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Read by Angelica Robotti

Introduction

The moon was a great, golden ball high in the dark blue sky that was flecked with a myriad of stars. The air was warm, and a faint wind shifting downward off the slopes of Mount Pelion seemed filled with fragrance and perfume. Off to one side, there could be glimpsed the moonlit waters of the gulf called Volos. 

As he climbed behind the twinkling ankles of pretty Drusilla Lapidos, Nick Kopais was filled with that fever of the blood of young men known as love. His heart—and other parts of him—yearned to hold pretty Drusilla against his deep chest, to cover her pouting mouth with kisses. As he climbed slightly behind her, he was fascinated by the swing of her hips, the bobble of her rounded buttocks. 

His palms itched to stroke her smooth, dark skin, to slip inside that loose blouse she wore (with her permission, naturally), and to grip in his fingers those marvelous breasts which had tormented his dreams for as long as he could remember. 

As much in love as he was, however, he did not lose his caution. If old Myron, her father, knew where Nick was taking his daughter, he would be after him with a hunting rifle. And Myron Lapidus was too good a shot to risk being caught out here in the open. And so Nick was very careful, indeed. 

But in time, the higher they climbed, the safer they seemed. Now he could devote more attention to the girl and less to that grumbling bear of a man who was her parent. Nick allowed the moon and the fragrance of the flowers to swirl in his head, and his palms itched to hold those marvelous breasts. 

When they came to a level stretch of ground, hidden by a row of trees and rocks that seemed piled high by a giant's hands, Nick reached for her. He brought her soft, alluring body up against his own, and when he felt the pressure of her buttocks on his loins, the feel of her thighs touching him, he lost his head. 

"I love you, I worship you," he whispered. “I dream of you night after night. You are Aphrodite, Drusilla. You have come down from Olympus to live with me." 

Nick Kopais had a way with words, Drusilla admitted to herself, even as she fought the surge of blood in her body, fought back the spill of passion that turned her loins into something hot and molten. 

"Not here, my darling. Oh, not here!"

"Then where?" 

“Up above, up where the winds play, where the moon can see us but no one else can. Come, hurry! I am dying with love for you." 

He needed no further encouragement. His hand caught her hand, he ran with her over grass and clumps of stone jutting upward between those grasses. He leaped with her across a little brook, he laughed as she laughed, breathlessly, and his hand squeezed her hand even tighter. 

From moment to moment, he took his eyes away from the grass and rocks to study the leaping fullness of her breasts. They were large breasts, but firm, they bounced as sweetly to her running that Nick found a tightness in his chest and a shortness of breath in his lungs that had nothing at all to do with this racing up a mountainside. 

He wanted those breasts. He wanted to put his lips to them, to nuzzle them, to suckle, to whisper words of ado ration to them. He had never wanted anything quite so much in all his young life. 

Up ahead were mists. Silvery mists, in that moonlight, which seemed to hide everything about them, as though the mists were a doorway into some enchanted land. What more could any eager young lover ask? 

"There," he panted. "Over there, where the mists are thickest. They will hide us, my darling. They will shelter us from everything but the moonlight." 

"Yes, then. Come!" 

They ran until they were hidden by those mists, and Drusilla turned and opened her arms. Nick stepped into them, let his hungry arms close about her softness, drew her up against him. 

Her open mouth seemed to dissolve beneath his lips. Her belly lifted as though to caress the straining bar of flesh that grew in immensity even as he felt her body fitting so closely to his own. 

"We are safe?" she murmured throatily.

"There is no one here but us, my angel, my sweet."

And then—

They heard the hoofs. 

Iron hoofs on stone, as a horse might make as it trotted. The sharp sounds penetrated those thick mists, they seemed to reverberate and echo. The boy and girl stiffened together, drew back and stared into each other's eyes. 

What was a horse doing up here? 

No one with a brain in his head would ride horseback on this mountain in the darkness and with those thick mists. 

What madman was loose near here? 

The wind picked up, it blew against their clothes, it drove the mists one way and another. The mists parted 

Drusilla opened her mouth to scream. 

Nick clapped a hand over that mouth he had been kissing and with his free arm, he dragged her downward into the sheltering grasses. Those grasses were tall, they hid them from the sharp eyes which seemed to pierce through that whiteness like burning coals. Drusilla trembled, she shook all over as she sought to draw herself so close to Nick that she would be hidden almost inside his body. 

