June 2026 – Listen Here
By Saturday morning, my migraine had become less of a headache and more of a personality trait.
The drums still pounded behind my eyes.
Not as fiercely as Friday.
Just enough to remind me they remained nearby.
A lingering army camped somewhere behind my forehead.
The previous evening should have been magnificent.
At least that had been the intention.
________________________________
Instead, I had spent most of Friday attached to my TENS unit, struggling to focus my vision, struggling to draw a full breath, and silently calculating how many guests I could reasonably cancel before admitting defeat.
The answer had been most of them.
Not all.
Just enough to preserve what remained of my dignity.
The gentlemen who had already begun their journey were encouraged to continue heading my way.
By evening, they occupied the Great Hall, gossiping together while I sat hidden in the bedroom, wondering how I was supposed to emerge and become the woman my Inner Goddess had promised everyone.
The sapphire-haired enchantress.
The temptress draped in silk and lace.
The woman teetering between anticipation and daring.
The one who always seemed to know what came next.
Unfortunately, that woman had apparently called in sick.
Friday offered no such luxury.
I remember staring at the bedroom door, my vision narrowing.
At some point, the migraine had ceased being a headache and transformed into Jael herself, methodically driving a tent peg through my right temple.
I sat on the edge of the ready bed, listening to the conversation drifting down the hallway.
Thinking I had failed.
Failed as a hostess.
Failed as an organizer.
Failed at creating the evening I had promised.
________________________________
“You are being ridiculous.”
My Inner Goddess appeared beside me.
“I am suffering.”
“You are catastrophizing.”
“My head feels like a battlefield.”
She considered this.
“Fair.”
The drums chose that moment to emphasize her point.
I winced.
She remained unimpressed.
“Tell me about the woman.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“What woman?”
“Lysithea.”
I knew exactly which woman.
“No.”
She flashed a grin.
“Yes.”
I settled deeper into my blankets.
The migraine objected to every movement.
“That isn’t what we’re discussing.”
“That is exactly what we’re discussing.”
I sighed.
“Fine.”
Immediately, her expression softened.
Not teasing.
Not playful.
Protective.
________________________________
As though she already knew where this memory belonged.
I had been absurdly nervous.
Not merely because I feared rejection—though there was certainly some of that.
Because I cared.
There is an unsettling vulnerability that accompanies wanting something beautiful.
Particularly when that beauty is sitting beside you, basking in the moment.
I had no clever plan.
No practiced script.
No grand strategy.
Only pain.
Only the sincere hope that she might wish to spend a little time with me.
“Would you like to go make out on the bed?”
Even now, I remain impressed that this proposal made it over my lips and stumbled into the open air.
Her smile bloomed instantly.
My Inner Goddess has maintained ever since that this should have been interpreted as a favorable sign.
Together, we retreated to the enormous king bed.
I remember the profound reassurance of discovering that she seemed every bit as delighted to be there as I was.
The shyness remained.
Curiously, so did the excitement.
The two emotions settled side by side and refused to leave. There are people who make you feel valued. There are people who make you feel admired. Lysithea made me feel seen.
The distinction matters.
The distance between us gradually disappeared.
A dimple.
A glance.
A brush of fingertips.
A kiss.
Then another.
The sort of gentle exploration that allows anticipation to blossom rather than demanding it arrive all at once.
The surprising ease with which our bodies settled together remains vivid.
As though they had reached an agreement before either of us had been consulted.
The curve of her arm.
The silken fall of caramel hair across my skin.
The musical cadence of her voice.
The comfort of shared closeness.
The joy of being near someone who felt remarkably easy to like.
I remember lying beside her and realizing that all the anxiety I had carried into that room had begun to dissolve.
Not vanish. Merely loosen its grip. The headache retreated for a little while. Not defeated. Merely forgotten. An achievement worthy of documentation.
Fingertips drifting across velvet skin.
Warbled amusement
The sort of conversation that wanders nowhere important and somehow becomes unforgettable anyway.
________________________________
The impression carried a sweetness that lingered long afterward. I found myself beaming despite myself. Even wiggling slightly beneath the blankets at the impression. The motion proved unwise. My skull immediately lodged a formal complaint. The tent peg drove another fraction deeper.
