Verpa Domini Ch. 01

The pontiff shifted and groaned, rubbing her temples.

"Are you angry, mistress?"

"No. I trust your choice and your approach. But now I'll have to find a way to impress Clodia, and I do not look forward to being locked between her thighs."

"Why? The woman is gorgeous in every way."

"Gorgeous, but overused. It'll take hours."

Arcadia took a hurried sip to hide her involuntary smirk.

"I digress. Lesbia's time will come, but not today. You finally had your hand on what I sought, thus. What did you make of it?"

"Not much yet, mistress. After all, Auris was now free of his lawless property - and I possessed it in his stead. I had to plan a careful return. It occupied my mind."

"You could blame any suspicion on me. After all, you transact on my behalf."

"You know that I could not, mistress. Do not jest in such a way. My trip to Ienua was to be simple; the boat of Clodia still offered me its service and its crew knew better than to pursue idle curiosity. But I still had to maintain secrecy. I could not allow rumours."

"Wise. But before you continue..."

Arcadia looked her mistress in the eyes and saw there curiosity.

"I know I said I'll forgo discussion of the professional, for today. But... tell me... what is that slave-gladiatrix like? Were the rumours true, at least partially?"

Fausta chose her words carefully. She was not entirely honest with her servant, of course. They both knew. She was burning. She wanted to see her new subject, the fruit of Arcadia's sleuthing toil, right now. She wanted so ever since she realized who her guests were. She waited long. It was her only lead, the only potential solution to the standstill of her research.

But Fausta knew better. She gave her curiosity but one concession. Arcadia shut her eyes and nodded.

"The rumours did not lie, mistress. The slave-gladiatrix of Lucius Auris is an elfine of the Teutones, a giant standing almost a pace and a gradus tall. Her body is a work of art. She looks as if she is a statue given life - too perfect to believe."

Fausta nodded.

"I see. I am satisfied."

The pontiff looked outside, where the sun had almost set and pigmented the sky in a cool crimson. The chills of the Cisalpine have grown stronger, shifting, intermixing into winds. They howled their way down the slopes of the great mountain, taking hold, reminding everyone that nature ruled this place. This is not Rome, where men, elfine and ludex stood lords above the land.

This is the Cisalpine. A wild, tranquil and cruel place, where the Italian ends and the barbaric begins.

"Arcadia, I will take my leave. The evening prayer to the Gods is due. Enjoy a bath and wait for me. We'll talk more then."

"I will do so, mistress. Thank you."

Fausta stood up and offered her servant a friendly bow before disappearing into the gentle shade of the hallway. Evening was the time of the Gods.

...

The last rays dimmed, consumed by the horizon. Shadows stretched and mellowed, drowned in the descending dark. Lamps were lit, and dolls were tending to the flames. The howling winds subsided: having pushed away the midday warmth, they moved their languid mass between the hills and slopes, just barely venturing inside the house. In the atrium, Fausta prayed. She harboured dislike for the City, but to her elected role and duties she paid respect.

To hate the Roman way as Fausta did you had to be a Roman - and to be a Roman, some things you had to have ingrained.

She petitioned the Pantheon and the household gods. She offered sacrifice and burned it, upon the Blaze Flamenica, the holy fire of the Gods. She asked them for success and nothing more. Let there be glory for those who wished for it and notoriety upon those who deserve it. Fausta wanted only to see it all through to the end.

She even rubbed the triple guardian-statuette of Priapus, the Penile One. Inlaid into an alcove right beside the entrance, three palm-sized forms of the ever-erect god stood watch: one of the god leisurely laid down, one of him sitting, deep in dirty thoughts, and one where he stands, toiling a field. Each was made of silver, but the phallus, as per tradition, was cut from wood. In a different home, Priapus would stay wary above the vestibule, ready to proverbially rape any intruder daring to come uninvited. A magos worth his title had other, more practical ways to ensure the safety of his dwelling. But that triple statuette of the Great Penile One has taken a humorous, personal meaning for Fausta; a connection quite beyond prediction.

"Are you not my patron now, Priapus? I set upon myself to make for you a worthy rival."

The elfine chuckled to herself and signed a doll.

"Myrmidia."

"Yes, my mistress."

"Light the path to the hillside shrine. I'll offer one last prayer for today."

"It will be done."

"Prepare my bedroom, after that."

