©2002 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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He had dreamed it so many times over the years that the dream no longer had the power to frighten him. It still seemed as real as the actual event, and he didn't enjoy dreaming about it, but he no longer woke from it drenched in sweat, his heart pounding in his chest. Now, he just sighed, rose from the bed, careful not to wake his sleeping wife, and wrapped his cloak around himself before walking downstairs.

The house was dark except for small night lights lit along the stairs and in the atrium. On a night such as this when the moon shone down full and round as a silver disk in the sky, the rooms were anything but dark. Maximus walked outside onto the portico and stood looking up at the heavens. The stars looked close enough to touch, twinkling in their deep blue velvet backdrop, while the face of the moon seemed to grin at him with a ribald wink. His lips curved in an answering smile and he sat on a nearby bench, laughing inwardly over yet another appearance of the long-dead in his dreams.

Years before, Commodus - even his shade - had the power to arouse a mighty anger in his breast. Now, that was mostly gone, as Commodus was gone, as Pertinax and Quintus were gone. He had survived against all his own intentions, and he was glad that he had. The span of years since the murders of Selene and little Marcus had eased the pain he had once felt, and he remembered - mostly - the happy times and not their tragic end. He glanced up from his reverie at a slight sound, then laughed softly as Ana - no doubt missing him from their bed - came padding over barefooted, wrapped in her shawl, to sit beside him. "Is there no privacy?" he said, teasing.

"No," she retorted, snuggling against his side. "The moon is lovely tonight."

"The Goddess wears a ribald grin, don't you think?" Maximus referred to the tradition that Diana the Huntress was the face on the moon.

"She must've seen you without your cloak," Ana teased. Looking at her husband naked was still one of the delights in life, she thought. Since many of the young house staff seemed to find it interesting to catch a glimpse of him in his bath or in the nearby pond swimming, she knew she wasn't alone in her viewpoint.

"Couldn't be," Maximus joked right back, "she'd be laughing - or hiding her face."

"I suppose you want me to disagree with you? Claim that you're as comely now, as handsome to look upon as the first day I saw you?" Ana referred to being dazzled by the very young soldier Maximus when she was ten years old and first come to the camp of the Felix Legions with her father Erato, who was a military physician.

"What? When I was just fished out of the Tiber, half-drowned and limp as a dead kitten?"

"No, silly - although you were handsome then too, despite it all."

"Flattery will gain you pretty much anything you want," he answered, pressing a kiss to her temple. He brushed her long hair back. "You still have such lovely hair, cara."

"Too many white hairs," she scoffed, "and each of them bearing the name of one of your children."

Maximus chuckled, hugging her affectionately. "We do have a lively brood." There was Lucius, his son by Augusta Lucilla - now a man grown at age 25. Then there was young Decimus, aged 17 this month, his younger sister Marcia, almost 15, and the baby of the group, Anna Decima, aged six, and the ring leader of the youngest children in the surrounding farms and villas. Decima took after her father and was not only authoritative - her brothers said that meant bossy - but also a fearless rider, huntress and bringer-home-of-strayed-or-wounded animals. She had a whole menagerie of birds, rabbits, squirrels, feral cats and skinny dogs she tended to on a continual basis. "Decima brought home a baby screech owl," he told Ana.

"That must've been the squawking I heard - she has it in her bedroom, you know." Ana had long ago given up on making her youngest keep her animals outside. "It's in a box next to her bed."

"Beside the rabbit babies?"

"Yes, apparently she didn't think it odd to put prey and predator next to each other." Ana was constantly amused by her daughter's conviction that every animal, wild or not, would do as she wanted simply because she wanted it to.

"Well, I'm sure it will be some time before the little owlet even thinks of eating those tiny bunnies. By then, the rabbits will be larger than it is anyway."

"Good point," Ana said. She rested her head against his chest, enjoying the warmth of his skin under the soft wool cloak. "It's hours till dawn." She slid a hand down towards his lap, eliciting a laugh. "What's this? Something has expressed interest in being touched."

"Hmm, it's a curse," he teased her, shifting so she could reach him more easily, "you've only to think of touching me, and the blamed thing stands up, all eager and begging."

"Somewhat like a puppy?" She encircled him with her fingers and stroked him up and down while he quivered under her touch. "I want another baby," she announced.

That startled him so that he almost fell backwards off the stone bench. "You want what?"

Ana let go of his sex and grabbed onto his cloak to keep him from tumbling to the ground. Giggling at his reaction, she nodded, "Yes - I'm still fertile, and I'm not too old. I want us to make another baby - don't you think that would be nice?"

Maximus wasn't sure what he thought of that. He knew women who were past thirty often didn't survive pregnancy, and Ana was well past thirty. "Cara, I think that might be dangerous for you - have you given this enough thought?" He knew she had been using a tiny sponge soaked with vinegar as a means to prevent his seed from taking root - and they were careful not to indulge in relations when it was her most fertile time. He wasn't sure he wanted to endanger her life on a whim. "Surely we have children enough?"

"I want another," she said obstinately.

"But - why?" She baffled him sometimes. Surely two sons and two daughters contented her? They did him.

Ana sighed in resignation, knowing she was going to have to tell him everything. "I had a dream. . ."