I grimaced.
My Inner Goddess waited patiently until I stopped glaring at my own nervous system.
Then she crossed her arms.
“Do you know what I find interesting?”
“What?”
“You claim the evening was a failure.”
“It was.”
“You just spent five minutes describing an event you clearly adore.”
I opened my mouth.
Then closed it again.
Because that was deeply inconvenient.
“And,” she continued, “we have not even discussed the Demigod yet.”
My eyes narrowed.
Her expression brightened.
“Oh yes.”
She settled comfortably into her chair.
“That memory is next.”
My Inner Goddess nodded smugly.
“See?”
“That proves nothing.”
“It proves you forgot your migraine.”
“It proves Lysithea is beguiling.”
“Same thing.”
I grumbled and pulled the blanket over my head.
The weight was comforting.
The morning light disappeared.
Impishly, my Inner Goddess allowed another account to drift upward, coloring the darkness of my cocoon.
The Demigod.
My Inner Goddess purred.
“He peeked through the doorway.”
________________________________
The testament arrived in fragments.
A broad silhouette filling the frame.
A tickled smile.
The sort of confidence that ought to be illegal in at least three states.
Lysithea and I regarded one another.
Then looked back at him.
“He has entirely too many clothes on.”
My Inner Goddess snorted.
“An objectively correct observation.”
The next portion of the keepsake unfolded with alarming efficiency.
The Demigod began removing articles of clothing, and my migraine was forgotten as I forgot how to breathe.
Lysithea and I remained utterly transfixed.
There are moments when a woman can remain composed in trying circumstances. This was not one of them. Our attention simply followed him with the inevitability of sunflowers turning toward sunlight.
A moment later, he joined us.
All gods-blessed six-plus feet of him.
The enormous bed suddenly seemed considerably smaller.
The residual heat of his body settled around us, inviting and distracting all at once.
The scent of him lingered in the air.
The sound of his baritone wrapped itself around my concentration and carried it away.
The weight of his presence altered the entire atmosphere of the room.
The irritating certainty that he was fully aware of the effect he was having only made matters worse.
Or better.
Depending upon one’s perspective.
His pheromones permeated all five of my senses, and from that point forward, my prospects for surviving intact were exceedingly poor.
I remember him dividing his attention with infuriating confidence, somehow managing to leave neither of us neglected. His lips suckled and adored my breast while the fingers of his free hand pinched and teased one of Lysithea’s. Then, he alternated.
________________________________
My Inner Goddess shivered at the recollection.
“Hmm.”
“What?”
“A god capable of dividing his attention between two women and leaving neither feeling neglected…”
I cursed under my breath, stubbornly ignoring the familiar ache beginning to unfurl low in my belly.
She continued.
“We should encourage excellence wherever we find it.”
“You are impossible.”
“No.”
She appeared genuinely thoughtful.
“Do you have any idea how rare competence is these days?”
The tableau shifted.
________________________________
The Demigod had moved down my prone form, parting my thighs and burying his head at the sweetness waiting for him at my apex. Nevertheless, my body and mind were waging separate battles. My release arrived on his tongue, yet it was small, muted, almost insignificant compared to the earth-shattering crescendos I knew I was capable of. The migraine still gripped me mercilessly, pain laced through every thought. My brow furrowed. For one brief moment, I considered calling the entire evening to a halt.
My Inner Goddess dismissed the ghost with a flick of her hand.
“No. Not that part.”
She skipped ahead to the moment that mattered.
The Demigod yanked me toward him, impaling me on his eager cock, and suddenly the sensation was no longer trapped behind my eyes. A violent rush swept through the rest of me with every punishing thrust of his magnificent hips, demanding to be felt everywhere at once. I covered my eyes, teeth clenched, as competing sensations collided and blurred together into something strange, dizzying, and almost intoxicating.
There. That was what I had needed. Not escape. Simply for the pain to stop existing in isolation. For it to cease being the center of my universe. For something—anything—else to be large enough to share the stage. Until the ache behind my eyes was no longer the only thing I could feel.
No longer the loudest thing in the room.
The memory continued.
More gods joined us, clothing abandoned with hedonistic disregard.
The enormous bed, already struggling under the presence of the Demigod, surrendered completely.
