The order has been given, but before the ashes of Pompey's head have yet cooled enough to be swept up, Caesar seeks him out. It seems terribly funny to be broken up over the death of such a pestilent character but all the general's shedding tears and rageful pronouncements mark him out as in earnest. If Caesar is dissembling, he's reached some new peak of achievement in that art form.

Caesar enfolds him in his arms, and Antony slinks against him almost from habit, as if he is some sly boy and not a bloody-handed lieutenant doing his commander service. His garments still smell of smoke from the pyre, and the whiff of burned bone has a way of lingering; there's not much fat on a man's head, even a dullard like Pompey, and on a windy day like this the ashes wouldn't fill a winecup. Antony must make up for the deficiencies in Pompey's aesthetic sense in expenditures of paint and tile every day back in Rome; he has no inclination to weep for him now.

Caesar's lips certainly carry no taste of salt brine, and he kisses as voraciously as he conquers; without a seeming effort he hoists him into a more comfortable place with the same carelessness he would afford a slave. Antony presses his thighs against Caesar's lap, pinning him with his weight long enough to excite his cock to standing.

"Where have they put that princess of theirs? Seems like damned carelessness to lose track of her, ne?"

"That much doesn't concern you," Caesar says amiably, squeezing his arse with both hands. No doubt he is having dark visions of Antony sweeping in on horseback to spoil his prize. If the boy king is anything to judge by, his sister-wife must be a piece of work. Caesar has always had a nice way with women; let him handle her.

The two of them slip into a ready rhythm, doffing clothes and handling one another with a brisk absence of shame. They've done this before, under less prepossessing circumstances than this; the Egyptian climate agrees with Antony's disposition, or at least it's growing on him, but there's something about all the ceremony that makes his blood itch. Too much waiting, and eunuchs have always made him uneasy. On a hot night like this he yearns to rip off all the gilt and linen and bid the locals speak plainly like a bunch of adults, but the charm of it all is undeniable, and his head will still turn for a nice bit of painting on a wall or an officiant in a see-through dress. Caesar sees this country as only another province in the making. Charm does not move him in the least. He is convinced he can carve out another victory here, and perhaps he can. It is not for Antony to say.

Antony rocks back on the couch, spreading his knees jauntily as his prick bobs between them. Some attendant has nicely left them a pot of scented grease, a little soapstone box with a swivel lid for easy access -- or perhaps it's come from Caesar's own store, one of the miscellaneous objects he carries with him on campaign, like a gold toothpick or a comb. Imagine Posca seeing to that. He fingers himself open, fingertips slick to the third knuckle with balm; he knows the ways into himself, and he doesn't concern himself overmuch with the precise mechanisms of pleasure. Leave that to the physicians. Caesar watches him with a tranquil face, but his prick is hard and his eyes follow the motion of Antony's arm.

The heat of desire spreads through Antony as he goes. He wants and in turn is wanted -- and what man could keep from being gratified with a conqueror laid out beneath him? Antony straddles him until they are flush hip to hip and rubs their cocks together with the same slow strokes. Caesar captures him by the nape of the neck and kisses him, gripping him with steady hands where the flesh can take the press-marks of hard fingers.

Antony guides Caesar's cock inside him, relishing the slippery burr of flesh against flesh -- the balm melts away into oil, easing the first deep strokes. He is no sickly slave pressed into service to a foreign master with funny foreign ways; the muscles of his thighs and belly permit him to work steady rhythms. His body drives away , not like a snakey Asiatic dancer with bells strung round his hips but like Hercules.

Caesar settles back, and permits him to do the lion's share of the work. It seems to suffice that he has a cock, and that from time to time he presses him down against it. Antony rides against his lap, drawing out pleasure length by length; he is not without experience coaxing old pricks to attention, but once roused Caesar never flags. The man is content to be ridden, but his grip on Antony's waist is a steady reminder of who holds the reins. His expression is oddly set for a man in the throes of desire; there is something about that thin hard mouth that remains unreadable, unsoftened by love.

"I must know, is she beautiful, this princess of yours? Is that why you send me home?"

Caesar laughs. "These Ptolemies, if you've seen one you've seen them all. She's a little thing, I'm told, with dark eyes. Flat as a boy."

Boyishness can have its charms -- think of a slim-shanked maiden on the verge. She'd look fine in imperial splendor, riding in a chariot shackled in precious stones, or wearing one of those sheer dresses with the many pleats.

