Hercules Bound Chapter eight: The Athens Connection Evan Andrews 2020
This is a fan fiction.
Given how convoluted Hercules' story has become in myth, legend, and modern drama, don't expect this to fit cleanly into any version you know. It's its own story with its own continuity. And its own style. Xena ruined me for serious Greco-Roman fantasy. I admit it.
To make things easy for me, I imagined certain people in certain roles. In this chapter, for, example, I imagine Herc being played by Kellan Lutz, Iolaus by WCW wrestler Evan Karagias, Phalerus by Joe Manganiello, and the Black-Eyed Boy by porn actor Armond Rizzo. Your casting may vary.
This story should in no way be considered a true representation of the sexuality of either the actors or the characters.
The story depicts males in sexual situations with other males. If this offends you, if you are underage, or if reading such is illegal where you are please stop reading now. Thank you.
If you enjoy this story, or even if you hate it, please contribute to keeping Nifty going at http://donate.nifty.org/donate.html
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It took a day and a half for Hercules and Iolaus to get back to Attica and Athens. The great city was decked out for the Festival when they got there, and true to form people had come in from the corners of the Greek World to attend.
"Fuck," Iolaus said as they pushed through the crowded streets into the even more crowded Agora, "I never thought there could be this many people in one place. There must be thousands!"
"More like tens of thousands," Herc said, "Come on. We need a place to stay and I think I know who we can impose on."
"Tens of thousands..." Iolaus gasped, unable to imagine so many, but he immediately slipped into Herc's wake as he breached the sea of humanity.
They crossed the Agora and headed off into a residential neighborhood, but a humbler one than Iolaus might have expected.
"What?" he asked, "We're not headed to the palace?"
"No, the King has more important things to take care of during the Dyonisia than looking after a semi-divine house-pest."
They turned down a side street, and when they reached a certain door Herc stopped and knocked.
Iolaus just stared.
"Herc, uh, is that thing on the door...?"
He pointed at a gilded carving of a ram's pelt embossed thereon.
"Yes," Herc said, "That's the golden fleece because this house belongs to one of the Argonauts."
That scarcely said, the door opened, and an older man, clearly a slave, stood in the door.
"Tell your master, Phalerus son of Alcon, that Hercules, twelve times tried by the gods, begs guest-right of him."
"Please, O divine one," the porter said with a bow, "Step into this chamber, and I shall inform the master of your arrival."
The waiting room was classic and richly appointed. Padded couches stood against cinnabar-red walls decorated with black and gold key work. A handsome young man, a servant Iolaus supposed, quickly appeared and set a table with dainties to ease their hunger. Another older man, no place near as handsome, poured wine to slake their thirst. Iolaus adjusted himself and wondered if the younger man was a slave, which meant he could be fucked, or a fosterling and possible eromenos whom the master of the house would be taking to his bed exclusively, and therefore hopelessly off limits. His musing came to a halt when their potential host rushed into the room.
"Hercules!" the man cried, taking the hero by the hand and pulling him up into a brotherly hug, "What are you doing here? Has the world stopped throwing monsters in the way of ordinary folk?"
They patted one another on the back and broke the embrace. Their host was maybe a few years older, but still amazingly fit. Perhaps as a divine reward for his participation in the quest for the Golden Fleece. Iolaus stared openly, and then he started imagining him in bed with the young man. Fuck, he was getting hard. Happily Herc started talking and broken Iolaus' train of fantasy.
"The monster slaying business is slow right now, and it occurred to me that I'd never seen the Festival," Herc said, "So Iolaus and I decided to take it in this year."
Iolaus controlled his features. If that was their story, fine, but he was equally convinced that the fact that Athens was a place where Ares would think three times before manifesting had something to do with the choice as well. The god of war and Athena had never gotten along, and the Areopagus must have painful memories associated with it, it being the place where the rash war god had once stood trial for murder.
"And you need a place to stay?" Phalerus laughed, "Of course! Glad to take you in. Every other bed in the city was doubtless spoken for months ago, so your alternative would have been to sleep in the streets. Or maybe in a bordello, and those beds are always more expensive than they first appear."
"Daryush!" their host called out to a dark man standing all but invisible in the back of the room.
"The steward, no doubt," thought Iolaus, "A Persian, and a handsome Persian at that."
"Make up the blue room for my guests, oh, and tell the cook there will be two more to dine for the foreseeable future. Adonis, my love, bring the food and wine and come with us. You must get to know the mighty Hercules."
