New to the story or need a refresher? Begin with the prologue:
Generally speaking, Titan parties are the worst. The performances: bland. The crowds—restless. Everyone stays up late to find the one thing that’s supposed to make the entire endeavor worthwhile. You really need to drink to power through the stuffy get-togethers. All those gathered try to make the jubilee work for them, and they all fail.
By the end, everyone becomes a dense, almost viscous swamp of desperation. The hall grounds are full of vom. Yes, gods heave too. And it’s perfectly rancid. You can’t get a chariot out of there fast enough. While you wait, the very venue itself feels feral. Every divine being has that hungry look in their eyes as they latch on to someone to club and drag home. Those shindigs are truly a goddamn nightmare.
I detest them, I realized as I woke up with a start the following morning. For a while, I subdued the feeling that I was forgetting something as I gazed up at the live murals Hephaestus had charmed onto my ceiling when he redesigned the residences on Mt. Olympus. This morning’s scene featured rolling waves with dolphins twirling out of the water.
The hues of blue pacified me until I was reminded of a chat I had with Poseidon at some point last night. I turned over, trying to recall what awful thing had come out of my mouth. I had that feeling that I had said something inappropriate.
When the lump of bedding stirred next to me, that dread multiplied by a hundred. I felt that same jarring feeling mortals must have when they hear their alarm at an unexpected place, at an unexpected time.
I peeled back the silk covers.
“S’matter?” asked Polydora, stretching.
“What are you doing in my bed?”
“Good morning, handsome! There you are. Did you sleep well?”
“Yes, I did. What are you doing in my bed?”
“We had an afterparty at your place.”
“Yes,” I said, recalling a particularly delicious nightcap. Or three. “But what are you doing in my bed?”
Polydora smiled at my words and stroked my beard. “What a rascal you are, mentioning this bed nonstop. You don’t recall that devious mind you had all night?”
“No, I—”
Then she serenely rolled over me by rehashing all the sexual positions we had contorted ourselves into.
It was then that I surmised that I was dreaming. A nightmare of sorts but a dream all the same. “This isn’t happening,” I said to myself. This was clearly a me issue. I pulled the sheet back up and gently covered her face to rectify the situation.
And with good timing too. The moment my hands left the sheets, Pan zipped into the room with my morningly glass of wine. “Drag yer ass outta bed, sunshine!”
As much as I wanted this all to be a prank, my hand did move under the sheets to cover Polydora’s mouth, which continued to recount the intricate details of my genitals.
“What a riot, yeah?” Pan said as he uncorked a bottle. “I mean, not as wild as some of our rad sprees when we were younger, but people were guzzling wine from serving bowls filled to the brim. We did the night justice, I reckon.”
“We did?”
“No rules, no reins. Just chaos in all its naked glory.”
“Right,” I said. “And what happened exactly?”
“You flipped the damned thing inside out. All thanks to that crazy stick of yours. What was it…seven taps by the end?”
“Seven times!” The last I remembered was five. And even that was fuzzy.
“Yeah, seven. Can you imagine? Well, yeah, you were there. It was debauchery raised to an artform. Rumor has it that it will be the front-page story of The Golden Trumpet.”
Polydora licked my fingers as if she were channeling some measure of last night’s sin into today.
“Stop that!”
“Stop what?” Pan asked as he turned around from the serving tray, two glasses of wine prepped.
“The wine,” I improvised. “I’d rather not have that just yet.”
“Lay off it. You resist every morning with all this talk about how you hate how much we party, and you’re going to swear off wine because you’ve done something crazy again that you regret, but I know it’s all talk. I see you when you’re in the moment. You enjoy the revelry. The drinking, the dancing, the frenzy of it all. It all means too much for you to give it up.”
“Fine,” I said, changing my tactic to get rid of him. “But not that bottle. Get the Hyacinth Hope.”
In a flash, he was gone.
“You need to get out of here before Pan returns,” I said to the covered mass that was Polydora.
“What?” She emerged from the bedding. “Why?”
“You’re the girl of his dreams. He’s the one I was trying to tell you about at the party. He’ll be absolutely crushed if he finds out that we’ve…you know.” I did not want to give power to the word, thus I gestured vaguely. Honestly, I don’t know how the fuck this could have happened.
“But you’re the one who couldn’t keep your hands off me. I don’t think I heard one mention of your little friend last night. At least, no mention other than this little friend.” Polydora’s hand shot out toward my crotch. In all my hangovers, never have I moved so quickly. I popped right out from underneath those sheets.
“Will you just get out of my bed?”
“Why are you so obsessed with this bed?” Polydora countered querulously, apparently fed up with discussions about sleeping quarters.
I had no words. There was something about her obstinance that sapped all of my willpower.
“You are a funny one,” she said finally. “First, you hit on me in that roundabout away, and then you practically scoop me up into your room. And now you’re trying to pawn me off to your friend.”
