Sandcastle Heroes

Disclaimer: Troy, Iliad, et al belong to other people and not me, so no money made.


::Sandcastle Heroes::

A/N: Paris will be referred to as “Alexander” throughout this story because he has not yet been identified as the lost prince.

“Why do we make camp here? Why not continue to the City? It cannot be more than two marks away. Why, I would wager a horse that we would reach it not too long after day’s waning.”

“It is not proper for a ruler to disrupt the evening meal of his prospective host unless he is either utterly ignorant of custom or in dire need of assistance,” Aeneas chides the restless youth standing at the tent’s entrance. Young Alexander tosses a look that clearly states his own lack of regard for such, in his opinion, minutiae of etiquette. The failing sun catches in the copper and gold in the boy’s hair and seems to aurify his skin. A pleasant heat swells in the Dardanian’s belly as he observes the waif of a shepherd he purloined from the mountain a week’s travel and one river behind.

After his rather circuitous route to Ilium by way of going down to Thebe and up through Adramytium, Aeneas and his men rested upon the sweet green swards of Ida and took shelter beneath her plenteous shade trees only to awaken the next morning—the sentries, having felt the complacency of friendly territory, had taken their repose with the others—to the sounds of bleating sheep and a rather rude-mouthed youth castigating them for interfering with his shepherd duties. The leader of the annoyed Dardanians soon placated the boy with sweet words and several draughts of unmixed wine. The shepherd proved to be exceptionally entertaining, especially in Aeneas’ demesne. They morning after, the herd having been brought safely back to the boy’s bemused father, Aeneas and his men set out again—young Alexander a semi-willing captive.

“Furthermore, lovely, you have no horse with which to make this wager of yours.”

“That is hardly the point, my lord. It seems a bit silly to wait longer to reach one’s intended destination when the distance is not so great,” Alexander huffs, turning his back to the city shimmering across the plain below the encampment through wavering sheets of heat, with all the simple ignorance of his uncomplicated and politically abstracted upbringing. The Dardanian finds his paramour’s lack of worldly understanding particularly endearing. Eyes of lambent umber narrow with irritation when the man makes no attempt to hide his mocking chuckle.

“I am glad to be such an amusement to you.” Alexander crosses his slender arms in a vain attempt to affect authority. Aeneas is left with the impression of a just-weaned puppy trying to defend itself against the world. His secondary burst of mirth is taken as an insult by the youth. “Perhaps I should take myself there alone and let you find greater occasions for merriment with your men without expense to my pride.”

“Ah, lovely, your pride is so easily pricked. I meant no harm, truly. Come to my side and I’ll divert you from your ire.”

The shepherd boy shifts indecisively at the tent’s entry and casts a petulant glare about the brazier-lit interior before meeting Aeneas’ unwavering gaze. The exquisite flush spreading across Alexander’s flawless cheeks and down the elegant column of his neck stokes the gentle heat in the Dardanian’s belly to a blaze that soon fills his cock. The boy seems to sense his new master’s growing desire; the confidence blazing like lightning-flash in the boy’s eyes melts into the hesitant want that has characterized their many encounters since the first. The sweet innocent has not quite come into the promise Aphrodite left upon his features and in his susceptibility to pleasure. Empires will shatter wherever this boy sets his attention, or so Aeneas senses. Destiny whispers about young Alexander of Ida like a needful lover and the Fates coo over him like doting aunts.

And this shepherd from the mountains will be the foundation upon which Aeneas will rise in power to equal that of old Priam and his House, usurping line.

“Come.”

Trembling, the boy crosses the short distance betwixt them and kneels beside the recumbent Aeneas. The man rewards his obedience with a pleased smile and tenderly strokes Alexander’s flushed cheeks.

“Tomorrow you will see the city from the vantage point awarded only to those of royal status, and you will never be able to look at your poor hut without comparing it to the thrilling splendor of Troy’s palace. The monthly market you trade at for foodstuffs will seem petty and crude compared to the wonderful bazaar that floods the streets with commerce every day. This city will become your world and will linger in your thoughts no matter how far away you travel.”

As his words melt into the isolated world of the tent, a new tension rides the youth by Aeneas’ side.

“You speak of leaving, my lord? Are you already thinking of our separation? Are you to leave me at the gates—homeless, friendless?”

