Dealing with a Devil

One suggestion to those witchy guys and gals out there considering summoning a demon to curse their stupid, cheating exes: maybe don't.

After all, sometimes the spells that you find on those remote websites in the dark depths of the internet actually work, and then what? Then you end up with a six-foot-something hunk of man flesh in your way-too-small studio apartment with nowhere to put him, that's what.

It was the key question I'd failed to consider when I'd been setting up the little pentagram in the half-bath of my shitty Chicago apartment. It was Halloween night, but the trick-or-treaters had already come and gone (all four that visited this year, a new record!) and the complex was dark and quiet. A full moon hung in the air outside, and a cheap candle flickered in the windowsill of my bathroom's porthole window. It took about 30 minutes, some wine coolers, and a lot of fake rose petals from the dollar store down the street to set the scene just right, but by the time I was done the room looked like it'd popped right out of a cringy vampire-flick from the early '00s.

Everything was perfect, in other words.

The half-bath was a little bit small as I sat down in the middle of the pentagram, doing my best not to smudge the salt that I'd used to outline the circle. A few candles flickered around me, so I scrunched my legs up to my chest to avoid any loose pajama sleeves catching on fire. As I placed the other items required for the sacrifice in the circle with me, I had a little bit of doubt about my choice in summoning.

The circle was maybe a little bit more cramped than I intended, considering the ritual required my own blood sacrifice and some suspicious animal parts from the butcher down in Chinatown. I thought I saw a chicken's foot, but it could've been a particularly ugly radish. Unfortunately, it was the only room in the apartment with linoleum, and I really didn't want to get human blood on the cream carpets. Animal parts, maybe, but blood? Absolutely not.

The website I'd pulled the spell up on was fairly basic: a pale grey background, Arial font, no pictures. The trademark at the bottom of the page read 2001. Spooky. It was almost as old as I was. I scanned over the page again, finding the section that I was pretty sure related to what I wanted.

DEMON SUMMONING SPELL: SUMMONS THAT WHICH YOU MOST DESIRE

CONTRACT VALID UNTIL DAWN OF THE FOLLOWING DAY, OR UNTIL THE FULFILLMENT OF DESIRE

That sounded about right. I put the phone in my lap, bowing my head and lifting my hands. It felt a little bit like I was back in church, and I waited for a moment for a lightning bolt to smite me. After a moment, I was confident enough to continue.

I was feeling pretty stupid, to be honest. I don't know if you've ever spoken Latin, but I sure hadn't, and it really wasn't a good idea to try it for the first time during the actual ritual. That might have been where everything went wrong, really, but I can't say for sure. There's a lot of places where "might have gone wrong" could apply.

"In Sanctio, cruore fracto, cor ferino, et lachrymis amantis onvenient sub plenilunio, advocandum qui tua desideria maxima cum penis implebit. Fraudavi hoc interpretari."

That three-foot expanse suddenly became a lot, lot smaller when the demon actually appeared, quite naked, nearly standing on my face. There was no flash of smoke or roar of sound, just one moment there was empty space and the next there was a man. Kinda.

"Holy shit." The yelp that came from me was incredibly attractive, I'm sure, sounding like a frightened poodle. I scrambled up and out of the bathroom, giving him the little half-bath. I caught my reflection in the mirror and thought I looked a little bit like a frightened poodle, too--my hair pulled up in a top-knot, my eyes red from crying for three days, and pajamas that fit me back in high school, not now. If I'd known this was going to work, I might have freshened up a little bit, but it was too late for regrets now.

I don't know who was more surprised--me, or him. Probably him, considering it looked like he'd been brushing his teeth when he'd suddenly appeared, a tall, pale grey-blue man with black hair, yellow eyes, and horns that looks like they could've been pulled off a goat. A handsome goat, though. He had the appearance of what someone more eloquent than I might describe as "a Greek God" or maybe even "Adonis" (for the truly cultured), but I just was willing to settle with "hunk."

"What the-," the devil-man said. Oh good, he spoke English. That made things easier. He was actually really fucking sexy. But he was definitely not a human, which was something that was still taking a moment to digest.

Was he the Devil?

"Are you the Devil?" I blurted. Smooth.

He looked at me like I was an idiot, and I couldn't really blame him. A distant part of me wondered why I wasn't screaming--a naked demon was standing about three feet away from me, and I was actually feeling rather okay about it. Better than okay.

