youâre that smug,â I said, sitting down but out of armâs length.
âLots of people have said yes to me already,â he said.
âHere?â I was amazed, and a little jealous.
âHere, and in Italy before. I know my way around. I know what women like.â
I was completely cold now. âThereâs nothing less exciting than being thought of as part of a class of beings that are all the same,â I said. âYouâre treating me as a thing.â
âIt doesnât mean I donât see you as a person,â Ikaros said; âthat I want to copulate with you. Latin is an impossible language for this, and you donât know Italian. Letâs speak Greek.â
âIâd rather talk about why we have to exclude Christianity,â I said, but I did switch to Greek.
âI know, but youâre misjudging me.â
âYou keep changing the subject,â I said.
âI see you, and I like you, and I find you attractive, and it would be a pleasant thing we could do together, like ⦠sharing a meal. It doesnât stop us having serious conversations that we have silly conversations with imaginary wine. It wouldnât stop us having serious conversations if we indulged in eros. All I meant by the remark about knowing what women like is that Iâm not a clumsy oaf who would hurt you, or who wouldnât care about your pleasure.â
The sky was darkening to mauve and the first star was visible. I stared up at it, avoiding his eyes. âI believe you,â I said. âBut Iâm not comfortable with that. Neither Christian nor Platonic morality condone the kind of thing youâre talking about.â
âNo, I suppose itâs Hedonist,â Ikaros said. âBut what Plato says about festivals and everyone drawing lots is like that. Eros separate from philia and agape. And every word Plato says about agape is about love between men.â
âWhat he says about agape between men with no thought of love between men and women being like that makes me think he didnât know any women who were capable of being seen as equals. Which from what we know about Athens at the time is probably realisticâwomen kept cloistered, uneducated, except for hetairas. But ⦠if he didnât know any women who were people, how could he have written about women being philosphers the way he did in the Republic ? Itâs in the Laws too.â Iâd only recently read the Laws . âHe must have thought about it a lot. And nobody ever listened to him in all those centuries they were reading him. I wonder how did he come to that conclusion? Itâs stunning.â
âI donât know. I suppose he must have met somebody. Youâd only have to really know one woman with the right kind of soul to change your mind about their capabilities.â
âAxiothea?â I suggested. âI donât mean our Axiothea, but the original. The woman who came to him in disguise as a youth and was admitted into the Academy? Perhaps she made him realise itâs souls that matter.â
âNo, she came because sheâd read the Republic , the same way you came here. Itâs mentioned in Diogenes Laertius. So he must have met women with philosophical souls before that.â
âShowing a philosophical soul doesnât work on everyone, unfortunately,â I said. âI wish Tullius would deign to notice the souls of the women here.â
While I had been staring out over the sea and talking, Ikaros had moved so that he was right beside me again. âI know you are afraid,â he said. âBut I also know that you want it. I saw you start. Thereâs nothing wrong with what weâre going to do.â
âNo!â I said. âNo, really no, Ikaros, I donât want to!â
âI am stronger than you and itâs too late to run away,â he said. âAnd you donât really want to leave, do
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