by Annie Dean
Teresa surprised herself with a pang of sympathy, but doubtless he intended her to feel exactly that. Compassion would soften her toward him, and she could not permit herself to view him as anything but a curiosity.
Heaven help her, it would be a long week.
Day Two
Teresa woke cradled in her lover's arms just before first light. His thigh pressed between hers, and his lips trailed down her throat. Her breasts ached. Delightfully warm, she nestled closer and smiled as she breathed him in. He smelled of nutmeg and cloves and his hands drifted over the small of her back, rubbing in sensual circles.
Except she didn't have a lover.
Her eyes snapped open and she recoiled so fast she fell off the bed. From the floor she gaped up at the man—no, demon—lying on his side. His golden skin contrasted deliciously with the snowy linen sheets. He slept with me? Does that mean I already fell? Surely she'd remember something so significant.
“I thought I dreamed you.” More accurately, she wished she had. “What are you doing here?”
“I was holding you,” he said with a smile that illuminated the gray light. “Quite successfully until a moment ago.”
Outraged, she came up onto her knees, hands on the thin mattress. “I never said you could do that.”
His smile widened. “You never said I couldn't either.”
“I was asleep!”
Dev shrugged. “I must abide by your words, not your unspoken wishes.”
“So that's how this works, the letter of the law? Very well. I forbid you to touch me without my express spoken permission.” That should cover it.
She couldn't believe how solid Dev felt. Even now his heat lingered on her skin, and it would take months, possibly years, to forget how it felt to be close to him. Blast him for teaching her something so unwelcome.
“As you wish.”
A delightful idea occurred to her. “If I tell you to go away for the rest of the week, must you abide by that too?”
He laughed softly. “I'm afraid not. You must endure my company. How else can I tempt you?”
“You can't. You're a pretty delusion, Dev, but you aren't real. You could never convince me to part with my immortal soul for a few kisses, however sweet, or for some fleeting moments of pleasure.”
His lashes shadowed the curve of his cheeks in a particularly slumberous look. “You know nothing of pleasure, pretty one.”
“That's what you think.” She'd soon take vows, but that didn't mean she was completely ignorant.
He was crazy if he thought she didn't know how it felt to stimulate herself down there until a nice feeling came over her. As a young girl, she’d discovered that tucking her blanket between her thighs produced a lovely sensation. Teresa remembered lying on her tummy, breath coming in tiny gasps while her hips worked. She did that until she understood the sin inherent in such actions.
Dev shook his head as if he could read her mind. “I can do things to you that people no longer even conceive in their most secret fantasies. While you've gained much in the machine arts, you've lost much in the ways of love. Highly ironic, even the most primitive people knew more about it than you enlightened souls.”
Teresa tried to scoff, but in truth his words fired her imagination. “What does one like you know? There is a vast difference between sex and love.”
His face closed then as if she'd hurt him, became a thing of golden stone, inset with blue gems for eyes. “I misspoke.”
She would not apologize.
“I need to get dressed,” she muttered. “Will you please make yourself scarce?”
“No.”
Belatedly she realized it appeared as if she knelt to him as a supplicant so she scrambled to her feet. “What do you mean no?”
Her shower day came tomorrow. On the off day, she usually performed a quick wash up with her water basin and then got dressed. Things at the Sisters of Peace monastery ran on a schedule—all chores and privileges divvied up. Teresa could take her clothes to the bathroom, she supposed, but if another sister saw her, there would be questions she couldn't readily answer.
“Haven't you ever heard the word before?” He sat up, folding his legs before him. Dev looked too comfortable in her bed. “I'm not going anywhere. Since I can't touch you, one of us may as well get a little pleasure out of our association.”
“You're saying you would enjoy seeing me change?” She hated sounding so dull-witted, hated the small thrill that sparked through her at the idea of showing her naked body to him, however briefly.
Even considering such a thing meant his presence chipped away at her resolve. She should gather up her things and retreat to the bathroom immediately. Instead, she stood in the center of the room, watching him.
The silence built. Finally he answered, “Yes.” And he sounded reluctant to make the admission.
Teresa didn't understand why she found that softly growled word so compelling. Her fingers went to the button at the neck of her plain white nightgown. Hesitated there.
“Why? You must have seen thousands of naked women.”
His long, elegant fingers knotted in the sheet covering his knees. An image flashed of his face tight with pleasure, clenching the fabric just that way for an entirely different reason. Her breath hitched, but she couldn't put the picture away.
“Yes,” he admitted. “I can play the voyeur and I've been with women overcome with lust. That's what I do, Teresa. I overwhelm their good judgment.”
It took her a moment to make the distinction. “But if I change before you now, I'm choosing to please you of my own free will.”
“Don't.” Fear tightened his features. “Nobody ever thinks about my pleasure.”
Could this be construed as a weakness? Or did he play on her emotions to undermine her determination? She lacked the experience to tell. Her panties felt damp, her flesh soft and hot against the gusset. The fact that he'd changed his mind about watching decided the matter for her.
“If you don't want to see, go now.”
