Aphrodite's Necklace Read online

  An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication

  www.ellorascave.com

  Aphrodite’s Necklace

  ISBN 9781419910005

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  Aphrodite’s Necklace Copyright © 2007 Anh Leod

  Edited by Helen Woodall.

  Cover art by Syneca.

  Electronic book Publication August 2007

  This book may not be reproduced or used in whole or in part by any means existing without written permission from the publisher, Ellora’s Cave Publishing, Inc.® 1056 Home Avenue, Akron OH 44310-3502.

  This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.

  Aphrodite’s Necklace

  Anh Leod

  Dedicated to Elizabeth, for any number of reasons.

  Author’s Note

  I based Aphrodite’s Necklace on the Queen of Pentacles Tarot card. Mostly I focused on the themes of the card, as found in The Sexual Key to the Tarot by Theodor Laurence. You will see the goddess Aphrodite dressed as the Queen of Pentacles in some of the scenes though! I had fun looking at different versions of this card in the Tarot decks I own.

  As Aphrodite sees in the opening scene of the novella, the card signifies her love of sensual pleasures and sexual freedom. She embodies the card herself as a woman of magnificent beauty who loves sex for sex’s sake.

  When Aphrodite offers her magic necklace to my unsuspecting characters, she gives them the gifts of sexual openness, excitement and generosity. There comes a time when she takes her gift away and then the reverse of the card creates problems for Emily and Will. They experience mistrust in each other. To find lasting love, my characters have to work their way back to those positive gifts in their own way.

  Chapter One

  “Go,” the Goddess of Love commanded the fortuneteller. The coal fire in the grate flared with her displeasure, now the woman’s inanities had ceased to amuse her. She tapped a long finger on the card table next to her chaise lounge. “But leave the cards.”

  She knew the woman was false by the way she dropped the Tarot cards and ran. No true psychic would leave her divining tools behind. Thank Zeus the woman told lies.

  Aphrodite took a sip of wine from her goblet, then fingered the Tarot card she felt represented her, the Queen of Pentacles. It signified her love of sensual pleasures, sexual freedom. She was no creature marred by excess as the fortuneteller claimed. Yet here she was, imprisoned in London, a culture stifled and repressed. The Christians termed this time to be March of 1844—a dull age for a love goddess to be sure.

  Aphrodite looked at her parlor full of prostitutes, both male and female and sighed. In the flickering gaslight, their practiced writhing appeared so depressing. Where was her hot, bright sun? Her gamboling nymph attendants? Once a cult of sacred prostitution had been dedicated to her.

  Now, banished from Mount Olympus by her husband Hephaestus after a minor peccadillo involving a lyre player, she had only attracted a coterie of common streetwalkers to her immortal self. Oh yes, an occasional courtesan came to pay tribute, but she wanted more. Nothing less than a society of hedonism would please her, but that German hausfrau and her stuffy, moralistic husband were on the throne. The days of Victoria’s licentious uncles were long gone. She might have enjoyed herself then, but no, her husband knew a good punishment when he saw one.

  Though her powers were somewhat curtailed so far from home, she was not without any magic. How could she reform society to her taste?

  “Come here.”

  She thrust a jeweled finger at one rascal who specialized in pleasuring elderly widows. The young man, curly-haired and slim like a proper Greek athlete, strutted toward her. He was nude, as were most of the other prostitutes and his hairless form gleamed with oil.

  “Gawaine,” she cried. “Clear the room! I cannot focus with all this heaving about.”

  Her personal servant, Gawaine Newscome, a trim, dark-haired man of thirty, severe in a black frock coat, hit the gong, which sat on a table next to where he stood. He opened the double doors to his left then circled the room. The music broke off with a false note. Prostitutes ceased their wriggling, then separated. One woman’s tongue ceased to lick a man’s cock, a man’s fingers stopped caressing the clit of his partner, agile toes stopped the flower-strewn pleasure swing in the corner, though the man on it kept pumping into his partner until a glare from Gawaine stopped him in mid-thrust.

