Ariadne

by Jennifer Saint

What I did not know was that I had hit upon a truth of womanhood: however blameless a life we led, the passions and the greed of men could bring us to ruin, and there was nothing we could do.

I didn’t know much of men; between Minos, the Minotaur, and now Cinyras, I hadn’t wanted to learn. Or so I thought, until I caught the gaze of a handsome hostage, and on the strength of that glance, let the fire he ignited within me burn down everything I knew.

I felt the touch of his skin like a burning brand.

I felt a hunger flash in my veins, a powerful instinct to be wrapped in the embrace of those strong arms.

My name breathed from his lips. An exquisite sweetness I could hardly bear.

I felt as though my rage could burn cities to ash in one breath.

I longed to submerge myself in the clear waters of his certainty.

He kissed me then. It was a bolt of lightning, a shattering of the sky, a shaking of the earth and everything that stood upon it. And when he drew away and held my face between his hands and fixed me with that steady gaze and the world grew still once more, I knew that despite the chaos and confusion left in its wake, my path was clear.

I danced for the end of everything I knew and the beginning of everything I did not.

He would make the solitude seem welcome and the strangeness exciting.

I felt his arms enclose me, the warmth and safety of him all around me, and he held me tighter and tighter.

but I foamed with anger for Minos, as well, and even for Poseidon—these men, these gods who toyed with our lives and cast us aside when we had been of use to them, who laughed at our suffering or forgot our existence altogether.

But all I felt was the dark thrill of contempt shudder through me. He was just a man, after all.

I had cried all the tears I thought I could ever produce; I had spat and screamed and now I felt strangely cleansed.

and like a thousand women before me, I would pay the price of what we had done together.

His smile—warm, open, and eager—was a golden beacon of reassurance. He caught me in his arms; the feel of his embrace after the solitude was both unreal and yet undeniably solid and true at the same time.

Why mortals bloomed like flowers and crumbled to nothing. Why their absence left a gnawing ache, a hollow void that could never be filled. And how everything they once were, that spark within them, could be extinguished so completely yet the world did not collapse under the weight of so much pain and grief.”

I know that human life shines more brightly because it is but a shimmering candle against an eternity of darkness, and it can be extinguished with the faintest breeze.”

I would not let a man who knew the value of nothing make me doubt the value of myself.

everything was different. I felt that we had built a trust between us, something real and tangible, and I could not deny how much I longed for him. But I could not ignore the obvious.

“I will love you when you are shriveled and ancient,”

perhaps he believed that we were as close as we had ever been. But I knew a chasm had opened up between us, and I did not think that he could bridge it. I was not sure that I would even want to try.

Pasiphae. Semele. Medusa. Now a hundred grieving mothers. The price we paid for the resentment, the lust, and the greed of arrogant men was our pain, shining and bright like the blade of a newly honed knife. Dionysus had once seemed to me the best of them all, but I saw him now for what he was, no different from the mightiest of the gods. Or the basest of men.