Date: Fri, 2 Mar 2018 22:26:21 +0000
From: Zack McNaught <zackmcnaught@hotmail.com>
Subject: Zeus and Ganymede

Author's notes:

* This story is based on the Ganymede myth, but set in the modern day. It's
worth catching up with the legend of Zeus and Ganymede if you have a
moment, although I make the parallels pretty obvious. It's also worth
knowing that the Premier League team Crystal Palace are nicknamed the
Eagles, and play their football in south London.

* I'd love to hear what you think: zackmcnaught@hotmail.com

* Please don't ask for another chapter.

* Please donate to keep Nifty running: www.nifty.org/donate/

Thanks, and I crave your forgiveness for my self-indulgence in writing this
story.



Zeus and Ganymede (M/b(12), no sex)



Troy House was an imposing mid-Georgian townhouse, set back from the street
and up a flight of steps, ensuring that all those lucky enough to enter by
the front door were well aware by the time they arrived of their relative
place in the world.

I stood watching the door from across the street, listening to the strains
of music coming from beyond, and the occasional fragment of conversation or
laughter. The door was light grey-green, adorned with a beautifully
patinated brass lion's-head knocker, and set behind a pair of Doric (or was
is Ionic?) columns. It could have belonged to a highly respectable firm of
solicitors, but instead it was attached to the home of Professor Robert
Hoskins, and, I presumed, his family.

With a more melodramatic sigh than was really merited, I trudged up the
steps and rang the doorbell. I'd already conspired to be half an hour late,
so I couldn't really delay any longer. I was expected to show my face, and
that's exactly what I was doing, no more. I wasn't even sure why I'd been
invited, truth be told. I worked for Prof Hoskins as a general dog's-body,
but I wasn't his friend, and certainly not a close enough associate to be
invited to his birthday party. The clamour from inside intensified once, as
an internal door squeaked its way open, and then further still as the door
before me swung wide.

Eleanor Hoskins looked down the length of her nose at me. That was nothing
to do with her attitude to me or anyone else, but simply a result of being
both terribly long and short sighted. Somewhere about ten feet from her
nose was perfect, but anywhere else required peering through one or other
part of the great lenses she had perched on the tip of her nose.

"Oh, Zachary, it's you!" she cried, hustling me into the house.

She must have been drunk. There was no other explanation for the enthusiasm
with which she greeted me. I was her husband's research assistant, not a
long lost cousin, and I must have spoken no more than fifty words to
Eleanor in the previous year. My hunch was proven right when she leaned in
to kiss my cheek and very nearly flayed the skin from it simply by
breathing on me. As if I wasn't feeling nervous enough about this party,
the host was absolutely steaming drunk at one o'clock in the afternoon.

Inside the house it was cool and dark, a stark contrast to the summer's day
I'd left behind. But I was reunited with it soon enough, as passed through
their oh-so-tasteful open plan kitchen and out into the garden, which was
dominated by a marquee. In a part of London where house prices can be
eye-watering, and so the houses are typically tiny, the Hoskins' garden was
large enough to leave me slightly breathless. You wouldn't be able to
squeeze a football pitch in there, but a tennis court would have been quite
manageable, with a bit of room left to spare. The marquee, it turned out,
was the source of all the noise, which explained why it had been so easy to
hear the party from the street. One whole side of it was open to the air,
which was the only thing keeping the temperature inside below the boiling
point of blood.

And it was packed. Really packed. I don't know how many people were there,
but it couldn't have been less than one hundred. A decent bash, then, for
the Prof's 60th, and a good explanation as to why I had been invited -
after all, who hadn't been? I dropped my obligatory drinks offering on the
table, grabbed something a little cooler from a bucket of ice, and looked
around for anyone I might actually know.

The man himself was nowhere to be seen, of course. I didn't expect him to
be easy to find, surrounded as he inevitably was by his retinue of
hangers-on. Robert Hoskins was a famous man, an academic of world renown,
but now also a popular television presenter. He moved in elevated circles
in society, and was, if his house was anything to go by - doing very nicely
for himself. There were, however, a few friendly faces from the university,
and I gravitated towards them, grateful for not having to make small talk
with a total stranger.