  “Not you,” Aphrodite said to the trio of flute girls in the corner. “Play.”

  The musical beauties bent their heads and began to play a sprightly tune.

  The others dashed out the door and Gawaine, the last to exit, closed the doors behind him.

  Aphrodite leaned back on her paisley cushions. Her voluptuous pink thighs melted open as the youth ran his hands up her calves. She lifted her chiton to allow him greater access.

  “No foreplay,” she decided. “Just get down to business.”

  He slithered up the velvet between her legs, his chest smoothly skimming the fabric. She placed a hand on his curly locks as he separated her labia and licked her completely open with a moist tongue.

  “That’s better,” Aphrodite moaned. “Good lad.” The male prostitute was lithe and swift of tongue. He laved her clitoris, causing a happy jolt of sensation.

  The youth had the honor of paying homage to her womanflesh for a considerable time as her mind wandered. But her mind was no better focused, her plans unformulated. His attentions were not working.

  She was tired of expertise. What this London needed, what she needed, was happy innocents, glowing with heady pleasures, instead of these practiced professionals. The professionals fucked because they must, to earn their daily bread. She wanted the joy back in sex. Her true worshippers needed to have sex because their bodies craved it. They loved the act, if not each other.

  The youth sucked mightily on her immortal clit. She felt another sensual jolt, but no ramping of delight.

  “Put something in me,” she gasped, thinking it might help.

  He inserted two oiled fingers deep inside her vagina.

  “Work me,” she ordered. The youth’s deep penetrations didn’t seem to help. Her orgasm seemed far away. She needed even more talent to overwhelm her jaded senses.

  Aphrodite wiped her brow with a dainty lace-edged handkerchief and tapped the smaller gong next to her. The parlor doors popped open and Gawaine stuck his head in.

  “Ma’am?” he inquired politely.

  “Send Jack in.” She unbelted her embroidered chiton, then undid the diamond pin holding it closed at the shoulder.

  “Jack?”

  “The new one with the twelve-inch cock.” He was a recent discovery, an out-of-work footman who had been employed by a bankrupted nobleman. One of her streetwalkers had brought him here after he’d given her his last farthing for sex. At least he paid for it, rather than being paid. And from what she saw of his activities with the housemaids, he was enthusiastic as well as endowed.

  Gawaine nodded and shut the doors. Aphrodite sighed and clasped the youth’s head more tightly to her flesh. She hoped she wasn’t suffocating him, but on the other hand, what a gift it would be for him to die with his face in a goddess’ sweet nectar.

  A moment later, the doors opened again and a short but muscular man entered, brutish of features except his thick, tasty lips. He undid the golden chain that closed his loincloth as strode toward her.

  Aphrodite felt a smile caress her lips as she admired his stocky form. She pulled the curly-haired youth to her breast as Jack came forward, his proud masculinity rampant. The youth gasped for breath
, then settled against her bosom.

  He tugged and sucked her rosy nipples as she considered Jack’s already turgid phallus. The proud angle, the healthy plumpness of the plum tip topping the thick veiny root, the twitch of eagerness and faint sheen of precum were all worthy of admiration. He pleased her. Moisture pooled between her legs as she ran her palm across his glans.

  This was the problem with London. There wasn’t nearly enough phallus worship. She tugged him toward her, her tongue running across her lips. Releasing him, she tasted her fingers. His juices smelled of fresh grass.

  Her head fell back as Jack knelt at the end of the chaise lounge and pulled her roughly to the edge. He picked up her hips as if she weighed no more than a butterfly and thrust himself home.

  “That’s more like it,” Aphrodite moaned, getting more from this first plunge than from ten minutes of that oral business. She gyrated her hips in rhythm to Jack’s thrusts. Each deep penetration shot lightning bolts from her clitoris to her nipples. This one had instantly brought the heat. The youth sucking her breasts caught the rhythm of their hips and laved them in time with Jack’s thrusts. Feeling generous, she grabbed his cock with her hand, stroking him into a frenzy as Jack pounded her. With the right touch, even a professional could be pleasured.

