Gaius and Achilles Read online




  Gaius and Achilles

  by C.Metelli

  Smashwords Edition

  Copyright C.Metelli 2011

  Smashwords Edition Licence Notes

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be resold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return it to Smashwords.com, and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  The Prologue

  “Achilles, someone might see us.”

  The two young men lay on the grass on the bank of the little River Bocarus just outside Paphos, resting beneath the shade of willow trees. From within the city walls came the faint strains of trumpeting and drumming that heralded a civic occasion.

  All morning, the boys had been hard at work. Under the shady colonnade of the Temple of Apollo, Achilles had been practising his pieces on the lyre, running through them again and again under the exacting supervision of his teacher, an elderly priest. His companion Hippothous, meanwhile, had been in the city gymnasium punching a stuffed leather ball and wrestling with his fellows on the sand-strewn floor before oiling and scraping himself at the baths attached to the complex.

  Both youths were striving eagerly after perfection in readiness for their participation in the great Pythian Games that were to take place in a month or so. Today, however, the hiatus to everyday business interposed by a minor and tedious local festival had gifted them the opportunity to steal away for a few precious hours together.

  “There’s no one here, Hippothous; we should take advantage. We’ll both be spending so much time rehearsing and training before we sail to Delphi, who knows when we’ll get the chance of another afternoon together like this?”

  The speaker sought the mouth of the other, brushing his lips with his own, his tongue flicking and teasing trying to coax a way in. After a moment’s hesitation, the boy responded. Parting his lips he returned the kiss, his arm slipping round Achilles’ waist drawing him close. As their embraces grew more heated, Achilles began stroking Hippothous’ body sensuously, appreciatively. Caressing his neck, his chest, his tight hard stomach, his hands finally slid down over his hips beginning to insinuate themselves inside his tunic, drawing the garment open. When Achilles’ fingertips delicately traced the curve of his jutting hipbone, the other boy grasped his wrist and guided it to his straining erection.

  “Not yet,” said Achilles laughing and twisting his hand free. “We’ve got the whole afternoon; why hurry?”

  Because I feel like my balls are going to burst if you don’t get me off right now, thought Hippothous, because all this playing around, this endless kissing and touching makes me feel somehow nervous. I don’t understand what you want from it, where it might lead.

  When he felt Achilles’ mouth slide down his stomach, Hippothous opened his own mouth to protest. Why did Achilles feel the need to degrade himself like this? This was the act of a slave, a whore.

  They were two respectable young men, sons of the foremost citizens of Paphos. The expression of their love if not quite reaching the Platonic ideal, should, at least, be simple, manly, and decorous, preserving their mutual dignity. The things Achilles wanted to try, the emotions he sometimes gave expression to, seemed to Hippothous more proper to an expensive prostitute than to an eighteen year old boy who was training to compete in the Pythian Games.

  Achilles’ hot, wet mouth closed over the head of his cock, his eager tongue flicking across the top before he began sucking in earnest. Hippothous abandoned his protest, turning his eyes up to the sky. Almost despite himself, he ran his fingers through Achilles’ hair. Soon enough, Hippothous came with a soft moan.

  “Happy now?”

  Achilles sat up smiling; his face fell when he saw Hippothous’ rueful look.

  “What?”

  “You don’t have to do that you know, Achilles.”

  “I know I don’t have to.” Achilles sounded hurt, angry. “I just wanted to do it because I happen to like you, because it pleases me. What’s so wrong with that; didn’t you enjoy it?”

  “You shouldn’t demean yourself in that way. It’s a disgraceful act, something a slave would do because he had to.”

  “I don’t see the disgrace; I freely chose to do it because I love you and I enjoy giving you pleasure. If keeping score in the honour stakes is so important to you, you could always return the favour to make it even—or not,” he added, shrugging, as he glanced at Hippothous’ expression.

  Seeing Achilles’ hurt and bafflement, Hippothous was remorseful, wanted to undo the effect of his words, make everything alright. Putting his arms around Achilles, he held him close and kissed him with passion and tenderness, determinedly ignoring the taste of his own come. The urgency with which Achilles returned the embrace betrayed his fear of rejection.

