Chapter Twenty-Eight--Gaylord & Helena

But I'm a creep,
I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doin' here?
I don't belong here
Creep
Radiohead

Altair Ain

Nick and Annie had a huge blow out when he returned to their home.  Annie had half an hour or so to stew and she did it well. Before Nick could say anything she told him straight out that if he intended to sleep with his Mother he’d been doing it as newly single man!  “Why would you even think that?” Nick said as he paced around the living room. “Gods, Annie! That’s disgusting!”

“Because it’s always sex with her!” Annie shot back.  “Don’t get me wrong, Nick, I love Mom, I really do and I’d do anything for her especially after all she’s done for me…for us.  I’m not going to stand back and watch you do this.”

She didn’t have to say it. The word which belonged on the end of that sentence rung out like a bell and hung heavy in the air as fog off the sea; she wasn’t going to watch him do it again.

His full lips pulled back into a thin smile before he could stop it. “Nobody asked you to watch.” Nick said through lips that did not move and while part of him was immediately sorry he’d allowed the words to be uttered the other was not.  He’d been taken by surprise every bit as much as Annie and the thoughts running in his head wouldn’t leave him alone.  Still he tried to make his harshly uttered words a bit easier for Annie to take.  “I know you love Mom and she loves you.  Nobody said anything about sex, ok? Not while you were there and not after you left.  I’m just as confused by this as you are.”  Maybe he was but Nick had the feeling his confusion was not going to last long.  Ever since his Grandfather had uttered the name Gaylord, Nick couldn’t stop seeing the man’s ghostly image dancing just behind his eyes.  Annie was right about one thing; it almost always came down to sex with Calla Jackson. As he stood there arguing with his beloved Annie he swore he could feel small hands running wild up and down his torso…Gaylord’s torso. Annie just stood there staring at him—staring through him those blue eyes boring a fiery hole right through his heart-- with her arms folded over her breasts. “I’m goin’ for a run.”  He wasn’t dressed for it, like the rest of them who’d been rudely awakened from their snug beds tonight, Nick was only wearing his bed clothes. In this case a pair of gray striped pajama bottoms.  That was easily remedies and in the blink of eye he was clad in jogging shorts, t-shirt and running shoes. “Don’t wait up.”  Nick turned his back on his wife and walked out the door.

Thud-Thud-Thud-Thud

Just as it did every time he ran, the familiar pattern of his own feet hitting the ground along with the cold night air helped to clear his head and let him think a little straighter. He liked running here in Altair Ain. It was quiet and the kingdom had been planned out in ever widening spiral, Nick’s house was on the outer edge of the outermost spiral and he simply followed the path of cobblestone in a series of circles which grew ever shorter until they ended at their destination which was the Worship Center.  By the time he got there he was breathless and sweaty head to foot just as Annie had said earlier tonight.  His body tired and his mind empty of thought Nick would often fall at the feet of the statue of Zeus and ask for his Great-Grandfather’s help.  The Old Man never answered him, not directly but some times Nick felt a presence warm and comforting floating near him.  Then again maybe that was just part of the adrenalin rush.

Thud-Thud-Thud-Thud

It was cold tonight. He should have put on his sweats.  Nick ran at full speed his breath white in front of him as he broke through its mist.  Arms pumping up and down in time with his long legs a sudden familiar image danced in front of him and almost stopped him in his tracks.  It wasn’t Gaylord but Nick in his old high school baseball uniform.  His once long wavy hair was pulled back in a pony tail and he was standing in the doorway between the front hall and the kitchen of 1 Cemetery Drive, Greenbrier, Colorado.  The team just won a double header and he was starving he’d run into the house without trumpeting his arrival in an effort to get to whatever had been for dinner as fast as he could.  He even still had his mitt on his hand and his dirty cleats left marks on the hardwood floor that his Mother would later complain about.  Right now she putting the dinner dishes into the dishwasher and her back was to him as she bent over arranging the dishes.  She was humming some moldy golden oldie.  As ashamed as he was of that moment five minutes after it happened and even now, Nick had to admit to himself that the sight of her froze him in his tracks. He’d stood there leaning against the door jam, his fist in his mitt and his young cock growing exponentially behind the cup and he’d watched her. Admired her.  Then, in his mind anyway, something amazing happened she turned around to see him standing there, she smiled, said his name and held her arms out to him. He couldn’t move because the idea of getting a hug from his Old Mom right there wasn’t exactly what he wanted.  Nick was young and she was beautiful.  When she asked him how the game had gone the moment shattered and he felt that he could animate once more. “We won.” He’d said. “What’s for dinner smells good.”  Nick threw his glove onto the kitchen table, Calla admonished him for it, he went up to change and shower and when he came down his dinner was waiting for him on the kitchen table.

