Lovetrap

Lovetrap

a short by Adrian St .Claire

She was elegant in anger. A tendril of her hair, shining both fiery and soft, had fallen from her long braid to hang bouncing with curl by her ear. An angry vein rose from the skin of her pale throat as she raged, her curses an endless out pour, mixed with promises of justice and of revenge, the latter of which she commanded me to help her carry out. As if I would have denied her my help. As if she needed it. I wondered just how long it would be before I would find myself stealing up to the summit of Olympus to unchain her from the stone where surely her husband-brother would affix her. He could never seem to tame her.

Not the way that I could.

With a hand on her arm and my lips to her throbbing vein she quieted, merely breathed slowly, closed her eyes, and lost herself to oblivion, to the eternity of my touch. Ages passed before she found the words to speak once again.

"Oh, Aphrodite," she moaned in anguish. I caressed her thigh as words more vulnerable poured forth. "How can he be so unfaithful, so daring, so crass? I only wish to serve him, to love him as a wife should."

The age old question she had seemed to ask for centuries. "He is who he always was, sweet one," was always my answer. "You lay the cares and worries of a world of souls upon your shoulders, and think not of the petty gods and their games. Leave this mount in favor of a world all our own, one we can create. Come away with me, my love. You know mine is the only touch you crave."

At this she laughed, the sweet peals of amusement that brought sun beams to shine through blades of grass, and lit the paths of fair maidens and lost souls. She meant no harm, only her stubborn belief that the divine was unchanging made my proposal preposterous. I'd never told her that I'd already made our world, already laid away a place for us and all she must do is come.

"I promise you, one day you will carry me from this prison, from the man who torments me and my brothers and sisters who do nothing," she turned to me, caressing my face with hands softer than the fluffy clouds that separated our world from yours. In her eyes glistened tears, still unfallen, her bright brown irises reflecting her sorrow and pain. "But first, I will kill him," she vowed, two fingers to her chest as she bound herself to her words. "Zeus will burn in a prison in Hades, he will freeze in the greatest void. He will suffer as I have suffered, only forever, forevermore."

The first time that he forsook their wedding bed she came to me, crying, with offerings and tears. The goddess of love cannot ignore the tears that bring the Earth rain, or the sobs that give voice to the raging ocean and the howling winds, and so I turned to her and in that first glance fell into my own trap. Love is of all things unpredictable, and divine. How could I ignore the bright red tresses that fell about her face as she wept? How could I turn away from her eyes, green like new life, like spring, or her mouth, even when set into a frown? She was glorious, lying there, enchanted by Morpheus at my request, lulled into the land of dreams where her sorrow could not reach her.

"That is Hera, Aphrodite," Morpheus warned as his figure faded from view. "She may be young, but she is still Zeus's wife and sister, to do with as he will. Even the goddess of Love cannot change that.

But his words went unheeded, and I fell hopelessly for her in the time that passed, as she slept on my altar, covered in the warmth of my glow. I watched her sleep, I wrote her poetry, the divine language of the lovesick. I reached out and caressed her forehead, her cheek, the thin skin of her neck, the small hairs on her brow.

Hera enchanted me.

After some time had passed, Morpheus' spell wore away and she began to awaken. The god of dreams, who had decided to stay and keep me company as she slept, now faded as quickly as his spell.