It was not too late. It could not be too late. I seized the rope in my jaws and began to pull but met with heavy resistance on the other end. I pulled as hard as I could, trying not to think too deeply about what might have happened to Psyche, or the scrape of sand on mortal flesh.
Turning back to my true shape, I raced to the entrance to the Underworld and felt the limits of space and time tugging at my divine form. Gods cannot enter the land of the dead, but in my desperation, I refused to be moved. I began to haul the rope hand over hand into the light.
As I did, my mind raced. Desperate to be free from my suffering, I had brought upon both of us the very fate I feared. I had sent Psyche thoughtlessly into living death, assuming that her self-assurance signified actual preparation.
Time moves differently in the Underworld, I had said to Psyche. From her perspective, no more than a few minutes had passed, but by the time I dragged her body into sight, stars were beginning to dapple the blue of the western sky.
I ran to her side, shaking. She was limp and cold, eyes unseeing. Her flesh was clammy, reminding me unpleasantly of the clay from which Prometheus had shaped her kind.
For a few seconds, I did not move. The curse rose within me like a cruel wind, spiralling out through my marrow. Psyche was dead, and I had lost her through my own foolishness. I understood why Gaia had taken refuge in the cold darkness of the earth after the loss of her husband, Kronos. Nothing couldpreserve me from the grief that threatened to pull me down like an undertow. I had loved Psyche from the moment the arrow gashed my skin, an unpleasant fact over which I had no control. But recently, I had begun tolikeher.
I shook her corpse helplessly, a cry of desperation tearing itself from my throat. I tried to breathe what life I could into Psyche’s corpse to startle her heart back into motion. I had no idea if any of this would work, no idea how fragile the mortal form truly was. But I was the god of desire, and I desired her to live. Psyche had only been gone for a few moments as the living world reckons time. Perhaps I could still bring her back. Perhaps.
15
Psyche
I drew a long shuddering breath as my soul fell back into my body. The night air was the most wonderful thing I had ever tasted, clear and sweet. I didn’t know where I was, only that it was dark, and I was not alone. Hands tangled in my hair, lifting my face.
A familiar voice whispered, ‘You’re alive! Oh Psyche, I was a fool …’
My husband, Cupid. His hands moved over me, checking my limbs for scrapes. There were more than a few, not that I cared. His anxious tone almost made me laugh – since when did my proud husband speak like that? – but at this moment I didn’t want laughter or recriminations, or even speech. I wanted something else, wilder and more primal, something connected to the pulse of life itself. I thought about what Medusa had told me about life’s greatest joys. I wanted a torch to drive away the last remnants of the darkness.
I wound my fingers in Cupid’s hair and pulled him in for a kiss. I was rewarded with a startled cry reminiscent of the peacocks on the terraces back at the seaside house, but soon he was kissing me back with fierce intensity. He was like a dam that had spilled its banks, a drowning man seeking air.
I pulled away, hungry for more. I grabbed his tunic and attempted to pull it over his head. This succeeded only in smothering him, though he quickly caught on to what I was trying to do. In a flash, his clothing was gone. He began to work on mine next, pulling my chiton over my head. I lifted my arms to let him.
He kissed me again with such skill and softness that I marvelled. I could feel the excitement thrumming under his skin, and it endeared him to me. He manoeuvred me to the ground, trying to position us over the pile of fallen clothing, but by that time I didn’t care. I had been kept from sex all my life, shielded from it with propriety, and now I was ready to see what all the fuss was about.
The night air prickled my bare skin, and I was reminded that we were only a stone’s throw from the edge of the Underworld. Then Cupid’s chest was pressed against mine, hot as a furnace. He kissed me again, more softly this time, then left my lips bereft to move lower. I felt his hair tickle my breasts, moving over the planes of my belly, stopping near my pelvis. I caught at his hair, trying to drag his lips back to mine, but he evaded my grip. He must be confused; perhaps he was trying to check for wounds, though this wasn’t the time. I was certain he had gone mad when he wrapped his hands around my thighs, bringing his head between my legs.
Oh.
Oh.
He worked on me with lips and tongue until I was nearly incoherent, feverish with desire. Then he positioned himself above me. I was afraid it would hurt, but Cupid knew how to kindle my body like a fire, so that the pain was brief and quickly washed away by delight. Having him was sweeter than honey, more exhilarating than riding a wild horse. I locked my legsaround him to pull him deeper, digging my nails into his back, savouring his ragged breath in my ears. The fire of the stars had poured into my veins, and at his touch it exploded into light.
Afterwards, we didn’t bother with blankets. Instead, we pressed ourselves to each other, our body heat just enough to offset the chill of the night. Chest to chest, forehead to forehead, so that each of Cupid’s exhalations tickled my eyelashes. Never before had I felt so laid bare in front of another living being, though the feeling wasn’t entirely unpleasant. Rather, it was like sharing a secret I had carried all my life, confiding it in a trusted friend at last. I knew Cupid more deeply than I had known any other living creature, even though I had never seen his face.
I sought to fill the silence. ‘I wasn’t able to retrieve the water of Lethe,’ I said.
‘I noticed,’ he replied, amused.
I paused for a moment, feeling his eyelashes move against my skin like the wings of butterflies. ‘I wish I could say that I was sorry. But if this is the result, I’m not very sorry at all.’
I felt rather than saw his smile. ‘Neither am I.’
16
Psyche
When I was young, my father sometimes took me to see the glassblowers in the artisans’ quarter of Tiryns. Alkaios liked to walk among his people so that he would know them and therefore see how to rule them best, and the artisans inclined their heads in respect at his passing. I marvelled at the spindly designs the glassblowers wove from sand and fire and breath, molten glass expanding like a bubble.
The first days after my return from the Underworld were like that: beautiful but impossibly delicate, of a sweetness that I knew could not possibly last.
We took our time on the journey back. Though the trip to Taenarum had taken us only three days, our return lasted over a month. We had been husband and wife in name since I came to live at the seaside house, but this marked the beginning of something new.
Cupid did not speak again of the curse, and I made no mention of the beast I was fated to slay. He did not speak of our failed venture to retrieve the waters from Lethe, and I did not ask about his true form. Instead, we talked of other things.
