Work Text:
In nova fert animus mutatas dicere formas
corpora; di, coeptis (nam vos mutastis et illas)
adspirate meis primaque ab origine mundi
ad mea perpetuum deducite tempora carmen!
My soul hastens to speak of figures changed into new bodies;
Gods, inspire my undertakings (for you have changed yourselves and others)
And starting from the very beginning of the universe,
Lead this everlasting song to my tempo!
Helios has burnt through the day’s light and is making his way through murky Oceanos when Hector sits at his desk, head down and shoulders hunched over. His eyes are not closed in sleep, but rather sharp with focus as he meticulously works his hands through the jar of clay at his feet. A beautiful, white clay in the sun, it glows a gentle amber from the lamps nearest him.
Hector’s hands are caked. The clay embraces him even now. It clings to his skin as if it can’t bear the thought of being away from him. Still, he wrings his hands with methodical motions, massaging the clay back into whole. This is not clean work. Wisps of ivory run up his tanned arms from where the clay has smudged and dried, prints like ghostly kisses.
His brows are furrowed in concentration. He needs the clay to be completely homogeneous before he can start sculpting. Perfect . Everything needs to be absolutely perfect .
Perfection, Hector thinks, is a difficult concept to grasp. It can only be defined in the negative. It is not those shameful daughters of Propoetus or what any of the women in this time have come to. Gods, how far women have fallen! Perfection is not him. He’s the farthest from it. The townspeople jeer and mock him enough to ever forget the fact.
This leaves him with nothing but himself and his art.
The world is too twisted to have anything else.
He knows it is time to begin sculpting because the clay tells him so. It’s in the sounds it makes, the way it sings for him as his hands massage the material. Like a kind master, he obeys.
Day and night blurs together as he draws the clay out onto the work table before him. He runs his hands over it, pushing and pulling into whatever shape pleases him most. He begins with the feet and works his way up to the calves, then the plush thighs, blushing as he works at what sits between them. He works his way up the hips and the chest, careful as he runs his fingers along the sloping neck. The face, he leaves the face for last.
It takes him several days more to sculpt the face in a way that speaks to him. As the body dries, the face sits under a damp cloth. Hector has to keep the windows closed as the body sits lifeless on the table like a cadaver, with only a cloth to protect the identity (for, with everything so exposed, there is nothing else left to hide).
It is hard for Hector to keeps his hands away once he completes the face. His hands shake as they sit at his sides, whether from anticipation or fear of somehow ruining it, Hector does not know.
Hector doesn’t dare to touch the clay for a moon, terrified of destroying what he wrought.
In that time, the clay turns from a dull gray, to a rich, pearly white. There is the slightest pink sheen. It gives the illusion of a gentle blush running across flushed skin.
His fingers brush along the cheeks more times than he can count. His fingertips ghost along the gentle curve of the bottom lip. Lovingly, he runs his thumb along the brow bone.
When he finishes, his eyes tempt him with deceit. The sculpture before him threatens to be real, to be on the cusp of breathing. The silky skin, glistening like white ivory, wants to dip under his touch, but how can hardened clay obey?
Hector steps back to admire his work. It strikes him then, under the low glow of candle light (it is well into the night and Helios’ rays have long left the earth by this point), that this white is too harsh, too stark. His heart hurts as he stares down at his creation. How wretched that this beauty remains unadorned?
His eyes glance around his workshop, nearly as disheveled as he. In the corner of the room, he spots a pile of small shells laying abandoned from a previous project. He grabs them and inspects them one by one. By the time he has weeded out the shards and pieces with other deformities, he is left with four that he can offer to his love. Gingerly, he places these at the feet.
What else could be worth giving?, he wonders.
It’s a question that stays with him. He wanders along the halls of his house which are narrow and wind this way and that. Between them he goes in search of anything worth bestowing on his beloved. As the days progress, more things, trinkets, offerings, gather on every available nook and cranny left on the table. Whatever space isn’t taken up by his perfect being is adorned with flowers, shells, and pretty stones. They are humble offerings, it almost embarrasses him to present such things. He likes to imagine the smile that would curve on those lips, the ones that are nothing but hardened earth, ones that refuse to move against his own. They remain cold and unfeeling, leaving the sensations all to him.
Many times his hands run over the clay form. They dip with the curves of the body and rise with its peaks. Sometimes, he lies with it on the table and imagines that it grows warm from their shared body heat.
When the festival day of Venus arrives, Hector does not think twice about what he must do. In the night, he lights his candles and closes his eyes to pray to Venus.
“Please grant me,” the words catch in Hector’s throat. Out of embarrassment? Out of fear? He does not know why, only that he chokes. He is unable to say, “my girl, the essence of my life, sculpted and formed of my two hands.” Hector cannot bear himself in that way. What words do escape his lips betray him, “someone similar to my girl.”
His face glows with heat. Shame, embarrassment, a perfect storm of self loathing.
“I’m sorry,” he thinks to himself, to the perfect being that lies before him. There is no one that could even come close. Nothing can rival perfection once it is achieved.
His hand trembles as he reaches to stroke the thigh of his girl, unblemished and smooth. There’s not a trace of a fingerprint or the strokes of Hector’s tools from Hector’s sculpting. It has all been worn down from his constant touch, perfectly smooth like the inside of a shell. Head bent down, Hector reprimands himself for his cowardness, missing the way that the flames of candles spark three times.
Slowly, his fingers dip into skin and his palms are met with a living warmth.
Hector’s eyes shoot up. He pushes his thumb along the skin, which is pliant and yielding like sun-warmed wax. Further and further up his hands trail, eliciting a gasp he won’t dare to acknowledge as real. He reaches the neck and gently cusps it, allowing only then to let his gaze fall upon the eyes. They are all too seeing. You look up at him while he stares down. Your face surrounded by flowers, little explosions of color, Hector can’t help but wonder what you see in return.
His hands shake as he presses his palm against your cheek, caught in the glistening expanses of your eyes. You lean into his touch, bringing up a perfect hand against his own. He fights the urge to melt into you.
“What will you make of me?” He whispers.
His lips to yours are a familiar feeling, they move with a gentleness that is etched into your bones. He holds you with a reverence that makes you blush.
Your arms wrap around him, pulling him closer to you as he joins you on his work table. He sinks into you, melting like putty in your hands.
"What do you need? How can I appease you?" he begs into your ear. He needs to know. As your fingers glide through his unruly hair and down his tanned neck, he knows he would do anything, become anything to bring you even the slightest bit of pleasure.
He knows that you are his craftsman, and he, your clay.