Despite her large belly, Melissa was still very eager to make love to both her lovers, and the men now entertained a comfortable closeness to one another, so much so that they could very easily make love with both of them present.
Of course Lukas still shared love often, with George, or with Sofia, and maybe some other people they didn't know. It was a fact of life Melissa and Paul had learned to accept, and sometimes Lukas told them about his exploits, and sometimes he didn't.
After making love they went to sleep in a tangle, as usual, though Melissa liked to sleep on the outside more often, because her belly was really bothering her sometimes and she felt hemmed in in the middle. Also, she needed to use the privy a lot.
So one of the guys took the middle, and she slept against whoever that was. After their Greek adventure they had become so close that it didn't really
matter which of the other two they felt as they slept, during the nights they were all together, and everything was just fine.
Of course she woke up in the middle of the night, and had to use the privy again, so she did, and on impulse she decided to check on their guest, he might feel lonely or hungry again.
But he was still sleeping soundly, and by the light of the moon she could see his thin face, at peace in his sleep.
Trying to remember his misdeeds, she found it difficult already to see past the gaunt face, changed past recognition by deprivation, losing its fear and its self-reproach in sleep. To be honest, she felt her heart go out to this helpless man, her famous tender streak, enhanced by the hormones of her progressing pregnancy.
Assured he was doing well, she left John, and went back to their own bedroom, and crawled back into their own bed, nice and snug against Lukas.
As she was trying to stop thinking about what John must have gone through to go from a decidedly chubby, totally bored youth to an emaciated, frightened man in his thirties, she heard footsteps on the stairs, and she heard the front door creak.
She had left it unlocked, to enable John to find them if he felt anxious.
Apparently he did, and he was looking for them. As the footsteps passed the door of their bedroom, she called out softly, and immediately the door opened and their visitor came in.
She let him know she was awake, and he came to her side of the bed, cold of course, for it was only March and it was freezing outside. They liked to keep their bedchamber cold, then lie under a nice and warm duvet.
'I don't want to be alone anymore,' he practically begged, and Melissa felt very tender-hearted, she just couldn't help it, he was so pathetic.
'You may sleep against me, but I do not want to share love with you, nor can you touch me anywhere that might stimulate either you or me. Can you do that?' she asked him, rather severely.
He replied: 'I promise, I will not touch you indecently in any way, I have learned Victorian morals the hard way. I don't think I even can make love anymore, the price has been so high these last months.'
That was so sad to hear, it reminded Melissa of Paul just after he had been saved from Dionysus' niece, and she asked: 'May I touch you decently?
Can you handle being held?'
He replied shyly: 'Will you please try? I feel so lonely and cold.'
Who could resist such a plea? Melissa certainly couldn't. She made a little space for John, and he quickly got under the blankets and snuggled against her. His skin-and-bones body was very close to hers, and his arms held her in innocuous places, but he did nothing indecent, and very soon he did no longer feel cold against her lush body. She carefully tried to put an arm around him, and he didn't tense or try to remove it. Warmed up and comfortable, sleep took him again, at peace for a few hours.
Melissa felt a bit worried at his total lack of flesh, how could anyone be so emaciated and still live?But he had eaten well, and he didn't seem close to death anymore, so she tried to forget her concern and just go to sleep.
She sniffed his scent, and discerned mainly the soap Lukas had used to clean him up, but that was a comfortable, well-known scent to her, so she soon fell asleep as well, not even weirded out by sharing a bed with no less than three men.
Chapter 26
She woke up with a sleepy John rubbing against her a little, and she seemed to feel his excitement against her thigh, but nothing worse. Somehow it felt as a relief, that he could feel heat already, it must mean his life was no longer in danger.
Being a hot-blooded person herself, with rather strong urges, she could understand his body taking over for a few moments, in that strange state between sleep and awareness. She was curious what would happen next, if his body took him too far she could always wake him.
