Messalina

Water poured from Messalina’s body, cascading from her breasts and belly, as she rose from her bath taking the slave girl’s hand and climbing the steps into the warm embrace of her wrap. As the girl slowly rubbed her skin dry she shuddered, parting her thighs to let the rough cotton brush her pussy lips. The girl already had her rose-scented oil warming in a basin of water and Messalina arched her back and stretched as the girl’s fingers deftly, smoothly, spread it all over her body until it glistened. As she knelt at her feet, Messalina grabbed the girl’s hair and roughly thrust her face between her thighs, grinding her pussy against the girl’s face. The girl lapped, obediently, as she had been taught and Messalina purred to herself as her clit began to swell and throb.

Suddenly Messalina pushed the slave girl away, slapping her face with a sharp crack, sending her sprawling across the marble floor. “That’s enough for now, get me ready girl.” The slave girl staggered to her feet and, with tear-filled eyes, began to dress Messalina in her finery. First, a gauze shift that cupped her swelling breasts, fastening behind her neck. It hugged her waist, flaring into fine pleats over her wide hips, trailing the floor as she walked. Gold-ribboned sandals tied round her ankles and her toes were adorned with rings. Her dark hair was curled and tied up off her shapely neck, a coronet placed carefully on top. The girl carefully dusted Messalina’s face with lead white, brushing black kohl around her eyes and rubbing cochineal into her lips and cheeks to redden them. A heavy jewelled necklace and many gold bangles finished the display, Messalina growing impatient and shoving the slave girl away. “You lazy oaf, you’re so slow! I don’t know why I don’t send you to the captain of the guard to entertain his men, really it’s all you’re fit for!”

In the courtyard, Messalina glanced approvingly at the two slaves standing ready to carry her litter before climbing in and drawing the curtains shut. They made their way through the evening streets of Rome, still busy, this being the hour when carts were first allowed into the streets and when the citizens of Rome came out to seek their pleasures. Drinking, gambling, whoring, all were busy trades that night.

At the Consul’s house signs of the party were evident. Flaming torches lined the path across the courtyard from the street, garlands of flowers and fruit circled the columns and hung above the doors. Stepping inside, Messalina was struck by the strong, heavy, sweet smell of incense and the shadows leaping across the richly painted walls as the guests reclined around the room, talking and drinking and half-heartedly watching the troupe of African dancing girls gyrating naked for their entertainment. She stood for a moment, framed in the doorway, waiting until all eyes were on her, then as the music ended with a crash of cymbals and the black dancers scurried away, Messalina stepped down into the room. “Welcome, welcome,” cried the dried up old Consul, “we are honoured indeed tonight by the presence of the Emperor’s wife.”

“Yes, I suppose you are,” she replied as the Consul’s guests hurriedly rearranged themselves, leaving the top couch free for her. “I only hope the entertainment you promised is worth my trouble.”

“Oh, I promise you, nothing but the best for our noble guest,” he said nervously and clapped his hands twice, barking out an order to his slaves.

The heavy wooden doors creaked open and there, in the guttering torchlight, stood a pair of gladiators, a Murmillo with his fish-crested helmet, rectangular shield in one hand and sword in the other. Next to him a Thrace, his helmet crested with a griffin, his shield smaller and square, his sword curved and glinting. As they stepped down into the centre of the room there was a ripple of applause and a murmur of approval. Messalina felt her heart beat a little faster as she surveyed their bodies. Both were over six feet tall, muscled and lean, bearing the scars of their previous battles. Their bodies had been oiled for the fight and they wore loincloths belted at their waists.

On the order of the Consul the fight began and the room echoed to the sound of shield crashing on shield, sword on sword, the cries and screams of the crowd, urging them on and taking bets on the outcome. Messalina watched in silence as their muscles flexed and tensed, sweat dripping from their bodies, their faces glimpsed beneath their helmets contorted into grimaces and snarls. Suddenly she sat up and announced, “I’m bored with this.” The room fell silent, the fighters stopped, frozen, all eyes turned towards her. Was this the moment when their fortune would change? Would she go home and tell the Emperor they had insulted her? Would they all find themselves in Rome’s prisons by morning?

