Chapter 1

"Rose, are you here?"

Rose groaned and opened her eyes. The room was dark and the television in the common area quiet. Her back and shoulders ached. She rolled and groaned again, which seemed to be enough of an answer for Thom. He stepped through the gap that passed for a door in the sailcloth that passed for a wall giving her some small modicum of privacy from the rest of the slaves with whom she shared the garden shack.

Thom wrinkled his nose. "You've been spreading manure today."

"And yesterday." Rose stretched her arms wide. "If you've come to have your way with me, you'll have to do it one-handed so you can hold your nose with the other."

Thom chuckled even though Rose know full well that was what he'd come for and so did he. Other than both being slaves on the estate of General Gaius Gallicus and possessing healthy, adult sex drives, they had little in common. He went down on his knees next to her futon and kissed her. "I reek of horses myself."

Rose returned his kiss. "Small blessing, then. I can't smell your horse over my horse shit."

It wasn't true exactly. The scent of horse mixed with leather, wood-smoke, and clean sweat lurked just below her own notes of manure and freshly-turned earth. No one would be bottling the scent any time soon, but it wasn't entirely unpleasant. And it certainly wasn't off-putting. Like pretty much everything else, slaves had to take pleasure where they found it. If they waited for niceties like a bath or perfume, they'd wilt and die on the vine like overripe fruit, their sweetness gone to waste.

Thom's rough hand slid up under Rose's shift. When she'd returned from work, she'd meant to grab a quick shower before dinner and possibly a longer bath after. She'd gotten as far as changing out of her stained work clothes and into her sleeping shift. Dinner would be long past.

As he cupped her breast, Rose drew Thom closer so that his weight rested gently on top of her and her hands found the contours of his chest. Thom was a groundskeeper, one of the men responsible for taking care of everything on the estate except the house and garden. It was often strenuous work and his powerful, knotted muscles were like a history of that work, written in a secret language. She might find Thom to be indifferent company during the day, but at times like this, she loved the feel of his muscles under her hands, his weight pinning her, and his hard cock inside of her. This was, after all, what she was supposed to be doing - serving a man in bed, not shoveling wheelbarrows full of shit onto flowerbeds.

For this, a bath would wait and sleep could be found at another time. No one who cared would be smelling her soon anyway. Even though she'd been assigned to work as the garden's hostess, greeting the general's guests and keeping an eye on the wait-staff, there'd been little work for her to do there. The general's betrothed preferred to throw parties in the house's massive ballroom and, with their wedding fast approaching, there would be few parties until all of the planning was done.

If she made herself pretty and pleasantly-scented, it would only be for Thom and Leo, the head gardener. Leo was already punishing her for being too pretty to not be sleeping with him. Leo was fat and ate too much garlic - to the point where he would sweat the stuff out during the day, but Rose would have almost certainly approached him to exchange sex for an easier assignment if only he weren't also so old. It was fine to be an old man with a soft dick and a fragile ego if you were also a patrician, but for a fellow slave, Rose just didn't have the effort to coddle him.

Reaching down, she found the trailing edge of Thom's subligar and undid it with a hard tug. As his fingers found and circled the nub of her clitoris, it brought what she was doing into sharp focus, her worries faded into the background.

Thom's cock was thick and hard, so hot it seemed like it would burn the palm of Rose's hand if she held it too long. She held on anyway. It made her feel alive.

She and Thom rarely discussed their past with each other. But, it was clear to Rose that he hadn't come to her as an untried boy and someone had trained him well. With adept fingers that had learned her body well, he traced through the folds of her flesh, sometimes going deep, sometimes teasing, stroking and squeezing according to a pattern dictated by her personal mysteries

When her shuddering climax rose, she bit down on Thom's shoulder and clung to him. All the other garden slaves slept within sixty feet of her and the sailcloth did little to muffle sounds. Anyone awake would hear what they were up to regardless, but it was still good form not to rub their noses in it.

After that first wave had passed, Rose pushed Thom over onto his back and mounted him. It might have been nice to lie back and let him do all the work after such a long day, but Thom's enthusiasm was often gloriously ungentle. It was usually exactly what Rose wanted, but it could often be as much work to weather as being on top was.

Besides, she liked the sense of control being on top gave her and knew it was a more flattering angle if Thom opened his eyes. Rose had been bred by the temple of Venus and even if she was only a first-generation Paphian, she liked to believe her blonde hair, blue eyes, and fair skin came entirely from one parent and that the other had been bred for a thousand years from a line of girls with wide, sensual hips, thin waists and tits the size of ripe cantaloupes, a time-proven formula for catching the master's eye and serving in his bed.

It might not be true. It was possible that both of Rose's parents had been taken in the Britannic wars or bought in Europe since then, but the feeling that this wasn't the case was as close to proof as she was liable to get. Only in cases of extremely long, uninterrupted pedigrees did slaves ever know who their parents had been.

As she rode Thom, the second wave of pleasure rose more quickly and Rose leaned back to rest her weight on his knees a little. There, she caught a flicker of movement that made her listen more carefully. Sure enough, there was a third person breathing nearby and the gap in the sailcloth was being held a little wider.

Rose rode Thom harder. She'd tried to be discreet, but could hardly be blamed for immodesty if someone chose to watch. Whoever was there leaned in a little closer and Rose caught a silhouette and a flash of skin in the moonlight. It was enough.

"Clover?" she stage-whispered.

The other slave girl stepped completely into the room and gave a lopsided smile. "I didn't want to interrupt."

Rose leaned forward again until her breasts were brushing Thom's chest, thrusting against him at a different angle. "Just ... do we have a few minutes?"

Clover sat on the floor, crossing her legs under her. "You have until morning. I just ... thought you'd want time to prepare. He's asked for you."

Rose laid her hands on either side of Tom's head, which he raised enough to take one nipple between his lips and flick with his tongue. Rose moaned and rocked her hips harder. "The general?"

Clover gave a faint shake of her head. "Corvus - his son."

Rose rode faster. "The one he's elevated?" She closed her eyes and let the pleasure roll over her, a shudder starting low in her belly."How does he even know who I am? I've never seen him in the garden."

"I recommended you," said Clover. "I'm his secretary and body servant. Remember?"

"Ah..." said Rose. It was meant to be a sound of understanding, but came out as a cry of pleasure. "What time is it? I should get a bath..." The pleasure rose up, cutting off the sentence and she had to wait until it had passed to speak again. "I should get a bath or at least a shower before I go if I can."

"It's just past two," said Clover. "You have time. He's not an early riser."

As her old friend turned to leave, Rose called out. "Wait." When Clover turned to face her, she asked, "Will it be just me or will you be there?"

"He hasn't said, but I believe it would be the two of us," said Clover with a broad-lipped smile. "Does that please you?"

"Yesssss..." Rose hissed. "You know it does. Will you ... help me bathe and prepare for him?"

Clover gave a disappointed out. "I'd love to, but I can't. He doesn't like to wake up and find I'm not there. Come to his rooms when you've bathed and bring what you'll need to stay overnight. You can share my room - at least for now, just like old times."

"Yesssss..." Rose hissed again, letting both the pleasure of the moment and her hope for the future seize her at once.

Corvus Gallicus was very much the celebrity of the moment. All New Romans loved a good elevation story, but slave-girls loved them best of all. They were the grand prize for a life well-lived.