Cupid’s cheeks heated with mortification. “After all this time apart, we’re together again for all of five minutes, and all you can find to talk about is my willy?”
“Holy shit. You’re still a virgin.”
The dreaded v-word still stung, but Cupid’s new body revived a long–buried hope. “Maybe not for long.”
Pan angled his face toward the sky. “I see you’re making this one interesting.”
“Who are you talking—wait. They know you’re alive?”
“Oh, uh . . .” The humor disappeared from Pan’s expression. “Don’t move. I’ll be right back.” Pan ducked into the woods, reappearing in the clearing moments later holding a stack of clothes similar to his own. “Here. Everything won’t fit perfectly, but it’ll be close enough for now. C’mon, get dressed before someone sees you.”
“I am dressed,” Cupid fired back.
“Sorry, pal, but the only people who dress in togas down here are drunken frat boys out for a quick roll in the hay.”
“What’s a frat?” Clearly, the limited field of Earth–vision afforded by Cupid’s bow gaiascope had left some gaps in his understanding of contemporary American vernacular.
Pan huffed. “Basically, an excuse for abusing alcohol and taking advantage of gullible girls.”
“That doesn’t sound so terrible.”
“You’ve spent way too much time with Dionysus. Do you want lunch, or what?”
Motivated by his belly’s demands, Cupid unwrapped his chiton, plucked the stiff blue pants from the pile in Pan’s arms, and stepped cautiously into the first leg.
“Whoa. Underwear first.”
A pair of white shorts came flying at Cupid’s chest, and he flung out his arm to catch them. He stretched the waist opening apart with his thumbs. “You expect me to squeeze myself into this?”
“You’ll get used to it. The pouch goes in the front.”
A scowl settled on Cupid’s face as he arranged himself inside the clingy fabric. “I don’t see what the big deal is,” he complained, stepping into the pants once again. “Who’s to know if I forgo the underwear?”
“I’ll know, okay?” A twinge of longing radiated from Pan, who hastily fluffed out the red shirt he’d been holding and pushed the neck hole over Cupid’s head.
Cupid froze, one arm midway through the sleeve, and caught his old chum’s face turning bright pink. Well, that was different.
“Put the flip-flops on,” Pan said gruffly, dropping a pair of strange sandals onto the grass.
“Flip what?”
“Push your toes under the leather strap, like mine.”
As Cupid wriggled his toes into place on either side of the uncomfortable post, Pan took off toward the thicket. “Wait!” Cupid called, clomping with unsure steps over tree roots and forest debris until his toes mastered the grab-and-lift. “You know I’m an abysmal hunter. And I don’t even have my bow, in case you’ve forgotten.”
Pan laughed heartily over his shoulder. “Hop in my truck, and I’ll show you how the mortals do it.”
5
Crime and Punishment
The Salvador Deli would not have been Pan’s first choice to pop Cupid’s earth–food cherry, but it was a short drive from the drop spot. Relief at finding Pan alive had to give way to resentment sooner or later, and he didn’t want the two of them trapped in his Titan when that conversation hit.
Not that sitting across the booth from Beefcake Charlie was so easy either. It was more than the buff body, though. Earth-Cupid was sending out some kind of supernatural, erotic waves that made Pan ache in all kinds of ways he wasn’t prepared for and would surely get in the way of facilitating Cupid’s punishment, whatever the hell that might be.
“I don’t see what giant ants and droopy clocks have to do with food,” Cupid said, scanning the bright mural.
“It’s a pun. The artist’s name is Salvador Dalí.”
“Oh.” A wide grin broke across Cupid’s face, and he even chuckled. Damn. Pan had forgotten how easy Cupid was, that uncanny ability of his to find joy in the most ordinary situations—a necessity, Pan supposed, of spending every damn day flying around Olympus with only his arrows for entertainment.
Along came their waitress—a leggy, chesty blonde who lit up like a neon sign as she took in the freshly fallen god studying his menu. Pan couldn’t fault the girl for overlooking his own godly gifts; he might have wondered at her judgment if she hadn’t.
