As I waited on the forecourt of the Arrivals Hall, wrapped in my brown wool coat, I took stock. Since Bud had left, I had done a lot of thinking. I wasn't sure that this game was for me. Don't misunderstand me. I certainly had no regrets about the time I had spent with Bud, very much the opposite. I suppose it was the best time I had ever had in my life. That was the problem. You see - it hadn't just been the sex - well, not for me anyway. I expect it was for him, though. He was just so much more than I had bargained for when I started. Funny, intense, tender, vulnerable - all the things I knew him to be but the reality of that all wrapped up in the package that was Bud had left me feeling adrift, a raft on a stormy sea. Did I want or need another man? Was all this sexual braggadocio that I was spouting catching up on me? How could I really lie in another man's arms with the memory of how I felt about Bud in my mind? Perhaps I wasn't cut out for this game.

And then there was Terry. Don't even get me started on that one. Old Sigmund Freud would have thrown up his hands in despair if he had access to my dreams. I rarely closed my eyes without his image appearing and yet I was keeping my distance from him whilst all the time taunting him from afar. Could someone explain that to me? But I had asked for Maximus and it struck me now that he was probably the last man in the world I should be seeing. I couldn't cope with myself, never mind the most imposing work of manhood ever put together. Now he was really going to fuse my circuits.

But somewhere I detected that I saw in Maximus a refuge. You see, I'm not sure how well I cope with the modern world. I don't think I understand its ambivalences very well. But back in my Classical retreat where order, form and harmony reign, I feel more assured. Life then may have been bloody and brutal but one always knew where one stood - it was not necessary to create a philosophy for oneself. You had your place and you stuck to it. Society would judge you on the honour with which you carried out your lot in life. I wondered whether the days Max and I spent together might be more a tutelage than an affair. I simply wanted to talk to him and understand at first hand how he dealt with his presence in this shallow and transitory world of ours - and how did a man of his loyalty and self control accept the lifestyle he was currently enjoying.

I wasn't as nervous as I thought I would be. Smiling I recalled the effect Bud's sudden arrival had made on me. No, I was over that hysterical panic now. Officer White had certainly calmed me down and shown me the possibility of the imagination when it materialises. However I wish I could say that my bed had benefited. The damage done to that was fatal and I had had to buy a solid king-sized divan when I realised the general was coming. Because when and if he did, I suspected he might be even harder on the springs. In the middle of that wry thought, I suddenly realised that Maximus was there. He was standing quietly at the exit. I saw him scan the crowd and in a few seconds his eyes rested on me. I hadn't moved or shown any acknowledgement but I knew he knew. He held me in his eyes and began to move towards me.

I hadn't realised that he wasn't really as tall as he appeared on the screen, nor even was he as broad. Modern dress - jeans, white shirt and leather jacket- slimmed his bulk and did not accentuate his war-hardened muscles as the tunic or battle armour had once done. His hair was slightly longer, a curl showing and his beard more trimmed - he no longer seemed the archetypal Roman. But as he passed through the crowds of families welcoming loved ones, he seemed to exude a presence, far greater than his size; people automatically stepped back to let him pass, even raised their eyes to stare at him in a place where no one normally ever remarks a stranger. Men seemed to sense something and back off, women seemed to sniff the breeze and loosen at the sight of him. But he was either unaware or completely familiar with the situation for he paid it no mind.

As he approached I remained as still as a statue, like Virgil's fawn caught in the huntsman's gaze. The little deer knows that it has been caught in his sight but has no power to respond and must wait in quivering paroxysms for the inevitable bolt. His face betrayed no emotion, nor did mine. We simply assessed the other in a curious but not inimical stare.

"Melissa." I had not expected that. I had thought he would speak in English or maybe call me Domina. But not Melissa. It was an unlooked for tenderness; the Roman equivalent of calling me cherie. He had used Greek and called me 'little honey bee' although the translation loses much and makes it seems puerile and sentimental in English. In Greek it carries much more resonance and passion than that- with the hint of the bee sting in it-  the very sibilance of it has erotic force in any man's voice but, in Maximus' deep and gravelly tone, it ran like flood torrent over a mountain stream, awakening the Spring.

I bowed my head a fraction in acknowledgement and wondered why I had done that. "Dominus!" I whispered.

