Date: Sun, 18 Oct 2009 15:13:24 -0500
From: George Gauthier <georgegauthier@verizonmail.com>
Subject: The Apostate

				The Apostate
			 	The Thirteenth Tale of the Daphne Boy
				by George Gauthier

Author's Note: This is a tale of an eternally youthful young man and those
he encounters in the later Roman Empire during the mid IVth century AD.

This is the thirteenth in a series of tales about an undying youth named
Alexander or Alexandros in this story. (Those readers stricken with fear of
the number thirteen should consider it the fourteenth story.) The other
stories in this series so far are 'Antebellum', set in the American South
just before the Civil War, 'Daphne Boy', set in Roman Syria, 'El Dorado',
about the conquistadors, 'The Erythraean Sea', set in Arabia just before
the rise of Islam, 'Stupor Mundi', about the Sixth Crusade, 'Ferghana', a
tale of the Silk Road in Central Asia, 'Zulu' set mostly in Southern Africa
during the Anglo-Zulu War, 'Sol Invictus' set in the Roman Empire during
the reign of the dissolute androgynous and sexually insatiable gay emperor
Elagabalus 'Reniassance' set in Italy around 1500, 'Gupta' set during the
Golden Age in India in the century AD, 'Palmyra' set during the crisis of
the IIIrd century that nearly destroyed the Roman Empire, and 'Tobago', set
in the Caribbean and South America during the middle of the XVIIth century.

It contains graphic descriptions of the male human body, of consensual and
non-consenual sexual activity between adult males, and considerable
non-sexual violence including combat. If any of this would offend a reader,
read no further. This is not intended for persons younger than an age where
they may freely and legally select their reading matter in whatever
jurisdiction applies. It is offered for entertainment. If it manages to
amuse, intrigue, provoke prurient interest, it will have succeeded in its
aim.

It is as historically accurate in its setting as I could make it, with only
minor poetic license for the sake of the story. This tale, after all, is
fiction. It is not a historical monograph. Only the the emperors Julian
(and Constantius off stage) are actual historical persons. The rest of the
characters are not intended to resemble any actual person living or
dead. The incident in Central Park in the epilogue is largely
autobiographical. The boy I saw there and then was one of the most
beautiful youths I have ever physically laid eyes on. I have never gotten
him out of my mind. He is the real life inspiration for Alexander's looks.

Readers who like these stories might want to try my 'Jungle Boy' series of
tales in a modern setting, posted in the Gay/Authoritarian section of the
archive. See also my series 'Naked Prey' in the historical section, my 'Mer
Boy' series in Gay/Beginnings, and the 'Track and Field' series in
Gay/College. For links to my stories, look on the list of Prolific Authors
on the Archive.

Comments and feedback welcome.

			Chapter 1. Running: Athens 355 AD

I had the wind at my back now, on the home stretch of a long training run
in the country east of ancient Athens. In the heat of a Mediterranean
summer, I welcomed the shade of the trees along the country road, really
little more than a rutted foot path just wide enough for a farmer's cart to
get by. The terrain was much greener than today. The lush forests of the
hills, not yet cut down for fire wood, protected the watershed and
aquifers. Creek and brooks ran everywhere among the lush fields and
pastures. It was a pretty countryside, the green of the hills, the blue of
the sky, the white of the houses and outcrops of rock.

Though it was only midmorning, my nude body glistened with sweat from my
long run, the perspiration pasting strands of my blond hair to my forehead
and dripping off the end of my nose. Nude runners were the rule in those
days whether amateur athletes or the professionals who ran stark naked
carrying urgent messages between cities, much like the later Pony Express
of the American West. In the far distance, I could see the entrance to the
PanAthenaic Stadium, half a kilometer outside the city walls, just across
the River Illisos, a welcome sight indeed.

I wasn't really starting to flag. With my level of fitness I could run much
farther if I had to, but the babbling waters of the river, really a deep
creek, looked very tempting. I resisted the urge to end my run on its banks
and just plunge in. Besides, I had an assignation with the pretty lad Arion
who worked in the stadium, helping to prepare it for the upcoming games.

I ran nude and barefoot as all athletes did in ancient times. The
protection from the calluses on the soles of my feet was nearly as
effective as moccasins. Running shoes would not be invented for many
centuries yet, and there is good reason to think that are much less
beneficial than commonly thought. Distance runners from East Africa have
proved that. Modern shoes are over-engineered with thick soles and heels,
sensors, computer chips and actuators. Still, simple lightweight running
shoes make sense today given the vast expanses of concrete in modern cities
and the quantity of broken glass and rubber tire residue a barefoot runner
would otherwise pick up.

Some of the fastest runners had kept pace with me, some running right
behind another runner for the lessened wind resistence. Aristarkos'
confidence in his own powers led him to provoke me, in his good natured
way, about my chances of winning the foot race in the PanAthenaic games
which were almost as important in Athens as the quadrennial Olympics.

"Aye, its a fine runner that you are, young Alexandros, and tis undeniably
a delight to draft behind you and oggle the twitching and dimpling of your
incomparable butt cheeks, but at your age, you simply lack the necessary
seasoning and hardening. Tis rare indeed that a beardless boy like yourself
wins the foot race at the Games. Especially when each stride you take is
necessarily shorter than my own by half a cubit."

True, I was shorter than the other runners, who tended to be lean and long
limbed. I stood barely five foot five (165 cm), and my slight frame carried
a mere 117 pounds (53 kg) at that time, about the lightest I ever was,
though I had a fairly strong upper storey for a runner and a wiry
musculature generally. Still I was quite slender and boyish -- almost
skinny, with narrow shoulders and a flat but corrugated chest and belly
sporting well-defined abdominals.

"No doubt the boy is qualifying for the foot race only so he can compete
for some other prize." confided Aristarkos to the other runners, like him
in his early twenties. "I expect our favorite pretty boy here sees himself
the victor in the euandrion competition."

That provoked a chuckle among the elite group of front runners that had
kept up the pace. As the name implies (good or pleasant or handsome man)
the euandrion was essentially a beauty contest among the athletes. One
thing you can give Greek culture credit for is a deep and sincere
appreciation of the male form. In that sense, I am very much a Hellene. As
to my chances, if the judges and the crowds preferred the muscled macho
type this year, say a wrestler, then I had no chance at all of winning. On
the other hand, they might as easily choose a cute ephebe, such I appeared
to be.

An ephebe in ancient Athens was originally a youth of some 18-20 years
undergoing military training. I certainly looked like an ephebe and a
youthful one at that, but I was nearly five hundred years old at the
time. I was born in the late second century BC in Germany. I cannot explain
the reasons for my eternal youthfulness, why I looked (and still look) like
a boy in his late teens. For reasons I have never understood, I had stopped
growing and aging before reaching my eighteenth birthday. Now, almost five
centuries later, I still looked like a youth in his late teens. No, there
had been no encounter with a sorcerer nor a pact signed in blood with
eldritch powers. It just happened that way for reasons unknown; something
genetic, I suppose.

Aristarkos was quite wrong about the foot race. I intended to win
it. Aristarkos did not realize that I deliberately held myself back on
training runs with my competitors, so I would not tip my hand. I actually
had a very good chance of winning. With my slow twitch musculature, I was
particularly good at running long distance, and I had centuries of
seasoning and hardening. Another advantage was the stamina conferred by my
uncanny vitality. As long as I trained regularly, I could maintain Olympic
standards of cardiovascular fitness with less time and effort than required
of mortals.

Partly I enjoyed the competition of running, of testing myself against the
best. Another motivation was the survival value of being fleet of foot --
more than once I had simply outrun my foes or gained enough of a lead to
double back, either to hide or to spring an ambush. Mostly I loved running
for its own sake, My strides would take up the hypnotic rhythm of the long
distance runner, scissoring metronomically as they carried me along,
accompanied by the steady beat of my feet as they slapped the earth,
eventually inducing that state of day dreaming and euphoria that moderns
call the runners' high. Very therapeutic for one's mental equilibrium,
something vital to a near immortal like me, someone who had lived thrugh so
much trauma in my many lifetimes.

I also ran for the sheer physical pleasure of it, taking in great lungfuls
of with the expansion and contraction of my rib cage, pumping my arms to
maintain balance and to counter the torque from the opposite leg that would
otherwise twist the body around its vertical axis, pushing off with the
rear leg hard enough that I actually flew through the air very briefly
before my front foot touched the ground. I ran along with my footfalls
making only a light slapping sound as my feet virtually kissed the ground.

The kind of thrill I got from running must go back to the primitive days of
our species when men had to be fleet of foot to run down game or to escape
the dangerous predators their primitive weapons could not cope with. I
suppose the runner's high is nature's way of coping with fatigue, to
encourage us to keep putting one foot in front of another. A long run is
also a good time to think problems through, free from distractions. There
is just you and your thoughts.

I also liked to test myself to my limits, to exult in my strength and
stamina, as an assertion of my masculinity, to feel the wind in my hair and
the sun on my back and on my bare butt. For that matter I relished running
in the rain too. It is more fun than you might think to run through a
downpour, letting it wash over you, streaming down chest and belly,
flushing away the sweat and dust, plus cooling you off.

