Page 65 of Sword Dance

Damiskos considered that for a moment. They stood at the water’s edge.

“There is, but only when other men are present and you don’t want everyone to know what you’ve been up to. We’re the only ones here. I wouldn't worry about it.”

“Hm. What does that mean?”

“Oh. Uh. Not having to worry about where to look, I guess. Though honestly, Varazda, I’m such a wreck after yesterday—please don’t be insulted if I don’t, you know, show any obvious interest. It isn’t you, it’s—”

“Dami, please! No explanation necessary.”

“No. Thanks.”

Varazda toed off his shoes, unknotted his sash, and let the whole length of fabric fall to the sand. Hooking his thumbs under the hem of his shirt, he drew it fluidly off and dropped it on top of the sash. He unfastened his trousers, let them fall, and stepped out of the pooled fabric. He didn’t do any of it seductively, but the grace with which he did everything was always seductive. He stepped into the water and stood a moment, shaking out his hair and pulling it forward over his shoulder. He half turned, looking back at Damiskos, and his smile was like the one that had glowed in his eyes the other night when he caught Damiskos to keep him from collapsing on the bed. He held out a hand, hennaed palm up, in uncomplicated invitation.

Naked in daylight, Varazda was beautiful in a way that made Damiskos feel, in spite of what he’d just said, that he should look away. He felt as if he had seen something he did not deserve, was not worthy to see: a vision of translucently white skin, and that tiny waist flaring into the supple curves of hips and rear. Damiskos’s desire in that moment seemed separate from his body, a Varazda-shaped hole in his soul.

When Damiskos was a boy, he had for a time been infatuated with a female acrobat who belonged to the household of one of his father’s friends. Varazda was built rather like her: long, lean muscles on a delicate, feminine frame. It struck Damiskos that this was a body Varazda had worked hard to reclaim, to shape for himself, after it had been so precisely mutilated. Varazda’s beauty was his own possession, not something created or nurtured for the satisfaction of Damiskos’s particular tastes.

Having hesitated long enough to make everything awkward, Damiskos briskly unbuckled his belt, shed his tunic, loincloth, and sandals, and splashed out into the water past Varazda, catching his beautiful outstretched hand and pulling him along in his wake. Varazda came laughing in mock-protest.

They waded out until the water was deep enough to swim, and Varazda disappeared under the calm surface in a flash of white limbs. Damiskos, who’d never been much of a swimmer, returned to lie in the shallows, letting the warm water lap over him.

It was not entirely pleasant. The smell of charred wood and cloth mixed with the scent of fish sauce in the air, a pungent reminder of their situation, trapped on the beach while the students occupied the villa. He tried to work out what might be going on in the villa just then, much the way he used to try to predict what was happening inside a besieged stronghold, the better to devise his own strategy.

“I think I know what their next move will be,” he said when Varazda walked up out of the water, lovely as a sea-nymph, hair dripping in a dark rope over his shoulder.

“Oh yes?”

Varazda sank to his knees and arranged himself, nymphlike, with his legs tucked to one side and his wrists crossed gently over his lap. He glanced down and seemed to realize what he had done, then self-consciously uncrossed them.

Damiskos looked up into his eyes and could see the tension in him, like a faint echo of his nerves at the beach house on Hapikon Eve. That had been such a short time ago, and yet Damiskos understood so much better now what was going through Varazda’s mind. Understood, but still couldn’t quite have put into words. Perhaps that was just as well.

He remembered he had been about to say something.

“I think they’ll try persuasion or threats again before they try violence. I think we want to make a show of force—be prepared, in fact, to drive them off again—but also to give them hope that we’ll give in if they just wait a little longer.”

“You mean stockpiling weapons and when they show up, bickering amongst ourselves and wringing our hands.”

Damiskos grinned. “Exactly.”

The water lay shallow over Varazda’s thighs, over his prick nestled between them, over his long, beautiful hands, masculine in size but with their feminine decoration.

“I’d have a hard time being discreet, if we were in a public bath,” said Damiskos.

Varazda’s eyes went wide and startled.

“Not to change the subject,” said Damiskos.

“No, no. We weren’t talking about anything important, after all.”

“I just wanted to mention it.”

“Thank you.” Varazda smiled, relaxing a little. “I am quite sure I couldn’t manage it myself.”

“Manage what?”

“To be discreet.” His cheeks coloured slightly.

Damiskos laughed aloud. “I’m quite sure you could.”