Almost jubilant.

I'd done it! I'd actually managed to do it! The brilliant idea had come to me at midnight the night before, elbow-deep in a bag of those fun-sized candy bars that went on sale on Halloween. I'd been binging old TV sitcoms about funny teenage witches, you know the one, when suddenly the idea hit me: Curse Jarrod Tellman. It might have been how close Tellman was to another certain character's name was in a TV sitcom about funny teenage witches, I don't really know, but, hey.

In other words, I was trying to curse my ex. Preferably with some pain, suffering, or at the very least some mildly inconvenient foot fungus. Anything to make the asshole who had cheated on me on my birthday pay a little bit. I can't specifically say if it was watching the witchy show that inspired me to draw the pentagram in my blood and place chicken livers into a small pile in the center, but I can't say that I'd ever had the desire to place a curse on someone before.

But, well, it worked. A girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do, right?

"Who are you?" the Devil demanded, looking kind of pissed.

Oh, right, the guy. The demon guy. The one who I had summoned, apparently against his will. Who would've thought that was a thing? He had stopped brushing his teeth and spat out whatever toothpaste he used (demons use toothpaste! Who knew!?), and was now looking at me. Okay, glaring.

"Hi," I said, suddenly feeling kind of awkward. "I'm Liz, or Lizbet, or Elizabet, but you can call me Liz."

He didn't call me anything. He didn't say anything, either.

"Or, not. You are...?" I trailed off, waiting. More waiting. I was beginning to feel like I'd made some kind of faux pas, but wasn't this what demons wanted? Stupid mortals to accidentally summon them so they could escape Hell? Or was that just too many horror movies?

The silence stretched on uncomfortably long before he finally said, "Alexial."

Alexial. It was a sexy name, I had to admit, and one that didn't ring any bells as being some big bad demon dude from Biblical history. Maybe I'd lucked out and this demon wouldn't try to steal my soul in exchange for this agreement?

"Great, I'll call you Alex. But, well, I summoned you!" I winced--I really couldn't hide that note of pride, but I doubted he was going to be very supportive of me. Not yet. Demons weren't allowed to kill their summoners, right? That would defeat the purpose of the whole thing. "To help me with something!" Were there notes on what to say to a demon to get them to do your bidding once they were summoned? I really hadn't thought this far ahead, I was kind of expecting to cry in the middle of the pentagram for a few more hours after my inevitable failure. Success wasn't something I was entirely prepared for.

"Where am I?" Alexial said, demanding again. He was pretty good at the demanding thing. He had a deep voice, slightly husky, and there was a timbre to his words that sent a shiver down my spine. Oh, no no no, men had gotten me into this situation, the demon was only here to get me out.

Alexial looked positively annoyed. Jarrod was really good at that sexy-when-mad thing, too, but there was something about the demon-man's yellow eyes that made my heart start hammering. I gave myself a quick pinch. Remember why you're here: men suck. That helped a bit.

"You're at my apartment," I said. Then, thinking on it, I added, "In Chicago. USA. Earth?" Was that different from Heaven and Hell? "You are a demon, right?"

For the first time since he'd arrived, the look of annoyance seemed to slip away. Instead, he just looked surprised. He nodded a bit, finally answering a question, "Yeah." His eyes shifted around my apartment, lingering on the pile of laundry by the basket at the door, the disheveled bed, and the tv that had been hung on the wall to save space. It wasn't dirty, per se, I liked to call it lived in.

A bit of relief filled me as he nodded--I'd begun to worry that I'd messed it up somehow, but nope, looked like I had just caught him off guard. "Doesn't happen much anymore?" I guessed.

"Nope," he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck. He looked a little embarrassed about being caught unaware, and it was kind of cute. The way he rubbed his neck made his forearms flex a bit, and I do have a thing for forearms. Even if they were grey-ish.

The tension between us had started to melt, and I finally got the chance to look at him. And I mean, really look at him. And, well, there was something was kind of bothering me. "Why are you naked?" I asked, ignoring my goal in favor of the more pressing question. I could ask about cursing Jarrod in a moment, right? There was no rush in cursing.

The demon looked down, surprised again. "Part of it."

I was surprised, too. The dick was part of the vengeance and cursing? "Do you, like, use it as a wand or something?" I asked. I supposed there were weirder things people did with their dicks. Like piercings? Ow.

