Dionysus (Greek God Romance Book 1) Page 3
“Hmph.”
“You’re right, Apollo. Maybe it’s always. So our fine damsel in distress. . . Correct usage?”
Apollo nodded.
Rebecca shook her head—the insanity was growing, not diminishing. The glasses stood there, beckoning her, demanding to be consumed. She caved and started on the first.
“I’d take that slow.”
She finished a few gulps then set it down. “Why?”
“It is very strong.”
“You seem fine.”
“I’ve been practicing.”
She laughed. “What’s in it?”
“I’ve forgotten.”
“Huh?”
“It’s a joke. The process. . . is—”
Apollo provided, “Boring.”
“Thank you, Apollo. Boring would be the best way to describe it.”
“What do you do when you spend your last dollar on snacks and gas then end up getting a job while everyone around you talks in code or lunacy?”
Dionysus thought about this for a moment. “See what happens.”
“That’s no answer.”
“It’s the best you’ll get.”
Rebecca raised her glass and Dionysus clanked with his. “You start tomorrow. We drink today.”
“I really need some rest—”
Dionysus interrupted her and brushed her unfinished sentence aside. “You’ll be fine. How about you give us a teaser?”
“Fine. What do you want to know?”
“Hmmmm”—he looked around the dive bar that housed antiquities that could finance a small country—“What do you look for in a man?”
“Oh, here we go.”
“This is different, Apollo.”
“Would you like to hear a poem, Rebecca?”
“Uh. . . Sure.” Having another conversation routed, it seemed to her to be the theme of the day.
I once chased a naiad
love struck I was and full of bad
we coupled and swam as I was a lad
and when it dissolved
harder came my resolve.
“Nice poem.”
“Beautiful.”
Rebecca asked, “What does it mean?”
He looked back and forth between Dionysus and Rebecca with a salacious grin. “Be careful.”
Dionysus gestured like an Italian mobster, shaking one hand with each finger touching his thumb. “The men, Rebecca. The men. . .”
“Right. . . I’m young and stupid. I don’t know what I want.”
He clasped his hands together. “Ruthlessly honest. . . how fabulous. You have too much of a brain.”
“My mom once told me that.”
“Wise woman.”
“I didn’t go to college though.”
“Did you lose your brain because you didn’t go to college?”
“No.”
“Then what does that matter?”
“Hard to get a man with something going for him.”
He made a clicking sound and gazed into her eyes. “Then that is a stupid man.”
Rebecca felt flustered. Her heart was starting to race, and she finished the drink without paying heed to Dionysus’ warning. It came on hard and fast, a moment of clarity turned into tipsy. She was feeling it—too much it. And this guy was smooth, too smooth. She would be on her back with her legs apart if she wasn’t careful. “I hope you’re right.”
“I never am.” He laughed and finished another. After what she felt, she was astounded by his pace. “How many of these do you drink a day?”
“I’ve never counted.”
“But you don’t forget.”
“I don’t.”
“Then recall.”
“Hmmm.” He pondered then said, “Forty-seven.”
“Say what?”
“Forty-seven.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
Apollo started to think then said, “Yesterday was forty-seven.”
“How is that possible?”
He shrugged. “You won’t believe me if I told you.”
“Why do you say that?”
“Because everything has been in front of you, yelling at you, screaming to tell you the truth, but you’re not listening. You’re on another station tuned in to another channel. The hits keep playing and you’re looking for deep tracks.”
“I’m not even going to touch that.”
“You shouldn’t. It was a bit messy.”
“Fine!” She yelled, slapped the counter harder than she meant to and said some colorful words in her head. The tipsiness was roaring, becoming a flirtatious drunk. First was the yelling, then was the fucking, it had been a story she had lived all too often. “Are you telling me? Are you all telling me that you’re gods? I’m supposed to believe that the Greek sun god is polishing glasses in a bar called The Old Watering Hole and the Greek messenger god was filling up my gas?”
He looked at Apollo. “That’s about the jest of it, right?”
“I suppose so.”
Hysteria seeped into Rebecca’s mind, she was on the verge of an exquisite meltdown when the doors blew open and in came a satyr on a mule; it’s back draped over the harness with his silver beard touching the floor and an erect penis standing firm and at attention like a flag.
All hail! The Prince of Drunks! Silenus.
Rebecca did not know that this man, Silenus, was a satyr, or better known as Dionysus’ mentor for a short time while he was a youth, and then his drunken comrade for many years afterward. Satyr’s have horse-like ears, a horse’s penis and sometimes hooves for feet—all satyr representations were finely represented on the bar stools that Dionysus had made for the bar.
The two satyr attributes Silenus had were the ears and penis.
Silenus coming in draped over a mule was a common occurrence in Olympus, and subsequently, The Old Watering Hole. He would start drinking in the morning at his abode and have the mule take him to The Old Watering Hole as he napped. The mule would kick up her hind legs and that would launch Silenus onto the floor where he would remain until an hour before closing and then would join Dionysus for what he called, “drink bonanza.” He claimed to have gotten the name from a particularly rowdy fraternity in central Illinois.
