Lake Pathos, Saturday Afternoon, April 1, 1989
Jessie pedaled hard for Lake Pathos, a two-hour ride that exhausted her athletic legs. The scrub volleyball matches on Daytona Beach just a week ago energized her competitive drive to prove that she was the best, the best at anything she put her mind to. The exhilarating exercise stretched and toned her leg muscles, basically dormant since the winter’s volleyball season had ended at her previous high school where she was selected as the star, all-conference spiker. She missed her friends at Seneca High School, and the trauma of moving to Lebanon in the middle of her senior semester ignited a passion to do something with her athletic skills. During the Daytona Spring Break, she played in the spontaneous volleyball matches on the beach sand with her team—Bobby, Tommy, Donny, Kendra, and Irene—against whatever team had won the last match. It was all for fun with her new friends that had never competed in volleyball, yet all were conditioned athletes in their respective sports.
She circled the marina parking lot filled with cars and wondered what would draw a crowd before the boating season began on Memorial Day weekend across this water recreation mecca. Pedaling to the edge of the lot overlooking the lake, she found the answer.
The unseasonable, April 1st warm weather had drawn the nearby college students out from the fraternities and sororities for their Greek Spring Fling. This annual festival celebrated Greek gods, and the students gave “thanks” with unabashed drinking as the Spring Equinox launched longer days and outdoor parties became the weekend ritual. The lake café’s outdoor Tiki bar and deck area provided a private venue to accommodate a large party of guys and girls dressed in togas, customarily decorated to signify which god or goddess they represented. Music of grandeur and pomp—drums rolled like thunder and trumpets pealed—further enhanced the mythical ceremony that Jessie observed from the bluff.
“She rises from the deep!” someone yelled and pointed to a figure appearing from the lake water. First her head with long hair that fell like a waterfall down her back, then her breasts—two lobes the shape of pears. Legs like towers displayed her perfect hourglass figure as she walked onto the beach. The white-robed gods knelt in a line on one side while the goddesses knelt and faced them to create a reception pathway from the glistening beauty to the crowned god that waited at the other end. Dressed in a toga wrapped around his waist, strong and muscular, the white-gold, long and wavy bearded god crowned with a green, laurel wreath, clasped a white thunderbolt in one hand and a three-pronged staff in the other—Zeus was the god of the sky and ruler of the Olympian gods. The kneeling gods chanted, “Aphrodite! Aphrodite! Goddess of love, beauty, sex!” Zeus looked upward at the azure sky. Aphrodite’s eyes followed. The gods stood and seemed at the ready—stallions awaiting release.
Zeus threw the thunderbolt high over the sandy beach. The gods raced in a swarm, their heads looking skyward to track its trajectory. Their bodies and arms strained to reach the thunderbolt that glided over their heads—like a group of single guys at a wedding party grabbing for the garter. One lucky god positioned to snatch it—as a receiver would in the end zone surrounded by defenders—and leaped above them to seize the jagged arrow. He raced away from the remaining gods that fell atop each other, some trampled in their zealous effort to retrieve the symbol that would grant the bearer the privilege to take Aphrodite, Zeus’ daughter, as the prize offering. Aphrodite was chosen by secret ballot at the conclusion of Rush Week, the legendary period of hazing and rituals that bound brother-to-brother and sister-to-sister.
The god who caught the thunderbolt returned to Zeus and Aphrodite, now standing together on the deck. Zeus crowned the victor with a laurel wreath as he bowed to receive it. The gods and goddesses cheered and chanted, “Zeus! Zeus!” and raised their libations to the sky in honor of Zeus—the god capable of holding fire from heaven—and in celebration of his offering—the naked beauty—to the next bearer of his name. He would become next year’s Zeus in this annual spring ritual that unleashed Panathenaea, the weeklong partying that followed the Greek Spring Fling.
Jessie watched in amazement as these festivities unfolded. She smiled and realized that the lake would become her new summer playground and hoped that a Zeus would become her new playmate. She pedaled further down the beachside road to the two-on-two volleyball action. It looked more like a practice session of serves, sets, spikes, blocks, and peel and digs. During her last season at Seneca High School, she was considered their top blocker and spiker, but the season tournament ended in February, and she had slipped back into a lazy routine. She needed to condition for the summer with lunges, squats, and leaps if she intended to play up to this college crowd. Sand volleyball was different than her indoor court action, and she took note of the dynamics of the game as she watched with interest.
As their practice session ended, she left the beach and pedaled back to the parking lot. Looking down the beach she saw that the toga party had diminished, and those left were in their swimsuits, their costumes abandoned. The long and wavy, white-gold locks of the muscular man walking through the parking lot were unmistakable. She slowly pedaled down the aisle parallel to the one that Zeus and Aphrodite walked ahead of her, where they stopped at the rear of a red Corvette. Jessie continued her approach as Zeus took Aphrodite in his arms and kissed her. Just as she passed, Zeus opened his eyes and connected with Jessie’s. Aphrodite, looking up at the statuesque Zeus, followed his gaze to the beautiful brunette with coal black eyes.
Copyright 2017 © Jeff Cambridge
Excerpt from PURSUIT, a novel by Jeff Cambridge, a writer of transformational fiction with real characters in real-life tell stories that change lives in the readers as the characters transform.
This is a pre-published scene.
To read the scenes sequentially, begin with
“PURSUIT: A Novel – Prologue”
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This novel is a work of fiction. Any references to real events, businesses, organizations, and locales are intended only to give the fiction a sense of reality and authenticity. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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