Free Blood Games by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro Page A

something that would astound every Roman who saw it. “These are religious dancers,” he said, and faced the resultant groan with good humor. “Not in the manner you might expect. They come from Hind, where much of the worship is carried out in a manner that would please the most demanding Roman."
    "How do they worship?” Nero asked, piqued beyond patience.
    "They worship with their bodies. They have made a ceremony of the act of coition, and devote sacred texts to these matters. These dancers train from earliest youth to express every refinement of lust.” Petronius heard Nero chuckle. “At the end of the arbor, where the extra lamps are hung, they will dance for you."
    As Petronius spoke, Saint-Germain had risen and gone for the three slaves from Hind. He addressed them in their native language. “You are to dance now. The man on the dais is the ruler of many lands. If you please him, it will be well for you."
    The small, slender man turned his huge, liquid eyes to Saint-Germain. “It is not the same as when we dance in the temple."
    "Perhaps not,” Saint-Germain said. “Nonetheless, dance to satisfy him and you will be rewarded. He does not like to be disappointed."
    The two small voluptuous women exchanged frightened glances. “He is a big man,” one of them breathed.
    "Yes,” Saint-Germain agreed. “Take your places.” He stepped back into the shadows, and made his way to his couch as the sinuous notes of the flutes began to slide through the night.
    Under the soft lights, the three dancers began to move. Their tawny skins took on the look of polished metal, and their slow, chastely sensual display completely absorbed the Romans. As the lithe bodies twined, embraced, moved apart and combined again in ever-more-convoluted variations on coupling, the guests watched, silent now, their faces lit with increasing avidity.
    Cornelius Justus Silius leaned toward his wife. “Olivia, that is what I want, but faster, and harder."
    Olivia swallowed against the sudden obstruction in her throat. It was difficult for her to watch the dancers before Justus spoke, and now she wanted to avert her eyes. That the dancers should make that terrible ugliness into such beauty distressed her. Worst of all was her fleeting suspicion that there could be beauty in the act and it had been denied, would always be denied her.
    From his vantage point on the dais, Nero devoured the dancers with his eyes. They were enticing, their movements the essence of temptation. If he had been a little more drunk, he would have joined them, so that their supple bodies would fasten on his. He wished now that Poppaea were not pregnant, so that he could possess her in all the various ways the dancers implied. It maddened him to be refused the delight of her body while his child grew within her. He felt jealousy gnaw at him. He set his teeth. To be jealous of his own unborn child! It was the greatest folly, and yet it burned in his heart.
    As he watched the dancers, Petronius was pleased. They were as remarkable as Saint-Germain had promised they would be. He had feared they would be nothing more than the usual demonstrations of exotic and uncomfortable coital positions, and his fears had proved groundless. This was much more than the sexual display he had asked for—this was a worship that was art. He leaned back on his couch and let the fluid movements of the dancers enthrall him.
    The dancers were almost to the end of their performance. Saint-Germain, who had watched them with an odd, remote smile on his lips, rose and slipped away from the arbor. He knew that there would be requests made of him for the use of the dancers’ skills, and he had to prepare the dancers for those demands. As he started to cross the grass, he noticed the large, haunted eyes of one of the women guests upon him. The intensity of the look startled him momentarily, for it was filled not with passion, but despair. It took him a moment to recall who she was—Atta Olivia