6 • Choose

Ganymede had much to think over.

He landed on the palettes with equal parts chagrin, concern, and jubilation. Zeus was not angry. That gave him relief beyond measure but now he had new things to fill his thoughts, and they regarded him more than they concerned Zeus.

He missed him… a lot. Even now, minutes after seeing him, Ganymede ached for his closeness and not unlike his vivid garments, the god added luxury and color where he did not know he needed it. More than being spoiled, Ganymede saw everything in neutral bland colors, lackluster and unfulfilled.

He pulled the blankets around him, curling around himself as another figure arose in his mind: Hera. Zeus’s queen was not ignorant to his liaisons but their relationship was stronger than ever because of his self-induced celibacy. But the king said he had been with no one since he had Ganymede…not even Hera?

His eyes opened in the darkness. He had spent so much time worrying about Zeus’s feelings toward him that he never properly considered this result. He had never considered having sex with anyone…or rather anyone else, and that realization made him bury his face in the pillow.

Was it worth the trouble of risking Hera’s notice? Or any of the gods for that matter. Ganymede wanted to discuss this with Athena but also just wanted to abandon the matter to slumber.

The next time he opened his eyes, he found this was exactly what he did. The morning light was shining through the window upon him while Eros and Dionysus slept on either side of him. Ganymede could hear the soft clatter of dishes in the kitchen while Athena cooked breakfast as he sat up…

A red poppy rested above his pillow, the scarlet petals radiating with Helios’s light through them. The long green stem still had its scraggly roots on the other side. A black vase with golden veins sat on the windowsill, empty and waiting. Standing with it in hand, he submerged the roots in the water.

Wiping sleep from his eyes as he entered the kitchen, he found a platter of eggs ready to eat with fruit, bread, olives and hummus. Athena smiled at him. “Have your thoughts calmed?”

He yawned as answer and pointed to the food. She understood and shoved the eggs and pita bread toward him. But then she surprised him with, “These are for you.”

With a mouth full of grapes and bread, he looked up at the small pile of fresh raiment on which her hand rested. He unfolded a new shirt of white and soft material but at the shoulders it was not sewn shut. The sleeves were tied so there were peepholes through which his skin could be seen. A medium sized fabric was dyed a faint shade of red, like a mild version of Zeus’s own himation which would hang around hips swathed in his familiar baggy trousers. On the waist and ankles was a design in green thread.

While his thumbs were exploring the fabric, Athena set something else on the table: new sandals, this time made of fabric instead of harsh leather all but for the soles. He met her gaze with inquiring eyes and she shrugged with a smile. “He’s probably been waiting two weeks to give you these. I’m just proud of his patience.”

His lashes swept over his cheeks. He supposed this was Athena’s standpoint on the matter.

Dionysus entered with a wide yawn and slumped beside Ganymede, eating off of his plate instead of getting his own. Finally Ganymede noticed that his behavior was more than grogginess. “What’s wrong?”

“Don’t ask,” Athena intervened. “The tragedies are today and he will be annoying the entire time.”

“Just because I allow myself to feel emotion regularly does not mean I am annoying!” he defended. “Let’s see you not succumb to catharsis today. It’s healthy, you know.”

“I will at least retain my dignity throughout it,” she countered.

“Dignity is subjective,” he grumbled, munching on pita slathered in hummus.

Eros joined them soon after, bright eyed and bushy-haired as he popped fruit into his mouth. Athena commented on this while Dionysus lamented. Eros shrugged indifferently. “Love hurts. It’s my profession.”

Foreboding entered Ganymede’s belly. “Are the tragedies about love?”

“Not necessarily,” Athena provided, whereas Dionysus cried, “Yes!”

She shoved him aside so he fell on the floor. She took his seat. “Usually love or pride is what drives the characters’ actions and it’s supposed to be this intricate lesson on humility…it is a treatise on the war between emotions and intelligence.”

Dionysus harrumphed and drew himself up on his elbows. “How dare you talk about pride and say something like that! There is a difference between hubris and passionate priorities.”

“When those priorities involve others getting killed, the line between them and hubris fades, Bacchus.”

Ganymede’s brows lifted. He had never heard Dionysus called this but the god lounged on his side, propping his head up. “They only die because they are mortal.”

Athena gave him a look. “Yes, this is a slight malady for them.”

Dionysus giggled. “Poor Hades. Eventually all kingdoms collapse into his and no one wants to be there. The lad needs to boost his reputation.”

“There is nothing wrong in fearing death,” Athena scolded softly.

He poked her waist. “Is that why you climbed out of papa’s head?” This dawned an epiphany in his eyes. “Actually, you’re one of the few of us who has seen Thanatos. Usually only the dead can see him.”

Ganymede watched her eyes darken, not unlike her father’s when he was angry or uncomfortable. “You have to be dying or dead to see him,” she acquiesced. “Which makes you an abnormality.”

Dionysus appeared smug at that, but Ganymede wondered, “Because of Semele?”

He winked. “I won’t reveal my secrets.”

This was fine with Ganymede. The more they discussed the god of death, the more uncomfortable he became. “When will we go to the amphitheater?”

Eros nudged his shoulder. “I’ll go with you now, as soon as you’re presentable.”

So he quickly ate and dressed in his fresh garments. He relished how the wind passed through his clothes, cooling him off instead of the fabric capturing the heat and hanging over him. It also helped that the sun only shone directly on him sporadically throughout the morning. At one point he lifted an eyebrow at the thick moving clouds, observing how Zeus was on his best behavior.

They missed the first play but to be quite honest, Ganymede did not fully understand the tragedies. It just seemed to be a regular story in which one or more of the characters died. When he voiced this to Athena she nodded and murmured to him, “To be fair, the writing is not of such caliber as some of the others. They must be saving those for later.”

Encouraged by this, they ventured back into Athens to explore the market and temples before the afternoon heat broke and they returned to a much more crowded amphitheater. Everyone around them seemed keenly interested in the story unfolding, so much so that they cheered and reacted when characters appeared onstage. Ganymede leaned into Eros. “It seems like they know this story already.”

“Of course,” the god nodded. “Everything we have seen and will see is already known.”

“Then why go through the trouble of making all of this for stories they have already heard?”

Eros laughed with a congenial lift of his shoulders. “The people like what they already know, the familiar. And they believe every story here to be true; there is more truth and lessons to be learned in nonfiction than false imaginations. They are retelling the past so they can learn how to proceed in the future.”

Suddenly a new character arrived to the stage, and the crowd went wild for him. Ganymede tried to stand in order to see him but eventually he settled by asking Athena, “Who is it?”

“The tragic hero,” she explained. “The king who will die.”

“Why will he die?”

“Because he is too proud to learn before it is too late.”

Ganymede absorbed that and said, “Why does he have to be a king?”

“Because the higher one falls, the more impact of his fate.”

“Is it fate, though?” he pleaded. “Can he not be saved?”

Athena smiled at him and momentarily cradled his cheek in her palm. “These are stories from the past, sweetling. Not even I can change his end. That is what makes it fate.”

“So it is only called fate if it is in the past? Is fate a figment of human imagination?”

Dionysus leaned over Eros to say, “Have you heard of Oedipus?”

Ganymede shook his head. Dionysus exchanged a look with Athena and retreated. “Never mind, then.”

But that prompted the youth to ask, “Who was Oedipus?”

“Someone who tried to avoid fate and wound up creating it instead,” she said.

His features fell. “So it’s…all a trap?”

Eros cut in, “Don’t be so glum.” He pulled Ganymede to lean against him. “Only Apollo has the ability of foresight, and he’s half mad because of it. Not knowing is part of the blessing of the journey. The best we can do is make the choices that enhance our lives without completely fucking up everyone else’s. Sometimes we are successful, sometimes we are not. That is where this king compromises things.”

He gestured below them to where two actors were engaging each other in dialogue. Eros narrated, “He makes a human error in believing he has made a law for everyone’s betterment.”

“He was wrong?”

Eros considered that. “Well, he did what he thought was right by his people, but not by his family.”

“But his family are a part of his people,” Ganymede voiced.

Dionysus laughed, adding, “Family usually wants special privileges, mate.”

Eros continued, “Where the tragedy lies, though, isn’t in his pride, but his family’s betrayal. His hubris made him blind and it is the deception that results in him being one of the few left living by the play’s end. And to be left in this world alone is one of the greatest tragedies.”

“But he isn’t alone…is he?” Ganymede asked timidly. “His family is gone but his people are still there?”

Eros turned to him with the jaded pity of someone who had crafted love and seen it crushed over the years of eternity. “One hundred billion mean nothing if the one you shared love with is gone.”

Ganymede swallowed thickly. His eyes burned as he gazed down at the figure who was walking through his life which would come to a grinding halt before he realized it. Ganymede sat in silence as he watched the story play out, watched the king argue with his family, watched him display blatant pride but also intelligent actions. He saw the family move in the darkness, breaking his law for what they believed was right. Far from the king being the only tragic character, Ganymede thought they were all doomed. Their differences of passion and obligation made them distrustful of one another from the beginning. It was hardly the king’s fault when he finally entered onto the stage alone, but it was too late for him to be the one to fix everyone’s wrongs.

Athena pulled him close under her arm, raking a hand through his hair before resting it over his eyes. The edge of that hand caught his tears but through its fingers he could see others wiping their own. A crater in the earth full of people, and each of them recognized loneliness when they saw it; felt the crushing ache of failure in their bones.

