by Savoy, Skye
“Right. I bet you don’t even know how.” I tried to pull away to emphasize my disgust.
“Perhaps I do and just don’t want to undo it.” An undeniable look of fierce possession burned in his eyes.
The shock of his confession extinguished my anger. Confusion set in. Did that mean he wanted to keep me? Wait a sec. “Did you just say, ‘don’t’?”
We went in for a kiss. Each thrust of our tongues became deeper and more demanding. My fingers made a mess of his hair, pulling it loose from its secured knot behind his neck.
He slammed me against the gritty brick wall of the alley while his hands moved up my thighs and hiked up my sundress up for better access. His thumb stroked the wetness between my legs. Urgent kisses made their way down between my breasts. My body screamed for release, until I heard the sharp cackle of Lorna and her hag posse leaving the salon.
“Suri, please don’t stop,” I murmured, breathless from the attention the swell of my breast received in conjunction with the friction he created down south. “We need to move out of sight or all of Europe will be talking about how I was doing myself in an alley.”
He groaned his displeasure, then looked up long enough to capture my lips. I endured the whirl of teleportation by concentrating on the sensations caused by his mind freak of a kiss. We appeared in my old bedroom where this crazy journey began. Dark blue silk sheets instead of my worn earth tone bedding met the backs of my legs as he urged me toward the mattress. A breeze through the open French doors cooled my fevered, naked body.
Naked? When did that happen? Heck, if he did it, so can I.
I disrobed him with simply a wish. Suriyel stopped kissing and caressing my breasts long enough to chuckle at me. I leaned back to fully appreciate the smooth, bronze body that matched his eyes.
I latched onto his substantial shaft but let go when he pushed me back onto the sheets. He placed his knee in between mine and captured my face in his hands. The liquid copper of his eyes grew intense. “I know this is wrong, but I can no longer control myself. Is this what you want?”
“Uh-huh.” Oh yeah, fallen angel-man. Giddy up. Giddy up.
Wings unfurled, he covered me, skin on skin, lips touching my lips, neck, and sucking my pebbled breasts. His penis strained and twitched against my stomach, until I wrestled my hands away from where he held them above my head and grabbed it. I guided it to the slick path of my entrance and encased the very tip in the wet opening. He started to thrust it deeper inside, but I pulled away and ran it up to my wet folds, then back several times with tantalizing slowness.
He growled in frustration and moved my hand. I hissed in pleasure as he filled me completely. His hand reached to stroke my center in the same way his tongue stroked my nipples as he ground into me then pulled almost all the way out.
Not even my cravings for chocolate ganache or margaritas came close to my desire for this beautiful angel. “Harder. Faster,” I cried and locked my lips onto his shoulder muscle and sucked like a vampire.
“Please?” His whisper caused chill bumps to spring up on my chest.
My eyes rolled back in my head for a moment when he penetrated as far inside as he could go. “Please. Oh, pleeease!”
Suriyel’s wings shuddered with each pump. Cool air on my backside indicated we levitated off the bed. Tremors started from the tips of my toes and overtook my body. Orgasm flooded me. Was that my scream?
My fallen angel’s warrior-like bellow joined it as he found his own release. The pulsating feeling drove me over the edge once more.
Suriyel spooned me from behind. Good thing his arms and wings held me down because I felt weightless. Leave it to me to have the best sex of my life in my afterlife.
I entwined my fingers with his. “Uh, Suriyel, what we just did, that was real this time, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” he nudged my chin up with his finger tips. “That was very real.” He claimed my lips again.
Hmmm. Apparently, some key parts of my anatomy weren’t as satiated as the rest of me. Images of my favorite chocolate torte came to mind as I devoured his lips. Suriyel broke the kiss. He touched his forehead to mine. “I want you like I have wanted no other. When you disappeared, I went crazy.” He kissed my nose.
“What about when I almost got axed by pseudo Elvis, or the time the she-demon tried to shish kabob me and Mel?”
“Thank you for reminding me of my many failures.” He wrapped the sheet around his waist.
