Timokrate laughed. “There is that,” she agreed. Then she yawned, and laughed again. “To be out when I’m usually sleeping.”
“I don’t think I’ll sleep all night.” Baukis’ voice thrummed with excitement like a plucked kithara string.
“All right, dear. I know I will.” Aunt Timokrate sounded amused, and tolerant of her sister-in-law’s youth. She opened the door, said, “Good night,” one more time, and went inside.
Baukis sighed, then picked up the song of praise once more as she started to her own home. Menedemos hardly heard her above the hammering of his own heart. You can let her go in ahead of you, then go in yourself and go back to bed. No one would be the wiser. You can.
He stepped out of the shadow. Baukis’ hymn to Hera suddenly stopped. She froze. “Who’s there?”
“Only me.” Menedemos’ voice stumbled. His legs as light with fear as if he were going into a sea fight, he came toward her.
“Oh, Menedemos.” Baukis’ reply was only the tiniest thread of whisper. “What are you doing here?”
He almost laughed. But it wasn’t funny, and he knew it wasn’t, and she had to know as much, too. Without a word, without a sound, he reached out and brushed her cheek with the back of his hand.
It could have ended there. She might have flinched. She might have fled. She might have screamed. Instead, she sighed and shivered as if a winter downright Macedonian had all at once descended on this tiny corner of Rhodes. “Oh, Menedemos,” she said again, this time in an altogether different tone of voice. She shivered again. “We shouldn’t.”
“I know,” he answered. “But…” A shrug. “I’ve been trying to pretend this isn’t here for three years now. Every spring, I’ve run away to sea so I wouldn’t have to think about you. Every fall, when I come home…” He half turned away, but then swung back, drawn as irresistibly as iron by a lodestone. He stroked her cheek again. Just for the fragment of a heartbeat, her breath warmed his palm. But he was already on fire-or was that ice?
Baukis started to turn away, too, but found herself as unable as Menedemos. “We shouldn’t,” she said again. She looked up at the star-crowded sky. Menedemos stared, entranced, at the smooth line of her throat in moonlight. Maybe love was a disease. But how many other diseases did the physicians know where the sufferer wanted anything but to be cured?
Afterwards, he never knew which of them moved first. One instant, they stood close together, but not touching. The next, they were in each other’s arms, each one trying to squeeze the breath from the other. The soft firmness of Baukis pressed against him drove Menedemos even further into that delicious madness everyone said he ought to fear.
And he was afraid, but not of that madness, only of what might come from it. His lips found hers. The kiss was deep and desperate: drowning-deep, and he never wanted to come up for air. At last, he had to. He trailed more kisses along the angle of her jaw, the side of her neck, the lobe of her ear, her fluttering eyelids. When his lips touched her cheek, he tasted tears, but she clung to him as if her ship had sunk and he were the only floating spar.
She still might have fled. When he cupped the round fullness of her breast through her tunic, he thought for a moment she would, even if her firm nipple thrust against the soft wool of the chiton. But then, with what might have been laugh or sob or both commingled, she clung to him more fiercely than ever. They kissed again. Baukis moaned, down deep in her throat.
Menedemos led her back to the shadowed wall where he’d waited. Some things, even the silent moon should not see. Baukis bent forward. “Oh,” she said softly when he went into her. He set his hands on her hips, just where they swelled from her narrow waist. She looked back over her shoulder at him. “Hurry!”
Menedemos also knew he had to be quick, and did his best. But as much as he wanted to hurry, he wanted to please Baukis more. If he didn’t, after waiting so long… The irony there was too cruel to contemplate. As his pleasure mounted and his breath came short, he listened anxiously to make sure hers did, too. Then a small mewling cry burst from her lips. She quivered, inside and out. Menedemos groaned as he spent himself.
Baukis pulled away from him and straightened. Her hiked-up chiton fell down around her ankles once more. “Darling,” Menedemos said, quickly setting his own tunic to rights. He kissed her again. “I do love you.”
“Yes.” Baukis sounded as if she’d only half heard him. Her thoughts were elsewhere. “I’ll go in first, and I won’t bar the door. If you don’t hear a commotion, you’ll know your father-my husband-is still asleep.” She gulped. He wondered if she would start to cry. Guilt filled some women after they were unfaithful; the innkeeper’s wife Sostratos had known in Ioudaia was of that sort. But Baukis gathered herself, finishing, “And the slaves, too, of course.”
“And the slaves,” Menedemos echoed. “We’ll have to act as though nothing’s happened in the morning, you know.”
She dipped her head. “Oh, yes. I’ll remember. Don’t you forget.”
That was probably-no, certainly-good advice. Menedemos knew how much his father tried him. The temptation to fling this in Philodemos’ face might grow overwhelming. He would have to hold it down. From the very first, he’d seen this could be death between them if it ever came to pass. Now it had, and now the secret had to stay a secret forever.
He kissed Baukis once more. She clung to him for a moment, then twisted free. “I’m going. If there’s any trouble, I’ll try to let you know. I-” She stopped. Had she been about to say, 1 love you? He never knew. She squared her shoulders and, almost as if marching into battle, went into the house.
Menedemos waited, there in the shadows. He cocked his head to one side, anxiously listening. All he heard were an owl and, off in the distance, a last hymn to Hera that suddenly stopped as the woman singing it found her way home. No sound of any sort came from inside the house.
He waited a little longer all the same. Then, as quietly as he could, he went to the door. He opened it, slid inside, and closed it behind him. When he reached for the bar, he made sure he took firm hold of it and didn’t drop it as he set it in the brackets: the clatter would have roused the whole household. He breathed a silent sigh of relief after setting it in place.
At the edge of the courtyard, he paused again to listen. Everything was quiet but for a horrible rasping snore coming from Sikon’s room. Sleeping on his back, Menedemos thought. Whenever the cook rolled over, he sounded like a sawmill.
Quickly, Menedemos crossed the courtyard, tiptoed upstairs, and ducked into his own room. He barred his door as carefully as he had the one to the house. Then he lay down, stared at the ceiling as he had earlier in the night, and let out a long sigh. “I did it,” he murmured. “I really did it.”
That wasn’t pride talking. He didn’t quite know what it was. Guilt? Shame? Some of those, more than he’d expected. Adultery for adultery’s sake was losing its appeal. But what had passed between Baukis and him was more than adultery for adultery’s sake, and what he felt had little to do with pride. Even though guilt and shame were mixed into it, they were only part-and a small part at that-of what crashed through him like storm waves. Up till now, he’d never made love with a woman with whom he was in love. All at once, he fully understood why the passion was so powerful, so dangerous. The only thing he could think of was making love to Baukis again.
Ican’t do that, he realized, and the knowledge burned like a viper’s venom. The next time Baukis made love, she would lie in his father’s arms. The mere idea filled Menedemos with fury. He’d long known that, if he was to lie with his father’s wife, that could make Philodemos want to kill him. He’d never dreamt lying with Baukis might make him want to kill his father.