Neon Blue

by E J Frost

  Tired, aching, paint-spattered, my temples banging with the remnants of my hangover and a slow-boiling anger that’s evolved out of my frustration and guilt while I’ve patched and painted, I go to find the demon. I’m spoiling for a fight. I can feel it, bubbling in my gut: the need to shout, accuse, hurt. I want someone to blame for everything that’s happened over the last few days, and the demon is it.

  I follow the sound of the television and find him on the couch. He’s lying on his side. His head’s propped on a couch cushion, eyes closed, long legs stretched out, bare feet dangling over the far end of the couch. The three salamanders are draped over his hip in a complicated coil. One of them, Izzy or Gizzard, I can’t tell them apart, is snoring a hissy little salamander snore.

  I stand over the tableau. The impulse to yell, wake them with a jolt, is strong. It’d make me feel so much better, to vent some of what I’m feeling. But even as I struggle with myself, my anger’s beginning to slip away. How can I wake him when he’s sleeping so peacefully?

  How can I send him back to Hell when I know what’s waiting for him there?

  My great-grandmother’s cuckoo clock ticks. One of the salamanders snores. I stand silent, unable to shatter the moment, struggling inside.

  A cheerful tune bursts from the television and I glance at it. A round, red-bearded man in chef’s whites walks through a market, picking up tempting-looking produce. What on earth is the demon watching? Molto Mario, the television informs me a moment later, and the man in chef’s whites appears in a kitchen decorated in Mediterranean colors, chopping basil.

  Cooking programs. The demon’s watching cooking programs.

  That robs me of the last of my anger. I slump over, wrap my arms around myself. He is what he is. I can’t hate him for being a demon. For doing what demons do.

  If you’re finished bein’ pissed at me, c’mere.

  I start. “I thought you were asleep.”

  I was. Then you stomped in with that nuclear meltdown going on inside your head. C’mere.

  I sink onto the cushion in the space left by the curve of his hips. He doesn’t open his eyes and I watch his face for a moment. I’ve read somewhere that people look like the children they were in their sleep. The demon just looks like the demon. His face is relaxed, the clean lines of cheek and jaw showing under his skin. Dark lashes lie in crescents against the deep gold of his cheeks. His dreadlocks fan over his shoulders. I pick up one and run it through my fingers. The strand is warm, fuzzy. I rub it against my cheek.

  He wraps an arm around me and pulls me down so that I spoon against him. The salamanders protest, grumbling and hissing, but eventually shuffle and recoil so they drape over my hip, too.

  “Enjoy it while you can, boys,” the demon grunts. “You’re not sleepin’ with us.” He slides one arm under my head, wraps the other around my ribs. Wanna tell me why you were so pissed?

  I sigh and settle against him, into his warmth and strength. “I’m not sure I can explain.”

  Yeah, I can tell from the hurricane going on in your head. Gimme the condensed version.

  “I want things to be different.”

  You want me to be different.

  I squeeze my eyes closed. “Yes, I want you to be different.”

  Yeah. He blows out a breath, ruffling my hair. Thought we’d come to this. I can’t be human for you, sweet meat. No way I know of. Next best thing I can think of is to make you a demon.

  Which I don’t want to be. Ever.

  I close my hand over his where it rests against my ribs. Squeeze. He threads his fingers through mine. Returns the pressure gently. We lie in warm silence, and I begin to drift.

  I’d be human for you. If I could.

  It costs him nothing to say, since it’s impossible. But it makes me feel better all the same. I drift off smiling.

  After a long nap and another of his amazing dinners, he takes me dancing at ManRay, a not-so-underground gay club in Cambridge. I’ve never been brave enough to go there on my own and it was too artsy for Ro in our clubbing days. Not enough straight guys to drool over her.

  I follow Jou through the front door hesitantly, not sure of what to expect. He strolls in like he owns the place, and with his dreadlocks and leather pants, he fits right in. Pink and blue strobes illuminate the dance floor, heaving with people in fishnets and leather. Piercings glitter in the hot lights. Jou leads me to the long bar where a green-haired waitress tosses him a pair of shot glasses out of a bandolier she wears over her artfully ripped black tank.

