37. Vidua

Vidua

Luella

I am invited to sapa again, and again Cassius arrives to take me to the same room. Instead of the floras from the day before, a table sits near the fountain.

Ledo’s table.

My stomach clenches, then plummets when I see what sits atop it.

The flagrum glitters in the afternoon suns, the black gleaming with a recent oiling. This moment is a jarring reminder that no matter how shiny Cassius tries to be, I know exactly what he is and why I am here.

I have a role to play: Appear unthreatening. Get him alone.

Kill him.

Cassius follows my gaze and nods. “Yes, that’s his.” But I’ve done this longer than him.

“It’s whose, Dominus?”

“Ledo’s.” His eyes are drinking in my face, reading my expressions. The same expressions I’ve spent years mastering.

He spent yesterday attempting to lower my guard and since that didn’t work, he’s trying a new tactic.

Fear.

But fear is a friend I’ve known my whole life. Instead of my lower eyelids tensing or my eyebrows raising, I channel surprise. A slight widening of my eyes, a tilt in my head.

Cassius brings me to the chaise so I have a perfect view of the table, the fountain, and the entire room. I’m close enough to make out the details on Bacchus' statue, the masks and bulls etched on his wine carafe reminding me of the deception and rutting he symbolizes.

I meet Cassius' eyes but refuse to speak. My skin pebbles in the cool air. Tomorrow is clipse, so Remus is covering much of Romulus, making midafternoon feel more like dusk.

“Luella,” Cassius says once I’m seated. “I’d like us to trust each other.”

I look from him to the flagrum and back again.

I have been whipped before. Struck. Chained. Everything Ledo did to his floras has been done to me.

Every.

Single.

Thing.

“I’d like that, too, Dominus,” I say, swallowing.

“I don’t think you trust me,” Cassius says.

And you think whipping me will help? “Why do you say that?”

“Because you think I’m like him.” He holds up a hand when I open my mouth to ask who. “And that’s my fault. I didn’t know how else to find you.”

I’m trying to decide how to respond when he begins removing his white tunic. The planes of his stomach remind me that he’s a general. A fighter. His muscles ripple as he tosses the tunic to the floor and picks up the whip, letting it dangle between his fingers. My eyes cling to it, trying to decipher its path and its pain before it ever touches my skin.

“Flavia?” Cassius calls out. Flavia enters not in her flora wrap, but in a shift of dark cotton, as if she were lounging in her room. Dressed for comfort instead of pleasure. “Bring them in.”

She steps out into the hall and returns with about ten floras. The majority are varying shades of blonde, but there is one with black hair and dark skin and another who is brunette with hazel eyes and freckled skin. They line up near the fountain and Cassius approaches. Flavia is in front.

“You’ve all helped me these past clipses. Sometimes that involved injuries I wished you did not have to endure.” He turns to look at me. “You volunteered and for that I thank you. I think it worked.”

It’s a trap. My mind screams at me to run. My friend, fear, says, run.

Run, Luella!

I won’t, though. I let the blood pound in my ears and I listen to the voice telling me to run, and then I refuse to do as I’m told.

I do many things I hate. And I do many things that are dangerous. I furrow my brows as though confused and cock my head at Cassius. I let my eyes travel down the line of floras and realize these must be the women that Mia treated. The ones who said Cassius beat them. “They look like you,” she had said.

Most of them do.

The ones he just admitted to beating. As volunteers?

“I know I can’t undo what I did, but I do offer myself as compensation.” It feels ceremonial. As if he’s practiced. Does he think they’ll ask to pleasure him after he beat them? I suppose they will if he’s forced them too. I would be surprised at the audacity if anything surprised me anymore.

Cassius hands the flagrum to Flavia and drops to his knees in front of her, facing me. His bare back is towards her and she holds the whip in her fist.

Before my mind can process what he intends, Flavia speaks. “I forgive you, Dominus.” She hands the flagrum to the next woman in line and leaves the room.

The next woman, the one with black hair, nods down at him. “It was an honor, Dominus.”

The next woman was clearly chosen to model Skylar, with blonde hair that’s almost white and striking blue eyes. “I hope it works,” she says.

The whip passes down the line, each flora saying something to Cassius that is equally cryptic.

“I forgive you.”

“It was an honor.”

“It will be worth it.”

Finally, the last woman holds it. Her hair is golden, her skin umber. She looks freshly beaten. A large black eye and swollen lip look from me to Cassius and back to me. I know the life cycle of a black eye all too well and hers happened after I came to the ball.

“I’d give my life for Tisiphone. I’ll volunteer until I have nothing left to give.” She drops the whip beside him. “Thank you, Dominus.” She looks at me as she leaves. “Thank you, vidua. ”

Thank you, Widow.

Cassius is watching me, his back bare but unmarred. Not a single flora whipped him. Did he plan this? Were they told what to say?

I swallow, hard. Who am I to be in this moment? I wrack my mind for the move that will put Cassius on guard, instead of me.

“And will you prostrate yourself before me, as well, Dominus?” I move towards him until he’s looking up at me from the floor and the bottom of my skirts whisper against his knees.

I remember that first night, when I felt his words were measured. I measure myself now, calculating each syllable before I speak.

“Perhaps,” he says. He doesn’t move, but he doesn’t hand me the flagrum either. “Perhaps I would do whatever you asked of me. Perhaps I want the same things you want.”

Impossible. “Perhaps,” I say. “Or perhaps you don’t know what I want.”

“You could tell me,” Cassius leans forward and for a moment I think he might wrap his arms around my waist, around my knees. A man drowning in the Maero, reaching for something solid to save him.

Of course, he does not. And he sways back again. “Are you drunk?” So much for measured words.

“I thought they were going to whip me,” he protests. “Of course I’m a bit drunk.”

“Then why did you hand them the whip?” I ask.

“Because I don’t know how else to show you… Because I don’t think you know what I want, either.”

“You could tell me,” I repeat to him.

For once, I do want to know. Never before have I struggled to understand what my mark wanted from me. It is not difficult to guess the desires of mortals. We want pleasure, comfort, safety, power, or any combination of those. I always fit in one of those spaces, molding into the cracks of desire. Always. But right now I don’t see where I fit, and not knowing that is very, very dangerous.

“You don’t like roses,” he says. Says, not asks.

“I don’t care for them particularly,” I say.

“I don’t like that gods-forsaken fountain,” Cassius says.

I almost laugh. “I hate the fountain.” His eyes widen, like I’ve confirmed it, but this is measured, too. Surely a woman who hates roses could also hate a fountain. A woman who watched women brutalized next to one, though? She would loathe it.

Another doubt, another seed. Yet I recognize another master, because his act has planted some in me, as well.