by Grave, Alexa
He pressed me into the counter so forcefully that I had to lift myself to sit on the edge. I fumbled at his shorts, and he ripped mine off. Did Pandora provide replacement uniforms?
Jared bit my neck, and I squeaked. How I had missed this. I nearly blacked out when he entered me. Every sexual sensation was heightened ten times over compared to when I’d been alive.
And then, in the middle of our lovemaking, the ribbon of comfort wove into everything else, the desire for him becoming integrated with the total peace. When I came, it was a release in more than one respect, so many conflicting sensations melding together and fitting perfectly.
Jared let himself go inside me. He pressed his sweat-sticky cheek against mine, his eyelashes brushing against my skin.
“Thank you for waking me up, Moira.”
“The pleasure was all mine.”
* * * * *
So, I hadn’t received any answers after screwing Jared. If anything, I had more questions. That had been the first time both feelings took me over at the same time.
The only time.
It didn’t happen like that the second, third, all the way through the twelfth time we had sex. Call us addicts, call us rabbits – we didn’t care. At least I didn’t. I was still trying to figure out what made the first time so different. Like popping my Hell cherry or something. Jared and I hadn’t actually spoken many words to each other since the time in the bathroom, so I never asked him how he felt, if that same impulsive desire overtook him when he was close to me, or if it was just Jared being Jared.
Our thirteenth foray was planned to happen in the library. I didn’t much like that combination, but Jared had insisted. He was supposed to meet me there after my Welcomer shift.
I didn’t see him anywhere when I entered the domed room. The books seemed more jittery than usual, and I heard the whispers right away this time. That was all in my head, really. As always, I couldn’t make out the shifting pictures on the ceiling, but they felt more insistent today.
If I was smart, I’d turn around and wait for Jared to find me in my room. I wasn’t sure what his sick mind was thinking when he’d suggested this place. Probably some macho man thing about finishing what we had started.
I stepped further into the library and made my way to the alcove. The whispers heightened, and I turned around, thinking there was someone behind me. Nothing but empty air. When I turned back, though, Douglas blocked my path. Eep.
I tried to wish myself away. Instead, I felt the fingers of one large hand wrap around my neck.
“I told you we need to talk, Moira. You’ve been busy with that Jared fellow lately. You need to make time for your other friends.”
Okay, I knew this guy couldn’t kill me. Again.
Unless there was a Hell for Hell.
Once I’d been gripped by this oaf, a clarity fell over me. The whispers, this room. The people who had given up, who had wanted to get lost – they were truly within the pages. All suicides of dead people, but a second death nonetheless.
I pried at Douglas’ fingers unsuccessfully.
He grabbed my arm with his other hand and pulled me closer, finally releasing my throat.
“You’re not my friend,” I said in between coughs. I was great at driving the thorn further into the lion’s paw. Amazing I had lived as long as I had.
“You’re right,” Douglas said. “I could be so much more.” He bent toward my neck and licked it, his saliva like acid.
This man went against all the rules I had learned. Rape shouldn’t be possible, let alone probable in Hell. At least on the second floor. I hadn’t met anyone else who would intentionally be cruel at the level Douglas was.
I tried to wiggle out of his grip. He bit my neck in response. Not a love bite, but canines digging into my flesh. So much for not feeling pain. I tilted my head back, trying to get away from his teeth. Gray spots dotted my vision.
And for the first time, the pictures on the ceiling slowed their shifting enough for me to see the scenes they depicted. Every scene had nude people partaking in lewd and lustful acts. The pure pleasure etched on every face reminded me of Jared and me.
All my answers could be found in each stroke of the artwork.
So that was what it was all about. The first time with Jared, more than lust had driven me. I hadn’t wanted to lose him, to lose the chance to feel the comfort again. The following times simply fed the desire that made every muscle in my body twitch, to satiate the urge for sex.
That was all my life had been. And that’s why I was here, as well as Jared. Lust. Passion.
But this forcefulness with Douglas had nothing to do with lust or passion. It was fear and power – the drive to control another person. And I’d be damned if I’d allow the reflection I saw of myself to drive me away, to become lost with Emaline in this whispering room.
I stomped on Douglas’ foot and kneed him in the groin. Even if he didn’t feel the pain, I wouldn’t give in. I scratched at his eyes with my free hand.
He shook me. “Behave now, darling.”
“Fuck off.” I growled.
“Moira?” Jared’s voice pierced through my survival focus.
Douglas covered my mouth, and I felt him trying to wish us elsewhere. My body wanted to split in two. But my will was too strong to allow him to teleport me anywhere.
Jared turned the corner and found me still struggling. The circulation in my arm was being cut off by Douglas’ grip.
