Aphrodite’s Exile

D.N. Esacarys

A beautiful Greek goddess causes terror as she starts the Trojan War. Her punishment; exile to an island inhabited only by women.

“She needs to be punished,” Hera and Athena complained to Zeus.

“You both can be such nagging goddesses,” he responded, “You were the ones who created the vain beauty contest and tried without success to bribe your way to victory.” Hera had offered Paris, Asia and Europe, but he didn’t want to become a Greek land baron in 1260 BC. Athena promised he could have wisdom and fame if he would vote for her.

“We’re not sore losers,” Hera said, “She let Paris choose Helen of Troy, and she’s already married. You know what’s going to happen.” She loosened his robe.

Zeus knew Menelaus and the Greeks had been spoiling to fight the Trojans for many years. Paris’ adultery would spark a long bloody war.

“Whiners. I don’t think Aphrodite should be severely punished for a mortal’s mistake.” He didn’t resist her fingers slowly moving along the inside of his thigh until she had reached his crown jewels.

“Exile her for a time. Cast her from Mount Olympus. Let her spend time alone without the company of men who all crave beauty.”

Zeus cast his eyes over the Aegean Sea and the Greek Islands. He settled her on one, as Hera settled over him.

Aphrodite had awoken on an unknown beach. As was her nature, she was without clothing but a Poseidon-assisted fog shrouded her private parts from the eyes of gods and humans. She sat fronting the ocean’s surf as if reborn. As the crystal blue waters lapped at her perfect toes and ankles, her naked butt cheeks rubbed up against the finest grains of grateful sands. Human-like, they adjusted themselves to her bottom’s contours as she sank and lay back in comfort.

Alone, she wondered where she was and what good fortune she would find here. She wasn’t scared, as she was after all a goddess. As was her abiding interest, she wondered what males she would find in this place. Would they be ugly toads like her husband Hephaestus, or a handsome stallion like Adonis, her best lover? This was her main concern.

She heard a woman’s voice sweetly singing.

“Aphrodite. Most precious heavenly flower. Let her petals welcome morning’s shower.” A misting rain now partially cooled and shielded the women from the sun’s yellow heat.

Her lyrics could be heard coming near. Aphrodite turned on her side and saw a dark-haired woman approach. She was clothed in a simple peasant’s tunic.

“Aphrodite. I can only sing your praises. But the lusts of all she raises.” The woman sang out in a gracious rhyme.

“Who is the female who compliments the goddess in this manner?” Aphrodite asked in an innocent way.

“I am a lyricist, goddess,” the raven-haired woman said. Her looks were not unkind either. Her eyes, like her multi-curled hair, were the color of black olives, her lips the red of the strawberries in the farmer’s fields. “My name is Sappho.”

“Where am I?”

“You are on the island of Lesbos.”

“How do you know me?”

“I’ve known you for many years. The women here have worshipped your beauty from afar.”

“Sit beside me and sing me more tributes,” Aphrodite commanded.

“I will do as you request,” Sappho said, “But the tide looks to rise and I don’t want my tunic to dampen.”

“Discard it then. Clothes are mortal’s inventions. I’ll command a mist to cover you.”

Sappho lifted her sack cloth above her head and threw it up on the dune away from the gentle tide’s advance. She revealed breasts the size of ripened cantaloupes with cherry-topped nipples. Her calves and thighs were well-toned limbs from walking the island’s hills and valleys. Her bush was a full dark forest of curlicue hair - foreboding, exciting, and rich in its thickness. Aphrodite stared and admired her for several moments. She had never before shown much interest in a female mortal.

As promised, a mini-fog covered her to worldly and other- worldly eyes. She was only viewed by Aphrodite. Moist droplets freshened and enveloped them both. They sat. An arm’s length apart with their legs sometimes bent and other times outstretched towards the lightly foamy brine. Their vaginas were safe harbors for the warm blue waters which playfully entered them, paused to lap against their pink lower lips, and then receded, unceasingly tickling their swelling red jewels.

Aphrodite told Sappho of the contest she had had with Hera and Athena. She told of Paris’ choice of the most beautiful woman in the world - Helen. Now she was banished here because of their complaints and Zeus’s temper, along with his lust for Hera’s charms. For how long, she did not know.

“I will sing, create, and scribe poems all for you, my goddess.” Sappho said. “You won’t regret being here. The world will never forget you or your beauty.”

“What good does fleshly beauty do alone?” Aphrodite mused aloud, “Without others to admire and touch, a gorgeous being, goddess or not, would have no advantage over an ugly one.

“You’re not alone here, goddess. There are many who have set ashore here. They’ve made it their home. They worship you as I.”

“Really? I see an empty beach.”

“There are nymphs and amazons here. Up the hill a ways. Some female pirates too.”

“And men?” The blonde goddess asked.

Just then, as if angered by the mention of males, the surf rose up like a giant hand on one side and another cupped on the other, rolling the goddess and the woman together, so that their bosoms touched one to the other. Sappho gave no effort in resisting the goddess sliding against her, soft and supple, warm and wet. Aphrodite, for her part, freely floated now, pulled and pushed against Sappho’s melon- breasts. Hers, the larger lighter skinned. Sappho’s smaller, ripened brown fruit by the ever-envious sun. Her new sensation was different and had begun it own intimate journey to other regions of her body.

