This sexy story is based on two of my favorites characters from Greek mythology--Orestes and Pylades.

Chosen by Love by Mel Smith

"Pylades?"

"I am here, Orestes."

"My hands. They are bloodied."

"Yes, Orestes. Do not look at them."

"Let me wash them."

"I can not. Do not look at them. Please. Go back to sleep."

"I do not want to sleep. They pursue me even there."

"You need to rest. Go back to sleep."

"You will stay?"

"You know I will, Orestes."

"Your lips feel so sweet against my skin. Please, Pylades. Keep them there. I will feel them even while the Furies torment me. Please do not leave me, Pylades."

"Never. You are my brother, chosen by love, not by birth. I will never leave you."

"They come again. I see them approaching. Pylades, do you see them? Do you see the serpents writhing from their heads? Their eyes. Their eyes. They drip with blood. It is on me. Off! Get it off! Pylades, help me. It is everywhere. Their blood is everywhere."

"I am wiping it, Orestes. Stay calm. Please stay calm. See? See? I am cleaning it."

"No. It is still dripping. Rivers of blood from their eyes. The snakes are biting me. Hundreds of them. My face. I can not keep them from my face. Their wings beat my hands away and I can not stop the snakes. My face, Pylades. My face is being torn to shreds by the serpents."

"No. I will block them for you. Please, Orestes, I beg you. Stop tearing at your skin. I have blocked the serpents. I promise you. I have blocked them."

"Yes. Yes, they are retreating. They are retreating."

"I promised you. Put down your hands, Orestes. They are gone."

"You are hurt. Were you struck by the serpents, too?"

"Yes, Orestes, but I am fine. Do not worry about me. Go to sleep for me. Please."

"I felt your touch with me always."

"And do you feel it now? My lips against yours? Do you feel my love for you in their gentle touch?"

"Yes. I can feel it."

"Good. Then you know I will not leave you. So sleep, Orestes. Sleep."

"I fear the return of those witches, but if it is what you want."

"Yes. It is what I want. For me, please sleep."

#

"No more, friend. I beg of you to let me end it."

"No. You claim you love me like no other, yet you would kill yourself and leave me alone in this life? You would do something so selfish?"

"But it is too hard--too relentless--this pursuit of theirs. Your sacrifices and all the cleansings, they give me no more than an hour or two of relief. I am so tired, Pylades. So tired."

"And what of me? Do you think I am not tired? Do you forget that I have been with you for every step, every scourge? Should I tell you what it has been like for me, watching you suffer? I love you as if your were a part of me, Orestes. You are a part of me. Can you try to imagine just for a moment what it has been like for me? I have slaughtered more pigs than I could begin to count. I have watched the ghost of that bastard, Aegisthus, feasting on their blood like some whore at a rich man's cock. My stomach turns still, no matter that I have witnessed it hundreds of times, while you bathe in the river, trying frantically to cleanse yourself and appease those bitches. Was I not the one who sheared your hair to try to conceal your identity from them? I was the one who had to watch those fair curls fall to Earth. Those soft, wondrous curls of sunlight that are my earliest memory of you. Remember when we were children, running wild in the mountains, and I would rest with my head in your lap? You would look down on me and wipe the sweat from my brow, smiling. The sun glowed through those curls and you looked like a child-god to me. The most beautiful creature I had ever seen. Those curls were more precious to me than gold, Orestes, yet I butchered them to try and save you from your torments. Do you remember the tears I shed as I ran my hand over the stubble on your head? Do you remember how I lifted a handful of those precious locks to my face and held them like I would a dead child?"

"Yes, I remember. They are the same tears you shed now. Forgive me, Pylades. Please stop and I will speak of it no more."

"No. I will not stop. I have yet to remind you of the time I had to force open your jaws to retrieve your severed finger from your mouth. Do you remember that, dear Orestes? In front of me, you bit off your own finger as a sacrifice to your demons. I saw them myself that time, Orestes, driven mad by the sight of your bloody, chewed finger in the palm of my hand. I sucked on your hand, the pulp and the bone pieces gagging me until I vomited. Do you remember me growling like a dog, blood and spit flying from my mouth while I tried in vain to make your finger stay on your stump?"

"Stop, Pylades. Please. I am selfish. Cowardly and selfish. Forgive me."

"Do you love me, Orestes?"

"I love you so much, dearest friend, that I would endure this anguish for eternity if that is what you wanted."

"It is what I want. For you to never leave me. It is what I want."

"Hold me closer then, Pylades. Closer. I see them coming again. If this is to be our eternity, I must feel you closer."

"My arms will hold you, no matter what those bitches do."

