The Musaeum at Alexandria, which included the famous Library of Alexandria, was an institution apparently founded by Ptolemy I Soter or, perhaps more likely, Ptolemy II Philadelphus at ancient Alexandria in Egypt which remained supported by the patronage of the royal family of the Ptolemies. Such a G reek Mouseion was the home of music or poetry, a philosophical school and library such as Plato's Academy, also a gallery of sacred texts. -Wikipedia

"How sexy should we make it?" Tazaar asked, as the eunuchs adjusted their long, silk breechcloths and prepared to dance for the athletes on their second, official night at Ganymede.

Jin thought of Marcos. The Jewish boy would be out in the crowd. "Very sexy," Jin said. He glanced at the others who were looking at him with a variety of amused or inquiring glances. "Well," Jin said defensively, "half of them are already screwing each other."

Jeet shrugged. Both the Oracle and the King would be watching, and he would be dancing for them. "Sexy sounds good, but maybe we better keep the breechcloths on and not do the cock flopping part."

"Well they might," Bantu said defensively. Like the others, he might not have balls, but he enjoyed the sexy exhibitionism that boys with long cocks enjoyed sometimes.

"Come on, Jeet-hah," Tazaar said, throwing an arm over Jeet's shoulders. "It's not like they haven't seen us naked."

An hour later, Bantu walked beside Ptolemy, laughing again, as they headed from the performance for the boys to the performance for the men. He called out to the others, walking ahead. "Damn, I saw a lot of erections out there."

"I saw guys reaching into the laps of the guys next to them," Tazaar called back from in front.

"A lot of those guys are going to be hiding hard cocks on their way back to their pavilions," Bantu predicted

Jin, walking in the middle beside Aruli, wrapped his arm over his bedmate's shoulder. "Aruli-hah," he said, leaning his head close. "I made friends with a Jewish boy this afternoon - one of the seventeen-year-olds. He asked to come to my bed tonight."

Aruli laid his hand on Jin's bare bottom as they walked. "It's alright, Jin-hah. Rem and Menelaus kept me company last night."

Jin smiled, hugging Aruli's shoulder closer as they walked. Then he looked around. "Where is Rem?" he asked.

Jeet, just ahead of them with Tazaar, glanced back over his shoulder. "Rem asked to stay back tonight. I told him it would be alright, since that would still leave us in pairs for dancing."

Aruli looked back over his shoulder at the entrance slope. Rem had been interested in Lycos and now had a chance to pursue him for the night. It occurred to Aruli that his own bed might be empty that evening after all.

Rem threw his breechcloth over his shoulder and quickly made his way to Lycos as boys began dispersing down the slope. Noticing older boys following Lycos and Demos, Rem stepped between the two twelve-year-olds and threw his arms possessively over the shoulders of both. Though he was as young as they were, Rem was one of the shrine eunuchs, and assumed the older boys would respect that. They did, dropping back.

With a frown, Rem leaned closer to Demos. "Jeet and the others like the twins, but I've never thought much of them," he told. "You know who you should be interested in?"

Demos turned to Rem, pulling his head back a little because they were so close. He shook his head slowly.

"Aruli?" Demos asked quietly, and then jumped as an older boy gave his butt a slap as the boy hurried past.

"Hey!" Rem called out. He frowned at the older boy when the older boy glanced back with a grin. Rem turned back to Demos. "Yeah, Aruli. He's a really nice guy, Demos. Everybody calls him "Sweet Aruli."

Demos was surprised. He thought about the eunuch with the big dark eyes. He'd certainly noticed Aruli's beauty, but he hadn't thought about the older boy, sexually; primarily because he'd been with Lycos and then with Letradoisan. But as they walked, Demos remembered the dreams he had back home of magical eunuchs and what it might be like to have sex with one.

Seleucus took the Oracle by the hand. He wouldn't wait for Jeet's return; not tonight. He'd gone all day without sex with the boy, and tonight's dance of the eunuchs had excited him. Now he was simply anxious to get Anda back to the tent.

His arm was behind her waist as they walked, and he glanced at her. Her eyes met his, and he saw in them that she was as ready as he was, and he almost pulled her naked body into his arms, right there, with other boys streaming past. But he didn't, and they hurried toward his tent.

By the time they reached their pavilion, Rem, Lycos, and Demos were surrounded by a dozen other twelve-year-olds, aroused by the performance and breathlessly asking questions about sex between the eunuchs. None of the twelve-year-olds had ever seen anything as blatantly erotic as the dances of the eunuchs. Several still sprouted erections. To all of them, the eunuchs were suddenly and quintessentially sexual, and Rem, walking beside them now, was one of them.

"Some of that stuff tonight didn't look like it would work," one boy commented. He glanced at Rem. "When you guys were dancing like you were supposed to be fucking each other... well... do you guys actually fuck like that?" he asked. "Standing up face-to-face. Does that work?"

"If your cock is long enough," Rem said with a knowledgeable grin. "But we usually do face-to-face lying down with one guy on his back and the other face down on top of him. The bottom guy wraps his legs around the waist of the guy on top, and they hug each other while the guy on top does the fucking. We call it making a 'love knot'. Jeet and I do it all the time."

They stepped under the pavilion, moving to the middle. The twelve-year-olds gathered around Rem.

"What about tonight," another boy asked, "when Jeet was behind you, dancing like he was fucking you, and Tazaar got behind Jeet and danced like he was fucking him? Can three guys fuck together like that?"