Then the image along with all the emotions and sensations it had brought with it vanished.  He was thirty-five years-old, married, father of….four….and he was running along the cobblestone streets of Altair Ain.

Thud-Thud-Thud-Thud

It was damn cold tonight!  Nick, sweaty and running at full tilt, shivered as the frigid air refused to expand in his lungs instead making them constrict tightly and his heart felt covered in ice.  That was so long ago? Why would he remember it now?  It was almost innocent, nothing to really be ashamed of. Not like when he…not like that night on the beach on Ares’ Island.  He was young and he didn’t understand the things his Olympian Ichor would make him feel as he went through the stages to manhood.  Yet, Calla Jackson was a beautiful woman, there was no denying that. Mother or not, she was gorgeous. Definitely not like the other guy’s moms.  Maybe he had been enamored with her for a while and maybe he had fantasized about her for a while but, well, so did Oedipus.

Look where it got him.

That all ended….it ended terribly…it ended horribly….but it all came to a head and a stop that night on the beach.  All he’d wanted since then was

The chance to make it up to her

With his feet still hitting the cobblestone Nick let out a grunt as he tried to push the thought away.  It didn’t go very far but far enough so that another came to fore.  Gaylord. The image was a little clearer this time and he saw a man with short dark hair and blue eyes.  He was in good shape but not like Nick and he was dressed in a white toga with leather sandals upon his feet.  The man smiled and his face suddenly lit up. A woman ran to him from somewhere Nick couldn’t see, she too had dark hair but it was very long and nearly dragged the ground behind her.  She ran into Gaylord’s waiting arms jumping upon him wrapping her legs around his waist and her arms around his neck.  He hugged her and spun her around as he planted kisses on her cheek.

“Whoa! Holy shh…”  Nick’s feet stumbled as he tried to stop and he went sprawling out on the cobble stone.

Morpheus had appeared from no where to stand in the middle of Nick’s path and as Nick became aware of him and tried to stop he tripped over his own two feet.  He was out cold and that was just as well since the boy hardly slept any more.  The Lord of Dreams reached into his ever-present pouch and sprinkled Dream Dust over Nick who was bleeding from his fall. He had a nice gnash over his right eye and his knees were all banged up but he’d be fine come morning. “You’re a very hard man to get in touch with, Nicholas.” Morpheus chided as he finished sprinkling the dust.  Leaving Nick behind on the road Morpheus, his job done, made his way off to the two other gentlemen on his list tonight.  Since Ares had been kind enough to open his mouth Morpheus thought he’d just help the remembering process along a little bit and speed things up.  No sense in wasting any time at this point.

Greece
215 BC

“I am not chattel!” Helena cried in the Great Council Chamber of the Olympians. “I am a free woman and I shall marry whom I choose. I choose to marry him who I love and that is Gaylord.”

“You are betrothed to Agapios,” Zeus reminded her sternly, “you will marry him, you will be a good wife to him and you will cease this foolishness with Gaylord, a man who doesn’t have so much as a full  name!”

“Agapios is disgusting,” Helena shot back. “I wouldn’t make a dog sleep with him.”

The Olympians fell silent as they stared at each other each of them thinking the exact same thoughts.  Agapios was not prize in the looks department; he was fat and he was already balding. The man had a tendency to talk when he ate thereby spraying spittle and bits of food all over the place.  However, Helena was no beauty either.  She could have been but she just wasn’t.  If her eyes were a little closer together or perhaps if her chin wasn’t quite as pointed or her nose a bit thinner she could have been a classic beauty like the rest of the Olympians.  Fate had not been that kind to the girl and in their minds she should consider herself lucky that a prince, even of an island as small as Kos, should have any interest in her.  Not only was she fairly unattractive, Helena was not exactly intelligent either, she needed much looking after.  With Agapios on Kos she would have everything she needed to live a full happy life befitting one who held Olympian Ichor in her veins….muddied as it was.

