The two women, sole survivors from the pirate galley that had been holed, keel broken, then left to sink by a Roman trireme, had washed ashore on the island of Malta . It was rocky, with a mass of trees and undergrowth, a variegated and often vivid green. Just before being taken prisoner by the local inhabitants, they had seen, rising in a steep semicircle immediately behind the beach, a village. Existent since the earliest days of habitation, and located well above the high water mark, its stucco buildings reflected bright and hot white in the brilliant morning light.
The Greek woman powerfully muscled and more heavily built than her blonde companion was Xena, now held erect between two men, unconscious, her face drawn and white with pain.
Moving out from the scrub growth came a tall, dark to the point of almost being black, woman. The other female prisoner, a near naked blonde, stood closely guarded near a shallow pit, once used to thrash and separate grain, but now apparently employed as a miniature arena for settling tribal disputes in hand-to-hand combat.
The blonde sensed the dark woman striding purposely toward her was some sort of tribal leader, perhaps a priestess. Certainly the deference of her captors to the Maltese woman's approach indicated some sort of rank or position of leadership within the local community. And also, from the looks of that body manfully approaching her, more than likely her opponent in some sort of physical struggle certain to come in this shit-hole in the bowels of the Empire.
The Maltese woman approached the smaller, lithe blonde, who even wearing a badly torn wrap, hair matted with seawater and sand, held herself aloof in a superior manner. The dark woman, the local priestess, had seen this arrogant manner before; this bitch was Roman, either whore to a senator…or perhaps a gladiatrix .
In broken Latin she issued a guttural command: "Strip!"
The dark woman, named Velasca, had a handsome face and dark complexion with finely sculpted Nubian features. Her skirt, sheathing heavy, thickly muscled thighs, was slit on both sides up to her waist, and gave her the swaying gait of a sailor. A tight-fitting jacket barely concealed her large, high-pitched breasts. An ivory-hilted gladius was thrust into her waistband and her second incisors teeth were filed to a point so that she appeared to have two pairs of dogteeth.
The village men around her were silent, obsequious, the air rife with tension...and deference. The blonde Roman, a decurio , or officer in the Roman Cavalry , could feel their gaze on the swell of her breasts, large for a woman of her comparatively small size. She knew the darker skinned peoples of the Mediterranean fixated on blonde women, and no doubt her nubile body was playing some role in the current fantasies adorning the consciousnesses of her captors.
The decurio , Callisto, had yet to move when the command was repeated, this time more loudly and with an underlying sense of malice: "Strip!!...Or I will have my men tear your garments from you!"
“Well obviously, this bitch, probably some manner of high priestess, was not enamored with her body,” the Roman thought. A nearly silent sigh of scarcely concealed contempt escaped from her lips as she pulled the swath of material wrapped around her hips away from her body. As she dropped it, her captors stared at the blonde decurio's erect breasts exquisitely tipped by small, delectable aureoles and long thick nipples. The decurio shifted to face her male captors, flagrantly thrusting her blonde pussy at them. "You see, my collar matches my cuffs!" she contemptuously muttered in Latin, gesturing towards the darker woman who was clearly their superior.
The darker woman's lips twitched as she lifted her gaze over her thinner, lithe prisoner's frame. The Roman's utter nakedness was at once arousing…exotic…and threatening, to both male and female captor alike. A tangled, matted cascade of blonde hair stood out against the woman's sun and wind burned skin. Her eyes were haughty, but remote, almost distant. She stood with her arms at her sides, making no effort to cover herself before the inquiring eyes of her captors. She was the essence of perfect...insolent composure. In her person was the arrogance...the power...and the passion of Rome. Her manner and demeanor conveyed but a single message: No matter what fate befell her in their hands, the Empire would go on!
A short distance away from this confrontation, heavy ropes were thrown over a thick tree limb, and Xena's unconscious body pulled erect. Once powerful arms were stretched into a widespread Y, her legs dragged the ground. As the coarse rope fiber cut deep into her olive-tinted wrists, the deadweight of her body steadied, rocking slightly, feet level with the knees of leering onlookers.