Laughter echoed through the room.
Teasing remarks flew back and forth.
At some point, I stopped attempting to keep track of who occupied which corner of the mattress and simply accepted that Olympus had apparently decided to arrive in all its glory and majesty.
The migraine still lurked. Still pounded. Still drove its infernal drums behind my eyes.
My Inner Goddess fine-tuned the vision once more.
Caius appeared at my shoulder and, without a word, settled atop me while the Demigod continued his relentless campaign, demonstrating precisely why mortals should never trust gods.
________________________________
My Inner Goddess immediately perked up.
“Oh, I remember this part.”
Of course she did.
________________________________
Caius offered himself to me.
My lips parted, and I found myself longing for a return to normalcy—whatever that meant under the circumstances.
The three of us fell into a thoroughly licentious rhythm.
I attempted to concentrate.
Unfortunately, I was simultaneously managing a migraine, keeping pace with the Demigod, and maintaining at least a passing adoration of Caius—my tongue worshipping, my throat working diligently despite the drums still pounding behind my eyes. The logistics alone were formidable.
I have no idea whether any of these efforts were proceeding particularly well.
The lingering sweetness of Caius’ cock coated my tongue while the pounding behind my eyes prosecuted its war without mercy.
I wanted the evening to end. I never wanted it to end. The contradiction hardly made sense at the time.
Caius, meanwhile, appeared to be enjoying himself immensely.
________________________________
My Inner Goddess seemed equally transported.
“See?” she purred.
I covered my face.
“This is not helping.”
“It is helping me.”
“That is not the same thing.”
“No,” she agreed cheerfully. “It really isn’t.”
My Inner Goddess was extraordinarily pleased with herself at the summoning.
The traitor.
________________________________
Caius responded enthusiastically to my attention, his cock pressing another unthinkable inch down my throat.
My Inner Goddess flicked her hand.
The snapshot shifted once more.
For a fleeting moment, I found myself caught between jockeying gods, each with its own demands. My attention was being claimed from the relentless god behind, his grip unshakable on my hips, the ridge of his cock destroying every nerve in my pussy. The god seated on the edge of the bed was a solid reassurance, a familiar presence, and so was the cock my lips were sealed around. My body was simultaneously pulled into the center of a storm of sensations while the migraine continued its stubborn assault on my temple.
Resting a moment, my head against a sinewy thigh as I attempted to remember which crisis deserved my immediate attention. The answer, unfortunately, appeared to be all of them.
The floor was maple and solid beneath my feet, and the pleasure running down my legs to pool at my feet. The edge of the bed. The lingering aftermath of bliss. The pounding behind my eyes. The candlelight glimmered across bronze skin and tangled sheets.
________________________________
My Inner Goddess hummed appreciatively, and I could practically feel her toes curling in satisfaction.
________________________________
The room had long since dissolved into chuckles, flickering light, and the peculiar sort of chaos that only seemed possible when Olympians were involved. Voices blurred together. Enchantment drifted through the haze. Someone growled. Someone was groaning. The bed protested dramatically.
Meanwhile, I was attempting to navigate pleasure, pain, gods, my mortal soul, and a migraine simultaneously.
The agony surged. Pleasure surged. The two collided somewhere behind my eyes and left coherent thought in ruins. The tent stake behind my right eye appeared to have advanced to a frankly concerning depth. A particularly irrational portion of my brain wondered whether I might wake the following morning blind. Death would have been preferable. Was that a possibility?
________________________________
My Inner Goddess, unsympathetic as ever, merely huffed and flooded my mind with the erotic absurdity of the situation. Nothing about the evening had gone according to plan, and nothing about it made any sense.
Gods.
Migraines.
Candlelight.
Chaos.
And yet, somehow, everyone seemed impossibly happy.
Including me.
Especially me.
Despite the aches settling into every muscle and the lingering tenderness of a body that had been asked to endure considerably more than was reasonable, my Inner Goddess continued sifting through the memories.
________________________________
Then Seraphina the Archani arrived with the Archangel. The grins on their faces told me everything I needed to know. My heart immediately unclenched.
My little pantheon was complete. Surrounded by my collection of hedonistic gods, warriors, angels, and roguish troublemakers, I finally allowed myself to exhale. The evening no longer depended upon me.
