The Moon, Midas Aphrodisios, and His Golden Touch

"You're..."

"Midas," he whispered.

Fear pulsed through my body at the sound of his name. I knew the stories all too well, they were an environment of rumors that had weaved their way into the very fabric of my scars. His expression although hard, softened with pain at the anticipation of his own name hovering in the air. Oh no. I felt my heart respond with an ache. At the first sign of my weakness, my empathy, my walls flew up with a mess of thoughts and worry. Maybe it's all a part of his trap to make me feel sorry for him? My inner voice began speculating, protecting my unhealed wounds, my heart. Still, his pained expression at my reaction, softened the fear, my distrust momentarily.

We stood in silence, and I could sense his words were trapped in uncertainty, just as mine, whether out of concern or strategy, I wasn't sure. He took one step forward and my heart lurched.

"Don't! ... Don't come any closer." I yelled, my breathing spiraling into hyperventilation. I was a mess of pained experience. I backed up, bumping into the pillar behind me. The responding pain in his eyes was undeniable, but it seemed to be laced with empathy and I began to wonder how I appeared to him? Could he see the severity of my scars just by looking at me? My disheveled aura?

"The rumors," he paused. "You've heard them?"

"Yes." I breathed.

"I see," his eyes dropped as if searching within himself for a way forward. It was an unbearably long moment before he spoke again. "How did you find me?" I froze, unsure if telling him the truth is safe, for him to know how vulnerable I am, how alone.

"I didn't mean to," I stuttered.

"Most people that find me, go searching for me."

"I promise. I didn't mean to find you... I... I... I stumbled upon you." As if sensing my fear of upsetting him, he dropped it.

"No matter," he whispered.

I began to absorb the room of stone and ruins I'd run into, with nothing but decorated pillars lined with specs and drips of gold, framing the open entrance. Cracks filled with gold moved through the stone floor like lightening toward an overgrowth of greenery on the walls, feeling its way over the crumbling ceiling from outside, following rays of sunlight.

The sun was setting, and he followed my glance outside.

"I won't come near you. I know there isn't anywhere for you to go with nightfall approaching. We can stay awake for the night..." as his words continued, tears welled up, overwhelming my heart, my eyes, and he froze.

We stood in silence as I sobbed. I slid to the floor out of sheer exhaustion, watching him through blurred vision, afraid to take my eyes off him even for a moment. Even through my fear, his presence felt as though it climbed inside of my very soul, awakening me to a world of feeling and irresistibly, I began to take him in.

His very being was oozing emotion and expression. I almost couldn't bear to look at him for how vulnerable it made me feel. Every. single. time. just a glance seemed to travel through the air and fill me, with this feeling language that walked through my walls, making them feel non-existent, like air, vulnerable, naked, exposed, sending shivers of anticipation through my body for what he might do next, good, or bad. With my walls now useless against him, losing that protection, that control over my heart made his next move powerful, and that scares me. The kind of powerful that could breathe life into me, or take it.

I could barely tear myself from the pull of his eyes, my own vision seemed to zoom in on them. One, a beautiful light cloudy sky blue, so luminous that his pupil only peeked through. Gold outlined his eyelid and lashes, making his baby blue soul pop with a hypnotizing mess of shades. The other purely golden, like that of the sun, framing his dark dilated pupil. Even at a distance his soul felt alive, shifting, and moving within both of his eyes, like ink.

His dark wavy hair was slicked back, the ends hovering around his neck, framing his chiselled jawline. Even at a distance it felt as though his sculpted body was towering over me. His chest was exposed, and gold was dripping down from his shoulder overtop of his muscles, slowly drawing my gaze as if he were a work of art. The gold itself felt alive, like a part of his soul.

Even his voice felt of liquid gold, the way it flowed, transformed within the moment, moving from a light, warm, accented, husky whisper that seemed to lightly land upon your skin, awakening your senses, to a deeper reassuring language, that can calm you like nothing else in the world. Intuitive.

But his intuitive gift extended beyond the sound of his voice, that language also radiates within his words and body, his movement.

My eyes flickered around the room, scanning the objects, the beings among the ruins. First my eyes stumbled over a night owl perched upon a tree that had grown through the crumbling stone, then to a man, a warrior, both seemingly turned into statues of gold at the back of the room. His eyes followed mine.

"It's not what you think," he sighed.

"What is it then?" I whispered, uncertain of his honesty. His eyes widened and his brows furrowed, his hands floating up into a cautious gesture as if he could sense the overwhelming pain throbbing in my heart, silently urging me not to think the worst, but still, as he promised he stayed where he is. After a moment of pained silent conversation floating in the air between our locked eyes, his hands and shoulders fell, his sigh deepening and once again, his eyes fell to the floor.