The spell was broken when Dionysus blew his nose like a trumpet. Audience members around them gave him indignant looks but it was a welcome reprieve. “What’s next?” Ganymede asked.

“Something pleasant,” Eros proclaimed. “I deal with this enough in my work, I don’t need it in my leisure time.”

So they left to have dinner in the city, and Ganymede realized the mood was different. Instead of cranky and easily excited, people were interacting with one another more pleasantly, as if a stressful weight had been lifted. As Ganymede observed this, he lifted his plate of shells with relieved intrigue. “What are these?”

“Snails,” Dionysus said before sucking one out of its shell. Ganymede examined this and did as he saw; the texture had a similar firmness as shellfish but the flavor was infused with garlic and lemon juice. He had a few before he switched to the scarlet tea and baklava while Dionysus revealed his plan for the comedies.

“They are rehearsing this evening. We will join them. Apollo is already overjoyed to make our costumes. He might already be finished with them.”

This proved to be true when they arrived to the stage lit with oil lamps. Apollo met them with three bundles, and a fourth he offered to Athena. She smiled but shook her head. “Thank you, but this is not my area.”

“Come on,” he grinned. “When did you last dance?”

Perhaps it was because she had to think about it was why she accepted the costume. Ganymede opened his and frowned. “Where is the shirt?”

“There isn’t one,” Apollo said. “Only the pants with the mask and headdress.”

Ganymede looked over the pants once more. They would be skin tight if he managed to put them on. “What are we supposed to be?”

Dionysus whirled around, already in costume. “My priests!”

“Your priests don’t wear leather pants,” Ganymede retorted bluntly.

Dionysus was unperturbed. “Artistic embellishment!”

He peered inside Athena’s bag but it contained much more material. “A priestess of Bacchus…” she hummed under her breath. “I’ve regressed.”

Eros had stripped down and was jumping into his costume, yanking it into place as he asked, “If we are to be your priests then surely the goal is to make as much noise as possible.”

Apollo laughed. “For the most part. There is a bit of choreography to it.”

Ganymede’s nerves skyrocketed until they hid themselves among the other actors and he saw firsthand what their roles as actors were. He began to look forward to the following day, which was sure to be filled with merriment and humor.

They awoke and rushed to the amphitheater that morning, their pockets full of persimmons and figs so they could break their fasts during the comedies. Similar to the parade, figures acted their parts with over enlarged body parts or embellished characteristics which made a day full of laughter. Admittedly, most of the japes were lost on Ganymede, but at the sight of even Athena holding her ribs, he felt light and expectant for the evening when they would put on their play.

They were in the city for an early dinner when Athena voiced that they had more time before the play than they allotted. Ganymede requested to visit one of the nearby temples in which Dionysus’ priests tended a garden within the courtyard. Herbs such as rosemary and sage perfumed the air as priests used long poles to stir the water of long ponds to inhibit scum from forming. Overall it was a remarkably tranquil place for the god of rapture’s followers to pray. Sunlight broke under the open ceiling into swords at the feet of the pillars surrounding the garden as they walked around the space.

Ganymede’s eyes wandered over the bees floating over the lavender sprigs before rising to the voices of the priests speaking with more of the temple’s visitors. He caught pieces such as, “Bless Zeus,” and “Fine day,” before the conversation turned down a strange avenue.

“He walks among us, you know,” a priest was saying. “He sees our joy for the weather during our festival and revels in it alongside us.”

Another priest, however, disagreed. “The gods do not walk among us, you fool. What brought you to this assumption? They are too supreme for such mundane ventures.”

A man frowned with a puzzled brow. “This is untrue. How else do the gods bed humans and beget monsters and heroes alike? They must be of some kind of flesh as we are.”

The priest was not pleased by this. “Look above us,” he moved toward the center of the garden and gestured to the sky. “Can you hold it or touch it? Can you bottle the air of spring as you can any perfume? These are not tangible things. The gods are as abstract as light but their impact is as apparent as the bees’ attraction to the blooms.”

Some of the men chuckled as if the priest’s thoughts were simple ignorance. “Then how did Leda beget Zeus’s child without him transforming his flesh into feathers? Or light must be tangible if Danaë’s belly could swell.”

His companions guffawed. “Leave it to you to base everything on fucking,” one of them smacked his shoulder.

“All I’m saying is that our gods are gods because they hold domain over the abstract and physical alike, and this requires having a bit of both.”

The priest puffed out like a disgruntled chicken and seemed prepared to speak but Dionysus crept up behind them. “How about you stick to the god you serve, yeah? This is Dionysus’ festival first.”

Men and priests looked at him like scolded children but Dionysus ushered his group out of the temple before they could speak. On their way to the amphitheater Ganymede noted how the gods were completely unbothered by the topic they had overheard. Far from it, Athena and Dionysus were discussing the pairing possibilities between vegetables, cheese, and wine while Eros was throwing bits of bread to the seagulls and other birds who landed nearby.

Ganymede supposed he should not be bothered either since he knew each of the gods more intimately than any priest but he could not help but think of each time he felt wind on his face…or the slither of raindrops along his scalp…and how these were just as much felt as Zeus’s hands on his chest, or his clean, warm scent filling Ganymede’s lungs. With disparate clarity, the alternative frightened Ganymede; the notion that Poseidon was only a wave in the sea or Eros was only the ache he recognized in his heart. Having Dionysus’ genius and rambunctious personality confined to the sweet and sourness of grapes seemed like the greatest loss to the world. Along with the sense of panic associated with loss, Ganymede tried to comprehend the anger he felt at the priest for so strongly declaring that the king of gods was only a breeze he could never capture.

Suddenly Ganymede looked up, and they were behind the skene of the amphitheater. So lost in his thoughts, he could not recall arriving to structure, which on one side was the set of the story, but on the other were the rooms within which they would change into their costumes. Apollo was handing his pouch to him, and Ganymede wriggled into the leather trousers alongside Eros. Apollo personally tied the half mask to his face and arranged the slim wreath of grapevines on his head before declaring him ready.

“Remember your part?” he smiled at Ganymede.

He nodded. “I think so.”

Apollo flashed another smile and then went somewhere, probably to check on other costumes. Ganymede looked over his shoulder, where a polished bronze plate was mounted on the wall. It was not as fine as the reflective glass or polished metal in the gods’ palace, but he could see the reflection of his bare back in it. The sight of his skin unmarked was…odd. He had already gotten used to seeing or hiding his scars so now he was keenly aware of the slight rustle of invisible fabric across his shoulders, the sensation of silk resting lightly on his skin.

He saw Dionysus appear in the reflection and as soon as he rotated, a stripe of red paint slid along the contour of his jaw. “Huh?”

“Just adding a little primitive touch,” the god winked. His own jaw was lined with blue and his lips were covered in red to exaggerate his mouth. Dionysus did not touch Ganymede’s lips but his fingers crossed over his chest and abdomen. “It suits the plot. We will corrupt the haughty nobles with ecstasy.”

Ganymede laughed and accepted his bowl of violet paint. Their task was to storm the stage and throw color over the white outfits of the prudent characters of the comedy. He joined Eros in the parados, or the alleyway on stage left. They crawled underneath the orchestra stage where Apollo was giving a brief review of how the trap doors worked. They could hear commotion on the other side of the stage where the other ‘priests’ were chatting and waiting in their parados.

Someone whistled, calling for silence. Above them they heard the steps of Apollo on the stage before his slightly muffled voice welcomed the audience to their play. They heard the crowd cheer and taunt the ‘nobles’ who entered and spoke of such things as perfectly ironed white himations and how green grapes were appropriate because the red and purple ones were too suggestive. Crowd members whistled at that and the innuendos only became more gaudy and suggestive, and then outright explicit. Eros buried his face in Ganymede’s neck while the latter bit his fingers to keep from laughing.

When music started they knew it was time. The nobles had inflated their rigid opinions to the point of lunacy, so it was time to introduce the opposite side of the spectrum.

Dionysus looked over his shoulder to grin at them, and then slid open the trapdoor. His voiced reached to the sky, announcing their entrance as well as adding a new layer to the music. Classical and patient, his voice alone added new personality, and as the rest of his priests climbed onto the stage, literally coming out of the woodwork, their voices changed the song altogether. Ganymede listened to Eros beside him, harmonizing while Dionysus took to speaking:

“What is this, mine ears witness, cuckolds and fools, mine eyes are weary to behold. Let’s change the music, yes, let’s change the dance.”

“Dance!” another actor harrumphed. “There is no dance!”

Dionysus laughed and laughed, throwing his shoulders back while the last of the priests arose. “You wouldn’t know music if it screamed in your ears, nor laughter even if your belly shook! Let us no more live in cold darkness, for my wine warms the stomach and my merriment brightens stars. Let us give feet to these worms, so they may dance.”

Seemingly from nowhere he withdrew his bowl of indigo paint, and whipped his arm so a slash of blue struck the white costumes at once, and even some of the audience. Ganymede’s voice roared alongside the actors’ as they stormed across the stage, throwing paint and pigment powders at any figure wearing white.

His eyes alighted in the audience, where more actors were rushing down the stairs of the seats. He had not known there were more ‘priests’ but the audience loved it. They stood up and cried out when color struck them, laughing and cheering. The actors climbed onto the stage and Eros called Ganymede to their next part.

