al_shairan: (Roman stoical al)
[personal profile] 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.

Date: 2010-10-24 10:52 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tezcatl-ipoca.livejournal.com
He kisses my breast when we are done, and it is so sweet that it almost seems to burn. "Oh, my friend."

Yes. "I did not know..." I say. I cannot think of adequate words. "Equals. Yes." That give and take...I had not even thought to long for it, and yet something in me is filled that has long been empty.

"Thank you, Allectus," I say after a moment. I am not thanking him simply for the sex, as a service given, and I hope that he will understand that. The world is not as it was this morning, with this new knowledge in it.

Date: 2010-10-24 11:23 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] al-shairan.livejournal.com
"Equals. Yes."

I smile against his chest, and I lay my head against it so I can listen to his heart.

"Thank you, Allectus," he says, and I look up at him.

"I need no thanks," I say. "Unless you will also take mine in return." I hesitate for a moment, and then I ask: "would you - consider sleeping here, tonight? With me." It is not something we have really done before - dozing after intimacy, yes, but we have not slept together. It seems almost more intimate an idea than the things we have done tonight.

Date: 2010-10-24 11:25 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] tezcatl-ipoca.livejournal.com
His head rests against my chest. "I need no thanks. Unless you will also take mine in return. Would you - consider sleeping here, tonight?"

"I will take yours, and gladly. And yes - if there is someone you might send to Calida, I would sleep with you tonight. My dearest friend."

I stroke his hair back from his forehead. "And see, you have made me a sentimental old man." I cannot find it in myself to mind.

Date: 2010-10-24 11:35 pm (UTC)
From: [identity profile] al-shairan.livejournal.com
"I can send a servant," I say. My heart feels very full.

"And see, you have made me a sentimental old man."

"Never old," I say. "Are not the thirties the perfect age of man's life?" I smile at him. "It seems so to me." I too am sentimental. "We shall dine," I say, "and sleep heart to heart, as Achilles and Patroclus were said to." I kiss him again, and I sit up and find my tunic, and after we are both decently attired we eat together and talk of everything and nothing. And then I take him back to bed with me, bare skin against skin.

It has been a long time since I slept so soundly.

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