Year of the Inner Goddess

June 2025

I have struggled, truly, to pin this tale.

How does one distill sunlight into ink?

How does one begin to recount the golden haze of an afternoon steeped in divinity, when the very air seemed laced with nectar and the earth itself sighed in celebration?

I was caught in the heartbeat of it, breathless, reverent, dazed as any mortal might be when transported from years of toil and gently laid in the warm lap of Olympus. It was not a dream. It was a rite. A reward.

In ancient lore, Greek victors were not simply praised; they were exalted. Given over to days of Empyrean revelry, where wine flowed like secrets and fruits split open at a whisper, hedonistic pleasure reigned supreme. But I was no champion of the arena, where fang and claw vied for blood, my blood, nor the victor of some excruciating hop -lit o- dromos. No, bleary-eyed, I had crawled from the long, unlit corridors of study. There had been battles, invisible ones, and the slow, aching war of perseverance.

For years, my nose had been buried in parchment, the soft kiss of candle smoke clinging to my sapphire hair. I’d wept over ink-stained scrolls, traded sleep for study, and bartered joy for deadlines. The battlefield had been within me, quiet, private, unyielding.

And yet… I walked the stage.

A midnight cap of triumph crowned my brow, golden tassels swaying like sunbeams with every step, each flicker a herald of my hard-won ascent to the highest order. In my hand, I clutched a scroll that bore not only my name but every sacred hour I had sacrificed in pursuit of this moment. I crossed the threshold with steady feet, heart thundering beneath tight ribs.

And at the end of that proud walk across the stage, my back straight, chin high, tears in my eyes…Olympus, cheered! Olympus, impossibly, answered.

And now…the gods gathered in the great halls of Olympus in my honor.

Oh, but how they radiated majesty.

Swathed in whites bright enough to shame marble, in purples lush as bruised orchids, in reds deep and glistening, ripe with the kiss of sacred pomegranates. The Olympians did not walk; they glided, as though the very air bore their weight with reverence. Their laughter rang like wind chimes spun from crystal and star-metal, delicate and wild.

Above us, the sky was impossibly blue, scrubbed clean by divine hands, a canvas too pure for mortal dreams. Sunlight poured like honey through the open arches, gilding every surface. It caught on wine goblets and spilled across polished skin, glimmered in gold-threaded drapery, and jeweled adornments. Their bodies shimmered like they’d been anointed with light itself.

And there I stood, small, breathless, and shimmering with disbelief, summoned into a moment I thought belonged to others.

It was all too much. Too vivid. Too golden.

And yet, I felt it in my chest, in the hollow of my throat, in the sting behind my eyes. The weight of what it took to get here. The nights spent breaking and still reaching for the light. The prayers whispered into textbooks. The grief I buried beneath deadlines and exams. The ache of wondering if it would ever be enough.

And now, this.

Every gaze turned toward me. Not with scrutiny. Not with indifference. But with a joyful welcome. With honor. I tried not to flinch, to bare my soul, and allow myself to be seen, not as a girl trying to become something, but as a woman who had arrived. Not above them, never above, but momentarily among them.

And deep within, I didn’t feel pride.

I felt grace and strength.

Nearby, the waters of Lake Aphrosyne twinkled, sapphire and serene, a siren’s mirror. Long tables stretched beside it, groaning beneath sumptuous abundance. There were tomatoes fat as hearts, hunks of feta crumbled like snow; fruits sticky and lustrous, long pasta stuffed with savory secrets. Libations flowed from ever-brimming vessels, beers, sweet wines, elderflower, amber bourbons, and honey elixirs served with knowing smiles.

And the pavilions! Gracious gods, the pavilions.

Sheer curtains stirred with every breeze, whispering like linen confessions. Velvet lounges festooned in white were scattered like opulent offerings, begging to be touched, to be ruined by revelry. Gold-trimmed poofs and cushioned thrones awaited indulgence, lambent, decadent, obscene in their abundance.

And I, I stood among it.

A mortal, trembling. A girl with candle wax on her soul and a golden laurel in her curls, gasping. They had gathered for me.

The gods smiled indulgently, and in that golden hour of Dionysian laughter, warm air, and flesh wrapped in silk, I could scarcely breathe.

It was all too much.

