Reverend Alpert: the Sins-of-Flesh Demon
Sep. 30th, 2024 05:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lb_leeThe Sins-of-Flesh Demon
Summary: Reverend Alpert meets a demon who just won't leave him alone. And she's friendly. NSFW.
Series: Reverend Alpert, the Traveling Exorcist
Word Count: 3474
Notes: Winner of this month's Patreon poll! And wow, talk about a blast from the past. We originally wrote the Sins-of-Flesh Demon back in 2011(!) for the first writeathon we ever threw, writing stories according to reader prompt. Shawn of Rolodexaspirin wanted kinky demon/exorcist porno; we had no idea what Reverend Alpert would end up becoming! Alpert (and the demon girl) ended up keeping us in toothpaste and toilet paper during the Homeless Year, which meant this story became a slight inconvenience--anyone who read THIS as the first chapter of the series would reasonably (and incorrectly) assume it was a porn series, but it was also such a keystone story that it couldn't really be removed or changed. It's undergone some major revisions so as to better mesh with the new first chapter, The Gestaltist of Blood. Content warnings in the comments.
Alpert was young, two-named, naked and face down in the dirt, arms pinned by High Guards whose features were long since blurred away by time and memory. A thousand faceless witnesses stared down at him from the amphitheater’s stands, a wheel of eyes. He felt Booker Z. Lilac’s weight come down onto his back, holding him down, and agony sliced into his back like fire. He screamed into the gag in his mouth.
Summary: Reverend Alpert meets a demon who just won't leave him alone. And she's friendly. NSFW.
Series: Reverend Alpert, the Traveling Exorcist
Word Count: 3474
Notes: Winner of this month's Patreon poll! And wow, talk about a blast from the past. We originally wrote the Sins-of-Flesh Demon back in 2011(!) for the first writeathon we ever threw, writing stories according to reader prompt. Shawn of Rolodexaspirin wanted kinky demon/exorcist porno; we had no idea what Reverend Alpert would end up becoming! Alpert (and the demon girl) ended up keeping us in toothpaste and toilet paper during the Homeless Year, which meant this story became a slight inconvenience--anyone who read THIS as the first chapter of the series would reasonably (and incorrectly) assume it was a porn series, but it was also such a keystone story that it couldn't really be removed or changed. It's undergone some major revisions so as to better mesh with the new first chapter, The Gestaltist of Blood. Content warnings in the comments.
Alpert was young, two-named, naked and face down in the dirt, arms pinned by High Guards whose features were long since blurred away by time and memory. A thousand faceless witnesses stared down at him from the amphitheater’s stands, a wheel of eyes. He felt Booker Z. Lilac’s weight come down onto his back, holding him down, and agony sliced into his back like fire. He screamed into the gag in his mouth.
Some detached part of Alpert, the older (hopefully wiser) part, watched his younger self scream and sob and writhe with nothing but a little embarrassment at the theatrics. It all seemed so far away, so irrelevant, so long ago.
Then it was over, and Booker Z. Lilac was working the gag out of Alpert’s locked jaws. His old friend had a grim, guilty look on his face… which suddenly smoothed into a beatific smile. He became illuminated, brilliant, filled with light that was not his, and when he spoke, it was with the thousand-strong voice of everyone in the stands: “The Church gives you freedom and choice: reintegration or banishment.”
Strange. That hadn’t happened, had it? Alpert had forgotten…
He watched his younger self try to wipe away the saliva and tears with his aching arm, work his jaws until he could speak: “Banishment.”
“You are forgiven,” the crowd and Booker chorused. “Get out.”
And then the scene collapsed, and Alpert was alone in the darkness, unable to stand. As he crawled away, he heard a woman’s voice screaming, somewhere far away, rapidly receding: “Theresa! Theresa!” Alpert didn’t have time to think about it, because a new, very different female voice said, “Wow, what a buzzkill. No wonder you’re in this state, Reverend!”
That wasn’t right. He wasn’t a Reverend yet, that came later…
Alpert looked up, and standing over him was a short, stout woman, expression curious and unbothered. She was beautiful… and somehow familiar.
Alpert blinked up at her. “Willie?” he asked.
“Who?”
She helped Alpert to his feet, and as she did, the dream confusion fell away. He was no longer young and naked, but gray-haired and clothed, though he could still feel the blood soaking through the back of his shirt and gloves. He found himself relieved that the blacks wouldn’t show it; he wanted this pretty young woman to think well of him. How could he have ever mistaken her for Willie? This woman looked nothing like her, with those candle-flame eyes, that blossomed rose of a mouth, that insolent expression.