In surprisingly good Latin, Velasca snorted at her blonde captive: “We will fight, you and me, Roman bitch. Don't try and hide your race from me. We in Malta have been under the heel of your Emperor for too long not to recognize the viper that is Rome in our midst. When I was younger, I remember my mother taunting my father, telling him that he should weep like a woman for our lost lands that he could not defend as a man. He...and others like him… failed, and now most of our men are either Roman galley slaves or gutless tillers of dirt and rocks. All my people, like the Gauls, Britons, Jews and Egyptians, have suffered cruelly under the Roman yoke.”
“But I am not a man, and as a woman, will fulfill my mother's lament. I sense you too are a warrior…only of Rome…and that will make my victory over you particularly fitting. When I am done breaking your body, you will rue the day you were born Roman...or with that blonde Teutonic hair, German, or whatever race you are. Regardless, you are a citizen of Rome, and while your army and navy may indeed rule the world, your legions and cavalry are nowhere near now.”
“So it will be just you and me…Roman cunt…one-on-one, in a fight to the death. And when I am done with you, I'll take that big-breasted Greek strung up above us like a hog…to bed. The ‘glory of Greece' my ass. I'll fuck your raven-haired bitch to tears!"
Velasca began to remove her garments, brazenly flaunting her body's charms to her adoring male onlookers. As she dropped down into the wrestling pit, her dark brown body glistened in a sheath of silvery sweat, adorned solely in a light tan patch of soft leather that barely covered her crotch.
Callisto, provided a similar crotch patch that barely covered her light pubic bush quickly slipped it on as she was herded over to the pit and shoved over the edge. She landed lightly on her feet, and quickly drew away from her opponent, scrambling to get her bearings and orientation.
Fortunately, the pit was shallow, for without signal, but with silent understanding of the contest at hand, the two nearly nude combatants, sweating in the sun and humidity of a Mediterranean summer, collided. Almost immediately the smaller, less muscular decurio could feel the overwhelming strength and intensity of the struggle coursing through her opponent, a feeling exacerbated by frequent clinches with the sculpted, near-naked Maltese's voluptuous body. It was clear to opponent and spectators alike that Velasca was taking every opportunity to clinch with the blonde Roman, rubbing her large breasts wantonly and shamelessly against the smaller ones of her opponent's, and locking her long, heavily muscled legs around Callisto sinewy limbs, thrusting crotch to crotch, whenever they fell to the earthen floor of the wrestling pit.
The disparity in both opponents' size and strength became apparent as Velasca dropped all pretense of style or form and openly took the fight to the increasingly defensive Roman. The Maltese wrestler's slashing fists and upper body strength were clearly overwhelming the slighter woman. With each successive slam to the sun-baked ground by the powerfully muscled dark-complexioned woman, with each hammering blow that thudded into the blonde's back, kidneys and groin, the smaller woman struggled with increasing difficulty to stay competitive…and conscious.
But it was clear to all that in addition to the beating she was being subjected to, Callisto was clearly being turned on by close personal contact with the dominant female warrior. With light flesh rubbing hard up against darker, her tawny thighs were growing increasingly hot and wet; slick thigh muscles swished noiselessly together as the blonde attempted to escape the hammering fists of her more powerful opponent. Aware, between body blows, of the effect Velasca was having on her, Callisto inwardly smiled through the pain: “See what happens when I'm away from my Warrior Princess too long. The Gods, I'd love to take this black bitch to bed.”
But her current lover, while slowly regaining consciousness, was trussed up helplessly between two trees. She could only look on in hopeless resignation at her lover…and owner…being viciously mauled in the pit below her. Even a desperate blow to the Maltese woman's belly gained the blonde but a brief respite from the relentless beating she was suffering.
That blow momentarily took Velasca by surprise. Gasping in pain, she backed off, but then quickly regained the initiative, driving forward with a right fist to the Roman's belly, followed by a left uppercut that clipped Callisto's chin and drove her head abruptly back into the pit wall.
Another fist to the head, this one a swirling strike against right cheek and ear, and the blonde reeled backwards at the impact of the blow. But sagging breathlessly against the wall, eyes glassy, arms askew, all the same she remained sexually aroused, almost welcoming further punishment, and gratification, to be meted out by her willful opponent.
