Page 243 of Monsters in Love

“I got an email from the caterer this morning,” he said suddenly, his mind seeming to wander in the same direction as her own. “Just confirming everything we sent over...are you sure we shouldn’t put more meat options on the menu? Just as a precaution? We could always—”

“We’re giving them a chicken dish,” she cut in with a smile. He fretted endlessly over impressing the human side of her family, and it didn’t seem to matter how often she told him he had nothing to worry about. “If they’re not happy with that, they’re more than welcome to eat before they come. No, we don’t need to add more meat. More than half the guest list is vegetarians, it’s fine as it is.”

“Your Aunt Simone is a big gossip, by your own admission. I don’t want your family thinking I’m overly controlling...”

She spun, the ancient coins forgotten, for the moment. Her smile at the sight of him wasn’t one she could help—he was the exact same slightly rumpled academic he’d been when they’d met, confident and forthright, but he’d always had a bit of insecurity when it came to impressing humans. Professors, site managers, other anthropologists...and now her family. She stretched up onto her toes, wrapping her arms around his thick neck, pressing herself to his solid heat.

“My Aunt Simone is going to find something to gossip about whether or not we give her cause for it, so I say let’s do things our way and not worry about it.” His teeth caught at her ear as she nuzzled the thick hide against the side of his neck. “Okay, no more wedding talk. From either of us. We’re just getting ourselves stressed out.” Dropping from her toes, she spun again, pulling him by the hand. “No more wedding talk! Show me what’s next.”

Her breath caught as her feet turned inward, following the exhibit’s pathway, coming face-to-face with their joint preoccupation. The chiton on the mannequin was dyed a rich, vibrant purple, definitely not an everyday color, and the dark wig was crowned with a wreath of small, white flowers.

“This is how they were dressed for their presentation at the palace,” he murmured in a low voice. “The Minoan Brides. The color was a symbol of...well, you already know that.”

She sucked in a long breath, leaning back against the solidity of his form as an arm came around her. She’d already picked out her own dress, a frothy summertime confection of royal purple chiffon with a draped bodice and cinched waist, not altogether that different from the chiton the mannequin wore.A touch ofeternity. “This is a reproduction, of course, based on what we know from pottery and frescos. The tributes were washed and anointed with oils, dressed as brides. Presented in chains. There was a great feast, we know from the frescos there were musicians, and they were well fed. It was quite the party.”

“It sounds like a typical wedding,” she said ruefully, leaning against him as strong arms came around her. “Speaking of which, we need to book the music soon. We need to decide if we want a DJ or a band, or maybe both...” They had dozens of friends and colleagues, former classmates and roommates and lab mates, research partners and professors, mentors and students. She’d not initially wanted a big wedding, but they’d quickly agreed thatbigwas an inevitability, unless they had a private ceremony.

“I'm going to say both every time it’s an option because it’s one less decision to make. And what happened to no more wedding talk?”

She stretched up to reach his mouth, sighing into the heat of his rough tongue, wanting to lay her cheek against his chest and not move any further—not into the exhibit, not into her move, not into life. Frozen there, together, like the mummified remains of a dig site...alas, she sighed, that wasn’t an option, and the next exhibit display was yet around another corner.

“Yes, right. No more wedding talk. So we’re coming from all over the Aegean on a Minoan ship. I’m getting a bath and a post-sailing glow up, flowers in my hair, a pretty purple wedding chiton...now what?”

His fingers, long and thick, laced with hers, squeezing her hand as he winked, and she decided at that moment that he was going to be the most handsome minotaur in the world once his nose was cinched.

“Well, you know what they say. The best part of any wedding is the wedding night.”

We hear the screams first. It is a girl's voice, rising and falling with greater and greater fervor, and we hear her before our eyes have a chance to adjust to the darkness.

The darkness of the pit is all-consuming. The sweet smell of orange blossoms in the wreaths that each of us wears upon our hair is nearly overpowering as the light above slowly recedes, as we are lowered into the maze. It is almost a shock when our manacles are removed. We huddle together beneath the hole where the platform rose up, leaving us behind, when one of the other girls begins to shepherd the others down a black corridor. None of us want to move, for it seems smarter and safer to remain stationary and huddled together, but it is almost as if our wills are not our own and we have been left stricken dumb and mute and mindless as worms. We are sheep, and we go where our shepherd moves us. When a corner is turned, the darkness is broken by torchlight. There are torches dotting the pathway we are on breaking up the impenetrable blackness in small glowing pockets. A first, it is a relief to be able to see what is in front of us, but I have quickly realized that the torchlight's meager illumination creates a false sense of security, and the pockets of darkness in between the torches seems more ominous and filled with dangers than the black corridor had.

We have turned several times before we truly realize we are being shepherded. The girl who guides us is not wearing sweet-smelling flowers in her hair, there is nothing sweet-smelling about her. Her face is streaked with dust and dirt, her hair a matted, snarled nest for birds. Her chiton, what is left of it, is faded and in tatters. It is then that we hear the screams.

We hear the screams and then one of our own begins to scream as well, and like sheep, when one starts bleating, the entire herd soon follows. We are running now, running in a mindless panic, trying to close the distance on each of the torches and remain in the meager circles of light they throw, but the screaming girl is getting louder, and I realize we are being herded to the center of the maze where the beast resides.

