To Be Alexander
“You never answered me, Hephaestion. Do you wish to stay with me tonight?” Alexander’s voice was quiet, his golden eyes cast out toward the silhouetted ziggurat crowning Babylon. “I’ll not force you to stay if -”
“Don’t be such a fool, Alexander,” came the answer, sweetened with a laugh. Hephaestion had caught the faint difference in Alexander’s tone, as it changed from one of proud declaration to soft intimacy, and he smiled. He had been hoping to hear those words since his embrace with Alexander had ended a moment before, fearing Alex had forgotten the request he’d made before they’re conversation had begun. “I wish for nothing more in the world,” he breathed. “I wouldn’t suffer myself to leave you.” He stroked a hand through Alexander’s curls.
“Thank you,” Alex whispered. “You always seem to know when I need you, Hephaestion. You always have, and I thank Zeus for it.”
The hand untangled carefully from Alexander’s hair and came to rest upon his neck, rubbing softly. Hephaestion thought he heard his friend purr at this, leaning into his touch. “What you need, Alexander, is my need to give you. Since the day I met you I’ve wanted nothing more.” Alexander closed his eyes and sighed audibly as Hephaestion’s fingers continued to work the tension from his muscles. “Shall I light the lamps at the table?” Hephaestion inquired, displaying his Athenian blood in his polite, discreet mannerisms. Alexander had learned many years ago how to interpret them. Hephaestion wished to know if he would desire more conversation, as they shared many nights, or if Alex was inviting him to share his pillow.
Alexander sipped his wine, and then licked his lips. “Leave only one lit, near the bed.” He cast a meaningful gaze toward his friend. He remembered that once, before leaving Pella, Hephaestion had mentioned that he loved being able to see Alexander in such moments.
Hephaestion turned, but made it only halfway through the archway before Alexander stopped him with a word. “And Hephaestion,” he smiled to himself, keeping his face hidden from his lover. “See if Darius has oil we might use.”
Hephaestion felt his entire body grow warmer at these suggestive words, and he forgot the coolness of the night around him. “Finish your wine, Alexander. I’ll only be a moment.”
This would be a welcome return to passion for the two lovers, and one long awaited. The preparation and aftermath surrounding the battle at Gaugamela had left them precious few moments of intimacy. He recalled well Alexander’s nervous stare from the tent’s entrance as Phillip, the only physician Alexander would trust to tend him, had bandaged and sutured his wounds from the day’s battle. It was the first time since leaving Pella, Alex had realized then, that he had seen his friend without clothing. Reclining easily on a very simple wooden chair, Hephaestion had noticed as his King’s eyes had shifted from the doctor’s hands to the body beneath them, and it had intrigued him immensely that Alexander would look to him with such unmasked hunger. Alexander had held Hephaestion’s arm and chest close to him and helped him lean forward when the surgeon had laid brand to the deepest wound; a brutal gouge to the well-muscled shoulder that had left his arm in a sling for many days. As the red iron had hissed angrily, Alexander had flinched far more than Hephaestion. The moment was remembered, though, because it was the closest they’d been in many weeks, and Hephaestion had later whispered in Alex’s ear that, unclothed for Phillip’s ministrations, he had quite forgotten the pain as he gave every effort not to harden as Alexander pressed so tightly against him.
Hephaestion took his time extinguishing the lamps. Though he was not yet aroused, he could feel a subtle excitement twisting in his belly. The last time he had felt so giddy to be with Alexander must have been years ago, in Mieza. When the room was dim, left only with the shuddering light of the bedside brazier, he went to a cabinet by the door, and with little search he found what he sought. Having seen Darius’s harem of beautiful young women and alluring eunuchs, Hephaestion was hardly surprised to find that the late King of Persia had kept a moderate stock of fine oils close at hand. There was also a vast store of incense on the top shelf, which Hephaestion took a small amount of, as well. The bottle of oil, he set on the bedside table. He was lighting the incense as Alexander entered from the balcony and drew the doors shut behind him, and Hephaestion saw immediately his lover’s reaction to the heavy, aphrodisiacal scent of Persian amber. Hephaestion drew back the covers as Alex approached him, circling around the huge bed to stand behind him.
With gentle hands, Alexander reached out and removed the small bronze clips that had held Hephaestion’s hair away from his face. Hephaestion was still, waiting to see what Alexander would do, but his wait was brief. Taking his shoulder, Alex turned Hephaestion to face him and enfolded him in his arms for the second time that night, though now the embrace held the promise of passion. Laying his head upon Hephaestion’s higher shoulder, he inhaled deeply, finding that the smell of his friend’s hair had a far more powerful effect on him than the overwhelmingly sensual scent of Persian incense. Hephaestion’s hair smelled of spice and dark wine. Revelling in this sensation, Alexander let his left hand slip down Hephaestion’s back and slide around his body, coming to rest on a hipbone. “Let me undress you,” Alexander whispered into the dark hair. He felt Hephaestion nod against him.