"It will be done. But it would seem that mistress Arcadia has already given orders to that regard."

"Hmm? Did she?"

"She asked for a comb and a pair of sharp scissors, among other things."

Fausta smiled. The doll could not discern a sultry smile from any other; what did it matter if she could? But any other wouldn't fail to see how pleased the pontiff was.

"She did? All the better, then. Are you busy with any immediate task, Myrmidia?"

"Nothing beyond your orders, mistress."

"Fetch me the half-mask, then. I will don it in the house."

The doll bowed. She stood there, silently, expecting any other wish; when Fausta added nothing, the doll turned and went without a sound.

...

An hour passed.

Darkness was deep when Fausta came back. The pontiff shivered and made her way.

Her bedroom was sparsely lit. To see it is to conclude that the master of the house was a strict stoic. Fausta smiled at the idea. What was she? Her dealings were a corruption of Eros, Epicureanic in nature, perhaps, but with a decadent perversion in its core. Was she a stoic?

She couldn't say. In Rome, to declare adherence to the styles is to declare political allegiance. Fausta cared little for the Senate. She was barred from its politics by gender and was content with it completely; thus, she didn't feel a rush to choose a side.

Perhaps she just prefered sturdiness to pure decorum.

Arcadia was there. A gown adorned her shoulders, a thin garment that hid nothing. Her back, defined and chiseled, a feature of her people, shifted under the fabric as she attended to her instruments.

Fausta lingered at the doorsill, watching, silently. The Cisalpine spring was cold and harsh almost till the summer. But now, seeing the figure of Arcadia, her lovely Arcadia, the pontiff felt warm.

"Am I in such a dissarrey, Arcadia, that you'd rush for the scissors on the very first night?" - Fausta asked, announcing herself. Arcadia didn't turn, but from a shift in her single visible cheek the pontiff knew she smiled.

"No, mistress. I am merely selfish. To groom a pretty mane of hair, dark like raven wing..."

"You partied too much in the company of Lesbia. Her wordforms rubbed on you."

"Perhaps. But I am not one to play with words. Like my people, I am frank. Not once was I bored attending you. Never once did it make me discontent. I like it very much."

"No, indeed the infernal woman made an impact on you. Never did you honey your words so!"

Arcadia turned, then. A glint in her eyes, a smile more playful than sultry.

"Just sit down."

So the pontiff did.

...

Arcadia had a way with scissors. Her hand was strong, imbued with deliberation and precision, never wandering, always controlled. Yet it was gentle. She parted strands and muttered complaints; most were idle, but some true.

"You are neglected, mistress. What of the oils I left you? I believe the instructions were quite simple and clear, and left in writing."

"Ah. That is easy to explain. Between the workload and the house..." - Fausta started, feeling, for a second, like a husband caught.

"Hush."

Fausta obliged and let Arcadia complain. To be pampered and cared for was a simple bliss, known to every man, elfine and ludex, rich and poor, freedman and slave. If they lacked it, they would wish for it all the same. To be loved. The simplest pleasure, and, to many, the greatest.

As the scissors took to split hairs, the pontiff surveyed herself in the mirror, a thing of finely polished bronze; itself more expensive than any other furniture or object in the room.

She looked good. It was a given: her looks were tuned, handmade, a product of ritual and intelligent design. A tall, lithe woman, more elegant than voluptuous, pleasing to the eye more so than for the hand. Her breasts were small and strongly shaped, a little, dark nipple adorning each mound. Sharp shoulder blades stick through skin like little axes, though her long, dark hair hid them usually from sight. She was thin and elegant. Grace and nobility were her descriptors. Untarnished in every way - but a single blemish to her form she weirdly kept. An old wound - her memento, she called it - laid long and ugly on her back, stretched from the back of her neck to her armpit. She thought many times of covering it, melding it off her flesh.

In the end, she never did. She liked this part of her body: a body arcanely sculpted to be without a fault, the body of a perfect elfine woman. This wound, this old scar, a memory of a samnite blade gave her body a validity. That she was not, in effect, a statue, proverbially cut from the marble of flesh as a tribute to the feminine aesthetic. That her body was the body of Fausta, the hermit-pontiff, and on it bore the legacy of the long road she walked.

