"Hmp."
You sound like her; please don't be critical. The evening was, I sensed: for one thing, Calyxa announced then, at first augustly, that next day, the ninth since the sun's entry into Leo, was the twenty-fifth anniversary of her birth and the twentieth of another red-letter day on the calendar of her life, which she'd tell me about tomorrow. By way of celebration, it being presently by her estimate an hour or so from midnight, she suggested we reverse our usual order and enjoy narration before copulation, so that she might arrive at the quarter-century mark in my arms. I was much touched — and troubled by another implication of her news — but I observed to her that the gloss on II-F-1 would be malapropos and anaphrodisiac in those circumstances, since, as she knew, that morning's scene had represented my tryst with Medusa. Should we not just skip it? Game of backgammon? Hour's nap?
"No," Calyxa said positively. "I'm okay now. I want to hear it."
"Okay, I guess she is okay. I'm still jealous, but I won't be critical any more."
Good. She was okay, certainly, that night, as I told the tale. I hope she's okay now. "It was in the morning," I told her, "Medusa told me she was Medusa. We'd tried again, not a whole lot better; she'd drawn up hind-to to me — please don't turn over — still wearing the kibisis alone, and bade me not turn her over till she'd told her tale. First came the story of her life, part of which she'd exposed to me in Samos: her pretty girlhood, Poseidon's rape, Athene's punishment, her ignorance of her Gorgonhood and mistaking me for her lover instead of her destroyer." Very difficult to tell this part, especially with you listening.
"But do, please. You owe it to me."
Very welclass="underline" "Her eyes had been opened, she told me, by my sword at her neck, and her last sight had been her reflection in my shield — the same she'd set her hair by in Athene's temple. It so mortified her she was pleased to die; she knew no more until Athene had scalped, rebodied, and revived her — whereupon her first request was to re-die at once if she was Gorgon still. An odd thing was that, once brought back, she could recall all her dead head's doings, and did so with mixed feelings. To be perfectly frank, despite my having killed her she still loved me, and had lived, during her death, for those moments when I raised her by the hair and she withered my enemies with a glance. This declaration moved me; I begged her to unbag and let me kiss the pretty head — she had said it was pretty? — I'd so ill-used to such good effect in its former state.
"But she stayed my hand with a recital of the hard conditions of Athene's amnesty: first, should she ever again look at her reflected image, she'd see a Gorgon, not a girl; second, should she show her face to anyone, she'd instantly return to Gorgonhood."
"That's not fair," Calyxa said. "For all she could tell — "
"Exactly. But there was one compensation and one escape-clause. Athene granted her the power to juvenate or depetrify, just once, whomever she gazed uncowled at or whoever uncowled and gazed at her; but the conferral of this boon on the beholder must be at her own cost, since by the earlier stipulation she'd be reGorgoned."
"Ay," Calyxa said. "Your sister doesn't give anything away free."
"She's not the goddess of justice. I asked Medusa what the escape-clause was, but for a time she wouldn't say. I believe I mentioned she was shy; what I've told here in two pages took me days to coax from her. Between confessions — which I prompted by confiding my own troubles, at an exchange rate of seven to one — we strolled the beach, swam and fished, talked about life in general."
"And made love," Calyxa said.
"And tried to make love. She was pleased enough; Poseidon, that time in the temple, had been rough on her; you know how gods are." "Yup." "Nobody'd ever done the forepleasures with her properly, or showed her what to do with herself. ."
"I promise not to say anything critical," Calyxa said. "I kind of like Medusa now. But I thought most of those things were instinctive." "Nope." "Well. . hadn't she read anything? You know."
"Reading was what she did most," I replied, "especially the old myths and legends; it was what we mainly talked about. However, as you may have noticed, myth isn't reality: it was agreeable to teach her how love is made, but her inexperience was as off-putting in its way as your expertise. What's more, I was naturally concerned over Athene's stipulations, as I learned them. ."
"In short, you were impotent, like with me a few days ago." "Yes." "Not the whole time, I hope? I'm on Medusa's side now."
"Did she really say that, Perseus?"
She really did. "Just the first few times," I answered. "We got a bit better each night, just like us. It turned out she was afraid I wouldn't want her when I learned she'd been a Gorgon, and been raped by Poseidon, and given birth to Pegasus." "Hear me not saying anything?" "But I told her, honestly, that those things didn't bother me at all. The fact was — no other way to say it in a first-person narrative — Medusa really loved me, her first experience of that emotion, and I realized I hadn't been loved since the old days with Andromeda. What's more, she truly was a kindred spirit; we had jolly conversations. ."
"Don't beat about the bush," Calyxa said. "Did you love her or not?"
I answered, forgive me, I was plagued by doubts about us both. "How could I be sure what was behind her veil?" I answered. "And wasn't it likely my attraction was mainly relief after all my troubles, or mere vanity at being loved?"
"What you really wanted," Calyxa said, "was to be twenty with Andromeda again. Can we get to the escape-clause?"
I was astounded by her insight. "That's what we got to, on the fifth night. We'd finally had a proper love-making; she'd learned to let herself go a little, even felt her first bit of orgasm; it was clear we'd be all right soon enough if we kept at it, just as we'd be; while we clung together in the dénouement, I declared I loved her and asked what Athene's last condition was, for I wanted very much to see the face that spoke in such a gentle voice and topped such a pretty neck, excuse me." Excuse me. "At last she got it out: if the man who uncowled her, and on whom she laid her one-shot grace, were her true lover, the two of them would turn ageless as the stars and be together forever. But since she hadn't known herself a Gorgon before, and couldn't view herself now, for all she or I could know she might be Gorgon still, and Athene's restoration a nasty trick. In short, whoever unveiled and kissed her must do so open-eyed, prepared to risk petrifaction forever in a Gorgon's hug. 'I'm willing, Perseus,' she told me at the last, 'but you'd better think it over.' "
Calyxa shook her head. "I can't remember any analogues for that motif."
"I couldn't either. Next day she was quieter than usual, and that evening she told me very gently just what you said a while ago: in effect, that I loved her less than she me, and was still bound with half my heart to Andromeda. I wished then I'd had a kibisis for myself, to hide my shame; I swore I did love her, if anyone, as much as I could, not really knowing her and all — "
"O boy, Perseus."
"Yes, well. She wept a bit, near as I could tell; I was all cut up, yet at the same time stirred; lots of sex in this story: I touched her; she flowed at once, most womanly; I managed almost as well as with Andromeda. Medusa was in rapture; I don't say this out of vanity. ."
"I know why you say it," Calyxa said. "But how about you, Perseus? Were you in rapture? I think about us, last night, on the very edge. ."
I told her, what was true in the other case as well, I was still too preoccupied to feel rapture of the kind I'd been accustomed to with Andromeda in better days. Pleasure, yes, and some satisfaction, but as yet no rapture, quite, of the free transporting sort, nor would I likely, until we rose unfettered to the same high altitudes.