The hoofs touched stone, they moved off into the soft earth. They heard a voice calling with all the allure of the fabled sirens. 

"Who is there? Who?" 

The mists thickened as suddenly as they had dissipated. They swallowed up that strange creature they had seen, they made it disappear. 

“Nick?"

"I saw it."

“It was—"

"A centaur. I know." 

"But that can't be! There are no such things as centaurs, half a man, half a horse. They're only legends." 

"I saw it. So did you." 

Something hit the stone near which they were crouched. Then they heard the sound of the rifle. It was like thunder in the stillness of the night. The sound alone shocked them, made them huddle even closer to the ground. 

Nick tugged at her wrist. In a hoarse whisper, he said, "We've got to get out of here. Crawl, Dru! Crawl!" 

They wriggled forward and downward. On ground where they had run so happily moments before, they made their way slowly and carefully. They did not look behind them. All their attention was on the ground over which they slid. 

The hoofs could be heard, searching. 

Again, that soft voice called. “You are out there. But where? Do not hide from one of Cheiron's children." 

Drusilla shuddered. “Wasn't Cheiron a centaur?" she whispered. 

Nick nodded. He was a fisherman, the son and grandson of fishermen. He was a realist. He had read the tales of the Greek heroes. What Greek hadn't? But to him, they were merely fables, for the most part. Especially that part of them that had to do with things like centaurs and gorgons. 

Something like a centaur could not exist. It was impossible. There were no such things. And yet, he and Drusilla had seen one! 

They crawled on. Once Nick lifted a small stone and hurled it at some larger ones twenty feet away. The high powered rifle spoke then, and even through the mists they saw a stab of red and heard the high-pitched whine of a bullet striking rock and then ricocheting off into the mists. 

Now they went silently, as quiet as field mice. They made no sound, they seemed almost to be a part of the earth itself. They could still hear the centaur, they knew it was back there, hunting for them. But now they were a good distance away, and moving as swiftly as they could crawl. 

They came to a flat stretch of ground, where rocks lay tumbled about. A huge, flat stone lay upon two others, forming a crude cave. Seeing it, Nick began to move toward it, with Drusilla with him. 

"In here," he whispered.

"We ought to go home, Nick, as fast as we can!"

"That thing won't find us. Not in here." 

They crept into the little space. It was wider than Nick had suspected, there was room to sit up in, and in which to move about on the knees. He caught Drusilla to him and held her against him. 

For long moments they listened, but heard nothing. Of course, if that centaur were walking about on grass and dirt, its hoofs would make no sound, Nick told himself. And if they themselves made no sound, the thing would never discover them. 

“Nick, hadn't we better be getting home?"

"It's early. We've scarcely arrived." 

She snuggled closer, and now Nick caught the faint perfume of her thick black hair, and sensed the softness of her flesh which strained against him. The touch of her thigh on his leg was like a hand, gently stroking. He felt his manhood begin its bloat, felt the stiffening of his flesh. 

His hand slipped from her shoulder down her side. She turned slightly, lay on her back. Her eyes were open, staring up at his face as he leaned over her. Nick bent his head, they kissed. 

It was a gentle kiss at first, the mere touching of skin to skin. But as Nick moved his head slightly and his tongue came out to run around her lips, Drusilla opened her mouth to accept his tongue. 

Drusilla moaned, deep in her throat. His hand was sliding over her side, rising toward her hardening breasts. He touched her breast and Drusilla shuddered. Her nipples were upright, aching to be played with, to be kissed. 

Nick was feverish. For such a long time he had admired Drusilla Lapidos from afar. Their families were feuding. Her father Myron hated his father, Xenos. If either of those men knew that he and Drusilla were up here, they would be in for a bad time. 

Now they were together, hidden from the world. No one knew where they were or what they were doing. 

“We shall be married," he whispered, kissing her mouth once again. "We shall have a fine house, and raise strong and beautiful children." 

Drusilla smiled, as though she were dreaming. She would never be allowed to marry Nick. Not unless they eloped or—and here she gave a tiny shiver—unless he gave her a baby. But she loved him so much! She did, she did! She wanted his hands to explore her body, to make her know the heat of passion. 

And so she crooned to him under her breath, stretching out her arms so that her breasts would become more prominent. Surely he must see how large her nipples were, stiff and upright, as though yearning for his mouth 

Nick let his hand slide further upward. His fingertips touched the base of her breast. It was firm, soft. It invited his caresses. No one had ever touched her breast before. It was as virgin as herself. And Drusilla Lapidos was tired of virginity. 

