Ovid's Other Metamorphosis
Nothing Criminal
“If anyone wishes to know all my misfortunes,
He asks for more than circumstance allows.” —Tristia 4.10
Caesar Augustus held a sumptuous banquet in the magnificent palace triclinium. We were not the only guests of the First Citizen and his queen that evening, of course; there was such an excess of company that five tables and fifteen lecti were not enough to seat us all. I could not recount the full spectrum of distinguished personages that attended dinner upon Caesar’s pleasure, but I recall those who ate with us. Because Cornelius had declared I was a tremendous fan of the Aeneid, we had been seated with Virgil himself, by now past his fiftieth year and in frail health. The old poet laureate kept largely silent, allowing the conversation to be dominated by the young historian Livy, whose recent triumphant work Ab Urbe Condita had been a special favorite of Augustus. Also at our table was the poet Horace, and the engineer and architect Vitruvius. As I portrayed the wife of Cornelius, I sat upright opposite him, as Livy’s and Vitruvius’s wives sat across from their own husbands. Virgil was unmarried and had no opposite. Completing the nine seated at our table was Julia Caesari, whose husband was away and unable to accompany her.
I recall little of the banquet which the First Citizen’s slaves served to us from the kitchen, as I was captivated by the discussion that prevailed. My father had never imagined himself worthy of a meal with such luminaries as these, and here was I, Ovidia Corva Quadrati, enjoying the company of dignitaries and poets in the very palace on Palatine Hill in Rome from which all power emanated. It was difficult to remember that I, too, was a poet; I too was an orator of some skill, though I was only eighteen. Here, I was merely the obedient bride of Cornelius Quadrati, too shy and reserved in public to offer more than complete encouragement to my man, too properly subjugated to his rule to volunteer my own questions or commentary. All my male initiative seemed to have been stripped away, and I felt a timidity and insecurity that would not depart.
Had I not been seated directly beside Julia, I believe I would have said nothing at all, but to her it was permissible to speak softly. I was doubly grateful for her presence at my elbow, for she stopped me from making obvious errors in decorum and etiquette; I observed her exquisite manners closely and followed her example. Not for the first time I realized the peculiarity of my situation; had I been a man, I would have been unable to concentrate on Julia’s subtle expressions of correction and encouragement, for I would have been hypnotized by my admiration of her elegance and beauty. Instead we were women together.
Following dinner, Augustus commanded a selection of wines to be served, and we had more leisure to move about the palace and courtyard to hold private discussions of our own. Julia Caesari kept me at her side until such time as we were alone to speak in confidence.
“I must say, Ovidia,” she said to me admiringly, “I had no conception that the Bacchic Fiasco would render a change as complete as yours. It is truly you, for I recognize those eyes and those lips, but in every other way you have been entirely altered. I must congratulate you on your performance. No guest tonight could possibly suspect that you were anything but the wife of Cornelius — certainly not Virgil, for I hear he looks more at young boys than at women. It is a shame, Ovidia, for if you had come tonight as you truly are, you may have had more opportunity to speak with that celebrated man. And there is no possibility you could have missed the leering eye of Herod. He has no suspicions, I assure you.”
“Herod?” I asked quietly. It seemed far more natural to speak in quiet conspiratorial tones with Julia, rather than in the boisterous and wine-amplified pontification being carried on by the men.
“A king from one of the provinces: Judea, I believe. My father loathes him, and I see little reason myself to love the man. I advise you to reject any overtures Herod makes to you, poor Ovidia,” she added with a smirk. “He had his previous wife tried and executed for treason, and her mother as well. Although were he to seduce you, you might answer once and for all whether he truly is a Jew, as he claims.”
“I have no desire to be seduced,” I protested, my heart beating quickly. “How can you say such a thing?”
“The Bacchic Fiasco is said to extract the manhood from anyone who drinks of it,” Julia whispered in a voice of surety. “If all that has been taken from you, Ovidia my love, whatever might be left?”
“It hasn’t disappeared permanently,” I said to her, drawing even closer. “What was taken from me resides in the flask itself. All I must to do restore myself is drink it.”
