A chlamys was an ancient Greek piece of clothing, namely a cloak… The chlamys was made from a rectangle of woollen material about the size of a blanket, typically bordered. It was usually pinned at the right shoulder. It could be worn over another item of clothing, but was often worn as the sole item of clothing by young soldiers and messengers. – Wikipedia
On a cold morning, two weeks after the winter solstice, Rem ran into the shrine hall, just as a class in poetry was about to begin. “Elephants!” he yelled. “There are elephants outside the temple!”
As a concession to winter weather, the priests had agreed to let the eunuchs wear chlamys along with their breechcloths when not performing or holding audiences. Unused to the heavy item of clothing, they shed them when inside; but now the eunuchs and Oracle all grabbed up their cloaks and pulled on boots and leggings.
Onaelius, a young poetry tutor sent by the King, clambered after them.
Running out to the courtyard, they found it uncharacteristically empty… and quiet. A light snow was falling.
Led by Rem, who had not bothered with his chlamys, they headed on a run for the gate. Ono stopped them there. “Jarus said not to let you go out there. A prince has come from the East, and Jarus doesn’t want him to see you yet.”
Bantu pointed to the closest stairs up the temple wall. “To the top of the wall!” he called, and they all ran after him.
Atop the wall, they rushed to the parapet and stood, mouths agape. The approaches to the temple were packed with people, horses, and… elephants.
“Those are elephants?” Ptolemy asked as they leaned over the side, peering down.
“That’s what I heard a guard tell Rufus,” Rem told them.
Jeet glanced at Rem. The almost naked boy was shaking, so Jeet pulled him inside his own chlamys, wrapping it around them both. Standing beside the Oracle, they looked over the wall together.
“Those are elephants,” Onaelius confirmed. “There must be three dozen of them!”
Below, the large beasts, some swaying on their feet, stood densely packed. On their backs were platforms for carrying people or loads of goods. Moving among them were strangely dressed men.
“Look at that one,” Ptolemy said, pointing to a young man, resplendent in colorful robes of wool and silk, woolen pants, and a large turban of golden silk. The turban was laced with pearls and jewels. Besides a golden nose ring, and small golden rings in his ears, he wore many necklaces of silver, gold, ivory, and fine gems. The young man looked up at them, and then looked away, shyly. Before he did, they saw that he was probably in his late teens, with white teeth, smooth cheeks, and wideset, dark eyes.
“Oh, damn,” Tazaar murmured. “I hope he’s here because he’s an athlete and needs me.”
Bantu poked Tazaar’s ribs. “He’s here because he heard there’s a beautiful redheaded boy in Kaleh.”
Noticing the Oracle and her eunuchs from below, Jarus pulled a servant aside, spoke to him, then sent him running for the gate. The priest then looked up at the top of the wall and caught Jeet’s attention. “Get ready!” he mouthed at him, motioning for them to move off the wall.
Reluctantly, the Oracle and her eunuchs stepped away from the wall and began descending the snowy steps much more carefully than they had climbed them. “We’ve got to wear lots of jewelry,” Ptolemy said.
“And the white cotton breechcloths; the wide ones,” Bantu added.
“I want Jeet to do my hair,” Aruli announced.
On the bottom step, the Oracle tugged Jeet back by his arm. “He’s here for you, isn’t he?” she asked.
Jeet shrugged. “Or for your counsel,” he answered with an encouraging smile. “He’s obviously heard of the Great Oracle of Kaleh.”
Prekendra, third son of Pusyamitra, founder of the Shunga dynasty, came before the Oracle that very afternoon. She received him in the shrine, where she sat flanked by her six attendants. Behind the eunuchs, stood Rem to the Oracle’s right. The two sisters, Notama and Maracee, were on her left. All of them were in full regalia.
Jarus and Eustace, Judah and the other tutors, several priestesses, and a handful of curious notables from the city, lined the walls.
Behind the prince came bearers and servants carrying arms full of treasures from the East; everything from spices to ivory to silk to rare gems to fine woods to figures of gold and all manner of goods. They piled these behind the prince until they filled most of the floor of the shrine. Prekendra bowed, and Jeet stepped forward. “What do you ask of the Oracle, Great One?” he asked in Greek.
The prince came closer and bowed again. This close, Jeet could see that, though the prince had the height and stature of a young man in his late teens or twenties, he had no beard. His face was smooth and almost feminine, much like that of a eunuch. The nose ring and jewelry, though that for a man, only heightened the androgyny of his appearance.
The prince answered Jeet in Greek, but he spoke in a high voice, with a foreign, singsong accent. “In my country,” he said, “we have heard of the Great Oracle of Kaleh. And we have heard of her Abij-hah. We have heard that the gods favor all who sleep with him, giving them health and fertility. When we heard that the Abij-hah opened the womb of a barren woman who slept with him, my father, the King in Pataliputra, sent me.”
He glanced around the shrine and lowered his voice, coming close to the Oracle and Jeet. “There is no potency in my seed,” he said. “I am eighteen years of age, and have seven wives; my first since I was ten years old. And yet, I have no children. I am my father’s favorite, and he asks that it be granted that I sleep with the Abij-hah. He asks that I return in the spring and make a son.”
Jeet glanced at Anda with a frown, and then at the shrine full of the prince’s gifts.
The prince continued. “On the road here, we heard how women who simply sleep in the same house as the Abij-hah become pregnant. We heard that youths who sleep with him father children.” The prince bowed his head. “All this treasure is worth nothing to me if I have no son.”
Jarus tried to catch Jeet’s eye. “Tell him yes!” he murmured under his breath. “Tell him yes.”
“Young Prince,” the Oracle said softly, answering directly for once, instead of her Abij-hah, “it is our custom to hear a matter on one day, and give our answer the next. Leave your gifts here, and come back to us in the morning.”
+ + + + +
Once the prince left and the others were sent away, Jarus swept his hand over the floor full of treasures and turned to the Oracle. “How can you possibly tell him ‘no’?” he demanded.
Jeet shook his head. “What can we do for him, Jarus?” he asked. “Are you starting to believe all the crazy rumors yourself? You want us to accept all these things when we know we cannot do anything for him?”
“Do you? Do you know that?” Jarus demanded. “Perhaps, Abij-hah, you should consider giving some credence to what people say about you. Can you not pray for this man, to the good god who protects you? Your god has answered you before.”
Jeet started to respond, but then stopped. He had no answer.
“Pray to your god tonight,” Jarus said, “and unless he tells you not to, do not turn away this young man. Where, in all the world, will he find hope if you turn him away?”
+ + + + +
That evening, Jeet stood on the Oracle’s balcony and gazed across the moonlit Euphrates. “Good god who protects me,” he prayed softly, “what can I do for this prince from the East? Only a god can help him. Please, good god, make his seed vital?”
The Oracle was awake before him in the morning, watching his face when he awoke. “Have you had a dream?” she asked.
Jeet shook his head.
“What are we to do?”
Jeet shrugged. “Where else can he go, Anda? Where shall we send him? Perhaps if he believes this could help… it will help.”
