Author's Note- Sorry for the wait. Life after 2020 got pretty hard. To reward the patience of my dear readers, I will be releasing a new piece every few weeks. The stories can be read stand-alone or as a whole. Thanks for your continued love and support! Hope you enjoy them!
~A Walk on the Wild Side~
"Did you know that this spot was once a center of worship for the god Pan?" Claire recited from a guidebook to her uninterested companions as they strolled amongst the sundrenched ruins. "The ancient Greeks came here to make offerings to find love. Maidens from all over the land would travel here to seek guidance from a famous love prophet."
"That's fascinating." Jess replied, though her bored tone suggested it was anything but.
"Enough with the studying. We're supposed to be on spring break! Put down that damn book and enjoy the scenery." Lana, the blunter of Claire's two roommates snatched the book from her fingers.
"It is beautiful." Claire conceded, craning her neck in all directions to truly take in the majesty of the location. The lush rolling hills of Arcadia dotted with terra cotta topped cottages were a world away from the stark industrial skyline of Boston.
"I wasn't talking about
that
scenery." Lana sneered. She seized Claire's chin turning her head towards a group of Greek guys standing across the meadow, part of the spattering of tourists and locals wandering around the spot. One of them returned Lana's gaze with a wink. Another called out something in his native tongue. None of them spoke the language but the gist of his words was rather obvious. Lana and Jess giggled in return. Claire quickly turned away.
Truthfully the three girls couldn't have been more different. Jess had the effortlessly easygoing, bleach blonde vibe of a California Gurl. Lana, with her raven hair and kohl-rimmed cat eyes, had a darkly exotic charm and a fiery temperament that turned the men folk into slobbering idiots. In comparison Claire's pale complexion, short mousey hair and even mousier disposition made her feel pretty much invisible next to the glamour pair. Not that she really cared. To her the attention of men was pointless at best. The dirty-minded duo was another story. They could be relied upon to bring up men and sex approximately every five minutes. Claire glanced at her watch. Three, two...
"I heard European guys are dynamite in the sack." Jess tittered.
Right on time.
Claire's eyes rolled as the conversation took its predictable turn towards the gutter. She had been pleasantly surprised how much she got along these ladies who were friends by sheer luck of rooming assignment at their college dorm. With their more extraverted dispositions they were good at dragging her away from her studies once in a while and kept her from taking herself too seriously. Claire even found she enjoyed a little girl talk. The only problem was that the discussion always seemed to return to the same subject, like a never-ending
Sex and the City
marathon with no clicker in sight. "Really, do you ever think of anything else?"
"Spoken like a true virgin." Lana snorted. "I don't know about you, but I didn't come here for the ouzo and the crumbling landmarks. If I don't have a Greek god between my legs before the week is through I'll consider this vacation a total bust."
"If anyone needs the attention of a Greek god it's Claire. Nearly 22 and still a virgin. It's a travesty." Jess joined in, unhelpfully.
"Practically a Greek Tragedy." Lana made an exaggerated pout with her wine dark lips.
"You're the classicist, Claire. What do you think your precious ancient Greeks would say about your prudish ways?"
Claire felt her pale cheeks flush with heat just thinking of the many X-rated tales she had come across in her studies. For fictional characters, the gods sure did get up to some real mischief. "That was a long time ago. Times change, you have to account for cultural mores and historical contex-"
"Oh Claire. Some things never change." Lana interrupted, her dark almond eyes lit with amusement and something Claire strongly suspected was pity. "I mean this in the nicest possible way but hunnycakes you need to get laid before your snatch closes up tighter than a clam on chowder Tuesday."
Claire was thankfully spared an embarrassing rebuttal when Jess stumbled on a rock and proceeded to launch into a string of highly inventive expletives. "Holy mother of Gronk. My feet are killing me." She grumbled, raising one leg to grab her 3-inch, bright pink platform heel.
"Well if you didn't insist on wearing circus stilts on a hike." Claire grumbled back. She gestured to her own sensible running sneakers. Why any female would subject herself to uncomfortable footwear and constricting clothing just to impress dim-witted, knuckle-dragging bros who learned their manners in a frat house was beyond her. "Never mind, we're almost there." She assured her impatient friends, picking up her pace towards the top of a wooded plateau.
As promised the site could be seen from the hilltop. Nestled just below, in a sheltered valley, a row of half toppled pillars seemed to grow out of the sunbaked earth. They were interspersed with olive trees whose curvaceous branches cast dappled patches of much-needed shade on the thirsty ground. At the end of the corridor of trees and columns stood a lone statue, the main reason for Claire's interest in the location.
Claire practically raced down the hill, quickly covering the short distance between her and the marble figure. She had read up enough on the site to know that this was an unusual portrayal of the rustic deity. Most depictions of Pan showed him to have animalistic qualities; the hooves and furry haunches of a goat, a goatish beard and, most notably, the inhumanly proportioned genitalia expected of a fertility god.
But the statue before her had none of those qualities. Apart from small horns budding from his forehead and a slightly wolfish grin about his marble mouth, the statue depicted a classically beautiful young man. He had one humanlike leg raised and his head thrown back, forever frozen in an ecstatic moment of dance. The erect member jutting out from between his powerful legs was definitely of pornstarlike proportions but not outside the realm of the anatomically possible, Claire presumed.
She stared into his face, her mind filling with thoughts of what it would be like to run her fingers through his messy curls. To feel the rise and fall of his firm chest and find it, not cool stone, but warm flesh. To slide her hands lower still, past his rippling abs to-
"Damn, what a stud!" Lana interrupted her unwelcome tangent, casting an appreciative glace over the statue and elbowing Claire playfully. "Maybe your interest in this place isn't so academic after all."
Claire laughed away the idea. She would never understand how Mankind had risen above the beast only to cast themselves back down to the level of drooling, panting animals the instant a member of the opposite sex turns their heads. It was weak, and what's worse, illogical. Yet something about the way Pan's intense eyes staring out from the delicately carved facade made her feel a bit more sympathetic towards mankind's animal weaknesses. Not that she would ever admit to the same weakness.
At least not out loud.
β
"This can't be the place." Jess cast a dubious glance at where the tour bus had deposited the trio moments before.
At the end of a winding drive, perched along the side of a cliff, stood their destination. Even in the fading twilight of evening it was clear the little inn had seen better days. Its crumbling stucco façade, nearly swallowed up by weeds, stretched the term 'rustic charm' to the outer limits. The sign out front read The Horned Gate with two curved horns coming together to form an archway around the name.
"C'mon guys its authentic. You don't find an old-world gem like this in some touristy guidebook." Claire tried to lift the mood.
What she neglected to mention was that she had found the place in a book. Not a glossy, new travel guide, mind you, but an old yellowed edition of The Odyssey that she had found in the deepest dustiest bowels of a research library. There in the margin of one of the pages she noticed an address for the inn had been scrawled next to the carefully underlined verse gates of polished horn. According to Homer it was where true dreams come from. Sounded like as good a place as any to spend the night.
"It just better have wifi." Lana whined as they made their way up the rocky path.