That realization was unexpectedly liberating. The gods would be well cared for. The revelry would continue. The levity would persist long into the night.
And for the first time since the festivities had begun, I understood that I was permitted to stop. If I wished to retreat for a while, no one would be disappointed. No one’s evening would be diminished. No joy would be lost on my account.
The celebration had grown larger than any one person, including me. For perhaps the first time that evening, I felt no responsibility beyond my own happiness. I was no longer required to hold the center.
________________________________
My Inner Goddess mused softly at the vignette.
“Now,” she murmured, “you were finally able to enjoy your own party.”
And that, more than anything else, made me feel safe enough to let go.
My Inner Goddess brightened immediately.
“Now for the trophies.”
I stared at her.
“We have trophies?”
She gave me a look that somehow managed to convey both obviously and please try to keep up.
“Two gold and a silver.”
Again, that look. The one suggesting I was testing her patience.
The impression unfolded.
________________________________
The Demigod sprawled across the bed like a conquering hero who had finally been persuaded to rest.
Seraphina sat at the edge of the bed massaging his bare feet, her hands displaying their customary elegance.
Lysithea settled comfortably alongside him, her bosom presented for his devotion. Given her generous proportions, the Demigod soon appeared in genuine danger of disappearing wholly beneath her affectionate attentions. As he buried his face against her, a fleeting worry flitted through my mind regarding his continued access to oxygen.
Then again, if he was determined to perish, there were certainly less pleasant ways to go.
The room glowed with candlelight and hedonism.
The migraine still lingered somewhere in the distance, but by then it had become little more than background noise.
Muted. Reduced to an afterthought.
The Demigod had spent the entire evening being absurdly proficient, impossibly charming, and generally behaving as though the laws of nature were merely polite suggestions.
For once, however, all attention had turned toward him.
The great hunter had spent the evening pursuing his quarry. Now the tables had turned. And he was losing ground with alarming speed.
________________________________
My coxcombical Inner Goddess practically vibrated.
“Oh, we were magnificent.”
“We?”
She ignored me.
________________________________
I remembered exchanging grins with the immortal goddesses.
The unspoken understanding.
The shared determination.
The growing certainty that the Demigod was about to discover that a group of women with a shared objective represented one of the most unstoppable forces in the known universe.
The memory sharpened.
Lysithea sucking in a breath at his overeager suckling.
Seraphina focused on her task.
I was kneeling in the space between his legs, stealing small kisses across his abdomen while my hands wandered appreciatively over the hard planes of his stomach. Then the attack, with singular focus, I worked the length of a cock that seemed sculpted by particularly ambitious gods. My arm began lodging increasingly vigorous objections as I quickened my efforts. Lubricant shimmered along his skin, and the exertion left his cock darkening, swelling, and the tip began to weep beneath the sustained demand. But I did not stop.
Three women.
One objective.
An alarming degree of teamwork.
The Demigod began to pant, every muscle standing out in sharp relief beneath his skin. Any illusion of easy confidence had evaporated.
The strain was everywhere.
Tendons pulled taut along his neck. Veins rose beneath sun-kissed skin. His brow furrowed. His chest heaved with increasingly uneven breaths while the herculean lines of his body tightened as though every fiber had been drawn to the breaking point.
Control was costing him something now.
I could see it.
The effort had become visible in every line of his frame.
His jaw clenched.
His hands flexed.
Muscles rippled and locked beneath his skin with the sort of intensity usually reserved for men attempting to hold back an avalanche through sheer force of will.
The transformation was mesmerizing.
This was not the composed, infuriatingly confident Demigod who always seemed several steps ahead of everyone else.
This was a man fighting a losing battle against forces rapidly escaping his command.
Every breath grew harsher.
Every movement carried a hint of desperation.
Every second stripped away another layer of composure.
And my Inner Goddess watched the entire spectacle with the sort of saucy fascination usually reserved for rare celestial events.
My hands became a blur, redoubling their efforts with heroic determination as the pace accelerated. My jaw clenched. My eyes remained fixed upon his purpling cock. I would not lose my rhythm now.
Not when victory was finally within reach. I could feel the change swelling beneath my fingers.
