A Hope in Hell

"Is that the real issue? Your Black Moods, as you call them, are part of your identity now and you don't know who you would be without them?"

"Spare me the pseudo-Freudian reductionism." Tasha had been a psych major at the University of Chicago, and she knew that what John was doing wasn't Freudian — pseudo or otherwise — but she expected the words to intimidate him and make him doubt whether he could succeed where she herself had failed.

It didn't work. "Don't bullshit me. I am just listening to what you are saying. You are smart enough to know everything I am reading in these books we bought, and you worked for a pharma company. You know there are medicines that are very successful in treating depression, yet you refuse to take them, or try others when you don't like one, and you come up with bullshit excuses for why."

He was right, of course. It just showed that her illness was her own fault — her own failure, like everything else in her life. She felt the Black Mood rising.

"Don't go there." John had grown adept at reading her expressions in just two weeks.

"You don't understand." Her voice was a plea. "Depression is like HIV in that it attacks your defenses — only it's the psychological immune system — your hope that things can get better. The drugs won't work, and it's hard to bear the side effects when you are convinced of the futility. You haven't lived with it since you were a teenager."

"I lived with it for a year."

That surprised her.

John elaborated. "The medicine wasn't enough for me. The way you described it — the sense of hopelessness — the certainty of failure — that's it exactly. The disease causes failures, which feeds the disease, creating a reinforcing feedback loop. You need to break the loop with some small successes. Do that, and I think you will find it easier to stay on the medicine."

"It isn't that simple."

"It worked for me."

"I have been dealing with my Black Moods since I was fifteen. You had it for a mere year after your wife died. I live in the Black. You were there as a fucking tourist."

John's face darkened.

Tasha felt shame duelling with her anger.

"What's your alternative, Tasha? You know you won't be able to get back on your feet until you are treated. Do you intend to stay on my couch forever? Are you going to call your parents? Your only option is to accept some charity. It might as well be the kind that really helps you."

At the mention of her parents, Tasha had stood, and only heard the rest of John's words as she stormed out of the apartment. She heard one last cry of "Tasha!" as she fled down the hall.

John was wrong. Charity wasn't her only option.

She spent the afternoon standing on the Michigan Avenue Bridge, watching the slush swirl once more in the frigid waters below. She almost jumped three times, but had halted each time at the memory of cold needles stabbing her flesh.

At sunset, she returned to John's apartment, convinced that the problem was her choice of method. She needed a better way than the bridge. Maybe pills — a handful of valium taken with a half bottle of vodka. She would just need to stall John while she arranged to get the supplies.

Except she didn't need to, as a demon was waiting for her. The demon offered a death that promised to be sweet, but the bitch wanted to take John with her. John — who had only tried to do her kindness. He may have been a sanctimonious boy scout, but he had been good to her. She owed him, and she paid her debts, in one coin or another.

Lilith would get John over Tasha's dead body.

---

"You wish to challenge me? The last mortal to do that lived two centuries ago. A Russian Empress..."

"How often have you lost?" Tasha asked, fearing the answer.

"Hell does not suffer failure. My sister-daughter's have each failed on occasion. When Hell discovered this, their lives were forfeit, and they were lost to us until we could contrive a resurrection. I, however, have not felt the pain of death or resurrection. I remain Queen-sister of the Lilim because I have never lost." Lilith's ample chest was puffed in pride.

"Yes, I challenge you." Tasha knew she didn't have a hope in Hell, but she was used to hopelessness. John may have felt like he was clearing his slate by rescuing her, but that didn't erase her own obligation to him. Tasha knew she would die, but she would at least die having tried to repay him. If there was an afterlife, and she met him there — presumably holding hands with his late wife — she could at least look him in the eye.

"What shall be the challenge?"

Now Tasha was at a loss. "Sudoku?" she asked hopefully.

"I don't know what that is, but when you challenge the Queen-Sister of the Lilim, your challenge is sexual."

Tasha had expected that. "Usually my sexual contest is trying to come before the man does, and my trophy is an orgasm, but I don't think that is what you mean." Was she cracking jokes now? Maybe the knowledge of impending freedom from her pain was giving her some confidence.

