Eros was a Greek

Eros was a Greek

N.B. This story was previously published as 'An Erotic Odyssey' in category 'Mature' on 03/04/21

The participants in any sexual activity described in this story are over 18.

"I'm 56" she said, "and you're getting me to do things that I've never done before." Whenever I start to think about the events that make up this story these are the words that always come to mind. But I'd better begin, as they say, at a beginning...

*

My mood wasn't 'arcadian'. I was driving through part of Greece called Arkadia -- the area reputed in antiquity to be a harmonious pastoral wilderness. In our time the word's been used as a synonym for Paradise. I was obviously letting Arkadia down.

I was happy to be back in Greece, but I was still adjusting to being without a wife who had been with me for 37 years, until she had slipped away less than a year before. She was twelve years older than me, but even so 71 was a young age to die.

I split my time in England between a proper home on the edge of Exmoor, and a tiny flat in the Bloomsbury area of London. I write for a living: biographies are my speciality, but I write for magazines as well, and occasionally venture into the overcrowded fiction market.

I had come over on the ferry from Kefalonia to Kyllini on the Peloponnese, the large almost-island land mass to the south of mainland Greece. On my way from the port I had stopped at Olympia and absorbed the atmosphere amongst the surviving ruins of the many temples and civic buildings of what was once a major religious centre for people from across Greece. I also stood on the games track and field below the stadium and imagined the competitions in front of the near 700 ft. long stadium, big enough to get a football pitch and an American football pitch, end to end, in front of the stadium. Here lies the inspiration for the modern Olympic Games.

Now I was approaching my overnight stop at Dimitsana, a small town about 5 kilometres south of the main road to Tripoli, where I had booked a room in one of the guest houses.

I always feel a mixture of excitement and trepidation coming to a new place and not knowing what the people will be like and whether the room will be one to tolerate or enjoy. I don't speak Greek except the most basic of greeting and guidebook phrases, and I am not one of those who expects every foreigner to speak English. Fortunately many do, and this was no exception. The English was limited, but what the hell? Thank you madam for making the effort.

A pleasant, rather old-fashioned room; clean, with serviceable bathroom and balcony with a stunning view down the valley. I was becoming contented. Even more so to find that the bed was comfortable.

It was time for an early supper and I went and asked Kyria Vassiliou, the proprietress, to suggest where I might eat a simple meal. She directed me to a taverna on the main street a short walk away. As I was about to open the door to leave, she called me back.

"We have lady from England staying here. I tell her same taverna."

I thanked her and went to find this taverna, intrigued to find this other guest. I found the stone-fronted restaurant, with tables still set outside in the evening sun. At one of them sat a woman of similar age to me. Her relationship to the table suggested that she was by no means a dwarf, and the top half was slim but not skinny; I couldn't see her legs without peering under the table and I didn't think she'd welcome my bending down to look. Her mid-brown hair was shoulder length, softly waved; her face was notable, not for its stunning perfection, but for a kindly warmth, and regular, well-proportioned features. In short, attractive if not beautiful -- at least to me.

"Milas anglikka?" I asked her.

"I should do, even if it is with a slight Merseyside accent," she answered smiling broadly.

"Do you understand us from Devon then?"

"Under protest, yes."

"Is this waiter service?" I asked; and then added "Would you mind if I joined you?"

"Yes and yes...I mean yes and no. Just sit down. I'd been hoping you might show up."

I had sat down. "What do you mean? Do you have some sort of clairvoyance?"

"Well I do, but in this instance Kyria Vassiliou told me she was expecting English Man, did I know him? When I said no, she kind of suggested that I might like her to point you in this direction anyway. Well, I thought, why not risk it -- not much to lose in the short term - so I said o.k."

"Regretting it now, I guess?"

"Do you do such self-effacement naturally, or is it fake?"

"Entirely natural. And admiring of your risk-taking."

"Hmmm, I wonder. Would you like to order? Mine is on the way, I hope."

I went inside and let them know that I had joined the lady at the table in front and would like to order. I was given a menu and was told that a waiter would be out shortly, so I wandered back out to join my new companion.

"Perhaps we should introduce ourselves before we indulge in any more playful banter?" I asked.