One by one she unfastened the pearl buttons and pulled the gown over her head. She hated losing sight of his expression, even for a moment. The naked longing in his face surprised her. One would have thought an incubus inured to the allure of a woman's body, but Dev ate her with his eyes.
“You're lovely.” His voice rasped as she went to the washbasin.
“Thank you.”
With his eyes on her, she felt more conscious of the swells and valleys of her body, the shallow curve of her breasts and the flare of her hips. Did she dare go all the way? If she were alone, she would lay out a pair of clean panties, modest white cotton, and spot wash between her thighs and under her arms before getting dressed.
By real world standards, she was alone. He couldn't touch without her permission and she might be confronting her own repressed sexual fantasies. Teresa opened the top drawer of her dresser.
Did she have a secret desire to be watched? She'd never thought much about such matters. Slowly she worked the panties down over her hips. He sat quiet as the last barrier between his eyes and her skin pooled at her feet.
Teresa took up the washcloth and set about her sponge bath. Different now because her flesh felt feverish down there, softly swollen. Even when she'd rubbed against her blankets until she gasped, she never dared touch with her fingers.
“More.” But it didn't register as a command. Instead it rang like a plea. “Let me see you, Teresa.”
She paused, the small swatch of fabric covering her mound. “Would that please you?” Again his pleasure, not hers—the balance between them shifted in ways she couldn't tally.
“Yes,” he said hoarsely.
Hardly believing her own daring, she moved toward the bed and propped her foot on the end. Before his avid eyes she washed, letting him see everything.
“Is that what you wanted?” She sounded more composed than she felt.
“I want to see you finish what you've started. I want you to touch yourself for me
until your head falls back and you moan my name.”
Her fingers stilled, curled in the washcloth. “I won't do that, Dev.”
His blue eyes seemed oddly somber in the half-light. “It won't imperil your salvation, contrary to what most religions think. God operates on a grander scale.”
“I hardly think I can take your word for that.”
“I suppose you can't. But do you think your fellow sisters never masturbate? Two of them cannot fall asleep unless they do. Another enjoys spontaneous orgasms in the night, dreaming of golden angels with fiery lances.”
All the sisters seemed so placid, so pious. Teresa didn't want to think of them with their fingers working feverishly, unable to relax until they shuddered and came. How could she believe him? But at the same time, his words carried an unmistakable ring of truth. She hurriedly tugged on her panties and pulled her robe over her head, needing a barrier between them.
“Is that your doing?”
“No,” he said, and she felt ridiculously glad. “The glory belongs to others like me. My master finds it amusing to trifle with the brides of Christ. Many have phantom lovers they believe to be angels or great Jesu himself, but you didn't think your namesake received divine ecstasy from the Holy Spirit, did you?” Dev leaned over and plucked her officially sanctioned reading material from her beside table, pointed at the cover. “Look at her face and tell me you don't know what's happening to her.”
In cool marble Bernini depicted Teresa of Avila with her head thrown back, face tight, lips parted. Her voice trembled. “It looks like an orgasm. But if you're claiming credit for her visions, then you just admitted such bliss doesn't come from God. If it doesn't, then I must eschew it in trying to walk the higher path.”
Dev slammed his fist into the wall. “God doesn't care what you do. I defy you to look at the world you live in and argue that he does. Apart from occasional conversations with my master—and that alone should make you wonder—his phone is off the hook, my girl. Even his own angels haven't been able to raise him in millennia.”
Teresa felt as though he'd punched her in the heart. She shook her head slowly, backing toward the door. “No, you're wrong. You're just trying to trick me because it's what you do. I have to cook breakfast, please leave me alone.”
She fled for the kitchen, hoping she wouldn't encounter any of the other sisters until she regained some semblance of self-possession. Anything more complicated than scrambled eggs and toast defeated her, but she managed that. By the time she put breakfast on the table, she didn't feel quite so precarious. The other sisters ate quietly, just the odd comment now and then to punctuate the meal.
Sister Margaret shot her questioning looks every now and then. Teresa hadn't realized she could be read so easily. She made herself smile and stop picking at her eggs.
“After you finish in the kitchen, I'll start with the mint jelly. Did you want to help?” Sister Ruth asked. A round, cocoa-skinned woman of middle years, Ruth oversaw the production of various jams and jellies that helped support the monastery. She'd been a cook before taking her vows.
Teresa shook her head. “I'm supposed to dust library shelves today.”
As the youngest, Teresa performed most of the heavy household cleaning, both to teach her humility and because she had more endurance for such tasks. Ordinarily she didn't mind, but today she couldn't focus. She didn't want to see Dev again, but how could she avoid him? His vehement repudiation of God suggested he didn't represent some hidden portion of her psyche, unless she suffered from an unconscious lack of faith and didn’t want to acknowledge it. Such tangled possibilities made her head hurt.
After she’d finished tidying up the kitchen, she collected her cleaning bucket and reported to the library. Perhaps he'd permit her to work unmolested. The Mother Superior sat at her desk, surrounded by an explosion of old tomes and scrawled notes. Teresa thought a computer would aid this project, but Sister Margaret distrusted technology.
Procrastination didn't accomplish anything but working later in the day, so she began removing the books from the first shelf. Under Sister Margaret's gimlet gaze it wouldn't do to take shortcuts. The older woman watched her work for a little while and then laid down her pen.
