Page 35 of The House of the Red Balconies

Timon’s thumb toyed with Zo’s lower lip. “You will grow used to it. Now, then. It is past time I delved under these trappings”—He plucked at the front of Zo’s robe—“and plundered the treasure within.”

Zo liked stripping bare for his lovers. He liked feeling their gaze on him in the lamplight and the slide of skin against skin in gratuitous cuddling when he convinced them to get naked too. It was a cold night, but the room was warmed by a brazier, and there were blankets piled generously on the bed.

Timon didn’t even take off all of Zo’s clothes. He undid a couple of buttons on Zo’s robe and stuck his hand in, fumbling with Zo’s undershirt—it was cold, he was wearing layers—to tweak a nipple perfunctorily, acting as if he were committing the ravishment of the century. He delivered some more unpleasant kisses. Zo was getting a crick in his neck from the way Timon bent his head back.

After that, Timon hitched up his own mantle and tunic, twitched aside his loincloth, and persisted in describing his cock as a spear. Zo was desperate for him to shut up. He’d never felt less aroused when actually in the lead-up to making love.

“You see how it strains to plunge into your dainty hole?” Timon was saying. “Down, boy!” He gave his cock an open-handed slap that made it bounce. “This beauty is no bitch to be mounted without preliminaries.”

Maybe the earth would open up and swallow him, Zo thought wistfully. Maybe there would be an earthquake, and the island would subside under the sea. Maybe Hylas would come home tipsy and open the wrong door by accident. God, that would be nice. And wasn’t all that far-fetched.

Timon’s idea of preliminaries consisted of pulling Zo’s trousers down—not all the way off, just down—positioning him on his knees on the cold floor, bent over the table, and poking a licked finger in his ass. He really did only know his way around a man’s rear, apparently; he didn’t touch Zo’s cock, and only commented disapprovingly on his pubic hair. “I prefer my boys bare in that region,” he said, to which Zo made no reply.

Zo had never found Planting the Rose, as it was called in the Zashian love manuals, did anything for him, but he was used to exaggerating signs of pleasure for the sake of lovers who really craved it. That in itself could be enjoyable, so in the end he usually had fun, even if he didn’t climax. He didn’t think Timon wanted him to pretend to enjoy himself. He clenched his muscles to give Timon the satisfaction of purring about how tight he was, and made breathy gasps that corresponded to nothing in particular.

“There’s oil on my dressing table,” he said, when he felt Timon change position behind him and begin to withdraw his finger.

“Shh-shh, my lovely. Your capacious hole will be able to accommodate even such girth as mine, have no fear.”

Timon did, in fact, have a large cock, and Zo was absolutely not taking it without oil. He pushed himself up on his hands and looked over his shoulder.

“Sorry, but we do need the oil. I’ll get it, shall I?”

Timon, who had his clothing bunched up in one hand and his cock in the other, glared at him for a moment as if not quite comprehending.

“No,” he said finally, tugging down his mantle and struggling to his feet. “You stay where you are. Demanding little whore.”

He stormed over to Zo’s dressing table, now half-hidden by the screen Hylas had put up, knocked several things over, and returned, glowering, with the flask of oil. He made a mess with it, grunting and muttering about being put off his stride and how much he hated having greasy hands.

The actual fuck would have been an anticlimax if Zo had had any hopes for it. Timon had stamina but no technique. If Zo had been less uncomfortable, he thought he would probably have fallen asleep. Instead he put on a show with moans and protests—“too much,” “too big,” and so on. It wasn’t any of those things; it was just boring and taking too long. Timon panted and growled and slapped Zo’s flank and muttered disjointed nonsense—mercifully he wasn’t able to keep talking coherently while he fucked.

Once Timon had come, he was restored to a good humour, the debacle with the oil largely forgotten. He hauled Zo up from the table and draped him prone on the divan, with his trousers still around his ankles, saying with obvious satisfaction that he looked “well used.” As Zo had expected, he didn’t stay. If he’d noticed that at no point during his lovemaking had Zo been aroused, he didn’t comment on it. Probably that was how he liked it.

When he was gone, Zo sat up on the divan, rubbing his stiff neck, and kicked off his trousers. He retrieved his new crutch from the hiding place he and Hylas had found for it—close at hand but not obvious to his guests—and took down his lamp from its stand. It was late, but he very much wanted a bath.

“It’s the last night of the year, Hylas,” Loukianos announced, slapping Hylas on the shoulder. “We’ll mark the funeral of the old year in the Sasian style, by drinking until the wee hours. Mind you, the Sasian calendar doesn’t end the year here, but what odds?”

“When do the Sasians celebrate the new year?” Hylas asked. And do they give gifts? was going to be his next question. He was still regretting his lost opportunity at Dendreia.

“Spring some time?” said Loukianos vaguely. “We’re going to the Peacock tonight.”

An evening at the Peacock, in Hylas’s opinion, was a better evening than one spent at the Bower or the Amber Lily. There would be good food and drink, some form of entertainment, and he might get the opportunity to say hello to Mutari. He always tried to pass on greetings to her from Theano and the others at the Red Balconies when he could.

Unfortunately, going to the Peacock did mean that Pantaleon, the most annoying of the governor’s set, would be with them. He never came to the Bower of Suos and had apparently been banned from the Amber Lily.

No one else seemed to like Pantaleon any better than Hylas, and they were more successful in avoiding him, so that it ended up being Hylas whom he followed, talking loudly, into Mutari’s sitting room. She was holding court there, as she did, arranged like a temple idol on her divan at one end of the room, with her guests seated around her and her patron, the quartermaster from the fort, in pride of place beside her. She waved Hylas in with a smile, and he picked his way through the crowd to a vacant cushion. Pantaleon blundered in behind him.

“How are my friends at the Red Balconies?” Mutari inquired.

“Very well,” said Hylas, because this was a public inquiry, Mutari doing her part to help rebuild the reputation of her friends’ house.

Later, if they had an opportunity to talk privately, he could tell her how everyone was really doing, the latest in the battle between Mistress Aula and Taris over the headscarf, how Elpis had invented a new kind of cake without any flour, after a barrel that Aula had bought at a discount had turned out to be full of weevils.

“You have friends at the Red Balconies?” said one of Mutari’s guests, as if playing along. Perhaps Mutari had put him up to it. “I didn’t know that old house was still open.”

“Oh, indeed it is,” said the quartermaster. “I have many fond memories of the Red Balconies.”

“We ought to go back some time,” said someone else.