Gore Vidal’s Caligula (17 page)

Longinus bowed and left.

“Well, commander of the guard, have I done the right thing?” Caligula asked Chaerea archly. He picked up a bronze mirror with a beautifully chased golden back and made hideous faces into it, like a child. He was very pleased with himself today. He loved solving problems.

“They hated Macro, Caesar,” nodded Chaerea.

“Good. I always like to do the right thing,” said the Emperor piously, waving for Chaerea to withdraw. “It is a terrible thing to be hated.”

As soon as Chaerea had marched out of sight, Caligula and Drusilla giggled like two children.

Caligula stretched like a cat, luxuriantly, exultantly. “Now we are safe.”

“Emperors are never safe,” cautioned his sister.

“Come here.”

Drusilla lay down beside him on the couch. Reaching into her thin cotton robe, he began to play with her breasts, exciting her nipples, loving the feel of their stiffening under his fingers. Then he hoisted the gown over her thighs, and bent his head to lick at her moistness. Drusilla tugged at his buttocks, drawing him closer, his thighs now encircling her head. For long minutes they lay totally absorbed in pleasuring each other with their nimble tongues. At last they lay back, breathing hard, satisfied.

“I want to marry you,” Caligula said.

Drusilla tugged down the hem of her robe. “You can’t. We’re not Egyptians.”

Picking up the hand-mirror again, Caligula struck a pose. “I admit we’re much more beautiful.”

“And Rome is not Egypt! And stop looking at yourself like that,” scolded his sister.

Caligula set the mirror down. “Then let’s
go
to Egypt,” he said passionately. He’d been thinking about this for some time. “After all, that’s where Isis lived . . .
lives.’

“You are a fool,” laughed Drusilla.

Caligula made a horrible face at her. “Caesar can not be a fool!”

“Caesar is doing his best,” retorted Drusilla. “Little Boots, they’ll throw you in the Tiber if you try to move the government.” She’d realized that Caligula was entertaining serious thoughts about Egypt.

“But I can do anything I like,” said Caligula reasonably.

With a short laugh, Drusilla stood up from the couch. “I’m going to find you a wife,” she said, changing the subject.

“You
are going to be . . .”

“You are not going to marry your sister,” Drusilla said with finality. “You are going to marry a respectable Roman lady of the senatorial class. Then you are going to have an heir—”

“Who will kill me when he grows up,” Caligula interrupted gloomily. “Which reminds me, I must do something about young Tiberius Gemellus.”

“Leave the boy alone. He’s no threat.”

Caligula picked up the mirror again and stuck his tongue out, studying it for boils. Then he inspected his teeth. “He’s my heir. That’s a threat.”

A new thought occured to him. “Oh, you should have seen Uncle Claudius at the Senate,” he giggled. “When it came time to make his speech, as consul, he farted. Twice.” Caligula farted through his lips, imitating the noise, and held his nose.

But Drusilla wasn’t listening to this childishness. She was still pursuing her own line of thought. “Listen. The priestesses of the Great Goddess Isis are meeting at the new temple tonight. Most of them are unmarried . . .”

Caligula looked up at this, interested. “Virgins of
blameless
reputation?” he asked.

“Yes. And of good family.”

“And you want me to marry one of them.”

“Yes.”

“No.”

But Drusilla knew how to capture his interest. “You will come disguised as a woman,” she suggested in a low voice.

Caligula brightened. He loved disguise, and the feminine streak in him adored women’s clothing and makeup—jewels in his wig, and rouge, henna, and black on his eyelashes.

“Hmmmm,” he considered. “Do the priestesses
really
have orgies with each other?”

Drusilla made a proper face at him. “Of course we don’t. We’re very serious. And very religious.”

“Shit,” said Caligula. “Oh, well, I suppose I’ll come anyway. Will you lend me something to wear?”

CHAPTER SEVEN

“When do they take their clothes off?” asked Caligula mischievously, looking around the temple.