Maximus shook his head. " Maximus."

"Ummidia."

"May I call you Max?" A smile. "Certe."

"Then I am Uma." 

He bowed his head."Bene. Let's cut the crap. It's great to be here. Let's chill." He grinned as my mouth dropped open and I stared at his command of colloquial expression. "I learnt my English in the States. Don't expect Shakespeare, Uma."

"We don't speak like Shakespeare. And how do you know Shakespeare? And school kids say chill, Max, not grown up generals. And are you taking the piss? "

"I think I guess what you mean by that - seeing as it is not your modern habit to gather urine for the purposes of laundry. We did have a similar use of the word in my day..." he was clearly teasing and his eyes were dancing; in an instant I knew that I had fallen on my feet again. My subconscious instinct had been correct. Maximus was exactly what I needed.

I led him to the car park and he threw his carry-on casually into the boot. "You want to drive?" I asked. He shook his head. I was surprised. I expected men like him to always take the driving seat but he seemed unconcerned; I couldn't imagine Bud or Terry reacting that way. Perhaps he didn't drive? But I doubted that was the case either. Perhaps he was tired.

We didn't speak much at first as we hit the M56 and headed north. It was when I took the M60 that he suddenly looked up sharply and I caught his expression.

"What it is, Max." I asked.

"I have been here before," was his simple but cryptic reply.

"To England?"

He shook his head. "Britannia." This is near the road to Deva. I recognise the river."

I was stunned. Deva or Chester - once the greatest fort in Roman Britain, later the seat of a great medieval earldom - was now a pretty historic town of little significance. The river was the Mersey. Ferry across the Mersey. Max had perhaps taken a ferry across this river almost two millennia before Gerry or the Beatles! What a thought!

"Mamucium castra. It just occurred to me. Is that Manchester?" He asked, now beaming widely.

"Yes! You knew the fort there?" He nodded. "They are excavating it now. I once worked there as part of the team."

"I once lost a seal there. Perhaps you found it?" He giggled at the notion and shook his head. "Quam absurdum!" We both burst out laughing.

It broke the ice and we spent the rest of the journey in idle chatter about the region and how it had gone through many incarnations from his day to reach where it was now. He told me a little of why he had been there and what it had been like.

The mood changed when we reached my home. The nearer I came to my own territory, the more I wondered at what I was about to do. Or was I? He had made no obvious move towards me and I had not given him any encouragement. By now Bud and I would have been sleeping off the after effects of several bruising sessions.

I had prepared a meal and assembled it while he settled in and took a shower. It was dark already - November -and the nights close in early. The flat was warm and cosy but I expected he would find the contrast with California an unpleasant shock. When he entered the kitchen he was bare-chested, buttoning up a light shirt as he came through.

"Won't you be cold?" I asked.

He smiled. "None of you know the meaning of cold! My bones are inured to it. In fact I find it hard to stay cool. May I open a window?" The cold November chill poured in and he took a breath. "I can feel winter on the air. There will be frost soon." I marvelled at his instinct- the radio news had just announced much the same thing for the next day.

We ate. I had deliberated at length what he might like to eat and settled for what we do best. Roast beef, Yorkshire pudding and the rest. He would not have had that in California unless Iz was trying out recipes for Jack. But I spared Maximus a suet pudding. Apple and blackberry pie from the autumn fruits (I  had begged it from my Mother but I didn't tell him that! ) all washed down by a fine claret and a Muscat dessert wine.

"Coffee?" He pulled a face. "Tea?" 

"Water. That will suffice." 

I tutted. "Perhaps a cognac?" 

He smiled. "Yes. I have taken quite a liking to that!" 

We carried our Cognac through to the lounge and sat before the roaring fire. To be honest it isn't a real log fire (could you see me cleaning out the grate?) merely one of those natural gas fakes but it has the same effect; it creates a focal point to draw one in. He settled on an armchair and I put on some music before sitting on the rug before him. I wondered what he would think of my selection. I played John Harle's Terror and Magnificence, an amazing blend of medieval music with modern saxophone that had an ethereal and throbbing quality which I suspected was close to the music he may once have heard. It made him smile although he did not comment.

