Hellacious Hospitality Ch. 04

He still idly played with the "business card". No matter what he did, it seemed to find its way back to his hand, other than when he stuck it back in his wallet. Caeli had really wanted him to have it.

The *ding* of the elevator sounded, and the distinct echo of high heels clacked off the tiled floor of the corridor.

"I don't pity whoever got stuck with cleanup duty." He said loudly, making small talk to empty air,. He wasn't quite ready to face her. He still felt like crap for going off on her the way he did.

"Oh, that's the beauty of this place. Nobody gets saddled with terrible jobs like that. This place is so huge, I wouldn't dare burden them with that. No, the underlying structure of this place is a construct of pure magic. 'Out-of-sight, out-of-mind' is a real governing principle. If you leave it alone, unobserved, most of the furnishings and such will just snap back to a 'default' state, eventually." She glided up smoothly, beside him.

"Well, that's convenient."

"It really is. The residents here have jobs only if they wish for them. It staves off the boredom, gives us something to do, giving us purpose in our solitude. Iara runs her bath house-slash-massage service, the faeries really enjoy it in the kitchen, plus they zoom around everywhere delivering things between rooms. I do my best to keep everything in line. Despite what I said earlier, we are doing fine. Don't worry about us too much. We've survived like this for hundreds of years, and we'll do so for hundreds more. I just really thought you could help us do more than survive."

"I said I'd do it, and... wait, hundreds?" He'd begun to surmise as such, but he somehow hadn't expected her to just come out and admit it. His eyes turned to her, reflexively, in shock. She was wearing her concierge outfit again. He hadn't really thought about it before, how well the skimpy cut of the uniform actually suited her, in a practical way. The backless top and low skirt gave her wings and tail the freedom they needed, especially now that she seemed more comfortable in showing them off. But then, the outfit really didn't afford him the opportunity to think straight. It was ridiculously sexy.

"This girl looks good for pushing 450, doesn't she?" Caeli smiled a cheeky smile. "I know you humans get self-conscious about your fleeting youth, but demons are functionally immortal, provided we have access to the mana to nourish us. Age is just a number, in that case." She noticed his gaze roaming up and down her body as she spoke, and pushed her impressive breasts up playfully in response.

"Ack, Caeli! That's not exactly helping me leave. Or are you having second thoughts?"

"Oops, sorry!" You're not sorry at all, you devilish minx! She posed coquettishly. Innocent and flirty. It was really hard to stay mad at her. How is she this perfect?

"Look, Caeli, I really -- " She cut him off, pressing her fingers to his lips gently.

"If you were going to apologize again, don't. We were bound to have disagreements, eventually. In fact, isn't it better this way? You still had doubts about me enchanting or entrapping you, or whatever, right? Let the fact that you were able to call me out, and get angry with me assuage your fears. And that's why I'm so enamored of you. Your keenness, your intuition. I've met my equal in that regard. Different, but the same. That's why I'm so confident in your ability to help us. You can watch my blind spots for me -- see the things that I've grown neglectful of over the years."

He noticed, even in the low, ambient lighting of the lobby that her eyes had slightly reddened, and her cheeks mildly swollen. Had she been crying? Guilt welled in the pit of his stomach again, this time fully of his own fault. Her appreciative words lifted his spirits, though, preventing him from wallowing in that negativity for too long. In the end, she always seemed to come through with exactly what he wanted to hear.

"Then why is it that you need me to leave? Everything else you've told me makes it sound like you'd rather me stay right here."

"Because it's exactly as you accused me of. I was too presumptuous, too hasty, and for the partnership I envision to be a success, I need you to be fully in control of your own decisions. And you'll never be able to do that if you're here, with me. So please, go home, and reflect on what I've told you. I sense even greater potential within you, should you fully come to terms with what you are, and that prospect excites me. Please, take your time. Even if it takes days, weeks, months. Even years. I have faith in you. Even if you were to decide that you'd rather not shoulder that responsibility and never return, I won't hold that against you. Ultimately, the burdens I've shared with you are mine alone to bear, that I accepted upon becoming the warden of this haven. Don't let my troubles impede you from living your life."

