A Matter for the Goddess, chapter 9

[maculategiraffe]

"No," said Ian. "Please-- not yet-- please, it can't be yet--"

"It's okay," I said again. "Ian, it's going to be okay. I'll explain everything and– we'll get this all sorted out, okay?"

"I thought we had more time," Ian whispered.

I should have been more sympathetic, I know-- and it did hurt me to see how frightened he was-- but my goddess was in her temple, and it was hard not to feel all was right with the world. I sat down carefully on the floor, and Ian eased himself down next to me; I put my arm around him. The lust was gone; I just wanted to comfort him, and to make him understand why I was happy.

"Listen," I said softly. "We'll get dressed, and I'll take you down to the temple. I'm sure she'll be expecting us-- even if she didn't feel what happened between us just now, Hippolyta will have filled her in by the time we get there."

"She might have felt it?" Ian asked.

"Might have. It's kind of her jurisdiction. L-- lust. Desire."

"Will she be, uh--" Ian was trembling a little bit, against me. "Is she, uh-- will the fact that I'm male be--"

"Oh, she doesn't hate men," I said. "She loves them. In her way."

"Does her way involve grievous bodily harm?"

"No, not at all," I smiled. "More like-- well, she doesn't exactly take men all that seriously. Not in a mean way, just sort of in an 'ooh, aren't you just the cutest strapping warrior!' way. She won't hurt you-- the worst she'll do is make you feel a little bit silly."

"I can live with that," he said.

"Although," I added thoughtfully, "come to think of it, you won't understand anything she says, anyway. She only speaks in Greek. When she's on Themyscira. Which is the only place she comes any more, besides Olympus. She understands English, though, so if she speaks to you, you can just tell her respectfully that you don't understand Greek. In English, I mean."

"Define 'respectfully,' please," he said, pulling a little bit away from me and looking at my face; he seemed to be a little bit less in comfort-seeking mode and more in information-seeking mode, which I took as a good sign. "Are we talking more 'yes ma'am' or more 'yes worshipful holy one as down on my hands and knees I crawl'?"

"Um, kneeling probably wouldn't be a bad idea," I said. "At least at first. And you should call her 'goddess.' But don't– you shouldn't be nervous. There's nothing to be nervous about."

"You look nervous," he said, peering at me. "And if you're nervous, I'm pretty sure I'm petrified."

I laughed, hoping it didn't sound hysterical. "No, no, no. I just-- I always get like this when she– and I didn't know she was going to be early. I'm all– I usually have time to settle down before I– enter her presence."

"Petrified and jealous," he said, with a tiny smile. "Do you have a crush on her?"

"I worship her," I said, grinning. "But she's a goddess, so that's okay."






He wanted to take a shower before we got dressed, but I wouldn't let him. Aphrodite loves the smells of arousal and orgasm, especially female orgasm; showering them off before heading for her temple would be like conscientiously removing a yarmulke before synagogue. We dressed, me in my chiton, him in his worn, lavender-smelling jeans and T-shirt.

"I can't meet a goddess dressed like this," said Ian.

"She won't care," I assured him. "All men's clothing is equally funny-looking to her."

"Oh," said Ian, "well, that makes me feel a lot better."

I stood on tiptoe and kissed him on the cheek, and he slipped an arm around me and leaned down to kiss me full on the mouth. I kissed back. A lot.

"I bet Aphrodite felt that," I said, breathless, when we broke apart, and he gave me another small smile as I slipped my hand in his. "Hey-- Ian?"

"Yeah, Cassie?" he said quietly.

"Whatever her decision is--" I hesitated for just a second. "It'll be-- all right. I know you don't belong to her, so you can't really-- trust her, the way I do. But just know that I believe everything's going to be okay. For you, too."

"Okay," he said, looking-- maybe-- just the slightest bit less pale. "I don't believe it, but it's nice that you do."

We walked to the temple in silence, hand in hand.







