2. Ignoble Beginnings
Ignoble Beginnings
The night you made me is my clearest memory—until it is not.
A palm reader once frowned at my hand, flexing and turning it over as she tried to scry. “So many twists and turns. So many choices…and a great split,” she mumbled. You’d snatched my hand away and spit on the ground at her feet. You may have found me in a temple, but you never believed in religion.
The great split is the before and after of that night.
The before, as I’ve explained…is hazy. I’ve learned that the mind likes to get rid of inconsequential thoughts, memories that mean nothing. Sometimes, if I travel a path too often, I forget the journey. It becomes mundane, it lacks beauty. The time before you is just that—bland, spiritless, dull.
(“The mind forgets more than just the tedious”)
Tedious isn’t strong enough a word.
Had you explained the change before you gave it to me? Or was I a lamb, unaware I was being led to slaughter?
I waited for you. I wore the same dress all week, so my spare had time to wash and dry.
I collected flowers for smell. I took twice as long at cleaning myself, not caring the ire it caused.
I had nothing to give you, no token to thank you for what you were about to do.
I had only myself, and I did not think it was enough.
It was night, and your hand outstretched to mine. I took it, the cold of your skin a shock against my fevered palm. The air was thick with the humidity of summer, curling the frayed edges of my hair. I favored my hair short, dark brown locks that hung straight to my chin—just like I do now.
I swiped at my hair, pushing it from my sweaty forehead.
This wasn’t going the way I wanted it to.
I had pictured something different when I wore my best dress.
I tried to wear a kekryphalos but had no skill with it, the netting tangling in my hair.
I thought I would be cultured or put together if I couldn’t be beautiful.
I spent days copying the walk of those who visited the temple, to emulate the mannerisms of the elite. I was trying to court a goddess, I was trying to gain your favor. I needed to be more, and for a moment, you made me think I was.
A mouse pulled from a temple because of her song.
I slowed, tripping over my feet.
“What ever are you doing?” you asked.
“Walking,” I said, ducking my head to hide my shame.
“No, you’re not,” you scoffed, your finger under my chin to tilt my head up to look at you. “You’re pretending. I won’t have it.”
“I am not—”
“Don’t lie to me.” Your voice is quiet, dangerous. My jaw snaps shut, my footsteps falling into their familiar pattern. You nod, and that alone lifts my spirits. I may have erred, but my correction is enough.
“We are ancient,” you say, your voice drifting back to me. “We are eternal. Older than gods or trees or rocks. Inside me flows the blood of powerful creatures.”
I loved your stories. You spoke of magic and truth, of time eternal, of stars that no longer shone in the night sky. Gods far more ancient than the ones I worshipped.
Yet, you looked no older than twenty-five. No older than me.
“Older than the Earth?” I ask.
“Perhaps,” you say, smiling over your shoulder at me. “One day I will give you my knowledge, just as I have been given.”
Knowledge. I couldn’t comprehend that. I was never deemed worthy enough to learn to read or write. My sex, my class, marked me as someone best kept to the shadows. I brought nothing to society, therefore society should give me nothing.
Knowledge was forbidden to a woman like me. Had I ever tried to learn to read before you? Had I longed to know what the words over the temple door said? Had I simply passed under them, unaware of their existence?
The Christian Bible tells a story of the first couple, who only understood knowledge when they ate an apple. They did not know what they did not know.
I was like that woman, though without a companion. You were not my Adam or my Eve, you were the serpent, and your blood my apple. The first fork in my road, the denotation of before and after.
You lead me to the altar. I balk.
“It is forbidden,” I whisper.
“Have you ever seen your goddess?” you asked.
I shake my head.
“What has she done for you? Have you ever felt her presence?”
“I am no oracle. I am not worthy of their time,” I say.
You frown, your red eyes flashing. I’ve upset you.
I think of a way to make it right, of words I can say to get us back on track.
No matter how much time we spent together before, there is still that fear you will leave.
That one day you’ll find me lacking, that you’ll laugh or disappear without another word.
Oh, that? That fling? That silly girl that sings off-key in a temple? What was I thinking!
(“I’ve never said anything—”)
But you have. You did. Later.
