Ariadne

"Climb down," she told me.

I hesitated, wondering if she meant to slam the door down and seal me in. But she picked up the ball of golden twine and the candle, and made to follow me down. So, heart pattering with nervousness, I sat on the edge of the opening and groped with my sandal-clad toes for the top rung.

Moments later, the candle's flame illuminated the walls of the maze. Huge blocks of stone rose over our heads. From here, the square of the upper room looked as unattainable as Mount Olympus.

The passage rain straight ahead of us and behind us, with openings branching off to either side. The air was heavy and damp. Moisture collected on the walls, and the hay made squishing sounds as we stepped on it.

The scent of the beast was strong. I imagined I could hear the snorting breath of the Minotaur, closing in on us from the rear. Whirling, I saw nothing but more corridor stretching away into oblivion.

"What if it gets out?" I asked in an undertone, looking up again at the beckoning safety of the room above.

"He," she said, stressing it and giving me an angry look, "cannot. His feet are like hooves, and the ladder too weak to bear his weight." She tied one end of the twine around a rung. Holding the ball in one hand and the candle in the other, she set off into the maze.

Soon we had taken turns and corners, so that the ladder was gone from sight. If not for the spidery-thin thread trailing in our wake, I would have despaired of ever finding my way out.

Then Idid hear the snorting breath of the Minotaur. My heart clenched like a fist. I spun, intending to run blindly from this horror. But Pasiphae stilled me with a pinching grip on my arm.

"Taurus," she called, almost sweetly. "Taurus, it is Mother. I've brought someone for you to meet."

"No," I said. "No, please, do not make me look upon the Minotaur!"

Hooves clocked on stone. There was a snarling growl that sounded eerily like a question.

"This is Ariadne, Taurus. Come and see her."

The clocking hoofbeats drew nearer. The furthest glow of the candle fell on a huge shape slouching toward us. I stifled a scream in the conviction that any cry of fear would enrage the monster, and bring him raging at me to tear me limb from limb.

"Here he is, my precious boy," Pasiphae crooned.

The Minotaur came into view. The dim and dancing light showed him in glimpses, but still showed me more than I ever wanted to behold.

Its head, with a sprouting pair of horns, was set low between hunched and massive shoulders. From this ferocious bovine face glared a pair of dark, yet undeniably intelligent eyes. It had arms like the boles of trees, a chest matted with wiry hair, columns of legs.

It was naked. An enormous, meaty phallus swung against the fronts of its thighs. Flicking at the air behind it was a bull's tail. As it saw me, it thrust its head forward and sniffed at the air. It lunged with gaping mouth.

My best intentions dashed, I shrieked as I leaped back. The Minotaur's teeth were huge and flat. Not the sharp, tearing teeth of a lion …

I thought of how much more agonizing it must have been for the Athenians, to have their flesh crushed and ripped from them the way a bull would crush and rip leaves. How much longer death must have taken in claiming them, how they must have suffered, unable to see their assailant, only feel those teeth rending them.

Pasiphae stepped between us and scolded the beast. "No! No, Taurus. Not to kill, not this one."

It stopped. Its hot gusts of breath blew into my face.

"This is Ariadne," Pasiphae said again. "She is going to tend to your needs, my son. Look at her. See how pretty she is."

"What are you saying?" I whimpered.

She scratched the cowhide of the Minotaur's cheek the way a man might scratch a favorite hunting hound. "Taurus has food and water, and a warm place to sleep. I have made sure of that. But there is something he needs that a mother cannot provide. He is a grown man, with a grown man's urges. You will sate those urges for him."

I crossed my arms tightly over my breasts. "Not that, Mother, please, not that."

"I am not your mother," she said. "I am his, and it is my responsibility to ensure his happiness. You will service him, Ariadne."

"He'll kill me!"

"Nonsense. His sire, the white bull, had a much larger one. It may look daunting, but I promise you that once you're accustomed to its length and girth, you'll soon delight in it."

"He's a savage monster, a murderer," I said, hardly comprehending what she was talking about. "He'll bite me, bite out my throat."

"No, he will not. I'll be here to control him. He listens to me, you know. Only to me. He does my bidding."

"I will not!" I exclaimed. I turned, but she was quick despite her age and caught my arm in a vicious pinch.

"You will do as I say," she hissed into my ear.