The water’s hands now pulled at their ankles, gently dragging them together, and pulling them down and away from the gleaming shore into the frivolous waters. They were in its grasp, but they didn’t resist. It seemed the force of earth’s gravity had been suspended and the Aegean Sea, human-like, wanted to play with them as alluring, earthy sex toys.

They floated along wordlessly, magically, drawn together, one against the other, and somehow finding each other in one another’s arms. They let the sea have its playful game. Seconds, then minutes passed, as they peacefully held each other in the shallows, never completely apart, never wanting to be completely apart. Intertwined like vines of seaweed, one light-skinned and one dark, they let the waters play with their private parts as they with each other with no controls, only natural feelings. It felt good-- they touched themselves, the waters touched them, and they touched in places they’d never explored before.

Aphrodite’s green eyes found Sappho’s black pupils. She stared into them, seeing her thoughts...and welcoming her lustful intentions. She no longer thought of the men and gods she had had. She’d forgotten Ares and Adonis being inside of her. They were distant, not wanted, and not in this moment.

The goddess felt the mortal against her, felt her mind enter the woman’s, and she felt her own loins churn hot like a small fire burned inside.

Sappho didn’t have to speak nor sing, nor rhyme any verses. She only had to think and dream...and act upon her thoughts and dreams. This was not her first time, but it was the goddess’. She would not delay. Aphrodite wouldn’t have to wait any longer.

Smaller Sappho’s knee found itself between Aphrodite’s milky thighs. She gently let it rub against a spot below her golden triangle. She teased and tortured her with delight for what seemed like hours, lazily running it up and down, inside and out. Only minutes passed.

Then Sappho removed her knee and let her fingers dangle inside Aphrodite’s fleshy walls. She separated them like she was carefully parting an unknown treasure. She gently searched until she had found the goddess’s swollen pink fruit. One, two, three fingers discovered, uncovered, and tenderly felt the intimate prize.

She let the surf slide her own body further down, past her breasts, her stomach, her blonde bush, until she discovered her mouth inches away from Aphrodite’s pink lips. They looked very wet. But she didn’t stare long. Instead she stuck her tongue out and had it begin a search for the treasure which her fingers had recently had in their grasp.

Aphrodite gasped, not ever having had another’s tongue inside her, realizing this was a new, divine-like experience. But could it be? She was on earth, some faraway island. With a mortal woman, she only hoped would not cease her thrilling mission.

But she did. She had to come up for air. Then she went down again, this time longer and more aggressive. She found Aphrodite’s clitoris and took turns licking and sucking until the goddess screamed so loud the heavens could hear her eternal pleasure. Sappho came up for air again and then went down again and again, her throat now gulping every drop of the goddess’s nectar. She swallowed it all with a little salt water mixed in.

In the water, Aphrodite arched her back, her hair like flaxen seaweed falling towards the shore, her legs now wrapped around Sappho’s head, pulling her closer in. She shouted again in delight and said in a low murmur which Sappho couldn’t hear, “Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop.” It didn’t matter. The mortal wouldn’t stop until Aphrodite exploded again and again and again and the blue waters changed to greenish-amber, the color of her eyes. Only then, only after Aphrodite had slowly released her legs from around Sappho’s neck and head, did she stop.

Aphrodite was limp and floated along in the surf. Sappho, for her part, was energized and not a bit tired. She washed her face in the sea and stood up. “Come goddess. Come with me to rest.”

“But where? Where shall we go?”

“I have a cave which has warm springs and fountains inside. The rocks glow with light. It is safe and secure. No one will bother you there.” She’d spoken of Kagiani Cave, high atop the highest point on the island.

Sappho offered her hand to the goddess. She stood up and steadied herself. They walked hand in hand to the cave. The mist still shrouded their nudity. Sappho didn’t bother to drape her tunic over herself.

When they entered the cave, it felt at once warm and cool to Aphrodite.

“Let me get a toga for you, goddess,” Sappho said, hearing Aphrodite sneeze.

“You will be rewarded for all your kindnesses and favors. But I find clothing to be much too confining.”

“Very well then. You are my reward, most beautiful one.”

Inside the cave, bare-breasted women abounded. No males. They were bathing themselves in the pools of water inside the cistern deep within nature’s natural walls.

Aphrodite scanned everyone, knowing she was in a special place, devoid of any brutish, temperamental males. She felt very grateful to Sappho for bringing her here and she wanted to repay her in some way. Her reciprocity would have to come later, however. She felt a great drowsiness coming over her, like the fog which draped her was now entering her mind and slowing her down. Her legs felt weak as berry jelly. She had to rest. She had to sleep.

“Come goddess.” The women prostrated themselves, making a human bed for the immortal to lie upon. It was a bit lumpy and contoured, but better than the cold ground.

So Aphrodite prostrated herself and lay there with the nape of her neck resting between a redhead’s thighs. She felt gooeyness upon it, the result of a turgid vagina. She was uncomfortable. This sleeping arrangement was not working.

