“I didn’t offer you Christian morality, but Plato on love,” I said, standing up. I wasn’t afraid that he would attack me, although I was aware that he was strong and could easily have overpowered me if he had wanted to. What frightened me was the thought that if he persisted, and especially if he persisted in touching me, I would give in to him. “Come on, let’s go back if you can’t exercise temperance.”

“But you are a poor little Christian virgin, not somebody holding out for agape,” he said, not moving.

I was furious. “How could you possibly know?” I asked.

He laughed, silhouetted against a sky of violet and rose. “Oh sit down. I can’t talk to you when you’re hovering over me like that. I’ll concede that I could be wrong. But I doubt it.”

“Nobody will ever say yes to you if you’re that smug,” I said, sitting down but out of arm’s length.

“Lots of people have said yes to me already,” he said.

“Here?” I was amazed, and a little jealous.

“Here, and in Italy before. I know my way around. I know what women like.”

I was completely cold now. “There’s nothing less exciting than being thought of as part of a class of beings that are all the same,” I said. “You’re treating me as a thing.”

“It doesn’t mean I don’t see you as a person,” Ikaros said; “that I want to copulate with you. Latin is an impossible language for this, and you don’t know Italian. Let’s speak Greek.”

“I’d rather talk about why we have to exclude Christianity,” I said, but I did switch to Greek.

“I know, but you’re misjudging me.”

“You keep changing the subject,” I said.

“I 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 doesn’t stop us having serious conversations that we have silly conversations with imaginary wine. It wouldn’t stop us having serious conversations if we indulged in eros. All I meant by the remark about knowing what women like is that I’m not a clumsy oaf who would hurt you, or who wouldn’t care about your pleasure.”

The sky was darkening to mauve and the first star was visible. I stared up at it, avoiding his eyes. “I believe you,” I said. “But I’m not comfortable with that. Neither Christian nor Platonic morality condone the kind of thing you’re talking about.”

“No, I suppose it’s Hedonist,” Ikaros said. “But 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.”

“What he says about agape between men with no thought of love between men and women being like that makes me think he didn’t know any women who were capable of being seen as equals. Which from what we know about Athens at the time is probably realistic—women kept cloistered, uneducated, except for hetairas. But … if he didn’t know any women who were people, how could he have written about women being philosphers the way he did in the Republic? It’s in the Laws too.” I’d only recently read the Laws. “He 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? It’s stunning.”

“I don’t know. I suppose he must have met somebody. You’d only have to really know one woman with the right kind of soul to change your mind about their capabilities.”

“Axiothea?” I suggested. “I don’t 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 it’s souls that matter.”

“No, she came because she’d read the Republic, the same way you came here. It’s mentioned in Diogenes Laertius. So he must have met women with philosophical souls before that.”

“Showing a philosophical soul doesn’t work on everyone, unfortunately,” I said. “I wish Tullius would deign to notice the souls of the women here.”

While I had been staring out over the sea and talking, Ikaros had moved so that he was right beside me again. “I know you are afraid,” he said. “But I also know that you want it. I saw you start. There’s nothing wrong with what we’re going to do.”

“No!” I said. “No, really no, Ikaros, I don’t want to!”

“I am stronger than you and it’s too late to run away,” he said. “And you don’t really want to leave, do you?”

I did. I tried to get up, but it was true that he was stronger, and that he knew what he was doing, which I did not. He had no difficulty wrestling me to submission. I screamed as he pulled off my kiton. “Hush now, hush,” he said. “You know you want it. Your breast likes it, look.”

“I don’t care what my breast likes, my soul doesn’t like it, get off me!”

“Your soul is timid and has learned the wrong lessons.” He rolled on top of me, forcing my legs apart.

“It’s my soul, and up to me to say what I want!” I said, and screamed again, hoping somebody would hear even though we were too far from the city.

Nobody heard. “There, see, you like it,” he said as he eased himself inside me. “You’re ready. I knew you were. You want it.”

“I do not want it.” I started to cry.

“Your body is welcoming me.”

“My body is a traitor.”

He laughed. “You can’t get away, and I have taken your virginity now. There’s nothing to fight for. You might as well enjoy it.”

My body unquestionably enjoyed it. In other circumstances it would have been delightful. My mind and my soul remained entirely unconsenting. Afterwards, when he let me go, I turned my back on him and put my kiton back on.

“There, didn’t you like it?”

“No,” I said. “Having my will overruled and my choices taken away? Who could enjoy that.”

“You liked it,” he said, a little less sure of himself now.

I ignored him and walked away. I did not run because I was under the pines and it was completely dark and I’d have been sure to have banged into a tree. I could hear him blundering behind me. I ran cautiously once I was out where I could see by starlight, and made it back to the city. Klio, who was to serve the Sparta hall, which was finished, already had a house of her own, where Axiothea and I slept most of the time until our own houses were ready. I went there and slammed the door. I was shaking and crying. It was so humiliating to think that my mother and my aunt and those who had insisted on protecting me had been right all along.

“What’s wrong?” Klio asked, getting up and coming towards me.

“Ikaros raped me,” I said, still leaning on the door.

“Are you hurt?” She hesitated. “Should I get Kreusa? Or Charmides?” Charmides was our doctor, a man from the twenty-first century.

“I’m not really hurt. I mean there’s a bit of blood.” I could feel it sticky on my thighs. “And a couple of bruises. But nothing I need a doctor for.”

“I’m surprised at Ikaros. I wouldn’t have thought he was that type.” She hugged me and drew me into the room. “Are you going to tell people?”

I hadn’t thought about that. “I don’t know. He’ll say I wanted it.”

“You went off with him alone,” she said. “Lots of people would think you did want it. It would be your word against his, and I don’t know what people would decide. Lots of the older men don’t really see us as equals. And once everyone knows, everyone knows. You can’t undo that. And you can’t leave. There’s nowhere to go.”

I understood what she meant. “I won’t tell anyone. I never want to see him again.”

“I’m going to smack him myself when I get the chance,” she said, sounding really fierce.

“I thought he was my friend!”

“He thought you wanted it.” Klio sat down on the bed, drawing me down with her. “Men, especially confident bastards like Ikaros, always try to get their friends into bed. But actual rape? Did you say no?”

“I said no in both languages and at great length.” She snorted. “I screamed. He thought I was afraid because of Christian morality and that I wanted it really.” I wiped my eyes. “I don’t know whether some part of me did want it. My body did. But not like that!”