Messalina beckoned to the gladiators. “Come here, I think it’s time you fought a different type of battle, put down your arms.” Kneeling up on her couch, Messalina reached behind her neck and unclasped her shift, letting it fall to her waist. She hooked the fingers of each hand into the gladiators’ belts, tugging them closer and undoing their buckles until their loincloths dropped from their thighs. Wrapping her fingers around their quivering shafts she looked slowly round the room at the upturned faces of the frightened guests. “This battle will be like the battles in the arena, except it will be I and not the Emperor who shall judge who has fought better.” Turning back to the gladiators with a smile she bent at the waist, licking first one cock and then the other. “Ready your weapons my gladiators, it will be a fierce battle.”

As Messalina bent across the couch, sucking noisily on the Murmillo’s cock, the Thracian unclipped her shift at her waist, letting it drop to the floor. He slid his fingers into her dripping slit, raising them to his face, smelling and sucking them before dropping to his knees and spreading her cunt with his fingers. Messalina moaned into the Murmillo’s cock as she felt the Thracian’s tongue probe her cunt, lapping and swirling deep inside her body. She swallowed deeper, tipping her head back and letting the Murmillo’s cock slide all the way into her throat, cupping his balls with her hand and rubbing them gently while he groaned and reached out to squeeze her swaying breasts. As he started to fuck her face, his balls slapping against her chin, Messalina squirmed as she felt two, no three fingers drive into her cunt, squelching as they fucked her, while the Thracian’s tongue tickled her arsehole open.

Gagging, Messalina shoved the Murmillo away, his cock slipping from her throat. She knelt up on the couch again, pulling the Thracian up behind her. He gripped her buttocks, pulling them apart and pressing the tip of his cock to her arsehole. With a whimper, Messalina pushed back sharply and the head of his cock popped inside her. Then she grabbed the Murmillo, pulling him up onto the couch in front of her, wrapping her arms around him as his cock slid into her gaping cunt. Rising up on their knees, the gladiators lifted Messalina clear of the couch and she squealed as she slid down their cocks until she was impaled, her legs spread wide, kicking in mid air. The Thracian squeezed her tits from behind, the Murmillo pressed his fingers into her buttocks and together they began to thrust, deep savage thrusts, her body jerking helplessly between them, gasping and writhing and moaning.

Very quietly in the background the watching guests began to take bets on the outcome.

“They’ll surely kill her.”

“No, she’ll wear them out and call for fresh steeds.”

“She’ll favour the Thracian, I hear she likes a cock splitting her arse.”

“No, the Murmillo is bigger, she measures her men by weight.”

Messalina slid her fingers to her stiff, aching clit, pinching it and rubbing it furiously, groaning now as the cocks pounded her faster and she felt the room spin around her, dizzy with her lust. With a scream she started to cum, squeezing both cocks tightly, rocking and shuddering, juice dripping from her cunt, smearing their bellies as their cocks twitched inside her. With a bellow they both shot their spunk into her at the same time, hot spurts of it gushing into her cunt and arse, the gladiators’ contorted, Messalina’s eyes wide with lust. As the last drops dribbled from their cocks she pushed them away, kneeling triumphant on the couch, the centre of everyone’s gaze, slick with sweat and with cum dripping from both holes.

How to choose the winner? The two men lay, spent and exhausted on the floor before her. Slowly she stepped down and stood between them. They were both magnificent specimens, they had both shown an equal willingness to fuck her, they had both cum together. But it was true that the Murmillo’s cock had been very slightly bigger. So she grabbed his hand and raised it in the air. “I declare a winner! Consul, make sure this man is sent home with gold. And as for this pathetic loser,” she prodded the defeated Thracian with her toe, “dispatch him.”