As the heady beat and soaring horn created a savage and beautiful rhythm, we let the smooth warm brandy slip inside and warm the blood. The heat from the fire was sleep- inducing and seemed to lull us both into a companionable silence. It was unlike me - I normally have a nervous instinct to fill silence with idle chatter. I wondered if he might fall asleep - it was likely that he might succumb to the effects of jetlag. I sat at his feet while he stroked my hair tenderly as if I were a little lap dog- when he suddenly spoke.

"Why me?"

I blushed, unsure how to reply. "That's what Bud said."

"When?"

"When we surfaced for air!  Don't ask! Actually I'd rather you didn't mention him," I was surprised at my tart answer.

He put down the glass and lent forward on his knees and then rubbed his hand over his beard and sighed deeply. "Quid est? Do you wish to talk about what's bothering you?"

My first instinct was to say 'No' but when I opened my mouth to speak, other words came tumbling out. I told him of the extraordinary effect that Bud's arrival had had on me and that I now wondered whether I had the emotional baggage to allow me to continue with this game. And then I asked him the question that I really wanted to know.

"You are a man famed for self discipline and loyalty. Your feeling for your wife is well known. How can you justify those principles with this game?"

He rested back on the chair and looked to the ceiling as if he could see through the mists of time to long ago. "You know a lot about my world but there is much that the historians cannot uncover. We lived in two worlds and the only one you have uncovered is the public face - the one that we chose to show to the world for posterity. But ambiguity was as present in our lives as it is in yours.  Exempli gratia: I know the love and closeness of wife and family and carry that high in my esteem. I knew the passion of desire and eroticism with mistresses. I enjoyed the uncomplicated relief of countless camp whores. I have even (and it is to my shame but such were the times we lived in) taken my conqueror's rights from captured women on battlefields over the dead bodies of their kin. I have also spent many pleasant evenings at the dinner tables of friends and been entertained by their well read and educated wives- only to see them retire whilst I joined my companions in a commissatio and took my pleasure openly on those same couches with willing slaves and dancing girls. Are you surprised that Maximus can admit to all that and feel no shame?"

"Meaning?"

"Come, come. You know exactly what I mean. I was a man in a man's world with the freedom to behave as befitted my rank and station. You have been given that same liberty in this game. Freedom to explore your heart's desire with no fear of consequence."

"That is not possible. There is always a consequence to someone. I'm sure your wife would not have enjoyed the thought of your other women even if she accepted it."

"Actually she would have seen it differently but no matter. Do you know The Bacchae?"

"Euripides' play?"

"The same. What is it really about?"

I thought of the story of the Greek women and their release every few years from the confines of their closed world to partake of wild orgiastic rituals on the hillsides around their villages. These Dionysiac rites seemed to act as a valve to ease the tensions of society in one mighty burst where we would suggest a psychoanalyst, a support group, yoga or a dose of Prozac. It was a dangerous practice but one that mostly appeared to have worked - except for a few notorious examples when unsuspecting males strayed on the scene and drove the Maenad women to unspeakable acts of revenge on mankind. But I ventured an answer.

"I suppose it shows how the ancient world dealt with stress and guilt. How a male society showed its real fear of the power of women unleashed. Of the need to taste freedom unrestrained so that one may then accept the burden of civilisation."

He nodded. "There is your answer. In this game you will experience a freedom from all the rules and conventions that govern you. You can taste what is in your secret mind and no one will condemn you. When you return to the real world, you will be calm and at peace with yourself. Each man you meet will reveal a little more of what is hidden deep within you, just as you will find in him, qualities and desires that he may not have known he had."

"So I should simply reach out and take my heart's desire and forget the past and the future- simply live in the moment and experience?"

"It depends. What is your heart's desire? What do you wish from me? What do I wish from you? Is there a common ground?" He asked, incisive as ever.

"For that I have to trust you enough to open up," I replied, unsure.

"Do you? Trust me?"

I wondered. Looking up at him, his steady green eyes clear and without guile, I suddenly knew that I did. I hardly knew this man but I knew that he would never harm me and through him I could reach a place I wished to be. No one else but he could lead me there.

I sat in silence and stared at the fire, thinking and then I made my bid. "Maximus, I wish to experience the role of a woman of your time. I don't want to be a modern girl with you. I want to learn if there is any power in a passive female role. I have never served a man or offered him myself to take as he sees fit. But perhaps you don't wish for that."

