Date: Tue, 29 Dec 2015 22:07:34 -0500
From: Seth Margrave <seth.margrave@gmail.com>
Subject: The Baths of New Caledonia Part 2: Cato Mirabilis

A crash and the sound of twisting metal woke Cato abruptly from a dreamless
sleep. His eyes flew open, but a bulky arm covered in hair lay on his chest
and kept him from sitting up. As his ears adjusted to the relative quiet of
the bedroom punctuated by angry shouts from outside the open window, he
heard the soft snoring of the man sleeping soundly next to him. Cato turned
his head to the left and saw a bearded face with a thin line of drool
pooling on one of the pillows. The man's face was slightly rounded, the
product of a few years' prosperity under Cato's father Tiberius after many
years of hard work on his own. His beard was thick and black and nearly
joined the hair on his chest and torso. It was a bit too long for Cato's
taste, but not prohibitively so. The man's body resembled his face: a
thickly muscled frame covered by a layer of padding just plush enough to
round out some of his hard edges. Cato predicted that after a few more
years as Tiberius's foreman, the man would look like he had never worked a
day in his life, betraying his past achievements as a carpenter. The man's
name was Bren, and he was unconsciously keeping Cato trapped in bed with
him.


Cato followed the lines of Bren's body down towards his waist, his
substantial member partially obscured by a thin sheet. Cato gave a small
grin as he moved the sheet out of the way with a free arm to reveal the
whole thing, remembering the previous night's pleasure. Bren's cock was
thicker than Cato had seen on any other man, so much so that Bren had to
spend a long time with his tongue inside Cato before his cock could take
its place. Remembering the feeling of something so large and wide inside
him was enough to start the blood flowing to Cato's groin and he gazed at
Bren's foreskin, eager to revisit that area with his mouth. Cato turned to
his right and saw Aida, Bren's wife, snoring softly beside him, her breasts
catching the light as it filtered in through the dirty bedroom window. She
had enjoyed sharing herself and her husband with Cato, or at least that's
what her frequent and loud moaning the night before had made Cato believe,
with Bren inside her from the front and Cato taking care of her ass. Cato
occasionally enjoyed the company of women, but he had rarely taken his eyes
off of Bren that whole evening.


Cato inched towards the foot of the bed, making sure not to disturb his
bedmates. Once he was free, he stood up and stretched, working out the
knots from a night of sleeping in odd positions. He was not especially
tall, only reaching to just above Bren's chin, but they weighed nearly the
same, with Cato's body sporting very well-developed muscles in contrast to
Bren's slowly increasing pudge. Cato's skin was rather fair, but his hair
was dark and his eyes were blue with brown rims. His almost complete lack
of body hair was pronounced against Bren's hirsuteness, often prompting
both men and women to ask if he shaved. This made Cato laugh, because in
his mind the gods had traded his father's height for smooth skin when
deciding what Cato would look like, an action they did not repeat for his
two younger brothers.


As Cato began to dress, he heard the rustle of sheets from the bed. Bren
opened one sleepy eye and watched Cato as he put on his tunic and
shoes. Bren smiled when Cato bent over to cinch one foot and then the
other, admiring how the fabric of his tunic folded around his callipygian
backside.


"Can't you stay for just a little while longer?" asked Bren in a raspy
voice. "My wife and I like to welcome the new day around this time."


"While I'm sure my father would be happy to know that I'm getting along
with his colleagues," replied Cato as he sat down on the foot of the bed,
"he'll be pretty angry if I'm late."


"What's he got you doing this early?" said Bren.


"One of his customer's sons is coming of age today and he wants me to go to
Calor with him to meet them formally. And you know how much my father loves
to be on time." Cato stood up from the bed and walked to the doorway.


"When will I see you again?" asked Bren, a look of worry breaking out on
his bearded face.


"Soon," said Cato with a smile. "I'm not going to let this be just a one
time deal." Bren watched him leave the room and then laid back down on the
bed, sighing softly.


Cato stepped out onto the sidewalk in front of Bren's apartment building
and saw why he had been woken up. A metal supply cart had flipped after
going around a corner too quickly, spilling produce all over the road. The
market day had already proved to be especially busy, and this was not
helping the traffic to the Forum along at all. He unlocked his bicycle and
quickly sped around heads of lettuce as he made his way north towards home.


The area known as the Forum had been extensively bombed during the New
Roman Conquest, which conveniently provided the wide open space that
allowed for the sprawling marketplace to convene. Large basements and
underground structures from the fallen skyscrapers were used as living
space for merchants, black market dealers, and prostitutes with proximity
to their place of work a keen advantage over living in the slums somewhere
else. With the right questions and some persistence, one could acquire
almost anything above ground, but true contraband was only sold in those
basements beneath the streets.


