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LOVE LETTERS by Moon71
Chapter 8: So what happened during Hephaestion's day with Andromachus? Unable to stop worrying about it, Alexander gives in to temptation…
Notes: Once again I am sorry for a long delay. I knew this story would be a pain! Actually it was rather stupid of me to start posting while I was having so many computer problems, but sometimes I have odd impulses!
What held me up this time was the need to heavily revise this chapter. Since I wrote this story I've changed my opinion a lot about how to handle something like this, and I decided Hephaestion's behaviour was a bit too unlikely. Anyone who bought Nadja Lee's lovely Alexander zine can read the original - this is the final version.
Oh and the good news - there are only two more chapters after this and they're both ready for posting!
Oh Beloved…
Yes, I still call you that, for all the conflicting feelings I have for you after today. How much more miserable do you want me to be? Desire for you plagues me like a sickness. Each night I am teased by dreams of you, each day my mind wanders constantly to the thought of making love with you. Oh, but why repeat myself, had you read my other letters you would know it all already! And now, to add to my misery, all my hopes with Andromachus have come to nothing! Now what am I supposed to do?
You, who are so scornful of those of us who long for physical love as well as the love of souls you exalt, will probably think poorly of Andromachus - and of me, for agreeing to go with him. Perhaps if I tell you a little more about him you will not judge either of us so harshly.
Before I came to Macedon I knew Andromachus well. As he was five years older than me, I could not say we were close friends, but he was always friendly and kind. I always remember him helping me with my riding and with my training in the gymnasium; back then he was just like an older brother. When I met him again at my cousin's wedding last year I felt differently. He was suddenly a man - tall and handsome and confident. I didn't really know how to behave around him.
When he came to see me and asked to be my lover I was flattered but I didn't know what to say to him. It didn't seem very important, though I thought I might ask you what you thought about it. Then, when you kissed me the way you did, everything changed. I was so happy - everything seemed perfect. I knew it was you I wanted to be with and it was fine because I thought after that kiss that you wanted the same thing. So I stopped thinking about Andromachus. But then it all went wrong between us.
When Andromachus wrote to me I thought I had found the perfect solution. I thought if I could satisfy my body's hunger with him I could be the friend you want me to be and all would be well again! So I agreed to meet him this morning in the woods.
I was very nervous at first. The Andromachus who greeted me was the one I had met at the wedding, not the one I remember helping me learn to ride and compete in athletics. I didn't know what he would want to do - I was afraid he would be too rough or would hurt me, or that I would do something wrong and annoy him. But he was very patient. We sat down together in a small clearing and we drank some wine and talked and I began to feel quite happy.
Then he kissed me. It felt strange to be kissed by someone other than you, but after a moment I realised I wanted to kiss him back - he really kissed me, deeply, like a lover, and it felt good.
Do you want me to say that it didn't? That I hated it? Well I didn't. It felt good. But when I closed my eyes I realised I was imagining it was you I was kissing, and I felt confused. Andromachus undressed himself and then me, and began to touch me. At first I just watched, wanting to see what he did, but just as I was really beginning to relax, once again I found myself wishing that it was you touching me like that.
At first Andromachus just thought I was nervous. He said the nicest things to me… "My Hephaestion," he said. "My sweet beloved." He said how handsome I was. And he said some nice things about my thighs, too. I repeated everything he said in my own thoughts but then again I started imagining you saying it instead. And at the same time I could not help wondering what you would say if you saw what we were doing? Would you think it disgusting? Would you be angry? I even wondered if perhaps you would be jealous.
Then I opened my eyes and found him smiling down at me and I felt so ashamed of myself for lying to both of you. I was so upset that Andromachus looked worried and began to apologise to me for whatever he had done wrong, and that only made me feel worse.
Forgive me my love but I gave in and told him about you. I couldn't help it. I needed to tell someone and besides - he was so very kind that I couldn't leave him thinking that it was only because I did not like him or because he had done something to me.
