Read Online Crawling Between Heaven And Earth by Sarah A. Hoyt - Free Book Online
Authors: Sarah A. Hoyt
Tags: Science-Fiction
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faithful or that those had ever been altogether absent from his bed. But now their company was preferred to mine, and if he talked to me at all, it was to remind me of my shortcomings, to mumble improbable reproaches at me for my cruelty and crudity.
I knew what caused it. My body was changing as I became, to all eyes, a man, and it wasn't decent to keep our type of relationship once the boy's masculinity asserted itself.
On our way to Rome we stopped in Athens. While he renewed old acquaintances of one type or another, I found the solution to my problem.
It was late at night, in a tavern where I'd strayed foolishly unaccompanied, proudly confident in my street-wise ways years after I had given them up. A tall pale man sat at my table and bought me drink after drink, even though he never touched his. He spoke of his childhood in the times before Rome, and of the joys of immortality. Liquor and his blue eyes intoxicated me. I followed him out of the tavern, to the fields outside the city. There I lay upon the soft, plowed earth. I thought I knew what was coming.
But instead of the familiar grinding of body against body, his weight crushing my squeezed-together thighs, there was the suave caress of a cold hand against my neck, parting my curls like a curtain, and the sharp, painful kiss that tore my skin, that took my blood, that left me drained and half-dead, lying senseless on the still-warm ground.
Little by little, consciousness returned to me. Consciousness and a sense of loss.
I sat up with too much effort, too much pain. I felt heavy and swollen, like the corpse of one who has drowned, turgid with water and death. And yet, to my eyes, my wrists were as thin as ever, my fingers long and delicate, my small feet effortlessly encased by the gold-laced sandals.
I stood up. My throat was dry and gritty. Each of my joints blazed with pain that burst forth anew with every action.
I walked to town. I don't know how. I also don't know how long I wandered, lost, trying to find my way to the home where we were guests. Some memories were forfeited to the death that even then gripped me. I remember my master's voice, seemingly out of nowhere, merry with wine and tender with amusement, saying, "Hello there, Hylas, Hylas of the sweet locks, how much wine have you had? Can't I let you go out on your own?"
And then his arms surrounded me, supported me, and I felt myself fall, let myself fall, into endless darkness.
When I woke up I believed myself back in my the dark rooms of the insula, the wooden shutters closed against the rain, penning in the thick odors of sweat and cooking and frustrated humanity, all of it lit by the wavering light of a single candle.
"Mother?" I called diffidently.
"Hylas?" a tired voice asked out of the shadows, a man's voice that bore no resemblance to my mother's. "Hylas, are you awake?" The accent of Iberia, where he was born, was thick upon my master's tongue as I'd never heard it. The light of the candle moved around in the dark room, heavy curtains parted just a little to let a thin dagger of light pierce my eyes with unbelievable pain.
"Thirsty," I said, my voice lethargic and low. "I am thirsty."
Adriano moved closer to the couch where I lay. His hair was freshly combed, perfumed, curled. He wore a colorful, loose-fitting, short tunic, as Greek men would wear at home.
I felt ill and scared. Why was he nursing me personally through my illness? Why not entrust me to a slave? So that he could accuse me of stalling his journey to Rome?
He set the candle down on a candlestick. I heard water pour from a pitcher to a cup, then the cup was at my lips, rough silver against skin.
I took one swallow, two. Water, dead and horribly cold in my mouth. Stagnant. Poisonous. I spit it out in his direction, pushed his hand away, that held the cup.
"Are you trying to poison me?" I asked, angrily.
He took in breath sharply.
I realized I could smell him, as I had never smelled another
I knew what caused it. My body was changing as I became, to all eyes, a man, and it wasn't decent to keep our type of relationship once the boy's masculinity asserted itself.
On our way to Rome we stopped in Athens. While he renewed old acquaintances of one type or another, I found the solution to my problem.
It was late at night, in a tavern where I'd strayed foolishly unaccompanied, proudly confident in my street-wise ways years after I had given them up. A tall pale man sat at my table and bought me drink after drink, even though he never touched his. He spoke of his childhood in the times before Rome, and of the joys of immortality. Liquor and his blue eyes intoxicated me. I followed him out of the tavern, to the fields outside the city. There I lay upon the soft, plowed earth. I thought I knew what was coming.
But instead of the familiar grinding of body against body, his weight crushing my squeezed-together thighs, there was the suave caress of a cold hand against my neck, parting my curls like a curtain, and the sharp, painful kiss that tore my skin, that took my blood, that left me drained and half-dead, lying senseless on the still-warm ground.
Little by little, consciousness returned to me. Consciousness and a sense of loss.
I sat up with too much effort, too much pain. I felt heavy and swollen, like the corpse of one who has drowned, turgid with water and death. And yet, to my eyes, my wrists were as thin as ever, my fingers long and delicate, my small feet effortlessly encased by the gold-laced sandals.
I stood up. My throat was dry and gritty. Each of my joints blazed with pain that burst forth anew with every action.
I walked to town. I don't know how. I also don't know how long I wandered, lost, trying to find my way to the home where we were guests. Some memories were forfeited to the death that even then gripped me. I remember my master's voice, seemingly out of nowhere, merry with wine and tender with amusement, saying, "Hello there, Hylas, Hylas of the sweet locks, how much wine have you had? Can't I let you go out on your own?"
And then his arms surrounded me, supported me, and I felt myself fall, let myself fall, into endless darkness.
When I woke up I believed myself back in my the dark rooms of the insula, the wooden shutters closed against the rain, penning in the thick odors of sweat and cooking and frustrated humanity, all of it lit by the wavering light of a single candle.
"Mother?" I called diffidently.
"Hylas?" a tired voice asked out of the shadows, a man's voice that bore no resemblance to my mother's. "Hylas, are you awake?" The accent of Iberia, where he was born, was thick upon my master's tongue as I'd never heard it. The light of the candle moved around in the dark room, heavy curtains parted just a little to let a thin dagger of light pierce my eyes with unbelievable pain.
"Thirsty," I said, my voice lethargic and low. "I am thirsty."
Adriano moved closer to the couch where I lay. His hair was freshly combed, perfumed, curled. He wore a colorful, loose-fitting, short tunic, as Greek men would wear at home.
I felt ill and scared. Why was he nursing me personally through my illness? Why not entrust me to a slave? So that he could accuse me of stalling his journey to Rome?
He set the candle down on a candlestick. I heard water pour from a pitcher to a cup, then the cup was at my lips, rough silver against skin.
I took one swallow, two. Water, dead and horribly cold in my mouth. Stagnant. Poisonous. I spit it out in his direction, pushed his hand away, that held the cup.
"Are you trying to poison me?" I asked, angrily.
He took in breath sharply.
I realized I could smell him, as I had never smelled another
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