+ + + + +
Dressed in fine array, the prince followed Rem to the only other apartment in the shrine as large as the Oracle’s; the one directly across from hers on the second level of the shrine. In a flurry of activity that day, it had been outfitted with plush and scented bedding, silk curtains, finely polished tables and furnishings, two low braziers for heat and light, and lamps and candles. Because of the magnificence of the prince’s gifts, no effort was spared, and no time limit was set for his stay with the Abij-hah.
Jeet was waiting for him in a plush silk breechcloth of white, low on his hips, and a swath of the same plush silk, looped from behind his neck, crossed over his chest, and tied behind his back. He wore gold in his ears, his hair, and around his neck, wrists, and ankles. Standing beside a table loaded with fine foods and wine, Jeet bowed low, and motioned toward the table.
The prince took a seat, and Jeet knelt beside him to serve him. “The foods, which your cooks have prepared for you, are new to me,” Jeet said. “You may need to instruct me in how to serve them to you.”
Prekendra smiled. “Have you tasted them?” he asked.
Jeet shook his head.
“Then you must eat with me,” he said. “I will tell you about the food, and about my country and people; and you shall tell me about this place, and your people.”
Jeet learned that Prekendra was the youngest of three sons, and that all three sons helped in the administration of their father’s kingdom. He learned of Prekendra’s interests, and that the young prince was fond of singing.
When they finished the meal, Jeet called for Rem, who, with other servants, cleared away the food. “A bath has been prepared for you, Great Prince,” Jeet said, motioning toward the metal tub. “I will attend you.”
The prince rose from the table and came to the bath while Jeet removed his silk breechcloth, chest swath, and jewelry, and wrapped a simple loincloth around his waist. Then he undressed the prince, carefully removing one garment at a time. The prince helped with those garments that were new to Jeet. When Jeet removed the last garment – an inner loincloth – and the prince stood naked, Jeet’s eyes widened in surprise. The prince had the longest cock that Jeet had ever seen flaccid. By contrast, the prince’s testicles were smallish. “The prince is very well endowed,” Jeet observed.
“Not that it does me much good,” Prekendra remarked ruefully.
Jeet guided him into the tub. “I am anxious to see how long it gets,” Jeet said with a grin.
Prekendra shrugged with a lopsided smile. “That is part of the problem. It does not get hard very often, and when it does, it takes me a long time to ejaculate.”
Jeet smiled as he began to ladle water onto the prince’s body. “That kind of endurance can be pleasing to a woman… or a man,” he remarked.
“Or tiring,” Prekendra said wearily. He glanced at Jeet. “I have never slept with a boy.” He smiled. “Though you are truly beautiful.”
Jeet smiled, mixing oil and bathing salts in a small bowl. He applied it to the prince’s body. “With a cock the size of yours, O Prince, you probably frightened other boys away.”
The prince laughed.
Jeet scrubbed him. Then washed and rinsed him. He oiled him, and scraped him with a strigil. He was used to youths becoming erect when he bathed them, but Prekendra’s cock still dangled loosely.
Jeet dried the prince, and then himself, and moved them to the warmth of the bed. He laid the prince back upon it. Then, without asking, Jeet laid the prince’s limp cock straight up onto Prekendra’s belly. Then, swinging a knee over, Jeet straddled the prince’s hips and sat down with weight, and his perineum resting on the prince’s upturned member. Jeet’s own thickening cock lay across the prince’s midsection.
Jeet leaned forward, hands on Prekendra’s shoulders, and he began massaging the prince’s shoulder muscles, trapezius, and pectorals. He moved his hips, grinding lightly on the prince’s cock, and felt it thicken. He bent and kissed Prekendra’s neck. Backing, he kissed and caressed his way down the prince’s body, from his neck to his chest to his belly to the inside of his thighs, and finally to his cock and balls. By the time he took the prince’s member into his mouth, it had begun to thicken. But then it began to lengthen… and lengthen.
Jeet could get only part of it into his mouth and throat. He leaned back, stroking the long shaft in his closed hand, and glanced up at the prince’s face. “Truly, a size fit for a prince,” Jeet said with a grin. “Did you travel with any of your wives? Has it been a long time since you have had sex?”
“Over a month,” the prince said, propping a pillow under his head to better watch what Jeet was doing. “But then, I do not have sex very often.”
Jeet frowned. “Truly?”
The prince nodded.
Jeet’s brow furrowed. He went back to licking Prekendra’s crown. He ran his hands over the prince’s legs and belly; as smooth as a eunuch’s. The prince had very little pubic hair.
“I like to have my balls played with,” the prince said.
Jeet dutifully played with his balls and the prince murmured appreciation.
It took only fifteen minutes to bring the prince to a climax, though it took all the oral skill Jeet had. It was a quiet climax, and Jeet swallowed the watery semen easily. Then he moved up alongside the prince, who smiled. “That was very pleasant, Abij-hah.”
Jeet nodded and kissed the prince lightly.
The prince smiled. “That was pleasant, too.”
Jeet smiled back and kissed him again, longer. As he did, the prince felt Jeet’s erection against his hip. When the kiss ended, Prekendra glanced down at it and then up at Jeet. “I have not seen many erect cocks, Abij-hah, but I think yours is long, too; for your age.”
Jeet smiled and nodded.
The prince was an attractive youth, and Jeet had not come. He would have liked to continue making love to him. But the prince closed his eyes, as if for sleep, and so Jeet snuggled onto his body and laid his head down on the prince’s shoulder.
“Do you think that was enough, Abij-hah?” the prince asked. “Do you think I will have strength in my seed now?”
“No,” Jeet said honestly. He lifted his head and looked down at the prince who had opened his eyes. “Great prince, you have as much issue as any man. But my brother eunuchs and I make semen as well; there is just no potency to it. I think there is no potency to yours. I think, great one, that your balls are not doing what balls should do. You are not castrated, but you have no virility.” Jeet propped his head on his elbow. “There are things that we eunuchs do to keep from losing our desire for sex. I am thinking that they are things we should have you do. One of them is to have a lot of sex… every day.” Jeet’s brow furrowed as he thought. “We will schedule you for sex every afternoon and every evening, like we do ourselves. I will get the other eunuchs to share the duties with me. And we will have you exercise with us to strengthen your body.”
Jeet suddenly grinned. “The other eunuchs will be like me. They may be afraid of your great cock. But I think we will enjoy your cock as well.” He frowned. “But that means, O Prince, that you should not go to sleep yet this night. We must begin your training right away. And that means you must have sex again… now.” Jeet closed his hand around the prince’s cock, which was again flaccid. “I will get you hard once more, and this time, I will see how much of this wondrous staff I can ride.”
+ + + + +
Jeet came into the shrine hall and found the Oracle and her eunuchs sitting in a semicircle, waiting for Judah to arrive for a lesson. He threw himself down onto his back, laying the back of his head in the Oracle’s lap, and closed his eyes with a sigh. “Tonight Tazaar can take a turn with the prince,” he said.