After a time, with the crystalline waters of Lake Aphrosyne dappling my flushed skin, the appointed hour had arrived.

The hour of the goddesses.

They emerged as if from mist and memory, celestial dreams conjured into flesh. Their bodies manifested every form of ethereal perfection: curvaceous, willowy, towering, and delicate. Each goddess stood as a pillar of strength, honed and graceful, arduously earned. A procession of sacred femininity, never fragile, but forged. Their skin caught the light like river water at dawn, enchantment clinging to every limb. For one breathless hour, they became touchable, living frescos animated by divine mischief.

Their voices did not just sing, they thrummed, honeyed and low, strung like harpstrings across the breeze. Each syllable was a caress, fragrant as blooming jasmine, curling through the pavilions with something tantalizingly wicked stitched into its sweetness.

The air itself pulsed, thick with incense and some older, headier power. It pressed against my bare skin like a whispered spell, slid between my ribs like priceless ribbon, and soaked into my marrow like ambrosia meant only for gods. It did not pass through me. It seduced me.

A mortal amidst the Theophanic, barely drawing breath. Knees locked, lips parted, throat too tight for words. I hovered at the pavilion’s edge, utterly spellbound, curiosity simmering beneath my skin, stirring a quiet need. They were so breathtakingly beautiful, bathed in the golden haze of the summer afternoon, their movements fluid like heat shimmering over sunlit fields. I found myself yearning, musing on how to give back the warmth they offered, how to ease the fluttering in my chest beneath the weight of their radiant presence. My Inner Goddess could sense their intoxicating pull toward surrender, as irresistible as the slow, heavy summer sun.

Their easy familiarity with each other was infatuating. I did not know where to rest my gaze, on the arc of a hip adorned in silver chain, the opaline glint of oil slipping between perfect twin breasts, or follow the way their fingers brushed over one another as though love were a language spoken only in touch. I was not meant to witness such things. I was meant to kneel before them.

And then…there was the imperial goddess, Diana.

Her gaze found me through my haze like an arrow loosed with cunning precision. Her eyes, like moonstone rimmed in kohl, held mine until I could not remember what shyness was. She sat atop a colossal poof of pale pink, regal and utterly at ease, one thigh tucked beneath her, the other stretched long and bare. With a flick of her wrist, she beckoned, patting the seat next to her.

I obeyed.

The oil in her hands gleamed like liquid diamonds, thick and deliberate, opalescent as it cloaked her long, elegant fingers. Each measured stroke caught the iridescent afternoon light streaming through the marble colonnade, fracturing into a constellation of golden stars that danced across her skin. At her gentle command, I stretched out upon the cushions, limbs melting into their opulence, my breath already lengthening in anticipation.

Then, her hands. The first touch undid me.

Not suddenly, but like silk unraveling, thread by tender thread. Tightly-wound sinew surrendered beneath the press of her hands, each motion drawing tension from my body like poison drawn from a wound. Anxious nerves quieted beneath her palms, fingers that knew, that remembered, as if they’d touched me in a thousand lifetimes and found me again at last.

Magic seeped from her skin, slow, molten gold, and with every measured stroke, she wove something ancient, whispered between shadows and flame: unspeakably beautiful, utterly bewitching.

She read me, read me, without words, her fingers gliding down the curve of my spine like a lover tracing a memory. Her touch was neither rushed nor ornamental; it was the kind of knowing born from lifetimes of longing. She moved with the precision of a queen and the patience of a worshiper, every gesture stitched with both discipline and desire.

I breathed, long and slow. Through my languid lashes, I watched the others mingle as they lounged in intimate communion.

The vessel of oil passed from hand to hand, a chalice of transparent desire. Around us, a hush of intention. The goddesses anointed each other in turn, slow as moonrise, their movements laced with both tenderness and wicked appetite. Every stroke was a devotion. Every sigh, a prayer. Laughter rose in glimmering notes, followed by low murmurs and languid exhalations, like satin slipping off a shoulder.

Fingers trailed over ribs, down thighs, across bellies. Lips pressed into the slope of a back or the hollow of a throat. Nothing rushed. Nothing concealed. They touched a whisper of forbidden worship.

And I, unmade beneath the ministrations of Diana, could only breathe and try not to weep.

