Page 34 of Sword Dance

“Thirty. Just turned.”

“Well.” Damiskos sat on the edge of the couch. “We’re almost of an age. I’m thirty-two. I knew you weren’t a boy, but still—you don’t look thirty.”

“Thanks.” He looked, for just a moment, just a little pleased. “Look, First Spear, I realize this situation is my fault.”

“What? No, it isn’t.”

“If I hadn’t surprised you by kissing you in the passage in front of Helenos—”

“You didn’t have any choice. You had to deflect suspicion.”

“I could have done it some other way. And I could have come up with some other explanation for why Aristokles left me behind, rather than forcing you to pretend to be my master.”

“I’m really not sure what else you could have done. The problem was just that I haven’t played along very well.”

“What’s going on in there?” one of the students called from the beach outside.

“Eya, eya for the ploughing of the fertile field—”

“Fertile! Hah!” Loud guffaws.

Varazda draped a wrist over Damiskos’s shoulder. “This isn’t going to allay their suspicions, First Spear,” he murmured. “You literally said you were expecting more than a kiss. We’d better do something out of the Garden of Jasmine, at least.”

“The garden of what? Why can’t you say ‘fuck’ like a normal person?”

“Oh, I can say it, but I’m not going to let you do it—and much as I’d love to do it to you, it’s not really in my repertoire.” He must have been able to see Damiskos’s eyebrows rise, because he cringed. “Oh, God, it was meant to be an insult, that’s all—because you’re supposed to find it humiliating, you all think that sort of thing is humiliating, don’t you? I didn’t mean that I literally want to … ugh, you don’t actually like it? What happened to preferring women?”

“I like a lot of things,” said Damiskos repressively, annoyed that his expression had betrayed anything. “But listen. If I was really courting … someone like you … here’s how I think it would go.”

He slid his hands behind Varazda’s shoulders and eased him down onto his back on the couch. He turned to kneel over Varazda, carefully moving his stiff leg. Varazda’s long, wavy hair was pooled on the cushion beneath him, and his coat had slipped off one shoulder, baring his white chest. Damiskos was acutely aware of how unequal the situation was for the two of them. There was nothing unpleasant about having Varazda under him, his skin blue-white in the moonlight, his eyes wide and dark. The memory of his dancing, fierce and elegant and alluring, was fresh in Damiskos’s mind. He could easily have enjoyed this, but the same was obviously not true for Varazda.

It had been very gracious of Varazda to apologize, but Damiskos was still convinced this situation was mostly his own fault. Even if it wasn’t, trying to handle it sensitively was the least he could do.

Some of the students had brought real torches now, and the shadows of their swaying forms danced over the interior of the beach house as they chanted vulgar nonsense and laughed at their own wit.

“At this point—” Damiskos paused to clear his throat, finding his voice betrayingly husky. “At this point, assume I’m still expecting more than a kiss. So I’m forging ahead … ” He ran a hand sketchily over Varazda’s hair, not really touching him, and down past the edge of the open coat. From a distance, he hoped, it would look like a long, slow caress, down to the waistband of Varazda’s trousers. It took a definite effort to keep from thinking about what it would feel like to really do what he was feigning. “But you don’t like where you think this is going.”

“Right.” Varazda mimed a very convincing reluctance, flinching and twisting away from Damiskos’s hand. Damiskos leaned down and kissed into the soft nest of his hair, then drew back.

“And then I say something like, ‘Don’t worry, there’s no rush’—because there isn’t, honestly, when we’ve got an audience. I don’t see how anyone could find that suspicious. Move over a bit?”

Varazda shifted over on the couch to give Damiskos room to stretch out beside him. Damiskos lay on his side, propped on one elbow, effectively blocking the view for the watchers from the beach. They seemed to be tiring of their chanting. Varazda tugged his hair out from under him to make himself more comfortable, and looked up at Damiskos.

They lay very close on the couch. Varazda smelled good, his citrusy perfume mingled with sweat and smoke from the bonfire. He had gathered his coat around him again. Damiskos reached across and fingered one of the smooth bone buttons on the opposite side, to make it look like he was doing something.

“So, First Spear—all those years in the colonies, what were you doing that you don’t know what the Garden of Jasmine is?”

“Who was I doing, I think you mean. The wrong people, obviously.”

Varazda gave a little splutter of laughter. “It’s a book. The Three Gardens.”

“Oh, I’ve heard of that. But not read it.”

“It’s mostly pictures.”

Damiskos considered that for a moment. He tried to remember the times he had heard people mention The Three Gardens, wondering how many conversations would have taken on a different cast altogether if he had known they were talking about a book of sex pictures.

“Well, that’s … interesting. I don’t think I ever slept with anyone in Zash who, uh, owned a lot of books.”