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The men are away to war. With it, your sanity. Left to wander the cold, stone halls of your father’s estate with the other women and servants. It squats at the base of mount Pelion, red roofed and slanted toward the cooling autumn sun. Suitable for a beloved prytanis - a modest palace with lush, proportional lands. Yet the ground hardens beneath your bare feet with each day you go to the olive grove, and the brine from the coast grows cutting. Flowers tighten and wither, trees go dormant.
It will be the first winter without them. You offer the finest cuts of meat and aged wine to Ares, but you and the women are alone when you pray at the shrine in the grove; the Gods’ gazes already elsewhere. Across the Aegan sea.
With them. At least, you hope.
✦ ✦ ✦
Years like this and you wait. Your father is aging and wants to live to see you mother sons. You are the youngest of your siblings - your two sisters long been wedded and perpetually swollen when you have visited them in peaceful Crete. One married to a magistrate and the other to a king. And your brother, another warmonger, has three red-haired sons from his wife in Argos.
“The winds blow harshly. The Gods are not happy with the war,” he tells you over dinner. The state of northern Greece does not please him either. He becomes grayer every day. “I wish you would have taken one of them for a husband before the ships left. Either. I see them both as my sons, you know this.”
“You ask much of me,” you reply, jaw in your palm. Mouth lazy and face flush with wine. Either. But you are greedy. “There is nothing to do about it now. There are no men in Thessaly.” Deserters, cowards, elders. No actionable men, said without saying.
Wait for me. Us, also said without saying, just in your ear. Four words you tuck between your fingers and run your thumb over often, as you would a warm stone.
They will be back. Gods will it.
✦ ✦ ✦
Four years is not an overlong campaign but to you it is a lifetime. You have lived, died, rotted, bore your bone to the purifying salt of the coast. But the war is over. The reason it started, long forgotten in favor of the sons of northern Greece coming home.
You hear them on the water long before you see them. They clamor for wine and women.
✦ ✦ ✦
Pythiades, Telamonides. Leaders, generals. You hear of them but you do not see them in the crowd on the road. Your father would not let the women out of the estate walls to greet them. So you peek through cracks in the courtyard to see calves thick with knots of muscle. Scars and infected wounds, bronze, oiled skin and filth. Blood.
Women gag; you are not accustomed to the smell of men, nor war. It has been four years of your aging father and soft voices, fresh scents. Now there is musk and sweat and death.
You are taken to your room to prepare for the feast. Again, the nice smells. Essence of peony rubbed on the flush of your wrists and neck. Shells from the coast in your hair with a form-fitting gown, a draped cloth, cinched with fine ribbon.
“See? How pretty,” says your mother. “If you are not engaged in the morning, then I know nothing.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Pythiades. Symon, you see his golden hair. It is shorter than you remember, close to his crown. But the servant women still yearn at their posts along the walls, waiting for him to ask for more wine, more bread, more meat. A gold that is rare, that illuminates the room. A sliver of Godhood in him from his grandfather, that is what they say. That is why he is home, you hear them now. He has Athena’s favor. Others sigh Aphrodite.
You shift further from behind the column in the dining hall, look and categorize how he has aged. A man, now. The novel bulk of muscle and never-ending stature that have him towering over most mortal men. His brow is heavier and his cheeks defined, the fat of youth stripped during the throes of famine at the end of the war. You watch him eat as though he will never again have the opportunity.
“Handsome, is he not?” Your mother at your ear. She points to the other side of the room. Telamonides. Machaon with his men, a new scar running through his brow down under his eye. Blue, a rarity, like gold. No divinity but exotic, his lineage not cleanly tied to this patch of earth you share.
Time has made a man of him just as well - sun-bronzed shoulders broad and meaty, yet lithe. He now wears a beard and you see fainter scars still. The joviality you recall is still there but less; a cool solemness is in him that is new as he recounts a tale of brawn between rips of mutton, swallows of wine.
“Which will you choose?”
You feel Symon’s gaze and carefully meet it from the corner of your vision. Deep-set eyes, an endless shade of agate. Death in them, now. Yet something else. Machaon then finds you from his bench at the long table and you feel weak. The two always linked inexplicably - since they could walk, their mothers said. Linked to you once you learned, as well; trailing after them then tripping, chasing their flapping soles on the soft earth of the grove in summer. Then you aged and they were chasing you.
All able men joined the war effort but you know if one went so, too, would the other; independent yet conjoined. Two golden cygnets flocked together. They took well to war. Excelled. It made generals of them both.
They were men four years ago but this is different, they are different. Their men grab after servants, have taken some into the hall, into empty rooms. You stay in the wings and watch, observe, but now they have found you and you wonder what they will do.
