The Death of Antinous || bxb ✔︎

AUDENTES FORTUNA IUVAT

He removed his tunic and stepped into the hot water of the calidarium, which felt even better than it looked against his naked body. With the golden head of Achilles and the hero's sculpted flesh, he was both admired and envied by other men. But even those who envied him did not hate him. He was too good natured to hate.

He swam to the other end of the pool. Ingulf opened one eye. "Barely got a wink of sleep last night. I had three slave girls. After a victory I breed like a boar. How about you? Who did you make off with?"

Leonides too had the urge to mount after a victory but it was usually another soldier that caught his eye. He liked provincial boys who blushed easily and weren't yet jaded by the cynical ways of Rome. The general wondered why the men under Leonides' command were undefeated. When he observed the boys coming and going from his tent each night he learned what made the youths in his squadron so loyal.

"I went to bed alone. Too much...Wine."

"That's a shame. You must be aching for a good futuo! I'm sure you can find a stable boy with a free hand." His hairy chest shook with laughter.

A slave brought out a tray of food. Quails eggs and apricots. This was a far cry from the millet he was served every day in Judea. He was starving, as always, but had to be careful not to overindulge. His body was unused to richness.

Ingulf showed no such restraint. He stuffed his entire mouth with eggs. If his lovemaking was anything like his eating, Leonides pitied those women he bedded.

Across the calidarium, he spotted Commodus and his young acolyte, Remus. A troop of victors had emerged from their bedchamber that morning too tired to stand. They had serviced the nobles all night. One likened it to the battle of Carthage. They barely made it out alive. Remus and Commodus appeared well rested, however, their faces dewy and pink from the steam that rose off the water. They were gossiping, which Leonides found unbecoming. But that's what one had to do if he lived for power instead of honor.

Above the chatter he heard the echo of bare feet slapping against the stone floor. A hush came over the bathing men, even Commodus, who was silent for no one.

He turned his head. There, wearing nothing but a bed sheet around his waist, curls tousled from sleep, was Antinous, the empire's moody princeling.

Leonides swallowed.

The boy dipped his toe in the water of the tepidarium. Unsatisfied he reclined on the pool's edge with his knee bent.

He tried not to stare. Antinous was as lean as he was when they were in school with faint lines of muscle etched on his chest, arms and thighs. He remembered this young body sitting on his knee at the Flavian feeding him sweet meat. He was light as a cat and twice as fierce. He scratched Leonides to pieces when they wrestled, but he was so cute with his large dark eyes blinking up at him that he could never scold him.

Just then the boy stood with his back to them and removed the bed sheet. Leonides' eyes followed the curve of his back down to the shadowy cleft of his bottom.

"Don't look at him," said Ingulf.

"I'm not," he said, still looking.

"Don't even think about looking at him."

Leonides watched as he turned, the tender flesh between his legs swaying for a moment as he walked down the steps and disappeared into the hot water of the calidarium. He was shaved like a pleasure slave. One did not have to touch him to know that he was smoother than silk.

Like Leonides, the other men were trying and failing to look away.

"He belongs to the Emperor," Ingulf warned. "A lot has changed since you left for Judea."