Daryush rushed away, and Phalerus threw an arm around Herc's shoulder, leading him deeper into the house to the andron. Iolaus and Adonis followed unobtrusively.
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Hercules roared and rushed across the sand to meet Phalerus. Had this been a simple matter of strength, of course, Herc would have won right away, but this was wrestling. The goal was to throw your opponent onto his back. Cunning was key to this competition, and brains were, perhaps, even more important than brawn.
Iolaus watched from the colonnade as the two alpha males struggled in each other's muscular embrace. Grunting with the strain, they twisted, turned, and slipped away from one another before coming in again to try a new trick. Being oiled (both had disdained the proffered dusting with sand) helped with the slipping away part. The young hero thought that neither man looked any the worse for glistening in the sunlight. Iolaus wondered if he could convince his uncle that he should get oiled up as he was now more often. Preferably in private.
"Come on, old man," Phalerus taunted, "Did your famous labors rob you of your skill. You used to be able to keep up with me."
Herc gave his friend an evil grin. He rushed forward again, and Phalerus spread his harms wide, meaning to catch the demigod once again in his oily grip. But instead, Herc suddenly stopped, swung on his heel to the side, and caught Phalerus as his left arm came up behind, securing him. Using this advantage, Herc immediately tossed his surprised opponent off his feet and left him to fall onto his broad back.
"Umphf," gasped Phalerus as the air was knocked out of him.
"Point!" called the referee, and Herc fell to one knee.
Phalerus looked up at his friend, still struggling to breathe, and gasped, "Where did you learn that pretty trick?"
"Would you believe from the Amazons?" Herc said, smiling, "They have high standards in what they expect of a mate. The longer you can last against one, the more likely it is she'll chose you to father a child on her. That trick is one of their finishing moves, meant to get the man right where they want him."
"On his back?" Phalerus grinned.
"It's worth your life, or at least your manhood, to even try to roll on top," Herc warned, "Remember that if you should ever face one. They drive."
"That's for damned sure," Iolaus thought, remember a night he too once spent on his back gasping with delight.
Phalerus held out his hand.
"Help me up, and show me that one again," he said, "Maybe I won't want to go down so fast this time."
Iolaus could feel his cock getting testy as the two studs grappled up once again. He needed to escape somewhere, somewhere private, and deal with this before anyone noticed. The young man backed through the spectators and headed off into the baths. Surely there would be a corner there where he could pound out a fast load. Despite the crowd of onlookers to the bout between Herc and Phalerus, though, the Festival meant that the Academy was filled with men. There were too many about for Iolaus to find any place private to jerk off. He cupped his basket and moaned. His cock was starting to leak precum, and the stain would soon be obvious in his loincloth.
"That erection looks almost painful," someone suddenly said from behind him.
Iolaus whirled and saw a handsome young man in a chlamys watching him. He looked to be about Iolaus' own age, but he was perhaps no more than five feet tall. Thick dark hair crowned his head, but it was his eyes that held you.
The lustrous black eyes twinkled, and the stranger said, "I could help you with that, if you'd like."
Iolaus knew that various brothels in Athens had boy prostitutes to service clients. Perhaps this was one, though how such a man could dare, let alone manage, to enter the Academy escaped him. For a moment Iolaus was seriously tempted—the black eyes were hypnotic—but then it occurred to him that being caught getting it on in the Academy, especially with a prostitute, would probably not be the best of ideas.
"Uh, no, thank you," Iolaus stammered.
"Maybe later then," Black Eyes smiled seductively.
"Uh."
"Or if you prefer girls, I suppose you could ask after Phryne."
"Who? Huh?"
Black Eyes laughed.
"Oh, everyone in the Agora knows her and knows where to find her. Or you can look for me there. I'm in the Agora all the time, and we can all have a little quiet fun with nobody the wiser. It's your choice."
Black Eyes cupped Iolaus' swollen package and massaged it while staring into the young hero's eyes.
"Uh," Iolaus stammered.
"Just think about it," Black Eyes said, and that said he was off, taking Iolaus' painful erection went with him.
"The fuck?" was all Iolaus could think, "What did he just do with my hard-on?"
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The next sunrise brought the first day of the tragedies, and Phalerus roused Hercules and Iolaus himself, bursting into their room with enough good will to offset any objections on their parts. Their host bore a set of good street clothes clearly Herc's size while his eromenos -to-be, Adonis, was right behind him bearing several suits of clothes in Iolaus' size.