Shocked silence filled the room. Slowly the Murmillo got to his feet and lifted his sword. Gently he took the arm of the Thracian, his friend from the training school, his companion through many a games in the arena. He lifted the Thracian to his knees and, standing behind him, placed the cold tip of his sword on the back of his bowed neck. Staring coldly at Messalina he said, “In the name of the Empress” and drove the sword down, killing him instantly.

He withdrew his sword and offered it, still dripping blood, on his knees to Messalina. She took it, turned it, watching the light glint off it, then raised it to her face and licked the Thracian’s blood from it.

Returning at dawn to the palace, Messalina stopped to watch the guardsmen amusing themselves with her slave girl. They had lashed her to the punishment block and were taking it in turns to whip her while she sucked their cocks. Judging from the stripes on her arse and her abject submission they had been enjoying her charms for some time. Chuckling to herself, Messalina didn’t spot the figure in the hall until he was upon her.

“It is unwise of the Empress to wander abroad at night without her guard. I am quite sure the Emperor would be most concerned to hear of it.”

“Oh Narcissus, my husband has often spoken of you as his most trusted advisor and I know you only have his best interests at heart. So you must know as well as anyone that his constitution is not the strongest. He is a full thirty years older than me and the gods forbid that worry should age him further. I’m sure it is in his best interests not to tell him.”

“Empress I must insist…”

“Now then Narcissus, I’m sure I can persuade you to my point of view…”

Messalina dropped to her knees, sliding her hands under Narcissus’ tunic, over his thighs, licking her lips and readying herself for one more conquest this night.

*  *  *

Messalina sighed and stretched on her couch, the fingers of the Nubian slave girls gently easing her stiffened muscles, rubbing her feet and massaging her shoulders. She shut her eyes, resting her head on her arms and half-listened to the murmur of gossip around her from the other women in the bath house.

“No, he doesn’t trouble me much these days, he gets his pleasures from Scylla and good luck to him.”

“My dear, my husband’s exactly the same. Spends every spare minute with her and of course you know the money is all mine, she’s costing me a fortune. Still I suppose it keeps him out of my bed.”

“I hear tell that if you walk down the queue outside her house you’ll meet every noble man in Rome.”

“I wonder the Emperor doesn’t put a halt to it.”

“Shush my dear, the walls have ears you know.”

Sweeping out of the bath house towards her waiting litter, Messalina stopped, her attention caught by the graffiti scratched on a wall. ‘Messalina may be the grandest fuck in Rome but Scylla is the best’. Messalina turned angrily to one of her slaves and snapped, “Who is this Scylla whose name I hear everywhere?” The slave was startled, she had never addressed him before.

“Your highness, she is a famous , out of the reach of men like me but lauded by the nobility. They say she will soon have earned enough on her back to move to a grand house by the sea in Ostia.”

Messalina snarled and struck him with the back of her hand hard across his face. “That’s enough! Take me home.”

Messalina stormed through the palace, throwing doors open and knocking over furniture, screaming for her slave girl who came running, wide eyed. Messalina looked at her crossly for a moment before remembering that she was new, a replacement for that silly little girl the guards had broken. “I need you to send a boy with a message to the house of Scylla. Tell her that her Empress commands her presence here tonight in order that I might judge her charms. When you have done that I want you to invite the other guests. I want twenty five of my usual lovers and another twenty five men chosen from the most decadent and cruel in Rome. Go quickly you stupid girl!”

That night Messalina, determined to out shine Scylla, wore her finest dress of spun gold, her shoulders bare, her skirt, draped Egyptian style, parting at the front as she walked to flash glimpses of her shapely legs. In the great dining room, two long tables were spread with an epicurean feast and around each table twenty five couches were filled by the invited guests, attended by exquisite boys. Insolently late, Scylla arrived, flanked by her body guards. Messalina looked down on her, taking in her fine silks and her heavy gold jewellery, her auburn hair surely dyed with henna, her large, dark eyes, unafraid to meet Messalina’s own. She approached Messalina and dropped to her knees.

