Author's Note: this is a look at the ancient Greek tale of how the wife of King Minos was struck by the gods with a lust for a magnificent mythical creature in the form of a white bull.
"What a creature," Minos said, rubbing his hands together. His eyes were alight like a child's, in a way I have come to know very well. "What a marvelous, magnificent creature! Do you not agree, my wife?"
"It is as you say, my king and husband," I replied, suddenly feeling myself to be on precarious ground.
That look in his eyes. That bright, merry look.
"The gods," I added, "will be greatly pleased."
At once, Minos' expression changed. His lower lip stuck out, and his nose crinkled, and his eyes went narrow. His was the anger of a petulant boy denied some treat, and it came to me that had he ever looked so in the presence of his rivals or advisors, he would have long since lost his throne.
"It is my bull," he said. "It came to me."
I nodded, knowing that I had gone too far, displeased him. It would not be for me, Pasiphae, to remind the king of Crete of the promise he had made. Minos needed no reminding. He knew. He remembered full well how he had raised his arms to the sea from which the white bull had arisen, and pledged that it would be sacrificed in Poseidon's honor.
"Mine," he repeated.
"Yes, my king and husband," I said, and bowed my head.
The other ladies often told me how fortunate I was. "Oh, Pasiphae," they would cry, "how fortunate you are that Minos keeps only to you, his wife! He never puts you aside in favor of concubines, catamites, mistresses!" And they would go on to bemoan the infidelities of their own husbands, each wringing her hands in the ever-present fear that she might be supplanted, replaced by a younger, more vital, lovelier woman.
If only they knew
, I thought, and stole a glance at Minos.
If only they knew what it is to be queen of Crete, married to this man. I should rather he kept a horde of concubines, if only he had the lusts to need them.
His faithfulness was due in part to his disinterest. Many a hunger, many an appetite throbbed in Minos. He craved treasure and power the way a starved man might crave bread and meat. He craved accolade, respect, adoration. He was ever surrounded with toadying underlings, and neighboring kings held for Minos a respectful fear.
For the pleasures of the bedroom, alas for me, my husband had only indifference. Not a dozen times in a year would he bother to rouse himself to seek my bed. When he did, the occasion was always over quite swiftly, if indeed it began at all. More often than not, whatever excitement had lured him hither would fade before he had managed to enter me.
I knew that I was not to fault for this. In my girlhood, I had been renowned for my beauty, and the passing years had only granted me a mature woman's glow. My breasts, unsuckled by any child – for neither had Minos ever quickened a babe within my womb – stood high and proud. My stomach was unlined, my thighs smooth, my skin honeyed cream.
I had been told by other suitors that my mouth was as inviting as the portal to Aphrodite's own chamber. My eyes, the light green-blue of the summer sea, were lavishly fringed in dark lashes. My hair was a source of pride, as yet untouched by grey. When unbound, it fell to my hips in a shimmer of gold.
No, it was through no deficit in his wife that Minos rarely felt a man's urge. He did not care for it, that was all. He was also, perhaps, loathe to let it be known by any other that for all his riches and stature, for all the armies at his command, King Minos was barely more than a boy below the waist.
It was a pitiable thing, his phallus, small and usually soft, shrunken as a fig, curled as a shrimp. Where there should have been a virile and hairy sac to contain his testes was a pallid little pouch that might have held a pair of olives. Though he was vain of his thick hair, full beard, and manly chest, the thatch at his groin was sparse and wispy.
Such had I first beheld on our wedding night. I had been left speechless, which was perhaps for the best because I could not imagine what words, in that moment of astonishment, might have come from my lips. The contrast of him – wide shoulders, deep chest, muscular legs, miniscule manhood – was not at all what I had expected when our wrists were bound by a cord at the altar of Hera.
Minos had thought his bride a virgin, entirely untutored in the ways of men, utterly ignorant of what a man's body should look like. He had believed my only prior education had been in the viewing of painted urns and marble statuary.
I suppose that I was, therefore, not what he expected either. But I never let on. I knew that if he ever suspected me of previous knowledge, he would turn me out at once. Or, perhaps, as I had seen his shame, he might feel compelled to be sure that I never spoke of it.
That would not do, not at all. It could not be known beyond the walls of the king's private bedroom that powerful Minos was in any way less than a man. He would not tolerate any such rumor, any such laughter. This, not any romantic ideal of husbandly fidelity, was the reason he kept no concubines.
He would not bathe in the company of others. Even his slaves, once they had attended to their duties, would be sent away that he might not be naked before them. If anyone else but myself in all of Crete knew his secret, it could only have been his
aesklepios
, his physician.
