We put a healthy distance between ourselves and the city before we rode deep into a forest and found an old woodsman’s shack, miles from any road. There was nothing to eat but there was a stream there, clean, fast flowing, and refreshing. The horse, a chestnut mare, grazed on some grass growing on the banks.
We sat by the stream and, for the first time, I was able to sit and take stock of my situation.
On the positive side I was sitting by a forest stream with a very pretty girl, dappled sunshine around us while the birds sang in the trees.
On the negative side several legions of very angry Romans would very soon be combing every inch of this countryside looking for Alicia and me. The future was looking rather bleaker than the present. I wished the birds would shut up, I needed to keep my ears open for Romans.
“How can I thank you enough?” Alicia spoke now, having been silent thus far. She had tears in her eyes. “I should be hanging, naked, on a Roman cross by now. I was so scared!”
“I bet you were. Why were they going to crucify you, Alicia?”
“My master….. he was going to… to rape me. He was revolting. I couldn’t bear him. He was fat and he had rotten teeth. I hit him on the head with a piece of wood. He died.”
“I see. So you really did commit murder. Well, good for you! You have to stand up to these people!”
“We did, didn’t we?”
“We did, but now we need a plan, or your appointment with a cross will be delayed, rather than cancelled.”
“Even a delay is good.” She lifted her chin, and her lips parted expectantly.
My common sense told me that we didn’t have time for any delay, we needed to put fifty miles between us and our pursuers before nightfall if we were to have even the slimmest chance of escape.
I’m only human. My lips met hers. After a moment, I felt her tongue enter my mouth.
For a long while we kissed, while within me the urge to escape fought the urge to possess her. The urge to escape won. I broke free from her.
“Alicia, we don’t have time for this. Those Romans won’t have needed long to organise a pursuit!”
She looked up at me, thoughtfully. There was a tear on her cheek. Then, with a quick movement, she slipped her robe off. Beneath, she was naked.
To hell with the Romans. All I cared about at that moment was this incredible young woman who seemed to want me. And I sure as hell wanted her!
And, in truth, I had nowhere to run to. The Roman Empire is vast, and I didn’t have the provisions or the resources to get her out of reach of the Romans. We might run for weeks, and still end up dead, and never have a moment like this, alone beside a forest stream.
One last quick look around to ensure we were really alone, then I allowed her to strip me. Her passion was almost unreasonably intense. I’ve had a lot of women, but with this girl, at this moment, I felt like a teenager again. I fought down the almost overwhelming desire simply to take her, and instead tried to love her as a woman ought to be loved. I began to kiss down her body, intending to take my tongue to her clitoris, but she was having none of that. She pushed me down onto my back, onto the soft leafy ground, and began, without delay, to pleasure herself on my penis, which by this stage was more than ready for action. I lay there, fairly helpless, thinking that this was the first time I’d been in the situation of a woman taking pleasure from me, rather than the other way about.
Not that it was anything other than very deeply pleasant, and as I watched her writhing and groaning, sliding and twisting on my dick, the only problem I had in the world as I caressed her small but perfect breasts in my hands was waiting for her to come, so that I could finally relax.
I’ll say this for her, she certainly knew how to enjoy herself, and she built herself up to higher and higher levels of ecstasy, putting me to higher and higher demands of self-control, until she let out a shriek, and I felt her orgasm pulsing around my phallus. I groaned, and finally my own orgasm exploded within her in a wave of pleasure that seemed to go on and on.
She sat there for a while, smiling down at me as my erection dwindled. And I smiled up at her, never in all my life had I enjoyed sex quite as much as that. I’d completely forgotten about Romans; suddenly I remembered our situation and looked about in panic, but I needn’t have worried, our only companions were the horse, the birds, and a very annoyed looking squirrel who sat on a branch and swore at us.
Then she got up, and went over to my discarded clothes. She took my sword, still stained with Roman blood, and she handed it to me, hilt first.
“Thank you, darling. That was wonderful. Now, please, one last thing?”
“What?”
“Kill me.”
“Kill you? Why in the name of all the gods would I do that?”
“Because you love me, and you don’t want me to die on a Roman cross. I can die now, you have made me very happy, and I have escaped the cross! Let me die quickly before the Romans catch us!”
“Alicia! I will not let you die on a cross! But I will not kill you! I will get you to safety, far away from any Romans, and we can make love every day – every hour if we like! Now I have you I will not let you go! I want to stay with you for ever! I want to get old with you! And I certainly won’t be letting the fucking Romans get you!”
She gazed at me. “Scaevola – you have no choice! Where will we go? How will we get there? How will we avoid the Romans? Please, just do as I say, kill me, and then, if you know what’s good for you, kill yourself!”
“You need to know something about me, Alicia. I was a gladiator. I have fought men and beasts, and I have always won. I fought until I was able to earn my freedom. I do not surrender!”
I saw she was weeping. “You have given that up? For me? You’d never met me!”
I’d wondered about that myself, as we’d ridden away. All I’d achieved, sacrificed for this one girl. But, looking at her, still nude, by Mars she was worth it. And this was wasting time.
“Come on, get dressed, let’s get moving. “
I saw her begin to turn the sword towards herself, but I was too quick for her, and knocked it out of her hand. It spun through the air and splashed into the stream.
And that, fuck it, was the moment that the Romans arrived.
To be continued