand to her cunt, wet with want.

"Fuck me," she murmured, her voice husky with arousal. "And I will set you free."

Brennus hesitated, watching her. He did not move.

"Trust me, Brennus. I am the only woman in the empire with enough influence to do what I promise. Could I have come here without such power?"

She traced a finger over his chest, the lazy path over his collar bone, down his chest to circle a nipple, burned all his hesitations away in a flame of white-hot lust.

She peeled his trunks down his hips, kissed his stomach as she knelt and when she found his cock, she seized it in long fingers, stroked it, base to tip, worshipping him. Her lips found the head and lapped the pearl she'd summoned and the shock of pleasure that surged through him forced him to leash his desire before he came on her face. She rose, still holding him in her hand, pumping his rock hard cock until it jumped and pulsed in her palm.

She raised her leg so that her thigh pressed against his waist and she guided him into her. No more hesitation, no more concern, Brennus thrust into her, harder and deeper, her gasp of surprised pleasure burned in his blood and he drove all the way in her, hot and wet and whole.

She bucked against him as they sought rhythm, the strokes discordant and violent, his arms holding her against him, her legs encircling his back, her fingers locked around his neck. She moaned, a keening mixture of fear and wonderment, then her body stiffened, her teeth found purchase on his shoulder, sharp and true, and she gushed around him, her body shuddering in pleasure as the orgasm cascaded through her. He didn't stop, his thrust sure and long, the added slickness of her swollen cunt a marvel to move within. Brennus pumped, his cock pulsing, the pleasure growing at the base of it, his balls slapping against her ass as they moved together. He thrust and she rose and settled until he filled her entirely, their matched pace driving them toward the very edge of the world.

The molten sheath of her cunt locked around his length as she growled and thrust against him. She thrashed, her hands gripping his shoulders and back, nails branding him, tearing him as he ground into her. He ceased to feel for a moment, gone in her heat and in all he had given to her, to Rome, then he came, shots of liquid fire that blinded him and turned all the world to light.

The scent of summer sweat and moonflowers engraved the moment upon his soul. Her breasts stuck to him when they pulled apart but she kept him trapped in her cunt, thrusting her hips against his in slow possession.

"Do you know who I am?' she asked him.

"You are Venus."

She laughed, like chimes in a cool breeze. "No. I am a woman who enjoys herself," she said. "Tomorrow I will sit beside my lord the Emperor when you fight. If you win, I will have him set you free and if you lose, I will tell him to spare your life."

Brennus moved in slow rhythm against her, his cock already stirring. "I will win," he told her.

"But tonight," she said. "Tonight I win."

She gripped him, rolling his hardened cock in waves of growing heat. She pulled him to her, slick with sweat, and he claimed her lips sweet as pomegranates. He tasted every inch of her - salty shoulders, plump breasts, the erotic taste of their mixed pleasure as his tongue brought her to screaming orgasm before he filled her again.

They fucked till dawn and she woke the sun with her screams.

Dust filled Brennus' nose and the iron tang of his own blood coated his tongue.

He lay at the feet of the German, too slow, too near the edge of the trident's deadly circle. But he was not badly hurt, a broken rib or two, his right arm torn and bleeding but not broken. He would heal.

He looked up at the Empress, at a face so lovely, divine, Venus incarnate, breathing, no mask to hide her glory.

Her eyes no longer lay in shadow and yet they held no emotion, no concern, as if she did not know him. She tossed her head and laughed at something one of her servants said, a beautiful young woman with hair the same shining brown and breasts that peaked in the light cloth of her dress.

The maidservant leaned close to the Empress, her gaze fixed on Brennus, the smile one of intimate delight.

The Empress did not look at him, but laughed as she spoke to the Emperor. With one hand raising a goblet of wine to his lips, the Emperor gestured, his gaze already locked on the gate where the next fighters would emerge.

Thumbs down.

The German's trident punctured Brennus like a bladder, his life gone suddenly wet and ragged, not even leaving him breath to scream.

Through a veil of black and red, Brennus watched the Empress' maidservant, beautiful, her dark hair free about her shoulders, adorning the peaks of her breasts, her smile merciless as she held out her hands to the robed man on the Emperor's left hand.

And in those fingers that had stroked his cock to life, she held golden coins, the last glimmers of light before darkness claimed his world.