When he first laid eyes on her, he hadn't expected her to be capable of such gravitas. So energetic and bubbly at the time, the weight of her station had not been apparent in the least. Benson got the impression that he was seeing this side of her now because she was placing her full trust and faith in him. Any lingering doubts he had about her were now completely laid to rest. Always with that disarming earnestness.

Benson wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight. "Don't you worry. I wouldn't give up any of this for the world. You really are an amazing girl, Caeli, in every way possible. You're far stronger than I ever would have imagined you to be. For that, I won't keep you waiting. You're right, that I should take some time to sort out my own life a bit, but I'm definitely coming back. Count on it."

He felt her body relax in his warm embrace. Her small wings bristled in pleasure. Amber eyes pooled with light, rippling with yearning. The rising heat in her chest flooded his spirits. Her white fangs peered out slightly, biting down subtly on her delicate, glossy lips, invitingly.

Sensing the roiling emotions welling within the beautiful succubus, Benson stooped low, to plant a kiss on her lips.

At the last second, two of her fingers shot up, sliding between their faces and upon his lips, as her gaze momentarily dropped. Pushing herself away from him, she deftly straightened her outfit again before regarding him openly.

"Another time. Let that be something to look forward to. An incentive to come back to me." She smiled brightly, even giggling in her trademark flirtatious way, but the look upon her face was more conflicted and she did not elaborate further. A hand scratched idly at her throat, gauging her racing pulse.

"...So then, I guess this is goodbye?" Her playful rejection had put him at a momentary loss, but he recovered quickly. She had warned him that she was trying to re-establish her dominance. That dangling anticipation would be her first clear step. "What will you do, when I'm gone?"

"My time won't be spent idle. You've only met a small handful of the demi that reside here. Some may take some coaxing to warm to the idea of your presence, so I've got my work cut out for me."

"Ah, see, I knew it. You are trying to pimp me out," he snarked.

She just rolled her eyes. "Just, please be safe out there, Ben. You know of the magic now. Even if you can't actively do anything with it, just that knowledge can be enough to change you. Reflect on what I've said, and let your instincts guide you the way they did with me. Don't shut life out, just because you think it's easier that way. Promise me that." She held out her hand expectantly, to seal that informal agreement.

Benson reached out to clasp it gently between his own, tenderly stroking her dainty fingers. "I can't make that promise, because I'm still not fully sure of myself just yet. But if it comes down to instinct, then I'm sure it'll come to me, and then we can take things from there. I'll try not to keep you waiting for me forever. I will come back to claim that kiss."

"I'm counting on it," she blushed. "Bye, Ben!"

She squeaked when he pulled her in for one last quick hug, but in saying her farewells, she made it clear that it was his time to move on. He turned, and strode purposefully towards the door, back into the "real" world. From beyond the glass doors of the main lobby hall, the sound of a heavy metal door clattered, signaling his final departure.

The succubus sighed with relief, a hopeful smile cloying at the corners of her lips. She turned her back to the door, eager to begin with her own preparations.

A rush of air whisked through the room, causing her to jump with a start, as the glass doors flung wide open again. Caeli shrieked in surprise.

"Sorry, just making sure I could get back in here. Miss me already?"

"If you don't leave right now, I'm liable to change my mind and lock you up in here for the rest of your life!"

"I dunno, if you're gentle enough with me, that actually sounds sort of appeal --"

"GO!!"

*****

Probably because he had left of his own volition this time, there was no sense of disorientation. Benson found himself right back in the alley that had given rise to his past two wild and crazy weekends. The afternoon sun was already hanging low, a harsh orange glow radiating from the street. Sunbeams glinted off a parked car, painfully blinding him. After spending an evening and a morning in the welcoming lap of luxury, the harshness of the outside world assaulted his senses, as if to tell him he was no longer welcome.

He turned back to the wall, and found that any trace of a door had completely vanished again. He wasn't worried this time. Caeli had probably locked him out for the time being, after that last little stunt.