In a while, Arcadia was done. A doll extinguished the flame, and in the soft darkness, in the farthest corner of Italy, they made love. Two women, removed by birth and class, by Fate and race, by ability and strength were joined through a bond that struck the heart. They hungered for each other. They explored each other anew. They damned their separation and celebrated their reunion through the simplest form of love: the eros of the body.

...

Night took reign. The winds have settled, their howling now meek and occasional. Dolls took to their nightly routines. They had no need for sleep, but in time Fausta learned that they become erratic when left with nothing to do, so she offered them habits to soothe that, however much it was unnecessary. Night was not the time of dolls: they served their due during the day.

Night was the time of the Catcher.

All was calm, for a while - until dead after midnight. Luna was low in the sky, coloring the house into a pale, cool shade. Few fires were lit: a lamp, here and there, and the Blaze Flamenicus, which Fausta let burn through the hours of dark, until dawn. The pontiff slept curled, embraced and thus tranquil; a smile of content arching her lips.

It was then when a terrible sound broke the stillness. Of shattered stone and bent metal, it reverberated through the porticoes and corridors, going back and forth through the house by way of terrible echoes. A commotion soon followed suit: the dolls were agitated immediately and flocked from their places of rest to whatever intruder daring to break the calm of their master.

A fight then ensued - though accented not by sounds of metal, but of flesh.

Arcadia woke at once; her sleep was light by habit, and she rushed to her dagger before even a thought of covering her body occured in the daemon's head. Hearing the continued commotion, she woke her mistress: Fausta's sleep was deep and blessed by the brothers of Somnia with pleasant dreams, thus she woke irritated and unhappy.

"What is it, Arcadia? Is it the prize you brought me, trying to take an opportunity for freedom?"

"No, mistress. The sounds come from the Pits."

"Ah. I may have an idea what it is."

"You do, mistress?"

Fausta yawned then nodded.

"I might. While you were away I tried a newer serum, one of slightly higher purity than others, on a barbar woman of the Gaul. Perhaps her metamorphosis was not quite as complete as I had thought..."

Arcadia pressed her lips.

"Is this one also to learn her lesson, mistress?"

Fausta smiled and ran her fingers through the hair of her servant.

"As they should."

Arcadia frowned.

"One day, mistress, you'll make one too powerful even for you to tame."

"Then such will be the will of the Gods - to punish me for my transgression, for repeating the forbidden metamorphosis of Hermaphroditus and the nymph Salmacis. But it will not be today. The Catcher has her: in her rage, she doesn't know it yet."

The one-horned scribe sighed and let her blade recline back into its scabbard. She covered herself and followed her mistress into the corridor, itself barely lit by the meek fire of a lamp; the light, it's source hidden by a corner, did little for the eye during an hour so dark. They listened - and waited.

The sound of the scuffle subsided, but a fleshy, raw note, monotonously repeated, persisted and moved closer - until the source of it showed.

As she walked, she pulled one doll by hair, and had another forced upon her member. The one impaled was pressed unto the she-cock by a strong grip on the shoulder; that a mere hand press was enough to hold a woman on a penis was itself, to anyone, obscene. Up and down, the doll was moved, her body otherwise motionless, and a terrible distortion showed itself on her midriff with each jerk. The brutal process took just seconds; the release that followed was short and inhumane. There was a pumping, raw, wet sound, ugly to the ear yet enticing in its pure and simple meaning. Before the eyes, the doll distended, her middle bloated to a heavy, gravid form.

As the corner was rounded she held the impaled Myrmidia by her neck and pulled her off the turgid manhood - and at the same time jerked up the other doll-sister by her dark hair.

It was, indeed, the gallic woman, freed, by her own hand, from the confines of the Pits. She let out a guttural roar, announcing her presence to all who dared avert their gaze from the sight of her carnal conquest. A wildness was in her eyes, a fire not reflected but inane. Her sanity was gone. No words would she utter but the sounds of an animal - a predatory animal at the height of its might. The dolls she held as trophies - or, Fausta reasoned, as a warning.

Both dolls were now bloated ruins, meek and without motion. Their midriffs jutted forward, as would a pregnant woman's, but the semen soaking their bodies left little to imagine of what set them in such a state. Their womanhoods looked desolate, forced apart and left to gape, dripping mixed fluid at a pulsing pace. Fausta didn't bother to be shocked. The dolls were fine, even if seemingly catatonic. They had their orders, which even now they followed. If the mistress was not in danger, they should rather submit than damage the subjects of the Pits. To the gallic woman, who didn't know better, it brought great pleasure. The savage conceit of her face was proof of this. Her eyes were affixed on Fausta; Arcadia she ignored.

