David Landrum

Nemesis

Nemesis lay in her apartment looking up at the ceiling and listening to a Ryan Adams tape.  Her cell phone rang.  She shut off her sound system and flipped her phone open.

“Hello.”

“Nemesis, it’s Demeter.  I need to see you.”

She sat up on the side of her bed.

“Sure thing.  Where are you?”

“On the subway.  I’ll be at your place in about twenty minutes.”

She rang off.  Demeter was like that:  very matter of fact and to the point.  She disliked formalities.  More interested in gardens and fields.

Nemesis quickly changed out of track shorts and t-shirt into a yellow summer dress. She put on sandals. Demeter was a lady.  She did not like grunginess.  She also was a high-level goddess with a lot a power and expected a bit of deference. 

She washed her close-cropped hair in the sink.  Nemesis was not tall but she was strong and well-built with a trim, muscular frame.  Her eyes were, grey like Athena’s, and she had a small nose and wide mouth.  She kept her blonde hair cut short.  Tattoos decorated her arms and shoulders.

She had just finished blow-drying her hair it when the knock came (Demeter never rang doorbells).  She hoped Demeter would like the yellow minidress and the Gucci sandals she had put on for her.  She opened up the door.

As Nemesis had expected, the Goddess of Grain wore a pretty earth-tone frock.  Her hair, so long it hung almost to her waist, shone in the sunlight coming through the windows.  She was tall and stately, with brown eyes.  Nemesis had always thought her beautiful and always been a little in love with her.  She wore a poppy, her sacred flower, woven in her long, long hair.

     “Welcome, Goddess,” Nemesis said, “I am honored by your presence.” 

She bowed, careful to display deference.  Demeter was as powerful as she was beautiful.  Nemesis admired her strong shoulders and well-shaped legs, the grace and ease with which she moved.  She exuded natural charm and loveliness.

They drank tea and chatted.  Demeter had Persephone with her these months (though she had not brought her along today) and so radiated happiness.  Nemesis did not like being around her when her daughter went down to the Hades, she was so depressive and gloomy—as bad as Hades itself.

     After a while, Demeter set her cup down and stated her business.

     “I’ve come to you because I need your help, Nemesis,” she said, twirling her teacup with her long, pretty fingers.  “There’s a community garden nearby that people work, love, revere and depend on.  I’ve blessed it.  Now the city manager is selling it for development.”

     “Will the people let him do that?” Nemesis asked.

     “The people have protested, filed petitions, gone to the media.  They’ve tried everything, but he’s adamant.  He plans to sell the land to a firm that will build a factory he says will create jobs.  I want you to stop him.  Ruin him.  You’re the avenger of the gods and goddesses.  I’ll trust your wisdom on how to do it.”

     Nemesis smiled inwardly.  A community garden.  That was Demeter.  She hovered over massive grain fields in Dakota and Ukraine, but her passion welled up for a few acres of community garden that might be paved over.

     “I’m on it,” she said.  Nemesis had always thought Demeter lovelier than any of the other goddesses.  She was not only goddess of grain, but also the bringer of fertility, nurturer of youth, preserver of the green earth, protector of marriage and sacred law.   Nemesis hoped she would give a sign of affection—just a kiss or a small embrace—before she left. Demeter simply squeezed her hand and walked away.  The task she had given her, Nemesis understood, was not a request but an assignment.

     She walked a few blocks to a library, got on the internet, and read up on the selling of the community garden.  Her target was one Marc Fowles.  He had been an administrator at an evangelical college for years and had recently signed on as a city manager of the small suburban town where the garden was located.  Demeter wanted the sale of the garden stopped and Fowles ruined.  This would take some finesse.  Nemesis read several news articles and thought hard.  She logged off and headed home as dusk settled on the hot streets of the neighborhood where she lived.  On the way out of the library, she picked up a registration form to run in a 10K race this weekend.

***

     On race day she got her number and milled through the crowd, looking for Fowles.  She found him at the back of the crowd of racers.  He was a sallow man of fifty or so with a receding hair and watery eyes.  One of the articles on the web site of his old college said he had by-pass surgery and asked prayer for him.  A later article said he regularly ran races to stay in good cardio-vascular shape.  Nemesis positioned herself near him.  When the gun went off the mass of people began to move sluggishly forward.

