Ophidiophilia

If you’re not afraid of snakes–and I’m not–there are advantages to having Medusa as a lover. Think about soft lips on yours as serpentine tongues caress your ears, think of all those shivers. Or smooth scales on your arms, or slinking coils massaging your scalp, cool on a hot afternoon.
I’m saying if you’re bound to Zeus and you need an out, here’s what to do: fall asleep in his bed at the peak of it all. This insult will not be borne and you will be exiled to Medusa’s island to be turned to stone. You’ll welcome this fate after so long with Zeus. And Medusa in her courteous blindfold, curious about the new arrival, investigating with her reptile senses, will take your breath away. Her beauty. Her languid walk. Her thousand eyes that are not human.
I’m saying if you gasp at her approach and your body flushes with fear and desire, she will know. Her heat-seeking nature. Her snake ears catching the rush of your blood. If she steps closer, tastes the air with all her mouths, you will know finally that those endless years with Zeus were a wasteland. You might as well have been in Hades as Olympus.
(To be fair to Zeus and the other Olympians, life on earth was awful. When Zeus came prowling, I was all pick me pick me pick me pick me! And the manna was delicious for a while. And I wore my anti-aging robes like a lesser goddess. And sometimes he would send me to frolic with his other playthings where I learned the pleasures of pleasure and company of companions. An eternity of anything becomes torture.)
If you, like I, find yourself in rags on the parched rocks, trembling at Queen Gorgon’s approach, know that she is very capable with her blindfold on. Know that elsewhere on the isle lies a shelter of shade and silk where she can lead you–you stumbling on the rocks, her walking assuredly with no need for the two eyes in her stunning face–her snakes hissing at you to keep up. Know that there are places to bathe, attendants to dry and oil you. You have not gotten what you want, yet, but neither are you dead.
It may seem pathetic, what you have to offer, but she will not have had a mortal lover in some time. Naked enthusiasm goes a long way. If you are like me, you will not mind being an oddity or even a clown. Make her laugh. Laughter is more delicious than manna to the gods. Novelty more precious than wine. When, finally, she kisses you, and her snakes wrap around you, pulling you in, submit. Perhaps you did not know that Medusa can turn a body liquid just as well as stone.
You could live like this.
But if you are a human whose mortality was postponed at the top of a godly mountain, you will feel age coming at you with a breathless speed on this island. You must drink up Medusa and her serpents until you are full. Then you can, if you are brave, kiss her lips, stroke her precious snakes, and reach for her blindfold saying, “My darling, let me look you in the eyes.”