The Hanged Man: Part 2: Mabon
Post #8: In which a queen chooses a king ...
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PERSEPHONE
After the evening meal, Hades told Persephone the Dark Prince’s story and laid bare his self-doubt and desire for her.
“I don’t know what kind of a King I can be,” he said. “But these are my people and if I don’t accept responsibility for them no one can. I don’t know anything about love. I’m a dark man of dark moods and this is a shadowed land, but I want no other for queen.”
He looked away from her, into the fire. “You’re always in my thoughts and I desire you, not just once but always.”
She didn’t speak. He looked into her face again. “Persephone, will you be my queen? Do you think you could love me?”
Her answer trembled on her tongue but she held it there. She remembered Baubo and recognized Hades’ simple vulnerability deserved equal honesty from her. Would he want her if she allowed him to see beneath sweetness and beauty? Did he ask her to become his property or his equal?
She rose without speaking and extinguished the lamps, leaving one on the table lit. The room dimmed. She took her dumbek out of a chest against the wall, along with a bracelet of bells for her ankle. She wore a robe of white linen embroidered with red thread in a pattern of leaves and poppies. Her hair hung in a long plait down her back.
“Ah!” said Hades when he saw the dumbek. “I haven’t seen one of those in a long time!”
“Do you play?” she asked in surprise.
“A little. Do you?”
She smiled for answer. She took her seat, tucked the drum under her arm, and began to play.
The slow pulse filled the chamber. Persephone let her mind relax and open. Her breathing and heartbeat became part of the hypnotic rhythm. Hades sat at ease, long legs stretched out toward the fire, a half smile on his face. Firelight revealed the planes of cheek and chin. Persephone felt a pang of desire and wondered what he would feel if he knew how fiercely he attracted her. She would find out.
She stood up, hands moving faster, quickening the beat. She added the sound of bells to the drum. Her feet moved up and down with slow deliberation on the hard stone floor. She welcomed the warm air against her skin, the light touch of linen, the weight of her hair. Hades watched her. She circled around the room, reaching deep within herself for rhythm, aware of his presence but putting the knowledge aside in her private expression of dance and drumbeat. She played hidden desire. She played the Green World and the shadowed inevitability of the Underworld. Her hands fell with assurance, drawing reverberating response from the dumbek. Her slow circling of the room brought her close to Hades. He reached out and put his hand on her bare arm. Her hands faltered and lost the rhythm. He took the dumbek and set it between his knees.
He picked up the rhythm she’d been playing, and she easily slid back into her dance. His hands were sure. He varied the sound, now cupping his hands, now hitting the drum with a flat hand or letting his fingers play lightly against it. Persephone felt as though his hands touched her, seeking to know her resonance and range. Her breasts felt heavy and full. She remembered Baubo telling her to see with her nipples, untied the sash of her robe and let it fall open.
She watched his eyes find the cup of her navel, follow the slight curve of her belly, catch a glimpse of her hip. She was naked underneath the robe. He beat the dumbek. She didn’t know if he followed her dance or she followed his hands as the rhythm increased. Freed from holding the drum, she allowed her arms to float, a graceful counterpoint to her grounded, deliberate steps. Bells added their silvery music to the drumbeat. She ran her hands over herself, molding linen to the lines of her body. She cupped her breasts. Her hands skimmed the curve of her buttocks and she cupped herself between her legs, turning and circling nearer to him now. She smelled her own sweat and arousal.
She drew a finger between her legs. In a quick movement, she stepped forward and ran her finger over his cheek above his beard. He groaned in surprise. She leaned down in front of him and her breasts fell forward. Her hair unraveled from its braid. She put her hands over his and stilled them.
“Come.” She pulled the robe around her and left the chamber.
She led him along a series of passageways to the bathing cave. Persephone lit a lamp. Light revealed a basin carved out of the stone floor. Pipes jutted over the basin’s lip, one from the mineral hot spring that bubbled out of the rock and the other from a cold spring. Stone benches were hewn out along the walls. The music of gurgling water, welling up and out of layers of earth and rock, filled the place. The steamy air smelled pleasantly herbal. Persephone moved aside a small wooden door in the ceiling, opening a vent to the world above. She unplugged the pipes and water fell into the basin. A bench beneath the pipes allowed the bather to sit under the flow of water.