And Velasca wasted no time. A crotch-to-crotch body slam into the dirt was followed by the blonde being dragged to her feet, thrown against the pit wall, and put down again by a flurry of fists and feet to the face, chest and belly. As the Roman dropped her to her knees, the Maltese continued to hammer away at the blonde's proffered neck, shoulders and upper back.
Sexual arousal aside, the Roman decurio recognized her plight, and desperately threw her arms around Velasca's legs, burying her face against the dark woman's loincloth. But the Maltese sensed her ploy, and contemptuously kicked free of her feeble grasp, and for good measure, buried a foot deep into the crouching blonde's belly.
Callisto gagged, clutched herself low, and pitched face forward into the pit dirt. Velasca gave a half-grunt of satisfaction, and vaulting over her opponent, dropped her right knee into the small of the Roman woman's back.
The dark Maltese woman leaned over the gasping blonde's prostrate body, grabbed her hair at the base of the skull, and in an impressive display of strength, lifted the barely conscious Roman to her feet. Callisto's cries of pain, with her hair supporting all her body weight, were abruptly stifled as her forehead was driven into the pit wall. Mouth and nose caked with dirt, she staggered back, only to be floored by a high spinning kick from her dominating opponent that caught her high in the chest, across the breasts and lower throat area.
As the Roman decurio labored to once again get up off the pit floor, the victorious Maltese woman stood over her. As the bloodied, stunned blonde raised her left arm to deflect an expected blow, Velasca's heel smashed down on her nose. A spray of blood, following by a choking shriek, resulted as the badly damaged Roman howled in pain. The Maltese wrestler smirked in response, and leaning over, seizing her opponent's bloodstained hair, dragged her across the pit floor.
Looking down at her vanquished foe, the dark complexioned woman yelled, “So this is the might of Rome!” and further snarling, drove a heavily callused foot into Callisto's belly. The blonde fell over backwards, but could barely regain her bearings before the Maltese woman leaped over her and drove her firmly muscled ass into her prostrate opponent's abdomen, forcing all the air out of her lungs. The Roman's body shuddered under the weight, arms and legs splayed out as if in submission to this dark, dominant warrior woman.
But Velasca was not in the mood for love, furiously slapping Callisto's trapped face from side to side with quick, stinging, open-handed slaps. Then shifting her target, she pulled hard on the blonde's long nipples, stretching them both as the Roman woman cried out in pain, her splayed body thrashing in agony at the savage mauling of her breasts.
Above the fray, having fully regained consciousness, Xena, helpless, grimaced at the beating being administered to her lover. But there was nothing she could do.
Callisto groaned and lay sprawled in the dirt, feebly trying to raise herself up. Velasca moved close, dropped to her knees, and clamped thick, sweaty thighs around the Roman's head, a forearm's length above the ground. Drawing her legs tightly together, she trapped the blonde's head as if it were a fruit to be crushed, squeezing dark, heavy legs together. Callisto gave forth a muffled groan, her hands desperately trying to free her head from the vise-like grip it was being subjected to. The tortuous embrace of the Maltese wrestler's legs was clearly choking the blonde decurio , her face becoming first pink, then red, breath coming in labored, spasmodic gasps.
Unable to spread her adversary's powerful limbs, Callisto resorted to digging her long, sharpened nails into the backs of Velasca's thighs, scratching and tearing at the insides of those sinuous limbs to escape. Velasca cried out in pain, her first of the contest, but refused to relent, clamping her thighs together even harder.
In response, reaching over her opponent's back, Velasca grabbed Callisto's loincloth and yanked it hard into the crack of her rival's firm ass. The leather dug painfully into Callisto's pussy, and the Maltese wrestler, inner thighs still under painful assault, pulled harder until the bunched up leather formed a thin rope that cut into the soft lips of Callisto's womanhood and tore at her slit.
