Snowballs in Hell (8 page)

“Keeping you safe isn’t treating you like a child. I’d say it shows foresight and care on his part.”

I just stuck my tongue out at him. Fine, he’d won the first round, but I wasn’t done yet. I’d nag at him again later. Eventually I’d get my way, just ask my dad, I rocked at getting what I wanted.

I ignored David as best as I could the rest of that afternoon–not easy when you’ve got a six foot something male prowling your apartment. At least sensing my mood, he stayed quiet. I got ready for work and wore something that matched my mood–a black tube skirt that hit mid-thigh with a mini slit on one side, a bright red silk blouse with matching lipstick and my hair coiled on top of my head. Oh, and to finish the ensemble, black panty hose that had the seam up the back with garters and strappy black sandals. It was an outfit to cause trouble–just like my mood.

Our walk to work was quiet and uneventful. David, I guess, could sense me still simmering. I still couldn’t believe Auric had gone and what I suspected his leave taking meant, i.e. convincing me to fuck someone else. I bet he hadn’t counted on my stubbornness. I’d spite myself to win, something Auric and David would both soon learn.

David hung around the bar area all evening. Helping Perry serve drinks. Taking care of the drunks and being generally useful. To my annoyance, I found myself glancing over at him more than once. It wasn’t like he had Auric’s magnetic aura, but he did have some appeal–the forbidden fruit variety. Or at least forbidden by my standards.

When I closed up for the night, he silently handed me my jacket. I had an urge to get in his face and scream just to see if he’d react. I mean seriously, my fuming had to be driving him nuts. Auric would have thrown me over his shoulder by now and paddled my bottom had I tried it with him. Oh, how I missed him already.

I sighed loudly and saw David slide a look sideways at me, but he kept walking hands shoved deep in to his pockets.

I stopped walking. David went a few paces before he realized I wasn’t beside him and whirled around.

“Doesn’t it bother you at all?” I asked him point blank.

“What?”

“I know what you guys are up to and it’s not going to work.”

“Really, care to enlighten me as to what we’re up to?” He looked at me with an innocent face I didn’t believe for one minute.

I stomped my foot. “Stop playing dumb.”

“Look–,” David started to say then a shadow wrapped itself around his neck and choked him.

Shit! Demons. I’d been so busy being annoyed, I hadn’t even heard or smelt them approaching. Cursing my stupidity, I pulled a long knife from the sheath that ran down my spine and whirled, ready to kick some demon ass.

Two squat forms approached, the sheen of their red skin worrying. Only one type of demon bore that color and it meant my usual Hell fire blade trick would be useless. Never one to give up, I dropped into a partially crouched fighting stance. My short skirt rode up on my thighs showing off my black lace garters and the tops of my legs. I saw the demons glance down, distracted, and I struck first. Swirling my blade, I ducked in and scored a line across the chest of one of them. Dancing back I felt like shouting “Ha,” but my glee was short lived. The demon ignored the scratch and along with his friend, came at me from both sides. Unable to watch them both, I spun a foot out behind me, my stiletto heeling sinking into something soft and fleshy. Eew. However, now wasn’t the time to worry about demon blood on my shoes as I parried the swinging fist of the other demon with my long blade. I could hear snarling and spitting behind me and knew David had let his kitty out to play, but these demons were tough. Built as soldiers for Hell, they were much more resilient than other varieties of demon.

I found myself tiring. My movements getting slower as I parried and thrust in an unending rhythm. A slash across my mid-section, slicing open my favorite red silk blouse brought on the magical trance. As on other occasions when I found myself in mortal peril, words of power appeared in my mind and I spoke, their terrible energy lashing out, drawing upon the magic stored within in me, until like a dried husk who had no more juice to give, I collapsed.

The pavement reached up to slap me as my legs refused to hold my weight. Limper than an overcooked noodle, I couldn’t even brace to hit the hard ground. Arms wrapped around me from behind and caught me inches before my face would have become intimately acquainted with the sidewalk.

“Are you okay, Muriel?” David asked.

Not really, but I refused to admit it. “Are they all gone?”

