Author's Notes: Written for Screaming Faeries' Greek Mythology Mega Prompt Challenge on the HPFC Forum, with the prompt Aphrodite - write about adultery.

)O(

Pale hair, gentle hands, a sweet and familiar voice in her ear. I love you, Druella, I do.

She pressed kisses to Abraxas's lips and let him hold her in the warm sheets of her marriage bed. She allowed herself just a second in which to forget - forget that she would never be able to enjoy Abraxas's touch without a mantle of secrecy and deception, that she belonged and ever would belong to a man who saw her as nothing more than a frustrating requirement, a social necessity that he did not want. Abraxas could never be more than a momentary distraction from the reality of her situation, which was - as it always had been and always would be - that she was the property of another, and that she could only indulge in giving herself to Abraxas insofar as she could keep it completely secret.

What pleasure she gained from bedding him was faint and passing. She regretted that she had to usher him out of her bed as soon as he finished - the longer he stayed, the greater the risk - for she might have enjoyed holding him, feeling the warmth of his body pressed close to hers, his unassuming hands resting on her hips or her back in the tender way that Cygnus never ever touched her. She would have enjoyed it more than hasty lovemaking, at any rate.

But she could not take that risk, and so she sent him away and lay alone, until her husband joined her to remind her - as if she could ever put it out of her mind - just how completely she belonged to him, and just how little he cared for her as anything but a status symbol.

)O(

Fin