Another turn, and then suddenly there is more than one dirt-streaked girl at our backs, pushing us further down the corridor until we have spilled into the center of the maze, ringed in torches, firelight banishing the darkness so that we might see every bit of the scene before us. We have discovered the source of the screaming. The girl is not screaming in pain or terror, we see immediately. I expected to see carnage, but instead, a scene of carnality greets us. The girl is held aloft, her bare toes scraping the air above the labyrinth’s dirt floor, impaled on the beast’s cock. A rising, frenzied pleasure seems to grip her as thrusts, and the ring of onlookers—the other brides, whose numbers we are there to bolster—are equally as affected, each one begging for their turn; begging, begging, to be taken next. The girl’s cries reach a crescendo in a long, broken wail, and as we watch, her belly distends as if she is an overfilled wineskin, brimming with the monster’s seed. I am not ignorant as to the shape of a man, but nothing in any oracle fire could have prepared me for the sight of the rigid rod of flesh that speared the girl, still proud and erect, even as she is dropped in a gush of fluid.

When the girl is deposited, several of the others rush forward—not to help her, but to offer themselves in her place, begging to be ravished in the same way. She is eventually pulled aside by several sets of hands, all belonging to women who are swollen with child, her body rolled with them to the edge of the torchlight where they squat and watch the others. Another of the brides has been selected by the beast, moaning already as she is similarly speared, but I am unable to pull my eyes from the girl laying in the dirt, and the way she whimpers. One of the young women from the circle surrounding Minos’s monster has pushed her way to the back of the press of bodies, where the fecund women squat. Dropping to her knees before the newly used bride, she begins to bite at her thighs like an animal. She is quickly joined by another from the circle, then another, and soon they are fighting; pushing each other and pulling hair to ensure each of themselves the best position to bite the girl. I cry out at the barbarism, shrieking for someone to help her, and then I realize she is not being bitten at all. She moans feebly, her legs twitching, and I see that what they fight over is the minotaur’s seed, licking it from her legs and directly from her sex, pushing each other for the privilege, and I despair over what depravity lies in store for us here.

“Did I tell you there’s one of those milking places right by the museum? It’s literally right there, right on the corner! Just think, you can visit me at work in the city after I move, get a little vacuum sucky-sucky, and get paid for the day.”

Madoc gave a sharp bark of laughter, his hand landing on her hip. “I haven’t been to one of those since I was doing postdoc...honestly, it’s not a bad idea. We can pay for the caterer in cash. A bigger down payment once a house comes up would be good to have, and we should probably start saving now for college funds...what does the place look like from the outside? You know some of them are kind of skeevy.”

“I have no idea, I didn’t go inside. It’s in the building on the corner, it looks like every other grey high rise in the city. You’ll have to scope it out after I start. It’s not like you have a shortage oforganic specimen, after all.”

“Vacuum sucky-sucky,” he repeated, shaking his head in disgust. “Why do you always come up with the worst names? What did you call that one by our apartment, before I left for that dig in Croatia? The sploogey—”

“The Splooge Sucker Emporium!” she crowed, his rich laughter echoing around the marble space. “That place was great, we didn’t have to spend any of our stipends on rent the whole time we lived there! Okay, yes, you’re definitely checking out the place by the museum. Now, no more splooge talk! No more splooge talk or wedding talk, this is a very serious cultural exhibit and I want to give it my full academic attention, stop distracting me.”

“Mhm,” he hummed, trying and failing to conceal his wide smile. “Famous last words.” Motioning to the next turn, he ducked his head, shoulders shaking in suppressed laughter. “After you, Dr. Bowman.”

It took her several minutes to collect herself enough to form words. The next turn within the exhibit brought them to the meat of the collection, and Gwen stopped short before it. It was the main event, meant to elicit the exact stupefied reaction she displayed, but the knowledge that the shock she felt was by design didn’t prevent her cheeks from heating.

Her stomach swooped and flipped at the sight of the carved minotaur positioned at the entrance, its body curled over the figure beneath it. Despite its age, the anatomy was still clearly defined, depicted in a way that left no room for debate over what exactly the two forms were meant to be doing. As a prelude, the piece was impactful. She imagined how the average museum guest might react, what an elf or a werewolf would think, seeing the centuries-old proof of the carnality that had taken place within the labyrinth, certain they would blush or exclaim in outrage, perhaps question the docents over the appropriateness of such a display. As someone who regularly enjoyed the very position being depicted, however...Gwen shifted, squeezing her thighs together at the mere thought. She loved being taken by her bull in such a way—up on her knees, ass high in the air as he rutted into her, his elbows on either side of her shoulders, bracing him as his hooves scraped the ground, his breath hot at her back.

“The Splooge Sucker Emporium had a Minoan outpost,” she mumbled, scanning the room slowly. “Dr. Bowman, this is the horniest exhibit I’ve ever seen.” On the other side of the statue, the exhibit opened up into a large, square room. The rows of pottery were endless, the pieced together frescoes like giant jigsaw puzzles from another age, threadbare tapestries that had been painstakingly re-created, and everywhere she turned: the Minotaur and his brides. Gwen felt a ripple of pride move through her, surveying the extensiveness of the display, giddy that he did this, thathemade this collection a reality.Smart, sexy, passionate. He's your best friend, and you’re going to spend the rest of your lives together. And,she mentally added with a sly smile,he's fucking amazing in bed.

Madoc spoke from behind her as she stood frozen before the pillar. “This is the heart of the maze,” he murmured, the finger he stroked at the back of her neck making her shiver. “This is where the Minotaur resided with his brides.” The first row of pottery portrayed a line of women with heads bowed low, kneeling before the king. From vessel to vessel, she examined the progression of the tributes' journey to the labyrinth, from a vase circled with dark-haired, wide-eyed girls to a tablet inlaid with the classical unicursal labyrinth design. The shelves of pottery were broken by a fresco hung in the center of the aisle, a visual pause point that took her breath away—her first glimpse of the horned Cretan prince, standing before a long line of the women sent into the maze.

---