“Hello, my name is Layla.” Flash, sizzle, pop. “I’ll be taking care of you.”
Cupid snapped his head up, registering delight at her obvious interest. “Yassas!”
A giggle leapt out of Layla, and Cupid beamed back at her like a fool who had never seen a girl before. “Pickled tomatoes, gentlemen?” Layla leaned forward with the metal bowl, her tits straining at the buttons of her mustard-colored uniform.
“Yes, please.” Cupid licked his lips appreciatively.
Her musk surely smelled ten times as potent to Cupid’s newly magnified senses. Boxer briefs or not, his brand-new pecker had to be well on its way to a full salute.
“We’re ready to order,” Pan said.
Drawing her pencil from behind her ear, Layla aimed a suggestive, “What can I get you, hon?” at Cupid.
“He’ll have the ‘Persistence of Pastrami’ on rye with coleslaw and Russian, french fries, and a black cherry soda. And I’ll have the ‘Surreal Stack’—extra tongue—with a ginger ale. Did you get all that?”
“Mmhmm, extra tongue.” Layla barely looked away from Cupid’s baby blues to scribble down the order. “I’ll put that right in for you,” she assured them while tucking the pencil into her mountainous hairdo. Neither man missed the exaggerated sway of her retreating hips.
Pan leaned across the table. “Did you smell that?”
“Does Argus have a hundred eyes? I can hardly breathe.” Cupid’s nose twitched comically. “What just happened?”
“That, my friend, was the full force of your divine charisma amplified by earth’s atmosphere, overloading the delicate circuitry of the human sensory receptors.”
Cupid squinted hard. “You know I failed physics.”
“And took me down with you,” Pan said with a booming laugh. No wonder, when the two spent more time on shenanigans than formulas. “We just learned what happens when earth girl meets earth-you.”
“Wow, really? Are they always that . . .?”
“Titillated?” They grinned as they had as two little boys trying out their naughty words on each other. “Nope, but then, the God of Erotic Love has never fallen before. And while we’re on the topic, how did the favored son of Aphrodite manage to get his ass booted off the Mount?”
“Apparently,” Cupid said, chest puffed with self-congratulation, “shooting an arrow into the rump of Cerberus while he was squabbling with Hera was”—Cupid lifted his arms and waggled his fingers toward the tin ceiling tiles—“unacceptable.”
Pan’s jaw dropped. If he’d been given a week to imagine Cupid’s crime, he could not have come up with anything so reckless. “You set the three-headed hound of Hades on the wife of the Supreme Ruler of Olympus? How exceptionally stupid of you.”
“Yeah, perhaps I didn’t think that through. Hades wasn’t amused either.”
“He’s not exactly renowned for his sense of humor—or his forgiving spirit.”
Cupid leaned forward, a familiar mayhem dancing in his eyes. “You should’ve seen it, Pan. The horny mutt attached himself to Hera’s leg and humped her all the way to Zeus’s palace.”
“Cerberus left the gates of the Underworld unguarded?”
“He was in love.” Cupid freed the gleeful smile he’d bitten back so far and batted his eyelashes like a Saturday morning cartoon character. The poor fool was way too pleased with himself about all this.
�
��Let’s see. With a single arrow, you managed to piss off Hades, Hera, and Zeus? You do like to poke the beast.”
“Ha!” Cupid slammed his palm down onto the table. “Everyone knows Zeus would be relieved to have a willing volunteer to service the old cow—”
Pan flew out of his seat and clamped his hand over Cupid’s mouth before he could dig them both an even deeper hole. Cupid struggled against the gag until Pan pointed a finger skyward. Only after Cupid nodded did Pan release his grip and settle into the booth again.
“Your mother must’ve gotten quite the earful from those three.” A smirk grew and died on Pan’s lips; he was far more comfortable in the role of accomplice than guardian, but his job allowed zero wiggle room.
“Oh yes,” Cupid said, finally sobering a bit, “and don’t forget Father.”
“Fuck me,” replied Pan. Of course Ares wouldn’t miss the chance to escalate a bit of mischief into a full-blown war, especially when his bastard son was the battleground.
