Eros was a Greek
N.B. This story was previously published as 'An Erotic Odyssey' in category 'Mature' on 03/04/21
The participants in any sexual activity described in this story are over 18.
"I'm 56" she said, "and you're getting me to do things that I've never done before." Whenever I start to think about the events that make up this story these are the words that always come to mind. But I'd better begin, as they say, at a beginning...
*
My mood wasn't 'arcadian'. I was driving through part of Greece called Arkadia -- the area reputed in antiquity to be a harmonious pastoral wilderness. In our time the word's been used as a synonym for Paradise. I was obviously letting Arkadia down.
I was happy to be back in Greece, but I was still adjusting to being without a wife who had been with me for 37 years, until she had slipped away less than a year before. She was twelve years older than me, but even so 71 was a young age to die.
I split my time in England between a proper home on the edge of Exmoor, and a tiny flat in the Bloomsbury area of London. I write for a living: biographies are my speciality, but I write for magazines as well, and occasionally venture into the overcrowded fiction market.
I had come over on the ferry from Kefalonia to Kyllini on the Peloponnese, the large almost-island land mass to the south of mainland Greece. On my way from the port I had stopped at Olympia and absorbed the atmosphere amongst the surviving ruins of the many temples and civic buildings of what was once a major religious centre for people from across Greece. I also stood on the games track and field below the stadium and imagined the competitions in front of the near 700 ft. long stadium, big enough to get a football pitch and an American football pitch, end to end, in front of the stadium. Here lies the inspiration for the modern Olympic Games.
Now I was approaching my overnight stop at Dimitsana, a small town about 5 kilometres south of the main road to Tripoli, where I had booked a room in one of the guest houses.
I always feel a mixture of excitement and trepidation coming to a new place and not knowing what the people will be like and whether the room will be one to tolerate or enjoy. I don't speak Greek except the most basic of greeting and guidebook phrases, and I am not one of those who expects every foreigner to speak English. Fortunately many do, and this was no exception. The English was limited, but what the hell? Thank you madam for making the effort.
A pleasant, rather old-fashioned room; clean, with serviceable bathroom and balcony with a stunning view down the valley. I was becoming contented. Even more so to find that the bed was comfortable.
It was time for an early supper and I went and asked Kyria Vassiliou, the proprietress, to suggest where I might eat a simple meal. She directed me to a taverna on the main street a short walk away. As I was about to open the door to leave, she called me back.
"We have lady from England staying here. I tell her same taverna."
I thanked her and went to find this taverna, intrigued to find this other guest. I found the stone-fronted restaurant, with tables still set outside in the evening sun. At one of them sat a woman of similar age to me. Her relationship to the table suggested that she was by no means a dwarf, and the top half was slim but not skinny; I couldn't see her legs without peering under the table and I didn't think she'd welcome my bending down to look. Her mid-brown hair was shoulder length, softly waved; her face was notable, not for its stunning perfection, but for a kindly warmth, and regular, well-proportioned features. In short, attractive if not beautiful -- at least to me.
"Milas anglikka?" I asked her.
"I should do, even if it is with a slight Merseyside accent," she answered smiling broadly.
"Do you understand us from Devon then?"
"Under protest, yes."
"Is this waiter service?" I asked; and then added "Would you mind if I joined you?"
"Yes and yes...I mean yes and no. Just sit down. I'd been hoping you might show up."
I had sat down. "What do you mean? Do you have some sort of clairvoyance?"
"Well I do, but in this instance Kyria Vassiliou told me she was expecting English Man, did I know him? When I said no, she kind of suggested that I might like her to point you in this direction anyway. Well, I thought, why not risk it -- not much to lose in the short term - so I said o.k."
"Regretting it now, I guess?"
"Do you do such self-effacement naturally, or is it fake?"
"Entirely natural. And admiring of your risk-taking."
"Hmmm, I wonder. Would you like to order? Mine is on the way, I hope."
I went inside and let them know that I had joined the lady at the table in front and would like to order. I was given a menu and was told that a waiter would be out shortly, so I wandered back out to join my new companion.
"Perhaps we should introduce ourselves before we indulge in any more playful banter?" I asked.
"I am happy to introduce myself as Sophie. My second name is Philippakis, but before you leap to the conclusion that I will be fluent in Greek I should point out that it is three generations since we lived in Greece."
"I'm pleased to meet you Sophie. I'm Tom Carpenter -- and I'm not safe with a saw or a hammer."
