She flirted effortlessly with half a dozen of us, and I noticed that most of the men present were quite young – twenty, just free of their ephebe duties – and long-haired boys at that, aristocrats who cared nothing for Athenian virtue.
Diodorus had, indeed, suggested that Thaïs was past her most popular.
I could find no visible flaw – nor, when she sang, could I hear an audible one. But fashions change, and Thaïs represented a freer, more self-confident Athens – not the narrow world Demosthenes wanted – a prude whose sole justification was his hatred of Philip. And now, of Alexander.
But the boys were afraid of me. One made bad jokes at my expense, as if my Greek were so bad that I couldn’t be expected to understand. He was doing it from sheer bravado, and he bored me, and angered Thaïs, who asked him to stop.
‘Perhaps Demosthenes is right,’ the boy said, flipping his hair like a girl. ‘Macedon is a land of effeminate poseurs, and this Ptolemy with the barbarian name hides behind Thaïs.’
I sipped some sweet wine. ‘Dear Thaïs, if I break the little one, will you forgive me?’
She made a face. ‘Yes. But only if I can watch.’
That stung the brat. He sat up. ‘Well – if that’s all the thanks I get for my wit, I’ll go.’
I smiled. ‘Don’t hurry, laddy. We’re going to wrestle first.’
Thaïs clapped her hands.
The boy waved for his cloak. ‘I’ll decline to wrestle with a barbarian, however well connected.’
‘Well,’ I said, still smiling, ‘then I guess I’ll just break your neck.’ I caught him by the shoulders, locked an elbow, put him in a hold and threw him out of a window. The window was open, and it was less than the height of a man above the garden.
The garden was a little thorny.
‘His father is quite important,’ Thaïs said.
‘My master is the King of Macedon,’ I said. The other boys hurried out. As soon as they were gone, I bent down over her kline and kissed her.
And she let me.
It was quite a long kiss, and without meaning to, I had a hand under her chiton, on one lovely breast and then the other.
I could hear the boy in the garden arguing with his friends. But I didn’t care what he decided to do.
My hand drifted over her belly, which was as taut as my own, and stroked her – down and down. My fingers parted her. And then I was inside her.
It all took a deliciously long time. And her slaves must have been remarkably well trained.
And at some point, she was astride me, and she pulled her chiton over her head without unpinning anything, shucking it off as a useless encumbrance. ‘Sex should be naked,’ she said. ‘Like athletics – the participants need to show their bodies.’
I took the hint, although I remember giggling as I tried to wriggle out of my chiton while pinned to the couch.
Am I shocking you?
Let me put it this way. Before that afternoon, I’d never really had sex. She was playful, humorous, lust-filled, languorous, fast, slow, intelligent, as beautiful as Aphrodite, with more cleverness in one hand than all the slave girls I’d ever bedded had in their cunnies. And in between bouts – for sex with Thaïs bore some very real relationship to competitions – she’d talk of things – real things, like love and friendship and war.
I’d like to say we made love six times, but that would be bragging.
‘I’m going to be sore tomorrow,’ she said.
‘I’m sore right now,’ I said. I was looking at my penis, which was as red as a Spartan’s cloak. She laughed. I laughed.
Put a value on that.
‘Come away with me,’ I said. ‘Live with me. Be my hetaera.’
‘On the basis of one afternoon on a couch? You don’t have my bill yet.’ She smiled and kissed my nose.
Now, I hated my nose. People called me ‘Farm Boy’ because of that beak. No one had ever kissed it before.
‘On the basis of the fact that I think of you constantly.’ I licked her lips.
‘You’ve bedded me now – the feeling will pass.’ She smiled. ‘Men really only fancy what they haven’t had.’
I bit her.
She bit me.
We were pretty far down the path when she grabbed my hand – she was strong – as strong as a warrior. ‘That hurts. I’m done, sweet.’
I laughed and kissed her. ‘I suppose I owe you for the week you’ll be out of commission,’ I said.
She shook her head. ‘I’m not a porne,’ she said. ‘You’d be surprised how long it is since I had a man between my hips.’
I licked her lips again. ‘I’m lucky.’
She laughed. ‘Perhaps.’
‘I mean it,’ I added. ‘Come with me.’
‘You don’t know me,’ she said. ‘And people will say the most unkind things.’
I shrugged. ‘I’ll kill them.’ That made her laugh.
She wouldn’t give me an answer. We drank some wonderful red wine together, and I left to go to a dinner in Alexander’s honour.
I didn’t see her for two days. She refused my invitations and was not at home to anyone.
On the third day, Demosthenes himself agreed to lead the embassy to Alexander. Athens was racing to throw itself at the conqueror’s feet. Demosthenes could never meet my eye. Old Phokion was kind enough to shake my hand and tell me that the exploit of Mount Ossa was as worthy as any feat of arms he’d ever done.
Kineas and I boxed, and he gave me a black eye. Your pater had the fastest hands I’ve ever failed to see, and that’s no lie.
I was done. So I sent Thaïs a note, declaring that I was still sore and that I still wanted her to come with me. I thought a touch of humour might have an effect.
She sent me a bill for ten talents of gold. A year’s income from all of my estates.
I sent her all ten talents, and a bill for ridding her of a troublesome guest – one Athenian drachma, payable in kisses.
The next day, I packed my gear. I had no intention of riding with Demosthenes. I detested him. He made my skin crawl.
Mid-morning, while I said my goodbyes to Kineas, his father’s steward summoned the old man, who went out for a hundred heartbeats and came back.
‘Ptolemy, there is a personat my gate. She says she will wait for you. Do you wish me to admit her?’
Kineas looked puzzled. I waspuzzled.
‘Not . . . Thaïs?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ Eumeles said. ‘A person of some . . . distinction.’ He spoke with evident distaste.
‘Ah!’ I ran down the stairs and out into the courtyard, across the yard and out through the gate.
There were twenty mules in the alley, and a dozen slaves, and Thaïs, robed like a matron and wearing a broad-brimmed straw hat.
‘Last chance to change your mind,’ she said.
I shrugged. ‘At ten talents an . . . encounter, I must confess that ours may be a chaste relationship.’
She nodded. ‘Platonic, perhaps?’
I laughed. Kineas laughed when I told it to him. He snorted wine over his chiton. She was that funny.
When I left Athens, I had the one thing Athens had that I wanted.
TWELVE
When I rode out through the gates of Athens – the magnificent Panathenaic gates – I hadn’t given Alexander a thought in three days. And such was my delight in Thaïs that I didn’t really think much about him during the idyll over Parnassus to his camp outside Thebes.
But the camp was a buzzing hive, and the first drone to land near me was Hephaestion, who had the inner guards when I rode into camp. I saluted him, and he rode over.
He looked at Thaïs, looked away, and back, and away.
I smiled.
‘Who’s that?’ he asked. Not at his most subtle.
‘The hetaera Thaïs, the jewel of Athens.’ I smiled. ‘She has agreed, of her goodness, to spend a little time with me.’’
‘She is beautiful!’ Hephaestion’s admiration was quite genuine, and he bowed deeply in the saddle. ‘Despoina, that you condescend to grace our rude camp is like having Aphrodite herself—’