Bred by the Spartans (7 page)

Then, almost immediately, she heard footsteps. Apollo must be in the chamber now, looking at Argeia, spread open for him. Argeia felt herself blushing furiously at the thought of him surveying her maiden charms.

She felt the couch shift as the god sat upon it, but still out of her field of vision. Argeia still held in her mind the lovely, melting vision of him that she’d had only a few moments before, as she listened to the song of welcome, but the fear began to grow as she wondered what Apollo would do: how would it begin? That fear, though, she realized had begun to make the melting inside Argeia even greater, and now she seemed to herself literally to start to melt, as she felt a warm moisture gather in her secret furrow.

“Good evening, my dear,” said the rich voice of the god of culture and refinement. “You are just as beautiful as I pictured you all day as I rode that cursed chariot across the sky. It seems no chore, though, now that I have found this beautiful reward waiting for me.”

Argeia felt the god’s hand upon her bottom, lightly and caressingly, and she could not suppress a little whimper. She almost spoke, to ask about Thaleia, but Apollo said, “We will not discuss Thaleia for a while yet. I have in mind exactly what I can do, never fear. It is not much, but I think it will ease her way, and your mind, sweet Argeia.”

“Thank you, lord,” Argeia whispered.

“So lovely,” Apollo said, running his hand over her bottom cheeks, over her hip, her white arm. He reached farther forward and touched her belly, then, ever so gently, her right breast. When he took the little bud there in his fingers, and rubbed with the lightness of the light itself, Argeia gasped and said, “Oh, heaven, lord…”

“Lie on your back, raise your knees, and spread them, Argeia,” Apollo murmured, taking his hand away as he did so. “I wish to see your charms laid out before me.”

Blushing ever more hotly, Argeia obeyed the god. As she turned onto her back, she saw him for the first time, sitting unclothed upon the edge of the bed, smiling at her, the light pooling around him as it always did, and his golden locks falling to his shoulders. His blue eyes seemed kind, but although he differed from his terrible father in so many other ways, Argeia could see the same authority in them that she had seen in the eyes of Zeus the night before.

To Argeia’s embarrassment, Apollo bent his head down toward her shameful places, and took a deep breath through his nostrils. “What a heavenly scent,” he said, as if to himself alone. Argeia watched him through her parted thighs, with wide-eyed fascination, but at the same time with a feeling of degradation that somehow had begun to seem delicious to her.

The god brought his face even closer to the little furrow, covered lightly by its curly raven locks, and the little ring that lay below it, where, Argeia remembered with a pang, Lord Zeus had broken Thaleia the previous night. Would Apollo… she found that despite the shame involved (or perhaps because of it) the thought of being used there by the god of light did not hold only terror for her, but also some of that melting quality that she had begun to find almost familiar.

Apollo kissed her, right at the top of her secret furrow, where the feeling was greatest. Argeia gave a little questioning cry from the back of her throat at the rush of pleasure from the sight of the god of light kissing her there and from the soft, lovely sensation of it.

Raising his head a very little, so that Argeia could feel his breath moving against her shameful places as he spoke, Lord Apollo said, “I think we will spend a very great deal of time together in this bed, Argeia, so it is important that I explain to you the way that I think of the deeds of Eros that you and I shall soon do.” He kissed her again, and then he put out his tongue and, to Argeia’s simultaneous humiliation and pleasure, the god licked her furrow, from the bottom to the top, as she cried out in helpless lust for more.

“Though I am one of the young Olympians, I have worked hard to understand the ways of Aphrodite and her son, and I have learned that for me the greatest pleasure of all comes from the knowledge that I have such beauty as yours at my command.” He tasted Argeia for a long moment, and his lips were shining when he raised them again. Argeia panted with pleasure that she could not hold at bay, and did not want to.

“When I admire your loveliness, Argeia, I possess it, and that sends a thrill of pleasure through my immortal body. Do you understand?”

Argeia nodded.

“And so I have pleasure in the sight of your shapely bottom and your tender breasts, and your innocent face, and above all in this… little… furrow.” With each word he licked, and now his fingers were working her there, too. “And when I make you cry out with pleasure, I possess you even more fully.”

