Better off Red – Chapter 3

CHAPTER THREE

Lysette had considered herself a professional. But she had one though on her mind when she walked into the emperor’s chamber. A thought she had never had before: I can’t do this. She had known the emperor all too well. Strange as it was, she expected his perversions. The girl had never had the privilege of learning her limitations, she had been forced into things all her life. Most experiences outside of what she was doing now were simply lost to her. This was all she had, and with that in mind, Lysette had been naïve enough to believe that there was nothing that she could not do.

She had never expected to be proven so wrong. At least not like this. She was used to the perversions of Caligula. And she had to admit an attraction to the new, mysterious guest. Neither of them bothered her, at least not in an unusual way. It was Caligula’s sister that terrified her.

The girl did not share her brother’s cruelty, not his psychopathic nature. She seemed to possess none of his characteristics.  In some ways, she seemed to possess no characteristics at all. She was cold, but not in the way he was. Her coldness did not come from a lack of empathy, an absence of understanding of human emotions. Her coldness came from a lack of everything. Her brother, her relationship with her brother, it had taken the ultimate toll on her. She was hollow.

This terrified Lysette much more than Caligula himself. She expected so much cruelty from him. To a degree, she could tolerate almost all of it. But his sister… that was what Lysette was truly afraid of, because that was what she was afraid she would become. It was not so crazy to think about. After a lifetime of abuse, of being treated and used like an object, it would be natural to wake up one day and not be there. A body, still moving and breathing, but without a soul. Without humanity. One day, if this continued, she would simply become the living dead.

“Get in there.”

Lysette froze. For the first time in her life, she was faced with a situation that she simply could not talk herself into handling. The Emperor’s foursome with his own flesh and blood, as well as this mystery guest, who—

“Now!”

Lysette was thrown to the floor at the Emperor’s feet. Just the way he liked to see her. On the ground, defenseless. He found, in his years, that he could only find attraction in weakness. Limping prey always made for an easier catch. “Please,” Caligula said, his voice smooth, but with an undertone like cracking ice. “Do join us.”

The girl glanced between the eyes gazing down at her. Caligula’s were feral, they almost appeared to be rimmed with red. His sister’s were glassy. The third pair of eyes interested Lysette very much. They were the only pair that were focused on her. Actually seeing her. The mysterious, cold-skinned stranger was gazing into Lysette as if seeing right through her blood down to her heart. And for a blissful moment, Lysette felt relieved.

Then she was thrown down onto the bed. Caligula was not a large man. What he lacked for in brute force, he made up for in insanity. When he was right there, when he had his hands around her neck, he might as well have been a hundred feet tall. He was a monster. And sometimes there was no fighting them, no matter how big or small a form they came in.

She tried to think of anything else. Tried to force herself to go deep inside of her mind, think herself away from this. Anywhere but this. But none of her own memories were much better. It wasn’t even the sex that bothered her, necessarily. That was, after all, her job. It was not one that she was born into. This was a path that she had chosen for herself, although her options were admittedly limited. Still, what made her sick to her stomach was not the sex. It was how far he would go to make sure there was no possible way she could enjoy it. Consent made the Emperor impotent. He would do anything to keep it out of his bedroom.

As he climbed on top of her, she begged for death. It was a simple, pathetic plea. One she made to any gods that could possibly be listening to a pathetic harem girl like her. One she doubted very much that anybody would hear.

And then it began to rain. A trickle at first. Warm. Lysette wiped it off of her nose. The raindrop was red and think, dark with a flat, coppery smell. More drops fell. More and more until she finally looked up and saw Caligula’s throat open wide and let the monsoon down.

She was bathed in the Emperor’s blood, and yet she did not scream. Instead, she fought for an understanding of what had changed, what was happening now. She found her answer when she looked beside the Emperor to see the cold-skinned woman with a dagger in her hands. Her eyes were red, brighter than the Emperor’s blood. They seemed to burn inside her skull. Yet even still Lysette was not afraid.

The cold-skinned woman turned to the Emperor’s sister and held out the dagger. The woman’s absent eyes looked down at the blade, then closed. She held out her own throat and waited as the cold-skinned woman completed her task, making sure brother and sister shared the same fate.

Caligula fought until the end. Reaching out for the girls, waving his arms wildly. Trying to cough through the blood spilling out beneath his chin. A vague, dumb look on his face; a total lack of understanding.

Then, finally, he fell.

For a moment all was silent. The woman wiped the blood off of the dagger, on the bed sheets. Then she looked at Lysette. “What’s your name?” she asked.

“Lysette,” it was barely above a whisper. Her own voice sounded a thousand miles away.

Yet somehow the beautiful red-eyed woman heard her and smiled. “Pretty name,” she said. “I’m Sappho.” She held out her hand. “We need to leave soon, Lysette. Leave the city. Forever.”

“We do?”

Sappho laughed a little and shrugged. “My dear, we just killed the Emperor.”

The reality began to hit Lysette. It came on sudden and strong, a punch to the gut. “The guards. They’ll find us. They’ll kill us.”

“They won’t.” Sappho sounded so confident. Lysette admired it.

“How? We’re just two harem girls. We mean nothing to these people. We cannot just walk away from this.”

“We can and we will, but you have to do what I say and follow my lead. Can you do that?”

“I… I think so.”

It wasn’t enough of an answer. Sappho looked at her expectantly.

“Yes.”

“Good,” Sappho said. “Then listen. Everyone in the palace thinks that the Emperor is having one of his orgies and they know not to disturb him. It’s precisely because we’re harem girls, because nobody will think of us or miss us that we are going to get away with this. But to do that we have to leave and you have to come with me when we go.”

“I want to,” Lysette said. She didn’t know why she found herself saying it, but it didn’t matter. She meant it nonetheless.

“Good. But we can’t go right now, not with you as you are. Do you want to be free from all of this?”

“Yes. I said I want to come and I want to come. Out of Rome tonight, out of Rome forever.”

“No. Not just Rome. The world of man is everywhere. It is a plague, it is a sickness and I promise you, it will continue to spread long after the Empire has fallen. It is a cancer that will consume the Earth until there is nothing less. I can free you from this system, from patriarchy. This body… they forced ownership of it because they saw your strength and it terrified them, so they patented you. I can give you your body back. Your control. Do you want that?”

Lysette wanted it more than anything. Even if she never dared think of freedom, it was always there at the back of her mind. The bile at the back of her throat. “What do I have to do?”

Sappho brought the dagger to her own chest and cut just above the breasts. A thin, red line. The blood came out in a gentle stream. “Drink me,” she said.