Pygmalion and the Statue

Page 3

SEVERAL DAYS PASSED after the marble blocks had been delivered. They were scattered through the studio as though he would work on all of them at once. Yet, in the center sat the ivory marble the goddess had taken residence in. For hours, Pygmalion sat in front of the stone, beside the stone, behind the stone, holding the stone in his arms. Occasionally, he would reach for charcoal and sketch a line on its surface. Most of the time, he simply sat with his fingers moving softly against the stone’s surface.

“Are you teasing me, my love?” Aphrodite asked from the depths of the stone. “Time means nothing to me, but you should begin your work before you are too old to lift a hammer.” Pygmalion sighed.

“My goddess, fear stays my hand. You have asked me to create the perfect woman and have offered yourself as my model. What if my hand slips or my poor skill insults your deity? Perhaps I should practice on one of the lesser stones.”

“Pygmalion, are you committed to me?” she asked softly. He felt her hand caress his face.

“Yes, oh yes.”

“Then commit to the stone. Free me. Find me here in the depths of this perfect ivory and release me.”

Pygmalion picked up his scapezzatore and mazza. With a slow stroke he began the pitching. The first chips flew before him and soon he had picked up a rhythm. Occasionally, he set aside the chisel and mallet and sketched lines on the stone with his charcoal. Again, he picked up the tools and lost himself in the rhythms.

By the third day, he switched to the subbia, and began shaping the reclining goddess within. This process was much slower than the pitching. His mallet continued the constant rhythmic tapping, but much smaller pieces were removed with each tap. As the form emerged, Pygmalion spent more and more time touching the shape with his hands, listening to the soft moans of the goddess within as he touched her flesh of stone.

He began working with the unghietto, the little fingernail, as he smoothed the surface of her face and cut individual strands of hair on her head. The rasp shaped the contours of her face and nose. He changed to an emery stone as he smoothed her luscious, parted lips.

“How kind of you to shape my face first. I thought perhaps you would go directly for my boobs. Isn’t that what the little slut at the temple accused you of?” the stone whispered to him. He moistened a cloth and wiped the dust from her face and eyes, half-lidded with lust. He dampened her lips with the swab and then bent to softly kiss them. She sighed.

“I love your breasts, Goddess. I love the texture of your skin and the heat of your sex. But I would sacrifice all for the taste of your lips.”

“When you finish the carving, you will have them all.”

He petted her hair and looked at the position of her head. He jerked back.

“One moment, Goddess.” He ran from the studio to his apartment and snatched up a pillow. “Here. I did not mean to put you in a position where you would have to hold your head up while I work. This pillow will cushion you.”

“Pygmalion, I am made of stone. Is it not strong enough to hold my head in position?”

“Yes, Goddess, but humor me. I would not have you in discomfort because I did not think of a resting place for your head.”

“I love you, my artist. And I thank you for your concern. I feel that my time with you is fading, even as you progress on my sculpture. When it is finished, I will no longer be with you in this way. So, take your time. Even in a form such as this, your caress enflames my heart.”

Time and work progressed. As he worked, he talked to the goddess and told her his dreams. Had he not become disillusioned, he had hoped to marry one day and have children. He hoped even yet to please his patron and occasionally worried about the untouched blocks of marble that still awaited his chisel. Through all this, Aphrodite comforted him and filled his senses with her touch, even as he gently formed her shoulders and her bosom.

He began to shape a cloth draped across her for modesty but she stopped that thought at once.

“Do not cover me, lover,” she said. “No eyes will caress my shape but yours. Let me show myself fully to you.”

Fully, included carefully smoothing the tender rise of her breasts, the slight puffiness of her areolae with the nipples rising proudly from their centers. He kissed her lips as he caressed the supple breasts. He bent to suck her marble nipples. Though he knew they were just ivory stone, he could almost taste the mother’s milk that would fill them when she suckled a child.

Voices interrupted his revelry and he pulled a blanket over the sculpture so her nakedness could not be seen.

“Look. He is so modest he even covers the statue’s privates.”

“That is so we won’t see his semen covering her stony stomach,” laughed another.

“Dear Pygmalion, wouldn’t you rather a flesh-and-blood woman to sink your throbbing manhood into? I volunteer my flesh and blood—for a price,” coaxed a third.

The twelve chattering women filled his studio, some tugging at the blanket and some tugging at him. The daughters of Propoetus had come to mock him and tempt him from his well-known vow.

“You need to have a model, Pygmalion,” said one. She shed her tunic and pulled his hand to her breast. “How does this compare, artist? Squeeze. Does it not feel better than cold, hard stone?”

“Touch me,” said another of the suddenly naked women. She dragged his fingers through her slit. “I am wet and hot. Think how this would feel to your hard cock as I slid up and down on your rigid pole.” Pygmalion snatched his hands back and grabbed to prevent the blanket from being dislodged.

