©2001 by WILDBEARIES

This story is based on characters created in the film, "Gladiator" and in no way intended to infringe upon those characters or the story of that film. References to real people are strictly the product of the writer's imagination and meant to entertain the reader.
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Thirty Three

Looking back over the journey from Lucilla’s estate to Emerita Augusta once they finally arrived, Maximus tended to feel it was one of the worst marches he’d ever been on, even in comparison to some journeys across Germania in the dead of winter. She had insisted they move slowly for the sake of her “patient”, who he really considered a military prisoner and not her guest.

Lucilla, however, seemed to delight in treating Valerian as a poor unfortunate who had just happened to drop in on her and become ill in the process. She watched over him like a hawk, and if he even thought of turning pale - as Antoninus jokingly commented - she demanded they stop their march for him to rest. Maximus resisted about half of these attempts, but she managed to slow them down enough that it took an extra day to get to Emerita.

To add to his temper, Ana acted in an unreasonable manner when the small group finally rode into the fortress looking bedraggled, tired and out of sorts. “What took you so long?” she asked him when he came in from outside, wiping sweat off his brow.

He blinked, surprised at her tone. “I wrote you - I said we'd be delayed." When she merely tapped a foot, waiting for him to explain further, he added, " I had nothing to do with the delays. The prisoner is wounded, he wasn’t able to ride far each day.” He didn’t know why he felt guilty about it; after all, it was Lucilla and Valerian - no doubt in cahoots! - who had slowed them down so much. When Ana just gazed at him and made no move to assist him with his lorica as she usually did, he irritably began unbuckling the straps himself.

“Lucilla's fault,” Ana finally said. “I can well imagine.”

Maximus dropped the lorica onto a bench with a clang, stretched muscles cramped from riding with the heavy armor and walked over to pour himself a cup of water since none was forthcoming from his wife. He scowled into the water ewer. “She is a very trying person,” he finally said. He turned around when there was no answer, only to find himself alone in the atrium. “Edepol,” he muttered under his breath. He wondered how long her mood would last. It was totally unlike her to be put out like this.

Ana came striding back into the atrium almost at once, demanding, "Why are they bringing her over here?" She had seen Antoninus walking up to their front door, Lucilla and Valerian riding slowly behind him.

Maximus steeled himself as he answered her, realizing she was not going to be happy with his response. "There's no place else for her to stay, cara - and the jail is currently being rebuilt, so there's no place else to put Valerian, either. Besides, he's an officer - and he's wounded. I cannot, in all good conscience, stick him in a soldier's tent." He recalled well enough being stuck in worse places than that himself, like riding under animal cages on the long trek to Zucchabar, out of his mind with fever and grief. He was determined to show more mercy to Valerian.

"She's staying here? In our house?" Ana stared at him, incredulous. "I will not spare her any of our servants to be at her beck and call, we're busy getting your house made liveable."

"I'm sure she won't expect any special treatment," he began, wanting to placate her. He was tired and not in the mood to deal with an angry wife.

"Hah!" she interrupted him just as Antoninus, Lucilla, and a slow-moving Valerian came in the front door of their house.

"Hah?" Lucilla echoed, wondering if that was a greeting or a comment. Valerian stumbled just then, taking her attention, so that she and Antoninus had to assist him, or she might have seen the dangerous gleam in the other woman's eyes. By the time Maximus got the three of them headed in the right direction, sending his house steward with them to guide them to the guest room, Ana had left again.

"Where does she go so quickly?" he asked the empty air.

As for the lady in question, she was up in their bedchamber, thumping the cushions on the bed into submission. How dare that aristocratic, interfering, high-nosed bitch delay the return of the Military Governor to his headquarters on a whim? That was how she viewed Lucilla’s sudden championing of the wretch who had put his arrow into her husband. That he dared! And now she had to deal with both of them right here in her own home - no doubt the high and mighty Lucilla would demand special food for her pet outlaw and herself. Well, she would eat what the rest of them ate and like it! Ana flung the last cushion on the floor with vicious force.

“I’m glad I’m not that pillow,” Maximus said from the doorway. She hadn’t even realized he was standing there.

“You should be,” she fired back, wishing she had another pillow to throw. She settled for slamming the lids of some storage chests and kicking a stray shoe under the bed. Her eyes fell on a small folding bookstand, but Maximus reached it before she did and rescued it. “Oh, let me throw it,” she begged, lips finally changing from their angry line into a half-smile. Her temper was waning and she began to see humor in her outburst.

Maximus shook his head, “Marcus gave it to me, you may throw something else.” He gestured towards several small vases on another table. “One of those, perhaps.”

Ana seized on the one she liked the least - a small green one with rather vulgar poppies painted on it - and smashed it against the window sill. “There, now I’m done.”

