The Red Goddess

 

Livia had been so absorbed that she hadn’t even realized her mother, Cybelle, was coming towards them. Then suddenly it hit her. She stood up quickly, accidentally knocking Aureus down. “It’s her! Quick, hide!” Cybele was coming, and she was getting close. The ground shook with each step, a little more each time. The whole earth shook as she walked. She took another step. The bath’s clear water vibrated, disturbing the moon’s reflection. She stepped again. Flocks of birds left their trees and flew away into the distance. Another step. The eunuchs could hear her coming. Most of them scampered to the sides of the pool, out of her path. She stepped again. Lydia looked over at the bath’s huge heavy gates, shaking subtly with each heavy step. Each of Cybele’s steps was a bit louder than the last, and a bit closer. 

Livia turned back away from the gate. Aureus had gone to hide. Livia looked to see where he had gone, hoping that he had managed to hide well, if not somehow escape. He could hide behind a column, or up a tree. The baths’ courtyard was mostly open grass, but there were no shortage of decent places to hide. Then she looked over, and saw Aureus, only a few feet from the side of the baths. He was hiding behind a tall, narrow shrub that had been shaped like a giraffe by hedge trimmers. The thin legs of the hedge giraffe did little to hide his body. 

“You have to find a better hiding place!” she whispered, her voice interrupted by the booming of Cybele’s footsteps.
“Where?”
“Anywhere!”

Livia looked around. There was a far better hedge a few dozen feet away, or a column not much further. He could still make it, she thought. Or could he? Livia felt the earth shaking. She was getting closer. No, she was here. “It’s too late! Wait here!” Livia hurried to the edge of the pool. She dipped her feet in, trying to act natural. She heard the familiar footsteps, even louder than before, heard the huge, heavy gates swing open effortlessly.

“Livia? What are you doing here?”

Livia turned around and looked at her mother, trying to look surprised. Cybele, standing next to the gates in her crimson dress, loomed large over Livia. Even the baths’ immense inner gates barely came up to her hips. The moonlight gave Cybele’s olive skin a strange glow, though her hair remained jet black. Somehow she still looked youthful, and her smooth, feminine face had yet to show her advancing years. The blouse of her red dress was tight around her huge, round breasts. The long dress traced her body’s curves, hugging her wide hips, then hanging loose around her legs. Her feet, immaculately maintained, were bare, and somehow utterly clean in spite of the soft dirt she had been walking through. 

Livia looked over towards Cybele. “Mother! It seemed like a pleasant night to go for a swim. The moon is full, the air is warm. What could be better than the feeling of cold water against the skin?”

“It does sound rather perfect, does it not? The baths calm the mind and invigorate the body. There’s something so sensual about them, and it’s been so long I’ve nearly forgotten their pleasures.”

Cybele walked towards the pool. With each step the ground shook and rumbled with her incredible weight. She strode past the tall oak trees that lined the wide path to the pool, making them look like small herbs by comparison. The few eunuch servants who were still in Cybele’s path scampered out of the way like mice. The rest stood to the side of the path, bowing down and trembling as the ground quaked. She stopped at the edge of the pool. She towered over Livia, who, sitting down, barely came up to her ankles. 

Livia glanced over towards the bush that Aureus was hiding behind, then looked back towards her mother. Such size, such power… She tried not to picture what would happen if Cybele found Aureus, but she couldn’t help it. Even Cybele’s smallest toe was big and heavy enough to crush her beloved into gristle… Or Cybele could wring him out in her hand like a washcloth, or swallow him whole, or chew him apart, or crush him between her breasts, or… or… each image seemed worse than the last. She did her best to compose herself.