“Yes. Whatever you did, it turned them all into dust. But you look like shit.” Gee talk about an ego booster. “I’ll be fine. I just need…” Sex. But with Auric gone that wouldn’t happen. Shit. I’d have to masturbate which would only give me a fraction of my power back, not to mention I’d have to do it in the bathroom given my temporary roommate.
You could always fuck David,
said my insidious mind. No, I was sure when Auric left he meant for me to get used to David and the idea, not actually do him. But this situation really sucked. Auric hadn’t even been gone a day and already, I had used up all my power. Great, now I’d be magicless until he came back. I’d survive, I had before.

Mind, before I hadn’t had psycho super beings after me, but at least I couldn’t complain my life was boring.

David moved behind me, his arms changing their grip on my limp spaghetti body, and suddenly I became aware of the fact that David wore not a stitch of clothing. And he also seemed to be very happy to see me.

My cheeks burned hotly and I pushed away from him. “I can stand on my own,” I declared. My good old friend Murphy, who was always waiting for moments like these, swooped in with a vengeance and I fell over in an ungraceful heap.

David picked me up again, this time cradling me princess style in his arms which brought my face in close proximity to the smooth skin of his chest and scent–a musky masculine, yummy smell that should be bottled for an outrageous price.

“Put me down,” I demanded even as my body melted in his arms.

“No,” he said in a firmer tone than I’d ever heard from him before.

What, he’d chosen now of all times to get a backbone? “This isn’t appropriate,” I said primly. Ironic, I knew, given my parentage, but somehow innocuous as this was, I felt like I was betraying Auric. I loved Auric, I never wanted to do anything that would make him doubt that whether he wanted me to want David or not. Damn this whole thing was bloody confusing. My poor little brain hurt.

Not listening to my protests, David carried me to the loft. I didn’t know what was the biggest miracle–us not running into anybody while he carted me around naked, or the ground not opening up to swallow me from embarrassment.

I tried to get him to put me down a few times, but David, in an uncharacteristically stubborn stance–one I’d have to disabuse him of once I got my strength back–refused to, leaving me fuming in his arms. If he thought his gallant act would make me drop my panties for him, he had another thing coming even if said panties were actually wet.

We finally reached the inside of the apartment where David deposited me finally on to the couch.

“Can you leave now?” I said, tired and needing him to leave before I did something stupid that I’d regret. I could sense the empty hole in myself where my magic usually resided, and damn was it hungry. It didn’t care if David wasn’t my main squeeze. It wanted stimulation and it wanted it
now.

David looked at me with raised brows. “Are you nuts? Leave? We just got attacked by demons and you’re about as strong as a newborn kitten right now. No way am I leaving you alone.”

I hissed at him. Why not? I felt petty.

“Listen,” said David pacing back and forth, his nude body slimmer than Auric’s but just as well toned. I kept looking away but he kept walking into my line of sight distracting me. His nudity called to the depleted magical in me which screamed,
Fuck
him. We’re weak.

Realizing I was eyeing David like a lion eyes a gazelle–hungrily–I looked away and dug my nails into my palm and tried to pay attention to David who still spoke.

“Auric had a talk with me before he left.”

“About?” I knew I didn’t want to hear this and wondered if I stuck my fingers in my ears and hummed if David would get the point and go away.

“He was afraid that you’d be forced to use your powers while he was gone. He told me how you need to replenish your magic, through sex. He didn’t just leave me behind to guard you, Muriel, he left me behind to act a surrogate for him in case you needed to fill your magic back up.”

I shook my head. “No. He just wants me to get used to the idea of having a threesome to get rid of the spell in my head. There’s no way he’d want me to betray him by sleeping with his best friend while he was gone. You’re lying.”

“It’s precisely because I’m his best friend that he asked me. I know you love him and he loves you. But your power needs sex. He asked me to give it to you while he was gone if you needed it.”

I wanted to scream he lied. I wanted to tell him to get out. But I knew he told the truth. Auric had pretty much said it in not so many words when he’d left me, on purpose I now realized. “Put some clothes on.” I demanded.

“Why?” asked David stopping to stand in front of me, his cock half erect in a nest of blond curls.

