Chapter 30
Cupid arrived ten minutes late and slumped down in his chair with his chin covered in golden stubble.
The odor of whiskey and stale cigarettes wafted off him like he’d drenched himself in Drown Your Sorrows Cologne.
He had a pot belly, sticking out under the hem of a thin white T-shirt, stained with what I hoped to God was coffee or alcohol. “Hi, Simone.”
“Good morning.” I pulled out my notepad and pen. It was usually a signal for my patients that we were ready to start. Often, it worked as a trigger for their brains to move into therapy mode. Cupid barely registered my action, so I stated the obvious. “You look like you’ve had a rough few days.”
He belched. It was Olympic-level in terms of length and amplitude.
Fairly impressive if you happen to be a teenage boy.
Then he made some snacking noises with his mouth, as if the burp had brought something back up and he needed to swallow it down.
All of this had been relatively cute when I’d nursed Gumbo earlier. With Cupid?
Not so much.
“I’m going to go out on a limb, Cupid, and say that you’ve been drinking.” I paused, waiting for a response that didn’t come. “Would you like to tell me about it?”
“No, that’s okay.” There was a gleam in his eye that told me he actually did want to talk about it. Still, he didn’t elaborate. I used my brilliant psychologist’s mind, and my experience raising a child, to deduce the truth. He wanted me to coax the information out of him.
“Hey, Cupid.” I pushed the yellow notepad aside, doubting whatever information he was about to spill would be useful in our future sessions. “I can only help if I know what the problem is.”
“I drank too much.” He shrugged. “It’s not really a story.”
“Okay.” I bit back a sigh. “Let’s start with when you left your session here last Wednesday. Where did you go?”
Cupid began gnawing on the fingernails of one hand, while using the other to scratch his exposed stomach. Finally, he mumbled an answer. “Illusion Square.”
“That’s interesting.” Tiny alarm bells were going off in my head. “Tell me about your visit.”
Cupid stayed silent, a pout growing on his perfect face.
I’d had limited success using my Big Magic VoiceTM on him in the past. Not to coerce him or anything, but it helped soothe his spirits.
I decided to use it now, to coax the story out of him.
“Cupid, you can tell me about your trip to Illusion Square. I won’t judge. ”
My magic hit him, wrapping around him and lifting him up. He didn’t fully respond, but he did sit upright, poking at the air. “That’s just it, Simone. I don’t think you would judge. I … think you’ll be proud.”
“Hmm.” That was the sound I made when I wasn’t sure what to say next. I visualized myself sitting back in a tweed jacket, sucking on a pipe. “Tell me more about that.”
My magic tickled his ears a little. He chuckled, swatting at it.
“Okay, okay. After how good things went with the vampires, I was super psyched. It felt like, I don’t know, something lit up. Here.” He patted his chest, then looked at me with one eyebrow raised. “Know what I mean?”
“Actually, yes.” I pulled my notepad back over, happy to be wrong. “You helped them solve a problem and saw the joy it brought them. That was gratifying. What you felt was pride in yourself.”
“Yeah!” Cupid beamed at me like I’d opened the stuck pickle jar. “That’s it! So I wanted to do more.”
“Interesting.” I jotted a few notes. “And you chose Illusion Square?”
“It has the most people, you know?” I nodded at him, not telling him that most of those people were tourists who likely were not hit by his arrows in the first place. “I wandered around, moving in and out of the stores, looking for my mark.”
“I see,” I said. “And did you find it?”
“A few. Like … three or four, maybe.” He deflated again. “I was hoping for way more.”
Personally, I was thrilled with three or four. I still didn’t know, or have any way to find out, how many people he’d hit at the party. So a few down that I likely didn’t know about was a good thing as far as I was concerned. “How did it make you feel to help those few?”
“Good.” He twisted his lips. “Well, kind of good. But less good with each one.”
“Do you know why that is?” I will not roll my eyes at Cupid. I will not roll my eyes at Cupid. I will not …
“Not really.” He’d gone sullen again, resuming his pout.
“There are two reasons. The first is that, though you struck them with the counter-arrow, you were not able to see the result afterward, the way you were here in my office.” He looked at me like I’d explained quantum physics.
Poorly. “In other words, you did the thing, but you didn’t get to see it work. ”
“Ohhhhh.” Whose stomach itched that much? “That makes sense.”
“It does, doesn’t it?” I smiled, offering encouragement for his baby steps. “The second reason is kind of clinical. Do you want to hear it?”
I never threw terms at Cupid unless he asked for them. I’d found that if I talked too far above his level, he would shut down. It was amazing how little someone could learn in the span of thousands of years if they made no effort.
Cupid dipped his head from side to side, then nodded. “Hit me, teach.”
