Waiting and Waiting, by Norbert Kovacs

Venus and the Lute Player, by Titian and his workshop (Italy) ca. 1565-1570

Waiting and Waiting

​He was late, Venus thought rather burnt. You'd think Mars would show on time when he had asked for the midday tryst. She had gotten nicely prepared for him, undressed fully. She had lain herself out in bed, her idea to amaze him first thing on his arrival; he did love to see her soft, flowing contours and unblemished skin, and she relished how he praised them in that deep, war-god voice of his: "Oh, Venus!" By her pillow, Cupid, her little cutie, sat ready to crown her in a spring garland when the god showed, so he would think her not just beautiful but happy to be plucked as the phrase goes. But where was he? She hoped he had not gone on another bloody rampage. She remembered he had said he was keen on joining the Greeks as they headed out to attack some city Troy. "Great business prospect," he had said, eyes fired with blood lust. She tried to believe that was not why he hadn't come. But as she lay amid her silken sheets, waiting and waiting, she braced her unopened fan, feeling she could snap it in two. She turned from the rolling landscape outside the bay window, the vigorous blue river and rugged mountain no longer to her interest. Her ear went deaf to the lute player practicing the music he might have played while she enjoyed her bed that day. What use for any of it now?, she thought on the verge of tears.

Norbert Kovacs

Norbert Kovacs lives and writes in Hartford, Connecticut. He loves visiting art museums, especially the Met in New York. He has published stories recently in Blink-Ink, Zephyr Review, MacQueen's Quinterly, and The Write Launch. His website: www.norbertkovacs.net.