XXX: The Morning Diversion

Skipio wakes before the sun, his habit since coming home. The frigid lake arouses his blood, and he floats upon its black stillness, lamenting that the coming winter will force his swim routine indoors.

He strokes to the porch, its slick balustrade heavy with moss, and hoists himself into the chilly air. Streaking quickly into his room, he stands before the wall hearth’s roiling flame and dries himself with a fresh towel, courtesy of Welletrix.

The blond Gaul reappears with a steaming water bowl under his arm and an angry look on his pretty face. Skipio rubs at his course jawline and sits in the grooming chair.

It’s been many days since his first night in this large dorm, every corner hosting all that remains of his father. Eager to sleep that first night, Skipio undid the ornate chain securing the oak door to his father’s cubicula, finding a large bed and tiny side table.

Centering the top rail was a young maiden’s face, the cockhead on her lush lips crowning a thick shaft that rose from the headboard’s curvaceous slat. Ivory set within bronze ran along the side rails, connecting the frame’s narrow phallic legs.

Skipio had laid upon the mattress, thick with stiff wool and wrapped in silk linen, and set aside his discomfort until candlelight gave life to the ceiling’s vulgar frescos.

“That damned rooster,” Welle angrily froths soap in a smaller bowl. “He failed to rise again this morning,”

“The cubicula door stays cracked so daylight can wake me,” says Skipio, hoping the Gaul knows nothing of his father’s salacious room.

Unfortunately, the man’s wary side-eye dashes those hopes.

Before Skipio defends his father, the Gaul lathers his lips and lower face with the foamy short brush, then proceeds to handle the straight razor with fearful skill, speedily dragging its sharp blade over Skipio’s skin, clearing foam ripe with hair bits.

“When was your first shave, Welletrix?”

“I was fourteen.” He dips the razor in water, cleaning it. “My grandfather sat me before a looking glass and guided my hand,”

“I was fifteen.” Skipio tips his head back for the finishing rag, the icy fabric soothing his freshly mowed skin. “Before my father did the deed, he clipped a portion of my first beard for Jove,”

Welle rubs a glob of anise balm between his hands before removing the rag and massaging this tingling mix into Skipio’s jawline and neck.

“My father kept them in there,” he points at the colossal wardrobe, a stout green box on four spindly legs. “In a little glass bottle with a tiny cork on top,”

“If you’ll forgive my indecency,” Welle steps to the wardrobe and opens its doors. “My mother saved clippings of my first pubic hair as offering to the seasonal plow,”

Skipio’s eyes drift to the front of the man’s tunic.

“The idea being that my manhood might fertilize the field,” Welle says, moving aside for him. “Unfortunately, the sack she put them in blew away as she was set to cast them onto the soil.”

Skipio laughs before turning thoughtful. “It was good seeing you at the harvest, Welletrix.”

“I quite enjoyed it,” he says. “I’ve never been in a grove before,”

Skipio balks. “You’ve been here all this time and never visited the grove?”

“Your mother wouldn’t allow me outside the villa walls.” Welle folds his arms. “Regrettable, really. I’ve missed two communal solstices since coming here.”

“Well, you won’t miss another.” Skipio slips into his father’s youthful leggings and curses his mother’s archaic conservatism. “You’re an employee now, you may go anywhere you wish on these grounds, including the village.”

Welle pours him a cup of mint water. “May I go beyond the valley wall?”

After a pause, Skipio speaks candidly of the y-shaped lake and its surrounding lands. “None of the cities in the triangle are considered Roman these days. This will change, but for now, we’re Republic-adjacent, meaning cohorts patrol our roads,”

“Meaning,” adds Welle, “I can be collected as a runaway.”

“There are laws regarding how slaves earn freedmen status.” Skipio takes the cup and rinses the lake from his mouth before swallowing. “You must be on my payroll for at least three years before I can make you a free man,”

“Does this apply to the druid as well?” he asks.

Skipio leads him to the door. “That druid is a prisoner,”

“So was I once,” he says. “I would think the same rules apply,”

“You think too much, Welle,” Skipio warns before turning agreeable. “I’m hungry, I wonder what Niko’s got lying around in his kitchen,”

“The house staff, most like,” cracks Welle. “Only two ever work their worth. The rest take any opportunity they can to laze about,”

“You should be happy that they’re Vita’s problem now,” Skipio reminds him as they walk around the inner yard. “Will you be feasting with us tonight?”

“I’ll be helping Lady Vita plan for your guests,”

Skipio pauses outside the Larium.

“I expect you to dine with us, Welletrix.”

The Gaul shakes his head. “I don’t think I can—”

“-You’re not a servant,” he insists.

“With all due respect,” Welle interrupts him. “A couple of men attending tonight’s dinner took the lives of people I knew,”

Skipio curses his arrogance.

