The Valentine's Day Modern Love Mishap

Chapter 1
Happy Valentine's Day!

Chapter Description: It had started off as just another Valentine's Day for Eros, god of love...

Mildred Spinster sat on a park bench reading her vampire literature. The protagonist was a swarthy figure with Arabian features who had lived for centuries as a misunderstood bad boy. He was currently teasing his main interest out of a large harem of beauties that he kept in reserve.

He was a busy boy.

Mildred was imagining herself as that main interest. She saw herself being held by the strong arms of the protagonist as he made love to her by slowly lapping the blood from a small incision that he’d made on her neck with his sharp fangs.

She felt the internal stirrings and warmth rise in her as she sat on the bench and made a little “ooh!” sound. She turned the page eagerly awaiting what her imaginary vampire bad boy would do next.

Approaching the bench where Mildred sat, Arthur Q. Pewtie performed his daily walk routine. The two had never met, which was common enough in a city of over 10 million.

Even with the countless amount of times they had passed each other by daily.

Above the two figures in the sparsely crowded park, an unseen figure hovered on wings that were both comical and impractical.

No one noticed either him or his wings as they were both unseen by human eyes.

Today, the cloth diapered cherubim had a quota to fill. His boss had handed out a list of people that the central organizer felt would be a good match. Mildred’s name was next to await a red checkmark on it.

The small, baby-sized being with chubby features and ruddy cheeks, cocked an arrow with its heart-shaped delivery of pure love stimulant on the tip let loose his payload on a direct trajectory for the unsuspecting Mildred.

Per design, the love arrow split in two with one part going towards Mildred and the other targeting Arthur. With great precision, the two projectiles approached their targets. A new couple would result upon their entry into the unsuspecting future lovebirds.

However, today would prove difficult for the Cupid hovering above watching the arrows as they zoomed in towards their targets.

Arthur, you see, had just turned 29.

Being a virgin, his wizardly power had awoken and now it warned him of incoming danger. Arthur raised his left-hand palm outward sending a small amount of power towards the projectile approaching him.

Above the crowd, the hovering cherub couldn’t believe his bad luck.

One moment, he was watching the results of his handiwork come to fruition, and the next he saw Arthur's portion turn around and home in on him.

He attempted to dodge, but his comical wings weren’t maneuverable.

The arrow segment hit him with full force!

Had it hit a human, the result would have been love, but by hitting a cherub, the result was vastly different. He blacked out while falling from the sky and falling like a rock to hit the ground several miles away from the park.

Eros stirred and sat up in the small crater that his body had created upon hitting the earth. Still groggy from the impact, he looked around at his earthly surroundings. The farmer’s field that he woke up in was fallow and awaiting spring for planting.

Unsteadily he gained purchase and stood up. Gone was the pudgy baby body of a cherub. It was replaced by his original adult and muscular body with classical Greek features, and blond tight curls in ringlets that surrounded his head.

His comical wings had shrunk down to small useless appendages and folded tightly atop his back. He flexed them in an attempt to fly, but all they did was move back and forth futilely, while lightly stirring up the air that surrounded them.

The only things that remained unchanged on his adult body were the quiver with his love arrows and the bow suited for a baby-sized cherub. Fortunately and unfortunately his diaper had grown with him and was now adult-sized.

The diapers covered his nudity and would be a cause for embarrassment later on.

He stepped out of the depression that he’d from his hard landing and strolled across the field,

his direction was that of the town that he had previously hovered over. He had a job to do, and his list of future lovers was only half-finished.

------

Mildred had been hit by the arrow segment and her love for Arthur Q. Pewtie had begun in earnest. She closed her book after carefully putting a bookmark in place and proceeded to chase him down.

“Excuse me, sir! Yes, you there, One moment please!” she called to Arthur.

He stopped, and she came up to him, slightly out of breath from her exertions. “What may I do for you?” asked Arthur hoping that this would be quick. He had decided early on in life that he was destined to be an incel.

“Hello, sir! If I might ask your name? Mine’s Mildred, by the way,” she caught her breath and presented herself to him with a definite interest in mind.

Her body language spoke volumes of her intent to Arthur.

But Arthur didn't receive the message. His was the way of the lone wolf, neither joining in nor participating in pack activities.

His loner lifestyle which lacked social communication regularly left him without the tools to communicate effectively with others.

“My name is Arthur, um, nice to meet you, Mildred,” said Arthur exchanging pleasantries. He hoped to get back to his walk, go home and take care of Ramses the third, his Persian cat.

Now that she’d caught the young man, spinster Mildred, aged 36 and on break from her librarian job didn’t know how to proceed. A passage from one of the many pulp romance novels came into her mind and she tried it out.

