By Qohelet
NC17: This story contains scenes of graphic sexual activity between a man and a woman. If you are under 18, or if this is illegal where you live, please go away.
Iolaus is a character from classic Greek myth who has been temporarily legally appropriated by Universal Studios and Pacific Renaissance Pictures, Ltd. No copyright infringement is intended.
I was working my usual shift at the shelter intake desk when one of our regulars brought a new face in for the night. The newbie was slight, but strongly built, with cloudy blue eyes and tangled blond hair. I suspected he was a chronic schizophrenic—he had that "I don’t belong here" look, and seemed vaguely nervous. Kevin, the regular, brought the new guy over and sat him down.
I put an intake form into the printer and turned to him. "Hi, I’m Janie. What’s your name?"
"Iolaus," he said.
"Eeolus what?"
"Iolaus of Corinth, I guess."
I typed ‘Eeolus F. Corinth’. "OK, Eeolus, how long have you been in the City?"
"What city? I mean which one?"
"Don’t you know where you are?" I was beginning to be worried. Maybe I should call the psych ward at General and see if they’re missing a Mr. Corinth.
"I’m afraid I don’t. This place looks completely unfamiliar." He looked all around as if he sought some landmark.
"Do you remember where you were yesterday?"
"Yesterday . . . let’s see, I was on the way to Athos to meet Hercules and Jason."
"You mean Atherton?"
"No, I mean Athos. It’s near Sparta."
"In Greece? Long flight. When did you get in?" If this guy can afford to fly in from Greece, how come he’s got nowhere to stay?
"This afternoon, I think." He hesitated a minute, and ran his hand through his hair. "Where am I? What’s the name of this place?"
"You’re in San Francisco." I finished filling out the form without asking any more questions; it was pretty obvious he wasn’t going to be a fountain of information.
He really wasn’t too bad looking, and mostly clean, or lots cleaner than the guys we usually get in here. Still, who knows how long it would be before he could have another shower, so I felt I should suggest one. I pointed him over to the cots and said, "There’s your bunk. Blankets are on it, and a couple of towels if you want a shower. Dinner is in about an hour. Hope you like turkey."
He looked strangely sad as he went over to sit on the cot. For quite a while, he just sat there, looking around as if he was trying to make sense of it all. I started to feel sorry for him, sad-eyed and silent. I beckoned to Nathan, one of the other shelter workers. "Hey Nate, show Mr. Corinth where the showers are, would you?"
About five minutes later I heard a crash in the men’s locker room and Nate came flying out the door. I jumped up from the desk and ran to see what was wrong. The new guy was standing in the middle of the gang shower, naked as a jaybird, crouched down and waving his arms like he was Bruce Lee. Four more of our guests were lying at various locations on the floor cradling parts of their bodies.
"What happened?" I asked Kevin, who was looking up from the floor.
"Nothing! Earl just cracked him on the ass with a towel!"
Nate came striding back into the locker room with the portable phone. He turned to the new guy and said, "OK, buddy, you’ve got five minutes to put your clothes back on and get the hell out of here, or I call the cops. This shelter is a safe place for everybody, not just for you."
"But where would I go? I don’t even know where I am!" Every muscle in his body had tensed, as if he expected to be attacked.
"Hey," Nate said, "you should have thought of that before you did your kung-fu imitation."
I swear I saw a tear start to escape from the new guy’s eye, but he blinked hard and shook his head and it was gone. I went over and took him by the arm and helped him find his clothes. They were pretty clean but he had no shirt, so I went to the rag basket and got him a thick blue sweater to wear under his vest. He walked to the door and stopped to look around, then slowly moved out onto the street.
My shift was over about an hour later. I packed up my stuff and left by the front door, since I had parked my car across the street. In the doorway to the garage I heard a familiar voice. "Hello."
It was the new guy. "Hi. You OK?"
"Yeah. I think so. I’m hungry though. Know where I could get something to eat?"
Damn, I thought. He got tossed out of the shelter without even a hot meal. "Sure. Let’s go grab a burger. Follow me." Maybe if I explain the facts of street life to him, we might be able to get him into another shelter, one he won’t start a fight in. I’ll buy him some dinner on my way home and maybe there’s someplace in the East Bay I can unload him.