“Are you all right, child? You seem terribly unsettled.”
She started. Imagined saying, You see, Reverend Mother, I'm plagued by a demon, who claims God and the Dark One have made a wager over my soul. Yes, you could safely say I'm a trifle unsettled.
“Do I? Perhaps I've been having strange dreams. Not that I remember them,” she added to forestall further questions.
Given half a chance, the Mother Superior would send her to Sister Agnes, who worked as a psychologist before foregoing her secular profession. However, she still practiced on her fellow sisters at the drop of a hat. Teresa dusted the shelf and tried to look normal; not a novitiate who stripped for demons.
What madness was that, anyway?
“I thought perhaps you were having doubts. You're very close to becoming a full-fledged member of the order.”
“Doubts? No! Why would you think that?” Did she sound a trifle shrill?
“It's natural. You're still quite young. Before coming to us, most women live a little in order to confirm their calling.”
“This is what I always wanted.” She wished she could revert to her prior unquestioning serenity.
Sister Margaret smiled. “As long as you're certain, but you still have a few days to think things over. We won't think any less of you if you change your mind for now. We're not going anywhere.”
“I'm not going to change my mind,” she said firmly.
“Famous last words.” Dev sauntered into the library and Teresa stole a worried glance at the Mother Superior, now engrossed in her books.
Oh, the ignominy. She couldn't even tell him to go away, for speaking to people who weren't there would get her sent to Sister Agnes, if not immediately shuffled off to Pittsburgh. Contenting herself with a fulminating look, she returned to work, cleaning with more dispatch than her usual wont.
By the time she’d finished her chores, Dev had flipped through most of the historical texts while making profane but entertaining observations about various saints. He’d tapped a picture of St. Jude. “Patron saint of lost causes and body odor, they mean.”
More than once she stifled laughter, and it became harder to remember why she'd objected to his company, even given his wrongheaded opinions on God. Considering where he spent most of his time, he couldn't be counted an impartial witness anyway.
But she also realized she couldn't sustain this pretense for a week. Teresa stood before Sister Margaret's desk, bucket in hand, and waited for acknowledgment. At last the old woman raised her head from her research.
“Did you need something? You don't require my leave to quit the room.”
She tried not to fidget. “Yes, I know. I need to make a rather unusual request. Maybe I am … having doubts, Reverend Mother.” That was one word for Dev, lounging before the window. “I humbly entreat you to permit me to sequester myself until time for the ceremony. I’d like to pray on this and perhaps things will become clear.”
The Mother Superior tapped her pen thoughtfully. “This is not without precedent. Some novitiates spend a few days fasting before making this final commitment. Yes, I will allow it.”
Relief almost buckled her knees. “Thank you. I realize this places extra work on the others, and I'll take up the slack after I speak my vows.”
“Very good. I still expect to see you at Sunday services, Sister.” That registered as a dismissal, so Teresa hurried out of the library.
She put away her supplies and then returned to her room, knowing she'd find him waiting. Since her cell offered nothing else in the way of seating, he lounged on her bed as if he belonged there, and his grin qualified as devilish. “Couldn't wait to get me alone, could you?”
“You're making my life impossible!”
“I'd say I make it interesting. For
the first time, I might add. You've been so detestably good.”
Collapsing on the edge of the bed, she failed to summon the energy to glare at him. “Because of you, I won't get any dinner. Or breakfast either.”
“I can fix that.”
She raised her brows in suspicion. “How?”
He sighed with what sounded like exasperation. “I'll just go to the kitchen and get you something. Nobody will notice, though they may wonder who's pinching food.”
“Can I really trust you to do that for me?” She thought of Eve. “No apples.”
Dev laughed reluctantly. “Noted. Why wouldn't you trust me to get you a sandwich? I'm not going to poison you. And it's fairies from whom you aren't supposed to accept food or drink. Do I look like a fucking fairy?”
Honesty compelled her to say, “No, but you don't look like a demon either.”
“I could, if you like.”
“No. Please don't. I'm used to you as you are.” In fact she quite liked looking at him, but she'd never admit it.
“On this plane, I can resemble anything I wish, but I did enjoy my time as a dragon. Sometimes they even delivered live virgins and I sent them back reeling with pleasure and wild stories.”
Oh, those she wanted. That much she could permit. “Tell me?”
His voice dropped low. “My wild stories?”
“Please.” Teresa wanted to move closer, but doubtless he intended that reaction.
“Don't worry, I shall.”
Day Three
Midnight. They lay facing each other like lovers, but only their voices connected them. Teresa had listened to him for hours, entranced.
“But why a dragon?” she asked.
He smiled like Puck. “The legends already existed, and it seemed like a natural way to get what I wanted. I had such fun in Luxembourg. In human form I wouldn’t have had tribute and treasure delivered to me, which made it far easier to enjoy myself when I did go about as a man. They were so lavish in their entertainments. Your puritan soul would be horrified.”
“So people gave you gold and virgins not to destroy their homes and then you went out to spend it? You couldn’t summon demon gold, or steal it or something?”