Stupid me. Why make him pay for all the baggage I carried since my divorce? If I had a backbone when I was alive, I’d be more the woman I am dead.
I blocked Suriyel as he tried to get up, knelt down between his knees, and looked up at him, in all my naked, just laid hair glory. “I’m sorry. I was never this bitchy in life.” I powered through the ball of tinfoil size lump in my throat. “Truth is I love you. I know this wasn’t supposed to happen and I have to move on because we made a deal.”
Joy flooded Suriyel’s features. Both hands clasped my face. He pulled me off my knees onto his lap. “I love you more than anyone in life or afterlife.” His kisses smothered me. They sent my heart soaring.
I straddled him. The passion of our kiss ignited the lampshade beside my bed. Suriyel tamped it out by snapping his fingers without breaking the embrace
I ran my flattened hands down his chest. “You are perfect.”
“If he was perfect, he wouldn’t be a fallen angel,” a rumbling voice said. White light blinded me as it radiated from my closet. Suriyel jumped in front of my body, wings unfurled and sword in hand to face the light.
The most beautiful man I’d ever seen appeared amidst my knee-high pile of laundry. Silvery blonde hair framed the angles of his cat-like face and touched shoulders that put Atlas to shame. Cloud white wings stretched out from one end of the room to the other. His eyes shone as silver as his sword, which he leaned on at an angle. An angel stood on each side of him. They were pretty, but not as awe-inspiring as the one in the center.
“And you wanted me to consider reinstating you in my army?” Disappointment dripped from every word.
“I don’t know what you think you’re doing here, but I’d thank you not to make a hole in my carpet with your sword.”
The angel whipped his weapon in the air and sliced through a granny bullet bra, which he snagged from the floor on the way up.
“Yes, Michael.” Suriyel knocked me on the bed and shushed me.
My hand flew up to subdue the pulse in my neck, which cranked up to hummingbird-like speed. “Michael, as in the ultimate angel warrior, Archangel Michael?”
“More like very angry, keeper of the fallen angels, Archangel Michael.” The white brick of an angel’s booming voice compelled the bauble-head Elvis on my dresser to rock.
Michael advanced to the bed, stuck a massive hand out, and yanked my shield up in the air by his neck.
“No,” I shrieked and forgot to cover myself.
“Stacy, please do not do anything you will regret,” Suriyel ground out through what was surely a crushed windpipe.
Michael briefly scanned my less than ladylike position on the bed. “Get some clothes on woman. My anger is not directed at you…yet.”
I zapped some jeans and a T-shirt on before the last words finished echoing in the room. If I wasn’t already dead, Big Mama would kill me all over again.
Suriyel’s beautiful, naked body hung limp, inches above the floor. He glared defiantly at Michael for the indignity he suffered.
I supplicated myself on the floor in front of Michael, “Please, don’t hurt him. This was all my fault. I wanted to…”
“No, Michael. I knew the consequences. It was my fault.” The effort to speak seemed painful.
“You disgust me.” Michael threw Suriyel down beside me like he was a limp stalk of celery. “You knew the rules of being a human soul collector. You were never to fornicate with mortals, again.”
I drew Suriyel’s hand to my prone body. He sought my eyes as we lay there
at Michael’s feet. His bloody lips mouthed, “Let me handle this.”
Tears filled my eyes. He wanted to sacrifice himself for me as the ultimate proof of his love. I refused to go with him in the beginning. Now, I refused to let him go without me.
One of the angels hauled me off the carpet and held me so tight I thought my lungs would explode. The other angel detained Suriyel as he tried to rescue me. Michael took Suriyel’s ebony wings in his hand.
“For your crime, I curse you to confinement in the center of the Earth and,” he brandished his sword, “I will have your wings.”
Steel sliced through the bone and feathers in a sickening crunch. Suriyel cried out in agony. His wings fell to the floor followed by his body. Bloody nubs remained.
