Requiem for the Devil

by Jeri Smith-Ready

  “I see.” I sat on the edge of the table and propped one foot on a chair. “Yes, the smoothest seductions of all are those where the one being seduced believes that she herself is the seducer.”

  Gianna turned to face me and opened her mouth to retort. We stared at each other in silence. Our smirks faded. The game was over.

  I rushed to her. She filled her hands with my hair as I pressed my lips into her mouth. After the first succession of reckless, gasping kisses, we fell onto the table, scattering the books and papers I no longer needed.

  Gianna began clawing at my clothes, and I took her hand to lead her to the bedroom. She pulled me back.

  “No,” she said. “Right here. Now.”

  “No, I want . . . I want it to be perfect.”

  “It’s not going to be perfect, it’s going to be now!”

  I blinked once, then crawled on top of her.

  The urgency of our lust would have made the casual observer (if an observer could have been casual) believe in the imminence of Armageddon. Our bodies raged together, fused by a point of furious energy that swiftly grew to swallow us whole.

  I collapsed onto her body and rested my forehead between her breasts. My breath heaved into the silk of her dress.

  “I was so tired of not doing that,” Gianna said. She stroked my shoulders with her long fingers. “So what do we do now?”

  “Now . . .” I stood and offered my hand. “Now we get to show off. Maybe even remove some of our clothing.”

  She grabbed my hand, and I pulled her into my arms and lifted her off her feet.

  “Wow,” she said. “Officially, I have to mention that this is patronizing and demeaning and somewhat cavemannish.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “But I like it.”

  “Good.” I carried her across the living room into the dark bedroom and laid her on the bed. “Just a moment.” I lit candles on either side. They cast a warm, weak glow into the darkness.

  “Speaking of caves . . .” Gianna rubbed her arms.

  “Are you cold?”

  “I am now.” Her voice was smaller than I’d heard it before.

  “I’ll build a fire.”

  “You have a fireplace in your bedroom?” She sat up.

  “In fact, I do.” I knelt in front of the fireplace, opened the glass and iron doors, and lit the fire. When I turned to her again, her eyes were fixed on an object atop my bureau.

  “What is that?” she whispered.

  “You mean this?” I took the long, tattered black feather, the one keepsake from my dark angelic existence, off its perch and handed it to her. She caressed the edges of it with quavering fingers.

  “Lou, this is magnificent. What kind of bird did it come from?”

  “From a rare breed of . . . condor, in the Amazon Basin.”

  “It must be four feet long, and look at the way it arches at the end. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “The birds get very large down there.”

  “It stirs the imagination,” she said. “Like it could be a feather from the wings of Icarus, scorched by the sun.”

  “Except Icarus’s wings didn’t scorch. The wax holding them together melted, or so the legend says.”

  “In any case, it looks like it could almost be that ancient.” She handed it back to me. “Here. I’m afraid I’ll break it.”

  “It is quite old.” I placed the feather back on top of the dresser. “I’ve had it since I was a . . . since I was very young.”

  “Your father gave it to you, didn’t he?”

  I hesitated a moment, then adjusted the feather in its place. “Yes, in a sense, he did.”

  She looked at me with a strange mixture of curiosity and understanding, as if on a subconscious level she knew exactly what I was all about.

  “Nice fire,” she said.

  “Thanks.” I closed the fireplace screen.

  “You seem to have a natural talent for that.”

  “More like lots of practice.”

  “I’ll bet. Especially here, right?”

  I moved to her and pressed my fingers against her mouth. “Shh. No more sarcasm, Gianna. It doesn’t go with the candlelight.”

  “I know, but I can’t help—”

  Her words disappeared into our first soft kiss. Lips that minutes ago had ravished and bruised now caressed each other with a trembling delicacy. She sighed, and I drank in her warm breath.

  “Louis, I think you should know, I have intimacy issues.”

  “So do I, but we seem to be working through them.” I kissed her again, deeply.