With hand held over his brow like a visor, he stepped out of the shelter of the dark alley. Rejoining the world of ceaseless noise and bustling city life was a stranger feeling than he had anticipated. His brief but passionate and welcoming experiences with the demi girls had him feeling so at ease and at home, that it was now his own world -- that he had lived in for the twenty-something years of his life -- that had started to feel alien.

Or maybe that wasn't truly the case. Despite the apprehension, he felt excitement surge in his chest. Caeli had told him something important when convincing him to leave paradise. He had attempted to wall himself off in denial, but her words had managed to hit home, the way they always did. She had begun to peel back the veil of ennui that shrouded his eyes, and a portion of the curiosity he felt in the haven, towards Caeli and her wards, also seemed to extend out into his world now, too. Not nearly as intense, but definitely tangible.

He found himself contemplating a word that had oft cropped up in his reckonings towards the demi and their complicated history. Perspective. The cunning demoness was far more wise and insightful than she let on. She played the temptress and the flirt, but following in her tantalizing footsteps always seemed to bring new, unexpected revelations. The spark of curiosity she ignited in him was every bit as seductive as the wily succubus herself.

Benson began the long walk home at a leisurely pace. Saturday evening. He was in no rush to be anywhere particular at the moment. He took in the sights and sounds, and even smells, of the city as if they were his first. Ultimately, no new epiphanies would be had. The streets were as he had always experienced them. There was some half expectation to see magical creatures suddenly pop out of the woodwork in every crevice and corner, now that the wool had been pulled from his eyes, but that was but a silly flight of fancy. Caeli had already told him that most demi found life out in this hubbub completely unbearable, and there was no reason to doubt her on that.

What did change for him was the people. She had told him to stop tuning them out so readily. Quite frankly, they were still too loud, too annoying, and the majority still too self-absorbed to be of any real interest. But he still listened as he walked. Occasionally the tail end of some over-loud conversation would pass him by, and unbidden, his mind would automatically conjure up some amusing story to justify the existence of the broken sentences he had heard. Probably useless, and yet he found himself continually surprised at the emotionality his head-canon would apply, to the point where his imaginary reality felt almost real. Shit, she really got into your head. Too deep.

He still really didn't know what to think of her assertion as to his empathic tendencies. Told outright like that, it really just sounded like hippy-dippy new-age bullcrap in his mind. Yet, he couldn't brush the idea off so easily. He'd thought he'd just been going with the flow in his life, taking the path of least resistance, and only speaking up when truly necessary. But the rare times he did speak his mind, it was true, that he absolutely took over the scene with ease. When it came to disagreements at work, he was quick to play to his managers' egos, and spin scenarios where he'd come out on top, but his superiors would agree wholeheartedly because they'd thought they'd devised the perfect solution.

Those manipulations came so easy and naturally to him, it was actually scary to think about those times in such stark reflection. He'd never given it much thought. Just a survival mechanism in the modern dog-eat-dog world. But it actually hurt him to realize that he'd inadvertently turned those tendencies towards Caeli. He admired her so much. Perhaps maybe even loved her (although he wasn't sure either of them were quite willing to cross that particular bridge. But the chemistry seemed undeniable). And yet, he'd preyed on her weaknesses all the same. To what end?

Was this what she was trying to get him to realize in himself? Was it something to be stopped? Or something to be nurtured? A weapon, or a boon?

These thoughts occupied his mind as he continued the long, slow walk home.

*****

Benson trudged up the stairs to his apartment, a top-floor loft unit just at the edge of the downtown core. Not the greatest neighborhood. Still a bit too lively with the night-life scene, with lots of noise at odd hours. Being on the fifth floor, as far from the streets as possible did only a small job of keeping that bearable. But the rent was fair, and the commute to work wasn't too bad either. For a young man such as himself, with not a huge amount of capital to his name yet, he'd done well to find this place. It gave him his independence and solitude. Which up until this point in his life, he thought he'd enjoyed greatly. But the way his worldview had been pecked at and partially unraveled, he somewhat wondered if he had been missing out.

It was a long walk from the seedy red-light district, though, and he was exhausted. Letting his thoughts carry him, he hadn't bothered to catch the bus, and had walked all thirty some-odd blocks back home, at a slower than average pace. The shot of vitality that Iara had supplied him with, whatever that was, only carried his body so long, and his body's natural weariness took over. It was dark now, the sun having long since slipped below the horizon.

