Danae Complex (2)
Bathing in this era came with no shortage of inconveniences, but with a household as wealthy as ours, one could still enjoy a rather pleasant life. Without that wealth, of course, things would have been far harder — but judging by the way Danae, this body's birth mother, had nursed me for half a year, she was the sort of woman who poured every ounce of devotion into her son. She had already promised me a life lacking nothing when it came to caring for my body.
Soaking in hot water after a long, grueling day and letting the fatigue melt away was surely one of the greatest luxuries this age had to offer. Fortunately, aside from a faintly flushed face, Danae still seemed to have her reason intact. She did nothing untoward — simply pressed herself against me in a way that felt thoroughly pleasant.
"How is it, Perseus? Does it feel good?"
"…Yes."
The two of us slipped into the water, and Danae wrapped her arms around me from behind. Using a twenty-something girl's generous breasts as a pillow — I was living more extravagantly than I ever had in the modern world. When a little greed got the better of me and I pushed my head into my mother's chest to savor the sensation, she seemed to take it as nothing more than a child's playful mischief, and simply laughed with delight.
"Perseus. Even if you act so grown-up most of the time, in moments like these you're still just a little boy. You may put on a mature face in front of others, but with me — your mother — you can be as honest as you like. Even if you throw a tantrum the way you used to, I'll gladly indulge you, so don't feel you have to hold back."
As she spoke and drew me even tighter into her arms, her breath against my skin carried a faintly dangerous edge. From what I'd gathered — Atalante's accounts, mostly — the original Perseus 2 before the amnesia had been quite the wild, willful handful. And the more I thought about it, the more I suspected Danae herself might have been the reason.
"A tantrum, you say?"
"You used to be such a little troublemaker. You'd go around flipping up the hems of the servants' clothes — and you didn't hesitate to do the same to me."
Flipping up the servants' clothes… Looking at those women, who might as well have been half-naked already, had the little brat been going around harassing them?
"From the way you put it, I get the feeling that wasn't all."
"He did… things that are hard to put into words. Truly troublesome things… He really was such a handful…"
Why is her face turning red at that particular part?
Danae's breath traced along the nape of my neck and sent a prickling shiver up the back of my head. The way she said it made me wonder whether those "troublesome things" had really been so troublesome for her at all. I knew perfectly well that hearing any more was dangerous — but once I'd come this far, curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to know everything.
"It won't trouble me in the slightest, so please tell me all of it. Those were my own past deeds, after all. If I don't know about them, won't that cause problems later?"
"Well, if you put it that way…"
Cupping water in her palms and gently smoothing it over my body, she began to recount the old stories — memories that, for Danae, still felt as fresh as yesterday.
"That's right… You'd always been a little scamp who gave everyone headaches, but on the day you turned ten, you finally learned where your name came from. Once you realized you were the descendant of a hero, your nose went straight up in the air… From that day on your pranks only got worse, and whether it was your uncle King Acrisius's influence or not, you started doing things that were… sexually troublesome as well… Haa……"
Troublesome this, troublesome that — and yet the heat seeping into her breath as she said it was genuinely unnerving.
"Just what exactly did I do?"
"Well…"
Danae hesitated for a moment, clearly embarrassed, but decided I needed to know and reluctantly opened her mouth.
"At first you mostly tormented your little sister Atalante… but after you woke up to certain things, you seemed to take more of a liking to grown women, and you started making things much more difficult for me and the servants… One day you slipped your hand inside my chiton and pulled on the hair down there…… That was truly mortifying………"
Dangerous.
No, seriously. For real.
The original owner of this body — that little brat — had been an absolute menace. No matter how young, beautiful, widowed, and thoroughly desirable she was, yanking on your own mother's pubic hair was a level of mischief that went well past "naughty kid."
Ancient Greece, huh… They really didn't mess around…
Wondering if there could possibly be anything worse, I kept listening in silence — and of course there was. The next story was even more outrageous.
"One day you'd been playing with some boys you knew, and whatever they'd told you, you came home with your sexual curiosity in full bloom. You were at that age, so I thought, ah, he's starting to get curious about those things… but then you came and asked me about it… Tell me, tell me, tell me… You threw a fit and begged me to show you down there as well… Ah……"
That was terrifying.
Judging by her tone, she had shown him everything.
"About that."
"Hm?"
"Did you do it?"
"………Ah? ……No?"
She said no — but the way Danae's eyes slid guiltily to the side was deeply unsettling. Even if she hadn't gone all the way, the implication that something problematic had still happened was enough to set off every alarm.
Sorry, Danae, but I think I'll drive a stake through this right here.
I spoke in a low voice laced with just a touch of playful malice.
"That's a relief. If my own mother had been the sort of person who eased the loneliness of widowhood through her son's sexual games, I don't think I could have helped but despise her."
"───?! ────Nngh!"