"Sure," Rem said, his own cock beginning to stiffen at both the topic of discussion and the sight of other twelve-year-old erections around him.

"Does the Abij-hah let other guys fuck him?" one of the twelve-year-olds asked in a surprised whisper.

They stepped up into the pavilion, all the boys staying close to Rem. "So, do the Oracle's eunuchs ever have sex together, all at one time?" another boy asked.

"What do you mean, usually in pairs?" another asked. "How many guys can fuck each other at one time? What do you do when you're not in pairs?"

In the darkness under the pavilion, several boys started stroking themselves, and others, hearing the discussion, came over to join the group around Rem.

Rem sat down and the other boys sat or knelt around him. The young eunuch suppressed a smile in the darkness, because it reminded him of lessons in the shrine, when they all gathered around Judah.

"There are lots of things a bunch of guys can do together," Rem said authoritatively. "They can jack each other off. Or if they're willing to do anything - like if you're willing to suck cocks with other guys - and that really feels good - you can get three, four, five guys in a circle, each sucking the next guy in the circle. You can get three or sometimes four guys fucking in a line or on their sides, but it isn't always easy because guys pop out of each other. Or you can mix it up, and have different guys doing different things, like some guys fucking other guys while those guys are sucking other guys. And like a guy has two ends, right? He can have a guy at each end."

"It's alright to suck another boy," one boy ventured quietly. "They do it at our gymnasium. It's not like you're sucking a grown man's cock."

The group of boys sat silently for a moment, several of them stroking and glancing at the cocks and bodies of other boys, dimly lit by torches from outside the pavilion.

The cheering and calls of the men became deafening when Jeet, standing behind Tazaar, and Jin behind Aruli, and Ptolemy behind Bantu, all released the breechcloths of the eunuchs in front of them. The men saw the boys totally nude for the first time and hundreds of eyes dropped to the boys' middles. The amphitheater became a din of noise when the three behind stepped in front, and their breechcloths were pulled away in turn.

The eunuchs moved into their pairs and triads, mimicking sex together, realistic enough that their cocks began to lengthen. When they came forward to the front of the platform, rotating their hips so that their thick cocks slapped out to the sides, left and right, men rose to their feet cheering, and several made as if they would come up onto the platform. Jeet wondered whether, if soldiers weren't stationed below the platform, the men actually would do it.

They finished in a line of six naked boys, pressed front to back, winding in a dance off the rear of the platform. Once they were away, the Nubians rushed out onto the platform to retrieve the breechcloths for the eunuchs. The eunuchs waited in the rear with Jarus.

The priest grinned from ear to ear. "Those men have had nothing but horse races and dry symposia all day." He rubbed his hands together. "The priestesses are going to do even better than last night."

It took Aruli's eyes a moment to adjust to the darkness as he returned under his pavilion. And then his jaw slowly dropped. Much like a stream of water coming down over rocks, a stream of connected twelve-year-old boys meandered toward him from the backside of the pavilion. Some boys were on their backs with their knees bent and their feet on the floor, up close to their butts, while other boys' heads bobbed and moved between their legs. Other boys were on their sides; others on all fours. Most were sucking or stroking other boys. Two boys were kneeling behind other boys, holding narrow little butts while pumping with narrow little hips... all with the abandon of uninhibited, preteen, boys; let loose on sex.

As his eyes adjusted, Aruli could hear the soft slapping of skin on skin, to very quiet slurping, and to the soft grunts of twelve-year-old boys having sex. Not all the noises were from the boys in the stream. There were other twos and threes around the pavilion, some watching the boys in the stream, some doing things together; no one seemed to be sleeping. He thought he saw Menelaus, sucking cocks with another boy.

He didn't see Rem at first, but then as he drew close to his own pallet, he saw the shapes of three boys sitting on his and Rem's pallets. Looking closer, he saw that Rem and Lycos were sitting, crotch-to-crotch with Lycos' legs up over Rem's. Their hands were between their crotches as they watched the boys in the stream. Demos was the third boy; his eyes were on Aruli.

Demos swallowed, and then scooted slightly closer. He leaned toward Aruli, shyly, his head down. "Uh," he said, "Rem told me... " he glanced up at Aruli, then away. "Rem told me that you like me."

Though, in daylight, he had seen where Jin had made his bed, Marcos had trouble finding it in the night, especially since there were many boys here, and not just fifteen-year-olds. There were other, older boys among them. Some boys were making love openly, some under covers; several were talking; few were sleeping yet.

"Over here," Marcos heard Jin call out, and he headed for Jin's voice. He found Jin lying in his thick pallet, with layers of fine cotton from the shrine. Jin was under one layer, and he lifted the fabric for Marcos to crawl under.

The older boy slid in beside him, and they lay on their sides, facing each other in the darkness while Marcos' eyes adjusted. He smiled. Jin smiled in return.

Marcos looked around. One boy was watching them from a few feet away, but then looked away.

Jin parted his legs, accepting Marcos' leg between them. The young eunuch giggled, quietly. "It's hairy."

"I love hairy legs," Jin said, scooting forward until their legs were entwined up to their crotches and their erections pressed between them. "That's one reason I said it was alright to come back."

Marcos smiled and slid his palm up and down Jin's arm. He kissed Jin softly and rested his forehead against the young eunuch's. "I have never touched anyone as beautiful as you," he whispered. "I could think of nothing else this evening." He squeezed Jin's bicep. "The way you danced tonight, with Aruli... I sat there thinking it couldn't be real that I would lie with you like this tonight. I couldn't believe you would remember me."

