Page 244 of Monsters in Love

He was depicted as an ivory bull in this particular piece, matching the myth she’d always heard growing up, and the sight of him on the fresco, crowned in golden laurel, wearing a short chiton, banded with red and black, sent a shiver up her back, her eyes sliding to her fiancé. Madoc was also an ivory bull, his hide dappled with golden spots and a spray of brown freckles across the pink of his nose. He was tall and broad, as the original minotaur surely was, she thought, with his ivory horns tipped in black. She tried to envision him crowned in the same manner, how regal he would look, just as handsome as he would look that summer for their ceremony; imagined herself kneeling before him in her purple wedding dress, a tribute to the labyrinth, there to be devoured by the ravenous minotaur within...she bit her lip, breath quickening.Your wedding night is going to be a cosplay at this rate if you don’t get ahold of yourself.

Her cheeks heated, thinking again of that very first dig site, all those years ago. Several of the student volunteers had dinner together at a small restaurant in the village, towards the end of their first week, and the smell of that harbor still lived in her nose, the bite of the local wine dry on her tongue. She had gone out of her way to touch him throughout the evening—her bare toes grazing the short hide of his lower leg, her hands brushing against and lingering at his arms until his fingers had laced with her own beneath the table. When they’d headed back to the makeshift dormitories, his fingers had remained threaded with hers, leading her to his room and his bed. There had been an aura of something larger than either in the air, licking up her back as she laid against his chest, trying to catch her breath and listening to the thunder of his heartbeat. Standing beside him now, surrounded by the relics of their shared heritage, Gwen felt the same shiver.

“Was there a mating ritual?”

“That, we don’t know,” he chuckled. “It’s unclear whether there was a hierarchy of the brides, or how soon they were invited to take part in the...let’s say the physical relationship.”

“‘The physical relationship’. You are so cute when you try to be professional and shit.” He snorted at her words, arms coming around her as she stared up at a trio of vases, each depicting a different sex act between a minotaur and a human woman. Tracing her nails over the sinew of his forearms, she dropped her head back as he continued his recitation. She realized, as she took in the details, that each vase depicted a different woman, despite being from the same series by the same artist. The differences were subtle, but clear, once she noticed them, an indicator of the procession women in the maze. The first showed the minotaur—depicted as black in this series—with a jutting erection, the kneeling woman before him holding it in her hand, guiding it towards her mouth. The second showed a different woman, held in the bullman’s arms, facing him, the top of the black-painted cock disappearing into her. The third portrayed yet another woman being taken on her hands and knees, much in the same way as the statue at the entrance of the room. “Is there provenance for all of these?”

“Most of them, yeah.” His voice echoed around the vases as he gestured beside her. “That one there is a part of a series from Corinth. ‘Melita’ and ‘Korinthos’ is what that script forms, but we’re not sure if that’s the artist’s name or who the vase was cast for possibly? The artist favored the white bull motif, there are several in this set, all with the same female figure.”

She eyed the minotaur on the vase, hips drawn back, ready to penetrate the waiting woman. “Is that where you get your libido?” she asked cheekily, squeezing her thighs again. He’d had her that way just two nights prior, over the marble-topped kitchen island, thrusting into her from behind until he came with a grunt, and she’d pointed out that one of the perks of the new rental were the easy-to-clean floors, as a gush of fluid hit the tiles with a splash as soon as his softened cock slipped from her body.

“Me?! Are you asking that question to a mirror? I had to stop at the pharmacy for eyedrops this morning, you’ve been here a week and my whole body feels dried out. I don’t think I’d be able to handle more than one of you, he was a fucking champ.”