About fifty women of varying ages, all dressed in long priestess’ robes, were moving slowly and silently about the rotunda, as if performing some choral dance. At the far end of the hall stood a statue of Isis, wearing the tall crown of the sun. She carried a cornucopia and a flail, her breasts were bare, and between her legs was the imitation of immortality, the revelation of life itself, motherhood. In front of the ancient effigy stood a tall tripod of bronze. Each woman who passed it threw a ritual pinch of incense on the fire that burned there, filling the air with perfumed votive smoke. Dressed as a woman, Caligula was not noticed by the priestesses as they went serenely about their ceremonial duties.

“Don’t be disgusting!” frowned Drusilla. Then she looked at. her brother impishly. “You make a beautiful woman, Gaius Caesar.”

“Don’t I?” simpered Caligula. “I wish I could make love to myself.”

Actually, he was beautiful. Small and slim, his body molded the robe like that of a girl, and he wore a wig of real golden hair, plucked from the heads of German slave girls. In his ears dangled golden earrings the shape of amphorae, and golden chains set with garnets hung round his neck. His lips and cheeks were lightly rouged, and his large blue eyes had been outlined in black kohl. Dressing like a woman excited him, and he pulled his dress out in the front to hide his erection. He rubbed his thighs together; women were supposed to do that to excite themselves more. Hadn’t Teiresias, the Greek seer of ancient legend, been turned into a woman for several years by the angry goddess? Yes, and wasn’t he also struck blind for profaning the mysteries with his shameless masculine voyeurism? Caligula shivered. But there seemed to be no mysteries here; it was all fairly sedate. Where were the rumoured orgies?

“I want them to take their clothes off,” he insisted. “I’m being practical. How can I marry a woman when I’ve never even . . .” He broke off, attracted by a lovely face and form. The girl was very young, very virginal. She walked slowly, her eyes cast down, and seemed to be meditating.

“I like that,” said Caligula, indicating the girl.

“That’s Livia,” Drusilla told him. “She’s taken. She’s marrying one of your officers. Proculus.”

Caligula remembered now. “He’s the one they call the beautiful cherub. Well, I’ll send him to Gaul or Spain.”

But Drusilla shook her head severely. “She’s a virgin, and very boring. Not your style.”

They walked silently around the rotunda. “Nothing is happening,” Caligula whispered. “Why is nothing happening? This is not how I imagined the goddess would be worshipped. I’m bored, and I’m leaving.”

“Wait, Gaius.” Drusilla put one hesitant hand on his arm, and her lovely face was troubled. “There . . . there
is
something more. But it’s hidden. It’s very, very sacred, and a deep secret. No man has ever seen these rites.” She bit her lips, angry with herself for having spoken.

Caligula gave one brief thought to blind Teiresias. Then he dismissed it. Eagerly, he grasped Drusilla’s hand. “Show me!” he demanded, his face flushed with excitement. “Show me! I must see these mysteries. I must!”

“I . . . I . . . We don’t dare.”

“I dare
anything!”
Caligula’s eyes glittered in expectation, and his hand tightened cruelly on his sister’s wrist. “Take me. I, Caesar, command it!”

Drusilla surrendered. “All right. But you must keep silent. Say nothing. Not tonight. Not ever. To reveal the mystery is to be punished by the goddess. Silence and follow me.”

At the far end of the rotunda, behind the altar of the goddess, was a small stone door. From time to time, a woman had disappeared through it. Now Drusilla led Caligula up to the door and, touching a secret spring, she made it swing open. They slipped through into darkness. There was a stone stairway of shallow steps that wound down into a deep hollow in the foundation of the temple. They followed the steps, and then another dark corridor. At the end of it, Caligula could see light burning, and he heard music. He felt his heart beat faster as he followed close behind Drusilla.

They came into the light, and Drusilla heard him gasp.

They beheld the pool of Isis, a large pool lined with magnificent mosaics and filled with warm, perfumed water. It was surrounded by a circular colonnade, and musicians, nubile girls in transparent tunics, were playing on lyres and syrinxes, singing hymns to the goddess Isis. In the center of the pool floated a monumental image of Isis, nude, her arms and legs spread-eagled, so that her fingers and toes touched the tiled edges. She formed a platform, an altar, for her most mysterious rites.