“Then the stories are true,” Julia said with a mischievous smile. “Better and better. Do you think, Ovidia, that you might meet me in the baths and show me the use of this magic fiasco?”
“Which baths, these?” I asked. We were near to the private Caesarin baths, reserved for the use of the First Citizen and his family.
Julia considered my inquiry. “Not these, I think,” she said finally. “My father can be tedious about strangers, especially where baths are concerned. No, my lovely Ovidia, come as you are: you shall meet me in the women’s public baths here on Palatine, those which are served by Aqua Virgo. All the Senators are men, but the women’s baths are rarely used, so we shall have a good deal of privacy there.”
I spent the remainder of that evening in that disconcertingly feminine state, and tarried at the residence of my friend Cornelius Quadratus. Technically I was impersonating his wife, but only in the public forum; in private we did not attempt any conjugal consummation of our supposed state. That is to say, Cornelius attempted it, but I had enough masculine independence and initiative to resist. I had not been rendered a slave by the magic of Bacchus, after all.
The following day I traveled again to Palatine, with Cornelius acting as chaperon and bodyguard. I observed that he had become more protective toward me, and more solicitous of my comfort. He made every effort to touch me, to brush lightly against me, to observe some speck on my tunica and remove it. His constant and devoted attention was flattering to me, weakening my resolve not to be equally attentive to him. This was a disguise only, I reminded myself; I was under no obligation to be the wife of Cornelius in fact as well as fiction.
This was only my third day as a woman, and I was unaccustomed to entering the baths through the women’s entrance, but Julia Caesari knew it well. She met us at the baths on Vicus Curiarum in the company of a capsarius, the slave designated to carry her towel and oils, and to secure the safety of her belongings while she bathed. I had no such slave, but Cornelius had agreed to stand watch in the vestibule to see that our possessions were unmolested. In Julia’s arms there was a bundle of clothing; in my own, I held the Bacchic Fiasco, held upright with great care so my masculinity might not spill.
Julia greeted me with a friendly kiss on the cheek, and turned to address her capsarius. “Alexios, this is Ovidia. Do her the kindness of watching over her things as well. If I should be unable to retrieve my bathing things personally, do permit Ovidia to retrieve them on my behalf.”
Alexios nodded curtly. He was a Greek youth with tanned shoulders and strong arms, wearing the rich but plain tunic of all the Caesarin slaves. He would not be permitted into the baths with us, as he was a man, but he would be allowed to remain in the vestibule. Despite the diligence of the city cohort, pickpockets did occasionally prowl the baths, especially in the affluent regions of Palatine where potential profits were highest. I resolved that I would not even consider letting this amphora out of my sight, so long as it contained my precious manhood.
We entered the vestibule, where we paid the capsarii on duty for use of the bath. Cornelius Quadratus and Alexios watched those bath slaves closely as we handed over our cloaks and sandals. Julia did not entrust her small purse of coins to the bath slaves, but delivered it to Alexios for safe-keeping, and I handed the Bacchic Fiasco to Cornelius only long enough to remove my own sandals.
The men were not permitted to follow us further into the apodyterium. Julia and I entered that area alone, and each of us undressed. As I had long suspected, Julia Caesari had the soft, supple body of which poets may sing: pale of flesh, delicate of skin, and firm of breast. Unlike on the day of our meeting, however, I was in no condition to take advantage of our proximity. I had been stripped of every male impulse. I was disarmed.
This fact did not escape her. “It is a masterfully thorough magic, Ovidia,” she observed with a dry smile, and her eyes fell down to the cunnus between my thighs, the cleft that indicated my new sex. “Not a single article was missed.”
“It has been very disconcerting, Julia,” I assured her. “I haven’t felt myself since my manhood was stripped away.”
“That is understandable,” she said, drawing close to me. Her small hands felt their way around my narrow waist and intertwined behind my pelvis, and she pulled me near enough to kiss. Her amber eyes surveyed the way our bodies came together, my own naked breasts intersecting with hers, and then her gaze lifted to match mine. “In fact, it is inevitable. You don’t look much like yourself, Ovid.”