I heard his laugh, deep and warm. "Do you think there is any man born who doesn't wish for that? It is a natural role for me to take (although I am more open to the suggestions of liberated ladies than you might think!). What do you want from me - to treat you as my prize? To know what would happen to a woman sent to a general as his plaything? Do you trust me enough to play that game as it really was? Because it wasn't a game, my lady, and once it begins it may not be entirely to your taste."

I shivered in the warmth of the firelight. I had feared what a man like Hando might reveal about my inner psyche but suddenly I wondered if this might not be the greatest test of all. But as much as it frightened me, it also made me see the incredible possibilities of this unique experiment.

"me manda, dominus!" I answered.

He raised his glass and slightly inclined it in my direction; I realised he wanted another shot. I knelt at his side and poured; he gave no acknowledgement that he had even seen me.

The CD was still playing and the piece was the Shakespeare's "Oh Mistress Mine." 

Maximus sat back and then raised his hand curtly, almost dismissively. I think he wanted me to stand, so I did. He made the movement again and I wondered whether he wanted me to dance.

"Do you want me to..."

"Tace!" He simply told me to shut up. His tone was harsh and cutting. He made the motion again and so I began to sway to the music. It was a haunting melody with equally haunting words - a piece I had always loved, sung by none other than Elvis Costello, a strange departure from his normal style:

O mistress mine! Where are you roaming?
Oh, stay and hear: your love is coming
That can sing both high and low.
Trip no further, pretty sweeting
Journey's end in lovers' meeting,
Every wise man's sons doth know

             ********

What is love? 'Tis not hereafter
Present mirth hath present laughter,
What's to come is still unsure.
In delay there lies no plenty
Then come and kiss me, sweet and twenty,
Youth's a stuff will not endure.

It was not difficult to close my eyes and give myself over to the sentiments and the languor of the music. Pulling down my hair, I let it fall around my face and ran my hands through it as I threw back my neck and bared my throat. I was wearing a loose floor-length linen dress; my shoulders were bare and the soft material clung to my curves. On my feet were little Indian style jewelled sandals. Through half closed eyes, I watched Maximus as I moved sensuously before him, tracing the outline of my body with my hands and caressing my breasts and belly. He was staring at me with an impenetrable expression; it was hard to tell if he was pensive, uninterested or aroused. Or perhaps he was all three. All the while I moved, he carried on drinking slowly from the balloon glass and swirling the contents thoughtfully.

His index finger raised from the glass, he made an uplifting motion as if calling someone to him. Then I realised. He wished me to remove my clothes. For a second I felt annoyed that he should wave a finger so contemptuously as if he merely wished to view and might not even regard what he saw as worthy of his attentions. I straightened my shoulders and raised my chin but thought I saw a flicker, no, a mere shadow of a smile on his lips as if he had recognised the sudden flare of spirit in my eyes.

I put my hand on the fine shoulder straps and lowered them down as I continued to dance. Somehow it did not seem as absurd as it might when you read this description. I was stripping for him and gyrating like a pole dancer but it felt like something quite different. I was a woman seeking the one thing I had to offer to this man - that he might regard my body sufficiently pleasing to take his pleasure from me and I would grovel at his feet should he accept me. It should have been the ultimate humiliation to be displayed like a purchase in a shop window but it was not. I felt more aroused at his casual indifference than if he had been overtly ogling me.

My eyes strayed to his groin but, surprisingly, there was no telltale sign. Bud would have been out of his pants and into mine long ago by now. Surely Maximus was virile enough to have a hard on - or perhaps he was sterling enough to control it? What was in his mind? Was he running though the dispositions of the legions or the quartermaster's requirements to stave off arousal? I decided to be more proactive. He was not going to sit there and take no notice of me!

Allowing the dress to slither down to my feet, I stood before him dressed only in a satin bra and shorts. I advanced towards him presuming he would want to touch and he merely circled with his finger- he wished for me to turn around. I did so but when I turned back again he was idly flipping through a copy of the Spectator that had been lying on the side table. I stopped and waited but he seemed to have forgotten my presence. What was he playing at?

I sat on his knee and pulled the magazine from his hands running my fingers though his hair. He knocked my hand away with a casual gesture and stood up so that I fell back onto the floor. Sitting in amazement, I watched him walk to the glass doors, slide them open and walk out onto the balcony from where he appeared to urinate onto the ground below. Fortunately my lounge looks out onto the back of the building and no one would have observed his crude behaviour.

