beside her, he asked, 'The slaves won't blab?' Phyllis tossed her head. 'Not likely. I treat them better than Gylippos does. If he gets home early, they'll warn us.' She reached for him. 'But I don't want to think about Gylippos, not now.' Like any man among the Hellenes, Menedemos was in the habit of using women for his own pleasure. Here was a woman using him for hers. He smiled as his mouth came down on her breast. She might be using him for her pleasure, but he'd get some, too. She growled down deep in her throat and pressed his head to her. Presently, she crouched on all fours at the edge of the bed. When Menedemos started to choose the way that would ensure she didn't need to worry about conceiving, she tossed her head. 'That always hurts,' she said. 'And I'd sooner have your seed sprout in there than his.' 'All right.' Menedemos spread his legs a little wider and began anew. He went slowly, stretching out his own pleasure - and, incidentally, Phyllis'. Soon she was thrusting back against him as hard as he drove into her. She let out a little wailing cry like the one she'd made down in the courtyard the night of the symposion. A moment later, Menedemos spent himself, too. Being a young man, he needed only a very little while to recover. When he began again, Phyllis looked over her shoulder at him in surprise. 'Gylippos would already be snoring,' she said. 'Who?' Menedemos answered. They both laughed. Again, he took his time. For the first round, he'd chosen to; for the second, he had to. Even after Phyllis' cat-wail of pleasure burst from her, he went on and on, building toward his own peak. He was almost there when the front door to Gylippos' home opened. 'Master!' a house slave exclaimed, louder than she needed to. 'What are you doing back so soon?' Phyllis' gasp, this time, had nothing to do with delight. As her husband growled, 'My idiot brother and I had a quarrel, that's what,' she jerked away from Menedemos. He hissed in protest, but then Gylippos' voice came from the very foot of the stairs: 'I blacked his eye, the decayed, impotent monkey.' 'Oimoi!' the house slave exclaimed. She went on, 'Master, I think the mistress is asleep. She didn't expect to see you till tomorrow morning.' 'She'll have a surprise, then,' Gylippos said, and started up the stairs. Menedemos grabbed his chiton. Phyllis pointed to the window as she blew out the lamp. Down below in the courtyard, the slave woman asked Gylippos something else, trying to delay him. Menedemos didn't hear what it was. He flung the tunic out the window, then scrambled out himself. Instead of just leaping, he hung from the sill by his hands for a moment before letting go and dropping to the street: that made the fall as short as possible. Even so, he turned an ankle when he hit. Biting down hard against an exclamation of pain, he grabbed the chiton as Gylippos spoke from Phyllis' bedroom: 'What was that? Is there a burglar trying to break in?' As Menedemos limped
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