"I am happy to introduce myself as Sophie. My second name is Philippakis, but before you leap to the conclusion that I will be fluent in Greek I should point out that it is three generations since we lived in Greece."

"I'm pleased to meet you Sophie. I'm Tom Carpenter -- and I'm not safe with a saw or a hammer."

We held out hands to shake, which seemed oddly formal given the previous exchange, and the laid-back Mediterranean ambience.

The waiter arrived and I looked hurriedly through the menu. "I will have the rabbit, and some melitzana, and a glass of dry white wine -- a local one please?"

"Very good. Will you have yours with him, kyria?"

"Yes o.k., I'll wait."

The waiter left and I looked across to see Sophie smiling. I thanked her for waiting.

"Well I had ordered practically the same thing, so I figured they'd probably be ready at the same time anyway. Do you like rabbit? If it's wild it is a bit of a lottery, depending on whether it is a grandfather or a luscious young buck. As with humans."

"I only met you about 15 minutes ago and you're already being provocative. And yes, I do like a luscious young doe," I responded.

"It seems that our new relationship is already circumscribed then?"

"I think that I would rather move on to an alternative subject. How about giving me your life history in five interruptible sentences?"

"O.k. Born 1963 in Cheshire. Father a production engineer for a company that made tools for the motor trade, mother a hospital social worker -- almoner I think they used to call them. Educated in a comprehensive in a very well-off area so it wasn't really comprehensive at all. Scraped into Oxford to read history and been there ever since doing history. Married, divorced, two children. I think that's 5, depending on your approach to punctuation."

"Mine's extremely strict. I suppose I'd better reciprocate. Born 1959 in Exeter, Devon. Father a school teacher at local progressive independent school, mother a solicitor. Educated at a local comprehensive, sounds like yours. Scraped into London Birkbeck College to read English with writing and been writing ever since. Widowed since 2018, three children."

The food arrived. We looked at each other and laughed -- our plates looked identical and we probably had a glass of the same wine.

"Do you live in London now?" she asked.

"Some of the time. But I have a house near Dulverton on the southern edge of Exmoor. My children come and go from there, and I stay there and write when I can get a bit of peace and quiet."

"What do you write?"

"Mainly biography. Sometimes of significant and interesting people, and sometimes of insignificant and uninteresting people. Thankfully, the latter do not appear under my name -- they're 'ghosted' for celebs. I also write on the back of envelopes, vertically on horizontal shopping lists, on railway tickets and paper napkins. I used to write on lavatory paper when it was smooth and shiny, but you can't find that anywhere now."

"In other words you are addicted."

"I can't stop if that's what you mean. It's a mental facility that's lost its brakes. I even tend to talk in written sentences, I'm told."

"Did your late wife cope with this? I mean was she used to the pauses while you crafted the next utterance? And did she ever feel that her life had been submerged in flood waters of words?"

"Yes, yes and definitely yes."

"And now you miss her?"

Pause.

"This is difficult. I came here, not to forget, because that's impossible, but to move forward the process of adjustment; to feel that I was established and occupying a different space in a new existence. I don't want to be rude, but..."

"I've been unintentionally insensitive. First night in the Peloponnese and you are being quizzed about bereavement that you are still dealing with. I'm really sorry."

"Don't be. I'm just letting you know why it isn't my favourite topic of conversation at the moment. And I certainly don't want to burden you with the emotions which might be fomented by encouraging me to poke around in my feelings."

This exchange was interspersed with pauses while we put away our rabbit stew and aubergine. We thus avoided spitting bits of food at each other, and we had finished in time to discuss a dessert before the waiter appeared. I had been persuaded to try kataifi, which was clearly a favourite of Sophie, but which I had never tried.

"Do you know this part of Greece?" she asked.

"About 12 years ago we spent a couple of weeks really wandering around the Peloponnese. My wife had worked in various parts of Greece with a holiday company in the early seventies, including Tolon which, needless to say, had changed spectacularly in the intervening 40 years, from a sleepy fishing village to a full-blown holiday resort."

"Is there anywhere you'd like to revisit?"

"There is one place we went to which I would like to revisit, not as a sentimental journey, but because it is an exquisitely beautiful place. It is the Heraion of Perachora."