Goddesses found their rapture in release, limbs trembling, mouths parted in breathless surrender, while their sisters’ lips curled into triumphant smirks, reveling in the panting bliss of the ones beneath their touch. Transitioned and settled onto my back, I watched, entranced, grinning for the victor and the victorious… though who could say which was which?

Power was passed hand to hand, pulse to pulse.

I smiled, but only for a moment.

For suddenly, suffused with oil and lulled by hallowed hands that had softened every sinew, it was my turn to be undone.

Diana’s touch was as sure as it was sacred. Cunning. Commanding. She did not seek mere pleasure; she sought possession. Her fingers moved with ruthless grace, deliberate and devastating, coaxing submission from every guarded inch of me as those timeless fingers slipped into the essence of my core. I clenched in defiance, fortifying my inner walls against the flood swelling inside, terrified I’d leave the bedding beneath me soaked in mortal surrender.

But beneath my willful restraint, my Inner Goddess roared, raw, hungry, aching. Every breath, every pulse, every penetrating stroke became delicious torment, a battle where surrender tasted like vindication, and vindication itself burned like blushing sin.

Still, I held on, just barely, trembling on the edge, craving more than I dared admit.

Every thrust of her hand was a reckoning. Every curling pull of her fingers a vow.

Tension coiled deep in my belly, sharp, molten, barely containable, the desperate clench before collapse. She worked me to the edge, then dragged me past it, until I lost all sense of where one climax ended and the next began. Each wave overtook the last, a relentless cascade crashing through me like summer thunder across the spine of Olympus. I was undone, stretched wide and gasping, writhing in exquisite excess. I became the epicenter of a pleasure so raw it bordered on obliteration.

Diana’s raven ringlets brushed across my hips like the tease of night wind on bare skin, her mouth descending with reverent adoration. She moved to my apex like a queen claiming her tribute, tongue and fingers in concert, devastating, inescapable. No mercy. No pause. Only the rhythm of a predator who knew her prey would not run.

She would have all of me.

And then, Amphictyonis. Vivacious goddess of wine and feasting, with tangible revelry clinging to her lips.

She appeared at my side, familiar, desired, inevitable. She moved with that feline grace unique to queens and predators, but there was no distance in her gaze. No ceremony. Just hunger.

Her grin was wide and unrepentant, all wicked teeth and dominion. She looked at me like she had already claimed me a hundred times and would do so a hundred more. Her eyes sparkled, not with mischief, but with memory. She knew what I liked. Knew where to press, where to bite, where to make me beg.

She didn’t ask. She didn’t need to.

She simply leaned in, lips warm and heavy just below my shoulder blade, and then her teeth followed, sharp, deliberate, claiming. Her teeth sank in, slow, claiming, and a flush of heat spilled beneath my skin. The bruise rose like a night-blooming flower, dark and tender, kissed into life by fire. Her breath hovered over it, warm and wicked, tasting of wine and want, sending little shocks through every inch it grazed.

“Yes,” her mark seemed to say, searing hot against my flesh. “Mine.”

I groaned, my cries rising to the peak of Olympus, amplified, echoed, swallowed by the symphony of pleasure that I was only barely conscious surrounding me.

Assisted by Amphictyonis, Diana gave no quarter.

She took and took, commanding every twitch, every breath, until my lungs burned with the exquisite torment of being alive inside such apotheosis. Muscles once taut from the weight of mortal burdens now quaked beneath her hands, not from strain, but from the catatonic pleasure coursing through me, laying sacred claim to every nerve, every hidden chamber of my flesh.

I do not know when Diana yielded her place, only that I was gasping, desperate for air, adrift in the wreckage of my own euphoria. I never got to thank her.

Because suddenly, the air shifted, pulsed anew, as Olympus swelled beneath the masculine boom of nearing footsteps. The gods descended, not in thunder, but in the hush of inevitability. Heat shimmered around their nude forms, shoulders gleaming like burnished bronze, hips carved with divine intent. Their eyes burned with the kind of knowing that makes mortals ache.

They came not to rule, but to revel, to taste, to take, to bask in the impossible lignitude of their own flesh beneath the unforgiving blaze of afternoon. The scent of coconut, pure water, and curling smoke clung to their passage like a heady incense, stirring the air with intention and danger. Their footsteps struck the ground, sending the tiny creatures scattering, tremor, each breath a summons. Their presence swallowed the world whole, bending it to their will, and the world tilted to make room.