  “I suppose this is more constructive than psychotherapy.” Her hands were at my throat, unfastening my tie. She pulled it slowly, and it slithered off my neck. After she had removed my shirt, she slid her hands over my bare shoulders and gasped.

  “Your skin,” she said. “It’s so warm . . . so warm.” She pressed her cheek against my neck.

  “Are you still cold?”

  “Cold enough to want to be covered with you.”

  I took her in my arms and pressed her body against mine until she burned as I did. We explored each other with hands, lips, tongues, until anything less than total union seemed like torture.

  From the moment it began, I knew something was different. Gianna’s body had a fullness that could only be felt from the inside. Every movement, every quiver, sent shocks of bliss through my entire being.

  I clung to her, closed my eyes, and felt myself rise to terrifying heights, heights from which I’d only fallen before. A tempest began to rage inside my head. Gianna must have felt my distress, for she took control of the rhythm and coaxed me to give up the struggle. My slow surrender erased the boundaries between us. Her sensations and emotions spilled over onto mine until I wasn’t sure who was feeling what.

  Sweat and tears mixed in salty streams that coursed over our faces and necks. I melded my mouth with hers and breathed in her moans. A blinding light filled my mind, and I nearly tore myself away from her, but instead released my fear in a final, frantic cry.

  We separated, and the thunderstorm in my head faded into a distant rumble. I stared at the ceiling, to a point far past it.

  “That was . . . beyond . . .” she said, “beyond . . . well, simply beyond.” She placed her hand on my shoulder. “Louis, are you still there?”

  I blinked, then turned to her suddenly. I pushed back her hair, which was pasted to her forehead with sweat, and grasped her face between my palms.

  “Who are you?” I hissed.

  “That’s the oddest thing anyone’s ever said to me after sex.”

  “But who are you?” I peered into her eyes. “Where did you come from, and why are you so different?”

  “Different?”

  “The way it felt with you, the way I feel right now, I’ve never felt before.”

  “You’re scaring me a little, Lou.”

  “Not half as much as you’re scaring me.”

  Gianna sighed and pulled my hand from her face. “Then I should go.”

  “No.”

  “Okay.”

  I slid my arm around her waist. “I want you to stay and sleep in with me in the morning. Then we’ll eat breakfast and spend the day out together. Unless it rains, in which case we’ll spend the day in together, maybe right here.”

  “Let’s pray for rain.” She nestled in closer to me, her face tucked into my throat. “I should go into the office in the afternoon, though.”

  “I think that’s a very bad idea. It’s a federal holiday, and you’re not being patriotic.”

  “Lou, I can’t lose a whole day of work.”

  “Yes, you can. I’ll show you how easy it is.” I turned over, picked up the phone from my night stand, and dialed my office. “Good morning, Daphne, this is Lou. I won’t be in today.” I hung up. “See? Now you try.” I handed her the phone. “Call your secretary and tell her—”

  “I don’t have a secretary. I have an assistant, and his name is Leo.”r />
  “How progressive. Call him.”

  She began to dial, then stopped. “He’ll know by the voice mail signature that I called at four in the morning, and not from my apartment.”

  “So?”

  “People will talk.”

  “And you’d like that.”

  “True.” She redialed and waited while the other line rang. “Hi, Leo, this is Gianna. I won’t . . . uh . . . I won’t be in today. I’ve got this . . . thing I have to do and I . . . I just won’t be in, okay? If you could, please reschedule my three o’clock with the senator and tell her I’m terribly sorry. Thanks. See you Wednesday.” Gianna handed the phone to me and rolled onto her back.

  “You canceled an appointment with a senator?” I said.

  “Hey, it’s just a job, right?”

  “You’re catching on.” My fingers glided down her arm and intertwined with hers. “Come to think of it, I think I was supposed to meet with someone from the White House tomorrow. Oh, well.” I brought her hand to my lips and kissed the inside of her wrist.

