I had the shell on the string and the string almost tied above her wrist before she woke. “Alexander,” she said, stretching luxuriantly. “I fell asleep.” The movement of her arm caused the uncompleted knot to come apart. The single scallop escaped again and lay separate from its brethren. I reached for the bracelet but found myself holding Livia’s wrist instead. I would have pulled away but she held me and said, “I dreamt of you.”
“Truly?” The softness of her skin made the hairs on my arms prickle as if a thunderstorm were nigh; her resolute grip was hardly necessary. “The best dreams are gifts,” I said. “In sleep we give ourselves the things we want but cannot have in our waking hours. Was yours one of these?”
Livia laughed, a light but ruffled sound. “It was.”
“Well?”
“I cannot tell you.”
“I see. Then you must ask your mother for a salve. You look as if you have tarried too long in the sun. Or perhaps those rosy blooms grow from a different stem?”
“You are impertinent.” She pulled her hand away; was there reluctance, or was I merely dreaming for something I could not have? “What were you doing watching me sleep anyway? Oh ho! What’s this? A garden growing in Alexander’s cheeks?”
“Not at all,” I said, lying poorly. “The day warms. I was passing and noticed your bracelet had come undone.” I felt Apollo’s eyes on me and resisted the urge to look up.
“Oh, this thing. It’s always coming apart. Were you trying to fix it?” I nodded. “So now you are become both jeweler and atriensis to the house of Crassus. Congratulations.”
“Merely an apprentice. Perhaps for both positions. Fixing your bracelet was not the hard part. Repairing it without waking you was the test I could not pass.”
“I am glad of it.”
She sat up, flicked a leaf from her tousled hair, and straightened her tunic. The many greens of her eyes, a sunlit forest suddenly thrown into shade, transported me for a moment to the woods of Elateia and home.
“Here,” she said, holding out her arm once more. “Please?” I bent to add the last shell to the string but Livia said, “No, not that one. Keep it, you know, to think of me when you hold it.”
There it was, the miracle that would silence Little Nestor forever. I worked to conceal my elation. “It’s a good start,” I said, putting the shell in my belt bag.
“Good start? You assume much, Alexander of Elateia.”
“Do I?”
“What would you have of me then? Would my lord command me to forfeit even more shells? Oh, but we’re not talking about shells now, are we?”
“I am not your lord.” I retied the bracelet. When it was done, I bent and kissed the top of her hand. “And no, we’re not. The truth is, Livia, though I shall treasure your gift for all my days, I need no token to keep you in my thoughts. You are rarely out of them.”
“Alexander…”
“No. Please do not speak if I have misjudged this moment. I could not bear to hear the sound of it.”
“I cannot speak,” she said, rising to her feet. I stood with her, but left my heart upon the ground. “I cannot speak,” she repeated, taking both my hands in hers, “and kiss at same time. Can you?”
Our eyes locked to speak of an ardor I had thought one-sided. To learn otherwise fueled a strength I did not know I possessed. I wrapped Livia in my arms, pressing her own behind her back. Her yielding body sent suns bursting in my head; my ancient timidity shattered. She arched as our lips met, tender at first, then insistent. She pulled against my grip to free her hands, but I held her fast. She moaned, part complaint, part animal need. I released her. The moment her hands were free she threw them about my neck. Our kiss continued, interrupted only by the need for breath. My hands drifted through the unending the seas of her hair, my closed eyes saw every curve and line of the face that had beguiled countless sleepless hours. Our mouths tasted and explored, giving and taking in equal measure. But my mind had no part in any of this. That Alexander, the analyst, the worrier, he was nowhere to be found. For the first time in my life, I felt without thinking, became utterly and completely present yet without any sense of myself. In my life, it was a moment without equal.
“I have been waiting for you,” she said after we had paused to compose ourselves. We sat beneath Apollo, gently touching, kissing lightly, lost in this infinite instant.
“Why did you not make your feelings known to me?” A finger tracing an ear.
“I thought you would think me a child.” A palm caressing a cheek.
“You are a child.” A kiss more fervent than the last.
“And you are an old man. An old man who, with each passing day, grew in favor with our lord, and further away from the rest of us. I feared you would spurn me.”
“A fear I mirrored. After today, I may never fear again.” An embrace, an inhalation of intimately scented air.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” she whispered. “You had me bought from Boaz.”
We separated enough to see our flushed faces. “A mother reclaimed her daughter, a wrong was partially righted. What more matters?”
“And a certain tall, fair-haired servant saw a bit more of a young girl he fancied?”
“He is a great admirer of talented whistling.”
“And now you have become great, second only to our masters.”
“I am still Alexander. I would be your Alexander.”
“I have already claimed you.”
“Someday,” I said thoughtfully, “you will buy your freedom.”
“And yours!”
I laughed, and deep inside resisted the old Alexander who wondered just how that would happen. “Speaking of freedom, how is it you do not attend your lady? Why are you not at your loom?”
“ Domina threw me out!”
“What on earth did you do?” The intertwining of fingers.
“Nothing more than my duty. It’s your fault, in any case. You have ‘saddled her’ with too many slaves. She said she feels like a bee in a hive. And she thought I needed air.”
“You are a little pale.”
“You love my complexion; confess it!”
“You fish when your basket is already full.”
“Of fish? There’s a fine compliment!”
“Indeed. Your skin is as white as a flounder’s underbelly, as soft as cheese, as smooth as cowhide.” Livia punched my shoulder. “Rubbed with the grain, naturally.”
“Hah! What of the day they carried you in like the prize in a boar hunt? Your face was as waxy as the masters’ death masks.”
“You remember? That was the first time I saw you,” I said, watching as she pinned her hair. “You were twelve.”
“You were a fool. Ruining one of general Sulla’s fine arrows.”
“Not as expertly honed as your sharp tongue.” She pursed her lips and let the object in question dart out and in. How she aroused me! “Had I known this day would come, I would have been much less carefree with my life. Do you know you were the vision my eyes beheld when I first regained my senses? You came to my sick bed, dancing and whistling, your red hair unclasped and swirling like Charybdis aflame.”
“I love the way you speak.”
“Then let me speak true now. Shall I tell you of your complexion? It is fresh cream from the pitcher, soft as moonlight on a rose. You made me dizzy that first day, and the sight of you has kept me reaching for support ever since. I’m afraid, Livia, I’ve been in love with you for rather a long time.”