The carnal side of me wanted to stay and keep looking and even more than that it wanted to reach out and touch the forbidden, but something stronger than the carnal side of me was screaming out to just keep walking away.
I didn't see Seth and the other two men follow the women into the upper village, so intent was I on leaving the scene of my own moral crisis of conflict. Nor did I see what became of John. I knew what would be happening soon back there in the village and the regret that flashed through my body at what I was missing out on was a palpable feeling of loss.
Surely it didn't really matter in the big scope of things what happened in this isolated village filled with barbaric sensual eyed women that had nothing but sensual promise of a good time in their eyes?
Somehow it did matter though and so I kept walking uncomfortably away from my passion's desire, while I called myself every kind of a fool in my head for doing so. I had never had sex before, which was a secret that I kept closely guarded and private. Everyone that had known me in my adult life would never have guessed it of me given my years in the arena. As a reward in the arena for simply surviving or for giving a good show to the audience fighters were gifted with better food and weapons to defend themselves with.
Serving girls and slave girls alike were thrown into the cells of a select few of the better fighter's almost every night. I had been one of those better fighters for almost my entire duration within the arena.
One look at the frightened faces of the girls or even the older women that were thrown into my cell at night had always proven a greater deterrence to me than acting out on any of the manly desires that I had bottled up inside of me ever since I was an older boy. Instead of adding to the pain and misery of their lives for a few moments of pleasure on my part I had instead talked to them and shared my food with them and let them spend the night in peace. I had become friends with quite a few of them over the years. Even now since I was free of that world and didn't have the strictures of a cell around me and there were women who openly expressed interest in me it still felt wrong to indulge myself.
I had the sense that there was something better, something worth waiting for someday for me and so I held on to that dream and guarded it jealously hoping that it would come sooner rather than later. I remembered my mother and what she and my father had together and knew that was what I wanted for myself too.