Daphne Boy

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.