The tiredness wasn't really an issue, though. That was a conscious decision he'd made. The abrupt shift in his love-life, or whatever the hell it was he had now, had somewhat inspired him to treat himself better. It was always something that nagged him in the back of his mind, after having been a fairly active youth. The drudgery of office life had long since beaten that zest for life out of him, and he'd become lazy and complacent. Now, though, he felt he had the motivation to try again.

He groaned a proud groan as he capped off the final flight of stairs, and opened the door onto his floor's corridor. The motion-activated lights flickered into action at his presence, filling the space while bright, sterile, white light. That was never a welcoming feeling. The landlord insisted on using those godawful electric white fluorescent tube lights, the type that seemed to give everything a sickly blue-green tinge. Maybe that was point, that nobody would loiter in the halls for very long to avoid that morgue-like atmosphere, sparing the electrical bills as the lights shut off automatically. If that was the case, it was a wonder that he hadn't cheaped out further, by using only one bulb in each fixture instead of the prescribed two.

That nauseating feeling was not doing Benson any favors, what with the stars he was already seeing in the corners of his vision due to his heightened fatigue, after climbing those five flights of stairs while already at the brink of exhaustion. He fumbled a bit too long with his keys trying to unlock the door to his apartment suite.

The sound of the stairwell door opening and then clicking shut again echoed in the hall, and he felt an energetic pair of footsteps bound up to him.

"Hey, Mr. L!" came the chirpy sweet voice of a girl as she rapidly closed in on him.

The voice gave him a start, because the brightness carried in it made him think of Caeli.

But it wasn't her voice, she wouldn't have called to him in that manner, and moreover, he actually recognized who it belonged to, sort of.

"Oh, hey Luna," he managed to wheeze out over his shortness of breath, attention still on his door lock and his shaking hands that didn't want to cooperate in getting the key slotted in just right.

"Wow, you're looking pretty out of shape there," she said, stating rather obviously. By contrast, her breathing was steady and even.

He wondered about that, as he hadn't heard her at all in the stairwell, and he'd been taking his sweet time making that climb. Which meant that on top of bounding down the hallway, she'd probably raced all the way up the stairs as well to be able to arrive at almost the same time, but none of that fatigue seemed to have affected her. He envied that energy, making him feel old. Except that he wasn't that old. God, he really had let himself slip.

Luna, the neighbor's brat. They'd actually moved into the building around the same time, fighting each other for the elevator as they carried their furniture in. Come to think of it, he'd never actually met the parents, he'd just always assumed they were there, because when he'd moved in at the start of his job four years ago, she was a rambunctious girl of just fifteen. He'd thought her a cute kid at the time, but as the years passed and he grew more and more wearied, he'd grown less patient with children, and this girl had retained her youthful exuberance all the while. He thought she had lost interest in pestering him once he got like that, but her bright and energetic tone just now brought back all those old memories. That would make her... around nineteen now, he thought, doing that math idly in his head.

"Here, let me help you with that."

Slender, feminine hands encompassed his own, steadying his wrist to let the key slide cleanly into its appointed receptacle. The gentleness of that contact made his heart skip a beat.

"Uh, thanks," he said sheepishly, feeling a bit like an invalid in the moment. He wasn't infirm, just nearly incapacitated...

He turned to regard her properly, and then sucked in air rather loudly when he finally saw who he was dealing with in full clarity. Sometime in the intervening years when he hadn't been paying attention, his neighbor had grown into a rather attractive young woman, and she was standing uncomfortably close to him.

Tall, leggy, and tanned, with short, bleached platinum blonde hair that fell in short, wavy curls around the nape of her neck -- she was the picture of the quintessential beach babe. It was already well into September, though, so she must have visited a tanning salon to maintain that level of golden glow. That wasn't a good habit to have, but she was youthful enough that it probably didn't matter much. As long as she realized the dangers of that vanity before her skin grew leathery and cracked with age. But for now, she was supple and healthy looking, with gorgeously soft-looking skin.