She pushed back against him in response, the curve of her ass bumping into his crotch. She knew just how to shift her hips to press into his cock behind her, knew the exact spot against his thick thigh where it would be resting, and she smiled in triumph when he grunted. He wasn’t wrong, of course. She looked like a human and she’d dated plenty of human men over the years, but none of them could keep up with her the way he could; none of their cocks had stretched her open the same way, had filled her the way her body was meant to be filled. Despite looking human, being the product of minotaurean parents meant her body was designed to be bred by a bullish man, designed to carry bullish sons, and although she thought she’d been in love a handful of times before being paired with him on that dig site, none of her other lovers had ever satisfied her the way Madoc did. She felt a queer camaraderie with these ancient brides, glad that she could boast a minotaur in her bed.

“Mmhm, whatever. Sounds to me like you should be drinking more water.Andthey were all humans. That’s not the same and you know it. So...we have no way of knowing what the mating selection looked like, only that everyone was getting dicked down. I had no idea this exhibit was so porntastic, I can’t believe you’re showing this to kids!”

“The less explicit stuff is against that far wall,” he admitted sheepishly, nodding to the far wall where dark blue velvet ropes stanchioned off the corridor, leading out of the big room. “That’s where we take the kids. They don’t have the attention span for all of this anyway. The stanchions are pulled back two more rows for the older kids.”

“I can’t help but notice you brought me right to the hardcore fucking,” she laughed. “I see what you’re doing here...fortunately for you, I want to see more of the pre-Hellenistic lewds on vases. This is hotter than I expected. Lead on, Dr. Bowman.”

The first time I am had by him, it is the middle of the night. Sleep does not come easy in this place. The darkness of the labyrinth is unending, and so my body finds acclamation impossible. I sleep during the hours which must surely be daylight, and find myself unable to rest when the others huddle together in slumber.

I am wandering through the maze on one of those sleepless nights, the first time he finds me alone. I expected there to be hidden dangers throughout the twisting corridors of Daedalus's creation, but I soon realize that the maze itself is the trap. The Minotaur dwells in its heart, but the winding passageways are the true threat, for it does not matter how long one wanders—each corridor is identical to the last, each turn no different than the previous two or ten or twenty taken. I quickly learn that to wander the halls of the labyrinth is to find freedom from one's sanity, because there is none to be found here. Turn after turn, corridor after corridor, darkness broken by torches broken by darkness, an unending sameness no matter how far my feet walk. I wonder if the lost souls in Tartarus walk a similar endless maze, each twist and turn bearing no change, no hope, no hint of freedom to be found. I had been wandering that night for what could have been minutes or hours, there is no way to tell, and it is almost a relief when he finds me.

At first, I am terrified. I have never been this close to him, and he had never set his beady gaze upon mine. In the heart, it is easy to shrink and hide behind the other, more eager brides, but now there is no one else, only me and the Minotaur. He approaches me with a lighter tread than I would have anticipated for a monster his size. It is the first opportunity I have had to take in his form truly, without distraction, and I am surprised by the elegance of his figure. His head, of course, is that of a bull's—flaring nostrils, glossy dark eyes, and horns tipped into sharp points. Unlike any bull I've ever seen, there is a curly thatch of dark hair between the great horns that tumbles in between his eyes. His body is as impressive as any warrior who has inspired songs. He is covered in a short, coarse hide, white like the beast that sired him, and thick with muscle; broad and barrel-chested, his arms long and heavy looking. There is nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and I am helpless before him. He has the hands of a man, which somehow makes him less terrifying and even more strange to contemplate, for when he reaches for me and long fingers wrap around my arm, I can persuade myself that he is any stranger I might encounter in the marketplace.

It is the first time I am seeing him without one of the brides pushing and shoving to reach his hard cock. He is always hard, always ready to mate one of the pleading women that surround him, and I have watched him spill his seed more times than I am able to recount in the days since my arrival. No amount of our flesh can satisfy his lust, his constant hunger; yet as he hungers for us, I have watched the frenzied need of my companions grow. Desperation is not something he needs to feel, for his lust is easily slaked, but desperation is something I witness often enough in the eyes of my fellow brides. Being had by him once awakens something, they tell me. Once I am filled with his seed, they say, I will understand. Once my body knows the shape of him, the pleasure brought by being filled by him, the emptiness of the times without will drive me to madness. I look at them with pity, for I cannot understand. I can think of nothing but the sun, as I walk the labyrinth halls, and I cannot imagine a time when my mind will be eclipsed by the carnal obsession the other brides share, but as I stare at the fat testicles swinging low and loose beneath his sheath, the thick, pink spear it conceals already beginning its ascent upon the sight of me, I realize I am about to learn if their words had the shape of the truth.