"Oh, Ana," Maximus interjected, "not again." The last time she had dreamt of their child, Marcia had been the result, and everything Ana had dreamed about the child - looks, personality, even the color of her hair - had turned out to be correct.

"This one will be another son," she said with finality, "I dream of him running with wolves at his side, galloping a midnight black horse over the hills, and he has your face, my love. Will you deny me this child, knowing all that?"

Maximus digested what she'd said. He knew she had the Sight, and that she was uncannily accurate. "A son who is my image? Are you sure the world is ready for that?"

Ana drove an elbow into his ribs eliciting a mock grunt of pain. "Brute, of course the world is ready - more than ready." She toyed with the gold thread border of his cloak, glancing up to wheedle, "Just think of the pleasure in the begetting, Maximus. Who am I to deny you that?"

"Indeed," he commented. He sighed, "Ana, I don't know that I think this is at all wise - and what if, in getting this son here, I should lose you? I don't think that's a fair trade at all."

"Silly," she chided him, "I won't die - I saw myself dancing at his wedding."

"No, you'll not get around me so easily, I must think on this," he told her after thinking about it for awhile longer.

It was Ana's turn to sigh. "Very well, just don't wait too long - I really will be too old if you do."

"I promise not to take too long." He shifted on the bench and stroked her between her legs, fingertips gliding easily in her slippery warmth. "So quickly?" he whispered, and thrust one long finger deep inside her, questing until he felt the small sponge. "Good," he added.

Ana wanted to swat him. Instead, she pumped her hips against his fingers, enjoying the sensation of fullness. "Now," she whispered into his ear, biting his earlobe until he moaned. She knew that sent the blood straight to his groin - not that he needed any assistance in that department, but it would make him hotter still to have her.

Maximus took hold of her hips and lifted her so she straddled his thighs, placing the head of his member at the entrance of her body, thrusting up at the same time he pulled her down. They both gasped. Ana moved, riding him, squeezing him with her strong internal muscles. They exchanged long, passionate kisses, moving together there in the dark, as heedless as if they'd been locked in their bed chamber instead of outdoors on the front portico of their home.

Upstairs, Decimus and Marcia met in the hallway, both restless and unable to sleep. He glanced out the window and heaved a sigh. "They're at it again."

Marcia looked, getting past his attempts to block her view. "I want to see!" she said in a fierce whisper. "Oh, he's got his cloak around them - edepol!"

Decimus put his hands on his hips in a superior, big-brother manner. "And if he didn't, you wouldn't see anything different from one of the studs covering a mare. Now go back to bed, little girl, if you know what's good for you."

"Surely it's more romantic than that," she muttered darkly, making her way back to her chamber. She was hopelessly in love with Lucullus Valerianus Iunior, and he had begun to look upon her with more than the jaundiced eye of a much superior, slightly older boy looking at a pesky girl following him around. But if all she knew of the activities adults got up to such as making love, making babies - all the things she was dying to know about - how could she judge if such activities were even something she would like? Especially with the exceedingly handsome Valerianus. It might be too embarrassing altogether to contemplate activities such as this with him - she might die of mortification. She shut her door with a bit more force than necessary, but nobody woke up. She snorted to herself, half the house's occupants were already awake anyway and the little ones slept like rocks.

Decimus, however, did not return to bed, not right away. He continued to spy on his parents, which resulted in an aching arousal that he finally went downstairs, then into the kitchens, finally knocking on the door of the small chamber where the beauteous housemaid Doris, a Greek woman in her mid-thirties, slept. She opened the door almost at once, grabbed his arm and pulled him inside, smiling. She had relieved him of his virginity at the age of thirteen, and had been giving him regular lessons in pleasing a woman ever since. That such lessons also pleased him exceedingly much was why he kept coming back. That and her huge bosom. One look at her big breasts now and his erection grew to Olympic proportions. "Come here, youngling," she teased, and led him to the bed using his cock as a handle. Decimus was shortly engaged in the same pleasurable activities that his parents were just finishing outdoors. In the morning, if his mother wondered at her son's yawns and sleepy eyes, she just figured he had stayed up too late pursuing some youthful activity. If she had realized what that activity was, however, Doris would have been out the door for seducing the son of the house.

Decimus sneaked back upstairs just before dawn, pleased with himself. He had done it twice - made her climax several times and spent his seed into her willing body. He thought sex was an altogether divine way to spend his spare time, even if he was supposed to be sleeping. He closed the door of his chamber quietly and got into bed.
 

Across the hall, Marcia's door closed equally quietly. It infuriated her that her brother was so far advanced over her in the dealings of adult men and women. Perhaps, she thought, it was time for her to advance her own knowledge. Just how to do that, however, was beyond her for the moment.

Maximus and Ana lay sleeping in their bed, limbs entwined, happily oblivious to all else that had gone on in their house that night. She had removed the sponge, smiling to herself that, as she had thought, he did not check to see if it was vinegar or plain water that it was wetted with. Now deeply asleep, she was dreaming yet again of a son with the face of her beloved Maximus, and the wolves who ran beside him over the hills of Spain.

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Copyright 2002 by wildbearies

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