When I had met Julia, she had been slightly shorter than I; now she was a few digits taller. I found that I now looked upward into her eyes, and my own arms went automatically around her bare torso. My heart was now fully pierced by her beauty, and my lips opened to voice something — anything.
“Bacchus made you a lovely woman, my dear Ovid,” the daughter of the First Citizen whispered to me, and kissed me. “If only the gods had made me an equally handsome man, you would at this very moment be in a great deal of trouble. Imagine the mischief we could make if that were so, my lovely poetess: you as the woman in my arms, and I a man. I have read every stanza of your Ars Amatoria, and have committed both books to memory. If I were a man, I could employ the tactics of the Art of Love upon you, my dear.”
My head was spinning with sheer desire, and I said to her, “If you were a man, you might inherit the Republic.”
Julia Caesari smiled, and kissed me again in reward. “I might indeed. At the moment, my husband is being groomed for that position; Claudius Marcellus is my cousin, and the man most likely to assume the duties of First Citizen. Sadly, he has little to carry him to that title but my father’s favor: no skill in oratory, no success in battle. I hear all the conversations in Rome are about ways to dissuade Augustus from his selection. It is, in fact, the very reason Livia asked me to obtain the Bacchic Fiasco.”
This was too much to absorb at once, and I asked her to explain.
“My dear, delightful Ovidia,” the daughter of the First Citizen said gently, “I was married to Claudius Marcellus, and not by choice. He was selected for me, or I for him, to cement his future role. My father is blind to the realization that this is not a good choice, but assassination is such a distasteful alternative. Neither Livia nor I wish my husband dead, when he might simply be . . . neutralized. If he were no longer a man, he might no longer be allowed to rule. And then, perhaps, we might each, you and I, choose a marriage more amenable to us both.”
“But all he must do is drink from that Fiasco again,” I protested feebly. “One sip of that would turn anyone into a man.”
I had not meant to say it, but Julia’s beauty had flustered me. Now it was her turn to express surprise. “Anyone might become a man? Truly?”
What had been said could not now be unsaid, but I tried to minimize the damage. “That is the story told to me by the Bacchae,” I said quickly. “It may be erroneous. They knew nothing of its working.”
“Perhaps,” Julia Caesari said, drawing away. The Fiasco, bundled in its fabric, was near to her left foot, and deftly she stooped to retrieve it. “Perhaps the simplest way to test the theory,” she said, unraveling the protective cloth, “is to try it.”
“No, Julia,” I said weakly. “That’s my manhood. Without it, I—”
It was too late. She was already drinking from the alabaster pitcher, consuming the honey-sweet liquor that was my masculine essence. As it permeated her body, her clean and slender limbs began to acquire a dense musculature, and her skeleton expanded to accommodate them. Julia Caesari inflated, her shoulders separating further, her calves hardening, her jaw increasing in length and solidity. Her hair retracted to a short set of black curls, and her breasts receded into a broad, masculine chest. All the while I felt a disorientation, a dizziness, as if my personal orientation had been spun, and the universe now possessed a new center. I could no longer advance toward the daughter of the First Citizen, nor could I look away. There was an irresistible attraction that I could not explain or identify.
Julius Caesari examined his large left hand, and the massive right fist in which was clenched the Amphora of Dionysus. “By Jupiter, it worked,” he breathed in astonished satisfaction. “I am a man.”
His words seemed to penetrate into my peculiarly soft brain, and I found I wanted nothing more than to agree with them. “Yes,” I told him. “Yes, you are a man.”
The new son of the First Citizen turned his amber gaze upon me, and I felt pinned to the spot, unable to retreat. He now commanded my masculinity, every drop and dram of it, and I was helpless to resist him. “So, Ovidia,” he said to me, and again my ears thrilled to the commanding sound of his male voice. “What were we saying a moment ago? If you were a woman in my arms, and I a man, how much terrible trouble you might be in?”
“Yes, terrible trouble,” I repeated. My poet’s mind had deserted me, and I could think of no other words than those Julius said to me.
Julius cast down his eyes to his new mentula, which was beginning to stiffen at the sight of me, naked before him. I saw his member twitch and rise, and almost instantly I felt myself respond in kind, my cunnus becoming lubricated and receptive. He reached out to take my hand, and even as he extended his arm, I was offering my own.