We held out hands to shake, which seemed oddly formal given the previous exchange, and the laid-back Mediterranean ambience.
The waiter arrived and I looked hurriedly through the menu. "I will have the rabbit, and some melitzana, and a glass of dry white wine -- a local one please?"
"Very good. Will you have yours with him, kyria?"
"Yes o.k., I'll wait."
The waiter left and I looked across to see Sophie smiling. I thanked her for waiting.
"Well I had ordered practically the same thing, so I figured they'd probably be ready at the same time anyway. Do you like rabbit? If it's wild it is a bit of a lottery, depending on whether it is a grandfather or a luscious young buck. As with humans."
"I only met you about 15 minutes ago and you're already being provocative. And yes, I do like a luscious young doe," I responded.
"It seems that our new relationship is already circumscribed then?"
"I think that I would rather move on to an alternative subject. How about giving me your life history in five interruptible sentences?"
"O.k. Born 1963 in Cheshire. Father a production engineer for a company that made tools for the motor trade, mother a hospital social worker -- almoner I think they used to call them. Educated in a comprehensive in a very well-off area so it wasn't really comprehensive at all. Scraped into Oxford to read history and been there ever since doing history. Married, divorced, two children. I think that's 5, depending on your approach to punctuation."
"Mine's extremely strict. I suppose I'd better reciprocate. Born 1959 in Exeter, Devon. Father a school teacher at local progressive independent school, mother a solicitor. Educated at a local comprehensive, sounds like yours. Scraped into London Birkbeck College to read English with writing and been writing ever since. Widowed since 2018, three children."
The food arrived. We looked at each other and laughed -- our plates looked identical and we probably had a glass of the same wine.
"Do you live in London now?" she asked.
"Some of the time. But I have a house near Dulverton on the southern edge of Exmoor. My children come and go from there, and I stay there and write when I can get a bit of peace and quiet."
"What do you write?"
"Mainly biography. Sometimes of significant and interesting people, and sometimes of insignificant and uninteresting people. Thankfully, the latter do not appear under my name -- they're 'ghosted' for celebs. I also write on the back of envelopes, vertically on horizontal shopping lists, on railway tickets and paper napkins. I used to write on lavatory paper when it was smooth and shiny, but you can't find that anywhere now."
"In other words you are addicted."
"I can't stop if that's what you mean. It's a mental facility that's lost its brakes. I even tend to talk in written sentences, I'm told."
"Did your late wife cope with this? I mean was she used to the pauses while you crafted the next utterance? And did she ever feel that her life had been submerged in flood waters of words?"
"Yes, yes and definitely yes."
"And now you miss her?"
Pause.
"This is difficult. I came here, not to forget, because that's impossible, but to move forward the process of adjustment; to feel that I was established and occupying a different space in a new existence. I don't want to be rude, but..."
"I've been unintentionally insensitive. First night in the Peloponnese and you are being quizzed about bereavement that you are still dealing with. I'm really sorry."
"Don't be. I'm just letting you know why it isn't my favourite topic of conversation at the moment. And I certainly don't want to burden you with the emotions which might be fomented by encouraging me to poke around in my feelings."
This exchange was interspersed with pauses while we put away our rabbit stew and aubergine. We thus avoided spitting bits of food at each other, and we had finished in time to discuss a dessert before the waiter appeared. I had been persuaded to try kataifi, which was clearly a favourite of Sophie, but which I had never tried.
"Do you know this part of Greece?" she asked.
"About 12 years ago we spent a couple of weeks really wandering around the Peloponnese. My wife had worked in various parts of Greece with a holiday company in the early seventies, including Tolon which, needless to say, had changed spectacularly in the intervening 40 years, from a sleepy fishing village to a full-blown holiday resort."
"Is there anywhere you'd like to revisit?"
"There is one place we went to which I would like to revisit, not as a sentimental journey, but because it is an exquisitely beautiful place. It is the Heraion of Perachora."
"I have heard of it, but never been there" said Sophie. "Wasn't it excavated in the 1930s by a British archaeologist?"
"That's right -- Humfry Payne, husband of the film critic Dilys Powell. He was Director of the British School of Archaeology in Athens."
"How come you know so much about it?"
"Dilys Powell wrote a very beautiful book called 'An Affair of the Heart', which was about her love affair with Payne and with Greece, and time she spent in Perachora."