  Sliding his lips along his jaw, Hippothous began kissing and nuzzling Achilles’ neck trying to please and gratify him without compromising his own standards of decorum. Achilles sighed with pleasure, relaxing in Hippothous’ arms. Hippothous lowered his boyfriend on to the grass and pressed himself on top of him, his sucking kisses turning to bites as he passed his hand across Achilles’ chest in the long, slow stroking he knew he loved, brushing and teasing his nipples till they stood up, the stiff little nubs visible through his thin linen tunic. Achilles moaned and grasped Hippothous’ other hand, drawing it to his eager prick.

  “What’s the hurry? We have all afternoon… Oh, very well.”

  Hippothous relented when Achilles opened his eyes and glared at him. Sliding his hand up the boy’s tunic, he rubbed him to a fairly rapid climax.

  The two boys dozed off in each other’s arms, lulled by the rushing of the river.

  *****

  “Master, have mercy on me—no more I beg you—I will never disobey you again, I swear!”

  The naked, kneeling boy poured out these words in a rush, his voice filled with fear and anguish.

  “Too late, you should have thought of that before.”

  Standing over the beautiful boy was a powerfully built young man, stripped to the waist, his fair hair falling in untidy locks across his face, his torso gleaming with sweat from the effort of chastisement. Raising the whip again, he brought it swishing down across the boy’s back, adding yet another scarlet line to those that had already multiplied across his shoulders. The boy howled. Again and again, the whip hissed down, its wielder seemingly oblivious to the cries and pleas for mercy that the boy uttered unceasingly.

  “Let that be a lesson to you,” he concluded eventually, and ceased tormenting the youth, throwing down his whip. He knelt to free the boy’s hands from the wooden arm of the high couch to which they had been bound. Silently, the boy flexed and massaged his wrists then, stretching, slowly got to his feet and threw himself face down upon the bed. The man reclined beside him. After a moment, he tentatively put a hand on the neck of his victim, caressed him softly. Flinching, the boy shrank away from him.

  “Come on, don’t sulk, Antyllus; you’d had enough, more than enough. If you could see the state of your back! That’s as far as I’m going. Come here, be nice.”

  This time, the man tried to put his arms around Antyllus, draw him into an embrace, carefully avoiding the painful red streaks that crisscrossed his upper back and shoulders. Again, the boy edged away from him.

  “You’ve really hurt me, Gaius,” he mumbled coldly.

  Gaius seemed astounded by this accusation. He looked quizzically at the boy’s chequered back as though it might provide further explanation.

  “
Well, yes, but you’re alright; there’s no damage. I gave you what you wanted.”

  “I was begging you to stop!”

  “You were playing; you loved every moment of it, I could tell.”

  “Alright Gaius, it’s fine; I don’t want to upset you…or make you angry.”

  Antyllus gave him a frightened look out of the corner of his eyes as though he feared Gaius would assault him at any moment if provoked.

  “What are you talking about?”

  As if in confirmation of his words, Gaius did now sound angry: rising from the couch, he began pacing up and down on the creaking floorboards of Antyllus’ apartment.

  Outside the rickety clapboard door, Geta, hearing the shouting, sighed.

  Antyllus’ third floor apartment consisted of one room so, to maintain the barest semblance of privacy, Geta had no choice but to stand in this narrow corridor for the duration of his master’s visit to his lover. As the walls were paper-thin, the privacy thus afforded was fairly notional.

  He had heard Gaius and Antyllus chatting and laughing over their meal of expensive food and wine that Geta had carried in hot, moist parcels through some of the roughest districts of Rome. There were no cooking or heating facilities in the upper stories of these shoddily-built apartment blocks, which were notorious for burning down or simply collapsing; any hot food needed to be brought in, more usually from one of the numerous takeaways that lined the narrow dangerous streets. This meal, however, had been specially prepared in Gaius' own kitchen by a chef rumoured to have once been owned by a former queen of Egypt.

