Summary:
After centuries Cupid finally finds the ONE for him.
Note:
This is a 2013 Valentine's Day Contest story so please vote.
Note 2:
Also, please note that I have created my own rules for Cupid's ability and rules of love. I did some research and concluded that there is no one story for Cupid...so I made up my own.
Note 3:
Fans of mine, this does not have any hints of many of my usual themes of submission. This is simply a love story.
Note 4:
As usual, thanks to MAB7991 for editing another of my lengthy works (this one on a time crunch).
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Cupid had spent centuries helping others find love and spent almost as much time watching the love he sparked come crashing down in a fiery blaze. Not surprisingly, the plethora of failed relationships that he had been instrumental in starting had slowly eaten away at the once optimistic God of Love.
Cupid used to love his job; watching the undeniable glow of a woman when she knows she has found the one or watching a man who had been a player his whole life quit cold turkey when he meets one that challenges him in ways he didn't know a woman could. Those were the moments that warmed Cupid's heart.
Yet, the past thirty years had been very disillusioning for the love God. With over fifty percent of marriages ending in divorce and most teens losing their virginity to someone, they didn't even love as if love and sex were not connected. Society was crumbling right before his eyes. Sex had become a commodity and not something special or intimate.
Cupid himself had felt the glow of love many times throughout the centuries, yet had always denied himself the inner lust that had simmered inside him. He gave people love, but never felt it himself. As the centuries flew by, the temptation to just give in to the growing hunger to love, to feel something real and concrete was becoming harder to resist. He too craved the kind of love that transcends time and existence and would give up being Cupid in a heartbeat if he ever found the one.
Unfortunately, his mother Venus told him centuries ago, when Cupid was young and coming to grips with his fate, his gift, his curse, all true descriptors for Cupid depending on his emotional state that the rules of one sexually intimate transgression with a human.
His mother explained: There is no black or white Cupid. Once you have consummated a relationship with a mortal you yourself become mortal and lose not only your ability to live forever, but also your unique gift to bring love to a world in turmoil. I know it is tempting my dear, but you are a beacon of hope for Mother Earth, a constant good in a world where sometimes love is the only thing keeping a person alive.
So although Cupid had been tempted many times throughout history to cross the invisible line between Gods and humans, he remained celibate.
Centuries of the same job became rather monotonous to Cupid and in the last few decades he had been responsible for many of the top headlines of the year. It started accidentally when his shot missed the woman he was aiming for and hit Marilyn Monroe instead. Who turned around simultaneously and fell instantly for the playwright Arthur Miller. Cupid thought maybe the God of fate Moirae had spun her magic and Cupid figured it was meant to be. It wasn't until the 1990's that because he had become so bored with his job that he became rather mischievous putting together couples who logically made no sense. The first was Lyle Lovett and Julia Roberts, then it was Michael Jackson and Lisa Marie Presley. Once Cupid got started he couldn't stop, he cast his spell on Angelina Jolie and Billy Bob Thornton, Ted Danson and Whoopi Goldberg, Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, Macaulay Culkin and Mila Kunis, Renee Zellweger and Jack White and most recently on Katy Perry and Russell Brand and David Cross and Amber Tamblyn.
2013 should have been just another year like so many proceeding it, where Cupid controlled his inner hunger to feel love, yet for Cupid 2013 would be both the ending of one life and a start to another.
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Cupid was feeling melancholy as the month of love started. Valentine's Day had become a commercial fiasco just like Christmas and Easter, the true meaning had been skewed over the years so much that the true meaning was just a facade. Valentine's Day was supposed to be a day for people in love to celebrate their lives together...no more and no less.
No lame cards that had replaced love letters; no flowers which had become a symbol of how much a man loved a woman, which Cupid thought hilariously ironic considering flowers die (a rather depressing metaphor for love, although since so many relationships ended in epic failure Cupid assumed it was more foreshadowing than metaphoric).
