Bill Lee's newest Novella:
Victorious Lovers
First Edition
Copyright © 2007 by Bill Lee
All rights reserved. Printed in the U.S.A.
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Published in the United States by GLB Publishers P.O. Box 78212, San Francisco,
CA 94107 USA
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either
the products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any
resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely
coincidental.
Library of Congress Control Number
2007902116
ISBN: 1-934203-04-1
9781934203040
First e-published March 2007
CHAPTER 1
The stentorian voice echoed rhythmically, rising and falling like spring breezes bearing whispered promises of new life mixed with old, dry leaves, remnants of previous seasons. Directed up to the ascending ranks, first to the left and then the right, circling the columns wreathed with the laurels of the privileged, the spell it wrought ceased only with the farthest reaches where it lodged soothingly in the brain. Even the elders appeared spellbound by the oration of Flamininus as he justified his proposal.
To supply the "old" and therefor classical, traditional elements necessary for any oration to the Senate in Rome, the speaker recounted the unmatched accomplishments of the Hellenic culture over the centuries—the philosophy of Plato which was still largely supported by the intelligentsia of Rome, the teachings of Hippocrates which were the bases for medical knowledge even to this day, the great tragedies of Euripides and others that taught the inviolability of the gods, and the great artisans whose sculpture adorned the Greek cities as well as some parts of Rome. He did not dwell on the democratic concepts of Socrates except in vague terms, leaving the listeners to make their own connections to present concepts of government, the Senate being one example.
The "newness" of spring was exemplified by the freshness of the present state in Greece, with some exceptions. There was an uneasy peace in the land, something that Rome had not seen in full measure for many years. But that peace was now threatened, even as Rome completed its victory over Hannibal in the north, by the unholy alliance between Phillip of Macedonia and Antiochus of Syria. Only through the protective arm of Rome, Flamininus thundered, could the beauties and cultural accomplishments of Athens be saved from the hordes of imperialists from the east and south. Rome the "peacemaker" must protect the peaceful Hellenic cities, Athens and Rhodes, from ultimate destruction.
Jurius, Tribune to Flamininus, felt pride in his leader and could see that the older members of the Senate were impressed by his eloquence and logic. The Senate would now debate the proposal for hours, and Jurius had no stomach for the windy speeches sure to come. He left the chamber with the shouts of approval in his ears but with the decision undetermined. After the organized calm and relative serenity of the Senate chamber, the raucous clamor of the streets was an affront to the ears.
He encountered his friend Flavius departing from another door. Apparently he had also listened to the speech, although Jurius had not noticed him in the chamber.
"So, Jurius, are you off to Greece then?" he asked with no need for introduction.
The sun beat hot on his light breastplate, and Jurius tipped back his helmet a centimeter to cool his brow before answering. "It depends on the Senate, of course, but I am ready when my general gets clearance. I have been too long in the city when all the action is against Hannibal and with nothing to do but endless training of my men—and, of course, attend your bacchanals," he replied with a grin.
Flavius gripped his friend's bare, muscular shoulder in a calloused fist. "Ho, I never observed any hesitation on your part when it comes to drinking and sharing the flesh around my table, or the flesh beneath it, for that matter!"
Flavius was the son of one of the most wealthy patricians in Rome. His father was very old and spent most of his time in the country, leaving the city estate to Flavius. He had the means and the freedom to host the largest and most extravagant parties in the massive villa. His guest list included all the notables of an age to enjoy the entertainment and contribute wit and charm to the festivities. Jurius was a favorite because of his sharp mind and handsome body which set boys salivating and women wriggling with desire. He could also discuss the latest political developments with the most polished of statesmen.
Jurius smiled, his teeth flashing brilliantly in the sun, bringing a bloom to his tanned, aquiline face that, it was said, was being used by some statuaries for works symbolizing the handsomest of Rome. The only disturbing element, they said, was the deep blue of his eyes that flashed usually in humor, but also carried portents of violence when aroused. The eyes and the long lashes and eyebrows were most difficult to capture in marble.
