Carpe Diem
Marcus Tanto was a retired roman soldier, nobleman and land owner who brought in a good income and lived in a magnificent villa overlooking the bay at Salernum, but he wasn’t in control in his own home—his wife Quinta was. Tanto had risen early, and quietly, as he wanted to be out of the house before she woke up.
Tanto gazed at his wife’s calmly sleeping face, enjoying this rare time when he could look at her without her snapping back “what?” and scowling at the temerity of her husband for staring. Quinta was a classic Roman beauty, with pale skin and high cheekbones, light brown curly hair and red lips, and voluptuous hips and breasts. Not that Tanto often got the opportunity to enjoy those features, he thought, as he quietly left the bedroom on sandaled feet.
His wife ruled the household, appointing herself commander of the servants, inviting her friends to the house several times a week but insisting her husband met his old military pals elsewhere, and hosting frequent lavish parties, which Tanto could barely afford and inviting vast numbers of the local elite, whom Tanto couldn’t stand.
When Tanto warned his wife about the crippling cost she would sneer at him that he didn’t have any social aspirations, and insisted that they needed to make an impression in the town by having another party as soon as possible. So he just didn’t bring the subject up any more.
He walked down the white marble stairs that led to the atrium, noticing the brilliant morning light outside and sighing with relief; no need to talk to Quinta until much later in the day – he would get a few hours of peace out in the town.
But he heard footsteps behind him, clacking on the marble, and turned to see a woman on the stairs; but it wasn’t his wife, it was Aula.
Damn, thought Tanto, as he realised that he wasn’t going to be able to escape his own house undetected. Tanto had known Aula’s father, another soldier who had been fatally wounded in battle and had asked Tanto to look after his daughter. She was now a grown woman and Tanto had hoped that she would have found a husband by now. Instead, she continued to live off his earnings, enjoying the circus of a social life that Quinta had created for them. His wife had initially been quite unhappy about Tanto’s promise, saying that Aula was a burden on the household and a needless act of charity, but soon realised that Aula made the perfect ally against her husband. Together they always got their way.
“Good morning, Aula,” said Tanto. She too was beautiful but quite unlike his wife. Aula’s mother had been from southern Hispania, and she had inherited her Mediterranean skin, deep brown eyes and wavy dark hair. Her body was slim and lithe, and she liked to show it off, wearing her dress in a way that exposed a teasing peek of thigh, and a generous section of her flat stomach. Tanto realised that he was staring, and she smirked at his discomfiture. All she would see was a grey haired man, in good shape but still just an old fool to her, lusting futilely after her young body.
“Good morning,” she replied cooly. Neither spoke for a moment, so Tanto reached for the door.
“Aula and I need to talk to you about the feast next week,” Aula said, “so don’t sneak off. Wait right there, I’m going to fetch her.”
Tanto bridled at being told what to do by Aula, but said nothing. It was easier that way. Instead he merely waited until she’d disappeared back up the stairs, and then slipped out the front door anyway.
Finally out of his house, Tanto smiled. The sun was warm, the mild sea breeze just enough to make his skin comfortably cool, and he enjoyed his walk downhill to the harbour immensely.
The quay was bustling with merchant ships. Since the creation of the great road, the Via Poppilia, which passed through the town, Salernum had been transformed from a backwater into a bustling trading place, and Tanto enjoyed visiting the stalls of exotic wares along the seafront – just to look, not buy. Unless Quinta was with him, that is.
As he strolled along the rows of ships and shops, occasionally greeting people he knew, Tanto saw a couple standing at a jewellery stall. The woman was trying on various sparkling ornaments, her male companion looking on without enthusiasm as she picked up a huge and glittering necklace and shot a glance at him. The man reluctantly took out a handful of gold coins and handed them to the beaming merchant; the woman was already walking away wearing her new necklace.
Tanto frowned; he had come to the market to forget about his troubles but was instead being reminded of them.
“To see a man so in thrall to the demands of his woman,” said a heavily accented voice behind him, “is something that makes you unhappy?”
“Yes it does,” said Tanto glumly, turning to see an Arab trader, ornately dressed in multicoloured robes.
“This is a problem for you as well?” the man said, gesturing to his stall, his Latin not great but his upcoming sales pitch unmistakeable.
“Nothing I can cure by buying something,” Tanto replied curtly.
