'Mihi nomen est Calpurnia Valeria, sed cum ego natus eram dicitur Sextus, sexta vivum puerum parentes mei, et in tantum puer.' ('My name is Calpurnia Valeria, but when I was born I was called Sextus, the sixth living child of my parents and the only boy.')
I read the neat Latin script on the roll of parchment a second time. No, there was no mistake, it said 'puer' (boy) not 'puella' (girl), and 'Sextus' not 'Sexta'.
Intrigued, I read on, but first, let me introduce myself. My name is Hermoine Postlethwaite, and I am an Emeritus Professor of Linguistics. Since my retirement, and living alone with only a cat called Felis for company, I have volunteered my services at a large British museum. Many artifacts are stored in the basement due to lack of display space or because they are of little interest to the general public. Among them are many ancient documents and with my knowledge of so-called 'dead' languages such as Latin or ancient Greek, I like to help out when I can by translating some of them into English.
The following document was written in classical Latin on a large scroll of parchment in the first or early second century AD, by an obviously wealthy person, and tells an interesting story. How it came to be stored in the museum I have no idea. Two things I should point out; the writer's indifference to slavery will rightly shock modern readers, but at that time it was commonplace in Italy, Greece, and other Middle Eastern countries, indeed their economies depended on it. Secondly, there are some graphic descriptions of sexual congress. Provided a man, even a married man was the dominant partner in a relationship, it was quite acceptable for him to take a young male lover, although for two women to become intimate was not acceptable at all. As an academic, it is not my place to Bowdlerise text, but to translate and record it exactly as it is written as a true record of ancient times. Here, then, is the story of Calpurnia Valeria as she recorded it. I have divided it into chapters for ease of reading.
My name is Calpurnia Valeria, but when I was born I was called Sextus, the sixth living child of my parents and the only boy. Let me explain. My father, Marcellus Domitius, was a centurion in the Second Legion Augusta, at that time deployed in Britannia, and my mother Julia Domitia lived in Rome. My father came home on leave about once a year and since he loved my mother, it was not surprising that by the time he returned to the legion, she would find herself pregnant and would give birth before my father's next visit. So it was that they decided on a name for a boy or girl should one be born, and thus I was named Sextus because I was their sixth living child, and sadly also the last.
My mother was a small woman, according to my wet nurse whom I met many years later. She strived to give birth to me for two days and two nights and when I was finally born, the midwife held me up for my mother to see, and she gave one tired smile and then fell back on the pillow, dead. It seems her heart could no longer work after the strain it had been put through. My father always blamed me for my mother's death, which I felt was very unfair as more than anything in the world I would have loved her to live. Instead, her unmarried sister Claudia came to look after the children, five girls, and me. She was reluctant to do this but felt it was her duty.
My father was a good provider, and he finally married Claudia but they did not have children. We were all well educated, but when I was fourteen, my father was killed in a skirmish with the Celts. Claudia didn't know about this for many months, and with his death, his pay stopped. Our education ceased and we were forced to find work in order to survive, my aunt made that very clear. I was apprenticed to a baker. It was clean work but I found it very boring and it was not well paid since the baker felt it was reasonable to pay half my wages in bread. This helped with the household economy but left me with very little money of my own.
The baker had another apprentice, a handsome lad called Atticus. Both of us being in the second decade of our lives, we were becoming interested in girls, but parents were very protective of their daughters' virginity, something I can understand now that I am older, and as a result young men often turned to each other to explore their increasing interest in sex. This was the case with Atticus and me. He was already experienced, something I was not, and as a result, he was the teacher and I was the pupil. I learned how to kiss deeply, using my tongue to explore Atticus's mouth as he explored mine. From there he taught me the techniques of making a lover aroused, but he could see that I was nervous and didn't offer to initiate me into the next step of being lovers. Atticus told me that he was for a while the lover of a Roman general who had first met him while buying some bread at the baker's shop, but like all military men, he was posted to another province and so the relationship had ended.
“I really enjoyed him,” he said with a sigh. “He was a wonderful lover.”
Atticus always seemed to have plenty of money. I wondered where he got it from and one day he told me.