Tazaar was seated next to the Oracle, and he toed Jeet’s side. “If you wanted me to take a turn, you should have never told me how big the prince’s cock is.”
“You can handle it,” Jeet said, pushing Tazaar’s foot away. “The way you let Cyndur ride you, you can take it.”
“Now you’ve hurt my feelings,” Tazaar said with a frown. “I don’t think I can help you at all.”
Jeet cocked open one eye. “I’ll tell him that you’re an even bigger fertility god than me.”
Tazaar grinned. “I’m for athletes. You’re for desperate princes.”
“Alright! Alright!” Jeet said, closing his eye again. “Ask whatever you want. I’ll owe you. It’s been three nights. I really need rescuing.” He cocked an eye at Tazaar. “But you can’t let him sleep all night. He has to come two or three times at least.”
Anda stroked Jeet’s hair, and he looked up at her with a smile. “It’s going to be so good to sleep with you tonight,” he murmured, closing his eyes again.
The Oracle bent over Jeet’s head, and whispered very quietly. “I’ve missed you, husband. I may not let you go to sleep right away tonight, but I will not work you like the prince.”
Jeet harrumphed. “Who started all this about me being good for fertility, anyway? Jarus?”
Judah entered the hall and came to them. He cleared his throat when he saw Jeet lying on the floor, and Jeet sat up. Judah had taught them that they should sit or stand when he was teaching them; out of respect.
“I had a letter from the King today, Abij-hah,” Judah said, taking a seat on a chair reserved for him. “He wanted me to tell you that his wife is with child. He said she conceived not long after his return from Kaleh.”
“Wait until word of that gets out,” Tazaar murmured with a grin.
Jeet groaned and fell sideways into the Oracle’s lap. The other eunuchs laughed, and Judah looked from one to another puzzled, until he guessed what the laughter was about.
+++
They stood from their evening meal and the Oracle gently rubbed Jeet’s stomach. “Are you still sleepy?” she asked, while the others cleared the table.
Jeet nodded. “A little sleepy.” He glanced at the floor. The bedding and pallets in the room had been combined into a single, large bed.
“We did that,” the Oracle explained, “because Notama and Maracee have been sleeping with Rem and me to stay warm.”
“Stay warm?” Jeet asked with a smirk.
“You have been with the prince,” Anda reminded.
Jeet nodded with a yawn. “I know. Don’t chase the sisters away. I only need a little corner of the pallet. You can keep me warm once you’re ready for sleep.”
Anda stepped closer. “I have missed you,” she whispered. She kissed inside his neck and took his right hand in hers. Letting her gown slip from her shoulders, she pressed Jeet’s palm onto her left breast. “My nipple is already hard for you,” she whispered, and pressed the tip of her tongue into the hollow under his ear. At the same time, she gently shoved a leg between his.
Jeet caressed her breast and smiled. “You know how to wake me again.”
Anda let her gown fall the rest of the way to the floor. Taking his left hand, Anda-Alexander moved it to her erection. Jeet smiled and gave it a squeeze.
“I told you that I missed you,” Anda whispered, reaching behind his waist to unfasten his breechcloth. “I want to try something Jeet-hah,” she whispered. “I want to feel you inside me when I’m inside Notama.”
Jeet brushed his cheek against the Oracle’s and squeezed Anda’s erection. “Alright, Alexander. But I will be jealous that I don’t have an extra hole to please you with, like you do me.”
Returning from clearing the table, the other eunuchs, along with Cyndur, descended the stairs to the eunuchs’ quarters. Notama, Maracee, and Rem waited quietly to one side.
“Come,” Anda said, taking Jeet by the hand. She led him to the pallet and motioned for Notama to join them. The girl glanced at Anda-Alexander’s erection and at Jeet’s rising one, and came to them with a small smile.
“Is the Abij-hah going to do what you asked, Oracle?” she asked softly.
Anda nodded. Stepping behind Notama, she pulled off the servant girl’s gown. Jeet’s eyes dropped to the almost fourteen-year-old’s breasts, fuller than Anda’s, but not much larger. She had dark nipples. His eyes dropped to her dense little patch of pubic hair. Notama smiled, casting her eyes down to the floor. Near by, the eleven-year-olds, Rem and Maracee, undressed each other.
Taking Notama by the shoulders, Anda-Alexander guided her back down onto the pallets, and then she lay down beside the servant girl on the side away from Jeet. With a glance, Anda-Alexander indicated that she wanted Jeet to lie down on the girl’s near side. Jeet complied, stretching out beside Notama, and pressing his growing erection to her hip.
He followed Anda’s lead in caressing the young girl’s breasts and stroking between her legs, but he let Anda-Alexander be the one to kiss her on the lips – Notama was Anda-Alexander’s girl.
Soon, Anda-Alexander and Jeet had Notama squirming.
Anda-Alexander worked down Notama’s body kissing, sucking. She knelt between the servant girl’s legs and spread them, pushing the girls ankles back so that her feet were on the bed, close to her bottom, and her knees were high. Anda-Alexander ran her hands admiringly down the insides of Notama’s slender legs, caressed them, and kissed inside them before kneeling up and guiding her erection downward between them.
Anda-Alexander was as hard as Jeet had ever seen her. He watched her phallus part Notama’s puffy labia and stretch them as her erection eased in. Then Anda-Alexander lay down on her serving girl, and the two girls wrapped their arms around each other. Then as Anda-Alexander thrust with her slim hips between Notama’s legs, Jeet slid his fingers under Anda’s bottom and down between her legs. He found the lips of her labia; they were already damp.
He stroked them, sliding his hand farther, sliding his finger under the base of Anda-Alexander’s shaft as she thrust, feeling its entry between Notama’s labia, feeling Notama’s labial lips, then back along Anda-Alexander’s shaft, following it back to the base and down into the hole beneath. Anda spread her legs wider, and Jeet moved behind her, admiring her flexing butt – so firm for a girl – and the long lines of her slender back… admiring her with affection and desire. He maneuvered, quickly found her opening with his crown. He timed his shove in with one of her pull backs to thrust. Holding his hips there, so that Anda impaled herself each time she pulled back to thrust, Jeet pulled bed covers up over his back to cover all three of them against the chill. And then he fell onto his hands over the two girls, keeping his pelvis pressed to Anda..
They adjusted their positions, finding the right angles. Anda-Alexander set the pace. She pumped her hips, forward into Notama and backward onto Jeet’s cock, while Jeet ground and circled his hips and Notama squirmed under them.
The room became quiet except for the slight rustling of bedding and the soft slaps of five bodies in coitus.
“Does it feel good, Alexander?” Jeet asked in a whisper, bending his head to kiss the inside of the Oracle’s neck.
Anda, lying on Notama, nodded her cheek against the other girl’s. Notama’s eyes were closed, and her mouth was open in pleasure. “It feels wonderful,” Anda said. “What you’re doing is perfect.”
Jeet smiled. “All I am doing is holding myself in the right spot for you to do the work for all three of us.”
