by Megan Hart
Her laugh was genuine, incredulous. "You think I ate anything in that place, after what you had me do?"
"I thought you had an iron stomach." The devil reached for the remote and clicked on the small flat screen mounted under her kitchen cabinets. He turned the station to a local news channel running a story about the restaurant she'd been in two nights before. It had been closed for health code violations.
No surprise.
"What do you want?" Kathleen asked, ignoring the news program. She didn't care about the restaurant, and she didn't want to care about the employees now out of a job, or the people who'd gotten food poisoning and had to be hospitalized. She didn't want to know if someone had died. She didn't want to know what the devil had made her a part of.
"You make it sound as though I always have to want something from you, Kathleen, when perhaps it's simply the comfort of your company that I require." He gave her a steady, sincere look.
Kathleen ground the cigarette, mostly unsmoked, into the ceramic ashtray. "My company isn't much of a comfort to anyone."
She bent to retrieve her phone and plugged it into the charger, but left it on the counter as she went upstairs without waiting for the devil to speak again. It wasn't as easy as that, of course. The Lord of Darkness went wherever he wanted, whenever and however. He was waiting for her in the bathroom, where he sat on the sink and watched her pee without so much as a blink from either one of them.
"Jesus," she snapped when he didn't say a word as she wiped and flushed and nudged him aside to wash her hands. "What? What do you want?"
And still, the devil said nothing but weighted her with his gaze, eyes like embers, while she brushed her teeth and smoothed on nighttime lotion. Kathleen flossed, deliberately taking her time. She brushed and rinsed and spat.
"Do you want to fuck me?" She stared at her reflection, meeting her own gaze, without looking at him in the mirror beside her.
He wasn't blond and fit any longer, not from the corner of her eye, which was the only way she dared looked at him when he was in his true form. She gripped the edges of the sink and leaned forward as she bared her teeth to see the blood outlining them from how deliberately fiercely she'd handled her oral hygiene. Her mouth hurt and would sting worse with the rush of mouthwash; she rinsed with it and hissed, but did it again although nothing would ever wash away the taste on her tongue.
"Is that what you want me to ask you to do, so you can deny me?" Lucifer laughed, low and rumbling, and blew a charnel breath across her bare skin.
Kathleen closed her eyes. "You really think that's the hill on which I want to die, so to speak?"
"I think," the devil said, "you want to tell me no so you can be done with all of this. No matter the price."
It had become a thought as common to her as suicide. Refusing to do the devil's bidding. Losing her soul. It seemed barely possible there could be anything for her other than Hell no matter what choices she made, but at least she'd have the choice.
"You do have the choice," he reminded her, although she hadn't spoken aloud. "You've always had it. And no, I don't want to fuck you. I know, I know, sex is supposed to be my game, and I surely won't tell you I've never had the pleasure of playing it."
She opened her eyes and turned to look at him, or at least the manifestation he'd chosen, because staring at that shifting shadow form in the mirror's reflection was going to drive her mad. "Well, you do want something, so just tell me and get it over with. I have a book to write."
"Tomorrow, you can write. Tonight, I want you to do something else for me."
She pressed her lips together and crossed her arms over her chest, thinking for a moment she would refuse this time. No matter what it was. He could ask her to turn that light off at the switch, and she would say no. Just say no and end all of this misery.
Be finished.
But in the end, she did not deny the devil what he wanted, because she never did.
3
After, when she worked hard to put away the thoughts of what she’d done to please the devil, the words came. Kathleen wrote. She layered plots and characters and made a world, typing until her fingers were sore, because at least when she was writing, she didn't have to think about what she'd done. And after the writing, she took a pill and drank a little, trying to find a way to sink into that solace, but she still woke in the morning with a clear head and no sign of the sins she'd committed.
4
"Go out. Have a good time," the devil said. It had been three weeks and two days since the last time he’d appeared. Not long enough to make her think he was gone forever; absolutely long enough to have started her expecting him at every turn.
Kathleen was far from fooled. "That's it? Have a good time? First of all, I can't force myself to have a good time, and you know it, so how is such a thing fair to ask?"
Lucifer looked wounded, though the sly sideways grin made it clear he was anything but. "Go out. Do what people do who want to have a good time, Kathleen. Be seduced."
That stopped her for a moment as she scrambled eggs and made toast. She'd already set the table with two plates -- Satan had impeccable table manners, although she was sure the devil had no need to eat. She turned from the stove with her spatula raised.
"Be seduced?"
"Yasss," the devil hissed. Gleeful. Midnight eyes, entirely pupil, no iris, sparkled. He waggled arched dark brows. Today he looked like a sixteen-year-old club kid, complete with black fishnet arm sleeves and ebony eyeliner.
She should've been grateful he'd asked such a simple thing of her. Nothing illegal. It wasn't even necessarily disgusting. If she woke in the morning with regrets, it would be no different than any of the times she'd hooked up with a stranger of her own accord.
"I've asked worse of you, Kathleen."
She turned back to the stove and scooped the eggs onto a platter, turned off the burner and set the food on the table. "Yes. I know you have. Which makes me suspicious as to why you're asking me such a thing, now. I mean, I can't imagine what on earth me letting a guy fuck me has to do with anything else."