The skene was structured like the balconies of a temple. They climbed ladders hidden within vines to the top where they started a harmony of clapping. The audience took up the rhythm, clapping with them as Ganymede turned around and moved down to make room for actors still climbing…

But a figure broke away from the rush of actors on the ladders. Large and striking, the figure arrived below Ganymede and used his bare hands and feet to climb the temple façade. Ganymede felt himself leaning over the edge, wondering what he was grabbing onto in order to climb, but then a masked face came level with his, silver eyes shining back at him. His smile was large and bright, making Ganymede realize his cheeks ached slightly from grinning like a fool. Out of some deeply ingrained, innate comfort, he reached for Zeus.

The music was dull in his ears. Hundreds of pairs of hands coming together might as well have been his heart in his ears. His thumb touched the edge of Zeus’s half mask. The baked paper lifted off his face a little as he came closer. Large hands closed around Ganymede’s waist. He did not know how Zeus was still climbing without his hands, nor did he care. All he could think of was how glad he was there was not paint here…

He felt himself lifted so Zeus’s face remained below his. Ganymede could not say if he reached for it or if his head simply fell down for it, but Zeus’s lips caught his as if he had been waiting a millennia for them.

The first sensation Ganymede could fathom was softness. Just as suddenly, his senses were overrun by Zeus; that aroma of male that was strikingly gentle and fringed with the chalky and stale smell of paint and paper mache. It made Ganymede ache in a way he was unfamiliar with. Whereas painful aches were repellant and self-preserving, this was the opposite. It was like hunger, greedy and wanton, demanding to the point that Ganymede’s tongue licked over the slight opening of Zeus’s lips.

As soon as he had done it, his eyes opened in shock, but Zeus’s were hooded and dark. His strong arms went around Ganymede, holding him to his body tightly. Ganymede’s knees fell open on either side of the god’s hips, and abruptly it no longer mattered how the god was standing or climbing. Ganymede felt wind through his hair because they were moving, flying, gone from the skene and the amphitheater. Ganymede clutched him, pressing their chests together but Zeus claimed his lips while tearing off Ganymede’s mask.

“Gany,” he was saying in rushes of air and delicate whispers alike. “Gany…”

He reached for Zeus’s mask as well, his fingers smudging his face with purple. Zeus hardly cared; his neck arched, opening for Ganymede to push it over his hair, and then lowered for his mouth—their noses bumped together. Zeus laughed, taking the opportunity to push his fingers into Ganymede’s hair and unwind the wreath of grapevines—

His back hit a cushion of some kind, startling him. “Where…?”

“My temple,” Zeus rumbled. “Outside of Athens.”

As if in testament, nocturnal birds sang from the branches of the tree growing right out of the floor toward the open ceiling. Zeus had set him on a low reclining settee and nibbled on a patch of skin just under his earlobe. Ganymede’s chin fell to the side, his eyes sagging closed. When they opened he saw the stars peeking through the leaves and branches taking up the space where a ceiling would be.

“Ganymede.”

His gaze dragged to the king’s, his king’s… Zeus saw the thought cross behind Ganymede’s eyes. Gently, as if experimentally, he turned Ganymede’s chin fully toward him and kissed him softly. His tongue stroked Ganymede’s lower lip when it was pulled into Zeus’s mouth, and abruptly his arms went around the god’s neck, holding him as closely as possible. Zeus’s chin settled in the crook of his neck while a hand rubbed consolingly across his back. “What is it, Gany?”

Ganymede shook his head, burying his face in Zeus’s hair to muffle, “I don’t want to think.”

The kisses on his neck were like having all of the blood in his body yanked in the direction of Zeus’s lips. “It is better to think now rather than afterward. Are you afraid?”

He nodded, his hold on his king not loosening. “Of me?” Zeus whispered.

Ganymede shuddered but his head shook no. “Of myself…of everything.” Zeus’s hand had moved up on his back, inducing him to exclaim, “Take it off.”

Zeus froze, not understanding. “What?”

One of Ganymede’s hands reached back as if to grasp something. “I…I can’t do it myself. Take it off…please—ah!”

He jerked as the shroud was torn open across his shoulder blades. His voice escaped his throat as the pearlescent fabric was yanked from in between them to land on the floor. He felt more naked than ever. Ganymede’s knees lifted, his body curling around Zeus as if to hide. He shivered as those fingertips retraced their paths on his back, this time crossing over his bare flesh and the shiny scar tissue there. He shivered.

“I adore you, Gany. Do you not want to do this?” Zeus’s voice sounded strained, husky and painful.

Ganymede swallowed and nuzzled the god’s hairline. “I shouldn’t want it, but I don’t know how…it hurts too much to think of not doing it. Everything is so unbearably dull without you. But I don’t think I will survive knowing what this is like if it is removed from me afterward.”

Zeus reared up just enough to smile and console him, “It is a reassurance that this is not because of my immortality.” At Ganymede’s blank expression he extended, “You have made me incredibly happy… You’ve fallen in love with me instead of a master or god. Do you know what this means?”

He swallowed thickly, shaking his head. Zeus kissed in between his brows. “It means I am just as terrified. I want you, Gany, like water or nectar. I have feared for a long time of you becoming a necessity to my life, as unbearably long as it is. If you will have me, I will have you now, and always afterward.”

“You’re only saying that.”

This caught Zeus off guard. Ganymede was looking away, suspicious and pouting. The god sighed warmly over him. “This again.”

Ganymede peeked at him, only to be overcome by kisses across his nose, cheeks, and temples. Zeus attacked him with his lips, over his ears, jaw, and neck until Ganymede could not stomach his giggles.

Suddenly Zeus's hips moved, and the friction sent shivers all the way up from Ganymede’s groin to his nape. His breath left his throat and his skull felt heavy. “Now and always, Gany.” The words washed over him, pulling him like the swaying movements of the sea. “Do not take my vows lightly. They are eternal.”

He moved again, and Ganymede realized what was rubbing against him through the king’s own tight trousers. This time the rush through him was more prominent, and he grimaced, sucking in air. Without voicing what he needed, Zeus’s fingers worked at the laces, and then his hot grip closed around him.

“Relax,” he prompted. Ganymede realized how rigid his body was. The swallow in his throat was loud in his ears as he tried to fill his lungs only to feel the grip on his cock move down, up, and massage the bud of nerves under the head.

Ganymede’s spine arched, his pelvis lifting off the divan while his legs squirmed. “T-That feels—umf…is it suppose to…?”

But instead of answering Zeus yanked his body down to the foot of the divan, where he could better kneel on the floor to bow over Ganymede’s body. His hazel eyes widened, not believing what he was doing until Zeus’s mouth closed around his tip, and slid all the way down.

“Ah!” he all but screamed into the night. His eyes squinted shut only to blow wide once more. “I…I feel like I’m going to… I feel like I’m going to urinate or something, stop!”

The mouth left him. Zeus’s eyes stared up at him. Ganymede’s hands covered his face in embarrassment. The silence that followed was excruciating. Zeus lifted his head to prop it in his hand. Ganymede’s underthings rested against his chest since the god remained between his legs. “It is not urine that comes out," he assured calmly. "You know this, don’t you?”

He gulped, trying to shove his panic elsewhere. “But they said something comes out. When I…”

Understanding cleared Zeus’s eyes. Sliding his palm up Ganymede’s cock, he rubbed it lethargically as he came back up to kiss Ganymede’s lips. “Watch it, and place your concerns to rest.”

“But—!”

“Shhh,” he hushed. “Feel me, Gany. Just feel it and let it happen. Watch.”

When his lips pressed together in fear, Zeus kissed him, sucking out his bottom lip and biting it to keep his lips loose. He slid his tongue into Ganymede’s mouth, feeling his exhalation rush from one mouth to the other. Ganymede’s head clouded again, as if filling with heavy syrup at the sensation of Zeus claiming his mouth. He realized his hips were bucking within Zeus’s grip and the sensation in his groin was growing to the point of delicious agony. He tried to be still but Zeus purred roughly in his throat, encouraging him. He broke away from their kiss to stare in Ganymede’s eyes, and the utter hunger and devotion there struck Ganymede’s chest like a javelin and then it was all too much.

Zeus looked down, the nudge of his head inducing Ganymede to do the same as an almost milky fluid spurted out once…a little more…and then just a drip along the red, swollen head. Gooey warmth spread through his groin and core, oddly satisfied.

“That… That’s it?” he breathed as if he had been running.

Zeus smiled. “That’s it.” His fingers released Ganymede in exchange of wiping the drops from his stomach. He locked eyes with Ganymede’s wide, round ones as his lips closed around those fingers.

“You can’t do that!”

A sucking sound was heard as the king cleaned one finger, and then the next. “Why can’t I?”

“That…” he blinked. “It, is it not…unpalatable?”

Zeus finished cleaning his fingers with a mischievous curve to his lips. “Not to me. I look forward to tasting more of you.”

The youth’s shoulders hunched, his chest dusting with pink while his throat and chest blushed scarlet. He tried to look away but Zeus caught his chin, and turned it back. Ganymede’s eyes lowered but lower meant looking down Zeus’s body. He shyly met those grey eyes, which dropped to his lips. What followed was the most delicate kiss yet bestowed upon Ganymede’s lips. The smooch sound was prominent in the darkness. “Are you still afraid of the afterward?”

Oh. Ganymede thought about this and blurted, “I guess not, oh!”

