Symposium

Sthenelus, settling against the pillowed couch, drew a long, satisfied draught from his wine cup, peering over the rim at his prize.

Her dancing was strange, awkward. Her tall, red felt cap swayed as she spun. Was that simply the way of her people, or was it the fresh weight of new captivity dragging on her long limbs? The distance in her eyes suggested the latter.

"Sthenelus!" called out one of his guests, the Theban warrior Labdacus. "You claim you've captured an Amazon, but how can we even tell girl from boy under that absurd barbarian getup?"

"Well you may ask," Sthenelus laughed. "In the heat of battle, we never even realized many of the Scythian archers were women."

He had heard tales of such Ares-worshipping horse-women, from men who had been in Asia longer than he, but he had not believed them.

Labdacus had risen from his sofa, and now he seized the dancing girl around the waist. Her eyes went wild, and she said something in her own tongue.

Hauling her up over his shoulder, so that her arms dangled over his back and her legs swung helplessly in front of his chest, Labdacus reached under the hem of her brightly patterned tunic studded with little gold plates.

For the amusement of his guests, Sthenelus had asked the girls to send the Amazon out in her own barbarian clothing, and beneath the tunic she wore wildly dotted tubular leg-coverings, sewn together at the waist. With his free hand, Labdacus found purchase on the leg-coverings and tugged them down.

A cheer rose from the gallery as the Amazon's ass was exposed to the lamplight, and, mugging for the crowd, Labdacus spread her with his fingers, showing off where tawny curls gave way to pink woman-flesh.

The man set her back on her feet, and with vicious accuracy threw the balled-up leg-coverings at the face of one of his friends who was unspooling a not-very-funny joke. The men broke out in a chorus of laughter.

Sthenelus kept his eyes locked on the Amazon, flattening her tunic down to try to cover herself, glancing around as if calculating her chances against 23 drunken men. Drink made men feeble and stupid, but it could also make them more dangerous, in ways that she would do well to consider.

Her bare legs were slashed with tattoos, lines and dots and animal figures. She caught his gaze, took in his calm smile. He thought he saw the briefest flash in her of something wild, the terror-rage of the cornered beast. But as quick as it appeared, it was swallowed up by resignation. Warrior she may be, but she was conquered, and she knew it.

Sthenelus had marched out to punish the troublesome Scythians, wandering herdsmen who sat so naturally on their mounts it seemed as if rider and horse were one joined creature. For months they had been stealing his cattle, and he had seen strong men dragged to their deaths by swinging lassos.

In the end, he had burned their village. Those who hadn't escaped, desperately driving into the hills what horses and cattle they could, he had taken as slaves.

Sthenelus had been shocked to examine the unconscious rider he had pulled screaming to the ground with a wrench of his spear. The Scythian was not the beautiful young boy he had supposed, but a woman, of perhaps 25 years. Thick layers of felt and glue had protected her, blunting the oblique strike of his spearpoint.

Now, standing before him, she had cause to regret his imperfect aim.

There had been a dozen more of her sister-warriors among the captives, but this one's strength, and grace, and beauty was beyond them all.

The aulos-boy, who had lost the plot during the hubbub, began a new song. A few of the men began to clap out a beat again, and with evident reluctance, the Amazon returned to her dance.

She appeared to be trying, without much success, to limit her already stilted movements to ones that would keep her tunic from flashing the men a view of her cunt, or the ripe cleft of her ass.

"Your new dancing-girl is a dud!" someone sneered. "Perhaps she can play the pipes?"

"She can play my pipe!" guffawed the next man.

"Boy!" someone shouted at the piper. "Give the Amazon your aulos!"

Glancing to Sthenelus, the slave boy handed his double-pipe to the girl, who looked at it quizzically. The boy, not very helpfully, mimed putting it to his lips.

She made an attempt to play the unfamiliar instrument. An awful sound emerged.

Men booed, hooted, laughed. A handful of spiced fruit chunks struck her in the face and chest, and the laughter roared louder. The girl stopped abruptly, wiping the commentary from her face. She handed the aulos back to the boy, who took it with uncertain hands.

Looking to his left, Sthenelus spotted a serving-boy bringing a piss-pot to gray-haired Agapenor.

"Bring her here!" Sthnelos called out, and a grinning Labdacus rose again to drag the Amazon over.

"My friend, veteran of many battles," he addressed Agapenor, "Don't trouble yourself. I've thought of a task for my new dancing-girl which ought to be more within her capabilities."

At his gesture, the serving-boy handed her the piss-pot. She took it, not understanding, then her lovely nose twisted as the smell found her.

She offered only a moment's resistance as Labdacus pushed her to her knees before the old man, but her gaze, fixed on Sthnelos, swung between defiant and pleading. He returned only calm.

She was utterly in his power. There were far worse things he could do to her than make her hold an old man's piss-pot for him. In fact, he probably would do some of those things. But which ones? He would enjoy keeping her guessing.

It would be wise to leave some possibilities in reserve for her to contemplate, in case she had a mind to try anything foolish.

In battle, she had shouted orders to fellow steppe-riders in her harsh, clattering tongue. She had sent deadly arrows whistling into his ranks, puncturing his friends.

Now, she would pay.

She held the pot. With quiet dignity, Agapenor filled it and reclined back into his pillows.