Jin slid his fingers into the curly hair on the side of Marcos' head and kissed him. "I kept thinking about you. I saw you at the front of the crowd... I danced for you."

Marcos kissed him back. "I saw you looking at me. It still didn't make it real. It almost made it less real."

Jin pressed his mouth to Marcos' and wrapped his arms around Marcos' neck. The older boy wrapped his around Jin's back. They worked the kiss, and Jin taught the older boy how to do so, open-mouth.

Jin probed vigorously with his tongue, and Marcos groaned softly. The kiss grew more and more passionate. And then Marcos rolled Jin to his back and moved over him, his legs settling between Jin's. They stayed mouth-to-mouth, sliding their legs against each other, rubbing their cocks between their bellies. Jin grabbed Marcos' bottom, kneading, pulling, and he pulled his own knees higher and out to the sides.

Marcos lifted his head, smiling sadly. "If you are inviting me to fuck you, I cannot. It is not permitted in my people. But I can rub like this. I like doing it. Can you come this way?"

Jin lay there, with his legs wide apart and the weight of Marcos lean, wiry body between them... and on his belly and chest... and on his cock. He could feel Marcos' loose balls resting on his own empty scrotum and perineum, and they felt so very good there. "Yeah," Jin whispered, giving Marcos firm buttocks a two-handed squeeze. "I may have trouble not coming."

Marcos grinned, lowered his mouth to Jin's once more, and began grinding with his hips... harder.

Jarus knew the man. He was from Antioch, at Ganymede with his eromenos. The man was wealthy. Jarus gave the man a nod as the man approached him in the torchlight.

The man looked around and decided that they were standing too close to the booths of the priestesses. He pulled Jarus away from the torchlight. "I wish to sleep with the Abij-hah."

"The Abij-hah is no longer required to sleep with supplicants," Jarus said with a regretful frown. "It is the King's command."

"I am desperate, priest," the man said. "Though I have two wives, I have fathered no sons, no children at all. I must sleep with the Abij-hah. He grants fertility."

Jarus bowed sadly. "If we were in Kaleh, you could come to the shrine," he said. "The Abij-hah is compassionate. He might grant your wish, but surely you see that it isn't possible to do so here at the games."

The man frowned. "If I came to Kaleh, the King might learn of it and I fear his wrath. It doesn't have to be overnight. I could meet him in the woods. Even watching him dance stirred the seed within me. I felt it. I need only have sex with him."

The man's jaw worked and he looked around in the dark. "We will not be allowed onto the peninsula tomorrow?" he asked.

The man's jaw worked again, and his nostrils flared. "I will pay you handsomely to bring him to me." The man pointed past the end of the amphitheater and up the hill. "Back up there, in the trees."

The man grabbed the priest's arm. "Arrange for me to fuck the Abij-hah and I will give you a talent of silver. Bring him before midday."

In the mid-morning sunlight, Aruli looked over the twelve-year-olds with satisfaction. At the end of only their second practice, they were already beginning to look like real Kurbantes dancers. He beamed at them and nodded. "Excellent," he called out in a loud voice. "By the last day of the games, you'll be ready."

Aruli raised his hand. "Before you put your armor away, I will tell you about today. Tomorrow, the games begin, so take today easy. Your mentors and fathers won't be allowed onto Ganymede until tomorrow, but we'll all be available to coach any of you who want it. Yesterday, you saw who will be your competition. If you are wise athletes, you will use today to prepare and to get advice."

"One other thing," Aruli called out as some of the boys turned toward the pavilion. The boys turned back.

"I heard last night that some of you have been bothered by older boys wanting sex. I talked to the Abij-hah this morning. Right now, all the older boys are being told at their pavilions to leave you alone. If anyone bothers you, just call for one of us shrine eunuchs, or for one of our helpers, or for one of the guards, and we'll make sure you're left alone. Alright. You're free until we meet tonight."

The boys turned for the pavilion, and Aruli watched as the twelve-year-olds carried their swords, shields, and helmets in. Lycos and Demos walked together, talking, shoulder bumping, and grinning at each other.

Aruli felt a hand on his butt and turned to find Rem smiling at him. "Sleep well last night, Aruli-hah?" Rem asked.

"Looks like Demos gets him today," Aruli said, nodding toward the pair of boys who had reappeared from under the pavilion and were walking toward the river end of the peninsula with their arms over each other's shoulders.

Just then, one of the twelve-year-olds came up to Aruli and Rem, nervously looking around. "Aruli-hah?" he asked. "What you said about the older boys... does that mean I can't be with... with one of them?"

Aruli shrugged. "If you want to be with him, that's fine. Just don't let anyone force you to do anything."

The boy smiled happily, and took off running toward the pavilion of the sixteen-year-olds.

"Do you think anybody is going to actually work out today?" Rem asked thoughtfully. He gave Aruli a grin.

Both Ptolemy and Bantu looked sleepy. They stood together in the sun, half-way between their two pavilions, when Jeet walked up, hand-in-hand with the Oracle. All around them, naked boys, most wearing cotton strips of Bantu's blue or Ptolemy's purple, wrestled, or raced, or sat talking, or walked in groups.

Jeet slid an arm behind Anda's waist as they faced the two eunuchs. "Have you two been keeping each other up at night?" Jeet chided with a grin. "You must rest so that you're alert for the day."

Bantu frowned at him. "We each sleep in our pavilion; you know that, Jeet-hah." Bantu swept his hand back toward his pavilion. "It's those fourteen-year-olds you gave me. You wouldn't believe how lusty they are. I had visitors all night."