We took the elevator up to my parking place and I unlocked the car. He just stood next to the passenger side door, so I opened it from the inside and said, "Come on, get in."
He sat down tentatively and pulled the door shut. "What’s this?"
"What’s what?"
"This thing I’m sitting in."
"Don’t tell me you never sat in a car before. What turnip truck did you fall off of?" The naïve act had started to get on my nerves.
As I started the engine and pulled out of my spot, he looked over at me and asked, "Why are you angry with me? I’m only asking questions."
"Because you’re asking stupid questions, like you want me to believe you’re from outer space or something."
"Outer space? You mean like the sky? No, I’m not from there. I’m not even from Mount Olympus. Yesterday I was a wandering Greek hunter traveling around with my best friend, helping people wherever we could. Today, I don’t know where the hell I am or what I should be doing! Nothing I see is familiar, I don’t know anybody, and it’s as if all the rules of life have changed."
"So you’re from Greece? You don’t look Greek." ‘Course my total experience of Greek men consisted of pictures of Aristotle Onassis, icons of old dead saints, and naked boys on vases.
"I told you, I’m from Corinth," he answered.
I wracked my brain for how to say hello in Greek and couldn’t remember. So I said the next phrase that came to mind, in my Americanized Hellenistic best. "Charis soy kay iraynay," I tried, hoping my memory wasn’t too bad. Grace and peace to you.
Of course he answered me in Greek and I had no clue what he said. I just smiled.
By this time we were stuck in bridge traffic, so I turned on the radio.
"Where’s that sound coming from?" he asked. He must have figured out that my Greek was used up.
"It’s the radio," I answered.
"What’s that?"
"It receives sound waves through the air."
"From where?"
"From back in the city, for this station."
"If they’re shouting loudly enough to reach this far, why do you have to turn that knob to hear them?"
He had started to piss me off. "It’s magic," I said, hoping to shut him up. He must have got the point, since he was quiet for the rest of the ride. By the time we got to the East Bay, I had started singing along with the radio and he seemed to be fascinated by the scenery.
"You have a beautiful voice," he offered, breaking the silence.
"Thank you." I hadn’t blushed since I couldn’t tell you when, but for some reason I could feel the heat in my face. I looked over at him and smiled, and he smiled back. Something in his eyes twinkled, and all the alarm bells in my head went off. Oh no you don’t! I thought to myself. The last thing in the world you need to do is pick up a stray. For all you know this guy could be an axe murderer. ‘Course, if he is, you’re dead meat already.
"What’s the matter?" he asked. "You look worried."
"I’m trying to decide whether you’re an axe murderer," I answered. "I don’t usually take strange men for rides in my car."
"You think I’m strange?"
"In that I don’t know you, yes."
"That’s true. But isn’t there at least as good a chance that I’ll be wonderful?" He flashed a grin that would melt carbon steel.
"Well, the way you laid those guys out back at the shelter, I figure if you wanted to hurt me I’d be lying on the street somewhere by now."
"Why would I want to hurt you?"
"Why does anybody want to hurt anybody? My hair’s parted on the wrong side, I wore the wrong shoes, I didn’t say ‘sir’ – people hurt people for weird reasons. Or none at all."
"Are you serious? Somebody would kill you for your shoes?"
I nodded. "It’s happened. When I was a nurse, I took care of a guy whose nephew bashed his head in for bus fare."
"What’s a bus?"
ARRRRGGGHHH!!!! I heaved a giant sigh and pulled into the Mickey Dee’s parking lot. I showed him how to open the door and we got out of the car. When I hit the car alarm and the car went BEEP, his eyes got real wide and he looked around him. "What was that?"
"The car."
"It talks? Did you understand what it said?"
"Yep. Let’s eat." We went into the McDonald’s and I ordered for both of us, figuring he’d be as clueless about that as he had been about everything else. He must have been really hungry, because he didn’t ask me what any of it was, and he ate two Big Macs before we were done. Now, what shall I do with you? "Wait here," I told him. Then I went back to the pay phone and started calling the shelters in Berkeley and Oakland. Nothing. It was only 6:30 but it was already dark, and getting colder, and there was noplace that would take him.
