"Gods should be exempt from human passions."
-Euripides, "The Bacchae"
***
As soon as Eros arrived he knew he had a mess on his hands this time.
It was the middle of the night and two people were asleep in the bed in a small, unremarkable human apartment, one of them a man and the other a woman. They were both in love with the other, he knew, but neither realized it yet. Eros plucked the string on his bow while they slept and the red numbers of the clock glowed in the dark, and then he sighed. Why did he always show up for the hard ones?
He pushed the woman's hair back with the tip of a golden arrow. What could her dreams tell him? "This one is...Mia," he said out loud. "Hebrew for 'beloved.' A graduate student. Married but separated. Her husband moved to the East Coast last year.
"They were going to divorce, but now they're talking about reconciling. She loves him, but she doesn't think he's really changed and she's not sure what she wants. And then five days ago, she met..."
He turned to the man.
"...Andrew. Greek, meaning 'man.' Some kind of artist, I think, but not very good. He's been in love with a woman for two years and even bought an engagement ring, but then he lost his nerve. That was four months ago, and now he's beginning to think they're not right for each other.
"His girlfriend is out of town this week, and he went out to a party he'd normally have skipped, not admitting to himself he was hoping to meet a woman. He and Mia hit it off and spent the whole week together, but they didn't so much as kiss until last night, even though they both knew it was inevitable they'd end up in bed sooner or later. Now tomorrow morning they'll have to deal with what just happened."
He straightened up, adjusted his wings, and whistled. "Well, these two are in some serious shit now," he said. "Why don't you all come out and let's talk about it?" And one by one, the shadows around the bed began to stir.
A decision had to be made. It was Eros' job to make sure that people ended up with the right lovers. But it wasn't his job alone; everyone who was interested had a say. After all, there were a lot of love gods to go around, and Eros had never met a god willing to pass up any a chance to meddle with human lives...
First came Nu Wa, the ancient Chinese goddess who sculpted the first men and women from clay and taught them to be lovers. She was a marriage goddess, and Eros had never gotten along with her. (She called him a bad influence, which was an entirely fair characterization.) Even now, standing on the opposite side of the bed, she regarded him the way most people look at dirty laundry.
Erzulie Fréda, a Voodoo spirit and notorious flirt, came next. She wore three weddings rings, one for each of her husbands, and in any love affair she invariably tried to steal the man for herself, although she was also easily bored with such efforts. She sat on the bed next to Andrew and immediately began purring over him. "How sweet," she said.
Ishtar, ancient goddess of fertility and sex, appeared now, taking the form of a beautiful woman with the talons and wings of a bird. She shared Eros' tastes for the illicit and the carnal, but she was dangerous for him too, because she made no secret that she wanted him for herself and considered it a favor to be repaid every time she sided with him on anything.
The last to show was Hathor, Egyptian goddess of love and family, appearing as a woman with the head of a calf, a cobra coiled around her brow like a diadem. Eros didn't know her very well; but she was big on family—she was somehow Ra's mother, daughter, and wife all at the same time, which didn't make any damn sense to him—and tended to favor people settling down.
The five love gods stood in the dark and untidy apartment. They would talk, and then they would vote on what was to be done, and Mia and Andrew would have to live with whatever the consequences were. That was the way of things.
Clearing his throat and plucking his bowstring again, Eros said. "All right, here we all are. And here's these two."
Nu Wa shifted her coils on the floor. She had the lower body of a beautiful snake and the upper body of a beautiful woman, which Eros found immensely appealing even if she was boring and bourgeois.
She said, "The question is: Should these mortals stay with the lovers they've had for years and nurture those affairs into marriages that will sustain them for the rest of their lives?"
Eros jumped in: "OR, should they walk away from tired affairs they never really cared about in favor of something invigorating and new with one another?"
He and Nu Wa glared at each other. No sense pretending to be civil.
"Your friend the Wine God had a hand in this," Ishtar said, picking up an empty bottle from the dresser. "I still think about him whenever I see new grapes on the vine, too green to be plucked. Do you think he still thinks about me?"
Her smile made Eros tense. He already knew she agreed with him, but she might pretend to side with Nu Wa to coerce him into something, and that would mean no end of trouble...
But instead she said, "These two have already fucked, so what's the point of debating it? They're never going to forget about each other now. What's done is done: You can't put rain back in the sky."
