Chapter 1: The Awakening

"Γειά σου?" (Greek: Hello?)

"Πού είναι Ι?" (Greek: Where am I?)

Then she looked deeply into my eyes and a voice spoke in my head as though amplified to fill an entire auditorium.

How may I reward you for rescuing me? Take this priceless necklace from my royal neck as a token of my everlasting esteem.

Fortunately I didn't do that or this story would have ended before it ever really got started—and likely ended very badly for me. But I've gotten a bit ahead of myself here.

One thing I have to say about my uncle is that he kept meticulous notes and drawings. He was from the old school of explorers who only had a pen and a notebook with them. Those notes were full and advice—and warnings!

She should be grateful, he wrote. Require her to prove it!

You're in charge here and she knows it! You have to ensure that you know it too!

If you're not ready to carry this through to completion then don't even start. Throw the necklace and ring back into the sea and forget that you ever found it!

His other notes made it crystal clear just what the this was that you had to carry through to completion, or never try at all. Being a bit foolish, virile, and young enough to be perpetually horny, made this an enticing brier patch that I was more than willing to jump into myself rather than wait to be thrown into. Yeah, I didn't feel ready to be tied down by any relationship yet, but I'd cross that bridge when I couldn't figure out a way around it.

Expect the unexpected.

Okay, right. Provided that my crazy uncle was correct about any of this at all then that was a given. If he was as much off his rocker as the rest of the family believed then this was all just a fable anyway.

His last words, however, were more than a bit sobering.

If this all goes according to plan then always remember that not only has no one ever succeeded yet in taming her, but her ire, anger, and revenge are legendary!

There was a lot more rambling, conjecture, and what I could only charitably describe as wild guesses, but that was gist of it.

There was only one truly unanswered question here: Had my uncle wisely in the end decided not to take that final step, or had he simply died before he could?

That my uncle was dead was not in question. The sealed box containing his diary, a heavy necklace that looked quite valuable despite its unfamiliar stones, and a man's ring in solid gold with a large tawny stone to match those in the necklace, all labeled to be delivered to me in the event of his demise, was an undisputable fact.

Another undisputable fact was that I now stood in a small hidden cave not all that far from the famous Oracle's seat at Delphi, Greece, staring at a perfect marble statue.

I was surprised at how small and innocuous it appeared. Barely five-feet-six the figure seemed to be too short to be the most powerful, awe-inspiring, Goddess of them all. The two-inch stone pedestal added nothing to her stature. Even if you allow that people had been much shorter overall three millennia ago she seemed to be little more than a classically beautiful woman for her age.

I don't know what I'd actually been expecting. I'd tried not to think about it too much, although I had Googled all of the online images of the Goddess before setting out on this trip.

The description of the main temple and center of worship of any of the major Gods had always included a massive statue to make your obeisance before, which could be up to twenty-five feet in height, if not more. It was certainly grand spectacle for the simple believers who supported the temple and its priesthood.

Maybe this wasn't Hera at all. Just some serving girl or minor priestess here as a guard to the real Goddess. But the directions had been precise, even if it had taken me days to follow them properly, and there was absolutely no place else here for another figure to be hiding. I tapped on all the walls just in case there was some hidden chamber, but no dice.

The first thing I noticed once I commenced my careful inspection was the quality workmanship. It was as though legendary sculptor Pygmalion had only stepped away from her moments earlier after making his final touch, to enjoy a well-deserved lunch. That brought back to mind another one of my crazy uncle's observations.

Pygmalion was no myth, he'd written mysteriously.

I said that the statue was marble, but I didn't know for sure. That's what it looked like. Maybe it was alabaster—or something else entirely. I'd leave that determination to people more expert than myself. Whatever it was this thing had to be worth a fortune. I've seen other Classical Era sculptures that are considered priceless—and this one was better! The problem is that it wouldn't be my fortune.

This isn't the nineteenth century any more when an explorer can cart his discovery back to his home country for fame and fortune, while paid-off-for-a-pittance local officials looked the other way. The Greek government would be here in a flash with armed police the moment they caught a whiff of what I'd discovered here. The fact that they'd been blissfully ignorant of it until this exact moment, and had done absolutely nothing to earn or deserve it themselves, wouldn't stop them for an instant from claiming her. Modern Greeks can't even claim to be the same people as those from her time, but that wouldn't stop them either from confiscating her for their own gain. Only one thing would make her mine!