Aeneas soothes away Alexander’s burgeoning fears with light caresses and gentle words, and soon the boy is calm and receptive.

“I will fight wars to keep you by my side, little shepherd, but Ares has not earned his Uncle Hades’ love for no reason.” The Dardanian presses small kisses across the boy’s still-ruffled brow and lets his hands wander down to stroke the elegant back clothed in one of Aeneas’ old khitons. Alexander sighs with tremulous delight and cuddles against the man.

Yes, Aeneas will take up a sword for this winsome creature and carve them the future his illustrious Mother has promised. His Trojan bride will bear him heirs and his shepherd boy will appease Aeneas’ wants between his silky thighs.

“I have not taken you as my own to let you escape while my heart still beats. Would you like to receive some token of my promise when we reach great Ilium? Would that please you?”

“Oh, yes, my lord.”

“Then it is done.”

Aeneas seals this oath upon the boy’s pink lips, pushing it in deeply with his tongue. A purring moan spills into the man’s mouth from Alexander’s and the world becomes wet and pulsing. Slender hands tug at the Dardanian’s sun-lightened gold locks and the youth’s nubile body molds against his side. Between them little shocks of lust fire across wherever skin meets skin and rapture ripens the sources of their individual pleasure. From one moment to the next fine woolen garments find themselves tossed carelessly upon the ground as the two figures intertwine in lust’s variable design.


~*~*~*~*~*~

Alexander bites the tip of his thumb in anxious indecision as his gaze darts around the spacious bedchamber given to Prince Aeneas and then to the door leading to the dizzying marvels of the rest of the palace. He has had only the most cursory impression of the whirling life that bursts all over the place in the shouts of people and calls of animals and their hectic affairs. He never knew such a density of humans and other beings could possibly inhabit the same space together. He has been half afraid that all the buildings and streets will shatter under duress of so much contained existence and he will be asphyxiated under the resultant crush. Only the Dardanian’s strong grip upon his wrist quelled the urge to run screaming out of the gates he had so eagerly anticipated breaching the evening before.

Yet, he so does want to see more than the, albeit staggering, view from the prince’s balcony. He itches to explore all the secrets and shadows of this place, though he suspects such activities will most likely not receive approbation from the people of the House. Then there is the fact that Aeneas has, in no uncertain terms, restricted the youth to the prince’s rooms until the man is able to personally show him all the places he is free to visit. Truly Alexander does not wish to tempt the Dardanian’s ire—after all, he has no friends to seek shelter with or knowledge of how to return home—but curiosity pricks him mercilessly; besides, he has never spent so long surrounded by walls, so many walls and ceilings and stone floors that are cool and gritty and unyielding beneath his bare feet.

A shiver of uneasy desire flutters into his stomach and groin as he considers in what forms the prince’s irritation might manifest. Alexander has not had much experience with the pleasures taken with another man—none before Aeneas’ demanding tutelage—and yet his body has developed a seemingly voracious craving for it, for less gentle touches and more demanding lips. He cannot quite recall how he came to be sharing Aeneas’ bedfurs, though he strongly suspects the libations urged upon him by that charismatic man, but now he is well and truly caught in the Dardanian’s trap of need’s flaxen threads. Is his father now ashamed of his son’s apparent wantonness? He made no comment when Aeneas imperiously informed Agelaus of the his intentions to pay a generous sum for his son’s companionship—enough to hire a hand or two to replace Alexander’s contribution to their small industry. He did accept the money and that has to mean something…

Aeneas is now treating with King Priam of Troy and, no doubt, will pay a visit to his wife; thus, if Alexander proceeds cautiously, the prince will not come to know of the youth’s disregard for his command to not leave. With a conscious decision to toss aside his rambling musings, the shepherd throws himself into action before his critical mind flits away on another stalling tangent. The door opens easily beneath his hands and soon he is the smoky corridor on the other side. Even during the day these passageways must be lit, for they are girded by rooms on either side and further apartments above and below; there is no chance for Apollo’s gaze to pierce the gloom that would otherwise darken them.

