Nicole was so glad he’d accepted the explanation, she almost forgave Julia for being — no bones about it — a slut. Almost. “One of the reasons I freed her was so she wouldn’t feel as if she had to prostitute herself to get a little spare cash, but I’m sure she still does it when I’m away.”
Beside her, the fuller and dyer shrugged. “What can you do? You’re not her mother. You’re not her owner anymore. A patron can do just so much with a client, and then it’s the client’s own lookout. Some people just like going to bed with somebody new every time. I never thought that was so great myself, but maybe I’m the odd one.”
“Yes, you are odd,” she said, sharp enough to surprise herself. “If you ask me, most men are like Julia. It’s women who are like you.”
“Yes, that’s probably so.” And he wasn’t even upset about being told he was like a woman. That took the edge off her temper, and made her feel more than a little foolish. He grunted, the noise he made when he was thinking. After a few breaths, he said, “Ah… Umma.”
“What is it?” Nicole said. Something in his tone told her he was changing the subject. And why did he sound hesitant again?
“Mm…” Yes, he was hesitant, but once he’d got into it, he went on in a rush: “No matter what Julia says, if you pull my foreskin back quite that hard, you’re liable to make a Jew out of me.”
She opened her mouth, then closed it again. She’d expected something philosophical, or something personal, but — she’d hurt him? “Oh.” Her voice came out much smaller than usual. “I’m sorry.” She was blushing, blessedly hidden in the darkness. In the time she came from, she’d never made love to an uncircumcised man. She’d been a little startled to find something extra down there, until she realized that no one here went through circumcision, except, as she’d supposed and he’d just confirmed, the Jews.
He set a kiss on her lips, light, almost too quick to catch. “It’s all right. No damage done. Everything still worked, didn’t it?” Just for a moment, he sounded disgustingly, smugly male. Before she could call him on it, he sat up, jostling her just a little. “I’d better get back across the street. Before I do, though — where’s that chamberpot?”
She fished around under the bed till her hand stumbled against it, pulled it out and handed it to him. He held it in one hand while he pissed standing
up. Nicole sighed, not too loud. That was a hell of a lot more convenient than squatting over the damn thing, as she had to do.
For all his grumbles about breaking his neck in the dark, he went down the stairs as sure and quiet as a cat. Nicole followed more slowly. She didn’t fall there, but she kicked a stool near the front door and hopped the rest of the way, hissing till the pain lost its red edge. Still standing half on one foot and all on the other, she unbarred the door. “Good night,” she said. Somehow that didn’t feel quite right. Something more was called for. “It was a good night, Titus. “
“I thought so,” he said — not so smug, this time, that she wanted to smack him. “I’m glad you did, too.” He gave her one more kiss, a light one, with no heat in it, but as much warmth as she could ever have wished for. “Good night, Umma.”
“Good night,” she repeated. She stayed in the doorway till he opened the door to his own house and went inside. Above his roof, the sky was full of stars.
“Well?” Julia asked the next morning. “Well?” She was practically hopping up and down with curiosity.
“Very well, thank you, Julia — and you?” Nicole said blandly. Unlike the freedwoman, she subscribed to the belief — or possibly labored under the delusion — that one of the things that made a private life private was not talking about it.
Julia stamped her foot in indignation. “Oh, come on, Mistress.” She still slipped and called Nicole that every so often; the habits of years didn’t disappear in a few weeks. She planted her hands on her hips. “You don’t think that wool got there in your room by itself, do you? Or the resin?”
“Maybe they walked,” Nicole answered, deadpan. Julia stared at her. Nicole stared levelly back. Julia began to laugh; she laughed and laughed, till she had to hug herself to stop. Some of the stale jokes of the twentieth century passed for fresh wit here.
Seeing her freedwoman break up made Nicole relent… a little. “Everything is just fine, Julia.”
“Well, that’s good,” Julia said after a pause in which she plainly perceived that she wasn’t going to find out any more. “It’s about time, if you ask me.”
Nicole had gathered some while since what Julia thought of her relations — or lack thereof — with Titus Calidius Severus. While Julia set about building up the fires for another day’s cooking and baking, Nicole went to the front door, unbarred it, and threw it open to show the tavern was ready for business.
Across the street, Titus Calidius Severus was just opening up, too, and setting out the amphorae that gave him the urine he needed for his work. “Good morning, Umma,” he called with a smile and a wave.
Nicole caught herself stiffening, searching for hidden meanings. Stupid, she cursed herself. She waved back — lightly, good; not too strained. “Good morning, Titus,” she said.
Behind her, Julia made a small, interested noise. Nicole realized she hadn’t greeted the fuller and dyer like that of a morning since she’d come to inhabit Umma’s body. This had the look and feel of a custom returned to after a hiatus.
Calidius Severus noticed, too. His smile broadened. He blew her a kiss. Julia made that interested noise again. Absurdly, Nicole felt herself blushing as if she’d been caught in flagrante delicto — a fine Latin phrase — rather than simply receiving a friendly greeting from the neighbor across the street.
She fought down the heat of memory, and blew the kiss back toward him. He grinned and bowed and went inside.
Nicole rounded on Julia. Julia had the sense to get very busy very fast.
Lucius and Aurelia put a merciful end to what was becoming an uncomfortable stretch of silence. Their noise and clatter drove the shadows out of the tavern. Their voices rang in it, demanding breakfast this instant. Julia was quick to shut them up. She ate with them, and Nicole after a short pause. She was hungrier than she’d expected. She realized, in the middle somewhere, that she’d used her bread to sop up all the olive oil in the little bowl Julia gave her. She didn’t remember having starred to do that, but it seemed a habit these days. It wasn’t making her fat. Some days, in fact, that oil was the only fat she got in her diet. Maybe her body had quietly told her she needed it.
Ofanius Valens was her first customer. He wasn’t a regular anymore, but he had started coming back now and then since Julia’s manumission party. Nicole brought him his bread and scallions and walnuts and a cup of the two-as wine. His usual, she thought, and remembered how terrified she’d been the first time she saw him. Now she knew what two or three dozen people liked to order, maybe more. It felt as easy, as natural as keeping track of the files in her computer.
Titus Calidius Severus came in at midmorning for a loaf of bread and a cup of wine. And thou, she thought facetiously, till she caught a whiff of him. His ammoniacal reek was back in force. Nicole let out a small, silent sigh. If he ever tried to get her to take him to bed when he smelled like that…
Surely he had better sense. If he didn’t, she’d teach him some, and fast. Not that she really thought he needed any education. He’d never even tried to kiss her when he smelled bad.
She realized she was standing over him, staring blindly at him. As she moved to busy herself somewhere else, he said between bites of Julia’s fresh and still-warm bread, “Fellow who came into the shop to pick up some wool I’d dyed for him told me there’s a troupe of actors coming in from Vindobona in a few days. Do you want to take in one of the mimes they put on? He said they were supposed to be pretty good — and if they’re not, we can always throw cabbages at them.”