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May 13 - May 17, 2022
This is not what her lover wants to see, so she hides it all.
Every time she plays the lyre for Rufus, however beautifully or skilfully, all he wants to know is when she will entertain him with the harp. There’s no malice in the way he asks; it’s all eagerness like a child, but his insistence makes her feel insecure.
Who’d be a slave, eh? When you’re young they fuck you, and when you’re old they fuck you over.
Her fear of losing his protection is as real as if she truly loved him.
“You cannot buy everyone you once cared about as a slave.”
“You think I’m a coward.” “No!” Philos exclaims. “That’s ridiculous. I would be afraid of him, if he had been my master. Do you think I wasn’t afraid of Terentius? That I’m not still afraid of him, even though he’s dead?”
Freedom has already exacted a heavy price. She cannot give up everything, or she will have nothing left of herself.
“Rufus could have bought you at any point,” Philos continues, “and he chose to wait until the Saturnalia, because it was more enjoyable for him. All that time,
“Yes,” she replies. “I think it’s what you once said to me. Rufus likes his women fragile.” In
“Besides, understanding that he likes you to appear fragile does not mean you actually are.”
She tells Rufus that she loves him, letting him hold her, knowing that she has no alternative. When he falls asleep, she is left lying trapped in his arms, hating the touch of his skin on hers.
“Of course. And if the man won’t accept, we can come back another day. There will always be more.”
“Always remove your weapon.”
“The second blow is the hardest,”
She has always known how much damage Rufus could do her, that he has the ability to destroy her life as well as save it.
“Nobody in the brothel was branded,” she says. “It would have reduced our value. But sometimes, I think there is not a piece of my skin that was left unmarked.”
It’s useless planning a future you don’t own.”
“You really love me.” It is hard to tell, with a whisper, if he is asking a question or stating the obvious. “No,” Amara replies, holding him even tighter. “I can’t stand you.”
She remembers what it felt like when Felix slapped her, or Thraso. The rage at being unable to retaliate, forbidden from defending a body which is not even yours.
It hurts thinking about the gulf between what she feels and what others see.
The name her father gave her. A name Rufus has never even asked.
“You really are trash, Victoria,” she says, her voice as cold as Felix at his cruellest. “No wonder your parents left you to die in the rubbish. It’s where you’ve always belonged.”
“Sometimes, I think about when our child is older, when we won’t be able to be like this anymore, because we will have to pretend, even in the house, that I’m nothing to you. And when that happens, you can still tell me you love me, every time you say my name.” Amara holds him, glad of the darkness that hides her tears.
propose naming her Rufina. In honour of her father.”
Show me a man who isn’t a slave; one is a slave to sex, another to money, another to ambition; all are slaves to hope or fear. Seneca, Letters from a Stoic
“Perhaps you shouldn’t have discarded her so easily. There is always a price to pay for underestimating a woman.”