“Thank you, your highness, for inviting one as humble as I to your presence.” There was an edge in her voice that Messalina despised.

“You are welcome. I have heard so much about you that I wanted to see for myself whether it is true.”

“What have you heard, Empress?”

“That you are fucked by half the nobles in Rome. That they will squander their family fortune on you. That they esteem your talents above mine.”

“It is true that I have known many men of nobility.” Scylla looked around the room. “I recognise many here tonight and they know me. I do not ask them to squander their money on me, only to pay me what I am worth. And as for esteeming me above you…men will often prefer what they choose above what they are ordered to take.”

Messalina flew at Scylla and slapped her face, sending her sprawling. “I’ll tell you what I see before me. I see a street whore dressed up as a lady. You dare to compare yourself to your Empress? Well let us make a comparison. Look around you – those men you smiled and simpered at will be our clients tonight, yours and mine. Let us see who can best satisfy them and outlast the other, then everyone will know whose talents are to be esteemed!”

The tables were hurriedly cleared and Messalina cast off her golden dress. Watching her carefully, Scylla copied suit and both women stepped towards their table of eager men, only Scylla unaware that the contest was rigged against her and that her table contained molesters, abusers, rapists and murderers gleaned from the deepest of Rome’s dungeons.

As Messalina sprawled across her table, head tipped back to lick the tip of a proffered cock, hands reaching for two more, thighs wrapped around the head buried between them, she glanced across at Scylla’s table. Already she was struggling, choking on the massive cock thrust down her throat, impaled on another shoved into her cunt, another being forced into her arse – no, being forced into her cunt alongside the first. No wonder she screamed, thought Messalina, chuckling to herself and sighing as the first of many cocks slipped into her dripping pussy.

From time to time, as she fucked and sucked and swallowed and moaned, Messalina looked up to see her rival’s sufferings. Scylla held down by four strong men and beaten with a thick leather belt, glasses of wine tossed in her face to revive her when she fainted. Scylla fucked with the iron handle of a torch, its flames still licking the end, heating the iron buried deep in her cunt while she writhed and screamed. Scylla wailing in terror as the guard dog was brought, straining and snapping at the end of its chain, slavering as it sniffed her dripping slit.

Messalina was spurred on by the sight of Scylla’s suffering, her screams and pleas heightening the lust Messalina felt gripped by. Man after man she dispatched them, in her cunt, her arse, her mouth, spilling their seed on her breasts and belly, two or three at a time until all twenty five were sated. Looking across again at Scylla, slick with sweat and sticky with cum, Messalina saw that she was lying limp and broken across the table, her head hanging down, hair streaming towards the floor, eyes rolled back in their sockets. The men were gathered around her, still jerking furiously, spurting their spunk over her lifeless body.

Messalina threw her head back and laughed. She had won! She had satisfied twenty five men and still she was ready for more. Narrowing her eyes she chose the most villainous looking man at Scylla’s table and beckoned him over.

The next morning Narcissus came to see her. He found her still in the great dining room, wrapped in Scylla’s cloak, the room empty but littered with food and glass goblets, overturned benches, and curious unidentified stains on the furnishing. Narcissus picked his way with some delicacy towards her. “The Emperor has instructed me to ask after your health and to ask whether you know anything about a curious incident last night. Apparently some of the nobility staged a demonstration in the street outside the prostitute Scylla’s house. I understand her body was found, naked and ravaged, at the foot of the statue of Venus. They are taking it as a portent.”

“Tell the Emperor I am in excellent health thank you. And I expect this common prostitute was undone by her own trade. Really, unless the nobility of Rome improves its morals…”

“Don’t play games Empress, I know you staged an entertainment last night and Scylla was seen arriving but not leaving.”