This display was met each day with the laughs of Dionysus and the begrudging sighs of Apollo. On this very day, Silenus was thrown off and his flagpole penis almost reached the barstool that Rebecca sat on. This mortified her. Believing or not believing, it was hard for her to disregard a man with an enormous cock, the size that would make any sane woman shutter, and ears that looked more elfish than human.
Rebecca did not see many options after this new development. She could keep on being ignorant, claiming everyone around her to be insane while she generated the needed cash to dash. But this. . . this changed it all. This was too real, in her face, large and filled with pulsating veins.
She slid ever so slightly off her stool in order to not graze the erect penis that looked alarmingly more detailed than any she had encountered prior. Once her feet hit the ground, she took off running.
Dionysus let out a surprised yelp while Apollo continued shining a glass, seemingly unmoved by the display.
Rebecca rushed through the door to the freedom of the outside, pumping her long legs, that were meant to be admired not abused by the pavement. She stopped herself by slamming both her hands on the driver’s side door, hoping beyond hope, that they really were not gods and could not stop her. She fidgeted through her pockets, dropping her keys, cursing herself, picking them back and fumbling through them until she found the needed one.
She opened the door, realizing she had not locked it and cursed herself some more, put her car keys in the ignition and peeled out of the parking lot.
∞∞∞∞∞∞
Hermes heard the screech of a car barreling down the one way out of Olympus.
This was not an odd occurrence.
Normally, one of the more reckless nymphs would steal one of Hephaestus’ automobile-like machines, and never having driven anything in their lives, would barrel down the road until crashing into one of their beloved trees or bushes.
This time, however, he knew who it had to be. He had expected it. No human went into that bar and left without a hysterical fit. Rebecca had lasted much longer than most, and well, she was special. She had a bit of magic in her, an old lineage tied up with the old country. Just what he needs, he thought. Hermes could not let her leave.
Once she took the bend right in front of the gas station, he flew out and stepped in front of the car.
Rebecca attempted to slam on the brakes, hit her head on the steering wheel and blacked out.
What she may have been more alarmed to see was that the car’s impact with Hermes squished the front, condensed and mashed, making it look more like an accordion than a car.
Hermes scratched the back of his head, seeing her head firmly in the airbag. “I’m sure she’s fine.”
. . . at least, he hoped so.
I HAVE A HEADACHE
Rebecca groaned while the world took shape around her as a perverse headache pounded away, steady with its mallet.
The world was a singular source of light, at first, beating its obscene brightness on her; she shaded her face with her hand. She looked around to see a room around her and a bed; she gripped at the sheets and looked side to side. This time noticing a woman sitting beside her to the right, alarmed, Rebecca scooted up and leaned on the headrest.
The woman gradually became distinct: she had long flowing, fire red hair with eyes to match and a red dress. Red. Red. Red. Red. . . It almost made Rebecca want to vomit, and so, she groaned some more.
“Finally.”
“Huh?”
“You’re awake.”
“Eh?”
The woman bolted up, a clipboard in hand. “There are many things to do.”
“Okay. . .”
“You are impeding that.”
“I—What. . .?”
“You seem alive. What do you have to trade for this place? Hermes said you would have something invaluable to trade.”
Rebecca let out a soft moan. “Ah, my head. . .” Trying to remember what got her in this strange place and bed and in front of this woman and her incessant questioning, she said to herself in wonderment, “I have. . . I have a headache.”
The woman gazed at her. “Hmmm. That will have to due.” Suddenly, Rebecca’s headache vanished. “I will see you in a year if I don’t see you before then.”
“Uh. . .?”
“You will need a new item to trade to keep the place for another year after.”
And the woman left, Rebecca would find out later that she had just met Hestia and was the first tenant in her newest thirty unit complex.
It had been the first trade Hestia had accepted.
I DON’T HAVE A HEADACHE?
Rebecca dozed off after Hestia left. She only got in a few winks before she bolted up. She had many questions. The list went as follows:
Where am I?
What am I doing here?
Who hit me?
Did I get hit?
Why would they hit me?
Who was that red headed skank?
Was that a dream?
Could the past day be a dream?
Did I really trade a place for a headache?
Why do I feel so refreshed?
I don’t have a headache?
How come I don’t have a headache?
Did I see an erect horse penis on a man?
Really?
Did I?
A mule?
The questions cycled and repeated themselves in her head. Rebecca rubbed her hands then felt around the red silk sheets below her. She looked around to see red pillows, red walls, and an abstract painting that had red streaks over the canvas. This, above all else, confirmed that the red headed skank was a real person—a goddess, perhaps.
LIKE A BAT OUT OF HELL
Rebecca never understood the saying, “like a bat out of hell,” until this particular morning.
She leapt off the bed and felt surprisingly spry given her ordeal. The bedroom led to a ruby colored hallway with a mysterious sparkle. Rebecca made no special note of it.