“Do it with me,” she said in a hoarse whisper. “Move with me.”
Jeet relaxed his hips a fraction, caught her rhythm, and then drove with her, grinding in at the end of their thrusts. Both girls moaned quietly, and Jeet thrust more firmly, fucking two girls at the same time.
It was several minutes later that Jeet pulled out of Anda and left her in Notama’s arms. The girls were spent. So was Jeet. Pulling the bedcovers higher over Anda’s back, he lay down beside them under the same cover.
Rem was still on top of Maracee, but they had finished and were watching the others. Before Jeet could doze off, the two of them moved over to him and slid under the covers on either side. Rem pressed himself to Jeet’s left side; Maracee to the right. They lay their heads on his shoulders, pressed their crotches to his hips, and wrapped their legs around each of his; snuggling in.
“We’ll keep you warm, Jeet-hah,” Rem promised.
Jeet wrapped an arm behind each of them and closed his eyes. “Just as long as I get some sleep,” he said.
However, he had barely dozed when he woke again. Eleven-year-old Maracee was rubbing her bald little vulva on the smooth skin of his thigh, and she was damp. Her fingertips tickled across his groin, and onto his cock.
“You belong to Rem,” Jeet whispered as her hand closed around his cock. It was still thick from earlier lovemaking.
“Go ahead,” Rem encouraged. “She already had sex with the Oracle. She wants to have sex with you.”
Jeet frowned. “Tomorrow night” he suggested with a yawn, but under the covers, Maracee scooted down his body, and in seconds, he felt her warm, moist mouth close over his cock and suck it in.
“Umph,” Jeet mumbled.
Maracee was determined… and skillful. Rem had been teaching her, especially how to please a eunuch. Her fingers tugged gently on Jeet’s empty scrotum and then rubbed on his perineum.
When she had made him fully hard, she stretched up beside him, and grabbing behind Jeet’s shoulders, pulled him from under Rem and over and on to her. Spreading her thin legs, she reached down between them with both hands and grabbed Jeet’s cock. She rubbed the crown up and down her slit, and then guided it into her. She lay back then, and held him by his sinewy shoulders as he eased in.
He stretched her; they both felt it. He worked most of his length inside her while she tightly clutched his shoulders and then his biceps. “Oh, damn, you feel tight on my cock,” he whispered. “Are you alright, Maracee?”
She nodded, biting her lip. He was almost all the way in now, and he lowered his belly to hers. He planted an elbow on either side of her head and wrapped his arms over the top of her hair. The girl was much shorter than him. Her mouth came only to his collar bone, and so he kept most of his weight off her.
She grabbed the sides of his waist tightly and he moved slowly. She was wet inside, and he oozed precum inside her. Maracee’s opening grew slicker. She started to move with him, lifting her small hips to meet his thrusts.
Jeet shuddered. The girl’s tightness was milking him. They moved faster and she held on tightly to the sides of his waist.
They hit a fast, easy rhythm, the slapping of their hairless loins audible from under the covers. Soft whimpers from Maracee matched the impact of Jeet’s thrusts. Jeet lowered his lips to the top of her head, smelling her hair… a girl’s scent.
And they kept going… and going. Maracee’s hands roamed his back now, and squeezed his butt. The insides of her legs rubbed against the outside of his as she squirmed under him.
Jeet began to sweat under the covers. Rem, lying beside them, pulled off the covers to better watch, but Jeet barely noticed the cooler air.
Maracee planted her heels on the bed and used them to leverage up her pelvis against Jeet’s thrusts.
Small grunts from Jeet joined Maracee’s whimpers. He had lifted himself off Maracee so that their contact was focused at the impact of their naked pubic mounds… and his sliding inside her. Jeet could feel her warm breath between their bodies. Her hands clutched at his buttocks with surprising strength.
Her whimpers became small gasps and cries, and she squeezed the insides of her thighs against the outside of Jeet’s. She pawed at his butt, and amazingly, he felt her tighten even inside, squeezing the length of his cock. He came with her, and still they went on; his semen adding to their lubrication; Jeet’s open-mouthed cries the result of a sensitive crown.
They slowed, and finally stopped. Jeet lay on her, on his elbows; the tight sheath around his cock making it slow to soften.
“Maracee likes sex,” Rem whispered, giving Jeet’s sweaty back a rub.
Jeet lifted himself higher on his elbows and looked down into the girl’s eyes. He circled his hips slightly, testing the still snug sheathing. “Oh, damn, Maracee. I can see why.”
She smiled, sleepily, contented.
Jeet slowly pulled from inside her, and then rolled off her. He pulled her to himself, laying a leg over her middle. He pulled the bedcovers up over them and wrapped an arm over the small mounds of her budding breasts. Snuggling with her, making himself comfortable.
But then Rem got up and came around behind Jeet, sliding under the covers behind him and spooning in. And then Jeet felt Rem’s erection against his bottom. “That’s not funny, Rem” Jeet murmured.
“I got excited watching you,” Rem whispered apologetically, as he ran his hand up and down Jeet’s side and butt under the bedcovers.
Jeet groaned. “Go ahead,” he mumbled. “Just do it. The prince has me so loose; you could probably stick your whole head up there without oiling it.”
Rem quickly inserted himself, and Jeet dozed, holding Maracee. He woke when Rem climaxed, and again when Rem’s soft cock slipped out. “Tomorrow night, I’m sleeping with old Judah,” Jeet mumbled. “I’ll be safe with him.”
“He probably snores,” Rem said, snuggling onto Jeet’s back.
+ + + + +
The Oracle lifted her head from the pillows. “What are you doing up?” she asked Jeet.
He had already fastened on his breechcloth, boots and leggings, and in the light of early morning, he was pulling on his chlamys. “There is a boy among the sick children. I want to see how he is doing before we become busy with the day,” he told her.
Anda crawled from under the warm covers, careful to leave the others sleeping. “I’ll go with you,” she said with a slight shiver.
Jeet smiled. “I will help you dress,” he told her, reaching to help her with her gown.
“You will take a nap with me today,” she said, pulling the gown up onto her shoulders. “And I will let you sleep.” She smiled at him and pulled him into her arms. “Last night was good. Thank you for letting us try that.” She kissed him. “But the very best times,” she whispered, “are when it is only me and you.”
+++
Prekendra burst into the Oracle’s chamber as they were eating an evening meal. Seeing Jeet, he made straight for him. “Abij-hah!” he demanded in his high voice. “How long is this to keep up?”
Jeet and the others rose to their feet and bowed. Jeet smiled. “How long will what keep up, O Prince?”
The prince crossed his arms angrily. “You know what I mean. Not two minutes ago, I escaped from Aruli and Jin. They came into my chamber and started to undress me without even asking if I was ready.”
“But you are never ready,” Jeet said with a bow and slight smile.
“Not for sex every minute of every day!”
“But Great One,” Jeet politely pointed out, “we do let you sleep and eat.”