  “Oh, well.” She turned to me and slid the length of her thigh against mine. “I’m not tired yet, are you? Good.”

  I almost couldn’t bear to be inside her again, feared the blinding flashes of light and roaring crescendos that would come without warning, each more intense than the last. But I craved her, and this craving knew no fear, and it would not flee in the face of such a small death.

  5

  De Poenis Inferni

  I woke slowly and lazily, a waking fit for a federal holiday. My arms were full of Gianna, and my face was buried in her hair. I breathed in her scent, let it fill my head, and sighed.

  Contentment suddenly spiked into panic. Every muscle tensed, and I fought the urge to run, to throw her out the door, the window—anything to separate us.

  What was I doing? Why was she still here? This entire experience was deviant from the beginning.

  I could tell her that I had lots of work to do and that I’d call her sometime, a line that usually resulted in frustrated tears and slammed doors. That image didn’t appeal to me, but the alternative was worse.

  Gianna stretched, pulled my hand from around her waist, and kissed my fingertips.

  “Good morning,” I whispered. She did not respond. That tiny gesture of tenderness had taken place in her sleep, an unconscious token of affection. Something inside me rolled over and played dead.

  One more day with her can’t hurt, I thought. Perhaps even one more day and night.

  I got out of bed, pulled on my robe, and walked into the living room. The sky was heavy with clouds. I went out onto the balcony to clear my head in the chilly air.

  Rather than clearing, though, my thoughts returned to the previous night and became stuck in honey-soaked memories of Gianna’s body. There was something open and uncharted about her that begged to be explored. I’d never fled from a mystery before, and the pieces to this puzzle lay scattered inside her mind. I had to gather them, to find the answer to a question I hadn’t yet conceived.

  I returned inside, sat down at the piano, and began to play in muted tones.

  A few minutes later, I felt a hand on my shoulder and stopped playing. Gianna sat beside me on the bench, and I was awed at how her beauty actually increased in daylight.

  “Morning becomes you,” I said.

  “You, too.” She placed her hand on the piano. “You play very nicely.”

  “I was just puttering. I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “I’m awake now, so stop puttering and play something for real.”

  “Maybe later,” I said. “Right now I’m far too serene to play much of anything with the intensity it deserves.” I trickled a Chopin prelude. “This is a rare mood for me, so you might want to take a picture.”

  “I am.” She listened until I had finished. “I know you’re not showing off, but that was perfect.”

  “Such as it is.” I looked at her. “Isn’t that my shirt?”

  “Yes. I couldn’t bear the thought of squishing myself back into that cocktail dress. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “Not at all,” I said. “I find you very sexy in my clothes, partly because of my own narcissism.”

  She lifted the collar to her face. “It smells like you, too.”

  “I think you smell like me now, and I you.” With my arm around her waist, I pressed my lips into her neck and caressed her body through the soft fabric of the shirt.

  “So much for morning-after awkwardness,” she said.

  “I can’t imagine ever feeling awkward with you again, Gianna.” I brushed a curl off her face. “I feel like we’ve seen inside each other, even if only a glimpse.”

  Gianna looked startled, then pulled away and moved toward the kitchen.

  “Got any coffee?” she asked.

  “Beans are in the freezer.” She disappeared, completing her sudden departure. The way to lure her back was under my nose.

  The piano jumped to life as I charged into the third movement from Beethoven’s “Moonlight Sonata.” By the time I reached the end of the first bar, I could see Gianna out of the corner of my eye, standing in the kitchen doorway.

  After a stormy seven minutes, the last note faded into the air like a ghost. I looked up at her and shrugged. “You asked me to play something for real.”

  “Louis . . . that was amazing.” She crept toward me. “How did you do that, with so little warm-up?”

  “My hands have been warm all night,” I said.

  She sat next to me. “Why aren’t you a professional?”

  “I don’t want the attention. Of millions, that is. I’ll take yours, though.”

