Page 3 of Serpentine Valentine
I ducked my head, hair sliding between us like a curtain as I blew on my tea.
“Iwould argue that the first texts mentioning Achilles and Patroclus say nothing of a sexual bond between them and that it was only later when pederasty was practiced, as you said, that they were given a homosexual bias.”
And this was why I liked him, despite his peacocking. He had a sharp mind beneath his good looks, and I enjoyed listening to his thoughts unwind out of his eloquent mouth.
“Maybe you’re right about the sexual undertones but not the romantic ones. There is a difference, and in this case, it’s important. The almost berserker rage that overcomes Achilles at Patroclus’s death, the way he mourns his dead body alone for hours, and keeps a lock of hair, a typical token of affection between loved ones? These are all acts of a man in love. Whether or not they ever consummated that love doesn’t matter,” I argued, passion saturating every word. My torso canted forward, my lips numb from moving so fast over the words.
“Ah,” he said, soft, almost wonderous. “That’s something I hadn’t thought of. That’s worth thinking about.” Professor Morgan smiled at me then, and it was the first smile I liked all evening. A smile of kinship between the minds.
Looking back now, it was the moment that condemned me to what happened next.
“Pride goeth before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”
––Proverbs 16:18
Lex
It was Halloween.
There was a party at a sorority house that Grace was trying to drag me to, but before that, I had a meeting with Professor Morgan at Hippios Hall. I could have ducked out. It was an evening to party, not one to spend curled up in the chair across from Morgan, sipping jasmine tea and talking incessantly about the Greek classics. In the weeks since I’d first dropped my books in the mud, the professor and I had developed a kind of friendship. He seemed to respect my lack of desire to flirt and fumble as men and women do, and instead, he focused on connecting with my mind. We met for tea in his office biweekly to discuss Homer, then Herodotus, Aristotle, and Plato. He wrote notes on scattered papers on his desk while we conversed, like my points had worth, and he wanted to cash them in later in reference to his own work. It was an honor to feel so valued for my mind when my parents had only ever condemned me for seeking to improve it. I was seduced, in a way, bythe weight he placed on my opinion, and I found myself relating to the other girls tittering around him in class and in the halls. Not because I found him handsome the way they did but because I respected him and felt he respected me too. It was a heady thing. A dangerous thing.
When I looked at those girls, I snickered under my breath with scornful pride.
Look at them,I thought unfairly,bees to honey.
They don’t know him the way I do.
And maybe they didn’t, but what a silly thing pride was.
What a precursor to downfall.
I promised Grace I would meet her at the party later and tramped my way across the crunching autumn leaves to meet my favorite professor for tea. In keeping with tradition, I was wearing a costume, though Grace had turned up her nose at me when I’d stomped out of the bathroom wearing it.
“Really?” she’d asked.
My hair was done in thick barrel curls and braids, the ends closed off with golden coils shaped like snakes. My armor was only faux gray leather, a corset and pleated skirt like the ancient Greeks wore, and gladiator sandals that laced up my calves. I held a cheap shield and lance I’d bought online, and a fake owl was glued to my shoulder strap.
Athena, the Greek Goddess of War and Wisdom.
She had always resonated with me best, a female deity with typically masculine attributes. She was without consort, a virgin, and born fully formed from her father’s head. I loved her sexlessness and valued her for it. She was all rational, all head, when most women were depicted as ruled by their hearts and guts.
“It’s kind of more scary than sexy,” my best friend and kind of foster sister had said, biting her lip.
“Good,” I’d told her.
She rolled her eyes.
Regardless of feeling sexy or not, I felt strong and right as I passed the other costume-clad students in the commons. Amid a sea of sexy nurses, Targaryens, andStar Warscharacters, I felt uniquelyme.
“Alexandra.”
I turned to see President Mina Pallas waving at me from a converging pathway so I waited for her to approach. When she did, she leaned close to give me a hug.
Most students wouldn’t have hugged the President of Acheron U, but I was fairly uncommon. Mina was the reason I’d been accepted to the university at all, and I owed her everything.
“I love the costume,” she said, beautiful face creased with laughter. She was middle-aged, but you’d hardly know to look at her. Soft blond hair fell to her shoulders, highlighting the cream-toned smoothness of her cheeks and the brightness of her blue eyes. She was classically elegant and refined, everything I’d always admired.
She was my hero.