Subtle at first.
Then unmistakable.
His cock thickened beneath my efforts, resistance increasing with every determined stroke. My protesting arm lodged increasingly urgent objections, but I ignored them all.
I had come too far.
His destruction would be ours.
After all, it was not every day one witnessed a force of nature discovering that he was, in fact, mortal enough to struggle.
Then came the moment itself.
The Demigod’s composure shattered violently.
For one glorious instant, the man who always appeared unshakable was rocked to his very core.
The small portion of his expression I managed to glimpse around Lysithea’s gorgeous bosom remains one of my favorite memories.
Shock.
Disbelief.
Possibly a brief loss of consciousness.
And the dawning realization that a man who had spent the entire evening testing the limits of the goddesses around him had finally encountered a limit of his own.
________________________________
My Inner Goddess placed a hand dramatically over her heart.
“It was epic.”
I snickered.
“You were worried we might have broken him!”
“For approximately two seconds.”
“Two?”
“Possibly three.”
The remembrance still made us both blush. Not because of what happened. Because of what it represented. Irrefutable validation. Confirmation that even gods occasionally met their match. Even if it took three of us.
My Inner Goddess was extraordinarily pleased.
“That,” she declared, “deserves a place of honor.”
“We do not have a trophy shelf.”
“We do now.”
“You are truly insufferable.”
Ignoring me completely, she lifted the memory with both hands, buffed it to a brilliant shine, and placed it upon an imaginary shelf.
First Gold. The plaque appeared beneath it immediately.
THE SUBJUGATION OF A DEMIGOD
Joint Goddess Initiative
I stared.
She admired her handiwork.
“Beautiful.”
I sighed.
Some memories, apparently, deserved their own display case in the library.
Almost afraid to ask about the second trophy, I nestled deeper into my blanket nest and gave her a reluctant nod to continue.
My Inner Goddess beamed.
The first gold occupied a place of honor upon its shelf, polished to a dazzling shine beneath its freshly engraved plaque.
She admired it one final time. Adjusted it slightly. Stepped back. Adjusted it again. Then nodded in satisfaction.
“There.”
“You are aware that none of this is real.”
She waved dismissively.
“The trophy is real.”
“The shelf is imaginary.”
“The distinction feels unnecessarily academic.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose, pain washing over my features, which immediately reminded me that this was a terrible idea.
My Inner Goddess ignored me.
With great ceremony, she crossed the vast halls of her imaginary library and stopped before another display case.
My stomach sank.
“Oh no.”
“Oh yes.”
Her grin widened.
“The second gold.”
I eyed the empty pedestal suspiciously and sighed, “What happened?”
My Inner Goddess placed both hands victoriously on her hips.
The expression on her face suggested a trickster about to reveal either a birthday present or a felony.
Possibly both.
Then she flicked her fingers. Another echo awakened. And suddenly I remembered exactly why we had the second trophy.
________________________________
Jack had been sitting with his back against the headboard, quietly watching the entire spectacle unfold.
Wordlessly, I backed toward him, parting my legs and anchoring them on either side of his hips, offering him a rather sinful view of my derriere.
I heard his apprehensive laugh. Then his uncertain whisper. He wasn’t quite ready for me.
Pfft.
I took that as a personal challenge.
I ground against him, working my wet pussy back and forth, smug at the quickly growing evidence that my efforts were having precisely the effect I intended. His low laugh had vanished somewhere along the way, replaced by a tension I found deeply satisfying.
With a subtle shift of my hips and a flick of my fingers from under his shaft, I guided him inside me until I had fully sheathed him. The muscles of my pussy were already eager as they accepted and convulsed around him. I settled back against his hips, drawing a slow breath and silently bargaining with the tent spike lodged behind my eye for a few moments of mercy.
The migraine protested.
I cursed it.
The next chapter arrived wrapped in twilight and arrogance.
The room thickened: bodies and limbs, tangled sheets, and the heat of Olympus descending in a whirlwind of lust and passion.
Yet somehow the mirror narrowed my attention to a single point.
Him.
Us.
The way his composure began abandoning him with increasing speed, his nails began to bite into the flesh of my hips.
________________________________
My Inner Goddess practically preened.