To Alexander’s peasant mind such an expense is impossibly lavish. The oil burning in the lamps does not give off the fishy smell he knows from the small one his father brings out once a year. Though so close to the coast and all the rich bounty of Poseidon’s realm, the Trojan palace uses oils that smell sweet and pleasant. Fish oil would be of far less of a cost yet they do not take advantage of the fact. How wondrous to be so prosperous as to have no thought for frugality! Is this the life Aeneas knows? No wonder he has always been so quick to belittle Alexander’s own humble roots.

Stride confident and directed so that no one will stop him to ask questions, the shepherd wanders the corridors, eyes taking in every new luxury with admiration and envy. He has already found the ash-cakes used for cleansing in the prince’s private bathing room and now, in the vast complex of the royal palace, he finds further examples of his hosts’ seemingly unending liberality. Servants and slaves pass him in khitons far superior to that which he wore at home and some even have the odd ornament in silver or bronze. Here and there the passageways open up to the world and he can see the verdant tops of trees scattered in what must be Troy’s famous gardens. If he remembers Aeneas’ boasts correctly, several such sanctuaries dedicated to Demeter exist within the palace walls and one for the public outside, all tended by a bevy of Her priests.

The sweet ache of yearning kindles in the boy’s heart as he catches glimpses of those trees that remind him so much of his own home. He changes his course to follow some approximation of what appears to be the nearest garden’s location. Through every uncovered passageway he checks his bearings, adjusts his path accordingly, and rushes on. He can almost taste the green so reminiscent of Ida, can almost feel the gentle solitude that prohibits large concentrations of people; and, though these gardens are held by walls in security, perhaps he will lose himself enough within the emerald tapestry of Demeter’s blessings to escape the itch that being enclosed induces beneath his skin.

There! Down another flight of stairs, past an old man bearing up under a load of laundry and two dark-skinned girls giggling in a language he does not know, the corridor penetrates another and through the way before him he can see brown trunks and leafy boughs. There is some facsimile of the familiar to ameliorate his restless anxiety of walls and ceilings and too, too many people, and it waits with cool arms to accept him into its tranquil embrace.

Alexander’s rushing foot steps into the intersected corridor and his body slams into that of another just rounding the corner. His momentum forward becomes a jarring impact that sends him backwards to sprawl in an ungainly heap upon the stone floor. Wincing, he sits up, one arm braced to hold his weight, and rubs his stinging chest—much less embarrassing than touching where it truly smarts. His gaze moves upward from sandaled feet covered in taupe dust to strong calves lightly sprinkled with amber-brown hairs to powerful thighs rudely interrupted by the hem of a fine wool khiton embroidered with regular shapes—gray-blue and gold on indigo. The harsh castigation dies upon his tongue as his eyes finally fasten upon the royal crest of Troy adorning the man’s cuirass. Alexander looks no higher in reluctance to identify the face of the prince he has bodily offended in his temerity.

A thick, waxen fear clots his stomach as the realization of his error crushes into his mind. He has been privy to rumors concerning the punishment for touching the royal brood without permission. If the transgression of a touch loses a hand, what is compensation for a frontal assault? Will he be riven in two?

“Are you injured?”

Metallic brine cleaves his unresponsive tongue to the roof of his mouth. All the loquacity that endowed his first encounter with prince Aeneas and his men has been struck away, and now his tongue is a useless, dumb thing festering behind his voiceless, senseless lips. It is as if, again as with his first meeting with the other prince, some greater force has taken control of his voice and bestows or restrains it at will and in conflict with his own desires. If he cannot apologize for his gross mistake…

“Are you injured?” the Trojan repeats with words trailing nuances of concern and alarm—kindness. Alexander shakes his head stiffly in mute negation even though his backside feels distinctly bruised. Leather creaks and cloth rustles, and then large, warm hands close about his feet. The youth darts a glance up in time to catch the look of worried concentration drawing lines upon the other’s brow before he turns his gaze upon the small, glittering bits of sand and dull grit left unswept upon the floor. Life shouts from the throats of the busy people inhabiting the palace about them, though the corridors about them remain empty, and the perfume of green beckons from the garden only a stone’s throw away. Alexander is in no way focused upon the overwhelming and yet intrinsically gentle presence of the Trojan prince. Not in the least—

“Does this hurt?” the prince asks gently as he flexes each of Alexander’s toes and then tests his ankles. Confusion slips into Alexander’s mind and licks each passing thought as the youth attempts to conflate his notions of princely behavior from Aeneas with the ministrations of the one currently—and apparently—fretting over the state of his physical health.

