‘I just don’t want any surprises when we’re married. Like an illegitimate child on our doorstep or some youth pining for you.’
‘So, in your imagination, I’m so talented that old lovers begging at my feet is a possibility?’ he clarifies.
‘Well, if certain body parts are as big as your head then …’
His laughter echoes as we emerge in the lake’s cavern. I spent years around nymphs making such jokes, never daring to make them myself, but now they come so naturally.
‘Is this because we saw Ponus and Philotes earlier?’ he asks.
‘No, that was hilarious,’ I say. ‘This is because I’ve heard far too many stories. Not about you, granted, but the things the other gods have been up to have scarred me for life.’
‘There have been girls and there have been boys. Not many of either. No illegitimate children. Is any of that a problem?’
‘Well, I didn’t think you were a virgin,’ I say. I’m somewhat relieved, though I don’t care to admit it, that he likes women and I theoretically have a chance. Not that I would ever go there, of course. But my concern was not about gender preferences. The gods can be … creative. ‘Any animals, inanimate objects or chaos-created monsters?’
‘No,’ he sputters.
‘Ever appeared as a golden shower? Or a swan? Or a cloud? Or –’
‘I’m going to stop you right there and say a very firm no.’
‘Then I’ll cope.’
I sit on the rough rock at the edge of the cavern in this room that is more natural than the rest of the palace and so much older.
‘I could summon chairs?’ Hades suggests.
I begin pulling pins out of my hair. ‘Just sit down.’
He grumbles but finally sits beside me on the floor.
He laughs as I shake my hair out. I wipe the colour staining my lips on to the back of my hand. ‘Only you could go from so glamorous to so messy in a matter of seconds.’
I think he has a thorough misunderstanding of how glamour works, but I just grin a lipstick-smeared smile at him instead. ‘You’re marrying this mess.’
He takes the wine and pours out two cups. ‘Yes, yes, I am.’
‘Did tonight feel too easy to you?’ I ask.
‘How do you mean?’
‘Just … the way we were acting. I’ve been putting on performances my entire life and not much of that felt like pretending.’
‘Well, yes,’ he says. ‘We’re not pretending to like each other, are we? We just layered a romantic performance on top of our friendship.’
‘Right.’
But friends don’t touch each other as much as we do.
Or talk about the things we do.
Or long for something more than this – whateverthisis.
I run through the seven types of love, quickly disregarding agape, philautia and storge because I’m fairly certain that ‘this’ is not love for humanity, the self or your children.
I can postpone ruminations of pragma. It is the bond forged by years, not by days.
And eros I refuse to think of. Eros is what has me staring at the muscles stretching beneath Hades’ robes and had me shivering in his arms only this evening. Eros is that longing that draws me to him, like an invisible thread tied round my insides. Eros is madness and lust and desire and I refuse, absolutely refuse, to consider it. Eros could ruin you.
