
Synopsis
“Lion,” Artemis chokes out. She needs an excuse. “I want to check on Quill. My porcupine friend. He’s worried about me. Give me a moment to find him.”
Up she leaps, striding through the forest’s thickness, her pace accelerating as fast as her pounding heart, refusing memory with every panting breath. Soon she is bounding as might a hounded stag, flailing arms brushing away low-slung branches, ducking eye-spiking twigs, crushing harrying undergrowth, spurning any twisting trail. Engulfing pines give way to scrub. The mountain’s flanks sweep downwards, lending her momentum. The unobscured sun blazes. Not one cloud.
On she runs, running, running ever faster, rivulets of sweat dripping into her eyes, pouring down between her breasts, hair streaming behind her. One final sprint and she is following a narrow stream wending its way through a sere plain. Ahead, she knows, cliffs drop vertiginously down, down into the turquoise sea lapping far below. But here she is, at last, gulping sweet water spurting up from the stream’s cool source: a deeply subterranean spring. Tearing off her sweat-soaked clothes, shucking off her sandals, she cedes her heaving, naked body to the spring’s verdant bank.
Allowing herself to sink into the lush grass, Artemis closes her eyes. Gradually, her shudders diminish. Her breath slows. She hears the spring gurgling, insistently, it seems. Slowly, acceptance seeps in. The memory she has fled has nowhere to hide. No shade is on offer. Indeed, she feels transfixed by the sun’s radiance.
She gasps. She has been transfixed once before: when first setting eyes on Aphrodite.
And here she is now, yet again, seeing the goddess of love, infinitely more golden than this sun’s glare. Her inner vision fades. The sun exerts its advantage, holding Artemis in the moment, its heat suffusing her trembling heart with courage. Her breath catches; her hands clutch. Once, as a child, she had found Lion waiting for her. The spirit beast had come to be her teacher. Now he awaits her again, back up the mountain. He has led her to this. She hadn’t known how to tell him how it all began. But he knew she wouldn’t be able to close off her heart to him.
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That time long ago, evening had not yet laid any claim to the light of day as she gaily led twenty girls down a trail from Mount Olympus’ ceremonial heights to where the wild begins. At last, she felt, skipping by higgledy-piggledy growth of all exuberantly aromatic sorts, she could breathe freely. Breath, she had just learned in Aphrodite’s presence, was not to be taken for granted. She quickly looked back. Yes, Aphrodite was still among the following girls, their sandals slithering on the path’s rocks.
Rumors about Aphrodite had always swirled among the children of Zeus. Had Aphrodite really been born to Dione and Zeus, or had she miraculously emerged from sea foam? No one would tell Artemis the truth. Aphrodite’s mother, Dione, had kept her child close during her childhood, deeming her innocent beauty so tempting that it was dangerous. And this was the day when Aphrodite would make her first appearance among the Olympian family.
Today’s celebration was Hebe’s eighteenth birthday, the age when childhood ended for all Zeus’ children. Artemis’ own birthday was coming up soon. Hebe was the cup bearer for the gods and goddesses, as well as goddess of youth. Her father Zeus would give her the wrought, petal-shaped, silver calyx held for her until this special day. Innumerable other calyxes, two-handled cups, had been painted especially for the occasion, each adorned with an image or story about the glorious Olympians. Ambrosia would cascade.
Ex-lovers and ex-wives of Zeus, his siblings, various children, and assorted guests, all clustered around Zeus and Hera, Hebe’s mother, jostling to be the first to offer congratulations on their daughter’s coming of age. Obsequiously, Artemis judged. Her mother had cajoled her into forgoing her short chiton. She felt put upon.
Persephone and Athena were nodding encouragement and smiling at Hebe, the shyest of the sisters. No one else was paying her any attention. She’d been too tied to the girdle cinching her mother’s waist, Artemis judged. Hebe needed to become more than a vapid nod to the fleeting preciousness of youth. Ah, yes. An escapade, after the formalities were over. Just what Hebe needed. She’d persuade the other girls to come. No boys.
