'I didn't pay enough attention,' Satyrus conceded. 'I've never seen this kind of behaviour, even at Kinon's. I confess my error.'
Abraham grinned. 'Wait until the wine goes around and the flute girls come out. Ever played 'feed the flute girl'?'
Satyrus felt himself blush. 'I've heard-'
'That's what I mean. You won't 'hear'. I've been here four weeks – I'm used to it. To them.' Abraham held out his cup for wine. 'I have to admit, I like the bastards. They say what they mean, and they are afraid of nothing.' He shook his head. 'Actually, most of them are afraid of Demostrate, and of Manes. Other than that…' He grinned. 'But you are either with them or you aren't.'
'You fed a flute girl?' Satyrus asked.
'Yes,' Abraham said. He blushed. 'And I will again.'
'They prey on the weak for money,' Satyrus said. 'All these women are chattel slaves.'
'So do the Diadochoi,' Abraham said. 'And I say again – either you are with them or not. They will ask you to play – and if you will not, they will never deal with you.'
Satyrus watched one of the captains further around the circle strike a slave sharply, a casual blow that knocked the slave flat. He breathed in and out slowly, as if preparing for combat.
Abraham leaned over. 'Many of these men have been slaves,' he said. 'This is not our world.'
Dinner was excellent – young kid with saffron, a simple rabbit stew with beans that was nonetheless delicious, and oysters, thousands of them, brought in with a nude Aphrodite on a giant shell, and the whole carried by four big men.
The captains began to stamp and cheer, even as they poured oysters down their throats.
She was a beauty – not in the first blush of youth, but tall, strong and well-breasted. Her hair was dyed almost white-blonde, like the goddess, and her nipples were gilded. She held herself like a goddess, not a slave.
The oysters went down noisily, and Satyrus found that Aphrodite intended to share his couch. 'I come from Demostrate,' she said in a deep, clear voice. Her Greek had no more accent than she had raiment.
'Take her, lad!' Demostrate shouted. 'I'm too damn old!'
'Feast of Aphrodite!' Manes shouted. He waved his cup. 'Do her honour!'
The other men shouted and the calls became louder. The singer gestured to her musicians and began to sing in a stronger voice – a hymn to Aphrodite. Sappho, in fact – a piece that Satyrus knew.
Abraham touched his shoulder while the rest of them shouted. 'I warned you,' he said.
Satyrus rolled back, and Aphrodite ran her hand up under his chiton, grabbed his penis and pulled it sharply. Satyrus was amazed to find that her fingers cut straight through the poppy in his blood and the pain in his arm.
'They mean for you to – copulate. With her. Now.' Abraham's face was carefully neutral. 'I warned you!'
Aphrodite flicked her thumb across the tip of his manhood and he was hard. Just like that.
'Relax,' she said. 'Would you prefer me on top or beneath you?' she asked, her right hand working his penis like raw dough.
Simple courtesy came to Satyrus's rescue. 'The goddess must be on top,' he said, and rolled under her. 'Please mind my arm.'
The other men roared to see her straddle him. She squatted and impaled herself on him, and then lay along his length. 'The longer this takes,' she said, 'the better they will like you, and the more luck you bring us.' She moved slowly up and down, and then bent her head so that her white-gold dyed hair covered his face. He could hear the roar of the captains, but he couldn't see them – he felt his response quicken.
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.
