Her cheeks heated, thinking again of that very first dig site, all those years ago. Several of the student volunteers had dinner together at a small restaurant in the village towards the end of their first week, and the smell of that harbor still lived in her nose, the bite of the local wine still dry on her tongue. She had gone out of her way to touch him throughout the evening — her bare toes grazing the short hide of his lower leg, her hands brushing against and lingering at his arms until his fingers had laced with her own beneath the table.
When they’d headed back to the makeshift dormitories, his fingers had remained threaded with hers, leading her to his room and his bed. There had been an aura of something larger than either of them in the air, licking up her back as she lay against his chest, trying to catch her breath and listening to the thunder of his heartbeat. Standing beside him now, surrounded by the relics of their shared heritage, Gwen felt the same shiver.
“Was there a mating ritual?”
“That, we don’t know,” he chuckled. “It’s unclear whether there was a hierarchy of the brides, or how soon they were invited to take part in the . . . let’s say the physical relationship.”
“‘The physical relationship.’ You are so cute when you try to be professional and shit.” He snorted at her words, arms coming around her as she stared up at a trio of vases, each depicting a different sex act between a minotaur and a human woman.
Tracing her nails over the sinew of his forearms, she dropped her head back as he continued his recitation. She realized, as she took in the details, that each vase depicted a different woman, despite being from the same series by the same artist. The differences were subtle but clear, once she noticed them, an indicator of the procession of women in the maze.
The first showed the minotaur — depicted as black in this series — with a jutting erection, the kneeling woman before him holding it in her hand, guiding it towards her mouth. The second showed a different woman, held in the bull-man’s arms, facing him, the top of the black-painted cock disappearing into her. The third portrayed yet another woman being taken on her hands and knees, much in the same way as the statue at the entrance of the room.
“Is there provenance for all of these?”
“Most of them, yeah.” His voice echoed around the vases as he gestured beside her. “That one there is a part of a series from Corinth. ‘Melita’ and ‘Korinthos’ is what that script forms, but we’re not sure if that’s the artist’s name or who the vase was cast for, possibly? The artist favored the white bull motif. There are several in this set, all with the same female figure.”
She eyed the minotaur on the vase, hips drawn back, ready to penetrate the waiting woman.
“Is that where you get your libido?” she asked cheekily, squeezing her thighs again. He’d had her that way just two nights prior, over the marble-topped kitchen island, thrusting into her from behind until he came with a grunt, and she’d pointed out that one of the perks of the new rental were the easy-to-clean floors, as a gush of fluid hit the tiles with a splash as soon as his softened cock slipped from her body.
“Me?! Are you asking that question to a mirror? I had to stop at the pharmacy for eye drops this morning, you’ve been here a week, and my whole body feels dried out. I don’t think I’d be able to handle more than one of you. He was a fucking champ.”
She pushed back against him in response, the curve of her ass bumping into his crotch. She knew just how to shift her hips to press into his cock behind her, knew the exact spot against his thick thigh where it would be resting, and she smiled in triumph when he grunted. He wasn’t wrong, of course. She looked like a human, and she’d dated plenty of human men over the years, but none of them could keep up with her the way he could; none of their cocks had stretched her open the same way, had filled her the way her body was meant to be filled.
Despite looking human, being the product of minotaurean parents meant her body was designed to be bred by a bullish man, designed to carry bullish sons, and although she thought she’d been in love a handful of times before being paired with him on that dig site, none of her other lovers had ever satisfied her the way Madoc did. She felt a queer camaraderie with these ancient brides, glad that she could boast a minotaur in her bed.
“Mmhm, whatever. Sounds to me like you should be drinking more water.Andthey were all humans. That’s not the same, and you know it. So . . . we have no way of knowing what the mating selection looked like, only that everyone was getting dicked down. I had no idea this exhibit was so porntastic. I can’t believe you’re showing this to kids!”
“The less explicit stuff is against that far wall,” he admitted sheepishly, nodding to the far wall where dark blue velvet ropes stanchioned off the corridor, leading out of the big room. “That’s where we take the kids. They don’t have the attention span for all of this, anyway. The stanchions are pulled back two more rows for the older kids.”
“I can’t help but notice you brought me right to the hardcore fucking,” she laughed. “I see what you’re doing here . . . fortunately for you, I want to see more of the pre-Hellenistic lewds on vases. This is hotter than I expected. Lead on, Dr. Bowman.”
ThefirsttimeIam had by him, it is the middle of the night. Sleep does not come easy in this place. The darkness of the labyrinth is unending, and so my body finds acclamation impossible. I sleep during the hours which must surely be daylight and find myself unable to rest when the others huddle together in slumber.
