though i am
in this
hell and fire
i'm filled with
honey and nectar" - Ode (Ghazal) 1395I wake to those sounds, those horrible sounds that have haunted my nights for what seems forever. The creak of leather pants opened and slipped down and off, the breathy, soft kisses and cries shifting to deep, guttural moans, the slick of flesh brushing becoming the slaps of flesh pounding, the moans becoming incoherent shouts....
"Oh for gods' sakes, you guys! Give it a *fucking* rest! I'm trying to get some sleep here!"
Herc's and Ares' guilt-ridden, sex-reddened faces look at me from across the campfire.
I'm gonna kill Aphrodite for this.
It was just a normal day, last week. Hercules and Ares, round gazillion. Heated words becoming hard punches, watch out below, gods aflyin', yadda yadda. I thought I was pretty safe until the wall fell on me. I expect they thought they were pretty safe until Aphrodite showed up.
Aphrodite's my buddy, OK? I know she didn't mean this to turn out the way it did, so that's why I haven't gotten out my back-up hind's blood dagger. Yet. But if these guys don't stop with the crazed-weasel thing they're *all* dead and I'm moving back East.
It had been pretty spectacular, even for a Herc/Ares special moment. They'd demolished Ares' temple for starters, trashed the fruit and veggie carts pro forma and gotten the pottery guys in a very tricky baby split with a statue. That was the problem. The statue was Aphrodite's. So was the wall that fell on me and the rest of the temple that used to be attached to it. It seemed to draw her attention.
She was Olympian pissed. Even with the wall and being half-dead and everything, I could hear her. She was *sooo* sick of their shit. It was her *favorite* statue. It was her *favorite* wall. Hell, I was her *favorite* mortal, for that matter, and when Herc finally remembered and found me in the rubble I knew there was gonna be one bitch of a payback.
Some of this is a little unclear-- I remember (I think) seeing her, so pink and angry she'd popped out of her uplift--one of my eyes was dangling on my cheek from where the big stone piece had crushed my head so my depth perception was a little off, but even an all-dead guy would notice those tits and those cookie-sized nipples--and I know Herc was feeling really bad about the property damage and the lowering of the tax-base and my severe, blunt head and penetrating thoracic trauma and Ares looked really sad about a rip in his clothes, but I know I remember what happened next. I'm still living it.
"You guys have *crossed* the line. Can't get enough of each other? I'll make it so you *can't* get enough of each other, unless Iolaus--Iolaus?"
I was digging in my pockets for change for Charon by this point but she came through for me, as usual.
"FIX him, Ares! *You* broke the temple."
So I was really awake for the big, multicolored and hand-tipped point of the discussion.
"You think you know tension? I'll show you tension. Unresolved? You'll wish it was that easy with every breath, every cell in your miserable, gorgeous bodies. Watch my lips. Unrelenting. U N R E L E N T I N G sexual tension. For a week. For each other. Hardons 24/7. Shoppers, it's a Korinth- Mart blue-balls special. Compelled to touch, rub, tease, taste, fuck--but only able to come if Iolaus lets you--and I hope he makes you *suffer*!"
She scooped herself back into her clothes.
"That'll teach you to mess up my temple. Yeah--and you either, Curly."
I might have been a little PO'd by that except she was giving me some excellent mouth-to-mouth resuscitation by that point. Ares hadn't removed the big piece of timber from my chest yet—he was distracted by the hole in his vest--and what with those soft, buoyant breasts against my shoulders and neck that would have gotten Sisyphus up the hill, let me tell you, I didn't consider the ramifications the way I should have. So I guess it's my own fault. But I still think I was set up.
So, between a grumbling and disdainful God of War and a cooing and victorious Goddess of Love they got me patched up. Herc went off and fixed as much as he could. Then we were on our own-- and it started.
Now, I've got nothing against naked and sweaty, thrusting guys--hell, I've been one myself. I like to watch, almost as much as I like to play. I like the UST-thing, love the boy-boy. The way they looked at each other--the hunger, the desire--lit them like forge-fire heating metal so hot your eye cannot tell white from gold. I was so turned on, just seeing that, and the musk from their skins that washed over me like rain. Steam. The air was hazy and humid and so, so sexy.
They touched. Lightning. They kissed. Gaea born from fiery Chaos.
*I* couldn't breathe--and I was just a bystander.
They're beautiful men, even when they're fighting. You can't believe how much more beautiful they are when they're fucking. Swollen, pouting lips. Heavy-lidded eyes and sex-flushed cheeks. The slow strong sculpting of each other's limbs to desire's proportion. The rough music of their cries and moans.
What could I do? They were my gods. I fell to my knees in worship; opened my pants and grabbed my rock-hard cock and offered my total, sincere, one-handed devotion.
I guess I blacked out when I came. Next thing I know, I'm looking up at the sky, jizz all over my vest, and there's blood in my mouth where I bit my tongue. I could hear them still huffing and pounding away--and remembered the rest of the deal. They can't come unless I let them.
Based on how hot I'd been, they've got to be really suffering now, so I stagger on over and touch Herc's flexing ass. He comes with a shout that would crack Olympus' foundation. I brush my hand through Ares' sweat-clotted hair and his eyes roll back and he faints. Cool.