Lilith appraised her. "You have beauty, and I smell the scent of seduction around you. You are more than familiar with the art."

Tasha had to admit it was so, even if she had failed badly in her latest attempt at John. Her entire romantic history was a cyclical pattern of identifying a protector, and cementing his bond to her through the fulfilment of his sexual fantasies. It worked until boredom and complacency brought anhedonia, and the relationship died with the sex.

Lance had even once compared her to a succubus. Frustrated at the way he had sacrificed his own ambitions to help her, he had started an argument that ended with her fellating him in the restroom of an Italian restaurant that had been too expensive for his salary. After he paid, she had dragged him into the men's room, and while she had her mouth around his cock, he had said she was like a succubus sent to destroy him with sex.

Lance had been merely hyperbolic (and he had been been spending too much time on his lock in World of Warcraft). Tasha had no illusions of her chances. Lilith was well beyond Tasha's league, and the smirk on the demon's face indicated she knew it.

Maybe that could be used against her.

Tasha nodded, feigning far more confidence than she felt. "Agreed, a contest of equals, to see who can seduce John." She gave a slight emphasis on the word "equals" to make sure the demon didn't miss the implication.

The demon was predictably outraged, and the perfection of her face was marred by contempt. "Equals? You presumptuous little cunt. I will give you the terms of your challenge. All you need to do is to get him to look at you. If he can even tear his eyes away from me, I will concede your victory. My summoning wears off in a little over an hour, so I will give you one hour to work your will. You can yield earlier if you so choose, allowing you more time to enjoy your death." The demon blew her a disparaging kiss.

Tasha swallowed, suppressing the small flicker of hope that rose. She was smart enough to know that demons were not fools. They had their pride, and could be goaded into lowering the bar to a level that a human might think was reachable, but the demon would know the truth. It was possible that it was Tasha herself who was being played, but this still seemed to be as good a contest as she was likely to get.

"I accept."

"Know that your acceptance signifies a binding pact, and your magical ward will be negated upon your inevitable loss, allowing me to take you."

"I accept anyway."

"Child, I wasn't offering you an escape. I was explaining to you what you had already accepted, in case you had hinged your hope on your crude Wiccan cantrip."

Tasha nodded.

The demon gestured toward John, who gazed with adoration at Lilith.

Tasha approached John having no idea how to start. "John?"

Nothing. Of course, nothing.

"This demon wants to kill you, John. She fucks you, and then when you come, you will die."

John's face indicated he was perfectly OK with that.

"Please look at me, John."

No response again, except from the demon — who scoffed.

Lilith had said it was a sexual contest. Tasha nodded, assessing John's erection. It was throbbing for Lilith, she knew, but this wouldn't be the first time she had fucked a man who was thinking of someone else. She had always taken that as a personal challenge before, and this time would be no different.

Tasha removed her shirt, and threw it wistfully on the floor. She had only one suitcase of clothes, recovered from the car when they had retrieved it from the impound lot. The navy blue blouse was one of her favorites, and she knew this would be the last time she would ever wear it. She kicked off her shoes, and with a quick hip shimmy, her black slacks joined the blouse on the floor, followed by her bra and socks. She hesitated only in removing her panties — a pair of practical white cotton boy shorts. She regretted not salvaging one of her satin bikinis from the old apartment, but she couldn't have borne the humiliation of having her landlord and the Sheriff's deputies watch her sort through her collection of "might-get-lucky" lingerie.

She stood naked in front of John, feeling she should apologize to him for what she was about to do, which did her confidence no help. She felt the Black Mood threatening to rise to keep company with her goosebumps. Not now.

"John, I know you said we shouldn't do this, and that I had to know it couldn't happen, but I have no choice. It's my only chance of saving you."

Tasha felt Lilith's eyes on her as she straddled John's lap. His erection was hot against her stomach, and somehow reassuring, but not exciting. Tasha hoped that her ardor would rise once she started, as the high stakes of the contest were having a chilling effect on her libido. She spared a glance at the demon before she began.

