Right next to him, a woman was moaning with pleasure, her voice getting higher and faster. Satyrus had never heard a woman make such noises while making love, and he had to assume that they were simulated.
Simulated from what knowledge of pleasure, he wondered. Clearly the brothel had rules of its own. Certainly the porne had to thank his customer, or her customer, when he was finished.
The pain on his bladder was now too much to bear. And no one was going to come, he could tell. The whores were all working, and the doctor …
He got his elbows under him and wriggled down the bed, his hips almost free from pain and his ribs protesting, but bearably. He managed to get his feet on the floor at the end of the bed, then he had to lie and watch the fly specks on the ceiling — the room spun for a moment when he raised his head. But he saw an old, deep amphora with the top smashed in, in the corner — a makeshift chamber pot.
He got his feet on the floor again and wriggled his hips towards the end of the bed again. Raised his head. Bad.
He was going to do this.
He raised his head and got his hands against the walls. His wrists hurt — his right shoulder felt as if it had been dislocated.
Herakles, stand by me, he thought — a war cry to go and urinate. It made him laugh — a low gurgle.
‘Hey! You’re not running off on me, are you?’ Harpy Voice poked her head through his curtain.
‘Must … piss,’ Satyrus managed.
‘Oh! Sweetie, I’m sorry. You usually just wet the bed. And the poor slaves clean up after you. Here, that’s it, honey, let me get my shoulder in there.’
She got him up and off the bed — she was strong. But when he stood over the makeshift chamber pot, he untangled his left arm from her shoulder. ‘Thanks,’ he said.
‘You are a gent,’ she said. ‘I’ve seen a few pricks in my day, sweetie. Just piss.’
‘Go,’ he said. He felt his face flushing, and his bladder was on fire, but he couldn’t get a drop out while she stood there.
She giggled — a genuine reaction, he thought. ‘I’ll just wait in the hall,’ she said.
It came out of him in a rush — orange and red. Blood in it, but no more than when he’d taken a blow in the kidneys through his armour. Not enough for despair, anyway. Enough to take seriously.
The process went on and on — embarrassingly — and he had to use the corner walls to hold himself up.
‘You having a symposium, lover?’ Harpy Voice called, and she laughed. Next door, the same crescendo of passion was being acted out for the second time that evening.
‘Tell me how big I am,’ demanded a male voice.
‘Ooh. You fill me up!’ answered the porne in the next cubicle.
‘Now lick my ear,’ said the male voice.
Satyrus shook his head.
‘Are you through yet?’ Harpy Voice asked.
‘My time isn’t fucking up yet!’ called a male customer.
‘Not talking to you, sweetie,’ Harpy Voice said.
Satyrus wiped himself on a rag provided for the purpose and was appalled to see how red, bruised, and swollen his penis was. He’d been beaten before, he’d been hit in his genitals before, but never like this. No wonder it all hurt so much.
He turned to stumble back to the bed, misjudged the distance, and fell.
‘Damn you, sir,’ Harpy Voice said. ‘All you had to do was call, you know. Can’t let a working girl see your yard, can’t be seen to piss? Men are fools.’ She got him to his feet with her legs, a lift that a wrestler might have envied, and he flopped onto his back on the bed.
In the distance a bell rang. ‘Eurydike!’ called a charming, cultured voice.
‘Ah. Sorry, sweetie. Customer for me,’ she said. She patted his foot. ‘Tell me you are going to make me rich, sweetie. Please.’
Satyrus grunted. He hurt. But he managed to twitch the right side of his face. ‘Rich,’ he said.
‘Hmm. I might be falling in love with you,’ she said cheerfully, in her grating voice. ‘See ya!’
And she was gone.
It was hours before he slept. He heard several porne beaten — some by customers who just wanted to hit someone. But other customers were tender, solicitous, and thus sounded just as foolish as the lusty ones and the violent ones.
At one point, every bed on the hall must have been working at the same time. Satyrus could smell the sex. He could hear it all around him. It was … curious.
Eventually the sounds began to die away. It was quite late — in fact, in farmer’s hours, it was more very early. Satyrus had slept — he had trouble ungumming his eyes, and now he was desperately thirsty.
He tried to swallow, tried to raise saliva. Decided he would have to get up. He was sure he could do it.
He had started to wriggle down the bed when the curtain opened. Ox-head glanced at him.
‘You doing all right?’ the boy, a young man, really, old enough to be a junior ephebe, asked.
Satyrus raised a hand. ‘Water,’ he said.
‘Oh, sure!’ the young man responded. ‘I was supposed to bring it to you when I came on shift, but I was sent to a party.’ He vanished.
Somehow, waiting for him to return was harder than all the waiting until then.
He came back through the curtain with a whole water jar, plain black ware, full to the brim. He dipped a sponge in and handed it to Satyrus, who slurped it dry.
Satyrus repeated this three times, and he felt immensely better.
‘Help me sit up,’ he said.
Young Alex got an arm around him and lifted. He was gentle, and strong and Satyrus leaned back against the wall, took the water jug and drank. ‘Of course,’ he said, to no one in particular, ‘now I’ll have to piss again.’
Alex laughed. ‘Happens to me whenever I have to stay over at a party,’ he said. ‘When they’re done with me, I get sent to the kitchen. I won’t go to the slave quarters — I’m not a slave. But they always lock me in — as if I’d steal from my customers? And when I have to piss?’ He laughed.
‘Not a slave?’ Satyrus asked.
‘Oh, no, sir. I’m a citizen. Both my parents were citizens.’ Despite his face, the boy sounded quite intelligent.
Satyrus drank more water. ‘What do you do at parties?’ he asked.
Alex rolled his head back and forth. ‘I dance, usually. Sometimes I play drums for one of the girls. Some parties pay for us to fuck — me and Aella, usually, which is fun. We do it well.’ He nodded. ‘At a good party, after we dance, someone will take me aside, and then it’s just business. Right?’ he smiled. ‘At a bad party, the men get drunk, and then they all want to fuck me at once. Sometimes it hurts, and sometimes the idiotes don’t pay.’ He shrugged. ‘My hair’s coming in, so my days of parties are about over, and that’s as well. I’ve made a bundle.’
Satyrus nodded. He’d been at parties with flute girls and boys. Now he was talking to the other side of the coin.
Aella poked her head through the curtain. ‘How’s our gentleman?’ she asked.
‘Better,’ Satyrus said.
‘Good for you, sweetie. I have some bread and honey for you, and some dates. What the doctor said to try.’ She came in, and she was naked. Satyrus smiled.
‘I will certainly try to make you both rich,’ he said. He had to get their loyalty, right away — before they sold him to someone else. Demetrios.
Aella grinned. ‘Do you know how many men have promised to make me rich, honey?’ she said. ‘But the only purse they want to deposit in never seems to hold any cash. Eh?’ she laughed.
Alex rolled his eyes.
‘I need to go to bed,’ Aella said. ‘Alex will go and find your friend Polycrates tomorrow, won’t you, Alex?’
‘Day off, after a party,’ Alex said. He shrugged. ‘A bad party.’
‘Oh, honey,’ Aella said — the first actual empathy she’d shown, Satyrus thought.