9 comments/ 48848 views/ 72 favorites Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 01 By: Galloglaich Tom wasn't a very special student in the Shelby County Schools system. Average grades, average height and weight, no sports besides two years of track sophomore and junior years. He wasn't the president of any clubs, or even in one. Hell, he barely even talked to anyone outside of the teachers when they asked him questions. Tom sat boredly in his US Government class and listened quietly to what Mr. Brommor had to say about the Supreme Court case Miranda vs Arizona and about Miranda Rights and his personal run-in with their workings. Truthfully, what he was saying would have been interesting if Tom hadn't been thinking about his Criminal Justice II homework. During a particularly long-winded part of the story about how long he had to wait in interrogation, Mr. Brommor was interrupted by a phone going off rather loudly. It took Tom a few moments to realize that it was his phone, the important one. His personal cellphone was in his backpack somewhere, but his work phone in his jacket was going off like a siren. He took it out and Mr. Brommor motioned for him to bring it up to the front. "You know the policy," the teacher said. "Give it here." "Sorry, I've gotta take this. It's a call from work." Tom pushed the answer button and had a short conversation with a guy from work before hanging up and starting to pack up his stuff. It looked like he could get away with just leaving until Mr. Brommor stood up. "Bring me the phone, Tom," he said, in a demanding tone now. Tom sighed. "Look, Mr. Brommor, I need my work phone on me at all times. I'm on call twenty-four seven and I can't just not go in to work. I'm really sorry, but I have to go. I'll come by early tomorrow and get whatever I missed today. I gotta go." Tom started for the door, and Mr. Brommor warned him, "I'm writing you up for insubordination. That's one day of OSS right off the bat, Tom." "Okay, if I don't get myself downstairs in about three minutes, my boss is gonna write me up for insubordination, and I won't just get fired, alright? I'm sorry, but I'll get my boss to call you and explain things, alright? Alright, bye." Tom left the room and hurried down the hallways to the stairwell, where one of his co-workers was coming up to find him. They met half way and Tom groaned at the look on Harvey's face. Something bad had happened, Tom was sure of it. "Greg isn't happy with you. He called you twice today before you picked up." "What do you want me to do? I already said that all my stuff is in a gym locker during fourth period. That's twelve to one guys, you know not to call me then," Tom said in his defense, as if Greg would care at all. "Greg has the file on this one," Harvey said, adjusting his tie a bit. "What a surprise. Is it just you and Greg, or did he bring the whole posse down here to get me?" "It's just us this time. Everyone else is handling the situation," replied the stoic man. Tom's brow raised. "It's that bad? What, did three oh one thirty get sent back?" Tom hoped to God that his joke wasn't the truth. He truly did not like it when three oh one thirty came around, even if it was just a fleeting meeting. "Impressive. We might just have to switch you to the thirteenth division if you keep that up," Harvey joked, his voice as serious and monotone as ever. Tom groaned with almost exaggerated contempt. Almost exaggerated. Three oh one thirty was his second case subject, and she wasn't one that anyone would take freely. It had been a joke to give him the assignment, well, not really a joke. It was more akin to hazing for a fraternity than a joke. The pair walked into the main office where Greg was busy trying to work something out with the office attendant to let Tom get checked out of school early. There were a couple problems with his method though. "I'm sorry," repeated the office worker. "But if you're not on his emergency contacts list, and if you're not blood related to him or a spouse of someone who is, I can't let you check him out. That's how it works. And I really couldn't do that anyway because work isn't a reason for absence." Greg shook his head and pulled out his badge. "Ma'am, I'm with the United States Department of Internal Affairs. Thomas Lanzig is coming with me. We'll have someone come up here later to explain the situation, because the last time we did it, you didn't seem to realize that we were serious." Greg turned around and didn't say another word as he handed Tom a hastily written excuse note and a manila folder with several papers in it and clipped at the top with two paperclips. He, Tom, and Harvey left the school and got into a black sedan without any confrontation from the school staff or anyone else around. "Fuck Greg, you don't have anyone else who can get this one? I've already taken care of this one twice," Tom whined in utter futility to his boss as they pulled out of the school drive. "It would make you an expect on the subject. Three oh one thirty hasn't been calmed down since we got her back in two days ago. She's-" "Yeah, yeah," Tom interrupted. "She's been with us for two days and hasn't shut up or calmed down any since she got here. I get it, I can read the file. But why the hell did you pull me out of school for this? Isn't there anyone else that can do this. I mean, Harvey could do it, right?" He turned to his friend for affirmation, but the man just shook his head. "No," he said. "I wouldn't go near that case if I got Greg's job to do it. I'm not touching that one; that's all your business." "Fuck me," Tom said to nobody in particular as the sedan blew through a stoplight that suddenly turned green after turning yellow. "Just deal with it, Thomas," Greg said, annoyed. "That's why we hired you; you're not good at it, but you're one of the few that can do this job. And that's enough complaining out of you, or I'll give you thirteen twenty-two on top of this one." "She's back too? Fuck, did everyone lose their minds this month?" "Something's got them unhappy and dangerous. You know the drill, so just do your job." Greg went silent, and that was all he needed to do to assure that the conversation was over. Tom looked over the case file, pretty much the same one as last time except this time she hadn't killed anyone. Yet. Based on the information, she was giving the narcotics and medical workers a difficult time. The drive wasn't long, and the three Internal Affairs agents entered their stationed regional headquarters without so much as a sideward glance from the security guards. As simple as the place seemed, it was really a mess of parking garages, conference rooms, cells, and a maze of hallways underground. They went down a lift and then passed through a few hallways to a conference room for assignments that were taking place inside the facility. Tom sat down next to two other agents who were being debriefed and about to leave. He only caught the end of their debriefing before the director dismissed them and took Tom's case file. He rifled through it for a few seconds before sliding it down the table to Greg. He took off his horn-rimmed glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose wearily. "Her again?" he asked. "This is the third time in three years. What's wrong with this one?" "It's not just her, sir," Greg replied. "There's something wrong with several of our repeats recently, namely their timing. Something has them stirred up." The director took a sip from his glass of scotch and shook his head. "It's always something with these damned demons. The equinox is coming up, the eclipse, sunspots, planetary alignments, seasons changing. I've even heard 'it's just that time again' from three oh one thirty. Find out what it is and make sure we know how to fix it." "Yes sir," Greg said as he stood to leave. "And you," the older man said, direction his attention and the tip of his glass toward Tom. "Don't screw up. Dismissed." "Yes sir," Tom said as he left with Greg and Harvey. They made their way down a few hallways to a corridor that was empty except for the cell at the very end. Not a bad cell, pretty comfortable actually. A bed for two, and bathroom, sofa, table, chairs. It was more like a little apartment than a detention cell for non-human lawbreakers. However, she had torn herself a new playpen again, as the director had put it the first time. Most of the furniture was scattered all down the hallways in pieces, and a number of narcotics and medical agents were retreating back toward the exit, with just a few leaving unscathed. It looked like half a division had been down here just for one demon. "Get the fuck out! Everyone! No more of those damned shots! I'm not calming down until I get someone willing to-" The demon stopped mid-sentence as she tossed an agent in a lab coat out of her cell. She sniffed the air with an acute sense of smell before turning her attention directly at the trio heading her way. "Aw hell," Tom groaned. "Take it one step at a time, rookie," Greg said. They got about three quarters of the way to the cell before the last of the agents were behind them and safe. At that point, the demon started walking toward them. "Alright, that's far enough," declared Greg, pulling out his gun. Harvey already had his leveled with the demon's head. She stopped short of the trio and narrowed her eyes. "Alright, but don't send in any more of those freaks with needles and drugs. I'm tired of that. I want a real man to come in here and satisfy me like I deserve." "Well, we've brought the one you like, so just go back to your cozy little cell and he'll be right there. Otherwise, we're gonna have to shoot." Greg nodded for Tom to walk forward, and he did so reluctantly. At the sight of him, the demon's gaze lightened and she and retreated back into her cell. Tom, thought reluctantly, went in a short while after her and Greg closed the door, locking it quickly thereafter. That left Tom alone with Ceria, better known as three oh one thirty. Greg suddenly passed a few papers between the bars on the door and Tom took them with a despondent look on his face. Greg told him to buck up, but Tom just shook his head and turned back toward the demon locked away in the cell with him. She sat on the edge of the bed, legs spread and smirking at him. Tom tried to ignore the growing arousal at just a glance at her. It was her power to seduce him, nothing more. Well, that's what he hoped anyway. "Alright...shit, you threw all your chairs out, didn't you? You know those cost money, and all the guys and girls you threw around, it costs money to fix them up? And it takes money to keep you in line and give you everything you need to be a functioning part of society at large. It's not cool to trash this place and expect us to take care of you." Tom stopped himself and for going any further and set the papers down on the table. "Don't you want to get over here and give me what I want?" She snaked her hand down between her legs and rubbed her core with a moan. "Well, first we have to go through some of the formalities. I've got some papers here you need to sign, so come over here and get this done," Tom said, setting a pen down on the papers. Ceria stood up and sashayed her way over to the table, leaning over to show off her ample curves as she filled out the form. It was everything Tom had hoped against, but it wasn't surprising. She identified as a Type A, which meant she was violent, Category 2, which meant she had sexual desires to be satisfied, Class 3, which meant that she was dominant, and a frustration level of 8, which meant that she wanted a sexual partner immediately. "You're gonna get it this time," she said, biting her bottom lip teasingly as she wrote down a few more things and took the survey on the second sheet of paper. After she was done, she walked around the table and came face-to-face with Tom, grinning widely. "Strip," she commanded. "You could at least be a little less demeaning about it," Tom complained, removing his jacket and shirt and tossing them onto the table. Ceria tapped her foot against the floor impatiently as he started with his belt and dragged out the motion intentionally, causing the demon to give him a little push in the right direction. Well, a push to the floor. "Damn it, when I said I wanted to fuck, I meant I wanted to fuck!" she growled, yanking Tom's pants down his legs and tossing them against the opposite wall. She did the same with his boxers and slid herself up his body so her hips were riding his. "Ceria, take it easy, alright? I know you're unhappy, but if you wear me down, then I won't be able to help you at all," Tom warned, seemingly to little effect. They both knew that it was a lie. Ceria decided to forgo any semblance of foreplay and dive straight into sex, grinding their sexes together until he was completely seated within her. He groaned and she hissed with delight. "You've got something special about you, or else they wouldn't have gotten you into this business. You're like those old demon-lovers who used to imbue themselves...you don't even know what I'm talking about, do you?" "No," replied Tom as he bucked his hips up and caused Ceria to bite her bottom lip again. "But it doesn't matter to you, does it?" She replied, "Not in the slightest." "I didn't think so," Tom grunted, managing to get his sandals off. He propped his hands against the wall behind him and lifted the two of the off the ground and into a standing position. Ceria didn't seem to care, as she wrapped her legs around his waist and drove herself against him like she was in heat. He wouldn't doubt that demons went into heat, as strange as they were already. Tom managed to get her to the table without much trouble and she relinquished her grasp on him with her arms, favoring the table with her hands clamped on its edges instead. She smiled up at him cunningly, biting her bottom lip in a sexy, teasing manner, as if still trying to seduce him. "Come on, not going to give me some of that good, hard fucking you did last time? I'm awfully lonely down here. Why don't we cuddle and get-" "You have a really big mouth, Ceria, you know that? God, you talk so much, and nothing you say is even arousing in the slightest," spat the government worker, shaking tempting thoughts from his head. Ceria folded her arms over her chest, much to Tom's disappointment, and pouted. "That's not what you said last time, when we were already in the throes of passion, hips grinding, breath hitching with every movement, wanton lust filling the air..." Tom growled, "Do you even shut up for more than a minute at a time? You act like I like you or something. Jesus, why don't you just leave me to my own thoughts. I'm in the hot seat because of your little hissy fit earlier." "Just keep pumping. You don't get to cum until I do, remember that funny little bind?" "Yeah, and it sucks dick to have it," Tom muttered under his breath. Unfortunately, Ceria's impish grin grew wider and she unlocked her legs from his waist. Confused, Tom stepped away for a moment and Ceria slithered off the table like a belly dancer and dropped to her knees. "Speaking of sucking dick..." she teased, giving his swollen arousal one long lick from base to head. "I could really go for a nice bit of boy screaming in frustration about now, wouldn't you?" She flashed him a devious look. Tom sighed, and made the motion for her to go away. "Shoo demon, it's not going to do what you think. I don't feel anything, go ahead and see." The demon tested his words, and engulfed his cock with her lips, going all the way down to the base and looking up at him for any sign of pleasure or discomfort. Tom just folded his arms across his chest. "Hmm-hmm?" the demon asked, arching a brow. "Nope, nothing." The demon pulled back until she could speak and furrowed her brow deeply. "Mofing? Sheeriushy? Mofing?" "I can't feel anything unless you do. So if you'd be so kind..." He gestured toward the table. Ceria removed herself from him with a clear look of dissatisfaction written across her features. She remounted the table and brought her legs around the small of his back, tugging slightly to get him to move faster. They reconnected and began to find a rhythm once more, Ceria trying to quicken it and get Tom in the mood, his efforts opposite of hers. He didn't like being in here alone with her, especially when she wasn't talking much. Compared to last time, she was quite tame, and far more in control of herself than the first time. Something here was off, but he couldn't place it. "Harder," she demanded, forcing him to buck against her with her legs. He put one hand on the table and another on her knee, running up her smooth thigh. He clamped down and gave her a hard push with his hips, earning a surprised gasp. "Oh, getting into the motion finally?" "In your dreams," Tom replied with another hard thrust against her. She let out a pleased sigh and rolled her hips against him, testing the control he held over his body. He would have given in to her desires if he hadn't been waiting for this. The look in her eyes told him that she was just screwing with him, even as they continued to let their pace rise. Tom didn't notice that he was standing on the balls of his feet, or that he was squeezing Ceria's thigh for that matter. He just felt the legs locked around him, jerking him toward her as he reached the apex of his arc away from her. The demon fondled one of her breasts with one hand and let the other squeeze his tightly. Her gaze never left his face, her ivy green eyes never once straying from his eyes. He avoided her gaze for as long as he humanly could, but curiosity got the better of him and he gave her a glance, as if he could peer into her thoughts by looking at her. And then he was caught. He felt it. Somehow, somewhere deep inside of him her gaze had pulled taut a string of desire and held it there. She gave him a slow, knowing nod and then plucked that string. The thrum of sheer voracious need for a woman was nearly too much for him to bear. He caught himself just inches from her face, propped up on both elbows as they continued to ram their sexes together in a timeless, familiar cycle. "Almost there," she sneered, pursing her lips for a kiss. "I hate you so much," Tom whispered, letting his head rest on the table as his hands balled into fists, a deep pang of regret striking him to the core. The fourth rule here was to never kiss a cell occupant, no matter what the reason. Tom had broken this rule twice, and he'd seen two days in the hospital for each because of it. She was trying to give him two more now. Her lips pressed against his ear and she nibbled on his earlobe, letting a long, hot breath slip between her teeth. It set his body on fire with lust and he squeezed his eyes shut, feeling the urgent need to let her wrap every ounce of him up in her essence and devour it. The agent ground his teeth together and drove himself against her with renewed effort. "Atta boy, give me everything within you," she moaned into his ear, every word dripping with lust. She stopped bothering to touch herself, and instead used her arms to hold him firmly against her body, digging her nails into his back to keep from slipping away. Not that they were going to part for even a moment though. The only thing keeping Tom from locking their lips together and tasting the bliss of complete and total loss of control was the fact that he knew he was being watched. It was standard practice to have at least some form of surveillance on every cell while a situation was being dealt with. And if they saw him give in freely, it would mean just a lot more than a stern lecture and extra training. "I'm so close," Tom begged, knowing deep down that the demon wouldn't near her climax any time soon even if she could make it happen faster. Tom's breath hitched as the demon beneath him made an odd motion and snickered a bit. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 02 Tom let out a frustrated sigh as the case file was almost thrown across the table at him. The Director was furious, but not at him this time. Silently, Tom thanked what little good luck he had that he had an assignment to take his mind off his own anger. Tom was mad about Ceria, and what she'd said to him almost a month ago. It bothered him to no end that she liked nothing more than to seduce him, and then tease him into being a reckless idiot and saying things that she could twist and mold into whatever she wanted. It was so frustrating to even think about her, let alone try to figure out why she kept bothering him. At first, he thought it was actual attraction, from that one look she'd given him behind her smirk in his bathroom. He thought he had seen something like desperation, or hope. But after that, they'd met once, and she had just gotten under his skin with every little thing she could think of, and then left without having actually accomplished anything but pissing him off. She was just fucking with him to amuse herself. The Director, though for a different reason, was angry with Ceria as well. "...this ridiculous folly. She's risking everything we have with Hell right now, which I can't say is more than a very slight peace," the Director snapped to nobody in particular. Everyone in the room, including Tom, was silent. The room was packed full of the higher-ups in the Twelfth and Thirteenth Divisions, and Tom. "Sir, we could call in help from our contacts in Hell. If the situation is really-" "I'm not wasting what little favor we have with our friends down there. That's what the Ruskies did, and look what's happened in Moscow. Three murders by demons in the metro and nobody can do a damned thing, and they know it down there. They fucking know it. Like hell I'm having that happen here. Not when I have other options." The room was so silent that a cough would have sounded like the Tsar Bomba. Nobody wanted to tell the Director otherwise when he swore. He was calm, collective, and he had chosen his words carefully. There wasn't a single soul that was going to tell him that he was wrong, not if they wanted to leave the room alive. After a long, tense silence, the Director sat back down and turned his hard eyes on Tom, who couldn't do anything but look back and wait for him to say something. "You, she's after you now. I don't know what she's trying to do to you, but..." he looked around the room slowly. "Get out." The roomed emptied quickly, leaving only Tom and the Director sitting across from each other. "Sir-" "Let me give you a word of advice, something that you should never forget. She won't let you go, not until you're as broken as the last one that fought her. I don't know what you did to get her so interested in you, but if she's coming back to get you away from us, then you've done something you shouldn't have. Now you'd better call us the next time she even glances at you outside of this facility. Do we understand each other?" Tom nodded. "Yes sir." "You're dismissed. You have your assignment; see to it." "I will sir," replied the agent, and he quickly made his way out of the conference room and down the hall without stopping to explain himself to the sly onlookers that had been waiting outside the door. ------------ Tom was rather surprised to go to someone else's house for a change, instead of having the demon come to his. It wasn't what he was used to, but a two hour drive into the heart of Mississippi had piqued his interest, if just a little. He checked the address on the papers in the manilla folder before he shifted his car into park and opened the door. Well, it didn't look very out of the ordinary, just sort of...unremarkable. For a demon's house, he had expected something a little more. But, looks were almost always deceiving. He shook his head and walked up to the door, feeling the wooden porch sag a little under his feet. Before he could knock, the door opened and before him stood a redheaded woman with a smile on her face. "Can I help you?" she asked, putting a hand on her hip and leaning on the door frame. "Are you Gabriella Klein?" Her smile widened. "I'm surprised you got my name right," she said, stepping back from the doorway to let him in. Tom stepped inside and closed the door behind him. Gabriella was already on her way to the other room by the time he turned around. He looked around for a moment before following her. The front door opened up straight into the living room, where two couches sat in an 'L' shape in front of a large flatscreen television. Four stuffed deer heads, each with over twenty points, hung on the wall behind the TV. It smelled like pine needles and fresh lumber. "You coming or not?" Gabriella asked from the kitchen. Tom hurried into the next room and found her looking through the refrigerator. She pulled out a large pitcher of lemonade and set it on the table in the center of the kitchen. She pointed to the cabinet above the sink. "Get two glasses and some plates for me. I've got some key-lime pie in here somewhere." Tom did as she asked, and had two plates and glasses on the table when she turned around with the pie in her hands. However, the pie was green instead of yellow. She furrowed her brow and then dipped her finger into the pie. She licked her finger and then nodded. "You make green key-lime pies?" Tom asked absentmindedly as she moved around him and got silverware. She gave him a confused look. "You never had a green key-lime pie before?" Tom shook his head. "No, I don't think I have." "Now don't tell me you're afraid to try it. I can feel it that you ain't lookin' at it like it's somethin' you wanna eat," she said, cutting two pieces of the pie and giving him one on a plate. He took a fork and waited for her to cut her own piece. "I read in your case file that you're not looking for sex. What is it that you want instead?" Tom was really confused as to why he'd been sent out all this way to see someone who wasn't at all frustrated, had no sexual needs to be filled, and seemed perfectly content to be left alone. She gave him a look like he was stupid. "Did they not put down that I was a five in frustration and a cat two? God bless 'em, damn kids up there. Well, you can still take care of me, right? I ain't hard to please, just a little frustrated is all." "Sure, and this pie is really good." "Try the lemonade," she said with a smile, flipping her fork around in her fingers. He took a long gulp from the glass and blinked hard as it left a bitter banana taste in his mouth. "What'd you put in this?" he asked, blinking again. "Oh, you know, five parts lemonade, one part morphine, one part rohypnol, one part laudanum..." A wicked grin spread across her face. "And the pie has a little bit of ecstasy in it." "You drugged..." Tom's vision swam and then he saw the table rising to meet him rapidly. Stars danced in front of his eyes for half a second, and then everything faded into darkness. ------------ Tom opened his eyes to the sound of a phone ringing. He raised his head, only to find that something caught at his neck and he couldn't progress any further. He tried to feel what it was, but his hands wouldn't move...or his feet. He'd been trained for a situation like this, but all the hours of picking locks and being taught how to be an escape artist went right out the window. He yanked hard at the thing binding his right hand and heard a hard, loud snap. Something hit him in the head, hard, and it sent stars dancing before his eyes. He took a few moments to collect himself and then rubbed his head with his hand. He paused, and then brought his hand before his face, finding that he was free to move it now. There was a cord tied around his wrist, and the other end was tied to what looked like the knob from a headboard. He looked around for a moment, and everything clicked. He was tied up, naked, spread-eagle on somebody's bed, and he had a hard-on that throbbed with the need to be attended to. He groaned with effort, but couldn't pull his head up past a few inches off the pillow behind him. He reached back, and felt that it wasn't a rope holding his head, but a solid chain that went beneath the bed. A collar was fastened around his neck with a lock at his throat. He yanked with his left arm, but he didn't have the luck he'd had with his right. The headboard held and he remained stuck. He tried his legs, but after looking at them, he realized that the only reason his hands were bound with rope was because the person who'd tied him up had probably run out of chains. He let out a frustrated sigh and visually searched the room for his clothes. Luckily, he saw his phone on the bedside table to his left and rolled over to get it. What Tom realized then was just how much mobility you lose when you can't move your head. As soon as he got half way turned over, the collar pulled taut around his neck and he strained hard against it to get his phone. He growled, and scrabbled across the top of the table with his hand, inches away from his phone and the call that would bring help. He didn't know how long he spent trying in vain to reach the stupid little thing before a hand reached out and plucked it off the table right before his eyes. "Thinking about ordering take-out, are we?" asked the demon, flicking a few stray locks of red hair out of her face. She winked at Tom and put his phone on the table across the room. Then, she returned to the bedside and pulled the rope holding Tom's left arm like it was a guitar string. "Is this part of what you wanted when you said you were a five?" Tom asked. She frowned. "Right, you don't remember. You called me a red-headed cunt and I tied you up. You've been here since the day before yesterday, and quite honestly, I don't know what to do with you. I had a friend come and tell me what it was about you, and we came to the conclusion that you had a very disrespectful mouth." "I what?" "You called me a red. Headed. Cunt. And I don't like being called a cunt. So here we are. I've been trying to think of a way you can repay me for wasting my time, not that we haven't had fun while I've been thinking," she mused, a gleam coming to her eye. She ran her eyes up and down his body, a tension building that Tom didn't enjoy. "And by fun, you mean sex." Tom groaned inwardly at the glance she gave him. "Now that's you're back to your normal self, tell me what you think I should get for you calling me a cunt." The raised her eyebrows, as if telling him she could wait while he thought. His brow knitted and he tried to remember what had happened. He couldn't recall anything past the point of hitting his head against the table right after drinking the drugged lemonade. He thought for a long while in silence, and then did his best to shrug at her. "I don't know. I guess I could do what I originally was called her to do," he offered, hoping that it would be that simple. The contemplated it for a moment, but shook her head. "No, I don't think so. You've already done that. I was thinking something more along the lines of actual work, you know, fixing some things up around the house, getting rid of the wasp nest under my porch, helping me get the truck out of my creek bed, pussy licking..." Tom rolled his eyes. "Look, as much as I enjoy beating around the bush, this is work for me. I can't sit around and wait for you to lure me in, or bait a trap I can talk myself into, or anything else that might treat your fancy. I'm here to fix whatever was wrong with your life. Now if this is part of it, then just tell me so we can get this over with." Gabriella gave him a confused look. "When did you get so mouthy?" "I have a thing about being tied up, okay? I'm not in the best of moods right now either, if you couldn't tell already." He pulled the knob from the headboard, still attached to the rope around his wrist, and looked up at the demon with a shrug. "You're gonna have to fix that, you know," Gabriella said, plucking the cord that held his left hand. Her clawed hand sheared through it like string, and Tom took back control of both his hands, quickly unfastening the ropes from his wrists. The demon reached under the bed and Tom felt slack on the collar at his neck. He sat up and reached out to untie the binding at his ankles, bending forward as far as he could. "That's unexpected," Gabriella said. "What?" "You're pretty limber for a boy, especially a human boy. Just how far can you stretch?" she purred, moving closer to him as she watched. He gave her a glance, but nothing more as he undid one knot, and then the other with no real sense of urgency. He ignored her as best he could as he curled his legs under himself and stretched idly, sore from having his limbs suspended in place for so long. "Where'd my clothes go?" he asked after pondering the question for a moment. "Clothes? Oh, you'll be needing some to go outside. I'll fetch something. Wait here." She left the room and Tom glanced at the table by the door. His phone was still there. He peered out the doorway to make sure she was out of sight and then moved to get his phone. He flipped it open and dialed the number to get the Director on the line. He suddenly realized that the phone wasn't even on, and groaned inwardly as he heard Gabriella returning. He set his phone down and sat back down on the bed, kicking himself for being so gullible. She'd set the phone near him just to tease him. Something blue wrapped around Tom's head and he pulled it off him, finding a pair of denim overalls in his grip. He put them on and followed Gabriella out onto the back porch. She pointed out to a wide creek bed with an ancient-looking truck half-submerged in the water. "That's the truck I want you to move. I can help with my Ram, but it doesn't budge easy. I've got the cables already hooked up to the truck. All we need is to get it up and outta there so I can get these fuckin' snakes out of my yard." "How does that truck and the snakes in your yard have anything in common?" She sighed. "That's where they all go back to at night. It's a breeding ground." And she said it like there was nothing wrong with sending him down there, barefoot, to go push the back of the truck that was supposedly full of snakes. He gave her a look like she was crazy, and she smiled. "You're not serious, are you?" "Well yeah, what else would I...oh, right. Hold on." She left for a minute and then returned with a lighter and a long red stick with a fuse at one end. She handed them to him and then pointed at the truck. "That should scare 'em out." "You want me to blow the snakes out of the truck with dynamite? Are you kidding me? Why don't you go do this yourself?" He held the stick of dynamite out to her, but she shook her head. "Gotta work for your keep, boy. Now go scare 'em out so we can do this. I'll be pullin' the truck around." She went back into the house and left Tom to go down into the snake-infested creek bed to get rid of the snakes. He decided it was better to just do it than to argue and lose and waste his time. Tom made his way through the yard, avoiding the two snakes that decided they wanted to cross his path, and hopped down into the sandy creek bed. Here, he saw two snakes lying on top of the truck, and one wrapped around the steering wheel. The rusty old vehicle's bed was almost completely filled with stale, stagnant water and mud, where Tom guessed most of the snakes were. So, after making sure his exit was clear of snakes, he lit the fuse and tossed the dynamite into the truck bed. Then, he turned and sprinted as fast as he could up the bank of the creek and half way through the yard. The noise was enormous. It was loud, even with his hands over his ears, and he felt his hair being ruffled by the percussion wave that sent the longer grass sideways for a moment. He took his hands away from his ears and heard them ringing slightly. He hadn't gotten far enough away for that. "They gone yet?" Gabriella asked, standing on the driver side seat with the door open so she could see over her truck. Tom looked back at the rusted truck in the creek bed and nodded. He didn't think anything could survive being any closer to that than him. "Yeah. You ready?" "Hook those up to the back of my truck and tell me when to pull!" she said, getting back in the Ram. Tom walked over to the six or seven cables and attached them all to the ball hitch and then hurried down to the truck in the creek. He tried to ignore the fact that snake guts lined the inside of the cab, and that the back half of it looked like a jagged, sharp mess of twisted metal. He took hold of the frame where the passenger side door would be if it had still been attached. "Pull when you're ready!" he called. The cables went taut with tension and the truck lurched slightly forward. Tom pushed with everything he had, and the old truck groaned at the strain. Rusted steel that hadn't been moved in years began to come up out of the mud. "Anything?" Gabriella shouted as the cables went slack. "We're getting somewhere! Keep going!" Tom shouted back. The truck lurched again, and Tom moved a large rock the front axle was caught on. The truck ground its way up out of the water and mud began to slop off the sides and out of the back of the cab. Tom heaved at the rust-orange frame as the junked vehicle began to slide inch by inch forward. Slowly, with much swearing and muscle-working effort, the Ram dragged its ancient cousin out of the creek and into the long grass of Gabriella's yard. By the time it was done, Tom was sweating all over and his arms and legs felt tired and heavy. He sat down on the old hood of the truck, still painted dark gray, and panted tiredly. Gabriella walked over to him and surveyed him briefly. "Just the way I like 'em," she said. "Wha-" Tom felt a hand on his chest and then realized that he was being thrown backwards at an alarming rate. He hit the ground and rolled backwards a few times before coming to a stop on his stomach. It felt like he'd been thrown by the fist of an angry god. He got up wearily and saw Gabriella walking toward him, a grim smile splayed across her lips. "Run little rabbit, run." She bared her teeth at him. It was everything he could do to make it back to the porch. And even then, she caught him at the door and dragged him to the ground. He was so exhausted that even his best fight couldn't have been considered much. She easily ripped the overalls from his shoulders and pulled them down his hips. "Is this what you were going for?" he asked as she rubbed him hard. "I liked it better when you were on the grass, but this'll do. Lay down." Tom laid flat on the porch and Gabriella stripped off her clothes to reveal a pale, curvy body. Tom didn't realize he was staring until she tapped his chin and leaned close to his face. "Blink every now and then, eh?" "Do we really have to do it out here? I mean, I-" She slapped a hand over his mouth. "We do this my way, human. You're here to be with me, not the other way around. I've already had you feisty, so this time I want you tired. Be a good boy and act the part." She ground their sexes together with a moan. "And I'll give you a treat if you're good," she added. Tom wasn't happy, but he let her do what she wanted. Getting a complaint wasn't something he wanted. Complaints were usually rewarded with a lot of talking to, extra hours in training, and unpleasant assignments. He didn't need any of those right now. Gabriella's hips began to rise slowly, and she closed her eyes. Tom was struck by how much she looked like a supermodel ready for a camera to snap her picture. The arc of her hips came down and Tom almost moaned at the intensity of the feel. It had been two months since he'd had sex he could remember. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 02 The demon gave him a short glance and smirked, bringing her hands down on his chest as she put her weight forward. She began to perform the slow arc again, biting her bottom lip teasingly. Nobody would ever know if he kissed her. He could just steal one...or a few, and go on his merry way no worse a man. Her hips drove down sharply and he found himself unable to look away from her eyes. Keen blue orbs stared into his soul, transfixing him where he was beneath her. The breath caught in his lungs as their hips met and his cock received the attention it wanted from her. "Oh the things I could do to you right now," she whispered, giving him a peck on the lips. Her core rose from his throbbing cock and his eyes rolled back. She put a hand to his face to bring him back from the brink. "It feels way too good," Tom admitted. "You're not a regular demon." Gabriella winked. "I'm a succubus. And I've enjoyed playing with you for the past few days. You make such a good toy." She nibbled at his earlobe and let her hips fall again. He groaned as she rose and fell again, fast enough to make a slow rhythm. But it was far too slow to let Tom find anything like a release. "So are you gonna let me go? Or do I have to run every night until you give up trying to keep me here?" Tom half joked. Somewhere, deep in his thoughts, it was what he wanted, for her to chase him and bring him back if he ran. Another piece of him knew that was ridiculous. "Oh nothing that simple. I'll just devour you whole," she replied with a genuine smile, and placed his hands on her hips. He squeezed tightly as she quickened the pace of her hips. The stimulation was incredible. He hadn't ever felt this good. He looked for a way out of this, but all he could find was a pair of blue orbs staring his thoughts into nothingness. Her warm, inviting body called to him, and his body responded in turn. He leaned up and kissed her neck, arching his back slightly as she came down again and again. Her arms found the small of his back and she pulled him upright, hugging her body to his as she pistoned against him slowly. He responded by locking his lips against hers and bucking against her with needy passion. She controlled him, however, and made his force match hers. Her tongue darted into his mouth, and pushed his into submission. He didn't care. He hardly knew what was going on. The warmth of her body spread throughout him, causing his arousal to renew and his hands to grope and squeeze at her rear. She giggled a little, but didn't object in the slightest. She pulled back from the kiss and gave Tom a long, knowing stare. He fought it, as hard as he could, he fought. He dragged his conscious mind as far away from her gaze as he had the power to. But being so tired, and already enthralled and intertwined with the succubus, he stood little chance against her desires. His body simply continued without his mind, mechanically seeking the pleasure that served to wear away his mental faculties. Gabriella had him wrapped around her little finger, and with all his efforts, he couldn't help but feel her pressed to him. Soft, warm skin, so tender and pleasant to the touch. He adjusted her against him and fought every urge to kiss her again. He failed, of course, and soon the were deep in the throes of passion, finding heights of pleasure scarcely found by two bodies locked in the age-old embrace. Soon, however, Tom wore down and the natural need to find an end point became clear. Gabriella looked delighted. "Yes, that's it, find my eyes..." She stared into everything that he was, drinking in everything as if he were a good book reaching its climax. He ground his teeth and they continued to grind and gyrate against each other, neither willing to break the smooth motion that had developed over the course of their intimacy. "I have to-" "Shush now, you don't have to say anything. Just find my eyes and I'll take everything that you can give me," she said soothingly. Tom kept quiet as she commanded and she rode him until it became unbearable for him. He didn't know what to do. His mind screamed for him to stop and to yell at her what was going on, but he couldn't. His mouth stayed shut and his hips kept moving against her sweet, luscious body. Finally, he managed one word to loosen her grip. "Please," he whispered desperately. "You sure can hold on for a long time," Gabriella said, kissing his ear sensually. "But there's no way you can hold out against this one." She wriggled out of his grip and disconnected their sexes. Tom stifled a shriek in pain as she brought her lips down to the tip of his throbbing erection. Slowly, she let her lips conceal more and more of his rigid arousal, until she was at the base. Tom clenched both fists and every muscle in his body tightened. He was so close to cumming. So close. He had never been this close without going over the edge. It was driving him crazy. His jaw clenched as she arched a brow and came back up from his cock. "You should have cum by now," she said, dismayed. She tried it again, but with the same result. Nothing. "What's wrong with you?" "I have a curse," he replied, almost in tears. "Cum already so I can too." Gabriella's eyes widened. "You what?" Tom lost it. He grabbed her by the arms and rolled her under him, pushing into her as he twisted her arms behind her. His entire body trembled as he slammed into her, biting her neck so hard his teeth left red and purple marks on her pale, freckled skin. She screamed, but he couldn't hear her. He was too far gone to listen. "I'm sorry," some part of him managed, even as he hammered away at her body. "How did they know?" she cried, hugging him as tightly as she could. Her body trembled and her voice broke as if wracked with extreme emotion. Something exploded and Tom saw nothing but stars as every part of his body felt a euphoria of pleasure. He could barely register that he was lying on top of a woman, her red hair haloed out around her head. Her blue eyes were lazy, tired from putting so much effort into something that was all for naught. They lay there for some time, neither able to move as their world spun like leaf in a breeze. It was quiet, or at least it seemed so, save for the labored breathing from the two of them. Tom wasn't quite so used to being forced that close to shooting himself. He was glad it was over. Slowly, he dragged his arms beneath him and pushed himself up onto his elbows to the succubus under him could have some breathing room. She glared daggers at him through her blue eyes, but it wasn't enough to scare him. "Your clothes are on the table in the den. Get off me, get out of my house, and don't ever come back," she snarled, throwing him off her as if he weighed as much as a pillow. Tom brought himself to his feet and staggered inside, where she threw his clothes and his phone at him and muttered something under her breath that he couldn't hear. She took the manilla folder that he had brought, pulled two sheets of paper out of it, and found a pen to write with. She filled out the survey and comment section and shoved the papers back into the folder. She pushed it against his chest ad ushered him to his car, slamming her front door as she went back inside. Tom took a moment to catch his breath, and looked at what she'd scribbled in the comment section of the survey. He's a fucking retard, but damn it if he doesn't know how to please a woman. Don't EVER send him back here again. The drive back to the holding center was a good one. Tom couldn't help but grin himself to death as he stopped to get something to eat at Sonic. He'd gotten words of praise from a succubus. A succubus! Someone who's entire purpose it was to have sex had said that he was at the very least, a decent fuck. If he was good in bed, his chance of finding an actual girlfriend skyrocketed exponentially. At the holding center, he parked and made his way to the conference room, meeting Harvey on the way. "You're in trouble," he said, monotone as ever. "What?" "The Director is throwing a fit over you being gone for three days. We were about to send in a recovery team," Harvey replied. Tom stopped walking. "Wait, three days? I was there three days?!" he shouted. "Yes. The Director is going to want to know all the details," the older of the two replied. He adjusted his tie and let out a short sigh. "I'm glad you're back. Greg and I were getting worried we'd have to find a new rookie to pick on." Tom grinned. "It takes more than a stare into my soul to tear me away from the self-torture we all know and love as work," he joked, noticing that Harvey was slowing down to create a space between them. Tom understood. The Director was pissed. When Tom walked in, the first thing he heard was the low muttering of his boss, something sinister and calculating. They were drawing up battle plans, just great. The teen knocked twice and all eyes turned to him for a brief moment before shocked and surprised expressions were passed around the room. The Director ground his teeth and then sipped at his scotch. "Out, everyone. You, get over here," he growled, setting his scotch down with a trembling hand. Everyone filed out as if they'd been waiting for the chance to get as far away from the conference room as possible. On the table were lying several topographical maps of what appeared to be Gabriella's homestead and about a square mile around it. Several coordinates had been marked, lines of fire drawn, timetables, charts, points of entry. They really had been making battle plans! Tom sat down across from the Director and handed him the manilla folder. "Sir, I know this seems bad, but you have to believe me when I say that I had no control over my extended stay on this case," said Tom preemptively in his own defense. "I just want to know what happened," the Director said coolly, retaining a degree of self control that Tom hadn't seen before now. "Well," he began. "I went in and found out that our great friends at the mailing center got the wrong order information from her, so I ended up with a violent, frustrated succubus instead of a passive demon." "I've already found that out. I've already terminated the contracts of the four responsible for this mix-up. They're being trained now for case work," he said, narrowing his eyes. "Continue." "So, as I was finding that out, I had some food she offered me, and some lemonade, which was drugged heavily. I woke up and found myself...well, tied to the bed every which way. I tried to call you guys, but she took the battery out of my phone." The Director snorted. "And the tracking bug." "So then we had a talk and I had to do some odd jobs for her, and she ended up trying to devour me. Fortunately, I'm alive and I quite frankly don't want to know how close I came to being a comatose vegetable in a bed." Tom couldn't shake the good vibe from earlier. It was just too much that he'd gotten a compliment like that from a succubus. The Director mulled something around in his head for a moment before grabbing the folder and skimming through its contents. He tore up the two pages of information about Gabriella and then scrutinized the feedback that she left. His eyes glanced up. "You read this, didn't you?" he said, knowing the answer already. "Yes sir," Tom answered in a meeker tone than he'd meant. "Damn you boy, wipe that grin off your face. You're not a complete waste of our resources, but you're not a very bright investment either. Don't screw up anymore." He slapped the folder down and filed through the large case beside him on the floor. He pulled out a folder and handed it to Tom. "Sir?" "You've got an interesting one this time. Dismissed." "Can't I get a break befo-" "Dismissed," he repeated. Tom nodded and left the conference room. Outside, the two men leaning against the wall directly opposite the door looked up at Tom expectantly. "Well?" asked Greg. "Well what?" Tom replied. "What did he say this time?" Greg asked, clearly interested now that Tom had a new case folder. "He said I wasn't a 'complete' waste of resources, but that I'm still a damn shame to have in this glorious hellhole of an office," Tom replied sarcastically. "He respects you now," Harvey said impassively. "You made it through a tight spot by your own skill. You're not the division squirt anymore." "Let's get something to eat, rookie," Greg said. "I haven't had much of an appetite for the past few days and I'm craving udon noddles and Peking duck." As he and Harvey were walking ahead, Tom noticed the two automatic pistols strapped to Greg's sides, and the bulletproof vest hanging over Harvey's shoulder. "Hey guys, were you two the ones going to get me if I was MIA?" "Maybe if you were worth a few million more dollars," Greg replied, earning a stiff ribbing from Harvey. They both laughed, leaving Tom very confused. Was that a yes, or a no? ------------ "So...uh, how exactly does this work?" Tom was at a complete loss here. He'd gotten home after eating out with Harvey, Greg, and a few other guys from work and seeing Greg off at the airport for his flight to Minnesota with five other agents for a critically frustrated demon. Here at home, Tom had read over the case file, been confused, decided to just wait and see when the case subject would arrive, and then went upstairs to take a long, hot bath. However, upon entering the bathroom, stripping bare, and turning on the water, he found that his newest case subject was already waiting for him. "I'm sorry to have just reached out like that, truly, I am, but I am not very patient today," Sohm said, reaching out to Tom with a strange, semi-solid appendage. "Jesus, just wait a second. I'm not even sure how to go about doing a slime." Tom tried not to think of how she had come to be in the plumbing of his house and come out of the faucet of the bath like normal water, only to solidify right when he was about to get in and scare him half to death. He wasn't proud to admit that he'd screamed like a little girl when a hand reached out of the water and grabbed his wrist like a phantom. "You can just get in," the semi-solid slime said, forcing herself out of the general anatomical ambiguity of the water. She formed a human shape out of the water and sat down on the opposite edge of the tub, crossing her legs so that water pooled at the cleft of her thighs in a little basin. "I'm quite comfortable once you get used to the feeling." "Is it...safe? I've heard the stories about how you digest people when they stay in too long," Tom said, restraining himself from agreeing to the buxom slime's request. If he didn't know any better, he'd have jumped right in and tangled himself up in a hot mess with her. Large, dark eyes, a flowing mass of hair that looked like a waterfall hanging behind her and splayed out in every direction across the surface of the marble corner shelf for bath candles. Wide, curvaceous hips, a very generous bust, slim waist, elegant limbs... "Safe? Hun, you're in more danger of being hurt where you're standing then you'd be with me. Now please, I'm tired of waiting. Can't you just step in and let me coax you into satisfying my every desire and slaking my every hungry thought?" "You know if I die doing this..." "I'm not going to kill you. I just want some company. Being a slime gets a little...lonely. Its hard to make friends at work when you constantly have to consume makeup and color dyes to look like you have a normal skin tone. Clothes are rather hard to keep clean when they get wet and sticky every afternoon." She gestured over toward a pile of wet clothing next to the shower door. "I need you to sign a few things before we start though." He turned to go get the manilla folder, but as he reached the door, both his hands were jerked behind him and he was pulled backward. "If you haven't noticed, there's not a solid piece on this body to hold a pen with. Just come over here and we'll do all that paperwork later. I'm in the mood after seeing that cute behind of yours," she cooed, roping several stringy appendages around Tom's waist and shoulders. She picked him up just enough to get his feet off the ground and then carried him to the tub. She deposited him in the water gently, and he turned his head to look at the slime still sitting on the side of the tub with the little pool of water between her thighs. She idly drew a spiral in the water with her finger, her other hand supporting her chin. "So how do we..." Tom started, but faded quickly as Sohm turned her eyes to his. "I do things to you. You just sit there and prepare to have the time of your life," she replied with a gleam in her eye. She slipped into the water and shifted herself behind him, pulling him up so that he sat in her lap. She plastered her hands to his chest and giggled as the water in front of him bubbled. Suddenly, a large bulbous shape formed in front of his body, rising slowly from the water until it was about the shape and size of a basketball. Then, large gobbets of the shape drained away until a smiling face with dark blue eyes was left staring Tom in the face. "Pretty cool, huh?" Sohm said, from both the new and old body. The new one rose out of the water, just as the other one had, and sat in Tom's lap without warning. He didn't know how it worked being a slime, but he could tell the difference between the water and the demon sitting on his growing cock. "There's two of you?" Tom asked as she adjusted herself on him. "Well, no. Everything you're in is me, but I wanted to put on a little show for you, so I solidified more water and made that. Isn't she cute?" the slime said, watching her twin shift against Tom smoothly. "As much as this would be a fantasy for the next guy, I've got a little problem with foreplay and pretty much everything that isn't procreative intercourse," Tom admitted as the slime reached her hand down into the water and grabbed his hard cock firmly. "Hun, you don't have to worry about a thing. I've stolen a bit of your time so that I could put on a show for you. Now relax and enjoy the nice gooey lap dance." She giggled sensually and the twin shifted again, this time taking Tom's hard arousal and smothering it in a warm, thick liquid. His skin rose at the feeling. This was the inside of a slime. "W-Wow that's incredible," Tom stammered, his cock jumping erratically as the twin rose and fell on slow, heavy arcs. Her insides were like a mass of thick, gooey fluid and Tom felt every little twist and turn her hips made. "I can even make the water inside of me swirl like a funnel. I'll give you a little feel," she whispered, blowing a warm breath into his ear that made the skin on the entire right side of his body crawl. But that was nothing compared to what she did to him beneath the water. Something began to spin around his cockhead like a water funnel, and then it spread down toward his hips. It was like having a girl ride him in every position imaginable. He felt places that he didn't know even existed. He strained at the feeling of her body wrapping around him at every angle, solidifying and latching onto his skin like glue. He swallowed hard as the shifting current squeezed his cock firmly and began to rise and fall slowly. It was like being in a big, living jacuzzi. His hips jerked up at the heavy mass of slime sitting in his lap and she jolted unexpectedly. The twin adjusted her head so she was looking directly at him with her dark blue orbs. She paused for a moment and let the swirling currents die down to a dull flow for a few moments, giving him a quizzical look as she leaned closer. "What're you doing?" Tom asked, turning his head to see Sohm's face. "Oh, nothing. I just wanted to see if you realized that you've been enjoying the inner workings of my body for about ten minutes. You don't even realize how close to feeding me you are, do you?" The twin inched a little closer and raised its arms to Tom's shoulders. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 02 Suddenly, it grabbed his chin and turned his head to face it forcefully. Sohm's twin pressed its face against Tom's and gave him a hard, sloppy kiss on the lips. It kissed him with a tongue that reached the back of his throat, pushing past his teeth without any apparent effort. He lurched back, but Sohm held him there firmly and the current of goo around his cock rose again. His head spun as the slime's hands plastered themselves to his body and stuck the two together. Tom briefly entertained the thought of trying to get out, but he knew it would just be a tiresome, fruitless endeavor. He didn't like being ensnared like this, but what could he do? "I'm gonna try something different, so bear with me here. You'll lose that nice feeling for a few seconds, okay?" Sohm said as sweetly as she could, kissing the back of his neck as her twin melted away into the water. Suddenly, the water level began to drop considerably and Sohm moved out from behind Tom's back, unlatching herself from him like warm putty. She scooted him back against the wall of the tub and maneuvered herself between his legs. The water dropped again, down to Tom's waist. His cock bobbed happily with its head out of the water and waiting for attention from the slime positioned on her knees in front of it. "Sohm, what are you planning?" "Oh, you know, just a little bit of this..." she replied, running her hands down over her breasts. They swelled significantly and she leaned forward, resting herself on Tom's abdomen with her ballooning breasts growing around his cock. "...and a little bit of that." "Sohm, I'm really sorry to break it to you, but I-" His voice caught in his throat as she lowered her mouth to his cock and sucked gently at the tip, rubbing her enormous breasts together around it. His cock stiffened at the immense pleasure that speared through his entire body. He threw his head back and saw stars as his skull struck the side of the tub. "Break your head is what you're doing. Shush and let me do what I do best," she admonished with a smile, giving his cockhead a lick before smothering it again with her breasts. Tom was at a total loss for words. He knew that he was losing the higher orders of his thoughts, trying to piece together something to say or do or ask to find out what the hell she was doing that made him feel so damn good. Whatever she wanted to do right now, she could, so long as she kept him feeling like this. Tom's eyes went wide. "I can't move my arms," he said. "Oh, sorry about that...it's a bad habit I kept from an age ago," Sohm said guiltily. A gooey mess fell away from both of his arms and receded back into the mass that formed Sohm's lower body. She ceased the motion of her breasts and instead ran her hands up Tom's stomach and gave him a shallow grin as she tickled his ribs. "So how long am I getting to bask in Sohm's magnificent glory?" Tom asked, earning him the kind of look one gets for exaggerating too much. "Oh you do know how to get on a girl's good side, boy, but you have no idea the songs that have been woven like blankets to get me to do this for a man. I do like the innocence in your words though. So I suppose that does deserve a little something extra..." Sohm put her hands back on her breasts and squeezed them together hard. Tom swallowed hard and his mouth went dry. Fuck, this was good. Soft and warm, slippery flesh slid back and forth across his cock effortlessly. Sohm had complete and total control over her smooth, practiced motions. And it felt every bit as good as it looked. Tom's body felt warm and he relaxed a bit, letting his guard down despite what the Director had told him about doing so. Sohm seemed nice enough though, and her file led him to believe that she wouldn't hurt him unless provoked. "Feeling it yet?" the slime asked him sensually. "Feeling what?" the agent replied, furrowing his brow. Then his body started to feel...good. He couldn't really describe the feeling any other way than that. It was like the feeling of having her all over him like she was at his crotch, smooth, soft, comforting. It was almost euphoric, and it made Tom's mind start to drift. The motion of her breasts quickened and she lowered her mouth to his cock again, sucking gently as she pumped him. She winked at him and the teen felt his entire body glow with a pleasant feeling. Before he knew it, his knees were locking together to stave off an eminent orgasm. It was new to Tom, trying to stave off an orgasm. Normally, he had to wait for it to happen, or he could just let go because his job was almost over. But this time, there was no sense of relief or urgency. He just wanted the feeling to stay with him, and cumming was going to ruin that. So he tried as hard as he could to keep the slime's body wrapped around his cock. She looked up at him with a confused expression and her tongue slid out of her mouth, wrapping around his shaft all the way to the base. She pumped him with her extraordinarily long tongue and he couldn't hold it any longer. His eyes rolled back involuntarily and he fought to keep from letting his head loll back and the rest of his body go limp. His breath came hard and deep as pleasure rocked his entire body from head to toe. Jets of cum streamed into Sohm's mouth and were quickly absorbed in a swirling mesh of thick, dark liquid. Sohm sucked the last bit of his orgasm out of him before forcing her head down as far as she could get it, with her breasts still wrapped around his still-throbbing sex. "Have fun?" she asked without using her mouth. "I can see you still want more." "How did you make me...?" Tom was totally lost. Sohm giggled. "Well, every part of me is a pleasure point. Every little molecule of my being brings me feeling and sensation. Touching you with my hands, my breasts, my mouth, it all feels you the same. And it all feels exceptionally good right now. You must eat well too, because you taste very good." "It tastes good? Wait, you can taste that?" asked the teen as the slime swirled her tongue around his cock. "No, I can taste you. Not your...well, I can taste that too, but that's beside the point. You taste nice. Your sweat, your oils, your breath, all of it. Even inside of you tastes good. You must eat well, because you have good chemistry." "Inside?" Sohm giggled again. "Of course. Notice that everywhere feels good? That's because of me. I'm a fluid, which means that I can wiggle into every little pore on your body and do whatever I want with the things inside of you. I can even cut off lobes of your brain and lobotomize you without you even feeling it." She said the last part with such blatant disregard for the fact that she could actually do that at this moment, and Tom knew it. He froze, heart beating exceptionally hard for a few moments. Something in the back of his mind told him that he should run, but he couldn't listen to it when she was completely in control, of what he did and where he could go. "That's not very comforting, you know," he said, causing the slime to sit up sharply and shake her head. "No, I would never do that to you. I just, I didn't mean to say it like that. I'm sorry. I can do other things too, like give you that nice warm feeling again, or, or give you more energy to keep going if you'd like." She nodded hopefully and leaned forward. "Only if you let me see your core," Tom said as a rush of excitement filled him with little provocation. He grinned as the slime sat up and maneuvered herself to straddle his hips for another ride. Then, she stopped for a moment and put a finger to her bottom lip with a curious expression. "What?" Tom said. Sohm shrugged. "I just had a very strange thought. Tell me, do you like seeing a girl dance?" "What? I don't think I get what you want me to say. Like as in how? As in enjoy, or what?" "Yes, that one. Do you enjoy watching a girl dance?" Sohm rephrased. "Sure, as much as the next guy, but why?" Tom replied, puzzled. Sohm smirked. "Oh, no reason. I just wanted to know is all." The slime took both sides of his face and leaned in to kiss him. He responded in kind and wrapped both his arms around her sticky waist. Sohm moaned pleasantly into his mouth and slid her hands down to his neck gently. It was when Tom opened his eyes that he noticed the column of watch rising from the bathtub and pushing against the ceiling. The slime broke their kiss, dragged her long tongue out of his mouth, and sat up with a wide smile. "I heard you like seeing girls dance a little. Well, I thought I'd give you another little show while I collect my core for you to see." She raised her arms and ran her hands along the column behind her. She locked Tom against her with her hips and started to roll her body like a dancer. He shouldn't have been surprised at the smooth, fluid motions she was able to achieve, but he was. Her entire body was a wave of motion, slow, methodical, moving to the beat of music only she could hear. Her hips rolled and twisted against him, in impossible ways that anyone with a solid form wouldn't even dream they could. She spun, a flurry of pleasant feelings rising through Tom as she bucked against him hard, still rolling herself without missing a beat. Something about her, the perfection of her movements, the solid confidence she held in herself as her arms rose and fell, her body spun around on him in circles, her hips drove down and up, arcing, spinning. It all seemed so distanced, like it wasn't happening right on top of him. And on the other hand, his spine being almost permanently locked in a gymnast's arch in pleasure said otherwise. Tom saw a small orb form within Sohm's chest, dark purple, little wisps of it coming to color and then fading again every now and again. He realized that it was her core. He'd been joking about seeing her core earlier. This was big. Slimes never showed their cores. "Still enjoying it?" Sohm asked as she spun again to face him, lowering her hands from the column behind her to his abdomen so she could prop herself up on him. Tom swallowed hard as she continued to rock against him rhythmically. "Of course. I didn't think you'd let me see your core though. I'm honored," he managed to get out as she leaned down and teased his nipple with her teeth and tongue. "I'm glad you appreciate it. It's been a long time since I was fed directly into my core. You are close, aren't you?" "I've been on edge for a while now, Sohm." The agent was relieved to hear that she was ready to let him cum again. She nodded and sat up, clasping her hands over her head as she bucked her hips faster. Tom leaned up and put an arm around her back, raising his other hand to her breast while his mouth found its twin. Sohm gave a short moan in approval and her core dropped toward her waist. Tom could feel his climax rising to the fore and didn't fight it this time. He clenched his jaw and squeezed her breast hard as he came, directly into the orb that engulfed the tip of his cock. A dozen arms shot out of Sohm's body and wrapped around Tom like a jacket of cables, pulling him so tightly to Sohm that he thought he was going to be absorbed himself. He plastered her insides with cum, feeding her hunger with generous amounts of semen. The slime sucked every last drop out of his orgasm and sat there for several tense, breathless seconds before the gooey limbs entangling Tom's torso fell away and she was left cradling his head with her forehead against his. "That was very pleasing," she said with a slight smile. "Very pleasing indeed. I will see you again, you can be sure of that." Tom just nodded as he tried to catch his breath. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 03 A/N: Beforehand, I'd like to apologize for the lack of any sexual theme toward the end of this chapter. Also, forgive the Scottish accent; I tried to at least portray it. * News spread around the divisions that Tom had been attacked by a slime, and when he went into the debriefing room four days after his case with Sohm, he had another horde of busybodies standing at the door. He'd kill Greg for snitching on his assignment. The next time he saw Greg- "How was it?" Greg asked as he and Harvey stopped Tom in the hallway in front of the debriefing room. The smirk on his face couldn't have given him away any more than if he'd actually told Tom what he'd done. "Greg," growled Tom, putting a finger to the former's chin. "I am gonna kill you so many ways." "Get in here," the Director said, loud enough to make his voice carry down the hallway. "Right after he kills me," Tom finished as he walked into the debriefing room and closed the door behind him. Inside, the Director rubbed his eyes tiredly and downed the glass of scotch in front of him, swallowing hard. He gave Tom a once-over, probably taking note of his choice of pajama pants and t-shirt to wear to a debriefing. "Here," Tom offered, holding the case file out to the Director. The older man took it, flipped through it, and then whistled sharply. "Veronica, I need your help for a minute," he said, again, raising his voice just enough to make it carry down the hall. A short while later, a woman came in with a briefcase in her hands. She smiled at Tom briefly before turning her attention to the Director. "Is this him?" she asked. The Director nodded. "This is him. I need you to do what you do to get his case subject out of him. Get me when you're done." And that was it. The Director stood, didn't say another word to Tom or Veronica, locked the door to the debriefing room, and left. Tom, lost, turned to Veronica for an explanation. "So...I don't understand what we're suppose to do here." Veronica flashed a lecherous grin. "No, you wouldn't. Your slime is still inside of you, listening, watching, waiting. Slimes are quite infamous for sticking around after they're not wanted anymore. So, I was hired a long, long time ago to help with this little problem." "Okay, so how do we do this?" "Well, you just have to strip naked and lie down flat somewhere, and I'll do the rest." "Here? In the debriefing room? Can't we do this somewhere a little more private?" Veronica shrugged. "Hey, this is a bomb-proof room with a bulletproof door and a steel bolt the size of your fist for a lock. It's also soundproof and fireproof. It doesn't get much more private than this," the woman pointed out. She turned around and opened a thin manilla folder off the small countertop next to her, taking a mug of coffee out from the coffee machine nearby. She started sipping the steaming drink while Tom sat there, not wanting to just get naked in front of a total stranger and lie down. Sometimes it was a little hard to just strip for a woman in a locked room. She shot him a glance and he raised his hands with palms face-up in a gesture of confusion. "What?" "You know, you can expedite this process by stripping naked and lying down on the table. I'm reading through your file before I get started." Tom's brow knitted deeply. "I have a file?" Veronica nodded. "You also lost your virginity at fourteen. To a demon." Tom almost jumped out of his chair getting to his feet, and started toward Veronica. She gave him a glance and rolled her eyes, continuing to read without even moving to counter him. He reached out and snatched the manilla folder out of her fingers, throwing it across the room and scattering its contents all over the floor. There were at least a dozen papers fluttering around when she met his hostile glare. "That is not for you to know," he snarled. Veronica turned her eyes down to the single sheet of paper held between her index and middle fingers. "And you prefer partners that dominate you sexually." Tom pulled the paper out of her fingers and threw it ineffectually as hard as he could, getting it only inches away. "Go to Hell!" "And you were abandoned by your birth parents because you were possessed the day you were born," she said without even having to look at a sheet of paper. Tom reached to grab her throat, but caught himself half way and withdrew his outstretched hand reluctantly. He turned away, looking at the scattered papers all over the floor and the folder resting against the far wall. Tom fought back the urge to yell and raise hell. He saw no reason to do anything more, and was regretting what he'd done already. "I don't enjoy being told about my childhood. Can we move on?" Tom said in a resigned, defeated tone, stripping off his shirt. Veronica eyed him approvingly and nodded, reaching down to get her briefcase. Tom stripped naked and put himself on the table without any questions. He'd rather just get this over with and not have to talk to her any more. Veronica put her briefcase on the table and opened it, pulling out a number of small rocks, each about the diameter of a quarter. They were smooth and dark, like polished lumps of coal. She pulled out a small wooden box and opened it with a key. She then used a pair of tongs to grab another rock from the box, this one different. It was on fire. Tom's eyes went wide as he watched her hold the small stone with the tongs and arrange the other similar stones in a small pile on the table. She caught his gaze and smirked, setting the burning stone on top of the pile. The effect was stunning. Small bursts of different colored flames sprouted from the stones, as if they were coal being set alight. They burned for a few seconds in their own colors before fading to a dark golden color. The one on top had a reddish flame, and some of the ones in the pile held a more yellow hue to them. Veronica grabbed one of the stones with a lighter flame with the tongs and moved it over Tom's chest. He looked hesitantly from the stone, to Veronica, and then to himself. "Don't look so worried," she said, still smirking. "These won't burn you, or anything in your realm. These stones are very special, like me. They can only be found in Hell, and they can only burn those who were molded there in an unholy womb." She placed the stone on the back of his left hand abruptly. He cringed, but felt nothing more than a slightly cool sensation creep through his hand and fingers. Veronica turned and picked up another one, placing it on his right hand. "What does this do?" Tom questioned as Veronica put another rock on his body. "This will force the slime from the places on your body that are in reach of the flames' heat. I hope she's willing to let go of you easily." She wiped a bit of sweat from her forehead and placed a stone in the crook of his elbow. "Why?" "Well, because slimes have been known to attach themselves to a man's bones, and boil inside of him instead of running like a good slime should. The results are...a bit excruciating. We've never had a mortal wound from it though," she finished, as if it were a lighter note that nobody had died, but only been put through horrible suffering. He tried to relax while she placed another stone on his forehead. His vision darkened as his blood pressure skyrocketed for a few moments and the veins on his neck rose like cables against his skin. He groaned as his neck strained for a few seconds and the pressure grew. Then, the feeling lessened and he relaxed a little as his heart beat harder. "What's happening?" Veronica gave him a sly smile. "You look cute when you're disoriented." Tom scowled. "How long is this gonna take? It was three nights ago and I'm still exhausted." Veronica shrugged, and ignored his question otherwise. She put a stone with a red flame over his heart and Tom's fingers started to go numb. He decided not to say anything because she would just shrug and ignore him again. As childish as it was, he knew it would happen. She continued to place stones on him, starting at his feet after she was done with his upper torso, then moving up his legs to his thighs. Every time she put another flame to his skin, he could feel Sohm moving through his body to get away from the heat. Finally, it came time to get his abdomen, and Veronica had saved a special set of stone for this apparently. She grabbed two metal rings out of her briefcase, each about as big around as the bottom of a wine glass. She lit one with the red stone on his forehead and placed it on the center of his chest. He second went around his navel and made him cringe for a moment as it felt hot and then cooled after a moment. He glared at Veronica, but she paid no attention to his face as she started to toy with his cock. He lurched up a few inches, but remembered quickly that he was covered with stones, and laid down flat again. "What are you doing?" he growled. "This is how we get the slime out. I have to suck her out of somewhere, and this is the easiest place to do it. So you get to sit back and enjoy a free blowjob while I get your friend out of you." She leaned down and licked his cockhead with a full, wet lick. Tom sighed. "Look, does that mean I have to cum, because there's something about that I need to tell you." He raised his head a little so he could look at Veronica as she turned her eyes toward him, mouth open, tongue still on his cock. "Uh-hu?" "I can't cum unless you do too. And as good as it should feel, I can't feel your blowjob." Tom watched her brow knit. She leaned up and put one hand on the table to support herself, wiping her mouth. "So you're telling me that that is your curse? That you can't cum unless I do? I can just frig myself while I do this then, right?" She slipped a hand down her skirt. "Well, no. We have to actually be having sex." Veronica stood up and walked over to the sink and grabbed a bucket from the cabinet beneath it. She started to fill it with water. "Get all those rocks and rings and throw them in here." Tom grabbed the two dozen rocks and the two rings and held them in his cupped hands. He dropped them in the bucket once it was full and steam rose almost immediately. Water boiled and bubbled as the stones settled into the bottom. "So...now what?" "You know, you're not very bashful about sex. You're not like anyone else I have to suck the demons out of," Veronica said out of the blue, unbuttoning her blouse. Tom rolled his eyes. "Yeah, well, I've been having sex since I was fourteen. I got over being embarrassed about the third time I was walked in on by someone else's parent in the middle of screwing their daughter." Tom watched Veronica toss her blouse onto the table and grab a metal tube from her briefcase. "Open your mouth," she said, unscrewing one end of the tube. "Why?" Tom asked, complying anyway. "Because I'm giving you something that'll allow me to get the slime out of you and keep a clear head doing it." She put the cap of the tube down and raised it to his mouth, tilting it so that something rolled into his mouth. It was about the size of a large marble. He swallowed it with some effort. "What was that? Is that it?" Veronica shook her head. "No, we still have to have sex, but that was all we needed to do beforehand. We do have to wait a little bit for it to dissolve though." "Then why didn't we just do that first? I mean, that was so easy," Tom asked, confused. Veronica gave him a flat look. "You know, those are incredibly difficult to come by. I get one of those every thirteen thousand years in Hell. That's thirteen thousand days here. It's a slime core by the way, a dead slime core. There's a reason they don't show them to just anyone," the demon explained, continuing to undress. Tom gagged. "I just ate a dead demon?!" "No," Veronica laughed, putting a hand over her mouth to suppress the outburst. "You ate a dead body, not its soul. That's what happens when my kind devour slimes." "Your kind?" Tom asked, pushing down the want to gag again. "I'm a special demon, you see. I eat slimes as well at human souls." Her voice took on a malicious tone. "And those little cores are all that's left of those poor, tasty slimes." She giggled and draped her arms over his shoulders with a predatory look on her face. Tom realized now that she was completely naked. As she began to lean closer to him, her shapely body lured his hands to her sleek, tanned hips. "You make it seem like it's not just your job to screw me," Tom said as she nuzzled his neck and nipped at his earlobe. "Some of us make it a point to enjoy the good times we get paid for," she said, kissing his ear as softly as lover would their sleeping partner. Tom grinned against her slender neck and bit down just enough to pinch her. Her leg rose to his hip and she let her arms fall down his chest. "You made it sound like I wasn't enjoying this," the agent said, purring every word into her ear with as much of a sexual undertone as he could manage. She shivered and wrapped her arms around his back, grinding her sex against his. "So where do you prefer? We have the floor, the table, the countertop, anywhere. And if you really wanted to have some fun..." She chuckled darkly. "We could even do it in the hall." "I'm not that frisky," Tom replied as he turned them and leaned Veronica gently against the wall. And without much further foreplay or adieu, he pushed his arousal into her and she moaned with all the satisfaction he had come to associate with a demon enjoying herself. Tom pushed all the way into her and then retracted a bit, trying to judge their respective heights to figure out the right angle to go about this. But when he pushed back in, she decided to lock her legs around his hips and give him control of it. He gripped her hips and started to buck against her rhythmically. She judged his performance for a short while, squeezing him with her legs so she could get every bit of him while they were pressed together. Their eyes met for a moment and she tried to kiss him, but he lowered his head and kissed her neck instead. "Oh, you're worried about kissing me is it? Don't worry, I'm not a case subject; I work for the same guys you do. Now look up and give me that sour tongue of yours." She brought a hand up his ribs and neck, bringing her two curious finger to a stop at his chin. She licked her lips sensually and tilted his head up to meet his eyes. Then, they kissed. Veronica closed her eyes and started to roll against him with enthusiasm. Tom tried to keep control of his urge to let loose. He leaned into the kiss and slid his tongue along the demon's teeth. She smiled widely and she let his tongue in, greeting it with her own. Tom ran his hands up her body, feeling every dip and curve that his eyes had traced only minutes ago. She giggled at his touch and started to pick up the pace of her hips, rolling harder and longer too. Tom matched her pace and slipped his hand around the small of her back. He pulled her toward him and returned one hand to the curve of her backside, lifting her away from the wall. He turned and set her on the table behind them, resuming the motion they'd stopped to move. She broke away from their kiss for a moment and put her arms on the table to support her. "Bored already?" she asked. Tom smirked. "I got tired of holding you. Now we can really get to it." He smacked their bodies together and she brought her legs around his waist again, bucking against him eagerly. Neither could honestly say what was going on between them. Tom almost found it like a contest or a game, who would break and give in to their desires first. He didn't know how close she was, given her controlled, deep breathing, but he was a little broken down already. He heaved a sigh and adjusted the angle at which their bodies collided. Veronica let a little moan slip, and cut herself off as she arched her back toward him. Their gazes met and Tom bit back a grin, averting his eyes as the corners of his mouth began to rise. However, she had no problem with allowing him to know, and started breathing in short, shallow rhythms that started and broke at random. They continued to thrust and undulate and ride against each other for a while, Tom running his fingers up and down her body while she directed his eager hands with hers, allowing him to touch every inch of sun-darkened skin she had on her. She was like a Christmas present that wanted to be played with on Christmas Eve. She played the coy lioness, toying with him, arching when he took his time to feel a nice rhythm he liked. She made the most suggestive and sensual faces he'd seen, goading him into giving up first. He moved with her, letting her voluptuous body rise and fall beneath him. She winked and bit one corner of her mouth, glancing down for a half second. Tom leaned down to her and put his mouth to her ear. "This sour mouth wants something sweet," he purred. The agent leaned down and let her lean back enough for him to bend far enough to get his mouth to her breast. He probed her nipple with his tongue, teasing the hard bud with slow, delicate licks. Veronica squeezed her knees together and threw her head back against the table. Tom grinned and latched onto her breast with a firm, solid motion. He raised his left hand to her other breast and began to knead and squeeze gently. By now it was second nature. He'd been doing this for about three years, once every month or so, and he was decent at his job. He bit down on her nipple and she jumped a little, grabbing his hair with her fingers, digging into his skin with her nails. She let out several uneven, ragged breaths and he suckled at her breast and prodded her softly. If there was one thing he loved, it was a woman who liked getting her chest played with. And she was enjoying this a lot. Tom looked up to see her face, and found only her slender neck and chin to meet his eyes. Her head was thrown back to the table still and she trembled like a freezing hiker. He continued to lick and nibble at her sensitive flesh, switching nipples, while their hips continued to rock smoothly back and forth. "Enough, It's rubbing me raw," Veronica breathed, tugging his hair lightly. Tom released her breasts to her control again. They were dark red and puffy, giving Tom a little satisfaction in the fact that she'd be sore tomorrow in at least one place. He breathed a sigh in amusement as she gently examined her breasts. Tom saw the clock as he wiped his forehead of sweat. It was almost eleven now, and he was getting tired. He decided that whatever game they were playing, he didn't want to win badly enough to exhaust himself. He sat Veronica up and hugged her to him, pressing his lips to hers in a long, unyielding kiss. She pushed her entire front against his and they began bucking at a pagan rhythm, unwilling to slow for even a moment. Tom couldn't help but notice that she was moaning into his mouth things he couldn't understand. He put a hand between her shoulder and the other at the small of her back, pulling her toward him with every thrust to grab more contract with her, even if it was just a little. He felt his body signaling that it was almost time to finish, and gritted his teeth as Veronica kissed his neck, sucking and biting all the was from his shoulder to his ear, where she clamped her jaws shut on his earlobe. "You ready?" Tom breathed. "Gimme my slime," Veronica said, breathing hot, anxious breath into his ear. "I'm ready to cum." Tom slammed into her and came with as much intensity as he could stand. Veronica's entire body tightened around him, locking them together in an age-old embrace that kept them incapacitated for several minutes. Tom's head reeled as jets of cum plastered Veronica's insides with a mix of natural and unnatural fluids. The demon held on to him like she was going to fall into an abyss if she let go. They sat there, panting and silent for the better part of five minutes, until Veronica's legs fell from his hips lazily. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 03 All the previous energy that Tom had possessed was gone, and he collapsed backwards against the wall, sliding down to the floor wearily. He looked up at the demon still lying on the table with her legs spread and dangling, swinging back and forth tiredly. She tried to sit up twice, and managed to do it the third time. "Is Sohm out of my system?" "That tasted amazing. Great work. I feel better already." The demon flashed Tom a smirk and slid off the table, tossing Tom his clothes as she began to collect her own. "Is she out of me?" Tom asked again, trying to get his boxers on while moving as little as possible. He groaned with effort as he tugged his pants on and made his way to his feet. Veronica put his shirt on him and buttoned his pants, trying to smooth out the wrinkles in her skirt. She began to pick up all the papers he'd thrown out of her hands earlier. "Well, I can safely say that she's out of you completely. Otherwise, you'd be full of life and ready for more." She started humming to herself as she organized the papers and slid the manilla folder down the table to where the Director's chair was. The demon seemed energized now as she walked over to the door and opened it, revealing a number of eager faces and the Director standing in the doorway. "Is the problem gone?" the man asked gruffly. "As gone as I can make it," Veronica said, rubbing her stomach fondly. "Along with our agent's energy stores." She let the Director get by and then gave Tom a last glance as she left. "He's quite the handful," she added. The Director narrowed his eyes at Tom and then looked around the room for a moment. His perpetual frown deepened. "Get out before I lose my temper." Tom didn't need to be told twice. He sank against the wall and tried to collect himself for a while. Outside the debriefing room about an hour later, Greg met him with an even wider grin than before. Tom groaned with enough volume to make it seem exaggerated. His co-worker clapped a hand on his shoulder and handed him a key with a number on it and a water bottle. "Down the hall to the left is a row of about twenty doors. They're quarters for agents who stay the night here. I don't think you want to drive home, so I got the key to one. I owe you a favor for taking three oh one thirty last time." Tom breathed a sigh of relief. "Thanks, later Greg." "Oh, and the water bottle has a ton of vitamins and minerals in it. If you drink it now, you'll be less sore and tired in the morning. I heard the Director is giving us another job to do tomorrow." "Didn't you just get back from that one in Minnesota? Is he sending you too?" Tom asked, concerned. Greg looked worn out. Usually cases that required a whole team were taxing on both physical and mental levels. "We all gotta go. I'm tired, so I'm heading home," he said, yawning. "Night Greg." "See you in the morning," the older agent replied. Tom trudged down the hallway and downed the entire water bottle as he made his way to the right place and found room number nine. He put the key in the lock, half expecting in not to work, and turned it. The door unlocked and he stepped in, flipping on the light. He only managed a quick glimpse of the room before the lights shut off and the door swung closed silently. He spun around, but he could only see the purple illusions that his adjusting vision could offer. He felt someone gently place their hands on his shoulders. "I didn't think you'd be back so soon. Are you ready to have your world turned on its head?" "What the- Veronica?!" Tom stammered, reached his open hand back to confirm what his ears told him. She dodged his hand and moved to press herself against his back. "Shush now," she cooed, running her fingers down his chest to grab the bottom of his shirt and pull it up. "I like to have fun after hours too, you know." "Look, I'm exhausted. Can I just leave and find another place to sleep?" Tom asked, even as her free hand took the bottle from his hands and tossed it aside. "You just drank a sex drive cocktail that could give a mummy a hard-on and you're saying you're tired? Is it not working on you?" Veronica asked, reaching down to grip his throbbing cock through his jeans. Tom groaned and raised his arms so she could pull his shirt off. "Can we at least turn on the lights?" Veronica paused. "What does it matter?" "I have eyes. They like you as much as the rest of me," he replied. The demon left his back and moved across the room. The lights flashed on, revealing Veronica's devious grin. She began to saunter towards him, her grin widening. "You do know how to sweet talk a demon, don't you?" Tom smirked. "I have to deal with Ceria. I know enough." "Silly, silly boy," replied the demon as she cupped his face in her hands and kissed him smoothly. ------------ The debriefing room was filled from wall to wall with agents and advisers from nearly every division in the Departments of Internal Affairs and Homeland Security. There were even two men standing in the corner that wore military uniforms and had their jackets lined with medals and awards. Tom hung on Veronica's shoulder like a ragdoll as they maneuvered past a few people to get to where Tom's seat was. He got several envious looks from some of the occupants of the room as he slumped into the chair beside Harvey, who looked as impassive and calm as ever. Harvey gave Tom a glance, then Veronica. He held his hand out flat and Tom gave him a tired high-five. The room was in a low murmur as the Director flipped through a notebook and took a few sheets that looked like X-ray scans out of a manilla folder. He looked at them quietly while they waited. Eventually, Greg arrived and got into his seat, giving Tom a knowing smile as Veronica held the teen's head up to ensure that he wasn't going to fall asleep. The fact that she had her breasts on the back of his head had an effect on his lack of sleeping too. Seeing that everyone was present, the Director turned the sheets toward the trio seated in front of him. "Now we..." He looked at Tom and frowned. "Sir?" Tom asked. "Boy, if I didn't need you for this, you would be in the sorting room for a year. You look like hell, and that demon behind you ain't a good liar. Have some goddamn respect for yourself." And with that, the Director continued. "Here are three photographs from Dùn Fhoithear, a Scottish castle located on the northeast coast of Scotland. We're not sure what, but there's something here that isn't human. Mr. Kieth can explain." A broad-shouldered man stepped forward and cleared his throat. "Marnin'. I'm Donalbain Kieth, an ah'm one of the caretakers 'o Dùn Fhoithear. We dinnae ken whit's happened tae the fi men whit gone missin' from the Dùn, but we can tell ye it wannah human tha took 'em. Troll, ghost, demon, a beast o' th' other side," he said in a thick Scottish accent. "So what do we do about it?" asked one of the higher-ups from Division Thirteen. Donalbain arched a brow at the short man and grinned, revealing his three missing teeth. "Ye'd ken tha' the best heads 'ere could figure 'at one out," he said in an amused tone. "We march up to th' Dùn, root out th' beast, an kell it." "And if it's not something you can kill with what we bring?" asked Division Fourteen's director. The Director spoke up. "That's why were taking my team with several of the other divisions' men to ensure we bring the right equipment. Mr. Kieth will lead the team into the castle and make sure that whatever is there is pacified or killed." "Kelled would be th' preferred way o' course," Donalbain commented offhandedly. "We don't know what's there, so we've been taking surveillance photos of the castle for three weeks. Thus far, our results have netted us nothing. We're going in blind." He looked around as the men opposite the table from him. "That being said, be careful. You've had experience with Hell's children before, but this one has killed five tourists and thirteen agents from Europe. I don't want any of you dead, is that clear?" "Yes sir," the agents replied. "Dismissed," said the Director firmly, pouring himself a glass of scotch as the room began to fill with noise from three dozen voices speaking up at once. Tom looked at Greg and gave him a sour frown. "The next time you think about getting me laid, don't. I haven' been more tired in my entire life. You know what time she decided was good to sleep? Five. When did she wake me up? Seven thirty." "Don't whine," Verinica teased. "You were asleep by four forty. You're fine." "You're not coming too, are you?" asked Tom, crossing his fingers that she wasn't. She gave him an innocent look. "Why wouldn't I? If it's a slime, do any of you know how to kill it?" "Fuck." Tom put his head down and groaned. ------------ Tom slept virtually the entire plane ride to Edinburgh, and half the train ride to Stonehaven. The parts that he was awake for were boisterous, loud, and full of crude laughter from Donalbain, Greg, Allen from Division Thirteen, and the others that had been sent here with them. Harvey sat next to Tom and acted as a buffer from the conversation direct at him. While he wasn't very emotive, Harvey was a great orator and had perfect control of where a conversation was steered. At Stonehaven, the eight men and Veronica got off the train and were taken by cab to Dùn Fhoithear, where they were met by three men armed with rifles, and a goat. Tom, groggy from thirteen hours of sleep, didn't even register the joke about Scots and sheep than Allen made quietly to Greg. After conversing with the three men for a short while, Donalbain waved his hand for the group to follow him, and took the goat's leash. They made their way up the steps that led up to the large, imposing gatehouse. The castle, Donalbain explained, was several hundred years old, and parts of it had been restored. And while it was a popular tourism spot, it had been closed due to the disappearances of five tourists and the confirmed deaths of thirteen European agents sent to investigate with inadequate training and equipment. Through the gatehouse was another two stone guard posts. Through those was the large, open expanse of the central yard, flanked by the keep, smithy, stables, and Waterton's Quarters. Directly ahead was the chapel and guardhouse. To the left was the bowling green and restored palace. The outcropping the castle stood on was surrounded by water on three sides and rose from the water as sheer cliffs. "Alright lads, ah know yer nae wantin' ta wait fer th' beastie, but it only appears at night. So, we have ta choose th' place we stay an wait til it gets 'ere. We've got th' chapel, th' kep, Waterton's Lodging, th' stables, or th' palace. Remember, if'n it gets broken, yer payin' fer th' repairs. Course if ah break it, ah pay. So, vote." "All for the palace?" Greg asked. Five hands rose. "Ye dinnae have ta all be in th' same place ye realize," Donalbain said as he scratched his large orange beard. He looked around and sighed. "Ets th' keep fer me," he finally said, and then started toward the large stone structure without waiting for a reply. "Well, let's go then," Greg said as he hefted his backpack off the ground and walked down the path to the keep. Tom looked at Bradley, who shrugged and followed the group heading for the palace. Veronica stayed put with Allen. Allen quickly excused himself, saying that the Whig's Vault interested him. Tom gave Veronica a wary glance, but she shook her head. "Let's keep those encounters to a select few instances. That way, the sex can stay just like it was last night," she said, winking. "Agreed," replied Tom, breathing a sigh in relief. Veronica walked off toward the stables, shrugging her backpack off her shoulder to dig something out of it. Tom decided to take a walk around the grounds, and dropped his backpack and rolled blanket off at the smithy. The castle grounds were well-kept. There was absolutely no trash anywhere, no leftover equipment from the restoration that palace had received, neat, trimmed grass. He saw the majority of the team setting up their sleeping bags and guns in the main hall of the palace. The view from the cliffside was almost breathtaking. The North Sea stretched out for as far as he could see, rolling waves cresting and rising to break against the rocks below. He finished his walk at the first gatehouse called Benholm's Lodging. Looking around, he found the empty gatehouse to be a decent place to stay the night. The bottom floor room was relatively small, empty save for a staircase to the second story. He decided he'd sleep here and be the first to know if something approached the castle. He returned to the smithy and unrolled his blanket. Inside of it were his three weapons. His favorite was the sheathed claymore that he'd ordered from Scotland last year and had been taught how to use by Eric Sanders, the melee trainer for the Twelfth Division. The second was his M1911 pistol, which he'd been given when he started working for the Department of Homeland Security. The biggest gun he had was the Mosin Nagant, a surplus rifle from the Soviet Union that he had enough ammunition for to take on a zombie invasion by himself. He took his cleaning kit out of his backpack and started to disassemble his guns. He'd done this so many times it was almost mechanical the way he sped through his routine. Once his guns were cleaned and loaded, he moved to the claymore, which he counted as the pride of his meager weapon collection. He unsheathed the sword and paid it flat on the ground, digging around in his backpack for his whetstone. When he found it, he saw someone's shadow fall across his blanket, and turned his head to find Donalbain watching him. The Scotsman smiled broadly. "A fine blade an stone ye have, lad," he said, squatting down next to Tom to admire his possessions. "I try to take care of my stuff when I can," the teen replied. "This all cost me a fortune." Donalbain nodded. "That stone there is worth at least three hundred pounds. An the blade is from the Highlands. Now 'at's hard ta find on a lad 'at's no a highlander." He held his hand out and Tom handed him the sword gingerly. Donalbain stood up and swung with sword with his burly, thick arm a few times, examining the edge of the blade closely. He looked at the bottom of the pommel and then handed the sword back to Tom and watched him sharped it with slow, methodical sweeps of the stone across both sides of the blade. By the time he was done, the sun was beginning to arc towards the western half of the sky. Tom's stomach growled unceremoniously as he secured the scabbard of his claymore across his back. Donalbain reached into his coat pocket and pulled out two sandwiches wrapped in saran wrap. He handed one to Tom and unwrapped the other one, taking nearly half the sandwich in one bite. Tom unwrapped his and coughed at the strong smell. "What is this?" he asked, trying to examine whether or not the sandwich was spoiled or not. "Haggis. Dinnae worry if it's not ta yer taste, I'll eat it." Tom shook his head. "No, it's fine. I just wasn't expecting...well, that." He took a bite and furrowed his brow. Well, it wasn't bad...but it wasn't very good either. "It's an acquired taste," Donalbain said with a shrug. "Time ta get lunch started." The large Scotsman walked off and went to prepare lunch while Tom went to go commit himself to at least a hundred practice swings before he ate. ------------ Lunch consisted of a large helping of beef and potatoes, followed by haggis and almost half a loaf of fresh bread for each of the ten of them. Donalbain himself ate almost twice as much as everyone else and added a head of lettuce smothered in ranch dressing. Afterward, he returned to the keep without saying much and returned with bagpipes in his hands. He sat down in front of the cooking fire he'd made in the yard next to the stables and began to play. The goat, its leash wrapped around a wooden stake hammered into the ground, brayed once at Donalbain and then lay down. Tom had heard that bagpipes were loud, but in person it was more like standing next to a sun that was going supernova. He decided that he'd go fire off a few practice shots to see if the Mosin was still working the same way it had been before he cleaned it. He excused himself and brought his Mosin Nagant and a few dozen cartridges to the edge of the cliff near the guardhouse. He loaded five cartridges into the magazine and took aim at a large rock jutting from the ocean. He took a few shots and realized that he couldn't tell whether or not he was hitting it. "Need a spotter?" Greg asked he he sat down next to Tom. "Sure." Tom squeezed the trigger again and Greg winced. "Didn't even come close," he said. "I'll shoot you if you lie again," Tom threatened, loading another five rounds into the rifle and taking aim again. The rest of the afternoon was spent talking about what Greg had done in Minnesota, last night's romp with Veronica, rifles, food, and life in general. Harvey joined them half way through with his own rifle and the three of them fell into their usual banter about this and that. They only managed to realize that they were in another country instead of a coffee table when Robert from the Third Division got them and said it was time for dinner. Dinner was a quick affair with Donalbain introducing a Norwegian scientist who said that he could help them kill the thing causing the disappearances. "Bjorn is from Norway, he'll ken whit ta do about our problem," Donalbain stated, sitting down beside the dinner fire with his highland claymore across his lap. Bjorn looked at the group and then sighed. "Well, first, is there anyone here who's skeptical about supernatural beings? It will make this much easier if the skeptics leave." They had to force themselves not to laugh. "Hun, I'm a demon," Veronica said. "Just say what you have to." Bjorn looked surprised. "Well then, I'll make this simple. You lot have a troll to deal with, something called a Ringlefinch. It's big, about this tall." He held his hand about ten feet off the ground. "And it is about as wide. It's hungry, unhappy, and a long, long way from home. Normally, we'd have some sort of UV device to fry it, but unfortunately, it managed to smash the ones I brought here, so we'll just have to do this the old-fashioned way." Allen looked around. "Has nobody felt the other presence here too?" All eyes turned to the odd man. "Nobody, really? I'd have expected Veronica at least to have noticed something. Generally trolls aren't very smart or capable of more than basic stuff, like eating and sleeping, so they have very little presence in the aether. However, something has been here recently that can stir quite a bit of power. If it is a troll, it's not alone. Something else has been here too." "Like what?" Donalbain asked, his eyes focused on the mystic. Allen shrugged. "I dunno; it felt like a ghost or a wraith. It's not extraordinarily powerful, but it is strong." "Strong in what way?" Veronica questioned. "You know how these things tend to be. It's powerful, which means its smart. It's like any other demon, so we need to make sure we're watching for it too. This troll probably didn't get here by itself if it had to come all the way from Norway." Allen returned to his quiet, withdrawn disposition and stared into the fire with a thoughtful expression. Bjorn spoke again. "And just for safety's sake, how many of you are Christians?" Nine hands went up and Bjorn's face paled. Veronica beamed and folded her hands across her chest. "Well that seems to present a problem," said the demon as-a-matter-of-factly. "The troll can smell your blood, all nine of you. You'll need to find somewhere that can accommodate all of you and stay there until the Ringlefinch arrives. So that leaves me, you, and the demon to find another place to hide." Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 03 Tom swore silently. Well, that killed his plan to be the forward sentry at the gatehouse. After Bjorn was done speaking, there was quite a bit of discussion about what to do, essentially throwing Bjorn's plan away and trying to decide the best layout of the positions they could take. Tom left the fire and checked his pistol, his rifle, and his sword one last time before climbing up to the second story of the keep, where he met Donalbain preparing for the troll's arrival. "Damned, blasted thing! Damn ye ta hell!" he growled, followed by clanking and clanging of metal. Tom peered into the room Donalbain was in and was surprised to find the large man trying to dress himself in steel platemail. He stopped when he saw Tom, and sighed. "I'm not judging anyone," Tom said, raising his hands. "Ah dinnae thin' yer keen ta helpin' me, are ye?" he asked. "Sure," replied the agent, setting the Mosin Nagant down and walking over to Donalbain. With the Scotsman's instructions, he helped fasten the breastplate and plateskirt to his huge frame. He secured a number of other smaller pieces and Donalbain ran over the list in his head of what all needed to be double checked before he could say he was finished. It was almost awe-inspiring to see someone in a real suit of armor. It wasn't like what you'd see at a Renaissance Fair, where everything was in perfect condition and spotless. Donalbain's armor looked old and bore many marks of battle. The leather straps were all old and well-worn, and a few had been replaced recently judging by their conditions. It was hard to think this armor could even be scratched, but there were several dents and pinholes in almost every piece. "Thank ye, lad," Donalbain said, reaching down to pick something up off the floor. "Is this armor a family heirloom?" The Scotsman nodded as he donned a large, crested Corinthian helm. "An th' helm is a geft from an old friend. Ah would put mah life on this helm holdin' up to a troll's swing. Though it's a bit out o' place with the rest o' this," he admitted. He picked up his claymore and brandished it proudly in both hands. "Ready to be a trollslayer?" Tom asked cheekily. Donalbain have him a look from beneath his helm. "A highlander is always up fer a good scrap," he said, turning toward the stairs that led to the castle courtyard. Tom made his way to the roof of the keep and watched the area below as the fire was doused, the goat from earlier that day tied up in the Bowling Green, and nine men and a demon moved about with their weapons in hand. He couldn't see Donalbain anywhere, and assumed he was hiding somewhere to ambush the troll. So, Tom loaded five cartridges into the magazine and waited. The goat brayed once in the middle of the yard and began to eat the grass at its feet. It was about four hours before the troll arrived, and nobody managed to realize this fact until it was already through the front gate and making its way into the large, open yard beside the Bowling Green. Tom didn't understand what had happened until someone shot a bright red flare at the thing's feet. Suddenly, a staccato of gunfire erupted from the yard below and Tom looked over the crenelations to see a large, burly shape in the middle of the yard and almost a dozen constant flashes near the palace and the chapel. Tom raised his rifle and fired at the troll twice, striking it in the arm and the head. It didn't seem to notice though. It didn't even seem to notice that it was being fired at from three directions and taking enough fire to drop a lead elephant. It stood where it was, turning its head slowly in the direction of the most gunfire. Tom shot it three more times, earning nothing again as the troll began to move toward the palace. The flare caught the yard on fire and bright yellow flames started to leap out in every direction, causing the troll to be clearly illuminated. Tom couldn't even tell if it was hurt from here, and decided to go down for a closer look and a better position. He hurried down the stairs and made it to the bottom floor, where an armored hand caught him at the door. He looked up to see Donalbain standing at the doorway, holding a finger to his mouth for silence. "Cannae kell a beastie like this with whit yer friends brought. Maybe yers, but not their machine guns. Th' caliber's too low." He narrowed his eyes beneath his helm and pursed his lips. "So what do we do?" Tom asked, taking another shot at the troll as it scattered the agents from the palace with a raised fist the size of a car engine. The troll lurched forward and then turned around to see what had hurt it. "We wait," Donalbain replied. Tom fired the rest of his magazine at the troll, apparently to little effect other than to make it unhappier. It turned around a few times, the fire spreading around its feet now and devouring what short grass it had to feed on. The beast didn't seem to notice much as it found the nearest agent and swung at him. The man would have been killed if he hadn't thrown himself to the side before the blow struck. The troll's fist slammed into the earth so hard that the entire yard shook from the impact. At this point, Donalbain leapt from the doorway and sprinted across the yard with his sword ready. It took Tom a moment to realize that the highlander had just decided to charge headlong into a troll armed only with a sword and a Gaelic warcry to fight it. The agent fired five more cartridges, and again earned little more than a tiny fraction of the troll's attention. Donalbain launched himself off the ground and slammed into the troll's back, blade first. The highland claymore struck home, burying itself down to the hilt in the troll's body. Donalbain began to wrench his blade free, bullets ricocheting off the troll's thick hide and his armor. Tom moved in to get a better shot, reloading. He was about fifteen feet out of the troll's reach when he took three shots at its face. Two struck it directly in the forehead, and one went through its left eye socket. The thing snorted, slammed both of its fists on the ground with enough force to crack an arctic glacier, and then reached back for Donalbain. It grabbed the huge highlander and threw him against the yard with a shrill crack of breaking metal. It then swatted Donalbain into the palace wall and grunted, reaching back ineffectually for Donalbain's claymore still jutting from between its shoulders like a candle on a birthday cake. Tom started to run even before it turned its one good eye toward him. He was already at a dead sprint toward the chapel when it started to thunder after him, its short legs working furiously to match Tom's pace. The agent didn't even notice he'd run right past Veronica until she cursed aloud and caught up to him. "Great job, asshat!" she snapped, pausing briefly to blast the troll's shoulder with buckshot. She tossed her shotgun aside and groaned audibly. "Why is it that you've gotten the only worthwhile hit?" "Get on it's back and cut its head off or something!" Tom shouted, ducking right as he neared the chapel's doorway. Three agents dove through the windows of the little stone building to avoid the troll's incoming charge. It slid to a halt in front of the structure and launched itself forward with both arms, bearing down on Tom with uncanny speed. He threw his gun aside and tried to draw his claymore from his back. He gave up when he realized he was slowing down. The troll swatted at Tom and threw him to the ground with just the brush of its fingertips. His head slammed against the earth and the impact made his vision blur and fill with stars. He scrabbled across the charred grass without knowing which way he was going. He just had to keep moving. The next moment, felt something hit him so hard that the wind in his ears sounded like a hurricane. He tried to feel around the ground to grab the dirt and pull himself away from the troll, but he couldn't feel the ground. He couldn't feel anything actually. A sinking feeling overcame him. He was dead, wasn't he? He heard water splashing and then slammed into a wall with enough force to cause his vision to fade completely and his mind drift quickly into fuzzy and empty thoughts as he choked on the air and tried to move his arms and legs. This was it. Four years in this line of work and he was dead. Fucking incredible. Free healthcare? Down the drain. That fat insurance check they'd write to the person in his will? What will? Job security? A chance to see the world and everything in it? Well, that wasn't really a future anymore. His friends, his boss, Ceria, nobody would really miss him. He would have sighed if he wasn't choking on air at the moment. He didn't understand his thoughts. Wasn't death supposed to be peaceful? He couldn't feel anything, well, at least he couldn't feel anything but the warmth on his back and the pounding in his head. He thought it was weird how slow dying was, and how unaffected he was. It wasn't really all that bad without knowing beforehand that it was coming. No fear, no anxiousness, no pain. Well, mental. His chest felt like somebody was stomping on it, and his throat felt like someone was pouring molten gold into his mouth. His vision flared with light and all sorts of things assaulted his senses. His nose hurt so badly that his eyes welled up with tears. His side burned with pain, and his entire torso flared with agonizing feelings, pressure, stabbing, hot pokers. He'd rather live than die if this is what death was going to be like! "...therfucker! Wake up! Breathe!" someone roared into Tom's ears. He felt something rising up his throat and then bubble out of his mouth. He turned his head and vomited hard, sucking in a short, painful breath. He was so cold. "Breathe!" the voice yelled again, this time in a different tone. Tom sucked in another breath and then puked twice as much as before. He gagged and then his lungs filled with cold, crisp air. He wheezed and cried as his senses whirled in circles with all the information of everything around him flooding him all at once. He saw the ground to his left and the sky to his right, on his side with water lapping at his legs. "Whay?" Tom managed to say hoarsely as he coughed and cried on the rocky, wet ground. "What'd he say?" Veronica asked. "It slapped your shit all the way off the cliff," Greg explained, taking Tom's arm with his hand. Tom screamed in pain and Greg almost threw the arm out of his grasp. Veronica just barely touched Tom's arm to see what was wrong, and it felt like someone had stabbed a hot poker through his bone down from his fingers to his elbow. He threw up again and cried without any self restraint or limit. His sides hurt like someone was wedging him between two cars. His arm was on fire and felt swollen to the point of bursting. His head was throbbing. His throat felt dry and hot. He couldn't breathe out of his nose. One of his eyes was either swollen shut or gone. He couldn't tell. "Stop!" he yelled. "What? Stop what?" Veronica asked, sitting back away from him and brushing her long, wet hair out of her face with a look of concern written all over her features. She panted while Tom tried to remember what his hurting parts were called. "Leg! Stop touching. God, fuck," Tom gasped, moaning in pain and frustration despite his best efforts. "Oh, I'm sorry. Hold on." Veronica took Tom beneath the arms and dragged him up the rocky shore until he was out of and away from the water. The pain in his leg subsided somewhat and he breathed evenly for the first time since he was fully conscious. Tears still streamed down his cheeks and chin however. "What's going on?" he asked, finally able to collect himself despite the throbbing, burning, and grating sensations all over his body. Harvey shined a flashlight over Tom's body and started to look concerned. "Well," Greg said, trying to catch his breath. "The troll is dead, we've made sure of that. It knocked you so hard that you went over the chapel and landed in the water away from the rock the castle's on..." His eyes moved to Harvey and his brow suddenly furrowed. "Eh, what? Harvey?" "Requesting immediate emergency airlift to the Wellington Hospital, London England... Room for two... Yes... As fast as you can get here... Yes sir... Tom sir... Yes... Three not including... Understood sir. Thank you sir..." Harvey hung up the cellphone and swallowed hard. "We've got two helicopters for you and Donalbain. Veronica will ride with you. Greg and I will be there as soon as we get things dealt with here." "What?" Tom said dumbly, struggling to stay awake. Harvey looked up at the sky expectantly. "Get here God damn you," he muttered, turning to walk back up the shore as he handed Greg his flashlight. "Get their attention when they arrive. I'll be up there when you're done." "Alright," Greg replied. ------------ The time between lying on the cold, uncomfortable puddingstone beach at the base of Dùn Fhoithear and lying in a nice, warm bed of the Wellington Hospital was a blur to Tom. He remembered the helicopter, Veronica yelling at someone over Tom's arm, and a doctor telling a nurse that he wasn't going to make it two days. Now, Tom sat flat on his warm, soft bed with a pillow under his head and a cast on his left arm and his right leg. Two of his fingers were taped together and his shirt lay open to reveal a long line of stitches from his third rib to his tenth. He couldn't breathe in any more than a shallow breath without either splitting his stitches or bending his ribs. He had come to find out that nine of his ribs had been broken by the troll slapping him across the front, his fibula fractured somewhere along the way, and both his left radius and ulna snapped in half upon hitting the water. No brain damage, his lungs were fine, and his internal injuries were minimal. He did, however, now no longer have his own spleen or even have a gallbladder. He was trying to keep his breathing under control with an oxygen mask when Veronica stepped into his little room with the Director behind her. "You've got a visitor," she said, happily stepping out of the room at the Director's nod. Tom would have sat up, but he knew adjusting himself would most likely cause an extraordinarily painful reaction from his ribs, so he just sat there on the bed and continued to breath through the mask, nodding to his boss. "I half expected to see you asleep and in a full body cast," the Director said, pulling up a chair beside the bed to sit down. "Sorry to disappoint you sir," Tom said with as little force as possible. His ribs were already moving too much with his breathing as it was. The older man shook his head. "No, I was making a joke." Tom's eyebrows raised, but he immediately lowered them as his eyebrow flared with stinging pain as he remembered the cut along the left side of his brow. "Really?" "Enough joking," the Director said seriously. "How are you doing? They tell me you're 'stable' but I know better than to take a doctor for his word. Are you well?" Tom took a longer breath from the oxygen mask and took it off his face. "I feel better than I did when I was in the water, sir. I heard I'm missing a few organs though." He smiled. "We let your gallbladder go, but you do have a spleen in you again. Everything else was mangled to hell, so I've been told, but it's all still there and yours." "So I keep hearing," Tom replied, rolling his eyes. "Was it you that bullied me to the top of the donor list?" The Director shook his head. "The President did." Tom's eyes went wide. "Really?" "A hundred and thirty four years ago when this agency was founded. Everything we needed from Britain, Germany, and France would be given, and vice versa, no questions asked or complaints raised." "You got my hopes up," Tom deadpanned. "My job isn't to baby you, boy," the Director said as he put his hands on his knees and pushed himself to his feet. "I'm here to see if the Unites States' investments overseas are a waste of money or not. Get well. I need you back in the line of fire in a month." "Yes sir," replied Tom as he bit back a large smile. As soon as the Director was gone, Harvey, Veronica, and Greg entered the room and crowded around Tom's bed. The younger agent put the oxygen mask back on and nodded to their presence before speaking. "Hey guys. How's everyone doing?" "Fine, no thanks to you," Greg said, rapping his knuckles across Tom's clunky white cast. "I'll be sure to lead the troll over to you next time, Greg," Tom shot back. "You can keep it. Veronica loves cutting off troll heads though, right?" The demon rolled her eyes. "Sure." She turned to Tom. "By the way, your sword broke. It was mostly my fault. Sorry." Tom shook his head. "It doesn't matter. How are my guns? Did they make it?" "They're packed and ready to be discharged with you when you're well enough to walk," Greg said, giving Tom a thumbs-up. "Awesome. Uh, how's everybody else?" Harvey looked at the other two before answering. "Two dead, two wounded. Otherwise, unscratched and unharmed." "Two dead, huh?" Tom repeated dourly. "It was almost three," Harvey added, putting his hand on Tom's head. "But you're good at denying Death his winnings." "Thanks. I'll be sure to steal his money in our next dice game for this useless mortal coil," replied Tom jokingly. Harvey cracked a grin and rolled his eyes. "We're staying close by if you need us. Just call if you need something. There's a meeting for debriefing we have to go to. We'll fill you in on what's what after the old man is through, alright?" Tom nodded. "Later guys." ------------ Later, Allen showed up after visiting hours for a midnight visit. Tom was asleep when the Division Thirteen occultist entered the room, and was gently shaken awake to converse. Tom, groggy, tried to swat the intruder away and go back to sleep, thinking that Allen was another of the nurses trying to tell him to do something or draw blood or stick another needle in his shoulder. However, Allen had his cast firmly in hand and wouldn't let it go until he had Tom's full attention. Pain flared through Tom's entire torso as the effects of swinging his arm crashed down upon him and woke him up completely. And though it was midnight, the machines provided adequate light for Tom to see that Allen wasn't his normal, reserved self. The agent's eyes were wide, excited. Tom hoped that he would leave and let him be as his chest throbbed with pain. "You're Tom? Please tell me yes." "Allen? What the hell, I'm asleep. What time is it?" "One in the morning, but that's unimportant. You're Tom?" Allen asked quickly, his eyes darting back and forth between Tom's eyes. "Yeah, what the hell is it Allen?" Allen grinned about as widely as his mouth would allow. "You've met...you've met her, right?" "Who?" asked Tom, confused. "Her! The most lovely, beautiful creature in all the realms of Heaven and Man and Hell! Tell me you understand now." Allen's wide, hopeful eyes betrayed no sarcasm or humor. "Who? Give me a name Allen," Tom said flatly, getting back control of his arm. "Ceria!" he exclaimed. "The most beautiful and wonderful creature known to my heart! Surely you've encountered her before, as I have been told?" Tom arched a brow and then lay back down and closed his eyes, sighing. "Yeah, I've had the 'great pleasure' of making her acquaintance. Why do you ask?" "Well, if I could have you arrange some sort of meeting between the two of us, a short introduction followed by a whirlwind of passion and lovemaking...I would be most obliged to give you a fabulous reward that would find your heart contented with its grandeur and splendor." "Sure, whatever you want. Allen, it's late and I'm tired. Next time Ceria is in town, I'll call you up and bring her to you, alright?" Tom stated, his voice sardonic. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 03 "Thank you Tom. I will hold you to your word, remember that. And I will hold myself to mine." Allen quietly composed himself and left the hospital room without another word to Tom. The younger agent rolled his eyes and tried to make himself comfortable again. "Fuckin' nut," he muttered as he started to drift away again into sleep, his pain beginning to wane as the morphine drip by his bed allowed him another drop of sweet, numbing nectar. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 04 It took weeks for Tom to catch up on his schoolwork, even with Greg and Harvey's combined help and tutelage. During that time, his ribs healed slowly and he managed to get rid of his cast and brace, though two doctors told him that he should avoid strenuous activity for two more weeks. Amazingly, Tom felt fine after such a short time, even though he had literally been at death's doorstep. Silently, he thanked whatever powers watching over him and picked up his backpack as the bell rang for lunch. He sat outside at one of the tables and ate his lunch quietly, thinking about work and if he'd get a call or not today. The Director had told him that he would be one of the last people on the list to get a case for the next few weeks, but that didn't guarantee that he wouldn't get a case. As he ate, he tried not to think too hard on Ceria's bet with him or how stupid it was for him to have agreed to it. What was it with her that made her so eager to screw with him? Did he look especially vulnerable, emotionally unstable, what? He tried to make sense of her, and caught himself trying to rationalize a demon. All she cared about was getting her jollies by implanting herself in his thoughts and driving him out of his mind in confusion. Tom kicked himself mentally at wasting his time and finished his lunch. He threw his trash away and the bell rang. He checked his work phone, grabbed his backpack, and then headed off to gym. He changed, went to the weight room, and worked out with the rest of his gym class. He still never fully understood why the classes were segregated by gender, even though he could guess from the way everyone stared at the girls doing laps outside when they got near the windows. About half way through, the fire alarm rang for a fire drill and everyone went down the crowded hallway filling up with students to get out of the building. Outside, they saw two firetrucks pull up and had to wait to find out that nothing was wrong and someone had pulled the fire alarm somewhere. After about half an hour, everyone was allowed to go back into the building and gym resumed as normal. Class ended a little while later and Tom changed back into his regular clothes, reaching into the front pocket of his backpack to check his work phone. Usually, when they needed him, the call came at the one hour of the day where he didn't have his phone. His brow knitted when he couldn't feel his phone. He stretched the pocket wide open and peered into it. No phone. He searched the other pockets of his backpack and still couldn't find it. He looked for his normal phone, and found that it too was gone. He looked around and found two other guys looking through their bags too. "Phones gone?" he asked. "What the fuck?" "Yours gone too, Tom?" Jeremy asked, rubbing his shaved head in resignation to his situation. "Somebody jacked all our stuff. My wallet's empty too," Tom said, looking inside to find all his money gone and only his driver's license looking back at him. "Fuck, they took my work ID too." "Ho shit thank God, my stuff's still here," Devan said with a sigh in relief. Half the locker room looked at him with contempt and envy. "Hey," Tom said. "Let me see your phone for a minute. I need to make a call." Devan blinked. "What?" "I need to make a call to work. I need my stuff." After a few moments' hesitation, Devan tossed Tom his phone. Meanwhile, someone left to get Coach Ward to help. Tom punched in Greg's number and had to call back twice before his coworker actually picked up. "Look, I don't know how you got this-" Tom cut him off. "Greg, shut up. It's Tom." Greg paused. "Tom? Who's phone are you calling from?" "My friend Devan's. Are you...uh, at the office," trying to word it so that it didn't look like he worked somewhere out of the ordinary to everyone listening to him. "The office? The holding center, yeah, why?" "Can you do me a huge favor?" Tom asked. "What?" Greg replied, suspicious. "If you think for one second that I'll take a hard case, then you're barking up the wrong tree. I'm not as young as you think I am." "Hell no. Alright, so here's the deal, I lost my phone, and my work ID, so I can't go into work until I get both of those back, or new ones. Can you get the Director to turn on the GPS thing so we can find it?" "Call him from your phone; they've got both your numbers here. Why didn't you call me from it?" Tom scratched the back of his neck as a red flush came to his face and neck. "Yeah, see, the thing is that whoever stole my ID took both my phones and all my money. I can't really get in touch with the Director, or even get into work." "Stolen?!" Greg exclaimed incredulously. "Are you serious? Do you know what kind of shit that could stir up if whoever has your phone can break the lock?" "I know. If you can find it, I can get it. I just need you to tell the Director to get the GPS thing running." Tom heard Greg sigh frustratedly over the phone. "You're already in deep shit. I'll go see him about it. Tell whoever's phone this is that you need it for half an hour. I'll call you back." Greg hung up and Tom managed to convince Devan that he would return his phone after his coworker called him back. After Coach Ward came in and everyone explained to him what happened and what was missing, everyone but Tom left. He waited almost an hour before Greg called back and told Tom that the Director was going to have his ass for getting his stuff stolen. After a bit of chewing out from Greg, mostly just because the Director was still close by, Tom was given the GPS coordinates, the address, and the directions on how to get there from school. He wrote everything down on his arm and told Greg he could get his phone back on his own and didn't need another agent to help him. ------------ After an unpleasant encounter with the phone thief, he went home and took a long, relaxing shower. He knew he was in big trouble, bigger trouble than he had ever been in before. The Director was probably close to firing him, and although that wasn't really an option for the old man at this point, it was still a great indicator at how mad he was. He'd heard the Director over the phone, how many times he'd said that he could fire him at the drop of a hat. The agent threw all his worries aside for a while and sat in the warm stream of water for the better part of an hour before he got out, changed into his house clothes, which was essentially whatever he found first in his dresser, and went downstairs to get something to eat. On the kitchen table, his work phone was ringing and he rushed over to pick it up. "Yeah? Hey, it's Tom, what's the problem?" "You've got a case. I want you here ten minutes ago, you little shit." The phone call ended abruptly, but already Tom was pale and still. A man had gone to the hospital the last time that snarling tone had been used. The Director was absolutely livid. ------------ "Sit," the Director commanded as Tom walked in and quietly sat across from the Director in the debriefing room. Another agent handed the Director two manilla folders and then stepped back, giving Tom a look of pity. The Director opened the folders and slapped two papers on the table, one from each folder. He then took a pen and scratched out the names on the papers with hard, angry marks. He then rewrote over the crossed out names and put the papers back into their respective folders. He tossed one at Tom. "You get the nutcase now. Dismissed." "Yes sir," om replied mechanically. He stood up and left without another word or glance at his boss and closed the door behind his exit. Outside, Greg was talking to two other agents and left his conversation when he saw Tom. "I know," Tom said, heading his friend off. "I don't want to hear it. I saw how many times he called me. Just...fuck man, just leave me alone today. I don't need it." Greg nodded. "Alright, well, If things get out of hand, call me and I'll give you a freebee. You won't owe me anything." "Thanks." Tom went back to his car and drove home to meet whoever it was that was going to ruin his evening further. He waited at home for almost an hour before his doorbell rang and he let in an odd pair of women. The first wore a pair of bright green welding goggles and had a short, sort of pixie haircut that was as black as coal and looked about as dirty too. The rest of her was covered in stitched, soiled overalls and a pair of thick workman's gloves. She stared blankly at Tom while her counterpart gave him a smile. She wore a simple cotton sundress and carried a small notebook and pencil on her left hand. The other was extended toward Tom. "You must be Alexander," she said, shaking Tom's hand. "Well, actually I'm Tom. There was a last-minute sort of reassigning. I hope it's no trouble...Aeril?" She nodded. "Yes. And this is Tyrin. Can you say hello Tyrin?" "Of course I can," replied the dirty, unkempt woman. "Hello Alexander, I'm very pleased to meet you." She smiled widely to reveal two sharp, long fangs protruding from the rest of her teeth. "I'm sorry, she's not used to having to introduce herself. Let's move somewhere where we can sit down and talk for a little while. Do you want to sit down, Tyrin?" "Yes." "Follow me and we'll sit down," Aeril said, tugging gently at Tyrin's arm. The strange demon followed her handler and the three of them went to the kitchen and sat down at the table. Aeril flipped through the folder and filled out the necessary sheets, skimming over the information on the ones Tom had read before their arrival. "So...does she even know where she is?" asked Tom after Aeril closed the folder. Aeril shrugged. "I'm not sure what she knows exactly. She surprises me still with the things she says, almost as if she can remember things for a while." "Was she always this disconnected?" "From reality? No. Before she developed Korsakoff's psychosis, she was a brilliant architect. She was contracted to build some of the grandest and most elaborate palaces and cathedrals and chambers Hell has ever seen." Tom nodded. "So what does she do now, follow you around, make appearances, what?" Aeril tapped Tyrin on the shoulder and the architect turned slowly, narrowing her eyes. "Who summons me?" "Aeril," the handler said kindly. "I was only wondering if you'd like to show Tom some of your work. He'd love to see some of your architecture designs." Tyrin smiled broadly. "Sure thing!" she chirped, pulling a large art pad and a pen from her overalls. She began to sweep the pen across the page and soon lost herself in a flurry of small strokes of black ink and imagination. "Most of what she creates now is impossible to construct. They're the most beautiful designs she has thought of, however. I paint some of them in my spare time and Tyrin always compliments my work, every time she sees them. She can't remember that she drew them in the first place." "So you two live together?" "Well, we live in the same home. But she prefers her quarters, and the tunnels she has dug out between them. She lives in almost total darkness, save for a little lamp she usually hangs between her horns, you know, like this?" Aeril pantomimed a swinging lamp above her head. "I...no, it's all wrong!" Tyrin growled, tearing the half-finished design out of the pad and ripping it into pieces. She tossed her pen across the room and dug around inside her overalls for a few seconds before retrieving a new pen, this one green. She smiled at Aeril and Tom and then pursed her lips in thought, looking around her person. "What is it Tyrin?" Aeril asked sweetly. "Where did my paper go?" "What paper?" Aeril asked. "Nevermind, I have my pen now." Tyrin began to draw again on a new page without a second thought and was soon once again engrossed in her delicate and intricate work. "Why'd she rip the other one up?" Tom asked in confusion. "She has an...affection. Well, no, it would be closer to an unrequited love for the color green. You see, there is no star in the entire universe that is green, and she therefore has a passion for that color. She also has stated on many occasions that her favorite eyes are green." "What do stars not being green have anything to do with her?" "Well, her psychosis has led her to believe that her eyes are tiny, fledgling stars. She wears goggles to ward off the sun, because she says it is trying to steal its children from her head, and she could not work without her eyes. She claims her recent designs have perfected the method of confusing the sun's rays from entering a building." "Aeril, do you remember when we constructed the Tempio di San Benedetto del Lupo?" Tyrin asked, eying her work on the page before her. "Of course I do. Why do you ask?" "I can't remember what we built after that. Wait...was it the Telluril homestead? Or the Caeca Invidia? Do you remember the Caeca Invidia? How high it was when we were finished? It almost raked its nails across the sky!" Tyrin mulled the memory around in her mind for a few moments. "Or was that the Casus Beli?" She quickly returned to her work. "That was the Caeca Invidia, Tyrin." "What?" the architect asked, swinging her head up from the page she was staring at intently. "I was speaking to Tom, don't worry. Finish up so you can show Tom how to keep the sun out." At her suggestion, Tyrin did exactly that and paid no more attention to her companion. "High enough to rake its nails across the sky?" Tom asked with genuine curiosity. "That is one of her confabulations. We never built the Caeca Invidia. We planned it, but her initial drawings were lost and she developed Korsakoff's before she could redraw them. Since then, the project has been a distant, fading memory." She gave a sad sigh and glanced at Tyrin with a look of intermingled affection and pity. "What was she like? Before Korsakoff's." Tom regretted putting it so bluntly immediately. "Tyrin the Stargazer? What was she like?" Aeril gave a sad smile. "She was a hundred fold the person she is now. She would stare at the sky and trace stars, draw the entire night sky from horizon to horizon, a canvas of color and emotion and wonder. She used to take those drawings and stare at them for hours, sometimes for days, and then draw plans for amazing architectural wonders. Impossibly precise, built to such exactness that one is even used to create all the map legends in Hell. Many have fought to the death and paid fortunes for the privilege of having her plan a home or monument for them. But she created not for wealth or fame, but for her own enjoyment, monuments and palaces and estates that bring mortals to tears at the mere sight of their splendor. That was Tyrin the Stargazer." Tom's eyes moved to the scribbling woman that sat before him at the table. A genius, a stargazer, an architect that was famed throughout Hell as possibly the best. She was sitting across from him working on something that some would have died to even glimpse at in Hell. What was she now? She could hardly remember what she was doing. She was filthy, afraid of the sun, and had an incurable disease that made her completely dependent on others. "I feel like fate is unfair. Seriously," Tom said with a sigh. "Seriuh...see?" Tyrin repeated slowly. "Seriuh? The seriuh? I designed and built her estate! I remember! I remember it!" she suddenly exclaimed excitedly. "What?" Aeril asked, her eyes alight with intrigue. "You remember?" "Yes," Tyrin said in a faraway voice, tearing her unfinished work out of the art pad and sliding it carelessly off the table. "I remember her. Green eyes. Beautiful green. She had a room to trap the sun. Cunning. Futile, but cunning." "Ceria?" Tom paled at just the thought of her now. Their bet was still fresh in his fears. "Yes," Tyrin replied, marking a new page with frantic, precise strokes of her pen. "I remember this estate. Here is the garden, the fountains, the plaza..., no, yes the courtyard, pillared. Second storey balcony, flowing pool flanked by ergonomic benches. Ceria's quarters, and the guardian of the Sanctus Sanctum. Here, look." She turned her art pad so that it faced him, where he found an unreadable map of some kind with a small caricature of a man with large, crystalline eyes. "What about this?" "This," she explained, circling the man with crystal eyes. "This is the guardian of the Sanctus Sanctum, one of several hundred in the Second Circle. I built them all differently so that it would be hard to unlock them all. This one, one must turn the eyes toward each other and then depress them until the mechanism unlocks. Then, the door opens and you are allowed access to the deepest parts of the estate." "I don't recall a guardian or a secret chamber. Are you sure they were in this estate?" Aeril asked, pointing to the map so keep Tyrin focused. "It was my duty to plan the estate and oversee its construction. I remember the slaves that we had to recruit, strong, tough mortals that were gathered from all across your world. Demons too, but most of them oversaw construction under my supervision." Tyrin was already too far gone to return to the same subject, and began to draw something else absentmindedly while she spoke. Aeril let it go and turned her attention back to Tom. "I don't believe that last part was true. I don't recall a guardian in the plans, and I have looked everything over more than once. She does love to plan and build secret passages and tunnels still, though. Her home is riddled with them." Tom looked at the clock on the microwave and thought that they had better get started on what they came her to do. "So, on the subject of you two being here in the first place, what should I know about her before we try to relieve her frustration?" As Tom said this, Tyrin got out of her chair and went to stand on her head, looking into the front foyer. "She hasn't had sex since she developed this condition. Do what you think will please her most," replied the demon as they both stood to get Tyrin ready. She swung her legs back and forth and stared, cross-eyed at the wrought iron banister that ran up the curved stairs to the second floor. "This house is so unsafe. Not nearly enough false passages, even when flipped upon its top and multiplied by a factor of two," she commented, getting back to her feet in one smooth motion. Aeril stepped behind her and slid one hand into her overalls. She put her lips to Tyrin's ear and whispered to her. "I've got a surprise for you, Tyrin. Tom here is willing to help you with your little problem down here, remember? This one?" Tyrin shuddered. "It feels..." Her face flushed red and she squeezed her golden eyes shut inside her goggles. "I needed to get her in the right mood first. I leave the rest to you." Aeril disappeared upstairs and left Tyrin looking very flustered and aroused. Tom moved behind her and slipped the overalls off her shoulders, kissing her neck softly as he pushed the denim down her thick, curvy hips. He hadn't realized it before, but she had amazing hips, bigger than even the case subject seventeen seventeen two, known by her moniker 'the goddess' because of her figure. Tyrin shuddered as his fingers brushed up her side and wrapped around her waist. She was like a virgin almost, so tender and sensitive to even the slightest touch. Tom put his lips to her ear and pulled her against his front gently. "Could step out of those dirty clothes for me now?" he asked. Tyrin bit her lip and she stepped out of her overalls, completely engulfed in the feeling of someone pressed against her body. Tom's free hand worked slowly at her core now that he could easily get to it, and he gently stroked her wet folds. "I feel good," Tyrin said, trying to arch her back as Tom wiggled his fingers back and forth inside of her. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 04 "That's good. Tell me if you like this," Tom said, moving his hand at her waist to her breast. He gave her a little squeeze and then pinched her nipple between two of his fingers, slowly massaging her pale orb in slow circles. Tyrin only moaned in return and began to breathe heavier. Tom continued to kiss her slender neck, nibbling at the sensitive flesh every now against again. It made her shudder and moan every time his teeth bit down on her skin. He blew lightly on the wet spots his kisses left, making her skin rise and her core wetter every second. Tom liked having a little bit of control. It was refreshing. He began to massage her other breast and kissed across the opposite side of her neck, taking his time to make sure that she was properly taken care of as she had been before. She didn't seem to notice anything had changed, moaning just as hard and taking just as many shallow, uneven breaths as before. "Do you want to be on the floor, on the couch, on the table, against the wall, in the pool, inside, outside, in the bath, shower, bed, where? We have so many choices. Just ask and I'll take you there." "Here," she replied, reaching back with both hands to grab his hair. "Then let me get undressed and we'll start." Tom withdrew his fingers from her body and let her waist go. She turned around and swung both her arms around him, squeezing him with enough force to push the air out of his lungs. She balled her fists in his shirt and tore it off his back, throwing it to the ground. Tom managed to get his shorts and boxers off before she could rip them off too, and kicked them aside as the demon stared at him hungrily. "I want to feel better," Tyrin said, walking over to the banister that lined the stairs. She leaned against it, grabbing a bar of wrought iron in each hand. "Here." She wagged her ass back and forth and looked back expectantly, grinning from ear to ear with a fanged smile. Tom couldn't believe how hot it all looked as he put his hands on her wide hips, pressing the tip of his arousal to her velvety folds. Normally, Tom would have kept his thoughts to himself, but since she wouldn't remember anything about this, he decided that he could say at least something about her godly hips. "I think your hips might be the greatest architectural wonder in Hell." Tyrin looked taken aback. "R...Really?" "Without a doubt," Tom replied, pushing into her body with a moan. Tyrin's face flushed red, even her ears, and she trembled slightly. He backed herself against him as he pumped into her again, watching the banister shake as she clung to it with tightly balled fists. Tyrin's golden eyes didn't leave Tom's body for a moment, sizing him up as their sexes collided hard and rhythmically. Tom couldn't figure out exactly how to keep rhythm with her when her hips jerked against him without any sort of pattern. Still, he didn't mind very much, as just the sight of her full curves gave him enough motivation to keep quiet. He ran one hand up her back, feeling the depression between the muscles in her back where her spine was. Her back arched hard as he reached the nape of her neck. He brushed his fingertips across her shoulders, bucking against her especially hard as she moaned. "Do you want to change positions?" Tom asked as he ran his fingers back down her body to clasp her thigh again. "No. I like this," she said firmly, backing against him with a pant. Tom nodded and picked up the pace they were going at. Suddenly, she leaned up and brought her hands back to his butt, squeezing him playfully as she put her head back on his shoulder. Tom stopped for a moment to figure out what she was doing. "Uh...do you want to switch positions now?" he asked again. This time, she stood up on her toes to disconnect their sexes and turned around, seating herself back on his throbbing cock without ceremony. The demon raised one leg to his hip and wrapped it around him, starting up again without him. He joined her motion and maneuvered them close enough to the stairs to put a hand on the banister for balance. He put his other hand at the small of her back and marveled at the sheer curve of her hip. Tyrin's goggles pushed against Tom's forehead as she tried to lean in for a kiss. Tom instinctively leaned away from her face, and debated on whether or not it would be alright to break regulation at this point. If the director found out, Tom would be in even deeper shit. Tyrin left him no time to think further as she forced her way to his mouth and pushed her lips against his. She smothered him in a rough, wild kiss as her hands raked across his back to bring them together harder. Tom couldn't help but give in and kiss her back, moving his hand down to her backside without even thinking to do it. Her other leg came up as he did that and she locked herself against him completely. Tom held her up with some effort, but refused to stop the smooth motion of their bodies sliding against each other. No matter how hard it might be to hold her, the sex was too good to stop. Tom had been with demons before, Ceria, Hera, the goddess, and a lot more. But not once had he been with someone who didn't know what they wanted. Tyrin was new for him. Her thoughts scrambled to make sense of the things she was feeling. Tom could see it in her eyes. Every thrust into her body gave her a thrill and rush of excitement and new feelings. And although she didn't quite know what she wanted to do, she was doing it right. Her body felt amazing. Warm, sweat-slick curves slid against Tom's body in sync with his movements. Her tongue fought his for control of his mouth, mingling with it in a familiar, natural contest. Every new attempt to drag them closer with her nails on his back made goosebumps rise all over Tom's back and arms. She nibbled at his ear and growled something in a low tone that sounded like a lot of random syllables fitted together to sound smooth. As her breath wafted through his carnal thoughts like a fog, her nails drove home again. He'd never had a woman scratch him like this. Even if scratching wasn't his kink, it still made his arousal shoot skyward. He broke their kiss and put his chin on her shoulder, focusing on keeping her in the right position as they rocked toward and away from each other continually. "Do you want to be against the table?" asked the agent as his arms started to feel sore. "I like this," Tyrin replied hoarsely. "We're going anyway," replied Tom as he took her a few feet to the left and swept half a dozen things off the foyer table in front of a huge panoramic mirror. He set her down on the edge of the table and she leaned her head back against the mirror behind her, her hands now at his neck. Tom took hold of her thighs and started thrusting again, harder now that he didn't have to worry about holding her up. The table shook from the force of her body being hammered back into it. It was hard to resist the urge to do what he knew would make him cum fastest. However, it wasn't his choice when he came, it was hers. So, he worked on trying to get her as hot and bothered as humanly possible. He started to massage her bouncing breasts again with his hands, and started to suckle one after a moment of consideration. He latched on to her breast and sucked hard, running his tongue over her erect, puffy nipple. Tyrin let out something like a squeak when he bit down, causing him to grin and suppress a chuckle as he thrust against her harder. The demon architect's fingers played in tiny, intricate patterns across his neck and shoulders as she fell into a sort of relaxed, aroused state. Her body bucked and arched and rolled in tune with his, but her breathing was slow and measured. Her golden eyes didn't blink as she stared down at Tom's efforts to make her cum. She looked like she was measuring up his skill as he drove himself into her again and again, pushing her thick thighs and wide hips back and forth against the table. Sweat glistened on her entire body, and a red flush spread across her face quickly. "I will cum," she said, digging her nails into his back as her eyes rolled back in her head and closed slowly. Tom couldn't believe she was cumming right now. He was almost there. He changed their position a bit so that each thrust would rake his sweet spot against as much sweet, velvety flesh as it could reach. Tyrin tensed around him suddenly and threw herself forward against him, sliding her hands all the way down to the small of Tom's back and curling her fingers sharply against him. She trembled as he pounded into her, trying to finish himself as she rode out her orgasm with powerful convulsions and slowly lessening thrusts into him. After a number of shallow, hard breaths, her enthusiasm faded and left Tom without much left to do but slow with her. The architect rode him with waning strength until they were completely still and Tom's urge to climax was slowly receding. Tom panted against her neck while she drew in long, deep breaths and shook all over either with excitement or pleasure. "Are you finished?" Tom asked, hoping that she would want to continue. "I am tired," Tyrin replied, breathing warmly into Tom's ear. "I see stars..." Tom blinked. "What?" Tyrin slumped against him tiredly and he realized that her consciousness was fading. He sighed in resignation and slid her gently off the creaking table. Tom put an arm beneath her thighs and one one her back to steady her, lifting her off his rigid arousal. He carried her to the long couch in the living room and set her on it quietly. As he set a blanket over her, footsteps came down the stairs and a voice humming a slow, soft tune accompanied it. Tom walked into the foyer to find Aeril picking up Tyrin's overalls and gloves, folding them. She turned her head up to him with an amused smile. "Was she too much trouble?" the demon asked. "Not at all," answered the agent, picking up his own clothes. His brow furrowed at the sight of a dark, glimmering mark running down the back of his arm. He craned his neck to see where it started, and found his shoulder was bleeding. He wiped at it with his shirt and wet, red blood stuck to the garment. Aeril put her hand to his shoulder and examined him for a moment. "Did she scratch the rest of you as well?" The demon looked at his back and shook her head. "She did. I'll clean it off. Find somewhere to sit down and I'll grab a wash cloth." Tom took a quick look at the floor to see if there was anything he needed to clean up, but didn't see any blood, and he was too lazy to pick everything up on the floor and put it back on the table. He walked into the kitchen and set his clothes on the table, taking a seat on one of the bar stools at the granite-topped island near the sink. Aeril wet a hand towel and dabbed at the ruts where Tyrin's nails had driven through his skin. "I'm sorry about this. I haven't seen her have sex after she developed Korsakoff's," she apologized, wiping at the trails of blood running down his arm. After she was through with his right arm, she washed the cloth as best she could at the sink and started with his left one. When she reached his elbow with the reddened cloth, she let out an impatient sigh and stuck her tongue out. "You don't mind if I...?" Tom shrugged. "I don't care." Aeril nodded and started to lick the blood off his arm, going much faster than she had been with the rag. She then continued with his back, taking care with the bleeding lacerations that crisscrossed his skin down to his tailbone. As she cleaned him off, she sucked a little at the drying blood, pushing her lips against his skin softly at first, and then hard as she licked away the blood. If Tom knew better, he would have assumed that she was giving him hickeys all over his body. But she wasn't the one that was frustrated; the cuts were proof enough of that. She went up his back, reaching his neck after covering every every wound with cool, wet licks. She ran her tongue along the back of his ear and giggled softly as he winced. "She got your ear quite hard with her fangs. Almost as hard as I just got your neck. I do so love giving a horny boy like you a nice dark, purple hickey." She sucked at his ear carefully, letting her tongue make long, circular orbits around the tears on the outside rim of his ear. "I assume that means you're in the mood too?" Aeril kissed his temple. "The request wasn't for her; it was for me." The demon slid one hand down Tom's chest and then ran her fingers up the agent's rigid, throbbing arousal. "Where?" Tom asked, getting off the stool and wrapping his arm around Aeril's waist. "Anywhere you like. I'm very easy to please once I've had my midnight snack," the demon purred, sucking hard at the base of his neck. Tom let out a pleased sigh and pulled the hem of Aeril's sundress up her sleek, smooth thighs. "Is here fine? It's my job to satisfy you completely, you know." Aeril kissed up his neck and whispered into his ear sensually, "Here is just fine, hickey-hoarder." She gave his neck another long, hard suck and blew on the reddened skin with a giggle. "Here is just fine." ------------ Tom dragged himself away from Aeril's stretched out form on the countertop and slumped into the nearest kitchen chair. The demon breathed in and out softly as she adjusted herself on the granite and made no attempts at getting up. Tom guessed that's where she'd be sleeping tonight, considering it was about eleven. He looked over to where he'd left Tyrin as was surprised to find her outside instead of on the couch. Interested, he managed to drag himself to his feet and shuffle through the open sliding patio door behind her. He looked at her and saw glimmering streaks running down her bare face, goggles held loosely in one hand. She wept silently as she stared up into the moonlit sky. Tom looked up at the sky, but he could only see the stars and the moon among them, no strange anomalies or nightmares tearing through the fabric of reality. Nothing bu an ordinary, panoramic sky at night. "It's beautiful..." Tyrin said, turning her head slowly to face Tom. His eyes widened as she looked at him. The golden color of her eyes was strikingly vibrant. It took Tom a moment to understand what she said. "The sky?" "The children of creation. They're whispering to me. Oracles, prophets, sleeping dreams, they're whispering. Listen." She looked back up at the sky and continued to weep quietly. Tom sat and watched the sky until his eyes grew heavy and he drifted to sleep, Tyrin's eyes still hard set on the sky and all its twinkling, expansive glory. A/N: A little short, I know, but I thought since the last chapter sorta lacked sex at the end, this one would be full of it. Also, let me know if I'm abusing the "------" thing. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 05 Veronica mulled something about in her mind that she just couldn't quit thinking about. She bit the tip of her pencil and chewed on the lead tip every now and again while she leaned back in her chair. Her eyes stared aimlessly at the ceiling while her mind fit thoughts and ideas together in her head. When had Tom been cursed? And by what? None of the records here revealed those two things. He was cursed at some point, that was for sure. But who or what had done it eluded even the great political machine that ran the Special Divisions of the Department of Homeland Security and Internal Affairs, one of which Tom still worked for. Everyone here had their records fleshed out since the day they'd arrived. Everyone down to Veronica and Werin, the other demon who worked with the Department, had their lives prior to joining the Department investigated and recorded. Veronica hadn't been happy to learn that somebody here knew full well everything she'd done since birth, but she couldn't do a thing about it. These people always got what they wanted. But for Tom, his file was slim compared to even the newbies here. His life beyond the age of fourteen was almost a total mystery. His birth records hadn't ever been found, despite inquiries to just about every hospital within seven hundred miles of the place he'd been found, and more. His birthparents hadn't been found, though what was left of his foster parents had been, right where Tom had been picked up for the first time. It was like he'd been born in the institution at fourteen and been raised by the Department into what he was now. It was a little sad to see the empty shell of a happy child shuffle in and out of the detainment center with a manilla folder in hand, coming or going. Only a little though. Veronica had seen sob stories worse than this one. She'd barely been touched by the hardships and misfortunes of those far more troubled than Tom. But then again, he was a different case. She hadn't seen anyone but Tom crying on a stony beach, broken and dying. She shrugged and tossed her pencil behind her in boredom, spinning her chair toward the door. She stood up and reached for the knob, but somebody pulled it open from the other side and stopped Veronica where she was. "Oh, just the demon I was hoping to see," three oh one thirty, lesser known as Ceria, purred as she flipped lazily from page to page in a manilla folder. Veronica breathed calmly and slowly as she backed toward the opposite wall and put her chair in front of her. "Can I offer you a seat?" she said, gesturing toward the chair. What in the Hell was she doing here? Ceria smiled. "Thank you." She made herself comfortable in Veronica's chair and closed the door with her foot. She flipped the lock with the tip of her shoe and then turned around to face Veronica. There was a tense moment where Veronica's fear was palpable, and using this, Ceria spoke with measured calmness and a cheerful demeanor. "I'd like to request a guest for a festival that is going to take place in my estate soon. Several guests actually. As a token of friendship between Hell and the United States of America, I've extended six invitations to this festival toward your organization." "And the Director sent you to me to create a list of the guests?" Veronica offered, completely lost and a little afraid of the demon sitting before her. This was three oh one thirty. She didn't come to offer peace to the Department. She didn't come in friendship. She didn't ever come for anything but her own desired to be fucked until she was satisfied. And she did not 'request' anything; she demanded it. "Well, not exactly," Ceria replied, slipping a few pages out of the folder and handing them to Veronica. "I've been searching through your records to find out which of your number I want, and it comes as a very interesting fact that the one I want most is not permitted to be assigned to Hell." "And these are his records?" inquired Veronica, looking at a page with 'Thomaz Lanzig' typed neatly across the center. "Yes. And I would like them changed to reflect my desires," the sly demon replied, giving Veronica a very serious look. The agent hesitated as she looked at the capital 'H' on the third page with Y/N printed next to it and the 'N' circled with a dark, heavy red pen stroke. "I don't know if I can change this. There are off-site backups of all these records, virtual data, encrypted. Even if someone manages to be fooled by a change here, some bookie in D.C. Is going to notice that somebody ended up where they shouldn't. And then-" "Let me put this in a less forgiving way," Ceria said, cutting Veronica's words off completely. "Thomas Lanzig will be on the list of guests allowed into Hell for the festival at my estate. Thomas Lanzig will be the first name on that list. And Thomas Lanzig will be in Hell within the year. Or as you here would say, there will be Hell to pay. And I will demand a huge sum for failure." Veronica had to force herself to breathe. "As you wish," she said in a shallow, hollow voice. A smile crept across Ceria's lips. "That's what I like to hear. Now, I'll leave this here with you, and I'll go to your Director about what needs to be done to prepare the six chosen to entertain at the festival." Ceria stood to leave, but Veronica held her at the door, putting her hand on the knob as Ceria reached for it. She had to force herself to breathe again. "I don't know what you want with Tom, but I'll let you know up front that if you kill him-" Ceria put her hand gently on Veronica's cheek and gave her a soft, threatening smile. "The manner of fun I choose to have with that boy is none of your concern. That is strictly between me and that curse of his." With that, Ceria removed Veronica's hand from the door and strode down the hallway seemingly without a care in the world. Veronica could only watch her and think how impossibly difficult it was going to be to get Tom's files and backups changed in the amount of time she had. She looked down at her trembling hand. Christ, she needed more coffee. ------------ Meanwhile, Tom was busy having his back gawked at by the other guys in the locker room at school. He had only realized that he was covered with dark indigo hickeys and dozens of lacerations from Tyrin's nails after he had decided to go to school today despite his mental and physical fatigue. Luckily, his wounds from his near-fatal adventure in Scotland were nearly healed completely. However, it was fairly obvious that the ones from last night hadn't healed, and the general assumption was that he'd been having rough, wild sex last night until the early hours of the morning. Tom tried to dissuade his classmates from taking things too far, but of course they were exactly right. "Dude, you seriously have like twenty hickeys all over you. What the hell did you do last night?" Alan said, putting on his gym shirt. Tom shrugged. "You know, and don't try to blow this out of proportion. I had sex with this girl last night, and she got really physical from the start." Well, that was mostly the truth. "Wait, does she go here? Was it Amy Silvert?" Alan pushed. Several eyes turned toward Tom then. "No," Tom almost shouted. "No, hell no. Amy is easier than a Thai hooker. Nastier too. No, you know...it was just some girl I met out and about. We hooked up. That's pretty much it." "Nobody gets fucked up like you did from just hooking up. What was she, a goddamn jungle cat covered in razor blades?" "Nah, probably just a cougar, trollin' around for a young stag to pounce on, right Tom?" Victor said, laughing. "Yeah, sure," Tom replied as they left the locker room. "She's older." "How old are we talkin' here? Thirties?" Alan asked. "I dunno, I never asked. She wasn't old, no crow's feet or wrinkles," answered the agent, remembering Tyrin's vibrant eyes staring at him with forgotten passion and longing. He was silent for a little while before Victor clapped a hand on his back. "Hey, still with us?" he asked. "Yeah, I'm still here. Last night tired me out so bad I can hardly function. I feel like a zombie," Tom said, yawning loudly. Though he tried not to show it, his back hurt like hell from Victor's friendly slap. "So you still haven't told us what she looked like," Devan noted. "Yeah, great rack, thighs, what?" Alan said. Tom thought for a moment. "If I said there's not one person on this earth with a better set of thighs and hips, would you believe me?" "Alexis Texas good?" Alan questioned. Tom scoffed. "She's better, way better. Like if Alexis Texas wasn't just all ass." "Well, looks like somebody took his time getting to bed last night," Coach Ward commented, having overheard pretty much the whole conversation from the locker room door to the gym. "Let's keep the small talk PG, alright boys?" "Yes sir," the students chimed in relative unison. Coach Ward walked ahead of them and blew his whistle for the students to get into their places for roll call. "No but seriously, better?" Alan asked. "Way better." "Not fucking fair." ------------ Fifth period, ten minutes away from getting out of school and into his car to drive to McDonald's. Tom rapped his fingertips on his desk repeatedly, having finished the notes and worksheet Mr. Brommor had tasked the class with. He and his teacher weren't on even glancing terms right now, and Tom was perfectly fine with that. Something landed on Tom's desk and slid into his lap as he pondered what to get to eat. He looked at it, thinking it was going to be a pen or something someone had thrown. Instead, what he found was a neat little triangle of paper with a question mark in dark pencil written on the back. He looked around and saw a girl looking at him from across the room. Cynthia, one of the hottest girls in school, actually. Tom shrugged and unfolded the piece of paper until he could read what had been concealed on the inside. What Tom read genuinely surprised him to a large degree. 'How much do you want me?' Tom flipped the paper over and scribbled 'describe want' on it. Lacking the skill to do what she did, he just crumpled the paper up and tossed it back to her. She read it, pulled out a bright pink pen, and scribbled an answer. She tossed it back to him and he read her response. 'Sex want' was all it said. Tom thought on it for a moment, and then wrote '5/10, I dunno. I get enough sex already' He sent it back, and it didn't look like she was very happy with his reply. She wrote something and then threw it back. '5? Are you fucking kidding me? Prick. My house, Thursday after school.' Tom tried to figure out what the last part meant, considering that she'd just called him a prick. Did she really want him to fuck her? One look at her told him no, and one look at the paper said yes. He rolled his eyes and stuffed the paper into his pocket. He'd just ask her after class. The bell rang a little while later and Tom caught up to her half way through the parking lot. She didn't look at all happy, not that he cared much anyway. It wasn't like she was going to start a rumor that he was lame in the sack if she was pissed. "What did you mean by your house on Thursday?" Tom asked. Cynthia arched a plucked, thin brow and smirked. "I want you to be at my house after school on Thursday." She leaned in close to his ear. "Nobody gives me a fucking five out of ten. Especially an awkward little faggot like you." Tom chuckled a little. "Forget everything I just said. Forget the five, you're a two. I absolutely cannot stand a girl with a condescending attitude. If you want to have sex that badly, come to my house on Friday." "You're saying no?" Cynthia shouted, incredulous. "No, I'm saying I need you to ask me for sex. That's how everyone else does it." Tom turned around and started walking back to his car. "And if I say you raped me?" the cheerleader asked slyly. The agent shrugged. "I have a gun in my glove box. I can prevent that situation in a heartbeat." "You just threatened me! Do you know how much trouble I can get you in?" Tom look a long, contemplative look at the sky, and then shook his head slowly. "My house on Friday. Come in through the back door. It'll be unlocked." ------------ Tom was eating cereal watching TV when his back door shook with loud thuds on Friday afternoon. At first, he thought it was a really poor attempt at breaking in, but when he saw Cynthia about to blow a gasket, a wide grin crept over his face. He stood up and walked to the back door. "Let me the fuck in you prick!" Cynthia shouted. "D'you bring a condom? I don't usually use one, and I'm sure as hell not risking-" She had a box of them slapped against the door pane before he could finish. Apparently, she was expecting him to be a quick-shot or something. That, or she thought she was staying the night. Tom unlocked the door and opened it just enough to let her inside. Cynthia, almost red in the face with frustration, suddenly ducked back out the door and yelled at someone else. "Hurry up!" She pushed past Tom as he peered out the door to see who she'd brought with her. He recognized Amanda, one of Cynthia's cheerleading buddies. With a sigh, he waved her in and she winked at him as she passed. Tom looked around to make sure there wasn't anyone else that he'd have to put up with and then closed the door, locking it. He turned around to find that Cynthia and Amanda were already rummaging through his refrigerator and Amanda had one of the last two pitchers of Hera's breast milk in her hands. "I wouldn't drink that if I were you. That's for work, and you're not gonna like what it does to you," he warned, taking another bite of his Cocoa Puffs. Amanda looked intrigued. "Oh? What's it gonna do?" she asked curiously, dipping her finger into the pitcher. "Make you puke for two days and spend a night in the hospital," he replied, causing Amanda to shove the pitcher back into the fridge and opt for a coke instead. Meanwhile, Cynthia was taking no time to heat up all the spaghetti he'd cooked two nights ago. Between the two of them, it looked like he was the guest and this was their house. Tom sat down on one of the bar stools at the island in the kitchen and finished his cereal off. Amanda looked all around his living room and kitchen from where she stood at the island while Cynthia was busy looking through every drawer for a fork. "Hey, where's the silverware?" Tom pointed to the drawer next to her. "There." "So..." Amanda began. "This is a big house. Are your parents out or something?" Tom shrugged. "They don't live here." "Wait, you live here by yourself? Alone?" she asked, incredulous. "Yep," he replied as Cynthia pulled another stool up to the island and started eating. Amanda's eyes glittered. "Oh my God you're so lucky! I would kill to not have my parents freaking out about every little thing that went on in my life! So you don't have any rules at all? You can do anything you want?" "I can have you two over to fuck, can't I?" he answered, taking his empty bowl to the sink. "It's a privilege that we even came over to your house," Cynthia snorted. Tom rolled his eyes. "I can always say no and go pick someone up at a club tonight. It's honestly not that hard." "How many girls do you honestly think would come here and screw you without getting paid for it?" the cheerleader asked rhetorically. "Well, I've got like six numbers, an address, and two coupons to Bonefish Grill from one week of clubbing. Wanna see?" "Whatever." She looked around for a moment and then stuck her fork into her spaghetti. "What do you do? I mean, is this your parents' old house or something?" "No, I have a job with really good benefits." He moved into the living room and grabbed the remote. He turned the TV off and then returned to the kitchen. "What kind of job pays for a house like this and not your shitty car?" Tom sighed. "Look, as much as I'd love to make small talk for an hour, I have stuff to do today. Can we just get on with this? Where do you want to have sex?" Cynthia looked like she'd been caught off guard, and she gave Amanda and sideward glance. They exchanged a confused look and the latter shrugged after a couple seconds of hushed whispering and debate. Cynthia eventually shrugged like her friend and shook her head. "I didn't think you'd be asking me. Anywhere's fine." "Well, choose quick. I already turned off Starsky and Hutch for this. Any more and I'm gonna turn the TV back on." "Fine. Your room," Cynthia said without hesitation. She looked more than a little annoyed. "Well, let's get up there and do this then," said Tom as he stripped his shirt off and tossed it onto the couch in the living room. Cynthia and Amanda followed him up to his room and gave each other looks as they went up the stairs and down the hallway to his room. "Alright, well, I guess you wanna do it on the bed, right?" Tom took his pants and boxers off in one motion and tossed them into the dirty laundry bin. He realized that neither of the girls had undressed yet. "Hello? You did come here to have sex, right? I'm not just getting played for a fool here am I?" he asked, waving his hand in front of Cynthia's face. The cheerleader let out a sigh in mild contempt and stripped her shirt off. "I didn't think you'd like take off all your clothes this quick. Is there even gonna be foreplay, or do you expect me to just like put out for nothing?" "Hey, you said you wanted to have sex, not me to romance you," Tom shot back testily. "I already don't like you. I'm only doing this because it weighs more in my favor to do it than to not." "Go fuck yourself Tom," Cynthia retorted, throwing her shirt at him. She undressed and Tom extended his arm toward the bed. "I guess...however you want me to do it. What position do you want?" This was extremely odd for Tom. He'd never had to be this forward about it. Normally, things just fell into place how they did and things got done. "I like it from behind," Cynthia replied with an impish grin. She hopped on the bed and Tom looked at Amanda. "Did you bring the condoms? Or are they still downstairs?" Amanda grabbed the box from the dresser next to her and tore one of the condoms off the ribbon of them. She tossed it to him. "Have fun." Tom shrugged. "I guess that means you're not here for me?" "No, I'm just here because Cynthia asked me to be." She gave Tom one of those looks that said she honestly wanted to be somewhere else. He didn't blame her, so when she left, he didn't say anything about it. He found Cynthia on all fours, wagging her ass back and forth at him, waiting. This was almost too unbelievable for him to wrap his head around. One of the most annoying, conceited, rude people he'd ever met was on his bed, waiting for him to fuck her. And he was honestly about to fuck her. He pushed the thought out of his head and put on the condom Amanda had given him. He moved behind Cynthia and put the tip of his cock against her sex. "Ready?" he asked, noticing that she was actually really short compared to him. She looked fragile compared to the other women he'd had sex with. Actually, comparatively, she was just a girl, eighteen, and far less developed than all the others. "Just hurry up and stick it in me," she said. Tom grabbed her hips and pushed into her down to the base without any second thoughts. Cynthia let out a load yelp in surprise and pain, looking back at Tom angrily. "What?" he said. "Asshole," she growled, starting to rock against him. Tom loosened his grip on her and started falling into rhythm with her body. He didn't really feel anything in this, especially not with a condom on. It was like eating your favorite food without it touching your tongue. Sure, you knew it was good, but you still lost the only part you cared about. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 05 Cynthia starting breathing slower and deeper as they progressed, and Tom remained as disconnected and bored from this as he had imagined he would be. Cynthia looked back at him and stopped completely when she saw his expression. "What now?" Tom asked. "Take the condom off. Just pull out," she said, disconnecting from him. She flipped over onto her back and spread her legs out for him. He pulled the condom off and remounted her, pushing into her wet core easily. She moaned and bit her bottom lip, grabbing the sheets with balled fists as Tom began to roll his hips against hers. She responded with a slow rhythm, arching herself against him as he penetrated her body. In Tom's opinion, she wasn't really bad at all, she was just decent. It wasn't like he didn't enjoy it, because she did feel good and she was doing it right. She just didn't have that glimmer of passion that he was used to. Even so, he was propped up on his arms with his hands on the sheets, feeling Cynthia's breath on his neck. Her hands rose to his back and she hugged him to her smaller frame, her breathing starting to intensify as he bucked against her with quickening speed. It was like he was just going through the motions. He slid in and out of her body, his cockhead tingling with the familiar feeling of a woman around it. Cynthia knew what she was doing, rolling against him in rhythm, matching her breathing with his. She wrapped her legs around his thighs and slid her hands down to his butt, squeezing him hard as she tensed her entire body for a moment. Tom slowed, but she shook her head and him and pulled him to get him to continue. "I'm close," she breathed into his ear, causing his skin to rise all over. She was really turned on. "Seriously?" he whispered back. "It's only been like ten minutes." "Yeah," replied the cheerleader, pulling him closer as she gasped and her breath caught in her throat. Tom ground their sexes together and put an extra thrust into his motion, pulling back again as she clamped her mouth down on his ear, moaning in pleasure. He pushed into her again and she took a sharp intake of breath. Her arms moved to his shoulders and she forced herself against him with trembling limbs. Tom waited for her to collect herself and she eventually relaxed a little, lying back on the bed without hugging Tom for dear life. She looked like she was confused, just sitting there with her face innocent and thoughtless. Tom slowed his breathing and made an effort to keep himself from picking back up from where they left off. It was an extremely rare occasion that his partner came first, and an even rarer one that he got to do it in his own bed. It felt almost a little weird seeing as he hadn't screwed in a bed more than a handful of times. "That was great," she managed to get out, drawing Tom out of his thoughts. "I usually only get 'good'," Tom replied, grinning a little. "Want more?" Cynthia asked, grinding her sex against his. "Wait, what? Really? You're not tired?" Tom said, almost in disbelief. Cynthia shook her head. "I feel sorry for the girls that can't do it like me." She roped her arms around his neck and Tom let his disbelief roll away as he started to push and part their bodies again. Cynthia groaned deep in her chest and Tom leaned down to her neck, giving it a little kiss. She wasn't bad, all things considered, save for her attitude. Lean, tanned, and busty, though the latter two he thought might be fake. Nobody had perky tits like hers without plastic being involved. Still, she was hot, and he couldn't deny that she was better in bed than most normal girls. He kissed his way up her neck to her ear, giving her earlobe a quick little nibble. She gasped and jerked up against him, goosebumps rising all across the right side of her body. "So why'd you bring your friend here?" Tom asked as he put a hand against the sheets to prop himself up and off her. "She rides home with me," Cynthia said, moaning as she wrapped her legs around his lower back and arched her back firmly. Tom nodded and adjusted his thrusts into her as they picked up the pace again. It was a little different now that she'd cum. He had never continued after having a woman climax. He'd never been able to. She felt different somehow, like there was a different motion inside of her when their hips met and parted. He ignored it and kept on pushing into her as deep as he could, relishing the look on her face. Oh, the dumb faces people make during sex. She was still riding her orgasm down just a little, that much was obvious. She was also a great deal calmer with her jerking hips, not completely, but her thrusts were less wild and the wet slaps their bodies made were at a constant, fast rhythm compared to the racing uneven one before. Cynthia's breath was hot against his chest, the top of her head against the dip in his throat as she hugged him. She was starting to sweat, while Tom was barely even working his heart rate up. Was this really happening? Had he been conditioned for a different grade of sex by work? Cynthia's clenched thighs and the high squeals coming up her throat told him that he had been. He continued to bring himself down and against her rhythmically, sliding his right hand up and down her body smoothly. Her skin was slick with tiny droplets of sweat and he could feel her tiring out. "You still good to go?" he asked as they slowed to a stop. "Keep going," she replied, panting. Tom shrugged and jerked her hard, receiving a gasp and a moan in pleasure. Her slowed their pace down and thrust hard a deep, allowing her a little reprieve from action. Still, she breathed heavily and by the time her third orgasm rolled around, she was trembling from her toes to her fingertips. At that point, Tom sat up and took her hands away from his back, holding her slim, fragile-looking body upright as she heaved air in and out of her lungs. She looked like she was about to keel over and faint if she did anything but sit there and stare at him tiredly. "You're not alright," Tom said as he lifted her off his throbbing cock and laid her down flat on the bed. "Stay here, I'm getting you something to cool yourself down with." "Hold on," she said, trying to sit up. She trembled at the effort of it and groaned. Tom was already leaving though, and didn't pay any attention to her as he made his way down the stairs and into the kitchen. He got a Ziploc bag and filled it with ice. As he turned around to go back upstairs, he found Amanda searching through the drawers in his living room. "Uh...what are you doing?" he asked, walking over to her as she jumped from being caught totally off guard. "Holy shit you scared me," she said, letting out a short, scared breath. "What are you doing?" Tom asked again, this time with more force. "I'm...looking for uh... TV guide. I don't know what channel American Idol is on," she replied. Tom frowned. "The TV isn't even on. What are you really doing?" Amanda hesitated and searched for something to say, but Tom wasn't ready to buy anything she was about to say. "I-" "Okay, maybe you don't understand what lying here means. If you're trying to steal something, you're gonna get in huge trouble. I work for some very powerful people, and stealing from me is like stealing from them. You do not want to do that. So tell me what you're doing or I'm calling the cops." "Okay," Amanda said, her pupils dilating as her blood pressure shot through the roof in fear. "Cynthia wanted to get blackmail on you. I swear it was her. I just needed a ride home and she wouldn't take me if I didn't do this." Tom sighed. "Did you find anything? And I'll be checking later if you're lying or not." "I found that," she said, pointing to Tom's wallet on the kitchen table. "Anything else?" "No," she said meekly. Tom bit his bottom lip and motioned for Amanda to get up. "Go upstairs and put this on Cynthia's forehead." He handed the bag of ice and the girl went upstairs. Tom got his wallet and looked through it. Everything was still in it, but his work ID had clearly been looked at. He sighed and after a minute of deliberation with himself, decided that it was safe enough to let her go without having anyone from work know what had happened. He didn't want her to get into any unnecessary trouble because Cynthia was a conniving bitch. Upstairs, Amanda was telling Cynthia what had happened and the latter just sat there with the cool bag on her forehead, eyes closed and breathing heavily and deeply. "When you can get up, get out of my house. I don't appreciate people being nosy, especially when they can't even get me off," said Tom scathingly, putting on his boxers, flipping the elastic waistband over his hard arousal. "Go to hell," Cynthia returned, giving Tom a short glare. He just shook his head and leaned against the wall behind him. ------------ Veronica's deft fingers played the keys of her keyboard like a lifetime programmer's. Her eyes followed every new line of text, checking for errors and typos, unblinking and focused. She didn't move, save for the steady rhythm and gentle clicking of her fingers running smoothly across the keys. Text spilled forth onto the document, nearly three hundred words a minute. She'd started yesterday and been working for hours at a time with breaks between sessions to save, copy, or upload something. Her wrists had started complaining after about six hours. Since then, she'd switched to her Dvorak keyboard and was zipping through document after document, coding and encoding and translating hundreds of lines of text. So far, her virus was only about seventy percent complete, but it was getting there. It took forever, but coding past the antivirus software Pentagon's paid genius Mark had created was only a challenging process at best. Why they needed antivirus for a private, closed server was beyond her. Veronica had been working at coding since the Twenties, when bank accounts had become fraud targets. She'd foreseen technological advances encoding bank vaults and account information, but the reality of human ingenuity had overtaken her foresight by leaps and bounds. Still, her hobby was very useful and her nearly ninety years of experience were paying off nicely. Mark was a genius at coding and programming, but he only had about fourteen algorithms that didn't blend together in a pattern at some point. So, Veronica had been able to figure out his patterns and was busying herself on deconstructing all his efforts to keep intruders out of the system. She had three weeks to get her virus up and running and install another virus and a worm on Mark's tower to slow down the detection rates the genius was known for. And even with all this, she knew she was going to have to physically distract him from his work to get this to succeed. Her fingers stopped as a chill ran up her spine. Mark was absolutely the last person she wanted to have sex with, even if it was for a distraction. Gods, he was a self-righteous prick by all means. Condescending, narcissistic as a succubus in a frat house, and a playboy wannabe. From what was said about it, besides what he said, the guy was terrible in bed. Veronica's fingers resumed their work and- The demon nearly jumped out of her skin as the doorbell rang. It took her a moment to realize that she was no longer in her chair staring at a computer screen, but on the floor staring at the ceiling instead. She blinked in confusion and then sat up, finding herself still sitting in her overturned office chair. Her keyboard dangled from the desk in front of her, swinging back and forth. She erased the mistakes and saved the document as the doorbell rang again, accompanied by three knocks. She righted the chair and stood up, brushing pretzel crumbs off her tank top. She made her way to the front door and peered through the peephole. Tom stood on her doorstep, his car parked on the street in front of her house. He was covered in a dark glaze of water, and it was only then that Veronica realized that it was raining hard outside. Tom stood in the rain and waited patiently, raising his hand to knock again. Veronica unlocked the door and threw it open. "What do you want?" she asked gruffly. "I need your advice. I'll be out of your hair in a second," he said, looking back at his car. Veronica groaned. "Hold on, stay here for a second." She went back into the computer room and saved the file again, closing out of everything on her computer and then shutting it down and unplugging it. She took the power cord out of the computer and tossed it into the corner across the room. No way she was getting caught making a virus, even if the chances of Tom looking around her stuff was zero. She went back to the front door where Tom was still waiting, his clothes soaked all the way through and his short hair gleaming with water. Veronica motioned for him to come inside and he stepped into the foyer, taking off his rain-soaked jacket. "I uh...where should I put this? You have any towels?" the boy asked. "Hold on," Veronica said, getting a towel from the laundry room. When she returned, she found Tom trying to wipe some of the water off his arms with his hands. He wrapped his jacket up in the towel and they both went into the small kitchen Veronica had neglected to clean since God-knows-when. They sat down and the demon gave herself a once-over. She looked like shit to be honest. Her chestnut brown hair was matted and filthy. Her tank top was dirty and still covered in crumbs. Her underwear sure as hell couldn't have been clean either because she couldn't remember changing it in the past three days. But, after a second of kicking herself in the head mentally for completely ignoring her personal hygiene, she looked back up at Tom and motioned for him to start talking. "Okay, so there's a girl that likes me, that I don't like, and she won't stop bothering me. How do I get her to stop?" he asked, completely straight-faced. Veronica was almost in disbelief. "So you drove all thirty minutes out here, waited in the rain, and sat me down...to get advice on how to get a girl to stop bothering you? Knowing full well that I don't know a damn about human girls?" Tom shrugged. "Who else am I gonna ask? Greg and Harvey were no help. Everyone else at school thinks its funny, except for this girl's boyfriend, who's already made death threats to me." He still looked completely serious. "What do you want me to say? You could kill her, but I don't think you want to do that...do you?" Veronica suggested. Tom gave her a sour look. "If you want to make jokes, then I'll just leave. Thanks for nothing." He scooted his chair back from the table and stood up. "No, hold on," Veronica interjected. "Okay, tell me what she's doing." Tom sat back down and sighed. "Fucking everything. She takes every chance at school and everywhere else to talk to me, or try to. I can't tell her to shut up or leave me alone enough times for her to get it. I mean, we only had sex one time and it wasn't even really that good, and now she's absolutely in l-" "You had sex with her?" asked the demon, genuinely curious and surprised. "I didn't think she would agree!" Tom explained in his own defense. "She's a typical bimbo blonde cheerleader who can't rub two brain cells together! I made the offer to piss her off and when she came over, what the hell was I supposed to do? Oh, no, I'm not man enough to do this, so you can go home and post all over Facebook about it. I'm already not so liked at school by my teachers. I don't need everyone on my back." "So you need to make her stop?" "Yes," Tom replied, looking frustrated, but hopeful. Veronica thought it over for a moment, and then came up with something. "If she wants you for the sex, then give her bad sex. That should get her to stop." Tom gave her a flat look. "I am not having sex with her again. Period. And like I said, it wasn't even that good the first time. But she thought it was the most amazing thing on the planet. It's fucking stupid." "Well then try asking the proper authorities to make her stay away from you." Tom threw his hands up. "The school won't do anything!" he shouted. "Nobody will. It's fucking gay!" To the demon, his problem seemed a little trivial, but who was she to judge? She only had to write a virus and get it to block a whole system's worth of security and tracking bugs for more than six minutes. And somehow get Mark to stay away from his servers for more than ten seconds at a time. Yeah, just a little bit trivial. She sighed. "Calm down for a minute and keep thinking." Tom's stomach growled unceremoniously and Veronica shook her head. "I'll find us something to eat." She rummaged through her kitchen and decided on some clam chowder and chicken noodle soup for their simplicity and ease in cooking. Once they had their food, they talked on and off about Tom's predicament and some other things going on at work, mostly about Allen from Division Thirteen acting a little strange lately. About forty minutes passed and Tom decided it was time to go. He put his jacket back on and ran back through the rain to get into his car. Veronica went back into the kitchen and started to actually unload her dish washer so she could load something into it, when the doorbell rang again. Her brow furrowed. Tom hadn't left anything, so was this him or someone else? A look through the peephole revealed Tom again. She opened the door and he rolled his eyes. "My car won't start. Just my luck, huh?" "So what? You wanna stay here?" Veronica asked. "I need a jump and I'll be good. I have cables." Veronica took a step out of her doorway and looked up at the hard rain pouring out of the dark grey clouds hanging in the sky above. She gave Tom a look like she was hoping he was kidding. "I'm not getting anywhere near a battery while it's raining. Electrocution is lethal to demons too." "Fuck, then can you give me a ride home? I...damn it we have a meeting tomorrow, don't we?" "Yep." "Well, shit. Can I use your phone? I need to find a ride tomorrow morning." Tom looked absolutely pathetic right now, soaking wet, unhappy, frustrated. It was enough to make Veronica take a little pity on him now. Poor boy. "Just stay here tonight and I'll give your car a jump tomorrow morning. You can sleep on the couch." Veronica gauged his reaction somewhere between disbelief and wonder. She let herself crack as grin as he breathed a huge sigh in relief. "Are you sure?" he asked. "Get in and unload my dishwasher. You don't stay for free," the demon said. Tom nodded and went straight into the kitchen. When he started unloading the dishwasher and looking around for the right places to put everything, Veronica could only wonder what his house looked like. Judging by him now, his place must have been spotless. She looked around her living room and rolled her eyes. Cleanliness was overrated, but having a maid was nice every once in a while. After he unloaded the dishwasher and loaded it up, she found him some clothes that would fit him, well, sort of fit him. The only piece of clothing she had that would fit him was a nightshirt. So, she gave him a towel to dry off with and put all his clothes in the dryer. He shivered in the nightshirt and wrapped himself up in a blanket on the couch. "Go take a shower," Veronica ordered, pushing Tom to get him moving. "Go, you can use the master bath. It's got a bath and a shower, so take your pick. Your clothes'll be dry when you get out." Tom nodded and went into the bathroom to shower. As soon as the water turned on though, Veronica's mind went straight to one thing. She hadn't had sex in over a month, and Tom was undressing to get into the shower at this very moment. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 05 Tom was going to be naked. In her shower. And he most certainly wouldn't reject a kind offer from a demon to alleviate his frustration, especially not when he was feeling nice and warm in the shower. And looking herself over, Veronica admitted that she needed a shower anyway...so... ------------ Tom groaned as the warm water hit his cold body. It felt amazing. He let the water run through his hair and down over his entire body, relishing the goosebumps that rose all over him from the feeling. God, he couldn't remember a shower that started this good in a long time. He put his hand on the wall and leaned forward, relaxing in the water. "Room for one more?" he heard from behind him. Tom looked back and saw Veronica step into the shower with a grin on her face. "I guess so," he replied, stepping aside to make room for her in the jet of water. She stepped into it, with her clothes on and basked in the warm water for a little while. Then, she gave Tom a knowing grin that he knew could only mean one thing. "You know, I think it's about time we had another one of 'those encounters', don't you?" she suggested, trailing a finger down the midline of his chest. The demon turned to face him, biting her bottom lip enticingly. Her dirty shirt was soaked and her breasts clearly visible through it, making it hard for Tom to focus on her eyes. Tom nodded slowly. "What's it been, three months?" "Almost," replied the demon as she reached Tom's growing arousal with her fingers. Tom wrapped his arms around her back and their fronts met. They shared a moment where their eyes said everything that needed to be voiced about the matter. Tom leaned in and they kissed hungrily, untamed desire keeping them from exploring further right now. Tom pushed his tongue past the demon's teeth and she put her hands on either side of his head, locking his face against hers as she thrust her tongue against his. They fought for control of the conjoined space, tongues wrestling each other for dominance. Tom had more to do than just kiss, and slid one hand up Veronica's back, hooking the bottom of her shirt with his thumb. Their bodies parted for a few moments as he hiked her shirt up and she raised her arms, breaking their kiss only long enough to get her shirt over her head. "Just throw it anywhere," she breathed, smothering his mouth again with a growl. It took Tom a little while to finally get her to let him have a little air, and their lips parted after she'd bitten his bottom lip in sexy protest. Tom leaned down and kissed the base of the demon's neck, giving her a little nibble. She put her arms around his shoulders gently, but he started to kiss down her body. He moved to the dip in her throat, between her breasts, down the center of her toned, sun-tanned body. The water running over her in warm streams made her shine like a goddess, though she didn't need to shine to look the part. He stuck his tongue into the dip of her navel and her skin rose immediately, tiny bumps all over her body standing at attention from the feeling. Tom let out a chuckle and then continued down to the rim of her panties. He took the wet garment with four fingers and started to slide it down her sleek hips, continuing to kiss down to his goal. The demon put her hands against the wall behind her and allowed Tom to gently take one of her thighs and lift it so he could get her panties off completely. He raised her knee and kissed down her shin slowly, all the way down the top of her foot to her toes. He lowered her leg and then repeated the process with its twin, tossing Veronica's panties against the shower door after he was through. He looked up at the demon for approval, and she smiled knowingly. "Some day, human women will realize that not all mortal men with a silver tongue understand what it means to be suave. Suave is more than words." Tom grinned. "This silver tongue has never visited a treasure vault before. The suaveness may diminish some." "Wait," Veronica said, taking on an almost incredulous look. "You've never performed cunnilingus before? Not even on Ceria?" Tom nodded. "There's no point. I want to finish with her quick, so there's no foreplay. Except for her making fun of me or telling me what she wants." He kissed up her inner thighs slowly. "But now I can take my time and do what I want." Tom reached the cleft of her thighs and spread her legs a little more to gain access to her. She obliged without question and watched him intently as he ran one finger up the entire length of her labia to her clitoris. He bit her bottom lip and Tom delved into her core with his tongue. He'd heard that it was supposed to be sour or feel like licking the end of a battery, a number of different negative things about it. But Veronica wasn't like that at all. It might've been because she was a demon, or that she had something special in her diet, but all Tom could taste was sweet, warm nectar. His tongue slid easily through to the depths of her sex and Veronica let out a long sigh in satisfaction. Tom's tongue ran loops in long, slow circles as he tried to get a feel for what he was doing. It wasn't that he didn't understand what he was feeling, but he'd never done this before, and it felt strange. It was a brand new sensation, to have someone's wet, wanton heat right in front of his face. The smell was almost tangible. The air he was breathing was thick and moist, making his cock throb harder than before just from the realization that he was eating out one of the hottest women he'd ever been with. With redoubled enthusiasm, he searched for the places that would make her breathing rigid and her legs squeeze together. He looked up at Veronica's face and almost stopped what he was doing when he saw her eyes staring down at him in wonderlust. Two purple orbs stared into Tom's eyes with simmering desire and passion. "You're pretty good at this, Tom," she said, putting a hand down to his head. "Please keep going. I'm almost half way." She closed her eyes and let her head rest against the wall. Her hand pushed Tom's head against her and he quickly resumed the work he hadn't realized he had been neglecting. He delved into her body with long, slow motions and explored her inner workings curiously. Meanwhile, Veronica had raised one leg up to Tom's shoulder and draped it across his back, holding him to her as her back arched and she trembled. Tom's jaw was starting to get a little tired, so he picked up the pace and began rubbing her clit with his thumb. At that, Veronica's back went as straight as a board and she tightened her grip on his hair, pulling it hard. Tom continued to rub her clit and hit a spot in her body with the tip of his tongue over and over again. Her breathing heightened in pitch and quickened steadily. Her body unconsciously tightened, her leg pulling harder and harder as the seconds passed. Then, Veronica shuddered and her breath caught in her throat. Tom felt something slick flow around his tongue and then into his mouth. It went down his throat before he could even react and he had to pry himself away from her body to cough and get enough air to breathe. The demon slowly sank to the floor as Tom sat down and coughed up her cum from his lungs. "Are you okay?" Veronica asked in a rather pleased and calm voice. "Went down...the wrong way..." he said, coughing again. "Sorry. It felt really good though." Veronica put a hand on Tom's back and smiled at him. "So do you think this encounter is over yet or not?" Tom coughed especially hard and shook his head. "As soon as you're ready, we can get to the rest of me not drowning in a shower," he joked, coughing again. "Hey, you gave me that look like 'oh my god what?' earlier. Was it because I'm not wearing my contacts? I took them off when you started doing what you're good at." the demon said as she stood back up against the wall. Tom nodded. "Yeah. You have really stunning eyes, like, photoshopped stunning. I wasn't expecting to see purple eyes when I looked up." "Were you expecting this?" Veronica crossed her eyes and made a dumb face with her tongue out. Then, she let out a short sigh and smiled. "Anyway, where were we?" She put her hands on either side of his face and closed the gap between them smoothly, kissing him. Tom put his hands on her hips and stood, pushing his arousal against her stomach. She lowered a hand to his cockhead and rubbed the tip with her finger, toying with it. Wordlessly, Tom slid his hands up her body and picked her up off the floor. He raised her onto his rigid sex and then lowered her down gently. She let out a moan as he seated her completely on his cock. They adjusted their position a little and then started to rock back and forth against each other. Tom grabbed her thighs and raised both her legs to his hips, holding her up as she hooked her legs around him. Their thoughts were identical at this point. They kissed and felt each other's forms with familiar wonder. Tom figured she'd been with more skilled and better-looking guys before, but she was very good at making him feel like he was a great deal better than he was. She let little moans escape her lips, gave him sensual looks when her eyes were open, jerked her hips just the right way when he went especially deep. She was a very skilled lover, to put it lightly. And why shouldn't she be? As they rocked back and forth, rhythmically coming together and parting with ridges of pleasure shooting up and down their bodies, he thought of the years of experience she had. Lifetimes actually. He was, what? In his fourth year of sexual encounters? She was a few thousand years old, at least. She must have done this hundreds of thousands of times, this same thing, and gotten so good at it that she could tell what he would like even before they put themselves together. Tom flexed reflexively at the pinch Veronica gave his nipple. "Hey, you awake?" Tom nodded and slammed her against the wall with a grunt. "Yeah, just thinking." "What about?" she asked, bucking herself off the wall and harder onto his cock in return. They started to take turns ramming each other back and forth as they spoke, goosebumps running up and down their bodies. "How good you are at this. How many times you've been here doing exactly this. I guess that's why it's so much better than with a normal girl, because you demons have so much experience." Veronica shrugged, quickening her thrusts down onto him. "Sex works because of the effort each person puts into it. I take it you were doing all the work with your girl?" Tom sighed, "Well, not really. I mean, she was good, but you're, like, not even comparable. You know exactly what to do. All the time." Tom felt a little twinge run through his cock and Veronica saw the look on his face. "Getting close?" she asked. He nodded and the demon pushed them a little bit off the wall. She arched her back and Tom slid his right hand up her body to keep her from falling backwards. The demon put a hand under one of her breasts and gave Tom a seductive look. "Care to give it a little suck?" Tom didn't need to be asked twice, and latched onto her breast, running his tongue across her puffy pink areola. She moaned with a great deal of volume and put her hands on his back, arching further away even as she tried to pull herself toward him. Tom bit her nipple and her core tightened around him. He ran circles around her nipple with his tongue, giving it a little nibble every now and again, in rhythm with his thrusts into her body. She flexed her fingers against his skin. He raised his hand at her thigh to her other breast and began to massage it roughly, first running his thumb across her erect nipple, then pinching it and twisting it back and forth. She enjoyed every second of it and pretty soon was starting to breathe in a higher pitch again. Tom was thankful that she was making herself cum sooner, because he was already at his limits. He bit down again on her breast and the tightening bind on his orgasm began to take its toll. His hips moved faster, and he stuck his arm out against the wall to support himself as his footing got a little unsteady. Velvety flesh slickened his erection as he slammed into Veronica's bucking hips without any other thoughts than getting off. Veronica's pitch rose to a high note and then caught in her throat. She ground herself down against him, twisting back and forth as Tom felt a rush of relief and bliss overtake him for a few seconds. He removed himself from her chest for a second, only to curl his head down between her breasts as his orgasm took full effect. Jets of semen streamed into Veronica's waiting body and she squeezed every last drop of his orgasm out of him, making sure that he was completely spent and empty before putting her hands on his shoulders and pulling herself off of him. She lowered herself to the floor and Tom's arm against the wall folded. He just hit the shower wall with his shoulder and leaned into the corner of the tiled room, panting like a marathon runner. He saw Veronica looking at him and gave her a thumbs-up. "Whew! That was awesome!" he managed, waiting for his heart rate to slow down to the pace his brain was working at. He didn't realize he was about to fall down from exhaustion until now. His legs felt like they were matchsticks and his feet like bricks. "You look absolutely exhausted," Veronica commented, standing to shut off the water. "I'm a little tired, yeah. I'm gonna sleep like a rock tonight though." Tom followed Veronica out of the shower and she handed him a towel. While he was drying off, she got his clothes out of the dryer and put them on the countertop. She got back into the shower and turned the water on. "I still need to actually shower, so you can do whatever you want when you're done in here. There are blankets on the couch and a pillow for you. Night Tom." "Night Veronica. Thank you." "For what? I enjoyed it as much as you did," the demon replied. "For being a good friend to me. Not many people stick around like you and Greg and Harvey have." There was a long silence as Tom finished drying off and put his clothes on. "Tom?" Veronica said, concerned. "Wake me up when you get up, alright? Night." He left the bathroom and curled up on the couch under the two blankets and was asleep the second his head hit the cool, soft pillow. ------------ Veronica sat on the coffee table in front of the couch and stared at Tom while he slept. She didn't know what to make of him. She knew that he'd had a fucked up childhood, and an even worse rude awakening when his good set of foster parents had been diced to ity bity pieces in front of him. But that wasn't enough to make him like this. He could have as fucked up a life as anyone on earth, and there would be a point where he would just break and cry to somebody he felt comfortable with. But this, he didn't ever cry, or whine, or even seem like he felt his past. Yes, he'd gotten angry at her for reading it off a sheet of paper, but that was understandable. That was his history, and she was just reading it like a storybook. Anyone could react with anger initially, but Tom, when he'd thrown the folder across the room at their first meeting, she hadn't seen anything in his eyes. Nothing. It was just anger, a little flash of retaliation at a rude gesture from her. There was no remorse or heart-felt pain, no nothing. It was like he was numb to it. Not numbed to the pain, numb to the fact that his past was what it was. Something else had to have happened. Something while he had been in the Department. She sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose in thought. Thinking of the Department, her mind drifted. She could see tonight why he was the one who'd been chosen to take on three oh one thirty. He was damn good at his job when he was really trying. Veronica's legs were still getting used to being closed when she stood up, which might explain why she was sitting Indian style with her knees as far apart as they could be. He really was a fast learner. It had only been about four years since he had been taken with more experienced agents to learn the ropes of his job. She tried to imagine a fourteen or fifteen year-old Tom trying to find his way around a grown woman like a little virgin. She smiled, amused at the thought. That image was nothing like the numb, experienced soldier of a boy sleeping before her. Veronica pushed the thoughts from her head and decided it was best to get some sleep for the meeting tomorrow morning. Even though she didn't need more than two or three hours, she enjoyed getting a few extra hours of sleep. She got up and went to bed after watching him for a little while longer. No use trying to understand someone who didn't even know something was wrong. * A/N: After a lazy few months, I've managed to actually give somebody cunnilingus. Sadly, it is VERY romanticized in erotic fiction, not that it's not expected, but still. Anyway, rate, review, make an account on literotica to favorite me. Do as you wish, for this chapter is done. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 06 The meeting started out with the Director sending a few agents out to round up all the people needed to attend it. Tom found that a very large number of people had been called to the meeting, and they all squeezed into the conference room that was normally used to these kinds of events. Agents from the Tenth, Twelfth, and Thirteenth divisions were also present, their insignias clearly visible on their collars. Once everyone was found and rounded up, the Director poured himself a glass of Scotch and cleared his throat. "So you've all been gathered today to take a survey for the Department of Internal Affairs, specifically, for our sixteen special divisions. Several groups like yours have been gathered across the United States today to take this survey at exactly the same time to prevent cheating or sharing of questions. There will be no electronic messaging device usage during the survey and you will not be allowed to leave the room for any reason save for an emergency once you begin the survey." "Alright, I think that just about sums up everything that needs to be said," said a man turning around with several stacks of paper in his hands. "I'm Agent Anderson Franks from the Department of Internal Affairs. Please complete and fill out this survey to the very best of your ability and return it to me once you're finished. I've provided pens for you and I'm very glad you've all decided to take this survey for us in Washington." He walked around the long table and handed everyone a stack of papers stapled together that looked about a thick as a novel. Tom filled out the first page, which was general information you might see on a form to get a driver's license. Simple and plain enough. However, when he flipped to the second page, he started seeing weird questions. What is your sexual orientation? Would you be comfortable having more than one sexual partner at a time? How many sexual encounters have you had in the past six months? The past year? How satisfied are your partners after sexual encounters on a scale from one to ten, ten being very satisfied and one being not satisfied? (Be Honest) He gave Veronica a glance and he held up fingers to show what number he meant to ask about. She looked at the paper and then back at him with a smirk. She held up ten fingers and winked. Tom bit back a grin and nodded, writing down his answer. Even with the strange questions in the beginning, some of them were just out of place or vague. Do you have a religion? If so, how religious are you on a scale from one to ten, ten being very religious and one being not at all religious? Are you afraid of cows, bulls, or other bovine animals? Do you get skin rashes when in hot environments? Do you feel cold at generally warm temperatures? The number and strangeness of questions only rose from there, and by the time Tom was through with all thirty four pages of the survey, he was not only confused, but completely baffled by the meaning to the survey. Agent Franks came around and collected his survey, rifling through a few pages and circling some of his answers with a red pen. After everyone was done, he thanked them for their cooperation and left without any explanation or reasoning for the questions. All eyes then turned to the Director, who shrugged, having taken a survey himself and seemingly not understood it either. "I have no idea what this was for. It's not the first time something like this has happened, though." He turned to Veronica and gave her a disapproving look. "You and the boy need to stop screwing around, and don't try to deny it. I know exactly what happened last night. Only a blind hog could miss that look you gave him when he answered number thirteen." Veronica smiled at him. "Yes sir," she said. Tom only nodded when the Director glanced at him. The present parties were about to leave after some small talk, but Agent Franks returned as they were standing and looked at them like they were stupid. "No, no sit back down. We're not done yet." Everyone sat back down. Agent Franks handed back the surveys with numbers written on them in bright red on the front. Tom took a look at his and saw '214' in big red ink next to his name. Agent Franks cleared his throat and looked around. "Will everyone with a number between two hundred and three hundred please leave the room." At first, nobody wanted to stand up, and Veronica raised her hand. "Yeah, what does N/A mean? Do I stay or go?" Agent Franks nodded toward the door. "You go with the others." At that point, Tom stood up and left with the others who didn't have the right numbers and left the room. However, outside there was another agent who ushered them down the hallway into another, smaller conference room. Here, several agents from a few other divisions were sitting at a table with several small pill bottles in front of the seats, each with a single pill in them. Tom looked at the end of the table and found Greg and Hervey each trying to balance a pill on the tip of their nose. The agent immediately gravitated to his closest friends and they each glanced at him as he approached. "This isn't what it looks like," Greg said, pointed at Harvey. "He is not acting silly." "I'm winning," Harvey declared as Greg's pill started to tilt. "Is everyone from the other room here?" asked the agent that had brought them into the room. They looked around and nodded, and he gave Greg and Harvey a disapproving look. "If you'd be so kind as to quit screwing around with a multi-million dollar device, I could let you all leave in a few minutes." Greg and Harvey took their pills and set them on the table. The agent didn't look very pleased, but continued anyway. He told the gathered agents to swallow the pill and call a number on a card that each person was given and told not to lose if anything went wrong or they got violently ill within the next twenty days. With a few hesitant glances at 'violently ill', everyone swallowed their pill and were then let go with the explanation that they had been given the rest of the day off. Tom got a jump from Veronica at her house and drove home, having absolutely nothing to do on this particular Saturday. He spent the greater part of his Saturday watching TV and snacking. Before he knew it, it was getting late and he was getting hungry again. He cooked a pizza in the oven, showered, and went to bed after receiving a very odd phone call from Allen in Division Thirteen. That guy was actually starting to creep Tom out. All he ever did was ask about Ceria like he was in love with her or something. How any creature in Heaven or Hell or anywhere in-between could actually like that demon was beyond Tom, so he tried not to dwell on it as he fell asleep in his comfortable, warm bed. ------------ Something like a door slamming woke Tom from his sleep. He sat straight up, groggy and confused, scrabbling around for the gun on his nightstand. He found it and pulled the magazine out from under his pillow, sliding the ammunition into the grip easily. He got out of bed and reached behind the headboard for the claymore mounted on the side facing the wall. After finding out that Tom's original claymore had been broken in half at Dùn Fhoithear, Donalbain Kieth had gotten one, a smaller basket-hilt claymore, forged for Tom and mailed it all the way from Scotland with a nice letter about Tom being worthy of any blade forged in the Highland Nation, with a promise of a highland claymore soon to arrive. But turning his attention back to his potential home invasion defense... Tom didn't know what it was that had caused such a loud noise, but he sure as hell wasn't going to face it without his sword. A gun was great, but a sword, who fucked with a guy holding a sword in a short hallway? Nobody, that's who. Tom slowly made his way out of his room and to the stairs, stopping to listen for any noise every few steps. Nothing. He hadn't been awoken by nothing, so that meant there was someone or something in his house being very quiet. That made this situation twice as dangerous. He made his way down the stairs, swinging his pistol around the corner as he prepared for someone to jump up half a flight of steps and lunge at him. He quieted his breathing and tried to stop his arms from trembling. He might actually have to kill someone tonight. He reached the bottom of the stairs and checked to see if his front door was locked. After finding the bolt still locked in the door frame, he moved through the downstairs of his house, quietly sneaking through every room with his gun and sword ready. Suddenly, light filled his field of vision and blinded him for a moment. He saw something, swung, and found his balance coming out from where it should be as the claymore's heavy blade passed right through what it had struck and stuck fast in his kitchen countertop. Tom collapsed into something wet and cool, and it wrapped around him almost immediately. He panicked and shot it twice before having his gun stripped out of his hand and his sword removed from his fingers. He fought like an animal, almost getting free of the intruder, but it grabbed him around the neck and yanked him backwards hard, turning him around. The lights turned on and Tom found himself face-to-face with Sohm, who wore a silly grin on her face. She had one hand holding his wrist, another holding his pistol away from him, one wrapped around his shoulder, and three stuck in his open refrigerator. "Well hello there," the slime said cheerfully. "What, the fuck, are you doing in my kitchen at two in the morning?!" Tom growled, earning him a pat on the head from another of her hands. "I was thirsty, and I wanted another round with you. I haven't met a human with your stamina in a long while, and this milk is just divine, is it not? Where did it come from?" Sohm took the last of the pitchers of Hera's milk out of the fridge and poured it into her body, where it was held in the center of her chest and not absorbed like Tom thought it would have been. "Sohm, what are you doing?" The slime ignored his question. "I believe that you like breasts a lot more than you should, am I right?" Her breasts billowed and the milk moved to the center of each large orb. "What?" Tom asked, his head still whirling in circles over what was going on. "Or maybe you just like the lactation part..." "Sohm, come on. It's late. I'm tired," Tom complained, knowing that it was virtually no choice of his to do whatever she had planned. "Oh? Well at least one part of you is willing to play," she cooed, running a smooth hand across his hard cock through his boxers. "We'll just see how long it takes for us to agree upon what to do. Here, I'll give you a little push in the right direction." Milk started to well forth from her breasts. Tom sighed and bit his bottom lip. As enticing as this way, he was really tired and his eyes were still heavy despite the adrenalin rush he'd been having a short while earlier. Sohm, however, just smiled and closed her dark indigo eyes. She hugged him gently to her body and Tom felt something in his body start to grow, some feeling of excitement and arousal. "Sohm? What are you doing to me?" he asked, wary of the slime's actions. "Changing your internal chemistry. You should feel good enough to go at least once, if not twice now. I did get the compounds right, didn't I? I think it's epinephrine and serotonin make you humans happy and excited..." "That's not the point Sohm!" Tom growled, trying to push away from the slime, even as his arousal skyrocketed and he fought to keep his body in line. He stopped his hand from squeezing her large, lactating breast, but only just barely. The slime's eyes opened and she gave him a questioning look. "Huh? I thought you'd be excited to have me give you a surprise visit. What's wrong?" She set him down on the countertop and rested her torso on his thighs, her chin in her hands. "You broke into my house and scared the living fuck out of me, that's what's wrong! Jesus, I shot you! I cleaved something off of you with that claymore! I thought I was going to die!" "Well I didn't really break in. I've been here since I was your case subject..." she said in her defense, avoiding his disapproving glare. "Really? Really?! And that makes this any better? How much of my life have you been spying on? All of it?" the agent snapped, clenching his jaw in frustration. There was no way he could get her to stop, and he knew she knew that too. "Not all of it... I don't watch you in the bathroom, or when you leave," she admitted, biting her bottom lip nervously. "So you just watch me sleep and have sex and everything else? Do you fuck me too when I'm asleep and put me in a chemical coma?" Tom asked, knowing that he was going into the point of ridiculousness. "Not always..." Sohm replied, unable to meet his eyes. "Are you fucking kidding me?! That's...I can't even explain how much I want you out of my house right now. Just, why?" Tom's gaze softened to one of disbelief and Sohm rolled her eyes at him. The agent felt a sharp pain at the base of his neck. ------------ Sohm rose from his lap and came face-to-face with him, a cruel smile settled on her face. She ran two fingers along the underside of his chin, enjoying the spellbound slackness his features had taken on in recent moments. "Because you're fucking that bitch that I don't like, and I absolutely cannot stand the fact that you go to her willingly," explained the slime, removing the thin strand of slime from his neck that was busy getting rid of the memories his brain had collected from the past few minutes. She calmed herself down enough to let her thoughts flow evenly again and forced down the desire to go kill that demon. She wiped the arrogance from her features and smiled warmly, putting her hand on Tom's thighs to give the appearance that she was holding herself up with her arms. ------------ "So you'll really do it?" Sohm asked, not a foot away from his face. Tom blinked in confusion and tried to make sense of what the slime was asking. "What?" he managed. "You'll feed me tonight?" she asked hopefully, her indigo eyes shining. "Feed you? Wait...were we just in front of the fridge just a second ago?" Tom's head was feeling weird. He could have sworn that Sohm had him against her right next to the refrigerator not two seconds ago. "You said you'd 'feed' me, hun. Are you alright? You look a little flushed." The slime put her forehead to his and he felt her warmth spread across his forehead. "It might be because I have a curvy demon trying to seduce me in my own kitchen," Tom replied, giving the slime a wink. "Oh stop it you, that's too much hitting on for one girl to receive," Sohm said, pushing her chest against his as she spoke. "But some of us demons enjoy being flattered every now and again." The slime pressed her lips against his and they quickly began to act accordingly. The protests in the back of Tom's mind melted away as his hands slid down her slick, curvy form and rested at the small of her back. The slime adjusted herself and pushed her lower body forward, rising so that she could form legs to put on the countertop. Her tongue slipped past his teeth easily and encircled his tongue, playing with it as she snuggled into his lap with a toned, long leg on either side of him. Tom pulled her snugly to him and her large chest squashed almost flat against him, making soft, wet noises as they moved against each other. Tom didn't want to admit it, but she turned him on past the point of just being horny. He didn't know what was going on, but he couldn't help himself. He just wanted to touch and squeeze and fuck for as long as he could. He kissed the slime fiercely, to which she responded by pulling his boxers off of him and grinding herself against his rigid, throbbing arousal. "Oh my god that's amazing," Tom said, having to break away from their kiss for air. "Jesus that feels too good. What's happening?" Sohm giggled and Tom suddenly found himself inside of her body. "You're having sex with a slime again. Better than those other girls, huh?" she said, driving herself down on him to emphasize her point. "No, it's seriously too good. I don't remember it being this good. God it's unbelievable!" Tom breathed, hugging the slime tightly as she put her arms gently around his shoulders and put her hand to the back of his head gently. "You're close already, aren't you? Go ahead, you're very welcome to cum as many times as you like," she cooed softly, rolling her slick body against him. Tom couldn't believe what he was feeling. He felt hot all over, like he was stuck in a sauna. His mind sprang from one image to the next in moments faster than he could even begin to count. He didn't know what was going on. It wasn't normal, that was for sure. He couldn't focus on any one thing besides the feeling of Sohm's body for long enough to do anything but thrust against the slime. Something was definitely wrong. Before he knew it, he was seeing stars in front of his face and his body lit up excitedly with an inner feeling that poured out of him in seconds. He realized that he'd just cum. He couldn't feel the satisfaction in it though, or anything but the orgasm's heightened effects. His vision darkened, but the stars still danced around the darkness. He felt his cock grind further into Sohm's form and he squeezed tighter to keep her locked against him. He felt like he was going to die from heat exhaustion, but the feeling of her body and the sex and her hands on him kept his body moving harder and harder. He couldn't force himself to lift his head or stop what he was doing. He tried. He gave an honest, concerted effort, but it all melted away as the slow, hard rhythm of their bodies forced his body and mind back to the same rut he'd been trying to escape. He couldn't speak, so great was the hold his body had on him. He couldn't put two words together to say, but the thoughts in his mind were screaming for his hands to let go on her and his head to rise from her chest and his mouth to say something. He cringed in sheer astonishment as another orgasm threw his thoughts into disarray. ------------ "Can you hear me? Tom, hello? I didn't break you, did I?" Sohm's voice asked, barely audible through the ringing Tom's ears. The agent pushed his hand against the ground to right himself, but it just sank into a wet, cool mass. "Sohm? What's going on?" he asked, resigning himself to lie wherever he was until he had full awareness of himself and his surroundings. "Your body didn't react very well with mine, well, no; it reacted too well. Those little things I do to heighten the experience for you were magnified by your body and you received a very dangerous dose of the chemicals that make sex so fun. You're in your bathtub cooling off." "Am I in a bath, or are you just filling up the tub?" asked the agent, having his own suspicions already. "The fastest way to cool you off was to cool myself off and get inside of you, so the second guess." Sohm's face hovered over Tom's as she looked him over intently with her dark purple eyes. She scanned his features with pensive, calculating glances. "What?" Tom asked, leaning away from the slime's stare. "How do you feel? Good enough to stand up?" she asked. Tom rolled his head from side to side and then up and down. "Yeah, I guess." Sohm gave him a broad smile and nodded approvingly. She sat up and pulled herself onto the marble corner shelf where she had put herself the first time they'd met. Tom sat up in the bathtub and beads of moisture began to build up all over his body. He looked at Sohm and she held out her hand like she was waiting for it to be kissed. The beads of moisture condensed into large droplets and made their way to the back of Tom's right hand, which he raised up from the side of the tub. The droplets coalesced into a thin stream of water and bridged the gap between Tom's hand and Sohm's. The slime absorbed the blue liquid and briefly admired something about her hand before turning her attention back to Tom. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 06 "You haven't been eating well since I last saw you," she remarked, putting her hand to her chin in thought. "What to do about this..." "I think I've been eating just fine, actually. What's wrong with what I'm eating?" "It's just a choice of brand, really. Have you been eating out a lot recently?" Tom shrugged. "No more than usual, maybe a few times a week. What are you trying to tell me? Do I have food poisoning or something?" Sohm smiled slightly. "What you've eaten out recently is not to my liking. But, I won't tell you to stop. I'm not here with you often enough for it to matter to me." The slime flashed him a reassuring, wide smile. "So, do you feel all better from your little mishap in the kitchen?" "Yeah I guess so. I feel fine now. But really though, don't do anything to me next time, if there is one. I'd much rather something like this not happen again," said the agent, scratching the back of his head as he spoke. He really didn't know how she'd take him asking her to do something. She was a demon after all, and they were on the unpredictable side. "I don't plan on doing something that excessive again. Perhaps just a smidgen here or there, nothing that would be noticeable if I didn't tell you it was happening." She raised her eyebrows as if asking for approval, to which Tom just rolled his eyes. He couldn't stop her from doing what she wanted, no matter what he did. "I'm not going to need to see Veronica again after this, am I? I didn't know what you did last time, and quite frankly I don't like that you stuck around inside me." The slime cocked her head to one side. "Oh I don't think it'll be a problem. Last time was...well, I just wanted to see if they still had one. Those demons are very hard to come by nowadays. I was just curious." Tom gave her a less than satisfied look. "Well, just in case you're 'curious' again, I'm going to see her about it soon," he explained, pushing himself out of the thick liquid in the bathtub and sitting on the side to let the slime drain off and out of him. "You don't trust me?" asked Sohm, pouting a little and furrowing her brow. "No," Tom said flatly. He turned and got out of the tub, a little surprised that he was completely dry, despite being saturated with water a few moments ago. He concluded that slime were just plain strange. Very strange. "Aw, c'mon, you can trust me," she pleaded, maneuvering over to where he stood, a large mass of blue liquid extending from just beneath her hips like a thick blue tree trunk. She put herself in front of Tom as he tried to leave the room, biting her bottom lip as she put a hand gently to his chest. "No, I can't," Tom replied, attempting to brush her hand away. However, his hand passed through her arm as easily as it would have a coil of smoke, and it did nothing to let him move past her. "Why not?" the slime questioned, placing another hand on his shoulder. Two more followed in suit at his waist. "You're a demon. And that's just the first reason," the agent said, backing away from Sohm. This time, the slime let him go and retracted her extra limbs back into her body. She sighed and cracked an amused smile. "So I am, but you can't blame me for trying, can you? You're quite the ride when you put yourself into me." "Well, thanks for the fun tonight, but I'm tired. If you're around again some time in the next few months, drop by and we can do this again. Just, not in the middle of the night, okay?" Tom said as the slime moved to keep pace with him towards the doorway. "Oh you can be sure I'll be coming back. I'm a regular now," the demon joked, winking. "And I am absolutely hooked on you." "Just get me a promotion at work and you can stop by whenever you want to," the agent joked in return. "That's all I have to do? I'll be back in a few moments." Tom only realized that she was being serious after he left the room. He spun around in an instant. "No! No, Sohm I'm kidding. Jesus, it was a joke. I don't want a promotion and I don't want you to do anything like control my boss or kill somebody. I like where I am and I think it's okay for you to come around every once in a while, just not at a time like tonight." The slime turned to face him briefly and blew him a kiss before disappearing down the drain. "We'll be seeing each other..." she said. Tom was left not knowing whether or not she had decided to listen to anything he'd said. He was a little afraid, but went with his better judgment that she wouldn't do anything to totally fuck something up. Maybe a little bit, but nothing like kill the Director. She wasn't dumb. Tom rubbed the bridge of his nose and went back to his room, forgetting his claymore and gun and clothes downstairs. He was tired and wanted to go back to bed. But when he tried to go back to sleep, he found it hard to do anything but think about the weird way Sohm had acted. Maybe he was overthinking it, but she just seemed off to him. However, his mind eventually grew as tired as his body and he was asleep before he knew it. ------------ After going to Veronica two days later about his midnight visit from Sohm, the demon assured him that he was fine and that the slime wasn't still inside his body. And so Tom's life resumed as it normally did after an encounter with a demon. He was back to school and going into work every few days to do some paperwork on his case subjects or to sit in at a meeting for the staff, or something. Work wasn't all sex and demons. There was a lot of boring stuff in it too that Tom had to wade through to stay in the position he was in and not in some dark room transcribing documents into three languages and backing up everything on virtual storage devices. After about three weeks though, Tom got an unexpected call from the Director to come into the holding center for a private meeting. It was strange, but not unheard of for Tom to be called in personally. However, usually it only happened when he fucked up, like when he had kissed Ceria, or been subdued and held by Gabriella. This time, he was honestly confused as to what the reason for this private meeting was. He drove to the holding center, swiped his card at the guard office, went down the elevator, and made his way through the building to the Director's office. He knocked before entering, and the Director's firm, gruff voice told him to come in. He closed the door behind his entrance and sat down across from the Director and another agent. Other than Tom, the agent, and the Director, the room was empty. The oldest of the three agents sipped at his scotch and then flipped open the manila folder on the table in front of him. He pulled a sheet from it and handed it to Tom impassively, sliding the folder to the side as he opened the one beneath it and began reading something. Tom glanced at the paper he'd been handed. He was being assigned again, this time to a Type B, Category 2, Class 1 succubus with a frustration level of 3. Tom rummaged through his memories for a time where he'd had a submissive demon before, and couldn't remember even one time when he'd been assigned to one. He handed the paper back to the Director, who filed it back into the folder and handed everything to Tom. "Today, you get to show Agent Trimbau the ropes on how to do his job. He's one of our newest agents doing case work. His last job was in mailing," he said with only the slightest hint of satisfaction in his voice. Tom narrowed his eyes at the agent. "You're one of the idiots who screwed me over with Gabriella, aren't you?" Agent Trimbau didn't say anything, he just looked like he was getting offended, but said nothing. The Director didn't say anything either about the accusation. He just refilled his glass with scotch and ice, motioning toward the door. "Go show him how we do things on this end of the operation. Dismissed, both of you." "Yes sir," they both replied simultaneously. They left the room and had a silent walk down the building to the elevator. Once they were in the parking lot though, Tom looked through Agent Trimbau's file. Ronald Trimbau, age thirty five, unmarried, no children, in the Department for eleven years. Tom skimmed through his background and history before handing Agent Trimbau his file. They both walked over to Tom's car as the younger agent reread his case subject's profile and complaints. "Okay, so I've never done this before, but before we get started," Tom began, turning to face Agent Trimbau. "I want the name of the motherfucker who set me up with that succubus unprepared." "Now you listen here, kid. I'm not gonna sit here and take shit from you when I'm twice your-" Tom cut him off by putting a hand firmly over his mouth. "I've got some powerful friends that you don't want to fuck with, asshole, so listen here. I can have any one of them make your life a living hell." He took his hand away from Ronald's mouth. "And you think any of them would try to fuck with me? I work for the same people that you do. They're pretty powerful if you're memory's soft." "I don't think you realize who I'm talking about. Does three oh one thirty ring any bells? That crazy bitch that comes in and throws everything within arm's reach until the same poor dumb motherfucker that has to satisfy her every time she comes in shows up to fuck her? Well that poor dumb motherfucker is me. Me! And you don't think I have enough problems with her breathing down my throat without a succubus trying to turn me into a walking corpse?! A succubus that I didn't even know was one?!" "I'm not telling you his name," Ronald said, setting his jaw firmly. "I could always have another one of my case subjects just kill you for a free ride. I can call her right now and ask, or, no, I'll just call up three oh one thirty and see if she's free to come settle this." Agent Trimbau faltered slightly when Tom pulled out his cellphone and began to dial numbers. Tom was bluffing his ass off, but Trimbau didn't have to know. "If I tell the Director about this, you don't have a chance in hell at-" Tom raised the phone to his ear and somebody picked up. "Hi, I'm calling to see if Ceria is-" Trimbau snatched the phone out of his hand and closed it immediately. Tom grinned as Trimbau began to tremble. "It's Cole Dubant. We call him "Cherry" off the clock," said the older agent, causing Tom's grin to turn into a smirk. "Well, that's just about the end of that. Give me his address and I can give you your first lesson on casework and just how fucked up the United States government is." He found a notepad and pen for him to use to write down the address. Once he had it, the two agents got into Tom's car and went to the case subject's house, as wanted in the request form. It took almost four hours to reach Belinda City outside of Nashville. The ride there was an almost silent, rather tense one. Agent Trimbau was still pissed off at Tom for showing him up and threatening him, and for making him sell out his friend. Tom, however, was busy thinking how he should deal with Cherry Dubant. Harvey and Greg would most certainly be neutral about the whole thing, but tell him not to seek vengeance or hold a grudge for a mistake. But he wasn't about to let this guy get away with what he fucked up. Tom could've died, and he wasn't happy about having been tied up at all either. Maybe he could rough Cherry up a bit? He was trained to beat the shit out of people, as far as the training in self-defense against demons had gone. It wasn't really a very comprehensive class. He'd been taught that martial arts all have their counters, their strengths and weaknesses, their flaws, perfections. Demons who'd been alive for thousands of years and been to Earth hundreds of times knew a lot about the ways humans defended themselves, stylistically that is. Tom had been taught the basics and mechanics of martial arts, and left to find his own styles of fighting. Everyone could learn to punch and kick and throw and block and mirror an opponent with a certain style of combat. Those could be memorized and with practice, easily countered and broken down. However, uncertainty was what he'd been taught to use to his advantage. Sparring against some of the toughest men he'd ever seen had made him a fairly competent combatant, armed and unarmed. However, he had never been able to even tie Big John, the master he'd been assigned to. He'd come closer than most people did, but Big John was respected by a great deal of masters as an excellent combatant. Tom shook his thoughts back into order and realized that he was at the house number in the case file. He skimmed through the papers for a few moments again to make sure he had everything remembered right. She wasn't a very frustrated demon, just looking for a good time and unable to find one. Well, if he was going to teach somebody something, this was a good way to start. Something simple. The agent turned his car off and stepped out, Agent Trimbau following in suit as he headed toward the door. Tom rang the doorbell and started to pick papers out of the manila folder to give to the demon. He rifled through the disorganized papers, pulling up and clamping between two fingers the survey and a form she had to fill out before he started working. "Well hello there sugar, care to come inside?" said a smooth, sensual voice as the door swung open full. Tom glanced up and pulled the two sheets of paper out of the folder. "I have some papers for you...to..." the words died in his throat as he starred up at the busty, dark-skinned beauty standing in the doorway before him. Dereza's lips broke into a wide smile, revealing teeth engraved with symbols Tom hadn't been taught by the Department's program. "Well, come on in, sugar. It looks hot out there." She stepped back out of the doorway and let Tom and Ronald in, closing the door behind them. Tom looked around and saw a nicely furnished living room to the right of the foyer and a large kitchen to the left. Dereza led the two agents into the kitchen and sat them down at the counter where she had a pitcher of tea waiting for them. "Okay, so before we start I need you to fill out these papers. You've done this several times recently, so I guess you don't need any instruction, Dereza?" Tom said, handing her the sheets of paper. She winked. "It's been a few weeks. I might need a little reminder. If you could just look over my shoulder and tell me if I make a little mistake..." she suggested, motioning behind her with dark, chocolate eyes. Tom nodded and handed Ronald the folder in his hand. "Don't lose it," he said, moving to watch over Dereza's shoulder as she wrote on the papers. "You can have some tea if you want, sugar. And you too," she pointed toward Ronald with the end of her pencil. "Glasses are in the cupboard to your left." She discreetly pushed her ample backside against Tom and rubbed it back and forth against him slowly. The teen was really at a loss for words. He'd had demons come onto him before. Some had literally leapt onto him and pushed him to the ground like three oh one thirty. Some had gone a different route, like Sohm. But nobody had just hinted like this. She wanted it, and she was letting him know, but she was totally passive about her approach. The demon getting his attention and keeping it was simply stunning. Exotic. As many demons as Tom had been assigned to, none of them had dark skin like Dereza's or coffee-colored eyes so stunning. If he didn't know better, he'd have thought she was a succubus. But that couldn't be, because he trusted the Department to have accurate information now that they'd cracked down on the accuracy of the mailing information. Dereza continued to rub herself against him very discreetly and filled out the paperwork without much haste. Tom was completely rigid and throbbing by the time she was through, but said nothing about it. He'd been conditioned long enough to keep himself in check for the most part. In Sohm's case, things had gotten a little strange though. "All done, sugar, anything else I need to do before we find ourselves a nice place to get to know each other?" Dereza asked, looking back at Tom as she handed Ronald the two sheets of paper. "We're ready to do whatever you want. Just tell me where," he replied. The demon smiled widely and stood up, taking Tom's hand and leading him upstairs and into the master bathroom. Ronald followed, but only came to the doorway and leaned on it. "I have a little request, sugar. Can you push me against this countertop and do me from behind?" she asked. Tom could only blink as he tried to comprehend what she'd said. After a few moments, he shrugged. "I'm here to do things your way. I can do whatever you want." Tom pushed Dereza against the granite countertop in front of the large bathroom mirror and started to get the demon's shorts around her curvaceous backside and down her thighs. She spread her legs as he directed with his hands and he got undressed himself. There was no need for preparation; Tom was already harder than a lead pipe. He put a hand on Dereza's back and one on her thigh, and thrust into her on one full motion. The demon bit her lip and raked her nails across the countertop, grinding them against the polished stone. "Watch this Trimbau, it's called doing your job the right way," Tom said, slamming into Dereza's body with hard, rhythmic thrusts. The demon backed into him in tune with his motions, moaning deep in her chest as they rocked back and forth against each other. Tom squeezed her thigh and pulled her back against him as he thrust forward into her especially hard. She moaned in pleasure and arched her back, standing on the tips of her toes. She rose from the countertop and looked back at Tom, a biting her bottom lip teasingly as they came together and parted in rhythm. "Push me down and don't let me up." She said. Tom nodded and pushed her back down with his left hand. She started to come back up, pushing herself up with her arms. Tom furrowed his brow and pushed her back down again, still smacking his hips against her backside with deep, penetrating thrusts. "What do you want me to do? Keep pushing?" he asked. Dereza looked back with her dark chocolate eyes and enthralled him with a moment's notice. "Abuse me, sugar. Make me hurt." "You got it," Tom said, forcing the demon's body against the countertop hard. She turned her head to one side and tried to lift herself up again, but Tom slammed her down as she tried to get up. The demon's core tightened around Tom's shaft and she let out a long, satisfied groan. "Oh gods yes, abuse me sugar. Make me regret you," she pleaded, staring at him with one dark, entrancing orb. Tom took his hand away from her thigh and slapped her ass hard, leaving a dark handprint where he'd connected. Dereza bit back and moan and her skin rose with goosebumps all over. Tom hadn't ever been asked to do this before, but winging it wasn't as hard as he'd thought it would be. At first, he didn't understand what to do, but now he'd figured it out. She wanted to sub and needed him to dom to do it. Normally, the situation was sort of reversed for Tom. Not to this extreme, but the same principles applied. He slapped her curvaceous body again as he pounded against her from behind, pushing her forward on the countertop with every thrust. She came back though, with as much vigor as he had, bucking against his hips with her own in a hard, experienced motion. The demon gave him a pleading gaze with the eye Tom could see and his blood pounded in his ears. She smiled and gave a long, slow nod as if she knew what he was thinking. Without any warning, Tom grabbed Dereza by the hair and yanked her upright, unceasing in the motion of their hips. He wrapped one arm around her neck and cupped the other over her mouth. Dereza's hands shot up to his arm, and struggled to pull the crook of his elbow from her windpipe, but it was a trying task for her. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 06 She gasped for breath through his fingers, unable to break neither the grip on her neck, nor the one on her mouth. Tom fought her for control of his arms, still slamming his cock into her as her as he could. He looked into the mirror at her and she turned her eyes to his. Her stare was enthralling. Calm, perfect orbs stared through Tom's eyes and directly into his soul. The depths of his consciousness flooded forth in a tidal shock of relief. He lost control of his body for a moment, and tightened his grip to the breaking point around Dereza's neck. He didn't know how to stop. The demon's stare wasn't normal. It was like Gabriella's, the all-consuming wash of thoughtlessness that left his will a slave to hers. This wasn't so mind-numbing though, but he couldn't even try to release Dereza. His entire body had rebelled against him. He could think and try as much as he wanted, but his body wouldn't even try to respond. It was like watching himself run on autopilot, the demon against him controlling his motions with practiced precision. Suddenly Tom felt his orgasm growing very near. He tried to speak, but he couldn't. Dereza's eyes grew more relaxed and her gaze more confident as he neared orgasm. Tom couldn't tear his gaze away. He couldn't control himself. He couldn't let her know that he was about to be in very agonizing, undue pain. He saw Ronald out of the corner of his eye in the mirror, almost in disbelief at what was happening in front of his face. Tom yelled at him mentally to come and get him off the demon, but to no avail. He just stood there like an idiot and watched. Fucking great. "Having a hard time letting go, sugar?" Dereza asked, loosening the grip she held around his body. Tom realized that he could move his mouth of his own accord, and that his arms had loosened around her neck and mouth. "She's a succubus!" he shouted. "Trimbau hel-" Dereza locked her will against his and smiled with amusement. "Half succubus, if you're really wanting to let the cat out of the bag," she corrected as Tom's body stopped and he let her go. The agent stepped back and Dereza turned around fast enough to keep Tom ensnared tightly by her powers. "If I tell them, I always get a psyche-protected boy to satisfy me." Ronald spoke up. "Hey if there's something going on here that isn't supposed to be-" "No, it's okay. I'm fine," Tom said, entirely against his will. Dereza arched a brow at him. "Oh, no longer so eager to shout now, are you?" she asked coyly, giving him a peck on the lips. "Sorry, that was rude of me," Tom said, again, against his will. Dereza shrugged. "Well as long as he understand each other..." The half-succubus wrapped her arms around him and put herself back on his cock, grinding herself against him slowly. She kissed Tom deeply, and he could do nothing but allow her to do as she wished, his body begging to find release still. She slid back on the countertop and had Tom stand on his toes to keep the motion of their bodies the same. He tried to glare daggers at her, but her gaze just laughed at his attempts to break free. For now, he had to bear with the feeling and hope she was coming close to being finished. They continued for what seemed like hours to Tom. He was losing his mind. His muscles ached to the core of his very being. His cock hurt from overuse, and Dereza didn't seem to care at all. Her dark body smacked against his rhythmically, like a metronome hammering home her complete control over Tom. He hoped she would just kill him or something and end this. The feeling was unbearable. And then a godsend descended from somewhere above and graced Tom with its presence, in the form of a rather loud sneeze from Ronald that made Dereza's focus waver and her eyes flutter in confusion. Tom took his chance and immediately clamped his hand down over Dereza's eyes and closed his own, fighting the half-succubus as he disconnected their bodies and staggered backwards, unable to even stand. "Don't look in her eyes! Get help Ronald! Call the Department and tell them we need a team to subdue a succubus. Go!" he yelled, gasping for much-needed air. "Hold it," Dereza snapped harshly, hopping off the countertop. Tom peeked at the situation, as he heard no footsteps running down the hallway. He almost lost his temper when he saw Trimbau standing there in the doorway, totally under Dereza's spell. "Fucking awesome," Tom said sardonically. "Great help you are Trimbau." "Now hold on just one minute, my sugary little snack," the half-succubus said, still holding her gaze to Trimbau's. "I don't plan to devour anyone's souls. I don't plan on hurting anyone. I don't plan on keeping you here long after I get the sweet release I want. Tell me why I can't make you cum." Tom pulled himself against the wall and took a few more deep breaths before explaining his curse and the difficulties it created for their current situation. It didn't take long for Dereza to understand the situation and she was more than happy to make Trimbau feed her hunger while Tom recuperated from the nearly-traumatic experience. Tom had to force his arousal down bit by bit, taking great pains to make his body obey him and his throbbing erection to give up on finding someone to make it cum. It took what seemed like a millennia to do it, but he finally managed to subdue his arousal and it bottomed out a short while before the half-succubus and Trimbau were through. When the half-succubus was satisfied, she helped Tom downstairs and gave him something to eat. Trimbau came downstairs as well, looking more exhausted than Tom and several times more uncomfortable with walking after being slammed against a woman of Dereza's caliber for over an hour nonstop. "I'm sorry about the misunderstanding, sugar," the half-succubus said apologetically, dipping her finger into the glass of tea in front of Tom and tasting it idly. "You can stay the night if you need to." Tom shook his head. "No, I'm fine, really. I just need you to fill out the after-action report and we'll be out of your hair in no time." "Alright, but you finish up that meal first." She looked over at Ronald. "What would you like? Anything?" Ronald groaned, "To get the hell out of this place." At that, Dereza gave Tom a questioning glance and the agent shrugged at her. "He's new. I don't think he was ready for today." "Well you come back any time, sugar," she said, running her fingers along the underside of his chin. "I'm still interested in what you taste like after that interesting bout with you at full steam." "Maybe you'll get lucky and they'll send me again the next time you feel hungry," Tom replied, knowing full well that he wasn't going to get assigned to her again for at least another year. Only in special cases did someone get assigned to the same case subject more than once a year. "I wouldn't mind at all," replied the half-succubus as she started to fill out the report. ------------ At the holding center, it was a long, unpleasant walk through the underground parking garage to the guard office at the lower entrance to the center. Both of them received knowing smirks from the guards behind the glass as Tom swiped his card at the door for entry. "Hey, next time you get laid by the Amazon queen of all succubi, tell me all about it, fatasses," Tom growled as the door unlocked and he twisted the handle. "In fact, the next time either of you even get laid, tell me all about it." Trimbau followed Tom into the building and they entered the empty elevator. "You're a real prick, you know that?" the older agent said. "Shut it or I'll knock your teeth in. I am in no mood." He and Trimbau had a short staredown until the elevator doors opened and they made their way to the Director's office. Inside, they met the Director's secretary, who told them he was in a conference room for a debriefing. The two tired agents went to the conference room and waited outside until whatever was going on in there was over. Three agents left the room looking a little more than unnerved and Tom entered as soon as they left. The Director eyed him and Trimbau as they sat down. "She's not a demon. She's a half-succubus," Trimbau said, groaning as he sat down. "That was established a long time ago," the older man said, refilling his glass of ice with scotch. "That's why we sent you with him." He pointed at Tom. "Excuse me?" Trimbau said, "He was supposed to be some kind of backing? He ended up on the floor and I had to do his job for him!" "There's a difference between you two, Agent Trimbau. A succubus can't touch him with any kind of soul-sucking she tries. You, on the other hand, are just as helpless as the next poor sap that swings her way." "Thank you, sir," said Tom. "That's no compliment," the Director snapped. "You're trained for this. You should know better by now than to be fooled by a pretty stare and a sweet little word or two." The old man took the manila folder from Tom and read its contents closely, giving both the agents in front of him a few wary glances as he read. When he was done, he removed some of the papers and slid the folder back to Tom. "Sir?" "Refill it and go back tomorrow; she's requested you again." Tom gave his boss a look of disbelief. "Sir you have to be kidding. I can barely walk. I-" "Did I stutter?" the Director said coldly. "No sir." "Agent Trimbau, you're dismissed. I'll have another case for you soon." "Yes sir," Ronald replied. He left promptly. The Director gave Tom a long, contemplative look as he sipped at his scotch and went back through the papers idly. He flipped the after action report over and slid it to Tom, his finger over the comment section. "Read it out loud," he said in a lighter tone than he'd had before. Tom read. "The older agent was fine in all respects, though his energy was not what I have grown used to from you in terms of duration. The younger one was a pure delight to have, however. His unique curse was a very pleasant surprise. Though he is inexperienced, I feel he has a capacity to be a very satisfying dominant partner with some help. I would enjoy teaching him. It has been a pleasure as always. - Dereza Unrama" The Director let a firm, determined look settle upon his features as Tom tried not to look at him. The only thing Tom could think about was having to churn a succubus' inner desires for hours on end for days at a time. He shivered at the thought. "That, boy, was a compliment from her. Get back in there and learn how to do both ends of your job. You've got ten days leave from casework while you're there," the older agent said, letting the information sink in with Tom before sipping his scotch again. "Sir, can I ask you one thing before I leave?" "Shoot," the Director said. Tom sighed. "Is my curse the only reason I'm valuable at all to any of the people around me?" He looked the Director in the eyes and tried to read the older man's thoughts. His face changed a little. His normal grim features were almost broken by the inkling of a furrowed brow and a sincere frown. "Look around you and see how many people care more about your cock than your friendship," he said after a long moment of thought. "Dismissed," he added after another moment's pause. Tom nodded slightly. "Yes sir." ------------ Veronica shoved three fingers into her mouth repeatedly and curled over a toilet, eyes watering and stomach churning. She felt something coming up her throat and lurched forward, vomiting into the toilet twice before pushing her fingers into her mouth again. She vomited again, wiped her mouth with toilet paper, and then flushed the toilet. She grimaced at the memory of the act she'd just committed. In order to have her virus take Mark's databases and antivirus systems by surprise, she had gotten Mark away from his computer screens and system monitors by enticing him with her body. It had taken all her most subtle, unsubtle, and unfair knowledge and practices to get him out of his chair and into another room with servers running loud enough to drown out the sound of his systems being penetrated by her 'malicious software'. Mark's performance had been short and lackluster, so much so that by the time they were done she knew her virus and other two programs were still trying to get their jobs done. So, like any good cock-hungry slut would do, she'd offered to clean his cock off with a blowjob, and made him last long enough to let her software do its work, without a doubt. Mark had returned to his ring of computers to find his system in disarray and under attack from an unknown and efficient series of worms, viruses, and all manner of things that did nothing but fuck up his life's work. At that point, he had griped and complained and told Veronica that if she told anyone about what they'd been doing, then he'd have her fired and sent back to Hell, to which she played the part of a helpless maiden and agreed with a fearful look in her eyes. And made her way very quickly to the bathroom to be sick. Veronica stood up slowly and found a sink to wash her mouth out in. She pumped a handful of bubbly gel into her hand from the dispenser and shoved it in her mouth, swishing the watery mixture around in her mouth before spitting it out and trying to shake off the feeling of nausea that was revisiting her throat. "Fuck, I need a good screw," she whined, looking at herself in the mirror. "Is everything in order?" asked a voice that Veronica did not want to hear. "Fuck off," Veronica retorted as three oh one thirty stepped just behind Veronica in the mirror. "Oh I'll be doing a lot of fucking if you've done what you're supposed to, dear child. And do keep your tone civil; I could very easily take you off the guest list." The older demon gave Veronica a cruel smile. "You don't get to choose. I have to go on every excursion to Hell, same as Jeremy." Ceria bit back a chuckle. "Oh that one and his taken name. Tell me, how far has Jerhme integrated with the humans? Has he taken a wife yet as well?" "And two kids, actually," Veronica shot back. "I can only hope that you've not fallen into the same trap," Ceria commented, examining her fingernails absentmindedly. Veronica turned around to face the demon and they stood there for a few moments, gazes turned away, but animosity seething from both. "Not quite. I am a bit taken with Tom though, you know, that boy you like? He's a real handful." At that, Ceria's fingers tensed and she bristled at the mention of Veronica's involvement with Tom on a personal level. "Oh? And which one of us is taking him to her home?" Veronica gave a conceited smirk. "He's been to mine." This time, Ceria's hand shot to Veronica's throat and the two stood statue-still, Ceria glaring daggers and Veronica smirking triumphantly. "And he fucked me. Willingly." "I..." Ceria's features softened and she rolled her eyes in an amused way, letting go of Veronica's neck as she searched for words to say. "Oh you have no idea the things that will change once he is in Hell." She turned and began to walk away, humming to herself a war chant. "Let me finish what I was saying in my office, Ceria," Veronica said coolly. The elder of the two turned her head and arched her brow a bit. "Hmm?" "If you kill him, I will bring about an end for you that will be made a tale of horror for generations here and above and below," she said with in a firm tone. Ceria shrugged and continued walking. "And what makes you think that I see any validity to your statement?" she asked conceitedly. "Speak with Jerhme; he can tell you. He was with my husband when he died." That gave Ceria pause for a moment, but the demon continued on her way quickly without seeming to have cared. As soon as she was out of sight, Veronica began to tremble all over, and it took a great deal of self-control to reign in her shattered nerves. Somewhere inside of her, Veronaa the Vindictive began to stir. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 07 A/N: I couldn't have presented this to you without JohnEB87's tireless help. And with the previous chapter. Thank him for me by reading casting his stories a vote. Thanks, and enjoy. * In the far corner of a Kroger parking lot, two Special Divisions agents threw fists at each other in the dim area beneath a broken light pole. One of them stood above the other, who was on the ground, and waited his counterpart to get to his feet again. "Get up," Tom growled, waving his hand toward himself in the 'bring it' gesture. Slowly, Cherry Dubant rose to his feet and put his fists up, his left eye swollen shut and his face bruised and bleeding. The two stared each other down for a long, tense moment before Tom threw a hard left hook to the ribs, causing Cherry to stagger backwards and lower his fists for a moment. Tom stepped on his foot and shouldered the agent backwards. Unable to catch himself from falling, Cherry hit the ground hard and kicked Tom in the side. Tom managed to shake the blow off with some difficulty, and turned again to face Cherry. "Get up," he repeated, waiting for the agent to stand before tensing his body again. "Enough kid," Cherry pleaded, panting and wheezing noisily. "You put me in danger for no fucking reason except for carelessness. I've seen how the mailing center works. Nobody just slips up. You have to really fuck up to mess up anything. Now get the fuck up and fight me." "No!" Cherry shouted. "No I'm done! I'm sorry for my mistake, okay? I don't know how you found me but I'm not taking this crap anymore. Just fucking leave!" The agent put his arms back and propped himself upright, breathing heavily and bleeding. Tom ran his hand through his hair and sighed in frustration. "Fine. I'm running inside to get some stuff. If you want anything for your face or anything, tell me now." "What?" Cherry asked as Tom turned to go into Kroger. "I'm getting some stuff for myself. If you want anything, tell me now before I leave you here on your own." "Neosporin, bandaids...uh, hydrogen peroxide, a bag of ice, bandages? Gauze? Asprin?" the agent said, trying to think fast as Tom walked away. "I'll be out in ten minutes," Tom replied. He walked into Kroger and walked around to find all the things he needed, buying two of everything and heading to the self-checkout to avoid any unnecessary conversation with any of the employees. He could tell that his eye was bruising already and his split lip was going to need stitches and something in his ribcage was messed up. The machine he was at said that it couldn't give him change and that he needed to see an attendant to get it. He looked at the blue-vested girl standing at the register not far away and she looked at him, clearly interested in what had happened to him. Tom walked over to her and she punched a few buttons on the screen. "Are you okay?" she asked as he waited for her to count out his change. "I'm fine. How much is the ice in the freezer right there?" he asked, pointing to the large freezer with sacks of ice sitting in it. "I can find out real-" Tom cut her off. "I don't care. Just ring it up and pocket the change," he said tiredly, grabbing a bag of ice and leaving the store without a second look at anyone else inside it. In the parking lot, Cherry had gotten to his feet and was waiting against his car. Tom emptied the plastic bag of its contents on the hood of Cherry's car and ripped open the bag of ice, pouring as many chunks of ice into the plastic bag as he could and tying it closed. He handed the bag to Cherry, who put it against his eye gingerly. "I don't get it," Cherry said after a short while of neither of them doing anything but standing against the car with ice against their faces. "Why would you come here to fight and then get all this stuff after it's over and give it to me?" Tom turned his head and answered, "Because I did what I came here to do." Cherry rolled his eyes. "And what exactly was that?" "Beat you into submission and make you apologize for putting me in a world of hurt," Tom replied without missing a beat. "That still doesn't explain why you went inside and got all this for me," said Cherry, popping two Advil and some ice into his mouth. "I'm not heartless. I've been beaten to a pulp by Big John enough times that I know a fight doesn't end when the punches stop being thrown. The aftermath hurts for days. And a lot longer if you don't do anything about it right afterward. We're even now, Cherry." After that, the two agents patched themselves up and Tom gathered the things he'd bought for himself, made sure Cherry was able to drive home, and went to the hospital to test out the godly healthcare he could get by having the nurse at the desk call one number and look at his insurance card. In two minutes, Tom was being looked at by a doctor and already scheduled to have his lip stitched up and his ribs looked at. They put him in a room and had a nurse check in on him every half hour or so. After a few hours, he got his lip sewn up and his other issues looked at. He had three bruised ribs and a minor concussion, but other than that he'd escaped with mostly superficial, albeit painful injuries. The morphine drip helped him sleep off the worst of the stinging pain and the nurse was kind enough to listen to his request and press the drip for him while he was asleep. ------------ The next morning, Tom awoke to a visitor sitting beside him in one of the room's chairs. He knew who it was without having to look, her scent very clear to Tom already. "Ceria," he said. "Oh, you're awake now? I was beginning to think they were giving you sedatives through that little dripper," she remarked, smiling broadly at Tom. "Who let you in?" the agent asked, ignoring her joke entirely. He pressed the attendant call button repeatedly. "Your button won't bring anybody in here. I've made sure of that already," Ceria explained, folding her hands across her lap. "I could yell," Tom countered. "I could split your stitches," retorted the demon. Tom sat up and swung his legs off the bed, facing Ceria. He tried to think of a reason she could be here, hoping that the one that he thought was most likely was wrong. "Are you here for sex?" he questioned. "Me? For sex? Have I made it too clear with my body language? Is it my perfume? What gave it away?" she asked with feigned surprise. "It's the only reason we ever see each other. How do you want to do this? I have things I need to do today and I don't have time to screw around with you for very long." Ceria stood up and closed the distance between them, putting her fingertips against Tom's chest. She pushed him backwards to the bed and straddled his hips, closing her legs around his body as she scooted up. "I like you just where you are, my cursed little bedmate." Tom rolled his eyes. "And I assume you've filled out all the necessary paperwork and done all that stuff. Right?" "Hmm?" the demon replied, half way done with unbuttoning her blouse. "Riiight?" Tom repeated, arching a brow at her. Ceria gave him a flat look. "Do I look like I came here with paperwork in hand?" she asked rhetorically, throwing her shirt into the chair behind her. The purple bra on her chest unsnapped easily and her ample breasts spilled out of it, bouncing up and down before settling to a slow sway back and forth. "Then I'm not fucking you. We're done here, so get up and get out." "Remember what I said about nobody coming to help you? You don't have a choice in the matter," Ceria told him, unzipping her skirt and tossing it with her other removed clothing in the chair. Tom groaned and threw his fist into Ceria's jaw as hard as he could, throwing her head back and to the side so that she was looking at the ceiling. "Get the fuck off of me Ceria. Now." Ceria's right hand planted itself gently on his stomach and slowly snaked its way up his chest as she lowered her head again and leveled her gaze upon him. Her hand slithered up to his neck and pulled the hospital gown up as it moved. She then clutched his neck firmly with her fingers, pushing him against the bed hard. Tom began to see stars immediately as her grip tightened around his neck and his body tried to resume breathing. His face began to turn bright red and his eyes watered in pain. "This is not a negotiation, Tom. This is a demand, from me. You say 'yes ma'am' and fuck me like I want you to, regardless of the lack or completion of paperwork. Do you understand?" She loosened her grip enough for him to speak, but not breathe. "Get out," he managed in barely above a whisper. "Fine, I'll just have to get you in the mood first," she stated, releasing his neck. He gasped as deeply as he could and Ceria removed her panties while he regained control of his breathing. He glared daggers into her eyes as she smiled down at him and began to rub her wet core back and forth across his growing cock. Her fingers worked the gown off his body easily, long nails snipping through the fabric like rice paper. "There's a difference between aroused and hard, you know," said the agent as his erection grew to full length and bobbed energetically as Ceria lifted herself off his body to position her sex for penetration. She grabbed Tom's wrists and pinned his arms outstretched to either side of him to prevent another attempt to get her off him. Tom jerked his lower body away from her as best he could, but being unable to do much more than wiggle some, it wasn't long before the demon had her way and sank down on his rigid arousal all the way to the base. Tom looked away from Ceria and toward the other side of the room, trying not to think about the pleasure his body was receiving or how spectacular her body felt. Ceria leaned down far enough to let her breasts rest on his chest, and grinned widely from ear to ear. "What's the difference between you being hard and you being aroused? Because I honestly cannot tell the difference," she teased, kissing his neck gently. She raised her hips slowly, drawing out the motion if only to enjoy the faltering stoic look on Tom's face. He kept his mouth shut and tried his best to stare at the corner of the ceiling away from Ceria. He could probably keep his mind off the sex if he tried hard enough, considering that his ribs were killing him right now from her lying on them. But his cock throbbed as happily and energetically as ever inside of her as she reached the apex of her rise. Her lips curled into a snarl and she nipped his neck just beneath his jaw, causing Tom to wince just enough for her to grin at it. She lowered her hips slowly, taking every effort to make him feel everything she had to offer his attention-whoring arousal. She arched her back and pushed her hefty chest against him, causing the skin across his entire body to rise. Tom's hard stare at the ceiling waivered as the demon began to grind and pleasure his cock with her sex. Silken folds wrapped around his member, creating a slick and wet channel to goad an orgasm out of him with. The demon seemed to be taking little time to entertain his arousal, as his breathing was already starting to speed up and his hands literally twitching at the prospect of grabbing any part of her voluptuous form. Her breasts caused him much unneeded labor in trying to distance his mind from his body's petty wants and greedy desires. He couldn't keep his thoughts distanced from her full, soft breasts pressed flat against his body. He knew he could have them, take them at his leisure at any point. She wouldn't object. She'd gladly cradle his head and claim herself the victor. He could do it. He could take one in each hand and knead her flesh, push his cock into her as hard and fast as he could while he fondled her without a second thought. He could do anything with her and she'd gladly fall into step with him, if only to see how far he would go in his defeat. "You're a conniving, unfair cunt, you know that, three oh one thirty?" Tom said, shaking off the feeling of her warm, slow breath in his ear. The demon nibbled at his earlobe just hard enough so that he could feel it and let out a soft moan as his hips responded to hers after a long battle of wills between Tom and his body's natural, primal urges. "Oh please," she retorted, using the most convincing you-know-you-want-this tone Tom had heard in his entire life. "You know my name. Don't try to deny that you're just as eager to scream it as I am to have you on top of me, begging me to let you cum." She kissed his ear and blew into it gently, causing his goosebumps to resurge again all over the left side of his body. Her hips descended and stayed with his cock seated entirely within her, causing Tom to glance at her, as if looking into her face would allow him to discern her intentions. She arched a brow at him. "What?" Tom growled. "I don't suppose that you would consider offering yourself to me if I allowed you to cum quickly, would you?" she asked, bringing one of her hands away from his wrist and to the side of his face. She placed her hand gently on his cheek and smiled at him warmly. Tom turned his head to face her straight, and narrowed his eyes in suspicion. This was very unlike Ceria. "What is this?" Tom asked warily. "Would it help your decision if I allowed you to play with these?" the demon asked, taking her hand from his face and grabbing one of her breasts, squeezing it. Tom swallowed hard as his mind raced through images of their two bodies entangled and in the throes of passion and lust. For a moment, his body desperately pleaded with his mind to tell her that he'd do whatever it took to fuck her passionately. His left hand, freed a few moments ago, came down on Ceria's rear and squeezed hard. The demon gave a slight start, but began to grin after the initial surprise passed. Tom fought his natural urges, but it was too late. Ceria had begun again with her hips and she brought her lips down on his chin. "No," Tom snapped, taking his hand away from her with a great deal of effort. Ceria pouted and took hold of his wrist, placing his hand back on her backside firmly. "Yes. And now the other one," she said, letting go of his right wrist. Tom resisted his body's call for action for the length of time it takes a thought to reach the brain, and another one to intercept and replace that thought. His hands both ended up squeezing her firm, luscious backside. "I'm not k-" Tom's words were drowned in Ceria's mouth as she pressed her lips to his and pushed her tongue past his rows of teeth. His tongue fought to keep hers out of his mouth, but ended up simply playing with it, enjoying the taste and feel. The agent felt betrayed by his body, his lust and desire overcoming his hard-pressed self-restraint and years of training, both mental and physical. He just couldn't resist. Ceria was too much for him to handle right now. She wasn't her normal self today. She was...nicer. She didn't throw him around, she asked him things. She was gentle, rather than the usual bronco she wanted to tease him as. Everything inside of him pleaded to let go and have the time of his life with her, but Tom's rationality kept him in check. He could do this, but not enjoy it. He could fuck her, but he had to control his desires and reign in his body's natural and very tempting urges to ride Ceria as hard and fast as he could. He resigned himself to his place beneath her and bucked up against the demon, hard. She quickly brought herself down harder, responding to him immediately. She pressed further with her kiss and took hold on his head with both hands. "That's just the offer I was looking for," the demon moaned. "And as I promised, I will allow you to cum quickly." She smoothed her motions out and began to throw herself into the sex with real enjoyment. Her fingers curled and pulled Tom's hair. She held onto him tightly and moaned into his mouth as she rode him. Tom was just beginning to let his guard down when he felt his body needing to find release. He broke away from the kiss long enough to tell Ceria, to which she replied that she was not done yet. "You said you'd let me cum quickly," Tom said, yanking Ceria's hips against his with extra force. The demon leaned up a few inches and gave him a coy look. "Oh did I? Well now that you've got that feeling deep within you to cum, you can really take me for a rough ride and make me cum. I'm not one for slow and steady. And neither are you about to be." She smirked and sat up, putting her hands on the agent's chest. She rolled her hips against his, breasts bouncing with every move she made. Tom repositioned his hands on her hips and slammed into her as hard as he could. Ceria's body rocked up sharply from the impact, and Tom slammed into her again, grunting as he did it a third time. "Fine, bitch. Have it your way." Tom pushed into her with all the force he had over and over again, continually breaking the rhythm she wanted to create, disrupting her motions, causing her to need to stop and try again every few seconds. Tom glared into her eyes with as much malice and disdain as he had ever felt before. Trick him? Make him believe for even a second that she was something more than a heartless cunt looking for another screw? He had really believed that she was going to be gentle with him and not attempt to subdue or tease him with her physical superiority. Instead, she was just flaunting her ability to make him a gullible fool and get what she wanted from him no matter how much he protested. So, Tom poured all his disappointment and resentment and disdain for the demon into every thrust. Ceria just tried to enjoy the ride until she was satisfied. Tom closed in on his breaking point and leaned up to put a hand on the back of Ceria's neck. She leaned down enough for him to get a grip on her. "This i-" "Shut up," Tom snapped, bringing her in for a hard kiss. He continued to disrupt her rhythm as he bit her tongue and held her face against his, deepening the kiss as best he could. Ceria wrapped her arms around his back and held on tightly as she began to feel her own finishing point drawing near. The two shared a knowing look as Tom's rhythm fell into step with Ceria's and they quickened their pace several times. Ceria would have smirked had her mouth not been occupied and bottom lip not been held between Tom's teeth. Tom squeezed his eyes shut as his orgasm hit him hard. He plastered Ceria's womb with semen, jets of hot white seed feeding her only need from his body as her own orgasm ran through her like an electric tide. Ceria let out an uncommon moan as she shuddered, her orgasm continuing for several intense and pleasurable moments. She jerked against Tom for a short while, milking him of every drop of semen she could as they rode out their orgasms, neither saying a single word or making another sound besides heavy panting. Tom thought his orgasm wouldn't stop, until Ceria's hips stopped driving themselves down against him and he was able to come down slowly from the feeling causing his eyes to see stars. They sat there for a few moments, the demon hunched over the agent, each breathing against the nape of the other's neck. Neither knew what to say. Tom didn't want to admit it, but that had been one of the better orgasms he had ever had. And needless to say, he regretted that feeling immensely. It took them a while to realize that they were still connected and lying with each other still held closely. Tom let his head fall back and let go of the demon's hips, relaxing completely against the bed. Ceria sat up and pulled her hair behind her shoulders, smirking deeply. "Well that was very successful, don't you agree?" she mocked. "Please just find another fuckbuddy. I can't take this anymore," he said, sighing. Ceria pulled herself off his still-rigid arousal and paused a moment as it throbbed with as much vigor and vitality as it had before. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 07 "That thing hasn't gone down at all. Am I really that good, or are you finally warming up to me as the only pussy you want? Hmmm?" Ceria put her fingertip against his swollen cockhead and toyed with it, moving it in little circles. Tom fought off a powerful urge to throw her against the wall and fuck her again, one of the most powerful urges he'd felt in a long time. And at that moment with the demon's sleek and warm body on top of his, it required a lot of effort to fight it. "I've got another meeting with a succubus today. I wouldn't expect a whore like you to know how to get on a guy's good side like she does," Tom spat, swatting her hand away from him as he sat up. At that, Ceria's attitude bristled. "I wouldn't expect a virgin boy like you to be capable of resisting a succubus' wiles," she retorted testily. "At least she keeps me coming back," Tom said with a shrug, opening up the cabinet with his clothes and putting on his boxers. Suddenly, Tom found himself slammed against the wall hard enough to shake the cabinet next to him and a spurned demon with a hand against the back of his neck and one at his shoulder. "I will not be mocked by my t-" She stopped herself and regained a bit of her former composure and superiority. "You have quite the mouth today, virgin. Whereto fled the pleading gazes and whispered begging?" Ceria lowered her hand at his shoulder to his boxers and slipped her hand past the elastic waistband. "Gone with any notion of me enjoying sex with you I guess," Tom spat, ignoring to the best of his ability the hand that began to stroke his cock. He couldn't feel any sexual gratification from it, but he could still feel the motions nonetheless. "Resist all you want, but there has yet to be an instance where I haven't gotten exactly what I wanted from you when I demanded it." She kissed his neck so hard that he could almost feel how purple his skin was, and then collected her clothes off the floor. "It's my job, Ceria, nothing more," Tom replied turning around. "Remember your place, Tom. I don't let my toys talk back." Then, she disappeared in the blink of an eye. ...taking all of Tom's clothes with her. ------------ Tom rang Dereza's doorbell and waited a little impatiently for the dark-skinned beauty to answer the door. When she did, her eyebrows shot straight up and she blinked in disbelief. Tom stepped into her house and she closed the door behind him, following him into the kitchen. "This wasn't your idea, was it?" she asked, already knowing his answer. Tom rolled his eyes. "No, and you have no idea what leaving a hospital in your underwear feels like. I've been caught doing worse, but this is up there for most awkward situation in my life." "Well, sugar, it doesn't matter to me what you wear when you get here. As long as you're here I don't have any complaints at all." She winked at him and got two Monster energy drinks out of the fridge. She opened one and handed it to Tom. "Is there anything stronger than this? I'd like to be able to sleep in my own bed tonight if it's alright with you," Tom said, downing the entire can after a few seconds of preparation for it. Dereza opened up the next can and slid it over to Tom's side of the countertop. She shrugged. "I could get you caffeine pills, but I'm not sure how many you could take before going into cardiac arrest. And did you take the protein and iron supplements I gave you?" Tom nodded, taking the next Monster to drink. "Yeah, and thank you for those by the way. I wasn't half as sore Wednesday as I was Monday." "Thank yourself, sugar. You're in the prime of your youth and you take good care of that body. It's not every day I have a boy like you walk through my door." She watched Tom drink the Monster and then tossed the can for him. "Especially not with that kind of hickey on his neck," she added with a smile. "Yeah, well, I wouldn't be that kind of boy if I had it my way. I wouldn't have to deal with that bitch ever again actually. But, whatever. Let's go." They made their way upstairs and into Dereza's bedroom. The half-succubus sat down on the bed and made herself comfortable as Tom removed his clothes and sat down in front of her. They had to wait for Tom's body to get jittery before they started, or Tom's body would decide it wanted to quit half way through and he'd end up too sore to stand up again. While they waited, it was time to talk and learn. "So what's my lesson today?" the agent asked. Dereza arched a brow. "Aren't you going to demand another lesson? Asking isn't very domineering..." "I'm not in character. I remember what you taught me about being in character: don't let it change you and bleed into your normal life," Tom replied, causing Dereza's lips to break into a smile. "Very good. What are my other lessons then, sugar? If you're so smart." Tom counted them out on his fingers. "You are there to satisfy her demands, therefore your character changes to fit her needs. Know your character inside and out before you start. Your character is not cruel, but he is a dom and will play that part. And you must always set up a safe word or sign, depending on the situation, without exception." "Good, sugar, very good. But how many times have we gone through this and not had a safe word, hmmm?" she asked, bringing her hand to his waistband. "We're not doing any asphyxiation play, no beating, no nothing dangerous. Yeah, we get rough, but that's not dangerous. And you've never asked me to stop. I thought I was being taught, not tested," Tom replied. Dereza shrugged and put her thumb beneath the waistband of his boxers. "You learn most through practice." "Alright, well what's my lesson today, before I have to fuck it out of you," Tom quipped, beginning to slip into character. "Oh, there might not be one if you can't do better than that," she teased, snaking her fingers into his boxers too. She began to slide his undergarments off his hips, biting her bottom lip in anticipation. Tom began to grin slightly. "And just what could a horny cunt like yours teach me that I don't already know?" asked the agent, allowing her to remove his boxers and pull them off his body. She tossed them away without a second glance and moved closer to Tom. "Perhaps you could force me to tell you..." she offered, her voice dropping to a sensual, sultry tone. She gave him the stare that would have controlled his every thought a few days ago. But he had built up his mental defenses and learned how to avoid her will. She'd taught him how to think and what to think about to evade her probing mind. "You're sneaky, very sneaky, but if you think that a poor, defenseless dom is what you've been waiting for..." Tom's fingers found the cleft of Dereza's thighs and he pushed two fingers into her body. "...then you've invited in the wrong kind of guest." Dereza arched her back and put her hands on the nape of Tom's neck. The agent raised his eyebrows and dug his fingers deeper into her, causing her back to arch further. She threw her arms around his neck and hugged herself to him tightly. "Fuck me," she breathed. "Oh? What happened to that stare you just gave me? I thought you wanted control? Where did that girl go?" "She backed down, now fuck me," the demon answered, tensing her body as Tom's fingers wiggled back and forth and curled inside of her. "She sounds like she's in full control. Maybe she just needs to learn her place, hmm? I suppose it's my job to make her submit to me like a good sub should. But she needs a safe word, because if she's too obstinate then I could break her. So what should it be?" he whispered into her ear. She shivered as he kissed her ear and let a low growl roll up his throat. "Stop," she answered with a giggle. "Is that a request I'm not going to follow, or the word you want?" Tom replied coyly. "It's the safe word, because I could never say that to someone as big and strong and hard as you are." Dereza smiled and pressed her lips to Tom's neck. He bit back a moan and reached under the pillows at the headboard, grabbing the silk blindfold they'd put there two days ago. Today, he was having fun with this. "What if I took your eyes out of the experience? Would that make you tremble like a good sub should?" Tom asked, already beginning to put the blindfold over Dereza's eyes. The succubus pushed her gaze to its limits, forcing her will into Tom's mind as hard as she could. Tom fought her briefly before laying the blindfold across her face, covering her eyes. The succubus' body relaxed and Tom shook off the weariness that was overtaking his thoughts. She was really strong. Well, compared to him at least. Any longer and Tom would have been doing whatever she wanted. The agent removed his hand from her core and brought it up to her mouth, pushing his fingers past her teeth and into her mouth. She sucked on them obediently and moaned in pleasure. "Good girl. You learn quickly, don't you?" he said, tying the blindfold gently around her head and making sure it was completely obscuring her vision. Dereza nodded, allowing herself to be turned onto her stomach. "I was taught that disobeying would be very unpleasant for me," replied the half-succubus, shivering at the touch of Tom's fingertips as they traveled down the center of her body. "Of course it would be." Tom positioned himself beside her, close enough for her to feel his breath, but just far enough away so that he wasn't touching her with anything but his fingers. "But you've been so good with your blindfold on. Maybe you deserve a reward..." Tom trailed his fingers down her body and over the curve of her backside, causing the half-succubus to shiver with anticipation. "Oh, please..." Dereza whispered, burying her face in the sheets. Tom's fingers ran across the inside of her thighs, stroking around her hot, wet core teasingly. The demon rubbed her thighs together and at that, Tom withdrew his hand entirely from her body. "Hold still, or I can leave you all alone here," Tom said, starting to feel the two Monsters kicking in. He had to steady his hand as Dereza's body relaxed and her thick, soft thighs parted enough for his fingers to slide between them comfortably. "Yes sir," she replied with a whimper. Tom resumed teasing her sex, coming closer and closer with his fingertips as he rubbed and traced across her flesh with a gentle a touch as he could manage. Dereza waited obediently, though with some effort to keep still. "Spread your legs for me," Tom said, whispering into the half-succubus' ear in as sensual a tone he could. Dereza's legs parted like his word was law, and Tom's fingers snaked back up her spine toward her shoulders. "But-" Dereza began. "Shush now, or there won't be anything but teasing here. This is your last warning Dereza, I mean it." Tom kissed her ear and nibbled on her earlobe before moving down her body slowly. His breath caused her skin to rise wherever he decided to tease her, and every time her breath hitched and her chest jumped. Tom positioned himself just above her and let his cockhead rest just against her core. Dereza's face lit up with color as she realized what was about to happen. But she didn't speak. One of their lessons had stopped entirely because she had broken his rule and disobeyed his order not to speak while he was in character. She was far too close now to getting what she desired to throw it all away on a few petty words. She bit her lip anxiously and waited while he teased her sex with his arousal, gently pushing against her every few seconds to let her know that at any point she would be full of his throbbing cock and screaming as loud as she wanted to. "Are you ready?" Tom asked, running a ring on the inside of her ear with his finger. She shivered at the feeling. Her ears were sensitive, especially to feather-light touches like this. It was almost unfair what it did to her and how easy it was to do. "Yes master," she replied without more than a moment's pause to collect her scattered thoughts. Tom steadied himself and pushed into her all at once, burying himself down to the base of his erection inside of her. She gasped and then balled her fists into the sheets, taken aback by the suddenness of it. "You can go ahead and scream if you wish," Tom said, giving Dereza back a little bit of control now that she'd obeyed properly. "Thank you," the half-succubus replied, and promptly began to moan very loudly as he pistoned in and out of her hard and rhythmically. Tom felt the energy drinks beginning to really hit his bloodstream as his adrenaline rush started. He received a flash of heat all over his body and his spine shivered from his neck to the small of his back in excitement. His energy rush fueled his and Dereza's back and forth motion, making her moans rise in volume and passion. Tom held her shoulder and her hip, pulling himself against her as he drove his cock into her body, as deep and as fast as he could. Slick, velvety flesh wrapped around his cock and pulled him in, trying to keep him seat within her as he pulled out. He slammed into her again and again and again, making sure that her blindfold was still on. She reached back to hold on to him, but he grabbed her wrist and pinned her hand to the bed, doing the same with her other hand so she couldn't move. She tried, but he held her in place as they went at each other like rabbits. Each thrust into her brought Tom deeper and deeper into his passion. When they had started, it had been a sort of awkward thing really. She had wanted him to do all sorts of things, and he had complied with all of them for the most part. Fucking her wherever she wanted, doing as she asked, being trained to handle being in control. Sex like this though hadn't really been comfortable for Tom until the last time he'd come over. Hard, good sex like this was a sort of strange thing. Tom wasn't sure of himself at first, but Dereza's encouragements and a hefty amount of moans in gratitude for his throbbing member had made his inhibitions melt away. Now, as he smacked against her backside and watched every plush part of her jiggle from it, he was comfortable with being in control. Dereza raised her backside to him, trying to push herself onto her knees with her face still buried in the sheets. "Is that a request?" Tom asked, pushing her hands together and holding both her wrists with one hand. "Or a demand?" He took his free hand and grabbed Dereza's hip gently, ready to push it back down to the bed or bring it up further. "Please let me," the half-succubus begged. "Please master." "I'll let this one slide..." Tom said, pulling her hips up so she could position herself on her knees. "Thank you," she moaned between his thrusts. Tom slammed into her with extra force as they smoothed out their rhythm for the new position and began to return to their pace and force from before. Tom shook his head and cracked a grin. That was going to be a negative part of her critique, but damned be the day he didn't want to keep the sex as good as possible with Dereza. He teased her clit while she pushed against each other with the vigor or fanatic heathens in a ritual. His fingers rubbed her sensitive flesh in small circles, causing Dereza's back to arch suddenly at intervals and her moans to rise in pitch for a short while. Her blindfold began to come undone, either by her machinations or by accident, and one of her dark chocolate eyes stared directly into Tom's soul, catching him totally off guard. It took every Tom had to keep her from controlling him completely. She did, however, manage to make his hand release her wrists. She quickly sat up and made his hand find her breast "Be careful what you do, Dereza," Tom warned, fighting back her will as he pushed up into her body with a sudden motion. "Because I've had a great teacher tell me how to defend myself against your persuasive gaze." He squeezed her breast and gave her nipple a little pinch. Dereza smirked and poured more of her willpower into her stare. Tom felt something inside of him begin to fade slowly but surely. He thrust into her again, causing her focus to drop by the slightest of margins. Tom thrust again, staring headlong into Dereza's eyes. She turned to face him fully as their rhythm began to pick back up, neither one of them realizing that they were still fucking like beasts in heat. Dereza's eyes pleaded directly into Tom's mind, telling him of all the things her body could make him feel and all the things she could make him do if he just gave in to her. Suddenly, Tom lunged forward and flipped Dereza over, pushing his lips against hers and kissing her hard. He broke her stare and wrapped both arms around her body, hugging her tightly to him so that she had nothing to hold onto but him. She quickly understood her position and they resumed their previous intercourse with as much wanton lust and passion as they had possessed before. That was going to be another negative, but he was still in control. Even if he had cheated. "That was dirty, master," she whispered to him with a moan. Tom kissed her again and thrust his tongue into her mouth. Her tongue played with his while he found her wrists once again and held them above her head to pin her in place. He moved away from the kiss to tease her ear with his tongue, causing her to shudder and struggle against his hands. She turned her head away from him in every direction she could, all the while wrapping her legs around his waist and bucking against him harder and faster. He continued to play with her ears, finding one to tease if the other was out of reach. Dereza repeatedly moaned that he wasn't playing fair, but never once told him to stop. He didn't say anything back; he just continued to cause her body to flush red with excitement and arousal. Her eyes couldn't keep a stare hard enough to cause him much difficulty. She was past being able to put up resistance. "Master, I think...I think I'm close..." she said softly. Tom nodded and smirked at her. "Hold it," he commanded. Dereza squeezed her eyes shut and her knees locked together around Tom's hips so hard he thought she would break him. He could feel his own body beginning to call for a release, but he refused. Dereza wanted to be dominated. Holding an imminent orgasm was about as dominant as he could think of being. They continued further and further into each thrust and moan and teasing breath, pushing their bodies toward limits that scarcely were touched by two people trying to screw to release. It was a game, who would crack first. Tom knew that under the circumstances that he would win, and would always win. But for Dereza, there was always that illusion of being powerless to another's will, though she could control almost anyone with just batting her eyelashes. "Master I-" "Dereza..." Tom warned, slowing his pace. "I'm sorry master," the half-succubus replied almost instantly, rocking against him eagerly. Her hands balled into fists and she squeezed her eyes shut hard, gritting her teeth at the exertion. Tom could feel her body on the edge. She was practically about to have a heart attack. Tom smirked at her and leaned down so that his lips were pressed against her ear, and in the most calm and confident voice he'd used with her, he gave her release. "You have permission to cum now, Dereza." Tom's eyes crossed and his body reeled in an instant at the feeling that surged up through him like a tidal wave of euphoria. Dereza screamed so loud that Tom could hear it through the ringing in his ears. His world shook, or at least that's what it felt like as his body collided with the woman's under him. The next few seconds were a blur of screaming and desire and overflowing ecstasy that Tom didn't think he could ever experience again. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 07 Dereza's eyes sucked Tom into a place that he couldn't find on his own, and his eyelids slowly began to fall closed. He began to drift away from himself, slowly losing the deeper thoughts and awareness in his mind. Further...further...blinding... The agent suddenly found himself lying on top of Dereza, his arms slack and hands still gripping her wrists. Their sexes still yearned for more, even as the last few convulsions from both of them waned and their orgasms faded with decreasing intensity. Neither moved, out of sheer exhaustion and fatigue. They panted without words, Tom listening to her racing heartbeat and feeling his own between his ears. He was sore already, and his arms trembled at the exertion of holding onto Dereza's wrists. He had to make a conscious effort to remember how to let go of her, and his hands went slack. Dereza draped her arm across his back and chuckled to herself for a moment, panting all the while. She regained her composure and then looked down at Tom, his head resting on her breasts. "I shouldn't have let it go on so far," she said, shaking her head in disbelief. "I lost control. I didn't have control. Nobody did at the end." She swallowed hard and continued to pant. "That was great," Tom said, his cock still feeling a great deal of pleasure from his slowly fading orgasm. "Do you even understand what just happened? I lost control," Dereza restated. Tom shrugged weakly. "So did I." "No, Tom, you don't get it. I lost control of myself. I tried to...I honestly tried to devour you whole." She gave it time to sink in with him. "And I almost succeeded." Again, Tom shrugged. "So what stopped you?" he asked, still trying to regain his mental facilities after the intensity of it all. "I just blanked. It hit me so hard I couldn't even find you in the end. I couldn't even think." Tom grinned and raised his head so he could see Dereza's face. "So do I pass then?" Dereza let her head fall back against the pillow behind her. "Yes Tom. You pass. Not good, not bad, but just enough. You definitely need more practice. We still have four days left." Tom closed his eyes and faded quickly from consciousness. Dereza was one hell of a fuck. But he hoped he'd never have to take another lesson from her again. No matter how good the screw was, his soul was not on the line, not for anybody or anything. Not Dereza, not for Ceria, not for Veronica, not even for himself. And definitely not for sex, even sex that good. ------------ Tom sat on the end of his bed with his work phone held in his hands, a number dialed and needing only the 'send' button to call the Director and tell him what had happened. Ceria had forced herself on him with no paperwork, no warning, no nothing. And that, by itself, was enough to get her in a huge amount of trouble. This was Ceria though, so she'd probably be banished for it, no matter what the favors were that needed to be called in to do it. He stared at his phone for a long time, trying to build up the courage to call the Director. He knew that as soon as he did, it was war. With the only demon he was truly afraid of. The only person in all three realms that had the power to put honest-to-God fear into Tom's heart. He trembled at the thought of calling his boss and stirring up that demon's ire. She'd know, there was no doubt about it. She would know exactly who had gotten her banished to Hell. And she would be vindictive. Not just that; she would be much worse. She would devote herself to getting him back, in any way shape form or fashion, she would make sure he suffered for it. No matter where he ran, where he hid or what he did to fight her off, she would come after him. And she would make him suffer. Tom didn't fear death. Death was part of his life. His parents, his foster parents, coworkers, all of them had been in danger around him. Many of them had died. Death was not what he feared from Ceria, but suffering more, more than life had already doled out to him thus far. Nobody had been trying to make him suffer, but Ceria would. And she had the power to, he was convinced. As powerful as she was, the power network she had established here was probably enormous, one that could see Tom brought to the lower ends of sanity, or worse, to Hell. She was sadistic and cruel, and it wouldn't just be him who was hurt. He couldn't bear it if she did anything to his friends. He'd lose it. The agent closed his phone and sighed, tossing the device behind him on his bed. Cruel, that's what Ceria was. Cruel and self-absorbed and plainly too interested in herself to possibly care about anyone other than herself or any desires but her own. He suddenly shuddered with fear and anxiety. A memory closed away resurged as he thought of the cruelty in Ceria's smile. His entire body flooded with childish, unexplained fear. He began to weep silently as he watched in his mind's eye a cruel, fanged smile turn his direction, telling him that he was to blame and that his body would be the death of so many more to come. He watched his foster father, Jacob Talaky, have a clawed hand pulled through the side of his head, blood squirting out of the finger-deep rents in his face. He wasn't dead though. Not yet, that would have been too merciful for this particular demon. She grabbed him by the neck, piercing his skin as her claws clenched shut slowly. Jacob's eyes rolled back in his head. The demon took her free hand and pushed her fingers through his head, dragging them down through his skull and across the side of his face. Chunks of meat and brain matter and torrents of blood made a raindrop pitter-patter on the already blood-soaked floor. Tom watched in silent horror as his foster father died in front of him, his skull pulled open and everything inside picked apart and flicked about the dark, candlelit room like confetti. The demon finished what she wanted to with his head by pulling it off his body, yanking half his spine out with it and tossing it into the next room without a second look. She ran two clawed fingers down the center of Jacob's corpse, tearing his plaid shirt like it was wet tissue. His skin parted just as easily, and she smiled at Tom again, nodding slowly, telling him that this was his fault. She dug her hands into his chest and began to part his ribs from either side. Sickening pops and crunches assailed Tom's ears as Jacob's ribcage was torn apart, a red splatter of blood spraying across Tom's face. He sat there on the bloody carpet, hands bound and legs tied from foot to thigh, and could do nothing but stare. The demon finally broke all of Jacob's ribs and reached into his torso, wrapping her delicate and deadly fingers around his heart, pulling it out. Arteries and veins tore and a fresh fountain of blood came out of his body, again, reminding Tom of raindrops on the wet carpet. The demon turned to Tom and smiled again, just as terrible and cruel as before, and gave the heart a little squeeze. Blood squirted out of every hole and she presented it to Tom like she was showcasing an expensive jewel. She placed it at one of the points of a star she had drawn on the concrete where she had ripped up the carpet and painted it in his foster mother, Meridith's, blood. She surveyed her work carefully. Strange patterns and shapes adorned the space between two concentric circles and the five points of a star met the inner circle. One two of the points now lay each of his foster parents' hearts. On two more lay two stones carved with symbols and words Tom hadn't ever seen before. The top of the star held a metal ring that the demon had heated to be hot enough to glow orange. When she was satisfied with her work, she turned toward Tom and strode over to him, tail flicking back and forth as she walked. She knelt down before him and took him gently in her arms, telling him to hush and that it would all be over soon. She stood and easily cut through the ropes she had bound him with, the tip of her tail sliding easily through the rough fibers. She stepped into the middle of the pentagram with him in her arms. He was too stunned to understand what was going on. His mind was a blank slate of images and rough ideas of emotion. He didn't even realize what was happening. The demon raised his head toward her lips and kissed his forehead softly, as softly as a mother would her newborn. "Remember this day, dear child, as it is the day I ascend to greatness amongst all the children beneath the land that gazes at the stars," she said in a hushed, loving tone. She set him down in the center of the star and threw her head back, two horns sprouting from her head like polished, curved black stones. A pair of wings erupted from her shoulders and splayed out behind her, a canopy of flesh and bone and blood. She moaned with satisfaction and lowered her head, casting a cold, hard gaze on Tom as he lay in the blood and the mess in sheer terror and awe and unknowing disbelief. He began to cry, too afraid to even speak or move. Tom suddenly found himself with his face in his hands, his body shaking and trembling hard and his face and shirt wet with tears. It took him a few moments to realize what was happening. He was sitting on his bed, crying, reliving the night he wanted to forget more than anything else in the world. He took his trembling hands away from his face and sat motionless until his body came back under his control and his mind settled back into its normal state of repression and hiding those memories in a deep corner he couldn't find again. ------------ Sohm watched him stare blankly at the floor for nearly an hour before she moved. She had watched him since he'd begun to cry, her original purpose to sneak into his bedroom while he was asleep and feed again. Tonight, he had thrown his phone over his shoulder and begun to cry for a time, and ended up like this. The slime slowly pushed the door open, shaping a human form out of her great mass and flowing towards him cautiously. He looked empty. He wasn't reliving a memory anymore, nor was he thinking or crying...or anything really. He sat and stared at the floor with a slackness and blankness to his expression that Sohm had only seen in the dead. He was warm, and breathing, but not in himself. The slime leaned closer to him, peering into his eyes to see anything in them. They were dull and listless, dreaming of nothing and thinking of only empty, hollow places in his mind. She realized what he was doing. He was pushing something back. Something in him was being buried deep inside his mind so he would never find it again. Sohm reached out to touch him and find out what it was. She paused for a moment, debating whether or not she wanted to see. Was it right, to see something so terrible the boy who plays with Ceria dared not remember? Her caution faded enough to allow herself to continue, and she delved deep into his memories and thoughts, deep into the places where he hid things that made his conscious mind go numb and blank as a starless midnight. She found the corner of his active thoughts, following impulses and fading trails until she came upon the thing he was removing from the forefront of his memories. Sohm withdrew from his mind in and instant and retreated into her own thoughts. She waited until his eyes returned to their color and the slackness in his face pulled taut again with life. The slime wrapped her gooey arms around him and held him tightly, rocking him back and forth gently, petting his head with a soothing, warm hand. "You're safe. No one is going to hurt you. You are safe with me. I will protect you from it. Don't worry," she whispered, stroking his head slowly as he began to weep again. "Thank you," was all he said, and cried himself to sleep in her warm embrace. Sohm laid him in his bed when she was sure he was asleep and watched him rest peacefully. She had seen that leer before, the cruelty and knowing malice within it. She had seen the terrible efficiency and intellect in a smile before. Somewhere. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 08 Dereza began to hum to herself as she filled out the paperwork that Harvey and Greg had presented to her. Tom sat at the kitchen table at the end closest to the window, while Greg and Harvey sat to his right on one side and Dereza opposite of them on the other. The half-succubus didn't look at all embarrassed that she was completely naked in front of two total strangers, or that she had been in the middle of having sex with him when they walked in. Tom had lost those feelings of embarrassment a while back, but it was still a little awkward when your coworkers walked right in on you having sex without a care in the world and listing off things that needed to be signed and done like you hadn't been doing anything even remotely private. Greg spoke with Dereza about some of the things she needed to understand on the form for third-party service to the Second Special Division of the Department of Internal Affairs. She nodded and continued to sign and give information as she needed to. Harvey, however, gave Tom a sideward glance, amused. "You have good technique, Tom," he said. "Really? Dereza's screaming never told me that," he shot back. Harvey raised his hands a little on the table to signal he meant no offense. "It's just idle conversation. I wanted to kick the door in and start shooting up the place like cowboys in a bar, but Greg said you'd be more flustered if we walked in and let you find us in there already," the older agent joked with a grin on his face. "God, you're too hard to get mad at Harvey. You're too damn likeable," the younger of the two said, shaking his head slowly. "There are some people who have seen the Harvey Fogelman that isn't as nice. Greg knows," Harvey said, glancing over at Greg, who held up his middle finger. "This isn't story time Harvey. Sorry Miss Unrama, say that again..." Greg continued with Dereza. Harvey let a genuine smile settle on his face and sighed. "He gets like this when he thinks he's doing all the work. Sometimes he's such a little baby," Harvey remarked, causing Tom to stifle his laughter and Greg to shoot both of them a glare. Tom shook his head in amusement. "So did you guys come all the way out here just to do this, because I doubt that they'd send both of you to hand out employment opportunity papers." Harvey nodded slightly and said, "You're smarter than they give you credit for. We're here to bring you back to the Holding Center after she's filled out the paperwork. There's a division-wide meeting that the Secretary of State called. All of us, from One to Sixteen. It's like a call to arms." Tom's brow furrowed. "What, did we go to war with somebody else? Why all the divisions?" Harvey shook his head. "We didn't go to war with anyone." He pointed toward the floor. "Somebody down there went to war with someone else. And that has the Special Divisions Head very worried." "Hence the meeting?" Tom guessed. "Hence the meeting," affirmed Harvey. "Do I get to get dressed before I leave, or am I attending naked?" Tom asked jokingly. Harvey nodded toward Greg. "That's his decision." ------------ Tom sat in the largest auditorium the Holding Center had. Sixteen hundred agents of the Special Divisions sat quietly and waited for the speaker to arrive. To Tom's left sat Veronica, looking through a stapled set of papers and signing them every now and again. To his right were Harvey and Greg, talking quietly to each other and playing some kind of word game between the two of them. Behind him was Allen, who for once was normal and quiet and withdrawn like he had been before the excursion to Scotland. Tom had asked about him and received just about the same answer from the Director, Veronica, and Jehrme, who Tom didn't ever see much of because he was harder to find than a giant squid. Division Thirteen's members were all sort of offbeat, especially the occultists. So, after being told that it was just Allen being weird, Tom had dropped the subject and just dealt with it. He sat there, bored, and watched the solid granite podium as if their speaker was going to rise out of it when he finally showed up. The Director sat stone-faced with the other Division directors, who looked less than happy to be here. Divisions Thirteen and Fourteen's directors looked like they were playing cards, Tenth and Ninth's looked like two matchmakers trying to pair up people in the auditorium's uncomfortable chairs. The rest were doing a variety of things, and only the Director looked anything close to serious. From the right of the stage two men approached one of the Secret Service agents posted at the edge of the stage and spoke to him briefly before walking briskly back the way they came and making a number of shorthand radio calls. Then, they brought up another Secret Service agent who hurried onto the stage and stood behind the podium. The auditorium began to grow quieter, but not by much. At this, the Director raised his hand and made a cutting motion with it in the air. As if by a spell, all of Division Two's agents went silent and the others followed in suit shortly thereafter. Soon, it was quiet enough to hear the scratchy background static the old mic naturally had. The agent cleared his throat and looked around the room before speaking. "I've just been informed that the Secretary of State will be unable to attend this meeting as she has other pressing matters at hand both domestic and abroad. However, this will not stop us from completing our goal here today. Instead of the Secretary of State, the Political Underworld Advisor Jona Wilkins is going to explain the situation at hand. I urge you to listen carefully." An elderly man took the stage and slowly made his way to the podium with a cane in hand. He surveyed the crowd from behind a pair of thick glasses and then collected his thoughts to speak. "Good afternoon," he said slowly. "I am Jona Wilkins, the Political Underworld Advisor to the United States of America. I am both an appointed official here and an envoy for the lower worlds some of you are about to enter. I am, in years on earth, just shy of three thousand. In Hell, let's just say that I've been around long enough to know what I'm talking about. But before I begin, how many of you have ever had any contact at all with a demon before? All manifests and forms included. A show of hands is all that will be necessary." A sea of hands arose from the crowd. "Good, now all those with your hands down, please move to the wall toward the back of the room." He stopped there and waited for the mass of agents to allow their fellows to remove themselves from their seats and line up against the back wall. "Now, raise your hand if you have ever injured, kissed, or spoken to a demon." Again, hands went up, but this time marginally less. Jona paused to blink a few times, rubbing the scraggly beard at his chin. He narrowed his eyes at the crowd once again and ran over its members with his keen, ancient gaze. "Those who have their hands down, move into the furthest rows toward the back, and those who have their hands up, move forward." The makeup of the crowd changed drastically, and nearly a third of the present members made their way backwards while the rest move up. "Alright. Let me see... Raise your hand if you have ever physically struck or had sex with a demon. Again, all manifests and forms apply. Hands up, move forward, hands down move back." The crowd thinned considerably, and Tom's best guess at a glance was that only three hundred or so remained up front. The others began to look around as well, and they gave each other shrugs and surprised looks. "This one applies to Division Directors as well. Raise your hands if your soul has ever been attempted on by a demon of any manifest or form." He waited for the information to sink in as the agents and directors thought. "If your hand is down or you are still unsure, move back." Several of the directors stood and entered the crowd begrudgingly, but without protesting. Only three men and one woman remained on the stage behind Jona: Division Thirteen's, Four's, and Ten's heads, and the Director. "If you are a demon, please rise and take the stage to my left, all those remaining forward, please move as far forward as you can. Directors, please move to the seats in the auditorium, in the front row if possible." Forty or so demons presented themselves on the stage as the directors took their seats and the remaining few in the front of the auditorium organized themselves. Tom realized that there were less than a hundred remaining up front. He sat on the second row quietly near Greg, Harvey, and Allen and waited for Jona to begin speaking again. His long, pale arm stretched out toward the demons to his left. "These are your bastion of hope in Hell, the very children of the womb you may soon enter. They are neither wholly good nor nefarious in action or emotion. But they are your allies. Understand that if even one of them is killed, then the odds of you returning from Hell are drastically reduced. They are not only invaluable to you, but to the United States of America as well, for without these forty-three demons, two succubi, slime, and seer, the nation you serve and protect would have collapsed an age ago." He gestured into the front of the auditorium. "These men and women are the pride of your race, the finest and fittest warriors on a battlefield chosen indiscriminately by both sides in a pitched battle of wits, wills, and diplomacy. They are your most stalwart defenders here in your realm, and the tip of the spear that will be sent to Hell as a gesture of good faith and goodwill. Pray they survive, for every one that may fall lowers your chances of returning from Hell by half. A domino effect occurs when a human is killed in Hell. Once one goes, they all generally tend to follow in suit, either by loss of sanity or by a third party incurring their end." Further out, he simply waved his hand left and right dismissively. "Toward the front of this divide are others whose value ranges from nearly as stalwart a defense to nearly useless. Though many of you will eventually return to a similar place as this in front of your peers, many of you will stay where you are in this hierarchy of experience and skill. And you lot against the wall, pray that you are never in one of these seats again, for it will mean a downfall from grace that you cannot imagine." He turned to leave, but perked up and resumed his place at the podium for a moment. "And if your score was between two and three hundred on the survey you took recently and you are in the front of these rows or here to my left with the same condition, or received a Not Applicable and are within the previous boundaries, please follow me. Everyone else will be briefed and made aware of the situation growing in both size and concern to you humans." He left the podium and made his way off stage right through a door that led further into the building. Tom looked around to make sure he was about to go with the right group. Veronica and Jerhme started off toward the door Jona had disappeared through, so Tom followed them. He and a dozen or so other agents hopped onto the stage and went through the doorway behind Veronica, Jerhme, and four other demons. Behind them came two Secret Service agents, who closed the door behind them and said nothing to the group as they moved down a long, narrow corridor that no longer had a hollow, wooden sound beneath each step. It was solid now, but the walls and ceiling were still plaster and wood. Tom figured they must be going into the other side of the building, where the secluded meeting rooms and warehousing sections were. Their pace slowed as they caught up with Jona, whose constant shuffle and cane smacking against the floor were the only noises in the entire corridor. Tom looked at Harvey and Greg for an answer to anything, but they shrugged at him and gave him just as confused looks as he had. Allen didn't look at all surprised or concerned in any way though. He looked rather bored actually. Tom forced himself to drop all his issues with the occultist for the moment and pushed the thoughts from his mind. Eventually, the corridor ended and Jona opened a solid, arched door with a complicated latch mechanism that ground gears and slipped bolts out of place on the other side of the door. The old man stepped to the side in the room ahead and allowed the agents following him to enter. The two Secret Service agents closed the door behind the last of the agents and stood outside. Tom watched the door-length locking mechanism begin to fall back into its closed position, dozens of time-activated bolts sliding across an intricate surface of gears and pulleys and needle tips that pushed and ground against each other until the door was secured shut again. Tom turned back to face the center of the room, looking over the heads of the other agents. It was a walled circle of stone with a staircase that wound around the circumference all the way to the ceiling that was so dark and far above Tom couldn't see it. A chandelier hung ten or so feet off the ground, held up by a rusted chain with a twisted pair of copper wires running up its length. Dim lightbulbs replaced the traditional candles on the chandelier's banded iron rim. Tom couldn't tell how old the place was, or even how it had gotten here in the first place. They were in the middle of a warehouse, and in the middle of it was a tower castle? Really? "I need you all to sit now," said Jona in a stronger and louder voice than he had used on the stage. The agents moved toward the center of the room and Tom saw a round table surrounded by large wooden thrones that looked like they were hewn from a single piece of wood each. Tom sat down in one between two agents he didn't know. One of them leaned forward and turned to him, grinning. "I assume you're Ceria's new toy," he said, revealing a fanged set of teeth as his grin widened. "I'm not a toy," he replied. "Enough," Jona barked, tossing his cane against one of the thrones. He moved around the table, surveying the gathered men and women closely. He didn't look like a keen-eyed old man anymore. His stature and stance had almost completely changed. His glasses were held in one hand behind his back, his other hand stroking his beard slowly. Broad shoulders filled fully the jacket he wore and his back popped audibly as he stood straight up. "I have gathered you here to tell you that you are all going to Hell, and your personal files are being reviewed as we speak," he said in a commanding tone. "So I expect you to listen closely, because after this meeting is over, you are on your own before you are sent to Hell. Is that understood?" Everyone nodded silently. "Good. Let me start by telling you exactly where you are going. Well, what is happening first. The other agents are getting the long part of it, the socio-political nonsense that you humans use to formalize everything you say." He collected his thoughts for a few moments, looking off to the left as he tugged at his beard. "There is a demon named Ceria, I believe you agents in Division Two know her as three oh one thirty, is that correct?" "Yes sir," Veronica answered. "Well, your friend has spurned her greatest and most persistent admirer one too many times, and has now incurred the wrath of his marshaled armies. Fentin, as he is called, is a hopeless suitor to Ceria's wealth, fame, reputation, and her body. He is also a nitwit and an idiot, but a rich and powerful one. Fentin has decided it prudent to declare war on Ceria's estates and force her to marry him and procreate." He took a moment for the information to sink in. Tom was barely surprised somebody was getting Ceria back for being a bitch. "This would normally be no problem, as personal feuds are very common in Hell and almost never have any effect on your realm or any of your nations. However, the United States of America has already accepted an invitation to a Festival of Triumph from Ceria, an unusual event due to the fact that her last one was declared to be the last she would have on her estate grounds. However, the fact of the matter is, that the United States of America has already agreed to send its agents to Hell for the festival, which will most likely end up coming under siege from Fentin's troops." "Is this her personal estate or her family estate?" one of the demons from Division Four asked. "Her personal estate. The fact that you all will be there while it is attacked, puts both Hell and your entire realm at risk of a diplomatic disaster. You are the third party in this conflict, a neutral third party. I say neutral with the utmost emphasis and importance. You will not fight anyone, even if you are attacked. You will not be designated an enemy by Fentin's or Ceria's forces until you take a hostile action. I cannot stress enough that you will not take part in any sort of combat while in Hell. The repercussions are tremendous, beyond you and everything you could imagine. One slip-up could cost both realms billions of lives. And I do not throw a number out like that to sound scary. Literally billions may die if you make a mistake." The room went silent as Jona took his seat at a throne and looked at all the gathered agents again. He narrowed his eyes at Tom and leaned forward, placing his elbows on the wooden table and knitting his brow. "I can smell her on you. Has she coupled with you?" the ancient demon asked. "Who?" Tom asked, suddenly feeling like an idiot for doing so. Jona sighed. "And men of your caliber are being sent to Hell now," he mused wistfully. "Ceria, dear boy, the only one of two demons I have mentioned that is a woman! Has she received any sort of sexual anything from you recently?" "Yes sir," Tom replied as his stomach sank. "Have you been sent to her more than once? Has she demanded you specifically?" Tom nodded. "Yes and yes, sir." Jona opened his mouth to say something, but caught himself, his entire body seeming to deflate as he exhaled disappointedly. "This is...very bad actually," the demon said. "I can smell her on you so strongly that you must have struck a sweet spot with her. She..." He trailed off, his eyes fading quickly to a faraway place. Everything went silent. So silent that Tom thought he could hear the beating hearts of the agents all around the table. He knew it was just his own, but the sound was still deafening in the silence. "She is going to use you to provoke Fentin. You're her new piece to play against him." His gaze fell directly on Tom. His vulture eyes stared right through the agent and into the fiber of his being. "It is too late to save you now. It would take a demon more vengeful than Ceria to be your guardian to protect you from her intentions. You would do well to make friends in Hell while you are there. And quickly." Tom closed his eyes and let his head fall against the table. It was over. It was all over now. She had him right where she wanted him and there was nothing he could do about it short of getting himself killed before going to Hell. "What's the matter, boy?" Jona growled. "Is the knowledge that you having to act according to your assignment scaring you? Are you going to crack? Do you fear death in Hell?" The ancient demon scoffed and put his hands under his chin, rolling his eyes. "She's going to fuck me to death," the young agent moaned mournfully, wrapping his arms around his head. "Like the one who tried four years ago? Is that right?" Jona said, pinching a nerve in Tom's emotions. The agent sat up and clenched his fists until his knuckles were white. If looks could kill, then even Jona would have slumped out of his chair in Death's hands. "Pride is an ugly color on you," Tom said, watching Jona's expression falter, to his great surprise. No more was the smugness in his features prevalent. It was replaced with a solid frown. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 08 "Go through the door behind you. I'll be with you in a moment," he said, calm and collective. Tom stood up and walked to the door they had all come through. There was a short series of clicks and then the door unlocked in its intricate and delicate way, and opened. Tom stepped through it and closed it behind him. Immediately, the Secret Service agent to his right grabbed his arm and the agent to his left threw a fist into his ribs. Tom found himself thrown to the floor and his right arm twisted behind his back. He glared up at the agent holding his arm down and his knee on Tom's back. "What the fuck?!" Tom gasped as the two agents fought to keep him subdued. "Shut up," one of them said, kicking Tom in the stomach. The Special Divisions agent couldn't figure out how to get out of this by logical means, so he spat out the first thing that came to mind to provoke his assailants into doing something stupid. "I bet your mother's as much a cunt as Jona," he sneered. The agent reared his fist back and struck at Tom's face. Tom opened his mouth and barely managed to keep the agent's fist from knocking his teeth out. He bit down on the man's fingers, hard. The Secret Service agent yelled and let go of Tom's arm, striking him in the back of the head as his counterpart kicked Tom in the side. Tom bit down harder, as hard as he possibly could. He heard his ears ringing at the force, but continued to bit down as his head and ribs were struck again and again. He grabbed hold of the agent's arm with his free hand and felt bone between his teeth. He didn't stop. This was going to hurt Jona, not personally, but it would wound his pride. Deeply. Tom let up as stars danced in front of his eyes, allowing the agent to tear his hand free of Tom's teeth, ripping his fingers down to the nails. Tom spit out the blood that had pooled in his mouth and rolled onto his side, catching the foot that hit him in the groin. He twisted the agent's leg hard enough to snap something, and the man fell to the ground, holding in a scream. Tom twisted his leg further, and heard something snap again. The Secret Service agent's leg was bent at a very unnatural angle, and he dragged himself away from Tom, snarling through gritted teeth to keep from screaming. This time, a heel hit him in the head and knocked him flat on the floor, barely able to stay conscious. "Jona!" Tom yelled. "Get out here you son of a bitch!" He barely managed to get to his feet, with the help of both walls on either side of him. A long time passed, and nobody unlocked the door. Tom struck the door with his fist and yelled for Jona again. Again, nothing. So, he did what anyone would do in a situation like this. He started walking down the hall back towards the auditorium, avoiding the two Secret Service agents trying to calm their nerves and keep from going into shock. He used the wall to hold him up as his side began to hurt, badly. He lifted his shirttail and found his entire left side bruised and bloodied. There were knots of the back of his head that felt as big as plums too. He made it about half way down the hallway before he couldn't even walk, and just gave up trying to go any further. He slumped to the floor and put his arms on his knees, locking his fingers together and setting his head on his hands. He controlled his breathing and held back something between a groan and a sob. Tom waited for almost an hour before he saw the procession to his left coming his way. Jona strode toward him, cane gripped in a bone-white fist and its partner clenched in much the same manner. Behind him came the hustling group Tom had been sent away from, and the two agents, both still in serious pain. "You are coming with me," Jona declared, snatching Tom up by arm. The demon forced his way through the agents behind him, whipping his cane back and forth to clear a path. They reached the room at the end of the hallway and Jona threw him into it, slamming the door shut behind his own entrance. "What?" Tom asked, dragging himself upright against one of the thrones. "You gonna beat me to death? Is that it? Go ahead and start then." Jona shook his head slowly. "No, not here. Before I send you away though, tell me how you knew I was of the Seventh Circle." Tom shook his head in the same manner as Jona had, mocking him. The demon clenched his jaw, but said nothing. He pulled Tom to his feet and slapped the cane across his face. The agent just smiled, his cheek bleeding and stinging horribly. "Ask yourself how much more about you I know before you hit me again," Tom said, bluffing his ass off. Jona raised the cane again to hit Tom, but waivered in his conviction and just let the agent fall back to the floor. Jona turned and left wordlessly, fixing his clothes as he walked. Tom sat upright against the solid back of one of the thrones and waited for someone to show up. The door in front of his stood wide open, and eventually, someone was standing in the empty space between the open door and the wall, arms folded across his chest and a very unhappy look on his face. Tom would have paled at the Director's mere presence outside of an office had he not felt like one of Big John's practice dummies. "I've mitigated your punishment, for now. Before I haul you somewhere to be taken care of, I want to know why you did what you did." Tom met the Director's gaze with a hard, pained look. Tears started to bloom in the corners of his eyes, and soon traveled across his eyes toward his nose. "He made it a point to hurt me personally, sir. I have no excuse." The Director extended his hand to Tom and the younger agent took hold of it. He lifted Tom to his feet seemingly without effort and helped the younger agent through the doorway and down the long length of the hall. Tom couldn't tell what the old man was thinking, but he knew he'd just have to wait for it to come out before he'd hear it. They entered the auditorium, empty now and silent save for the pair of footsteps that he and the Director created. The Director set Tom down in one of the chairs lining the back wall of the auditorium and pulled another one up for himself to sit in. "Joniae Vasilikou from the House of Phyrakiai is one of the most revered and honored demons in all the Seventh Circle of Hell. He has managed to keep his origins and identity unknown to everyone but the most privileged and power-hungry demagogues and agents in the United States Special Divisions. Not even Mrs. Clinton knows his real identity beyond Jona Wilkins." "Yes sir," Tom replied, more answering that he had heard than he had understood. The Director gave his next words careful thought. "Now Tom, I need to know how you found that information out. Otherwise, there are two Secret Service agents outside that door behind you that are going to blow your brains out and inter your remains in an incinerator. Are we clear on this?" Tom paled. The Director looked entirely serious. "Yes sir." "Tell me where you heard that from." Tom shook his head and shrugged. "I just told him pride was an ugly color on him and bluffed so he wouldn't hit me. I swear. Ask Jona wha-" "Jona claims rather passionately that you 'know who he is and are a spy'. Is he wrong?" The Director's tone was off. He didn't sound determined or steady or even commanding. He was truly asking questions. It scared Tom deeply, and he tried to answer with some degree of coherency. "I didn't know any of that before you told me. I didn't even know he was from the Seventh Circle until he told me himself. I bluffed about knowing something about him because he slapped the shit out of me with a cane. I swear to God I didn't know anything. I swear. I don't know what I have to do to prove it, but I'm telling you the truth," Tom said, starting to tear up. His throat was getting tight. Fuck, this was going to be it? The Director was going to walk him through a doorway, and bang, dead. Nothing meaningful, nothing nice, just dirty business to protect some asshole's identity. Tom grit his teeth at the thought of that arrogant prick's existence past his own. He looked at the Director and gave him a long, hard stare before tears rolled down his face. The Director looked toward the floor and nodded slightly a few times, rolling over the verdict in his mind. "As far as you are concerned, Jona Wilkins is an old badger who talks slow, has a cane, and is a veteran of the foreign relations with Hell. Am I understood?" They shared a knowing look. "Yes sir," Tom replied, and was hoisted to his feet. "Jona is an asshole by the way, so don't feel like you've done something wrong. We've never seen his feathers ruffled like this before." The corner of his mouth turned up in a very slight grin. "Takes a good long time to forget something like that..." "Thank you sir," Tom replied, vertigo hitting him as he walked. He could literally feel his heartbeat in his head. The Director held him upright and they made their way, accompanied by two Secret Service agents, to the medical wing. Tom was sat down across the room from Jona Wilkins, who looked red in the face and had veins rising all over his arms, legs, neck, and forehead. As Tom sat down to have his general condition checked, Jona glared at him with embers in his eyes. "Boy, if you ever-" He was interrupted as a nurse stuck a thermometer into his mouth and slapped his jaw shut with her hand. "None of that now," she admonished with a smile. "I'm not through with you. We still need your blood pressure." Jona's face darkened again and the embers in his eyes flared some. He turned his gaze to the nurse and spat the thermometer out of his mouth angrily. "You don't talk to me like that!" he snarled. The nurse pushed Jona against the wall behind him with a long arm and three more sprouted from her uniform, the white scrubs fading to a teal color. She leaned forward and her eyes darkened to indigo orbs. "Calm down now or you'll have an aneurism," she admonished, her color fading quickly to blue all over. "Um...that's a slime," Tom said to the Director. "Why is she a slime?" "Who better to be a physician than someone who can slip inside you and snip tumors out from their hiding places? Hm?" the slime replied as she put the thermometer back into Jona's mouth and wrapped a tentacle around his head to keep him from spitting it out again. Jona looked even closer to exploding now than he had before. "I guess that makes sense," Tom replied, testing the long, bleeding red mark across his cheek. Jona smirked as he flinched at touching it. Tom ignored the demon and turned his head as the Director used his knee to help himself stand. "Alright boy, don't let me hear about you until nine a.m. on Tuesday. There's a meeting I've got to prepare for." The Director left and closed the door behind him. "Okay then mister...Lanzig. Now it's time for your check-up," the slime nurse said, twisting her body around to face Tom. "Hmmm, let's start with cleaning these up." She lifted a tentacle to his face and wiped away the blood on his cheek and around his mouth. Suddenly, her brow furrowed and her eyes darkened to almost black. She rolled her jaw back and forth for a few moments in thought. "What?" asked the agent. The slime touched his cheek again and then looked off to the side before answering. "Have you had a slime as a case subject recently?" Tom nodded. "Why?" The slime grinned from ear to ear. "Oh, I knew her before she came to this realm. She still leaves a flavor." She lifted Tom's arms with her hands and pulled his shirt off, examining his bruised and bleeding sides. She felt the back of his head and frowned. "What? Ow," Tom said as the slime pressed on his ribs. She frowned. "You've got some internal bleeding and a lot of everything really. This may take a few hours." At that, Jona smirked behind her and Tom rolled his eyes. "Oh, well awesome. I guess the other two guys came in here before me, didn't they?" Tom asked. The slime nodded. "Yes, but their injuries were hardly bad. Two torn ligaments in a knee, a few fingers bitten down to the bone. I assume that was your doing?" "Yes," Tom admitted, rather proudly. At that, Jona's face began to darken again. The nurse paused for a moment and then latched a tentacle onto his side. Tom felt a warmth spreading through his chest soon afterward and the nurse turned back to Jona, her tentacle still latched to him. The agent just waited until she was done, swinging his legs idly back and forth as he sat, bored. ------------ Ceria picked idly at her fingernails as she leaned against the blue truck that Jerhme drove, waiting for the demon to leave work. She was rewarded for her bit of patience when the demon walked up to his car and tilted his head to the side at seeing her. He smiled and stuck his hand out to her. "I don't believe we've met before," he said. Ceria gave him a sideward glance and frowned. "You know exactly who I am though," she replied. Jerhme's hand fell back to his side and he sighed. "Yes, I do. I was only trying to be nice, considering all the trouble you cause every time you show up here." "I've got a serious question for you," Ceria asked, folding her arms across her chest. Jerhme furrowed his brow and loosened his tie a little. He put his briefcase into the back seat of his truck and then closed the door. "Alright, shoot," he said, pantomiming a gun with his fingers. "What happened to Veronica's husband?" As soon as the words left her lips, Jerhme's entire face turned a shade paler, his mouth and eyes going slack and dead. It took the demon a moment to regain his facilities and come back to his senses. His gaze hardened toward Ceria. "Who told you about that?" He sounded genuinely worried, not that it mattered to her in any case. "Veronica herself told me. Now I am not a patient person, so answer me." Jerhme took a moment to sniff the air and look around the nigh-empty parking lot. Once he was sure they were out of earshot of anyone that could be around, Jerhme spoke. "Veronica told you who she is?" His tone was shallow and soft. "I am losing my patience, Jerhme, so out with it," Ceria growled. Jerhme shook his head. "I...I can't, not without proof that it was she that told you to ask me. I'm sorry, I can't-" Ceria grabbed his collar with a clawed hand. "Tell me or I will end your bastard half-breed offspring," she snarled, her face inches from his. Jerhme's face paled a shade whiter and he finally relented. "Fine. Do you know who Doran the Proud was?" he asked, Ceria's hand loosening enough for him to take a step back. "I know of him," the demon answered. "And the children's rhyme Death Stalks His House?" asked the demon-agent. Ceria pursed her lips in frustration. "Get to the point." "Death Stalks His House is a children's rhyme about Doran the Proud and his demise. Veronica was Doran's wife, but she was not Veronica then, she was Veronaa." "I still have not been answered," Ceria said. "What. Happened. To. Him." "You have never heard Death Stalks His House? You still don't understand?" asked Jerhme, almost in disbelief. Ceria controlled her urge to raise her hand to his throat again. The difference between the Sanctuaries was growing ever faster, apparently. "I have little time for stories. Now tell me." "Veronaa loved Doran her husband with all her heart, and wed him knowing that he enjoyed bedding any woman he wished without restriction. She loved him so deeply that she allowed him to bed women as he saw fit even after they were husband and wife, but declared that she would be the only woman to bear his children. But Doran chose another, a mistress, to bear his son. This upset the Lady to such a degree that I could not look upon her as she wept and destroyed all her earthly possessions in a fit of rage and despair. I have never seen the lady so hurt and betrayed in all the years of service I provided to their house. I was Veronaa's personal servant, you see. In many cases, her will made manifest." "Continue," Ceria snapped. Jerhme drew his thoughts together again. "As her sole personal servant, she ordered me to serve Doran as if I was serving her, and to love and protect him and his mistress as if they were my very own family. I was made to be their champion, their guardian and confidant in all things. I spent years in Doran's direct service, and we grew to be companions and I his favored servant. All the while, Veronaa planned Doran's downfall carefully. At first, small things began to happen, things dropping, unexplained missing items, especially from the mistress' personal belongings. Doran the Proud's temper was short, incredibly so, and Veronaa used this to have his house collapse around him. At first, he beat the suspects of petty crimes within his house, and then relieved them of the services they provided, exiling them from his house. But the crimes grew worse. Things began to happen, larger things. His mistress was almost struck by a falling stone, and seven servants were put to death for negligence. Food was improperly cooked, or even poisoned, and more were put to death and exiled. Doran did most of the killing himself, but several of the murders he had me carry out, confessing his greatest apologies for having sent me instead of himself. Eventually, through these things, his house was greatly diminished. But Veronaa was not to be blamed. No, Doran saw her as a fierce and loyal wife, constantly trying to find the culprits and professing her greatest admiration for his continued success in clearing his house of assassins and negligent servants. She played the part without flaw. The house saw itself whittled down to the four of us, Veronaa, myself, Doran, and his mistress. I cooked and cleaned and served them as best I could, and Doran praised me even when my services were lacking. As one man can only do so much, he pitied me, but never brought in more servants, for fear that his enemies were waiting to put their machinations within his walls. Ceria stopped him. "What of his death. I don't care about these details." Jerhme nodded slowly, his eyes seeing things that had not been brought up in hundreds of years. "When Doran's mistress was near the day when her child would be born, Veronaa stole her from Doran's bed. Even I was unable to notice her until she opened the door in front of my face as she left, nodding to me as she carried the mistress away. I have never seen more malice in a smile in all my life before that day or after. Veronaa put Doran the Proud's mistress to a torture rack and began to torture her in every way one can be made to feel pain. Doran was awoken by her screams, and I was alerted to the terrible noise myself at that point. Doran leapt from his bed and we searched the estate. I wept and apologized to Doran for hours, and at every apology he forgave me for letting his mistress be stolen from his bed, blaming himself as much as he blamed her kidnapper. He never once thought to ask me how the intruder entered, and never thought that I was the one to blame for the happenings over the years as much as the culprits. A/N: For those of you who don't enjoy graphic violence, I suggest you scroll past this next part until you see the next Author's Note. Just a friendly heads-up. We searched for days, unable to find her as she screamed and wept and wailed for Doran and I and the gods to rescue her or end her life and torment. We found her though, days later, in the depths of the estate. She had been strung up with heavy cords, her wrists bound to cords reaching the ceiling, shoulders dislocated and pulled from their sockets. Her legs were strung as wide apart as could be, most of her body flayed and burned and corroded by sorcery. Her belly though had been left unharmed, save for a blade protruding from it. