HE FOUND a small alcove and raised his arms high. “Great god Poseidon,” he said, “I invoke you once again. I am in need of your help for the second time. Please, great god, please come to me!”
Once again, as he had with Ares’s arrival, Theseus felt a strange pulse through the air and sensed a presence behind him. When he turned, there stood a man of dazzling beauty. He was naked, and were it not for the ample cock and the absence of breasts, Theseus might have mistaken him for a woman, so slender and lovely was he. His face was narrow, with full, soft lips and delicate eyelashes, and his yellow hair formed a halo of curls about his head. His skin was not the color of any mortal, but was instead a shiny gold, like a living golden statue.
But surely the most wondrous quality about him was the great wings that emerged from his back, each as long as his body’s height and covered in feathers of the purest white.
That he was divine was obvious. But Theseus knew instinctively that, once again, Poseidon had not come himself.
Theseus bowed low. “God of Olympus, I humbly greet you.”
“And I you, young prince,” the god said, smiling sweetly. “I am Eros, son of Aphrodite and God of Love.”
“I am your servant, great Eros.”
“Yes, it would seem you are,” the god said, laughing. “As Ares before me, I come at Poseidon’s request, but I, too, was eager to see you, for you have proven yourself devoted to the practices of love. You have given your heart to another in the purest fashion that two mortals can, even forsaking Ares’s offer to bring you to Olympus. And you also delight in the pleasures of the flesh, wholly and without shame. Both these things are sacred to me.”
“It pleases me that I honor you, God of Love.”
“Indeed. Now you have called for your second favor. What is it you would ask of me?”
“My beloved, Pirithous, was injured. I ask that you reverse his injury, great Eros.”
“Oh, Theseus,” Eros said. “The first boon you requested was a tool to help Minos’s captives. The second you ask for would help the injury of another. These gifts were meant to help you, in your journey.”
Theseus met the god’s eyes. “They are helping me. Please. Please! Do this for me.”
Eros smiled and shook his head. “Kings and heroes are remembered for valor and victory on the battlefield,” he said. “Too rarely are they remembered for kindness. It is unfortunate.”
He approached Theseus and cupped his face in his hands. Eros brought his lips to the prince’s—lips that were as soft and pliable as feather pillows, and that tasted of berries and honey, ambrosia and nectar.
Theseus kissed him back and tentatively placed his hands on the young god’s hips.
“I shall gift you with a balm,” Eros whispered into his mouth, “that will heal not only Pirithous’s wounds, but any wounds that may be incurred in the future. It is a most precious substance.” He looked at Theseus and raised an eyebrow. “It is my seed.”
Theseus thought he might be joking, then realized the god was completely serious. “Your seed, Eros?”
“Indeed, the seed of the gods has the ability to heal any mortal injury. All semen, after all, creates life. Ours also restores it.”
Theseus suddenly remembered when Ares, his lips coated with his divine semen, kissed him, and how Theseus had suddenly felt reinvigorated.
“I see,” he said.
“So all we must do now—” Eros smiled wickedly. “—is figure out how to get my seed out of my body.”
Theseus reached down and squeezed the young god’s member, feeling it pulse to full rigidity within his grip. “I have an idea,” he said.
Theseus laid Eros down on his back and stared in wonder at the golden cock before him. He licked it from base to tip, and his mouth filled with the sweetest taste imaginable. He licked all over the god’s testicles, rolling them over his tongue, then licked down farther, and Eros spread his legs so that Theseus could flick his tongue into the god’s hole as he stroked the beautiful cock. Eros squirmed and moaned, and Theseus returned his mouth to Eros’s penis. He sucked with a vigor he had never before known, bolstered, he was sure, by the fact that this was the god of love himself that he pleasured.
He had sucked his share of cocks in the past two months, but what he performed on Eros that night was a feat the world had never seen the likes of before. It was a cocksucking that deserved to go down in history, and Eros surrendered to that superior pleasure. Soon he was at his peak and his wings unfurled, springing out to either side of him and stretching to their full span. Quickly, he pushed Theseus’s head off his cock, lest the young man accidentally swallow the sacred seed. It erupted out of him in an arc, a liquid diamond streak that flew into the air. Eros, with his godly speed, produced a crystal bottle and caught every drop of his semen within it. He placed a stopper into the bottle and handed it to a now quite tired Theseus.
