Chapter 8: Simulation
The polished floors of Heaven’s annex were too bright, the hymns too perfectly harmonious. Emily moved through her duties like a ghost, the phantom pressure of Charlie’s handshake still warm on her skin. The agreement to be “partners” felt like a hair shirt under her starched robes—the right choice, the noble choice, scratching relentlessly at her peace.
Her assignment was simple: oversee the orientation of a newly arrived soul, a "winner" named Clyde, a car salesman from Toledo whose virtue had apparently been punctilious enough to squeak him through the gates. He was jittery, overwhelmed by the splendor.
“It’s just so… shiny,” Clyde kept muttering, shielding his eyes.
“You’ll adjust,” Emily said, her voice all practiced serenity. “This way. We have a simulation suite to help acclimate you to celestial concepts.”
The simulation chambers were tools for understanding, not memory. They could manifest abstract ideals: compassion as a warm glow, forgiveness as a lifting weight. They were not for personal use. Emily knew the protocols. But Clyde was nervous, and the panel of shimmering light that served as a door control was sensitive.
“Just place your hand here, see? It reads your essence and creates a calming—Clyde, wait!”
He stumbled, his elbow jamming against the panel as he flinched from a passing cherub. The door didn’t just open for him. It flashed, scanning the nearest dominant consciousness. Emily’s.
With a sound like tearing silk, the light enveloped her. The world of burnished gold and white noise vanished.
The air became thick, perfumed with the scent of burnt incense and overripe cherries. The light dimmed to a sultry, crimson-tinted gloom. Emily stumbled, her celestial robes replaced by the soft, dark fabric of the dress she’d worn in Hell. She was not in a celestial concept-space.
She was in a bedroom. The bedroom. Charlie’s bedroom at the Hazbin Hotel.
It was perfect in every dreadful detail. The rumpled red sheets, the vanity cluttered with makeup, the looming poster for the hotel. But it was also more. The air pulsed with a low, sensual heat. The shadows seemed to cling lovingly to the curves of the furniture.
And there, by the bed, stood Charlie.
Not the Charlie of the garden, fraught with guilt and responsibility. This Charlie was a vision of uncomplicated desire. She wore only a sheer, black robe that did nothing to conceal the length of her legs, the swell of her hips, the dark nipples pebbled against the fabric. Her blonde hair tumbled over her shoulders like molten gold. Her smile was not hopeful or kind. It was a slow, predatory curve of perfect lips.
“There you are,” the simulation-Charlie purred, her voice a honeyed vibration in the charged air. “I’ve been waiting.”
Emily’s breath hitched. “This… this isn’t real. This is a simulation. A mistake.”
“Is it?” Charlie—no, it—said, slinking forward. The robe gaped open with the movement, revealing the pale, smooth plane of her stomach, the sharp cut of her hip bones. “It feels real, doesn’t it? It smells real.” She was close now, close enough for Emily to see the tiny flecks of crimson in her eyes, to feel the hell-warmth radiating from her skin. “It’s what you wanted to see when you blundered in here that first time, isn’t it? Before you saw her.”
Shame, molten and immediate, flooded Emily’s veins. Her halo sparked violently, casting erratic shadows. “No. I didn’t—I wouldn’t—”
“Liar,” the thing whispered, and its hand came up to cradle Emily’s jaw. The touch was electric, exact. A perfect replica. “All those quick little glances in the garden. My mouth. My back. My tits. You traced them with your eyes. You’re tracing them right now.”
Emily was. She couldn’t stop. Her gaze was dragged down the column of the simulation’s throat, over the exquisite rise of its breasts, the nipples now visibly hard beneath the sheer material. She remembered the brief, shocking feel of Charlie’s body against hers during the kiss. This was that, amplified, undressed, and offered. A heavy, aching throb began low in her belly, unfamiliar and terrifying.
“This is a sin,” Emily gasped, but her body leaned into the touch.
“There’s no sin here, little angel,” it murmured, leaning in until its lips brushed the shell of Emily’s ear. “No one to hurt. No Vaggie. No duties. Just sensation. Just… want.”
Its other hand found the small of Emily’s back, pressing their bodies together. The feel of it—the firm, soft weight of its breasts against her own, the hard line of its thigh slotting between hers—unlocked something primal and hungry. Emily’s intellectual understanding of sex dissolved into dust. This was not a concept. This was a pounding rhythm in her blood, a dry-mouthed, dizzying need to get closer, to feel more.
She made a small, broken sound.
It took that as assent. The simulation’s mouth found hers.
This kiss was nothing like the first. That had been passion and hope. This was pure, devouring carnality. The simulation’s tongue pushed past her lips, claiming her mouth with a lazy, practiced dominance. It tasted of cherries and dark spice. One hand fisted in Emily’s hair, tilting her head back for deeper access, while the other slid down to grasp her ass, pulling her tightly against that intruding thigh. The friction against the core of her, even through the layers of her dress, was maddening.
