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Barters N Garters Library
Lovers & Other Strangers
by
Moon Mistress
a/k/a
Lisa Beth Darling

Chapter Three

I wish I was special
You're so fuckin' special
But I'm a creep,
I'm a weirdo
What the hell am I doin here?
I don't belong here
Creep
RadioHead

The Lady Callestah, her energy soaking away, didn’t ask Daniel if he was sure about the chance he was taking, she simply began to glow before his eyes. Soon the small woman he called his Wife was replaced by the equally diminutive—if some what older and wiser appearing—Lady Callestah. The Olympian woman shimmered with inner amber light, her thick auburn hair piled high upon the top of her regal head which was graced by a shimmering sea shell and lavender crown. On every finger was a gold and jeweled ring which he was sure that each one stood for or meant something different. Over her delicate body lay a white pelops embroidered with birds, flowers, hearts, and stars, in the middle of all the depiction of Lovers stood out in gold thread. Over her exquisitely petite body and the dress were layers and layers of green, purple and gold robes. On her small feet a pair of diamond and ruby encrusted sandals. Even without the trappings, Daniel knew that she was the most radiant thing he’d ever see or ever would see. Eos and even Aphrodite herself paled in comparison to Callestah’s beauty. Surely this was a woman meant for a God and not a mere mortal like Daniel Jackson.

“Hello, Daniel. I believe it’s been a long time since last we met.” With a divine grace she held out her hand with its five glistening rings so that he could cup and kiss the back of it. Being the well traveled diplomat that he was, that is exactly what Daniel Jackson did with the offered hand. She smiled as his lips brushed over it and with drew it from him. “Sit, please.” Callestah, ever the most gracious hostess, gestured toward the chaise where she believed he would be most comfortable. Without taking his wonderfully wide blue eyes from her, Daniel sat down where she bid. “You’re wondering why I wish to speak with you after so long.”

“As a matter of fact…I am.” Daniel stammered. “Calla…my Wife?”

“Is fine, I assure you, she is…..just sleeping. Your Wife will return to you soon.”

The Lady Callestah very neatly folded her hands in front of her as she began a slow pace of the bedroom. “You love her, I know. She loves you greatly; she would never be parted from you Daniel, not if she could help it.”

“And she just can’t help it right now or you’re holding her back?” Daniel asked and watched the Goddess in his Wife frown. “I’m, I’m sorry, I don’t mean to hurt your feelings I’m just trying to understand what’s happening here. Usually when Calla….when she….gets very frightened…..she just sort of shuts off for a little while, you don’t come out.”

“Yes, well, things are a bit different now, Daniel. You do believe Ares is poisoning this body.”

“Can she hear us?” More concerned for his Wife’s sanity than the health of the body before him at the moment although he shouldn’t be he knew that.

“Answer me.” Callestah demanded softly.

“I already did but I’ll say it again; right, yes, I think it’s very possible that Ares is poisoning you.” Daniel said and waited for some type of reaction, probably a big explosive one but there was only a minor ripple as the crease in her forehead deepened and she began biting on her thumb nail.

“I hoped it was not so.” She said quietly. “Hoped even you would say this was a ridiculous notion. I love him. You need to know that, I have always loved my Father and I will always love him no matter what he does or how angry he makes me. But he has gone too far for me to be to agree with him and look the other way any longer.”

Thinking that if Calla didn’t remember what happened on the island surely Callestah did and just as surely whatever happened on the Island had a lot to do with what was happening now. Daniel pushed forward and braced himself. “What did he do this time? Tell me, what happened while David and I were in the Underworld.”

“What happened? What did he do?” She said with great surprise and rose quickly to her feet. Daniel’s stomach dropped and his heart stopped as he watched her continue pacing the room. Her lips were moving but the sound coming from them was muffled and he realized she was talking to herself and not to him. “How could you give your permission for this? And without telling your Wife?” The tone was high and accusatory.

“My permission? For what?”

