... I will not let him forget ... Not now. Not ever...
She had followed him to the beach, the little bay by the dock where the moon shone- a crescent of white light on the dark sand.
He had crouched onto the sand on his haunches, run his fingers through the softness before realising someone was behind him.
With some surprise on his bronzed brow had he seen her, "My Lady, you should not be out here on your own- it isn't safe for a young woman." His tone was even, kindly almost, but with a touch of distancing bitterness.
She did not reply to his words, instead paced closer and closer to him. When she finally spoke her voice was bleary with oncoming tears, "Please- take me away," into his hand -twice the size of hers- she pressed a small collection of gold pieces.
"This was all I managed to collect, I realise it is not enough for the risk, but I offer something else, too." Her own fingers fumbled with the cord of her robe; finally it was pulled away to reveal her nakedness underneath it.
"I have heard my uncle speak of the most precious gift of woman to man- and I offer myself to you, freely..." she trembled in the light cold and the heavy cast of his eyes, "and all I ask of you in return is escape."
He stood still, his tall and lithe form did not flinch at the sight of her glaring and smoothly formed nudity, yet his breath had audibly altered- turning to a sudden and sharp intake.
Finally he averted his eyes, turned to face the sea.
In a falling feeling of despair a cry escaped the girl's lips, "Odysseus," she sobbed meekly.
She clutched at his wrist and no movement of his attempted to avoid her touch; she moved his hand to her breast. Her small, pale breast where his rough palm lay; his hard hot strokes somewhat hesitant still.
"Please."
"No, Silhaume. I am much too old for you." She was barely sixteen, and he past thirty.
"I have wanted you since the first time I heard your name."
He moved his hand away,
"You know nothing of wanting."
"How can you say that? When you yourself know that all I have ever done is want my freedom? I hate this place; I hate my parents for abandoning me with this distant relative whom I am to call 'Uncle'. The money they gave him to care for me is all that keeps him from deserting me himself, instead he has the audacity to try and auction me off for marriage like a horse- or a slave."
"I cannot do what you ask of me," he sighed, with a finite gesture he pulled her robe to close around her shivering form.
The tears escaped her eyes,
"They say that you, Odysseus, have a limitless mercy and empathy- the truth is that you care for nothing but your useless allegiance with my uncle Alchenon!"
She sobbed, an empty sound that echoed in the howls of the crashing waves,
"If I loved you any less I would threaten to tell him that you dragged me onto this beach to rape me. Please, I ask you one last time: have the same love to save me."
Yet he said no more words. His green eyes shone sadly in the moonlight, the proud musculature of his noble frame seemed to flounder under the weight of his screaming conscience. The guiltily subsiding throbbing in his abdomen seared his heart, unlike any other pain he'd felt before.
And could not believe he'd feel again.
She'd run back from the beach to the solemn lights of her uncle's domain, the stone fortress whose cold would ever chill her soul.
Odysseus fled in the night with his men, back to Ithaca. Alchenon could not understand the meaning behind his horridly sudden departure.
Silhaume's tears stilled when she heard of Odysseus' leave, she swore never again to cry for a man nor ever to require the will of a man to fulfil her hopes of freedom.
