Chapter 25: The First Bed-Slaves

I've been going through the bits about bed-slaves that Anna gathered for me. I've got it organized relatively chronologically, and though I'd share some of the main pieces of it as I go through it. Ultimately, hopefully, we'll all have a better understanding of the practice by the end of it, and I'll know whether I can stand it, and whether it'll work for my intern.

The first story goes back to the foundational myths of the Society, to the first Master and Maker of Things: Hephaestus. Those of you not familiar with the Society may not know that we trace our origins back to Ancient Greece, and they mythological figure of the Smith of the Gods. There's much to that story, which I'll go into later, but the important bits involve his wife, the Goddess Aphrodite, who cheated on him.

Helios, the Sun, saw Aphrodite from his celestial path dallying with Ares, the God of War. He, in turn, confided this in Hephaestus, which enraged him. He turned to his forge to find a way to trap them, and prove their deceit. There he wove a net of steel chain so fine that it couldn't be seen, and so strong no God could break it. He draped if over his marital bed, where Aphrodite had taken Ares in the past, and waited for her to dally again.

In the commonly known version of this story, Aphrodite and Ares lay together again, and were caught in the net. Hephaestus too his net, and dragged them to Mount Olympus where he demanded retribution. Poseidon reportedly talked him into letting them go because Ares would play the adulterer's fine. In ancient Rome, where Hephaestus became called Vulcan, they say that whenever she cheats again, he goes to his forge under Mount Etna, and builds up such a heat it causes the volcano to erupt.

All of this is true, so far as it goes, but the story is that Hephaestus confided the truth to his children, the Kaberoi, who lived in Samothrace and Lemnos. That he did not immediately take the two loves to Mount Olympus, but instead chained them to that bed for a year and a day. Aphrodite and Ares were bound in the bed so that they could not touch each other, but only someone who lay directly between them. During their time as bed slaves, bound by the net, they were only able to get pleasure from someone who lay between them.

It is whispered then, in those ancient islands, that Hephaestos lay between them every night, and took pleasure from them both. And that the heat of Mt Etna is not from the forge, but from the vigor of their lovemaking.

After all, they keep cheating on him, despite knowing that they'll always be caught.