"Speaking of flesh, are you heading for the baths? I feel the need for a good massage after a long session with my elders in that stuffy chamber."
Flavius shook his head as they walked slowly down the slope toward the Centrum, pushing their way through hawkers and beggars and slaves hurrying on some errand for their masters. The sight of the two Tribunes together was familiar to many on the streets, but the harlots had long since stopped trying to attract their attentions, so well was their friendship acknowledged.
"Have you forgotten the party I am giving tonight?" Flavius said in answer. "Just a few guests this time. I must see to the preparations, and what matters if a little sweat and grime of the streets taints my body? Some of the entertainers I have engaged for tonight are said to appreciate the mixture of virility and soil, calling it the aroma of the gods."
When Jurius did not answer promptly, Flavius followed his gaze to a young man in a bright blue tunic whose eyes carried the silent message familiar since the beginning of time. But after a moment, Jurius returned his attention to his friend.
"Ah, no, I have not forgotten, and will be there like my stud horse, champing at the bit as usual," he responded. "However, I still hold to the old adage that ‘cleanliness is next to godliness,' although I suppose a little man scent can add spice at times."
"Oh, by the way," Flavius continued, "I think you will be pleased by one of my new additions, a lad from Alexandria. He is said to be descended directly from the Ptolemies, and has the violet eyes to prove it. He will dance for us tonight, and I warrant your virility will respond as never before."
Jurius chuckled. "That is quite a promise, Flavius, considering the excellence of the entertainment you have previously supplied. I will be pleased to tender my opinion, for what it is worth." And so they separated with casual salutes.
Jurius entered the bathhouse with its many-columned halls and pools, nodding to several friends who were in various stages of relaxation. As he bathed, first in hot water and then in cold, he reflected on the rousing and inspiring speech of Flamininus and the possibilities of his service in Greece. It was the talk of the baths and he was questioned repeatedly, since he was known to be Tribune of the general-turned-orator.
He stretched out on the cool marble and welcomed the deep, probing fingers of the bathboys as they worked out the tension in his muscles, smoothing in oils that accentuated the definition in his massive shoulders and back. The boys were especially drawn to the bulging calves and columnar thighs, but were crestfallen when his automatic, towering erection was denied them. So often of late, they murmured to each other, Jurius had ignored their desires, although he was never short with them. They were quite sure he did not have a lover, but he seemed distracted.
The dinner party that night was especially gay, Flavius explaining that the occasion for celebration was the coming to manhood of his nephew, Clodius, who sat near him on his left. He was a gangling youth with only a trace of fuzz on his upper lip, shy in the presence of the adult guests from the best families in Rome.
The boy's eyes grew large as the huge platters of meat and fish and fresh fruit were borne to the table. Flavius added water to the boy's wine, but refilled his goblet whenever it was empty. Each guest had been assigned both a female and male slave to wait upon his every need, but the food and drink appeared uppermost in Clodius' mind. He began to stuff himself with both hands under the indulgent smiles of Flavius and his guests.
In addition to Jurius there were three other guests, and after the initial toasts to Clodius' manhood and flattering predictions of his future feats as man and soldier, the talk turned inevitably to the proposal made by Flamininus to place the Hellenes under the protectorate of Rome.
"Protectorate, indeed!" snorted Gallus. "Conquer them for once and all! Put an end to their milk-sop philosophizing and put them to work for the Empire."
Flavius was gentle in remonstrance. "You forget, Gallus, that the Senate has declared an end to imperialism by the Empire. It is enough to assure peace. As soon as Hannibal is finished permanently, we will be free to strengthen our trade and live without war."
"But does Hellas want our protection?" Erasimus inquired, his mouth full. "Are they so weak that they cannot defend themselves?"
Jurius, perhaps better informed than his companions on the subject, answered his question. "Athens, while being the center for culture and sophistication, has gone so soft that they no longer even attempt to gather an army. And still Sparta breathes fire down their neck, always ready, it seems, to destroy the best in the Hellenes out of jealousy or habit. Their enmity goes back many centuries."