Your palms become slick. “You ask much of me.”
✦ ✦ ✦
It is long after sunset. One man tells a story so riveting the room goes completely silent and listens. Priskos, a steady, handsome man from Crete. Next to him is his eromenos, Kryos, a deeply bronzed young man still bare of face. Shortly after he starts, Machaon and Symon rise from their seats to little fanfare. Some watch them leave but return to the tale shortly after. The time has passed to follow their every breath. They are home.
You trail out into the hall, fingers tracing the stone joints as you wait. There is a small pocket in the wall and that is where you stay. Silent. Listening for the footfalls you would know even in madness. But there is nothing. Then, a presence, hands on your bare upper arms crushing you into a torso with which you have some familiarity. The one you remember softer, less thick.
“You waited.” Symon.
“Knew she would.” Machaon. “Our girl,” he murmurs, fingers underneath your chin. You evaporate.
It is dim in the halls despite the braziers but they linger behind you. A pair of drooling wolves from their breathing and the firmness you feel along your spine. You are no better; a taut stomach and the touch of a few fingers and already you are weak.
“Almost left me waiting too long,” you tell them, “my father would have married me to a woman if she would have been able to give me sons.”
Machaon laughs. You are let go and finally able to look on them. Unreachable mountains in comparison. Symon has a light to him, it has always been this way, but the hunger in his face is dark. Famine; food and women. They have been gone for four years. Machaon is smiling - a nice thing, something you have missed, but there is an unkind edge laced through. The both of them had been whet for a single purpose and now it is done.
“He will want you married soon,” Symon says. His hand finds your cheek. Expression intense. “Is he letting you choose?”
You nod, vertebra creaking in your ears. Everything perfectly still.
“Good.”
Machaon licks his lips. “Do you know who you will choose?” His hand cuffs the ball of your shoulder, thumb playing at the dip where it meets your chest. You shiver and shake your head. He shifts on his feet and grips tighter. “What if we make sport of it?” He looks at Symon. “How many races have we had about this?” Because there is no doubt that it would be them. One of them. Either.
“Many,” he responds, eyes still trained on you. “I always win.”
Machaon snorts. “You were a gangly shit. I have always been the stockier one.”
“Excuses. How about,” he stops, halfway smiles that rare, perfect smile, “whoever catches you gets to keep you?”
“We are not children,” you frown, “this is too important for something so trivial.”
“Oh, not trivial at all, sweet.” Machaon releases you. “It is very serious.” Thumb at your lip. “The spoils are worth the world over.”
Your heart cracks, leaks gold onto the dusty stone floor.
“We will give you a head start,” Symon barters. Except he means it, thoroughly, by the way he pushes your shoulders, urges you forward. “Go. To the grotto. Winner gets your hand.”
Another thing unspoken by the way his eyes roam.
You run.
✦ ✦ ✦
You are not a child and womanhood is not a novelty. Before the ships left the shore they had instilled in you their affections. Machaon brought you gifts and his fealty, his mouth. Symon gave you himself entirely. You know it is not normal, that they fight, that it is not perfect. But it has been four years and they are the sun and moon. You cannot have one without the other. Either. Consumed by greed because you cannot choose.
Your heart settles to the rhythm of your feet. It has been years since you last ran and your body does not take to it easily - you are slow, out of breath before you reach the grove. There is no sound behind you and anxiety fills the void. They seem so much larger than they once did. Molded and bent into weapons themselves. You wonder if you have changed much in their eyes.
The craggy wall of the grotto comes into view as you turn toward the shore; a smallish maw, a half-formed mouth on the outcropping. A choice meeting place in your youth for important matters the servants must not hear. Then later for lazy trysts - Symon’s slick skin under yours, the grease of his love between your stomachs. Machaon’s sloppy mouth on your own when Symon would let him.
A trip on flotsam and you are suddenly taken, feet lifted from the earth.
“Got you,” Symon huffs in your ear. You are shattered earthenware when his hands travel your body, pieces in his grip as he stops to squeeze the fat of your breasts and thighs. It is easy for him to carry you to the cave’s entrance - there is not an inch of you fighting it - but when the both of you see Machaon inside, back to the flowstone, you slow. “It is not possible—“
“Excuses,” he repeats, grin like a brazier in the dim. A flicker then it is gone, hunger taking its place. “Get in here.”
Symon hauls you the last few meters and Machaon nearly pounces when you clear the threshold, pinning you to Symon’s torso as his lips find yours. Your eyes cross under the lids at the touch of his warmth. Scalding, soft, damp. His tongue digging, exploratory in your mouth. You can nearly taste the famine. Hear it in the small sound he makes.
