It´s clear she didn´t expect me back here, and certainly not so soon. The blue-haired proprietress of what is essentially a high-end whorehouse that Pullo took me to merely days before looks at me, her eyes widening for a brief second before she puts on the charm she recognizes as fundamentally necessary when speaking to an aristocrat. There´s something about her smile that´s irritatingly fake, but I don´t mind it; she´s merely a means to an end.
She asks me if I´d like the same girl I´d taken the last time; I barely remember that girl, though she was undoubtedly pretty and easily manageable in bed. She had a fiery disposition, however, that made the entire encounter not terribly unpleasant. Enough so that I could call it pleasant and not be completely lying.
Yet there was still that obvious problem that I couldn´t get past, that made me aggressive and even slightly violent with her. I didn´t want her, even though anyone would tell me she was attractive. No; I found my eyes much more drawn to the boy standing near her, the dark-haired, tanned, pretty thing who was so utterly and completely touchable.
I´d snapped when the proprietress had initially begun to list him as an option. I had to think of what Pullo could bring back to my mother, and I was already tired of her anger, and her constant attempts to mold me into exactly the son she believed would best serve her political agenda. Yet no more was I prepared for the prospect of her sickening approval, as when she had been so assured that I had seduced my great uncle.
What I´d proven to myself that day, however, was that I could do it. I could penetrate a woman quite adequately, even if I didn´t necessarily enjoy the act. That meant that when the time came for me to marry and please my mother, I could so do, if only to shut her up.
Yet I´d gotten a taste of sex that day, which was something I´d been steadily denying myself. I´d dreaded it when my mother had insisted that I penetrate someone, mostly because I knew that once I´d done it to a woman, I´d start wondering what it would be like to do it with a man. I´d known, for the longest time, in my darkest and most twisted desires, that that was what I wanted.
I didn´t know why I thought I had to deny it to myself; Roman society did not frown upon it, though it could create relentless gossip, as I knew from Caesar´s time in Bithynia. I´d spent so little time with Caesar since he had returned from Gaul, so I knew not if the rumors of his time with King Nicomedes had any truth to them, but I knew that with my status, similar accusations could one day turn to me.
But still, I am here, telling the stout blue-haired woman that no, I´d like a boy this time, preferably the dark-haired one she´d come so close to showing me before. I have the money to pay, and my mother will never notice it missing, with all that she hates finances and politics and anything related, though she loves taking whatever wealth and power either will give her.
If the woman seems surprised by my request, she doesn´t show it; perhaps I was too transparent last time, perhaps my protest was too quick for her not to notice. She must see dozens of people coming through here each dayundoubtedly, she can pick out a person´s pleasure easily enough, and I know I had come off as disinterested the last time.
She goes off to summon the boyhe must be older than me, I know, but I can´t help but think of him as suchbefore coming back to work out formalities with me. I know she´s giving him time to prepare himself, and I´m grateful for it. I´ve never done this before, of course, and it´s doubtless that she´s realized it. Yet I know the fundamentals of it as well as I know those of sleeping with women; it´s difficult to grow up in Rome and not be aware of these things.
She leads me off to a roomnot the same room as the last timeand there is the boy, lying back on the bed, his genitals still covered, though not much else is. She leaves me to it without much preamble, but I barely notice, because my eyes are focused only on him. He´s much more beautiful now than he was before, with his eyes lowered, looking contrite and obedient. Now he´s looking up at me, something akin to hope in his eyes, tinged with a bit of lust. I wasn´t sure if this was a carefully fostered look that all prostitutes were meant to have, or if he truly felt such lust, but I feel myself beginning to harden without any thought or effort on my part, unlike the last time.
I walk over to the bed and sit down on the edge, running my hand up his thigh and just under the cloth covering him immodestly; it´s as if I merely to assure myself that I can touch him, that this is really happening. I wanted it more than I had wanted anything in a long time, other than time alone with my books, to think about all the things that interested me.
This is different, though, and I know it. I stand up and begin undoing my belt; stripping seems so much easier this time, seems to take so much less effort, before I´m on the bed next to him and naked. He seems to take this as a silent signal and strips as well. I can see that he´s also aroused; he´s larger than I would have expected from someone with so lithe a frame, his penis nestled in a sea of dark curls. His thighs are long and sculpted, somehow tanned and pale at the same time. His skin is creamy and unmarred, unlike the skin of so many men I was used to seeing, who were scarred from battle, from fights, or even mere accidents.
I beckon him to me; I´m aware that maybe I should be nervous, but I wasn´t nervous last time either. Last time, I was just dreading the act with a woman, all soft curves and delicate skin. He is delicate too, in his own way, but his body is all hard lines, and lean muscles, and instead of soft folds between his thighs, there is rigid, hard flesh that I my eyes devour so easily.
As if being led by some invisible force instructing him, he slides over the sheets to me, settles himself between my legs, and takes my hardened length into his mouth. I can´t help but gasp and bury my fingers in his short, dark locks. I´ve never had this done to me before, never really dared imagine it. I knew that respectable women weren´t to do this and admit it; I knew that the girl could have, the last time I was here, but I´d tried to get it over with as quickly as possible, much the way my books told me physicians did when making cuts to conscious patients.
His mouth is warm, his tongue experienced, and I try not to think of all the men he must have done this to before me, because I´m not sure whether that idea disgusts or arouses me, and I desperately do not know what I would do if it is the latter. I thrust up into his mouth a little, unconsciously, and though this seems to cause him discomfort, he also seems encouraged by the movement somehow.
I´m dangerously close to release already, and I can feel it building within me, so I stop him. I don´t want this to end too soon, don´t want it to cease before I´ve even penetrated him. After I instruct him to do so, he takes position on his hands and knees, but it´s nothing like the last time I was here, because I can see the lean lines of his body, can see his thick phallus jutting out just below his stomach.
I know he must have prepared himself before even entering the room, because though I am young and still developing, and am by no means large, his passage should not have been this easy to breach, this slick and ready. He gasps, then mewls a little as I shift and begin thrusting into his pliant body. It feels somewhat like penetrating a woman, but at the same time it´s nothing like that feeling at all, mostly because this time it is pleasantmore than pleasant, reallyand it feels so sickeningly good.
My control is quickly fading as I begin to thrust into him harder, and he´s gasping beneath me. Then, I shift a little, changing my angle slightly, and he lets out a whimper that surprises me, so I repeat the movement to get a very similar response. Dimly, in the part of my mind that is not overwhelmed by the pleasure pooling deep in my belly, I wonder what exactly he is feeling at this moment, part of me curious to one day feel it myself.
Even without much experience, I can sense my impending release, as I thrust into his body one final time and cry out, feeling the tension flow from my body and my seed flow into his. When I finally come to myself a minute laterthough it feels like it could be an hourI feel like I´ve truly relaxed and lost all my tension, yet part of me is strangely energized. I don´t feel that sickness rising in my stomach like the last time, when the body beneath mine was all too feminine.
After I pull out of his body, I see that he, too, is now limp, that there´s a little pool of white fluid on the covers beneath him. Some part of me is glad that he enjoyed it, because I´m not sure how often he actually enjoys these acts with perfect strangers.
And as he collapses to the bed next to me, breathing hard and not speaking, I feel for the first time that I´ve found something so incredibly right in my life that isn´t in a book or a manuscript. It isn´t something that I´m ready to share, but I know that right now, at this moment, I´m not abnormal, and the idea of sex doesn´t have to forever be associated with my mother´s loud moans, and political intrigue, and shame at the fact that I don´t enjoy the one thing that everyone makes out to be such a big deal. And for now, that´s enough.