My face contorted as I screamed and used supernatural force to slam my captor through the wall to get to Suriyel’s side. Michael catapulted me with ease into my en suite bathroom. The mirror over the double sinks cracked from the divot my butt made. The squeal of skin on glass reverberated as I slid down. Small constellations and a couple of Leer Jets circled my head from the pain.
The angels vanished with Suriyel in the few seconds it took for me to untangle myself from the blow dryer cord on the vanity. Sorrow consumed me. I fell onto the bed I shared with Suriyel and wailed for the life, the love ripped away from me.
* * * *
“Big Mama!”
My bellow rattled the kitchen window. I prepared food for comfort instead of eating it like Ava usually did. I wanted my mama ever since I woke up in the wee hours of the morning, wrapped in the sheets on Suriyel’s side of the bed.
I doubted everything I ever learned about religion thanks to Archangel Michael. Suriyel opened my eyes to an alternate side of eternity. One where good angels weren’t so good and fallen angels weren’t completely bad. Suriyel gave up without a fight. He handed me another chance at living long enough to figure out how to banish the demon who killed me. My new plan wasn’t to rid myself of the she-devil until I made her take me to Suriyel.
Tears splashed down onto the pink petit fours I iced for the “Pink Summer Night’s Dream.” I snuffled, wiped my eyes with a dish rag, then resolved not to cry anymore. What’s more, I refused to screw things up again.
“Big Mama? Samael? Anybody? Somebody needs to get here on the double.”
Jimbo thought it would class up the party to incorporate leopard and zebra patterns into his poufy pink decorations. I was ordered to incorporate the patterns onto something edible. The trick was to make them pretty, not like the lines on an old black and white television.
A cold breeze stirred the hair on my arms. I stopped making zebra stripes on the petit fours to survey the nooks and crannies of my less than professional work space. Nothing looked out of place. I resumed squeezing the life out of the black icing bag.
At the end of a zigzagged line I was pretty proud of, sat a huge locust.
“Huh. It isn’t locust season until August is it?”
I diverted my attention from my unwelcome guest to the drawer to get my metal spatula for only a second and was greeted by several more. They adhered themselves to my handiwork.
“Damn! Now I’ve got to redo everything!” I whacked away at the locusts. As soon as I got one, another appeared.
A disembodied voice interrupted my insect control process, “What’s the matter? Got a little pest problem?”
I expelled the breath I held as I whacked locusts. A head full of purple hair and a pierced nose appeared by the stove.
“Yes, Stacy and you’re one of them! What do you want?”I answered, gruffly. Awkwardness and guilt appeared as soon as she did.
“Well, hello to you, too. I’m not a pest. You invited me.”
“I did not.”
“Yes, you did. You were calling for Samael, Big Mama, or anybody. I guess I’m the latter minus the body.” She stuck a shadowy hand in front of my face and removed it. “Besides, I told you I’d be back to haunt you, and here I am.” She ended the sentence with a cute squeaky laugh.
“Great. Since you’re here, why don’t you see if there’s a can of Raid under the sink.”
She materialized on top of the counter close to my locust annihilation zone and reached for one of the bugs. It slipped through her ghostly hands. “Aw, Aunt Ava, how can you kill them? They have a right to live just like the rest of us.”
Her vehemence made my ears ring. I figured it was just another way of telling me she wanted her body. “I didn’t know being Emo meant turning to Buddhism,” thwack, “I have bad news for you about your body,” thwack, thwack!
“Oh no, don’t tell me you’ve been eating red meat and hydrogenated fats!” Both hands flew to her face in horror.
“Yes, I have, but that’s not what I meant.” I slapped at the locusts crawling on my countertop from all directions.
The spatula flew out of my hand. Chill bumps popped out from my neck to my drawers.
“Now that I have your attention, what do you mean?” Stacy demanded.
I sighed, hunched my shoulders, and moved to the center of the kitchen to retrieve the weapon. “The spell Suriyel used was a one shot deal.”
If a ghost could get any paler, Stacy was proof. “Wh… what are you talking about?” She hopped down from the counter and stood in front of me.
