Everyone having sex is over eighteen. There is plot, character development, straight sex, lesbian sex, twincest, themes of slavery and liberation, pagan religions and way too much Latin. You have been warned!
Welcome to pornography.
The story that I am writing now, I have no choice but to tell and to tell it honestly, accurately and completely, my story must be pornography.
So you may well be asking, who, by the horny hosts of high heaven, are you?
Fair question.
I'm the luckiest man alive.
And if you have any brains at all, you're probably thinking -- how the fuck do you know that? How can anyone honestly call themselves the luckiest man alive. In all of the world? You? You're fucking nothing!
About that, you are not wrong. I have been nothing. I have been less than nothing.
But now, today, I can look straight, calm and clear into your eyes and even if you are almighty Zeus sitting on Mount fucking Olympus, I can be one hundred percent cold sober certain. I am the luckiest man living in all of this wide, wicked, corrupt but ultimately beautiful world. I do not blink. I do not stumble or stutter. I do not doubt. This I know.
I sense your skepticism. You would be a fool not to doubt my audacious claim. Or a child. My story is for neither.
Sit back then, relax and listen now as I defend my thesis. Even if you are not persuaded, I can promise you -- this will be pornography.
Behold, the story of the luckiest man alive.
Chapter I
My birth alone would be deemed fortunate enough by most, for I was born both the legitimate second son of the Baron Hadrian Vetronius and the elder fraternal twin of his first daughter, Gaia. As a child I knew neither hardship nor want for I was raised safe in the
Domus Mille Equi
. That mouthful of Old Imperial translates to the House of a Thousand Horses -- a somewhat ironic title since not even a single horse has ever stepped foot within those stately halls. Instead, we kept our hundred strong herd of horses housed in the almost equally grand stables, just south of the main house beside the slave quarters.
Living here ensured a life of almost unfathomable wealth, opulence and privilege sheltered on the Baron's sprawling estate. It is forgivable if you are envious. Everyone in the Barony of Portia envied me back then and rightly so. Magnus, my older brother, was destined to succeed father so upon him fell all the prestige and the pressure. I was the carefree second in line. Barring catastrophe, there was nothing ahead of me but a life of leisure and luxury. Then, two years ago, that catastrophe arrived like lightning from the blue. My brave but foolish brother was slain in glorious battle at the behest of his Emperor. I miss him intensely, daily, genuinely. But this is not his story.
My story instead began upon my eighteenth birthday. By baronial decree there was to be a great ball. This grand occasion celebrated not a single happening but instead a confluence of occasions. First, of course, it celebrated the mutual birthday of two of the Baron's children, my sister and myself. Second, It also lauded Gaia's recent graduation as high school valedictorian and her acceptance to the intensely prestigious Collegium Septem Stellarum, the College of the Seven Stars. Third, it marked my admission to the Imperial Academy as an officer in training. I was to follow in the footsteps of my father into the legions. Fourth, finally, and perhaps most importantly, it signified that both my sister and myself would at summer's end be leaving the House of a Thousand Horses and embarking upon our own lives.
It was for that reason that this grand celebration was also, for me, a time of joy mixed in equal measure with melancholy. Yes, I wanted desperately to be my own man away from my father's shadow. Gods, I wanted that more than my next breath! But equally I regretted that I would soon be losing
her
. My twin sister and I had barely spent a single day apart in our eighteen years of life. She is etched into my every memory and everything good that I am comes from her. Gaia and me would soon be living on opposite sides of the country.
If you knew my sister you would immediately understand my sorrow, my loss. Gaia was a goddess. Being fraternal twins, we were recognizably related -- both about the same build and height. I was only a scant inch taller at an even six feet. We were both slight and blonde. But where I was a rather average looking fellow, Gaia was a vision.
She was tall and lissome, yet a miraculous balance of the lean and curvaceous feminine form. She wore her golden tresses long and they seemed to always catch the light, becoming spun gold. Her eyes were pale sapphire. Her skin was purest cream. Her smile -- the morning sun. Her laughter music. Her gaze was heartbreak.
"Gaius!" she called to me shortly before the ball was slated to commence. "Gaius!" she repeated. "It's here!"
Her voice arrested me from my brooding and I spun to face my sister as she almost collided with me. I instead put my arms around her waist and brought her into a brotherly hug.
"What has you so riled?" I asked smiling.
I then noticed that she was concealing something behind her back. But honestly that's not what held my attention. How could I focus upon anything but her in my arms? She was already made up for the ball. Her hair was high, a woven halo of golden thread framing her angelic face. Her eyes sparkled with pure delight.
She wore an elegant gown of deepest cerulean silk, dark blue and subtly patterned with variations of our family's crest -- the mighty Vetronian stallion. Her gown was elegant, exquisite even, but plunging and accentuated her long delicate neck, adorned dramatically with a triple string of champagne pearl holding a pendant of diamonds framing a single Sri Lankan sapphire almost exactly the color of her eyes. Her breathing told me she had run to find me and her stunning bosom heaved hypnotically before me.
Then she unveiled it before me. "Isn't it beautiful, Gaius?"
She bore for me a blade. I knew it instantly. The weapon had been commissioned months earlier and crafted at great expense, but had been, alas, delayed in shipping. I feared it would not arrive in time for our birthday, but here it was. It had been delivered at the very last minute and Gaia had, most urgently, brought it to me.
"A vision," I whispered speaking as much of her as the sword.
But let me not undersell the weapon! It was three and half feet of gently curved folded steel crafted by the efforts of a master swordsmith. It was hilted and guarded with spring steel, functional, yet fully adorned with the finest gold filigree, and capped by elephantine ivory graven into a stallion's head. The regal beast, like my sister, sported sapphire eyes. The sword was sheathed in a scabbard of black tooled leather bearing our family crest rendered in delicately worked gold. The blade was razor sharp and ready for war but opulent enough to be worn in the presence of the Emperor himself.
