beautiful woman ever to exist, but she just looked cheap right now. Her perfume was tickling my nose, and that smelled cheap too.
“I was going to get so many new followers and likes because I had Coachella tickets. Zeus forced me back here to deal with you. I thought I was done with you when Zeus dissolved our marriage. You’re like herpes.”
My lips were cracked, bruised, and bleeding. My mouth was so dry, it felt like someone had repeatedly shoved cotton down my throat until there was no room for anything else. My lip started bleeding again, but I smirked at Aphrodite.
“I’ll bet you know all about herpes, right, Aphrodite? You certainly didn’t get it from me.”
Aphrodite stomped her foot and shrieked.
“I hate you! I hate everything about you. I had every eligible perfect Olympian ready to go to war for my hand when Zeus stepped in and picked you so there would be no fighting. He never asked me what I wanted. I didn’t want to live in that filthy volcano, and if I had to have a husband, I didn’t want one that was defective!”
I just rolled my eyes. She’d already thrown all of this in my face before, but for the sake of peace in my forge, I never told her what I was thinking. That time had come.
“Did you ever stop and think I didn’t want to marry you either, Aphrodite? You might not have a limp like me, but I find you vile and repulsive all the same. You’re vapid, self-centered, and I think it would have amused you if Zeus let it get to the point they were fighting over you. You were also lousy in bed.”
She just shrieked and slapped me in the face.
“You can’t talk to me like that! Everyone wanted to marry me then. They gave you a fucking blessing when Zeus picked you for my husband. Every man in Olympus would have done anything for that.”
I just laughed in her face.
“Not every man. I didn’t want you, and Ares tired of you pretty quickly. Tell me, Aphrodite, how is the Goddess of Love faring on Earth now? I’ll bet you’re single and drowning in one-night stands that end up ghosting you.”
She stomped her feet and balled up her fists. I knew she wanted to hit me. Why did Zeus grab her, anyway? She wasn’t a fighter. She wouldn’t be good at interrogation either. Trying to have a conversation with her was painful. If you tried to talk about anything except for how pretty she was, she zoned out and would try to steer it back towards kissing her ass.
Yeah, I could officially say I was getting to her right now. She was extraordinarily beautiful, even for an Olympian, and it didn’t matter if you were from my home or Earth. People tended to let the beautiful people get away with everything. I’m sure in the modern day, a few humans had told her she was self-centered, but she wouldn’t have cared about their opinion because she found them beneath her. Hearing it from an Olympian and a man who had been married to her was really hitting home.
She closed her eyes and focused on her breathing.
“Focus on your bliss, Aphrodite,” she said, making a motion with her hands like she was shoving her anger down from the top of her head to her chest. When she opened her eyes again, she was all saccharin sweetness. “I forgive you for what you said. I know you don’t mean it. My poor Hephaestus has been chained up and tortured by his father. I’m here to make it right. How about a kiss for old time’s sake?”
Zeus had broken several ribs. They had already healed but were still sore. I still started laughing like a madman through the pain. This was Zeus’s big plan to get my weapon? Olympus was doomed if he thought sending my ex-wife; who I hated, who brought fucking Ares to my sacred forge to defile the bed I made, and who I hadn’t been married to in hundreds of years; to seduce me would work.
I treated her kindly and well when we were married because I knew she was forced into it just as much as I was, and I hid that I didn’t care for her very much, but all she did was throw anything and everything back in my face and insult me. She would regularly talk about how I was defective because of my limp.