I cannot help laughing when I get caught in the rain. It makes me feel like
a child again.  Actually the joy of running in the rain is no different
from the delight any boy child takes in deliberately splashing through a
puddle rather than going around it.  What man has not seen (or been) that
headstrong boy splashing straight through, much to his mother's
consternation and dismay. Mothers may grumble but is that not our
birthright?

And yes, I will admit to a certain vanity and even a degree of
exhibitionism. I liked any excuse to show off all of my trim athletic
body. Running nude, my lines flow cleanly from ankle to shoulder without
visual interruption from garments. From actual measurement I know that my
head, torso, and limbs fit the classic proportions of the Golden Section,
considered by aesthetes and mathematicians alike to be especially pleasing
to the human eye. True, I was slight of build, but I always thought that
wiry physiques like mine were more about quality than about quantity.

You might think that running nude, without physical support for the male
genitalia, could injure them, but that is a myth of the late nineteenth
century. Do horses or dogs ever injure their similarly constructed external
genitalia simply from the shaking those organs take while running? The
notion goes back to Victorian prudery. The jockstrap's original and real
purpose was male modesty. With the surge in public sporting events in the
late nineteenth century, athletes took to wearing rubberized canvas girdles
underneath their tight togs so they would not show bulging
contours. Displays of covered but loose genitalia in prudish America could
lead to charges of public indecency.

In an era just at the dawn of scientific medicine, doctors opined that the
supporter was medically indicated for males engaged in strenuous
activity. This was the same bunch of quacks who foisted circumcision on the
public as medically necessary when it was really intended to discourage
masturbation among the young by making it less pleasurable. Stuff and
nonsense. Only ballet dancers ever need support. A dance belt keeps their
genitals out of the way so they won't squeeze their balls between their
inner thighs as they scissor their legs across the stage. And movie stunt
men and baseball catchers might need a protective cup, but that is it.

On my daily training run I exited the city through the Diochares Gate
taking in a long loop past the populated areas like farms, villas, and
hamlets east of the city. We amateur athletes in training for the games
often ran together, but I always drew particular notice from those of both
genders for my striking good looks, something I had come to expect over the
years. (I did say I have a touch of vanity.)

What the onlookers appreciated was comely youth (a "cute twink" in modern
parlance), apparently of no more than seventeen or eighteen summers and
prettier than any boy rightly ought to be. I did not have the classic
muscular physique of the Discus Thrower. I was quite slender and boyish --
almost skinny, with narrow shoulders and a flat but corrugated chest and
stomach sporting well-defined abdominals, prominent ribs and sharp hip
bones, with a firm round rump. The tracery of veins on my forearms, calves,
and belly showed how very little body fat I carried. I like to think my
manhood is more than adequate but I wouldn't be scaring the horses. It
takes both my small hands to cover an erection, but only one when it was
soft, which is convenient when you run around the countryside nude with
your dangly bits bouncing about.

My features were delicate with an almost elfin quality: a flawless bronzed
complexion, a straight nose, finely arched brows, a chiseled jaw line, high
cheekbones, and large green eyes with eyelashes so long they could never
have been meant for a boy, topped by a blond thatch. My naturally pale skin
wore the tawny gold that results from long exposure to the sun, in contrast
to the olive skin tones of the Mediterranean types who populated the
region. It highlighted my blond and green eyed looks, those of a German or
a Gaul, which should make me stand out from the other pretty boys in the
euandrion competition, most of them locals, curly haired brunettes to a
man.

Some of the others agreed about my chances. As Aristarkos himself said.

"It all depends on the fickle public of course, but you are a shoo in,
Alexandros, if they are looking for a pretty face and a coltish build like
yours."

"Actually he reminds me more of fawn more than a colt," Barsos
replied. "With his tawny hide, smooth taut physique, and large innocent
eyes, he might be a fawn transformed to a boy, sort of the reverse of what
happened to Actaeon."

"Wrong, the both of you," another runner named Simonedes opined
confidently. "What he looks like more than anything else is a lovely Daphne
Boy. Believe me, no visit to Antioch is complete without an afternoon's
dalliance with one of those pretty and talented acolytes of the temple of
Apollo in Daphne."

		Chapter 2. Flashbacks

I missed a step when Simonides said that. The man had hit uncannily close
to the truth. Three centuries earlier, I had indeed served as a Daphne
Boy. In Antioch I had been enslaved for an unjust debt and bought by the
temple in the suburb of Daphne to serve as a sacred prostitute or pleasure
boy. Male acolytes, for that is what they called us, offered themselves to
boy lovers. We were very popular because we were always nude, trim and fit,
hand picked for our beauty of face and form, and scrupulous about personal
hygiene. Although we could not chose our clients, the life was pleasant
enough, with bright airy accommodations, good food, and decent treatment
(so we would stay fresh and pretty). The priests even let us keep tips from
our clients so we had a bit of coin to spend on our two days off per month.

I made friends among the other boys and even some of my clients, though I
was glad enough when circumstances freed me before my unchanging youth
could be noticed. In some ways I still have fond memories of my time as a
Daphne Boy, slave though I then was.

Other periods of slavery before and since were not so pleasant. I once
spent a year in the Colosseum as a gladiator, forced to fight for my life
before the multitudes. I became quite the crowd favorite, fighting naked
and armed with two daggers. They called me the killer catamite because I
was regularly taken by my fellow gladiators as well as by rich spectators
who paid my trainer in gold for the chance to fuck me fresh from my latest
combat, still covered with sweat, the dust of the arena, and the blood of
my foe.

In the seventh century I spent three years perpetually nude working at the
dangerous trade of pearl diver in the Persian Gulf. Evening I was taken
sexually by the guards and my fellow divers. It was 'common knowledge' at
the time that sexual activity with women increased buoyancy, so we divers
were kept locked up away from contact with females. The inevitable result
was that same sex relations were nearly universal among us, with me very
much at the bottom of the pecking or rather the fucking order. I could not
resist. Our masters punished us for fighting. They would have punished me
severely if all I was fighting about was my long lost virtue.

My entire existence has been a series of ups and downs, periods of good
fortune alternating with loss of riches, captivity, and enslavement, often
for sexual service. Not to mention all those gang rapes (and beatings) by
bullies, soldiers, fellow prisoners, jailers, sailors, or bandits -- at
least till I mastered the arts of unarmed and armed combat. The curse of my
pretty face and small physique.

The truth is that all my long life I have been both blessed and cursed by a
lovely form and face that inspire admiration and lust in the heart of any
male who appreciates a beautiful boy. I am small and pretty and uniformly
bronzed from habitual nudity looking entirely too much like someone's
catamite or pleasure boy. With my androgynous if wiry physique and
fine-boned features I fell far short of normal male standards in height,
muscular development, and secondary sexual characteristics like beard and
body hair. I was smooth even at the fork of my legs. Since I had stopped
aging before my beard grew in I have never had to shave. My face is smooth,
unblemished, and unlined, while my soft skin is that of a male in the first
bloom of youth. Indeed I looked more like fifteen than seventeen. The
upshot of it all was I often wasn't taken seriously as a male, often with
dire consequences.

I have had much experience of rape and sexual servitude over the
centuries. Enslaved at fourteen by a Roman tribune as a spoil of war, I
became my captor's catamite and body slave until sold on to a merchant in
Massalia, modern Marseille. My new master also kept me nude and used me as
both a messenger and a pleasure boy but later put me to work as a scribe as
well. Set free by his will when he died suddenly of a fall from a horse, I
traveled to the East and made my first fortune in Alexandria, working for
shares in a boy brothel while investing in mercantile ventures on the
side. That is where I took up the Roman habit of having all the hair on
body and limbs, little as it was, wisps really, plucked with
tweezers. After several decades of plucking it stopped sprouting. Now I was
completely hairless and would stay that way forever.

I change locales frequently, assuming new identities, even taking up new
trades: merchant, sea captain, pleasure boy cum brothel keeper, dancer,
amanuensis, arms trainer.  After fifteen years or so, I move on before
people wonder why I do not age. I can hold suspicions at bay for a while
through theatrical tricks that give the impression of getting older even
without makeup. I change my style of clothing, from the casual dress of of
a youth to the flashy dress of a young man and later the more sober raiment
of a mature man. I speak differently, first with the shaky unsure voice of
a youth, then the confident voice of a young man full of himself, later in
the more cautious and thoughtful speech of a man approaching or even in his
thirties. With my looks, my physique, and the theatrical techniques I have
mastered, I can present myself as a young male anywhere from early teens to
late twenties and sometimes beyond.

With some acting on my part, a bit of falsetto in my voice and the adoption
of boyish mannerisms, I could pass for as young as fourteen. For example,
there was the time I volunteered to convey messages, committed to memory,
to allies of a city under siege.

These soldiers were ravaging the agricultural lands near the city, though
not the remoter villages, a common tactic in ancient warfare, burning
fields of grain, girdling or felling olive trees, that sort of thing. The
purpose of this aggressor's version of the scorched earth policy was to
demoralize the enemy whether as punishment or to force a surrender and a
favorable peace treaty. The patrols were not looking to take prisoners or
to enslave captives.

