Gore Vidal’s Caligula by William Howard Read Free Book Online

cunning, vile and ambitious. Her second husband would be an Emperor—her own uncle, Claudius—and she’d murdered him. And one of her lovers would be that self-same fat brat, her loathsome son Nero. And Nero, as Emperor of Rome, would enact his deepest fantasies on his mother by paying an assassin to stab her to death and by committing unspeakable indignities on her corpse.)
    Caligula’s thoughts returned to the childhood afternoons he had spent in golden sensuality with his sisters. The sexual possibilities that four could explore were infinitely greater than with two. He and Julia Livilla would each capture one of Drusilla’s breasts, licking and sucking, while Agrippinilla took turns below with her tongue and a giant ivory phallus. Or they would form a triangle for oral copulation, with the fourth person going from one body to the next, nibbling balls or inserting a tongue.
    Once, they had found a slave in the marketplace and acquired him. He was a Numidian, well over six feet tall and built in proportion, with a skin as black as Drusilla’s was fair. But his chief attraction was that he could not speak, his tongue having been cut out by the cruel knife of an earlier master.
    Because he was so tall and muscular, and because his ebony penis stayed hard for hours, Caligula had invented a new game. It was based on the Rape of the Sabine Women, a favorite subject for art and poetry. And this new game was both.
    It involved his sisters being stripped of their garments while pretending to struggle and scream. The slave would bind their wrists with tapes. As Caligula sat on a gilded stool, his hands busy in his naked lap, the slave would tie up the three girls, fastening their hands to the marble pillar of the bedroom, and then rape them, one after another, while they thrashed and moaned under him. At first the game was exciting because it was obvious that the rapes were really painful. But soon the girls became used to the size and hardness of the black tool, and Caligula found himself getting bored. Then, one day, inspiration led him to whisper new instructions to the slave after which he sat back and enjoyed the shrieks of his sisters as the huge black pole sodomized them thoroughly. The next day’s session was more enjoyable yet, for the girls had their revenge. This time, it was Caligula who was taken by surprise, stripped and sodomized within an inch of his life, while his sisters yelled with laughter at his screams. It was one of the best times he’d ever had.
    But one day, soon after, when they’d made no appointment for love, he came upon Drusilla unexpected. The slave was lying on his back, sprawled on Drusilla’s bed of silks, grinning as he watched his beautiful blonde mistress ride his rigid cock. Almost lazily, he was reaching up and fondling her bouncing breasts, or stretching his head forward to kiss her mouth. Drusilla, almost unconscious with pleasure, was thrusting her tongue deep into his tongueless mouth without breaking the rhythm of her movement.
    Making love to his sister behind his back! They’d pay! Oh, how they’d pay! Caligula could barely restrain himself from darting forward from his hiding place and stabbing them both to death with his dagger. But he remained hidden in the doorway and watched. Sweat streamed from his every pore; he was consumed by a deadly mixture of lust and jealousy. Although he desperately wanted to look away, he couldn’t take his eyes off the joined lovers. Not until they fell exhausted did Caligula slip away, as worn out as they were.
    Thinking it over later, Caligula decided coldly that the amusement had gone out of the Sabine game and that there was no way to restore it. Ergo, the slave had become useless. Ergo —and he chuckled at his logic—his tutors had done their work well; the slave was dispensable. So Caligula dispensed with him, using secrets of poison he was compiling against the future. As the tall Nubian lay dying in agony, his face no longer black