It's the pure, undistilled essence of sex to touch these men, and I'm getting hard all over again. In a few moments, I see it happen to them. I hear Herc moan "Ares," and I see Ares trace Herc's lips with his thumb and then kiss him so sweetly my legs give way and they're at it like it's the first time. I'm a little clearer on the flow this time, and bring them off at the same time as my own climax.
Absolutely phenomenal.
The first fifty times, maybe. They kept it up and I kept it *up* until my hand was raw and my cock was numb and my balls were shrunk to raisins, it felt like. And it was barely the second day. It stopped being so overwhelming sexy and started to get weird. Or maybe I started to get weird. Once I could ignore the compelling, naked, thrusting guys I started to remember the wall, and the chokings, beatings, sword wounds, falls, tosses, and general mayhem I'd suffered because of these two clowns. Not to mention almost getting sexed to death.
I admit it. I lost my compassion. I left them bangin' away and went to get dinner. I almost got it, too, when somebody burst into the tavern and started screaming about the earth moving and the trees shaking and this horrible screaming outside of town back in the general direction of where I'd left them. Without Herc to cosign, they wouldn't let me take my bowl of stew without a deposit and I don't have that kind of money, so I had to run back, hungry and pissed, to hit the reset button.
They looked horrible--ragged, pale and trembling, and pumping, pumping away like little machines. They came at my touch in painful, short twitches that broke my heart. It looked like I had to be close to keep things sort of tamped down--they'd trenched themselves about a foot into the ground hopelessly looking to find their own relief. They're covered in dirt and a fine coarse stony powder from a couple of rocks that got between them and got crushed. That backs me off the idea of playing "find the Golden Hunter"--don't wanna to be pickle in the middle when divinities fuck.
After this one, even *they* couldn't start right back again so I helped them to their feet and into their clothes and we went back to town for food. Gods know they needed some liquids. We barely get settled with our bowls when Ares puts a strawberry on his tongue and Herc takes it off with his tonsils and then butters Ares' chest and proceeds to start licking it off. People were amused and disgusted by it all, and someone suggested I could get rich taking them to a bathhouse and selling tickets. I was wondering if the Hestian virgins were having open call. Pretty soon they're dancing around, dry-humping each other's thighs all over the place, tables are overturned, food is flying and we're getting kicked out. They let me keep my stew this time, though, and offer to set out food as long as we don't come back in for it. It isn't a whole lot less damage than one of their fights.
You know, the gods have got it all fucked up. Zeus thinks fear is strength and Ares thinks fighting is fucking and Aphrodite thinks fucking is love. Ever notice they're never around for the follow-up? 'Dite's not the goddess of babies and Ares' not the god of war wounds? Uh-Uh. They farm out the consequences to some other dinkhead deity, who couldn't care less about what they didn't start 'cos they've got their own game to run. I don't get what the whole dynamic between Herc and Ares is, but this love connection-thing isn't changing how they feel about each other, except to probably make it worse. You can see it in their faces, once you look past the drool and love-bites. Ever see a pair of humping dogs get turned around so they can't get loose but can't really fuck? Sheepish, vaguely embarrassed, trying to pretend they have no idea how they got stuck together at the ass? That's *their* afterglow. Herc's a shy, modest guy. He really believes in true love and commitment and lights-out, shades-down, private sex. I can count the number of times I've held his hand in public, and we've never kissed, not even when I've died. And Ares? Mr. Control-Freak? It's just burning his ass to be so helpless before an enemy. He may be beaten but he'll never surrender, never know that joy of willful submission to this lover. And they're both hating me for being the witness and holding the power.
Yeah, I can hardly wait for this week to be over. I'm so sick of cocks and cum and panting and sighing and screams and moans. I'd like to share a meal where the other plate isn't a lover's body. I'd like faces across the table that weren't stupid with lust and slack with desire and a conversation that didn't end in oohh--aaahh. I'd like a little help around the campsite! I'd like a whole night's sleep. I'm sure they'd say the same if they could get their tongues out of each other's mouths long enough. I want my lover back, and a quiet, dark place with nobody around where I can love the pain and shame from his sad heart.
Ares can go play with his sword 'til he feels better.
They're starting to sound pretty miserable over there, so I suppose going back to sleep is out of the question. No more top and bottom for them. They're so tired they've been reduced to a forlorn sort of egalitarianism and they can barely hold each other, lying side by side. Herc's face is lined by exhaustion, and his eyes are closed tight against this humiliation. Ares is watching my every move with a desperate, animal awareness. I know he doesn't trust me, but I'm long past any temptation to make his suffering worse. I bring a skin of water to his lips and make him drink half of it before I kiss him on the temple and stroke back his hair as he cries out, relaxing into unconsciousness? sleep? Some dark and still place, at least. At last.
Herc's eyes open as he hears Ares' cry, and he looks at me with such wretchedness I think about doing Aphrodite just because of it. I make him drink, too, and then move around behind him. He keeps thumping against Ares' body and I scoot up to him, spooning close and wrapping my arm across his chest to rest over his pounding heart. "Come, baby," I whisper into his ear, kissing his neck, "it's gonna be all right. I love you so, so much." He tenses and releases with a deep groan, and as I hold him I can feel him shake with soundless sobs. He hasn't slept in the last two days, or spoken, but he holds my hand against his chest with all the little strength he has.
It's almost over and we're gonna get through it. Wish Eos was my friend, instead of 'Dite. I just want the dawn to come, so we can go home. I can hardly wait to see them in clothes again. They're so gorgeous, all covered up.
The End