"I did," Ptolemy said with a frown. But then the corners of his mouth turned up. "Except for three."

Jeet laughed again. The Oracle, however, was preoccupied with the sudden image of Ptolemy and three thirteen-year-olds.

"I only kept two," Bantu said with a pout, and a twinkle in his eye. "But I promised to pick two new ones tonight." He winked. "Maybe I'll make it three."

"He deceives you, holy one," Jeet said to Jarus before the priest could even ask.

They stood close to the river. Other boys were close by, so Jeet pulled Jarus away to a large rock. "I had a dream in the night," Jeet said. "A man sends you. He wants me to have sex with him because he says his seed has no potency. Tell him that he has three sons already. Tell him that the Oracle has seen it. And tell him that the Oracle saw him when he received his directions from Eucratides."

Jarus' mouth dropped. "Eucratides? The King's cousin, Eucratides? Isn't he one of the King's ministers?

After most of two days and a morning, the boys of Ganymede stared less at the King and the Oracle as the two walked among them, but they did still stare, and made way for them. They stared more at the naked Oracle; at her firm breasts on a boyish body, and at her phallus which looked so much like any youth's.

Their staring had begun to irritate Anda. At first it was to be expected, but to her mind, they all had more than ample opportunity to see her by now. Unacknowledged in her own mind, though, was the fact that her irritation was due, in large part, to the way those stares stirred her, because Anda-Alexander was doing quite a bit of staring of her own.

Back at the shrine, she was surrounded by the most beautiful boys in the kingdom; but boys without balls or body hair or thick muscles or deep voices. Here at Ganymede, such youths were everywhere; boys with shorthairs and hair on their forearms and legs, deepening voices, splendid tans, slabs of muscles... and a few of the older ones had cocks like horses.

Seleucus had some of these things, of course, but he was older. The twins, at almost fourteen, were just coming into them, but Anda had never slept with them, and didn't care to. However, around her now were hundreds of boys - splendid in their young virility and burgeoning manhood. As the only person on the peninsula with a vagina, the Oracle was keenly aware of what swung between each boy's legs. Anda-Alexander, who also had the sex drive of a male, couldn't not look. Beneath her composed exterior, she was beginning to feel a constant, low fever.

She almost laughed at herself, over her physical form and ambivalent impulses - feeling warmth in her vagina when some particularly handsome youth walked her way, and then heaviness in her phallus when she looked back at his muscled butt as he walked away. She almost laughed; she almost cried.

Thicker in the air of Ganymede than the scent of pine and grilling meat, was a young, virile sexuality; and though she slept nightly with Seleucus and Jeet, the Oracle was acutely aware of it. That was particularly true at midday, when her body was accustomed to sexual pleasure at the shrine.

It was midday now, as she walked with the King, looking for Jeet so they could bring him back to the King's table for a midday meal. Dozens of the handsomest and best young athletes in Phrygia passed nude alongside her, distracting her. As she walked, the Oracle decided that whatever else was happening, she would take Jeet into the King's tent after they ate with the King, for the kind of midday repast her body truly craved.

"I can't take time to eat right now," Jeet told her and Seleucus. "There are more boys waiting for me to coach their wrestling than I'll be able to get to today. Besides, I'm not really hungry. Two sixteen-year-olds brought me some food awhile ago."

Frustrated, Anda pulled him aside and whispered into his ear. "I want you, Jeet-hah. Come away to the King's tent with me, or climb the hill with me again."

Jeet kissed her cheek and patted her arm. "Tonight, Oracle, I shall wear you out, truly. But this is the last opportunity these boys will have for coaching before the games begin tomorrow."

Anda frowned. "Opportunity to touch you and wrestle your body, you mean," she said, ruefully.

Jeet laughed. "If that's what they're thinking, then some of them will regret it, I promise you."

The Oracle, alone, ate with the King at his midday meal... and listened distractedly as he talked about his plans for Jeet, her, and the eunuchs. "We'll build Kaleh into a real city," the King promised.

They were eating at a low table, on a raised dais of earth and logs, in front of the King's tent. Boys and youths streamed past on their way to the river or to venues or to the cooking fires and ovens. Though there was a covering for the dais, Seleucus had it taken down so they could enjoy the sun and clear air while they ate.

"We'll make Kaleh into the summer capital - a northern anchor for the kingdom. You and Jeet will be my presence there," Seleucus continued, waving the roasted drumstick of a small duck. "From time to time, I will visit when you are summering there. We'll work on the temple and shrine since you dwell there. We'll give them true splendor. I will send architects and sculptors... Oracle," he asked, his brow knitting, "are you not listening?"

The Oracle's attention snapped back to the King. He was the King, and she did not yet have the comfort in his presence that a wife or concubine might have; or simply the comfort someone older than a recently-turned fifteen-year-old might have. "I'm listening, Great One," she assured him. "It sounds exciting. I'm sure the people of Kaleh will find it so."

The King smiled. "Yes, they will. People respond to greatness. Kaleh already has you and Jeet. We will give them grand buildings as well, and the majesty of the King's court." He took a bite and chewed it thoughtfully. "In Antioch, I have made plans with the royal builders. We have begun adding many rooms to the palace, an entire suite of rooms for you and Jeet and the eunuchs. They will be ready in the spring as guest rooms for Perseus, the king of Macedon, when he comes to marry my daughter. But in the fall, I shall bring Jeet and you home to them. There will even be a large room for you to grant audiences, Oracle, and rooms for bathing and for crafts and... "

"Could we have a room for our scrolls?" Anda asked with growing interest. "We have many scrolls now, including some from the prince of the Sungas who stayed with us. Ptolemy and I particularly love scrolls and parchments, but we don't have much room at the shrine for them."

