fortis cadere, cedere non potest

[al_shairan]

Several years ago, when Flavius Sulpicius Allectus is a young man returning from serving as tribunus laticlavius in Parthia. Having been away from Excolo for three years, tonight he visits the house of his patron and friend, Potitus Icilius Tetricus Crassipes...

I stand in the atrium of Tetricus' house. It feels strange, almost stranger than my return to my own home. I spent so many evenings here that it was more a home to me in my late boyhood and early manhood than my own house, but it has been years since I have been here. It looks the same, and different, and I find I am nervous.

It is not a very manly thing, to feel this way, especially not for a returning soldier. I am in uniform - I have not been decommissioned yet, officially, and I also had the idea that Tetricus might like to see it before I put it away and seek out my next position as a quaestor. I think I am done with the army, but Tetricus got me there, and it might please him to see the cuirass and striped tunic I wore as tribune. And I have the sense that I look well in it, which should not really matter to me but somehow seems to. I am quite certain Tetricus and I have put our former relationship behind us. No man of his standing would want to continue - being with a man of my age in that way, and now I am no longer so very young I should not want it. The first few months in Parthia I found I did miss being in bed with him, but that faded as it should, as my own tastes changed and grew into manhood. I am not delighted now by the idea of lying back on a couch with a man on top of me. I had - other experiences in Parthia that showed me that. Those experiences were not altogether what one expects of an Excolan man, but I think I am in all other regards manly enough for people to turn a blind eye to it. What I found was that I missed him. Our friendship has grown in our absence from one another, which is strange. Perhaps it was easier to talk when he was not distracted by my beauty and I was not so shy of his status. It is easier, often, to be honest on the page. Or so I have found. We are friends now truly, I think, more than we were before. I hope that translates into everyday life. That alone must explain my nerves, surely.

Adjusting my helmet under my arm, I wait for the slave to return with Tetricus.

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[al-shairan.livejournal.com]

He draws back from me, and I feel a twist of shame flaring angrily in me. I have gone too far, and now he will be repulsed.

"Forgive me. I am - too set in my ways, perhaps, and - Perhaps I misunderstand you. Do you speak of...using a man's mouth?"

"It is I who should ask forgiveness," I say tightly, "I should not - " But he is continuing.

"There are things I have thought on, at times. You understand - I would not say such, to any other man, but you - And now you know what I am, Allectus, though I have tried not to be. I understand, if you have lost - regard - for me."

I feel my forehead furrow. I am confused, and aroused, and concerned for him.

"You are my dear friend," I say quietly. I touch his hand. "You are my Tetricus." I believe what I have said to him to be true - that men who have true regard for one another cannot be degraded by giving each other pleasure, not when it is an extension of their equal feeling for one another. Tetricus looks ashamed, and it makes my heart ache for him, and so to demonstrate that I am not disgusted - and to show that I mean what I say, that I want us to be equals, and if he wishes to suck my prick then I will do the same for him - I lean forward, taking his prick in my hand, and run my tongue around its still-soft head.

[tezcatl-ipoca.livejournal.com]

"You are my dear friend. You are my Tetricus." I close my eyes when he touches my hand. So he cares for me still, and calls me his, even if....

My eyes snap open when he shifts and I feel his hand on my member, and then he -

Oh, my friend. I jump at the sensation, my prick still sensitive, but his mouth is warm, his tongue soft. My throat is so tight now that it hurts. That he would do such a thing for me.... I am somewhat hard again, though it is so soon. It is hardly the first time someone has done this, but when I place my hand lightly on his hair I find it is trembling a very little. How weak I am, truly.

My fingers stroke through his fair hair. "I - would do that for you, if you wanted it." My voice is very low.

[al-shairan.livejournal.com]

I feel his hand on my hair, his fingers gentle.

"I - would do that for you, if you wanted it."

I draw back and look at him. I am hard again, now, from the taste of him - and that is something I have done only a couple of times, touching a man in that way, and it makes me excited and ashamed at once - and from him saying he would do it to me.