“Seriously,” she said, looking around the featureless dream-void, “all the places in Dreamland, and we get this? Are you trying to cockblock yourself?”
“I beg your pardon?” he asked, pulling free of her hands. He succeeded, though the strength of her grip proved it was only because she was letting him.
Alpert was an austere man of severe mien, and he was an exorcist. People didn’t get close to him, but this woman did, leaning in close, too close. She smelled of smoke and roses, and her smile was wicked as she trailed a clawed finger down his shirtfront. “Come on, let’s go somewhere more comfortable…”
And then Reverend Alpert woke with a gasp to the smell of flowers consumed with fire, a longing he chose not to name, and (after a moment’s panting) a feeling of deep annoyance. He looked up at the inn ceiling, listened to the rain pound against roof and shutters, and sighed.
When he came out for breakfast, he found the entire innkeeper’s family there, scowling at him. Gestaltist exorcists, though not exactly reputable, commanded a certain amount of respect and hospitality, since an angry exorcist could refuse to bless crops, clean houses, or otherwise defend against unwanted forces. Normally, these mild, gentle people would’ve never glared at him, but that was before a three-day storm had pinned them all together inside with her.
The innkeeper dumped a scorched chunk of bread and burnt soup on the table, glaring at Alpert as though daring him to comment on it.
Alpert only said, “thank you,” and started eating.
The innkeeper said, “The succubus is back.”
“Yes,” Alpert agreed.
“She wasn’t here before you came,” the innkeeper said.
Alpert was quite sure she had been, but just because a statement was true didn’t make it wise, so he said nothing.
“Well?” the innkeeper pressed. “What’re you going to do about it?”
That was a loaded question. Because Alpert had already banished this demon three days in a row, and he would’ve sworn that he’d done the job properly every time.
The first day, she’d only been a hovering presence, stoking fires, tempers, and other passions. The innkeepers had barely even noticed yet, passing it off to bad luck. They’d asked Alpert for a luck charm; he’d diagnosed the proper problem, cleaned the house, and things had gone without incident the rest of the day. A totally ordinary job. The innkeeper’s family had been grateful and happy, even as the storm insured they’d be stuck with each other for a bit.
The second day, he’d been woken up hearing the innkeeper (and spouse) having very enthusiastic sex through the wall. It had gone on an unusually long time, and when they’d finally staggered out to cook lunch (breakfast was long over), they’d not only barely kept their hands off each other but nearly burned the house down. Alpert had upped the vertices on his binding stars, made sure to cover every part of the house inside, even the chimney’s inside and the root cellar, but his chalk could do nothing about the outdoors in pouring rain. Nevertheless, it’d seemed to work; the fire had calmed, the innkeepers had stopped looking like frothing horses, and all was well for the rest of the day. They’d thanked him again, with some embarrassment.
The third day, they’d stopped thanking him. Everyone had cabin fever by then, a bad mix with the temper-stoking passions of a sins-of-flesh demon. And she’d most certainly returned, despite the chalk works still up, because Alpert had felt not just restless, but hungry in a way he hadn’t felt in decades. By that point, he could only think that her center of influence was on the house’s outside, but the rain kept pouring down, and out of desperation he’d swallowed his pride and turned to his very small stock of holy water and a stick of sanctified chalk (blessed by a Catholic priest he knew). Alpert was not a Catholic, but all he could think was that he’d somehow sabotaged himself with doubt, and he still trusted in the works of the priest. And indeed, that’d seemed to do the trick: the demon had thrashed and screamed and wailed very satisfyingly and vanished back to whence she came, just like the other couple times.
And now she was back again.
An exorcist who failed at his job that many times ran the risk of becoming a scapegoat. It was unfortunately a not-uncommon grift for someone to claim to be an exorcist, when actually they were the opposite: forever cursing houses to extract payment for lifting them. These people didn’t know Alpert, and they had no reason to trust him. Storm or no storm, he doubted he’d be allowed to stay much longer if he didn’t come up with a proper solution.
To make matters worse, Alpert wasn’t sure what he was doing wrong. Sins-of-flesh demons weren’t the most common thing he ran into (that was plague zombies and crop pests), and he wasn’t a specialist in them (that was the Catholics) but it wasn’t as though they were rare or complicated, just personified suppressed passions. This one couldn’t even manage irresistible temptation. The innkeeper and spouse seemed to be (under normal circumstances) a happy couple. The way they’d lashed out at each other the third day, only to then look horrified and reassure and comfort each other, gave Alpert the sense that there weren’t hidden resentments, and after that second day, surely they couldn’t be sexually frustrated. All he could think was that one of them were harboring unusual desires, but that was a sensitive subject to discuss even at the best of times. He didn’t dare broach the topic now, when they already thought him a broko.
