The Good Counselor Ch. 01

The liquid looked so beautiful, struck such a contrast, that he drew his fingers through it and painted swirls across her hips, tendrils along the insides of her thighs, spirals of translucent red up the peaks of her breasts. He drew another finger through dark pomegranate and traced the symbol of their realm— a circle where her ribs met, cushioned and held aloft above the concave of a crescent over her stomach, and a descending cross... the juncture at her navel and the tip of which he trailed down to the apex of her thighs, already warm and wet. He cupped his hand over her labia, resting a long finger along her seam. She closed her eyes, letting out a gasp. Aidon tasted Persephone's parted lips, their tongues rolling together, her teeth tugging lightly when they ended their kiss. Her thighs squeezed around his hand, and he pressed a fingertip lightly to her bud, then quaked it against her. She grasped at his shoulder and moaned, her hand pawing haphazardly at his skin.

Aidoneus examined his handiwork, admiring Persephone and the juices he'd painted her with. The summer air made it shimmer as it dried and congealed. In his mind's eye, it started to look too much like blood. Dark memories of a long ago war began to rise from the depths of his mind, memories that had no place where he knelt here with her.

He gripped her thighs firmly, her smooth, firm flesh rooting him in the moment. Aidoneus traced each swirl and dribble with his tongue, erasing every trail. He drew a languorous circle with his thumb around her clitoris and occupied his mouth with her breasts, her stomach, her navel. She jumped with a slight giggle when he slurped that last pool of pomegranate juice. He smirked at her, then brushed his lips along her skin and nipped at the gentle curve of her womb, before replacing fingertips with tongue and listening to her delighted cry, muffled once her thighs closed against his ears.

One knee rested on his shoulder, his forearm pinioning her to the fleece. His other hand gripped her slender ankle to keep her from rolling off the divan. Her fingers raked through his hair— pulling him closer, pushing him back, he could hardly tell— as he sampled juices far headier than anything a pomegranate could produce. In her he found sunlight and warmth, the earth, the grass, the fields of flowers, the sting of iron, and Phlegethon flames. She smelled— tasted— different when they were above ground.

She moved differently, came differently around him in the sunlit world. They had discovered that on their first summer visit, when he'd taken her to Nysa, making love to her in the very field where he'd snatched her from the earth. Aidon hissed at the memory and let go of her ankle to quickly squeeze the head of his cock. He sighed, the tension temporarily abated.

Her mewling, her writhing, all her sounds and scent and skin begged for him to fill her at last. Instead, he quenched the empty ache within her with two long fingers, searching softly for the spot he knew would tip her over the edge.

Persephone sat upright, her nails digging into his scalp for purchase as she crested at last, her voice ringing his name in his ears. When she came back to earth, Persephone spoke, her words thick. "The fleece..."

"Easily cleansed..." Aidoneus looked up at her and caught a drop of pomegranate juice on his tongue as it rolled over her hip bone. "You're right, though," he whispered against her skin. He slid one hand under her shoulders and the other under her knees. "Best not get anything else on it."

She smiled weakly, still reeling. He didn't take his eyes off her, not as he carried her to their bed, not as he settled her in the middle and lay astride her. Two months was too long. The period following her return to the world above was always fraught with duty and separation for both of them— hers as the humans planted their new crops, his as he harvested those who had passed during winter. Their palace, and especially their bed, was an empty shell without her. Persephone splayed her palms on his shoulder blades. "I love you."

"And I you, sweet one," he whispered into her ear, settling against her. He aligned himself to her, and with a long thrust, he was finally home.

***

Fates, will this ever end? He thought.

Hermes waited in the courtyard, trying desperately to drown out the sounds from the gynaikeion upstairs. He shook the bronze cup in his hand, slammed the kyveia down onto the bench, and counted them up.

Seventeen. A loss.

No wonder Hades and Persephone sought the privacy of this villa, he mused. In the sanctity of this house they made enough noise to wake the dead. He gathered up the six bones and shook them again.

Thirty-one with five on five. A resounding win.

Not that any lucky roll mattered in a solitaire game, but at least it was enough to distract his mind from the noises and deter any accompanying visuals. Visuals wrought from memory, like his ignominious introduction to Hades's new wife in the sapphire lined grotto of the Palace when he accidentally— No, no; he wasn't going to think on it. At all. He shook the cup.

Eleven. No pairs. Abysmal...

The rattling bones would also hopefully be enough to draw one of them out once they were finished. "Bag of bones..." Hermes chuckled to himself. Wasn't that what Alekto jokingly called Aidoneus half the time? He heard a shout from upstairs. Not so much a shout as a roar of male satisfaction.

He guffawed quietly. Oh, to tell Apollo— or anyone— about this secret dwelling place! But he knew he couldn't. He'd sworn it on the Styx to Aidoneus that no one would know but him. And that he would only visit on matters of dire urgency. Silence filled the courtyard, punctuated by the buzz of grasshoppers and crickets. It would be quiet enough to hear the rattle of his kyveia from the rooms above. Then, an awkward conversation, and he could be on his way.

Hermes pointedly shook the bronze cup several times and slammed it down on the stone. He heard a female yelp and a male curse, then the sounds of them fumbling about. Down the stairs came heavy footfall.

"Heh. Thirty six!" A shadow fell across Hermes's perfect roll.

Hades loomed large, hair hanging loose and bedraggled over pale folded arms, his black himation roughly wound around his waist and slung over his shoulder. He said nothing. Hermes swallowed and stood up, then bowed. He fumbled with the scroll, pulling it from its casing.

"Ah... I bear an urgent message for Persephone, Queen of the Underworld, from—"

The Lord of the Dead swiped the scroll from Hermes' hands. Papyrus crinkled in his tightening fist.

"Before you tear it up or set it on fire, it's from Hera."

"I'll see she gets it," he said, teeth on edge, then spun around and marched toward the staircase. Without a backwards glance, Aidoneus spoke to Hermes in perfect Minoan. "Stop reading my wife's letters."