  He had heard Antyllus purr his thanks at the gift of a bolt of Coan silk, richly dyed with saffron. No one could accuse Gaius of being close-fisted. Inevitably, soon after that, the lashes and the outcry had begun. Geta had edged a little further down the corridor wanting to get at least some way out of earshot.

  Geta had long ceased pondering the anomaly that his master, whom he had served since boyhood and who had always treated him with kindness and consideration, never raising his hand to him, or to his knowledge, any other slave, nonetheless, felt compelled to beat, bind, and otherwise torment and dominate his lovers who appeared, oddly, to enjoy it. It was beyond Geta’s comprehension, but he accepted it. The shouting though, the anger and recriminations were something else, something he had heard all too often of late when Gaius went to visit this latest lover.

  Geta disliked Antyllus, who went out of his way to avoid directly addressing him or in any way acknowledge that he was a man rather than a piece of furniture. If he did speak to him, it was in terms of cold contempt. Geta knew this annoyed Gaius, had overheard him privately remonstrate with Antyllus about how he spoke to his attendant, but, if anything, this seemed to provoke Antyllus into making his disrespect more overt; it was just another way to wind Gaius up. Of course, it was fairly normal for slaves to be treated in this way; Geta was simply fortunate not to be accustomed to it. That it was common knowledge that Antyllus himself had not only been a slave but a brothel slave until his freedom had been purchased a couple of years previously by a wealthy admirer, only made his disdainful attitude the more annoying if somewhat pathetic.

  Antyllus was a pantomime dancer now, a popular and successful one. The wealthy admirer had been a patron of the theatre, a great aficionado of the dramatic arts. Astutely discerning the talent latent in the young prostitute, once freed, he had had him apprenticed to a theatrical company that fed the Roman public’s growing thirst for dramatic entertainment. A strikingly beautiful youth of nineteen or so whose physical grace and theatrical talent were real enough; Antyllus had become a minor star.

  His patron graciously releasing his hold on him, having moved on to a new pet project, Antyllus had acquired a string of wealthy admirers of whom Gaius was the latest. Geta wished Gaius would move on too, sooner rather than later, though the prospect seemed distant. Gaius was besotted; he gave his heart too readily and completely in Geta’s opinion. Geta cared about Gaius, they had grown up together; his mother had been Gaius’ nurse and they regarded themselves somewhat in the light of foster brothers. Antyllus was making Gaius miserable, the constant quarrelling wearing him down, darkening his outlook, infecting him with doubt.

  It was not surprising the young man was troubled, given his past, and Geta felt compassion for him when he remembered through his irritation. He could scarcely imagine the horror of what Antyllus had suffered, being casually abused by a series of strangers, probably from an age that Geta really didn’t want to speculate about. This wasn’t Gaius’ fault but Antyllus, seemingly, felt driven to make Gaius suffer.

  The argument was continuing; despite himself, Geta listened in. One thing being a slave and being a slave owner had in common was the absence of any real privacy and personal space.

  “Anyway, you didn’t use the word. The word ‘pomegranate’ did not pass your lips. With you, ‘mercy’ usually means, ‘please flog me till I pass out from the pain’ at which point you usually get angry because I won’t do it. I’m not a mind reader; you didn’t use the word ‘pomegranate’.”

  “I didn’t like to; I thought it would just make things worse, provoke you further. I was scared.”

  “Of me? Why the fuck should you be scared of me? If I had thought for a moment that you weren’t enjoying it, that it wasn’t what you wanted, I would have stopped that instant. There was nothing to be scared of. You were in control of what happened; I was in perfect control of myself. I don’t know why you’re playing this fucking game with me.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Antyllus sighed and curled up into an injured little ball.

  “Yes, it fucking does matter!”

  Enraged, Gaius grabbed his boyfriend’s shoulders glaring into his face as though he might find some explanation there. When Antyllus stared back with the wide eyes and trembling lips of a cornered animal, Gaius let go of him and stepped away, crying out in frustration. Antyllus was doing his manipulative best to confuse him, hurt him, shame him, but he had succeeded in forcing Gaius into the role of bully.

