Chapter 4: Morning Rituals
The first thing Harry noticed was the smell. Not sex or ozone, but something acrid, chemical, and fundamentally wrong. He opened his eyes to the gray morning light spearing through the grime on his window. Demona was not in bed with him.
She was across the room, standing before the hotplate he sometimes used for soup, her back to him. His too-small hoodie was still stretched taut over her phenomenal frame, the fabric looking strained to the point of tears. She was humming—a discordant, ancient melody that made his fillings ache.
“What is that smell?” he croaked, his voice rough with sleep.
Demona spun, her face alight with a pride so profound it was almost touching. In her hands was a chipped plate. On the plate sat a single, massively overcooked sausage link, blackened to a crisp, and a mound of what appeared to be instant coffee granules, unhydrated, sprinkled with orange cheese dust from a forgotten packet of snacks.
“Breakfast, my Harry!” she announced, presenting it like a holy offering. “I have surveyed your larder and synthesized sustenance!”
Harry pushed himself up on his elbows, glasses askew. “You… synthesized my last sausage into charcoal. And that’s just coffee. And cheese powder.”
Her smile didn’t falter, but it grew puzzled. “Is this not the correct ritual? I observed the packages. The images suggested…”
“The images are lies, Demona.” He swung his legs out of bed, the floor cold on his feet. “It’s fine. Just… don’t touch the hotplate again. Ever.” He took the plate from her, the sausage giving a solid clink against the ceramic. He dumped it in the tiny trash can, which was now overflowing with empty wrappers. She’d evidently “surveyed” his larder by eating everything else.
Her lower lip jutted out. “I have failed my first domestic task.”
“It’s not a task. I can get a bagel on the way.” He shuffled to the fridge, confirming its bleak emptiness, then to the small counter where he kept his lunchbox—a faded metal tin with a chipped picture of a spaceship on it. He opened it. Inside was yesterday’s uneaten, now-soggy sandwich. He sighed, the weight of a mundane Tuesday settling on his shoulders. This was his life: demonic interference and sad sandwiches.
As he began repacking it, adding a slightly-withered apple, he felt her presence behind him. Not touching, but radiating a heat he could feel through his thin t-shirt. The pink glow of her collar reflected dully in the toaster.
“You are leaving,” she said. It wasn’t a question. The tone was flat, a statement of cosmic injustice.
“It’s called a job. I have to go scan books and tell people to be quiet.”
“But the bond…” she whispered. Her hands came to rest lightly on his hips from behind. “It will be a vast, empty ache. A hollow place where your essence should be. I am designed for proximity, Harry. For consumption and service. This separation… it is a slow, dry starvation.”
He turned, sandwich in hand. Her violet eyes were wide, imploring. The arrogance was gone, but in its place was a need so raw and simple it was disarming. She wasn’t scheming. She was stating a fact, like a plant needed sun.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” he said, feeling helpless. “I have to go.”
A calculation flickered in her eyes—not a malicious one, but a desperate, problem-solving one. The ancient predator was still in there, but its goal had been utterly rewritten. Her gaze dropped from his face, down his scrawny frame, and lingered.
“A… a reserve,” she breathed, her obscene lips curving into a sudden, brilliant smile. “A day’s ration. To sustain me.”
Before he could ask what that meant, she moved. Her hands slid from his hips to the waistband of his boxers. She didn’t fumble. In one smooth, practiced motion, she had them and his sleep pants down around his ankles. The morning air was cool on his skin.
“Demona, wait, I don’t have time for—”
She dropped to her knees with a soft thud, her face already level with his hardening length. She didn’t hesitate. She didn’t tease. Her mouth, those absurdly full, pillow-soft lips, parted and engulfed him to the root in a single, slick, devastating motion.
Harry’s sentence ended in a choked gasp. His hand, still holding the sandwich, slammed against the counter for support.
The feeling was incomprehensible. Her mouth was a searing, velvet vice, but it was her technique that unmoored him. A profound, rhythmic suction pulled at his core, while her tongue, sinuous and clever, mapped every vein and ridge. She made a low, guttural sound of satisfaction that vibrated through his entire body. “Mmmfh… yes… the font… the source…”
She pulled back, a thick string of saliva bridging her lips to his tip. Her eyes were glazed, worshipful, utterly focused. “I will be good, Harry. I will be so good. Just let me drink my fill. Let me pack myself with you.” Her words were a hot murmur against his skin. “Then I can be a good thing for you, quiet and full, until you return to feed me again.”
She didn’t wait for permission. She dove back down, and this time there was no finesse, only a frantic, sloppy hunger. She bobbed her head with a desperate, driving rhythm, her nose burying in the coarse hair at his base with each descent. The sounds were obscenely wet, loud in the quiet morning apartment. Glops of spit dripped from her chin onto the linoleum.
“So perfect, so much, it’s all for me, my Harry gives me all this,” she slurred between lunging takes, her words mangled and thick. Her hands clutched at his bare thighs, her nails biting just enough to prick. Her eyes rolled back, pure white, her features contorting into a mask of ecstatic gluttony—a dumb, slack-jawed ahegao of pure, unadulterated need.
He was losing himself. The sight of her, this ancient, terrifying beauty reduced to a drooling, cock-drunk mess on his kitchen floor, was a catalyst he couldn’t resist. The pressure built, coiling tight in his gut.
“Demona, I’m gonna—” he grunted.
She redoubled her efforts, a frantic, humming keen escaping her throat. Her message was clear: Yes. Here. Now.
The climax hit him like a seizure. His back arched, his fingers scrabbling against the counter. She took it all, swallowing with deep, grateful gulps, her throat working around him in pulsating waves. She didn’t spill a drop. When he was spent, twitching and oversensitive, she didn’t stop. She lapped and suckled gently, cleaning him with a kittenish devotion, ensuring not a single molecule of her “ration” was wasted.
Finally, she released him with a soft, wet pop. She leaned back on her heels, gazing up at him. Her face was a mess of spit and tears of joy. A beatific, satiated smile dominated her features. She looked profoundly, cosmically full.
“There,” she sighed, her voice hoarse. “Now the hollow place is stuffed. Now I can think of other things. Like… your return.”
Harry, trembling, pulled his pants up. His legs felt like water. He looked from her blissful face to the half-packed lunchbox, to the clock. He was going to be late.
“I have to go,” he said, his voice weak.
Demona rose, fluid and graceful once more. She leaned in, pressing a soft, closed-mouth kiss to his cheek. “Of course. Conquer the world of quiet books. I will be here.” Her eyes sparkled with a new, private plan. “I will spend the day making your nest more pleasing. And… thinking of this.” Her hand brushed lightly over the front of his pants, making him jump. “I will pleasure myself to the memory of your taste, Harry. All day. Until the walls shake. Until the need for you builds again and I am empty and waiting.”
The statement was so casual, so matter-of-fact, it left him no room for response. He simply nodded, snapped his lunchbox shut, and grabbed his bag.
As he fumbled with the locks on his apartment door, he glanced back. Demona had already drifted to the center of the room, surveying the clutter with her hands on her hips, the glow of her collar a steady, contented pulse. She was home.
Harry stepped out into the hallway, the door clicking shut behind him. The ordinary sounds of the building—a distant TV, a toilet flushing—felt like noises from another planet. He adjusted his glasses, hefted his bag, and started the walk to the library. His body hummed with residual sensation. His mind was blissfully, terrifyingly blank.
All he could think, with a strange, dawning acceptance, was that he hoped she wouldn’t try to do the laundry.