The Hermaphrodite's Curse Ch. 34

EPILOGUE - LESBOS

The green slopes of Mount Ida drop down toward the warm blue waters of the Aegean Sea. With the bright Turkish sunshine and clear blue sky behind it, the heights of the mountain stand clear central to the view from across the narrow Mytilini Strait. Here the clear Aegean waters wash against the white sands of a beautiful Greek island. This is Lesbos, the island once home to the famed poet Sappho and her devoted female disciples. Such is the impact of the poet's words and thoughts that the island has long since leant its name to any 'of the Sapphic persuasion' in giving them the epithet of 'lesbian'. Since such a time the island has become something of a pilgrimage site-cum-holiday spot for same sex female couples.

At this point in the garden of a small, pretty villa perched on a clifftop above the Mytilini waters one of Sappho's modern followers lay sunbathing naked beside her latest companion, her new lover. College dropout Persephone Cross' usually pale skin had tanned a golden brown colour, while her hair had grown out to hang around her shoulders, now coloured blue apart from a streak of undyeable brown above her forehead, the piercings in her nose and eyebrow glinted in the warm sunlight. She was more relaxed and contented than she had been in a long time and that was reflected in the clean slate that was her uninked, unblemished skin, save for the single tattoo on her arm. This tattoo was a near match for the similar one reflected on the opposite arm, the one belonging to the equally curvy female form sunning herself beside her.

Ms. Cross' partner, sometime photographer Gabrielle Herrison similarly soaked up the day's warmth, her matching pair of firm, naked breasts similarly tanned by the endless Greek summer. Her whole body, in fact, was a sort of mirror of her lover's. From the similar tattoo on the opposite arm to her cascades of dark wavy hair, a single red streak in the spot where her lover's was dark. The only great difference lay between her legs where Ms. Herrison's little penis and balls nestled between smooth feminine thighs, the only enduring reminder of a masculine past she had been only too happy to sever her ties with.

Life on Lesbos was easy and pleasant for the wealthy English lesbian and her hermaphroditic lover. There were sunny days, sandy beaches and warm seas. They enjoyed healthy delicious Greek food and plenty of wine and were well known to many of the island's all girl night spots. This had been what neither could have expected the day both decided to visit London's National Gallery on a grey, wet English morning, but then life can take some strange turns even without ancient secret societies and mythical curses.

Propping herself up on one shoulder, the newly feminised hermaphrodite turned to face her lover, her reclining body unconsciously adopting a posture reminiscent of many artistic renderings of classical reclining nudes, but one that was off special significance to the two of them. Her gaze took in all of her lover's naked body, still finding it hard to believe that she could look at her like this, let her gaze linger on those naked breasts and not be met with a scornful look or withering comeback.

"Do you ever miss it, Saphy?" she asked, "Your old life, I mean, England, Cambridge all that."

"Just Jane Cavendish," Saphy replied wistfully, "Her getting mixed up in this is the only thing I regret, but it's not something I can go back to. There's nothing else for me back there." She paused and her moody expression lightened into a fond smile, "Besides, Gabby" she went on, "I wouldn't give up any of this for anything."

Her hand gestured to show "any of this" took in the sunny skies, the sea beneath the cliff, the villa and Gabby stretched out beside her. Gabby smiled back and leaned in for a soft, slow lover's kiss.

"I've been thinking of a new tattoo," Saphy said, "New ink for my new life."

"What sort of thing?" asked Gabby.

"I wonder how much it would cost to get the Rokeby Venus."

They both laughed and kissed once more as Saphy reached over to caress the symbol magically inked into Gabby's arm, the circle with its cross and arrow that had first brought them together.

"And how are you liking yours?" she asked, her one hand still on the magically transformed ink while the other strayed between Gabby's legs.

"Oh, so good," Gabby replied, although whether in response to Saphy's question about the tattoo or the fact that Saphy's questing fingers had slipped beneath Gabby's masculine genitalia to stroke along the wet labia that now existed beneath was unclear.

This amorous moment was, however, quickly interrupted by the sound of a splash below the cliff on which they lay. A piece of stone had obviously crumbled from the cliff top and tumbled the long drop into where the surf smashed against the rocks below. Both Saphy and Gabby glanced across at the source of the sound and then spun all their attention towards it, open mouthed in shock and fear.

