Venus Goddess of Love

Chapter 1: I Meet the Goddess

“Venus, goddess of love?” I stared at the picture of the small figurine in the book I had borrowed from the library.

“Nothing like the Venus de Milo I’ve seen in another book,” I thought. She was beautiful even if she didn’t have arms. This one had ballooning breasts, huge thighs and buttocks. Her hair covered her face like a woolly cap.

I read the caption that told me that “Without fertile women, no primitive band of hunter gatherers could hope to survive.”

Reading from the main text I learned that she was over twenty thousand years old. She was the mother goddess, the protector of all things good, the bearer of children, keeper of the home, guardian of the hunt and ancestor of the human race. Her image has been found from France to Siberia.

I gazed at the picture again and couldn’t resist a cynical smile. My cynicism was not directed at Venus, but at myself.

I was lying on the bed naked as I looked at the picture and I glanced down at my own body. Large breasts that when I stood hung down like huge light globes, but now, as I lay on the bed, they spread across my chest like massive poached eggs. Heavy thighs and buttocks, the thighs surmounted by a wedge of pubic hair that concealed a vaginal opening that according another book I had read was farther forward than most women’s.

“Nice and easy for penetration,” I thought, “but what man would ever be bothered?”

One feature I did not share with Venus was the hair. It was the one thing about me I felt some pride in, my luxuriant head of chestnut coloured hair that I tended so carefully.

“I could have been the model for that figurine,” I muttered aloud. “My God, if that was the sort of female those primitive guys worshipped, they must have been a whole lot different from the guys now.”

I sighed; men now wanted their women to be like the so-called ideal females presented to them by the media. I came nowhere near that ideal. Even before I had seen the Venus picture I had felt myself to be made for breeding children, but no guy had ever wanted to fertilise me. At twenty four I had never been penetrated by a man, so even if the dildo I used occasionally for masturbating had deprived me early of my maiden head, I was still a virgin where the hand, or rather the penis, of man was concerned.

I put a bookmark into the page with the picture and prepared to go to sleep.

I was about to turn off the bed light when it hit me; I’d seen that figurine somewhere before, but where? I opened the book again and stared at Venus. It was no good; I couldn’t recall where I had seen her. “I’ll sleep on it,” I decided.

I switched off the light and circling my clitoris with my finger I gave myself some relief from frustrated sexual hunger. I let my finger slide inside my opening, feeling the soft silky warmth and the freely flowing juices of my lubricant.

“My God,” I thought, “surely there is some man somewhere who would want to enjoy that.”

As I languorously pleasured myself I thought of the all the men and women who longed for sexual gratification, who, like me, would offer their all, but for varied reasons could find no partner to enjoy them.

Increasing the intensity of my self-gratification I strove to fantasise a male partner but could barely give clear form to my vision.

When I had passed through my gasping, panting orgasm I slipped into sleep to dream no dream.

As soon as I woke in the morning I knew where I had seen Venus. It was in a funny little bookshop in a lane that branched off from the High Street. It seemed to specialise in occult subjects. In the window were a few dusty books and a copy of the figurine.

Every working day at lunch time I took a brief walk round the nearby shops, so I decided that today I would go and have a look at Venus. I showered, dressed and hastened off to catch the bus to work, but instead of my normal mood of mild depression that went with going to the office, especially on Monday morning, today I felt slightly elated. I would see Venus at lunch time!

I worked in the accounts department of a medium sized firm. Working along with me were four other women and two aspiring young guys. In addition there was Mr. Sparks the chief accountant.

As far as sparks were concerned, they stopped with his name. He was quite a good looking man, tall with a good physique, around forty. He moved as if he carried some great burden and had a nasty sarcastic manner that he enjoyed using to reduce members of the female staff to tears. He had a private office that we called “The Rat Hole.”

If accountancy is thought of as a dull occupation then pity me because I seemed to have the dullest corner of it. All day long I dealt with receipts and invoices as they piled up on and left my desk; the other girls, married or not, did get a bit of light relief because there was always a bit of flirting going on with them and the two young blokes when it was thought Sparks was out of the way.

