He rolled back onto his haunches to admire his handiwork as Voleta fell limp against the bed, gasping for air. Standing up, he picked her discarded chiton off the floor and wiped her juices from around his mouth. “I couldn’t let you get up without at least having a taste. I take it he never did that to you either.”
She shook her head and reached out to him with one hand, eyeing his fully erect cock hungrily. Her tongue was thick in her mouth. Slowly, words started to form again. “Do I get to taste you?”
He thought about it for a moment, cocking his head to the side. “No. I don’t think so.”
“Why not?”
Thanatos sat next to Voleta and traced a finger along her trembling lips. “Because— and this is impatient of me, I’ll admit it— you don't have enough experience to pleasure me with those lips.”
Her face fell. He ran a fingernail between her breasts and across her stomach before clamping his fingers on her mound, his palm squeezing and massaging her wet flesh. “But these lips on the other hand…”
She stared up at him, wordless and wide-eyed as he rose above her and moved between her legs, spreading her knees apart. Thanatos craned her ankles up over his shoulders.
“And since there’s no hymen to worry about anymore, thanks to the goddess you serve and that idiot who had you…”
Thanatos spread his black wings with a shake, startling her, and held Voleta at an angle so she could watch him enter her. Voleta winced once, expecting pain, until he moved his hips around in a circle, stirring her insides with his cock, working his way into her depths. Her soaked and quivering channel offered no resistance. Voleta’s face and shallow staccato breath told him all he needed to know— he was filling her far deeper than what she had experienced in the rite. She was expecting him to stop, to be at the hilt much sooner, and opened her eyes wide to him as he continued to drive into her in slow methodical circles. He finally settled into her as both looked down to see short black hair touching short blonde where they were joined, his length sunk all the way inside her.
“…With that wretched barrier gone, I don’t have to worry about preventing pain. Only giving pleasure,” he said, withdrawing all but the crown. Voleta whimpered at his absence before he thrust in again and she rocked her head back. Thanatos pushed in deeper and stayed there.
“Please…” Voleta whispered.
He cupped his free hand to his ear and leaned in close to her face. “What was that?”
“Please…” she said louder, trying to breathe around the word.
“Please what?” Thanatos pouted his lips with a sarcastic smirk. “‘Please stop’?” he said as he slowly withdrew.
“No!” she cried.
Thanatos returned her ankles to his shoulders and held only the tip of his cock steady inside her. He came down an inch from her face and smiled, wings outstretched behind him, blocking out the lamplight. “You want me to fuck you, don’t you?”
“Yes!”
“Before I do,” Thanatos said against her whimpering protest as he came back up, “I’ll ask you again. What is it you know about the act of love?”
“N-nothing!”
***
As soon as he rounded the corner outside Thanatos’s apartment, Aidoneus knew that Death was entertaining a guest. Shouts of female pleasure, half-hearted protestations, and full-throated exclamations were barely muffled by the heavy ebony door. Every so often, soft cajoling and hard, lascivious words from the Minister of Death interrupted the loud moaning. Aidoneus slowed his pace.
He had passed by this room under these circumstances many times over the aeons and had quickened his pace, bitten his tongue, and rarely voiced his opinion of his friend's private life. As long as Thanatos did his job, and didn’t flagrantly disregard the rules or create discord, Aidon figured that he could be left to his own vices.
But today the sounds echoing from his Minister’s chambers made his blood burn. He had known those pleasures, or at least had a taste of them. He thought about his wife, the very subject he’d come to discuss, and wavered, wondering if he should reconsider. The crescendo of voices from inside only heightened his frustrations. Enough of this, he thought. He gave a slight knock against the frame.
Nothing.
Impatient, Aidoneus clenched his jaw and rapped loudly on the door.
“Just a minute!” Thanatos yelled from inside.
