My Demon

by Lisa C Hinsley

  He got up and went behind her. The demon swept her blond hair from her neck, and squeezed the knotted muscles between her shoulder blades until she groaned. His hot hands gave double the pleasure, and she succumbed to a few sexy thoughts. He was so real—so convincing. What if he was speaking the truth? She couldn’t risk ignoring him. As he rubbed, her doubts disappeared. How could he not be real?

  “So what do I need to do?” Alex spoke in a gasp. Electric currents seemed to pulse from his fingers, and it took everything she had not to turn around and grab him. Clive’s hand disappeared from her neck, and Alex twisted in her chair, thinking he’d puffed into nothingness again.

  “For now, wait for my lead. I’ll be able to direct you, make things go the right way, make things better.” He leaned against the counter. “How does that sound, babydoll?”

  Alex sat still for a moment, not responding. Then slowly, she pushed back her chair and stood up to face her demon. “Okay, I suppose. Do I have a choice?”

  She approached him with small, unsure steps, and put her arms around him. He must not have expected that, as he stiffened. Then he relaxed, and Alex received a powerful bear hug in return. For a few seconds, they shared a friendly cuddle. Suddenly Clive tightened his grip, pressing the whole length of his body against hers. Fighting a dozen differing urges, modesty won, and Alex pushed him back.

  “What is it with you?”

  “It’s the heat,” Clive replied with a wink and puffed away in a cloud of smoke.

  Alex waited for her mother to crawl out of bed. By eleven o’clock she’d drunk three cups of tea, developed a caffeine tremble in her hands, and couldn’t keep her feet still. The shows on the television bored her. She’d had enough of talk show hosts and their foul-mouthed guests. How can people sleep around so much? Alex had dated Jeremy for nearly two years. He was the only one she’d slept with, and they planned to marry one day. First, she wanted to go to college, and learn how to make stain glass windows. Upstairs in her bedroom, in one of her desk drawers, she had four sketchbooks full of designs. She needed to save just a little more for the courses.

  Alex remembered the money stuffed under her mattress. Maybe tomorrow she’d put together a portfolio and call the head of the department at Reading University.

  The clock on the VCR ticked over to eleven-thirty. Alex drummed her fingers on the arm of the sofa. Her thoughts drifted to Clive. She shook her head and got up to switch the telly off. Becky would be at home, knocking about with nothing to do. Alex pulled the charger cable out of her phone, checked for full bars, and dialed a number.

  “Hi Alex,” Becky answered.

  “Bec, where are you?” Alex asked.

  “In my living room. And the telly’s boring my tits off,” Becky replied.

  “You’re so bloody vulgar.”

  “And you love me for it, don’t ya?” Becky said.

  “Fancy coming with me into town?”

  “Anything to stop the telly melting my brain. Who actually watches these shows, anyway?” Becky laughed. A background noise of chattering people got louder, then stopped suddenly. “How long before you’re ready?”

  “I’ll leave the house in a sec.” Alex grabbed her bag, and nipped up the stairs. The sounds of her mother’s snores emanated from her room.

  “I’ll meet you at your bus stop in ten. No way I’m playing lemon waiting for you again.” Becky said.

  “Okay, okay.” Alex rolled her eyes. “See you there.” She hung up and dropped the phone into her bag. She lifted the edge of her mattress, and grabbed a thick wad of cash. A decent layer of notes covered the base. She should count how much money she had, plan where it needed to be spent, before she whittled it away to nothing.

  Alex got to the bus stop first. Somehow she had to convince Bec that the demon tale was made up. Convince her she was sane. Because for now, she wasn’t sure of anything, and she’d certainly not let some doctor force feed her pills and take away her choice in the matter. She perched on the stone wall by the bus stop, and waited for Becky. Every flash of the color red she spotted sent icicles of fear and worry around her body. Would Clive materialize and ruin another day? He had to stay away. Becky rounded the corner, her black hair long and straight, blowing out in the breeze as if she were in a music video. She raised a hand in greeting, a cigarette clamped between two fingers.

  “Hey, lovey,” Bec said, and sat next to Alex. “How’s you?” She leaned close. “Any more demon sightings?”