"But if you wait long enough, it goes back on its own," said Hathor. She nodded at Nu Wa in a way that told Eros he'd lost her before this even started. "They've still only known each other a little while. In time, this will seem a fleeting thing. But if they choose one another they'll break two other hearts, and then their own. Broken hearts last longer than quick flings."
"There are worse things to break than a heart," Eros said. "If these two never see each other again they'll regret it, and there's nothing worse than regret. Ask anyone who ever gave a damn about anything. But all right, you two think they should play it safe and Ish and I think they shouldn't. That means..."
They realized Erzulie was the only one who hadn't spoken, and each of the other gods groaned. There was an unspoken rule never to let her get into the position of tiebreaker, or else she would milk it all night. Now she sat with Andrew's head pillowed in her lap, stroking his hair and making cooing noises.
"Have you ever seen anything like him? Such scrumptious dreams," she said, sighing. "He's sensitive too; the heart of a poet. He's going to feel so tragically guilty about all of this in the morning. Do you think either of his women are good enough for him, really?"
Ishtar rolled her eyes.
"Maybe we should be finding someone else for him," Erzulie said. "Someone as beautiful and noble as he is. I'll look after him in the meantime. I'm sure that with a little of the right attention—"
Now Ishtar jumped in. "If she's going to do this all night then I'll switch sides just to shut her up."
Erzulie's eyes lit up and soon all of the gods were shouting and pointing fingers and talking over one another, except for Hathor, who quietly pleaded for order. Eros pinched his brow; sometimes he hated this job. Stupid melting pot...
Eventually they got the meeting back in hand, though in the meantime Erzulie had suggested three different curses she planned to lay on Ishtar the next time her back was turned and Nu Wa had accused Eros of "wearing a green hat." (She obviously meant this as an insult, but evidently it lost something in the translation.)
The argument had at least gotten Erzulie off her soapbox. She'd still be the tiebreaker and it was still anyone's guess which way she'd jump, but at least she wouldn't go on all night.
Eros looked at the clock; the red numbers ticked their way toward midnight.Nu Wa settled her coils on the floor again. "We've talked long enough," she said. "We all have other work to do. Are we at a decision?"
"I sure am," said Eros.
"Me too," said Ishtar, already bored. Hathor nodded. Erzulie pouted. In a minute they'd vote, and whichever way it went would change a handful of human lives forever.
Eros looked at the couple, still fast asleep in each other's arms. Well kids, I'll give it my best shot, he thought. Although to be honest, my shots aren't always what they used to be.
***
Sunlight woke Andrew, and when he rolled over Charlotte threw an arm across his naked chest and curled up against his side. He closed his eyes again and thought very hard about the possibility of sleeping the entire day. It was a good morning for sleeping in, after all. A good morning for—
Wait. That wasn't Charlotte. Charlotte was still at that conference in Nevada.
And this didn't look like her place either. That meant...
"Damn," he said.
Mia stirred but didn't wake. He remembered now: They'd stopped for a drink at that new wine bar downtown. They had such a good time they'd bought a bottle together, and then she invited him back to help her drink it. And then...
"Damn," he said again.
In her sleep, Mia had hugged the covers around herself, like a puffy cocoon, leaving one round shoulder still visible. Her complexion was so pale that her white skin seemed luminous. Last night, in the near-dark, she'd practically glowed. Now the morning sun painted her gold and his cock stirred to attention again at the sight of her, but he shut that valve as tightly as he could. He was already in enough trouble.
It took a while to find his pants. He discovered he'd turned his phone off at some point, which would look suspicious as hell if Charlotte had tried to call him. He held his breath while he turned it on, expecting a barrage of late night texts and voicemails...but there was nothing. That was a relief, at least.
Today was Wednesday, which meant Charlotte's flight was due back this afternoon. (It also meant he'd slept through his first two classes, but that seemed such a petty problem right now that it barely counted.) How was he ever going to look her in the face? How was he even going to look at himself in the mirror?
Wait a minute, the mirror...
He ran to the mirror on the closet door, checking himself front and back, then sighed in relief again. All clear: No bites, no scratches, no hickies. Thank god.
Then he spotted Mia's eyes peeping over the covers. She must have seen his routine. He expected her to laugh at him, but she didn't. He crossed his arms over his naked chest; she flopped over on the bed. "Well," she said. "It finally happened."
"Yeah."
She got up and pressed herself against him. It was an odd feeling, sharing a shame. It made him feel even closer to her, which of course didn't help anything now.
