Inside, the house was furnished exquisitely with treasures spirited away on the hasty flight from Rome, along with expensive tapestries and Oriental rugs that had found their way along the trade routes to our little outpost. In addition to his private rooms, one wing held the women’s quarters, where Gratius kept some of finest sex slaves in the province-beautiful, talented young women who were exceptionally well trained.

Gratius’s girls were made available to local merchants, visiting traders, and notables like the provincial governor, as well as a few of the town’s more important personages, among whom I, as garrison commander, was afforded a very special place. Indeed Gratius saw to it that when visiting his house, I would be entertained like a king, although only my initial visit was free. I remember that visit fondly, the first time I walked along the shady tree-lined paths that meandered down to that idyllic garden of heavenly delights.

I was met at the door by a pretty little slave girl whose big brown eyes smiled up at me from under her bangs. I couldn’t help smiling back as my eyes took in her slight girlish shape, the gentle slope of her narrow shoulders and, through a translucent bodice of ivory silk, the shallow curves of her little breasts-a pair of tautly rounded globes, tipped with surprisingly pert nipples. Brashly uptilted, the little nubbins poked back impertinently against the thin fabric, simply begging to be touched.

As befits a proper sex slave, the young woman who greeted me was clad in nothing but a thin Grecian tunic. Made of white diaphanous silk, this short sleeveless garment bared her supple limbs, exposing a generous expanse of smooth girlish chest. The thin bodice covered-but did not hide-her maidenly breasts, before it fell in soft folds, to be gathered at the waist by a thin belt, thus forming a brief skirt-one that barely covered her hips and the top of her youthful thighs. Sandals and a high leather collar (that ubiquitous symbol of her servitude) completed her scanty outfit. The inspiring sight of the slave girl’s nubile body as she stood in the doorway, her dusky triangle dimly visible, brought on a familiar surge of lust and an immediate responsive stirring from under my own tunic.