Cupid cleared his throat and impersonated Ares’s stern, gravelly voice with an accuracy that made Pan’s skin prickle. “I told you something like this would happen one day, Aph. You’ve always been too soft on the boy.”
Despite the passage of time and the change of venue, Pan felt as if he and Cupid might have picked up the conversation where they’d left off just yesterday, not two thousand years of yesterdays. “I’m a fairly open-minded guy, and I couldn’t imagine Cerberus lusting after me.”
Cupid winked. “I could arrange a little tryst for the two of you, if you’d like.”
“Not without your golden arrows, you can’t, hotshot.”
Cupid’s cocky grin vanished. Nothing humbled a guy like impotence.
Layla delivered their drinks along with two straws plucked from her apron pocket. Cupid rattled off a thank you, sending Layla away in a full-on swoon.
“You’re getting that waitress all worked up.”
“Am I not supposed to use manners?”
Pan tore the wrapper off his straw, rolled it into a tight ball, and popped it onto his tongue. Cupid watched in disbelief as Pan stuffed the wad into the tip of his straw, raised the shooter to his lips, and blew. Cupid’s hand flew up and deflected the spitball sailing toward his nose.
“I see you’re still ten.”
Shrugging off the insult, Pan plucked a green tomato from the bowl. “You need to try one of these.” He sank his teeth through the thick skin and slurped at the seeds. Cupid watched until curiosity or hunger got the better of him, then reached for a tomato of his own, took one bite, and promptly spat the whole thing into his hand.
“This is horrid.” Cupid scowled and sucked down half his soda. An entertaining fit of coughs and burps ensued. “Are you trying to burn my innards with rotten fruit and painful drink?”
“I like this stuff.”
“Of course you do,” Cupid said, crossing his arms. “You’re a goat.”
“Not anymore,” Pan replied swiftly. “And you should probably be nice to me. I’m your only friend down here, maybe your only friend in the cosmos right now.”
Cupid picked up the spitball sitting on his placemat, the edges of his mouth forming a rare frown as he rolled the wad between his fingers. Crap. Newly fallens were always vulnerable to culture shock, anguish, and despair. Given Cupid’s unhealthy bond with his mother, he’d require an especially close watch.
“Talk to me, Q.”
“Mother didn’t even try to stop them from throwing me off Mount O.”
“Ouch.”
“Right.” Cupid let out a shaky sigh. “And she said I couldn’t come home until I’d made things right with love.”
“Oh, is that all?” Pan huffed, a knot tightening in his belly. “And did she happen to mention how you are supposed to do that?”
“Not a clue,” Cupid said with a shrug of his shoulders. Then, reminded they weren’t carrying the weight of his wings, he rolled them again.
Layla swished to the table and set Cupid’s plate down in front of him.
“Uh, miss?” Pan waved his hand back and forth under her nose.
She plunked down Pan’s plate and returned her adoring gaze to Cupid just in time to watch his tongue wrangle a loose flap of pastrami hanging over the side of his sandwich.
“Mmm. Now, this is gooood,” Cupid gushed.
“So glad you like it,” Layla gushed back, as if she’d cured the meat herself.
“Hallelujah,” said Pan, when the waitress finally left Cupid’s side. “She was one second away from climbing into your lap and feeding you by hand.”
“Do you think she would?” Cupid’s smirk forced a blob of pink dressing to the corner of his mouth.
“See? This is why people don’t like you.”
“Oh yeah? I think I just made a new friend,” Cupid said, jerking his chin toward the kitchen.
“Fine. Go see if your new friend wants to help you earn your wings back.”
Cupid paused mid–chew, and Pan could see the gears clicking into place as Cupid seemed to grasp that Pan was his only way home. “How did you find me anyway?”
Pan tensed. “How do you think?”
Cupid put on his thinking face and pondered Pan’s question, which was only his own question turned back on itself. He dragged two fries through a coleslaw river before delivering them to his mouth.
“You’re doing that wrong.” Pan reached across Cupid’s plate and snatched one of his fries.
