Free Venus Envy by Rita Mae Brown

tiara and all. Yahoo!”
    “Frazier, there’s a whole side of you I don’t know.” Mandy stared at her in wonder and admiration.
    “Carter and I could cut a shine—until I had to earn a living. That’s when I pulled in my horns, or became mature—take your pick. Yeah, and that’s when I began to hate myself too. Have you ever seen rainbow trout? They’re shimmering, living rainbows in their element.Take them out of their element and their colors fade. I guess I was like that, or I am like that.”
    “Sounds to me like you’re coming back to life.”
    That sentence ran through Frazier’s head as she walked into the second gallery room. An enormous canvas, ten by fifteen feet, dominated one wall. Painted in the seventeenth century by an unknown artist, it depicted the gods and goddesses on Mount Olympus. Their perfect bodies, except for that of crippled Hephaestus/Vulcan, inspired worship. Zeus/Jupiter, a man at the peak of his powers, forty or fifty perhaps, his body thick with physical might, light shining from his head, gazed over his brood. Their happiness was both earthly and heavenly. Guilt, suffering—well, long-term suffering—and pain had been banished.
    His wife, brothers, children, and his wife’s children were positioned around the Thunderbolt God in a mix of personalization and parentage that would send a therapist into transports of analysis. Modern man needs to explain everything in order to feel safe—a dangerous illusion, for there is no safety. The ancients didn’t need to explain; they needed to experience, and this anonymous artist, no doubt a hearty Venetian, must have reveled in his work as he mixed his oils from mounds of dried powder. He, too, must have craved experience, and his sensual nature was reflected in the Olympians.
    Zeus/Jupiter sat on his throne in the middle of a semicircle arranged around him. Hera, or Juno, his wife, stood by, statuesque, at his right hand, her hazel eyes trained on her philandering husband. Clearly she didn’t trust him even when he was sitting down.
    To her right glowered Poseidon/Neptune. Perhaps he left his mighty ocean kingdom for this family portrait, poised between squabbles for a moment of calm. Hestrongly resembled his brother, although his beard was golden whereas Zeus’s was gray. Poseidon leaned on his trident, casting his eyes not at his overlord brother but at Artemis/Diana, who was standing next to him, her silver quiver on her back, her silver bow in her hand.
    Fat chance. Not even the god of the sea could turn her chaste head. The only man the youthful, perfect huntress loved, and not physically, was her twin, Apollo. He sat on a rock slightly in front of Artemis. He wore his golden quiver and his golden bow lay at his feet. The two were mirror images of each other, gorgeous, yet somehow rather cold.
    Ruddy Ares/Mars made up for their lack of heat. His red hair was shorn, as one would expect of a soldier. His armor further enhanced his virility. His sword, sheathed, hung by his side. He held his helmet in the cradle of his arm; the flaming-red horsehair seemed to sway in the breeze. His gaze smoldered at Aphrodite/Venus, who sat directly opposite him in the semicircle.
    She returned his gaze with equal heat. Here the artist broke with convention. No washed-out blond Venus. Rich, dark curly hair fell to her shoulders. Her eyes glowed a dark blue. Everything about her suggested passion, erotic possibilities allied to tender mercy. This Venus was far more than a sex goddess.
    Moving back toward Zeus, Hermes/Mercury, laughing, stood next to Venus—perhaps the only woman, apart from his mother, whom he completely trusted. His long-muscled, slender body gleamed. No beard appeared on his sharp jaw. If paintings could move he would have been twirling his caduceus, and the intertwining snakes on the magical rod would have been dancing with laughter.
    In sharp contrast to Mercury stood Athena/Minerva. Her impressive helmet covered the blond hair,