Lilith had pulled out one of the kitchen chairs, and sat on it, luxurious legs crossed, pretending to pick at her immaculate nails. She glanced up at Tasha. "Never mind me, little one. I will start watching when you actually start fucking him. If you need any pointers, the most important one is that the cock goes here." She gestured toward the fatal cleft of her own legs.

Tasha ignored the taunt, turned, and kissed John full on the lips.

She felt a surge of triumph as he responded, lips opening for her, strong arms wrapping around her waist and back. Tasha tasted something unfamiliar in his mouth, of coconut, mango, cardamom...

Fuck! Sexual electricity jolted through her tongue, sending a current of pleasure to her breasts and loins. Tasha gasped, and involuntarily pressed herself against the steel of John's erection as she felt her own sex grow flush with blood and heat. What in the hell?

"I should warn you," the demon drawled. "I had been playing with him before you got here, so there is some of my saliva on his mouth. He did me the kindness of oral service, as well, so there would be some of that on his lips and tongue. It might have an... interesting effect on you."

Tasha wanted to ask if she herself could taste the demon's sexual ambrosia direct from the source, imaging herself slaving at the demon's sex like a subservient creature.

She shook it off. She had almost forgotten the heat of the demon's gaze — the way her own body had responded when she had first entered the apartment, and the scope of her peril became clear. This was a taste of the power the demon had at her disposal — the power which had John in full thrall. Despite the way John's mouth had responded to her, and the way his cock continued to pulse against her stomach, John was watching Lilith buff her fingernails as if he thought there was nothing more erotic in all creation.

However, the demon's "essence" had given Tasha a weapon herself. She had hoped her passion would rise once she began, and she now had what she wanted. She had never been so suffused with sexual heat, and she knew it would inspire her.

She needed more. Tasha lapped greedily at John's lips, and her tongue probed deep into John's mouth, seeking and taking what power she could find, driving her to further heights of puissant lust. Her hands roamed John's lean features, caressing the firmness of every muscle, absorbing his warmth into herself.

Her hips began to tilt and writhe, seeking John's cock, when she caught herself.

The demon had been fucking John. There would be more of her on his cock.

John, you are about to receive the most enthusiastic oral sex of your life.

Tasha slid to kneel between John's legs, taking his hands and placing them on her breasts, hoping that she would draw some sort of response.

He seemed to react by instinct, gently caressing her small breasts ("teacups", Lance had always called them, which he thought cute and she annoying) and tugging on her nipples with an expert's balance of pinch, pull, and roll, bringing her to — and suspending her at — the edge between pleasure and pain.

John's cock loomed before her face, and she could smell the demon on him.

Tasha looked up to John's face. She knew that for many men, their most erotic vision was to see a woman's eyes gazing up with adoration as she salivated over the man's cock. With the demon-fueled lust and her own affection for John, the look of adoration was as easy as the salivating.

It made no difference. John only had eyes for Lilith. Tasha spared a glance in that direction, and saw the demon had stopped doing her nails, and was instead peering at her prey with an intensity that Tasha hoped indicated a fear the demon had miscalculated.

Tasha returned her attention to John, opening her mouth and taking him inside, her tongue orbiting his glans and shaft, absorbing every molecule the demon had left behind. Her lips caressed down his length, and she closed her mouth tight around him. Her hands teased his testicles and the sighs and moans emanating from her throat told the truth that this was the first act of fellatio that she had ever enjoyed as much the man did. The demon's essence was hot fudge drizzled over sex ice cream with an orgasm cherry on top. While its power and pleasure coursed through her body, Tasha used it, inhaling John's cock into the depths of her mouth, massaging it with her cheeks, tongue, palate and throat, dismissing the gag reflex that had thwarted any previous attempts to add this feat to her sexual repertoire.

John's hips churned beneath her in time to her oral rhythms. One of his hands left an ache of longing as it departed her breast and rose to caress her face. His fingers stroked the full shoulder-length of her black hair and his palm cupped her cheek as if he were holding the most delicate of orchids.

