Once upon a time, on a rocky foggy Mediterranean Coast, a woman was doomed. She was exquisitely beautiful, her fairness challenged every Goddess in belief, even that of the legendary beauty Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love. Aphrodite's temples slowly seen cracks in its perfect marble as many men began to neglect them, and began to seek out the woman, known as Psyche. As Psyche's followers grew in numbers, Aphrodite's temples grew in dust and decay. This was to be Psyche's undoing, or at least it was supposed to. Aphrodite was a jealous Goddess, and doomed Psyche to be bound to a monster, and told her village to bind her near the edge of the cliff to the sea. There, the monster would find its new bride. Psyche told her village do not weep for I am destined to die, weep for that my beauty was my doom. In the wind, Psyche's tear soaked brown waves of hair tossed around, spinning like currents in the presence of the sea. Aphrodite continued on with her plans for Psyche, and sent her son Eros to make Psyche fall in love with the monster with one of Eros's arrows that caused love upon hitting its target. This would have worked, had Psyche's beauty not actually bewitched Eros himself. He knew he would have to hide her, so he brought her to his home, a castle in the clouds of the heavens. There she was told to not be frightened, to bathe in the gold bath chamber, to eat of the feast laid out, and to live as a princess, for she was one now. At night, Eros would find her in the bed chamber, in the dark. She was never to see him; he wanted her to love him not as a God, but as true love. Day after day Psyche found herself pampered, and night after night he came to lay with her. She could not see him, and still she felt safe even with him. She loved him for what she could, an invisible husband.
It wasn't long before Psyche grew lonely. She spotted her sisters on the cliff where Eros took her, mourning her death. Begging for Eros to allow her a visit to comfort them, she was allowed to go down to see them. Once she met her sisters and they talked, the seeds of jealousy grew within them. Her sisters knew all too well who had taken her, but wanted to ruin it. They told her it was a monster she was laying with at night and that soon, the monster would surely kill her. They told her wait till the monster slept, and then look at him in candlelight. She returned to the castle in the sky, and while Eros slept, Psyche shined a candle upon him. An almost marble figure, not a part of him imperfect, lay in her husband's spot. She had married no monster, but a living God, Eros himself. His bow and arrow lay next to him. Her eyes became greedy for a better look at her beautiful husband, so she tilted the candlelight, and enough wax spilled upon him to burn him awake. Eros found himself betrayed by her, and sent her away.
Psyche begged Aphrodite herself to help her, for she truly loved Eros. So the story of the three tasks for Psyche began, and each one she completed but the last one, which upon breaking the rules of opening Persephone's box of beauty from the Underworld, Psyche fell into a deep sleep at the steps of the castle of Eros. He found her, and went to Zeus to awake her and marry her, and she was made immortal.
SO that was how he met his ex. He loved her and hid her. A woman beautiful enough to cause men to betray a Goddess. Of course, Emile said this was only the skimmed version. There was so much more to this Ex of his, and she had a dark naivety to her. She was similar to Aphrodite as she could be vain; she knew how beautiful she was. She also knew how important she was to love; she completed the idea of the perfect relationship, one of heart and soul. After her mortals sought more than romance, they sought a deep connection. She also used this idea as a weapon. She reminded Eros daily of her importance, that he was just a man with archery set without her. Love meant nothing, soul mates were everything. She tried her best to own him, and eventually not even the heart of Eros, or Emile as I know him now, was not enough. She found herself wanting her own specialty to be prayed to for. In this world of ever changing ideas, Psyche was changing her image; she was becoming not just a part of the equation of heart and soul but a more definitive, power loving part of souls everywhere. The Renaissance of Europe, its thirst for personal growth, knowledge and art, were timed shortly after Psyche's internal struggle to rediscover herself. She loved humanity challenging the contemporary concepts of love and God and all that has existed before them. It was a period of personal exploration, one that Emile…Eros I guess… welcomed for her. He loved her, he was sure he always would. Love does well until it is forced to change its form apparently.
