Penelope's Web

by Christopher Rush

  Laestrygonians. That’s the name Penelope gave them, turning them into giants and cannibals for good measure, as if we hadn’t had enough of both. They spitted their human catches and grilled them over slow fires, dead or alive, the wounded still quivering in the flames. All I could do was to cut the hawsers of my own ship and order the crew to row for their lives – which they did, with spears whistling after us and falling short, thank fuck, otherwise we’d have been roasted along with the rest of the fleet. There were no survivors.

  And now we were one ship at the mercy of the sea. We sailed on with heavy hearts, bitterly regretting our dead friends and the gruesome manner in which they’d died.

  The sea, the sea. Who would cross it? Who in his right mind would want to travel that grey waste of water, the unspeakable vastness of the ocean? What is it? There aren’t even any cities in it. It’s an element that exists to hurt, to entrap, to corrupt, to seduce, to make you lose your way and ultimately kill you, if it can. But what is the right mind, and what man is ever in it? What sailor can resist a harbour, or an island, even when every island he encounters is an island of death and deception? Even when the island is home?

  We were a long way from Ithaca, and other islands lay between us, strewn across the sea. The next was a small one, attractive enough on the face of it, with a good harbour and no hint of danger, a tranquil atmosphere, welcoming. A clifftop crenellated with cypress trees, scents of cyclamen, wild mint, sound of birdsong and bees. The works. All the same, we ran the ship ashore in silence before slumping bone-weary on the beach to sleep off our struggles and our grief, still heartsore for our perished friends. We lay there like statues for two whole days and nights.

  Before dawn on the third day I woke up ravenous. I left the men still sleeping and made for the summit of the nearest hill. I was hoping to spot some sign of habitation or food – the crew would wake up famished. The entire island was covered with thick forest, in which anything could have lurked, but nothing was visible. And then I saw it right in the centre: a needle of smoke rising calmly into the sky. Somewhere in there, somebody had a home. And where there’s a home, there’s food. The only odd thing was the sudden quietness. For all the expanse of forest, there wasn’t a twitter, just this huge and birdless silence. Why no dawn chorus? Maybe it was too early. Yet already the heat was intense. It was weird.

  I thought about striking out in the direction of the house, but decided I’d best get back to the crew. And then, like a prayer answered, an antlered stag stepped smartly out of the woods. Drawn by the sun, no doubt, he was on his way to drink at a small stream, and he crossed my path without even being aware of me. I hurled my spear and struck him on the spine. He fell in the dust with a sob. It sounded almost human.

  The men were still bleary-eyed when I got back, bent double beneath the dead weight of this magnificent beast, but when they saw him they jumped to their feet, wide awake at the prospect of food. We built a big fire and roasted meat all day long till sunset, washing it down with the last of the sweet wine from the ship and the cool clear water from the stag’s drinking place. He provided quite a banquet. And when darkness fell we slept soundly again beside the sounding sea.

  When the sun came up, the crew wanted to get going, but I said I’d seen smoke in the centre of the trees and was off to investigate.

  ‘Are you quite sure about that?’

  Eurylochus. I asked him what he meant.

  ‘You don’t get it, do you? You never fucking get it. Last time you decided to investigate we lost six men to that cunt with the one eye.’

  ‘Well, he’s a no-eyed cunt now. I paid him back, didn’t I?’

  ‘It didn’t bring our friends back, though, did it? Not to mention getting the rest of the fucking fleet wiped out.’

  ‘They disobeyed orders.’

  ‘It’s true,’ piped up Antichus. ‘Odysseus can’t be blamed for that disaster. But right now it’s different. You say you want to investigate. But what exactly do you need to investigate? So somebody has a fire going on the island. So what? Let them get on with their meal. What’s it to us? That’s what I’d like to know.’

  ‘So would I!’ Eurylochus had had his say but he couldn’t keep his mouth shut. ‘Yes, what is it to us? The weather’s fine, the wind’s fair, we’re good to go. So why not fucking go? Don’t you ever want to get home?’

