This Immortal Heart: A Novel of Aphrodite(2)
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The awakening of desire in my priestess stirs that same sensation within me, and I fly from my sanctuary to a secluded bay, sheltered by rocky cliffs, where I know he’ll be waiting for me. As I land, he emerges from the sea, the sunlight sparkling off the rivulets that run down his broad shoulders. I shrug off the illusion of my feathered disguise, a goddess again.
His name is Nerites; a sea-god, only minor in the hierarchy of deities. He rules over shellfish, his days spent overseeing scuttling crabs and thorny sea urchins, presiding over the lives and deaths of clams and oysters and mussels. Some marine-gods are fish-tailed, their blue-tinged skin crusted in barnacles; old men of the waters with gills and flippers and straggly beards. Not Nerites. He’s a fine example of a young god in his prime: strong and vital and perfect. My eyes linger on the smooth muscles of his chest, the taut outline of his upper arms and his mesmerizing green eyes, the same shade as the watery depths from which he’s emerged.
He opens his mouth to greet me, his words spilling out with eager haste, slipping over one another like wriggling fish, before I silence him with a hand to his lips. My nails shine, shell-like and delicate, against his salt-roughened jaw, and I enjoy the contrast for a moment before I pull his face to mine, surrendering once more to the thrill of that familiar, irresistible force.
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Later, when with a longing glance, Nerites plunges back beneath the waves, I stretch out on the sand, a pleasant ache tingling through my body at the memory of his touch. He’ll be gliding between the tall fronds of kelp by now, swimming through the submerged forest, green-gold sunlight split and refracted through the salt water. He’ll pass spongy blooms of mauve and lilac coral, softly waving tentacles of colorful anemones brushing his skin as he descends into the silent, shadowed halls of the sea-gods. Somewhere in those waters, the dress I was wearing will still be drifting, a diaphanous ghost lost to the tides. I wonder if the currents will carry it to him, if he’ll see it and take it, a keepsake of this most recent of our trysts.
I close my eyes, the late-morning sun warming my bare skin, bright behind my eyelids. A haze of dreams flutters around me, lulling me into sleep with the whisper of soft-breaking waves and the distant call of wheeling birds.
A ruffle of wingbeats rouses me and I lift myself onto one elbow, shading my eyes as I peer up into the sky. I smile as the dark silhouette takes form: sweeping gold-feathered wings, a headful of shining curls, the lithe torso of the most handsome and delightful god I know. My son, Eros.
He lands gracefully and tosses me a wide square of fabric, his eyes twinkling with amusement as he points upward. “Helios is right above us,” he says.
“I suppose he is.” I drape the cloak around my shoulders. The Sun God’s chariot is directly overhead, the glare of the shining orb he pulls across the blue dome spilling its light across us, dazzling and clear. I know how he likes to spy.
“A sea-god?” Eros asks.
“Shellfish,” I reply.
He laughs, and I see echoes of myself in his carefree attitude and the delicate shape of his face. He has no father; it was my body alone that brought him forth when I was still a new goddess. His talents stem from me—his ability to conjure infatuation, to breathe passion into souls mortal and divine, to whisper words of flattery into hopeful lovers’ ears so that they can charm the object of their desire.
“So,” he says, sitting on the sand beside me, tilting his face up to the gentle warmth, “what happened to the son of Eos? Have you replaced him so quickly?”
I shrug. Eos, the Goddess of the Dawn, some years ago bore a mortal son with a face as glorious as her most beautiful sunrise. He grew up to become a young man so striking, he caught my eye from the heavens. “It was a brief affair,” I agree. Like a fire, it burned bright and burned out. For me, anyway. “He keeps a temple to me now, in the land of his father to the east.”
Eros nods. “Anyone else?” he asks.
I sit up higher. “Hermes stole my sandal.”
Eros laughs again, low and mellifluous. “As a means of seduction?”
I roll my eyes. “His idea of one,” I say. “For the God of Trickery, I thought it was quite poor. He sent an eagle while I was bathing in the River Achelous. It snatched up one sandal—I think he hoped I’d go and ask him for it back.”
“Why not?” he asks. “Hermes is handsome.”
“He is.” A god of careless elegance and quick wit, not unappealing in the least. “But imagine if Zeus heard of my taking up with one of his sons. He’d try to marry me off to him before I could even get the sandal back on.”
Eros wrinkles his nose. “It was probably Zeus who sent the eagle on Hermes’ behalf,” he agrees.
Both of us hear it at the same time: the stroke of oars splashing in the water and the thin voice of a mortal man, his song hovering on the breeze. A small boat rows toward our bay, and we exchange glances.
Eros stands up, swift and smooth, his wings outstretched again. “I have prayers to answer,” he says. “A hero, longing for a king’s daughter who’s doomed to be sacrificed to a sea monster.”
I brighten. “So he’ll slay the beast?”
Eros nods. “And be rewarded.” He taps the quiver of arrows slung on his back, the ones that pierce a heart with no pain or harm, swelling it with love instead.