She smiled at him in the faint moonlight filtering between the stones and gleaming down upon them. She moved slightly and her breasts quivered. Nick gave a little cry and then his fingers were on the tie-strings of her blouse. The strings came loose, the blouse seemed almost to part so that the inner slopes of her breasts lay in a pool of moonlight. 

His hand touched those inner slopes, ran inside the blouse. The softness of her breasts, their smoothness, made him cry out in a choked voice. He had never seen a woman's breasts. His hand moved and more of the blouse fell away. 

Now he could see a nipple. It was large, dark. It stood up and seemed almost to cry out to him. Nick bent his head, his lips parted. Those lips dropped onto that nipple, gripped it, sucked. 

Drusilla wailed softly in the night, her own hand moving to that breast and lifting it as though to stuff even more of it into his mouth. Her thighs rubbed together: a fire was growing between those thighs, a fire such as she had never known. She was all molten heat there, and it seemed that those secret lips were trying to open, as might the petals of a flower to the sun. 

“Nick," she moaned. "Oh, Nick!" 

He could not speak, except with his mouth that gripped her nipple and with his hands that searched along her thighs and hips, discovering their sleekness, their smoothness. It was difficult for him to breathe. His heart was erupting in his chest, and there was a madness in his veins. 

His palm brought up her skirt and now his hand lay flat against her naked leg. That hand moved up and down. It felt the heat of her flesh, seemed almost to sense the trembling need of that leg to lift, to give him access to what lay above. 

"I love you, I want you," he panted.

"Yes, yes, my darling. Yes!" 

Neither of them heard the hoof-beats of that which roamed the hillside. They were deaf to each hoof-fall, each pause that would have told an alert listener that the centaur was also listening in the mountain stillness. 

For now Nick had his hand on her upper thigh, was moving across her groin. Drusilla cried out softly. 

The hoof-beats began, slowly, as though a horse were walking. They moved secretly, and the grasses on which they trampled gave forth no sound. 

Her skirt rose upward, and in the gleam of moonlight, Nick saw the nakedness of her hips, saw the growth of thick black hair, caught the gleam of moisture on those hairs. 

"You," she whispered. “Let me see you." 

He rose and his hands flew to his coarse trousers, to his shirt. In moments he was crouched above her, almost like a faun, and his manhood was a rigid bar. Drusilla stared, her mouth dry and her heart hammering wildly. 

Very gently, as though she were about to touch a frightened bird, her own hands came out. They closed about his erection, held it between her palms. Her mouth was dry, it was difficult to speak. 

"So big, so big," she whispered. “You are a man, my darling, a man. Oh!" 

He stared down at her, seeing her naked breasts, the nudity of her uncovered loins. Those gentle fingers on his flesh, moving so lazily, so excitingly, were driving him to madness. He could not restrain himself. It was asking too much. 

Drusilla was smiling up at him. 

She was shifting slightly, and those slim, graceful legs of hers were widening, stretching outward as far as she could push them. Nick stared downward, seeing her womanhood exposed to him. 

"Take me, my dearest. Take me." 

He eased downward, he fumbled for only an instant, and then he was buried in her. There was pain for a moment, during which she squirmed as though to escape that piercing flesh, and then the pain fled before pleasure. 

Her legs lifted to close about him, to hold him. 

His hands slid under her buttocks, lifting her slightly so that he could penetrate the more deeply inside her. 

They gasped, they choked, they breathed stentoriously, but their hips never ceased their pounding, slamming rhythm. All the world seemed to have fled away from them, so that only their flesh was alive. 

It went on and on, and Drusilla cried out in the ecstasy of her passion, her hips surging upward as if to capture even more of his flesh. Nick was trying to hold back his own yells, he felt caught up in a storm of happiness, swirled one way and then another, a storm that rose higher, higher, until human flesh could stand no more. 

He collapsed and lay upon her, and her arms and legs held him. He kissed her throat, nuzzled under the spill of her long black hair, held her so tightly she could hardly breathe. 

If they had been able to listen, they would have heard the hoof-beats coming closer, closer. The hoof-beats paused, came to a full stop. The moonlight gleamed down on a half-man, half-horse, on a head that moved but slightly, on eyes that glistened brightly where the moonlight caught them. 

A rifle lifted where something waited.