Zeus scooped him up from the divan and walked with him to where pallets were set down for lounging beside a dormant fireplace. A glance was all it took for the logs to light, and after Zeus set Ganymede down, he pulled his crimson himation as if from a pocket in the air to pull over them—

Ganymede touched Zeus’s hip, stopping his movements. To his inquiring expression Ganymede replied, “I only thought…these are uncomfortable…”

Zeus smiled, and threw the cloth aside. Ganymede’s trousers were still unlaced, and once Zeus’s fingers curled inside the waist, they unpeeled from Ganymede’s legs. Zeus seemed ready to undo his own, but he stilled when Ganymede sat up with his legs folded under him. Zeus remained standing on his knees, watching slim fingers undo the knot and pull the laces free. He opened the pants and tried to pull them down, but he only managed as far as mid thigh. Zeus’s member sprang free. Ganymede had seen it flaccid but engorged and reaching was different. His fingers paused and began to venture near it, but Zeus’s own closed lightly under his jaw, pulling him up to stand on his knees. “Don’t force yourself. All with time.”

Ganymede’s lashes fluttered closed, letting Zeus support his head during their kiss. Reaching up, Ganymede’s hands found his hair and pulled him down for something more thorough. Once more his tongue passed through Ganymede’s lips, but his jaw opened for him, relishing the warmth that dripped through his core, the reawakening of desires.

Something shifted. Zeus took control of the kiss. He ravished Ganymede’s mouth, as if branding his tongue and lips to never forget his taste. By the time he finished and pulled away, Ganymede reeled, not quite able to open his eyes. Zeus supported him, kissing along his hairline to bring him back to awareness. “Gany…do you know how men make love?”

“Mmuh?”

He laughed. “We will reserve it for another night, then. Lie back, love.”

Ganymede lowered onto his heels and did so, only instead of being on his back Zeus maneuvered him to roll over onto his hands and knees. The thought of Zeus’s pants was fleeting in Ganymede’s mind, especially once the god’s thighs brushed the backs of his own, the leather already gone. Ganymede’s penis was already half arisen, but feeling Zeus’s underneath his scrotum perked him up fully.

“Will you close your legs for me?”

Confused, Ganymede pivoted his shoulders to look back at him only to meet Zeus right by his shoulder. “Won’t that be too tight?”

Zeus chuckled. “That’s the idea.”

Still unsure, Ganymede did as he bid. His king shuddered during an exploratory thrust between his thighs, but then, “No, this will not work.”

Ganymede twisted to look at him again. “What? We’ve barely tried—”

Zeus flopped him onto his back and gripped his ankles, lifting them so his legs rested flat across his torso and his heels rested on his shoulders. “I need to see you,” Zeus explained tersely.

Ganymede flushed and moved his hands awkwardly, unsure what to do with them. Zeus saw this and pulled them over his head, interlocking their fingers. This involved leaning forward, and with Ganymede’s feet on his shoulders this lifted his lower half off the floor. “Does this hurt?”

Ganymede focused on breathing while he shook his head. “I’m just unsure…”

Zeus’s member slid between his legs, over his scrotum and erection resting on his stomach, and then again. The pressure on his balls was nicer than he had expected, but something about it…he burst out laughing.

The god’s expression opened, as if poised for complete stoicism. Ganymede tried to apologize, tried to press his giggles against the inside of his arm, but the more he thought about their arrangement, the more he guffawed. It came to a point that Zeus unwound their hands and simply settled on all fours above him, patiently waiting for him to get it out. Ganymede’s legs folded toward his chest while he hid behind his hands.

“Sorry…I’m sorry,” he giggled, wiping tears from his eyes. “I don’t know why…”

Zeus pressed a kiss to the exposed skin of his cheek. “It’s all right. We can stop tonight.”

“No,” Ganymede swallowed the last of his mirth. “That isn’t fair.”

“There is not any rush. It might even be better this way, because once I have you I will ravish you completely.”

Well, if his cock was not awake then, it certainly was now. “What does that mean, exactly?”

Zeus’s eyes glinted with silver as he slowly lowered toward Ganymede’s body. His thumb brushed his already swollen lips. “It means these will be chapped and raw from too much kissing. These too.”

A gasp escaped Ganymede’s throat when teeth lightly worried at a nipple. Zeus gave his cock a few tight, slow pulls. “I will take as much as I can from this…while here…”

Ganymede thought he was just going to touch underneath his penis, but well…he was not altogether wrong.

The air halted in his throat as a thumb pressed into the flesh beneath his balls, dragging delicious pressure through his core until the pad of the thumb found his tight entrance. Ganymede wanted to speak, or would even settle on simply breathing, but the battle between the two resulted in a strange wheezing. Zeus massaged slow circles there, watching and waiting for Ganymede to gather his words. “Why there?”

“Because within here,” he looked toward the doors of the temple, where a carafe of oil was mounted on the wall. It easily tore free from the stucco and flew to his hand. Ganymede watched as oil dripped over his fingers, shining in the low light from the fireplace. “In here is a place we will both enjoy.”

Without further preamble, he slid his second-to-last finger inside. To Ganymede’s indignant surprise, it was far from painful, but it was utterly foreign. Holding his hands over his chest, he waited for the finger to stroke and coat his inside with oil, to massage and carefully stretch to allow for the next larger finger.

“Um! A-Are you sure?” he questioned doubtfully. His knees jerked with every new movement inside him.

“I could rush the process,” Zeus admitted. “But I want to enjoy you slowly, and this area requires careful preparation if done without my power.”

Two fingers. Ganymede grimaced slightly, but not from pain, just mild discomfort. He tried to be calm and not watch but curiosity and impatience got the better of—

“Aah!” he cried involuntarily. His palms slapped Zeus’s shoulders when he crudely reached for him, his spine arching and his throat opening. Something was happening inside. Those fingers curled and nearly abused a spot that had Ganymede writhing and short of breath. Zeus found a rhythm inside him, urging and pushing, coaxing the pressure up and up. The head of Ganymede’s cock glistened while sweat adorned his forehead and throat.

“Let it come,” Zeus purred, gradually increasing the pace. “Let me see you.”

Unintelligible sounds were coming out of him. He was moving with Zeus’s hand and all he wanted—fuck—all he wanted was to be consumed by this.

The orgasm hit him hard. His entire body reacted with it; like waves moving from the shore, it was as if the current of his blood rushed up from his feet into the arteries of his thighs and where Zeus’s fingertips were.

Coming down from this high was hazy and difficult, but kisses on his throat lessened his fall. Ganymede might have fallen deeply asleep if the tickling kisses did not make him want the same sensation on his mouth. Zeus had come to lie beside him, but Ganymede put his arms around his neck and rolled into him. Zeus pleasured his mouth for what felt like long into the night, or at least until Ganymede could no longer hold his eyes open. The last thing he felt was the himation finally coming to rest over them, guarding them from the cool night’s breeze rustling in the leaves overhead.

He roused to the touch of lips on his chest as well as a warm cloth wiping crumbs of paint from his body. Zeus smiled down at him and left a lingering kiss on his lips. “Good morning.”

Ganymede put his arms around Zeus’s torso and rolled them over so he could bury his face in his chest, hiding from the morning. However, as soon as he draped his leg over Zeus’s, he was reminded of their nudity and he was wide awake. Zeus stared with confusion as Ganymede sputtered, “I’m sorry! You haven’t—I never—we’re barely lovers and I can’t do this right! They said the first priority is to pleasure your partner but I never did…”

He buried his shame in his hands but Zeus had the grace to hold his laughter within. He palmed Ganymede’s bedhead cowlicks as he consoled, “Come to me for love counsel from now on. It gives me pleasure to have you writhing for me; you’ve done nothing wrong.”

Ganymede glared from between his fingers. Zeus simply smiled and set his hand on Ganymede’s clothes which he had left at the amphitheater. “Dress whenever you are ready. We will eat in the city.”

He stood but paused when Ganymede blurted, “We?”

He smiled while handing him a glass of water. “It is my turn to enjoy the festival with you.”

Ganymede grinned and drained the cup before dressing quickly. Zeus swung his red fabric around himself before pinning it in place. Ganymede watched the red dye bleed out of it to a duller, less noticeable hue while the drops solidified into fresh grapes. Zeus pulled Ganymede to him with an arm around his shoulders and they shared the grapes along their walk into Athens. Zeus’s height certainly attracted stunned looks, but Ganymede felt his nerves relax as he observed how the people were not reacting to a god, merely a large human.

A young woman exited a building, catching him off guard. A long basket was in her arms as she smiled up at Zeus. “You’ve almost finished. Would you like more fruit?”

Ganymede’s eyes wandered over the nectarines and figs as he heard Zeus’s refusal, and then lifted to see the woman’s expression. To say that Ganymede might as well not have existed would not have been an exaggeration; he had seen the same infatuation in the eyes of nymphs.

Zeus drew him away from the fruit vendor, continuing along the street while Ganymede watched her disappointment grow. “Will she be all right? I thought women were not allowed in the agora.”

Zeus’s hand on his shoulder moved up so he could unconsciously play with the hair on his nape. “She is a prostitute. They have more liberty but less respect than other women.”

Ganymede looked up at him, puzzled, and then sighed as if defeated. “I don’t understand.”

Zeus chuckled. “You don’t need to. Brothels are not among our destinations.”

“Where are we going?”

“To the sea. There is a ceremony this morning for Pos.”