This action momentarily lessened the strangling thigh clamp on her head, giving Callisto a chance to breath deep, and also scream in pain as Velasca savaged her pussy. But the respite was brief, and as the thighs constricted again, the blonde again sank her nails into Velasca's dark ass cheeks and tore at the soft skin in utter frustration and numbing pain
Blindly, she slid her hand beneath the leather of Velasca's loincloth, her hand searching for a purchase. Suddenly, Velasca shrieked and let loose a biting wail of agony! Callisto had slipped a sharply nailed finger into the darker woman's anus and was ramming it in and out, tearing and cutting at her tender insides.
It was now Velasca's turn to thrash and pound the mat with her feet as Callisto ravaged her anus. She tried to focus on keeping excruciating pressure on Callisto's head but the Roman's penetration, now with three fingers, was like an auger, boring out her insides. The pain was nothing she had ever experienced, deep and internal. Nothing she could do without relaxing the hold could counter the vicious tactic of her smaller opponent.
Finally, able to bear no more, she opened her legs, and pulled away from Callisto, the she-bitch's fingers sliding out of the tortured orifice. Velasca whimpered as she clutched her hands between her legs, trying to sooth the pain. Her insides felt as if they were on fire. For her part, Callisto lay breathless on her back, her chest heaving in huge, tortured gasps, desperately replenishing air and filling her lungs, all the time thinking of the means to get back in this fight. Failure was not an option!
The first to regain her composure and muster her strength to renew the contest was Velasca. With her inner pain somewhat under control, the dark Maltese woman screamed, “You fucking Roman cunt! I'll kill you for that!” and leaped at her opponent. Callisto rolled away quickly, and then stood to meet Velasca's charge, the momentum of which slammed both combatants into pit wall. Callisto's back struck hard with Velasca screaming madly as she tore at Callisto's belly and upper body with punches and slaps.
Not wanting to risk repeating her earlier beating at the hands of this dark beast, Callisto leaped into the air between strikes, and sliding her long, lithe legs up the sides of her tall opponent. Surprised at the move, Velasca hesitated in responding to such an unorthodox tactic, and the Roman decurio took advantage of the hesitation to lock her legs in a devastating scissors hold between her opponent's rib cage and floating ribs. Now the advantage lay with the smaller, slighter woman, and as her opponent recognized the reversal of fortune, Callisto drove both her heels into the small of her opponent's back, simultaneously driving two fisted hammer blows into Velasca's upper chest.
Velasca stopped her punching immediately as searing pain shot through her spine. Her back arched painfully as Callisto, leveraging her own back against the pit wall, poured on crippling power and intense pressure through her sinewy thighs and wicked forearm smashes.
Now it was Velasca yelling in tormented cries of anguish as Callisto's crushing upper thighs, wrapped tightly around her waist, broke both floating ribs. The shock was evident in the Maltese wrestler's face and involuntary body spasm, and Callisto, her bloodlust now at fever pitch, relaxed, then re-locked her deceptively powerful calves behind Velasca's back to add even more leverage to the deadly hold, and increase its destructive effect.
With spittle and a blood issuing from her mouth in a thin stream, it was now Velasca moaning and struggling to separate Callisto's long, sinewy legs from their death grip. It was painfully clear to the audience, Maltese and Greek alike, that the fight was again a contest as the Roman decurio's vengeful scissors hold was crushing the dark-haired woman's waist, shortness of breath and increasing weariness at supporting the blonde's weight making much more painful the damage done to Velasca's ribs.
As the Maltese woman writhed upright in agony, Callisto squeezed her thighs together even tighter, wracking the Maltese woman wrestler with intense pain. For the first time any of her subordinates could remember, Velasca threw her head back and wailed in continued, intense agony.
The priestess now dug furiously into Callisto's legs with her nails and, lowering her head, tore at her tormentor's shoulders and upper chest with sharpened teeth, but to no avail. The Roman, so grievously beaten early in the match, was almost impervious to pain now. The nail attack on her legs, and teeth tearing at the flesh around her neck and shoulders, now drawing blood in deep, coursing rivulets, rather than intimidate or impale the blonde decurio , only served to further infuriate her.
In response, she brought her own nails to play on the Maltese wrestler's large breasts, sinking them into the ample, tender flesh, tearing at her large, extended nipples. Nails still red from the previous anus attack were now re-employed to savage her opponent's glistening dark orbs.