The Minotaur snorted and pawed the floor, hoof scraping on stone. Its – his – teeth were still bared. Easy to imagine Pasiphae revoking her earlier command. I might run away, but would be overtaken in the dark, and feel those jaws crushing my bones before I died.

"You'll still be a princess, someday a queen, with all the wealth and power that entails," Pasiphae said. "Refuse me, and you'll have nothing. You'llbe nothing."

Tears ran hot down my face. "Mother –"

She struck me again. I winced. The Minotaur grunted eagerly.

"I amnot your mother," she reminded me.

"Pasiphae," I tried. "Gentle queen, please. Please do not do this. My husband –"

"Is it your trifling virginity you worry about?" she sneered. "Men never know the difference, if the woman is clever."

I fell apart in a storm of weeping. Through the veil of my tears, the candle flame doubled, tripled, blurred. I stumbled along helpless in Pasiphae's cruel grip as she guided me down the passageway. The Minotaur trailed after us, continuing to snort and sniff, and utter low guttural noises that were not quite speech.

We came to a dead end in the maze, where the corridor widened into a square chamber. I wiped my eyes and saw that this must be the monster's lair. A straw-stuffed mat was on the floor, other candles stuck in niches on the walls, and everywhere were the pitiful attempts that Pasiphae had made at bringing comforts to this drear place.

She moved about, touching fire to the wicks, and the light brightened until no detail was cloaked in merciful shadow. The Minotaur was revealed in all his monstrousness.

Pasiphae instructed her abominable son to lie down. He did so. He was no less terrifying in this pose. I could not help looking with dread at the dangling organ, which lolled against a leathery scrotum like a dozing python.

"Take off your clothes, Ariadne," Pasiphae said.

I clung to the cloth, breath hitching. "Please … please!"

"Do it or I will have him rip them from you."

Shuddering uncontrollably, my silent pleas to the gods seeming to fall on deaf ears, I unfastened the pins that held my tunic. The Minotaur watched me avidly. Whether bloodlust or lust of a more carnal nature filled his gaze, I could not be sure.

Praying now that this was only a nightmare, I let my garments fall away. I held one arm across my chest, the other covering my loins.

"When I commanded your mother to be at her ease and enjoy the touch of Daedalus, she did so quite willingly," remarked Pasiphae.

Hateful words lodged in my throat. I could not give them voice.

"You should do the same," she said, chiding me.

Still, I could not speak. The ability seemed to have vanished from me. I could only stand there, naked and vulnerable in this foul dungeon, trying vainly to shield my body from the interested attention of the Minotaur.

His phallus twitched. I moaned in horror.

"There is no reason why you could not take pleasure from this," Pasiphae said.

I found a voice, though more of a thin whine than my own. "Why doyou not do it, then?"

Her scowl withered me into muteness again. "I told you. After the white bull, my desires were gone forever. And even were they not, do you think me so foolish as to enrage the gods again by committing incest?"

Pasiphae was mad. I understood that truth with a sudden clarity.

And still, I could not summon the strength or the will to run. My body was not my own. It would not heed the urgings of my mind. When Pasiphae stepped forth and took me by the wrists, I could not pull away.

She pulled me to the side of the lowly mat, where the massive Minotaur lay looking up at us quizzically. He sniffed deeply, inhaling my scent. Against his thigh, his phallus twitched again and began to swell.

"He will not harm you," Pasiphae said. "Here … step over him …"

"No, please," I mewled. "I'll be split apart."

"Over his head, foolish girl. You must be moistened for him. It will be easier that way."

As if understanding, the Minotaur chose this moment to run his broad, flat tongue over his lips.

The thought of presenting any part of myself within biting reach, let alone the most tender and sensitive core of my body, started me sobbing again. I shook from fear, my feet rooted to the floor.

"Do as I say," she spat, pinching me again. "Turn about, yes, there, and step over his head. I will hold your hands. Now, crouch."

My back was to the damp stone wall. The Minotaur's head was beneath me, directly beneath as at Pasiphae's ungentle guidance I delicately set one foot to either side of his large, horned head. From this vantage point, I saw how he was rising, stiffening. He licked the side of my leg and I flinched.

"Crouch down," said Pasiphae, tugging at me. "See, he is not going to bite you."

The Minotaur's tongue tickled my knee as I slowly bent. He lapped his way up the backside of my thigh as if someone had coated me with honey. It was surprisingly warm, surprisingly soft, that tongue as it moved in wet loops and circles over my skin.