"Up! Up, I say," Phalerus trumpeted, "The sun is rising, and half the civilized world is stirring. If you don't move now, you'll never get a seat in the theater."
"I'll rise," Iolaus muttered, "But I refuse to shine."
Sometime while he was asleep, Iolaus' erection had returned, with interest, and the young hero was trying to figure out what he could do about it. For right now, though, the answer was nothing.
"Adonis," Phalerus said as he tossed the chlamys and sandals at Herc, "Give Iolaus the clothes I selected for him."
The young man started forward, but Herc protested, "We've got perfectly good clothes, Phalerus."
"It's the host's responsibility to let a guest know when he's wrong, and you're wrong right now, my friend," Phalerus said, "When I said `half the civilized world' I meant precisely that. Today is given over to tragedy—well to be truthful several days will be—and the seats will be filled with powerful politicians, wise scholars, learned pious men, and ambitious younger men. These clothes will mark you both as men they can be seen with. You must not look sufficiently disreputable for them to scorn. Adonis!"
Both Herc and Iolaus had sat up by now, Iolaus with a sheet draped strategically over his loins. Adonis, his eyes cast modestly down but his lips fixed with a knowing grin, lay the clothes down at Iolaus' side and backed up to his place behind Phalerus.
"The slaves are bringing hot water. I'll see you for breakfast in a few minutes," Phalerus all but ordered.
A little more than a few minutes later, the Argonaut nodded with approval as the heroes entered the dining room. Over the heroes' loincloths chlamyses hung, their rich fabric (possibly Coan silk) belted at the waist to call attention to their manly figures. Calf-high sandals of rich red leather clung to their feet and lower legs. It was the finest set of clothes Iolaus had ever worn, and he had taken things a step further by having the slave boy quickly braid his long hair.
"You'll pass," Phalerus nodded, "I have business to do today, so I won't be able to join you. But tonight I'll be hosting a dinner and symposium which I hope you, as my guests, will attend."
Iolaus had heard of these things, symposia. They were gatherings of twenty to thirty notable men (more likely twenty given the size of the room and number of couches) at which ideas were batted about, songs and poetry sung, dances danced, and wine drunk in abundance—though never to excess. Drunkenness was unmanly. There might even be a hostess, one of the fabled hetaira, present. Iolaus had no idea how they managed that with decency.
"Certainly," Herc said, "We'll be there."
"Good. I had a stroke of luck yesterday. It seems the hetaira, Phryne, who had been previously engaged is now free of that obligation and will be available to entertain us. You'll like her, Hercules," Phalerus boasted, "Some busybody lodged a complaint of loose living against her, and do you know what she did? She stood up in court, in front of all those old men, and stripped to the skin. While they gawked like green boys, she delivered an oration about how she was formed by Aphrodite herself as the perfection of her body demonstrated. Then she dared them to dishonor the goddess and find against her. I've never seen her, but the scuttlebutt is that she must be Aphrodite's own to be that ravishing. In any case, the court voted, to a man, to acquit, though nobody is sure on what grounds."
While Herc and Phalerus laughed, Iolaus sat there dumbfounded. Phryne? Could this be the same Phryne that Black Eyes had told him to seek out yesterday?
"I see you're surprised too, Iolaus," Phalerus laughed, "It shook the legal profession to its core, and then she turned around and lodged a complaint of impiety against her accuser. It was rich."
"I look forward to meeting a woman like that," Herc was smiling, "Not to criticize Athenian manners, but the world could do with more women willing and able to put men in their places."
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Phalerus had been right. Everybody with an interest in modern drama (with the possible exception of Apollo who was doubtless still getting it on with Daphnos somewhere) had crowded into the streets, eager to enjoy the festival atmosphere and wrangle themselves a seat in the theater. Among them, Herc and Iolaus jostled along, arrayed in their borrowed finery.
"Herc," Iolaus said as they made their way through the crowd, "Remember what I said the other day about there being too many people in this place?"
"Yes," Herc said distractedly.
"Well," Iolaus said, "This is worse! Do we both really need to go sit through these wretched tragedies?"
