Ares, Ares, Ares. I still had trouble saying the name; it still sometimes sounded like the name of a storybook character rather than my boyfriend's. But I did my best, and his reaction made it so much easier: my newfound acceptance of who he was seemed to empower him, embolden him, and I thought even he couldn't believe how happy he was. When he broke into a grin, he often closed his eyes as if to savor the feeling, and his joy was infectious — I couldn't stop myself from beaming along with him. I sometimes suspected it wasn't just me, that he was quite literally spreading his happiness around. People around us appeared to pick it up as well.
Ares took me on real, or rather unreal dates: one day we were lazing on the beaches of Palau, the next we spent exploring the snowy Canadian mountains, another photographing wild African animals. He took me to the opera in Verona, and damn, swanky Ares was an Ares I wouldn't mind seeing more often, with that sleek black suit and his normally messy hair slicked back old-Hollywood style. We also hung out often with Hermes who, despite his debonair appearance, was probably the funniest person I had ever had the pleasure to meet, and whose pranks and clever puns I could not keep up with.
Just like before, we spent a lot of time out of the city — but it was different now, better perhaps. Away from man-made modernity, I recognized Ares as the true force of nature that he was: he was at home there, and of course he would be, having lived the majority of his life in a world that was not nearly as populous as it was today. And it was clear he felt he could be himself there, without having to worry about people seeing. I once (from a very safe distance) witnessed him calmly approach a wolf, squat next to it, and maintain eye contact for so long that I started to think they were having some sort of telepathic conversation — and I knew that for sure when it nuzzled his face briefly before walking away. He greeted rivers as if they were people, and then talked to them when it turned out that they were, that every body of water and every tree was inhabited by some god or spirit.
He approached his environment with a certain sense of ownership, with the total assurance and self-possession that came naturally with being one of the people who literally ruled it all. Now that I had made the conscious decision to do my best to accept him as Ares, it didn't scare me anymore but intrigued me; it didn't make me feel as small anymore but rather privileged to be able to witness something so extraordinary.
He never made me feel like a mere mortal, though. More than ever, Ares did his best to show me exactly how much he cherished me. He let me enjoy the perks of his divinity as much as he could, with those trips around the world, practicalities like never having to take the bus to work anymore, the dreams I now knew he gave me every night. I didn't ever feel unsafe anymore — if for whatever reason I was scared or nervous, all I had to do was whisper his name and he'd somehow hear it and appear right next to me. When I was out dancing with Gabrielle and Rachel one night, we were accosted by a group of men who just wouldn't leave us alone but who had scrambled without so much as a look back as soon as he strode onto the dance floor and joined us. It was getting harder and harder to pretend to my friends that he always just happened to be in the neighborhood and see my texts when we were in peril — but they were just grateful to be able to count on his protection.
And I had to admit that I deeply enjoyed the way they still marveled at him every single time they saw him. They weren't jealous and they always said I deserved the world, but they still couldn't believe I had managed to find a guy that was that gorgeous. They didn't know even a fraction of the full truth, of course. I sometimes still couldn't believe I'd won over a god. Was I superficial for basking in that idea and in the confidence it gave me?
Most importantly to me, he did his best to be honest, open and transparent with me. When I'd go to his house after work he'd tell me about his day, in more or less detail depending on how violent it had been. Much of his time was spent hanging out with Hermes and taking care of his gigantic weapon stash, but he was also frequently off to Mount Olympus for what he apologetically said were assemblies that he couldn't tell me much about. I had no reason whatsoever to doubt him. But I also had no way to verify if any of it was true — I couldn't exactly march up the mountain and into those palaces to check up on him.
It was easier for him to tell me about his past. His life in Rome sounded a lot like that of a workaholic: he'd gone there long before most of his family had, sowing the seeds for what would eventually become such a hugely powerful empire. The military-minded Romans had treated him with a lot more respect and dignity and given him a much more important and prominent role in the pantheon, and he'd repaid them that respect by protecting them and fighting for them with all his might.
But Rome had eventually fallen — he was somewhat vague about how that had happened — and people had stopped believing in the gods. It had been a relief and a liberation in a way, he said. His family still saw him as a coward, a liar and a disgrace, and he'd been glad to be free from the pressure, or freer at least, and forge his own path. He had had enough of the endless and constant bickering of his family over 'trivial things' (his words) like who exactly had allowed for Mayan overpopulation or whether it had been a good idea to give crossbows to the Chinese.
While most of the other gods had spent the last fifteen or so centuries tucked away on their mountain, Ares had chosen to do the exact opposite and live among humans. He and his family had eventually reached an agreement of sorts in which they respected his decision, so long as he participated in the Olympian assemblies. He hadn't really had a choice — there was no escaping his family, ever — but at least he had some approximation of independence.