“By chance, could you use a cup of coffee?” she asked awkwardly.

Arthur had never been asked to have coffee, he found the concept to be novel and decided to take her up on the offer.

“Well, Mildred. I’m not one for whims, but I believe that, indeed, I will have one. Shall we find a cafe?”

Mildred’s heart beat a little faster in her chest. She knew what love was, and she’d been in the thick of it once or twice. But this was far more than just playing together on the swings or going out to the middle-school dance.

She pointed to a small Bistro just at the edge of the park and the pair walked there in silence.

------

Eros had made the long walk back to town without breaking a sweat. He’d half-walked, half-ran the entire 3 miles, and pulled out his list of future lovers.

He’d look into Mildred and Arthur a little later, right now he had a pair of guys that were very close and talking business nearby. He made haste towards their location.

Ernie and Bert ate their lunch in silence. Ernie was enjoying a light lunch of salad and crackers while Bert was eating a tuna melt on rye.

“Say, Bert, what do you think of the estimate on the new addition?” asked Ernie around bites of his salad. He was a pleasant normally jovial person that wore lots of artificial tanning lotion. The effect gave his skin a very distinct orange-skinned look.

“E-Ernie! I think the commissioner is charging too many additional costs. We’ve got to stop this spending spree of his right now!” replied Bert with his raspy voice.

His was the sour attitude one expected of most accountants: Uptight, serious, and distinctly lacking in humor. His skin was a bright yellow from various illnesses that he'd suffered as a child.

Eros had found them! He pulled out a love arrow from his quiver and opened the door to the restaurant where Ernie and Bert sat. Before he could put the arrow into his bowstring's rest, a maître d stopped him.

“I’m sorry, sir, there are rules to gain access to our establishment. The main one chiefly being that you need a shirt!”

Eros looked at the maître d and then at his body, bare except for the diaper. He blushed with embarrassment and ran off down the street.

-----

At the Bistro, Arthur and Mildred were having their conversation. It wasn’t a bad one, it just wasn’t very good.

“So, um, I notice that you walk every day,” posited Mildred, “That’s very healthy.”

“Yes, I suppose it is,” answered Arthur.

“May I ask if you’ve known experience with many women, I mean that I know that you know women, at least you know your mother and aunts and all…” babbled Mildred.

She stopped at Arther’s puzzled expression and tried again.

“E-hem! What I mean to say is have you ever dated?”

“Oh! Dates, I’ve had one or two. They were total disasters and one never happened because she failed to show up.”

“Um, that’s too bad, Arthur, I’m sorry to hear that!”

“Yeah, well…”, Arthur didn’t want to talk about his dating life all that much. He felt ready to leave this conversation, but politeness dictated otherwise.

-------

Eros looked to find some clothing to cover his faux pas at the restaurant. He chanced upon a tourist/novelty store and grabbed a t-shirt, shorts, socks, and an ugly pair of Crocs all saying “I love Big City” with a heart dotting the I’s on them.

Quickly dressing up in them and giving the store owner his best smile inspired by Adonis, he managed to pay for the ensemble with a small amount of gold that was kept in a pocket dimension for emergencies.

The shorts were the size of half-pants and covered his diaper quite well. The diaper had other plans, however, it burned the shorts off leaving Eros in a t-shirt, diaper, and Crocs.

Looking to all the world as a very handsome adult toddler, he shrugged his shoulders and hurried back to the restaurant.

Arriving just in time, he sighted his love arrow on Ernie and Bert, letting loose with deadly accuracy. As it split and hit the two of them squarely, he didn’t have time to check his handiwork. He made a checkmark on his list and ran off to his next set of lovebirds.

Had Eros not been so impatient and stuck around, he would have called in for assistance. He was a very independent demigod. He felt he could still meet his quota and get his problems fixed at the end of the day.

-----

Arthur and Matilda were exchanging pleasantries back at the Bistro. Their progress was about as good as one can expect on a meet-up or a mixer.

“So, she just bailed out on you when you set up a pricey dinner? Did she say why?”

“She said that she had other plans. Her girlfriend explained that an old flame had come into town and she would rather have been with him than me,” confessed Arthur sadly.

“Well, I can’t see why she would dump you, Arthur, here we’ve just met and you seem to be a nice enough person.”

“Thanks,” Arthur said as his body relaxed a little bit more.

“You’re not a serial killer are you?” she asked jokingly.

“Depends on the day of the week, doesn’t it?” he responded in kind.

They both had a good laugh out of it. Arthur ordered up a beer to go with his coffee and Mildred did the same. The two were becoming relaxed around each other.

The alcohol would speed things up in their budding relationship.