Alpert liked to think himself above anger. But he was starting to get frustrated. The longer it took him to reach the High Church, the worse it would be. What was he doing wrong? What was he going to do?
The innkeeper wanted an answer. So did Alpert, and he realized it was time to change tactics.
“I’m going to talk to her,” he said. “May I use some salt and tobacco?”
After eating his charred breakfast, Alpert shut himself in his room and purified every inch of it with salt, smoke, chalk, every method he’d ever been taught except for blood, until he was positive the demon was gone—for the moment. Then he pulled back the rug, opened his chalk belt, and got to work.
When Alpert was ready, he put the rug back, licked his thumb, and made a gap in the chalk circle on the door. Then he sat on his bed to wait, reading an old book on edible mushrooms.
After a time, he felt the fluttering wisp of the demon girl slipping into the room through the weakened chalk circle, carefully avoiding the salt, smoke, and all the rest of it. He pretended to be absorbed in morels, tracking her in his peripheral vision.
When she had gotten close enough to approach the bed, Alpert touched a gloved hand to the bedpost.
A chain of chalk lines leading from bedpost to the floor under the rug burst into life. The searing white lines leapt off the floor to wrap around empty space and shadow. The moment they connected, there was a sizzling crack as the demon was brought fully into the earthly plane, and the now-visible girl crashed to the floor with a howl of indignation.
“Good morning,” Alpert told her without looking up.
The demon girl cursed him and his ancestors. When that didn’t get a response, she began to struggle. Her claws tore into the rug, and her tail cracked against the wall hard enough that the portrait of the Virgin Mary fell off. The timber walls shook and she howled with rage, but the chalk lines were as strong as Alpert’s will, and she was no match for it.
Alpert kept reading. He was a patient man. He could wait.
Eventually, the demon girl calmed down or got bored. She glared at him, tail twitching across the floor.
Alpert kept reading until he came to a good stopping point. Then he slipped a bookmark between the pages, sat up, and moved to the edge of the bed, book in his lap.
The demon was apparently still recovering from the previous exorcisms; she was a little faded around the edges, as though she barely had enough substance to be visible. She was voluptuous and Rubenesque, with strong shoulders, the sturdy tail of a crocodile, and the horns of a ram. Her diaphanous gown didn’t seem to notice gravity. Despite her lack of substance, Alpert was careful not to touch her.
“Are you gonna pay attention to me now, Reverend?” she complained.
“You’ve given me a lot of trouble,” Alpert said. “Why are you here?”
The demon girl rolled onto her back and grinned at him. Her lips were full, her teeth sharp. “Because you want me.”
“You’re a very attractive young woman. And?”
The demon girl looked startled for a moment, then gleeful. “Oh wow. You really don’t know?”
Alpert gave her a reproving look and reached for his chalk belt.
She tried to inch-worm away from him, but the binding wouldn’t let her go far. “Wait, no! I’m not messing with you! I’m here because you want me! I’m a sins-of-flesh demon! Your sins-of-flesh demon!”
Alpert froze for a moment. “That can’t be right.”
She gave him an incredulous look, but Alpert was busy thinking, poring through his memory. He absently rubbed the back of his glove.
This couldn’t be right. He wasn’t supposed to… he hadn’t…
But Booker Z. Lilac was dead. And it had been an awfully long time…
The demon girl must’ve seen the change in his face.
“You got it, Reverend,” she said. “Why do you think you couldn’t banish me? When you told me to go back where I came from…”
Alpert was not fond of irony at his expense. “So, to exorcise you…” he started.
“You need to catch up on all those suppressed desires,” she agreed, wriggling against the bonds. “So, what are you waiting for? Let’s fuck!”
Alpert just sat there, resting his chin on his steepled fingers and staring into the distance.
The demon frowned. “Hello? Needy demon girl here!”
Alpert ignored her as best as he could, but she smelled like temptation and sounded like beauty, and it had been so long. She was so beautiful, so willing… and so inhuman. If she was truly made from his own desires, then he couldn’t truly hurt her. And she was looking at him so eagerly…
It was the look in her candle-flame eyes that did it. It had been so long since anyone had looked at him like that, he’d forgotten how it felt.
Alpert chuckled. It was not an encouraging sound.
The demon girl looked at him with confusion… and a little annoyance. “What’s so funny?”
Alpert stood, stripping off his jacket. “I would expect you to be more knowledgeable about my desires. Or did you hope I wouldn’t be, so you could keep pestering me until I teased it out?”