"I have heard of it, but never been there" said Sophie. "Wasn't it excavated in the 1930s by a British archaeologist?"

"That's right -- Humfry Payne, husband of the film critic Dilys Powell. He was Director of the British School of Archaeology in Athens."

"How come you know so much about it?"

"Dilys Powell wrote a very beautiful book called 'An Affair of the Heart', which was about her love affair with Payne and with Greece, and time she spent in Perachora."

"Words again then?"

"Oh yes!"

The kataifi appeared, with an appearance like a golden monochrome birdsnest. I liked it.

"I haven't managed to leave you much space to tell me about yourself. Are you still at Oxford Uni?"

"No. I was for a long time, but then I decided life was too comfortable for me - and therefore for my students. So I moved to Oxford Brookes, which is much more dynamic and adventurous and still manages to be pretty rigorous academically. My specialism is Europe in the 1930s, and I contribute to other degree courses on 'history of art' and 'history and politics'."

"You sound as if your working life is a happy one?" I suggested.

"It is: I like the staff and students; I get nice long holidays; and I don't need to be there for a full working week. I've got to work for another 11 years to get my full state pension, so it was important to be content in my job."

"And what about your personal life?" I enquired.

"Children are now 30ish and in theory none of my concern...but somehow, until I'm old enough for them to start behaving like parents and treating me like a child, parenting never closes down."

"Totally agree. Shall we pay up and wander back to reassure Kyria Vassiliou that we haven't set on one other -- in any way?"

"A good idea. Do you think we might extend our conversation sometime?" Sophie asked.

"Well we haven't talked about what we intend doing over the next week or two. Apart from my visit to Perachora, I want to go to Mycenae, and maybe stay somewhere near Nafplion, or possibly Tripoli. Then Monemvassia and judging by my last experience one needs to book in advance. Then on to the Mani, and then who knows?"

"That all sounds lovely. I'm still deliberating. I think that I might stay here another night and do some walking around here tomorrow. If you are not in a hurry perhaps you'd join me and we can decide whether we are compatible enough to move on together a stage or two?" She sounded quite interested in the prospect, and I think that I was too.

So we strolled back to the guesthouse and were greeted by a smiling Kyria Vassiliou. "You are friends?" she asked.

"We weren't, but I think maybe now," I said, looking at Sophie. She shrugged, and then grinned.

"Can we have two glasses of wine please Kyria -- a Moschofilero dessert if you have one?"

Out came a bottle and two glasses: "My name is Kalika, you are Tom and Sophie? Well here enjoy glass of wine from Peloponnese," and she poured out liquid of the palest pink.

"Thank you Kalika," and turning to me "This is on me. I hope you like the occasional glass of sweet wine?"

We sat on one of the sofas by the bar. The wine was delicious. I'm not a great fan of sweet wines, but this had flavour as well as sweetness, and I complimented Kalika on it. There was one other couple in the bar, but it did seem quiet.

"Have you decided what you'll do tomorrow?" asked Sophie.

"I'd like to take up your offer of being a walking companion."

"Excellent. I'll go and get my map and show you where I thought we might walk." She returned in a couple of minutes and spread the map out on the table.

"First off, what's your walking like? You've probably guessed from the topography that the walking can be challenging."

"I do regular walks on Exmoor and the North Devon coast, but neither of them is quite like this! On flat terrain I can still manage 30 kilometres in a day, but I guess you could halve that in this environment."

"O.k., then I think it's best to stick to an established trail and do an out-and-back that will take about 5 hours. If either of us are struggling we can foreshorten it. The Menalon trail is possibly Greece's best known. I'm very keen to try at least a bit of it, and maybe I'll come back some day."

"Sounds good to me. I sense that you are a keen walker?"

"Whenever I can. I've had a few scrambling holidays in Snowdonia, and I've done sections of the south coast path. Oxford is lovely for strolls along river and canal, but otherwise short on inspiring landscape within walking distance. Compared with Bath, for example, it is impoverished in that way."

"So we're going to do a section of the Menalon trail?"

"Yes, walking towards Stemnitsa, which is where the trail starts its 70+ km. route, winding around gorge and mountain."