"I do," I say. "It can be such an - intimate thing, that act." I swallow. "There is - I have heard - two men might perform the act on each other at once." It does, I think, take away some of the problem of one man being on his knees to another, one taking while the other gives.

[tezcatl-ipoca.livejournal.com]

"I do. It can be such an - intimate thing, that act. There is - I have heard - two men might perform the act on each other at once."

That certainly has a stiffening effect on me. I imagine us like that, face to groin and groin to face, looped in pleasure like Plato's self-devouring serpent. And it seems...right, somehow, each of us both giving and receiving in mutuality.

I put my hand on the side of his face, rub my fingers on the faint stubble there. Touch one to his lips, and think of -

"I would be glad to give you that," I say, and it perhaps shakes me more than asking him to fuck my arse did. "You are - I would do that, Allectus." I glance at the door, look back at him. I am not used to being nervous in sexual matters.

[al-shairan.livejournal.com]

"I would be glad to give you that. You are - I would do that, Allectus."

It makes desire rise up in me, desire and a fierce sort of tenderness. I take the finger he touches against my lip and put it between my teeth, suck on it firmly and release.

"Would you care to visit my house tonight?" I say quite gently. I saw how he glanced at the door, understand his concerns of who might come in. "You have not seen it in years, and I have had some work done. I think it looks well." And since my father is long dead, and my mother died while I was away, more than two years past, I have no family there, no one who might intrude.

[tezcatl-ipoca.livejournal.com]

He sucks on my finger and I breath in sharply, feeling the slight scrape of teeth. It feels more intimate than sex with many people has.

"Would you care to visit my house tonight? You have not seen it in some years, and I have had some work done. I think it looks well."

How well he understands me. "That would please me greatly," I say. He is fully master of his house now, and I will be glad to be welcomed to under his roof as an equal.

I run my hand down his stomach, feel the hard muscles there, the slight trail of fur. It is strangely pleasing to the touch. "Are you - alright to travel?" I ask, glancing at his prick, and I am glad that I can tease him in this matter. It is a strange and sudden relief, to have a companion in such a way.

[al-shairan.livejournal.com]

He accepts my invitation, and it makes me glad and also nervous - less because of the possibility of sex, and more because I have never acted as a host to him. He visited me at home, of course, but that was different.

"Are you - alright to travel?"

I laugh. I am not sure I have laughed over sex with anyone else. I remember as a boy Tetricus would tease me a little, very gently, and how I liked it.

"We might perhaps use your litter," I say, "since I am not sure I am fit to be seen walking through the streets." I grin at him, and I find my tunic, put it on. "Should I send a runner ahead, ask for supper to be laid out?" I think I am too distracted by thoughts of another kind of eating to want to dine, but it is a courtesy to ask. I lean down and kiss him impulsively, a hearty sort of kiss of friendship this time as any men might share, because I am so glad to be here.

[tezcatl-ipoca.livejournal.com]

"You do have something of Priapus about you, it is true. A litter seems a fine idea. And supper, also." I would like to dine with him, when - all else is done. To share food under his roof.

His kiss makes me smile yet more. I had thought I was happy enough, before this, save for the lack of a son. And yet I think I had been lacking true joy. "Certainly you are unfit to be seen as you are. Come, dress yourself, my Allectus, and I shall send for the litter."

I stand up - my foot is somewhat numb, and the feel of blood returning is unpleasant - and set about dressing myself. I look down at the couch and raise my eyebrows at the wet stain there. "They will assume," I say to him, "that you took your old role. Perhaps I should - ?" I would not dishonour him, but I am unsure how to clean it. "Well, there will be talk anyway, I imagine," I add ruefully, and use the inside of my tunic to wipe some of the lingering stickiness from my prick.

[al-shairan.livejournal.com]

"Priapus?" I say, raising my eyebrow. "You flatter me, Tetricus; I had not thought I was so endowed." I grin.