“You took that statement very personally.”
“He challenged me.”
“He made an observation.”
“It felt like a challenge.”
She considered this.
“Fair.”
The archive continued.
________________________________
The mirror reflected every stolen glance.
My Cheshire grin.
The sheen on my body.
The triumph blooming inside me. There was a thread of growing certainty that his demise was approaching.
Back and forth, my hips pumped
Back and forth. I ground against him, every motion fueled by equal parts determination and vanity. I arched, feeling the muscles of my back tighten and sharpen in the reflection exactly the way he liked. My sapphire hair had long since escaped whatever arrangement it had once possessed, tumbling around my shoulders in glorious disarray.
In my memory, it gleamed.
Every rebellious strand catching the candlelight.
The room faded. The mirth blurred. Motion. Passion. The swell of the unstoppable.
The migraine disappeared when the inevitable finally arrived. There was the feel of his hot release bursting and coating my inner walls as my body compressed his twitching crown.
That was the trophy.
The triumph.
The smug certainty that even when he insisted he was not ready, I could still escort him to his fate with remarkable efficiency.
He had issued the warning.
I had accepted the challenge.
From the beginning, the outcome had been inevitable.
I basked in the sort of exhausted satisfaction usually reserved for victorious generals and exceptionally troublesome women.
________________________________
I let out a low groan at the recollection.
My Inner Goddess immediately pointed.
“There.”
“What?”
“Proof.”
I buried my face in the blanket.
She ignored me.
“Two golds.”
I lamented my circumstances.
She folded her arms.
“The evening was not an epic failure.”
“It had a migraine.”
“It had trophies.”
I peeked over the blanket.
She looked insufferably pleased.
Unfortunately, she also appeared to be winning and knew it as she returned the trophy to its case. I caught the wording at the last second:
THE FOLLY OF UNDERESTIMATING A GODDESS
“I Am Not Ready.” — Famous Last Words
Ignoring my stare, my Inner Goddess inspected her pristine nails.
“And the silver?”
I wracked my brain, wishing the throbbing would finally surrender.
Her countenance widened.
“Oh, the silver.”
________________________________
Another image drifted forward. The Archangel had replaced the Demigod. His boyish eyes twinkled.
Seraphina settled her elegant legs on either side of his shoulders and claimed her perch with unmistakable authority, as though the Archangel’s face had been promoted to royal furniture for the evening.
When her gaze met mine, I saw amusement dancing there and grinned wickedly back. Our hands converged on his ready cock. The Archangel’s confidence remained intact for approximately thirty seconds.
________________________________
My Inner Goddess practically cackled.
“He wanted it so badly.”
“And it still nearly broke him!”
The memory brightened.
________________________________
Seraphina’s attention never wavered from her lover. She knew him. Knew his tells. Knew the techniques I was only beginning to appreciate.
His increasingly inevitable fate was written plainly across the taut sinews of his legs and the tightening of his abdominal muscles.
I adored how thoroughly outnumbered he was.
The room practically hummed with electricity. Jubilation mingled with groans. Candlelight danced across tangled limbs and rumpled sheets. The entire scene felt suspended somewhere between revelry and myth.
Meanwhile, the migraine continued its long retreat into irrelevance. And for several glorious minutes, nothing else mattered.
Not pain.
Not responsibility.
Not tomorrow.
Only the joy of sharing the moment with people I adored.
My fingers and tongue intertwined with Seraphina’s, the two of us falling into a rhythm that felt less like coordination and more like conspiracy. I sucked one ball into my mouth. My tongue working over the soft skin, my nose filling with the fragrant scent of lavender.
The Archangel endured the combined assault upon his cock with admirable determination. For a while. Then the cracks began to show. His breathing from between Seraphina’s thighs roughened.
The tension gathered visibly through his frame.
And eventually, his self-control abandoned him, his cock jetting his release with remarkable enthusiasm.
Seraphina glowed with whimsy as the evidence dribbled down her fingers. Luminescent, I settled back on my heels, immensely pleased with both the outcome and the spectacle. Around us, bodies continued to converge and rippled through the room.
The Archangel, meanwhile, appeared to be reconsidering several of the decisions that had led him to this moment.