Helena looked around the cold room with its white marble floor, arced table and massive columns and saw not one single friendly face staring back at her.  “Ares?” She asked in a small voice as she reached to the one person she thought might stand up for her if he was called upon.  “I don’t love him, I don’t want to spend my life in his bed and what for?  Land? Position? Title?  I care for none of these things.  Tell them.”

Ares, seated behind the long marble table with the rest of the Olympians sat back and stroked the beard at his chin.  He looked at his Mother, Hera, from the corner of his eye and back to his Sister.  He wanted to side with Helena but everywhere he’d inquired everyone said Gaylord-with-no-further-name was a man of ill repute. This was evident by his lack of a surname. If one were a God or a King then one could go through with life with only one name but if one were a man of mortal birth and no royal blood then it only betrayed the fact that the sire was unknown. Thus giving way to belief that anyone who didn’t know their sire must come from a long line of women of ill repute. Gaylord was known to be a charlatan, a gambler and a womanizer.  Somehow he had charmed Helena and turned her head away from her Family.  She did love him and Ares had seen them together, walking hand in hand along the beach, he picked her flowers and held her close when the wind began to blow. He built her a fire and read her poetry. Helena fell asleep in his arms and there she slept the night through. Gaylord didn’t make a single improper advance or cop even one feel of her breast cupped in his hand and Ares knew all of that to be true because he didn’t sleep a wind that night. He just stood there in the bushes watching them unblinkingly. While Ares would like to believe that Gaylord had good intentions it could just as easily be part of his larger scheme.  Perhaps Gaylord was just waiting for whatever he considered to be the right time to consummate their relationship.

“Well Ares? What do you have to say?” Zeus asked sharply.

Ares, still young, brash and untamed by love, indeed not even having a use for it other than the physical pleasure it offered, wondered why his opinion on the subject should matter.  He did have a soft spot in his hard heart for the girl everyone pitied and looked down upon. “I only what is best for you, my Sister.” Feeling the weight of the moment he took one more pause. That much was true, Ares really did what whatever was in her best interest, however, he wasn’t sure what that was. “Gaylord is not respectable, he is not reputable, Helena. I think you should marry Agapios.”

“If anyone would know a man with a bad reputation I suppose it is you, my dear Brother.” Helena shot. As far as the young mud-blood as concerned Ares might just as well have stood up and run her through with the blade of his sword.  She’d rather that than have her most beloved and trusted Brother turn his back on her.  “If that’s the way you all want it then I want no part of you or this place.  I know what all of you think of me, that I am not one of you, that I am backward and stupid.  I am not so backward that I do not know my own heart and I am not so stupid as to deny it. If this is the cost then I do not wish to be one of you. I will not vow love, obedience and loyalty to Agapios and there’s nothing you can do about it. Not any of you.”  Helena turned and walked out of the Council Chamber leaving a heavy silence which lead to a heated discussion behind her.  Although no one was sure if there would be a bride in attendance wedding plans for Helena and Agapios went ahead as scheduled.

Over the next three weeks there was an endless barrage of bribery, begging, pleading, threatening, cursing, the breaking of objects, tossing of lightning bolts and other such things all in an effort to get Helena to the altar.  Nothing worked. Worst of all she continued to see Gaylord and she began to parade him around in front of the Olympians. She brought him to dinner…in Zeus’s Palace atop Mount Olympus!  That did not go over well at all and the evening was made extremely uncomfortable for all present as she sat there holding Gaylord’s hand and fawning over him.  Zeus was infuriated and Hera enraged, they forbid her to ever see Gaylord again! But that didn’t stop her and Helena brought Gaylord to Apollo’s Festival at the Spring Equinox. This time she didn’t merely fawn over him like some love-struck school girl but came too damn close to having sex with the man right then and there as made out and gyrated to the beat of drums. 

The Olympians enlisted the aid of Eros and Aphrodite to cast spells which would break Gaylord’s hold over Helena and giver her heart to Agapios.  All attempts failed. When brought before the Council in a secret meeting and asked why they were unsuccessful the only answer they could give was that what existed between Helena and Gaylord was True Love and it could not be tampered with or broken in any fashion.  This explanation was not met kindly and was quickly dismissed by the other Olympians.

