Every Good Thing by M. Jules Aedin
This is a fantasy novel but I think there are some references to the way of life of more or less 2.000 years ago, when Jesus Christ probably was wandering around and doing his miracles.
Two different people, the Riineans and the Keshens are living together, but not in harmony. The Keshens are soldiers and they conquered the Riineans, and now the conquered people have to pay high taxes to the conquerors, taxes that sometime they are not able to reach. Slavery in this case is legal choice and a family sometime is forced to give up one of their sons as payment. That is the destiny of Arieh, the older son of a farmer, who is chosen, thanks to his good looks, to be sold as a pleasure slaves. Actually Arieh doesn’t fully realize is destiny, the Riineans are a very strict people, and sex is not a way of pleasure, but a procreation duty; plus homosexuality is seen as one of the biggest sin, death the normal consequence.
Even if the author chooses a fantasy setting, I think she tried to respect some historical accuracy. Arieh’s age is not clearly stated, it’s only said that he is a boy and that he reached the age to be declared “independent” from his family; he is soon to become an apprentice. All those details can give you the idea that he is an adult, young yes, but still an adult. But if you think to the time, and to the usually lifespan of a man of that period, I think that Arieh is probably still a teenager, probably in the middle of his teen years. There are different hints of that, both physical than emotional: Arieh is still quite “dependant” on an emotional level, he has still a strong bond with his mother, a figure that he readily substituted with Junia, the main female figure in the novel. It’s not that Arieh suddenly doesn’t love his mother; I think that he loves her so much that he absolutely needs to have still a similar figure in his life. Then there is the physical aspect: Arieh is still smooth like someone who hasn’t yet reach puberty, and even is bone structure is gangly, like a young colt that has still not grown his height. So if someone wonders on Arieh’s lack of rebellion, on his quite fast acceptance of his destiny and his “weak” reaction to Enitan’s first sexual approaches, you have to consider all of above, Arieh for me is not still a man, and his behaviour is more of a boy than a man.
Truth be told, Enitan is not even a so dangerous man. True he is a soldier, but I think he has not a “strong” core, meaning that I see him more like a kind and gentle man than a dangerous soldier. He is probably the right man to help Arieh in his path towards the life of a pais, a male lover, since he doesn’t approach Arieh with strength but more with a gentle hand. Enitan waits, cuddles, comforts, and in the end picks up the results of his patience. The love story between Arieh and Enitan is not made of strong passions, but more of warm feelings, and I believe that this approach well go with both men’s characters.
There are also other two interesting stories going on in the background, not fully developed but with an interesting point of view: one is the story of a Riinean magician, Ashar, and his apprentice Suqua; they are both interesting characters and just in the end we learn something about Suqua that made me look back with different eyes to their story. But the more interesting story is probably the one between Junia and Sariyah: Junia is a female slave in the home of Enitan, a woman who Enitan practically made into his housekeeper and mistress, without any sexual bonds between them; Sariyah is a dancer, a single mother, who enters Enitan’s house a night for a feast and practically never goes out. There is something between Junia and Sariyah, something subtle that probably no one of them yet realize, but that the reader can clearly see.
Reading the blurb, I was expecting for the book to be more harsh, and instead in the end, there is an odd quietness all along the story, a feeling that goes well with the quite “Arabian” atmosphere, that is more like the peaceful sound of flowing water in a fountain, than the noisy rushing of water down a fall.
http://www.mlrbooks.com/ShowBook.php?book=MJAEGOOD
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