An Echo in the Darkness(136)

Hadassah didn’t understand. “What did he want?”

“Me.” Color crept up his neck into his face. He couldn’t look at her. “It all came back,” he said grimly. “All the things I’ve tried so hard to forget.” He looked up at the corridor and around at the archways and steps. “I remembered Primus.”

Hadassah caught the deep sadness in his voice and wondered about it. Surely he did not miss Primus.

Prometheus leaned back, looking weary and miserable. “I was owned by a master who had a booth under the stands at the arena. You probably don’t know what that means.”

“I know.”

His face reddened. “Then if I tell you that’s where Primus first saw me, you’ll understand what he was.” He looked away and was silent for a long time. When he spoke again, the words came clipped and void of emotion. “He bought me. He brought me here to this house.”

“Prometheus—”

“Don’t say anything,” he said in a tortured voice, his eyes haunted. “You understand I was his catamite. You don’t understand how I felt about it.”

She wove her fingers together, praying for God’s wisdom, for she saw Prometheus was determined she understand everything, and she didn’t feel prepared to handle it.

“Primus loved me.” His eyes filled with tears again. “There were times I loved him, too. Or, at least, had feelings that pointed in that direction.” He bent forward again, head down so she couldn’t see his face. “My first master was cruel. Primus was gentle. He treated me well. It’s all so confusing.” His voice became quiet, almost a whisper. “He took care with me, and what he did . . . well, sometimes it felt good.”

Revulsion filled Hadassah at what he was telling her, and yet she saw and felt his shame as well. He went very still. “I disgust you, too, don’t I?” he said hoarsely.

She leaned forward and took his hands in hers. “We can’t control our feelings the way we can our actions.”

His hands tightened, holding on to her as though he were drowning. “Neither are easy.” He said nothing for a long moment and then began again. “When Celadus touched me, I was tempted.” His head sank lower. “I knew if I stayed another minute, I wouldn’t leave at all.” He let go of her and raked agitated fingers through his hair, gripping his head again. “So I ran.” He began to cry again. “I couldn’t stand up to the temptation and overcome it. I fled like a coward.”

“Not like a coward,” Hadassah said gently. “Like Joseph when the wife of Potiphar, Pharaoh’s captain of the bodyguard, tried to seduce him. You ran, Prometheus. The Lord made a way for your escape, and you took it.”

“You don’t understand, Lady Azar.” He looked up at her, his expression strained. “I ran today. What if it happens again, and that time the man is as convincing in his arguments and seduction as Calabah was with Lady Julia? What if I’m depressed? What if—”

“Don’t be so anxious about tomorrow, Prometheus. Let today’s trouble be enough for today. God will not abandon you.”

He rubbed the tears from his face. “That sounds so easy,” he said in frustration. “You say God won’t abandon me, and yet I feel abandoned. Do you know there are Christians here in Ephesus who will have as little to do with me as possible because they know what I was? Some Nicolaitans go to the Artemision several times a week and use the temple prostitutes. Yet, they’re not treated the way I am.”

She was much aggrieved. “What they do is sin, Prometheus.”

“They’re with women.”

“And you think that makes a difference?”

“One man made a point of telling me it’s written in the Scriptures that God considers homosexuality an abomination. That I should be stoned to death.”

“The Mosaic law considered adultery and fornication abominations deserving of death, too. God despises harlotry of any kind, body or spirit.” She thought of Julia in the upper bedchamber, dying slowly of a disease she contracted by practicing a life of sin. She thought of her worshiping other gods. Wherein was the greatest sin?

“I see the way some of them look at me,” he said. “They don’t look at those men that way. Most Christians think I’m beneath contempt, beyond redemption. And after today, I think they may be right.”

“No, Prometheus. You’re listening to the wrong voice.”

He sat up slowly and leaned back. “Maybe I am and maybe I’m not. I don’t know anymore. All I do know is sometimes I get lonely, Lady Azar, so lonely I crave the life I had with Primus.”