by Eileen Glass
That is about all the romance he has patience left for. If he doesn’t get off soon, this bath is probably going to kill him. Godly status and all—poof.
Hades calls him a stallion, so Seph pretends to be. He turns his mate around and grabs his cute butt with both hands. He kneads firmly with several gratifying, squishy digs and finally parts him to find that tight heat he desires.
His awareness for Hades’s comfort and safety slows him down a bit.
“Where’s that oil? Did you bring any with you?”
He almost wants to whine, realizing that Hades can’t have it in the bath with him. How annoying!
“Don’t need it,” Hades says. He reaches backwards and smacks Seph’s ass with a slap. “In you go.”
This seems ill-advised. But Seph is too greedy to argue. He prods Hades with his thumb, testing him. He is resistant, tight, but the digit goes in easily. All the way up to the last joint, and he can move it in and out, fucking him.
He does this for a bit, keeping Hades close, putting a hand on his neck again so he can tilt his head and keep his throat exposed for kisses. The god’s pulse beats like crazy under his palm. Hades swallows and gasps, and the knob in his throat bobs against Seph’s hand.
“You smell amazing. Like ice. I think. I can’t describe it.”
Hades smiles again. “That is one of my plants. A potent herb that smells strongly. I named it Minthe.”
Minthe…? Like the lamp lighting nymph? Why…?
Maybe it is a coincidence.
Maybe Minthe is named after the herb.
I will find out later.
He is much too hungry to question his mate now. So he rams his cock against the crevice of his ass, not going in. Only because it is rather difficult to fit and he doesn’t want to force his way inside. He delays, thrusting against him instead, pushing with the tip sometimes, but pulling it back. Until finally he can’t take it anymore. Hades is still so tight as he nudges inside. He pushes. He’s forceful with it, but slow, hoping he’s not hurting Hades too much.
The hole sucks him in, inch by inch, and tries to punish him. It squeezes and pressures and almost seems to twist. A shudder runs through his husband, all the way down his legs, his thighs shivering. He makes a helpless sound, his head thrown back.
Seph remembers to kiss him. On a corner of his jaw, which is all he cares to reach.
He wants this to be romantic. He wants to have more with Hades.
But he also really wants to feel this space widen for his size and become soft and welcoming. The way to do that is to teach it.
He begins to thrust, pulling himself out and in. And gradually it gets easier. Hades clamps down on him so tight, but Seph feels like he can shove as far as he wants to. His husband will always take him in.
His mate is made for this.
Hades gasps, and Seph brushes a strand of silver hair out of his husband’s face. He wants something to say. I love you is tempting. Seph wants that. But just now he is not as compelled to say it as he was to smack his ass earlier.
Seph feels like he is still discovering too much of himself, who he is without his babying mother, to truly say whether he loves someone or not.
But he wants to be loyal to Hades. He wants his husband to like him, all over and all through. To like his hands, to like his cock. He wants Hades to show more of himself too. Even the bad parts, like Tartarus. And Seph knows that their relationship should be one of total freedom with each other.
No shyness. No manipulation. No secrets.
Nothing like what the other gods and goddesses have in their marriages.
I like that we are alone. I like that I never have to see my cousins again.
And yes, he might even like that he never gets to see his mother.
Though, he does love her.
It is just that she belongs to that other world. The underworld is quiet and private and personal.
That is what he wants with Hades. If only he could find a way to say it.
The answer does not come before his primal needs finally turn him into a man of purely selfish desire. Hades is snug but accepting, his ass letting Seph push however fast and hard as he wants. He’s warm too, and pulling him in. The god arches his back and so much strength is displayed in his muscles.
The occasional faint scar here and there, stories that Seph will find out someday, make Seph drive harder. He wants to be felt when this is done. He wants Hades’s body to get used to wearing him the way he wears these other marks.
This isn’t just about fulfilling sexual pleasure, which is still quite new for him. This is about taking a man and making him his.
