Receiver of Many

by Rachel Alexander

  The diamonds reflected the light of the torches, diffusing the steamy room with watery light. Blue-gray limestone tiles covered the floor, the fossilized outlines of ancient sea creatures trapped in the stone. Near them sat a raised divan covered in a thick pad of folded wool.

  “Why had you never shown this to me before?” she asked.

  “Honestly, I’d forgotten it was here until yesterday afternoon.”

  “For—”she looked at him, shaking her head. “How can you forget about a place like this?!”

  “Sweet one, I created hundreds of rooms during the millennia I’ve lived here,” he shrugged. “I only keep to a handful of them. I think I made this one sometime… ahh… five thousand years ago, perhaps? I forgot I had.”

  “I wish you hadn’t,” she said with a laugh. “This place would have been a wonderful retreat after practice.”

  “To be fair,” he said with a sly grin, “a tour of the palace seldom crosses my mind after practice. Or yours, for that matter.”

  He folded his arms and watched her blush. The first few times they’d entered the courtyard, their movements had been like a slow, sensual dance. He had held her hand and weapon from behind and angled her slow thrusts, his other palm splayed across her belly to guide her into each new position. On the second day, they couldn’t return to their bedroom fast enough. Aidoneus had forgone the stairs and hallways, instead carrying her through the ether to their bedroom and pinning her to the wall. Later he had taken great care with her, soaking a sponge in warm water and sweet scented tallow soap and running it along her limbs, cleansing her body of the sweat from their exertions.

  It had become a daily ritual for them. She would lie on their bed languidly and watch him go about his morning routine, roughly scrubbing himself with tallow and pumice and warm water from the basin before taking a short razor and olive oil to his face, keeping his beard meticulously trimmed.

  A quick kiss on the cheek snapped Persephone’s drifting attention back to the room.

  “Do you like it?” he said.

  “I love it!” she said. “How deep is the pool?”

  “About eight pechys, I think,” he said. She was untying her girdle before he got the third word out.

  “Perfect!”

  She cast her unbound peplos to the floor and ran naked to the water’s edge, much to Aidon’s amusement. Persephone jumped and tucked her legs against her chest, landing in the center with a mighty splash. He stepped clear of the rebounding water just in time. The pool stilled, the last dark ripple bouncing off the stone edges. The water calmed.

  Aidon scanned its murky surface. “Persephone?”

  She breached the surface with a happy shriek, and looked up at him through the water falling from her hair. “It’s so warm!”

  He relaxed, admiring her. “The water’s from the falls; the heat’s from the Phlegethon.”

  “Well?” she said, wiping a hand across her face. “What are you waiting for?”

  Aidoneus neatly folded her discarded peplos, placing it on the divan. He took his himation off his shoulder and did the same with it. He turned back to her and was met by a wave of water that hit him crisply in the face. He cursed and sputtered, blinking away the rivulets and staring down at the soaked front of his tunic in open-mouthed shock. Persephone doubled over laughing, the joyous sound filling the room, warming him. He wiped the water from his face with a mischievous grin and a low growl. “You’ll pay for that.”

  She treaded water and drew in a halted breath, wondering for a moment if he was serious. Aidon cast the rest of his wet clothing to the floor and walked to the end of the pool farthest from her, his wife’s eyes following him all the while. He dove in gracefully, almost silently, to the bottom of the pool, until his shadow was lost in the dark water.

  A hand wrapped around her ankle and she yelped. She heard her own voice, broken and muffled by the water rushing over her head. By the time she regained the surface, gasping, he was already in front of her. His hair was slicked back by the water, his smile toothy and mirthful.

  She sputtered again. “Was that how you planned to make me pay?”

  He laughed. “Oh, certainly not,” he said, treading closer toward her. “When I do, you’ll know.”

  She bit her lip and swam away from him. He followed her closely until she was backed up against the opposite end of the pool.