  Alex let out the best laugh she could muster. “He’s gone, thank God. Must have been stress with my mum, mixed in with your boyfriend’s bad dope.”

  Becky let out a long sigh. “Thank fuck for that. Didn’t want to be visiting the loony bin, even for you.” She nudged Alex with her elbow and grinned.

  “Well everything is fine now…” Alex leaned over and whispered conspiratorially, “I have some cash. Can I treat you to something?”

  Becky raised an eyebrow and removed the cigarette from between her lips. “How much you got?” She didn’t require much encouragement.

  “About a hundred pounds each?”

  Becky’s mouth dropped open, a cloud of smoke drifting into the wind. “How much?” She blinked, unbelieving. “Did you win the lottery or something?”

  An idea triggered in Alex’s brain. Clive’s instant lies must be rubbing off on her. “I got a couple of those National Lottery scratch cards, and won £400.” Lie to the excess, she thought. Somehow it’s more believable.

  “Cor!” Becky said. She sucked on the last of her Silk Cut, and flicked the butt into the road. “Me—I get accused of stealing a fuck-load of cash and don’t get to keep any. You pick up a card and get £400. Bet it was a pounder as well. Lucky shit.”

  Not so much, Alex thought, and said, “Where’re we going to shop?”

  “I don’t know. Let’s go where the window displays lead us.” Becky jumped up off the wall as a number thirty-two bus pulled up. “Just nowhere near The Closet. That shop’s on the banned list.”

  The girls got on-board still gabbing.

  “We can accessorize, make everything match. When was the last time you had this much to spend?” Alex dragged Bec up to the top floor of the double decker.

  Becky laughed. “Certainly not for a while, and not likely any time soon. Look, no job!”

  They chatted all the way into town. Alex pushed back at the darkness as depressing thoughts tried to creep in. Not today, Alex thought. Not today. No Clive. No madness. She touched the notes in her bag, guilt money given to her best friend to make up for getting her fired.

  They shopped until dinnertime, and with bags weighing down their limbs, the thin plastic handles scoring their palms, they finally ducked into their favorite little café in Reading. They found an empty table, and Alex slid onto the padded bench that ran along the wall.

  “Oh, wow. What an incredible day.” Becky collapsed opposite her friend in one of the two chairs. “Thank you.”

  They ordered baked potatoes, salad, and drinks. A few minutes later, their waitress delivered a couple of pint glasses of Diet Coke.

  Becky took a deep drink. She leaned back in her chair, and said, “I know, why don’t we go clubbing tonight? We could go to The Deep?”

  “Any chance those mountains could be moved so we can sit down?” Melissa strutted up to the table, Alicia trailing two steps behind. Melissa eyeballed the numerous bags.

  “What have you girls been up to?” Alicia asked, and opened up a Primark bag and peeked in. “Ooo, that’s a beautiful top. Love the sequins.”

  Becky moved the other bags out of the way. “You’ll never believe what happened.”

  Alicia put the Primark bag with the others, and squeezed alongside Alex on the bench. “Go on, the suspense is killing me.” She took an elastic band from her wrist, and swept her red hair into a ponytail before taking a menu from the plastic holder in the middle of the table.

  “Alex won some money on the scratch cards and guess what?” Becky sa
id. “She treated me.”

  Alex smiled uncertainly at the ever-thankful Becky, wondering if she’d got ahead of herself and taken things too far.

  “What would you like?” The waitress arrived, pen and pad ready and waiting.

  Alicia wrinkled her nose at the menu choices. “A pot of tea, please,” she said.

  “Can you make that two?” Melissa asked. She took her fags out of her handbag, and offered one to Becky. “Are you going to show me what you got?”

  Strange, Alex thought. How can a person get so excited about another’s clothes?

  “We’re going to The Deep tonight…” Becky paused as Melissa produced a lighter. She puffed a couple of times on the cigarette, blowing the smoke out the side of her mouth. “Want to come along?”

  “Sure thing,” Melissa said. “I got fuck all else to do tonight.” She laughed in her deep sexy way.