“Ha! Barely!” The prince complained in his singsong accent, gesturing wildly. “Every morning, I wake to some eunuch sucking my cock. At midday, I find eunuchs lurking on my couch. I barely finish my evening meal before eunuchs have undressed me and are sucking my cock and making me come over and over into the night. And then, and then… you make me run and workout all afternoon like some Greek athlete.”
Jeet smiled and took the prince’s hands into his own. “I sympathize, great prince,” he said, “believe me. But it has been less than a week. You will get used to it, and we will let you sleep as much as you need. But we must do these things to help you.”
With a pout, Prekendra leaned his forehead onto Jeet’s. “I shouldn’t complain, Abij-hah. I have seen how hard you work in this place. I am sorry. It is only that I am tired.”
“Tomorrow afternoon, we have a special treat for you, Great One,” Jeet promised with a smile.
“What?”
“Word of your endowment has spread in the temple… I don’t know how,” Jeet grinned at the lie. “Two of the temple’s youngest and most beautiful priestesses will join you at your midday meal tomorrow. They are most anxious to come to you.”
“Truly beautiful?” Prekendra asked, rolling his forehead on Jeet’s.
“Truly,” Jeet said.
“But they will stay only for a short time, yes?”
“A short while,” Jeet confirmed. He had already promised the priestesses various gifts, depending on how many times they could bring the prince to climax in twenty-four hours.
“Alright,” the prince said with a sigh. He backed from Jeet. “I’ll go fuck Aruli and Jin, but then I will sleep.”
“Certainly,” Jeet promised.
They watched the prince wearily retreat from the room and disappear into the hallway.
“It’s almost torture,” the Oracle observed.
“For us, not for him!” Bantu said with a hollow laugh. “We need to quit taking him up our butts or all our asses will be stretched so badly that we’ll drool shit down our legs when we walk.”
Jeet returned to the table. “Tonight, Aruli is going to fuck Prekendra for the first time, while Jin sucks him. Maybe when the prince feels what it’s like to come with Aruli up his butt, he’ll be glad for us to do all the fucking.”
“Not likely,” Tazaar said with a frown. “He’s starting to like fucking boys. You’re creating a sexual madman, Jeet-hah.”
+ + + + +
Judah had drawn a square in the snow, twelve feet on a side, down by the river, and along with Onaelius, he was talking to two workmen. Jeet came up alongside with Rem in tow.
“Good morning, Abij-hah,” Judah said in greeting.
Jeet, who had been looking at the square on the ground, glanced up at Judah with a furrowed brow. “What are you doing?”
Judah smiled. “I wanted to make sure that it could be done before talking to you and the high priests, Abij-hah, but I believe there is room here, and it will work. I would like us to build a crap house… or two crap houses; one for men and one for women.”
Jeet’s mouth dropped. “A what?”
Behind him, Rem laughed.
“A crap house,” Judah said with a frown. “It’s a room with a bench around the perimeter. The bench has seats, holes actually. You sit over the hole to take a crap, and water runs in troughs underneath to wash all the refuse down to the river. We’ll set up a little water lifting system. We’ll provide a servant or two to wipe butts, and charge a tax so that only worthier worshipers and supplicants use it. Of course the priests, the Oracle, you boys… and your tutors… would be able to use it without charge.”
Jeet shook his head. “I’m not sure I could do it.”
“You should try,” Rem said, laying a hand on Jeet’s back. “I like the idea of not having to dump your crap.”
Jeet wheeled and swatted Rem’s butt.
+ + + + +
On a warmer day, when the sun was out and the snow had melted, Jeet looked up from the child he had just blessed, and saw Amnon, the athlete he had slept with almost a year before, approaching. In the athlete’s arms was an infant, and on his arm was a beautiful girl with long brown hair.
Unloading the child from his lap, Jeet jumped up and ran to Amnon, who shifted the baby to his wife and gathered Jeet up in his arms. Hugging the boy, who was nude except for his breechcloth and chlamys, and laughing, he swung Jeet around in a circle, twice.
Setting Jeet down, he kissed him, and then slid an arm over his shoulders to turn Jeet toward his wife and child. “Abij-hah, this is my wife Nadessa, and this is my son, little Jeet.”
Jeet looked up at Amnon. “What?”
Amnon smiled and hugged Jeet by the shoulder. “We named him ‘Jeet’. We named him after my friend.”
Jeet’s mouth dropped.
Smiling, Amnon took Jeet by the shoulders and looked the boy in the eye. “Abij-hah,” he said, “I know you will never father children, but you’ll see – my first born will be the first of many boys who will bear your name.”
For a boy who would never be a father, in a society that honored fathers and valued sons, Amnon’s words had an impact. Jeet’s eyes teared up, and the boy tried to hide it by blinking and looking away.
Amnon pulled the young eunuch into his strong embrace. He patted Jeet’s back and kissed the side of the boy’s head. “You don’t know how much people love you now, do you Jeet-hah?” Amnon asked as he gently rocked the boy. “There are children alive today, who wouldn’t be alive if not for you, Jeet-hah. What better name could I give my son?” He kissed the side of Jeet’s head once again.
Jeet wiped his eyes on Amnon’s cloaked shoulder. “What will people say?” he asked. “It’s not a Greek name.”
Amnon smiled and took Jeet by the shoulders, shaking him. “It’s a great name,” Amnon assured him. Taking one of his hands from Jeet’s shoulder, he extended his arm for his wife and drew her to his side. “Now will you bless my son, Abij-hah?” Amnon asked. “We brought him today for your blessing.”
Jeet dried his eyes once more, and nodded. He led them back to the portico steps and took his accustomed place. Nadessa stepped forward and laid the baby carefully in Jeet’s lap.
Jeet looked up at her, and she smiled at him. Jeet looked down at the baby who squinted because of the sun. He quickly shifted the baby and bent over it to shade the infant’s eyes with his own torso. The baby opened one eye, looking right up at him.
Jeet smiled and cradled the baby boy closely. He remembered Judah’s words; that the great god knew Jeet by name. “Son of Amnon,” Jeet said, “may the good god who protects me, and who knows me by name, protect you, and know you by name. May he grant to you the beauty of your mother, and the good heart of your father …” He smiled down on the infant, and his eyes watered once more, and his throat threatened to constrict, “and may Jeet, son of Amnon, be father of many happy sons.”
Jeet looked up. Both parents were smiling. “May I bring the Oracle?” Jeet asked. “May I show her your son?”
“Of course,” Amnon said.
A few minutes later, the Oracle carefully held the baby in her arms. “I forgot how babies smell,” she said with a smile. She glanced up at Nadessa. “Will you come to my table tonight? Will you and your husband dine with me and bring your baby?”
+ + + + +
From the time Amnon and Nadessa arrived, the Oracle was reluctant to share the baby with any of the others. Aruli was the most anxious of the eunuchs to hold Amnon’s son, and when he handed the baby back, his countenance was sad.
Concerned that Aruli was missing his younger brother, Jeet led his brother eunuch away from the others. “What’s wrong, Aruli-hah?” Jeet asked.