With a tender reverence that belied the indeterminable strength in his hands, he shifted the Persian robes away from Hephaestion’s skin, until they were coiled in shimmering folds at their feet. Hephaestion had closed his eyes, and the very edges of his lips curled upward ever so slightly. Alexander knew this expression, and love immensely the sight of it, and the sound of his lover’s measured breaths. Alexander could read also the trust in his Hephaestion’s face, and was reminded in that moment of how they had nurtured that trust from boyhood, when Hephaestion had once murmured the name of Akilleos as Alex had held him in ecstasy. Alex gathered Hephaestion’s long hair in his fist and lifted it away from the slender neck, which he kissed lightly. “I have needed this.”
“And what you need I need to give,” Hephaestion replied solemnly. Alexander’s hand was roaming over his chest now, and he massaged the boyish muscles that swelled so slightly from Hephaestion’s breast, which was, strangely, as bare as it had been in there youth. His firm touches brought his thumb to cross over on tight brown peak, and suddenly Hephaestion’s eyes were open, and he flung his head back in a deep groan.
“Alexander.”
“Yes, Hephaestion, I am here.” His hands began a slow descent then over desert-warmed skin, over each heaving flank and across his belly, until he could feel a certain unmistakable heat rising from Hephaestion’s skin. He meant to grasp that heat and kindle it to flames, but Hephaestion slapped his hands away roughly.
“This will end too soon if you keep playing me like a damned lyre,” he laughed, beginning to divest Alexander of his robes.
“Oh, but what a siren’s song I can draw from you!” Alexander smiled, as the last of his clothing fell from him and to the floor. Alexander reached to the nightstand behind him and found the oil. He and Hephaestion shared a smile, and Alexander’s eyes instructed his lover. Hephaestion lay across the bed, sighing at the luxurious feeling of the silken sheets on his stomach, and parted his legs slightly. Alexander plied him gently then, until, hips trembling, he uttered Alexander’s name, and Alexander answered. “Turn to face me,” said Alexander. “For here, you are no soldier, and I am no King. We will always love as equals, Hephaestion.”
“You love too much the sound of your own voice -oh, gods,” Hephaestion moaned wildly as Alexander pressed into him in one slow thrust. He could feel his nails sinking into Alexander’s back, but the other man did not flinch, and his gasp was one that did not mean pain.
It was not long before Alexander and Hephaestion were both without words, and trying failingly to pace their frenzied union. “Oh, my sweet Patroklus, I - I love you...” but when Alexander whispered against one sweat-dampened shoulder, and grasped fiercely at Hephaestion beneath him, the world before their eyes became fire.
“Alexander, I’m yours,” Hephaestion wept before abandoning thought and crying out, as if with his very soul, as his first shudders lifted him from the bed into Alexander’s waiting arms. A burning heat converged and exploded between them then, and, shouting his release, Hephaestion cleaved to Alexander’s chest. The moment of bliss seemed to last days, though he heard the beloved beat of Alex’s heart only once before it was spent and passed.
The two fell back to the bed as if returning to Earth at last and their foreheads pressed together as they wept softly. All hardships they’d known since their last coupling were expelled and forgotten. When they parted, their touched were only sweet and tender, and they embraced beneath the sheets, breathing deeply of the amber incense and drifting in idle conversation.
“What did you mean,” Hephaestion asked suddenly, “Today, when you told Stateira that I too am Alexander?”
Alexander smiled, settling back against the soft pillows. “I was thinking of Aristotle. Do you remember when he said that friendship was like one soul in two bodies? I thought of that. You are Alexander, just as I am Hephaestion.”
Hephaestion grinned, again imitating the cock of Alexander’s head which so peeved him at times. “Well, I think I’ll call you Narcissus and be done with it, for if Alexander is Hephaestion, then he who is Hephaestion worships himself, who is Alexander. Are we really so vain, to be in love?”
Alexander laughed. “And all these years, my father told me I was the one who listened far too well to Aristotle’s teachings. You’d do better as a philosopher than a soldier. But, I will confess, that if loving you is vanity, then I am hopelessly vain. It’s not vanity, though, Hephaestion. To be in love with you is to be one thing only, my friend.” He watched as Hephaestion rose and extinguished the brazier’s light. They held one another close, protective and trusting. As they hovered on the edge of sated sleep, Alexander murmured into the dark hair of his Hephaestion the very words that meant everything to them both. “To love you, Hephaestion, is to be Alexander,” he whispered, and then was lost to dreams.