in the smooth, warm bed in the pretty hotel
The sheets smelled of bleach and chocolate
The city twinkled and murmured below us
I slept better than I had in years
But in the morning, over croissants and coffee
my mother asked me again
She said, “I have a small whitewashed house in the countryside, not far from the sea. I bought it with the money from the jewels your father gave me. I have flowers instead of diamonds—they’re not doing so well right now, but you should have seen them! What they can be! There is a wonderful college; you could go there. We could drink wine and eat ravioli in the plaza in the evenings. You should see the art! The men! The light is rose gold at dawn, like blown glass in the morning, like watermelon when the sun sets on the city.” She said, “I’m leaving today, I want you to come with me”
But why should I leave?
My mother had left me
a long time ago
All I knew about her, really
came from the movies I had seen her in
the articles I had read
the smell of her clothes
She had abandoned me to her own hell god, my father
Now she was back, trying to take me away from mine
Why should I leave you?
“I’m not ready,” I told her. “I am still with him”
“I want you back”
“But you left me. How can I trust you?”
There were tears in my mother’s eyes
but she knew I was right
She left that afternoon
And I went back to hell that night
Whenever I felt pain I imagined that I was one step closer
to finding my lover again
I had completed the tasks of patience
self-denial and self-punishment
earned him this way
But what had I really done?
Given up a demigod of poetry
let myself be fucked by hell himself
Were those things enough?
Still, I told myself, I will keep trying
Until I am too old to want to be immortal
I dropped out of school and stayed with Hades
Every day was the same
I would wake late in the morning and make his coffee
After his shower I would help him to dress
combing his hair, choosing his rings
making sure his black leather pants fit smoothly
buckling his belt
helping him with his boots
When he left to make his rounds
I would do the marketing—
Chinatown for spices and dead chickens
Little Italy for fresh pasta and strings of sausages
The Lebanese market for rosewater and lamb
I spent the rest of the day cleaning Hades’s house
polishing the black floors, dusting the artifacts
scrubbing the toilet
and cooking his evening meal
Before Hades came home I made sure I had bathed
put on makeup and a beautiful
dress
We ate together and drank red wine
at either end of the long table
We rarely spoke anymore
After dinner Hades left again
Sometimes he took me with him
to an opening of a club or to hear a new band
I held his hand and was very quiet
Usually I wore a dark lace veil over my face
When we returned home
the sky had turned pale with fog like a bride
Sometimes Hades grabbed me
in the large black bed
and sometimes he fell asleep
without touching me, his face to the wall
This went on for six months
I cannot say I was unhappy
I kept thinking that I was paying some important price
My dreams were full of dark treasures
china dolls’ heads and hands, shattered pocket mirrors
a dead bird with one wing
I collected them to my breast
gathering my strength
After a while, I packed my things
and took an airplane to stay with my mother
Demeter lived in a whitewashed cottage
in the green hills above the sea
Every day was the same
I woke at dawn and bathed
helped my mother prepare breakfast—
muesli and fruit and cream
Then we went out into the garden and planted
pulled weeds and watered until the leaves
were emeralds
We went into the village
with cobblestone-paved streets
and bought fresh eggs and opalescent milk
Sometimes we went down to the beach
and swam in the sapphire water
We basked in the sun in giant hats
In the evenings we put on lipstick
and flowered gauze dresses we had made
and went to sit in the cafés
We ate pasta and drank wine
and watched each other glow in the candlelight
Men emerged from their marble prisons
So many speaking statues, perfect stone beauties
but we never went home with them
In the morning we gathered blossoms
that had bloomed overnight
This was the life my mother had bought
with the devil’s jewels
I cannot say I was unhappy
But sometimes I would wake at night
in my mother’s bed
and the smell of flowers through the window
made me wheeze, gulping for breath
Love, he was not there
Every six months I returned to Hades
Then to Demeter’s garden
Back and forth between them aimlessly
I belonged to them
And there was something peaceful about that
So, finally
still seeking some kind of punishment
I went back to the city where my father lived
It is always possible to exchange
one hell god for another
Psyche as a Dress
I hadn’t seen my father’s girlfriend for so long
I didn’t recognize her at first
She was sitting in the front of her shop
fingering her dresses
as if she were touching flesh
There were some gardenias floating in bowls
It was a terribly hot day
and the air conditioner was broken
But Aphrodite never breaks a sweat
Cool as white flowers in a case of glass
I looked around the store
at all the things Aphrodite had made
There were dresses of petals
jackets of butterfly wings
or bird feathers
cloaks of leaves
coats of spiderwebs
Aphrodite and I spoke awhile
I told her that I was looking for work
and she asked about school, why I had left
I talked about Hades
It was hard to resist
confessing to a wide-eyed mother figure
She wasn’t disturbed by what I said
I think she even smiled a little
Maybe just appreciating
a good story
“You could work for me,” said Aphrodite
You are one of my girls already”
I was still shivering a little
from the smile I thought I’d seen
a glimmer on her lips
like a trace of saliva
But I said yes anyway
That was how I began
I worked at the shop six days a week
I never even took a break
just wolfed down a sandwich in between cu
stomers
hiding the greasy paper under the counter
wiping mustard off my fingers
as I jumped up to help people
With the money I made
I was able to move out of my father’s house
He hardly noticed
Since I had stopped performing in his films
I just wasn’t useful
I rented a tiny one-room guest cottage
nestled away in a canyon
You had to take a steep path up behind the main house to my miniature door
Morning glory vines grew over the roof
There were amaryllis and blue iris in the garden
Tomato vines and sunflowers
Blue glass wind chimes and a path of tiny stepping-stones
Inside, everything was so small I was always stooped over
There was no closet
so I gave away most of my mother’s devil-dresses
washed my lingerie in the garden birdbath
and ate outside off a doll’s china tea set
and seashell bowls in a ring of tea lights
When I was uncomfortable
I pretended I was in a storybook
In the evenings after work I hiked through the hills
and picked wildflowers for my hair
Sometimes I went alone to the local pub
and had a beer in the dark
watching the boys play pool
Then I came home to my room
with the claw-foot tub and the single bed
decorated with lace and cloth blossoms
from the ninety-nine-cent store
In this cottage I thought I had escaped my hell god
Maybe I had just found his female counterpart
Some days the shop was full of customers
buying up everything
and then Aphrodite was happy
She took me out after work
and ordered sushi and beers
She promised me a life of glamour, travel
wonderful dresses, any men we wanted
I got drunk and said I didn’t want any man except one
“Who is that?” she asked, smiling wickedly
I told her about the god who had once come to my bed
The one I thought was a monster
“Oh, Psyche!” she said
“Is beauty monstrous?