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 08 Before I could advise otherwise, Doran, fearful, heartbroken, and exhausted, removed the blade from her body with one pull. But the blade was not as it had been stuck through her belly. Veronaa had peeled the end backwards into a shape resembling a hook with four heads. As Doran pulled the blade free from her body, he tore out half her entrails and his unborn son, beheading the child in the womb. His mistress died there, staring at the beheaded body of her child, lying in a bedding of her own blood and entrails. At that point, I had been instructed to reveal who I served and allow Doran to sink into madness, but the years I spent with him and his mistress bore heavily on my heart. I knelt beside my friend, who I considered my brother, and wept openly with him, unable to restrain myself. But Veronaa brushed her hand across my shoulder to remind me that I was her servant, not his, and that I was not done. A/N: Aaand...safe from all the evils that graphic violence can bring. Please continue to enjoy the story. So I removed Doran's blade from its scabbard and handed it to him, declaring that I had been serving Veronaa since his mistress had been with child, and that he had destroyed himself, his child, his lover, and his entire house. At this, Doran's heart broke completely, and he loved nothing, felt nothing, saw nothing. He died. Only his body lived, and he could carry on with it no longer. He plunged his sword through his body and died before his mistress and son, weeping more bitterly and betrayed than I could have imagined a living creature being able." Jerhme looked Ceria in the eyes now, tears streaking down his face. "I have never regretted anything in my life more than watching Doran the Proud slay himself in utter misery. I am haunted by it to this day." Ceria sighed and shook her head. "And why should I be afraid of a woman who used her husband's tempter to trick him? Do you not realize that human scheming is more complex than that?" Jerhme smiled at that, wiping his eyes slowly as he calmed himself. "No, you don't understand. It's...Doran was called 'old crow' after he died. Doran the Old Crow. If that still means anything to you ancients in the Sanctuary of Salvation." Ceria's heart skipped a beat. "Snuck It Past the Old Crow," she murmured. Jerhme nodded, tears of shame and regret still falling down his face. "Yes," he said after a long pause. "I am the noble soul, Doran was the old crow, and Veronaa is still the vindictive one." Ceria let him leave after that, not wanting to hear him sob anymore. She sat on the hood of her car, mood growing sour. She had already made one unwelcome enemy out of Fentin. Now she had Veronaa the Vindictive scheming against her. Enemies from within and without, and one simple thing uniting their animosity. She suddenly pushed terrible thoughts of doubt and regret from her mind. Yes it was worth it, without question. ------------ Tom's eyes were heavy, more so than usual. Even on a Tuesday, waking up at fucking six in the morning so he could get to school on time was almost impossible. He groaned as his body collapsed into an office chair in the Debriefing Room. Everyone from the week before was here, including Jona Wilkins, who looked much healthier than he had in the medical wing. He was back to his usual frail-seeming and pale self, rather than a red-faced brute. Tom paid the old asshole little attention as he scanned the room tiredly. Across from him sat the Director and a few other division heads. Around them huddled some of the demons that would be sent to Hell too, looking over some papers and information. Most of the agents were sitting in their seats, waiting on whatever was going to happen at this meeting. After a few minutes, the clock on the wall hit nine and Jona rapped his knuckles on the table. The noise lessened, but didn't stop until the Director cleared his throat. Tom was still amazed, even after four years, at how the Director could silence a room without saying anything. Jona pulled a manila folder out of his briefcase and opened it, rifling through the papers it contained before putting on a pair of large, thick glasses. At that point, everyone had seated themselves and waited on what he had to say. He blinked several times at the papers before reading off some things under his breath. Then, he cleared his throat and sighed. "Alright, I've received all of your personal information and I've compiled a list of the agents approved and denied access to the Oculus Infernus. So without any further delay, please listen carefully. If you are approved, please remain here for the next part of the meeting. If you are denied, then please leave the room and follow the two agents outside to complete your debriefing." The Director sipped at his scotch quietly as Jona began to read off names one by one. Out of the first eight or so names, two were denied and they left the room, looking almost disappointed. "Veronica Harkendale, approved. Andre Hashar, approved, Mattiesko Helsinki, approved, John Lackridge, denied, Thomas Lanzig, approved..." At the mention of Tom's name, the Director's eyes froze. Tom's heart gave a solid, thudding beat in his chest and his pupils dilated. He gave the Director a fearful and hesitant glance. In return, the Director's brow furrowed and he set down his scotch. "Hold on, did you say approved under Thomas Lanzig?" he asked, cutting Jona off. "Yes, Thomas Lanzig, approved," Jona repeated, adjusting his glasses. The Director shook his head. "Let me see that." He took the papers from Jona and stared at the page on top, examining it closely. "There is no way this is right. I made sure that he wasn't approved from the beginning." "The database confirms it," Jona said, looking at another stack of papers. He showed the Director and Tom saw something in the old man break. "Something isn't right here," he growled, tightening his grip on the papers in his hands. "I made damn well sure that when he joined up with the Second Division that he wasn't going to Hell. I remember. There's a mistake somewhere." He pulled out his own glasses and took another close look at the paper. "Director?" "Shut it," he snapped. "I remember the damned pen I used to mark no on his personal files! Something here is wrong." Anger entered his voice. He looked up and scanned the room's occupants as if he could determine who had allegedly tampered with the papers. His eyes then went straight to Tom and he narrowed them. "He is not going." "According to the Secretary of State, he is," Jona quipped, taking back his papers. "No, he is not. It's my call Jona. He's my agent, not hers, or yours for that matter. He is not going to Hell. And that's final." Jona rolled his eyes. "Well, whatever your opinion is now, you said yes to sending him when he was recruited. And the database confirms it. So, despite what you want-" "Jona, the boy isn't going to Hell, no if ands or buts about it!" The Director's fist hit the table so hard it spilled his scotch. Jona removed his glasses and turned his gaze to the Director. "Please remove yourself from this room. I'll fill you in on what you miss." At that, the Director bristled, and glared daggers at the demon. But, he thought better of saying anything else and left, his features hardened to stone by the altercation. Nobody dared to even look at him as he left, not even the other division heads. When the door closed behind him, Jona continued. ------------ Later that day, Tom was having a late night farewell to Earth with Harvey and Greg at a bar, the three of them sitting on the outdoor patio and enjoying a bit of live jazz. They talked about everything they found interesting, from food to politics to the moon to biology. They digressed and regressed and found the evening a lot more interesting than most. "...And the funny thing is, it's like they expected to win fighting over a river with lighter armed troops and crap for morale. Seriously Persia, what the fuck?" Tom finished, downing the rest of the ice from his coke. The waitress refilled his drink as Harvey picked up from there. "Speaking of Persia, Gaugamela anyone?" Greg shrugged. "Same thing as Issus, just without the river and with more Agranian peltasts. Frickin' Greek ninjas." Tom smiled at that. "Seriously, what kind of tribe breeds people that climb sheer cliffs and run as fast as Companion Cavalry?" "Yeti's or something man, that or Hermes had a hand stuck deep in that gene pool," Greg finished, smiling to himself. Harvey finished his Heineken and looked into the empty bottle as the last drop fell from the lip. "Well, since Gaugamela is too boring, let's try something interesting. Carrhae," Harvey offered. He raised his eyebrows and the others two looked at him strangely. "Two words," Greg offered. "Horse archers." "And cataphracts," Tom added. Harvey shook his head. "No, how would you win it? As Crassus." Tom's brow knitted. "Win it? Well, for starters, not walk as straight and deep into a hostile country as I can and fight my only real battle with the natives in a fucking desert. Y'know, maybe use some logic every now and again." Harvey nodded. "Well, aside from not having the battle at all, how would you have won it? Given Crassus' troops and equipment." Greg offered a strategy. "I'd have fought it out with the legions. Parthians only had ten thousand cavalry, Crassus had twenty thousand infantry, about eight thousand cavalry, and a genius son there. I would have just waited for the arrows to run out in testudo and then let the fight start from there." "Tom?" Harvey asked. "Can I still say not fight? No matter what I come up with, frickin' cataphracts come in and beat my army black and blue while it rains arrows. I can't engage their cavalry because they'll just pincushion my celts and patricians. My legions are gonna get smashed by the heaviest cavalry in the ancient world." They both expected Harvey to give his own answer, but the older agent was too busy staring at the opposite side of the patio with a genuine look of disbelief on his face. He blinked in confusion and then sat straight up in his chair. "Director," he said. The old badger quickly made his way to the table and nodded to greg and Harvey dismissively. "Boy, up. We're going." He waved his hand once for Tom to get up and the agent followed without question. The Director didn't look like he wanted to play games, not that he ever did, but this time was different. "Later then guys," Tom managed, his head already beginning to fill with wondering thoughts and renewed fear at having to meet Ceria on her own terms. Tom followed the Director to a black Dodge Challenger in a nearby parking lot and when the Director opened the driver side door, Tom realized that it was his car. "Get in," the Director said, closing his own door and bringing the vehicle to life. Tom got in and the Director backed out of the lot and began driving. He didn't say anything the entire way to their destination. His face looked more grim than usual and his features seemed to be stuck in a consistent frown and furrowed brow. When the Director stopped the car, Tom took a quick look at where they were. Apparently, wherever they were wasn't in Tennessee anymore, nor was it anywhere in the South for that matter. It was snowing, and the only places that had snow forecasted for tonight were at least in northern Kentuckey. Tom had noticed that they were booking it on the interstate, but it had only been like two hours. Fuck the Director drove fast! Tom got out of the car after the Director and shivered as the immensely cold atmosphere hugged him closely. The Director grabbed a coat out of the back of the Challenger and tossed it to Tom, who quickly put it on and followed his superior into what looked like an old Chinese restaurant across a small parking lot. Inside, it was decorated like an Oriental restaurant, with tons of ornate wallpaper put up and vases and pictures and whatnot strung, hung, and flung up everywhere. Lots of red and gold and green and silver colors. At the hostess' podium, a short girl looked up at the Director and smiled at him warmly. "Table for two?" she asked. "I'm here to see Carl." He said gruffly. The hostess' eyes shot to Tom and then to the door behind them. "Carl is downst-" The Director's eyes hardened toward her. "I know where he is. I don't have a key." At that, the girl called another hostess over and then guided Tom and the Director back into the restaurant, through the kitchen, and down a flight of stairs. At the door below, the girl took out a key and unlocked it, leading them down a short hallway to an elevator. She pressed the button and then gave the Director a traditional bow and left quickly, not even giving Tom a second glance. The elevator door opened and inside there stood a woman lighting what looked like a device that held six cigarettes together so she could smoke them all at once. Her nose was pierced with studs on both sides almost all the way up to between her eyes and a side of her head was shaven clean, the other being spiked like a lopsided Mohawk. The Director pressed the basement button and the elevator doors closed. Once they were shut, the demon turned her attention to Tom, raising a brow at him curiously. "You don't look the type to be here with a friend," she said, winking. "Wanna change that?" She made to step toward him, but the Director removed a revolver from his pocket and locked the hammer back. "Don't. Touch. Him." The demon raised her hands and blew smoke in the Director's face. "No harm, no harm. Just curious about a new invite." The Director lowered the gun and unlocked the hammer, but kept it in his hand. The elevator descended much further than just one floor however, and when it opened back up, Tom's eyes and ears were assailed with flashing strobes and booming music. As confused as he was, he followed the Director without asking anything or saying a word. He was too curious and truly intrigued to ask anything. He could only watch and let his thoughts wander hither thither as the old man in front of him nearly blew someone's brains across a wall for looking at Tom and nudging a neighbor. Tom looked himself over and wondered what it was that made him so obviously a newcomer. At the back of the apparent nightclub, a wrought iron staircase rose above the noise and clamor and met a catwalk that disappeared into the ceiling. Tom followed the Director up this and they were joined by a large man in front of them and behind. The Director didn't try to threaten them, overtly or discreetly, so Tom figured they were supposed to be doing this. The catwalk ended in a large room that was secured to the ceiling, like a huge skybox that overlooked the entire club from above. The Director entered a code on a keypad at the door and it slid into the ceiling. Tom was about to follow the Director inside when a bouncer grabbed his shoulder and held him back. The door slammed shut with a boom, but in the general loudness of the club it was only a small noise. Tom let his eyes wander down below the catwalk to the clamoring, screaming, moving mass below. The DJ worked tirelessly as he ran music together and cycled rhythms in and out at will, fading some and switching them once they were soft enough to be left out without notice. Two assistants helped him, shuffling things around on the platform, flipping switches and checking digital readings. Somehow, the DJ kept from being overwhelmed and calmly had his whole body in motion doing things to make the music transition and change. The club came to life and flared with excitement when he spoke, and he seldom did. It was only a few words, but the entire mass broke into cheers and roars until he was done speaking. Tom was so caught up in it all that he didn't notice when the Director came back out until the agent grabbed him by the shoulder. "Get in here," he said. Tom snapped out of his daze and followed his superior into the room, the door slamming shut inches behind his entrance. He flinched at the noise. "This is it? Are you kidding me, a kid? And you want him protected by a Warden? A full-blown Warden?" asked a man incredulously. Tom looked at him for one second and could tell that he wasn't mortal. He sat back on a couch with his arms laid across the back, a woman resting against each. He raised a hand and pointed a clawed finger at Tom. "This is seriously him?" "Yes," the Director said. "I don't fuck around, Klaus." The demon stood up, a bright flame bursting between his two curved horns. He glared at the Director, who folded his arms across his chest impassively, gun still in his hand. But as soon as he had decided what to do, he decided against it and just sat back down again, stroking his goatee. "No, I'm not wasting a Warden on him," came the verdict. "Do you want to go back to the Basilica of Torment? One bullet and you're there," the Director said, causing Klaus to stiffen visibly. "Motherfucker I said no! Now get the fuck out of my club," the demon said dismissively, waving a hand at the Director to shoo him away. But the old man wasn't having it. "Give me a Warden," the Director snarled. "No-" Thunder cracked in the cramped room as the Director put a bullet in Klaus's shoulder. The demon's girls bolted away from him, almost throwing themselves against the floor. Klaus looked peeved, but not all the injured. He plucked the bullet out of his shoulder with some effort and tossed it on the floor. "I said give me a Warden." The hammer of his revolver clicked back again. "Shit man, you really still mean business, don't you?" Klaus asked, chuckling to himself as he put pressure on his gunshot wound. "Get the fuck out and let me talk to him alone. Find Andrea and tell her to get her stupid ass up her too. Fuck, ouch." The Director lifted the door by a handle and stepped out of the room. "Coulda aimed for a leg y'know!" Klaus called over the blaring music, but the Director either hadn't heard or didn't care. The door slammed shut in his wake and that left Tom alone with Klaus and his girls. "Uh..." Tom said without thinking, trying to figure out why in the Hell the Director had left him in a room with three demons and no weapon or diplomatic leverage. Klaus rummaged around a nearby table for a cloth and stuff it under his shirt, holding it down with one hand as he wiped the other off on his jeans. "So you're his bitch, huh?" the demon asked idly as he cleaned his hand. "Sure, whatever," Tom replied. No use arguing now with a demon in his element. Klaus smirked. "And you've managed to piss off the Stringcutter too, huh?" Tom arched a brow. "Stringcutter?" "Ceria, the bitch who's famous for cutting men's heartstrings? Is it not her? He told me it was." Klaus checked his wound briefly before having one of the girls go get him something better to put over it. "No, I didn't piss her off, I have to go to Hell to be a festival she's holding and the Director told me he'd keep me from being sent. Turns out he wasn't able to, so here I am." Tom shrugged and tried to make his outward appearance calm as his brain began to slowly spiral downward into fear and despair over his situation. "So what's the problem? Is she pining to gobble up that- Oh that's it exactly, isn't it? She's totally into that. Damn dude, that blows dicks," Klaus said, almost musing to himself as he made himself more comfortable on the couch. "Wait what? Do what?" Tom asked, unable to contain himself. The demon grinned. "I could tell by the way you smelled when you walked in that you're fucked up somehow. Your inner parts, soul, spirit, whatever the fuck you wanna call it, is tainted with something. You smell like someone under possession. But there's no demon in you, weirdly." Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 08 "What?" asked the agent, confused beyond comprehension. Possessed? He had been told he was exercised as a baby. "Yeah, you've got that smell. Most of us don't really take notice of it, but I'm not your average demon. I've got a good nose for it. How you think I've got these up here?" Klaus asked, pointing to his horns, now with just a little faintly glowing spot between them. "Fuck summoning stones, man, that's way too old school for me." Tom was utterly lost, and was starting to get a little fed up with Klaus. Suddenly, he voiced something that he hadn't meant to say. "What the fuck are you even talking about? Am I getting a Warden or not?" As soon as the words left his mouth, his heart thumped hard like it had in the debriefing room and he froze. What the fuck was that?! Where in the hell had that come from? Goddamnit, now everything was fucking done for. Tom mentally kicked himself for it. Klaus made an exaggerated look of surprise and then started laughing, but was cut off by sharp pain in his shoulder and began cursing until it faded. The turned his eyes to Tom and shook his head, controlling his laughter. "Well damn, I never would have expected that from a kid looking like you. Must be something in you really, or you're just alpha as fuck. Either way, I like that, so here's the deal. Summoning stones allow us demons to get here with our greater powers intact, but most of us come through human-made portals that drain our powers until we get back to Hell. I broke my wards and got all my powers back up here. Fuckin' pro as a motherfucker right here!" Klaus raised his arm and flexed it. The glow between his horns began to flare brightly. "And about me?" Tom asked, this time much less demanding. Klaus rolled his eyes. "You just smell like you're possessed. It's weird, but that's it. That probably why Ceria wants you, show you off at her place or something. Ceria isn't a girl to fuck around with though; she's the real hardcore. I'm cake compared to that bitch." The door opened behind Tom and in stepped the Director and the demon from the elevator, smirking as she saw Tom's expression. "Surprised to see me?" she asked, winking. "Yoohoo, your employer has been shot!" Klaus called across the relatively small room. "Come over here and help him!" The demon rolled her eyes and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, stuffing six of them into the device she had used earlier and putting the nearly-empty pack back in her pocket. She stood in front of Klaus and removed the cloth pressed against his shoulder. "Damn, he's a great shot. He missed pretty much everything important," she commented, digging a finger into the wound without warning. Klaus's voice cracked as her finger drove down to the second knuckle inside of him. She waited for a few seconds, lighting her cigarettes as Klaus ground his teeth and his eyes produced tears. When she had her cigarettes lit, she took a long drag and then removed her finger from Klaus's shoulder. Incredibly, the wound was healed in its entirety. It seemed as if there had been nothing there in the first place! Tom blinked in disbelief as Klaus raised his arm and threw it in all directions to check its functionality. "Excellent!" he declared, turning to the Director after adjusting his shirt some. "Now as for the Warden request, fuck no I'm not giving you one for Ceria's boy toy, but I'll throw you a bone since you're still the same no bullshit boss you used to be. Andrea can help you out, but she's got her own price. I can't tell her what to do." "Atta boy, lay it on nice and thick now," Andrea teased, blowing a cloud of smoke at Klaus's face. The demon groaned, but said nothing back. He sat back down and flicked his hand back and forth to shoo them away. "Alright, enough. Get the fuck out of here. You're interrupting the show." Klaus turned off the lights in the room with a wall switch and the floor suddenly came to life with motion and flashing light. Tom realized that it was see-through, and that the room viewed the club below, all the fanatical moving bodies down below a show for Klaus and his guests. At least when the lights were off anyway. Out of the room, Andrea grabbed Tom's ass and squeezed, causing him to jump in surprise and come two inches from throwing his elbow into her face. She just grinned wide, revealing pearly white teeth and two fangs, despite her apparent and heavy smoking addiction. The Director put away his revolver and leaned against the catwalk railing. "Well, now it's my ballgame, isn't it?" Andrea said, her grin running from ear to ear now. Her face took on a devilish expression and her eyes gleamed with mischief. "And if it's okay with you trigger, I'm gonna take this one downstairs for a little fun." The Director frowned, but simply folded his arms across his chest and let Andrea take Tom across the catwalk and down the stairs at the end. Tom didn't want to know what her expression meant for him, but his gut told him he was going to find out soon. Andrea took him by the wrist and waded into the moving bodies packed tightly together. Once she had them in about the middle of the crowd, she climbed onto his shoulders and waved her arms back and forth to get the DJ's attention. The man's head tilted up slightly and then he shut down the music. In an instant, the room went from deafeningly loud and bleeding with excitement, to almost dead. "Play something we can dance to!" she yelled at him. The DJ tilted his head to the side, but then ducked under his large array of machines and came up a few seconds later, powering his array back on with a flash of light and whirring cooling fans. "Something special," he said, and the entire room boomed with a cheer in unison. The DJ started to play again and Andrea hopped down off Tom's shoulders. She started to move to the growing rhythm. "What's your style?" she asked. "Hardstyle? Glowsticking? Freestyle? You gotta have one, you're used to this." "How would you guess?" Tom said, raising his voice enough to be heard over the growing volume. "Well, you haven't complained. You're comfortable in this kind of crowd, you're not afraid of the club," she answered. "I can see your fingers twitching too," she remarked offhandedly. Tom suddenly noticed his fingers tapping the tip of his thumb to the beat. Well, if that wasn't a clear giveaway... "I don't dance," he replied. "I just go to clubs to hook up with girls." At that, Andrea started to laugh and grabbed his hands. She swung her hips to get some of the more static people out of her general area and then started to pull Tom around in an effort to get him to dance. "Do it or I don't help you," the demon warned cheerfully, adding, "And take off your shirt while you're at it." Tom gave it a few seconds of thought, and decided it was better to suffer this now than to find himself with no protection against Ceria in Hell. He grabbed the bottom of his shirt and pulled it off, stuffing it mostly into his pocket. "Alright, now what?" he asked. The demon shrugged. "Dance." So, Tom started to follow her as she started moving, not really knowing what she wanted to see. Sure, he could jump around like every other person in a club, wave glowsticks, do some other stuff, but what was she looking for? So, Tom snagged a few glowsticks from some patrons not so aware of their surroundings and started to dance. Andrea seemed to approve, and pretty soon she was essentially just mimicking him with an amused look on her face. As the music changed, so did the rhythm of the crowd, becoming more excited as harder and faster bass and rhythms were introduced. When the music slowed, the excitement waned some and the volume didn't seem so deafening. It was like being in an ocean that rose and fell at the sound of itself crashing against the shore. Foaming and then washing into shore before rising again and washing into the leftover foam. Tom started to get used to it again; it had been about two months since he'd been to a club. His inhibitions and earlier fears seemed distant, and they were already out of his mind for the most part. Andrea look satisfied with her work and wrapped her arms around his waist. "How does a private room sound?" she asked. "And for all you kids who know geography..." "Hold on one second," Tom said, turning his ear toward the DJ. "Is this...oh holy fuck it is. This is my favorite song and it never gets played. Can we stay for this one?" he asked, suddenly realizing what he was here to do. He wasn't with a girl he wanted to hook up with, he was with a demon paying a price for help. He shook his head and slapped his palm against his forehead. "Nevermind, right, let's go." Andrea shook her head. "No, one more is alright." ------------ Tom sat down on the couch and panted tiredly as his body came down off the adrenaline rush that had carried him through the extended mix of Poum Poum Pi Dou. Andrea put both hand on his shoulders and shook him back and forth jokingly. "Wheeeere!" she asked, smiling. "Where did you learn how to do Tecktonik?" The demon continued shaking him until she got bored of it and sat down on the couch with her legs draped across his lap. "I knew this French girl who complained that all the clubs here sucked, so I took her to my house and she made me watch some videos and taught me how to dance. She used to make jokes about how bad I was, like 'Tom cannot into Tecktonik' and 'typical American' and 'booo!'. That song that just played was in the first video I watched, and it's been stuck with me since." "Well that was pretty good regardless. I'm sad you don't come here more often." She kicked off her boots and put her foot in Tom's hand on the arm of the couch. Tom squeezed her toes and heard several of them pop. "Wow." "Oh man, that felt so good." She curled her other foot and popped her toes, letting out a pleased sigh as she relaxed again. It was a tense silence that started to build after that, Tom not really sure of what was going to come next, but starting to have ideas. He glanced at Andrea once, and she raised her eyebrows suggestively. "So..." Tom began, getting his own shoes and socks off with his feet. "It's a pretty steep price," Andrea replied, sitting up enough to remove her leather jacket. Tom rolled his eyes and started with his belt as she pulled her tanktop over her purple Mohawk with some trouble. Andrea briefly ran her fingers across the studs in her nose, pondering taking them out or not. She shrugged and decided to just leave them, reaching back to unclasp her bra. Andrea tossed her bra across the floor and pushed her arms together, squeezing her impressive breasts to make them look even bigger. "You like them?" she asked. Tom realized that she was talking about the nipple piercings she had, and nodded after a few seconds. "Not bad at all," he said, unzipping his pants. "Hold on sparky," she said, putting one hand on the back of the couch and brushing his away from his pants with the other. "Whoever said this was gonna be just a quick screw? I said it was a steep price." She trailed two fingers up the center of his body up to his throat, tracing his jawline back to his ear. She leaned down to his ear and let out a long, warm breath. "So what do you need me to do to you?" the agent asked. He nipped her earlobe and ran his tongue around the rim of her ear. She kissed his ear and wrapped her free arm around his back, pressing her ample chest against his. "What do I need?" she pondered out loud. She suddenly grinned against his ear. "I need you to give me some of that energy you showed me out there. You think you have more in you?" Without skipping a beat, Tom replied, "It's my job to have sex. I've got as much as you can give me back." He kissed her cheek and then the side of her mouth. She turned her head and pressed her lips against his softly, testing the water in a sense. Their tongue met and tangled each other in a slow dance in the joint space they occupied, caressing teeth, lips, each other. Tom let his hands find their place at Andrea's hips and the demon pressed her lips against his harder with approval. Outside, the beat of the music filtered into the room as dull, lifeless thumps of bass and shrill tones every now and again. Andrea didn't seem to notice at all as she ran her free hand down Tom's side and then across the small of his back. "Not too old now, are you?" she mused, gripping his back and pushing her stomach against his as he bit her bottom lip and let her take control of it again very slowly. "Nineteen too far gone?" he returned, latching onto Andrea's neck. He sucked hard at her skin and she moaned with surprise and approval. The demon didn't think twice about reciprocating once he released her neck with a nice purple hickey on it. She bit down hard on him and he closed his eyes, enjoying the prickling feeling. When she broke away from his skin, she answered, "Of course not. Young and feisty is the only way I like my partners. And one like you who knows how to give and take isn't ordinary." Andrea turned around and sat snugly in his lap, leaning back against him as she settled in. Tom figured that this was what she meant about a steep price. She wasn't going to dive right into sex; she wanted some foreplay with it, beyond a little kissing. So, he obliged her request and snaked one hand down her firm midsection and the other up to her breasts. He gave her breast a tender squeeze and she let her head fall back against his shoulder. He unbuttoned her jeans and slowly managed to get them down her legs enough for her to push them off with her feet. His fingers explored her legs for a short while, teasing her by rubbing up and down her inner thighs, each time coming closer and closer to her core. She loved every second of it, tensing hard as his left hand squeezed her breast while his right reached close to her core. He kissed her ear gently and came away from it slowly, allowing the demon to feel it for much longer than a brief moment. Shivers ran down her spine to her toes. Goosebumbs rose all over her body and Tom pinched her nipple while it was standing at attention for him. Andrea moaned again, grabbing Tom's thighs hard with her hands. "Do you want to continue like this or find another position to explore?" Tom asked, brushing his fingers against her lacy undergarment. Andrea grabbed his wrist and pushed his hand under the fabric of her thong. "Keep going," she breathed, turning her head to give Tom a fierce kiss. He winked and pushed two fingers into her wet, waiting core. Andrea bit his bottom lip so hard that when she let go Tom could taste blood. Her hands held his thighs so tightly that he thought she would rip his jeans. He wiggled his fingers back and forth, massaging her breast in unison with the motions. Without knowing it, their bodies began to move together, just slightly. Andrea's curvy form arched and rolled just enough for Tom to notice. Their shirtless bodies started to feel the heat of the moment and Tom felt his arousal begin to peak quickly. He drove his fingers in and out of her without any real care, though it worked to a great effect to arouse her further and make her breathing more labored and deeper as the minutes ticked by. Tom began to massage her other breast, cupping it in his hand and moving it in slow, methodical orbits again and again and again. Andrea's thighs clamped together as he twisted her nipple and Tom withdrew his hand from her sex. "Turn around," he said. Andrea turned around and straddled Tom's hips, unzipping his pants and tugging them and his boxers down his hips. His throbbing cock sprang out and she grasped it firmly with one hand, stroking him with solid motions as she helped remove his jeans. "Care to give a little more?" the demon asked. She ran her fingers across the studs in her nose and bit her lip mischievously. Tom leaned forward and gave her nipple piercing a little tug with his teeth. "I'm here to give you exactly what you want, Andrea. Every wish is a command to me." "Oh are they? If I told you to fuck me out there...would you?" Tom winked. "If you were that kinky," he replied, and then licked the tip of her erect nipple, causing her breath to hitch. Andrea just shook her head with an amused smile on her face and roped her arms around his neck, leaving his cock alone for the moment. Tom latched onto her breast and raised his hand to its twin, sucking hard as he closed his teeth on her piercing and pinched the other. Andrea's mouth in turn closed on his neck, biting down hard. Tom grinned a little and pulled back, still sucking on her breast. Andrea's arms held him tighter as he played with her breasts, pulling and pinching and sucking as he pleased. He ground his hard cock against her core, the thin fabric of her thong separating them. Andrea rubbed herself against him in turn, moaning against his neck as she continued to bite down on him. The agent let up on her breasts for a few moments, pushing Andrea's thong to one side so he could rub her core directly. He breathed against the nape of her neck, watching her skin rise at the feeling. He switched which breast his mouth and hand pleasured and then continued to massage and tease them, the demon on top of him taking full notice that he had done so. Andrea's thighs clamped down on his hips suddenly and her body shuddered. She sucked so hard on his neck that it crossed the threshold of pleasure into pain. Tom winced and bit down on her nipple hard enough to get her attention. She let up and removed her mouth from his neck, instead aiming up to his ear to bite down on his earlobe and whisper in a language he couldn't understand. When she relaxed her thighs, she sat up, having to fight him to pull her chest away from his mouth. Tom blinked hard as his neck stung and looked up at the demon resting in his lap. She breathed heavily over him, letting her hands fall away from him. "Time for round two," she said, snapping the thong with a tug and pulling it off. She tossed it across the room and then ground her sex against Tom's until she was positioned for him to penetrate her. She put her hands on his shoulders and sank down slowly, her breath catching as he entered her body. Tom closed his eyes and let his hands wander down to her hips to give her a little help getting down all the way. She squeaked in surprise, and tightened her thighs around his hips. Tom pushed up a little and lifted her a few inches, causing her body to tremble. "Ding ding, begin round two," Tom said, coming down again. Andrea followed his hips down, pushing against him slowly. He came back up and the followed again, enjoying it with an almost sinful amount of pleasure. "This is not what I was expecting from Mr. Tecktonik. You're more gentle than I expected," said Andrea, curling her toes as Tom gave her a little buck up. "I'm just following your lead. If you want an earth-shattering orgasm, then by all means start it however you want to." At that, Andrea picked up the tempo and Tom followed, easily keeping pace with the Demon's desires. She gave her approval with several moans and began to rock her body against his. They quickly fell into rhythm and his hands slid up to the small of her back. Andrea controlled everything about it. Her rolling hips pushed down as far as she wanted him to penetrate her, which wasn't any different than if he had gone as deep as he could. Her smooth, warm body slid against his in a timeless embrace, following a tradition that endless pair before them had set before them. She was like a wave against him, her entire body moving in a wavelength as he matched her speed with each thrust. She grinned down at him, biting one side of her lip teasingly. Tom reached up and put a hand behind her neck. She leaned down without needing any further excuse to lock herself against him completely. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 08 They kissed again, this time with passion and ferocity that two bodies entwined would have. Tom felt a hand slid down his side and squeeze his ass firmly. He pushed up hard enough to bounce Andrea in his lap. Startled, she pulled herself down hard to keep herself connected to him. She broke the kiss and bit his bottom lip hard. "And you'd break rhythm for that? I guess now is as good a time as any to switch positions." She lifted herself off his throbbing arousal and got off the couch, bending down at the hip to his lap. "Whaddya say?" She gave his cock a long, slow lick from base to tip. "Wherever you'd like," he answered, standing up as she looked around the room for a new place to fuck. She eventually decided on the wall, and took Tom by the hand to the far wall, placing herself against it. Tom lifted her by the hips and then let her down on his cock, enjoying the shudder and moan that her body made as a result. They continued from where they'd left off, only this time with her legs wrapped around his waist and her arms around his back. Tom let his head rest in the crook of her neck and pistoned away at her body, letting her ride him as she pleased. She returned with even greater enthusiasm, losing her composure in the moment. Her Mohawk was fanning out at all angles now, and one of her nipple piercing had managed to find its way to the floor. She didn't seem to care at all however, and moaned with delight as he drove into her with extra force again and again. The pair continued against the wall for some time, kissing, moaning, thrusting at each other like the night would be over if they stopped. Eventually, they both found it hard to resist the urge to find release, Tom having been on the threshold of an orgasm for a few minutes while Andrea worked up to hers. They shortened the length of each thrust and quickened their pace to speed up the process, and after a short while, Tom ground his teeth together and squeezed his eyes shut as a powerful orgasm hit him. Andrea's toes curled as she extended both her legs out behind Tom, hugging herself to his chest with her arms and raking her nails across his skin. Tom felt her drool a little as she rode out her own powerful release against him. When they had both finished, Tom lifted her off his erection and slowly set her down on the ground. To his great surprise, she turned around against the wall and stuck her backside out at him, inviting him for more. She wagged her ass back and forth, giving him a coy look when she turned her head. "We're not through yet. I'm still fighting." She wiped the saliva off her chin and Tom took a moment to catch his breath and relax. When he was ready, he pressed his cock against her body and put his chin on her shoulder. "Any preferences before we continue?" His hands were already snaking down her stomach to the cleft of her thighs. Andrea looked at him with a bit of seriousness, and then gave him a very mischievous grin. "You've had sex with a lot of girls I'm guessing. So I take it you're pretty good at giving anal, right? Hop to it," she commanded, rubbing her ass up and down against his shaft slowly. Tom furrowed his brow and was at a loss for what to say for a few moments. He couldn't remember having ever done anal before with anyone. "Uh...I've never done it before." Andrea looked genuinely surprised. "Wait, seriously? Never? You're kidding. How long have you been with the program?" "I've been doing this for about three or four years. Nobody's ever requested it before. It's kind of pointless with me." Even as he said it, his right hand found her wet folds and his fingers slipped easily past them. "And why is that?" the demon questioned, giving her movements more purpose. "I can't cum until you cum, no matter what the circumstances. The only way I'm able to get off is through straight sex, like, procreative sex." "Is that...just you?" Tom shook his head. "It's a curse. And it really sucks too." Andrea nodded slowly in understanding and thought for a few moments about what to do. She then grinned widely and stood on her toes. "Stick it in there and fuck me in the back door. We'll switch once you get close." She reached back and pushed the tip of Tom's cock in the right place. She backed herself against him slowly, her knees knocking together as he slowly penetrated her again. He was in about half way before she stopped and asked him to push it the rest of the way in. He nodded and took no time to force himself into her down to the hilt. She jolted from the sudden thrust into her, but relaxed a bit as he settled inside her. They slowly started to move, easing out and then back into her. Tom hadn't felt this before. It was a different experience altogether. Sex was great in general, there was no doubt about that, but this feeling, it was different. It was less a slide back and forth than it was a push and pull. She felt tight, like his cock was completely enclosed, feeling every inch of her insides. Once she was used to having her body penetrated in a place that it was not meant to be, they found a comfortable pace to start at and quickly fell into it. Tom resumed his fingers' attention to her pussy, plunging in and out of her steadily, tickling the bundles of nerves that made her squirm and moan. With his free hand, the agent played with her naked breast, its piercing somewhere on the floor. He massaged her breast carefully, making sure not to aggravate her bruised and swollen nipple. Andrea placed her hands flat against the wall and pushed away from it, only to have Tom push his chest against her back to pin her to the wall. She didn't mind in the least, and continued to moan in pleasure as he pistoned in and out of her body. Tom moved his hand from her breast up to her neck, slowly tracing up the smooth curve of her jaw to the tip of her chin. Andrea's head tilted back and her mouth opened, allowing Tom to slip his fingers into her mouth. She eagerly sucked on his fingers, bucked against his hips hard to let him know she was enjoying his attentions. Soon, Tom felt his second climax of the night fast approaching and pulled out, much to Andrea's surprise and disappointment. However, as soon as he removed his fingers and smacked their sexes together again, she had no complaints whatsoever. They fell into a fast rut for a short while and then Andrea bit down on Tom's fingers so hard that she broke the skin. Tom couldn't quite focus on his fingers as he crushed Andrea against the wall and proceeded to pump her need for pleasure full of cum. He caught himself moaning as she backed into him in an attempt to milk him of every last drop. As soon as Andrea opened her mouth to let him remove his bloody fingers, the agent almost collapsed against her. She managed to turn around and help him stay upright, roping her arms around his waist tight enough to keep him from swaying to one side or the other. The demon looked quite refreshed, compared to Tom who was breathing heavily and having trouble focusing his eyes on the same target. "That was a great ride...huh, I don't even know your name." Andrea ran her fingers through Tom's hair and smiled at him. "I guess sex like that needs no introductions then." "It's Tom. It should be too tired to talk Tom at this point." The agent heaved a long, tired sigh and let his head drop to Andrea's shoulder. "Well, whatever you are, Tom, you're better than a decent lay. So I'll give you what you want. If you'll follow me back to my place then I can grab a ward for you. Not quite a spell from a Warden, but I'm a fairly competent Arcane Smith, so you shouldn't have to worry." Andrea grinned at that, taking pride in her craft. Tom didn't care all that much, only that he got something to protect himself from Ceria's machinations in Hell. The two returned to the couch with more than a small amount of effort on Tom's part, and dressed again. After they dressed, Andrea took Tom to the bathroom on the other end of the room and washed his fingers and wrapped them in paper towels as a temporary solution for his rather painful injuries. "Sorry," Andrea offered guiltily as they were leaving the private room. Tom shrugged, regretting the decision as it caused several of his near-black hickeys to flare with soreness. "It's not nearly as bad as the chick who gave me thirty seven hickeys almost as dark as the one you gave me. All in one go too." They maneuvered through the club and found the Director where he had been when Tom saw him last, still standing on the catwalk overlooking the crowd below. When the old man saw Tom, he looked less than happy, but not quite surprised. "It took you two hours to convince her to help you? You're losing your touch, agent." Tom would have thought the Director were making a joke if he hadn't used his regular dead serious tone of voice. Meanwhile, Andrea popped into Klaus's skybox and then came right back out after only a few moments. She then took Tom by the hand and led him back down through the club to the elevator. The Director followed without saying anything, but warily watching the crowd that still moved and cheered all around them. In the elevator, Andrea took the time to straighten her Mohawk a bit and find that she'd lost a nipple piercing. Shrugging, she continued to attempt to fix her hair until the elevator reached its destination and the odd trio left the top level restaurant with more than a few stares at Andrea's hair. The ride to Andrea's place wasn't long and soon Tom had an amulet that had chords to wrap around his neck and his chest to secure it against his skin at all times, as it only worked when it touched him. Supposedly, and the Director believed Andrea so Tom assumed it was true, the amulet would protect Tom from being preyed upon by demons and succubi and all other children of Hell by strengthening the bond between his body and his soul. Not as good as a Warden's spell, but a great deal better than no protection at all. Andrea placed the amulet in Tom's hand, and hesitantly let him grasp it without her fingers touching it. She bit her bottom lip in thought. "Oh, I could ask for so much more than just tonight. This thing is more valuable than real estate in NYC." "Please no. I can't do any more than tonight," Tom said, half joking half serious pleading. He really didn't think he had it in him to go another round with her, not after everything today. The Director waited impatiently by the door, checking his watch. Andrea relented and let him have the amulet after a few moments more. "Go, your nanny is getting antsy." Tom and the Director left Andrea's apartment and started walking down the hall toward the stairwell. Andrea leaned out her doorway as they began to descend the stairs. "But hey, if you ever come back up this way, hit me up! I'd love to see what you're like after a bottle of wine and some mood lights!" "I'll just head back to the club if I ever need my rave fix." After that, the Director and Tom left the apartment complex and were on their way back to the holding center. The trip was a lot less hurried than the one coming here, and the silence a great deal less awkward. It was more a tired silence rather than an uncomfortable one. Still, with his boss driving him around, it still didn't feel quite right. Once they had gotten across the Tennessee state line, the Director looked visibly more relaxed than he had the entire rest of the night. His shoulders loosened and his brow finally unfurrowed most of the way. "You'd make an outstanding agent if you were ten years older," the Director said, glancing at Tom briefly. "Sir?" "If only you weren't so fiery, there would be no problem with any of your case subjects. But, that's why they request you so much I guess," the older agent mused to himself. "Y...yes sir," Tom replied out of habit. He didn't quite know what was going on here. The Director wasn't usually in the mood to muse about anything, let alone do it without a frown or a scotch in his hand. In any case, Tom was dropped off at his house and the Director told him to be prepared and ready to go overseas with full combat gear by tomorrow at noon. Then, he left without any further conversation. Tom unlocked his front door and made his way upstairs, going straight to his bedroom and flopping down on the bed in complete and utter exhaustion. What a day, he thought. What a shitty day. Tom fell asleep to the thought that tomorrow he'd being stepping into Hell. Stepping straight into Ceria's clutches, and into the consequences of a bet he'd lose the second one hair on his head entered Hell. A/N: I apologize for the major delay in this update, as college has burdened me heavily with homework and papers. Thank you for you patience. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 09 A/N: thank you JohnEB87 for all your help and encouragement to get this chapter out. I'm sorry it took so long guys and gals, growing up is one hell of an adventure. * The pain and soreness in Tom's neck hadn't subsided at all, despite taking three ibuprofen and a long, hot shower. The entire left side of his neck was black and purple, rimmed red all around his gigantic conglomeration of hickeys. The right side of his neck was relatively clean, save for two dark purple spots just below and behind his ear. His two fingers weren't that much better off either, wrapped in gauze and bandaids. He slammed his car door shut and adjusted his tie. The motion caused him to wince visibly and he gingerly pulled his collar away from his neck and continued to straighten his tie. His neck itched, but he couldn't do anything about it without causing himself a great deal of pain, so he bore with it for the moment. He opened the trunk of his car and pulled out the large gun case and ammunition belt full of cartridges. Greg pulled into the parking lot and parked next to Tom, followed after a few seconds by Harvey. The two agents got out of their cars and made some last-minute inspections of their personal belongings before moving over to where Tom was finishing loading the M1911 in his hand. He put the sidearm back in its holster at his hip and turned toward his friends. "Jesus Tom, do you ever take a minute to catch your breath?" Grag asked, turning Tom's head to the side just enough to get a good look at the large spot on his neck. "Believe it or not my life depended on my performance last night," the younger agent rebuffed, swatting Greg's hand away from his chin. Tom picked up the gun case and stuffed the belts of ammunition into a green box and closed it. He hefted the box and case out of his trunk and Harvey closed it for him. "That's a little much," Harvey said. Tom shrugged. "The Director said 'come prepared' so I'm coming prepared. "He meant bring your sidearm, not the whole armory," Greg said. Tom looked at his Mosin-Nagant and groaned as he set the case down and opened his trunk back up. He put the rifle case and ammunition back in and pulled out the claymore Donalbain had mailed him after the fiasco in Scotland. He secured it around his back and turned back around to see Greg and Harvey almost surprised. "What?" Tom asked. "A sword? You're a non-combatant. There's no way you're getting the chance to use that thing down there. I thought it was a mantelpiece too. Y'know, one of those rat-tail tang things that break as soon as you swing them?" Greg sounded completely serious. Tom shook his head and unsheathed the sword. "Nope. Donalbain had this forged and then sent it over here after my last one broke. He sent an actual Highland claymore too that's in my back seat, but that one is like, no joke, as long as I am tall. So I'm bringing this thing if not the Nagant." "If you feel the need to," Harvey said, shrugging. Tom sheathed the sword again and the trio of agents made their way into the underground parking garage. At the door to get into the actual building part of the holding center, they showed their ID's and the guards eyed them suspiciously. It was on very rare occasions that agents carried weapons into the center so conspicuously. However, this was no ordinary occasion. The three agents made their way through the network of hallways and offices to one of the smaller auditoriums, and had to present their ID's and cellphones and have their fingerprints scanned to be let in the doors. Inside, they sat down in the fourth row behind Veronica and Jerhme. Tom looked at the time on his phone and then looked around. The auditorium was pretty much full of agents at this point and there were still some coming in from the double doors behind the rows of seats. The agents waited in relative silence for whatever was going to happen, to happen. After about ten minutes, Jona Wilkins made his way to the large desk dominating the lowest level of the Odeon-styled room. He sat down behind the desk and then surveyed the room, as if he was trying to see who wasn't present. After a few moments, he turned his eyes down to the papers lying on the desk and picked up the first one. "As most of you know, today is the day that your journey to Hell is scheduled to begin. But before we move on to that, I would like to take this time to explain the differences in the passage of time between here and Hell. In-" Before Jona could finish, another demon stepped out of one of the side doors behind Jona and cleared his throat. "Basileus, allow me to handle this. You're a poor military orator." The demon raised one of his four arms and scratched at the stub of one horn, looking boredly across the crowd assembled in the auditorium. Jona's face darkened a bit, but he relented and left through the door he had come in through. Now, taking Jona's place, the demon rifled through the papers on the desk and then slid them off the edge. Tapping two pairs of fingertips together, he began to speak, but cut himself short after a second thought. Then he smiled. "A day on earth equates to a year in Hell. That means that about every four minutes you spend sitting here on earth, a day in Hell passes. So, there you have it, the first four of those papers done in twelve seconds. Your assignment to Hell has been pushed back three days for the Interwar Observances in the Second Circle. Meet back here in three days at...noonish and everything will be arranged for you to be sent to Hell. In the meantime, enjoy your filler assignments." The demon stood up, stretched his four arms, and then left the room without another word. The assembled agents were left to themselves for a few minutes, unsure of what to do or think about what they'd been told. "Filler assignments? Are you kidding me?" Tom asked Greg, who just shrugged and then looked to Harvey for an answer. The quiet agent let out a sigh. "Looks like they're pumping every last bit of usefulness out of us before we go," he said, giving Tom and Greg a slight grin. "Is this for real? Are they really giving us all assignments three days before we have to go to Hell?" asked an agent from another division behind the trio. His accent was something Tom hadn't ever heard before. "I guess so. It doesn't really seem that farfetched though," Greg said, the trio turning to face the newcomer to the conversation. The strikingly blonde-headed agent Tom was facing stuck his hand out to Tom. "Sorry, my name is Mattiesko Helsinki." Tom shook his hand. "Thomas Lanzig." "Harvey Fogelman." "Gregory Sanderson." Mattiesko looked around at the other agents and then turned his attention back to the trio. "Are most of these agents from your division? I only know three of them." "A lot of them, yeah, but not most. It's like half." A sharp whistle interrupted what Mattiesko was about to say and the four-armed demon from before stepped back out of the side door with a heap of Manila folders in his hands. He slapped them down on the desk in front of him and sat down, glaring up at the agents quickly quieting down. "Alex Anderson. Mattiesko Virichena. Hank Updyke. Benjamin Akerson. Come down and receive your assignments." Mattiesko and the others stood and made their ways down to the demon. Mattiesko's face paled to ghost white as he took the folder with his name on it off the desk. "Fake name?" Greg asked out loud. "We usually don't hire non-nationals." "Quiet, Mr. Sanderson," the demon said, rifling through the folders for a moment before he set four more down. Four more agents were called and went to pick up their folders. After that, five were called, then four more. "Any idea why he keeps on flipping through the stack?" Tom whispered to Harvey. "I-" Harvey began, but was interrupted. "To make sure a certain name is last, Thomas Lanzig. Oh, and I'm mocking you by the way. It's your name I'm holding until last. Travis Pelter. Landon Pointer." The demon continued to call out names until he had one folder left on the desk. He held it up and arched a brow. "Thomas Lanzig. Can you please come get your assignment now?" Tom stood up and made his way to the demon, frowning. When he got to the desk, the demon stood up and folded two of his arm across his extraordinarily broad chest, smirking. "Please follow me." Tom followed the demon through the side door and passed by Jona talking to two Division Heads and the Director. The Director gave Tom a very slight nod and a sort of stern, apologetic look. Tom followed the four-armed demon through the maze of hallways beneath the Holding Cetner until they reached an elevator. The demon stepped into the elevator and turned around, holding his hand out to stop Tom from following him. "What?" Tom asked. "I need to consult with who picked you for this assignment. Wait here and don't leave. We wouldn't want you getting lost, now would we?" He smiled in a mocking, amused way as the elevator doors closed. Tom groaned and then sat against the wall to wait for the demon to return. 'Well, while I've got you alone, we need to talk,' said a voice emanating from between Tom's temples. "Sohm?!" the agent said out loud, looking all around the hallway, even behind him and above where he sat. 'I'm inside you, Hun. Calm down a little. I don't know how long I have alone with you, so we have to make this quick.' "Inside me? Still? Did Veronica not-" 'Look! I'm not here for an inquisition. So let me talk.' Tom bristled at the thought of the Slime hitching a ride in his body without his knowledge or consent. He stood up and stood a few inches away from the elevator doors so he could see into his reflection's eyes. "Get the fuck out of my body. Right now," he growled menacingly. His eyes clouded with dark indigo spots and glowed faintly. 'I'm trying to protect you from whatever you might find in Hell. I'm not just doing this for shits and giggles,' the slime protested. "Get out or I'll stuff a gun muzzle in my mouth and pull the trigger," Tom threatened, unholstering his sidearm and unsafing it. His vision blurred and grew dark as his eyes clouded with a solid indigo hue. 'Tom, this is not the time to be upset. You can be mad at me later. Right now, however, I need you to listen to me. That demon is not like me or your friend or Ceria or anyone else you're encountered. Not Klaus, not Andrea, not anyone else. His mind works differently. I need you to trust me and let me take control when I push for it, alright? I need your cooperation. Otherwise, I feel something terrible will happen to you without me.' Tom stepped away from the elevator and put his pistol in his mouth so far that the muzzle was pressed against the back of his throat. "Uhn." He said, holding up one finger with his free hand. 'I'm doing all this for your safety and well-being,' Sohm said. "Koo," Tom continued, holding up two fingers now. 'Tom, please stop,' Sohm said, her voice beginning to fade a little. Tom held up a third finger and then squeezed the trigger. It clicked back audibly, but there was no other noise. His mind blanked for a moment, but that was all the time that Sohm needed apparently. Tom felt something squeeze his brain, like it was forcing its way out of his body through his skull. He couldn't move, his mind and consciousness being forced into a shifting and wavering place. He fought to keep from being dragged back from control, but Sohm just started humming in his thoughts. Tom felt his fingertips grown numb, like a phantom hand was pulling all the nerves out of his hand and wrapping them up somewhere in his consciousness. He felt like he was floating in thin air, but his vision remained intact and he could still understand everything that was going on. The gun left his mouth and returned to its holster. His body eyed its reflection in the elevator door and then clenched one hand into a tight fist. "This is absolutely delightful," it said. 'Sohm?' Tom asked, though his body didn't say it. "Yes Hun? Need something?" his body answered. 'What did you do to me?' His body smiled broadly. "I am in control of your body for right now. You can sit back and relax for a moment while I handle things here. Brohund is not one to speak with unprepared. Don't worry though, this won't take long." 'Sohm, wh-' Tom's voice was silenced as the elevator doors opened. The four-armed demon was standing in the elevator, a smirk on his face. Tom couldn't hear what he said, but the demon gestured with two hands to his left and Sohm stepped into the elevator. Tom couldn't hear or feel anything. He could see what was going on, but all his other senses were muted, completely stripped away from him. The elevator rose seven floors and then stopped, allowing Sohm and the demon to step out and move down a hallway. The demon Brohund walked ahead and opened the door at the end of the hallway. Sohm followed him in and closed the door behind her. Tom felt something inside him lurch as a pinpoint of pain blossomed on his forehead and wrapped around his skull. He reared back in nothingness, surprised and frightened. He had no clue what was going on. Was this bad? His mind scrambled across the depths of emptiness for something to reach out for, some hidden explanation. He clawed at the air all around him, but to no avail. Though he struggled to get out of the prison he was in, he could see his body moving casually, sitting in a chair across a desk from Brohund. It was like when one holds their hand a few inches in front of one eye, and when both eyes see different points of focus, the focus of the visual input changes. At moments, the picture of his own body and the office was faded and dark, disappearing into nothingness, at other points it reappeared and stayed very vibrant and visible for a few seconds. The pinpoint of pain returned for a moment before disappearing, and Tom pulled backwards as far as he could away from it. Going backwards was a problem, as he had no point of reference to go by to tell is he was even moving at all, or just floating in space. It was a strange and disconcerting feeling to be floating in empty space and yet be connected to your body with no senses. To feel like you're moving and yet see that you're not. Tom watched Brohund make gestures back and forth and his facial expressions grow harder as Sohm talked to him. Tom guessed the two demons were going back and forth and arguing over something. Had Sohm just hitched a ride in Tom's body to talk to Brohund? He doubted it, but things seemed like that for the moment. The agent resigned himself to waiting for what seemed like hours as Brohund grew more and more irritated with what Sohm was saying. It grew so bad that the demon swept all the papers off his desk and slammed all four of his fists down on it, leaning in close to Sohm's face with a menacing glare. "Abhuman filth," the demon mouth very slowly, disgust written all over his face. He stared hard into Sohm's and Tom's eyes before clenching his jaw tightly in thought and then sitting back down in his chair. He pointed toward the door and said several unpleasant things to Sohm before she left. Once she was back in the elevator, Tom felt something suction him forward. He didn't fight it, assuming it was Sohm's doing. The agent felt his fingertips first, and then his entire body grew warm, like he was lying down face-first in a hot tub. His hearing returned with loud ringing that quickly faded and he could smell something like when you get water in your nose. He blinked hard and shivered at the feeling, and then it passed. Tom looked himself over in the reflection on the elevator wall, testing out his toes and fingers and every other part of his body to make sure it all still worked again. He then turned his focus to Sohm. "I want you out of me." He said. "Now." 'I just saved you from the worst of your life, and several hours of tearful crying and writhing on the floor, hun. Thank me before you prosecute me,' came her retort. "I said get out," Tom reiterated. 'And show everyone in the world that you've got an attachment problem with a slime? No thank you. If you're so eager to get me killed, then have that girl you like so much come to your house and suck you dry. I'm sure she'd love to hear how well you're dealing with me already.' Tom considered what she said and decided that it would be better to wait until he was home to do anything. Getting other people involved was probably going to do more harm than good, and considering the circumstances of his assignment to Hell, incompetence and mishandling of a demon wasn't going to get him reassigned. Tom paused for a moment and then looked himself over. "Sohm, did you grab the assignment folder?" he asked. Behind Tom, the elevator ringer dinged and out stepped Brohund with a folder filled with hastily, gathered papers. The demon shoved the folder into Tom's chest so hard that the agent stumbled into the wall behind him. "Get out of my sight," Brohund growled. After collecting himself for a moment, Tom turned and left, scratching the pinpoint sting on his forehead. He'd have to ask Sohm about that once he got somewhere more private than the hallway. ------------ "Sohm, get out of me," Tom demanded, staring into his bathroom mirror. His vision darkened considerably as his eyes turned an indigo hue. "Give me a minute," Sohm said in a weak and pallid voice. "Now!" yelled the teen. In an instant, Tom began to vomit so hard that he fell against the countertop, his entire body buckling beneath its own weight. His throat burned. His nose felt like it was being seared by fire. His head pounded hard enough for him to feel his heartbeat in his eardrums. He clenched the sink faucet to keep from falling to the floor and continued to vomit for almost a minute until he was dry heaving. He was motionless for a while, trying to recover physically from the ordeal. He breathed heavily, almost gasping for breath. His neck burned like it was a cut being treated with straight alcohol, but that wasn't on the forefront of his mind. His throat still had an acidic burn and it was only slowly being replaced with a nauseating feeling of hot dryness. "Give me time, Tom. I need time to pull myself together," Sohm said, bubbling out of the drain in the shower through the doorway to the right. Tom heaved himself off the countertop and leaned on the doorway to the bathroom proper, glaring at the blue slime before him. "Get the fuck out of my house! I don't care what the fuck you're trying to do for or to me or whatever! Just get the fuck out!" he yelled, his throat aching and burning. Almost before he could react, Sohm lunged across the bathroom and had Tom crushed against the tiles on the floor. Several of them split and shattered under the impact and Tom saw stars as his head slammed against the floor. "I'll kill you," Sohm snarled with hatred dripping from every word. Tom's pupils dilated in shock. The slime suddenly calmed and her eyes darkened to nearly black. She released Tom and buried her face in her hands. "I'm sorry!" she wailed, continuing slowly through her heaving breaths. "I'm sorry! I- It hurts! I feel terrified and alone and things I haven't felt before! Everything hurts! My emotions ache!" The slime crumpled against the wall and started weeping quietly as Tom recovered on the floor, taking his time to piece together what was going on. He had seriously pissed off a very powerful demon and nearly been killed in only a few second's time. When he was able to breathe steadily and not swallow from the dry feeling in his throat, he sat up and looked at Sohm. She had been reduced to a gooey mess of runny limbs surrounded by a growing puddle of water. Tom had never seen a demon actually weep before. He had seen Hera cry, heartfelt cry, but never this. Hera had been upset; Sohm...she was completely distraught. Tom had never heard someone cry like this in his entire life. It made him feel guilt for the first time in a long time. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 09 "Hey," he said, offering a hand to the slime. "Sohm, I'm sorry. I-" "It's not you," the slime said, taking his hand and pulling him close enough to wrap her sticky arms around. "No, it is you, but it's not what you did. I need more time. Just wait." So, Tom put his arms around the demon and gently hugged her for a long time. They sat nearly motionless, Sohm's gooey body latched onto his, dripping and melting, slowly rebuilding its humanoid figure even as gobs of her runny blue flesh ran down his shirt. Sohm looked up at him a few times, her gaze casting to him fear and anxiety and remorse without words. Slowly, though, her weeping turned into a sort of dry breathing, ragged and interrupted at intervals with a soft cry-cough that was followed by a deep breath. It was strange to think that she would have very human actions, despite being a demon with no human physiology. After she had calmed down enough to straighten out her emotions, the slime rose from the floor, hoisting Tom up by the waist and beneath the arms with several limbs. She set him on his feet and then ran her limbs up and down his body, removing the goo and water that had thoroughly soaked his clothes and skin. "Are you okay now? Sohm?" Tom asked. The slime gave him an unsure look, indigo eyes blooming with dark color. "I'm not sure. I don't know what I'm feeling from all of that. I've never had most of those emotions of feelings before." Tom nodded. "What brought it on? What I said?" "No," the slime shook her head. She gave him a hug, reducing her efforts to dry him off to nothing. "You upset me a little with what you said, but I just lost control because that was on top of everything else I was feeling." "Well I'm sorry anyway. I didn't mean to piss you off." Sohm hugged him a little tighter. "It's okay. It really wasn't what you said. When Brohund handed you that folder, he peered into your body to find something. He could smell me, just like Klaus at the club could. He was looking for me, but I hid in the only place I thought he couldn't possibly find. It was further into your mind than I have ever gone before. It hurt." "Into my mind?" the agent repeated, his brow furrowed tightly. Sohm quickly followed up on her statement, trying not to upset him. "To hide inside you I have to be connected to every part of you; it lets me seem like a nuance instead of a big demon tumor. But when Brohund looked into your mind, I had to take every conscious part of me and bottle it into..." Sohm seemed to just stare off and blank for a few moments before Tom nudged her. "Are you still here?" The slime snapped back to reality. "I'm sorry. When I'm inside you, the emotions where I am affect me. I was not surrounded by happy memories." Her tone stiffened, as if telling him to not ask any more questions about the subject. Tom sighed. "I'm just glad you didn't crack my head in two on the floor." "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to lose control so badly. I just...I felt like I was going to die. I have never felt like that before." The slime let go of Tom and drew the lower column of her form into a smoother outline. It looked like she was wearing a form-fitting dress that clung to her skin all the way down to her feet, where blue goo spread out like frilly cloth on the floor. "I've...this is new. I've never seen you with legs before." "It's hard to strut with no feet," Sohm replied, bending over at the hip to grab the edge of the frilly puddle. She lifted it like the end of a dress, and beneath it two feet were revealed. "But now that I've got them..." Sohm stood straight and brushed her hands down the sides of her body, mimicking smoothing out wrinkles on a dress. She looked at Tom and winked, raising her chin as she turned and began to sashay down the hallway towards the stairs. Tom followed her slow, exaggerated walk to the staircase, where the slime took a seat on the wrought iron banister and slid down nonchalantly, coming to a halt at the end seemingly without cause. She looked back up at Tom and nodded her head toward the stairs. Curious, Tom followed her downstairs and into the kitchen, where she rummaged through its contents until she found what she wanted. She pulled out a jug of milk and a coke, sliding the coke over to Tom as she pulled the top off the milk carton and stuck it to the top of her head like it was a hat. Tom watched the bizzare spectacle as the milk drained from its container, ran down through her head and neck, and pooled in a large space in her chest. "Sohm, are you alright?" Tom asked, genuinely beginning to worry about what was happening. Sohm smiled back at him. "Does that sauna over there work?" she questioned, pointing to the door on the opposite wall in the living room. Tom looked where she was pointing, already knowing that the sauna did in fact work. "Yeah, it works fine. Why, you planning on sweating that stuff...you can't be serious Sohm," Tom finished in a deadpan tone. Sohm arched a brow at the agent, moving around the kitchen island to place her arms around Tom's shoulders. She put her gooey, warm lips to his ear and smiled. "Would you like to join me as my breasts weep milk in a sauna? Hmmm? Does that sound like fun for a horny human boy?" she suggested sensually, causing the hair on Tom's neck and head rise like an angry cat's. Tom didn't need to think about it for even a second, but he did anyway. He wondered briefly what Sohm was trying to do, but the images of Sohm's breasts dripping milk as she arched her body toward the heat of the kiuas. His arousal began to rise steadily, and he was already heading to the sauna as Sohm began to move. Tom filled the water bucket and turned the kiuas on. The pile of stones in the kiuas started to heat up shortly after Sohm sat down on the middle of the wooden bench. Tom was about to leave to get a towel, but Sohm lashed an arm around his waist, letting it loop around him several times like a thick blue rope. "Not so fast, hun. You're absolutely fine how you are, without the clothes of course." Sohm pulled Tom backwards easily, bringing him directly in front of her. She stood, letting her arm melt away from him and return to a human shape a few moments later. The slime pressed her body against Tom's back, reaching around his torso and taking hold of his pants. "Not going to let me undress myself?" asked Tom, knowing the answer even before Sohm began to unzip his pants. She grinned against his neck and gave him a long, wet kiss where several of his hickeys were. Her touch was soothing, and Tom fell beneath her spell after a few moments of her ministrations. He stepped out of his pants and boxers and Sohm unstitched his shirt down the middle and tossed it aside with his other clothes. "I feel like calling the shots today," she whispered, kissing his eardrum with a low, smooth tone that rolled out of her like velvet wine. She coaxed Tom into sitting down on the bench in front of her, and she maneuvered herself around him with little effort, her legs connecting around his front. Her torso followed shortly, twisting around his body until it was aligned with her lower body. She sat in his lap, her back to his chest, and relaxed against him. She let her head fall back against his shoulder, and the same soothing feeling from before crept over the large purple sex injury covering the majority of the left side of his neck. He no longer thought hickeys were so innocent an inconvenience after having both Tyrin's handler Aeril, and then Andrea leave him with solid purple welts for days. "That feels-" "Amazing?" Sohm answered, raising her eyebrows and giving him a look that told him he was being redundant. The look on his face had already told her everything she needed to know. "I wouldn't mind if you came around to do this more often, you know," Tom said, wrapping his arms gently around the slime's slender waist. His hands stuck firmly to her blue flesh and he didn't think twice about keeping them where they were for a while. He turned his head to Sohm's and gave her a sideward glance. "There's about to be something sticking you in the pelvis if you don't quit kissing my neck. The smile looked up at him with her warm, wet lips pressed against his neck and gave him a wink. 'Oh I think I would much prefer that to just sweating things out from the heat,' she replied into his head. She then continued to kiss up and down his neck as his arousal began to spike very quickly again. He slid his hands down to her hips and started to lift her, but Sohm gently grabbed his wrists and put his hand back on her hips. 'No need, I'm not your average girl.' The slime reached up and grabbed a tuft of hair with each hand and began to pull as Tom's erection started to rise. The agent closed his eyes as his cock started to press harder against Sohm's warm, smooth flesh. Suddenly, his cock broke the tension of her flesh and rose into her body, throbbing as it moved to its usual angle. All Tom could think was how bizarrely arousing having his cock push through her was. Sohm groaned in pleasure as his arousal became firmly seated in her body, and her internal chemistry changed motion to reflect the presence of her desire inside of her. Around Tom's cock, her flesh began to congeal to a firmer, slicker form and the rest of her cooled just enough for him to notice. "You taste incredible," Sohm breathed, arching her back like a gymnast. Tom turned his head to hers and kissed the slime, pushing his cock into her as far as he could. Sohm moaned with pleasure and leaned into the kiss, wholeheartedly returning his affection. Tom retracted his hips, pushing the slime up as he did, and then pulled her back to him as he pushed up, slamming their bodies together hard. Sohm's eyes widened and she wrapped her tongue around his. By now, Tom was feeling the heat of the sauna beginning to get to him. Beads of sweat were forming on his forehead, and his back was already wet with it, if that wasn't Sohm. The slime moaned without speaking, filtering her thoughts in and out of Tom's head. The agent bit down on her tongue and she responded by running her hands up her body, over her breasts slowly. Her chest ballooned outward a few inches and bounced up and down as he slammed their bodies together again. Sohm's hands grabbed his gently and placed one on her breast, securing the other around her waist. Her hands then returned to pulling Tom's hair and the Slime threw her head back as he penetrated her deeper than before. Tom couldn't help but throw his head back too, hitting the wall. He felt the impact, but felt hardly any pain as he pushed into the slime again and again, tightening his grip on her waist as they came off the wooden bench. "This is the hottest thing I've ever done," Tom breathed, his vision blurring around the edges. It was hot in here, that was for sure. But he couldn't help fucking the slime in his grasp. She was so soft, pliable. Every part of her moved with a perfect motion, the rolling of her hips, her breasts jiggling against his arm and hand, even her back arching every time he slammed into her from beneath. "Of course it is," Sohm breathed, nipping Tom's ear sharply and licking around its rim. Tom felt his skin rise all over his body and ground his teeth together to keep from groaning in pleasure. Sohm's touch was magical. It was just fucking inexplicable. She made him so horny with the simplest of things, fulfilling his physical desires with the smallest gestures. He knew it was chemical trickery on her part, but he couldn't have cared less. Sohm squeezed his erection inside of her and lowered her hands to his waist, pulling him against her tightly. "What?" Tom asked, feeling the inklings of his orgasm just beginning to grow apparent. Was she trying to make things last longer? Tom suddenly felt the nigh-oppressive heat of the sauna surrounding him. Sohm's body was cool against his skin, soothing. He raised his head and let it rest against Sohm's, causing the slime to grin with satisfaction. "Just remember to breathe," she said, turning her head to kiss him hard on the mouth. Tom felt something grab his arousal at the base and squeeze it gently all the way to the tip. He shuddered with pleasure. It happened again, and he curled toward the slime, holding her tighter as it happened a third time. 'That's my core floating around you,' Sohm whispered into his head. Tom couldn't see, but he guessed the area around his cock was dark purple and squeezing him rhythmically. His legs flexed all the way down to his toes as the rhythm grew steadily faster and more forceful, never giving him a moment to recover before the next wavelength stroked his cock. Tom felt his orgasm coming on faster and faster, reaching the edge of his physical limit to hold it back. He stared into Sohm's dark indigo eyes and she broke their kiss, smirking. "Cover me in your cum," she said. Tom buried his face in Sohm's shoulder as he came, plastering the slime's insides with thick, ropey jets of cum that penetrated her deep enough to give her surprise. Tom held Sohm tightly as thick streams of semen continued to be urged from his throbbing member, Sohm's internal anatomy squeezing out every last drop of his orgasm. Tom's head spun and sparks danced in front of his squeezed-shut eyes. It took him a while to bring his thoughts back to one place, reeling from the intensity of his orgasm. He wiped his face with his hand and tasted something odd. He looked and found cloudy white droplets hanging off his fingers. He processed it for a moment and then frowned. "Sohm, please tell me this isn't my cum," he said to the slime. She giggled in return and gave him a kiss on the neck, pricking him for a moment with something sharp. "If you recall, I came in here with a little something to intice you..." she said, sitting up and turning her entire body around on his throbbing erection. Now she sat with her legs curled beneath her and her chest pressed against his. Tom could see the milk inside her, sloshing around in the hollow spot in the center of her chest. "Oh sweet merciful heaven..." Tom murmured, his arousal returning twofold. "That's what I like to hear," Sohm cooed, raising one breast with her hand. "Care for a taste?" The slime arched a blue brow, her eyes reflecting Tom's awestruck expression. The agent swallowed hard and leaned down. "I'm gonna be so sore tomorrow." ------------ "Just give him his valium!" Greg yelled, holding Tom's arms down while Sohm kept a column of goo over the entire lower half of his body, pinning him to the floor. The slime pulled all the drawers out of the kitchen and dumped them on the floor, scanning them and picking through the dozens of objects. One pill bottle said ibuprofen on the side, and another asprin, but no valium. "I can't find it!" Sohm said, frantically trying to think through the thoughts and memories she could recall seeing in Tom's mind. She slammed her fist agains the granite countertop so hard it cracked. "Well where the hell do you think it would be?!" Greg yelled again, pinning Tom's arm at the elbow after he managed to free his wrist. "Tom, listen to me! Calm down! It's me Greg!" "Where is it?" growled the slime, thinking again through all her thoughts. "Bathroom!" she said, suddenly finding a great deal of sense in it. She dove into the sink drain, squeezed through the piping into the master bathroom, and tore the drawers out of their rolling sockets and dumped them on the countertop, picking through their spilled contents. A bottle of valium lay with its cap off in the sink, and Sohm quickly grabbed it, returning downstairs. "Here!" she handed the bottle to Greg, and he shook it. Nothing. "Are you kidding me?! It's empty!" Greg threw the bottle against the wall in frustration and then frantically removed Tom's hands from his face. The younger agent was already bleeding and blood dripped from his fingers. "Fuck!" "I..." Sohm was at a complete loss. She pinned his arms down and plastered a tendril of slime across his face, trying to heal the wound Tom had inflicted on himself. Greg removed his hands from Tom's wrists and sat back, catching his breath. Sohm turned to him, her eyes darkening to almost black with worry. "What do I do?" Greg threw his hands up and gave her a look of confusion. "What the hell did you do to get him like this? I've only ever seen him have an episode when he's- You tied him up!" The agent stood and glared at Sohm as she tried to keep Tom from hurting himself and keep focus on Greg at the same time. "You tied him up, didn't you?" "No! I just...I wanted some control over him. I never tied him up!" Greg balled his fists and Sohm shied away from him, stroking Tom's hair as he struggled to free himself from her grasp. "But you restrained him, didn't you?" The slime started to whimper. "I didn't mean to do this!" "We need to get him valium. I'll be back. The longer he's in his episode the worse he gets. Make sure he doesn't do anything at all. He broke his own ribs last time." "Give me the bottle!" Sohm demanded, lifting up the couch and searching for the bottle Greg had thrown. The agent found it before she did and handed it to her, then headed for the door. "I'll be back soon." Sohm looked at the bottle and focused her consciousness on all the chemical and physical knowledge she possessed. "Wait, I can make this," Sohm offered unsteadily, bringing her core together and staring at the contents of the bottle in her blue hand. "You're kidding me," Greg deadpanned as he moved back to the living room and sat down on the couch, leaning forward almost to the point of falling. "And you didn't do this before why...?" Sohm's mood soured immediately. "Don't think I'm beyond thieving an agent from your filthy little monkey paws and brainwashing him to be a sex slave in Hell," she snapped hotly, returning the forefront of her attention to the bottle and how to reproduce the chemical makeup of its contents. "Especially since that bitch thinks she can lay claim to his affections," she added absentmindedly. Sohm stretched an arm out to Greg and deposited a large chunk of blue, chalky substance into his hands. The agent stared at what Sohm expected him to assume was a piece of clinical valium. Fortunately, he got the message and gauged the right amount for Tom to take. Sohm pried the agent's mouth open and filled it with water. Greg put the valium in his mouth and forced his jaw closed. Tom, after fighting them both, eventually swallowed the valium and mouthful of water and resumed struggling against Sohm's impossibly strong grip. Greg sat back down on the edge of the couch and sighed. "Now we wait I guess." "I hope that's all," Sohm murmured, staring longingly at the boy beneath her. He looked like he was fighting nightmares and losing. She couldn't imagine what he was feeling or seeing right now, if he understood that they were trying to help him instead of make him relive- Sohm's thoughts froze. "You're turning red," Greg commented as Sohm's anger began to boil over. "Tith nika diadra," the slime growled darkly, unable to control herself at the thought of the hurt that the succubus had caused him. That cruel smile panned across her mind's eye, licked its lips, and grinned with satisfaction. "Hey, hold on a minute. Calm down before you hurt him," Greg said, standing and putting his arms out towards her. Sohm gave him a glare filled with malice and hatred. "Tith..." Her words would just fall short of any meaning to him, so she let her anger wash away from the forefront of her consciousness. "Somebody is going to die for this," the opted for instead. Greg returned to the edge of the couch without a word. Sohm gazed at Tom with pity and concern, gently stroking his exhausted body the back of her crimson hand. The terror she'd brought him from such a simple little gesture of playfulness, the absolute horror and pain he'd experienced as he descended into delusions of his first experience with a demon. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 09 Sohm's features lost their redness and began to fade slowly back to their normal blue hue. "What, and this isn't for any kind of report or file or record or anything. This is just a friend of his asking for his sake. What did you do to him to make him have an episode like this? I've only seen two of these before, and neither of them were this bad." Sohm paused for a moment and read Greg's facial expressions, his breathing, the scents and odors coming from him, his pulse, everything she could sense about what he was thinking without actually touching him. Her dark eyes scanned the rims of his pupils, measuring how hard his heart was beating. If he was lying, he knew she'd know, but he was a good liar she assumed, so he could be cocky enough to lie to her and think he could get away with it. She listened to the ultrasonic thud of his heart in his chest. He didn't seem to be lying, not even from the smell coming off his body. "I..." the slime began, biting her lip in thought. She measured her words carefully. "I thought that it would be a fun little experiment to see how much he likes to be dominated. I had already been very pleased with his performance up to that point, moreso than usual, so I wanted to do something special for him. I wrapped my arms around him and put my hands around his wrists and pinned them to the wall behind him. It wasn't hard or rough or angry, actually it was very soft and gentle because I didn't want him to feel like I was Ceria's kind of dominant." "So did he just freak out right when that happened?" Sohm shook her head, hair rippling all the way down her back until it merged with the rest of her fluid blue flesh. She ran her fingers around her ear and down the side of the blue cascade, a very human gesture despite a Hell-spawned creature that naturally held no form. "No, but that is when he changed. He gave me a strange look, and I should have realized it then, but I didn't. I was too content to slake my own desires and at least try to keep him interested in another run. He started to express all the little signs of fear, his pheromones, adrenaline, his irises fluctuated, his heartbeat rose, face, shoulders tightened, everything about it I should have recognized! I did, but I thought it was just part of the fun!" The slime's lip curled and she stroked Tom's cheek as if he were going to break if she laid any pressure on his features at all. "And after that is when?" Greg asked. "He started to fidget some, and then pry his way free, but I held him there and he just got worse and worse. He didn't say anything, he just fought me- and- and I thought he was just playing his part...until he really started getting upset and crying and screaming. Not like a child not getting their way, more like, well, someone being tortured. I stopped and let him go, but he didn't stop screaming and he ran straight through the sauna door. That's when he started trying to reach inside his head with his hands and claw his skin off. I called you when he started doing that." Greg seemed to take in all of her words for a long time, his eyes never leaving the boy beneath her, his struggling slowly coming to a halt. Either the valium was working, or he was becoming exhausted. Sohm hoped dearly that it was both. She didn't know what to do about psychological disorders. They didn't make any sense, and no matter how much dopamine she pumped him with it hadn't helped. And she wasn't going near the lethal dose of any chemicals, despite their natural presence in his body. Greg cleared his throat and swallowed hard. Sohm could see the redness in his lower eyelids and the excess moisture glittering across his eyes. "Well, I suppose the best thing we can do is tell the Department what happened and try to have him pulled from the list of agents being sent to Hell. I doubt this will change their minds though. They don't give a damn about him. Maybe the Director, but not anyone higher. They'd slit his throat in broad daylight if it meant a few more favors from someone down there," the older agent said bitterly. "We can't tell anybody," Sohm said firmly. Greg looked at her with disbelief. "Do you know what kind of turmoil he was in after the last two episodes? There's no way he can recover from this in three days, not to mention take a case subject before then! Do you think he is in any kind of state to do anything?" The front door burst open and Harvey almost tripped over Sohm as he entered the living room. As soon as he saw Tom on the floor, calm and pinned by Sohm, his posture relaxed and he heaved a great sigh in relief. "Thank God you've given him his medication," he said, grabbing a barstool from the kitchen and dragging it into the living room. "We need to tell the Director and have Tom undergo a psyche exam like last time," Greg pushed, looking to Harvey. "Agreed," the usually-monotone agent replied. "Not agreed!" Sohm snorted. "Neither of you are telling anybody about this. If they know I'm here they'll use that bitch as a bodyguard for him and prevent me from ever seeing him again. No, this stays between the four of us and nobody else." "Sohm, this is serious," Greg said, almost pleading. The slime gave him a flat look. "I said no. And I mean not a single soul beyond the occupants of this room will know about this. Swear to me a pact of blood." "Th-" Sohm cut Harvey off. "NO!" she roared, balling her hands into fists. "No telling, no warning, no talking, no nothing! I said this remains a secret!" "He could die down there!" Greg yelled, standing with his own fists balled. Sohm laughed out loud at him. "Oh, that's very cute of you. Very cute indeed. Understand that more powerful forces are at work here than your entire race can muster. Sit down. I'm not letting him suffer injury or harm in Hell." "What does that mean?" Greg asked, sitting now with his hands still in white-knuckled fists, as if he could truly stand any sort of chance against her in any conflict that might arise between them. "It means Tom will have a powerful force, namely me, watching over his well-being as he descends into Hell, and there I will make sure his arrival is safe and return to mucking about in my own business from thereon in. Understand?" "So what you're telling us is that you're going to babysit him until he gets to Hell, and then leave him alone. No returning for more...whatever you do, no favors, no nothing. No contact." Sohm nodded. "And to take care of any after-effects of what happened earlier, I'll spend the night here mending what I can and keep him happy." After a moment, she added, "Though having copies of those psyche examinations would be most helpful in the process, if you understand what I'm saying." "Harvey?" Greg asked, turning to the quite agent like a son would to his father for advice. For a moment, the agent said nothing, just staring at his feet mulling something over in his mind, perfectly contemplative and calm. "We can't do anything about this. She's a slime. There's a reason they only ever lost one war," he said quietly, looking at Sohm straight in the eyes after he was done speaking. She nodded at his pleading gaze. "I will care for him until he reaches his destination. Then he is yours." Greg bit his bottom lip and turned his eyes to the ceiling, contorting his face with clear dissatisfaction. "I don't like this at all," he said, making clear his position a final time. "Fuck, I'll get the documents. Harvey, you stay here and make sure she doesn't do anything stupid while he's out. I'll be back soon." Greg pulled his keys out of his pocket and made his way quickly out the front door, slamming it hard in his wake. "Is he always that...anal? About rules?" "He's protective of Tom. As am I," the agent replied stoically. "Like a mother hen who looks at me as a hungry fox." Harvey gave her a flat look. "You're a demon. That's much worse." "You humans confuse me. That was a joke, right?" questioned the slime. "Only partly." ------------ Fentin placed another figurine down on the large map before him. The tiny man bearing a standard and a shield faced Fentin, dutifully awaiting orders for battle. The demon admired the figurine for a short while before picking up another one out of the box holding down one corner of the map. This one was of a man pulling a bow taut with tension. "Tell me again, Mefur, where our archer regiments have taken positions on the escarpment. I can't seem to remember if it is a thousand paces north or south of the river crossing," the demon asked, placing the figurine down directly across from the river crossing. "North, my lord," replied the servant, reaching into the box to retrieve two more figurines of bowmen for Fentin. "Excellent, ahead of schedule," Fentin said, elated at the timing of his troops. He placed the three figurines north of the river crossing and then waved his hand for the box across the table. Mefur opened it and poured its contents across the map's northern portion, gathering them up in ordered groups based on their function. Fentin surveyed the map carefully, overseeing the position of his forces compared to the two shoals that allowed for foot movement across the river. He had the southern shoal under his control, his forces awaiting the order to storm the watchtowers on the opposite side of the river. He could muster in an hour some seven thousand soldiers to storm the towers, but the promise of heavy casualties and a great deal of effort to do it dissuaded him from assaulting the towers directly, at least for the time being. The northern shoal was still coming under his control, however. His archers were en route to their desired positions, and even ahead of schedule it would take hours before they were in position to block a crossing of the shoals to the west side of the river by the garrison at the outpost guarding the north crossing. "Milord, our scouts have returned from their reconnaissance orders," said a servant who entered the war tent in a hurry. Fentin nodded and waved his hand toward himself twice, lazily moving a figurine from the east side of the river to the west. "Send in Haern," the demon said, hoping for good news for once. "Yes milord," the servant replied, bowing respectfully as he left the tent. A few moments later, Haern stepped in, pulling the rags down from around his face and throwing his torn hood back to reveal a long streak of red running from his upper lip to his wounded ear. "Milord," he said, nodding with the respect he was willing to give, as he was a bit uncultured for having survived so many encounters with nobility and royalty in the Second Circle. "How is the situation across the river?" Fentin asked, grabbing some of the figurines representing the opposing forces. Haern shook his head. "The Pikes are leaving their fort and heading east. The Blades are manned by the rearguard. Some rangers are hiding in the forest, but the fort is empty or has too few men to offer a fight." "So Pikes Den is nearly empty..." Fentin said, placing one figurine bearing a dagger inside the little fort on the map. "And the Blades hold only the rearguard of The Pikes." He placed two figurines, one with a sword and the other with a sling beside the two towers that rose from the map at the southern shoal. "Were you able to estimate their numbers?" the demon asked, watching Haern wrap a bandage around his face, blood soaking it as he secured the knot behind his head. "At the Den, maybe a few hundred, fewer though the longer we wait, and several hundred at least at the Blades. The rangers' numbers could be anywhere from fifty to two hundred. They gave us a good a fight as we gave them milord," the scout answered, relaxing his posture as he placed his hand on the pommel of a new blade at his hip, opposite of his shortsword. "Losses?" Fentin followed up with, placing three figurines holding long poles two thousand paces east of Pikes Den. "Twenty-three of my men were lost in the ambush, their range anywhere from thirteen to fifty. Probably closer to twenty or so based on what I saw." After that, Fentin waved his hand and Mefur lifted the flap for Haern to leave. The scout wasted no time leaving without so much as a bow to his lord. Fentin resolved to make the scout realize that his manners were indeed necessary when in the presence of his lord and employer. "Mefur, please find Commander Dresdean and tell him to pack camp. We're storming Pikes Den, the Blades can wait." "Yes, my lord," Mefur replied as he began to move toward the exit. "Wait, find Captain Vendr too, tell him I want to see him." "Yes, my lord." And with that, Mefur left and Fentin was alone with his map, his armor, and his tiny hard-carved figurines. He held one in his hand, no taller than the span of three fingers. It looked so insignificant and feeble compared to his hand, easily crushed, easily destroyed. He wondered briefly how such things compared to the men they represented. Tiny, insignificant against the expanse of the land they occupied. "My lord," Captain Vendr said, bowing low with his armor clinking at the motion. "Captain Vendr, I've been told the Pikes Den is being emptied as we speak, and being so, I believe the enemy is going to either destroy or remove their stores and supplies in the fort. I would like you to take your force and ride north across the shallows to Pikes Den and occupy it." Vendr seemed taken aback by the orders and contemplated his task before speaking. "My lord, if I may..." Fentin smiled, amused. "You may." "How are we going to occupy Pikes Den? Surely the gates will be closed when they see us, and we have no siege equipment. Hellbores can only jump so high my lord," Vendr finished, making a joke to soften his opposition. "Then I shall accompany you with siege equipment. Will ladders be sufficient in assaulting the walls?" Fentin said, walking over to his armor stand and tossing his shirt aside. "Call in the armorers, would you?" he said to Vendr over his shoulder. "Yes, my lord." Vendr did as he was commanded and two armorers entered, bowed, and hurried over to Fentin to assist him in suiting up for combat. Meanwhile, Vendr's disposition changed entirely. "Forgive me, my lord, but there is no need for you to take an active role in this battle. You are far too important to be left exposed to the enemy. To think that you could be killed in a simple river crossing is-" "So you believe I will be killed then?" Fentin interrupted. "That I am incapable of defending myself and will surely be slain if I were to draw my sword and join ranks with my men?" Captain Vendr knelt down on one knee, casting his gaze at Fentin's feet. "No, my lord. I merely say that it is a possibility. I would not enjoy being named the greatest failure of our lifetime by allowing my lord to fall while I still draw breath." Fentin smirked. "Then make sure your lord does not fall today and all will be well." Vendr left to ready his troops shortly afterward. Fentin finished with his armor and remained in his tent for a while longer, estimating the distance between The Pikes and his own forces. If their retreat was slower than expected, there could be a chance they might return to the battlefield and present themselves as a formidable presence against Fentin's forces. Time was of the essence, and Fentin was not keen on waiting to make decisions when that was the case. He donned his helm and secured both blades in their scabbards. "One of you find General Voronin. Tell him to take over here; I'm going to see how things are proceeding elsewhere," Fentin said, giving the armorers a wolfish grin from beneath his helm. The two demons left their lord after bowing again and left him completely alone. He pulled a figurine out of his pocket, the tiny man bearing two swords made of gold, each only the size of a toothpick. He placed it inside Pikes Den on the map and then made his way out of the tent to the hellbore stable, which in reality was just a collection of large stakes driven into the ground and covered with large tarps. There, Captain Vendr and his men were preparing to ride out. Fentin approached the stable and was greeted by the company of riders kneeling in respect for their lord. Captain Vendr addressed Fentin after he rose from one knee, adjusting the straps of his paultrons. "My lord. What brings you here so soon?" "I have come to take my mount and gather the siege equipment and men we need to take Pikes Den," Fentin replied. "My lord, allow us to be your vanguard and clear the way. I beg you to reconsider your decision." Fentin frowned. "If I were to take orders from you, then you would be the lord and I the captain. And what lord of worth would send his men where he would not tread himself?" At this, Vendr knelt until Fentin's gaze was no longer upon him, and the lord continued past his captain without another word in protest. Fentin made his way through the crowded stable to where his hellbore, Acus, lay boredly. Upon seeing his master, Acus' large ears stood on end and his head snapped up. "Acus, up. Time to ride," Fentin said. The beast leapt to its feet and lowered its head obediently. The demon grabbed Acus' harness and slipped it onto the beast, securing the straps one by one until it wouldn't move at all no matter which way the hellbore turned. Fentin hopped into the saddle and made his way to the large deforested area where his siege equipment was being constructed and sections of the larger engines were being prepared for transport. He met with the siege engineers and procured six ladders and three ronx to carry them. The scaly, reptilian beasts were large, but fast enough to keep good pace with hellbores at a comfortable riding pace. Fentin and the three ronx handlers hurried on to the winding path down the escarpment Fentin's war camp was positioned on. At the bottom, gravel and sand slowed their pace, the narrow river to their right in its low cycle, exposing much of the loose material that it usually covered. Not far ahead, Captain Vendr and his men were forming ranks, waiting for Fentin's arrival with the utmost obedience. When their lord arrived, the company set off north for the river crossing. Some distance behind them, Commander Dresdean and his large force were on their way north as well. Fentin expected Mefur was busying himself with the war camp's packing up and relocation. An hour of riding found the cavalry company at the river crossing, supported by a company of archers trickling down the escarpment to meet with them. The captain of the archers met with Captain Vendr and Fentin, nearly out of breath and covered in a dozen nicks and cuts. "Their rangers have spread out through the forest north of here. We managed to scatter them, but we still need to pursue them to make sure they leave," the captain said, breaking off the arrow that stuck through one of his short horns. He absentmindedly began to pick his teeth with the blunted arrowhead, as if he wasn't in the presence of his superiors. "Good work, captain," Fentin said, clapping the demon on the shoulder with a gauntleted hand. "Now split your forces in half and come with us across the river. We're going to storm Pikes Den and raise our banner over its walls." "Aye lord," the captain said, turning to give orders to his men. Fentin looked across the river and scanned the opposite bank for any troop movement. His second reconnaissance force should be somewhere in the trees in front of them, if they had managed to reach their position in time. Even if they hadn't managed, he was going to cross the river anyway. "To Pikes Den!" Fentin called, drawing a sword and raising it over his head. He was met with curious enthusiasm and shuffling hellbore paws on the sand. He wheeled Acus around and found his cavalry company nervously waiting before him. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 09 "My lord..." Captain Vendr said, searching for the right words to address the issue. "What has gotten into you? Time is of the essence! The Den is ours for the taking! Right there!" He pointed his sword to the stone fort that lay across the river from them. "We understand that, lord, but up until now we have fought skirmishes and disputed claims. Crossing this river...it is an act of war that breaks the Interwar Observances." Captain Vendr's voice sounded weak and timid. Fentin could understand their hesitation to openly declare war, but did not share the sentiment. "Then call me Caesar! We cross the Rubicon!" "But Grymir-" "To the Ninth Circle with Grymir and his hordes!" Fentin spat testily. "He does not involve himself in petty squabbles and feuds! Now, to the Den!" Fentin turned about and called Acus to cross the river. The hellbore obeyed with enthusiasm, leaping into the shallow water, followed somewhat reluctantly by Vendr's company and the ronx. The shoal rose above the water near the middle of the river, and the loose gravel and sand provided much better footing for the hellbores, hastening their crossing of the river. Something thudded against Fentin's breastplate and nearly jerked him from his saddle. Whistling filled his ears and two streaks of brown passed his head by inches. Acus howled as something appeared in his shoulder. An arrow shaft. "Archers!" Fentin yelled, yanking Acus' bridle. The hellbore didn't stop, however, and leapt to the opposite bank, his claws digging into the sandy embankment, scrabbling for purchase. "Forward with our lord!" Captain Vendr roared, followed by a great host of cheering. Acus topped the embankment and Fentin leapt from his mount, blade in hand. As he hit the ground, a ranger stepped out from behind a tree in front of him, bowstring taut and arrow nocked. Fentin threw his blade and it pierced the ranger high in the chest, causing his arrow to fly just inches over Fentin's head. The demon retrieved his blade and struck down another ranger attempting to draw a sword. Acus howled and thrashed about as he dismembered a ranger and began to draw a great deal of arrowfire. Quickly, Vendr leapt atop the embankment, without his mount, and joined the growing fray behind a large tower shield. His company followed shortly after, overwhelming the rangers offering only a short fight after becoming outnumbered. Fentin cut down another ranger and met up with Vendr, who had impaled two rangers with his longsword and was busy trying to remove it from the chest of one and the head of another. The cavalry company pursued the last remnants of the rangers before regrouping in a small clearing and being joined by half the archer company that had crossed after them. "Damned rangers catching us without a vanguard," Captain Vendr muttered, removing an arrow from his hand and balling it into a fist to test its strength. "We're the vanguard," Fentin laughed, turning to face Acus, who stood diligently at his side with several arrows sticking out of his hide. "Ensign, help my poor friend here, would you?" he asked. The banner-bearer nodded and stuck the end of the banner in the ground, removing an arrow from Acus' side. The hellbore growled, but did not move. "Well then," said Fentin as he picked up the company banner. "Let's move on them. With me, men!" The motley assortment of soldiers made their way along the well-worn path to Pikes Den and met no further resistance until they reached the fort. They spread thin across the edge of the forest surrounding the fort, avoiding the main road to keep their numbers, and hopefully their presence, hidden. "Any guesses?" Fentin asked the archer captain. "Not much in the way of manpower, lord," the demon said, nocking an arrow. "It'd probably be best to do it quick and catch them by surprise." Fentin agreed. "Then let's get to it. Ladders!" At his command, the six ladders and their teams emerged from the forest, ambling toward the stocky stone walls of the fort. Upon hearing shouting from the fort's defenders, Fentin called for the archers to move forward. "Captain Vendr!" "Yes, my lord!" came the reply from not far off. "Don't let me die today!" the demon joked, grinning widely at the soldiers around him. "Nor you, men. I like my head where it sits." This roused a great chorus of laughter from his men and emboldened them to charge on his order once the ladders were raised. They hastened across the open ground between the edge of the forest and the wall, a thicket of arrows meeting them in return. The company banner was quickly pockmarcked with holes and Fentin realized carrying it was not the greatest idea he'd ever had. An arrow skittered off his pauldron and he lowered his shoulder, sending another arrow off target and into the ground behind him. The demon reached a ladder and ambled up its rungs, following several of the ladder bearers as they leapt up the ladder rungs in twos and threes. An arrow struck Fentin in the hand and he nearly dropped the banner, only catching it by the rope used to tie it up for storage. At the top of the wall, he raised the banner above his head and drew his sword, heaving a great roar in triumph, though he sorely doubted that things would be easier now that he had joined the battle in earnest. He parried a swordstroke aimed at his chest and sidestepped his foe, slashing up through his throat. The demon collapsed in a fountain of blood and Fentin kicked him aside, moving forward with one of his archers wielding a hatchet beside him. Two more demons turned to him, one with a sword and the other wielding a large crossbow. Fentin's comrade was unlucky enough to step in front of the large bolt's path as the crossbowman fired, throwing the unarmored body into Fentin with astounding force. The lord stumbled backward and a blade clanged off his chestplate, denting it against Fentin's ribs. He winced at the impact, but recovered before the demon could strike again. He shouldered his foe back with a spiked pauldron, impaling his face with three curved spikes that faceted him to Fentin's body. He used the corpse as a shield and progressed slowly, angling his body way from the crossbowman's lethal bolt. Still, the bolt pierced Fentin's human shield and his shoulder. Pain flared all the way up his neck and down to his fingertips, but he pushed on and stabbed at the crossbowman as he attempted to draw a shortsword from his belt, catching the unprepared demon in the throat with the butt of the company banner. He finished the demon off with his sword and painfully heaved the corpse off his shoulder, removing the bolt stuck in his armor in the same motion. Ahead, he saw Captain Vendr's tower shield crest the wall and behind it came the large demon, brandishing his longsword menacingly at the three demons facing him. "Fight me, cowards!" he roared, slamming his shield into one demon, throwing him off the wall and to the ground below. The captain turned, ramming his blade into the chest of one demon and pressing forward to impale a second before bearing them both to the ground and stomping them twice, cracking bones and armor audibly. At this, several archers firing from the gatehouse turned their attention to Vendr. Fentin grunted and heaved his sword over his head, throwing it with as much precision as would a dog a bone. "Captain!" he shouted, drawing his second blade. His sword skittered across the stone at the archers' feet, but didn't deter them as they loosed their arrows at Vendr. Fortunately, the captain had turned at Fentin's call and the arrows struck his shield almost harmlessly. Vendr beat his shield with his sword and let out a war cry, thundering down the length of the wall separating him from his enemies. Fentin used the banner in his left hand to block a swing from a cudgel that would have taken his head off. He cut off the hand holding the cudgel and then spilled its bearer's entrails across the stone at his feet. In seconds, the bloody guts and flesh turned to papery thin scraps and drifted in the breeze, fluttering peacefully away from cry, rotten bones. At seeing an artifact from another age, Fentin's foes fled his reach, leaping into the fray in a manic rush to get away. Unfortunately, their only viable exit was straight into Captain Vendr's shield and sword, and the company leader was in no mood to take prisoners, having received several arrows to the shoulder joint on his shield-bearing arm. "My lord!" Vendr shouted over the din of battle, hurling another demon off the wall with a great heave of his full weight. "I will plant that banner in the skull of whoever shot me!" "I give you full rights to vengeance!" Fentin shouted back, running his blade through the back of a demon loading a crossbow. He sidestepped the disintegrating corpse and met with Vendr and his men, two of them breaking the arrow shafts piercing their captain's body. "My lord, the banner," Vendr said, grunting with discomfort as he removed his shield from his arm. The flagstones shook as it hit the floor, and Fentin realized just how heavy the thing actually was. A large hand opened before him and Fentin handed the banner over. Vendr searched the immediate area for a moment before choosing a corpse and ramming the butt of the banner through its chest, twisting it twice before letting go. "Excellent work, men!" Fentin said, lowering his head and removing his helm gingerly. His sword growled at him for blood, but he ignored it for the most part and sheathed it before it could make any more noise. He and the rest of the soldiers nearby moved to the large cogwheel mechanisms that controlled the gate below them. It took four of them, including Vendr's large frame, to turn the crank that controlled the gate, and even then the progress was slow. Eventually though, the large iron doors below them spread apart and the larger part of Fentin's troops poured into the courtyard, forcing his enemies to retreat hastily to the small keep at the far end and shut themselves in before they could be completely overrun. Hellbores clawed at the iron doors before their masters called them back and they began to feed on the corpses littering the courtyard. Fentin immediately planned to undermine the keep and collapse the structure upon itself, but thought better of the idea a few moments later. He held his helmet at his hip and made his way down the steps into the courtyard, where his men were busy wrapping up the few stranded defenders with merciless efficiency and contempt. Captain Vendr followed him closely, tower shield at the ready to be thrown in front of Fentin at any moment. Around the lord, a cluster of the cavalry company formed, protecting their liege from harm. They ended up in front of the main doors of the keep, large iron slabs inlaid with rivulets of gold from base to top. A marble slab above the doorway read 'Tirahg Pent ror' or 'Den of the Pikes'. Fentin cleared his throat and raised a friendly hand to the demons gathered at the top of the keep's high wall. "Well met, noble foe," he said, receiving a glob of spit that landed on one of the steps leading to the doorway before him. "Choke on a golden cock!" "As much as I would relish dignifying that response with a crude one of my own, I call for terms of surrender to be made! Do you wish to surrender?" There was a moment's pause. "Terms?" "Unconditional surrender. All of you that are alive now shall remain so. As many of you that wish to join my army will be allowed to do so and be equipped and respected as my own." At Fentin's offer, there was much deliberation atop the keep, which erupted into shouting and then quieted down again. Fentin folded his arms across his chest and waited patiently for the answer. "We're coming out!" came the reply. After a short wait, the doors opened and out came nearly fifty or so demons, some wounded and others holding nothing more than lengths of chain or a wooden pole. They tossed their weapons at Fentin's feet and gathered in front of him in a large crowd, waiting for Fentin to tell them what to do. "However many of you wish to join my army, please move to my right. All my new prisoners, move to my left." When they had separated themselves for him, Fentin had the men to his left surrounded by the cavalry company. "You orders my lord?" Captain Vendr asked. "You know how I feel about this," Fentin answered. Vendr nodded and turned to face the new prisoners. "To ours to theirs!" he ordered. Swordstrokes fell like rain among the prisoners, and screams rose like a cacophony of terrified bird calls. "We take no prisoners," Fentain said to his new soldiers with a wolfish grin. "I suggest you take that to heart and remember it well." With Pike's Den conquered, Fentin finally had his war officially underway. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 10 Tom hadn't quite expected this last assignment before going to Hell to be such a complicated one. After a night with Sohm, which was actually more pleasant than he would have guessed it was going to be, he'd been contacted by the French Special Divisions and told that a plane was ready for take-off at the Memphis International Airport and that he was supposed to be on it in twenty minutes. Tom, of course, had no prior warning and was required to dress properly to be presented before foreign dignitaries, grab something to eat, and find his case file before running out the door and speeding most of the way to the airport to make the plane trip even halfway late instead of totally off schedule. On the plane, two armed riflemen asked for his weapons and he handed over his pistol, being seated across from a man who was reading through several packets of papers. Tom had nothing to do but wait for him to finish what he was doing. It seemed like almost an hour before the Frenchman set the packets aside and removed his glasses. "Monsieur Lanzig, tell me how much you know about acquiring prostitutes," he said bluntly. Tom was completely confused. "What?" "Do you know anything about the subject?" the man asked, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "No, I'm afraid I don't know anything about picking up hookers. It's illegal in America." "I am aware of that," the Frenchman shot back testily. "But you are the only agent we can find within reasonable acquisition that can help us. So, it seems we have a lot of work to do in the next eight hours." Tom sighed. "Look, just tell me what I need to do and let's get beyond all these unpleasantries and crap. What am I here to do?" The Frenchman tapped the case file twice. "Did you read this?" "Yeah," Tom replied. "Find a hooker, get her in bed with me, wait until you guys show up to capture her, don't get killed. Real hard. So why did you ask for me?" "Because she is a succubus." Tom rolled his eyes. "And you guys don't have any way of subduing her, right?" The two guards stiffened at that, clearly offended. "I have with me photographs from the murder scenes. As you'll see, this succubus is on the warpath." The Frenchman removed a small case from overhead and opened it, handing Tom a stack of photos. In each photo, a man lay on a bed with his skin lacerated all across his body, and a message written in his blood on the wall where the headboard of the bed stood. 'Withering Sex Drive' 'Disappointing Stamina' 'Unequalled Pacifism' 'Too Easily Dominated' 'Scared' 'No Back' 'He Is A Robot' 'Is This All You Have To Feed Me?' 