Aphrodite's Prey

If Rob thought the previous hug from his mom was a crusher, this one left it in the dust.

"So what are we going to do for tomorrow?" Rob resolutely called the meeting back to order. He liked hugs as well as anyone, but there was business to attend to.

"I'll have to think about that." She would, too. The present, the just the right one she'd been trying to get before - that - was out of the question now. Wait a minute, though. Hadn't Jeff said that Jane was out running errands? And Jane was almost as good a shopper as Gina was herself. Rob smiled as he saw the sparkle return to his mom's eyes.

"Rob, I have to make some phone calls, and they have to be secret, so I'm going to your dad's and my room. You know your brother, if he hears this he'll blab it to your dad the minute he gets home."

Rob nodded his head gravely. His little brother couldn't be trusted with anything, let alone a secret. He guessed that was just how little brothers were.

"I'll take them all out to the back yard when they wake up," he replied, taking responsibility. He was six, after all.

"Great. And we'll give your dad a birthday he'll never forget!" They high-fived each other and went about their assigned tasks.

"No, I don't think Jeff will forget this birthday," Gina thought ruefully to herself.

Jeff took care of the most urgent matters on his desk, then phoned Officer Staten to tell her that Gina had returned.

"How much does she remember?"

"I don't know. We didn't really have a chance to talk; she only got home a few minutes before I had to go to work. She's spending the day with our boys and with the neighbors'. She thought she'd only been gone overnight."

"Oh. Well, if you don't mind, I'd be curious to know how much she remembers. Are you ready for something else weird?"

"No, but I have a feeling you're going to tell me anyway."

Officer Staten laughed. "You're right. You see, I went up on that hill about an hour ago, just to see if I might have missed anything. You remember the rosebush and the blue flowers? They're gone. Vanished without a trace."

"Um, gone?"

"Yup. The grass has grown completely over where they were, all of them. Your wife's footprints are gone, too, but that's not surprising after six days. If I didn't have those pictures, I wouldn't believe they'd ever been there."

"Weird."

"Yup."

"All right, I have to catch up on things here at work. I seem to have fallen behind chasing after some ancient goddess or something, like my boss is going to buy that. I'll let you know what Gina has to say after we have time to talk. Meanwhile, thanks for all your help!"

"You're welcome, Jeff. I'm just glad she made it back home. Would you like me to call Prof. Sid for you?"

"That'd be great, if you wouldn't mind. Thanks, and I'll be in touch."

Gina was exhausted that evening, so The Talk was put off. Jane had successfully followed Gina's very detailed instructions, and had purchased the present for Jeff. She'd even wrapped it, so Gina added a substantial amount labeled "gratitude" to the check she wrote to reimburse her. The birthday was wonderful, and Jeff's reception of his present was everything Gina had hoped for and more. She also wasn't sorry to have The Talk put off for another day. She'd been trying to put the events of her captivity (as she was thinking of it now) into a coherent order so that Jeff could understand. Her problem was that it required a considerable suspension of disbelief in order for her to accept that they happened, and she was the one they happened to. How in the world was she going to convince Jeff she was telling the truth?

Jeff tried to make it easy for her. He said he had something he wanted to show her, and went to the dresser drawer where he had kept the note from Cupid (or whoever) and the arrow that had pinned it to the quilt. The arrow was missing and the paper was blank. Dismayed, he opened his phone to find the pictures he had taken of it. They were gone. He was more than ready for the weirdness to stop, he decided. Ancient gods weren't supposed to know about cell phones!

The weirdness served one useful purpose: it enabled Jeff to believe Gina's wild tale. She didn't try to hide or conceal anything, including the sex. She was ashamed of how much she had enjoyed it, and how wild she had been.

"Well, if the Goddess of Love doesn't know how to do sex, who does?" mused Jeff. "She'd have to be sort of off her game if she couldn't rock your world."

"So it doesn't bother you that I, well, that I went off for almost a week and had mind-blowing sex with an ancient goddess?"

Jeff could read Gina's worry on her face. "Well, of course it was awful while you were gone. But I wouldn't have wanted you to be suffering the whole time. And it's not like you really had much choice, is it?"

"I guess not. I'm ashamed of how easy I was. You know that's not how I am. She was... you might say, persuasive."

Jeff chuckled. "I have to admit, it had never occurred to me that I should worry about that. Other guys, maybe, but ancient goddesses, not so much." They laughed together.

"But you know you don't have to worry about other guys. I want you to be sure, sure, sure of that."

"I know, I've seen you in action." He cuddled his beautiful wife tightly to himself, and for a few moments, they just enjoyed each other's closeness.

"So how did you get home? I thought once those Mount Olympus types got their hands on somebody, they didn't let go."

"I don't think she wanted to let me go." Gina shuddered at the recollection. "I've been thinking about that a lot. I think..." She took a deep breath, and went on with conviction. "I think it was the strength of your love for me, and your trust in my love for you. I think that's what did it. In the end, that's what she couldn't overcome. I was just waking up, and I could just barely hear someone calling me. From the echo in my heart, I knew it was you and the boys. That's when I knew that there was nothing on Olympus, nothing, that I wanted as much as you."

"So the Goddess of Love was defeated in the end by Love. That's what you're telling me?"

"Yes. Yes, I believe so. You know, it sounds so strange to be talking about this ancient mythology stuff as if it were real. If it hadn't actually happened to me, I don't think I'd believe it. But the truth is that what you and I have, each other, our family, our friends, is more real than anything there."

"So you wouldn't want to go back? Even for...?"

"No. For one thing, the price is too high: the awful time you and the boys went through just isn't worth it. But more importantly, please believe me when I say that there's nothing there that I want even half as much as what I have every day right here. Yes, the sex was great. I couldn't deny that if I wanted to. But there's a lot more to life than that."

"Yes, there is, but life is certainly more fun with it than without it. So if you're up for some non-Olympian sex..."

"Hold it right there, my beloved husband. You need to hear this and hear it well. If you and Aphrodite were standing right here next to each other, and I got to choose one of you to have sex with, for one night or forever, I would pick you every time. Every. Time. Period." She cocked her head toward the ceiling. "You hear that, Aphrodite?"

Legend says that she did, and it didn't help her mood one little bit. Nor did it help when Gina and Jeff took their pleasure from each other, lovingly but very thoroughly.

The next morning, Jeff was awakened to a gasp from his wife. She was sitting up in bed, pointing to a piece of paper that had been pinned to the quilt while they slept. The pin was shaped like an arrow. The writing on the paper looked somewhat like the dwarf writing in Lord of the Rings.

Jeff smiled. "This is what I wanted to show you last night, but the paper had been erased. It's almost exactly like what I found one morning while you were gone. I can even tell you what it says, I'll bet."

"What?"

"Jack shall have his Jill,

And nought shall go ill."

And he was exactly right.

Five years later.

The Clarks and Prentisses had traveled to Chicago to see a traveling display of paintings by Alessandro Botticelli. The pride of the exhibit was "The Birth of Venus," and they paused before the painting. Gina stood transfixed before the painting. "Those eyes... those eyes..." she whispered to herself.

Rob had constituted himself reader of the museum copy. "Venus, or Aphrodite, Goddess of Love and Beauty in the ancient Greek pantheon," he read.

"Huh," he sneered, in typical 11-year-old-boy fashion. "I'm not seeing much love there. And Goddess of Beauty? Nah. Mom's a lot prettier."

Gina blushed as her attention was diverted from the painting.

"He's right," whispered Jeff in her ear. "There's not much love there, as you well know, and you are more beautiful. And you always will be."

Finis.