Sostratos tossed his head. “That’s our custom, not theirs. She has no reason to follow it. She seems a good enough woman to me.”
“Better than good enough,” Teleutas said. “She’d be a piece and a half in bed, I bet. Ithran’s a lucky dog. I’d sooner lay her than some bored whore who might as well be dead.”
“Drag your mind out of the chamber pot, if you’d be so kind,” Sostratos said. “Have you seen her paying attention to anyone but her husband? You’ll get us thrown out-or worse-if you treat her like a loose woman when she plainly isn’t.”
“I haven’t done anything with her. I haven’t done anything to her. I don’t intend to,” Teleutas said. But he’d had enough wine to speak his mind: “I’m not the only one who keeps watching her all the time, though, and there’s nobody can say I am.” He sent Sostratos a significant glance.
“Me? Are you talking about me? Go howl, you whipworthy rogue!” Sostratos exclaimed, so sharply that Zilpah, who usually paid no attention to talk in Greek, looked back in surprise to see what the matter was.
Sostratos gave her a sickly smile. She frowned back. But, when neither he nor Teleutas pulled out a knife or started swinging a stool like a flail, she relaxed and went back to what she’d been doing.
“Ha!” Teleutas sounded disgustingly sly. “I knew I put that arrow right in the middle of the target. If you were your cousin, now, you’d already know what she’s like under those robes. If she shows you her face, she’ll show you the rest, too, easy as you please.”
“Will you shut up?” Instead of shouting, as he wanted to do, Sostratos kept his voice to a furious whisper so as not to draw Zilpah’s notice again. “And I keep telling you, going around unveiled doesn’t mean the same thing here as it would back in Hellas. Besides, what would get me murdered faster than trying to seduce the innkeeper’s wife?”
“Menedemos wouldn’t worry about any of that,” Teleutas said. “All he cares about is getting it in.” He was, no doubt, right. He spoke with nothing but admiration. But what he saw as praiseworthy seemed blameworthy to Sostratos. Then the sailor added, “You only get in trouble if she doesn’t like it. If she does, you’re happy as a billy goat.”
“That only shows how much-or how little-you know,” Sostratos said. The women Menedemos seduced didn’t complain and didn’t betray him to their husbands. He commonly betrayed himself by taking insane chances to get what he wanted. He was lucky to have come out of Halikarnassos and Taras in one piece.
“I give up,” Teleutas said. “But tell me you’d throw her out of bed if you found her in there. Go on-tell me. I dare you.”
“It’s not going to happen, so there’s no point talking about it. Hypothetical questions have their uses, but that isn’t one of them.”
As he’d hoped, the formidable word gave Teleutas pause. Before the sailor could start up again, Aristeidas walked into the inn, a satisfied smirk on his face. Teleutas gulped down what was left of his wine, then hurried away. Aristeidas sat down on the stool he’d vacated. “Hail,” he said to Sostratos.
“Hail,” Sostratos answered. When Teleutas came back from the brothel, he would give a thrust-by-thrust description of what he’d done. Aristeidas didn’t have that vice. He was content to sit there and keep an eye on Sostratos. To encourage him to do that and nothing more, Sostratos sipped at his wine and half turned away.
That meant his gaze swung toward Zilpah. What would she be like in bed? he wondered. It wasn’t the first time the question had crossed his mind. He’d got angry at Teleutas not least for noticing. If the sailor had seen his curiosity (that seemed a safer word than desire), had Zilpah seen it, too? Worse, had Ithran?
He must know he has a good-looking, good-natured wife, the Rhodian thought, because they don’t shut their women away from the world, as we do, he must know other men will get to know her, too. He shouldn’t mind my admiring her, so long as I do it with my eyes and nothing more.
Sostratos dipped his head. Yes, that made good logical sense. The only trouble was, logic was often the first thing out the window in dealings between men and women. If Ithran caught him staring at Zilpah, the Ioudaian might prove as jealous as any Hellene would have been on catching a man eyeing his wife.
And, then again, Sostratos found himself ever more tempted to find out just how interested in straying Zilpah might be. Maybe that was just because he’d gone without a woman for a long time. Maybe a trip to a brothel would cure him of it. But maybe such a visit wouldn’t, either. He was beginning to understand the attractions the game of adultery held for Menedemos. One willing woman might be worth several who lay down for a man because they had no choice.
His cousin had always insisted such things were true. Sostratos had always mocked him, scorned him. Now he discovered Menedemos had, at least to some degree, known what he was talking about. Few discoveries could have alarmed him more.
His eyes slid toward Zilpah again. Angrily, he made himself look away. Did she know what he was thinking? If she did, what did she think? Was it, Oh, dear, here’s another traveler who’s liable to make a fool of himself? Or was it, He wants me. Do I want him, too?
How do I find out? Sostratos wondered. He scowled and made a fist. Sure enough, he was liable to be walking down Menedemos’ road. “No,” he muttered.
“What do you mean, no?” Aristeidas asked.
“Nothing. Nothing at all,” Sostratos said quickly, and sipped his wine. His ears heated. How can I find out whether she wants me without putting my head on the block? He liked that version of the question much better. I won’t take any chances to find out, not the way Menedemos does.
That made him feel better, but only for a little while. If he hadn’t been trained to root out self-delusion, it probably would have satisfied him longer. As things were, though, he had to wonder, How do I know what I want? A man who wants a woman isn’t likely to think straight.
Aristeidas said, “Maybe you ought to go get laid, you don’t mind my saying so. The girls at this place around the corner are pretty friendly-or they act like they are, anyhow.”
If he hadn’t added that last little bit, he might have persuaded Sostratos. As things were, he only reminded him of the difference between what was paid for and what was freely given. “Another time,” Sostratos said.
“They’re funny there, you know?” Aristeidas went on. “Our women always singe off the hair between their legs or else shave it off, the way you shave your face.”
Sostratos plucked at his beard. “I don’t shave my face,” he pointed out.
“No, the way you would if you did,” the sailor said confusingly. “The whores here don’t shave their bushes, or singe them, or anything. They just let ‘em grow. It looks funny, if you ask me.”
“Yes, I guess it would,” Sostratos agreed. Some men, he supposed, might find the difference exciting. Others might find it disgusting; Aristeidas seemed close to feeling that way. At first, Sostratos thought it wouldn’t matter to him one way or the other. Then he imagined Zilpah with a hairy delta at the joining of her legs. The thought roused him more than he’d expected it to, but was that because he imagined hairy private parts or Zilpah’s private parts? He wasn’t sure.
Zilpah said, “Greetings, my master.” She wasn’t talking to Sostratos, but to another lodger who’d just walked into the inn.
“Hail,” the newcomer replied in Greek. He paused for a moment inside the doorway, letting his eyes adjust to the gloom within. Seeing Sostratos and Aristeidas, he waved. “Hail, Rhodians,” he said, and headed over to their table.
“Hail, Hekataios,” Sostratos answered. “Always good to talk to a fellow Hellene.”