That Ant was the child of his wife and his brother was rarely something that Hugh liked to be reminded of. Anteros was pleasant enough, less gregarious than his half brother, Eros, perhaps. It had been his idea to take this enterprise and use it to their mutual advantage. He had funded the entire operation through his own company, a network of event planning companies focused on creating "experiences" for events like proposals. Anteros mostly just wanted humans to feel a certain requited adoration via Hugh's device; he saw it as a way for those without partners to feel sated and at least temporarily fulfilled. He saw this as a service he could help provide that had an very unexpected side affect. Humans became so enamored with this place, and what his invention could do for them that they had begun to worship at this place like an ecstatic temple to Hephaestus' half-brother, Dionysus. As Eris and Anteros were lesser known celestials, that worship was literally all that kept them alive some days. Eris fed off of the chaotic intensity of the sessions. She loved to do the research on each client and discover which buttons to push to truly break through the natural societally-induced resistance they had ignored and hide what they truly desired. That she also kept a file on every person of interest that had a kink that could destroy them was just intelligent precautions, she always claimed when Ant bristled at her hobbies.
But for Anteros, it wasn't something he took lightly, the worship, even if the people who came to them didn't truly know to whom they gave their devotions. He generally vetted all couples where only one wished to use the machine. He worried about addictions and the machine becoming little more than an inanimate homewrecker. He still was what he was -- a god of love. And he wasn't interesting in losing who he was in favor of merely surviving.
And it was a genuine fear, that addiction, that loss of self to perpetual ecstasy. That was, after all, how he had designed it. Hugh never managed to convince his wife to use his machine... maybe Ant and all his siblings wouldn't exist if he had. Because she never would have strayed, Hephaestus was certain. She would have finally let him love her through his tools, his craftsmanship... with his mind, the way he had always wished she would have trusted him enough to allow. He didn't give a damn about her body -- it didn't need to be his physical hands touching her. They were all his hands, each attachment, each sensory item, mechanical phallus and carefully calculated chemicals that rendered these users helpless.
Other men had and would always continue to have her body... but he knew, even if she didn't realize it herself, that her body was the key to her mind. And it was that part of her he loved most of all. Still loved, if he was honest. He could have fucked her so beautifully and completely had she but let him.
The way Deirdre had. He usually didn't pay much attention to the mortals that came here; some for curiosity, some for hedonistic desires, some to finally feel fulfilled. Why had she come? Why had she looked at him, why had he sensed her desire when she'd touched him? Not for the experience or the forthcoming orgasms... for him. For some old, crippled man whom she had looked on with such innocent wonder and admiration, it had left him breathless. She had no idea how old and ugly he truly was, he knew. But... for a moment, he didn't feel like either of those things.
"We had an interesting new client," Eris said, leaning back in one of the office chairs and crossing her ankles top the desk in front of her. "Come see these readings."
Anteros arched a brow and, noting none but the three of them were present, shifted to allow great black moth-like wings become visible upon his back and he lifted himself to he upper levels without a glance at the rolling stairs leaning against the far wall. He was otherwise clad in a simple heather grey suit with a pale rose colored shirt, sans tie. His pale yellow hair was mere shades off from his mother's, Hephaestus noted dispassionately. He looked like a young Armani model, save for the bizarre wings, all chiseled cheek bones and full lips. Hugh didn't even waste the effort being annoyed at the kid's good looks; he was his mother's son, after all.
Ant's deep amethyst gaze, darker in purple tone than any of his siblings', looked over the data from Deirdre McKennon's session. He even went so far as to pull up footage of both the programmed fantasy and of the room when it was playing out. His eyes widened noticeably at how she completely shed the fantasy and, as if she could see or hear what was happening outside that forced chemical, magical and technological haze, how she came, screaming out her husband's name.
"What the actual f--" Anteros rewound the footage and looked closer. "Great Gaia." He shrugged his shoulders and his wings faded back into nonexistence, as if melting into the soft linen of his suit jacket. He sat down in a chair without even looking at it, his eyes on the screen. "She's a psychic of some variety-- when I view this with my Sight, I see the markings of an astral traveller. She didn't just have your usual le petite mort orgasm... she literally had an out of body moment."
Hephaestus said nothing. If she was what they were looking for... her life was over. She would be seduced, stolen, manipulated.
She could also save their lives.
And at this moment, Hugh Estes, Hephaestus, God of the Forge, fire, industry and craft, wished he had never made the damn machine in the first place. Because he suspected it was about to be the downfall for Mrs. Deirdre McKennon.