"Very good, Taurus," Pasiphae said. "Now here … here, yes, that's right."

She had reached under me to guide his mouth into position. I felt the cool press of his nose sniffing curiously at my loins. He licked me there, paused as if contemplating the taste, licked again. A rumbling noise of excitement rolled up from his throat. I felt the tip of his tongue slide along my labia, then delve between them.

With a startled cry, I tried to stand. Pasiphae had me in an unbreakable hold. One of her hands girdled my wrists, the other pushed down on my shoulder. I was trapped in the crouch, straddling the Minotaur's head as his wide but flexible tongue probed and explored.

His erection had grown tremendously, rising straight up from his belly. I was aghast at the prospect of taking it into myself, but at the same time the Minotaur's diligent mouth was evoking unwanted waves of tingling pleasure. I found myself shifting my hips to better bring his tongue where it felt best, and heard myself whimpering softly.

"Touch him." Pasiphae tugged at my wrists, forcing me to lean forward. She placed my hands against the heat of the Minotaur's phallus.

It lurched as if alive of its own accord. The skin there was smooth, unlike the rough pelt and wiry hair that covered the rest of him. Pasiphae forced my palms around the stiff post, slipped them up and down. The Minotaur bucked his lower body up from the mat.

The pace of his licking increased, his lips nibbling at my labia, his tongue sliding into me until it encountered the blockage of my virginity. His hands – human hands, though very large and coarse as a laborer's – came up to hold my hips firmly. The sounds that he made, those rough and fervent grunts, were muffled against my loins.

The sounds that I made were not muffled. They spilled from me though I tried to contain them. Wordless moans and cries, breathy gasps … and I realized that Pasiphae no longer held my wrists, but that I was rubbing the Minotaur's erection between my palms of my own accord.

Shame tore through me like a blade, but I could not stop myself. I reveled in the way his turgid flesh throbbed at my touch. I felt the gathering crisis of my climax beginning to build. It was terrible, appalling, the very idea that I should be deriving anything but fear and humiliation from this. And still it built, piling upon itself, each stroke of his tongue sending me nearer and nearer.

"Stop," Pasiphae said. "Taurus, stop!"

He did not. Nor did I want him to. I squeezed his phallus – it was like squeezing a thick metal bar sheathed in padded leather – and squirmed to bring his tongue into better contact.

"Stop, I said!" There was a dangerous tone in her voice that pierced our fevered arousal.

The Minotaur took a final, furtive lick as Pasiphae hauled me upright. My legs were weak, barely able to support my weight, and blood rushed dizzyingly through my head. I lashed out at her with an angry snarl; she had torn me from him just when I was so close, so close!

"No, curse you, no, let me –"

"If you want the rest you must take it all," she said, and pointed.

I followed her gesture. Apprehension returned in a pang. The Minotaur was still lying on the mat, though he had risen onto his elbows in an indignant protest that matched my own. The object of Pasiphae's steadily pointing finger was of course his immense phallus, jutting up like a spire.

"But he's too big," I said.

She only looked at me, again with that withering scorn.

Frantic in my indecision, I cast my gaze about the square chamber but saw nothing there to help me. Only the Minotaur, Taurus, whose muscular body was tense as if poised to spring up, if not for the stern glare of his mother holding him in place.

"Do it, girl," she said, whirling me around so that she was behind me, and holding me fast. "Do it before he does it himself."

The Minotaur's hand was around his erection, tugging at it in hard, fast jerks as he stared hungrily at me. I felt an answering, sympathetic twinge between my legs. I jumped in shock as I realized the twinge was Pasiphae's fingers, sliding in my warmth, caressing me with knowing expertise.

Her other hand cupped my breast, and teased the nipple by rolling it in thumb and forefinger. Initially astounded, I then blushed at my own foolishness – ofcourse she would know what to do, she was a woman herself, she knew how to touch a woman's body. My blood sped in a quickening pulse. I leaned into Pasiphae, panting, opening my legs to give her better access –

And she took her hand away. I nearly screamed.

She shoved me in the small of the back, pushing me forward a faltering two steps. I was right beside the Minotaur now, next to his massive thigh. Without any further thought than to ease the fire that burned in my veins, I swung my leg over and stood straddling his hips.

