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With you is where I'll rather be. . .but we're still where we are.
It's so hard. It's so hard.
This long distance is killing me. . .

~Brandy

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Marching out of the elevator my rage only intensifies by the aura of the place. She is everywhere! Yet nowhere, all at the same time.

My anger redirects to myself when I realise the closer I get to Uche's location the more at ease I feel. To worsen the situation, the wind begins to blow a soft seductive tune.

If Anteros has a hand in this, he is seriously going to get a ear full when I retrieve my wife's locket!

Reaching the laundry room, my heart purrs in excitement and this only flares me up even more. If I allow myself to be controlled by this feeling I might just find myself in bed with that annoying human male!

He can't be Óshún, can he?

I am not against same sex romance but I am against this particularly annoying human boy being my beloved!

Zeus wouldn't allow this, would he?

Using my powers to push the emotion far behind my brain, I approach the two attendants closest to the door. "Excuse me, where can I find the young man, Uche?" I ask them cringing at the pain in my own voice.

That's the thing with using godly powers on earth, everything gets amplified. My sole purpose of using it is to control this powerful urge to run into Uche's arms the moment I sight him, but it is also amplifying all the emotions buried deep within me.

Something that could have been avoided if Óshún didn't leave me in the first place!

My anger flares up again and I know it's no longer about Uche or even the little diamond locket he took. I am angry towards Óshún. Why did you leave me?

The attendants shiver in fear, despite the vulnerability my voice passed across. They bow their heads in fear after pointing out the right direction to me and I leave them with a heavy heart.

I feel bad using my powers on them like that but I have no choice. Uche isn't Óshún! I can't let my weak heart lead me into a devious act!

Turning my head in the direction they showed me, the world stops.

I see her.

I see Óshún. My Óshún.

I know this is not an image conjured from my memory because she is in human form and that Uche boy is holding unto her. Prove that she really is here.

He is talking to her. But she is not responding. Her beautiful brown eyes stay glued to mine, refusing to look elsewhere. She is in a trance, just like me. Her presence has enslaved me, just like mine has enslaved her.

My anger washes away, followed slowly by the eternal pain her absence planted in my chest.

My legs develop a mind of it's own and gradually kills the distance between us. Her heart beat leading it, urging it closer.

"Óshún." My voice barely a whisper, as I reach close enough to bask in her divinity. My body releases the protective power I conjured around it and I let all my control fall. An effect she has always had on me.

My heart picks up a fast beat and I know I have finally found her. Because, the open cracks on the surface of my heart starts to slowly heal itself. She is healing me.

This is her.

The coin was right.

Yes, she doesn't have her long locs in this body but the brown messy curls on her head depicts more beauty than the refined silky hair my mother spends days to maintain and enhance.

Her brown skin, the color of caramel on a wet Sunday morning. The perfect color for my goddess. The annoying human holding on to her can not see it but her skin glows under the bright light of the laundry room.

Her brown sparkly eyes, the most captivating feature of all. Staring too long into them can make any god commit an outrageous felony against me. And no one wants to be on the bad records of Cupid.

Her lips are not pink. No. They have a hint of deep lilac to them instead. Just like I remember them.

They are full, always mesmerizing and delicious, driving even Zeus to a dreamland of sexual fantasies.

Throwing caution to the wind, I embrace her. My body and soul finally aligning with the one thing they craved for so long. My Óshún.

My beloved.

My wife.

"My Óshún," I whisper into her hair. I have forgotten what it's like to be happy and content. I thought my broken heart will forever remain broken yet, here I stand with a whole heart again.

"I love you, Óshún," I whisper again, my eyes close to leaking tears as I plant wet kisses all over her face. Anteros will laugh at this scene for sure.

Releasing a sigh, I hold even more tightly unto her. And that's when I realise she isn't moving.

Her body is stiff like a rod against me.

Breaking the embrace, she slumps into my arms.

"Ah! What have you done to her!?" The male human screams beside me.

Ignoring him, I bend to the floor, carrying her weight with me. I position her on my laps and gently tap her smooth cheeks, "Óshún?"

She doesn't respond.

"Which one is, Osun?" He demands, hissing as he joins me on the floor. "Shaftey!" He screams like a deranged animal.

Still, she doesn't respond.

The two attendants from before come nearer and  watch.

My heart starts to ache as fear begins to sink into my bones. The fear stronger than when my mother told me my wife was missing.

I keep tapping her, calling unto her but no reply comes. If not for the slow rhythm of her chest, I would have thought the worst.

Hades wouldn't take her away, can he?

"Hello! Anteros! Abi what do you call yourself!" I hear Uche screaming at the other end of the room, "your brother has done something to my friend, please come to the laundry room now before I do something to him oh!" I didn't even notice him leaving her side.

Before I can even process the situation, I feel Anteros in my consciousness creating a mind link, "Cupid, what have you done to Sandra?"

"It's not Sandra. It's Óshún. I found her, brother! I found her!" I say to him in my mind while still cradling Óshún in my arms. She looks so peaceful like she is sleeping.

Oh Zeus, please let her be asleep!

"Sandra! Be coming to the laundry room oh! Your boyfriend family dun wound Shaftey for me!" I hear Uche rambling on his phone while giving me stern looks.

My heart skips a beat. Not because I am scared of him. Not in a billion years will I be scared of a mere human. My fear is for my wife.

"Did you try to take her back!" Anteros screams, reconnecting me to the link.

"Brother, please come. I think she passed out," I say to him, ignoring his absurd question. How can I take her back when the coin is in his hands?

"If anything happens to her ehn! I will personally bribe judges to make sure you rot in jail!" Uche announces. He moves closer to me, bouncing on the sole of his left foot and flexing the part of his body that should have been muscles. An attempt to scare me. Pathetic.

I am about to point out his excuse of muscles to him when the door to the laundry room flies open and Anteros emerges with Sandra — what is that on Sandra's cheeks? Did he just-

"Quit thinking dirty and help mind wipe these humans, except Sandra and Uche. I need them to remember some of the details, just in case she comes back with another memory lost," Anteros voice booms in my mind.

Sandra runs to my side and the scents of their passion fills my nares. "You are certain that's the only reason why you want— her, to be unharmed?" I retort. But he only gives me a sly grin and proceeds to wipe one of the attendants mind.

"Sewa! Is she okay?" Sandra demands, her eyes glinting with unshed tears.

"How can she be okay? She is not!" Uche tells her, rolling his eyes.

I ignore the fool and wipe the second attendants mind. They look around confused but slowly retreat away from us. In another two hours, they won't even remember I came here in the first place.

"There is no cause for alarm, she is fine," Anteros informs Sandra. "Cupid, take her to your room. The floor is no place to keep a beautiful woman," he says to me but I sense he is really talking to Sandra who has turned the color of a ripe tomato.

"Room keh!" The annoying human boy—Uche exclaims. "And you are blushing like a goat here, they want to take her to their room!" He explodes, nudging Sandra, who now portrays every shade of embarrassment. "Come—come, where were you sef? I called the reception line and you were not there, that's why I called your private line," he says scrutinizing her from head to toe. The poor girl could look at everywhere but his eyes.

"I am wiping his memory too!" Anteros huffs. The linkage does not just pass the information it also passes his frustration.

Look who found the annoying young man to be good company.

If not that my beloved needed a more comfortable place to rest, I would have loved to watch how this situation turns out.

Abandoning the laundry floor, I position her between my arms, in what the humans call — bridal style —  moving to the stack of clothes beside the washing my machine, I pick the one item that brought me here, the diamond locket. Equipped with my wife and her locket, I head up to my room.

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