All the boys and men were riveted by Aphrodite. She looked over at Ares. His lust was palpable. Aphrodite didn’t just look beautiful, she was full of beauty, embodied it, and clearly took delight in it. Artemis had never seen Ares this captivated and quickly turned away. It was the perfect time, Artemis determined, to ask Aphrodite if she’d like to join a rite of passage for Hebe. Artemis approached Aphrodite, question firmly in mind.
But she had not realized the effect of Aphrodite’s beauty until she drew closer to its source. Each element of Aphrodite’s oval face was perfectly proportioned. Her forehead was high; her chin rounded. Her nose, straight and short. Her ebony eyes, widespread and huge, were speckled with gold. Luxuriant eyelashes. Delicately arching eyebrows. High cheek bones, an excuse for hauteur, were belied by her dimpling cheeks. Her hair, held up and away from her face by a garland of white roses, was a reddish-gold. Her skin creamy. As was her long neck. But it was her lips ...
Artemis’ mind went blank. Her whole body pulsed. Aphrodite’s sumptuous vitality radiated.
Aphrodite, amusement dancing in her eyes, saw that Artemis was tongue-tied. She laughed affectionately and reached out to greet Artemis with a touch to her bare upper arm. Her palm was soft. While every instinct in Artemis cried out for more touch, Aphrodite started talking about the doves she adored. This must be, Artemis thought incoherently, because she knew that Artemis loved birds as well as animals. But she heard not one word.
“You’re staring, Artemis,” Aphrodite whispered, leaning toward Artemis slightly, laughing with nothing but kindness.
But here, suddenly, was the bulk of Poseidon, Zeus’ brother, Aphrodite’s uncle. Artemis stepped away and covered her chest with her hand. She had forgotten to breathe. She watched as Uncle Poseidon pinched Aphrodite’s enticingly plump cheek. No one else, other than her father Zeus, would dare such a possessive gesture. All Zeus’ daughters, and that included Artemis—which was just fine with her—were strictly off limits until they were eighteen. But Poseidon, scooping up a ripe fig from a handmaiden’s tray, was now about to pop it between Aphrodite’s lips—which he found, Artemis knew through and through—more temptingly ripe than the fig. Aphrodite, still smiling, gently slapped Poseidon’s hand away and tugged hard at her uncle’s white beard, as unruly as the ocean he commanded. She then helped herself to another fig, squeezed it to make sure it was as ripe as the one now smashed on the terrace, and stepped lightly over to Hebe, the folds of her long white chiton flowing behind her.
“Here.” She was holding out the fig to Hebe, who accepted it demurely. “Today is your day. Let me be the first to embrace you. Your whole family looks forward to upholding you in your divine duties with loving respect.” After caressing Hebe’s blushing cheek, Aphrodite affectionately kissed it. Arms outstretched, she drew Hebe in close.
Artemis imagined a flurry of white wings. As if a dove, nestled between Aphrodite’s ripe breasts, reluctantly relinquished exquisite comfort. But her mother was tapping Artemis on her shoulder. Time for the performance. Leto had insisted that Artemis collaborate with the Graces and Muses to choreograph a song and a dance honoring Hebe. Everyone had been blindsided two years back when the unkempt hoyden— ‘Is it really our Artemis?’—had first sung and danced. All chatter hushed as Artemis now led hand-picked girls into the center of the crowd. These were her most talented arktoi, the little bears in whom she was instilling self-confidence and sensual grace.
“Keep your eyes downcast,” Artemis had admonished before they began. “I’ll set my favorite hunting dog on any girl who bats a single eyelash.”
The dance began with a fluttering of diaphanous gowns, the rise of fluting voices, nubile girls slowly undulating. Moist lips spread in up-swirling abandon belied chaste modesty. And now, captivated, Artemis danced only for Aphrodite.
It had been easy to persuade both her sisters and her little bears to slip away from the festivities once ambrosia loosened parental vigilance. Artemis’ desire to spend more time with Aphrodite had lent wings to her words. Looking back up the trail, again, Artemis smiled at the clouds of fading petals jostled loose from the girls’ festive garlands. The petals, red, pink, white, floated down the mountain with a grace the scrambling girls lacked. Aphrodite’s peals of laughter intermingled with the fragrant drift of flowers.
