Floralia (2 page)

Livia felt her face go red at that.

“Is this your first Floralia?” he asked. His eyebrow was arched and his lips were curved, ever so slightly, into a wry smile.

“Yes,” Livia admitted. “Is it yours, though?
Is this your first Floralia?”

“Not at all,” he said.
“I am a great lover of the cithara, you see, and of the goddess Flora. This is my fifth Floralia. Or sixth, perhaps – it is hard to say for certain.”

“I find that unusual,” Livia said.
Livia knew well that Floralia was for the most part a plebeian festival, enjoyed by the poorer Romans while merely being tolerated by the wealthier ones.

“
Oh, and why is that?” he asked, feigning umbrage. “Is it because I am a – a – a...?”

The word was almost at her lips.
Patrician
. She didn’t want to speak it. It seemed just at that moment to be something not unlike a curse-word – she felt like it would have been somehow insolent to even speak the word aloud to him, and she did not know why.

“Ah, I can see that you’re thinking it,” he said. “But you don’t need to say it. This is
Floralia
. Everyone is the same class for these six days. Everyone smells the same blossoms, everyone drinks the same wine, and everyone treads in the same rabbit excrement.”

The man’s high
status was clear to see. It was not just his fine linen toga and his expensive-looking sandals that gave it away, but also his face – he had the long aquiline nose, the high cheekbones and the dark, deep eyes of the aristocracy. His bearing, too, gave it away: the way he stood and strode and comported himself. Even his manner of speech was suggestive of blue blood.

“What is your name?” he asked.

“Livia,” she blurted out.

“Livia,” he agreed,
as if testing how it felt to speak the name with his own mouth. “And I’m Felix. It’s a pleasure.”

She could not help but notice that he was very handsome.

“Let me replace that wine for you,” he said. “And I’ll buy myself one, too.”

He bought two cups from the vendor – but not the cheap
pig’s-swill which Livia had purchased for herself; rather the expensive, high-quality stuff.

“So this
only your first Floralia?” Felix asked, with wide-eyed curiosity. He handed her one filled wine cup and took a sip from his own.

“That’s true,” Livia said. “My father was a man with little
tolerance for such things. So I’ve always been the sort of person to believe that Floralia is none of my business.”

“However?”

She took a sip of the wine. It was robust, full-bodied. She suspected it would be singing in her head, before long. “However this time... I made the quick decision to borrow my neighbour’s stola and see what all the fuss was about.”

“
Ah, and what do you think of it all?”

“Oh, I’m just not sure yet.”
Livia gave a coy smile and – much to her surprise – actually batted her eyelashes at him.

“
Well then!” he exclaimed. “You need to let me show you around, before you make up your mind.”

Livia bit her lip again. “Well then!” she
mimicked. “I might just have to let you show me around.”

He grinned at that.

And so they proceeded through the festivities together; watching drama performances, listening to music, drinking wine, chatting and teasing each other.

Livia felt
both suspicious of him and attracted to him at the same time. He was an enigma, he seemed – a puzzle that, with a little bit of effort and a little bit of luck, she might be able to solve.

He was handsome
, well-spoken and talented. Wealthy too, evidently. He could have had practically any woman he wanted, patrician or plebeian, and Livia could not help but wonder why he seemed to be so interested in her.

Not that she wasn’t intrigued.
Or flattered. It just seemed, perhaps, too good to be true.

Soon enough they were dancing
together – a brisk dance to lively music. Livia found that she enjoyed every second of close contact she shared with Felix and when the music slowed down – and he put his hands about her waist – Livia thought she might melt into a puddle.

“How do you like the festival so far, Livia?” he asked.
There was an undeniable sparkle in his dark gaze.

“It’s more than I could have hoped for, I think,” Livia replied, her eyes fluttering up at him.

After their dance, they drank some more wine, chatted some more and walked some more, hand in hand.

Eve
ntually, Livia realised that they had left the festivities behind completely – they were walking together through dark and unadorned streets. She was not familiar with the area, but with Felix right beside her, she felt like there was nowhere else she should be instead of right there.

Soon t
hey turned a sharp corner and came to an imposing residence.

“
This is my house, Livia,” he said, lifting a lazy hand to indicate the compound’s tall oaken door. “Do you want to come inside with me?” he asked. He asked the question easily enough – coolly, casually – but Livia could not deny the weight lying just behind the words.

She did not know how to answer.
Her head was swimming at that moment – from the dizzying suddenness of everything, or from the wine she had drunk. Or probably both. The stola that she was borrowing from Drusilla suddenly felt tight and hot and itchy. Restricting.

She knew
, without doubt, that she was attracted to him. And that he was attracted to her was clear enough.

Let the wind take her caution, she thought. It was Floralia; the time of year to go home with beautiful strangers.

“Yes,” she replied, squeezing his hand.

Felix
grinned a small smile at that. Then he gave a heavy rap on the door and asked to be admitted. Without delay they were let inside, Felix, with an oil lamp in one hand and Livia’s hand in the other, took his partner swiftly across the torch-lit courtyard and into the main residence. They traversed dark rooms and hallways before finally arriving at Felix’s bedchamber.

Felix shut
the door firmly behind them. There were several unlit candles strewn throughout the chamber, and he made a circuit of the room: gliding gracefully but purposefully, lighting each wick with the flickering flame of his oil lamp. Once he was done, he set the lamp down on a nearby counter and turned his gaze on Livia.