Messalina smiled slowly and spread her thighs, the cloak slipping open and revealing her swollen pussy. “I do know how to stage an entertainment, don’t I Narcissus. You’ve found that out for yourself on many occasions. But I don’t think the Emperor would like to hear that about you, so why don’t we just reach a bargain of silence. I get something I want, you get something you want…”

And Messalina dipped a finger into her wet cunt and shuddered.

* * *

Messalina shivered and wrapped her cloak closer around her body as she followed her slave girl through the winding back alleys of Rome towards the Porta Esquilina, the city gate beyond which lay the burial grounds and rubbish dumps of Rome. Here, among the outcasts of Rome, beyond the protection of the Emperor, lay the cheap taverns and brothels that she had longed to visit.

Picking their way down the muddy, littered roads, stepping over derelicts and children of the street, the two women found their way to a dark, narrow alley. The slave girl raised her torch and illuminated the sign above a door – a massive stone phallus jutting out – that marked the brothel.

They were met by the keeper who looked them up and down warily. It was not unknown for women to come looking for their husbands or sons and he didn’t want trouble. Messalina stepped confidently up to him and threw back her cloak, revealing her nakedness beneath. She wore a blonde wig and her nipples and pubic hair were gilded. “I’ve come to work,” she said, smiling. The keeper grabbed her arm and pulled her into an empty cubicle. “You can’t stand out there like that, you’ll cause a stampede. I’m sorry but I think you’re in the wrong place. We don’t command the prices here that a fair lady like you could expect. Here we have the cheapest indoor whores you can find in Rome. The only cheaper are the children who ply their trade amongst the rubbish tips.”

“The cheapest price will do for me. And as a special service, my slave here will keep the men entertained while they wait. She’s not above sucking a cock or two.”

The slave girl looked horrified, her honour intact until this night, but the keeper, however surprised by this turn of events, could not resist a bargain. “Done. You pay me half your takings for the hire of the booth and you throw in your girl for free. I’ll set a jug of wine for you both, I think you’ll need the refreshment.” So saying, he gripped the sobbing slave by the arm and hauled her into the antechamber where clients were already gathering.

Messalina looked around her cubicle. It was barely big enough for a single bed, lit by a single clay oil lamp on a shelf next to a small votive statue of Venus. The walls were painted with obscene images of priapic beasts, half man half animal, taking a variety of naked women in different positions – a menu of services for the shy client. She laughed to herself and lay back on the bed with the curtain closed, and waited.

Her first client was a young soldier, home from Germania, excited at the prospect of female flesh. He lifted his tunic and freed his cock, already engorged and twitching. Messalina wrapped her fingers around it, pumping it gently as he groaned, pushing her back on the bed and pressing it against her damp slit. With a fierce shove and cry he drove it into her and she gasped as it slammed home, digging her fingers into his buttocks and moaning as he fucked her savagely, brutally hard with no care for her needs. “Fucking me like a whore,” thought Messalina happily as his cock spurted and twitched and he bellowed and flooded her cunt with his spunk.

Wiping her cunt dry with a rag, Messalina readied herself for the next of many clients that evening. A butcher, whose belly was so big that the only way he could fuck her was to turn her onto her hands and knees and rest his wobbling flesh on her buttocks. A foreigner who fucked her face, wrapping his hands round her neck and choking her as his cum gushed into her belly. Many, many men who flipped her onto her belly and fucked her like a boy. Timid men, vicious men, men with cocks of all shapes and sizes, men of good character whose skin smelled sweet, men of no character who smelled of the gutter. Messalina opened her legs to them all, revelling in their pounding flesh, hammering her bruised and pulpy cunt, nothing to them but a compliant piece of meat.

At dawn the keeper drew back the curtain and said, “That’s it for the night shift. You’ve done well for a first-timer, our biggest earner of the night. You’re welcome to come back again and bring your girl with you. She’s a good hard worker, must have sucked thirty cocks tonight.” Messalina looked up at him, sprawled on her bed, eyes hooded and sleepy, cunt dripping cum. “It sounds like there’s one more customer out there still.”