When he returned, quite clearly zipping himself up, he walked to where I was sitting, dragged me ungraciously by the hand and pulled me to the bedroom. When we entered, he tossed me down upon the bed and proceeded to strip. Maximus just took his clothes off and stood there naked, hands on hips and said:

"Me fellate!" in a gruff grunt.

That was it. "Just a moment...." I began, but it is hard to finish a sentence when a man of his strength jerks you to your knees and fills your mouth with his sizeable manhood - and as it was still not fully hard, I realised that there was probably even more to come. I had wanted to grovel and be chosen - well I was having my wish. But it wasn't quite as pleasant as I had expected. But I did what I was ordered and gave the general a blow job.

The guy has incredible control. Bud would have been on his back, knees buckling and very vocal by that time. Maximus said nothing, didn't move; I might as well have been polishing his shoes as giving intimate relief to his penis. Determined to make him react, I turned up the heat, dropping my head to take each ball and suck gently on it, massaging the soft skin of his inner thighs with my thumbs, rubbing my face into his thick coarse hair and finally trying the old finger trick but apart from a slight tensing, he still showed no outward sign of his emotions.

His hand reached down and he pulled away from me. Flipping the front fastener of my bra (he certainly has picked up that skill!), he threw it from me and rubbed his very hard cock between my breasts - I could see that he was ready; even he could not disguise the weeping fluid seeping from his cock head. He was watching my reaction and suddenly I began to clue in to the game (about time do I hear you say?) How would a dancing girl respond? I writhed back and thrust my breasts forward, capturing his dick between my tits and pushing them together with my hands to trap him inside. He jerked into the valley and I heard the first slight grunt as he pulled back and thrust again. My master was becoming interested. It was up to me to make his experience good enough to call me back.

I raised my eyes to his as if asking for permission; he pulled me to my feet. With one fast movement of his right hand he grasped the back of my neck and forced his mouth on mine, plundering it roughly with his tongue but I let him have free rein and did not struggle. In fact I felt myself go limp in his grip and he had to steady his hold by placing a hand at my hip. This brought me closer; I could feel his erection battering against my lower belly so I sank against him and undulated my hips to stimulate him further.

At that he grunted. Then he moved. Like lightening he raised my right leg and wrapped it round his hip, pushed me back against the bedroom wall and slipped his cock inside the leg of the loose-fit satin shorts to rake up and down on my wet sex. He didn't enter but aroused himself against me, kneading at my breasts as he frotted my cunt. I put my hands to his head and ran my fingers through his hair. The sudden tender touch brought his face to mine and he kissed me again, but this time with more desire and less brutality. His resolve was loosening.

"Domine...." I gasped.

"Femina," his voice was breaking as he jerked his hips against my core.

"Amor."

"Melissa." 

Wriggling out of my shorts, I reached down to him and grasped his angry cock and brought it to my opening. With a hop, I threw my other leg around his waist and he instinctively caught me, I hitched and he found his entry. A gasp from me. A deep guttural groan from him. He pulled back and came again, this time rotating slightly until I relaxed and eased him in. Then the final push- my back hit the wall and his head hit my womb. Both of us cried out.

He spun around with remarkable dexterity and we fell together onto the bed. I thanked the gods for the new divan - it took quite an impact as we descended onto it. His cock slipped out and he rolled to my side. Even Roman generals seem not to want to suffocate their bed mates when they land on them. His hand swept down my body and his palm opened my legs. His fingers splayed my lips and explored me intimately as he buried his head in my shoulder and nibbled on the tender skin of my neck. I was suddenly under siege and it felt like a dam was breaking about me. My general was unleashing his only particular hell on my body and my fortifications were being breached.

"Maximus, Max, Oh God, Max...."

He just groaned and continued the assault. I could not escape him, his rough hands could not be evaded, his thigh straddled my legs; there was no hiding place from the fingers that drove into my cunt or flickered mercilessly over my clit. I bucked and writhed, he simply applied more force, I begged him to stop, he laughed a wicked chuckle and assailed me even more.