Now Lord Apollo climbed onto the sleeping couch, and Argeia saw his erect manhood, and through his attentions she wanted it… she wanted it inside her. Upon his knees, between the thighs Argeia kept spread for him, holding her knees up and open, Apollo put the tip of his cock at the wet entrance to her virginal grotto.

He pushed in a little, looking down, as Argeia did too, at the way his cock began to possess her.

“Beautiful,” he murmured, as he took hold of her thighs. Then he looked into Argeia’s eyes. “Mine,” he said, and thrust himself into her, and through her maidenhead, watching her face intently all the while. Argeia bit her lips at the burning pain and gasped, but she did not cry out, for she felt transfixed and possessed, in a way that seemed to take away the pain, by Apollo’s eyes.

When he was inside her, he said, softly, “I am the god of healing, too, you know,” and as he began to move his cock in and out, Argeia felt a marvelous relief not of all the pain, for that would, she thought, have taken away the pleasurable feeling as well, but of the harsh, burning edge of it.

“Oh, lord,” she cried, at the extremity of the pleasure that his divine cock gave to her newly opened grotto.

He changed his position, leaning over her now, with her knees now held open around his powerful arms, as the god supported his weight upon those arms. Apollo kissed Argeia on the mouth, delicately, but so possessively that she felt herself tighten around his cock at the knowledge that she belonged to the god of light, of healing, of glory.

Now the god began to thrust harder and harder. The change in position brought some of his weight upon the little bud at the top of her furrow, which made Argeia arch her back and twist her whole body in pleasure.

“Find bliss now, little Argeia,” Apollo said in her ear, as he loomed above her and the very weight of his divine body, bathed in golden light, seemed to fill her with a yearning hunger that only his cock inside her womanhood could answer. Argeia screamed in pleasure, and knew the ultimate pleasure of Eros for the very first time.

The god withdrew from her grotto and turned upon his back. “Come, Argeia,” he said. “If you are truly mine, make me the free-will offering of your lips and tongue.”

Hesitantly, still shaking from her climax, Argeia pulled herself to a kneeling position and looked down at Apollo’s loins from above. His beautiful cock sprang up straight and long, pointing at her. Argeia looked at Apollo’s face. He looked steadily back into her eyes.

“Do your best now, sweet girl,” he said. “You will please me simply by overcoming your modesty and giving me your mouth’s worship. You may begin by touching me with those lovely, tender hands of yours.”

That was much easier, for truly Argeia yearned to touch that strange part of him. She reached her hands out and grasped him gently, by instinct, thinking of how her secret places loved to be handled softly.

“That’s right,” Apollo said. “Try rubbing up and down.” Argeia tried, and Lord Apollo rewarded her with a soft sound of gratified approval. “Now kiss, my girl,” he said. “Just kiss the top.”

Afire now to do just as the god commanded, Argeia bent and kissed, and felt a little bit of liquid coming out of the end of him, onto her lips. She put her tongue out to taste, and Apollo’s essence was sweet upon it.

“Now receive me,” Apollo said. There was an urgency in his tone now, if not an air of command. Argeia opened her mouth, and, trying to be as gentle with her tongue as the god had been when he had tormented her furrow with a similar pleasure, she took as much of his cock inside as she could.

“Very nice, Argeia,” Apollo said, and she heard with a thrill of delight that his voice held a slight strain in it, as if from the pleasure she gave him. “You will learn to take more and more of me inside. For now, simply take me as deep as you can.” He reached down to brush Argeia’s black hair aside, so that, she realized with a blush, he could see how she struggled to receive his cock.

“You blush because you feel me watching,” Apollo said. “I, the god of prophecy, could find that in my oracles, but I do not need to look there. I know that is why you blush, because I know how it feels to watch, and to see that my little Argeia belongs to me, for she has taken me into her mouth.”

He raised her up then, gently, and coaxed her to come lie beside him. He turned on his side so that they could regard one another.

“My lord,” Argeia asked, looking into the handsomest face in the cosmos. “I have heard… that is, after Thaleia was taken by Zeus, I asked my mother, and she told me at last about the deeds of Eros… and I have heard that the god spurts his essence when… when the goddess pleases him, but you…” She did not know how to finish.

