Jewel of Eros

Copyright ©, 2003: All characters, events, and text in this story are purely fictional, and are created by and the sole property of the author. All rights reserved.

Writer’s Note: Happy holidays, dear readers. This piece is long, but Jeanine is quite a gal, and her story needed this much. It felt good to fantasize about sunny Aegean islands in the wintertime. Everyone should taste the magic of Greece sometime; he or she will be changed. Consider the usual warning: do not read this if you are not an adult.

* * * * *

It is now January 7. Christmas and New Year’s festivities are over, but my two business partners and I have one last celebration here in our office – our consulting business had just received its first major contract from an import/export firm in Athens, Greece. The three of us were Bryn Mawr college classmates fifteen years ago and close friends today. We all followed the familiar pattern of marrying college sweethearts, supporting hubbies’ careers, having babies, etc., etc. For over a year, we met weekly to collaborate on drafting business plans, just to keep alive the fantasy that one day we would start up our own consulting company.

Finally, last October, we were able to make that dream come true. We’re confident of our abilities and our business plan, but we know that our existence and financing is all because last June I had the very good fortune of meeting Aristotle Thermopodi. You my not have heard of him, but he is the CEO of one of the largest investment banking firms in southern Europe. Because of Ari, and my passion for everything Grecian, we call our firm ‘Tria Graci,’ and our business cards and stationery are highlighted with a reproduction of Sir Edward Burne-Jones’s painting of the Three Graces, in the classical Greek style. Business cards with three nude women on them gets a lot of attention. Even our e-mail addresses follow this theme. Katherine, our international patent lawyer is aglaia@___; Elena, our financing consultant is euprhosene@___ and I, the marketing strategist, am thalia@___. By the way, my name is Jeanine Jamieson, and I live with my husband Alec and two boys in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania.

The elation of hearing that we were selected by our client, plus sharing two bottles of champagne between three women, had made us pretty giddy and loose-tongued. In the back of my mind, though, I was feeling more than a little disappointed that Ari had not even sent a Christmas card, let alone a present, as he had promised in his last e-mail in early December. My blue thoughts were interrupted as I heard my name.

“Come on, Jeanine,” wheedled Elena. “You simply have to tell us the real story of how you met Ari and why he has been so generous to you. Come on. It’s only fair, since we let you select the company name and logo. People are forever asking me why that name. They think we’re lesbians, for God’s sake.”

“Just do what I do when asked,” I replied. “Tell them, ‘One time, Jeanine did Aristotle Thermopodi a favor by helping his mistress avoid being arrested as a prostitute.’ That remark usually stuns them into silence, and they stop asking further questions. Actually, that statement happens to be true.”

Katherine put down her plastic glass. “No! It can’t be! Knowing you and your sometimes outlandish sense of humor, I always thought you said that just to pull people’s legs.”

Elena refilled our glasses. “That could make a rich man grateful, but still not be as generous as your Ari has been. Come on, Thalia, it’s time you let us other two Graces in on the whole story. What things did you do to earn that much gratitude?”

The alcohol was having its effect on my inhibitions, and I felt that I could trust these two to keep secrets. We had made a pact that ‘what happens on the road, stays on the road.’

“Well, I can tell you that the first night that Alec and I were at Ari’s villa, I fucked Ari’s brains out, while Alec screwed Ari’s mistress. Also, I posed as a CIA agent, and conned a Frenchman out of a business deal.”

“Wow! That was some week! You didn’t hold back, did you?” Elena remarked.

“Well, Alec and I believe that Thalia, not Jeanine, enjoyed a lot. I know that sounds like rationalization, but you would have to have been there to understand. There are only four people who know the complete story of the most exciting five days of my life – Aristotle; his mistress, Olympe; my husband, Alec; and myself. If I tell you the whole story, this must, absolutely, must, be on the road.”

Katherine and Elena pledged their confidences.

“OK, I trust you,” I replied, and began to tell the whole story.

* * * * *

As they say, it all began last June, when my husband and I celebrated our fifteenth wedding anniversary. We left our two kids with their grandparents and took a trip to Greece and some Aegean islands. Alec and I had met in our senior year after I returned from a year abroad at the university in Athens. I longed to return, but the years kept sweeping by. However, the engineering company which Alec helped start up had prospered, and at long last, I was making my dream of a return to Greece come true.

