'This is so sudden. I can't believe I am in love with another man,' the woman said to the man embracing her in an ordinary first world office. 'I'm married.'
'Me too,' the man said, his face contorted through confusion and disbelief. 'It was like a stray bullet was shot through me. Not a bullet but a brush, something brushed by me and…it was only yesterday that I felt nothing but disdain for you yet...' The adulterous couple began to kiss.
Above a filing cabinet not far from the couple a naked teenager was seated, languidly, smiling sadly, his sad smile the product of boredom and disappointment.
'All I have to do is be around them for love to quicken. But I'm around myself all the time and can't find love for myself,' the little Love God sighed, and watched the new couple have sex. 'Maybe they'll have a love baby,' he added bitterly and flew away.
This was night and the Love God looked up to see his aunt shining in the bright night sky. She winked at him and caused a lunar eclipse. The Love God winked back darkening half of his own world to say hi and flew onwards. He was fast and before a second passed Love had spanned half a continent. He made his way downwards towards a forest in Central Europe.
This was a dark forest where his aunt's brightness didn't completely penetrate but it didn't matter because Love saw what he wanted to see as he always did. He flew through the woods in such a way that not a branch was touched, nor a leaf trembled until he came to a clearing and waited.
After a short time he saw a figure moving rapidly through the trees and a strong smell of pine cones perfumed all around Love. He watched the figure make manoeuvres around him, sharply turning this way and that way, until it stopped and walked slowly towards him.
'Hey there, pretty little wood sprite,' Love said hoarsely, almost shyly. 'What were you doing there, trying to make me dizzy?' He smiled a goofy grin.
The female wood sprite continued to approach him with her eyes flitting from the Love God to everything around him until she looked flush in his face and backed away.
'I can't even look at you,' said the wood sprite with a low but excited voice.
'That's just initial impression,' said the love God with desperation in his voice. 'Once you get used to me it will be different. Why don't we -'
'I'll never get used to you, Love. You're too beautiful. I swear I have never seen a boy so beautiful! You look like your mother.' She ran away.
'Wait! I'm really not. It's just the light. My aunt is playing tricks with you! If you'll just give me a chance!' She had disappeared from sight. He thought of using a God's right to take what he wanted, but unlike his mother with Adonis he decided against it because it wouldn't give him what he sought for.
'Ohh how beautiful love is!' he cried sarcastically. 'Everyone gets to have it but me! I can't even get a girl to look at me.'
He flew off again vexed but no more so than usual for this had happened to him before. Love had gotten used to rejection.
He escaped the forest, and fast Love found himself in a sun drenched town where a girl was on her way to a first date. Love looked at her as she entered the plaza where her date was waiting for her. Love brushed his wing on her cheek. The look on her face changed drastically and the nerves of doubt turned into the nerves of excitement. She met her date and fell in love with him. But Love's wings brushed only one of the two.
Love watched on as the date took place, watched as they had an easy enjoyable early relationship and Love watched on as the dates culminated into a wedding. He watched for twenty years as the relationship changed and the woman began absorbing the abuse, the adultery, the scorn. Love watched as the man brought the woman to ruin, destroyed her relationship with her family, even with her children and finally with life. Love watched as her love and passion never diminished, blinded to everything but her devotion to her husband, throwing everything up for his sake, for Love's sake.
'See, why can't I have something like that?' Love asked himself at the woman's burial. 'Why can't I have that passion or see someone's passion for me? I can do all this for everyone else but can't have the same for me. Am I cursed to be loveless forever, me, the God of Love?'
Thus the growing Love God lamented as he felt a gnawing sense of emptiness. He flew along until the clouds split into hundreds of white doves. The emptiness lessened slightly as he looked down at an island, an island like himself, with the island being love, and the water being his beauty. Love touched down on the island and made his way to a shell-like building that housed the only person who could look at him and touch him. This was his mother Venus, who was lying on a rose cushion when he flew into her arms.
'Mother, what a horrible life this is!' Love cried and almost instantly he felt a woman's softness and a mother's warmth and felt comforted...but he continued his lament. 'How long must I live like this?'
'Live like what?' his mother asked and squeezed him tighter. She felt the power of love overwhelm her but squeezed on.
'You know what I mean, mother. Another nymph ran away from me. It's so stupid that someone who makes others fall in love can't get love himself.'
'You want a woman? Take one of my Charites. Take Euphrosyne. Didn't you like her before?'
Venus looked about her for her attendants but frowned to see them gone.
'Three miscarriage Euphrosyne?' mused Love. 'I did and I still do but I don't want a woman just for sex. I want love and passion,' he said, with his voice muffled as he snuggled deeper and closer to his mother. 'Even if I take them through a God's right, they run away right after and fall in love with the next person they see but never with me. The God of Love, the most beautiful being, has to force women to be with him!'
The intensity of having Love so close to her was getting greater and Venus was struggling to keep herself composed.
'Maybe if you catch them in a particular mood,' she mumbled distractedly, starting to disentangle herself and added with effort: 'every time you come over you get me into trouble.'
Love stifled a laugh. His lament was now completely at odds with how he felt. His depression was gone amidst his mother's embrace, she herself composed of love through creation and maternity.
'Where are you going now?' he said cheekily, laughing outright. Love heard the flutter of doves approach and saw the look of a fallen woman. Venus wasn't listening anymore as she was completely possessed by a desire for amour and left in a trance. Love looked on wistfully but was more amused than depressed. He was cheered and called Euphrosyne. She obeyed and appeared before him, herself beautiful and captivating. Love said to himself that he was in love.
'Is my own love for you not enough for you?' he asked and waved the lovely naked Charite to him. 'Is love not enough? If not, if it's not enough and I'm not enough, and if you can't fall in love with me,' Love continued softly, 'it doesn't mean that I can't fall in love with you before you fall in love with someone else. And you never know. You might end up with a love baby. Wouldn't you like that, Euphrosyne? Wouldn't you like a love baby? Look at me.'
She raised her face as he ordered and looked at him. He saw tears. Love sighed as he knew the tears were not for Love, or his baby but for his beauty. The not so little love god drew her to him and began to have his way with her, for the moment reconciling himself with being a God, a God of Love, who had to force women to be with him.
