I am a captive woman from Aquitani, part of what the Romans call Gallia, selected from among hundreds of other captives from my tribe to be offered to the Roman Caesar. My best friend, Velda, taken in the battle we fought together at the river Garonne—a woman I thought our tribe's loveliest—was among those not chosen. That meant shoved out to the waiting soldiers of the Roman legion.
That night, soldiers returned Velda, half dragging and carrying her naked body to the prison compound--the rude hut and fenced area for the women prisoners. (We are still in Gallia.) They shoved her through the open gate as I ran toward her. They had permitted me only a ragged band wrapped around my loins, none for my small pointy breasts, which scarcely quivered as I ran toward Velda.
Released, her legs seemed boneless. She pitched forward onto her face in the dirty straw of the yard. I reached her, knelt, and gently rolled her onto her back. So beautiful... her legs long, belly contoured with muscle, big breasts with deep brown nipples rising and falling as she fought for breath.
She opened her eyes, blinking—large dark eyes now gazing upward unfocused. But she saw me. She shook her head slowly.
"What, Velda?" I asked.
"So many. All day. Again, then again. Big men... pounding... Many dozen. I could not count how many. See?"
The slender long legs as though with great effort parted. Her mount's thick hair was clotted with dried semen. In a kind of disbelief, I reached down and as gently as I could parted her lips. Still, she gave a cry of pain. And then, I saw the inner flesh, bright red, grotesquely swollen so that her slit could not be seen.
Velda said, "They used me... heavy, crushing me, so hard to breathe. And then, stabbing stabbing down there...I had vowed not to beg..." Her head in its nest of long flaxen hair rocked back and forth as in denial.
I could say nothing but "Let me get water." I shot to my feet, running for the hut.
When I returned with the gourd, spilling a little in my haste, and knelt by Velda, she said: "They did not take you... Good, good..."
"But I am skinny, bony...my breasts small..."
"If they come tomorrow... I will not live, not another day. Do not want to live. Eleanor...help me. Help me. Not tomorrow... not again..."
In darkness, as the others slept, I crept over to her, knelt, they stretched beside her. I put my arm over her, hugging her. I touched my lips to hers, drew my fingers through her long hair. I whispered: "When we were girls...how we laughed...we ran. And down at the river...so excited...the men might see us..."
"Yes, I remember."
In the way of our people, I gently shifted Velda's body, rolling her over until she lay prone, her face in the straw. She knew. She did not resist.
And swinging my leg over her waist, I leaned forward, my palms against the back of her head. Then, I heaved myself half up, throwing my weight on my arms, my hands, crushing her face into the straw, holding her. At first, knowing, she did not resist. A minute or two later, the body's automatic panic for air seized her and she struggled wildly. I pushed harder and wept tears that fell on my friend's naked back. Soon, she lay still. I waited, as we know to wait, until my Velda forever was beyond recall.
Again, I shifted her until she lay supine. I leaned forward to kiss the still lips one final time. I untied my own sole rag from around my loins, laid it across her face, covering her lips. And then, I placed her hands on either side of her head and closed each hand around an end of the rag—as though her own hands held the cloth over her mouth.
It was a poor ruse, but I had no other. Perhaps the soldiers, with many girls to drag into the daylight for their pleasure, would shrug or laugh and pass my Velda.
How had I escaped her fate? I am a tall woman, like most women of Gallia, with long legs shaped of the leanest hard muscle, hips narrow, belly and torso stretched and tightly contoured, the hillocks of breasts high on my chest pointed into nipples, long neck, a face too bony for beauty, and braided flaxen hair falling almost to my waist.
I learned soon that among the legion's officers a kind of connoisseur of women represented the tastes of Caesar in captive concubines. And that many laughed when he selected me as one of the "finalists" for presentation to Caesar. As too special to be thrown to the troops.