He should feel my cock inside him for days.
He should feel empty when I’m not doing this to him.
He should come back for me like he’s hungry. Like a kitten after milk.
That cute butt against his groin makes delicious slapping sounds in the sloshing water.
I want him like this again. In our bed. I want to make the walls shake.
The sapphires, dangling back and forth, beat against the hand on Hades’s shoulder, by his neck.
And finally—finally—Seph cums, pushing Hades forward slightly with his other hand, making him sink his back and present himself for it, while a high wave rushes over and out of him. Little frequent spurts follow, lasting a long time.
“I like being your stallion.”
Hades does not seem capable of words through his heavy breathing. But he pats Seph’s hand on his shoulder. Twice, quickly. Like, Good boy. And Seph doesn’t leave yet. He knows he has his husband close, but he hasn’t finished him yet.
He dips his hand into the water, reaching around the front. His Hades has himself in hand, but Seph takes over, bumping him out of the way.
He fists the cock and pumps it diligently, letting Hades take his time. His thighs flex. His feet slip a little and his stance becomes wider. Seph gets an idea and doesn’t see why he shouldn’t try it. The arm in front supports Hades around his waist. The other leaves his neck and picks him up from behind a thigh instead, lifting the knee out of the water, exposing him fully while he’s still on Seph’s cock.
Hades becomes very loud then. Whispering a curse and then sounding a bit like he’s under attack, making squeaky pants and a rising sound like, “Ah! Ah!”
He finishes at last, his cock spitting cum like a fountain, far across the water. Seed gushes into the pool. Which Seph is only now wondering how in the hell it’s ever going to come out. The public pools have to be emptied and refilled quite often. That must be the case here, though he does wonder about the grates in the pool walls, and the lion head spigots that are continuously pouring fresh water into their bath.
He shall have to ask Hades about the plumbing sometime. Which is an amusing thought considering how he’s holding his lover at the moment, still inside him. Seph kisses the pale god’s neck, feeling romantic again.
“What do we do now? Just regular bathing I guess?”
Hades groans. “Take me to the steps. To sit. So I don’t drown.”
Seph puts his leg down so they can walk, but yet another impulse teases him. He grabs Hades around the waist and lifts him up by the knees, carrying him the way a studly man might do for a girl.
Hades is dripping and beautiful against his chest, and cooperatively puts an arm around his neck. Then he rests his head against Seph’s beating heart. And Seph has never felt more different than the coddled, pampered son he used to be.
Twenty
It isn’t just botany that Hades experiments with. While they’re bathing, he reveals a cabinet of soaps that he designs and manufactures for himself in an apothecary. He sets out a dozen bottles in a row along the pool’s edge, while Seph watches in the pool with his arms folded on the edge tiles, realizing that perhaps Hades is beyond his sophistication.
He is like a simple farmer an aristocrat has taken a liking to.
Hades tries to tell him about the various chemical properties of the soaps.
The minthe herb, which shares a name with the lamp lighting nymph, has a pleasant strong taste and a lasting fragrant smell, but the asphodel flower will be better for his skin. This Seph can understand. But everything else about the chemicals and the process used to extract herbal elements is just a bunch of confusing noise to him.
“So which one do you like?” Hades asks when he sets the final bottle down. The liquid inside is dark, whereas some are clear, some are white, and some are pink.
“Umm, do I just… pick a color?” Seph has been listening, but Hades rattles on so fast, he lost track of which bottle was which. He didn’t describe them one by one as he laid them down. Rather, he started with the first one, then a middle one, and then the second one, and then back to the middle one again…
He has to take all the facts and sort them out himself if he wants to figure out what is in which container and all the helpful properties of the plants used. There is even a pomegranate soap for goodness sake, and Seph assumes that’s the pink one but he doesn’t know for sure.
He feels like he is back at the vanity staring at a bunch of stones. Hades knows an awful lot about everything. He’s very particular about the specifics.
