The Story of Philo

“Do you think that’s the Byblos shore?” Philo said in a low, trembling voice to the captain of his ship, four days after setting sail from the Roman port.

“It is, Master Philo,” the captain said.

It was almost noontime, and the Phoenician shore glinted under the sun.

Philo took a deep breath, his heart racing, as he gazed at his hometown, back dropped with the green cedar mountains of Lebanon. Finally, he was approaching home. He turned his head as Ely, Darius and Cassandra joined him at the prow of the ship.

“That’s home,” Philo told the Romans fervently, almost religiously, as if he was speaking to no one in particular, as if in a dream. He was trying to swallow the scene whole, as if this was going to be the last time he was going to look at it. Cassandra wrapped an arm around his waist and brushed her lips against his neck.

“Welcome home, hero,” she said.

Although sad at leaving her own home, Lady Cassandra felt that, as long as Philo was beside her, it was home enough for her. Ely felt the same way. His adoration for Philo never waned. Darius was a convenient fuck and a source of wealth and power, both of which were now irrelevant since both he and Philo had left Rome, wealthy and unafraid. Still Darius came along, clinging to Ely, which Philo didn’t quite understand, and he had to admit that he was a bit jealous.

Philo’s eyes grew misty as they approached Byblos harbor. As he remembered, the place was like a beehive with boats and ships and workers and merchants. The ship docked. Philo alighted first, knelt, and kissed the ground, tears flowing down his face cheeks. The captain then led the group to a nearby restaurant that he was familiar with for rest and refreshment after their sea voyage.

There wasn’t much talk among them as they sat around the table, served with rich foods, the aroma of which tickled their noses and whetted their appetite.

“Do you plan to go directly to Teshret, Philo?” Ely asked.

“Yes, brother. And you are all welcome to come with me,” Philo answered with a wide grin on his handsome face.

Cassandra and Darius, however, decided to remain in the city.

“Your parents will not approve of me,” Cassandra said, a sad smile on her face.

“My parents will approve anything once they see me back. We don’t have to tell them that we fuck.”

Ely snickered and squeezed Darius’s inner thigh.

“They would never believe it if we told them that I and Darius fuck too,” Ely laughed.

“Oh, shut up, Israelite,” Philo admonished Ely jokingly.

“Really, my love,” Cassandra said. “You go ahead and visit. We will wait here. No fear for us. Darius is not interested in women,” she winked at the Roman nobleman.

“A couple of days and we will return,” Philo promised. “Then we can work out what to do next.”

Philo insisted on renting a villa on the outskirts of the city with a garden and a colonnade, built along Roman architecture. He would not hear of Cassandra and Darius staying at an inn, like commoners. They were Roman nobility and needed to be treated as such. Although Byblos was not part of the Roman Empire yet, it was as much affected by Roman and Greek civilizations as it affected them. This was the city where the alphabet was first conceived and then gifted to the world.

The four of them spent the next morning roaming the streets and alleyways of the bustling city, where they were treated like royalty in their Roman garbs. Both Philo and Ely were by now quite fluent in speaking Latin and they were taken for Roman noblemen.

Philo bought all kinds of things to take back to his village. Cassandra chose a beautiful cloth of red satin that Philo would also take with him for his mother. He also took Cassandra’s opinion regarding silver bracelets for his two sisters, a leather belt for his father, and a golden locket for Salimana, his love. Darius bought a silver anklet for Ely.

Before they left the city just before noontime, Philo and Ely bid Cassandra and Darius goodbye and passed through the food market where Philo filled a whole sack with a side of lamb, four loaves of the best bread, and some fruits and vegetables.

With laden sacks, Philo rented one laborer to carry them. The Roman gold coins went very far in providing Philo and his group with the best service and products.

The two lads walked along the dirt and winding road up the green mountain side. Philo had developed physically in an awesome way. He was now nineteen years old, with a light beard and moustache lending his face a masculine appearance making him more desirable. His body had lost all its teenage form, and now looked manly and muscled. Because he had exercised daily even when he was a slave, he was fit and healthy. Ely had also developed physically, not as spectacularly as Philo, but it seemed that his nose had become less invasive as it used to be. He had also put on some weight, losing the sissy-like slimness he had had.

