Endless Summer
Cafe Botsares was now largely empty, the lunch crowd finally thinning out as the sun began her gentle descent west. Cronus sat silently, his eyes fixed on the gentle lapping of the sea against the coast. His astakos was only half finished, but he was no longer amused by it. The waiter hovered nearby, trying to decide if he should take the plate. Cronus had not touched the dish for a half hour. Piraeus had not been the port of Athens when he ruled, though he had to admit it was a better choice than Phaleron. The whole little town fairly bustled with activity.
Tourist accounted for more business than every nowadays, especially with such easy access to the many islands that stippled the Aegean. When he could sense the waiter's anxiety peaking, Cronus gestured that his meal could be taken away. With rush of relief the man scooped up the remains of the lobster. Cronus ordered a Greek coffee and the waiter nodded happily, quickly heading back to the kitchen.
Beside him sat a young woman, Sabienne. She was probably not even twenty, though Cronus found it particularly difficult to tell the age of women nowadays. She was French, though she repeatedly insisted she was half Greek. When Sabienne first mentioned this out on the beach in the morning Cronus smiled gently and nodded in agreement. He did not want to tell her she was mistaken. Cronus could smell a Greek a kilometer away and this girl was clearly a Gaul.
However she proved an amiable enough companion for the afternoon. She talked incessantly, but had a good clean accent and was simple enough to follow. It amazed Cronus how much her rambling stories of friends and enemies, the little dramas of her still nascent social life, echoed the tales of his own children back on the Mount.
She was very beautiful too, possessed of a hungry, lean body distinctly the province of healthy youth. Her skin was dark from days in the sand. Blonde hair, a shade lighter than it would be in the winter, was gathered into a loose pony tail, which trailed to an end halfway down the well-toned, distinctly feminine curve of her back. A loose dress covered her small breasts and thin waist, concealing the bikini she still worse beneath. Straight teeth and a clean complexion complimented her azure eyes, which blinked just enough to tell Cronus she was genuinely speaking to him. He made sure to smile and nod appropriately. She would be simply delicious.
Cronus shifted his gaze from the sea back to his lunch… companion. Sabienne's smile blossomed anew when looked at her again. Her stream of speech faltered a moment, some primal part of her mammalian brain registering that she was looking at something more than a man. He had this effect on most humans.
The waiter swooped back in at this moment, delivering the Greek coffee. He was gone again in a whisper of a movement. Cronus smiled gently. "Would you like more wine, Sabienne?"
She assented and Cronus picked up the bottle of Xynomavro and filled her glass. She quickly found her speech again and started off on a story about the first time she got drunk on wine, back when she lived in Marseilles with her aunt. As Cronus set down the bottle she suddenly stopped speaking. This was enough to give Cronus pause and he looked to her once again. She sat entirely still, though not in a relaxed posture. Her mouth was slightly agape, as if in the act of forming her next word, and her fingers were frozen in a nearly closed ring around the stem of her wine glass.
A quick glance at the town around her confirmed Cronus' suspicions. He picked up his coffee and leaned back in his chair. As he sipped at the thick, bitter liquid he once again looked out at the sea, taking a singular thrill at seeing the foam-capped waves captured against the formerly fleeing sun.
The once King of all Creation smiled tightly. "Now," he commented quietly, "the fun begins."