The sky was darkening to mauve and the first star was visible. I stared up at it, avoiding his eyes. “I believe you,” I said. “But I’m not comfortable with that. Neither Christian nor Platonic morality condone the kind of thing you’re talking about.”
“No, I suppose it’s Hedonist,” Ikaros said. “But what Plato says about festivals and everyone drawing lots is like that. Eros separate from philia and agape. And every word Plato says about agape is about love between men.”
“What he says about agape between men with no thought of love between men and women being like that makes me think he didn’t know any women who were capable of being seen as equals. Which from what we know about Athens at the time is probably realistic—women kept cloistered, uneducated, except for hetairas. But … if he didn’t know any women who were people, how could he have written about women being philosphers the way he did in the Republic? It’s in the Laws too.” I’d only recently read the Laws. “He must have thought about it a lot. And nobody ever listened to him in all those centuries they were reading him. I wonder how did he come to that conclusion? It’s stunning.”
“I don’t know. I suppose he must have met somebody. You’d only have to really know one woman with the right kind of soul to change your mind about their capabilities.”
“Axiothea?” I suggested. “I don’t mean our Axiothea, but the original. The woman who came to him in disguise as a youth and was admitted into the Academy? Perhaps she made him realise it’s souls that matter.”
“No, she came because she’d read the Republic, the same way you came here. It’s mentioned in Diogenes Laertius. So he must have met women with philosophical souls before that.”
“Showing a philosophical soul doesn’t work on everyone, unfortunately,” I said. “I wish Tullius would deign to notice the souls of the women here.”
While I had been staring out over the sea and talking, Ikaros had moved so that he was right beside me again. “I know you are afraid,” he said. “But I also know that you want it. I saw you start. There’s nothing wrong with what we’re going to do.”
“No!” I said. “No, really no, Ikaros, I don’t want to!”
“I am stronger than you and it’s too late to run away,” he said. “And you don’t really want to leave, do you?”
I did. I tried to get up, but it was true that he was stronger, and that he knew what he was doing, which I did not. He had no difficulty wrestling me to submission. I screamed as he pulled off my kiton. “Hush now, hush,” he said. “You know you want it. Your breast likes it, look.”
“I don’t care what my breast likes, my soul doesn’t like it, get off me!”
“Your soul is timid and has learned the wrong lessons.” He rolled on top of me, forcing my legs apart.
“It’s my soul, and up to me to say what I want!” I said, and screamed again, hoping somebody would hear even though we were too far from the city.
Nobody heard. “There, see, you like it,” he said as he eased himself inside me. “You’re ready. I knew you were. You want it.”
“I do not want it.” I started to cry.
“Your body is welcoming me.”
“My body is a traitor.”
He laughed. “You can’t get away, and I have taken your virginity now. There’s nothing to fight for. You might as well enjoy it.”
My body unquestionably enjoyed it. In other circumstances it would have been delightful. My mind and my soul remained entirely unconsenting. Afterwards, when he let me go, I turned my back on him and put my kiton back on.
“There, didn’t you like it?”
“No,” I said. “Having my will overruled and my choices taken away? Who could enjoy that.”
“You liked it,” he said, a little less sure of himself now.
I ignored him and walked away. I did not run because I was under the pines and it was completely dark and I’d have been sure to have banged into a tree. I could hear him blundering behind me. I ran cautiously once I was out where I could see by starlight, and made it back to the city. Klio, who was to serve the Sparta hall, which was finished, already had a house of her own, where Axiothea and I slept most of the time until our own houses were ready. I went there and slammed the door. I was shaking and crying. It was so humiliating to think that my mother and my aunt and those who had insisted on protecting me had been right all along.
“What’s wrong?” Klio asked, getting up and coming towards me.
“Ikaros raped me,” I said, still leaning on the door.
“Are you hurt?” She hesitated. “Should I get Kreusa? Or Charmides?” Charmides was our doctor, a man from the twenty-first century.
“I’m not really hurt. I mean there’s a bit of blood.” I could feel it sticky on my thighs. “And a couple of bruises. But nothing I need a doctor for.”
“I’m surprised at Ikaros. I wouldn’t have thought he was that type.” She hugged me and drew me into the room. “Are you going to tell people?”
I hadn’t thought about that. “I don’t know. He’ll say I wanted it.”
“You went off with him alone,” she said. “Lots of people would think you did want it. It would be your word against his, and I don’t know what people would decide. Lots of the older men don’t really see us as equals. And once everyone knows, everyone knows. You can’t undo that. And you can’t leave. There’s nowhere to go.”
I understood what she meant. “I won’t tell anyone. I never want to see him again.”
“I’m going to smack him myself when I get the chance,” she said, sounding really fierce.
“I thought he was my friend!”
“He thought you wanted it.” Klio sat down on the bed, drawing me down with her. “Men, especially confident bastards like Ikaros, always try to get their friends into bed. But actual rape? Did you say no?”
“I said no in both languages and at great length.” She snorted. “I screamed. He thought I was afraid because of Christian morality and that I wanted it really.” I wiped my eyes. “I don’t know whether some part of me did want it. My body did. But not like that!”
“Not like that, no.”
“Does that mean he was right and I did want it? I felt that my body was a traitor. Does it make me a hetaira?”
“No.” She sounded really fierce. “If you didn’t agree, then you didn’t agree and it was rape, whatever your body thought about it.”
“Can I use your wash fountain?”
“Of course. Clean him off you. Wait—when did you have your period?”
“Last week,” I said.
“That’s good.” I looked at her blankly. “You’re probably not pregnant,” she expanded. “I’m assuming you didn’t chew silphium beforehand, as you weren’t planning on it.”
“No,” I said.
Klio frowned. “Do you think Ikaros would do it again? To someone else? Because if so then we should tell people, to protect them.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t expect anyone is as naive as I was, to go off with him like that, without realizing.”
“I can put the word around that women should be careful of him, without mentioning your name or the word rape,” she said. “Go on, shower.”
I didn’t tell anyone else. I resigned from the Art Committee. I did not speak much to Ikaros on the Tech Committee. He kept saying things and giving me looks, clearly confused. Once I was sure I wasn’t pregnant, I tried to forget about it. I made sure not to be alone with men, any men, ever. We were busy. It wasn’t difficult.
A few days after my house was ready and I had moved into it, delighted to have a bed and privacy again, Ikaros waited for me after a meeting of the Tech Committee. Klio stayed with me, glaring at him. His confidence withered a little before the concerted force of our glares