"Now I really do feel Minoan." She headed down the grand staircase, brandishing the light. Then she called out, her voice resounding down the maze of windy hallways, "I am the queen. I am Pasiphae. Where's my white bull?"
"Eva, you're drunk," he yelled after.
"I'm intoxicated. It's different." She laughed, low in her throat. "I'm intoxicated by the palace. The thought of my bull, the eternal male." Her voice echoed more. "Know about eternal males, darling? They're like eternal females, only harder." She grinned at him, then proceeded, tracing the wide marble steps.
As she floated down, carrying the candle, the moist air was scented with jasmine, alive with the music of crickets. They rounded the last curving steps, and the ornate vista of the queen's bedroom spread before them, its blue dolphins cavorting in their pastel sea.
He walked over and patted the alabaster portico. "Hard as this, your eternal male? This is a real test for the eternal female bottom."
She threw herself down, then reached and ran a drunken readiness check across his wet thigh. "I'm ready for something hard inside me." Her voice was strange, detached and ethereal.
"When did you start talking like that?" He loved it. "Not even in the old days—"
"When I became Minoan, darling. When I became the blood relation of Queen Pasiphae."
She wiggled out of her soaked brown dress and tossed it onto the floor. As he watched her begin to sway before the fresco of the dolphins, he had the definite feeling time was in a warp, that the flow of centuries was in reverse. Maybe Eva was none other than Pasiphae reborn. The room was perfumed and serene, perfect for a queen.
Then she bent down and carefully stationed her candle on the stone. Looking up she said, "Let me have some more of that ouzo. I love being here. It's shocking and wonderful."