  Home again. The word stirred up strong emotions in the men. I could feel the wall of resentment and accusation building against me, as if it had been all my fault, as if Troy had been my idea. As if there had never been a Helen, a Paris, an Agamemnon.

  I dug my heels in.

  ‘For your sins, Eurylochus, I’m putting you in charge of twenty-two men, half the crew. I want you to locate that house I spotted and report back. But when you find it, don’t take any chances, do you hear? You stay outside till you’ve weighed up the situation, no matter what happens. That’s an order. Then you get back here with your report. That’s all.’

  Whatever happened, I didn’t want them blaming everything on me. Eurylochus now shared the responsibility. While he was away, I filled a pitcher with the dregs of the strong stuff and passed it round undiluted. As they were quaffing, I casually mentioned some of the tight corners we’d been in at Troy, the things we’d been through together. The jug passed from lip to lip, and the remembering mouths murmured about our exploits with slurred nostalgia –we’d likely all go down in history, and even be sung as heroes hundreds – maybe thousands – of years from now. This was the mood I wanted, and it was helped along by the growing heat of the morning sun. Soon the whole company was at ease and in no mood to go anywhere. I was careful not to drink more than a sip myself; I wanted to stay sober until Eurylochus returned.

  I got a shock when he did appear, running out of the wood on his own, not a man behind him. I jumped to my feet.

  ‘What the fuck’s going on? Where are the men?’

  He told me the story.

  They had found the house all right. It was in an open glade, with cats sidling in and out of the wild flowers. So far so good. There were dogs too, but not ferocious ones, suggesting a civilised household. It was a world away from that cannibal cunt in his cave, especially when they heard a woman’s voice singing sweetly from inside the house. Even so, Eurylochus obeyed orders, miraculously, and said he’d stay outside and spy through the big open window, which was overhung with foliage. The rest of the men went inside.

  The lady was a beauty. She was working away at an old loom as she sang. There were maidservants flitting about, four of them, all shapely young girls and good-lookers. There wasn’t a man in sight.

  A safe house then. And in spite of being alone and unprotected, the woman didn’t act afraid when the men entered, even though they came in with drawn swords, just in case. She introduced herself as Circe and asked to be introduced to each man individually, clasping and kissing the whole company as tenderly as if each man were her long lost lover. Then she sat them down on couches and ordered the girls to bring them sweet Pramnian wine mixed with amber honey and barley meal and sprinkled with cheese. When the trays were brought in, she produced a jug and poured a small quantity of liquor into each man’s draught.

  ‘It’s a relaxing drink,’ she said, ‘to free up your minds and bodies from the hard times you have been through. You’ll soon feel the effects.’

  She passed her hands lightly, absentmindedly, over her breasts.

  ‘It’s also an aphrodisiac, by the way. And should you feel so inclined, well . . .’

  She waved at the four serving-girls. They stood in a row holding hands and giggling.

  ‘So drink up, lads!’

  Eurylochus admitted he was on the point of forgetting his orders and going inside to join in.

  Except for what happened next.

  One after another, very quickly, the men slipped from the couches and hit the floor. They lay there helpless – not unconscious, but giggling and grunting utter gibberish.

  ‘Dru
gged!’

  ‘Drugged? And the rest! Just wait till I finish my report.’

  They were out of it, completely. The girls stripped them naked. Then they got naked themselves. Some of the crew they tied up, others they got onto all fours and sat astride them, ordering them to lick the arses of the other girls in turn and snuff out the truffles. The men appeared to enjoy it, Eurylochus said. They were in Elysium.

  ‘I’ll give them fucking Elysium,’ I said. ‘You stay here with the rest of the company. I’m going to get them out of that fucking brothel!’

  I took up my bow and my sword with the silver studs and made my way through the woodlands. I soon got lost and wished I’d brought Eurylochus along to show me the way. After an hour of cutting a path through a dense patch, I stumbled into a small clearing and felt so buggered I flung myself down on a bed of flowers and fell asleep in the sun.

