WHO: Antigone and Melpomene WHEN: After Ares leaves WHERE: Melpomene’s room. WHAT/WARNINGS: Talk of rape, and also besmirchment of Ares good name
"Romeo?" Melpomene heard her name called, as a question, from the other side of her bedroom door. It seemed to her a good name to be called as a question, and she wondered, distantly, if her brilliant Will had chosen a name for his tragic hero with such a purpose in mind.
Antigone appeared in the wide open doorway, her hand pressed against the frame. Melpomene looked up at her from where she sat in the middle of her bed; Antigone was holding the shredded dress, looking heartbroken and sick as she averted her eyes from her nakedness. It was truly a moving look on her, and the ragged dress in her hands was a perfect touch. “Come in,” Melpomene said. “It’s alright,”
“Gods and monsters – don’t tell me it’s alright!” Antigone replied, with force, yes, but with enough control to swerve her voice away from her friend, so it didn’t (she hoped) sound like she was the one Antigone was upset with.
Wincing, Melpomene pushed herself up, and Antigone swallowed hard and stepped into the room. She picked up a blanket from where it lay crumpled on the floor, and slowly stepped toward the bed. Carefully, she held it out toward Melpomene, and when she didn’t flinch away, Antigone laid it gently around her shoulders. Melpomene gathered the blanket closer, looking up at Antigone, and gave her a little smile.
“He’s gone now?” Unlike her name, this wasn’t supposed to be a question; Antigone had meant it as reassurance, and she kicked herself for letting the questioning tone slip in. Melpomene nodded, though, her hand stroking the blanket that Antigone had gifted. “Good,” Antigone said. She kept replying the way Ares had looked at her when he told her to fuck off, and it kept panicking her anew, every time. “Good… Are you – okay or… not okay? Did he hurt you?”
She really was something, Antigone. Melpomene watched her as she shifted her feet, still wearing the end of her panic attack like a wedding veil. Her hair was pulled back from her face, her ponytail tucked into the back of a hoodie she’d pulled on as an extra layer of protection, which was a sweet and very mortal thing to do.
Melpomene wanted to tap deeper into this state of hers, and when Antigone asked: “Did he hurt you?” she could, quite truthfully, say “Yes.”
“I’m sorry,” Antigone said, the weight of the feeling like an avalanche, forcing out her words: “I’m sorry I couldn’t stop him – I thought if I tried he might have… I might have made it worse.”
“You would have,” Melpomene's eyes held Antigone’s; there was a dignity there, Antigone thought: someone holding herself very strong; someone who was not going through this for the first time. The bruises on her neck were a few days old, Antigone could see now, and felt terrible for not noticing them before. “You can’t stop Ares. It would be like standing alone at your city gates to meet an army, wave after wave of soldiers. It was safer, to stay in your room.”
“Safer!?” Antigone threw her hands up in the air, and then tried to control their flight, pressing them both against her mouth. They were both right, of course, but Antigone didn’t pretend she didn’t hate it. Staying safe in her room while the god of war raped her friend? She was appalled at herself.
Yes, it had been safer for both of them if she stayed out of the way.
And yes, she hated it.
But she’d hated her uncle Creon’s decree that her brother’s body be left out to rot, too, and she hadn’t given a damn about safer when she’d set out to do what was right, and bury him. (That was a lie – she’d cared a lot. She knew her young life would be forfeit before she’d had a chance to do so many things, marry Haemon, see Ismene grow up even more beautiful, figure out a way to shed the curse on their family and truly live, out of the shadow of their horrible brothers and the death of their mother and the exile of their father. She’d been looking forward to her life.)
Antigone looked at her life now: she wasn’t so very fond of it. She didn’t feel like it held a lot of promise. And yet she’d still played it safe. What a damned coward.
Everything felt wrong.
“I’m sorry,” she said, wretchedly. “What can I do for you? Some water? I can – run you a bath?”
“Sit with me,” Melpomene said.
Antigone sat on the very edge of the bed, Melpomene’s own little watchdog. Only when she sat did she notice she was still holding the black dress, and quickly hurried it behind her back, as if the sight of it was suddenly unbearable. Struggling for words, she asked “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Okay,” said Melpomene, but waited, letting Antigone take the lead.
“How – how long’s this been going on?”
“Only the last few nights. This time round.”
Only?! thought Antigone, the word like a knife through the stomach. “...This time?”
“I’ve been with him, before,” Melpomene took her time in the telling. “A long time ago, or, not so long really; the end of 1941... Well, I was with a poet, a good man. Broken, but... but good. Ares found me. He was so powerful, then.” He had been, too, riding the waves from Pearl Harbour as they crashed war down on America’s shores. Her poet had been a forty-four year old veteran who’d survived the First World War with his writing hands intact but his soul in ribbons, and when the Second World War broke, so did he. Melpomene and Ares had fucked, then, but the forties were a lucrative time for both of them, neither in the same place for long.
Antigone was just listening, a quiet expression of awfulness written over her face. “And he found you again,” she said, and Melpomene gave her a slow nod. All her movements were slow, now; Antigone’s demeanor was bringing out a different mood in her. The way Antigone cast her in the role of victim, it gave her shivers.
Antigone’s sigh chafed. “What does he want with you?”
Melpomene gave her a leveling look.