Trapped between Callisto's sinewy, powerful legs, her shapely breasts on fire from the tearing and savage attack being administered by her rival's talons, Velasca struggled like a trapped animal for some means of escape, her dark hair whipping from side to side. She grabbed at Callisto's wrists, trying to pry away the deadly, flesh-tearing nails. When that tactic failed, Velasca reached up and sank her own nails into the blonde's smaller, but equally firm tits.
Latching on in desperation, Velasca dug her fingers deep into the soft flesh of Callisto's mounds. The Roman gasped but continued to crush Velasca's waist with her legs, while stabbing her nails, knifelike into the dark breasts in front of her.
Suddenly Callisto relaxed her death grip, and as she fell to the ground, lashed out with a right foot, driving it deep into Velasca's chest. With skill perfected in arenas throughout the Empire, the heel landed dead center in the large, up-tilted right breast of her dark opponent. The force of the blow rocked Velasca backwards across the entire pit diameter, her body crashing jarringly against the earthen wall. The Maltese woman again cried out in pain, grasping at her wounded anatomy. Blood dripping into the dirt from a half-dozen wounds evidenced a body severely abused. Velasca was hurt…badly…and she knew it.
So did Callisto, and seeking to exploit a change in the flow of combat, quickly closed her opponent. As the larger Maltese woman rebounded off the wall, the decurio backhanded her across the face, spinning her around. Two savage punches, straight into the kidneys, drove the larger woman again into the wall. She would have fallen if Callisto had not grabbed one shoulder, spun her around, and drove a right fist deep into the dark woman's abundantly furry groin. The Maltese wrestler gasped in agony and sagged down, her fall accelerated by a double fisted axe-blow to the base of her neck. The stunning blow slammed the Maltese woman's head between her knees, a steady stream of blood now issuing from her nose and mouth. Clear to all was the damage done to her, externally and internally, by this Roman she-bitch.
From a vantage point high above the pit, Xena watched intently, a faint smile visible. “That's my girl!” she thought approvingly, as another blow thudded home.
Now it was Callisto that dragged her opponent upright, and then ferociously slammed her against the pit wall. Her battle blood running red hot, the Roman decurio began employing the same tactics that had brought her so much success over the years in the Empire's arenas. Gouging at the Maltese wrestler's eyes, the blonde drove two hard fists deep into a once stridently muscular, but now repeatedly spasming, belly. Then summoning surprising strength for her size and physical condition, Callisto lifted the dark woman into the air, and with a quick fluid motion tossed her over her shoulder. The Maltese wrestler's body resounded with a squishy, smacking sound as her back and lower spine struck the ground, hard.
Callisto, maintaining her advantage, dragged the larger body of her stunned opponent by the hair across the floor of the pit. Velasca clutched vainly at her dark locks at their roots, gasping for air, face screwed up in pain and agony. When the pit wall was reached, Callisto wrenched her opponent's ears and dragged her up to her feet, only to quickly follow up by driving the dark woman's forehead into the wall!
Velasca collapsed to the dirt floor, blood coursing down into her eyes from the forehead gash, barely conscious. Callisto did not want to let up on the punishment so she lifted up the Maltese wrestler's ankles, pulled them far apart, and stomped the dark woman viciously in the groin. After three nearly identical excruciating blows, Callisto released her victim's ankles. Velasca clutched her crotch and rolled to her right side, legs pulled up into a protective fetal position.
The Maltese priestess whimpered as she shifted her hands back to her throat and neck and tried to massage away the torturous pain. The blonde decurio walked around her victim's prostrate body, searching for an opening. Finding one, she positioned herself, and kicked her right foot forward, driving it deep into the dark woman's abdominals.
Velasca folded in half, keeping one hand on her neck and wrapping the other arm around her midsection. Her body was in agony and Callisto showed no signs of letting up as she reached down and snatched a handful of the dark woman's hair. She hauled the pain-wracked woman to her feet and immediately lifted a knee into her groin, causing her victim to again double over.