  “You’ve got it,” she said. “Play something else.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like anything. No, wait—more Beethoven. I’m a sucker for a tragic hero.”

  “What about a tragic anti-hero?”

  “What’s the difference?”

  “We shall see.” My hands hovered over the keys. “Okay, I’ll play the Allegro from the Fifth Concerto, but you have to sing the orchestral parts. In German.”

  “I don’t know German.”

  “Me neither,” I said. “Just make it up.”

  “Okay, go.”

  Poor Ludwig. His life was never easy, and that morning one of his finest masterpieces was as sloppily butchered as a squirming pig. I bet he never rolled over like that for Chuck Berry.

  After breakfast, I drove Gianna to her apartment on Connecticut Avenue. As we got out of the elevator on her floor, she said, “I should warn you, it’s very tiny. But it suits my needs just fine.”

  “That’s all that matters, right?”

  “Don’t patronize me.”

  “If you have apartment envy now, that’s between you and your home. It’s not my fault.”

  Gianna opened her door and pushed ahead of me to turn on the light.

  Tiny didn’t begin to describe her home, an efficiency apartment with a kitchen, bathroom, walk-through closet, and a combination living room/bedroom, which was divided into functions by a dressing screen.

  “I’d give you a tour, but you just had it,” Gianna said.

  “It’s intriguing,” I said. “There’s something very sexy and distracting about your bed always being in sight like that. How do you ever get any work done?”

  “I’m usually alone. Except for Antigone.”

  “Who?”

  “There you are!” Gianna lifted a rumpled cover from her unmade bed to reveal a fat black cat curled into a tight sleep ball. “Poor Tig, all tuckered out after a night of sitting around.” She picked up the cat and kissed it behind the ear. “Antigone O’Keefe, I want you to meet—”

  The cat saw me and howled like a treed mountain lion, its ears flattened against its head. It clawed its way out of Gianna’s arms, then crouched on the floor, uncertain whether to attack or flee.

  “Jesus God, Lou, I’m sorry. She’s never acted this way before, I swear.”


  “It’s okay,” I said. “She just woke up, and I’m a stranger who happens to be very tall.” I knelt down in front of the sofa and stared into the cat’s eyes. It stopped in mid-snarl, pricked its ears, and gazed back at me. In another moment, Antigone was on her back at my feet, paws in the air, purring. I scratched her stomach.

  “That was weird,” Gianna said. “What are you, a snake charmer?”

  “No, just a good despooker.”

  “Lucky you. She doesn’t even let me scratch her belly.”

  “Jealous?”

  “Not yet. You two make friends while I go change my clothes.”

  I sat on the floor and stroked Antigone under her chin, where a small triangle of white formed a bib. Her plush fur made me long for animal companionship. I had long ago given up having pets, as I had a tendency to eat them when I was in a bad mood.

  The day rolled by like a bad video montage from Hollywood’s latest romantic comedy. Museums, fountains, and cafés filled with our goofy laughter and sloppy kisses. A week ago, if I had observed two people acting the way we did that day and night, I’d have placed a gruesome tragedy in their path to shatter their smug, happy little existence.

  But I had a blast, anyway.

  The next morning, I drove Gianna to her office on K Street. After several lingering goodbye kisses, I said, “Sorry you had to miss your appointment with the senator.”

  “I lied. There was no appointment with a senator. Not yesterday, anyway.”

  “I see.”

  “And you didn’t really have a meeting scheduled at the White House, did you?”

  “Actually, I did,” I said.

  “No kidding?”

  “Would I lie to you?” She hesitated. “It’s okay,” I said. “It’s not like it was with the president. That’s not until next week. So when can I see you again?”

  “How about Friday? My other band’s playing at the Shack at ten.”

  “Your other band?”

  “See, there’s still much to learn about me,” she said.

  “What kind of band?”

  “The kind of band that plays at the Shack.”