Next the hands sweep up his calves, pressing here and there in search of some wound gained from his collision with the ground. The floor has never been more fascinating. Why, look at that scuttling beetle pushing bits of dirt from its path without care! His knees are bent and straightened carefully and, of their own volition, his thighs part in anticipation of the continuance of the examination. He can feel fine drops of perspiration break out across his sensitive flesh, and a curious nausea crawls up his throat to sit heavy at its center.

And there, at his very core, a sweet warmth kindles, which Aeneas has spent so many hours teasing and tending. The heat that fills his cheeks must be of a very prominent hue.

The stranger’s hands slide up from the youth’s scratched knees and to the smooth skin of his thighs. The man’s fingers dip beneath the edge of Alexander’s khiton and pause, thumbs shifting restlessly in circles upon his inner flesh; the boy cannot help but move his discomfited observation to the man crouched between his legs, ostensibly to ascertain his well-being. Dark, gold-bead adorned hair curls about a strongly handsome yet boyish face; a face now drawn in intense concentration. The prince’s eyes are dark, focused upon the visual hindrance of Alexander’s clothing, and deeper color resides in his cheeks as his breathing picks up. A warm loop of excitement fills the boy’s belly and a small shudder works down through his limbs.

Then a softly resonant voice seems to drift into the youth’s burning ears, and, as if a lifetime nudges past him, he knows the man, knows him without previous encounter, apperceives without prior observation. This royal stranger is Prince Aeneas’ perfect dichotomy, his necessary dialectic. Aeneas is the raging, unpredictable inferno Alexander wishes to be consumed by; this man is security and safety in all their manifold parts that sing sweetly of home. Where the Dardanian is the sweet burning of day, this Trojan is the drowsy tranquility of night. Light to dark; cunning to honor; passion to gentleness.

Lust to… love—?

Sensing Alexander’s perusal, the man looks up and his hands tighten perceptibly upon the boy’s thighs. Alexander watches, captivated, as the prince swallows with seeming great difficulty, as if he, too, is under duress of his own pernicious constriction.

“I am well.”

The words finally spill from the youth’s desperate tongue and pour unnatural silence into their whispered wake. Far, far too loud for the little world they have created about themselves! The moment is irrevocably shattered and Alexander can only be conscious of his humiliation. At least the Trojan does not seem inclined to seek retaliation.

“I must… attend my master.”

Galvanized into action by his mounting unease, Alexander squirms out of the prince’s strong grasp, the man’s fingers leaving stinging welts behind, and makes it to his feet before the carefully drilled etiquette of courtly behavior halts his wind-dance heels. He bows with hasty reverence, body aquiver with roiling emotions. This man is not his sanctuary and cannot be, no matter that all duty of protector is his vocation and seeming desire. Alexander knows well of loyalty and obedience, whether to father or lord, and to tempt his thoughts with another is a shameless, shameless violation.

“Who is your master, little bird, to whom you do fly so swiftly?”

The boy straightens, eyes moving upon every surface but that of the prince before him.

“Prince Aeneas, son of Anchises.” With that he sets his heels to the Trojan and races Apollo’s progress back to his master’s apartments.

~*~*~*~*~*~

The collar of plaited leather thongs held in a circle by bronze clasps bearing the insignia of Dardanus is a substantial weight in meaning alone. Aeneas draws a thumb thoughtfully across the braided hide and traces the whorls of pattern in metal with his nail. The nubile shepherd boy slumbers in decadent leisure beneath the summer coverlet upon the bed in all the presumptuousness of one secure in his place in life. The Dardanian cannot restrain the upward turn his lips take at the sight of his young Alexander embroidered by weeping shadows cast by the lit braziers in the room. His wife, princess Creusa of Ilium, daughter of King Priam and his consort Hecuba, bears a strong resemblance to the prince’s paramour, saving the storm-blue of her eyes, and Aeneas would not be surprised to find Alexander to be another one of the king’s bastards running around unchecked. Someday he will have to have both side-by-side in bed in order to truly ascertain whether it is a coincidence or blood shared betwixt them.

