Page 26 of Perfectly Matching Again

“This is quite a list of accomplishments.” She clearly chose to ignore the muses’ bickering and homed in on the more pressing matters, matters Erato really should’ve done a better job at preparing her for.

“This is just the latest of her many books. You should read her reviews. See her awards. Where do you even keep all those, Erato?”

Clio, whose smile looked increasingly like the cat who got the canary, clearly knew what she was doing. Erato gulped and felt the dread rise up her spine.

Demeter’s face was pale now and her eyes sought Erato’s.

“Why did you not tell me? This is such an amazing achievement.”

The Muse of History was hitting her stride with the commentary and continued relentlessly.

“Erato tends to minimize her accomplishments, unless they are of the bedroom variety.”

Clio looked at Erato fondly. Demeter’s brow furrowed.

“I can see that.”

“It’s a feature and not a bug with this one.” Clio whispered conspiratorially and Erato bristled.

“I’m standing right here. I can hear everything you’re saying about me.”

Demeter gave her another long look.

“Except you might as well not even be, since so much of you is never acknowledged. Chiefly, by yourself. All of this and more, accomplishments so many, you’d need Hermes to keep a tally. And yet you worry about what someone might say? About what Hera might think? Hades? Zeus? What do you think of yourselfis the question that is much more important to me. But I guess this morning has been answer enough. And then there is all this…”

Demeter gestured around to the billboard and the immense ballroom. She didn’t even touch her, but Erato felt the blow to her solar plexus, the words hard as a fist.

Clio, oblivious to the storm hitting the maximum hurricane category, chatted on.

“She is rather prolific and at one point had five of the ten top books on the Fiction chart. It was quite spectacular.”

Demeter finally looked away from Erato and met Clio’s eyes with a smile that held no joy, the corners lifting momentarily before drooping.

“Yes, I can only imagine. Well, I guess I will have to pick up a copy and find out for myself.”

Was it disappointment in the amber depths? Or was it aching that flashed for a brief moment and then disappeared? Erato couldn’t fathom why Demeter would be hurt by her keeping something like this a secret. After all, Demeter didn’t care all that much about her. Well, she cared about what Erato did to her, but she was a Goddess, one of the most important ones, and Erato was just a muse…

Still, Demeter’s words about asking herself the question of ‘what did she think of herself’ echoed some things Aphrodite had been right about. She both detested her reputation as the slutty muse and chose so often to hide behind it. Why had she told Demeter nothing about her writing career? She was proud of it. So why show only her bedroom persona?

Perhaps therapy was something she should look into? But then she could only imagine how that would go. ‘Hi, I am an immortal being who for centuries put forward her Sluts’R’Us persona because I’m not good enough for either my former loveror my current one, who is also the love of my immortal life, but is too amazing for me.’

The therapist would probably call the cops on her.

Erato shook her head and started speaking, desperate for words to come, except none did, and she closed it again, looking pitifully around herself for help.

It came swiftly in the form of a large crowd of giggling and shouting women, who surrounded her and their voices were a cacophony of sound, of compliments, of gushing and of requests of selfies and signatures. Erato grinned, in her element now, relaxed a bit, and reached for the first book being shoved into her face. The process was familiar, safe, comforting and she let time pass, allowing herself to enjoy her fans and her readers, their questions and their attention.

And somewhere amidst autographs and selfies, amidst compliments and platitudes, she felt it… A small tug on her wrist and then nothing. An emptiness she had not sensed for days, Hades, for the entire week. She looked down on her arm and saw the golden thread dangling off of it, its corresponding loop empty, the cord undone and on the floor, where boots and heels and sandals trampled on it in their rush to reach Erato.

Demeter was gone, undoing the bond and abandoning Erato alone in the crowd. How long ago had she left? How could she have gotten out of the binding? Did this mean she’d always had the ability to set them free of each other all along?

Erato couldn’t keep up with her own thoughts.

She turned in circles, desperate to catch a glimpse of Demeter, only to be met with the steel gaze of a pair of steely cold pair of eyes belonging to the goddess who perhaps was responsible for all this.

Hera clapped her hands, and the crowds parted like the Red Sea. Before Erato knew what was happening, she was being led by the golden bond still around her wrist down the hallwaytowards the convention center’s exit, Clio’s face now showing none of her earlier merriment. Whatever she saw on Hera’s face clearly wiped even the memory of smirking off of her features.

As if confirming Erato’s suspicions, as they rounded the corner and found themselves alone, Hera whirled on her with the determination of a shark sensing blood in the water.

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