Sappho could sense her discomfort. She took Aphrodite again by her hand and they waded into the steaming spring waters. It was an underground spring, heated by Hades’ faraway fiery coals. Finally, Aphrodite sat down and lay back, and slept a deep sleep. Sappho left her to doze away.

She dreamt that she was in the sea again, but this time not with Sappho. There were other women and they all could breathe under water like mermaids. Only they weren’t. They held hands and kicked their legs to the far depths of Poseidon’s domain until they no longer could propel themselves any longer. Then they lay at the bottom of the ocean in the sea grasses which tickled the crack between their butts. Grown women giggled like school children. They ran amongst the anemones. They played hide and go seek with the barracudas. They hopped on dolphins and raced against each other.

Then they tired and fell off into the sea bottom’s darkness. Aphrodite felt two of the women take her hands and another two grab her feet. Together, they swam to the surface carrying her so she needn’t make any effort at swimming whatsoever.

On the water’s surface, she floated propped by hundreds of other women who had come to assist their mortal sisters. Aphrodite could feel their lips kissing every pore of her body; their tongues upon and within every orifice. They took turns suckling her clitoris and she gasped and coughed with pleasure as it burst often open upon climax after climax after climax. It was a dream she didn’t want to end. Her unconscious psyche was drowning in pleasure, but there was no suicide.

The waters of the spring came to a boil, again changing to a greenish-amber color. It was the tempestuous heat which had awoken her, not her body quivering from the wet dream. She was alone now. She could hear Sappho singing in the background.

She arose from the spring and walked towards the lyre’s tune. A dozen women were gathered outside the cave around a warming fire. They arose in unison when they saw her approach.

“Did I awaken you goddess?” Sappho asked.

“In a way, in a good way, you did awaken me. But not as you’re thinking.”

“What can we get you, beautiful Aphrodite?”

“Please all sit down. Give yourselves comfort. You needn’t get me anything. You’ve given me everything you could. A renewed feminine perspective on sexuality.”

The women reclined themselves around the fire pit. Some held hands, others hugged, couples coupled together. Then Sappho spoke.

“I will be your muse for the ages. Your visit here will be recorded like Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey. This island will be your sanctuary and our women’s haven until the end of time.”

Aphrodite then recalled and told her dream for the youthful but sexually enlightened poetess. The prostrate women also raptly listened to her tale.

“Wonderful. I will sing all of it with beautiful words,” Sappho said, her eyes fondly covering Aphrodite, “But come. Stay awhile. We don’t know how long you will be with us?”

“That will be Zeus’ decision.”

“For awhile, you have a vacation from males and the pain of pregnancies they bring.”

“Oh, I still miss the pleasure from Adonis being inside me now and again.”

“You can have your pleasure without the pain.” Wordlessly, Sappho clapped her hands and two women arose. They walked into the cave and returned minutes later with an amply-sized golden gourd and a bowl of oil squeezed from the olives.

Silently, after they both had again reclined on a blanket, one knelt beside the other who had spread her legs apart. She dipped the gourd’s tip in the oil, and then gently inserted it into the woman and pulled it out, and repeated this action over and over, in and out, in and out, even as the other’s legs spread wider and wider and her toes pointed towards Olympus.

Aphrodite watched and her eyes widened as the hands of one woman motioned the gourd, slow at first, and then faster and faster. The woman’s screams of pleasure reached the Delphi Oracle and beyond.

Suddenly the fog shroud was ripped off the voluptuous goddess. The platinum moon revealed her beauty over the shimmering sea. Why? What had transpired on Olympus?

“You need to bring her back here this instant,” Hera ordered Zeus after she had watched the intimate scene on Lesbos.

“Now what’s the problem?” Zeus asked. He had moved on from Hera and was concentrating on his latest concubine’s love-making. He could talk though she couldn’t.

“I’ve watched her the whole day. She’s having a grand old sex picnic on that island you selected.”

“I thought there weren’t any men there?”

“I think she’s learned how to ‘make do’ in other ways.”

“Can you just give me five minutes?”

“Zeus! If you don’t want me to screw Hades, finish up and get her back here!”

“Oh well. I guess that’s why we have an eternity,” he said, pushing the concubine aside. His cheeks became bloated with air and he blew as hard as he could.

Aphrodite had already arisen and was coldly greeted by a fierce wind. It carried and shoved her away from the fire and cave, down from the hill until she had once again reached the white sands and the now green and amber-colored sea. As she was forced by Zeus’ gust into the water, she morphed into a golden spume. She had been re-birthed once again from Uranus’s testicles. She immersed herself and became a yellow cloud and billowed up to Olympus.

As for Sappho, she wrote many poems and lyrics afterwards, though most were destroyed by men’s wars and the fires they wrought. Still some survived and Aphrodite’s visit to Lesbos was heavily favored amongst them. Though never as famous as Homer’s Iliad, many lesbian tourists still recall the story. They visit the island, walk the white beaches, and enter Kagiani Cave. They day dream about a mortal woman who taught a goddess how a woman could be intimate with another and herself.