"Of course," the King said, waving expansively. "We'll give you a large room for scrolls. Or several rooms." He took a bite of bread, but then as he chewed, his eyes widened. He leaned toward Anda, excitedly. "We could build a musaeum and a library, like in Alexandria... better than Alexandria," he exclaimed. "Why not? We'll scour the kingdom for sacred texts of Persians... Jews... Babylonians. We can bring scrolls of the Mauryans from the east and from the west, scrolls from Macedonia, and Greece itself. We can gather learned men." He pointed at the Oracle, enthusiastically. "You and Jeet can preside over the musaeum, Oracle... the musaeum and the library." He leaned back, rolling the words around in his mind. "The Great Oracle, the Great Musaeum, the Great Library of Antioch."

A while later, the King yawned as he rose from the table. He glanced up at the blue sky and the pine covered hills. "I shall take a nap," he told Anda.

Anda wasn't tired, and the restlessness in her spirit had not dissipated. Rising from the table with the King, she bowed. "With your permission, Great One, I will find one of my eunuchs and... take a walk."

Seleucus smiled, his eyes traveled down her body and he winked. "Enjoy your walk, Oracle."

Anda drifted down from the King's high dais. Youths parted for her, bowing deferentially as she strolled out through them. They bowed, but their eyes dropped to her breasts and phallus. Her eyes glanced quickly at their bodies when they did.

The peninsula was alive with activity. At one end, boys were eating. At the other, boys were swimming and swinging from ropes over the river. All the venues were busy, and so were all her eunuchs. She thought about ordering one of them to come away with her, but they were enjoying themselves, and she wasn't even sure that sex with one of them would cure the restlessness she felt.

The Oracle drifted toward the pines on the north side of the peninsula, thinking she might find some quiet glade where she could be alone, away from naked boys. She might even stroke herself to a climax, simply to relieve the tension.

It added to her restlessness when she passed two copulating boys, and then a triad of them, and then another two, all before she reached the river on the north side of the peninsula.

Anda looked right and left along the riverbank, hoping that she was finally alone. She could hear the calls and yelling voices of boys, echoing over the water from where they swam downriver, but there was no one in sight. The Oracle relaxed, slightly, in her spirit.

She debated whether to swim, or to stroke off, alone. It was something she never had the need or privacy for at the shrine, and she was in no hurry to now. The air was full of the scent of pine and clean river water. She decided to swim.

The water was jade-green and clear to the bottom. Sunlight danced on the surface. The riverbank dropped off sharply as she began to wade out. Turning, she fell backwards and floated onto her back. The cool water floated her phallus and breasts, and soothed the fever between her legs. The pine trees didn't overhang the water the way cypress trees do, and the Oracle floated in full sunlight.

Close to the bank, the current was not strong, and Anda managed to stay near the spot where she had entered the water. She floated, eyes closed, sun on her face; checking from time to time on her position, relative to the riverbank. The water soothed her. Forgetting for the moment about boys, she dreamed instead of academies and libraries. She floated.

A kingfisher flew by, low over the water, and Anda started watching for other birds. She watched the dance of sunlight on the water surface out in the middle of the river. She gazed off into the pines.

A few yards from where she had entered, a portion of the riverbank - a flat, low ridge of river-smoothed limestone on a base of sand and fine gravel - extended into the sunlight. Anda climbed out of the river and onto the sand. She sat on the edge of the ridge of smooth limestone, dangling her legs over the side. The rock was almost hot under her bottom and thighs... and on the base of her vulva; it felt good. Her feet didn't quite reach the sand, and leaning back onto her hands, she slung her legs out and back like a child on a chair. Anda closed her eyes and let the sun and warm air dry her; chest up, legs parted and casually swinging. Her mind wandered for several minutes.

Anda opened her eyes, looking around for the source of the sound. Then she saw them; two boys, about her age from the look of them, swimming upstream along the bank, talking and laughing. One was blond and the other had copper-colored hair. They saw her about the same time she saw them, and they stopped in surprise, only a few yards away. Then the blond one waved. She heard him say, "the Oracle," to the copper-haired boy. The boy's voice carried easily across the few feet of water.

The blond boy motioned to the other, and they came upstream to her, climbing out onto the sand only two paces away.

They were pleasantly built, with dense little patches of pubic hair. She recognized the copper-colored hair and the copper-colored pubic hair of the one boy - Anda had met the boy with Jeet two days before... the blond may have been with him. Then she met the fifteen-year-old, copper-haired boy again when he sat at the King's table only the night before.

Anda didn't move. Sitting with her legs dangling over the edge of the rock and leaning back on her hands, she studied the boys as they bowed, dripping before her. She saw their eyes drop to her breasts and then to where her phallus draped her vulva. "Greetings, Oracle," the blond said, then the copper-haired boy said the same.

Without stirring herself, Anda nodded. "Hello, Philip," she said, remembering the copper-haired boy's name. Turning to the blond, she frowned slightly. "I'm sorry. I don't remember your name."

"Jentes," he said. He looked around, puzzled. "Are you alone, Oracle?" he asked.

"No," Anda said, shaking her head. They were handsome boys, and indeed, her age. She might enjoy their company; especially the copper-haired boy's. She liked him. "You don't have to leave."