“So you say,” said the trader, shrugging, “but you have never seen anything like this. You want to be Caesar in your own home?” He asked, stepping behind his stall, which held an array of bottles and jars, each labelled in a strange language and containing the most brilliantly coloured powders and liquids; azure greens and deep sky blues, blood reds and yellows as vivid as the sun. The Arab traders were well known for their dyes, spices and potions, and this man seemed an archetypal example.
Tanto expected the man to produce one of these bright powders and try to convince him that it would make a splendid present for his wife to have a dress dyed with it, but instead the man opened his hand to reveal a tiny bottle of clear liquid. It was thicker than water, but otherwise unremarkable.
“What’s that?” said Tanto curiously.
“It is from a plant,” the man said. “A lot of my wares come from plants, but this plant is very, very special – a drop of this in your wife’s wine and she will do whatever you say.”
Tanto laughed incredulously. “Nothing will make my wife do as I say, magic potion or not.”
“I guarantee it,” the trader said, his face serious. “Point anyone out in the crowd here and I will show you.”
“Fine,” Tanto said, playing along. “Her.” He pointed to the woman with the new necklace. Her partner now tailed some distance behind, morosely, obviously worried that she would see something else she liked.
“Okay,” said the trader, producing an amphora of wine and pouring a measure into a goblet, then letting a tiny drop fall from the little bottle into the wine. He walked out from behind his stall into the path of the woman. He bowed and presented her with the goblet. In his other hand he held a glittering coin.
“I believe that you will never taste a finer wine,” he said, “please try some, and I am so confident that you will love it that if you don’t I’ll give you this silver denarius.”
The woman looked sceptical but took the goblet and sipped, and then triumphantly declared; “That is not the finest wine I’ve ever tasted, and I don’t love it.” She held out her hand.
“Yes you do,” said the Arab trader. “You don’t want to take the coin.”
She withdrew her hand. The trader turned to an astonished Tanto.
“Go on,” the trader said, “tell her to do something.”
“Give me your new necklace,” said Tanto, and the woman immediately unclasped it and handed it to him without a second thought. Or indeed a first thought, from the look of her vacant expression. By Jupiter, thought Tanto, it actually works.
“Hey,” said the woman’s husband, finally reaching them and pushing over to Tanto. “What do you think you’re doing?”
Tanto handed the necklace back to the woman. “I was just admiring your wife’s necklace,” he said pleasantly. “Perhaps I shall get a similar one for my wife.”
The man looked suspicious, but his wife had her new necklace back, lying in the palm of her still-outstretched hand, and he placed an arm around her back. “Come on, let’s go,” he said to her, and looked surprised when she actually obeyed him – he’d clearly been expecting her to disagree. They walked off together.
“How long will she be like that?” said Tanto.
“A few hours, and they forget afterwards if you tell them to,” the trader said, “and if you don’t, they’ll think whatever they did was their decision. Very useful for getting your way,” he added.
“How much?” Tanto said, normally a reluctant buyer and instinctive haggler. Today, however, he let the merchant name his price, and left the harbour carrying the tiny bottle of clear, thick liquid. He smiled at the merchant’s final words to him; “seize the day.”
When Tanto returned home in the late afternoon, having spent the day away from the house as normal, it was to a scolding from Quinta for leaving before she had woken up, while a gleeful Aula looked on. They had both been reclining on long couches, eating tiny expensive fruit from a silver tray.
Her first words were delivered angrily; “Marcus Tanto, were have you been all day?” For his part, Tanto allowed his wife to berate him without his temper flaring; he just let her words wash over him and maintained a diplomatic silence.
“...and in four days we’re having a feast to celebrate Merculia,” she finished.
“Didn’t you just have a feast for that?” Tanto asked.
“That was for Vinalia, the wine festival,” snapped Quinta, “and this is to honour the god Mercury. They are completely different. Honestly Marcus, you ought to know these things.”
“Sorry dear,” said Tanto levelly, his fingers tightening around the bottle in his pocket.
“We’ll need wine and food for forty people,” Quinta said.
“Fifty,” said Aula, “remember Aurelia’s cousins will be in town.”
“Fifty,” Quinta corrected herself. “I’ll have the servants make the arrangements, all you have to do is sign the cheque – and do it tomorrow, I want everything to be perfect and Aula and I need time to get everything ready.”
