Savage Pleasures of the Colosseum

Standing in the chariot in which she
and two excessively armed guards awaited
their signal to enter the arena,
Drusilla took stock, not for the first time,
of her situation.

So this was it.
Her last night on earth.
A bit unfair, really.
She’d only joined the Christians
because…well, because she’d hoped
that it might help her moderate
her appetites for certain activities
whose excesses had, of late,
threatened to bring shame upon her house.
Before she could ascertain
the efficacy of her prayers to the Trinity, however,
she’d been swept up in the latest crackdown
and sentenced to the Colosseum.
And here she was.

The susurrations of the crowd
rose to a roar as the chariot emerged
into the arena and torchlight blazed
over her naked body, oiled
to perfection by the prison matron.
Her breasts wobbled like firm jelly
as the chariot began its circuit
around the sawdusted floor of the arena,
and her nipples, pink and proud, stood out
as if saluting the emperor himself.

The crowd roared its approval
as one of the guards
hooked his hand beneath her thigh
and hoisted her leg up high,
exposing her freshly shaven pussy.
The matron’s application of oil
had been very thorough indeed,
and Drusilla glanced down
at her tender folds glistening in the night breeze
as the chariot circled the arena.

The matron had told her
to expect shame. “It’s natural, dear,”
she’d explained with a business-like briskness.
“You can’t help it;
no one likes
to be exposed like that
to a crowd of strangers,
but it’s what must be done,
and in the end
you’ll be dead anyway,
so it won’t matter.”

Drusilla lifted her head,
her spine straightening
as the cheering continued unabated.
Over the years, as she’d tried
to contain her sexual urges,
she’d gotten to know shame
with an intimacy that she supposed
few people ever experienced—
and this headiness,
this giddy sense of hyperawareness
and the tingling of her skin…
well, she didn’t know its name,
but beyond a doubt she did know
that it wasn’t shame.

Shame had made her want to crawl
into a casket and lie there
until she’d turned to dust. Shame
had strangled her appetite,
rounded her shoulders,
and lowered her chastened gaze.
Now, however,
she wanted to fling her arms open
and embrace every man in the Colosseum
who’d come to share
her final evening on this earth.