“It’s kind of a sad story, and no llamas are involved, but Aphrodite and Ares do get badly humiliated, which is always a good thing.

Aphrodite had never wanted to marry Hephaestus. The goddess of love was all about looks, and Hephaestus didn’t have any.

Hephaestus tried to be a good husband. It didn’t matter. As soon as they were married, Aphrodite started having an affair with the war god Ares, and it seemed like Hephaestus was the only one who didn’t know about it.

Why was he so clueless? I don’t know. Maybe he wanted to believe Aphrodite could love him.

Maybe he figured if he did the right thing, she would. Sure, he noticed that all the other gods were whispering and snickering behind his back, but Hephaestus was used to that.

He started to suspect something was wrong when Aphrodite had her first child. Hephaestus had been expecting the baby to be crippled like him, or at least have some of his features—the misshapen head, the warty face, perhaps a beard.

But the baby boy, Eros, was perfect—handsome and fit. He also bore a striking resemblance to Ares.

Huh, Hephaestus thought. That’s weird.

“Aphrodite’s next child was a girl named Harmonia, and again she looked absolutely nothing like Hephaestus. The blacksmith started to get uncomfortable. Every time he referred to Harmonia as “my daughter,” the other gods looked like they were trying not to laugh. And why did Aphrodite and Ares keep giving each other knowing glances?

Finally the sun Titan Helios took pity on Hephaestus. Helios saw everything from his sun chariot chick magnet up in the sky—even stuff he didn’t want to see—so of course he’d witnessed Aphrodite and Ares being way more than “just friends.”

One night he pulled Hephaestus aside and said, “Dude, there’s no easy way to tell you this. Your wife is cheating on you.”

Hephaestus felt like he’d been hit in the face with a three-pound club hammer—one of the really nice ones with the fiberglass grip and the double-faced drop-forged steel head.

“Cheating on me?” he asked. “Impossible!”

“Possible,” Helios said grimly. “I saw them myself. Not that I was looking! But, well, they were kind of hard to miss.”

The sun Titan explained that Aphrodite and Ares often sneaked into Hephaestus’s apartment while the blacksmith god was working in the forges. Right there in his own bedroom, they got extremely naughty.

Hephaestus’s heart felt like it was reforging itself. It melted with misery. It got super-heated with anger. Then it cooled and hardened into something stronger and sharper.

“Thanks for the tip,” he told Helios.

“Anything I can do? You want me to give them a nasty sunburn?”

“No, no,” Hephaestus said. “I got this.”

Hephaestus returned to his forges and made a very special net. He created gold filaments as thin as spiderwebs but as strong as bridge cables. He enchanted them so that they would stick to whatever they caught, harden more quickly than cement, and hold their prey motionless.

He hobbled to his bedroom and wove the netting over the four tall bedposts so they hung like an invisible canopy. Then he put a pressure-activated trip wire across the sheets.

He limped into the living room, where Aphrodite was reading the latest steamy romance novel.

“Honey, I’m going to Lemnos!” Hephaestus announced. “I may be there for a few days.”

“Oh?” Aphrodite looked up from her novel. “A few days, you say?”

“Yep. Miss you. Bye!”

Aphrodite grinned. “Okay. Have fun!”

Hephaestus packed his toolbox, saddled the donkey, and headed out. Meanwhile, Ares was watching from a nearby balcony. Once the war god was satisfied that Hephaestus really was leaving for Lemnos, he rushed down to the blacksmith’s apartment, where Aphrodite was waiting.

“Hey, baby,” Ares said. “Miss me?”

“They retired to the bedroom, but they didn’t have time to get very naughty. As soon as they stripped down to their undies and jumped into bed, the trap was sprung.

The golden net fell on them and stuck like flypaper. The two gods struggled and shrieked.

Seriously, Ares had a higher-pitched scream than Aphrodite. But they were plastered to the bed, unable to move or change form.

Hephaestus, who had doubled back, burst into the bedroom with an ax in his hands.

“Daddy’s home,” he snarled.

He contemplated getting all Kronos on them and turning the bedroom into a horror movie scene, but he decided against it. To Hephaestus’s mind, there was nothing more shocking and embarrassing than leaving the lovers as they were—trapped in the act of cheating, Aphrodite with her makeup smeared and her hair messed up, her limbs flattened awkwardly against the bed like she’d hit a car windshield. Screaming and whimpering next to her, Ares wore nothing but a pair of red socks and his G.I. Joe boxer shorts.

Hephaestus marched into the Olympian throne room, where the gods were assembling for lunch.