Aruli smiled sadly. “At least you will have children named after you.”
Jeet pulled Aruli into his arms. “There are more important things, Aruli-hah,” he whispered, and kissed Aruli’s cheek. “Share my bed tonight. Let me show you how much I love you.”
Amnon drew Jeet out onto the balcony before they left. The moon was bright and high overhead. Jeet leaned on the balustrade and looked out over the river. Amnon glanced back into the Oracle’s chamber where Anda was holding the baby and talking to Nadessa. “They like each other,” Amnon said.
Jeet turned back, saw where Amnon was looking, and nodded. “It’s surprising… I mean… that Nadessa would like us. You and I have had sex together…”
Amnon smiled and laid an arm over Jeet’s shoulder, turning them both to face out across the river. “Nadessa likes you as well. In her mind, I married her because you told me to.”
Jeet glanced at him in surprise. Amnon smiled. “I married her because I love her. She knows that.” He pulled Jeet close under his arm. “The other athletes and I will be back this spring,” he said. “How much money will I need to offer that I might be able to sleep with you for a week this time?”
“Not much,” Jeet said with a smile, and his pale eyes and white teeth glinted in the moonlight.
“She invited me to visit her home,” Anda told Jeet after they left. “Will the priests let me?”
Jeet chewed his lip, thoughtfully, and nodded. “It can be arranged; perhaps you can go in your litter. Maybe you won’t even need the litter.” Jeet pulled her into his arms. “It doesn’t bother you that I have slept with her husband? It doesn’t bother her?”
Anda kissed Jeet and smiled. “We both know that our husbands love us.” She said, simply. She laid her head down on his shoulder, thinking about babies.
“Oracle,” Jeet said, “I wish to bring Aruli-hah to our bed tonight. This evening made him sad.”
+ + + + +
“If there is only one, Great God,” Jeet asked, “then how did men come to believe in Cybele and the other gods?”
Judah leaned back from the Oracle’s table, where he sat between Aruli and Jin, and he took a sip of wine. “Because men forgot the true God. They chose instead to fashion gods and goddesses from stone or wood or gold and silver – images in their own likeness; gods who were like men and not God. They feared him.” Judah shook his head slowly. “God is holy, and not like men at all.”
“What is holy and unholy?” Aruli asked. “What do those things mean?”
“Holy means pure and good, Aruli,” Judah said. “Holy is the opposite of evil. You know what evil is?”
Aruli nodded.
“The Great God is opposite from evil. No evil thing or evil man may come before him.”
“There is much evil in this world,” Jeet said. “How has the Great God allowed it?”
Judah frowned, deliberating over how to put his answer into words. “There is evil in this world,” he said, “because God lets evil men live. I do not know why, except that in each of us, there is sometimes evil… in our hearts. If God were to strike down every man who thought or did evil things, few would live. In fact, he did strike them all down once… all except one man and his family. The man’s name was Noah…”
Judah told them the story of Noah, and several of the boys nodded, having heard similar flood stories from their own people. Prekendra listened, and finally spoke when Judah finished. “I have heard the story differently,” he said, “and not so much about good and evil. I will think on these things, but tell me, old man, cannot one be good who does not know your great god? There was a famous king among the kings of the Mauryans. His name was Ashoka, and he was a follower of the one called the Enlightened One, the Buddha. He was kind and just, and did only good things. He even established places around his kingdom where the sick could go to be cared for, much like the Abij-hah has established for sick children here in Kaleh. Certainly Ashoka was good. Would he perish in such a flood?”
“Jeet’s good, too,” Aruli said, patting old Judah’s back while grinning at Jeet.
Judah thought of the Law of Moses, and what it said about the things these boys did together. He thought about how a eunuch wouldn’t even be allowed in the temple, and how offerings of a boy prostitute would never be accepted. But then, what choice did these boys have about their lives? What knowledge did they even have of good and evil? Judah took a deep breath. “I cannot say about a man who does not know the Great God and whether that man is good or evil. I can only say that the Great God knows every man, and I know that the Great God is good.”
“And he likes Jeet,” Aruli said, with another grin at Jeet and a pat on the old man’s back.
+ + + + +
There was snow on the ground again – the last snowfall of the year – when the erastes of one youth and the fathers of two others paid for three boys to spend a week at the shrine in preparation for spring athletics. There were four boys the week after that.
On an afternoon when the others were supervising the workouts of those boys behind the shrine, Jeet, Rem, Ptolemy, and Jin took Prekendra and the Oracle to the Oracle’s bathhouse at the same time to bathe the two of them. It was the first time Prekendra saw the Oracle nude, and his cock lengthened, hanging low down his leg.
The Oracle’s eyes went wide. “It is a wonder he hasn’t injured one of you,” she whispered to Ptolemy.
Jeet bent to pick up a sponge, and Rem playfully slapped his butt. Jeet spun on him, and tackled him, laughing, into the water. Prekendra, smiling, came closer to watch and the two of them tackled him into the water as well.
They wrestled, and in a moment, came up sputtering. “Oh, no! Oh, no!” Rem called out laughing. He pointed at the Prince’s midsection. Prekendra’s cock had begun to rise.
The three of them circled each other, laughing, and Jeet reached in as if to grab Prekendra’s cock, but the young prince dodged. Rem slapped the prince’s butt and the prince jumped. As soon as he spun on Rem, Jeet popped Prekendra’s butt.
With a yelp, Prekendra spun back and tackled Jeet into the water. When they came up, they came up together. Prekendra’s arm was behind Jeet’s back and his long, stiffening cock lay up Jeet’s belly.
“Uh, oh!” Jin cried. “The great prince, Prekendra, has aroused his lance in the middle of the afternoon… the whole world is changing.”
Prekendra ignored him, and pulled Jeet to himself with an arm behind the small of the boy’s back. He kissed him, and pressing his erection to the boy’s taut belly, he slid a hand down to Jeet’s firm bottom.
“Ummm,” Jeet murmured into the prince’s mouth. Their lips parted, and Jeet grinned. “Our plan for you is working, O Prince.”
Prekendra smiled, and pulling Jeet’s bottom tightly to himself, he kissed Jeet again. The prince was as lean as Jeet, but half a head taller. Jeet wrapped his arms over the prince’s shoulders and they swayed gently in water that came above their knees.
The others paused to watch. Jeet’s smoky complexion was still noticeably fairer than the prince’s, and as they stood together, Jeet’s wet skin looked as smooth as marble, while the prince’s had a softer patina. The prince turned Jeet in his arms, so that the boy’s back was to him. Then he bent the boy over slightly and rubbed his erection over Jeet’s tailbone with slow movements of his hips.
“Water is not going to make it slippery enough,” Jin said out loud. He quickly grabbed a vial of oil and came to spread it over the prince’s large member.
The Oracle grasped Ptolemy’s arm, and hid partway behind him. “I’m not sure I can watch,” she said. But she did.
The prince bent his knees and angled his cock up into the fourteen-year-old’s bottom. They froze for a moment when his crown entered Jeet, and then very slowly, he eased half way in. Jeet’s eyes were tightly shut and his mouth hung open.
