Slave To Rome

CHAPTER FOUR - TRUTH

My feet carried me slowly over to Livia, and my hands shook a little as I undid her breast plate, and laid it on the table beside her. I took off the rest of her outer armor, and laid it on the same table. Next I unlaced her under leathers and peeled them off of her, freeing the top half of her body. I tried my best not to look at her when I removed her belt and her skirt, revealing her lower half. Then I went to my knees to remove her boots, and put them off to the side.

It killed me to do this, to undress her like this like she wasn’t capable of doing it herself. I really had no idea how long I was going to last until I snapped, but I tried. I tried so hard because of Tura, and my promise to keep her safe.

I stood to full height, averting my eyes to her naked form. Livia stepped into the warm bath, and submerged herself in the water. She looked up at me and said, “You hate me, don’t you?”

I didn’t know what the appropriate answer to that question was, wether she wanted me to tell the truth or lie, so I stayed silent.

“Answer me,” she said, in a softer voice than I’ve ever heard her use. “Truthfully.”

“Yes,” I answered, looking at her. “I hate you.”

“You will for the rest of your life,” she said, as she rubbed the water over her arms.

I stayed silent. I didn’t understand what was going on. She said it in such a tiered voice, like it was something inevitable that had come time and time again, and that she was sick of.

“Sit,” she said, and motioned to the side of the tub next to her.

I sat down in the place she chose for me, and she said, “What do you think of me?” She looked up and repeated her request from last time. “Again, I want the truth. Whenever I ask you a question, Amazon, I always want the truth.”

I took a breath, this was the weirdest conversation I think I had ever had in my entire life. “I think you’re the type that feels so lost and helpless that you conquer others and spill blood to make you feel powerful,” I said, honestly. Surmising from just her change in attitude here in the bath chamber to how she acted around anyone powerful in the vicinity, it seemed like a valid deduction on her character. Then again, how would I really know?

Livia smiled, a genuine one, not ones filled with hated and blood lust like I had seen previously from her. “Your wiser than I thought, Amazon. I’m impressed. I’m glad I chose to keep you.”

“Wash me,” she said, pointing to the sea sponge. I took it in my hand and submerged it under water, before running it along her back.

Livia leaned forward to give me more room and then said, “You were truthful with me, I appreciate that.”

“You told me to be,” I answered.

Livia gave a small laugh, “You would be surprised how many slaves still give me the answers they think I want, just to get on my good side. It’s pathetic, I think if someone asks you a question and you have an answer they might not approve of, you should speak it anyway.”

“I was taught to be strong willed and to voice my opinions,” I replied.

“That’s why I like Amazons, they give the shit that you throw right back at you.” She looked at me and added, “But you may only do that in privacy with me. In public, you WILL get beaten for it.”

“I’ve noticed,” I said dryly, and Livia laughed.

“But that, there, is why I chose you. I’m so sick of these pathetic girls that grovel at my feet here. I needed someone in my life to tell me the truth.”

I didn’t answer, but started to wash under her arms.

“Get in here with me,” Livia said, and my hand stopped moving. Livia laughed at my frozen stature and said, “I’m not going to kill you, Amazon, I have uses for you still. It’s easier for you to wash me from in here.”

I didn’t really see her logic in that, so I said, “I can still reach everything I need to wash from out here.”

Livia smiled, and I guess it was because I voiced my opinion on the matter. “No, not everything,” she replied with a smirk. My eyebrows raised, did she expect me to wash her... private areas?

“Still,” she went on, “I’d like some company. Join me.”

I rose and started to disrobe. She might be acting differently towards me in here, but I was sure that if I disobeyed a direct order I would get beat. I was still a slave, after all.

Livia watched me carefully as I took off my clothes, and her eyes roamed my naked form. I wish Gina never told me what Livia liked, because now I knew what that look in her eyes was, and it made me slightly uncomfortable.

I stepped into the tub, and submerged myself in the hot water. “See, that wasn’t so horrible, was it?” Livia asked, with a smirk.

“Not yet,” I answered, and Livia laughed again.