"Your tears burn my flesh. Please cry no more. They are almost here. I do not want your tears to be what I feel from you."

"I have stopped, Orestes, and I am replacing them with kisses."

"I love you, Pylades. They are here."

"As I will be when they are gone."

#

"What luck. The herdsmen believe us to be the Dioscouri."

"Are we not, Pylades? Could true brothers be closer than we are? Is not our love as powerful as that of Castor and Pollux?"

"Yes, Orestes. Yes, it is."

"Your smile makes my heart soar, Pylades. I see it so rarely now."

"That will change soon. I promise it."

"Oh, no. Not now. Please, not now."

"No, Orestes. The herdsmen . . . "

"There they are, Pylades! Black, all black. See their hair, long like snakes? And their eyes. Always dripping blood. I must kill them. I can fight them."

"Orestes, no. They are cows. Only cows. The herdsmen. You must stop, Orestes. The herdsmen will kill us."

"It is them. It is those witches. Tisiphone. She is the worst. I must kill her first. She falls on my cock, chewing and tearing. It is my seed she wants, so she can torment my heirs as she torments me. I will kill you, you bitch. You can not have my unborn."

"Orestes, stop. We must get back to the cave."

"No. I am killing them. I am winning. Do you not see them, Pylades, falling at my feet?"

"They are cows, Orestes. Cows. And their herdsmen have gathered stones. Come. Please."

"Pylades?"

"What is it? We must hurry."

"I am not sure I can stand."

"Here. In my arms. You will be all right, Orestes. Let me lay you down."

"Those stones . . . "

"Shhh. I will protect you."

"Pylades, you are bleeding."

"No. It is simply a scratch. Quiet, Orestes. Your strength will return shortly. Leave him! Can you not see that he is ill? Do not hurt him. Please. Let him be."

"They will kill you. Run, Pylades."

"I will kill you myself if you suggest that again."

"Hold me closer, Pylades. If this is how we are to die--stoned to death while I lie helpless--I want my last memory to be of your touch."

"My arms are around you and my lips are pressed against yours. My cock searches for you, even now. Even like this."

"Remember when we were children? I made fun of that tiny appendage you called your manhood. I still remember the feel of it, though, against my back when we laid in bed together. Warm and slightly moist, it stirred such powerful feelings in me. I have loved you from the moment I first saw you, Pylades."

"And I you, Orestes."

"Please do not leave me."

"I could not, Orestes. I could not."

#

"What is wrong?"

"How can you look in my face and ask me that?"

"I do not know what you speak of, Pylades. Honestly, I do not."

"You tell our executioner I will do her a favor in return for my freedom, while you stay here to be sacrificed? And now you look me in the eyes and say you do not know why I am upset?"

"One of us can survive this. She asks such a simple thing in return for your life. Pylades, do not turn away from me like that."

"Look at me! I am bruised and bloodied from the blows of a hundred stones. Do you think I have endured everything I have endured for you for over a year so that I can abandon you now. Do you think I have followed you across the world so you could be sacrificed like one of the countless pigs I have sacrificed to help you?"

"No. I think you have done all those things and many, many more because you love me. I have needed you for as long as I can remember, Pylades, and for as long as I can remember, you have been there. You never asked questions, your never had doubts, you never showed hesitation. You simply stood by me, even when your own family made you choose between them and me. And you have never expected anything in return. I am asking you, out of love for me, to do this one last thing."

"Not this, Orestes. Please. Ask anything but this."

"Give me this chance to die with some dignity. If you love me, Pylades, you will do it gladly."

"I will stay and gladly die with you, but I will not leave you."

"Then I die with only shame. Do I not have enough blood on my hands already? Is not the blood of my own mother, which I still can not clean from my hands, enough for me to suffer? Do I now have to die knowing your blood stains me also?"

"I choose this, Orestes. There will be no stain."

"If it were not for me, you would not be here. I am begging you, Pylades. Commit the ultimate act of love. Let me die the way I choose to die, instead of being driven mad by the Furies and my own shame."

"You know not what you ask, Orestes."

"Yes. I do. And that is what makes your act such a glorious one. It would be easier for you to die with me. I know that, Pylades. I know what it is that I ask."

"And it will bring you peace?"

"It will, my love, but only if your tears are not the last touch I feel from you. Hold me closely, Pylades. Closer. And promise me that you will leave me."

"I promise you."

"The tears, Pylades. They are still burning me."

"Here. I will replace them with kisses."

"They approach again. She is with them. Peace will soon be mine and I have you to thank, Pylades. Always, I have you."

"I love you, Orestes."

"And I, you. Closer. Hold me closer. From the first moment I saw you, until the last breath I draw, it will be you that I love, Pylades. It will be you."