Previously on The Erotic Adventures:
Heraklea stood, still wrapped in her bedsheets, in the largest hall she had ever seen. She wasn't even positive that she was indoors; she thought she saw a vaulting silver ceiling high above, but it could have been the sky. The floor was white marble, polished to a high shine and cold on her bare feet. Fifty feet away was a golden dais, columns on either side of the dais that went so high she couldn't see their tops. The dais had six steps leading up to it, and on it were perched two enormous thrones, gold, the armrests carved in intricate patterns and figurines. Hunters chased deer, boars, lions across the thrones; women swooned; men drank from vases.
What really concerned Heraklea was the two people in the thrones. For one thing, they seemed slightly larger than people should be. Not giants, but slightly wrong, too large by a quarter. For another, they were more beautifully dressed that anyone she had seen before: the man's robes and the woman's dress were shot through with threads of silver and gold, and each wore a heavily jeweled diadem on their head. The man had a gray mane and beard that gave him a slightly wild look, mismatched to his immaculate clothing, the immaculate room; the woman had dark hair and bright violet eyes. Heraklea had never seen eyes that color before.
She didn't need a map to tell her where she was: this was Mount Olympus, home of the gods, and these two were Zeus and Hera, the king and queen. Heraklea pulled her sheet more firmly around her and wished she were properly dressed. Technically, Zeus was her father or, at least, he had sown his seed in her mother's womb under false pretenses. Amphitryon was her father, as far as she was concerned. But her feelings on the matter probably weren't going to be much use with Hera, who was notoriously jealous of Zeus' conquests and notoriously nasty to the subsequent offspring.
"First she fucks half of Greece, then you try and marry her off and she fucks her husband half to death," Hera continued, looking down at Heraklea like she was a particularly revolting insect.
Zeus leaned on one fist, ignoring Hera. "What are we going to do with you?" he said.
Silence. Heraklea looked from one to the other and back again. "Is Lykos dead?" she finally asked, her voice sounding tiny in the great hall.
"Not yet," said Hera. "Just fucked into a coma. Never seen anything like it. Have you, darling? You've got more experience in that sort of thing."
Zeus frowned and continued to ignore his wife. "It's unfortunate you turned out female. Everyone expects this behavior of a rich young man."
"Helen never acted like this," Hera said.
"I'm sorry," Heraklea said, tearing up. "I didn't mean to hurt him."
"No," rumbled Zeus. "But still, you must atone."
"King Eurystheus has been having a lot of problems lately, down in Argos," Hera said. "He could use some help killing monsters."
"Hmm, yes," Zeus said. "Maybe that will exhaust you."
Hera smirked, her beautiful face an ill-concealed mask of rage. "He's a very demanding man," she said. "You're to do anything and everything that he asks of you, or you'll be his servant forever."
"Go then," Zeus said, and with a wave of his hand, golden light filled Heraklea's vision again, and when she could see again, she found herself in a smaller room, though still grand, in front of another throne, a surprised-looking king on it.
Heraklea was having trouble sleeping ever since she'd had sex with the last monster.
At night, she'd lie awake in her bed, the fire guttering out, and watch the moon cast its faint light through the curtains over her single window. She'd listen to the fountains gurgling outside, the occasional night guards walking past, sometimes the almost-silent bare feet of lovers, tiptoeing to and from one another's rooms. She'd fall asleep only to wake back up, an hour later or two at the most, the light from the window barely moved across the
Learning to Kill: Stories