Anticipation of unknown delight rooted in Artemis’ heart.
The trail was beginning to zigzag. The descent, parallel to a stream, had become exceedingly steep. Large boulders, thorny bushes, clumps of rosemary and thyme separated the path from where rushes now began to line the stream’s winding course. Awaited rain had recently fed a spring Artemis often visited. She had watched the first dribble of water begin to gush, feeling its coming rush flood her veins as if she were the parched stream bed.
She almost missed the only passable trail down to the stream. She, who could track any wolf to its lair, unsensed, until she whispered in his ear ’Your secrets, Friend Wolf, or your Life.’ A quick jump and hop down and she stood on what she liked to think was a beach: a narrow area of pebbles stranded by the sudden curve of the stream as it hustled its way around a boulder that stymied its flow. She shouted back up to encourage any stragglers.
Miraculously, they were all uninjured. Not one scratch. No whimpering about a twisted ankle. Yes, the beach was a little hard on tender feet.
“Keep your sandals on!”
And then, above the giggles and shrieks at how cold the water was, Athena called out in alarm. “Little Owl just flew off my shoulder!” Little Owl was in training to be Athena’s symbol of wisdom. The two had not yet bonded. Artemis, knowing where he would find a dinner of voles, almost sped off to retrieve him, but faltered. In her imagination, she saw Aphrodite, splashing around in the stream, her chiton clinging to her breasts. She didn’t want to leave but must respond to Athena’s concern.
With the light beginning to fade, a strange sight ahead caught her eye—not far downstream. The gray-green water in a pool, cut off from the flow of the stream, was infused with red. She knew this pool well. Its smooth basin was formed by an outcropping of limestone rocks, a stand of nearby aspens offering cooling shade in the day. Hastening closer, racing around the aspens, she saw a deer lying on her side on the white rocks’ uppermost slab. Her legs were sticking straight out. Too stiffly.
Artemis stopped. Her heart would not concede what her eyes told her.
Mou. Mine. My own doe. My heart.
The doe’s head tilted over the rock’s edge, her body in its own thick pool of congealing blood. Her mouth was open, purple tongue lolling. The black gloss of her nose dull.
No. And, no, again. She could not look. She must.
Three white ribs were bared. Her reddish-brown fur and flesh were flayed to create a perfect square around them. Blood still oozed from where a spear had been struck up beneath her ribs. To reach her heart. And yet she breathed still, a laborious rasping. She opened her black eyes, beginning to cloud over, to see Artemis one last time.
Artemis placed an arrow in the string of her bow and released Mou into death.
“Ever will you be the sweetest friend of my heart,” Artemis uttered in shattered disbelief. Bending back down, she knelt on the stone and lapped up Mou’s still-warm blood dripping from the edges of the square around her exposed ribs. “Now your blood is mixed with mine. Ever will you live within me.”
She had found Mou in a thicket when she was still a fawn. Orphaned but old enough so that she was weaned, the fawn had been dying of thirst. She had carried her home, anticipating her mother Leto’s objections, ‘You’ll grow too fond of her, Artemis, and never let her go. She’s a wild creature. She’ll grow too accustomed to humans. She deserves more than marble under those clicking hooves.’
“She’ll live with us,” the fourteen-year-old Artemis declared, tossing her head. “Until she and I have spent enough time together, in the woods. I’ll teach her to survive on her own.” And, rebelliously, “I shall call her Mou, mine. With my very own hands shall I bring her leaves and grass. And stop only when she is strong. Then she will be free to come and go as she pleases.”
Now, tilting her head back, tearing away the encircling garland that had celebrated Hebe’s coming of age, raking her hands through the tumbling darkness of her hair, Artemis stood beside Mou. And howled. Savage, bereft fury. That this delicate creature who had trusted her, whose affection she had earned, was no more.
When she had no more tears to cry, when her body was no longer racked by heaving sobs, words came, steaming with fury. “I know who it was, Mou. Because of your three bared ribs. My brother, Ares. I outran him in a race yesterday. He said he was worth three of me, a mere girl.” But her rage would do nothing to bring Mou back. It was time to retrace her steps and rejoin the girls. Little Owl would return to Athena precisely when he felt like it.
