Synopsis:
A series of historical vignettes depicting incest in various periods.
Author's Note:
A story I wrote for a client. I welcome any feedback you may have! I hope you enjoy it!
DISCLAIMER:
All characters who engage in sexual acts are 18 years of age or older!
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SISTERS FROM A DISTANT PAST
CHAPTER 2
Section 1.
At the time, Agathon was too young to understand.
"Mother," he asked one evening. "Where is sister going at night? She isn't reading to me at bedtime anymore."
Agathon's mother, kneading a large loaf of bread in the kitchen, pursed her lips with ambivalence. She was in her mid-thirties now, her hair wrapped in a bun as was the current fashion for Greek women. And she wore a toga over one shoulder. Like her son, her eyes were a cerulean blue and her hair a mahogany-dark.
"Your sister Melite--" Agathon's mother began. "Is honoring the Gods and serves at the Temple of Aphrodite, as I once did."
"Again?! But she still hasn't finished reading me the story she started."
"How about I read to you instead?"
"Ugh! You can't read the way she does, mother!"
"Oh? Shall I consider that a challenge?" Her grin was a sweet simper.
"Fine! I'll be in my bed..."
Despite her best efforts, Agathon's mother could barely keep his interests. And when the moonlight shone upon Agathon's face through his bedchamber window, and the flutter of curtains on his cheek bade him wake, Agathon took it upon himself to get out of bed at the stroke of midnight. He put on his sandals and threw a blanket over himself, quietly opened the creaking door of his home, and darted off into the thoroughfare.
This was not Agathon's first time alone on the streets of Corinth. He knew where the Temple of Venus was--it was the building on the cliff from where the happy adults came.
"I'll tell you what it is when you're older." Agathon recalled his mother's coy reply.
"Oh, come on, I'm old enough now! Why can't I go there? Tell me!"
She did not. And as boys would be boys, Agathon would claim his own answers.
The towering pillars of the temple stood against the backdrop of a bright and full moon. There were no guards and no watchmen. But Agathon could hear the beautiful melody of a harp drifting out of the marble structure like the aroma of freshly-baked bread, and Agathon was drawn to it like a bear to honey.
His sandals scarcely made a sound as he slipped beyond the columns and hid himself in the shadows just beyond the crackling braziers. There, at last, Agathon peered around the corner and into the temple entrance.
A young man with curly hair strummed a great, golden harp. There were long tables with food and wine, bowls of grapes and cheese and breads of all shapes and sizes. And there were men and women, young and old, watching what Agathon could only believe was the sacred dance he was so forbidden from viewing.
Then, Agathon's blood froze. There, straddling a male stranger, naked as he had only seen her in the baths, was his older sister. For a brief moment, Agathon surmised it might be a trick of the light. But when she rocked her hips with a rhythmic fervor, and an alien yet familiar moan erupted from her lips, Agathon knew it could be no one else but Melite. There, he gazed upon her as he took his own innocence, and he came to know not only desire but jealousy for the first time.
It was a dark hand squeezing at Agathon's heart, and that feeling only intensified as the years passed and Agathon became an adult, as had his sister Melite who became married to his new brother-in-law.
"So, what of it, Alexander?! What do you want ME to do about it?" Agathon bellowed angrily.
No longer the short, stocky boy he once was, Agathon was now in his mid-twenties and a craftsman of some repute. His muscles had grown corded and strong, and his tangled hair grew out like a waterfall and fell upon his bronzed shoulders.
Alexander, his sister's husband, leaned against the doorway of his workshop. And Agathon, turning a heavy, granite lathe, would not meet his eyes.
"Agathon, I don't mean to bother you in your work," Alexander said as he puffed his morning pipe. "But I cannot ignore that Melite has borne me three daughters in a row and no sons! According to Corinthian law, I still have no heir! Perhaps I am barren. Perhaps it is a prank of the moirai. Or perhaps it is Melite who--"
"How dare you! There is nothing wrong with my sister!" Agathon furiously spun his lathe faster and faster. "If she has borne you no sons, it is BECAUSE those shriveled, rotten dates you call testicles have no seeds!"
Alexander winced. "Y-yes, perhaps that is so. All the more reason that we invoke Corinthian law to allow her to take another man to bed in the hopes that his seed may bear better fruit."
"Then let her fuck every man in Corinth for all I care! Why ask ME for permission?!"
"Because, Agathon, she has chosen you specifically."
He stopped turning the wheel. Sweat dripped from his brow as he took a breath, the request of his own sister rippling through his primal brain. His was a forbidden desire so long tucked away in his heartstrings.
"I will not get involved," Alexander said. "The... specifics I leave to you and her. I hope your union bears fruit, my brother."
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Agathon stood before the front door with a nervous gait.
Melite and Alexander had inherited the household after his mother's passing while Agathon lived in his workshop on the busier end of the city. Despite having dinner with his sister and her family only a week ago, the circumstances of his arrival were now completely different.
He knocked. The front door swung open.
"Malachi, Agathon!" She greeted him with a smile.
Melite's luscious, dark braided hair tumbled pleasantly down her shoulders. Her cerulean eyes were the same as his mother's and his own. Deep cleavage of pale alabaster glistened on her breast. Agathon wondered if Melite could hear the rapid beats of his heart.
"H-hello, sister," Agathon muttered.
"Don't be shy. Come in."
She poured him a goblet of wine at the table. Neither her husband nor their children were anywhere in sight.
"How is the workshop?" she asked.
"I-it's--" He grunted, taking a sip. "Doing well!"
"Obviously Alexander told you my decision," she said. "Otherwise, you wouldn't be so nervous!"
"I am not nervous!" He bellowed. "I'm just..."
"Just what?" She smiled coyly.
"I am mystified that you have chosen me, sister. It is not proper for siblings."
"You are my younger brother, Agathon," she spoke, her eyes downcast. "I love you. I have always loved you. I will lie with no one who I do not love!"
"And what about the men at the Temple of Aphrodite?" Agathon said. "Did you love them too?"
"Not this again?" She rolled her eyes. "That was but worship and entertainment in the name of the Gods, Agathon. Can't you see that?"
"No, I cannot." He replied tersely.
