Falls to Climb

She turned her hand so it was palm up, then laid it right on my cock. She fixed my eyes with hers and watched me as her hand slowly measured my dimensions. I felt her fingers slowly move over my balls, then curve around my cock. She traced my shaft through the fabric, then hefted it.

"Mmm," she said, "what a nice big cock. I was hoping you were big."

She leaned even closer to me, resting both hands on my thighs and placing her lips against my ear. I could smell the scent of her hair and feel the rough oblate shape of her huge breasts crushing against my chest. I thought of Helen, conjuring the image of her naked body in the moonlight, and my cock grew harder than it had ever been.

"Take me from behind," she told me. I obliged, pushing her hard against the wall and yanking her dress up around her hips. I freed my cock and, reaching between her legs and parting her wet folds, I shoved it in, fast and hard. I fucked her roughly, mauling her breasts with my hands, almost biting, instead of kissing, her neck.

"Harder," she growled. "Harder." I obliged, and she responded by thrusting in counterpoint to my strokes. Her hand slipped down her front and one thick index finger rubbed frantically at her cunt. As she neared climax, she hissed the word "yes", over and over. I kept fucking her as she came, and as I felt the familiar tingling in my balls and across my shaft, I closed my fingers around her neck, choking her.

The next day, I entered Helen's service and soon, after proving my skill and efficiency - military training, it seemed, having many uses - became her morning servant.

After Paris's abortive fight with Menelaus, the days continued, largely without incident until the final few moves in the Gods' game were made, and the awful and inevitable shape of things to come was revealed. It began when Hector met Achilles in battle and slayed him easily. At least, that was Ilium's first, delirious reaction. Then Achilles appeared alone at the walls, his wrath endless and terrible, boiling off him like the sea raging in a summer storm and sending the hordes of Ilium fleeing within the city. It had not been Achilles, but his friend - and some said lover, though they bedded more than their share of women too - Patroclus that had been within the armour, leading the Myrmidons in an attempt to force Achilles to stay and fight, after his disagreement with Agamemnon had seen him leave the field. That disagreement was over Achilles' beloved concubine, Briseis: to me it seemed like every event of this war pivoted upon a woman.

What happened next is well known. Hector strode out through the Scaean gates to defend the honour of Ilium. Their duel was long and arduous, but it was clear that Achilles would win, and he did. Later, Achilles was killed by the coward Paris, who shot a poisoned arrow into his heel. It is said that Apollo himself guided the arrow to the one spot Thetis had been prevented from protecting. It is hard to credit Paris with sufficient skill. That Paris himself was killed, by Philoctetes, soon after, did not assuage the grief of the Myrmidons, though.

The day after Paris's pyre had been lit, Helen bade me make her up with all the cosmetics I possessed, and she was married to Deiphobus. This was a purely political manoeuvre. It meant Helen could still be legitimately held from the Greeks, and by now neither side would surrender. It also gave Deiphobus a claim to Menelaus' throne, which would have been useful had Deiphobus not died by Menelaus' hand soon after. Their marriage was never consummated, though Deiphobus was certainly willing. Helen was able to claim the chastity of grief.

Again, the siege continued in its almost dreamlike state, with neither side gaining any momentum or success without the other snatching it away again. Skirmishes were small, and fought more out of habit than anything else.

Then one morning Ilium awoke to find her plains free of Greeks for the first time in ten years. Disbelieving at first, but then with greater and greater certainty, the people began to celebrate. A weight they had borne for so long that they had forgotten they carried it was lifted, and they danced and drank and cheered. Homes filled with parties that became orgies, and had they survived long enough, three-quarters of Ilium's soldiers would probably have been stricken with diseases of Aphrodite.

After I had prepared Helen for her visit to Priam's palace, I slipped out of the house, changed into male clothing and found a party where no one would recognise me. As late evening became early morning, I was drunk on sex and alcohol and talking to a girl in preparation for fucking her. That's when I heard it.

"And do you know," the girl said, giggling, and idly caressing her coppery bare nipples, "the Greeks actually left a gift for us?"

