Demon Mine

by Marina Simcoe

  I contemplated what to do with my hair for a minute. I used to like having long hair. It required minimal maintenance. I used to just let it air dry most of the time and wore it in a ponytail for work, just adding some waves to it when I went out with friends in the evening.

  My straight blond hair was more flaxen than gold in colour, and it got natural highlights from the sun in the summer. When I looked at it now, however, it was hard to tell what colour it really was, as it seemed to have absorbed the dreadful grey colour of the concrete walls around me. It was also so dull, greasy and tangled that I didn’t believe there was a way to save it at this point. Maybe only with a haircut? A very short haircut!

  With no hairdresser in proximity, without scissors, without even a bottle of shampoo or conditioner, I sighed and dipped my hair into the bucket with the remaining water. The water was still hot enough, and I soaked and squeezed it out of my hair repeatedly, hoping that at least some of the grime and grease would wash off.

  Even if not entirely clean, I still felt better after the bath and sat on the mattress, attempting to finger brush my hair now, which, as expected, proved to be not an easy feat. Fighting the knots and tangles out one by one, I was listening for the sounds of footsteps outside. They will have to come for me soon to take me to the arena again.

  Having different guards delivering my meals, I figured they must have different people for meal service and for the arena duties. That meant I should see the guard who spoke to me soon. Having to see him only in the arena complicated things for me, as that meant that I would never get to see him alone and would have to find a way to get him to talk to me in the presence of two witnesses.

  Somehow, I managed to get most of the worst knots out of my hair and even tamed it into a braid. Unfortunately, I had nothing to tie the braid with and had to leave it as is knowing that it would fall apart eventually as my hair dried.

  I’d just finished the braid when I heard the faint sound of steps in the distance. A panicked thought struck me unexpectedly: what if they didn’t have a system here, after all? What if the guards performed all duties randomly or were following some other schedule that I hadn’t figured out yet? What if he got caught talking to me and would never show up again? In other words, what if he was not the one taking me to the arena tonight, but someone else?

  I didn’t know why the thought distressed me so much, but it did.

  I didn’t known one guy from another here until last night. They all used to look and feel the same to me. I couldn’t tell them apart and didn’t care. The only thing that set him apart was that he spoke a few words to me once. That alone shouldn’t have made him special, should it?

  Maybe I craved just a little bit of normalcy and predictability in my crazy life here. I just wanted one stranger to touch me tonight and every night, instead of any other. By talking to me, he made himself a little less of a stranger, and the whole thing in the arena could possibly feel a little less awkward for me with him.

  I chose not to analyze the fact that I actually liked his touch last night, and if I had to be touched by anyone at all tonight, I wanted it to be him. I wanted so badly to have a little bit of control for once, if not of what was happening to me then at least of how it was happening.

  With my thoughts rushing fast, I tried hard not to let my mind slip into the dark pit of panic again. I got up to my feet and stood frozen in one spot, waiting.

  I recognized him immediately as soon as he appeared in the doorway of the cell. I didn’t even need to see the colour of his eyes. The way he kept them on me with watchful attention gave him away. The huge sense of relief that washed over me surprised me, but the panic receded and the collected calm feeling of this afternoon returned.

  He made two steps into the cell, allowing the other two guards to take their usual positions on each side of the door, and paused for a moment. This was when I caught his gaze and noticed a brilliant bright spark of light pass in his eyes. It looked very much like a ray of light reflecting in a facet of a diamond when you turn it in the sun or inside a brightly lit room.

  My cell was far from brightly lit, though, even on the daylight setting, and the unexplained spark of light coming from the narrow slits of his mask looked odd. It lasted only a fraction of a second, and I kept looking at him closely, trying to see if it happened again, but it never did. Maybe it was some weird trick of light after all, I decided, as he stepped aside, letting me know that it was time to go.

  He kept his eyes on the back of her neck as he followed her three paces behind along the corridor towards the Council meeting room. She had used the water to bathe today. It was a good sign. It meant that she was well enough to care about the way she looked. Her hair seemed to be lighter in colour than it was before, and it turned out to be much longer now that it was untangled. The end of her braid brushed below her waistline.

  His gaze stopped on the finer, shorter strands that got loose from the base of her braid and were curling at the nape of her neck. He caught himself wondering how soft they would feel to touch without a glove. The thought that he would never find out came with a slight tang of sadness.

  The residual pain he felt from his night of torture was gone completely, and he even experienced some clarity of thought at the moment. He enjoyed the feeling even more because he knew where it came from.

  He was stunned to discover a large sense of relief inside the Source when he scanned her emotions tonight. So stunned and amazed that he almost forgot to absorb it before it disappeared into the thin air. He had no time to think about why she felt the way she did. The emotion was certainly positive, and it was all his to take!

  He was hungry, even hungrier than usual. Fighting the pain for hours had exhausted his energy. Her relief was just a single emotion, but it was strong enough to erase the pain and to clear his mind a little.

