Santorini Paradiso Ch. 08

"I can't believe that I've only known you two for a matter of days..." Elena hadn't actually planned to say that, but as the words flowed from her, she found that she couldn't stop them. So she continued...

"If you'd asked me last week, last month, or last year if I thought I'd ever find myself in love with two men at the same time, I'd have said that just one would have more than sufficed - but even one had so far had been impossible to find. Now here I am, with you. And it's as if I've been waiting for you always. Both of you." She paused for a moment as she drank some water. The two men just watched her, listening and waiting.

"I love you both individually - and together. I don't know how else to say it. As if you were Siamese twins that had been separated, or something." Elena didn't notice, but each man became more alert. Petros leaned forward very slightly and Adonis shifted slightly in his chair.

"It's so funny - you are both very different and yet in some fundamental way - you are like two sides of the same coin. I don't really know how to express it..." She trailed off for a moment as she struggled with something inside her.

The men felt breathless - as though they all were teetering on the brink of something and one wrong move would send them falling. They both watched her - rapt. She positively glowed in the moonlight. She was radiant. Her skin gleamed with health and her eyes shone. The candles on the table made her soft brown curls look like burnished gold. As she spoke, her hands moved elegantly and unselfconsciously. The brothers were aflame with desire for her - but knew that she needed to express what she was feeling. And they themselves were eager to hear it - at once excited and anxious to understand her feelings. They felt they were so close to something that they'd both awaited for so long...

Elena continued: "I can't imagine living my life now without the two of you. I don't even want to try. None of this fits with anything that I expected from my life. And yet, I feel as if I was born to be here... to be with you like this. As if everything that happened in my life up to now led me here, to you." At this, she turned and looked at them. She smiled at the two men she loved more than her own life, and said: "I guess what I'm saying to you is that I'm in love with you - both of you. I'm saying that I belong to you. There's no doubt that this will be strange at times, and I don't know how we'll make it all work. But I don't care what the rest of the world might say. What we have is right. It just is."

Both men rose from their chairs and rushed around to Elena's pulling her to her feet. She was crushed to each brother, in turn.

Adonis said, his voice very hoarse with emotion: "This is right, agape-mou. And we agree - destiny has led us all here."

Petros's eyes seemed very wet as he pressed his lips to her forehead. "You are sure that this is what you want, little Elena?"

She expelled a breath that was almost a laugh. There was no choice anymore. "Yes, I'm sure." She whispered fiercely. She found herself pulled into a three-way hug.

After a moment, she gently extracted herself, looking into their eyes. "So having said all of that, now that you know how I feel about you both. Now that there is no doubt; I want some goddam answers." She arched one eyebrow at them in a mock threat. "And I want them now."

Each brother deeply inhaled and sighed. They glanced at each other for the briefest of moments. Adonis said, resignedly, "Okay, we'd better go to the library and do this properly."

***

"Technically, it's called 'heteropaternal superfecundation'." Adonis was paging through a giant, ancient book looking for a specific page.

Petros, who was sitting next to Elena on one of the beautiful Beidermeier sofas in the library, reached over and took one of her hands in both of his.

"It means that we are twins, but we have different fathers. Our mother..." He glanced briefly up at Adonis as he said this and their eyes met, "she was made pregnant at the same time by two different men. And she had us."

Elena was nonplussed. "I knew that cats could do that - but I didn't realize that humans—"

"It is rare, but it happens now and then." Adonis interjected, with an almost tired-looking smile.

She shook her head, as if to clear it. "Wow - that is - amazing. But that is not all, is it? I mean - it doesn't entirely explain what is happening here, with us, does it?" It wasn't a question.

Elena could accept that this might be why a sort of telepathy existed between the brothers, being twins. That kind of connection has been long established throughout history. But how did it explain why SHE was able to communicate with them without words? And what did that have to do with the rest of the mysteries surrounding these two remarkable men?

Adonis had found the page he was seeking, and was now putting the giant tome down in front of Elena on the coffee table between them. "No, you are right. There is more. But before we tell you all of this, I have to warn you that it might be rather difficult to accept."

Elena looked at him, taking in the seriousness of his expression. He looked over at Petros, and Elena followed his eyes, likewise regarding him. Petros released Elena's hands and ran a palm across his forehead, smiling a tad nervously at her.

She was almost afraid to look. She turned her attention to the book Adonis had placed before her. What she saw caused her to blink in surprise. She didn't understand. She looked from one brother to the other, awaiting an explanation.

The page in front of her showed a Hellenistic painting of the birth of Aphrodite.

"I don't understand." Elena said, with a tiny frown. She ignored the faintly playful singsong voice inside her head that told her that this was not entirely true.

Petros and Adonis looked at one another for a moment before answering. Taking a deep breath, Adonis looked into Elena's eyes and said: "This is our mother."

"I'm sorry - what?! What are you telling me?" They didn't speak in reply. They both just looked, almost forlornly, at the page before her. Elena didn't - couldn't understand. It was as if they were making fun of her. She felt the color rise in her face.

"Are you sitting here trying to say that the goddess Aphrodite - the MYTHOLOGICAL goddess Aphrodite - is your mother? Guys - Tell me that you're joking." But once again, the little voice deep inside Elena's head taunted her, saying 'you know they don't lie! You yourself called them gods...'

Petros again took her hand, while Adonis gently touched the side of her face. "I told you it would be hard to accept..." he began...

"No - seriously - Stop!" She almost shouted the words as she leapt to her feet. She took several steps away from them, staring down at the book on the table as if it were a snake about to strike.

"Please, agape-mou, try to be calm..." Petros rose as if to follow her. She halted his progress by holding out her hand, palm out.

"No! No more. It's not funny." She turned to the windows and found herself looking at the sculpture garden outside, with its life-size statues of the gods glowing ghostly white in the moonlight.

Her eyes fastened on the one that stood apart, taller than the rest - the statue of Aphrodite. The very one she'd sketched, enchanted, earlier that day.

Something moved within her line of sight. The white dove, the one that had perched on her hand, the one she'd dreamed of earlier that evening, flew down from the trees and landed on the shoulder of the goddess of love. It's wings flapped wide as it settled into place, seeming to look at Elena out of one eye.

The tiny voice in her head spoke again: 'You know they speak the truth. You've seen the signs all along. But right now perhaps you'd better sit down...'

Too late, Elena noticed the strange, loud buzzing in her ears as a cold sweat broke out across her skin. Adonis and Petros were calling to her, but from underwater, moving toward her in slow motion. The floor rushed up to meet her, and all went dark...

(...to be continued)