Derrick was ambivalent about staying with Medusa forever, especially since she was ancient and he was only 14 years old in reality -- but this wasn't his old reality, and she was beautiful, and she seemed interested. Well, yeah, if all she had was men who turned into statues, that would be a terrible first date every time.
"Are you sure? I'm still a kid inside, you know."
Medusa laughed and her smile was really amazing, it took away the haughty superiority and she looked more real somehow. The snakes that were her hair were now looking at Derrick with snakey curiosity, their tongues flicking.
"All men are still children inside, to some degree. Only a rare few learn true maturity, and they're usually boring."
"Really? Are women that much better?" Derrick sat on a stone bench by the water, and Medusa joined him, holding his hands.
"They can be better or sometimes worse," the Gorgon said, "But that is a human truth. I'm no longer human."
"The myths said you were cursed by Athena for breaking the law of celibacy as her high priestess. And that you were mortal, which is how Theseus was said to have killed you."
"Ah, the stories humans tell. I was born human, this is true, on the island of Sarpedon. I was a priestess, but there was no law of celibacy. I was a servant in the temple of the goddess of justice, who was not named Athena. You should know if you stay in this place, the gods have many faces as the many different human peoples told their stories differently, with their own interests in mind. My goddess became a part of Athena in time, and lost her separate identity. But not all of us are easily changed by human beliefs."
"What really did happen then?" Derrick asked. He felt his body wanting to harden again, but willed it to remain flesh, ignoring the insistent hardness of his diamond staff. Medusa saw him struggle to keep the lust at bay so he could listen, and brought his hand to her lips, leaving a warm kiss. The snakes nearest nibbled at his hand and arm, not actually biting.
"Our island was invaded by the people of the peninsula, your historians call them the Hellas or the Sea People, but they weren't a single people. There was a disease that was killing their crops and they were starving, so they went out raiding their neighbors. They were good with boats. We had done trade with them for years, but suddenly ships filled with soldiers appeared, and they overwhelmed our city, killed our king and queen and our highest priests. Their sailors came along, and it was a small group of these who dragged me from my hiding place and took me by force on the altar of the Goddess. I begged her for the power to protect myself, and she gave it to me, but it meant leaving behind my human self. We wore ritual masks, terrifying faces wreathed with serpents, and winged harnesses like those that Daedalus made for himself and his son. These were ceremonial, they took us from ordinary humanity to being the hands of Justice. The Goddess granted me that semblance in truth. I can still make terrifying faces, of course, but it's the power in my eyes that freezes the guilty, that takes lust and turns it into hardness."
Derrick had let his feet harden up as he listened to her story. His teacher for the teaching module on Greek myth and legend had been pretty good -- warning the class not to take the stories on their face value, because they were being told with an agenda, to reinforce their culture's values, and anything that didn't fit those was twisted.
"So it's not a curse, it's a blessing."
"It's both, my dear. Gifts from gods are always sharp on both ends."
She smiled again, and he felt the surge of pleasure hit him. But she stood up, and he rose to his feet, insisting that the stone become flesh again enough that he could walk.
"Come, it's time for a meal. My sisters will have it ready by now -- and no, the other Gorgons were made up by the old men who loved twisting words. They think all Goddesses must be threefold, reflecting the way they think women should be. I'm the last of my family line."
Derrick followed, finding it easier to remain animated when he was moving, though it was a bit inconvenient being erect and having that weight attached to him, randomly shocked with extreme pleasure when he accidentally brushed it against his leg. They walked through the garden, passing statues trapped in ecstasy, and Medusa would sometimes reach out to one and gently caress it, usually on the hard cock, but sometimes the face or chest or arm.
He realized that not all of them were made of the fine alabaster stone that he had turned into, and that most of the ones where he'd been trapped had been. Medusa saw him touch one of the statues curiously.
