Week 2 Storytelling: Meeting the Future-Mother-In-Law

Cupid and Psyche have been together for a while, more than 2 years now. They met in college, Cupid studying to be a doctor, Psyche to be a nurse, on a blind date set up by one of their mutual friend. Cupid fell in love with Psyche the second he saw her: heart-shaped face, large brown eyes, full lips, and flaming red hair. Cupid himself is not usually set up with others... he is the one doing the setting up. He took a chance when he agreed to this blind date with Psyche, and it's a choice he never regretted. 

Cupid and Psyche (source: tumblr)

Psyche's two sisters, Anastasia and Drizella, though pretty, are not as beautiful as their youngest sister, and have always envied the attention she receives. When Psyche brought Cupid to meet her sisters, he immediately felt something off about them and tried to warn Psyche. Cupid's gut feeling turned out to be accurate. Throughout the first year, Anastasia and Drizella came up with various schemes to break Cupid and Psyche up, from trying to get the couple to misunderstand each other to showing up at Cupid's apartment to seduce him. The couple were smart enough not to fall for it and stayed strong. Eventually, the sisters gave up and moved away.

Throughout the relationship, Psyche has brought Cupid to meet her parents several times, and they got on quite well. Cupid, on the other hand, has only mentioned his family, but not actually brought Psyche over. Today, that's going to change.

"Do you think she'll like me?" Psyche asks, while getting ready.

"She's going to love you," Cupid replies, a little uncertainly, although Psyche didn't catch the little quiver in his voice. To be honest, Cupid isn't very sure how his mother is going to react. His mother, a past Miss Universe winner, is quite vain, never failing to remind people of the fact, and she can get quite petty when she wants to.

As the couple arrived at Cupid's mother's home, they were welcomed with a Victorian style house, complete with a wrap-around balcony and a well-kept yard. As they walked up the steps and knocked, a beautiful woman opens the door. Cupid's mother is quite tall, with dark hair like her son, a straight nose, and full red lips. She was dressed to impress with her well-fitted sundress and heels.

Venus' house (source: pinterest)

"Oh, hello," said Venus, Cupid's mother, while looking down her straight nose at Psyche. "Come in."

The couple walked into the house and was immediately steered towards the dining room by the housekeeper, where they were seated very formally at the table, ready for dinner. Venus walks into the dining room, sits at the head of the table, and begins her interrogation.

"So, Psyche, what are you studying right now?" Venus asks, feigning interest, all the while forming questions in her mind. 

"I'm actually planning to be a nurse," replies Psyche, "That's actually how I met Cupid. Our mutual friends set us up, and we just hit it off."

"Interesting. One of my friends asked me a few questions today that I just couldn't answer, and was wondering if you could help me," said Venus, ready to test her dear son's girlfriend in her wit and thinking. 

"Of course!" said Psyche enthusiastically, clueless as to what Venus is doing. 

"Here is the first one: Steve spent 2 days in the hospital. After the 2 days in the hospital they determined he was in perfect health. But, when it was time for him to go home, he had to be carried out. Why?"

Internally high-fiving, Psyche congratulated herself in having heard this one before, answering the riddle confidently: "It's because Steve is a baby!"

Venus, impressed with her speed, asks the next question: "A doctor and a boy were fishing. The boy was the doctor's son, but the doctor was not the boy's father. Who was the doctor?"

Having heard this question before from one of her female professors on the first day of school, Psyche was able to answer with surprising speed: "The doctor is his mother." 

Venus, getting irritated by this smart and beautiful girl, asked the next question: "There was a window cleaner who was cleaning a window on the 25th floor of a skyscraper. He suddenly slips and falls. He has no safety equipment and nothing to soften his fall, but he is not hurt at all. How do you account for that?"

Never having heard this one before, it took Psyche a few moments before she got the answer: "He was cleaning the windows from inside," she answers, frustrating Venus even more since the answer is correct.

"Very good, I have one last question for you: Five hundred begins it. Five hundred ends it. And five in the middle is seen. The first of all numbers, the first of all letters take up their places between. Join all together and bring before you the name of an eminent king." Venus sits back as she finishes her last riddle, sure that Psyche would not get this one, thus proving, in her eyes and mind, that she isn't good enough for her son.

Never having heard this one either, it took Psyche a little longer to figure this one out. She went through a list of famous kings' names in her head, finally landing on one she think may be right, before trying to decipher why this particular name is the answer. After a few moments of deliberation, she answers assertively, "David."

Venus, thoroughly impressed by her intelligence and speed, grudgingly approved of Psyche, all the while thinking, "How can this darn girl have everything? The looks, the brains, and the compassion to become a nurse. No one's good enough for my son, but she's probably the only one who's going to get anything even remotely similar to an approval from me."

Cupid, relieved that Psyche passed the "test", squeezed her hand assuringly under the table, and the couple shared a secret celebratory smile.

Word count: 1,000

Author's Note

When I thought about having to retell this story, the concept of evil-and-mean mother-in-law just kind of popped into my head. I tried to keep some basics like: Cupid usually setting others up, the blind date (since Psyche didn't actually see Cupid before her sisters' plans), the evil sisters (whose names are actually Cinderella's step sisters), Venus' beauty and pettiness, and the 4 'tasks', in this case riddles, that Psyche had to get past. I got the riddles form various sources: the Steve and David riddle is from reddit, and the window cleaner riddle and the mother doctor riddle are just from 2 websites I found while searching on Google. I kind of disregarded the other part of the original story, the part where it's actually the old woman telling this story and just focused on the actual story of Cupid and Psyche. I did alter the story a little so that the evil sisters didn't succeed in their plan and Cupid ran away, or that Psyche lured them off the cliff and just had them fail and move away. 

The last riddle's answer, David, is actually based on the Roman numerals system, so I thought that was clever. D in Roman numerals is 500. V in Roman numerals is five. I in Roman numerals is one. A is the first of all letters.

In the end of the original story, Cupid and Psyche got a happily-ever-after ending, so that's what I had them have here too, where Venus accepts Psyche and they get to continue to see each other.

The image of Cupid and Psyche in the beginning is actually fanart of Lily and James Potter (from Harry Potter) taken from tumblr. I described my version of Psyche with Lily in mind, for some reason. The picture of the house is just a house with a wrap-around porch found on Google. I thought the house looked really nice, something that Venus would deem 'good enough' for her.

Bibliography: the original story of Apuleius's Cupid and Psyche can be found here.