“I’m telling you the truth,” I pleaded.
“It’s okay. I’m not angry. I think the whole night was rather sweet. But it’s time that I take control of this situation. It’s clear to me that you want someone to look after you even though you have a strange way of expressing it. It’s probably because of all that wine you’ve been drinking.” She looked me up and down in a possessive kind of way. “Don’t worry, I will be able to fix you. It’s true you’ve led a bit of a wasted life up till now, but you are immortal, and I see a lot of potential in you. All those rumors of you being an insane drunk aren’t half as bad as they’re told.”
“No, there really isn’t any good in me at all,” I said shrinkingly. “And you’re not getting it.”
“Oh yes. Yes, I am. You simply need someone to guide you. Now get back in this bed that you love so much.”
Pan has this manner of shimmering into rooms. There I was, upright and stark naked, thinking of how to hoist this nymph out of my room, who now sprawled across my entire bed, when suddenly, I looked up, and there Pan was, full of radiant splendor. He moves from point to point with as little fuss and production as a falling leaf.
Luckily, his eyes were firmly attached to the label on the bottle as he recited:
Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?
More rich, more smooth, and more divine than this,
Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,
While every sip brings warmth and joy and bliss
“Ain’t that sweet,” Pan said. “This your handiwork?”
Being the god of theater, one of my lesser-known roles, afforded me the luxury of a strong sense of prose. Well, recognizing when prose was strong. I may have retrofitted parts of Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 18,” but he wouldn’t have been much without me. I told Pan that I created the composition as I submerged Polydora under the silks. Again.
“That reminds me,” Pan said as I sat on the bed to conceal the lump behind me. “Since you’re one of those creative types, how ‘bout sprucing up this poem I’ve scribbled?”
Polydora’s hand slid out from the covers and squeezed my bare ass.
“Leave me alone!”
Pan looked up from pouring, hurt. “I know ya get your horns in a twist in the mornings, but there’s no need to be rude.”
“I mean…leave me alone with it. The poem. I’ll work my magic.”
His face lit up. “Ahh, that’s gold. I want to end the poem with a proposal. If you can get it back to me in a few days, I can pass it along.”
“Pan,” I couldn’t help saying. “Aren’t you moving things ahead rather quickly?”
He shook his head. “Sure, we haven’t dated or anything yet, but who needs those silly rituals? Plus, she told me last night she has a thing for me.”
“Really?” For some odd reason, I felt a pinch of jealousy. Who was this nymph to play us both for fools?
“Yeah, I tried looking for you to tell you that the most extraordinary thing happened to me, but I couldn’t find you. What happened to you last night?”
“Me?” I asked.
Pan glanced around the room in such an exaggerated fashion that he didn’t really look at all. “Who else do you think I’m talking to?”
An arid laugh rose from my throat. “Yes, of course. Me. Well...I was”—I took the glass of wine from Pan and thanked him—“waiting with Polydora for you to start your performance.”
“I almost forgot ‘bout that,” Pan said. “How did things go with her?”
“Things kind of…escalated.”
“Escalated?”
“Yes, escalated.” I couldn’t very well lie to him. He was too near and dear to my precious memories to feed him falsehoods. “This is completely shameful, but I slept with Polydora.”
Pan searched the floor. I swear it almost looked like one of his horns drooped.
It undid me completely.
“But she’s a whole lot of nymph,” I added. “It could very well be that there’s plenty of room for her to be fond of you, too!”
“Polydora?” Pan asked.
I nodded and unearthed her. With the scar on her face, she arose like some sort of creature from the depths of my bed, giving me a bit of a fright.
“Oh—yeah. Forgot about ya,” Pan said gruffly. He blinked once, then seemed to gather himself. “Here’s the deal. While warming up my flute, this dazzler struts in. Clytie. She is the most beautiful nymph in the world. There is none like her. None. When our eyes met, I swear the air altered. She drew me in like a siren. And the two of us were alone in a world of music and good times.”
“What?” I said, looking on in horror between the two of them.
“Oh, Didi, you are a funny one!” Polydora stretched toward me. “Making up your silly stories to rope me in.”
“Our Didi sure knows how to tell them,” Pan said, mimicking Polydora’s new, sinister nickname. “He was just gabbing about that wild story about the human Artemis turned into a cat and Apollo accidentally killed.”
“Yes!” she cried, springing up from my bed, luxuriant with enthusiasm. “He went on and on about Jaden last night at the party. Why don’t you finish telling us the story?”
Pan passed her a glass. From where he conjured up the thing, I did not know. All I could do was sigh and gulp down my own.
Right away, the wine had a vibrant zing. Lemons and limes, maybe some grapefruit. The fresh and energetic taste was the perfect thing I needed to zap me into proper form.
Sometimes if you can’t beat them, you pour another glass.