Lucilla--NaNoWriMo2014

Chapter Five

The next day, Mark took Lucilla into a tent with a table setting.  There were knives, fork, spoons, tea cups, wine glasses, drinking glasses, napkins for wiping the mouth, soup bowls, pitchers of tea or water and just about anything one would find in a wealthy home or in a plush restaurant.

"How can I eat with these utensils.  They are more like a surgeon would carry in his bag or an ancient healer.  To me they are pure torture!"

"Lucy, you have to learn to eat European style, and you need to be good at it."

"Mark, Europeans--Gauls, Britons, Germans, even those from Spain--are nothing but barbarians!"

"That is the way they eat in Paris."

"Paris?  PARIS?"  Lucilla then turned her head and spit.  "You mean that settlement of mud huts along the Seine River?  There is nothing civilized about Paris!"

"Things have changed, Lucy."

With that Lucilla threw a cup at Mark.  It hit him in the head, and shattered on the floor.  Over the next two days, Mark had Lucilla follow his lead.  A server would bring in a salad to into the tent and set it before them.  Lucilla would take care to watch Mark as he picked up his fork with his left hand.  That is because Europeans, not Americans, would cut with their right hands and eat with their left.

Mark was long skilled at the change although he grew up eating with his right hand.

Next was a soup, which was eaten with care.  Now and then Mark would stop and put the napkin to wipe his mouth.  Then he would finish the soup.

After the main course, which required several days of work before Lucilla mastered rules of food ettiquette.

"Okay, tomorrow you will accompany me to an Italian restaurant to make sure you pass the test."

"Mark, you mean that I have to eat my way out of this part of my training?"

"I suppose you could look at it that way. but this is only the beginnning."

"You cannot go into a restaurant with that gown on.  People will wonder about you."  Mark's countenance changed.  "I am sending over clothes for you in the morning. They will be clothes like and Italian woman would wear nowadays."

The next morning Mark came by--only to find Lucilla struggling with a modern print dress.  She had a matching hat.  After she put it on, her chest sagged.

"You did not put your bra on."  Mark pointed to the white bra that still sat on the corner of the chair.

"Okay, go out of the tent, and I will put in on."

When Lucilla called to Mark, he returned.  There stood Lucilla with the top of her dress around her waist.  She was holding the bra up.  Then she smiled as she allowed it to drop to the floor.

There she stood before Mark, smiling with her full, lovely breasts exposed.

"Haven't you seen a lovely woman like me before?"  She was revelling in the pleasure of Mark's awkwardness.

"Not since my wife."

"But my body is here and now for you.  Your wife is of little consequence.  After all, she is not here."

"My wife died years ago in childbirth."  Mark turned away, hurt by this unthinking woman.

Lucilla regretted everything.  "Oh, Mark, I am so sorry.  I know what it is to lose a loved one."

Still hurt, Mark nevertheless said, "Lucy, what is said is said.  I loved her, and maybe never will be happy with another woman again.  After I lost her, I buried myself in my work.  Before the war I was a professor of ancient languages and culture.  I specialized in Latin and Greek.  That is why they assigned me to you."