I pretended to be a servant boy who had slipped out of his bed at night and
went over the walls, trying to reach his family farm in the foothills
rather than stay in the city to endure the siege. Caught by the soldiers, I
went on a charm offensive, trying to look harmless and appealing. There I
stood, blonde hair streaming down to my shoulders, nude and hairless and
sweaty, boyishly cute and wide eyed, looking ever so sweet and innocent and
frightened. With any luck they would let me pass, to rejoin my family,
indulging me as a plucky lad who had taken a big risk rather than huddle
safe behind walls. Soldiers admire courage and pluck.

It worked too, Though I got stopped several times by enemy patrols, they
eventually let me pass by, but there was a quid pro quo. I had to surrender
myself for their pleasure. I pleaded, quite uselessly I knew, but necessary
to stay in character, putting a falsetto and quaver in my voice, making it
sound very young and shaky, as I told the soldiers:

"Please, sirs. I am a good boy. I had never known a man. Don't shame me by
using me like a woman."

"A virgin, eh? This gets better and better! " one soldier barked, laughing.

"For pity's sake, spare me, I beg you. You would send me home with my shame
written on my face, marked as the wanton boy who gave himself to the
soldiers."

"Sorry kid, but that is your problem. Besides, it is not like you are
giving yourself to us. We are taking your cherry."

That provoked a general chuckle. Without any animosity but with a soldier's
gruff humor they raped me, forcing me to my knees or to all fours, plugging
me at both ends, spurting their juices into me. All the while I bawled
convincingly from the shame and pain attendant on the loss of my
virginity. (I would make a fine actor in the movies if I could afford the
notoriety and permanent record.)

I had to get through three patrols that day. No point trying to conceal
myself in open country with my yellow hair standing out so readily against
the green of foliage. The later patrols could see the finger marks on my
ass and upper arms where the other soldiers had grabbed me and spread my
legs, holding me down or gripping my buttocks as they thrust into me. That
told them that I had been taken earlier. Indeed they could smell semen
oozing out of my hole or crusted on my face and ass and back and hair. So I
had to put up with their mockery in addition to rape and humiliation.

Resistance was pointless. There I was alone, outnumbered, surrounded,
without armor or weapons, barefoot, and naked, a mere stripling at the
mercy of grown men. I had to stand there and let them paw me, pulling my
hair, sliding the blades of their hands into my crack, stroking my belly,
weighing my manhood. It was as if I belonged to them to do with as they
willed. My wishes were quite beside the point. They did it as a matter of
right, because they had the power and I had none.

Not that they were particularly bad men. Given the times, they were
ordinary soldiers on the prowl. They did me no permanent injury and they
did let me go afterwards, with an encouraging slap to the rump, wishing me
good speed in reaching my home farm. I will give them that.

Still, why is it that macho men are so gratified when a pretty boy like me
gets into a jam or falls into their power? Is it simple jealousy or do they
think we twinks are getting our just desserts, if only to preserve some
cosmic balance, upset by our unearned good looks. More than once I have
been assaulted by gangs of men eager to prove their masculinity by raping
me. Teaching me a lesson, they called it. A lesson in what -- humility or
being a real man?

Could I be anything other than what nature made me, a sexual submissive, a
bottom boy, a small slender youth, much too pretty for his own good,
cautious from life experience, yes, but driven by strong sexual urges
centering on two hungry holes needing to be filled. I admit there is a lot
of truth in that description but how did that give these men the right to
take me for their pleasure on their terms. Did I not have a right to choose
who might enjoy my body? In the world of antiquity the answer to that
question was no. The young, the small, the poor, the slave, and the
powerless did not get to choose. We were there to be taken. That fact that
I often went totally naked merely indicated that I was likely asking for
it.

Slave or free, I had experience only of male sex. With females, I am a
complete virgin. I am by nature a bottom boy, a sexual submissive. I prefer
the passive role and don't mind light bondage or a bit of spanking. If ever
a boy was born to be fucked, to submit to the lusts of other males, I am
that boy. I know that and accept that; indeed I am gratified with and proud
of my sexuality. That is why, even though I usually earned my living as a
merchant or businessman my next most usual occupation, by choice or not,
was catamite, sex slave, pleasure boy, joy boy, kept boy, rent boy, call it
what you will. It is an honest way to make a living. I make no
apologies. At least my extraordinary vitality has always protected me from
social diseases.

			Chapter 3. The Good Life

We runners finally reached the stadium and swept around the track for a
victory lap. I pulled back on my pace very slightly to let several runners
sweep past me, just another bit of misdirection on my part. No sense
letting the competition know what I was capable of when I made a maximum
effort. I don't think I fooled Aristarkos, not from the way he winked as he
ran by.

The stadium is a magnificent structure, beyond the city walls, located
between the twin pine-covered hills of Ardettos and Agra and constructed
entirely of marble. It could hold 50,000 spectators (80,000 today after its
reconstruction in the 1890s for the revival of the modern Olympic Games).

Just as I hoped, there was lovely Arion, a curly haired beauty sixteen
years old pretending to work while he waited for me. He was pounding the
earth of the track with a hoe-like implement to prepare it for the
games. Like any young slave in those days assigned to heavy work in the
heat of the day he went naked except for the straw hat perched on the top
of his head. I thought that a nice touch, a sartorial accent that
emphasized his sexy nudity. He was bent over knocking clods, arms swinging,
muscles bunching intoxicatingly under his olive skin, shoulder blades
moving like winglets on his back, spinal bumps forming a trail down his
back toward the cleavage of his skinny ass. From behind I caught glimpses
of his dangly bits between slender thighs. He had looked for me among the
front runners, but I had held back which let me sneak up on him. Sure
enough, I came on him from behind and landed a good natured smack to his
familiar rump.

"Yikes! That smarts Alexandros, er, I mean, sir." the boy said, looking
about anxiously.

"I'll make it up to you, my pretty."

In public we had to maintain a certain decorum. He was a slave, while I was
a free man, though the difference might be hard to discern at that
moment. Like most slaves in ancient times, the boy did not go about
shackled or under guard. His limbs were as free from chains as my own. Only
slaves like those in the silver mines at Laurion or convicts laboring on
public works went shackled. As we stood there chatting, two sweaty nude
youths of more than ordinary good looks, you might be hard pressed to tell
the slave from the free youth. But the difference was clear to those who
could see beyond the obvious. The posture of slaves is different. It is not
that they actually cringe but in both stance and walk, they lack
confidence; their movements are tentative with visible deference and
hesitancy when they deal with free persons.

In Athens in those days, I posed as one Alexandros of Burgdigala (modern
Burgandy in France), sometime student and wastrel nephew of a wealthy
Gallo-Roman merchant in far off Gaul, since deceased, who had sent me to
Athens to complete my education. This was one of my occasional breaks from
the hustle and bustle of business, a sabbatical if you like. Except for
athletic training, most of my time was devoted to leisure, though I did
occasionally attend lectures at the Neoplatonic Academy, the successor to
the institution found by Plato seven centuries before. I went to the
theater and regularly visited the gymnasium and the public baths. And I
spent quality time with Arion, slave though he then was.

Understand I have no use for the institution of slavery. I had tried to buy
the boy in order to set him free, but he belonged to the state, the polis
of Athen. State slaves were simply not for sale. My long term plan was that
when I was ready to leave Athens, I would arrange for the boy to escape and
join me in some far away locale.

Given the early hour, the only kind of assignation we could manage then was
a stolen moment in a secluded corner of the stadium where we eagerly fucked
one another standing up. He leaned into a pillar and propped his weight on
his arms as I drove into him. I licked the sweat off his shoulder and
kissed and mouthed the flesh of his deltoids. My hands ran over his slender
torso, gratified that he was quite smooth, with very little body hair, just
tufts in the usual places and only the lightest dusting on forearms and
lower legs. When it was Arion's turn, I held onto a iron bar overhead while
he pronged me face to face. Our sweaty bodies joined in the familiar rhythm
of sexual congress to a satisfactory climax.

I am attracted to two kinds of males, twinks and masters. I love sex with
pretty boys, youths much like myself or Arion, supercute twinks in modern
terms. And I crave sex with powerful older males too. The difference is
that in a sex romp with another pretty boy, I am having fun with an
equal. We might engage in sixty nine or trade off taking the active
role. With a boy, I feel energized as we jump into bed and roll around
kissing and laughing, sucking and fucking. Sex with another boy is an
absolute delight. By contrast sex with an older masterful male, is more
serious, a response to a deep felt need or craving.  With such a man I go
all quiet and submissive, ready to follow orders, to sink to my knees and
worship his manliness. If he wants to tie me up and take a strap or switch
to me, that's OK too. I am there to be used, though within limits of course
- light bondage and humiliation but no more than that. I am no masochist. I
don't derive pleasure from the sensation of pain.

Twice a week, I borrowed the boy for an evening. I paid the door keeper a
monthly stipend rather than a series of small bribes, to let the boy slip
out the gate and to let him back in at midnight. I took him to my home or
sometimes to a tavern for a meal far more tasty and nutritious than his
usual fare. We might listen to the music of entertainers or simply talk. Or
we would go to bed and romp for half the night. I cannot tell you how
exciting it was for me when I had my arms around his sweaty body and the
boy locked his ankles around my back, his slender legs pressing in on my
ribs, begging me to drive ever deeper as he tossed his head back and
forth. Or how much I liked it when he took command of our coupling, putting
me into a kind of wrestling hold, on my knees, face in the pillow, rump in
the air, while he mounted me from the rear, driving his steel hard teenage
cock deep into my fundament.

