The Brotherhood of Eros

"Hades and Persephone," said Poppy. "I suppose you know the story? The god of the underworld snatched away the goddess of spring in what the poet Homer called an 'unwilling marriage'. So many painters have blushed away from the meaning of this, but I was happy to work with an artist brave enough to embrace it."

The artwork that Poppy was demonstrating was a lush oil painting that extended almost from floor to ceiling, layered with heavy shadows over an ivory-focused color scheme that resembled a bone-decorated crypt to evoke the underworld. The focus of the painting was indeed brave, although others might use the word 'obscene': an unambiguous rape, with Persephone's arms held down by grinning specters while Hades impaled her his on his fully detailed phallus. If Persephone herself did not look like a blushing maiden but a woman with full breasts and generous hips and the faint creases of laugh lines by her eyes, that was because Poppy Bristow had posed for it at the age of thirty-one. The mad painter Virgil Christoff had been beguiled by her golden hair and flushed skin, but moreover by her willingness- nay, eagerness- to pose for sketches while in the midst of intercourse with the brutish, silver-haired gamekeeper modeling for Hades. The rest of Christof's artist club The Brotherhood of Eros had proclaimed it a masterpiece, and it was immediately banned every time it was publicly exhibited.

The young man from the university (Khan, had he said that was his name?) was looking at the painting with wide eyes, magnified by his glasses. When he looked back to Poppy, his cheeks were rather pinker than before. She decided to intensify his adorable discomfort by taking his hand and physically pulling him over to the next painting.

"Persephone and Adonis," she said. "This one really must be viewed together with the last. As I'm sure a well-read gentleman like yourself would know, Persephone and Aphrodite both lusted for a beautiful mortal man, and though it was Aphrodite whom he loved, Persephone claimed him for an equal part of the year." In this painting, an auburn-haired rent boy had been recruited to play Adonis, bound and gagged in shadows as Persephone straddled him, aroused enough to penetrate her despite his clear terror. Poppy as Persephone was once again naked, but this time she wore a crown of skeletal ivory. "You see," she said, "the innocent captive has become the libertine captor. It was the only way she could survive."

Adonis's model had been worth every penny they'd paid him, she thought fondly. Although it had been dearest Virgil who had found him, she'd gifted him an emerald necklace afterwards, rendering his plump lips and cunning tongue stammering in gratitude. He'd deserved it; it wasn't every young man who could make an erection last an entire painting session. Glancing over at Mr. Khan from beneath fluttering eyelashes, she wondered if similar steel might hide beneath his delicate frame. There was only one way to find out.

"I wouldn't sell these paintings for all the world, but if you really are interested in the banned works of the Brotherhood of Eros, I have a great deal more to show you!" She took gentle hold of his cravat and pulled him down the hallway, past some artful sculptures of fauns and nymphs at play. "If I continue in my career as a muse for the Brotherhood," she said with smirk, "I shall someday cover my entire house in only the finest art! But for now, this hallway will have to do." The next two paintings she'd brought him over to were smaller than the last, but no less brave; Mr. Khan looked from one to the other, back to Poppy, and then down to the bosom which the paintings displayed so prominently. Poppy shifted in her stance to push her décolletage closer to her guest.

"Atalanta and Peleus," she said of the painting which showed her wrestling, naked, with a tanned blond man, evidently winning as she pushed his mouth towards her pubis. "Artemis and Iphigenia," she said of the next, wherein she lay in a moonlit garden, her breasts being kissed by a slender brunette. "Peleus over there is actually one of the Brotherhood- a poet, unfortunately- and Iphigenia was his wife, so we were able to get these sketches done one right after the other! There are so many legends which don't make it into the paintings of Reubens, but they are no less inspirational."

Mr. Khan cleared his throat and mumbled something indistinct, but Poppy put one finger over his sweet pink lips to quiet him. "Wait," she said, "I simply must show you my favorite of all!"

Past a stained glass window with a depiction of a bowl of glistening fruit lay a work that shone with glorious red and gold and all the shades between. The jeweled frame on its own was a sight to see, but nobody who took a look at the painting thought about the frame for even a moment. Handsome Mr. Khan now had his mouth hanging open, putting her in mind of a puppy.

"Now this one was a more creative interpretation of the classics." Poppy took a step towards her guest, leaving only an inch between then. "We titled it, The Trojan War Averted."

Glancing back up at the painting, she smiled to recall an afternoon of opium and wine, pressed between the delicate Paris fucking her from the front, and the handsome Menelaus with his cock up her ass. The painting captured Helen with her head tossed back, delighting in her power over both, but primarily occupied with an appropriately mythological climax.

"Helen was the daughter of Zeus, after all." Poppy breathed her words against Mr. Khan's ear, brushing away a lock of his dark hair. "How could she have possibly been satisfied by only one man? The woman must have been," (she emphasized her words with a deep sigh), "utterly insatiable!"

The young man from the university spun around towards her, his face bright red and with a bulge any of the models would have admired. She feigned surprise when he shoved her down to the floor, and all talk of art was forgotten.