  Melissa chose one of the bags from under the table. Alicia commented on the belt Melissa pulled out of the BHS bag. Becky shook the creases from a mini skirt, the other two girls nodding approvingly. Their conversation flowed, with Alex listening, observing their smiles, the pursed lips of smokers as they sucked on the filters, hair flicked, sequins examined. They didn’t need her. She sipped her coke, and stared at the front of the café. A drizzling rain had started, and people hurried past. Some wrestled with umbrellas. Others hung out under the awning above the restaurant window, heads facing up to the sky.

  “Alex.” Someone shook her arm. She turned back to her friends. The other three waited, expectant.

  “What?” she asked.

  Melissa glanced at Becky, and said, “Weren’t you supposed to be at work today? I went in for a look and to say hi. Aggie was all over me like a rash, expecting me to know where you were. Apparently you’re not answering your phone.”

  “Oh shit!” Alex put her hand over her mouth, the color draining from her face. She rooted around at the bottom of her handbag for a few seconds before pulling out her mobile. The screen was dark, blank. Her Nokia had been switched off. No time to wonder how, although she had her suspicions. They all involved Clive. She pushed down on the power button. Seconds later, the phone beeped, alerting her to a missed call.

  “You have one new message…” the phone said in a mechanical female voice.

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Alex impatiently said as she listened.

  “Alex. Aggie here. You just walked past my shop with loads of shopping bags. The whole precinct could hear you and Becky cackling away. Consider yourself fired.” There was a loud bang—maybe Agnes missed when she slammed the phone down—then a second click, and the message ended.

  “Oh my God. We didn’t…?” Alex asked the rhetorical question to those at the table. She was met with confused expressions. “Aggie left a message. Becs, apparently you and I walked past the shop earlier.” She paused. “That’s it. I’ve been given the sack.”

  “What a cow,” Melissa chided, followed swiftly by the other girls.

  “She always did seem like a bit of a drag,” added Alicia, and took a swing from her cup of tea.

  “You’ve no idea,” Becky said. “She hated me from the first day I showed up to work. I’m not sure why she hired me in the first place.”

  “Yeah, I always got the feeling that she was part Nazi, from all the stories you’ve told me,” Melissa said.

  Alex sipped at her drink, mute as her friends nattered on about work and their various problems. Alicia ordered more tea, and eventually cakes. No one seemed to notice Alex’s silence. She couldn’t connect, no matter how many times she attempted to enter the conversation. By the time she thought of something to say, they’d moved off the topic and onto a completely different subject. Was this the next sign of her madness—an inability to communicate? Alex spun her glass slowly on the table, and counted the people sheltering under the awning. The rain was coming down hard now. God, how she hated rain.

  A flash of someone’s red jacket made her remember Clive. Maybe he’d show up, think up an ingenious way of excusing her from her friends. He might squeeze in on the end of the bench; snuggle up against her in his sexy cat suit, dark wavy locks falling over his eyes. Her heart gave an unexpected flutter. What was he up to right now? Chatting to some other girl from her dimension, telling her sweet nothings? He wouldn’t… She was the important one. A sigh escaped her, he wasn’t real, and she was no more important than the girls sat with her. Alex tuned back into the conversation. Melissa was happily informing everyone about the now deceased relationship between her and Tony. This time, she broke up with him. Without taking a breath, she gabbed on about how she would definitely be on the pull tonight.

  Alex closed her eyes tight, and wished she was at home. Voices echoed around her head. The words teased her. How did they talk so easily? Someone tugged on her sleeve. Alex opened her eyes to find three concerned faces peering towards her. She pushed back into the padding of the bench as far as she was able. Her friends leaned forward a fraction more. They were cornering her. Alex slid to the edge of the seat and prepared to bolt.

  “You okay?” Becky asked.

  “Sorry, tired. I’ll go home and have a little nap. You know, rest up for tonight.” She attempted a smile and bent down to sort out her bags from Bec’s. There was silence at the table. Alex sat back up, her purchases held to her chest. She bared her teeth at them once more as she tried to smile. “I’m okay. Honest. I just need a sleep.”

  Alicia glanced at Becky, then Melissa. Melissa stared unwaveringly. Becky reached over, and put a hand on Alex’s arm.