Matching looks of panic crossed both of their faces because the sight they saw emerge above the cliffs like a horrible mirage was one they had thought never to see again. First came bald heads and aggressive, determined scowling faces, then tall, imposing bodies and long, strong arms. Finally the deadly twin assassins Phobus and Deimus stood over them, their great, looming figures casting long shadows as they seemed to block out the sun itself. Even though they had obviously just climbed the sheer surface of the cliff and were dressed in long dark robes, neither seemed to have broken a sweat.

Gabby felt a surge of nausea welling up in her stomach and her breathing quicken to a point where she was almost hyperventilating. Lying naked in the open air she felt so exposed. Just moments earlier she had felt utterly carefree, her masculine parts were still stiffened from Saphy's stimulation of her feminine parts and now her mind was thrown into a wild panic. She suddenly felt very awkward in her new body, like it would not obey her. She was rooted to the spot. There was nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide, no way to fight back.

Looking across at Saphy, Gabby could see that she felt just as exposed and helpless. Saphy's eyes were darting around this way and that, desperately searching for a solution, for some hope of escape, and finding none. Just like Gabby, Saphy knew that, surprised, naked and on the floor, there was little they could do against the vicious, fearful killers that had manifested themselves before them.

"You did not think you could forever evade fear and dread," hissed one in his high pitched lisp.

"We have searched for you, avoided the powers of your keepers and we have come for you now, unholy abomination," the other responded.

One now stood right over Gabby and the other in the same position above Saphy, just as paralysed by fear. Each drew their wicked looking sacrificial knives and raised them above their heads so that they glinted in the sun. A look of triumphant nastiness played across both faces.

Gabby glanced across at Saphy. Taking Saphy's hand in hers, she closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable, waited for the final conclusion of their adventure. As she did so Gabby realised that she no longer felt scared or sad or alone. She felt fulfilled. After years of feeling like an outsider, of feeling awkward, like there was something missing or something not quite right, finally she had become somebody he was happy with. The story that had held such fascination for her as a small boy was now her own story. She had discovered a part of her that felt like her true self and had found someone to share that self with, someone who also now felt like a part of her. Everything that had happened to her recently had fulfilled everything she ever needed, even things she did not know she needed and, as Saphy had said, she wouldn't trade it for anything. She knew that even if she had to die she would have no regrets. She would die contented at last.

Thinking all this Gabby waited for the blade to fall, for her life to be savagely ended just when it had started to matter, but nothing happened. She opened her eyes to see the same figure standing over her. Something had changed though, the hand that had been holding the knife had dropped it and now, in its place, a white feathered arrow stuck through the flesh, it's razor sharp head projecting from the other side.

A moment after Gabby opened her eyes a second arrow sung through the air, striking the assassin in the chest and making him stagger backwards. As he stood, stunned, on the cliff top it was clear that he had not at all expected this, the element of surprise was turned against him. A third white feathered arrow struck him square in the forehead and he tumbled over the cliff edge. After a second's deathly silence a sound, half splash, half splat, signalled the assassin's end on the rocks below.

There was still the second man, however, advancing on Saphy with his knife raised. As Gabby opened her eyes, though, and the second arrow hit the first assassin, she noticed his companion's attention falter for a moment, not sure whether to persist with his own single mindedness or to assist his accomplice. Despite her position naked and vulnerable on the floor, Gabby seized this opportunity to take advantage of the assassin's momentary hesitation. Swinging her bare leg round, she hit him across the back of his calf just as he brought the knife down at Saphy, causing him to trip backwards and his swing to miss by an inch.

"Get away from her, you fucking freak," Gabby shouted angrily, seeming to rouse Saphy to action at the same time.

"Wow," said Saphy, impressed, "You really have taken on a little of me."

Saphy grabbed the other knife that the first assassin had dropped when the arrow had shot through his hand and stabbed it with all her might into the second assassin's thigh just as he recovered from Gabby's trip. The assassin stumbled backwards and the two naked young lovers sprung to their feet. As the assassin, blood leaking from the wound in his leg, staggered back to a standing position and began, now with some effort, to raise his knife once more, Gabby swung her right fist and connected violently with his jaw. As he spun round, before he could reorientate himself, Saphy landed a matching blow on the opposite side of his head.

