Yikes. There'd been enough rumors about her in school that she kind of knew how he felt. Being a ginger, she couldn't begin to count on even two hands how many times she was teased for being soulless or treated as less pretty than the blonde girls. People, in general, were terrible. "I'm sorry. That must have sucked."
He nodded, returning to his more serious demeanor. "Still does." Though it was at her expense this time, she hoped to see more of the playful side of him.
The rest of the hike across the field remained silent. Once inside, he finally set her down, but her annoyance with him had faded. Sage couldn't imagine living a life the way he painted his. "So, why not let me go? I don't understand. You said you can't break the one curse because of the other, which is confusing on its own…"
Adonis sighed heavily and slid his hands in his pockets. They were standing there on his porch, covered in mud and dripping water. "Because I fucked up my choices. As punishment, I was cursed to never be able to desire a nymph that might want to help me. Because of my hubris or whatever."
"Ah, yes…gods punishing people for the very thing most of them had in droves themselves." Mythology hadn't gotten the shaming of excessive pride wrong, at least.
He cracked a slight smile. "But it had an unexpected side effect."
"E.D.?"
"What?" He blinked, his smile fading.
"Erectile disfunction?" Trust the gods to have mystical variant of something so mundanely human. "You know they make a pill for that, right?"
He scowled. "I do not have erectile dysfunction."
"You can't get it up, so…"
His eyes narrowed dangerously. "It's not like that. At all."
"Oh?" She crossed her arms and cocked a hip. "Tell me how it is then. Since I clearly don't understand how not being able to go erect for a woman works."
A tic formed in his jaw. "Satyrs have to have sex often. Once a month is usually a stretch, but some can go slightly longer."
Sage struggled not to roll her eyes. If her high school boyfriends could have gotten away with that line, they wouldn't have needed the one about how their balls would shrivel or whatever if they didn't take the edge off. "Okay. Go on."
"If we don't, we are driven to blind lust. Because satyrs are the physical manifestation of male lasciviousness, we're beasts more than men." He handed her the muddy flip flop and opened the door. "We should get inside before another car comes by."
Sage wanted to protest, but she couldn't. It was getting chilly in the morning breeze, and she wanted to clean the dirt off her anyway before getting into her car. She stepped into the front room, and he closed the door behind them. "So what happens if you don't have sex?" Still sounded like a line, but he was a satyr…and even the depictions of his kind showcased their lustful natures. She didn't doubt it was true, though it sounded hokey as hell.
"We take what we find. No control."
She froze. Cursed to have sex didn't sound terrible to her, being given a beastly appearance less so. But this… Definitely a curse one sought to have broken. "Have you raped someone before?"
He blanched and his gaze darted away from her. "No."
His physical reaction said otherwise, and a knot formed in the pit of her stomach. "You're either lying or hiding something." If he was a rapist, she was leaving. End of story. Perhaps his punishment was well earned after all. To think she'd been egging him on, wishing he would have sex with her. Bile sat sour in the back of her throat, ready to be expelled.
"I came close once, okay." His eyes glistened as his tone turned angrier, as though he struggled with emotion he wasn't comfortable with sharing. Furious with his own past. "I wasn't strong enough to resist outside influences that used my self-loathing and anger and this damned curse and my own bad decisions against me. And then suddenly I was there. Lily was there. And I… And I… Gods, I barely snapped out of it before doing something I'd never forgive myself for."
What a terrible existence. She barely restrained herself from reaching out to him, to try to hug him. Despite all he could have done, she never could stand watching a person in pain suffer.
He balled his hands into fists, but it wasn't fast enough to hide their shaking. A single tear escaped, and he turned from her, probably hoping she hadn't caught sight of it. Men were so stubborn about their emotions. They really were.
Sage would be lying if she wasn't relieved he had serious regret over something he'd almost done. But…hadn't. Allegedly. There was every chance he was lying about stopping himself. How could she ever really know?
Her gut instinct told her to believe him, and her gut hadn't led her astray before.
Adonis exhaled slowly and continued, "You see, Pan was angry about what I did even if I didn't go through with it, so he made sure I couldn't break my curse. I can't be with you—now or on the night of the Satyr Moon—because it's my punishment. Not E.D. When you're around me, my body doesn't feel desire. Physical desire. Do you understand?" He faced her again. "Three thousand years of being in an almost constant state of arousal, gone." He snapped his fingers. "Just…gone."
While her mind comprehended that it wasn't her specifically causing his problems, but the nature of what she was, it still stung. Having an attractive man telling her to her face he can
