Chapter Text
Light-bringing Apollo, the sun god-king, lounged on his gold throne woven with fragile bronze laurel branches in his hall of warped windows and vine writhed mirrors.
The rippled glass windows opened onto the ordered gardens below of a landscape that had been entirely controlled. Geometric trees and sharp edged shrubs in the shapes of diamonds and spheres and squares lined the long reflecting pool to the limpid horizon. Sun dials in the shapes of chess pieces played their shadow games on half empty greenery boards. Gold plated fountains of nymphs played music and poured their affections into cascading pools that reached to the very edge of the sky. In the court of the sun god-king, it was rumored that the statues were old mistresses, but no one credited it. In these days of Enlightenment, no one turned into a river to escape plague-striking Apollo’s love. They simply caught a ship bound for the new world and remade themselves in a new way.
Old world. New world. The clock work embedded in the bronze vine mirrored wall tick-tocked, tick-tocked. Far-shooting Apollo had his seasons. Oh, yes. Seasons. A time to shine bright and a time to cast golden hours and a time to fade away into the cold, cold winter night with rain runneling down the windows like so many pythian hydras.
The ceiling was the sky that ever receded into the distance. Clouds drifted there and here. Occasionally the court would disport themselves upon the clouds, but not today. Today the sky was cloudy and the restless sun did not shine.
The gold clock embedded in the wall ticked the hours and the sun god-king’s court tick-tock, tick-tocked to its relentless rhythm.
The muse, Euterpe, played Bach's French Suite no 4 in E-flat major on the harpsichord and the rest of her quartet of nymphs followed on strings.
Her sister, Terpsichore, directed the court in the steps of a gavotte. The sharply curled gentlemen in their deep blue silk frock coats embroidered with gold suns pointed their toes and stepped to the right. The high piled ladies in their wide blue silk dresses flounced in gold ribbon stepped to the left. Whether or not their toes were pointed was subject to mystery.
Music-Wielding Apollo leaned back on his golden throne and idly caressed the thick dark pelt of Marsyas, which was nailed into the metal of his throne with gold tacks. It whimpered and the sun god-king in his mood whispered, “Quiet now.” He idly strummed upon the nerves of his throne and the pelt shivered in pleasure. Well, perhaps it was pleasure. Marsyas had been skinned and nailed to a throne for a very long time.
Far-seeing Apollo, sun god-king, was so very, very, very, time infinite bored.
There should be a brief interlude to explain that there was also a sun-king, who ruled the country in which bright Apollo currently held his golden court. It was why eye-searing Apollo held his court there. No other country so loved the Hellenic sun.
For that matter, Sky-Father-King Zeus ran a clinic on a mountain in the Swiss Alps where he invited women suffering from hysteria to come for a cure. The cure was his phallus thrust with exceptional vigor into their hysteria. There was also an attached orphanage accepting donations. Hera, well, she administered a great many sulfur water enemas.
All of this was a prelude.
Beyond the garden, beyond the very controlled horizon, in the wild vineyards of the massive central mountain range, wine-rearing Dionysus sprawled in the soft, wet mud.
Vines spread from his fingers. Vines spread from his toes. There were vines tied oh so tenderly to trellises. Vines spread out to get the best yield. Vines that sprawled over ridges and yielded hearty grapes on terraces of earth.
Pleasure-seeking Dionysus rubbed his bare ass into the sucking soil and thrust his phallus at the sky. The sky gave him no pleasure, which was fickle of the sky, but there it was.
Goat-slaying Dionysus was bored. Bored. Bored. Bored. Random number. Bored.
Now when flame-pricking Apollo was bored, a nymph became a gold plated fountain pouring her desire by the amphora into a limpid reflecting pool. Or there was a somewhat inevitable musical contest where the satyr ended up nailed to a throne and fondled with long idle fingers as the mood struck.
Now when release-seeking Dionysus was bored, his Maenads rolled ripely naked in rich red wine and ripped off the heads of some poor fool that came upon them. Or there was that somewhat inevitable attempt to head off the insanity, which resulted in a mad ivy clad king hacking at his kinsmen.
Suffice to say order-wielding Apollo in his clock work court of hours and seasons and years suffered from ennui. Suffice to say, chaos-creating Dionysus in his fields and vines and drunken debauch suffered from the same.
In his bier, ripe Dionysus idly stroked himself. He licked his wine wet lips and he snapped his fingers.
The Maenads' eyes lit up. Their nostrils flared. They ran over the fields. They smashed through the geometric hedges.
Calliope smacked a Maenad, nameless in her madness, with a stone tablet. Erato held her arms wide and grappled for affection. She wrote a poem as she struggled.
Clio, who knew the history of how these sorts of things went, ran for the armory put on some Hephaestian plate for her battle. She held the library against the Maenads, giggled and chortled and reached with ripping hands. Polyhmnia would have gone down quietly under the mass of them, but that Clio flung her bodily into the library and yelled, "Have a care, sister, and grab that pike from the wall."
Eutuerpe spun her flute with one hand and beckoned to a Maenad with the other. "Come, on. I've a song to sing." The song she spun was something like a flute to the head.
It was a pretty melody and Terpischore danced to it with many a high kick and spin. She called out, "Sister, I love your rhythms."
Melpomene and Thalia hurried the rest of the court up stairs while their sisters fought the oncoming horde. Someone had to think of the children. They put on a play in the upper parlor, while Maenads thumped with pruning sheers and axes against the heavy oak door.
