Here, he disparaged his royal titles: Ptolemy XV,
Pharaoh of Egypt, Supreme King over all kings, and
Lord of the Two Lands. Here he was just Kaisarion:
a beautiful, long-haired adolescent, utterly naked
(except for a pair of sheer, yellow stockings) and---
uninhibited by any kind of prudery or false modesty---
almost constantly engorged just because I was looking
at him as the subject of a sculpture that he, himself,
had commissioned. The Koan silk fabric of his stockings---
garments his mother had designed to wear for his
stepfather's pleasure---was flawlessly translucent,
except for the doubled weave that enclosed his toes.
At first, I puzzled for a way to depict the stockings
in stone: how, possibly could that be done? So, I
showed the stockings' tops as a circle around each of
his thighs. As for the toes, I simply omitted their
cleavage, just as the doubled weave concealed it.
Fear of criticism, also, did not enter into
my decision to depict his Pleasurer as partly engorged
and beginning to rise into erection. This is now a
finished sculpture, and, late at night when we were
naked together in the room, he released his sweetstuff
upon it---seven glistening strings, surging forth from the
peak of his pleasure.
Starward-Led