Cato had fond memories of accompanying his father to the Forum when he was
young. The bustling throng of shouting merchants and eager customers
fascinated him. The whole area was a range of squalid single-room tents
pitched next to palatial retail complexes for the more wealthy members of
the Common class. The air was always suffused with the scent of fish from
the docks, sawdust from the lumber yard, vegetables from farms nearby, and
spices being hauled off massive nuclear-powered ships. Truly a wild place,
this domain of the Common was a distinct departure from the halcyon gardens
and villas of the Elite. Cato had seen both, and he much preferred the
barely-contained chaos at the southern tip of the island once known as
Manhattan.


As Cato rode farther away from the Forum, the poorly-maintained rubble gave
way to more and more new buildings made out of stone with looming columns
and impressive sculptures made out of metal and glass. The wealthier Common
classes made their residences around the perimeter of the Garden of Eden,
the rectangular area once known as Central Park and the home of the Elite
citizens of New Caledonia City. Cato and his family lived in an impressive
set of apartments that overlooked the southeastern corner of the Garden. As
Tiberius had gotten richer and richer through his luxury goods business, he
had moved his family closer towards the Garden, but also to higher and
higher floors. They now owned the top two floors of their building, but
they would still never be allowed to live in any of the humble
single-storey villas that they saw from their windows every day.


Cato maneuvered past a metal stanchion that separated the pedestrian
walkways around the Garden from the crowded motorways where hand-drawn
carts, horse carriages, and automobiles of every shape, size, and condition
made traversing on foot a hazard. Cato's mother hated the idea of her son
riding his bicycle outside of the confines of those stanchions, but with a
smile and a sincere assurance, Cato could convince his mother of
anything. The gray sidewalks with cracked and pitted pavement became
cobblestoned promenades replete with shade trees. Car horns and the shouts
of commerce gave way to birdsong and the sound of falling water. Quickly
and extensively rebuilt after the establishment of the Eastern Empire, the
Perimeter neighborhood sported sensible townhouses and high-rise apartment
buildings paneled in red brick and white marble. Rooftop gardens allowed
each Common to have their own little piece of the greenery they envied from
their skyscrapers.


After rounding a corner, Cato had reached the Garden border, a low row of
neatly kept hedges the only thing separating his people from their
betters. He had a clear view west towards his building and east towards the
Emperor's Circle with its large mosaic depicting Eastern Emperor Honorus I
and his victory over the Ungoverned during the New Roman Conquest. And on
the circle's western side, hidden in plain sight, was the bath known as
Thermal. Originally created as Calor's twin, it occupied the building
formerly known as The Shops at Columbus Circle, with its immense front face
retrofitted with one-way glass. At first glance the structure was
unsuspecting, but to those who knew of its true nature, it represented
freedom in a way that no liberty monument could ever equal.


After riding a few more blocks east, Cato arrived at his family's building
and ascended to the top floor. He stepped out of the elevator shaft into a
receiving room with its own fountain. Through an archway at the opposite
end he made his way to the main area of the apartment. Each section of the
open floor plan was sunken into the floor with little to no separation
between the different areas. The master suite occupied the northwest corner
with its own balcony and dumbwaiter to the servants' area in the floor
below, with the other bedrooms along the western wall. Cato's father was
sitting down in the viewing area watching a news report on the wallscreen
in front of him.


"Another one of your all-night rides?" queried Tiberius, eyeing Cato's
bicycle and turning back to the viewscreen. "Did you run into any of my
associates this time?"


"That foreman of yours, Bren," replied Cato, setting down the bicycle and
sitting next to his father. "He and his wife are very hospitable."


Tiberius sent Cato a knowing look. "In a year I'd better not be seeing any
kids with our family nose at that house." Cato smirked and went to the
window, gazing at the Garden below.


"At least you aren't late," said Tiberius after a few moments. "It's very
important that we make a good impression on Titus today. His brother Marcus
the Younger is going to be running their father's business in a few years,
but I have no doubt that Titus's word will carry weight in the coming
future."


"You have an accident outside Bren's apartment to thank for my
punctuality. Otherwise, I probably would have slept until noon."


"You? A late sleeper? Perish the thought." Cato smiled at his father's
jest. He could see the whole Garden from this window, but he didn't look at
it the way Tiberius did. When Tiberius stood here, he watched with a
jealous and calculating eye. Cato saw opportunity.


"Did you want me to wear anything in particular to Calor today?" asked
Cato, turning his back to the window and walking towards his room on the
east side.


"Whatever you have that's clean and won't disappoint me," replied his
father. "Gods know I won't live down that burlap sack you managed to cram
yourself into for the Emperor's birthday."


"Don't worry, that thing was much itchier than I had anticipated."