  Jou hands me one of the shot glasses, which is filled with reddish jelly.

  Bottoms up, sweet meat.

  He downs his in a gulp. I stare into my shot glass for a moment. Whatever’s in there looks kind of like his come. Gross.

  Can I take a pass? I really don’t want to get drunk tonight.

  No.

  I roll my eyes and pop the shot into my mouth. Swallow quickly, expecting it to be disgusting. But it isn’t. Watermelon and coconut and a tingly hint of rum. I wish I hadn’t swallowed it so fast.

  C’mon, let’s dance.

  He leads me onto the dance floor. I expect to have to squeeze my way into a clear space, the way Ro and I did when we used to go out. But people make way for him, parting around us easily, except a man in a white see-through shirt who backs up in front of Jou, swinging his hips and beckoning with both hands.

  Jou shakes his head and turns his back on the man. He reaches for me, pulls me close and runs his big hands up my sides, bringing my arms up around his neck. I look at him blankly, not sure how to dance like this. I’m used to dancing in a group, not one-on-one. He doesn’t hesitate. He pulls my hips against his with a hand in the small of my back and begins moving us both to the rhythm. For a moment, it’s awkward. I try to anticipate what he’s going to do next and he doesn’t move the way I expect him to. Then I give up and let him move me the way he wants. My body follows his naturally once I stop trying to anticipate him. The music changes to a song I know, New Order’s New Faith, and we’re sliding into the music, getting lost in the beat.

  A hot pulsing begins between my legs. Grows as Jou turns me around in his arms and holds me tight against him, rocking our hips in time to the beat. His hips and thighs are warm and solid against my ass. He moves sinuously, sexily, against my back. His hands go to my hips and I close my eyes. The memory of him taking me like this, from behind, his body pounding mine into the mattress, flashes through me, bringing my nipples to hard points against the leather halter, flooding my cheeks with heat.

  Mmm, tasty.

  He turns me around in his arms again, guiding my arms back around his neck. His hands close hard on my butt and he pulls me up onto his hips. I wrap my legs around his waist, to hoots and catcalls from the dancers around us. He holds me tightly, one hand in the small of my back and the other behind my shoulders. His hips pulse hard against mine. The same rhythm he uses when we’re in bed. My body tightens with the sense-memory of having him inside me, filling me over and over.

  His hand slides up to the nape of my neck, pulls me backwards. I lean into the strength of his arm. He supports me effortlessly as I lean back, until it looks like I’m riding him, our hips locked together. The chorus of hoots and catcalls grows.

  I feel power build, not just between us, but all around. It already pervades the club, an undercurrent of desire. The demon ignites it, makes it manifest. Sexual energy darts between the dancers in neon ripples. Swirls around and into the demon.

  He gathers it, shapes it, and pushes it into me.

  My body spasms, back arcing, muscles going rigid. Only his hands, his massive strength, keep me from falling to the floor. He continues to dance, hips pulsing against mine, his hand at the nape of my neck guiding my upper body back and forth to the rhythm. He bends over me, sweeping his dreadlocks over my abdomen, hair swishing across leather. A counterpoint to the pounding beat.

  The power grows, lighting me up inside until anyone with the Sight must be abl
e to see me glowing. It swells, filling me, pushing outwards until it crashes against the boundary of my aura. Witchlight flares gold and blue as power spills out of me. The demon’s aura leaps in response, rippling with actinic blues so intense they’re blinding.

  I hold my hands up. Watch in awe as the witchlight plays over my skin. It ripples in waves, mixing with the pink and blue light from the overhead strobes. Flowing in interference patterns. The ripples move faster and faster, shimmering, dancing, and I feel a furnace-blast of heat ruffle my hair as my hands burst into flame.

  Jou!

  Ride it. It won’t burn you.

  He’s right. I’m not burning, even though my hands are sheathed in flame. I stretch my arms to the ceiling. The flame licks down my arms to encase me from fingertips to elbows in burning gloves.

  Come up. Touch me. His hand on my neck arcs me up until my breasts press against his chest. I wrap my arms around his neck and feel the flame spread, gliding across my flesh like the touch of his hot tongue. He tilts his head back, his dreadlocks wreathed in blue flame.