"These statues aren't all intruders or the unwary. The ones who took women by force, or beat them or mistreated them in quieter ways, they are the ones frozen as granite rather than marble. Their pleasure peaked, and froze, and then fell back, and they are trapped with the painful need that cannot be satisfied."
"You've given them all what we call 'blue balls' then," Derrick said, grinning. "That's pretty cruel, but they deserve it."
"So they do," Medusa said. They came upon another statue, this one a woman. She was, like the rest, trapped at the moment of orgasm. Medusa stroked her cheek gently.
"This is Lorestanzia di Medici, the daughter of a wealthy and powerful banker in the late 1400s, on your calendar. She was stuck away in a nunnery, but managed to find her way here while on a pilgrimage. Her so-called guards are the black statues behind her. She was not willing to go back to her life of deprivation and forced prayer. Aphrodite asked me to intercede. I don't usually transform women."
Derrick wondered about that. There were women who were just as predatory, just as cruel as men, but perhaps in her time on Earth it hadn't been very common.
"Don't women also rape other women and men?" he asked, because it seemed inconsistent.
"Yes, but it's not in my ... remit, I suppose you would call it. The Goddess gave me my power to bring justice to men. Without Aphrodite's request, this lady would have returned to flesh after a few days."
"Wouldn't that happen with innocent men here?"
"Oh, a few have. Three, in the past thousands of years, out of hundreds changed. My previous companion was one of them, but he passed away, being mortal. And no, I'm no longer mortal, not after having been killed by the sword Theseus was given. It was very special, cutting away the mortal part while leaving the immortal part undisturbed."
They continued through the garden, finally reaching a covered porch where a group of women were gathered, waiting for the Gorgon to arrive. None of them was wearing clothing, not even the One of them looked surprised, two looked horrified, and another just smiled and said, "Shall we prepare another place at the table, Lady Medusa?"
"Thank you, Diedre," Medusa said. "Please do. This is Derrick. He's chosen to continue moving around rather than just being decorative."
Derrick nodded to the women, and tried his best to remember their names as they introduced themselves. He was a bit embarrassed at standing in front of them with a massive diamond erection, but they simply ignored it, with the same apparent effort that it took him to look at their faces and not fixate on their bodies, which were amazingly proportioned and lovely.
The meal was torturous, but delicious. Medusa said a blessing over the food before breaking a loaf of bread in half, and handing it to the two women on either side of her. Derrick sat across from her, unsure of what the proper manners were.
"Go ahead, eat," Medusa said. "I don't hold to the ancient rule that forbade men and women from dining together. It wasn't part of my tradition."
Derek took a piece of the bread, which was very hard, and broke it in half, getting a reasonable sized serving. He wasn't sure how to eat it, but the women were dipping it in their cups of wine to soften it, so he tried that. It was good, but he remembered the fancy restaurant his parents had taken them to and asked for a small dish with olive oil. The wine was diluted with water, but had a pine-resin flavor and was sweet rather than sour-dry, and the olive oil brought out a flavor he wasn't sure he liked. It was bitter, but not in a bad way.
Medusa watched, then tried it, frowning a bit as she chewed.
"This isn't bad. An Italian idea, isn't it? We don't have balsamic vinegar, I believe that's the more common thing to use rather than wine. It would go better with bread made from wheat flour rather than barley, I think."
Derrick nodded, and moved on to a meat dish made from lamb or goat. It was amazingly good.
After a few minutes, the women began talking among themselves, returning to what was apparently a long-favored conversation about geometry, and he just listened, because he realized they were doing things differently than what he'd seen in the brief exposure to geometry he'd seen in his algebra class. (Geometry was supposed to be next term, but if he DID go back to regular Earth, would he even be able to go back to school?)
"You have no opinion on this question?" Medusa asked him, as she saw him interrupting his meal to listen.
"No, I haven't studied it yet, I was listening."
"A male who listens to females, a scandal in ancient times. Good for you," Medusa said, laughing. "Just don't forget to eat. You've got to keep up your strength."
Derrick grinned and returned to eating.