  It had been days since his last feeding. She was supposed to be his sole source of nourishment now that his training ended, but it was the first positive emotion he found in her since he met her last night.

  There was the delicious sexual desire that he coaxed out of her during the Feeding, of course, but that was for the members of the Council only…

  The Source reached the entrance to the meeting room and stopped, waiting for him to proceed. He stepped closer, feeling his own exited anticipation rising, and tuned in on her emotions again.

  This was his favorite part of the day! It was the main reason he became a Handler: for the chance to be as close to a Source as a demon could ever be. Only when he touched her could he justify his existence.

  He needed to know how she was feeling from his every touch. He could not create any of her emotions, but he could build on them, grow them for her, with only a touch of his hand.

  His hands – always covered by gloves – were all he was allowed to use, but it was more than enough for an incubus to bring any human to a climax.

  He lifted her braid and draped it over her shoulder, exposing the back of her neck, then lightly brushed the tips of his fingers over it. He watched the light ripples of blush-coloured pleasure radiate from inside of her in response to his touch and repeated the motion, slowly this time. He noticed last night how much pleasure she had when he touched her neck, and it was quickly becoming one of his favorite places to touch too.

  He unbuttoned her dress slowly, paying close attention to every variation in her responses, and removed it from her.

  She paused before entering the room. He hated to see the wave of her anxiety clouding the timid buds of pleasure that he was trying to preserve and nurture. Then she braced herself with a sharp intake of air and walked steadily towards the X-shaped cross in the middle of the room. He watched with admiration as she reached the cross and turned to face the Council.

  Her eyes were closed. She opened them for a brief second to quickly sweep the room, paused momentarily on the members of the Council, then shut her eyes again before he had a chance to worry.

  She remained standing calmly
on the platform now, in front of the cross, waiting for him.

  He tore the leather gloves off his hands in one movement and replaced them with the silk velvet ones from his pocket. He then quickly grabbed one of the vibrators off the wall inside the room and clipped it to his belt on his way to her.

  The vibrator was similar to – if not the exact one – that he used last night. He didn’t plan anything new for her tonight. He didn’t want to scare her with surprises. Keeping her emotions in balance was his main immediate concern.

  She let him lock her in restraints, attaching her body to the cross, and he felt his confidence return as he watched the pleasure in her building with every brush of his hands against her skin.

  The lingering nervous feeling that he still found in her weirdly bothered him. He sensed it was related to the presence of the Council members, and he tilted the cross backwards at an angle to remove them from her direct line of sight, even though her eyes remained firmly closed. It worked.

  He watched the tension drain from her body, and the passion inside of her bloomed like a flower under his touch. The multicoloured tendrils pushed out and exploded like millions of spectacular fireworks.

  It was a torture for his starved mind to feel the delicious waves of her arousal rush around only to pass him by and be absorbed by the members of the Council. It took all of his willpower to avoid taking any of the energy for himself.

  To free his mind from the temptation, he focused on her, taking note of her every gasp, her every moan, every rise of her chest and thrust of her hips. They were there for him to learn, to remember and to build upon.

  He marveled at the delicate tremble of her parted lips when they released a loud moan from the back of her throat the moment he made her reach the summit. He enjoyed the look of the elegant curve of her spine as her back arched from the cross in ecstasy when he brought her to climax. He felt close to the very creation of beauty then, as if he was truly a part of it.

  To create was divine. Humans were blessed with the gift of creation, not the likes of him. All this spectacular wonder was created by her. He was just there to direct it, like a conductor of an orchestra performing a beautiful symphony. He was proud of his part in it and felt as close to the Divine at that moment as he could ever be.

  He kept his arms around her, holding her from behind as he waited for the last ripples of the white-hot climax to be replaced by the warm orange glow of content inside of her. Only then was he allowed to move in front of her and block her body from the Council.

  She stirred in his arms uneasily. He was afraid her feeling of content would not last long, and indeed, it vanished almost as soon as it appeared. There was not much left except a large emptiness inside of her. Just like the last night, it confused him again. Why did she feel this way now?

  He watched her feel an array of wonderful emotions tonight. It made him happy just to watch them play around her in explosions of light and colour. Tonight was, undeniably, the best part of his long life, and she gave it to him. Where was her own happiness then? Why didn’t she feel any of it herself? he wondered as the gloomy shadow of shame and sadness drowned the light of the afterglow in her.

  Chapter Five. Hi, I’m Alyssa.

  I let him carry me all the way back to the cell. It felt nice to be held, and I didn’t fight it even as I knew that the feeling was wrong.

  He didn’t speak to me today, and it was disappointing. I needed to think more on my strategy. If I could only see him in the evenings, it would only be in the presence of the other two guards. I would still have to find a way to talk to him somehow.

  I didn’t dare to talk to him while he carried me to my cell. I didn’t want to spoil my chances by scaring him away or by getting him in trouble. What if he gets transferred away then, and I’d lose my only hope, as weak as it might be?