“Including me,” he says after a beat.

“Perhaps time is what’s needed,” says Welle. “Let us speak no more of it today,”

Skipio acquiesces as they enter the kitchen, where Niko awards them a smile brighter than the sun. After giving the cook a hug and kiss on the head, Skipio aims a wayward grin in Welle’s direction.

“Planus will be staying over,” he announces.

“I’m not handling the guestroom assignments,” says Welle, loading butter onto his slice of bread.

Skipio stares at Niko, who delivers a silent warning with a quick shake of his head.

---

Something delicious opens his eyes.

Aedan wraps the rabbit fur blanket around his bare ass and abandons his bed, but on the stairs, he finds Fuckface waiting for him below.

Brawny arms folded, the Roman’s lusty green eyes promise delightful malice. Behind him, like two mishappen wings, stand the lithe Gaul and the rotund Greek.

He descends with a scowl, pulling the fur tight before traipsing to the cabinet to fetch some clothes. He presents his back, knowing Fuckface will take the bait, and he does, yanking the fur away with one pull.

Aedan makes it halfway up the stairs before strong fingers snatch hold of his curls.

“Sit down,” Fuckface growls in Greek, pushing him to the bottom step.

Aedan rises to his knees, naked and defiant.

Fuckface pulls over a chair and sits. “Did you have fun yesterday, A-dawn?”

He considers his reply while Fuckface strips off his tunic—curse this Roman bastard and his gorgeous pectorals. “I heard your battle king left my island after Cassibelanus surrendered,”

Fuckface tilts his head. “You no longer have an island, A-dawn,”

“I don’t need an island anymore. Do I Skippy-O?”

Anger dents Fuckface’s brow.

“Where’s your dead bitch mother’s rope?”

Aedan glances at the mantle.

The shirtless Roman leans over and grabs it, sending dozens of tiny seashells clattering across the floor.

“These are MY shells!”

“Don’t you mean, your spoils?”

Fuckface whips the cord at him with a wrangler’s skill, its looped end falling over Aedan’s head. One jerk tightens it around his neck, but this matters little when Fuckface’s tan tits appear before him.

“Mind your tone,” his captor warns.

Aedan’s cock jumps as the noose takes his breath.

Fuckface falls back into the chair. “Niko, I’m hungry,”

The Greek hops to it, producing a tray with a plate of crispy pork belly set atop those eggs he fork-beats until they’re yellow and fluffy.

Fuckface plucks up a pliable strip and drops it into his mouth, humming like a bitch while he chews with deliberate slowness. He sucks the grease from his thumb and then drags the other slick finger over his right nipple.

Desire swells in the pit of Aedan’s stomach.

“I imagine you’re hungry,” Fuckface wonders before turning cold. “Pleasure yourself.”

Niko faces the wall as Welle gives a start.

“Pleasure yourself.” Fuckface plants his foot against the step under Aedan’s balls and tugs at the rope. “Do it, or I invade that ass with plenty of oil, and not one punch,”

Aedan spreads his knees, eyes set on his Roman bride. Leaning back on his heels, he takes his erection in hand and moves its tight sleeve up and down, relishing the pleasure it brings as it rolls over his sensitive glans.

“Must we stay for this?” Welle rallies, averting his head.

“Welletrix,” Aedan whispers. When the man’s blue eyes meet his, he begs in his best Alpine Celtic: “Will you spit on my cock?”

Outrage colors the blond man’s downy skin.

“What did he say?” asks Fuckface, the front of his trousers tenting.

“I will not!” the Gaul barks.

Niko steps up with a little bottle in hand and, with cautious favor, shakes a few drops of olive oil onto the head of Aedan’s cock.

“This is depraved,” Welle exclaims, taking Niko by the arm and pulling him away. “If you want us further, Lord Skipio, we’ll be in the kitchen!”

The door slams behind them.

“If you needed spit, A-dawn,” Fuckface leers in Greek. “You should’ve asked me,”

“If we were stranded at sea for a hundred days,” Aedan pants while working his arousal faster. “I’d die of thirst before taking even a sip of piss from you,”

Fuckface winds the cord around his fist and yanks it hard enough to nearly topple Aedan. He crouches into Aedan’s space, lips touching without a kiss.

“If you wish to die of thirst, A-dawn,” he taunts hotly. “I’ll be happy to oblige,”

Aedan’s chest tightens without air.

“That’s right, pleasure yourself,” he pleas against Aedan’s cheek. “I want to see juice spit out that piss slit,”

Blotches cloud Aedan’s vision, shadowy echoes of the gods laughing at his torment.

“Do you want to kiss me, druid?” Fuckface’s husky voice coos with a whore’s affection. His face rises as he brings his chest closer. “Or does that cockhead wish to taste my tit?”

