An Enemy of Mine

The sound of horns could be heard from afar. This sound woke Eusebio up. The boy sat up suddenly, disturbed from his dreamless slumber.

“Eusebio!“ he heard someone call his name. As he quickly looked around to figure out his location, he noticed that his tunic was missing. He grabbed the bedsheets, pulling them to his naked body.

Demetrios came into the room, dressed in long tunic the cut of which made his big belly even more obvious. He sat down on the bed and ran his fingers through Eusebio’s black hair like a loving parent would. The blackness of Eusebio’s hair was admired all over Athens because to see a muse with hair so dark was not common. “Did you sleep well, sweet Adonis?”

Eusebio didn’t find enough will power in order to look at him. He pressed the bedsheets closer and nodded. “Is the festival starting? I heard the horns,” he said quietly, a little confused.

“It starts right now. Get dressed, sweet boy. We are going to join the company. Everyone is curious about you. They all believed you were killed.” The old man said; wrinkles around his eyes deepened as he smiled slightly. His fingers finally let Eusebio’s ebon locks be. “Hurry up, lover. I’ll have your clothes brought here.”

And with that he got up, pulling his tunic back down to cover whatever got uncovered when he took his seat and the fabric adapted to the round shapes of his overripe body.

Eusebio watched him go. When his master was out of sight, Eusebio sighed quietly. He didn’t remember yesterday events very well. He just knew that one moment he was a captive of Sparta and the other he was back in Athens, in Demetrios’ house. He wasn’t able to recollect the name of the medicine Demetrios got him drink but it made him fall asleep so deeply. When he woke up he found himself in Piraeus.

Eusebio didn’t feel like joining the celebration. When the clothes were brought to his room and he was left alone, he was just blankly staring at the beautiful soft fabric for a long while. As if he wanted to make himself believe this wasn’t really happening. He didn’t feel at home here anymore. But where his home was if not here?

He took the white tunic on, then wrapped a fancy belt with nice golden buckle around his slim waist. He took on bracelets, some of them decorated his arms and wrists and there were few around his left ankle. He took on a pair of sandals as well.

Eusebio knew he looked gorgeous to the level of being considered a son of Zeus. He’d been told so many times he grew used to hearing it. Even in Sparta his beauty made him outstand much more than his inability to fight. The weeks spent in city of the enemy, among people who did not worship beauty of human body to the Athenian extent, did not take a slightest bit of his looks away. Because it was not the baths in fragrant oils, not the creams, massages and clothes which was making him so handsome. He was born to be Eusebio, the muse of Athenian artists, the model for paintings and for Demetrios’ sculptures.

It was Demetrios who gave him home after his parents passed away. The artist saw a great potential in the young, 13-years-old Athenian. Pederasty was common and demanded thing in Greece and Eusebio could consider himself lucky for meeting a man interested in becoming his teacher. Demetrios was very educated and also famous for his art which made him be considered one of the best masters an Athenian teenager could wish. The sculpturer turned Eusebio from an orphan to an admired figure – whole Athens knew him and loved him for he was the living ideal of beauty.

That was also the reason why Eusebio became the object of Spartan hate. He was so popular in Athens that they decided to use him as a model for a specific statue. The statue was a mockery, a reward to Spartans for their lose to Athens in one of the many battles of the two city states. Spartans got so mad that they decided to kidnap the model of the statue from Athens.

Eusebio watched the people in the streets from his window. He liked the Dionysus Days but today he was not in mood for celebrating at all. Everything he cared about was left far behind in Sparta and there was no chance he’d ever see anything of it again. His heart was there, kept in the city of the enemy.

“Eusebio! Hurry!” he could hear the voice of his friend Theseos, another one of Demetrios’ wards. The boy ran into Eusebio’s room with his hands full of ivy and grapes. “Come on, let me decorate you!” he said excitedly and pulled Eusebio to the bed with childish laughter. “Oh, this will look great, Eusebio,” he kept talking with excitement as he worked on interweaving the ivy into Eusebio’s hair. “You look so good, Eusebio, you look so good I would not wonder if Dionysus kidnapped you to Olympus. It would be definitely better than to end up in Sparta again, wouldn’t it? Eusebio, it is so unbelievable you survived among those barbarians. How is it possible that they didn’t kill you?”