Intrigued, Ganymede followed with renewed vigor. Unlike the harbor’s usual aromas of decaying fish and hot pitch, fresh catches were roasting with pine nuts and being slathered in pesto. Ganymede’s growling stomach accepted the flaky meat eagerly. Peering around them, Ganymede wondered aloud, “When is the ceremony?”

“Now,” Zeus replied, pointing out to sea. A ship was slowly leaving the harbor with a brazier billowing with sage infused smoke. The baying of rams and sheep could be heard on deck, but on land instruments were playing music. Ganymede did not fully understand until the ship had gone far enough on the horizon and he squinted to see something being thrown overboard. He blinked, something on the horizon catching his eye. People around him were cheering but he did not comprehend why until something thrashed in the water.

“What is that?’

“Sharks,” Zeus narrated. “The rams’ blood attracts them. Their arrival is interpreted as a good omen for fishermen in the coming year.”

“Why?”

“Sharks are often found near schools of fish. If they are plentiful enough to come and partake in the offerings, this means fish will be plenty as well.”

“Has Poseidon actually done this or is it just coincidence?”

Zeus chuckled and passed the hibiscus tea he had gotten with his fish to Ganymede. “Both are likely. Come this way.”

On the other side of the harbor were several winding sets of stairs carved into the cliffs. This was familiar: the climbing of stairs and the feeling of elevation. It was quite a climb up to the top of the summit, where forestry dominated the terrain, but once they broke through the line of trees they found a wide pit dug into the earth for people to sit and converse around a fire in view of the ocean. Zeus pulled Ganymede onto his lap so they could relax in sight of the glittering waves.

Until a commotion brought their attention to Dionysus breaking through the shrubbery. Eros and Athena followed more calmly.

“There you are! Tits and balls, mate, let a fool know where you’re going so we don’t worry!”

“We weren’t worried,” Eros yawned, clearly having just woken up.

“He’s annoyed the two of you stole the show last night,” Athena amended.

“Tall and heavy over there nearly tore down the skene,” Dionysus complained, ruffling leaves out of his curls. "The humans are going to do something drastic and rule that only three actors can take the stage at one time."

Eros laughed under his breath. “We’ve disrupted a romantic morning. Let’s leave them to it.”

However Dionysus was already en route to colliding with Ganymede. Zeus held him steady on his lap but Dionysus slid down to bury his face against Ganymede’s abdomen and thigh. “No! Our Gany’s a kept man now! I need to quell my anguish in all the delectable details!”

“What anguish?” Eros snorted the same time Ganymede muttered, “We didn’t actually…”

Dionysus perked up. “What? You didn’t…”

He looked bluntly at the apex of Ganymede’s legs, and then leaned over to Zeus. “Are you all right? Is everything functioning down thmmh—”

Zeus palmed his face and moved him aside as he stood and set Ganymede on his feet. “The moment’s lost. Go on and show us what you wanted.”

Dionysus recovered and said, “Well it’s not only Poseidon’s ceremonies happening today. Since Gany likes the temples he ought to see them in full action.”

Zeus’s expression opened and he looked to Ganymede for confirmation. The hazel eyes were more gold today, but they had widened in curiosity before peeking up at his king. He turned back to his son. “All right. Which first?”

“Mine,” Athena declared, taking the lead.

Behind them Ganymede took Zeus’s hand and asked, “Do the temples sacrifice livestock too?”

“Some, yes,” he replied. “I’ve told you this before.”

“I know,” he mumbled. “But feeding the sharks actually makes some sort of sense. What happens with the sheep afterward?”

Dionysus replied, “They’re roasted and fed to the poor.”

“You’re lying.”

He looked over his shoulder as if he had never been more stunned in his life. Eros chuckled. “He knows you.”

“Or he’s paid attention to human patterns,” Athena reiterated. “Mostly the carcasses are entirely wasted and burned with incense. Not in my temples, however. The wool is harvested and the milk is mixed with honey for drinking. One prime ram is burned but the rest are in fact cooked for the poor or saved to make next year’s flock.”

“And mine aren’t?” Dionysus combatted. “My priestesses age the milk to fermented perfection. It is an acquired taste but it is not our fault if the old goats have died in time for the festival.”

Zeus, not listening, was rearranging his and Ganymede’s hands so their fingers interlocked. Ganymede squeezed his palm, using Zeus’s balance to help his descent back into the city. On their way to Athena’s largest temple they passed Dionysus’ priests handing out cups of the special milk, and Ganymede swiftly decided it was foul. Athena’s temple, however, was pungent with burning sage and rosemary. Ganymede guessed by the sight of a priest carving into the meat of a beheaded carcass that the sacrifice of the day had already been finished. His head turned in the direction of priestesses singing over their looms, already at work cleaning, spinning, and weaving wool.

Athena gestured them over to what looked like a closed area but today people were able to stroll around shallow pools of dark water. Poles laid over the surface with fabric draped over them, and when priestesses lifted the drapes out of the water, they glistened with tyrian purple or soft orange.

All around them were long fabrics hanging to dry. Above their heads, the open ceiling was crisscrossed with poles on which held up the wet drapery. Ganymede touched one, feeling its coarse wool which was so unlike his soft linens and silks; the pads of his fingers came away purple.

Athena wiped his fingers with a cloth which smelled saturated in some sort of alcohol. “Stains,” she smiled.

The priestesses paid them no more attention than the temple visitors; Ganymede would have suspected this was the gods’ influence, but quiet mirth brought his attention to a number of men occasionally giving him strange looks. When he met the gaze of a pair of teenagers giggling behind their hands, Zeus’s low whisper fluttered in his hair:

“They are not worth your interest.”

“But why are they laughing?” he could not help but ask.

“Relationships between men are equally respected and mocked.”

This was the last reason he had expected. “Why?”

“Because some believe love should be reserved between a man and woman. Fools, obviously. And hypocrites.”

Athena explained for him, “It is not uncommon for men to share beds until they take a wife. Even afterward, old men take young male lovers.”

Ganymede suddenly looked up at Zeus, whose eyes widened as he read the thoughts on his face. “I am ageless. This puts me above them.”

Athena’s smile crooked on one side of her face. “So he likes to think.”

His hold tightened on Ganymede’s hand. “Do not feed festering thoughts!”

Ganymede’s other hand found the bell of Zeus’s forearm. “We’ll talk about it later,” he said quietly. “I just want to enjoy today.”

Zeus used the hold on him to pull Ganymede close, kissing his hair and breathing in deep. Ganymede felt the warmth of his skin through the contact of his cheek on the god’s shoulder as he fought the sore feeling in the back of his throat and eyes.

“Dion,” Zeus rumbled. His son whirled around with lazy interest. “Yours next.”

He grinned mischievously and found a side door out of the temple. “Follow the merry tunes,” he commanded, and sure enough, the music in the streets led to any one of his temples. Perhaps it was because next door was one of Eros’ temples, but Ganymede felt that there were far less stares, and even found men sharing wine from the same cup or sitting next to one another with their legs touching. A knee would bump the other, their owners sharing a laugh. Eyes found Ganymede’s hand in Zeus’s, and then lifted to smile kindly to his eyes. Ganymede’s heart began to feel lighter.

Zeus gave him a glass of white wine with a wedge of lemon in it. It was chilled from being in cellar barrels. As Ganymede was savoring it, Eros came behind him and rubbed between his shoulder blades. Initially it was a pleasant feeling, but after some time he asked, “What are you doing?”

“Reading.”

“Sorry?”

“Your heart. You feel things very powerfully.”

He was not sure how to interpret that. “Is that…bad? Intrusive, maybe?”

Eros smiled at him; it was calm and knowing, but not mischievous like how he often smiled with Dionysus. “No and yes. I am selfish in reading your emotions. It is so often my task to manipulate feelings that to experience your honest ones so keenly…it is revivifying.”

Ganymede’s brows lifted. “I didn’t know you were jaded with love.”

Eros’ head fell back as he laughed. “A cruel irony, isn’t it? But truly, I…”

His breath faded as his gaze became heavy, looking nowhere yet focused intently. Ganymede touched his arm, bringing him back, but Eros smiled. In what he supposed was the same, wordless way Eros could read emotions, Ganymede knew the smile was a lie. A shield.

“Festering thoughts which needn’t spread like a disease,” Eros chimed. “Perhaps today isn’t my day.”

Puzzled, Ganymede frowned. “But it is every god’s day.”

Eros laughed, and again it was forced. “There are some days we should not be allowed in public and today is mine.”

Suddenly he was close enough to kiss Ganymede’s jaw, and then he was leaving. “Pray to me should I need venture outside again.”

Someone walked in between him and Ganymede, and when the latter would have had eyes on him again, Eros was gone.

Ganymede stood still for enough time that when Zeus tried to draw him forward, he took a better look at him and asked, “What has happened?”

Ganymede’s lips pressed together, his eyes gazing at the empty space Eros once in habited. “I think…Eros is upset.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know. He left instead of talking about it.”

He felt Zeus’s arm around his waist. “Then we must give him space for his thoughts.”

But Eros remained among Ganymede’s concerns for the much of the day. He considered praying to him, just to ask how he was doing, but something always drew his attention elsewhere. Finally when they went next door to one of Eros’ temples, Ganymede took a pair of hazel twigs from the potted bouquet which was rapidly outgrowing its urn. The wonky flowers had skinny petals that were as bright of yellow as his hair, and the red center could have been his lips after eating a pomegranate.