At fist he was angry with me, and he had good reason to be. He thought I was playing some sort of game with the two of you and he scolded me for it, saying he had no time for the all the nonsense of the unhappy lover and the scornful, faithless beloved. Was I using him to make you jealous? Because getting into fights over the love of a boy was not his style either!
In the end I had to tell him about my desire for you and how you did not feel the same way, and how I hoped to find a way to be more like you and yet at the same time I wanted you to be more like me! When he heard it all, he actually started laughing. And suddenly he was the Andromachus who used to help me with my athletics and I wasn't nervous with him at all. He said the two of us were far too serious for boys our age. And do you know what else he said? "I don't think he feels nothing… maybe he's just scared of what he feels!"
Could that be true, my dear? Has he only given me false hope?
We spent the rest of the day together. Most of the time we just talked and finished off the wine, and though I did think, every now and then, that it was too long since you and I had done this, I did have a nice time with him. And I did let him kiss me and touch me some more, and it did feel good, and I didn't think about you all the time, and when we'd finished I fell asleep in his arms and felt better than I had done in a long time.
It was only when I got back to the school that it suddenly struck me. Everything around Mieza reminded me of you. The closer I got to our room, the more miserable I felt. My time with Andromachus felt like a guilty dream. And now I had woken up and found that things were no better between you and I than they had been when I felt this morning. When I finally got to this room and saw your bed and mine, where you had so often slept beside me, I felt it all flood back and I could not help weeping.
I wish you would tell me what you want. Would you prefer me to be the beloved of Andromachus? Maybe that would be better. Then you and I could be friends as we were before? Or is he right, and I should try for you once again? I want to ask you, but I can't. I just can't.
In the end, he read the first one almost by mistake. The days passed; Alexander pushed himself harder than ever, rising early, concentrating on his studies during the day and then working hard in the gymnasium, riding and practising cavalry drills with Bucephelus until dark so that when he finally returned to his room he was tired enough to fall into bed without having to acknowledge Hephaestion, who had nearly always gone to bed before he arrived.
But in spite of how hard he pushed his body and his mind, his sleep was not sound. When he closed his eyes he saw Hephaestion again and again; saw him as he was that day he had first rejected him and then reduced him to tears. Recalled the despair in his voice as he had asked "are we never to be lovers?" Remembered the deep sadness in his eyes and voice as he had falsely promised to make everything alright between them again. He heard the accusing words of his friends, suggesting by his childishly demonstrative behaviour he had lead Hephaestion on - did they really think he had done so deliberately? That he enjoyed tantalising Hephaestion with pleasures he would not give him?
Had he, on some deep, hidden level, really wanted Hephaestion to yearn for him? Had he… it made his head throb… in some secret corner of his heart, been gratified by Hephaestion's advances? If so, it had not gone as he might have planned - surely alienating Hephaestion to the point of driving him into another's arms had not been part of the plan.
It was worse when sleep finally came because then his imagination had free reign. He would find himself following Andromachus and Hephaestion into the woods to watch their love-play. Only sometimes it would not be Andromachus who loved Hephaestion, but Alexander himself. Or he would follow Hephaestion into the bath-house and watch him pleasure himself, waiting, hungering, for him to call out Alexander's name.
Most disturbing of all was a dream he had had more than once - Hephaestion had come over to his bed and seized him roughly, ignoring his struggles, deaf to his protests, telling him he knew Alexander better than Alexander knew himself… Struggling against himself he woke, ashamed to find himself aroused.
He refused to touch himself, even when desire left him exhausted and desperate for release. Such low pleasures were a weakness; how could a General command if his head and body was polutedwith lust? He would not let such feelings govern him and distract him from what was truly important. He was more than just an ordinary mortal! He would have to marry eventually, he admitted uncomfortably; would have to know women. But that was a duty, an obligation. He had no duty to make love to Hephaestion!
