Give Me That Body (Oneshots)

Nonus of Misenum

I am not confident. What is there? I am here alone. Inside of me, a spoiled gentleness.

I have learned to be angry. In spite of my gentle self. I have learned fury. 

Being quiet by habit, I wait quietly. 

Abused children, hungry children. They learn to hide from themselves, as I learned. 

But taken from me, my other self, my Aulus, I emerge distinctly. In my hands, there is strength, and power.

I hide. A spider teaches me. Nataniellus, who knows the secret ways of all men, how they move when they are unobserved. He, used by them in another life, teaches me how fury straightens the body. A rigid, quiet figure waiting against the a wall, or around a corner, in shadow.

When ravagers come, seeking of us our old blood, to eat of, we wait. He holds onto my arm. His heartbeat is in his hand. My fingertips against the stone wall. 

I do not care about truth. I do not care about victories. 

Earlier in the night, as we waited, a boy came. A boy of twelve. But how old was he in his body? In the half moon, he could not hide from me. Nataniellus's hand let me go, and I sprang from our shadow, with only my palms, my teeth, and overtook him. 

We took him easily, in spite of that he was older than us. Nataniellus pushed him down, and spat on him, and said, "Omnes una manet nox," to which I laughed and whispered, "Dei omnes me serant." One night awaits us all. Gods deliver me. We dragged him away. 

Quiet in myself. Now, Nataniellus holds onto my arm in the dark again. But now we do not wait for that. When Nataniellus sees our Cassius coming up the road, his hand slips around my waist. "Columba," he whispers, inside of me, Dove, "he comes."

Now I am holding him, myself. Do nothing. Do nothing.

"Columba." Dove. 

He often talked about doing this, Cassius. He often told Nataniellus, without anger, that he would leave us. As soon as he was strong enough to defend himself, he would be leaving us. Never to look back. He said so coldly, never to wound. He said it as a fact. 

For our Nataniellus it was an impossibility for Cassius to go. But to him, we five children had been always together. Our Iovita, myself, Aulus, our Escha, and our Cassius. For when Nataniellus came to live on our hill, we boys were many years together already, and wary of Nataniellus as a stranger, we united against him in the beginning. So did we also unite around him as we grew to love him, all but for Escha. But look now, it were only Iovita, myself, and Cassius left. And Cassius never wanting us to begin with. 

When we were boys, Cassius sympathized with horses. Because he is of the sea from head to foot. Aulus and I spurned him as recreation. Cassius never gave our desperate hatred an inch of notice. He never looked at us long enough to see that we despised him his disregard. Were we not all from the same lives, the same beginning? We shared our histories, born bound to masters and chosen for a better class of slavery. Though it was still slavery. And so who was he to spurn us? For myself, his desertion is not anything new. It was there in the beginning. So here in the end, it is as old as the world. 

"I would as soon as kill him as hold him back," I tell Nataniellus, to his heart. Not a breath of air.

"Don't. What would Aulus say?" he begs me.

"Futuere," I curse him. "How dare you? Even as upset as you are." My Aulus who is more dead than alive. "He would say kill Cassius. Fuck him! Aulus would have killed him already. Not as he slept but full in his eyes, from the front. Aulus would have killed him. That is what he would do. What do you know? Futuere."

Nataniellus grips my waist. What does he mean to do? Stop Cassius? For what? 

"Fine. If you feel that way. I only want to see him."

Dark Misenum, in moonlight, is a city of low buildings. White marble catches the light and holds it, and so the moon swims in rooftops, dreaming of the air. Cold stillness, in winter. And we wait there, watching first as he passes, going silently, and then until we cannot see him anymore. 

As Nataniellus and I walk home, he puts his hand in mine. 

"Do not misunderstand," he says to me. 

"Misunderstand what?"

"He never had any love for me. I know that."

As for me, I have let go of Cassius. 

"Do not be so hard. You are not, my Cat," Nataniellus whispers, pushing open our door. It is a small two-room apartment, on the bottom floor. Even, it is a few inches below the street, so that we must step down. Because of this, there is always dirt on the steps. 

Inside, cow-eyed Iovita is sitting sentry. 

A shadow, lying comfortably upon a mat of rushes, is my Aulus. I want to be by him. I want to be of him. I go and I lie myself around him, and listen to his breathing. As my cool hand finds his naked belly, beneath fabric eagerly pushed aside, he does me one of his little miracles, and places his hand over mine. Oh is one ever even nauseated over relief sometimes.

In the low light, Iovita and Nataniellus talk of Cassius while I drowse. Iovita is always Nataniellus' affirmation. "Ah, dei omnes. Ah, dei omnes. Ah, dei omnes." How terrible how terrible how terrible. 

I shiver. And now what comes? I know that Iovita secretly waited for Cassius to leave. Now we, too, can go. It is not like Nataniellus to show his soft side. We do sometimes wonder that he has one any longer. But part of him is the old self, and when he was our Nerva he was ever loving. In Nataniellus's living heart, he was shepherd of all motherless children.

It is clear that we could live here in uncertainty forever. Iovita will not. We will not wait for any master who has deserted us. Iovita only waited for Cassius to go. 

"He is dreaming of you, my little Cat," Iovita whispers to me, of Aulus. "All night, he whispered in ways resembling your name."

And now what comes?