I have always loved you, Helena, in different ways. I would have loved to court you; to have enjoyed the things that courtship entails. We might have travelled together, or eaten good food and fine wine, or perhaps visited the Philosophers’ Palace, or the chariot races. They would have been ends in themselves, simple pleasures enjoyed in good company. How I would have loved to have been familiar and intimate with you, in public and in private. To have been able to admire the beauty of your body and mind openly and without fear. It crushes me to think of what might have been if circumstances
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