THE NEXT morning, Theseus broke his fast with the other tributes. He noticed they all had the same expression: fear. Pirithous saw it as well.
“Hey!” Pirithous said. The others looked at him, surprised. “Your prince needs your faith and confidence in him. Let’s lose the glum expressions.”
“He’s right,” Autolyca said. “I believe in you, Prince Theseus.”
“I believe in you,” Iphitrion said.
“I believe in you, my prince,” one of the other girls added.
All the rest voiced their agreement. Theseus looked at Pirithous and slipped his hand into his lover’s. Pirithous winked and leaned in close. “I believe in you, my brave, sweet, lusty prince,” he whispered into Theseus’s ear. “You are a mighty hero. One day your name will be counted among the great champions of our people. Perseus. Bellerophon. Heracles.”
“I think you might be exaggerating.”
“I am not. You will save Athens just as you saved me.”
He kissed Theseus on the lips.
Theseus smiled into his mouth. “I love you,” he said.
The moment was broken by the arrival of Minos with a host of guards. “The time has come,” he pronounced pompously. “Say good-bye to your great hero prince, Athenians. This is the last time you will ever see him.”
Pirithous kissed him one last time. Theseus winked to hide his fear, then stood and faced Minos. He put one hand behind his back, and Pirithous subtly slipped Ariadne’s ball of string into his hand.
“I am ready, Minos,” Theseus said.
Minos pointed toward two great black doors on the other side of the hall. Theseus turned, keeping the ball of string hidden from Minos, and walked toward the doors. When he pushed through them, he found himself walking down a long corridor. At the end was another door, flanked by two guards dressed as all Minos’s guards were dressed: cocks exposed and wearing only armguards, boots, a helmet, and a red cape. When Theseus reached them, one guard turned and pushed the door open. Theseus squared his shoulders and made to walk through when the other guard grabbed his wrist.
“What’s that you got there in your hand?” he said.
Theseus played the fool, raising the string. “What, this, sir?”
“Yes, that.”
“Just a ball of string. It was my mother’s. She gave it to me for good luck when I was a boy.”
“The king’s orders state you can’t take anything with you into the Labyrinth.”
“But this is no weapon, sir, just a harmless token.”
“All the same. Hand it over.”
Theseus dropped the ball, which landed noiselessly on the ground. “Sorry about that,” he said. He turned away from the guard and bent down to retrieve it. He took a step back, so that his ass, spread with his posture, grazed against the guard’s cock.
“Ooh,” Theseus said, making a great show of shuddering. He backed up farther and felt the guard’s cock beginning to harden, filling the space in the cleft between his cheeks.
“What’s all this?” the other guard said.
“Sorry,” Theseus said, “sometimes I just can’t help myself.”
Still bent over, he reached for the other guard’s cock. “This is my last day on Earth,” he said. “And my ass and mouth yearn for one last cock each. Do you gentlemen think…?”
He looked up and saw the guards making eye contact, smiling lascivious smiles.
“You want it bad, don’t you, slave?” the second guard said.
Theseus leaned forward and took the guard’s cock in his mouth, slurping loudly. “Mmm, yes,” he moaned, pushing his ass farther back onto the first guard. “Give it to me.”
The second guard dropped his spear and ran his fingers through Theseus’s hair, pushing his head farther down on his cock until Theseus’s lips were at the base of it. Behind him, Theseus felt the other guard insert fingers slicked with oil into his hole, moving them around, getting him ready. He was thankful he remembered the guards always carried oil in their cloaks.
The guard pushed himself inside, and Theseus bucked back on his cock while enthusiastically sucking the guard in front of him. He tenderly grasped the man’s balls, rolling them around and stroking the space behind them where his legs met.
Theseus realized his own cock was hard and pulsing, an event he somehow didn’t factor into his plan. Well, he thought, if these are my last moments on Earth, I might as well enjoy it. He reached down and began stroking himself.
Before long, the guard who was presently in his mouth spurted his juices, and Theseus, aroused by the sudden onslaught, spilled his own seed. This caused his body to clench, and the pressure was all the guard who was fucking him needed in order to be pushed over the edge. Soon the three men extricated themselves from one another, and both guards, exhausted, sat on the ground.
“That was just what I needed,” one of the guards said.
“The pleasure was all mine,” Theseus said, and he quickly snatched up the ball of string and darted through the doors and into the Labyrinth.
“Hey!” one guard yelled, but Theseus slammed the doors shut behind him. Theseus watched them, tense, to see if they would open, but only for a moment. He knew the guards wouldn’t follow him inside. They wouldn’t dare.
He took stock of the room he was now in. The walls rose very high, twenty feet at least, smooth stone that led up to a ceiling of slats that revealed the bright morning sky beyond, filling the room with light. He was relieved—he had imagined it would be dark. In the corner of the room, just as Ariadne had said, was a large urn filled with palm fronds, long dead. Of course. Who would come in to tend to it?