I went back to the table to give him the bad news. Before I could say anything, he took a gold-colored coin out of his pouch and handed it to me. "I want to pay for the food. For some reason I couldn’t use this in the place I was this afternoon, I thought maybe you’d be willing to take it."
I looked down at the coin. It had a picture I didn’t recognize on it, and in Greek letters it said 5 DINARAI. "I thought Greek coins were in drachmas," I said.
"Depends on what city you’re from," he answered. "That’s from Corinth. The picture is the King, Iphicles. He’s my best friend’s brother."
Now we’re getting somewhere, I thought. He has a best friend. Now if we can just find him … "Who’s your best friend?"
"Hercules."
"Hercules who?"
"Just Hercules. You know, slew the Nemean lion, cleaned the Augean stables?"
"Right." This guy is going straight to Highland. On second thought, I used to work at Highland—he doesn’t deserve that. "I thought the King of Greece was named Constantine."
"King of Greece? All of Greece?" he started to laugh hysterically. "You can’t get two cities to agree, much less the whole of Greece!"
Suddenly a light bulb came on in my head. This guy thinks he’s from ancient Greece! Ok, I can play along with that. "Ah, I see. And you were with your friend Hercules yesterday."
"Uh huh." His look brightened. "I knew you’d believe me. I just knew it!"
"OK, let’s say for the sake of argument that I’m willing to believe you. What year do you think this is?"
"Well, it’s the fourth year in the reign of King Iphicles, and the twelfth since the end of the War…"
"The Peloponnesian War?"
"The war with Troy. I never heard of that other war. Gods know there have been a lot of them though."
This guy thinks he’s the three thousand year old man. Thank God he doesn’t look like Mel Brooks. "Well, Eeolus, I guess I have some shocking news for you. The Trojan war was three thousand years ago."
He laughed. Loud. Until tears ran down his cheeks. As suddenly as he started, he stopped, and looked as if he’d just been struck by lightning. "You’re serious!"
"Yep. During the Trojan war, the place you’re sitting in was probably a grove of redwood trees inhabited by bears and deer and gophers and whatever else was around. We’re halfway around the world from Greece."
"Around the world? Humph. Herc was right."
"What?"
"Hercules told me the world was round. I didn’t believe him."
"Well, be that as it may," I started, "we have to find you somewhere to stay. I guess I’ll have to find you a room somewhere."
"Is there room where you stay?"
Ohhh no, I thought. We’re not going there. On the other hand, I have great neighbors, they’d come running if they heard anything wrong. And I have my whistle. He’s probably never seen a whistle.
"You can sleep on my daybed tonight. Hopefully, tomorrow we’ll find you some place more permanent, and you can start looking for work. What can you do? Besides fight, I mean?"
"I tried being a farmer once. What a joke. I used to be a thief … "
"Great, we’ll get you elected to Congress."
He looked at me and frowned but didn’t say anything. I took that to mean, "What’s a Congress?" Just then we rolled into my parking place. I got out of the car and waved to him to follow. This time the car alarm didn’t spook him; I guess he learns fast.
We got to the elevator and stepped in. He followed me to the door and into the living room of the flat. I started to say, "You can stash your stuff…" and then realized he didn’t have any stuff. I dropped my bag and headed for the bathroom. He followed me.
"Stay there," I said. "There are some things women prefer to do in private." He gave me an up-and-down look, grinned, and shrugged, then sat down in my desk chair. When I came back from the toilet, he had my Greek New Testament open and was reading it.
"Can you read Greek?" he asked.
"Lots better than I can speak it," I answered with a nervous giggle.
"This is an amazing book. What kind of parchment is this?" He tugged on a page.
"It’s paper. The Chinese invented it about 1500 years ago. It’s made of wood."
He got that confused expression again, so I went out into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator. "How about some wine?" I pulled out a bottle of California cabernet and opened it. I even used the good glasses. He gave the glasses his ‘what the hell is this?’ look, then shrugged and took a gulp.
"You didn’t water this!" he coughed.
"Why would I want to do that?" I asked, sipping at the wine.
He hesitated, then took another mouthful and let it sit for a moment before swallowing. "I guess you wouldn’t. This is ambrosia compared to the wine I’m used to."