Taking Jeet by the hips, Prekendra eased out, and then he eased in. His cock slid more easily now, but he still moved slowly, and was not completely in.
“The prince likes to fuck very slowly,” Ptolemy whispered to the Oracle.
She nodded. She could mentally count a slow, ‘1,2,3,’ on each withdrawal and entrance… ‘In, 2, 3… out, 2, 3.”
The prince pulled Jeet more upright and ran his hands admiringly over the slender boy’s flanks and hips, and around his bottom, and then in front of the boy, over Jeet’s belly and chest. He bent them both forward. “You are exquisite, Abij-hah,” he whispered.
Rem came forward and knelt in the water in front of Jeet, where he took the Abij-hah’s long, flaccid cock into his mouth. He ran his hands up between Jeet’s legs, rubbing Jeet’s empty scrotum and his perineum, just ahead of Prekendra’s moving cock.
Jeet’s cock grew and stiffened. Rem skinned it back and moved the skin up and down the shaft while sucking on the crown. The others, including the Oracle, felt their erections grow as well.
Jeet’s hips began to move.
“The prince can last a long time when he wants to,” Ptolemy whispered to the Oracle. He smiled. “I’m not sure Jeet will.”
Jeet fingered his nipples, and when the prince wrapped his arms around Jeet’s ribcage, the boy laid his head back on Prekendra’s shoulder. Jin stepped close to the Oracle and took her erection into his hand. She took his, and they continued to watch.
Eunuchs, also, can last a long time before climaxing, but Jeet didn’t make it past ten minutes before he clasped his arms over Prekendra’s arms, arched back against the prince, and spewed rapidly into Rem’s mouth. “Oh, damn!” he cried out, almost in pain. He arched farther back, eyes tightly shut, mouth open in a silent cry. The others could see that Rem was swallowing.
And then Jeet bent forward, grasping Rem’s head to slow him down. The prince looked over at the others. “Ptolemy, you’re next,” he cried out in his high, singsong voice.
Jin snickered.
“And then you Jin. Don’t go anywhere,” the prince added.
Ptolemy glanced at Jin. “Serves you right.”
As Jeet carefully moved off the prince’s long cock, Ptolemy stepped forward.
“What about you, Oracle?” Jin asked. “Who will take care of you?”
“I’m going over there,” she said, pointing at Rem. And then she stepped down into the water and knelt behind Rem as Rem prepared to swallow Ptolemy’s cock. She felt under the water for Rem’s opening, positioned her phallus, and then entered him, holding him by the hips. “If you haven’t come by the time the others are done,” she whispered behind Rem’s ear, “then I will take care of you.”
+ + + + +
The end of winter was mild, and the changeable weather contributed to illnesses among the little ones of the city. Children overflowed the storeroom converted for that purpose inside the temple, and filled the new building prepared for them on the outside.
On a cool, sunny afternoon, Anda found the old physician outside the storeroom, and asked him her question.
“Let us find a private place, Oracle,” he said in answer. “Let me examine you.”
“Come to my chambers when Jeet is blessing children,” she told him.
The old physician straightened up from beside the Oracle’s bed and shook his head. “It would be dangerous for you,” he said. “For you and the baby.”
The Oracle lowered her gown and sat up. “Why?”
“Oracle,” the old physician said, taking a seat on the bed beside her. He took her hand. “Everything down there has to stretch when you have a baby; not just a little, but a lot. There is only one place for a baby to come out. On a normal woman, childbirth is difficult enough to claim many lives. Sometimes, a girl’s opening will even tear as the baby comes out. The way you are made, for your vagina to open enough to deliver a baby, it would tear apart the connecting tissues at the base of your phallus. Or worse, your vagina wouldn’t be able to open and the baby would die inside and kill you as well.”
The Oracle bit her lip and looked away. “If it tore up the base of my phallus, could you put me back together?”
The old physician shook his head. “No, Oracle.”
“Could you…” she swallowed hard. “Could you cut my phallus out?”
The old physician shook his head again. “That would probably kill you, too.” He gave her hand a squeeze. “It is good that your lovers are eunuchs and without seed. You should always be careful to confine yourself to them.”
She nodded, still looking away.
“Not every woman is able to have children, Oracle,” he said, patting her hand that he held. “And that is always sad. I will tell you honestly, that I do not believe you could ever conceive, even if you tried. I have never heard of a hermaphrodite bearing a child. One Oracle did, but I was told that she was really a normal woman who simply had a very large clitoris.” The old physician smiled and leaned close, confidentially. “There were no hermaphrodites at the time to choose as an Oracle. They cheated.” His countenance grew tender. “Oracle, there has never been an Oracle – and there are very few women – who had what you have. I know of no woman whose husbands love them the way the Abij-hah loves you.”
She nodded and a tear rolled down her cheeks.
The old physician smiled gently. “You are young, Oracle. You are very young. Life has brought you many good things. It will yet bring you more.”
In the dark that night, as Jeet held her close, Anda told him the things the old physician had told her. He pulled her close, and she wept.
In the air the next morning was the aroma of the first flowers of spring.
+ + + + +
Prekendra was waiting for him and wrestled Jeet to the bed as soon as he came into the chamber.
Laughing, Jeet rolled to his back and watched as Prekendra cast aside his garments to reveal that he was already, rampantly hard. Jeet pulled off his breechcloth as Prekendra spread oil over his thick erection. When Jeet pulled his knees up and apart, Prekendra moved quickly up to his bottom. The prince aimed his long cock into Jeet’s opening and eased his hips forward..
As always, Prekendra took his time entering the Abij-hah, watching Jeet’s eyes to gauge his progress, and when he was mostly in, he settled, belly to belly, onto the young eunuch. They wrapped each other up with arms and legs.
“Love knots,” Prekendra murmured into Jeet’s ear with his soft, singsong accent. “I love making love knots.”
“We’ve made you sex-crazed,” Jeet said with a chuckle.
Prekendra lifted his head, grinning. “Feel my cheek,” he said.
Jeet cocked an eyebrow, inquiringly.
“Just feel it, Jeet-hah,” Prekendra repeated.
Jeet reached up and ran his hand over Prekendra’s cheek.
“Here,” Prekendra said, taking Jeet’s wrist and moving the boy’s hand to just in front of Prekendra’s ear. “Whiskers.”
Jeet resisted a smile over the prince’s enthusiastic imagination, and carefully felt over Prekendra’s skin with his fingertips. “Maybe so,” he said, hopefully.
Prekendra lowered his cheek once more to Jeet’s, and began to move inside him. “It is working Jeet-hah,” he said. “I think many more of your treatments, and I shall make even the Oracle’s attendants great with child.”
Jeet laughed.
“It is time for me to return to my father,” Prekendra said, sliding his long cock very slowly in and out of Jeet’s tightness. “This spring, I shall make a son.”
