She chose to study in Sparta. Firstly she wanted to keep it quiet, and the gossip in Athens was deplorable. Secondly, the Spartans took boxing even more seriously than the Athenians. Whereas in Athens it was looked upon as an Olympic sport, in Sparta it was considered an essential preparation for battle, and Spartan soldiers had a reputation for fierceness.

She took to it really well, and they soon pitted her against a seasoned male boxer, whom she defeated in grand style. In fact, although throughout Greece she was celebrated as the Goddess of Love, ever since she had demonstrated her prowess in boxing, she was venerated as Aphrodite “Areia”, or “Warlike” in Sparta. One thing they didn’t teach her was the combination of a knee to the balls and a punch to the face, which she saw Athena use against Poseidon. But she mastered that, once back in Athens, by practicing it on her unfortunate slaves. Lastly, she added a few tricks that she had picked up as Patron Goddess of prostitutes. Protecting them had meant she needed many combat skills.

Satisfied, she planned to trick Dionysos into fighting. She didn’t like him anyway. He was the God of Wine, Inebriation and Fertility, but he might just as well be the God of general debauchery, the way he behaved. She had had enough of him visiting her brothels, drunk, claiming he had forgotten his money, and “promising” to pay next time. Within a week, her plan had worked, and we hear Dionysus complaining to Zeus:

“Just because, on this one occasion, I forgot my money, the tarts hid my clothes after I fell asleep, and wouldn’t give them back. I got thrown out by the security, and had to make my way back to Mount Olympus, naked. Luckily it was dark, but that didn’t stop me getting chased by soldiers from the homosexual regiment.”

Zeus held his stomach and ribs, and groaned after laughing so much. Eventually, he was able to ask:

“Who gave them the authority to do this?”

“That bitch Aphrodite, of course!”

“Aphrodite?” Zeus called her. “Are you busy at the moment?”

“Well, I was just showing my class of ladies how to make a man … but it doesn’t matter. How can I help you?”

Zeus related what Dionysos had told him, concluding, “He even got chased by soldiers of the homosexual regiment!”

“I always said he was a nice boy,” Aphrodite answered, mischievously.

“Will you be serious!” Dionysos shouted. “I demand compensation! A free visit to a brothel at least.”

“You’ll get no compensation out of me,” she told him truculently.

“Dear me,” exclaimed Zeus. “We appear to have hit an impasse.”

“It’s just like Athena and Poseidon,” commented Aphrodite.

“Are you suggesting you settle your difference by fighting?” asked Zeus. (He wasn’t very bright.)

“Why not?” Aphrodite responded. “I can beat a drunkard any day.”

“And I can beat a common whore!” Dionysos yelled in a rage.

“Courtesan, please,” corrected Aphrodite.

*****

So the scene was set as before, while nine of the other gods watched, fascinated, from “on high” when the combatants squared up to each other in the ring. They were joined by a breathless Hermes, gasping with important news:

“Zeus, Zeus!” declared the god (who had a bit of a reputation as a “goody goody”). “Dionysos was seen drinking in a tavern half an hour ago!”

“Well where else would he do it? Oh, I understand. Dionysos!” Zeus called to the god, “You have shown disrespect to the Olympic sport of boxing by drinking before the fight. Aphrodite, I award you one groin strike.”

“He’s too scared to face me without a drink inside him!” she called, cheerfully.

“Fuck off!” answered an angry Dionysos.

“That’s two groin strikes,” declared Zeus, to Aphrodite’s delight.

Furious, Dionysos lashed out at her with an attempted right hook, but she ducked underneath it. Athena raised her eyebrows at her speed and anticipation. It was her turn to feel professional jealousy.

When Aphrodite took advantage of Dionysos’s expansive follow through of punching the ether by seizing and twisting his balls, Athena craned her neck to get a better view. She had always fought “honourably”, but she admired the way Aphrodite reduced her opponent to gibbering helplessness by squeezing his balls. And all the time she smiled!

She shoved her opponent contemptuously in his face and ominously raised her other fist. Then he got it on the chin. Dionysos had been in his share of pub brawls, usually with half-drunk customers. But he had never been punched before by a neat, shapely, smiling woman, and he found it quite unnerving. It was a good punch, too, and it had him staggering backwards.

Aphrodite obviously knew her stuff, the puzzled spectators agreed, as she slammed a right uppercut into his jaw. (The training in Sparta had paid off handsomely.) When Dionysos swung a haymaker at her, she just calmly leant back and thrust her left fist into his chest. He tried again, with his right, but it breezed over her shoulder. Exposed as he was, following it, she grabbed his head, pulling him downwards, and banged her knee into his chest.