From the ante chamber came the sound of raised voices. “Don’t you know who I am? My name is Gaius Silius of the Fourth Legion. I don’t care if it’s not convenient right now. I’ve come here to use one of your whores and by Jupiter I will.”

Messalina called out to him. “Gaius Silius, come here. You can use me if you like.”

He threw back the curtain and gazed down at her. Messalina looked him up and down with great approval. A tall, handsome soldier, dressed in his regimental finery, muscled and broad from his work. His gaze was sardonic, detached and cruel.

“Yes, you’ll do,” he said and tossed down the helmet he was carrying, starting to unbuckle his breastplate.

Messalina helped him to undress, the only one of her clients all night who had bothered to remove all his clothes. She stroked and kissed his body, licking his salty skin and sucking his nipples, his earlobes, his belly. She gasped as his cock sprang free, already stiff, it was easily, in all her vast experience, the biggest she had ever seen. She wrapped her hand around it and found her fingers would not meet. She bent and kissed its tip, sucking its head into her mouth and found her lips would barely stretch around it. Letting it slip from her mouth with a pop, she began to lap its shaft, licking down to his balls, sucking them gently into her mouth one at a time, feeling them tighten as she rolled her tongue across them.

Lying him on his back, she spat on the tip of his cock, letting it slide down his shaft, rubbing it in, making him as wet as she could, nervous and excited about what was coming next. Eagerly she straddled him, rubbing her sopping slit against his cock, moaning as it brushed the tip of her throbbing clit. He smiled, his hands behind his head, watching her work. Slowly Messalina wriggled her pussy over the tip of his cock, its bulbous head stretching her pussy lips wide. She sighed and wriggled some more until its head was embedded in her hot cunt. Then painfully slowly, by aching degrees, she began to lower herself onto his monstrous shaft. Each inch ripped into her cunt, aching and stretching her almost beyond endurance. Sweat dripped from her forehead into her eyes and she blinked it away as she concentrated, panting, trembling lips parted, on taking his cock.

Halfway in she stopped, breasts heaving as she breathed heavily, letting her pussy adjust to the intruder. Then she rose up on her knees until only is tip was in her cunt and dropped down heavily, screaming as another inch stabbed into her. Again and again she rested, panting, then rose up and slammed down whimpering and writhing and screwing him deeper into her tortured cunt. With only a couple of inches still to go, he suddenly dug his fingers into the soft flesh of her hips and slammed his cock all the way up her cunt. Messalina’s eyes and mouth were perfect circles of shock, breathless, speechless she sat completely impaled, tears prickling her eyes, blood surging through her body, clit swollen and aching.

Then he was fucking her, driving up into her cunt, ramming it in hard, making her buttocks and her tits shudder with each impact. And she was cumming almost at once, stretched so wide on his cock her clit swollen and throbbing Messalina threw her head back and screamed and screamed and screamed. The muscles of her cunt walls contracted and rippled against his cock and he groaned and kept fucking her, this magnificent whore, harder and faster while she howled and rode him, claws digging into his chest, sweat spraying from her body as it jerked and trembled. He felt his balls tighten and with a roar he emptied them into her, listening to her sobbing, weak from cumming over and over.

She flopped down onto his chest, his mighty cock still embedded in her cunt and she wept with gratitude for a man who could finally satisfy her.

Many hours later, back at the palace, Narcissus heard the sound of weeping coming from Messalina’s slave quarters. Looking in, he found her slave girl lying on the cold stone floor, wrapped in a blanket. Tears streaked her cheeks and her hair was plastered to her face with what looked like…yes it was, cum. “What has she done to you?” Narcissus asked.

“Oh, sir, I can’t tell, she’ll have me thrown to the guards if I tell.”

“Nonsense girl, I won’t let her do that. Tell me what she’s done.”

“I can’t say it sir, I’m too embarrassed.”