Besides a cute face and sexy body, the boy had a fine sense of humor, a
good mind, a lively curiosity and a thousand questions. I enjoyed his
company immensely, and I don't mean just in bed. As for that, he was highly
sexed as only a sixteen year old can be, at the peak of his physical
prowess and sexual drive. His physical responses to our lovemaking were
energetic, enthusiastic, and unfeigned. With my long experience as a sex
slave and pleasure boy, I would have known otherwise. Arion really liked me
and I him. I cannot really say we were in love at that point, but we made a
good couple. If only I could set free, but how. Even if I arranged his
escape I would immediately come under suspicion because of our
relationship.

Although originally a Greek city, Athens had adopted many Roman customs and
institutions. Among these were the public baths or thermae. (Also
gladiatorial contests in the arena, alas!) Centers for public bathing and
socializing, the baths were extremely important in civic life. Town
dwellers usually went daily and spent several hours there, accompanied by
one or more slaves. After paying the fee they would strip naked and put on
sandals to protect their feet from the heated floors. There one could avail
oneself of the library, take light refreshment, or get a massage. The baths
included a palaestra, or outdoor gymnasium where men would engage in
various ball games and exercises, such as wrestling, lifting weights or
throwing the discus and especially swimming.

The ancients made much less fuss (and also much more) of public nudity than
we do today. True, modern Western society is imbued with sexuality, from
our clothing styles to our fiction to our advertising, but public nudity
itself is still frowned upon. In ancient times, such prudery was virtually
non-existent.

Public nudity was an adaptation to practical necessity without any overtly
sexual meaning to it. Workers in any hot, sweaty, or dirty occupation
labored in the nude. Glass blowers, bakers, brick makers or potters firing
their wares in the kiln coped with the intense heat by working
unclothed. Workers in dirty occupations worked in the nude to keep their
clothing clean. Cloth was expensive and soap and detergents
non-existent. Hence nudity was usual for carpenters and builders and
shipwright, sailors and fisherman. Also youths pulling carts through the
streets, rowers on galleys (usually volunteers or paid labor, not slaves),
athletes, and males from all walks of life who congregated at the baths and
the gymnasium. Then there were the younger and better looking male slaves
who were kept nude by their masters for decorative reasons. Greeks did so
admire the male form.

Cities in the ancient world were dotted with statues of heroic nudes,
emperors, successful generals, or local heros. Modern cities tend to put
their nudes out of sight, indoors in museums, patronized by the upper
classes rather the broad masses. Even such discretion does not satisfy the
prudish. Remember that lame brain American Congressmen who wanted to cover
the bare breast of an otherwise clothed female statue in the Capitol
Rotonda? I wonder if he was the one who thought up "Freedom Fries"? (Full
disclosure: I am a committed Francophile, and I think the French get a lot
of undeserved bad press here.)

Came the day and I took the laurels for both the foot race and the beauty
contest in the PanAthenaic Games. I stood before a crowd of tens of
thousands, proudly displaying my nude body for their admiration and my own
gratification. I got a real charge out of that, and I dined out on my
laurels for the rest of my stay in Athens. Everyone wanted to host one who
was not only victorious but officially deemed the most desirable male of
the games.

I can tell you that I was more pleased with my victory in the race than in
the euandrion. The race was something I had trained hard for; it was as
much a result of hard work as of natural gifts. By contrast, my win in the
euandrion was really just the luck for being born as I was. They later
carved my name on a stele at the foot of the Acropolis, though that stone
was lost over the centuries. Aristarkos came in second and was a good sport
about it. I made it up to him in my own way.

Another example of casual nudity in ancient Greece would be the symposium,
a gathering of nude youths and clothed men. The evenings of the well-off
classes in Greco-Roman civilization were often devoted to symposia or
drinking parties. The guests, that is the grown men, would recline on
couches arrayed against the three walls of the room facing the door. The
youths went nude and sat upright on their couches as the companions and
eromenos (lover) of the older male. It was a public declaration of their
physical relationship and a chance for the men to show their boys off, not
to mention feel the boy up the entire evening. Unaccompanied boys such as
myself could participate too but we sat instead of reclined on a couch. I
went nude like any eromenos and my small stature and slight build and lack
of body hair made me appear as young as any of them.

The symposium was a forum for males to talk, to debate, to brag, to
introduce youths into aristocratic society, or simply to party. Symposia
might be held to celebrate victories in athletic and poetic contests. It
was a chance for serious conversation or for light banter depending on the
mood and the mix of guests.

The wine was usually well diluted with water and always served with food. A
symposiarch presided over the occasion and decided how far to dilute the
wine. We were not trying to get drunk. Alcohol is a social lubricant. We
drank in moderation, always keeping with Greek ideals of restraint and
propriety. Indeed the food helped absorb the alcohol too, so matters seldom
got out of hand at a symposium. The alcohol in the wine purified the well
water, much like chlorine in a municipal water system today.

Servers drew wine from a large jar called a krater into pitchers which were
carried to the guests by nude servant boys in their early teens, beauteous
lads every one of them, with their soft skins plucked hairless, lightly
scented, and oiled to make them shine. The prettiest among them hoped to
attract the attention of a patron, to become an eromenos in their own right
or perhaps a body servant.

The men would stroke the lissome bodies of the servers as the lads passed
among us, with special attention to their chests, bellies, rumps, and their
inner thighs. It was deemed gauche to fondle their genitals. The youths
took these attentions in stride, regarding them as tactile compliments on
their youthful looks. Censorious moderns would doubtless denigrate such
harmless fun as sexual harassment or even salacious assault. Still there
was no doubt that sexual titillation rather that practical necessity was
the reason the serving boys were nude. Witness one frequent guest, an
inveterate pincher of the bottoms of young lads.

"If only young Alexandros here could be put to work carrying pitchers of
wine to our couches." old Sosthenes liked to observe. "He is by far the
prettiest lad here and like the serving boys is already featherless, oiled,
pomaded, and nude. What a shame his lovely body so seldom comes within
reach. Surely such comeliness was meant to be shared."

"You are just jealous that he chooses the company of other guests to your
own, old man." Aristarkos observed. "You should have realized by now that
no boy likes to be pinched on his rump the way you always do. The serving
boys have no recourse, but this lad does, and he wisely steers clear of
you. He responds to a softer touch, as I can vouch for from happy
experience."

Aristarkos had always been gentle with me during our occasional
assignations. I was attracted to his physical vigor, rugged good looks,
sunny personality, and his consideration for his partner needs. A fine man,
all in all.

I was a popular guest at symposia not only as the prettiest lad there but
as a lively conversationalist. I could hold my own with philosophers and
literary men, surprised that one so young was so well read in the Greek and
Latin classics. I could speak knowledgeably of history and the grand
strategy of the empire, and its enemies, especially the Persians, the only
civilized enemy Rome had on its borders. The Germans were a mortal danger
too, but they were a collection of tribes and sometimes a federation of
tribes fielding armies of undisciplined warriors. Persia was a state, a
vast empire in its own right, with an army of trained soldiers.

Then there were my poetry recitations. I could recite from memory long
stretches of the works of Homer and Virgil and Hesiod, plus poems of
Martial, Callimachus, and others. In some cases, their works survive only
in my memory. Alas, so much of ancient literature has been lost. In the
nineteenth century, I published what I could remember of the lost works of
certain poets, but it had to be an anonymous work claiming only that the
poems were written in imitation of the various poets. Imitative poetry was
once a chief means of mastering Latin and Greek and of studying verse as
well. I could hardly come clean and say that I remembered them from
centuries earlier.

I liked to circulate at the parties, moving from couch to couch as the mood
took me.  Not everyone was drawn to boys, so sometimes it was just for good
conversation. For others it was a chance to play with a sexy nude boy
without any kind of committment. It was only natural for the man I sat with
to take what might otherwise have been viewed as considerable liberties:
stroking my rump, slipping the blade of a hand into my cleavage, running
their hands over my ribs, tweaking my tiny red nipples even fondling my
manhood and stealing sweet kisses. Sometimes Aristarkos massaged my
shoulders, relieving the soreness I developed from holding and pumping my
arms on long runs.

It usually went no further than that: heavy petting. A symposium was rarely
an occasion for an orgy. There were times that I found myself being lead to
a cubiculum (bedchamber) for a none too discreet shag -- the rooms in Roman
houses did not have doors. Also the odors of sex clung to my body when we
returned to the symposium. I cannot really say I felt embarrassed. I am
quite comfortable with my sexuality. I should hope so after so many
centuries as a bottom boy.

			Chapter 4. Julian

One of the more popular guests at symposia that spring and summer was young
Julian, later emperor in his own right. More properly named Flavius
Claudius Julianus, he was later called the Apostate by the Christians and
the Philosopher by his supporters. Julian at that time was simply a young
noble, a cousin of the reigning emperor Constantius II, and one of the few
surviving members of the family of Constantine the Great, who had died in
337 AD. The family had been nearly wiped out in an earlier purge engineered
by Constantius and Julian himself was held prisoner for a time after the
downfall of his tyrannical half brother Gallus, the Caesar (junior emperor)
of the East. Cleared with the Empress's help, he was sent to the Athens for
his higher education. He was twenty-four.