Caligula was unable to believe his eyes. About two dozen beautiful women were naked in the pool, making love to one another, their long hair streaming behind them, their limbs shimmering in the scented water. The body of the goddess supported them in the water as they buried their exquisite faces between the thighs of their sister priestesses, or sucked greedily on each other’s beautiful breasts. Around the rim of the pool stood at least twenty more young women and girls, dressed in robes so diaphanous that their nakedness was enhanced, not veiled. These girls watched their sisters making love, waiting their turn, becoming aroused by the delicious sight before them. A number of them stroked their own mounts of Venus to excite themselves further. Now and then, a slender arm would beckon from the pool, and a new girl would throw off her gown and dive into the warm water and the arms of some eager lover.

Caligula had never been so excited in his life. Under his priestess’ gown, his cock was iron-hard, ready to burst. He could feel the pulse in his neck throbbing. Where to look first? There! A girl of no more than fourteen was caught up in Sapphic ecstasy as an older woman’s tongue drove deeper and deeper into her. No, there! A blonde girl lay trembling with her head between the thighs of her lover, while another girl licked and sucked at her buttocks and her crack.

No,
there!
Caligula’s heart gave a huge leap in his breast. A woman in her mid-thirties, her body long and sensual, with elegant legs and large, firm breasts, lay on her back in complete abandon. Her knees were drawn up to accommodate one lover, while two more sucked at her proud nipples. And, with each hand she was manipulating a different girl. Five women were taking their pleasure with this one! Caligula suddenly wanted her more than he had ever wanted anything in his life before, except the throne.

“That will be my wife,” he whispered to Drusilla, pointing.

Alarmed, his sister pulled him away from the pool and back out into the dark corridor. “Oh, no! You can’t! That’s Caesonia!”

Angrily, he burst out, “You’re impossible! You ask me here to find me a wife. The first one that I like, you say is too boring. And then the second is . . . well, what is she, besides an intiate into the rites of Isis?”

“The most promiscuous woman in Rome,” said Drusilla flatly.

Caligula laughed. “Go on. Tell me all the gossip. I’ve been away in Capri.”

“Caesonia is divorced. She has three daughters. She spends money as if she owned the Mint. She is always in debt. She sleeps with everyone.
Everyone.”
Drusilla ticked off the list of the woman’s defects on her fingers.

“I want her,” insisted Caligula.

“For a wife?” Drusilla was totally incredulous.

“Send her to me! Now! At once! At the palace.”

Drusilla kept shaking her head, panicked. “Not now . . . later.”

“Now!”

“But . . .”

“Such is the will of the Senate and the people of Rome, sister,” said Caligula, mocking her.

Defeated, Drusilla bowed her head to her Emperor.

Caligula lay on his bed, waiting for Caesonia. He still wore his dress, his wig and his earrings, even his makeup. It excited him to be a woman, waiting for a woman who made love to women. He couldn’t remember ever being this aroused, not since that first night of love with Drusilla, so many years ago.

“You are very convincing as a priestess, Caesar,” said Caesonia, as she glided into the bedroom with the grace of a panther.

“So are you.” He stretched out his hand to her, and she came swiftly to the bed and clasped it. Her hand was cool and dry, the fingers long and strangely impersonal. Caligula pulled her down on the bed with him.

“I find you exciting as a woman, Caesar,” Caesonia whispered.

“Not as a man?”

“That we must see.” Her lips met his in a long, deep kiss, their mouths opening.

As he moved to bare his cock, she stopped his hand. Then she parted the folds of his gown above and began to suck fiercely at his nipples, as though he were a woman. Nobody had ever done that to him before, and Caligula felt the fire burning through his veins. He reached for her.

“Wait.”

Caesonia rose and lit a lamp, turning up the wick to brighten the bedroom, and then she pulled a tall mirror close to the bed, positioning it so that it would reflect them making love. Caligula’s excitement mounted; the veins in his temples throbbed.