I freeze in fear when he lifts me, as easily as one might lift a flower, his wide nose pressing to the side of my neck. His breath is hot, and he snuffles against my skin as though he were searching for something; down my neck and over my clothed breasts, he does not stop until he finds the prize he seeks—the quivering heat between my thighs. His tongue is rough and textured, wide and hot, and it drags up my exposed legs as my chiton is pulled away. I've never before known the shape of a man within me or the touch of one against my sex, and the drag of his tongue is the first experience I have ever had with such things, hot and wet and rough. It never occurs to me to struggle or to attempt escape, for I have walked these labyrinth halls and I know there is no escape, and so I submit. After all, I am a bride.

I remind myself, as he tastes my skin with his tongue, that in the days I have spent here, I have witnessed no cruelty enacted upon my fellow brides, no violence, and no rape. The debauchery I have witnessed has been consensual for all involved, and it no longer matters if we were brought here against our will. This is our destiny, decided by the gods, and we would have been similarly shipped away by our fathers, given to husbands with cruel hands. I do not thrash, and I do not kick. I surprise myself when my thighs part willingly to take the lashes of his tongue. I do notwantit to feel good. I do not want to admit that my head drops back, or that my voice echoes off the stone walls in a sigh of pleasure. I do not want my pelvis to lift, seeking out the friction of that wide tongue when he draws back momentarily, nor do I want to know the girl who moans when he re-doubles his efforts, but I am unable to pretend pleasure I feel vibrating up my spine belongs to anyone but me. When I cry out, the stones of the corridor swallow the sound. There is no one to witness my submission; no one to watch as I tremble and shake, the pressure of his tongue causing a fit to ripple through my body. There is no one to see, and so I tell myself it did not happen, for pleasure was not a part of the stories we were told. When my ankles are hitched over his elbows, opening me to receive his cock, I remind myself there will be no witness to this moment either; only me, my bullish husband, and the gods, if they watch.

The first press of him within me leaves me breathless, the sheer size of him feeling as though it will cleave me in two as he lowers me onto his rigid spear. The pleasure I had felt is supplanted by fire and with every thrust into my body, the inferno burns. I am stretched too wide, too far, and he batters my core until I cry out in pain, which causes him to still.

The burning ceases when he abruptly pulls me from him, dropping me to the floor, not ungently. His body covers mine as I am pulled to my knees and mounted from behind. His size is just as overwhelming as it was a moment ago when he held me upright, but there is something about this new position, this new angle that leaves me breathless in a different way. Rather than clenching my muscles against the intrusion of him, I find myself pressing back to take him in further. When the pleasure returns, I understand why the other brides circle around and beg to be next. There is little else here for us, after all. We have no vocation, no purpose, no role to fill other than the role of bride. When my body seizes, overtaken by clenching contractions that make my core pulse, it is as though I were being hurled from the highest mountain top, thrown out to the sparkling sea. There is no darkness as my body sails through the air, no chains or cruel king to imprison me. Only pleasure and the shape of my husband within me, the sparkling waves and the free air, and I realize the truth of the words the others have spoken.

Submitting to him, being one with him, is the only way to ever see the sun.

“Ilove fucking you this way.”

His voice was a low rumble against her hair, his hands snug around her waist, and Gwen whimpered. Pulsing her thighs together excited the tingle between her thighs, but there was no friction, no pressure, nothing her clit desperately wanted, and his words were not helping in the slightest.