Emily’s hands, which had been limp at her sides, flew up. They didn’t push away. They clutched at the simulation’s shoulders, the muscle shifting under slick, hot skin. Her halo was a strobe light of distress and excitement.
The simulation broke the kiss, a string of saliva connecting their mouths. Its eyes were dark, pupils blown. “You want to see,” it stated. “So see.”
It shrugged the robe off its shoulders. The fabric slithered down its arms and puddled on the floor. Charlie stood before her, utterly naked. The real Charlie’s body, rendered here in impossible, taunting perfection. The elegant slope of her neck, the full, heavy breasts with their rose-pink areolas, the narrow waist flaring to generous hips, the thatch of blonde curls between her thighs.
Emily’s mind short-circuited. Guilt was a distant shriek, drowned out by the roar of her own pulse. She was staring, her mouth agape, her body trembling with a want so profound it felt like anguish.
“Touch me,” the simulation commanded, taking Emily’s wrist.
It guided Emily’s shaking hand to its breast. The flesh was impossibly soft, yielding, yet the nipple was a tight bead against her palm. A jolt, white-hot and piercing, shot from Emily’s hand straight to her core, which clenched in empty, desperate ache.
“Oh god,” Emily whimpered, not knowing who she was calling to.
“Not god,” the simulation chuckled, a low, dirty sound. It pressed Emily’s hand harder against itself. “Just feel.”
Emily’s fingers trembled, then curled, learning the weight, the shape. Her thumb, acting on an instinct she didn’t know she possessed, brushed over the nipple. The simulation gasped, a perfect imitation of pleasure, and arched into the touch.
“Yes. Just like that. You learn fast.” Its own hands went to the clasps of Emily’s dress. “Now let me feel you.”
The dress loosened and fell. The cool air hit Emily’s skin, followed immediately by the scalding heat of the simulation’s gaze. It looked at her small, pert breasts, her narrow hips, the bare, smooth mound between her legs. “Perfect,” it breathed. “All that heavenly light, hiding this.”
It pushed Emily backward onto the bed. The sheets were sinfully soft. The simulation crawled over her, a predator claiming its territory. Its mouth went to Emily’s neck, sucking a mark that burned. Its hand palmed her breast, then slid down, down, over the quivering flat of her stomach.
Emily was beyond thought. She was a network of screaming nerve endings. She spread her legs, a silent, shameless plea.
The simulation’s finger found her slit. She was soaked, her own wetness a shocking revelation. “So ready,” it groaned against her skin. “So fucking wet for me.”
A single finger slid inside her.
Emily cried out, her back bowing off the bed. It wasn’t pain. It was an invasion of sensation, a fullness that echoed the emptiness it filled. It was everything. The simulation began to move its finger, a slow, curling thrust. With its thumb, it found the small, aching nub at her apex and pressed.
The world exploded into fractals of crimson and gold. Emily shattered. Her orgasm tore through her with the violence of a divine punishment, a tidal wave of pleasure so intense it bordered on agony. She screamed, her heels digging into the sheets, her hands scrabbling at the simulation’s back.
It rode her through it, finger working relentlessly, milking every shuddering pulse from her. “That’s it. Fuck, that’s it. Come for me. You filthy, beautiful angel.”
As the last tremors subsided, leaving Emily boneless and gasping, the simulation shifted. It hovered above her face, its scent musky and intoxicating. That same wet finger, glistening with Emily’s essence, traced her swollen lips.
“Your turn,” it whispered, its eyes holding hers with terrifying intimacy. “Taste what you do to me.”
It lowered its hips. The blonde curls, damp and intriguing, were inches from her face. The simulation’s folds, flushed and glistening, hovered over her mouth. “Show me how a seraphim worships,” it commanded, its voice thick.
Paralyzed with horror and a dark, yawning hunger, Emily stared into the slick, pink heart of the simulation. Her own taste was on her lips. Her body thrummed with aftershocks. She parted her lips, a silent acquiescence to the damnation her own mind had crafted.
The simulation let out a moan of anticipation and began to lower itself—
With a deafening crackle of static, the world dissolved.
The bedroom, the heat, the overwhelming presence of the simulation—it all shattered into a million pixels of blinding white light.
Emily convulsed on a cold, hard floor, gasping as if drowning. She was back in the sterile hallway of Heaven’s annex, still in her full celestial robes. Clyde the car salesman was gawking at her, his face pale with fright. An alert siren wailed softly overhead.
A senior Seraphim, her sister’s stern-faced colleague, stood over the smoking control panel, her hand still on the emergency override. Her expression was not one of concern, but of cold, dawning disgust as she took in Emily’s disheveled state, her flushed cheeks, her heaving chest, the unmistakable scent of phantom sex and sweat that seemed to cling to the air around her.
The simulation was gone.
But the shame, vivid and corrosive, was now etched into Emily’s bones, a living thing. And the senior angel’s eyes held not just disapproval, but a frightening, knowing curiosity.