Chapter 5 - iv

Maybe it was because she was a Clodian, or had been still a rather young and impressionable bride when this moment had come, or even that she had enjoyed it too much but for whatever reason Clodia was a different girl from that point on. Rapidly gaining weight through constant gorging, and most likely involved intimately with Geruss, at least that's what the looks that passed between the two of them told me, Clodia was different. Her saunters into my study became waddles and happened later and later, and sometimes not at all as she knew that all of her hedonistic wishes would be granted by me anyway, or at least by the house slaves. How many of those needs I would later find out all to clearly.
By the end of my Consulship she was a more than 600 libra woman, with thighs that rubbed from top to knee, an ass like a prized cow, and udders to match all framing a mountainous belly that nearly hung below her knees. Her fingers were like plump sausages and the only part of her that was constantly busy, picking out the delicacies from among delicacies and sliding them into her sensuous lips, now framed by full jowls and three chins. Her long hair was always perfectly combed and her tunics emaculate: of course they were, she never got near anything to soil them, carried everywhere by my Teutonnes or Numidians.
My last day on the Rostra was perfect. All my legislation well received, both parties apparently happy, the frontiers for the most part at peace and the treasury in the temple stuffed to its' fullest level in years. As I prepared to hand the curule chair to my succesor, I noticed the crowd parting, allowing Clodia's litter to pass toward the rostra. I hadn't reminded her what day it was when I left the house, and due to her intensified gluttony, I had not imagined she would care to join me, so far away from tablefare, but here she was, and I was proud she was joining me. When the litter arrived at the foot of the rostra, the Numidians gave way to the Teutonnes who carried her on her own, heavily reinforced chair up the steps to my side. With the sunlight shinning full upon her porcelin-pale skin she was a sight, clad in a wispy tunic that concealed few if any of her rolls and bulges and let her arms, bulging with rolls and dimples and hoisted slightly out to her sides due to the bulk of her belly take prominence.
With feet set nearly shoulder length apart Clodia began to waddle toward me, with my belief being that she was about to give me the hug and twin kisses a triumphing general receives: it would have been the proper thing, but that was far from her plan. As I have said, she was a Clodian. With a turn and a tug at her tunic, she faced the crowd. Rome's most important men, Senators, Equites, 2nd,3rd and 4th classes in the comitia all watched as the tunic fell to the marble below, leaving Clodia, all 650 libra of Clodia, fully naked in the air. Silence followed, for what seemed like an eternity. There she stood, belly arching out from the two massive melons her chest had become, arching out and drooping down, widening as it did and connecting with her massive and dimpled hips...all exposed to all of Rome.
"He wanted me to tell you that the anals of Rome will record me, Clodia, wife of Lucullus, as the fattest of all Roman Consular wives! He wanted me to tell all of you!! All of you trumped up little tight assed buggers....That's what I believe he called you!! The fattest wife of a Consular ever...so feast your eyes!!"
I stood shocked. So shocked that I didn't even hear what was said next, by none other than her own brother, who would make a career out of shocking Rome.
"Is that one of those Nile Hippo's the Gybboes in Alexandria worship as Goddesses?? I much prefer our vestals if so!! How can one find it under all of that!!"
The crowd began to roar with laughter, and the blood began to roar in my temples. I strode from the rostra with my head beneath a fold of my toga, and sought the solace of darkness...