At an imperious gesture from him, they threw back their cowls dramatically. I found myself staring at two slave girls, young women whose heads were all but shorn, their hair clipped to a short stubble, as was sometimes done to slaves in Rome. They stood at attention, their eyes fixed somewhere over our heads. Gratius nodded when their hands went immediately to unclasp the collars of their cloaks. The two garments slithered down to the floor, revealing two naked female bodies, young and taut-muscled, glistening with a fine sheen of oil. As I watched awestruck, they bowed low, saluting their master.

Gratius said not a word, but kept them standing there, knowing that I would want to be able to compare these female wrestlers who would be entertaining us. As Gratius appreciated, one likes to size up the contestants. We sat in silence for a moment, evaluating the healthy young females who stood motionless before us.

Then Gratius leaned over to me.

“The girl on the left is Leia.” He called my attention to the rather stocky curvaceous girl. Her features, like her body, had a softly rounded girlish quality. I could only guess from the light brown stubble that had been left to her what she might have looked like with a full head of hair. I next studied her hefty tits. Generous though not excessive, they drooped slightly to swell into two sloping pendants crested with wide, thick nipples. Not only was the hair on their heads shorn, no doubt useful for wrestlers, but for some more obscure reason, the girls’ pubic hair had also been shaved clean. Totally bereft of its natural fuzz, Leia’s plump little pubis was pale and shaved clean, so that it stood out boldly from between the full curves of her powerful thighs.