They were a good looking pair those two blokes and I thought them very horny. I suspected they had enjoyed all of the other girls, even the two who were married, but they never bothered to proposition me. Like all the other men I had known, they might at best be polite to me, and at worst ignore me.

I slogged my way through the dreary morning with the thought of seeing Venus in the widow as sort of light at the end of the tunnel.

After four hours that had dragged by more like forty, lunch time arrived. I hastily ate a couple of sandwiches I had brought to work, and then made for the side lane and the bookshop.

I looked in the window, and there she was. Dumpy and enigmatic she seemed to stare at me through that curtain of hair that covered her face. Everything about her seemed to focus just one aspect of femaleness. With only minimal arms and legs indicated in the carving, it was the organs of reproduction that the long ago sculptor had emphasised.

“Surely she was the original Earth Mother,” I thought. “The fecund breeder of the race; the great womb from which we had all sprung; if only guys went for women like her now I’d never have my legs closed.”

I had come to the shop with no intention of buying, only looking, but as I peered at Venus through the glass and she stared back at me, I decided there was no harm in entering the shop and asking about her.

I pushed open the shop door and an old fashioned bell clanged. I had to go down a couple of steps to reach the floor and this gave the place a slightly subterranean feel. The light was dim so I stood still for a moment, letting my eyes adjust.

No one seemed to be around so I looked the place over. Two walls were lined with book shelves; a third was taken up by the street window and the entrance door. The fourth consisted of a counter and behind this a door covered with a bead curtain.

I had smelt a pungent aroma as I entered the shop and looking up towards the ceiling, I saw suspended from it bunches of herbs.

The bead curtains rattled and I turned to see a small elderly man entering. He had a lopsided smile and looked at me over the top of half-moon glasses.

“Can I help you, madam?” he asked in a piping voice.

I am the sort of person who gets a bit embarrassed going into a shop to ask about an item with no intention of buying. I felt self-conscious now.

“I…er…I was…er…wondering about the carving in your window…the er…”

“Goddess of Love,” he said, finishing my sentence for me.

“Yes.”

He opened a drawer under the counter and from it produced the figurine. “I have many ladies coming in to ask about her,” he said, his smile becoming more lopsided than ever. “Does madam wish to purchase her?”

“I …well; I only wondered how much she costs.”

He mentioned a figure that rather stunned me.

“That’s very expensive,” I spluttered. “I mean, she’s only a copy, not an original.”

The old man gave a laugh that sounded like a gate on rusty hinges being opened. “If she were the original, madam, you could not buy her for any amount of money.”

He extended the little carving towards me and asked, “Would you like to hold her?”

I took her in my hand and as soon as I touched her I felt something like a tingling electric shock ripple through me. It was not unpleasant; on the contrary, it was a delightfully sensual feeling that seemed to give me a sense of well-being.

I felt a little embarrassed by this unexpected sensation and my enjoyment of it, and tried not to show that I had felt anything. It was rather like those times when we begin to be sexually aroused in someone’s presence, and seek to hide the fact.

The old man seemed to know I had experienced something. “I think madam felt her influence.”

I declared that I had felt nothing, and he looked a little disappointed. “Most ladies who hold her report a strange stirring sensation.”

The carving felt warm in my hand and despite the fact that it was made from some sort of stone, its texture felt soft and yielding like human flesh. It was what I imagined a woman to be like when sexually aroused and ready for penetration.

The old man stood looking at me, waiting.

Once having the figurine in my grasp, I found myself reluctant to let her go. I had the odd feeling not so much that I wanted to possess her, but that she wanted to possess me. There was a strange sense of bonding taking place between us.

Despite the fact I had not intended to buy her, I began to work out what I would have to forgo in order to buy her.

It was as if I was not making up my mind to buy her, rather, my mind was being made up for me. I tried to tell myself I would be foolish to expend so much money that I could ill afford on something that would be no more than a rather grotesque ornament. It proved a losing struggle and almost against my wishes I said; “I’ll take her.”

“Very good madam; let me wrap her for you.”

