Under Cupid's Contract (Love Under Lockdown)

It was a selfie. Done on a phone. An older model going by the slight blurring effect I doubted was intentional. She didn’t have much money. Few people did in those days of sickness and strife. Remote work was an option, but that only went so far. I was even more sure I’d done the right thing.

She needed to be working. Not just for the sake of the economy or her health, but her soul. The need in dark eyes, the desire, going beyond immediate subsistence. She looked like a caged animal. One that had never forgotten the jungle.

Chapter Three - Vega

The tyranny of the blank page was never an issue for me. Others had always filled them in long before I got there. My job as an editor, not a proofreader or a copy editor mind you, was to enter that forest of prose. Trimming and pruning the thickets of text with my honed tools. Shaping the branches to the guidelines and preference of the publishing company. All while keeping the original form intact.

At least as intact as possible. It was not for me to editorialize, despite the name attached to the job. I was an aid to the story, meant to polish what was there, not add my own narratives. Through there seemed to be many who forgot this. Like the jumped-up little toads who re-wrote Bukowski posthumously. An act that surely would have led to him breaking their nose were he still above ground at the time.

My eyes were doing that thing again. Locked on the screen, unable to move by themselves. It was my head that was moving. Running along the lines, before bouncing back, for the beginning of the next. Like an electric typewriter. I’d been told it was creepy, but it had always worked for me.

Not least as a sign that I might have been at it too long and wasn’t balancing properly. Still, no one could blame me for being sucked in. The book I was working on, the one that Hugo had assigned me himself, was one of the most thrilling literary experiences of my life

Considering I’d worked in publishing nearly my entire adult life to that point, that was really saying something.

The prose was lean and visceral, putting me in mind of Hemingway. Yet, with a restrained poetic flourish. The semi-true tale of an umpteenth generation collector and guardian of arcane books. It was left mostly open whether those who come after him, as well as his inventory are rival dealers, occult posers, or something more sinister.

It was an impossible choice. The number of variables numbering in the millions. Rhys could almost hear the gears turning in his brain-porium. Given a choice he would have taken it all, it there ere limits even to what pocket dimensions could bear. On the upside, they were also easy enough to allow even a mortal like him to pull one up like a new finder window.

“Bigger on the inside,” he said with a smirk.

His choices made, Rhys secured the most dangerous of artifacts in the depths of his most secure case. The protection sigils carved into the front of the pure silver latches. The better to keep the magic in.

Like thunder across a prairie sky, my stomach rumbled, tugging me out of the story. ‘Better than food’ might work in hyperbole, but not so much in practice, and despite my reluctance to pause in my reading, I knew it was time to take a break.

I’d always heard the kitchen was the most social room in any house. It seemed to me like it should have been the bedroom, that was likely a different kind of ‘social.’ Still, when it came to togetherness, I couldn’t really argue. I’d mostly grown up in the kitchen. Learning how to cook at my grandmother’s knee.

“This will come in handy when you’re married,” she would say.

I would agree, not really understanding the implications. Very few of the women in my family worked. Those who did were regarded as a little bit weird. To be fair it was the mid-1990s and we lived in a rural part of rural Spain where television was considered a radical new technology. I was 22 before I saw an episode of Seinfeld

The skillet was heavy and familiar in my hand. The very same one I’d used to learn on, Grandma leaving me her entire cooking set in her will. I didn’t know if she meant it that way, but I could hardly fry an egg without thinking of her.

Things were getting serious with the book, and I knew something a bit more substantial than an egg would be required, however. Fortunately, fast fry was one of grandma’s specialties. Something she was more than happy to teach me. On the off chance my future husband wanted something quick. At least in the food department.