Arms folded and eyes trained down the hall instead of on the interplay of shadows flickering from under the door, Aidon tried to ignore the sounds of them in extremis. Near silence followed. Still, the door remained shut.
***
Thanatos drew himself away from Voleta with a long, hard exhale and staggered a few steps backward, stopping with his hand on his knees, the muscles of his stomach clenching as his wings curved over his shoulders while he recovered.
“Thanat—”
He hushed Voleta with a glare, holding a finger outstretched toward her. Thanatos gasped for breath and turned his head toward the door. “Who is it?”
“Open the door.”
Thanatos spun back toward Voleta and smacked her lightly on the rump. “Get up.”
“But—”
“Do you have any idea who I’m making wait outside that door right now?” he whispered to her. “Lord Hades Aidoneus Chthonios.”
Her eyes grew as wide as the full moon as she scrambled off the bed, picking up her soiled chiton and wrapping it around her. Thanatos slung his chlamys over his shoulder again, pinning it in place.
The door finally opened. Aidoneus watched a blonde woman dart past, barely nodding her head to him, a quick ‘milord’ escaping her lips as she ran. He heard her bare feet pad down the stone hallway as he entered his minister’s chamber. Aidoneus closed the door behind him, wrinkling his nose at the heavy smell of sex hanging in the air.
“My lord,” Thanatos said with a slight bow, adjusting the draped fabric under the base of his wings. “I would apologize—”
“I don’t expect you to,” he said. Thanatos lit a censer next to his bed and sat down to catch his breath. The smell of pennyroyal and wormwood started to cover the scent of the Minister of Death’s latest conquest. “Who was she?”
Thanatos looked at the ceiling, mouthing names as he thought back. Phaedra, Elektra, Voleta… “Voleta,” he finally said.
“One of Hecate’s Lampades nymphs?”
“I think so,” he said with a shrug.
“Thanatos, please tell me she wasn’t a new initiate. That you know a little more about her than barely remembering her first name,” Aidoneus said as he looked for a place to sit. He squinted at the surface of a chair near the bed, making sure it was clean before he leaned back into it.
“I’m not an idiot,” he laughed. “The only ones I take to my bed have already undergone the hieros gamos. The white witch would make my cock disappear if I touched any of her virgin initiates.”
“Hecate’s none too happy with you having them once they return, either.”
“They come to me willingly, and she’s none too happy with me in the first place, whether I fuck them or not.” He leaned back with a smile and a sigh. “I swear by the Fates, Aidon, I found this one already standing in my chambers when I got back. It was almost adorable how she tried to seduce me. She just looked at me and pulled the pins on her chiton before I even shut the door,” he guffawed, then grew quiet, watching Aidon blush. Thanatos leaned in closer to him. “Now that’s new!”
“What is?”
“In all the aeons I have known you, the only reaction you ever had to hearing about the women I’ve fucked has been disapproval.”
“It still is,” he said, cocking an eyebrow at his minister’s vulgarity.
“Yes, but there’s more now! Your chief concern was always about how my behavior might cause problems with Hecate. I couldn’t even get you to blink when I talked about sex. But now,” he said with a smile, “our new little queen has changed you.”
Aidon’s lips thinned and he l
ooked at the ground. “I suppose.”
“And that’s not a bad thing.” Thanatos grew serious, the constant smile finally leaving his face. “I take it you didn’t come here to talk about Voleta or Hecate?”
Aidoneus shut his eyes. Every day at dusk he had come to Persephone as she looked out over the shifting colors of the river. Each time, he would take her to bed, reenacting their night three weeks ago. When he made love to her, he would extinguish the lights and just feel the press of hot skin, listen to her ragged breathing and sharp cries of pleasure as she held him ever closer. Tangled together in the dark of her room, he could feel passion and joy. But as soon as their embrace ended, her fear and sadness would return with a shiver. When it was over it wasn’t love she felt for him— just a potent mix of desire and fear. With the lamps doused, at least he couldn’t look into her eyes and know it.