I hoped that seeing the beauty spots of Greece, and being by ourselves in the Mediterranean sunshine, would rejuvenate our lives together. In retrospect, I realize that the rejuvenation that both of us wanted most was our sex lives. And that certainly happened on the tiny island of Xirokis, off the southeast coast of Greece.

After a week-long tour of the mainland, we decided to strike out on our own, and explore some of the islands in the Aegean. We flew a small jet from Athens to our first site, the island of Spanika. That was where Alec and I met Olympe, or, to be more correct, she met me.

We were approaching a bistro, which had those classic outdoor round tables and curved metal chairs under Cinzano umbrellas, when we noticed a very attractive woman arguing with a local policeman. She reminded me of Melina Mercouri, with salon-blonde hair, and large breasts and hips over slender legs. Just as we were passing her and the policeman, the woman looked at us, and ran over to me.

“Thalia!” she cried out in accent-filled English. “At last you’re here.”

She embraced me, and gave me the customary European kisses on both cheeks, at the same time whispering in my ear.

“My name is Olympe Thanodokos. Help me, I beg of you.”

The policeman halted the greeting, pulling the woman away from me. The woman looked pleadingly at Alec, then me.

“Thalia, there’s been a silly mistake,” she said. “This policeman thinks that I’m a prostitute soliciting business here. I told him that I was waiting for you, but he doesn’t believe me. Will you and your husband help me straighten this out? Please?”

“You know this woman?” the policeman asked me in a gruff voice and halting English.

“Of course, I do,” I answered in Greek, which immediately made the policeman back down from his bullying manner. “She is Olympe Thanodokos, from Athens.”

“Papers, please,” he demanded, still not convinced.

By then, a crowd of curious locals had gathered, and some began to berate the policeman for rousting a beautiful woman, calling him the worst possible epithet for a Greek civil servant – ‘Fascisti.’ Trying to save face, the policeman handed back our passports, swaggering with confidence.

“You are lying, Madame,” he declared triumphantly. “I distinctly heard this woman calling you by the name of Thalia. Yet the name in your passport says Jeanine Sally Jameson, from Pennsylvania, United States. Explain if you can.”

“Olympe and I were in university together in Athens years ago,” I said. “We had given each other nicknames. Mine is Thalia; hers is Aglaia. Do you know the Three Graces from your ancestor’s mythology, officer?”

The crowd recognized the body language of defeat of the policeman, and they cheered as he reluctantly spun around and hurried away. After he turned a corner, Olympe, the woman, hugged me gratefully.

“Oh, thank you so much,” she gushed. “You saved me from a great deal of embarrassment. Please, let me buy us all a drink. I need one desperately.”

We sat down at the bistro, and the waiter brought us three red Dubonnets. Olympe gulped hers down in one swallow and ordered another. She had calmed down by the time the refill arrived to sip this one, and told us her story.

“I don’t know what would have happened to me, if you two had not arrived. I know that it looks unusual for a woman to walk alone in rural Greece. The man I am with is down at the harbor, looking for someone to fix our boat motor.”

Alec and I looked at each other, communicating in the way that old married couples can that we had just been conned. We sipped our Dubonnet, and let her go on.

“That was so very clever of you to think of the names of the Graces. Thalia just came out of my mouth, to catch your attention. My heart sank when he caught me in the name thing. I would have died from embarrassment if I had been arrested as a whore.”

“Are you?” I asked. “If not, why didn’t you simply take the policeman down to your husband to untangle the mess.”

Olympe blushed, and smiled bashfully at Alec and me. “I am not a whore, but the man I am with is not my husband. I am supposed to be up north, attending my aunt’s funeral.”

Alec looked at me, and then we both broke up laughing.

“This has been the most fun I’ve had on the vacation, Alec. I feel like we’re in some comic opera farce. Oh, by the way, Aglaia, let me introduce you to Alec Jameson. Alec, this Olympe.”

There is something really sexy about the eyes of Greek women, and Olympe’s were especially large and bright. Her smile melted Alec.

“I am pleased to meet you, Aglaia,” he said. “But I think that I should be calling you Aphrodite, because you are so beautiful, and were also attended by my dear Thalia, here.”

‘Wow!’ I thought. ‘Alec is really coming on to this woman.’