'I Hunger For A Man' 'I Grow Weary Of These Children' 'Bring Me A Challenge' 'I'm Still Waiting...' "And what makes you think that I can do anything about this?" Tom asked. "Because you have been trained by a succubus, and you have a particularly helpful curse placed on you." "Whoa whoa whoa!" Tom said, shaking his head. "I have not been trained by a succubus. I got an unofficial lesson on how to be dominant. I am in no way qualified to take on an actual succubus. And if she's thinking about putting her hand through my skull, how the fuck does my curse help me?" "You have been particularly successful in pacifying hostile case subjects. We will provide all the necessary equipment, tools, and anything else you may need in your assignment. You have full cooperation of the French government and Special Divisions." Tom rolled his eyes. "That didn't answer my questions." "She kills because of the inadequacy of the men she couples with. You may be able to pacify her enough to be apprehended." Tom let out a long, displeased sigh. Okay, another freak without any sense of humanity whatsoever, and this one had killed a dozen agents from France. Now, it was Tom's turn to have a swing at her. If this was his last assignment, at least he wouldn't have to face Ceria in Hell. A silver lining to everything, Tom mused to himself. "So tell me more about this full cooperation? If I'm supposed to pose as a rich whatever, I need to know how far I can take it." "Any and all requests will be met without question up to one million euros total. We have constructed an identity for you to use while hiring the succubus." The Frenchman pulled a folder out of his case and opened it, sliding several legal documents and identification cards and a passport, all with the name 'Wallace Price' on everything. Tom almost winced at the description they had given him. He was supposed to be the de-facto owner of a mechanical engineering company called Bottom Line Engineering, and apparently that made him a snobby asshole who spent his time meandering around classy prostitutes and spending all his money. Apparently, they thought that throwing money around and acting like a jerk would get him into bed with this succubus faster than anything else. "Study this and let's go over your delivery of it," the French agent said, waiting patiently as Tom started to go over everything to himself and fit himself into the fake persona. The idea of having money to do whatever you wanted was really something anybody could run with, but executing it without being conspicuously new to it was another matter entirely. The rest of the flight to Paris consisted of Tom literally rehearsing how to deliver lines, his attitude, and the types of things to do. The agent, whose name Tom learned was Henri, said that everything would be taken care of for Tom and that the succubus would be hanging out in the Casino Le Lyon Vert. He would be taken there, and then taken back to Paris by limousine so Tom could woo the succubus. Obviously they didn't think his opulence and generally self-important attitude would be enough to sway the prostitute's opinion. Not to mention they thought leaving him alone with a succubus for four hours was a good idea, despite his persona being less than a day old and flimsy at best. ------------ The casino was absolutely beautiful both inside and out, but Tom had a hard time enjoying it as he searched for the succubus. He'd been given a photo of her and told to study her face so he could recognize her in a crowd, but with so many people here, and with a less-than-photographic memory, he was having a hard time finding her. It would have been nice to know her measurements too, to find out what kind of shape he was looking for of course. Tom made his way to the bar and ordered a glass of wine, shelling out enough money to buy a motorcycle to keep the drinks coming. The only problem with coming here was that he spoke no French whatsoever and it was going to be very difficult to talk to this succubus if she didn't speak English. He figured he'd wait a while before looking, hoping that the woman was somewhere trolling for a client and would check the bar. It seemed like the best place to go pick up a guy, while he was sitting here drinking alone. Occasionally, the agent would glance around the large casino, hoping that he would catch a glimpse of her. He didn't know how he'd be able to find her like that, but it was the same brand of blind hope that drove stranded hikers into the snow when they got lost. He downed the rest of his wine and set the glass on the table, turning around to face the bar. "Hello handsome," a silky voice drifted into Tom's ears. He found the voice's owner and was almost surprised to find the succubus smiling at him seductively. He only remembered his persona the last second before he spoke. "I'm surprised you can speak English," came smoothly out of his mouth. The succubus looked surprised and insulted. "I've never heard that one before." "You must not meet a lot of foreigners then," the agent replied, dismissing her almost entirely as his next drink came to him. The succubus took it instead and laid it gently down on the countertop. "He'll be needing one for himself," she said to the bartender, who nodded and went to get another glass. "And you'll be needing my name soon enough," she continued. Tom thought better of scoffing. "Listen, small talk is real fun and all, but cut to the chase. Are we leaving here soon or not? I have a flight tomorrow I don't need to miss and a night I'd like to spend somewhere nice with someone who doesn't beat around the bush." The smile that she gave him was almost feral. "Then let us be done with this noisy place and have your night in France." She looped her arm with his and he led her out of the casino and into the limousine that came around to pick them up. In the limo, Tom whispered to the driver to move forward with the evening and the man nodded, starting the four-hour trip to Paris. The succubus sipped at the drink she had brought with her, idly watching Tom's features as he sat boredly and looked at his watch. The thing must have cost at least two thousand dollars for all the gold and diamonds it was made of. Clearly, he had interested the woman enough to play along with the game. He wasn't sure of how to approach things now that they had a long ride ahead of them. Was she going to try something here? They hadn't prepared well for this contingency. The only other person here to cover Tom's ass in case of trouble was the driver, and though he was armed with a sub-machinegun, she could easily take them both out if she needed to. "You're the most interesting client I've had in quite a while, mister..." the succubus said to break the silence. "Price," Tom answered as he adjusted his tie. "Mister Price, how interesting that you would come all the way out here to pick up a girl you didn't even know was going to be there. It seems a bit...suspicious." She was trying to be coy about it, but Tom could see she knew what was going on, or at least guessed what was up. "If you hadn't been first, I would be sitting across from someone else. Possibly someone with a bit more taste than to wear a black stone with a black dress. You're quite possibly the most monochromatic woman I've ever had approach me." The succubus looked stunned. "What if I take offense to what you said? Would you let me leave like that?" She snapped her fingers for emphasis. Tom leaned back and told the driver to return to the casino. He looked at the succubus smugly. "You're free to leave when we get there. Just don't make a scene please. It's maddening to have to change locations because of that." "You're completely serious, aren't you?" she asked, clearly perplexed. "I've done this before," he replied. The succubus allowed herself to grin. "You know, it might have ended differently had you not been such a smug ass. We could be on our way to tangling ourselves in a pile of limbs, sweating, moaning in passion..." She began to influence him with her power, her irises gleaming as she forced herself into his desires. "Stop the car," he commanded the driver. He turned back to the succubus and glared at her. "Get out," he said firmly. "Over a suggestion?" she asked, pouring herself into his desires now. Tom fought her, his expression becoming more and more annoyed. "Get out!" he shouted. "I am not a plaything for you to make dance like a puppet. I've done my research. I've put time and care and effort into coming here. And I will not have you treat me like a joke!" The succubus was taken entirely by surprise at his tone, and immediately withdrew any attempt at forcing her way into his mind. She raised her hands in surrender and sighed, discontent with the outcome of her efforts. "Fine, turn us around. We'll play this your way," she said, relenting. Tom asked the driver to turn around again, which got him a very annoyed look. "Now that that's out of the way, what is your price range?" Tom asked as calmly and professionally as he could. He only held onto his demeanor by a thread, still trying to shake off the succubus' influence. "That was a quick change of pace," she remarked. Tom nodded. "I wasn't lying when I said I have done this before. Your price range please?" "Usually twenty thousand euros. Or do you want the preferred customer discount for all the work you did to find me?" "Is fifty thousand enough? Two times and compensation for your entire night," Tom asked without waiting to look at her face as he reached beneath his seat and pulled out a small case full of money. He tossed it to her and she opened it, surprised by the amount of money she found within. "And you expect me to just take fifty thousand?" Tom smirked. "I trust you will if you plan to keep your veneer of being nothing more than a classy prostitute." The succubus smiled broadly, almost cunningly. "Is that blackmail I'm hearing?" "Succubi have few repeat customers for a reason, and I intent to not be one of those unfortunates. I trust you understand what I'm getting at." Tom watched her expression with feigned boredom, watching the stacks of euros come out of the case and into the seat next to her. More money than Tom could have hoped to save in a decade exchanged hands in less than thirty seconds. "So that part earlier about choosing me because I was first, was it a lie?" Tom smirked. "I'm surprised you didn't see through it immediately." The succubus counted the stacks she had collected, closed the case, and tossed it back to Tom. "I have a name if you'd like to call me by it. I'd like to hear it later on tonight, if you understand what I'm getting at." Her eyes shone with intrigue. "I beg thee, grace mine ears with thy name, milady," Tom said with all the politeness he could muster, bowing with exaggerated motion. The succubus put her hand over her mouth and tried to stifle the laughter that came out of her like he'd told her the punchline to her favorite joke. It took her a few moments of concentration to regain her composure and look him in the face without cracking a wide smile. "I haven't heard that in years!" she said, almost breaking into laughter again. "Lamoren, my name is Lamoren." While she was composing herself again, Tom was taken almost completely aback. That wasn't the name he'd been informed of. Had she given him her real name? "Well, Lamoren," Tom began. "I hope that this evening will be one you will remember long after the sun rises tomorrow morning." She nodded in agreement. "I expect it will be." ------------ Hôtel Plaza Athénée, Paris ------------ "Usually these kinds of places aren't open on Saturdays, especially not at two in the morning," Lamoren remarked as she and Tom left the Alain Ducasse and waited for the limousine to pull around for them. "And you'd think it would be busier than just us two." "Usually a quarter million euros aren't being offered for a private dinner at odd hours," Tom replied even as Lamoren gave him a look telling him she knew already. "I would never have guessed things would be that easy." Tom shrugged and the valet opened the door of the limo that had finally made its way around. "Connections are essential to keeping a fortune after you've made it." He gave the valet three hundred euros and sat down across from Lamoren as the door closed behind him. "Where to now?" the succubus asked. "Wherever you'd like," Tom replied smoothly, allowing a grin. The succubus bit her bottom lip teasingly, replying, "What about your bedroom?" Tom opened the door and motioned with his hand for Lamoren to get out with him. She hooked her arm with his and they reentered the Hôtel Plaza Athénée. The elevator took them to the eighth floor and they made their way to the suite Tom had been told was prepared for the final stage of the operation. Here, all he had to do was wait for the team to come in and subdue Lamoren and then he could spend the night here and go back home on a flight tomorrow morning. Inside the suite, Lamoren pondered the décor for a few minutes, walking from room to room as Tom went to the bar and retrieved a bottle of Champagne and two glasses, pouring them as Lamoren returned from the extraordinary bathroom. "This place has changed so much since I last saw it a century ago. Time really does fly I suppose." They moved to the couch and made themselves comfortable. Tom handed the succubus her glass and she clinked it against Tom's before downing it all in one long drag like a shot. "At two thousand euros a bottle and two hundred years in the making I thought you'd want to at least taste it," Tom remarked, sipping his champagne absentmindedly. Lamoren shrugged. "I've had wine five hundred years old almost two thousand years ago. It's not a very new or interesting thing. Wine is wine no matter what you pay for it." She paused for a moment to set the glass down on the table. "But humans that are new and interesting, they are very rare and difficult to find." She gently slipped Tom's glass out of his hand and placed it on the table, sitting back up to lean against him and put her chin on his shoulder. She let out a low, sultry chuckle and nibbled at his ear. "And it is even rarer to have one of them find me." She put a hand on his thigh and he turned to face her, unsure of how to proceed. What were they waiting for? She was ready to be taken in right now! "Close your eyes," said Tom. Lamoren closed her eyes and the agent leaned down slowly. They kissed. In four years of working in the Special Divisions, he had found that the one thing he was trained not to do was the one thing that made every intimate action memorable and worthwhile. Sex without even one kiss just felt empty and lackluster. Lamoren's mood changed and she wrapped an arm around his shoulders, pressing herself against him as she rubbed his inner thigh gently. Tom put a hand around her waist and pulled her snugly against him, watching her black dress slide up her legs. The agent slid his tongue along her teeth, tasting the wine as their lips mingled. Lamoren obliged after a moment and parted her teeth, allowing Tom's tongue to entangle itself with hers in a fight for the joint space of their mouths. Realizing that there was a full, king-sized bed in the bedroom, Tom attempted to slid his arm beneath Lamoren's legs and lift her, but she just smiled at that and guided his hand between her legs instead. "Let it be as natural as it can be. Things lie where they fall," she whispered, kissing him hard as her free hand left his wrist and moved to unbutton his shirt. Her ring was on the floor already, and her thin golden necklace beside it. Tom removed his jacket with some effort, trying not to break their kiss and using only one hand. He traced the lacy undergarment she had on with his fingers and only stopped to remove his jacket. When he resumed, the succubus inhaled sharply and then giggled with satisfaction. "Just get rid of my shirt. I have more," the agent said as she finished unbuttoning it. She gave him a look like she thought he was kidding, but he returned it with a serious one, so she pinched the fabric with her nails and the proceeded to tear his shirt down the sleeves and literally cut it off his body. He tossed it aside and gently lowered the succubus onto her back. She slid her dress up her thighs slowly, over her hips to reveal her lacy thong. "This is the part where we have to stop to undress," Lamoren said with a hint of playfulness in her voice. Tom nodded and their lips parted. He repositioned himself and took hold of her hands gently, putting them over her head slowly. She lay stretched out before him on the couch, like a lioness in heat, curvy, hungry, beautiful. Tom lowered himself to her body and began to slide his hands up her hips, catching the end of her dress as his hands moved higher and higher. He kissed her stomach just beneath her navel, and the succubus shuddered with delight, anticipating more. Tom then kissed her navel, gently dipping his tongue into the jeweled depression. Lamoren raked her nails on the arm of the couch and grabbed it for dear life. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 10 Tom pushed her bunched-up dress over her breasts and she helped get it off her body completely after she let go of the arm of the couch. Meanwhile, Tom continued to kiss up her body, tracing a wet trail with his tongue up the midline of her smooth belly. "This is my second favorite part," Tom said, unhooking her bra and throwing the garment aside as she grabbed his hair and brought his head up to look him in the eyes. "And your favorite?" she asked, biting her lip in anticipation. "You'll know when you feel it," Tom replied, grinning widely. They managed to get his pants and underwear off without much trouble and soon she was also naked, in bare flesh and squirming beneath the agent. Tom gazed into her eyes for a long, contemplative moment. She was beautiful in every respect, down to the way she moved to entice him further, letting her desires rise through any physical movement and imprinting them on his mind. This was the power of a real succubus: pure, unhindered sex appeal. Tom felt her legs wrap around his waist and she urged him down gently, breaking him out of the spell she had wound around his thoughts with her body. "Don't get lost yet," she teased, pulling him in with her gaze as her legs tightened around his hips. Tom found himself completely enthralled, and could do nothing about it in the least. This wasn't like the others, Gabriella Klein, Dereza, or the Goddess. This was untraceable and unnoticeable, but he could feel its every effect on him. His mind was clear, but everything he thought and felt was about Lamoren, completely engulfing him in a tidal incursion of raw lust and desire. He was too far gone to even realize that he wasn't fighting back, and it dawned on him that she was more powerful than anyone he had ever met before. She was first generation. Tom pushed into her slowly, feeling every inch of sweet, velvety flesh invite him in to never leave. He bit back a moan and stared directly into the succubus' gaze, which fed him more and more of her intoxicating delight every second. She pursed her lips for a kiss, which Tom obeyed of his own free will, so it seemed. The next moment Tom could think, they were tangled in a web of passion, his arms around her bare body, one at her shoulders and the other grabbing her firm backside. They slammed together at a racing pace, her moans high above what he could hear, though his head vibrated with the sounds of it. Passionate moans mingled with coy giggling, sharp, deep breaths passed beside pleased sighs and screaming in pleasure soared through the winding tempest of her pleasure. Tom felt something inside him explode and the voices all shrieked at once in his mind, sending his consciousness far into the space Sohm had taken him when she had taken control of his body. He swam through a mire of intense, sensual delight as his orgasm continued, pumping the succubus with semen, draining his energy reserves as she released him from a bone-crushing grip and their motion picked back up again slowly. The agent reached the forefront of his conscious body and reconnected with reality for a moment, feeling the heat of their bodies hit him like a wave, the smell of their sweat, the tangy taste of her skin as he bit down on her breast and sucked hard. She moaned with satisfaction and their eyes met for only a moment. "This time, let me raise you to the heavens," she said, smiling gently at him. Tom thrust into her hard and lost himself in her emotions, their thoughts seeming to mingle as he struggled to stay in control of his body. He felt like he was drowning in her essence, everything about her filling his mind and emptying out everything else. He crushed her against his body and then something struck the back of his mind, a supernova of hellspawned sensory delight. Tom's eyes widened and he felt her coming toward him with an inescapable desire. Her eyes glowed like diamond stars, her alabaster skin glimmering in the light that shone out of her gaze. She promised him everything in the world, and presented it to him in her form, raising her eyes to meet his directly. "I am in control now. Fall away, human," she commanded with utter dominance. Tom felt himself slipping away from his body, falling into darkness as he struggled to stay afloat in the all-encompassing force that wreaked perfection and havoc upon his world. He couldn't find himself. He couldn't find her. He couldn't find anyth- Tom's body flared with pain and he cried out in agony, every nerve in his body lighting aflame as if his brain was boiling in its own protective fluid. His fingers curled, every muscle in his body froze as they tried to contract all at once, instead burning with pain as his eyes saw bolts of lightning crisscross his vision in front of Lamoren's face as she threw her head back and clawed at his back, splitting his skin like paper. Everything returned to Tom's control and he sucked in the deepest breath he had ever tried, his mind emptying everything at once and leaving a vacuum of space to be filled with throbbing, nauseating pain. His heart leapt into his throat and he fought back the nausea that threatened to spill two thousand dollars' worth of food on the ground. "...restrained. Can you hear me? Thomas Lanzig? Can you hear me!" a voice roared as the murky tone of giggles and moans left Tom's ears. The agent looked up and found the French agent from the plane grabbing his head and shaking it back and forth repeatedly. "Can you hear me?" he asked again. "Yes," Tom replied, coming back to his senses from the awestruck void that was seeping out of his head. "What is your name?" the agent asked. "Thomas Lanzig," Tom replied. "Your age?" Tom frowned. "I'm fine." "You were seconds away from being dead. You're not fine," the Frenchman replied testily as Lamoren was restrained by four men and a metal visor bearing symbols that Tom hadn't seen before. "Hold on!" Lamoren shouted. "Why wouldn't he let go?!" "Don't speak to her," the agent holding Tom's head said. "It's better if-" "Why wouldn't you let go?!" the succubus roared. She was removed from the room after being bound in rune-laden straps and picked up off the ground by five men. After that, the room fell very quiet and only the sound of Tom's heavy, labored breathing broke the silence. The Frenchman let go of his head and Tom sat upright, almost blacking out. He took a look around the room to make sure the succubus was gone and then relaxed a little. After bringing himself up to speed with the fact that Lamoren was no longer removing his soul from his body by force, he began to tremble. "Did you get your job by kissing ass, Louise?" Tom spat testily, getting to his feet woozily. The French agent looked taken aback. "Did I what?" he replied in his thick French accent. "Did nobody remember to say, hey, maybe we should warn this guy, who's about to fuck a first generation succubus, that the whore he's picking up is a first generation succubus?!" the agent roared at his French counterparts, who looked stunned that he was yelling at the top of his lungs at the very people who had torn a succubus off him. "We were unaware your curse was not effective with first generation succubi." Tom's anger frothed like a tide of dark emotion. "Of course you were!" Tom threw his fist into the Frenchman's face and knocked him to the floor, almost falling himself as he struggled to stay on his feet, head spinning. "Of course nobody cares to actually do their fucking research! Fuck all of you! Lazy, stupid cunts!" Tom continued in that vein for a while, explaining what kind of power difference there was between first and second generation succubi and incubi, berating the men who'd saved him as they waited for him to cool off. It took a while, but Tom reigned in his mouth long enough to sign off on the paperwork he needed to before his debriefing. A team of three came in and stitched Tom's back up with an impromptu surgery and then left after bandaging him up and giving him some painkillers. He was debriefed by a fresh-faced agent and told that they had shot the succubus with a high-end tazer and that Tom had been caught by the extreme amount of voltage pumped through their joined bodies. After that, four agents had ripped the succubus off him and subdued her. After his debriefing, Tom filled out an after-action report and was told that he could stay the night here if he wanted, or take a plane home tonight. He was apologized to, congratulated on a job well done, and then left alone in the large suite, entirely alone. Tom wandered around the spacious rooms for a while, aimlessly trying to find something to do. He settled on a shower, and stayed in the large, tiled room for over an hour, watching his blood mingle with the water as it coiled around the drain and then disappeared. Afterwards, he curled up behind the bar and fought to suppress a growing feeling of emptiness that gnawed at him. He didn't feel whole anymore. It felt as if his emotions and his desires, thoughts, his senses, that they had all been removed and now he was hollowed out and left to be filled again. He squeezed his legs to his chest and began to cry bitterly, filling the emptiness around him with noise to break the awful silence. He remembered his parents being murdered before his eyes, every traumatic moment in his life between then and tonight. Emptiness turned into bitter, painful reverie. He wished for anything to distract him from tonight. "Sohm," he asked in barely more than a whisper. "Are you still here?" He hoped against hope that she was still inside him. Slowly, the agent felt warm arms envelop him from behind and he glanced down at the burgundy limbs gently wrapped around him. A wine bottle clattered against the floor, empty. Two more followed and soon Tom felt Sohm's full form bubble behind him. "Always and forever," the slime whispered into his ear softly. ------------ Hôtel Plaza Athénée, Paris ------------ The following morning was spent feeling hungry until Sohm went to McDonald's and snuck food to him. Tom munched on the double cheeseburger he'd gotten in bed a few minutes ago, looking exactly like the American stereotype that people hated: holding a burger in one hand and fries in the other, walking down the street surrounded by foreigners. Even so, he couldn't care any less than he did right now. He had his comfort food, and that was what mattered to him at the moment. He tilted his head back and let a mouthful of fries slide into his mouth, savoring the generous amount of sugar and salt they'd been seasoned with. He grinned with satisfaction at being the stereotype. Today was his day. He'd hallucinated all night about nightmares and monsters and everything else in the world that he hated, cried himself to sleep feeling empty and heartbroken, but then woken up to a breakfast in bed with a slime made of luxury wine prepared to slake his every desire. Despite her offer, Tom had declined and left the hotel, taking his impromptu breakfast in bed with him as he started his walk to the airport. The ride promised to him hadn't showed up, so he figured he'd walk to the airport and get on the jet on the runway to get home. Somehow, that felt like it was a good idea at the moment. He wolfed down the rest of his cheeseburger and swallowed hard, barely managing to get the last bite down without choking. As he tilted his head back to pour more fries into his mouth, he ran directly into somebody and was knocked flat on his ass, spilling his fries all over the ground and scattering all the contents of his wallet with them. "Shit!" growled the person he'd hit. "Hey, sorry," Tom said, pushing himself up. Holding his wallet, passport, and fries in the same hand had been a bad idea. "You okay?" "Yeah, I think so," the stranger said, rubbing elbow as he got off the ground. "Let's get this stuff up before somebody steals it," he continued, starting to pick up Tom's cards and the cash that was threatening to blow away in the next slight breeze. "Thanks," Tom replied, picking up his wallet and passport. The stranger looked at Tom's work ID for a moment and then frowned, rubbing the back of his head. Their eyes connected and then the stranger's eyes went wide in shock. "Fuck," he said, and then bolted away from Tom with the ID still in hand. At that, Tom hastily grabbed the rest of his things and started after the man, sprinting past people that were only barely noticing that something was amiss. "Hey! Stop him!" Tom yelled. "Stop him!" It didn't help him much, but it did serve to make people get out of his way faster. He chased the man down two streets before gaining any ground on him, and even then, Tom was getting very tired very quickly. Then man rounded a corner and Tom followed in suit a few seconds later. The next moment, he was completing a backflip and staring straight at the sky, unable to breathe. His head smacked against the pavement and his vision clouded with inky blackness until he was unconscious. ------------ Marseille, France ------------ Tom cracked his eyes open and groaned in a raspy voice, his throat and neck throbbing with pain. He pushed himself upright slowly, fighting the vertigo off as it slowly faded away. He looked around for a brief moment and found himself in a comfortable bed with a kitchen area in front of him, a hallway door to his left, and a large veranda with the doors open to his right. Immediately, he rolled out of bed and made for the hallway door. "Hold on there," a voice said. Something grabbed Tom around the waist and lifted him off the ground. He was turned around and planted back on his feet facing the veranda. Gripping him was a purple tentacle that was already beginning to retract into the kitchen. "Come on this way. You're not in any danger. You just spooked us is all." Tom hesitated, and after a few seconds Sohm's blue head came around the corner. "It's alright." At that, Tom went into the kitchen and found Sohm sitting on the countertop next to a woman who was easily seven feet tall. She smiled at him with fanged teeth. "Jack will be out of the bathroom in a minute. Then you two can have a little powwow and I can take you home." "Jack?" Tom asked. "The guy who ran off with my work ID and-" "No," the giant woman interrupted, her black eyes laughing at him through bright red irises. "I knocked you unconscious. You came around the corner so fast that I just had to stick my arm out and you did all the work for me. You did a flip and a half." "Is he up yet? Oh, awesome," said the man from before, coming out of a doorway at the other end of the kitchen. "Hey, sorry about earlier; I thought you were here to look for me." He adjusted the blonde-headed baby fidgeting in his arms. Tom's brow knitted deeply. "Look for you? I don't even know who the fuck you are! Or her! Or where the fuck I am!" "We're in Marseille, hun," Sohm said, hopping off the countertop. "And these two are Jack and Anathane. They're demons. Well, Anathane is a demon, Jack is something else entirely from what I've heard." "Wait, what? What's going on? How did, what?" Tom's eyes widened. "Oh my God I need to get back to the Holding Center right now. I-" "Calm down," Sohm said, putting a hand on Tom's cheek. "Everything is fine. It's only been thirty minutes. I'll explain everything later, but for right now just know that nothing bad is going to happen. They thought you were coming to hassle them by force into doing things they didn't want to do. Everything is okay, just relax." Tom took a moment to take everything in and read everyone's faces. After accepting that everything was alright, he leaned against the cabinets behind him and breathed a sigh in relief. "Okay, so who are you two?" he asked. The bronze goddess and the other demon looked at each other and smiled knowingly. The woman turned to Tom again and smirked. "You already know our names, which is more than I should have allowed. I advise you not tell anyone about this little meeting with us..." The room changed to look strikingly similar to Tom's bedroom in the blink of an eye. "Or there will be extremely dire consequences, despite whatever efforts she may put up to save you," the demon finished with a demeaning smirk. She took a quick look around the room and then nodded to Sohm. "Now if you'll excuse me, there is a baby at home that needs to be nursed by his mother." She disappeared in an instant. It took Tom a while to understand what had happened in recent moments. He could only barely grasp the fact that he was, honestly and truly, standing in his bedroom half the world away from where he had been standing less than a minute ago. His head spun and he felt weak at the knees. Sohm caught him as he collapsed and hoisted him onto his bed. "Was your first meeting with two of the most notable demons in all the Second Circle a good one?" "No," Tom replied without hesitating. "What the fuck just happened? Y- Wait, you know what, I don't even want to know. The less I know, the less I'll have to think about." Sohm smiled at him and took his hand between hers. "They're nice people, really. You just...have to get to know them. They're very particular about who they let in." Tom rolled his eyes. "You seemed pretty friendly with the big one." Sohm's smile turned into a smirk. "I've known Anathane since before she knew Nyx." Her brow knitted. "Oh, right, you don't know who Nyx is either. Well, I've known her for a long, long time in any case. I vouched for you." "You vouched for me? What, were they going to cut out my tongue and blind me otherwise?" Tom joked. The look on Sohm's face was not reassuring. "Let's get away from that subject for a minute. What needs doing today before you're on your way to...uh, before you take your next assignment?" Sohm asked, diverting the conversation. Tom shrugged and sat down on the edge of his bed, clearing his head of all the wonder and awe that was still fresh in his mind. The gnawing emptiness was still there in the pit of his stomach from last night, waiting until he was alone to surge up again and pull him back into nightmare realms. "Sohm, why do succubi devour souls? They survive just fine on normal means," Tom said, catching the slime completely by surprise. Sohm moved in front of him and he looked up at her, his eyes filling with tears. "I can't help but ask, Sohm. I feel like everything got ripped out of me, even with you here." The slime embraced him gently and put an arm around his back as he slumped against her, tears beginning to roll down his cheeks. "You will never understand us, Tom. The feeling of coupling a soul with your own is indescribable. We don't do it to kill inherently. The feeling is just...we want it. We need it." "So would you do it to me if you felt like it?" Tom asked, squeezing his eyes shut as wave after wave of empty, cloying hands grabbed at the back of his mind and tugged at it. "Nothing would please me more in all three realms than to devour you whole." Tom's heart sank. "Then go ahead and do it. Nobody's stopping you." Sohm tugged at his hair gently and pulled his head back, forcing his red, unblinking eyes to meet hers. She smiled at him sadly. "Do you think me so shallow as to devour you whole for my own pleasure?" Tom didn't move or say anything, so Sohm shook her head slowly and let out a long sigh. "Now stop with all the woe is me talk and let's get to what needs to be done," she said in a quick change of pace, grabbing Tom by the waist and hoisting him to his feet. She rubbed the top of his head and left sticky, gooey pieces of herself in his hair. "Sohm, I can't. I literally feel like there is nothing inside of me anymore. I can't feel anything, at all, like, nothing. I don't know why I'm crying. I'm confused. I'm not sad. I don't feel sad or mad or hurt or anything. I just, I don't feel anything. Why am I crying?" Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 10 "You're afraid," replied the slime, trying to give him a reassuring smile. He could hardly tell she was smiling through his blurry, teary vision. The agent wiped his nose and turned away from Sohm, bringing his shirt up and rubbing his face and eyes dry with it. "I don't even care about Ceria anymore. I don't care about that guy or the huge demon, or Lamoren, or the Division, Heaven, Hell, here, anyone, anything. I just want to crawl into a hole and wait for someone to put me out of my misery." "Don't talk like that. You're going through the aftershocks of coupling with a first generation succubus and surviving. It's natural," Sohm assured, even as Tom pushed past her and made his way downstairs. "If this is what it feels like then I wish she had k-" Sohm slapped him across the face so hard that he fell the last few steps to the ground. Tom hit the ground and slid into the front door with a hard thud, stars dancing before his eyes. "Enough," she declared, smoothly gliding down the staircase and to where Tom lay speechless. "Enough of that. You're going to get your affairs in order and then spend a comfortable evening in your own home with a goddess at your every beck and call." "Sohm, I don't want-" The slime rolled her darkening purple eyes. "And they say women don't ever know what they want. Men are just the same," she complained to herself, picking Tom up off the floor and pulling him into an embrace. "What's...what are you doing to me?" Tom asked, a warm glow filling his body from head to toe. "Giving you what you want. I'm putting you out of your misery." Tom's brow knitted deeply. "This is what dying feels like?" Sohm chuckled a little at that and shook her head. "No, sweet boy, this is what feeling intoxicated on endorphins feels like. See? Putting you out of your misery." Tom didn't care enough to tell her to stop. He just wanted to ride out the endorphin high and forget last night. He didn't feel any less empty than he had last night after Lamoren had been taken away. Even with Sohm doing what she did best, he just wanted to run away from it all. Still, the feeling crawling into his brain felt nice. ------------Hell------------ Fentin's war council was gathered before him in Zuldspire Keep, seated in a neat bundle against the opposite side of the long table the army's numerous maps and schedules and logistics records were laid out on. Zuldspire still smelled of blood and fire, having been taken not a week ago after a long and ferocious siege of four months. It had taken Fentin's full force to break the siege before the fall of the long night. The lord scratched one of his horns absentmindedly and gave his council a bored look. "Gentlemen, I've called this fifth war council to hammer out the details of our next moves against Ceria's forces past Zuldspire Keep. Before you start again like you have the previous two times, let me tell you that if we do not come to a clear conclusion by the end of this council, I'm just going to take Captain Vendr and the vanguard and move on without you." Fentin's declaration was met with absolute silence, save for Vendr who chuckled under his breath at the notion of he and Fentin riding out without the quarter million demons that comprised the main body and baggage train of his army. However, all present understood that Fentin was entirely serious. "We'll never get out of this bloody keep at this rate," moaned Centris, laying his head down on the table in exasperation. All present felt the same, but maintained better composure. It had been four days since the army had moved at all, and three days of debate and council hadn't changed the outlook of the coming night's plans. Tempers had flared, more times than Fentin could count on his hands and feet together. Swords had been drawn, two fingers removed in honor duels, a hellbore killed, bribes made, slaves traded. Still, it was better than some wars Fentin had fought. At the moment, two options were being debated and fiercely defended and attacked by both parties. Zuldspire Keep sat at the crossroads of three major routes through the mountains that encircled the de facto border of Ceria's military control. Being such a valuable point of either defense or attack for either faction, several plans had been drawn up on how to use the keep's enormous locational value to the greatest advantage. The first plan was to use Zuldspire Keep as a staging area for three major incursions into Ceria's territory. Two would gather resources and attempt to sway the allegiance of any borderline generals Ceria had under her command. The third would strike as deep into the mountains as possible, ravaging the landscape and annihilating anything that stood against its overwhelming advance. That force would hopefully breach to the plains on the opposite side of the mountains before the long night set in and secure a staging area for the next phase of the war. The second plan had Fentin's army split into dozens of scouting forces, each just large enough to hold their own against whatever could be mustered from the mountain garrisons Ceria possessed, and make a gradual advance through the mountains. The main body of Fentin's troops would move south to cross the unguarded southern gap and secure a supply route around the mountains by the onset of the long night. Total conquest was ensured, but casualties were guaranteed to be higher than average. Each plan had its merits, its flaws, ways to improve, but each party refused to budge or compromise. Fentin had nearly been driven insane with objections trying to openly entertain the idea of using both plans at once. Ceria's forces could only match his own in ambushes and guerilla engagements. Any manner of open combat and Fentin's numbers won him every single battle. Despite this fact, neither party was willing to listen and were at each other's throats for three of the four previous councils. And so the debate began anew as soon as Fentin released attention from himself. Voices roared at each other within minutes and things fell apart about as quickly as the lord had expected. Quietly, Fentin picked at a blood-encrusted rut in the table that had once housed an entrail-slickened blade. Tsathangaus growled for blood, but Fentin pushed the blade completely into its scabbard, silencing the angelic weapon. It was at times like these that he wished the thing would just shut up and obey him. Keeping it sheathed too long upset the blade and caused it to lash out in anger, pushing itself from its scabbard to let him know there needed to be souls to part from bodies soon or there would be serious trouble. The thing had a mind of its own, possibly more twisted than the angel who had wielded it originally. "Well, inform me of your decision when you're through here. I'm going back to bed." Fentin stood and left the council, followed closely by Vendr and two black-clad guards that Mefur had designated as his bodyguards after storming Pike's Den. Vendr didn't like either of the hornless, mute, pale demons, but said nothing to either of them or Fentin about the subject. Still, it was very apparent that the captain felt uncomfortable around their large glaives. Descending the steps that led into the keep from the courtyard, Vendr tossed his shield to the ground in a fit of anger and crumpled his helm with his fist. "Why do we waste our time here?" he snarled, trembling physically from the exertion of not rending his armor asunder. The helm in his hands bent beneath his iron grip. Fentin gave his longtime captain a short look and Vendr controlled his anger, only just though. "Come, we have more things to do than just wait. The Crow is nearby." At Fentin's mention of the Crow, Vendr's entire body visibly stiffened and his glare hardened at Fentin. "My lord, you know as well as I do that the Crow speaks only in riddles," Vendr warned, his gaze unwavering as the two mute bodyguards beside Fentin held their weapons ready to Vendr's tone of voice. Fentin smirked. "Which is why I have simple aims, to get a simple answer." He turned to his bodyguards. "You two fetch me some of Mefur's warlocks. The gate to the human realm can take a little while longer to construct." At his command, the two mute, hornless bodyguards nodded in unison and hurried off across the courtyard to do their master's bidding. Fentin slumped with exhaustion and made his way with Vendr through the patchwork tent-city that had sprung up across the vast courtyard and ruins of the Zuldspire's inner defenses. What had once been a barracks was now a blood-stained beer hall and two hellbore stables had already been repurposed for gambling arenas. Various other establishments were in the works by his soldiers, and there seemed to be no end to the influx of new faces and banners. Every day, more and more of the main body of his forces reached the area around the Zuldspire. From the top of the spire, Fentin had lost count of the campfires that were lit every night, and it still amazed him that he had managed to gather such an impressive force with the promise of loot from their conquests. Though Fentin's vassals were many, only a handful had more than a few hundred men to bring together for his campaign. The bulk of his forces came from Vendr, Argo, Centris, Dresdean, and Fentin's own standing army. Vendr's cavalry was the only advantage Fentin had over Ceria's better-armed and better-trained soldiers. While his own troops were professional infantry, the vast majority of his forces were conscripts or militia, briefly trained and ill-equipped to plunge into a body of veterans whose loyalty to their liege held the absolute priority in their lives. Fentin paused as he and Vendr passed beneath the gateway that separated the courtyard of the Zuldspire from the settlement around it. Before him lay the swathe of tents and field barracks that had engulfed the long hillside that sloped downwards towards the basin where the three roads through the mountains split. His war camp was enormous, by any standards, and it still awed him to see as many souls beneath his banner and those of his allies as there were. He shook off the feeling of wonder and resumed his pace, Vendr keeping close to him as demons on either side of them nodded in respect or removed their helms at Fentin's presence. The pair found themselves at Fentin's quarters after a long and weary journey down the hillside and to the watchtower that housed all his belongings for the campaign. At the doorway, Mefur met him with his two bodyguards, looking less than pleased. "I take it you're here to lecture me on why I shouldn't go see the Crow," Fentin said as he pushed his way past the mute duo that took up following him on either side. Mefur sighed audibly. "My lord, I have no intention of dissuading you from folly today. I have already packed your belongings. I only request that you return in a timely manner." Fentin smirked. "You should know best that I will do as I please and as I see fit." Mefur nodded in acceptance. "Yes, my lord. I await your return." Fentin removed his armor piece by piece, tossing them to the page waiting beside Fentin with nimble hands. Once Fentin had taken off his armor and disrobed, he climbed the stairs that wrapped around the inside of the tower until he reached his personal quarters at the top. On his bed lay his courtesan, Amern, asleep and curled beneath the heavy bedding. He briefly entertained the idea of rousing her for a bit of fun before he left, but thought better of it and dressed quietly while the succubus slept. He returned to the bottom of the tower and ordered his page upstairs to tend to Amern should she wake and desire company. Fentin was almost surprised that Mefur was already gone. Usually, his dour servant waited for him to return but it was not the case this time. Fentin thought little of it and grabbed his pack and Vendr's, swatting the cloth door out of the way. Outside, Vendr was handing his helm over to two of his knights and telling his armorer what he desired in repairs for his bent helm. He turned his attention to Fentin and the latter tossed the former his pack. "Let us be off with our worries underfoot," Fentin announced, securing Tsathangaus at his hip. Vendr nodded and hefted his axe onto his shoulder. Two rune-engraved blades shone menacingly in the light of the campfires that surrounded the watchtower. Fentin gave him a confused look at the captain shrugged. "I believed an axe would chop trees down faster than a sword, my lord," he explained. "That makes much more sense," Fentin replied, beginning down the path to the three forks at the bottom of the basin. Fentin was joined by five of his scouts and three warlocks garbed in little more than rags and bound at the hands with cords. Each of them looked as if they had been beaten half to death with a club. Fentin tried to ignore the clear message of dissatisfaction Mefur was sending him. It didn't take long for the small party to reach the forks in the road and Fentin called for one of the scouts. "Lead the way to where the Crow was seen last. We'll find his trail soon enough." The scout nodded, giving Fentin something close to a look of annoyance. "It will be a long walk, milord." "I've nothing but time," the lord replied. With the scout leading them, the party took the furthest right path and began on their way, quickly losing the main road and delving into the thick forest and underbrush that made up the majority of the mountainsides in the region. Though the night the seven demons and three men moved in silence through the dark green and red leaves and thick tree trunks that made up the dense undergrowth. Fentin wondered just how far away the Crow was, as the scouts quietly convened every few hours to make sure they were going the right way. The lord had never tracked a single man before. Groups, yes, but never just a single person. It was maddening to have to follow these demons as they caught clues and signs of such subtlety that Fentin could not tell them apart if his life depended on it. But the scouts continued to lead the party further and further into the forested foothills, sweeping away the thicker brush and clearing enough room for Vendr to fit through with some effort. Overhead, the deadness of the night began to show. This region was not like the fertile jungle that Fentin had grown up in for nearly his entire life. This was an old forest, ageless and tamed by no force alive save for its own mechanisms. The barren soil should have provided no place for a forest to grow, yet trees stood proudly out of the ground, diverted streams around their trunks, and several grew out of boulders, defying any logic or reason. Fentin wondered just how old this place was, seeing his scouts' expressions from time to time in the darkness. They seemed to be just as puzzled as he was about this place, and how it had come to be like this. Fentin's army had clear-cut an entire hillside to make room for its berth, and still more trees were being devoured to feed the campfires growing in number each night. This enormous forest seemed not to care at all though, its sheer magnitude unimaginable compared to the vast swathe of land cleared by his men. It was little wonder why this forest was called Gritenaivs, or Darkfoot. Even on the well-worn roads that had been cleared through it ages ago, the light of the Eternal Sanctum in the sky would never see the feet that trod them. ------------ A Mountain Hamlet, Hell ------------ Fentin gazed long at the ruination and desolation that had befallen the mountainside before him. Ash and snow mingled amongst the charred, blackened remains of what was once a peaceful village with no more intent to start trouble than a blade of grass. Ceria's men had seen to it that everyone here was flayed alive and the entire surrounding area set aflame in order to find him. Fentin felt almost responsible for the children hanged from the makeshift arms of the gallows set before him. The skinless, rotting corpses stared blankly with charred eye sockets, their lives having burned out slowly over the course of several days. If Ceria's troops wanted to play this slash-and-burn game, then Fentin could be just as cruel. "Remove their eyes and tongues, Captain," he said, giving his most noble and loyal captain an order that would most certainly bring the Crow out of the tiny, untouched cottage that stood before the three remaining members of the party that had departed from the Zuldspire days ago. "As you command, my Lord." Fentin watched the entrance to the cottage quietly as he heard painful, wailing moans from behind his back. "On second thought..." Fentin began, causing Vendr to grunt as another moan bordering on a scream in agony was wrenched forth from one of Ceria's survivors. "Remove their fingers first, then their toes, then their ears, their lips, their noses, then their eyes and tongues. In that order. And leave the last one with his tongue. I want him to tell Ceria what her antics have achieved her." "Yes, my Lord," Vendr replied. Fentin heard a satisfying chop like one would hear while cutting carrots for stew. Four fingers appeared at his feet and rolled in the ashen snow beneath them. "One at a time, please." "I apologize, Lord. It will be as you command." The captain grunted again and Fentin heard another thick chop, followed by another finger rolling to a stop at his feet. Fentin grinned widely and turned around to see Vendr removing the demon's right thumb, while holding his hand over the whimpering soldier's mouth to keep him quiet. Vendr looked more brutish than usual with arrows sticking out of him from every angle and all his armor rent so badly that it was unrecognizable or lying in the blood and snow around the tiny village. Blood stained his entire body from head to toe. His short white hair was matted crusty smears of it and his face was a picture of grim determination even through the runny ash and snow and blood and bile that stuck to him. His enormous frame could withstand anything, so it seemed. Nothing fazed him. Not arrows, not sword wounds, not maces, shields, fists, nails, spears, nothing. Not the screams of his enemies, whimpering, begging pleas for mercy. Not the visage of unearned death and woe brought to this place. He was a stone-faced colossus who's only intention and purpose was to serve. And that was why Fentin liked him. "I fear I may have overstayed my welcome here," said an unfamiliar voice from behind Fentin's back. Before anyone could even speak, Vendr was already on his feet with his axe in hand, his gaze aflame in an instant. "Calm yourself, Vendr," Fentin said smoothly, chuckling to himself. "We've flushed the Crow out of his nest. The least we can do is offer something as recompense." Fentin turned around to find a scene he did not expect to see. Atop a small child's shoulders perched a demon that was unlike anything Fentin had ever seen before, even by the standards here in the Second Circle. Two gnarled, avian feet clung to the boy's shoulders, their talons entrenched in his blue, pallid flesh. Long, almost inhuman legs covered with a thin layer of rags connected to a mesh of skulls and wire and trinkets dangling from thin, frail shoulders. The Crow's wings were unfurled to their full extent, spanning some fifteen feet across and adorned with matted, putrid feathers that would have looked more fitting on a corpse that had lain in a mire for too long. Across his face was draped a small cloth bearing the image of a blackbird in flight. Only his eyes resembled what Fentin was used to, but even then, solid black orbs weren't normally seen in a demon from any circle, save for those who lived in complete and utter darkness. The crow cocked his head to one side and narrowed his dark, unsettling eyes. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 10 "And what have you brought this time, Fentin of the Avonal Falls? Another warlock? Perhaps prisoners from the woman you so wished to court so many years ago?" the strange demon said in complete seriousness, as if he were talking to the boy through which he had manifested his voice and not the lord of what amounted to the majority of the Sanctuary of Redemption. "A warlock. The prisoners are being punished for their crimes here." "And yet you escape yours," the Crow replied, turning to the shivering human beside Vendr. With one leap, he spanned the distance between the boy and the human, digging his claws deep into the human's flesh and parting his soul from his body with the tight grasp of his wings. Fentin turned to face him fully once more and the Crow narrowed his eyes once more in thought. "I expect to be told what my intentions are," Fentin said, unwavering against the Crow's unpleasant presence. "Your intentions are clear to you already, Fentin of the Avonal Falls." Fentin rolled his eyes. "What are my intentions?" "You will slay the one that has fallen in love with Ceria in order to circumvent her affections drifting away from you." Fentin grinned with satisfaction. At that, the Crow tilted his head in the opposite direction and turned to Vendr, who had resumed mutilating each body part listed by Fentin from each of the prisoners. "You will return without vengeance." He then turned back to Fentin. "You will succeed in separating body and soul." There was a long pause as Fentin took in the information, glancing at Vendr as the boulder of a demon sat perfectly still, his eyes set in the distant past. "That is all I needed to know," the lord replied in an almost cheerful tone. He nodded in thanks to the Crow and sat down beside Vendr, looking into the eyes of the demon Vendr had resumed mutilating. "Something the matter, Lord?" "One day soon," he said to the demon in Vendr's unbreakable grip. "Your comrades will call me lord as well. Until then, let them know me as their lady's greatest admirer." Fentin stood and looked about for the Crow, but he was nowhere to be found, and no trace of his departure was evident. The lord shrugged and started for the cottage still standing across the barren, corpse-strewn earth. "Lord?" "Continue, Vendr. We'll wait here and return to our forces tomorrow. Today there is cause for celebration. We can return to our camp with excellent news." "Yes, Lord," the captain replied, with a slight hint of disappointment. Fentin could almost hear the anguished gasp of the human as he drove Tsathangaus through his feeble little ribs. Tsathangaus stirred again at its master's thoughts and Fentin rested his palm on its pommel. "Soon enough." Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 11 "I'll say it one last time before I leave," the Frenchman spat, growling as he stood to leave the small, cramped room. "Comply or we will use the Angel's Hand and you will end up a soul without a body for etern-" "I understand how the Angel's Hand works, you fools," Lamoren snarled angrily, heaving herself to her feet against the artificial weight of chains and runic tethers that sank what seemed all the way down to Hell with demons clutching them all the way to the bottom. Damnation these things were heavy! "Artois, bring in the Angel's Hand. She's not going to comply." The Frenchman turned and left the room, removing the machine from his head only after the door clanged shut behind his exit. Lamoren could feel the vague wandering thoughts of the human's mind, but the runes and seals and dialects of Ath'Nael prevented her from dominating any of the minds that shrank from her touch only meters away. She growled with the fury of a true-borne succubus, having been alive for ageless years in both Hell and this realm's times. She still ran through the reasons for her latest predicament with upset, stuttering thoughts. Why hadn't the human let go? It was all she could think about between snarls and great tugs at the cables that bound her body and spirit to this accursed floor. Her skin peeled back and boiled where it touched anything. Only the fact that she'd fed not a day ago was keeping her sane. She could still taste the wine on the human's lips, smell his hair as they coiled against each other in the throes of passion, taste his blood, his seed, his soul. She had tasted it and yet been unable to devour it in any form. It had been hers, but somehow he had shrunk back from her touch, like a phantom prying itself from her hand. She had closed everything around it, but been no more successful at keeping it than a child trying to capture smoke in its hands. He'd slipped through her fingers and leapt away in absolute bliss. At first, she had attributed things to the untimely entrance of the humans that now kept her locked away in a dungeon beneath Calais, but she now realized that was not the case. Even without their interference, she had been unable to devour him. It had taken everything in her to make him cum, let alone part his body and soul as much as she had. Nine attempts had ended with his soul gliding through her fingers as she closed them around his shadowy, ethereal form. She growled in frustration again, this time from having been denied her release with him. She'd held it and held out long enough to reach the precipice of her climax, and been rudely torn from his throbbing need for attention and chained like an animal. Now, she was very horny, very upset, and very charged from her bout with the human. "Wallace Price," she snarled in disgust. "What a name, Wallace Price. And I suppose you humans think you're so clever, don't you, fooling me with a man like that. You can't hide that boy from me forever." She was answered by the door unlocking from the other side and an unpleasant feeling creeping into the room. "And I suppose this is the part where you'll tell me how I'm going to die and yadda yadda yadda, right?" she mused ruefully, tasting the tang and ozone of the Angel's Hand as it came closer. The door swung open and in walked a man holding what looked like a claw on the end of a long steel bar wrapped in sigils and holy seals. She could smell the dust still clinging to the inky paper they used, sent all the way from Rome. "I hope you do not suffer, succubus," the man said through his helmet, adjusting the harness that held the Angel's Hand braced against his chest. The human pulled back on the slide handle on the side of the weapon and it made a noise not unlike that of a bubble popping, except heavier and with a much louder boom that caused the dim little chamber to reverberate. The hair on Lamoren's entire body rose and the room charged with energy. Her eyes burst into flames and her wings struggled to free themselves from the numerous seals and runic cords that bound her. Her teeth tingled with the raw soul-rending energy that permeated the claw-like maw of the weapon. The human extended the slide handle forward until it locked into place and a noise burst from the weapon. The light overhead burst and the room was left illuminated by the blue flames that hugged her eye sockets. The slide handle made its way back down the neck of the weapon and locked into place a second time. The room boomed with unearthly noise that caused the very stones beneath Lamoren's knees to tremble for some time before settling to a low hum that drowned out all noise and caused the flames in her eyes to flicker wildly. She felt drained and struggled to stay on her knees, the spark of her life coming away in little wisps here and there. She could feel it feeding on her body, all the pleasure and stimulation she had received from that boy coming off of her like the skin of a molting snake. She struggled to keep her face toward the maw of the thing that was going to kill her. Unbelievably ancient, so powerful it could devastate races across the stars without any noticeable effort. She had never even touched something this powerful, something with the ability to part a soul and a body in an instant, an act that was reserved for only the most powerful and heinous weapons that existed. "To think that you'll die before you see me roll over and die, it must hurt somewhere inside of you, somewhere deep," Lamoren said with a bit of clarity. The door closed and sealed tightly behind the masked man, who extended the handle a third time forward. This time, the room went deathly silent and Lamoren felt nothing but the tingle in her teeth and through every bone in her body that the end was nigh. "I hope your resentment for me is short-lived, succubus," the human said, lowering the clawed muzzle of the Angel's Hand to her forehead. Lamoren grinned. "I'm sure it will be, human." The slide handle shifted to a vertical position and a noise like a piston releasing pressure brought the room to the edge of reality. The pressure intensified to such a degree that Lamoren thought her head would be crushed. The space between her face and the Angel's Hand leapt across the vastness of empty space, twisting as the boundaries of this realm and the two others began to circumvent their limits and bleed across the Aether against each other. Light changed into shapes, colors bled wetly across the floor, splattering a cinnamon smell into the air that wrapped around the human's body like a shade of dark blue cream. Lamoren couldn't tell what was going on. Her eyes couldn't tell what they were seeing, her tongue tasted sour mixes of alcohol and sugary sweet lichens that tickled her toes. She felt things that didn't make sense, hot and sharp pain blossomed from everywhere in her body, her teeth rang like bells atop a spire. Vertigo brought Lamoren across the span between her and the Angel's Hand and the point of pressure on her head increased by exponential rates. She felt like her head was crumpling into nothingness, her brain being squeezed by the immense weight of a universe that bled across itself and two others that leapt into it like dancers in the air. Even if she had wanted to speak, she couldn't. She tasted iron and butter in her mouth, and assumed with what little cognitive sense she had left that she had bitten her own tongue in madness. The succubus couldn't stand the immaterial pain that was coursing through the room. Three realms of chaos and dividing realities were brought together inside the tiny space, and the succubus gave in to despair. An eternity passed before her and she went limp, her body no longer willing to fight the consuming madness that forced everything that had ever existed to rend this place asunder. ------------ Outside ------------ Jack tossed the government worker aside like he was a sack of potatoes, watching the man slump against a wall and groan as he tried to stand again. Jack flexed his hands and marveled once again at the power his body possessed now that he was no longer human. It was incredible! He continued on through the underground bunker, Anathane somewhere behind him mopping up the stragglers in whatever way she pleased. Their bullets weren't all that effective on either of them, though they did sting and burn a lot. Jack wondered what they'd do to someone who was less durable than he and his lovers were, but quickly pushed the thought aside. He was thrown off his feet and bounced against the corner he'd rounded, growling in pain as a shotgun shell fell to the floor. Blind instinct drove him across the span between himself and the man in front of him. He grabbed the shotgun out of his hands and drove the man to the ground, smacking him across the face with the butt of the gun. The Frenchman's jawbone snapped and he fell unconscious. Jack stood up, steel pellets clinking to the floor and blood dripping all over the place as his body miraculously healed. He bent the shotgun barrel and then twisted the end shut with a great deal of effort, continuing on to find Anathane already ahead of him. Where she stood, a rank of armed soldiers with riot gear and rifles that looked like something out of a Sci-Fi movie stood against her, facing down the tanned, teal-haired goddess. Anathane turned to Jack and motioned toward the rank of men with her head. "I really have no idea why they're even trying. I couldn't be more bored of this manhunt they're put me through." Jack rolled his eyes. "Just get to the other side. Lamoren's in there and they've probably got somebody doing that slow-motion movie walk to where she is and if we dick around they'll get to her before we do." "As you wish, your boring-ness," Anathane replied with an exaggerated bow. In an instant, she was behind the rank of armed soldiers and threw them all against the wall with a dozen tentacles in seconds. Beams of shimmering air radiated from the barrels of their guns and Anathane dropped them, staggering backwards with a howl. Jack was on the soldiers before they could hit the ground, throwing his fists at anything that he could hit, riot shields, legs, arms, guns, heads. Shimmering beams struck him high in the chest and he was thrown to the floor, the air in his lungs somehow gone. His skin burned and all the way through his chest a boiling feeling bubbled up, causing his lungs to stutter. With a grunt in anger, the hybrid kicked up and struck a soldier in the helmet, knocking his head back with an audible crack. "Fuck!" he shouted. "What?" asked the demon nearby, wrapping a thick purple tentacle around the arms of a soldier and tossing him down the hallway like he was a doll. "I think I just broke this guy's neck. Fuck me, please tell me he's not dead." Jack stood up and realized that the soldiers were all lying on the floor in various states of consciousness, save for the one he'd kicked, who lay motionless. Anathane picked the man up and removed his helmet, revealing a broken nose, missing teeth, and a face full of bulletproof glass from his broken helmet. The demon latched a tentacle onto his face and stuck another into his mouth, pumping a swallow of something blue down his throat. When she removed her tentacles, his teeth were back, his nose realigned, and the glass removed from his face. "He'll be fine. Let's find Lamoren now, if it pleases you," she teased with another exaggerated bow. Jack slapped her hard on the ass and she jumped in surprise. "Watch yourself Anathane." "Haven't had that happen in a long time, Jack. Did I get you worked up?" Jack smirked. "You do when you do that catwalk that you do," he replied, eyes glued to her backside as it swayed back and forth in front of him with every step she took. They continued mostly unhindered into the bottom of the complex and came to a door that had been locked three different ways. Anathane pondered the door for a moment and then touched it. No sooner had her fingers brushed its metal surface did she slump to the floor and struggle to keep herself from going down completely. Jack rushed to her side and pulled her to her feet, trying to discern what was wrong as her eyes shifted from black to red to pits of fire. "Anathane?" "Something in there is bringing the realms together," she answered. "That was too much for me to bear." Jack's brow furrowed. "Bringing the realms together?" "I think they're using an angel's weapon. They've put up every known ward and sigil and rune to keep that room locked away from this reality. Something in there is collapsing the boundaries between Hell, Heaven, and this realm" "Then let's go in there and blitz whoever's got it and shut it off. Is that so hard?" Anathane gave him a flat look and replied, "You do realize that that thing, if it's the weapon I'm thinking about, would utterly ruin this world, this solar system, this galaxy, and a few others around it. And most likely kill everyone in them too, if it were to be fired." "Well fuck, what do we do then?" "Port in, port out with Lamoren in hand. Try not to go insane while doing it or get lost in there," the demon said with a shrug, beginning to fill with her usual dark humor again. "I'm not going anywhere near another one of those things, not after the last time. I've had enough of dying. No more angel weapons," Jack said firmly. "Oh don't be such a ba-" "I said no, Anathane!" Jack restated, his voice shaking slightly. "I'm not touching another one of those things." The giant of a demon looked taken aback. "But you said...I thought you told me it just made you feel sick." "I can't even describe what it felt like after being stabbed with that thing. And right then sure as Hell wasn't the time to try. I'm sorry, but I'm not going in there with that thing." Anathane nodded after pondering his words for a moment and then hugged Jack to her curvaceous body. "I'll go in then, but I need something to focus on while I'm navigating the three collision point of three realms. I'll take you to the Core. She'll know what to do." Jack took Anathane's hands and closed his eyes, feeling the splitting of reality around them for a moment before the warm, comfortable air of the Core's chamber surrounded him. He opened his eyes and found the place as he'd left it, empty save for the throne of red and purple that shifted to accommodate a visitor. Jack crossed the enormous chamber and waited for Anathane and the Core to exchange memories and persons. He idly watched the monstrous veins, arteries, and connective tubing that ran through the upper parts of the chamber until he was needed. "Jack, you don't have to stand over there," the Core said, waving Jack over with the curl of her index finger. Jack crossed the room to where she sat on the throne, her smile unsettling even after all this time. She reminded him of a shark about to sniff the water for blood it knew was there. "So what's the plan, Anathane?" Jack asked, hoping that the solution wasn't going to be him coming across the pointy end of whatever weapon was in the room on Earth. "There is a glaring problem with our attempt to free Lamoren," she said slowly, her eyes beginning to glow as she exhaled long and deep. "And that is...?" "I cannot enter the space around the Angel's Hand and retain my sanity, no matter how many shards of my soul I piece together." The greater demon then raised a hand to his chest and curled her fingers at the last moment, her touch falling just short of caressing his skin. "So how do we fix that?" Anathane smiled very softly. "I need a distraction powerful enough to force every part of me to think about it. As far as I am aware, you may be capable of being that distraction." Jack's eyebrows knitted in thought. "So...we need to have sex?" The hybrid stripped off his shirt and started to unbutton his pants, but the demon standing in front of him held her hand up for him to stop. "I believe that you'd have to surprise me to distract me enough." Anathane lowered her arm and Jack continued to undress until he was just as naked as she was. He took a step forward and the demon turned toward the throne behind her. "I didn't say you could run away, now did I?" Jack declared, arching a brow. "What?" Anathane replied, confused. "I said I didn't give you permission to run away. Now get over here and let me fuck you." Jack took a step toward the greater demon and then wrapped his arms smoothly around her thick hips, pulling their bodies together. She was considerably taker than he was, and with horns she looked even more enormous than normal, but he continued undaunted. "I'm not-" Anathane started, but Jack turned her around and pulled her tighter, his arousal starting to rise between her legs as he kissed the base of her neck. "You may be a giant, but you're as meek as a little mouse right now. Care to tell me why?" Jack asked, sliding his hands down her thighs and hoisting her up by her legs. He carried her to her throne as she fought to grasp the situation that was happening. Jack grinned widely at the look on her face. He'd only taken charge of her one time before, and that had been when he was human. Now, it felt refreshing to dominate her rather than be dominated. And with Core, all her looks and all the immense power she exuded in his presence, it was intoxicating to finally be a step above her. "Meek? Me?" she asked, gaining back some of her authority as Jack set her against the pulsating throne. "Do you-" Jack smothered her words with a forceful kiss, pressing his lips against hers with enough force to put her head to the back of the throne. Anathane's words died in her throat as Jack snaked an arm around her back and put the other around her shoulders. When he released her from the kiss, his grin grew wider. "You're mine, Anathane. I won't let you ever forget that. Not for all the riches and slaves and willing little cunts there are. You belong to me." Anathane melted against him, raising her arms to his neck and hooking them around him, embracing her lover gently as he slid one knee onto the throne between her legs and pushed her against its back. Anathane's wings fluttered to either side, the demon unable to decide what to do with them. Her tail lashed around one arm of the throne tightly and the living metal molded to fit the appendage as it wound itself tighter. She avoided Jack's fiery gaze with her own enflamed red eyes, a red flush smeared across her face. "You're overwhelming me, incomplete boy," Anathane said, letting out a short gasp as Jack kissed her ear and pinned one of her wings to the back of the throne. "You know how much it turns me on when you use that name," he breathed into her ear, nibbling softly on it as he pulled away and looked into her eyes, pouring all the lust and sex drive into her that he could. The air thrummed with power she was building, sucking more and more shards of her soul into her body. "Take me," she said, pulling him tighter with her arms. They kissed at her will and Jack put his hands against her thighs, spreading them as wide as he could. He slid both his knees onto the throne and the back of it shifted down, the floor rising to meet it in thick, fluid columns. The arms of the throne fell and Jack was left with a large stone slab beneath him and his lover. Jack leaned Anathane onto her back and she lay splayed out on the slab, a copper-skinned goddess waiting for his touch. The steadily quickening thudding of Heart below their feet made Jack smirk. "I can see you've wanted this for a good, long time," he said, positioning himself over the demon's body. "Heart's down there having the time of her life, now isn't she?" "She's inside me, incomplete boy," Anathane replied. Everyone is. Everyone...needs, please fuck us. We need you." Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 11 "If you so desire," the hybrid replied, placing his cockhead against the cleft of her thighs. He could see it took everything in Anathane's power not to slam herself against him in a blind bloodlust and throw him to the floor. "P-please," she begged, grating her claws on either side of the slab. "You'll have to convince me you deserve it, Anathane. You realize what-" Another Anathane warped into the chamber, holding a succubus in her arms. "All ready to...to...gods..." She disappeared and the Anathane beneath Jack turned a golden color, a ball of fire sparking to life between her horns as she changed color. "We've completed our half," she stated, her voice booming throughout the chamber. "And now for every inch of mine," replied Jack, thrusting into her down to the base. Anathane screamed in total, utter ecstasy. ------------ The Holding Center, Earth ------------ "What do you mean I can't bring the Nagant?!" Tom yelled, holding out his rifle in its case and shaking with as much force as he could use to demonstrate that he was upset. "It's definitely within my right as an agent to take this thing with me!" Arms Inspector Cogwell sighed again and pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. "Look, I said no because the ammunition you need for it is impossible to import at this time. Also, it's extremely expensive. And furthermore, the only approved weapons on the list as of two days ago are your standard M1911 and any blunt or bladed weapons designed for melee combat and not exceeding thirteen pounds and two ounces." As he finished, Tom bit his bottom lip in frustration and then handed the rifle over to Cogwell. "The sword stays then," the agent stated, adjusting the highland claymore strapped across his back diagonally. At that, Arms Inspector Cogwell rolled his eyes and handed Tom back his M1911 and five magazines of ammunition. "Your sword is lucky these lists haven't dropped weapon variants over the years." "Don't I know it," Tom replied sarcastically, following the Finnish agent who'd had his weapons inspected and been given ammunition before him. Tom caught up with the agent, who nodded to Tom with a smile. "Sometimes I hate the people I work for," Tom said, sparking up a conversation to ease some of the tension permeating the building. "I do too," the agent replied. "But then again, it is a job and most bosses are bad one, right Tom?" Tom nodded. "Right...uh..." "Mattiesko," the agent replied, shoving a magazine into the grip of his gun. He safed the weapon and stuck it in its holster at his hip, covering it with his coat. "Right, sorry. I'm shitty with names. It took me like a week to learn Greg and Harvey's names and I saw them almost every day when I started here." "It's fine. By the way, do you know why we are required to wear a suit to go to Hell?" Tom holstered his own weapon and shrugged. "The Director told me it was to make us look presentable. I think it's bullshit no matter what the reason is. We should be going in in body armor and riot gear." "Or a brigade of soldiers," Mattiesko quipped as they reached the elevator. They entered and held the door for the agent behind them and all three were taken to the second-lowest floor of the Holding Center. As the doors opened, they showed their ID's to the two guards and were allowed access after being scanned with a device that looked like a taser with a set of blue lights at the end. Each light blinked blue once and then the agents were allowed to pass one at a time. Down the hallway, a large staircase led further down into the complex. Here, the plaster and panels hadn't been put up and were replaced with gray concrete all the way down. Tom guessed this was where even the private contractors weren't allowed to venture twice, or had all been made to "disappear" after the construction was done with. At the bottom stood three more soldiers, one of them armed with a sniper rifle. Behind them, the Director waited impatiently with a clipboard and a pen, scratching something down on the papers he held. He held up his hand as the agents approached. "Name," he said gruffly. "Mattiesko Helsinki." "Arms in service." "M1911 sidearm, five magazines of ammunition," the Finn answered, pulling his coat open to show the weapon and ammunition. "Cleared for service." He looked up from the clipboard. "Name." "Thomas Lanzig." "Arms in service." "M1911 sidearm, five magazines of ammunition, one claymore." The director scratched something on the paper and motioned for Tom to step aside. "Soldier, continue the checklist. I'll be back." Without saying anything, one of the soldiers at the base of the stairs nodded and took the clipboard. The Director took Tom aside and motioned for the agent to give him something. Tom pulled the palm-sized amulet he had gotten from Andrea out of his back pocket and handed it to the Director. "So...?" "Take off your shirt and be quiet." The director turned the face of the amulet upside-down and split it off from the back of the amulet. Tom took off his jacket, tie and shirt, oddly curious what the amulet was going to do. The Director stood quietly for a moment with a look of contemplation on his face that looked as if it were chiseled from stone. Tom grew more and more uncomfortable as the Director just stood in front of him thinking, holding the two pieces of the amulet apart like he was trying to decide what to do with them. After a short while longer, the Director held three of his fingers outstretched and pointed at Tom's head. He murmured to himself. "Seven chakras, God, man, truth, soul, power, creation, sex. Offset toward sex. So..." He lowered his hand until his middle finger came to rest against the center of Tom's ribs where the process at the end of his sternum met the body. "Here." He put the face of the amulet against Tom's chest. Tom raised his hand and held the face of the amulet up as the Director walked behind him and placed the other half of the thing on his back just below the space between his shoulders. He held it against his back and connected the cords on it to the face of the amulet. They seemed to magnetize to the face and stuck firmly as soon as they made contact with it. "Keep it still," the Director ordered. Tom didn't move at all. He was too busy staring at the cords as they flattened against his skin and pressed against him like they were tightening. "What's going-" "Stay still damnit," the Director snapped in a low tone. Tom's breath caught. The amulet itself flattened until it had all but sunken into his chest. He stared at the thing until the Director stood in front of him and told him to redress and move to the other end of the room. Tom worked his shirt and tie on slowly, awestruck at the dark gold amulet stuck in his body. He touched the thing tentatively, but it didn't feel like metal. Brow knitted deeply, he moved the face of the amulet around, and found that indeed, all he was touching was his skin. The image moved and stretched with his skin, as did the cords that held it in place. It looked like he'd gotten a tattoo of a sixteen-pointed sun inside a circle on his chest. He shook the strangeness of the thing out of his head and continued to dress, eventually getting into presentable order. Tom looked to where the other agents had assembled, and moved to where Greg and Harvey stood, steering clear of Allen as he did so. Allen had been more than just strange recently. He'd demanded articles of Ceria's clothing from Tom, which the teen had only just managed to scrounge up from the time Ceria had removed her panties in his bathroom. The assembled agents quietly waited in a line for several warlocks, each wearing nothing more than a large obsidian torc around his neck. Each of them worked on painting a stone that would fit into a slot on the wall that formed an arch, in their own blood. Tom suddenly found a great deal more respect for Section Thirteen as he watched grown men bite through their fingertips without any noticeable discomfort and use their middle fingers to write runes in the red fluid. This continued for a few minutes before the warlocks each bandaged their fingers, stood up, and placed their stones in their respective places. The rest of the agents had filed in by this time, and all of them waited to be assessed by Brohund and the Director before making their final descent into Hell. The warlock holding the keystone of the archway stood still in the maw of the dormant portal as the Director and Brohund made their way over to the agents. "They're all going to die, you realize," Brohund said casually, disregarding the men, women, and demons standing not ten feet away. The Director slapped the four-armed demon in the back of the head and gave him a stare that meant nothing less than death. Brohund only held eye contact for a few moments before diverting his gaze in reluctant and annoyed defeat, unable to match the old badger for death glares. Meanwhile, Division Two's agents stood ramrod stiff, waiting for that same glare to pass them over. The Director cleared his throat to speak. "You're about to enter Hell through the Occulus Astrum in Abyssus, the eye staring into Hell. For short, we call it Hellgazer." He motioned toward the large stone circle being completed by the insertion of the keystone into its housing on the wall. "All of them," Brohund sneered. "It is your duty to come back alive. You've been briefed three times on your orders and I expect nothing less than total success from the lot of you. That being said, don't get off track or disobey the guidelines laid out for you in your briefings. Go with pride and honor. Witho-" The room exploded with light and the roar of thunder, causing ties and hair to whip around toward the staircase. Two agents were blown off their feet outright and all eyes turned toward to far wall, now filled with the shine of a dark gold star and roaring with radiant waves of noise. "Without any further instructions or advice!" the Director continued, yelling over the rumble of the portal that had opened. "I send you through the Occulus Astrum in Abyssus to Hell with all the authority of a Special Divisions Director and the power invested in the aforementioned rank! Good luck and return safely!" The agents turned toward the portal, emanating a warm wind that continued to blow ties back and set hair against gravity. The warlocks made their way quickly out of the room, unable to stay in the presence of a divide between the realms without heavier protection that their torcs. Allen seemed to be unaffected with a tightly-would band of metal bearing runes around his head. He wore a smile as they started toward the portal. As the first agent entered the portal, sound imploded toward the light, and then boomed outwards with a flash of gold that bathed everyone in its presence. Tom had to shield his eyes from it the light was so bright. "Oof!" "...mans will never learn." Tom lowered his arm from his face and found an agent on the floor and an enormous knight wearing full plate mail and holding a shield as tall as a man. The room stood still for a moment as the knight turned his head and surveyed the room. "The building has been compromised. Lockdown status 'Nebula'!" the Director roared as the knight took a step forward. Out from the portal came similarly-armed men, holding swords and shields and filing forth with great haste. Several of the agents were driven to the ground and held in place by metal boots and swordtips. It took several seconds for the agents to understand what was going on, and they quickly began to scatter. Men and women all made a mad dash for the stairs, pulling their weapons out. The three soldiers at the base of the stairs raised their weapons and began to fire, bringing down one of the armor-clad knights with a steady stream of gunfire. No sooner had they begun to train their sights on another knight, the giant surged forward, raising a sword that looked as if it could cleave a man in half with just the force of gravity guiding it. The giant's head snapped back as a .50 caliber round put a hole straight through his helmet. He stumbled as machinegun fire stuttered across the face of his shield. The huge knight recovered quickly and plunged his sword through the chest of one of the soldiers, lifting the man into the air and letting the blade cut cleanly through his neck and head, gravity dragging his body over its edge. Tom and the other agents hurried up the stairs and the soldiers who'd been guarding the elevator met them at the top, raising their rifles toward their pursuers. Shields came up and gunshots filled the air. The heavy thud of metal against metal rang out and Tom felt as if his left eardrum had burst as he passed the muzzle of one of the rifles barking a steady stream of bullets in the opposite direction. The Director made his way up the stairs, downing two knights as they raised their swords to him. He pushed another six bullets into his revolver as the giant knight neared him, raising his shield to cover his huge armored form. "Where the Hell is the security team?!" he roared, bouncing two bullets across the face of the giant's shield. Tom could only watch from the elevator as agents were driven back, offering what looked like little resistance to the advancing armored group. They formed a phalanx shoulder to shoulder across the breadth of the hallway and moved forward slowly, bullets hitting home with apparently no more affect than stones thrown by a child. "Get me the security team!" the Director roared into his collar. Garbled static met his command and he growled in frustration. "They've planted a mole," he spat, reloading his revolver and taking another shot before assessing the state of his agents. Of the twenty seven men, women, and demons gathered originally, only fifteen had made it up here, and seven disappeared as the elevator doors closed behind their exit. "What do we do, sir?" Tom asked, reloading his pistol and unloading the magazine uselessly against one of the knights' helms. "Go down fighting," Veronica replied, stepping forward. She tossed away her gun and balled her fists tightly. As the knights neared the eight remaining agents, they slowed to a halt and the giant moved forward through their number, bullets ricocheting off his armor. A large hand rose toward the helm atop his head and removed it, revealing a hardened, grim face bearing a long scar down from behind the right ear to the chin. "We're here for Ceria's human lover, no one else. Give him up and we will leave you to your business with the lady," he said in a stern, resounding voice. The Director stepped forward and loaded two bullets into his revolver, standing in front of the agents under his care. "You're going home empty-handed today. We don't have him." The giant gave the Director a hard look. "Usher Lanos. I have been waiting to see your face for millennia," the demon said, pushing his helmet back on and smacking his sword against his tower shield. "I will finish you today." "Stop," called a voice. Vendr marched forward, shield up and sword raised. The Director raised his pistol and took aim. "One good shot," he muttered. "Vendr, the Lord has no time to waste on your petty grudges. Take the boy and leave!" the voice snapped. Suddenly, the giant was lifted off his feet by four large arms and carried backwards slowly. "Unhand me, coward! I will have my vengeance! Usher Lanos will die today!" Brohund snarled at the Director as he wrestled with the giant in his four enormous arms. "This is a waste of time. Hand him over." "Molon Labe," the Dorector replied, firing two rounds into the four-armed demon's head. Brohund's face went blank and he dropped like a sack of bricks. Vendr landed on the floor and righted himself quickly, returning to his battle stance. "Your life, your soul, and my vengeance in one swordstroke," the demon growled, advancing again toward the Director. "Sword, boy," the veteran agent said to Tom, holding out his hand. Tom quickly unsheathed his blade and tossed it awkwardly to the Director, almost unable to even think as the older man picked the clattering weapon up off the floor and held it upright. "Vendr, what wool do you think you're pulling over my eyes?" asked a calm, collective voice over the din of Vendr's clinking plate mail. Vendr dropped to one knee in an instant and tossed his sword and shield away, lowering his head like a devout disciple addressing a deity. "Lord, I hide nothing from you," the giant replied subserviently, not raising his head to the demon that approached with all the regal confidence of medieval nobility. Tom watched the noble demon remove his helmet. "Good afternoon," the hellspawned noble said in a smooth, congenial tone. "One of you is coming back with me to die. I suggest that you make peace with whatever powers you believe will receive you." He turned and quipped amusedly, "They won't. But you humans do love the notion of resting in peace." The noble demon made his way back down the stairs and found more knights teleporting into the room with agents in their hands, dozens of men and women herded against one wall at swordpoint. Tom and the others were put against the wall and the knights lined up opposite of them, tossing guns and Tom's sword into a pile in the corner. To the right, the portal's maw bellowed its war cry just as it had earlier. Tom tucked his tie into his shirt to keep it from fluttering around in Veronica's face. "Do not say anything to him," she warned. Tom was only just able to hear her, but nodded that he understood. Vendr and his lord stood at the end of the line, surveying the situation as their troops held the top of the staircase secure. The two of them walked down the line slowly, Vendr's lord sniffing each agent before moving on to the next. When they reached the Director, Vendr lagged behind for a moment and glared hard at the man before continuing with his lord. They reached Veronica and the odd pair stopped. "Fentin, it's not me. I can assure you she's the last one that I want to take to bed." Tom's heart skipped a beat. This was him, the demon that Jona had talked about. This was the reason they were all being taken to Hell. The teen's stomach lurched and he barely kept himself from vomiting. His knees grew weak and he had to use the wall for support, trembling violently. "Please discipline her, Vendr," Fentin commanded as he turned to face Tom. Vendr smashed Veronica's face with an armored fist so hard it threw the demon against the concrete, cracking it. Veronica's nose was flattened and several of her teeth left her mouth, along with a great deal of blood. Vendr picked her up by the throat and drove his fist into her stomach, the faint snap of ribs audible even over the thunder of the portal not twenty feet away. When she was released, she sank to the floor, coughing blood and wheezing. Vendr then grabbed her by her hair and threw her across the room. Veronica skittered across the cold floor and hit the wall, cracking her skull as her head swung against it. She raised her hand toward Vendr, but collapsed flat against the floor a moment later and lay motionless, save for the convulsions of her body as she vomited blood twice. Vendr moved toward her with slow, malign intent. "Vendr I said to discipline her, not to kill her. That is more than enough," Fentin snapped annoyedly. Vendr stopped, balled his fist, and then relented wordlessly to his lord. He returned to Fentin's side and they continued. Tom had lost all composure now. He was done for. He'd just watched the most powerful person he knew in the Special Divisions be utterly destroyed without any trouble whatsoever. Fentin looked Tom in the eyes and sniffed him. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 11 "You've lain with her, haven't you?" he asked. Tom took Veronica's advice and said nothing, holding Fentin's gaze with his own, imagining himself looking pathetic and frightened beyond belief. Fentin narrowed his eyes and then moved on to the next agent, leaving Tom alone for the moment. Tom's eyes blurred and he felt as if his mouth had filled with sand and he was swallowing stones. His throat closed. Tears ran down his cheeks. All he could think about was the grin, that horrible grin. The Talaky's corpses staring blankly into space as they were eviscerated on the living room floor. Jacob and Meredith lay limp in his mind, under the horrifying grin that held them prisoner in his thoughts. His heart thudded so hard that his ears began to ring. His body trembled out of control and he was barely able to stand. The world crushed him, grinning at him with malice and intent on destroying him. He felt tears blowing off his face as the wind surged forth from the portal to Hell. "Here we are!" Fentin exclaimed with delight. "You smell so strongly of her that you must've lain with her today!" He paused for a moment and drew a sword that looked like it belonged to Death itself. Allen said something in confusion and then Fentin plunged the blade into Allen's throat. In seconds, the man that had once stood before Fentin seemed to dry out and shrivel. His skin turned pasty and frail, peeling off in fluttering ribbons as all mass left his body, muscle, tendons, everything but bone. Allen wasted away in mere moments, and was reduced to nothing more than a skeleton. The pieces of him clattered to the floor, collecting in the fluttering robe he'd been wearing. Papery strips of skin blew past the long line of agents, collecting in the stairway at the other end of the room like dry leaves. Tom couldn't believe his eyes. Allen had been killed before his eyes with no ceremony, no warning, no nothing. That could have been him. Tom couldn't fathom that the skeleton and pile of clothes on the floor could have been him at any moment. Tom sank to his knees and stared in utter disbelief. After Vendr had collected Allen's remains and bundled them in the occultist's robe, the demons left. The armored knights filed out through the portal quickly, disappearing in bright flashes of light. Vendr stared long and hard at the Director before turning his back to the agents and leaving with Fentin. Moments later, the portal closed and the room fell into complete silence. The Director stepped out of the line and hurried to the pile of weapons on the floor, grabbing his revolver out of it and Tom's sword. "The building has been compromised. What the hell is going on up there?" He received no answer and growled, moving over to where Veronica lay. He hoisted her up by her arm and the demon stayed on her feet with only the slightest sense of balance. "Usher Lanos. I never would have thought it'd be you," she said, grinning with a full set of bloodied teeth. "Now is not the time," the Director growled, letting the demon go as he hurried up the stairs. "Where the Hell is the security team Goddamnit!" he shouted to nobody in particular. Tom sat on the floor and put his head in his arms, crying in earnest now. He didn't know what to think or do. He didn't know what was going on. "Tom, you okay?" Greg asked, putting a hand on Tom's shoulder. Tom shook his head. "I'm losing it, Greg. I can't do this anymore." "We all hit this wall. I know it's hard, but you have to pick yourself up and keep on. First time to Hell, first time watching someone die, first time first time first time. You just have to deal and move on. We're all here to help you when it gets rough." "I'm going to die like that," was all Tom could say back. "Give him to me," Veronica said. "I'll take him from here. Jerhme, take everyone upstairs after we leave." "Consider it done," the demon replied, nodding to Veronica as she picked Tom up beneath his arms and set him back on his feet. "C'mon. We're going up to a spare room." Tom didn't object. He just followed her to the elevator and then to her room, passing by agents running around and soldiers wearing National Guard uniforms filing into the building. Once they were in the spare room, the demon grabbed Tom and hugged him tightly. Tom was barely able to raise his own arms and hug her back, trembling and sobbing into the demon's shoulder. Veronica squeezed him and pulled him backwards onto the bed. "I'm scared," Tom admitted through his sobbing. He held Veronica like she was going to get up and leave if he didn't. The demon raised a hand to the back of his head and stroked his hair slowly. "I know. These are not the kind of people that you want to be mixed up with." "I don't want to do this anymore. Not after Paris. I want out. I want out so bad it's killing me. I can't come back in here and do this anymore." The teen sank into crying outright and the demon said nothing else to him, only holding him as he lay next to her, squeezing the life out of her for comfort. Tom didn't know how long he'd been crying before Veronica began to take his coat off him. He let her remove his coat and then pull his tie loose of his collar. She tossed it aside and began to unbutton his shirt, only stopping at the buttons she couldn't reach between them. "You need to let go to let me do this." "I don't want to have sex," Tom replied. Veronica just smiled. "I'm not planning on having sex. I want to get you undressed because you're burning up. Cool off, calm down. Then you can do whatever you like." She unbuttoned his shirt all the way down and stripped it and his undershirt off. Tom looked down at himself and saw that he really was sweating pretty hard. "Thanks," the teen said. "Look at me, Tom," veronica said seriously, raising Tom's chin. He looked her in the eyes and she hardened her expression. "I'm not letting her take you. I'm on your side in this." "It doesn't matter if you're with me or not; I made a deal with her." Tom explained, his eyes welling up with tears again. "There's no way out." "You made...a deal with a demon? When- what? When did this happen?" Tom shook his head. "After Scotland, on the way to the airport. She just...wouldn't leave me the fuck alone. And I ran my mouth and she bet me she could get me into Hell in one year of my own will." Veronica's pupils dilated. "What were the consequences?" Tom bit back a sob. "She'd be my slave, I'd be hers. I'll lose if I go. I...I can't do this anymore. I can't." Veronica sat back against the wall and put her head back, letting out a long sigh. She ran her fingers through her blood-stained hair and wiped the coagulating smears from her nose, which had already shifted back into place. "Knowing her, 'free will' means not being dragged in by her men," the demon said idly. She raised her head and looked at Tom with concern. "I'll help you as best I can, but I can't guarantee anything. You're very lucky to have that amulet though, if it's what I believe it is." None of this was any comfort to Tom. All he could think about was being Ceria's slave, and what he'd have to do because of it. She scared him normally when there were restrictions on the games she could play with him, both physically and mentally. In Hell, all bets were off. He was going to be a plaything for a demeaning and cruel demon. "I'm going to die, aren't I?" the teen asked, holding Veronica's gaze as her expression changed to surprise. "I..." she began, unable to give him a straight answer immediately. "I don't know. If you do, everyone that has worked and is going to work to protect you will be dead too, so there is no real reason to assume you'll go down without knowing it at least," she offered, as if knowing he'd be last was comforting. If anything, it made him feel worse. Tom flopped back on the bed and stared at the ceiling hopelessly. "I've tried killing myself three times already. And every time somebody stops me. Why am I not allowed to fix this entire mess?" "I doubt you killing yourself would fix things," Veronica objected quickly. "You know it would," Tom objected, rubbing his sore eyes with his hands. "Oh shut up," said the demon, moving to straddle Tom's hips. She stripped off her unbuttoned shirt and made short work of the lacy white bra around her sizable chest. "Veronica, are you serious?" Tom whined, as the demon removed her contacts. "Enough is enough. You either stop this and pull yourself together, or I'm going to fuck the 'woe is me' out of you. You have five seconds." She held up her hand with fingers splayed out for emphasis. Tom just stared at her eyes. They were as stunning as they'd been the first time he had seen them in the shower at her house. The demon curled her thumb and her forefinger followed not long afterward. Her eyes became luminescent as her third finger curled. "I'm fine," Tom said, grabbing Veronica's shirt and handing it to her. She smiled down at him and took her shirt. "You're very sure you don't want to do anything?" she asked, pointing down to where she straddled him with her index finger. Tom followed her finger and saw his cock throbbing to get out of his pants. Veronica's skirt had ridden up and he could see her panties sticking to her body, everything beneath them visible. "I'm..." Tom shook his head as a few less-than-clean thoughts drifted into his mind's eyes. For a moment, he thought Veronica was doing something to him, but she couldn't. She was a demon and while they had a certain degree of sway over humans sexually, they didn't have the power to enthrall like succubi and other races did. "Are you sure you don't? You're rubbing me pretty hard down there," Veronica chided, arching a brow at the teen. Tom focused on her sex and blinked hard at his hips grinding against hers in a slow, long rhythm. "That's seriously not me." Tom forced his body to stop. "I don't...what's going on? I'm feeling really, really horny." Tom shook his head as more of his imagination filtered through his mind's eye. "It's probably your amulet. Maybe it just needs some juice...and is influencing you accordingly. Because something is making me very, very horny." Her tone dropped to a sulty, seductive one toward the end and her eyes flared with color. Tom shook a snide little remark about juicing her up out of his head. "No, I don't want...fuck me." The last part sounded more pleading than resigned. "No, wait-" Tom was losing control. He was constantly having to cut thoughts short, reign in his hands, shut down syllables as they tried to materialize on his tongue. He curled his toes as he ground their sexes together. The friction was starting to really get him hot and bothered. "It's not going to get any easier," Veronica cooed, pulling Tom's belt off slowly. "Stop! Veronica, this isn't a joke. S...oh God that feels incredible." Tom fought every urge in his body as Veronica unbuttoned his pants and slid the zipper down slowly, tracing one of her fingers along the ridge of his cock as it pushed against the thin fabric of his boxers. "I'm not treating something this hard and ready as a joke. If I thought it was a joke, I'd wrap my lips around it and see how long you could last before you wanted to fuck." Tom gave her an incredulous look as she started to pull his pants down his legs. "You have no idea how hard it is to talk instead of kiss you, Veronica." Smirking, she replied, "About this hard, am I right?" She gave his cock another feel with her finger and Tom finally gave in, by this time wanting to have sex almost as much as he wanted to leave the Special Divisions. He yanked his boxers down and raised his hips up, bringing Veronica off the bed with his pelvis. Pulling his pants down past his knees, he kicked his shoes off and managed to remove the rest of his clothes. All the while, he held Veronica up with the only point of contact being their hips. It was driving him absolutely crazy to be so close to fucking her and still have to undress the demon to get anywhere. "Fuck it, I'm not waiting anymore." Tom sat up and put an arm behind Veronica. He moved the other between her legs and pushed her panties to one side, revealing her shaven pink pussy. "It's been quite a while since we did it last," the demon remarked as she spread her legs and moved back to let him bring his legs out from underneath her. Tom repositioned himself on top of Veronica and leaned down to her, inhaling her unearthly scent as his mouth reached her neck. "I don't think this is going to be like the other times. I'm so horny I can barely wait to get inside you." Tom pushed his cockhead against the cleft of her thighs and Veronica roped her arms around his neck. "Then let's get fucking." Her purple eyes glowed with lust and she moaned as he bit down on her neck, sucking hard enough to taste the iron tang of blood. He pushed into her, slow enough to get a good feel of everything she was offering him. Warm, wet flesh wrapped around his head as it slid into her body. He shivered with pleasure as he buried his arousal into her all the way to the base, slaking his hunger for the moment. She tightened around his shaft, pushing against him to get anything else inside of her that she could. Tom didn't say anything as he released her neck and moved to kiss the demon. Her stunning eyes held him for a moment, staring into him with passion that he wanted to claim right now for his own. Tom found himself pulled down into a fierce kiss and embraced the demon under him without hesitation or complaint. Their chests pushed together, Tom feeling the softness of her ample breasts squashed almost flat against his pectorals. Veronica's tongue brushed against his teeth and he parted them. She thrust the pink digit into his mouth and he met it with his own tongue, tasting her mouth eagerly as he pulled the demon's hips against him, getting just enough friction to send shivers down to his toes. Veronica moaned into his mouth and swung both legs around Tom's waist. The teen pulled back a few inches, feeling every fold, every sweet spot in Veronica's sex. He pushed back in hard, hips smacking against hers as he leaned into their kiss, deepening it. His arousal skyrocketed as their hips parted and met again, starting up the rhythm that they could both agree on. Not that it mattered to either of them at this point. Tom squeezed her ass as he thrust into her again, flesh spilling over his fingers and smooth, lean muscle tightening as she pulled him down to meet her. Their hips smacked together with surprising force and Veronica pulled back from their kiss. Tom fought her to continue, biting down on her tongue as it retreated from his mouth. The demon pulled her head back far enough to get her tongue free and turned her head to avoid getting her mouth entangled with his again. Tom instead went for her ear and nibbled on her earlobe, breathing hotly into it, hoping to entice her to continue. "C'mon, don't you like it when we kiss?" He slammed their hips together and the demon's fingers dug into his back. "Because it gets me off when you put your tongue in my mouth." "What has gotten into you?" Veronica asked, shivering as he licked the inside of her ear slowly. "Me? You're the one who started all this. I'm just giving you the nice, long fucking that you wanted from me." "I-" Tom cut her off as he bit down on her neck and forced her into the sheets hard, pumping away at her body with his cock. Veronica groaned with pleasure and tightened her grip around his shoulders. Her fingernails felt like daggers against his skin, and it turned him on to think how much it was taking for her to get this worked up. "You taste great," Tom said, licking the hickey he left on her neck. Veronica said nothing, only panting as he raised an arm to the center of her back. He lifted her up and leaned back, sitting on his knees with her straddling him, driven down on his cock to the base. She sank down further, gravity pulling her to the absolute furthest she could go. Tom bucked up against her and started to fuck her again, gritting his teeth as every short thrust raked his sensitive glans against her insides. With a quick kiss, he cut off anything she had to say about it and let her torso come away from his enough to give him room to lean down. He captured one of her breasts with his mouth, running his tongue over her sensitive nipple and areola. Veronica's legs tightened around his waist at that, causing Tom to grin. He pushed up against her with extra force and the demon slammed herself against him, thrust her hips forward as her legs yanked her whole body toward him. "Take me over the edge." Tom bit down on her nipple and raised his hand to its twin, pinching the pink nub and groping her breast with unearthly lust. Veronica couldn't help but let out a long, pleasured moan. Their pace quickened and Tom spent the majority of his efforts on her chest, circling her areola with his tongue and nibbling on her puffy, swollen flesh. His hips worked in unison with hers, bringing both of them closer and closer to the edge. Tom could feel his orgasm coming close enough to give him the final boost of energy he'd get before he was spent. He pulled her hips tighter with his free hand, taking it from her waist to her backside, squeezing her cheek as he did. Veronica's mouth found the teen's ear and she licked his inner ear, moaning into his thoughts to entice him further. It drove Tom absolutely wild. His cock went absolutely rigid, if it could get any harder than it was at this point. A rush of adrenaline hit him and he bucked harder and faster, abandoning all form of composure. He felt it coming closer, Veronica's body tightening steadily as they continued. The demon's fingers curled against him slowly, raking his skin with long, hot red streaks that would surely be bleeding by the end of this. Her mouth opened, and she suddenly bit down on his ear enough to cause Tom a great deal of pain and arousal all at once. Tom's midsection tightened immensely and he felt his climax hit. Veronica let out something between a squeal and a groan, filling Tom's ears with a noise of utter pleasure and satisfaction. Tom's eyes crossed and he bit down on the demon's breast, squeezing the other and squishing it flat in his grasp. He felt jets of cum push up his cock and find their way into Veronica's body, plastering her cunt with semen, feeding her what she desired most. His mind tingled with chemical endorphin rushes, adrenalin still pumping through him. He clutched her with everything he could, holding the demon in place as she convulsed, hips spasming against one another. Tom's hips jerked against hers with wave of his orgasm, each waning in intensity and growing in length until it was one long, dull sensation that held him to her wordlessly. Veronica unclamped her mouth from his ear and let her legs fall from his hips. "That...blew my mind. By the Red, that satisfied everything in me." "I'm still hard, you know," Tom said, his ear throbbing as a trickle of blood made its way down his neck. He stared at Veronica's breast, red teeth arks around her areola, which looked like it was close to having bled as well. The demon tried to lift herself off his throbbing arousal, but Tom pulled her down on it with a wet smack. "I can't," Veronica protested, but Tom shook his head. "I still need to be satisfied." "Tom, I'm spent." She let out a surprised yelp as he bucked against her again. "No you're not." He pushed her back against the bed and lifted one of her legs up, turning her lower half sideways and hiking her skirt up to her waist. He reared back and plunged back into her, one arm wrapped around her raised leg and the other one at her hip. Veronica grabbed the bedsheets and balled her hands into tight, white-knuckled fists. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 11 "Gods I can't! Tom, st-" He cut her off with another slam from his hips. "No." The agent started back up with her again, slacking their sexes together hard enough to shake the bed against the wall. Veronica tried to pull herself away, but Tom tightened his grip on her leg and pulled her back with his other hand. The demon moaned as he hit her sweet spot. Tom smirked as her hips rolled against his cock, trying to escape even as her body realized its real desire. The demon turned her head and glared at Tom, but it only made his smirk deepen. She let out a hoarse moan and met his hips forcefully, breaking the steady beat of their arousal. "I'll show you what it means to fuck a girl against her will," Veronica growled, turning her upper body so that her face wasn't in the sheets anymore. Tom let go of her leg for the moment and let her roll completely onto her back. Before she could think about stopping, Tom grabbed her hips and pushed into her down to the base of his cock with a hard, smooth motion. Veronica's face lit up with pleasure and she grabbed the sheets again to brace herself. Tom noticed a few people at the doorway by now, but didn't look at them. He had a more pressing matter at hand that was currently wrapped around his cock. He forced himself into the demon as hard as he could, emphasizing that he was the one fucking her. She gave him a conceited smirk and threw herself up off the sheets. Roping her arms around his neck, she slid onto him and bucked herself down hard, eliciting a moan from him as their positioned changed and she raked his sensitive glans against tight, warm flesh. "I don't think so," Tom said, grabbing her thighs and pushing her away from him. His arousal parted from her core and he quickly took Veronica's arms from his neck. Before she could react, he grabbed her hip and shoulder, rolling her onto her stomach. He pushed back into her, balls deep in less than a second, and she let out a groan. She made an effort to right herself, but he moved his left hand up between her shoulders and placed his weight on it, pounding into her from behind with his rigid arousal to keep her from collecting herself. It didn't seem to matter to Veronica which way she was being fucked, as she relented for the most part and allowed him to have his way with her. He pounded against her ass, her whole body lurching forward as they connected with a loud smack each time. The angle drove Tom's glans against deep pleasure centers in her pussy. She let out an intense moan into the sheets and grabbed the bar at the foot of the bed, bending it in her grasp. "Fuck me like you mean it, human," she growled at Tom in a very uncharacteristic way. Tom obliged, and picked up the pace, using his right hand to bring her hips to his with added force. It seemed to be enough for the demon, as she turned her head to the side and let out a long string of loud, short moans. The two of them fucked like they were in heat, sexes yearning for more and more as they reached the upper limits of exertion to get the other to cum. Tom found himself getting more and more drawn to Veronica's body the longer they went at it, noting every curve, every movement she made. Her thighs flexed every time they collided, her firm ass rippling over and over again in an extremely arousing cycle. Veronica cried into the sheets and Tom felt his climax coming up quickly. He gave her a few more thrusts and then buried himself as deep inside her body as he could, curled over her as they shared intense, star-filled orgasms. Veronica's pussy convulsed in waves, trying to milk Tom for everything he was worth even as he pumped her full of hot, thick cum. Tom's cock throbbed inside of her as each jet of semen stuck to Veronica's insides, causing her to grind herself back and force to make sure she was getting everything she possibly could. They stayed like that until Tom could get his eyes to stop crossing and his head to come back from the intensity of it all. "Again," he said. "Absolutely not!" Veronica almost yelled back, panting. "Satisfy me," the human demanded, pulling out until the head of his arousal was just pressed against her labia. Their eyes met and Veronica attempted to use all the influence she could muster to make him stop. Being a demon, and being worn down by two orgasms in a row, she failed miserably and only served to turn Tom on more than he already was. Tom slammed them back together and Veronica cried into the sheets. "Stop!" "If you don't want it, then make me." They collided again and Veronica groaned with exhaustion and ecstasy. ------------Holding Center Parking Lot------------ Andrea slammed her car door and hurried toward the building, passing two army Humvees on the way. A pintle-mounted .50 caliber swung toward her as a man on a loudspeaker told her to stop. The demon skidded to a stop, holding her hands up in surprise as over a dozen armed soldiers came out of the large building's front door, lining up with rifles drawn. "Whoa whoa whoa! I'm just here on business!" "Identify yourself!" the loudspeaker roared. "Andrea Warrenfield. I'm here to see an agent about something I gave him. It's extremely important that I meet him," she explained. It did nothing to make the guns turn from her face though. "Get on the ground and put your hands behind your head," the loudspeaker commanded, yelling a great deal less this time. Andrea nodded and slowly got on her knees and then on the ground, putting her hands behind her head. A few moments later, a gun muzzle found itself against her head and two boots placed themselves firmly on her back. Her hands were bound with zip-ties and her pockets emptied abruptly. Given that she was wearing jeans, the soldiers opted to just cut her pockets open and dump her things out, including the contents of her wallet once they had it. She was picked up and hauled into the building without explanation, her things being collected in a bag and carried in with her. She stayed silent, thinking it better not to fuck with the guys who had every reason to shoot her probably. She was taken down an elevator once inside and then moved into a room containing a table, two chairs, and a bed. The soldiers left the room one at a time, backing out with rifles drawn and trained on her face the entire time. Once the door was shut, the demon yanked on the plastic bindings that held her hands together and they snapped after a great deal of effort. She snipped them with her fingernails, allowing them to shape to claws for a moment to do so. At that, one of the soldiers outside her cell backed away from the door, rifle raised. "She's a demon. Get an agent." "Look," Andrea said, holding her hands up to show she wasn't planning anything. "I've said before I have really urgent business with an agent here. It's about something of mine I gave to him. I need to find him and... Look, just get the Director and he should be able to vouch for me, okay?" Andrea had to wait half an hour for the Director to show up, in which time she was kept under strict surveillance and had three more soldiers come to guard her cell from a safe distance. When the Director unlocked her cell, he put all her taken belongings on the table, sitting down at one of the chairs. The demon took the seat opposite his and the old human pulled a flask from his coat pocket, offering her some of what was inside. "No thanks," Andrea said. "I've got my own vices to feed," she said, taking her lighter and pack of cigarettes and lighting one. The Director took a swig of alcohol before speaking. "What's wrong with the amulet you gave Tom?" Andrea blinked in surprise. "Who else knows?" "What is wrong with it?" the Director asked again, his tone as sharp as a razor this time. "I gave him the wrong amulet," the demon admitted in a hushed tone, eyeing the soldiers outside. "It's incomplete. I brought the finished one to exchange them." "Incomplete?" growled the old man. "Or broken?" "Incomplete," Andrea replied, feeling more and more meek the longer she spent under the intense gaze directed at her. "I just need to switch them." "Then do it. Tom is out of control." The Director stood up and Andrea's brow furrowed. She grabbed her things and followed the intimidating man down a few hallways, wondering what Tom could be doing that would be considered "out of control" in a place where screwing demons was considered the norm. When they approached a door surrounded by agents and soldiers alike, she understood what it meant to be out of control here. The smell was what hit her first, even though the screaming and moaning was a great indicator. It smelled like an orgy even down the hall from the door. Various smells assailed the demon and made her mind begin to wander to places she'd like to be at the moment, like on a bed or against a wall... She dismissed her thoughts and walked up to the door, not surprised at what she found. Tom had a demon in his grasp, one leg curled beneath him and one held straight up toward the ceiling, fucking her senseless. The demon's tail was wrapped around the boy's waist, pulling him toward her every time their hips met, which sounded like it hurt. Her wings hung limply to either side of her, swinging back and forth because of the jarring motion of their fucking. She held torn sheets in her fists, face buried in them. Muffled screams escaped the room as she was screwed mercilessly by the lust-filled agent behind her. "I don't really see the problem here," Andrea remarked, drawing a sideward glance from the Director. "They've been like this for over an hour. This needs to stop," he said gruffly. "Fix it." The Director then turned and walked away, most of the onlookers following in suit as he shot them their own glances and looks. Andrea stepped into the room and looked at the amulet on Tom's chest. The sixteen-pointed sun held its place at his sternum and was fastened tightly to him, as it should be. She looked on his back and found it fastened firmly to him there as well. It wouldn't take much to remove it, but his moving around would definitely make it take a while. Tom and the demon both suddenly went still and jerked against each other, the boy's eyes squeezed shut and the demon's voice carrying much farther than it had before. Andrea grinned knowingly as she saw both their bodies go through intense orgasms. When they were through, the teen pulled out of his partner's body and panted tiredly, wiping sweat from his forehead and nose. "Well that seems to be the end of that," Andrea quipped. "They've done that about five times already," one of the agents behind her said. "They just start back up again after a few seconds. However, the demon started dragging herself toward the end of the bed, clawing the mattress as she freed her leg from the agent's grasp. "There is a hole in me that will never feel more sore than it does on this day," she said painfully, dragging herself off the bed and slumping to the floor in exhaustion. "I think that's it," Andrea offered, looking at Tom as he collapsed flat on the bed, panting like a marathon runner. "Jerhme. Jerhme, get in here. Help me up," the demon breathed. Another demon quickly entered the room and hooked his arms under hers, pulling her to her feet. She stumbled until he threw her arm over his shoulder and put his arm around her back. "I'm here," he said. The other demon nudged his head sharply with one of her purple horns. "I need ice. Bags of ice. It hurts to walk." Andrea watched the pair leave and then went over to Tom, observing him quietly as he struggled to get enough air to stay conscious. His eyelids fluttered as Andrea loomed over him, an eyebrow raised in curiosity. "You alright there, stud? She questioned, receiving a grimace in pain. "Andrea?" the agent asked. "What're...what? Don't tell me you're here to fuck me too." Andrea chuckled at that and sat down on the bed next to the panting agent. "No Tom, I came here to fix a problem that seems to have fixed itself. Lucky me, right?" "What problem?" asked Tom between pants. "Oh, nothing. Something incomplete made its way into your possession, and you managed to complete it without instructions. Anyway, I've gotta run. I'm glad to see everything turned out okay." "Wait." "What?" Andrea whined as she stood to leave. "Is this because of the amulet? Because if it is, I don't want it. My dick feels like it got run over by a semi." Andrea laughed outright at his statement, and shook her head as she saw the serious look on his face. She didn't doubt that he'd give it back, or that his cock felt the way he'd described. "It won't happen again. From now on, it'll do what I said it would." Her eyes drifted down to his throbbing erection and she bit her bottom lip. She wanted another night like the one in Klaus's club. "And after you get back, hit up the club again. I'll get you into the VIP section." Tom gave her a thumbs-up. "You betcha." Andrea left the room and shook her head in amazement. Having to wear that amulet and bring herself to orgasm until it was complete was fun, but it was also extremely tiring. It took her days to get the thing working to any degree at all, and here these two had finished it off and charged it in less than two hours. It made Andrea wonder how much better Tom was when he was the one in charge. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 12 Vendr swung the blacksmith's maul over his head and brought it down with all the strength he could muster, shattering the stonework at his feet. He pulled the head of the massive hammer from the cratered stone and struck it again just as hard, dust and fragments of masonry flying into his face and in all directions. The demon roared with rage and struck the ground over and over again, cratering stone foundations that had been built to withstand sieges and had done so dozens of times with little more than scratches to show for it. Vendr struck it so hard that it shattered like glass under his intense strength. Another strike saw the maul's haft snap like a dry twig and the head of it bounced up and snapped Vendr's head back, dazing the demon. He stumbled a few feet, trying to remain on his feet as white lights and dark spots filled his vision. After a moment's pause, he saw red again and threw himself into the stone, fists slamming against the ground like hammers until they were broken and bleeding. When Vendr heard his knuckles break against the sharp splinters of rock, he heaved a great sigh in frustration and stood up, yelling at the Eternal Sanctum in the sky, shaking his bloodies, broken fists at it as if the gesture would make him feel any less robbed and enraged. When his voice grew hoarse, the enormous demon slammed his fists into the ground one last time and then collapsed into the powder and dust beneath him, sending a cloud of it into the air. The demon let what little remained of his boiling rage bleed out of his body, taking a long time to regain control of his senses as he lay in the destruction. It was going to take him a long time to get over this denial, however. Even if his rage was waning, things would not be the same in him until the human was dead and his head mounted on a pike. Vendr let out a groan and ground his teeth together until it made his head hurt. "Usher Lanos," the demon said scathingly. He pushed himself to his knees and stared at his bloody hands, bones visible through patches where he had no skin left. "Next time...next time there will be no Brohund or Fentin." Vendr stood, collecting the two halves of the maul from the ground and making his way away from the barracks with a number of former onlookers trying to busy themselves with something other than staring at him. He cared little for all the eyes that had been upon him in his rage. Upon returning to the smithy, he placed the splintered maul on top of one of the anvils and tapped it with his hand. A blacksmith turned to him and nodded, quickly returning to his work on a blade in the forge. Vendr heaved a sigh and wiped blood from his eye, smearing red streaks across the side of his face in the process. He left the smithy and returned to his personal quarters, finding two of his slaves filling the enormous bathtub with bucket after bucket of hot, steaming water. He motioned for them to leave and they finished their work, hurrying out of the small tent room without a glance to their master. Vendr undressed and slipped tiredly into the water, every wound and bruise on his body coming aflame with pain. He took a discarded rag and began to rub the splinters of stone out of his skin, beads of blood rising through the open holes and running like water off his skin. He dipped the rag into the water and wiped his face with it, taking it away almost completely red with his blood. A slave girl swept the flap of the room open just enough to get her head through, and nodded respectfully to Vendr. "Would you like company, milord?" she asked, cheeks blushing red when Vendr turned his glare toward her. "No," he answered, waving her away. After a moment's thought, he said, "Bring me torridroot." "Torridroot?" the girl asked, eyes curious and confused. "Nevermind," the large demon said, picking himself up and out of the water. "Refill the tub. And bring a bigger washcloth." Vendr took his tabard and wrapped it around his waist, fastening it securely with a belt of tanned flesh. The slave girl nodded in shame and left to do as he'd commanded. She didn't know what torridroot was. One of the most widespread numbing agents in the Second Circle and she didn't know! Again, Mefur was giving Fentin and the generals all of the good slaves. Vendr clenched his fists in annoyance and left his quarters, moving through the encampment like a stalking giant. At just over eight feet, Vendr was an imposing figure even here in Hell. His massive shoulders barely fit in most armor, and his arms were more like tree trunks than limbs. He was the champion of this army, and he looked every bit the part. The giant admired his knuckles, mostly healed now after being cleaned. The few scars he did have still irked him however, especially the one on his face that Usher Lanos had left nearly three thousand years ago. Vendr had felt the sting of a thousand blades, been shot with every manner of projectile, had bombs thrown at him, been lit on fire. He'd suffered every manner of would one could imagine, and only a handful had even left a scarcely a scratch after it all. But that human, he had given Vendr a wound he remembered every single time he gazed upon his own image. It devoured Vendr's pride in such a way that the giant felt bloodlust rising to the fore even now. He nearly tore the flap off the front of the apothecary's quarters as he entered, a flurry of thoughts spinning through his head. Foremost among them was how close he'd been to killing the human earlier, and that oaf Brohund had stopped him only feet from his vengeance. Luckily, Usher Lanos had killed the dimension-spying demon before he could be of any more nuisance than he'd been already. Now he didn't need to be paid an estate, a fortune, and a horde of slaves. It lessened Vendr's anger to not have his lord pay the demon for his services in the human realm, but only slightly. "You came for something, milord?" asked one of the apothecary's lackeys, a thin, wiry demon bearing a large tube of dark fluid on his back like a beast of burden. "Torridroot." After a moment's thought, the demon's frown lightened. "And vanilla scents, Oils, incense, what have you." "I suppose this falls under the acquisition request from a commanding officer?" the demon replied, wetting the end of a quill with blood from his tongue. A large sheet of parchment unfolded from his long, filthy sleeve. "Yes," the giant grumbled. He watched the lackey slip away through the cloth doorway and then disappear amongst the various chests and jars and shelves of materials. Vendr waited outside the apothecary's quarters and idly thought about the demon he'd nearly killed earlier. As strong as she seemed, coming through a human portal had robbed her of her greater powers and left her comparable to a mortal in Vendr's eyes. He'd split her nose and lips with ease, not even using a tenth of his strength to shatter her face and teeth and break most of her ribs. He flexed his fist and almost felt her hair between his fingers, clenched tightly around silken fibers. It had been a long, long time since he'd struck a woman. It was difficult to imagine how many souls he had slain in his life, but to his credit, not one had been unarmed unless Fentin had ordered him to do it. The thought of striking that woman down in cold blood on orders rubbed him the wrong way. He was almost relieved Fentin hadn't wanted her killed. "As much as I could find, milord," the lackey said, drawing Vendr from his reverie. Without looking down at the demon, Vendr took the bag from him and made his way back to his tent, undressing as he entered. He handed the bag of herbs and pleasant-scented items to one of the slaves and swept open the flap before him. In his bath tub rested a woman he didn't know. "Hello there," the woman cooed smoothly, nudging her shoulder as the slave girl Vendr had ordered to fill up the tub massaged her shoulders with a look of anxiousness written across her pale features. "Care to join me? There's more than enough room in here for the three of us." Vendr grunted. "Get out." The woman slapped the slave girl's hands away and stood up, clearly annoyed. "And refuse a gift from your lord? I was sent here as compensation for-" Vendr's hand reached the succubus' throat in an instant, and he placed its partner between her legs, lifting her off her feet. "There is no compensation for denying me vengeance. Leave. Now." Vendr removed his hand from the succubus' neck and she gasped for breath, her glare faltering as he pushed three fingers into her core and lifted her out of the bronze bath tub with one hand. She attempted to dissuade him by using her powers to enthrall him, but he shook her influence off without much effort. He'd been hardened by thousands of years of war, and his mental facilities were far beyond what the common harlot could hope to enrapture without having incredible focus and strength herself. Vendr set her down on the ground and removed his fingers from her, opting instead to grab her head in a tight knot and slam her skull against the lip of the tub. It rang like a bell so loud that the slave witnessing the act collapsed to her knees, holding her hands to her ears. Vendr dragged the dazed succubus out of his tent and instructed two slaves to take her back to the succubus harem where Fentin had no doubt gotten her from. Vendr returned to the bathtub and grabbed it, stilling the remaining vibrations causing it to ring. The slave girl took her hands away from her head and looked up at the giant, as if she were looking upon a god. "Get up," he ordered. Without question, she stood, trembling with a mix of fear and physical trauma. "Your will, milord?" "Bring me the torridroot. I have great need of an escape," he said dryly, getting into the bathtub without looking at the girl. She left the room and quickly returned with a large, misshapen lump of fibrous vegetation in her hands. "Here you are, milord," she offered, extending her hands toward him with the torridroot resting in her palms. He took it and bit into the disgusting thing, grimacing as he chewed it into pulp and sucked the foul juice from its fibers. "Take some," he said, holding the root out to her. "Milord?" she asked. "Girl, if I did not want you to have it, I would not have offered it. Take some," he explained in a short tone. She nodded and took a small bit of it between her teeth, chewing it slowly. Vendr snapped a large bulb off the root and handed it to the girl. This time, she didn't need to be told to take it, and let him drop it into her palms wordlessly. Vendr forced a swallow of foul juice and took a deep breath, numbness spreading through his thoughts. torridroot was one of the few things that remained soothing to him. Most other distractions had lost their luster in ages past, but this was a constant, a firm rock that he could always fall back upon for a mirage of tranquility. The slave girl beside him gagged as she swallowed a bit of the root and tried to keep it from showing as the swollen lump in her throat dragged itself down into her stomach. She looked very sheepish as he eyed her reaction. "You don't swallow the root, only the nectar." She nodded. "I apologize for my ignorance, milord. We baphomets have few among us who have heard of things like this." "A baphomet!" Vendr exclaimed, bracing his hands against the side of the tub to lift himself out of the water. "You're a baphomet? A chanter?" She flushed bright red and shook her head. "No, milord. Only the most prominent among us are chanters. I am merely a slave." Vendr extended his hand to the girl. Misunderstanding, she quickly handed him back the bulb of torridroot in her hands. He sighed and set it on a small table beside the tub. "Come, sing me something." The girl put her hand into his, a tiny and frail thing in his grasp. He pulled her gently toward the tub, and she reluctantly slipped into it with him. She sat at the opposite end of the bronze bathtub and tossed her gaze around nervously, unwilling to look him in the eyes. "I have not received my voice yet," she said despondently. Vendr nodded slowly. "Then hum me something. I need only hear the tunes." The girl opened her mouth to speak, but faltered in her thoughts and slumped against the back of the tub. Her breath caught in her chest and the giant tapped the side of the tub with two fingers. "I'm sorry-" "It is not beyond your power to hum me a simple tune. Now," Vendr grunted, waving two fingers back and forth like he was pantomiming something spinning. "Before my patience wears thin." The demon dislodged the torridroot from his mouth and tossed it on the ground, taking another piece from the chunk in his hand. The baphomet began to hum softly, slowly, long rhythms rising up her throat and into the still air. Vendr's shoulders relaxed a little as he picked up a familiar tune in her voice. He closed his eyes, thoughts drifting away from the Zuldspire, away from the present, long into the past. Her voice carried him aloft into dreams that woke him at night in a cold sweat and sent shivers up and down his spine. His mind put a voice to the tune, words drifting to and fro upon the melody that the girl spun around and around on a slow, methodic axis. Vendr's thoughts unwound slowly, at first coming away in little ribbons, and then unfurling like banners until they fluttered about in the calming breeze he had become enraptured with. "Avana," he breathed almost inaudibly, reaching into his thoughts to stroke the frail, tanned cheek that nuzzled his fingertips warmly. Soft. She was always so soft, and his grasp upon her so tender because of it. He always felt like he was going to break her if he did anything more than simply graze her or hold her. A smile passed before his fingers and he tilted his head up as her words began to intermingle with the tune running through his ears. Her voice picked up upon the tune and curled around each long note, bringing his mind to a place of ease and stillness. He had no fears, no pain, no rage or anger. He found serenity in her voice, the gentle thrum of her thoughts passing through his lifting him above the heavy burdens that kept him in armor nearly every day of his life. "The Panoply," he said, requesting what she had always loved to sing for him. "Milord?" Everything came to a halt and Vendr's eyes snapped open, his thoughts thrown to every corner of the world in an instant. He stared at the baphomet before him for a long moment, pulling his realization of what was going on back together. He looked down and shook his head. "Nothing," he said, staring at his reflection in the water. He took the torridroot out of his mouth and opted to put the rest of the bulb in his hand into his mouth. He needed relaxation right now, more than anything. "Should I...?" "Continue," Vendr said, feeling the slight numbness start to take him slowly. A moment later, the tune began anew and he closed his eyes. This time, he saw nothing of Avana, and clenched his jaw in disappointment. ------------ Memphis International Airport ------------ The Director ground his teeth together in silence as the plane rose off the runway, a phone to his ear. None of the agents assembled in the cabin said a word to him. Tom's eyes moved from agent to agent, finding nothing on their faces that would indicate that they wanted to make small talk while the Director was in close proximity in the mood he was in. The plane tilted toward the heavens and began to climb into the sky in earnest, engines roaring. It amazed Tom to no end that thirty minutes ago all the agents on the plane had been at the Holding Center, and now they were on their way to Japan to access a natural rift between earth and Hell. In the aftermath of the sneak attack on the Holding Center, several security organizations had come to the conclusion that Fentin had opened up a rift between the realms right in front of the one that the Special Divisions had put together and stepped into the basement in what looked like the right portal to the agents. It was concluded that Brohund had been the mole in the Special Divisions and had been the one who killed the security team that the Director had tried to contact during the attack. So, with intelligence breached, all records had been locked down, sensitive data copied to a private data vault in Idaho, and subsequently expunged from the more "public" access databanks available to the CIA, FBI, and NSA. Tom could only imagine what kind of information couldn't be trusted to any of those three organizations. Possibly world-ending news, but he didn't care enough to delve into deeper thought about it. Things like angels and demons existed. What could possibly be surprising after that? In the meantime, the Director had acquisitioned a jet to fly the team going to Hell, now missing Allen, to Japan. Apparently, from what Jehrme had mentioned, the Director had only been able to get the cooperation of the US government and the Japanese government by shooting off top-tier clearance codes like confetti. So, here they sat on a plane bound for Odate-Noshiro Airport in northern Japan. The Director hung up his phone and redialed a number, putting the device up to his ear with a scowl. It rang for a moment and then someone answered on the other line. "An English-speaker please," he grunted. There was another pause. "I need access to the Shirakami-Sanchi restricted zone two. Yes I understand who I am talking to; I've been trying to get you on the goddamned phone for ten minutes. Fuck this, clearance code Midway. Yeah, Shin, I know you're listening in. Get this fucking moron off the phone and talk to me." The Director switched to Japanese and lost Tom completely. The teen, unable to meet the Director's wandering gaze, turned his own eyes elsewhere. Agents sat in luxury airline chairs and either slept or chatted quietly amongst themselves. Greg and Harvey sat in the furthest back row and looked like they were both asleep with their heads back and legs extended, eyes closed. The only one who showed any kind of emotion was Veronica, who had, since leaving the Holding Center, been unable to contain herself at all. She lay across three seats with pillows propping her ass in the air and a gas station sack of ice pressed against the junction of her legs. Her wings hung lazily across two rows of seats in either direction, like enormous fleshy "keep out" signs. Her horns ripped the seat cushion her head lay on as she adjusted her position slightly. A moan escaped her lips as the sack of ice shifted. "Tom, you stay away from me," she warned, groaning with effort as she turned herself a bit to look at him. "You never take that cock of yours out near me again." "She's delirious," Jerhme said, trying to hush the demon as she swatted his hands away. "No. I've never been fucked like that before. My vagina hurts more than the time I got shot in it. You just keep it in your pants and we'll be good." "Okay..." Tom replied, unsure of what was going on. Jerhme offered him a little help. "She's come back into her powers in earnest because of you. To put it simply, she's drunk with all the new power she has. She'll come out of it soon." "Oh shut up, Jerhme," Veronica snapped. "I do not kowtow to any mortal man's cock." She continued a moment later with, "Even if it did make me bloom like a flower." "I know you don't," Jerhme assured. Veronica growled at him and bared her fangs. "I wasn't talking to you. I was talking to the human I want inside me." She looked at Tom. "How about it? Care for another one of those encounters? Maybe you can fill me up without breaking my kooch this time." The plane bumped, causing Veronica's ice sack to shift again. She let out a painful grunt. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 12 "You okay?" asked Tom. "Nevermind. No sex. Ever. Nope." She buried her face in a pillow and screamed. Jerhme gave Tom an apologetic look and looked unsure of how to put his hands in his lap as he watched Veronica scream and pound her fist into the back of a chair, snapping its insides like twigs. "You've accomplished a rare feat. Breaking the seals that your human portals put upon us is a very difficult task. I've never seen her that worked up before." "I'll be sure to remember that if she ever tries to spread rumors that I'm lame in the sack," Tom replied sardonically. Jerhme just sighed and returned to watching over Veronica. The teen watched Veronica screaming into the pillow, arching her back in pain. "So how exactly did I make all that happen?" asked Tom after a silence between Jerhme and himself. The demon turned to him and gave a knowing smile. "We from the Second Circle are only capable of the things we are known for because we have sex. It energizes us. It feeds us and gives us power. The seals your human portals place on us limit what we are able to do, and greatly reduce the effectiveness of sex on our abilities. You pleasured her to such an extent that it broke the seals and allowed her to take in all the energy and power you generated with her. As I said, it is a rare feat, though not unheard of." "So we outsexed magic?" Tom reiterated in leyman's terms. Jerhme chuckled a bit at that. "No, not quite. In those terms, you outsexed Varonica, and in turn, she was able to break the seals to enjoy it more." "She didn't really look like she was enjoying it all that much," Tom admitted guiltily, shooting Veronica a glance as she slammed her fist into the seat cushion with thunderous force. "She still doesn't." "Her tail wrapped around you, which was enough a sign of her true intentions that whatever she said didn't matter," Jerhme explained in almost a bored tone, as if he were telling Tom this for the fifth or sixth time. "Well, I guess that about answers everything about it," Tom said in resignation. "Should I apologize to her once she, you know, comes back to her senses? I feel like I did a shitty thing to her knocking her up like this- not, knocking her up like baby-wise, but, fuck, you know what I mean." Jerhme shook his head. "There is no need. She enjoyed it." Tom breathed a sigh in relief. "Awesome, 'cause it'd be really awkward to have to pull her aside and be like 'hey, sorry for scrambling your insides with my cock, no hard feelings, right?'" "Apology not accepted," Varonica moaned, turning her head away from the pillow. "You owe me several, not one, not three, several mind-blowing orgasms that don't involve me being fucked senseless against my will." She shot a scathing look to Jerhme. The rest of the flight to Japan, Tom kept mostly to Greg and Harvey's vicinity and joked with them about things and talked for a while. Having them around almost always brightened his mood, and they kept him occupied as time passed and the sun sank in the east, their flight taking them into the early hours of the morning in Japan, just before the sunrise. When they landed, the agents were gathered up and the Director picked out the eight that were going to Hell and separated them from the twenty that were going as support and would return to Earth once Ceria's guests had made it into her care. "You seven," he started. "Are going to get in a van that will take you as far into the forest as physically possible, and then you'll walk until you're in Hell. You twenty are flying back to America now for debriefing." "Wait a minute," Mattiesko protested, but the Director shot his objection down in a stony glare. "Shin said any more than necessary would cause trouble for him and threatened to scrap the operation if we didn't meet his demand. So, twenty of you go back, seven of you go. Hop to it." With everything out in the open, the two groups went their separate ways, one looking relieved and sitting back down to return home, the other following the Director with apprehension and anxiety. Jerhme carried Veronica off the plane bridal-style, his arm under the sack of ice drizzling water out of a small hole at the end. Veronica shifted her legs uncomfortably and ground her teeth. "Gentle," she managed to say, grimacing. Tom exited the plane after then and a chill hit him almost immediately. His breath floated away in an icy breeze and he shivered, looking out at the dim white scenery. The whole airport was covered in several inches of snow, and the stuff fell in flurries, carried every which way by the growing wind that slapped Tom like sandpaper. "Head count!" the Director shouted as he walked over to what Tom guessed was the welcoming committee. "White Death!" Mattiesko shouted back his callsign for the mission. "Battleborne!" Allen's replacement, Oscar, said, looking smug. "Bloodsugar!" Greg sounded off. "Prince Charming!" Harvey raised his voice. "Taskmaster!" Jerhme answered, prodding his companion. "Purple Heart!" she yelled. "Jailbait!" Tom groaned. Everyone turned their heads toward him and Veronica outright burst into hysterical laughter, only to be silenced as the sack of ice slipped from between her legs. "Jailbait, really?" Oscar, asked. "Climbed on top of his first demon at fourteen," Greg explained. "The Goddess, if I remember right, wasn't it, Tom? Your first demon?" Oscar laughed in a demeaning way. "That is absolutely hilarious." Tom didn't say anything. His first demon. His first demon had murdered both of his foster parents, the Talaky's. He bit back a lump in his throat as he remembered their dead, distant gazes staring at him without souls. He closed his eyes and tried to breathe easier, the wind biting his cheeks fiercely. "Fall in!" the Director yelled from across the runway. The team of seven made their way to him through inches of snow, trudging after him as he followed two short men into the airport. Inside, they navigated the building to the front and boarded a van, piling into it like prisoners on a chain gang. The doors slammed as they were seated and the van started off to the Shirakami- Sanchi. The ride was rather tense, with nobody speaking as they began to feel the gravity of the situation beginning to take hold. This didn't have the usual pomp and order and ceremony that these sorts of events usually had. It was a silent, professional affair. Half an hour later, the van stopped and the back doors opened and an elderly Japanese man leaning on a cane smiled up at the seven. "Hello, it is very nice to meet you all," he said, raising a hand. "This is Uesugi Isoroku. He's the Annainin of the Shirakami-Sanchi, the guide. He'll tell you how to navigate your way to Hell. Beyond this point, you're on your own." One by one, he shook each of the agents' hands, giving Tom a hard pat on the shoulder. They shared a nod and then the Director got into the back of the van, closing the doors behind him. The vehicle drove away and left six shivering agents, one wincing demon, and a cheerful old man out in the snow. "You are here to walk the path to the other world, yes?" Isoroku said, looking the team over with intrigue. "Get on with it," Veronica growled through clenched teeth. The old man's eyes gleamed. "You two know the path. You will find what you seek. Go on; they will join you." Jerhme nodded and started off into the forest, trudging through snow that was up to his knees. The two demons were lost in the nearly absolute darkness as they left the light of the lamp hanging from a tree limb above. "So...that's it? We walk?" asked Oscar, sounding skeptical. "Come with me," the guide said jovially, waving a hand. The remaining five followed, but the old man held his hand up and asked for only Oscar to follow. The others stepped back and Oscar was spoken to in the darkness, and then Isoroku returned, leaning heavily on his cane. "Come with me," he pointed to Mattiesko. They left the light and then the old man returned again, without Mattiesko. Tom looked at Greg and Harvey, but they shrugged, and Harvey left with the old man. "What the fuck is going on?" Tom asked incredulously. "Fuck if I know," Greg answered, shrugging. "The Director trusts this guy, and we've got no other way into Hell, so this is it I guess. He said we'd find Veronica and Jerhme at least." "I think we have a better chance of freezing and dying than finding them in the middle of a rift between worlds," Tom commented dryly, as Isoroku came back with a smile. "This forest is old. It knows many things, many paths that have been travelled, many souls that have come looking for the things you do. Let it guide you. Come, I will start this one on his journey." Greg followed him into the darkness and Tom was left alone, shifting uncomfortably in the knee-deep snow until the guide returned, tracing a path in the snow he had taken before. "So now you take me where I need to go?" Tom asked, hoping to get out of the chill that was starting to sink into his legs, feet, and hands. Why the group hadn't been winter-equipped for this mission he didn't know. Twenty-something coats and jackets wouldn't have taken that long to get. "We will speak plainly about things," the guide said, reaching up with his cane to hook the handle of the lamp above them and take it down effortlessly. He set it down on the snow and white, fluffy powder melted away from it, revealing a large stump just beneath the snow's surface. "But first, we will have sake," he finished with a grin, flipping the top of the lamp up and taking out a jug with a handle. Steam rose from the top. "Huh, nifty little thing there," Tom remarked. Iroroku nodded and reached into the snow, pulling out of it two large, shallow dishes and what looked to be two fold-out stools. He handed a stool to Tom and they both set up seats on opposite sides of the stump, Tom fumbling with there the snow was actually deep and where the stump's edge was. It was a little unsettling here, to be the last one left of his comrades with this old man who had led everyone else into the darkness and returned without them. Even so, he managed to push his anxiousness down and fake a smile through his shivering. Isoroku hung the lamp up again and then poured sake into the dishes. The guide raised his dish with one hand, holding it so still that the only motion on the hot liquid's surface was that of snowflakes hitting it. Tom had to raise his with two hands to keep it steady, and nodded in thanks. They drank, and then two more drinks were poured. "You bring many worries into this place," Isoroku stated solemnly, taking another drink. "Yeah, no kidding. I've almost died twice in the past three days. I saw someone die in my place today, actually." Tom drank. Hot, dry liquid made his throat hurt, but he finished it off anyway, having another drink poured quickly. "You are alive. What has happened cannot be changed. No matter how long ago." Tom narrowed his eyes. "If you're telling me to get over what happened when I was fourteen, we can just forget this whole thing and you just let me wander out into the dark." "I do not know what happened to you. But you bring it with you here, and the forest does not want you to travel through it with such a heavy heart. Release it, like a ribbon adrift in the wind." Tom sighed. "The last ribbon I saw drifting in the wind was a piece of skin from a guy I saw die in front of me. How the fuck am I supposed to just let that go, like this?" Tom pantomimed grabbing his tie and throwing it into the breeze. Isoroku nodded. "Yes. It took me many years here to find a way to release the hurt in my heart. You have learned it in a single night." "I haven't learned shit!" Tom shouted. He took the sake and downed the now-cold dish in one long gulp. Isoroku poured him another one immediately. "You have learned what to do, but not how. How comes after." Tom rolled his eyes. "Lotta help you are, mister Miyagi." "You will find your path in this forest. I have heard the guides here are very friendly. They are more than willing to help a weary traveler who will sit and listen a while." Isoroku smiled and motioned for Tom's sake dish. The teen downed the warm sake and passed the empty dish to the old man, who raised the rest of the jug of sake to his mouth and proceeded to drink the rest of it without taking a break for air. "I guess that means I need to scooty-puff my junior out of here, huh?" he asked rhetorically, standing to leave. "If you feel you are ready to let go of your heavy heart's pain and find your path," the guide answered, giving the teen no help at all. "I'll be fine. I hear the guides here are an incredible help finding where to go," Tom joked, starting off into the darkness. The lamp behind him went dark and Isoroku chuckled with mirth. "They are certainly better than the ones in Aokigahara." Tom had no idea what the guide's last comment meant, but didn't dwell on it as he trudged into the thick snow and flurries, hugging his arms to his body. At least he had some alcohol in his system to keep him warm, if not a bit unsteady on his feet. He kept his mind out darker places, trying to stay focused on finding a path through the forest. With all this snow, it was literally impossible to know where the fuck he was going. Everything looked the same, snow blasting everything in sight and filling his face with cold, stinging flakes. He looked up at the sky, and found that the forest was so dense with branches and snow and leaves that he couldn't see shit, especially not in the dark. The agent searched the forest for what seemed like hours, inebriated, freezing, and absolutely lost. He stumbled over what he believed to be the thousandth root today and cursed at the top of his lungs, lying in the snow looking up. He knew the sun was out, but the snow was so thick that he couldn't see anything but wet, heavy fluff and darkness. "At least it looks pretty out here," he said, pushing himself to his feet. He wiped snow out of his face with his sleeve and continued, legs sore and feet aching. His shoes were sopping wet and freezing and he couldn't feel his toes or fingers, but he didn't have a choice but to keep going. Stopping meant that he'd probably freeze. "You look lost," said a voice out of the darkness. Immediately, Tom fumbled with the sword on his back and drew it, holding it with half-numb fingers. He looked around, finding nobody. "Hello?" he shouted, not waiting for a reply. "I'm looking for a path through the forest!" "Then put that away and come closer," the voice replied impishly, giggling. Tom pursed his lips in thought, and then managed to get his claymore back into its scabbard. He debated keeping his gun ready, but thought better of it. Whoever was out here was probably able to take him on no matter what he had on him. He didn't know if he was in Hell yet or not, so he needed to keep his head on straight and play by the rules at least until he understood what was going on. "Alright, it's put up. Where are you?" "Behind you," the voice replied, warm breath causing his entire left side to shiver. Tom fought the instinct to whirl around with his elbow at the last moment, and just turned to face the new person. In the snow stood a woman in a thin white robe, looking up at him through black hair that hugged her robe wetly, as if she'd been out here for a long while. She smiled, bowing to him politely. Tom repeated the gesture back to her and she held out her hand. "Come, my home is not far from here," she said, leading him through the snow with the sure-footedness of a cat. Tom had trouble keeping up with her pace, so she slowed down and let him fumble through the darkness and snow behind her, holding onto her hand as a lifeline. They climbed the side of what Tom guessed to be a mountain for a while, occasionally walking over small wooden walkways built over frozen streams. They wound through the forest without saying anything, the woman not even looking back as Tom struggled to understand how she was able to navigate this place so easily. After a while, he asked, "Are you another Annainin?" The woman stopped and laughed at his question before running both of her hands through her hair with a sigh. "No. I simply live here." "Then have you come across anyone else here? I came here with six other people." The woman shook her head and took his hand again. "No. You're the first in a great many years." Her words had almost a sad quality to them, but he couldn't think about it as they began to follow the path only she could see at a fast pace. Not long afterward, they came upon a small building in the side of the mountain. A squat wooden shack stood against a rock face, light shining through its leather-shuttered windows. Smoke blew away in the wind, rising out of a small stack of stones jutting from the roof. Tom followed her to the door and she swept the door aside, ushering him inside. She pressed the cloth door outward and unfurled a bamboo mat from the top of the doorway, wedging it into the frame to keep the wind and snow out. The temperature rose greatly after the wind ceased to whip through the house and Tom breathed a sigh in comfort. "Thanks," Tom said, unzipping his jacked. He placed it on the floor and leaned his sword against the wall. The agent bit the tip of one of his gloves, pulling his hand out of it and flexing his fingers, realizing they were almost completely numb by now. He took off his other glove and then worked on his boots. "Let me," the woman said, stepping in front of Tom and kneeling before him subserviently. She unlaced his boots and then took them off, peeling his wet socks off as well. She placed them next to his other clothes and then reached up for his belt. "Whoa! Whoa no, I can do that. No problem," Tom countered, grabbing her hands and gently pushing them away from his crotch. The woman looked confused. "You don't...you don't know what I am, do you?" she asked. "Clearly a demon of some sort," Tom droned. "But I'm not sure what that has to do with this." "They call me a yuki-onna here. I've taken you into my home, and now you are obligated to lie with me tonight," she stated as-a-matter-of-factly. She reached back up for his belt, but he held her hands away. "Not interested. I'll be leaving now," Tom said, stepping to the side to get his jacket. The woman looked stunned, and stood to block him. He pushed past her, annoyed, and got his jacket off the floor. "You can't leave," she said, sounding deadly serious. "Just try and stop me," he shot back, picking up his sword. His hand was thrown against the wall, dragging his body with it. His claymore clattered to the floor and the agent growled in frustration and pain, trying to grasp what had just happened. He turned to the yuki-onna and found her with a large block of ice floating above her clenched fist. She punched the air and sent the ice flying toward him. He raised his arm to shield his face, but the ice struck his hand and pinned it to the wall, like it had his other hand. He realized now that he was stuck, and another block of ice pinning his ankle. He kicked the ice off with his free foot and then found both his feet were pinned together with more ice. "Now, lie with me, human," the yuki-onna said, smiling at him with plush, blue lips. "Look, I have better...shit, really? I've had sex like seven times today. Cut me a break, please?" he pleaded, knowing his body was definitely not ready to do this again. The woman looked surprised. "Seven times? I must have pleased some deity. A man like you is very rare in this forest." She strode across the small room and let the bindings around his hands and feet melt away, unbuckling his belt and snaking it off his waist easily. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 12 "Seriously. I don't think there's juice left in me to do it again." "There is," she chimed in, unbuttoning his pants and unzipping them slowly. "I know because I can feel it inside you." She pushed his shirt up his chest and kissed his navel. He felt a familiar arousal stirring and stifled a moan as she started kissing up his body with warm, wet kisses. She pushed his shirt up enough and he took it off, tossing it with his jacket. "This room doesn't seem big enough," Tom commented as she reached his neck and licked from his shoulder to his jaw, murmuring something darkly. "This is not my whole house," she replied, snaking her hands down his body to his pants again. She knelt down and pulled his boxers and pants down slowly. She released his throbbing arousal and it hit her in the chin, startling her. She recovered quickly and smiled broadly, licking her lips. "Don't even think about it. I don't feel anything unless we're having actual sex." "That is no problem at all. I merely want to taste it," she explained, grabbing his balls with one hand and placing the other at the base of his shaft. Her lips met his cockhead and she closed her eyes, moaning with satisfaction. She lowered her head a few inches and ran her tongue along the underside of his cock. He looked down impassively. Despite it being very, very hot, he didn't feel any kind of stimulation from it aside from just feeling she was touching him. The demon moaned and retracted her head, pumping his shaft slowly as she flicked away the string of saliva connecting her lips and his arousal. "See?" Tom asked, hoping to get past this. "Are you sure you want to skip this?" asked the demon, pumping precum out of his cock eagerly, smirking as if she was enticing him. "We can sit here all day and you tug my cock until it comes off, and I won't cum. I told you I don't feel anything unless it's sex." The demon's brow furrowed. "I don't understand. What's wrong with it?" She poked the tip of his glans with her finger, as if it would help her decipher what the issue was. Tom sighed. "I'm cursed. Let's just get this over...with..." He trailed off as she engulfed his cock again with her mouth and lowered her head until her lips met his crotch. She closed her eyes and let her tongue play with his shaft, licking him all over. Tom folded his arms and sighed, cock throbbing in the snow woman's throat. As extraordinarily hot as this was, he was completely unaffected and needed to get out of here. "Can you just stop?" In response, the demon began to palm his balls, playing with them as she bobbed her head up and down on his cock. A tingle of arousal struck up his body and he sighed, heartbeat beginning to rise. The last person to do that without threatening him with castration was the Goddess, and she was one great lay. He cracked a little grin at the memory of crawling on top of the demon, trying to get a feel for a woman's body as she instructed him on what to do and how to bring her to orgasm in several different ways. The woman looked up at him curiously, still sucking his member. Tom put his hand on the back of her head and smiled at her. "Just thinking about someone else is all. You done tasting me yet?" She shook her head, swallowing. Tom felt her throat tighten around his glans and found his mind wandering to places he'd visited before. As her tongue travelled up and down his shaft, he wondered what it would feel like to be normal and have this happen to him. Did it feel the same way normal sex did? Not in the sense that it would feel texturally the same, but would he get off in a different way. He knew from Andrea that anal was able to do the same thing for him that regular sex did, save for bring him to climax. Did this do the same thing for regular people? Was it as satisfying? More satisfying? His experiences with Sohm wasn't any help in the matter; everything she did to him all felt the same. The yuki-onna rose from his cock and kissed the tip as precum dribbled from it in thick, dripping beads. "You were telling the truth," she said, more a question though. "Why would I lie about that?" Tom retorted, pulling his pants up. "So we're done here, right?" She pulled his pants down to his ankles and shook her head. "Share your warmth with me for one night. It's so cold in this forest all alone, without a man here to comfort me and feed my innermost desires." She pouted at him, her eyes gleaming with moisture. Tom gave her a flat look and folded his arms across his chest, unmoved. He'd learned a long time ago what sincerity from a demon sounded like. The yuki-onna sounded like Ceria did, teasing, condescension beneath her request. The demon frowned when she realized she wasn't getting anywhere, and sighed. "So, where do we begin?" Tom asked, stepping out of his pants. The demon's lips curled into a smile and the wind outside blew hard, shooting puffs of snow through the cracks in the windows and bamboo covering the door. "Wherever you'd like," she replied mischievously. She stood up and turned around, looking at him over her shoulder, batting her eyelashes. "Undress me?" Tom decided that fighting her wasn't going to get him anywhere, and going back outside was completely unthinkable in this weather. He assumed she controlled it, so that'd be doubly bad for him if that turned out to actually be the case. He took a long, deep breath and smoothed out all the wrinkles and objections in his mind. He let his breath out against the nape of her neck and grinned, placing his hands on the petite demon's shoulders. "With pleasure," he replied as sensually as he could. He saw the skin on her neck rise like it was alive, and she shivered visibly with anticipation. Tom trailed his hands down she sides of her body, drifting over smooth, supple curves and pressing against the silk robe wrapped tightly around her. He reached the thick sash at her hips and tugged at it gently. His fingers slipped along its length, unfurling it little portions at a time, teasing the demon with slowness. Tom watched her breath come out in thick, heavy clouds of vapor, and she moaned as her sash fell to the floor. Tom opened her robe and ran his hands up her body again, feeling smooth as he let his fingertips explore her body. His hands reached her shoulders and pulled her robe from them. She held her arms back so he could remove the garment and it pooled at their feet noiselessly. "No more robe to hide you from me." He kissed the demon's ear. "Kimono," she corrected, reaching back to feel him. He moved forward and pressed himself against her, his arousal throbbing against her backside. His hands found their way to her hips again, and slowly moved across her body to her front. She moaned as he rubbed her inner thighs slowly, relishing the fact that she was about as wet as could be from it all. Her face was turning pink, though the rest of her body was nearly as pale as the snow outside, just a few shades darker than it. Tom parted her creamy thighs with little effort and rubbed her clit with his thumb. She gasped at his attentions and went rigid. "You wanna do it here?" Tom asked the demon, nibbling at her ear and letting out a warm, long breath into her ear. She moaned outright and grabbed his hand, putting it against her sex. "Make me warm," she uttered. Tom let go of her ear and nodded, tracing her slit with his fingertips. Slick fluid coated his fingers and they easily found passage into her body. They wasted no time, and were buried in her heat to the third knuckle in only a second. She sucked in a deep breath and curled her toes. Tom began to pump his fingers in and out of her in a slow rhythm, sliding his other hand up her body, counting her ribs as his fingers passed them one by one. She melted into him and leaned her head back against his chest. Tom gave her a warm kiss on her crown and cupped her breast with his hand. Her knees quivered, but she remained standing, his fingers pumping in and out of her slowly, keeping rhythm with Tom's heartbeat. He squeezed her breast lightly, testing her reaction. Her eyes closed and she let out a pleased moan, drifting on a sexual wave. Tom rubbed his thumb across her breast, pressing down on her areola as it passed. He then rubbed her hard nipple as it responded to his touch. Her areola swelled as he continued to gently rub her breast, keeping his tone very smooth and very gentle. The yuki-onna seemed to be losing herself in his attentions, letting him play with her body as he wanted. He leaned down and whispered sweet nothings into her ear, and she shuddered and moaned at every one, enjoying his breath in her ear. He guessed this was what it was like to be on the giving end of sexy whispering. He liked it. Soon though, his needs outmatched his desire for foreplay, and his hands fell to her thighs. The demon was more than ready to continue, and lifted her legs as he pulled them up. He lifted her body up and gently let her back down enough to straddle his throbbing manhood, as if she were going to ride it. She rubbed her dripping heat against his shaft, biting her lip with anticipation. Tom gritted his teeth as her sex rubbed him, coaxing his innermost primal needs with the promise of the ultimate pleasure. The agent stood there, unmoving, and breathed down the demon's neck with as much self-restraint as he could muster. He didn't get to do much foreplay with his curse. This was basically the only foreplay he got gratification from, and he relished every second of it. There was something about having a woman, being close enough to reach inside of her, being able to...and not doing it. It felt empowering on a level he couldn't replicate. "Please," the demon breathed. She turned her head to him and he leaned forward, pressing his lips to her in a tender, hungry kiss. If it was possible to capitulate to him any further, she did it right then and there, giving him every last bit of control she clung to. Tom leaned into the kiss and raised her hips, allowing his erection to rise, his glans pressing against her core. He stuck his tongue into her mouth, past her teeth to mingle with its mate. His mind went to the furthest reaches of pleasure when he lowered her onto his pulsing cock, having to curl slightly to maintain their kiss as she came down on him. They both trembled with lust and satisfaction. Tom started pumping in and out of her at an easy swing, raking his sensitive nerve across flesh that was too pleasurable to be human. The demon pushed fierceness into their kiss, invading his mouth with her tongue and cupping his face with her hands. Long tresses of her black hair became tangled between them, and she removed one hand from Tom's face to brush them away, stuttering in her action as Tom reached the apex of his drive into her body. Outside, the wind picked up again and snow thudded against the walls. The yuki-onna arched her back away from him, driving him deeper as her hips rolled toward him. He penetrated to the furthest limit she had and the demon's eyes went wide. She bit his tongue and moaned in ecstasy before he pulled back again. They found a nice pace and Tom leaned back against the wall, finding it a trying task to support himself and her and have sex all at the same time. Her hands continually repositioned themselves, on his face, in his hair, unable to find out what to do. The demon seemed to have trouble keeping her thoughts together as they ground their sexes together, coming nearly apart, and then sliding together, pleasure points flaring with nerve endings that felt unholy stimulation. They reached the apex of their grind and Tom slid his hands toward her knees, lifting her legs to a higher angle. His cock penetrated her at a vastly different angle, and she broke their kiss to squeal, saliva dripping from her gleaming blue lips. "My whole body..." she murmured, trembling with ecstasy and excitement. "Yuki-hime," Tom cooed, leaning in to kiss her again. Her eyes widened as their lips connected, and she rocked herself against him hard, moaning into his mouth. He responded by tightening his grip on her thighs and bucking up harder, driving his erection against bundles of sensitive nerves inside her core. Their pace picked up in speed and intensity, both of them grinding harder and harder, yearning for more contact than their bodies could give. That didn't stop them from trying though, and their tempo soared as high as their lust. Tom felt a growing need in his loins and slid his right arm beneath both her knees, raising her legs almost to her chest. His free hand snaked up to her breast and fondled it, pinching her nipple between two fingers. She shuddered with absolute delight and arched like a gymnast each time she rocked herself down on his cock, pushing him through a network of unholy flesh that pulsed and tugged at his member, trying to keep it seated within the demon. Tom felt like he couldn't contain his orgasm for a second longer, and the demon gripped his hair tightly, pulling like she was trying to rip his hair out. Her body tensed all over and she bit down on his bottom lip. Tom felt his orgasm explode and a shock ran though him, racing up and down his shaft, passing up his body and into his head, where it bloomed like a sun. He held himself inside of her, seated completely in her heavenly flesh, hand squeezing her breast, gripping her legs to tightly that her knees were pressed firmly against her chest. There they remained for some time, both in the throes of intense orgasms, her insides undulating and milking every thick gobbet of cum out of his arousal. Tom's orgasm began to wane, waves of pleasure emanating from his cock beginning to settle. The yuki-onna didn't seem like she was coming down any, so he held her where she was until some semblance of realization returned to her dark blue eyes. They panted and looked at each other, still connected by their sexes. She smiled and let go of his hair, letting her head fall back against his shoulder tiredly. He lifted her off his arousal and gently set her down on her own two shaky feet. She managed to keep her head up, but leaned against the agent for support. "You called me...hime, she said, astonished. "Every girl deserves to be a princess somewhere," Tom said, realizing his feet were getting cold. He looked down and found his toes covered in snow. Looking up, he saw the doorway was filled with it, and a large drift of it had ploughed through the bamboo mat holding it out and spread out across the floor. He eyes met the demon's and she blushed a spectacular shade of red. "How did you know what hime meant? You didn't know what a kimono was," she asked. Tom shrugged. "You hang around with otaku's every now and again and you learn a few things." "I'm so embarrassed." The snow filling the small room blew out of the ruined doorway and scattered outside, spreading in all directions as a cold wind picked it up in little flurries all around. Tom could only stand where he was as the yuki-onna staggered to her clothes and picked them up with shaking hands. "I don't mean to run off, but I need to find a way into Hell. You wouldn't happen to know where this forest ends and Hell begins, would you?" asked the agent. "Through that door," she said as her arm extended toward a door opposite of the one they had entered through. "Just walk and you'll end up in Hell. Oh gods, I'm still not ready to walk." She sat down on the floor and pulled her pale legs to her chest, robe and sash wrapped around her as a crude blanket. "The guy, the guide before, he said that everyone else and I would meet up in Hell. How, I mean, like, where does that happen? Are they just gonna be at the end of the path?" The yuki-onna smiled. "I lied when I told you you were the first I saw." Tom gave a chuckle and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I figured as much." "Six came through here, and four pleased me to some degree. The other two nearly killed me as they stomped through my home and demanded to know if I had found anyone else. I don't like that woman. She's very unkind," the demon stated, her voice hardening as she described Veronica. "Yeah, she's messed up right now. Jerhme has his hands full carrying her around trying to calm her down," Tom replied, moving to put back on his clothes. "Carrying her?" the demon asked incredulously. "She looked healthy to me when she almost broke my neck with one hand and demanded to know who else I had seen." She huffed to herself and sulked while Tom pulled his boots on. "That's weird. The last time I saw her she couldn't walk, let alone think straight." He pulled his shirt and jacket on and grabbed his sword from the floor. He checked to make sure all his things were in order and then turned to the closed door. "You...you wouldn't like to stay here a while longer? Would you?" the demon asked, lifting her eyes to him sadly. "You have no idea how lonely it gets in this forest." Tom knelt down and hugged the naked, pale woman. "I can't. I've got somewhere I don't want to be and I'm sure I'd just get dragged to Hell if I didn't show up on time." Her arms wrapped around his shoulders in a comforting way and she let out a resigned sigh. "Goodbye, oji-san," she said, squeezing him tightly. "I'll remember you." "Oji?" Tom questioned. "My prince, if I am a princess," she murmured in return, allowing her arms to go slack and him to stand. He winked at her and then walked to the door, pushing it open. Outside the small dwelling lay an enormous cavern, lit intermittently by dim green lights that brightened and faded slowly to their own rhythm. He closed the door behind him and started into the maw of Hell itself, feeling like he was going into the belly of some enormous beast, whose teeth stuck out like pillars of stone from the ground. He looked up, and found only darkness to greet his wandering eyes, so massive was the cavern. He continued deep into the cavern, following the glowing lights, which turned out to be strange bulbous plants with thorny, gnarled stems. He avoided coming near them, as he had no idea what kind of effects they might have on him. Now that he was in, or at least nearing Hell, all the rules changed. His progress was met with no resistance, not a single living soul for hours upon hours. He walked until his feet hurt, and stopped not far from one of the glowing plants, taking off his shoes and resting his feet while he lay against a large stalagmite reaching toward the cavern ceiling. What was he doing here? He could have easily asked the yuki-onna to hide him somewhere, and by the looks of it she would have happily helped him for a price. There, he probably could've remained hidden away, and at least a little happier for it. But he had chosen to go meet Ceria in Hell. He fought the urge to go back the way he came. Ceria could only hurt the people he cared about on Earth if he denied her, and potentially a very large number of innocents. If he knew anything about her, it was that she didn't play nice when she wasn't getting her way. He had to go. Or, he pondered, he could finally do what had been denied to him thus far. He unsheathed his sword and stared at its blade thoughtfully. Runes covered its surface, and the edge gleamed in the dim green light, casting it in an eerie glow. He could do it. He could finally end everything here. All the agonizing and horrific memories that gave him nightmares and made him cry his eyes out when he was alone. All the pain and trauma and fear of that demon finding him again. Every memory from every episode he'd ever had, all the hallucinations, the phantoms, the screaming, his screaming. Gone in one moment. He stared at the sword so intently that he didn't hear the footsteps that approached him. "Tom?" a voice asked, startling the agent. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 12 "Oh, shit Jerhme you scared the fuck out of me," Tom exclaimed, shaking himself out of his thoughts. Jerhme sat down beside him and looked from the agent's blade to his face. Tom couldn't meet Jerhme's eyes. "Death does not release you from it," the demon said in a solemn tone. "I watched a man I considered my brother in every respect, turn his blade against himself. He found no peace from his despair, not in the act, not in the aftermath, not even in death." "Why is that?" Tom asked, still holding his blade. Jerhme shook his head. "I have asked myself the same question for millennia." They sat in the gloom silently for a while, unable to continue talking about anything. Jerhme didn't seem to want to tell Tom one way or another about what he should do. The teen felt strange, almost guilty. He'd solve his own problems, and probably fuck everyone else over royally. He couldn't imagine what would happen if they showed up with news that he'd offed himself on the way there. Most likely, they'd all be killed. His hand tightened around the hilt of his sword and he clenched his jaw in thought. It would be a lot easier to just take this thing and shove it through Ceria's head and leave. As fanciful as that sounded to Tom, the picture of Ceria pinned on the end of his sword gave him a grim satisfaction that not long ago would have made him think he was a sociopath. "Let's go," said the teen when he had collected himself. He pushed himself to his feet and sheathed the claymore on his back. Jerhme stood and turned toward the deeper part of the cavern, beginning to walk. Tom put his boots back on and they walked without speaking. The demon seemed oddly serious and contemplative, so Tom didn't bother to ask him anything. Whatever he was thinking, they were thoughts that didn't need to be disturbed. ------------ Fentin's Warcamp, South of Gritenaivs, Hell ------------ "We return at once to find the human!" Fentain roared, flipping the long table in front of him so hard that it soared across the tent and tore through one of the walls, scattering maps, figurines, swords, armor, and slaves everywhere. The lord let out a feral roar and slashed all around him in anger, cutting down a servant with Tsathangaus in the blink of an eye. The blade reveled in this sort of treatment and hungered for more. "My lord, they have already departed and without Brohund we will be unable to-" "I don't care about Brohund! We will find the human and I will make sure he is ground into dush and ash and cinders before I let him slip through my grasp again!" the demon snapped, slashing through the support beam that held his tent up. Thick fabric came down upon him and his generals and the lord cut his way through it, letting his demonic form take shape as he lost control of his anger. Wings sprouted through the back of his shirt, tearing the garment to shreds. His horns flared to life with a ball of fire between them, searing the air around him angrily. His eyes collapsed into pits of fire and searched the fumbling bodies beneath the heavy canvass for Vendr. He found his captain standing almost motionless, raising his arm through the canvass and splitting it with his fingers. It ripped around his massive frame. "My lord, they are right. The humans have left their hole and moved on," he said impassively, folding his arms across his chest. "Are you mocking me?" Fentin demanded, brandishing his exotic blade menacingly. "No," Vendr replied. "I suggest that we wait for the human to arrive." "He will be in Ceria's grasp by that time," Fentin snarled, tail flicking about testily. Vendr shrugged. "It was unavoidable then. Either by their machinations or hers, we were tricked. And we have paid the price for it. There is only one way to turn now." Vendr raised his arm toward the West and nodded toward his outstretched fingers. "And that is?" Fentin asked, impatient for an answer from his out-of-line subordinate. "To her home, as we have maintained since we began marshaling our banners. If we cannot catch him outside her walls, then we will do so within." A sly grin came to rest upon the massive demon's lips, and Fentin's anger abated. "They have made it in?" the lord asked, incredulous. No act of espionage had worked thus far on Ceria's holdings, not in several millennia. "One," Venrdr corrected. "One has made it in." Fentin's wings dropped from their outstretched position and the lord sighed discontently. He sheathed his blade and looked around at all his generals and captains. "We move for the Glacis River. We'll take the western bank and set up our camp there before the Long Night. We'll clear the mountains during the Long Night and then make for the plains." "During the Long Night, my lord?" General Voronin asked cautiously. "Yes. Ceria's holdouts need to be dealt with swiftly if we are to secure a supply line between the Zuldspire and the western edge of these mountains." "My lord, with all the respect that is due to your person and your status, the Long Night is a sacred time. Shedding blood during...it may anger Grymir," the general continued. Fentin bristled, but maintained his cooling demeanor. "General Voronin, did Grymir follow tradition when he invaded the Sanctuary of the Underworld? Were the Interwar Observances seen by his dark army when they laid siege to Dalaria's fortresses? Were the laws defended by Dalaria adhered to when she was overthrown by a former human's efforts to break his succubi out of prison?" "My lord, I meant only-" Fentin interrupted. "I understand your objections, General, but Ceria will not be expecting us to bear arms against her holdings during the Long Night. We have already broken the Interwar Observances. Making the Long Night ours certainly falls as no harsher a crime." "Yes, lord," General Voronin answered, bowing his head respectfully. "Now then," Fentin continued. "Which one of our spies has infiltrated Ceria's estate?" Mefur answered, "Adze, my lord. A succubus." Fentin nodded and regained total control over his emotions. Normally, he was far more composed than this, but it drove nails into his head to think that they'd gone ahead with an incredibly dangerous and politically-unsound venture, completed it successfully, and returned to having not completed it at all. In fact, it had made Fentin's efforts far more difficult from hereon in. He no longer had a spy in the human organization. But, all was not lost, and he had gained a valuable asset here in Hell. He smoothed his appearance over and let his demonic extremities recede into his flesh, blinking away stars as his eyes solidified into pasty, gleaming orbs. "She'll fit right in if the past is any indicator as to what goes on at one of Ceria's festivals. In any case, now that we've been through our trials and tribulations this evening," Fentin began, sensing that his commanders desired to retire to their quarters. "We'll reconvene tomorrow and make fresh plans then." The demons and incubi nodded, taking their leave without further delay. "Your will, my lord?" Mefur asked. "Set this in order. I've neglected Amern for quite some time now." Fentin made his way to his own personal quarters, taking his time as previous engagements ran through his head. Soon, he'd face Ceria's forces in an actual battle, not a pitched skirmish. For once, he'd be able to draw a decisive battle from her armies and, hopefully, put down her ability to delay his arrival at her estate. He didn't expect a clean victory for anything, but at least he'd make significant progress beyond claiming vast swathes of land that amounted to nothing unless on paper. "My lord," Vendr said, breaking Fentin from his thoughts. The demon turned to his enormous captain and nodded. "Yes, Vendr?" The giant was silent for a moment, finding his words. "I...I request that a slave in your service be transferred to mine. I will more than readily compensate you with as many of mine as needed if you have contention with my request," he said diplomatically. Fentin arched a brow. "After all the time we've spent maiming everything under the Eternal Sanctum, you think I would require diplomacy from my closest and most trusted companion?" This caused Vendr to relax his shoulder a bit. "I only wished to make my deference known, my lord," Vendr replied. Fentin decided to let Vendr's earlier lack of respect go unaddressed. The demon knew how to keep Fentin's hot head from turning things from bad to worse, for the most part. "Of course. Now, which slave do you want?" "The baphomet. I do not know her name." Fentin shrugged. "Then we will find her and you can do what you wish with her." The two continued to Fentin's quarters and found the demon Vendr wanted, a young girl who only came up to Fentin's throat. To Vendr, she barely came up to his navel. The lord could only imagine what he wanted her for, and his best guess had her bruised so badly she wouldn't be able to stand up or sit down for days. "Thank you, my lord," Vendr said as he motioned for the baphomet to follow him. "Take care. Tomorrow we ride for the Glacis." With that, Fentin watched Vendr leave, and then stripped off his clothing, discarding his torn shirt and ripped breeches into a slave's awaiting arms. He pulled a thin, black lacy garment from the pocket of his breeches and stared at it intently. This was the reason he'd been fooled. Ceria had given this to another human to throw off Fentin's judgment. "Give this to an outrider and tell him to hand it to Ceria personally as an envoy. Give her this message: Your tricks won't save the human here." The slave nodded and left the tent quickly. Fentin then moved through his tent and entered the room holding his armor stand, weapons, personal trunk, and bed. Amern lay upon the thick green and gold bedding, fast asleep in her own dream world. The lord quietly lay on the bed beside her and propped his head up on his hand. He traced the length of her smooth, wide hips with his fingers, stirring the succubus just enough to wake her. His hand moved up her body and her eyes opened, staring into his, pale blue orbs filled with curiosity. "You have need of me, my lord?" she asked, smiling gently. "I may, if I didn't interrupt something you were enjoying," Fentin mused back, bringing his hand back down to rest on her hip. She reached out and caressed his cheek with her hand. "I feel I'm about to get something far more enjoyable to dream of," cooed the tanned courtesan, tracing down the length of his body with her nimble fingers. Fentin exhaled as the pleasant feeling of her fingers against his manhood stirred a lust within him that had been neglected for days. "Indeed you are." Fentin slid his hand further and squeezed the succubus' backside, kneading soft flesh in his hand. Amern pushed her hips closer to his and his arousal hardened against her thighs, rising toward her core. She moved close enough to keep it from rising and giggled, stroking him hard as he slid his hand even further, teasing her anus with his finger. "Why do you let me tease you?" Amern asked, rubbing one thigh up and down his pulsing member. Fentin continued to play with her absentmindedly as he thought. The succubus wasn't very different from the others; a willing body to bed with him when he desired. She wasn't especially attractive compared with the others, though he did choose her for the way she looked. "Perhaps I enjoy feeling powerless and bent to another's will?" The succubus sat straight up in shock. "My lord! You? Powerless?" she exclaimed incredulously. "I doubt there is a succubus who could truly make you feel powerless." "You may be right," he agreed, pressing his finger further. The succubus curled her toes, but kept a straight face. "But it would be a shame to allow a succubus who can give me that to slip through my fingers." The demon pantomimed letting sand run through his fingers, and the succubus relaxed a bit, drawing herself down beside him again, this time with his arousal at the cleft of her thighs, riding the junction between her legs and her core. "I am thankful for the opportunity to be that succubus," Amern said, rubbing his cock back and forth, making it slick with her fluids. "You've shown me just how thankful you are several times, from dark until light." Fentin's own toes curled as his glans nearly penetrated the succubus, but he knew far better than to assume it had been an accident. Amern was playing with him. "Of course. It is not often that a succubus is chosen to be the consort of the most powerful lord in the Sanctuaries." She played with his member again, letting his glans spread her labia apart, but keeping it out of her body. She nudged him over and over again, teasing him in a way only a woman of her caliber could. Fentin could see the desire in her eyes. Her self-control was immense, far greater than his was in any case. He allowed himself to be enthralled by her, falling deeper into the lust that bathed them both in growing ecstasy. She looked into him knowingly, his fingers playing inside of her as she goaded him for more, urging his basest desires with her body. "You could own everything I have at this moment, if you so desired it," Fentin mused, half serious. He didn't think he'd be willing to say no if she set conditions to letting him delve deeper into her ungodly delightful body. "All I desire from you is what you have given me." She allowed his glans to slip into her pussy, causing him a great deal of strain to remember how to breathe. She grinned widely, a feral and animalistic gesture, and continued. "...a bedmate worthy of a tale or two..." Fentin bit his lip as she allowed him just under an inch of passage into her, stroking him gently, mind-numbingly close to actual penetration. It was maddeningly close, and everything in him roared for more. Everything that he was stared longingly into her eyes, drained of all thoughts not consumed with her. "And...?" Fentin questioned, hoping that when she finished, they would dive into each other with vigor. The succubus remained silent, coyly guiding his every pleasure center just far enough to feel the phantom glimmers of her actual touch, only to be rejected at the last moment and refused entry. "...libido strong enough to satisfy my lust, each and every time it rises..." She sank his arousal just far enough to give all but the most powerful sensory nodes direct contact with her labia. Fentin's breath hitched, hanging on her every word and movement. "...and reignite me when my flame dims." She pushed forward and Fentin bucked up, sliding his erection into her body as far as possible. They both moaned, ridges of pleasure centers coming to life as they were given the sweet touch of one another. Fentin pulled back and pushed into her again, slowly enjoying everything the succubus had to offer him. He pressed his fingers harder, and she clamped her knees together. "And how bright does your flame burn now?" Her eyes glowed. "Bright enough, my lord." She swung her leg over him and rolled him into his back, driving herself down on his cock with a groan. Her eyes rolled back for a moment as they settled and maneuvered into a comfortable position, their sexes pressing against each other, warm, slick flesh hugging hard, throbbing flesh. Amern rolled herself against him and Fentin followed her lead, taking the rhythm and pushing up to it, backing down from it as it reached a low arc. Amern placed her hands on his chest to support herself and spread her knees as far as they would go, her body in one full purpose now that she had found what she liked. Fentin's hands stayed on her backside, one pushing two fingers into her as her hips rose, the other squeezing her and bringing her hips down with added force at the downward arc of her body. Quickly, Fentin found her pervading presence to be overwhelming, and felt a familiar feeling crawling in the pit of his stomach. Amern nodded, giving him a half-grin as she sped up her undulations. Fentin clenched his jaw as she brought him higher and higher toward release, the feeling in his stomach dropping lower and lower until it was at the end of its route. Fentin suddenly took hold of Amern's shoulders and flipped them over. The succubus moaned and giggled at the same time, unable to choose which she wanted to do. "My lord!" she eked out, wrapping her legs around his waist as her arms found his shoulders. "You are much more playful today." Fentin's mouth found her breast and he suckled on it, tasting the salty sweat covering her body. His tongue roved over her areola and nipple, causing the succubus to tremble with pleasure. Fentin bucked against her a few more times and then pushed her into the sheets, his orgasm slamming his thoughts into her. His whole body clamped her to him, keeping them connected as he rode out wave after wave of pleasure, draining him of a generous amount of semen. Amern seemed satisfied enough with this, and milked him for all he was worth as they trembled together in a heap of sweaty limbs and heavy breathing. The lord unlatched his mouth from her breast and met her intense blue eyes. "Are you still able?" questioned the succubus. He flexed his erection and kissed her gently. "Just one time is no more the end than a heap of bricks is a castle." Amern reunited their lips and they fell into each other again with renewed vigor. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 13 ------------ Ceria's Estate, Hell ------------ "We really should invest in some sort of cross-realm communication device, Lusotan," Ceria said dryly, tracing the rim of her cup idly as she lounged on one of the many curved benches dotting her courtyard. Beside the demon, her huge bodyguard Lusotan watched her with growing boredom. "That is forbidden by Lucifer, my lady," the bodyguard replied. Ceria sighed. "I'd like to dream for once without you appearing to correct me. That is forbidden this, and that is unwise that. Screwing that human was unwise, and look where it's brought me." Ceria gestured all around with her hand holding the cup, spilling its contents across the flagstones. At that, Lusotan shifted in his heavy armor and leaned upon his ornate spear. "Into war with the fifth most powerful lord in the Rings." "You shut your mouth and let me have my fun," Ceria snapped, realizing that she was getting quite inebriated. "Perhaps you're right, all he has ever brought me is trouble, especially down here." She rubbed her clit and felt an electric tingle rise through her body. A moan escaped her lips and she lay flat against the bench, enjoying its curvature. "My lady, there are more pressing matters to worry about than your lust." "And just what are they?" Ceria asked coyly, rubbing her swollen clit in circles with one finger. "Fentin's little war? My guests arriving early? The festival about to commence? Or my fingers? They seem quite pressing right now." She bit her bottom lip as a second finger began to rub her clitoris. "Ceria, enough!" Lusotan growled, taking hold of Ceria's hand and lifting her off the bench by her wrist. He'd had about enough of her drunken antics. She had a thousand responsibilities to tend to, and had left him in charge of keeping them at bay while she handled 'personal matters', by which she meant take ten pitchers of very strong wine and down them in the time between Third and Second Nights. "Oh fine," she relented, giving him a very seductive look. "But please, just because I'm not in my right mind doesn't mean you need to get rough with me. I already have a man to do that." Lusotan rolled his eyes and set her on her feet. Ceria staggered left and right, but gained her center soon enough and turned her head up to the bodyguard, grinning at him stupidly. He said nothing, only handing her a robe to put on, which she did with the delicate, slow movements of a child irking their parent. "We do not have time to piss away, Ceria," Lusotan warned. "The festival needs an opening." "And it will get one," Ceria snapped, leaning down to pick up another pitcher of wine. "Just as soon as I've had another-" Lusotan kicked the pitcher and it shattered into a thousand fragments, painted ceramic and wine flying through the air in front of Ceria's face. She pursed her lips and straightened back up, glaring. "Go get me another one." Lusotan had had about enough of her antics for one day already. He picked her up by the scruff of her robe and she folded her arms across her chest, unmoved. Lusotan carried her across the courtyard and down a broad staircase, frowning at his mistress while she pouted and gave him a death glare. "If you insist on occupying someone's time whist in your current condition, occupy theirs," Lusotan said, setting the demon down and spinning her to face the large assembly before her. "Lusotan, I- Hello!" she quickly turned her voice and attention to the crowd in front of her. The bodyguard allowed himself a smirk as Ceria was put in a precarious place trying to discipline him. Either she would have to lose face and do it here, or play the hostess while he went to do the business that didn't involve the festival directly. She wasn't about to let them see her in trouble. "Yes, yes, I am a little late. I was lost in the great multitude of entertainers I've collected for your pleasure! Without further delay or ado, I welcome you to the Festival of Triumph!" At her words, a plethora of slaves started down the stairs as they had rehearsed for several night cycles, draping the steps in thick carpets, throwing various confetti materials into the air, igniting fireworks, carrying entertainers down on their shoulders. Bright strobes floated into the air, flashing every visible color there was. Succubi and incubi maneuvered across the slaves' outstretched arms like nimble spirits across the surface of a living body of water. Demons floated in the air, wings adorned with all manner of bright, flashy ribbons. Palanquins carrying private bedmates chosen for the more wealthy guests made their way to the steps, sloping as their carriers followed large banners and coiled tarps that would soon bee attractions and sets for stages that would adorn the great courtyard two staircases below. Three tiers of festivities, not including Ceria's main estate buildings, were all going to be the site of one of the most enormous and anticipated festivals in the Sanctuary of Redemption. A great cheer arose from the gathering at the base of the steps, and from the slaves and entertainers moving to meet them. With a fading grin, Ceria turned to Lusotan and resumed her childish glare at him. "I believe that went quite well," Lusotan commented, feeling Ceria's intensity growing. "If I don't see more wine in front of my face by the time I ascend these steps again, it will be you in my bed tonight." That gave Lusotan pause. She had never threatened him with that before, but she had threatened others with it to great effect. He assumed she wasn't a gentle lover, and decided it was best to nod and comply. She'd done what was needed on her end for now. Ceria then put on a front and descended the steps with her slaves, fixing her robe and sash around her body to look presentable. She swept a swathe of brown hair out of her face and fanned it out behind her back as entertainers and slaves alike parted for her. She looked every bit the regale, powerful noble she was, rather than an inebriated child she liked to be when she was avoiding her responsibilities. Lusotan tasked three servants with keeping her well-refreshed with food and wine, and four others with the duty of keeping her comfortable with a palanquin and cushions should she ask for them. With the mistress taken care of, he returned to the estate proper and made his way to the enormous kitchen. Every scent imaginable met him as he held open a door for three slaves carrying a tray of minced ronx the size of a table. Lusotan decided it better to not snag a piece of reptilian meat and save his appetite for the feast. He entered the kitchen and looked around to make sure everything was in order. Huge furnaces prepared meat and cooked ceramic dishes to be used to keep the growing number of guests satisfied. Though she had a knack for strategy, she had left military command to her generals and taken care of all domestic affairs herself. Lusotan surmised it was out of mistrust that they could organize her events to the standard she wanted, and had resolved to leave nothing to chance. The bodyguard moved aside for three casks of liquor to be rolled out of the kitchen and held the door open for the slaves. They passed by him wordlessly, sweating all over. All around, cooks and chefs and slaves moved about, sharpening tools for guests to use, cooking food enough for an army, checking progress for various items, cutting vegetables, boiling water, juicing fruits, mashing things, churning pasty deserts. It was a maddening sight in here, akin to a battlefield in full tilt. Lusotan maneuvered to the group of cooks arguing over a furnace filled with glowing embers. As he approached, they all fell silent and gave him a deep bow, unwilling to let him think they would show him any disrespect. "What is going on here?" Lustona asked. "The supply of wood for this oven has been interrupted. The slaves tasked with keeping it fed are slacking off," one of the cooks answered. Behind the small gathering, the steady stream of slaves carrying wood looked full capable of feeding six furnaces with the supply for five intact. "How long have these slaves been gone?" Another cook piped up this time. "We aren't sure. The flame went out some time ago and we asked the overseer to investigate. He has yet to return." "You three, come with me. Bring slaves." Lusotan went through the door the slaves came out of with his small gathering, easily pushing his way down the crowded hallway. It soon became evident that the cause of the delay was not laziness. Several corpses lay strewn about a storage room and blood ran fresh across the floor from the bodies. Lusotan grunted, and tasked the demons accompanying him with alerting the stationary guards to search the estate for any unusual slaves or guests that had wandered too far from the festival grounds. He then took to scouring the halls in search of anyone with blood on them. He tried to follow the scent of it, but the hallways were filled with the smells of sap and fresh-cut wood and everything from the kitchen. He growled as another hallway filled with smells of roasted meat and spices. "And the others?" a voice demanded. Lusotan listened hard and heard a faint reply. He gripped his spear tightly and hurried down the hallway, following the two voices to a narrow corridor. He rounded a corner and found the scent of blood he'd been looking for. One of the stationary guards leaned back against a wall, held by the gaze of a succubus whose body was covered in blood. Lusotan surged forward wordlessly, lashing out at the succubus with a fierce blow. She dodged at the last moment and the spear tip just caught her shoulder, splitting it open with a spatter of blood. She slashed the throat of the guard and leapt away from Lusotan's second strike, a long stab aimed at her torso. She turned and fled down the corridor, using her small frame to her advantage as Lusotan had to twist sideways to fit. She caught the corner and swung herself around it. Lusotan followed her closely, but as he turned, she lunged at him and split the haft of his spear with her clawed hands. The bodyguard swept the butt end of his severed spear at her and she pushed his hand up, causing his blow to go just over her head. She split his armor beneath the armpit and he grunted in pain, responding with his knee against her stomach. She curled at the impact and he slammed his fist down on her head, throwing her considerably smaller physique against the wall. She recovered quickly, and he followed through with his shortened spear, aiming for her neck, she pushed off the wall and threw herself to the opposite side. Lusotan twisted to face her again, but she quickly lashed out and ripped at his leg behind the knee, sending him down to one knee. He clenched his jaw and threw his armored elbow at her, but she dodged, his movements slowed by the tight confines of the corridor. She aimed a strike at his throat, but he lowered his head and her fingers connected with his skull. Several of them broke upon impact. The succubus howled in pain and backed off, trying to reset her broken fingers. Lusotan lashed out with his spear and caught her across the knee. She stumbled and the bodyguard found his opening. He rammed the spear tip through her calf and pinned her to the floor, twisting the blade in her flesh as she screamed. She tried to pull herself away, knowing that Lusotan couldn't catch her and she could heal the wounds given time and enough slave souls. He held her in place long enough for two guards to find them and assist him. "Capture her!" the demon ordered as the guards drew their swords. "The lady wants them alive." "Yes, lord," one of them replied, sheathing his blade accordingly. It took three more guards and rope to subdue the succubus, but in the end she was bound and gagged and left to Lusotan to do with what he wished. The demon glared down at his captive, kicking her legs out from under her and lifting her body by the thick leash wrapped around her throat. He lifted until her toes just scraped the flagstones, and her breathing came and went in ragged, pained gasps. Lusotan took her through the kitchen and paraded her in front of the slaves through the hallways, relishing the derisive looks the slaves gave the succubus, eventually finding the main causeway that led to the prison perched atop a rocky outcropping guarded by the wards of an arcane smith. The building itself was relative small, a short, squat thing of stone that had survived its fair share of sieges when the rest of the estate had been lost to interlopers. It looked like a large stone box, with its face melted and bearing the marks of war, scarred flesh on a cracked, aged face of stone. Two demons stood guard over the entrance, enchanted corpses under the spell of the same arcane smith that had produced the wards keeping cell occupants in their places. They worked like clockwork men, operating on magics that even Lusotan's vast knowledge of the arcane failed to comprehend. He passed by them wordlessly, choking the succubus harder as they crossed the threshold. Familiar musks of fear and loathing assailed him and souls he had brought here ages ago sprang to life, hissing and growling in anger. Lusotan ignored them and tossed the succubus into a vacant cell, savoring the crack her skull made against the wall, and the way she could only just manage to get to her feet afterwards, one foot hanging uselessly while her leg oozed blood from the wound he had inflicted with his spear. Lusotan closed the cell door and locked it horizontally and vertically, amazed by the latticework of light that grew from the bars to encircle the entire cell. Shimmering blue threads interlocked in a sequence that must have taken years to construct, each thin strand of light intersecting others at precise points to strengthen and perfect the bond they shared. Lusotan stepped away from the cell as the succubus sank to the floor, utterly defeated. "The mistress will return to decide what is to be done with you," Lusotan commented, turning to leave. "Someone will pay for this," she snapped back. That caused the bodyguard to stop and grin briefly. "Yes...you." Lusotan left the prison without a glance left or right at the others that remained entombed in the short, unassuming structure guarded by undead slaves. He found that every time he entered or left this place, he seemed...different. It was as if he underwent a catharsis when he came here. He couldn't explain it, but the power he held over these creatures cleansed him of his turmoil. Of course, knowing that it wasn't he who had to deal with them helped to give him relief. That was Ceria's decision. Which meant that he was free to collect prisoners, while having no obligation to decide what was done with them. Duty without responsibility. He returned to the festival's main body and meandered through the crowds of guests and slaves, servants, and entertainers. The bodyguard welcomed nobility, ordered servants about, guided entertainers to their stages, sets, and games. He didn't like mingling, but at least he didn't have to do it for any extended period of time. It was one of the responsibilities he didn't enjoy, having to cater to these peoples' whims and play house while there was real business to be done. Eventually, he found Ceria, who had made herself comfortable with a woman he had never seen before. "My lady, I have urgent news for you," Lusotan said, bowing low to his liege. She turned her head to him and smiled broadly, still drinking quite heavily. "Have the humans arrived yet?" Lusotan shook his head. "No. We have captured one of Fentin's spies. I came here directly after securing her away." At the news, Ceria's smile seemed to fade some and she blinked in surprise. She turned to her companion and excused herself, taking Lusotan away from the general noise and attention of the festivities to speak in private. When they were a good distance from the rest of the gathering, Ceria pulled Lusotan's shoulder down to speak into his ear. "How many of them have infiltrated our walls?" she questioned, entirely serious now. "As far as we can tell, just this one. I've ordered the estate searched already." Ceria nodded and contemplated the situation for a moment. "Then I will pay her a visit soon. What is she?" "Enough to fill the sheets-" Lusotan cut himself off and bowed his head. "Forgive me. My mind was in another place." Ceria couldn't help but laugh as Lusotan knew his face was turning red with the shock of having answered his liege's question as he would have one of the men under his command. She gave him a tap on the chin to bring him back to the conversation. "Wandering between her thighs I would guess. Is she a succubus?" "Yes, my lady." Ceria turned to leave. "I've got a few things in mind for her. Run along now. I've my hands full here." She grabbed the backside of a passing guest and gave the demon such a start that she jumped in surprise. Ceria pressed herself to the demon's back and nibbled at her earlobe. "Ceria! It's been over a Night's Turn!" the guest exclaimed, continuing to be fondled by the mistress of the estate. "Indeed it has, before this war started I believe. I know just the thing to catch up over." Ceria took the demon's hand and led her away, chatting her attention away from Lusotan, who left the festival grounds and headed for the estate proper. Up several grand staircases and through throngs of busy demons, succubi, incubi, baphomets, and every other manner of denizen in the Circles, the bodyguard moved. He reached the reliquary that had once housed the icons of the old gods that had been worshipped before the Eternal Sanctum had bloomed in the sky. Now, the building was the headquarters for Ceria's generals. He ascended the narrow, steep steps of the immensely ancient building under the supervision of two squadrons of stationary guards, who eyed him warily despite his power here being second only to Ceria. He passed through the empty front lounge and entered the main hall, where several tables were set up in a square with an open space to enter its center. Lusotan met with the scout captain as the short demon finished talking with Generals Domingo and Jubal. Lusotan regarded the bruised and beaten scout with a nod. "Milord, the humans have entered Hell by way of the pass at Enderthris." "Enderthris? They activated a portal to bring their number here directly," Lusotan explained, confused by the scout's claim. "They've arrived at Enderthris, and I've only got two men with them now." Lusotan nodded and took in the information slowly. So this was why the humans were late. They'd taken the back door to Hell instead of going through with their plan. The bodyguard let out a frustrated groan and slid his broken spear into the loops on his shoulders. "General Domingo!" "Aye, sir?" the former human answered, looking up from the map in front of him. "Prepare your forces to move on Fentin's position at the Glacis River. I want him harassed the entire Long Night. Harassed, not drawn to battle." Lusotan waited for a nod in confirmation before moving on to Jubal. "General Jubal." "Your will?" "I want regular drills across all companies and double rations during the Long Night. And see to it that the Pikes are well-rested and well-versed in their art. I'll need my hammer if Fentin intends to be an anvil upon the open plains." Jubal patted over his heart twice. "I'll see to it myself." Lusotan spoke briefly with the scout captain and then left the large building for the barracks of the house guards. Upon his entry, twenty demons stood and placed their fists over their hearts, owing their rank and title to his personal choice of each and every one of them. They viewed him as a god, and showed him at every opportunity that they were the well-disciplined and elite force he'd trained them to be. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 13 "Gather your weapons and armor. Take your mounts. Bid farewell to your bedmates. We are leaving the house." "Yes, lord," they chanted in unison. Lusotan left the barracks and made for the stable as his troops readied themselves for battle. The Enderthris Pass was nearly a fortnight away as the Crow flew, and almost twenty cycles of hard riding across a great swathe of rocky hills and a forest. Lusotan hoped that Fentin's trackers weren't on the trail already. If that was the case, then he'd arrive in time to collect the corpses and come back with the bad news. Ceria did not take well to bad news. Which was precisely the reason he wasn't going to tell her that he was leaving, or that the humans had apparently had some sort of mishap in their portal's destination. In the stable, he found several of the house guards saddling their Braets. Vendr wondered still how the horse-like creatures managed to ride for days without collapsing in exhaustion. Their long, swollen limbs looked mismatched for their relatively short bodies, giving them the look of an equine spider more than their Mortal Realm equivalents. Lusotan pulled himself atop his mount and situated himself in the saddle. The creature shook its four legs individually and then waited for the reigns to be pulled. Once the head of the house guard had counted all his men ready and waiting, he led them out of a postern gate on the north side of the estate. "We'll find the humans between here and Enderthris Pass. Two of our scouts are with them, and will help us escort their number to the estate. We ride." ------------ South of Enderthris Pass, Hell ------------ The ground was more than a little bit cold. In fact, it was nearly frozen by the time the agents and demons had finally gotten into the forest that skirted Ceria's core territories to the north, south, and west. So, as the group of thirty made itself comfortable on the cold, hard ground, it came as no surprise that they'd be sleeping packed just about as tight as sardines in a can. Tom sat on a large root shaped like the Greek omega and swung his legs back and forth, staring into the dim forest as if it might help alleviate his situation. They were less than two weeks away from Ceria's estate, and every day that they rode closer brought him further into Ceria's hands. He tried to stem the wave of adrenaline that rushed through him at the thought of seeing her again, his instinct to flee coming on in full force. He scooted back to relieve some of the tension on his butt, which was considerably sore because of the very uncomfortable days of riding on what the demons referred to as Braets, creatures that loosely resembled horses with thick legs and almost tube-shaped faces. He didn't like them, and they seemed to not like him either. "Human, don't walk so far away from camp," the guard assigned to watch over Tom ordered, armor clinking as she came to where he sat and leaned against the tree beside him. She folded her arms across her chest and looked out into the forest where Tom's eyes scanned the darkness. "You'd be doing an enormous favor if you left me alone." The demon seemed to take some offense to that, as she stiffened visibly. "I've been ordered to make sure you don't come to harm." Her tone was a stiff as her posture. "And if I were to do this?" Tom asked, removing his pistol from its holster and putting it to his head. He pantomimed shooting and made a noise. The demon looked at him impassively and leveled her gaze. "Few are able to do it. You are not among them." Tom holstered his gun and sighed. "You'd be surprised what fear and stubbornness does to people." "If you could surprise me, human, you'd have done it already. Now come back to camp. It's dangerous to be this isolated during the Second Night." The armored demon waved her hand, coming off the tree to leave. Tom didn't move. "What's the thing with everything being called 'the night' or 'cycles' and stuff like that? It's day and night, right?" She paused, and pursed her lips in thought. "Our Realm works differently than yours. Yours is immeasurably immense and you are a tiny speck somewhere in it. Hell is divided into the Nine Circles, and each Circle is different. Ours is a set of seven rings that circle each other and have large things float around the Eternal Sanctum, what you would call the sun." "Like this?" Tom tried to recreate a rudimentary example using his fingers, but the demon shook her head. "No. Think of it like this: your sun is in the middle. There are things between it and the rings. The rings...get up." "Why?" She growled, "Get up. You're wasting my time." "So you figured that out? Yeah, they told me the seven wheels inside of each other analogy the first year of my history lessons. Nothing you could tell me is new." "Quite the mouthy one, isn't he?" Veronica commented, drawing both Tom's and his guard's attention. "Veronaa," the guard said, nodding her head in respect. "Dana," the agent replied, nodding in turn. She addressed Tom. "I think it would be best if you took her at her word. There are more things in these woods that can kill you than just Fentin's potential trackers." "Well, I don't really feel like being around anyone tonight." Veronica ducked beneath the root Tom sat on and laid flat on the ground beneath him, putting her hands under her head. The conversation died momentarily as Veronica just watched him watching her. He didn't know what she was doing or what she wanted. Now that they were in Hell and she had all her powers back, she'd changed...become more demeaning and aggressive in her personality. "So do I call you Veronaa now, since you're in Hell?" Her purple eyes gleamed at that, and she cracked a very faint smile. "You can call me whatever you'd like. You know me as Veronica, so you can call me that. Veronaa is what I am called by the ones who know me here, however. It makes no difference to me." "Veronaa it is," the human replied, hopping off the root and landing with his feet on either side of Veronaa's waist. She raised her eyebrows. "Feel like having a romp in the woods tonight? We could even make it a threesome if you'd like," the demon offered, sitting up so that her head was level with his zipper. She looked up at him suggestively and leaned forward just enough to let her tongue flip the slider on his zipper up and grab it with her teeth. "If you have to force it, you shouldn't try it," Tom retorted, folding his arms across his chest. "Because, you remember last time?" She unzipped his pants and took in a long, deep breath of his scent. "I didn't need the amulet to get you hot and bothered last time. That thing only got in the way. Things would've fallen in their place soon enough." "Well, today they won't. Let's go Dana." Tom stepped to the side and zipped his pants up, careful to avoid his growing arousal. Veronica got up and put her hands around his waist, stopping him from going any further. She put her lips to his ear. "C'mon, let's give this organic sex thing another try," she breathed sensually into his ear. Her voice sent a shiver down his spine and filled his body with an endorphin rush. "You remember how good the third time was? In the shower?" Her whispers made Tom's thoughts return to her shower, an encounter that Tom held as one of his favorites out of everything he'd experienced. It gave him pause to leave. As much as he'd like to have something like that again with her, he didn't think it was possible. She wasn't that Veronica anymore. She was Veronaa. "You're not the same person you were back then." Veronica kissed his ear and trailed her hands down his shirt slowly. "Neither are you, but that doesn't mean that we can't try." She licked the rim of his ear and bit down just hard enough to make him squirm. Her hands dipped into the waistline of his pants and her fingers played with the waistband of his boxers. She giggled sensually. "Hey Dana, mind helping me?" Tom asked the guard, who had been watching the exchange with interest. "It is not my place to interfere with another demon's desire," she answered stoically, unmoved. "How about interfering on behalf of Ceria's fuckbuddy?" Dana shook her head. "Even less so to interfere with the fate of a toy." With no further encouragement needed, Veronaa slipped her hands into Tom's pants and he rolled his eyes. Of course this would keep on happening. Like he'd actually be able to catch a break for once. "I know you want to. I can feel it boiling over inside of you." Veronaa took one hand out of his pants and unbuttoned them, pushing the zipper down smoothly. She grinned against his ear and started placing gentle kisses up and down the side of his neck. She hooked her thumb in the rim of his boxers and pulled them and his pants down enough to let his cock spring free and bob up and down as it found an angle to rest at. "You realize that this doesn't mean I want to." "That's what this is for," Veronaa answered with a hard pump to his cock from base to head. Tom actually chuckled at the ridiculousness of her effort. Even though it didn't do anything for him, she continued to stroke him in a slow, drawn out measure. Tom looked to Dana, but her eyes were drawn to the sight and fixated upon it without relent. "And so what is this supposed to do?" Tom asked as Veronaa gave his neck another little kiss. "Make you feel safe and protected. That's why I'm here at all, to protect you from her." Tom blinked in confusion. "From Dana? Dana, seriously? Have you even looked at what you're doing? Protect me?" "Better me than a woman who is a slave to her desires. Look at her eyes and tell me you think she could unwind gently after you knot up her desires around this," she explained, giving his erection an especially hard stroke that squeezed out a thick bead of precum. "So there's no way we could just part ways and have either of you not have sex with me?" "Oh no, not with you aroused like this," Veronaa replied with a nip at his earlobe. "You'd have a legion of demons fall upon you for the opportunity to ride this thing once they found out what its special little quirk is." Tom reached back and pulled Veronica tighter against him, giving her a great deal of confusion as he grabbed her thighs and squeezed. He turned his head to look her in the eye, and she arched a brow, still stroking him just as slowly as ever. "Is that not exactly what you're doing right now? Why don't we just cut the bullshit and get to the part where either one of, or both of you do me. As much as I hate her, one thing I'll say about Ceria is that she didn't beat around the bush." Veronaa's eyes dimmed at that, and she stopped with her hand. "Do...do you really just think that I want to fuck you and be done with it?" She sounded almost hurt, and Tom had no idea what to think of it. Thus far, it had seemed like she just wanted him inside her, like a human dildo. Well, the previous time had anyway, and the way she had been acting in Hell didn't help his opinion of her motives. "Would you like to give me evidence of the contrary?" Tom persisted. Veronaa tilted her head forward and gave Tom a short kiss on the lips. "Fucking is feeding. I have never taken you to bed with the intention of feeding. I want something more than just a full stomach when I put my arms around you and hold you close." She hugged him around the stomach, releasing his arousal to drive her point home. Veronaa nuzzled his cheek softly and kissed up his jawline to his ear. "So that means that you can just take what you want, when you want, because you have better intentions than most people?" Again, Veronaa sounded surprised. "I always thought that you liked being pushed for it. Have you grown bored of our bouts together?" She sounded genuinely concerned. "No," Tom answered plainly. "I just don't feel like doing it anymore. With anybody. Since all this happened- Veroni...Veronaa. I'm in Hell. Hell, the place where the souls of the damned end up. I am absolutely terrified of everyone and thing down here that I'm going to meet. I'm going to be the slave of some sadistic, degrading fuck and trapped in her house for God knows how long. It's enough to kill anyone's libido." "You worry too much, Tom," the demon said to him, lowering her hands again. "I'm here to protect you from her." "As in..." "You know exactly who I'm talking about. And I've made it very clear to her that I'll thwart whatever plans she has for you. So relax, and try to enjoy the time you have away from her." "And what makes you think that that changes my mind about what I said? I still don't want to screw," Tom stated, but Veronaa was unwavering. "As much as you may not want it, you need a moment away from all this. I can give you that, if only for an evening. I can take you to places that have scarcely been brushed by mortal fingers, unfathomed depths of pleasure and-" "I've heard that spiel before, Veronaa. Only one girl made due on that." Veronaa smirked. "The slime, I presume?" "Yeah actually, it was." "Of course you'd think she was the only one," the demon cooed, as if she were about to give him some revelation that would change his understanding of things forever. Tom shook his head and chuckled faintly at that, finding it hard to believe that she could do new things to him when someone could rearrange his anatomy on a chemical level had done it all. "So what makes you so special, demon?" he inquired pointedly. Veronaa's skin rose and she inhaled deeply against his neck. "You've never had a demon in full bloom. Especially not one like me, human," she returned in much the same manner. Their eyes met for a moment and Veronaa's purple orbs glowed with a fierce light. Tom's arms fell to his sides and he felt, very distinctly, a pair of hands grab his arousal, one around the tip and one around the base. "Veronaa," Tom whined, leaning his head back as she gave him a long, pleasurable stroke. His pupils dilated instantly. "Feel funny?" "F-f-fuck!" Tom grunted, squeezing his eyes shut. He was at a loss for words. Had she...? "Oh, so you've figured out what I can do, have you?" She gave him another long stroke, and he strained to keep from jerking his hips against her hands. She rubbed his glans, now dripping copious amounts of precum. "Slimes aren't the only ones who can overcome certain...limitations, you might have." "How are you doing tha-ah!" She cut him off with another stroke, and flecked her tongue across his cheek. "I'm a special breed of demon. Not only can I eat slimes, I can make any part of my body feel just like heaven like your blue girl did." She continued for a few strokes, drawing out the motion as the other demon nearby stared hungrily at the two, lost in their bodies as she drank in the lust and desire that emanated from the pair. "If you keep go-oh...ing, I'm gonna, fuck Veronica! I'm-" "Therein lies the difference though," she countered, letting her hand rest as the base of his shaft, squeezing it tightly as it pulsed with his heartbeat. Her right hand rose to their faces and she licked off the fluid coating her palm. "I can make it feel good. But I cannot make it be good." "I can't cum?" Veronaa tapped the tip of his nose with her finger. "Not unless we do this the right way." She demon kissed his cheek and Tom strained to keep his body from doing things he knew it shouldn't. "Veronica, I really don't..." he pleaded, but she persisted against him gently. "There is no game to win here. I'm not like her; I don't want to win against you. The only thing that I want is for you to feel like there is nobody in the Three Realms besides you and me, every worry. Every fear; null. Please let me do this for you." Every word that came out of her mouth chipped away at his resistance, a mountain chiseled away into gravel in moments. It was hard to stay mad at someone who had your best interest at heart, and from someone who had literally been at his deathbed when he rode the line between life and death, she couldn't be anything but genuine. Her voice carried volumes of hope with it, hope that he would trust her enough to go with something he didn't want but she knew he needed. Tom sighed, and turned his head enough to face her directly. They shared a knowing look and then leaned in toward each other. Tom's lips pressed against hers in a kiss and they all but melted against each other. He turned to face her, and she repositioned her hand around his erection and began to run her fingertips along its length gently. Tingles of arousal leapt up and down his member, and it left him absolutely speechless. "Oh my God, you have no idea how amazing this is. I've never had anything like without Sohm." At the mention of the slime's name, Veronica's hand grabbed his cock firmly and she started jerking him steadily, causing his mouth to seek hers hard. He wrapped his arms around her and pulled their fronts together. "I don't... want to hear...that...name...again," she managed between kisses. She raised her hand between them and he relented for a moment to let her talk. "Please?" "Okay," Tom answered, and resumed kissing her doubly hard. She moaned as his hands dropped to her waist and peeled away her skirt hastily. She hadn't bothered with anything underneath, and he teased her sex with two fingers. A husky growl came up her throat. "It feels like an eternity," she breathed, tilting her head back as Tom bit her bottom lip and ringed her clit with his thumb. They both worked to get their shirts off and the demon reached up with one foot and pushed his boxers and pants to the ground in one smooth motion. They fumbled about for a while, getting entirely undressed, kissing, groping, caressing. Dana beside them stood like a statue, her presence growing ever clearer as her breath escaped her. "Holy fuck, Veronica- Veronaa, whoever you are. Just, fuck." Tom's mind raced to a thousand different places at once as Veronaa's body writhed against him in an embrace that was nearly as old as life itself. His cock throbbed against her, every slip and caress from her driving his lust higher and higher. He could feel it! All of it made him feel like he was fucking! This was what other men felt. This was the feeling of a real woman against him. Every little bit of stimulation that she could offer was now his to collect on. This was everything he had hoped to achieve in life, something natural! Something normal. "Have you ever had a threesome before?" Veronaa asked coyly, pulling away from his ravenous mouth. He scooped her up with both arms and placed her upon the pile of clothes at their feet. "No," he answered plainly before latching onto her breast with his mouth, sucking eagerly at the swollen mound. Veronaa's arms held him tightly as they writhed against each other and sought stimulation that rubbing and sweating could give. "Would you like to change that?" Tom looked up to Dana at Veronaa's words, and both demons caught his interested gaze with vastly differing looks. Veronaa's motherly gaze softened at the notion of bringing in a third party, and Dana's lit up like a child being offered a five-layer cake in its entirety. "Mmm-hmm," the agent answered as his glans found Veronaa's engorged labia. Her eyes began to roll back, but she focused them on him as he rubbed her back and forth. She placed a hand on the back of his head and grabbed his hair in a tight fist. "Don't tease me like this, Tom," she groaned. The agent responded with a hard thrust into her body that elicited a broken, hoarse cry from her lips. Her legs swung around his hips and encouraged him to go deeper, though he was already pushing as far as he could go. Tom closed his eyes and reared back to thrust again. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 13 He pushed into her again and bit down on her breast hard to stifle the groan in pleasure that threatened to come up his throat. Veronaa raked her nails up his back and fell into the hard rhythm he wanted. Tom wanted to lose himself in her and just forget about everything for once. He opened his eyes and turned them towards Veronaa's face, watching the smatter of red on her cheeks grow in size and intensity. She moaned without restraint as he thrust into her, letting herself go as far as she could. Tom felt a pair of hands on his shoulders. He was pulled up from Veronaa's body, still penetrating her, and repositioned in an upright position. Dana put her feet on either side of Veronaa's hips and placed her hands on top of Tom's head. "You wanted a threesome," the demon commented, swinging a leg over his shoulder. Tom pulled Veronaa to his hips with one hand and put the other on Dana's stomach to stop her. "Hold on. I can't do it like this." "On your back then, human," she said merrily, and tilted forward. Her weight pushed Tom to the ground easily, and Veronaa swung upright as his arm tugged as her hip. Now, Tom was flat on his back with his face buried in Dana's warm, wet mound and Veronaa picking back up with her hips against his arousal. Tom stuck his tongue out and sweet, sticky fluid met it almost immediately. Dana's thighs tensed and her breath caught. The agent ran his tongue across a bundle of nerves in her sex and the demon curled forward, naked breasts swaying. Tom didn't remember her having undressed, but it didn't matter now. He reached up and squeezed her breasts, pushing them against her chest to make them look considerably larger. He nudged her clit with her nose as he licked all around her core, and it drover her wild. Meanwhile, as his tongue delved deeper into the demon on straddling his skull, Veronaa was working at his cock to bring him to orgasm. She bucked down and forward, rotating her hips in a way that ran his most sensitive nerves against places inside her that made pleasure run like quicksilver through his arousal. Dana's breathing came out in short, hard gasps and clouds of vapor floated into the still air as she struggled to supply her body with oxygen. Tom rubbed her clit harder to gauge her reaction, and her entire body tensed. "Veronaa...this is impossible," she struggled. "He's got a gifted tongue," Veronaa replied, bucking faster. Tom watched Dana sit back upright and then lean back as Veronaa's hands wrapped around her and replaced Tom's hands on her breasts. Dana moaned deep from her chest as Veronaa massaged her pale orbs slowly. Tom matched the rhythm she held with her hands with his tongue, and Dana began to lose control of her voice. Every breath was accompanied by a sharp cry in pleasure, and even Veronaa slowed her hips to match the pace. Tom's legs flexed down to his toes as the intensity of it all shot skyward. All three of them shared the same tempo, a thrum of electric lust passing between the three of them like some sexual relay, growing with every cycle. Tom's hips rolled against Veronaa's to this feeling, and he closed his eyes. His tongue ran in circles inside Dana's velvet, sweet folds, hitting the same series of pleasure points over and over and over again, each time starting again with a little nudge to her clitoris to set her fleeting cries in ecstasy free again. Tom quickly became aware of the fact that Dana had reached her climax when she snatched a fistful of Veronaa's hair in each hand and pulled the demon forward against her back, grinding her teeth together as she came. Veronaa only responded by increasing the force she rode Tom's throbbing need for attention, and placed little wet kisses on the side of Dana's neck. "You'll feel it for real when he gets there," she whispered sensually into the climaxing demon's ear. Even as she took control of Dana's thoughts with just one statement, Tom could feel her sex changing in how it held him, tightening, squeezing in long and rhythmic patterns. She was close to climax herself, and Tom was thankful. He'd been at the very edge of climax for a while now, and he was getting to the point where he couldn't just sit idly by and wait for her to get there. "He's cumming," Dana gasped, and Veronaa took the opportunity to claim her mouth with wet, plush lips. The two demons fell into a deep kiss as Verona mashed Dana's breasts flat with her hands. Tom didn't realize what was going on until his eyes started to roll back in his head and he felt thick ropes of cum leap up his shaft. He barely maintained focus on the extremely erotic display above him, enthralled by the two demons as they kissed each other and Veronaa rode out an orgasm that to Tom, felt unbelievably incredible. The current that ran through the trio passed entirely to him, so it seemed, and his whole body felt it. A tidal incursion of ecstasy flooded him from head to toe, and he let himself go in it, breathing deeply the scent of Dana's body as she jerked against him sporadically, her actions mimicking Veronaa's as the latter's hips bucked and jerked spasmodically with each new ejaculation from the human beneath her. Veronaa broke her kiss with Dana and rested her head on the exhausted demon's shoulder, grinning down at Tom. "You've not lost your touch in the time between our last encounter and this one," she remarked. Her hands pushed Dana's breasts together and lifted them up and down teasingly. Dana squealed, despite being entirely out of breath. Tom had managed to catch his breath in the time they had stopped, and gave her a tentative lick. Dana's hands shot to Veronaa's and made the latter's hands massage her in slow, circular orbits. "You will end me at this rate, the two of you," whispered the aroused demon in a tone that sounded more like a hopeful one than anything. Tom pushed Dana off his head so that she was sitting on his chest. "I'm spent, Veronaa. I can't do another one," he explained, swallowing the rest of Dana's juices inside his mouth. He wiped his face with his arm and lay on the ground, breathing heavily. "Alright then," Veronaa answered, pulling Dana further down Tom's body. "We'll finish her off and then get back." She removed herself from Tom's rigid arousal and pulled Dana back so that the curve of her ass pressed against it instead. "Can we just-" Tom was cut short as Dana raised her hips and his erection rose against her engorged, dripping labia. "We can," she said with a smirk, spreading her knees to either side of him so her hips sank down to his, slowly allowing his arousal to penetrate her. Tom shuddered and felt his toes curl again. As Dana started to rock against him, Veronaa lay down flat against Tom's side, tracing little circles inside the Vergina sun on his chest. Tom turned his head to her, and she met his gaze with glimmering purple eyes. "You know, if you keep drinking that stuff, you'll never get it down," she commented dryly, referring to Dana's fluids. Tom rolled his eyes. "It's hard not to when she's sitting on your face." He bit his bottom lip in an effort to get the riveting tendrils of pleasure that clung to his body from his glans to his brain. Dana sure was working it down there. "I don't think she's had a human before, or it's been several thousand years since her last one. Just look at her face." Veronaa let Tom's eyes to Dana's face, and they watched her awestruck expression. It was the kind of face that someone made when they were in shock from a grenade exploding next to them. She stared at Tom with a blank, almost dead expression. Her eyes though, held a gleam in them that told the pair on the ground that she was in her swing, and enjoying every second of it. Everything she was doing sent Tom's thoughts into disarray, and as Veronaa started to tell Tom things about Dana that she'd been informed, the human couldn't even begin to commit them to memory. His eyes moved back and forth between Veronaa, trying to pay attention to her words, and Dana's awestruck face. She had taken his hands and pulled herself toward him with every jerk of her hips, anchoring herself against him to add force to her motions. She groaned as Tom's climax built up steadily. "I think it's almost time for her to blow her stack?" Veronaa whispered. Tom shook his head. "I'm not there yet. She's gotta wait or I have to start over." They both heard cries in pleasure filter into Dana's heavy breaths, and understood that she was nearing the point of no return. Tom tried to immerse himself into the experience, but Dana's position away from him didn't quite make for a great way to do it. To help him along, Veronaa pressed her lips to his ear and whispered in the most sexually stimulating way she could, "Hurry up and wreck her so I can clean her." Tom's arousal doubled as her words evoked images of the two beautiful demons entangled with each other's legs and eating each other out. Tom felt his climax close in fast and almost didn't realize that Veronaa had kissed him and pushed her tongue into his mouth. Tom's entire body trembled as his he came, pumping Dana full of his seed as her body came to a stop, milking him for everything he was worth as they jerked spasmodically against each other for a time. Veronaa sat up and ran her finger down Tom's chest to their connected sexes, and then up Dana's panting body to her chin. "I have had enough," Dana admitted, allowing Veronaa to tilt her head up with one finger. She raised her hips and got to her feet slowly, stumbling to her clothes and armor resting against a tree nearby. Veronaa was already putting on her clothes as well, and Tom sat up to do the same. He brushed off the dirt on his body as best he could and then redressed in his worn and nicked suit and tie. When he was dressed, the odd trio returned to where the agents and their guard contingent were encamped. Tom thought it was a sort of joke that it was called an encampment. It was literally a patch of grass that had no trees, where the agents slept under the vigil of demons who seemed to not need it. Upon entering the small clearing, the leader of the demons from Ceria's estate confronted Dana. "Do not let him trick you again," he said sternly. "I would have had half the house guard searching for him if you had not been close enough to hear." "Yes sir," Dana replied embarrassedly, and dismissed herself without further interaction with the huge demon. After she had left, he turned to Tom and glared intensely. "You are not to leave my sight from now on." Tom nodded obediently and sidestepped the demon so he could address Veronaa. "Yes?" she asked, raising a hand to her ear mockingly. "You'll have to speak up." The demon's armored fist balled, but he didn't raise it. "I ask that you do not overstep your boundaries." And with that, the demon turned and walked away with heavy stomps. Tom turned to Veronaa to ask what that was all about, but the smug look on her face told him he wasn't going to get any sort of true answer from her. He opted to go sit with Greg and Harvey and try to get some sleep soon. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 14 --- Six Cycles Later, Near Ceria's Estate, Hell --- Gunshots resounded through the dense trees as seven agents and twenty-three demons engaged the trackers Fentin had sent to intercept them. Bullets whizzed through the trees and arrows swarmed like needles on a hedgehog. One of the house guards sounded a horn, but the noise faltered as he was filled with arrows, their shafts sticking out of every weak joint in his armor and piercing his skull through the open slats in his helmet. He collapsed in front of Tom and his blade clattered to the earth. Tom redirected his fire at the tracker he could see, and the demon was thrown against a tree in flames. The ammunition the Vatican had sent the Special Divisions really was coming in handy down here. Tom turned and received a sandaled foot to his head, sending him to the ground with spots dancing before him. He swung his gun at his assailant, but the blow was blocked and he was rolled onto his back, dazed. Grinding his teeth, he fired blindly behind him. His gun was ripped out of his hand and thrown aside. He heard his blade come out of its scabbard and it too was thrown aside in the dirt. Tom struggled as best he could, but soon found himself covered with hands and his own being brought together behind him. Something tight wrapped around his wrists and he tried to see what was going on. Beside him, Harvey was on the ground with three trackers on top of him and his hands bound behind his back. A foot kept his face against the ground, and he had an uncharacteristic snarl on his face. He saw Tom, and they shared a few unspoken thoughts by their expressions. "Tom..." Harvey started. "No!" Tom yelled, realizing that his hands were bound. His feet were brought together and he started kicking as hard as he could, striking something with his heel. "No!" His world started to lose focus as he thrashed around wildly, realizing his legs were bound up to the knee. His breath caught in his throat and he could hear things in his head he knew weren't real. His pupils dilated. "Tom, calm down! Listen to me," Harvey said, but Tom couldn't. "No! I won't! You won't!" He wrestled his hands free and lunged up at the nearest demon he could find, grabbing the black-haired tracker by the sides of his head. Tom yanked him down hard enough to throw himself backwards in the process, and tucked the demon's head beneath his arm. He twisted his body left, using one arm to push the demon the opposite direction. He heard a resonant snap in the demon's neck and brought his hand down on the disjoined notch to make sure his neck was broken. With that done, he swung both arms around and struck one of the demons in the face, knocking him aside. Tom went wild, fear driving him to the point of instinct. He pulled a handful of powder out of the pouch of one demon trying to restrain him, and lashed out with his fist closed around the dark brown stuff. The tracker dodged his fist and grabbed it, only to have Tom lunge up and bite his neck and hold fast, clamping his jaw down with all the force he could muster. His ears rang and blood filled his mouth, but Tom held on even as the demon kneed him in the stomach, causing his insides to flip-flop uncomfortably. His fist was released and he jammed the handful of powder into his assailant's eye, earning a scream. Tom released the demon's neck and pushed him away, opting instead to find anything to free his legs. A small bag of stones for a slingshot was all he could find, so he took it and threw his weight against the demon trying to recover from being bitten and blinded in one eye. He came down with the bag of stones with little more than heavy, labored breathing and fear-stricken grunts. The first strike turned the demon's forehead red. The second spattered blood across Tom's face. The third caved in the demon's skull and a torrent of blood flowed across his face. Tom continued to beat the dead demon until his head resembled the shape of a bowl rather than a ball. Tom suddenly realized that he was free of assailants and hurriedly unwound the rope from his legs, kicking it off with contempt. He got to his feet and found his gun, reloading it immediately. He managed to kill one more tracker before a house guard came to his aid. Soon afterwards, the engagement came to a close with most of the trackers either dead or retreating into the forest. Tom looked around, and only saw five of the house guards left, hurrying to untie the agents who'd been bound. It was no great surprise to Tom that Veronaa and Jerhme hadn't had any trouble, and walked about casually collecting arrows in a quiver that hung on Veronaa's hip. She tested the bow in her hands with a smirk. "Made of finer stuff than humans use, I suppose," she remarked dryly. Jerhme just handed her a handful of arrows, several of which had been removed from corpses. She placed a hand on Tom's shoulder and he slapped her arm away with a growl. "Don't touch me!" "You d-" "Just don't touch me," Tom repeated, this time less angrily. "Just...I need space. Don't touch me. Don't talk to me. I- fuck just leave me alone. I'm this fucking close to losing it." The agent held his thumb and his forefinger a hair's width from each other. "Leave him alone." Greg warned as he and Harvey approached. "You're not doing anything good by bothering him." Jerhme stiffened at Greg's tone, but said nothing. Veronaa was unconvinced. She grabbed Tom's hand to get his attention, and he swung the muzzle of his pistol in line with her head. "Let go," he snarled, jerking his hand out of hers and stepping back out of her reach. She put her hands up in surrender. "Fine. I yield." Tom backed away. "Fuck you. I'm fucking going nuts here because of- fuck! I, I can literally feel myself losing my fucking mind. I- I- I- I can feel it coming on when these triggers get flipped. And no, Harvey, it is okay for me to talk about it no matter what the doctor says." Harvey dropped his eyes and shook his head. Tom glared at Veronaa again until her gaze too fell from his. He finally lowered his gun from her head and holstered it reluctantly. Veronaa didn't seem as nice as she did nearly a week ago. Tom tried to push down thoughts of her eloquently deceiving him and wanting his soul. "Let's just go and give him time to come back down off of it," Greg suggested. "I'm okay. I just...God, I can feel how fucked up my head is. I'm fucking paranoid. I'm scared. I'm angry. Knowing my diagnosis and symptoms is not helping. I want to be alone." Tom tossed his gun and his sword to Jerhme. "I don't know if I'd try to find peace or spite Ceria with these at this point." Jerhme nodded slowly. "I'll keep them safe." Tom didn't say anything back as he walked into the forest with the leader of the house guards at his heels, keeping a close eye on him. Tom didn't protest, knowing that doing so would only end with the same result he currently had and a lot more yelling and hot tempers. A frustrated sigh escaped him and he slumped against a tree. "Just look away," he asked, starting to cry. He covered his eyes with his arm and cried into the crook of his elbow quietly, hearing nothing from the demon behind him but the occasional clinking from shifts in posture. Tom didn't like this. He didn't like being watched while he was upset, and that he couldn't avoid it here was even more frustrating. He fled from thoughts and images of the grinning leer in his mind, pushing it away and trying to fill his head with things that didn't relate to it. The threesome with Veronaa and Dana came to him almost immediately, and it helped him alleviate his anxiety and fear somewhat. He wiped his eyes and was glad that at least he'd been able to stop the crying. Turning to the house guard, he nodded and they walked back to the remaining group to continue. By this time, most of the weapons and what armor could be salvaged was packed into neat bundles and into piles to be collected. When everything was deemed set, the party of twelve continued on through the forest, now slowly turning into woods as the trees thinned and the light from the sun came down in large pools rather than in thin beams. It looked almost like earth here, like a pine forest with different types of trees. Most of them were so tall that he couldn't see the tops from where he was standing. Others were younger trees that bent and creaked in the wind. It was a more peaceful and welcome place than Tom had thought it would be. It didn't look like the suffering one might expect in Hell. Eventually, the group came upon a cobblestone road that was nearly as wide as eight people side-by-side. Here, the large house guard captain directed them to the right and they followed this road for what seemed like only a few miles before coming across an armed column of soldiers that greeted the house guard captain as General Lusotan. The large demon commanded them to continue moving and retrieve the bodies and armor he had been forced to leave behind. The small group continued on as the column filed past down the road with little more than glances. Further down the road, they reached a stone arch that shimmered like the surface of a pond with stones being thrown into it. Beside the two-storey arch sat a small, squat stone building. Lusotan made them stop in front of the arch and went inside the building for a few moments before returning to his position at the head of the group. He walked through the arch, and disappeared into thin air. It took Tom a moment to realize that this was another portal, and had great reluctance to enter it. The last time he'd been told to go through a portal, Fentin and his men had come out of it. But, as he walked through the archway, all he was met with on the other side was a wooded path with his comrades walking with him. The trees had thinned some, but the road was entirely different. Instead of cobblestone, there now sat great flagstones in neat rows with nearly no seams between them to find. On either side of the road, large pillars hewn from what looked like single stones each lined the road. Tom felt like he was going to some kind of ancient temple, and shuddered to think that some deity was waiting at the end for a sacrifice. He shook the thought from his head. "Tom, is that you?" Tom's eyes went straight to the voice that had called his name. A woman in a yellow sundress smiled at him, accompanied by a dirty, raven-haired architect wearing stained and ripped overalls. "Aeril?" Tom was stunned to find someone he knew besides the six he'd come here with. Aeril and Tyrin matched his pace and the latter stared at Tom with complete and total awe. "Star child..." she murmured. Tom gave Aeril a look. "Star child?" "Oh yes," she smirked deeply. "She told me all about how her star child lifted her amongst the children of creation, how he allowed her to taste the dreaming thoughts of the moon." Tyrin, seemingly sparked by the quoting of her thoughts, grabbed Tom's hand and pulled it into her overalls. "I want to see them again," she explained with a hopeful look on her face. "Me want snu-snu with tiny man," Oscar joked, pantomiming thrusting very hard. Greg outright laughed and Harvey even gave a very slight grin. "Oscar, lay off. I've had enough shit happen to me today," Tom growled. Tyrin placed Tom's hand in the tangled patch of hair between her legs. "Please!" she whined. Oscar laughed, and this time Tom decided to let it go and handle the demon trying to push her wanton lust on him. "Not here Tyrin. Aeril, can you help me out here?" "For a price," came the reply like a cat's purr. "Fuck it, I don't care. Just get her off me." Tom tried to pull his arm away from Tyrin, but she held fast and only tightened her grip on his arm. "But I want to-" Aeril slapped Tyrin's hand and admonished, "Tyrin, stop that. Now go on telling us about the Casus Belli." The architect turned her head quickly. "Oh, what happened? Did we get the roof tiles fixed in place yet?" She and Aeril had a very short conversation, and the architect soon found another person to set her incoherent conversation upon and relinquished Tom's arm to him moments later. Aeril narrowed her eyes. "Now about that price..." Aeril's hands replaced Tyrin's and she pulled his arm to her body snugly, bringing herself in close. She licked the coagulating smears of blood off his neck, sucking hard at his skin to leave several dark purple hickeys. She finished by licking her fingers and wiping the blood from his forehead with an exaggerated motion. Tom rolled his eyes. "Yeah, thanks for that. And thanks for last time too. All the great looks I got in the locker room from fifty fuckin' hickeys." "You enjoyed each and every one of them," the demon admonished while she flicked her tongue across her red fingertips. "As did I." "Making friends with the locals?" Veronaa asked as she fell into step with the pair. "Trying to keep us just friends at the moment," the agent replied, unable to get his arm out of Aeril's firm grip. Veronaa tilted her head to the side. "You've got a little something- Oh look it's a hickey. Oh look it's a lot of hickeys. Is she your new friend without benefits then?" The look on her face told him that she was just egging him on to see what kind of a rise she could get from him. It was nice to see that instead of demeaning again. "Yeah, being her friend has no benefits." Aeril slapped his ass sharply and gave him a wink. "There are several benefits to being an acquaintance with me, like these." She pointed to the hickeys she had put on Tom's neck. "You really dive right into this," Oscar said, moving ahead with a smirk. "I give up. Everyone picks on me now." Oscar laughed wholeheartedly at that. "Well yeah, you're the Second Division squirt." "We have arrived at the main causeway," boomed Lusotan from the front of the group. "Make yourselves presentable." All eyes turned up to the large structure obscured by trees. It was big, Tom could tell that much from looking through the stone pillars and trees, but not much else about it was evident. The group continued, and it soon became apparent that this wasn't just one building. As the rounded the last part of the curve in the road, the trees fell off immediately and a large plain of rocky earth stretched out before them. Rising up from the ground, the causeway ran what looked like a few hundred yards to a huge stone wall. Even from here, its enormity didn't fit entirely into his scope of vision, and Tom simply stood still in awe of the thing. It was like someone had taken a city and constructed a wall around it. Judging from the people standing next to it, the grey monstrosity was about thirty feet tall and its width could only be guessed at. Where the causeway met the wall, a large gatehouse fashioned in the likeness of a face with an open mouth jutted from its stone outcrop to block entry into the estate behind it with portcullis teeth. "That is fucking huge," Tom murmured under his breath. "This place?" Aeril scoffed. "No, the Second Palace is huge." "There's another one of these things?" Tom asked incredulously as Aeril pulled him forward to get him walking again. Again, the demon scoffed. "No, well, there's plenty more where this came from. Tyrin built hundreds of these before she developed Korsakoff's. The Second Palace is where the king down here lives and rules from. Tyrin built it as her first favor to Lucifer." "So you're telling me that Lucifer himself employed Tyrin, right over there, to build a castle for him?" Tom asked. "Of course," she answered. "Tyrin's the last one in the Second Circle who knows how to cut blackrock." The conversation fell off for a moment as Tom looked back up at the gatehouse's outcrop, made of dark black stone. "That stuff?" Tom questioned. "Exactly that, yes." Tom glanced back at Tyrin, who was still busy talking Harvey's ear off with no end in sight. "So why doesn't she at least tell you?" "I have absolutely no idea. All she wants to tell me is that it's a secret." Aeril turned to Tyrin and whistled for her attention. "How do you cut blackrock?" Tyrin grinned from ear to ear and said in a sing-song voice. "Secrets, secrets are no fun, if they're all shared with everyone!" Aeril sighed. "See?" "I thought you two were closer than that," Tom remarked, causing Aeril to stiffen momentarily. She chuckled. "Almost as close as she wants your cock to her body." Tom narrowed his eyes at the demon to try and decipher how to take her last remark. When she smiled, he knew she was just making a joke and relaxed a little. After that, the group found itself nearing the gatehouse of Ceria's estate. When they arrived at the large, strange structure, Lusotan turned to the guests and smacked the end of his polearm down to get their attention. "We have arrived. Show respect to the lady of the house." At that, the four remaining house guards separated and formed two lines on either side of the road. The guests followed suit, and made two neat single-file lines facing the road. The portcullis groaned as it was lifted off the ground by a series of cranks and gears, heavy chains inside the gatehouse snagging teeth on cogwheels to pull away slack that let the iron barricade rest on the ground. Slowly, it rose off the ground, inch by inch, until only its gleaming teeth were visible through the ceiling of the gatehouse. From the maw of the gatehouse's demonic visage came several demons, each ornamented in little more cloth than was necessary to cover their private parts. They wore silver bracelets and rings and bangles, men and women alike. Aeril traded Tom's arm for the arm of a man who looked as if he were a candidate for Mr. Universe. Then Ceria stepped into view. Tom's body froze as she swept her ivy green gaze across her guests. She looked every bit the regal demon that she made herself out to be, and fit the part with a personality like no other. Nothing she wore was made of cloth. All the strings and chainlets and ribbons were made of gold or precious metals. Something that looked like a diamond headband kept her braided hair out of her face. Two anklets served as the anchor for ribbons of thin metal that wound up her legs and ended at a golden chain wrapped around her waist like a belt, studded with different colored gems and jewels of every shape and size. Her sex was visible for all to see, but she didn't seem to care in the least. If anything, she seemed proud of the fact that she wore so little, yet it had such immense material value. Her arms were covered in banglets and bands of gold, and around her neck hung a golden chain with diamond tubes bunched up between her breasts. She looked like some kind of lavish Dejah Thoris. Tom started to tremble in fear, and couldn't maintain his eyes on her. He dropped his gaze and tried to calm his body, unable to think of anything but how things might play out. Would she take him down somewhere and make him a slave for her desires? Would she just throw him down on the ground and take him here? Somewhere else? Would she make a spectacle of him for everyone to see? As these thoughts raced through his head, Lusotan moved to where Ceria stood and leaned down to whisper something into her ear. Tom glanced at them, and the large house guard pointed directly at him, striking another bolt of fear into the teen. Ceria nodded slowly, smiling. The other agents and the odd pair of demons with them were directed through the gate with their accompanying servants covered in silver and jewels. As they filed in, Ceria hooked her arm in Tom's and guided him inside with Lusotan not far behind with the house guards. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 14 "You've unwound a very tight noose from around my neck with your heroics on the road today," Ceria said quietly into his ear. "And you've wound one around my neck already," the agent replied. "Oh have I?" the demon replied. "I thought you would enjoy seeing a familiar face or two from your recent sexcapades." Tom grunted. "You know what I mean, Ceria. I don't expect to do anything but jump at shadows down here and get yanked by a rope around my neck." "In that case, consider your leash a bit further south than your neck. I care very little where your head goes compared to where your cock goes." "You and every other case subject I meet," Tom snorted. At that moment, Tyrin caught sight of Ceria and her face lit up brightly. "Ceria!" The architect bolted for Ceria and Tom managed to unhook his arm in time to avoid being dragged to the ground with the two demons. Lusotan lowered his stance and held his weapon ready, but Ceria waved her hand to dissuade any action. "Tyrin the Stargazer. It has been far too long." Tyrin giggled and grinned at Ceria. "Ceria is warm. Warm like Star Child." "Star Child?" the older demon questioned. Aeril removed herself from the arm of her servant. "Oh yes, your hickey hoarder here had a lasting impression on Tyrin. He's half of what she talks about now." At that, Ceria gave Tom a sly look, and then hugged Tyrin warmly, kissing the younger demon's head despite the state of her matted, filthy hair. "He's quite a star in his own right then, to impress Tyrin." Tom blinked in confusion. Was that a compliment? From Ceria? After Tyrin had finished speaking with Ceria about numerous projects they had discussed some time in the past, Aeril picked Tyrin up off the demon and continued through the gateway with her servant and Tyrin's in tow. Ceria stood back up, adjusted every ornament and bit of jewelry on her body, and took Tom's arm again in her own. As Greg passed Tom, they managed a quick exchange. "We're gonna be split up soon, so don't think it's weird if you end up alone with her." Tom nodded. "I guessed as much." With that, Greg and his servant, a busty blonde wearing only silver greaves and a necklace inlaid with rubies, split off from the group and were lost amongst the crowded square inside the gate. Tom couldn't see much of it from where he stood, but he could tell that this place was like a huge carnival. Vendors and attractions and entertainment booths created pathways filled with demons, high-strung banners and wires and waving ribbons causing the skyline of the festival to bloom with life and color. Demons of all kinds made their way around, making the most of what was offered. Servants hurried bout with food and drink and palanquins draped with satin and velvet cloths dyed in patterns that Tom thought denoted who was inside, or at least their social status. To the left, a large stage had been erected with a pole in the center holding up a number of ropes nailed to it at intervals, with a banner bearing two pairs of wings wrapped around a sword at the top. On the stage, some battle was being reenacted with wooden swords and a dozen or so stage fighters. Ceria led Tom through this chaos and mayhem, parting throngs of patrons with but her presence, occasionally waving a hand or giving a word or two to a guest. Tom didn't like the looks he was getting from some of them, and he knew Ceria didn't care in the least whether or not he was uncomfortable. She never did. It took everything in Tom to keep his cool around her. He'd lost their bet to stay out of Hell for one year, and now he was without a doubt her slave while he was here. As per their agreement, he wasn't allowed to deny an order from her, or to deny an expressly-stated request by her. "Don't be afraid; it's only a little further," Ceria teased, taking his hand in her gently. Tom rolled his eyes. "If I hadn't been drugged up on morphine and Vicodin, there would be no bet or any of this." "I made no mention of cashing that payment yet," Ceria countered in a mockingly disinterested tone. "I've got bigger things to worry about than what I have you wear and who you stick your prick in at my behest." They continued for some time through the festival square, or at least the largest part of it. They came to a set of three massive staircases that spanned almost a football field's length across each, and about forty or so steps up. At the top of the first two staircases were landings filled with pools of dark blue liquid in which sat demons in various stages of sexual activity. Around the pools were gardens and pathways made of mossy vegetation that squished softly under Tom's shoes when he stepped on it. At the top of the third staircase, a vast landing stretched out before him. Weathered gray flagstones supported a variety of buildings, some squat and unornamented, others pillared and decorated from top to bottom with statues and carvings of all kinds. Tom guessed this was the estate proper, as the only people here were servants who ferried construction materials and food and drink and supplies between some of the buildings and the festival grounds below. In front of Tom and Ceria stood a servant holding a blade to the neck of a shackled, kneeling demon. The woman glared daggers at Ceria as she and Tom approached, her gaze hardening with every step the former took. "I've got a little surprise for you," Ceria whispered to Tom. "Oh boy, what an honor," he replied sardonically. He watched the servant carefully remove a key from his tunic and hand it to Ceria, who held it to Tom without looking at him, her eyes instead meeting those of the demon shackled before her. "This is Adze," she said. "She's been a very naughty succubus and caught killing my servants and spying for Fentin." "And this relates to me how?" the agent asked, taking the key. Ceria grinned knowingly. "I made a deal with her." Uh-oh. "This is your champion? A human?" the succubus spat. "Disgusting." "She made a deal with me that if she could suck your soul out, then she could go free. But if she couldn't, she had to satisfy my hellbores." "Hellbores?" Adze scoffed derisively. "Is this really it? All I have to do is overpower a human, hop the nearest wall, and freedom is mine?" At that, Ceria shook her head slowly and dropped down so her face was level with Adze's. "Those cute puppies you'll be fucking later have your scent. Running may not be your wisest decision." "Fine, let's get this over with then," Adze grunted, facing Tom with an open mouth. "Stand, girl. He chooses when you try, not you," Ceria snapped, standing back up herself. Tom shook his head. "Wait what? No, I'm not- no Ceria." "I have guests to entertain, so I'll leave you two be for now and check up on you later." Ceria turned and descended the steps without saying another word, leaving Tom hopelessly outmatched by a succubus. He could feel her gathering the willpower she could muster to dominate his mind and make him free her, or worse. "What's the matter? Are you afraid of me, human?" Tom didn't make eye contact with her as he removed his belt and tie. He motioned for her to turn around, but she stood up instead, knocking the servant next to her to the ground. "Turn around and kneel," Tom demanded. Adze sneered back, "She may have given you the key to my chains, but that does not make me a servant to you, little boy." She took a step toward Tom, and the end of a spear swept across her knees, knocking her to the ground. Lusotan stomped up the last step behind Tom and grabbed Adze by her hair and hoisted her to her knees. He then slid the haft of his spear into the crook of the succubus' elbows and held her arms behind her back, allowing Tom to do what he wanted. "Continue," he said with a nod. "Close your eyes," Tom said to Adze. "Do you really-" "Close them, or I shall remove them." Lusotan's voice was firm enough to give his threat all the validity it needed. Adze closed her eyes begrudgingly and Tom wrapped his tie around her head, tying it off in the back and securing it on her face with his belt. Once it was secured as tightly as he deemed fit, he thanked Lusotan and the demon promptly left to rejoin his mistress. Adze stood slowly as Lusotan left and spit in Tom's face. Tom wiped it away and balled his fists. "Before you form an opinion of me, tell me exactly what she told you about me." Ignoring his question, Adze bared her teeth at him. "And what makes you think I'll keep this on?" "Because you trust Ceria not to trust you alone with me," the agent answered plainly. "Now, what did she tell you?" "You're her champion against Fentin and no matter how hard I try, I won't be able to devour you." Tom took in the information and nodded slowly. "Well, let me set the record straight. She was right about the second part. Not a succubus I've met can..." his mind paced backwards to Paris, and he swallowed with anxiety. "You can't suck out my soul by any means. And I'm not her champion by any means. Hell, I'm only here because I was ordered to be." "By that bitch mistress of yours?" the succubus sneered. "If you mean Ceria, no. And she's not just a bitch you know. She's also an asshole." Adze grinned widely. "And a frigid tease." "And a snide cunt." "You know," the succubus mused, her voice losing a bit of its previous hardness. "I might have liked you had I not been tasked to kill you for my freedom." Tom rolled his eyes. "Good luck with that. As much as you might hate me already, it looks like we're stuck with each other. So we might as well make due with the company we've got in each other. My name's Tom." "You can't keep me off you forever. You have to sleep, human. And when you do, I'll slit your throat and be free again." Her words dripped with malicious intent. "Not as long a tall, dark, and silent is watching." At that, Adze looked around in vain to find the demon that was no longer there. However, with her eyesight gone, she was left guessing where he was. She turned angry. "Get this thing off my face, human." She bared her teeth again and tried to raise her hands to her face, but they came up short as the slack in her shackles tightened. "Look, Adze, you can either get treated like shit or make friends with me. It's your call." "Why don't you fear me?" she growled. "You groveled to that bitch earlier. I could feel how afraid you were." "You're no Ceria. Now, are we going to be friends or foes?" Adze changed pace immediately and dropped to her knees. Her mouth opened wide and her tongue lolled out, wet and long. She was daring him to resist her. "Come fuck your slave then, big boy. She's just waiting for a long, hard cock to come make her quiet and bruise her up and d-" Tom snatched the chain connected to the collar around her neck and tugged sharply, almost pulling the succubus over. "Enough. Let's go." He turned and started down the steps to the main festival square, and Adze moved to follow him. "You know I'd be your wildest ride yet," she whispered into his ear sensually. Tom shook her breath from his ear. "You couldn't suck me off if you had an eternity." However, the succubus persisted without skipping a beat. "C'mon...aren't you even the least bit interested in everything I can offer you, at your slightest whim? Every dip and curve on my body, every moan, every single want and desire: yours to wrap around your little finger and toy with." She nibbled at his earlobe as he slowed. "On any other day with any other circumstances I'd have given in by now. But not today. I don't want to waste time down here." The succubus inhaled deeply. "You smell like you're about to take me up on my offer. It would be alright for you to slip just a little bit..." For that, Tom would be lying if he denied it. "You'll get your chance later." "As you wish, horny boy." Her lips pressed against his ear and she kissed it wetly, sending shockwaves of desire through his body. He struggled to maintain what little composure he had left, and adjusted his throbbing member in his pants. As much as he wanted to deny it, she was turning him on to the highest degree. He tugged her leash again and she complied without further resistance, only smirking as they descended the steps to the festival grounds and passed by demons that gave Tom very strange looks. He thought it must have looked something like a dog walking a human to them. All around the pair, the festival was in full swing. Nearby, three stages were set up and two of them looked to be impromptu classes on sex, as each were set up with numerous contraptions and furnished with various beds and couches and furniture that was being used to show different positions that could be achieved with them. The most interesting one looked like a spider web of chains with a slave strapped to it, gagged and blindfolded, upside-down. On the stage floor, a demon spun the web around on its axis, allowing it to come to a halt with the slave's head upright, level with hers. She said something to him, and then spun the web again so that he was again with his feet up and head down, back facing her. It looked bizarre to Tom, but he guessed he'd see stranger than that down here after a long enough time. The third stage looked like some kind of reenactment with demons dueling with swords and shields, casting blows left and right with flurries of jabs and twisting dodges. One of them had a large, crested helm on and the other something that looked like it was a skull breathing fire. Around them, a chorus sang about the great deeds of the heroes and how they were fated to slay each other at the climax of the war. The Seventh Circle's champion and the Second Circle's champion, deciding the fate of an entire race in a duel. Tom moved past the stage to get away from the mention of champions. Apparently, he was one, and seeing how champions were used in the past, it didn't give him much confidence for the future. Further down the main path between venues and stages and mercantile shops, a long structure of dark green cloth and wooden poles intersected the path, lined with dozens of masks hanging from cords. They looked like threads of masquerade masks, colorful, ornamented, each distinguished from the next with its own designs. Demons picked these up at will, tried them on, and several walked away with a mask on, moving on to other venues of interest. As he and Adze came to the mask shop, a demon beneath the large tent structure approached them with three carving tools in one hand and two thin sheets of wood in the other. "You must be one of the Lady's guests from the Mortal Realm. Allow me to make you and your companion a new identity for the masquerade," he said, bowing low with exaggerated, sweeping motions. Tom looked at Adze, and she somehow knew he was looking at her, because she gave him a leer and licked her lips. "I'd find you no matter how deep you hid yourself in a crowd, human." Tom rolled his eyes and tugged at the succubus' leash. "It's not you I'm worried about." The two followed the demon beneath the tent and were sat down at a long table where demons and succubi alike were being judged by artisans on what masks they should be given. "Let's see..." the demon said idly, pursing his lips as he examined both Tom and Adze carefully, eying their features closely. After a few moments of contemplation, he grinned. "I've got something she might like." He disappeared into the crowded center of the tent and returned shortly with a red mask bearing flecks of silver and bronze across one side of the face and swirling patterns in green that looked like blooming flowers on the other. "How about we end this little charade and get this off my face," Adze suggested, reaching back to pull the tie and belt off her head. Tom grabbed her arm stiffly. "You know what'll happen," he warned, and the succubus groaned audibly. They both seemed to realize again that she couldn't reach her face given her restraints. The artisan shrugged. "I'll find something for you, something becoming of a human who tames the will of a succubus." Adze snorted, "Made to bend the knee with fire and sword." "Like you didn't already offer everything to me on bent knees without question," the agent retorted quickly, earning him a nip at the base of his neck. "It's still being offered if you're brave enough for it," she cooed seductively. Tom fought to end the conversation before things got like they had been earlier. Her voice carried some kind of unnatural entity with it that was driving him absolutely insane with desire. The artisan returned after a tense few moments between Tom and Adze with a mask that looked befitting of a demon. The face of the mask curved up into a short spiral at the edges that looked like they could loop around the ear of the wearer entirely. Gold outlined the mask, broken at regular intervals by green crystalline studs. Around the eyes were carved swirling patterns that reminded Tom of Celtic symbols. "A black mask for a powerful individual," the artisan beamed, handing Tom the mask. Tom looked at it briefly before taking it and the other mask and leaving the tent. Adze followed closely, her leash still firmly in his fist and wrapped around his knuckles. They found themselves taken in by the crowded festival grounds, Adze commenting that she could smell the sex being had on the stages and at the venues nearby. More than once, she stopped Tom to listen to a how-to about something she was interested in. "Are these classes on how to have sex? You're a succubus. What could you possibly need that for?" the agent asked, utterly confused. Adze smiled faintly. "There is always more to learn about lovemaking," she replied. They watched one stage, although Adze could only listen, for a long while until the new set of volunteers came onto the stage. Adze expressed interest to leave and Tom left without any disagreement. All this showcasing of bodies in coitus and beautiful women intimately explaining the inner workings of lovemaking was turning him on. Not that Adze's occasional attempts at seduction were helping either. After what seemed like hours of wandering around the grounds, having come upon a new type of venue or event every few minutes, Adze raised her head and sniffed at the air. Tom stopped as she frowned deeply. "What?" "Let's go this way," the succubus suggested, pointing in the opposite direction that they were heading. "What's that way?" Tom was suspicious, but the succubus sniffed the air again and nodded. "I'd rather not be near that bitch if I can help it." Tom nodded and they backtracked a ways before running into a servant who stopped them and addressed Tom by his name. "Champion Tom, forgive my intrusion, but my mistress requests that I show you your rooms." He bowed low in respect. "Rooms? I thought for sure Ceria would have Adze and I sleep together to move things along," lamented the teen with mock enthusiasm. The servant seemed confused for a moment. "If...if that is what you desire, you may. Your quarters are not simply one room, however, honored guest." "Oh joy, the luxury suite," Adze chimed sardonically. "My mistress asks if you would be content to be shown your quarters now." Tom shrugged. "Sure, lead on." The servant nodded and the agent and succubus followed him through the web of guests and slaves and servants and entertainers, cutting a path through their number with surprising ease. Eventually, they made their way back to the enormous staircases and up to the estate proper. They entered one of the larger buildings and passed through a large number of slaves going about their business, ferrying food and drink and materials to the festival in neat, chaotic order. Somehow, it all looked like it was making sense, but everything was so erratic and hurried that it looked like some kind of mess of orders that just so happened to be carried out as it should. Tom didn't understand how all these people knew exactly what they were supposed to do, or how at least they looked like they did. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 14 Eventually, the throngs and masses of slaves were distant entities and they came across a long, vaulted hallway illuminated by huge crystals emitting light from the ceiling. The stone walls were decorated with colorful tapestries of varying designs and sizes. Along both sides of the hallway ran sets of double doors, several of which were left wide open and their occupants either passed out on large beds or in the middle of lovemaking or sleeping. Adze turned her head to Tom and leered suggestively. "I may not be able to see it, but I know you're liking being a peeping Tom on all these bodies in motion." To that, Tom replied with a tight yank on her leash. She didn't waver however, and continued to leer at him. At one of the doors, the servant produced a key from his pocket and unlocked it, pointing to the symbol that looked like a seven with two dashes through the center and a "U" below it. "This is the number that marks your room. It is not embossed on the key, so you must remember it." He opened the doors and extended his arm to allow Tom to walk in first. Inside, the room looked like something out of a lavish castle in medieval Europe. A massive bed dominated the opposite wall nearly thirty feet away, covered in red sheets and pillows resting all across the headboard that looked as if it were made of gold. The nightstands were styled like gnarled trees with flat discs resting on their tangled branches and made out of some kind of laminated material. Around the room were lamps that gave off a sort of dim light that extended across the room despite not being very bright. The floor was covered by an enormous rug that was covered in multicolored designs of every kind. To the right was a passageway that the agent guessed went to other rooms, though judging by the size of this one he didn't think he'd be spending much time in them. To the left was a staircase that descended sharply downward from its entrance. "This place is huge," Tom murmured in wonder. "There is still more for you to see, honored guest. Follow me." --- Shirakami-Sanchi, Japan --- Haku sat up on her tatami mat and pulled her kimono up around her shoulders. Something strange had arrived at her small home in the mountains. It had been only a short while since the last human bound for Hell had left her home. Was this a creature of the forest who had come looking for a place to rest? Standing, she pulled her kimono tightly around her and wound the thick sash around her slender waist. She made for the bamboo mat covering the doorway, but was taken aback when a hand pushed it aside abruptly and its owner stepped through the open space with snow flurries blowing in his wake. In her home now stood a man wearing the same clothes as the humans before, looking around curiously. Haku grinned slyly. "You must be searching for your friends. Come in from the cold," she cooed, reaching out to the human to stroke his cheek. He grabbed her hand and twisted her arm away from him sharply, bringing a pained gasp from her mouth. His eyes glimmered with an inhuman essence. "Where is he, whore?" he growled, twisting Haku's arm even more sharply. The yuki-onna turned until her arm was behind her to avoid having it broken. She was abruptly forced to the ground and her head pushed against the floor. She struggled to summon the ice and snow from outside, but a knee in her back sent the air from her lungs. She gasped for breath, and the human shook his head at her efforts. "I asked you a question. Answer me." "Where is who?" Haku breathed, tears filling her eyes out of pain. What was going on here? This was no human, his strength was evidence enough of that, even if she hadn't already seen his eyes. The human yanked her arm and Haku stifled a cry in pain. Her shoulder felt like it was going to be dislocated at any moment. "The human who has met the love of my heart, the shining sun of my existence." The human pressed against her harder, causing Haku's ear to ring loudly. "They went to Enderthris," the yuki-onna nearly shouted. She didn't know who the man on top of her was talking about, but all the humans had gone through to Enderthris. She didn't care if this one wasn't looking for the others that had come this way. She just wanted him out of here! Seemingly satisfied, the human released her and quickly crossed the small room to the door that led into the mountain's depths. Haku just lay on the floor gasping for breath. The human disappeared through the doorway and left her alone again in her home with every thought in her mind centered around putting an icicle through his chest and pinning him to the roof of her cave. The yuki-onna moaned in pain and sat up, drawing what little power she could from outside. Two long rivets of ice formed in her hands and she pushed herself to her feet wearily, her arm throbbing with pain. She entered the cave and raised her arms toward the human. The two blades of ice sailed through the air toward the human. He turned with his weapon drawn and shattered both of them with two flashes from its muzzle. A third flash made her hair stand on end as whatever power it possessed nicked her ear. She stood as still as the stones around her, unable to even breathe. The human grunted and turned around. "Do not test me, whore. I will find Ceria and she will see how my heart has bled these long years without her. She will know the love that I possess for her is greater than Fentin's. You least of all will prolong my time away from her and the human who has broken his oath to me." He continued into the mountain unhindered, and Haku fell to her knees trembling. She hugged her kimono to her body and stared into the fading darkness that grew before her. She resolved to finally make a request from the humans to send her a man like the one who had called her hime. She had never needed to stoop to asking the humans for a night of coupling, but tonight she thought it would be best to sleep after a good experience, not one like she'd just had. She returned to her home after debating whether she would actually call the Annainin and have him deliver her request to the humans. Upon entering, she found her small abode with five more human similarly dressed as all the ones previous. Haku smiled, glaring through the façade. "You must be here to follow the other humans as well," she said invitingly. She waved a hand to the door she had just come through. "They're a very long way ahead of you." One of the men took out a device and put it to his ear. "Sir, yes sir, he's made it through already." A long pause. "She said 'a very long way ahead' sir. Yes sir." The man put away the device after closing it and turned to Haku. "Yes?" she asked, allowing her kimono to slide just enough to reveal her shoulder. "We apologize for the intrusion, ma'am. We'll see to it that any requests you send in for recompense will be met quickly and abundantly." He nodded and then bowed very formally. Haku sighed. "Very well, you may leave." "They're not going anywhere," said an authoritarian voice from outside, pushing the bamboo mat away from the doorway. An older man with thinning hair and a stern frown on his face stepped in. He surveyed the scene and then crossed the room to where Haku stood. He looked her over and with gentleness she hadn't expected, slid her kimono from her shoulder and examined her bruised skin. He brushed a bit of dirt out of her hair and then wiped it from her garment. "I'll have them sent home in the morning, Haku-san," he said as gently as his gruff voice could manage, which wasn't much less powerful than it had been when he was shouting outside. "Use them as you wish." With no further information to give her, the man turned and left her home without so much as a glance to the five men he had just ordered to stay the night. Haku stood stunned for a few moments until the five men began to remove their weapons and undress slowly. She raised her brow with intrigue. "Oh? This is interesting." "You heard the Director," one of them said, assuming a position on the floor on his knees with his hands on his thighs. "We are at your disposal, Haku-san." Maybe she wouldn't have to call the Annainin after all. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 15 Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 15 Ceria deadpanned, "Oh, cute, he brought Garlana's Mask. Has he showed you how it works yet?" Adze turned her head toward Tom slightly, and he assumed she was giving him a sideward glance, despite not actually being able to see him. "Nobody shows me anything," she muttered bitterly. Ceria reached down and ran two fingers between Adze's legs, causing the succubus to shriek with something akin to fear. Adze swung her clawed hands in front of her, but Lusotan reined her in with a firm hand against her side that sent her stumbling sideways. "I will kill you, wretch!" Adze roared, swinging her hands to fend off any would-be further attempts from Ceria to touch her. Ceria admonished, "Now now, play nice. It's just a bit of harmless fun..." "I will not be killed by the mask that slew Garlana!" "Then calm yourself," Ceria said in a tone between suggesting and demanding. "I could smell you from the door." Adze pushed herself to her feet and growled, "If your champion were not so afraid of me, we would not be standing here now." "Afraid, huh?" Tom questioned. Ceria grinned widely at that and knelt down to Adze's level. "Aw, is the mean ol' human just teasing your evewy pwecious desire? Is he a bad human?" She looked at Tom and wagged her finger at him. "Naughty Tom, don't tease your toys." "I am not a goddamned plaything!" the succubus roared, lunging at Ceria. Lusotan threw his fist against her head so hard that it reversed her trajectory and sent her skittering across the floor until the collar around her neck ran out of slack and jerked her to a halt. Lusotan grunted disapprovingly. "Do not raise your hand against the mistress." He was motionless as Adze rolled onto her stomach and got to her feet slowly, holding her head as blood trickled out of the bottom of Garlana's Mask. She swayed a bit before regaining her balance. "And the ever-present hand of justice returns," she muttered sardonically. "Oh hush. You're so mouthy today; has Tom loosened up that mouth of yours?" Adze groaned. "He wouldn't know what to do with it if he had instructions." Ceria arched a brow at Tom and bit her bottom lip. "He's more than you think he is." "Taking my side finally?" the agent asked rhetorically. Her eyes diverted to his still-throbbing arousal tugging at his pants and she said in an offhanded manner, "Affirming my faith in your tool there, really." Tom rolled his eyes. "And a nice fuck you to you too, milady." He gave her a mockingly low and exaggerated bow. Ceria raised her eyebrows suggestively. "This special treatment from you is a nice change, but I'm afraid I have to go now, guests to entertain, wars to wage, plunder to take and all that great stuff. I'll return later to see how loose her mouth is." She returned to the door to leave, and paused with her hand on it for a moment before leaving. "Oh, and Tom?" "What?" "Remember what I said about toys." She gave him a snide look and then left with her entourage in tow. As his mistress left, Lusotan made to leave as well, only addressing Tom to make his displeasure known. "Treat the mistress with more respect...please," he added begrudgingly. He watched Adze warily as he and the servant left, closing the door behind them. When Adze realized that they were alone, she licked her quicksilver lips enticingly. "I may be unable to act upon my greater desires..." She opened her mouth, saliva coating her tongue. "But I can make it very difficult for you to resist yours." Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 15 As the nearest archer met his gaze, Vendr raised his hand and flicked two of his fingers toward the fort. Hopefully, the surprise attack would work better this time than it had the last two. Arrows coated with pitch arced out of the forest and through the torches set on the walls, igniting in luminous bursts of flame. They fell inside the fort quietly and Vendr thrust himself from the trees, raising his axe high. Finally, it worked flawlessly! "To me, brothers!" he called, and all at once a war cry from his company resounded all around him. He rushed to the gate and decapitated the nearest of the two guards with a downward stroke that cleaved through chainmail and pauldron alike. The second guard raised his sword, but Vendr nearly split him in half diagonally with a return stroke up from the ground. With the guards dead, he grabbed the portcullis gate and started to lift it. The key to storming these forts was to break through before any actual infantry could be mobilized. As lethal as archers were, arrows were not quite as dangerous as swords for demons of Vendr's size. Two arrows thudded against the giant's shoulder and he let out a roar in frustration. He was quickly braced by several of his men and two of his archers fired through the gate at his assailants. Slowly, the gate opened and Vendr held it up while his company poured into the camp, coming to life in confusion by now. Ladders mounted the wall and very quickly arrows whistled through the tightly-packed tents inside. Vendr passed off holding the gate up to a few of his men and joined the growing fray in and around the tents, swinging his axe at soldiers who were in various states of preparation. His attention was moved to the central barracks as its doors opened and fully-armed and armored soldiers poured out of it in formation, an expanding, gleaming row of shields in the firelight. Vendr quickly made for the line and his men gathered in his wake, preparing to charge. Vendr gripped his axe with both hands and led the charge, letting loose a war cry as he bounded across the span between him and his foes. They braced against him, but it was of little use. His axe tore one shield away from its owner's hand and then spilled his entrails across the cold ground. He blocked a stab at his head and returned with a chop that took the demon's arm off at the shoulder. A second strike removed both his legs. Vendr kicked aside a soldier who'd turned his back to engage another of his men, throwing him to the ground. He was like a titan amongst gods. "Face me in single combat, Vendr," shouted a voice over the din of battle and snapping of burning tents and bodies. "Enough!" Vendr roared, causing the battlefield to slowly come to a halt. Both sides returned to their respective positions and Vendr turned to face his foe. To anyone other than a demon, such a happening would be considered absurd, but in Hell, honor duels were nothing to be scoffed at. Sacred tradition was to be followed, honor to be had, a reputation to be gained or upheld. Vendr's foe was a good-sized demon wielding a broadsword. As a show of his skill with a blade, he wore no restricting helm, which made Vendr grin widely. The giant lowered his axe to the ground and extended his arm. "I am Vendr, first captain of Lord Fentin's host." The demon nodded and clasped forearms with Vendr. "I am Sten, captain of the eighth pass." The two unclasped forearms and took their respective stances for combat. Vendr took a deep breath and shifted his weight to his back leg. He could end this quickly if he gauged his opponent's opening move right. Sten lunged forward, the tip of his blade aimed at Vendr's navel. The larger demon twisted his frame away from the blade and swung his axe to parry. The weapons connected, and Sten was thrown to the left. However, he spun to keep the momentum of his attack and caught Vendr across the chest with his blade's deadly point. Vendr grunted and swung at his foe's legs, surprised by Sten's quickness at leaping back and stabbing at his exposed arms. Vendr swung backwards to parry with the flat of his blade, catching Sten's hand with crushing force. The latter's blade slipped from his grasp and ended up on the ground. Sten rolled under the whirwind blow the captain delivered and retrieved his sword with his left hand, as his right was bloodied and several of his fingers bent badly out of place. He swung at Vendr again, slashing across his midsection. The giant took the blow and smashed Sten in the side of the head with his fist. The demon was sent to the ground with an audible thud. Vendr followed up with a strike straight down at his foe to finish the duel. However, Sten raised his blade and blocked the thunderous blow with both arms bracing his weapon above him. Steel grated against steel and shrieked as the two captain fought to overcome one another. Vendr let the head of his axe slide up and hooked Sten's blade beneath its head. He pulled down with incredible force and his axe sank through armor and muscle and bones alike, burying itself in Sten's entrails. Vendr pushed up and raked his axe through Sten's torso up to his neck, ending his life in a matter of moments. Sten's arms went slack and his blade slid away from Vendr's axe, protruding from his ruined and bloody breastplate. The victorious captain stood and removed his weapon from Sten's body with a sickening slurp. He turned and faced the soldiers standing in a line before him, shields locked together and gleaming against the firelight as they had before. He glanced down at their captain's corpse, ruined and disemboweled. "Well fought, noble foe." The battle ended quickly afterwards, with Vendr's forces overpowering and massacring what was left of the garrison in a matter of minutes. Everything of value was looted and every scrap of food and drink taken from the fort as the fires spread and consumed the larger part of its innards. Vendr's company returned to their staging camp and distributed the loot and supplies amongst themselves. Vendr returned to his quarters, if one could call it that. Four posts staked in the ground with tanned hide draped across them to act as walls. It was open to the sky, but still provided enough privacy for the captain and his companion. He entered his quarters and sighed at the sight of Naia, his baphomet, curled up in a bundle of furs next to the small fire he'd made to keep her warm before leaving earlier. In the time it had taken this small blaze to use most of its fuel, he'd sacked four forts and broken open two passes for other companies to continue through to further holdouts. This put him ahead of schedule and afforded him some time to rest. The baphomet suddenly sat bolt upright. "My lord, you're hurt!" "I am fine," the demon replied, motioning for Naia to lie back down. She did, though reluctantly as her eyes darted back and forth from his shoulder to his chest and his thigh. She shivered again. Vendr took the fur blanket off his own bedroll and laid it over Naia's body. "I'm sorry for the lack of accommodations. Such is a soldier's plight." Naia smiled at his joke. "It is of no great concern, my lord." "I would have left you in my quarters in the war camp, but Mefur and the Lord have made a habit of taking things from me as of late." Vendr suppressed the dissatisfaction at being denied a duel with Usher Lanos many months ago. "Yes lord," Naia replied obediently, sitting up. She shivered visibly, even under the padding and furs that were supposed to keep her warm. Vendr opted to sit down behind her and pull her into his lap in order to keep her warm. She was tiny against him, like a little mouse nestled against a bear. Even covered up, she looked fragile enough to break just by grazing her with his fingertips. It was as if even touching her at all would break her into a thousand little pieces, in stark contrast to his unbreakable, immovable frame. "Do you wish for me to provide a tune?" the baphomet asked, turning her head to him. "A lullaby," the demon answered back. Naia took a deep, clear breath and then tilted her head up and began to hum a slow, calming tune. Vendr almost had to strain to hear it, but he felt its simple beauty through her small body. He embraced her more gently, their bodies relaxing against one another as her tune drifted through the small enclosure and wound around its perimeter like a hand with fingers curling slowly. The furs fell from Naia's body, but she seemed not to notice as Vendr's arms snaked around her frame and secured her warmly against his muscled, tired form. After the melody's hand had enclosed them both in its gentle grasp, Vendr began to notice Naia's body moving very slowly. Her hips rolled in the same slow, drifting way the notes in her voice did, aligning her entire being with one aim. The demon's desires started to stir, like a beast from a long winter, regaining its senses bit by bit. In the rhythm of her sweet, soft lullaby, Naia said, "If you wish for me to change the tune, you need only ask." Vendr breathed almost inaudibly, "Faster." The baphomet responded by drawing more notes into the tune, filling in long, slow spins of notes with crisper, quicker ones. Her hips matched the quickening pace, fueling the desires in Vendr's body exponentially. His arousal became apparent to the baphomet, but she didn't seem to care or mind as her tune carried on unhindered. While his needs were being met, he reasoned that for her good work he should reward her. But with such a frail and fragile body, he couldn't do as he had done in the past with his late wife, a baphomet of considerable build for one of her race. However, Naia was no child, and himself no brute. Vendr slipped his hand down between the baphomet's pale thighs and rimmed her sex with his fingertip, listening to how smooth and steady her tune remained despite the growing feeling coming from within her. His finger found her clit. She was already prepared to go through with whatever he wanted, holding her voice away from what was happening to her body. In the months that he'd had her as a companion, she had not once been his bedmate, though it didn't stop her from being the only slave he truly cared anything about. His finger began its delicate ring of motion, rubbing Naia's clit in little circles over and over again. Her body temperature rose sharply at his ministrations, causing a red flush to spread across her cheeks and neck. Her tune changed slightly, taking on a deeper and huskier tone as they continued to work each other up As they teased and prodded each others' self-control, Vendr began to hear whispers in Naia's voice, meandering between the tones she sang. They danced across the very limits of his hearing, staying in the shadowy depths her voice created. Vendr stared blankly into the fire, not seeing it as much as he was looking at his body intertwined with the baphomet's. She whispered deeper things to him than satisfying desires. Her voice offered him resolution, acceptance, completion. He unconsciously slipped his finger insider her core and started to pump it in and out of her slowly, feeling the change in her voice as words became more concrete in his mind, spinning like dancers upon ideas that made themselves comfortable in his daydreaming. She removed the barriers between them. No more flesh and blood and bone separated their souls, only the reluctance to let go of all else that held them shackled to the world. Together, they wandered slowly, deeper into the melody she brought forth from times when creation looked like a wave of life sweeping across nothingness, leaving dreams and stars in its wake. Vendr removed his finger from her and lifted Naia slowly off his lap. He placed his cockhead at the cleft of her thighs as it rose to meet her body, desiring nothing more than to make them one being with one soul and purpose. "Do not break rhythm," he whispered. Naia nodded and he began to lower her body to his again, sinking his throbbing arousal into her core with agonizing slowness. He continued to brace her with his hands, unsure as to how far she could take him. It took every ounce of strength in his body not to thrust up into her and fuck her body until he was satisfied. His head still floated amongst the heavens, making it double difficult to maintain composure with the object of his desire literally in his hands and trembling with pleasure. Lower she sank, unceasing in her sensual melody even as her insides gripped him as if to cling to life. His member easily parted soft, wet fold after fold, sending shivers up to the base of his skull. His eyelids nearly closed as his eyes began to roll back. It was simply intoxicating to feel this once again. Her voice rang like the finest crystal glass' thrum, melting away his earthly thoughts and ascending him into another world of pleasure. He didn't realize that she'd reached the base of his erection until she began to roll her hips again, sending tendrils of pleasure spiraling up his body and through the core of his being. He bit back a groan and started to roll against her as well, placing his hands on her waist to keep his body in rhythm with hers. It tested them, the slow and easy pace they took. Her moreso than him, as she continued to let her voice ebb and flow with an unearthly tune. Vendr's body begged his mind to let loose and fuck her, but he refused, taking the route he'd chosen from the beginning. He was not going to break her or end this beautiful melody, not after she'd built it up so far from scratch. She pulled his arousal through an especially long cycle and pierced his thoughts with her voice, guiding his mind to where she wanted it. He followed phantom whispers that rose and fell along a tide of heartfelt hymns of desire and passion. His body still rocked with Naia's slowly, bringing him closer to climax with every slow cycle. Naia began to tremble as Vendr neared his limit, the tune slowing down to a crawl and dropping in tone to something like a lusty moan. She held it though, to her credit. Vendr prepared for his imminent orgasm, and closed his eyes to concentrate on Naia's voice. He reached the apex of another arc into the baphomet's small body and every nerve ending in his glans felt a current of electric pleasure flow through it. Vendr's thoughts were thrown to the far corners of the earth and his body seemed to disconnect from them. Something like a blade piercing the back of his skull hit him and he lost his ability to hold his orgasm back any longer. A voice struck through his head like a bolt of lightning to send a flash of light before his eyes. His vision filled with thousands of sparks. He came hard enough for his eyes to cross and his mouth to open in awe. His erection throbbed wholeheartedly each time a ropey strand of semen burbled forth from its head, filling Naia's body again and again and again. Vendr couldn't rub two thoughts together if his life depended on it. The only thing that stuck was the image of Naia with her head tilted toward the darkened sky, her back arched and clawed hands tearing into his thighs as his hands gripped her hips with white knuckles. It was a long, silent moment before Vendr's ears stopped ringing enough for him to hear the panting and ragged breathing that filled his small tent with noise. He looked blearily down his chest at Naia, who sat motionless on his throbbing arousal with her arms hanging loosely to her sides and head tilted skyward. That was her breathing, the ragged noise. Vendr shook his head to clear it. That was some kind of psychic scream that had sent him to the ground with enough force to break his thoughts. Watching Naia's heavy, labored breathing, he realized what had happened. His lips split into a wide, mirthful grin. "I..." Naia began in utter confusion. Vendr sat up and hugged her body to his, panting wearily. "I've made a chanter out of you." To that, Naia's looked straight up at him from his lap and furrowed her brow. "That was a chant?" she questioned, a twinge of hope in her voice. Vendr chuckled, amused. "One syllable does not a chant make." Naia's hope faded with that, but Vendr only grinned wider. "But a chanter it does." The baphomet's lips split into a grin to match his own and they sat in their small world of still breathing and silent company for a long while, not needing words to fill the air, not needing actions to carry thoughts adrift. But, it was not to last forever. Vendr lifted Naia off his fading arousal gingerly and set her back down on the various pelts and skins she'd been huddled beneath earlier. He wrapped her up in them and put his hand on her head. "Ple..." the baphomet paused as Vendr tilted his head to the side. "Please return, lord." Vendr stood up and nodded down at the girl. "I expect progress when I return." He grabbed his pack and rummaged through it for a bulb of torridroot, handing it to Naia. "It may help ease your mind." She nodded. "Yes lord. Thank you, lord." Vendr fastened the pelts and furs over his body again and left his small, simple quarters without further interaction with the baphomet. He picked up his axe again and called for the fresh, rested half of his troops to assemble. Half his cavalry company and the auxiliaries Fentin had put under his command stood at attention. "We move to block Two-Tails' retreat through the mountains now. Fentin is in pursuit already. We may have a chance to snap our jaws shut on Two-Tails before he can escape." They affirmed with a low reply and gathered their weapons and the lighter armor. Vendr would have liked to outfit his men with heavy plate and chainmail, but the situation didn't allow for safety, only silence. Leather jerkins and skullcaps were the most common amongst his men now, and even sandals had been done away with in favor of bare feet. Vendr himself wore no armor at all and had only his two pelts to keep him from freezing in the cold of the night's cycle. When they were ready, the company and auxiliaries began their march south through the mountainous terrain to catch Two Tails' column on the Old Road that ran the inner side of the southern ridge of the mountains. With luck, they'd be able to hook the head of the column and stop it in its entirety. Leaving the small camp's firelight, the night enveloped them, closing in around the group as they moved. At the raiding party's head, Vendr was met by one of his subordinates, Grial. The demon wasn't very physically imposing, and his accent was less-than-suited for being a member of minor nobility. His normal toothy grin was gone now, replaced with the serious look he drew about himself when he dwelled on upcoming combat. "Itta been better fer you if y'd rested, m'lord," he said. Vendr arched a brow at the small demon. "War does not allow rest when it is needed, only when it is permitted." Grial grunted. "Still, a night's turn wi' no sleep, draws outa giant faster 'n'a mouse." "Duly noted," Vendr replied, feeling an edge in his tone. Grial fell off a bit after that and left Vendr's presence completely shortly thereafter. The captain was in no mood to be lectured by the demon who considered himself to be the company's conscience. Even if he was right, Vendr had no interest in being told he should have slept rather than give Naia a voice. He pushed on with his troops without further interruptions. The night dragged on as they marched across inhospitable terrain and scaled two solid cliff faces to reach their destination on time. It seemed like years before they could hear the low rumble of an army on the march in the distance. Almost as soon as the familiar rumble reached their ears, every demon in the party tightened up physically and dropped into a low crouch. Vendr even caught himself doing it. It was nearly an instinct after so many hundreds of years of warfare, to assume the stance of a night raider about to meet his foes. A low crouch with arms tucked in and head driven forward. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 15 He straightened up and continued with his men, pushing quietly through the forests mountainsides as the dawn of the final cycle of the Long Night began to show signs of stirring on their left. It would still be dark by the time the battle was over, but by the time they returned to their camp it would be light again. There was no hurry to beat the light, only to beat the march of Two Tails' army. As the rumble of the column grew louder, the raiding party took its initiative and spread out through the trees on either side of Vendr, every demon in a low crouch with his arms tucked in to his sides and head driven forward. Their weapons remained sheathed to remove the chance of their catching light of torches or lamps. A short while later, Vendr and his men caught sight of the column on the march. Hundreds of demons in a throng nearly six abreast hurried in a forced march. Interspersed among them were Two Tails' mages, each assigned to a group of four bodyguards. Vendr motioned for his party to mirror the march and they began doing so quickly, keeping pace with the mages as checkpoints. Vendr couldn't believe the luck he'd received. If his company timed their attack right, he could halve the number of mages under the command of Two Tails and his subordinates in a single battle. His knuckles turned white as his fingers tightened around the haft of his axe. Short of finding Two Tails himself, this was the best possible situation he could have found himself in. Now all he needed to do was wait for Fentin's troops to make the first move and draw the column's attention so he could attack. As it stood now, if he moved on his enemy his own forces would be quickly overwhelmed and slaughtered by the sheer weight of number Two Tails possessed. And even as large as he was, Vendr had to admit that size and power were no great match for an army alone. A horn sounded in the distance and the pulse of the column changed. It slowed, heads turning around to find the origin of the hornblow, followed by several more of its brethren. The clash of steel against steel rose over the marching of feet and the cacophony of war cries and screaming and shouted orders that accompany soon followed. Vendr continued to hold pace as the column began its quick-march, abandoning those who had been caught behind. They were on guard. He'd have to wait for a better opportunity. He watched eyes scan the trees, trying to find demons in the darkness. Vendr knew his party was too far from the road to be seen, but even still, he held his breath every time a pair of eyes met his own. His hesitance to attack paid off when Fentin's forward scouts fell upon a joint in the column just close enough for Vendr to see glinting blades in the barely-visible light of the Eternal Sanctum teasing the horizon. Vendr took his axe in both hands and bolted from the trees, crossing nearly twenty feet in moments. He entered the lamplight of a soldier and uttered a war cry at the top of his lungs, aiming a strike at the startled demon's neck. His axe tore through flesh and bone and severed the demon's head easily, plastering blood across several battered and worn breastplates and helms. Vendr shouldered three demons out of the way to make room for another swing, using the utter confusion he'd caused to great advantage. His men came in quickly, realizing that he'd begun already. Vendr swung and severed arms, legs, hands, and fingers. Blood showered like water in a river. Fentin's first captain was a whirlwind of death, swinging wildly to either side to keep his enemies at bay as he cleaved them apart. There was no time for them to form a cohesive line or understand what was happening. They reacted as best they could individually, and matched against him they were put underfoot one-by-one. Vendr kicked in the breastplate of a soldier and followed with a downward swing that split him in twain down to the sternum. A blade caught Vendr across his arm and he recoiled from the strike, swinging his axe and the body it was lodged in at his assailant. He put the soldier to the ground with a heavy impact and dislodged his axe from the corpse. He backed away from the growing fray to find another foe, but the column had lost so much cohesion that it was falling apart at the seams. Demons ran in every direction. The mages who'd been unprepared for combat, were already dead or being dragged away and captured to serve Fentin now. Vendr set his axehead against the bloody ground and leaned upon it, watching Two Tails' men scatter up and retreat up the mountainside. There, they'd be picked off by the scouts and rangers in a matter of hours as the Eternal Sanctum came into view in the sky. The smart ones would abandon all their armor and try to make it to where the column had originally intended to arrive. The bold ones would attempt to release their true forms and fly. A great cheer broke Vendr from his thoughts and he turned his head to see what occasion had rallied his troops' spirits so readily. Down the Old Road came Fentin on his hellbore, Acus. The beast's shoulders rose and fell like two massive pistons as he strode with his head down and fangs bared. Fentin held aloft a large object that looked not much unlike a snake with both hands, receiving a fresh chorus of cheers as he came closer. "Vendr! I'd have thought you missed the raid entirely!" Fentin called, tossing the giant of a demon the object in his hands. Vendr caught it and squeezed the fleshy mass in his hand. "So Two Tails is dead then, lord?" Vendr asked, coming to the realization that this was Two Tails' second tail in his hand. He tossed it back to Fentin, who held the thing aloft again for another round of cheers. "Not quite; he's in these foothills somewhere. But we'll find him. I've got the trackers on his trail as we revel in our victory." Vendr kicked his axehead and assisted its arc up to his shoulder. He hooked his arms over the haft and fell into step next to Acus as his troops began to loot the corpses strewn about the road and make short work of those demons who would have become captives had their lord not been in full flight. "I suppose now that Two Tails is out of the war that we'll move to the Glacis River and let the lesser lords squabble over rights to the mountain forts?" Fentin grinned widely, revealing blood-stained teeth. He wiped his bleeding nose with a gauntlet. "Two Tails is about as bloodied as I am at the moment, which means he is not out of this war, even if he himself is soon to be a prisoner. His forces will cross the Glacis and torch the bridge before we can get there if we don't beat them to it. How rested is your company?" "Half are resting now. By the time I return to my camp they will be rested enough to leave. In full I can have three hundred ready by the dawn, not including your auxiliaries, lord." Vendr watched Fentin as the lord mulled something over in his mind and then patted Acus' head with a bloody, mangled gauntlet. "Break camp and make for the Glacis. I'll have my forces take the Old Road and slow them down and my cavalry across the foothills. With any luck, we'll beat the head of the column to the bridge." With his orders set, Vendr set off back to his camp with his raiding party after they'd collected their loot. The way back was a much lengthier and arduous one than the one to the Old Road. Loaded down with weapons, trinkets, and sacks full of loot, the party made less-than-admirable time to their camp. Upon arriving at their destination, the party came witness to a scene that darkened their hearts even after thousands of years of death at every turn. Around the perimeter of their camp, crude wooden crosses had been erected, each one host to the corpse of one of Vendr's cavalrymen. Their entrails had been cut out and strung from the arms of the crosses like grotesque ornamentation for a party. Larger organs littered the ground, soon to be a feast for crows and other scavengers. The smell of rotting and charred flesh assailed the returning victors' senses. Blood soaked the earth. The place reeked of death. Vendr dropped his axe and headed for his quarters, hoping against hope that what he was thinking was wrong. He ripped down the ragged and shredded tent walls to find three of his men huddled around the small, pale body of a girl. Vendr dropped to his knees in front of her and a sigh of relief burst from his lungs when she rolled her head weakly to face him. In a shallow, strained voice she spoke to him. "You returned. I knew you would." Vendr took her tiny hand in his and his men backed away. "I have returned. I..." He was at a loss for words. He lifted the pelt covering the majority of her body, knowing that he didn't want to see what was under it, but compelled to do so nonetheless. Bandages wrapped around her waist, smelling of fresh blood and colored almost as darkly as if they'd been soaked in the stuff. Just above the knee her leg was bandaged, in much the same shape. Her left hand was wrapped in a bundle of rags and a tourniquet was tied around her forearm. "I improved, milord," she offered with a faint smile. "I...I sang. I chanted." Tears streamed down Naia's cheeks. She raised her wounded hand to curl around one of his large fingers. "Thank you." Her hand slowly lost tension and the baphomet lost consciousness. Vendr placed her hands under the pelt and tucked it beneath her. He lifted her unconscious body off the ground and looked to his men for an explanation. "Well?" he asked, barely able to keep from grinding his teeth together in frustration. One of them answered, much to the relief of the other two. "We were attacked not too long after you left. They surprised us completely. Not even the hellbores heard it coming. Most of us managed to put in to fight, but we didn't stand much of a chance. Some of us made it into the woods. Others should be coming back soon if they're not dead." "How did this happen?" Vendr growled, nodding down to Naia's wheezing body. All eyes were downcast now. "I don't know. I didn't see it." Vendr turned and called for his hellbore, Rald. Out of the forest came a wounded, limping beast dragging a sizeable portion of a demon's innards across the ground with his teeth. Vendr mounted the beast and positioned Naia on the saddle in front of him, holding her steady with one arm as he gripped the reins with the other. "We're returning to Fentin's camp. Gather what you can from here and move. Somebody inform Fentin that we will not be heading to the Glacis River." Vendr tugged on the reins and Rald let out a wounded howl, leaping into the trees under the bloody entrails wreathing the edge of the camp. Vendr glanced down at Naia and bit his lip at the sight of her head lolling around lifelessly. His ride was long and wearisome. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 16 ------ Ceria's Estate, Hell ------ Even just the fairgrounds were enormous, let alone the entire courtyard devoted to games and tournaments that didn't involve the need for lots of room or much danger. Ceria's estate had been transformed into a carnival in the course of a day, coming up from a shamble of hodgepodge stages and tents and narrow pathways to elaborate round stages with pulleys and curtains and sectioned, tiered platforms. Worn earth tracks dotted the festival grounds in a wide area, where races were held, teams fought over king-of-the-hill matches, and physical games of strength and teamwork were played. Bets were places on all manner of game and unofficial tournament, bringing to life a flourishing economy inside the estate itself. Tents that had been put up at random were now rowed and some lined with fences to make sure they were kept in good order. Banners and streamers of every color and size had sprung up. Poles dozens of feet high stood proudly over it all, some used as perches for gargoyle-like demons who surveyed the scene below with interest. Pathways had been worn into the earth through the grounds, so high was the traffic through the place. In the middle of it all, Tom sat watching a stage with Adze, uncomfortable and unnerved by what he was watching. Earlier, he had seen a man bordering being tortured by a succubus in a spiderweb of chains, blindfolded and gagged. Compared to the poor soul on the wheel currently planted on the stage, it seemed as if even that would be a nice fate to endure. Apparently, amongst the hustle and bustle of the festival, there were smaller areas where simple stages elevated about a foot off the ground had been erected and a curtain drawn behind the areas of focus in the middle to separate the two halves of each stage. Here, lessons on everything under the sun were being offered to those who wished to sit a while and listen. One earlier had been on swordplay, another about properly binding prisoners or lovers if such a thing was sought by a pair of partners. This one, however, was on the proper use of torture to extract information. An incubus's personal slave had been drawn from the audience and asked several questions, to which he had been instructed to remain silent to or lie. At first, he'd lied, and received a slap to the face. The demon teaching the lesson switched gears for a moment to explain ways to tell if a slave, a mere human, was lying, something Adze paid very close attention to. After that, the lesson basically devolved into the demon repeatedly asking questions, giving commentary on what he was doing both physically and psychologically to the slave, carving the man up with a set of blades and wires and other tools that ripped out fingernails and clipped skin back so he could reach inside the human to tug at ropey intestines and tendons and muscles. It almost made Tom throw up, but he kept it down long enough for the poor slave to expire at last after his throat was slit and his guts spilled out of his body while he hung upside-down on what looked like a chin-up bar with two gears on the sides to spin it. When he was done, the demon took a bow and an applause followed him off the side of the stage to rejoin the crowd. The demon who apparently maintained control of the stage's events cleared and cleaned the stage with several others and then addressed the crowd with his tail swishing behind him mischievously. "A fine main course for the mind, was it not? But, now, shall we remove ourselves from the unclean business of pain and spectacle of torture? To more...pleasurable, and in no way less sensual, displays?" "The male orgasm!" Adze shouted before any other suggestions could be offered up. A number of heads turned to her, and even the demon commanding the stage twisted his horned head toward her. "And what, pray tell, would we see new about something we see and experience almost daily?" Tom yanked Adze's leash and pulled her head so that he spoke directly into her silver ear. "Shut up, Adze, or I'll use this helmet to snap your jaw like a fucking twig. She pulled back and managed to sit upright again. "I can show you how to manipulate an unwilling partner for one." Interest didn't seem that high, so she continued. "Without raping him." Suddenly, intrigue bloomed throughout the crowd and the demon on the stage nodded in acceptance. "As it has been suggested, so shall we receive a lesson on manipulating an unwilling partner. However, I do believe it would be prudent to change your partner before beginning. The human you've got with you seems more than willing to comply with any favor you ask of him." That was met with a chorus of laughter and several jokes aimed at the weakness of Tom's will to a succubus, even one so brightly clad in a mask of silver and shame. Adze stood up and grabbed her leash with one hand. "Come, human. I'll finally show you what it means to have teased a succubus." "I don't think so," Tom replied, "Not w-" Adze tugged so hard on the chain that Tom stumbled into her. She wrapped one arm around his shoulders and the other around his waist. He fought her to get free, but she just scoffed at his efforts and made her way up to the stage blindly, relying on the crowd to part before her to avoid tripping over anyone. When they neared the stage, Tom stuck his feet out and kicked off of it, sending Adze back a few steps and off balance. Tom swung his legs back between the succubus's and tried to trip her, but she just planted her feet and waited his efforts out with a solemn look on her face. Eventually, she got Tom on the stage and mounted it as well, keeping the agent's hands under the control of her own. "Lusotan isn't here to save you now," she whispered to him smugly. "You're all mine now. Every little piece of your soul belongs to me." "Go fuck yourself," Tom growled, planting his foot firmly between the succubus's legs. She didn't falter at all. "I'll need a chair for this," she continued, turning her head out to the crowd. Someone offered up a chair and the stone furniture piece was hefted onto the stage, and Tom forced down to sit back on it. When he was seated, Adze quickly pinned his hands together with one of hers behind the back of the chair. "I am not fucking you, Adze." At that, the succubus paused and drew her head back with a questioning look written across her face. "Fuck? You think I want to fuck you? Oh, you're quite silly. I don't want to fuck you." The succubus leaned close enough for her forehead to touch his. "I want to own you with my body." And suddenly, the air felt thicker with lust and desire as Tom felt warm, silver breath across his cheeks. "So the show begins," said the stagemaster as he departed from the main focus of his stage, giving all attention to Adze and Tom as whatever the succubus had planned unfolded. She turned her head and addressed the crowd with a broad smirk. "The first part is physical manipulation. As you've clearly seen, he's not in the mood. So, sitting him down for a time-out will allow you to avoid whatever chase he might have made you give." She planted herself in his lap. "And as you can see, he's not going anywhere now." "Adze-" She interrupted him. "And if they've got an especially irksome mouth, then you can always kiss it to shut it. This one happens to be a biter, but who doesn't love a nice bit of nibbling, eh?" That roused a few chuckles from the crowd, furthering Tom's anger. He drew his head back and slammed it into Adze's, hoping to get her off his lap and put some space between them. Instead, it caused his brain to jerk around in his skull with dull, deep pain and sparks to light up before his eyes. He blinked away tears as Adze placed her hand on the back of his head and pulled it close to her. "He's still not quite ready to listen, as most unwilling partners will be. But, this is a good opportunity to show you just how far soft seduction goes when your partner has steeled their mind against you." Adze gently clasped a tuft of Tom's hair and slowly raised his head to make him sit upright again. He tried to get his hands free, but her grip was incredibly hard and unyielding. As far as he could tell, it was unbreakable for him at the moment. Slowly, the succubus licked her silver lips and descended upon his neck quietly, bending forward to kiss the crook of his neck. Tom prepared for something cold, but what pressed against his neck was neither hard nor cold. Instead, soft, warm lips met his skin and caused the hair all over his body to rise. He felt his pants begin to tighten as his body responded in other ways to her being in his lap. She quietly lifted her lips from his skin and placed them just a little higher on his neck, leaving a little kiss mark in saliva on his skin that felt cool as she breathed on it. Tom flexed his legs down to his toes and fought the growing urge to give in. Even if she wasn't using her abilities as a succubus, she was using her experience to great effect. It didn't help that she was closing in on one of his kinks either. She made her way up his neck with the all due slowness, collecting every tremble and squirm from him with patience. She reached his jawline and whispered something against his neck, just so he couldn't hear it. She then placed one more kiss on him before running her free hand down his shirt, unbuttoning it slowly, inch by inch. Tom felt her breath against his cheek as she exhaled as slowly as he could stand. "Something about this is turning you on, isn't it?" she asked, moving her lips to his ear. As she found the last button on his shirt, she gave his earlobe a tiny nip, causing her teeth to snap together audibly. Tom's arousal spiraled skyward in an instant. He felt his heart thud in his chest, knowing that with her breasts against him that she could feel it too. He couldn't look anywhere but up to avoid staring someone in the eyes and falling utterly short of looking anything but pathetic. He steadied his breathing even as her fingers undid his zipper and her mouth hovered over his unprotected ear ominously. "I will not give in to this," Tom lied through gritted teeth, taking in a long, deep breath to steel himself against what he knew she was going to do next. They both knew he wasn't going to make due on that statement. She let out a low, seductive laugh and her lips found his ear softly. "Here it comes..." Her silver lips parted and she licked the inner rim of his ear slowly, leaving a warm, wet trail behind as she held his head in place. This time, he didn't resist. His cock throbbed so hard he thought it would rip through his boxers. She'd found his kink. His entire body just refused to resist. He wanted to move, but everything in him forced his muscles to stay still and let the succubus terrorize his ear with her tongue, tracing every dip, every sensitive ridge and valley, everything. She didn't speak a single word as she navigated her tongue across every sensitive nerve in his ear, giving him the mother of all kink-fulfillment moments. It took her eight total encirclements of his ear to be done with it, and as she pulled away, she kissed him just hard enough for him to feel. The sound, however, echoed through his mind like a stone in a well. He sat there in the stone chair, hands clasped behind his back, legs extended forward and locked at the knees, stunned beyond belief. His breathing was heavy, giving the succubus pause as she attempted to address the crowd. She gave him a questioning look, even though she couldn't see him, and drew her body back away from his. "Was..." she started. He knew she couldn't see the red, embarrassed flush that had spread across his cheeks, nor the half-defiant, half-pleading gaze he stared at her dead, silver eyes with. She could easily do anything to him at this point. All resistance past this point, for now, was going to be totally for show. He was far too horny to actually put up a fight. "You know almost as well as I do what it was," Tom said quietly. Adze smiled. "Well then that must have felt exceptionally good." She turned to address the crowd, held at the point of anticipation. "And as you can clearly see, soft seduction has won the day against his defiance. I can now begin to tease him without fear of escape." With a single motion, she slid lithely out of his lap and onto the stage floor between his legs, parting them with her hands. She worked his pants down and removed them with his boxers, allowing his rigid cock to spring up in front of her face. Tom watched Adze intently, knowing that she didn't understand that he couldn't feel anything from what she was planning. It was almost disheartening, after Veronaa had given him a little glimpse of normality, so have it so bluntly thrown back in his face. With a sigh, he waited for her to begin. But, she didn't do it right away. She took a few deep breaths, smelling it with a silver-clad nose. He could only imagine what kind of look she had in her eyes beneath the death mask. Was it greedy? Lustful? Inquisitive? Her expression gave away nothing at the moment. Adze zeroed in on his throbbing erection and slowly moved to capture it with her lips. It looked to Tom like she was trying to savor the moment, and she confirmed it with the last-minute tilt of her head towards his face. "All that resistance, all those walls you erected between us, all that effort..." She stuck her tongue out and dipped her head. She started at the base of his member, giving it a single, long, drawn-out stroke with her salivating tongue. Her hand dove between her legs half way through and Tom closed his eyes as she finished her excessive tease. "You're filthy." She made an exaggerated swallow and he watched the lump in her throat rise and fall. Adze's breath hitched as she sucked in air unceremoniously, tilting her head back wordlessly. She sat there between his legs for a moment, relishing in what she perceived to be her total victory. She'd been able to taste him, and now thought she'd get his soul out with a blowjob. "That's what you get for teasing a succubus. I've been waiting an entire cycle to do that." Tom let out a resigned sigh and waited for her to start sucking. She did, eventually, after taking in everything she wanted from that first taste. She lowered her head, opened her mouth, and took him down to the base without a single moment of hesitation. She let out a moan, sending chills through his body, striking his nerves with a tickle that made his cock throb for attention. Still, he felt nothing from it. He felt her tongue roll around the bottom of his shaft, her saliva ooze around him as she started to rise again. Her teeth ran along the sensitive nerve on the underside of his erection, but it just tickled a little to him. No sexual stimulation, no pleasure, no nothing. He watched her head start to bob in his lap, her hands place on his thighs to support her, one covered in her vaginal secretions. He just wanted it to be over. It was depressing more than anything. He'd been on the verge of handing over everything in his possession for her to fuck him, and now? He was sitting on that precipice, looking over the edge to see her twadling uselessly with his cock in her mouth. It frustrated him to no end. He just wanted to slam his hips into her face and cum so hard in her mouth that he passed out. He just wanted to be normal enough to get a good blowjob. Veronaa was right when she said he needed a break from all this. He thought back to those scarce moments when she'd used her ability to make him feel stimulation from just a simple touch. Rubbing her flat stomach with his arousal and feeling nothing but absolute sexual stimulation. Getting a handjob for the first time in his life and feeling something out of it. Fuck, that's all he wanted. He wanted a normal life with a normal way to get off and a normal relationship. What did he get now? A succubus blowing him with no results while he sat on the edge of desire in from of a crowd...in Hell. He curled his toes as Adze came up from his lap, a wet kiss following her retreat from his erection. "What's the matter?" she cooed. "Feeling a little overworked?" "Yes," Tom replied without skipping a beat. Fuck, if that wasn't ever true. He was on the verge of getting to fuck her and she wasn't doing a damn thing to help it along! Adze turned to the crowd. "I believe after a bit of teasing that he's quite put off balance, so now I can see to it that he's properly teased." She stood up and gently slid into his lap, placing one leg over his hips, allowing him a clear, full view of her engorged, wet labia. Her other leg followed in suit and she straddled him, arching her back so her pelvis was just far enough away for their sexes not to connect. She smiled down at him, blindly aiming at his throat, but it still had the same effect. Tom knew she was going to do everything that still remained in her power to make him pay for teasing her earlier. She was probably going to succeed at making him beg too, if that was her end goal. Tom felt her hand slide slowly through his hair in a way that belied her contempt for him. The succubus moved with the slowness of a lover trying not to stir her sleeping partner. Tom closed his eyes and let her fingers drift as they liked, her touch soothing his need for release that drained from him ever so slightly, like a trickle of water from melting ice. "How long are you going to tease me?" he asked hesitantly, somewhere inside hoping that she would give him a straight answer. "Until you realize that this mask does not make me the slave," she answered, placing her free hand on his shoulder. Tom opened his eyes to find Adze quietly sitting up on her knees to bring her chest in line with his face. Her smirk didn't change, not even when she pulled his head between her breasts and slid her hand down his back to make sure his head stayed where she wanted it. Tom didn't realize until now, having had so few succubi in all the cases he'd been handed, just how potent the body of a succubus was. Her smell was absolutely divine. She was worked up, for sure, but the smell of her sweat and the arousal on her was nearly overwhelming. He hadn't experienced anything like this with Dereza in all their bouts together, probably because she was a half-succubus. Adze's body was designed to make him want her. He could taste the overflowing want for a body to bond with hers in an embrace that had withstood the test of time for millennia. She lowered her body enough to give his reignited arousal a warm sensation from the heat of her bare core. An adrenaline rush caused Tom's hair to stand on end all over his body at the mere anticipation of full penetration. Adze used this to address the very interested crowd again. "I've got him at a precarious place here. I've broken him physically, and, by just denying him what he wants by the narrowest of margins, I have given him but a taste of what he might enjoy if he submits. He's not broken mentally yet, but with a little more teasing, he'll be much more eager to give me a fill of his orgasm. I could take him now, but to truly obtain what I've come here for, he has to choose me, not the other way around." "What if I just pushed up and put myself balls deep?" Tom asked, turning his head up to face Adze's smirk. She sneered down at him derisively. "Why don't you?" She curled down and licked his inner ear wetly, pulling taut a string of desire in him and plucking it sharply. His cock throbbed so hard he thought it might explode. God, she was such a fucking tease! Her labia caressed his shaft as she let her hips rest against his, driving spikes of pleasure through his body. He squeezed his eyes shut and locked his hands against the chair, gripping it with his fingers as hard as he possibly could. She really knew how to do it right when it came to teasing. He'd been fully expecting to penetrate on that one. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 16 Her hips moved back and forth, sending rivets of ecstasy down through his sex where they pooled and stacked on top of one another. His ears filled with a sharp ringing from the force he ground his teeth with. It was unfairly close to the one thing that could get him off, and yet she denied herself the pleasure as much as she denied him! He could smell her growing desire as her pores exuded that smell that made his mouth water and his sexual appetite expand. She pushed his head deeper between her breasts and pressed her arms together to make her breasts rub against his face. Seconds passed at a pace that rivaled that of glaciers drifting towards the sea. Every cell in Tom's body roared at his brain to let loose, to push his pelvis straight up as the upward arc of Adze's movements reached its zenith. All he wanted to do was catch that point where he could shove himself inside her and not give a damn about the consequences. He was trembling by the time his hands gave in and wrapped themselves around her waist. A sharp inhale from her told him that it surprised her to be grabbed so suddenly and her stomach pulled flat to his. Tom could hardly think anymore. He was getting so close to a release that would never be reached. He had to do something. Anything! "Fuck me like you want me," he said into her chest. "So eager to lose your soul, are you?" she returned without skipping a beat, dragging out the zenith of her motions with satisfaction. She let his head come up and put her cheek to his to whisper into his ear. "Well, wanting it will only go so far. I already own your body with mine. You have to make me need to fuck it now." Tom licked the rim of her ear while he had the chance and watched the skin on the side of her neck rise immediately. "I can't make you need me," he admitted slowly. It seemed not to surprise or faze the succubus as she rose to the peak of her motion again and then angled herself for penetration. She stopped there, leaving both of them on the cusp of ecstasy. Tom felt her lips split in a wide grin against his cheek. Without warning, she sank down on his throbbing arousal and both of them gasped at the feeling. Warmth spread throughout Tom's entire body as Adze's hips connected with his. His need for release plateaued as she settled on his arousal, bringing her legs out from under her and sitting on his lap with her feet on the floor. Her breathing slowed down as they sat there together, wordlessly. Tom could feel her body squeezing him just hard enough to feel, the slightest tug at the base of his erection that ran up his shaft and ended at his glans. He didn't know what to do with this. He knew it was futile for Adze to try to suck his soul out; that much was for sure, but he didn't relish what an attempt might be like if Lamoren in Paris had been as bad as it was. Nobody could take his soul outright, but they could damn well fuck him up beyond repair if they pulled hard enough. He waited with the succubus, cock begging to continue and find the release that was so close. Her warmth spread across him with her ample curves were pressed flat against his chest and her heat enveloping his manhood. She continued to breathe directly into his ear, stirring him over and over again with the promise of a long, wet lick. Finally, Adze managed a few words. "I'd call you broken if you moved any." She pushed her hips forward and pushed his cock to a different angle inside her. Rivets of pleasure came up Tom's body and he exhaled sharply as velvet folds caressed him from every angle and her natural lubricants did their work flawlessly. "What do you want to let me cum?" Tom asked in a whisper. "To break you," she whispered back smugly, taking his head with both her hands and giving his ear a long, wet lick. Tom's grip on her waist tightened and he decided that if it would let him cum, then he'd go ahead and do what she wanted. He ground his hips into hers with a moan and to his surprise, the succubus went absolutely rigid. Her legs locked straight out with toes curled. She trembled like she was freezing in the snow, while her breath hitched and held as he pulled back and pushed into her again. "You broke me," Tom said quietly as he reared back and slid a hand down to Adze's round backside. "Please let me cum." "It'll be your last time," she warned with a slow roll of her pelvis to entice him further. Tom's eyes started to roll back in his head at the feeling as the rhythm began to come full circle and start up in earnest. Tom felt the curse tightening around his climax, coiling like a noose tighter and tighter. "You'd be surprised," he replied even as he felt his ribs tightening to bring his mind off the need to find a release. Tom forced their bodies together with his arms, his grip as hard as iron around her. He squeezed her ass so hard it made her skin red. She seemed to enjoy it all, the power, the ruthless slowness she held things at, his need and denial. "How is that?" she breathed into his very thoughts, a husky moan escaping her as he penetrated as deep as his throbbing erection could reach, raking across pleasure centers for both of them and brushing against the deepest nerve bundles in her sex. They both shivered in pleasure. Tom decided to keep his curse secret from her for a later time. "Ceria said to suck my soul out, not to fuck it out," he managed through the increasing thoughts of release. "She'll weasel out of it." To that, Adze drew a long breath and then sighed in disappointment. "And she says you're her champion," she scoffed. Tom didn't know what it meant, but noted that she continued to rock with him with slow force, like two tectonic plates pushing against one another back and forth, grinding each other apart. Tom's thoughts drifted further and further out into a sea of cries for an end. He wanted to say something or get out of this, but the feeling of her innermost folds caressing his pleasure centers kept his hand on her backside and made his hips push up slowly as arched against him. Her body rose and fell against his in identical arcs, up and then down again. Up, her breasts moved across his sweat-slickened chest and her flat, toned stomach slid against his while her knees locked against the back of the chair to ensure neither of them was going anywhere. Down, his entire body curled to let her body lower itself back down with his arousal seated deep within her. Their faces met and with her blind, silver stare she promised him release if he could hold on. Tom's mind was melting at the thought of getting to finish soon. His heart thudded in his ears, heavy, slow, and desperate. His lungs filled with air as her body sank to meet his and a long exhale propelled her to the peak of her motion. His entire body had fallen into rhythm with hers. Their breathing united, their bodies collided and yielded in perfect unison. Adze rested her forehead against his as he was losing himself in the same circle of thoughts over and over again. Up and down, buildup and cli- up and down, buildup and cli- up and down, buildup and cli- "Three," the succubus whispered as her head rose with her body and she looked down at him with her forehead still resting against his. She came down again and her breath quivered as the cycle bottomed out. "Two," she breathed hoarsely, rising again with a hitch in her breath. Her hand rose to his head and its twin held the nape of his neck firmly. Their downward motion brought her face to his again and Tom's body screamed to be done with this. His stare cast itself directly into Adze's silver eyes and pleaded for an end to the torture. Her lips pressed against his gently and she held him in it with her hands. Her body went up and his head tilted up to follow her lips. Her tongue slipped past his teeth and mingled with his as their downward stroke brought to life a mutual feeling that made Tom's mind snap out of attention and into oblivion. His vision bled white and every ounce of thought in his head disappeared. He went rigid as his orgasm hit him like a tidal wave against a wall, flooding over him like an unstoppable force without end. He lost feeling in his hands, no longer feeling the warm, soft flesh they grasped for dear life. He no longer felt the body pressed against his chest, nor the tremor that wracked the both of them. He didn't feel the metallic skin held against his as his mouth went wide with spectacular abandon at the sheer wonder of the experience. The tightness in his chest moved down to the pit of his stomach. He reveled in the feeling of his orgasm for as long as his body could grasp at it. His only feeling was bliss, sheer and utter bliss, for as long as he could remember it. When he came to, he was sitting under the panting body of a succubus whose hands held his head against hers and whose legs wrapped around the back of the chair in a deadly vice. Tom's ears rang, but he could feel the wet, wheezing breath that flowed freely in and out of his lungs deep and hard. His senses returned slowly, one at a time. Sight, feeling, smell, hearing, each growing stronger as the seconds passed by. He was able to comprehend what was going on after a long sit beneath Adze's trembling, panting form. "I can't believe it," the succubus said in astonishment. "You're warded. You're...you're just a child." Her head slid to the side and she let it fall to his shoulder in exhaustion. She turned it to the side and chuckled darkly to herself for a few moments. Then she wrapped a tuft of Tom's hair in a fist and turned his head to the left. There, a silent audience sat with intent gazes directed at the pair holding the stage. Tom had never seen people look at him like that before. It almost reminded him of the time the Director had given him his only ever critique with subject seventeen seventeen two, 'the goddess'. Something about it unnerved him until Adze rubbed his head like one would if they were telling a cheeky toddler they'd done something clever. "What's that about?" the agent asked, hoping to get an answer from the succubus resting against him. "A pair of spectacular orgasms," she replied quietly in a matter-of-fact tone. Looking at the crowd, the succubus then raised her hand with a finger pointing in the air and made a little spiral gesture a few times. A deafening applause assaulted the pair on stage and it wasn't until the stagemaster mounted the stage and called for them to quiet down that they finally stopped. As he managed to make the crowd's volume and chatter drop to a low din, the demon turned to Tom and Adze as they disconnected their bodies. Tom's entire midsection clenched as their sexes parted, tendrils of pleasure striking deep into his body as the sensitivity of his post-orgasm body was revealed. The stagemaster chuckled a bit at Tom;s expression and nodded courteously as Tom looked at him sourly. "Well performed, the both of you. I'd extend the invitation for another demonstration later, but after word of this gets out I assume you'll be tossed about the other stages like every other unique act here." Tom buckled his belt and adjusted his pants to fit a little more comfortably. "No more stages," he declared, looking at Adze. She smirked. "The bed it is then," came her amused retort. She pulled the collar around her neck so the leash connected to it faced the front. She found the end of it and held it out to Tom, who took it warily after putting his shirt back on. To answer his unease, she explained. "I'll allow you to think yourself a champion. It makes no difference who holds the leash if I've got the loyalty of this little thing." She rubbed his waning manhood through his pants with her palm and it responded almost immediately. He wrapped the chains around his hand twice and tugged at the leash twice to signal he was leaving. "I guess we're back where we started, you after a quick ticket home and me fucked six ways to Sunday," he remarked. Adze admonished. "Keep me close, champion." As they left the stage for another part of the festival grounds, Adze looked very pleased with herself. She didn't seem to care that he was holding her leash, now that she'd proven that it didn't matter at all how much he wanted to yank it, that she wasn't going to be led around by it. With a sigh, he started to button up his shirt so he could tuck it in. He was surprised to find though, that the Vergina sun that had been on his chest was now settled around his navel. He prodded at the tattoo, but it was still the same as before, plastered to his skin like an actual tattoo and not some magic amulet. It had just...moved. And it seemed to be moving now too, back up toward his chest. Little by little, the golden color snaked its way up his abdomen toward the place where it had originally settled when the Director had put it on him. He looked curiously at Adze's back as she walked and then back down at the tattoo. He supposed that this was a sign that it was working, so he left further thoughts of it out of his immediate thoughts and buttoned his shirt up again and tucked it in. Somehow, he felt naked without his tie after having worn it for so long down here. His shoes were long gone too. Little by little, he'd been losing clothing down here and he assumed that by the little abrasive tears in his shirt and the knees of his pants that he wouldn't have much left after a few days' time. The only thing that didn't seem to be disappearing was the leash in his hand. It afforded him the little illusion that he still controlled something, even though the force at the end of the leash was entirely uncontrollable in her own right. It amazed him how Ceria could cow succubi like this without even trying. They continued to walk and idly look at the multitude of venues set up in large clusters hugging the sides of the each pathway. Around them were games like you'd find at any carnival, tossing rings, a game like horseshoes, dunk tanks, guessing games, everything. If it weren't for the frail slaves and servants that hurried about the place or the occasional demon or succubus in full form, then he would have scarcely been able to tell he was in Hell. Somewhere along the way, Adze got sidetracked and wound up encouraging Tom to wait while she played a game. Begrudgingly, he followed her over to a venue with a little fence around it and an armed guard at the entrance. Beneath the tent of the venue there was a table with a handgun resting on it. Tom's brow furrowed immediately. "You guys have guns down here?" he questioned. Adze turned her head and grinned. "We've had much better in the past." She turned back to the game and spoke with the demon directing it. "How do you play?" The demon took the gun off the table and held it out toward the three rows of wires that hung across the room's width. "You use this to shoot the targets that come across the wires. Shoot five, you get a prize, shoot ten, you get two, shoot twenty and the special target on your first try, you get a regular prize and the daily prize." He held the gun out to Adze and arched a brow. "Got all that?" "Yeah. What's this other prize?" Adze took the gun and held it with both hands. Tom grinned and just leaned against the table to watch the succubus do her best. The demon running the game took a few steps away from the heavy drapes that hung behind the wires, out of the way of Adze's potential target range. He placed one foot on something that looked like a raised pedal and started to push it with his foot. Almost immediately, eerily slow carnival music started to play and the wires pulled taut across their lengths. Adze's body tightened and she stepped back to broaden her view of the game. "Good luck and fire away!" the demon said. Almost as soon as the words left his lips, he sped up the pace of his foot and three targets came out from behind the drapes and hurried across the bottom wire. Adze pulled the trigger and three sharp pops saw two of them go down. She fired twice more and nailed the third one. Almost as quickly, four more came out from the same side as the first three, and Adze swung her gun toward them. She unloaded six rounds into them and they all rang out as hit. The next time, two targets came out from either side and it took Adze a moment to decide which ones to shoot first. Four rounds later, three of them went down and her trigger pulls let out a quiet click click click. She fumbled around for the other magazine on the table and unloaded the empty one. By the time she'd gotten three more rounds off, all the noise stopped and there were no more targets left in sight. Adze let out a long breath she'd been holding for the duration of the game and set the gun down. Tom had to tell himself to remain cool-headed despite the fact that she'd just been able to shoot targets without her eyes. He swallowed nervously and ran a hand over his face to clear his thinking. Keep your cool, dumbass, he growled mentally to his nervousness. "Well, twelve isn't bad, but it's not enough to get the daily prize. It does earn you two prizes of your choosing. The demon disappeared behind the drapery for a moment and then brought back two boxes and set the down on the table. Opening them, he revealed their contents. Rings of every shape and size and color were piled in both boxes, diamonds, rubies, sapphires, opals, topazes, everything imaginable. Gold rings studded with jewels. Rings made entirely of diamonds with metal brackets inlaid with multicolored stones. Tom couldn't even begin to tell how much the contents of just one box was worth, let alone just a handful of those rings. Adze rummaged through them idly, boredly feeling pieces of finger candy that would have cost tens of thousands of dollars in America. She eventually decided on a gold ring with green jewels all the way around its rim, and a white gold ring with a flat opal gem across its face. The demon closed the boxes and returned them to their original places. Tom picked up the handgun and examined it for a bit until the demon returned with two fresh magazines of ammunition. "This is a SIG Mosquito, right?" The demon looked surprised. "Yes it is. You must be a collector of sorts I see." Tom shrugged. "No, I've just seen it before. Fifteen round magazines, right?" "Naturally, you need to be able to shoot the winning number to get the daily prize," the demon replied, narrowing his eyes. "In that case, don't shortchange me on targets like you did her." Tom shoved a new magazine in the gun and took his stance. The demon nodded and started the game, this time pressing two pedals with both his feet. Three targets came out from each side quickly and Tom nailed five of them as they passed through the middle, without missing a beat. He let the last one go as four more rounded from the right on the top wire. He hit three and then swung the muzzle of the gun around and hit the next three coming across from the left on the bottom wire. Two came from either side and he took the ones on the left, let the empty magazine fall to the ground, and shoved the second in a practiced motion he'd done a thousand times. He hit one of the remaining two just before it left his view. Eleven hit targets later, including one that was solid white, the noise stopped and a buzzer sounded to let him know the game was over. He safed the gun and set it down on the table after unloading it. "So what's the prize?" the agent asked with a little smugness. The demon went behind the drapery again and returned with a small pouch and the two boxes. He set them down and opened each one of them quietly. "It's a potion." Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 16 "What's it do?" Tom reiterated, taking the small vial and examining it as if he could tell what it was at all. It just looked like pale pink water to him. He set it down and started to rummage through the various rings while he waited for answer. "If you were to give it to that succubus there, you wouldn't be getting much sleep for a very long time," the demon answered with a smirk. Tom nodded and pocketed the pouch and vial as he picked out a purple ring and pocketed it too. "See you around," he said as he tugged Adze's leash to get her attention. The succubus hooked her arm in his and snuggled up to him with the biggest shit-eating grin all over her face. "You never mentioned that you've got a mean streak in you," she purred. "How did you hit those targets without seeing them?" Tom's tone was serious. Adze shook her head in amusement. "That's my secret to know and yours to fret about." She leaned against him to signal that she was done talking about it, leaving him essentially unanswered. He sighed in resignation and slid his hand around her waist. "I still have no idea what do make of you at all. I don't know if you're an assassin, an actress, a god, or what." Adze kissed his cheek. "Make me your lover if you're so indecisive." "Fuck that," retorted the agent with a grimace. ------ Ceria's Estate, Hell ------ "Something just doesn't seem normal about this," Ceria's bedmate said as she rolled on top of him and grabbed the sheets with two white-knuckled fists. She drove herself down on his prick with wanton abandon and shook his voice out of her ears. "You're not helping," she explained, trying to work up a better motion to get somewhere with. It wasn't that he was a bad screw or anything, it was just... "Then by all means, tell me what to say," he snapped at her. That irritating thing he did with his mouth and his vocal cords. Ceria stopped dead in her tracks and lifted her body off his, sitting on her hands and knees above his bewildered form. She raised her eyebrows and blinked slowly, as if to say I can't believe what I'm hearing. "Get out." It was his turn to make the same face, but with a tad bit more disbelief and lot less authority. They sat there for a moment, both entirely understanding what was happening, yet neither truly willing to make the decisive move to get him out. He broke first, however. "What?" A pretense. He'd heard her clearly and the look on her face assured him that he wasn't going to be staying for much longer. Even the few seconds it would take him to remove his sorry hide from the bed would be in resignation of his pride at this poor performance. "If I wanted backtalk I'd find a mirror. Get out." Ceria stood up and stepped off the side of the bed as the demon lying on it sat up and made one of those faces that told her that he thought she was being quite unfair. She decided she'd show him unfair if he really wanted to act like that. "Lusotan! Removed him from the bedroom!" the lady of the house called. A moment later, Lusotan's mighty armored form stepped into the room and crossed to the bed with four powerful steps. He grabbed the naked demon by one of his horns and dragged him to the door. Her former bedmate quickly disappeared from sight and Lusotan turned back around as he awaited further orders. "Your will, my lady?" Ceria put one knee on the bed and used the sheets to wipe herself clean while her legs were spread. "Strike him from the list of toys. I'm through with his mouth altogether. In fact, remove his tongue if you can find him later. If not, well, lucky him," she finished nonchalantly. She threw her robe about her shoulders and quietly secured it around her waist and her chest. She strode over to Lusotan and motioned with two fingers for him to lean down. He did so and she put a hand at the back of his armored neck. He lifted her with one arm and cradled her body like she was a child. "Where to, my lady?" his deep voice asked. "Wherever a winning match of cock and cunning is, I suppose," the lady mused. Lusotan nodded and started toward the door to leave the guest rooms. "Lord Geramin?" Lusotan offered. Ceria debated it for a moment in her head. She did like the size of his cock and the interesting conversation she'd had with him in the past during their bouts together, but she was altogether reviling the thought of a bedmate with a mouth that ran like his at the moment. "Perhaps another time," she replied smoothly as they exited the corridor and entered the larger part of the building. They both thought hard about who possessed the right qualities to satisfy her in bed today, the first half of the Long Night's cycle. When the Rings all aligned to make the longest night in the Second Circle, she knew who she wanted in her bed though. "L-" "Varuk?" her general offered, interrupting her. "I apologize my lady," he offered not a second later. He bowed his head in dutiful deference, despite still being far above her face. Ceria sighed with frustration and extended an arm out with a dramatic pose altogether, something like a lover in woe after realizing their forbidden love had been killed. "Whatever shall I do, Lusotan? There must be an appropriate candidate somewhere here? I've nestled over ten thousand of us here! By the Ninth, it shouldn't be this difficult to find one adequate soul." "Shall I collect your personal guard and disperse them to find a suitable candidate? I would use the house guards, but less than a handful remain." The giant's voice sounded a little more than regretful at the number of demon's he'd lost to Fentin's entire forward scouting party. She had heard from the few survivors that the enemy dead had number higher than eighty, which put Lusotan's small band against over a hundred combatants, unprepared and ambushed. Her respect for Lusotan's accomplishments and the training of the house guards he had taken under his wing hadn't diminished at all. In fact, though they were dead, she held them in extremely high regard. "No," the lady sighed. "I've put you through enough already. Let me down and I will make my own decisions for the time being. Return to your dead and mourn them properly." Lusotan slowed to a stop at the top of the massive steps that led down to the festival grounds from her acropolis-esque estate above them. He turned his head to hers and watched her face for a moment before lowering his arm so she could step to the ground comfortably. She did so and he knelt down in front of her with his head bowed. "Thank you, my lady," he uttered quietly. "Return when you see fit," Ceria said, and departed his presence without further conversation. Down the steps, she still reveled within herself about the number and efficacy of servants ferrying food and drink and supplies for the festival. Lusotan had overseen this mix of demons and humans well, so well in fact that she had little else to do than watch them as they did as they were instructed. It was incredible how far they'd come from just a century ago, where she'd worked herself to the bone just to throw a party. At the wide, fan-shaped base of the steps, she looked about the crowds for a familiar face and potential bedmate. Everywhere she looked, vaguely familiar faces moved about, but none that she was interested in. An incubus here or there piqued her interest, but nobody of note, so she decided it best to search for one of her personal invites and see what kind of mood they were in. She pulled aside one of the guards and he nodded obediently to her. "Yes milady." "Does anyone know where Tyrin the Stargazer is?" Ceria asked. The guard shook his head. "Not that I know of, milady." Ceria shooed him back to his post with her hand and continued through the throngs of different races here in Hell. She'd hoped to be able to get at least some information out of the guard. Determined to find her, Ceria went about asking every captain and guard she could find, every booth that had a better view of the crowds than she did, every acrobat. For all it was worth, she spent what seemed like cycles trying to find one dirty woman wearing goggles. But, on the tip of a demon leading three humans around by a chain, she did manage to find Aeril, who wore her characteristic yellow sundress and a wide-brimmed blue hat. "Ceria!" the demon called, waving the lady of the house over to her conversation. "It's an honor that you'd grace me with your beautiful face twice in all this mayhem." She closed the gap between the two of them and Ceria pressed her lips to Aeril's. She tasted bittersweet like the heavy liquor she had in her hand. They parted and the lady licked her lips seductively. "You've not lost your good taste in all your years chasing Tyrin around her fortress." Aeril's lips split to reveal two rows of gleaming fangs. "Indeed. Every other passage reveals a little treasure locked away for an age." She swished the bottle in her hands around to emphasize what she meant. "I believe I'm meeting you for the first time," Ceria offered to Aeril's comrade, who looked rather embarrassed at being addressed by the lady of the house to forwardly. "I assume you know who I am." "Yes, my lady," the succubus offered nervously with a bow. "I am Mayl, servant to her lady Contenca." Ceria's smile faded at bit at the mention of a name she didn't quite like had showed up at the festival, despite the invitation she'd sent. Mostly, she had hoped the ones she didn't like wouldn't show up and save her the trouble of finding excuses to remove them after the Long Night. "Well, I don't mean to interrupt, but I need Aeril for a moment, so if I may," Ceria said as diplomatically as she could. It was merely a pretense, really. Her thinly-veiled statement was understood immediately: shoo, little one. "I was just telling Aeril where my lady Contenca was staying so we could speak later. I hope to see you again, Aeril. Lady Ceria." She departed quickly and left Aeril with an amused look on her face. "You know, it was a tad much to send her away like that. She really was just leaving as you walked up with your robe open." A tanned hand flicked the loose sash around Ceria's waist and they both leveled their gazes at her exposed sex. "Well, that is quite surprising. I should tell Lusotan to be more gentle when he picks me up next time." She pulled her robe shut and secured it tightly to prevent it from slipping open again. "So what brings you to meet with me?" Aeril split any sort of dancing around the subject like an axe through lumber. Ceria had always liked that about her. Aeril was never one to drag something out that needn't be toyed with. "I need to find a bedmate that can satisfy me. I was hoping either you or Tyrin would be up to lie with me in the sunroom for a while to see if we can spark something up." Ceria made sure that she sounded entirely accepting of the chance that Aeril could say no, but secretly hoped that it would lead to a satisfying time. She needed to get a good partner in the sheets. Soon. "It's been a while since Tyrin and I had anything to do with each other in that respect," the demon mused, putting her elbows across the top of a statue in the form of a kneeling man bearing the weight of a pillar on his shoulders. She drank from the bottle in her hand again and rolled her head around a few times. "Don't misunderstand my hesitance as disinterest, Ceria. But I'm not so sure Tyrin is ready just yet to take you up on that offer." Ceria's brow furrowed. "What makes you say that?" Aeril gestured to a nearby group dancing to a hired band with equipment imported from the Mortal Realm. Ceria's eyes fell upon a dirty goggle-wearing woman with her hands raised in the air, enjoying herself to the fullest measure. Her overalls were pooled around her wide hips, unable to fall to the ground without assistance. Ceria pursed her lips and nodded while she thought about how to get Tyrin away from the music. In the past, it had proven difficult to do so even without her relatively recent mental deterioration. Tyrin was just a girl who loved her stars and loved her music. Stars. That was it. Ceria made her way to Tyrin and was surprised to find that the bare-chested architect had her eyes closed, not caring at all about what surrounded her. The lady exploited her friend's lapse of awareness and took hold of Tyrin's swaying hips gently from behind. "Hello?" Tyrin asked, turning her head without opening her eyes. "Shhh..." Ceria cooed. "Just dance. I can wait." Tyrin shivered. "O-Okay..." She continued to dance, and allowed Ceria to pull their bodies together. Tyrin slowed down gradually, allowing Ceria more and more control over her movements as they reached a tempo that allowed Ceria to tease the woman. It almost surprised Ceria that Tyrin was so easy to manipulate. Normally suggestions didn't work as well as this had. But, it was music and she was dancing after all. The lady's hands moved up Tyrin's impressive hips and around her slim waist, travelling slowly northward with every swing of their hips left or right. When her fingers reached the architect's breasts, she paused, allowing Tyrin to grow accustomed to having the bottom of each breast rubbed by delicate, skilled fingers. She shivered and her arms fell a bit as she lost concentration in what she was doing. Ceria took her chance to cup each pale orb about the size of a fist, enclosing them within her hands as gently as she could. With this, she could hold Tyrin's back against her and let the architect feel calm and comforted as she was brought to arousal. Ceria didn't know how much it would take to get someone of Tyrin's mental abilities into a proper mood to fool around, but if Tom had done it without much effort, then it shouldn't be too hard. Slowly, she began to massage Tyrin's breasts, squeezing them gingerly as their hips swayed back and forth and the architect's arms fell lower and lower. She still didn't open her eyes, but her mouth hung open and let fly little moans every now and again. Ceria grinned and made a bolder move against her companion. She planted a small kiss on Tyrin's neck and nipped at the wet flesh as she came up from it, eliciting a sudden gasp from the raven-headed woman. "A-Aeril?" she asked, turning her head. She opened her eyes and stared directly into Ceria's smirk. "Not who you were expecting, am I?" Ceria mused. Tyrin didn't give an answer, spinning around so fast that it took the lady of the house completely by surprise. Her hands were left clutching thin air as Tyrin wrapped her arms around her and closed in for a kiss with an innocent smile sloppily spread across her face. She locked lips with Ceria and moaned into her mouth, squeezing with an arm behind Ceria's head and the other around her back. Ceria didn't know what to do for the first moment, so surprised by the sudden advance was she. She felt her body give way to Tyrin's advance and her back bent backwards as the architect leaned forward, deepening the kiss as her tongue slipped past Ceria's lips without so much as a pretext of asking. Before she knew it, the kiss was over and Tyrin took her tongue back as she retreated from it, grinning from ear to ear proudly. "I made you feel good!" Ceria smiled and hugged Tyrin warmly. "You did." She pulled the demon in close and whispered into her ear sensually, "And would you like to continue making me feel good, Tyrin, gazer of stars, beholder of the inner depths of the universe, seer of dreaming children of creation? What say you and I and Aeril take a little stroll to the sun room?" Tyrin's mood changed in an instant. She pushed her thick goggles down and covered her glimmering golden eyes with the green lenses, hardening her gaze at Ceria. Her smile turned to a flat, serious line across her face. All the happiness and joy in her features fell away in one great moment. "The enemy never sleeps. You cannot capture him, not even with the room I built for you," she said with a serious, solemn tone. Ceria nodded obediently. "Of course we can't, but what if star child were there waiting for you?" "Star..." Tyrin couldn't even finish. Her features went blank as her mind spun around to different worlds, finding what little remained of her memories and piecing them together coherently. "But there are no babies in the sky here. This is Hell." Or, not so coherently. "Would you like me to make you feel good, Tyrin?" Ceria asked, changing her approach. "Feel good?" The architect's brow furrowed and Ceria took the opportunity to steer her in the right direction with two fingers. She traced the moistness between Tyrin's legs and the demon shuddered visibly. "Do you want more?" Ceria cooed, pressing her lips to Tyrin's ear. "Do you want enough to drown in?" "F-From behind," Tyrin stuttered as Ceria's fingers pushed into her body. Ceria was genuinely confused. "You want more from behind?" "Put it...need need need need needneedneedneedneed, need it, need him, need behind, need, need, need it, need wonder." Tyrin's voice fell to a lower, more desperate tone as she looked around frantically and grabbed her hair with both fists. "Where? Wh- need wonder. Wonder. Where?" "Wonder?" Ceria questioned. Tyrin stopped for a moment to give her an incredulous look. "You dare ask? Wonder? Wonder? The wonder?" She stamped her foot and Ceria decided it best to back off and let the architect simmer down a bit. "Aeril!" "Yes Tyrin?" the hickey-giver replied coolly, sauntering over with a look of seduction in her eyes. Tyrin's mood softened at the sight of her longtime companion and melted entirely when Aeril hugged her. "What is it?" "You're warm. I feel...I need again." Tyrin muttered, hugging Aeril back as if she didn't understand what the gesture meant or how to do it properly. They disconnected and Tyrin gave Ceria a sloppy grin. "I had almost forgotten what you were like, Tyrin," she admitted, absolutely in awe of how easily the woman's mood shifted and ever wondering what the words that came out of her mouth were meant to say. "Please make me feel good, Ceria." Tyrin took Ceria's hand and placed it between her legs. "I'll do it to you too." She reached for Ceria's thighs, but Aeril stopped her. "Not here, Tyrin. Ceria has a special place for that." "Well, follow me then," the lady of the house said triumphantly, removing her fingers from Tyrin's pussy and sucking the sweet juice from her fingers. She enjoyed the reaction Aeril gave at the sight of such a lewd and provocative gesture out in public. But, the look on Tyrin's face was absolutely delightful, such interest and curiosity. "Isn't it...yucky?" she questioned as the trio made their way away from the forgotten music and dancing. Ceria shook her head. A devious thought came to mind. "Would you like to taste me and find out?" Tyrin nodded enthusiastically. "Yes." "Oh, you are perhaps the most cunning demon I know, Ceria. Absolutely inspiring." Aeril's words weighed well toward the reward she would be getting soon in the form of a great deal of well-versed cunnilingus from a certain lady. At the top of the steps leading to her estate proper, Ceria caught sight of a succubus wearing a silver mask. As she drew closer to get to her personal grounds, she realized it was the spy Fentin had managed to get into her estate...without Tom leading her around. "Adze, I'm surprised to see that you've gone and slipped your leash on Tom. Where is he?" she asked with all the sincerity she could muster, despite being a hair's breadth from smashing the succubus' face against stone hard enough to flatten her skull into bone fragments. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 16 Adze's head turned with a scowl. "Well, if it isn't the queen herself." She sniffed the air twice. "And her score of whores waiting at her beck and call, how honored I am." "Score?" Tyrin asked, looking around. "Oh. She can't see." "No, I meant you," Adze spat derisively, causing Tyrin to begin asking Aeril what she meant, which devolved quickly into another matter altogether, with Aeril patiently answering Tyrin's increasingly sidetracked questions. "Did you run him off with that mouth of yours?" "No, my mouth is a real charmer actually. That'd be like saying I didn't have him trembling in a chair from letting him know what it felt like to be inside of it." Ceria blinked in disbelief. "A blowjob? Really? And you had him trembling from it?" Adze smirked deeply, sensing the disbelief though she couldn't see it. "Like a cheap whore." "I'll believe it when I see it," the lady of the house remarked, brushing aside the comment. She continued. "So, where has he run off to without you? Another bed perhaps?" "Said he was hungry," the succubus replied with a shrug. Ceria's heart beat so hard she could hear it. "He said he was what?" She grabbed Adze by the jaw and clenched the succubus's silver face in her grasp, feeling bone and teeth shift at the pressure. "Say that again." "Hungry," the succubus repeated, doing her best to spit in Ceria's face. The lady of the house let go of her foe's face and growled in annoyance. She'd have to teach Tom to keep better handle of his slaves at this rate. With a sigh, she wrapped the succubus' leash around her knuckles and yanked it so hard the succubus fell to the ground. "Bitch," she growled. Ceria turned to her two companions and nodded politely. "I'll be back in a moment." She then turned to Adze as the woman got to her feet. "Where is he?" "The kitchen. I'm not allowed in." "Well then you'll just have to face the consequences then, won't you? You're coming with me to be given back to him." She turned to Tyrin and Aeril. "I've got an errand to run. You know where to go, I trust?" Aeril nodded. "Come one Tyrin, Ceria's special room isn't far." The two pairs departed each other and Ceria took Adze to the enormous kitchen without saying a word to her. The succubus looked visibly uncomfortable as she stepped across the threshold of the doorway. Dozens of pair of eyes darted toward her and faces turned into scowling visages of disgust and anger. Several cooks looked as if they'd turn their carving knives upon her and most of the slaves looked ready to rend her flesh from her bones with their bare teeth and hands. Ceria gave Adze a questioning look. "I feel as if I'm missing the point of their animosity," she said dryly. Adze grunted. "I've killed more than a fair amount of these wretches and tortured a few more. They're...less than pleased I'm back. They threw me out when I came here with him." She nodded her head toward a human sitting at one of the tables on the far side of the room, eating from a full plate of food. "So Tom had you wait outside like a good little slut then, did he?" "Give me to him and leave me alone," Adze groaned. Ceria smirked and took the succubus across the crowded, busy room to Tom. The human noticed them only as they neared his table and Ceria relished the look on his face as she approached with his succubus in hand. His face went slack with shock, the same face a child makes when he knows he's in trouble. Oh, he was in trouble all right. "Well, isn't this a surprise, to find you enjoying my feast with my graciously appropriated provisions without inviting me. Truly, if I were not such a magnanimous host, I would be offended," she said with mock hurt. "I uh, uh...I got hungry," he fumbled for a response, failing miserably. Ceria enjoyed the moment while it lasted, catching him completely off guard. It was a rare occasion that he didn't have anything to say back to her, and even rarer that she could cause him utter confusion. "Have I not already given you a perfectly good chance to eat to your heart's content?" She gestured between Adze's legs. Tom's eyes rolled in his head and he picked his food back up off the plate to continue eating. "Right, like she's not the one eating me," he retorted. Adze gave him a feral grin. "Like a hungry hellbore." "I would shut my mouth if I were you, succubus," the lady snapped at Adze coldly. "I don't suppose there are enough words in my mouth to stop these slaves from butchering you if I were to take but ten steps away." "Not if your champion has anything to say about it," Tom remarked dryly, causing Adze's grin to widen. "Oh how I love a man willing to kill for a bit of fun between my legs." They were having fun doing this. Ceria nodded slowly and took the situation in. Her mouthy guest and the succubus slave were having a bout of fun acting as if they held any kind of power over her. Inwardly, she was elated to see them so enamored with the prospect of overcoming her in a battle of words. It only meant that the hammerstroke came down harder when they were revealed their places in the greater scheme of things. "Ceria, we've been forced to take a detour," Aeril said from behind the lady and the chained succubus. Ceria turned her head to find Tyrin waving her hand wildly in her direction and Aeril following close behind with an apologetic look on her face. Ceria tightened her grip on Adze's leash and extended her arm toward Tom. "Take her. I've grown tired of chafing her throat. It's just not the same when I'm not using my hands," she said wistfully. Tom took the leash hesitantly as Adze cleared a space to sit on the table. Ceria turned to face her two soon-to-be bedmates and disregarded Tom and Adze for the moment. But Tyrin had other plans. "Star child?" the architect asked aloud, zeroing in on Tom as she neared. Suddenly, she broke into a sprint and leapt across the table at the agent, arms outstretched toward him. Ceria watched silently as the demon crashed into Tom and knocked him out of his chair to send them both skittering across the floor. They slid into a dozen slaves carrying large trays of food and drink, sending it into the air to come down all over the floor. Aeril tried to rectify the interruption. "I'm very-" "STAR CHILD!" Tyrin yelled at the top of her lungs, grabbing Tom around the stomach and squeezing him as hard as she could. The agent's eyes went wide and his face turned red with exertion. The eccentric demon was literally crushing him with a hug. It came as no surprise that the mess didn't faze her at all. It took a great deal of time and effort to get her arms off Tom, given that she would only let go if he kept his arms around her while she lessened her grip bit by bit. Eventually, she relaxed her body and settled for lying on top of the human with his arms around her thick hips, hands carefully avoiding her curvaceous behind. "Alright, alright, enough Tyrin," Tom said, trying to sit up. The demon had none of it and pushed him down harder than he could lift up. "No. I want stars." Though her head touched his, she berated him as if they were separated by the entire kitchen's length. "I can't give you stars until you let me up," he explained, looking to Aeril for help. "Lies," the architect hissed, pinning Tom's arms to either side of him in the puddle of dark red wine he lay in. "He's right," Ceria chimed in, giving Tyrin pause. "I know where you can see the stars with him." Tyrin's face lit up and she immediately got to her feet. With a heave, she pulled Tom from the wet ground and wrapped him up in her arms again, holding him possessively away from Adze, who looked less than pleased that the human was being monopolized by another. That gave Ceria a very devious idea. A way to punish Adze and Tom for their derisive little stabs at her. She gave her wording a bit of thought and then waved Tyrin over to her. The demon came as she was requested, holding Tom still like a toddle would a stuffed animal. Ceria cupped the demon's ear and whispered quietly. "The one with a silver head won't let Tom give you stars. She's enthralled star child and the only way to make him give you stars is to make him feel better than she could." Tyrin's face turned deadly serious and she lifted her goggles to reveal two dark golden eyes glowing with ire. She turned her gaze upon Adze, who stared back without a clue as to what was happening. "A succubus. How good?" It took Ceria a moment to put together what she meant. "She makes him feel really good." "You're damn right," Adze snorted, which only made Tyrin's mind set firmer against the task at hand. "Star child will give me stars." She bared her fanged teeth at Adze and let go of Tom for the moment. She walked over to Aeril and took the hem of her sundress. Without warning, she pulled the dress up and off Aeril's body in one motion, balling it up messily. "Make him ready for measuring." "Tyrin, I don't think this is the right place for that," Aeril replied sweetly, her tanned body gathering more attention than it should have in the firelit kitchen. Ceria arched a brow at Tom as he stared openly at the slim, tanned beauty. They'd fucked; surely they had. Tyrin pointed at Tom with a clawed finger. "Bring him." She then took Ceria by the hand and started off across the room. Amused, the lady of the house kept pace as Tyrin stormed out of the kitchen and made her way across several courtyards and past guests who had nary a word to get in before she cut them off with a growl. The two travelled half way across the estate proper before entering the building that held the sun room. Tyrin slowed here, her frustration and determination peeling away in layers as they neared the only room she made a point of avoiding on her visits here. And she had once called the idea cunning. "You first, Ceria," the architect said quietly, maintaining a certain degree of sternness in her expression despite her hesitance. "Into the jaws of the sun I go," the demon chirped in reply, shirking off her robe in one motion as she crossed the threshold. Warmth bathed her entire body. She held her arms out to either side of her body and spun around in the magnificence of a sunlit gem bearing thousands of faces. The room wasn't huge in comparison to some others, but its roof was nearly ten times her height. From it hung a gem nearly as long across as the span of Lusotan's arms, just beneath a hole in the ceiling that funneled light from the Eternal Sanctum with a series of mirrors into the gem. A single beam of light no larger than the width of a few heads of straw shone through the center of a pool that dominated the center of the room. Ceria had commissioned Tyrin for its construction just after her mental health had begun to deteriorate, paid a small fortune for it, and received more than she had asked for. Tyrin had created a masterpiece where Ceria had only asked for a crystal-lit bath. Now, the architect feared the beam of light that drove into the drain of the pool like it was going to turn into hard light rope and strangle her to death if she entered its domain. "It's safe to enter. The sun sleeps." Tentatively, Tyrin stepped across the threshold. "The sun never sleeps," she countered with a glance to every corner of the room. "It merely moves its gaze." Ceria turned her eyes from Tyrin to the three others entering the room behind her. She was surprised that between Aeril and Adze that they had managed to get him naked already. "I believe it has found something greater to gaze at for the moment," Ceria replied to nobody in particular. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 17 Tom didn't quite know how to place the feeling he had right now as he crossed the threshold of the sunroom to see Ceria completely naked and Tyrin with her overalls held at her hips by the sheer thickness of her frame. Behind him, Adze followed with his clothes balled up in her arms and Aeril just behind her, leash in hand. Tom had been in bad situations before. Hera had nearly killed him in his own home, as had Sohm on more than one occasion. This was probably more of a concerning case than anything he'd faced before. Right now, four denizens of the Second Circle had him in a room with one entrance, with no clothes, about to have sex. The scenarios running through his head didn't help to reassure him that things were going to turn out alright. Ceria raised her eyebrows suggestively when their eyes met. "Well, now that you're ready, let the master do what she does best," the lady of the house said, leaning against the wall casually. "Measurements," Tyrin stated with a solid look at Aeril. "Of course," the tanned demon replied obediently. She removed her hat, locking eyes with the human openly staring at her body again. "Measurements," Tyrin said anxiously, looking up at the crystal hanging from the ceiling worriedly. "In due time, Tyrin. In due time." Aeril let go of Adze's leash and put her hands together in front of her. She started to sway back and forth slowly with eyebrows raised curiously. Tom couldn't help but see her ample bosom sway with her, drawing his attention fully despite his knowing she was watching exactly what he was doing. "Aeril!" Tyrin barked. The demon smiled, revealing gleaming white teeth. "That should do it. Please hold still for the sake of accuracy." She closed the space between them and dropped to her knees in front of him. She circled his throbbing member with both hands flat against his midsection and narrowed her eyes in thought. It didn't take long for Tom to feel strange with four people staring directly at his cock. "What exactly-" "Three point two six two qual in length, give or take point zero zero four on the basis of skewed results from movement during observation. Girth approximately two point four five qual, with no skewing. True erect angle unobservable due to the pull of gravity on this considerable phallus," she said, smirking as Tom's face lit up the color of a rose. Tyrin nodded once at Tom and pushed her overalls to her feet, revealing the glory that was her lower half. Tom had seen girls with curves, but Tyrin's hips took the cake for greatest. She wasted no time moving Aeril with a slight nudge and taking Tom by the shoulders. "Say wonder," she commanded sternly. "Wonder," Tom said, confused. "No!" the architect growled. "Wonder about me." Tom's brow furrowed. "What? Wonder...what?" Tyrin grunted and grabbed his hands, putting them firmly on her hips. She hardened her gaze against him with golden, piercing eyes. "Me. Wonder." Tom was still lost. "You're a wonder? What...wait, your hips?" Suddenly, it clicked. "Oh my god I totally forgot about that." He started laughing at the absolute absurdity of a demon wanting to be told she looked sexy, but was cut short when Tyrin rubbed her body against his erection and caught his attention again. "Tell me." Her eyes were still just as stern and commanding as before. Tom shrugged, unable to think of a reason why he shouldn't oblige her request. She was nice enough to him on a regular basis to ask a favor or two. He pulled her hips against his gently, feeling the heat emanating from the cleft of her thighs. Leaning close to her, Tom put his lips to her ear. "I think these hips of yours might be the greatest architectural wonder in Hell." Tyrin shuddered and her entire face turned as red as blood. "S...stars..." Tyrin's eyes rolled back in her head and she leaned to the right. Tom barely had time to react before she started falling to the floor. Luckily, his hands were already where they needed to be to keep her from going down like a stone. He gently placed her on the ground and opened one of her eyes with two fingers. He watched her eye roll around in its socket like she was fighting vertigo. "What in the Ninth did you say to her?" Aeril asked in utter awe. "That's the kind of silver tongue he's liked for," Ceria commented dryly. "I can see you've been putting it to good use since I last had it trying to rub my chest raw." She flashed him a feral grin and he gave her a sour look. "The stars..." Tyrin moaned. All eyes turned to the architect as she sat upright and rubbed her eyes tiredly. "Where did..." She looked around and blinked in surprise when she saw her surroundings. "Tyrin, are you alright?" Aeril asked sweetly, cupping the demon's face with her tanned hands. "I am," she affirmed. She hugged Aeril and pulled her legs under her body. "Did she forget everything that just happened?" Tom asked Aeril. Tyrin's body stiffened and she nearly swung herself around at the sound of his voice. "Star child!" she exclaimed, throwing her arms around him instead of Aeril. She pushed him to the ground and forced a kiss onto him sloppily with her lips. Tom felt her tongue drive past his teeth and attempt to draw his into action. "I suppose so," the caretaker said. "I'll have to measure you over again." Tyrin unlocked herself from Tom and propped herself up on his chest. She slid her wide hips back enough to push his erection against her ample backside and looked back at it for a moment. She reached back with one hand and ran her fingertips along the underside of his shaft from base to head slowly. "Three point two six two two qual by two point four five one qual. Eight degree curvature." She looked up and back and forth like she was doing calculations in her head and then furrowed her eyebrows in thought. "Why do we need those measurements?" Aeril shrugged. "You tell me. You just said you needed them and then star child gave you stars." Tyrin pursed her lips and then turned her golden gaze back to Tom. "Do you remember why?" "I have absolutely no clue," Tom replied, feeling Tyrin's body shift against his in little ways that made his cock throb wholeheartedly for more than what it was getting. The demon seemed to take notice and lifted her hips so his arousal could rest at the angle it preferred. "Can...can I...?" She looked at Tom like she was a teenager asking to go to a party. "Tyrin, you don't need to ask permission. It's okay," said Aeril as the architect tried to find a way to word what she wanted. "I don't mind if you don't," Tom said quietly enough for only Tyrin to hear. She smiled broadly and let her body rest against his. He looked down to see her thighs coated in what he assumed was the remnants of an orgasm. She felt slick and ready for anything even at this early stage. She put her hands on his shoulders and let her petite breasts sway freely as her hips slid forward and her back arched. "You call me pretty." She slowly pushed her body back and Tom gasped as he penetrated her without warning. Her body easily engulfed his erection, allowing him access to her deepest desires in moments. Inch after inch of slick, velvety flesh slid past the sensitive nerve bundles in his glans. When she reached the base of his arousal, she stopped and closed her eyes. Tom felt her insides clamor to keep going, squeezing him tightly from every angle. Tyrin shifted her jaw back and forth for a few seconds before arching her back a bit more and placing her hands on his shoulders. She put her weight on him and pushed back, forcing his erection as deep inside of her as it would go. Tom's adrenaline rush was entirely unwarranted. He couldn't have been more ready to screw if he'd been deprived for years. He reached out and put his hands on her hips, but she ceased the motion of her hips and put his hands back by his sides again before continuing. Inside her pussy, her muscles tightened around him rhythmically to keep him inside her for as long as possible. Every cycle of her hips brought him into contact with more and more strong pulses inside of her. "Not right..." Tyrin murmured. She sat back on his cock and looked down at the junction of their bodies. "More...?" She arched her back a little more and bit her lip in thought. She came forward and pushed back again, causing Tom's midsection to tighten considerably. That felt really good. "Are you...getting anywhere?" Tom asked as she returned to chewing her lip. As much as he enjoyed this, it wasn't going to end well if she was miles away from getting off and he was sitting on the edge of losing his mind. "Aeril, pull his arms." The caretaker did as she was commanded and took Tom's hands. She raised them over his head and forced his back to arch a little to keep them to the floor. Tyrin slid her hand under him and pushed up with her fingers until she seemed satisfied with his position. She then sat up and bucked her hips once. Tom's entire body tightened uncontrollably. No way. There was no way that was a natural feeling. "Jesus fuck..." he murmured as the lightning bolts of pleasure that had caused him to reboot began to subside. That was way too- She did it again! Tom's mind ran to places he hadn't seen before, trying to get a grasp on what she was doing. A grin spread from ear to ear on Tyrin's face as she started a steady rhythm, humping his pelvis at an angle that hit every pleasure point he had just right, squeezed all the right places, fed every little nerve ending in his entire arousal. It was unbelievable. "Lucky you," Aeril said, amused. "She hasn't ever done this for more than a handful people. She's trying to get you off." "How is she doing this?" he asked, struggling to keep his toes from cramping as they curled tightly. "Oh, Tyrin's got a very special talent when it comes to giving someone a good time." Aeril's voice dropped low as she leaned in and whispered into Tom's ear. "She's good with angles. She knows just how to hit the right spot, just how to nudge the right points. Trust me when I say she can shoot you off in under a minute if she wants to." "That's not a good thing in my- ho my God that's insane." Tom's back arched without his consent, and Tyrin's hands came down and pushed him back into place. She hit every spot on his erection with precision, drawing her slick, velvety heat across every nerve bundle, every single strand of pleasurable tissue he had. Tom didn't understand how she was doing it all, even after Aeril had teased his ear with information and warm, moist breath. Angles? How could anyone be that good with angles inside their own body to hit every nerve in his cock in exactly the right way with this kind of accuracy? "Make her stop," Tom begged, snapping his mouth shut as Tyrin drew out the motion of her body and pursed her lips in concentration. "I don't think she'd be willing to do that," Aeril breathed into his ear sensually. "She'll play this game with you until you cum." Tom ground his teeth together. "Aeril...please." "Then let me help her get him off," Adze spoke up, a grin spreading across her face and she stepped towards the architect. Ceria grabbed Adze by the collar and threw her to the floor. She placed her foot on the succubus' neck and shook her head in a demeaning manner. "This is your punishment. I had planned for him to take them both to bed in front of you, but having you watch him suffer is a much more fitting punishment." "You think this is a punishment?" Adze scoffed. "Maybe you didn't see me with him earlier." "Oh God please make her stop," pleaded the agent, feeling his body beginning to reach its limit. Tyrin didn't look like she had even made a dent in her own desires, diligently humping him into an unintentional torture. It was starting to get to him as he attempted to squirm and stave off the feeling dropping into the pit of his stomach. Tyrin held him still with her hands and stared him in the eyes defiantly. "I give you stars now." "Tyrin, I ca-" "No. I will make you see stars." Tom's eyes widened. "Tyrin!" "No!" she shouted back, cowing the agent with one word. She resumed the pace that had slackened off at their confrontation and fell back into her serious mood. "I know how much it pains you to see her waste it. Look at that face. She doesn't even know what she's doing," Ceria sneered to the succubus beneath her foot. Tom looked over at the pair, and as if someone had removed the silver eyes of her mask, Adze's blind gaze met his. He saw nothing but jealousy and contempt on the silver features of her death mask. "Help me," he asked. Adze scoffed. "Why? Because you're my master? Do you hold the leash around my neck?" she spat. "Please." Tom was running out of time and options. Ceria wasn't going to help him. Tyrin didn't understand what he was trying to say. Aeril was content to sit and let him be tortured for her friend's satisfaction. Adze's face suddenly grew the most conceited leer that Tom had ever seen. She winked and said, "The sun is upon us!" Tyrin was on her feet with her hands over her eyes in seconds. "Nooo!" she screamed, curling into a ball with her head to the floor. She fumbled around on her head for her goggles and slipped them over her eyes. Aeril let go of Tom's arms and hurried over to Tyrin's tightly-balled form, wrapping her arms around the architect. "No, Tyrin, it's fine. The sun is away. It can't get you. It's long gone. Hush now. It's okay." She did her best to calm the moaning demon, but it only went so far as Tyrin slipped further and further into hysteria, sobbing and moaning with increasingly incoherent mumbling. At the peak of her breakdown, Aeril picked Tyrin up off the ground and left the room after giving Adze a look that very well may have meant death in any other circumstance. Tom couldn't breathe a sigh of relief despite the fact that Tyrin was off of him. She'd driven him over the edge already and he was in great need of cumming now. His fists remained balled and his toes curled at the feeling of being pushed over the edge but not falling. His entire body was wracked with the need to find an outlet, and the feeling was far from beginning to subside. "A fine mess you've made," Ceria commented as she let up on Adze's neck. "At least before, he had a chance to cum. Look at him now." She looked down at the succubus with the superiority of royalty written all over her face. Adze just laughed. "Like you said, she was wasting it. Now I can enjoy it." "You mean I can enjoy it," Ceria corrected. She knelt down and bound Adze with the chain leash, tying her hands and feet together behind her back. Tom watched with absolute despair as his only ally in this situation was rendered as helpless as himself and dragged across the floor to lie next to him, blind and unable to move. Ceria admired her work and stood with her feet on either side of Tom's hips. The lady arched a brow at him and bit her bottom lip in anticipation. "Oh, now that I have you I can't think of what to do with you. There are just too many options for a boy like you with a special quirk like yours." "Special quirk?" Adze questioned. "Oh, you don't know?" Ceria asked with actual surprise. She looked at Tom, who just whimpered back in defeat. "I expected him to have told you by now." "Told me what?!" Ceria knelt down and pushed herself back to lay on the ground between Tom's legs, propping her head up over his throbbing arousal. "He's not the biggest fan of handjobs or fellatio. It takes a very special body to get him off without a mantrap between your legs." She rolled her lower half to the side to show Tom the cleft of her thighs and rubbed her swollen clit with two fingers gently. Tom's lust flared at the sight of such a blatant gesture. Ceria just gave his cockhead a lick and started to clean it off slowly. Tom threw his head back so hard his ears rang as it smacked against the floor. He balled his fists tightly enough to squeeze coal into diamonds. He could feel her tongue swimming around his heavily engorged glans, teasing the nerve that felt everything but gave him no pleasure. Nothing she did brought him any closer to release. "Why're you holding out? Just shoot it already," Adze said in annoyance. Ceria answered for him. "I told you; he doesn't like blowjobs." "That's bullshit," Adze barked back. "I had him on the edge of his seat with my tongue." "Tell you what," Ceria offered as she paused her manipulation of Tom's throbbing arousal with her tongue. "I will let you go and take Tom with you back to Fentin if you can get him hot enough to cum in my mouth." "You can't be serious." Adze sounded absolutely incredulous. "You're lying." Ceria smirked and flicked a bead of precum away from Tom's glans. "I am very serious. Don't worry about the effort that I put into this. I enjoy seeing him writhe around from my affection even more than you do." "If he cums, I am freed and he comes with me?" "That is what I offered," the lady replied smoothly. Tom's body trembled as her mouth engulfed his erection again and teased every desire within him. Adze began to move and Tom looked at her to find the succubus inching closer to him, awkwardly moving herself until she was almost touching him. "Gods, you're hot. You must be ready to cum. Just do it. Don't hold out just to spite the bitch." "I can't," Tom groaned between shallow hitches as waves of need ran their course through his core. "Well maybe I can help you along then," she said seductively. Before Tom realized what was happening, Adze's tongue caressed his ear wetly, tracing the inside rim with purposeful slowness. He could feel his teeth shift at the force of his lower jaw clenching. He couldn't speak. It was just too much for him to handle. Adze let out a sensual moan that vibrated through the entirety of his head. "Not ready yet? I'm waiting on it." She dropped her tone to a whisper. "C'mon, just for me. Cum for me, please?" Tom's head was spinning. He was pushed closer to the edge than he had ever been before. His entire body sang with unrestrained need to cum, and knew that there was nothing he could do to affect the change it needed. Ceria would never let him get that chance, not with the choice being between her and Adze. Even if he could fuck either one of them, he'd never get them to cum fast enough not to go absolutely insane first. "Just let go," the succubus whispered. Tom heard the seduction in her voice, creeping into his ear with velvet tendrils, coiling around the edges of his thoughts. A noise escaped his throat, painful exertion grating his vocal cords to make any noise. At that, Adze continued. "I'll help you, here." Adze's tongue pressed his ear for attention again and caused the skin all over his body to rise with pure arousal. Ceria even slowed her attentions and came up for a moment at the change. "Two kinks at once seems a little much." Her devious smile gave away her true thoughts as she dipped her head once more and continued to suck ineffectually at his cock. "Close your eyes, Tom. Take in that feeling." Tom squeezed his eyes shut as Adze's tongue worked its way around his ear again. "That's it. How does my tongue feel? Intoxicating, isn't it? I bet my pussy feels almost as good..." Tom begged his body to let him talk, even a single word to tell her to stop, a noise, a scream! But it refused, his jaw shut so hard that Adze's words were being drowned in a ringing that wouldn't leave him alone. Even so, he could feel every syllable drift a course through his mind and nestle into his thoughts. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 17 "If you cum, I'll give you everything. Once we are free of this temptress, I will give you my body and my soul to be yours to conquer and use to any end you so choose. Remember what my pussy feels like, how I needed you in that moment. I needed you inside me. I couldn't let you go. I don't control my body when I need sex like you give me." "Ah!" Tom managed as vertigo started to disorient him. "You're almost there," cooed Adze triumphantly. "And when you do get there, I will give you my body and lie beside you after each and every time we make love and give you all the love in my soul. I will be yours. My pussy will be yours. I will fuck your ear with my tongue for an eternity. I will fuck you like a god deserves and pull you so far into me that you will never let me go." Tom felt his body start to go slack. "Uhn..." "Just cum for me one time." He drifted away from consciousness with her voice still embracing his desires. ------ Tom's Quarters, Ceria's Estate, Hell ------ Tom opened his eyes tiredly and tried to make out the ceiling above him. "Awake, are we? I was just beginning to enjoy the silence." "Adze, where are we?" Tom asked the succubus. She sighed. "In our bed." Her voice sounded between bored and disappointed. The agent blinked away the stinging sensation in his eyes and tried to piece together what had happened. He was here, in his room...so that meant that he'd gotten here from the sun room somehow. He wasn't clothed at all, which probably meant that he'd come straight here from being on the floor. The last thing he remembered was Adze's tongue in his ear and Ceria's mouth wrapped around his cock. "Did I pass out or something?" he asked aloud, shifting to get his arm out from between his side and Adze's body cuddled up to his. She let his arm get free and turned her silver face away from his, as if she was avoiding his eyes. He waited for an answer, but she didn't give him one. "Answer me," he grunted. "You must really hate us to resist that hard," she finally said in a tone he hadn't heard from her before. It sounded like remorse. "Resist? I fucking wish I could cum like that," said the agent spitefully. "I can't cum until my partner does. It's a curse." Adze propped herself up on her elbow and turned her head vaguely toward his face. "A legitimate curse?" Tom nodded. "Yeah. That's why I couldn't cum. I don't feel anything unless it's straight sex. And even then, if you cum early or don't get there, I get stuck at the edge and get pushed further and further off until, well, that's the first time that's happened. It wasn't even that bad with Dereza." Adze straightened her arm back out and stretched out beside him again, draping her left arm over his chest like a lover would. Her lips split into a wide, unhappy smile. "She is outstanding," the succubus said to nobody in particular, and began to laugh. Tom didn't understand why, but she laughed and laughed, cuddled up next to him with her face in the crook of his neck. He just stayed silent as whatever was going through her head ran its course. He had given up trying to understand the way she thought already. Adze's hand found Tom's head and she ran her fingers through his hair idly while she collected herself again. It felt soothing to have his head played with like someone who cared about him would do. It made him feel like there was some normalcy to his life, even considering the circumstances he was in now. "I see why she made you her champion. You're her cheat in the bet. You were her cheat all along. And I fell right into you, arms open and unaware." Tom frowned in confusion. "Explain that to me?" Adze ran her finger from the base of his neck down to his sternum, her other hand still playing with his hair without purpose. "My freedom is secured by devouring your soul. That, as it stands, is impossible, but it is what I agreed to. She trapped me and had me thinking that she would herself break the agreement, when she didn't have to. She played her cheat before we even spoke, and I agreed to it blindly." "Welcome to the club. She fucked me on a bet too." Tom closed his eyes and tried to push the thought of what being a slave down here meant. He'd seen enough of the shuffling feet and gaunt, hollow, scared faces to know. Adze's finger trailed further down his chest and started to catch the sheets pulled up his torso, slowly drawing them off his body. "I should've taken you up on your offer to buddy up against her from the beginning." "It's not too late to buddy up now," the human stated, flicking Adze's wandering finger as it pulled the sheets down past his navel. "Oh really? It doesn't seem like you trust me the way you're acting now." She cracked a toothy grin as her hand returned to the center of his chest and waited there for him to let his guard down. "Teaming up and trusting each other aren't mutually inclusive. I already know you'll lie your ass off to get what you want." Adze scoffed with mock offense. "A liar? Me? How dare you accuse me of a mortal sin." Tom chuckled a little at her dark humor. "Then what was everything you told me to try and make me cum when Ceria was blowing me? Like shit I'm gonna believe you want or need me." Adze curled one leg around his and pulled herself to him snugly. He could feel the heat of her core against his thigh and it started to reignite the flame of desire in him. "We succubi are masters of lovemaking. That encompasses more than just two bodies colliding." She sounded far more serious now than at any previous point in their conversation. Tom had to take a moment to remind himself that she was a fabulous liar to not get sucked in by it. "Well how much of that was true?" Adze shrugged. "However much you want to be true." "C'mon Adze, seriously. How much of that was true?" He watched her face for a clue, but without her eyes, he couldn't get that much out of her. She grabbed his hair a little harder and kissed the dip at the base of his throat. "Some of it." She kissed a little further up his neck, gently sliding her left arm over his chest to his side. Tom immediately found his natural reactions kicking in. He was already rock hard and ready to start when she was, even after the incident not too long ago with Ceria. "I'm absolutely lost," Tom admitted as she succubus reached his jaw with her lips. "You already know about my curse. What good does it do for you to screw me here?" That gave Adze pause, but only for a moment. She placed a wet kiss on his jaw and blew on it, sending shivers down Tom's neck. "This time, there are now power games. It's just you and me, enjoying each other's gifts." She flipped the sheets away with one hand and took hold of Tom's hair firmly with the other. "Our gifts, huh?" Tom slid his arm under Adze's body and she extended her leg over both of his. She rolled herself over him so that she straddled his hips, letting go of his hair to loom over him braced on her hands and knees. Her silver face betrayed nothing inside her head. "You've given me your secrets. You've given me your body. You've given me your mind. You've given me your freedom. This time, I will give you something of mine." Tom slid his hands up her thighs to her hips and guided her down to him slowly. "I guess this is proving to me that you want to be friends now, right?" She leaned down and kissed his lips briefly, shivering as their sexes met and he slid into her without slowing her descent. Their kiss held longer than intended and she broke it with a relaxed face and goosebumps all over her body. "That was very smooth, human," she admitted. "Is this proof or not?" he asked with an arched brow, holding her at the base of his erection as her hips naturally wanted to rise and get a rhythm going. God, the feeling of just being seated inside a succubus was incredible. "I had intended it to be, but it seems like you've got something else in mind with that kind of tone." She sat upright and rolled her hips to strike back at his resistance to moving. Tom bit his lip to quell the moan coming up his throat before he spoke. "In that case, what would really prove to me that you want to be friends would be for you not to have sex with me." Adze made a face that told Tom that she was sorely disappointed and more than a little confused. But, she took his words in stride and took a deep breath to contemplate what to do next. By the way her body was quivering, he guessed she was fighting an internal battle to just give up and get her way, or to actually listen to him. "Then what would show that I want to cooperate?" she asked stiffly. "Well," Tom began with a grin. "You sit right here, like this, and we talk. But we don't move. If you can resist your urges longer than I can, then you'll prove that you want to be friends." She nodded in as stiff a manner as she had spoken. "And if I can't?" "There won't be another offer like this." Tom could tell that she was feeling the strain of her desires being pulled like a bowstring and held at the breaking point. He could relate, with each throb of his arousal inside her tickling every nerve that brought him pleasure. In all likelihood, their conversation wouldn't last very long, but it was still a good chance to see if she was all in or just trying to fool him. "How long do you think you can last?" Tom grinned like a Cheshire cat. "For me, sex is a job description. How long do you think?" ------ Fentin's Camp, Glacis River, Hell ------ "Naia, eat," Vendr grunted as he glared at the young baphomet. She turned her eyes up to him, brimming with tears, and shook her head. "I am hideous, lord," she choked out hoarsely. "Let me die." Vendr ground his teeth together and clenched his fists until his knuckles were bone white. "Eat," he demanded. "I did not bring you through two camps and forego my orders to have you waste away." Naia started to cry. "Why do you still treat me as yours?" For the first time since she'd regained consciousness, Naia stopped asking Vendr to leave or let her die. The captain was taken aback, and took stock of his words carefully. "You have changed for the better." Naia looked incredulous. "So this is what you want?" She held up her bandaged left hand, missing her little and ring fingers and a small portion down to her wrist. "A deformed cripple?" Shakily, she got to her feet and favored her right leg as the other began to bleed anew. "That is not what I meant," Vendr retorted, able to look the baphomet in the eyes even as he was on his knees. Naia shoved the bread in her hands against his chest and limped past him to leave the tent. "How could anyone want a cripple?" she spat venomously. "How could anyone want a girl who has no voice? How could anyone want you, Naia? You're no better than a-" "Enough!" roared the giant of a demon as he grabbed Naia around the waist with one massive arm and swung her back into the center of the tent effortlessly. The baphomet didn't fight him. She just stood where he placed her with tears running down her face and her lip quivering. "You do not want me anymore," she managed through her tears and sobs. "How could anyone want a cripple with one hand?" Vendr sighed and brought the baphomet to his chest with one hand. "You are a chanter. If that were all you were it would be enough for me. Be still now." Naia hugged the expanse of his broad chest and cried into him uncontrollably. Even muffled against him, her sobs were loud enough to make the demon cringe. He was used to war and everything that came with it, but a girl in tears was almost unknown to him. He didn't like the sound, especially not from this girl. "How ca-can you wan-nt me-he lord?" she barely managed to get out through sharp inhales interspersed through her sobbing. Vendr smiled faintly. "You are irreplaceable." With his explanation finally enough to satisfy her, the baphomet resumed crying wordlessly into Vendr's chest until she had exhausted her already-frail constitution. When she was finished and panting for breath, Vendr grabbed half a loaf of bread off the table nearby and placed it in her hands, forcing her fingers around it with his own. Knowing what he wanted, Naia lifted it to her mouth and bit off a piece with no small amount of effort. Fresh rations were hard to come by, and as of the long march to the Glacis River and subsequent battle for the remaining bridge across it, rock hard bread was the rule. "Eat it all." Vendr removed his arms from his companion's body and stood up, eliciting an uncomfortable noise from her. He knelt back down and motioned for her to keep eating. "I'll be back. I'm getting you something easier to eat." Vendr stood again and left the tent quietly. Outside, Fentin's two mute, hornless guards were waiting for him, glaives in hand and blank stares in their eyes. Vendr wondered why Mefur still had them guard Fentin at camp. Unfamiliar faces were very rare here, if not unheard of. That they had gotten him instead of Fentin made the giant suspicious of how Mefur viewed him. The captain made his way across the vastness of the budding camp to the bridge that separated the main body of it from the ramshackle appendages that has sprung up in the past few hours. Seeing as the camp was going to last the greater part of the Long Night, it was going to turn into a fortification eventually. And with its static planning, all the various hangers-on of the army would set up shop and stilt an economy for as long as it was manned. At the bridge, Vendr was motioned to stop by the mutes and one of them went on across the river while the other stayed to watch Vendr with cold, lifeless eyes. Vendr didn't know what to make of them. He couldn't tell if they were bored or undead, so lackluster their gazes were. They looked like the result of human experimentation called lobotomy. Behind the black-clad demon stood what remained of the bridge across the Glacis River. The stone portions of it still stood despite efforts to dismantle it by Two Tails' forces, but the center span had been incinerated and were in dire need of completion by the engineers currently at work on it. Thus far, the bridgeheads had been repaired and a makeshift plank bridge built to connect the two halves, though it was far from safe to cross it. Engineers below had constructed a boardwalk between the support pillars entrenched in the wide river and used it to buffer the temporary center span with long poles. Under the bridge looked like a forest of needle trees holding up a wooden canopy. Vendr's attention was drawn by the second of the two bodyguards crossing back over the bridge. He nodded to his companion and they both then turned to Vendr, as if expecting him to understand what they had confirmed. He decided it best to say nothing and followed them tentatively across the bridge. Boards creaked and bent under his weight and at several points he thought that the entire structure was going to give out under him and send him into the forest of blunted pikes under the bridge. Fortunately, the thing held by the thinnest of margins and they passed through the hastily-erected tents and temporary shelters to the very edge of the secured perimeter. There, they were greeted by the scout captain, Haern. He pulled down the rags covering his face and flashed a snarl with three missing teeth and congealed blood. "This way, milord," he spat, glaring daggers at the two bodyguards. They paid no attention to him and continued on ahead wordlessly, presumably to find Fentin. "I will take one if you take the other," Vendr said, only half joking. Haern gave him a sideward glance and nocked an arrow. "I thought all of you lordly types had it in for us lowers, milord." He raised his bow and pulled the bowstring taut, but thought better of revenge and slipped the arrow back into his quiver. "I am no lord," the captain replied. Haern fell silent after that and looked as if he was trying to understand what Vendr meant by not being a lord. True, he was a captain of men in an army, which usually granted varying degrees of entitlement, and he owned land by Fentin's good graces, but he was no lord. The only reason he had anything at all was because of Fentin and his dream that had come to fruition ages ago. Vendr hadn't been interested in empire or being lordly or accruing wealth and power, but Fentin had brought him along for the duration of his journey to being among the five most powerful lords in the Second Circle. However, it was times like this that Vendr's disposition towards nobility's arrogance made itself clear as day. Even if it was Fentin, whatever was waiting in the clearing ahead wasn't going to be met with subservience. Vendr had had enough of cowing to every lord and being ruthlessly disrespected by the generals. Haern departed from Vendr's company as they reached the clearing where Fentin and his generals were gathered. Upon entering, Vendr was met by seven pairs of eyes from armor-clad lords and the cold, suspicious eyes of Mefur and the two mute demons beside Fentin. "Vendr," General Lathlokos said congenially. "I had almost expected you to have ridden back to the Zuldspire by now with your whore in tow." At that, several of the other lords smirked or covered their amusement poorly. In the presence of their lord, they thought themselves invincible. They believed Fentin would shield them from any danger from within. "Another word about it and you'll have less teeth than you do brains," Vendr snapped. He quickly turned his attention to Fentin as Lathlokos bristled with anger at being talked down to by his lower. "Vendr," Fentin said, nodding. "My lord, pardon my lateness," Vendr replied, dropping to one knee. "Stand, Vendr," Fentin sighed, waving his hand. "You're not being put on trial." Vendr stood up again and gave a curt nod to the seven generals gathered to Fentin's left. He avoided Mefur's person altogether as Fentin explained what the gathering was about. "My lord-" "This will be dealt with here and now!" the lord barked, cowing his generals before they could make protest to what he was going to say. He turned to Vendr. "You have disobeyed my orders and cost us Two Tails in one move. Normally, this constitutes a penalty close to death, and many here would agree that it would be fitting to have such a punishment brought upon you." "Yes, my lord," Vendr replied firmly. "But, I also understand your predicament. Your company has had its teeth pulled and is now effectively useless in combat as it stands. Your company's morale has been all but crushed at the near-fatal wounding of your chanter." Fentin paused to let the information sink in. "Still, an attempt to prevent Two Tails' escape was called for in such a situation, and you failed to do so." "Just doll out the lashes and let's be done with it, my lord," General Argo said, folding his arms across his chest impatiently. The others didn't care for his attitude towards the situation, most likely because he was outspoken about not wasting time in camp when there was a war to be fought. Most of his outbursts tended to irk Fentin as well, but having nearly a fifth of the total forces in Fentin's forces under his command, Argo was allowed to do as he pleased for the most part. "If you're so eager to have it done, then you receive the most esteemed honor of delivering the fifty lashes it was so generously suggested be delivered instead of a noose." Fentin stared Argo down until the general looked away and decided it easier to match Vendr than their lord. "So be it," Vendr accepted, turning around to present his back to Argo. "I decline, my lord," Argo said hesitantly. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 17 "I volunteer," General Lathlokos offered in Argo's stead. Vendr's body tightened as he heard the grass part beneath boots behind him. "One," the general said as he brought the barbed whip down on Vendr's back. Sharp pain flared from his neck to his shoulder. He cringed at the pain and felt the hairline trickles that would end up being a broad flow down his back. "Two." Another crease of pain, this time across Vendr's lower back. He gritted his teeth so hard his ears rang. At five lashes, Vendr's voice came through his closed throat. At ten, he grunted with every new sunspot of pain. At twenty, he could smell the blood on the ground and feel it between his toes. At forty, he cried out at each lash tearing his split skin. At fifty, his head felt as if it were floating in thin air. Lathlokos dropped the bloody whip to the ground and walked past Vendr with the deepest smirk one could make on his face. Behind him came his captains and the other generals. Not one looked at him as they left the clearing wordlessly. Vendr dropped to his knees as the majority of the present persons left the immediate area, breathing heavily and trying to numb himself to the fiery pain all over his back. Every breath brought new pain to sear what was left of his skin. He could only imagine how he looked from behind now. It was bound to be something akin to a ripped red blanket. "Are you able to stand?" Fentin asked. The lord knelt down beside the captain and held his hand out. Vendr took it and was helped to his feet with considerable effort. "Lord, is this all I was needed for?" Fentin nodded. "I'm sorry, Vendr. I cannot please everyone, and I need an army. I'll have the apothecaries bring you torridroot and a physician stitch you together again." Vendr shook his head. "Just torridroot. Naia does not like the apothecaries." He and Fentin shared a look and the moments between his refusal and Fentin's response were tense. "Do not let her get in the way of your duties, Vendr," Fentin warned, turning to leave. "I understand you care about her, but you are a captain before you are a lover." "I am Vendr Tendahl before I am anything, Fentin," the giant of a demon returned. Fentin stopped for a few moments and then nodded in thought. With the resigned sigh of a man who knew he was in the wrong, Fentin said, "You are my friend before you are my captain, Vendr. Don't let me forget that." With that, the lord left Vendr alone with Mefur and the two mute bodyguards in tow. The captain waited a while before returning to the war camp, coagulating blood drying on his back as he crossed the bridge. By the time he found a spit-roast to grab something from, he was having difficulty walking straight. He wasn't questioned when he tore the leg off a spit boar, sluggishly pulling flesh that only gave at the heavy cut of a cleaver like it was no more than paper. He took a full helm out of the hands of a soldier and filled it with stew from a cauldron being heated for a fresh meal. He didn't have the strength or the patience to explain what he was doing or go through the proper channels to get what he needed. A helm was good enough for a bowl. The entire leg of a boar was more than enough for he and Naia to share when her appetite returned. He barely made it back to his tent without confrontation. He swept the flaps aside and inside found Naia humming a tune to herself in the relative darkness. She immediately turned to greet him as he entered, but went pale as she saw him. He handed the helm to her gently and placed the roasted leg on the table where a few bites of bread still remained uneaten. "Milord..." she uttered. The look on her face was one of absolute shock and despair. "Torridroot," Vendr breathed, feeling his head tilt back. His vision was beginning to blur. "Have a bath run for me." Vendr collapsed to the floor and lay on his stomach as Naia hurried into the next room on unstable legs to get servants to help him. She returned with three servants who set to work helping him up. Naia left the room again in a panic, still holding the helm full of stew in her arms. Moments seemed to pass with lengthy periods of throbbing pain. He couldn't tell what was going on by the time others arrived, time passing unevenly. Some seconds felt as if they ran the length of the Long Night, others like instants in the past. Vendr's ears started to reverberate with the thrum of his heart, like a drum keeping him connected with reality. His vision was so badly blurred that he couldn't make out faces anymore. He could only tell Naia by the bandages wrapped around her arm and her limping. She had left the stew somewhere, despite his current insistence on her eating before anything else. He tried to tell her several times that she needed to eat and that he would be fine, but he didn't think she paid his words any mind. He vaguely felt himself walking, and then hitting something with both his feet. He grunted with discomfort. Afterwards, he felt as if he were boiling alive from the neck down and he couldn't keep his head upright anymore. The world spun around him as he sucked in breath after breath of cloying, hot air. It felt like he was breathing a salt spray from the sea and he coughed so hard sparks began to shoot across his field of vision. For hours he didn't know what was happening as his body felt like it was floating across nothingness. Eventually, his vision cleared and the world around him stopped spinning. He moved his fingers around and then raised his hands to his face. They were hot and smelled like iron. He looked down at himself and realized that he was sitting in a large tub filled with murky red water, presumably colored by his own blood. He looked around for Naia, but didn't see her. "Naia," he said in a tone unfamiliar to himself. It took him a long while to understand that it was anxiousness in his voice. His own voice, anxious? "Naia," he said again more firmly this time. "Where are you?" "Milord?" she answered from behind him. Vendr began to turn to find her, but winced in pain as his entire back felt as if it were being held by fishhooks. He settled for craning his neck to locate here. "Naia?" She came into view, limping and bruised across the entire left side of her jaw. "I am here." Vendr's blood boiled at seeing the entire left side of her jaw dark purple and red. "Who did this to you?" he growled, grabbing the sides of the tub to pull himself out of it. His hands refused to grab the bronze tub hard enough to support his weight and he slid against his back with a hiss in pain. Naia looked away guiltily. "You did...as we put you in the bath. I am fine. You were very weak earlier." Vendr didn't say anything back to her. He slumped in the water and felt a wave of loathing come over himself as he glanced at her jaw. He could see the absolute pain in her expression, despite her best efforts to hide it from him. He'd struck a wounded girl. Pathetic. He motioned with his head for her to get into the tub with him, and she only just obeyed without questioning him. Her slender, naked body slipped into the water in one motion. She bore the pain as her wounds met the hot water and the bandages around them became soaked with the mix of blood and water. She turned her back to him and positioned herself against his chest, leaning back without hesitating. She raised her mangled left hand to his and wrapped her remaining fingers around his thumb gently. Vendr did his best to close his hand around her fingers without hurting her, gingerly applying pressure with nearly-numb fingers. They must have used an anesthetic on him while he was in a delirium. Naia broke him from his thoughts in a weak voice. "Am I really irreplaceable?" Vendr hugged her tighter to him with his right arm and she pushed herself into a comfortable position with her legs. "You are a chanter. There is not a single chanter in this army aside from you. You are, without a doubt, irreplaceable." "Am I just a replacement for the one that came before me? Avana?" she asked without looking at him. She didn't stiffen at his hesitance to answer, or at the answer she thought she would get. She seemed to have already accepted that she was not the first baphomet he'd had. "You are not a replacement. Nor was she." "Then what are we?" She didn't sound convinced. Vendr sighed. "There are no replacements for a broken heart. You are not my first love, but Avana was not either. I cannot replace the pieces of my heart that went with her to her end." He lifted his hand to her chin and turned her face up so he could look her in the eyes. "But my heart is not broken when I am with you." "Milord," she admonished, turning bright red in the face. She looked away embarrassedly. "I...I do not feel as if I can mend a broken heart." Vendr gave her a sad smile. "I feel as if I cannot mend yours either." Naia nodded in agreement. "How would you fix me? I am a broken cripple with one hand. I am a slave even here, with the man I..." Her throat closed and she raised her hand to her eyes. "My master. How can you want me?" "Let me tell you about the woman I first loved. My wife of one evening, Pelash." He knew he could draw Naia away from her tears. She wiped her eyes and managed to take her mind away from herself and focus on him. He felt her wounded hand squeeze his thumb tightly. "Pelash," she whispered unconsciously. "Pelash was from the same village I am from, south of the Avonal Falls, called Tarkleigh. I was only fifty then, and she younger than I. I had never spoken to her before the day I fell in love with her, but I talked to her as easily as I did my closest comrades. I didn't know what a baphomet was when I met her, let alone what they could do as chanters. I remember dreaming about her during the Long Nights of my youth, her long hair, her hips, her smile. She was perfect to me, more beautiful than any succubus in the Second Circle." Vendr cleared his throat as he felt it begin to close. He blinked away the growing moisture in his eyes and continued. "It was but a few Long Nights before I admitted my feelings for her and told her how I longed for her. She confessed mutual feelings for me and we shared a day and a night in the field beyond the bank of the stream I played at as a child. We fell fast in love and I found out what baphomets are known for aside from their youthful bodies. But I was not the one to have her. A lord from the Avonal Falls wanted her more than his wife and pressed her family to let him keep her as a servant in his household. She was sent with him to the Avonal Falls and I followed for days, watching the things he was doing to my love. I held back only for the ten incubi guarding him, until they reached his household. As soon as she was alone, I snuck into the servants' quarters and found her. She cried in my arms and told me she was trapped there. If she didn't stay, he would kill her family." "Who could be so cruel?" Naia asked him, squeezing his thumb harder with concern. She looked up at him and he shook his head slowly. "Those who think themselves powerful enough to do as they please," he answered. "For weeks, I would see Pelash every chance I could, and the servants of the house came to know me and help me see her. One of them even offered to marry us, and we accepted. So, in the first night we could, I took her from the house and we were married in the forest. She sang from her heart for the last time and I felt as if the Three Realms belonged to me that night. I returned her to the house before day and we kissed as I left. I..." Vendr swallowed the lump growing in his throat as the memory of Pelash's last 'I love you' to him as he slipped away into the night from Lord Xall's household. "I returned to the forest until the next night. When I returned, I was not told about her death; I was showed. The lord's wife had found Pelash to be unwelcome in her home and had her hanged." Vendr was silent for a long time, staring into the murky red water at the image of his love hanging from a rope, her beautiful long hair tangled in the noose strangling her broken neck. He decided not to continue. It was hard enough to explain everything until now. He didn't know how he could describe murdering infants with his bare hands and twisting Xall's wife's head backwards with his bare hands. Or pushing a bedpost down Xall's throat until it went through him entirely. "Milord?" "How can I want you? You are a chanter. You are my chanter, and I am not broken when I am with you. I wanted Pelash for the same reasons. I loved her. I love you now." "How do I mend your heart?" Naia questioned, confused. "You live. You survived where others surely would have died. And that is far more than enough to see my heart brought back together." "Then I will live for as long as you desire," she replied meekly, turning red all the way across her face. "If I am able." Vendr tightened his arm around her midsection. "You will make it through this war. Or we will both die in it." He couldn't lose another. If Naia died, he would have no heart left. Watching her pale, tender frame breathe calmly under his protection, he pushed the doubt from his mind. He had the power to keep her safe. ------ Ceria's Estate, Hell ------ Veronaa's temples throbbed as she dismounted her partner and sat up on her knees to observe the poor servant who'd taken her to climax. He was far more muscular than most of the men she'd lain with, far more handsome too. But, as her orgasm faded as quickly as it had begun, she felt that something was missing. The demon wasn't a bad partner, but he didn't have a quality to him to make him memorable. He was just another prick to ride. He wasn't like the case subjects she'd been with, many of them so good that she still fooled around with them every once in a while. He wasn't like the agents she'd taken to the sheets, who now looked at her as if nothing had happened or avoided her eyes awkwardly as if they weren't used to casual sex. She sighed and watched the demon's chest rise and fall below her, his eyes closed and his arms out to his sides. "You are far better than I was told," he said, still panting. "And you're quite forgettable," Veronaa returned without missing a step. "Tell your mistress I'll just find my own bedmate. You lot aren't working." She swung her leg over and lay back down on her back beside the demon. He pulled himself off the bed, his pride clearly struck with a fatal blow. He left without acknowledging her again, quietly leaving her to her own devices. She stretched out on her soiled sheets and likened herself to a cat, uncaring for anyone around it. She relaxed some and stared boredly at the ceiling far above her. Murals of great victories and love stories told a hundred times over dominated the room. She'd had a few of them on her ceiling, painted in much different way of course. She didn't care for Ceria's taste in art, or servants. Thinking back on her own estate, she briefly entertained the thought of leaving the festival and returning home for a while. She dismissed it as a fantasy almost as quickly as she could bring it into full bloom. Her goal down here was to see Tom return to his own realm alive, and Ceria's plans fall through. How could she do that if she was resting comfortably at home? Her days off in the Mortal Realm were spent doing lots of laundry, hacking, coding, going out to eat in places that took hours to drive to. An age ago, every day had been a day off to her. She had plucked fruit from trees in her orchards and savored their bittersweet meat. Long walks with her husband Doran had produced some of the most philosophically winding debates she had ever had the pleasure of testing herself with. She reached up idly toward the ceiling and sought to brush the cheek of the man above her. He bore resemblance to her husband...her late husband, Doran. She remembered burning his body herself to rid herself of lingering feelings for him. She'd poured the oils, built the pyre, refused Jerhme's help. She'd done it all herself in hopes that the years of waiting and planning and careful manipulation didn't go to waste. She had wanted her husband dead, and she had made that happened. That was it. There was no love for him left within her. "I've gone and made myself sad," she mused, feeling a tear roll down her cheek. She sat up and felt another meet the corner of her mouth. She cleared her throat and hopped out of her luxurious, dirty bed. Her clothes had been strewn about the room haphazardly, so she went to the wardrobe against the wall and took a short, low-cut dress from it. If anything, she could at least mingle with the other guests while she was here. She knew some of them, and others she knew how good in bed they were. Perhaps she could find a partner that could satisfy her craving for a good lay. She admired herself in the mirror for a short while, long, tanned legs disappearing into the dark gold and blue fabric of her dress. She considered herself busty, not quite so large as most of the girls that considered themselves so, but still adequate to catch an eye or two at a glance. She winked at her stunning violet eyes and imagined what kind of a shock a stranger would get from them. Her mind took her to the dumbfounded look on Tom's face when she'd first taken off her colored contacts in front of him in the shower. Oh, the naivety of that boy. Now that had been a good screw, that hour beneath the warm water, her womanhood embraced by the tongue of a soothsayer. She felt a spark flicker within her at taking someone's first time at cunnilingus. It had been so long since she'd gotten anyone's first. Thinking back on how he'd acted the entire time, she very well could have believed that she took his virginity too. Veronaa tore herself away from her thoughts and made for the door. He was a good lay, a great lay, but he was just one of many. She didn't have much use for him now beyond their occasional run-ins, which were becoming problematic. She could feel the changes overcoming her as she slipped further and further away from Veronica and returned to being Veronaa the Vindictive. It had been so long since she had said what she truly thought, even to Jerhme, that she was at a loss as to how to act towards people that had known her in the Mortal Realm and not this one. The patient, kind woman she had played there was not the same she was here. She quite liked her human friends, but they didn't know the side of her that really was her. Adjusting to the way she was down here wasn't going well for Tom. He was already suspicious of her motives, and rightly so. As much as she wanted to make sure he was not hurt by Ceria, she wanted to show the bitch up. Ceria might be all powerful here, but Veronaa was queen of the patient hunt. They both knew that. This bedroom was proof enough of that. "So you don't like my servant, do you? A shame. I thought I could break him in with you," the lady of the house herself said as she entered Veronaa's room without her usual enormous attendant with her. "Enough coyness," Veronaa bit abruptly. "Why are you here? I'm going to find a better bedmate." "When you arrived here. I smelled you all over him." Ceria was suddenly very serious. Veronaa's interest got the better of her, so she stayed and folded her arms across her chest instead of leaving. "And?" "You did that to spite me. I can see it in your face. You knew I would find it." "Which is why I took his soothsayer's tongue and Dana his cock," she quipped back. "To make it blatantly clear what I meant, in case you couldn't already tell." Ceria bristled at the insult, but remained calm and collected. "You know, I have no plans of killing him." Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 17 "Whatever your plans are, my goal is to see their fruit fall and rot before ripening. It doesn't matter what they are. I will see them undone." "Well," Ceria began, smirking. "You'll have to compare to a succubus in bed to sway his heart. She's already sunken her teeth into him." "And I suppose you think that's the death knell to the fruits of my labors? That I would not be the object of his love?" If Ceria thought she would be jealous of how Tom swung around, then she was very mistaken. "No, it's nothing like that." Ceria turned and started to leave. "At this rate, he'll lose interest in you, and with a succubus being his desire, thwarting my plans is just that much harder." "As long as it is the body of another he turns to, out of choice or coercion, it is better than turning to you," Veronaa spat as her hair rose in preparation for action. "We'll see how cooperative he is when he finds out how you're using him in your little game against me. He's bright enough to know by now that your interest in who he sleeps with, or doesn't, isn't entirely for his benefit." She paused at the door. "How easily a man's desire slips through your fingers." Veronaa's jaw clenched and she felt her eyes growing fiercely bright with baleful contempt. "It is not wise to mock me, Ceria," she growled. Ceria just nodded in agreement and smiled. "So it isn't, Veronaa, so it isn't." Veronaa's eyes blazed like two suns in her skull, flaring to life with absolute hatred. Long talons raced from her fingertips and came to deadly points on each hand, making it impossible for her to close her hands into fists anymore. Her wings flanked her on both sides, spread wide in anger. Her horns were like two curved blades arching from her head, sharper than the tip of the tail that curled like a snake ready to strike behind her. She crossed the room in moments and slammed the doors open with thunderous force. "Ceria!" she roared, turning to the demon making her way down the hallway without a care in the world. Veronaa started after the woman, her rage building steadily. This bitch was going to pay with everything she was worth. "Ceria!" she roared again, this time getting a response. "Lusotan, deal with her." Ceria disappeared around the corner and was replaced by the enormous visage of her favored general, Lusotan. Bedecked in armor and brandishing a spear longer than Veronaa's body, he was a fearsome sight to behold. His resolute obedience to his mistress almost rivaled that of Jerhme to her. Veronaa swept her hand across the air in front of her, as if sweeping Lusotan out of her way. "Begone, Lusotan. That bitch is mine." An armored fist slammed into her face before she could realize that it had even moved. Her feet left the floor as her body came off the ground and sailed across a large length of hallway before coming to a halt against the floor. Her world spun as blood poured from her nose and soaked her ripped blue dress. With a snarl, she pushed herself up, but Lusotan was already upon her. His boot squashed her to the floor and pressed down so hard that she was struggling to breathe. She choked on blood as it travelled back through her sinuses into her throat. "Show the mistress more respect. You are not so feared now that you cannot be dismissed entirely," the giant warned, looming over her like an avatar of punishment in full form. His eyes glowed with emotion. After a moment more of bearing down upon her, he removed his foot from her chest and walked away. He didn't care to look back as she coughed violently and spat out the blood she was choking on. She was unable to move more than to turn on her side for several minutes as she slowly regained the ability to breathe freely. Patiently, she regained her balance and returned to her room with the rage flowing out of her like a tide of radiation from a star. She passed the mirror hung on the wall to her right and stopped as she saw what she looked like. Her face was covered in blood, smeared all across her cheek and a patina of it across her forehead. Her wings dragged behind her like discarded toys unwanted by a child. Her eyes smoldered like coals and had nearly reshaped to their normal form. Her dress was ripped and torn all over and hung loosely from her trembling frame. She looked absolutely pathetic. The mirror shattered as she drove a clawed hand through it and snarled in anger at her pathetic, defeated image. She tore the dress from her body and retracted her demonic extremities from view. How dare Ceria say that to her. How dare she! Veronaa dropped to her knees and covered her face with her hands. Fingertips grasped at hair as she sought to pull it over her face to hide the growing tears in her eyes. Emotions broke free that she had not acknowledged in millennia and ravaged her body. She trembled violently and a sob escaped her choking throat. She felt hot tears roll down her face and knew once it began that it wasn't going to stop. She moved to her bed and wrapped up in the sheets quietly, deciding it better to cry where it was comfortable than to do it on the floor. Blood and tears mingled in the fabric as her husband's choice to give his child another woman weighed down upon her. "My love," she sobbed to nobody in particular. "Leave me. Put me not second in your heart. Just leave me." Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 01 "Feeling a little tense?" she whispered, kissing his ear again. "You could always just give me a big smooch on the lips and I could fix that little problem for you." Tom bit back a groan in anguish as he felt his climax rising steadily. "I'm not allowed to. It's dangerous." "Then you'll just have to suffer, won't you, human?" she said, reveling in his extreme discomfort. "I remember what you did last time, you idiot." He was at the edge of his climax, anything else would send him past that point and he would be able to be through with her. But the bind that kept him useful here was revealing itself again, much to his extreme displeasure. He couldn't cum until she did. The bind began to manifest as he drew upon every ounce of strength and reason in his body to resist the urge to lose himself again. She hadn't been taking any of this seriously until now. They'd been screwing around until he was nearly there, and she was a fresh and perky as a spring daisy. He swore darkly, and she cackled at his agony. "One second, and you could be in an entirely different world," she offered. "One tiny second and I could take you back to those starlit visions of pleasure and perfection. I could show you things I failed to find on our last tour toward the heavens." "Shut. Up," Tom panted, gasping for breath to keep from crying out. It was painful to keep going. He was so close, but nothing he could do would throw him over the edge until she was ready too. He cursed her more than once as his arms encircled her body and he crushed her to him as tightly as he could. "Or I could do everything in my power to keep from feeling that wonderfully rigid tool in my hot, wet, aching core. Every ounce of me could be elsewhere while you pound away at my soft, velvety folds in a vain attempt to get me to find my pleasure with you." She grinned against his cheek. "Or I could 'really' get into it for the price of just one kiss." Tom pleaded with her, but every effort was in vain. With every passing moment, she became more dispassionate and disconnected from the sex. It was torture for Tom, who had only been in this line of work for a few years. He had no idea how to control his urges, or how to satisfy her, or what to do about any of this. All he knew at the moment was that he was about to be wracked with insanity if he didn't get off soon. The risks for giving in were enormous. Not only would he definitely be hospitalized, he might even be dead this time. She could always just rip a hole in the boundary between the realms and drag him back to Hell with her, and that would most certainly mean a fate worse than this. He weighed his options with slowly fading mental capacity. All he could think about was sex and getting off. Ceria continued to goad him on, giving him every image she could conjure from her words, if he could only find it within himself to give her a kiss. And though they were both drenched in sweat, she remained rather cool and collective, while he was a trembling wreck of primal urges and needs that were not being met. "Don't make me," Tom begged with tears in his eyes. "Don't make me do it, for the love of... Ceria, please, anything else. You have no idea what'll... Please don't..." He couldn't even form a complete thought. He was about to explode when she reached up and turned his head with her hand. He saw green eyes, and then felt something soft and warm against his mouth. Her kiss felt like a wave of utter relief. Tom tightened his grip on her body and smothered her with his mouth, longing for more contact than anyone could possibly give him. She responded with as much the same emotion as she could, gripping him as best as their slick forms would allow. She threw herself into things with everything she had now, giving in to every desire that came her way. She bucked, jerked, gyrated, everything with as much passion and vigor as she could manage. "I couldn't resist that tone. It was just too sweet," she whispered, panting along with him as she began to fall into that rut that he was already so deep down in. She bit his bottom lip hard enough to draw blood and ground everything to a hand. Her eyes squeezed shut and her body trembled violently from head to toe. Tom would have screamed if he hadn't been being watched. He came, hard. So hard in fact that he was almost sure that his eyes crossed before he lost track of what was going on. He held on to whatever he could as they rode out star-spotted orgasms, eyes shut tightly as each wave of pleasure hit them with diminishing power and length, until there was just a slow trickle of stimulation from them both. They lay on the table, half-dazed and in shock of what had occurred. Tom couldn't find it in himself to regret what he had done. She had started the kiss, but even so, he had continued it, which in the Director's eyes, made him just as guilty as if he had demanded it. But at the moment, he couldn't care at all. He felt Ceria's teeth let his bottom lip go, and he tasted blood as soon as he had control of it again. The demon threw her arms over her head and let her legs fall to hang off the tabletop, lying flat on her back and vulnerable. Tom managed to slide his arms out from under her and propped himself up on his elbows. He started to laugh slowly, shaking his head. His panting was still fast and hard, but at least he could think now that it was over. "I'm so fucked once I get to debriefing. I really hate you, Ceria," he remarked, earning him a hand that pulled his head close for another kiss from the demon. She forced him to stay put until she had licked clean the wound on the inside of his mouth, and then let him back up for air. "I couldn't just let that sweet, delicious begging go to waste. You were in so much pain. It was delectable," said the demon, pulling herself far enough back to disconnect their sexes. Tom stumbled backward against the wall and sank down to the floor, his body almost completely limp. Ceria sat upright and put her elbows on her knees. "What?" Tom asked, noticing the gaze cast in his direction. "I wondered why they keep sending you to me until now. I know the first time was just a joke, and that truly was a delightful surprise. Virgin boys who can't cum until I want them to really are the sweetest little treat on a bad day." He rolled his eyes as her look. "What's your point?" "The point is, that you can satisfy me, which is very difficult on a regular day. And it's hard to get me riled up on a bad day. But you...there's something about the way you can throw away all your pride, all semblance of who you are and what you stand for, and ask me for what you want with such a sweet, sincere voice. Oh, the agony I felt in you was enough to thaw my frozen heart and indulge your one little wish." "I still don't get the point of all that," Tom restated, still confused. "Either by luck or by skill, you know what I want to hear from you. Who knows, you may have a knack for soothing the savage heart," she said, pantomiming a lover holding a treasure against their chest. "Or you could just be an unlucky playmate for a very frightening demon." She flashed him a demonic grin and then flopped back down against the table with a sigh. Tom scrabbled around for his clothes and barely managed to get them on. His arms and legs felt like they were made of lead and weighed down with sandbags. His back was stiff and he took only the most ginger steps as he waited for Harvey to come unlock the door for him. It wasn't Harvey who came to get him out, but Greg, who looked more than a little peeved about what he had seen. He threw the door open and closed it just as quickly, giving Ceria a cold glare as he set off back down the hall at a brisk pace that Tom didn't even try to match. ------------ "You know the policy about violent cases better than anyone Thomas, especially demons! Especially this particular demon! What in the hell were you thinking?!" the Director snarled, not even taking the time to grab his scotch. He wiped beads of sweat off his forehead and grated his teeth together, something he did when he was thinking but not talking. "I don't know what I was thinking, sir," Tom replied. "But in all fairness, she kis-" "Save it," he cut Tom off. "I've heard that one before. Hell, I've even used that. Boys brighter and more skilled than you have vanished in the blink of an eye, died, or worse, for just the same thing you did. You have no idea what Hell is like, do you?" "No sir." "Trust me, you never want to go there without papers and a visitor's badge. Look, there are rules for a reason, and no matter how hard it is to keep from breaking them, you can't. You very well could've died doing what you did." "Si-" "Especially with her! Do you know how many men three oh one thirty has killed?" Tom didn't know if that was rhetorical or not. "Around twenty?" "Try around two hundred. And that's just the ones in America. Tom, she sees everyone as a toy, and once she's broken you enough times, she'll kill you. It's happened before. She's dangerously powerful, and the only reason we can't banish her is because we don't have the power to do it without help from Hell, and that calls in too many favors just for one banishment." "Yes sir," Tom said mechanically. "Do you understand?" "Yes sir." "No, Thomas, I don't think you do. You've read the manual, but you don't see the danger in giving yourself to a demon. You don't understand what it means to go to Hell. So here," the Director stopped for a moment, stood up, and unbuttoned his shirt to reveal a long, jagged scar across his chest starting from beneath his right arm and running all the way to his left hip bone. "It took three years of intensive care to bring me back from that." Tom was stunned. He's seen missing fingers, little stab wounds, even scars from blades that had pierced through a man all the way, but nothing like that. By the way the scarred skin was sunken and his misaligned ribs, it must have been a mortal wound. And it took a lot to even get the Director's attention, let alone hurt him. "So in light of your misbehavior, I'm assigning you to twenty nine fourteen, she'll be at your house tomorrow after you get home from school. Don't screw this up." Tom took the case file and left the room without another word. Outside, on the other side of the bulletproof glass, Ceria eyed him from the visitor's hallway. As he started walking, she matched his pace, now dressed in clothes given to her by the Department. As they neared the point where the two hallways went in opposite directions, she tapped on the glass. "What?" he asked, stopping to look. "I don't let my toys talk back," she said, and then blew him a kiss. "Screw off," Tom barked, turning around. He missed the smirk creeping across her lean, predatory features. ------------ "Sweet Mary mother of Jesus." Tom let his backpack fall to the floor as his jaw almost dropped off his face. "Huh? Oh, you're back earlier than I thought you'd be. Sorry, I'm almost done here. If you could just give me a few minutes, I'll uh...oops!" The woman standing before Tom was beyond beautiful. Gorgeous wouldn't begin to describe her body, and it couldn't even come close to doing justice to the collection of curves that smiled at him guiltily and moved across his kitchen. "Are you-" "Hera? Yes, yes I am. I'm sorry I didn't get dressed as soon as I got here. I Knew you'd be home early," she said, trying to cover herself with the little apron she had on. Tom walked over to the oven and took the cookie sheet out, setting it on the countertop to cool. Hera slipped into some clothes and turned toward the oven, virtually every part of her coming to a jiggling halt. "Uh, so...I read your file," Tom said, trying to take some attention away from Hera's voluptuous body. She gave him a sort of guilty look and forced a smile from herself. "I'm sorry about this. It's just, I really haven't been feeling well lately. It's difficult when you don't have anyone around to...you know, help you out?" She clasped her hands in front of her and stiffened her arms, causing her huge breasts to press together and push against the apron. "No, you're fine, trust me. After the last one I had to calm down, you're a really welcome change. So, we can start whenever you're ready. I'm not exactly sure how this works though, you being a Holstaurus and all. Is it the same?" "I'm the same here, but I take a real form in Hell, whee you can see me for what I really am. But hold on a minute, I think the cookies need to be moved or they'll stick to the pan." She hurried over to the counter and adjusted all the cookies with a spatula, making sure that they were all nice and neat before the turned her attention back to Tom. They talked for a little bit about what she wanted done, and it boiled down to two things. One, she wanted to be milked, which was a fairly simple process in and of itself. The second, however, was a little complicated. She wanted hours of sex, not just a screw like Ceria did, hours of it. Now, for a normal guy, that meant that there would be a lot of work involved, but after about five or six minutes between each go, he could do it. Tom, however, and his unfortunate little hiccup in this avenue of life, would go insane by the time they were through. If she wasn't easy to please, then there would be a real problem here. But, they just sat and ate cookies and made small talk for a while. Tom found out that she owned a dairy farm, and he could already guess why from the wet spots on the front of the apron that seemed to grow every few minutes. One of her farm hands, her only farm hand actually, had been helping her out with her 'needs' and it had been fine up until about a month ago when his family moved away, and him with them. So, here she was, in a bad way and in need of some help. "Well, there's a pool out back, two bedrooms upstairs, the den, the foyer, pretty much anywhere. All the walls are reinforced with something to keep me from going through them on rougher days. The master bath is pretty spacious and the bathtub is nice. I think it can fit four." She perked up at that. "You have a big bath?" asked the demon with more than a little hint of interest. "Of course. Not everyone has the mundane desires for ordinary conditions. Some girls like the wall, the floor, the countertop, and others the bath. It's got jacuzzi jets in it if you want to be a little luxurious too." "Let me put my milk up first," she said, hopping to her feet, chest bouncing wildly. "You brought this?" the government worker asked, pointing the the empty glass in his hand. Hera gave him a thoughtful look, and then laughed merrily and opened the refrigerator. "No silly, I made this milk myself while I was waiting for you. See?" She pointed to three large pitchers of milk on the second shelf in his refrigerator. Tom was stunned. "That's all from waiting?" he said incredulously. Hera flashed a guilty look and put her hands behind her back like a little girl, looking up at him shyly. "Well I was pretty anxious to get some relief. And I have been here since nine in the morning. It's almost five now..." "Let's go before you flood my kitchen sink," Tom said, groaning inwardly. Any demon that lactated wasn't just emotionally deep, they were really precise in what they wanted too. He could already see this one spiraling downward with her, albeit politely, complaining to him about everything. However, when they got to the master bathroom, she stripped her clothes off and had the water running before he could even unbuckle his belt. Her eyes scanned everything, her expression one of sheer awe. She marveled at the granite countertops with silver shavings inlaid. The artful curve of the arched ceiling, the potted plants and hanging vines. Perfumed vanilla soaps and censers already lit. Tom had to admit it, the men and women behind this little one worked with more efficiency and skill than he could ever hope to achieve. He'd be damned if ever there came a day that his bathroom wasn't furnished lavishly as a rich man's bedroom for just this kind of occasion. As he watched the demon testing the temperature of the running water with her hand, he understood why she'd been named what she was. Hera was the effigy of goddess in its every form. She was the kind of gorgeous that caused traffic accidents wherever she went. Tall, tanned, and top-heavy. She let the water run for a little while before shutting it off and grinning broadly at Tom. "Okay, so if we can get you naked," she suggested playfully, moving toward Tom unexpectedly, "then we can get this bathtub full of heavy, labored panting and moaning." She stripped off Tom's clothes down to his boxers quicker than he could have ever done himself. She paused at his arousal already stirring for her, and her eyes flashed an intrigued glimmer. They didn't say anything as she stripped him naked and swept his feet out from under him, her hair bristling as gooseflesh rose all over her body. She held him like a comatose ragdoll and strode toward the bathtub. Placing him in it gently, she shut the water off and stepped in with her feet on either side of him, allowing him a long, clear look at her sex before she sank down to her knees and leaned forward wit a hand braced against the edge of the tub. She gazed at him like they had been in love with each other for years. It made Tom squirm a little. "What?" he asked a little hesitantly. "You have a nice face. You look at me so softly," the demon replied as she kissed his head gently. Tom's brow furrowed, but she didn't say anything else about it. Instead, she closed her eyes and her mouth found his in a sweet, loving kiss. Her free arm found his shoulder and wrapped around him softly, pulling them closer together. The heat of her body caused Tom to relax a little and his hands found themselves fit snugly at her waist, to which she murmured her approval. Hera let her weight rest on him as her hand snaked down and brushed her fingertips against his cock. She grinned as he grew hard and wrapped her fist firmly around his arousal, pumping a few times to make sure he was ready. "Uh, Hera, there's something I need to tell you," the government agent said as she began to pump his cock ineffectually. "Yes, sweet boy?" she purred sensually, squeezing him a little as she began to kiss her way down his neck and shoulder. "As much as I would like to continue like this, I've got a little issue with this, uh, sort of foreplay." She gave him a confused look. "Did I d-" "No!" Tom almost shouted, causing him to turn red in the face immediately. He noticed her hand hadn't stopped at all. "No, you didn't do anything wrong, and if I were a normal person I'd probably be clinging to you for dear life and drooling. But, well, I can't really feel anything unless you do. I only actually feel...you know...sex." "So this you can't even feel?" she asked, pumping him slower and with more purpose than before. Tom shrugged and tried to think of how to get her to stop without making her feel hurt. "Well, it's not that I can't actually feel it, because I can tell that what you're doing should feel really, really good. But...it doesn't get me off, I feel it, but I don't get any sexual pleasure out of it. I mean, if you want to, you can keep going; it's not like it bothers me. But if it's for me and you're doing it to be nice, then, well, I'm flattered that you'd do this, but it's kinda really just an empty gesture." She gave his cock a long, hard stare from above the water and narrowed her eyes a bit, doing a few things to get a response out of him. Each time, she looked up to gauge his reaction, but he just shook his head and smiled guiltily until she stopped. She let out a short sigh and gave him a conciliatory kiss. Sex is a Job Description? Ch. 01 "I'm sorry. My farmhand really loved to sit down in the pasture with me and let me play with him for hours. I miss Eliott a lot," she admitted, putting her fingers to her lips absentmindedly. Then, she smiled broadly and put a hand over his eyes. He felt her moving around a bit and then her lips at the tip of his arousal. He bit his lip in frustration as she took him in all the way to the base and moaned, causing vibrations to leap up and down his throbbing cock. She came back up a few moments later and grinned broadly at the sight of him biting his lip. "Feel that?" she chirped. "You have no idea how much I wish I had, Hera. I swear to God I would have exploded if that had been at all what it should have been on my end." Her smiled faded and yes grew moist. "Really? You're not playing a cruel joke on me?" she sounded hopeful that he would break his facade at any moment and tell her how good it felt. Unfortunately, he could only shake his head and cast his eyes downward. "I'm sorry." "Well what if I use these?" she offered, wrapping her arms under her chest and lifting it suggestively. Tom tried to bite back possibly the most anguished moan of his life, and failed miserably. "Hera, you have, by far, the most amazing breasts I've ever had the honor and privilege of seeing. And if I weren't the most undeserving and unfortunate person for you to have been assigned to, then I would never let you leave once you started. I can't tell you how sorry I am for you and my poor body." Hera gave him a disappointed look and let her arms fall to her sides. "Don't worry. They told me that you were different and that you would never finish before me, but I didn't think that you really couldn't finish. I thought that you were just that good. It doesn't...it doesn't hurt when I do this, does it?" "No, none of it hurts, but I'm not really sure that it's the best way to use the time I get to spend pawing all over you and letting you get rid of that tension you wanted gone." He smiled when her expressioned lightened and she gave his hair a little tug. She scratched her nose and clenched her jaw in deep thought. Hera looked around for a moment and then snapped her fingers together with a disapproving look. She left for a short while, and then returned with a bull ring in her nose. She didn't look like the meek, kind woman that had been baking cookies only an hour ago. Soft curls of blonde hair were now bristling and looked something akin to straw. Her eyes no longer held a gentle quality, but a ferocious and hungry one that rivaled Ceria's. Her posture, the way she walked, the lean, predatory figure. Everything had changed. It was like she'd undergone a transformation! Tom shifted uneasily in the water as she stepped into the tub, folding her arms under her chest to accentuate her already-massive bust as she stood astride him in the water. She flashed a lecherous smile and winked at him. "So how long are we talking here? Because there's something-" "Get up," she interrupted. Puzzled, Tom stood up. She snagged him with her arms and pushed her lips against his madly, grabbing a fistful of his hair and gripping his rear end firmly. Tom was so taken aback by her suddenness that he slipped and fell backwards into the water, taking her down with him. She didn't seem to mind though, and pushed her tongue past his teeth and into his mouth. She let out a low, pleased moan and started grinding herself against him crudely, attempting to mount him without any actual precision. It didn't take long for Tom to recover from the shock of her advance, and he put his arms around her waist, keeping her snugly against him as they tried to find out how two people locked together the right way with all the skill of virgins. Meaning that after grinding hard enough to sharpen steel between them, neither of them could get it in. Finally, Hera took her hand away from Tom's head and gave his cock a nudge in the right direction. She drove herself down with enthusiasm and drove him into her body all the way to the base. She threw her head back and let out a throaty moan that sounded something like what you hear from a bull when it gets intensely aggravated. "Start bucking, bronco," she said, raising her hips as her eyes rolled back in her head. Tom gripped her hips tightly and forced his himself up against her. She let out another moan and arched her back tightly. Tom's eyes caught her breasts just inches in front of his face, so tantalizingly close that he could just lean forward and give one a little lick. Their eyes met and Hera snorted, returning her free hand to the back of his head. She pulled his face to her chest and he latched onto one of her breasts, sucking hard at her swollen, puffy areola. Sweet, warm liquid filled his mouth and he drank it down like a needy child, closing his eyes to fully enjoy the taste of it. This was incredible. There was no way milk was supposed to be this good. Hera's breathing suddenly became much deeper and she squeezed him again as he nipped at her breast with his teeth. "Yank my nose ring," Hera said, grabbing Tom's wrist as he bucked up against her and jolted her body. Tom found the ring and hooked two fingers to the first knuckle, pulling down to test what would happen. He didn't want to yank it and rip it out and hurt her. That would be bad business. She snorted testily and repeated her demand, this time with more force and volume. Tom didn't have to be told twice, and pulled hard. She responded by trembling uncontrollably and lactating twice as much. She let out a loud, excited moan and wrapped both arms around his head tightly, squeezing with all her might. "Harder!" she breathed, earning a hard tug on the ring. She mooed again, this time locking her knees against Tom's hips. Tom brought his free hand to her other breast and kneaded it with purpose, risking a glance up at Hera's face as he did so. She wore a mask of pleasure, hiding whatever thoughts might have been lurking behind it. But although her face was wrought with pleasure and her voice carried all over the house, her eyes were far away. Tom knew what was happening. She wasn't here. He wasn't Tom. She was with Eliott on her farm in a pasture, lying down together somewhere. Tom almost stopped because of it. He'd seen this before, and it couldn't end well for either of them. Once she got over having sex, she would start regretting it, or she would remember that Eliott was gone. Either way, things would end up worse because of it. But, it was his job to do whatever it took to make her happy, so he'd just have to bear the brunt of the blame and do what he could, call in a few favors, cobble something together. He sighed and gulped down another mouthful of milk. That look in her eyes, it wasn't pain. It was love. She had someone so special to her that it pained her not to be with him, and the thought of spending even one day without seeing him made her sad to the point of...well, this. Tom silently hoped that he'd find someone who'd make those eyes for him and love him like she did her farmhand. ------------ "What have I done?!" Hera cried, squeezing Tom's naked body to hers as she wept uncontrollably. Tom had been right, and even though Harvey was here with two other agents to get her back home and have her fill out another survey, Hera was not letting him go. "Shhh, Hera, it's okay. Everyone has their body get the best of them. Trust me, Eliott won't care if he really loves you as much as you love him. He'll be happy that you got to get some of that stress out. C'mon, trust me here," Tom said as soothingly as he could. Hera wailed again. "I'm so sorry. I can't stop myself from crying. It just...it just feels like I did something awful to him! I'll never be able to look him in the face again!" "It's alright. We can find Eliott for you and let you make things right, okay? We can even set you up with a farm down the road from where he lives, and bring all your cows and all the stuff in your house too." She looked up suddenly, her eyes red and wet with tears. "Really?" Tom puffed up at little with pride. "We're the United States government. Like hell we couldn't get your address changed and a couple cows moved a few hundred miles." Hera's quivering lips turned into a bright smile and she buried her face in his chest again, continuing to cry out her emotions. "I'm so sorry for this, and hitting you, and everything I've done. I can't believe I ever blamed you! I'm so sorry." Tom resisted the urge to gingerly rub his dark purple brow where she's thrown her elbow into his eye and given him a bruise all the way from the bridge of his nose to his jaw. It looked like he had war paint across the side of his face. "It's fine. I'd be much worse off if you weren't so nice and decided to let me get up before hitting me. If I'd been on the ground, You'd probably be picking up the pieces of my head from the other side of the room." "I'm...I'm really sorry, truly, I am. I'll pay for anything you have to do to get better, surgery, antibiotics, whatever it is. I really do-" Tom held up his hand. "I've got the best health insurance the country has to offer. I just need you to go home feeling satisfied and I'll be fine. This'll heal quick. A girl broke my arm once for touching her ass, so this isn't that bad comparatively." "Thank you so much. You can keep the milk downstairs. It won't expire because it's mine." Harvey's face went white. "That milk came from you?" he asked, pointing toward the door as if the fridge were open right there. "Well yeah, that's why I had Eliott around, to help get some of that out every day." "Oh fuck, I'm-" Harvey put a hand to his mouth and moved to the toilet as quickly as he could, and vomited until there was nothing left in him to wretch. Tom was a little taken aback. He'd only seen Harvey show actual emotion twice before. He looked back at Tom and Hera as she finally let go of him to get dressed and leave. He gave them a weary thumbs-up, and then puked again. ------------ Once Hera was gone, and had apologized a hundred more times for Tom's worsening bruise, he went downstairs and made dinner for himself. After eating two cold sandwiches and downing the last of the cookies and two glasses of milk, he went upstairs to take a shower. The hot water was like having boiling oil poured directly into his body without touching his skin. It was painful, and it made his eyes water constantly, but he made it though the shower without too much trouble. He grabbed a towel and started drying off his hair, taking care not to touch the left side of his face. "She got you pretty good then, huh?" Tom stopped. "You have got to be fucking me." "Here's a nice change. Normally you never want to screw," Ceria said as Tom pulled the towel off his head. He found her sitting on the countertop and her legs cross and her chin in her hand. She ran her free hand through his wet hair and gave him an impish grin. "God, just lay off for five minutes. Fucking Christ, it takes forever to get you to leave me alone." Ceria's expression didn't change. "Well now, there's a naughty mouth for such a sweet-looking boy of just barely eighteen. Maybe I should give that tongue some sugar and see if it starts being sweet to me." "Go home Ceria. This is my house, and I'm tired. I'll deal with you some other time." "Those are some very demanding words from someone who just got the pulp beaten out of him by a pacifist," the demon pointed out in no slight way. "Fuck you. Why can't you leave me alone, you devil-whore!" Tom whined. "Heh, I bet you're one who'd bare his fangs at God for raining on the day you get your first real pussy." They shared a look that lit something in Tom's body on fire and won out against his better judgment. "What's that supposed to mean?" he spat, putting on a pair of boxers. "If you haven't noticed, I get enough of that for ten guys. You're included there." "I mean a woman's body that is freely given. Us demons, we use you for what you can do with that cock of yours. You've got a rare gift, but it's not unheard of. You're a tool to us, even Hera, bless her poor heart. She used you to a greater degree than I did." "Hey, you guys initiate the sex. I think that's pretty freely given," Tom replied in his own defense. "Yes, but that's just for your body. Real freely given sex is for you as a whole." "Is there a difference?" he countered. "Hmmm, clever clever. Unfortunately, you've never truly gotten any, so I can still call you a little virgin and tease that you can't even get your dick wet without your government's help." She pulled her lower eyelid down with one finger and stuck her tongue out at him. The hair on the back of Tom's neck bristled. "Okay, fine then! Spread your legs." Ceria raised her eyebrows and pointed at herself. "Me? You're talking to me like that?" "Now," Tom growled. "Oh, you are a sheep in wolf's clothing. You think you can handle a demon? I'll remind you that Hera was a pushover, even with her nose ring in." "Are you gonna sit here and talk, or are you gonna give me the pussy you said I couldn't get?" "In your dreams, perhaps. Wait, no, not even there. It would have to just be a fantasy, and a distant one at that. Actually, I'll bet that you do masturbate to me, this very scenario even!" She perked up as if they were playing a game and she was suppose to fake strong emotion. "God, just leave me alone," Tom sighed defeatedly. "And is there the part where I turn around and spread my legs and say 'come here, master, I'm so wet and I want you inside me' right?" She hopped off the countertop and hiked her skirt up her thighs. Then she slowly slid her panties down her legs to her knees and spread her feet as far as she could without ripping her undergarments. She spread her labia with two fingers, hot, sticky liquid coating her fingertips. "Fuck you." "You can take me any time, my cute little virgin boy. C'mon, lose your virginity to a demon. I'm so ready for a thick slice of Tom, and I can hardly stand it. Just put it in, even just a little." She looked back at him with a smirk, and Tom was ready to tell her off for the last time before just flat out leaving. But when he looked at her, he saw something in her eyes that he hadn't seen before. Was that hope? "My cute little cunny isn't gonna wait all night, you know. I have more things to do than to help your poor little cock get stuck in deep for free," she teased, wagging her hips back and forth. Her smirk turned into a mocking smile and she stuck her tongue out between her teeth. "Go to hell," Tom fumed. He turned to leave and stopped at the doorway for a moment to look back. "It's where you belong," he murmured. After that, Ceria didn't follow him. She just called out something that kept him up all night. "You know, I don't let my toys talk back." A/N: Alright, after a long wait and several deaths in my close family, I'm glad to say that I've found my nice familiar writing corner and begun work again on a few things. There may be more of this story, there may not be, who knows? In any case, I'm just glad you took interest.