“Her.” Callestah growled. “How could you allow Ares to create her?”

“The clone?” Daniel asked not knowing Ares had already accomplished this and certainly expecting a different answer from her Daniel was taken off guard. “He’s done it? I didn’t know and I did tell Calla what he was planning, I did.” He protested. “You’ve seen her?”

“Yes, on the Island and she was here in this very bedroom demanding that I leave this body for the one she inhabits.”

Well it was obvious enough that the rather loud argument Callestah had with Ares (while she cooked an omelet for Daniel) had been about the clone but he hadn’t realized that Ares had already gone through with his plan and made her. “Don’t you want that?” The cold-fire stare followed by the roaring scream she let out was all the answer he needed. No, she didn’t want that. Like most men, once they get going they can’t shut up and they usually end up chewing vigorously upon their own foot. “I thought this would make you happy, now you can be with him. Isn’t that what you just said you wanted?” No answer just the stare and her foot tapping on the carpet. “Why not?” For the first time in his life Daniel Jackson found himself agreeing with Lord Ares and thought this the perfect solution. “She wants to go with him, you know that don’t you?”

“Who?”

“The girl, the one we went to the Underworld to rescue, she wants to be with Ares. I know you do too, why isn’t this a good solution?” The glowing Goddess dimmed as she frowned and began to weep. Soon the amber glow was gone completely as were the rings on her fingers and the golden robes around her small body. “Calla? Kitty, is that you?”

“It is still me, Daniel, it takes too much energy, once it took none at all but now it uses up more than I have.” She explained through her silent tears and sat next to him once more. “You know you’re right or would be if only….if only….” Her head shook side to side and she had problems finishing her thought.

“If only what, Callestah?” Daniel took her chilly hand. “As we agreed, you’re my Wife too, you can tell me anything.”

“I am?” She brightened. “I can?”

“Yes to both.”

“Why didn’t he ask me? Why didn’t you ask me?”

It was true that Calla had been against this idea from the beginning and she’d…..

“I begged you not go, both of us pleaded with you not to go to the Underworld and do this for him, didn’t we? Why didn’t you listen? I don’t know who you rescued but she is not me.”

“She is.” Daniel asserted and watched her frown deeper. “Just listen to me for a minute, ok?” He went on to tell Callestah of how Aphrodite—who by now was suspect in everything—and Hades—now that he thought about it was probably equally suspect—had taken the small girl from her body almost 20 years before on the night she almost died in that wretched place known as the Norwich State Hospital. “You see, she is you.”

In a huffing fit of exasperation Callestah shook her head. She’d never make him understand. “Just…” she stopped, “do this for me. No matter what Ares does or says or threatens…..no matter what….you will not agree. Promise this.”

There was such desperation in her eyes but still, “Not before I talk to Calla.” Her face fell and she tossed her slender hands in the air. “Why don’t you want this? It’s the perfect solution.”

Hands straight down at her side she craned her neck toward him. “He….did not even….ASK me!” Callestah shouted in his face. “Do you get it, Daniel?” She pointed to her head. “I’m nothing to him. I am merely another possession, another woman in his harem, another horse in his stable. All of my life I have loved him, stood up for him, shielded him and made excuses in his name but I am nothing to him. If he could do this without even thinking about what I might want then he does not love me and I do not believe he ever did. Now he tries to poison me to kill me. The shame of it is for if he had told me of his plan and asked me first I would have said ‘yes’ to this wild idea of a clone and Ares would have everything he holds so dear. He did not do this and so he has shown his true intentions and feelings. Ares has betrayed me and your Wife. He has made us redundant made our life and all that we have endured meaningless. We could forgive what he did to this body last summer but not this.”

“Funny, I’ll never forgive Ares for that.” Daniel remarked but she could because part of her---a very large part—had longed to be in Ares’ bed. Though Daniel doubted he gave her what she wanted while he had her at his mercy. No, he remembered the faxed photographs from that Swiss clinic Hartley took her to for ‘molding’ and scar reduction. The deep bruises they showed on her back and her face. Bruises made by a hand so large it could only belong to the God of War. This she could forgive or forget but not the clone. He didn’t understand.