The demon girl had no remark this time.
“I thought so. It’s my own fault, I suppose,” Alpert said, hanging his jacket neatly over the chair and rolling up his sleeves. He left the black kidskin gloves on. (The cotton ones were still drying from laundering.) “I should have realized sooner. Thankfully, you seem to be solely focused on me, so no harm done.”
He brushed his fingers against the marks on the bedpost, and the chalk bindings tightened. The demon girl whimpered and squirmed, and Alpert chuckled.
“My dear, you’re very charming, but I’m sure you realize that my desires aren’t entirely sexual. Now. Since you’re here and I need to exorcise you anyway, let’s see if I can’t make you repent first…”
The demon girl’s skin was tough as leather, but to him, it felt warm and supple even through his gloves, and it marked prettily in pink and red where he slapped her. Her writhing against the bindings was quite satisfying to watch, and the little sounds she made stirred Alpert deep in his gut.
“But you’re pious!” she protested even as she tried to rub her body back against him. “You’re supposed to be repressed!”
“Self-knowledge is the path to enlightenment,” Alpert chuckled. “I’m not sorry to disappoint you.”
She made a sound of aggravation that morphed into a whine as he ran a proprietary hand up her thigh. She wriggled, trying to get it higher, but Alpert didn’t oblige.
“Why the gloves?” she panted. “C’mon, Reverend…”
“Apologies, my dear,” he said without attention, caressing her calf. “The gloves stay on. Humor an old man’s affectations.”
Her skin was completely hairless, except for a crest down the median line of her scalp that trailed down her spine and her tail. Instead of eyebrows or eyelashes, she had lines of dark pigment in her skin.
“Beautiful,” he purred. “I should have known you were my demon. You’re perfect. Now, if you want me to stop, recite holy verse. Any you like; I know a lot of them.”
The demon girl made a sour face, which made him laugh; demons could recite holy things, of course, but they generally preferred not to. “Aren’t you at least going to get my clothes off?” she pleaded.
Alpert hummed thoughtfully as he twisted the bindings tighter. “And unbind you? I think not.” He reached for his chalk belt; the demon girl’s eyes went wide. “I’m sure we can work around them.”
She made a sound of frustration and her tail lashed at Alpert’s ankles, only to be pinned down by one of his boots. She writhed and growled, but her demonic strength was gone for him. She had come from Alpert’s soul; his will was stronger than her power.
From his belt, he pulled a stick of white chalk. He breathed on it, and it glowed for a moment before settling down. Then he bent over her and smiled. “Now. Let’s see which parts of you are the most sensitive…”
As he drew his chalk down the back of the demon girl’s dress, it sliced through the fabric soundlessly, leaving a thin red line down her striped back. She cried out and lurched but didn’t really attempt to get away.
“Yes, very nice,” Alpert purred, and slashed hard white chalk welts across her shoulders. The demon girl moaned and went limp, panting. Alpert gently lifted her head up by the hair.
“It’s almost a shame you have to go,” he whispered as he took his boot off her tail and drew bruising circles across her rump. “You’ve been a lovely sport, and I haven’t had a chance like this in decades. Get up on your knees, please; I won’t unbind your legs, so if you want relief…”
The bindings made it difficult, but the demon girl got her knees under her surprisingly quickly. Alpert rewarded her by pinning her tail with his knee and sliding a few gloved fingers into her.
“Wait! Wait!” the demon girl gasped, though the way she was thrusting back on Alpert’s hand didn’t seem to correlate with the words, so he didn’t stop moving.
“Yes?”
“I have an idea!”
“Oh really?” He added another finger.
The demon girl arched, hissed, but steadfastly clung to her train of thought. “M-maybe… maybe you don’t have to exorcise me!”
“I’m afraid I have a professional reputation to uphold, my dear.” He scratched chalk lines over her hips, harder and sharper than nails, and the moan it dragged out of her made him smile.
“I’ll be good!” she wailed. “I swear!”
He laughed. “Well, I certainly believe you right now, but it doesn’t work that way. You’re a naughty sins-of-flesh demon, and you’ll cause havoc until,” his knuckles slipped in, and the demon girl lurched almost entirely off the floor, “exorcised.”
“No, nonono,” she panted, moving frantically now, “I can just keep following you around! I won’t cause havoc! You can just keep me and use me and I’ll be like a nice not-demon thing, and—and—and it’ll be great, I swear!”
“What a nice offer. Unfortunately,” and he gave her a tap with the chalk that transmuted into a resounding smack, which made her howl, “I suspect you would tire of that very quickly.”
