Chapter 12: Shipwreck

IN THE MORNING, My Lady Goddess appeared from the cabin in a similar lack of attire, but of a different color. If I had doubted she was a goddess before, the doubt was dispelled by the costly dye used in her wisp of clothing. And by the fact she seemed to have much more baggage than she’d brought aboard with her. She sat on the gunwales, looking into the waves as she brushed her hair.

“Oh, Bob, would you be a good demon and brush my hair for me. I simply can’t reach the spots behind me.”

“My Lady, since you ask so pleasantly, I will be happy to brush your hair, with your permission, of course.”

“Yes,” she said. She handed me her brush and I set about a very relaxing time brushing out her long golden hair. “Is my hair the silkiest you have ever seen?” she asked.

“Yes, it is,” I answered. Could she possibly be more vain about her looks? That gave me an idea. I had no difficulty brushing her hair until the sun passed its zenith. It seemed to be a relaxing thing for both of us and we chatted idly while I stroked the silky strands.

“I don’t actually hate my husband,” she sighed. “He’s just such a stick in the mud. I, like you, am a free goddess. I am older by far than he is, having been born from the sea when Uranus’s genitals were cast there by Cronos. I should be able to have what lovers I want. He does make me pretty things, though. Like the brush you are using.”

“So, you are running away from your husband?” I asked. I was pretty sure that somewhere in the middle of Hammurabi’s 300 or so laws, I had read a woman taken in adultery was to be drowned. And the man, too.

“Oh, no. Let’s say I’m on a vacation. You will discover, Bob, that a steady diet of just one partner for all your life is an incredible strain on an immortal. The fire dies eventually. You have to take a break.”

I had heard much the same from Zeus when I was young and naïve. Ariane had sworn to keep me in a non-stop supply of other lovers for variety. Nimia had continued the tradition and there were now a couple dozen in the infinity room I could choose from. Though I seldom got a choice. They seemed to all want my attention all the time.

I brought a luncheon of figs and honey cakes to her and while she ate, I quickly retrieved the mirror from my wall. This I brought to her and fastened to her door. I correctly predicted that she would find looking at herself to be endlessly entertaining.

THE GODDESS was good company as long as you didn’t want to talk about anything but her. And that was not difficult. Ancient morality tales decried vanity, painting the tale of cursed Narcissus who fell in love with his own beautiful reflection in a pool and stared at it for the remainder of his life. I suppose that was a bit extreme, but I have known many men and women alike who were vain about their looks, their knowledge, their power, and their wealth. Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander, Caesar, Cleopatra, Helen. Not all were unpleasant people.

As days went by and the sea was easy, the goddess spent time every day standing or sitting in front of the mirror as I brushed her hair. It was peaceful and calming, making for a very pleasant journey. Once she had retired for the night, or at least closed the door to her cabin, I would bring one of my ladies on deck and work out any sexual frustrations I’d picked up from such close proximity to the perfect goddess of lust.

My ladies were very good at making sure my frustrations had been satisfied. I don’t mean just Josie and Nimia, though I loved both of them, but a dozen other women in my harem were equally as affectionate. They were having a great time in the infinity room, designing and building whatever their hearts desired. It was refreshing to find women who were not so into themselves that they could talk about nothing else.

Then the winds picked up.

I’d been in rough seas before. I simply made doubly sure my satchel was strapped securely across my shoulder, dropped the sail, and manned the rudder. I had also been in a storm initiated by a god and this one was looking suspicious.

The goddess was furious.

“He’s enlisted that damned Poseidon to torment me!” she declared. “Why can’t he simply let well enough alone? He knows I’ll come back eventually. He just does this to be mean! I haven’t even had sex with you yet!”

Well, that was a revelation on several fronts. First that not only was the storm brought by a god, but Poseidon himself might be at the root. Second, that she considered sex with me to be a ‘not yet’ and not a ‘not ever.’ I believe she was most unhappy that I had to pay attention to sailing and not to her. The storm got progressively worse. I hadn’t experienced anything like this since Ninra roiled the waters to get me where he wanted. I was not happy about the prospect of having to throw My Lady Goddess into the sea to calm it and vowed to fight it out with this Poseidon. With that thought, I reached into the satchel and withdrew the Sword of Ninra, given me by the god of war to lead my armies into battle. I belted it to my side and shook the water out of my face as I steered the ship into the wind.