"I didn't say it had to be a guy."
She'd never been with a woman. That idea had a certain charm, though she dismissed it after a moment or so as not impossible, but simply unlikely and probably more complicated, in the end. "No matter who it is, what does it matter? What possible difference could it make in the world?"
"All things have their place," the devil said.
She put the spatula in the dishwasher, thinking this over. The devil had shown up as she was finishing her word count for the day, a consideration she had noticed, if you could ever think of Satan as being considerate. It was close to eight o'clock at night, and she'd been planning to spend the night fucking around on social media and watching television.
"Everything in the circle, I know. You've told me that before."
A burned out bulb makes someone trip in the dark, a broken ankle prevents them from running in a marathon so someone else can win, the winner spends the prize money on drugs and overdoses, leaving behind a daughter who grows up to initiate anti-drug legislation...the circle turned and everything fit inside it. Every piece necessary.
"Of course, it's still your choice. It always is."
That almost never made it better, knowing she could refuse. Knowing there would never come a point when what the devil asked of her would be so awful that she could give up her soul instead of doing it. She would always choose her own salvation, even if it meant committing an atrocity.
"Tell me again," Kathleen said quietly, her eyes closed, as she stood with her back to him.
The devil's appearance might change, but his voice rarely did. It rolled over her, a curtain of velvet. She bent her head, listening.
"Death is not the end. There is more."
There is more.
Kathleen had long ago become uncertain of the existence of a God, though she supposed if she believed in the devil she ought to have more faith in a supreme being.
God had never spoken to her, though. God wasn't sitting at her kitchen table, waiting to eat scrambled eggs.
"This life is not the only one you get to live," the devil told her.
"So we made a deal," she whispered. "I do what you ask, and I get to go on. I refuse..."
"And you do my bidding for all time in every life. Yes. I own you for eternity."
She shuddered, then straightened. Shoulders squared. She drew in a breath. She made her choice.
She turned and gestured at him, up and down. "What is this look, by the way?"
"I have plans later," the devil said with a flick of his chipped black fingernails in her direction.
"I guess it has been a long time since I got laid," Kathleen said.
The devil leaned closer, his breath hot and stinking of roses gone wilted and dead. "You're welcome."
5
The hotel was not far from her apartment building. It had a trendy little pub on the main floor and an exclusive little dance club on the roof, neither of which Kathleen had ever bothered to visit. She liked to do her drinking at home alone like any good high functioning not-quite-an-alcoholic did, and as for dancing, well...she'd never been much for dancing. Two left feet, as the saying went.
Still, this was where the Morningstar had sent her, so she'd changed out of her comfortable pajama bottoms and ratty concert t-shirt and into a dress with soft, silky underthings and stockings with garters and heels so high she'd have broken both ankles before the devil had given her the ability to run a marathon in these fucking stilettos. She'd asked him once if all the other women she saw plodding the streets of New York in their designer pumps had made deals with Satan in order to keep themselves upright, but the devil had only licked his teeth and grinned like a dog shitting razor blades.
That thought stopped her. It was a turn of phrase she'd never heard, she was fairly certain of that. She surely hadn't used it before. She would have to someday, she thought and pulled out her phone to tap herself a note. It was too truly delicious and descriptive not to find a place for.
"Drink?" The bartender looked a bit annoyed, and she supposed she couldn't blame him. Too many people lost themselves in their technology instead of getting their drinks and then getting the hell out of the way. She hadn't meant to be one of those assholes who took up space at the bar instead of ordering.
"Jameson, please. Neat."
Her phone had buzzed already with dozens of notifications, and she wanted to be curled up in her bed with the TV playing episodes of Moonlighting while she scrolled and typed, keeping up the persona she'd worked so hard to create and maintain. Interacting with her readers. Making them feel as though they somehow knew her, even a little. Or she wanted to be in front of the laptop, making fiction. She had three books due in the next eight months, and ideas for several other projects not yet contracted. There were always more words to write.
At least in the books, everything always turned out okay in the end.
The bartender put the drink in front of her, but before she could pay, the man who'd been standing next to her pushed a twenty across the bar. "I got it. One for me too, please."
She wanted to refuse the drink on principle. She could afford to pay for her own and for all the drinks in this bar tonight, as easy as sneezing. Kathleen smiled, instead, because the devil had sent her here for this reason. Find a guy. Let him seduce her. That had been the entire instruction.
"Thanks," she said now and lifted her glass as the man lifted his. "Cheers."
He held out his hand for her to shake. "I'm Jake."
"Kathleen."
"You look like a Kathleen," he told her.
Her mouth opened to come back with something smart, or at least flirty, but something in the way he looked at her gave her pause enough for something more truthful to come out. "Is that a good thing?"
"It's a very good thing," Jake said.
They clinked glasses. He sipped his. She tossed hers and set the glass on the bar. Warmth spread through her. It was a waste of good whiskey to drink it that way, but it would get her fucked up faster, especially with the Valium already slipping through her bloodstream. The devil had said she needed to encourage a seduction. He didn't say she had to be fully mentally present for it.