Had she known better, she may have used a sharp object to chip away at the hallways. They walls were comprised of real rubies, after all.
She rushed into the living room where the walls were a lipstick red with a fireplace in the middle and marble outlining it. It was spacious, and besides the color, Rebecca thought quite lovely. She dashed over to the kitchen to find a granite countertop that looked as if lava ran through its veins. The appliances were stainless steel and pristine.
Once again, had Rebecca known, she would’ve been very careful. There was actual lava running through that countertop, and to chip it, would turn her hand into ash, and most likely, her entire body.
She went to the fridge, opened it, didn’t really look inside and shut it. She slammed both her fists on the refrigerator door, turned around, leaned on the fridge and slid down to the gray marble floor dotted with red specs.
Nothing out of the ordinary there.
She let out a big sigh and put her face in her hands, sobbing a little.
It was all unbelievably sad to her. This place was the best apartment she had ever stumbled upon—aside from the color—and she couldn’t stay, she had to go.
Rebecca sprang up from the fridge, wiped any stray tears from her face, sprinted back to the bedroom, realized she had no belongings here besides what was on her person and ran for the front door.
She opened it and slammed into a brick wall, or rather, Hermes, again.
OLYMPUS. . . WHERE CAR ACCIDENTS ARE NOT ACCIDENTS
She groaned and put her hand over her forehead, staring at the red ceiling once again. A stray “damn it” ran through her mind. It appeared as though she could not escape the apartment or the color red. She said still staring at the ceiling, assuming a god or goddess or thing of myth and legend was beside her, “Any chance this is just an odd and painstakingly long dream?”
A voice replied, “Afraid not.”
She sighed but with a pinch of relief; she recognized the voice as Hermes’. “I figured as much.”
He pointed to her nightstand. “You should eat that.”
She looked at him then where his finger pointed, seeing the Ambrosia Bar. “That’s still there, huh?”
“It is.”
Rebecca stared at it menacingly. It had kept its form and preserved itself against the heat, against the odds, while she found herself laid up and bent out of shape. A thought came to mind, she had been fighting this place and finding herself laid up, maybe, the answer was to succumb, to roll with it. She nodded at the bar. Sage advice, my friend. She unwrapped it and ate as he stared at her.
Ambrosia Bars, much like ambrosia, were the most resilient protein/nutritional bar. It is said that an Ambrosia Bar can escape a black hole and survive through a supernova. The Chuck Norris sayings that swept America during the early 2000s were because Kratos was relating Chuck Norris to an Ambrosia Bar. Kratos, the god of strength and power, was a huge fan.
She said in-between mouthfuls, “Do you mind?”
“Not at all.”
Rebecca simply shook her head, seeing that this god, or possibly the gods, did not understand privacy.
He cleared his throat. “Your shift starts soon.”
“Why did you hit me?”
“Because you were going to leave.”
“You did hit me?” It had been an unusual guess, but seeing as she was in the company of gods, the impossible was seemingly more and more commonplace.
“Oh. . .” He said, moving his hand past his helmet. “Human tricks always get me.”
She finished the bar and reeled her head back. Amazing. She felt astounding. refreshed like a breezy summer day with a cool popsicle in her mouth.
 
; “Good stuff, huh?”
She clasped her hands together and looked up at the red ceiling. Took a deep breath—
“Are you praying?”
“No. . . I am thinking.”
“Weird way to think.”
Rebecca put her hands in her face, laughed hysterically then draped them over her mouth as she said, “Why? Why? Why me?”
He grinned. “You may be surprised to hear this. . . But I’ve done this before.”
“Oh. . .?”
“It takes a special soul to find Olympus.”
“Exit 290C.”
He nodded.
“With the gold sign.”
He nodded.
“I should’ve known.”
He nodded once more then said, “You are meant to be here. Some stay. Some go. But your purpose has not been fulfilled yet.”
“And you know?”
“I have an idea.”
“So you wrecked my car and knocked me out. . . um, to keep me here?”
“The latter was an accident.”
She cackled. “Olympus. . . where car accidents are not accidents.”
“When in Olympus.”
“Huh?”
“I thought we were doing a thing. The Romans stole that saying.”
Rebecca scratched at her eyebrow with her finger, covering a frown she reserved for herself. She wanted to pause but then thought it pointless. It was clear, beyond uncertainty, that she was among the supernatural—and quite possibly, the mythical and heavenly. “What do I do now?”
“You carry on. Your shift starts in a few hours. I wouldn’t venture around town until you’re more comfortable. I’ll guide you back to the bar. We’ll stop by Heph’s shop after. I asked him to make you something that’ll get you around but keep you in Olympus.”
“Thanks. . . What are we supposed to do now?”
He grinned a devilish one, a mischievous one. Rebecca remembered that Hermes was a cunning god and had a premonition of trouble. “Come along.”
She followed him to the living room where he sat down.
“Uh—?”
He grabbed the remote and the wall above the fireplace flipped and a monster TV came out; she guessed it to be around the ninety inch range.