Chapter 215 - Sanguinem

So he did as his adopted father bid him to do. For nearly a year, he lived.

He devoured the city of Pompeii as a condemned man might consume his last meal. Her art. Her food. Her many entertainments. He went to the theaters, watched all the plays, from Plautus's broad comedies to the stylish and verbally complex tragedies of Seneca. He neglected his studies to seek out street performers and philosophers. He learned how to sail, he visited all the temples and took lovers at the baths.

Sex, for Apollonius, was a difficult thing at first. Until now he had only known the brutality of Laevinus and Domitianus, the urgent gropings of his fellow slaves. His first few encounters were at the baths, with older men. He offered himself to them as if he were still a slave, submitting to their grasping desires without thought to his own pleasure, for that was all he knew of sex, and he wondered afterwards why everyone spent so much time in pursuit of it. It was hardly worth the bother!

And then he chanced upon a young man named Cassius Regillensis, and for the first time in his life he became the pursuer rather than the pursued.

Cassius was Apollonius's age, slim, muscular, handsome, blond. In fact, Cassius bore a striking resemblance to the gladiator Russus, whom Apollonius had been so infatuated with the previous year. He met the young man in the baths and struck up a conversation. He was certain Cassius was sexually interested in him by the way the boy stared at him, the language of his body, but Cassius was shy. He was also the son of a quaestor and was frightened of embarrassing his ambitious father.

But Apollonius wanted him, and he wouldn't be discouraged. Finally, while sailing together one afternoon, Cassius submitted. They made love in the floor of the boat, out in the middle of the sea, made love three times before they returned to dock, sunburnt and exhausted.

For months after that, they were inseparable. They spent every waking moment together, even slept together once in Apollonius's bed. It was a joy to wake with Cassius's head lying on his chest, but the boy's father was furious when he returned home, and forbade his son to see Apollonius again. Not long after that, the man was offered a position in Rome. He moved and took his family with him. Apollonius was heartbroken.

"Have you been with a woman yet?" Gon asked him one evening, as the boy moped about the library.

"What? A woman? No!" Apollonius sputtered, blushing furiously.

It mortified him that the magician should ask him about his sexual habits. In Roman society, there was no shame for men to have sex with other men-- so long as they assumed the masculine role. Apollonius's behavior at the baths was putting his virtue at risk, and his affair with the quaestor's son had not helped his reputation either, even though he had been the dominant partner. Cassius was the freeborn son of a patrician politician, and thus Apollonius's equal, not a slave or a prostitute or someone who was socially beneath him, all fair game for a hard Roman cock needing release. The boy knew he was in danger of being labeled a sissy, but women were an enigma to him, a frightening unknown.

Gon set aside his book and rose. "Come. Get dressed. We are going to a brothel tonight."

He took Apollonius to the finest brothel in Pompeii, an establishment called the House of Psyche. There, he purchased a room for them for the entire night, the nicest room they had, one outfitted with the biggest bed that Apollonius had seen in his life. Gon engaged the brothel's two loveliest prostitutes, a Pompeian named Dione and an Egyptian named Anouke. Dione was a voluptuous beauty with long red ringlets of hair. Anouke was slim and small-breasted and dark of skin, with long, thick, course black hair. They climbed onto the big bed with Apollonius and his adopted father, their movements sinuous and seductive, but the boy found he was much too anxious to rise to the occasion. It took much wine, and quite a lot of encouragement from the women, before the rind of ice began to thaw from his cock.

"Be gentle with him," Gon said to the prostitutes. "It is his first time with a woman." And to Apollonius: "Don't be discouraged, Paulo. Every man is nervous the first time he lies with a woman."

"I see you're not shy!" Dione cried, spying the magician's excitement.

Gon grinned. "My little soldier knows well his duties for the night."

"Little?" Dione snorted. "I've seen no better example of false modesty on a man!"

The sight of Gon frolicking with the women finally stirred the boy to lust. He joined the three, and spent the rest of the night immolating his memories—his rapes in the employ of Laevinus, his shameful conduct in the public baths, even Cassius—on the pyre of exquisite experience.