Apollo smiled. “That is true, but I am a little different from other gods in that respect, or so I hear. I promise that I will bestow my divine seed upon you, Argeia, but it is of the utmost importance to me that nothing be done to excess, and so I have learned to control my pleasure, so that when it finally arrives, it is all the sweeter.”

Argeia did not think she understood, but she nodded gravely to show her gratitude to Apollo for answering such an impertinent question.

“Now would you like to hear what I think I may do for Thaleia?”

“Yes, lord,” Argeia said eagerly.

“First, I must warn you that I cannot change anything about her breaking, or the curse that Eros laid upon her. It was fated, like everything else of importance.” Argeia felt herself begin to cry. Had it all been for nothing? At the same time, another emotion seemed to rise up in her—a kind of anger that Argeia was stuck on Olympus now, and Thaleia, though broken, was seeing the lands of men and having adventures.

“But,” Apollo continued. “I think I have a way to make her life happy. It will take a bit of explanation, though, alright?”

“Yes, lord,” Argeia said. Simply knowing that Apollo wanted to help made her feel better, both about Thaleia’s sorrow and about Argeia’s own immortal lot.

“The young warriors of a city called Sparta are the finest fighters, and the finest men, in all Greece. Have you heard of them?”

“Yes, lord. Did not Helen, who went to Troy, come from Sparta?”

“Indeed. Thankfully, the days of that family are done, and a new order rules in Sparta, for the children of Heracles have returned. The Spartans’ greatest days lie in the future, but already the young men have turned to worshipping me, and that has given them surpassing strength and clarity of purpose.”

Argeia felt her brow wrinkle in confusion as Apollo seemed to be speaking of things that had nothing to do with Thaleia.

“Do not worry, Argeia,” he said, evidently seeing her distress. “I am about to get to your sister. I happen to know that Thaleia bears a very important destiny. Really, that’s true of almost everyone in the lands of men—it’s just that it’s always hard to tell what a person’s important destiny will be. Your sister will be the ancestress of the most glorious hero of Sparta, a man who will save all of Greece—indeed, there will be those who say that he saved the whole of civilization. Now the strange thing about prophecy is that it does not change anything in the future—but it often changes the way people feel about the future.”

Again Argeia had very little idea what the god was talking about, but she nodded, because she had begun to see what all this had to do with Thaleia.

“I will send a dream to two of the best of the Spartan warriors, to tell them that they must save your sister, and protect her, and bring her to Delphi to receive a prophecy. My priestess there will, as she must, predict the importance of Thaleia to Sparta. Those Spartan warriors will protect Thaleia with their lives, and her life will be a happy one. Indeed, once you have a hero of your own, you will be able to see Thaleia, in the lands of men, for yourself.”

“A hero of my own, lord?” Argeia asked. This part of the deeds of Eros her mother had still refused to clarify completely.

“Yes, my dear. I am going to put one in your womb before too long, I promise.”

Chapter Eight

The attendants led Thaleia from the high priest’s study to a wagon hitched to a pair of oxen. There were three of them, all big men dressed in yellow chitons. In their eyes Thaleia saw the same look of helpless desire for her that she had seen in the eyes of the swineherd, and of the priests. The curse of Eros seemed to make every man who saw her need to do the deeds of Eros with her that instant, and in a way as humiliating as possible.

Thaleia remembered the brutal way the swineherd had taken her, and she felt her furrow tingle and grow moist once again. As Eros had foretold, and as Thaleia herself had shown when this strange, terrifying adventure had begun in the
andron
of Zeus, Thaleia could not ask for what she needed, and when these men gave it to her, it felt as much like punishment as pleasure, but at the same time it felt like Thaleia had come truly alive. Whipped, and made to do the deeds of Eros with the priests of Zeus, used by them just as she had seen Clea used by Zeus and Poseidon, Thaleia had understood the ambiguity of the expression in Clea’s eyes, and the ambiguity of the sounds of her moans.

When Zeus had finished her breaking upon the dais in the great hall of Aphrodite, Thaleia had felt those same sensations, and the same terrible, shameful pleasure, but her mind had not been able to order those feelings at all. Now, with time and experience of her new mortal existence, it seemed to her that her mind had grown clearer even than it had been on Olympus. Thaleia seemed to understand the cosmos, and her place in it, as she had never understood it before.