"That man... oh that man. Where do I start? I don't even know how to begin to make you understand. I know how it appears, but I'm not a monster."

"Then why did he get your touch of gold?"

"Oh, that's no touch of gold." The way his voice changed had some sort of cursed effect upon the air, the particles themselves seemed to respond with a change in feeling, a dark chill making my heart shrink into my chest, like the small feeling I used to get as a child when I was being warned.

"I was cursed by a woman who was cursed herself by a half god. He stole my identity and placed her under a deep, deep spell using both his shapeshifting abilities and a powerful love potion.

Now, this kind of love potion is not made of liquids and powders, but using environmental ingredients, like a large moving map of someone's life, details that may seem insignificant, but when placed together, they become more powerful than you can ever imagine. It's an art, an alive flowing energy the divine sculptor must read, feeling, and shaping the moment until every subconscious detail feels as though it's a perfectly timed aphrodisiac of the soul.

Such a large all-encompassing map, the details form a complex web of interconnecting movement, his presence, his voice in her dreams and daydreams, his ability to influence human bodies in her surroundings, teaching her new things, like to see the first letter of his name in something as simple as a light flicker like morse code, physical objects placed in her environment, and finally his moments of physical presence in the shape of my body, having made the feeling of his love unbearably realistic to her and debilitating her ability to overcome her new reality, to exist in the reality beyond that and evade the facade, crippling her sense of logic. Afterall, logic is not free of the heart or emotional intelligence.

The details within the map of her life, her reality, could be described as a circle and the environmental love potion can be described as a new reality placed within that circle. It is a circle within a circle, a reality within a reality. The inner circle is his clay that he can shift, shape, and contour to his liking.

Neither reality is wrong, as the inner reality created a very real depth of love for him, for me, in her heart, and had the divine aura sculptor had good intentions he may have prepared for a very beautiful response in her outer reality. That way the two worlds would blend seamlessly, free of pain, and full of joy.

However, because the outer reality didn't answer that inner circle, that inner reality, logically relieving expectations, it creates pain when her heart is not fulfilled as she expects, when things don't make sense or add up. It is not as simple as avoiding expectation. One human mind can only withstand so much chaos before an assumption is created to help steady their thoughts, their emotions, to help them decipher how to act to escape that mess, and if a lifelong depth of love was created during that chaos, she will now live with unavoidable and retriggered subconscious expectations for eternity.

As it began, he first shaped the details of her inner circle into a nurturing, fatherly aura, teaching her to see him in everything and everyone. From his godly bird's eye view he sculpted every passing sound, object, visual, expression, language, words, touch to nurture her deepest vulnerabilities and all the moving parts made it feel as though he was fluent in a sense of timing, an atmosphere that feels like sensuality laced with empathy.

And for her, the atmosphere slowly began to transform into a more dominant aura with fatherly nuances, treating the nurturing he discovered she needed as the most desirable thing in the world. At this point in time, his presence disguised as me began to enter her dreams at night and due to his godly ability to walk among her dreams, the real feeling of his presence, my presence was unavoidable.

Within her dream, as he read the energy, he used all his prior preparation and nurturing to arouse her, letting her arousal rise while he tamed his and he claimed her passionately at her highest peak of arousal, without touching her, but through words, environment, energy, and sound.

Before she cursed me, she explained:

'I'm starting to wonder if it was God... either he did it all, or he enhanced the effect of what was happening to me, sculpting the experience to guide me where he wanted, taking power away from all others in doing so. It felt as though I finally got to flow, was happy, like I was dancing with God, and the moment God directed me towards you, you felt so nurturing, almost fatherly in a way, and this deep Godly empathy filled my body, my heart, flowing from you, as if He was speaking through you.

As I danced with God and you, suddenly there was this moment where he passed me along to you, and you claimed me, as if you both could see me floating a little too high, too far away from you, from life, and you had to grab me to keep me close.

And in that moment, I swear to God I've never felt anything like it in my entire life.

It felt as though I shot too far into heaven and the moment you claimed me, I spiraled, floating softly like a feather into the deepest relaxation I've ever felt, and I gently landed in a new heaven in his arms... How will my heart ever let that go?

I didn't even know my body was capable of housing such a feeling, like when I was floating too high passed heaven there was still a sort of tense feeling mixed in with my happiness, a feeling as if I was on the threshold of passing between worlds and the moment you claimed me, the moment God passed me to you entirely... I felt this "whoosh," from the top of my head floating softly into my heart and soul. In that moment... everything released, all my worries, all my burdens, all my tension in my body, which I haven't felt for many, many years. I fell softly into the deepest happiness, most fulfilled and satisfied relaxation that I've ever felt in my entire life.