  “I’ll see you girls tonight,” Alex said. “Are we taking a minicab?”

  “Yup. I’ll book it in a mo, you go rest.” Becky lit another cigarette. “Go on. I’ll see you later, lovey.”

  Alex waited a second then left the table. She was going to get drunk tonight, she thought, and walked out into the rain.

  Chapter Seven

  Melissa pulled up in a one-year-old bright blue Tigre. Alicia climbed carefully out of the passenger seat, holding the hem on her micro mini skirt down as she stood up. She tugged her boob tube back into the right position, and tottered over to Alex and Becky. Melissa locked the car, and zipped the keys into a pocket in her clutch bag. A drop of rain fell on Alex’s shoulder. She turned her head skywards, frowning at the thick cloud cover. No stars on show tonight.

  “Come on girls!” Becky said and linked arms with Alex. More drops fell. They made black patches on the pavement. Halfway down the alley, a large man in a dark suit waited beside an open door. A wire snaked out from his jacket, and into an earpiece. He stood under a canopy, and ignored the girls until they stopped by the entrance. Then he examined each in turn as they gathered by the door. Becky dragged on the last of her cigarette and flicked it out into the rain.

  “Come on,” Alicia said, and disappeared inside.

  Alex followed, grinning back at the bouncer before stepping into The Deep. A long flight of stairs descended into the club. Lanterns hung on the walls all the way down. Faux flames flickered an orangey-yellow light up towards the sloped ceiling. On each step, a low-level spotlight glowed red. Stairway to hell, Alex thought. A shiver passed through her body, and for a second, she stopped. She almost turned and left, but Becky put a hand on her shoulder.

  “You okay, lovey?” she asked.

  Alex gave a broad smile. “Fine,” she lied, and continued on her way down. A vodka and Coke would sort her out. A picture of her mother, falling off the sofa, an empty wine bottle clutched in one hand, flashed before her eyes. “I can handle the booze,” she muttered.

  The music pumped up the stairs, reverberating in Alex’s chest as she climbed down the last two steps. The beat of the base cheered her, and she strutted over to the bar in time to the drums. The other girls piled around as she leaned up against the worn wood countertop.

  Inside, The Deep was about half-empty. Thursdays tended to be a bit quiet, and Alex preferred this. Tomorrow, the club would be stuffed full, with
everyone sweating in the heat, and no room to move. The bartender served their drinks—shots of tequila to start the night. All four shivered simultaneously, and slammed their glasses down on the counter.

  “Again?” he asked.

  “Yes please,” Melissa said, and winked.

  “You’re such a flirt.” Alicia turned round to survey the dance floor.

  “Here you go, ladies.” He slid the four shot glasses towards them.

  “Cheers!” Becky said, and gulped the tequila down.

  Alex picked hers up, swilling the contents around for a few seconds. She poured the liquid into her mouth, savoring the burn of the alcohol on her tongue, and swallowed. She didn’t shiver this time. She’d heard alcoholism was hereditary, but as the initial tingles slid into her brain, and thoughts of Clive dulled, Alex gave her first proper smile in days. She pointed at her glass, and slid it back down towards the barman.

  “Come on, Alex,” Becky said and headed over to a group of young men.

  Alex caught the shot glass on its return, and gulped down the drink. “Coming,” she called, and joined her friends in dancing to the pounding beat of the music.

  Several rounds later Alex propped herself up on the bar. Three lads moved out of the shadows, and closed in on her friends. She studied them, noticing how their dancing styles grew more erotic the closer they got to each other.

  On the opposite side of the dance floor, Alex caught a flash of red. She turned her head a little, angling to see between the heaving mass of bodies. She found the smile first, the lips stretched too wide, the pleased as punch grin that infuriated her so much.

  Clive stood at the other side of the main chamber. Was he waiting for her to come to him? Alex watched him best she could with people bouncing away between them. Clive didn’t move for a long time, just stared at her with his smoldering dark blue eyes. Their eye contact didn’t waver, and little shivers of excitement coursed through her body. She pressed up against the bar, bottle of Stella in one hand, and waited for him.