"That's the result of turning swords into ploughshares," Gallus put in. "The same will happen to Rome if we rest content, wanting only peace without action. It is up to us, the younger generation, to prevent the old women of the Senate from surrendering our birthrights." As he spoke his fingers played in the nest of the female slave assigned to him. She flushed and writhed under his rough touch.
"Perhaps it will be enough," chimed in Folonius in his customary role of appeaser, "to declare in Athens favor. That may discourage Phillip and especially Antiochus from proceeding in any more decimation of Greece."
"And what about Egypt? Where do they stand on this issue, since they also have much to lose?" Erasimus responded, as usual with a question.
"Speaking of Egypt," Flavius said loudly to turn attention away from serious discussion, "you have not yet been pleasured by my most recent acquisition, straight from the banks of the Nile."
Seeing that his guests had finished eating, he ordered the slaves to remove the platters and refill the wine goblets, and omitted adding water to Clodius' wine. The boy appeared red in the face already, but still appeared alert. Jurius hoped he would not sicken and spoil the gala event.
At Flavius' signal, many of the lamps were extinguished, leaving only a few dim glows which actually accentuated the darkness. The boy slaves were directed under the table, each to his assigned guest to serve them in any way directed. The female slaves, nude except for golden patches adhering to their breasts, clustered at one end of the room, kneeling in wait.
From behind a curtain, musicians began a drum and cymbal beat, a mysterious, foreign sound that quieted all conversation. From behind the curtain stepped a youth of great beauty. He had the lithe, trim body of a swimmer, every muscle clear and distinct under a glistening, tawny skin. His raven hair drew glimmers from the lamp nearby, and matched the black leather of the harness embracing his shoulders and bisecting his chest to highlight his dark nipples. Golden studs turned the harness into a reflective work of art that followed his every movement with a well-oiled caress. His only other covering was a studded leather belt from which hung a loin cloth cupping his genitals. His striking violet eyes, although shadowed, were set off by incredibly long lashes, but his gaze was fixed above his audience as if calling on Eros for inspiration.
Every man about the table gasped, overcome by his beauty, and they raised themselves on their elbows from their couches to view the whole of him as the maidens drew near around his feet.
He began to quiver with the erotic beat of the drums. As the music increased in volume, he raised his arms slowly as if in supplication. In each hand he held a black leather phallus that quivered with his body, each seeming to assume a life of its own, trembling in anticipation of unrealized ecstasies. The maidens groped upward for him but did not touch his body, in adoration of him and the symbol he represented.
He began to move, one step at a time, toward the table and the guests, and as the music increased his movements became wilder and more enticing. He moved sensuously, the narrow hips circling and his trim thighs, gleaming with scented oils, tensing, each muscle defined in brilliance and then, in turn, shadowed as other muscles took over their function. The girls followed him on their knees, grasping for the unattainable—abject subjects to his magnificence.
The music changed to an African beat, a rapid rhythm on muffled drum and dampened cymbal, and he left the maidens behind, still groping and grasping in vain. He began to twirl about the room, circling the table about which the men lay tensely, groins swelling under his spell. Still the dancer's eyes were fixed on Eros, his true god that dwells in the heart of all men.
Jurius was vaguely conscious of his assigned slave between his legs, caressing his hairy thighs and cupping his testicles warmly as he watched the dancer weave his masculine spell.
Faster and faster he whirled, the ebony hair streaming from his proud head, every eye fixed on his glistening body, every brain whirling with him in fantasy. And as he whirled, the phalluses became symbols of every man there. The black leather clung to him, became part of his love dance to Eros. And then, with a sudden clash of cymbals, he stopped short by the side of young Clodius, the honored guest.
The boy's eyes were protruding from his head. It is doubtful that he had had much experience with either men or women, this being his ascendancy to manhood, and he was obviously shaken by the mysteries implied and about to unfold. He gaped openly to everyone's amusement.