  “Will you just stop playing with me like this?” he asked finally, wretchedly, sitting down on a chair some distance from the bed.

  “I don’t understand why you do it, what you get out of it, but it’s destroying me, making me miserable. I am a man, a human being; I’m not a toy or a savage beast. I love you and I want to make you happy. Why has everything always got to be twisted up?”

  “I don’t know why, I’m sorry.” Antyllus spoke in a small voice sounding confused and upset; he was no longer taunting Gaius.

  “I just feel like I have to spoil things because I don’t deserve someone like you; I deserve a man who would beat me till I passed out, till my back was bloody and who wouldn’t care if it was what I wanted; that’s the kind of man I’m supposed to be with because I’m just trash, nothing. I don’t belong with someone like you; your kindness feels like mockery to me. I don’t know how to…”

  Hiding his face in his hands, Antyllus began to weep. Sitting down on the bed, Gaius held him and stroked his hair. Kissing his head, he promised that everything would be alright, wanting to mean it. Inwardly , he wondered how many more such scenes he could take.

  A long time later, when Geta was almost asleep on his feet, yet too wary of the rough characters whose shouts and curses echoed up the stairwells to relax his guard, the door opened and Gaius put his head round.

  "We're going to sleep now, Geta: come in and stretch out on the rug if you want, rather than standing out here for the night. There's some food left on the table as well, so help yourself and put out the lamp when you're ready."

  Geta was glad to take him up on the offer; he could just about cope with Antyllus when he was asleep.

  Chapter One

  Gaius Manlius Torquatus looked out of the carriage window at the landscape unfolding around him, the rolling hillsides bristling with fertile vineyards, the sun shining off the deep lakes of Nemi and Albanus. Here and there, patches of white blazing out ag
ainst the verdant countryside marked the elegant country villas of fashionable Romans. Gaius was on his way to inspect his estate in the Alban Hills just over ten miles outside Rome; he had set off early that morning. It would be the first time he had visited the place since his childhood, when he had spent idyllic if solitary summers there, away from the heat and stench of the city.

  Gaius was twenty eight years old but up to this point, he had been mostly successful in dodging responsibility or obligation. The scion of an ancient, aristocratic family, he had been orphaned at a young age and brought up under the guardianship of an elderly uncle. Mild in temperament and doting on the orphaned child, who recalled to him so vividly the image of his dead sister, Gaius’ Uncle Aulus had tolerated his disinclination either for marriage or for military, political, or forensic advancement. While continuing to manage Gaius’ estates for him, he had forwarded his nephew an allowance ample enough to support him in an idle and somewhat dissipated lifestyle in Rome.

  Since completing his studies, Gaius’ life had consisted, more or less, of a series of late nights passed, variously, in low taverns, or the banqueting halls of elegant villas, but usually in the company of a raffish crew of poets, actors, courtesans, and disaffected aristocrats like himself. Generally, he slept through the mornings after.

  Every so often, when the Muse visited him, Gaius would actually sit down at his desk and write poetry himself; mostly impassioned love lyrics about boys who had messed him around, satires on the futility of ambition, scurrilous mimes and grotesque and bloodthirsty tragedies that no one sane would attempt to stage. He tended to work in frenzied bursts of activity, mostly through the night, scarcely leaving his desk other than to drowse through the heat of the day. These feverishly productive periods would last ten days at most, before he would burn out and return again to listless drifting ways seeking idle amusement.

  Whenever the opportunity arose, either at the public festivals held throughout the year or at select dinner parties, Gaius would watch theatrical performances of all kinds, from the great tragedies and comedies of old Athens to the rough slapstick traditional farces of Italy or the domestic comedies of Menander or Plautus. In particular, Gaius enjoyed the pantomime, in which a masked and costumed actor would gesticulate and dance, enacting the stories of the ancient myths to the accompaniment of flute and kithara.