"Please, mistress, eat something."

Vanessa looked at the plate her maid placed in front of her.

"I... I can't..."

"You haven't eaten since the trial... please... at least have some grapes..."

Footsteps approached. The last bit of color drained from Vanessa's face. The cell door opened and in stepped Tiziana. She watched wordlessly as she sat down opposite her.

"Nice place you have here. When I heard that you were being taken to the Tullianum, I had expected you to be lying in a filthy dungeon ... but this prison is actually quite comfortable. They even let you have a servant..."

"What's the verdict?" she said in a barely audible voice.

She smiled.

"The court found you guilty of adultery."

Vanessa swallowed hard.

"And...?"

"The sentence is death."

Vanessa dropped her head into her hands and wept quietly.

"They will take you to the festival of Venus, the Veneralia, in the arena. There you will be beheaded after the rites. Apparently my little celebration the other day made an impression, for they want to behead you with a guillotine. Ironically, you will share the same fate as the pretty girl you gave me back then."

"Who...?"

"The young slave. Paula. She saw Tertius and me fucking. I wanted to make sure she didn't tell anyone about our little escapades..."

Tiziana glanced briefly at Ophelia, who was standing motionless and pale against the wall.

"Why are you doing this to me...?"

"They can't chop my head off for adultery when Tertius is widowed. There's nothing personal about any of this."

"Please, Tiziana, please help me out of this. I'm begging you. You're the winner. You're the better of the two of us, do you hear me? I don't care that you're sleeping with my husband. I won't tell anyone. I'll divorce him if you want me to. But please, please tell them to let me live... We... we've been friends for so long..."

Tiziana looked at her for a moment, then looked at the table. Her face turned serious.

“Did I ever tell you about the first life I took? It was years ago, father was still alive at that time. Two slaves had run away and fled towards the mountains. My father, a handful of his men and I chased them on horseback. We soon caught up with them. One was immediately skewered with a lance, the other sank to her knees and raised her hands in supplication.

Father told me to get off my horse and ordered me to kill her. I knew the girl. Her name was Lea. We had played together as children. I drew my dagger. It had a long, thin blade. It was more like a big needle. I placed the tip under her Adam's apple and looked into her eyes.

She almost died of fear and begged me to spare her. I hesitated. The begging of this gentle girl, my friend, brought tears to my eyes. I looked at father on his horse. He said either I would kill her or his dogs would.

I turned back to her. She could not get another word out. She just shook her head slowly and looked at me with pleading eyes. I pushed the blade through her neck until the handle hit her throat. At night, I can still feel her warm blood running down my hand.

She grabbed her throat, retching and gagging until she finally choked on her blood. And there she lay. Still. Helpless. Peaceful. A blood-stained angel whom I had taken everything from. Who was no longer alive because of me...

When we got back home, I went to my room and cried and sobbed until my father finally came to me. He sat down on the bed with me, and I will never forget his words. He said



Tell me, Tiziana, who will attain something great if he does not feel in himself the power to inflict great pain? Being able to suffer is the least; weak women and even slaves often achieve mastery at that. But not to perish of inner distress and uncertainty when one inflicts great suffering and hears the cry of this suffering – that is great; that belongs to greatness. For The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.”

"But... she was just a slave... nothing but a slave... I..."

"Indeed. She was a slave. No more could be expected of her. But what are you? A patrician? A noblewoman? Merely by name. I never saw you as my equal. You never stood on the battlefield. Never did anything meritorious. Never challenged yourself. Never overcome yourself. You never learned that pain is the currency that buys greatness. All your life you've just moved from one place to the next, thinking your money and your clothes make you something better and yet all the time you've been squinting at my wealth. Money counts for nothing. The only thing that matters is the will to power.

By the gods, you never learned that even naked and shackled on the scaffold, one can still represent the most pure-blooded nobility. Look at you. Without your gold, you are nothing. You beg me to save you, like the slave girl we had beheaded at the fair. If I demanded it of you, you would throw yourself on your knees before me. You have no dignity. I won't shed a tear for you. Nothing will be lost with you. The world will not be poorer without you..."

She sighed.

"But maybe I'm mistaken. Here, take this and prove me wrong.”

She pulled out a fine razor and placed it on the table. Vanessa stared at the blade with her tear-filled eyes.

"They'll come for you tomorrow at noon. I'm offering you the opportunity to end it yourself. But I know you don't have the guts for it. You've always been weak. Farewell, then."

She rose and turned to Ophelia.

"You. Come with me!"

"Domina..." Ophelia stammered and looked at Vanessa. But she sat motionless in her chair and stared at the razor blade.

Faithful as a lamb, the servant followed Tiziana out of the cell.

*****

Ophelia knelt in the prison yard with her hands tied behind her back. The bald man stepped behind her, placed the short rope at her throat and let his hands rest on her shoulders while he patiently held the wooden handles of the garrote. Tiziana stepped in front of the pale slave, lifted her chin and stared into her eyes.

"Who did Vanessa tell about Tertius and me?"

"No one, mistress, no one. I swear it..."

She looked up and nodded to the man. He tightened the rope. Ophelia let out a whimper before the rope squeezed her windpipe. She opened her eyes and stared open-mouthed at Tiziana. An agonized gasp escaped her constricted throat.

The patrician stood with her arms crossed and tapped her index finger on her upper arm as if counting the seconds, watching the delicate creature at her feet as it turned its head now this way, now that way, just to catch a breath of air. The veins at her temples stood out ever more clearly. Tiziana nodded to the executioner.

Ophelia collapsed, coughing and choking. Red saliva ran from her mouth as she greedily sucked the air into her burning lungs. The man grabbed her by the shoulder with his giant hands and pulled her upright again.

"I'll ask again. Who did Vanessa tell about Tertius and me?"

