Chapter 9 - Eros

As soon as Eros launched toward home, he began plotting. Of course, Aphrodite couldn’t know about this since she apparently hated her new daughter. And she’d demanded Psyche fall in love with someone wretched.

So if Aphrodite couldn’t know about his plans, it meant he had to keep Psyche in the dark to some extent too.

Talk about “hating” something.

The idea of never showing himself to Psyche again hit harder than a kick to the kidneys. She deserved better than never knowing the name of the man who loved her, never seeing his face looking down upon her when she first opened her eyes in the morning.

But how long could a mortal keep his identity a secret? It was a risk he couldn’t afford to take. No, he knew the only way to ensure Aphrodite didn’t figure things out was to ensure Psyche herself never knew.

But then what did that mean - keeping himself a secret? How do you spend the rest of your life with someone and not know their real name? How do you avoid ever seeing their face?

He could blind Psyche, but that’d be torture for them both. Without her sight, she couldn’t possibly be happy. She’s never be able to read, or watch a play, or enjoy blooming flowers again. He wouldn’t sacrifice so much of what she loved out of life for his own happiness.

That alone had to be a sure sign he was really in love -- Psyche’s happiness mattered far more to him than his own. Eros almost smacked himself for being such a sap. But he couldn’t be angry with himself when he thought of Psyche.

Retreating to the courtyard of his palace, he trained his second sight on Psyche. For the time, watching her was all he needed. The pulse of her lips as she spoke filled him; the flutter of her eyes restored him.

As the hours slipped by, servants scrambled to bring the god something to rouse him from his trance, but Eros couldn’t be moved. All he wanted was to gaze at Psyche until he thought of a way to hold her without risking both their lives.

Life.

That’s what he wanted with her. But how? How, when his mother had forbidden it? How, when Psyche despised him? How, when the way to get what he wanted involved tricking the only two women who mattered in his life?

As Eros looked on, a caravan of suitors approached the gates of Sikyon; nobles with their horses and wagons paraded up the hill from the port. A cold sheen of sweat coated Eros’s brow. The threat of losing Psyche to someone else, and failing to carry out his mother’s sentence, slapped his googly-eyed brain into motion. Finally, Eros knew what he had to do.

His first stop was Aphrodite’s palace. Praise Zeus she was on vacation. She never let anyone look at the natural antidote to her powers, let alone take some if it. There’d be no way to explain what he was doing if she caught him helping himself to the potent waters. He filled two flasks from the Spring of Abstinence, surprisingly delighted by the thought that the suitors would enjoy a full month of absolutely no sense of love or lust. Usually he prided himself on inflicting such sweet torture, but perhaps a lack of passion was something even worse.

With his flasks filled, Eros disguised himself as an old servant and sped to the gates of Sikyon just as the suitors approached.

“Hail good Lords!” Eros called to the men. “My master, King Darion, awaits your arrival at his palace, but he knows you still have some distance to travel before you arrive. Please accept some water on behalf of the King to make the rest of your journey more comfortable.”

“Now this is hospitality,” one of the men said, brusquely snatching a flask from Eros’s hand. After taking a long drink, he threw the flask to another of the nobles. “Krios, I don’t remember you sending out water bearers when I came to visit you.”

“Heh! You’re lucky I even let you in my City.”

“Lucky you let me in? You’re the one who should be thanking me for gracing that rat hole with my presence.”

“Oh yeah, I almost forgot,” Krios replied. “Your great grandfather’s second cousin’s uncle was related by marriage to a god. Why, you’re practically a god yourself.”

While the barbs flew, the suitors passed the flasks between themselves, laughing and drinking.

When they’d emptied the flasks, the suitors continued on their way to the palace, never looking back at the aged servant who’d already disappeared.

Chapter end