As her sagging legs carried her around the great boulder sheltering the pebbly beach, Artemis lifted her sorrowing eyes. The light had changed. The sun had already set. Mount Olympus’ jagged peaks and tree-lined slopes were a dark purple silhouette. The sky was an apricot shade she had never seen before.
When she looked down, she saw all the girls crowding around the shallow stream’s edge. All she could hear was the stream’s rills as Mou’s slick blood began to dry on her hands. Some of the girls were naked, others had not rid themselves of their sopping chitons. They clearly had been playing riotously, splashing and pouring water all over each other, some with the cups from the party. The mood was both exuberant and expectant.
Hebe, with her back to Artemis, was raising up her new silver chalice, both arms raised. The chalice, traditionally filled with ambrosia, overflowed with water. Hebe’s long, wet chiton, clinging to her slight body, sculpted a new stance of pride. She was ready to act—on her own terms—in her divine capacity as official cup bearer for the gods and goddesses. Artemis’ eyes felt blurry from weeping, her heart a black cavern. Her gaze shifted to the figure standing beyond Hebe and saw the goddess whom Hebe would glorify first.
She gasped. Aphrodite was naked. The transient apricot gold of the sky had an immortal rival. Aphrodite’s wet skin was gleaming with her own golden radiance.
Artemis had never seen Aphrodite unclothed. They had never played together as children. Now as she gazed, her shattered heart began to fill slowly with something she didn’t recognize. She was too exhausted to resist.
Aphrodite, teetering slightly, was up to her knees in the stream’s flow.
“Forgive me, Sweet Hebe,” Aphrodite called out, her soft voice floating above the stream’s ripples. “I have to find my footing for this, the first ceremonial raising of your cup. I am honored! And you look as beautiful as your new calyx. But, a moment, please.”
Aphrodite thrust out a hip. It both balanced her and accentuated her narrow waist above the curve of her belly. Her arms, raised above her waist, similarly called eyes to its narrowness—and called out for encircling hands. Her own hands were seeking to keep the mass of dripping hair mounded on top of her head. Ringlets escaped, teasing her long neck and gently sloping shoulders, falling to her bosom. Her up-tilted nipples seemed to seek higher ground as rivulets of water spilled down between her breasts.
Breasts as perfect as any two golden apples hanging on a bough.
A bough laden with leaves she would no longer pluck for Mou.
Apples begging to be picked, that she would eat, satiating the hunger rising above pain.
How could her agony morph into this exquisite desire for sweetness, when she would never touch Mou’s moist nose again?
Artemis dropped her gaze. Aphrodite’s perfection was life at its most beautiful. Lacerated, she wanted to cry out, to fall against that body and be held, comforted.
The curls that protected Aphrodite’s lower mound were as golden as the apricot halo of hair around her face. It was here, at this mound, that a one such as Ares, soon to be god of war, would seek to slake his desire. Desire that Aphrodite, goddess of love, was born to whet—in gods and men.
And in her. Too treacherously soon.
Aphrodite, laughing, was now nodding at Hebe. She was ready for the goddess of youth to anoint her as Golden Aphrodite. This was the moment all the young women awaited. Awaited by the water held captive in the cup bearer’s new chalice. Awaited by the stream, ceasing its chattering over stones.
But all Artemis could think, see, was that Aphrodite’s laughing mouth, with lips curved as beautifully as the curve of her own bow, was red and full. Succulent enough to bite. And that the liquid apricot of Aphrodite’s skin would quench, lick by slow lick, the thirst of her own lips, stained red with the blood of her very own deer.
Mou, Mine.
Blood, and now moisture, mixing within her. Death’s agony with up-surging life. Dry no longer.
And, then, Artemis, touching the goddess of love’s mind with her own, understood:
I know how beautiful my face is.
I know how perfectly my limbs are formed.
How perfectly my body curves.
I know how much pleasure my breasts give. As do my lips.
I know how luscious I am. How luscious I will feel to another.
Deliciously sweet, inside out, the most sensuous female alive.
In my heart, I know.
And, Artemis, within her heart, knew this to be true.
And loved Aphrodite for it.