(NSFW – if you are my family and you’re going to be embarrassed by certain romantic driven prose, I’d sit this one out!)
She strolled out of the midnight mist like she was made from it, he thought. It seemed to cling to her, like it was reluctant to let her go, but she didn’t seem to notice. That, he thought with a disheartened laugh, didn’t surprise him. Even the moon seemed to smile down at her with a winsome expression. She glanced up at him then, as if the small noise he’d made had alerted her. Her hair fell like silver moonlight down her shoulders as she cocked her head, one side of her mouth tilting up in a half smile. He watched as she strolled towards his car, her hips swaying. He didn’t have to be close to know that there was a glint in her eyes. Part of him wanted to gun the car and get the hell out of there, leave her wondering, disappear into the blue shadows and leave tire tracks on the sticky pavement. Would she race after him, as he’d once raced after her? Before he could contemplate turning the keys and getting the hell out of dodge, she was pulling the passenger door open and sliding in.
She smelled the same, like late night roses and caramel. “Hello, Apollo.” The way she said it was so tender, it nearly hurt. Her voice was low and slow, and at the sound of it, goosebumps prickled across his body. He was glad he was wearing a hoodie and that she couldn’t see the way that, even now, her voice affected him. He winced at the name she used.
He cleared his throat and tugged his sleeves down over his hands. “Hello… Daphne.”
Daphne, as he’d always called her, snorted at the name. She took out a clove cigarette and a flask and then turned to him. “Mind?”
Apollo, the name he’d never used with anyone but her, waved her on. She lit the cigarette and inhaled deeply, expelling it through her nostrils contentedly, like some great beast releasing smoke and fear. Her throat worked as she took a healthy swig and then offered the flask to him. He took it, and then coughed as it streamed down him in golden fire. “What the hell was that?”
She smirked at him over the cigarette. “Ambrosia, of course.” The laugh escaped before he could stop it, and he was rewarded with her true smile. The one he’d once coveted – and paid for, dearly. In this time and place she was not a virgin pledged to Artemis, or the daughter of the river god Peneus. He knew the way her thighs trembled when he stroked them, how the freckles on her chest looked like the Pegasus constellation, the way her hair felt tangled around his wrist. He knew her body and soul almost as well as his own. Some days, he wished he didn’t. Most days, actually.
Apollo cleared his throat roughly, looking forward, away from the beautiful and destructive creature at his side. The trees swayed with windy, whimsical music, and the skyline behind them was lit with lights – a false imitation of the stars above. It irritated him. Everything was getting under his skin tonight. “Why did you ask me to meet you here?” He nearly growled it, wanting her to quake a bit in fear. But he was not Apollo, not here, and he didn’t have his bow and arrow. He wondered if Eros did, somewhere. Was he laughing at Apollo, even now? Was she? His hands balled into fists. He wanted to shatter the glass. He wanted to shake her. He wanted to ride a chariot through the sky to bring dawn early, because maybe she’d shrink against it, and retreat into the night, like the moonlit huntress she’d once been.
Her voice was rough, and small, when it finally came out. “Won’t you even look at me?”
He wanted to tell her, no. But he wasn’t a coward. Slowly, he turned. She was huddled against the window, curled into herself. Her eyes were wide, the color indescribable in the darkness, but he didn’t need any light to know their color, the way they shifted and changed like seasons. The smell of cloves made the air pungent and heavy, thick with things said and unsaid. His head was spinning. “What do you want from me?”
The pain in her eyes nearly undid him, but before he could take the words back and shove them down his throat, she lowered her lashes until they fanned across her cheeks. “To tell you… to tell you the truth.” She took a deep, unsteady breath. “I wasn’t honest with you. Or with myself. About my feelings for you.”
“Before or after you ran away and, presumably, turned into a laurel tree?”
He liked the way she looked up at him, fire in her eyes like an indigo blaze. If she were decked in leaves and bark they’d both be in trouble, he thought with amusement. He laughed. And once he started, he couldn’t seem to stop, bent over the car seat and laughing until tears streamed down his face. “What is so funny?” She hissed. He could see her hackles rising, and tried to stop his grin as he quieted and wiped the tears from his cheeks.
“You. Me. Us.” A strand of her hair fell over her face and, without thinking, he leaned forward and tucked it behind her ear. She inhaled sharply at the feel of his fingers on her face. For his heart, his sanity, he knew he should pull away. Turn away from the lost look in her gaze, stop wondering what color her eyes were at this very moment in time, abandon the pleading pout of her mouth. But for all his talents and oracles, he never seemed to learn with her, even knowing what dawn would certainly bring. His hands shook as he gently touched her face: tracing her arched brows, skimming the line of her cheekbones, brushing the pad of his thumb across her lips.
He didn’t know who moved first, but the feel of her in his arms was always the same: like it was the first and the last time. She tasted like whatever “ambrosia” she’d fed him, and like white chocolate, like decadence and sin. Her gasps and sighs fueled him as he took what she finally offered. He devoured her. There was no other word for it. His hands were rough while hers were soft, her body all curves that shimmered with that traitorous moonlight. Was his sister, Artemis, laughing? Or crying? And did he care? Her teeth were at his shoulder, her legs wrapped around his slim, golden hips, and she was murmuring in a forgotten and dead language. Terms of endearment, he realized. He could taste the salt of tears but didn’t know if it was hers, or his, or both.
After, they laid together, stunned into silence. He propped his chin in his hand and stared down at her: sweet Daphne, the one woman he could never have. Except… could he? She languorously blinked her eyes open and the worlds within them made his heart gallop in his chest. Not even seeing Olympus once more could elicit the same reaction as those stunning pale blue eyes. She drew him down to her again and kissed him quietly, wistfully, as if they had all the time in the world. He pulled her close, her back to his chest, and wound his legs through hers. This time she wouldn’t escape.
This time they’d be happy.
He fell asleep with a smile on his lips.
When he woke with the sun – which he hadn’t driven across the sky, if anyone was curious – she was gone. Blue morning glories covered the leather seats. He lifted a blossom to his nose and inhaled deeply. It smelled like her; like sex and midnight. “So you found a new form, I guess. I should have known. I should have…”
Apollo banged his head against the car seat and clenched the blooms in his fist so tightly that they stained his fingers. He wondered if she would come back, and when. “It’s never the right lifetime, is it, Daph?”
Sighing, he started the car and drove away, leaving the blossoms in his car. And in the blooms the nymph waited, wondering why she hadn’t told him that, in this time and life, she loved him.
Elisabeth Writing 