He peered over the rim and saw, sure enough, a sword lying in the dirt. He grasped it and pulled it out. It was a fine sword, sturdy and somewhat sharp. He cut through the air a few times, back and forth, remembering his martial training. He allowed himself a moment to wish he had been permitted to wear some clothes, anything to make him feel less naked and vulnerable. Then he pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind and steeled his nerve.
He unraveled a bit of string and tied it around the urn, then took a deep breath and began his journey into the Labyrinth. What began as one corridor branched into two possible pathways, and when he chose one at random, he found that path took him into a room in which there were four paths to choose from.
He chose one at random, and it led him down a corridor that ended with a wall. A dead end. So he retraced his steps, raveling the string back up and choosing the second path. This went on for hours, moving forward, edging back, until little by little he ventured deeper into the maze.
He knew he was getting close to the center of the Labyrinth when he heard a horrible sound: a labored, husky, wheezing breath followed by a snort.
The sounds of a bull.
Theseus curled his fingers around the hilt of his sword. It was time. He turned a corner and suddenly, there it was. The Beast of Crete.
The Minotaur had the body of a man, yes, but larger than any man should be. Every inch of his body was covered with thick brown curly hair that spread over his enormous chest, climbed down the front of his thighs, and crowned his mighty swinging penis, which was as thick as a tree limb. But of course it was the creature’s head that was the most terrible: that giant bull’s head, brown and coarsely furred, with eyes as black as night. Its horns curled forward from the top of its head, each with a point sharper than a spear. Theseus felt fear take him but steeled his resolve. This was the moment he had been preparing for.
The Minotaur raised its snout to the sky and snorted, then rushed toward Theseus, its hideous horns pointed forward. Theseus leaped out of the way just in time, for the monster crashed into the wall behind him and split the rock with his horns. Theseus hated to think what would happen if those horns struck him. He slashed his sword, landing a clean cut on the creature’s back, but the blade merely skidded off its hide as though it were a blunt stick. The Minotaur whipped around and, with the back of his meaty fist, struck at Theseus, hitting him in the side. Theseus was thrown to the ground. In all his life, a blow had never landed so painfully on him. He thought he might never be able to breathe again, but he forced his lungs to pull in air.
Just as he started to stumble back onto his feet, the Minotaur was on him again. Theseus avoided being skewered by the beast’s horns by an inch at the most, but before he could lift his sword, the Minotaur caught him in a savage embrace, wrapping its impossibly thick arms around Theseus’s throat. Theseus struck and clawed at the Minotaur’s arms, but all in vain. Air was leaving him and his vision grew blurry. He felt his life being squeezed out of him.
He shut his eyes and prayed desperately, hoping to get out his unspoken plea before he would be no more. Poseidon, he prayed, I call for aid. Let this be my third and last request.
Suddenly, the pressure around his throat ceased. He hesitantly opened one eye and found he was no longer in the Labyrinth at all, but instead was standing on a beach of yellow sand on a small island, in front of a sparkling blue-green sea. He looked down and saw that he was truly naked, absent even the metal cuffs on his wrists and ankles, but he did not feel vulnerable in the slightest. In fact, he had never felt safer in his entire life. He looked out in astonishment at the sea around the island as a great wave rose high, gaining height as it neared the beach until it was as large as a mountain. It loomed over him, and yet Theseus was unafraid, though he couldn’t explain why.
The wave then stopped moving, as if in a dream, and slowly began to take human shape. Soon it had coalesced into the form of a gigantic nude man, his skin the same hue as the wave, shining and blue-green, his hair the black of the impossible depths of the sea. This water giant then shrank before Theseus’s eyes from the size of the wave until they were of a height with each other.
Though the man looked no older than Theseus, the prince sensed he was ancient and knew who he must be. “Great god Poseidon,” he whispered.
“Yes,” Poseidon said, his voice soft like the rush of small waves, “at long last, we meet.”
“Where are we?” Theseus asked, looking around. “I was in the Labyrinth, and—”
“You still are. I have merely frozen time for the moment, so we could come here. Here, however, is not a real island, of course, but simply a place in your mind.”
Theseus didn’t understand anything the god had just said, but he nodded anyway, as it seemed the appropriate thing to do.
“I have watched you for some time now, Theseus. In fact, I have watched you since the moment you were born.”
“But why, great Poseidon? And why have you been helping me?”
“To understand that, I must tell you the story of what happened the night you were conceived. As you know, your mother took Aegeus as her lover for a night, and that is when the beginnings of you took form within her. But what your mother didn’t tell you, for she doesn’t remember, is that after she and Aegeus coupled, she left her bed and walked to the beaches of Troezen, where she waded out into the sea. This was something she often did at night, as she loved to swim in the ocean under the stars. I saw her that night and fell in love, and I came to her and we made love. My seed and the seed of Aegeus mixed in her womb, and therefore he is your father… and so am I.”