Still tangled in the warm aftermath of the goddesses’ touch, I barely registered their arrival. Within me, my Inner Goddess awakened, tense and vivid, a living thread pulled taut, ready to shatter the fragile bounds of flesh and will.

One of them, silent and self-assured, knelt between my limp thighs. His beard scraped coarsely against my fevered skin, each drag a raw, deliberate torment. And then, 

His mouth. His tongue.

Not gentle. Not sweet. He devoured. His tongue and fingers moved with merciless precision, a focused cruelty that tormented my swollen pearl, pulling sounds from my throat I didn’t know I could make. Pleasure flared sharp as a blade, unbearable in its brilliance, utterly exquisite.

I splintered. I sobbed. And still, he did not stop.

And then I screamed.

Time broke.

He said nothing, just seized my hips, spun me onto all fours, and plunged inside me without warning. There was no prelude. No tenderness. Only heat, wet, blistering, and all-consuming. My body, already swollen and aching from Diana’s skillful torment, gave way with a cry, welcoming him like fire welcomes air.

The god moved without mercy. No pause. Just an unrelenting rhythm, each thrust deep and deliberate, timed to the beat of some cruel celestial drum. He split me open around the thick, searing heat of him, his hips colliding with mine in punishing cadence, like he meant to brand himself into the very center of me.

My body was a vessel of sensation, stretched and shaking, every nerve a live wire. I gripped the sheets with herculean strength, knees buried in the plush mattress, my thighs spread and slick, the pressure mounting with a desperate, exquisite violence.

My Inner Goddess loosed a low, guttural sound vibrating through my spine as his hand tangled in my curls, dragging my head back. Not to restrain, but to make me feel how fully, how utterly I was taken.

My throat burned, too raw for sound, too full of ache to care. My knees threatened to give, but he held me fast, one arm banded tight around my waist, the other anchoring my hips as he dragged me back onto him. Again. Again. Flesh meeting flesh with a cadence of discipline that bordered on punishment. 

And I took it. Every savage inch. Every striking blow, an anvil to my shattering nerves.

I tried not to collapse. Tried not to fall apart.
But I was falling.
I forgot my name.
I forgot language.
I could only feel. The god. The ruin. The rapture.

I caught sight of her beside me, a willowy goddess with tresses the color of wild honey that flowed around and lay between her perfectly peaked breasts. She lay so beautifully unstitched next to me. A god drove into her with the same brutal devotion, her delicate moans unspooling like some exquisite apparition.

I wanted to watch her come apart, but I was dissolving.

My insides clenched around the god’s thick monolith like a vise, and still he did not let up. I gasped, unable to stop the next climax from crashing over me like a wave too big to outrun. My body was chaos. My thoughts, wreckage.

I could feel her eyes on me. We came like waves clashing in the shallows, messy, magnificent, and endless.

And still I held my position, knuckles white in the pillows, spine arched to meet him with something savage and shaking. I would not give him everything.

But great gods, I was close.

I was raw. Ruffled. Radiant, not with mere triumph, but something wilder. Feral. Marked by glory. And my Inner Goddess? She crowed, bold and unrepentant, drunk on sacred satisfaction, basking in the blaze of her hard-won indulgence.

Slick with euphoria, I drifted along the lakeshore garden, hips swaying with unapologetic tease. I flirted with gods and goddesses alike, lips stained, breath light, suspended somewhere between awe and delight.

Twice, a god caught me from behind, cocooning and folding my back against the hard plane of his chest. He growled low into my ear, a sound that curled my toes and melted my anxiety, while one massive hand clamped around my hip, the other sliding boldly between my thighs. With swift, devastating precision, his fingers found my center, my pearl, and played it like a secret he already knew.

I shattered on the spot.

Pleasure struck like unforgiving lightning racing through my core, through my spine. My thighs trembled as wave after wave rolled through me, unmaking speech, unraveling thought. My knees crumpled beneath the storm, but the god held me upright, one muscled arm banded tight around my waist as if he knew I’d fall apart without him. My Inner Goddess wanted to huff at his brazenness, but it was too true. I convulsed in his grasp, helpless and glorious, the world vanishing in white heat.