As the basin filled with water, Persephone selected a bundle of herbs from a basket. She rubbed them between her hands and the scent of marjoram, minty and earthy, filled the chamber. Next, she added a bundle of lavender, rolling it between her palms until the healing fragrance released. While the herbs steeped in the water, she took bottles from a shelf and added their contents to the bath. Rich scents of bergamot and cinnamon mingled with lavender and marjoram. She brought another bottle to Hades and held it under his nose. It had a strong, clean scent, reminiscent of peppermint or wintergreen.
“Eucalyptus,” she said. “This comes from far away. It’s good for muscle aches and it’s cleansing.” This too she added to the basin.
Hades shed his clothing and stepped into the pool. He adjusted the flow from the pipes as the basin filled. The room filled with a green, earthy odor, both soothing and exciting.
Persephone, now naked, laid out towels and mixed oils. She caught his eye and motioned for him to seat himself in the pool. He stopped the flow of water and sat. Water lapped against his collarbone, fragrant and steamy. She sat behind him, her lower legs and feet in the water, one on either side. He caressed her legs.
“No.” she said from behind him. “You don’t touch me. I touch you.” She made her voice commanding. Her knees were hard against either side of his chest. She kneaded the muscles in his shoulders and neck, using her thumbs and knuckles. He relaxed under her attention and rolled his head, letting his neck loosen. She put all her weight into the massage. He hung his head forward and she worked at the base of his neck. She allowed her feet and legs to sway as her upper body moved, and her knees tightened and relaxed against the sides of his chest. He didn’t touch her.
She worked over his shoulders and onto the muscles in his upper chest. His heavy head rested against the inside of her leg as he relaxed. Her fingers worked at his pectoral muscles, kneading hard. Slowly, her hands moved lower, deeply working muscle tissue just above and lateral to his nipples. She watched him grow erect in the hot water. He rubbed his cheek against the inside of her thigh.
She suddenly gave a swift pinch to each nipple with hard fingers. He gasped. She returned to kneading muscles in his shoulders. He rolled his head back and forth in the soft cradle of her thighs.
“Again,” he said.
“No. And you may not touch yourself, either. Or me.”
She smiled to herself behind him. His shoulders and neck tensed with desire. She put aside the oil and rubbed her hands through his hair, massaging his scalp and the skin of his face under his beard. She moved back to his neck and let him feel her fingernails. He leaned his head back. She wanted to rub herself against him.
She stepped down into the hot water. A bundle of fresh marjoram steeped in the bath. She rubbed it against her neck. It felt pleasantly rough and smelled fragrant. She raised her chin, using the bundled herb like a sponge. Her unraveling hair fell back. She polished the skin over her collarbones, shoulders and arms with slow deliberation. She raised her hands and ran the herbs down the inside of her arm, into her armpit and then down her side. When she was finished with her upper body she sat on a large stone above the water in the middle of the basin. The water level skimmed her thighs. She bent her knee, put her heel on the stone, and rubbed from the ankle up her lower leg, over her knee and then to the top of her thigh.
Hades remained motionless, but she could feel his tension. She sat with both legs in the water and used the bundle of herbs on her belly, over both hips, and reached behind herself, rubbing her low back and then dropping lower. She ran it up between her breasts, circling each one. She released the herbs into the water and watched the bundle sink while she cupped her breast, pinching the nipple gently. The sensation made her want to display her body. She supported herself with a hand behind her and arched her back. The hard point of her breast pressed into her palm. She caressed the other breast. Hades’ harsh quick breathing excited her. With one hand still at her breast, she held his gaze and lowered the other. She leaned back. Her mons was just at the water’s surface. With two fingers, she spread her labia. The scented water lapped against her swollen tissue. She ached to be filled, to be stretched, to be rubbed against. She pinched the tender lips of her sex.
