Even though there’s not a single myth on it, I’d like to think Aphrodite couldn’t give a shit about her sexuality.
She gets bored one day, and particularly curious, and heads down to earth. As she wanders around the markets in her mortal disguise, her attention is caught by a kind woman buying apples. Aphrodite wanders over, curious. She’s so beautiful, not so much that she challenges the goddess’ beauty, obviously, but she’s got these delicate features mixed with a sharp nose that stand out to Aphrodite. She likes how she looks.
The woman notices her, smiles politely, but seems captivated by Aphrodite’s beauty, even in her mortal state. She greets her, and Aphrodite likes that. Her voice.
She reaches for an apple, so Aphrodite picks it up and studies it, as if it’s at all interesting to her. She twirls it in the light, then looks up, and extends it to the woman, offering it.
As the woman takes it carefully, she twines her fingers in Aphrodite’s, for just a moment. It couldn’t have been an accident.
So Aphrodite, smiling softly, asks for her name.
Days later, Aphrodite is lounging on Olympus, twirling a strand of her hair and thinking about that woman she’d met. She was like no other, beautiful and prim and yet so powerfully attractive. Aphrodite bids her lover farewell on Olympus, Ares is gone to fight another war. A small one, but a war nonetheless.
She is bored. And roused. She wishes to go and have some sort of good time, but does not know what precisely to do. With Ares gone, and the others truly uninteresting, she huffs in annoyance. Then a thought occurs, perhaps she should simply go and find that woman again. Or attend some festival, who knows?
So Aphrodite takes the form of a dove, and soars through the air, searching. Her eyes land on a stream, sensing there is someone there she wishes to meet.
When she lands, she transforms into the same maiden she had been days ago. She tousles her skirts, and slinks out from behind the tree she used as coverage, and spies a woman with her back turned.
The woman is tying back her hair, perhaps readying herself to wash her face, or take a swim. It is awfully balmy that day, so either is plausible. She turns, and is surprised by the sight of Aphrodite, in disguise.
She blinks, but smiles a moment later. “I knew I had not seen the last of you.”
Aphrodite raises a brow. “You were so sure?”
“I would believe so, goddess. For you must know I was not finished seeking your company.”
Aphrodite is surprised. No one speaks to her in such a way, or calls her on her bluff so quickly.
“You are hasty to supplicate me, dear.” She says, just so.
“No, I am not hasty.” The woman replies. “I am bold.”
“If I were a goddess, perhaps,” she begins. “Would you have me?”
The woman chuckles. “I think I am much too consumed by my thoughts of you to care whether or not you are a goddess.” She glances Aphrodite up, and down. “I would have you only if you sought me.”
And the line of the stream between them is much too large, suddenly. Aphrodite reaches for the pins of her dress.
“Come.” She says, a light smile playing at her lips. “Let us swim. It is much too hot to be standing here exchanging polite words.”
When all is said and done, and Aphrodite lays back against the bank of the river, her sweat and exertion mixing with the cleansing drops of water slipping from her locks of hair, she holds the woman close to her. Skin upon skin, tender and simple, for a moment. Pleasant. Just to be here, just to be. Just.
She cards her fingers through the woman’s hair. “I am sure you wonder which goddess I am.”
The woman hums, her throat making a sweet buzz against Aphrodite’s breast. “Perhaps. Only so I may call your name again.” She runs a finger down the goddess’ arm, from shoulder to wrist, then lingering there. “But I have my wits about me.”
Aphrodite smiles. “Oh? And who might you seek me as?”
The woman takes Aphrodite’s hand, now. “I shall love you no matter who you may be, Aphrodite.”
It is not the last time they meet, nor the last time they lay together. They dabble in fields, laugh over wine, and speak to one another late in the night. As it would occur, the woman is a poet, a good one at that, and writes hymns for Aphrodite in her lustrous love for the goddess.
The woman holds such court in Aphrodite’s heart for so many years, that Aphrodite soon fears, actually fears, her death. She laments the fact that the woman is mortal, and will die. The woman does not.
“I have lived a lifetime dappled with you. I do not weep for it, such a blessing.”
But Aphrodite still feels the knowledge gnaw at her. She knows she cannot make a god of the woman, but she may be able to place her judgement in the realm of the dead.
Decades pass, still enjoying one another. The woman ages, and she does not. But they still find each other in the darkness, in the light.
One day, decades and decades later, the woman dies. A peaceful death, a life prolonged by the proximity and life of a goddess. It would have surprised her to know she did not die of a tragedy, like all other lovers of gods. Perhaps that is why she is left out in history.
Aphrodite weeps for her, as she did Adonis, and select other lovers that were as golden to her as her own divinity. She carves a tomb, in memorial, that over time crumbles and breaks. She carves her name into it, but in centuries, it will be lost.
Her battle is not over. She composed herself, and urges her way to a field, near a crack to Erebos.
It is springtime. She may call for her.
At the invocation of her name, Persephone comes to the call.
“Aphrodite.” She greets, a mix of warmth and ice.
Aphrodite pauses, the request tingling on her lips. “You may not care, but we have had our moments, dear Persephone.”
They could not be called friends, no. But they could not be denied of the ways of the flesh they had once- twice, perhaps, shared.
She continues at the silence. “I come to request a placement for a soul.”
Persephone raises a brow. “I see.”
“She is virtuous, and a good woman, besides. I believe you should place her in Elysium.”
Persephone narrows her eyes. “Give me her name. I may see what I can do.”
Aphrodite gives it. Persephone returns a blank look. Then it shifts to an amusement.
“She has found her eternal rest, I confess.”
Aphrodite frowns. “I know. That is the reason for my request.”
“You misunderstand.” Persephone laughs. “She had drank from the river Lethe twice over. She has lived three virtuous lives, with this one her third.”
“She resides on the Isle of the Blessed?”
Persephone nods, smiling still. Aphrodite does not know why.
But her heart leaps. There is that, she thinks. She has lived three virtuous lives.
Then a thought crosses her mind. “What made her virtuous, in this one?”
Persephone smiles. “She will write a history, in years to come. Perhaps all because of one lover she had in particular.”
baratheonpilled
dededos
pixelskylines
jacobvanloon