The eunuchs ran over to Cybele’s feet, all two dozen or so of them, and started their duties. They looked like bald, chubby mice next to her huge feet. Their tiny hands rubbed lotion on every inch of her feet and toes. Cybele paid them little heed. This kind of worshipful attention was little more than pleasant background noise to her. Cybele raised her arms up, and with a single elegant motion, flung off her dress, which landed on several eunuchs. Her body was stunningly curvaceous, a platonically perfect hourglass figure. Her long legs, tall and thick as the bath’s massive columns, seemed to go on forever. Her skin was still smooth, and betrayed few signs of her age. While her huge, round breasts didn’t point upward like they once had, they were still remarkably perky for their immense size. Each of them weighed well over a ton, and the way they heaved with her every movement betrayed their great weight. 

“Take off your clothes. You should get into the pool.”

Livia felt a sudden need to do as her mother said. There was something commanding about Cybele’s deep yet feminine voice. People tended to do what she asked, and not just because of her title or size. Livia clumsily struggled out of her dress, then took off her panties. She looked much like her mother nude, only younger, thinner and much lighter-skinned. Different parts of the pool had vastly different depths, ranging from several feet deep in front of where she was standing, to nearly fifty in front of where Cybelle stood. She stepped into the pool, resting on a shallow section near the side, and felt the water against her skin. The water was exactly the same temperature as the air above; it was hard to tell where one stopped and the other started. Somehow, it made Livia feel as she was one with the world. Her anxiety somehow seemed more distant, and she felt her worries about Aureus lessoning. 

Cybele abruptly stepped forward. Her huge feet, as big as a carriage, knocked down many of the eunuchs. Cybele she didn’t seem to notice, much less care about the men. She lowered her long legs into the pool, sending high waves rippling through the water. Cybele started to sit down on the side of the pool. She was completely indifferent to the eunuchs below her. They scrambled out of the way, but some of them were still struggling to get up. Cybele’s massive, perfectly round ass came down above them, slowly. 

Livia could have tried to stop her mother, yet she somehow felt unable or unwilling to do so. Instead, her thoughts turned philosophical. Time seemed to slow down to a near pause. Some of the men, struggling to run away yet entirely doomed, stopped in their tracks. There were nearly a dozen of them. If Livia didn’t know better, she would have thought they were looking up to the sky. One of them lifted his hands to the air. They couldn’t see, but they knew what was coming. Livia couldn’t make out their faces very well in the dark, but she imagined them having a look of almost religious reverence. Only, she remembered, not almost. Religious reverence is what they felt for Cybele, their hundred and ten foot-high goddess. They were being offered to her now, and they seemed to realize it. It seemed strange to Livia. In spite of her mother’s size, she usually saw her mother more as a flawed woman than as a perfect heavenly figure. But these people believed in her divinity completely and utterly. And maybe they were right. Maybe being a goddess was more than just a political title, maybe it wasn’t just the Spice that had given the royals their colossal size. 

The men didn’t resist. They offered themselves freely, she thought, as a crushed offering to their goddess. And she came down on them. Cybele’s huge ass came down on them, crushing them as easily as an elephant might crush a mouse. Their bodies compressed, a little more and a little more, until they were unrecognizable. Bones snapped in a sickening symphony. Blood trickled out in droplets at first, then sprayed out in a torrent. Finally, she came to rest. A ripple shook through her ass, an undulating wave of force, Livia thought, powerful as the cosmos. Their bodies were gone now, flattened. Their crushed offering was accepted. Livia wasn’t sure if she believed in souls, but for a second, she wondered what fate the men’s souls would have. Perhaps they’d go on to another world now, maybe one where they could be crushed by goddesses over and over, paying them tribute for all eternity. Or maybe they’d be absorbed by Cybele, becoming some small part of her. Livia felt a sense of deep cosmic righteousness, completely at odds with the disgust that such casual acts of violence usually brought about in her.

Livia was suddenly jerked out of her trance by the sound of a man screaming. One eunuch had only had his bottom half crushed by Cybele. He was wedged under her immense crotch, his guts spilling out of his lower abdomen. He let out another pained, raspy scream, and then another, until all he could manage was a faint gasp.