I licked my lips and fought a temptation to lean forward and touch it. My magic, like an alter ego, struggled within me, as I fought the arousal flushing my body. I bit my lip hard, tasting blood and turned my face. To my shame, I felt hot tears run down my cheeks. I hated what my magic was doing to me to me. I loved Auric. I wanted to wait for him. I had to be stronger than the magic. I couldn’t give in. “I just can’t. Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to bed.” With heavy limbs, I dragged myself to the bathroom to change into some night clothes. My energy sapped body screamed at me to get some sex, some stimulation, anything, but I found myself too mentally and physically exhausted to listen. A t-shirt and shorts felt confining compared to my usual sleep wear–nothing at all–

I clambered into the gigantic bed, alone.

Tears of betrayal leaked from my eyes and soaked my pillow. Auric might be convinced we had to betray what we had, but I’d show him it didn’t have to be that way.

I’d be strong and resist and when he got back, we’d look for another way to cure me. A way that didn’t involve another man.

* * * *

The dream started as it usually did–with me alone in Hell. Where it changed was how long the pain went on. I could feel my body being shaken. I could hear someone calling me. But the pain held me prisoner. I writhed and screamed with it, wishing I could die. Then I felt comforting arms wrap around me. Holding me tight. Auric had returned.

He’d saved me from my nightmare. I snuggled into the safety and warmth of his arms and body, the memory of the agony slowly receding. When I stopped whimpering and shaking, I took a deep breath and smelled… David, not Auric.

Horrified, I tried to push out of his arms, but he tightened his grip.

“Shhh. Calm down, Muriel.”

“Why are you holding me?” I asked indignantly.

“You wouldn’t stop screaming, and I couldn’t wake you up.”

“I’m fine now. You can let me go.” Never mind that it felt almost as nice as when Auric held me. It was wrong.

“Why do you allow yourself to suffer this every night if you don’t have to?”

“I do have to. The alternative is to possibly lose Auric and I won’t do that.”

“But Auric isn’t going anywhere. Don’t you realize how much this is killing him? I hadn’t quite understood how bad it was until tonight. Do you know helpless I felt when I couldn’t wake you and were screaming like that? Can you imagine how Auric feels? And you’ve been doing this to him for what a month now? How cruel are you?” I wanted to say “I’m not cruel, he is,” but the look of horror on David’s face stopped me. How would I feel if it was Auric in unbearable agony? Would I not do anything to stop it? I’d offered my life for his not so long ago to stop him from being hurt. Now all he asked of me was to do something that my body would enjoy, something he approved of and would participate in to save me.

I really disliked middle of the night epiphanies. They made me nasty.

“Just go away, David. I’m not fucking you, so forget it.” I turned on my side and closed my eyes pretending sleep. David sighed loudly, but he didn’t budge.

“You know, Muriel,” he said after a while. “I’m not doing this for the sex. I’m doing this because my best friend is hurting and unlike you, I’d like to see it stop. Let me ask you something?”

“What now?” I growled.

“If you’re dirty, you shower, right? If you’re, hungry you eat. If you’re tired, you sleep. Why is it when your magic asks for a refill you treat it differently than the rest of your bodily needs?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Really,” said David lying beside me on top of the covers. A part of me wanted to peek and see if he was still naked, but I controlled myself–barely. “When the full moon hits, did you know I have to shift and hunt something. And when I say hunt, I mean, I need to find something living and tear into it with fangs until its blood runs down my throat.”

“Oh, that is so gross!” I exclaimed.

“Yes, it is. And it took me years to come to grips with the fact, that it was who I am.

I used to fight it, calling myself all kinds of names, castigating myself. Then Auric came into my life and asked why I fought the nature of my beast? I told him it was gross.

Inhumane. He reminded me I was a shapeshifter, with needs. He also pointed out that the creatures I hunted weren’t weak and that I didn’t torture them needlessly. I went after other aggressive carnivores and when I killed, I did so quickly and with mercy.”

“I’m still not seeing the connection,” I said fascinated in spite of myself.

“You keep equating sex with love and commitment instead of looking at it as a basic need that needs to be met. When you have sex with Auric, sure get all emotional about it.