The Rise and Rise of the Roman Empire

“The Rise and Rise of the Roman Empire”
Extract of a SL novel by Lady Heady Antfarm.
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(Soon to be found at Grignano Books)

The quiet, still night air moved around her like a cat nosily chasing a butterfly and it tickled under her toga in a manner she found entirely to her pleasing. Like the time she found a slave lurking under her aqueduct. “If only my darling Liximous were here to see me now,” she thought as the full moon peeked out to illuminate her own.

But even though her betrothed’s name had sprung to mind, it was the face and body of the famed Gladiator Thrustuptious Hilticous that sprang to mind. His brutish ways and general aura of sullen libidinousness had awoken in her a sleeping tigress with claws of passion and teeth of desire.

She imagined him now, coming to her, his oiled and scraped torso gleaming in the moonlight, frightening away small mammals and causing an owl to choke. He strode up her driveway, lust powering him to the entrance to her villa – he was an unstoppable force, not to be denied, not to be stopped. Or denied.

Her breathing quickened and the cool night air seemed to cling to her skin in anticipation.

“The gods are in the air tonight, I feel,” his voice was like boulders rolling over other boulders and then down a hill and off a cliff into a valley of boulders.

She turned, her wispy toga spinning around her and revealing her moon soaked nakedness to him. “Blimey!” he coughed loudly, “Look at that!”

“What?” she cried.

“Er… nothing,” he fumbled, “I thought I saw a wild mountain beaver in your garden,” he recovered.

“Really? Where?” she turned and once again he was afforded a view of her garden normally reserved for her fiancé, lovers, servants, close friends and occasional strangers. By the time she turned back his short sword was in his hand and he was tugging away like a man possesed.

“Damn this buckle,” he said as he struggled with the scabbard.

“Let me,” she purred and wrapped her hands around his weapon and began to manipulate it like an expert, pulling it first one way and then the other, twisting ever so slightly and pushing back until, with his satisfied grunt of approval, it came off in her hands…