He was looking at me like I was an idiot again, and I was starting to feel like I was missing an important piece to the puzzle here. Impatience made me finally ask, "You are a vengeance demon, right?"

He laughed, laughed, at me, and I got another hunch something had gone wrong in my summons. I picked up my phone and flipped back to the spell, glancing it over, but it looked right. I had said the words as they were written, just, not, maybe the best. Latin wasn't my strong suit.

"I'm not a vengeance demon, no," he said. He'd crossed his arms over his chest and was watching me with a weird look on his face--was he smirking at me? If I didn't know any better, I'd say he almost looked cocky. My eyes flicked down, and heat flooded to my cheeks. Definitely cocky.

"Alright, well, sorry buddy, but you gotta go." I hiked my thumb over my shoulder towards the doorway. I didn't know what portal to Hell I'd opened to summon him, but I didn't see it lingering around for me to shove my failure back through, so the front door seemed like the next best alternative. A naked demon walking through the streets of Chicago was far from the weirdest thing most of my neighbors had seen. The cops probably wouldn't even get called. "I've got stuff I need to do, people I want to curse, you know. There's this guy, Jarrod?, total piece of shit. I need him to have a really, really bad night. This spell was supposed to get me what I needed, and you ain't it."

Alexial didn't budge, though, and I crossed my arms over my chest, too. He was going to be a tough guy now, huh? "Look, buddy, you're hunky and all but I need a vengeance demon, not a, uh--?" I left the end open for him to fill in.

Helpfully, he did. "Incubus."

"Yeah, that." The word was familiar. Was it a band? "I don't need that." I needed vengeance, fire, stubbed toes in the middle of the night. Not old rock music from a hot demon with horns.

He laughed again, then pointed at my phone. When had he gotten closer to me? I looked up, realizing he had stepped over the linoleum of the bathroom and into the little studio apartment I called home. He was a lot taller this close, and kinda... hot? Not sexy hot, but hot hot. Like, an actual warmth was coming from him, like I was standing in front of a heater. Considering it was Halloween in Chicago, it wasn't that bad, really. Kinda cozy. If it weren't for the fact that he was still stark naked, it would almost be relaxing.

But I also didn't know what he was pointing at. "This is a spell to summon a demon who can rain righteous vengeance down on my ex," I explained patiently, holding it out for him to see, "I found it on the internet and everything. Says you're supposed to do what I want you to until dawn." The website was a little sketchy, sure, looking like it was from the early MyPlace days, but it was a damn demon summoning. It wasn't supposed to fucking work. I was just supposed to try, tell my friends tomorrow that I'd hit my lowest low, and then finally move on with my life.

He grabbed my phone before I could argue, he was holding it up and zooming in on the Latin text I'd struggled through. Who knew demons were so good with smartphones? "Nope," he said, and he had that really smug, arrogant tone that someone uses when they know they're right. I sighed. Damn it. Men were all the same, even the demon ones. "Says right here, 'summon one who will fulfill your deepest desires.'"

I looked at him like he was stupid this time. "Yeah. Vengeance. On my ex."

The look he turned on me was probably a mirror of the one I was using on him. "No, your deepest desires. I'm here for you--you want to get laid."

Well, he wasn't wrong, but there was no way that I wanted to get laid more than I wanted vengeance on that cheating, lousy, no-good asshole who had stood me up. "No way," I said, grabbing for my phone. He held it up higher, and I scowled at him. "Cute." It was like high school all over again. I jumped for the phone, and he lifted it slightly higher. I scowled at him, and he just smirked. Definitely high school.

"So, what, I can't just kick you out?"

"You summoned me to fulfill a contract, mistress," his eyes landed on me in a way that sent a thrill through me, "until the contract is fulfilled, I cannot leave."

Well, that was an ambiguous answer. I stepped back, abandoning my phone for now in favor of salvaging my sanity. Had he really called me mistress? My stomach flipped over, and I shook my head, trying to stop myself from getting too caught up in all of this. "Contract? I didn't agree to any contract yet, I was supposed to summon you and then discuss what I wanted you to do afterwards, not this "already in a contract" bullshit." My frustration was mingled with panic; there was a look in Alexial's eyes that hadn't been there when he'd arrived in the apartment. "I need you to go scare my ex into running into a coffee table or something, not fuck me." This wasn't going at all like I'd wanted it to. I'd successfully summoned a demon, but it was the wrong damn one.

