Page 20 of Altar of Flesh

Ephesians 5:24 (KJV)

Sex was a martial debt that was owed; it was not about mutual pleasure, it was not about love, it was not about consent. I realised with a dawning horror what kind of God I had served for so long, where even the demons that had used me until breaking point had done so because I had sought them out willingly.

Tears were in my eyes when I looked up at Furfur. “I will not ask anything of you that you do not wish. But I will ask you to direct me to another Earl so that I might fulfil my duty to the Lord Asmodeus.”

Furfur looked at me and tilted its head. “Why do you cry? Do you want me inside you that badly?”

It made me laugh just slightly. I put aside my sympathy and shook my head. “For what are you being punished?”

“I am reckless. Chaotic. Asmodeus has made it so I must tell the truth when summoned. Our Lord has prevented me from tricking humans so easily.”

Then, this sigil made it vulnerable, and its attempts to hide from me behind its wings appeared as reactions to that awful feeling I knew all too well.

“Furfur, I will let you go if you tell me where to find another Earl.”

“And what if I don’t want you to find another Earl?”

“Why. . .” I did not know what question to ask. Why are you like this? Why are you chaotic, and deceiving, and why does it seem like you’re frightened of me? I was stumped by this indecisive attitude, which did not align with my understanding of demons at all.

Furfur saw through all of this. “Because I am bored, little human. Bored out of my mind. A millennium has passed with nothing interesting happening. You and your arrival here is the most exciting thing in an age. But I do not like humans; I cannot separate the reality of where I live now from where I used to live, the reality of who I am now from who I used to be. It does not matter that ages of men have risen and fallen or that I am so different now from the angel I once was. There is a part of me that craves the comfort of Heaven without God’s tyranny, but He was always a tyrant, and Heaven was never as soft as I believed it to be. I did not wish to bow for humans. I still do not wish it.”

“I am not asking you to bow for me,” I said. “I will release you from this circle. I am asking you to put me in my place.”

This sparked something in Furfur’s eyes. The beautiful angelic face flushed, and light sparkled in its eyes. “I want to put you in your place.”

My breath hitched. I flexed my fingers by my side, fighting to keep my voice steady. “Then you’ll help me?” It wavered anyway, with hope and desire.

Furfur did not answer. It was bound to tell the truth, so I gathered its silence was a kind of truth; uncertainty. I smiled somewhat at that, amused by the thought of sanctions on demons, though the smile faded quickly. Then I asked it to tell me more about itself. It did not react well to this at first; its wings flared up as if to shield its face and body from my scrutiny once more. But with a placating hand and a few words, I managed to ask it carefully, “Tell me about the hierarchy. Tell me how you came to be an Earl.”

Furfur stood straighter as pride bolted through it. I saw momentarily the kind of angel it might have been, the sin of its self-interest that had led it to follow Lucifer Morningstar into a war.

“Earl is my title. We were the many angels who joined the rebellion against God after we saw higher and mightier angels launching the assault. They did not tremble in fear of the Almighty; they attacked without remorse. We were the ones who bolstered the ranks. Lucifer granted us this title to recognise that service.”

I felt my walls falling. I expected. . .something different from Furfur, or from demons in general; it told me it was a liar and a deceiver, and I could feel my empathy encompassing it in an embrace. Some voice told me not to trust it, but I trusted Asmodeus more than myself; I trusted that my Lord would not allow me to suffer unduly.

“Put me in my place, Furfur,” I murmured.

It flashed me a look, those large hazel eyes growing watery, expression soft and sweet beneath those long lashes. It wet its lips. “Is that a command?”

“A request,” I clarified. “Only if you wish it.”

We stared at one another, and eventually, the angelic creature shook out its hair. The shiver went through its wholebody, each feather rustling and fluffing up, and it drew its wings away from its body.

It revealed to me genderless perfection. I saw the supple chest, which was without nipples, the body smooth and soft and without a navel. My eyes cast lower, glancing off its hairless stomach to its genitals, which very plainly did not exist in any way I could comprehend. Gone was the abnormally fluffy cock of the hart form Furfur had previously taken. There was a smooth, firm mound that curved beneath its stomach, similar to a doll’s form. Its legs were rounded, thighs soft and large. Alabaster smooth, like youth untouched.

My attraction to it proved complicated almost immediately. I felt interest tug in my belly, but there was a strangeness to the feeling. Part of me desired to gender Furfur, to seek out masculinity in its form and use that as a crutch on which to anchor my desire. But this was not what Furfur was. Indeed, it was what any of the demons were—neither man, nor woman, nor human. They were creatures whose bodies were moulded to change into forms I could recognise. This choice I would not take from Furfur. I would not ask it to appear as something else for me.

“How can I pleasure you?” I whispered. So much of my understanding of pleasure related to genitals; I craved to milk demons until they writhed with joy. Other erogenous parts of the body I comprehended as added benefits, ways to increase the feeling in the main areas I was set to touch.

Furfur smiled a dazzling smile. Its teeth were perfectly aligned and beautifully straight, teeth like freshly anchored pearly headstones, all in a row.

“Carnal pleasure does not interest me,” the Earl said. “But I am interested in. . .”

Its eyes dropped to me—to my cock. Once again, I was hit by the terror of having my pleasure accounted for. I flushedimmediately. “I—that wasnotwhat Lord Asmodeus meant. I am to pleasure others, not?—”

“And what if this gives me pleasure?” Furfur’s teeth turned strange and sharp, fangs growing from red gums. It bared them to me, shoving its face against the barrier. “To reduce a human to a mewling, wanton mess with only my hands and my mouth? To take the form of an angel and sour that beauty with carnal depravity? What if it bolsters both my mood and my self-image to remember much of humanity is so easily tempted by matters of the flesh?” Furfur pressed close against the barrier until those fine features were pressed and stretched almost humorously. “What if your puny human mind cannot comprehend my desires? What if something as simple as orgasm does nothing for me after eons? You can’t possibly understand; you are still an infant in your discovery. So do not presume to tell me what it is I desire!”

Its voice raised to a howling shriek, and I shied away from the noise. My heart ached in my chest from the speed of this change, and another partenjoyedit. The blasphemer in me saw the angelic form and shivered with equal parts revulsion and thrill. But I enjoyed, too, the layered truth.Beneath this beauty was a demon who, like me, had turned its back on God. Who enjoyed playing with forms, who in part still clung to its angelic identity—who understood implicitly that the most depraved thing I could imagine would always involve religion.

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