I'd struck the bullseye. Danae's reaction was violent. The bathwater sloshed and swayed just like her composure. She already knew how sharp I was, so she understood perfectly well that I'd said it on purpose — and the shame of it left her writhing.
"M-Maybe we should leave this conversation here…?"
"……That would probably be best."
Apparently deciding that any further talk was too dangerous, Danae rose from the water first, dried herself off, and then dried me as well. Her face was still flushed from the embarrassment of those old stories — but whether she was the type who got aroused by her own shame, both of her nipples stood stiff and prominent.
Swaying, swaying. They looked for all the world like ripe, heavy fruit at the peak of the season.
Her breasts were already large enough, and she made no effort to hide them in front of me, so my eyes kept drifting back. I half-wondered whether she was dripping between her legs as well, but the leftover water made it impossible to tell. What I could see with perfect clarity was the shape of Danae's sexual appetite.
This is a problem. She's at her prime, husbandless, and it looks like the desire has been building up. On top of that, her affection for her son is already excessive… She's not actually going to jump me, is she…?
I'd driven the stake in, so nothing was going to happen immediately — but this overaffectionate mother's sheer force of will was still a problem for my self-restraint.
"I've finished drying you. Would you lie down for me?"
"We're doing this again today?"
"You've only just woken up, and I've been working at this every single day without fail, haven't I?"
"Just one day off…"
"Absolutely not. Who's to say you won't collapse again? Better to work out the fatigue before you sleep, just in case."
I climbed onto the bed she patted with her palm and lay down naked. The mattress was more thinly stuffed than a modern one, and cloths had been laid over it in advance so that any mess wouldn't be a problem.
She poured olive oil from what was clearly an expensive, artisan-crafted vase-shaped vessel into a wide dish. A fragrant scent tickled my nose, and Danae hummed a cheerful little tune as though she'd been looking forward to this all day.
Right… Greece meant olives… Those black things on top of pizza… I'd always liked them because they tasted good… But who could have guessed I'd end up receiving an olive-oil massage like this…
And from a woman who got sexually excited by her own son! A beauty overflowing with perverted desire! This widow! Slick and sticky and completely shameless about it!!!
"Hoo… hoo… hoo~?"
Urgh… urrgh… uuurgh…
The sighs she was openly panting out behind me were clearly beyond her own control. Only moments ago she'd been drowning in shame at my words — there was no reason for her true nature to resurface this quickly otherwise.
"Perseus, how about here? You've been walking a lot today, and it feels all knotted up inside."
"It… feels… good… I guess…?"
With my back and rear presented to Danae, she pressed into my thighs. The massage itself was exquisitely pleasant, and on a purely physical level it felt wonderful — but woven between those gentle movements I could glimpse her desire, and that sent a simultaneous chill crawling over my skin.
Squish. Squish. Press. Press. Prrress—!
"And here? I'm not pressing too hard, am I?"
"It's… fine, but…"
Her long, lovely fingers pressed into the thigh muscle just behind my balls. Just barely — her thumb brushed near them, and the ticklish sensation made my thighs clamp shut.
"Hm?"
Finding my reaction odd, Danae kept pressing around that area and asked,
"Did that tickle?"
"…Yes. It brushed against me a little."
I answered honestly — and immediately regretted it.
"Then… I'll just scratch it lightly… to ease the tickle……"
Ah.
Scritch-scritch-scritch—♡
Whether on purpose or not, Danae dragged her nails in a teasing scrape right near my balls. My shoulders jerked involuntarily at the ticklish jolt — and in that same instant, a deep sigh slid into my ear.
Haa……
Unlike before, this wasn't the sound of sexual arousal. It was the sound of someone disappointed.
"It's all right. Don't be startled. This mother of yours would never do anything strange to you. This is only to loosen your body, so relax and let the tension go."
………?
She'd been worked up in the bath and right up until a moment ago — so what was with the sudden excuses? And yet, astonishingly, the words seemed genuine. Her expression had truly gone cold, as though something inside her had snuffed out. For a second I wondered if even Greece had some equivalent of an age-of-consent law keeping her in check — but then her muttering reached me clearly enough.
"If only… you were… an adult…… If you were an adult…"
It was quiet enough that an ordinary person would never have caught it, but unfortunately this body had excellent hearing. At least she wasn't a genuine shota enthusiast — Danae looked genuinely sad. Even accounting for that, though, incest still seemed like a dangerous line to cross.
Thank goodness. Looks like she really won't jump me after all. I was fretting over nothing.
Reassured by her muttering, I let go of my wariness and surrendered my body to her hands. Her regretful expression lasted only a moment; soon she was stroking me again with the gentle face of the kind woman I knew, and I thought we'd both gotten through the day without any further worries.
I should have realized that day that I was wrong.
This was Greek mythology.
I had momentarily forgotten that stories beyond all common sense could happen at any time.