“Look sisters!” said one as she posed naked in front of a block of uncut stone. “I’m a statue. Perhaps if we model for him he will pay as much attention to us as he does to his imaginary friend there.” Each of the sisters posed in front of a block of white marble, heads thrown back as if in ecstasy, breasts cupped and offered to the viewer, legs parted as they reclined to take a lover. As he looked at them, he could see the stone take shape in his mind’s eye.

“Your hearts are already made of stone and your breasts colder than granite,” Pygmalion declared. “Go! Live your wanton lives while you still can. The goddess will visit her retribution on you. You will have eternity to rue your rejection of her.”

“You’ve been brainwashed,” the eldest said. “The goddess is a myth—no more a woman than the stone you shape with your hands.”

“Who could believe in a goddess born as a teenager, rising from the sea on a shell in all her naked beauty to seduce both gods and men?” The women had begun to close in a circle around him.

“It is a myth created by ugly men who would have the most beautiful woman married to the crippled and deformed Hephaestus. A fairy tale to dream on when he could simply pay a gold coin and have a true beauty take him between her thighs.”

“Even you, Pygmalion, hardened by the hammer and chisel, could be gentled within my sex.”

“Give up your vow, sculptor. Come to my bed and bring a gold coin for your pleasure.”

“Bring twelve gold coins and you shall have a night with each of us.”

“Go, I said! You are an abomination. There will be no hope for you when the goddess takes her revenge.”

The women laughed and abruptly turned to gather their clothes. They dressed sloppily and laughed as they filed out of the studio, helping each other tie their straps.

“I am so sorry, goddess,” Pygmalion wept as he cast himself on the marble form.

“Hush, my love. You still have company.”

Pygmalion turned to see the youngest of the Propoetides still in the studio leaning against and stroking one of the blocks of stone. He straightened himself and approached the young woman who had attempted to seduce him at the temple just months ago. She turned toward him.

“I can see myself,” she whispered. “I can see myself in the stone. Will you carve me, Pygmalion? Will you make me immortal?”

“Would you truly wish to share in your sisters’ fate? It is not too late, but the goddess will not wait forever.”

“You frighten me, Pygmalion. Everyone knows… My sisters taught me…” A tear trickled down her face. “I am what I am. How I wish I were a virgin again and could offer myself to you, new and pristine and filled with your faith. But I am what I am.”

“Sephane! Come! We have business at the temple waiting. Fun time is over,” called one of the sisters from outside. The priestess reached to Pygmalion’s cheek and touched him softly before she turned and ran from the studio.

“That was sad,” Aphrodite whispered in his ear. He was still standing by the stone, seeing the young priestess in it as she had herself. The goddess stood next to him, not encased in the statue he was carving.

“Can anything be done?” he asked.

“She is the only one that can save her,” the goddess answered. “Come, my love. We have little time left until your masterpiece is finished. Come make love to me and worship my body and spirit.” Instead of returning to the stone, the couple retired to Pygmalion’s apartment where the goddess of love showed him all her art and accepted his worship.

“You’re tickling,” the goddess giggled as Pygmalion ran the emery around her toes. “Does this mean that I am finished?” she asked sadly.

“Not quite, my love. I am going to bathe you.”

“Bathe me?”

“In pumice first. Then when I am satisfied that there is not a single blemish on your skin, I will polish you with tin oxide. By this time tomorrow you will positively glow.”

“And that will be just in time for me to make it to the temple for the festival. I am sad, lover, though I knew this would not last forever. You are, after all, mortal. It would be selfish of me to monopolize you. And there will be some who come with genuine sacrifices during the festival and I will honor them as I honor you. You have made me look more kindly upon men. Most believe they know best and ignore my urging.”

“You mean Adonis?”

“Tell a man not to do something and he immediately goes out and does it. That did it for fucking Ares, though. He is completely cut off.”

Before the final polish, Pygmalion brought a colorful blanket on which to lay the statue. He placed pearls around her neck and a new pillow beneath her head. As he worked the polish into her breasts he felt arousal take the goddess. He spent extra time polishing her nipples until they shone.

“I will miss you, Goddess,” he said as he moved down her stomach with the polish. The moisture he felt was not entirely that of the polish he applied.

“And I will miss you. Oh! That feels good. Polish that a little more and kiss me, love. Yes. Just a little more.”

Pygmalion felt her convulse in her climax, the moisture on his fingers pulsing. Then, slowly, the feeling of her presence in the statue dissipated and he knew she was gone. His tears fell upon the face of the stone goddess.