Sophie showed me on the map and said we would aim to reach the Philosopher's Monastery, where there were actually two monasteries, separated by 500m horizontally, and a hundred metres vertically. She'd done her homework rather better than I had.

"I think it would be a good idea to turn in now," she said, "it seems to have been a very full day and I'd like to start in the morning looking like an early bird, and not like something left over from the previous evening!"

I went to bed full of thoughts of a kind which had not entered consciousness for a long time. Having been married to someone 12 years older than myself, to feel a strong attraction for someone slightly younger than myself and give myself permission not to feel guilty was an unfamiliar sensation. And I'd only known her 4 hours!

I was downstairs promptly next morning, but the early bird was already there.

"Good morning. Uncomfortable bed then?" I asked.

"Not at all. I just like the early morning."

"What did the sun look like when it peered over the horizon: surprised?"

"No, it often finds me 'alone and palely loitering'. I like loitering but I wish I wasn't so pale."

"The knight was victim of the cruelty of the beautiful woman. She had no cause to be pale or loiter... Of course there might have been a cruel knight somewhere, whose deeds went unrecorded." I suppose that made me sound a bit of a know-all.

"Well thank you for that little lesson, professor. What I'd really like is to have a beautiful body the colour of Devon sand, unclothed of course, and liberated in every way to bathe in the sun of daybreak."

"Gosh, I think I'll have some muesli." I gasped.

"Just sit down and stop being...well, provocative. No, on second thoughts, don't stop being provocative: it's really quite enlivening when unaccompanied by malice."

"Interesting thought" (through a mouthful of muesli) "that the intention is more significant than the action itself. A philosopher would have a field day with that: perception and reality and all that. Feed in as well the importance of the predisposition of the listener..."

"Have some fruit Plato and tell me something mundane."

"Not many stinging insects here... yet."

"Let's be serious for a moment. Are you up for this expedition?"

"Yes, of course. I meditated on it overnight but haven't recanted."

"So your sixty-year-old little legs will manage o.k.?"

"Empiricism will inform!"

*

We set off on the trail about 40 minutes later. In case my readers are worried I must confirm that I always travel with a pair of hiking boots, and Sophie was well equipped. We both carried skinny rucksacks with a few supplies -- particularly water.

The trail is what they call 'moderate' difficulty: it has some inclines and descents which are fairly steep and the path is quite narrow in places, but under foot is a reasonable surface of broken stone.

"You've probably realised that the return is mostly ascending, so we should allow for that in deciding when to turn round," Sophie said.

A lot of the time we could walk side by side, and the path was not busy with hikers, but sometimes it was single file. The scenery was spectacular: a wooded gorge of the Lousios river, the occasional blossom still on trees, a few isolated buildings, and the accompaniment of the sound of tumbling water.

Along one stretch of wider path I took Sophie's hand. We walked on.

"Why are you holding my hand?" she asked.

"I've no idea. Do you think it's a bit proprietorial?"

There was a pause. Then: "I don't think so. I'm not used to it though. I have never had a hand-holding sort of a relationship. Well, I probably did once, but we didn't want to show ourselves in that way. I'll perhaps tell you about it later."

"I'm inclined to find that a bit sad, but I probably shouldn't," I said.

"No, I think that isn't unreasonable. I sometimes watch mature couples walking hand-in-hand and they do seem to have a bond which is rarely in evidence with others. Can I conclude that you are used to hand-holding?"

"Not indiscriminately! But I do have a natural tendency to want use touch to say something that is not easily expressed in words; it might be a hand on the shoulder, or a clasping of an arm, a kiss on the cheek, and sometimes a full hug. I once embarrassed my children -- well not really, I think they'd walked on, suspecting I might be going to do something they'd rather I didn't do."

"What was that?"

"Well it was me and the two sons: the three of us had just had a lovely meal served by a delightful French waitress, who was standing by our route out. I went up to her and said, 'if it wasn't for the fact that I would be accused of sexual harassment I'd like to give you a hug.' 'You can hug me if you like' she said. So I did. Lovely."

"Was that the only time you embarrassed your children?"

"Good God no!"

"I think you are a gentle soul. Would you agree?"

"For me, a 'gentle soul' is someone who has kindness and generosity as part of their modus operandi. I don't. I am gentle with people who deserve it, not otherwise."