Aphrodite's Flame

27.

Maybe I should have left, but I appear to be stuck to my seat. I watch Hephaestus as he is working on something. Never before have I been fascinated by someone else's physical labour. Normally it bores me. His words resound in my head: I only talk to him when I'm bored out of my mind. Well, it's not like he makes any sort of an effort.

'Do you think I forced myself on Adonis?' I wonder aloud. 'I know what they say about me and I know you heard it, too. Did I pull a Zeus on him?' He stops whatever he is doing and turns around to me. His hair is a bit unruly, his face is shimmering with sweat.

'Do you care about another's opinion?'

'Not if the person does not matter to me,' I say hesitantly. He looks at me like I just answered my own question and I look away from him. We talk about Adonis for a little while - or, I do the talking while he does his best to listen. I guess it's hard to hear, even for a husband who has been forced upon you.

'Our love is sometimes so intense,' I sigh, when Hephaestus clears his throat. It's obvious he's starting to feel uncomfortable.

'You never loved the boy,' he says at last, looking straight at me with gleaming eyes like burning coals. I clench my fists.

'How dare you say that!' Before I get really angry with him, he pulls up a seat so he can sit opposite me.

'However much I looove hearing about these grand feelings y'all feel for each other, you should probably know this.' He looks for the right words while I study his face, his slightly crooked nose and the scar dividing his left eyebrow, his near black eyes and the burn scar in his neck. I don't like seeing pity in his eyes. No - I hate it.

'After having been rejected so many times, Zeus wanted to play a trick on you. Therefore he gifted Adonis with a girdle with which he could court the most beautiful woman or goddess. He knew you would be the first one Adonis would lay his eyes on. He knew the boy could never resist you.' He must see the colour drain from my face, because he takes a deep breath and adds,

'Listen - there is no way the boy doesn't love you, but you only loved him by a trick of the mind.' Isn't this what I always suspected? Isn't this what I always feared?

'How do you know?' I croak. It's the first time he really hesitates before locking eyes with me again.

'Zeus had me make the girdle.' I get up, the chair falls over and I stumble over my own two feet. I knew something was up. I knew I was being tricked. Yet, I fought whatever instinct was telling me so. It felt so real and I wanted this so badly. My heartache felt so real. This must also be the very reason everything felt different and forced when he came back. The moment Adonis died the girdle had lost all its power. However, by that time I had come to know him and I had come to love him, just not in the overwhelming way I thought. As tears of betrayal are pushing their way up, I get up. He swiftly rises from his chair as well, and I slap him across the face.

'You're a traitor.' My own betrothed. Shocked, he looks at me while I start walking away.

'Aphrodite,' Hephaestus pleads, but I keep walking, trying to find my way out. Fuck him and his fake apologies.

'Aphrodite, stop.' He calls after me but I leave his forge just as fast. It obviously was a mistake coming down here. Sure, somewhere deep inside I wonder whether he made the story about the girdle up to hurt me, but I saw truth and regret in his eyes.

And if he knew, and it was Zeus' plan - who else knew?! They probably all laughed at me behind my back. Zeus, Hera, Athena - but also Ares, Artemis... They can't tell me they didn't know. Secrets are rarely kept a whisper in Court.

As I reach the end of the tunnel and walk outside, a strong and angry wind has picked up, pulling the branches of trees. Dark clouds gather over my head, rumbling ominously, predicting thunder and lightning.