Last Courtesan of Olympus (Lovers of the Gods, #1)

by Amanda Meuwissen

“There was another mortal I thought I might love,” Apollo said. He stood, unpinned his tunic, and let it drop. Even naked, he shone brilliantly, like the sun behind him. “Oh, he intrigued me. But I was afraid that if I got too close, I would inevitably only feel heartache again.” I knew the answer and yet foolishly asked, “What happened?” “I felt heartache anyway,” he said, tears pooling in his eyes that turned to steam when they fell, “for not getting close enough. He flew too close to me, you see, but I shied away. He marveled at my beauty, and I hid my face. Because of that, I wasn’t able to act fast enough when I realized he’d started to fall out of the sky.” The dread was steadily growing, so much so, that I feared I might be sick. “Apollo…” “This time I’ll save you, Icarus.” He pushed me out of the chariot.

Apollo released me, and these wings kept me in the sky. “You’ll choose me, won’t you?” he asked, gripping each side of my face as we hovered there. His tears were still turning to steam, his body naked, all manner of him bare before me. “You’ll stay?” I wanted to. Not for me. Not to save myself or because I thought Apollo the superior master. But for him. I also knew that wasn’t the way to help him through this grief, this particular madness, because I didn’t love him. I’d never truly loved anyone, but if I was ever to know it, I’d begun to taste it in how much the gods were capable of love through all their lust and possessive rapture.

I bucked up, burying myself inside the sun with a thrust of my wings propelling me. Again. Again. We didn’t soar higher, for between each flap, I let us sink and knew that if we dropped too far, Apollo would keep us upright. Where my skin didn’t frost over was still chilled, and I guided his mouth to kiss my neck and warm me there. I brought his hands to reach around my back, low, lower, to cup my buttocks as I cupped his, and it was like a crucible catching the sun and setting fire to dry grass, yet I writhed toward the burn instead of away. Each sizzle of him was a balm upon where I would otherwise freeze.

“Th-that… is not a mortal touch,” he said, half accusing, and therefore, like a threat. “It is the most mortal of all,” I countered, “for without you, great Apollo, I would freeze and perish and fall from the sky. I exist only because my god saved me.”

“Please…” Apollo said again, drawing my gaze back to him, “…stay.” I didn’t know how to tell him that I would only be more heartache. I also feared that if I did, he’d let me fall the rest of the way. But I’d promised not to lie. I couldn’t. I touched his cheek and smoothed the tears from his face that hadn’t yet steamed away because of how he’d allowed me to cool him. “You deserve a proper love story. You deserve an epic one. And I am not worthy of that.” I wasn’t. I knew I wasn’t. I might be the best at what I did, but I wasn’t the best at that.

“There is a happy forever for you, Apollo, because you want it so badly. I may not be a prophet like Cassandra, but I can see that. You are the god of prophecy yourself. Look to your own future.” “I do not look into my own or the other gods’ futures. Not directly.” “Then look through my eyes, a mortal’s eyes, for I will bear witness to your love story. I wouldn’t miss it. And if I am wrong and you see nothing, let me fall.”

Apollo’s eyes went distant, and when his focus returned, they shimmered with more brilliant sun-like fire than before. He kissed me, searing and deep, and looked at me afterward as if I had already made true whatever prophecy he’d seen. “Thank you.” He didn’t explain, so I didn’t ask. “It is my duty to serve my master however he needs.”

“Is there anything I can offer you before I deliver you to your next patron?” Apollo asked, returning to lounge upon the bed and its pillows in his brilliant, naked glory. I laid beside him, just as radiantly bare. “Honestly, a bit more wine would do me good.” He smirked, an expression I hadn’t yet seen on him. “What?” “Nothing.” Apollo summoned a carafe and cups with a thought. “But if it is more wine you seek after this, we are headed in the right direction.”

“It almost feels as though Dionysus will be an easy conquest.” I dropped onto the balcony from Apollo’s chariot. “Occasionally, the gods do grant a day of ease.” He grinned, still nude himself, but he was perhaps a touch sad yet, not completely absolved of his mourning. One was never completely absolved of it. “Be well, Aikos. Be you. I will see you again.” He flicked the reins with gentle pressure and his horses galloped him away into the sky before I had the chance to thank him again or wish him well in return.

The eyes of all turned to me at my entrance, and the room tilted. I thought the floor might have sprung up like a wave to move me through the crowd. I couldn’t be sure if it did, or if the air was simply that ripe with drugged smoke to assault and claim me. I didn’t fall, I didn’t think I moved my feet at all, but through the crowd of men and satyrs I went, each of whom touched me as I passed, like cultists seeking boons from their patron. Fingers brushed my thighs, my chest, my prick. Just the barest of brushes, but from dozens, all eagerly groping for a turn.

I laid—or was laid—upon a chaise at the back of the room, higher than any others like a king’s throne. There were mirrors all around me, the largest behind the chaise and tilted to better display me to my audience at angles they could all see. The chaise was large enough to be a bed, with room for me to be joined, but while the multitude of men and satyrs continued to offer me touches, I was left unspoiled, a gift, waiting to be obtained by my master. Some brought me wine, some popped grapes into my mouth, some breathed smoke between my lips, and satyrs massaged my exposed limbs, making me hard again—still. Again. I came, and I came, yet I didn’t. And through the haze that descended upon me, I saw a shape take form in the stars. They still danced, but now they descended, a trail of twirling lights from the sky above to take shape before me amongst my fellow revelers as a man. A god. Dionysus.