“Aidon?” Thanatos said, watching sadness wash across his friend’s face.
“It's becoming unbearable,” he started slowly. “I love her.”
Thanatos snorted and shook his head. “If you’re coming to me for advice on love, I’m the wrong person to give it.”
“My experience with women begins and ends with her. Yours, however— Honestly, Thanatos, how many have you had?”
“Gods, I don’t know. How many days has it been since Prometheus handed fire to those fools?”
“You mean to tell me that you’ve been with one woman each day since…”
“At least, if I can help it; and you can’t blame me for trying! My job isn’t exactly pleasant, you know. I need diversions, and you don’t allow wine down here. Or ergot kykeon— a barley mead hallucination would do me good, just once in awhile.” Thanatos cleared his throat. “So when someone sees through that hideous shell I become in the mortal world, and wants me all the same, I give them what they want. It’s only fair if it’s someone’s last request. Wouldn’t you agree?”
Aidon narrowed his eyes. “No, I wouldn’t. These women throw themselves at you thinking that you’ll find it in your heart to save them from… you.”
“Entirely untrue. I tell each of them plainly what is about to happen to them and why I’m there. They know there’s no going back; I only show them how sweet death can be,” he smiled.
“All the same, I don’t understand the appeal. I thought you would have gotten bored with it and settled down by now.”
Thanatos laughed. “You’re talking to me, remember? It’s hard to settle down when you make a habit of never fucking a girl twice. Believe me, I only had to make that mistake with the one.”
“Dare I ask who?”
“Eris,” he muttered.
Aidon curled his lip. “Eris?!”
“Multiple times. Sometimes I still— I can’t help myself. She’s just…” he looked off into the distance and whistled low, running his hand through his hair. “Look— crazy women make for an amazing lay.”
“I wouldn’t know.”
“My dalliances aren’t what you came to talk about, in any event,” Thanatos said, “This is supposed to be about you. Now, my king, what advice could you want from your humble minister on matters of love, knowing full well that I’m only interested in love’s counterpart?”
He was silent for a moment, deciding whether or not this was even a good idea. Thanatos waited.
“Sex itself is hardly a problem for us,” he said quietly.
“Really!” Thanatos smiled and leaned forward, his wings relaxing and spreading out behind him. With a glare from Hades they snapped back. “I mean no disrespect to our queen, of course. I’m just glad for you.”
“This isn’t easy for me to speak about,” he said, looking away.
“The door is shut, and nothing will travel beyond it. You can speak plainly to me, Aidon,” he said seriously, the smile gone from his face.
Aidoneus squeezed his temples with his fingers and began again. “That part of our lives is… it’s wonderful. Incredible, really. But it’s all we have right now.”
“Then keep it as it is,” he said with a shrug. “So many men would dream to have even that.”
“But that’s not what I want. I can’t keep doing this in perpetuity.”
“So what is it that you want from her?”
“I want her to want me to be more than just her lover.” Aidoneus paused, frowning. “I want to be her husband. I want her to be my wife; my queen.”
“Well, sorry to say, you can’t will her to love you, or make her love you with what both of you are doing right now.”
Hades looked down and ran his hand back through his hair again.
“Aidon, it’s not as dire as you seem to think.”
“No?” he snapped. “I know I can’t make her love me, or trust me, but Persephone can’t bring herself to do either.” He stood up and turned toward the door, muttering to himself. “This is foolish. I should just take your advice, and enjoy the way things are now. She is my consort; she’s ready and willing for me when I go to her, and I should just be content with that.”
“Wait,” Thanatos said. “Stay. You just said ‘trust’. How much trust do you put in her, exactly?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Well, from what I hear, our little queen has been wandering in circles around familiar parts of the palace for the last few weeks, either with Hecate, or to the garden with Askalaphos and Cerberus. Where were you?”
“This realm doesn’t run itself—”
“Except for at night when you’re with her, you mean.”