Jentes quickly took a seat beside the Oracle on her right. Philip, more timidly, took a seat on her left. Anda glanced left and right. The boys' slender legs, close to hers, were tan like hers. Fine copper hair scattered up the smooth skin of Philip's thighs. Jentes' hairs were golden. Water beaded over their lean bodies. Between the tops of each boy's legs, a large ballsack nested with two large eggs, just below wet pubic hair. Their limp cocks lay casually out to opposite sides. Anda did not let her eyes linger on them. She glanced up at the blond. "Do I know you from somewhere else, Jentes? Are you from Kaleh?"

Jentes nodded with a smile. "Yes, Oracle. I stayed at the shrine for a week last spring."

The Oracle glanced back across the river, then lifted her face casually to the sun, eyes closed, to enjoy its warmth. "Are you doing well, here?" she asked.

Jentes leaned back onto his hands, the way she was doing, to sun himself as well. "Yes. I'm one of the best wrestlers among the fifteen-year-olds."

Philip copied the other two, leaning back onto his hands. But his eyes drifted over to the Oracle's breasts. From the corner of her eye, she caught him looking, but pretended not to notice. "How about you, Philip? Are you doing well at things other than racing?"

Philip's eyes dropped to the Oracle's lap. Her legs were still parted, and his eyes lingered on her phallus. It looked thick and male, but not incongruous on her body. Her legs and arms were lightly muscled, her belly flat with clearly defined abdominal muscles. It surprised him, but her girl-boy sexuality excited him. He almost forgot to answer her question. "Not really," he told her. "Jentes has tried to help me with wrestling, but I'm not very good."

Philip glanced across the Oracle at Jentes. The blond boy turned and smiled at him. "Yes," Philip answered. "We're friends."

Anda lifted her head and glanced at Philip, then Jentes. "Are you two lovers?" she asked quietly.

The Oracle had a sudden image of the two of them together, their long legs entwined, and she felt her phallus instantly thicken. She sat up, and tried to think of something neutral, but her eyes dropped to the lean-muscled, golden legs of the boys on either side of her, and she noticed that particularly Philip's cock had grown pinker, and longer. They sat up beside her, and the muscles in their legs flexed.

Philip's eyes dropped to her lap again, and he noticed that her phallus had lengthened like his. At the sight of that, his lengthened even more. Philip swallowed hard as he forced his eyes up to hers. "Do you work out with your eunuchs?" he asked, trying to shift his own mind to a neutral subject. "You have a nice body." Then he realized that he hadn't shifted the subject at all. "I mean, you're very fit. I can see your muscles, like on a guy... well, a thin guy... and not your chest muscles, of course... I mean." With a will of its own, his fifteen-year-old cock rose from his lap with adolescent rapidity, and he quickly plunged both hands between his thighs in an attempt to hide it.

The Oracle noticed, though, and the sight of Philip's suddenly large cock beginning its rise from those copper-colored pubic hairs, stirred her own phallus even more. Anda-Alexander was fifteen years old, too, and her phallus began its own, independent rise from her lap. Like Philip, she plunged both hands between her legs.

Jentes noticed, and his cock thickened as he tried to get a look at the Oracle's, but he didn't attempt to conceal it. His eyes met hers, and he smiled, thinly, and swallowed. "So, umm... is the Abij-hah sort of like your husband?" he asked. His eyes dropped inadvertently to her chest and the seam at the top of her pectorals that became the cleft between two firm breasts; breasts which were now squeezed between her biceps.

She nodded. Her eyes dropped to Jentes' rising member and she unconsciously licked the tip of her upper lip.

"What about the other eunuchs?" Philip asked in a hoarse voice from her other side. "You sleep with them, too, right?"

Anda-Alexander turned toward him to find that Philip's erection now extended up between his forearms with a pink, turgid crown.

Her nostrils flared with a shallow exhalation of breath, and Anda-Alexander glanced up at him with a mouth that was suddenly dry. "All of my eunuchs are my husbands... in a way," she said, distractedly. Though her phallus wasn't nearly as long as Philip's, her crown made its own appearance between her forearms.

"Do you ever fuck them?" Philip asked, his eyes dropping quickly to her lap and back up. "I mean, instead of them... doing it to you."

She turned to see his cock pointing skyward from his lap; shorter, but thicker looking than Philip's. Anda felt dampness between her labia and a growing fever in her mind, as she imagined what Jentes' cock would feel like inside her. Her eyes met his. "I have two serving girls. One is like a wife to me."

She turned to Philip as he pulled his arms from between his thighs and rested his hands on them, up close to his hips where she could finally get a clear view of his erection. Anda-Alexander nodded.

She nodded again, turning to the blond. "He's the only man with balls I have ever slept with. I want him to give me a son."

The boys were quiet a moment as they considered what she had said. Then Philip shifted and the side of his leg came into contact with the Oracle's. She turned to him.

Philip's eyes rose to hers. "You've never slept with a boy like us? A boy with balls?"

Philip's cheeks had flushed dramatically, his eyes were heavy-lidded, and his lips were deep red. Anda-Alexander looked away. "Not a boy our age... with balls." Her breath came shallowly. She knew she should leave... to be faithful to Jeet and her eunuchs... and to the king. What would happen to her if she bore a child with copper-colored hair? But didn't Jeet and the eunuchs sleep with other boys? They thought nothing of it. Anda-Alexander was a boy as well. Shouldn't she be able to do the same?

The side of Jentes' leg came against hers, just like Philip's on her other side.