"Ah, daughter of Gaul, you bring me such delight." - the pontiff-hermit murmured, playful sultry in her voice. - "Driven to this animal state, you didn't run - but rather chose to ruin your oppressor."

The woman grinned - pleased to hear her chosen target, pleased to see she wouldn't run. She released her grip on the bloated dolls, then, letting them fall, midriff-first, onto the floor. They fell abruptly, and, on landing, jerked; the sound was unpleasant, akin to a deeply soaked rug. With the strong force projected upon their midriffs, the dolls expelled a wave of semen from within, a pulsing jet that baffled mind with it's improbable amount. Their faces were emotionless, as always. But their eyes followed their master intently. The hermaphrodite wouldn't care, nor did she notice. Of her show of strength and conquest she was greatly proud, and bared her teeth in celebration; never once has Fausta seen her grin so purely, from the heart.

Indeed, the gallic subject went through her final change that night. Her member was longer, now easily beyond a cubit and a palm; its form distorted, adorned with bulbous nubs along the crown and sagging to the left under its own weight. The musk of manhood was intense, an odor raw and by its intensity unpleasant. The body of the woman changed slightly, just as well: she stood a finger taller, an inch or two, no more, her shoulders widened, or maybe it was the bulgening of muscle she possessed even before the change, and her legs stood wider, heftier at the hip and foreleg. Other changes Fausta didn't notice - beyond the great, disproportionate increase in strength, or function of the muscle, which was evident empirically - even if not immediately apparent.

She tore from an iron cage door set in stone and mortar to get here, after all.

It was not, thus, an idle risk - yet Fausta took it, for she knew more than her midnight contender. The pontiff observed the woman; the gaelic she-beast took a step forward, in turn watching the pontiff intently, lowering her stance.

"Don't hesitate, child of Gaul." - Fausta beconed. - "Come hither - and learn your place."

The woman leapt.

She was such a beautiful thing, Fausta mused during this brief moment. Strong, hardy. The beastly grimace she adorned. The prowl of a hunting animal fit for her barbaric charm, a vision of a wildman berserk uncaring to anything but her mark.

In this one jump she almost flew. In a leap, she traversed half the distance. By the second one, she reached her chosen prey.

Fausta let her push her, let her grab the wrists and pull them up, let her swing her herculean member like a club, let her produce a triumphant growl. A punishment is only effective when the punished knows his deed, and the deed is best known while one is in the middle of it. So said Marius, once, when explaining why he would let the hastati falter before ordering the principes to push them back into the fray.

Like cowardice teaches best when cut at the root, so does a triumph snuffed at the moment of absolute height serves as the ultimate lesson in humility.

The pontiff, ignoring the hold of the woman, whispered words in elder tongues, older than man or elfine. A language of the shadows and the dregs within them.

The Catcher heard, and came.

It was a bizarre creature. Where it dwelt, the shadows laid heavier, deeper, bearing depth and shape. It moved without a sound. It had no form, and yet it had many. It was a living terror, a manifestation of creeping dread that stems from deep, unlit caves. A predator you never get to see; a shade of doom. A monster of a hundred invisible hands.

It took so much to make it tame, to call upon it, to find a language that it'll heed. Yet it was worth it. The Catcher was the castle walls of the Hermit-Pontiffs domain, its guard - and executioner.

The gallic woman tried to make her move. She tried to move one hand to grab her prize, to feel the yielding flesh of her tormentor, yet she found herself unable. Her body would not budge, no matter the efforts of the muscles. To her praise, she didn't falter nor let herself be kept in the clutches of surprise; within a moment she thrashed about and howled, fighting whatever force dared bind her - but to no avail. Not a limb would be freed. On the height of her beastly victory her freedom was snatched.

The Catcher had her.

When she met Fausta's gaze, when she saw her thin, unpleasant smile the gallic woman understood. She redoubled her efforts, thrusting her body from side to side, growling, face warped in a mask of terror and bestial animosity. In that single desire - to free herself, to take her prize, to ravage it, destroy it in a bout of lust beyond words or understanding - was her entire being. Fausta slowly and methodically denied it.