“What is your point, Thanatos?” he bristled.
“That it’s hardly a question of her trusting you. How much do you trust her? How much of our world has she seen?”
Aidon sat down again. “The last time I took her anywhere, she ran away from me and straight into the Lethe. I almost lost her.”
“She’d only been here for a matter of hours, and from what I heard from Menoetes, your big black three-headed puppy gave her quite a scare.”
“I keep her in the palace to protect her.”
“Like Demeter did?”
Aidoneus glared at him.
Thanatos stood firm. “Put some trust in her, Aidon.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. I’m sure the situation will arise if you actually spend time with her outside her bedroom.”
Aidon sat there, absorbing his friend’s advice. For all Persephone knew, traveling beyond the palace would bring the same pain she had experienced at the Lethe.
I just worry that it will take the same aeons for me to fall in love with it as it did for you…
If she was ever going to love him, she would also have to love the land he ruled— the place that bore his very name in the world above. “I’ll speak with Charon. The best view of our realm is from the Styx.”
“There’s a start. Now, as to the real reason you came here…”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, please, Aidoneus, if you wanted to talk about women and love you could have gone to Mother Nyx or even Hermes when he comes down here.”
Color started to rise into his cheeks. “My biggest concern was discussed. Anything else is… incidental.”
“Hardly; you said so yourself. ‘How many women have I had?’ The reason you came to me was to talk about how you can better please your queen.”
Aidon felt heat rush to his face and saw a smile curl his friend’s lips again. “Well—”
“I thought so,” Thanatos said, leaning back and clearing his throat. “Lesson the first: in every way imaginable, know every inch of each other…”
***
She felt different. Persephone stood in front of the polished hematite mirror, turning this way and that, examining her figure under the long peplos in the glow of the oil lamps. Her hair was darker and thicker. She could dismiss that change— it may have been the darkness of the reflection itself. Her hips flared out more than before, and effortlessly held up a jeweled girdle, another gift from her husband.
She cupped and shaped her hands under her breasts. That definitely wasn’t from the reflection. Her cheekbones were more pronounced. Persephone sucked in her cheeks, rounded and girlish three weeks ago, and saw the face of a woman staring back at her.
The changes grew more noticeable every passing day. After wandering into the Lethe, she had slept on and off for almost three days, according to Aidoneus and Hecate. It took a great deal of time to adjust to the opposite schedule of this world. Day was night, and night was day.
Persephone would stand at the balcony when the River Styx started to change color at dusk, her knees shaking, knowing that Aidon would come to her. As the river darkened, she could feel his presence beside her. His arms would wrap around her waist as they stood silently, watching the last light of the daytime dance across the water. His hands would caress her skin, running across her arms and her hips, curving over her breasts and thighs until her body ached with need and she turned to kiss him. Each night he would carry her into her room as he had after they first watched the sun set three weeks ago.
Before he extinguished all light in her room, she would watch his face as long as the flicker of the lamps allowed, his eyes filled with a longing that went beyond desire and pleasure. Persephone would surrender to him in a tangle of embracing limbs, alive, afraid, reaching, and fulfilled, then listen to his breathing as he held her to his chest until she fell asleep.
I love you… She had said it first. She had lost hold of her memories for the moment, but she had said it just the same. She couldn’t bring herself to say it again.
Last night, strange dreams of winding branches, growing leaves, and buds preparing to blossom alternated with visions of her home in Eleusis and nightmares of a widening maw of dark fire. She had cried out in her sleep and jolted awake to feel him rocking her back and forth, stroking her forehead. He whispered to her, tender words in the dark to soothe her back to sleep. It was only once she closed her eyes again and started drifting off that he whispered to her that he loved her. But when first light woke her that morning, he was already gone. She wanted him to stay, but how could she ask? The next time she saw him it would be for the nearly silent ritual they played out every night in her bed.
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