"Would you ever?" Jentes asked in a thick voice. "Would you ever sleep with boys like us?"

The Oracle swallowed, wanting to say "No," but knowing she wouldn't. After the last two days among so many naked boys like these... the fever between her legs... Philip and Jentes were such pretty boys... such splendid bodies.

"May I feel your breasts, Oracle?" Jentes asked in a whisper. "I have never been with a girl."

Anda-Alexander hesitated only a moment before nodding. She pulled her hands from her lap and rested them on the rock behind her; leaning back with her breasts out, her phallus pointing skyward, and her shoulders brushing the boys' arms.

Jentes turned toward her and, tentatively, placed a hand over her breast. She closed her eyes as he squeezed gently and cupped it with his palm. She felt Philip's hand on her other breast; a large, boy's hand.

They pressed her sides; she could feel their breath on her shoulders. Philip's hand left her breast, and she felt it wrap around her erection.

Jentes' hand joined Philip's, but Anda-Alexander kept her eyes closed until Jentes and Philip laid their hands on her shoulders and lowered her back to the rock. She laid back and closed her eyes tightly again, not wanting to think, only to feel. And she did feel... she felt their mouths close over her nipples. She felt their hands roam the soft skin of her firm belly and legs. She felt their hands stroke her erection and their fingers probe gently between her labia as the two, fifteen-year-old boys explored her construction.

Without looking, she reached into Philip's lap with her hand, searching for his cock. He moved his hips toward her hand, and she found it; closing her hand around it. He closed his hand around hers.

She felt Jentes get up from beside her, and Anda-Alexander opened her eyes. She watched him climb off the rock, his cock pointing rigidly up his belly. To follow him with her eyes, she had to lean her head to the right to see past Philip's copper hair, because his mouth was still on her left breast. She watched Jentes step up to where her legs dangled over the edge of the rock.

Jentes' eyes were down, focused on her vulva and the erection that rose from between the tops of her labia. He glanced up at her, saw her watching, and then looked down again. Reaching between her legs with both hands, he put a hand under each knee. He raised his eyes to hers once more, watching for any objection as he lifted and separated her legs.

But Anda-Alexander did not object, not even when Philip replaced one of Jentes' hands under her knees with his own. She kept the other knee up when Jentes let go of it so he could kneel on the sand, between her legs, and take a closer look at her dual sexuality. She closed her eyes when she felt the blond boy's breath on her hot, puffy labia, and then felt his finger tips gently spread them.

Philip slid his forearm under the back of her knee to keep it up while he closed his hand around her shaft once again. He stroked it, and lifted his mouth from her breast to look down into her eyes. "May I kiss you, Oracle?" he asked in a whisper.

She opened her eyes, met his gaze, and nodded. Her hand was still on Philip's erection, and she tightened her grip as he lowered his mouth to hers. At the same time, he tightened his grip on her erection. Just as they began their kiss, Anda felt Jentes' wet tongue press between her labia. He was tasting her. Anda moaned into Philip's mouth.

Philip probed her mouth with his tongue, the way Jentes had taught him. At the same time, Anda felt Jentes' hands grasp her by the hips and tug her bottom gently to the edge of the rock. She moved with him, blindly, as Philip's mouth stayed on hers.

In the next moment, Anda felt the slickness of Jentes' crown at her entrance... and then his thickness forced her open and she felt the slow slide in of his cock... and then... balls... balls resting on her.

Jentes held her hips and slid slowly out and then back in as they explored and savored the sensations of his cock in her vagina, together. He moved faster and she moaned. He tightened his hold on her hips and moved faster again. His thrusts began to impact, and the impacts felt good. Anda moaned with pleasure, and then gasped as he impacted harder, and her whole body shook.

Philip broke the kiss, moving down her body to suck again on her breasts, alternately. After both nipples had tightened to points, he moved down her belly. Philip lifted his head, glancing up at Jentes. His friend had his head back, eyes closed in concentration, as he held the Oracle's hips with both hands, hard-pumping into his first vagina. The blond's neck was thick with his arousal and every muscle in his arms, chest, and shoulders, stood hard and rigid. His belly was sucked in, and all the movement was in his hips, rocking rapidly... pounding.

Philip's eyes dropped to the Oracle's phallus, which jiggled, thick and pink on her belly. Having learned that he enjoyed sucking Jentes' cock, Philip bent to taste the Oracle's. He licked up and down her jiggling shaft before swirling her crown and taking it into his mouth.

Anda gasped, quickly clutching the back of Philip's hair and neck. What the two fifteen-year-old boys were doing was not unlike what her eunuchs had done with her many times. But two, virile boys with balls; golden, lean-muscled boys she didn't know; by the river, secretive... it was so much more intense.

The Oracle gazed up at the blue sky, but didn't see it. Her breath came faster and faster as her hips swiveled and rocked and the pleasure grew and grew. And then she cried out with the intensity of it, clutching Philip's hair tightly.

Philip was surprised that the flavor of her issue was much like Jentes'. There was just less of it. He swallowed, and then came off her phallus when she tugged at the back of his neck, pulling him off. He sat up, but kept stroking her erection to keep it hard, because he wanted a turn between her legs.

Jentes grunted, and then his breath caught. He threw his head back, every muscle straining, mouth open in a silent cry, pulling Anda's vulva tightly to the base of his shaft as he pumped out his issue inside her. He stood there, only small muscles down by his pubis pulsing. He pulled her even harder to himself, and his head dropped, teeth gritting. He whimpered. And then slowly began to relax.