Bending my knees, I lowered myself until I crouched just above his phallus. He still gripped it, but had ceased his pumping hand-motions, and just held it by the base as he looked up at me.

I crouched a little bit more and the tip of it contacted my labia, spread them, bumped against my hidden nub. A wave of pleasure rolled through me at that, and I rocked, letting just that part of him slide back and forth.

Then, as I rocked forward, I felt him lodge in my slick opening. He instinctively pushed up with his hips, sinking it partway into me. I cried out at the invasiveness, the size of it, stretching me apart. I bent over my knees, palms flat on the Minotaur's chest, and gritted my teeth as I tried to accustom myself to the feeling of his thickness.

He pushed up again, seating himself a bit deeper. My unbound hair fell in black coils around my face. Mingled pleasure and pain fanned out from my loins.

With a sudden resolve, or abandon, I drove my hips down. He tore through Hymen's gate, a brief and sharp hurt lost in the greater sensation of his enormous phallus burying itself entirely inside me.

My thighs were splayed wide across the breadth of his hips, my knees digging into his waist. For a moment I could only remain like that, barely able to breathe, my nether regions drawn taut and nearly to the point of tearing.

Each beat of my heart sent pulses through my body, drumming most of all in my loins. When it was bearable, I rose up slightly, and settled down again, the pain swiftly dimming as the pleasure once more began to climb.

A strange and blissful expression had claimed the Minotaur's monstrous face. He lay quiescent as I moved, eyes dulled by a rapturous glaze. I had tamed the beast, and a thrilling sense of power kindled in my heart.

I took up his hands, which were slack at his sides. I brought them to my breasts. The Minotaur hesitated as if unsure what to do, then stroked them, fondled them. He began moving with me. I rose and fell as if tossed on a turbulent sea. From crest of wave to trough, to crest again.

The onlooking Pasiphae was far and remote from my mind. All that mattered was the delicious friction of our bodies, our loins, sliding and thrusting and clasping in a snug, warmly wet embrace. The Minotaur thrashed and groaned and drove into me. I ground my hips down to take him fully, and howled like an animal myself as my climax seized me in a shuddering frenzy.

It went on and on, and just as I thought it might dwindle, the Minotaur would thrust up strongly again and send me into renewed convulsions. His hands had me by the waist now, his forceful movements lifting me high and slamming me down, meeting each downstroke with a savage grunt.

And then, arching his back and pulling me against him, his entire body went as rigid as marble. Deep in my loins I felt a hot and fluid gush, another, another. My pulse thundered on and still he was locked in that pose, still spurting his seed.

I felt the tension and stiffness slowly ebb from him. He sagged to the mat again, chest heaving like a smith's bellows. His phallus softened, easing from me in a flow of thick liquid. I fell limply forward onto his torso. We were both soaked with sweat, exhausted, and I lay with my cheek resting on his ribs.

Somehow, we fell asleep like that. I was roused an unknown amount of time later by Pasiphae, nudging me back to wakefulness.

"We must go," she said. She had the candle, and the ball of twine. My discarded clothing were in a heap at her feet.

The Minotaur stirred, opened bleary eyes. A sound of disappointment issued from him. He draped one heavy arm over my back. Pasiphae shook her head sternly at him.

When I could, I got to my feet. I was a mass of aches, soreness, and stickiness. My skin had been scraped raw in places from the Minotaur's coarse hide. I needed the help of Pasiphae – which she generously tendered – to dress and straighten my disarrayed hair. My legs felt queerly bowed, and I tottered like a child just learning to walk.

She coiled up the ball of twine as we retraced our steps through the labyrinth. I was in a state both dazed and dreamlike, unsure where I was or even who I was. If she had not led me by the hand, I might have wandered off into the maze and become lost. Eventually, we emerged into the palace proper. I slumped on a bench as she closed and bolted the trap door.

Later, in my chamber again, she presented me with the golden ball of twine and told me that the Minotaur was my responsibility now. She would still visit him, and bring him food and other items, but she expected me to make regular forays into the dungeon as well … to see to his other needs.

I agreed. Perhaps coherent thought should have led me to refuse, but with the memories tumbling through my mind and echoing in my body, I could not muster the strength to defy her.

So it was that I became a caretaker of the labyrinth, though unbeknownst to Minos. Monthly, in the dead of night, I would venture down and explore the turns and passageways. Always with the twine to guide me back, but I soon grew to know the maze as if it were my second home.