  I dreamed briefly. In the dream Eurylochus appeared, to my relief, and pointed the way. He picked one of the flowers I was lying on and said I could crush its juice as an antidote to the drug I’d be given when I met the witch-woman. I woke up with a start. I wasn’t going to take any fucking drug, that much was for sure. As for the flower, I must have scrabbled about in my sleep, because one of the blossoms was clutched in my right hand, root and all. The flower was milk-white, but the root was long and hard and black. The purplish bulbous tip looked like an Ethiopian’s erection, and tendrils hung from it like hairs. All it lacked was balls.

  I wondered vaguely about the dream. Antidote? Witch-woman? Bitch-woman more like. Yes, this root looked like the right treatment for her. I considered it for a second then threw it away.

  ‘Fuck it, I’ll use my own.’

  I took the route of the dream and reached Circe’s place in no time at all. I’d been very close. No sign of any of the crew, but I heard female laughter from somewhere inside the house. I called out, the door opened, and I was looking into the green eyes of Circe.

  She was a stunner. True, I hadn’t been close to a woman for a while, not since Maron’s wife, but this was no ordinary female. Tall, trim, a draped column, her hair was tied up and held with a gold clasp. She looked like fucking aristocracy, so piss elegant I felt like a pig in her presence. I pictured the robe falling from those sculpted shoulders, all the way to her feet, revealing the clefts and curves, the comely hair loosened and wild, cascading past her hips in a bright blonde waterfall, her cunt uncurtained and aroused. Easy to imagine myself submitting to her will. As if reading my mind, she gave me a long slow bow, allowing me to see down between her breasts to the dark flash below the belly. I looked back up into those green eyes.

  ‘So you’re the captain of the crew?’

  ‘That’s right. And where are the crew?’

  ‘They’re being looked after. You can join them shortly. But first some refreshment.’

  She led the way in and went straight to a niche, waving me to a chair. I stayed on my feet. When she turned round she was holding a large golden cup. I played along.

  ‘Only one cup? I never drink alone.’

  I put the cup to my lips and tipped my head back, turning my back on her at the same time and making my way over to the niche. By the time I’d poured her a cup, the unswallowed draught was back in mine. I returned, holding the two cups. She tilted her head and laughed.

  ‘Too late for that, you fool, you’ve quaffed already!’ And she flung the contents of her own cup in my face. ‘Now, down on your knees, boy, and lick my feet! You’ll lick a lot more by the time I’m done with you.’

  One second later, she was standing shocked and stark-naked in front of me, the ripped robe torn open in one go by my hands. I crumpled it up, wiped my streaming face with it and flung it away. I pulled out my sword and stuck it straight out, pointing at her belly.

  ‘Yes, I might get round to licking your pussy, lady. If I feel like it. But right now I’m not the one that’s going to do the licking!’

  Fear filled the green eyes. She dropped to her knees, clutching at mine. Her tits were crushed against my thighs. She reached out for the erection and brought it to her lips.

  ‘That’ll do you fuck-all good either,’ I said. ‘Now, in a little while you are going to call off your bitches and get my men unhooked. Or I’ll drag you backwards through the forest, naked as you are, all the way back to the ship, and then I’ll loose you to my crew. They haven’t tasted a woman in a long while and they’ll be very glad to see you, believe me. After that, I’ll cut your throat and fling you to the fishes. But not before I’ve fucked you up the arse. Alternatively, you can take your chances with me right here and now and see if you can satisfy me. If you can, good for you. If you can’t, you’re fish-shit. What do you think?’

  Relief flooded the green eyes. She let go of me and lay back on the floor, her thighs splayed wide.

  ‘No,’ I said, ‘that’s not it, not quite. Since you like to treat men like pigs, you should find out what it feels like. Assume the position.’

  She hesitated, afraid again, uncertain what to expect.

  ‘Like this.’

  I grabbed her by the haunches and turned her over on her knees, arse in the air. The gates of life glared at me again, daring me to come through. I parted the crack and let her have it. One deep gasp from the fair Circe. I don’t mind admitting it, I was fully aroused by this woman, and not just sexually. This wasn’t rape. I wanted her, all of her, to the core, to the soul. I reached up from her belly to her breasts, dangled apples, their nipples hard as leather. And that arse – so innocent and unprotected, stuck out there in space like a newborn planet, and already starting to thrust back at me. I came out for a second to take in the view.