Philip quickly got off the rock and replaced Jentes between Anda's legs. He entered her quickly, and she was grateful to have the sudden emptiness refilled. Anda came up, her butt at the edge of the rock. She wrapped her legs around Philip's narrow hips and her arms around his angular shoulders. He pressed his hips forward until they were tightly joined. His skin was warm and sweaty. She took a deep breath of his athletic smell and pressed her mouth to the damp skin on the side of his neck. She tasted the salt of his sweat and tightened her legs around his waist as he moved inside her.

They murmured and pulled their bodies and bellies together, adjusting, tightening. They moved to meet and grind together. Anda lowered her hands to Philip's bottom and grabbed it tightly, and that's how Philip came, only a few moments later... with Anda clutching Philip to her by the butt, holding him deep inside her, feeling the throbbing of his cock... wanting to come with him; a second climax.

But she didn't come, and as Philip began to relax between her legs, Anda-Alexander glanced at Jentes who had taken a seat beside her on the rock, to watch. She let Philip go, and when he stepped back, Anda-Alexander quickly got to her feet. She stepped up to Jentes, spreading his legs and pulling his bottom to the edge of the rock, exactly as he had done to her a few minutes earlier.

The blond boy smiled uncertainly as Anda-Alexander laid a hand on his chest and pushed until Jentes lay back on the rock. She pulled his hips forward a couple more inches, and Jentes propped up on his elbows to watch her step between his legs. Philip moved up to watch over Anda-Alexander's shoulder as the Oracle used her fingertips to extract semen and her own juices from her vagina, and then use them to lubricate her crown. She spit into her hand the way the eunuchs did, and rubbed it into Jentes' smooth crack. All three watched as Anda-Alexander pushed Jente's legs up and then pointed her erection into his butt.

Anda lifted Jentes' legs up onto her shoulders before pressing in with her crown. Jentes tensed and the Oracle closed her eyes as she slid slowly, deliciously into the blond boy's small bottom. She pressed in, holding there until she felt him relax, and then she began to pump, with impacts much like the boys had given her.

Watching Anda-Alexander, Philip was struck by similarities between the blond Oracle and blond Jentes. Though shorter, and less tightly built, the Oracle's body moved exactly the same, and her muscles began to tighten and strain just the way Jentes' had. Philip's cock grew rigid again, and he stroked it. Anda noticed and nodded at it. "You can get behind me," she said in a thick voice, "and put it in me while I'm in Jentes."

Philip quickly positioned himself behind the Oracle and bent her forward over Jentes. He bent his knees and angled his cock up into her damp, but still snug vagina. As he plunged in with his full length, and his thighs pressed to the back of hers, Philip was struck that, from behind, she didn't look all that different than Jentes. But his cock felt different inside her; very different, and he began to pump.

"You mustn't talk of this," Anda said as they lay three abreast on the rock afterward. "I should have never done this."

"I know you'll want to tell your friends that you fucked the Oracle," Anda said, "but if you do, the king will find out, and he'll be angry."

"I don't know," the Oracle said with a shrug. "What do kings do when someone sleeps with one of their concubines?"

Anda didn't know that the king would do anything, but she did hope the two boys would say nothing. She wasn't sure yet what she'd tell Jeet... if she told him anything. Would Jeet dream? Would he know anyway?

Though she might argue that she had as much right to sex with other boys as Jeet did, she knew how tenuously her gentle eunuchs clung to their masculinity, even Jeet. The thought of his reaction, his hurt, made the bottom drop from her stomach.

"But I must leave," Eucratides said, as he directed his servants in their packing. He grabbed Heliodorus by the arm and drew him outside the tent. "I must be gone from here. I'm not waiting around for the Oracle to tell Seleucus what I tried to do. I'm returning to Antioch today, and I intend to be gone from there by the time Seleucus returns."

"Hermes bungled it," Heliodorus said, removing Eucratides' hand from his arm. "You should have chosen someone else to try it."

"Hermes didn't bungle it. That's a true oracle over there," Eucratides said, pointing in the direction of the peninsula. Then he leaned very close to Heliodorus. "You better beware, Heliodorus. She saw past Hermes to me. Do you think she won't see past me to you?"

"She certainly would if I fled these games with you," Heliodorus replied. He glanced back inside the tent. "Where will you go?"

Eucratides stood for a moment, thinking. "Far away, certainly. Perhaps Bactria. I have heard interesting things about that country."

Heliodorus frowned. Eucratides would be missed. The Oracle imperiled everything. Sooner or later, she would have to be dealt with, along with her Abij-hah.

For two days of the games, Jeet had said nothing to her. He and the others were so busy with their activities, that none of them noticed Anda's quiet mood. Neither Jeet nor the King noticed, even in bed at night.

By the third day, she had begun to relax, but she still wrestled with guilt. And then Anda noticed Jentes and Philip following her after the midday meal. Her pulse quickened.

Her conscience told her one thing, but her loins another, and her loins spoke loudly. She walked toward the woods and the north side of the peninsula. The two boys followed.

Antiochus peered into the different rooms of the gymnasium unhappily. Not that many of the boys and masters had gone to the games in Phrygia, but enough had that their absence was noticeable. They had been gone for days now, and every day grated.

Antiochus' spirit bridled at being excluded. He had tried to not think of Jeet in his brother's bed, in his brother's arms, being fucked by his brother every night and morning. But as he thought of all the best boy athletes from half the empire, all gathered together, and him being excluded, his blood boiled... again.

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Jeet, Chapter 31

By Josh

On the River