I was really intending to sneak for an exit and go home. Then, when I dodged through a doorway ahead of my bearers and the garum, I crashed into someone coming in. The new arrival was female: the only one in sight. Naturally I stopped in my tracks, told the slaves to put down my pickle jar on its elongated point, then I straightened my festive garland and smiled at her.
TWO
She had been swathed in a full-length cloak. I like a woman well wrapped up. It's good to ponder what she's hiding and why she wants to keep the goodies to herself.
This one lost her mystery when she bumped into me. Her long cloak slithered floorwards, to reveal that she was dressed as Diana the Huntress. As definitions go, "dressed" was only just applicable. She wore an off-one-shoulder little gold pleated costume; one hand carried a large bag from which emerged a chink of tambourine clackers while under her spare armpit were a quiver and a silly toy hunting bow.
"A virgin huntress!" I greeted her happily. "You must be the entertainment."
"And you're just a big joke!" she sneered. I bent and retrieved her cloak for her, which allowed me to peruse a shapely pair of legs. "You're in the right place to get kicked somewhere painful!" she added pointedly; I straightened up fast.
There was still plenty to look at. She would have come up to my shoulder but was wearing cork heels on her natty hide hunting boots. Even her toenails were polished like alabaster. Her
smooth, extremely dark skin was a marvel of depilatory care; she must have been plucked and pumiced all over-just thinking about it made me wince. Equal attention had been lavished on her paintwork: cheeks heightened with the purple bloom of powdered wine lees; eyebrows given super-definition as perfect semicircles half a digit thick; lids glowing with saffron; lashes smothered in lampblack. She wore an ivory bangle on one forearm and a silver snake on the other. The effect was purely professional. She was nobody's expensive mistress (no gemstones or filigree) and since women were not invited tonight, she was nobody's guest.