Restless Demon

[Beswitchingly Positive]

Pain grasped my chest when I found myself standing outside Celia’s apartment. It was not the pain of heartbreak, more like almost drowning. When had I stopped loving her? In the beginning, she was strong, calm and quiet. Back when it was good with her, we fucked every night. When did I start feeling smothered?

After quitting my job, I got mixed messages from her; she became a friendly cat that suddenly bites. Never yelling, she brooded over her writing more and more; it was her way of quietly panicking. I knew she was angry at me, but she wouldn't say why; she just glared. Breathing around her had become difficult.

Finally out, I breathed deep. I had wanted to leave for weeks. I was, momentarily, free.

I wished I was really free, like the mad millionaire who lived in the mansion on the corner. He wanted for nothing. Loved by many, the neighborhood girls called him Papa. Lean and muscular in his advanced years, he was handsome and capable. He did all of the maintenance on his property. Crazy old guy, he climbed all over the roof of his house, shouting at people in the street, captain of his own ship. I had watched the old man, studied him. He never seemed to pass up an opportunity, women threw themselves at him. He had lots of money and young girlfriends.

I didn't leave Celia without thought. I wanted something different.

The summer heat settled in. For months, I existed in a damp sweat. No matter how much deodorant I wore my clothes would stink of sweat in a few hours. Tempers rose with the temperature; crime was at an all time high. The heat was driving the town mad. Celia refused to run the air; she was paying the bills. I suffered.

When the power blacked out for good, we lost the option of air conditioning. I had no money to go out with. I felt stuck. I had her to stare at in the evening; instead, I took to staring at the walls. I would catch her glaring at me every now and then, in the candle light, looking up from the book she was reading. Without a word she would close the book, give me a look of sad resolve, and proceed lock herself in her room.

There was no more mention of sex. Celia had been rabid for my cock when we got together. I have to admit, sex with her was the best. She did everything. Tirelessly sucking my cock, she handled my stuff better than any girl I had been with. At first I thought she was too rough, grabbing and pulling on my cock and balls. It scared me at first. She was right though, once I relaxed, her aggressive grip became pleasurable. Every way imaginable, Celia had expertly extracted ounce after ounce of my fluid, making me come several times a night.

As the summer dragged on, she stopped touching me. If I tried to touch her, she reacted by flinching. Next, she stopped speaking to me, only answering direct questions.

She was driving me crazy, I could not stay another day.

Celia locked herself in her room one night. I listened to her chanting in the dark. After the third night, I had to ask.

“What were you doing?”

Her intense green eyes held the light of madness; her voice had a hint of old certainty.

“Protecting the block. There are demons out there. Don’t go out, Mateo, please.”

“I’m not going out.”

Sadness and worry made her face lumpy and ugly. Part of me wanted to comfort her, but most of me wanted to run. There was no use arguing with her. I could not reach out to her. Every time I thought I should, I froze.

At first, I didn't go out. Scattered announcements on the radio warned of gang warfare, looting, and out of control fires. The city was in chaos. It was hard to believe just a few miles away people were shooting at cops and rioting. Our block was quiet; it seemed perfectly peaceful. The gunfire sounded distant. Few cars passed.

During the day, Celia talked to the neighbors. She knew everything that was happening out in the badlands. I knew what she told me, which wasn’t much. I quit asking, after she stopped talking. I could not bring myself to talk to the neighbors. My imagination was sure she was telling everyone what a worthless, jobless, waste I was.

I could not talk to her. I realized I had no friends here.

The last night, I listened to Celia chanting again. The incense smoke was seeping out the cracks of dim light that framed her door, saturating the apartment with an sharp smell. Demons or not, I was itching to go out.

Moving as in a dream, I dressed in my favorite jeans and a dark shirt. I packed a small bag: change of clothes, toothbrush, razor, comb, hair gel, extra socks. I took a bottle of water for the walk. I was going downtown, to find a job in the cold air and electric light. It wasn’t more than five miles away, not a long walk. Not afraid exactly, still, I wished I had a gun. All the weapons were in Celia’s room; they were all hers anyway. I slipped on my boots and took a deep breath. I knew there was only one way to save myself.

I quietly stepped out the front door. Turning her key for the last time, it felt final. I knew I would never go back.

