first entrance 2.0

[risen_from]

She steps out onto the sun-drenched Caribbean shore, delicately formed feet leaving equally delicate prints in the sand to mark her passage. Her skin is smooth and glowing, her limbs long and well shaped, and in bygone days, she might have worn only a garland of flowers to cover herself, or perhaps a strip of gauze

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[risen_from]

It'd be a lie to say that Aphrodite never forgets a face.

But she never forgets one like his.

"Ganymede."

She whips off her sunglasses, beginning to smile faintly.

"Hey, sweetie."

[risen_from]

"Too long," Aphrodite murmurs, approaching him with the absent attention of a lady who expects others will step out of her way.

She looks him up and down, and her expression softens once more.

"You're looking good."

[risen_from]

Whether for better or worse, at this precise moment she isn't expecting him to come to her.

I'm goin' on a maaaanhunt--

"Well, so it goes," she breezes, pleasantly. "I have been watching my girlish figure."

The arch of her eyebrows says this might be a joke.

"How long has it been, anyway? I haven't been back here since the late '80s, and it's 2010 out there now."

[risen_from]

"Oh!" she says, smiling but not really missing a beat. Milliways will do that to you. "Wow. You're in LA? How does daddy like the traffic?"

[risen_from]

"Oh."

This one is considerably more enlightened. Aphrodite, of course, keeps her composure, but that's at the price of being able to really-- um-- process this information.

She gets there after a moment.

"Sweetie, that's a scandal!" She sounds delighted. "Are you and the big guy okay? Don't worry about telling me, daddy and I are on the outs since that thing with the Lewinsky girl."

[risen_from]

Ganymede's pre-Lewinsky anyway, Aphrodite remembers. Not to mention pre-sexual revolution and pre-The Bachelor.

He's so deprived!

(Still, it could be worse. It could be the '30s.)

"Oh my," she murmurs gravely, covering her mouth with one delicately formed hand. Her eyebrows arch. "Well, it's not as if we're exactly in sync chronologically, but since when have little things like that bothered daddy-- don't worry, sweetie. I won't tell him."

She knows this could end badly for her, but let's face it: Her attachment to an eternally beautiful young man like Ganymede faaaar outweighs her loyalty to Mr. I'll-Seduce-You-In-The-Form-Of-A-Cockroach.

Worse comes to worst, she'll break out the girdle and set the safe word to 'Heraisahugebitch.'

[risen_from]

"As far as I know," Aphrodite says cautiously, "he's never been here."

A dainty snort.

"But I don't know, sugar ... you know how he is about his jurisdiction."

And how he thinks it's EVERYWHERE.

[risen_from]

Aphrodite's eyebrows arch.

"... Really?"

It's hard to talk strategy in a gold string bikini. However, as this is also relationship advice, maybe that makes up for it.