in praise of venus

“I’d hoped I’d find you awake,” Caesar says.

“They couldn’t knock me out with a club,” Antony says, with more good cheer than he feels. “Men have tried. Hello, old chap, how’s the war?”

He can feel Caesar surveying his injuries with a brusque and assessing eye. Another wound for the old collection — they do look fierce, though, and for that he can’t quibble. Antony has seen old soldiers so bound up with scar tissue that they can scarcely hobble in formation, looking like maimed men, when in fact what they wear is the accrued residue of years of fine service to the Republic — he has resolved never to look like such a pitiful creature. His bandaged arm juts out at a queer angle, bent at the elbow so the knitting flesh won’t tug painfully.

Antony makes an effort to sit up when Caesar approaches. His body protests, but there is still such a thing as decorum even splayed out on a rope-strung cot in the officers’ infirmary.

Caesar gestures at him.“Don’t — not on my behalf, certainly. You look as if you’ve been plucked from the arena.”

“Fine, then. I’ll call the slave who watches the ward, have him bring you a seat.”

But Caesar does not wait for such concessions; he kneels in the dirt at the edge of the cot, sinking down to Antony’s level. It is possible for a well-trained eye to detect concern in that austere face of his.

“From the report I received, I thought for certain I’d lost you. Yet here you are, having made another narrow escape.”

Antony laughs weakly. “With one arm tied behind my back, as they say. I’d thought I’d seen my last dawn, until the fellow tasked with guarding me stepped behind a tree to take a piss and left me tied to a stake in the ground. Amateur mistake, really. ”

Antony stretches out his legs, trying to look picturesque and martial rather than merely filthy. The sensation of Caesar’s regard is enough to raise the temperature in the little canvas cubbyhole palpably.

“Evading capture against considerable odds, leading your men to victory despite having incurred a serious injury in the process. Another man might ask to be invalided back to Rome.”

Another man would, but not Antony. He is offering him the prospect in order to make perfectly clear that he doesn’t want him to take it — that he will think less of Antony if he takes it, however much he may need the respite. Antony grins at him, though the effort twinges at the scrapes on his cheek.

“Never. I’ve taken worse knocks. These Gauls won’t be rid of me that easily.”

Caesar takes him by the shoulder — the good one, anyway — and his firm grip is like a blessing, all pride and the banked glow of power. Antony hasn’t had much stock in the business of state religion, not since boyhood; seeing the old men stoop and snuffle at close range has killed some of the mystique. Yet, at times there are moments of grandeur in it all, just the same, and Caesar is the embodiment of all of them — a merciful judge and a bloody-handed commander of men all at once, that divine duality.

If Antony makes augur one day, it will be in Caesar’s service; he has some experience interpreting his commander’s signs. From the furrowed brow, Caesar is faintly concerned, but from the dark twinkle in his eye the libidinous old goat in him is alive and well, as much as at any dinner party. Antony is charmed.

So he means to fuck him on his sickbed; so be it. There’s nothing wrong with accepting relief at another man’s hand, after the delirious fury of battle — only Antony is accustomed to ill-timed erections in the heat of the moment, rather than hours later when the field medics have come and gone and the blood is drying.

“Are you quite comfortable?” Caesar’s eyes are tracing over his better features with a sort of even-handed lecherousness.

“Comfortable as I ever am. I do find I’ve got a sort of cramp in my upper thigh—“

“I’ll send Duro to see to it. The man’s got hands like iron hooks.”

“No, no, no — it’s nothing as severe as that, it only wants pressure.”

“So press it yourself; you’ve got one good arm.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t dare. I beg you, sir, take a look, see if there’s anything you can do.”

Antony spreads his legs, lifting his hips to let the hem of his bloodied tunic fall back invitingly. He has fine strong thighs, easily one of his best features, and it’s a lucky thing that he’s only broken an arm and not one of those odd long bones there in the leg that never seem to knit properly. Caesar is all indulgence; even a hard man can crack a smile now and again, and he saves for Antony his amusement where other men might receive his disgust.

Caesar takes him in hand, drawing him off — Antony is a heap of aching flesh and has no difficulty holding still long enough for the libidinal annoyance of his desire to be smoothed away. It is the uninterrupted attention he craves as much as the pleasure, and at Caesar’s hand comes a sweeter relief than a hasty rut with a stranger.

This man Caesar lives as if he is composing his memoirs already, in grand maneuvers and canny escapes. The individual lives of his lieutenants are of no especial concern. Antony has given this man the finest of his years, he has shed his blood for this man and he may yet die in his service; the least Caesar can do for him is lend a comradely hand

Antony sighs, letting his head fall back. He is a simple man, happiest in the domain of sex and violence, and having shed the blood of Gauls, he is ready to take his pleasure where he can find it. A field infirmary with two stained curtains and a lookout on duty is no silk-sheeted grotto in Baiae, but Antony is ready to luxuriate regardless. Where else will he enjoy the attentions of his commander with no distractions?

Caesar’s broad brown fingers draw a climax out of him that is sweet and exacting; Antony has no idea how badly he has needed this particular relief until it is upon him, and all the scrapes and strains of captivity fall away from him like autumn leaves, even his wounds cease to ache and he is reduced to a solitary site of pleasure, a cock and a belly and a pounding heart.

Antony reaches out with an aching and enervated arm; what he is reaching for, he isn’t certain, to dishevel Caesar’s nicely barbered hair or to rub his knuckles down that hard sun-browned cheek. Caesar takes that hand and kisses it, kisses the fingers of Antony’s sword-hand.

“Good man,” Caesar says. Beneath his bruises Antony glows with pleasure.