  He grinned at her. “Aren’t you the experienced little swimmer…”

  “I’d better be,” Persephone answered as he planted his hands on the pool’s edge on either side of her, ensnaring her within his embrace. Before he could move in to kiss her, she disappeared underwater, diving to the bottom. He looked around for her, then heard a small splash and giggling behind him. “After all,” she said as he turned to face her, “I grew up with water nymphs.”

  She drifted toward him and rested her hands on his shoulders, her nose rubbing against his before she kissed him. She pulled his face closer to hers, tasting him, her hands tangling in the coarse waves of his wet hair. Aidon closed his eyes and pictured her swimming in the sunlight, the grass her carpet, the sky her ceiling, the trees her columns, the pools and rivers filled with her laughter. He smiled as he kissed her; he could taste the living world on her lips and wanted more. “Tell me about your life when you were Kore.”

  She tensed and turned away. He immediately regretted saying it. This conversation might end with him taking her back to Demeter. She looked down, filled with memory, then up at him again, almost perplexed. “What is there to tell?”

  Her reaction pained him, but Aidon was relieved that she wasn’t upset at him. “Everything,” he breathed. “Anything. I want to know all of you.”

  “I have no idea what to tell you, Aidon. Nothing I say could be as exciting as the life you’ve lived.”

  He threw his head back with a short guffaw. “Exciting? Look around you, sweet one. Granted, I enjoyed working upon it, but spending millennia creating hundreds of rooms I never use was hardly exciting.”

  “You fought a war, you’ve been the king of this realm for aeons… and…”

  “And you’re my queen.” He leaned forward, giving her a peck on the nose. “And you always were.”

  “But— the people you met, the things you saw… You knew Prometheus. And Metis. ”

  He remembered the Titaness; gray eyed Metis, graceful and frighteningly intelligent— now gone forever. When he’d glimpsed Athena out of the corner of his eye at Olympus, he’d almost startled. It was like seeing her mother’s ghost.

  “What about Prometheus?”

  “He was my teacher. Prometheus made me into a man, honestly. Once I was free, all I wanted was blind and bloody vengeance, careless of all else. If I had pursued it without his teaching or Hecate’s counsel…”

  “Did he still teach you after the war?”

  “No; after several years he said I surpassed him, and we fought side by side. Prometheus was my friend, my brother— and one of the very few who would visit me in the Underworld afterward. He even named his daughter Aidos after me. He never understood why I quietly accepted this lot.”

  “Why did you?”

  “Because I abide by ananke, the will of the Fates. Not everything I’ve ever wanted has come to fruition, but as I recall you saying,” he said with a smile, “that’s not a bad thing. Ananke has been the guiding principle of my life— as it should be with all the deathless ones,” he said, narrowing his eyes, slightly. The edge in his voice was not lost on her.

  “Did Prometheus not believe that?”

  “No, he did. He just thought I deserved more and advocated on my behalf, though I never asked it of him.”

  “Is that why Zeus took issue with him?”

  “It certainly didn’t help matters. Prometheus did manage to find every way possible to undermine Olympus after the war, especially in defense of the mortals he created.”

  “So when he was to be punished for giving the humans fire—”

  “I supported
him.” He shook his head. “It was contemptible. They needed fire. Too many were needlessly waiting on the banks of the Styx. When Zeus condemned him, I stood against your father. He wanted to send Prometheus to Tartarus, but I told Zeus that I would set him free.”

  “He chained him, anyway. My mother sided with Zeus.”

  He grunted in acknowledgement.

  “And Athena defended Prometheus too.”

  “She did. In retrospect, I should have kept my mouth shut. Zeus never comes down here. Prometheus could have been my honored guest, with no one the wiser. He wouldn’t have lacked company; the Underworld is full of old gods.”

  “See? I told you your life was more exciting than mine ever was.”

  “The Titanomachy was not as thrilling or heroic as I seem to have led you to believe. There’s nothing exciting about killing, Persephone.”

  “But it was something. Your strategies, your plans, a history I had never known.”

  “My plans…” he snorted. “The Fates were never kind to my plans. I had ten years in the sun. You had aeons…”

  “Why did you never come to the living world in all that time? Didn’t you want to see me?”