“Right – oh – okay,” Antigone shook her head. It was obvious what Area wanted from her... “I mean,” she added, “Why you?” and then quickly “No–”
It was a terrible question to ask, she knew it as soon as it slipped out of her mouth, a question that reeked of victim blaming. But it hadn’t been about that, not at all. It had been a question that was spurred on by the injustice of the situation. It was Antigone screaming why at the sky again, kneeling on those cold pavingstones painted with Maxwell’s blood. She said, as quickly as she could: “Don’t answer that - that makes it sound like I think it’s your fault. It’s not. I don’t. It’s not.”
Antigone had spent a few moments, locked in her bathroom earlier, outraged at Romeo because she’d sounded so flirty toward Ares when he’d first arrived. She’d needed to give herself a very angry talk to never, ever let Romeo know she’d thought this way. It wasn’t flirting, Antigone knew that. It was survival. Maybe Romeo knew if she hadn’t gone along with it Ares might have put more than his fist through the wall.
“Part of it is because I’m a Muse,” Melpomene said, answering her question anyway. “He’s had two of my sisters. He wants to collect the whole set.”
“You’re not part of a set!” Antigone’s pitch shot up to the heavens. “You’re a person!” She watched as Romeo shook her head, and wondered – how many men in her life had treated her like a Muse instead of a whole person? How much did that destroy her sense of self or had she ever had a chance to build one in the first place? How easy was it for men like Ares to pray on that?
Melpomene said: “You're thinking like a mortal.”
“I’m thinking like a decent human being!” Antigone snapped. “People – gods – whoever – they don’t get to treat you like a thing. It’s not right.”
“Oh Antigone,” Melpomene said, reaching out to touch her face. “After all your long life, you can’t still believe in justice, can you?”
Antigone pulled her face away, angry, hurt tears blazing in her eyes. “I can,” she said, though her first statement was shaky. Her second was better: “I must. Even if no one else does. Especially if no one else does. There is a right and a wrong in the world, there is.”
There wasn’t, Melpomene thought, but she deeply understood the very human desire to believe it, and never wanted Antigone to stop. “There might be such a force,” she said. “But the will of the gods is a force of its own.”
“UGH,” said Antigone, loudly. Yes, she though. Gods believed they were untouched by the concept of mortal justice. Many mortals believe they were, too. "Yes. Well. And don't I know all about what happens when mortals and gods don't see eye to eye," she said, dryly. Of course, back then, she'd been following divine law, instead of human. But the gods, then, had been right.
The gods now - one in particular - were not.
Her stomach settled, hard as stone. It anchored her. Her belief anchored her.
"Is he going to come back?" she asked Romeo.
"I imagine so."
"Okay."
"Okay?"
"Okay. I'm not going to let him hurt you again."
Melpomene's eyes widened. "You're going to stand at my city gate and face down Ares?" She asked, drinking in the determination on Antigone's face. She wondered how far this would go, would Antigone die for her? Would Ares go straight for the kill anyway - no, Melpomene suspected, I think not. He'd break her, though.
Melpomene wondered how much it would take before Antigone stopped fighting back.
Spending time with Ares was definitely doing something to her.
"We could move," Antigone suggested. She didn't want to face him down. The thought honestly terrified her. "Go and stay somewhere else for a while."
Her mind instantly went to Ismene, Oedipus, and she had to tell it firmly no. Somewhere in the depths of her heart a compass swung toward family whenever she craved safety. Even with the family she had, which couldn’t be described as safe by any stretch of the imagination.
But it was a bad idea – even if she did want to see her father or sister, she did not want to bring down the wrath of war upon them. "My friend Joan will know somewhere," she said, instead. Joan knew war. Joan would understand.
Melpomene gave her a slightly pitying smile. "You want to turn this into a chase, for him?"
Antigone winced. She had a point. Gods were notorious pursuers and neither she nor the muse had the power to turn either of them into trees.
“I don’t know what else to do,” Antigone said, so honest, so plain.
“If there was anything that could be done, the world would not be the place it is,” Melpomene said, shifting, then stiffly getting to her feet.
“Oh – careful-” Antigone clambered to stand too, in case she needed catching.
“It’s okay,” Melpomene said, with a tough little smile. “It’ll be worse tomorrow.”
Gods and monsters – that she knew that, that anybody had to know that. Antigone wanted to rip the world down.
Melpomene watched the way her words landed. She knew the impact one line could make, something so simple but so heavy with promise as it’ll be worse tomorrow. The ache’ll be worse tomorrow. The bruises’ll be darker, tomorrow. Whatever future that was coming would be closer, tomorrow. It’ll all be worse, tomorrow.
She thought she might give the bruise on her thigh a couple of days to really develop, before letting Antigone see.
“... I might make some tea,” Antigone said faintly.
“Open another bottle of wine,” Melpomene suggested, instead. She knew for sure she could use one. “I have to take a shower, I have a call with the Australians in – shit, half an hour.”
Antigone wanted to tell her to skip it, look after herself, shower for an hour (Antigone felt like showering for an hour and Ares had only looked at her) but she’d seen the way Romeo buried herself in work, and figured it was a better coping mechanism than some. “I’ll be here,” she promised.
“I know you will,” Melpomene said, and watched, in bemusement, as Antigone went off to lock the door.