“You should finish him off,” said Livia, staring into Cybele’s eyes with an enigmatic look. 
“Very well.” Cybele thrusted her thighs forward along the marble floor. Her enormous labia pressed the man’s tiny body against the ground with incredible force, leaving nothing but a bloody streak on the marble. 

“Why did you do that? Those men served you tirelessly. Why would you do that do them?” Livia asked the question purely out of curiosity, not the disgust she should have felt.
“I didn’t try to kill them, not this time. I sat down in exactly the same way I would have if they hadn’t been there. Their presence, or absence, didn’t affect my movement in the least. A hurricane doesn’t stop because there are a few insects in its way, my darling. The earth’s foundations don’t cease to shift because they fear injuring some lowly creature. You must realize the enormity of what we are. When I was young I was not without compassion for these people. I saw myself as a powerful instrument of some divide will, guiding the paths of these vast multitudes. 

Sometimes in the course of my errands I would find a man crushed like jelly under my feet. Rome is a crowded city, and men are small. For one of my statue it can be impossible to walk a few blocks without crushing a few such men under your feet. And at the time, I felt a kind of guilt for them, as if I had somehow done something wrong. I had to justify the destruction to myself. It was the fate of Rome and its colonies that concerned me, I would tell myself, not the fate of whatever insect stands in my path. And so I would crush those who stood in my way, and pretend it didn’t please me, and tell myself that it was all for the greater good, as long as I could save a hundred lives for every one I ended. Because I felt that was my purpose, at the time: the good of Rome’s people.”

Cybele made a strange whistling noise to call for the remaining eunuchs, who dutifully made their way over towards her, one by one. There were roughly a dozen of them. They paid the crushed bodies of their former friends little heed, if they even noticed them. 

Cybele reached down with her right hand and slowly closed it around a group of the men. The eunuchs stood there complacently, making no attempt to struggle or flee. She did the same with her left hand, again effortlessly wrapping her long fingers around a group of eunuchs. She raised both hands up and crossed her arms over her lap. Then she looked back over towards Livia as if nothing had happened. 

“Livia, as I became a little older, I started to use the Red Spice, and to the appetites that it gave me. It awoke certain predilections in me I once would have considered unsavory. These tastes first seemed unnatural, and at first, I tried to bury them. But as time went on, my cravings only became stronger. I tried to find acceptable outlets for my urges. This is back when Juno was still alive, and I was a princess like you. I decided to become a warrior, to fight on the fields. I led men into battle against the Britons. At the time, the Britons didn’t yet have the spice. Their armies were nothing but men and horses, not an amazon or a giantess to be seen. It was a slaughter. I would crush men under foot, impale them on my heels. I’d topple towers, roll boulders into their encampments, crush them in my hands, eat them, and worse. Far worse. I told myself that I did all it for the glory of Rome and its people. I was just another warrior, doing her bloody duty. And I earned accolades, and was called a hero. My men would bow down to worship me, and pray to me, and tell me of my greatness. Yet I felt a deep guilt inside of me, because I knew it wasn’t the glory of Rome that motivated me. It was mere bloodlust, the true kind, the kind that comes with the Red Spice. The kind that you’ll be all too accustomed to in time.

‘After a few months, we had defeated the Britons. I had turned their cities into dust, crushed countless multitudes of men into gristle. For a while it felt good, having won a great victory for Rome. But the towns were deserted, and I grew weary of having no enemies to kill. Then, one day on the return home, I had a revelation. I ordered my troops, all thirty thousand of them, to stand in formation in front of me. I asked my troops to worship me, as they had done before, and they did. Then I asked them to disrobe, and though they were confused, and it was cold, they did as I said. Then I told them to come to me, and sacrifice themselves to me. And as they came, I would shove them in my pussy, stuffing in more and more of them till blood ran down the sides of my labia live a river. It felt incredible.