“Suriyel memorized a spell given to him by his dead wife, but he never used it on her because of the consequences. See, she got it in trade from some demon. You see, it was only good for on one person,” I spoke slower and louder like she was deafer than a doorpost.
“Oh, pahlease! Like you’re any expert on souls and spells!”
“Well, you could ask Suriyel yourself, but Archangel Michael took him away.” I broke into tears. “He’s in the center of the Earth.”
“There’s got to be a way. We have to rescue him so he can try it again or reverse it or something,” she said in a hysterical tone and wrung her hands.
“I can’t make food for two hundred debutants like this!” The crunchy critters multiplied every time I stomped. They smelled like a doused fire.
“Samael would know.” Stacy nodded her head in a repetitive, childlike manner.
I ignored her and did a “La Cucaracha” dance on the floor.
Well, duh! Some supernatural being I am. It never occurred to me to use my skills to make the invaders go away. I raised my hands to the low ceiling, closed my eyes, and yelled, “Be gone, beasties! That means you too Stacy. Go ask Sam since you guys are BFFs now.”
Silence met my irritated comment. Even Big Mama’s clock stopped. Stacy and the locusts were gone.
Weird. I shrugged and emptied the infested petit fours into the trash.
Chapter Nine
Pink watermelon and feta salad, shrimp canapés, prosciutto on figs, salmon mousse, mini strawberry jellyrolls, and ham pinwheels were crammed into the refrigerator in the kitchen. The overspill went into Craig’s old beer fridge in the garage. Zebra print petit fours were remade and sat safely covered on a cart. It was kind of scary to think I merely scratched the surface of all the pink food in the world.
Lobster Bisque and pink horseradish sauce for the prime rib were the only things left on the list to make. I needed to be at the Garden Club in two hours. I dumped enough butter to make Paula Deen blush in my favorite, worn-out pot. My hands were greasy from the butter, so the top clattered onto the pot a little too hard. The dented lid kept rattling even though the burner was off.
Arg! Now what? I wiped my hands off on a dishrag.
An arm covered in yellow plastic bracelets popped through the back door. It was followed by Big Mama dressed in the brightest yellow, maxi dress I never wanted to see in my life.
“What’s all the caterwauling about,” she asked and shoved her wide yellow, Jackie O. sunglasses higher on her head. She set a brimming beach bag down on the tile.
It was me who melted instead of the butter. Tears dribbled down my cheeks as I threw myself into Big Mama’s arms.
A soggy snuffle came out of my open mouth instead of words.
“I’m sorry I didn’t come earlier, but I was at Don Ho’s Annual Luau for the Big Kahuna. It’s the first one I’ve been invited to, and I didn’t want to miss my shot at seeing the Big Kahuna.”
“Did you see Him?”
“Nah. Saw God, though.”
It looked like two caterpillars mated on my forehead when my eyebrows crashed together.
“Don’t worry. I didn’t get close enough to him to even let on about your little situation. Not that I would anyway.”
“Big Mama, isn’t ‘Big Kahuna’ another name for…oh, never mind.” I broke away from her jiggly arms.
“What?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
“Suit yourself.” She shifted her weight, which allowed a perfectly polished toe in a yellow gold sandal to peek out of the hem of her dress.
I lit the burner under the pot and returned to face her.
“Look, I came all this way, so you’d better start talking. Don’t make me read your thoughts ‘cause it gives me the heebie-jeebies.”
I didn’t think things through when I called for her first thing this morning, Divine intervention was what I sought. Someone to tell me there was a way to get my love, my fallen angel back.
“Big Mama, I don’t know how to tell you this, so I’ll just start by saying I love Suriyel like I’ve never loved anyone.”
“Yeah, but he ain’t just anyone! He’s one of those,” her voice dropped, “fallen angels.”
I stuck a finger up in the air. “Shh. I know all that. He’s strong, caring, a little impatient, everything Craig wasn’t. He’s wonderful, but Archangel Michael came, tore his wings off, and locked him somewhere in the center of the Earth.”
Her mouth dropped as wide as an opera singer about to hit a high note. She sputtered a few times, then stopped.