by Eileen Glass
This is his new master. His new parent, his new everything.
Seph’s stomach turns as he realizes he doesn’t have free will anymore. There will be no rebellion to go live in a mortal town. And no silly pets kept against his master’s wishes.
He might as well call Hades my king, the same as the servants.
But regardless of that, he has no intention of living out his immortal life as an unclaimed virgin. This was supposed to be a transformative summer.
“That is how you asked for me. Not why.”
The dark god’s brow ticks. His smile becomes a perplexed frown. He has probably not been corrected in a millennia. Seph speaks quickly, hoping his intention will earn him forgiveness for this mistake.
“You asked to marry me, right? And you prepared our wedding. And… you hunted me. You took me. And here I am. I-I’m naked before you.” He closes his eyes briefly, disappointed in himself for the stuttering slip. He had better finish saying this, or the god will think he’s married an infant.
He finds the right tone at last, and glares at his new husband. The opposite of fear is anger.
“I am Persephone. Son of Demeter. Son of Zeus. If you want a pretty face in your bed, anyone can lay with you. There are enough beautiful souls here. You can find someone interesting. I am here to be your husband! We are a union, a pair. And you cannot just… go to read! On our wedding night!”
Slowly, the smile Seph did not imagine could exist on such an impassive face spreads across the dark god’s lips, and it looks as natural and beautiful as the rest of him. Except… wicked. Devilishly intelligent, like a demon was asleep and now Seph has prodded it awake. It’s as though the person behind the dark god’s features notices Seph for the first time.
This wickedness fades very fast. It was fleeting, mischievous pride. As Hades sits, oh so naked, and puts an arm around Seph, his expression is kind.
“Persephone. You are not livestock that was sold to me. Rather, you shouldn’t be. You, like so many girls, were given away like a burden, without a thought. But you are more than that. And I detest a man who rapes his bride.”
Seph blinks several times, processing so many sensations from having the naked man’s body next to him, and then his words to go along with it. Hades is slightly cool to the touch, but not unpleasantly so. Seph is always warm. And his arm around Seph feels heavy and strong. He smells slightly of a narcissus flower.
Or maybe that is from Seph’s own head? He blushes hotly, realizing the servants took the circlet, but not the flowers. He’s been sitting here, naked the entire time except for the flowers!
He takes them out of his hair quickly, no matter how out of place and stupid he seems, feeling like his chest is collapsing in on him. He had these flowers in his hair the entire time he said all that ‘I am Persephone’ stuff!
Determined to control the conversation before Hades says anything to humiliate him, Seph mentions hurriedly, “You cannot rape your own wife. Or your own husband for that matter.”
Hades turns away from him. Seph can’t see what he’s doing, but he hears the ceramic clink of the pitcher spout against a goblet rim.
“Is that what you think?” Hades says quietly. And then leans back, tilting wine into his mouth.
“I…” The answer is yes, but Seph thinks he might disappoint his new husband if he said that. “I’ve never thought about it, I guess.”
“A scared young bride thinks about it constantly.”
“Well…” I failed him in some way. I failed his test. Though, Seph can’t figure out when that was or how they started talking about young girls getting raped. This was not the take me to bed conversation he hoped to be having.
“I-I am not that.”
Stutter be damned!
“No. You are not. It seems you want me to be assertive though. I can do that. But before we go any further, Persephone, you have to know that you have no personal duties towards me. Your vows are just as they are. Companionship was not a euphemism for sex. Not in our wedding ceremony, anyway.”
“I know that. Now I do. I still…” His own bashfulness irritates him. He shouldn’t be afraid of sex! This is his husband. They have lawful rights to each other, no matter how Hades may personally choose to interpret it.
“I don’t want to be a virgin on my wedding night. You married me. So I want you to take me.”
There. Finally saying the words makes him feel better. Exposed, yes, but he’s going to get what he asks for. He has the feeling Hades does not play well into coyness. Straightforward asking might work better.