As the afternoon wore on, and the live musicians came and went, I found
myself relaxing a little, if not quite enjoying myself. At some point
silence was called for, and for the first time I actually saw the reason we
were all gathered in that roasting tent - Prof Hoskins himself, my boss. He
looked every bit of his sixty years in age, and was red in the face from
drink. I never liked him all that much - though I understood why people
might - but now I felt scornful of him. He had clambered onto the low stage
at one end of the tent, and was swaying slightly. The disco lights hadn't
been turned off after the band left, so all of us staring towards him were
periodically blinded as the lights swept by. Hoskins was joined on stage by
Eleanor, looking every bit the fifteen years younger than him that she was,
possibly more so. I'd spotted two of their three boys in the tent at
various points, and half expected them to be on stage with their parents,
but if they were I couldn't see them beyond the glare of the lights.

Almost as soon as Prof Hoskins had launched into his speech, I felt a light
touch on my arm, and turned to find Michael, the youngest son, holding two
paper cups of champagne. I had declined to take one when offered it by a
passing waiter, but from Michael I couldn't refuse. We'd met several times
before, typically when Michael came to the university to get a lift home
with his dad if he'd stayed late at school. He was twelve, almost thirteen,
and quite honestly the most wondrously attractive lad I'd ever laid my
pathetic eyes upon. Too young, of course; I'd've been locked up the second
I touched him, and of course there was no way he would reciprocate my
feelings.

"Hi, Michael," I said, taking the proffered cup. "Do they have you working
handing out drinks?"

He frowned and shook his head, sending tresses of blonde hair bouncing this
way and that. "No, I just saw you didn't have one, and I thought you might
want to toast dad."

"I think he's toasted enough already, don't you?"

But the remark passed over Michael's head. He moved to stand right next to
me as we watched his father's rambling address.

He couldn't be conscious of the fact, of course, but Michael was standing
far too close. Despite the crush in the tent, there was no need to be
leaning to his right, with his bare upper arm touching my forearm. I wasn't
inclined to complain, or to move him, but he was apparently ignorant of
personal boundaries. So, we stood there, he watching his father with
something approaching adoration, and me soaking up every last second of the
touch of his skin on mine.

Then, suddenly, it was gone, as he raised his hand and brought his drink to
his lips and drained it. Far too young to be drinking champagne, of course,
but who was going to stop him? Not his parents, who were by now utterly
trashed. The speech had ended, the toast had been downed, and the party was
- at least officially - over.

People started to drift off, but when I began to make my own moves to
leave, there was Michael again.

"Are you going?" he asked. "You don't have to. Some people are staying and
dad's got some more food coming. They're taking away the tent, but you can
come inside. I have a Playstation, we could play some games."

It all came out in a rush, words tumbling over each other in their
eagerness to pass between his perfect lips. As rapidly as he had spoken,
his little speech was long enough for me to become transfixed by the deep
pools of his amber eyes.

"Oh, thanks. I'm not sure I... no, actually, yes, I'll hang about."

I was a fish out of water, floundering about. Calm confidence was replaced
with nervous stammering. Michael didn't seem to care; his bright smile said
everything. I followed him into the house, and he led me past the
professionally-taken family pictures to the upper floors, where clean,
crisp modern design gave way to something more prosaic, a little out of
date perhaps, definitely more suitable to three teenage boys.

It felt weird going up to his room. Of course it did. Exciting, and
thoroughly frightening, and a little bit unreal. No, a great deal unreal,
hardly real at all, mostly not real. Certainly the last thing I was
expecting when I responded to the party invitation. I followed him
obediently, hardly watching the full mounds of his rear at all. Hardly at
all. Barely once a second. My heart hammered in my cheat, because this was
very much the most exciting situation I could ever remember, and all I was
doing was going to play computer games in a boy's room.

It was neat, and tidy, and quite sparsely furnished. That was surprise
number one, as I walked through the door. Recently decorated, too, and in a
style which was boyish, but also well imagined. Surprise number two was the
view from the window, a view over nearby houses to Greenwich Park. People
would pay a lot of money for a view like that, or for even a portion of a
view like that. The dorma window was large, and let in plenty of light.

"Nice room," was about the best I could come up with in my breathless
state. "Quite a climb though."

He shrugged. To the young and energetic, it would be nothing, of course. I
kicked myself for making a point of my relative age.

"You want to play some Playstation, then, or something?"