“David? Do you forgive him? I see you greatly enjoyed sharing me with him.” Catching sight of the expression on his face Callestah rolled her eyes. “Oh, please, Daniel. It’s nothing to feel guilty about. Yet you do and you do forgive David, why don’t you tell him? I’m sure it will mean a great deal.”

“Why do you care so much about my relationship with David?”

“Let’s not play games; I am more forthright than my counter part. Ever since we found out what happened to your parents and about David, we have felt guilty and have tried to find numerous was of making this up to you. Now that David is here and in a positive way it is possible that we will no longer have to bare this shame.”

“You are a lot more honest than Calla.” Daniel agreed thoughtfully.

“Calla is not deceitful,” Callestah informed him, “she is afraid of upsetting you and this fear drives her to great extremes in order to avoid what, sometimes, she knows is inevitable. She never intends to harm.”

OK, Callestah had a point or two. “And David? What if I say, I did like it…not just a little but a lot…”

“Then I would say you are finally being honest with me and yourself, there are other things you’ve enjoyed about this …marriage, since before you became her Husband, aren’t there? Things you’d hardly admit to yourself alone in the dark let a lone to some one else in the open light of day, aren’t there?”

Calla’s submissiveness and eagerness to please him in whatever wonderful ways he wanted her to.

“It’s all right to be a man, Daniel, to need, to want, go on and say it,” Callestah encouraged. “Go on we’re all old friends here.”

“Fine, you’re right, there are several things I liked. Things that I would only admit to the Darkness if not myself.” Daniel cleared his throat and tried to get a hold of himself as the lovely thoughts went tip-toeing through his head. “Back to David and our childhood. None of that was your fault or Calla’s, Ares did it, it’s all on him.”

“If I had not taken to you so well when we first met, Ares would have had no reason to do the things he did. You were a threat to him then and you are a threat to him now. The only reason he didn’t try again to kill you again while you were still a boy is because…..”

Daniel already knew the answer; “He was trapped on that planet, Eros lured him there and left him. After that he knew Calla would never forgive him if he did anything to me.”

“You do remember.”

“Why so surprised?”

“I don’t know.” Putting her hands to her cut forehead she felt it throbbing her eyes were growing tired. “I do know that Ares is poisoning me and he will do anything to get his way…”

“I’m not disagreeing with you,” no, not at all because this felt so right that it just had to be true, it had to be, “but why would Ares poison you? Why would he want you dead? Even if he doesn’t,” he paused for a moment trying to find words which would not hurt and could not, “if he doesn’t love you the way you want him to, he still needs you, he still doesn’t have what he wants most so why would he try to kill you especially now?”

“To spite you, Daniel. Like Eros, Ares has always viewed you as a threat and Ares hates to feel threatened, to feel powerless. So he would do this to leave you with nothing while he goes off with his shiny new prize.”

“I make Ares feel powerless?” That seemed just as laughable as it felt right. All in all, in the end if she was nothing more than a possession which could be replicated then why wouldn’t Ares do this? After all his hatred for Daniel knew no boundary.

“Yes, your enormous capacity to love, it as big as Calla’s and that threatens him for as much as he wants to Ares does not know how to Love to put another before him.”

“We’ll stop him, David and I will make you well again.” The thought brought a smile and much joyful anticipation. “That was really you, huh? Not Calla?”

“Does it bother you so to have me in your bed?” The Lady Callestah heaved a sigh. “Calla sees the necessity in it but is too afraid to let go and enjoy it. Too afraid that she is displeasing you, that you somehow will be unable to cope and you will leave because of it. You will shun her once more and this our heart cannot bare. So often she has stood and continues to stand between me and that which would bring me pain but sometimes I must do this for her, do you understand? Now you and David must stand for us, you remember how to do this?”