  This was exactly what she needed, she thought, panting. Unpracticed, artless desire. As always, with pleasure came clarity. A society of hedonists could be built, one couple at a time. She would make a spell, a spell that would build her a school of innocents under the tuition of Madame Lust.

  She bowed her back to push her breasts further into the youth’s tender mouth. Jack slowed his strokes. His balls slapped against her buttocks as she reached down to rub her clit. Her legs wrapped around Jack’s back, putting pressure on her already playful hand where his thick torso pressed against her.

  Finally. Her head fell back. Her clitoris and vagina spasmed as she came. Her mind flashed, like the brightness of the Greek sun was above her again and her taste buds filled with ambrosia as the tremors ripped through her. This was, for now, the only way for her to reach the paradise of Mount Olympus.

  * * * * *

  Gawaine entered the parlor the next day as Aphrodite was watching her circle of prostitutes cavort and thinking how best to conjure her spell.

  “A visitor to see you, my lady.”

  He was looking quite nice in his dark suit and starchy shirt, Aphrodite thought. Especially in contrast to all the nude bodies around her. Sometimes clothing could make the human form seem mysterious, sexy. His proud posture in itself gave him more dignity than those two men in the corner going at each other like rutting dogs. The expressions on their faces were of agonized desperation instead of sheer pleasure. Were those tears on the younger man’s face as the older man plunged in his cock? Why must they look so distressed when in safe, comfortable surroundings?

  She sighed. There was no understanding mortals. “Is this visitor diverting?”

  “Perhaps, ma’am. Her name is Emerald, I believe. She was a courtesan of some renown twenty years ago. She now runs a private gaming establishment in her home.”

  “She might provide entertainment. Send her in.” Aphrodite arranged a fringed shawl around herself. This English weather was the worst for one like her, used to more delicate climes.

  A few moments later, a forty-something woman built like a ship sailed into the room. Her bosom alone announced a presence before the rest of her followed. She sank into a deep and surprisingly graceful curtsey, which gave the goddess a hint of what she had been in her prime.

  “You are called Emerald?” she asked, holding out a languorous hand to be kissed.

  Emerald grasped it with reverence and kissed the gold ring on her finger. “Yes, my lady.”

  “And you worship at the altar of sensual love?”

  “I once did.” The woman’s great ruddy cheeks flushed darker. “I sensed your power here and knew I must come to pay homage.”

  “Hmmm.” Aphrodite speculated. So a sensual heat still burned in this woman’s blood. Otherwise she would not have sensed her goddess’s presence. “Now it is money you follow?”

  “Some can entice men past youth, but I had not the skill.”

  “There is nothing wrong with an establishment such as yours,” Aphrodite assured her. “You are lucky to have made your way in this moralistic society. Have a seat.”

  Gawaine brought a low cushioned chair and placed it to one side.

  Emerald seated herself and clasped her hands in her lap around her reticule. “I quite agree, madam. Oh, to be young again, in the day of Lord M— and the Duke of N—. There was nothing like it.”

  Why couldn’t her husband have imprisoned her in that era, the goddess thought irritably. It sounded like she’d have enjoyed herself then. Not that she’d have been excessive about it.

  “Why have you come?” she asked. “You are welcome of course, as are any who follow Love.”

  “I brought you a gift.” Emerald reached into her reticule and pulled out a flat case. “I wished, if I might, to invite you to my establishment, if you are ever in the need for diversion.”

  Aphrodite gestured to Gawaine, who took the box and opened its clasp. Aphrodite smiled as she saw the sparkling emerald and diamond necklace. Gold coins were interspersed with diamonds on the chain and diamonds surrounded large square-cut emeralds in gold settings where it would settle on the throat. A pearl drop finished the piece, like a bead of semen dripping off a satisfied cock.

  It would suit her purpose well. “This is fit for a goddess.”