His hands stayed exactly where they should, enjoying the feel of her soft flesh, but not feeling her up or touching her breasts or thighs. One hand rested on her tummy, and the baby reacted to it. Somehow, that gave Melissa a kind of trust in John, if her baby didn't feel any badness in him, she would feel more inclined to trust him herself. Of course her logical mind objected to that, how could an unborn baby feel someone's intent when a normal person couldn't? A baby probably didn't even have a complete brain yet, in this stage of the pregnancy.
But the feeling remained, and since Melissa had started to follow her feelings just a little more since hormones first raged through her body, she didn't deny it further.
Suddenly the shape beside her snatched his hands back and turned away from her in one quick move, curling up in an instant. Street reflexes probably, he must have woken up. She turned towards him and very gently stroked his hair.
'I couldn't help it, I was still asleep, please don't hurt me.' A muffled voice sounded from within the ball of skin and bones.
'No-one will hurt you, John. Not even if you do something wrong, but you didn't. Your body enjoyed being safe, and lying against a woman, but you controlled it and respected me. Please try to relax, I promise you will be safe.
Why don't you tell me how you got your London name, John?'
That was a good idea, distracting him. He turned to face her, looking
much better already for a night's sleep and some food, and she supposed, a little love. He snuggled back against her, no hardened parts touching her now, she felt sad for him, his capacity to love damaged by the way he had tried to make a living. She wanted to help him love again, but it was just not possible, she had more than enough men to please already.
But at least his subconscious still felt excitement, and there was always Lukas to cure any trauma, though that might be a bit too intimate yet. There was a lot of old pain between those two men. Too bad John was a ladies-man, or George might have been willing.
Although George did have a very caring spouse who liked young men who spoke Greek. Though John wasn't very young anymore, he was small and slight and rather appealing, and with plenty of love he'd get his youthful look back, quickly.
An idea started to take shape in her mind, and she let it simmer there, for John dared enjoy her stroking now, leaning into it like a cat, closing his eyes in pleasure. Innocent pleasure.
After a while he spoke: 'Every time I introduced myself as Dionysus, they shortened it to Dion, and that naturally became John. So I kept the name, I wasn't a jolly, drunk god anymore anyway. I yearned for wine, and not being able to afford it, deprivation made me sick for weeks, but if I had continued my drinking I would have died long since. Being drunk when it freezes is deadly.'
Melissa pictured the god she had met in Greece, just half a year ago, and the difference in looks, but also in manners, was stunning. Except for his gauntness and haunted look, this was a normal man, not the bored and lazy creature full of pathos.
'Do you want to eat again?' she asked him.
'Yes, please!' was the logical reply.
Melissa sat up, and found Lukas already gone from the bed, probably off for a run, Paul still fast asleep. Everything was as it should be.
She dressed, and got John a woollen jumper, he would need an extra layer until he started to put on
some fat.
Melissa was glad most of her skirts still fit her, being very loosely cut, but of course corsets were out of the question, they just didn't fit anymore, so she had switched to blouses. Not for the first time, she wished she had Katarina close, to order some special dresses for when she got really big, something a little more flattering than the Victorian idea of maternity clothing.
'Where's Lukas?' John asked, with something like panic in his voice.
As nonchalantly as possible, she replied: 'Off for his morning run, most likely. He always runs for an hour, to stay in shape. It makes him very happy.
He usually runs by friends, who own a really large estate close to our home, with woods and grassy hills, where he doesn't have to hide his hoofs, and where he can swim naked. In summer that is, even Lukas isn't crazy enough to swim in winter. We thought he'd never get used to the cold at first.'
John nodded, he knew all about that.
'They did give me a really good coat, you know, and warm clothes. They gave me every chance to make it here, except that there is no sense of community here. In our country, I would have been taken in by someone and put to work, but here no-one cared.