“Ah, Alec, so you know your mythology as well as how to flirt with a woman,” said Olympe, while beaming her sexiest smile at my husband. “But, please, call me Olympe, otherwise I will get confused.”

She turned to me. “For you, though, I think that I will not use Jeanine. It sounds so American. We are in Greece, so I will call you Thalia. Such a handsome and clever man you are with, my dear Thalia. Mine is too, and also very rich. He was taking me for a week at his little villa on Xirokis over there, but, unfortunately, we must go back.”

“Why is that, Olympe?” Alec asked.

She smiled. “It appears many people use the dead relative tale during the holidays. Ari, that is the man I am with, has a housekeeper and her son taking care of Ari’s villa. When we arrived yesterday, they informed us that they had to go to the mainland for the funeral of her aunt. I do not cook, and there are no cafes on Xirokis, so we were using the motorboat to come over here to Spanika for breakfast. Alas, the motor quit just as we entered the harbor, and Ari couldn’t get it re-started. He is not very mechanical, and I do not believe that he will find anyone to help him. I had such high hopes for this getaway from my fat and stupid husband.”

I patted Olympe’s hand sympathetically. “I feel the same way, Olympe. For years I have dreamed about coming back to these islands and being romantic and sensual, but so far our tour has been dull.”

Like most males, but especially male engineers, Alec jumps in with both feet to try and fix every problem that a woman expresses.

“Olympe, let’s go to Ari’s boat. I’m pretty good at fixing car engines. Boats can’t be that much different. And Jeanine loves to cook Mediterranean. Maybe we can help.”

I glared at him for volunteering us into this mess. Olympe walked us down to the pier where Ari’s boat was tied up. He was not there, but the deck cover for the inboard engine was open, and a toolbox was lying in the cockpit. Alec stepped into the boat to take a look, and began taking things apart with a socket wrench. Olympe and I left him happily getting greasy, going to a patisserie for something to eat. We returned in about an hour to find engine pieces lying on the boat cushions, and Alec holding an oily gizmo of some sort.

Alec showed us the piece, announcing that the problem was the fuel filter. He went on to explain that he needed some clean fabric, preferably nylon without lint, to use as filter fabric replacement. Olympe looked helpless, and the silly situation on a Greek island made me impulsively do something that astonished even myself. I elicited some whistles from the workers around the dock by lifting up my skirt, and slipping off my bikini panties. Smoothing out my skirt, and glaring at the leering locals, I handed Alec the panties, asking if this nylon would do.

It did perfectly, and a few minutes later, the filter was replaced, and the engine ran perfectly. Olympe jumped up and down excitedly, and hugged Alec. Then she gave him a wet, open-mouthed kiss of gratitude. Before I could howl my jealous displeasure, everyone on the dock heard a baritone voice shouting in Greek.

“What the hell are you doing?”

The voice came from a man striding angrily down to the boat from the square. He was in his late forties, tall, well-tanned with perfect white teeth, wide shoulders and slim hips. The dark hair on his head looked perfectly razor-cut, with just a twinge of silver over his ears. He was wearing cream-colored silk slacks, Gucci loafers, and a melon-colored short sleeve shirt. The shirt had three buttons open, displaying matching hair on chest and arms. I felt like I was Mary Martin, and Ezio Pinza was strolling up to sing ‘Some Enchanted Evening.’ My insides melted. Olympe released Alec at once, and ran over to the man, who was clenching his fists.

“Darling, we have been blessed by the gods. This woman rescued me from being arrested as a prostitute, and this clever man has fixed your boat with his wife’s panties. They are bored with their tour, and Thalia says she wants to cook for us, so could we please, please invite them to stay with us for a few days?”

He blinked with bewilderment, then quickly regained his composure. It took a little time for him to glean the circumstances from us, but soon all was made clear to Aristotle Themopodi, Olympe’s lover. Ari softened considerably after he realized that we were not judgmental about his relationship with Olympe. He would not take no for an answer to Olympe’s invitation to spend the next five days with them at his villa, dispatching a local to go to the hotel and pick up our luggage.

“Olympe and I are very pleased to have you and Alec as our guests,” he said. “But it appears as if she has dragooned you into work on your holiday. I promise you that there will be more play and good times, my beautiful Thalia. We must repay you for the kindness you have bestowed on us.”