“It’s called neuroadaptation.” I wrote the word on a piece of paper and showed it to him, pointing to the different parts. “You see, neuro basically means brain. And adapt is when you—”
“Get used to something.” He grinned at me. “Psyche told me that one. She’s said a bunch of times that I need to adapt to stuff. Technology. Modern clothing standards. Her leaving me …”
He started to sniffle, so Cecelia placed a box of tissues and water on the desk in front of him. He smiled at the air, still not entirely understanding that the house was sentient. That was a word for another time.
“Okay, good job.” I waited while he downed the water. “So in short, your brain adapts to things. And in your case, I suspect it happens very quickly. You got a big hit of energy and pride when you helped the vampires. Then, you expected the same feeling when you helped strangers in the Square.”
“But the more I did it, the more I needed to feel that good again!” Cupid slammed his hand on the table, making himself wince. “It’s like getting drunk all the time. I used to be able to do that with one barrel of whiskey. Now, it takes like three.”
I let out a long, low whistle. Three barrels of whiskey. Gods were odd creatures. “That’s exactly right, Cupid. So, when it didn’t feel good, did you start turning to whiskey to help things move along?”
“No.” Cupid’s lower lip trembled. He grabbed a handful of tissues and pressed them against his face. He started making sounds. Strange sounds. Like dry heaves combined with violent coughs.
I swear, if I had to clean up one more mystical being’s sick, I was gonna throw in the towel.
But he didn’t get sick. He cried. No, he wailed. So loud it made my ears hurt. Norbert, who’d been hanging in the bay outside the window, dipped into the water with impressive speed for such a fat gator. When Cupid finally spoke, each word was choked out on a sob.
“I. Went. To. See. Psyche. And. She. Rejected. Meeeeeeeeee.”
While he blubbered and bawled, I tried to make sense of what had happened. My best guess was that he’d run to Psyche, eager as a puppy for a pat on the head, and gotten sent back to the doghouse. When she rejected him, he’d gone on a bender. I was surprised he was even here.
Boy, did I feel bad for her. I’d pestered her nonstop yesterday, not my best moment for sure.
And Cupid had done the same in his own way.
If anything, we were driving her further away.
I made a note to call her one last time.
To apologize. Then, as Cupid calmed, I pulled out the big book of mythology and turned to their story.
When I knew he was paying attention, I began to read.
And so it was that Psyche, for all her humanity, was more beautiful to look upon than any flower. Her elegance and fairness rivaled the immortal, and so she was worshipped. Held to the standards of the gods, she was positioned at an altar of worship, never to be known for her true self.
And thus her love for Cupid grew out of loneliness and their shared passion in the dark, where neither could see the other or love for appearance rather than depth.
When they parted, she threw her dignity at the feet of Venus, descending into the underworld to prove herself worthy, undergoing trials most mortals would never deign to consider.
I hadn’t thought about it before, how similar Psyche and I were.
Not in the rival-all-beauty or consort-with-gods way, though I was technically doing that.
But she and I had both undergone our trials in the name of something greater.
For her, it had been love of Cupid. For me, it had been acceptance of my truest self.
In fact, most of us mortals were willing to fight for the things we deemed important in life. And we rarely wanted to do it alone. I suddenly had even more respect for Psyche and understood something I’d not properly conveyed to Cupid before.
He blinked at me when I was finished reading. “So?”
“So?” I closed the book, clasping my hands tight to keep from throttling him.
“So she risked death and pain and everything she’d held dear to be with you.
She turned her back on a lifetime of mortal worship because she wanted something deeper.
More profound. Something she thought she’d found with you.
“And you took that for granted, Cupid. So much so that Psyche was willing to leave behind the amazing life she’d risked everything to attain. She did the math, and the results told her that leaving was the only choice she could make.”
I took in a long, deep breath. It was a wonder I could even keep my thoughts straight.
“So, Cupid, tell me something. Do you seriously think, with all that she sacrificed for you, and all that she sacrificed to leave you, that shooting a few arrows in the Square would be enough? Especially when you immediately used it as a tool to win her back?”
Fear. Genuine fear lined Cupid’s features. He’d begun to understand, that much I knew, but he had so much farther to go. “But I love her.”
“I know you do. She knows it, too. But loving someone in the past isn’t enough to make things work in the present.
” I put my papers and book away and took his hands in mine.
“The question you have to ask yourself is whether the current Cupid and the current Psyche have a future. Not one based on romantic gestures or memories of the past, but one based on communication, understanding, and truly sharing your lives.”
“I’m going to bring Psyche in here on Monday.
” Cupid firmed his lips and squared his shoulders.
He was a two-steps-forward-and-one-step-back kind of dude.
But I liked the direction we were headed.
He held up a hand as I started to protest. “Not so that you can convince her to come back to me. I just want her to see that I’m learning. ”
Before I could respond, he’d hopped out of his chair, shedding his hangover and paunch like a blanket over his shoulders, and rushed for the door. But he stopped and turned, the mischievous grin that worried me most pasted on thick.
“By the way, I only hit one of your wolves with an arrow.”
Then Cupid, that rat bastard of a god, walked away.