Even before his rise to fame, I could tell he was an exceptional man, a
perspicacious thinker and perspicuous writer, later on a reforming
administrator and inspired and inspirational military leader. He had a
strong face that indicated strength of purpose, a trimmed beard, and short
brown hair.

I was pleased that he responded to my wit and conversational gambits even
though he clearly had no interest whatever in my charms, if you take my
meaning. He later told me that "all this Greek fuss over pretty boys"
struck him as rather silly, but he did not share the orthodox Christian
abhorrence of homosexuality either.

We talked animatedly about metaphysics and epistemology. He had a keen
mind. Still, for all his clarity of thought, his was one of those minds
that needs to believe in something whether it is Orthodox Catholicism,
Arianism, or Neoplatonic philosophy. He found my hesitancy to commit and my
inveterate skepticism challenging if sometimes alarming. Nevertheless we
became friends. I sometimes walked him home to his lodgings, which were
rather modest considering his imperial connection.

The streets of ancient cities were not illuminated at night. One usually
had servants or slaves carry torches to light the way. One particular
evening there was only the two of us with a single torch, but it was not
its light that first alerted me to danger. The street was much too quiet
for the hour, quiet in the way the forest falls silent when a leopard is on
the prowl. As we crossed a square, I doused the torch in the fountain. I
did not want danger to come out of its blinding glare. Our assailants took
that as a signal to pounce. They outnumbered us five and our two.

We put our backs to the intersection of a wall and a portico to guard our
flanks and drew our weapons. Julian wielded a gladius, the short stabbing
sword of the Roman infantry. I drew two daggers, arming myself as I had in
my days in the arena. Twin blades provide both offense and defense, which
is why I like that combination. Now Julian was a good fighter, killing one
deftly and finishing off another I had stabbed, but it was my fighting
skills that saved us. I danced my way through our opponents, my blades
doing their deadly work.

I do not boast when I say that after centuries of training, practice, and
experience in fights against soldiers, bandits, pirates, gladiators, and
footpads, that I was one of the most dangerous men on the planet. Add my
agility and speed, plus their failure to achieve surprise, and it is fair
to say that the would-be killers had virtually no chance of prevailing. I
could have killed all five with little trouble. Not for nothing had I been
called the Killer Catamite of the Colosseum.

Neither of us cared to take prisoners. If simple robbers, their motive was
clear. If assassins, they would have been hired for the task through
intermediaries and would know nothing worth telling. Besides, if there is
one thing you learn in combat, it is that when you are fighting for your
life, that is no time for halfway measures. You had better make a maximum
effort, and don't be squeamish.

"By the gods, where did you learn to fight like that, Alexandros?"

"I would rather not get too specific, Highness. Let's just say that I have
hidden depths."

"Well I won't press you, young sir. I would call you my friend, Alexandros,
and I hope you will do the same."

"Done, and gladly, friend Julian." We grasped arms in the Roman version of
a handshake, sealing our bond.

We did not report the clash to the city watch, the better to avoid legal
entanglements. No one would really miss those thugs anyway. I had thought
the hand of the emperor might be behind it, but it turned out I was utterly
wrong. The emperor did not want Julian dead, he wanted him to share in the
rule of the empire, as Caesar in the West.

Like Diocletian before him, the emperor had come to realize that the Roman
Empire was too vast for any one ruler to deal with. It stretched from
Scotland to Syria, from the Atlantic to the Caucasus mountains. The empire
faced threats from restless barbarians across its Rhine and the Danube
borders and from the Sassanian Persian Empire in the East. Even with the
excellent Roman roads, rivers and sea transport, communications were
slow. Especially slow was the transfer of legions from east to west or vice
versa. In recent years the emperor had crossed the empire back and forth to
expel German invaders, to put down the rebellions by his own generals
Magnentius and Sylvanus, and to contain the ambitions of Shapur II, the
Persian king. Constantius wanted a permanent representative in Gaul,
someone he could count on to hold the Germans back and not try to usurp the
throne while he took care of the problems of the East.

The emperor counted on the familial tie, on Julian's warm relationship with
the Empress and on an arranged marriage between Julian and his own sister
Helena to keep Julian loyal. Nevertheless he inteneded to keep Julian on a
short leash, using him really mostly as a figurehead, and allowed him only
a small staff of retainers. I was to be one of them.

Mind I usually try to steer clear of rulers and the powerful, not caring to
be caught up in their struggles for power and precedence. Occasionally I
responded to the charisma or charm of a man such as Julian and, centuries
later, Frederic II Hohenstauffen, the Holy Roman Emperor. Not only had I
pledged my friendship, I had an ulterior motive. I made a bargain with
Julian to serve him for five years if he had Arion set free from
slavery. Only someone with imperial authority could command the release of
a public slave.

Julian accepted my terms though he enjoined us to be discreet when we
reached Gaul. The peoples of the West were less tolerant of same gender
relationships than Greeks. When Arion learned how I had arranged his
freedom, he could hardly contain his gratitude.

"Oh Alexandros, I cannot believe what you have done, binding yourself into
imperial service to set me free. I was born into slavery. It is hard to
think of myself as a free boy."

"Know this Arion, you are completely free, not only of slavery but of any
obligation to me. If you wish to stay in Athens, I will provide for
you. You don't have to come with me to Gaul."

I meant to show him that his freedom was real, that he was not simply
changing one master for another. Like any insecure youngster he took it the
wrong way. His face registered his dismay, his eyes glistened with tears
and his chin quavered as he asked:

"Does that mean that you don't love me, Alexandros, that you don't want me?
Am I to be cast aside?"

I folded the boy in my arms assuring him with words and caresses that
nothing was farther from the truth. Yes, I wanted him, but on his terms,
not on mine. I did not want him to stay with me out of a sense of
obligation or from economic necessity.

"Sweet Arion, we are both free. If we are to belong to each other, it must
by our own free will. I offer you both a job at fair wages and a place in
my heart and in my bed. Now if that is your choice, go jump into that bed
so we can make love."

Maybe it was the inspiration of freedom, maybe gratitude, maybe just our
sex drives, but that evening of lovemaking was the sweetest and mostly
deeply emotional of our lives together.

So we journeyed to Gaul, arriving in mid winter. I rather liked the quiet
of the forests and the blanket of snow on the ground, and the ice covered
rivers and lakes. It reminded me of my childhood in Germany. In Athens I
had tried to prepare Arion for a northern winter, obtaining warm garments
and footwear before we started out. Arion had lived all his life in Athens
where even in the winter months temperatures were moderate, lows in the low
forties (5-7¡ C) and highs in the fifties (12-15¡ C).

From the very start, when I had promised him loads of fun in snowball
fights, he was skeptical of the concept of solid or frozen water. He was
certain I was pulling his leg when I mentioned walking on and skating
across frozen ponds. Water solid enough to support your weight? The look of
disbelief on Arion's face was priceless.

It was a real shame that the first good snowfall after we arrived was far
too dry to pack well for snowballs. I tried anyway, squeezing as hard as I
could, even taking my mittens off, hoping that compression and the heat of
my hands would bind the snow flakes together. It was no good. Every
snowball that I tried to make crumbled away in my hands.

Arion's eyes glittered with amusement. Snowballs, huh? He stood there,
hands on hips, his entire stance a challenge, smirking at my
discomfiture. Well he was at that age when a lad rebels against his
elders. I could not take offense. I actually found his look of triumph
endearing rather than irritating. It meant that my Arion was growing up. He
had just turned seventeen.

Two weeks later we got a fall of the heavy wet stuff. That was when I wiped
that smirk off my lover's face with half a dozen well-placed hits. After
the first two, he was less an opponent than a target. I threw one to the
chest that splashed onto his face, blinding him temporarily. The next hit
was to the back of his head as he turned away to "reload". He hunkered down
then, as I unloaded the rest on his back. It was an unequal contest. With
my experience, I could pack a snowball in instants with deft movements of
my hands and launch them with a proper windup. I teased him for throwing
his like a girl. He did fling one at my head, but I turned and bent over,
catching it on my shoulder.

I was busy the next few days, helping Julian polish his writings. One
afternoon I took some time off, walking outside the city walls to meet
Arion on the other side of the parade ground. He had challenged me to
another snowball duel. Although I wondered what he was up to with this
sudden challenge, I was also proud of the boy. His bold challenge meant he
had begun to assert himself, starting to dispense with the servile
deference of a boy born into slavery. I walked past soldiers who were
training nearby, waving to some whom I knew from sparring on the training
field. My skills with a blade were a means of gaining credibility with the
military. Yes, I was on Caesar's staff, but to be effective, I had to be
respected in my own right.

What I did not know was that Arion had arranged an ambush. Long before I
got within throwing range of him, he started flinging snowballs at me. They
came in hard and fast. He had made up a stack of ammo ahead of time and was
using a sling to propel his missiles far beyond the range I could engage
him, just throwing with my arm. He evidently hoped that, overwhelmed by his
fire and unable to reply, I would have no choice but to make an ignominious
retreat, conceding the field to him.