“Let her go,” Jared said, jumping on Douglas.
My hero. Oh, brother.
I escaped Douglas’ hold after he was caught off-guard by the tackle.
The two men rolled around on the floor trying to get an upper hand. I had to admit, Jared was giving it his all, but even those soap opera wrestling shows made me sick. Too much testosterone.
“Quit it!”
They backed away for a moment, eyeing each other like two feral dogs, and then locked arms again.
Oh, hell.
Then the world turned inside out. My vision went black and stayed black. Eventually I was able to see Jared and Douglas, now separated from each other. We were surrounded by darkness.
Pandora.
“Hello, children.” Wow, she could even pull off a motherly voice, albeit one that would gain her the label of MILF.
Let me at her throat to silence that nerve-wracking sound. I was sick of her games. The blackness didn’t allude to the location of any neck. Damn.
“Calm down, Moira,” Pandora said. “Oh, you have been interesting to observe. More so than I thought at first.” The mother in her tone disappeared, and she purred. Yes, for real, like a freaking cat.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” I said.
Pandora sighed. “I’ll deal with you later.”
Peachy.
“Seems there was a mistake in the processing,” she said. “Douglas wasn’t meant for the second floor, but the seventh. Good thing I caught the mistake in time.”
In time? He’d been stalking me for weeks. Well, at least what felt like weeks, since the only way I could track time in Hell was by my Welcomer shifts.
Douglas and Jared kept their silence. Jared looked shocked, and Douglas had that shiteater grin on his face. I had forgotten neither of them had entered Hell this way.
“Mistake?” I asked. “It took you long enough to figure it out. I knew the first time I laid eyes on him. Plus, he didn’t ask the Question.”
“If you’re so smart, Moira, dear, why didn’t you say anything? Let me know, hm?”
“Not like you gave me a number to call you up and say ‘Hey, you fucked up, big time.’ And if you’ve been watching me so closely, you should have known.”
Silence. Whoa, I pushed at least one button. Yay, me.
“In any case...” Pandora said. Her voice was tight, as if one more snide comment would snap the rubberband holding it back. “...time to go where you belong, Douglas.”
“With pleasure, Lady.” He poofed. Good riddance.
“And you two, perhaps it’s best you stay away from the library unless you intend to use it for its true function.”
Jared nodded.
A nasty retort was on the tip of my tongue, but vertigo overtook me.
Right before I appeared in the communal living space, I heard Pandora. “Until later, Moira.” An echo of her maddening laugh followed, then was obliterated by shouts at the TV.
“So, that was the Devil?” Jared asked.
“Yeah, Pandora. And you thought I was a bitch.”
The sports freaks turned and stared. I felt like a strange type of frog being ogled.
“What are you looking at?”
They snapped their heads back around to the game currently playing on the screen.
“Follow me,” I said to Jared, and led him back into the bathroom. The mirror gave me the shivers, but I wasn’t about to turn back around because of a stupid piece of reflective glass.
Both of us stood in silence for a bit, the run-in with Pandora obviously taking time to soak into Jared’s brain. I tried to figure out if Pandora’s promise of later scared me more than when Douglas said it.
“What did you think you were doing?” I finally asked. “Did you think I was some type of princess in distress who needed to be rescued?”
Jared laughed. “Never, Moira.”
“I could have taken care of the creep just fine.”
“I know, I know. Just felt like I owed you or something. You saved me, my turn to show my appreciation.” He grabbed my hand and pulled me toward him. “I know full well you can take care of yourself.”
Never thought I’d hear Jared admit that. “If you want to show your appreciation, you have to promise me something.”
“Anything.”
He had never been stupid enough to make such an open promise to me before, either. “Remember I told you to smash that mirror? Well, make sure to keep a few shards around, at least. As a reminder. I don’t like my own reflection much, but if I look at it once in a while, I think Hell will be more bearable and maybe even make a little sense.”
“Yeah. Okay. Just enough to remind us not to get lost on the other end.” Jared kissed me, soft and gentle, not the passionate force that implied he wanted sex to follow.
And as I kissed back, the comfort washed over me, bathing me in its solace.
* * * * *
I couldn’t find the library after that last conversation with Pandora. She must have blocked it from me. That didn’t stop me from looking for it, though. I wasn’t going to let a disembodied voice tell me where I could and couldn’t go.
During one such search, the vertigo struck me. I crossed my arms once I was stable in the blackness. As stable as nothingness could get. “What the Hell do you want with me?”
“Oh, aren’t you precious, Moira.” Sexy sarcasm. Pandora redefined ways to speak. Guess that was what happened when you had no facial features or body language to utilize.