"OH MY GOD!" I screamed in frenzy as I came, flinging out an arm and raking it down his naked back, "OH MY GOD!" I repeated as he threw me back and bent my legs and drank from my weeping hole as his tongue sent further shock ways racing through me. "OH MY GOD!" I thundered as he rose and thrust himself into me, pounded me into the bed, his head thrown back, his facial muscles twitching, the cords of his neck taut with effort.

His cock powered into me relentlessly, wave after wave of thrust, a volley of artillery that no woman could withstand. I came with a hideous shriek like some wild banshee and my wail was harmonised by his deep rumble as he began to shudder and tremble and shot his full ballistae into me like a warm wet tidal current.

Long after he was spent, he rocked back and forth against me, moaning and lost in his orgasm. I held him to me and stroked back his hair trying to work out when this had passed from a curious game of historical re-enactment to a coupling of primal force and complete abandon. I was also not sure if the game was even over yet.

"Maximus?" I whispered tentatively as he finally began to stop whimpering.

"Hmmmm?" It was not the sound I expected from the awesome general.

"What happened?"

He stirred and rolled over on to his back. Suddenly he did not look like a mighty warrior or an epic hero. He just looked like a man who had been well pleasured and had given more than enough service back. His hair was ruffled and his eyes were glazed; he looked sleepy and boyish. The contrast between that and his impressive naked body sprawled out on my bed was enough to send shivers through my shattered nervous system once again. But he responded, sitting up against the pillows and rubbing his eyes with his hands to clear his head.

"We let go. That is the point. You gave into me and in doing so we drove each other to a wild and dangerous shore. But we survived and made it to the quiet sheltered waters beyond. Remember The Bacchae, Uma? The incredible loosening of control that carries you away when you hand over rational thought and let your instinctual passions drive you instead?"

"You frightened me. You were so controlled."

"That was our way. We trained ourselves to repress our emotions but knew that there had to be a release mechanism. Our release was always very dangerous but quick and usually came in a frenzied violent outburst: the heady ritual of secret worship, the blood letting on sacrificial incense - drenched altars, the breathtaking violence of the amphitheatre, the brutal clash of hand-to-hand warfare. Our world was one of cataclysmic loosenings after periods of tight control."

"Was it better?"

"Not a very historical perspective, Uma? Rather subjective, don't you think?"

"OK - so it was different. Words like better or worse, right or wrong have no place in the equation?"

"Not really. I see many bestialities in your world which we would not have tolerated. But more people live better lives now. So I judge that the modern world must be a more hopeful way of existence. And no man is another's slave."

"Didn't the Greeks believe that what was good was beauty and what was bad was ugliness. You Romans believed that good meant what was correct and honourable and what was bad was what was not acceptable to society's norms. Both those views deny the rights of man. They cared nothing for concepts like mercy, forgiveness, charity, the poor and the weak."

"We were pagans. The concepts of the Judeao - Christian were not part of our world - well, not until later. Even in my day Christians were at best pathetic dreamers or at worst serious enemies of the state. But we did not discriminate against colour, creed or religion. Our wars were not fought under the banner of religious intolerance or political philosophies. We conquered because it was our right to civilise the world. Within the empire people were free to worship as they chose. We brought peace and civilisation to a hostile barbaric world. There is a nobility in that that the modern world lacks."

"As long as they shared your world view! But what if they wanted to be free! Come on, Max, look what happened here in Britain! The mediocre threw their lot in with the Romans and willingly destroyed their own cultures. The brave were rooted out and killed. The empire was no perfect structure. It turned age old cultures into homogenous boring sameness- every city in the Roman world was just an identical carbon copy of a Roman fort!"

"You mean like your western civilisation has bombarded the world with its own cultural shallowness? Big Macs, Hollywood movies, baseball caps, mindless pop music, TV replacing ancient art forms, the disappearance of traditional cuisines and languages? One day the world will be one great Disneyland!" I couldn't argue with that. It was one of my own particular bees in the bonnet. The Romans might have done it with a sword but the West was guilty of an equally devastating cultural imperialism.

"OK. You got me there. But it blew itself away in the end because it could not withstand the vibrancy and passion of that barbaric fringe. It imploded on its own empty sterility. Outlived its purpose and its times." I knew as I said it what his answer would be.