I nodded mutely. Of course I didn't, not really. I had no real interest in
doing so, except for the fact that it was with him, this little spark of
light adrift in a sea of grey mediocrity. It would give me the chance to
bask in his light a little longer.

I don't really remember what we played. Something to do with racing. Or
crashing. I'm not at all sure. I probably couldn't have told you if I'd
been playing alongside the least interesting person in the world, but when
I was next to him? Hopeless. I paid very little attention and lost heavily,
something which seemed to provide Michael with a great deal of
amusement. It was hard to feel put out by it, though, not when losing to
him was such sweet agony. He sat far too close to me again - or was it me
who sat too close to him? - and simply the proximity to him was enough to
satisfy my soul. I could feel the heat of him, smell his sweat, practically
wear his presence. I wanted and needed him, both to feed my soul and to
sate my carnal desires.

It couldn't last, of course. This perfect afternoon became evening, and
Michael grew bored, and there was nothing else we could think of to do in
his room (not strictly true on my part, but that would have been terribly
forward), and so we concluded that I should leave. We were just in the
process of awkwardly saying the last things we had to say when I spied
something I had contrived to miss: a Crystal Palace shirt hanging in his
open-fronted wardrobe.

"Are you an Eagles fan?" I asked, to which he of course nodded. I felt a
surge of adrenaline as a little plan popped fully-formed into my mind. Fate
had been kind to me on this account.

"I don't get to go to any games, though," he added. "Who do you support?"

"Palace, of course! Only the best team south of the river. I have a season
ticket, actually. And a spare."

"A spare season ticket?! How?"

"Well, it was my boyfriend's, but he doesn't come any more."

"Did you split up or something?"

Didn't bat an eyelid. Didn't do the `oh, you're gay' thing. I couldn't work
out whether that was to his credit, or to modern society's.

"Something like that," I replied. "Anyway, he doesn't need it, do you fancy
coming?"

His eyes grew to the size of saucers.

"You serious?"

"Yeah, why not. I'm sure I can swing it with your dad. I'll ask him at work
tomorrow morning."

"Afternoon, I think," Michael said with a wry smile, and I couldn't help
laughing.

"Yeah, more like the afternoon."

I was just turning and walking to the door when my eye was again caught by
something - a little football trophy, with his name on: Michael G Hoskins.

"What's the G stand for?" I asked, expecting something like Graham, or
George.

"Oh, yeah," he replied, not apparently in much of a hurry to answer. "It's
a bit odd. Dad came up with it. It's... it's Ganymede."

"Oh. Right."

I didn't know quite what else to say. I imagine Michael thought that I
considered it a laughable name. He couldn't have known the real reason I
was speechless.

"Like I told you," he went on, "a bit strange. But you know dad, he loves
his ancient Greek stuff. That's where it's from. Apparently he was Zeus'
cupbearer, or something."

"Uhuh," I said, trying not to let on that I probably knew more about
Ganymede's legend than his father did. "I think that was it, yeah."

As I strolled away from the house, with a huge, soppy grin plastered on my
face, I couldn't help being thrilled by the luck which had come my way.

--

I did indeed talk to Hoskins Sr the following day, because I would have
been certifiably insane not to have at least tried. To my delight, the Prof
was more than happy for me to get his nearly teenaged son out of beneath
his feet for a few hours on a Saturday afternoon. If you're anything like
me, this may be hard to believe, but apparently not everyone thinks
spending all weekend with a twelve year old lad is heaven itself, and some
of them are quite willing to get rid of their sons without a second
thought.

So it was that after a week of being driven to distraction by endless
daydreams of what might occur the coming weekend, I found myself on
Saturday morning standing outside Troy House once more, this time dressed
less for a party, and more for a hopeful if ultimately futile trip to see
my beloved Palace. I couldn't fail to be struck by the parallels - here I
was, dressed in my Eagles shirt, about to swoop down on the walls of Troy
and carry away my Ganymede. Zack, Zeus, what's the difference, other than a
few meaningless letters? Depending on when he was born, he might even have
the star-sign Aquarius. How perfect would that be?