Tanto murmured something vague about needing a drink, and walked to the table to pour a glass of wine from the decanter. He turned his back on the two women.
“We’ll have some wine as well,” said Quinta imperiously, “not that you asked.”
“Of course, dear,” said Tanto, feeling great satisfaction as he surreptitiously let a drop fall from the bottle into two of the glasses. He gave one to Aula, and one to Quinta.
“Here’s to Merculia,” said Quinta to Aula, ignoring Tanto. They both drank. When they lowered the glasses they both looked oddly contemplative, and then even that look faded and they both appeared vacant, as if thinking deeply about something.
“And here’s what I have to say about Merculia,” said Tanto; “we won’t having a feast to celebrate it. In fact, you won’t really feel like hosting any parties for a while. That’s what you think, isn’t it Quinta?”
“Yes,” she said. “I don’t really feel like hosting any parties for a while.”
“You agree, Aula,” suggested Tanto.
“I agree,” said Aula, “let’s not have a feast for Merculia.”
“Good girl,” said Tanto. He let a silence descend, a glorious silence, unbroken by his wife chastising him for some supposed misconduct or Aula subtly teasing him with her body or a few choice words. They both sat silently, reduced to blank obedience by the strange liquid.
Tanto sat next to his wife, and rested his hand on her leg. “You like it, and you’ll like it more from now on,” he said, as she looked down at his hand and her eyebrows furrowed at her husband’s familiarity.
“Mmm,” she replied, smiling, her lips parting to reveal a smile. Tanto looked at his wife, her dress flowing over her large breasts and her legs now slightly parted, and then looked at Aula, her own dress having drooped slightly low to reveal her brown shoulder.
“Aula, Quinta,” Tanto said, and noticed the two blank faces perk up slightly at the mention of their names, “You’ll remember what I told you to think about altering your social lives, but you’ll forget everything else that happens today.” They both absorbed this.
He leaned in and gave them their next instructions. When he’d finished they both rose and left the room demurely, leaving Tanto to enjoy his own glass of wine. After a few leisurely minutes he stood, left the room, and climbed the stairs to his bedroom.
Inside he saw his wife and Aula, both prepared for his arrival and wearing translucent, flowing robes, lying on the bed in the middle of the room, on their sides and facing the door, just as he had instructed. Underneath the robes he could clearly see the pink nipples of his wife’s full, round breasts and even clearer were the dark brown nipples of Aula’s pert, firm breasts.
“This is my sort of party,” he said, beaming. “Come over here.” They slid off the bed, long smooth legs snaking over the sides as they stood and padded over the cool floor on bare feet. Tanto kissed his wife, and she responded passionately, pressing the soft flesh of her breasts against her husband’s chest. He broke from the kiss only to move his lips to Aula’s, and she too kissed back hard. He felt her nipples stiff through the fabric of her robe, and ran a hand down her back to squeeze her firm buttocks. She moaned happily. Her lips tasted slightly of the fruit she had been eating.
“Disrobe,” he said, and they raised their hands to the ties at the back of their necks, letting the robes drop down to reveal their naked bodies. They shone from the balms they had applied, and Tanto saw dampness between their legs. Now they were both naked, standing patiently before him, while he was still clothed. When in Rome, he thought, removing his own toga and revealing his hardening cock.
“Aula, take me in your mouth,” Tanto ordered, and the young woman sank to her knees obediently, guiding his cock into her wet mouth and closing her lips around the shaft. “Quinta, come to me,” Tanto said, opening his arms wide. His wife stepped forward, bowing her legs to accommodate Aula’s sucking, bobbing head. Tanto pulled Quinta close, pressing her naked breasts into his chest and feeling her stiff nipples glide over his own skin. He kissed his wife, and she moaned as she felt the back of Aula’s head rub against her crotch.
Tanto ran his hands down his wife’s cool back and then up her stomach and to her breasts, rubbing his fingers over her nipples. They kissed for minutes, passionately and tenderly as husband and wife, and all the while Aula was dutifully keeping Tanto’s cock hard, flicking her tongue over the head and up and down its length. Tanto eventually broke from the kiss to gently push Aula away. She looked up at him, her mouth still open and her lips glossy.
