6. Chains

Chains

Luella

The meeting is the most important part. It has to feel organic, while also seeming serendipitous. I have to seem like a dream come true, and not just any kind of dream. The kind that will get them thinking with something other than their head. And, I have to do it while hiding the nightmare I am.

Some of that is easy. I’m wearing an everyday face with dark hair and freckled cheeks. There’s nothing wrong with my features, but they’re a bit asymmetrical, which lowers my desirability enough that I’m forgettable. One face in a river of women, and while it’s not a guarantee, it’s the closest thing to armor I can wear.

I gather my stones, the opaque yellow and orange charged basanite glimmering in the light from the windows. They’re the fire to Mia’s water, blessed by a much more fickle god than the healing Asclepius. Nevertheless, the stones are cool as my hand closes around three, each the size of a denarius.

Closing my eyes I feel for it.

The power.

As each drop of blood circulates through my palm, it picks up a parcel of the charge, until my entire body hums with it.

My eyes flutter closed and my mind returns to the preferences I’ve inked in my little black book. My body stretches and folds and rearranges, the sensation not entirely unpleasant, until it's done. Each and every word I'd agonized over has been made into something useful or valuable. The very skin on my bones is currency.

I don a light blue dress and turn to the mirror to check my work. Blonde hair and round blue eyes greet me, and the features make me appear younger than my thirty years. No self-respecting man would marry someone as old as me.

But becoming the perfect victim takes more than hair and eye color. Success lies in the details my praeda don’t even know they prefer.

My eyebrows are darker than my hair by at least three shades, because he requires all the floras he borrows from the Emperor’s harem to darken them with kohl. My lips are fuller than they have any right to be, because he once said that women with full lips remind him of Venus.

He once slapped a flora for having a dimple, so no dimples. He thinks the goddess Diana is too masculine, so my arms are a softer shape.

Every detail from Mia and her sources has been made flesh, until I’m a manifestation of his preferences.

It’s make a meretrix .

Praetor Ledo doesn’t visit the city often, quite content to let his servants and the Domus Aurea provide for him. He only needs to ask for something, and the Emperor grants it. If he didn’t ask for such depravity, perhaps he wouldn’t be on my list.

If there is one thing the Praetor does appreciate, it’s entertainment. And while I would like to rest after Silas, there is no time, unless I want to risk waiting quads more.

Plus, his waived mourning period reeks of his own impatience. He’ll be married again, and soon. I missed the last time, and he was married before I knew he was looking.

Not again.

The streets are full as I close the door to my rented room, a place where I can be in the city and have easier access to my praeda without compromising my true domus. It’s the clipse of Venus, or the Vinalia Prima to the plebians, a celebration of womanhood and fertility. The beginning of the clipse is for women of higher standing, married women seeking fertility or young women praying for a match. Each day the festivities will become less socially acceptable, ending with Floralia , the day of prostitutes.

Divusians are interesting in that way. We celebrate the matron and mater, and then less than a clipse later we celebrate the whore we’d scorn if we met her on the street. I suppose the festival is just an excuse for drinking and rutting in the end. The Senate is willing to suspend their usual moral high ground if it means the populace is too drunk to care what they do. Or, more typically, don’t do.

The Praetors will take part in the entire spectacle, but I will need to capture Ledo’s attention on day one or two if I’m to tempt a marriage. Last year, the Praetor brought a girl from the village back to the Domus Aurea, but it was the last day. She was never seen again.

I don’t want to be noticed on the last day.

Women are performing the maidendance in the main square, twirling their skirts in time to the fast-paced lute music and honoring one another with bows and kisses to the back of hands. It would be a fun pastime if men like Ledo weren’t on the sidelines sizing up the dancers like goats for sacrifice. Although, some of the women are blushing, enjoying the attention. Perhaps not everyone views men the way that I do. I even suspect that decent men do exist.

I just haven’t met one yet.

That’s not fair. I have, but they’re dead, too. Divus treats decent men the same way it treats its women.

I wait for a break in the song, then weave my way into the dance. The wooden floor shakes under our stomps and spins as I join in with the other women, smiling broadly and letting my hair fan around me with each spin. I dip low and laugh as a girl, petite with wheat colored hair, brushes her lips across my knuckles. For a moment I enjoy it, the subtle joy of hope. The softness. I let the rhythm take over, carefree, and wink at the girl.

She’s the reason I do this, after all. Not her, specifically, but girls like her. Ones who need me to do what I do. While each looks different, they all have one thing in common: they’re young. And because they’re young, they’re one of the worst things you can be.

Naive.

This girl will be given or sold or bartered into marriage after being told all the lies they want us to believe. That it’s natural. That women aren’t good for much else.

That we need it.

And then, during her engagement or wedding or perhaps not for many years, she begins to learn what marriage usually is.

A chain around her neck, and the cruel master who placed it there.

And when he finally does what his pater did to his mater, and his grandpater to his grandmater, and what any number of men have done to women since gods first walked the realm… That’s where I finally come in.

Because I am the only master in this republic, and if anyone is going to hold the chains, it's going to be me.

My partner switches to a black haired beauty and my gaze slips past her to a large man rubbing his crotch as he watches and I fight to keep my expression flat, to hide the disgust. The man sees me looking and smiles, raising his eyebrows at me. I avert my eyes in case Ledo is watching. If I went after every man like that, I fear there wouldn’t be any left.

Besides, even I know that I can’t kill every man that annoys me, even if I want to. This man isn’t even worth my vials.

I haven’t looked for Ledo yet. It has to be timed perfectly. A parting of bodies, a break in the music. The type of moment that feels preordained. Blessed by Venus herself.

Just then, the girl in front of me sways to the side. Anticipation builds in my chest.

This is it.

I dip my chin, then raise my eyes. He’s looking at me, and when our eyes meet I freeze. Only for a moment. Just enough for him to think he affects me. I let my lips part, as if I am letting loose a gasp and it earns the reaction I want. His lips tilt up at the corners and my cheeks flame red.

It’s not hard to fake a blush. I think of the men who have dared to put their hands on me, and the rage does the rest. I think of Silas, how he’d wrapped his hands around my throat as if he was in control. I stoke that anger, letting it warm my blood and fuel my purpose.

I continue to dance, stealing glances at Ledo every time I can. His eyes are glued on me each time and I know I’ve done it.

I’ve snared him in my web.

And I’m one step closer to holding his chain.