I reluctantly handed her over, not wishing to let her out of my grasp, and as he put tissue paper round her the old man said, “You will be careful, madam, won’t you?”

“Careful? Why?

“Oh, I thought madam understood the significance of the little goddess.”

“What significance?”

“Well, if I might speak freely madam, most ladies who come in to buy her do so because she is a fertility and love goddess.”

“Yes, I gathered that.”

“The ladies come to buy her in order, if I might say so, to either increase their charms in the eyes of the members of the male gender, or to increase their fruitfulness or both.”

I laughed. “Do you mean that there are still people who believe in that sort of nonsense?”

He looked rather hurt and said, “Madam, we may live in the age of scientific triumphalism and so-called rationalism, but there are still many who believe in the old ways?”

“Has not one of our wise men said that there is within us a collective unconscious the contents of which are myths going back to the dawn of human history? These myths continue to influence us even though we may not be conscious of them doing so. Myths they may be, but who are we to say they do not encapsulate deep truths and human needs?”

I saw that I was due for an extended lecture on the insights of some guy I had read about once called Jonk or Jing or some such name, so I cut into his flow.

“You haven’t told me why I have to be careful.”

For a moment he paused in the midst of his sermonising, then taking up my theme said, “If it is the case that madam is buying the goddess purely as a curiosity, and has no wish to enhance her attractiveness to the opposite sex or increase her…er… fecundity, you must take care.”

“But why?”

“I have had reports from ladies who have purchased her, that suggest that they suddenly find themselves the centre of male attentions and some, who have been barren for years, quickly find themselves the bearers of new life. If madam does not wish such outcomes, then I suggest you keep the goddess out of sight and not on display.”

From another drawer behind the counter he had taken out a small wooden box with a hinged lid, and was placing the figurine in it.

I started to protest, “I can’t afford the box as well…”

“That’s all right madam, I always give one of these boxes when selling the goddess. It can serve to conceal her if you do not wish for the reported consequences of her open presence.”

It was a beautiful box covered with a floral carving. The old man smiled his sideways smile and said, “The box is made of cedar wood and the carvings are of a flower used by girls who wanted to find out who their future lover was to be. It is the Achillea millefolium commonly known as yarrow.”

“If a girl wanted to know who her future lover was to be she had to pluck a handful of yarrow flowers, sew them into a little bag and put them beneath her pillow at night, repeating a little verse. See, I’ve pasted a paper with the words on the inside of the lid.”

He showed me the inside of the lid and I read:

“Thou pretty herb of Venus’ tree,

Thy true name is yarrow;

Now who my bosom friend may be

Pray tell thou me tomorrow.”

I wanted to laugh at what I saw as the little man’s sales pitch. The idea that because I had bought a stone figurine I would suddenly find my self a magnet to men, and that I would be ravished and give birth to a host of offspring, struck me as ludicrous. Still, it would make a good conversation piece if ever I had any visitors, which given my past record was unlikely.

As he finished putting the figurine into the box he said, “Should madam require it, I have some dried yarrow in stock.” He pointed to a corner of the ceiling where there could be dimly seen some dried plant material that as far as I was concerned, could have been any plant. I thanked him for the offer but said I would manage without it.

The little man finished by putting the box into a plastic bag of the sort you carry home the groceries from the supermarket in. After his rather high flown talk about the powers of the figurine, this seemed rather anomalous.

I had to dig deep into my purse to pay for my acquisition. I glanced at my watch and fled from the shop. I had overstayed my lunch break.

Chapter 2: I Am in the Cave

Mr. Sparks, looking even more po-faced than usual, was awaiting me.

“Ah, Miss Barker, I am so glad you found the time to rejoin us. Of course, we should have been even more pleased to have seen you ten minutes ago, but no doubt you had more important things to attend to than the petty concerns of this office.”

I started to say, “Sorry, Mr. Sparks, I just lost track of…”

“Yes, I’m sure you did, Miss Barker, but since you have now condescended to join us, perhaps you would get onto the track of your work.”

“Bloody sarcastic shit,” I thought, but said contritely, “Sorry Mr. Sparks.”

He turned on his heel and disappeared into his rat hole.