Waves of delight crest throughout Aedan’s groin when Fuckface’s nipple grazes his weeping cock.

♡ “Make it nice and sticky, druid, and I’ll let you lick it clean.” ♡

Heat climbs Aedan’s shaft, his passion erupting violently over his knuckle’s with a force that sends Fuckface back with a delightful laugh.

Air made minty by the man’s breath races past Aedan’s teeth and soothes his throat.

“You’ve made a mess of your food!” Fuckface sneers down at the tray, where Aedan’s spunk forms a line across the plate. Pulling on his shirt, the bastard puts his face in his and issues a warning. “You will not make an appearance tonight.”

Aedan thrusts out his lower jaw and blinks his compliance.

The moment Fuckface departs, Aedan falls upon the food tray like a ravenous pup. Niko pokes his head in before entering with a flagon of apple juice. His genial expression turns sour when Aedan drags a crispy pork strip through his spunk before greedily devouring it.

**

With the plate clean and the flagon empty, the druid pulls on a pair of his father’s britches and tightens the waistband under his navel with the sinew cord. Brisk air warrants a shirt, but finding only a calf-skin vest in his stash, he hops to the window over the stairs.

Through the bars, he falls, his bare feet denting the frigid grass.

Clothes lay drying on some young, pollarded trees, one the yellow tunics belonging to his Roman bride, its long sleeves capped with the same blue that runs through his tartan trousers. The druid tucks the long frock into his pants until the hem cradles his ass in back and empty balls down front.

In the larder, a carcass hangs over where his prison bed once sat—a halved steer slathered with one of the Greek’s tasty spice rubs.

Upstairs in the kitchen, he climbs the highest shelf and soaks up the heat gathering at its top. Beneath him, the straw-haired Gaul lectures his staff on the night’s work in his usual authoritarian swagger.

Lady Vita hosts Lord Skipio’s colleagues ahead of ‘their work’ in Comum with a feast tonight. The starter, whatever that means, will be a tangy beet-leaf salad topped with toasted walnuts and cheese.

Both kitchen mavens sharpen their chop blades on the spinning stone, bellyaching about having to mince all that beef downstairs by midday.

That’s when the mincing must be complete, or the Greek will have no time to bake the main course, Meaty Pearls, or bite-size meatballs he plans to serve in a pastry shaped like a giant clamshell. After that comes dessert, which consists of little honey cakes, which the Greek will assemble to look like a grand beehive.

These ridiculous Romans complicate food so much—the druid reminds himself to get at least two meaty balls before they’re taken to the visitors.

“It’s imperative that while our guests are dining,” the Gaul speaks pointedly at the fat-ass girl. “Their beds for the night be turned down,”

“They’ll just get drunk and fall asleep in the feast room,” she whines.

“Trust me, no one is losing their face at dinner,” he tells her. “These are engineers vying for Lord Skipio’s approval to aid him in Comum, and they’re bringing their wives because dining at Villa Servi is a social bragging point.”

The Greek taps the shelf and holds up a bowl of grapes. Without haste, the druid jumps down and takes it from him. He pops one into his mouth, but when a seed finds his tongue, he angrily hocks it across the tiles.

A hand strikes the back of his head.

“We do not spit food out our food,” scolds the Gaul.

The druid glares at the blond before following him out the back door. The Greek leads them across the grass to the villa barn, a short timber house with a cobblestone dome rear.

Inside the shadowy building, it stinks of apple vinegar and freshly milled wheat.

Stout barrels form a maze to the stone wall in back, where sacks of beans and milled winter grain lean precariously on their climb to the rafters. Straw dusters hang with their bushy heads down, and empty honeycomb lays upon the smaller barrel tops, their hollow sheets destined for candle wax.

The druid ruminates on how similar these Romans are to the farmers back home when he spots a giant yellow serpent in his peripherals. Its trilateral head slinks down from the tresses with more grace than its thick body, which tumbles from sight without a thud.

Behind the druid, a rat scutters through the open door, but before he can tell them about it, the girthy serpent lumbers into view, its muddy horseshoe markings expanding and shrinking as it slinks toward the visiting pair.

The Gaul gives the python a stern yet gentle kick.

“Get out from underfoot, Delphine,” he scolds, while the Greek gives the space between the snake’s eyes a playful rub.

A door in the stone wall slides open to reveal the beekeeper. Smoking torch in hand, the toothless old-timer presents them with two mesh slats, each weeping honey.

With a discerning eye, the Greek inspects before deciding on one. Working fast, the ancient man scrapes the pliable mess with a metal paddle, dropping syrupy golden chunks into a deep bowl. The Gaul marks which slat is taken on his parchment before asking the beekeeper what remains.

The druid quickly follows them back to the door, spotting Delphine behind a barrel with her jaws gaping and a rat-sized bulge in her throat.