“Not here,” he said huskily, pulling me toward the tepidarium. “This way.”
I felt his every desire. Every lustful impulse that passed through his body was automatically correlated to mine. I knew, as clearly as if Julius had spoken his desire aloud as a command, that we were going into the warm-water baths. I knew that in that exquisite environment, he would have his way with me. Further, I knew I could never resist him. I could never even imagine how to try. This man was carrying around my manhood, and with it, he ruled me from afar. When he was aroused, I was; when he wished to fornicate with me, I did likewise.
Julius led me into the steaming water of the tepidarium, conducting me to the edge of the pool where the water was thigh deep, and we began to kiss. It was impossible to act contrary to the desire I felt, a desire which emanated from his expertly designed male body in powerful pulses. There was no awkwardness as between lovers who barely knew one another, as had happened with Flavia and me upon our arranged marriage; every move Julius made, I made the exact counter-move, adjusting my balance, my grip, or my arms to caress him expertly, exactly where he wished me to. Everywhere on my body that Julius enjoyed touching, I enjoyed it equally well. And we were insatiable, mad with desire, as befitting the magic of Bacchus; he was as erect as any satyr, proud and long and thick, ready to penetrate my body with his stolen anatomy, and I was as frantic as any Maenad, commanded by his lust. Julius was feeling the hammer of Bacchus’s wine by now, and his will was overcome; I possessed no means by which I could resist that, and indeed at times I felt as if I were as intoxicated as he.
He bent me over the edge of the pool and seized me from behind, driving deep inside me, clasping the flesh of my hips with his strong palms, while my breasts dangled and swayed over the mosaic tiles. I cried out in passion as he spanked my rounded posterior, demonstrating his complete mastery of me. Julius also had me in the pool, standing, while I wrapped my thighs around his midsection and braced myself against his strong shoulders, working my hips against his. In the back of my brain where the poet still lurked, I realized I would need new words to describe this: no longer was this futuo, but criso. Always in my poetry I avoided vulgarity, but now that it was happening to me, the words were unavoidable. I was not fucking; I was not capable of fucking; that required boldness and initiative and masculinity. I was being fucked, I was on the receiving end, I was accepting a man inside me.
Julius Caesari had me several times, several ways, around the pool. In his drunken lust, fueled by the magic of the Amphora, he had the stamina of a goat. I had no time to recover from one ecstasy before he showed me another, even higher region of bliss. When at last his endurance gave out and I felt our shared lust receding, I was sore, chafed, euphoric, and still I could not tear myself away from his commanding presence. Between the two of us, he possessed all the willpower.
“Ovidia,” Julius said to me, after we had returned to retrieve the Bacchic Fiasco in the changing room, “I remember your telling me that once you drank the wine, it filled up again. Isn’t that what you said?”
I nodded obediently, before I had even properly understood the question. “Yes, that is exactly what I told you. You have such an excellent memory, Julius.”
He gave me a peculiar and probing glance. “Ovidia, it isn’t necessary always to agree with me. What has become of you? Has the magic of this Amphora affected your mind?”
Again I nodded agreeably. “Yes, that’s a perfect way to put it. It’s affected my mind.”
Julius sighed, and I felt a twinge of exasperation from him. “My dear poetess,” he said to me, “you know more of this Fiasco than I. I do not understand its magic. Please awake from whatever hypnotic spell affecting you, and explain to me how it works.”
I still felt a tremendous impulse to please him, so I organized my recollections as well as I could. “When I drank the fig wine from the Fiasco,” I said to him, “it refilled again with my manhood. When I drank that again, I—” I ceased speaking for a moment, trying to recall. “I believe I fell unconscious. I don’t recall what happened afterward, if the Fiasco filled again. Cornelius brought me home.”
Julius peered into the dark depths of the alabaster pitcher. His head was still unsteady from the effects of the heavenly nectar he had drunk. “It remains empty. Perhaps we need more — you said fig wine?”
“Yes,” I agreed.