A slab of marble was carved in the center of the temple to be an offering table, the sides of which displayed lovers in various stages of courting. Placing the flowers among the various other offerings, Ganymede felt the hard ground against his knees as he knelt and bowed his forehead to rest over his fingers.

Eros. I don’t know what’s wrong, but thank you for taking care of me with Dion and Athena. I am not sure how to show you my gratitude for these last two weeks, but I hope you find peace today.

As he sat up he realized how silent the temple had fallen, but before he could look around for why, the heap of flowers and offerings shifted…and then stilled. His eyes dropped to movement over his flowers: a hare nibbling on the yellow petals. Its black eyes might have been on him or anywhere, but its long brown ears laid flat behind its head as it emerged just enough from the pile to eat more of the blossoms.

Chatter erupted around him as if the voices had been mute to his ears until now. Something about the god’s blessing and sacred hare reached him, but Athena held out her hand to help him up. “I’m sure he is feeling better. He is telling you not to worry any longer.”

“How do you know?” he stood.

“Not many people know his familiar is a hare,” she explained quietly as temple visitors carefully surrounded the table to hold out random vegetables for the animal. “Considering his father keeps bears and hounds, it is great luck for him to show his rabbits.”

“Rabbits and hares are not the same,” Dionysus reminded. “Hares are quite large and swift.”

Athena smiled softly. “Yes.”

Ganymede laughed as Dionysus traipsed right up and pulled the hare out of the pile by the scruff of the neck. The animal seemed less than pleased but settled in his arms while onlookers gaped at his audacity. It helped that Dionysus kept a frond of greenery ready for it to nibble on.

Giggles fading, Ganymede turned to find Zeus, who stood a little ways away simply watching him. He smiled and opened his arm. Ganymede ran to be caught against his torso, held tightly for a moment against his strong heartbeat. “Are you hungry?”

Ganymede nodded and looked up at him. Zeus drew him outside and they returned to Athena’s villa. Ganymede sat at the table, working his way through the bowl of fruit while Zeus surprised him by cooking. With a mouth full of peach flesh, he mumbled something like, “You cook?”

“I taught my son,” he said without turning around. Eggs sizzled in the pan resting on a bed of coals. “He needed a hobby to distract from his injuries. Being a projectile off of a mountain is quite an ordeal.”

Even though the statement was sarcastic, his tone was somber, weakly concealing a deeply embedded shame. Ganymede ventured, “He looks like you, even now.”

Zeus’s shoulders lifted with a laugh. “Either a blessing or a curse. I’ve been told I have striking features.”

“I don’t know what that means,” he admitted.

Zeus rotated to unload the fried eggs onto a plate before he tapped his nose. “It’s a bit too sharp for my face, some think.”

Ganymede stared at him while chewing through another peach. After a time he concluded, “With your beard, it’s less noticeable.”

Zeus chuckled, running a hand over his currently shaven face. The pan sizzled anew with strips of pork while he got to work chopping vegetables to throw in the pan with the fat. He eventually came to sit adjacent at the table and nudged Ganymede’s shoulder while he bit into his own apricot. “I’ve also been told I brood."

“Does that mean you stare like you’re angry?” Ganymede asked. Zeus nodded. He thought about that. “Yes, you do.”

With Zeus's strength, his palm landing on the table made the cherries jump in their bowl. “Well I’m glad you’ve never been discouraged by my visage.”

Ganymede shrugged. “You never look at me like you’re angry,” and then he had to ask, “Who told you these things?”

The god seemed ready to give a list of names but instead he gave a shrug. “Hera usually. Aphrodite likes to comment on my face but I have never taken her taunts to heart. She adores my son, after all. She cannot complain too much if the mouth she kisses is the same shape as my own. Ares also has my nose.”

Ganymede laughed before his mirth evaporated as Zeus grasped one of his hands to suck the juice from his palm and fingers. He did not know what to make of it, the soft and wet intimacy of lips and tongue…well this seemed silly after last night, but as Zeus’s mouth found the apex of his fingers his wrist tensed with the desire to pull away, his thoughts turning frantic for a distraction—

“Why does she love him?” he heard himself ask, and then realized he was genuinely curious. Zeus’s grey eyes perked up. “Ares is…unpredictable. Eros does not hold much love for him, and…I haven’t seen much for the vice versa. Why does she choose him and not Hephaestus?”

Juice and saliva gone from his concerns, Zeus laced his fingers with Ganymede’s and poised their elbows on the table so his lips could press against Ganymede’s fingers while he contemplated that. “Because Ares’ passions do not necessarily need to lie in war. That is the vocation he has found to occupy his energies the most, but really they share the same standard of passion. To put it differently: he is able to keep up with her stamina. He does not bore her.”

Ganymede blinked. “And Hephaestus does?”

Zeus gazed at him. For a brief moment Ganymede was not sure he was going to answer. “Hephaestus is stronger than Ares,” he revealed calmly. “Both in body and mind. Aphrodite cannot control him. And he is calm. She desires passion, even if it is volatile.”

Hazel eyes held his gaze for a moment before wondering to the table’s surface. It was inlaid with lapis lazuli and other stones for a small mosaic while he processed this. There were several things he wanted to say. Maybe I’m biased because of how Eros is affected… Aphrodite is a woman who can take care of herself but so is Athena, who isn’t taking steps to prove her abilities like this, who isn’t needy…But does that make me needy? To understand this level of desire?

Again his thoughts grew restless and he unconsciously pulled his hand, trying to reclaim it. “Sticky,” he complained weakly.

“Are you worried about Hera?” Zeus cut right to it. “Are you worried…”

He seemed like he meant to finish the sentence, but instead he reached with his other hand to caress the side of Ganymede’s skull. He sighed. “You are heavy with thoughts. Release them to me.”

It was as if hearing it voiced aloud made it true. Ganymede’s head sagged into his palm, heavy with ruminations. “I’m not disillusioned,” he murmured. “I know…I know this—”

“But you don’t know,” Zeus interjected softly.

Ganymede’s eyes hurt. It was becoming difficult to hold his eyelashes up. “I know this is likely temporary. Only the queen has endured…because she is queen, and the two of you have gained something of a mutual respect for one another.”

“You and I haven’t?” Zeus queried, just as softly.

His lips parted to speak but instead he inhaled and swallowed. “I…” He exhaled. “I don’t know how to say my thoughts.”

Zeus had been leaning closer and closer, so now he scooped Ganymede out of his seat. The table moved with a nudge from an elbow so he settled on the king’s thighs. “One at a time,” he murmured, tucking Ganymede close to him.

His eyes closed heavily. “How will she react?”

“You sound sure she will.”

“Won’t she? We can’t think she won’t know.”

“You’re right,” Zeus acquiesced, “but any romantic love was lost between she and I long ago.”

“I’m not sure that means we will receive her blessing,” Ganymede tried not to say smartly.

Zeus’s body shook gently with a chuckle. “Your concern is justified but Hera has grown and matured far more than I. She will not react as harshly as she has in the past.”

“As harshly,” Ganymede sassed without restraint.

Zeus nuzzled his hairline lightly. “You’re underestimating me. I would sooner let her score my flesh than touch yours.”

Ganymede allowed himself a deep exhale and continued. “What of the other gods, then?”

“I have never interfered or shown interest in their affairs. I doubt they would suddenly do so in mine.”

“They have used me for taunts, though,” he reminded.

“You are worried about Poseidon,” Zeus cited specifically. “The number of times I have abided by his treatment of my daughter, he would be far from wise to return such leniency by being a threat to you.”

“He might be convinced you will let him do anything,” he tested.

Suddenly Zeus’s chest grew warm, nearly unbearably hot. Ganymede shifted, leaning off of him and ready to apologize for angering him, but the god held him still, and cooled just as quickly. “If this holds true, I will correct such a way of thinking. I am not sure how many times or ways I can say how dear you are to me.”

The air felt strained in Ganymede’s lungs. “I don’t mean to sound doubtful. I just…need to prepare myself.”

“For what?” he said, but it was like wind instead of a voice.

He was quiet for a long minute. “To hurt,” he finally said, but there was no power to it. Only a god’s ears could hear it. “I don’t want to think like this but…”

“I understand,” Zeus finished for him. “I have not been kind to my lovers up until now. I have let them come to violent ends but you and I began painfully. Is it rude of me to hope I have already reached my violence quota with you?”

For a second he was silent, and then he chuckled, and then Ganymede’s mirth built into a tumult of giggles. His weight collapsed against the large body cradling him. “That’s so stupid,” he scolded weakly.

Zeus allowed himself to laugh with him; his fingers interlocked on Ganymede’s hip so he held him comfortably. “I know, but your near death has been the only thing to frighten me more than my father. The last time I felt such uncontrollable desire was when I fought him, and to have such unbridled energy result in needing and then almost losing you…”

Ganymede had gone quite still. Zeus had never spoken of Cronus, at least not to him. Somehow, the realization that they both bore traumatic scars alleviated the storm clouds in his thoughts. Suddenly he understood how Zeus saw him: fragile, and beautiful. God or no, Zeus had almost died once too.

His arm rounded under Zeus’s own so he could hug Zeus’s broad back. Through the himation he could feel the indentions of teeth marks—

“Gany.”

Fingers found the underside of his chin and lifted his face for a kiss. His eyes closed for it, yielding to the chaste yet intimate contact of their lips. The pads of those fingers explored his face, the thumb tracing his lower lip and the corner even while they kissed. As if searching for more tangibility of whom he held.