As we entered the hall-- Ian clinging hard to my hand-- the goddess turned from intent conversation with Hippolyta, over whom she towered, and smiled. Ian cried out and dropped to his knees, wrapping his arms around my legs and burying his face against my hip. I didn't blame him. Aphrodite wasn't wearing her fullest glory– only her most adept priestesses ever look on that, and then only after a lot of ritual preparation– but even so, she glowed like a nuclear reactor, her draperies accentuating rather than concealing the impossible perfection of her naked body, all gleam and shadow, bright curves and dizzying hollows. I think I'm actually mostly straight– my fucked-up affair with Diana notwithstanding– but her effect on me had nothing to do with that. It's hard to explain if you haven't seen her, but the first time I saw her I fell flat on my face, and I guess I haven't ever really gotten back up, not all the way.

I stayed standing, though, and laid a hand on Ian's head, looking into her eyes.

"My heart rejoices in your presence, Lady," I said, in my most careful and reverent Greek. I'd had practice with that sentence, that and the next one: "Would it please you to temper your glory to the weakness of mortal sight?"

As she moved towards us, there was a flash of light and she changed her aspect. She was still stunningly perfect and inhumanly tall, but her beauty now was less blinding divinity and more A-list movie star, and her still-glittering (but now mercifully opaque) dress wouldn't have looked too odd on the red carpet.

"Little sister," she said in Greek, her voice all the dark, throaty sweetness of all the bedroom murmurs of the world. "You are most welcome to my presence. As is your consort. Rise, little one," she said to Ian, "and do not be afraid."

"Thank you, my sister," I said gratefully. She likes me to call her that, for some reason-- I mean, yes, we have the same dad, but considering that the dad in question is Zeus, it's kind of like me getting all sentimental over a lemur on account of our common ancestor. Not that I don't get all warm and shivery when she calls me little sister in that voice of hers. "He does not understand Greek; may I have permission to translate your words for him?"

"By all means," she said kindly. "And you need not speak Greek to me, dear heart."

"Thank you," I said again, this time in English. "It's okay, Ian. She says to stand up, and not to be afraid." As I helped him up, I suddenly registered exactly what Aphrodite had said. "Consort? No-- I mean, forgive me, beautiful one, but he isn't my-- my--"

Her laughter pealed out, rich and golden. "No? What shall I call him to please you, then? Not your paramour, for I see you have not yet fully known one another. Not your suitor, for I see, too, that he has already won what he sought. Not your spouse, for you have not raised him so high, but not your slave, for you have not suffered him to be laid so low. What is he to you, if not your consort?"

Between her Greek, which makes Hippolyta's sound slangy and modern, and the distraction of her sheer presence, half the time I don't know what the hell she's talking about. Plus Ian was distracting me a little, with his death grip on my hands. But I thought I'd grasped her train of thought.

"She's asking if you're my boyfriend," I told Ian, who stared at me as if I were speaking Greek too; he was pale and shaky, and I wasn't sure he was taking in a word. "I'm not sure what to call him, laughter-loving one. It's-- I mean, we like each other. I guess you could say we're, um, involved."

"It is no surprise to her elder sister that Cassandra should find herself involved with a man," said the goddess, smiling, and again, it took me a second to figure out what she was on about. My name in Greek means "entangler of men," and she'd used the same word that means "entangle" to mean "involve." Even goddesses can't always resist bad puns.

"I didn't entangle him," I said, looking at Hippolyta. "Your priestess bound him to me."

"That she did," said Aphrodite, sobering, "and it was ill done, for she might have done you both grave hurt in so doing, and placed all my Themyscira in danger. Peace, daughter," she said to the queen, who had flushed a dull red and made as if to speak. "Leave us."

Hippolyta did, without another word.

See why I get excited when the goddess visits?

When Hippolyta was gone, Aphrodite held out a hand to Ian. "Come, boy, and let me look at you."

"It's okay," I said again to Ian. "She just wants to– meet you."

After a second's hesitation, he let go of me and stepped forward, shivering visibly, his head bowed low. She touched his chin, turning his face upwards, the impossible beauty of her face expressing such sweet interest that I actually had a flash of jealousy. I wanted her to look at me that way. This is the effect she has.

"Eyes green as the sunny Aegean," she said softly, "and a mouth that puts me in mind of my own brave Aeneas, when he was wounded by the arrow of the Rutulian. A comely face, and a modest, pleasing look about him."

"She thinks you're cute," I told Ian, and he blushed crimson as Aphrodite laughed. She caressed his cheek, and he shivered, his eyes wide. Then she spoke, to my utter astonishment, in English.

