Household Gods

Nicole hadn’t known how to reckon up the accounts, or how much to look for, either. She couldn’t say so. She concentrated on the other thing, the more important thing. “Julia, look at me. “Julia was already doing that. Her expression made it clear that she knew it and was refraining from commenting on it. Nicole took a steadying breath and went on with the speech she’d prepared: “You don’t have to go to bed with him, Julia. You don’t ever have to go to bed with anybody for money again. That’s all done now.” She glared at Ofanius Valens. “Food is one thing. Wine is another.” It wasn’t anything she wanted, but it also didn’t seem to be anything in which she had a choice. Here… “This is something else altogether. It’s over, done, finished. Not in this place, ever again. Do you understand me?”

Ofanius Valens scratched his head. Nicole flinched inside for reasons that had nothing to do with the business at hand. He couldn’t possibly know about those reasons, or the flinch, either.

He seemed to decide, after a moment’s puzzlement, that argument would get him nowhere. Smart man, Nicole thought. Smarter than most twentieth-century males. He was still a male, however, and he wasn’t any happier than any other male who’d ever been born about being told no, he couldn’t have what he wanted. “I don’t know what you’re getting yourself in an uproar about, Umma. Whatever it is, I guess I’ll just take myself someplace else from now on.” He scooped up his two sesterces from the tabletop, dumped them in his belt pouch, and stalked past Nicole and out the door.

“And good riddance.” Nicole turned to Julia, a smile at the ready, to receive the slave’s thanks for freeing her from that sordid transaction.

Julia gave her no such thing. Julia, in fact, looked furious. Her nostrils flared. Her blue eyes glittered. She hissed, a sharp, furious sound.

Her words were an anticlimax, her tone studiedly mild, but her expression gave away how angry she was. “That wasn’t very nice, Mistress. Now he won’t come back.”

She doesn’t know anything about freedom. How can she? She’s never had it. Nicole chose her words with care, to soothe Julia’s temper and get her thinking rationally. “Don’t worry about him,” she said. “We don’t need his business, or business like his.” As she spoke, she advanced into the room, till she was close enough to lay a hand on Julia’s shoulder. It was stiff, set against her. “I told you: you’re never going to bed with another man for money. Never again – I promise.”

Julia’s eyes widened. It still wasn’t gratitude – it was somewhere between dismay and horror. Worse yet was the gleam of tears. “Mistress, why can’t I go to bed with men anymore? What did I do? Why are you so angry with me? Just tell me and I’ll fix it. You can beat me all you like, if that will make you feel better.”

Nicole’s head shook. Good Lord. Titus Calidius Severus had thought she was angry with him, too. That had been a misunderstanding. What was there to misunderstand here? “I’m not angry,” Nicole said, just as she had to Calidius Severus. “I don’t want you to have to suffer like that, that’s all.”

“Suffer, Mistress?” Julia tossed her head in amazement. “What is there to suffer? Ofanius Valens knows how to make a woman hot.” Her hips twitched a little; Nicole didn’t think she knew she was doing it. “And even the ones who aren’t very good usually give me something for myself afterwards, because I make them hot. Now that you’ve taken another of your strange new notions, how am I supposed to get any money of my own? That was all I had, Mistress: taking men upstairs. I liked taking men upstairs.”

Nicole stared. Julia stared back, for once not lowering her eyes in submission. She was shocked enough, and indignant enough, to show for once what must have been her real self. She wasn’t slow at all, or simple either. That was a mask she wore, like the hooker’s mask she’d put on for Ofanius Valens.

“Ofanius Valens gave you an as at breakfast the other day,” Nicole said. “You didn’t do anything for him then but wait on him and be pleasant to him.”

“Oh, yes, a whole as,” Julia said scornfully. “And that wasn’t just on account of breakfast, either. He was being nice to me so I’d be nice to him later.”

An as for a piece of ass, Nicole thought, but she didn’t say it – it only worked in English. What she did say was, “Sleeping with men for money is degrading.”

Julia shrugged, still sullen and not about to let Nicole forget it. “I’ve heard people say that,” she said. “Usually women who don’t have what it takes. They’re jealous, that’s all. Can’t get any fun, so don’t want anybody else to get any either.”

“Fun?” Nicole said incredulously. “You call it fun?”

Julia did a creditable bump-and-grind, with a wild, mirthless grin in it for Nicole. “Sure it is. What else is there in the world that’s anywhere near as much fun?”