Jeet’s brow furrowed, and in his heart, he prayed to the good god who protected him that this might be so. “You must not slack off,” Jeet warned. “You must continue to exercise your body and to have sex continually.”
Prekendra laughed. “I shall do so enthusiastically, Abij-hah. Among my servants are comely boys and pretty servant girls. I shall practice every afternoon and evening. All the way back to Pataliputra.”
He lifted his head again, smiling down at Jeet. “I have learned to make love well; is it not so, Abij-hah?”
Jeet smiled and slid his hands down to the prince’s fleshy bottom. He squeezed it, and pulled. “Very well, O Prince.”
Prekendra’s brow knitted briefly in concentration as he firmed his belly and rubbed it on Jeet’s upturned cock, the way he knew the boy liked.
“Umm,” Jeet murmured, his eyes briefly closing.
Prekendra looked down on Jeet’s fine features and kissed the boy’s full lips, lightly. “I shall leave you servant boys and girls, Jeet-hah. I shall leave you nose rings and jewels and fine garments. I shall leave you fine ointments…”
Jeet smiled and shook his head slightly. “My lord, Prekendra, you have given us a king’s treasure already.”
Prekendra’s eyes softened. “Jeet-hah,” he whispered. “You have given me hope.” He kissed Jeet. Their mouths opened, and his tongue probed into Jeet’s mouth with Prekendra’s recently acquired ardor. They moved together – not too sharply because of the size of Prekendra’s member.
They took a breath, and Prekendra pressed his cheek to Jeet’s. “I will miss you, Jeet-hah.”
“I will miss you, my lord, Prekendra.”
“Once I am home, I will send you one or two of our own wise men to add to your learning. I will send with them, copies of ancient writings. And I will send you medicines and herbs for your children.”
“I shall like those more than nose rings,” Jeet said with a chuckle.
Prekendra’s hips paused. “You do not like my nose ring?”
Jeet laughed, and stroked the prince’s sides. “I like your nose ring a lot, but I don’t think I’d like to wear one.”
Prekendra looked disappointed.
Jeet smiled and his eyes dropped to the prince’s lips. “Leave me more kisses, Lord Prekendra. Those, I will truly treasure.”
Prekendra grinned, and pressed his lips once more to the beautiful boy’s.
+ + + + +
“Where is my brother?” the king asked upon his return from the coast. “I have been back in Antioch for three days and he has yet to come before me.”
The king’s courtiers bowed. “Antiochus left last week for spring hunting,” one of them answered.
Seleucus frowned. Leave it up to Antiochus to make a beeline for Kaleh as soon as his back was turned. He knew his brother wanted Jeet; and all the more since Seleucus had forbidden it. “He headed north?” the king asked.
“No, great one,” one of the men answered. “He headed east. The twins were with him.”
“The twins?” the king asked, cocking an eyebrow. The twins were Antiochus’ latest eromenoi. They were twin brothers of thirteen, with pale golden hair. They were beautiful, but unpleasantly vain. Seleucus did not care for them, but if Antiochus was traveling with them, the King could relax. Obviously, his brother was going to be too occupied to head for Kaleh.
+ + + + +
Amnon and the four athletes who, with him, slept with the eunuchs the year before, knelt before the Oracle; a bag of gold pieces before each. “Great Oracle,” Amnon began.
But Anda was barely listening. She knew they were going to ask for a week with the eunuchs, and Jeet would answer for her tomorrow in the affirmative. She had learned to not think about it when Jeet slept with others. She never got used to it. It always hurt.
Instead, her mind escaped to the daily visits that she and Nadessa had planned for that week; daily visits with Nadessa and the baby.
They were friends now, and Anda had never had another girl for a friend. She glanced at Maracee and Notama, her servant girls. Notama smiled back. They were friends, of sorts; but more lovers than friends. There was nothing sexual about her friendship with Nadessa, and she liked that, a lot.
+ + + + +
Amnon woke, spooned behind Jeet’s naked body. He had one arm extended for Jeet to rest the side of his head on. His other arm was over Jeet’s side. With that arm, Amnon pulled the boy’s body back to his own. It was almost dawn of the last day. The torches in the shrine hall had burned low. The white silk covering the doorway to Jeet’s booth moved slightly on a draft of air.
Amnon nuzzled in behind Jeet’s ear and took a deep breath of the boy’s fragrance. He pressed the tops of his thighs lightly to the warm backs of Jeet’s. He pressed his lap against Jeet’s small, firm bottom, and he felt his cock thicken. He pressed his belly against the flat hardness of the boy’s lower back, and his pectorals against the boy’s shoulder blades, and he ran his hand over the boy’s belly; the muscles of which were taut, even in sleep.
Jeet stirred and reached back to pat Amnon’s side.
“This year has been better than last, Jeet-hah,” Amnon whispered. “Some day, we will be too old for it to be seemly for me to sleep with you, but if I could, I would return to you every spring, forever.”
Jeet twisted back from his hips and smiled up at Amnon, the back of his head resting on the young athlete’s arm. He reached up to stroke a lock of Amnon’s hair from the side of his face.
Amnon kissed him, and rubbed Jeet’s belly lightly. “Do you love me, Jeet-hah?” he asked, and the term he used was for romantic love. “No. Don’t answer. It would break my heart if you said ‘no’. For your smiles and caresses have deceived me if you do not. Your words have wooed my heart. It is easy to believe you love me.”
Jeet finished rolling to his back, draping his legs over Amnon’s hips so that his bottom remained in Amnon’s lap. “Believe, Amnon. I love you.”
Amnon pressed his loins and rising erection to Jeet’s bottom and ran his hand down between Jeet’s legs. “You love everyone,” he said with a smile, this time using the term for brotherly love.
Jeet twirled the lock of Amnon’s dark hair with a fingertip and shook his head. “No.”
“Well, almost everyone,” Amnon said with a frown of mock rebuke.
Again, Jeet shook his head. He laid his hand on the hand that Amnon had rested between Jeet’s legs, and he pulled Amnon’s loins more tightly to his butt by digging his heels in behind Amnon’s hard bottom. “You are my friend,” Jeet said. “Not like Tazaar and the others who are my brothers and lovers. Not like the Oracle who is my wife, or the King who is like an erastes to me. You are my friend the way one youth is close friends with another. If I were the son of a rich merchant like you are, we would still be friends.” Jeet smiled. “And I would still want to make love with you.”
Amnon smiled and lowered his lips to Jeet’s. He closed his hand around the boy’s stiffening cock, and moved the skin up and down, gently. He pulled his hips back, so that his cock pointed out from his body, and he poked it into Jeet’s bottom, looking for his entrance.
Reaching down, Jeet took hold of it, and raising his hips slightly, he guided Amnon in.
The young athlete gathered Jeet in his arms, pulling the boy close. Their eyes met as Amnon slowly withdrew his cock and eased it back in. Amnon’s eyes drooped slightly in pleasure, and the corners of his mouth turned up in a satisfied smile. Jeet smiled, and Amnon’s smile widened. He stroked Jeet’s cock, and kissed the boy once more.