"What?" I asked, and an edge of uneasiness began to cut through the fog in my head.

"You haven't seen it? It's this huge wooden horse. It's resting just inside the gates. We can go there if you want... after." She moved to kiss me, but I was already pulling away.

I ran out of the celebration, sober before I even hit the cool air. I paused for a moment then decided that Helen would be home by now. I sensed the cunning of my old friend Odysseus behind this. I just prayed I wasn't too late.

I was racing up the stairs to Helen's room when I heard the voices.

"You know Menelaus ordered that he was to be the one to kill her," the first one said.

"And did Achilles bow down and lick at Menelaus' feet? No, and neither will we Myrmidons. Achilles died because of this whore."

"Very well," the first voice replied, "but remember who this is. Be a shame to just kill her."

Clear and strong, I heard Helen. "Try it and I'll cut your cock off."

The men laughed, and deciding I had no time left to find a weapon, I charged into the room. My fellow Myrmidons were shocked and froze. I jumped the one closest to me, and before he could react I slammed my knee into his balls then, as he doubled over, I snapped his neck. Immediately, I rolled out of the way of the spear thrust of the other Myrmidon and picked up the first one's weapon.

I found my feet and tested the balance of my spear. As expected, it was excellent. We faced each other, and I could see the shock on the Myrmidon's face as he recognised me. He said my name, inflecting it as a question, and I nodded. Then he charged me, and I batted his spear away and rammed mine through his throat.

Helen was sprawled naked on her bed, a pathetically short dagger clutched in both hands, which were shaking furiously. I dropped the spear, knocked the dagger out of her hand and held her to me.

"It's me," I said. "It's Hermaphra. You're safe."

She moaned something, but didn't try to break free of me. I felt her shaking ease, slowly. Eventually, she moved back, and looked at my face.

"I'm sorry I lied to you," I said.

"I suspected," she said. "The first time I saw you, I noticed what I thought was a hard cock. But I didn't see it again, and all those mornings you never tried to fuck me."

I had bound my cock up each morning with cloth since I discovered the effect just being in Helen's presence had on me. At the same moment, Helen and I realised that I had a full erection. We paused for a second.

Helen pushed me back on the bed and peeled off my clothes. Her lips closed around my nipples and sucked while her soft hands stroked my cock with just the right blend of care and force. I laid my hands on her breasts and stroked them just as I had with the sponge.

I moved so that I was on top of her and sucked on her pearly nipples. Her skin tasted sweet and yet wholesome. Like I had too few times before, I parted her lower lips with my tongue and savoured what we both realised would be my final taste of her musk. I tongued the little nubbin as she moaned and writhed against me, and I recalled her wish that sometime a man would know about this most sensitive and godly piece of anatomy.

Helen instructed me to move so that while I was licking her cunt, she could suckle on my cock. Her lips played around my foreskin and her tongue bathed and tickled my head. She engulfed several inches of my length and bobbed her mouth up and down, and my pleasure was so great that I froze, my tongue resting motionless in her cunt.

Our pleasure had built hugely. With every contact of her skin and mine, waves of pleasure lapped at the edges of my being and, judging by the noises of her pleasure, which were not unfamiliar to me, the same was true for her. We rolled one last time, and Helen straddled my lap.

In great, rapid circles she ground her cunt over my rock hard cock, never letting me slip inside her for even a moment. My hands clasped around her armpits and held her up, and I marvelled at the gentle sway of her breasts and the cascade of her dark hair. The moonlight reflected in each drop of her sweat, a tiny moon shining back at me from each bead on her brow, her breasts, her smooth stomach.

Then, letting my arms take all her wait, she closed one hand partially around the shaft of my cock and lowered herself until my cock was completely within her, and we both held stupefied by the sensation. Slowly at first, but with greater fervour, she began to move up and down on me. As she fucked me I stroked her breasts and caressed her back and let my hands tangle in her soft hair. I moaned her name over and over, as if to convince myself that this was really happening, that this was me with Helen of Ilium. She didn't say my name, instead she gasped and gasped.

