Pleasure Pain Pompeii

PROLOGUE

Somewhere in the empire, Lucia Holconia Polla had a dream. In her dream, she watched her home city of Pompeii crumble delicately into a fine powdery dust. A wind swept around her, a wind that moaned and sounded like both pleasure and pain, and blew the dust away.

Lucia felt both happy and sad Pompeii was gone.

Happy because she knew it was gone and she could never return. She was free.

Sad because it was her home. And she felt homesick watching the dust swirl into the sky. When she woke, Lucia realized her feelings of homesickness and sadness meant absolutely that one day she would return to Pompeii.

IBIS

WHEN THE FRONT DOOR of the whorehouse slammed, Ibis heard her dead friend shriek. It caused Ibis to prick her thumb as she pinned her tunic. Rather than sucking the blood from her thumb, she squeezed the tear in her skin and made it bleed. Kneeling before the altars of Persephone and Isis in her room, she let drops of blood fall into the oil of the altar's flame. With dry lips she wet compulsively, Ibis begged Persephone to calm Quintia in the underworld.

"Befriend her, Queen of the Dead. Be a better friend than I was during her life. Be so good to her she forgets me," and tears mixed with the oil and blood.

She had to hurry. She knew she would be called for soon. The slamming door meant customers had arrived.

"Isis, mother her in the afterlife," Ibis whispered, hearing footsteps in the hall approach her room. These were not living footsteps; they dragged in a way no living person could. Her concentration broke, and her hands sweated as she added herbs to the oil and blood feeding the flame.

Ibis heard the pads of fingers dragging down her door—dead, bloody fingers. Ibis could smell the trails of blood left behind.

Sometimes other girls heard Quintia, or claimed they heard her. But what others described they witnessed was nothing compared to what Ibis witnessed. No one really knew what she had seen and heard. Ibis thought Quintia haunted her especially because Quintia loved Ibis especially.

Ibis went to her door; she feared the dead, but she feared fearing anything more. She opened the door. No one was there except a sharp chill that scraped along Ibis's skin like the blade of an axe. She thought abruptly, coming from no where in her mind—He's downstairs.

Then the chill faded and replaced itself with the thick August evening warmth.

AULUS RUSTIUS NASO was known by all as Naso. That was his name as a slave in Pompeii.

When Naso's master had died, who was Aulus Rustius Taro, his will freed Naso and bequeathed to him a small fortune. Naso invested the money in Pompeiian wine. He then bought a young girl who was a chamber slave to a neighboring family, freed her, and married her. They had been lovers secretly for months. His wife had several children, all of whom died in infancy except his only son Aulus Rustius Verus: who Naso called Rust. Through a natural shrewdness with money, and using techniques he had seen his master use, Naso turned his fortune into a growing empire. Before he was thirty, Naso was as rich as the oldest and most affluent family in Pompeii, the Holconias.

THE EARTHQUAKE OF 62 was the best thing that could have happened to Naso. As people fled the city in terror, willing to sell at any price, Naso bought cheap. He bought ruined houses and stores and bought buildings that hadn't been damaged at all. He laughed when owners handed over deeds, warning Naso he was buying cursed land in a city suffering under the wrath of a vindictive god. Naso never assumed the worst in any situation. He saw the Earthquake only as Bacchus loudly expelling gas.

The Holconias, who did believe the city was undergoing some sort of a spiritual crisis, but not one worth ruining themselves financially in order to avoid, did not approve of Naso. They raised their noses in distaste at Naso, as if smelling something sweetly rotting, and mutter something derisive about 'new money'.

What was worse to the Holconias were reports from slaves about the interior of the Rustia home. Apparently horrifyingly garish and obscene paintings adorned the walls, all in the new style of brightly painted faux pillars, flora, fauna, mock theatrical stages, in bright red, blue, green and gold panels. In rooms most available to guests, such as banquet rooms, one could eat and stare at satyrs raping naked nymphs, or voluptuous, round-assed women pushing themselves onto Satyrs prostrate with desire.

Rumor said that once Holconius himself asked Naso if he did he indeed have such graphic depictions in his house. Naso reportedly laughed, slapped Holconius on the shoulder, and said, "Hell yes! And posing for them was the best week of my life."

RUSTIUS NASO yelled up the stairs for Ibis. "Where are you, you skinny Greek goddess?! Stop whoever you're doing and come down here and suck me off!"

Naso's friend Julius put his hand on Naso's shoulder and Naso put his arm around him and yelled, "Shimmy your sweet skinny ass down here and suck us both off! Ibis!"

That was how Ibis first saw the Aedile—looking a little embarrassed by his friend, and helpless, too. No one would ever tell Naso to stop or be quiet. He was too well liked and completely without malice. Naso dropped his arm from his friend's shoulders and got that look in his eyes and smile on his face that always made Ibis feel endeared to him and a little afraid.

"Let me introduce you. Get your butt down here, my Iris, my Ibis. This is Julius, Pompeii's Aedile. You must have voted for him. Julie, this is my Iris, Ibis. She's not really a whore. She's a goddess in disguise. But she won't tell me who she really is. Who are you? My theory this week is that she's Hermes because she can suck cock like she has one."

"Who told you that? You certainly haven't experienced that yourself," she said in Greek.

"No, I haven't lost my Ibis-virginity yet. I dream of it, I anticipate it daily, and tell everyone I know how being inside you will feel so good it'll kill me. Didn't I say that at dinner, Julie? Didn't I? But I have an obligation to my young son. He needs a father for most of his youth. I'm preserving that exquisite death for my wedding night."

"I'm sure your second wife—whoever the patient, understanding woman is to be—would not appreciate my presence."

"You my darling are to be my second wife if I have any say in it."

"What about your present wife? Doesn't she have a say?"

