If there was one thing I learned from Orcus, my mentor, it was that desire could be burned away. Eventually, Orcus was excommunicated, but, to us, his followers, he was still very much alive.

The leaders of today had become too soft. In the old days, people knew that sex was only for procreation, not enjoyment.

Cicero, who was the leader of the new order, posited that sex could have other benefits. These benefits included warmth, stress release, and bonding. But we saw what desire could do, how it could drive men mad.

Look at what happened to Julius, who in his desire to mate with Octavia had driven himself crazy with longing. No longer able to control his lust, he had thrown himself over the mourning bridge.

Julius was a mighty warrior, skilled in sword fighting and javelin throwing, and he had tossed all that away into that pit of despair, and for what, the love of a second rate woman? Affection for a woman, I thought, was a wasted emotion.

The only ideals that mattered were loyalty, devotion, and strength. Everything else was unnecessary.

Lately, though my own wife Priscilla was neither young nor beautiful, I felt the desire for her more and more, so I did what Orcus had prescribed and scalded myself with coals on the inner part of my legs so that coupling would feel more painful. But even that pain did not deter me. I wanted her, even though now that she was already with child, such matings were worse than pointless. They were forbidden.

To stop the longings, I would have to go further than Orcus had prescribed. I would burn myself, and then I would beat myself with a scourge.

Sometimes, even when my wounds oozed with pus, I sought her, and she yielded to me. One day, if I had the courage, I would sear my flesh to the bone with a branding iron. And I would write the words sinner to mark myself.

When they threw Orcus off the mourning bridge, he was covered in burns. It was said that his wife, Diana, wept tears of blood, but, because women’s bodies were necessary to produce warriors, they did not burn her with him. Instead, she had done her duty and remarried. With her second husband, she produced five more heirs. Shortly after giving birth to her tenth child, she died, Though it was said that in dying she had disgraced Orcus by calling out his name. If I was to die, my Priscilla said she would not weep for me. Instead, she threatened to defile me by branding my dead body with her name.