Seph, meanwhile, is the kind of guy who says, ‘Color blue good. Color clear not so much.’
His tutor never said anything mean to him, but his mother would sometimes smile and make a comment about him being dense.
Seph would much rather be riding a horse than learning about philosophy and politics or any of these science-y things. Though, he is becoming curious just because Hades is so animated and enthusiastic about his creations. Also, his science knowledge so far seems to be applicable. Astronomers, mathematicians, and all the smartsy scroll readers in the city don’t seem to actually do very much in Seph’s opinion.
“What would the color have to do with anything?” Hades says with a snort, sitting on the pool’s edge, and Seph loves to see his form naked, doing normal things. He wades to his lovers knees, intending to lick and kiss them until Hades forgets he married a dingus.
He loves to see his tan hands on Hades’s pale thighs. He loves to move those knees apart (though he is truly sated for now) just because he can and he likes to see Hades respond to his touch.
“We have to wash this hair sometime,” Hades says running a big handful of Seph’s wet messy locks through his fingers. “Ack!” His thighs close around his head as Seph experiments with a bite. Then he licks the pinking spot and sucks it into his mouth.
Not for long. He would never want to see a bruise on this lovely skin, but he does like to see what other ticklish ways he can surprise his usually somber mate.
Hades points at the bottles and speaks like he’s ordering a dog.
“Get over there and sniff some soaps. Choose which one you like best. We can touch and play and romp some more when you’ve made some progress. We have to apply several of them, you know. And rinse them out of your hair. It’s going to take some time.”
“Several?” Seph echoes, his eyes widening. “Why several? I’m not that dirty!”
“Well, there is the oil penetrating layer, and then the restorative layer, and then possibly a finishing restorative treatment, and then most certainly an oil to be applied for luster. I don’t think you’ll need a thickening balm like I do. You have so much hair.”
And Hades ruffles his top like a good dog.
Seph can’t even recite the list of ‘necessary’ soaps, but he realizes that this is going to be a process, so he moves sideways to the row of uncorked potions and starts sniffing. He picks one that he likes on bottle number three, but Hades scolds him.
“You haven’t even smelled all of them yet!”
“But I like this one.”
“How do you know if that’s your favorite if you haven’t smelled all of them?”
So Seph continues the smelling, and honestly, all the flower scents mix in his nose until he really can’t tell the difference between one or the other unless he moves his nose back and forth several times.
However, he does discover that bottle number six is his favorite one. He feels like he recognizes the smell, and when Hades speaks he knows why.
“Ah. My narcissus flower. Yes, that is a good one. And I like that this shall reinforce the scent when I put the flowers in your hair. If it’s all right, I would like you to wear my flowers more often.” He gets a little quiet and looks over the side of his left knee. Being unusually bashful. “I would like to add the flowers to your hair when you do. Maybe for dinner. If you don’t mind.”
“I will wear every flower you wish,” Seph says, kissing his knee and watching his expression. There is not much change. Noticing how Hades is feeling is becoming a science of its own, and Seph is finding himself to be a diligent student.
In this case, he believes Hades is more pleased than he’s letting on. He draws this conclusion from the fact that Hades is too passive. When there is not much to express, his face is much more animated. And now Seph does not get even so much as one of his little smiles as a reward for agreeing to his request.
He must be as giddy as a girl!
Seph hopes so.
Perhaps he is reading his husband wrong since they have only been married a few days, but he shall be watching him closely and learning as much as he can. He thinks there is much the god suppresses.
“We should get started then,” Hades says with a sniff, slipping into the water in front of him, and then moving toward the bottles.
For the next several minutes, Seph is like a stallion being groomed for the chariot races. He does not touch his hair once as Hades applies his treatments. And yes, several bottles go in. Ones from different shelves of his cabinet. And he continues applying serums of things even after telling Seph to get out of the bath!
