Heir to the Love Goddess

You couldn't believe your luck. You had just finished fixing the new barn for the cows, your father had just bought you a new plow, and your friends, some of the most beautiful and daring of all the villagers in Ikolos, had invited you to go skinny-dipping with them. You could be out there right now, having steamy sex in the tide-pools and sipping down amphorae of wine.

Instead, you're lying on the floor of your room, half-naked, one hand still on your junk and the other clutching your tragically seized heart. The clay pot your were masturbating to lies before you, the carved figures staring at you impassively. Judging.

"Fuck you too," you manage to whisper, before the last breath leaves your body. Suddenly your heart stops hurting. So does the knee you skinned the night before. In fact, you no longer feel anything at all.

Your vision is clouded; blinking slowly, you instead realize that you are in fact looking at clouds. From above. You look around; your room is gone, replaced with a grand balcony overlooking a sea of white.

"A dull view this time of day, but then that's not my realm," a silken voice behind you purrs.