WERE IT POSSIBLE to sweat without a body,1 Eros would have been standing in a puddle of his own perspiration. Smelling more than ever like lightly spiced pine and sour goat’s milk, a combination which had caused many a young goddess to breathe in more deeply than she strictly should have, resulting in a slight coughing fit and a stern look from her guardian, who rightly feared the crippling over-protectiveness of his mother, the incongruous goddess of love. But the cause of Eros’ anxiety was not Aphrodite, for once, but the semi-transparent, completely unconscious woman lying on the sofa in front of him. Well, not technically ‘in front’ of him, but ‘before his very eyes’ sounded melodramatic. Even if, under the circumstances, melodrama was warranted.
While failing to benefit from the sweet relief of a good sweat, Eros vacillated between desire, confusion and heartache as he hovered between Jesus and his cousin and the afternoon sun cast sharp shadows across the nearby Hollywood sign. Aiming for this symbolic icon would have placed him in the ballpark of where he needed to be, but Eros had opted for the less error prone pathway of Mulholland Drive via Google Maps.
‘I feel like we’ve been here before,’ joked Hermes, nervously extending and retracting his ankle wings like a 1950s delinquent with a switchblade. If Eros hadn’t been so distracted, he would have found it incredibly annoying. Jesus wasn’t in the habit of getting annoyed, so it was up to Alpha (with a slight nudge from Jesus) to pounce on the feathers and make off with a mouthful before Hermes could even let out a yelp. Had an ornithologist come across one of those feathers, he or she would have been quite surprised, at first, then deliriously excited, then confused, then evangelical, then inevitably ostracized by the scientific community for questioning the entire basis of the dominant avian paradigm. So it was lucky that Alpha was discrete with her trans-dimensional treasures.
‘Are you sure she’s OK?’ said Eros eventually. It was the first time that he had seen Violet since her wedding, and if Clotho hadn’t intervened, he would have continued to avoid her presence until his arrows wore off, the Olympian curse on his penis was lifted or the end of time; whichever came first.
‘She seems fine,’ said Jesus. ‘She is just elsewhere.
‘Semi-elsewhere,’ corrected Hermes.
‘Semi-elsewhere,’ agreed Jesus.
‘Like me,’ whispered Eros. Slowly, it was dawning on him why Clotho had asked him - not Hermes or anyone else - to follow her.
‘Like you,’ said Jesus, nodding. He hadn’t failed to notice the similarity between Eros’ particular method of trans-dimensional travel and the ambivalent solidity of the woman in front of them. Or rather, before their very eyes.
Hermes, on the other hand, was startled by the observation. ‘What do you mean, like you? You don’t think she’s…’ He paused, struggling with the implication, ‘…in another dimension? I mean, partially?’
Jesus shrugged. ‘That could certainly place her in peril, as your goddess predicted.’ He turned to Eros for confirmation. Eros, however, was having trouble breathing. Or would have been having trouble breathing if he needed the air. Which he didn’t. The gently undulating contours of Violet, or semi-Violet, were causing him to ache in a very specific place, namely his right shoulder blade, as if reminding him of the action that had rendered her so profoundly unavailable.
‘That’s impossible,’ said Eros hoarsely. He felt as though he were being stabbed by one of his own arrows, which was then being twisted into his sub-scapular region by someone attempting to pry apart his ribs.
Jesus raised an eyebrow towards Hermes. ‘You haven’t told him about the tin?’
‘What tin?’ demanded Eros.
‘Dendons,’ said Violet sleepily. Eros jumped. That is to say, he appeared to jump, with no sound and no displacement of matter. Even so, Romeo narrowed his pupils and swished his tail around suspiciously. Although dumber than Alfa, he was considerably more attuned to the metaphysical, particularly around solstices, equinoxes, Mexican feast days and lunar eclipses. While Violet, without moving at all, appeared to solidify slightly, transitioning from ‘neither opaque nor transparent’ to ‘mostly opaque’, but still falling a shade short of solid.
‘Uh oh,’ said Jesus, as the fur on Romeo’s back began to bristle.
‘Don’t change the subject,’ said Eros. ‘We know she talks in her sleep.’
‘She isn’t asleep,’ corrected Jesus. ‘She’s -’
‘Leo?’ said Violet, sitting up suddenly. It was fair to say that this was the most surprising thing she could possibly have said. There was no way (or No sheeping way!, as Eros would later put it, deliriously and repeatedly, until they made him stop) that she could have seen Eros standing there. Or rather, not standing there.
Whatever.
There was no way that Violet should have been able to see Eros. Jesus, Eros and Hermes were in complete agreement about that, even if they had been coming around, to a greater or lesser degree, to the idea that she may have been able to travel inter-dimensionally; albeit inadvertently and with no memory of the process.
‘What the hell are you wearing?’ said Violet.