“For you, hero,” Eros said.
“Thanks be to you, great Eros,” Theseus said, rubbing his weary jaw. “Do I have your leave to go to Pirithous?”
“Yes, go, go,” Eros said. He laid his head back down on the floor, smiling contentedly. “I think I’ll just lie here awhile.”
Theseus sprang up and raced down the corridor, clutching the bottle of Eros’s precious balm. When he reached the doors to the great hall, he did not slow down but battered them open with his shoulder, causing the other tributes to jump up, startled.
“Prince Theseus,” Braxius said. The large soldier was kneeling by Pirithous’s head, holding a wet cloth to his brow. “His condition has not improved.” Braxius grimly nodded in the direction of Pirithous’s abdomen, where a cloth was wrapped, boasting a hideously dark bloodstain.
“Remove the cloth,” Theseus instructed.
“My lord, I—”
“Do it!” Theseus shouted.
Reluctantly, Braxius unwrapped the bandage, exposing Pirithous’s sinister wound. Theseus took the bottle given to him by Eros, removed the stopper, and tipped it over Pirithous’s stomach. A few drops of the fluid fell onto him, and within seconds the wound had closed itself, the skin sealing up in a seamless reunion.
“By the gods,” Iphitrion gasped from behind Theseus.
“It is by the gods, indeed,” Theseus said. “Hand me that wet cloth.”
He motioned to a cloth in a bowl of water and Braxius handed it to him. Theseus gently wiped the blood off his lover’s stomach, revealing perfectly smooth skin, as though the injury had never happened.
Pirithous’s eyes fluttered open. “Theseus?”
Theseus smoothed Pirithous’s hair and kissed his brow. He clutched his lover’s head to his breast and cried once more. “You’re going to be fine, my love. I’ve healed you.”
“I… it’s odd, but I feel fine already.”
Pirithous sat up, and as he started to his feet, Theseus said, “Pirithous, wait, you might still—”
But he needn’t have worried, as Pirithous stood, stretched, and did a cartwheel for good measure.
“I’ve never felt better in my life!” he said.
Theseus exhaled. He felt the tension leave his shoulders. Pirithous lived.
The other tributes cheered at this happy turn.
Theseus, exhausted, held his head in his hands, breathing deeply. He then turned and caught eyes with Autolyca. She nodded, and he returned the gesture. Soon, his nod conveyed to her. Soon we will both attempt our goals.
THAT NIGHT, Theseus lay awake while the others slept. Now that Pirithous was healed, he knew his thoughts should rest entirely on the Minotaur and how he might attempt to vanquish him. But all he could do was stare at Pirithous’s face, his perfect, sleeping face, and thank every god he had ever heard of that his lover still lived.
The god he thanked mostly, of course, was Eros, and he sent his prayers of gratitude with all his might, hoping the love god would hear them.
“I do hear them.” A voice came from behind him.
Startled, Theseus turned and beheld Eros, sitting casually on the floor as though he were one of the tributes, his glorious wings folded behind him.
Theseus fell to the ground, prostrate, his forehead pressed against the cold stone, and he wept. “Great god Eros,” he said, “I am forever your servant. I could thank you every minute for a thousand years for saving Pirithous, and still it would not be enough.”
“Well, that’s overdoing it a little bit, I think. Though I appreciate the gesture,” Eros said. “Do you wonder why I’ve returned to you?”
Theseus sat up, wiping the tears from his face. “I do, great god.”
“You’ve shown that you hold love high in your heart. But so far only your own love. I wonder… would you be as passionate to help love blossom if said love were not your own?”
“I like to think I would, great Eros.”
“One floor above you, the third room on the right, a guest is staying with Minos. He did not attend the orgy or any of Minos’s bacchanalias, so you would not have seen him. That is all I will say.”
“Is this a test, Eros?”
“You could call it that. Well, go on.”