We made a trip to the village open air market, where Ari and I selected fish, fruit, and vegetables for dinner, and Olympe and Alec got wine, bread, and cheese. That was when I learned that Ari, as he wished us to call him, was a director of one of the largest investment banking firms in all of southern Europe. He was adept in drawing out my personal feelings, and I shared with him my ambition to return to the work force, perhaps in European marketing.

By the time we carried our sacks and boxes back to Ari’s boat, our luggage from the hotel had been stowed aboard. I crossed my fingers for my fuel-filtering panties as Ari started the engine and opened the throttle for the one-hour trip to Xirokis.

The Aegean water was blue and dead calm, and the afternoon sun was scintillating off the tiny ripples and wake of the boat. The steady purr of the engine, along with the warm sun, sea air, and Olympe’s outstanding wine, soon had their effect, and the conversation and air became charged with sexual innuendo and carefree behavior. It was fun to try to meet the challenges of Alec’s and Ari’s flirtatious remarks. They teased me for wearing a bra, but no panties, so I giggled, and then reached under my cotton knit shirt to unhook it and slip it out one of the sleeves. I must have had more wine than I thought, for I stood up in the boat, and flung the bra into the ocean.

“I guess I won’t be needing one of those for the rest of this trip, will I, darling?” I said to Alec. He put his arm around me to snuggle against his chest.

We arrived on Xirokis about two in the afternoon, and walked a half mile to Ari’s villa. The building was all wood stained light blue, with two windows facing the road in front. It hung out on long posts over a steep hillside, which plunged down to a black sand beach. Once inside, I was stunned by the gorgeous view. The main floor was one great room, with the kitchen on the front wall, and a native stone fireplace running front to back on left side. The back wall was entirely glass, facing north and providing a spectacular view of the Aegean, even back to the mainland. Sliding doors on the left opened onto a wide wooden deck, which had stairs down to a man-made flat on the hillside. On the right side of the great room, an open spiral stairway led to a loft floor, housing two small bedrooms separated by a common half-bath. Olympe explained that the shower was under the deck for water pressure and ease of rinsing off beach sand.

Ari set our luggage at the top of the spiral staircase. Olympe told me that I should use the left bedroom, and hers was the right. It didn’t escape either Alec or myself that the sleeping arrangements for the men might not be fixed. I waited for Alec to say something, but he just smiled at me and put our two bags in the left bedroom. I took the opportunity to get some panties from my bag and don them.

Olympe then suggested that we all cool off and swim on the beach. She said that nudity was optional but most common. We walked to the beach area below Ari’s villa, where he had erected a large open tent to shade us from the brilliant sun. The contrast of black sand against the blue water was spectacular, inviting us to be as hedonistic as we could. I observed that the other people on the beach were nude, including entire families. I deliberately took off my skirt and top, and slipped off my panties in front of Ari, just to see Alec’s reaction. He grinned and winked at me, then unbuttoned Olympe’s dress before dropping his pants.

The four of us swam, waded, and cavorted with each other, before returning to the tent to relax on blankets and towels. I lay down on my back, resting on my elbows and observing Alec splashing and running in the water with Olympe. Eventually, Olympe went strolling with Ari, and Alec joined me under the tent. The sight of his nude body next to mine instinctively turned my thoughts to sex. It must have been the same for Alec, as he traced his fingers across my breasts, down my belly, and twisted my pubic hair.

“Jeanine, this is turning into some vacation,” he whispered. “A week ago, I would never have dreamed of seeing you nude on a beach with some other people we’ve only just met. And you know what? Your tits, ass, and pussy are just as beautiful as Olympe’s.”

“Thank you for that, Alec. And your butt and cock are being admired by more than just Olympe, you know.”

“Tell me the truth, Jeanine. Would you consider it cheating if we had sex with other partners on this island? We are aliens in this beautiful place, with an opportunity to taste some ancient, sensual traditions.”

I thought for a moment, then said, “Cheating means not playing by the rules, Alec. By the rules our neighbors use back home, yes, we would be cheating. But, here on this isolated Greek island, I believe there are different rules. The feelings you and I are having about other cocks and pussies are simply a display of our sexual appetites. Those feelings won't break the bond we have with each other, will they?”