“Well if you can’t say it, maybe you can show me.”

“Oh yes sir,” said the slave girl brightly, getting up onto her knees, “Let me show you…”

* * *

Messalina entertained Gaius Silius many times in her apartments, bribing the guards with her slave girls to ensure his discreet passage. Gaius Silius himself was delighted to discover this insatiable creature was the Emperor’s wife – who better to further his career and fund the luxuries he believed a life in the army had earned him. It was on a sunny afternoon as he lazily buggered her on a couch in the courtyard leading off her bedroom that he first spoke to her about ambition.

“Everyone knows the Emperor is a stuttering dolt, it’s only fear that prevents them from saying it loud and clear and throwing him off his throne. You and I have no fear. We are extraordinary people and destined for great things. All it would take would be to get the army behind us, then we could dispatch your fool of a husband – tell the world he died of his idiocy.”

Messalina wriggled her hips, grinding his magnificent cock a little deeper in her arse and purring to herself. “Everything you say is true but suspicion would surely fall on us. It is not safe.”

“Nonsense, you know how superstitious the Roman people are, trapped in fear by their gods and their fortune telling and portents. We must rise above that and use it to our own advantage. The most sacred goddess the fools of Rome revere is Vesta. Very well then, we will have the goddess Vesta’s blessing.”

The next morning, two covered litters left the palace for the Temple of Vesta. One contained Gaius Silius in a gilded breastplate, the other, Messalina, veiled in white. At the Temple steps, Gaius Silius sent his slave to seek entrance but the slave came back, nervously telling his master that the Vestal Virgins had forbidden entrance to two so dissolute. In a rage, Gaius Silius drew his sword and severed the slave’s head from his shoulders with a single blow. He charged up the steps, pounding on the door.

“Let us in you foul witches, make way for your Empress Messalina and for Gaius Silius, soon to be your Emperor!”

The doors splintered as he kicked them open and he and Messalina stepped into the dark Temple. As their eyes adjusted to the gloom they saw the marble altar and the statue of Vesta, illuminated by flickering votive lights. Around the room, in arched alcoves, were chairs for the Vestals when they sat in Council. Only one was occupied, by the Chief Vestal, draped in pure white linen, modestly covering her hair.

“You, Vestal!” cried Gaius Silius, “we have come to consecrate our union in the sight of Vesta and of Rome. Come and perform the offices.”

The Chief Vestal remained seated but looked up sadly at them and spoke softly. “Gaius Silius, you have a wife in the country. And you, Messalina, you are a subject of your husband the Emperor. I cannot help you today. Go home to your families.”

Messalina stepped forward and struck the Vestal with all her might, tipping her from her chair onto the marble floor. “Peasant! Do you know who you speak to? I shall be a goddess when you are tilling the fields with your bare hands. It is on my sufferance that you keep your life, now do as you are told!”

Petulantly, she turned to Gaius Silius. “Gaius, make her do as I say!”

Gaius Silius took his sword and ripped through the Vestal’s linen robe, yanking it from her body as she lay, screaming on the floor, struggling to cover her nakedness with her hands. He hauled her up by her hair, bending her over the altar, kicking her legs apart. Grunting he began to force his trembling cock into her virgin slit, ignoring her screams and pleas, gripping her wrists in one hand, bending her arms painfully up her back, slapping her wobbling buttocks until they glowed pink and hot.

“Listen to her squeal!” laughed Messalina, clapping her hands with delight and skipping around the flailing Vestal to get a better view of her tear-stained face. “Oh Gaius, how fortunate she is, that her first cock should be such a splendid one. But you will quite ruin her for future lovers you know, no one else can live up to you.”

Gaius bellowed as his spunk flooded the Vestal’s ravished cunt and he let her slip from his grip onto the floor. “This slut will have no one to compare me to. The punishment for a Vestal who loses her virginity is to be buried alive.”