I rapidly worked a spell to make the ship impervious to the storm, but what I got was something that just kept it from capsizing. That was nearly good enough.

Nearly.

It was no defense against the tentacled monster that wrapped an appendage around the middle of the ship and began to crush it. My second meeting with a Scylla of Poseidon.

The rudder was of no use as long as the ship was in the grip of the monster, so I drew my sword and rushed to the middle of the deck to hack at it. It was tough going, but I had the limb almost severed when I heard My Lady scream behind me. I turned to see another tentacle had wrapped around her and was pulling her toward the sea.

My own experience with having been grabbed by a sea serpent was that it just threw me where it wanted me to go. Not pleasant, but survivable. This monster seemed intent on dragging the goddess down for a personal interview with the god of the sea. I did the only thing I could. I jumped in after her.

I will leave descriptions of our intense battle under the sea to poets like that old fraud and seeker of fame and fortune, Homer. Not that I disliked Homer when I met him a few centuries later, but you have to call them like you see them. He was a professional liar—known these days as a novelist.

Suffice it to say, as the hero of this story, I hacked at the monster with the Sword of Ninra and the monster was no match for it. Eventually, I won the goddess’s freedom and lifted her above the waves. The monster fled back to the deeps to nurse its wounds and I found the rocky shore of an island. There, I deposited My Lady Goddess, and there my ship was hurled to crash upon the rocks. I stretched out to sleep in exhaustion.

I AWOKE to the sensations of the most beautiful woman in the world—the goddess of beauty and lust—riding on my cock to portals of ecstasy no man is privileged to enter. Let me say, without bragging about the conquest, that her pussy was as beautiful to my cock as her body was to my eye. There were things that she did while seeking her own satisfaction that brought tears to my eyes. There were moments I could have sworn it was only her hand giving me pleasure, but then it would be the most exquisite clasping of her pussy, and then it felt like a mouth had enveloped me and a tongue was exploring every bit of my cock. I could even feel her throat swallowing me and coaxing a mammoth load from my balls.

And all this was while I was looking into her eyes, my hands filled with her perfect breasts, as she bounced energetically on my cock. When I exploded within her I shook with fervor. When she exploded around me, she milked another load from my recently emptied balls. And then she collapsed forward on me, her breasts pressing lightly into my chest as I held her and kissed her.

“That was definitely worth waiting for, my hero,” she sighed.

Ah. So that was it. Now I was her hero. Looking back, I’m sure she could have saved herself, if by no other means than fucking Poseidon when they finally met. He would be helpless to do anything but her bidding. As I was when she asked me to take her to my infinity room, where she was sure she could not be detected.

The landscape had changed in the infinity room. There was a new lake on the horizon and Josie exclaimed excitedly that they had a storm and a flood, but everything receded to the beautiful beach where we found a dozen naked nymphs lying beneath my sun. Like scattering stars in the sky, having a sun added to the aesthetic of our little world.

Aphrodite, as she now shared her name with me, was as lusty as any of my ladies had ever been. She wanted my cock as often as I could get it up—which I never had difficulty doing—and wanted my ladies’ tongues, sometimes all at once. And as my ladies pleasured her, they were each endowed with even more beauty than they had before.

Eventually, she tired of our quiet little world. And, I am sorry to say, of my cock. She took to wandering the island and quite a cult grew up around her presence. Cyprus, I discovered, was as well-settled and civilized as my native Crete. One day, Aphrodite simply did not return to our little camp near the sea.

I did some exploring of the island myself—not looking for her, mind you, but trying to make sure she had not fallen into some nefarious trap. I discovered she had fallen in with an artist and he was currently sculpting an image of her. I could only offer her a mirror. He offered her a statue. Easy come, easy go. And Aphrodite was definitely easy.