"I would not have thee fear me, pretty youth," she said, almost tenderly, with a lilting accent that made me inappropriately weak at the knees. "I am sister to thine heart's lady, and while thou pleasest her, great is the good will I bear thee for her sake."

"Thank you, g-goddess," he said hoarsely, as she ran her beautiful hands through his hair, smiling indulgently.

"Back to thy lady's keeping, sweetling," she said, spinning him around and giving him a gentle push in my direction, "ere I am beguiled to steal thee for myself. I like him, sister," she said, switching back into Greek as Ian stumbled back into my arms. I gave him a quick, reassuring hug. "What is his name?"

"Ian," I said, and Ian looked at me with dizzy expectancy. "No, I mean, she asked your name. She says she likes you. My thanks for your great kindness to him, golden one, but I'm not actually his-- uh-- lady."

"Is it so?" said Aphrodite, looking grave. "Think well before you repudiate him."

"I'm not rejecting him. I just-- it's complicated. Please, my sister, before we talk any more about me being his lady, can you just lift the binding of obedience? It's really stressing us both out."

"But that is what I mean, when I advise you to think well," she said gently. "If I lift the binding, then I cannot allow Ian to continue to live among my people."

"You can't? But why?" I demanded, adding a little belatedly, "Goddess of all peoples?"

"Not for any ill will I bear the youth," she answered, "nor from any real fear that he might harm my daughters. Merely because my Themyscira is a haven for women to live in peace with their own kind, and a man has no place here-- except as the obedient and submitted ward of one of my chosen. Thus far, Hippolyta was right in her judgment, though wrong in her action."

"But if it was wrong, then why can't you reverse it?" I asked. "Sister, it's been hurting him, I've been hurting him--"

"I know," she said, sobering, and looking down at me with such compassion and love that my legs almost gave out on me. "The binding was ill done indeed, dear heart. Hippolyta took no heed of the tinder before her flint was struck. For this is not the first binding that has been laid upon your consort's heart, my Cassandra."

"It isn't?" I asked, bewildered.

"His heart was bound by an enemy," said Aphrodite, or at least I was pretty sure that was what she'd said.

"What echthros?" I asked, confused, thinking of Ares.

"An evil man," said Aphrodite sadly, "who bound him to obedience with the bonds of love and desire, but the evil man did not understand that such bonds are not like knotted rope or cold iron, but like tendrilly vine, strong and ever growing in strength and beauty while they live, but brittle in death. So the enemy was cruel, and your Ian's obedience starved and wasted with his love, and died, and was broken, and its remnant lay dark and dry on his heart, until Hippolyta bound him to you, little understanding that in her binding lived again his anguish at the cruelty of his heart's first owner."

I thought about this for a minute, looking at Ian.

"What?" he whispered. "What's she saying?"

I swallowed. "That– I think she must mean-- that when Hippolyta put the binding on you, it was worse than she thought it would be, because Rob– because the reason you-- obeyed him--? She says-- I think she's saying-- that at first it was because you-- well-- loved him."

"Yeah," he said, but he wasn't looking at me, he was looking at the goddess, and his eyes were bright with tears as he stepped forward, to her, speaking only to her. "Yes. Fucking hell, yes. I did love the cocksucker. He took care of me. Better than anyone else had, since my mom. I thought-- I thought he loved me. I thought-- he'd saved me."

Aphrodite's face made sorrow look like the most beautiful thing in the world. Everyone should look so good when they cry; not that she was crying, or if she was, the tears weren't wet.

"I'm sorry," said Ian, and his tears were human and wet and messy, pouring down his thin, sharp-boned face. "I was-- stupid. Dear goddess, I'm so fucking sorry."

"Be at peace, child," Aphrodite said gently in English, and reached out to touch his wet cheek. "Thou'rt innocent of sin against me."

He sank slowly to his knees and buried his face against the folds of her robe, and she looked back up at me. It wasn't until then that I realized I was crying too.

"The young man has less cause to repent than he knows," the goddess told me softly, as I tried to dry my tears without benefit of her dress, "for I owe him and you a great debt. For had his heart not been fertile ground, and had his lady been less careful in its tending, the binding Hippolyta placed would not have flourished as it did. It was not her power that was greater than she knew, but his and yours, that strengthened the bond beyond any power she could compel."