The demon girl’s tail thrashed under Alpert’s knee, and her claws dug into the rug. She chewed her lip. “But—”
“I would tire of that very quickly.” He adjusted his position to go rougher and faster, and the demon girl’s voice hit a keening whine. His voice was beginning to get rough, and he could feel her passion and pleasure crashing over him like waves. “I would prefer to have one delightful time with you and exorcise you with a good memory.”
“But—”
“Hush now. Enjoy yourself.” He kissed her hair, and when she began to howl in earnest, he drew a banishing star on her back.
When her eyes rolled back in her head and she clenched around his fist, he slapped the star. The chalk lines burst into white fire, there was a rush of air, and then the demon girl was gone, leaving nothing but the smell of smoky sweet and a smudged chalk diagram on the floor.
Alpert stayed on the floor a moment, panting and enjoying a delicious languor that he hadn’t been able to savor in ages. That had been good. Too good. And his glove was drenched with her.
After a moment to regain himself, Alpert took out his handkerchief, wiped his forehead and his gloves, and adjusting his clothes. He opened the windows, hoping to air out the haunting smell of the demon girl, and found the storm had stopped.
He got to work packing his bags. It would be mud out there, but the innkeepers were right: if he didn’t leave, they’d never be free of the demon girl. He never relished returning to the High Church, but between this and that altercation with the brigands, he needed to get this taken care of before things got out of hand.
A shame. She’d seemed a lovely girl.
Then it was over, and Booker Z. Lilac was working the gag out of Alpert’s locked jaws. His old friend had a grim, guilty look on his face… which suddenly smoothed into a beatific smile. He became illuminated, brilliant, filled with light that was not his, and when he spoke, it was with the thousand-strong voice of everyone in the stands: “The Church gives you freedom and choice: reintegration or banishment.”
Strange. That hadn’t happened, had it? Alpert had forgotten…
He watched his younger self try to wipe away the saliva and tears with his aching arm, work his jaws until he could speak: “Banishment.”
“You are forgiven,” the crowd and Booker chorused. “Get out.”
And then the scene collapsed, and Alpert was alone in the darkness, unable to stand. As he crawled away, he heard a woman’s voice screaming, somewhere far away, rapidly receding: “Theresa! Theresa!” Alpert didn’t have time to think about it, because a new, very different female voice said, “Wow, what a buzzkill. No wonder you’re in this state, Reverend!”
That wasn’t right. He wasn’t a Reverend yet, that came later…
Alpert looked up, and standing over him was a short, stout woman, expression curious and unbothered. She was beautiful… and somehow familiar.
Alpert blinked up at her. “Willie?” he asked.
“Who?”
She helped Alpert to his feet, and as she did, the dream confusion fell away. He was no longer young and naked, but gray-haired and clothed, though he could still feel the blood soaking through the back of his shirt and gloves. He found himself relieved that the blacks wouldn’t show it; he wanted this pretty young woman to think well of him. How could he have ever mistaken her for Willie? This woman looked nothing like her, with those candle-flame eyes, that blossomed rose of a mouth, that insolent expression.
“Seriously,” she said, looking around the featureless dream-void, “all the places in Dreamland, and we get this? Are you trying to cockblock yourself?”
“I beg your pardon?” he asked, pulling free of her hands. He succeeded, though the strength of her grip proved it was only because she was letting him.
Alpert was an austere man of severe mien, and he was an exorcist. People didn’t get close to him, but this woman did, leaning in close, too close. She smelled of smoke and roses, and her smile was wicked as she trailed a clawed finger down his shirtfront. “Come on, let’s go somewhere more comfortable…”
And then Reverend Alpert woke with a gasp to the smell of flowers consumed with fire, a longing he chose not to name, and (after a moment’s panting) a feeling of deep annoyance. He looked up at the inn ceiling, listened to the rain pound against roof and shutters, and sighed.
When he came out for breakfast, he found the entire innkeeper’s family there, scowling at him. Gestaltist exorcists, though not exactly reputable, commanded a certain amount of respect and hospitality, since an angry exorcist could refuse to bless crops, clean houses, or otherwise defend against unwanted forces. Normally, these mild, gentle people would’ve never glared at him, but that was before a three-day storm had pinned them all together inside with her.
The innkeeper dumped a scorched chunk of bread and burnt soup on the table, glaring at Alpert as though daring him to comment on it.
Alpert only said, “thank you,” and started eating.
The innkeeper said, “The succubus is back.”
“Yes,” Alpert agreed.
“She wasn’t here before you came,” the innkeeper said.
Alpert was quite sure she had been, but just because a statement was true didn’t make it wise, so he said nothing.