Close to tears I sat at my desk and opening a drawer I placed the box with Venus into it.

As I did this a hand touched my shoulder. I half turned to see Rod, one of the young men working in our department standing behind me and a little to one side.

“Don’t let him get to you, Dawn,” he said, “He’s a vicious bastard who enjoys making you girls cry. It’s his way of exercising power over you. Probably the only way he can work off his sexual frustrations.”

It was the first time either of the boys had touched me, although they were always touching and patting the other girls. Also it was the first time Rod had spoken to me about anything other than the necessities of business. For even this brief attention I felt grateful, though it brought me closer to tears than ever.

To cover my emotions I thanked Rod and got on with my work, keeping my head down for the rest of the afternoon.

Arriving home after work I took the box out of the plastic bag and opening it, took out the figurine. The moment I touched her I experienced the “influence” as the little man had called it. It produced in me a sensation of voluptuous delight, but this time it seemed to focus on my breasts and vagina. It felt as if my breasts, especially my nipples grew firmer and I felt wetness at the top of my thighs.

I was not prepared to accept that a copy of an ancient goddess could be responsible for this odd but rather beguiling experience. I told myself that the feeling was only an expression of my permanently frustrated sexual desires, never the less a doubt began to arise. In an attempt at humorous bravado I placed her on the kitchen table and addressed the little figure; “You can cut that out.”

As I expected, I got no response.

I set about trying to find enough food to put together my evening meal. Again I addressed myself to the goddess; “You see, if I hadn’t wasted my money buying you I could have gone out and had a decent meal at a restaurant.”

Did the little figure seem to glow for a moment? “Of course not,” I told myself. “This is what comes of spending too much time alone. I start talking to a piece of stone and imagining it lights up.”

To prove my point I spoke to her again; “You’re just a piece of stone and I shan’t talk to you any more.”

She seemed to glow again. I grabbed her and put her back in the box.

My search for sustenance produced two depressed looking sausages, one egg, half a limp lettuce and one potato. It would be the bank for me at lunch time next day to draw on my meagre savings or starve for the rest of the week.

After preparing and eating my pathetic meal I left “Her Ladyship,” as I was beginning to call her, in the box on the kitchen table, and headed for the television set. There was nothing on I wanted to watch, but like a lot of lonely or isolated people, the sound of the television seems to fill the loveless void.

I made my entrance into the fascinating world of television half way through a game show. This consisted of a games master who talked with a pseudo American accent at a machine gun rate, and a half clad girl who seemed to have too many teeth, plus some victims vying for prizes to gain which they had to answer unimportant questions.

This was followed by a sitcom that had something to do with a couple of female divorcees living together next door to a couple of male divorcees also living together. The sexual entanglements got so complex that in the end I couldn’t work out whose anatomy belong to whom. This was supposed to be taking place before a live audience, but it quickly became evident that the sycophantic laughter was canned.

I ended my evening of enthralling entertainment watching one of those wild life series. It had been shown at least a half a dozen times before by our cashed strapped Broadcasting Corporation, and it focused on an internationally well-known presenter who on this occasion was looking for bats in African caves.

I must say that this programme did entertain me, but for the wrong reasons. During one sequence we were told that the presenter was putting his life at risk by entering a particularly nasty and low ceilinged cave. We saw the brave man crawling towards the viewer as he struggled to make progress on his belly. The point omitted was that the camera and lighting people must all have entered the cave before he had so as to give us this head on view. So much for our on camera heroes!

I gave up on television entertainment and enlightenment and headed back to the kitchen for my exotic nightcap of cocoa.

While supping this glamorous beverage I looked at the box containing her ladyship. I found myself hesitating to open it and had to give myself a bracing talk along the lines, “Don’t be so bloody stupid Dawn; she’s only a piece of carved stone, and not even the real thing. They probably make her by the thousands in Taiwan or Indonesia.”

I opened the box but still hesitated to take her ladyship out. Finishing my drink I decided on a shower that was to be followed by half an hour of bedtime reading. I took her ladyship still in the box with me. I placed box on the dressing table and retired to the shower to cleanse my abundant self.