“My f-father….” Theseus stammered.
“Yes. You are my son. And that is why I have been so invested in your journey. You have made me so proud.”
“Why doesn’t she remember?”
“She was ashamed she had coupled again so soon after being with Aegeus. Though I was a god and offered her the world, it was Aegeus she loved. So she asked me to wipe the memory clean from her mind. I alone remember what happened.”
Theseus, stunned, sat on the beach. Poseidon sat next to him, and together they stared out at the waves.
“I am part god,” Theseus said wonderingly.
“Yes.”
“Can I die?”
“You can. The Olympian blood in you is diluted to the point where you will someday still die a mortal death.”
“I don’t wish to die now, by the hands of the Minotaur.”
“I should imagine not. And you do still have one wish left.”
Theseus nodded. Poseidon looked at him expectantly. “Merely say the word, Son, and I’ll remove the Minotaur from this world. Or if you wish, I’ll spirit you and your friends out of Minos’s palace and let it crumble around him, and the Beast of Crete will be killed in the wreckage.”
Theseus bit his lip, thinking. “Was the Minotaur truly born as in the story Pirithous told me? Zeus seduced Minos’s wife in the form of a bull?”
“That is how the creature came to this earth, yes.”
“Then it never had a choice, did it? It didn’t ask to be born a monster, and no sooner did it come into this world than it was thrust into a prison that cannot be escaped.” Theseus rubbed his face with his hands. “When the Minotaur was born, was it given a true name? Before it was called the Beast of Crete?”
“Its mother named it,” Poseidon said, nodding.
“That is the final boon I would ask. For you to tell me the Minotaur’s true name.”
“Theseus,” Poseidon said, “I’m offering to truly help you. You do not have to fight this beast.”
“The fight has already begun, and I finish what I start. I know naming something gives you power over it.”
“There is no guarantee it will be enough power.”
“I understand.”
Poseidon looked at him and shook his head. But then a smile crept at the corner of his lips. “You truly are a remarkable boy. I can’t think of anyone else who would see the Minotaur and be moved to pity. To answer your question, the beast’s mother gave it a name that would forever commemorate how she was seduced against her will. Enclimatheus.”
Enclimatheus. The crime of a god.
“Thank you… Father. I’d like to return now, if it’s all right with you.”
Theseus stood and dusted the sand off his bare buttocks, and then he laughed. “This isn’t even real sand, is it?”
Poseidon smiled. “No.”
The god stood and took his son’s shoulders in his hands, looking him over. He kissed Theseus on his forehead and released him. “I’ll never be far from you, my son.”
Theseus nodded.
Poseidon inclined his head. “And so you know, I approve of that Pirithous boy.”
Theseus laughed but suddenly found himself unable to breathe. Gone was the beach and the beautiful sky. Hard, hairy, meaty arms were once again wrapped around his throat. “Encli….” he squeaked out, but the beast pulled tighter around his windpipe. He tried again, stuttering out the first syllable, but couldn’t say any more. His vision blurred as he started to lose consciousness.
No! I didn’t come all this way and meet both my fathers only to die like this.
With his last ounce of strength, he kicked his heel back and up, connecting with the Minotaur’s only soft spot on his entire body—his testicles. The creature cried out in pain and momentarily loosened his grip, and in that moment Theseus shouted, “Enclimatheus!”
The Minotaur dropped him immediately. Theseus landed hard on the floor and scrambled to his feet. He whipped around and, amazed, beheld the Minotaur standing perfectly still as though awaiting orders. Theseus cautiously approached the beast.
“Enclimatheus,” he said again. “That was your name once, and can be again. The name given to you by the only person ever to show you love in this world: your mother.”
The Minotaur made a sound that Theseus could barely believe: a groaning, mournful sound that turned into choked sobs. It fell to the ground, and Theseus saw tears coming out of its pitch-black eyes.
Moved to tenderness, Theseus kneeled down and stroked the beast’s forehead and down its snout.
“We have something in common, as it turns out,” Theseus said, trying to soothe the beast. “We both were fathered by gods but also have mortal fathers of… questionable morality. Your human father put you in this Labyrinth and never gave you an opportunity to prove your quality.”
Theseus got up on his haunches, still stroking the beast’s snout. “Enclimatheus, listen to me. I came here because I thought I had to slay you, but now I see it is Minos who is the real monster. Help me defeat him, and I will give you a new life. I can’t say what that life will bring, but I can promise you this: you will be free.”
Then the Minotaur did something Theseus had truly not expected.
He nodded.