“Very well,” Julius said. “It is fortunate that I anticipated this situation, and brought a man’s tunic as well as my own. I hope the tunic I brought is large enough. If we intend to return to our normal selves, my dear Ovidia, we must have some more of that elixir.”
“Yes,” I repeated. “We must have more.”
“Livia never intended to use the Fiasco in this way,” Julius mused to himself. “Nevertheless, she must be told. But first, I shall need to be restored to my old self. I cannot return to Palatine looking like this.”
“No,” I agreed. It was so simple to agree with everything Julius told me.
“All right, Ovidia,” he said. “I don’t know what’s happened to you, exactly, but I pray you haven’t lost your wits entirely. Please tell me you still remember where you purchased that fig wine.”
Cornelius and Alexios were astonished to see the altered shape of Julius, even though Cornelius had known it was a possibility and Alexios had evidently been entrusted with the secret. Cornelius was especially curious to hear how easily I had submitted to Julius, despite my fierce objections to his own attentions only the day before.
“You’re going to need to write a new passage for your Ars Amatoria, Ovidia,” he suggested to me. “You’ve told all the men how to find and seduce women, but now you need a few lines telling women how to fend off those advances.”
“I know,” I said happily. Cornelius Quadratus was still an ordinary man to me, one with whom I could easily speak without my mind becoming overruled. Alexios, too, was a mere pedestrian beside us, a Greek slave who was nothing important to me. Julius Caesari, however, was the Earth, and I was the Moon turning helplessly in his orbit. Everything he spoke was as a command to me, every sentence was a law.
My unthinking obedience to Julius made it difficult to lead our foursome to the east side of Rome, where the youthful wine merchant plied his wares. I was unequipped to take the lead. My every instinct was to follow Julius wherever he went.
Finally we came to the forum on the east side of the City where merchants traditionally established their temporary stalls. This merchant was easily observed, as his was the only stall in that forum with a wagon and a donkey. The city cohort forbade draft animals in the streets during daylight hours, for the roads were too narrow to traffic in horses and mules. Yet there was his cart, filled with fiascos and bottles and amphorae of all descriptions, and painted on the exterior with pictures of fruit.
Cornelius greeted the youthful wine tradesman. “Good day, boy. We require a bottle of your fig wine, if you would be so kind.”
There was a twinkle in the lad’s eye. “The caricarum, my friend? I am afraid that is impossible. Every last bottle has been sold.”
“Every bottle?” Julius asked with dismay.
“Quite so,” said the young man. “It has been selling steadily for days, ever since the carouse in the groves of Simila. Let me tell you, friend, the Maenads do adore my wine,” he said, and tipped a wink in my direction.
I struggled with my newfound feminine decorum and tried to speak out, but it was difficult. “I had hoped,” I said lamely, “that you might have had time to retrieve more. Didn’t you say you hoped to return to the winery?”
“Ah, yes,” he said with a chuckle. “But alas, I have not yet gone. It is the height of the Market, you see. In another few days I shall leave for the winery and return . . . shall we say the First of Iunius?”
“A month?” I asked hopelessly.
“No, no, my friend,” Julius Caesari said forcefully, “that won’t do at all. We’re going to need some more of this fig wine immediately.”
“Yes,” I echoed dumbly. “We’ll need more immediately.”
At this, the young man laughed aloud, heartily and long. “I begin to see the dimensions of your problem. You wouldn’t happen to have seen a fiasco of alabaster, with a Maenad carved at the fore? I see by your astonished faces that you have. It is there in that slave’s arms, wrapped in a bundle, if I’m any judge. Yes, you do need fig wine, but I have none here in Rome.”
Cornelius and Julius were both speaking at the same time, protesting loudly, when the cheery young merchant held up one hand. “But,” he added, forestalling both of my companions, “but there is an alternative. My father’s winery is to the east, in the hills. You could visit there directly, if you wished. I would give you directions.”
“How far is it?” Cornelius demanded. “Why should we leave the City and fetch it ourselves?”
“You must always be prepared to work for that which you seek,” said the wine merchant gnomically. “And before you ask, no other fig wine will do. Try the other if you wish, but there is no magic in it. The secret is in the tree, my friends. If you truly wish for a solution to your predicament, you would do well to heed my advice.”
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