Hades’ lips parted. What was in his face? Was he appalled? Was she too blatant? Did she go too far? She remembered Baubo’s dance and her words. Something stubborn in her didn’t care what he thought. Something wild and primitive in her took fierce pleasure in revealing her true self. If he didn’t want her—if he didn’t find her beautiful—well, she felt beautiful. She wanted herself. She wouldn’t hide herself to please him. But she loved him. She wanted him to want her—to claim her as his own. Still holding his gaze, she put a finger inside herself. He groaned softly. She withdrew her finger and gently squeezed the folds of skin around her clitoris together. It felt so exciting she knew she mustn’t do it for long. Again, she squeezed. Once again, she put a finger inside, pushing it deep, watching his face. She raised one knee and rested her foot on the seat so he could see her finger moving in and out.
“Come here, Lord,” she said.
He approached her. She moved off her stone seat and gestured him to take it. He did so, with his legs wide and his shaft erect, reaching up out of its nest of black hair towards his navel. She loosened her hair so it floated around her shoulders. She moved around the stone seat, exploring him with her eyes, deliberately brushing against his legs. He put his hands on his thighs and waited. Behind him, she pulled herself onto the rock. She stood behind him and looked down at the top of his penis where it strained upward. She stepped around him and stood with her legs wide. He leaned to taste her, to explore her, but she drew away. In a sinuous movement, she crouched down. He steadied her with his hands, guiding her. She knelt and straddled his lap, reaching for his shaft. He closed his eyes at her touch. She rubbed the tip of him against herself, feeling his wetness and the soft skin sheathing his hardness. She trembled from the strain of kneeling on the hard rock and her own need. She suddenly felt afraid.
His strong hands held her waist. He leaned forward and took her nipple in his mouth. The exquisite feeling made her gasp and press herself closer against him. He slid inside her, and as she came down onto him, she felt resistance, a thin blade of pain, and then he filled her, filled her as she’d ached to be filled. She made a sound, half groan and half sob, resting her head against his shoulder. He clasped her against himself. Her legs encircled his hips.
“Now be still,” he whispered to her. “Be still with me, my darling.”
She took his face between her hands and smoothed his beard, smiling into his eyes through a sheen of tears. He put his mouth on hers and his slight movement rocked them together. At once she tensed with desire. She wanted to rub, to feel…
He took her full bottom lip between his teeth and bit gently, then harder. Heat shot through her and she curled her fingers in his beard and pulled. She tightened her muscles around his shaft. He stiffened.
“Be still, woman!”
Smiling, she lifted herself off him, kneeling again. She felt sore and swollen but it wasn’t unpleasant. She reached with an exploratory hand and felt the sticky wetness of him and he hissed out a breath at her touch. She positioned herself, relaxed and opened as much as she could, and let herself down. She rocked her hips. He moved within her in response.
“Persephone,” he breathed, “Do that again.”
“I thought you didn’t want me to move,” she said, teasing.
She raised herself. Big hands cupped her buttocks. He helped her slide up his shaft and then lower herself. He swelled within her. She raised herself and his hands were hard now against her in bruising demand. He thrust his hips to drive more deeply into her. She floundered, unable to catch the rhythm of it, overwhelmed with the intensity of his demand.
Then she fell into it and relaxed, rocking her hips to meet his thrusts. The friction between them built. She was caught in a great wave of pleasure and thrust herself down on him as hard she could, grinding and rotating her hips. He touched a deep place inside her and pleasure swelled to a peak. She cried out, sank her fingernails into the skin over his shoulders.
He paused and then tipped over some unseen edge, echoing her own cries as he jerked and spasmed, jerked and spasmed, prolonging her own climax as she felt the jet of his ejaculate.
Slowly she came back into awareness. Subterranean water gurgled. Rock felt hard beneath her. Hot water lapped against her legs. She loosened her tight clasp on him. Their breathing slowed. She felt sore. He softened and grew smaller inside her. She wondered if she was heavy in his lap. The scent of oils was strong. What was he thinking now?
“Persephone,” he said into her hair.
“Yes?”
“I withdraw the question.”
Her heart sank. She tensed and tried to pull away. His arms tightened and she felt his face move as he smiled against her.
“Persephone. You are a queen. May I be your king?”
(This post was published with this essay.)