By this time, my huge black cat had started to weave in and out of my feet wanting dinner. I opened the can of cat food and put it down for him. "There you go, Big Guy."
I heard Eeolus chuckle.
We went into the living room and I built a fire. I watched his face; it was like a child, taking everything in without completely understanding, a combination of wide-eyed wonder and suspicious caution. He looked like a complete naïf, a wild child raised by wolves. He leaned back on the daybed, and when my cat finished dinner he jumped up next to him, purring. I began to relax, half from the wine and half from the increasing understanding that though he was certifiable, he was pretty harmless, since the cat registered approval.
I had a pleasant buzz after the first bottle of wine, and went into the kitchen to get another. When I returned to the living room, he stood by the mantle, running his fingertips over the statuettes. Those fingers! His callused hands must have known some pretty hard work, and fairly recently. He moved them with the artistry of a dancer, though, with an intensity of focus I’d never seen before. I poured him another glass and handed it to him; he took the stem in one hand and circled the rim with the index finger of the other. That gesture went straight to my libido.
Are you out of your freaking mind?? Or do you have a death wish? You’ve hardly met this guy! On the other hand, how is this different from picking up some guy in a bar, or meeting somebody at a party?
I couldn’t meet his eyes as he stood, head bowed slightly, looking up at me over the glass. We were about the same height, even though I outweigh him by half, and he was as wiry as I am soft. It was all I could do to keep my hands to myself. Enough wine, I thought, or I’ll need a cold shower.
That’s the ticket. A shower.
"Will you be OK here awhile?" I handed him the bottle of wine. "I usually take a shower after work."
"Sure," he answered.
"Make yourself at home. There’s nothing here worth stealing, so feel free to look around." I grinned at him and he smiled back. Then I went into the bedroom, got undressed and put on my ratty old chenille bathrobe, and went to turn on the water in the shower. No sooner had I climbed into the shower than I heard him rap on the bathroom door. I stuck my head out around the shower curtain. "Yeah?"
He opened the door just wide enough to stick his head in. "Uh, there’s no delicate way to ask this … is this where I should … relieve myself?"
I pointed at the toilet. "Take your best shot." I’ll say this for him, the man has few inhibitions. Must be all that naked wrestling.
As I heard him finish, I called out, "You might want to think about doing this yourself after I’m—"
"How about now?" he asked, slipping into the shower behind me. I spun around to see him staring appreciatively. "You’re even more beautiful than I thought."
I wasn’t sure whether to be flattered or frightened, so I was both. I backed away from him, but there wasn’t very far to go. The shampoo was starting to run into my eyes and it hurt; tears began to slip down my cheeks.
"Hey," he said, reaching out for my shoulders, "what’s wrong? You’re trembling! Are you afraid of me?"
I threw my head back and stuck it under the falling water to wash the soap out of my eyes. When I could open them, I looked straight at him. "I hardly know you, Eeolus. You claim to be three thousand years old, friends with a hero from legends. What am I supposed to think?" Those eyes … they make my knees wobble.
He pressed me back against the tiles. "I would never hurt you. What reason would there possibly be?" As we both stood under the spray, he moved his hands from my shoulders up my neck to the sides of my face, and he kissed me. He was gentle at first, almost tentative. As I started to respond, he became more urgent. Our tongues began to dance around one another in delight and abandon. My hands began to travel down his back to his firm round butt. Ah, I hate men who have no ass. Now this one is a beauty; I could get used to holding onto it.
As one of his hands wandered down to my breast, his other arm circled my waist, pulling my hips firmly toward his. I could feel his manhood beginning to swell deliciously, tapping gently on my pubic bone as we moved. Finally, breathless from long kisses, he trailed his tongue down the side of my neck, out my collarbone and down to my nipple. His gentle suckling made my juices start to flood, and I moaned and reached for his proud hardness. My hands were slick with soap, and I stroked him firmly until he made a deep growling noise.
He pulled away from me and pushed on my right shoulder, holding my left. "Turn around."