“Relax. Succumb,” he said, with a deep soothing voice like the mouthfeel of wine. I’d seen him depicted in so many ways on the earth. Sometimes as a fair youth, sometimes as a corpulent man of middle age, like he was as malleable as mortal tastes for what inspired and sated us. I didn’t know if that meant how he looked to me now was as tailored as the chambers and its occupants, but the sight of him made me want to taste the fruit of his body like the flavors already granted to my tongue.

“Which others would you like to have touch and taste you? You can say none. You can say all. Time has no meaning at my gatherings. You can indulge again and again, and for the last god waiting to have you as his, no time will have seemed to pass.” Oh my. I was doomed indeed, for I didn’t think I could tell him no with my senses overrun. If I gave in, if I stayed and succumbed like he asked, I might never be more than a pleasure puppet. That idea held some appeal if it could always feel like this, like strings of ecstasy were being slowly pulled through each pore of my body, traveling under the skin, and bursting inside me like wave after wave of release.

Dionysus continued to kiss my hair and stroke my skin, but at my hip where I felt his cock through the thin fabric covering him, it still hadn’t stirred to full erection. My head cleared at the realization. The god I was meant to satisfy was being a spectator. How could I please him if all he did was watch?

Lips wet and reddened and slightly parted, I clung to cognizant function enough to exude all my wantonness as I met his gaze, being both fellated and filled, with the beads a long string inside me now. “G-great god of excess… what pleases you?” “To please others, of course.” Dionysus stroked my cheek.

“You are serving me beautifully, Aikos, for your rapture is one of the most memorable to witness. So beautiful.” He kissed my cheek where he’d stroked it. “So talented.” He kissed my forehead. “So weary of being the one to give.” He kissed my lips and plunged in his tongue. “Take what you are given. Revel. Enjoy.” Succumb, I heard again, though he didn’t say it.

I could see Dionysus there, caressing the backs of the men being skewered on both ends, but he was beside me too, whispering, “You are the best, are you not? The most beautiful, most desired, most worthy of devotion like one of the divine yourself. Enjoy this, Aikos, for with me, you are the god.” Tears stung my eyes, as though I had never heard such words before, or never believed them as much as when spoken by the god of pleasure. He knew like no one else, like I could never have dreamed, what rapture was most desired by me—and it was for rapture to never wane.

Dionysus puffed another breath of smoke between my lips and kissed me through my inhale. Then his tongue was replaced by a cock, from mortal man or satyr, I wasn’t sure. The beads kept being pulled, slowly, like an endless chain, and I was simultaneously fucked and fucking, sucking and being sucked, drinking, and rekindling my strength with nourishment heartier than the come I swallowed. The world was an unfinished painting and each brushstroke had me dripping to be finished. I wanted to finish, for in the throes of that whirlwind, panic began to creep in, and my addled brain wondered if I might never escape this without my feet or sanity grounded.

“My apologies. You were so enthralling to watch, I forgot to hold back.” Dionysus lounged beside me, as if he’d never left that spot. Perhaps he hadn’t. The others were all still here, but the mortals looked equally as spent as me, passed out throughout the room. Some of the satyrs slept too, while others enjoyed food and drink or cradled kin and mortals of their choosing for blissful dozing. It was only me and Dionysus on the central chaise.

Dionysus gathered me close and kissed my cheek. We still wore our adornments with sheer loincloths that covered basically nothing, but his length seemed frozen in a state of half-hard twitching. “Not even all the gods can withstand one of my celebrations for as long as I indulged you,” Dionysus said. “Then time…?” “Still hasn’t passed. Not outside these walls. Your next god awaits you, but you can rest.” I’d lost. I didn’t even really know how, but I’d been so much at the mercy of Dionysus, I’d held no power at all. I didn’t even know if he’d found release, but I was almost certain he hadn’t. What sort of courtesan was I if I’d left my master wanting? “You seem troubled.” He petted my hair. His wine-like eyes almost drew me back into the abyss of mind-altering passion. “What about you?” I asked. “If you wish to go again…” He grinned and reached for his pipe, taking a long puff. “No.” I pressed my fingers to his lips when he moved to kiss me. “Not that.”

I was wholly prepared for this fucking to be simple, swift even, but the first sear of Dionysus along my tender walls brought a revisiting of the drug his whole being could be. It didn’t wound my pride that he focused on his own face, his own reflection, as he gripped my hips and pushed inside. His cock filling me was the same as drinking his wine or breathing the air shared from his pipe. I tingled, aflame and renewed in the haze of ecstasy, before he’d completed his first slam forward.

“I… had truly forgotten what that feels like,” Dionysus said, tearing his eyes from himself to kiss between my shoulder blades. He rocked in and out of me a few more times, milking the last of him to join the rest that had filled me today. My vision and sense of normal self returned only after he pulled free and eased me onto my back. “Thank you.” “I will join your parties anytime to remind you, my lord god, regardless of who I choose.” “That god will be the luckiest of all.” He kissed my lips, and I remembered that more than most of the gods, even others with human parents, he was a very human deity who embraced that part of him and loved his mortal followers. I wasn’t at risk here. I never had been. He might not have even wanted me, merely wanted to be included among the other male gods and hadn’t realized he needed to fulfill his own indulgences. But even having been safe from the beginning, I’d still offered more than he asked of me, because I wanted, honestly wanted, for him to indulge too.