“Do I?” To Menedemos' ear, Sostratos sounded a little too bland to be convincing. But Kleiteles, who'd been drinking hard, wasn't a critical audience. He just dipped his head to show he thought Sostratos did. Menedemos' cousin smiled a small, secretive smile. “Homer was blind, they say. He never saw the things he sang about, but he's made others see them ever since.” “That's twice lately you've had praise for the poet,” Menedemos said. Sostratos stuck out his tongue as far as it would go, as if he were a hideous Gorgon painted on a hoplite's shield. He and Menedemos both laughed. So did Kleiteles, even if he didn't understand all of the joke the cousins shared. He'd drunk himself thoughtful, as he proved when he told Sostratos, “You have a gift for explaining things. Do you know your letters? You must, a clever fellow like you.” When Sostratos didn't deny it, the Rhodian proxenos went on, “You ought to write down what you just said, so it doesn't get lost.” “Maybe I will, one day,” Sostratos replied. “I've thought about it.” “You should.” Kleiteles swigged from his cup. “Shall we have another round of songs and such?” “If you've got the girls waiting in our bedrooms, I wouldn't mind going back there now,” Menedemos said. “I do.” The proxenos laughed. “You two can screw yourselves silly with them. If I brought a house slave to bed, though, my wife would never let me hear the end of it. Come on.” He picked up a lamp from a table. “I'll take you back there.” When Menedemos went into his chamber, he nodded to the slave on the bed. “Hail, Eunoa.” “Hail,” she said. “We didn't get a chance to do it this morning.” By that, she doubtless meant, You didn't get the chance to give me anything this morning. Menedemos dipped his head, thinking, If she were a man, she'd be at Cape Tainaron now. She's mercenary enough. She asked, “Did Ptolemaios really want to see you?” “Yes,” Menedemos said, and Eunoa looked impressed, and also proud, as if giving herself to someone who'd met the great man somehow made her more important. Slaves often basked in their masters' reflected glory; this seemed more of the same. Menedemos stripped off his tunic and lay down on the bed beside her. As she had the night before, Eunoa fought shy of simply letting him take her. “I don't want to have a baby,” she repeated. Menedemos frowned. She was supposed to be there for his pleasure, not the other way round. But he humored her, sitting at the edge of the bed with his legs splayed wide. Eunoa scowled; she liked that less than giving him her backside. She finally squatted between his legs, though, and bent her head over his manhood. His fingers tangled in her hair, guiding her and urging her on. Before long, she pulled back, coughing and choking a little. She found the chamber pot under the bed and spat into it. Sated and lazy, Menedemos gave her half a drakhma. He would have had to pay a good deal more for the same pleasure in a brothel. They stretched out on the bed side by side. Menedemos ran a hand along the sweet bare curve of her flank, then blew out the lamp. The room plunged into blackness. He fell asleep almost at once. When the sharp knock woke Sostratos, he thought for a moment he was dreaming of what had happened the morning before. As he had then, he lay tangled with Kleiteles' slave, Thestylis. He and the woman both looked around in bleary surprise. Dawn was trickling in through the shutters. Another knock sounded, this one next door. “Alypetos is here again,” KleiteJes said, which convinced Sostratos he really was awake. “Ptolemaios wants to see both of you gentlemen, at once.”
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