Chapter 6: The Meeting

A torch burned in the air and floated in front of her. Three more torches whirled in to lead the way. Psyche followed the invisible handmaidens, and they walked her through a great hallway into a bath chamber.

The chamber hosted an indoor pool, full of fragrant warm water. It was surrounded by golden pillars supporting the vaulted roof.

Then the mortal princess felt gentle hands on her body. They began to untie her wedding dress. Other handmaidens tied back her flowing golden hair. Once she was naked, Psyche could hear a soft chorus of gasps. Her beauty astounded even those celestial beings.

Standing in all her bare glory, Psyche felt her face redden, but as she could not see anyone, the embarrassment wasn't so bad. The princess stepped into the streaming waters of the sunken bath. She moved with wonderful grace. The water came up to her calves, then her knees, then her thighs, and last, the soft tenderness of her body.

Her handmaidens helped washing her back and beautiful limbs. The warm flower-scented water eased her fatigue, and Psyche began to let her mind rest. After finishing her bath, fleecy towels came floating over to wrap themselves around her body. Her hair loosened from its bun, and a jeweled comb gently ran through her silken lock. Then a flask of perfumed oil began to anoint it.

Once again, the princess was led through the empty palace towards a large dining hall.

It was beautifully furnished. There were carpeted floors, mosaic walls, and decorative moldings with velvet tapestries, paintings, and ornamental statuary.

At the center was a long wooden table. A chair scooted itself for her to sit. After Psyche settled down, various plates flew in. They were brought not by human hands but seemingly unsupported on a gust of wind. The dishes of gold and goblets of crystal shells hovered before her until they were placed on the table. Delicious food steamed on the plates and the goblets filled with purple wine as rich as nectar.

There was a civet of hare, a quarter of lamb which had been a night in salt, a stuffed goose with garlic, and a loin of veal with red onions and honey. Psyche looked on in amazement as another myriad of dishes came to fill the table. Dessert was brought in; gilt sugar-plums, and pomegranate seeds, then an enormous pie, surmounted with smaller pies, which formed a crown. The crust of the large pies was gold-gilded all round and frosted at the top. The serving-maids were invisible, and she could merely hear their words emerging from thin air.

Then she was urged to have her rich feast while a singer entered and performed unseen, and another musician strummed a lyre with harmonious melodies. A tuneful choir struck her ears with pleasant songs. And Psyche began to enjoy the meal whole-heartedly.

The virgin maiden had tasted the most wonderful delicacies like no others. She had drunk the richest wine that might as well serve the gods. In the back of her mind, she knew she wasn't in a dream and neither was she hallucinating. She could never imagine anything as magnificent as this.

At last, the feast and entertainment came to an end, and the advent of darkness induced Psyche to retire to bed.

The invisible maids brought her to her beautiful chamber and closed the golden doors behind her. Psyche looked around in admiration. Nothing imaginable was missing. She was brought up as a princess but she hadn't seen anything so delightful like this place. The maiden stepped onto the terrace which looked out over the valleys and the moonlit sea. And she began to wonder when the winged monster, who was her arranged partner, shall appear.

The thought of her capture caused a tremor in her heart, but she knew she had already accepted this doomed fate.

The night grew deep and dark. Psyche was lying in her soft silken bed when a genial sound met her ears. Since she was utterly alone, she trembled and shuddered, fearing for her virginity, and she dreaded the unknown presence more than any other menace.

Presently, she heard a voice in the room, but the voice was soft and gentle as a brush of a feather. She strained her ears to listen. This voice was different. It was not the growling and howling of a vicious beast. It was the sweetest honey-dripping melody, powerful and so close as if it was a thought inside her head.

"You are Psyche," the lovely voice said. "You are the most beautiful girl I'd ever seen, more beautiful than the goddess of beauty herself."

Psyche could not see anyone. She felt the tone of the voice pressing upon her chest, making her heart pound wildly.

Cupid had flown in a haste to meet her wedded wife and found the maiden in the chamber. The nearer Cupid got to her, the more ardent the needs grew. The goddess climbed onto the bed with the mortal girl. She could feel her body trembling beneath her.

"Don't be afraid," Cupid whispered. "I come here to give you love."

Her mellow words eased the maiden's worried heart. Psyche felt the weight of someone beside her and turned her body around, yet she could still see no one.

"Why can't I see you?"

"If you saw me, perhaps you would fear me, perhaps I would disgust you. I would rather you love me in sound and touch alone."

How could she love someone she could not see? Psyche wanted to ask, but then she felt her loose silver gown, filmy and flowing, fluttered against her soft skin as a pair of hands began to lift it. Psyche's heart started to pound again.

"Husband," she whimpered nervously.

"I'm not your husband," said the pleasant voice. "But you're still mine through marriage. Now I desire you and crave you more than ever."

Then the goddess dipped her lips down on Psyche's heaving chest, making the girl gasp. With a smile on her immortal face, Cupid began to remove the gown from that sublime form, eager to see that beauty in the flesh.

Psyche was so beautiful that Cupid's poisoned heart faltered. A hot flaming desire rose from the depth of the fair goddess's belly. She had seen gods and mortals coupling under the spell of her darts, but she had never done such lustful deed herself.

But the burning passion mounting upon her seemed like an arching tide from the sea. She must have the virgin maiden or else the golden ichor inside her body would burn her heart to a cinder.

"Heaven overhead, and the river of Styx that flows below, I promise you, Psyche, that no sort of evil shall befall you," Cupid said. The oath was the greatest and most terrible in the use of the blessed gods, even Psyche was touched by it. And the accents were so full of love that they inspired a like passion in her heart.

As Cupid soothed her trembling wife with her gentle caresses and repeated her name with a kind voice, Psyche's anxiety began to ebb away.

"Where are you?"

"Here."

Hesitantly, Psyche reached out her arms. Instead of a scary shape of a monster, she felt a set of feminine shoulders as refined as her own. She moved her hands over the tender smooth skin, which was warm with life. Just the touch alone gave her a tingling sensation she had never felt before, a stroke of strange pleasure.

But Cupid leaned over and buried her face on the maiden's breasts then inhaled her sweet-scented skin, inhaling like it was the first rainfall after millennia of droughts, like the last bloom of the last lilac tree on earth.

Psyche's eyes fluttered closed, and a soft sigh left her mouth. Without realizing it, she had her delicate arms around the invisible goddess and felt the gentle feathers of her folded wings.

Cupid's wandering hands moved down her body until she'd reached Psyche's shapely legs. Slowly, she parted open her thighs. Psyche felt the weight lying between them, causing her to surrender a moan. She had never felt this blissful touch, and she was overwhelmed by it. Her heart pounded with unknown beats in her chest, and her mind was hazy with joy.

There were motions now, the frictions were pure delight. Psyche realized that she was being made love to. The heat between her legs sharpened as if being kindled by fire. Then she felt the weight shift and slither downward until it centered against her core.

Cupid's craving intensified once she saw her wife's beautiful blooming flesh. It was her new universe, her life-giving flower. The goddess inhaled it with the same passion. Her nose and lips buried against the sweet wet region. She felt the maiden writhe with pleasure, which aroused her even more. There was this hunger and thirst burning in her throat, and the young goddess did not wait to devour and claim the princess's innocence and make Psyche her golden bed-companion.