     Soon the pack thinned out.  She waited until she and Fowles were together, with no other runners in sight, sprinted by him, and fell.

     He stopped.  She got up.

     “You shit!” she yelled. “You tripped me!”

     He began to protest that he had not but she roared and charged him, pushing down a steep gravel embankment into a ditch full of fetid water.  She had bruised him up, she noted, and maybe (what she hoped) broken a leg or an ankle.  When he looked up her in astonishment and rage, she flipped him off and sprinted down the racecourse.

     Space and time did not exist for her the way it exists for mortals.  She made certain she appeared on all the monitoring cameras at the right moments.  It would be gauche to win the race so she finished second in the overall women’s category, taking her age bracket (which she had written down as 25-30).  After the awards ceremony, as she stood at a refreshment table, police surrounded her.

     They asked her where on the course she had been at 9:41.

     “9:41?  I was already across the finish line.  I came in at 9:38.”

     They checked the official times, confirmed her claim, apologized, and left her alone.

     That afternoon she called Eidoithea, who held a front job as a home-care nurse.

     Fowles lay at home with a broken ankle.

     “Can you get him as an assignment?” Nemesis asked.

     Eidoithea said she could.  Nemesis got his addressed and called up Carla Russell.

     When she really wanted a woman, Nemesis had no trouble finding one.  Trim, muscular, attractive, she could easily find a pretty girl willing to bed down with her.  But love with mortals always disappointed her.  They did not possess the depth of passion that thousands of years of existence brought.  And hardly any of the goddesses she knew were into women much.  She herself mostly got it on with gods when she was lucky enough to find one.  Of late she had been very lucky.  Her affair with Ares had begun to be notorious, so much that she wondered if Aphrodite was planning something against her.

     Carla was her favorite mortal woman.  In her early forties, she had light brown hair, green eyes, and a sad, wistful look that Nemesis found charming.  She had been in two failed relationships and, as she grew old, desperately wanted someone to love her and settle down with her.  Her astonishment and her joy that a young, attractive woman had come out of nowhere to befriend her touched and flattered Nemesis.   Carla would be perfect for what she planned to do to Fowles.

     That evening Eidoithea surprised her by dropping by.  Nemesis loved her beautiful black skin, her lithe body, and her large brown eyes.  She wore her hair in short dreadlocks and had on Capri pants and a halter-top.  Her arms and legs were firm from swimming. She had finely shaped shoulders and small but well-shaped breasts. She had lived all her life near her father, Proteus, in the sea by the Nile delta, and somehow exuded the open air, open spaces, and wildness.  They went to a bar for drinks.

     “You want me to come on to him?” she asked.

     “Make him love you.”

     She wrinkled her nose.  “He’s pretty repulsive.”

     “I know, but think of it as a duty.”

     Nemesis was higher on the scale of deity than Eidoithea.  She did not like to pull rank, but in this case she had to.

     “I want you to do this as a favor for me—as a friend.  Demeter really wants this guy out of the way.” 

     “Would Aphrodite help?  If she charms him he’ll be in love with me in no time.”

     “I’m not on real good terms with Aphrodite these days.”

     Eidoithea smiled, her eyes merry.

     “”Oh, yes:  your big affair with Ares.  I didn’t think you went that way, Nemesis.”

     “I go both ways.  These days, it seems my choices are really getting limited as far as immortals go.”

     “Come on—there are lots of Nereids and Dryads who’d love to get it on with you.”

     “I’m sure not meeting them.  Give me their phone numbers.”

     She laughed.  “I was going to ask—since we’re at a bar, why don’t we let ourselves get picked up?  It will have to be guys, though.”

     Eidoithea had never been into women.  Nemesis realized the nature of her request.  She had pulled rank on Eidoithea.  This would help her friend save face.

     “I’m game,” she said.

     They let two men pick them up and spent the night with them at Eidoithea’s house.  Nemesis enjoyed her lover but did take some perverse satisfaction in the knowledge that he would compare every lover he had in the future to her and always feel they did not measure up with the strange woman he had encountered that night—the woman who made love like none he had ever known or would after that.