“And you would say this to anyone? Your own personal feelings have such little value to you?”
“You married me,” Seph says.
“Alright, sweet colt. Lay across the bed. I won’t disappoint you.”
Nine
Pleased is an understatement.
Hades takes another long, satisfying swig of his own wine, one that bests even the wine god, Dionysius’s, finest creation. Oh, his siblings are terribly jealous and threatened by him, for good reason. And now he has Zeus’s own son sprawled out naked for him on the bed, obediently rolled onto his stomach.
Sweet Persephone makes this too easy. He knows his place in the world, poor man, and he doesn’t know anything of Hades. He doesn’t know that Hades despises his siblings. Any one of them would have treated the young god as chattel. Either to be acquired for physical purposes, or in Zeus’s case, to be given away quickly, without thought, to avoid a pointless squabble.
Hades has been lucky of course. Lucky to see Persephone speaking to his slave one day, telling him it was alright to refuse his advances and the boy would not be in trouble. Lucky to have stayed out of Zeus’s eye, for while Zeus is not as smart as Hades, he is every bit as driven to acquire rare things. A rivalry which Hades is currently winning with his divine wine.
Carefully spoken words would not have worked if Zeus had spied his own son. Hades was instrumental in protecting Persephone from that day on, making sure Hermes, his messenger, had an ear in the Mount Olympus court, listening for the latest gossip of Zeus. (Which is not at all a hard job.) Hermes would deliver a warning to Demeter if the boy’s father was to arrive, which he did more often as the colt grew up and became a potential stallion in the herd. One that caused other stallions to fight.
Hades himself did not watch over the boy, nor did he go back since spying him that one moment. But he thought about him consistently, and as the topic of the young god’s marriage became a subject of Hermes’s reports, Hades was not surprised to find himself seeking out Zeus to stake his claim. The words, while not rehearsed, seemed as though they were already thought of. And he only waited long enough for the mother goddess to leave so he could take his new ‘bride’ home.
Demeter. She is not as detestable as his other siblings, and he usually wouldn’t mind her, but it is her tiny selfish desires that add up and overwhelm her good qualities in numbers. Particularly, her desire to be worshiped by the mortals and seen as the giver of life. Because of this, she’s lost her own son.
Hades has never hated her particularly, but he suspects yet another sibling will despise him forever now. Zeus has his reasons. Hades loved their father too much to kill him, and thus doomed all the others born after him to suffer the acid inside his father’s stomach.
But such thoughts of the very long, very cruel feud among the immortal god family are not appropriate for his wedding night. Only, what is important, is that the feuding is not over. Their lives are not calm. And this act tonight could become another stone the siblings hurl at each other, if Hades is not careful.
The golden body before him was squabbled over for a reason. The young man’s beauty is too much. And his innocence isn’t found in any of the gods, ever. He is like Zeus before he ever knew violence, and Hades has this opportunity to step in and protect him from that final maturity. That doom. To see that his innocence is not torn apart by his family’s cruelty.
He takes a final long swig f
rom his wine cup.
This is Hades’s first and only wedding night after all, and he’s not entirely certain how to go about it. The baby stallion is curious. But is he ready? Does he even play with himself in the manner in which Hades is supposed to take him?
Probably not.
They will stick to safer activities then, which is not at all a hardship.
“Roll onto your back, Persephone. I will straddle on top.”
“But how will you—erm—reach?”
He fills the wine goblet again, and this time passes it to his young stallion.
“Oh, trust me, I could find it facing you as a man does with a woman. But that is not why you’ll be on your back.” He smiles teasingly. He likes this. Since a god lives forever (well, almost forever, until they are, say, cut to pieces by a scythe wielded by their own son), Persephone’s innocence will be a treasured but fleeting moment in their marriage. “You said you wanted me to take you, my new bride. So I shall take you. I shall take all of you.”