"She loves you as much as I do. Well, not that much; that would be indecent. Take Julie upstairs, do him well, suck him so dry it curls his hair. My darling Iris, he's going to buy this respectable establishment."

"I haven't decided yet," the Aedile said, staring at Ibis. He hadn't stopped staring at Ibis.

"Take him upstairs and make up his mind for him." Leaning closer and saying with breath that had been marinating in wine for hours, "You want him to own this place. He will fix all problems you told me about."

"I want you to buy the house, Naso," Ibis whispered and Naso gave her a long hug. He smelled of onions and sweat and wine.

"My wife would divorce me," he said with sincerity; Ibis assumed he really meant I love you.

The Aedile of Pompeii was a publicly elected official who organized games and all forms of public entertainment. He had other duties, but it was the entertainment he sponsored that got him reelected. He had to prove a good host.

Pompeii's Aedile had a genius for entertaining, and a compulsion for pleasing. When first elected, less than two years before the earthquake of 64, the Aedile was young, charismatic, and the owner of several very successful, very entertaining gladiators. He had a young wife, and a young boy named Marcus and a baby girl named Julia (born ten months after the earthquake). The long stressful hours and endless work and struggle with donators and the Pompeiian senate only seemed to have made the Aedile younger and handsomer. His looks acquired a polish that comes with the body after finding itself physically. He had a quiet charisma; in his private life he spoke with a soft voice which forced listeners to lean in closer to hear. When speaking publicly, every one of his carefully chosen words were loud, clear, and concise.

At this point, he was 28.

THE AEDILE had inspected the prostitutes as they stood before the house in their loudly colored tunics. They ranged in age and appearance—a few were very young, a few were quite old. The male prostitutes looked ill, thin, and too pale. The girls looked like they ate too much, or hardly at all. This was not a group one expected from which to receive pleasure, even anything as small as a joke. The only one who seemed physically palatable was Ibis. She had masses of naturally kinky curly hair the color of honeyed wine, breasts smaller than most Roman women, a flat stomach, strong legs, and a deep voice. When the Aedile stood before her and stared in her face, she did not drop her eyes as a slave should. Nor did she stare at him with neither fierce aggression nor hate. She simply looked at him as if he were an equal. Obviously, Ibis had not been a slave all her life. Most likely her former life had been as affluent as his own.

Ibis led him upstairs to one of the cubicles used for clients—little more than an empty room, a mat on the floor, no window, and a curtain for a door. Ibis lit two lamps and mechanically began to undress; the Aedile ordered her to stop. She froze, holding her worn, undone tunic against her breasts.

"Where are you from?"

"Pompeii." She said it with pride, and it pleased him.

"No, your family. Are you Egyptian? Greek?"

"Roman." But she said "Roman" using the Greek form of the word.

"You don't look Roman. Ibis isn't a Roman name."

"No, it's a whore's name," she said in Greek. "I am Roman."

"But you speak Greek," the Aedile said in Latin. "You understand Latin and speak Greek?"

"I prefer Greek," she said.

Ibis was still holding her tunic up, and seemed annoyed by the conversation. The Aedile wished there were more lamps in the room so he could have a better look at her.

"You've been educated. Your parents must have had money. Your people were conquered by Rome, and you were brought here a slave? What's your real name?" he asked, now quite curious, despite the information being so unimportant. His own curiosity made him curious.

"Does it matter? Will it influence your decision to buy this house?"

"Why don't you want to tell me?"

"If you buy this house," she began, looking him directly in the eyes, "you'll own my body. That doesn't include my mind."

"If I own you, I own all of you. Including your mind."

"You could enter or examine any part of my body. There are things in my mind you will never know. That makes them uniquely mine."

"I could torture you."

"Try."

The Aedile found himself growing hard. He said, "Tell me what this house is like. How is it run?"

"The asshole in charge spends more time bringing his gladiator friends over for free blowjobs than concentrating on generating business. We need at least three more whores; we're so short staffed, girls have to work on their periods. We need a rotation schedule, so one person doesn't have to get stuck only doing blowjobs. The roof leaks in bad rain, the water pipes busted in the winter and we have to get all our water from the fountain. We have rats, all our clothes are too dirty to get clean, and we can't afford new ones. Half of us are sick from malnutrition."

"Anything else?" the Aedile said.

Ibis thought a moment, giving her thumb a brief gnaw, and then said, "He has brought a curse on this house." The Aedile didn't say anything, and Ibis went on awkwardly, "One of the girls died last month. A group of gladiators got too rough with her. He runs the place. It's his responsibility to look after us. The dead are angry. She haunts this place. I can hear her shrieking in slamming doors, and birds that fly overhead drop dead onto the roof."

"What will satisfy her?" he asked.

"Blood." There was silence as they stared at one another as they realized both were taking the other seriously. "So...are we going to do this?" she asked, uncomfortable with the silence.

"Not yet," the Aedile said.

The Aedile went down stairs, wrote a check to his friend to purchase the house, ordered his own slaves to take the manager to the amphitheater as food for the lions. The Aedile then put Ibis in charge.

(The manager's penis was brought back to the house and nailed to the front door. Birds, it was said, tore it off, shrieking and clawing. It was a good sign. After it had been devoured, the spirit of the dead girl calmed.)

The Aedile went back upstairs to Ibis, pushed her tunic around her ankles, and fucked her against the wall standing up. The entire time, he stared at her face. She kept her eyes averted. He lifted her legs, wound them around his waist, and turned her face so she looked directly in his eyes. He came, burying his head in her neck, and leaning against her in a way that was more of a hug. Ibis pushed him away as soon as she can and left the room to clean up. Ibis was deeply offended that the brief moment of intimacy, the orgasmic hug, had slightly moved her.