Chapter 2: The Battle of the Sexes

Although she tried to hide it initially, I could tell that Hera was impressed by many of our modern conveniences. While she professed no use for television—something I'm inclined to agree with her on—air conditioning and indoor plumbing much agreed with her. The wide variety and modern preparation of food and adult beverages also agreed well with her. "Dionysus would be amazed," she commented more than once. And although she had insisted that her worshipers provided her with fresh water and hot showers any time she desired, she felt that just turning on a faucet was easier. As for electricity, she found it mildly amusing that it was now delivered through a socket in the wall and seemed to dismiss it as nothing special after that. Flipping a switch for instant light simply had her questioning why we didn't simply accept that nighttime was for sleeping in the first place.

What she kept trying to say, without actually saying it, was how the lack of privacy—I seldom let her out of my sight for even a minute—and the lack of acolytes to do her bidding now upset her. While it was crystal clear to me that while she was a tough lady who'd lived in tougher times than I'd ever experienced, she was clearly missing being in charge of everything in the way she'd once been. I simply ignored all of her hints in that direction for now.

Twenty-one down—seventy-nine to go.

Her telepathy, or whatever it was, had gotten so good by now that I wasn't even sure any longer if she was speaking ancient Greek, or Modern English. She spoke and I heard it inside my head perfectly in my native tongue—right down to the local vernacular for my region. This was a great advantage in collecting tips for photos from the various nationalities visiting the site. As long as I could hear her voice I heard it in English at the same time that they heard it in whatever. By now she was bringing in enough cash to meet our current living expenses and allowing for some luxuries in food and cosmetics. Truth is that funding this trip had tapped me out and the fact that I was going to have to stay here until we were prepared to travel once again was now going to be much better than I'd feared.

On a couple of occasions her telepathy actually started arguments among members of a group traveling together when one of them would complement her on her excellent language skill in his or her language, while a another would insist that she'd just spoken a completely different language beautifully instead. Each time that happened I had us immediately and discreetly withdraw from the field of combat.

Although I often couldn't understand the questions, I made it a game to infer them from her answers. I was amazed at how much inflection she cold put into those answers, as well as her range of emotion in her replies. It seemed that she could communicate with a whole crowd when necessary and all would hear her clearly. That must have been great when dealing with a temple full of worshipers in the days before public address systems were invented.

One day she gave an abrupt and very cool reply of "Thank you very much," to a comment I hadn't caught. After she gave her response in exactly the same way a couple more times over the next day I pulled her aside and asked her what had been said to her to provoke her in that way.

"They complimented the beauty of my necklace," she told me sulkily.

Ah, I thought to myself. That was probably not the compliment she wanted to receive.

"One of them offered me a large sum of money for it," she added in the same tone of mind. "Sell it and you can be a rich man."

"No thank you," I told her firmly.

Thirty-four down—sixty-six to go.

I soon started wondering—then worrying— just how bidirectional this telepathy of hers might be? I didn't want to ask because I didn't want to give her any ideas that she hadn't already come up with on her own. She was already quite the master manipulator. Then I realized that the question was already moot. Either she couldn't read my thoughts—or she was already doing it. I might was well find out for sure.

Hera assured me that she could only understand my words when I spoke directly at her. Anything else was only vague impressions. She said that she wished she could get more out of it because she wanted to understand me better, but that's all there was in if for her.

I decided to believe her, not that I likely could have changed anything otherwise since it appeared that I had control over her actions than her thoughts. If I had controlled her mind and attitudes more fully then we never would have gone through the struggles to come.

Thirty-nine down—sixty-one to go.

Even if she wasn't able to read my mind—and despite what she said I kept looking for any indications that she was—Hera quickly proved herself adept at finding other ways to play on my weaknesses. The first was her nudity.

While I could have her nude any time I wanted it, pretty soon it was enough for me to pull down the top of her toga to get to her breasts, while lifting up the bottom of it to run my hands up her thighs and rub her womanhood in preparation for my entry. That was enough foreplay to get me ready and it seemed sufficient for her. Considering how much deliberation I was giving her for sex—although I always made sure she was well lubricated and ready, which never seemed to take her long—I can't blame her in hindsight for how she was starting to regard me. And as nice as it was with her actually performing The Act, sex remained a means to an end for me. I'd already learned never to mix pleasure with business and this was definitely business.