“Very good,” Tanto said, and the young woman smiled up at him. “Quinta,” Tanto said, “get on the bed. His wife obeyed, lying down on her back and spreading her legs at the edge of the bed. She sat up on her elbows, raising the corner of her mouth into a beckoning smile. Her husband walked over until he was standing between her legs, his erect cock now touching his wife’s wet pussy. The head of his cock twitched as he ordered her to take it into her, and she reached down, simultaneously pulling it into her pussy and pushing herself onto it.
Tanto twisted his head to see Aula still waiting on her knees on the marble floor, and gestured to her that she should approach. The woman straightened and did as instructed, wide eyed and compliant. Tanto stroked her cheek.
“Aula, sit down on Quinta’s face.” Quinta looked startled, legs spread lying underneath her husband. Tanto laid her fears to rest; “Aula’s just done me a favour, dear. I want you to be a good hostess and return the favour.” Quinta nodded, smiling like a good hostess, and Aula sat astride her face, pushing her buttocks back so her pussy lay directly over Quinta’s lips. Quinta’s tongue slid out and began to probe at Aula’s pussy, and the woman moaned, her tanned brown stomach glistening and flexing as she rode Quinta’s face.
Tanto smiled watching them, and thrust his hips forward. Quinta gasped into Aula’s pussy, her voice muffled, and responded by clenching her legs around her husband’s waist, pulling him into her. Tanto reached out for his wife’s large breasts and gripped them lightly, enjoying the feel of the soft flesh as it jiggled with every thrust.
Aula’s eyes were closed in ecstasy as she continued to grind her hips over Quinta’s mouth, her hands rubbing her own small breasts. Her breath came as little sharp intakes, and she let out a long, begging moan.
“Lick harder,” Tanto ordered his wife. Her lapping tongue took on a renewed vigour and Aula’s moaning became more urgent. She yelled out in delight and clamped her legs around Quinta’s head, cumming and cumming. Her thighs quivered and her bottom lip trembled, and she let out another long moan, but this time the aching desire was muted by satisfaction.
Tanto increased the pace of his thrusts until Quinta’s breasts leapt and bounced in his hands and he could feel her pussy contracting around his hard cock. He grunted animalistically as he came, filling his wife’s pussy with his cum in several powerful bursts. He slowly pulled his cock back out of Quinta’s pussy, and she sighed indistinctly, her mouth still clamped between Aula’s legs.
“Aula,” Tanto said, and the woman languorously stretched, opening her eyes and coming back to reality from her own pleasurable reverie.
“Mmm?” she said.
“You’re not a virgin, are you?” he asked, panting as his heart rate still raced. He would be extremely surprised if she was, judging from the number of times she’d disappeared into her room with some young local nobleman during one of their many parties.
“No,” she confirmed.
“Good,” said Tanto. “If you were I would want to keep you that way for your eventual husband, but since you’re not…” he tailed off.
“Mmm?” she moaned again, as Quinta noisily probed at her pussy.
“Get off the bed,” Tanto said, and Aula moaned in complaint, but obeyed, unenthusiastically raising one leg and shuffling off Quinta’s face, which was now flushed and glistened from its contact with Aula’s wet pussy. Quinta’s hair was messed and she panted for breath, but she smiled up happily at her husband, who took Aula’s hand to help her off the bed.
“What’s the view like outside? What colour’s the sky?” Tanto asked the Mediterranean beauty.
“Beautiful. Red and orange,” replied Aula, looking over his shoulder to the sunset over the bay.
“Let’s all enjoy it together then,” said Tanto. He offered a hand to his wife, pulling the panting woman into his arms and guiding her to the open window, one hand round each of the women’s waists.
The three of them stood side by side looking out over the bay of Salernum, the far-away quayside now quiet and the merchants either packing away their stock or leaving in their ships. Tanto pointed to the marketplace and dock.
“I met a very interesting man down there today,” he said idly. “He’s probably in one of those ships right now. If it wasn’t for him we wouldn’t have had such an enjoyable evening. Aren’t you glad I met him?”
“Yes,” Aula and Quinta replied mindlessly. Tanto enjoyed the moment, with the last warmth of the sun feeling marvellous on his chest and giving the skin of the two perspiring women a golden sheen.