“You are worthy of mine,” you say, your voice a sharp knife through my heart. “They call me goddess, do they not?”
I nod. I’d told you of the whispers, that others knew you came. They thought you were another goddess just passing through.
“Do I speak to any other?”
“No,” I say. I asked once, while whispering with the other workers. They mentioned you, and I asked if you spoke to them. Met with them. Looked at them. They laughed, because what a stupid, senseless thing to say.
Except…
“This is our altar,” you say, pointing to it. “This is where I show you eternity. It shall be you and I, bound by ancient blood. They will worship us, and we will show them no mercy. They will age and die and we will be eternal, beautiful, as we are now.”
You were always so good with words.
I sit on the altar. You sit next to me, pushing my hair off my face. No sweat lines your brow, no bit of your white-blonde hair out of place. I put my hand over yours, if only to remember that you are real and not a ghost.
“Will it hurt?” I ask. I remember asking that, though I don’t remember why. Did you tell me what my life would mean after? Did you explain the cost, the lives, the weight of it?
(Your silence speaks volumes.)
“Yes,” you breathe, your mouth opening enough to show off those long, pointed teeth. “But for only a moment.”
You kiss me. I feel sure we’ve done it before. I see flashes of it now, of the first time, when I stood on my toes to press my lips to yours—my first kiss was our first kiss. Of heated kisses in the trees around the temple, of my hand trailing between my legs at night.
Your teeth poke my lip, but I don’t care. Your kiss is soft, reverent. I melt into you on that altar. You are unhurried, your touch trailing over my face, my neck. You cup my breast and I moan into your mouth, my legs spreading for you.
Even though you are cold, warmth follows your touch. You kiss my jaw, my neck. When your teeth dig into my skin, I gasp. It does hurt, and I want to pull away, and then…
The first bite is the best between lovers.
Heat fills my body, numbing my edges while sharpening my pleasure.
You’re no longer dragging fingers across my body, you’re strumming me like an instrument.
Each pluck on my skin draws another note.
I am reduced to the feel of you, of your lips on my neck, of your hand moving up my thigh.
When your fingers finally touch me I fall apart, whimpering and gasping into you. My hands are in your hair, keeping you against my neck, doing anything I can to bring you closer. I cannot let go of you and I don’t want you to let go of me.
Your hands don’t stop.
You enter me, spreading me open, working me in that expert way of yours. Each long drag from your mouth is accompanied by a pump of your fingers, your thumb against my most sensitive spot, and I spiral.
My edges go dark.
My vision fades.
I no longer feel the heat of the night. Instead, I shiver with cold, my body tense and trembling. My heart races, I can feel it stuttering in my chest.
Still your mouth is on me. Still your fingers bury inside me, drawing out the last vestiges of my pleasure as I die.
I am dying.
But I don’t care, because if this is death, it is exquisite. The night fades around me, reduced to just the beating of my heart. It no longer races, but slugs along, each beat laborious. I fight to breathe, to think, to feel.
Your teeth pull from my neck and I whimper.
“No,” I plead. I fear once you pull back my heart will cease to beat, and I’ll never feel this again. Or worse—I’ll return to my old life, the life before this moment. I don’t want it anymore. I want whatever this is, I want to be consumed by it.
“Drink,” you say. At least, I think you do. I don’t see your lips move, don’t see much of anything. The ceiling above the altar is a blur.
Something wet on my lips, down my throat.
I try to swallow but my muscles don’t work.
More wetness, rivulets down my lips, into my mouth, choking me. Swallowing is a reflex, then it’s instinct. Somehow my hands move, pulling the source of liquid to me.
Your wrist. Your blood.
I swallow and drink and gulp.
You’re on top of me, grinding against my body, the wetness between your legs coating my thigh. I reach for you but you pin my hand down, using me for your pleasure instead.
You bite my collarbone and moan, your body shaking as you climax.
“Melinoe,” you whisper into my skin.
“Aletheia,” I mumble around your wrist, unwilling to let go. To stop.
There is a noise—is it me? Is it you? There is a noise and movement and—
The path splits, and I am on a different road. After.