"It lasted a thousand years- there must have been something right. It brought peace and prosperity to wastelands; education, medicine, law, infrastructure, communications, science, technology. It is the modern world. Without Greece and Rome your medieval world would have sunk into the mire of its own ignorance...."

"You been watching the Life of Brian ...?"

He looked in askance at me. Was there actually something he hadn't read or watched since he had arrived in the twenty first century?

"I must dig out the video... 'What have the Romans ever done for us?" It's a comedy sketch in a satirical film about the Romans in Palestine. There is also a hilarious scene with a centurion called 'Bigus Dickus'- the Jews keep laughing in his face ( they wouldn't have tried that one on you, Maximus , would they?)... And then the bit where the Jewish rebels are scrawling ' Romans go home' on a wall and they keep getting the Latin case endings wrong, so this Roman soldier with shit for brains corrects their Latin and tells them to write it out correctly a hundred times on the wall..."

 We both burst out laughing - I was not sure if he understood what I was talking about as I had lapsed into one of my usual streams of consciousness, verbal diarrhoea moments. But he surprised me, as he often did, by saying: "That reminds me of a scene from Plautus...can't remember which play now but it was hilarious...."

We lay together in each other's arms, chatting amicably, gentle hands caressing each other and many thoughts on our minds. At last I dared to return to the subject of the game. "This Game we play. Is it a safe version of a Bacchantic frenzy?"

"Perhaps. Do you feel freer now? Are you ready to experience what this unique experiment has to offer? How do you feel?"

"I still feel the way I did about Bud. Yet now I want to discover love with you. And part of me wants other things as well..."

"Meaning?" He smiled and lifted up my chin with his hand. "Honesty?"

I blushed but didn't evade the question this time.

"I want to be a Jezebel. I want to have a purely physical experience with a man. I want to taste brute force and uncontrollable masculinity."

"So Cort and Hando are on your dance card, are they?" He teased. "But what about the one you really want?"

I sat up in bed and hugged my knees to my chest, burying my head against my legs. "I'm getting nearer. But ...I don't think I can stand the jealousy. If I can't have him to myself, I'm not sure I want him at all."

"You will work something out.  We always do. When you are ready you will know."

I turned and watched him as he lay back against the headboard, one leg straight, the other bent, his hand resting upon his knee. He looked relaxed and in command again. I realised that he was reclining as if on a couch and it was a natural position for him.  I have never seen a man so at ease in this exposed position. He could achieve this pose with elegance despite being naked and wearing nothing but the leather thong around his neck that still bore a charm. Watching his handsome and manly face, eyes smiling and head tilted to observe me, I felt the warmth of comradeship and shared pleasure. Now I knew this man and he knew me. We had forged a bond. It would be good.

"Some wine, my lord?" He bowed his head in assent and I scurried off to bring his requirement. Handing him a crystal glass, I poured out a glass of claret and he held it in his hands while I returned the bottle to the table. He beckoned me to lie beside him and he tilted back my mouth and bade me sip.

"I never treated women like the other men did. It was never my way or my pleasure. I had enough of domination on the battlefield. It is always weak men who treat the vulnerable with cruelty- but surely Bud taught you that? But I still kept my Stoic image in public - even with the ladies. Only the women knew my weaknesses once the tent flap was drawn closed."

"Your weaknesses? I haven't seen much signs of those yet, my lord." I giggled.

"But you will. It's time to play my game now," he replied arching his eyebrows and nuzzling my neck. "But Uma...definitely no cuffs? I've had my fair share of chains."

I giggled again. "I haven't got them anyway. Bud wouldn't leave them with me. He had plans for them elsewhere, I think, now that he has got the nerve to admit...."

"See - the effects of loosening the inhibitions!" Max stated knowingly.

"You still haven't told me what your weakness is." I reminded him.

Maximus grinned. "I think you will work it out." He drained the wine, lay back and stretched. I wondered. What would it be? Perhaps he longs for an intimate massage like he would have received in the bathhouse, a balm to his weary muscles? Perhaps he enjoys love beneath the stars in a natural environment (not in November, Max, no chance!) Surely he is not into being dominated? I don't think that I could cope with Max on a leash. And then it struck me. It had to be.

"You mean you want to...?" 

I never finished the sentence. But now I know the answer to one notion I had hotly debated in the past. That formed the basis for another interesting discussion we enjoyed later that evening. A very enlightening conversation indeed!