What does that say about me?”
Some days no one came into the shop
and Aphrodite called every hour
to see if I had made a sale
her voice more and more frantic
Finally, she stormed in the door—
a whirlwind of red roses—
and demanded that I clean
I got down on my knees
and scrubbed the floor in my white clothes
while a few customers strayed in
stepping over me in their high-heeled shoes
I dusted the shelves in the back of the store
until I was caked with filth
I sorted through boxes of tiny beads and baubles
blue glass stars, abalone fish, quartz roses
jade teardrops, crystal moons
Aphrodite insisted that I organize them perfectly
without a single mistake
“Look at you!” Aphrodite shrieked
“There on the floor covered in dirt
How do you expect any man to want you
let alone that one?”
She put on a dress made of eucalyptus bark
snakeskin and rabbit fur and went off
to dance at a wedding
While she was gone the ants
crawled in from outside and helped me sort the beads
into their own little boxes
Aphrodite came back at midnight, drunk
“Slave,” she said
“Witch”
She turned me into a moth
and shredded my wings to make dresses
But then she needed someone to work for her
so she changed me back
My hair was a little thinner after that
but otherwise I felt all right
She made me into a red rosebush
and plucked all the flowers for her dresses
While she worked she said
“Once I was in love like you
I pricked my finger on a thorn
when I ran to help him
My blood made the white rose red
so pretty
but what’s the point?
He died anyway”
When she changed me back
my lips and nipples were paler than before
I guess I am lucky
Some girls never return to their original form
In this town there are a lot of dangerous types
I brought Aphrodite wool from the vicious golden sheep
to make her sweaters
I brought her drinking water
from a pool
guarded by dragons
I even went back to the underworld
to find the beauty cream to keep her young
Hades had a new girlfriend, who manufactured it
She was very sweet, actually
She reminded me of myself when I lived with him
wearing a veil, quiet, insecure
except she had a thriving business
called Deadly Beauty
On my way home to Aphrodite
I stayed at a motel on the coast
There were sea lions on the rocks
coughing their warnings
In the darkness of my room
I opened the jar and touched my little finger
patted it on my cheek
I was working at the shop when I got the call
My mother was dead
Before I dropped the phone
I saw the large black butterfly
beating its wings against the window
That was how I fell into an enchanted sleep
Why hadn’t I decided to stay with her?
What would have been so bad about that life?
The gardens and the sea and the cafés
Was it only that I was afraid
what others might have thought?
Or had I sacrificed her to my lost lover
as I had sacrificed everything
He was still gone
And I had lost Demeter
I had chosen Aphrodite instead
I walked through my life in this strange trance
My eyes were glazed and my mouth was sealed
I worked at the shop all day and played pool at night
because it seemed like a good pastime
for a zombie in a dress
Even Aphrodite acted concerned
One day she came into the shop and handed me a book
“Read this,” she said
It was so like my life
that I wondered if the author knew me
There was no photo
But it said where he lived
In my trance I wrote to him
Sent it to the publisher, never expecting a reply
I said that his book was just like my life
and that I would be in his city
Aphrodite was sending me there
to prepare for a trade show
A few weeks later a letter came
We met in the lobby of the hotel where I was staying
It was a small, romantic place with thick Persian carpets
striped satin chairs
marble and brass counters
flowers everywhere
I sleepwalked down the stairs
wearing Aphrodite’s white peony dress
Love was waiting in the shadows
I had found him again
He stepped into a circle of lamplight
and it did not burn him
“I should have known it was you,” I said
“You did,” said Eros
“I wrote it so you could find me”
We stepped into the evening with hardly a word
It was summer and the sweat popped out on my skin
before I could take a step
The city was deserted this time of year
As I remember, there was no one on the streets
Eros and I walked along, speaking softly
He towered over me
even in my high heels I barely reached his armpit
A summer rain began to fall
misting my hair with a veil of drops
Eros took off his light tweed
jacket and draped it gently over me
His body was very thin but his shoulders were broad
We came to a small restaurant covered
inside and out
with broken bits—teacups, plates, figurines, glass
I wondered who had smashed the mirrors
not fearing bad luck
Eros and I sat across from each other drinking
white wine and eating
grilled salmon, couscous and salad
I couldn’t remember having taste buds before
We were the only people there
The food just came to us by itself
“How did you write that book?” I asked him
“It’s exactly my life. Have you been following me?”
Eros grinned a crooked smile
It was the first time I had really looked into his face
His head was shaved, laugh lines around his eyes
a nose with a bump, as if it had been broken
He had changed
“Maybe a part of you has been following me, my Soul”
Eros walked me back to my hotel
We shook hands in the lobby
No one was there
I could hear the rain on the glass
I didn’t let go of his hand
Instead, I led him up the stairs to my room
He hesitated at the doorway, standing in the dim hallway
There were green cabbage roses on the carpet