Both boys sweated up the path to Teshret, full of vigor and excitement.

“Mamma, Mamma,” Sheela, Philo’s little sister, hopped and shouted as she spotted her brother and the Israelite approaching their humble hut up the dirt path. “Philo, Mamma,” she cried and ran towards her brother. Philo, a huge smile on his face, lifted her in his arms and hugged her tight, not believing he was back home. He felt the warm tears of his sister drip onto his neck, and he started to cry, even though the wide grin remained on his face.

Ely watched, happy for the reunion, sad because he would never experience such a welcome from his own family who had disowned and banished him mercilessly.

Philo’s mother came out of the hut, shading and rubbing her eyes in disbelief as her son approached carrying Sheela in his arms, with the setting sun behind his back, giving him a golden aura like a young god. He looked awesome and her heart almost stopped beating. Zinat had never lost hope of seeing her son again, but she was also a practical woman who had realized that once a boy was kidnapped as a slave he would die as a slave. But not her Philo.

Mother and son embraced, tears rolling down their cheeks.

“Oh my boy,” Zinat sobbed, touching and probing Philo all over to make sure she was not dreaming.

The sad news was the death of his father a few months after Philo and Ely were kidnapped and Zinat returned from Tyre and Byblos empty-handed and in despair. The hut was crowded with Salimana sitting next to Philo, her arm around his waist, Ely crouching next to Zinat, Pharees and Batheeta, their neighbors, looking on, grinning and holding hands, and the laborer squatting a little to the side since it was too late and dark for him to return to Byblos. Everyone had a tale to tell and they stayed this way till Philo pulled Samantha up and slipped out of the hut.

Ely had a sad and jealous look on his face. Zinat and Sheela were ecstatic. Batheeta winked at her husband knowingly.

Outside, Philo grabbed Salimana and kissed her hungrily.

“Oh, how I missed you,” he moaned into her full red lips, his hands cupping her ample breasts, his erection painfully pressed on her belly.

As he slipped one hand under her loose skirt to reach between her thighs, Salimana moved back gently but firmly pushing his hand away.

“Not now, not here, Philo,” she said apologetically. “I have something to tell you.”

Philo looked at her, surprised. She had always loved the way he fingered her.

She led him farther from the hut, towards the edge of the pine forest, and they sat on the dirt patch under a large pine tree.

“Philo,” she murmured, “when your mother returned from Byblos and told us you were taken as slaves, I lost hope.” She sobbed and pressed her head onto his chest looking down not daring to watch his face as she confessed. “I laid with Barbin. We are going to be married soon.”

“Barbin?” Philo whispered. “Barbin, the carpenter?”

Salimana nodded, tears streaming down her eyes.

“But now I’m back,” Philo pleaded. “And I love you.”

“I’m so sorry, baby, but you have to understand. I needed someone to protect me and Barbin is a nice man.”

“But he’s as old as your father, Salimana. Are you crazy?”

Salimana got up and, quickly, sobbing loudly, she scampered away back into the village, leaving Philo dazed.

Philo sat on the dirt patch frozen and zombie-like, unbelieving. He was in a state of trauma. He didn’t even notice Ely who had come out and had heard the last part of the conversation. Ely sat next to Philo, wrapping his arm around his friend’s waist.

Philo hung his head down, whispered, “She left me.”

Ely didn’t speak but kept his arm around his friend’s waist, his hand moving slowly up and down the small of his back, trying to comfort him.

“She left me, Ely,” Philo repeated in a choking voice.

“I love you, Philo,” Ely whispered back his mouth almost touching Philo’s neck, his arm pressing harder around Philo’s waist.

Philo turned his head towards Ely, and they kissed, deep, hard, tongues entwined, moans muffled by the closing lips, eyes closed tight.

