Page 14 of There is No Devil

Sometime later,we’re still sitting on the couch in the same position. Mara’s head rests on my shoulder. I’m trailing my fingertips lightly up and down her spine.

I can tell she likes it—her body is heavy and sleepy, her soft sighs tickling my ear.

I’m not thinking about that. I’m focusing on the feeling of her skin beneath my fingertips. Her warmth and her softness.

When Mara finally lifts her head and sits back on my thighs, the silver rings on her chest glint in the moonlight. We’ve yet to turn on any lamps. Stars reflect on the glassy ocean below us, like half have fallen down into the water.

I say, “Those rings are the only useful thing Shaw has ever done.”

Mara’s mouth falls open, letting out an outraged laugh.

“That’s so fucked up!” she cries.

“Oh shut up,” I say. “You like them too.”

Mara smacks me hard on the shoulder, unable to hide that I’m right.

“Why is that?” I ask her.

She considers.

“They suit me. I like the way they feel. And in a strange way, as awful as that night was, it brought me to you. The value in horrible things is what you make of them. As long as you’re alive, you can still turn shit into gold.”

“You’re glad you’re here?” I ask her, my eyes intently fixed on her face. Wanting to know the truth, whatever she might say.

“Yes,” Mara says softly, without hesitation.

“Why?”

I’m thinking it’s what I bring her: the money, the clothes, the connections, the orgasms.

Mara grins. “I told you. It’s interesting. And I hate being bored.”

“Me too,” I say, just as passionate on this topic as Mara. “I really fucking hate it.”

* * *

3

Mara

When I first came to Cole’s house, I thought our confrontation with Shaw was imminent.

Instead, Cole sucks me into a cycle of long bouts of labor on our respective work, hedonistic meals to recover, and wild, experimental sex.

Cole meant what he said, that he would always be with me, always by my side. He even breaks his own routine of working in his private studio, joining the rest of us plebs in the shared building.

With all his designs and materials filling the largest studio at the end of the hall, we’re never further than a few doors down from each other.

This is to protect me from Shaw, but also to satisfy Cole’s obsessive need to know where I am and what I’m doing every moment.

It should feel suffocating, but it doesn’t. Probably because Cole is not trying to interfere with what I want to do. Quite the opposite. He wants to help me so he can increase my reliance on him.

Sometimes I wonder if he’s going to pull the rug out from under me. Will he suddenly become violent and cruel when he thinks he has me trapped?

It’s hard to believe he could still be tricking me, that he has some secret plan. I’ve seen him in too many unguarded moments.

But I may only be fooling myself.

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