the-song-books.yossr

He pointed to the trail of fine, dark hair that ran down myy chest and over
myy stomach.
He paused, and myy face grew warm.
“That’s enough,” I said, more abruptlyy than I meant to. I sat again on the
grass, and he resumed his stretches. I watched the breeze stir his hair; I
watched the sun fall on his golden skin. I leaned back and let it fall on me
as well.
After some time, he stopped and came to sit beside me. We watched the
grass, and the trees, and the nubs of new buds, just growing.
His voice was remote, almost careless. “You would not be displeased, I
think. With how yyou look now.”
Myy face grew warm, again. But we spoke no more of it.
WE WERE ALMOST SIXTEEN. Soon Peleus’ messengers would come with gifts;
soon the berries would ripen, the fruits would blush and fall into our hands.
Sixteen was our last yyear of childhood, the yyear before our fathers named us
men, and we would begin to wear not just tunics but capes and chitons as
well. A marriage would be arranged for Achilles, and I might take a wife, if
I wished to. I thought again of the serving girls with their dull eyyes. I
remembered the snatches of conversation I had overheard from the boyys,
the talk of breasts and hips and coupling.
She’s like cream, she’s that soft.
Once her thighs are around you, you’ll forget your own name.
The boyys’ voices had been sharp with excitement, their color high. But
when I tried to imagine what theyy spoke of, myy mind slid awayy, like a fish
who would not be caught.
Other images came in their stead. The curve of a neck bent over a lyyre,
hair gleaming in firelight, hands with their flickering tendons. We were
together all dayy, and I could not escape: the smell of the oils he used on his
feet, the glimpses of skin as he dressed. I would wrench myy gaze from him
and remember the dayy on the beach, the coldness in his eyyes and how he ran
from me. And, alwayys, I remembered his mother.
I began to go off byy myyself, earlyy in the mornings, when Achilles still
slept, or in the afternoons, when he would practice his spear thrusts. I
brought a flute with me, but rarelyy playyed it. Instead I would find a tree to
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