“Well?” the innkeeper pressed. “What’re you going to do about it?”
That was a loaded question. Because Alpert had already banished this demon three days in a row, and he would’ve sworn that he’d done the job properly every time.
The first day, she’d only been a hovering presence, stoking fires, tempers, and other passions. The innkeepers had barely even noticed yet, passing it off to bad luck. They’d asked Alpert for a luck charm; he’d diagnosed the proper problem, cleaned the house, and things had gone without incident the rest of the day. A totally ordinary job. The innkeeper’s family had been grateful and happy, even as the storm insured they’d be stuck with each other for a bit.
The second day, he’d been woken up hearing the innkeeper (and spouse) having very enthusiastic sex through the wall. It had gone on an unusually long time, and when they’d finally staggered out to cook lunch (breakfast was long over), they’d not only barely kept their hands off each other but nearly burned the house down. Alpert had upped the vertices on his binding stars, made sure to cover every part of the house inside, even the chimney’s inside and the root cellar, but his chalk could do nothing about the outdoors in pouring rain. Nevertheless, it’d seemed to work; the fire had calmed, the innkeepers had stopped looking like frothing horses, and all was well for the rest of the day. They’d thanked him again, with some embarrassment.
The third day, they’d stopped thanking him. Everyone had cabin fever by then, a bad mix with the temper-stoking passions of a sins-of-flesh demon. And she’d most certainly returned, despite the chalk works still up, because Alpert had felt not just restless, but hungry in a way he hadn’t felt in decades. By that point, he could only think that her center of influence was on the house’s outside, but the rain kept pouring down, and out of desperation he’d swallowed his pride and turned to his very small stock of holy water and a stick of sanctified chalk (blessed by a Catholic priest he knew). Alpert was not a Catholic, but all he could think was that he’d somehow sabotaged himself with doubt, and he still trusted in the works of the priest. And indeed, that’d seemed to do the trick: the demon had thrashed and screamed and wailed very satisfyingly and vanished back to whence she came, just like the other couple times.
And now she was back again.
An exorcist who failed at his job that many times ran the risk of becoming a scapegoat. It was unfortunately a not-uncommon grift for someone to claim to be an exorcist, when actually they were the opposite: forever cursing houses to extract payment for lifting them. These people didn’t know Alpert, and they had no reason to trust him. Storm or no storm, he doubted he’d be allowed to stay much longer if he didn’t come up with a proper solution.
To make matters worse, Alpert wasn’t sure what he was doing wrong. Sins-of-flesh demons weren’t the most common thing he ran into (that was plague zombies and crop pests), and he wasn’t a specialist in them (that was the Catholics) but it wasn’t as though they were rare or complicated, just personified suppressed passions. This one couldn’t even manage irresistible temptation. The innkeeper and spouse seemed to be (under normal circumstances) a happy couple. The way they’d lashed out at each other the third day, only to then look horrified and reassure and comfort each other, gave Alpert the sense that there weren’t hidden resentments, and after that second day, surely they couldn’t be sexually frustrated. All he could think was that one of them were harboring unusual desires, but that was a sensitive subject to discuss even at the best of times. He didn’t dare broach the topic now, when they already thought him a broko.
Alpert liked to think himself above anger. But he was starting to get frustrated. The longer it took him to reach the High Church, the worse it would be. What was he doing wrong? What was he going to do?
The innkeeper wanted an answer. So did Alpert, and he realized it was time to change tactics.
“I’m going to talk to her,” he said. “May I use some salt and tobacco?”
After eating his charred breakfast, Alpert shut himself in his room and purified every inch of it with salt, smoke, chalk, every method he’d ever been taught except for blood, until he was positive the demon was gone—for the moment. Then he pulled back the rug, opened his chalk belt, and got to work.
When Alpert was ready, he put the rug back, licked his thumb, and made a gap in the chalk circle on the door. Then he sat on his bed to wait, reading an old book on edible mushrooms.
After a time, he felt the fluttering wisp of the demon girl slipping into the room through the weakened chalk circle, carefully avoiding the salt, smoke, and all the rest of it. He pretended to be absorbed in morels, tracking her in his peripheral vision.
When she had gotten close enough to approach the bed, Alpert touched a gloved hand to the bedpost.
A chain of chalk lines leading from bedpost to the floor under the rug burst into life. The searing white lines leapt off the floor to wrap around empty space and shadow. The moment they connected, there was a sizzling crack as the demon was brought fully into the earthly plane, and the now-visible girl crashed to the floor with a howl of indignation.
“Good morning,” Alpert told her without looking up.