She had a point, again, several of them. “I remember I was once Sa’Tan.” He reminded her.

“But only for a very brief period and then there was none for a very long time.”

The Lady Wakes Only Unto Me.

The words echoed in his mind and tickled the back of his brain. “Tell me more, please, Lady, I need to know these things. When...After…when,” he paused, closed his eyes and went on, “when the ritual was done on Tiberia, did you wake then?”

“Yes,” she smiled kindly for him. “Until you returned the power contained within the staff I was weak and unstable. I remember waking in your arms for the first time and being greeted by your kind smile and those beautiful eyes. Ares be damned, I felt loved for the first time in…in….forever. But then you went away after less than two months of being with me. I did not know what to do; I did not know how to get a long in the mortal world, the one which always drew me to it. Calla did. She knew what to do and she did it without thought or hesitation.”

“I hear you. Do not mock her, Daniel.” Callestah warned. “She has been my guardian for ages and I will not allow this. We were pregnant and you were lost to us, no Sa’Tan, no Husband. No one to hold us to keep us warm and dear to them.” Now it was her turn to pause and gather a few thoughts. “I grew weaker…we grew weaker…every day you were apart from us, every day we thought you lost to us and how we wished it wasn’t so. How she wept in your bed during the cold lonely nights as the twins grew inside of us and we did not know who their Father was. Even though this shamed her, Calla stood tall and would not hear of giving up or giving in to the despair that grew day by day. We still had, what we sincerely hoped, was a part of you still with us and she clung to that hope like a leaf to a tree in a wind storm. She detested keeping David—you—in the basement chained to that bed, you must believe she hated it and so did I. We saw no other way to bring the children forth, you understand that it was not her life she was concerned with nor even mine but their lives, don’t you Daniel?”

“Yeah, I, ah, I figured that out a long time ago.”

“In a log cabin perhaps? While you were snowed in.”

“Perhaps.”

Is it wrong for a Daughter to want her Father to love her?”

“Ah, ah….no.” He said with a smile thinking of Colleen but wondering if there wasn’t something deeper in her question. “Not the way a Father should love his Daughter anyway.” Daniel clarified.

“Your Mortal standards aside; is it wrong? Once they are reduced to nothing more than a Man and Woman?”

Yes! He wanted to scream that it was always wrong! “What do you want from me? Permission to sleep with Ares? You were just telling me how much you don’t want to be around him.”

“I don’t require your permission.” Callestah informed him but not in a high-toned voice. She paced the room a little more and then sat down next to him Callestah shook her head. “If I had ever truly wanted to make love with Ares, I would have, Daniel. He is very handsome, do you not agree?”

OK, “yes, Ares is very handsome.” Daniel had to give her that one.

“He is very….persuasive.”

“Yes.”

“I could have slept with him at any time, could I not?”

“I suppose so.” This line of conversation was making him very uncomfortable and Daniel stood up but she sat him back down.

“When I came home, when I brought you home again, you saw Ares and Maeve and all of them, why didn’t you take over then?”

“I wanted to but she wouldn’t let me.” Callestah confessed. “You were Husband by then no longer Sa’Tan, I had no one to go to but Ares. She has fought me all these years and I keep telling her this is my life and I should be allowed to live it and she keeps telling me no.” .

“Why?”

“Why would she not let me live what is my life? Because of her great love for you and her great fear that I will turn away from you and toward Ares and this, no matter how much you love her, you will not abide. You know she is correct; I would have gone to him if she had but let me. I came close several times,” she stopped and gauged his response but Daniel just sat there. “Did you know about those times? When I would sneak away from here to be with Ares?”

Not consciously no he didn’t but he didn’t doubt her either. “Why didn’t you sleep with him?”

“And cuckold you?” She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Ares’ arms are large, his body warm to lie against, it brings much fire to mine.” Daniel was getting uncomfortable once more she didn’t want that but she did want him to understand that she had every opportunity over the years to do exactly what she wanted and was stopped each time. “Calla’s loyalty to you is deep, I know you fault her for Andrew Hartley but he never made love with her not once in all the months she was with him.”