  I thought I’d sleep on it and try to come up with a new plan in the morning. At least I could be sure now that I would see him again.

  Following my resolve to learn all I could about the ones who held me captive, I finally gathered enough courage to take a good look at them tonight.

  There were about a dozen of them or so. All men. Young-looking men. Their ages varied from early twenties to about early thirties at most. All of them seemed to be very attractive and in good shape. It looked almost unnatural and weird how a group of good-looking men with a similar body type got together like that. Like at a convention of male fitness models. To what purpose? To watch somebody else make me come night after night?

  They were reclining in casual poses on various chairs, loungers and couches haphazardly arranged in a half-circle around the centre of the room with the cross. Their bodies, though, didn’t seem to be entirely relaxed. I could sense a certain tension in their positions, but they didn’t seem to be turned on in any way, as far as I could tell. They didn’t look like a bunch of frat boys gathered for a sex party. Something was off. There was no gloating, no excitement, and their faces carried rather somber expressions.

  Dressed in a mix of clothing, they didn’t look like any organized group of people with a purpose, either. No uniforms, no logos or insignias seemed to unite them as a group. They didn’t even have a unified style of clothing. I saw various shirts, tunics, jeans, velvet trousers and cargo pants mixed in any combinations. Very normal looking jeans and hoodies were paired with loose silk shirts, embroidered tunics and ornate capes that looked like pieces of theater costumes from various time periods.

  The guy in the middle, for example, wore a long white robe loosely draped around him and held by a large jeweled clasp at one of his broad shoulders. With darker skin tone and with long glossy black hair falling in curls over his shoulders, he reclined in a worn loveseat with the grace of an ancient Egyptian royalty. His bright blue eyes created a stark contrast with his darker complexion, which made his face unforgettable in addition to being breathtakingly handsome. His gaze met mine at that moment, and I closed my eyes immediately to avoid the cold intensity of his stare. There was no humanity in those brilliant eyes!

  Who were these people? I still couldn’t answer it, but I was certain now that they couldn’t be entirely human.

  Inside the cell, he helped me put the dress on again and closed the buttons on the back. He started from the bottom this time and moved his way up. As he closed the last top button at the nape of my neck, his hands moved to my shoulders briefly, and then I felt a light quick squeeze before he let go and exited the cell.

  It was not done accidentally! I could have sworn it was intentional! He squeezed my shoulders, and to me in my current state, it felt too much like a human gesture of support and encouragement. Did I read too much into it?

  In any case, it was a gesture, a form of non-verbal communication, wasn’t it? Non-verbal communication was still communication. He was communicating with me. I must find a way to talk to him!

  The following morning, I sat on my flat ratty mattress and tried to re-braid my hair. It was cleaner now but still with too many knots in it to be considered fully salvageable.

  I heard the sound of footsteps in the corridor and watched distractedly as the door to my cell slid open and a guard walked in. I did not expect to see him this morning. For some reason, I was sure that my assumption in regards to the guard schedule was correct, and I didn’t expect to see him until tonight.

  I jumped to my feet in surprise when I realized that it was he who had just walked in carrying the tray with my breakfast.

  An exited “Oh, my God, it’s you!” rushed out of me in a single breath before I could stop myself. Luckily, he was alone.

  He stopped, either surprised by my outburst or taken aback; it was hard to tell through the mask on his face. Then his eyes did the same sparkly thing again for a moment.

  I was not mistaken this time. I definitely saw the flash of cool blue light pass in his eyes quickly. Who were these people? Aliens? Robots? I knew already that they were inhumanly strong. Was the light in his eyes a sign of some kind of short
circuit happening inside his head?

  Despite his physical strength and his large size, he moved way too smoothly even for an average human, let alone a robot. I thought of the way he touched me and doubted that the grace and lightness of his movements could be replicated mechanically. I racked my brain for any sci-fi knowledge there was. Could he still be an android? A cyborg maybe?

  He remained standing in front of me, holding the tray in his hands, expecting me to move out of his way but making no attempts to walk around me. It was my chance. I needed to say something quickly. I cursed myself for not being prepared enough for this moment. I spent so much time thinking about when I should talk to him but never actually prepared what I would say to him.

  It didn’t help that my past experience was irrelevant to the situation. It’s not like I could use any of the icebreakers I would usually use to start a conversation with a stranger in my previous life. Besides, I wasn’t exactly an expert in striking conversations with strange guys in my previous life either. Phrases like “Do you come here often?” hardly worked for me then and would definitely not work for me now.

  With no time to think, I settled on the simple, “Hi!” and introduced myself. “I’m Alyssa. What’s your name?”

  He continued to stare at me without a word for another second then looked away, as if breaking a spell. Lowering his head, he stepped around me, placed the tray in its usual spot on the floor by the mattress, and left.

  Well, that went well… I wasn’t even sure what I felt more, disappointed or offended. Deflated, I lowered myself onto the mattress, picked up the bowl with the greenish goo, and started eating.