Cupid Read Free Page B

her temples, but her mind was not focused on the love problems of mortals. She was thinking about Cupid, whom she missed more than she thought possible. She finished her temple duties quickly and hurried back to Olympus and her beloved son.
    "I'm going to get you," she announced playfully, standing in the doorway of his chambers.
    Cupid knew that meant she was going to tickle him, and he began giggling. He was sitting on his bed and hurriedly crawled beneath the blanket as his mother came toward him.
    But just as Venus reached the bed, she tripped over Cupid's bow, which was lying on the floor. She fell onto the bed—and the quiver of arrows Cupid had carelessly tossed there when he had come in from practicing.
    His mother had told him countless times, "Cupid! Hang your bow and quiver on the back of the closet door." But, yet once again, he had forgotten, or more likely, not felt like doing as his mother asked.
    A gold-tipped arrow was sticking out of the quiver, and the tip penetrated the skin just above Venus's breasts. She gasped. Both she and Cupid knew what had happened. He laughed! Venus wanted to slap him, but the arrow's potion would make her fall hopelessly in love with the first person
she saw. Juno forbid that should be her own son! Shielding her eyes, she ran from the room, down the long corridor, across the entranceway, and into her suite, in the opposite wing, the sound of Cupid's laughter in her ears.
    For three days Venus kept to her chambers and saw no one. The wound appeared to heal quickly, but the potion on the arrowhead was more potent than she knew. Some of the potion was still in her bloodstream.
    Thinking herself healed, Venus went outside and looked down on Earth to see what had transpired in the days she had locked herself away. The first person she saw was a young man of amazing beauty and faster than the blink of her eyes, she wanted him, needed him, could not conceive of being able to live without him. Too late she realized: she was still infected, but she did not care. Never in the years of her eternity had she loved anyone as she loved the one on whom she was gazing at that moment.
    His name was Adonis, and he was as handsome as Venus was beautiful. He was standing in a meadow, practicing throwing his spear, when out of the sky came a golden chariot drawn by two swans. Even before Venus took one step toward him, he only needed the slightest of glances to be as in love with her as she was with him. What mortal could have resisted the goddess of love?
    Venus had loved many, but her feelings for all the others had as much substance as fog compared to her ardor for Adonis. In the past, she realized, she had confused love with lust. But lust was nothing except caring for one's own
pleasure. As long as her lust was sated, it had not mattered to her whom she lay with. However, with Adonis, lust was replaced by a deep and passionate caring for the well-being and happiness of another.
    Adonis loved to hunt, and Venus gladly went with him, running alongside her lover through woods and over hills, as he chased after rabbit and deer.
    However, Adonis became bored hunting harmless game. Where was the challenge in that? He wanted to go after bigger and more dangerous animals, like boars, wolves, bears, and lions, animals whose teeth were bloody after they had killed and eaten. But Venus was afraid for him.
    "My love. The time for boldness is when you hunt the animals that are timid and run away at the sound of your footsteps. Do not go after the beasts who do not quail before human boldness. What are your two arms and legs compared to the four limbs and many teeth of the beasts? I beg you. Do not be bold when to do so is to put my heart at risk. Do not place your desire to prove yourself above my love. Your beauty enchants me, but it does not move the hearts of the boar, wolf, bear, or lion."
    Reluctantly, Adonis respected her wishes. But the day came when Venus had to attend to her duties as goddess,