Give Me That Body (Oneshots)

Orpheus, Say Words (Nataniellus, summer 78AD)

The child had flinched but did not cry at the slap — a straight backhand which had caused him to stumble despite his effort to remain rigid. Sitting on my lap in the grass, he nursed the bruise on his face, rubbing it and rubbing it. I pulled on his blond hair, trying to wrestle it into shape. He had been forbidden a comb.

I took him by the chin and tipped his head back as if his nose were bleeding. His eyes closed. I traced the edges of his bruise with my fingertip. "If you keep touching this, I will put a poultice on it. Don't touch it."

"It's my bruise."

"Don't you talk back to me, Escha."

He went limp in my arms, pouting. He was so small.

"Are you a good boy or not? Don't pout."

His lips tightened into a frown, eyes staring off somewhere else, "Good boy."

"Alright, wiggle worm. Sit up so I can fix your hair a little."

He sat up and touched my hair, taking it gently in both of his hands. "They say you are a prostitute," he said, and flopped again, looking up at the sky.

"That's true. I'm not anymore, but I'm not ashamed," I said.

"Is a prostitute a good thing to be?" he asked, wiggling a little.

I held him firm and leaned over him. His eyes flicked up to mine. "It's not a bad thing to be, if you have to be it."

"I have to be a slave," he said. "Is that a bad thing to be?"

"It's not the best thing you could be, but I think you have a good master, if you have to have one."

He smiled widely then, and flopped his arms over his head, fingers in the grass.

I smiled back at him, and he grasped my shoulders, so that when I sat back up straight, his face was at my neck. "Do you have other questions, beautiful boy?" I asked.

"What happened to your ear?" he asked, wiping his nose on my neck.

"Don't do that. That's disgusting."

"Your ear," he repeated, dragging his face back and forth on my skin, softly.

"My master grabbed it when I close to your age. I wouldn't do my job, so he pulled on me by it."

"It looks funny," he said, and kissed my skin.

"Do you notice it so much?" I asked, and patted his back.

"I'm hungry, Nataniellus," he whispered.

"I know, my little cockleshell."

He giggled, all of seven, too small. "You are calling us after seashells, like we are under the water. Can I be something else? I like to eat black mussels."

"But the cockle is the best one, Escha. Do you know what they use cockleshells for?"

"No," he said, and sat back then. He put his hands on my cheeks and opened his eyes wide, and opened his mouth. I imitated him, and he laughed again.

"They crush them all up, and it makes the purple color. Who gets to wear purple?"

"Emperor," he said, and touched my adam's apple.

I pushed his hand away from there, and it went to my lips while I spoke, instead. "That's right. Only the emperor gets to wear purple. How expensive. How rare."

"But I don't want to be crushed up," he whispered, touching my lips and touching his own. Understand me, understand me. "I want to live forever."

"Alright, beautiful boy." I kissed his forehead, and he pushed on my face, bawling like a trapped cat.