“I entertain men for money,” he said.
“Do you mean you sing for them?” I asked and he laughed. “In a sort of way I do, but not what you are thinking. Why don't I show you? You are a good-looking boy and maybe you would like to earn some extra money too.”
The following evening after work, I went with Atticus to his second place of work, having told my aunt that I was going to visit a friend. We stopped at the door of a house down a narrow alley and Atticus gave the door a series of knocks that seemed to be a code. It was opened by an older man wearing a toga who smiled at us. “Hello, Atticus, who's your friend?”
“Hello Felix, this is Sextus; he might be interested in working for you, so I brought him along to see what the work entails.” Felix smiled, showing his teeth, and for some reason I was put in mind of a shark I had once seen in a fish market. He couldn't have had a more appropriate name since his business was to make his customers happy.
“By all means, please enter,” he said with a bow, stepping aside to allow us to enter the house. “I'm so glad you're here Atticus, one of your clients, Gaius, has just arrived and was asking if you were free to entertain him. I shall go and tell him to prepare for you.”
Atticus told me that there were a number of bedrooms in the house. Naive though I was, I was getting an idea of what the business conducted there was. He opened a door and led me down a narrow corridor and stopped at one spot. “Here is a peephole,” he said. “Felix uses it to check on the clients and staff. Wait here and you'll see me and Gaius shortly.” With that, he left me. About five minutes later peering through the hole, I heard the door of the room open and could see Atticus enter, followed by a man about forty years old whom I assumed was Gaius. Atticus turned to him and they began to embrace and kiss. Then Atticus removed his tunic and naked he began to kiss Gaius again who fondled his body, especially between his legs.
Gaius must have whispered something because Atticus dropped to his knees, and reaching under the man's toga, lifted it up to expose his rigid member which he now proceeded to fondle and kiss. I couldn't tear my eyes away; Atticus and I had done the same with each other on many occasions, but now he was doing it with an older man. I could hear Gaius moaning as he ran his fingers through Atticus's hair and drew his head closer. Finally, Gaius must have said something else, because Atticus rose to his feet and lay with his stomach on the bed, spreading his legs. Gaius positioned himself behind Atticus and it was obvious what his intentions were. Soon he was thrusting away and grunting, while Atticus was mewing like a kitten. I remembered what he had said about 'sort of singing'. Finally, Gaius's body shook and after a minute or so, he withdrew and adjusted his toga again, throwing some coins on a small table beside the bed as a tip, and after expressing his thanks to Atticus, left the room.
I stood there, astonished at what I had seen. So this was how Atticus always seemed to have plenty of money. Atticus put on his tunic again and coming to where the peephole was smiled at me, saying. “That was easy wasn't it?”
Later, he asked me what I thought of it as a way of earning easy money.
“I've never done it; does it hurt?” I asked.
“Just the first couple of times, but some men like to deflower virgins so they pay you extra. In fact, you can lose your virginity a few times if you make sure to sound like it's hurting, but it actually becomes quite pleasant after a while.”
I was young and poor so I didn't need much persuading. It seemed like easy money and it was. Atticus was right, the first time it did hurt and I let out a yelp as the man forced himself through my natural defenses, but after a while, a feeling of pleasure filled my body as he drove his member deep inside me. I did pretend to be a virgin three more times, but it was one time too many, as the last time the man was experienced and growled at me “You're no virgin, I can tell a virgin. I'm going to make you beg for mercy.”
With that he pushed me face-down on the bed, forced himself upon me, and began to pound me so hard that I cried out loudly, begging him to stop, and hoping that Felix would hear and come to my rescue but to no avail.. The man didn't stop until he had filled me with his seed. As I lay sobbing and bruised on the bed, he roughly separated from me and after dressing, threw a denarius on the table, saying: “You weren't a virgin before and you certainly aren't one now. Don't try that again.” When I complained to Felix, he laughed and said he thought I was just enjoying myself. After that, I didn't pretend to be a virgin anymore.