The television behind the bar was showing news clips, the sound down but the closed captioning on. The news anchor gestured as she spoke. It was totally distracting, but not so much that Kathleen couldn't pay attention to the footage of the man in the business suit stepping in front of the train. The actual impact had been fuzzed out, but there was no doubt that the guy had been crushed.
Her fingers clutched the bar's padded leather edge. They weren't calling it a suicide, though it so clearly was, and they weren't naming the guy, but she knew his name. Despite the fuzzed out features and blurry security footage, she knew it immediately. She'd told him his breath was horrible and had refused to kiss him. His name was Jim.
"If you're gonna take yourself out, at least have the decency not to make everyone else deal with it," said the bartender with a twist of his mouth. He nodded at the TV. "My roommate was late to work and got fired. Now he can't afford the rent, and I'm picking up double shifts just to cover it. My boss says it will look good when the new management comes in, that I'll have a shot at getting bumped up to manager, but..."
Every piece had its place in the circle.
The bartender cut himself off with a visible thinning of his lips and replaced his complaint with a grin and a shrug. "But hey, you didn't come in here to listen to me whine. How was that Jameson?"
"Lovely," she said.
"Another?" Jake asked.
Kathleen looked away from the television, now showing some other tragedy. "Jameson and ginger this time, please."
"Two." Jake slid another twenty across the bar. "Do you want to sit over there?"
He indicated a rounded booth in a darkish corner away from the bar. A place like that was built for lovers, Kathleen thought. Dark and secret places.
"Yes. All right."
He took both their drinks and let her lead the way. She was very aware of his gaze upon her back, where her red dress dipped low to expose the bare skin. She hadn't worn a bra and tried hard not to think about how her nipples were poking the front of the silk. It was meant to be a seduction, she reminded herself. The devil hadn't said it needed to be subtle.
She slid into the curved booth, letting the smooth vinyl hitch up her dress on her thighs as she settled into a spot that would allow Jake, if he wanted to, to sit much closer to her than strangers ought to sit. He slid her drink in front of her, the cool glass sweating. She touched the glass, but didn't lift it to drink.
His name was Jim, and his dating profile had shown him smiling and happy with a pair of cute dogs and a teenaged son. His name was Jim, she thought. And he'd wanted to kiss her.
All things had their place in the circle.
"What brings you out tonight?" Jake asked and sipped slowly.
Kathleen traced the rim of her glass with a fingertip. "I felt like going out. Needed a little break. Haven't you ever wanted to get a little crazy?"
"Sure, we all do, sometimes."
She gave him a sideways smile and a glance from the corner of her eye. "What brought you out?"
"Same thing. I'm in relax and recreate mode," he told her. "Thought I'd do a little drinking. A little dancing."
A little fucking, were the words that rose to her lips all casual and carefree, as though it meant nothing to her, this idea that she might let him put his hands on her. His mouth. It was subtle as a jackhammer, but would've worked, she thought even as her lips parted on nothing but a small hiss of breath.
He looked at her as though she were a treasure.
Only for a second or so before he cut his gaze from hers, but in that moment there might've been nobody else in this world but for the two of them. This man looked at her as though she were the most precious sight he'd ever seen, and more than that. He looked at her as
though she were his nicest thing.
A heat washed over her. And then a panic. She'd felt this before, the sudden trembling and sweating, the rush of nausea. Her heart beat so fast she thought it would leap from her chest and fall, still throbbing onto the floor. She tasted charcoal.
His name was Jim.
"I have to go," she said, not caring if it was abrupt and strange, if he would think she was nuts. "Please...excuse me, I'm not feeling well, I really need to go."
Jake didn't move at first, not fast enough anyway, and so she slid out from the booth in the other direction. There was a step on this side, and she didn't see it. Her ankle twisted as she came down, and the shoes, those fucking shoes, meant she didn't catch her balance.
She wiped out spectacularly, onto her hands and knees. Ass in the air. Exactly the way she was supposed to end the night, Kathleen thought wildly as she groped for something to help her up. She'd spilled her purse.
It was not the first time she'd ever made a fool of herself in a public place and it was far from the worst, but even so, it was bad enough that she couldn't stop the tears from burning down her cheeks as she swept everything she could find back into her bag. The crowd had parted around her. Nobody helped, but everyone stared.
"Hey." Jake knelt beside her to take the clutch from her shaking hands. "Hold on. I got this. Let me --"
"I don't need you to help me," Kathleen snapped.
They stared at each other. This close, she could smell his cologne and see the shadow of bristles along his unshaven jaw. It was too dark to see the color of his eyes, but she knew, she just knew, they were a hazy blue-green.
She took the bag from his hands and got to her feet. She managed to stay steady long enough to tug the hem of her skirt down to keep her ass from showing. She lifted her chin. Squared her shoulders.
Someone took a picture of her.
The flash drew her attention, and when she turned, they took another. It blinded her enough that she didn't dare step forward for fear she'd fall again. Frozen, Kathleen blinked hard to clear her vision, but it was the hand at the small of her back that got her moving, along with Jake's whispered reassurance.