"They will assume that you took your old role. Perhaps I should - ? Well, there will be talk anyway, I imagine," he adds, and I frown a little, for despite what I have said to him about not being dishonored, it is still no pleasant thing to imagine oneself being gossiped about. But there is nothing to be done, and besides, they are only slaves.

"Servants always chatter," I say dismissively. We dress, and if the folds of Tetricus's toga are not as neat as if his body man had made them I think he will excuse me. I send one of Tetricus's stable boys to run across to my house to tell the household we are coming, and we get into the litter and start to make the slow journey - my house is not far, but the streets are busy even at night here. I had forgotten that in Parthia.

Tetricus's bearers are good, and so the litter barely jolts. It is warm and dark inside this curtained space, and I smile at Tetricus in the gloom. I feel invigorated and happy, and I cannot help brushing my leg against his as we lie here... and then letting my hand graze across the front of his toga, over the swell of his prick.

[tezcatl-ipoca.livejournal.com]

He presses against me a little in the dimness of the litter, and then his hand drifts lightly across my groin. My prick is still half-hard, and jumps back to full enthusiasm at his touch.

"Allectus," I say, a little shocked. But there is no one to see or know - and the idea of outraging public morality to this extent is curiously exhilarating. I have had my wild youth, of course, some time ago, and while my liking for boys is tacitly tolerated it is not considered admirable, but they are nothing to what Allectus and I have embarked upon. There is to it a strange sense of freedom that I have never quite tasted before.

"To think," I add, "that you should lead me astray..." I move my arm away so that he can reach me better.

[al-shairan.livejournal.com]

"To think that you should lead me astray..."

I see how he moves his hand away, and I think the soft sound I make is almost a purr.

"From time to time I remember you calling me a wicked boy," I say softly, too quietly to be heard from outside with the rush of traffic, "and I expect I have only got more wicked with time." I push aside the folds of his toga so that I may slip my hand inside, fingers rubbing his prick through his fine undertunic. "Think," I say, shifting so my mouth is almost by his ear, "how many people are outside, and how none of them know what we are doing..." I cannot resist biting his earlobe. My own prick throbs, and I take his own hand and press it against me.

But too soon we are on the approach to my house - I recognise the sudden drop in volume as we turn off the busy road - and I draw back reluctantly just in time for the litter to be lowered to the ground and the slaves to assist us out. I am sure our state is quite obvious to them, but I ignore them blithely.

"Come inside," I say. A servant hurries out, but I wave him away. "We will have supper later," I tell him. "Now we are to be left alone." We enter the house, and I feel that slight nervousness return. "I brought some interesting items back from Parthia," I say. "This statue, for instance," I say, indicating one in the atrium. "And I brought a finely carved bed with me. I think you said you were interested in Parthian woodwork." I doubt Tetricus has ever said such a thing in his life.

[tezcatl-ipoca.livejournal.com]

He is wicked. "Think how many people are outside, and how none of them know what we are doing..." I am not sure if his hand on my prick of the way he presses mine into his is more arousing. I curl my fingers round it, but we have arrived and I must release him.

I am in some discomfort walking inside, and I curse him both soundly and affectionately in my head. He is saying something about Parthian woodwork, and I manage not to raise my eyebrows.

"I am indeed," I say mildly, "curious to know more about Parthian handcrafts. I would be delighted to see the delights you have brought home with you." Parthian woodwork, indeed.

[al-shairan.livejournal.com]

"I am indeed curious to know more about Parthian handcrafts. I would be delighted to see the delights you have brought home with you."

His voice is calm and a little wry, and I think of when he first took me to the Senate, how I admired the cool way he would speak, his easy use of the language of politics. This has its similarities, I think.

I bring him to my chamber, where a slave lights the lamps. I do indeed have an elegant carved bed.

"Fine work, as you can see," I say idly. "Quite intricate, and the enamel inlay is well done," I continue, as the servant finishes and goes out. I push the door closed, and then I push Tetricus against it, leg between his thighs.