The vase was another depiction of a bride on her knees, being taken from behind by the crouching minotaur. Shedidlove when he fucked her this way—the swell of his shaft making her cry out on every thrust, dragging over her g-spot, the angle allowing him to plumb her deeply, bumping the edge of her cervix in a way that made her back arch. It was harder for him to find the right angle with her on her back, and she’d taken the full brunt of his cockhead against her cervix before, always painful, and he was always sheepish and apologetic when she cried out in pain.Thisposition, however...there were no downsides. If she pressed her shoulders to the mattress and kept her ass high, his balls slapped into her clit, fat and full and low-hanging, and she always, always came quickly this way.

“You’rereallynot making this easy to get through,” she grumbled, shifting purposefully against him until he hissed. “The horniness of this exhibit is an intentional attack on my self-control.”

There was a primal energy to the images, and as they moved in a circuit around the room, it awoke something deep inside of her. Gwen wasn’t sure if she ought to be as turned on as she was by the sight of the Minotaur on the vases and frescoes engaged in non-stop intercourse with the tributes that were sent to him, but with every piece of artwork that showed the bullman in a similar position to the ones she enjoyed with Madoc, she found the press of her thighs moved a bit easier, an increasing slickness aiding the movement. When the painted figures depicted one of the women on their knees, Gwen couldn’t help pushing her own rear end back, bumping into the growing hardness she found behind her. At one point, he gripped her hips with both hands, pulling her hard into him, the action mirrored by the human and Minotaur in the fresco before them. She could feel the shape of him, straining against the front of his pants, opening her thighs in an effort to trap the bulging outline in her cleft. The swingy skirt of her a-line dress could be easily flipped up, the strained zipper on his pants given relief, and the fat firehose of his cock allowed loose...the thought of balancing over one of the marble plinths made her whine, and she was almost able to feel the roughness of his belt and the rasp of his zipper against the curve of her ass, the stretch of his head and thick, mid-shaft swell within her and the slide of his fingers against her clit...she pushed back again, certain she could feel his cock jump.

“You’re going to get me fired before you even move,” he groaned, grinding against her. There were cameras everywhere, she knew that without needing him to say it, and no matter how hot and bothered the display was making her, she didn’t actually want to be arrested for public indecency, or to have him fired from his new job before she’d unpacked her toothbrush in the rental house. Gwen squirmed, bumping her ass into him one last time before they moved onto the next row. Surely, she thought, the distance hadn’t made her this pathetically needy.You can get through one exhibit. If school kids can do it, you can do it. It’s history. Anthropological. Educational. Get a grip.

After that night, it becomes a routine we have, my husband and I.

I'm still unable to sleep when the time for sleeping comes, and so my feet wander the corridors of the maze. The first time he finds me after that first night, he seems angry. I do not know how long I had been away from the group, only that I noticed the torches burn brighter at the heart, spread further and further the wider I roam. At first, I think it to be a clue on how one might escape, but I soon realize that the darkness is uniform beyond the center of the maze. There is comfort in the darkness. At the heart where we dwell, the torches burn bright, always lit, always burning. The outer rings of the labyrinth are dimmer and those long stretches of darkness that frightened me so much on the night we arrived hold a measure of tranquility now, a peacefulness that reminds me of the temple where I had served. I linger long in the shadows, stopping in between torches to rest against the stone and sink into the blackness that resides there in between. It is not the sun, but the familiarity is a small comfort, and those are in short supply.

I am languishing in the shadows when he finds me. That first night I assumed he had stumbled upon me by happenstance, perhaps out wandering the maze himself, searching for a way out, but when he finds me in between the torches, he stops and huffs, snorting from his wide nostrils and grunting deep in his throat. When his hands—hands so like mine—wrap around my arm and tug me back to the torchlight, I realize he was looking for me. It is silly and foolish to admit, but my heart thrills at the notion. We have turned several times, still within the dimmer outer corridors when I pause.

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