Pygmalion had prepared a surprise for his goddess. He had spent most of his meagre savings just days before to buy a yearling bull, as white as the ivory statue. Early in the morning he rose to collect his offering and gild its horns with gold paint. He placed flowers around its neck and led it to the birthplace of the goddess. He saw other devotees making pilgrimage along the road, but the two-day journey was not crowded. There was nothing on that western shore but the temple marking where the goddess rose from the sea.

On the morning of the festival, a tired old priest took the bull by the horns and led him to the altar. As the sacrificial blade fell against the throat of the beast, Pygmalion fell to his knees and praised his goddess, thanking her for all she had blessed him with. Then in supplication he prayed.

“Oh, Goddess Aphrodite, whom I love from the depths of my heart, hear this prayer from your servant. If I cannot be with you eternally, grant that one day I might find a wife who is the living likeness of my ivory girl. I have fallen in love with you, my goddess. Grant me, I pray, an outlet for that love.”

The priest fell back as fire consumed the bull in three hungry gulps. Amazed he looked at the sacrifice as it was accepted by the goddess. “Your prayer is granted, faithful servant,” he said in a voice that was not his own.

Pygmalion rose from the altar thanking the goddess and rushed back to Amathus.

Pygmalion arrived after a total of five days to and from the festival. When the first of the Propoetides fell in step beside him, he purposefully ignored her, but she said nothing. He was barely through the city gates when her sister joined them. And as he walked toward his studio, each of the daughters of Propoetus joined the procession. Pygmalion saw the youngest of the sisters waiting on the temple steps. She hesitated and then followed a few steps behind. Still the sisters said nothing so he continued to ignore them even though people had lined the streets as the procession progressed.

Pygmalion was too happy to be concerned. His goddess had granted his prayer. He did not know where, how, or when his wish would be granted, but he would have a wife approved of and given by the goddess. Nothing could diminish his joy.

The Propoetides followed him into his studio and silently ranged themselves around the room in front of the uncut blocks of marble. Pygmalion looked at them as they stood with a faraway look in their eyes. Almost by habit, he stopped in front of his ivory statue and bent to kiss her lips. He knew they would be cold, the goddess having left days ago. But to his shock, the lips softened and parted, accepting his questing tongue. He pulled back, suddenly conscious of the sisters encircling him. The eldest looked at him, her eyebrow raised in question. She turned and stepped into the stone. He watched her settle into her form, lift her eyes in wonder, and become the stone. The chips fell away and there was only the statue of the priestess.

He kissed the eyes of the ivory maiden and they fluttered open, looking at him with love and compassion. Nearby, the second sister dropped her robes and entered the stone, instantly locked into a pose of passion, embracing an unknown lover. Too excited to pay attention to the sisters, he stroked his statue’s hair and felt the silky strands beneath his fingers. The third sister entered a stone. He touched the cheeks and a blush arose there as the fourth sister became a statue. His lover’s throat swallowed as he caressed it with his lips and the fifth sister was absorbed into marble.

This progressed. He stroked the shoulders and arms of the statue and as they became flesh, the sixth sister became stone. He lovingly pressed the statue’s breasts beneath his hands, suckling on their nipples, and the seventh and eighth sisters entered their final resting place. The ninth and tenth sisters became stone as Pygmalion massaged the supple flesh of his statue’s legs. With a catch in his breath, Pygmalion stroked the statue’s sex and heard her gasp as her moisture dampened his fingers. The eleventh sister entered the stone and froze.

Pygmalion looked at the eleven statues and his eyes fell upon the twelfth sister, Sephane. She clutched a drawing to her breast as she looked at him and then at the marble before her. Pygmalion reached out his hand to his bride and she grasped it. Sephane flinched, let the drawing he had done of her flutter to the floor and stepped into the stone. Of all the statues of the Propoetides, only one had a blemish—a tear-streak down her cheek.

Pygmalion turned to the ivory white maiden holding his hand. He bowed and kissed her fingers, now warm flesh and not stone.

“I am Galatea,” she said.

“I am Pygmalion,” he answered.

“Oh, I know you. I have known you since the first day you caressed the ivory stone. I have kissed your lips as you lay with me. I have welcomed your love from the moment of my awakening.”

“But the goddess…”

“Was there with me, but I was there with her as well. I have looked into your soul, Pygmalion. I have listened to your dreams. I have felt your love. And now you have given me my freedom.”

Pygmalion was thrown by this statement. Given her freedom? Of course, she was locked in stone and he freed her from it. It would be wrong to claim her as his own. He slowly released her fingers and bowed deeply to her—not as he would prostrate to his goddess, but as he would respect a perfect woman.

“I hope that you will think kindly of me now that you are free and not be repulsed by my treatment of you when you were stone. If I may be of service to you, please call on me at any time.”

“Any time?” Pygmalion nodded. “Now?”

“Why of course. I’m so sorry. Here you are just awakened and have nothing! I’ve caused you to stand exposed to my eyes. Please forgive me. Whatever you need, if it is mine to give, it is yours.” He snatched up the blanket wrapped it around her shoulders, regretfully covering her perfect features.