“That’s not an answer.”
“You are one of the few who isn’t awed by my existence.”
“Whoopdeedoo. That little fact isn’t going to make me bow down and kiss your feet. If I could find them.”
Her laugh rolled around me. “On the contrary, dear, I don’t want you to change at all. It’s people like you who make my job interesting.”
“If I amuse you so much, then do me a favor and find a Welcomer to replace me. I have better things to do with my time.”
“Like screw your little boyfriend?” There was that phone-sex operator voice again. “No, Moira, Welcomer is a permanent position. Unless, of course, you eventually feel the need to become lost with all the others. But I know that won’t happen. You pulled Jared from the brink, and you’re too damned stubborn to allow yourself to fade away.”
She had a point. “And why did you bring me here?”
“You’re one of a handful who ever saved someone from becoming lost. And we both know the rules don’t seem to apply to you.” If a disembodied voice could raise an eyebrow, that was what it would sound like.
Not like I’d admit to my urges and sensations. At least not to Pandora. I gave her the silent treatment.
She sighed. “Do you know who the first person was to feel such things? To break the mold?”
I didn’t much care, but figured I’d humor her anyway “Who?”
“Me.”
That floored me. It’s like the chicken and the egg. What came first, the Devil or Hell? Didn’t make sense for either to exist without the other.
“There is one other way out of the Welcomer position,” Pandora said.
“And what’s that?”
“Promotion.”
She couldn’t be serious. “No way. Uh-uh.”
“You don’t have much of a choice, Moira. I’m due to retire, was due a long time ago.” Now she sounded tired, wrung out. “Don’t worry, though. You still have some time before it happens. It’s a long process. You can happily play around with Jared for a while still.”
“No choice?”
“Hell, no.” Her laugh rumbled out at her own joke.
The thing Pandora didn’t get was that I wasn’t just playing around with Jared. It was hard to admit it to myself, but I needed him. It only took being dead to realize that there was more to life than sex.
“Bullshit,” I said.
A moment of silence. “What?”
“You know what I have the choice to do? If you force me to take your place, I can choose not to do my job. If I become you, I’ll have all the power. The power to, well, make Hell go to hell.” I glared into the nothingness.
“But there are rules.” For once, Pandora sounded worried.
“Rules are meant to be broken. Both of us are proof of that.”
“You wouldn’t.”
“I would, and you know it. Unless...”
“What do you want?” The sexy voice still sounded seductive when it had an accusatory note to it.
I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t manipulate my way to a better bargain. And she clearly wanted out of the gig, which gave me leverage. “I don’t want to be a whole bunch of nothingness. I’d be happy to take over your job if I can still have time with Jared and remain on the second floor. Give me an office or something.”
“An office?”
“I don’t do incorporeal being very well. And I don’t work around the clock.” Didn’t in real life, wouldn’t in unlife.
Time stretched without a reply from Pandora.
Then right before I was about to lose my mind from the silence, she said, “This is blackmail.”
I laughed. “Duh.”
“Fine, Moira. You have your wish. I’ll arrange things so you can work from the second floor and remain with your plaything. You know, you make it hard to make this place live up to its name.”
I’d pulled one over on the Devil. Score. “Eh. I do what I do. Take it or leave it.”
“Time for you to go back. I’ll be seeing you.” A sigh of exhaustion followed this time, instead of her headache-producing laugh.
It felt good to take her down a notch.
The world shifted again, sending me back to the second floor, in the same spot behind the sofa where I had first arrived. I still had to wear the horrid Welcomer uniform for now, and I’d be insanely busy soon enough as CEO of Hell. Such joys to look forward to.
Oh, well. At least I’d have fun messing with people’s minds. I was positive I could do better than Pandora.
After all, being a pain in the ass was in my blood.
~~~~~
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About the Author
Alexa Grave loves to tell stories – it just so happens her characters occasionally take her on an unexpected ride. Most of what she writes is dark fantasy, but she enjoys her attempts at the humorous side of things. It’s not odd to find romance in her fantasy as well.
She has an M.F.A. in Writing Popular Fiction, and she is a member of Broad Universe.
Alexa’s life isn’t filled with writing alone. In her spare time, she enjoys gaming. And she has a supportive husband just as addicted to gaming as she is. Reading and thinking up large, impossible projects to work on top her list of fun things to do as well.
Most importantly, she has two beautiful daughters who don’t give her much spare time to do any of the above.
Connect with Alexa Grave Online
Author Website: http://www.alexagrave.com
Born to Write Blog: http://blog.alexagrave.com
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Table of Contents
Hell Hath No Fury
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