“I never liked that one either,” Maximus commented. He moved out of the doorway and pushed the heavy door shut behind him. “I had expected a sweeter welcome.”

“Perhaps you should take yourself down to the Augusta’s room, she may give you a warmer welcome.” Ana had her hands on her hips, looking as though she was about to launch into another fit of temper.

Instead of being put off by this, Maximus just grinned at her. Her hair had come undone from its combs and fell about her flushed face in disheveled waves. As he smiled, she brushed it out of her eyes, which glinted dangerously at him. “Cara,” he purred, advancing on her like a tiger stalking a doe antelope.

Ana suddenly realized what he was about and her eyes sought an escape route. “Oh, no you don’t,” she warned him, fighting not to giggle.

It did not, of course, stop his inexorable forward progress. “Maximus,” she chided him, losing the battle. Laughing, she tried to duck past him around the end of their bed, but he caught the hem of her stola, stopping her in her tracks. “Don’t tear it,” she warned as he wound a fist in the fabric, bringing her buttocks against his belly. He was fully aroused and chuckling under his breath at her attempts to get away. “Oh, you,” she huffed at him, then ground her backside into him. “Mmm, I like that.”

“Do you?” he breathed in her ear. When she nodded, he began lifting the hem of her dress, sending his lips and tongue in a warm, wet track along her neck and shoulder. His other hand quested around to the front of her body, lifting and squeezing her breast.

“Oh, Maximus,” she whispered, “in the day time?”

He moved her toward the bed, nipping along the side of her throat up to her earlobe, “When better?” he growled. With that, he succeeded in baring her from the waist down. He tipped her forward so she was still facing away from him, her body resting mostly on the bed. He removed her stola and tossed it on the floor. “Ana,” he said in a hoarse voice, drinking her in with greedy eyes. “you have the hips of a goddess.”

Ana wriggled the body part in question, rubbing against his engorged sex and laughing softly, “Isis or that cow, Hathor?”

“Neither,” he whispered, shoving her down onto the bed where she cast the pillows onto the floor in her quest to grab hold of something. “More like Venus, cara.” He slid questing fingers between her thighs and found her already wet - just waiting for him to fill her with himself. He stroked the sensitive, swollen little bud there and as she moaned, he thrust home in one deep stroke, groaning with the pleasure of it. Ana had stiffened momentarily at his invasion, but almost instantly was relaxed and welcoming.

He had dreamed about this as they rode up from the villa, dreamed of taking her urgently and filling her womb with his seed, maybe planting a child in there to fulfill her. He clutched her closer and moved faster, working his engorged member in and out, plowing her ruthlessly. Her panting moans echoed his own, and he could feel her racing heart through the palm of his hand as he squeezed her breast. Too soon, he knew he was reaching orgasm. He would have loved to prolong it, but his body dictated the inevitable and he was shortly gushing his essence into her as she convulsed around him, her hands fisted in the bed covers. "Gods," he ground out, "Ana!"

They collapsed in a sweaty tangle on the bed, panting. He rolled off her after a moment and caught his breath. Ana turned to face him and he stroked her hair back from her flushed face, loving how her eyes sparkled from taking her own pleasure of him. "Little Venus," he murmured in a teasing way. Jupiter, but he was weary suddenly. He couldn't keep his eyes open. A sharp little fist in his solar plexus stopped his slide into somnolence. "What?" he asked, fighting the urge to just sleep off his post-coital lethargy.

"You know what," she retorted, then sat up, shaking her hair into some semblance of order. She glanced down at the smears on her flesh, "You're filthy and now you've got it all over me and the bed."

"Mmmn," he murmured agreement, eyes closed again.

"You need a bath," she informed him, getting up to pour water into a basin and wash the sweaty streaks off herself. The cool water felt good as she stroked the soft cloth over her body, down her belly, spongeing the trickles of their mingled juices off her thighs. She wondered if already some of his seed was taking root inside her, then threw off the thought, not wanting to become one of those obsessive, barren women who only bedded their husbands to get a child. The pleasure of having him was something she enjoyed, and if they managed to make a baby in the process, so much the better. She dumped the dirty water into the slop jar and turned, "Do you want me to have a bath made ready for you?" He was already asleep, sprawled nude on the bed, sleeping despite the light from the nearby window in his face.

"Oaf," she said affectionately, meaning just the opposite. She put on a clean stola and closed the shutters part way so the sun didn't strike him so directly. He looked like Mars after a particularly satisfying session with some buxom female - herself, actually. "I love you," she said softly.

He didn't answer, but he turned onto his side as she pulled a sheet over him, and his mouth curved into a smile.

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Copyright 2001 by wildbearies