Symon chuffs. “Did you finish already?”
Machaon breaks away from you but not far, lips still grazing your own. “Not yet,” he smiles against your mouth, “I intend on giving her sons.”
Hands on your arms become bruising. “You did not catch her. You—“
“What if she marries us both?” Machaon muses and you laugh. He hums, takes your face in his hands. “I missed that sound.” Still the broken earthenware as his hands move, cup your breasts. Your back arches and you feel Symon’s hardness at the small of your back. “I missed these, Gods.”
“I missed you,” you breathe, “you both.” Phantom limbs now come home. You are complete. “Please,” you turn your head to Symon, see the way he is watching Machaon fondle you with heat in his face. “Kiss me.”
So he does. Molten gold down your throat as he softly tongues into your mouth. The feeling expands, pops your seams when his hands draw up the bottom of your gown for Machaon at your feet. Your palms hang on the nape of his neck and his chest rumbles. Machaon’s tongue laps at you with haste in thinly-veiled kindness, gentleness. But his fingers press bruises into your thighs and you feel Symon part from your mouth to fist his hand in Machaon’s hair. He pulls him away from your mound and his face is slick already with your grease - you feel it dripping cooly down your thigh.
“Easy,” Symon tells him. Machaon is breathing lightly, mouth partway open, and Symon takes two fingers and slips them into it with ease. “Wet them for me.” After a moment, he does, closes his full lips over the digits and only lets them go when they are shiny with saliva. “Good.” Machaon and you both shiver.
You gasp when Symon parts you with these fingers, coaxes your walls to widen from behind. His fingers are larger than yours, and it has been some time since you have even taken your own; the estate busy with the return of Thessaly’s ships, there has been no time for self-pleasure.
It stings but he is gentle, and when Machaon returns to your core it dissipates completely. You flex in his strong grip.
“Machaon,” you breathe, lost in the passes of his curling tongue, and Symon’s fingers sink all the way to the knuckles. You choke on a whimper.
“Say my name.” Teeth at your ear. “Say your husband’s name.”
You whine lightly, cheek coming to set against your bicep. “Symon.” Hips twitching when he adds another finger, stretches them. “Oh, Gods.”
Machaon parts wetly from you, beard glistening in the low light of the moon. “Not your husband yet,” he breathes, nips at the skin of your inner thigh. “I am yours tonight as well.” He looks at Symon’s hilted fingers darkly. “You will have both of us.”
“Yes,” you whimper softly, because anything else is unbearable - you need them both. Love them both, entirely, completely. They are your eyes and your hands, your legs. Every good part of you. “Please.”
“Did you bring the oil?” Symon. Machaon nods and rises, withdraws a small vial from his tunic. His hardness is visible under the fabric, his length tenting it easily. You bring a hand away from Symon’s neck and touch over it, revel in the way he groans in his diaphragm. “Will you put the oil on both of us?”
You nod easily - not entirely sure why they would both need it but you wish to touch them, feel their desire plainly. Symon disengages and sets about removing his clothing, apart from his sandals. Machaon follows, and you are taken aback by their thick, chewy muscle. Bands of it wrapping around large thighs, bigger than your head. Machaon’s skin was always deeper but it is even more so, now, loved and abused by the sun and covered in the whirls of fur that have done nothing but grow in their time away.
Symon has seen the most change, more developed than ever, more of his Godhood on display - but it is a large brutal scar marring the space next to his heart that takes your attention and you feel your face break.
He takes your hand and presses it to his stubbled cheek. “I am well, love. No tears for me.” His thumb brushes away the few strays that fell. Then he moves your other hand to his rod, itself hot and pulsing under your palm. His eyes flutter shut. “Gods,” he whispers, brows twitching up.
You gently take your hand from his face and wrap it around Machaon. Feel their slight differences, though they are markedly the same; thick, dense, long. You had cried the first time Symon took you. Machaon only ever got halfway into you before Symon dragged him away. But you know the feel of them well, the soft springiness of the heads, Symon’s tucked close to the shaft while Machaon’s flares out. Both of their sacs heavy, gravid with seed. They grunt when you hold them there.
Machaon dumps oil on your hand and you lather it between your palms, bring them closer, then closer still. You are surprised they allow their lengths to touch as you grip them together - you push their sheaths down and run your hands over them with ease.
Symon locks a hand on the back of Machaon’s neck, brings their foreheads to touch. Both of their eyes knocked down on your work. Machaon is the loudest.
“Gods, your hands feel divine,” he tells you, hips gently twitching, rutting his rod against Symon’s. They glisten from the oil but there is a gathering of slick at his tip that has you biting your lip, clenching your thighs. Seeing them touching this way has you lightheaded.