The kiss deepened. Zeus pressed closer into him, his fingers curling behind Ganymede’s nape as the air between them became indistinguishable. Ganymede felt the surge of his blood toward Zeus’s touch. He did not taste him but with their breaths lost to each other it was as if they shared lungs, and the comfort in that was heady and stirring. Zeus’s palms circled his waist, nudging and tightening in odd places before Ganymede realized he was restless. Zeus did not know where to touch him, so he was touching a little everywhere. Ganymede ventured to sit up and try to lift his leg to change position, but it was all Zeus needed to grip that knee and turn Ganymede around so he straddled strong hips.

Zeus broke away. “Was that not what you intended?” he meant to say but Ganymede's fingertips catching his face cut off the last word. He landed softly back on Ganymede's mouth, Zeus’s hand rising to cradle the back of his head while his own tilted to savor Ganymede’s mouth from a better angle. His other palm slid under Ganymede’s shirt and himation, unconsciously finding the scars and caressing the sensitive flesh there—

“FESTIVITIES BY THE THEATRE!”

Ganymede startled so hard he bit his lip and landed from jumping on Zeus’s lap. Dionysus breezed into the kitchen, barely looking at them as he emptied food into a bowl and further announced, “Someone has arranged for storms this evening so thankfully the sailors have alerted the people and arranged accordingly for music and festivities to occur…well, right about now—”

He finally turned around and analyzed the position they were in. “I approve of your romantic advancements but perhaps you did not hear me: MUSIC AND WINE ARE OCCURRING AS WE SPEAK. I will be supremely dissatisfied if you two ignore my festival. Amorous activities can wait.”

They watched him leave as swiftly as he had come with Zeus’s cooked things. “Are you still hungry?”

“I think Dion took them so my only option is the festival’s dishes,” Ganymede said. Zeus chuckled while standing with him in his arms. Ganymede’s eyes widened at the thrill of sudden elevation in his stomach. He lowered him to his feet but brought Ganymede’s hand up to touch the pads of his fingers to Zeus’s lips.

“Have I done anything to calm your fears?”

Ganymede’s lips pressed together and then he nodded. He yanked Zeus forward with the warning, “Dion will scold us again if we’re not prompt.”

Sure enough, outside dark clouds were on the horizon. Some people were nailing shutters over their open windows before joining the exodus toward the amphitheater. Music reached their ears early, as if the coming storm was spurring people to enjoy the last few hours of the festival more than ever.

“Did you send the storm?” Ganymede asked as they navigated through the crowds. Zeus’s size made it rather easy, especially when he hoisted Ganymede up by his waist to sit atop his shoulders. Some onlookers japed at the sight, saying they were three eyes shy of being a cyclops.

“The crops are due for a sprinkling,” Zeus confirmed, his hands on Ganymede’s thighs to keep him steady.

Ganymede let his hands rest in the king’s hair while he observed his surroundings. “Is everyone…a little different?”

Zeus chuckled. “Many have only held wine in their bellies today.”

“Won’t they feel sick?”

“Oh yes,” he laughed some more.

“That doesn’t seem like the best way to end a festival,” Ganymede mused. He rose and lowered with the god’s shrug a moment before something bumped into them. Zeus and Ganymede peered down at the blatantly intoxicated person who had not merely ran into Zeus, but rebounded off. Hooded eyes stared up his length, and then the added torso of Ganymede, revealing ruddy orbs in his face. The man laughed giddily and uttered something like “Zeus’s bollocks, that’s a lot of man.”

His more sober companion ushered him away while the pair watched. Eventually Ganymede wondered, “Does it bother you when they say things like that?”

Zeus tilted his head so he could look up at him. “My siblings readily say worse. It is a rather humorous relief for humans to use my loins to vent their fascinations.”

Ganymede smiled and they continued through the hoards of people toward the amphitheater. Onstage Dionysus and Apollo were playing instruments together while various groups were in the seats, conversing and drinking and simply sharing happiness. Zeus put Ganymede down before they sat together on the stage. Athena, in her male guise, came to use Zeus’s thigh for a pillow as he recovered the bowl of food to share with Ganymede. Freshly steaming, he handed it over and watched Ganymede shovel a bite in his mouth with pita bread, pause for surprise, and then relax with the sublimity only food could give. Ganymede was too busy eating to notice the glare Zeus gave Dionysus when he tried to reach for the food himself. He peeked up when Dionysus uttered, “Stingy,” but Zeus was the picture of innocence.

A flutter of fabric caught his attention, and for a moment Ganymede thought nymphs had joined them onstage, but they were only women with colorful shawls. A couple of them set wooden bowls on the lip of the stage, and he knew they were coffers for prostitutes. Occasionally men would approach and the clatter of coins could be heard, but overall Ganymede thought they were quite good. Their movements were of course not as fluid as the naiads, but there was something visceral to their fragile limbs moving to the equally ephemeral music. Their movements were more desperate to live within the melodies.

Dionysus and Apollo stood, and the mood of the performance changed. It had been casual when they arrived, and it returned to being so; instead of a performance to be watched, more people were encouraged to mount the stage while others danced above their seats. More musicians arrived, prompting Dionysus to hand off his cithara and tug Ganymede to his feet. Before long the musicians harmonized with one another and the festivities were fully underway. Ganymede’s cheeks hurt from ready laughter and seeing Athena dance with them. She took his hand, twirling him while the sky darkened into something like evening despite being the middle of the day.

The first raindrops fell soon after, light and small in his hair while he accepted the ends of shawls in his hands while Dionysus and Athena were on his sides. They danced in the circle Dionysus had taught him what felt like long ago, but as the rain gradually fell more heavily the circles broke and individuals took the music within their bodies. Ganymede guffawed at Dionysus’s choice of writhing movements but also moved with him; dipping his hips and twisting in unison before Athena claimed him for moments of movement which were probably more civilized.

Others bumped him here and there, the stage overcrowded and inducing him to rake a hand through his hair. Soaked as it was, it remained where it was briefly before falling back over his face as he glanced down at the edge of the stage.

A darkly tanned arm crossed in front of his stomach, baring him from the ledge. Ganymede looked up into Zeus’s face as he pulled him gently. Ganymede smiled and reached up for him, but Zeus took his hands and put them down.

Only, he did not. Rather, he lowered Ganymede’s arms so they could revolve around one another in the dance. Looking downward, Ganymede followed his gaze to see how his feet moved, and replicated his choices. Zeus kept Ganymede’s hands in his, lacing their fingers to keep him steady as well as to remain close in the hoard of people. Zeus peeked to the side, and with a little…godly nudge, the crowd parted just enough for Zeus to sweep Ganymede across the stage, the two of them crossing their feet and stepping in unison to the music. Their height difference made regular dance uneasy, but Zeus planned around it so once the thought passed through Ganymede’s mind, it just as quickly vanished.

They turned, revolving around each other while Zeus pivoted them as necessary to maneuver around the rogue elbows or legs of dancers around them. Dionysus and Athena stopped them, opening their clasped hands to create a circle with the four of them before Apollo was yanked out of an intimate circle by Dionysus to join them. The way those bright eyes looked up at Zeus, Ganymede reckoned the number of times Apollo had seen Zeus dance were even less often than Athena.

Apollo began to clap a rhythm. Humans around them took it up, bringing their palms together to the beats of the music, which was playing faster. Like the rainfall the music grew heavy and swift around them, the clapping ricocheting along with it. Zeus resumed his hold on Ganymede for his safety, the rush pulling the gods apart until the music ended with a flourish. Cheers resounded as faces lifted for the rain. A new tune began, slower for them to catch their breath.

Ganymede was still laughing as he opened his arms up to Zeus. Strong arms curved around his waist as Zeus readily answered his pull. His warm lips were slick with rain when they met Ganymede’s, but his taste was sweet as nectar when they parted. Ganymede felt the burn of need, the wanting to explore that taste the same moment he felt himself pulled higher. His toes left the stage floor. Raindrops drummed on his eyelids. His mouth opened wider, bidden by an innate force wanting Zeus to claim his mouth…and vice versa.

Zeus met him, their tongues sliding together while their lips sealed. Ganymede’s eyebrows moved involuntarily as sensations writhed inside him, spiraling through his belly and rising with his need. One of Zeus’s arms lowered to support his pelvis as well as pull him close, encouraging him to grind anywhere he liked. The sodden raiment was heavy on his erection, not allowing him to move how he liked and he felt his voice leaving his throat unbidden. The sound was whining and eager and barely recognizable, and yet Zeus answered.

They were moving again, but neither elbows nor knees brushed Ganymede’s sides. They were leaving, flying as a haze so thick filled Ganymede’s mind that he thought he was being put to sleep until he finally landed in a familiar place and understood why. The arches of Zeus’s palace ceiling stood over their heads as Zeus laid them down on Ganymede’s own bed. Instead of feeling sick from the god’s speed he merely reeled at the sudden elevation, or the long lick up his throat.

Ganymede’s head fell back to be caught by a large palm, his eyes open to slits. There was no rain here, but clouds swirled calmly above and sometimes around them; wisps of vapor floating and curling over his skin in passing. Zeus’s other hand found his cock, the flat of his palm rubbing through the fabric and making Ganymede squirm from discomfort.

