It was beginning to turn to evening, and after a long tutoring on the classics, Lucius and Rufus were more than ready to break free for the afternoon. They had been best friends since they were young as a result of their adjacent family villas and the business relationship between the two. Lucius's father and uncle ran the largest specialty clothing store in the peninsula, selling togas, tunics, and cloths from rare imported fabrics, while Rufus's family controlled and managed shipping lines that traveled to every important city in the area. The families were obviously well-off, powerful even, and lived and worked with such attitudes. However Lucius and Rufus were still young, and although they worked under their fathers on occasion, they were being tutored until a more respectable age.
Until that point, the boys met each day with fervor for fun and enjoyment, and today, like the past few weeks, they met up with two daughters of a nearby powerful aristocrat to laugh, giggle, and blush at the illicit book Lucius had taken from his father's library. Reading The Art of Love by Ovid opened their eyes to a carnal pleasure that they had yet to experience and reaffirmed the tension that had developed between them.
Huddled below the trees on a hill outside the city, Lucius was reading a section on the grooming of body hair when he wondered aloud, "I think I would want a woman with her hair rather than her be shaved and bare."
The girls blushed and giggled a little, and one of them teased him. "How would you know what you want?" She exclaimed, "Have you ever felt a woman? Or even seen one nude with your own eyes?"
He stammered back, "No... of course I haven't... you know that. But I think a man can have his preferences!" Lucius immediately felt stupid and humiliated. They were all laughing at him, even Rufus despite his similar innocence.
Between laughs the other girl quipped, "Well you clearly are not a man yet!" and they devolved into even more laughter.
Utterly embarrassed and red in the face, Lucius continued to read from the novel until they grew tired and went their separate ways. The girls left first, one of them giving Lucius a peck on the cheek as a parting gift. Despite her jests, she was quite fond of him and his strangely contrasting complexion. She loved that his face was sharp but boyish, his skin a deep olive yet light, and his hair curly and straight. The longer she spent with him, the less she seemed to understand about him and that excited her.
Lucius was angry the entire walk home, and Rufus was forced to bear the brunt of his tirade. "How dare they make fun of me!" He exclaimed, " I go to all the trouble of finding the book they wanted and out of my great generosity, share it with them despite the risk to my good name. How dare they! Even you Rufus, you ass!" and with that, Lucius pushed his best friend so hard that they both fell over tangled together in the grass.
Rufus, by far the more mild-mannered, was the first to stand up, and he offered his hand to Lucius who accepted. "Well, it was funny and you did walk right into it," he said with a grin.
"Yea... I guess I did," Lucius said, "but for her to make fun of my manhood like that. Absolutely disgraceful!"
"Is she not correct though? I do not think our fathers would think of us as men until we've had a woman."
"It's not about that! Her audacity is the issue. But yes, you're probably right," Lucius conceded, sounding deflated.
The friends continued to walk through the grass down the hill, the expanse of houses coming into view and their hearth smoke rising and fading into the sky. It was then that an idea and a plan came to Lucius, and he seemed to jump up in expression and excitement. "Rufus! What is stopping us? Let's go to the brothel on the other side of town and become men... Yes! It is settled. We will go tomorrow evening. "
Rufus looked at him with wide eyes. "Lucius, I don't think my father would allow that! Plus how are you going to steal the coin for that. I don't have any."
"Bullshit. You see how our fathers go to that expensive whorehouse in Marruvium at least three times a month. They always come home giddy and drunk, and it always makes my mother so very angry. They are probably wondering why we haven't had a woman yet! Maybe that is why they still look at us as children!"
Rufus was still reluctant, but he was enticed by Lucius's logic. "What if they are expecting us to finish school first? I just don't know. What about the coin?" he asked.
"I have made enough coin for the both of us working for my father and haven't spent a lick of it. I'm beginning to think you don't want to have a woman with all these excuses," Lucius teased, "Are you a coward Rufus? Do you not want to fuck the wet warmth of a woman's cunt?" and whilst vulgarly saying the latter, he grabbed at Rufus's loincloth in jest.
Slapping Lucius's hand away, Rufus rolled his eyes and said, "Of course I want to. How can you say something so stupid? I have to masturbate three times a day to quell the damn urges."