While fidgeting with her dress, she looked up at Felix. Then down at the polished marble tiles. Then up at Felix once again.

The musician looked otherworldly in the soft candlelight. His eyes, Livia noticed, were black but for the red gleam of the flickering candle flames. They held a smouldering heat, and a voracious hunger.

That dark look of his did something
to her; something fundamental. She felt a deep, secret part of herself begin to heave and churn.

Without letting his eyes leave Livia’s for even a moment, Felix began to disrobe. He unfurled his light toga
slowly – letting it fall about his feet – and revealing his fine linen tunic beneath. He untied the sash about his waist and cast it away. Finally, Livia watched with nervous but heedful anticipation as he pulled the tunic up and off, revealing his nakedness to her.

The toga, she found, had not done the body an ounce of justice.

Livia allowed herself a moment to drink him in. She was delightfully surprised at what she saw. It seemed to her more like a soldier’s body than a musician’s – so much so that Livia could not help but wonder if Felix had ever served in the legions. He was well-toned and tanned, composed of sinew and lean, hard muscle. The taut lines of his stomach led her gaze downward: to the grove of black, curling hair between his legs and the rearing member, which was even now filling with vigour.

Livia looked back up at his face and
, quite instinctively, bit her lip.

Felix
took that as his signal. The musician lunged straight for her – closing the gap with two long strides – and seized her in a tight embrace. He pressed his mouth to her own, kissing her ravenously, licking and nibbling at her lips. The hot, salty taste of him was exhilarating, and caused her to whimper in her throat with need. He used his mouth to force apart Livia’s lips, and his tongue swept in, dancing and lapping.

He gripped her body tighter as they kissed
. Livia delighted in the feeling of his hard body pressing firmly against hers; his strong arms, his chest, and the swelling hardness of his manhood.

Livia
felt her boldness steadily rising, in tandem with her desire and arousal. She wanted all of him.

Before she knew it she was eagerly unravelling herself from Drusilla’s
stola. Felix, kissing every inch of revealed skin, eagerly helped her to remove her clothes.

The
under-tunic came off swiftly, and they were suddenly naked together. The musician took her tightly in his arms yet again and they tumbled down onto the bed together, a jumbled mass of arms and legs.

When Livia felt the hard head of Felix’s member finally meet her lower lips, swollen and sopping wet, it took all her resolve to not beg him to plunge it in. Kneeling between her legs, Felix began to slide himself, inch by inch, into Livia’s tight sheath. She angled her hips up to aid him, and could not help but quiver with delight at his slow ingress.

Soon enough the musician
fell into a rhythm of sure, solid thrusts. He built up momentum gradually, probing and pumping, and every smooth slide of his marble-hard manhood seemed to delve deeper than the one before it.

Livia’s lips let out a long, quivering cry of delight –
a half-shriek, half-moan. It must have sounded atrocious, but she did not care. Her insides squeezed him tightly, drawing him in further. The feeling of his quivering cock inside her was phenomenal, and she did not want to ever let go. As his long strokes reached all the way into her, she felt her peak draw nearer and nearer by the second.

She let out an ecstatic scream as her moment arrived –
a hot, sublime sensation flared up within her loins and blossomed outwards in every direction, filling her completely. Her whole body quivered as the waves swept through her, and her moans became incomprehensible yammering.

Felix finally pulled himself out. His time had come too, Livia could see.

With cock in hand he angled himself over Livia’s exhausted body, bringing his tip not far from her stomach. He gave a low moan as he shot a stream of his hot essence over Livia’s belly.

With a spent
and satisfied sigh, he threw himself down beside Livia and clasped her tightly with one arm. He was not too exhausted to kiss and nibble at her vigorously – on the shoulder, the collarbone, the neck, the mouth.

“You
are magnificent, Livia,” he murmured in her ear. “This festival might be in honour of Flora, but you, Livia... You’re the true goddess of my Floralia.”

Livia grinned a big, foolish grin at that.

They giggled together and kissed and held each other late into the night. By the time they finally succumbed to sleep, Livia held tight in Felix’s embrace, all but one of the candles had burned out.

*

By the stark light of the morning sun streaming through the small chamber windows, Livia saw things differently.

Last night, she had been too caught up in the heat and
passion of the whole situation to see clearly. The wine, too, would not have helped her judgement.

Taking pains
not to wake the sleeping musician, she carefully disengaged herself from Felix’s hold and slipped out of bed.

The floor-tiles were cold
under her feet. They were fine beige marble, and highly polished. Bending over slightly, Livia could see her face reflected in the smooth surface. The floors of her own bedchamber were wooden boards, and rotten in some parts. Livia did not actually
have
a bedchamber, however – her entire living space consisted of one cramped room, with a small hay-filled mattress in one corner.

She looked around Felix’s chamber,
saddened by the opulence. The bed she had shared with Felix was monumental – large enough for four people to sleep abreast – and draped with beautiful bedsheets and blankets. Tip-toeing, she ventured around the chamber. It seemed larger than her entire apartment. His cithara, she saw, Felix kept in a box exquisitely crafted and detailed out of dark mahogany, with a silken lining inside. The oil lamp, candlesticks and candelabras were all made of precious metal – silver, Livia supposed. She was not well acquainted with precious metals, however, and could not be certain.

Quietly and quickly, she gathered up her garments and
dressed herself.

Her time with Felix had been wondrous
, better than she ever could have thought possible. He had been the perfect Floralia companion, and she would never forget the night of carnality they had shared.