They did everything that two men and two women can do on a bed. They coupled separately. They coupled together. Gon and Apollonius even took them each at the same time, their organs squeezed tightly together inside them, Gon's fat icicle of a cock thrusting right alongside his. When they left the next morning, Apollonius was so exhausted he could barely walk, and sitting was completely out of the question. He went to bed and slept the whole day through, cupping his throbbing testicles in both hands.

It was the only time his master accompanied him to the brothels. "It is dangerous for me to copulate with mortal women," he explained the next evening, when Apollonius wanted to return to the House of Psyche. "My desire for mortal blood is much more powerful than my desire for carnal pleasure, as it will be with you when I have given you the living blood. I only sought to introduce you to the finer pleasures of sex, so that your worldly experiences are more complete than they otherwise would have been. Once I give you the blood, Paulo, there is no undoing it, and you will not enjoy the act of love as you do now. Think on it tonight, and decide if you want to forsake the one for the other."

He thought about it. Every night that week, and the week again that followed. He thought about it every time he went to the House of Psyche. In Anouke's tender embraces, he felt the first nigglings of doubt, and those doubts grew with each new partner he took there. When he lay with the maidens of the House of Psyche, he did not fear death, nor think about the past. How could he fear death when he died each night in their arms? Sometimes two or three times in one night! How could he brood about the past when these new memories burned so brightly in his thoughts?

Gon seemed quite amused by his new preoccupation with women, but he did not condemn the boy, and he was, as always, generous with his coins, so that Apollonius had money enough to buy the company of any woman that he desired.

And then one night, as he was stumbling home from the House of Psyche, a familiar voice called out to him from a doorway:

"Hail, Paulo!"

It was a man's voice. A familiar one, too. Paulo stopped and turned toward the voice, and saw two men departing a wine seller's shop. One of the men, the larger of the two, was unfamiliar to him, but he knew the other. It was one of the older men he had dallied with in the forum baths. A patrician named Junius Sisenna. A vacationer from Rome, he'd claimed. What was worse, the man was attired in the purple-trimmed toga of a senator.

Apollonius hadn't realized the man was a senator! He'd been naked at the time, of course. They both had. His only thought, when he gave his ass to the man, was that he had a kind face-- and he was gentle with the boy! He had stroked his back and thighs most tenderly, telling Apollonius how handsome he was, how fine of form, how tight and hot.

The man did not look so kindly now. His face was puffy and red from drink, and he had the bright rheumy eyes of a mad dog. The senator turned to his companion and said in a mocking tone, "This is the one I told you about, Camillus! This is the tart from the baths with the insatiable ass!"

His companion laughed, looking at Paulo appraisingly. He was a tall, skinny, horse-faced man with dark hair and the robes of a rich pleb. "Is that right?" he said. "Maybe I can satisfy his hungry ass. What do you say, boy? Want to join me in the alley and grab your ankles for old Camillus? You'll think you've been ravaged by Jupiter himself!"

Apollonius spoke before he thought. "I think you remember it wrong, Junius. It wasn't I who bent and offered ass to you, but the other way around. The way I remember it, you squealed like a little girl when I shoved it in. Said it liked to split your furry cunt in half."

They gawped at him a second, so stunned by the insult their minds had trouble digesting it, and then they rushed at him.

Apollonius turned to run, but he was drunker than he realized. His legs tangled together and he sprawled forward into the street. Before he could clamber to his feet, the big one named Camillus seized him roughly under the arms and hauled him up.

"I'll give you a cunt!" Junius spat, brandishing a dagger, and then he stabbed Apollonius in the lower abdomen.

They dropped the boy as he howled, pelted away through the dark.

It happened so quickly Apollonius had trouble believing it had even transpired at all, that he had just been murdered by a couple of drunken perverts. He forced himself to remove his hand from the wound, gawped at the blood dripping from his palm. He felt like he was having a bad dream. This must be how Russus had felt when the trident slammed home in his chest. This must be how his father had felt when Domitianus stabbed him in the heart. He felt small and alone. He wanted his mother-- but, of course, his mother was dead.