“Off,” he huffed. “Get them off…”

Zeus obeyed with relish. Peeling the soaked fabric from his skin, Zeus bestowed hot kisses to his belly, a hipbone, with his tongue peeking through his lips to taste Ganymede’s flesh. Ganymede’s head thrashed gently when the mouth sucked hard on his inner thighs. He wanted that same suction elsewhere, but Zeus only continued downward, all the way to his feet to worship the arch of his foot, the pads of muscle that held him up.

Ganymede’s fingers reached out for him, wiggling and begging him back up. “Say it, Gany,” the king countered.

His eyes opened with confusion. Zeus supplied, “Tell me what you want.”

“I want…you,” he voiced.

Soft lips pressed to the bulb of his ankle. “Then call for me.”

Ganymede blinked hard when the king’s grip moved to his calf and he kissed the vein that ran along his anklebone. Why in the world were his legs and feet so sensitive? “My king—”

“Name me, Ganymede,” he commanded softly. “Say my name, sweet Gany.”

Somewhere in the back of his mind, the place that was connected by a delicate thread to his heart, Ganymede knew the king was begging. Lungs lost for air, he swallowed thickly. “Zeus…” he breathed. Heavy eyelashes lifted off of silver eyes. “Please…my king. My…Zeus. I need…everywhere—”

Suddenly Zeus was over him, hovering lengthwise and eye level so that his hand clenched the last of Ganymede’s raiment. When he pulled, the threads disintegrated underneath him so the rest of the fabrics came away with ease. Ganymede’s arms and legs lifted to pull his lover down to him, but some mundane logic urged him to yank the king’s shirt over his head. The himation on his shoulder got in the way, but Zeus merely shoved it down by his hips and kicked everything else away.

He settled over Ganymede’s bare skin while his arms found the arch of his lower spine and scooped his arms underneath Ganymede’s body. Ganymede’s arms went around Zeus’s shoulders, exploring the blades and spine and just the expanse of flesh that rippled with every movement of his arms and slide of his hips.

“Aahh!” Ganymede might have screamed if his voice had more power, but his lungs were not his own. Zeus only released them to allow Ganymede air and to return his attention to the neck arching for his mouth to reach. Ganymede purred more ahhs and sounds he did not care to check, especially when they were pulled from him by Zeus nibbling on his neck and ear. Sumptuous tingles sparked along his pinna the same moment Zeus decided to grind his cock against Ganymede’s, and he saw stars.

His knees jerked, his heels finding the mounds of muscle of Zeus’s derriere. He tried to spur him to move more but a deep, husky rumble filled his thoughts. “Is this all you want?”

“No!” he whined, just as huskily as if he had been screaming.

“Tell me.”

He barely halted the outright whine in his throat and instead voiced, “You said…inside me. I want you there. Ah!”

Fingers plunged into him. Ganymede’s pelvis rocked immediately with the rolling thrust and pulls of Zeus’s fingers and the merciless press of his thumb underneath his ball sack. Initially Ganymede held onto his shoulders, but slowly he lifted his arms above his head, finding a pillow or even just the pallet beneath him to hold onto while his hips continued to move.

The speed never changed, and after a time, his brows furrowed. He needed more and once again his knees jerked, silently trying to find a way to tell Zeus what he wanted. He opened his eyes, though, and found silver storms staring back at him, watching him as if he was where the sea and sky kissed to form the horizon.

Ganymede was already flushed, but his cheeks and throat bloomed rosily as he tried to hold his gaze before his eyes sank to the rigid member glistening with moisture. Zeus made a sound when Ganymede reached for it, his hand closing over the head. His thumb moved that moisture around while his eyes swallowed the sight of Zeus’s closed eyelids, his jaw slackening…and then those eyes blew wide when Ganymede pulled him to his entrance.

“You need…to be here…yes?”

“Yes!” Zeus grated. His open hand landed carefully on Ganymede’s cock and balls, the base of his palm over the hole before Ganymede’s head was thrown back. His mouth opened for sounds but none came out. He felt himself opening, stretching painlessly from the god’s power. He felt the dome of a cock head close the opening and prod it open a little further—

Much further. Ganymede’s nails raked over Zeus’s chest but not from agony. The scalding drag of his phallus through the ring of muscle and then along his interior walls was anything but excruciating. The overall sensation was invasive and filling in the best of ways; exciting and awakening every nerve in Ganymede’s body. The pads of his toes tingled as he slid his foot over the fine hair on Zeus’s calves. Air slithered under his back when Zeus lifted his lower half for a better angle.

And when he landed on that intimate spot and thrust past it so more of his length could press across it, a spasm overtook Ganymede and he was climaxing when Zeus’s thighs made contact with his ass. His orgasm rolled through him again and again until Zeus’s kisses on his temple and cheek steadied him. He realized the god’s breathing was as labored as his own, and they had barely begun.

Ganymede felt his erection begin to lessen—and then swell back to full hardness when Zeus gripped him. His body went rigid, over sensitive and obeying the commands demanding of him. His nails bit into Zeus’s sides as he looked questioningly up at Zeus. “I warned you,” he growled, in such a way that Ganymede thought he would not say anything more. “I will take everything I can from you.”

And then he rocked his pelvis, and Ganymede’s jaw fell open. The blood in his legs felt thick and gooey, yet it rushed to the ends of his toes and back. At first Zeus only rocked against him, barely pulling out and therefore going nowhere within, but as Ganymede grew accustomed to his girth, Zeus pulled out more and more. His speed slowly climbed. His hips loosened to gyrate with each thrust. It was all Ganymede could do to keep in time with him and breathe.

Zeus would tilt his chin up for ravenous kisses now and again, until he finally tangled his hand in Ganymede’s hair to hold his head craned upward for him to easily torment Ganymede’s mouth or throat, wherever he chose while he endlessly drove into him.

“Zeus! I…” he cried. “I need it! It’s…coming.”

“Come for me, Gany. My Gany,” he rumbled, licking the side of his mouth, tracing his lips. “Let me feel you come again.”

“It’s…hahh…Ha! Ah!”

Ganymede grimaced until he crossed his ankles behind Zeus’s ass, riding out the thrusts and the approaching peak. He thought he could not feel more than this moment: the explosions behind his eyes and the rapturous feeling of tongue and kisses on his neck and collarbone.

But then Zeus uncrossed his legs with hardly a reach behind him. Ganymede’s eyes widened when he was turned over onto his stomach. “What—?”

“Like this,” Zeus directed, making several changes. He pulled Ganymede onto his knees and lifted his ankles so they overlapped Zeus’s behind him. Curling an arm around his torso, he angled Ganymede’s head upward so his hips dropped. “Put your weight more on your knees, so here…I can hold you here.”

Ganymede’s eyelashes fluttered as Zeus buried his jaw in the crook of his neck, putting them cheek to cheek. One of his hands laced with Ganymede’s to rest on his chest, while the other closed around his still erect penis. Zeus’s own filled him once more, causing his knees to go weak and for his pelvis to drop a little more over him. But the softness of Zeus’s thighs gently pounding into his ass, curve meeting curve, had Ganymede reaching for any part of his king he could reach. His free hand settled on the king’s nape, gripping his hair while he listened to his own panting, the breath pushed out of him with each thrust. He felt the soft scrape of Zeus’s fingers fondling his scrotum while he pumped his cock.

It was not long before Ganymede felt the overwhelming tingle of an orgasm approaching. His head wanted to thrash but instead he turned it so he could bite Zeus’s own ear, worrying it between his teeth.

“Aah!” Zeus cried, but it was guttural and savage in his baritone. Ganymede’s brows jerked upward when he felt the sudden melting heat of climax inside of him, and no sooner was his own being wrung out of him by Zeus’s thrusts and pump of his hand.

When Ganymede finished with a final shudder, he gasped breathlessly, “I thought…you needed to see me.”

Zeus exhaled raggedly and said, “But I can.”

Puzzled, Ganymede met his glossy eyes and followed their direction toward the wall, which was hammered copper like so much else in Zeus’s quarters. In the ripples of the smoothly hammered surface he could make out the lines of his shoulders, the shadows of Zeus’s hair and the plumpness of his own lips. And the silliness of it made him giggle profusely.

He met Zeus’s smile and twisted so he could fall on his back, facing the god himself. His mouth relaxed as his arms lifted, intending to prepare for a kiss, but Zeus ducked down to close his lips around a nipple. The swirling tingles made Ganymede beat the base of his palm against Zeus’s shoulder. “I haven’t your stamina.”

“Hmm,” he growled. It was all Ganymede received while the king seemed intent on drawing every possible sound he could from him.

“I’m—hm!—going to faint if you keep this up.” He gripped Zeus’s head and yanked him up. “There isn’t any point if I can’t endure! We have time, don't we?”

And then Zeus laughed so giddily his visage was truly ageless. “Aye, we have time, philtatos. In the morning, then?”

Ganymede met his sentiment with a smile despite the ache behind his eyes. He pulled him in for that wet and tired kiss he wanted. “Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow...for as long as we have.”

Zeus followed his pull and settled on Ganymede’s chest, his arms around his torso. As Ganymede began to fade from consciousness, the last fingers gripping the world giving way, he heard and felt Zeus sigh as if he had been holding his breath for years.

It was not until he woke habitually at dawn that he realized, maybe in his own way, Zeus had been doing exactly that. Because holding tightly to his chest as if he had never moved, the king of gods slept.

Ganymede smiled like a fool and squeezed him tight, burying his face in that mess of hair before falling back into slumber.