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And blast Aikos for so concisely being the one to remind me of that.
“Your perfection is truly irritating. Do you know that?”
“Such insolence before a god?” He laughed, but the softer smile he afforded me was uncharacteristically sweet. “Do not forget, Dax, there are several things you best me at. Fare thee well. I am sure we will see each other again soon.”
Several? I thought as Aikos left me to join Hephaestus, and I followed their retreat with my eyes. I wondered what he meant and said aloud, “I certainly wouldn’t have the gall to openly fuck our goddess’s husband.”
“I don’t really mind.”
I whirled in my seat, yet again caught unawares after an unthinking declaration, and nearly tumbled off the bench.
Aphrodite sat beside me where Aikos had vacated.
When she joined me, I had no idea. I was so utterly frozen, so captivated and in awe of her, I couldn’t move to properly fall to my knees and bow.
“M-my goddess!” I managed.
“My child,” she said and cupped my cheek with an elegant hand.
She was without a doubt the goddess of beauty. Though I had long since left behind intimate thoughts of women, my loins stirred just from her proximity.
She had long blond hair, luxurious and flowing, with flowers weaved into it. A reddish pink like passion itself colored her eyes, her lips were plump and rosy, and an ample figure filled her gown and girdle with enviable curves.
“How beautiful you are,” she said to me, while I was struck dumb by the beauty of her. “Clever too. As much a point of pride for me as my own flesh. Eros has faltered in pursuit of love too, you know. But like you, he will find it again, and a lasting one this time, I am sure of it.” She drew her hand away, but where she had touched grew a warmth within me very different from Apollo’s, like a mother’s tender kiss.
“Th-thank you,” I sputtered, for I did not doubt she meant what she said. To be compared to Eros in her favor of me was humbling to a degree that could not be measured.
Aphrodite leaned back on her hands upon the bench as if we were two friends merely chatting, just as Aikos and I had been. “Do you know why I had at times resented my union with Hephaestus? I’ll save you the trouble of fearing you might offend your goddess by answering.” She giggled when my eyes no doubt became the size of sundials. “It is because he thought himself ugly. Because for ages, he had been so self-deprecating, both jealous when I was with others, yet condemning of himself as unworthy of me. I was not accustomed to how to help him move past that internal loathing, and so we drifted and dallied elsewhere than with each other and were generally quite unhappy.”
“Until Aikos,” I said.
“Until Aikos. He gives my husband something I could not, and because of that, when we are together, it is a more beautiful union too.” She sighed in contentment, gazing toward where Hephaestus and Aikos had gone. “Not an arrangement that could work for all beloveds. Apollo will not want to share you, and once you have him, I know you will not share either.”
I wondered just how well she knew me. How many of my prayers she might have heard. How many she might have answered. Though only one mattered now, and I was in the midst of it coming to fruition in the very halls of heaven. “It was always my plan to give myself fully to only one love once I found him,” I concurred.
Her loveliness as she turned her attention and alluring smile on me was magnificent. “And that is a beautiful union for you. Aikos may be one of my greatest achievements. A true masterpiece in the arts of carnality. But you are my masterpiece too, Dax. For you are destined for something Aikos is incapable of. Something he would never seek because it is not meant for him. You are on the right path.”
As much as Aikos’s words had bolstered me, to hear such reinforcement from our goddess emboldened me even more. “Thank you,” I said again.
“My true pleasure.” She winked—and I had to wonder, honestly wonder, if she was mother to Aikos in the flesh as much as she was to Eros, for they were very similar. “If you will excuse me.” She stood and headed off in the same direction as Hephaestus and Aikos.
“You seek to follow them?” I found myself compelled to call after her.
Aphrodite responded with a devious grin thrown over her shoulder. “My husband is particularly virile after an encounter with Aikos, and one can never have too many beautiful unions.”
I laughed. Definitely similar to Aikos.
As she too left me, the courtyard oddly empty today, as if my visitors had planned it as such to catch me alone, it was then that I spotted Apollo entering from the north. I wondered how long he had been watching before making himself known, for the timing was too apt to be coincidence.
I made sure my parchment was further tucked out of sight. I believed I had plenty of inspiration now to finish my poem.
“You have had visitors ahead of me,” Apollo said when he reached me.
“I have. Welcome ones.” I patted the once again vacant spot beside me. “Though you are the most welcome. Always. If it pleases you, my dear Apollo,” I continued before he suggested what we might do today, “unless you object, I know how I would like us to spend our time together.”
“Oh?” He sat, collected and calmer from the turmoil that had seized him yesterday.
More was needed though. I was on the right track. We were. But I knew why Apollo faltered to seek something deeper with me, and not only for a proper courtship.