I wondered if some of the soldiers might flee. Yet still they lined up between my legs and waiting for their turn. Each and every soldier marched to me, most without hesitation. Some were scared, but most seemed honored to perform the duty, to have the honor of pleasing their goddess. I still remember that day quite well—each one of them pleased me greatly. You should feel no shame in satisfying your desires. I imagine you already have some such feelings now, and they’ll become far more powerful after you try the Red Spice. You’ll come to enjoy the feeling of a man sliding down your throat, the crunch of a man’s body beneath your heel. And other, less savory pleasures. And you should know that these feelings are right, and that they are good.”

“Please, mother, I’m not so sure. I don’t know if I want to…”

“Enough.” Cybelle leaned back her head and raised her right hand above her head. She opened her mouth just a bit. Her hand opened slightly, letting a man’s feet fall between her lips. She pressed her thick lips together, just hard enough to keep the man in place. Then she opened them ever so slightly, letting the man fall down bit by bit until her lips finally closed. She swallowed, her lips curved into a subtle smile. 

Livia felt an odd feeling. It was as if Livia could feel what Cybele’s every sensation as if it was her own. She wondered If Cybele was somehow doing this to her, or some strange property of the Sacred Baths—perhaps they had some magic after all. She felt Cybele’s lips as if they were hers, felt the sensation of the man sliding down between them. As Cybele swallowed, Livia had a feeling of immense, almost godlike power. She could feel the man’s powerlessness, and she took a strange satisfaction in taking advantage of the man’s weakness. 

She considered the implications of what she was doing. She had swallowed a man, a sentient being of emotions and intelligence endless complexity, a man who was unlike any other man in the earth. And she had eaten him. Soon he would be in her stomach, where he’s be dissolved by acid and crushed by her powerful stomach muscles; maybe he’d die of asphyxiation before that happened, maybe he wouldn’t. She felt him wriggling, struggling to get out with every last ounce of strength. It tickled. And though it hadn’t happened yet, she felt his body being digested into hers, his strong body and caring mind being reduced to a paste, and felt the paste reforming as a fat in Cybele’s breasts. A unique human being, destroyed so that Cybele’s already enormous tits can get ever so slightly bigger, Livia thought. Yet she didn’t feel anger at the absurdity of it all, or feel disgust at the waste. She felt powerful. The man had been weak, and now he was part of her. It was the order of things. She took what she wanted, destroyed others to please herself and fulfill her own needs, and it felt right. It felt good. Livia looked up towards Cybele as she started to speak again.

“I realized that day, after I killed the last of my troops, that my shame had been misplaced. It was not the place of a Goddess to sacrifice herself for her men. It was the place of the Goddess to use men for her pleasure. And I indulged my tastes for years, no matter what the costs. My decadence became legendary. Scarlett’s famous tales pale in comparison. Each day wagonloads of men were shipped to my private chambers in the palace, sometimes thousands of men, other times more. They were mostly foreigners, criminals, masterless slaves: men without anyone of import who cared about them. I would spend my days devising new forms of wickedness to perform with them, and I spent the nights fulfilling my appetite and engaging in every debauchery I could imagine. They offered themselves as food offerings and crushed offerings, and offerings of other sorts: sometimes willingly, sometimes not. Each day I grew a little larger. And each day it took hundreds of slaves to clean the blood from the floors of my private chambers. My appetite was ravenous. And it still is.”

Cybele opened her mouth wide, dropping the other three men from her right hand into her mouth. She toyed with them a bit with her tongue before swallowing one, then another. The last man cowardly tried to climb out through her lips, but it was little use. Cybele wrapped her long tongue so that it was completely around him. Her tongue wrapped around him tightly as an anaconda. The man struggled to breathe, and as she tightened her grip, the man’s chest collapsed. Livia felt the sensation of her tongue crushing the man, felt his ribs cracking and his chest compressing before she finally swallowed him. She wondered if there was any part of her body that she couldn’t use to kill a man. Had Cybele ever killed a man with her nipple, or her pinkie finger, or her clitoris? Would Livia do such things herself, one day? But for now, she listened to Cybele speak.