“Don’t eat yet,” he told everyone. “I have something to show you, and it’ll probably make you hurl.”

Intrigued, the gods followed him back to the bedroom, where they stared at the new piece of performance art Hephaestus had created.

“You see?” Hephaestus demanded. “This is what I get for trying to be a good husband. The moment I’m gone, these two start with their hanky-panky. My own wife hates me because I’m crippled and ugly, so she sneaks around behind my back with—with this fool. It makes me sick. It makes me want to throw up. Isn’t this the most disgusting thing you’ve ever seen?” The other gods were silent. Hermes started trembling, trying to keep it together.

“Zeus said to himself, I’m not going to laugh. I’m not going to laugh.

Then he caught Demeter’s eye, and it was all over.

“BWA! BWA-HA!” He doubled over, chortling so hard, he thought his ribs would break. All the “other gods joined in.

“G.I. Joe boxers!” Apollo screamed. “OH—oh, I can’t even…HAHAHAHAHA!”

“Aphrodite,” Athena giggled. “You look simply lovely.” The gods couldn’t stop laughing. Soon they were rolling on the floor, wiping tears from their eyes, taking photos with their phones to post on Tumblr.

At first, Hephaestus was furious. He wanted to yell at them to take this seriously. He was in pain.

He was humiliated!

Then he took a deep breath and realized: no, Aphrodite and Ares were humiliated. The other gods would be telling this tale for centuries. Every time the two lovers walked into the throne room, the Olympians would smirk and try not to laugh, remembering Aphrodite’s messed-up hair and Ares’s stupid boxers and red socks. Every time people told embarrassing stories at family get-togethers, this would be Embarrassing Story Number One.

After a long time, the gods managed to collect themselves.

“Okay,” Poseidon said, wiping his eyes. “That was hilarious. But you should let them go now, Hephaestus.”

“No,” Hephaestus grumbled. “Why not leave them here on permanent display?” Zeus cleared his throat. “Hephaestus, I thought we’d decided not to tie each other up anymore.You’ve had your revenge. Now release them.”

Hephaestus glared at his father. “All right. Aphrodite can go…as soon as you repay all the gifts I made for her dowry. I don’t want her in my apartment anymore. I don’t want her in my life. She’s not worthy of being my wife.”

Zeus turned pale. Back in those days, if you wanted to marry a woman, you had to give her family a bunch of presents called a dowry. Since Aphrodite didn’t technically have a dad, Zeus had given her away, which meant he got all the cool Hephaestus-made swag. If Hephaestus demanded the dowry back, that meant the marriage was over. It also meant Zeus would have to give back the bronze toaster, the set of golf clubs, the plasma-screen TV, and a bunch of other fun toys.

“Uh…well,” Zeus said, “I suppose Aphrodite could stay in the net.”

“Zeus!” Hera chided. She didn’t like Aphrodite, but she also didn’t approve of goddesses being imprisoned.

“All right, all right,” Zeus said. “Hephaestus can have the dowry back. Aphrodite is officially kicked out of Hephaestus’s life.”

“Like she was ever in it,” Hephaestus muttered.

Poseidon still looked troubled. Despite his past differences with Ares, the two of them usually got along okay. He felt like he should speak up for the war god, since no one else would.

“You need to let Ares go too,” Poseidon said. “It’s only right.”

“Right?” Hephaestus bellowed. “He made me a fool in my own bedroom, and you want to talk about right?”

“Look,” Poseidon said, “I get it. But ask any price to settle the debt. I will personally vouch for Ares. He will pay it.”

Ares made a whimpering sound, but he didn’t dare object. The golden net was really starting to chafe his delicate skin.

“All right,” Hephaestus said. “If Poseidon guarantees payment, I’m good with that. I want a hundred wagonloads of the best armor, weapons, and war spoils from Ares’s fortress, and I get to pick the stuff.”

That was a punishing price, because Ares loved his spoils of war, but he nodded in agreement.

Hephaestus let the two lovers go. As he expected, the story got told and retold around the Olympian dining table for centuries, so Ares and Aphrodite were the butt of everybody’s jokes.

Aphrodite and Hephaestus never lived together again. Were they technically divorced? I don’t know.

But it’s not like they were ever married in anything but name.

Afterward, Hephaestus felt free to have relationships with other women. He had kids with a lot of them. Also, from then on he hated the children Aphrodite and Ares had had together, even if they didn’t deserve it…."

Excerpt From: Rick Riordan's “Percy Jackson's Greek Gods.” iBooks.