The demon girl cursed him and his ancestors. When that didn’t get a response, she began to struggle. Her claws tore into the rug, and her tail cracked against the wall hard enough that the portrait of the Virgin Mary fell off. The timber walls shook and she howled with rage, but the chalk lines were as strong as Alpert’s will, and she was no match for it.
Alpert kept reading. He was a patient man. He could wait.
Eventually, the demon girl calmed down or got bored. She glared at him, tail twitching across the floor.
Alpert kept reading until he came to a good stopping point. Then he slipped a bookmark between the pages, sat up, and moved to the edge of the bed, book in his lap.
The demon was apparently still recovering from the previous exorcisms; she was a little faded around the edges, as though she barely had enough substance to be visible. She was voluptuous and Rubenesque, with strong shoulders, the sturdy tail of a crocodile, and the horns of a ram. Her diaphanous gown didn’t seem to notice gravity. Despite her lack of substance, Alpert was careful not to touch her.
“Are you gonna pay attention to me now, Reverend?” she complained.
“You’ve given me a lot of trouble,” Alpert said. “Why are you here?”
The demon girl rolled onto her back and grinned at him. Her lips were full, her teeth sharp. “Because you want me.”
“You’re a very attractive young woman. And?”
The demon girl looked startled for a moment, then gleeful. “Oh wow. You really don’t know?”
Alpert gave her a reproving look and reached for his chalk belt.
She tried to inch-worm away from him, but the binding wouldn’t let her go far. “Wait, no! I’m not messing with you! I’m here because you want me! I’m a sins-of-flesh demon! Your sins-of-flesh demon!”
Alpert froze for a moment. “That can’t be right.”
She gave him an incredulous look, but Alpert was busy thinking, poring through his memory. He absently rubbed the back of his glove.
This couldn’t be right. He wasn’t supposed to… he hadn’t…
But Booker Z. Lilac was dead. And it had been an awfully long time…
The demon girl must’ve seen the change in his face.
“You got it, Reverend,” she said. “Why do you think you couldn’t banish me? When you told me to go back where I came from…”
Alpert was not fond of irony at his expense. “So, to exorcise you…” he started.
“You need to catch up on all those suppressed desires,” she agreed, wriggling against the bonds. “So, what are you waiting for? Let’s fuck!”
Alpert just sat there, resting his chin on his steepled fingers and staring into the distance.
The demon frowned. “Hello? Needy demon girl here!”
Alpert ignored her as best as he could, but she smelled like temptation and sounded like beauty, and it had been so long. She was so beautiful, so willing… and so inhuman. If she was truly made from his own desires, then he couldn’t truly hurt her. And she was looking at him so eagerly…
It was the look in her candle-flame eyes that did it. It had been so long since anyone had looked at him like that, he’d forgotten how it felt.
Alpert chuckled. It was not an encouraging sound.
The demon girl looked at him with confusion… and a little annoyance. “What’s so funny?”
Alpert stood, stripping off his jacket. “I would expect you to be more knowledgeable about my desires. Or did you hope I wouldn’t be, so you could keep pestering me until I teased it out?”
The demon girl had no remark this time.
“I thought so. It’s my own fault, I suppose,” Alpert said, hanging his jacket neatly over the chair and rolling up his sleeves. He left the black kidskin gloves on. (The cotton ones were still drying from laundering.) “I should have realized sooner. Thankfully, you seem to be solely focused on me, so no harm done.”
He brushed his fingers against the marks on the bedpost, and the chalk bindings tightened. The demon girl whimpered and squirmed, and Alpert chuckled.
“My dear, you’re very charming, but I’m sure you realize that my desires aren’t entirely sexual. Now. Since you’re here and I need to exorcise you anyway, let’s see if I can’t make you repent first…”
The demon girl’s skin was tough as leather, but to him, it felt warm and supple even through his gloves, and it marked prettily in pink and red where he slapped her. Her writhing against the bindings was quite satisfying to watch, and the little sounds she made stirred Alpert deep in his gut.
“But you’re pious!” she protested even as she tried to rub her body back against him. “You’re supposed to be repressed!”
“Self-knowledge is the path to enlightenment,” Alpert chuckled. “I’m not sorry to disappoint you.”
She made a sound of aggravation that morphed into a whine as he ran a proprietary hand up her thigh. She wriggled, trying to get it higher, but Alpert didn’t oblige.
“Why the gloves?” she panted. “C’mon, Reverend…”
“Apologies, my dear,” he said without attention, caressing her calf. “The gloves stay on. Humor an old man’s affectations.”
