Whispered name

Calypso did, in truth, love Odysseus. He truly had everything—the finest food, the most beautiful garments, and the very best company on the island. For was not the presence of a goddess beside him, her tenderness, her love—the greatest honor a mortal could receive! It mattered not what the mortal himself thought of it. It mattered not that he avoided the beautiful goddess with all his might, that he wept upon the shore—he simply failed to comprehend his own happiness in this paradise! Calypso did, in truth, love him. When she, with childlike simplicity, pulled him into her bed, and when, with that same childish petulance, she sulked at his refusal, only to quickly relent and press her soft, fragrant body against him once more. But Odysseus could not love her in return. He simply could not. Even after several years had passed and he had fully accepted that he was imprisoned on this island until the end of his short mortal life. Even when there was no other choice... no choice at all. Even when he lay sprawled upon the silken sheets beneath a deceptively tender body that was not his wife's, when he was both begged and demanded for a love he simply could not give. He could not, he was powerless, it was impossible. Even his own body, starved for touch and entangled in her magic, responded to this tender violence slowly and reluctantly. And his soul—his soul remained silent. As if the Fates themselves had forbidden him to love this skin the color of dark honey, so unlike the skin of Penelope, white to the point of translucence, adorned with a few rare moles and delicate blue veins. The goddess's heavy, ripe breasts and her lush hips lost all comparison to his wife's slender frame and rosy nipples. And even the scent, the heavy, sweet scent of Calypso, the fragrance of exotic fruits and honey so unfamiliar to him, was no match for the pure, spring-water aroma of Penelope, the daughter of a freshwater nymph. It drove Calypso to screams and rages, to spending hours proclaiming how she was better and more beautiful than any mortal woman, how much more she could give him. Not just clothing and shelter and incredible, boundless love, but even immortality itself! But Odysseus would still wrench himself from her arms upon the couch, he would still weep upon the shore. And he still talked in his sleep, whispering that one, familiar name. The sole act of defiance he could permit himself against the goddess...