“I suppose that if I’m to be a member of polite society, I will need clothes. But perhaps there is one thing that you will be unwilling to give me since I am nothing more than stone to you.”

“You are so much more than stone to me, fair Galatea. I could deny you nothing.”

“Then may I have your love, Pygmalion? I assure you that there is nothing of stone left in me. My heart beats with passion. Hot blood flows through my veins. And though my skin is ivory white, I feel a blush rising in my face when I think of what I want from you.”

“Galatea, you are truly the answer to my prayers. I will love you and honor you all our lives. I did not dare hope that you would feel that way for me.”

“My darling, I have lain on a bed of marble for weeks awaiting this moment. Please, show me what it is like to lie in your arms on your bed. I am free and I freely give myself to you. I am yours, my love.”

“Is it ready at last?” Agathos demanded of his kyrios.

“Pygmalion and his wife await you in the peristyle, My Lord.”

“A wife yet. And this is the man who swore he would touch no woman of woman born. She must be something else.”

“Your Grace, you might not want your wife to be there when you see her the first time.”

“You are right. I want this to be a private showing. I have twelve naked women waiting in my garden. Stay here. I’ll go on alone.”

The prince entered the central garden around which the rest of his palace was built. Two beautiful stone women graced the entrance to the garden. He stopped to look at them closely. That one looked familiar. He ran his hand up her leg and across her ass. Yes. Very familiar. He looked at the other and could not keep his hand from rising to her breast. Cold stone, but still silky and sensuous. Pygmalion had outdone himself. He worked his way into the garden crossing from one side to the other to touch and closely examine each stone woman. Exquisite. Simply exquisite. At last he made it to the farthest corner of the garden. There Pygmalion waited with the most delicious woman the prince had ever seen. Next to them was the most beautiful of the statues, yet she looked almost sad.

“Your Grace, please be careful with this one. She is fragile,” Pygmalion said.

“Yes, of course. They aren’t… playthings.” The prince tore his eyes from the beautiful woman next to the artist. He could almost sense relief in the garden. “You have done well, Pygmalion. I understand you have married.”

“Thank you, My Lord. This is my wife, Galatea.”

“Congratulations.” The prince was tongue-tied as he took the offered hand of the woman. He was very glad his wife was not present. “Ah, well,” he said, releasing her hand. It was obvious that it did not belong in his. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance. You are just what our fine artist needs for his next commission.”

“My Lord, we have not yet settled this one. I have delivered to you what you requested, have I not?”

“Yes, of course. I believe your next ‘ commission’ will be the payment you seek. I understand you were recently at the birthplace temple.”

“Yes, My Lord,” Pygmalion said, remembering the message of the goddess and the acceptance of his sacrifice.

“The priest there has suddenly retired. He claims to have seen the goddess and instead of sitting in the temple he has gone into the countryside to evangelize the people. That leaves the temple untended. Really, we can’t have that. It is much too far away for me to reach with a protecting hand.”

“I had no idea,” Pygmalion said. He was appalled. A temple with no priest?

“The stone merchant, Thanos, has informed me that you are on very good terms with Aphrodite. He mentioned this upon presentation of an exorbitant bill for the stone he provided. Don’t worry, I’m pleased. These stones are magnificent. Almost real. Nonetheless, Thanos has said he is moving to Paphos and taking delivery there of his next shipment of stone. He has quite a following of people who have agreed to accompany him. In fact, it appears to be the founding of a small city-state. I have called you a prince among sculptors, and I promised you a kingdom of your own. That kingdom is the new city-state of Paphos. There you will become the new priest of Goddess Aphrodite and oversee the renovation of her temple. To amply reward you for your service, I will provide a small contingent and supplies for your fledgling theocracy for five years. By that time, you should have your city well under construction and the incoming citizens converted by your itinerant evangelist should make it a profitable adventure. In five years, I will journey to your new home and make sacrifice to our goddess. At that time, we will greet each other as equals.”

And thus it happened that Pygmalion and Galatea moved to the western edge of Cyprus to tend the holy shrine and establish the city-state as Aphrodite’s first priest-king. Ten months after her awakening, Galatea bore Pygmalion a son whom they named for his home, Paphos. It was he, a devoted priest-king after his father, who walled the city of Paphos. A year after his birth he was joined by a sister, Metharme, known as the most beautiful young woman on the island next to the ivory lady, her mother.

Pygmalion and Galatea lived to a ripe old age and Pygmalion carved a giant statue of Aphrodite that looked out over the sea and her birthplace. In their old age, Pygmalion still looked like a young man and Galatea looked as pure and perfect as the day she was created. They held each other in their arms, even on the day they died.

The End

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