Forty-two down—fifty-eight to go.

Our conversations continued and I soon learned a lot about The Gods overall—perhaps more than anyone else has ever known. It was clearly her favorite topic from her former life, most of the rest of which had been pretty dull all things considered.

All of the Pantheon shared Hera's telepathic talent, her ability to go into a dormant state like the one I'd found her in initially, and her electric abilities—although the strength of each varied among them.

As for the latter, if not controlled or suppressed, Hera could generate a strong enough electric charge to kill a man with one touch of her lovely forefinger—or so she claimed. That explained the static I'd often felt around her. While she couldn't follow-up that jolt with another powerful one for several hours, once was certainly enough as far as I was concerned. She probably didn't need it quickly in succession since who would approach her after that? The necklace that controlled her now somehow grounded that ability, which was probably why I was still alive now.

Curiously, she never said anything about any of them being able to change themselves, or others, into different forms. Nor did she seem to have any knowledge of why they were different from humans. "We were just kind of all born together and always knew that we were different from the rest of those around us," was the best I could get out of her. For all I know, they may have been some sort of prehistoric breeding experiment for a superior human—or left behind by aliens.

Other talents of these Gods varied.

Zeus was definitely the most powerful of them, hence his position as leader. Furthermore, his electrical powers were the most awesome.

"He always seemed half bull and half bullshit," Hera told me. "His strength as well as his sexual appetites were prodigious. And although any healthy woman can satisfy any man, Zeus shared the same vulnerability as all of the rest of us."

Some careful questioning on this point got Hera to admit that any God who took the same lover a hundred times in succession would be bound by unbreakable love to that person as much as any Goddess would, which explained why infidelity was rife on Mount Olympus. No one wanted to end up in the inferior position to another.

So my uncle had been right after all and this duty I was putting myself through now was going to pay off in the end.

Then she also added, "It was also an attempt by any male God to increase our numbers to survive. We were very few in number and our superior abilities alone weren't going to save us."

"But wasn't infanticide rather rife among your clan as well?"

"Our jealousies, rages, and insecurities were much our own undoing," she admitted with downcast eyes. "Given more time we might have overcome them."

Hera also explained how Zeus had enhanced his legend as The God of Thunder.

"That dickhead," was my mind's literal translation of her words and thoughts, "got his worshipers to construct him a hollow gold rod in the shape of a lightening bolt. He could already fire off his charges pretty quickly compared to the rest of us, but with this he could generate such a large charge in it that with it finally went off it would shoot across a room and down dozens of men at a time."

All of this information made me real glad that I hadn't revived Zeus—not that he was my type of lover—since Hera's reputation was already fearsome enough.

As to the other Gods, Hera was equally opinionated.

Apollo, she declared was a pretty boy with no common sense at all when it came to his love life.

Hermes couldn't actually fly, but had unreal endurance when it came to running great distances. "He was also too proud of his reputation as the fastest lover around," she explained with disdain, spitting on the floor at the mention of his name. "He was in and back out of me having finished his business before I'd even finished reclining back to accept him," she added with a sneer.

"Aphrodite could have any man, but never valued any of them because they all came too easily to her. The rest of us felt she was way too close to Cupid anyway."

"Ares just liked fighting all the time. We were most happy when he would just go off and amuse himself on his own," I was informed.

"And Diana was always on the hunt for other women as much as she was ever out hunting for wild game."

"Poseidon?"

"All wet—'nuff said."

Hera wasn't any kinder about any of her other contemporaries.

"All of us were spoiled by being worshiped from the beginning and weren't even fit company for each other—although we did our best to keep up appearances in public. Why do you think we all had separate temples so far apart from each other anyway?"

One thing that really set her off was when I asked about her famous feud with Heracles. "I mean, his very name means Glory to Hera," I pointed out.

"Yeah, right," came her biting retort. "And how often would you like to have your supposed husband's bastard son shoved up in your face?"

Forty-seven down—fifty-three to go.

It wasn't that Hera was all-in on this deal with me. If there were any loopholes left to her she was determined to find and exploit them. As I've already mentioned, nudity was the first one she tried.

It started with her asking for privacy to use the toilet. That's how I was raised and she'd seen my obvious discomfort at how unconcernedly she relieved herself each time, while I insisted on doing my business in private. She had also, no doubt, noticed how modern facilities separate the men and the women.