Urania stood outside that door. She was a little giddy herself with her string of astronomical boy toys. She swung a golden metal globe at a Maenad. "Have you heard of Tycho Brae?" Thump. "He had a metal nose." Thump. "He proved that comets were not atmospheric phenomena." She spun a compass in her other hand. "Would you like another?" The oncoming Maenad indicated the she would like another by screaming and running forward along the long silk papered wall, which suffered sadly that day. But when all was said and done, Urania had a lot of other to give. The skies were after all, in those days of Enlightenment, ever expanding.
Arrow-darting Apollo on his throne moved his middle finger in a figure eight pattern on the fur pelt nailed to his golden throne. It whimpered as he rhythmically thrust into the fur to the sound of Urania’s thumps.
Mad-eyed Dionysus stroked his own thighs and slid from the soft slick mud. He stepped through the holes that the Maenads had made in the controlled boxed hedges. He saw a sundial chess knight on a lonely garden chess board. Future-changing Dionysus swept the back of his hand along the long jaw of the hedge. Vines twined through the horse’s mouth like a tether. Sunflowers grew from the knight’s eyes.
Sky-seeing Apollo, god-king, stepped from his throne. Where his feet struck the blond wood floor, gold leaf spread in a spiral pattern. His supple fingers moved softly in the air as if stroking the long nerves of a lyre.
Time-keeping Apollo pushed open his windows. He left behind his mirrors. He stood in the garden and blazed at revelrous Dionysus, who yielded.
The earth of the gardens baked hard in the sudden heat. The nymph fountains turned their backs on the palace and hid their faces. The water in the reflecting pool steamed. The Maenads and the Muses paused in their battle and sat at the windows to watch. Thalia ordered refreshments, but at a look from Melpomene ordered tea rather than wine.
In the garden, time-turning Dionysus passed each of the chess piece sundials. Wild vines covered them. It could be said that there was no time.
They came to stand together in the pleasure garden of the sun.
Bright-eyed Apollo ran his musician's fingers along wine-dark Dionysus’ mud coated flanks until his hands were fairly slicked in mud. Pleasure-seeking Dionysus shouted, “Fuck Enlightenment.” He bit music-scented Apollo’s neck and the god-king bled red and hot into his mouth.
Bleeding Apollo breathed in sharply at the wound. He wrapped his burning hands around theater-delighting Dionysus' face and wrenched his grinding teeth from his neck. They gazed into one anothers eyes. Madness-inducing Dionysus whispered, "Turn anyone into a plant lately."
Lyre-plucking Apollo ran a finger along lips wet with his own blood and whispered, "Not lately." He bent to taste his own blood on those red lips. They ground teeth and explored darkness with their tongues. They spoke an entire language that way. They bruised each other with their kissing.
Tender-vined Dionysus fell back onto the green grass and pulled blazing Apollo with him. Flesh-burning Apollo’s silk and embroidered clothes crisped to black and impatient hands brushed the char away. They rolled in the green grass and painted themselves with stains. The golden fountains turned to look and watered them wet with their spray. Water beaded on muddy skin until it was brushed away with a mouth that kissed and bit, twisting flesh between teeth to mark the place as already traveled. Here has been a monster.
Bright-eyed Apollo steamed under the fountains spray and sea-fairing Dionysus bowed his back and spread wide his legs. Rising Apollo sharply thrust a mud wet finger into yielding Dionysus, who cried out. “Fuck. More.”
Brilliant Apollo bunched his fingers into a point and shoved them into earth-pressed Dionysus, who gasped, “More.” Spring-warming Apollo turned his hand left to right as it may be seen that the sun crosses the warming earth. Vines wrapped around him and pulled them down to the fountain wet earth. He seeking a certain spot. He knew he’d found it when voice-ripping Dionysus wept and pleaded, “Yes.”
Bleeding from a dozen places on his skin, bright-eyed Apollo pulled his mud slick fingers out of madness-desiring Dionysus. He shoved tender-vined Dionysus’ legs back until he was half bent on himself. Seeking Apollo slid his hands down mysterious Dionysus flanks and slicked his own phallus in thick black mud.
Root-seeking Dionysus cried out. “More.” Summer-sweet Apollo brushed the tip of his phallus against mad Dionysus’ entry as vines wrapped around ankles and wrists. The sun god-king burned them away and thrust forward. Wild Dionysus cried out. “Yes.”
Health-bringing Apollo pushed him back farther, until only androgynous Dionysus’ shoulders touched the ground and all that held him in place was the clockwork hard thrust of burning Apollo’s hips.
Harsh and hot and burning to dry the fountains and kill the carefully tended grass.
Sense-deafening Dionysus cried out. He scratched the back of the sun god-king, whose blood dripped down in golden bubbles. Once-dismembered Dionysus stroked his own phallus with mud slick fingers. He pulled every time the sun slammed into the bright pleasure spot inside him, half bent on the earth.
When they were spent, spring-bright Apollo turned him over onto his knees and began again until vision-mad Dionysus could not tell where his flesh began and bright-blazing Apollo ended.
It went on for the passage of days. Weeks. A season as the vines on which they lay grew heavy and ripe.
It ended, as these affairs do, in winter.
Fast furious thrusts gave way to slowly languorous pushes. Some days they lay spooned hip to hip, hardly moving in the hot syrup of air. Slow spooning gave way to idle caresses in the shortening days.
Season-deep Dionysus curled on himself. Season-weary Apollo climbed away and went to his royal bath to be gently cleaned by nervous nymphs with cotton cloths.
Over the dull dreary winter, seeking Dionysus turned himself over and over. He laughed. He giggled. It went to his head. In his season, he polyped a baby oak cask of champagne.
Celebrate pleasure.
Pure pleasure.
It’s the reason why champagne exists.