Cupid and Psyche, A Modern Retelling

Chapter Five

I have dated ten guys in the last two and a half months. Ten! That is what my father has forced on me. And none of my dates seemed all that interested. Not in me, not in my family, not in my wealth. Don't most guys usually care about that? They don't even seem to care that I'm beautiful! So that's it! I Am going to get myself a job and live on my own when my family kicks me out. I'll be fine, right? 

Anyway its a saturday again and I'm working on homework for school again. This time a question sheet on theme and motif. When, all of a sudden, low and behold, my mother bursts in. 

"Get up! Get dressed! Something nice, Hurry! We have a busy day today!"  

"What? Why? What are we doing?" I ask startled. 

"Your father is taking us to see the oracle." 

"What? Why?" 

"We are going to ask about the boys you've been dating and why they aren't staying."  

"But Mom-" 

"No buts. Get dressed and hurry!" I deflate, there seems to be no way out of this. Once 

she leaves I lay out one of my togas and a drape. Mom said to wear something nice, and that's what she meant. I take a shower and dress. The toga is a white full length number with a drape hanging around my arms. I put on a gold armband and bracelets, also a golden necklace that hangs low and covers my shoulders. I put on my dress sandals and walk downstairs. 

"I'm ready." I say with a sigh. My mother is there, in a soft green toga draped around her shoulders and tied at the waist. She's fixing my father's toga, a deep blue with a covering over one arm and a light blue trim. 

"Oh good, you look beautiful as always, dear." My mother says, smiling at me, "Now if only you'd smile, you'd be even more." I frown at her, then look at my father, Who's frowning at me. 

"Come on, lets get going." He says turning. We walk out of the house and pile into the care, my parents in the front and I in the back. It's a silent ride, all the way to the mountain where the oracle lives. 

When we get there we are met by the oracle's attendants who tell us that the oracle was expecting us. That's creepy, but we are ushered inside the cave into a room where incense is burning and a veiled woman sits in a tall chair. 

"Oh Oracle, we have come to-" 

"I know why you have come." A voice interrupts my mother. "You have come to ask why the men of this world have lost interest in your daughter. Your daughter, Psyche, is not meant for mortal men. Psyche, you are meant for the monster neither Men nor the Gods themselves can resist. You are to dress in wedding cloth and left alone on the summit of Mount Caecus to wed this monster. You have a week to prepare." Then the veiled oracle is silent. Her attendants ushered us out of the room where as my mother starts crying. 

"A monster! A monster neither men nor gods can resist! And my daughter is to wed it?" The cries harder, covering her face in her hands. I am to be married? And to a monster at that? But... i am to be married?!