Callisto leaned forward, wrapped her arms around Velasca's waist, pulled tightly in towards her own body, then spun her quarry's hapless frame around on her hip. The Maltese wrestler's legs flew into the air as the Roman decurio upended her, wedging strong arms below her larger opponent's grievously damaged ribcage, and squeezed as hard as she could. Velasca's arms fell limply below her as Callisto adjusted her grip and sank the hold in even harder. Upside down, the victim shrieked in pain, her face turning red, her midsection completely constricted from the Roman's tight grip as she struggled to breathe.
Velasca was sobbing openly now, her large chest heaving in agony. Callisto gestured haughtily to a crestfallen audience in a language none of them understood. But the meaning of the Roman woman's gestures, the attitude and tone of her verbal, needed no translator.
From the brazen nature of her body language and tone of her voice, it was clear Callisto was back, again triumphant on the battlefield. She alone amongst woman warriors in the Empire had single-handedly beaten Xena, the woman who was now her slave, on numerous occasions, in personal, physical combat, from Byzantium to the Danube, Britannia to the Silk Road. This was the Callisto who had commanded Roman legions in combat on the Northern Frontier, the blonde Teutonic she-bitch who scorned, but the same time enjoyed, fucking men, while appreciating, pleasuring in, and openly loving, women in, and out, of bed.
This was the cold, vicious, treacherous warrior, a true femme fatale as the Latins expressed it, eager to sate her intense hatred for the Empire's enemies, and possessing an unquenchable desire for revenge, personal victory, and physical and sexual gratification. This was the Callisto of old…a child of Hades…Persephone in her own twisted mind! Her way…the only way…was the Roman way!
Now she abruptly turned to sit on Velasca's quivering chest, kneeling to pin her foe's arms with her legs. She inched up on the pain-wracked body of her opponent until her dripping pussy was directly over the Maltese woman's tear-streaked face. Quickly, she lowered herself, smothering her opponent's cries and gasping with sordid delight as she settled down across the face of her victim.
Rocking back and forth, she began to pleasure herself as only a Roman woman, well-schooled in the morals of the Empire's brothels and senatorial love chambers, could, sitting on Velasca's face, rubbing her engorged lips across Velasca's nose and mouth. Intent on humiliation as much as pleasure, the blonde haughtily commanded, “Lick it!” An obedient and fearful Velasca tentatively flicked her tongue out, probing Callisto's wet slit with her mouth.
With the tingling of slight penetration, Callisto moaned and sighed as she rubbed her pussy over Velasca's face. With pliant tongue probing deeper and deeper, faster and faster she rocked against Velasca until her moans grew painfully loud and her body uncontrollably shuddered. Callisto arched her back and rode Velasca's face, moaning with pleasure and vengeful intent, over the top.
Coming down from her high, Callisto paused for a moment with Velasca still mostly whimpering on the ground. Now, with a revised, particularly humiliating plan of attack formulated, Callisto stood, grasped both her opponent's legs at the ankles, and centered herself so that she had a clear view of Velasca's crotch. Laughing aloud, the Roman decurio decorously jammed her big toe into Velasca's slit. The Maltese woman's mound exploded in pain as the dirt encased digit dug deep within her vagina, the sharpened toenail digging into the darker woman's soft internal flesh.
Callisto openly delighted in the agonized screams of her victim, and began to kick Velasca in the pussy, her big toe always ending imbedded in her dark, wet slit. Each thrust of the Roman's tawny leg sent her foot slamming against Velasca's pubic mound while her toe penetrated deeper into the Maltese wrestler's pussy. The darker woman was close to passing out, and could only groan with each perverted penetration.
When it appeared the priestess might indeed pass out from the pain, Callisto revived her by grinding her heel against Velasca's mound until she renewed her screaming. Finally tiring of the sordid routine, Callisto slipped her toe out of Velasca's orifice and let the entrapped legs drop limply down in to the sweat and blood soaked dirt of the pit.
Wiping the mud and blood from her own forehead, the Roman decurio bent down, grabbed her defeated opponent by the hair, and hauled her to her feet. Velasca was slowly regaining her own wits and composure, a reality that became evident as she rose to her feet, and began flailing both arms and ham fists, ready to renew the contest.