Sneaking down the creaky stairs took me to the courtyard. The pain in my chest slowly lifted. The sky was clear and moonless; a thousand stars twinkled approvingly at my escape. I crept down the alley, feeling my way in the pitch black, making it to the iron gate that led to the street. Opening it slowly, the creaky metal metal hinges yeilded, for once, quiet as a robber. I was out. Heart pounding, I let my eyes adjust to the wicked dark before proceeding. Celia’s chanting faded into the night; I walked away.

Fast and quiet, the dark swallowed me. Putting blocks between myself and that crazy witch, I breathed easier. I could see dark outlines of houses and trees, could hear occasional gunshots in the distance. I was fully prepared to duck into a shadow if I heard a person, or a car, coming close. There was no need. I saw no living soul that last dark walk.

Not until I made the mistake of stopping.

I almost made it to the part of town that still had street lights.

Stopping to have a smoke, I’ll never forget my longing, looking toward the distant, hazy glow of electric light. That’s when I spotted movement on a rooftop, up the street. My eyes caught the dark form, pacing on all fours along the horizontal peak of the roof. It slinked, like an animal.

My mind grappled with itself, trying to name what I was seeing. It moved like a huge black...shadow cat? Looking like a dark tiger, pacing in fast forward, it was unnaturally fast. Taking a good portion of the length of roof, it must have been the size of a large wildcat. The movement was sleeker, more fluid than any beast of this earth.

The ‘cat’ stopped it’s rapid movement and abrubtly sat on it’s haunches, at the point of the roof closest to me, still as a statue.

Skin crawly with shiver and tingle, I felt eyes on me. It was watching me. Holding my breath, I did not want to lose sight of that still, dark form.

I stared. I saw a sudden flicker of dark movement come out from behind it. Looked like flexed its...oh god, wings?

Fuck, suddenly, I was missing Celia. Having no where to run, I stood, frozen in the dark.

I watched as it turned and resumed that menacing walk more slowly. Becoming barely a shadow in the dark, at the center of the roof line, it vanished. Did it pause and look back at me before it disappeared? Blinking, I strained to see it again, wishing I had not seen it at all.

“You saw it too.”

A voice in the dark behind me at that moment should have scared me out of my boots. Instead, I felt an unreal calm, like a hand at my back urging me on. I turned away from the misery of fear to behold a woman of unearthly beauty. The contrast was unreal.

Her voice was sweet and syrupy; low without being masculine at all. I turned to see a face that matched. My heart hurt; her skin looked so soft. She glowed pale in the dim light, like a porcelain doll with a translucent, velvety finish. No more than five foot four, her full, curly, dark hair gave her the illusion of another inch or two. Even in the dim light, I could see that her lips were full and red. It was hard not to stare at her full breasts, heaving with quick breath, as if she had been running.

A glistening drop of sweat rolled from her neck down into her cleavage. She shook her hair like an animal, drawing me back to her face. Big dark eyes pulled me closer, I moved without thought. I matched her hushed tone when I finally remembered to speak.

“Saw what?”

Her voice was unsteady; I could almost see her shaking. What else could I have said?

“I thought I saw something running on a roof top, two blocks up. I was watching from my window; I saw you walking. When you stopped, I thought you were watching it too.”

“No, just stopped walking to smoke.”

I held out the stump of the cigarette that had gone out in my hand as burnt evidence. I did not want to admit I’d seen it. I lied to her without thinking; now it was too late. It was a mechanism. Didn’t want to scare her.

She smiled small and tight.

“Have you been walking long?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where'd you come from?”

“I don’t want to talk about it, doesn't matter.”

“Where you going?”

“I don’t know, toward the lights, to find a job.”

She fidgeted; it was a nervous, awkward movement. It made her look hungry.

“Are you okay?”

She considered my question for a minute before responding.

“ No, I am not okay. I’m scared. I thought I saw something out there. I want to ask you to come home with me. I don’t even know your name.”

She lowered her face, hiding a shameful blush. “My brother went out three weeks ago and hasn’t come back. I’m scared to be alone again tonight.”

Looking up at me once more, I fell into the chasm of her dark eyes.

“My name is Mateo. I’ll look after you tonight; the lights will still be there tomorrow.”

She smiled gratefully, it seemed.

I followed her, suspecting no evil.




She led me to a huge brick house. It loomed, a quiet fortress, all shutters shut tight. Like everything else in this part of town, it was dark.