“Bend over, both of you, and spread your legs,” Tanto ordered them, and they leant over the wide marble ledge, which was designed to be sat on during the hot summer days. They pushed their legs apart so that their pussies gaped open and their buttocks stuck up in the air. Tanto ran one hand over his wife’s generous ass, and the other over Aula’s smaller, firmer cheeks.
Despite the fact he had just cum, his cock was already becoming hard again, and as he enjoyed running his fingers over the warm flesh of these two willing and subservient women he could feel a renewed heat between Aula’s legs. Quinta still had not cum, and squirmed with desire as Tanto’s fingers ran up her swollen pussy lips.
Tanto wondered just how suggestible she was, and decided to test it out. “Quinta,” he said, leaning forward so he was whispering directly into her ear, so close he could almost taste her perfume mixed with the sweet smell of her sweat.
“Yes,” she replied softly, her voice shaky.
“Have an orgasm,” he ordered, “now!”
He wasn’t even touching her, and suddenly she gasped and arched her back, whimpering and moaning as she waves of pleasure hit her body. Tanto leaned in closer, kissing her as she gasped and shook with orgasm, and he could taste Aula’s pussy on his wife’s lips and on her breath.
“Use your mouth to prepare me for sex with Aula,” he said, as he broke off from the kiss. “A good hostess should provide the same enjoyment for her guests that she herself has enjoyed,” he explained. Quinta nodded, her glazed eyes still looking lost in the afterglow of her orgasm, but obediently sank her mouth to Tanto’s cock, drawing it between her slick lips and sucking. She would never do this normally, and Tanto once again marvelled at the power of his purchase.
Quinta sucked and licked him until he was again hard, and he told her to stop. Aula compliantly waited at the window, bent over at the waist as ordered. Tanto ran his hands up her smooth hips and smiled as her brown skin shivered with a mixture of anticipation and at the cool breeze that came with the evening.
“Quinta,” said Tanto, “there’s no reason you can’t enjoy yourself too. Masturbate.” Quinta, still on the floor, raised her fingers to her mouth and licked them until they were shining wet, before lowering them into her moist pussy and slipping them inside. She sighed contentedly.
Tanto meanwhile placed his hard cock at the entrance to Aula’s pussy, and pushed forward. Immediately he gasped with pleasure; Aula’s pussy was so tight, a perfect match with her lithe, taut body, and she felt quite different to Quinta. The younger woman groaned in pleasure and surprise at how full she felt, and Tanto slowed his strokes so they wouldn’t hurt her. Soon her groans turned to moans of pure lust, and his strokes increased in speed as his cock slid in and out more easily. She panted, almost melodically, with every stroke.
“Are you enjoying this Aula?” asked Tanto.
“Yes… yes,” she replied breathlessly.
“I think you should start treating me with the respect I deserve as head of the house,” he chastened her. “I think you ought to call me sir, in deference to my position.”
“Yes sir,” she whined, pushing back onto Tanto’s cock, and despite the fact he had already cum just minutes before he felt Aula’s tight pussy driving him to the edge of another orgasm. “Both of you will cum when I do”, he commanded, glancing down at the obediently masturbating Quinta, and moments later yelled with pleasure as he blasted another load of cum into Aula’s pussy. She let out a long moan that rose in frequency as she too quaked in the throws of orgasm, her legs buckling and her breasts pressing into the marble window ledge.
Quinta came on her hand, her pussy dripping down her palm and onto the marble floor, mixed with her husband’s first load of cum. Tanto held Aula’s hips for support as he pulled out, now totally satisfied.
“And another thing,” he said to Aula after he had regained his breath; “you ought to start looking for a husband. You’re young, beautiful and sexy, and it’s time to stop teasing the boys at parties and find yourself a good man. It’s what your father would have wanted.”
“Yes sir,” replied Aula demurely.
“And until then,” he added, “there’s no reason we can’t enjoy more nights like this, is there?”
“No sir,” she replied.
“Good,” Tanto said firmly. “Now, let’s all go to bed.”
Later, as Tanto lay back contentedly, with two submissive women lying next to him, he said, “Do you remember I told you how I met a man at the market?” he enquired. Aula and Quinta murmured sleepy assent.
“He gave me some good advice,” Tanto went on. “He said; seize the day.” He smiled, enjoying the satisfaction he felt from having two hot, dutiful, beautiful women in his bed. “And I’m going to seize every day from now on.”