Taking in deep breaths, their impressive chests rose and fell as they faced off again. "You", Callisto huffed and spat. "You black cunt. I'm going to take you down one last time. You'll never screw with Rome…or me…again", she hissed, closing for another assault.
As the blonde moved in, fists raised, Velasca feinted to her left, lowered her torso, and rammed a fist into the blonde's stomach, hearing the "oof!" as the air was knocked from her opponent. The blonde doubled over; clutching her stomach as the dark woman grabbed a handful of hair. "Kiss my black ass" she screamed, and delivered a right fist to Callisto's chin, spinning the blonde away. The Maltese wrestler followed with a hammering left fist to Callisto's head, then a right to her chest, each blow causing the lighter complexioned warrior to moan in pain. Sensing her own rapidly waning strength and perhaps her only opportunity to win the fight, Velasca kept swinging her fists; the blows drove Callisto across the pit fist-by-fist, step-by-step.
Pedaling backwards until the wall felt hard against her shoulder blades, Callisto was too surprised to stop Velasca as the darker woman pressed in close, large, breasts mashing against the Roman's equally firm, though smaller chest. The Maltese wrestler pressed in with her full weight, pinning Callisto in place.
The naked wrestlers, pepper and salt, wrapped arms around each other's waists, and slowly began to grind their torsos together. The Maltese wrestler's heavy breasts slid and mashed against the blonde's firm set. Silently they continued to rub and brush together, erect nipples poking one another, scrambling hands and flashing nails tearing at each other's flesh, bloodshot, tearing eyes glowing hot in mutual hatred.
But now sensing a further weakening in her opponent's grip, Callisto surged forward, snarling, “You Maltese cunt! You think you can handle me? You think you and your miserable camp followers can challenge the might of Rome?" Callisto's hands crept up and knotted into Velasca sweaty, matted hair. She jerked the vulnerable head back, and sank her teeth low and deep in the vulnerable, dark throat before her. With a mixed scream of horror, pain and rage, the Maltese priestess broke her hold.
The women separated but for a moment, then closed again with the smacking together of sweat-soaked flesh. Wrapping arms around the other's neck, each woman sought to strangle the life out of her opponent. Slowly, they shuffled to the middle of the pit in a mutual dance of death, two naked women choking the breath from each other, breasts swaying, breathing in tortured, spittle-laden gasps.
But the Maltese woman's breath was becoming increasingly labored, her upper body beginning to tremble in exhaustion and pain. Callisto actually seemed to be gaining in strength in the wrestler's clinch, and sensing again what was apparent to the spectators, she put one leg behind Velasca, and shoved her opponent backward.
Both women fell to the pit floor. But the Roman was on top, as she maneuvered Velasca's large body to cushion her own fall. The blonde warrior seized the moment and wasted no time in climbing on the larger woman. Stretching out and over her opponent, she wrapped her arms around the black bitch's neck again, this time burying her enemy's face in her thrusting, firm breasts. The black-haired woman felt rather than saw Callisto's breasts filling her face, blinding her, but she could do little more than slap at the blonde's head and weakly scratch at her back. She was played out…and now was on the verge of being suffocated.
Callisto understood the power of her hold, and the extent of her opponent's predicament. The blonde held her arms tightly around the Maltese wrestler's head, feeling the steadily weakening body squirming in anguish beneath her. She shifted her torso slightly and pressed her breasts down on Velasca's face to the point where only the back of the dark head was visible to the increasingly dispirited spectators.
Finally, the Maltese wrestler stopped struggling, her arms falling limply to her side. Her breasts rose and fell with harsh intakes of breath. She was finished, her powerful body incapable of responding to her brain's commands. She was too tired to continue the fight. She had been beaten and broken at the hands of a Roman decurio not nearly as large as herself. Her mother's painful disappointment and shrill admonishment of her equally defeated, broken father at the hands of Rome were the last thoughts she had as consciousness slowly receded into a black pool from which there was no escape.
Cautiously, Callisto climbed off the woman, sliding to one side. Her body, sore and sheathed in sweat and blood, ached all over. She looked at Velasca; the spent woman's alluring frame, shuddering in deeply troubled sleep, was covered in red patches with several bruises on her breasts, abdomen and upper thighs already starting to turn wine-dark red.
