The Pain that Made Her Beautiful

PMHB 39

“You are the one who is going to ruin my life, who is ruining my life! I am being brought to Rome because you want to be emperor and need an influential wife! You sicken me!”

Nayeli’s words were a kick in the gut as she whirled around, her back facing him, “I trusted you.”

His heart wrenched and Marcus walked forward and he placed his hands on her waist. It was only then he noticed Nayeli was only in her unders. Oops.

“Nayeli let me explain. It wasn’t me who did this to you, it was my uncle—“

“Vespasian!” Nayeli spit the name out, whirling around to face him, Marcus’ hands still on her waist.

As soon as she was facing him, Marcus saw her hardened guise waver and crash, replaced by hurt.

“I-I’m sorry, Nayeli. I didn’t know what was happening. He just sent me out with Apollo, and didn’t even tell me what I was doing. It was only after we had located you as being with Wari—the Germanic men, that Vespasian sent a letter telling me who you were and why I had been sent to seek you out.

“After that, I was at the camp when we had the banquet and you were nowhere to be seen. When I found out what had happened, I—“ Marcus’ words stopped at the tip of his tongue as his fingers found the bottom of hardened skin at the base of Nayeli’s back. How had he not seen, felt, or even heard of this before?

Before she could even get a word of protest out, Marcus had turned Nayeli around. There were hard, corded scars all across her back. Many of them looked to be one from a whip, which he had seen used often on female slaves. It was a long, treated leather which was rolled to be hard, however, still pliable. About two and a half feet from the end of the whip, there was a branching, where there were four to six smaller cords from the trunk of the whip.

Then there was one scar, still slightly pink, running, beneath her unders, from her right shoulder to her left hip. It was at least an inch and a half wide. Marcus left his left hand cradling Nayeli’s waist, though his fingers had obviously tightened. Wisps of Nayeli’s charcoal hair had fallen over her back. Marcus ran his right hand over the exposed part of Nayeli’s newest scar and felt, for all the scar tissue, silky soft skin caressing his fingers in return as he moved.

In response, Marcus felt Nayeli’s muscle’s shudder. When he reached the opposite side of the scar, Marcus put his hand back on Nayeli’s waist and moved closer. She had a musk, which mixed in the smell of flowers and sugars. She was intoxicating.

Marcus lifted his left hand from Nayeli’s waist and brought it up to her neck and slid it down the cleft of her shoulder and around to grasp her arm gently. He leaned forward and pushed Nayeli’s head to the side, nuzzling her neck, and, at the same time, bringing his right arm to tighten around Nayeli’s waist, bringing her close to Marcus’ body.

Marcus continued to nuzzle Nayeli’s neck for a moment, then said, raw, soft, and low, “Nayeli, I see no scars. You are beautiful.”

With that, Marcus slid his head down her neck and nipped it lightly, nuzzling the cleft where her shoulder met her neck. Slowly, Marcus moved his lips just a hair’s away from her skin. He could feel her skin as but a whisper on his lips. Then he spoke, with each word, Marcus’ lips lightly hinted over her skin, “Nayeli… you are beautiful.”

With that, Marcus pressed his lips against her neck, ever so lightly. In response, Marcus felt as Nayeli’s muscles shuddered and her knees became weak. He had saved himself, at the urging of his uncle, Vespasian, to remain clean until his wedding night, “Marcus, I know how your friends act and what they are pressuring you to do. I am the emperor of Rome herself and can have whichever woman I want when I want. I could have had thousands before, had I wanted. But I didn’t. I waited, at the urging of my own father, to remain pure until my wedding night, and to share the bed of only one woman for the rest of my life. I don’t regret one moment of waiting, Marcus. After your father died, I promised to raise you as one of my own, and this is what I say: you may do as you may like, but, know this, after one impulsive decision in that playing field, there is no way of taking back your actions, and as soon as you love a woman, the way I love your aunt, you’re going to want give your whole self to her, and as soon as you go to bed with a woman once, you can never again be the person you had wanted to give to the special woman who you choose spend the rest of your life with.”