We entered through a tall, solid, wood door. She bolted it shut behind us. A few candles lit the long hallway just enough to see a path flanked with several heavy, old doors. Aged hardwood creaked under my feet as we walked the corridor. There was nothing unusual about the place, except the smell. I caught a faint, floral scent and started to inhale deeply. By the end of my breath, I was gagging.

Her house smelled like flowers, on top of dead rats.

She turned to face me as I grimaced at the perfume of death.

Smiling, she closed in. I felt like an actor in an dimly lit black and white film as she reached out to touch my arms. Flinching, my heart froze with the contact. Her hands were so cold it shocked me. Where I expected heat, I found ice.

That’s when I felt the blinding, shattering pain.

What a quiet gun, was my thought. My head rocked back on my neck; I fell slowly to the ground. Everything went black.


Waking, I found that I was strapped, standing against what felt like a cold, damp, cement wall. My wrists were held straight out from my shoulders, ankles bound far apart from each other. I was somehow attached to the wall. My head was held in such a way that I could not turn any direction, locked straight ahead.

I could not think. My heart wanted to pound but felt sluggish. Maybe I had brain damage. Focusing my eyes was not possible. A sound invaded my stupor, seemed like footsteps of an animal with long toenails, clicking on the floor. I saw blurry, dim light flickering around a dark shadow. A huge creature moved at the far side of the room. My head hurt only faintly; a numb fuzz clouded my sight. The form was coming towards me. Something about the way it moved; it was wrong. I swallowed cotton and sandpaper.

It shrank down to sexy girl shape as it approached me. Strange, how the perspective was reversed, her form getting smaller as it got closer, blocking less and less of the light. I still did not know what she was. I shrugged it off as a trick of the shadows.

“Poor Mateo. “ She cooed at me, teasing.

The scent of flowers filled my head as she put her face next to mine. I inhaled deeply, powerless to do anything but breath. It was an exotic aphrodisiac, her musk and proximity. I drifted into a hazy approximation of reality. Turned on was better than terrified.

She must have stood on a chair to be eye level, or she had grown taller. What had knocked me out? Who had helped her move me, and trap me like this? I remember such thoughts, logical, worldly thoughts.

Feeling her cool body gently press against me made me realize I was naked. I shivered. What had she said to get me here, "I am scared. I don’t want to be alone." Now, I was scared.

Not warm or human feeling, her icy hands were gentle. Frigid fingers worked their way along my arms, under, tickling a little on the way to my chest. She caressed me like a lover, lulling me into thinking this might be all right, after all.

Defying fear, my meat stirred as her hands explored my restrained form. She ran her nails down my chest to muscled belly, pulling the hair softly, barely scratching. Working her way down, I felt soft palms pressing on my growing erection. All I managed, in my bound state was a small, pathetic, thrusting movement and a whimper that came involuntarily at her hands. I pushed my cock toward her.

While her fingers were frigid, her palms were unnaturally warm. My cock grew quickly clasped between them, the focus of her hot prayers. She warmed the length of my shaft; pulled me to full attention. One hand on my cock, icy fingers and hot palm, she stroked me. The other hand cupped my dangling, exposed testicles, warming them.

I could not help thinking of eggs under a warm hen, life growing from ugly fetus, to wet stringy baby chick inside. Her hand grew hot and my balls started to ache.

That was when I realized I didn’t even know her name.

“Please, stop, Ma’am. Lady. Something's wrong with my head. What is happening? Fuck, I don’t even know your name.”

Suddenly she moved away, stepping back where I could see her. My vision cleared just in time.

“Look around. You are my prisoner.”

My head became free to turn, as if she had cut an invisible string without moving. I could feel no device, but there was a sickening, wet tickle on the back of my neck.

The room was a torture chamber, complete with racks, ominous tables, and devices designed to drive a man mad. Candles were ensconced randomly on moldy stone walls that seemed unsettlingly out of place. The dim light showed me too much.

I turned to look at her. Her porcelain skin that I liked so much was turning a sickening black.

“You will never know my true name.”

That’s when I saw the flickering, flexing movement behind her still form. Before I lost my mind, I tried desperately to remember Celia’s chants. My chest tightened up. I could hear the sing song sound of Celia’s voice as the dim light of my prison was eclipsed by large, dark wings.