Ophelia was still struggling for air.

"No one, mistress. By my life. No one. Please... I won't tell anyone. Believe me! You don't have to..."

"I believe you."

Tiziana gave the sign. The veins on the man's arms stood out as he crushed Ophelia's thin neck with his rope. The girl turned bright red. Saliva and tears and snot ran down her face. She tried to stand up, but the executioner stepped on her calf. Ophelia clenched her fists as the life slowly drained out of her. She went limp and slumped down. For a moment, Tiziana looked at the dead bundle on the ground, then she turned away and left the courtyard.

*****

It wasn't hunchbacked jailers, crippled torturers or cross-eyed executioners, but graceful girls, virgin priestesses of Venus, dressed in skimpy white tunics, brown sandals with red collars, one more beautiful than the next, who came into Vanessa's cell.

They carefully removed her clothes and softly cleaned her body with warm, damp towels. They dried her and began to carefully shave her pubic region and file her nails and pinned her hair up so that her neck was exposed and one of the priestesses pricked her index finger and rubbed blood on Vanessa's cheeks so that she looked as if she was blushing. Finally, they decorated her head with a wreath of myrtle, took her gently by the hands and led her out of the cell. Vanessa let everything happen as if in a trance. Not for a moment did she think of fighting back, running away or asking for help. She abandoned herself completely to these young, happy giggling girls. The razor lay on the table just as Tiziana had left it.

The crowds on the ranks gazed enraptured at the colorful performance in the arena, at the dancers and gymnasts and musicians dancing and jumping around the guillotine on the flower-strewn floor, spurring each other on to ever more daring leaps, while a red-painted elephant was driven past the spectators, greeting them with its trunk. Most of them were young couples, the women dressed in skimpy red dresses and with myrtle wreaths on their heads, eagerly awaiting the blessings of fertility. Finally, the music stopped and the performers cleared the arena. The crowd fell silent.

The high priestess, a beautiful woman of about thirty, wearing nothing but a red skirt around her hips and brown sandals on her feet, stepped up beside the machine and a priestess handed her a small cage and she reached in it and pulled out a white dove and took a knife and sliced the dove's neck, letting its blood splatter over the gleaming blade, which had not yet been raised but rested where Vanessa's neck would soon lay.

"Oh Venus, I plead with you to accept our sacrifice, the head of a young adulteress, and bless us with lust and fertility!"

A moment later, a gate opened and two girls led the naked Vanessa, wearing nothing but her wreath, towards the center of the arena. The hot sand made her tiptoe while her hands were bound tightly behind her back with a leather strap.

A priestess pulled up the blade of the guillotine until it finally clicked into place at the top of the machine. The sound made Vanessa cry out.

"No! No! Please! I didn't do it! I never cheated on my husband! Please...!"

Her gaze jumped from one priestess to the next, but they all just glared at her with half-mad, enraptured eyes. On the stands, the couples grabbed each other between the legs and stroked one another without looking away from the condemned patrician for even a moment.

They pressed the girl against the bench and tightened the brown leather belts. One priestess knelt down and tied her bare feet together with a leather strap so that their ankles touched. Carefully they lowered the plank with the tightly strapped girl on it and pushed her through the lunette, placing her neck right under the blade. She winced as her throat touched the lower half of the semi-circle.

She saw a pair of feet moving towards her.

"Please... not yet...I..."

They took the wreath from her head and gently brushed the hair from her face. The high priestess rubbed an ointment over her nape with two fingers. Her soft touch sent a pleasant tingling sensation through the back of her skull. Then they closed the frame around her bare neck.

Vanessa looked down at the sandy ground in front of her. Her breathing quickened. Two girls stepped before her, carrying a white sheet in their midst. They knelt and held the sheet under her head. Vanessa stared into the white wrinkles as sweat trickled down her nose drop by drop and fell into the fabric.

The high priestess put her hand on the lever.

Suddenly, Vanessa gasped. She curled her toes. A tickle went over the soles of her feet. At the end of the machine stood a girl with a cane, stroking the sand from her bound feet. Then she struck.

Vanessa flinched as the pain shot from her soles to her calves. And at the same time she felt a strangely satisfying thrill.

She struck again.

The cold blade clattered above Vanessa's neck.

Again.

Vanessa squeezed her eyes shut.

Again.

This time she screamed.

Again.

The thrill was no longer just under her feet.

Again.

She moaned.

Again.

"...Yes...”

Again.

"...hngh..."

Again.

"hngh... yes... yes... mmmh... mmmh... mmmh..."

The couples in the tiers were already fucking. On the lowest tier, the girls bent over the railing and offered their young husbands their backside. The men were thrusting them faster and faster as Vanessa's beheading drew ever closer.

The high priestess pulled the lever. The blade flashed in the midday sun and went clean through Vanessa's neck, sending her crimson head into the white cloth.

The crowd erupted in orgiastic cheers. Everywhere the pent-up energy, power and tension burst out milky white from the taut cocks and rushed deep into the twitching, sparkling vaginas. They forced themselves not to close their eyes in satisfaction, but to look at the head bobbing in the white sheet and the blood spurting from her red neck to prolong the pleasure. The two priestesses holding the sheet let themselves be doused all over with the warm blood from Vanessa's neck.

Drenched in sweat, the young couples continued to fuck on the stands while the priestesses walked through the arena covered in blood, holding Vanessa's head out to the crazed spectators.

All at once, black clouds obscured the sun and the sky began to pour fresh rain down on the red hot arena. The young Romans fucked like mad in the downpour, sucking the fresh water from each other's breasts and enjoying all the pleasures of life.

And so Vanessa left this world as she had entered it two and a half decades earlier. Naked. Terrified. In blood-red sheets...