The soldiers cheered Arion's efforts, rooting for the underdog. They had
watch our snowball fights before and admired the boy's pluck in taking me
on three times, despite being outclassed. Arion acknowledged their cheers,
brandishing his fists in sign of victory, his pretty features set in a
combination of mischief and delight. Though it thought that very fetching,
I couldn't afford to lose face. Anyway, it was high time the boy learned
that I was made of sterner stuff than he imagined.

As any infantryman will tell you, when you are caught in an ambush, the
only thing for it is a forthright charge into the ambush.  Don't hunker
down in the kill zone, and don't try reversing course. Count that door to
be closed behind you. I put my head down and drew my cloak around me. Using
my woolen hood as a shield I plowed forward through the snow. Arion's
initial peals of laughter turned to cries of dismay as I inexorably closed
the distance. He wailed:

"Oooh nooooo! Stop! You've gotta stop. Heeeelp! Someone help me! He is
unstoppable."

I finally reached the boy, blocking his last missile with my forearm, then
I was upon him. With a endearingly boyish look of alarm on his pretty face
he turned to run, but I bore him down. He fell face first into a snow
drift. I took the opportunity to shove a handful of snow under his collar
provoking another wail of dismay. He tried to buck me off, thrashing
inexpertly, struggling to get loose, but I was an expert in unarmed combat,
not to mention riding bucking boys. I soon had him in an arm lock and
dragged him over to a downed tree trunk. He sensed what was coming and
tried to talk me out of it with a combination of threats and pleas.

"Don't you dare, Sandros. If you do I'll.... I'll... "

"You'll do what, pretty one?", I inquired softly, calling his bluff.

"I .. I ... I dunno. Oh Sandros, I am so sorry. Really I am. Please, I'll
be good."

But I was inexorable. I sat down on the tree trunk and laid him over my
knees. He wailed even more when I threw his cloak aside and yanked down his
Gallic style trews, baring his ass. He kicked his legs ineffectually.

"I'll freeze solid, with my ass bared to the sky like this!"

"No you won't, not if I warm it up for you first. I'll soon have this
pretty butt of yours red and glowing."

I did spank him a few times but only enough to make my point. Careful of
frostbite on his tender parts, I soon stood him back on his feet and let
him pull up his trews. He tried to pull together the torn shreds of his
dignity. It helped that the soldiers were banging their swords on their
shields and cheering for him, not for me, the actual victor. The centurion
raised his stentorian voice to give him pointers on how to do better next
time:

"Nice try there kid! You got blondie real good that time. Fine tactics,
using the sling for greater range. But in a fight, you need a stout defense
as well as an offense. Remember, shield as well as sword."

He looked at their grinning faces and then at my own and realized I was not
really angry at him for tricking me into an ambush. That restored his good
humor.

"I almost had you there, Sandros," he said proudly. "I drew up a battle
plan, and I practiced with my sling."

"True enough, young soldier, but you neglected to prepare proper defensive
works, and a good general always leaves himself an avenue of retreat," I
intoned with mock professional severity, getting a quick nod and a wink
from the centurion.

Arion inclined his head in agreement, a big smile on his face now that our
battle was set aside, happy to be restored to my good graces. Our makeup
sex that night was fantastic.

A couple of weeks later I got another challenge from Arion. I nodded as I
passed the soldiers on the training field, who had suspended their sparring
to watch our mock combat. Suspecting a second ambush I circled around the
challenge ground instead of heading straight in like last time. I found the
boy ensconced behind a snow fort, walls built shoulder high, a tangle of
dead branches in front guarding it like a cheval de frise. It did not seem
like much of a defensive work in my opinion, so I charged into Arion's
barrage, trying to close with him as before.

That was when I found out that the snow fort was just the lure for a
trap. As I stepped out onto the flats in front of the snow fort, my feet
flew out from under me. I landed hard on ice, half-stunned and slid part
way toward Arion's position from my momentum. What had looked like an
ordinary snow covered field was actually a sheet of slick ice with a thin
layer of snow shoveled on top as camouflage to fool the unwary -- me.

I could get no purchase on the icy surface with boots or mittened
hands. The ice was so slippery I couldn't even crawl on hands and knees. I
tried low crawling on my belly but got nowhere, thrashing uselessly on the
slick surface. Meanwhile I was being pelted by Arion's snowballs. They came
in hard and fast. It was very frustrating. There I lay sprawled out on my
belly, covering my head with my arms and mittens as the boy pounded me
mercilessly with a seemingly endless supply of snowballs, hooting and
chortling all the while. Finally I had to acknowledge that I was beaten.

"OK, OK. Quarter, I cry quarter. I surrender. I give up." I yelled.

Arion clambered to the top of his defensive wall, arms raised, and let out
a yell of triumph to mark his victory. Then he started strutting his way
towards me, a smug look on his pretty face. Suddenly his feet flew out from
under him and he found himself sprawled back and butt down on the ice. He
had been so busy gloating that he had unthinkingly stepped out onto the ice
and got caught in his own trap.

"Help! Help!" he cried.

"Don't look at me," I gave him back. "I am in the same predicament. Which
is all your doing anyway, my young friend."

Suddenly we heard laughter as the soldiers who had been watching approached
our battlefield. At the centurion's command two of them threw us ropes and
pulled us onto snowy ground where we could keep our feet under us.

"Well done, Arion," the centurion declared clapping the lad on the
shoulder. The victory is yours, young soldier. You caught him cold in your
trap which left him helpless with no choice but to cry for quarter. Just be
careful next time to not get caught in your own snare."

The boy preened, immensely proud of his accomplishment, as he had every
right to be. He had created the sheet of ice by first shoveling away the
snow into a pile, then carrying buckets of water to the flat area in front
of his fort to let it freeze solid. When they saw what the plucky lad was
up to, the soldiers had pitched in, hauling water and shoveling the piled
snow back on top after it froze, wiping out the signs of their activity as
well. But the plan was all Arion's. He was turning into a fine little
soldier and something of the garrison's mascot.

I never told him that with the two daggers I had in my boots, I could have
gotten out of the trap readily enough. The blades would have penetrated the
ice to the earth underneath, allowing me to pull myself to the edge of the
inundated area. Why spoil the boy's victory, especially one that showed he
was turning into a strong willed young man?

			Chapter 5. The Apostate

"You wound me, Alexandros," Julian said, grabbing his chest in mock
distress, as he reviewed my editorial emendations for his latest literary
effort. "Here I thought I had expressed myself so cogently, inspired by my
subject. Still, these suggestions will undoubtedly tighten my prose. Once I
make the changes, you can turn it over to Arion to pen the master copy. The
boy has the clearest hand I have ever seen. You did well to teach him his
letters. He could make a good living as a scrivener, if it came to that. I
leave it to you to proof his manuscript before sending it out to be
copied."

"I also must compliment you on your command of the finer points of Greek
and Latin grammar and your command of the classics. Too bad your interest
never extended to Christian writings. That would help me prepare my
rebuttals of their theologians."

"I am not sorry for that sire. Christian apologetics bores me."

"I quite understand."

Julian had long since abandoned Christianity and turned to an eccentric
form of paganism, one heavily influenced by Neoplatonic philosophy. He
looked on the traditional myths as allegories, where the Olympian deities
were aspects of a monotheistic divinity. That allowed him to maintain a
deep devotion to the fading pagan gods of an earlier era. His chief
surviving works were written as panegyrics, a formal public speech in
praise of his god, carefully structured eulogy, not a philosophical
critique. I decided to venture my opinion further.

"I don't see how Christianity keeps its hold on the popular mind except
that the masses are steeped in ignorance. The educated classes don't even
have that excuse. How can anyone credit the reliability of the New
Testament when the Gospels have two incompatible genealogies of Joseph,
foster father of Jesus. At least one of them must be untrue and very likely
both. What is the point of the ritual cannibal feast that underlies the
Eucharist? How can anyone see that as uplifting. As for the trinity, the
fall of man, the incarnation, the crucifixion, the resurrection, and all
the rest of it, my reason rebels at Church Fathers like Tertullian who
enjoin us to believe these things precisely because they are absurd. Is not
logical absurdity sufficient grounds for disbelief?"

"As for the Old Testament, how can I credit the benevolence of a deity who
wipes out the women and children of Sodom and Gomorrah for the supposed
sins of some of the men among them. Surely not all the men in the town
mobbed Lot and the comely messengers. What of the stablemen and tavern
owners, and the house slaves, the officials and soldiers in the garrison?
Surely they could not all walk away from their posts to lust after pretty
males. And surely some of the men in the town and likely a majority
preferred females. What a silly fable to justify the slaughter of innocents
and the destruction of the Cities of the Plain. Or who can respect a god
who drowns all the innocent children of the world in a Universal Flood, or
slays the first born of Egypt. Why not simply strike Pharaoh himself blind,
incontinent, impotent, and visit him with boils till he came around? The
Old Testament god sounds more like a fiend than any god I would care to
worship."

Julian smiled and added his own pet point.