  It was Persephone’s turn to wonder whether or not her questions reached too far. Aidon looked away from her, his face turned solemn before his eyes met hers again with a sad smile. “My reasons were twofold, my love. First, I needed to acquaint myself with every facet of Chthonia and truly become its lord. Paying constant visits to the surface would have… impeded that. And second, and most important, it was part of my own bargain with Demeter in order to have you as my wife.”

  She knit her brow, thinking about what might have been if her mother had approved of their match. Persephone would have known about Aidoneus her whole life— maybe she would have visited him and seen the Land of the Dead she would one day rule with him. She saddened slightly. Maybe it was better this way.

  “What do you miss the most about the world above?”

  “After ruling here and seeing all the beauty this kingdom has to offer, not much…” For a moment, his eyes wandered upward while he pondered her question. “The stars. The forests. I loved walking through the forests on a moonlit night. Even though it was still, if you listened you could hear everything moving. Living. And sometimes you could hear things dying so that other things might live. I loved the solitude of gathering wood, building a fire to keep the darkness away. The world was so uncertain then. That was the only thing I felt I had any control over.”

  “I rarely ventured into the forests, and never at night. My mother was worried about satyrs. I mostly kept to the wide-open fields. I liked the smell of the ocean air—”

  “So did I.”

  “—the warmth of sunlight on my shoulders, small lakes as bright as the sapphires you used to decorate this room…”

  “Tell me more,” he whispered.

  “There was a field of barley near Eleusis that had the most beautiful little fiery copper butterflies, but they only drank from thistles, so I would put one or two at the borders of the field and give them a home…” She trailed off and looked at him quizzically. “Aidon, this can’t be anything you’d ever care about.”

  “And why not?” He stroked her cheek.

  “What about barley fields and butterflies could possibly hold your interest?”

  “Everything. I rarely saw them.”

  “You were in Thessaly and Lacedaemon and on Crete. Surely if we had them in Eleusis…”

  “The open fields I knew were… razed. No place held much life once war touched it. And everywhere the war went, so did I.” He swam away and circled around her as she backed against the edge of the pool once more. He closed the distance between them. “But you, sweet one, you’ve only known life…” he said with a kiss, “sunlight,” he kissed her again, “innocence…” he said with another.

  She laughed. “That last one’s not entirely true. Of course, I never saw anything until the day you came to me, but I at least knew about how babies are made. I spent my adolescence around nymphs, after all.”

  For a fleeting moment, he cringed. “Nymphs like Merope?”

  “Only briefly. Each was only there for a short time.” She looked down. “I had my mother, but I was… I think I was very lonely most of the time.”

  Aidoneus smiled at her— in loneliness, they had a common companion. He kneaded her shoulders with his fingers and she relaxed back against him, sighing while he deftly worked the knots out of her neck and arms, then taking each of her hands within his and pressing into her palms with his strong thumbs. He drifted behind her, one hand spread across her belly for support, and gently kneaded along her spine from her neck to her tailbone. She hummed in appreciation and fell limp against his encircling arm. Her bottom rhythmically ground against him with each dig of his fingers into her knotted back. Soon he was twitching hotly to life, the muscles of his abdomen tensing. Aidon exhaled harshly and swam to her side, leaning on the edge of the pool, then carefully pulled the wet strands of her braids free. Fumbling with her tresses, he grunted in frustration. Persephone failed to restrain her smile.

  “I swear she makes this more complicated every day just to vex me,” he muttered while he smoothed out the last bound lock. Her warmth and scent started consuming him.

  “And yet you insist on taking it down every day after practice and before we…”

  He returned her half smile. “It gives me pleasure— not to mention another part of you to hold on to.”

  She worried her bottom lip with her teeth as he closed in on her again, his intent clear on his face and in the tension knotting the muscles of his arms. “If it were up to you, my hair would always be unbound, wouldn’t it, my lord?”

  “My lady, if it were up to me, your hair wouldn’t be the only thing going unbound at all times.” He gave her a wild grin that left Persephone blushing. He sank under the warm water, still holding her sides.