Eidoithea had been doing home-care for Fowles two weeks when Nemesis rang his bell and burst into his house, Carla following behind her.

She strode into the bedroom where he lay with his foot elevated.

“What’s the idea of making up that story about me pushing you, you sorry son of a bitch!”

She thought he would react angrily, but he looked bewildered.

“You pushed me,” he said.  “I know it was you.”

“I was across the fucking finish line by then!”

“I can’t account for that.  But I remember your face.  I even remembered your race number and told the police.”

She had not thought to change her number and felt a twinge of self-reproach at her carelessness.

“I don’t know what you thought, but I was already at the refreshment table when you said it happened.”  She ramped up her angry tone. “And I don’t like you accusing me that way.”

Carla came up and leaned against Nemesis’ shoulder.

“Nina, honey, don’t do this.  You’ll get yourself in trouble.”

“I got a good mind to sue you,” Nemesis said to Fowles.

Carla kissed her neck.

“Baby, don’t.  He’s not worth it.”

“I told you what I saw.  You need to go,” Fowles said.

“Not till you apologize.”

“You’re the one who ought to apologize to me. I’ll have to ask you to leave my house.”

“You’ll hear from my lawyers.” 

“You need to get out.  I can have you arrested for trespassing or for creating a disturbance.”

Nemesis had to be careful. She had meant to act angry, but something about Fowles was making her truly angry, and if she got worked up too badly her hair would turn to snakes and her fangs, claws, and wings would sprout.  She let it subside.  She turned and kissed Carla on the lips.

“You’re right, baby,” she said, and kissed her again.  “He’s not worth it.  Let’s go.”

And with that the two of them turned and left.

Eidoithea told her afterwards what Fowles said.

“Is that her girlfriend?” he asked.

“She pretty well-known as a lesbian activist,” Eidoithea told him.  “I think those two are in a relationship.”

“I could tell,” he said, settling back in the sheets.

     Nemesis spent the weekend with Carla.  On Monday she called Eidoithea and asked how it was going.

     “Better now,” she answered.  “Things weren’t going well at all.  For one, he wasn’t falling for me no matter how I came on to him.  Pretty religious, you know. And he said maybe he was wrong about you—he thought maybe it was somebody else who pushed him.”

     Nemesis’s eyes grew round.  Her mouth felt dry.

     “Really?  He said that?”

     “He was thinking about calling you and apologizing.  Then I got help.  I got Aphrodite to tag him.”

     “Aphrodite?  I didn’t know you had that much clout.”

     “I did some favors for her a few hundred years back.  She was happy to help me out.  I didn’t want to spend six months trying to make this guy go for me.  But he’s head over heels for me now, thanks to her.”

     Eidoithea’s kindness was legendary.  Her graciousness to Menelaus had gained her mention in Homer’s Odyssey. 

     “Did Aphrodite say anything about me?” Nemesis asked.

     Silence for a moment, then Eidoithea said, “I promised her I wouldn’t tell.  But you better watch your back, Nemesis.  You might want to stay down in Hades for a while.  She’s definitely got it out for you.”

     Nemesis clicked off her phone, wondering what Aphrodite might be planning.  She was a sneaky, tricky little bitch, and she was powerful and had lots of friends.  Nemesis knew she filled an important role as avenger for the gods, but when you were dealing with a first-rank deity like Aphrodite you never knew.  The Goddess of Love was adept at getting the others on her side.  She—Nemesis—was not on particularly good terms with any of Zeus’s children, except for Ares and maybe Artemis.  Apollo, Athena, Hermes, Hestia—none of them really liked her.  And Zeus himself was not well disposed toward her.  If they ganged up, she wouldn’t have a chance.  Even Hades would not be able to save her.  Like he would care, she thought wearily.

     Forlorn and afraid, she got drunk that night.  She put on Tokyo by the German group, Guitar, and listened to it three times in row.

     Maybe she needed to return to the underground for a while, she thought, as the repetitious music played.  She liked it up here, but things had changed so much.  She remembered the old days.  She remembered going to Olympus (now evacuated) and feasting; the times she spent hunting with Artemis.  When they were done hunting, the goddess would give her one of her attendant nymphs.  The nymph and Nemesis would find a sacred grove and, with the sound of splashing water from a spring for music, moonlight falling on them, would make love all night until Aurora spread her colors through the air and, naked and sated with pleasure, the two of them would kneel and worship her.

