Went back in time the other day and found Catullus in a sort of perpetual gilded sprawl. He had these shrewd eyes like a border terrier and in the radiance of high noon his whole lithe body seemed haloed. I couldn’t stop glancing at his lips, stained as they were an almost uncanny red by sweet wine, slick and plump as rinsed strawberries, how he slipped his pen between them and it hung there with all the fierce potential of a cigarette [although of course that’s not technically correct since the Romans didn’t smoke cigarettes so think of something else that smoulders between the lips.]

Worked up the nerve to perch next to him and saw the bruise of Lesbia’s mouth beneath the ephemera of his toga, felt about as translucent myself when I looked up to find his prying gaze already on me. Catullus babe, I asked, would you consider yourself bisexual? and he quirked a confused sort of half smile so the pen in his mouth jerked upwards and the euphemism of it all swayed in the doughy midday heat. The minutes of his silence dragged their heels [though the Romans didn’t use minutes to measure time so think of something else that trickles through desperate fingers.]

Feeling vulnerable, prickling with nerves, I doubled down, asked vos vis futuo homines aut mulieres? and he grinned like he couldn’t believe his luck or my audacity and the sun bore down like an 

elevator [etc etc something else that closes distance] and he said 
quod unus es? and before I could remember 
if I’d ever learned the Latin for what I 
am his hand was gentle but adamant 
on the nape of my neck, bringing my 
eager mouth towards his.