Again the maidens clustered about the dancer's quivering feet, but this time he allowed them to caress him, the gentle hands stroking his glistening legs and upward toward the bulging loin cloth. And as they watched, the bulge swelled larger, the soft pouch stretching upward and outward for all to see. Clodius stared at it fixedly, his brow beading with sweat, and he was not alone. The dancer lowered his gaze at last to fix Clodius in a violet beam for a moment, a look that imprisoned the boy in a hypnotic embrace. Then his gaze returned upward, communing with his god.
Slowly the dancer lowered one of the leather phalluses and held it toward Clodius. Then he turned it toward himself and slowly inserted it into his mouth, the pink lips closing over the bulbous end as his own leather-sheathed phallus throbbed with its own rhythm. Jurius felt liquid warmth surrounding his own erection, the slave under the table imitating the dancer at every step.
Gradually the Egyptian boy took more and more of the black leather in his mouth, and every man groaned with the fantasy that captured their minds. Deeper and deeper he impaled himself until finally, tilting his head back, he thrust the entire organ into his throat, leaving only its handgrip exposed. Jurius felt himself sinking deeper and deeper into the pit of lust in response to the dancer and the warm mouth of the slave boy between his legs.
Clodius' lips grew slack as he gazed at the vision only inches away, and then he cried out, his hips thrashing under the table. The dancer's loin cloth thrust obscenely toward the boy's face, the throbbing sheathed in the leather hood.
Slowly, reluctantly, the dancer withdrew the phallus, his lips trailing off the end finally as if hungry for the last drops of passion. When he finally dropped it to his side, his gaze dropped to circle the room quickly and for the first time Jurius felt the intensity of those gleaming beacons. Violet but with dark circles within circles making them almost purple, pools of royalty mixed with depravity, containing visions only the dancer could see. And then the lids closed swiftly as if to bar all intruders.
Again the music started, a low beat of drums summoning up spirits from the underworld. With a bound and seemingly with no effort at all, the dancer sprang onto the table and a new dance began. The maidens were left behind, the dance strictly masculine and pelvic. Slowly he rotated, his erection still shrouded by the leather, but his hips now took on new life in their movements. His muscles quivered in time to the music, the firm cheeks glistening with the sweat of his body. His knees bent low, the movement of his hips suggesting the wanton need of the harlot.
Again he stationed himself at Clodius' place, this time turned away from him. His hips rotated in the boy's face temptingly, and all could see Clodius straining forward, his mouth slack. Lower and lower the dancer bent toward the boy's protruding tongue.
But then the other hand came down, holding the other phallus, and as his hips thrust and rotated, he slowly inserted it into his own body, between his gleaming buttocks, centimeter after centimeter as the music gradually grew louder.
Every man there felt the clenching heat, the searing caress, as they watched the phallus disappear. They stirred unconsciously on their couches, and Jurius clasped his slave's head tightly between his massive thighs. Every man's groin ached for just a tiny fraction of the dancer's pleasure straight from Eros. Clodius stared as again the phallus was swallowed up in the trembling cauldron.
But it was not enough. The dancer raised the other phallus and again thrust it into his mouth as he again began to twirl and twist, now impaled front and rear with Eros' gifts. His own phallus continued to rise until it pointed at the ceiling, the leather pouch stretched to its utmost. The low pitched wail of a flute was now added to the drums, its pitch rising slowly with no interruption while the drums grew to fever pitch. The youth whirled and struggled, thrusting more and more into his body until the flute reached its zenith. He cried out around the phallus in his mouth, his body jerking and twitching, and the leather pouch was suddenly filled with his passion to pour out thickly, a creamy waterfall that only the gods can produce. The male essence formed a pearl-white pool on the table between his feet while the flute held its screeching note and the cymbal crashed repeatedly.
He held that position, his body shuddering in ecstasy, for the space of a heartbeat, and then he was gone, springing over the heads of the guests and disappearing behind the curtain.
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