Over the Wine Dark Sea

  Or he could ask Lamakhos for the five-drakhma discount back. He could -  but the brothelkeeper would laugh in his face and tell him to go to law. The fuss and feathers would prove more trouble than the money was worth, and what were his chances of getting a fair judgment, even against a brothelkeeper, in a polis not his own?   'Well?' Lamakhos said. 'Shall I go shake this nonsense out of her?'   'No, never mind,' Sostratos answered -  the blunt question made up his mind for him. 'I'll come back tomorrow.'   As he turned to go, he saw contempt in Lamakhos' eyes. The brothelkeeper tried to hide it behind his friendly mask. His slaves didn't bother. 'Pussy-whipped,' one of them said to the other, not quite softly enough to keep Sostratos from hearing. His ears tingled, but he kept walking.   Back at the rented house, Menedemos said the same thing. 'Complain all you want about me and Phyllis,' he added, 'but that's nothing beside letting a barbarian slave lead you around by the prick.'   'No, no, no -  you don't understand,' Sostratos said. 'She isn't. I'm not mad for her, the way men get when they're assotted of a woman. By the gods, I'm not.'   'Then why didn't march right in there and screw her?' his cousin demanded. 'You let yourself look like a fool in front of a whoremaster.'   'Maybe a little,' Sostratos admitted -  though it was more than a little. 'But I'm not going to buy the girl and take her with me. This way, her owner will start thinking of her as somebody who could be a hetaira: after all, didn't she have the merchant from Rhodes wrapped around her finger? She'll have an easier time of it after I'm gone. Maybe she'll even get the chance to buy herself free.'   His cousin gave him a quizzical look. 'You'd never catch me acting the fool for the sake of some slave girl.'   'You probably wouldn't catch me doing it back in Rhodes,' Sostratos said. 'Here in Taras'  - he shrugged -  'who cares?'   Menedemos didn't seem altogether convinced. 'I still think she's got you by the balls, and you're making up excuses.'   'Think whatever you like,' Sostratos answered. 'You'll see.'   But when he went to Lamakhos' the next day, he had all the earmarks of a worried lover. He sighed with relief when the house slave said Maibia would deign to see him. 'I brought her a present,' he said, and showed the slave a small vial of cloudy green glass.   'Maybe she will like that,' the slave said, but her eyes showed her scorn.   Maibia waited inside the chamber where they'd joined before. Sostratos had expected her to be naked, but she wore a chiton of the Koan silk Lamakhos had bought from him. Her nipples pushed against the filmy fabric; he could see their rosy pinkness through it.