As she talked about Ares one thing became clear to Daniel; The Lady Callestah was jealous. Not only did she detest the clone and was hurt by Ares’ callousness but the clone was everything The Lady was supposed to be and was not, this was why the clone was so hated. In it Callestah saw everything she would never be. Daniel couldn’t help but feel sorry for her. It must be pretty damn shitty to be her right now but at least she was thinking fairly clearly and she wasn’t running toward Ares but trying to find a way out and away from him. “Yeah, well, if you ask me Hartley was incapable of making love….and so’s Ares.” He couldn’t help it he just had to add that in.

“You’re probably right…about Hartley. She hated being with him as did I his touch was….very much unwanted so then I suppose it is good he did not touch us often.” She tried to smile and failed. “What does she not understand or perhaps she forgets is that I loved you first. Alas, it is she who held on to you when all hope was lost to me. It was she who would not give up hope that you would come to us one day no matter how bleak everything looked. Without her I would have gone completely mad long before you ever arrived on Tiberia. Calla learned how to play Kanan’s games, she learned to take the hits from him when there was no other option, learned how to make him laugh, how to please him in many disgusting ways. She shielded me and kept her children safe within this body even after their Father killed them. Even when he was doing his worst to her body she kept that image of you tucked away in a small corner of her heart and when he was at his angriest she would take it out and look at it and it would take her away from the pain. Your Wife is an amazingly special woman, Daniel. I hope you know this. I know there are times when she exasperates you….”

“I do know how special Calla is….and you.”

“Me? You don’t understand. All those years with Kanan, all those long tortuous days and nights, all I did was look out, all I could do was listen and many times not even that, I just crawled away into the darkness and because of Calla I felt nothing it was as though I was…..”

“A bystander.” Daniel finished as the memory of that night in the Norwich State Hospital crossed through his mind once more.

“Yes, so tell me, Daniel, how can I be special when I’ve done nothing but hide?”

“You’re here now, doesn’t that count for something?”

“I don’t know.” Callestah confessed. “In many respects I suppose Calla is right and that now, because of….everything,” again she smiled sadly, “this is more her life than mine. Still I am here and I do not wish to simply fade away anymore than she does. Yet she and I do not agree on what is right, how do I resolve this conflict, Daniel?”

“How can you love him so much? After everything he’s done, Callestah, how can you want anything to do with Ares?” No matter how well she answered him he knew he’d never understand but looking at her and seeing the love she held for Ares in her eyes and the pain it caused her, Daniel realized all he had to know, all he really needed to know, was that her love for Ares existed and the why and the how of it really didn’t matter.

“This leads to where we are now and the fact that I must turn away from him. I see now that he does not love me and he never did no matter how much he pretended to it was all false. He only wants what I can give him, what he believes I owe him but I do not owe him and now I do have a choice. Now David is Sa’Tan and I, Callestah, am his Sa’Tai. I choose him over Ares.” Callestah watched Daniel’s mouth drop open and the hurt settle into his eyes. The last thing she wanted was to hurt him by saying words Calla could not. “Do not be sad, don’t you understand? It was I who wouldn’t let her make a decision between the two of you, I who held on to a small sliver of hope that Ares would love me the way a man loves a woman but I held out too long and now I cannot choose you over him, your Wife will not let me.”

Why was that? It would be so much easier if both women picked him and they could live a long happy life, maybe, Calla and Callestah would even merge eventually. So why? Then the answer came to him and as always it was simple as a flower. “Because she’s afraid I’ll love you more than her.” It was not a question but a simple statement of fact. Didn’t it make sense? Of course it did, after all, when it came to David and his new place in their life that was what Daniel was afraid of most; somehow, some way, she would love David more than him.

“Calla will always be your Wife, her heart will always rest in your hands and she will always love you and only you no matter what may happen between the three of you in your bed.”