  It never fails to thrill me, the sheer incongruity, the smooth white buttocks, blank as alabaster, and that black barbaric fracture, ancient with hair. It was like a rape in itself, a self-rape, a split in nature, primitive, fissured, foreign, shockingly savage. I came back in slowly this time, relishing the imprisonment, the pressure on the prick, the incarceration by the cunt, its monstrous mystery, the heavy whirlpool suction, the juice.

  I could feel the spunk running, and I came out again, wanting to prolong the pleasure, but this time she gave me the reach-around, pulling me back in by the balls, and twisted onto her back again, still keeping me inside her, wrapping her long legs around my neck.

  ‘Now!’

  At the last thrust she bucked up hard, dug her heels in and cried out – one long lingering cry wrung out of the abyss of ages. Then she shuddered under me, and I collapsed on her and we lay heavy and fulfilled together in an unbroken silence.

  It had to end.

  ‘Do you love me?’ The clear green eyes drenched me like the sea, soaked my heart through.

  ‘I’ve only just met you.’

  ‘And?’

  It didn’t take any consideration. Of course I loved her. ‘Of course I love you.’

  Whatever it meant, it was true.

  ‘And you’ll stay with me?’

  ‘I’ll stay.’

  What was it exactly, this feeling? It was the ship’s hunger, not for the horizon but for the harbour, that charmed circle between her legs, the safe haven, home. How had it happened, the dominatrix dominated? What was the drug? And who was in control? Whose spell was it? I knew I was under it, whatever it was, and that I had to stay, oh yes.

  ‘I’ll stay with you, Circe.’

  She smiled. ‘And the crew?’

  ‘Leave them to me.’

  They didn’t need too much persuading, not when I told them what was waiting for them: baths of warm water, baskets crammed with meats, an endless supply of wine. Circe lived in style. And to crown it all, four willing girls, happy to do bad things nicely, with all the chastity of cats. Who wouldn’t want to stay awhile? Who in his right mind would want to cross that treacherous sea? Much better to turn your back on the ocean and try to forget, forget.

  And forgetting is what we did on that island. That’s what it was for. So I fo
rgot – forgot to tell Penelope about Circe, about what really happened. A soldier has a lot of forgetting to do when he comes back home after a long war, and there are some things he can’t be expected to remember. Or doesn’t want to remember. In any case, Penelope did the remembering for me. She even gave the island of forgetting a name.

  Aeaea, island of the enchanting enchantress, the lovely Circe, a goddess, sister of a wizard and one of the children of the sun, borne by Perse, the daughter of Ocean. Circe, the encircler, who enmeshed Odysseus on her island and willed him with her wiles to lie with her, preventing his longed-for return to Ithaca and to the Penelope for whom he pined nightly.

  Circe’s house in the centre of the forest was patrolled by wolves and lions, but they were drugged and friendly and fawned on the advance party. Even so, the crew were terrified by these beasts and glad to get inside the house, where Circe showed them great hospitality. But into the Pramnian wine she introduced the drug which robbed them of all memory of their country and the homes and families awaiting their return. She then struck them with her wand and turned them into swine, but still with the minds of men, so that they dropped tears in the sties into which she ushered them, flinging pig-fodder at their feet and ordering them to eat. Thus she left them to wallow in filth.

  Eurylochus sped back to tell his captain what had happened, and Odysseus immediately struck inland through the forest to find the house of the sorceress and free his men from her spell. He would never have succeeded in this venture had he not been met in the forest by Hermes, god of the golden wand.

  ‘Look,’ said Hermes, ‘I know your mission, and it is a commendable one, but it is doomed to failure. You will not get the better of this witch unless you take this antidote to the potion she will put into whatever food or drink she offers you.’

  And Hermes the Giant-Slayer gave Odysseus the herb with the black root and the milk-white flower which the gods called moly, difficult for a mere mortal to dig up out of the ground but easy for a god. He then instructed Odysseus exactly how to subdue the sorceress, whereupon he left him for lofty Olympus.