     Now, she thought grumpily, even Artemis had gone to chasing men. Her fling with Endymion had changed her.  Nemesis wondered if she was even a virgin anymore.  All her nymphs were scattered and had husbands and children.

     She finally fell asleep.  In the morning she had breakfast at a deli she enjoyed. The warm croissants and strong black coffee cheered her up and took her mind off the possibility that Fowles might relent and her plan might fall through.  Earth was such a nice place to live, in contrast to the incessant gloom, cold, and dark of Hades.  She hoped Aphrodite would get over it.  It was not like she never had affairs—and a married woman to boot.

Nemesis had a second cup of coffee and enjoyed the sunlight streaming through the windows and warming her face.   Just as she finished the second cup, she got a call from Eidoithea.

     “Go home and turn on the local news,” she said.

     Nemesis got home in time to watch a report on Mark Fowles.  A private investigator his wife hired had photographed him in compromising positions with his home-care nurse, Dorothy Eunice.  Eunice, the journalist said, claimed he had pressured her into having sex with him and revealed that he had used homophobic terms to describe Nina Sisson, a woman with whom he had gotten into an altercation during a recent 10K race.  She had recordings of him calling her a “sodomite,” “pervert,” and “damned little dyke.”  Friends who were interviewed said they were astonished that he had used such language;  it was very unlike him, they declared, and did not reflect what they knew to be his personality. Dorothy Eunice, however, had recordings of him saying these things and more, the news anchor reported.  The city administration, the news anchor went on as Nemesis listened and admired her beauty, had demanded his resignation and planned to replace him with a politician who wanted to keep the community garden he had planned to sell intact. The potential replacement said his first act in office would be to give the tract of soil to a group of local leaders who planned to donate it to a land bank.  The land bank contact specified that the area could not be developed for the next ninety years.

Nemesis spent the next week clearing out of her apartment.  It would be safest to be in her old home, Hades.  The goddess who had so tormented Psyche would not relent with her, she thought. Aphrodite had gone down to Hades once to retrieve Adonis after he died, but a couple of serving nymphs who knew her (one of whom Nemesis had enjoyed a short romance with) said Kypris talked incessantly about how she hated the place and never wanted to go there again.  The dark and cold were repulsive to her, goddess of beauty, light, and pleasure. 

If Aphrodite were planning to destroy her, Nemesis mused, she probably had the power to do it all by herself.  The Goddess of Love might bribe or hire one of the Furies or an offended mortal to do her bidding.  She could come after her in a number of ways.  Nemesis did not like to run, but when you faced someone as powerful as Aphrodite, seeking safety seemed the only option.

In Hades she would assume her real form:  snaky hair, wings, claws, talons, muddy green skin.  She liked living up here, in the light, and liked being pretty, making love, eating warm delicious food, and having fun.  All she did down below was torture notable sinners condemned to Tartarus, which was boring.  Everything in the nether kingdom was dark, cold, and smelly, and everywhere were the dim-witted dead.  What was worse, in the Kingdom of the Dead there would be no one to be her lover—no men and no women.  She would forfeit the warmth, light, and pleasure of the world.  But at least she would be safe.  Maybe in a thousand years or so Aphrodite would get over it.

The day she left she received a note from Demeter:

          Nemesis,

Thank you.  I am pleased and gratified.  You handled the assignment well, my friend. 

You might want to go back to Hades for a while.  I can’t say more, but I think you will know what I mean.  I will praise your capabilities as an avenger to Zeus who bears the storm cloud.

                    Best, Demeter

She sighed. A dashed-off, perfunctory note.  What had she expected?  It was stupid to think her little crush on Demeter would bear fruit. And the note confirmed her suspicions.  Aphrodite was out to get her.  She might not even be safe down below, in the fields of asphodel, in the darkness and quiet of Hades’ kingdom.  Still, it was her best bet and she would be much less vulnerable there than here.  She thought of how her disappearance would hurt Carla, but knew it had to be that way.

     She turned in the key to her apartment, got her deposit back, and began the long descent down to the underworld.