8. Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

M arcus Fabius Varro

As I stand before Marcus Fabius Gracchus for the first time, my heart pounds with a sickening mixture of fear and dread. The fancy, private tablinum , with its golden fixtures and plush furnishings, feels like a cage, a luxurious prison from which there will be no escape.

Gracchus lounges on a silk-covered divan, his corpulent body draped in fine linen that has a wide purple stripe at the hem announcing his high status. His fingers are adorned with glittering jewels. His watery blue gaze roves over me, a predatory gleam in their depths that makes my skin crawl.

He doesn’t hide his intentions, doesn’t bother with the pretense of propriety. I am here for one purpose and one purpose only—to serve his twisted desires, to be a plaything for his depraved amusement.

He tells his slaves to strip me, then orders me to turn in a circle. When I don’t move, Centurion Servius, who I’ve ridden with for most of the past three months, shakes his head at me, eyes narrowed in his sternest expression. I don’t know if it’s intended more to keep me safe from punishment or to ensure he receives the most credits from Gracchus.

My show of strength is short-lived when two armed guards approach, swords drawn. With perfect clarity, I decide this isn’t the moment I wish to die. I turn as commanded accompanied by Gracchus’s sharp intake of breath as he almost moans the word, “ Amabilia .” Lovely.

My nostrils flare, my lips pressed tight as I watch money change hands. A small bag of coins handed over by Gracchus’s bodyslave is apparently all my life is worth. Servius receives a pat on the back and a “Thank you. You’re sure he’s pure?”

“He rode with me the whole time at great expense to keep him safe. For you, sir.” The man, who commanded those under him with hawklike intensity is now bowing and scraping to his better. There’s an order to things, and I’m at the very bottom—a young, powerless slave.

I’m a commodity, like the grapes we grew and harvested back in Hispania.

A slave leads me to a bathing pool, the steam rising from the perfumed water in delicate wisps. Attendants lead me into the warm water. It feels like heaven until they grab rough sponges, their hands impersonal as they scrub my skin until it is pink and raw.

Their eyes are downcast and lifeless as they go about their duties, none of them meet my eyes. It serves to increase my fear of what is in store for me.

Through it all, Gracchus watches, his mouth curved in a lecherous smirk. He licks his thick lips, his gaze heavy with anticipation. A wave of nausea washes over me as I notice his erection pressing against the toga that has ridden toward the top of his thighs to accommodate his enormous belly.

I want to scream, to fight, to run as far and as fast as I can. But I know it’s useless. I am a slave, a piece of property to be used and discarded at my master’s whim. I have no choice but to endure, to submit to the horrors that await me. That’s not true, though. There’s another choice—to die.

I hear a clang in the back of my mind, as though an iron gate is slamming into place, separating my past from my future. My mind just gave me a gift, like a magician’s trick. I can go forward by separating my mind into rooms. No need to kill myself. I just need to put memories of home and family in the farthest room in my mind; I’ll only unfold them when the time is right. By this method, I can endure.

It’s terrible at age twelve to discover you’re a coward.

And so I submit. I endure the unspeakable things that Gracchus does to me, the degradation and the pain, the shame that threatens to swallow me whole. Pitifully, I’m thankful he takes me from behind so I don’t have to breathe his breath that reeks of olive oil and garlic, don’t have to see the rolls of fat wobble on his chin, don’t have to watch his cock violate me.

I retreat into myself when the present becomes unbearable, into the memories of my family and the life I once knew. But even those memories are tainted now, sullied by the knowledge of what I have become. I am no longer Varro, the beloved son and brother. I am a thing, a vessel for Gracchus’s perversions, a shell of the boy I once was.

The days bleed into weeks and months, as my owner fills my days with education. I discover I have a gift for languages and a sharp mind for learning. The lessons in Latin, Greek, literature, and history are not for my benefit, but for his. Gracchus desires me to read poetry to him before and after our nightly trysts.

His tonsor cuts my hair and arranges it with fragrant oils. I wear fine clothes which my owner enjoys tearing off me when the mood strikes. Time loses all meaning in this place, where the only constants are pain and humiliation. I feel myself slipping away, my sense of self eroding with each new horror inflicted upon me.

But even in the darkest moments, there is a spark within me that refuses to be extinguished. A tiny flame of defiance, of hope, that flickers in the depths of my soul.

I cling to that spark, to the memory of my family and the love we shared. I hold fast to the hope that someday, somehow, I will find a way out of this nightmare. That I will reclaim my humanity, my dignity, my sense of self .

It’s a fragile hope, a whisper in the darkness that threatens to consume me. But it is all I have, the only thing that keeps me from surrendering to despair.