Slash Vocation

Gaius Lucius Pulcher was a popular choice for the Senate. His investiture was the pinnacle of his career, and also the end of it. Members had to be qualified by wealth to be equestrians but, unlike that happy rank, were not allowed to trade. Pulcher had reluctantly passed his business interests onto his brother-in-law.

Proud of his plebian roots as a Laundry owner, Pulcher had built his empire out of urine: the ammonia being the best detergent known to the Empire. He'd found his fame in lawyers offices around the Palatine hill, where the piss ran more freely than a clients purse strings. He picked up quite a bit of law from emptying the pots and nosing around. In fact, it was where he learned his letters.

It wasn't long before he was using his stolen knowledge to better the prospects of his family with local magistrates, and once fat fees had started rolling in from his spreading fame as a lawyer, he built another Laundry in the Aventine, and another in the theater district of the Capitoline.

Soon a whole string of Laundries sprang up and his the rivers of gold turned into coin. Before long, enough money helped him to become Magistrate and then a good marriage match was made: good for him as she was nobility, good for her family because of the dowry, good for her because his nightly interests lay elsewhere. No matter how well he did, his first love was pot collecting; it was as if he couldn't believe the money people threw away when they casually paid him to take away their waste water! Oh, and the things he saw and learned were invaluable to his political career - no one looked at the pot collector.

Many's the political downfall of an adversary at his instigation. Wives, lovers, shady goings on, all played out in front of the tradesman. No one well-off ever looked at you if you weren't wearing the purple and smelling of lavender water. In his stained tradesman clothes and smelling anything other than floral, Pulcher was privy to more than anyone knew. Only, maybe, he was getting a little too cocky these days? Perhaps his new high standing would mean a change in his nightly sojourns? His wife certainly thought so. Helena was becoming more and more insistent that he attend the formal dinners now solicited from his soon to be senatorial colleagues - and she had reminded him of the consequences of being caught doing such menial tasks: even if the censors didn't expel him as a miscreant, he would be a laughing stock with no clout.

Before going to bed on the eve of his debut in the house, he raised one last pot and bid farewell to an honest livelihood which set his foundations in his new career. It frustrated him, dearly. After all, everyone knew that all politicians took the piss. Why couldn't he?

(490 words)