He'd accompanied the Vikings on their exploratory missions as one of them, seen the Inca and Aztec empires rise and fall, fought in various revolutions around the world. Whereas in Greece he hadn't much cared which side won in his wars and had hardly shown any favoritism, he'd grown to care deeply about humans in Rome, and ever since he had tried to help those he thought could use and deserved his support most — even if that didn't always mean they would win.
Right around the time the Renaissance started, he'd settled in Florence, and he showed me around the city that hadn't even changed all that much since then. We visited the palazzo where his descendants, the Carraras, still lived (their divine ancestry was a carefully kept family secret, and everyone there that day greeted him like a dear uncle), and he told me all about the marriage he'd shared with Elisabetta, the woman from that painting in the study. I might have expected it to be hard to hear about her — she was, after all, my boyfriend's beloved former wife — but it wasn't really. She was distant enough, long enough ago, that he could talk about her like she was simply a very fond memory.
He even told me about his children: a conversation that was a whole other kind of strange to me, but one I did want to have. Only very few of his children were actually immortal and therefore still alive — in fact, other than Nike his only divine children were the ones he'd had with Aphrodite, and even though he didn't say it I could tell that his relationship with them was not nearly as intimate as he would've liked. He'd been much closer with many of his mortal children; it was clear from the affectionate way he told me stories about the Amazons, the warrior women many of whose queens had been his daughters, and from the ferocity that was, after all these millennia, still in his voice when he told me how he'd stood trial — as the very first person in history — for avenging the rape of his daughter Alcippe. He'd protected them as much as he could, adored them, tried to be the father that Zeus had never been for him.
All those stories still sounded bizarre. But they were real now. He was real. In all those thousands and thousands of years of his life, he had had children, lost children, said goodbye to loved ones. He had fought countless wars, killed countless people. He had probably seen every square inch of the planet and witnessed the full spectrum of human emotion.
Losing my dad equipped me with more life experience than most people my age had and more than I wanted to have — and then there was Ares, whose life experience covered literally everything that had ever happened. At least, that was how it felt. When he told me those stories, I sometimes felt so very young.
But then other times I found him flashing a goofy grin, or getting annoyed at his video games, or roughhousing cheerfully with his dog Ace (who, he'd told me, had been with him for thirty-six years now), and I was reminded that despite everything that he'd seen and everything he'd been through, he wasn't an old man in a young body — his spirit was that of the twenty-nine-year-old he'd once told me he was, frozen in time just as much as his body.
I knew what question that implied for us. I knew that eventually we would have to talk about what would happen when I inevitably grew older and he didn't. But I didn't want to think about the answer, not yet, not while things were so good. Not while we were so happy.
There was still one person in particular that I hadn't yet met, and I dreaded that meeting, even if Ares had assured me that I had no reason to worry.
That moment was about to come, though I didn't know it yet.
I had just let myself into Ares's house, settled on the leather sofa and opened my laptop when his light shone. I didn't bat an eye; this happened almost every day. But I looked up when he didn't simply materialize but fell onto the other sofa with a soft thud, a bronze-tipped spear and a gold shield clattered to the ground, and he was in full armor — I barely recognized him for over a second, because this was so completely different to the Ares that I'd grown used to, with his white T-shirts, jeans, leather jackets and the occasional military uniform.
His face was partly obscured by a frankly magnificent-looking gold helmet topped with a fiery-red plume that he now pulled off with a groan and carelessly threw on the floor next to him. There was blood (red, human blood) and mud all over him but underneath it I saw gold shin guards that looked like they'd been molded around his calves, matching forearm guards, and a breastplate that was elaborately decorated — to the extent that I could see it underneath the caked-on dirt anyway — with heads of wolves and other things. Other than the shin guards his legs were nearly bare, covered only by what looked like a short linen tunic overlaid with strips of mahogany leather that extended from underneath the breastplate, and over his shoulders as well.
I didn't even register what he said just then. I'd never, never seen him or anyone like this, and I didn't quite know how to feel about it. On the one hand, seeing him in full warrior getup overwhelmed me, and I still hadn't gotten used to seeing him come home with even the slightest bit of blood, but on the other hand… there was something strangely alluring about it. I hadn't imagined that I would enjoy seeing him as this supreme image of masculinity, of power. Of course I knew that was who he was, but I hadn't been able to picture it until it was, now, right in front of me. I felt my skin start to tingle and a flush fill my abdomen—
But then he pulled me out of it with a brief wave. "Emma, you there?" His voice sounded strange, like it was caught in the back of his throat.
"Huh?" I looked up at his face — my eyes had drifted to his quads — and did my best to focus.
"I've been shot," he grunted, staring daggers at the wall.