"We did?" I blinked, and sniffed ungracefully as I tried to understand. "But-- that's bad, isn't it? You said the binding was-- badly done."

"Indeed," she said. "But just as a child, in its innocent gamboling play, may find a pretty striped kitten, and lift the little warm purring thing in its arms, to carry it home, and feed it scraps of meat, and let it sleep at the foot of the bed--"

Spontaneous epic similes: an occupational hazard of talking to classical goddesses.

"--little understanding that its sleek needle-toothed companion is no mere cat, but the cub of a bloodthirsty man-eating tiger--"

"Whoa, didn't see that coming," I said.

"No more did Hippolyta," said the goddess, smiling at me. "So although we may well say the housing of a tiger cub was badly done in the first place, yet if the child should treat the cub as a tiger, with dread and shouts of anger and dismay, the tiger may turn and devour the child that knows it for an enemy. Whereas if the child shall tend it carefully, with gentle words and strokings, the tiger shall grow no less a tiger, but it shall know the child as its friend, that what was ill done may grow well done, by gentleness and well-earned trust."

"Oh," I said. "Um. So if I hadn't been nice to him, Ian would have eaten me?"

Ian lifted his tear-stained face from Aphrodite's robe and looked at me.

"I'm paraphrasing," I told him. "Ian's not a tiger, bright one. Hippolyta acted like he'd hurt somebody if she didn't bind him, but he wouldn't, I know he wouldn't."

"No, Cassandra," she said, still smiling. "Your Ian is not the tiger. The binding itself is. Without due care, it might have driven even a gentle-hearted youth to madness and blood frenzy, and the daughters of Themyscira would have known grave peril. But that vine which would have been blackened by carelessness or cruelty has blossomed, and it tangles the boy to you, by your own tending, and by my gift, if you will have him."

"Have him?" I echoed in Greek. "But-- he can only stay-- if you leave the binding where it is?"

"Just so," she said, as Ian, still on his knees at her feet, watched my face. "I will not part my little sister from her consort, nor cause her to live in exile on account of her heart's choice, while he is subject to her will through my power. But if Cassandra cast him off, he has no business here, and I will bear him back to the world of men myself."

"Cassie?" said Ian softly, and I knew what my face must look like.

"Please," I said to the goddess. "He's-- it's dangerous for him-- back in the world of men. His-- his echthros--" --enemy-- "--wants to hurt him."

"Then keep him safe at your side," said Aphrodite easily, "where no enemy may touch him. Unless he does not please you? Ah, but the blood in your cheeks tells a different tale."

"But that's-- something else," I said, blushing harder. "The binding's been doing something to me, too. I've been feeling-- affected. And sort of-- compelled? Not to obey him, but to-- uh--"

"Tend to him," Aphrodite supplied. "Of course. That is the--" She used a Greek word I didn't know. "--of his obedience, that she who commands his heart should also care for it. You wished to tend to him, so the binding offers you the means to do so, by feeling his needs and desires in your own flesh."

"His needs and desires?" I repeated, thinking of the almost-uncontrollable urge to jump him. "Those are-- I mean-- his?"

She nodded. "Unless they are your own ."

"Oh, well," I said, "that just clears everything right up."

Lucky for me she thinks I'm cute; instead of smiting me where I stood for sarcasm in the presence of divinity, she just laughed.

"When you pledged yourself to me, Cassie," she said, "I did not promise you would stay untangled."

She'd never called me Cassie before. Of course, it's pretty close to the word "tangle," in Greek. I was starting to wish my mom had named me Tiffany.

"Goddess?" said Ian, very unexpectedly, from the floor at her feet.

"Yes, child," she said in English, smiling down on him benignly, instead of smiting him too for interrupting a conversation between two women. Two feminine entities. She really did like him.

"May I--" Ian cleared his throat. "May Cassie and I-- talk? Um-- alone? Would you mind?"

"Since thou ask it, youth entangled by Cassandra," she said, "I would not for the world have it otherwise. Sister, I have other business that awaits my tending. I must speak with Hippolyta, and-- well, let that be. No one will disturb you here, until I come again."