Hermes probably didn't know, through my hardships I learned that gods, including myself as I used to be, are much more fallible than we like to believe, living on the edge has taught me how human we actually are. Magic wouldn't have saved me, though needing love desperately made it harder to survive.
I realize only now that your friendship feeds me as well, I thought I needed to make love to stay young. But it is much easier, and much more real this way, making love to someone I didn't care about and who didn't care about me always felt wrong but I thought I needed to do it.'
She took him to the kitchen for the food, and though he did look around with amazement, he kept following her obediently.
'Please be your own person, John. If you want to stay back a little to admire Paul's little palace, please do. Do you want coffee?'
'Art is even more rare where I was than food. Yes, I'd like to look around a lot, and I would like to try coffee, I've never had any. I wish I could go to Lukas' friends at the manor house, I haven't seen even the slightest bit of nature in months.'
He was examining the design of the cupboards, preferring to stay close to her after all. Melissa suspected he was afraid of running into Paul. Oh well, he'd get over it once he saw Paul was really very gentle, just protective.
Melissa thought it was a matter of days before John would be included in Paul's protectiveness, and then he'd feel that much safer because of it.
She decided to give John a nice taste of Greece, they had found a little shop that sold really good olives and Greek-style cheese, and neither would
be too rich for his stomach. Some of the bread the guys liked to bake for themselves, and coffee, completed the fare.
They sat down, and Melissa saw John try to not fall on the food, but eat it slowly. As he tasted the olives and the cheese, his eyes filled with tears, and he just let them roll down his hollow cheeks until they fell on the table. There was little pathos left in this new incarnation of the once-bored god.
He ate only a little, but it took a long time, for he savoured every morsel with intense pleasure, and some sadness too, for his lost homeland.
'Do you think I will ever see my land again?' he asked in a choked voice.
'You can go through the portal any time,' Melissa replied, and he said bitterly: 'To be a hunted exile again, a being without magic, the lowest of the low.'
'Lukas had no magic, did you see him as inferior?' Melissa managed to ask this without judgement colouring her voice.
John bowed his head, and admitted: 'His magic had not been taken from him in shame, like mine, and he was always very dear to me, but yes, I did see him as inferior for having no magic. And still he loved me, knowing I saw him as some kind of pet, not an equal partner. How much our situations have been reversed. He is very powerful, even on this world.'
'Lukas takes you very seriously, and he will help you become self-sufficient, as Paul and I helped him. And even if you can never return to your own world, you will have a good life here. But I find you a different person already, John, so all may not be lost. Did you just say 'again', were you hunted before in your own world?'
'Didn't anyone ever tell you?' he wondered, 'no, of course not, they wouldn't even know. He wouldn't have told them. Zeus is my father, too, and Hera really hates me, she tried to kill me repeatedly when I was still very small and not come into my own as a god. I ran and ran from her, until I got my powers, my own followers and worshippers and didn't need to run anymore. But she still has it in for me, she wants me killed.
Frankly, if the other gods had left me on our world with my magic blocked, I wouldn't have survived a single day, she'd have gotten me.'
'But why did you look down on Lukas when you started out as a mortal yourself? ' Melissa did not understand.
'I guess I was an arrogant piece of trash with an inferiority complex. I was so afraid of his rise to power that I betrayed everything in myself that was ever of any worth, my love for Lykos Hermeides, my nephew. That terrible
crime can never be redeemed.'
Melissa had never had any patience with the Greek gods' tendency towards pathos, so she said dryly: 'I'm sure Lukas will find a way in which you can make up for it, don't worry.'
Poor John didn't have the energy to keep up his self-reproach, so he sipped his coffee instead.
But he clearly had a little trouble with the taste of coffee, he was too polite to say he didn't like it, but Melissa could see it in his face.
She offered him some of her own tea instead, she could still only appreciate Frances' brew now, and said: 'You'll get used to it. It gives a nice kick in the morning.'
