Apartment Olympus: The Pizza Boy
The pepperoni is on the house
Hi, happy Tuesday!! Welcome to "Apartment Olympus," a series of scenes that take place between episodes of the main Aphrodite audio play. This particular scene occurs after episode 3, where Aphrodite and Poet went on a date with “Hephaestus”, and before episode 4 (out Friday, 28.03!! Also my birthday omg), where we'll meet Nerites. Read previous “Apartment Olympus” here and listen to episode 1 and 2 of “The Aphrodite Project” here.
“The thing you’re forgetting, dear Poet, is that this date was with the Hephaestus archetype, not the Ares, the soulmate type. To Hephaestus types, love is really just one thing, or they only allow it to be one thing.” Aphrodite took a bite from the pizza slice.
It was late afternoon on a Tuesday, and the sun was setting. Golden hour crept into the studio apartment, blending with the goddess’s innate glow. Aphrodite took another bite, chewed, then continued. “These types suppress and push away any feeling or sensation beyond physical pleasure with, as we saw on the date, top-shelf whiskey, supercars, and calls to their surgeon in Turkey.”
Poet raised an eyebrow. “Supercars? Is this based on the mythological supercars that Hephaestus famously had in ancient Greece?”
“Ancient.” She scoffed at the word. “I’m just translating it for your time, obviously.” Aphrodite rolled her eyes.
The doorbell interrupted their late lunch, early dinner. Poet got up and looked through the peephole. Outside was a pizza delivery guy, wearing a shirt from the company whose pizza the girls were currently devouring.
“Did you order another pizza?” Before Poet could get an answer, a voice from behind the door replied. “No, no, you didn’t. This one’s on the house.” The boy now looked directly at the peephole and flashed a quick smile before turning his baseball cap backwards.
“Weird,” Poet said, opening the door. The delivery boy was no older than seventeen, and the cool-toned fluorescent hallway lights accentuated his attempted mustache and faint acne scars.
As the door opened, he pushed his shoulder back, making himself taller. His eyes grew wider.
“It’s me again,” he said, swaying side to side slightly. Poet tried to remember what, if anything, Aphrodite told him when she accepted their pizza delivery earlier. "Note to self, she thought, do not let deities open doors."
“I just wanted to see —” A bang of a cupboard door somewhere in the apartment interrupted him.
“You brought the pizza earlier. Right.” Poet didn’t let go of the door knob. “This is a little unexpected.”
“I’ll go. Just…” He shifted his weight from his toes to his heels and back to his toes. “This one is on the house.” He repeated. “From me.” He handed Poet the pizza box. “For you,” he said, then quickly added: “Please don’t tell my boss I did this.”
“Right. I think you’re here to see Aphro–” She stopped herself before she could get the full name out. “ – my friend, but she’s busy.” Poet took the box and searched her pocket for a tip. “Thank you but maybe don’t do this again.”
She handed him a crumpled five-dollar bill. His fingers lingered on her hand as he took it from her. Poet pulled her hand back. “Sorry,” he said, looking around him, scanning the hallway. “I won’t do it again. I just wanted another chance.”
Poet closed the door and listened for his footsteps fading down the hall, for the ding of the elevator, for its doors opening and closing. She locked the door behind her. The pizza box was warm in her hand. There was a heart drawn on the center of the lid.
Poet turned to the apartment. She scanned the room but didn’t see the usual glow emanating from wherever Aphrodite would be sitting. It was quiet.
The sound of water running cut through the lingering silence.
“Who was that?” Aphrodite’s voice sounded muffled through the bathroom door.
“The pizza guy from earlier.” Poet placed the new box on the kitchen counter. She lifted the lid. It was pepperoni with the ham laid out in the shape of a heart. “Did you say something to him when you opened the door for the previous delivery?”
Aphrodite opened the bathroom door, closed it, sat back at the table, and grabbed the last slice of the first pizza.
“Aphrodite?”
“I just told him what you would have said,” the goddess answered, taking another bite. “Just wished him a nice day.”