Epilogue: Reap What You Sow

Lois Lane waddled down marble halls, swathed in white, her big belly proceeding her. At twenty-two weeks pregnant with twins, she was already as big as most women were at full term...and there was nearly eighteen weeks to go, if she made it without giving birth prematurely. On top of that, the Amazons were treating Lois like she was made from cut glass, and had pared down her daily exercises to a minimum. So, with nothing else to do after her lessons in Greek for the day, Lois walked the halls, determined not to become morbidly obese before her wife finally returned from man's world...

Most of the Amazons were out and about. It was a hot day, and Lois didn't need to think about those olive complexions burning beneath the Mediterranean sun, sweaty breasts and trim, athletic bodies hoeing gardens and pulling at fish nets or pressing olives for their oil...it was hard enough, going on four months since she had seen Diana, and the last few weeks even the invisible dildo hadn't been enough to really do more than take the edge off.

That was what Lois was thinking when a golden apple rolled out from an open doorway.

The former reporter frowned. She looked through the door...it was one of the interior rooms, dark and cool, one of the smaller temples or shrines that dotted the main palace here and there. A lanky woman in a dark toga sat with her back to the altar, obscuring the inscription with the name of the god or goddess it was dedicated to...and she was drinking, from a dark glass wine jug wrapped with cord.

Bending down carefully, one hand on her lower back, the reporter bent and snagged the golden apple. It was, despite the shiny metallic skin, real fruit. With effort she rose back up and carried it into the dark shrine.

<<"I think you dropped this,">> Lois said in Greek.

The woman raised her face. It was a thin face, with dark bags under the eyes as though she didn't get much sleep, and the dark hair was cropped short—Lois had seen some of the Amazons that wore their hair like that, when they didn't want to get it caught in what they were doing. Yet her journalist's instincts were aroused: this was different. The cut was too rough, as though she had hacked it off herself with a sword or knife instead of using sheers. Lois sensed there was a story here...

"Your Greek is good," the woman said in English. She held up the bottle. "Drink?"

The reek of wine—no, not wine, Lois decided. Grappa, grape-spirit. Distilled wine—floated up from the bottle like the faintly-remembered scent of gasoline. Lois rubbed her bulging belly.

"No, sorry—I can't."

The arm lowered, and the woman took a swig. She licked her lips.

"Ah, yes—my apologies. It must be so hard for you. Here alone, all by yourself...you are alone, aren't you?" The woman's watery eyes seemed to focus as they looked at Lois, and the reporter felt the golden apple in her hand grow suddenly heavy.

"Diana is...out doing her heroics. Saving the world," Lois said nervously.

"No doubt," the woman said, in that tone of voice women use when they mean the exact opposite. "She has been away a long time?"

"Four months," Lois said, rubbing the underside of her stomach nervously with her free hand.

"A long time indeed—I wonder what could be keeping her from her big, pregnant wife?" The words were innocent...but there was emphasis on them that set tumblers of suspicion spinning in the pregnant woman's brain. Every fear, every little crisis of self-confidence she felt about her growing weight, the stretch marks, the darkening of her nipples, her weakness, her softness, came back to Lois in an instant.

Why would Diana even want me? Lois wondered. I'm a fat cow. She only married me because she knocked me up. If she did come back, she'd see me as this ugly whale of a woman next to all these lithe, athletic, thin sex goddesses...

"She's very attractive, the princess, is she not?" The woman said, as she held the reporter's gaze. "You're very lucky to have married her. No doubt she had any other number of potential lovers...men and women."

Lois trembled. Her stomach suddenly felt enormous. The weight of the twins was like lead. She remembered all the stories that used to run in the papers...the rumors of Wonder Woman's relationships with Batman and Superman. Of course, Lois knew that Diana was bisexual...and on the same team as Supergirl and Vixen...

"She...she loves me," Lois managed, although now the words sounded hollow in her ears. "I'm...very lucky."

"Of course, if she did take a lover...well, such things happen," the woman brought the jug of **** to her lips and took a swig. Lois found herself swaying, and sagged against the wall...but somehow those deep, dark, watery eyes held hers. "Do you think she would tell you, when she got back? Admit her infidelity? Not that you could do anything about it."

Lois winced. There was a pain in her chest, a dull throb, an emptiness. She could almost imagine Diana returning, strangely aloof, stiff as Lois hugged her, spurning her advances...and the pregnant woman on her knees, begging her to know what was wrong, only to hear that cold confession...and then the terrible night in the bed, her back to her wife...no more snu-snu...

"Of course, you reap what you sow," the woman said languidly. "Just because your spouse is a total Zeus, doesn't mean that you have to be a complete Hera about it. There are certainly any number of Amazons here who might indulge a pregnant wanton in a little fling..."

The golden apple hit the floor with a dull thunk. The pregnant woman staggered away, tearing her eyes from the dull, dead gaze that had held her so spellbound, and fled away from the shrine of Eris, Goddess of Discord...and the goddess sat there, staring ruefully at the golden apple. No smile graced her mouth, she took no joy in planting the seeds of doubt in Lois Lane's heart.

It was simply who she was.