Wise beyond my years even on the night of my wedding, I had the sense to show neither mirth nor dismay at the sight I beheld. I felt both emotions commingled, for was this not the moment, the purpose for which fair Pasiphae had been groomed? To lie down with her husband, give pleasure to him and be pleasured by him, and bear for him fine sons and beautiful daughters?
There was no pleasure for either of us that night. Minos, flushed by wine, bade me recline before him and open my legs. I did so, and he knelt between them, and to his credit his pale earthworm did poke up in readiness. I had more length and girth in my smallest finger. I could not help but wonder that even if I had been a virgin, whether he would have been able to pierce Hymen's veil at all.
Not once did I worry that he would be able to know his was not the first organ to breach my femininity. He lacked the experience of any women, let alone sufficient comparisons to tell the difference.
I was determined to make the best of it. Was I not queen of Crete? That in itself was to be envied. And I recalled how I had heard my mother's maids giggling and gossiping about their lovers, how they claimed that it was not the size of the oar but the stroke of the oarsman that moved the vessel. As Minos lowered himself upon me, I hoped that this was true.
What I learned that night was that the stroke of the oarsman matters not at all if he cannot even dip the oar in the water. Minos spilled his seed in a dribble on my thigh before he had so much as touched my entrance. Moments later, he was collapsed on the pillows beside me, snoring vast breaths of sour wine.
When he woke, he did apologize and blamed the drink, oh devious vine of Dionysus that was a fire to inflame the senses but melt the bronze. He must have seen my disappointment though I tried to conceal it, for he mustered up another feeble erection after much pulling and tugging of the poor little thing between his fingers, and this time got it successfully into me.
He lasted ten thrusts. Ten. I counted them. Judging more by the slap of his belly against mine than anything I could feel in my loins. And then, sinking onto me, showering me with kisses more befitting a puppy than a man, he told me that I would be a good and true wife to him.
I agreed, consoling myself with the thought that matters had to improve.
How wrong I was. As the years passed, and Minos bothered with my bedchamber less and less frequently, I realized that it would ever be this way. Not once did he stimulate me to the point when sweet crashing waves tossed and spun my body on tides of delight. Not once did he evince any inclination to use another part of him – those same giggling maidens had also said that whoso could not stir the sauce could at least lick the bowl – and the sole time I tried to take his organ into my mouth, he recoiled as though he feared I would snip it off like a boiled stem.
No, other passions boiled in Minos. War and law and treaties, at these he was potent, diligent, thorough. He never was cruel to me, and saw that I had all the finery and jewels and attendants I could wish. In all ways save physical love, and motherhood, I was well satisfied.
Another woman might have taken a lover to make up the lack. I did consider it, oh, many times over the years. But I knew that the risk was too great. I suspected that Minos was as barren as Demeter's winter heart. I dared not become pregnant by another. Yes, there were secret elixirs against this, but they were not foolproof. And could I trust the discretion of a lover?
Ultimately, I decided that I would make do, and tend to my own needs. At first, I found that my own hands, or the fingers and tongues of a succession of agreeable maidservants, sufficed. But I began to yearn for something more. Something of size and substance to fill the emptiness within me. Fruits, candles, and other objects only heightened my desire.
A year previous to the arrival of the white bull that Minos so prized, I resolved to dispatch my most trusted maid on an errand. Ligia went to Daedalus, the genius, the inventor, recently welcomed into Minos' court. She provided him ivory, gold, and gems, and he worked his craftsman's magic to transform them into a phallus.
I could hardly believe my eyes when I beheld it. Dazzling to my vision, the rod of a Titan compared to Minos, it was sculpted with such lifelike attentiveness to detail that I would not have been surprised to feel it pulse and lurch at my touch.
The ivory was polished smooth, inlaid with veins of gold, decorated with jewels. I could not encircle the base of it with one hand. Though its substance was cool, it warmed quickly when handled. By the time I fell back and inserted it, easing it slowly in, the ivory phallus might have belonged to a living man.
Closing my eyes made the illusion more complete. I pushed the phallus deeper, moaning with joy. At first, I maintained the slow pace, but as the gathering storm built within me, I surrendered with abandon.
With this new device, I was happy and content for some time. I sent Ligia with a reward of silver and gold to Daedalus, not daring to thank the master inventor personally. He was another prize of Minos, brought out at feasts to display his latest creations, while Minos puffed and preened as though he had designed them himself.
"… Daedalus," Minos said.
I gasped, startled from my reverie and blushing to realize that my loins were tingling. I ached to be away from Minos, to be in my room again and taking the ivory phallus from its hiding place and …
"Pardon, my king and husband?"
"I will not sacrifice the bull," Minos said. "I will speak to Daedalus."