His attendance upon Priam has been as unremarkable as ever and the too long eternity spent with his wife has ended with more cordiality than the one before. For all that their marriage has been for political purposes, the union of one line cleaved by strife generations thence, he feels within himself a certain fondness for his bitter-tongued bride. For all that the king likes to play the doddering old tyrant, his mind is sharp with future sentiments: he believes matrimony to be the cure for Aeneas’ ambition.

Having already had his ceremonial armor removed by his slave attendants in the outer chamber, Aeneas stalks the unaware sleeper, bare feet silent as he takes his course from one side of the bed to the other in order to gain the best visual advantage. The sweet, celestial chariot ascending the pin-pricked field of the sky edges the outside railings in Her silver phosphorescence and trails a cooler effulgence to melt into the warm orange-red-gold of the braziers and, as one, gently spread across the shepherd boy’s flawless form.

Soft, young flesh beseeches touch and Aeneas is only too willing to kneel in obeisance to such a delectable cry. Alexander shifts under the light caresses bestowed upon his supine body, limbs shifting restlessly in an unconscious effort to escape disturbance. Sleepy brown eyes open, dark lashes sweeping upwards, and, for a moment, they capture the glowing radiance of the moon and another’s gaze seems to strike through the Dardanian. A shiver of nameless premonition passes into him and deliquesces within the fires of his tempered arousal.

“My lord?” the boy queries in a voice husky with partial awareness. A slim hand moves up to conceal a kittenish yawn and Aeneas is moved with a delight he always encounters upon viewing his most rare prize.

“You are exquisite, my own.” He only whispers this to elicit the sweeping blush that so fetchingly blooms upon the boy’s elegant cheeks and descends down his neck. Aeneas knows just how far down that color will travel, too: all the way to tint the boy’s winged collarbones in a hue the most tender of sunset pinks. Unable to resist the look of acute, guileless embarrassment—how many other courtesans would have tittered in coy negation instead?—the prince grips the wealth of sleep-tousled curls and brings Alexander’s head up for the merest brushes of mouths.

“I have brought with me the promise I made you yestereve. Now you can believe that you shall always remain as mine.”

A flicker of ambivalence, of uncertainty where the day before only certitude reigned, passes through the boy’s unveiled eyes; then, as the sun breaks through the mist of the clouds, joy suffuses the shepherd’s exquisite countenance and he is all eagerness and all confident want. However, the prince is not quite so ready to excuse his paramour’s earlier hesitance. After all, one does not commit himself to such a contract without utmost conviction, even when its inception comes by way of monetary exchange with a third party.

“Has something occurred today that brings questions to your mind, lovely?” He releases the silky handful and strokes his fingertips across the still colored cheeks and the soft mouth parted in earnest worry.

“I disobeyed you, my prince. I left the chambers even though you commanded otherwise.”

“I see,” Aeneas murmurs, withholding a frown of annoyance in favor of a reassuring smile. The hand holding the collar clenches tightly until his knuckles are pale with want of blood.

“I never thought being enclosed in walls would root such a deep unease within my stomach. I had to leave, my lord. I have never been without green for so long.”

“Does the city not please you? Would you have that I return you?” The prince finds more satisfaction and gratification in the rictus of panic that takes possession of Alexander’s features than in the dreaming unconsciousness of his visage in repose.

“Never, never, my lord-prince! I wish only to stay by your side in whatever capacity you are willing to grant me. That is my only desire. I have no one else now.”

“Hush, lovely, I understand.” Without further discourse Aeneas slips the warmed circlet of leather about the boy’s throat and efficiently sets the clasp in place.

“My lord?” Alexander’s dulcet voice is rapturous with wonderment and his dark eyes catch the low glow of the room and refract into pinpoints of radiance.

“Only death will see you parted from me, my little shepherd. Only death.”

~*~*~*~*~*~

In somnolence’s errant wanderings, pulled deeply within the infinitely twisting coils of his mind, furnished by Morpheus’ own far-reaching hand, Hector dreams of battles fought and those not yet come. He sees the helmeted faces of his slain and smells the meaty tang of war thick and oily in the heavy air. Dirt mixes with blood and coats everyone in the same dark ichor until one face becomes all faces. Countless foes rise and fall, and sometimes it is he who falters and watches as the final piercing blow descends upon his helpless body. Other times he is in a world of luxuriant green, moss and grass thick and glossy with life, strong trees bearing up great arches of bursting emerald and heavy, ripe succulents, where his family and friends take their leisure by deep pools of liquid lapis lazuli and picnic upon the succulent bounties of nature within easy reach. Sweet juices glisten upon hands and lips and stain fine wool garments with splashes of resplendent color. Everyone always wears white.