That night, Philo fucked Ely like a husband fucks his wife on their first night. Repeatedly, he dumped load after load into the Israelite’s body, filling him with passion as well as with love. What young Philo felt as he drove into Ely’s body under him was fulfillment. With Ely, there would not going to be disappointments or ditching. In Ely, Philo finally found the dearest and most loyal person outside his family. He loved the Israelite’s thrashing on his huge cock, the moaning, the expression of pleasure. All Ely wanted from Philo was his love, not security, not a protective man, not a future or a house or children. Ely wanted just Philo.

The next day the two lads left Teshret for Byblos followed by the laborer, after Philo pressed his full coin pouch into his mother’s hand.

“I’ll be back, Mamma,” Philo kissed his mother. “I’ll be back.”

Six months later, Philo moved into his new house on the outskirts of Byblos, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea. Ely moved in with him.

“Who could have believed?” Ely said as he lounged on the sun porch with a drink in his hand.

“I know,” Philo smiled, fully knowing what his friend and mate was thinking.

That night the two boys made passionate love in the new bedroom, their bedroom.

And the years went by. Philo took in a deep sigh as he watched the sun set into the blue sea leaving a deep orange horizon. His brown eyes sparkled in spite of the wrinkles on his face. As he heard a shuffling sound behind him, he turned his head slowly to watch Ely walk out, his back bent, using a cane to support himself.

“It was around seventy years ago that we shared this scene together for the first time,” Ely said as he approached Philo and placed a hand on his lover’s shoulder.

“And I fucked the hell out of your ass,” Philo snickered between coughs.

The two lads were almost ninety years old now. They had witnessed the Roman invasion of Byblos, which had surrendered peacefully, unlike its sister city in the south, Tyre, which the Romans under Julius Caesar sacked after a long siege, burning its houses and temples, slaughtering its men, and raping its women.

As Roman free citizens themselves, Philo and Ely had enjoyed a special status throughout the years. Neither of them married, but they stayed together as husband and wife. Occasionally, they would send for a couple of young boys and girls, novices from the Temple of Astarte, and they would fuck and suck throughout the night. But basically, their relationship never waned.

When they were not fucking, Philo had tended to his expanding commercial enterprises, making more connections with Cassandra, Darius and Thalpios in Rome, investing in lands and businesses, growing richer and more powerful by the hour. To achieve all of this, more than Philo’s charisma and ambition was required: Ely’s shrewdness and calculations. The pair had worked hand in glove, sharing the wealth equally. Even when the news of Cassandra’s and Thalpios’s deaths reached them, their business was solid enough not to be affected.

Philo had built a beautiful stone house for his mother and sisters in Teshret, and he would often go up to visit them, laden with silks, jewelry, fruit and vegetables, meat and fish. His mother, Zinat, also came down to the city once in a while to stay a few days with her son.

When she had first walked in on the boys in their new villa, their arms around each other, almost naked, kissing, Zinat was shocked. But after a while, she had accepted the fact that she was not going to have a daughter-in-law or grandchildren. She had never really liked Ely, but she had respected him and showed him all courtesy because of the way her son loved him and how he made her son happy.

“You did, Philo,” Ely nodded, “that you certainly did.”

With a little difficulty, Ely bent lower and kissed Philo’s neck. Even at this age, the two men enjoyed each other’s bodies, perhaps not as often or as zealous, but always as passionate.

“Have you received any news from our business people in Judea?” Philo asked.

Although Ely had never gone back to his own town, he had travelled down south to Israel and had started solid and lucrative businesses there. Strangely enough, he never visited his hometown to see his relatives. Although he was tempted to rule over them, in a way kicking ass, but he was wise enough not to stir old hatreds.

“It looks like it’s all over,” Ely said. “He was crucified last week.”

Philo shook his head sadly. “Your people are so cruel, Ely. This poor man trying to show the Jews the wisdom and charity of God El, and they go and crucify him.”

“Jesus of Nazareth broke the covenant.”

“Even so,” Philo sighed again. “If you are still able to kneel, come and suck me off,” he finally said with a grin.

And Ely did.

The End