He is much like a baby stallion as he waits nervously, holding the goblet atop the center of his chest, looking at the ceiling with a worried expression, almost like he expects a scolding. But his eyes darken as his gaze shifts to roam over Hades’s form instead. His innocence ebbs away. Seph presses his lips together, then lifts his head off the pillow to take several hearty gulps of wine. His uncertainty is still there, but his desire is palpable. Nearly visible too, by his growing meat.
It is tempting to start there, the wine’s effect making him impulsive, but Hades orders himself to proceed in a civilized manner. Too many virgin spouses are taken much too fast on their wedding night. Little do the girls know, the men are spurned into it and have much reputation to lose if their friends and family find out they didn’t complete the act.
There is one thing they should get over with. Hades crawls over the young stallion as he finishes his drink, helpfully taking the goblet from him to set it aside, and then resting his bare butt on the young man’s knees. He sets his hands on Seph’s shoulders and leans in. Of all the wedding rites he combined for his guests, he forgot the one where they kiss.
The stallion is not good at it. Much too frozen, like a colt about to dash back to its mother. That is why Hades will warm him up.
“Would you like to touch me?” he asks, and does not wait, guiding Persephone’s hands onto his body. Onto his chest first, and then down, near his naval, and then further back around the curve of his ass.
“You can touch me. You can watch me. You can kiss me and taste me and play with me. What do you want to do, stallion?”
Already those hands find a bit of courage. Those fingers become stronger on his backside, his grip sinking in, kneading him carefully, and the young god looks at him a bit like a boy given a birthday gift but he can’t believe it’s his.
“I take orders too.” Hades looks him up and down, his tongue poking inside his cheek with devious excitement, the emotion overriding the laziness wine usually brings in the evening. “Tell me, my king, how can I serve? I am an eager, loyal servant, and I know many tricks with my mouth and hands.”
Now the young man snorts as though he made a joke.
“I am not your king. It’s the other way around!”
“I am pretty sure I am the only king who has married another man. And I’m certainly not going to call you my queen, am I? I suppose I could call you my ‘prince’, but since I am the only king down here, and to the souls who have been here long enough, I am the only king they remember—it would feel as if I was calling you my son.”
Hades winces and frowns. Does Persephone know how close he came to being another body taken by Zeus? And then destroyed by Hera. This would not even be the first time that’s happened.
“While the thought of that doesn’t disgust me, obviously, I did not bring you here to be my son. I am not your replacement father.” Hades leans close until their noses almost touch. He raises his hands and lets his fingers card through the young god’s hair.
Finally.
That has been a damn near irresistible itch since the poor stallion was captured and frightened in his chariot.
“You are a King of the Underworld, my God of the End of the Harvest. There are two now. And as far as I know, a king and a king are equal, are they not? Especially if they are kings of the same kingdom.”
“That won’t work,” the young man says, and he lowers his eyes bashfully. But then he smiles. His first smile. Hades holds his breath for this moment.
“Ask me to kiss you again, my king,” he whispers.
“I suppose, since you are my king as well, I have to do as you ask!” They both smile playfully. “Kiss me again.”
It is much better this time. Persephone angles his lips for him, and licks against him, and their tongues slide hotly together. Blood begins to awaken his groin. His thighs flex. And as his tongue retreats back into his own mouth, the colt follows, hinting for the first time that he might actually, in fact, be a grown stallion.
Persephone picks his head up off the pillow. And then his hands go to the back of Hades’s hair. They keep each other in the same dominant, wild hold, except Hades is more gentle and passive, his fingers merely resting and lightly stroking inside the soft, thick locks. The stallion’s hands in his hair are a completely different experience, grabbing, holding, tugging, controlling.
He has such big hands. Hades has always thought of him as a puppy, pretty much. Or a colt or a calf or any kind of baby animal. But he has domineering hands, and Hades makes a little whimpering sound into his mouth. He likes to be held. So securely, so firmly. He folds into it.