The shocked crowd, their leader and champion beaten and still on the floor of the pit, looked at the Roman in scarcely concealed fear mingled with admiration, acknowledging the blonde's victory over a larger, more powerful and once formidable opponent.
Callisto climbed slowly and painfully out of the wrestling pit. The cowed spectator crowd pulled away from her, unwilling to risk her further wrath or disfavor.
“Cut her down,” she directed with out flung arm towards the Thracian woman still strung up between two trees. Seeing the stunned Maltese attendants complying with her orders, she slowly sagged to the ground.
The fight was over…her debt to Xena for saving her life on the slave ship…was repaid. Now it was time to move on…to the Coliseum in Rome…and gladiator contests in the arena.
With a growl, Xena lunged forward and forced Callisto's back against the wooden framed bed. An explosive grunt echoed from the blonde's lips; she was not expecting such a savage reaction to her warm caress of a proffered breast.
Primal fire was livid in the darker woman's eyes. Callisto tried to resist…but then admitted that even if Xena was her slave…this Thracian whore did have a way about her. The decurio , now safely aboard a merchant galley on her way to Rome, was still recovering from her fight on Malta. “Oh well, sometimes you gotta say, ‘What the fuck (no pun intended)!” she thought. “Let Xena have her way,” and surrendered her body to the aggressive lovemaking of the Warrior Princess.
With a deft move the Thracian clamped a callused hand at the apex of the blonde's thighs. The sound that came from the Roman decurio was a gasp of pleasure rather than surprise. “The Gods, this Greek bitch could turn her on!”
Feeling a wet heat warming her palm, with a low growl Xena reached to the small table adjoining the bed, and retrieved the dagger laying there. Teasing her lover at first, the raven-haired woman trailed it across her own succulent breasts, daring the Roman to try and struggle for its possession.
Their mingled shadows flowed together on the wall, here a limb, there the curve of back or buttocks, or part of an undulating breast. Xena's head raised clear, a great dark-maned creature looming high over the smaller blonde, back arched in her extremity. Callisto reached up across the stretch of glowing skin and trembling muscle of her slave and lover, brushed the long dark nipples and blood-red lips of the woman above her, and buried her hands in the warmth of the Thracian's hair, pulling her down, gasping, to the dark hollow of her breasts.
The raven-haired warrior eased her grip on Callisto's shoulders and touched the rough whorls of her light hair with tenderness. She turned her head and kissed the jutting alabaster breasts, then sighed and slid away to her lover's tortured belly, still bruised from her savage encounter with Velasca.
The Thracian traced the faint white line of a scar across Callisto' ribs, left by her own sword long ago. The longer, thicker vertical scar that started below her floating rib and ended above her right hip was that of an Iceni spear in Britannia that had ripped the length of the her rib cage...and almost killed her.
Still, Xena faintly smiled as she recalled a naked Callisto, fighting for her life and the glory of Rome against the barbarian horde in those far-off, dark and damp isles. “The Gods, she is a Child of Empire!” the Greek woman admiringly thought.
Xena noted the sinewy arm that she held, once a tawny gold when they had met in desperate combat in Byzantium's arena. It was now a much deeper brown, hued darker and rougher from days in Africa, at sea, and in savage conflict in Malta's wrestling pit. Once tan, downy fur on arms, legs and torso was now bleached white gold from long days of salt and sun. But the Roman's hair remained a magnificent blonde mane, a great pale cloud ready to engulf any who would take her to bed.
Now the Greek's strong fingers went under that mass of hair. Her left hand cupped her lover's head, holding it like a chalice. She lifted her hand and let the decurio's hair run softly down through her fingers, brushing her face, skimming her lips, floating soft and heavy on her neck and shoulders.
Xena let her own hair fall down around them both, cascading until it lay like feathers scattered atop her blonde lover's breasts. And as Thracian lay on Roman and covered the blonde's smaller frame with her own more powerfully built one, a fierce bright care of flesh joined them as one.
It had been a good day! Ahead lay the capital of the Empire…and the thrill and challenge of the Coliseum.
But for now, the pleasures of the flesh; Rome wasn't built in a day…and could wait still another!