“Why?” he asks, bewildered, still slightly disagreeable to the fact that Hades insists some soaps have to be left ‘to sit’. Getting clean was never this complicated at home or in the public pool.
“We don’t want the new shine of your hair to wash out, do we?” Hades responds, with the same bewildered attitude.
Seph does feel a bit like he’s arguing with his mother again over the hair rollers and other ridiculous things.
He mutters, climbing out of the pool, “Do we have to curl my hair? I hate that.”
“Goodness, no,” Hades says, leaning way back to rinse the last of his treatment out of his own tresses. It is a good sight from up here, and again Seph wonders what happens to all the soap they’ve put in the pool. Water becomes rancid if it’s not changed often enough.
Suds are drifting toward a nearby grate instead of traveling to the water spigots to gather and froth. There seems to be a current drawing old water out of the pool.
“Curls would only make you look like your father,” Hades says, walking up the steps toward him. He’s an alluring animal, walking with grace and glistening with the muscle of a predator. “While Zeus does look classically handsome, I never understood why Demeter was displeased with your naturally wavy style. Hair should not be tortured to achieve a look. All things are equally beautiful in their own right.”
He dries his hair with a towel and then brings it for Seph, fluffing and scrubbing it over his head, after Seph has already dripped a sizable puddle.
Hades goes through his soap cabinet again, pulling a selection of smaller bottles from the top shelves, touching a finger to his bottom lip sometimes while he thinks—when the sound of heavy swift footsteps makes them both look toward the staircase.
Seph is a little shy and immediately uses the towel to cover his waist. Hades only draws his brows inward, looking mildly perplexed and upset at the same time. He takes a few steps toward the base of the staircase, awaiting their visitor.
It is Verah. She shoots a nervous gaze across the pool room, seeking them, as she finishes the spiral and comes off the stairs. Her mouth opens to speak—and stays there—her words caught the moment she meets eyes with Seph. She looks at the dark king again
, mouth moving with no sound for now, and Seph gets a bad feeling that he knows what this is about.
Something of his has been found.
But Hades says, “No. They ran again?”
Does that happen often? Seph wonders with alarm. What kind of pain are some souls willing to endure for the chance to see their loved ones again?
“N-no, king,” she answers, and then bows deeply, her hands clasped in front of her skirt. “I am sorry. For interruption. It may be nothing. You may already know, my king. But…”
She looks at Seph again. There is no doubt. She found Hibus, the illegal upperworld bunny.
Why didn’t he stay under the bed, munching his radish?
That should have lasted him awhile.
Seph does nothing, because there is nothing to do. He has thought about how to explain Hibus’s existence to Hades, who apparently hates upperworld rabbits, possibly because of his fondness for his monstrous hound dog. And now Seph only knows he will be having this conversation very soon. As best he can.
“There is a thing,” Verah says. “I do not know the word. There is a thing upstairs. That needs you now.” She points at the ceiling, and she does look apologetically at Seph. But it’s not necessary. He knows she’s only doing her job. Mortals have no fractures in loyalty when their king is also a god.
“I will look at it, Verah,” Hades says calmly. “Where is it?”
“The bedroom,” Verah says, reluctantly moving her sorrowful eyes away from Seph. “The bed, my king.”
Now Hades looks confused and he glances toward Seph also.
Seph is stoic. Not mad, not yet, but starting to be.
He wanted this to work out. So, so badly. He thought he would get to know Hades a few more days, maybe a couple weeks, and then he would find him in a very good mood and have a discussion about his rabbit. It would be a calm adult discussion. Nothing like the whiny tantrum he threw as a teen.
Now he feels more like that teen, about to have another tantrum. One that might cause him to cry.
What will he do if Hibus shows up on a plate? His stomach turns just thinking about it! His mother put rabbit on the dinner table often for several months after. She even ate Hibus’s siblings! All to remind him the manor requires the sacrifice of many little animal lives to feed everyone and keep the mortals going.