The Aristocrats, As Written by Madeline Miller

DISCLAIMER: This story contains vile sexual acts, and is not for the faint of heart. It is a parody of a classic joke, and is not intended to be erotic, nor trying to cast these acts in a favorable light. Enjoy.

The family came to visit my father a week before solstice, as I remember it. Pylos summers were warm, the air thick with the smell of the sea even at night.

My father frequently requested my presence in his throne room as he heard requests from citizens, so that I might learn more about the plights of our people. I envied him his throne — not the office, but the chair itself — which spared his feet from the hard cobblestone floor of the chamber. My ladies and I had been listening for the better part of the day, and I was counting the minutes until I might rest. I knew Clymene and Ilyia were feeling the same, occasional sighs trickling out from behind their veils.

“The next man may approach.”

Wrinkles had begun to blossom across my fathers face, pushing like ivy into the shadows cast by his formidable nose. The torchlight eddied around the folds of his heavy tunic as he watched the family approach the dais.

“King Neleus,” the man said, bowing. “It is a great honor.” Behind him, his wife, daughter, and son bowed too. The man — though small in stature — had impressive composure for a peasant speaking to a king, his clear voice cutting through the humidity like a bell.

“Rise, and be welcome,” my father declared. “What brings you to Pylos?”

“We are travelers, my lord, and seek a hearth by which to rest our weary bones before continuing to Thebes. In exchange, we would offer a performance, the likes of which you have not seen, nor ever shall see again.”

The assembled crowd — my father’s counselors, eyeing the newcomers over goblets of wine; my ladies, veiled behind me; and various nobles, lounging on thick pillows — began to murmur excitedly. Bards were beloved in court, so long as they sang the praises of the right victors.

“Splendid,” the king continued. “Old Alpheus will lend you his lyre.”

The man smiled, privy to a secret my father was not. “We have no need for a lyre. Indeed, we have no need for any instrument.”

My father leaned forward on his throne, intrigued. “I would see this performance, then.”

The man bowed once more, and stepped back to join his family. To my surprise, he began to disrobe — first stepping from his sandals, then undoing the cord of his tunic, then removing it completely. There was nothing underneath save his dark skin, reflecting amber in the firelight.

I wondered what he might do — an athletic display, perhaps, a throw of the discus? Such displays were rare in the evening, but not unheard of. I heard Ilyia suggest softly to Clymene that it might be a dance of some kind.

The man’s children — twins, it seemed, around the age of nineteen — began to undress then as well, quickly and deliberately, as the man turned to his wife and unbelted her. She threw back her head as her gown fell open. It flowed off her ivory shoulders to puddle on the floor, and so she too was naked.

Her husband slid into her then as they stood, coaxing jagged moans from her lips. If they heard the shocked gasps of the court, they did not let on, and their bodies undulated with practiced ease.

I could not take my eyes off them, doing so publicly that most private of acts, but renewed gasps from the crowd stole my attention to the children. The son was now atop his sister, thrusting into her from behind, caressed by the very shadows produced by their parents’ coupling. There were cries in the great hall, most of horror, though some of excitement — at last, something truly novel.

Cyllenus, my father’s chief advisor, hobbled over to the throne, the thump of his wooden cane reverberating around the room. He whispered fervently into the king’s ear, but my father waved him off.

“I would see this act to its completion, and then pass judgment, good Cyllenus.”

So it was decided then. We would watch it through.

The husband and wife separated, the wife loping towards the back of the throne room, where a deer was kept, intended for the weekend’s sacrifice. All watched as she led it back to the center of the room — what use could she possibly have with it?

The children extricated themselves from each other, faces flush, and the father bent his daughter over. He then sheathed his arm — a warrior’s arm, scarred and thick with muscle — inside of her. The boy lowered himself down before her, presenting the soft curve of his behind, and she buried her face in it, dining voraciously; Tantalus finally presented with a feast. The mother approached her son, stag trailing behind her, and lay before the young man, taking his length into her mouth. The animal she tugged atop her, and stroked its neck with one hand until it began to urinate, the golden streams flowing around her breasts like rivers through the Peloponnese mountains.

Behind me, I heard Clymene attempting to prevent sickness as it bubbled up her throat. Ilyia, round with child and prone to fainting herself, whispered reassurances. I too felt bile rising but turned back, the act gruesomely hypnotic.

They had rearranged, now, the father finding purchase deep within his son; the son drinking at the well of his mother; the mother herself buried between her daughter’s thighs even as the daughter closed her mouth around the stag’s protuberance, her fingers beckoning somewhere deep within its furred depths.

The son detached himself and sauntered over to a wooden stool, which ladies of the court would kneel upon when fatigued. With strength unbecoming his slight frame, he tore off two of the intricately carved legs, and, returning to the fray, found homes for them within his sister. The father, meanwhile, had embedded his left arm within his wife and his right arm within the stag, holding them both aloft as if trophies. The stag let loose a sharp cry — though whether in pain or pleasure, only the gods might know.

And so they continued, long into the night. Each time I thought they had reached the peak of carnality, they would incorporate a new, appalling element — asphyxiation, human waste, even plucking up the rats that scampered along the throne room floor and engaging them in acts that would nauseate Eris herself.

Soon, it seemed almost that they were one creature, undulating and throbbing and writhing, a snake eating its own tail. As the firelight flickered over their naked bodies, glistening with sweat, a figure began to emerge in the center. He was taller than any mortal man I had ever seen, with a great belly, thick tresses twined with vines, and cheeks stained pink as if with wine. The god looked right at me with bright golden eyes and winked as the family swirled around him. It was a true Bacchanalia now.

They all finished at the same time — father, mother, son, daughter, stag, and rats — and with a cry of mirth, the god of merriment faded into a golden shimmer. The family gathered themselves from their final arrangement, standing before joining hands and bowing. Sweat, excrement, and juices of passion coalesced into a grisly nectar, which dripped from their bodies onto the cobblestones below.

For a moment there was silence, save for the panting of the family and the dull roar of waves crashing into the Pylos shore.

The king gazed upon the family, and spoke. “Never before have I seen something of this kind. What do you call this act?”

The father smiled up at him, eyes glittering.

“Oi aristokrátes.”