I am wandering through the maze on one of those sleepless nights, the first time he finds me alone. I expected there to be hidden dangers throughout the twisting corridors of Daedalus’s creation, but I soon realize that the maze itself is the trap. The Minotaur dwells in its heart, but the winding passageways are the true threat, for it does not matter how long one wanders — each corridor is identical to the last, each turn no different than the previous two or ten or twenty taken.
I quickly learn that to wander the halls of the labyrinth is to find freedom from one’s sanity, for there is none to be found here. Turn after turn, corridor after corridor, darkness broken by torches broken by darkness, an unending sameness no matter how far my feet walk. I wonder if the lost souls in Tartarus walk a similar endless maze, each twist and turn bearing no change, no hope, no hint of freedom to be found.
I had been wandering that night for what could have been minutes or hours, there is no way to tell, and it is almost a relief when he finds me.
At first, I am terrified. I have never been this close to him, and he had never set his beady gaze upon mine. In the heart, it is easy to shrink and hide behind the other, more eager brides, but now there is no one else, only me and the Minotaur.
He approaches me with a lighter tread than I would have anticipated for a monster his size. It is the first opportunity I have had to take in his form truly, without distraction, and I am surprised by the elegance of his figure. His head, of course, is that of a bull’s — flaring nostrils, glossy dark eyes, and horns tipped into sharp points. Unlike any bull I’ve ever seen, there is a curly thatch of dark hair between the great horns that tumbles between his eyes. His body is as impressive as any warrior who has inspired songs. He is covered in a short, coarse hide, white like the beast that sired him, and thick with muscle; broad and barrel-chested, his arms long and heavy looking.
There is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and I am helpless before him. He has the hands of a man, which somehow makes him less terrifying and even more strange to contemplate, for when he reaches for me, and long fingers wrap around my arm, I can persuade myself that he is any stranger I might encounter in the marketplace.
It is the first time I am seeing him without one of the brides pushing and shoving to reach his hard cock. He is always hard, always ready to mate one of the pleading women that surround him, and I have watched him spill his seed more times than I am able to recount in the days since my arrival. No amount of our flesh can satisfy his lust, his constant hunger, yet as he hungers for us, I have watched the frenzied need of my companions grow. Desperation is not something he needs to feel, for his lust is easily slaked, but desperation is something I witness often enough in the eyes of my fellow brides.
Being had by him once awakens something, they tell me. Once I am filled with his seed, they say, I will understand. Once my body knows the shape of him, the pleasure brought by being filled by him, the emptiness of the times without will drive me to madness. I look at them with pity, for I cannot understand. I can think of nothing but the sun as I walk the labyrinth halls, and I cannot imagine a time when my mind will be eclipsed by the carnal obsession the other brides share, but as I stare at the fat testicles swinging low and lose beneath his sheath, the thick, pink spear it conceals already beginning its ascent upon the sight of me, I realize I am about to learn if their words had the shape of the truth.
I freeze in fear when he lifts me, as easily as one might lift a flower, his wide nose pressing to the side of my neck. His breath is hot, and he snuffles against my skin as though he were searching for something; down my neck and over my clothed breasts, he does not stop until he finds the prize he seeks — the quivering heat between my thighs. His tongue is rough and textured, wide and hot, and it drags up my exposed legs as my chiton is pulled away. I’ve never before known the shape of a man within me or the touch of one against my sex, and the drag of his tongue is the first experience I have ever had with such things, hot and wet and rough. It never occurs to me to struggle or to attempt escape, for I have walked these labyrinth halls, and I know there is no escape, and so I submit. After all, I am a bride.
I remind myself, as he tastes my skin with his tongue, that in the days I have spent here, I have witnessed no cruelty enacted upon my fellow brides, no violence, and no rape. The debauchery I have witnessed has been consensual for all involved, and it no longer matters if we were brought here against our will. This is our destiny, decided by the gods, and we would have been similarly shipped away by our fathers, given to husbands with cruel hands.
I do not thrash, and I do not kick. I surprise myself when my thighs part willingly to take the lashes of his tongue. I do notwantit to feel good. I do not want to admit that my head drops back, or that my voice echoes off the stone walls in a sigh of pleasure. I do not want my pelvis to lift, seeking out the friction of that wide tongue when he draws back momentarily, nor do I want to know the girl who moans when he redoubles his efforts, but I am unable to pretend the pleasure I feel vibrating up my spine belongs to anyone but me.
When I cry out, the stones of the corridor swallow the sound. There is no one to witness my submission. No one to watch as I tremble and shake, the pressure of his tongue causing a fit to ripple through my body. There is no one to see, and so I tell myself it did not happen, for pleasure was not a part of the stories we were told. When my ankles are hitched over his elbows, opening me to receive his cock, I remind myself there will be no witness to this moment either; only me, my bullish husband, and the gods, if they watch.