I knew this was the first absolute no-no for any archeologist, but I couldn't keep my fingers from brushing lightly over her shoulder to verify her reality. The thought of my skin oil marring her pristine beauty wasn't enough to stop me. Unlike many sculptures from this period that reveal a great deal of bare skin, she was clothed from neck to ankles, leaving only her arms and one shoulder bare.

I jumped from the tingle of static electricity that coursed through my fingers. Belatedly I remembered that I'd been warned to expect this too.

One of the legendary powers of the Gods was their control over the mysterious force of electricity. From Zeus's thunderbolts to Asclepius' miraculous healing abilities to Prometheus's gift of fire, electricity clearly runs through their line. This can be deadly!

Asclepius, as I recalled from my college mythology course that'd I'd had to take to graduate was punished—killed actually—for the crime of bringing mortals back from death. I wonder, could he have been the first walking defibrillator?

If there was a charge here it seemed a residual effect now. It might have once protected her while in this state since a single touch would likely send the uninformed running away in fear, but I knew better. A second cautious touch felt only her smooth shoulder, however, confirming to me more than anything else that this was no ordinary statue of any ordinary woman. That left me with only the decision of my life to make next.

There are instances in our lives when we make momentous choices. Anyone who doesn't know what I'm talking about has never committed themselves to buying their first house that they're going to spend the next thirty years paying off—or said "I do" in marriage. These are the decisions, unlike "What am I going to have for lunch today?" that we have to know that we're fully behind before we make them. Otherwise the unraveling of them afterwards is incredibly costly.

I thought about how many times I'd reread my uncle's painfully difficult handwriting. How often I'd held the gold necklace with its many gold-flecked tawny amber stones that no jeweler could identify, along with the matching ring with its single large stone, speculating on how much money I could get for just selling them outright.

Then there were the weeks it had taken to put this trip together after I realized I was going to come and see if I could get at least this far in following the instructions I'd been given. I could always sell the jewelry—which I had carefully registered with Greek customs so that I could get it back out again—later. Better this than to wonder about it for the rest of my life.

Then there'd been the two days of searching for what I had thought would take a couple hours to find, while wishing someone should have taught my uncle how to use a GPS. I was ready to give up when I found the rock that opened up the entrance to this cave at the touch of that ring.

Now there was just the final decision of whether to go through with it or not. It reminded me of those times when you knew that the swimming pool was cold, that you were going to get into it anyway and swim, and how you were now in that midair moment of having jumped off the edge and about to splash into it all at once—and that there was nothing at all you could do to change anything about that decision now. You had committed to your course of action and were now beyond the point-of-no-return.

I dug out the necklace and looked at it. It had a mysterious clasp in the back that had baffled me since it was open when I had first received it, and I could not determine how to close it properly.

I was worried because if I couldn't close it the necklace would just fall off.

It was also very short—barely large enough to go around even a slender neck. Fortunately this statue had its hair up in a very appealing bun leaving the neck bare.

You're either going to do this, or you're not!

My own internal dialogue is my worst enemy.

In the same way you've got to not think about your landing when you first jump off the edge of that pool I now stepped up to finish this quickly.

The necklace was just long enough to fit around her slender neck and lie on her upper chest. And when I touched the two ends together to try and figure out how they fit they jumped together as though magnetic. Well that solved one problem.

The two halves of the clasp when joined showed the Greek word: Υπακοή. If I read that right it said "Obedience".

I touched the ring to the necklace as and jumped again when I felt a new jolt of electricity. But it was more surprise than pain that jerked my hand away. Gold is one of the best electrical conductors around. If there had been any remaining charge that would have gathered it.

Steeling myself I touched my ring to the necklace once more.

"Ξυπνήστε," I said with more of a quaver in my voice than I'd expected, which I hoped meant "Awaken" in my piss-poor Greek.

My word echoed loudly around the cave making me fear discovery. It least if I was being the most foolish that I'd ever been before there were no witnesses here to hold it over me for the rest of my life.

Then I waited.

Of course nothing visible happened at first. You always expect it to and it never does. But as the echoes died away the transformation had started.

Initially it was hard to tell if anything was happening. I should have been more patient. She'd stood here for a long time and I should have realized that coming out of her hibernation state would take a bit. Later I'd be glad to know that she still had the necessary energy stores remaining to manage this. Left this way for too long and she would have never come back at all.

The necklace seemed to glow brighter than the sunlight coming in through the entrance plus my flashlight could account for.

Then, when I thought my tension was going to break me completely, an errant breeze caused her garment to quiver. Her skin seemed to blush slightly from stone to flesh. The coiled hair on her head warmed to a golden blonde before suddenly falling freely down her back. Her lips pursed slightly before she took a delicate, yet deep, breath that raised her chest under that garment. Then her clear green tawny-flecked-like-the-necklace, eyes slowly opened for the first time in centuries.