As they stepped over her broken body towards the door, Messalina said, “We will tell everyone that our union and our future rule of Rome have been blessed by Vesta. And a well-placed rumour that brigands broke into the Temple to steal its riches and slew the Chief Vestal in her brave defence of the goddess should deal with the other matter.”

Hand in hand and laughing they stepped out into the blazing sunlight outside the Temple, momentarily dazzled but then freezing at the sight of armed guards, surrounding them with weapons drawn. Narcissus stepped through their ranks and eyed Messalina sardonically. “The game is over Empress. Your movements have been watched, your plans divined, your desecrations witnessed. The Emperor has spies in every brothel and tavern, every bath house and palace.”

Screaming and struggling and kicking, Messalina was torn away from Gaius Silius, reaching out a desperate hand for him as he slipped from her grip, dragged down an alley to be murdered by men of his own regiment. Messalina heard his final cry of agony and she threw her head to the heavens and howled.

Inside the dungeons of Rome, two guards sat on upturned crates, eating their lunch of bread and cheese and chatting. The walls around them dripped with damp and echoed with the sobs and shrieks of prisoners, some tortured, some driven mad with incarceration. At their feet, rotting straw was strewn, the only comfort in this terrible place, and rats scuttled into corners.

“What do you think the Emperor will decide to do with her?” asked one.

“Dunno, the arena I suppose. A lesson to the women of Rome, that kind of thing.”

“Oh, I like a good show. Something mythological like Europa raped by Jupiter in the form of a bull, with Messalina as Europa and a real bull. I’d like to see that.”

“You and your mythology – people don’t want that fancy stuff these days, they want something simple like a good whipping until she’s striped with cuts and then left, chained to a post while ravenous wild beasts are released into the arena. I like the cheetahs myself, you know, those spotty cats we saw last time.”

“Half those animals are too mangy to give her a good tickling. No, I tell you what, attach one end of a chain to the floor of the arena and the other through a ring in her cunt then slowly flood the place. She’d bob about for a bit but eventually the waters would rise higher than the chain and we could watch her struggle and splutter as she went under while the poets declaimed tales of great tragedies at sea. That’d be entertaining and educational.”

“I think you’re cracked. Come on, finish up that last bit of cheese and let’s get back to it.”
As the guards walked away they left behind Messalina in her cell. Her wrists chained to the ceiling, her toes barely scraping the filthy floor, she hung limply, her head bowed, her face streaked with kohl and smudged with tears. Across her arse and thighs, scarlet whip marks burned. The massive handle of the whip thrust deep into her cunt, the lash of the whip wrapped round her waist, firmly secured, holding the handle in place.

In his study, attended by Narcissus, the Emperor finished his work for the day, sealing the final decree. “There is just one more thing,” said Narcissus.

“What is it old friend?” asked the Emperor, wearily.

“The people want to know what you intend for Messalina, they anticipate a great show of punishment in he arena.”

“No, Narcissus, she has sought an audience too often. Let her meet her end alone.”

In the execution cell they chained her, ankles spread wide, wrists behind her back, their chains hauled tight over a pulley, bending her sharply at the waist, yanking her arms painfully high behind her back. From ropes they suspended a spear – one rope to let it swing freely, the other rope to hold it back, at the top of its arc, ready to begin its descent, its sharp point aimed towards her parted thighs. And beneath this rope they placed a candle, a foul-smelling mutton fat candle that singed and charred the rope.

“I like a suitable execution,” said the Executioner to his assistant. “One that reflects the crime. Her crime was to be too fond of a good spearing.” And he chuckled to himself while his assistant frowned stupidly, not understanding the joke.

Messalina stood frozen, her heart racing, tears dripping from her cheeks and listened to the strands of the rope fizz and crackle as, one by one, they snapped.

The next morning the early guard collected her, unlocking her chains and lifting her, one by the spear shaft sticking from her cunt, the other by the spear head protruding from her lifeless mouth, frozen in a scream. And, carrying her thus through the streets of Rome they headed towards the River Tiber.