  Persephone held on to the pool’s edge as he kissed a quick line down her stomach underwater. She cried out in surprise, then again in pleasure when his tongue rasped against her core. Submerged, he wrapped his arms around her below her hips, tasting her. Her eyes widened and her palms flattened against the limestone as he slowly exhaled, bubbles rippling against her, the sensation taking her breath away. He rose in front of her, breathing hard once he broke the surface.

  She questioned him with wordless gasps, her eyes lidded, her head swimming. He grinned back at her, rivulets of water falling down his face. “Now… there’s your payment for splashing me.”

  “I… I’ll be sure to do so more often.”

  He quickly lifted her out of the water by her hips and placed her on the edge of the pool. Aidoneus separated her knees with his shoulders, his arms pinioning her legs, his hands gripping her thighs and pulling them apart, his tongue warm.

  “Aidon…” she cried, struggling to stay upright and needing to touch him. “Please…”

  He ignored her, deciding that she would pardon him for doing so. She grasped his head, attempting to stay upright. Her fingers threaded into his hair, torn between pushing him away and pulling him closer. Finally, Aidoneus removed his lips from Persephone’s and he hoisted himself out of the pool to sit beside her. She stared at him, passion wrestling with frustration, her eyes darting down the curved length of his body to the column of his flesh standing rigid and begging to be touched. “Forgive me, sweet one, I didn’t want to stop,” he nuzzled against her neck. “I still don’t want to…”

  “What do you suggest?”

  He stood and offered her his hand. She took it, her whole body trembling, and Aidon meandered with her around the pool, toward the divan on the opposite side. Midway there, Persephone quickly spun and crouched low, his member grasped in her hand. Surprised, Aidon stopped, and she pulled him into her waiting mouth. The soft heat enveloping his cock drew the air from his lungs. His knees faltered, her hands and tongue drawing him deliciously off balance. Aidon grabbed her hair a
nd gently pulled her away so he could stare directly into her eyes. “Perhaps something to both our liking,” he rasped. She kept stroking him until he thrust into her clasping fingers.

  He tamped the powerful, instinctual desire to bear her down against the floor, to push his knees and her back into the unyielding limestone again and again until both achieved a bruising, shattering release. She read his want easily, his expression set dangerously on edge while she goaded him into taking her. But he did not, and clearly had something else in mind. Curious, Persephone released him and stood with a smirk. He took one look at her and pulled her with him.

  When they reached their destination, he roughly brushed their clothes to the floor and sat her down, kissing her as he positioned his leg behind her on the divan. Aidon leaned in and nipped at her neck and breasts while he scooted away from her, and lifted one of her legs. She looked at him inquisitively, but followed his lead. He trailed his lips across her stomach and guided her down next to him until they lay on their sides, facing one another, toward yet opposite on another. She laid her head against the side of his leg, face to face with what she had been so eager to enjoy beside to the pool, tracing her finger up its length. He sighed at her caress and focused on his own prize.

  He darted his tongue into her slick folds, lapping up her essence, his head cradled against her thigh. The closeness and intensity made Persephone gasp. It was new, exotic, sublime. And even better, this angle made possible her full descent onto him. He rolled his eyes back and groaned, breaking contact with her momentarily, fearing he would burst as her throat closed around him.

  Aidon hadn’t wanted to let her fully taste him when she’d first suggested it. He felt it would demean her, but she had insisted, voicing her desire, reminding him that he’d brought her to completion without feeling demeaned. He’d agreed with that, at least. Persephone had quietly coaxed it from him one night, when the light of the full moon shone through the Styx and turned the Underworld silver. They had been on the terrace outside their bedroom, unseen by all. She had pressed herself against his chest with a kiss, leaning him back onto the corner railing, the rush of the falls drumming in his ears. When she’d knelt before him, he’d gripped the stone ledge so hard he thought it would crumble like chalk in his hands. Moonlight pooled in the movements of her hair and lips and fingers, and at the end Aidoneus was certain that his shout had awoken every soul in Asphodel. It was him, his essence distilled, all earth and roots and salt, which she drank eagerly and triumphantly that night.