She took my hand that held the sea sponge, and rubbed it over her chest, as she helped me wash her front. She moved the sponge lower, over her breasts, and I really couldn’t help myself but stare. She was a beautiful woman, I couldn’t deny that. But it just felt so wrong to just stare at her like that, but yet the way she was holding my hand and moving the sponge over herself, entranced me.

She caught me staring and asked, “Do you like that?”

“Do I like what?” I asked, not understanding what exactly she was referring to.

“The way I look naked,” she clarified.

I stayed silent for a minute and she raised an eyebrow, expecting an answer out of me. “Yes,” I said truthfully, though I almost choked on the answer because I didn’t want to admit it out loud.

“But...?” she asked, knowing there was more that I didn’t say.

“But I hate myself for liking it,” I said.

“Because you hate me?”

“Yes.”

Livia nodded and moved my hand and the sponge lower, submerging it under the water as she ran it over her flat stomach.

“Tell me, Amazon, have you ever been with a man?”

“No,” I answered, and my breathing picked up because I was sure of where this was leading. I started fingering at my necklace nervously as I tried to steady my intake of breath.

Livia moved the sponge lower, over her thighs and continued, “A woman?”

“No,” I answered again.

“What would you say if I told you to touch me?” She asked, and I flushed red.

“I...” I started, trying to ignore where the sponge was probably about to go. “I would ask if it was an order or a request.”

“Would it matter?” She asked me.

“Yes,” I said, “It would.”

“Because you would not do it if it was a request.”

“No, I wouldn’t.” She stopped the sponge almost at the center of her legs, and I breathed a little better.

“Because you hate me,” she stated.

“Yes,” I replied, wondering why she kept going back to me hating her. It was weird.

“What if I promised not to spoil your own chastity?” She asked.

I looked at her, confused. “Why would my chastity matter to you?”

“It matters to you, obviously,” she replied.

I didn’t say anything, and she said, “I want you to touch me, and it’s funny, really.”

I knitted my eyebrows together and asked, “Why is it funny?”

“Because,” Livia said, “I want you to want to touch me.”

“I don’t think that will ever happen,” I replied.

“No, neither do I,” she said, then added as if self analyzing, “I think that’s why I want it so badly.”

“It’s natural to want what you can’t have,” I said.

“I’ve never experienced that,” she replied, honestly.

“You’ve lain with women often, I would assume,” I said, trying to not let on that Gina told me about her private fantasies.

“Yes,” she said, and looked me in the eyes, “All my slaves, all who would do it just because they want to please me. You, however, have no desire to please me.”

“No, I do not.”

Livia looked at me curiously, and then finally moved the sponge that was close to the center of her legs away, and let go of my hand. “This is an odd feeling,” she stated.

“What is?” I asked.

“Wanting someone I can’t have,” she answered.

“Since when have you not taken anything you have ever wanted?” I asked, genuinely curious as to why she just doesn’t have me, not that I wanted it.

“I always have,” she said in sort of an airy voice as she laid her head back on the edge of the tub.

“Then I’m confused.”

“So am I, Amazon,” she answered, which didn’t really answer me at all.

Livia brought her head back off the tub to look at my confused face and she said, “You do not understand why I want you so badly.”

“Because you can’t have me willingly,” I said.

“No...” she said, “Yes, that’s what drives it more now. But no.”

“Then why?” I asked her.

“I don’t know,” she said casually. Then she shook her head, apparently done with that conversation. “I want you to stay the night with me here, and not in the slave quarters.”

“For what purpose?” I asked, wondering if she was going to try to lay with me regardless.

“To sleep,” she answered simply.

I looked at her, and I didn’t know what to make of her. For the last couple days she was a savage monster, horrible and cruel to all around her. And now, alone with her in this tub, she was strangely quiet and sort of disconnected, saying everything with such a casual air about her, like nothing mattered, she just needed to speak.

I nodded, and said, “If that’s what you want.”

“Oh yes,” she said in a slight monotone, “I want that very much.”

TBC....