When the kiss finally ends, both of them panting heavily, he finds himself clutching Persephone’s shoulders like the scared little virgin his new king is supposed to be.
“What else can I do for you?” Hades asks, thinking frantically. There are so many options. They seem more hassle than pleasure at the moment, though he never intended to rush his virgin mate.
One more little game. Then he will have his stallion the way he wants. He rides his hips on him, imagining it already.
He’s so empty inside.
“Perhaps you’d like to be inside me?”
Curse his tongue! Curse his impatience! The pleasure will of course be worth it, but a first time is likely to be short with a virgin.
He wants more of this intimacy before he ends it.
“I-I want to lick you.”
There’s that cute little stutter. It won’t be long before that’s gone too, along with his nervousness. It may not even last the night. Perhaps in the far away future he will ask the grown stallion to roleplay.
“Of course you may. What would you like to lick? My king.”
“Um…”
Then the stallion is on him, licking him, his hands traveling down to eventually settle and grip at his waist. Again, they are strong. Hades could probably let himself fall back or forward, and those hands would position him just the way they want and keep him sitting up.
His new husband licks high on his rib cage first. It is pretty clear what he wants. But he doesn’t go for it, licking and kissing toward the center of his chest instead, his nose coming near the desired target, but stopping just shy of taking it. His eyes flash upwards once, perhaps checking to see if it’s alright.
“Would you like to lick me here, my king?”
He presents his nipple between two fingers. And at once, like a stallion given lead, he lunges for the prize, enclosing his mouth over Hades’s flesh.
“Ahh.”
There is not much sensitivity for him here, but watching it is another matter. Persephone is curious, he can tell. His nose squishes cutely into Hades chest. He sucks the nipple into his mouth and rolls and licks it behind his teeth. He even pulls on it a little, glancing up again to see what Hades will do.
Hades watches with a patient and indulgent smile. He can find pleasure in other ways while his cub explores. He reaches behind and underneath himself, which
also requires him to bend backwards and present more of his body to that curious mouth.
The angle is not quite right. Usually, if he’s going to do this to himself, he would have a toy and he would reach down from the front. But his fingers do find himself and push inside a little. There is resistance. He has been alone and working so much that he can’t remember the last time he played.
He can’t remember exactly where he put his bottle of slicking oil. The bottom drawer of the nightstand maybe? Leaning over to check it is too much inconvenience for him. He doesn’t want Persephone’s hands or mouth to leave for even a moment.
He brings his fingers out and up to spit on them.
“What are you doing?” Persephone asks, lifting his head.
“Getting ready for you, my king.”
“Shouldn’t it be the other way around?”
A bit breathless now, Hades replies, “I said I would take you. What did you think I meant?”
Of course, this is a game. Anyone can see what Persephone thought, and the young man is not foolish for thinking it.
“Um, I’ve never… You know, I’ve never—” Those large hands go straight to his backside now, but they’ve lost their grabby, domineering quality. They pet as gently as if Hades was a meek chick.
“Rest assured, my king, I have heard your complaint about the bed chambers, and I will personally rectify the situation.”
The young man looks astonished. Then gives a nervous laugh.
Then he asks, “What if I’m bad at it? What if I hurt you, or—I don’t know. What if it doesn’t feel right? What if I’m not…” He shrugs apologetically. “…good?”
“Shh. Sit back, my king.” Hades gently pushes him to the pillows, kissing him along the way. He decides at last to lean over the side of the bed and reach that bottom drawer. He comes back with a corked vial, and holds it up in the torchlight. The substance needs to be refilled again, but he has just enough.
“This will ease the way,” he says, tapping it impatiently against his palm until enough slides to the end. He rubs his palms together briefly and then looks down for that sensitive flesh he’s been ignoring. That’s because Hades doesn’t want to cross too many boundaries too fast.