Welcome to "
The End of the Affair
" writing event. This is our annual St. Patrick's day collection. Thanks to the wonderful writers who contributed stories for our enjoyment and entertainment. They wrote to the theme, met the deadline, and as a reader, I am grateful. Thanks to you, the readers, who give us your attention. I hope you enjoy the stories.
Thanks to my team. Harddaysknight is my mentor and gives me critical review. SBrooks103x also gives me a pre-post read. My editors are Hale1, Hooked1957 and GeorgeAnderson. Thanks to Stev2244 for reading for me and to the hommies at Specific Indefinites for their input.
I got the idea for this story from a cartoon I saw by Hannah Daigle. In that cartoon, a man was depicted wearing a t-shirt that said, "I fucked the Demon Queen of Hell and all I got was this bastard child." Holding the man's hand was an adorable little demon girl wearing a little blue dress with the words, "I love my dad," on it. It was cute and sad and made me cry. There is a pathos there that hit me different. So, here's how it happened...
Evocation is something that should only be attempted by tenth level, or above. I guess only being an eighth level Santeros should have been my first clue, but I'd always been into pushing boundaries. It seemed pretty easy: The Greater Key of Solomon was open in front of me and I had all the right signs, reagents, and the glow from the mushrooms I had eaten pulsed through me like the flashing of a strobe. I spoke the binding and there was a pulse of red flame.
The flame was accompanied by smoke or fog of the same shade: deep ruby-red, and there she was. She was stunning, everything you would expect from a demoness. Her hair was the first thing I noticed. Curls, ringlets, in wild disarray, yet perfectly ordered, wet, flowing down around her to the tops of her thighs and over her butt. The second thing I noticed was that she seemed to have just stepped out of the shower.
She had a white fluffy towel wrapped around her and was in the midst of fluffing up that hair with another. Then there was that face. She was dusky. Not black, not white, sort of a creamy light-brown, like she had a really dark tan, but you could tell it was natural for her. Who knew that demonesses spent time tanning?
The face, it was what fashion models tried to achieve with surgeries, but this was real. Broad high forehead, her eyes seemed to be amber-colored. Who has amber-colored eyes? They were almost orange. The thing that was a little disconcerting was that her pupils weren't black; they were the same ruby-red as the flame and the smoke had been. They were elongated, tilted up at the outside corners and her lashes were the longest I had ever seen.
Her cheekbones were high above faint hollows, her jawline strong and tapering to a pointed chin, giving her face a heart shape. Her lips were... perfection.
I wanted to continue looking at her for years, just looking, but she spoke. "What have you done, little human?"
I found myself unable to speak. Not from any compulsion, she had just taken my reasoning ability by the way she looked. Her natural pose was like those "Instagram models" who always arch their backs and puff out their lips like they're waiting to be kissed. She was naturally like that. My brain was numb.
"Are you mute?" she asked.
I stirred from the paralysis she had induced in me. I tried to speak, but all that came out was a croak. I cleared my throat. "No, I speak. I was having trouble thinking there for a minute."
She cocked her head to one side and raised one immaculate eyebrow. "Really? Why?"
"Umm... well, I wasn't expecting you," I finally managed.
She laughed, and the sound was both enchanting and sinister. "First time?"
I nodded. "Yeah, I..."
"What were you expecting?" she asked.
"I wasn't sure you'd be female, or so... beautiful, or even vaguely human."
She laughed again. "You must learn to be more specific, little human. That was quite a powerful summoning you worked."
She had these perfectly formed little feet, but suddenly they became hooves and she flashed through half a dozen body forms, from the absolutely terrifying to grotesquely bizarre. When she returned to the original form, she was minus the towel, and I once again became unable to speak.
She threw back her head, all that hair cascading, and laughed. I shivered a bit because I noticed that her teeth were perfect, except for small fangs. "This is my basic form," she said. "Would you prefer another? Up here, little human."
My eyes, which had been locked on her breasts, traveled up where she was pointing to her face. "No... no, this one is good," I managed.
"Why have you summoned me?' she asked. "You know I'm going to kill you for that."
I wanted to run. "Is that allowed?" I was putting on a brave front.
She laughed again. "Do you think you can stop me?"
"Yes, I'm pretty sure I can. I think you're bound and have to do what I say."
She cocked her head again. It was a very cute gesture. Hell, everything about her was cute. Well, "cute" might not be exactly the right word, but she was that, too. Stunningly gorgeous and terrifying was a better term.
"You were explaining..."
I cleared my throat again. "Umm... I hadn't really thought this through. I didn't know I could really do it. You were sort of an... experiment."
"I see. So, you are young, you are a fool and you have no clue. Do I have that right?"
"Yeah, I guess that's about right," I grinned at her. "Cheeky bastard, aren't I?"
"Very. Do you intend to keep me standing here, or do you have something else in mind? I know I make a nice decoration, but are you going to be hospitable, or just have a nice demoness statue?"
"Oh, sorry. Would you like to sit down? Something to drink?"
"Umm, you have to invite me out, and what do you have?" she said.
"Oh, right. You're not going to kill me if I do, right?"
She looked at me speculatively. "Not immediately, no."
"Please, make yourself at home," I said, gesturing toward the rest of my house.
"Thank you," she said. She held out her hand and I helped her down off the altar. Somehow, I suspected she didn't need my help. I doubted she had ever needed anyone's help.
She looked around. "Nice place," she said. It was pretty nice, I thought. It was spacious, I had nice art and the furniture was comfortable.