Eros frowned. Sure, it wasn’t his Olympian best but it wasn’t a bad tunic either. In fact it was one of his favorites, even more so for the slight singe it had acquired in the workshop recently, which gave it a kind of piratical air, like a treasure map long concealed in a wooden leg that had been thrown overboard, washed ashore, then accidentally thrown onto a campfire. Then the penny dropped. ‘Theme park audition,’ he blurted without thinking.
‘Historical reenactment’, interrupted Hermes, glaring at him furiously.
‘Chariot…something,’ elaborated Jesus, who had never been good at improv.
Fortunately, Violet was groggy enough not to notice the discrepancies. She shook her head, blinking rapidly in an attempt to get a handle on Leo dressed up as a Roman…Roman what? Male prostitute came to mind, because of the way he seemed to be both guarding and drawing attention to his genitals, but did they have male prostitutes in ancient Rome? She wondered fleetingly what he might have charged, before pretending she’d never had that thought and shifting her focus to the skinny guy in sandals. ‘Who are you?’ she said to Jesus.
‘He’s a friend of ours,’ said Eros, before Jesus and Hermes could stop him. It was all very well (actually not really, but clearly it was happening so they’d just have to deal with it) for Violet to be able to see Eros. But to be able to hear him as well pushed things to such an extreme level of improbability that not even Jesus had contemplated the odds. Therefore what they - that is to say, Hermes and Jesus, as Eros was temporarily incapable of rational thought - assumed Violet was looking at was a solid three dimensional image of Eros, flapping his jaw soundlessly while clasping his tunic over his groin. They had, however, assumed incorrectly.
‘Oh,’ said Violet. ‘Where have you been, anyway?’
‘Around,’ said Eros, enigmatically and truthfully. ‘This is Jay, by the way,’ he said, smiling in the manner of one who, having embraced Paradox, is now figuring out the quickest way to get her clothes off. ‘And Alfa and Romeo,’ he added, pointing to the cats. It was a sweet and subtle touch that would have earned a nod of approval from Hermes, were he not desperately trying to think of a way to stop Eros from flirting trans-dimensionally, thereby breaking a set of ironclad Olympian rules that hadn’t yet been written, but which surely would be and then enacted retrospectively, once such a possibility was uncovered.
‘Like the cars?’ said Violet.
‘Er,’ said Eros.
‘Exactly,’ said Jesus. ‘Like the cars.’
Violet grabbed the edge of the sofa, suddenly overcome by the urge to lay back, roll onto her side, and sleep for a very long time. ‘How did I get here?’ she said. She wanted to yawn, and sneeze, which seemed an impossible combination to pull off. So she hiccuped instead, and felt marginally better.
Watching the reactions of the three grown men, or gods, or immortals, or ‘beings’, or whatever you wanted to call them, a casual observer could have been forgiven for thinking they were on some kind of divine sit-com, where the timing of every line delivered relied on an enforced pause to allow for a burst of canned laughter, or possibly even a suggestive ‘woo woo’. To say that their reactions were delayed would imply that they were reacting, when what they were actually doing was floating in a fog of amazement, tinged, in Eros’ case, with unadulterated desire.
‘You passed out…’ said Hermes.
‘…at the studio…’ continued Jesus.
‘…the studio…’ said Eros.
‘…and then I…’ added Hermes.
‘…called me…’ said Jesus.
‘…called him…’ embellished Eros.
‘…and we…’
‘…brought you back to my…’
‘…back here.’
Eros grinned. The explanation was so neat, so simple. That it failed to account for his out-of-body, inter-dimensional presence, or indeed the high-speed and highly risky method by which Hermes had brought her there, seemed irrelevant.
‘OK,’ said Violet. Swinging her legs onto the floor, she tried to stand up, then thought better of it. ‘Why did you bring me here, exactly?’
Hermes looked at Jesus, who was busy scratching Alfa’s belly with the tip of his sandal; then at Eros, who was still grinning. Clearly, he was on his own. ‘Jay is a counselor. You looked really upset when I told you that you’d been fired. In fact you passed out. So I brought you here so you could talk to him. About your career. Or—’ he paused, teetering on the edge of a comment that might set Eros off, yet which, given the circumstances, seemed opportune, ‘—any personal issues you might be having at the moment.’
But Eros totally missed the vague yet pointed implication. ‘You’ve been fired?’ he said. Somehow this seemed more shocking than everything else that had occurred up to that point, including but not limited to: Violet seeing him; Violet hearing him; and something about a tin he was yet to get to the bottom of.
‘I’ve been fired?’ said Violet.
‘Would anyone like a glass of water?’ asked Jesus. ‘I’ve got still, sparkling, or vodka.’ Hermes laughed, but Violet barely seemed to hear them. Gripping the edge of the sofa, she appeared weak and shaken, but at least she looked completely solid. She also looked so beautiful that Eros started to extend his hand towards her, an involuntary action that would have seen him rugby tackled by both Hermes and Jesus, had Violet reached out to take it. So it was lucky that her mind was elsewhere. Ignoring Eros, she leaned down to pick up her purse. ‘I need to call my husband,’ she said to no one in particular.
It was the most brutal thing she could have said, under the circumstances.