Chapter 3

       As I bathed, I began thinking about the marriage proposal. I did not understand why Zeus would want to marry me even if I was the only female of our species. There were thousands of mortal and blood-sucking females that would fall under his spell, or so I had convinced myself. Why he wanted the only female on the planet who would argue with him on every point perplexed me.

       I finished my bath and walked to the closet. I opened the door with dreadful caution. When I looked inside all my fears were proven true. Every garment in the entire closet was a dress, not one pair of pants in the entire room. There were hundreds of dresses in this closet the size of a large bathroom. I knew Zeus would want me to wear a dress, but did he have to give me no other clothing option?

        I yelled through the door for a female to come help me dress and, within minutes, there was one in the closet with me. Her name was Elle. She was a plump woman of about 45 with rosy, round cheeks.

       "Now let me help you dear," she said to me.

       "I hate wearing dresses," I confided.

       "Don't we all dear?"

       She helped me into a corset and a simple white ball gown with gold embroidery. She also brushed, braided, pined, curled, flattened, pulled, and wound my hair into a perfectly simple and beautiful shape around my head and face. When I looked in the mirror, I did not recognize myself. I saw a beautiful young woman that I had never seen before.

       "One last detail," Elle said as I stared at the mirror.

       "What is that?" I inquired. Looking in the mirror, I saw nothing missing. She pulled out a pair of gold flats that went wonderfully with the dress. When I saw them, I realized that she was not letting me out without putting them on. I reluctantly stuck my feet in the deathtrap shoes and followed Elle out to where the men sat. When they saw me, they all, including Orion, straightened up and nearly fell over each other trying to get a better view of me. I had never had so much attention before in my life.

       Suddenly out of nowhere, I heard Orion's voice saying "Collect yourselves! This woman, for all intensive reasons, belongs to Zeus!" I did not enjoy the thought of being Zeus' property, but it did get the men to get a hold of themselves and return to their original collective mindsets. “Lady, will you come to dinner with us?”

       “Us? You mean you and the guard?”

       “No, Liz, My brother and myself.”

       “You have a brother?”

       “Yes, Liz.”

       Surprised I questioned, “Who?”

       He chuckled, “Zeus.”

       “You’re Zeus’ brother!? Why was I not told this? Doesn’t anyone think I should know the family of the man who proposed to me?” I yelled.

       “Lady, we thought it obvious. Did you not see the similarities in our features?”

       “Similarities?! What similarities?!”

       The entire guard laughed at me as they walked away.  I stood there dumbfounded for about ten minutes before I realized that they had left without me and were probably half way to dinner by now. I ran out the door, looked down all three hallways, and could not find which way they had gone. I had almost given up when I remembered Elle.