You retract a hand and touch your core, try to alleviate the burning sensation and they watch. “Think that means it is time,” Symon chuckles. He grabs your arms, stops your movement. Turns to Machaon. “Lay. I will sit her on you.”
You let him maneuver you, but when it becomes clear that he intends to have you act as Machaon’s sheath, you still.
“You will have both of us,” Symon tells you, fingers lightly touching at the sensitive place on your mound. You tremble. “Do you trust me?”
It is not even a question, so you settle on Machaon’s lap, bloom under his steadying hands on your hips. You moan when he breeches and so does he, the sounds echoing. His flared tip parts your walls slowly, carefully, asks for further entry and you are willing. Symon touches himself to your face as you continue to sink, eyes flicking back into your skull as Machaon drags against something nice. Deeper than he has ever been allowed.
“Oh, sweet,” he moans, great thighs flexing under your palms. But his hips stay still, he does not race to meet you - yet his fingers bely his zeal as they dig viscously into the fat of your hips. They pull you down and the plushness of your ass falls flat to his body and you choke on a strangled gasp; he is in your teeth. “Fuck, fuck, love, you feel so, so…”
You are shaking, internally gripping around his rod while pleasure beads in your uterus. Soon a slow drizzle into a great basin.
Sudden hands on your shoulders pushing you back. “Lay on him,” Symon orders. You listen.
Machaon leans his back on a smooth bit of stone so you are not entirely lateral when you come to his chest. His hands roam your breasts, your stomach. Come to feel the place you are connected and he rumbles below you. Mouth, scruff, at your temple. “Doing so well,” his hands go lower and hike your legs upward, skewed gown collecting all at your waist, “so beautiful like this. Full of me.” You whimper.
The both of you watch as Symon kneels. The both of you make a sound when he fingers at your entrance, where Machaon is tucked in. He oils his fingers and manages to squeeze one, then two in alongside the rod. Machaon twitches inside. All of you is flush, a little hazy at the edges and it gets worse the more he prods, stretches you further. You do not recognize the noises you are making, but Machaon just pets you, touches at the puffy pearl nestled above his length. You mewl.
“Such pretty cries,” Machaon hums, “go on, love, let the Gods hear you.”
“Quiet,” Symon suddenly snaps, brow furrowed.
“Someone is jealous.” Machaon nearly purrs. “Is it not going to work? Shame. Suppose I will have to do.” He flexes and your back bows off of him. Symon’s face darkens. Another finger, sudden, and you hiss.
He revokes his hand and sets himself at your entrance. You flutter on Machaon, can feel cool air in the movement and you suppose it is good - room. But you did not know people did this, could do this. Never heard women talk of it, and being a woman yourself, have never been privy to the things men discuss when your sex is not around. So you nervously watch Symon press his length in until your eyes slip closed, the full feeling growing to the point of pain. You trust him. Try to relax.
Symon groans. “Good,” he lauds. “Very good. Look, my love.” Your eyes flicker open and see half his length disappeared, the brightdark smile on his face. He glimmers even in the dark, sweat and divinity.
You are at capacity, fuller than you can properly describe - seams all snapped, threads pulled and fraying as you clench on them both and milk what you can. “Let me in.” Sweat trickles down Symon’s temple. “Come on, love, let me in.”
It takes effort to relax but Machaon’s rubbing at your pearl gets you there, then further. The great basin overflowing as he flicks fast over a live nerve. “You can do it,” he whispers into your ear. “Let go.”
Something about it all is distinctly overwhelming - Machaon’s firm body under you, Symon kneeling before your legs, the pair tucked between them - and you trip, fall into the basin with a guttural sound; nothing pretty about this but they coo at you, Machaon’s fingers pulling you along further while Symon inches in little by little.
“So good,” Machaon grunts, “tighter than the pit, fuck—Do you really think you will fit the entire way?”
“Yes.” Symon is rattling, skin taut and pale in his hands from how he grips the soil. He sits straighter and you watch the way his stomach heaves, chitters. Eyes glazed over, mouth partway open. You are lit on fire. “A little—“ he retreats, drizzles oil on his hardness and fists it, then sinks back in to where he was and further. “There.”
Your toes curl, your eyes crack into darkness in your head. Pleasure and light pain racing down your thighs and up your back. Your fingers dig into Machaon’s chiseled sides and he moans. His own toes curl in his sandals.
“Shit, Symon, I can feel—“
“I know.”
“Move,” you plea, speared completely and immobile by Machaon’s arms looped under your breasts - his biceps large knots of toil, together wider than your entire torso. “Please, Symon.”