We came at the same moment, and I filled her with what felt like a lifetime's worth of semen. I felt my cock soften, yet let it remain within her, and she lay very still next to me, our eyes locked together. "That was very good," Helen said. She clenched the muscles of her cunt, just one brief squeeze and I was immediately hard again. This time our lovemaking was even more desperate.

Afterwards, our bodies tangled together and our salt sweat mingling with far sweeter juices, Helen turned towards me and I could see that she was crying.

"Did I... did I hurt you?" I asked.

Helen smiled sadly. "No," she said. "You were incredible. The Gods must have wished me one last blessing. Were there time I would offer a lamb as sacrifice to Aphrodite."

My cock was beginning to harden again already, and I wondered at how our animal nature seemed utterly remote from our cerebral nature, even as I marvelled at the soft, wet feel of the lips of her cunt that my fingers gently strummed like a lute.

Helen kissed me quickly, the only time she ever kissed me. "I'm sorry Herm... I mean Polymachus. But I fear there is only one act left for me."

Helen dressed swiftly but carefully, and bade me stay in her bed until she was long gone. She did not want to see me again, she said, but kindly. I did as she said, then stripped the armour from the Myrmidon whose neck I had broken, wishing as I did so that I did not recognise him. Then I went out on the streets, where the quick, organised warriors under the command of Agamemnon and Odysseus were butchering the drunk and unwary soldiery of Ilium.

I wandered around until I spotted the squat, powerful, instantly recognisable figure of Odysseus, who recognised me almost as immediately.

"Well, well, Polymachus. I thought you were dead."

I made to speak but he held up his hand, then placed one bear-like arm around my shoulders.

"Don't worry, lad. I understand. I don't know if I could have done it myself."

Then a great gulp of flame belched out of the pillars of the temple of Apollo and Odysseus screamed in a stentorian voice, "Fuck if I didn't tell them none of the temples were to be touched." For a moment he looked worried, then he smiled at me and that Gods-defying genius flared in his eyes. "Well, lad, look around. On a night like this, of what matter is something as paltry as the will of the Gods!"

Then, against the flames, we watched the climax of this long war.

My final sight of Helen, in this world at least, was of her kneeling at the top of the stairs leading in to the temple of Apollo, golden-haired Menelaus standing above her, his sword burning red with the reflection of the flames all around us. His sword pointed skywards and held steady, and with Odysseus's strong grip on my shoulder I couldn't try to save her – though even Hermes could not move swiftly enough to save her now. Fruitlessly I watched the sky, hoping that a thunderbolt from a sympathetic Zeus would crash down and melt Menelaus through the ground and straight to Hades. That miracle did not occur, but another did.

Slowly Menelaus lowered his sword, and sheathed it - not in Helen, but in the scabbard on his belt. He took her hands in his and lifted her to her feet, then pulled her into a long kiss. Neither Odysseus nor myself could hear what they said, and we watched them walk away from us, through the great city ruined by one man's jealousy and one woman's love.

I have, until now, recounted truthfully and completely honestly – as far as far-too-fallible memory allows at least – only the things that I have seen. I will not bore you with a recounting of my wanderings, though they were as long and burdensome as that of my former master, as I am merely a background player in Helen's great tale. All that is left is to tell of her ending.

Rumour has it that she lived with King Menelaus as his wife until his death, when his son – but not hers – exiled her. No man knows for sure what happened next, but it is said that she never died – that the Gods raised immortal Helen to the Elysian Fields, there to take Achilles as her final husband.

Perhaps I shall see the truth of this soon. Outside I hear my young wife, my love for whom, though both great and true, is as a pale reflection of what I feel for Helen. She is gathering the cows with my strong sons. But those sounds grow ever fainter, and my clearest vision is not the walls of my room, but of Helen standing in front of a window, bathing in the sunlight. I have lived many times many years, and my present state is entirely natural. I have made perilous mistakes, and won great triumphs and I have raised a good family. Of one thing I am certain. There will never again be another Helen of Ilium...