“It all got to be too much. I was pronounced Goddess Empire after Juno’s disappearance. I came to ignore everything except my own selfish desires. I took as much spice as I could, as much as I could buy, until I found myself using half the treasury to finance my habits. I ignored affairs of state, and turned the other way as the enemies of Rome grew stronger. I didn’t act when foreign armies got ahold of the Spice, and soon we had armies of giantesses to contend with. I stood by while they conquered my allies, and one allied Governess after another was taken hostage. And as I did nothing, Rome grew weak. There were credible rebellions against Rome, not like the pitiful slave rebellions we have today. Governesses and their provinces betrayed me. Soon, Rome was divided. My shipments of Red Spice slowed, then stopped; the thousands of men that were once sent in by wagonloads slowed down to a few hundred, then a few dozen. And I realized what my shortsightedness had wrought. If I kept doing things as I had, caring about nothing but myself, I would have lost my power, perhaps even been killed. I, the heir of Juno, would have birthed no heirs, and the line of Juno, the first goddess, would have ended. I couldn’t let that happen. So I set about to tighten my grip, and crush the rebels myself.” 

Cybele’s mouth twisted into a look of anger. She held five eunuchs in her right hand. She tightened her grip, at first just a little, but then forcefully, as tight as she could. Livia felt through her mother the sensation of their bones shattering, their skulls and bodies being crushed into nothingness. She felt how easy this was, how weak and fragile the men were. Blood ran down through her fingers, pouring down her breasts and spilling into the water.

“I trampled my way through the rebel armies with an army of men and giants. I tore through one group of rebels after another, crushing countless men under my heel. I crushed the rebel cities until there was nothing left to destroy. The rebel governesses I took hostage. I had… other uses for them. I consolidated my power, and Rome slowly started to become strong again. 

‘I’ve always been hesitant to tell you my true feelings on this matter Livia, I’m afraid, because I worried that your weak stomach might prevent you from digesting my wisdom. Your coronation nears. Soon you’ll be a goddess, and you need to start acting the part. While I suppose your compassion is admirable in a certain way, it will make you weak. Your sister is rash, but you could learn much from her. 

‘The people of Rome are our sheep. You will devour many of them, or use them in other ways, if you desire. And in time, you will desire it. But they are also our flock. We must watch over them, keep them strong enough and numerous enough so that they may provide for us. They will sacrifice themselves to us, upon the altar of our appetites. And you will accept those offerings. And if anyone dares to stand against our family, or blasphemes us, or is in any way disloyal... crush them. Mercilessly. ” 

Cybele gazed across the water for a minute, before looking back towards Livia. She spoke in a hushed tone. “Have you noticed? We have an interloper here, in this garden. A man, a full man, has trespassed here.”

“What? I… I had no idea. What do you mean?” Livia tried her best to avoid glancing over towards Aureus, but it was difficult. Suddenly, her thoughts returned to her lover, and became anxious once more. Did she see him?

Those Who Trespass Against Us

“It’s a crime punishable by death for a man to desecrate the baths with his presence. The same punishment is meted out to all men who violate our bodies by gazing upon a Goddess naked. This man has doubly blasphemed us, and he must be punished.”

Livia’s thoughts raced. What if it was him she spoke of? “Perhaps this man is worthy of compassion, for an act of mere folly?” 

“’Mere folly?’ ‘Compassion?’ I wonder if you might forgive murderers so easily. They have at least only sinned against other men. This one has sinned against a goddess. He has sinned against my perfection, by beauty, my power. His crime is thus infinitely worse. My daughter, if you lack the will to punish such a crime, you lack the will to rule, and you are unfit to become a goddess. I will see to it that you slaughter this man yourself.”