There's just no way that that feeing was only supposed to be a part of my journey... The most powerful feeling I've ever felt in my entire life. So, the only answer to me is that you are my journey, the beginning, the middle, and the end.

And I love you because God made me love you.'

"Her words linger in my heart to this day." he sighed.

In that intricate moment, during that penetrating relaxation, her walls disappeared, and her heart was left more exposed and vulnerable than humanly possible, leaving her defenseless against his love and she fell into an eternal love with me at a greater depth than any she's ever known... then, he broke her heart.

He had loved her selfishly, only to discard her and remain free of the consequences. The unbearable pain seeped into every aspect of her life, devastating her and she struggled to endure the cycle of love that just wouldn't end and pain that followed. Her inner wisdom was screaming at her, and it dawned on her that he had stolen her lifelong happiness, leaving her unable to marry, unable to give her whole heart to another.

He did leave one tempting but cursed gift for her... a piece of divine clay and embedded within was his ability to sculpt an aura of whatever or whoever the wielder desires. Using his ability to incept the mind, by sculpting the aura and atmosphere of her surroundings, he guided her subconsciously towards the clay. He wanted her to go after me. He was the sculptor enhancing, nurturing her pain and her hope, as he saw fit, her hope that I would still love her again, as he did the first time in the form of my body.

He planted the seed for her to sculpt the godly clay into a heart at my feet to symbolize her love for me, and she couldn't resist. Her depth of love was too strong, which in turn made her hope even stronger, because it had to be, without the possibility of my returned love she knew it would kill her. So, she sought to find me. He was trying to remain undetected but upon our meeting, her words, even in an unruly mess of confusion left a fingerprint of him. I could sense it."

He disappeared, collapsing into the memory. I could see it within his eyes, his expression as he departed on his journey through the clouds. He vacantly relayed the encounter.

"'You're lying!' I cried out to her.

Her pained confusion, clear honesty, love, and depth of anger were all disturbed, stirred by my response. Her ability to simultaneously display so many feelings softened my accusation.

'I'm not. I love you, deeply.' In the nuances of her voice, she was practically pleading for me to see how obvious it was.

What is more painful than being told by the very person you love that you're lying, when you've never felt anything more authentic in your entire life, reaching a depth you've never known before?

She misinterpreted my confusion as to how that could be, as my prolonged inability to feel how genuine her emotions were and her anger, her devastation grew.

She then hastily and passionately sculpted the clay into a heart kneeling beneath me. All her pain came flooding back of her first depth of love and rejection. She burst into sobs, and I could see her heart shattering. He nurtured her surroundings to enhance that pain, and, in her weakness, she dropped the heart, which had power over the aura of my heart and it too shattered at her feet.

Then she collapsed of a broken heart, never to wake again. It was if her soul was no longer young and beautiful, as if in that moment her soul had aged a million years for the sheer weight of life lived, and I had just died of old age in front of her. Her depth of love so strong she could not live without me.

The curse flowed into the very depths of my gift, such a great and sudden change that I lost control and everything I touched turned to gold, including her body, which still lays at the feet of my throne.

The kingdom was thrown into chaos, and I was overthrown, in my confusion I retreated here, and rumors festered as I learned to control my gift and my curse, how I can use both as I please.

He used her as a pawn on his chessboard, on his potter's wheel."

We sat in silence as I took everything in... marvelling at this man.

"That woman," I repeated, searching inside myself for the feeling her story triggered. "She feels so familiar to me, almost as if I was her, the feeling of how our souls were made before birth." The words escaped my mouth before I realized what they insinuated, and I blushed waiting for his reaction.

"You are the first person that has stayed long enough to hear my story. I sense..." he exhaled, "a deep, aged connection." Relieved at his words, my tension released. He began to expand upon his story, and it felt as though the language within his voice itself held fingerprints that spoke to my heart of indescribable nuances of his past.

The feeling of his voice, the sound melted me into a happy trance, as if my father was telling me a bedtime story. Suddenly, everything grew heavy, the earth started to shift from underneath me, my vision began to blur as Midas seemed to fall sideways and the unusual sensation aroused remnants of my memories...

"Midasss," a voice whispered in my ear, as I slipped away into darkness.

