"Mom? What's the matter?"
Lazily she lifted her head from the velvet pillows and lifted her eyebrows to her son in greeting. "I can't deal with this," she muttered, dramatically waving one perfect slender arm around in the air in a vast, vague gesture. Another chocolate disappeared between her supple lips.
Eros was used to his mother's theatrics. Slinging off his bow and quiver of arrows and pitching them in a corner, he sat down on the floor next to her. "What happened?"
"I can't do anything. Anything *important*... drat." She stopped talking and concentrated on fishing the chocolate she had just dropped out of the folds of her clothing.
"That's... just... what are you talking about?" Eros asked evenly.
"Look at this," Aphrodite said, holding up the retrieved sweet. "This piece of chocolate. This is... *so*... perfect! You take cacao, and sugar, and milk from one of those cow things, and you put it all together with nuts or fruit or cream and you've created perfection."
"So...?"
"I love chocolate. I always have." The goddess popped the chocolate into her mouth. "I was there when Demeter first invented it. I'll never forget that day..."
"And...."
"I thought I'd make something perfect myself. Something as good as chocolate, but more in my own department." She leaned back against her pillows and fluffed her blonde tresses happily as she thought of how pleased she'd been with her idea.
"Which project was this?" Eros found a bunch of grapes on the table near the divan, and decided they'd be a good snack. He'd been out all day spreading love and it tends to get tiresome on the wings.
"I searched the whole mortal universe for the two souls that would be the most perfectly suited to love one another," Aphrodite explained. "As you can imagine, it took me quite some time! And it was very easy to get distracted. But I finally found them... I knew it would be some task, getting them together. For one thing, they come from completely distant homeworlds."
Eros raised an eyebrow. "Are they even the same species?" What new scheme was his nutjob mother playing at now?
"Not... really.... well, one is human and the other is half-human, half-Vulcan." Aphrodite dropped the box of chocolates in her lap and began to braid her golden hair.
"Vulcan? Har har."
"No, I mean it. That's a planet."
"There's a planet named after him?"
"Not exactly--"
"Does he know about this?"
"I doubt it. He barely comes out of his workshop." Aphrodite sighed. Her husband could be such a workaholic sometimes. Good thing there were gods like Mars hanging around to take care of all those other little things like getting her chocolates, fathering Eros.... etc.
"What are they like on Vulcan?"
"Logical."
"Logical?"
Aphrodite made a moue. "They're not very big fans of me there."
"Ah."
"Well, anyway." She curled her legs up and hugged her knees to her chest. "They're from two different cultures, on two different planets, and they're both male. But out of all the billions of trillions of possible combinations of lovers in the entire universe--- they're the most suited for each other!"
"They're both male?"
Aphrodite shrugged. "Eh... it's for love. If you knew these two you wouldn't be worrying about procreation. They're very career-focused."
"Okay... I guess... it just seems like you gave yourself more of a challenge," Eros said hesitatingly.
"Oh, no, it's not that," she smiled. "They're queer all right."
"Okay then," said Eros. "Hey, speaking of which, have you seen Ganymede lately? I need to give him back that cake tray from the other night."
"He's at Jerry Falwell's house," Aphrodite said off-handedly.
"What's he doing there??"
"I don't know... whatever he does there. Cause trouble, I suppose. But back to my men! So here they are, stationed on the same starship, best friends, hopelessly devoted to one another-- they'd die for each other-- and they've fallen madly in love..."
"So why are you in a funk?" Trust Mom to take the long way to the punchline, Eros thought idly.
"BECAUSE THEY'RE JUST SITTING THERE AND NOT GETTING MARRIED OR EVEN HOOKING UP AND I CAN'T TAKE ANY MORE OF THIS!!!!!!"
Eros blinked and ate another grape as his mother calmed down and rearranged the pillows.
"Where's that other box of chocolates?"
"Why aren't they getting together, Mom?" Eros asked calmly. "What's the problem?"
"Well, Spock's been engaged since he was seven years old to some.... some... computer engineer or something," Aphrodite said, waving her hand around in the air. "Some woman he hasn't seen in decades."
"Which one's Spock?"
"The Vulcan."
"If he's queer, can't he get out of the betrothal?"
"He's Vulcan," she explained. "Well, or trying to be. When he was younger, all the other li'l Vulcans made fun of him for being half-human. So now he overcompensates and tries to make up for it. It was enough of a hassle getting him off the planet in the first place so he could really bloom..."
"So he's staying with this arranged thing because it's the Vulcan way?"
Aphrodite nodded. "Yes, and when he reaches his Time of Mating, he'll be drawn irresistibly to T'Pring and they'll get married. And he'll have to leave James behind, and he knows this, and this is why he won't speak of love."
"What about James-- that's the human's name? Why are so many of them named James?"
"Dunno. It's not important. No one calls him that anyway. Hey, don't eat all the grapes."
"So the human hasn't broached the subject because he knows about the betrothal?" Eros handed her the waning bunch.
"Actually, no.... Spock hasn't said anything to him about it at all. He's afraid it'll make James stop being intimate with him."
"Intimate? I thought you said they weren't hooking up."
"Oh, not physically. But their friendship has grown into something really, truly special... I'd let it stay the way it is now, but they both seem to want each other *so much*! And you know how much unfulfilled desire pains me." She paused. "Spock thinks that if James knows he's supposed to go off and marry someone else, he'll stop being so close. And meanwhile, James knows how reserved and private and introverted Spock is, and so he's waiting for his 'ok' to bring up the fact that they both know they're ridiculously in love. He wants Spock to make the first move, and Spock won't do anything because he thinks it's POINTLESS." Towards the end of her speech, her words were turning into whiny sobs, and at the last word Eros had to dodge the airborne box of chocolates.
"Hmm. Sounds like a standstill."
"I swear." Aphrodite shook her head firmly. "I just wanted... to make something, to create something... that would give me as much pleasure as chocolate, that would be as perfect as chocolate, that I *made myself*! Something I could be proud of! MY work! My perfect little... blah." She dropped the denuded grape-stem on the table. "This just isn't working. This isn't fair. All that time I spent--"
"Mom, mom. Calm down. I think I know how to fix this."
"What? What are you going to do?" Aphrodite propped herself up on one elbow and turned her head to face him.
"I'll be back in an hour. If Psyche comes looking for me tell her I went to Vulcan." Eros had stood up and was already putting his bow and quiver back on.
"What?"
"I said I'm going to Vulcan! I know exactly how to fix your problem! Trust me, you'll see. Everything's going to work out fine!" He was almost at the door.
"Wha--? You're going to dart somebody, aren't you. Who are you going to dart?" His mother craned her neck to see him.
"What's that Vulcan woman's name, T'Pring?"
And everything worked out just fine.