But Eusebio just shrugged and looked at the golden bracelets around his slim wrists. They rang softly with every movement of his hands. He kept turning them around slowly while Theseos was creating an ivy crown on his head, much like the one the god of wine and parties wore.

He was a living dead, actually. Athens had buried him once already. And Sparta would never see him again. And to himself, he was not an Athenian nor a Spartan… he was without a home again, just like years ago when his parents were killed by Poseidon. Why were the gods playing such games with his life?

“You look so sad, Eusebio,” Theseos pointed out softly. “Smile now, you’re back with us. Come! The celebration starts!”

He grabbed Eusebio’s hand and the boy nearly tripped over as he was dragged to run with Theseos. The other male was so excited and Eusebio couldn’t do else but smile and laugh a little too. Yes, maybe it was really the time for a celebration.

Dionysus, please, make me forget. The one I gave my heart to must be drowned in your heady element.

The boys joined a group of another three young Athenians who were also Demetrios’ little muses and companions. And the old man on his mule, dressed pompously, with a thyrsus in his hand, similar to the one Dionysus used to be pictured with. The guys chuckled at their master – he liked to show off. He was an acknowledged artist and his popularity couldn’t be destroyed easily.

All the young boys and girls were dressed in white tunics, wearing adornments made of ivy and metal. Eusebio could see a group of actors, some of them he knew from last year. He liked theatre. On the other side of the street there was a group of men carrying a bull made of fur, wood and some shiny decorations. Bull was one of the inherent parts of Dionysus Days. Some Athenian men were dressed in costumes of satyrs and centaurs, dancing down the street to the music artists were producing with their lyres and other instruments. Everything was so colorful and happy – this day was the day when troubles were meant to be forgotten and a person was supposed to give in to pleasure and partying completely. People were singing, chatting and smiling, exulting for the glory of Dionysus.

The atmosphere was overwhelming. Eusebio couldn’t help himself; it gradually soaked him up. He knew that Demetrios liked to keep his boys around on this day, but this time Eusebio decided to disobey. He didn’t feel any kind of moral or any other bond to Demetrios anymore. His heart was free, free from Athens and could be even freer if a Spartan let it go too. Everything was so different in Sparta.

And they surely didn’t even have this kind of celebration. Those people were very disciplined, they would hardly give in to orgy of Athenian kind. Athens, Eusebio knew now, was a filthy city. The beauty they were selling was fake. All the things Demetrios taught him might’ve been lies, just like telling him Spartans cut their captives to pieces and drink their blood.

Sparta was scary, bloody. But it wasn’t barbaric. You could even find love there. In Sparta you could find women who were equal to men and maybe meant even more than men. Women who were not obliged to hide in their houses but could walk side by side with their brothers, own properties even bigger than their brothers. And here, in Athens, everyone was just drinking and singing to the point of madness.

Eusebio fell down on his butt. The world was dancing in front of his eyes. All he could feel was the taste of sweet heady wine in his mouth, and his blood was warm and in rush.

The young Athenian felt like he was a living kaleidoscope. The colors were playing in front of his eyes as he clumsily got up, and using the wall as a support started to walk away from the celebrating crowd. He made it to the end of the street, to a staircase which led down to another street. It looked abandoned for all the people were in the centre, celebrating. Eusebio had a flashback to the day when he was running like this through streets of Sparta in a vain attempt to escape.

The stairs were a little too much. He fell down, unable to take it step by step. Too much poison in his veins. And then he spotted a blurred silhouette of someone… A tall someone with bull horns. His eyes widened but he was not sure if he saw well, if it was Dionysus or if it was an Athenian or a Spartan…

“Dionysus… take me with you, please,” he moaned as he collapsed on one of the stairs.