He looked amused. "By summoning me, the contract has been initiated. Generally, with the spell you used, the contract will last until sunrise the following day, or at the fulfillment of your desire."

"Which you claim is to get laid."

He nodded.

I understood, suddenly, what had to be happening. I had passed out after drinking too many wine coolers on an empty stomach. It was the only reasonable answer for all of this, including my calmness in the face of insanity. I'd already tried pinching myself earlier, but a second try didn't hurt anyone.

I pinched my arm, blinking at the sharp pain. The demon didn't move or disappear like I'd been hoping, merely quirked a brow. He was still smirking, damn it. "Alright, fine, so you're real," I acknowledged, "I just had to be sure, first." I bit my lip, then said, "What exactly, is an incubus, by chance? You know, the dictionary definition, just so we're on the same page and all." The quirked brow rose a little bit higher, and I sighed. I'd never been a good liar.

The demon didn't say anything at first, merely looked down at me. There was a heavy silence, then he said, "I'll show you."

I was backing up before he finished talking, but he didn't give me a chance to argue. His arm slipped around my waist, and suddenly he was hauling me towards the disheveled bed he'd been eyeing a few moments ago. "No, wait!" His touch on my skin was hot, hotter than any other man's touch had been, and he was insistent.

I had an idea what an incubus was, of course. How could I not, considering he'd showed up naked as the day he was born (probably?) and announced that was part of his whole schtick. And, well, he'd outright pointed out all of my horny-energy, hadn't he? If he wasn't going to go away until the "contract was fulfilled" then so be it, I supposed there were better ways to spend a Halloween night.

"Relax," he said, softly, his breath grazing across my neck. I shivered, turning my head to the side, feeling exposed as I did so. "I won't hurt you." I believed him.

So, when his lips found mine, and his hands settled on my hips under the too-small pajama bottoms, I didn't fight back as much as I might have. He quickly reached the bed and pulled me into it. If you'd asked me this morning if I was down for tongue-sparring with a grey guy I probably would have said no, but I'd had some alcohol since then, and he was pretty good at initiating. He laid me down on the bed gently, tucking a strand of hair behind my ear that had sprung loose from my ponytail. It was an oddly gentle gesture. I looked up at him, startled.

The candles of the ritual cast a flickering light on my room as I found myself underneath the demon I had summoned to my home. His hands pressed imprints into the bed beside my head, and the warmth of his breath gusting over the neckline of my pajamas. He was kneeling between my legs, and I could feel his length rubbing against my thigh. Yellow eyes were looking down at me, roaming over me with an intensity that caught my breath in my throat. That hunger that had burned in his gaze seemed heightened now that he saw his meal before him, and again my stomach flipped over, this time with excitement.

"Like what you see?" I teased, surprised by how breathless I sounded. He grinned as he heard it, revealing sharp canines. My eyes couldn't help but go to his horns, and I reached up, touching one. This time he was the one to inhale, and our eyes met. Golden eyes burned, and I let go, worried I'd hurt him.

"No, I hate these," came the growled response to my question, and for a second, I was confused. Then his fingers found the waist of my shorts, and he pulled them down, tossing them somewhere into the darkness. A chill swept over me as my skin was exposed to the cool air of my apartment, but it was only for a moment. I whimpered as he rubbed against my slit, teasing my clit with the head of his cock. My arms reached for him again, but this time to wind around his neck, pulling him down to me.

"Fuck me," I said, surprising myself with the intensity of the need I was suddenly consumed by. I didn't know where it was all coming from, and to be honest I didn't care. It felt good to say it, to beg for it. I'd never been one for one-night-stands, for casual flings or hookups, so why not? He didn't say anything, didn't even move, and I groaned in frustration. He wasn't going to be a tease, was he? This was the whole reason he was here! "Alexial, please."

He chuckled, a low, gruff sound that made me squirm beneath him. There was an intensity to the sound that was maddening. And still, he didn't give it to me. Instead, he pulled away, teasing me with a brief touch of his fingers against my clit which were soon replaced with his tongue. My eyes sprung open in surprise--then snapped back shut in ecstasy. My hips bucked, and his hands found them, pinning them to the bed as he delved inside of me, tasting me. His thumb found my clit, applying gentle pressure as his tongue slipped into my core, and I had to bite my lip to keep from crying aloud.