  Oh, yeah, he thinks, and I can feel the tremendous pleasure he takes in absorbing and shaping the amplified energy. His horns unfurl from his brow. I watch them grow in wonder. They’re beautiful. Terrifying. Black and lustrous, they recurve above his head. He continues to move without effort, nodding his head to the beat as if a huge pair of bull’s horns hadn’t just sprouted from his forehead.

  The flanged tip of his tail slides across my belly, a warm pressure. His tail wraps around my waist, holds me tightly as we continue to dance.

  Jou—

  He opens his eyes, burning with power. I can smell it, the heavy, smoky fragrance. The wonder and strength of his true form. I drink it down and fall into him.

  Later, maybe an hour, maybe three hours, I’ve lost track of time while Jou and I have been riding the ripcurl of power, I stumble to the bar for a glass of water. My mouth’s so dry my tongue’s sticking to the roof of my mouth. Jou’s still dancing. He could take his pick of partners. Despite the fact that he’s very clearly with me, a bewildering range of people have tried to dance with him. Drawn irresistibly to the gravitational well of his allure. The man in the see-through shirt. A woman in sensible heels and pearls who looks so out of place I just stare at her, bemused, until I realize she’s not a woman at all. Real girls, pierced and plain. A man who glitters in my peripheral vision and whose golden good looks are too perfect to be real. Some sort of fae. Jou ignores them all.

  I wait until one of the bartenders takes pity on me and shoves a plastic cup of water across the polished bar top. Glazed and dehydrated, I turn to look at the dance floor while I sip from the cup.

  A tall black shadow detaches itself from one of the columns between the bar and dance floor. It takes a few steps toward me and I stiffen, tucking my hand behind my back, ready to reach for my kama. God knows what anyone with the Sight has been thinking while they’ve watched us dance.

  Then I recognize the silhouette, the breadth of the shoulders, the fringe of cornrows framing the muscled neck. I let my hand drop.

  “Saul,” I say.

  He smiles, a flash of pearl in the strobing darkness. “Hey, Zee.” I can hear his tenor clearly over the beat. He always had a surprisingly high voice for such a big man. “Busy tonight, huh?”

  “What are you doing here?” I ask, too shocked to be polite. In our six months together, we never went dancing. Neither of us even mentioned it. I can’t reconcile him with this place.

  “I came with some friends.” He nods back towards the column, where two other men stand, looking out at the dance floor and nursing their beers. One of them wears a tee that says: If at first you don’t succeed: Control-Alt-Delete.

  “Work friends?” I ask. It comes out more nastily than I mean it to. I met Saul when I hired one of the ubiquitous IT consulting firms that cluster around M.I.T. to install a server and two workstations at my old office. I got Office 2004 thrown into the deal; Saul got a date.

  “Yeah. What about you?” He nods back at the dance floor, and over his shoulder, I see a huge, horned shape, still wreathed in blue flame, making its way towards us. “New guy?”

  “This is Jou,” I say, as the demon brushes past Saul and comes to lean against the bar behind me. He waves for a beer, and instantly gets the attention of not one but two of the bar staff. Where I had to wait for nearly five minutes with my throat so dry I couldn’t swallow, the demon’s served in under ten seconds. There’s no justice in the world.

  Jou slides his arm around my waist. And this is Saul-the-prick-who-couldn’t-hack-it.

  Please, don’t. I stand rigid in the demon’s embrace. I don’t want to shove my date in Saul’s face, or hurt him anymore than I already have.

  I’ve hurt enough people today.

  “Saul,” he introduces himself, holding out a hand, which Jou reaches around me to shake. Saul doesn’t have the Sight. He can’t see the talons on the hand he’s shaking. Or the blue flames that still lick over the demon’s skin.

  I shudder and squeeze my eyes closed.

  “How’ve you been, Zee?” Saul asks.

  I nod, open my eyes. “Good. You?”

  “Okay. You’d know, if you’d ever take my calls.”

  I shake my head helplessly.