Like he would be, soon.

And then he remembered what the magician had said to him:

"If you require my assistance, you need only shout my name, my true name, which is Gon, and I will awaken and fly to your aid."

He drew a deep breath, the wound in his belly throbbing, and screamed: "Gooooonnn!"

How far from home was he? He wasn't sure. He was somewhere near Capua Gate, he believed. Was that too far for the magician to hear him? He covered the wound with his hand again, trying to staunch the flow of blood, hoping the magician would make good on his promise.

"Gooooonnn!"

His cries had drawn the wine seller from his shop. The man blinked at him then ducked out of sight, slamming the door shut.

Apollonius felt weak and breathless. The pool of blood beneath him was sinking into the dusty paving stones quicker than it could spread.

The earth, like his master, was always thirsty for living blood.

"Gooooonnn!" he cried.

From some second floor apartment, an annoyed male voice yelled, "Die already, damn you!" and a woman laughed.

His master, the magician, landed in a crouch beside him.

"What have you done now?" he sighed.

"I insulted a Roman," Apollonius choked, so happy to see the magician his eyes teared up. He reached for his adopted father with bloody hands, and Gon flinched away from him. "I'm dying, father," he moaned. "He stabbed me in the belly. I am dying."

"Barely," Gon said, his face unusually stern, and then he swept the boy into his arms. "Calm yourself, Paulo. You're going to be all right."

"Can you save me? Am I going to live?" the young man babbled, putting his arms around his savior's shoulders.

"You are not going to die," Gon said. "Though you might wish you had. Come, let us mount Vesuvius. I know a little cave where I can give you the blood. I suppose we'll do it tonight, before you do manage to kill yourself somehow."

He glanced around to make sure no one was watching, then jumped to the rooftops and carried the boy from the city.

He leapt the city walls and crossed the sere countryside, headed for the great forested pyramid that was Vesuvius. The journey was not a long one, as they took it in leaps and bounds. They passed the orchards and farms that blanketed the lower slopes of the mountain, flying ever upward until they were passing over little more than low, wind-sculpted trees and withered grass. It had been a hot summer with little rain and the flora of the mountain's summit had baked to a crisp in the sun.

They came to a cave. Gon bore him inside.

"Why can't we do this at home?" Apollonius sobbed, clutching the magician in the darkness. "I do not like this place. It is as black as the Styx."

"We can't do this at home because you will scream," Gon said, putting the boy down.

The floor of the cavern was rough and stony. He smelled sulphur and dirt and the coppery tang of his own blood.

"First I will heal your injury," the magician said, "and then I will give you the Strix."

"Will it hurt very badly?"

"Yes. It will be the worst pain you've every felt."

"Why did you tell me that?" the boy cried. "I'm frightened enough as it is!"

"Just lie back," Gon said with a chuckle.

Apollonius did as he was told. He flinched as his master tore open his tunic where the blade had cut it, baring his lower abdomen, and then the magician made a hawking sound, as men do before they spit in the street. A moment later, the magician's fingers passed across the wound in his belly, smearing some cold, sticky substance upon it. He yelped as Gon massaged the icy fluid on his skin, then howled as the magician poked a finger into his wound.

"What are you doing?" he wailed.

"Quiet! I do what I must to heal this injury. The dagger plunged deep."

After a moment, the boy felt his wound begin to itch. It grew warm and began to throb. The sensation of warmth penetrated his stomach, spread through his bowels. He felt giddy. The pain began to abate.

"Better?" Gon asked.

"Yes, the pain is fading."

"Good. You will live."

"Are you going to do it now?" the boy asked. "Are you going to give me the blood?"

"Yes, only tell me again that you want it. Tell me that you're sure of it. Your mortal life will pass away, Apollonius, and all your mortal pleasures with it. You will never enjoy mortal food again. You will never father children. You will be the last of your line."

Apollonius thought on it. He thought of his mother and father. He thought of Russus, slipping on a cabbage leaf. He thought of the man from the baths, sticking his blade in his belly.

"Yes, I want it," Apollonius gasped.

"So be it," the magician said.