So he does. Hips rolling in retreat before slipping back. Machaon’s own under you twitching, bucking up. Symon rises from sitting on his ankles and looms over you both, hands braced on either side of Machaon’s head. Developed cords of his neck at eye-level and you take advantage, kissing and nipping at his flush, feverish skin. He grunts.
“Rhythm,” he manages to say. “Follow my rhythm,” he tells Machaon. He sets an easy pace, lithe, beautiful hips carefully snapping forward for Machaon to pull out, and it has you weeping.
“Gods,” you sob. The friction of them against each other in passing ignites blue flame in your pelvis. It licks over your bones, leaves you gasping into Symon’s neck. He hunches and claims your mouth to steal your air, pours himself into you instead. Tongue twisting and playing with your own, feeling along your gums.
You put your palms to his face and hold onto him, for life, as they take turns rutting between your legs. The sounds are unbelievable - entirely audible, the way your body stretches for them. Accepts them.
Machaon is vibrating underneath and Symon takes notice. He pulls away with a pop and his mouth is wet. “Out, not in. Remember?”
Machaon just groans in his chest, digs his heels into the earth as his lower back lifts you both from the ground a few inches. “But—“
“No.” Your walls suck on them when someone hits a good spot and Symon’s eyes shutter closed. “Not until after we are wed. I will have the first child.”
Your eyes fly open. “What?” You are dazed but not dead. First, not all? “What are you talking about?”
“Nothing, my love,” Symon assures you, brushes his stubble on your cheek.
“Get off,” Machaon urges. “Now, I—“
Symon reclines back on his ankles and drags you with him, Machaon’s rod sliding out easily. You hear the quick, wet sounds of his hand around his length followed by a near-growl. But there is no time for anything else, for Symon is rocking you on him, arm thrown around your back, other hand firm on your hip. Guiding.
“Like this, come on,” he tells you, breath tight. You feel his steady heart slushing under your palm. “I will give you a son. We will marry and then we will all live together in my estate.” He tilts his head and his nose brushes yours. “Would you like that?”
It was his father’s, until his seventeenth year. Symon had caught him beating his younger sister, Antikleia, for breaking a dish and dragged him out onto the road by his hair. It was not the first time he had found him doing this, but it was the last. He was no king or magistrate, simply a wealthy old man, and if it happened that his son could physically force him from his estate, then nothing could be done for him. Everything went to Symon and his mother, his sisters. To his therapon, Machaon, who was of virtually no status until the war.
And, now, through future vows, to you.
“Yes,” you breathe. Nothing has ever sounded better. “Please.”
You feel a recovered Machaon crowd around your back to trail kisses along your bare shoulder. His fingers touch over where Symon is docked before claiming your pearl. You moan.
Symon increases the pace and the slapping of skin reverberates off the grotto walls. The sudden force rattles your teeth, the rest of your bones, as he bullies a spot for himself in your stomach - each punch up forces an airy sound from your mouth. Over and over. Then, a change. Tension in the air and you see he is gleaming, again. Except it is brighter: his hair that molten gold, the dark circles fading on his face. All of him pristine in the dim. His rolling hips are brutal, becoming too much like just pain, and then they stop. Sudden - he presses all the way in and forces your hips down, his face spiraling open in release.
Of all the things you have done with him, you have not done this. Have not let him hold you to him while spilling into your womb, but it startles you how easy it is to let him now. The hotness flooding you from the inside, dripping down his length and out of your overstretched walls.
Machaon’s fingers on you are insistent and you find your release again - your head hooking back on his shoulder, cheek pressed to his as his other fingers pinch at the peak of your breast.
“Good girl,” he murmurs to you. “Let him feel it.”
You ripple weakly on Symon’s rod and he moans softly, over-sensitized yet still nestled inside. Machaon’s fingers dip into you momentarily and come up golden and the three of you stare. Then, Symon smiles. Soft, tired.
“A blessing,” he says. Kisses your face between his gentle hands. One departs and settles on your stomach. “The Gods have given us a blessing.”
✦ ✦ ✦
It is later. The three of you yet to leave the grotto. You have slept out here before, tucked tightly between them, kept warm against the dewy chill. It is no different now - Symon curled around your back, Machaon tight to your front, your face in the hollow of his throat.
“What if I want a girl?”
Symon pets your hair. “Son first.”
“I will give you a girl,” Machaon smiles. That lovely thing. “She will be beautiful, just like her mother.”
Symon snorts but says nothing else, breathes at your neck.
Your pulse picks up; it is unusual, strange, but you want it. Either. You are greedy, you want both. And so you will have.