-----

The next people on Eros’ list were a young pair of teens. Theirs was to be " A legendary love" and had been chosen in advance by the universal entity rolling a set of 20-sided dice. They both came up with a solid 20.

Bob and Janice grew up together, they pulled each other’s hair as babies, rough and tumbled with each other as children and now at the ripe old age of 16 each, their friendship would go from best friends to “bestest”.

The only problem was that Bob only saw Janice as another buddy and not as a desirable girl. This was where Eros came in. He set a single arrow up and let it fly.

It hit Bob square in the chest. He grasped the arrow while taking a deep breath of momentary pain. It dissolved into nothingness leaving a longing look on his face.

Janice looked at Bob, Bob looked at Janice…

What human eyes couldn’t see and couldn’t hear were the fireworks that were going off behind the two as their lips met.

Had they seen them, they would have been amazed at the magnificence of the display’s beauty and majesty.

Meanwhile, Bob was kissing Janice while working his way over to first base.

That wasn’t supposed to happen! At least not for a few months yet, anyway.

Eros looked at the tracking records for his recent arrow and the display read “Maximum Lust”.

There should be no such settings on his arrows! While lust was also a part of his job, it wasn’t meant for Valentine's Day to be a day of lust!

He checked the stats for the arrow on Bert and Ernie, saw them as a bigger priority, and left the two lovebirds to their passionate fate.

----------------

Mildred and Arthur made plans for later in the week. A movie, a quick meal, and if all went well, a nightcap.

Mildred was ecstatic that a total stranger might become her lover. Arthur was hopeful for the same.

“Once bitten, twice shy,” he muttered as they parted over a friendly handclasp. They would hug after the movie in a few days.

----------

After Eros had made the hit on Bert and Ernie and left, a strange change began in the two.

“Bert, hey Bert! What just happened, Bert? I feel real tingly all of a sudden, Bert!”

“E-Ernie! What just happened, I feel strange Ernie!” said Bert flailing his pipe-stem arms around frantically.

“Now, Bert, don’t worry Bert! I’m sure whatever it is, it’ll pass Bert! Just try to calm down, okay Bert?”

But Bert couldn’t calm down, his body began to change in odd ways.

His skin began to clear up, his sallow-colored skin began to take on a healthy pinkish hue and then a healthy glow.

“Hey, Bert! You’re looking a lot better, do you know that, Bert?”

“Just shut up Ernie! So what if I’m feeling better, it’s none of your business, all right?”

Ernie remained unchanged, but his personal view of Bert began to alter.

he remembered them growing up together.

He remembered the feelings for Bert that he couldn’t explain.

The feelings that he felt and denied when he was with Bert came to the surface all at once.

“Say, Bert, I just wanted to tell you that I love you! I want you to know that Bert!” he shouted out while simultaneously cursing himself for being such a fool.

“I've known it for some time, Ernie. But that’s not important right now,” said a rapidly shrinking Bert, “I think, I think I’m getting smaller!”

“Not just smaller, Bert, you look like you’re getting younger too! This is terrible, Bert! What can we do Bert?” Ernie flailed his arms around like Bert had been doing prior.

“I don’t know, Ernie, I guess we’ll have to wait and see,” said Ernie as his voice began to get higher. The funny thing was, as he got younger his clothing kept right up with him by adjusting to his size.

“Oh, Bert, I love you so much, I hope everything turns out all right!” said Ernie as his long-suppressed feelings of love under the arrow's influence turned left into a different territory.

“Daddy, I’m scared!” piped the squeaky voice of a very young Bert. He held his hands out for a reassuring paternal hug.

“It’s okay, Bert! Daddy Ernie is right here!” assured Ernie as he hugged the rapidly diminishing Ernie.

Ernie sobbed quietly until the process making him younger finally stopped at age 2.

He held on to Dada Ernie for dear life, believing and just knowing that Dada would make it all right.

“Oh, Bertie, my son, I love you with all my heart!” said a proud Papa Ernie. He stood up with toddler Bert in his arms. After a moment, he caught a whiff of something.

“Looks like we’ll have to find a diaper bag and supplies for you, Bertie, and fast!”

“Sowwy, Papa! I go poo, poo!” apologized Bertie.

“Oh, Bertie, it’s not a problem, it comes with the territory, right Bertie?” laughed Ernie as he carried little Bertie to a local convenience store.

Eros arrived on the scene too late to do anything other than wishing them well silently.

The two went to start a new life together as father and son.

This happened instead of the intended short-term love affair that central had planned for them.

Eros knew that he’d been licked, he went over to a local heavenly phone and called in for an appointment to have himself and his equipment thoroughly checked out.

His list burst into flames and he left for his heavenly home. It would be hard using all that baby-sized furniture in his present state, though.

Bummer!