Also, as soon as Christmas ended, the plethora of Valentine's Day overpriced propaganda hit the stores just adding to Cupid's frustration of how real love was portrayed. To make matters worse, Cupid had always resented how he was portrayed in the media. The long historical image of him as a baby with wings was ludicrous, he did not look anything like a baby, nor did he have wings. The truth was much cooler. Cupid could not fly, but he could teleport anywhere in the world. It was the best perk in this crazy gig. Cupid had traveled every inch of this glorious world. He had seen empires rise and fall and seen the happiness and horror that mankind can experience from every possible way imaginable. He could also make himself invisible which was a pretty sweet party trick.
Cupid was, of course not a baby, but a handsome man who had not aged a day since his 25th birthday. He wasn't a Greek God like Adonis but he was very handsome. After centuries of plying his trade as the bringer of love had given him the gift of understanding exactly what any woman wanted. He also understood that all women were different but for the most part they fell into four basic categories.
1. The pleaser: This was a very generic descriptor that hits a wide range of women.
A. The Insecure Syndrome
These are women who often had limited relationship experience and clings onto someone who gives her attention, even if it is not positive attention. Often they end up in a loveless marriage with an overbearing loser. They stay married because it is better to be with someone than to be alone.
B. The Daddy Syndrome
The pleaser could also be a woman who grew up with an authoritative old school father and a stay at home, do EVERYTHING, mother, who was bound to fall for a man just like her father thus continuing the cycle. Ironically, she is often oblivious to the reality that her man walks all over her (also an insecure syndrome trait).
C. The Needy Syndrome
The needy may sometimes be a mixture of an insecure and a daddy syndrome or just someone who ALWAYS needs to be with someone. They often settle (actually all types of pleasers usually settle) because they NEED to feel important, to feel NEEDED even if they are treated like crap by their man.
2. The diva: this too is a descriptor that can hit a broad range of diverse woman, all beautiful and all dangerous.
A. The Bitchy Snob Syndrome
As the title suggests, these woman are bitches. Odds are they are daddy's girls with lots of money who have always gotten what they wanted and expect relationships to work the same way. A bitch is self-centered and quickly angered and usually as fake as she seems to be. Yet, if you can break past her fierce outer shell, she can be tamed from lion to kitten rather easily.
B. The Seductress Syndrome
These woman are always on the prowl. They ooze sex appeal and they know exactly how to use it to get what they want. They tend to drift from man to man and are not interested in settling down. They like to be noticed and put up on a pedestal, yet they almost always have ulterior motives. Tigers in the bedroom, they are the toughest to tame.
C. The Social Butterfly Syndrome
These woman love to be the center of attention and are uncomfortable when they are not. They are gossip queens, fashion obsessed and live and breathe Cosmo Magazine. They too love to be noticed, but unlike the seductress they want to be wooed, wined, dined and treated like the Goddess they have convinced themselves they are.
3. The lost: these woman have lost who they are or never found it and can't break out of the cycle they find themselves in.
A. The Slut Syndrome
Somewhat of an unfair label, as men in the same syndrome are called studs, but these woman find self-worth through sex. They believe love and sex are synonymous. Many of these women hate themselves in the morning when they realize who they have slept with and yet fall into an unbreakable cycle as they search for their twisted view of love.
B. The Abused Syndrome
The saddest of the syndromes, the abused have been in one or more horrible relationships where they were bombarded with physical or emotional abuse (often both). Unfortunately, often their self worth becomes nothing and they clutch onto even the smallest fragments of a loving relationship, creating often a love-hate relationship.
C. The Bitter Syndrome
These woman are the toughest to label as their reasons for their current situation can very. Most often it is because they have been betrayed by a man they loved who cheated on them. It could be a string of men who lied to them or just one relationship that ended horribly bad, either way these woman put up a shield, usually through sarcasm and cold stares that keep men who could warm them at a distance. Sadly, these women are most likely to end up alone because their hard shells have become impenetrable.
4. The hopeless romantic: Of course, for every pessimist, there is an optimist, and thus we have the women who dream of the perfect man.
A. Serendipity Syndrome
These women are eternal optimists who know their Prince Charming will come. They read their daily horoscope, are usually sweet as pie, and love Nicholas Sparks. They probably still have all their teddy bears from their childhood and still watch every princess Disney movie imagining they are Snow White, Belle or Cinderella.
