He noted that her gilded nipples left traces of gold across his chiton.
'Unpin my chiton,' he said up into her hair. 'I don't stand a chance of lasting-'
She pressed a hand on his left arm, and pain welled up like water from a spring. 'If you let me, I can make you last a long time,' she said in his ear, her breasts moving along his chest.
Outside the tent of her hair, they were pounding their couches, singing the hymn to Aphrodite, and Satyrus could hear Demostrate's voice raised the loudest. The man was a fine singer.
She had his chiton unpinned, and he used his right arm to strip it over his head – more distraction, and more pain in his left arm, and more cheering.
'Second time!' Demostrate shouted, and the hymn began again.
'You are very beautiful,' Satyrus said. 'Are you a slave?'
Aphrodite breathed out suddenly, raising her face from his. Her lips were so precisely formed that they looked as if they were sharp. 'I am yours,' she said. 'Demostrate has given me to you.' She sank along his length, rose up and gave a shout – simulated ecstasy, Satyrus suspected, having seen Phiale do the same – but brilliantly simulated. The room roared and the hymn rolled on.
'Third time!' Demostrate shouted, and the hymn began again.
'Hurt me again,' Satyrus said into her hair. The hair was saving him – he could see neither the lush provocation of her skin nor the leering faces of his dinner companions, and he kept it that way, confining himself to the privacy she made him.
She rubbed her thumb with deadly accuracy along the line of the break on his forearm, and then her other hand rubbed up between his legs as the pain rolled through his body, compensating – what kind of a life gave a woman this sort of skill? Satyrus was no longer fully in the symposium, instead hovering in a separate world, a place that smelled of spice and perfume and sex, where wine and poppy filled his head, pain and pleasure ran together – he had no control over his body, and it made him afraid, more than battle, so that his manhood began to wilt, and she writhed against him and hissed, and his hips rolled in response to her, and he grabbed her head and his mouth closed on hers. She gasped, as if being kissed shocked her, and he reached down and ran his hand between them, and she gasped again into his kiss.
'Fifth time!' Demostrate yelled, and the room cheered as if they had just won a fight. Satyrus wondered where the fourth time had gone and suddenly passed the point of control and finished, his body arching into hers, his hands clenched in her flesh, and she shouted again, and this time he neither knew nor cared whether her pleasure was simulated.
She moved to roll away, but his right arm crushed her to him. 'Don't move,' he said.
She rode him for part of another verse, laughing softly against him, and then he pulled his chiton – his best – from the floor and wiped both of them clean while the other guests hooted and cheered and the woman who had sung the hymn looked away in distaste. Satyrus got up, naked, and walked over to Demostrate, his member still tumescent, usually a social gaffe at a symposium.
'That may have been the best gift of my life,' Satyrus said. 'But you still owe me a ram for Black Falcon.'
Demostrate laughed. 'Was that five times, or six?' he asked. 'Good luck either way. You are a cunning one, lad. I saw you!' He laughed and pulled Satyrus down on to his couch. In a whisper, he said, 'You think we're fucking barbarians, lad. And maybe you're right. But now we all know that you are, too.' He sat up. 'Can you get us a port on the Euxine?' he asked. Sitting on the edge of his kline, he took a heavy silver mastos cup two hundred years old, dipped it in a krater held by two slaves and drank it off.
'Yes,' Satyrus said.
Demostrate handed him the cup.
Satyrus drank all of it, every drop, and turned it, licked the nipple and rattled the bead, and men cheered him.
'Then let's go and fuck Eumeles as hard as you fucked the goddess, lad. I think the boys fancy you.'
Satyrus couldn't stop the bitter smile that crossed his lips. 'The feeling is not mutual,' Satyrus said.
Demostrate had his diadem on his head, the jewels winking in the firelight. He grabbed Satyrus and pulled him close, so that their naked shoulders rubbed against each other. The pirate king's skin was a loom of scars, a far cry from the cream and doeskin of Aphrodite, and an odd contrast to Satyrus, whose mind was running too fast. The old man thrust his face into Satyrus's face.
'Good,' Demostrate said. 'They're scum. Never forget it – they're all circling, ready for me to die.' He laughed. 'And not one of them could keep all this together.' His breath wasn't foul. It smelled of cloves and wine. 'You could command them, in a few years.'
Satyrus shook his head. 'No,' he said.
Demostrate leaned close. 'When you have a chance, kill Manes.'
Satyrus looked at the old pirate, as shocked as when the goddess's thumb had flicked his penis. The effect of his words was physical.
Demostrate laughed. 'Welcome to Tartarus, lad. If you want us to fight for you, you'll have to do more than make love at a symposium. Manes needs to die, lad. And if you kill him, the others – well, many of them are sheep, for all they're the terror of the seas.' He laughed.
'Now go back to your own couch before the others decide that you have to die.'
Satyrus rose. Demostrate kissed him – a man's kiss, no different from any kiss that any guest would get at a symposium, but it chilled Satyrus. And as he began to walk back across the tiled floor, he happened to look at Manes, where he lay entwined with his seductive Ganymede. The man looked back at him like a beast in a cage. Satyrus looked away – made himself look around, as if amused at the whole scene, and then back into Manes' animal eyes.
He had no trouble seeing why all these hard men feared Manes.
He walked back to his couch. Aphrodite rolled off, but he grabbed her hand. 'Honour my couch, Goddess,' he said.
She smiled. 'If you ask,' she said. 'My, you have nice manners.'
'I'm from Alexandria,' he said. Then he set himself to talk to her, because her tent of hair had kept him sane.
Hours later he walked home naked under his chlamys, cold and damp, and halfway home he stripped the cloak over his head and stood in the marketplace with the icy rain running over his skin.
Abraham stood by him, and when he felt that he had punished himself sufficiently, he followed Abraham, and they walked home together, with Aphrodite following them, her belongings balanced on her head. She followed Satyrus into the house.
Theron was surprised by his nudity, but not for long. 'Looks like quite the party,' he said. He looked at Aphrodite. 'You were a party favour?' Theron asked. 'Wish I'd been invited.'
Satyrus threw himself into one of Abraham's comfortable chairs – heavy wooden ones, like the Nabataeans used. 'You're free. And you have my thanks. You played your role beautifully.'
Aphrodite smiled. 'Free? Are you serious?'
Satyrus couldn't help but smile at her joy – so much more real than her gasps in his arms. 'Who would tease a slave that way? Yes, of course.'
She stood, her eyes downcast. She was as old as Satyrus – perhaps nineteen. Quite old, for a sex slave. Her body was superb, muscled, fit and well-kept, but her face was showing signs of her profession.
Theron raised her chin. 'You are Corinthian!' he said.
She smiled. 'Yes,' she said.
He laughed. 'You actually are a priestess of Aphrodite,' he said.
'Yes,' she said. 'I was. I ran away. The goddess followed me.' She looked down again, her cheeks red.
Satyrus wanted to be sick. 'You are free. And if I can do anything for you – passage, perhaps? Or a place in a household?'
Abraham put a hand under her elbow. 'Let me find you a place you can sleep,' he said. 'I have a friend upstairs who will be happy to meet you.'