“So, Pythionike, what brings you to Sparta now?”
“It happened back when I was still in Athens. As ‘Pythionike of Athens,’ I was all the rage, you know. Men catered to my every whim, and there were plenty willing to shower me with money without a second thought. They all wanted to take me out of the brothel and parade me around. So, my patrons pooled their money and chartered a ship just to go pleasure-cruising with me. I was bored anyway, so we formed a grand procession all the way from Athens to the port of Piraeus.
But once we got to the port, I was still as bored as ever. The men all said the exact same things, as if stamped from the very same mold. ‘You’re as beautiful as a pearl of the Aegean,’ or ‘Would you like to go cruising on my boat?’ or ‘I’ll give you a villa with a pool.’ But my heart didn’t flutter—not even a bit. Their hairstyles, faces, clothes, and ways of speaking—though their voices and appearances differed—for some reason, every single one of them was utterly devoid of individuality, completely indistinguishable from the rest.
I could have anything I wanted bought for me. Yet my heart was never touched. I was never satisfied. I kept wondering why I had to be in a place like that, surrounded by people like them. Ever since I was born, I never felt my life was real. It didn’t belong to me—it didn’t belong to anyone. I was empty. Everyone showered gifts on me without me even asking, trying to win my favor. Before I knew it, I didn’t need to take clients to make a living, so I stopped taking them altogether.
I never said it out loud, but once they realized no amount of wooing could win me over, the impatient rich men dropped away one by one, leaving only the poor, spineless ones in my circle. Naturally, an unwritten gentleman’s agreement formed among them; none of them tried to steal a march on the others. They all became sensible little puppies. Servants who would obediently do whatever I said—and being waited on by a bunch like that, I was dying of boredom every single day.
That was when I met him—Harpalos. He was different from anyone else. I don’t know why, but I felt it. I knew in an instant. I felt fate. I knew the destiny laid out for me. Why I was born into this world as a woman named Pythionike… I felt like I understood everything.
He was on a yacht at the port. He called out to me, ‘Hey little lady, want to come aboard?’
As soon as I stepped onto the boat, he untied the mooring line. Leaving my trailing pack of men behind on the shore, the yacht drifted farther and farther out to sea. He took me to a tiny, uninhabited island.
An empty sea. Just me and Harpalos. I didn’t need anything else. Even with nothing, even with nothing to eat, my heart was completely full.”
Yikes. Talk about being made to listen to a sticky, heavy romance.