The first time they fucked, they swore it was a mistake.
Initially, Hera wasn't exactly sure how someone could accidentally fuck, though her husband claimed it happened all the time. After all, fucking was a rather deliberate activity that involved engagement, intent, and motion, right?
But when she found herself just a tad too drunk at an Olympian get-together and entangled in golden sheets with Aphrodite, she knew what he meant.
Surprisingly, Zeus didn't mind.
"Who wouldn't fuck Aphrodite?" he said, chuckling.
Aphrodite didn't say a word of it to her companions.
"I don't kiss and tell," she said. "Besides, it was a one-off mistake, right?"
"Right," Hera agreed, because what else would it be? She was a loyal, married woman. The needs got the best of her, and she could let bygones be bygones.
The second time, she couldn't pretend it was an accident. She was sober, for one thing, and went quite carefully down on Aphrodite. What excuse could she make, then? "Sorry, Zeus, but I accidentally fell face-first on Aphrodite's cunt and devoured it until she came all over my face?" She felt this would go just about as well as her attempted rebellion against him years prior.
Being the loyal wife she was, she told him all about it.
"I went to visit Aphrodite the other day," she said as they sat together at dinner symposium. In most mortal communities, wives couldn't eat with their husbands or his companions, but she dared anyone to tell her to leave her dining area. She would eat and drink when she damn pleased.
Zeus laid to one side, and she leaned against his hip as she sipped wine. At the rest of the dining hall, Olympians and their associates—all men—talked amongst themselves, not paying attention to the conversation between Zeus and Hera.
"Did you," Zeus said, barely paying attention as Ganymede, his cupbearer, refilled his cup of wine.
"Yes. I loaned a dress from her and gave it back. She..." Hera's cheeks flushed. "She told me it's good I gave it back, because I looked better without it."
"I agree," Zeus said, still not looking at her. Instead of paying attention to his wife, he smacked his cupbearer's ass, making him shriek and giggle.
Hera rolled her eyes. "She said I'd look better with nothing on at all."
That got Zeus' attention. "What did you say?"
"Normally, I'd punch anyone who said that," Hera admitted, swirling the wine in her cup with her finger, as the grapes were beginning to settle, "but the way she said it had me feel...strange. She put an arm around my waist then and told me to come inside, and one thing led to another."
"So you fucked. Again."
"Yes." She kept her eyes down.
Zeus chuckled and sat up, smacking her back, making her lurch forward and spill her wine. "Why didn't you tell me sooner! What a score!"
Hera groaned and called for Hebe, her daughter and cupbearer, to grab her a cloth to clean up. "Hardly a score. It was just...a dalliance, I suppose."
"Was it good?"
Hera's blush darkened. She was a pale woman, and whenever she blushed, it traveled down her freckled cheeks and shoulders, turning her a peachy shade she loathed. "She's the goddess of sex, Zeus."
"Can I watch next time?"
Now it was her turn to smack him. "Leave us alone!"
"Tell you what." They made eye contact then. His blue eyes were bright, as they always were whenever he had a particularly terrible idea. "You can have all the dalliances you want with Aphrodite, if you let me have mine."
"Absolutely not."
He frowned. "Why not?"
"How about one-to-one? I have Aphrodite, and you have Ganymede."
