When True End (Happy Ending) is Odysseus' successful return to Ithaca, recognition by Penelope, reunion with Telemachus, slaughter of the suitors, and Athena brokering lasting peace. So, how can the Odyssey's bad ending be in a smutty way?
The sea does not forgive.
It only waits.
Odysseus stood on the black rocks of a shore that had no name, salt drying on his skin, the taste of blood still faint on his tongue. Behind him the wreckage of his last ship groaned against the stones. Ahead of him the path split into shadows.
He had been sailing toward Ithaca for so long that the name itself had begun to feel like a fever dream. Penelope’s face. Telemachus’s voice. The olive tree that grew through the center of their marriage bed. All of it was still there, somewhere beyond the horizon. But the sea had other plans.
And the sea had other women.
.
.
.
The first time he heard the song, it came from the fog.
It was not loud. It did not need to be. It slipped under his ribs and curled around his heart like warm fingers. The voice was low, mature, and rich with the kind of knowing that only comes from watching men drown for centuries. When the mist parted, she was standing on the water itself, black hair wet against her bare shoulders, a sheer black robe falling open as if it had never intended to stay closed.
The Siren smiled the way a woman smiles when she already knows the ending.
“You can still turn back,” she said, though her eyes said the opposite. “Or you can come closer and forget every name you ever loved.”
He should have ordered the men to lash him tighter to the mast. Instead he found himself leaning forward.
.
.
.
.
On the island of eternal summer, the goddess waited.
Calypso did not sing. She did not need to. She simply existed, and existence itself bent around her. Her sea-green gown clung to the heavy curve of her breasts and the soft line of her stomach like water that had decided to become cloth. When she walked toward him across the white sand, the fabric parted with every step, showing the long pale length of her thighs.
She offered him immortality the way other women offered wine.
“Stay,” she whispered against his mouth. “I will make the years disappear. I will make your wife’s face fade until you cannot remember the color of her eyes. Stay, and I will keep you soft and full and wanted forever.”
Her hands were already under his tunic. Her mouth tasted of salt and honey. Somewhere far away, Ithaca still waited. But her body was warm and immediate and endless.
.
.
.
.
Deeper in the woods, the air smelled of crushed herbs and something darker.
Circe did not hide what she was. The short violet tunic ended high on her thighs. The black cloak hung open. Golden charms in the shape of animals clicked softly against her belt when she moved. Her eyes were calm and absolute.
“I can turn your men into swine,” she told him, voice almost gentle. “Or I can turn you into something that never wants to leave my bed. Choose carefully, hero. I do not give second chances.”
She stepped closer. The heat of her body reached him before her hands did. When she kissed him, it felt like a spell being sealed.
.
.
.
.
Further still, the path divided into two impossible dangers.
On the left, the rocks rose sharp and wet. Scylla waited there in her human form: long platinum hair, dark red and black scales clinging to her full breasts and the powerful curve of her hips, thighs bared and gleaming. She smiled with too many teeth behind a beautiful mouth.
“I only take six,” she said sweetly. “Six sailors. The rest of you may pass. But you… I think I would like to keep you longer.”
On the right, the water began to turn in a slow, hungry circle. Charybdis rose from the center of it, pale and delicate, her almost transparent dress plastered to her tiny waist and small high breasts. She looked fragile enough to break. Her eyes said she would swallow the world.
“Come closer,” she whispered. “I will hold you so tightly you will never need air again.”
Two monsters. Two beautiful deaths. And somewhere between them, a narrow strip of water that might (or might not) let a ship pass.
.
.
.
.
And always, always, at the edge of every dream, there was Penelope.
She waited in the high hall of Ithaca, white linen dress soft against her skin, black hair falling down her back, the gold diadem cool on her brow. She had waited twenty years. She would wait twenty more if she had to. But even her patience had a limit, and the suitors were growing bold. Some nights she stood at the window and wondered if the man she loved still existed, or if the sea had already rewritten him into something that would never come home.
She did not know that every time Odysseus closed his eyes, her face was the last thing he tried to hold onto.
She did not know how close he came, again and again, to letting it go.
.
.
.
.
There are many ways for a hero to fall.
He can drown in a goddess’s arms and forget the sound of his own name.
He can drink the wine of a sorceress and wake up on all fours, happy.
He can follow a song into the rocks and never surface.
He can choose the wrong side of the strait and be torn apart by beauty itself.
Or he can return home too late, and find that the woman who waited has finally stopped waiting.
This is not the story of the man who found his way back.
This is the story of every other ending.
The endings where the sea wins.
The endings where the women win.
The endings where Odysseus opens his eyes in a place that is not Ithaca, looks at the body pressed against his, and realizes he no longer wants to leave.
Turn the page, if you still think you can resist.
The first Bad End is already waiting.
2 likes from Seantopeae and rai_.