“Come in, dears, come in!” cooed a woman in a blonde wig and a fiame-colored gown. In the subdued light, it took me a second look to realize that she was actually a man. “The Labyrinth features something for everyone!” as this person demonstrated amply. We joined the group of people of both sexes passing within. Nobody here was worrying about any trifiing fiood.
We passed through a tunnel lined with niches. In each niche burned candles, illuminating small statues of couples and groups engaged in ecstatic copulation. Above each niche was painted the name of its particular variation, in Latin and Greek. Thus you could make a selection and name your pleasure when you negotiated with the management of this uninhibited place of business.
From the tunnel, we emerged into a vast courtyard filled with tables, overlooked by the galleries of the three upper stories. There was constant traffic between the courtyard and the upper fioors, with whores of both sexes leading their customers, also of both sexes although predominantly male, to the rooms conveniently provided by the management.
Everywhere, torches burned in sconces, lamps stood on stands, and candles burned by the hundreds. Here was one place where candles, rare elsewhere in Rome, were used in abundance. By their light, I could see that the decor, like the statue outside, conformed, after a fashion, to the myth of Theseus and the Minotaur. The wall paintings illustrated the doings within the original Labyrinth. The legend relates that the Athenians each year had to pay as tribute seven youths and seven maidens to be given to the Minotaur. The legend is not specific concerning what use the Minotaur made of these youths and maidens, but the paintings left no doubt. The Minotaur, though manlike in form, inherited more than just his father’s head.
“How may we entertain you?” The questioner was a young whore wearing a beautiful smile and little else.
“If we are to have the strength to go on,” I said, “we’ll have to eat. Then we can see about stronger entertainment.”
“This way.” We followed her twinkling, white buttocks to a small table in a corner. As we made our way, I scanned the somewhat loud but generally orderly crowd. Aside from the professionals, the clientele included more than just the rivermen and visiting foreigners. I saw a few of my fellow senators there as well, none of them taking any pains to conceal their identities.
I took a seat at the table indicated, and without needing to be told, Hermes pulled up a stool behind me. Since I was there in my official capacity, there was no question of the two of us sitting together as we had at lunch that afternoon. There is an unspoken but understood protocol in these matters. Immediately, slaves set food and wine on the table.
“Be so good as to send the owner to me,” I told the whore.
She looked me over doubtfully. “And who might I say is making this request? It’s most unusual.” She spoke like a native of Cyprus. It is more musical than most foreign accents.
“The Plebeian Aedile Metellus,” I said. Her winglike false eyebrows went up a bit, but she did not challenge me. Perhaps, I thought, the dingy old toga hadn’t been such a good idea, after all.
The food and wine were uniformly excellent. There were shellfish in garlic sauce, bread baked with fennel seed, cheeses and dried fruits, most of the foods being the ones believed to stimulate the carnal appetites. For once I went easy on the wine, which was Cossian.
I was pushing the dishes aside, when I saw a woman coming across the courtyard toward me. She paused from time to time to speak with the customers seated all around, smiling, caressing a shoulder here, a bald head there, clearly the madame making sure all her guests are happy and well looked after. Crossing that distance, passing seated people, I understood how tall she was only when she was a few paces from my table.
Andromeda, the famous proprietress of the Labyrinth, was taller than all but the very tallest men in Rome, a good six inches taller than I, and I was not considered short. Adding to her already imposing height was an amazing wig made from the hair of several different German and Gallic women, golden, fiaxen, and red locks mixed together and piled high. She did not wear the peplos of a respectable woman, but rather the feminized toga Roman law requires prostitutes to wear when in public. Unlike the plain, citizen’s toga, hers was a brilliant aquamarine with a Greek fret embroidered on the hem in gold thread. Her many jewels were worth a good-sized country estate.
She stopped at my table, placed the back of one hand in the palm of the other, and bowed gracefully. “Aedile, you do us an unexpected honor.”
“I am here on a matter of official business,” I said. “Please be seated.” She folded her long form into a chair, leaned forward, and patted me. I thought she was being fiirtatious, then her fingers dug in at my waist. She withdrew the hand and sat back, wearing a serious expression.