Dionysos’s chest felt as if it had molten lead poured into it. He gasped and stepped back, but Aphrodite now demonstrated another trick, picked up protecting her prostitutes, and she fired a sharp elbow into his throat. He was quite helpless after it, so she seized his left arm, twisting it behind him, and grabbed his balls from behind. It was time for more squeezing and twisting – and howling. In fact, he hollered so much he didn’t notice when she stopped. Not until she kicked him behind the knee, that is, which was a cue for more agonised yelling from him.

Standing to the side of him, Aphrodite kicked him in the kidney area, broadside on. He tried to reply with a left cross, but it went over his nimble opponent’s head, enabling her to reach for his balls, and resume her manipulations.

“That’s three groin strikes,” Athena stated with disapproval.

“It’s all part of the same move,” Zeus blandly answered. (Not that he was biased in favour of Aphrodite – oh, no!)

Athena’s criticism evaporated with Aphrodite’s next attack, however. It was a soaring right uppercut, and it put her male opponent down on the canvas, flat out. Aphrodite looked at the gods as if to ask, “How was that?”

She’d got him in the eye with it, and Athena noted with approval that she had managed to blacken it. And – yes – being knocked down by Aphrodite had given Dionysos an erection. She was delighted! Her only reason for the match was to see if she could give a man an erection this way, because she had seen Athena do it to Poseidon.

Talking of Poseidon, he now pointed out to Zeus that his erection when he fought Athena had cost him a groin strike. Wasn’t he going to award Aphrodite another one?

“She still has one,” Zeus answered, “because those three strikes were really part of the same one. Plus, you’re the God of the Sea, and you had no business getting an erection during a boxing match. He’s the God of Fertility as well as the God of Wine, so I’d expect him to get one.” (Athena smirked in Poseidon’s direction.)

Aphrodite laid on the mockery as Dionysos struggled up, hoping to goad him into a rash stroke. She succeeded, because he flashed another wild sweeper of a punch, and she was able to duck under it. Then she got a nasty one into his exposed belly, which knocked a subsequent punch of his off course.

Then she treated the onlookers to the shot of the match – a classic left cross, full on the chin. Dionysos’s whole body rocked with the force of the blow, while his head bent back towards the ropes.

“How does she look so ladylike, when she delivers a blow like that?” whispered Apollo to Hermes.

“I don’t know, but it’s BEAUTIFUL,” he replied, shaking his head in awe.

Her right fist joined in the merrymaking, with a rising cross to the jaw. The rictus of pain on Dionysos’s face was in abrupt contrast to the deeply feminine smile on Aphrodite’s face as she doled out the punishment.

“Oh!” sighed the gods in unison, as Aphrodite high kicked him, catching his ear. She had certainly kept her prowess in fighting quiet, forgetting the training in Sparta. Protecting prostitutes obviously required considerable skill (not to mention brutality).

She was pushing the pace now. Everyone could sense it. She hit him from the side, catching his other jaw; she got him low in the stomach. For the first time, she stopped smiling. She looked dedicated and intense as she worked towards a conclusion.

“Oh!” breathed the gods again as she surprised them with the groin strike that she had been saving. It was the combination of a knee to the balls with a punch in the face, that had had so many of her slaves howling. And now it did the same to her opponent. Poor Dionysos was on the ropes with the double strike. Her right knee punished his balls, while her left fist inflicted more damage to his face. Her smile had returned too, knowing she had won.

Dionysos had his arms over the ropes to hold him up. He was beaten, and battered. The only thing that had any life was his erection, miraculously still as vibrant as before. Some of the gods cheered as she reached for it and started stroking it.

“Lucky bastard,” muttered Hermes. “I’m told she has magical hands when she does that.”

“All women have magical hands when they do that,” Apollo replied curtly.

“Zeus, I must protest!” complained Athena. “This is supposed to be competitive sport!”

“She’s the Goddess of Love,” he explained. “I’d be surprised if she didn’t give him a little treat after what she’s done to him.”

The gods were pretty evenly divided between those who looked on with disapproval, like Athena, and those cheering on Aphrodite’s efforts, Poseidon cheering the loudest. (Anything to annoy Athena.)

Aphrodite allowed Dionysos to cum in her silky hand. She waited for each spasm to subside, and then resolved to finish the fight in style. She held him steady with her left hand, and teased him – and the gods – with her right fist. It’s difficult to know how to describe that last blow, and I think the best word to use is simply “punch”. It wasn’t a specific type, it was just the knockout blow at the end of a fight, and it did its job superbly.

The man crumpled down on the mat, unconscious, and the woman stood over him and raised her arms in triumph. Then, remembering her audience, she made a pretty curtsy, and blew them a kiss.