________________________________
My Inner Goddess pointed triumphantly.
“There.”
“What?”
“The silver.”
I smiled despite myself.
“The silver?”
She nodded.
“An excellent silver.”
I rolled my eyes.
“That’s not a thing.”
“It absolutely is.”
She dusted the imaginary medal against her sleeve. It read:
EXEMPLARY ACCOMPLICE
Supporting an Archani in the Pursuit of Excellence
“The golds were victories.”
“And the silver?”
Her expression softened.
“The silver was teamwork.”
The thought flickered warmly between us.
Seraphina’s bemused look. The Archangel’s increasingly doomed composure.
The unspoken coordination that required no discussion whatsoever.
I considered this.
“She won that trophy.”
“Oh, unquestionably.”
My Inner Goddess didn’t hesitate.
“That was Seraphina’s gold.”
I twittered.
“And I received the silver?”
“You provided support.”
“I provided support.”
“You were an exemplary accomplice.”
I buried my face in the pillow.
She ignored me.
“The finest teams require more than one player.”
The impression glowed like a summer firefly. That was something I cherished about my relationships with my friends. There was never any competition or jealousy. Just the peculiar satisfaction of helping someone you adore achieve complete and spectacular success.
My Inner Goddess held the silver up to the light.
“Not every trophy is awarded for conquest.”
I considered that.
She smiled.
“Some are awarded for being exactly where you were needed.”
I found I liked that considerably more.
She gave the medal one final polish.
“Besides,” she added, “there is no disappointment in earning silver when your teammate is an Archani.”
I couldn’t really argue with that.
It’s Saturday morning again. My head has not given up. The drums have not surrendered. Ugh. With a groan, I buried my face deeper into the pillow and briefly considered suffocating myself. Was that even possible? It seemed less painful than negotiating with my own skull for yet another day.
Yet my heart felt lighter.
Reluctantly, I admit that perhaps the evening had not been a catastrophic failure. Perhaps I had been catastrophizing a little. Maybe. Probably.
The realization felt deeply irritating. My eyelids were growing heavy. I wanted to sleep. A couple more hours at least. Possibly a week.
Unfortunately, it was morning.
And Seraphina and the Archangel occupied the other room.
At some point, I would have to emerge from my blanket fortress and resume my duties as a respectable hostess.
The prospect seemed wildly ambitious.
My Inner Goddess, meanwhile, had acquired a gleam in her eye.
I narrowed mine immediately.
“What?”
She attempted innocence. But the effort was unconvincing.
“What?”
“I know, I know…”
Her large eyes sparkled.
“But there is one more memory.”
I groaned. She ignored me.
“One more.”
“You already proved your point.”
“I did.”
“Three times.”
“Multiple times, actually.”
I glared at her accusingly.
She regarded me with unmistakable impudence.
“But this one,” she said, practically resonating with anticipation, “is my favorite.”
I stared with droopy eyes. She bounced once on her toes. The feathers of her vast white wings fluttered with barely contained excitement. I had seen that expression before. Nothing good had ever followed it.
My suspicion deepened.
“What memory?”
Her face became positively radiant.
“Oh, you’ll remember.”
I should have refused. Instead, I gave a reluctant nod. Immediately, she clapped her hands. The vision surged forward.
And suddenly I understood why she had been dancing.
________________________________
At some point during the evening, hours later or perhaps only minutes, my sense of time had long since abandoned me—I found myself thoroughly exhausted.
Over the course of the night, I had been claimed first by one god and then another. Caius had very nearly ruined his shoulder in the process of turning my alabaster bottom into a flaming red. I felt a twinge of guilt about that.
A very small twinge.
My body had already been pushed beyond anything resembling reason, depleted by days of migraine and far too little sleep. Every muscle ached. My thoughts drifted in and out like ships disappearing into fog. Even my vision blurred around the edges from exhaustion.
Pleasure had not diminished. It had merely changed its character. The peaks were gentler, a bit more subdued, less traumatic, though no less welcome. The reserves of nectar were sparse; at least the poor bedding had been spared the full consequences of my enthusiasm. An unexpected silver lining, I supposed.
Even so, I cannot place precisely when this scene occurred.