I learned a lot about men by working in the brothel. For a start, I discovered that their manhoods varied greatly in length, thickness and shape, but every man wanted to believe that he was a stallion and it was my job to make him think so by being his mare. I also discovered that a man who was about seven or eight 'unciae' (inches) in length had the ability to excite the sensitive place deep inside me which brought me to the peak of ecstasy and a gushing forth of my seed, something which delighted my lover. If the man did not achieve this, either by reaching his peak too soon or not being large enough, then I indulged in a little play-acting to make him happy, explaining my lack of issue by saying I had already done so earlier that night.
There were some men who preferred that I should bring them to a climax with my lips and tongue, and even the occasional man who just wanted to talk. I felt sorry for them that they had nobody with whom they could be totally frank about their feelings and problems and I always lent them a sympathetic ear. Sometimes I kissed them goodbye on the lips and felt their bodies quiver with emotion. They always gave me a generous tip.
I worked in the brothel for a couple of years and then one day something happened that changed the course of my life. After finishing my shift at the bakery, I called at Atticus's house as usual so that we could go to work at Felix's together. He had resigned from the bakery some time previously, saying “Why should I get up at four o'clock in the morning and work for twelve hours when I can earn as much in less than two hours at Felix's?”
I couldn't disagree with his logic, but I felt that I couldn't leave the bakery since Aunt Claudia would wonder how I was earning my money and why I no longer brought bread home.
I knocked on Atticus's door and it was opened by a pretty young woman that I had never seen before, although she bore a resemblance to Atticus. I thought it might be his sister.
“Is Atticus in?” I asked, and the young woman laughed: “It's me, Atticus!” he said. I could hardly believe it.
When I recovered from my shock, I said: “Why are you dressed as a girl?”
“Felix is planning to open a new brothel in a seaside town called Pompeii about 150 milles (Roman miles) south of here,” he replied. “It's a port, so many sailors visit there, and it already has a number of brothels, so Felix wants to try something different with boys dressed as pretty girls. I think you would do that very well. Why don't we give it a try?”
I was intrigued. I had a secret even Atticus didn't know about. Being brought up in a house with Aunt Claudia, five sisters and one female slave, I had been envious of how all the females in the house except the slave, wore pretty tunics and stolae, some made of fine linen for special occasions. Our slave was skilled in applying their cosmetics and styling their hair, in fact, she was called a 'cosmeta'. On rare occasions when I was home alone, I tried wearing their clothes and loved the feel of them and how feminine they made me feel. Perhaps that was why I was so happy to give myself to men at Felix's house.
Now Atticus was suggesting that I dress as a young woman and perhaps work as one. How could I say 'no'? I entered the house and Atticus showed me to his room and produced a beautiful tunic and high-waisted floor-length stola and a woman's loincloth for me to wear. I quickly stripped and dressed in the clothes he gave me. Then he called in his 'cosmeta'. When she had finished applying kohl to my eyes, rouge to my cheeks, and styling my hair, which I wore quite long, I was shown the result in Atticus's bronze mirror. I was thrilled with the result but Atticus frowned.
“Wat's wrong?” I asked.
“You are more pretty than me,” was his reply as he smiled.
“Surely not!” I exclaimed.
“Yes you are and you're even blushing like a girl,” he laughed, which made my cheeks redden even more. I hardly needed the rouge but I was pleased with his remarks which I took as a compliment.
“So what are we going to call you?” he said.
“My wetnurse told me that my parents would have called me Calpurnia if I'd been born a girl, so why don't I use that?”
“Calpurnia! That's a really nice name,” said Atticus. “Don't forget that dressed like this I am called Attica.”
When we arrived at the house of Felix and he opened the door, he said 'Hello Attica, who's your friend?”
Atticus looked at me. “See? I told you he wouldn't recognize you!” Turning to Felix he said, “This is Calpurnia who you know as Sextus.”
Felix gaped at me. “Well, I must say that I'm impressed. So now I have two recruits for my Pompeii house; the sailors will be queuing up to ravish you. In fact, why don't I introduce you to the customers today? I can say that you are two visitors from Neapolis who will be working for me in Pompeii.”
Felix was the consummate businessman. As soon as his customers saw us they were clamoring to be the next to spend time with us and as a result, I earned more that night that I made in a week at the bakery.
To be continued:
