Psyche

    Hey guys.  The pub is about to open, but I guess I have a few minutes to tell you the latest about Psyche.  She was just in here last night and in one of her drunken stupors, but I assume I had better start at the beginning of her story...

    Psyche was born into royalty with three older sisters, but she was by far the most beautiful one.  Since Venus, you know, the goddess of love, thinks she needs to be the only beautful being and should receive praise accordingly, Venus was quite upset that Psyche was now being doted upon by all of the horny men of the land, if you'll pardon my language.   So in her jealous rage, Venus sent her son Cupid to seek revenge on the young Psyche, but Cupid had no idea what Psyche had actually done that was wrong and really no say in the matter.  Cupid was supposed to make Psyche fall in love with the ugliest of men, but boy did that plan backfire!  Not many people know this, but Cupid is not the brightest crayon in the box (I still am crazy about the guy because he is GORGEOUS!) and he is pretty clumsy.  He went to shoot Psyche with one of his arrows of love and, not expecting to behold such a beauty as Psyche, he accidentally shot himself with the arrow!  This incident is where the whole mess got started... 

    So now Cupid is in love, but Psyche is still all alone.  One of the things Psyche is constantly whining about is the fact that her sisters were both married waaaay before she was and how "sucky" it is that her beauty is so intimidating to mortal men.  (I know, give me a break, right?)   Well, when her parents finally grew sick of her moaning and complaining, they went straight to Apollo's oracle and he said she was destined to marry a horrible monster whom no one, not even myself, could resist.  Soon after Psyche's parents learned about the oracle and told her about marrying the monster, she went for a walk because she was quite depressed.  On her walk, she saw a beautiful mansion and was overwhelmed with the sudden urge to see who lived there.  And you know Apollo's oracle is never wrong:  that was the monster's mansion!  Since Psyche is not one to think things through and generally acts on a whim, she married this monster (whom she'd never seen) and moved in with him.  Little did she know this "monster" was, in fact, Cupid because he kept his identity concealed from her even after they married.  Everything was perfect for a while (she talks constantly about their honeymoon phase where they would have unheard of sex, which makes me quite jealous because I would LOVE to get a piece of Cupid), what with the massive mansion and the invisible "monster" husband who was gone all day and only came home for their wild love sessions at night.  After a while she grew extremely bored and depressed with no other human contact, so she invited her wretched, jealous sisters to come visit.  They, being the hussies they are, reminded her that she did, in fact, live with a monster, so they convinced her to actually try to see her husband's face; if he did, in fact, turn out to be a monster, she was to murder him. 

    So, because her crazy sisters provoked her, Psyche went into the bedroom with a lamp in order to see what her husband actually looked like.  Big mistake!  Unfortunately, Psyche got a little too close to Cupid and spilled some of the oil from the lamp onto his face!  As to be expected, he woke up on the WRONG side of the bed!  He flew out the window and told her he'd never, ever see her again!  (A bit melodramatic, but Psyche asks for all of this drama in her life, if you ask me..)  In her despair, Psyche turned to the goddess Ceres, who told her the best solution would be to go to Venus herself, Cupid's mother, which is probably the worst advice she could have given (but I'm really not one to judge).  So, Psyche went to Venus, and Venus finally saw an opportunity to get her revenge!  She gave Psyche a whole series of impossible tasks to perform.  Psyche's first task was to separate a massive pile of different beans and herbs.  It looked impossible!  Cupid felt sorry for her, though, so he sent a family of ants to help her.  Venus realized that Psyche could not have separated the beans and herbs on her own, and she knew that Cupid had to have helped her.  This infuriated Venus even more!  So, Venus ordered Psyche to go down into the underworld to steal some beauty from Persephone, the beautiful queen of the underworld, because Venus' own beauty had faded due to the stress of having such a beautiful mortal daughter-in-law (which sounds like a big load of you-know-what if you ask me, but like I said, I don't judge).  Of course, Psyche succeeded, yet her curiosity got the best of her and she opened the box of beauty, only to find it was not beauty at all but a box of long, deep sleep.  She collapsed right then and there and Cupid, coming to her rescue, prodded her with one of his famous arrows to wake her up.  After griping her out for never keeping her curiosity at bay, he went to the great god Zeus and begged and pleaded for Psyche to be brought to the heavens for him as a goddess.  Zeus gave it the okay, and when she was brought to Cupid in heaven, he gave her a nice big glass of ambrosia, making her forever immortal.  In the end, Cupid and Psyche had another wedding ceremony with a slew of gods and goddesses in attendance, but their marriage is far from merry.  I know from experience (please don't ask me how) that Cupid is not the most faithful of husbands... but let's just see what she has to come in and cry about tonight...  

Author's Note:  I told Psyche's story from Ganymede's point of view (through the stories she drunkenly tells him) and made his voice that of bitter bartender who pretends to hear more information than he cares to hear, when really he thrives on it.  In the original story, Psyche experiences a lot more sadness, but in my version of the story she is a lot more pathetic--that is because Ganymede is extremely annoyed with the drunken gods and goddesses in general, and with Psyche in particular because she is such a hot mess.  Psyche was more of a "damsel in distress" in the original story, rather than in my story where she was just pitiful and grew to be annoying.  Also, in the original story, Venus imposed many different tasks upon Psyche, but I included only two of them.  It was somewhat hard for me to not let Ganymede have a potty mouth in this because I picture bartenders to cuss like sailors!  I gave Ganymede a very laid back voice, and he is supposed to sound jealous of Psyche for her relationship with Cupid.  In the original, Venus sounded a lot scarier and threatening, whereas in mine she can be viewed as the typical horrible mother-in-law. 

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