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“…wait, what?”
Odai chuckles, continuing to move me like an extension of his body, and speaks the story close at my ear. “Ishtar, my people’s goddess of love, but also of destruction—for what is more destructive than desire and devotion?—descended to the underworld to retrieve her lost love. There are different versions of the story, like with any tale of gods, but let me tell you my favorite, just as you wished.”
The heat from Odai at my back keeps me riveted on both the story and the movements of our bodies. I’m not really listening to the music, but its presence makes this feel as if we are somewhere else, in some far-off place and time.
“I prefer the version of love conquering all,” Odai says. “Ishtar’s beloved Tammuz had been murdered, so she ventured to the underworld to retrieve him, clad in her most powerful vestments. Greeted at the gates, she was told she must divest herself of each article, each veil as it were, the farther she descended, until she stood before her sister, Ereshkigal, ruler of the underworld, in nothing but bare skin.”
Odai drags his fingers along the naked expanse of my belly and around my navel.
“Still, Ishtar was not deterred, would not allow how her love exposed her at her most vulnerable to mean that she was weak or could not triumph. Sometimes love requires giving selflessly, while being open to what is offered by another.”
His hips moving in time with mine, so close that I can feel the line of his cock, makes me want to grind back against him until he breaches the silk separating us.
I realize I am no longer wearing underwear, with nothing beneath my high-slit skirt.
“All love, all fertility and growth upon the earth came to a halt while Ishtar stubbornly waited for her sister to yield. Let the whole world suffer, she thought, if she could not have her beloved back.
“Neither sister would relent, and so it was Tammuz’s sister, Geshtinanna, who suggested a compromise. She would take her brother’s place for half the year, so Tammuz could be in the heavens with Ishtar during that time. It meant he and Geshtinanna would only see each other in the passing of the seasons, for when Tammuz was in the underworld, the mortal world knew winter.”
It's Hades and Persephone’s story mixed with the tale of Orpheus and Eurydice, only Orpheus in the Greek myth was the one who went to retrieve his wife, and he didn’t succeed. Given Ishtar’s story is from Babylon, it’s no guess which came first, and her myth must have been divided into others.
“The story teaches the importance of familial love,” Odai says, “that all love is equally powerful. Though perhaps none so great as one worth fighting for.” There is still music, distant and soothing, but Odai brings our bodies to a stop. He moves my hair to drape over one shoulder and kisses my neck.
“Did you tell that story to your prince?”
Odai flinches.
“Sorry!” I feel like an asshole for saying that and spin in his arms. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”
He doesn’t look angry, but there is pain in his eyes. So much pain. “He was not the one who condemned me, but he made no move to save me either. I loved him, but to him, I was no more than a slave, a possession and convenience for him.
“With you, beautiful one, I almost feel free.” He kisses me then with such fervor that my toes curl. His voice is rough and growly when he says, “Jeffrey, it is time that I either grant another wish, or we partake in other desires.”
“Other! Please?”
“It would be my pleasure.” Odai lifts me and throws me onto the sofa before I realize we’ve danced near enough for it to catch me.
Cas will be pissed, and Mr. Bevilaqua probably traumatized, if we fuck on the company couch, but I can always wish for Odai to clean up the evidence.
I accept Odai as he descends on me and let him share with me the other talented way he can move his hips.
“Oh, and um, Odai? I wish for you to fuck me with the outfits on.”
“Granted.”
Afterward, on the sofa that I am definitely going to need to wish for Odai to sanitize, I tell him about the Greek versions of that story, as we lie in our now very sweaty silks. “The Hades and Persephone myth also has variations like the story of Adam and Eve.”
“I know that one,” Odai says. “Mankind is doomed by the eating of an apple.”
“Some say it might have been a pomegranate.” It’s mostly me lying on top of Odai, encased in his arms. I lace the fingers of our left hands together. “That’s in some of the Hades and Persephone stories too.” And like on The High Priestess card. “Hades offers her one. It’s a very… sensual fruit, sort of evokes the idea of lost innocence and indulgence. I always thought it was kind of sexy watching someone eat one.”
“I would like to see you eat one,” Odai purrs in my ear.
“Yeah? Then I wish for you to see that too.”
It doesn’t surprise me when Odai lifts his right arm, and in his hand is a perfect pomegranate half. I sit up enough to look at him as I bite into its seeds with our eyes locked. Its juicy sweetness gushes from the corners of my mouth.
Odai kisses me as soon as I swallow and laps up the spillage with his forked tongue. Any more of that and I’ll get hard again. I’m halfway there already.