Oh, crap. The words brought me straight back to reality and I now saw that he was holding his left bicep tightly. Thanks to the armor that was despite the dirt so blindingly gold, I hadn't noticed the golden blood flowing over his olive skin from underneath the leather strips. "What? How?" I asked in a voice that was a distinct pitch higher than normal. "Can humans do that?"
"Athena came to meddle," he fumed. "I told her to stay out of it, but daddy's girl does whatever the fuck she wants. Fuck her!" He looked furious and I felt the heat of his anger grow in the air around us — so I stood up, walked over, and sat next to him. The tense energy waned when I put my hand on his right arm. He glanced at me gratefully.
I had done this a number of times now. In these past few wonderful months he'd been annoyed and upset more than once, but now that I knew about the effect he could have on me I could anticipate it and it didn't sway me as much. I'd only accidentally discovered that I could calm him by touch as much as he could calm me — well, in my case there was nothing divine or supernatural about it, I just brought him back to the present moment, and it helped him clear his head enough to stabilize himself.
I met his eyes; they weren't as fiery anymore, and I softly kissed him.
He leaned his forehead against mine for a second, then pulled back to peel the frayed leather strips away from his shoulder and look at the bleeding wound. "Emms, do you think you can help me get this bullet out?" His voice was still strained.
"Um…" How was I supposed to do that? Didn't you need to have very steady hands for that? Mine were definitely not steady now.
"No, never mind, it's okay," he said quickly. "Could you hand me my phone? It's over there." He jerked his chin towards the TV. I got up, took it from the console, and gave it to him.
After just a few taps on the screen, he quickly sandwiched the phone between his shoulder and ear (it looked odd, that juxtaposition of his ancient armor and the smartphone) and held his other arm again. "Hi. Do you think you can come here? I need your help, I got shot. Yeah, Athena showed up. I know." He blindly felt the wound with the bloodied fingers of his right hand. "No, it's better if you come as soon as possible. I'm not bleeding out, but I can't reach the bullet. Okay."
He had barely hung up when I felt a presence behind me — and when I turned around, I gasped, for in front of me stood the most preternaturally beautiful woman I had ever seen. She was flawless. She was tall but not lanky, slim but not thin and her curves shaped her into a perfect hourglass. She seemed to somehow embody every single ideal of beauty there had ever been. Her blonde waves cascaded over her chest and they had a sheen that no human hairstylist could reproduce. Her eyes were the deepest ocean blue I could imagine, her full lips a natural soft pink. She wore a simple blush dress that was figure-hugging and flowy at the same time.
Her smile revealed a row of pearly white teeth that were impeccably straight but had a tiny gap between her upper front teeth — it could have been an imperfection, but on her it wasn't. She held out a delicate hand. "Hello!" Her voice was the most angelic sound I'd ever heard. "I'm Naia."
"She knows, Aphrodite," Ares said behind me. Of course I did. That was pretty clear from how he was sitting there in all that armor.
"Oh, okay," she said lightly. Aphrodite. Who else could it have been? "Well, you must be Emma, darling. I can see why Ares is so taken with you."
"Um. Thank you?" I said timidly. I wasn't sure what to think of her. She seemed nice, and Ares had told me they were just friends now... but she was still his ex, and the most intimidating ex in the entire world indeed. And it wasn't just that — an uncanny feeling washed over me as I watched her flash another smile at me and glide over to Ares.
"Ciao, Ares." She planted a light kiss on his cheek — did she mean for it to look so inviting? — and turned her gaze to his wound. "Oh, that's not so bad."
Not so bad? His blood came streaming out of the wound the moment he let go of his arm. That looked pretty bad to me.
She conjured a pair of medical tweezers, reached them into the hole, felt around a bit — Ares's jaw was clenched in pain and his fist was so tight its knuckles were white — and then slowly pulled the tweezers out holding a bullet. "Voilà, mon chéri. Serre ton bras."
"English, Aph," Ares said, indicating me with a quick glance. He gripped his arm again.
She glanced over her shoulder, her hair flowing perfectly with the motion like a waterfall. "Désolée," she said, and looked back at Ares. "The bullet was wedged pretty deep. Do you have any nerve damage?"
He moved his arm. "I don't think so, no."
"Okay. I'll just clean you up a bit." She went to work carefully wiping the ichor from his already-closing wound with a wet cloth, then the rest of his arm, while he patiently watched her hands.