Her skin was completely hairless, except for a crest down the median line of her scalp that trailed down her spine and her tail. Instead of eyebrows or eyelashes, she had lines of dark pigment in her skin.
“Beautiful,” he purred. “I should have known you were my demon. You’re perfect. Now, if you want me to stop, recite holy verse. Any you like; I know a lot of them.”
The demon girl made a sour face, which made him laugh; demons could recite holy things, of course, but they generally preferred not to. “Aren’t you at least going to get my clothes off?” she pleaded.
Alpert hummed thoughtfully as he twisted the bindings tighter. “And unbind you? I think not.” He reached for his chalk belt; the demon girl’s eyes went wide. “I’m sure we can work around them.”
She made a sound of frustration and her tail lashed at Alpert’s ankles, only to be pinned down by one of his boots. She writhed and growled, but her demonic strength was gone for him. She had come from Alpert’s soul; his will was stronger than her power.
From his belt, he pulled a stick of white chalk. He breathed on it, and it glowed for a moment before settling down. Then he bent over her and smiled. “Now. Let’s see which parts of you are the most sensitive…”
As he drew his chalk down the back of the demon girl’s dress, it sliced through the fabric soundlessly, leaving a thin red line down her striped back. She cried out and lurched but didn’t really attempt to get away.
“Yes, very nice,” Alpert purred, and slashed hard white chalk welts across her shoulders. The demon girl moaned and went limp, panting. Alpert gently lifted her head up by the hair.
“It’s almost a shame you have to go,” he whispered as he took his boot off her tail and drew bruising circles across her rump. “You’ve been a lovely sport, and I haven’t had a chance like this in decades. Get up on your knees, please; I won’t unbind your legs, so if you want relief…”
The bindings made it difficult, but the demon girl got her knees under her surprisingly quickly. Alpert rewarded her by pinning her tail with his knee and sliding a few gloved fingers into her.
“Wait! Wait!” the demon girl gasped, though the way she was thrusting back on Alpert’s hand didn’t seem to correlate with the words, so he didn’t stop moving.
“Yes?”
“I have an idea!”
“Oh really?” He added another finger.
The demon girl arched, hissed, but steadfastly clung to her train of thought. “M-maybe… maybe you don’t have to exorcise me!”
“I’m afraid I have a professional reputation to uphold, my dear.” He scratched chalk lines over her hips, harder and sharper than nails, and the moan it dragged out of her made him smile.
“I’ll be good!” she wailed. “I swear!”
He laughed. “Well, I certainly believe you right now, but it doesn’t work that way. You’re a naughty sins-of-flesh demon, and you’ll cause havoc until,” his knuckles slipped in, and the demon girl lurched almost entirely off the floor, “exorcised.”
“No, nonono,” she panted, moving frantically now, “I can just keep following you around! I won’t cause havoc! You can just keep me and use me and I’ll be like a nice not-demon thing, and—and—and it’ll be great, I swear!”
“What a nice offer. Unfortunately,” and he gave her a tap with the chalk that transmuted into a resounding smack, which made her howl, “I suspect you would tire of that very quickly.”
The demon girl’s tail thrashed under Alpert’s knee, and her claws dug into the rug. She chewed her lip. “But—”
“I would tire of that very quickly.” He adjusted his position to go rougher and faster, and the demon girl’s voice hit a keening whine. His voice was beginning to get rough, and he could feel her passion and pleasure crashing over him like waves. “I would prefer to have one delightful time with you and exorcise you with a good memory.”
“But—”
“Hush now. Enjoy yourself.” He kissed her hair, and when she began to howl in earnest, he drew a banishing star on her back.
When her eyes rolled back in her head and she clenched around his fist, he slapped the star. The chalk lines burst into white fire, there was a rush of air, and then the demon girl was gone, leaving nothing but the smell of smoky sweet and a smudged chalk diagram on the floor.
Alpert stayed on the floor a moment, panting and enjoying a delicious languor that he hadn’t been able to savor in ages. That had been good. Too good. And his glove was drenched with her.
After a moment to regain himself, Alpert took out his handkerchief, wiped his forehead and his gloves, and adjusting his clothes. He opened the windows, hoping to air out the haunting smell of the demon girl, and found the storm had stopped.
He got to work packing his bags. It would be mud out there, but the innkeepers were right: if he didn’t leave, they’d never be free of the demon girl. He never relished returning to the High Church, but between this and that altercation with the brigands, he needed to get this taken care of before things got out of hand.
A shame. She’d seemed a lovely girl.
Content Warnings
Date: 2024-09-30 09:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-02 11:30 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-10-03 03:13 pm (UTC)