  Saul holds up his coffee-colored palms. “We can’t be friends?”

  No, we can’t. It’s too hard. Too much like lying, to segregate those parts of my life that Saul can understand and accept from the parts he can’t.

  I turn to Jou. “Can we go home?”

  He looks down at me, his eyes shadowed, just a glint of neon deep in the blackness. “Sure.”

  Saul backs up a step. “Hey, sorry, I didn’t mean—”

  I absolve him with a quick shake of my head. “I’m tired.”

  Another lie. I’m not tired, just thirsty. Dancing with the demon is a massive rush and I could do it forever. But bumping into Saul, being forcibly reminded of the world outside the fiery envelope the demon’s created, has killed my high. The night’s poisoned. I want to go home.

  The demon pushes his half-finished beer back across the bar and settles his hand on the nape of my neck. “C’mon.”

  Saul sticks out his hand with a forced smile. “Sorry, man.”

  The demon shakes it again. “No problem.”

  “Zee, I’ll call you.”

  I nod absently – I’m still not going to take his calls – and let the demon propel me towards the door.

  At the curb, we wait in the rain while the valet retrieves the car. I huddle into myself, rubbing my hands up and down my bare arms. I didn’t wear a coat because I’ve been so warm around the demon. Now I wish I had.

  The demon immediately puts his arm around me. His heat spreads through me like a sauna, seeping into my bones. Better?

  Yes. I sigh and lean into his warmth. Sorry.

  S’okay.

  I look up at him. It was fun, wasn’t it? I’m sorry I dragged you away.

  The valet pulls the car up and tosses the keys to Jou. Still sheltering me in the warmth of his arm, the demon guides me around to the passenger side and hands me into the leather seat. When he settles into the driver’s seat, he asks aloud, “What’s botherin’ you so much?”

  I scrunch down into the leather. “It hurt to see Saul. Especially when I wasn’t expecting it.”

  He puts the car in gear and pulls out onto the night-quiet streets. “Why? So he left you. He didn’t fuckin’ deserve you. He’s barely got a flicker of anythin’. Why were you wasting yourself on someone like that?”

  I stare out of the window, into the dark. “I don’t expect you to understand.”

  “I understand better’n you do. Your family’s made you afraid of your power. Made you hide from it, and seek out gutless, no-talent motherfuckers like him to help you. Grow up an’ recognize that you’re better off without him.”

  I twist around in the seat and glare at him, open-mouthed. “You know absol
utely nothing about it, Jou. Saul’s a good man. Just like Peter. You act like they’re worthless just because they don’t have any magic.”

  “They’re nothin’,” the demon growls. “An’ you’re wasting your time with them. They’re never gonna satisfy you.”

  “You know nothing about it!” I snap again.

  He turns his head to look at me, his eyes filled with that neon blue glow. No matter what happens, you’re better off with me.

  “Neither of them demanded my soul.” The biting bile edge with which it comes out surprises even me. “Or wanted me to give up my humanity for them.”

  “Worse. They wanted you to be normal.” He says it like a curse. “They wanted you to be Susie Suburban Homemaker, elbow-deep in dishes and rugrats.” He snorts eloquently and changes gears. “You’re not meant for that. You need fire and magic and fucking so hard you rock the foundations. You really think Mister one-orgasm-a-week back there could give that to you?”

  How dare he use my memories like that? “Stay out of my head!”

  “No,” he growls. “You need someone pokin’ around in there. Stop lyin’ to yourself. He wasn’t makin’ you happy. He was just fulfillin’ this suburban dream you’re clinging to.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with wanting something better! I want a home, and a family and someone who loves me—”

  “I love you,” the demon snarls. “Not the way you want it, all hearts and flowers. I love you like you should be loved. I took you there tonight to show you the difference—”

  “You what?!”

  “I took you there to show you exactly how little he can offer you. He was there the other night. When I picked up that kid that pissed you off so much. I recognized him from your memories. You really want him? After what we just did? You want someone who doesn’t value what you are? Who can’t give you anything but that little flicker of attention you were callin’ love? That what you want? Tell me now an’ I’ll turn the car around and you can go runnin’ back to him.”