Finally she turned her head, focused on me, and spoke—first verbally in ancient Greek, and then perfectly understandably in my head.

It had worked! OMFG it had worked like a charm! And now my life had suddenly just gotten a whole lot more complicated.

The live person standing before me seemed so changed from the lifeless statue of only moments before. Her alabaster skin closely matched the white marble of her statue as though the sun never had touched her. Her height was perfect for me. The simple white outfit that hung so nicely on her body complementing her long golden tresses would have made her the hit of any toga party. In fact, for all I knew, she had attended the original toga party. Her gold-braided flat sandals clearly were matched to that golden hair, even though her beauty would put any mere gold to shame.

Her face would have been a compliment to the finest sculptor of all time, with high cheekbones, full lips, an artistically perfect nose, and deep eyes that drew you in from even the slightest glance. While her classically draped Greek robe covered her figure, it did little to conceal it. There was clearly a mature woman under it—one with an apparent age of thirty-something; one at the height of her femininity and the power to use it.

When I didn't immediately respond to her offer she stirred and took a partial step forward, perhaps to relieve the discomfort of standing in the same position for so many centuries. As she did her robes parted enough to reveal a bare leg that could only belong to a Goddess.

While I was trying to figure out what to do next, she stepped daintily off of her pedestal. I wondered if I should step forward to assist her. I didn't, and that was probably a good thing. This Goddess was quite capable of handling herself.

Once she was on firm footing she turned to assess me as coolly and calmly as I'd assessed her when she was still a statue.

As much as I wanted to stand up boldly to her stare, I quailed inside. Just her manner gave me the feeling that she had a hundred times more experience in these matters between men and women—or men and Goddesses—than I'd have if I lived to be a hundred. And the Mona Lisa smile at the edges of her mouth told me she knew all this too.

She took her time, allowing me to continue admiring her in return as well. That was part of her power over others, even if I was still to realize this myself.

Although without modern makeup, I have to say that the living breathing version of her seemed more pretty than stunning. I couldn't get over how even her seemingly few actual years over my own callow youth gave her a quiet maturity sufficient to spike up any insecurities anyone she faced might have. And everyone has insecurities—which she most definitely knew.

I was in awe, and completely outclassed here. The imbalance could have cost me everything now except for one last thing. I still wore the ring, while she still wore the necklace.

Take your reward now, she encouraged me, speaking one language as I heard another. Take it, and leave with my good will. The voice in my head sounded like one that wasn't used to any refusal.

"No!" I said as sharply as I could, seeking to break the spell that just looking into her eyes had cast over me. It was more than her eyes. She wordlessly communicated that she was a complete woman—one with a woman's body that she was capable of using without restraint when it suited her. It was a body that was more than enough for any man.

Then her veneer cracked just a bit and a bit of annoyance leaked out to show on her chiseled face; annoyance that I was so slow in following her directives and had actually seemed to be refusing her. Annoyance that made her look more like a crafty woman than a Goddess.

"No!" I said again loudly, more to convince myself than her.

"I will not take the necklace. You will make love to me here and now!" I said as forcefully as I could, worried suddenly that my loud words might attract others to this hidden cave. No one else had been near me when I'd found it, but who knew now.

Her response was not one of shock or anger. If anything I'd describe it as quiet amusement as in, and how's that going to work out for you?

When she didn't immediately tear off her garment and prostrate herself before me—yes I had actually expected that—I stepped forward and touched my ring directly to her necklace. Again there was the tingle of electricity, but it was restrained and I knew it wouldn't hurt me.

"Make love to me now."

She still looked ready to refuse, but suddenly she couldn't.

Yes ... I will I heard in my head before she took my sweating hands in her cool ones and held them to her chest for a moment, before moving them down to where I could remove the cord around her waist.

Hers was an easy outfit to remove. In the dark coolness of the cave I remember how her pubic thatch—the same golden color as her hair—caught the light as it pointed the way downwards to entrance of her mysteries.

By the time I had her positioned on the sandy floor below me on her discarded toga I could already smell the musky aroma of her arousal. I couldn't call this nonconsensual since she had acquiesced—admittedly under duress—or that she wasn't ready to take me now. My fingers verified that she was more than merely moist, as though making up all at once for three thousand years of celibacy.

I paid little attention to the rest of her body revealed in the dim light for now. I had been focused on the need to take her in this way for so long and was rather single-track in my intentions now