A week before the wedding Helena disappeared and so did Gaylord.  Ares was enlisted to hunt down his Sister and her Lover. He was to haul them back to the Council Chamber.  It was clear that if it was found that Helena submitted to Gaylord’s charms while they were off together Gaylord would not be drawing breath much longer.  It took the God of War two days but he eventually found them holed up in some chalet deep in the Swiss Alps.  The little A-frame was buried in snow and a happy little chimney billowed smoke into the pristine air.  It wasn’t just the scent of burning wood that was carried on the wind, Ares smelled them before he heard them and he heard them long before he saw them.  Making his way through the cold and the snow as he grew angrier with each step and each new whiff of sex riding the wind he came upon the door and let himself in quietly.  Ares didn’t have to go far, the A-frame was small consisting only of one room kept warm by the cheerily burning fire. 

Helena and Gaylord were lit within its glow. She was riding high on top of him as his hands roamed freely over her supple breasts both of them grunting and groaning with passion. Before Ares could make his presence known Gaylord turned her over and then put her on her knees. He entered her again though which opening to her body that Gaylord penetrated Ares couldn’t tell from his vantage point all he knew was that his Sister cried out in pain and she asked Gaylord to stop. She whispered to him that it hurt and she didn’t want to do it but Gaylord didn’t listen.

It was at that point that Ares finally lost it.  His upper lip curled into a snarl as he drew the sword from his belt and crept over to where Helena was still asking him to stop now Gaylord was telling her it wouldn’t hurt much longer and to just be patient.  Scum. Now Ares had all the confirmation he needed regarding Gaylord with-no-further-name.  Surely he was only out to harm Helena.

Moments shared between Lovers are just that; between Lovers because they can so easily be misinterpreted by a third party. The loss of innocence is often painful. Gaylord never meant to harm Helena or take something she was not freely offering him. As he penetrated her deeper a great shadow fell over them.  Gaylord looked up to see Ares standing there, his sword drawn back as the blade and jewels at the hilt reflected the firelight and the look of blood in his eye. “Ares…wait.”  That was as far as he got before the blade pierced his back, ran through his lungs and his heart before jutting out through his chest only to spill his blood onto Helena’s alabaster back. Gaylord crumpled to the left and Helena jumped as she felt the warm liquid cascade down upon her. She turned around to see her Lover laying there his dying eyes wide and Ares’ sword sticking out of his chest.  “My Love,” Helena cried out and cradled him in her arms.  “My Love, I’m so sorry, my Love.”  Her tears fell on his face as she held him close and rocked him.

With the last of his strength Gaylord reached up a bloody hand to touch her cheek. With the last of his breath he professed his love for her.

Helena held him a little longer even though she knew he was gone from her life but he would never leave her heart.  Suddenly Gaylord’s body shifted in her arms and she peered out from behind her thick black hair to see Ares planting his boot in Gaylord’s back so he could retrieve his sword.  “You did this to me, my beloved Brother?” She hissed.  “Have they turned you so against me that you would kill my Husband?”  Helena let go of Gaylord’s body and he came to rest on the mattress, she pulled her hair back it left trails of blood on her bare white skin criss-crossing over her ample breasts. She revealed to him a triple-tiered necklace.  “Only yesterday,” she said sadly.  “Only one day but it was worth eternity.”

Ares was stunned to see it there dripping with Gaylord’s blood. He reached out and ripped it off her neck, his short nails gouging her tender flesh as they grasped the slender strands. “No,” he muttered as he brought it to his face only to stare at it for a long moment before casting it into the fire. “You never married him. This never happened. Put your clothes on woman!”

“You can’t erase this!” Helena screamed and watched in sheer terror as Ares dragged the bloody blade across the sheets to clean it.  She didn’t remember making the conscious decision but suddenly she was flying at him and grabbing for the blade in his hand. She was screaming at him how much she hated him and wished he’d never come here! Wished he were dead!

Ares tried to hold her back with one of his big mitts on her shoulder while he tried to control the sword with the other.  She was frenzied and mindless of what her actions were leading to. Ares pulled the sword back trying to get it away from her hands which were grabbing at the hilt, the blade bit into her palms but she didn’t care. “Let go of it, Helena!” He shouted as he watched her Ichor fall upon his blade. “Let go!”