Herc and his buddy had discussed drama from time to time. Civilized men just did, especially with the theater changing as it was. They both agreed that the people who denounced drama as blasphemous and dangerous to young men's morals might change their minds if they had ever had to deal with the gods, but Herc always found a certain dreary solace in watching the tragedians ply their trade. Iolaus, on the other hand, was partial to the comedies that Herc found ether too light or too vicious. Tragedy, Herc said, worked through metaphor, moving men to introspection. Iolaus considered that the satirical and the ridiculous helped young men cope with a world that was often vicious, or stupid, or both.
"I certainly will," Herc said, "And I still say it might do you good to force yourself to as well."
"Who's going to tragically expire today?" Iolaus sighed.
I don't know?" Herc said, "Does it really matter?"
"Well, from what Phalerus' servants were saying last night, certain members of the Council think so. The playwright presenting today has a reputation for taking strips out of the ruling classes with his plays."
"Then it will be well worth it," Herc smiled, "Blood and rhetoric, in the proper proportion."
"Right. Look, how about if you go to the play today and I just sit here on the steps of Apollo's temple and people-watch?"
"People-watch?" Herc asked, smiling, "You really hate tragedy it that much do you."
Iolaus was quick and succinct in his answer.
"Yes."
Herc sighed. He was sure something else was up with his nephew, but he didn't have the time to hash it out.
"Have it your way, then. Just don't get into a snit if I'm nowhere to be found when it's time for the comedies. I'll collect you after the play's done, and we can head back to Phalerus'."
"Deal," Iolaus said, and the two heroes shook hands.
As Herc wandered off to his date with Melpomene, muse of tragedy, Iolaus climbed up to the top step of the temple. Sitting down, he scanned the crowd for a short man with dark hair and deep black eyes. If anyone objected to his sitting there, with his legs unconsciously spread to show off his package, they didn't say so. After a few hours, he got up in search of some wine and food. A few people realized that he never returned, but it was the Dionysia and the young man was handsome. Most just smiled, assuming he was off getting his clepsydra cleaned. Ah, youth.
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As it turned out, Herc loved the play. The playwright had indeed pushed his subject almost to the point of no return in criticizing those in power, but popular opinion was so firmly with the dramatist that the government stayed its hand—at least for now. Iolaus would have found the whole thing intolerable, so Herc was rather glad his nephew had decided to do something else. Or maybe the Fates were playing them well for a change by keeping the young man otherwise amused. Herc would have hated the days of listening to his buddy carping over being forced to attend the play, which certainly would have happened.
Herc made his way back into the crowded Agora, jostling through the crush of people towards Apollo's sanctuary. Once there, though, he found no Iolaus. Well, the play had been long, and doubtless his nephew had wandered off to enjoy some of the delights the city abounded in. Or at least the ones he could afford.
Herc settled in on the pediment, his muscular legs splayed wide as Iolaus' had been, and watched as the press of people flowed by. Perhaps there was something to Iolaus' people-watching. Old, wise, and important (or at least self-important) men were out, but also muscular men, old enough to have a beard but young enough to want to flaunt their masculinity, strode along proudly. Beardless boys, delightful in their epicene beauty, either followed along after one of these older men or were escorted by a father or trusted slave. And yes, slaves were there, carrying out their masters' orders. Gorgeous hetaira rounded out the crowd, some walking, some being carried on litters. No other women were to be seen, of course. That was the Athenian way, which was fine with the demigod. If Herc had desired to look upon female faces he knew full well where the brothels were to be found.
The sun sank lower in the sky, and Herc was getting worried about his friend. Suddenly his ears picked up a growing hubbub in the crowd.
"I've been robbed!" one stallholder cried out.
"As have I!" another howled.
"And I!"
"And I!"
"Uh oh," Herc thought.
"My purse!" a rich man cried, "Where's my purse?!"
And a hetaira shrieked, "My lapis necklace! My beautiful lapis necklace! It's gone!"
More and more people were suddenly discovering that things important to them were missing, and Herc felt a sinking feeling in his stomach. Maybe the Fates hadn't been as kind as he'd hoped. He stood up and scouted the crowd looking for Iolaus. Nothing. Herc suddenly had a very bad feeling about the situation.
"Why, this can only be the work of that nefarious Autolycus!" a handsome but short young man with black hair and deep black eyes exclaimed dramatically.
"Of course," the first stallholder said, "Why didn't we think of that right away. Only Autolycus could be so bold!"
And the entire Agora agreed.
"The cad!"
"The scoundrel!"
"By all the gods," the hetaira said, wistfully, "That rascal is so slick he must be the son of Hermes."
"Hermes," Herc thought, "Of course. Now things start to make sense."