"And how can Christians maintain that a Creator would content himself with
fashioning a single couple, Adam and Eve. Is is not reasonable that they
who had the power to create one man and one woman only, were able to create
many men and women at once. The variety of humanity argues against its
origin in single pair. How very different are the bodies of Germans and
Scythians from those of Libyans and Ethiopians. So much for the notion of
original sin as well. Why should a just god punish generations of innocents
for the supposed sin of their remote ancestors? It is immoral. As emperor
would I execute the grandson of a murderer for the sins of his grand dad?"

As we shook our heads in mutual dismay at the follies of revealed religion,
we heard a noise in the hallway. Julian held up a cautionary finger to his
lips. Yes, we could talk freely, the emperor and I, but beware unknown
listeners. The walls have ears.

In his five years in Gaul Julian had played an initially weak hand
masterfully, gradually getting rid of Constantius' minders, exchanging
titular control of the army for actual command, impressing the populace of
the West and Gaul in particular with his commitment to good governance. He
publicly sabotaged imperial efforts to raise taxes and resettled towns
taken back from encroaching Germans. He assumed the title of Augustus, on a
par then with Constantius, minting his own coins.

"I do wish you would reconsider your decision to leave my service. Yes, we
agreed on five years, but I find you indispensable, my young friend."

"As to that, a philosopher should know that the cemeteries are filled with
people who once thought the world just could not get along without them."

"Even emperors?" he asked, one eyebrow raised sardonically.

"Even so, sire. Though I expect you have long decades ahead of you. After
you, the empire goes on. Your job is to ensure its continuity and some day
pass it on intact to your successor. You have done your work well here in
the West, throwing back the Germans."

Indeed he had marched from one victory after another over the barbarians,
most notably in 357 when he crushed an invading army of 35,000 Alemanni
with one of only 13,000. His soldiers loved him and had later proclaimed
him emperor. Still he managed to avoid an open clash with the eastern
emperor, content to safeguard the West. Constantius could do little but
grumble, occupied as he was with a Persian invasion. Shapur II had seized
the fortress city of Amida after a seige of 73 days.

"So where will you go with your boy? Arion is what, twenty-one now?"

"Yes and very nearly twenty-two, sire. I thought we might settle in warmer
climes, the Balearics perhaps or the east coast of Hispania. It would
please the boy."

"Have you no desire then, to return to your ancestral home in Burdigala?"
the emperor asked, a arch tone in his voice.

I sighed. "You never got that story from me, sire, though I admit I was the
one who originally put it about in Athens."

"Then you are not from Gaul."

"No sire, I am originally from Germany. As to the source of my wealth, I
would rather not say."

"I will respect your secrets. Your loyalty has been unfailing these last
five years and you did save my life back in Athens. I am glad that you did
not lie to me just now about your origins. My spy master Marcus had you
investigated soon after we came to Gaul. I have always known that the story
of your past was a fabrication. Your business, really. I am sure you had
your reasons. The romantic in me likes to think you inherited your fortune
from a family of pirates. How close was I with that guess, Alexandros?"

"Not too far off, sire. Mine is a fortune made at sea, true, but one gained
honestly, and passed down for three generations." which was close enough to
the truth.

"All right. I will let you go, with my gratitude. Just one last
task. Accompany me on this final German campaign, before I have to settle
accounts with my cousin in the East."

So we marched out to meet the Alemanni ("all men" and source of the French
name for Germany, Allemagne). Julian believed Constantius had encouraged
them to raid the borders of Rhaetia to keep him occupied. Rhetia covered
the area that today is central and eastern Switzerland, southern Bavaria
and the Upper Swabia, the greater part of the Tyrol, and part of
Lombardy. Julian was determined to teach their king Vadomarius a lesson in
good neighborliness.

Neither I nor my assistant Arion were considered combatants, though that
did not matter much in warfare with barbarians. We went well armed
regardless. After five years under my tutelage, Arion was a skilled
fighter, as he had shown twice before, once when our position with the
baggage train in the rear of the advance came under attack by enemy
cavalry, the second time when bandits attacked my party on an inspection
trip to Lutetia (Paris). We cut ourselves into the clear and scattered, the
better to escape, intending to rendezvous at a certain hill, but Arion got
separated from me, then turned around in the unfamiliar country. Even aided
by reinforcements, did not find him till the next day, though he really was
not all that far away.

That was when I gave him a hunting horn to signal for help if he ever
needed me. Thanks to a special insert, the bell gave off a distinctive
sound, easy to tell from other hunting horns. Not that we were looking for
a fight ourselves. Neither of us cared much for a set piece battle. We did
not have the strength or the reach to trade blows with big German warriors
on the front line, hemmed in by our comrades left and right and by the next
line of infantry to our rear. Like me, Arion needed room to exploit his
advantages of speed and agility and stamina.

During what would turn out to be yet another victorious campaign, we set up
camp not far from Argentoratum (modern Strasbourg).  Unfortunately a
detachment of enemy cavalry scouting our camp came upon Arion as he
gathered wood for our fire, not wanting to wait for foraging parties to
supply us. Arion sounded his hunting horn to warn the camp that the enemy
was about and prepared to sell his life dearly. I recognized the alarm as
coming from his horn, so I ran straight toward the sound not waiting for a
detachment of soldiers to muster and follow me. I crashed my way through
the undergrowth, heedless of tactical caution. Arion needed me, and I was
desperate to reach him.

I rushed into a small clearing, making short work of the German cavalry man
holding the reins of the horses, ripping his throat out with a flick of my
spatha. The kill was quick and almost silent as the man crumpled to the
needle covered ground. I looked at the center of the clearing. here stood
Arion, his back to a tree, confronting three of the enemy, another lay dead
at his feet, while a fifth leaned against a stone, badly wounded. Six
others standing to one side waiting impatiently on the others. With the
sounding of the horn, they were anxious to get away.

Still they knew better than for all of them to crowd around one man where
their slashing blades might cut an ally. For the moment, they were content
to watch, to let the trio overcome Arion in an unequal contest that could
have only one end. I fell upon the idlers from behind, beheading one with a
double handed sweep of my long cavalry spatha and hamstringing another. The
three facing Arion suddenly got serious, not caring to face me with him
still a threat at their backs. With a flurry of blows they stabbed their
swords deep into Arion's chest and belly. Mortal wounds for sure. He looked
over at me in a final appeal and then his eyes closed.

I stopped my attack, stunned and appalled at what had just happened, how
suddenly this wonderful boy's life had been snuffed out. It was the only
time in combat I ever failed to maintain situational awareness, though
entirely understandable in the circumstances. One of the Germans standing
by took the opportunity to thrust his sword at me. By reflexes alone, I
turned what would have been a killing blow so that the blade passed through
my side rather than into my belly. In that moment of pain, and grief, and
anger, I lost it. I fell into a kind of cold rage. Born of fear and of pain
and especially of anger and grief for my fallen lover, I went into a what
can only be called a killing frenzy. I am not sure whether 'berserker' is
the right term for it, for I saw everything with tactical clarity.

My centuries of training and practice and combat experience took over.
Ignoring my initial wound and later a shallow cut to the shoulder, I
slashed and thrust, all the while performing the deadly dance of the sword,
weaving my way among them, a blond demon of death. Despite their numbers
and courage and ferocity the Germans had no answer for my sword and my
fury, my small stature and slight build notwithstanding.  I don't know how
long the struggle lasted. Time has no meaning when you are in the grip of a
killing frenzy. I was still slashing away at their corpses when Julian and
his guard rode up. No one else dared approach me in my murderous frenzy. He
did.

"Alexandros, you must come see to Arion. He is still alive, though not for
long, I fear."

That snapped me back to sanity. They tell me that I looked fearsome with
the enemy's blood and brains splashed on my tunic, on my limbs, even in my
hair. I ran over to where Arion lay. The army doctor working on him looked
up at me but shook his head. The boy was doomed. His voice was weak but
clear.

"Alexandros. You heard my horn and came for me, just as I knew you
would. Listen, Sandros, I don't have much time. What you did just now was
right and very brave but the way you did it, chopping those men up ... so
much hatred. That was wrong. Don't let loss and grief turn your soul away
from all that is good and right in this world. Don't let this make you
bitter."

"Arion.."

"No, Sandros, let me speak. Time is so short. Mourn me as I trust you
will. In time you will remember me without pain, as one who loved you with
all his heart and whom you loved in turn. You gave me my freedom and opened
the world to me Sandros, travel, books, ideas ... For that I ... uh,
Sandros, this is summmer. Why am I so cold?"

He died with a sigh just two days short of his twenty-second birthday. I
had Arion's body cremated. The centurion and his men formed a guard of
honor, their faces indicating the sense of loss that they felt too. Julian
relieved me of my duties in his administration.  Anyway, my service in his
entourage was at its end.

For a time I was inconsolable in my grief. It is so very hard to lose those
you love. Repeated loss does not make it any easier, the contrary in
fact. If you could have known Arion as I did, so cheerful and outgoing, an
unlikely combination of diligence and boyish mischief, you would celebrate
his life too.