She soon tried to stretch out her private time away from me each time a bit longer than the last by doing what I'd unconsciously been doing by pulling the shower curtain and closing the door when I took my showers.

Suddenly I realized that these "showers" of hers were taking longer and longer, and that leaving Hera alone to her own devices was most definitely not in my best interests.

Hera had yet to learn about bathroom door locks, or how to open them from the outside. I burst in to find her naked, neck and head wet and soaped, shower running unattended, with her bent at the waist to put her head down near her ankles. Rather than pause to admire her amazing flexibility, I looked to see if the necklace was still around her neck.

Thankfully, it was. Closer inspection showed that it was unlikely—even if she shaved her head, which I didn't put past her— that it would have actually slipped off on its own, but that wasn't my only concern. Unbeknownst to me a lover could have easily slipped in through the large bathroom window and undone all my efforts so far. This was Greece, after all.

Hera crossly answered my angry grilling of her. She stood there unashamed of her fully revealed body to try and increase my own discomfort, but I was too angry with both of us to allow that to work today. When I was done I was assured that there had been no other lovers and that the necklace remained firmly around her neck.

I finally took her hand more roughly than necessary and led her out to our bed for another bout of lovemaking. Just the thought that she might slip my carefully crafted noose now excited me in new ways. It added an element of danger to what had started to become complacency on my part. Also seeing her naked by her own choice with that very nice ass in my face didn't hurt either.

Afterwards at my insistence, we showered together so that I could keep a close eye on her. That turned out so well that I wished I'd demanded it from the beginning.

Fifty down—fifty to go—halfway there.

I always had to watch over Hera carefully in public because I never knew what might happen otherwise. We went out mostly because both the money was too good to ignore, and I couldn't stay cooped up in the room until I made my century with her. But every excursion was an opportunity for unplanned things to happen.

Once, for example, while she was posing for yet another picture, a woman with a strangely sad and silent child in her arms came up and spoke to her in the local dialect. Hera replied back so softly that I didn't catch her words before pulling down her toga to reveal a bare breast while reaching for the child. Everyone started frantically taking snapshots and I knew that this was something that simply could not go well. I quickly grabbed my goddess back to our room sans baby. Even so I was in a cold sweat over what might have happened if my attention had been wandering for even a moment and this had gotten any further along. Hera offered no explanation afterwards, just looking at me sadly, while I looked back at her with frustration.

Fifty-seven down—forty-three to go.

Everyone always puts on his or her best face when meeting someone new. Being nice is far more likely to help us get what we want from this other person than the other way around. That's why first dates usually go so well.

But if this person we're portraying isn't us to begin with then the façade starts to slip over time. This happens especially quickly when you're spending way too much time with each other and put the sex before the relationship.

The slippage didn't happen in an instant, but I soon saw that when she wasn't intentionally being nice—like when she was meeting strangers and posing for pictures in public—Hera revealed herself as something less than the divine goddess people saw her as.

Sad to say, although perhaps not unexpected, Hera was turning out to be more than a little bit indolent, slothful, petulant, juvenile, and even lazy, among other less desirable things. I have to rather blame myself for the last part.

In ancient Greece even a Goddess had to work daily to maintain her privileged position. The goddess shtick didn't just happen. Now that I was providing for all her needs, as well as trying to prevent her from doing pretty much anything on her own out of fear over what that might be, she just didn't have to put out any effort herself any longer. Her base of worshipers might have dwindled to only one—me—and so I had to provide everything for her now.

Once she saw how this affected my desire for her—truthfully, it was pretty much of a downer—she seemed to intensify it. Hera soon was in turn, whiney, bitchy, kvetching, and complaining every spare minute to the point that I felt I had a goddess on my hands with permanent PMS.

They whiney part was the worst. It was either that we spent too much time in the room, or that I didn't talk to her enough about my feelings, or what a painful and crushing burden that necklace was on her and why couldn't she just have it lifted off for a few minutes? True it was solid gold with large flat stones and had considerable heft to it. She promised she'd be good if she could just have it removed for a little while because her neck was aching so badly. She said I could ensure the promise of her good behavior by making sure she meant it while she still wore it. This was all just such a pain in the neck and drained her energy so constantly that it was becoming too much for her to bear, and besides she'd never been meant to wear it for so long at a time.