  Emerald beamed with the praise.

  “I will grant you the honor of a visit to your home, one of these days.”

  “It could only succeed with your patronage, my lady.” Emerald curtseyed again.

  “Is that all?” Aphrodite wished to remove the woman, so she could have Gawaine bring her a mirror and place the necklace around her neck to admire it.

  “I have a lover,” Emerald said, a little less sure of herself.

  “Yes?” Aphrodite smiled. “I smelled a man on you, for all you said those days were over.”

  Emerald nodded bashfully. “He is the only one for me now. Unfortunately, he is undergoing setbacks of a financial nature and I am very much concerned for him.”

  “You appear to have funds.” Aphrodite glanced again at the necklace. No, the stones were real, she could have told the difference.

  “Yes, but he wouldn’t take any from me because this concerns his wife and daughter, who is without a dowry thanks to their financial difficulties.” Emerald knitted her fingers together. “He is having a costume ball in a few days and I thought if you attended, it would give the party such an ambiance his fortunes would be remade.”

  She handed the goddess an embossed card.

  “A ball?” Aphrodite was thoughtful, looking at the engraving. It said, Mrs. Charles Rogers requests the pleasure of your company at an evening costume party…

  “And in costume too,” she observed, finishing reading the invitation.

  “Yes, my lady.”

  “It might be diverting.” She needed to mix with London society. Thus far they had not been attracted to her parlor. Perhaps her sensual draw would only work on the higher classes close up, as it were. “I will grant your request.”

  Emerald stood and curtseyed yet again. “Thank you, my lady. You are most gracious.”

  “Yes, yes,” Aphrodite waved a hand, allowing the woman to kiss it reverently one last time. “Escort her out, Gawaine and bring me my looking glass.” She was already holding the bauble to her neck as they departed.

  * * * * *

  That Saturday evening, Aphrodite took an experimental step in her white kid dancing slippers. Her dress was so long the slippers could not be seen. The heavy clothing felt strange and cumbersome, but she did not mind since it was a costume. She could have gone in her own clothes. It would have created a scandal to be enjoyed to go about London in nothing more than a classic chi
ton. But she would dress as the Queen of Pentacles in honor of her spell.

  Accordingly, her silk gown was of a rich, severe red. The bodice came to a sharp point at her waist, arrowing straight to her cunny, though the skirt belled out from her limbs with several petticoats. Nearly sleeveless, the dress left her shoulders and the top of her bosom exposed nearly to her nipples. Across the bodice, framing the edge and in diamond patterns on the skirt, she had sewn gold coins with her own hand. She wore Emerald’s necklace and had gold coin earrings dangling from her ears. A tiara gleamed in her frosty hair.

  After drawing on white gloves, she wrapped a French sable boa around her shoulders. Then she revisited her spell. Under the light of a full moon two days before she had chanted:

  “Love and pleasure, oh yes, pleasure and love/grant the owner the relief they dream of./The Goddess commands it/the universe obey,/give all lovers to crave/this pleasure love will save.”

  She had done well. The work was sound and the spell would hold. Now she had to find a human vessel for the sensual bounty she would bestow with the necklace’s magic. How lucky the chosen would be!

  * * * * *

  At eleven p.m. Aphrodite’s carriage rolled to a stop in front of the Rogers’ townhouse. They lived in Belgrave Square, on the outskirts of fashionable London. She had brought a young streetwalker named Annie as a maid. Dressed properly the girl showed promise, with rosy apple cheeks and bright eyes not dulled by the eight months of street life she had endured. Though Aphrodite could not support all the prostitutes who came to visit, she had taken a chosen few more closely under her wing and they cared for her and the house where she lived.

  Her hand smoothed the necklace at her throat, lowering to the pearl drop as she imagined it replaced with a young man’s most personal lotion. She would allow Jack to come on her breasts tonight as a special treat and let him massage his semen into her immortal skin as a sign of favor. Already her own juices were flowing at the delicious thought, but first she had a task to complete.