I was transfixed. I'd seen gods interact before, when Apollo and Hermes had visited, but this was… different. They were the two most gorgeous people I had ever seen and they even seemed to reinforce each other's breathtaking beauty. They appeared so out of this world (and, I reminded myself, they were in a way) that only they could match one another, that they were two unique puzzle pieces that snapped perfectly into each other and only each other. And they were so comfortable together. He sat there so calmly, and she was taking care of him so expertly, that I knew they had done this thousands, maybe millions of times. She was his go-to. She was the speed dial in his phone. She knew exactly what to do, she wasn't disconcerted by his predicament, she could fix what was broken. I took a step back, feeling like I was dissolving into the room around us.
Aphrodite straightened and cocked her statuesque hips to the side. "There. I think it's healed now, hasn't it?"
Ares looked down, pressed on the patch of skin where moments earlier had been that wound, and nodded. "All good. Thank you, Aph."
"It's my pleasure." The words echoed in my head. "Do you want me to help clean your armor?"
"No, that's okay, thanks. I'll have the Machai do it."
"Alright. Hey, did you hear what Psyche did the other day? That girl..." Aphrodite said, shaking her head lovingly.
As they slipped into easy conversation, I quietly retreated to the kitchen. They didn't seem to notice.
A few minutes later, Ares came in and sat next to me at the kitchen island. He pecked me on the cheek. "Hey. Why'd you run off?"
"I, uh," I said, "I didn't think I had much to add to the situation."
"Nonsense." He started to pull off his shin guards. "You're my girlfriend, stellina. That's reason enough to stay." I loved it when he called me that — 'little star' — and it softened me a little bit.
I watched him continue on to his forearm guards, placing them on the countertop in front of him, then undo the clasps of his cuirass. "Does this happen a lot? You needing her help?" I asked. How often was she here? Had it just been a complete coincidence that I'd never met her? Had I just never run into her before?
"About once every sixty years or so, I'd say," he said, and pulled the cuirass with its leather straps over his head. "More often than I'd like it to."
It was hard to put that number in perspective. It didn't sound like a lot. But then again, compared to his vast lifespan…
"I've got to get cleaned up," he said, and then with a twinkle in his eyes, "Join me?" He stood and held out his hand.
I looked down. He was, of course, still dirty and bloody as hell. "You want me to… take a bath… with you?"
"Oh, no." He retrieved his hand. "I mean, will you keep me company?"
So I went upstairs with him, and he took off his tunic and got into the massive bathtub, a glass of whisky by his side. I sat on the edge of the tub and sipped my wine, staring at the water that mixed with his golden blood and the red human blood — but it was almost easy to forget where that blood came from, because the colors were those of a sunset.
"How come that bullet hurt you? Don't you heal?" I asked softly.
Ares took a sip, rested his head on the porcelain and closed his eyes. I watched his cheeks move when he briefly swirled the whisky in his mouth before swallowing. "Athena. She used to give spear-wielding soldiers the strength to wound me. Now she bewitches bullets."
"But… why?" I frowned. "Why does she want to hurt you? You're her brother, aren't you?"
His eyes flew open, he barked out a joyless laugh. "That doesn't mean a thing."
I bit my lip; I didn't think I would ever understand the complexity of his familial relationships. He must have noticed my hesitation, because he added, in a less cynical voice, "We're not always on opposing sides. Sometimes we complement each other very well. But… when we're at odds, she tries to beat me at my own game."
And succeeded, apparently. I didn't know what to say, so I took my time sipping from my glass. I stole a glance at his body from the corner of my eye. Was I supposed to help clean him? Sponge off the blood and filth? Was that what Aphrodite would have done if she were in my position? But she wasn't in my position now, I told myself in an effort at self-encouragement. I shifted a little and briefly debated offering him my help — but it would feel like I was trying to play Aphrodite's part, a weak attempt at filling her shoes.
He took my hand and grinned mischievously, oblivious to my thoughts. "How about I refresh this water and you take off those clothes? Get in here with me, Emma."
Come on, I thought to myself, Isn't that proof enough? He had just seen Aphrodite and yet he didn't treat me any differently than before. He still wanted me naked. He still wanted me naked and in his bath.
I put my glass of wine on the floor, straightened and, encouraged by the way his eyes followed my every move, slowly took off my top, then my camisole. I paused. He stood up too, letting the dirty water flow down his colossal body and down the drain before reopening the water tap, and pulled me closer by the waist of my jeans. His wet hand made its way to the back of my neck and he dipped his head to kiss me oh so softly.
His other hand found the button of my jeans, undid it, then moved up my back towards the clasp of my bra. "Oh, Emma, I don't want to wait another second," he breathed suddenly, and with a flash of light my clothes and underwear were next to me on the floor. His arms wrapped around my hips. He lifted me up easily, and slowly lowered me into the still-shallow water.
I pulled him on top of me, kissing him hungrily and caressing his strong back the way I had done so many times now. My knees went up, I wrapped my legs around his waist, and within seconds Aphrodite was entirely forgotten.