I did as he asked, playfully rubbing my cleft up against his engorged phallus. He let out another moan, then grabbed my hips and drove deep inside me. It made me gasp. He started to thrust in and out of me, and with each stroke I felt a wave of heat rise from my groin and flood my body. Draping himself over my bent back, he reached under me to grab both my breasts and tease the nipples with his fingers; the combination of sensations took my breath away.
He pumped in and out of me faster then, and I could feel his cock twitch as he prepared to come. I squeezed him rhythmically with my inner muscles, and as he gasped in satisfaction I fell into ecstatic spasm as well. We stood there, water beating down on our backs, chests heaving, hearts pounding. Finally, his now-flaccid member slid out of me, and he turned me around again to face him.
His face seemed aglow in a way I’d never seen before; he was wide-eyed with excitement and breathless with pleasure. I reached for the sponge and turned his body until he stood facing the spray. "My turn," I told him, lathering the sponge. I reached up and put my free hand under his chin, capturing his mouth with a passionate kiss. As our tongues tussled, I scrubbed his neck and shoulders and down both arms. When I teased his nipples with my thumbnails, he groaned, so I broke the kiss and bent to suckle and tease the buds on his smooth chest. Soon he was erect again, the head of his manhood oozing the juices of lust.
I slid to my knees and took his throbbing cock in my mouth, using the sponge to stroke all around his ass and balls. I licked the straining shaft from end to end before taking as much as I could into my mouth, spiraling my tongue around the tip and sides. His hands grabbed my hair as he thrust deeper into my hungry throat, and with a soapy finger I reached up to tease him from inside. With a high-pitched cry he pumped his hot juices as I swallowed, greedy to take it all. Weak with satisfaction, he sank down on his haunches and looked at me. "Yield," he said with a grin, shaking his head. Then he leaned forward and kissed me again, licking the remains of his seed off my lips as we both stood up.
Tired but happy, we finished scrubbing quickly and dried one another off. I gave him a clean t-shirt to wear with his leather pants, and he pulled it over his head. As I got another from the drawer for me to wear, he leaned back against the wall, bringing his foot up behind him. His head tilted to one side and he looked at me intently. I started to pull the t-shirt on, but he reached out and held it gently. "Do you have to?"
I blushed all the way to my toes. "I’m cold!"
In a flash I had lost my balance as he flattened me against his chest. "I can fix that." That grin again!
I smirked. "I thought you’d had enough."
"I lied." He grabbed me by the waist again and seized my lips with his. Sliding his other hand down my back to the curve of my butt, he broke the kiss and grinned, saying, "I love a woman who’s soft enough to lose myself in." He turned us both around and pulled me backward towards the bed, leaning back until he landed on the mattress and I landed on him. Poor baby, he’s gonna suffocate. I rolled off him and onto my feet, suddenly struck by what had happened. Dear God, I’m fucking a man I’ve just met, with no protection, and for all I know he’s a raving lunatic! I threw the t-shirt on over my head and hopped out of the bedroom, putting my jeans on as I went.
He followed me into the living room and stood for a minute just staring, with a hurt look. "Janie?"
I turned around to face him.
"What did I do?"
"Nothing. I just …I mean, I don’t usually … Jesus, here we are fucking like rabbits and I don’t even know you! What’s more, you’re either a miracle or a madman!"
Understanding crossed his face. "You think I’m crazy?"
"Well, yeah, your story’s pretty hard to believe. " I couldn’t stifle a smile. "You’re way too well preserved for a three thousand year old man."
"What would convince you I’m not crazy?"
"I don’t know. Maybe nothing. It’s the only reasonable explanation for what you’ve been telling me, and the questions you’ve been asking. The only reasonable explanation."
"Well, sometimes you have to let go of your mind and go with your heart."
"OK, " I responded. "I guess my heart would tell me to try to find something that verifies your story." I pointed to a large volume on the bookshelf behind where he stood. "Hand me that book."
I took the thick text and sat down in the recliner. Encyclopedia of the World’s Mythology. If this doesn’t have it, nothing will. I paged to the index and looked up the references to Hercules. Jesus H. Christ on a folding rubber crutch and His all-girl kazoo band! One of the entries contained this sentence: "The companion and charioteer of Hercules was his nephew Iolaus, son of Iphicles, twin brother of the demigod."
I dropped the book.