"She's young, isn't she? Plenty of time to blossom into a likely little sow." Antony takes his nipple between his fingers and tugs, amused.

"Enough of that," Caesar gives him a stern glance, and for a moment it seems all is lost, but all at once he captures him in a kiss; he bows him down, and slips his tongue into Antony's ready mouth.

He doesn't want him thinking of the Ptolemy girl, or of anyone else now, here as they couple. No chance of mistaking him for any other man -- this is the subduer of the Gauls, master of tightly-won victories and improbable advances from the rear, and he is always thinking, always drawing up some plan as trim as a passage of prose. The man smells of calamus and sweet clover, and his cock is in Antony's arse; he could order him to the back of beyond if he so chose, to the very gates of Hades, and Antony might even go.

This may as well be the last time they see one another -- Antony's fraction will sail for Rome with the next convenient tide, be horribly jostled all the way back, and once he's safely arrived he'll have his accountant and his mistress and all of Ptolemy's people to deal with, all yapping after their share of him. If Caesar does not return, he will be a man without a master. But if Caesar comes home conquering, he will be very, very--

Antony quickens his pace as he can feel the climax building, working himself against Caesar's length as if his own finish is the only objective. The muscles of his thighs are undergoing a pleasant strain, and the heat is stoking in the pit of his groin, familiar and volcanic. Antony rides sweating and twisting, but he can seem to get no further, tormented on the hard edge of relief.

"I don't take it personally, you know." Antony's voice is thickened by desire; Caesar's hands are on his chest, his throat, straying into his mouth. "You sending me on ahead--"

But the next thrust pierces him to some incomprehensible place and he is left panting for breath, open-mouthed and slightly stupid. Caesar's thumb probes against his teeth, against his tongue, pressing into his cheek like a hard cock.

"It's only tactics, Marcus, no more." Caesar speaks steadily and low, like an eminently reasonable man.

Half the men, return immediately. Tactics. Jupiter's balls, he can take no more, and he spills himself all over Caesar's stomach with a great cataclysmic expenditure of come.

Antony half-loses his balance, but Caesar catches him at the hips with both hands and presses him back into service. Caesar's cock is unflagging -- it must amuse him, to outlast a younger man. It is this moment that Antony chases in the rush from bed to bed, the grand oblivion of fucking well as much as being fucked; it is even sweeter than drunkenness, the possibility of forgetting oneself in the wash of sweet fatigue and in that moment becoming all body, all flesh -- all mouth and cock and arsehole, and nothing like a man.

Even so, in the hole-trembling reprieve that comes after climax, the present reality intrudes. So much for mercy. Caesar slips loose and hooks two fingers into him, pressing circles into the tormented flesh of his arsehole and fingering him where he is already well-fucked. It is all too much, in excess of what the circumstances warrant -- fullness and tautness at the raw edge. His mouth is wet and his thighs ache and his balls are begging for mercy.

"Enough," Antony says, pawing against his chest, "enough," grinding desperately against his lap to hasten the business. Caesar spunks against his thighs, spilling seed against his raw fucked hole, and releases him.

Antony sinks down against Caesar's stomach like a sweaty wreckage. He is heaving like a bellows, and Caesar's hand is on his head, imperious and fatherly. Antony shuts his eyes and leans into the touch. He is too wholly fucked-out to be of any use; such an achievement hardly seems possible, though then again he has been sober since they landed in Alexandria and watered wine alone cannot sustain a man for the business of lechery. If Caesar is spent, he is rather politer about it. The two of them lie tumbled together against the couch like shipwrecked men; Caesar turns his head, permitting Antony to nestle under his arm. The old fellow rubs between Antony's shoulder blades, as if Antony is a lovelorn girlfriend of his, and not all knotted with scars earned in his own service. They may not see each other again for some time, even if all goes well against the young Ptolemy's forces. Quick as a wink, Antony will be back in his villa with its smell of fresh paint, managing the commons with a firm hand until their foremost friend returns.

"My boy, what will I do with you?"

It figures that Caesar saves his love-words for Greek.

"Come back to Rome when you're ready. I'll deliver the news of old Pompey." Antony idly rubs his own essence into Caesar's fine brown skin with his thumb. The man has a hide like leather after all these years, plucked and oiled. "Make the way for you, eh?"