"Midasss," the voice grew louder. "Midasssss," and louder, hissing in my ear, "WAKE UP!" A scream sent me flying upwards, my breathing heavy, my heart pounding. 'Where am I?' Panic had set in long before I was even close to consciousness. 'I can't breathe,' my subconscious was screaming at me. 'I can't breathe,'... 'Oh no, oh no, oh no. I fell asleep!' Through blurred vision and threatening teardrops, I searched my surroundings for any sign of him. 'I don't see him! You need your vision to clear,' My head screamed at me in desperation. 'You need your vision to clear!' I hastily rubbed my eyes, and just at the moment my vision cleared, he came running into the large crumbling foyer, his expression deeply concerned, scared even.

"You screamed," he said breathlessly. I looked down at my feet, now surprisingly sorry for frightening him. Somehow, I was standing, although I don't remember doing so. I must've fallen asleep.

"Sorry," I apologized.

"You fell asleep. Were you worried of what I'd do to you?" he asked tentatively, his expression mirroring the caution in his voice.

"Yes," I was barely able to whisper before bursting into tears. Even from across the large stone room I could feel the pain seeping from his face, and I started to feel horrible that I was so scared of him, the thought though, was cautioned by the chance I was being naive and that I should remain careful, despite my instinct to nurture such an obvious pain that spoke so clearly to mine.

"It's okay," he sighed. "It's okay." I sobbed again at the sound of the language in his voice. "Please don't cry. I made a bed for you. You don't have to use it if you're not comfortable with it... I know how traumatic this all must be, confusing, exhausting, regardless of your fear, I couldn't find a place in my heart to leave you lying against that cold stone pillar without the option of a warm bed," he paused, waiting for my no, his expectation so clearly displayed upon his face.

"Yes."

"I know it must be so hard for you to comprehend. I-"

"Yes, I'd like to see the bed." It wasn't a seemingly logical choice, but after gathering other pieces of instinctive information from my environment, feeling his body language and the sincerity behind his words, logical took on a whole new meaning. His head flew up, his eyes widening in surprise.

"You'd like to see the bed?" he asked.

"Yes," there was a long pause before he spoke.

"Of course... follow me." I waited for him to turn and begin walking and I followed several paces behind, at a safe distance.

He took me to the bed in the library where old scrolls of parchment were lining old shelves. He'd gathered some nude blankets, sheets, and linens to cushion the floor and for days I began to develop a sense of comfort, each night sleeping there, while he retreated to sleep elsewhere in his castle of ruins, until one day he mentioned his desire to come closer. Hesitantly, I agreed.

The fear, anticipation of his touch sent shivers running wildly through my body, but seeing him standing there, feeling the intense desire that lingered in his eyes, I couldn't pull mine away. The tension held me for what felt like a moment too long before he gave in to his uncontrollable desire and closed the gap. My heart pounded harder, deeper with every step he took, and I held my breath, bracing myself for the unknown. Before I knew it, he had me in his grasp, his nose inches from mine, his hands on either side of my face.

The moment his fingers touched my soft skin, it didn't take my breath away, no, the feeling filled me with breath. I gasped, staring deep into his eyes, my own dilating, turning from a piercing ice blue to a piercing golden colour, mirroring the golden movement in his, as if he was exploring the depths of my soul, a high that felt grounding. The moment he reached my inner scars with his mind, I felt it deeply, it was almost as if he found a low, hidden key that only he had. There was a sharp pain in my soul, like an invisible knife that slowly, softly numbed, the feeling pulling golden ink-like tears from my eyes, my desire overwhelming my fears.

Only he could give me a pain like that and make me crave it, because it felt like a beautiful release. A tingling sensation spread from the tips of his fingers down my neck, through my chest, down my legs, making me gasp once again, appearing like golden inklike veins, embedded, and moving through my skin, mimicking the scars in my soul, disappearing as quickly as they appeared.

We hadn't moved, our eyes locked into one another, his deep-toned heavy breath danced with mine, making love to me without touching me. His fingers softly pressed further into my cheek before he brushed the golden tears from my eyes, his thumb grazing my bottom lip softly pulling it down, as he titled my head up towards his, looking deeper, searching, almost as if to give me one final breath, filling me with life. It felt as though it was the start of my rebirth.

I didn't want him to let go, I wanted more, but I felt a soft pressure as his thumb left my lower lip, leaving a vertical golden smear there from the tears he'd wiped away, desire both fulfilled and endlessly created.

Gold dripped from his fingers as he stood in front of me. In that moment, I knew he knew everything about me, my deepest fears, my insecurities, imperfections, intimacy problems, but I wasn't upset. I felt relieved, because he didn't seem to mind at all, and that only began to heal me, sharing my indescribable and isolating burdens.

This man that everyone feared, I was possibly the first person to ever see clearly for who he truly is in his soul, a wounded half god, half king who learned the art of intimacy, of healing, through his own curse, and scars, like me, misunderstood by the world.

He'd begun to fill my scars with gold.