"Well done, piss girl!" Sthenelus called to her, beckoning. "Come!"

She didn't appear to understand, but Labdacus, still standing over her shoulder, gave her a little shove in the right direction.

Sthenelus took his prick in hand as she knelt before him. He began to pour his stream into the mouth of the pot. He swung his prick to the left, and the girl, watching carefully, moved the piss-pot over to catch his water. He swung the other way, more sharply, and she blocked him again with her terracotta shield. But she was just a little too slow, and a bead of liquid ran down the outside, touching her hand.

He gave her a slow sweep back to the left. Toying with her. Then, the death-strike. A quick rising thrust, past her desperate counter, golden stream striking her full in the face.

The men bellowed with laughter.

Several were eager to join this new game. Soon, the Amazon's tall felt cap and gold-studded tunic became a sodden mess. Finally, they were pulled off of her to be handed to the laundry-girl.

Sthenelus watched the Amazon's eyes with interest, taking her measure as the fight drained out of them. Stripped of her clothing, attempting to close herself off from view as best she could, she appeared increasingly small in the midst of these drinking, shouting men.

"She was really made for this," drawled one who had been dipping especially far into the sauce, as he shook a few final droplets from his cock into the pot, "Her hair is even the color of piss!"

Labdacus grabbed the wine bowl out of the man's hand.

"She could use a bit of a wash," he smirked, and dashed its contents across the Amazon's face. Watered wine runneled down her shoulders, falling from the points of her tattooed breasts. She only cast her eyes downwards.

"I'm bored of this game," said stony-faced Oïleus, who rose to stand over her, calling for a serving-boy to take the piss-pot from her unresisting hands.

He grabbed a fistful of her hair, squeezing pink liquid out of it, and pulled the girl towards his couch, forcing her to crawl awkwardly to follow him.

Oïleus had fought alongside Sthenelus, their shields locked together. He bore a still-livid wound on his arm, where one of the vicious Scythian arrows had stuck.

Now with an evident twinge of pain, he hoisted the girl into the air, pinning her wrists at her sides with one brawny arm around her chest and the other crossing her belly. With a grunt, he sat her down in his lap at Sthenelus' right hand.

Her eyes were wide, and she babbled pleading words at Sthenelus in her own tongue. Oïleus dipped his fingers into a tray of olives, shining them with oil. He reached down, spreading the oil down the length of his prick where it rose between the Amazon's legs.

"You like to play at boys' games, eh?" growled Oïleus. "Here!"

Sthenelus watched with interest as his friend lifted the woman's ass onto his prick. She cried out as he speared into her in the style of man and boy.

"An enjoyable show," Sthenelus said, standing. Oïleus was fucking the girl in earnest now, lifting her in his strong grip and plunging her down onto his cock again and again. "But I prefer being an actor to a spectator."

Sthenelus approached. She kicked at him with desperate strength, but he had expected this, planting his legs behind him to absorb the blow. Now he grasped her flailing ankles, pushing the Amazon's legs apart and stepping between them, past her defenses.

She seemed to think about making a further act of hopeless resistance, and then some sense of self-preservation made her think better of it. He slapped her cheek, lightly, a warning, to reinforce the point.

All she could do was grimace up at him as he pressed his prick to her cunt. With a low and satisfied sound in his throat, he sank into her, meeting Oïleus' thrusts with his own.

She had not yet been trained in cultivating the favor of her men by feigning delight in their joining, but her cunt had its own ways of welcoming him with sweet embraces.

As his pleasure built up, he drank in her face -- even distorted by defeat, it was beautiful. His fingertips grasped her jaw, hot and wet, and he teased her pink lower lip with his thumb as he filled her cunt, as if she were a lover called to him by Aphrodite.

Perhaps in time the goddess would soften even this Amazon's fiery heart to him.

Her slick walls tightened around him each time his friend drove into her ass. For a moment, Oïleus caught his eye, showing a hint of the wild elation shared by comrades at the moment an enemy line breaks into a rout.

After he had spilled in the Scythian girl's womb, Sthenelus waved the serving-boy over to bring him a full cup. He took a long drink as he sat back again.

Oïleus, having finished with the girl, released her to slump limply onto her hands and knees before his couch, seed trickling down her ass.

Before she could rise, the next man came, taking the Amazon's head between his hands and forcing himself into her mouth. She coughed and struggled as he pressed down her throat, but her struggles grew less as she learned to endure this new ravaging.

Soon, he began to shake with triumph, his movements growing unsteady. Pulling free of her lips, he left a final splash of white dribbling down her forehead and cheeks to join the drool and other liquids coating her chin and neck.

By this time, another of Sthenelus' brothers in arms had knelt behind the girl and was rutting into her pussy. Wet strands of golden hair plastered to her red face and tumbled around her pale shoulders. Her body trembled, breasts swinging heavily, as she meekly accepted his thrusts, and the animal designs that decorated her skin seemed to dance in the lamplight.

The Amazon may yet make a splendid concubine for my house, Sthenelus thought. Perhaps, once she has learned our speech, even an interesting dinner companion.

Or, if not, he could certainly find a brothel to take her off his hands for a good price.

Sthenelus drained his wine-bowl, and called for another. Agapenor was regaling some of the boys with a story from his younger days across the sea. Sthenelus had heard it before, but it was a good one. He smiled.