“Four,” Daniel corrected in a distant voice, “four of us. Am I ever going to make love to my Wife again? Just her and me?”

Callestah gave a sad but understanding smile as she patted his hand. “Yes, many many times, I’m sure that you will. I promise this but you must understand that I will not allow Ares to do this to me. I will not spend eternity in the bed of a man who does not love me. I will not give birth to and raise his children. I could have loved his so well; I did love him. But he tries to poison this body and he takes what does not belong to him without regard. Perhaps once this was my Destiny, my Fate. Also, perhaps, it is true that I waited and longed for it but no more. Now I choose something different for myself. You cannot ask this of me, Calla does not; she is just as hurt as I am by this. Now that I have the two of you…now that we have you and David…. perhaps I may stay here? Perhaps you could see your way clear to back up your words and accept me as your Wife as well even if you do have to share me with him?”

“Please, promise that when the time comes you will not falter and no matter what Ares tries, no matter ugly or underhanded it may become, promise you will not submit and give in to what Ares wants. Kume.”

“Kume.” Daniel agreed. “I won’t give consent for this Ritual. I’ll make sure David doesn’t either.” Not sure he was making the right decision he continued. “You know she, the girl, she seemed very happy for Calla and me, seemed elated by the fact that we married and had children, she said she knew Calla would love me and that I would love her. Who is she?”

“And you believe I am not? That is untrue, Daniel, I am overjoyed for both of you.” The Goddess before him drew a sad breath and slowly shook her head. “The girl in the Underworld, I don’t know who she truly is. Perhaps she is a part of me I suppose. A part too short lived and that met a very violent death but in my heart I do not believe this to be the truth, I don’t know what Mother did but looking back on my life perhaps her motives were less than honorable. Still who and whatever that girl is, she is not me and we want no part of her. I fear, she is not what she appears to be and in the end, Ares will regret this decision.” She turned to look him in the eye. “If you do not believe me, you will ask Calla when she returns. She will tell you that what I say is true.”

“I’ll do that. So it was you, huh, in the mall when we were little?”

Now the Goddess’ frown turned to a small grin as the memory came to her. “Yes, it was me. That little girl is right, from the moment I met you I knew a part of me loved you and would always love you no matter what. I just didn’t know that that part would eventually come to have a name and a life of her own.” She said sadly. “I think I started to fracture then,” she confessed, “my mind, Eros and….that.” Callestah finished. “It had just begun only a few days before that day we met. So long ago, Daniel,” she whispered in a heavy sigh and touched the side of her head. “So hard to remember, it was so long ago now. After Ares took me to Kanan Calla began to take over, to shield me, I was weak already, my Family in their infinite wisdom and desire to keep me closer to home stored my powers in that staff and I was never whole again.” Callestah took his hand and kissed it. “So much of me, the woman I should have been and am not, is scattered and no longer here.” She pointed to herself with tears in her emerald eyes. “No longer whole. I am not who I was supposed to be and sometimes I have no idea of who I am. You make her whole, you make her feel as though she’d never been soiled, never damaged. For that, Daniel Jackson, I am eternally grateful.” She kissed his hand again. “Do this for me and I will see to it that you are rewarded beyond measure.”

“I need no rewards, Lady.” Daniel kissed her hand. “I have you. You’re nothing like Calla said you were she said you were very angry.”

“I am.” Callestah agreed without hesitation. “Wouldn’t you be?”

“I’d be damn pissed off if I were you.” Daniel brushed the auburn hair away from her face. “You have every right to be angry but not with Calla. You know, I am very proud of you for standing up to Ares the way you did the other night. That took a lot of courage. So did this conversation. You should do that more often.”

End Of Chapter Three
Lovers & Other Strangers
Continue to
Chapter Four

This story and all stories in the Barters N Garters Library are copyrighted to Lisa Beth Darling these stories may not be transferred outside of this URL in any fashion.