Cupid's Key

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Prologue.

After 3 bottles of wine, life can often be whittled down to the simplest of metaphorical philosophies.

“There’s no other way about it; it’s like cupid is just screwing with me, shooting me with arrows, laughing and pissing off before I can get him.”

“I feel you!” Marty clinked her glass to Danny’s with a slight tremble. Usually they managed to remain graceful until they passed out, often after exhaustion of the white wine collection, but mixing red with white would be their undoing tonight.

Sadly, Danny thought, their love lives were far less dramatic than mixing wine flavours; at least they had wine.

“You know though, Danny, you’re better off without Richard anyway.”

Ahh Richard; Douche bag of the year.

“More true than not,” Danny slurred in response, raising her glass towards the ceiling of the decadent little London club.

 They’d been bemoaning their romantic sorrows for a good few hours now, and imbibing freely, since they’d arrived almost straight from work.

The third member of their sorry party, the not-so-sorry Tiffany, had invited them along in the hopes of cheering Danny up after Richard the Douchebag had swankered in and out of the London Gazette offices on the arm of his brand new buxom blonde fiancée. Tiffany, who worked across the street in a modest but well-to-do travel agency, had spied them and raised the alarm to Marty that wine was going to be in order when they told their recently jilted best friend, Danny.

“If it makes you feel any better,” Tiff groused. “I’m pretty sure her boobs were probably fake.”

“Yeah!” Marty agreed, having a candid iphone photo saved from Tiff’s frantic earlier messages. “She’s probably an alien anyway – too tall to be normal, legs as long as the yellow brick road, plastic boobs, eyes like money signs, and hair the colour of platinum. You totally dodged a bullet there, we should have known how shallow Richard was to begin with but on the bright side you learnt something, right?”

Danny shrugged and sighed. “Maybe, but I thought he loved me. Jackass!”

The conversation wasn’t a new or original one; in the three months since walking in on the aforementioned jackass in bed with his now supermodel fiancée, Danny had gone over and over the situation to her nearest and dearest, struggling to come to grips with what had happened.

No matter how her cursing his name had empowered her, the truth was she’d been hurt pretty bad.

She’d lost a little faith in whatever love gods were running the romantic universe.

Marty, Ancient history professor at a private school, offered another explanation. “Maybe cupid is trying to show you in his own weird way that whoever he’s got in store for you will be better. You know, you can’t know real love until you’ve been burned, as they say.”

“Marty’s right, Dan, I’m sure he’s not just being a wanker.” Then under her breath Tiff added, “at least I hope not.”

Before Danny could respond, a strong voice came from behind her. “I think you’ll find that Eros, as the Greeks called him, always had a higher purpose than to shoot arrows at unsuspecting individuals.  He was just really good at making it look innocent and unplanned.”

The three women swivelled to start up at what looked like the face of Adonis. He was tall, not too tall that he towered over them, but they all had to tilt to see him; he had golden blonde hair that curled around his face, and underneath the crisp Armani suit he wore, they had no doubt he had the body of David.

Chapter One.

In the spirit of inconceivability, six months later saw Cupid’s heart key still resting on the breast of Danielle Ryan, known fondly to her friends as ‘Danny’.  

Since being bestowed with the heavy metallic piece of unwanted jewellery in the midst of an alcoholic haze, the weight of her love life had been ever-present. Just like the necklace was.

It had become a part of her. Literally.

It was just always there – it never came off. Not that Danny could have brought herself to remove it even if she could given the gravity of its very importance.

If the crazy golden man from the bar was really a Greek god like he’d said he was, that meant that the key in Danny’s possession really did have some sort of supernatural powers.

Maybe.

All she knew was that she was still single six months later and Richard the Douchebag was officially married to his hot blonde bimbo and, against her greatest desires, seemed to be prospering pretty well. Unfortunately.

Although, there was one thing that was strangely different:

The desire to match-make had risen within her like a tidal wave. And, with every couple she hadn’t been able to resist setting up, new relationships were popping up around her like daisies.

The latest, and probably greatest, of her short cupid career was that of her good friend, Tiffany.

In fact, it was Tiffany who’d been the first to accept that Cupid was for real and convince Danny to take him at his word when being given her key. When Danny set Tiff up on a date with a young lawyer she’d met at the sandwich bar, the two had hit it off like fireworks, and Tiff had gone so far as to kiss Danny’s key to thank it for bringing her her dream lover.

Which was about the time that Danny decided it must all have been some ridiculous coincidence that couples were appearing around her, because, surely, if that key she couldn’t take off had some sort of remnant magical cupid power to bring love – then why the hell was she still single and bitter about Richard the Douchebag?

Nope, Danny thought like she did every morning as she caught sight of the key in the bathroom mirror, it was all some sort of cruel coincidence. The next thing she knew, Marty was going to be engaged, too.

Bella, her fat and pretentious tabby, sauntered across the tiles to rub herself against Danny’s bare legs.

“Good morning, love,” Danny murmured, and glanced over at the window. “Looks like another lovely grey day in London town.”