His moans turned to cries, and she steeled herself as she felt his body spasm. Hot torrents shot down her throat, and Tasha drank them all. She had always been a swallower, relishing in the knowledge that her lover would become a part of her, as if they were consecrating a secret pact, but this was something far more. The demon's magic and her own overdriven libido combined to trigger her own climax. Tasha's knees buckled and she pressed her thighs together in an effort to keep control.

It wasn't enough.

She released John from her mouth and collapsed on the floor, still shivering from the aftershocks. When had she closed her eyes? She should have been watching John the entire time. Men liked that. She looked up, and let out a wail of anguish.

John was still staring at Lilith. Tasha had failed. She had provided the best head of her life, but the demon's influence was stronger. It was too late. John had come, and even if she did make him come again before time ran out, diminishing sexual returns would ensure it wasn't as good as this one.

Tasha had accepted her own death, but she had failed John — failed a good man who had suffered pain far worse than hers and come through it with his soul intact. He was a better human than she was, and he didn't deserve death.

The Black Mood billowed out of her subconscious, reminding her that she had known she would fail. She always failed. She should just give up and say her goodbyes to him, sorry proxy for his wife that she was.

"Care to try again?" The demon was taunting her.

Tasha's voice whimpered through her tears as she clutched her knees against her chest. "What's the point. He came."

The demon's laugh was more mockery. "You insult my power. Look at him."

Tasha rose her head and saw that Lilith hadn't lied. John's cock remained steel — his eyes as full of lust for Lilith as they had been all night.

Lilith seemed proud of the fact. "He will stay that way until he climaxes inside me, or until I release him, which I won't do unless you win our little contest." Her tone implied bemusement at the mere possibility.

Tasha nodded. If John was game, she had more fight in her as well.

"That's the spirit, girl."

Tasha whirled on Lilith. "Why? You don't want me to win."

"You are human. You can never win, but watching you try is what makes humans so entertaining."

Tasha's eyes shot daggers. This was life or death, not a game.

"I am a predator, girl. Predators sometimes play with their food. Endure it or surrender."

Tasha felt the need to return the demon's taunts. "He loved his wife. I bet she could have drawn him away from you."

Lilith's eyes flashed, and she suddenly rose, flaunting the perfection of her sinuous curves, supple skin, and defiant breasts. "Nothing could draw him away from me!" There was anger in her voice — outrage at the mere thought.

The demon's reaction seemed disproportionate, but even murderous arch-bitches of Hell had egos, Tasha surmised. Satisfied that her taunt had drawn emotional blood, she turned to straddle John once more. Her arms enveloped him, and her kisses covered his face and neck as she slowly lowered herself onto him.

Tasha felt her labia embrace his girth, and experienced the ephemeral feeling of completeness she always experienced when a man first entered her. God, he has a nice cock, she thought, before the reality of their predicament brought back her focus.

John's mouth opened in a gasp of pleasure, causing Tasha to look him in the eye. Triumph surged through her as she realized John was looking at her — staring at her with the same passion he had only shown earlier for the demon. She had won!

Then she heard the demon laughing.

Tasha pulled back, and saw John was not watching her, but his eyes were focused on a space ten feet behind her. Lilith had simply moved directly behind Tasha, taunting her yet again.

Lilith was too physically perfect for the usual insults, but this one might work. "I guess when you get to be your age, you need your entertainments."

The demon was unfazed. "You have no idea, girl."

A pulse behind Tasha's navel reminded her of her true purpose, and she clenched her Kegels tight around John's cock, torsioning her hips in a way that all her lovers had adored. Maybe the oral sex had been too impersonal, causing her to lose eye contact. Maybe her face had been too far from Lilith's, causing John's addled brain to believe it was Lilith who had pleasured him so. Maybe she needed to keep eye contact.

It normally wasn't hard for her to get a man to look her in the eyes. The combination of her asian features and her Pathan mother's blue eyes was disconcerting and exotic to most men, who often held her gaze just a second too long. Maybe they would have the same effect if she kept them locked on John.

A flush of heat emanated from her loins as she responded to her own efforts. Her Black Moods could suck most of the pleasure out of her life, but not this — not today. She would die today, she knew, but T.S. Eliot was always one of her favorite poets, and she would do him the ironic honor of ending with a bang, not a whimper.