Divine Appetite

Chapter 1: The Denial of Flesh

The marble floor of the temple was cold beneath Lysander’s knees, just as he preferred it. Pain was clarity. Discomfort was discipline. He had learned this truth in his twenty-three years, the last five spent in service to the gods—all of them, dutifully, equally, without favor or passion.
His fingers traced the worn grooves of the offering bowl, empty save for a single fig he’d placed there at dawn. One fig. One cup of watered wine. One barley cake. The priests in Athens would have laughed at such meager tribute, but Lysander believed the gods cared nothing for excess. Virtue lay in restraint, in the denial of base appetites that separated men from beasts.
The temple stood at the edge of the village, close enough to serve the community but distant enough that Lysander rarely had to engage with their festivities. Especially now, during the week of the Dionysia, when the entire village descended into madness. Even from here, he could hear the drums beginning their insistent rhythm as dusk approached, the laughter already too loud, too wild.
He had been thin even as a boy, but five years of strict discipline had honed him to something sharp and angular. His ribs showed clearly beneath his simple tunic. His cheekbones cast shadows on his face. When he caught his reflection in the temple’s bronze mirror during cleaning, he saw what he wished to see—a body unencumbered by flesh, a spirit unweighted by desire.
“You’re wasting away, Lysander,” old Thalia had told him last month, pressing a honey cake into his hands. He’d accepted it politely, then left it on the temple steps for the birds. The sweetness would have been a distraction from his prayers.
The drums grew louder. Lysander rose from his knees, joints protesting, and moved to close the temple shutters. The procession would pass by soon—drunken villagers in their grape-stained robes, wearing masks and ivy crowns, singing obscene hymns to Dionysus. Every year the same debauchery, the same surrender to impulse.
He had just reached for the first shutter when the air changed.
It wasn’t a smell, exactly, though suddenly he could taste wine and honey on his tongue. It wasn’t a sound, though his ears rang with phantom music—flutes and drums and something wilder beneath. The temperature hadn’t shifted, but his skin prickled as if someone had breathed against his neck.
Lysander turned slowly.
A man stood in the temple doorway, though Lysander had heard no footsteps on the stone path. He was beautiful in a way that made Lysander’s carefully constructed thoughts scatter like startled birds. Dark curls tumbled past his shoulders, wound through with ivy that seemed to grow even as Lysander watched. His eyes were dark and bright at once, holding depths of purple like wine in sunlight. He wore a leopard skin draped across one shoulder, and his smile was knowing, amused, dangerous.
“This is the temple of all gods,” Lysander managed, his voice steadier than his heartbeat. “You’re welcome to make an offering, but I’m about to close for the evening. The festival—”
“I know about the festival,” the stranger said, his voice rich and warm. “They’re celebrating me, after all. Though I confess, I’m far more interested in the one man in this entire village who refuses to celebrate.”
Lysander’s throat went dry. “I don’t—”
“You don’t indulge. You don’t feast. You don’t drink, you don’t dance, you don’t fuck.” The stranger stepped inside, and with each footfall, the air grew heavier with that phantom scent—grapes crushed underfoot, bread baking, meat roasting, pleasure itself made tangible. “You’ve made yourself very small, beautiful mortal. I wonder why.”
“Discipline,” Lysander said, retreating a step and hating himself for it. “Self-control. The philosophies teach—”
“The philosophies.” The stranger laughed, and it sounded like wine pouring into a cup. “Let me guess. Pleasure is base. The body is a prison. Deny yourself and achieve… what? Purity?” He tilted his head, studying Lysander with an intensity that made him feel exposed despite his loose tunic. “You’re already pure, sweet thing. Starving yourself doesn’t make you holy. It just makes you hungry.”
“Who are you?” Lysander whispered, though he already knew. The ivy. The wine-dark eyes. The way reality seemed to bend around him like heat shimmer.
The stranger’s smile widened. “You know who I am. Say it.”
“Dionysus.”
“There.” The god stepped closer, close enough that Lysander could see the faint pattern of grape leaves tattooed—or perhaps growing—along his collarbone. “Was that so difficult? Now, let’s discuss why the god of wine and ecstasy has taken a personal interest in one skinny, stubborn temple keeper who thinks suffering is a virtue.”
Lysander’s back hit the wall. He had nowhere left to retreat. “I don’t—I’m not—”
“You are.” Dionysus reached out, and Lysander flinched, but the god only traced one finger along his sharp cheekbone, his touch impossibly gentle. “You’re denying yourself. Punishing this lovely body for simply existing. And I find that…” His eyes flashed with something between anger and hunger. “…personally offensive.”
“I serve all gods equally,” Lysander said. “I don’t show favoritism—”
“Then tonight,” Dionysus interrupted, “you’ll serve me. You’ll attend the feast in my honor. You’ll eat what I offer you. You’ll drink what I pour. And if you do this—if you give yourself one night of surrender—I’ll leave you to your miserable asceticism afterward. But deny me…” His smile turned sharp. “And I’ll make it my divine mission to teach you what pleasure truly means.”
Lysander’s heart hammered against his ribs. “And if I refuse?”
Dionysus leaned in, his lips nearly brushing Lysander’s ear. “Oh, little keeper. Refusing me is choosing the lesson. Either way…” His breath was warm, scented with wine and promise. “You’re mine now.”
Then he was gone, leaving only the scent of grapes and the echo of drums, and Lysander alone in the temple with his hands shaking and his carefully maintained emptiness suddenly feeling like a void that ached to be filled.
Outside, the procession began, and this time, Lysander didn’t close the shutters.