Driven almost to madness by the conflict of his thoughts, he would glare through the shadows to his sleeping friend, damning him for casting his evil spell, for infecting Alexander with his own debilitating lusts, for shattering his innocence once and for all.
Once, unable to contain himself, he had jumped from his bed and gone to stand over Hephaestion, ready to confront him. But as he had looked down upon his friend's face, beautiful in its repose, all of his anger faded and all he could feel was a tender longing. Timidly he had reached out and touched Hephaestion's lips with his fingers, then with his own lips. For a paralysing second he could not draw back, wanted to press harder, feeling the heat of the other's body so close to his skin.
A gentle twitch from Hephaestion, the beginning of a response, drove Alexander rapidly back to his bed and to his tormented dreams.
One night he clattered in as usual and saw Hephaestion start quite violently and turn from his desk. Alexander couldn't help scowling at him, dismayed and unreasonably annoyed at finding him awake. Under his gaze, Hephaestion's dark eyes reflected both anxiety and sadness. He seemed about to speak when Alexander turned his back on him and began undressing.
Suddenly he heard the crumpling of paper, a light thud as something was hurled across the room, the scrape of a chair as Hephaestion rose and went to his own bed. Alexander's eyes involuntary sought the ball of paper he had seen fly by from the corner of his eye. As soon as Hephaestion had lain down, he slipped across the room and picked it up, unfurling it with slow, quiet stealth.
Beloved, what am I to do?
Andromachus was my last hope, a deceitful hope though it might have been. How much longer will I be tormented like this? Every day my unhappiness grows; it seems to me I will feel happy again. If only I had the courage to confront you - to tell all and demand to know how it is to be. For so long I have feared receiving an answer I do not want, but it now seems to me that one swift, killing blow is better than
Evidently that was as far as Hephaestion had got when Alexander had walked in. Why had he thrown it away in a temper - because Alexander had disturbed him? Because he felt guilty? What did he mean about Andromachus? If he wasn't Hephaestion's new love, if he had somehow been using Andromachus, then who was? Surely it couldn't be one of the other boys - someone was bound to have mentioned it to Alexander by now, even by accident. It might not be a boy at all. Such was the sadness, the loneliness and frustration the words conveyed, had it been anyone but Hephaestion Alexander's heart might have ached in sympathy - probably before swelling with a resolution to make things right.
He could make it right - he could go to Hephaestion and soothe his misery, even offer to help. If Hephaestion did not love him anymore, should he not still show him compassion? Alexander still loved him, was still, he acknowledged, with a tight pain in his chest and a stinging in his eyes, still in love with him. So very much in love with him…
Once again Alexander's eyes strayed to the trunk by Hephaestion's bed.
Alexander lay silent, keeping his breathing regular. He heard Hephaestion's bed creak, then the soft pad of his feet upon the floor. A few more moments; then the splash of water, the rustle of clothing, finally an odd silence. A cool, slightly damp hand upon Alexander's hair. A soft, warm breath on his face, then the lightest touch of lips upon his brow. At last, the soft click of the door opening and shutting.
Alexander sat bolt upright, his hand pressed to his brow where the kiss still tingled. A good-bye kiss? Was Hephaestion about to run away? Telling himself he needed to know, it was now his duty to know, he suddenly threw himself to the floor by Hephaestion's trunk. It was fastened, but the key had been left in the lock. Alexander stared at it for a long time, running his tongue nervously over his lips. Rifling through Hephaestion's private things was beneath his dignity! What would Aristotle say if he caught him?
The trunk was open almost before he realised it. He stared numbly down at the small bundle of letters bound with string, sitting neatly on top of the layers of folded clothing. They could be letters from anyone; his parents, his aunts and uncles in Athens…
Andromachus…
The unknown beloved…
With trembling hands Alexander unknotted the string and spread the bundle of letters smooth across his knee. And began to read.
He was late for the first lesson that morning.