Only when the last tremor had shivered free of my limbs did his fingers begin to slow, feathering, circling, tantalizing, somehow cruel in their tenderness. I gasped against the aftershocks, blinking into the light, lulled into the lie of reprieve. But it was a ruse.

Without warning, he surged again, thrusting deep with fingers thick and certain, relentless as hunger. My breath caught. My spine bowed. The pleasure was punishing, exquisite, the kind that blurred the edges of reality. I clawed at his wrist, not to stop him, but to anchor myself, to tether my soul before it slipped loose into eternal bliss.

At last, he released me. I turned on unsteady legs, still breathless, mischief glowing in my eyes. I cupped his jaw, dragged my mouth over his and pressed a kiss of lush thanks tangled with a bit of dare to his mouth. Then with a flourish, I tripped merrily away, thighs singing with proof of his handiwork, sated and shining, ready to nibble, mingle, and seduce anew.

There were still fruits to taste. Gods to tempt. And my Inner Goddess intended to sample them all.

Worth it.

Every tear. Every tortured night of study. Every grade wrung from despair, every paper dragged from the jaws of exhaustion, worth it for this impossible, decadent reward. My heart bloomed with gratitude so bright it threatened to split me open.

And then, Jack.

He found me at last. One broad hand snaked around my waist and drew me close, anchoring my dazed form to the solid comfort of his body. He kissed me like a man dying, needing. 

Claiming.

His low growl whispered promises of retribution in my ear, embers that threatened to ignite everything I guarded. My thighs clenched and breath caught, but my Inner Goddess wore a smirk that was equal parts mischief and challenge, offering him only a whispered maybe.

Inwardly, I burned, aching for him in a way meant only for the intimate seclusion of his lodge, for moments stolen behind closed doors, far from these watchful eyes and sacred stones. But outwardly, I held my ground.

My Inner Goddess soared, intoxicated by the exquisite power of withholding, basking in the heady heat of assumed control.

The fire beneath my skin burned like unrelenting, volcanic, molten gold. Nevertheless, I would not let it claim me just yet.

No.

The true sweetness lay in the exquisite torment of uncertainty, holding us both suspended in desire’s aching embrace, a prize both distant and near.

Let us burn in the hunger I refused to quell.

Let him chase what I would bestow so freely.

Let every shuddered moan, every breathless surrender, be earned. For my Inner Goddess knew that desire is most radiant when forged in the fire of restraint.

I gave him a devastating kiss that tempted me far more than it did him, then flitted just beyond his reach, delighting in the slow shake of his head, the crooked smile curling at the corner of his lips, and the feral blaze smoldering wild within his eyes.

Slowly, the Olympians drifted away in ones and twos, as the waning sun began its slow journey from dusk to dark. The goddesses’ hair curled about their faces like unspooled silk, soft tendrils catching the last light, while the gods bade their adieus, the tension around their eyes softening with the passing hours. Around me, the garden held its hushed reverence, shadows stretching long and languid beneath the amber glow.

Gratitude swelled until my heart ached, knowing I had been truly seen, wholly held, irrevocably transformed. My victory might have slipped unnoticed, quietly cherished in the secret chambers of my soul, but by Olympus, in all her magnificent glory, that was simply not allowed. The Queen and her court had gone above and beyond, celebrating me in ways that echoed deep into eternity.

My Inner Goddess hummed low inside me, fierce and alive. I wasn’t the same mortal who had stepped into their presence. Because of them, their love, their gifts, something had shifted, loosened, and my weary heart renewed and truly set aflame once more. My heart swelled with a gratitude too vast for words, an ache of thankfulness for their fierce support, for the way they had seen me, claimed me, and lifted me beyond the mortal coil.

As the light softened and the gods melted back into shadow, I held the moment tight, etching every second deep into my heart. I whispered a promise to myself that this sacred dance, this wild communion of bodies and spirits, was a treasure I would carry always. But more than that, I would nurture these connections, reciprocating the love and encouragement they so freely showered on me.

And as long as they granted me breath in their world, I would carry their example in every pulse of my being, while holding close the wicked whisper of their salacious teasing, their tantalizing ache that would lure me back to them, insatiable and hungry for just one more taste.

Until next time, XO. Elsie