A Day of Fire: A Novel of Pompeii by Kate Quinn, Ben Kane, Stephanie Dray, Michelle Moran, E. Knight, Sophie Perinot, Vicky Alvear Shecter Page B
Authors: Kate Quinn, Ben Kane, Stephanie Dray, Michelle Moran, E. Knight, Sophie Perinot, Vicky Alvear Shecter
Tags: Historical fiction, Historical, Literature & Fiction, Thrillers, Amazon, Retail, Genre Fiction, Mystery; Thriller & Suspense, Thrillers & Suspense
Ads: Link
empty and shuttered when they arrive two evenings from now?”
Sabinus had not thought about the guests, dozens of them, from all the most important families in the city. And that realization sobered him. Truly, this has become a mania with me. I must master myself and my thoughts before I am made an irredeemable fool.
AEMILIA
“WAKE up, sleepyhead! When you are a married woman you will not be able to lie in so late, I assure you.” My friend Julilla laughs lightly as she pulls the covers from me. She is hugely swollen with child and seems to think this fact makes her even more of an expert on a wife’s role. I am about to say something to that purpose but realize that Mother, who stands just behind my friend, is unlikely to appreciate such a comment. She urges me to mimic my friend’s behavior nearly as often as she encourages me to emulate former Empress Livia, deified and held up to Roman girls everywhere as the personification of ideal womanhood.
A whole day to make me ready—Father warned me yesterday. I normally love beauty rituals, but today they will remind me of tomorrow’s inevitable wedding. And for the first time a slave’s tweezers will pluck the hair from more than my eyebrows. They will remove the hair that has guarded the entrance to my virginity since I became a woman. Thanks to a private conversation with Julilla, I have an idea this process will prove painful. I wince at the thought.
It turns out the pain I anticipated was nothing compared to the exquisite agony of the actual experience—possibly the first time my fertile imagination has proved insufficient. How grateful I am for the plunge into the cold pool! As we move to the tepidarium , I find myself walking very carefully.
“You think you are sore down there now,” Julilla says with a knowing look. “After tomorrow night when Sabinus claims you …”
I expect Mother to shush her. Never mind the graffiti I’ve read over the years on Pompeii’s walls, or the gossip of slaves I’ve overheard, Mother generally permits no discussion of acts of intimacy in my presence. But this time, as the slaves begin to oil and scrape me, Mother gives Julilla a look of encouragement.
“You know how blessed I feel to be expecting, Aemilia, but if you choose not to undertake motherhood too early there are things you can do to defer it.” Julilla strokes an absent hand over her belly. I know full well how important the babe inside is to my friend. She lost her first, miscarried dead, and was devastated.
Mother nods. I feel uncomfortable. Not so much because of the allusion to that which must precede motherhood—over the past weeks as my attraction to Faustus awakened my body, I have found myself eager to explore such acts—but because I do not wish to think of Sabinus in that way. Do not want to imagine him naked. Do not wish to wonder, as I find myself doing, if he looks like the phallic door knockers, symbols of prosperity, scattered liberally throughout Pompeii.
“You can buy little packets of elephant dung imported from the east in the marketplace, if you know the right stalls.” Julilla bites her lip. “You place such a pessary inside yourself before your husband comes to you.”
“Or,” Mother chimes in, “many women have excellent luck by squatting and sneezing after their husbands are finished.”
“And a man does not have to …” Julilla glances at Mother, her face coloring. “There are other places he can put himself.”
One of the slaves working on me titters. I do not know where to look. All I can think of is the graffiti in my father’s cellar—of Faustus putting his organ into the slave girl from behind, and worse still of his suggesting such a thing to me! Thank the gods I cannot imagine Sabinus proposing such an act. He is far too reserved. A serious man. I find myself glad of that.
“But remember,” Mother says, “though you may permit such things, you must show disgust in them. You are a
Sabinus had not thought about the guests, dozens of them, from all the most important families in the city. And that realization sobered him. Truly, this has become a mania with me. I must master myself and my thoughts before I am made an irredeemable fool.
AEMILIA
“WAKE up, sleepyhead! When you are a married woman you will not be able to lie in so late, I assure you.” My friend Julilla laughs lightly as she pulls the covers from me. She is hugely swollen with child and seems to think this fact makes her even more of an expert on a wife’s role. I am about to say something to that purpose but realize that Mother, who stands just behind my friend, is unlikely to appreciate such a comment. She urges me to mimic my friend’s behavior nearly as often as she encourages me to emulate former Empress Livia, deified and held up to Roman girls everywhere as the personification of ideal womanhood.
A whole day to make me ready—Father warned me yesterday. I normally love beauty rituals, but today they will remind me of tomorrow’s inevitable wedding. And for the first time a slave’s tweezers will pluck the hair from more than my eyebrows. They will remove the hair that has guarded the entrance to my virginity since I became a woman. Thanks to a private conversation with Julilla, I have an idea this process will prove painful. I wince at the thought.
It turns out the pain I anticipated was nothing compared to the exquisite agony of the actual experience—possibly the first time my fertile imagination has proved insufficient. How grateful I am for the plunge into the cold pool! As we move to the tepidarium , I find myself walking very carefully.
“You think you are sore down there now,” Julilla says with a knowing look. “After tomorrow night when Sabinus claims you …”
I expect Mother to shush her. Never mind the graffiti I’ve read over the years on Pompeii’s walls, or the gossip of slaves I’ve overheard, Mother generally permits no discussion of acts of intimacy in my presence. But this time, as the slaves begin to oil and scrape me, Mother gives Julilla a look of encouragement.
“You know how blessed I feel to be expecting, Aemilia, but if you choose not to undertake motherhood too early there are things you can do to defer it.” Julilla strokes an absent hand over her belly. I know full well how important the babe inside is to my friend. She lost her first, miscarried dead, and was devastated.
Mother nods. I feel uncomfortable. Not so much because of the allusion to that which must precede motherhood—over the past weeks as my attraction to Faustus awakened my body, I have found myself eager to explore such acts—but because I do not wish to think of Sabinus in that way. Do not want to imagine him naked. Do not wish to wonder, as I find myself doing, if he looks like the phallic door knockers, symbols of prosperity, scattered liberally throughout Pompeii.
“You can buy little packets of elephant dung imported from the east in the marketplace, if you know the right stalls.” Julilla bites her lip. “You place such a pessary inside yourself before your husband comes to you.”
“Or,” Mother chimes in, “many women have excellent luck by squatting and sneezing after their husbands are finished.”
“And a man does not have to …” Julilla glances at Mother, her face coloring. “There are other places he can put himself.”
One of the slaves working on me titters. I do not know where to look. All I can think of is the graffiti in my father’s cellar—of Faustus putting his organ into the slave girl from behind, and worse still of his suggesting such a thing to me! Thank the gods I cannot imagine Sabinus proposing such an act. He is far too reserved. A serious man. I find myself glad of that.
“But remember,” Mother says, “though you may permit such things, you must show disgust in them. You are a
Similar Books