Livia was stunned. She started to raise her voice in protest, but what she saw gave her pause. 

Cybele turned her head, not towards Aureus, but towards the statue of Juno on the far side of the pool. The huge golden statue stood grand and triumphant on a wide marble pedestal. The statue was even bigger than Cybele, and had a resemblance to her, the same voluptuous body type and slender face. But there was something else. At the base of the pedestal was a small, white speck. It took Livia a few seconds to realize that this speck was a man.

Cybele walked across the pool, snatched the man as he tried to run away, and walked back. Her colossal body sent high waves through the water, prompting Livia to climb out of the pool. She carelessly tossed the man from twenty feet in the air. He crashed to the ground in front of Livia. He was still alive, though badly hurt and struggling to breathe. 

“Go on, punish this wretched creature. Let him know what it means to blaspheme a goddess.”

Livia looked at the man. He was a pitiful, broken man, and she imagined he had been even before Cybele cast him down. He looked like an outsider. She had no idea how he had managed to get into the Palace, let alone the Sacred Baths, or what need had driven him here. But here he was. He stared up at her, a pained look on her face, and tried to speak. Livia thought back to Cybele’s words, and perhaps in some sense she was right. But this was still a man, she thought, and he was worthy of compassion. 

“Please, my daughter, let’s not take all day? I’ll leave you alone as soon as you take care of this mess.”

Then Livia heard something, a rustle from the giraffe-shaped bush that Aureus was hiding behind. Cybele seemed to notice. What if she heard him? I have to take care of this poor wretch now, she thought. He’s not long for this world. Even if I refused, Cybele would finish him off. She looked down at the man. He gasped, then struggled to say something in a strange tongue. Livia didn’t understand the words, but knew what he must be saying: “help me.“

Livia had never killed anyone on purpose. Once, on a tour of Rome’s walls, she accidentally knocked a man off a fifty foot high defense barricade. Another time she didn’t look before sitting down, and ended up crushing a servant, who died later from internal bleeding. She had killed people on accident, and each time, she was racked with guilt. But now she had to deliberately end a man’s life, and she wasn’t sure how she could do it.


“I’m sorry,” she said quietly to herself, and she looked at him one last time. I should do it quickly, she thought. One swift stomp. I stand fifteen feet high, I weigh over two thousand pounds… this shouldn’t be that difficult. Livia raised one of her legs above the man’s head, closed her eyes, and stomped as hard as she could. At the last second, she flinched, and her leg went off to the side. Her foot came crashing down hard on the man’s leg, breaking his bone into splinters. The man let out a scream, the first she had heard from him. She tried again to stomp on his head, but again fear of killing the man kept her from hitting her mark. This time her foot came down hard on his thighs, shattering his pelvis. Yet still the man lived. Livia felt shock, and horror, and something else. She felt powerful. Yet she still had compassion for the man. She tried to bring herself to stomp on him, or to punch his face in, but couldn’t. 

Exhausted, Livia let herself fall down against a nearby marble pillar, legs spread. The man looked even more pitiful now, his bottom half crushed beyond recognition. The man was sitting there right in front of her, suffering, but she was too weak to do anything. She felt her mother’s immense eyes looking down on her, waiting, judging. Livia closed her eyes. Then she heard a terrible sound. She looked. The man was somehow rasping her way towards her, propelled with some terrible energy. He was already right in front of her, between her seven foot long legs. Livia saw the look in his eyes. It was no longer the look of a man begging for mercy. It was the look of a lecher, the look of a rapist. She remembered now what he was: a desperate man. He wanted her. How had she been so naïve? The man had snuck in the baths to see a goddess naked, and here was what he wanted, sitting there right in front of him. Livia saw his wretched body reaching for her, clawing for her. She tried to back up, but couldn’t, her back still against the pillar. She tried to stand up, but somehow felt paralyzed. He was between her legs, then her thighs, and…