Tonight he is in a hallway stretching into a star-studded infinity at one end and a forest of verdant familiarity at the other. This passageway, one he distantly recalls passing through recently, has given over to the ineluctable rhythm of Gaia. Thick, waxy vines displaying shiny black-green leaves have broken through the stone ceiling in places to reveal a burnt blue sky. Flowering grasses and green-gray mosses overspill cracks in the sand-brown floor. Each jagged, crumbling rift has been brought about by massive tree roots pressing upwards. The air is rich with the earthy, spiced scent of unfettered life and it seems to cling in wets shrouds against his skin. Nature has closed about him in folds of warm, wet silk. A lowly resonant tone, as if the stones about him are mourning their own decay and surrender to the elements, raises the hairs at his nape.

…and the pretty servant boy lies sprawled before him in the same manner he cannot drive from his mind. Nature has had Her way with him as well, sending Her sinuous vines to twine about his spread legs, sliding beneath the hem of his ill-fitting khiton into the shadowed depths beyond, and up the slender arms bearing his weight as he leans slightly back—one creeper curls about his neck and climbs his jaw to rest intimately at the right hinge of his darkly pink lips. Pale green tendrils flirt through the thick tangle of his hair and small white and purple flowers cluster in frothy cascades to crown him in delicate glory. Again there is that looked of pained embarrassment and fear upon his exquisite features and still that wine-dark blush keeps court in his fine cheeks.

In a reverential hush Hector is on his knees before the unmoving creature, hands taking a course familiar and strange—downy skin intersected by oil smooth vines—over feet and underneath to test the resiliently forgiving flesh of calves and then to the splayed thighs; this time he is not searching for injuries. No, this is about the heat pooling in his groin and flaring like summer heat in his face; this is about being granted what the waking world’s propriety denies.

The boy remains unmoved as Hector trespasses beyond the barrier of the khiton to follow the vines into the heated night between the servant’s legs. His lips make bold with the sweet curve of the boy’s jaw and vie with the young tendril for the right of the barely open mouth. A tickling uncertainty hovers at the back of his mind yet he cannot cease his ardent molestation—and the silky hardness growing wet in his hands proves that, for all his statue-like passivity, the servant is not indifferent to Hector’s attentions. The prince moves one hand to turn the boy’s head so that he can fully sample the succulent mouth and its hidden secrets.

Then he is all motion and driving, flaring lust. He bears the boy down upon the soft grasses and unyielding stone and places himself implacably between those slender, out flung legs while one hand cradles the boy’s head and the other makes loose with pert buttocks. The vines entrapping the servant snap with the sound of breaking bone and a warm, viscous fluid splashes over them, mixing with sweat and slicking them until holding on is near impossible. Hungrily the prince lays siege to the unnamed boy’s body, mapping the vincible defenses and infiltrating with fingers and tongue, his own aching to fully expose the servant, to enter and take possession, to thrust and pump and own. His harsh breathing paints the air in impure colors as he sates his tongue between the boy’s softly surrendering lips, tasting only green and crisp life. Hector cannot withdraw the sound of his own groan as he presses a digit against the boy’s private entrance and notes the near-virginal tightness of the young muscles.

There is consent here, if not in overt declarations, then in the hard cock pressing against his own through the immovable barrier of cloth—what has not been seen cannot be seen—and the eyes, though refusing the sight of his face, smolder with a mirrored need. The boy’s limbs do not move to embrace him, but, as is the only recourse in this strangely, aggressively passive world—a world of plant time and patience—they are inviting in their curves and openness… open in every nuance of the word… arms angled away from body, fingers laxly curled in their natural manner, mouth unguarded, legs spread wide…

His finger slides in, riding upon the sundered plants’ earthly quintessence, and the clinging humidity of the air has found a mate within the perfect receptacle of the boy’s body. Hot and almost too tight, and his; and his own being has been twisted and twisted and twisted into a single need, that need to a drive and that drive into the inevitable rupturing of tension’s vibrating threads. With the blind certainty of the slumbering, Hector withdraws his finger and guides his weeping cock to the woefully unprepared pucker between taut, young cheeks. Resistance met and overcome, and he is pushing slowly, slowly in, groaning in the sweet heat and tightness dragging against his foreskin, pushing it down as he forges ahead.