Humanity could time the divorce of Psyche from Eros with a psychological revolution. The Civil Rights movement in America that was speeding up ideals around the world drew the invisible line defining the split of the two immortal pair. Women everywhere found themselves questioning sexuality and their stance as housewife and homemaker, this was paralleling another sexual revolution, that of Psyche's. She wanted to be more than just his lover; she had finally sought to separate herself and her identity from him for selfish reasons. The immortal who had it all wanted what the mortals below had, change. She no longer dressed like a perfect statue of a Goddess, she went to walk with us on earth, where our clothing. She found her strength in leather and her seduction in lace. Her hair was shorter, cut edgy and focusing its strength around her cat like blue eyes. She was the most beautiful woman on earth again, with a very stylish modern look to boot.
This is the immortal…woman…that I was learning about, so that Emile could possibly need my help with somehow. Here in front of me stood the perfect man, and he is telling me he had already loved and lost the perfect woman.
Hearing this, one knows what a girl goes through. The heart breaks swiftly first, like the end of the first major crush, that man on the poster of your wall, the boy band member, the pouty actor, the quarterback at school. It is loud to hear it break, yet it is only audible to the one it is breaking within. The world only knows the silence around it. Then the first blood spills from it, causing this leaking, and losing feeling within. A woman will try to numb herself, try her damnest to block out the entire world. This is followed by anger that she has to, like a pressurized volcano about to blow. Finally, the eruption of emotion happens, only it's not of fire, it's of tears, and they burst out with power.
I was already numb. I couldn't have started to care this quickly, even more; he did not have the power to break my heart yet. Or did he? Was I giving my heart to him in return for his sad story? Was I really that foolish?
It was nearly sunrise when I got home and I was grateful to find my bed warm and waiting, and no one in it more importantly. I lay under the two thick blankets, naked and still, just allowing myself to be as bare as possible. Time has taught me that when I am naked outside I am naked and true inside. I wanted that, I needed to be raw with myself to find myself in this nightmare of a love story gone wrong. I had no idea what he needed me for. I did not want to ever meet that ex of his. Everything to me was changing, only I'm not ok with this one.
"Get dressed", a voice called to me. He was already at my window. The dark shadow, the man of constant guarantee in my life. I knew it was time to go, he was going to lecture me and I knew it. I found a black long sleeve shirt, black leather coat, skinny dark denim pants, and black boots quickly. Hair pulled back in a mid-height ponytail, I hate when it tossed in the wind up there.
I stood on the edge by the window, and followed him through it. We found a two story condo a block away, from there we lifted up. I caught my breathe in the freezing cold air around me as I levitated up into the high stratosphere. He was ahead, but not by much, and looked sort of alien the way his body stiffened and flew fast.
It was somewhere between the sun and the stratosphere we stopped, and I felt everything cease to move. Time did not exist here, in these dreams, in this world in my night. The other thing is this world may only technically exist in my dreams, but the stranger in it sure knew how to be prophetic about my actual reality. I know that he is going to try to stop me from talking, from hearing what Emile has to say. I also understand he may be no more than a figure of my imagination, but no less than the crazy that has barged into my life from inside an old hotel.
He held himself like a statue in front of me; I couldn't detect a single movement in the starlight. "Dorothy….she knows now. She is coming for you…. I cannot help you anymore, nor can I continue to protect you." I could see his chin fall just barely.
"Psyche, am I correct? Crazy ex of the God of shooting people into a relationship?" I said sarcastically. I could feel myself losing my temper, my mind, my dreams, and if he is trying to warn me maybe even my life.
"You will not be meeting Psyche, she is long gone. Anima walks in her place. She is not who she was, so now her name is no longer the same. Don't even bother looking for her, she will find you first."
"And I should be…scared?"
"Yes, Emile can make you immortal, but that takes time and a choice. She has plenty of time to kill you before then."
"So that's it, you are just giving up on me?"
He looked at me, glowing eyes and all, something in them fighting to the top of those lights within. "I saw the day you were born, that red hair of yours, that softer than normal cry you had. I watched you grow up, to learn to meet me, to accept me. I watched your first heartbreaks and crushes and hopes begin to form in that innocent teen heart back then. It seems only fair I watch your fall as well Dorothy…"
A cold shudder ran down my spine with those words. He would watch me until inevitable and coming soon death. He couldn't stop me, but did he always know?
With that in mind before I crashed back awake, I looked at him and asked, "Did you know my fate upon birth?"
A loud breathe escaped his lips. "You were marked one of a few select possibilities, though it was not until recently I understood it would be you. But fate is never sealed, every God story proves that."
And with that I crashed into my bed then the floor.