Just then, Paul entered the kitchen and greeted Melissa with a warm embrace and a kiss. He said: 'I followed my nose to the coffee, if you don't like it, John, I'll have it. Lukas out running?'
John was holding on to his chair, frozen up, fear in his eyes.
Paul ignored his reaction, maybe remembering his own fear, poured a cup of coffee, and only then looked at John, asking conversationally: 'And, do you like my little palace?
Swallowing audibly, John found his voice, though his body did not relax:
'I've seen riches, owned them, but your place is different. It is not opulent, just perfect. I have not explored yet, to be frank, Paul, I didn't dare. My mind tells me to trust you, but my instincts tell me you are dangerous and to flee from you. I'm sorry, I cannot help it.'
Of all the people Melissa knew, Paul would be the first to relate to John's fear, and he said: 'I understand, I've been there, John. Do you dare to challenge the fear?'
And he opened his arms and invited John to sit on his lap. 'I have come to like cuddling guys, Lukas needs a lot of love, too. Don't worry, the chair will hold.'
That worked, it moved John's attention to the slim, elegant chair instead of to his fear, and he found he could move again.
'It is beautiful, everything here is beautiful. Your dolphin necklace is the most beautiful thing I've seen. I'll try, please forgive me if I fail.'
And with that, John got up and sat on Paul's lap, Paul's hands on his shoulders, lightly, not restraining him. Nothing happened. Paul sipped his coffee, life went on, as John fought his urge to run, and won.
He really looked at his host now, and observed: 'Your hair is shorter, and darker, and you have more of a beard. You're a good-looking fellow, in a rugged way. You smell nice. May I try to sit against you?'
'Be my guest, as I said, I like cuddling men these days,' was Paul's open answer, 'test your fear of me, I am actually quite a nice guy. I've been told my love is so strong it burns, very powerful stuff, once you get used to it.'
John put his arms around Paul carefully, slowly, and then he laid his head on the taller man's chest. One of Paul's arms closed around him, the other stroked his hair, his shoulders, his back, innocu
ous places.
He did smell nice, this big guy, and his touch was very light, very loving.
Of course he had to be nice, Lykos, no, Lukas, better get used to that, wouldn't have loved him if he weren't. It did feel good to have those large, strong hands hold him and stroke him. One hand moved a little to more sensitive places now, his face, his throat, and still he didn't feel fear.
'You smell nice as well,' a deep voice said, 'I smell soap, and yourself, and Melissa, she let you cuddle her, didn't she? Did you feel the baby move?'
At the mention of him touching this man's wife, John froze again, but there was no challenge in Paul's words, and then he mentioned the baby.
'I did, I did feel your belly move, Melissa.'
She observed quietly: 'I know, I felt the baby react to you.'
'He must like you then, John,' Paul said, holding the emaciated man who had once been Lukas' worst enemy with two arms around him now. 'Do you believe now that I mean you no harm? Will you come with me for a tour of my house? I'm very proud of my work and I like to show people around.'
John nodded, and replied: 'I do, my mind is convinced that you mean me no harm, and my body almost. Please don't blame me if it still betrays me every so often. I've been hurt a lot by strong men, and your demeanour is rather imposing to a small guy like me.'
He was small, even for a Greek man, his weight had made him seem larger than he truly was, and now he was greatly diminished, almost a boy in stature, though his face betrayed his age and his experiences.
But they would soon have him back to a normal weight, and a more trusting attitude, and most important of all, Melissa found she liked him, she didn't mind having him around.
That would make him a lot easier to live with, she knew he would not be going anywhere else soon, and she did not mind one bit.
John's fearful attitude towards him had stirred Paul's own memories a lot, he clearly remembered his own skittishness after having been tortured and abused for just one day, by a slight but powerful young woman. What John must be feeling after months of humiliation and depravation by men much stronger than himself, was something he couldn't imagine, and he felt sorry for the smaller man.
Past Lives Page 43