Then, driven by a primal urge, Livia felt her thighs pressing together, squeezing the man’s head and body and lifting him off the ground, her knees up in the air. The man’s arms flailed about wildly. She felt herself squeezing tighter and tighter. She felt his shoulders dislocating, his ribs crunching. She looked and saw blood running through the man’s eyes and out of his jaw. It was terrible to look at, but she couldn’t look away. She squeezed as tight as she could, with more strength than she knew she had. She felt the man’s skull compressing, then cracking. Blood ran down the crack in his head. She let go, and the man’s limp body fell to the ground. It was over. It was finally over.

“That took far too long, my daughter.” said Cybelle, her voice booming down from above like she was speaking from the heavens. ”Unless you were trying to make him suffer, which the man surely deserved. But I doubt it, knowing you. Yet you did kill the pitiful little miscreant. Good. You will find your bloodlust yet. The Red Spice will cleanse you of your weakness. How do you feel?”

Livia searched within herself. She felt exhausted. She felt like she had killed a man. She felt terrible. Yet as she looked down at the man’s body, she also felt something else. Strength. Pride. Righteousness. It frightened her a bit that she felt that way. Yet a small part of her felt good. A small part of her enjoyed it.

“I… I feel good,” Livia said, not believing it.

“I’m glad to hear it. Savor that feeling. This is your first real kill, your first of many to come. You’ll come to enjoy it more as time goes on. I promise you. I’ll leave you alone now, we both have business to attend to. The Games will be held at the Coliseum tomorrow, in honor of your coming coronation. Many dignitaries and patricians will be there. Your sister has decided to fight in the arena; you can do the same if you like, though I don’t expect that you will. Very well, my daughter. Put some clothes on, and get some rest. You’ve earned it.”

With that, Cybele put on her red dress and walked off into the night, each step of hers ringing like thunder. She waited for a few minutes as her mother walked away. When her mother was no longer in sight, Livia ran over to look for Aureus, calling his name. She looked around the bush that he was hiding behind earlier, but there was no one there. Aureus must have escaped somehow. She looked around, but there was no one except for a single eunuch. Livia wondered if she would be able to see Aureus again before her coronation. Or after, for that matter. If it was this dangerous to meet with him, how would they stay together? Livia had fantasized about freeing him. Maybe one day, she could even legitimize him, make him a noble. They could rule side by side. Of course, that could never happen. Not as long as Cybele and Julia were around.

Livia walked over to the body of the interloper she had killed. She felt sorry for him, even after what the man had tried to do to her. It was right to kill him. He had sinned against a goddess, and he had to die. She had done a poor job of killing him, though. If she had to kill another, she would do it well. She would do it quickly and cleanly. Like Cybele did. Well, maybe cleanly isn’t the right word to use, she thought, looking over at the bloody mess that Cybele had made. Livia thought back to how disgusted she was at the overseers whipping their slaves, or her sister killing men for pleasure. Yet when Cybele did the same thing, it somehow seemed right. Why? What was the difference? Because, she thought, because Cybele is a goddess. And soon she would be one as well. And, she supposed, so would her sister… but there were worse things. It’s good to be a goddess… 

Livia watched the last eunuch kneeling over by the pool. He was lit by the warm light of the lanterns as he scrubbed off the body of his former friends. She walked over towards him. The man heard her coming, and bowed down in front of her. Livia kneeled down next to him and whispered in his ear. The eunuchs were blind and mute, but their ears still worked.

“I am Livia of house Junius. You have served our family well with your service. One day, when I am a goddess, would you like to sacrifice yourself to me? Would you like me to crush you between my breasts?”

The man paused for a second, then smiled and nodded, looking up to her with empty eye sockets. Livia kissed him on the forehead with her thick lips.

“Then I will.” With that, Livia put on her dress and walked off, out of the baths and towards her chambers. The games were tomorrow. Livia had a big day ahead of her.