Medusa's Lover

Her personal problems seemed unbearably embarrassing to Medusa: she hadn't a thing to wear in public, and classical drapery did nothing to hide the hard-core faults of her figure, and even the warmest, frilliest underclothes left her underworld colder. Her dreadful sisters, instead of comforting her in her misery, proved being a Gorgon ran in the family, and she couldn't do a thing with her snaky hair but feed it eggs and mice so it wouldn't, at night, hiss her awake or slither in her ears, and worst of all, men couldn't catch her eye without turning as stony faced as statutes.

But suddenly one day to her amazement she saw a young man shuffling to her sideways, holding a shield like a mirror. He was staring at her reflection, and though he wasn't too gorgeous himself - shoes down at the winged heels and matted with mud, his roomy helmet wobbling around his head, the hem of his cloak sagging - he was vastly more appealing than mere high-fliers, invincible soldiers, or invisible heroes. He was looking at her and wasn't petrified.

She opened her arms to him. She lurched to meet him. Her hair was hissing (in chorus) a wild love song. She saw the gift he'd brought her: a gleaming, slender, adamantine sickle to wear like a queen's pendant at her throat forever. She lifted her chin. She pursed. She closed her eyes to wait for her first kiss.