Each scant length gained works a terrible sorcery upon the young servant’s impassive face for beneath the tender skin another visage pushes forward. Even as Hector conquers the body, he finds the territory changing, melting into a perfection that leaves the former countenance nothing more than an inchoately formed model. Even as debilitating, wrenching pleasure fills the prince’s hungry sex, a soft horror spirals around his stomach.

The face of flawless symmetry, of ripe, overflowing sensuality, is one that can no longer feel the green.

Paris

—He awakens to a dark room, bedclothes sticky and twisted about his legs.

~*~*~*~*~*~

“No, no, no, I cannot! I cannot!”

Face burning beneath a caustic sheen of sweat, cheeks sticky and lashes gummed together by salt tears, smooth leather digging into his neck, metal clasp biting his skin, Alexander struggles against the unrelenting shards of pleasure forcing his wearied cock into another erection, his third of the night. One release by hand, one by mouth and now Aeneas insists, with every precise strike of his cock against the boy’s most susceptible flesh, that Alexander find the same by penetration; and all the boy wishes is to fall into sleep and find a respite from the horrible ecstasy still rolling through his exhausted body. Aeneas presses his face into the bedding as his hips continue their relentless rhythm, hard organ forcing renewed interest in the boy’s own.

It hurts so bad. Alexander wishes for a knife to sever the burning, aching thing attached to his body. It is no longer a means of pleasure, but a painful column of flesh that will not give into the fatigue of the rest of his body. Perhaps, emasculated, he will find unconsciousness. Darkness enfolding pain in cold, unfeeling in shadows.

“One more, lovely. Just one more.”

The prince presses two fingers brutally against the delicate patch of flesh behind the boy’s balls and thrusts. A keening wail shreds Alexander’s throat as it tears free and his cock jerks dryly in a final release. Vaguely, as if from a great, wool-smothered distance, is he aware of the prince withdrawing and spending against his raised backside with the aid of his royal hand. Alexander gratefully curls away from awareness.

Never on his own would he have made the shattering discovery that unadulterated pleasure in itself can become a most hated burden.

~*~*~*~*~*~

Aeneas finds himself in Prince Hector’s company at the conclusion of this latest round of strategizing to ensure the safety of the realm against alien influence and aggression. The older members of the king’s council have already shuffled off, arguments still being entertained as if the gathering has not yet ended. Wind-change political alliances still breathe in musty vapors from their mouths as they attempt to glean more power for their respective—and respected—positions. The priests seek advancement with their auguries and the military advisors resurrect battles and warriors long since passed into the taupe dust of time to prove their worth, as if a heroic memory alone suffices. Some might make the grave error of dismissing the heir of Troy as merely another young warrior and prince, but the Dardanian leader knows that a mind ripe in clever stratagems gives the powerful body agency. Hector is not general by right of birth and blood alone, and his opponents do well to remember that.

“I would speak with you, Prince Aeneas,” the Trojan announces with all the careless authority and confidence of his station.

“I am at your service, prince of Troy.”

An impatience shivers beneath the Trojan general’s skin, and Aeneas finds this a most fascinating sight, rife with possibilities and future schemes.

“There is a servant in your house, a boy in your employ, who concerns me greatly.”

Indeed, the Dardanian thinks as his mind unwaveringly moves to the nubile youth in a golden sprawl across his bed, sunlight pressing in past gauzy veils hung from the ceiling to litter shadows like a child’s forgotten toys. Though the prince keeps a retinue of servants and war-won slaves at the City, only one is worthy of another powerful prince’s attention, only one who would capture it. Apparently his shepherd boy feels omission and evasion to be on equal scale with truth. There is something simplistically clever about that innocent. Aeneas will have words with young Alexander after seeing what boons may be obtained in negotiation with Prince Hector.

Yes, it shall be quite a lengthy and intimate discourse.


~End~