Only that Lysithea was occupied with the Demigod’s cock, elegantly perched between his legs, and I drifted closer, drawn by equal parts affection and curiosity.
I recall leaning in to steal a kiss. His pheromones flooding my senses, turning coherent thought into an increasingly unreliable companion.
I remember the Demigod somehow remaining aware of everything unfolding around him despite being distracted from every conceivable direction.
That, more than anything else, was what impressed me.
Most men would have lost track of the world.
The Demigod merely quirked a brow, adjusted his calculating fingers working their way between my thighs to my tender pussy, and continued keeping track of an astonishing number of moving parts as though it were the most natural thing in the world.
Infuriatingly competent.
As usual.
One moment, I was simply there. Kissing, fingers teasing through the curls in his chest.
Next, my body betrayed me spectacularly. The sudden, explosive loss of composure. The helplessness of it. The way my thoughts scattered. The way the migraine vanished beneath a tidal wave of far more immediate concerns.
The Demigod’s buried hand discovered the last reserves I possessed and, with characteristic cunning, dismantled them entirely. The release swept through me in a final, unstoppable wave. I remember the flood coursing down his straining arm, like a river finally breaching its banks. Like a storm drain overwhelmed after days of relentless rain.
The current flowed over his skin, gathering in the hollow of his elbow before continuing its journey downward and into the waiting linens below.
When I finally regained enough awareness to glance downward, I nearly lost my composure all over again.
How had that been possible? My body had spent the entire evening insisting it was exhausted.
Spent.
Depleted.
Three days of migraine had reduced me to a shadow of myself.
Or so I had believed.
Meanwhile, Lysithea remained admirably committed to her own campaign. The Demigod’s eventual demise still appeared to be her primary objective.
I had loved the Demigod proving me wrong. My body had said I was so done, so tired. And he had delivered one more. I loved the sight of his arm, all slick and wet and powerful, my demise coating his arm.
I, however, found myself distracted. Not by the migraine. Not by my fatigue. By proof. I had been convinced I had nothing left to give. My body had disagreed. The Demigod had disagreed. And the corroboration was currently running down his arm. I loved being proven wrong.
I loved that my body had whispered, I am finished. And he had somehow found one more. My beautiful catastrophe.
________________________________
My Inner Goddess sighed happily.
“Now that was impressive.”
I sputtered into giggles despite myself.
The motion immediately aggravated my headache.
My Inner Goddess considered this.
“Worth it.”
I hated that she was probably right.
With a groan, I untucked my wounded head from the feathery fortress of my pillow and truly beheld my Inner Goddess.
Not the teasing creature who had spent the morning presenting evidence and polishing imaginary trophies.
Her.
She was radiant.
Content.
At peace.
The vast white feathers of her wings settled around her like a cloak of moonlight. The sapphire of her hair shimmered in the morning glow. There was something almost priestess-like about her now.
Ancient.
Patient.
Wise in ways I rarely gave her credit for.
She had created this. Not the evening. Not the revelry. Something far more important.
A sanctuary.
A place where goddesses, queens, warriors, gods, angels, archani, and arch troublemakers could gather together in safety and joy.
A place where glee and rapture flourished. A place where affection was offered freely. A place where people could simply be themselves.
And now she sat among the memories like a devoted curator.
The trophies burnished.
The shelves organized.
The treasures carefully preserved.
I knew there were more memories from that night. Many more. I could see them reflected in her eyes. Little fragments of laughter. Stolen conversations. Tender moments. Moments of triumph. Moments of ridiculousness.
Entire treasures she had not yet shown me.
Part of her was practically brimming with eagerness to continue. Another part held them close. Not out of selfishness. Out of reverence.
Like an ancient priestess guarding sacred relics. Like a librarian entrusted with irreplaceable manuscripts. Like a dragon curled around a hoard assembled not of gold, but of joy.
I adored her for it.
For remembering when I forgot. For preserving what pain tried to steal. For holding the memories safely until I was strong enough to look at them again.
The drums still pounded behind my eyes. My migraine had not vanished. My body still ached.
But my verdict had changed. Friday had not been a failure. Not even close.
My Inner Goddess strutted in pride.
She had known that all along.
Until next time, XO. Elsie
Year of the Inner Goddess 