She didn’t hear him or she didn’t understand. All she knew was she wanted the blade so she could run him through with it as he’d done to Gaylord.  With bleeding hands she grasped the blade and gave it a hard yank to pull it out of his hand.  Ares couldn’t believe she was holding on to the blade the way she was so when she gave that yank it took him a bit off guard. The blade lurched forward though he tried immediately to pull it back it was too late.  The tip pierced her skin right below her sternum and in the half-second it took Ares to realize what was happening and pull the blade back it sunk into her heart splitting it in two. 

Helena stopped fighting, her hands went to the gash in her body left by the blade and her eyes looked up at the Brother she loved so much. The one she stood by when no one else would.  “Thank you,” Helena whispered and managed a smile before she slumped over Gaylord’s body and crossed to the other side. 

Ares stood there in utter bewilderment looking down at the bodies of the two Lovers now forever entwined.  “Helena?” He whispered and reached out to brush the long dark hair from her face. “My Sister?  Wake, please wake.” Ares begged and began to cry.  This was not the ending he was looking for and certainly not the one the other Olympians were expecting. There was going to be hell to pay for this!  Being young, brash and untamed, Ares sought to cover up his misdeed and turned to Hades for help.  When he returned to the Council Chamber two days later with the corpses of Gaylord and Helena he told a tale of Gaylord killing the poor simple-minded young half-breed and in turn Ares ran him through with the blade of his sword.

That was it. The Olympians were satisfied with the tale as it meant they didn’t have to expend any further time or energy on the situation and all had come to a tragic end it ended nonetheless.  Ares comforted his Mother who cried for hours over the loss of her last Daughter and begged Ares to tell her that Helena hadn’t suffered.  Ares assured Hera that the young girl had met a swift and merciful end.

Life went on and Gaylord and Helena were lost to history.

In the Underworld Helena and Gaylord found the life and explored the love that was withheld from them in the Upperworld.  They did so for many happy years. Gaylord with-no-further-name was everything the Olympians were led to believe he was; a man of poor reputation and means. He lived hand to mouth most of the days of his existence.  He hustled people for money and sold them snake oil for medicine.  He never robbed anyone and he never raped anyone and he never killed anyone.  Up until the day he met Helena he was only a poor lonely soul wandering the Earth and one that Fate had looked unkindly upon.  Then he saw her face, the world stopped spinning and for a few blessed moments there was nothing but her. Gaylord fell in love, head over heels, and from that moment on he strived to be a better man one worthy of her and her lineage.  He could not escape his past and though it was the only thing about him the other Olympians could see it was also the one thing Helena could not. Gaylord was honest with her about who he was and where he came from, which translated into no one and no place special, but she didn’t care.  His past didn’t matter to her.  Although, as Helena had told her relatives, they would not have been rich but they would have been extremely happy.  Gaylord loved her, he married her with the intention of making a better life for the two of them here in the snowy mountains far away from the blue water and white sands of Greece.

Just as the sun began to rise Nicholas opened his eyes and found himself lying no in a Swiss chalet but on the cobblestone streets of Altair Ain.  “He loved her, you’re wrong, Umpa, he loved her.”  With an aching head and howling knees he dragged himself to his feet and knew he had to find his Grandfather.  Slowly putting one foot in front of the other another image started to take shape behind his eyes.  The young Nick Jackson, the one in the blue and white baseball uniform appeared, the boy waved to Nick as though he were actually standing on the road ahead.  Nick waved back.  The young man with the waist length hair smiled and tossed the ball in the air he caught it in his glove then he started to fade from sight.  “Maybe.” Nick muttered to no one.  Yeah, maybe that helped explain why sometimes he thought things about his Mother that weren’t exactly maternal.  Why those thoughts invaded his mind when he was younger and going through all of those changes.  Thoughts that his Mother gave him the old indirect signals on always telling him that such thoughts were natural but they shouldn’t be acted upon when he confessed them to her.  As the boy disappeared completely from his sight he started to chuckle and thought of Ghostbusters. “Past life intruding on present time.” He muttered with a grin. Yeah, maybe that helped.

End of Chapter Twenty-Eight of
Golden Years
by Moon Mistress
a/k/a Lisa Beth Darling
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Chapter Twenty-Nine