He answered the door himself, breathlessly. Had he run downstairs to ensure
that he was the one who answered it? I didn't even see his parents to say
hello, because he was pushing past me in his eagerness to leave. That
suited me - I had little desire to make small talk with the professor, or
with the boy's mother. And then, it was just me and him, him and me, and a
few tens of thousands of others who, by a slow progress of aggregation were
wending their way towards the game that sunny late summer
afternoon. Through the capillaries first, one or two, maybe three at a
time. Then into the veins - the trains and tubes, the buses, the pavements
and the walkways. Then, closer in, past the burger vans and the ticket
touts, and the stalls selling scarves and foam hands and all the
accoutrements of the life of a fan, and into the heart itself - Selhurst
Park - and the roar of the crowd as we welcomed our gladiators onto the
pitch. Fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, a tribe together, in blue
and red. I wondered, sometimes, how many of them were like me and my
Ganymede, not quite what we seemed. How many uncles were bringing their
special nephew to the game? And how many aunts their special niece? Or
another combination, for that matter. For how many of them would the
afternoon's game be a prelude to a less wholesome evening? I tried to play
with the statistics of it once, but I'm no mathematician. `Quite a few' was
the closest I could guess, and even that thought made my stomach uneasy.

Michael was overwhelmed by the occasion, bright-faced and eager. I
introduced him to some of the other regulars I chatted to; they accused me
of sucking up to my boss, of course, by bringing his son, and I was caught
in a quandary - tell them the truth, that it was all about being there with
Michael, or risk hurting his feelings by admitting something which wasn't
true anyway. Luckily, the teams arriving on the pitch saved me from needing
to answer.

---

Thank God we won that afternoon. Thank God Michael was elated, and giddy,
and didn't even question where we were going until I opened the door up to
my flat.

"I thought we could grab something to eat here," I said. "I squared it with
your parents; I'll take you home later."

"Oh, cool," he said, smile still on his face. Always so happy, always so
eager to please.

I didn't have sinister plans for him, I must say in my defence. I just
wanted to spend more time around him, in his presence, basking in the warm
aura which surrounded him. Others did, too - some of the regulars at the
game, who had always been friendly enough but never too close, suddenly
wondered if perhaps we wanted to join them at a barbecue at theirs to
celebrate the victory. Perhaps it was merely euphoria-induced exuberance,
but I was willing to wager that in fact it was Michael, with his winning
smile and adorable personality which encouraged the offer.

But he was all mine, and I wasn't sharing. He accepted my offer of a Coke,
and while I bustled off to the fridge to get that for him, he wandered
along the hallway of the flat, staring in wonder at my art.

"You have so many paintings!" he said, breathlessly, as he stared
upwards. I handed him his Coke, which remained unconsumed in his hand. "You
must be really rich."

I shrugged. "They're all reproductions. Nicely painted ones, but not
terribly expensive. Most of these are copies of classics by very fine
artists."

"They're all myths and legends, aren't they?"

I smiled, impressed by his perceptiveness. "They are, indeed. That one up
there is the Gods of Olympus, by Giganti, and that's the Feeding of the
Child Jupiter - that's Zeus, by the way - by Poussin. That one is Cupid and
Psyche, by Picot."

But Michael wasn't looking. He was standing, transfixed, eyes locked to the
very favourite of my paintings.

"What is that?" he whispered.

"Ah. That's a very special one. It depicts the abduction of Ganymede by the
god Zeus, disguised as an eagle."

"Why did he abduct him?"

I moved a little closer to him, and lowered my voice.

"Zeus thought Ganymede was the most beautiful boy he had ever seen. He
wanted to make him his cupbearer; that is, the boy who brought him wine."

"Why's Ganymede naked, though?"

"That's to tell you two things: that Ganymede was an innocent youth, and
that Zeus intended for him to be a bit more than his cupbearer."

Michael frowned at me.

"He wanted him to be his lover," I expanded.

Michael drew a sharp breath, his mouth hanging open slightly.

"Ganymede doesn't seem that bothered by being abducted," he said.

"That's because," I replied, "he was resigned to his fate, that he would be
Zeus' lover."

By now my arm was touching his. Michael shivered slightly, and turned to
me.

"I..." he croaked. He cleared his throat and tried again. "I'm resigned to
my fate, too."

I looked into his nervous, expectant eyes, and felt the last vestiges of my
self-control fall away. I leaned forward, cupped his chin in my hand, and
kissed him.



THE END