it for precisely this that he had been put here?
***
The 4th day before the Kalends of December
“Ah, darling Agathon, don’t stop! I’m dying!” Thais straddled him, brushing his face with her breasts as he thrust into her.
The rays of the setting sun pouring through his bedroom window gave the girl’s skin a golden sheen, struck red highlights in her tangled hair. She was his favorite hetaera and this was the climax of a long, lazy afternoon of drinking, dicing, and love-making.
Abruptly shattered by sounds of scuffling in the entrance hall below them.
The voice of Baucis, “Matrona, no, I’ve orders not to—please, matrona, you can’t—” and another voice demanding to be let in. A voice he knew too well. Gods! Agathon heaved the girl off him, sending her sprawling on the floor. “Quick! Get your clothes on.” He pushed her through a curtain into a side chamber. He struggled into his tunic, smoothed the bedclothes as best he could. And when Calpurnia burst through the door he was sitting in his chair with a scroll in his lap to cover his still swollen organ, forcing himself to breathe slowly.
With one motion she flung off her hooded cloak, ran to him and threw herself at his feet. He recoiled. Could this be the same woman he had once imagined he loved? It had been six weeks or more since he had seen her at the Roman procurator’s funeral, and the change in her was astonishing: her face a dead white, the chin and cheekbones sharp where there had once been soft flesh, and the eyes—the eyes, big and haunted, looking out at him from dark hollows.
Her voice thick with tears, “I waited two days for your answer. I couldn’t stand it anymore.”
“Answer to what?”
“Please don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying. Here now, get up, don’t do that.” She wrapped her arms around his knees like a suppliant before the statue of a god. “Look, you can’t come here. Your husband—”
“He’s gone! He’ll be gone for weeks. Now is our chance! Tell me you love me. I know you do, you must. You were only frightened, I understand.”
“Calpurnia, it’s over.”
“You don’t mean that! Let me be your Callirhoe again, let me love you.” She rucked up his tunic, uncovering him, put her head between his legs. In spite of himself, he swelled again. And sweet little Thais, hidden from them by only the thin fabric of a curtain, was momentarily forgotten. He drew her up and carried her to the bed, still warm from that other body…
When they had finished making love, she lay dreamily with her head on his chest and only then began to take in her surroundings. On the bedside table a tray of half-eaten pastries and two goblets. She sat bolt upright, looking around wildly. “Who’s here?”
“What? No one. One of my chums dropped by, left hours ago.”
Slowly, she lay down again. “I want to stay here all day and all night,” she murmured.
Did he hear a stirring behind the curtain? “Don’t be silly, ’Purnia, they’ll be missing you soon. You have to go now.”
“Say you love me again.”
“I love you, I do. Now you have to go.”
“I’ll come again tomorrow.”
“I’m leaving for the country tomorrow. My parents are complaining they haven’t seen me in months. I’ll be away for a week or more.” This was, in fact, the truth, though if it hadn’t been he would have said it anyway.
“Oh, too long!” she cried. “I have an idea.” She took his face between her hands, her lips parted eagerly. “We’ll spend a day in the country, where you took me once before. You can get away, can’t you? We’ll have a whole day to ourselves. We’ll be nymphs and satyrs in the woods. You are a satyr, my beautiful young satyr!”
Anything to be rid of her. And why not? It would be preferable to a day spent listening to a lecture from his father about the planting of winter wheat and why couldn’t he take an interest in things like his brothers. And she did excite him even though she knew none of the tricks of a hetaera. “Yes, yes, all right. Make it two days from now. Take the road that follows the river up toward the Reclining Woman. You remember? At the waterfall follow the track that goes off to the left about five stades. I’ll mark the path for you with a cloth tied to a tree branch. It’s a steep climb but you can