“Doing what? Hey!”
“I’m sorry, but I cannot sit idly by and watch while you drown another french fry.” Relieved he had diverted Cupid’s attention, Pan swirled the french fry around the little white cup of ketchup on the side of Cupid’s plate. “Ketchup”—he paused to bite off the doused end and savor the taste on his tongue—“is the perfect combination of sweet and tart to complement the salty taste of the fry without turning it into a handful of mashed potatoes. Shall I demonstrate again?” Pan reached for another fry, and Cupid batted his hand away.
“Maybe I like mashed potatoes.” Cupid deliberately pressed one of his fries like a sponge into the milky puddle on his plate, then ate it with a theatrical moan to prove his point.
“That is truly disgusting.”
Cupid shot him a defiant smile.
Layla appeared just then to see if they were “still enjoying everything.” When Pan asked for the check, she replied, “Sure thing,” sweet as honey, and slid the handwritten slip to the middle of the table with her bright red fingernail before retreating again. Pan pulled out his wallet and tossed two twenties onto the table.
“That’s the currency here?”
“Yes. Much easier to carry than a sack of coins.” Pan gave him the dime tour of his plastic: debit, credit, driver’s license, memberships. “If you’re eating in a restaurant, add twenty percent for a tip. Remember your percentages?”
“Yes. We passed that class.”
“Barely,” Pan replied with a snort. “That reminds me”—Pan pulled out his phone and aimed the camera at Cupid—“say cheese.”
“Why?”
Pan rolled his eyes and showed Cupid the photo he’d just snapped. “You look like you’re about to hit the high note at a karaoke bar. Just smile, will ya?”
Still bewildered, Cupid flashed a smile long enough for Pan to capture it. In a few seconds, the photo was on its way to Pan’s local documents specialist.
Layla stopped by to scoop up the check. “I’ll be on break. Out back,” she added for Cupid’s benefit. With a big, goofy smile plastered across his cheeks, Cupid watched Layla’s backside disappear behind the swinging kitchen doors.
“I’m not sure if you realize what’s going on here, Q, but if you’re game for turning in your v-card, you seem to have an eager partner.”
“Of course I’m game.” Cupid bounced off the
banquette and would have bolted for the door had Pan not grabbed his arm.
“Whoa there, loverboy,” Pan said with a chuckle. “Not so fast.”
“Fast? My whole life, I’ve watched from the sidelines while everyone around me fornicated with anything that moved—and plenty that didn’t.”
“Easy, dude. I’m not gonna cockblock you.” Pan poked into his wallet again, pulled out a condom, and slid it over to Cupid, using Layla’s one-finger method. “Allow me to introduce you to the condom.”
“What’s that?”
“Think of this as a petasos for your pecker.”
Cupid glowered at the package. “You want me to hood my phallus now?”
“Do you want to sit here arguing with me or go see what Layla has for you out back?”
Pocketing the condom, Cupid scooted out of the booth. “Yasou!”
“Meet me at the truck when you’re finished, and don’t tell her it’s your first time.”
6
Earth Girl
Cupid had no trouble locating Layla in the back alley; her scent called to him like a musk deer attracting its mate. It also didn’t hurt that she was standing right in front of the fire door when he bolted through it.
Her eyes widened as she took in his full height. “Wow, you’re even better standing up.” She shook her head as if flummoxed by the words leaving her own mouth.
“You’re very sweet . . . and very pretty.” And he was so very eager.
A powerful pregame thrum coursed through his new human body. Cupid had no interest in prolonging the chase. Part of him still expected to wake from this dream to find himself back in his safe, boring, old bed, imprisoned in his useless body.
Layla’s gaze drifted downward and settled between his legs. Cupid felt an intoxicating jolt: want. His concentration faltered as he paused to curse Pan and the tight fabric restricting his inflamed desire, but if all went according to plan, he would be free soon enough. Though his body was uninitiated, erotic love was Cupid’s realm. Natural instinct, countless years of observation, and—what was it Pan had called it?—his “divine charisma” all kicked in. He was as ready as any being who’d ever lived.
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