Theseus nodded, rose to his feet, and followed Eros’s directions until he found himself standing in front of a door. Tentatively, he knocked. He heard motion inside, and soon the door opened to reveal a handsome man with chestnut-brown skin. His head was shaved bald, and he wore dark paint around his eyes, which were themselves as black as night. His chest was bare but for a circular golden metallic shawl that wrapped around his neck and covered his shoulders, and he wore a long skirt of bone-white fabric that hung from his waist almost to his feet, belted with a golden sash. All of it was a fashion unlike any Theseus had ever seen before.
The man looked at Theseus and let out a disappointed breath. “Boy,” he said, “you are very lovely, but I instructed Minos that I had no interest in being attended by a pleasure slave. You may return to your master.”
Theseus looked down at his own naked body, the iron cuffs on his wrists and ankles. Of course the man would think him a pleasure slave, given his appearance.
“I am no slave,” Theseus said, and the man raised his eyebrows in genuine curiosity. “I am a tribute, come from Athens.”
The man’s eyes softened and a look of great pity crossed his face. “Oh, I am sorry. Come in. Let me at least offer you some food or wine as comfort.”
Theseus nodded graciously and followed the man into his room, closing the door behind him.
“I did not think Minos allowed his tributes to roam the palace at night,” the bald man said.
“There is much Minos does not know.”
“That sounds dangerous, and so I’ll inquire no further.” The man offered Theseus a cup of wine.
Theseus took it and drank, filling his mouth with the sweet, fermented taste of grapes.
“For what it’s worth,” the man said, “I think what Minos is doing is barbaric. We talk of the Minotaur, but if you ask me, it is Minos that is the true Beast of Crete. Were I not here under orders, I would leave this place at once.”
“And whom do you receive orders from, if I may ask?”
“Forgive me, I did not introduce myself. My name is Amares, and I come here as an emissary of the great Pharaoh of Egypt.”
Theseus looked at him, forgetting to breathe for a moment. “Did you say Amares?”
“I did,” the man said, curiosity in his voice. “Surely my name can’t be known to you.”
“Amares.” Theseus repeated. “Is it possible that you could be the same Amares who, some time ago, stayed in the palace of Aegeus?”
“I am. But how do you know this? I did not see you—”
“And became partial to a young slave boy by the name of Iphitrion?”
In seconds Amares had crossed the distance between them and clutched Theseus’s arms, his fingers digging painfully into the prince’s flesh.
“You know of Iphitrion? How? Who are you?” His voice was choked, agitated.
Theseus seized the man’s shoulders, not out of defense but to soothe. “I come to you in friendship, Amares. I am Theseus, son of Aegeus.”
Amares searched Theseus’s eyes. “Aegeus had no children.”
“That he knew of. I made myself known to him well after your time in Athens. I befriended Iphitrion while at the palace.”
Amares released him and slowly backed away, collapsing in a chair. His eyes began to shine with tears. “I did not think I would ever hear his name again. Aegeus wouldn’t allow me to take Iphitrion with me, and he prevented me from ever returning to Athens. A night hasn’t passed that I have not thought of my poor, sweet Iphitrion. I’ve taken no one into my bed since last I saw him.”
Theseus stammered, but Amares raised a hand, silencing him. “I know he would not have been able to do the same as a slave, nor should he be denied pleasure if it were offered to him. No man should. It was my choice to abstain, as I could not stop thinking of him. I would fight the gods themselves for a chance to hold him in my arms once more. But because of Aegeus, it will never happen again.” Amares covered his face with his hands and wept.
Theseus knelt before him and embraced him. “Do not cry, Amares. I promise you this: you will be reunited with Iphitrion before the moon is full again.”
Amares opened his mouth, but could make no sound for a moment. When he recovered, he said, “How do you know this?”
“I would take you to him now, but there is too great a risk we would be caught, which might lead to ruin. First, there is something I must do, but when I’m finished, you will be in Iphitrion’s arms again.” He grasped Amares’s hand. “Trust in me, and all will come to a happy end.”
Amares nodded, looking weak, and Theseus bade him farewell.
As Theseus was almost out the door, Amares said, “Theseus.”
Theseus turned back to him.
“If you really do this thing, there is nothing I will not do for you in return. I would move mountains to see him again.”
Theseus nodded, and he left.