Stumbling backwards, the assassin now stood right on the edge of the cliff top, balanced precariously and unable easily to keep steady with the knife wound in his thigh. At that point one further white feathered arrow sung through the air. It passed through the assassin's windpipe barely hindered and flew straight out the other side. A look of confusion crossed his face as blood bubbled up through the hole in his neck. Then, like his companion before him, he tumbled backwards, falling from the high cliff down to the rough waters below. And that was the end of the feared and dreadful assassins Phobus and Deimus, simply vulnerable mortal men after all.

Gabby and Saphy turned to look for the source of the arrows that had so ruthlessly dispatched their assailants. Sure enough from out of the tree line around the edge of the pleasant villa stepped Atalanta the naiad. Dressed, as ever, in her flowing white dress, a quiver full of arrows strapped to her back and a bow in her hand, she looked completely composed as if nothing unexpected had happened. She looked over the naked lovers but her expression displayed no great emotion. Then, for a moment, she gave them a smile, or the closest they ever saw to a smile from her.

"Don't forget," the naiad said, "We're always watching."

With that she disappeared without giving either the chance to respond. Gabby did not know quite whether to feel safer or uncomfortable with the idea that all they did on Lesbos would be watched by the naiads, but in that moment she was just glad to be alive. She felt a rush, a thrill that her life had been threatened once more and she had come through unscathed. If anything she felt more alive than ever. Looking across at Saphy, Gabby could tell that the same thought was on her mind.

"Now, where were we?" Saphy said, kissing Gabby on the lips, allowing her studded tongue to invade Gabby's mouth, pulling her into an embrace and pushing the naked mounds of their breasts together.

"But, they're watching," Gabby nervously indicated where the naiad had emerged from.

"So?" said Saphy as she fondled Gabby's breast, "Let's give them something to watch then."

Her kisses moved down from the soft lips of Gabby's mouth, over the curves of her body, to the other lips between her legs. Gabby felt weak at the knees as Saphy moved beneath her male parts to lick at her wetness. As her feminine sex became aroused, Gabby felt Saphy's hand on her manhood. Saphy began to stroke it, getting it stiffer and stiffer while still eating out her other parts at the same time. Gabby was in hermaphrodite heaven, experiencing arousal as a man and a woman all at once.

Her knees trembled and buckled, no longer able to support herself with all the pleasure Saphy was bringing to her. Gabby collapsed to the ground. Lying there naked, her erect penis sticking out from her feminine body, Gabby looked to see her lesbian lover leaning over her. Saphy opened her legs and straddled where Gabby lay, impaling herself on Gabby's hardness until their bodies were united once more.

As she looked down over the curve of her breasts to see Saphy, her once combative companion, now writhing her naked body above her, Gabby no longer cared who could be watching. She admired the way Saphy's breasts rose and fell as her breathing grew heavier and reached over to hold those warm orbs, stroking and fondling her. She was completely exposed, they both were, with nothing to hide behind any more. This was how their lives would be from now.

As Gabby reached the exquisite moment of her double climax she could only think of how happy she was. Happy to be alive. Happy to be here, here with Saphy. Happy to be her, Gabrielle Herrison, grateful recipient of the Hermaphrodite's Curse.

THE END

Author's Note:

- Thank you very much for reading the whole of my lengthy first story to appear here. I can only apologise for how long it took me to finish it! I appreciate any comments and feedback, good and bad, in order to make my next story better and am happy to reply to any comments or questions.

- Much of the art, architecture and history that appears in 'The Hermaphrodite's Curse' is based in fact. The 'Rokeby Venus' really is full of mysterious symbolism that has not been fully understood and Velazquez probably did base its composition on the 'Borghese Hermaphroditus'. Most of the literature that appears in the story is real, apart from that written by characters in it, and I have quoted from Algernon Charles Swinburne's 1863 poem 'Hermaphroditus', while the story of Hermaphroditus and Salmacis in the prologue is my own re-writing of the original story that appears in Ovid's 'Metamorphoses'. Anybody interested in the stories and history discussed here can find ample further information online. If you enjoyed this story go and read more about it.