Mindful of my lover's parting counsel, I did not rage at the world for
taking him from me too soon and so unexpectedly. I realize he would have
died sooner or later, but why did it have to be so soon? He had his whole
adult life ahead of him, the flowering and the fruit of his development
from boy to man. Why did death come for him of all people and not someone
so much less worthy of life. Such a sweet young man. He never had a harsh
word to say about anyone. He was hardworking and had a great sense of
humor, plus a touch of mischief that made life with him interesting if
occasionally disconcerting.

In his dying he demonstrated wisdom beyond his years. I loved this young
man with my whole heart and soul. He was one of the great loves of my
life. Bless Arion and the others who have loved me, unworthy though I
am. Their love has helped keep me grounded, made me feel that I was still
part of the human race. It would be so easy for me to grow callous, to
disdain mayfly humanity, mere mortals fated to decline and expire after a
few decades while I could count on a future measured in centuries and
millennia. Immortality must the worst temptation to amorality.

			Epilogue

Julian called me to him one last time before he left for the East and for
what turned out to be his own death and destiny. He gave me a ring with the
imperial seal and credentials that named me a military tribune on detached
service. I could go where I pleased. I was to keep my eyes and ears open,
wherever I went and write to him when I found something he needed to
know. I had no specific remit, no circuit to travel, and no executive
powers. He enjoined the imperial administration to assist me in my travels,
granting me freedom of passage everywhere, the use of government
facilities, conveyances, and animals, and of the imperial post.

Julian tried to halt the decline of the empire but his hubris in the East
hastened it. He had no need to invade Persia. Shapur II was prepared to
accept favorable terms, faced with a Roman Empire united under one
man. Julian's strategic folly and his military mistakes in the campaign of
363 set the Empire up for its later defeat at Adrianople in 378 at the
hands of the Visigoths. The battle was the start of the long slide of the
Western Roman Empire, till its total disappearance a century later.

Julian's attempt to wean the educated classes back from Christianity to a
reformed paganism also failed. Perhaps if he had lived a full life he might
have done more on that score. You can decide for yourself whether that
would have been good or bad for the world.

I still run regularly both to keep fit and for its therapeutic effects. I
wish I could run in the nude, but I cannot except at Fire Island in the
summer. These days, even the Y requires men to wear tank tops on the indoor
track. It used to be that I could run at the McBurney YMCA in New York in
just minimal split sided shorts. Okay, maybe women don't want to watch some
hairy big belly; I don't either, but a cute guy like me is certainly no
offense to the eyes.

At least there is Central Park in the spring and summer. Did you know that
a full loop of the park along the winding drives is 6.1 miles or almost
exactly ten kilometers? That is also the length of the perimeter of the
park, a rectangle two and one-half miles long and a half-mile wide. I
always run counter-clockwise so the center of the park is on my left. As I
run, I indulge in discreet people watching from behind my mirror shades. I
don't mind if people watch me in turn. I rather enjoy it. Sometimes my
lover Jeffrey comes along, so I get to show him off too. In cooler weather,
when we have to wear a top, we like to wear T shirts with printed
messages. Mine might say: "I'm not gay, but my boyfriend is." His would
simply say: "Boyfriend". Running alone I might wear a rebus message:
"2QT2BSTR8".*

Conveniently this magnificent urban park is just across the street from my
penthouse atop a building on Central Park West. It is easy to fit a long
run into my daily schedule since these days I don't manage any
businesses. I merely oversee a large financial portfolio. So I am out there
every fine day, unless I am an a parkour adventure climbing urban
structures. In warm weather, I like to run in just my "Onionskins",
colorful, very low rise, abbreviated running shorts made of parachute
cloth, fully split at the sides which allows naughty glimpses of the tiny
white mesh liner.

In May of 1977, I saw a stunning blond boy in Central Park who was
virtually my doppelgaenger except his eyes were blue. The resemblance was
uncanny. This supernal vision of youthful male pulchritude (I hope that
description does not sound too narcissistic) had stopped to fix his racing
bike, standing it on handle bars and seat for easy access to the balky
derailleur. Kneeling there, he looked like he had been poured into his
light blue corduroy bike shorts, which was all he was had on except for a
pair of dark classes perched on top of his head. The shorts hugged his
narrow hips and caressed the curves of his pert rump. They were tight in
the crotch too, and I could see that he wore himself on the right.

He looked up in surprise, open mouthed to see a virtual double scrutinizing
him intently. He shook his head in disbelief but with a nice smile as he
introduced himself. When I offered to help he nodded, suggesting I first
take off my jacket and then my shirt so I would not get black grease stains
on it. Also so he could see me better, he admitted. After all, I had him at
an advantage. My turn to grin. Soon I was bare to the waist. I twirled once
for him, to show my back and bum, which brought a big smile and a
wink. Then I went down on one knee, on the other side of the bike, working
the pedals with my hands as he fiddled with the gears and chain. An unusual
courtship dance, maybe, but whatever works, I always say.

It was a warm day in late spring. Though we worked in the shade of a London
plane tree, we were hot, me from my walk, he from his ride. Sweat plastered
strands of his yellow hair to his forehead in a rather fetching way, I
thought. His lightly tanned torso and limbs glowed with a thin sheen of
sweat. I could smell a hint of a fancy cologne on him. It made me think he
might be some wealthy man's kept boy, not that I would ever fault him for
that, not I not with my personal history. He looked over at me and smiled
with as fine a set of white teeth as you might see in a toothpaste
commercial, all perfectly natural, not capped. I fell instantly in lust
with his pretty face and taut trim body.

Obviously gay by his speech and manner and as much smitten with me as I
with him, Wolf (a Teutonic name if there ever was one), was a lively lad
open to new experiences, which most definitely included a tumble with his
doppleganger. Alas, the Fates had other plans for us. This was Wolf's last
full day in New York. No kept boy, he was a twenty year old college student
getting ready to return to West Germany after a sophomore year in the
U.S. at NYU. As we used Handi Wipes from his saddle bag to clean up
afterwards, I noticed a smudge of grease on his nose where he had rubbed an
itch. I told him to hold still while I took care of it. That brought us
very close, staring eye to eye, my hands to his face.

We couldn't help what happened next. Right there on the bicycle path in
full view of the public I put one hand to the back of his head, the other
to his shoulder blades, and drew him forward. We brought our lips together
in a long and passionate kiss. We put our arms around each other, pressing
our bare chests together. I could feel the beat of his heart and the heat
of his body. He fit so perfectly into the circle of my arms, just the right
proportions in all the right places. His sheer physicality was making me
delerious. Then my hands slid down his back to grab his buttocks, pulling
him into me. He did the same, both of us grinding our hips. I could feel
his arousal through his shorts as he could mine through my pants. Our
bodies shook with pent up passion. I thought we both might come right then
and there without even touching. Even when we unlocked our lips, we pressed
our foreheads together, reluctant to let this sublime moment pass. Sadly,
it had to be so.

Some of the onlookers, tourists probably, glared at us censoriously. To
hell with them. What we did was sweet and romantic, not salacious.  A pair
of coeds giggled nervously. Others gave us a thumbs-up or a grin. One man
in his late forties patted his Polaroid camera, indicating he had got a
picture of us. I asked him for it, even tried to buy it, but he wouldn't
part with it. He said it was the sweetest and and sexiest thing he had ever
snapped. He only wished things had been as open for him and his male lover
in their day as it was in ours. With a friendly wave, he went on his way.

As we went on ours. I couldn't even jog along with Wolf for a while. I was
in street clothes, a pale green leisure suit no less, crossing to the south
end of the park, on my way to see the first Star Wars movie, meeting
friends at the Loewe's State movie house. Alas, we were like two ships
passing in the night. I sometimes see that boy in my dreams. Too bad more
than an unforgettable kiss was not meant to be. Maybe things worked out for
the best. Do I really want to know exactly what I would look like if I were
subject to aging and death? This way, my lovely Wolf boy will remain
forever young in my memory, just as Arion does. I wish I had that picture
though.

Yes, I confess it freely. I wore leisure suits in the 1970s, and, what's
worse, I liked them. I really liked them. I still do. Fashion be damned. No
one ever accused me of being a clothes horse. To me leisure suits were just
great, a practical cross between casual and dressy. I liked the way you
would wear them with the collar of a colorful print shirt folded over the
lapels of the jacket, the front unbuttoned down to there to display your
bare chest. Very sexy. I would preen myself, feeling like the cock of the
walk. Their double knit polyester construction made for stretchability (an
advantage in combat; just try fighting in a business suit). There are very
few styles of that era that I wish they would bring back. Leisure suits is
about the only one. Certainly not bell bottom pants nor platform shoes nor
the pet rock. So, now you know.

For those readers who visit Central Park this word of caution. You may spot
a super cute blond twink making the circuit, running in shorts so
abbreviated that they leave him looking next-thing-to naked. Please, do not
call out "Alexander!" or expect me to admit who I really am. Sorry, but I
have to maintain my anonymity.

*By the way, just in case you drew a blank earlier, "2QT2BSTR8" translates
as "Too Cute To Be Straight". Words to live by.

Only recently could I write of these things, choosing, from caution, to
cast them as fiction, a series of fanciful tales of an immortal youth
written under a pseudonym. My secret is safe for no one in these days of
modern science will believe it. In this tale, all of the names are
real. The events described really did happen just as I have written.