Welcome to one of my top ... oh ... 3? favorite chapters from this story.

I wonder what that says about me? LOL

Chapter 13: The Vegetarian and the Cannibal: A Parable

After helping herself to some bran flakes in cashew milk and pocketing a random red glitter gel pen that had been left out on the kitchen counter, Grace elected to hang out with her friends in the common area of the hotel. Charlie joined the group before long, Lucifer on her tail. Grace swallowed a cringe at the sight of him.

And then Alastor magically appeared in a vacant seat among them. Grace suspected that he was bored; he certainly wasn’t doing this for power or control. It was also entirely possible that he wanted to keep a close eye on his rival. 

But, she was convinced, he was definitely not present to keep an eye on her, although he kept sneaking glances her way when he seemed to think she wasn’t looking.

“I thought we could squeeze in one more exercise today,” Charlie announced to the requisite chorus of groans. “Now, now! You didn’t even hear what I had planned! You might enjoy this one!”

“Is it another water balloon fight?” Kofax asked.

“No!” Charlie caught herself, bringing her voice back down to a reasonable octave. “No. And besides, that wasn’t a fight. It was a team-building toss.”

Everyone snorted or rolled their eyes at the Princess of Hell. Angel Dust did both.

“I thought it might be fun to go to a karaoke bar tonight!” Charlie said.

“Actually that sounds like a blast,” Cherri replied. 

Husk asked, “But how, exactly, is singing karaoke going to help us with redemption?”

“Well,” Charlie said slowly, “it builds on this morning’s activity. Karaoke releases endorphins and stimulates the brain. But most importantly, it builds confidence and fosters relationships.”

Lucifer watched his daughter, wearing his pride for her clearly on his face.

“There’s nothing quite like off-tempo, out-of-tune singing to build friendships!” Kofax said through her laughter.

Charlie replied as expected: “Everyone in Hell is a good singer!”

Grace, however, begged to differ in silence whereas Kofax spoke up: “You haven’t heard me sing yet.”

“So, will you all join me?” Charlie asked the group.

Kofax was first to reply. “Sure, why not? I’m in.”

Everyone else nodded with varying degrees of enthusiasm. Everyone, that is, save Grace.

“I’m afraid I’m gonna need to take a raincheck on that, Charlie, ‘cuz that just gave me the best idea.” Grace smirked and addressed Alastor. “Why don't you, me and—” she glanced purposefully at his crotch, “—Hot Mic head upstairs for a little private entertainment?”

To Grace’s surprise, the pink that seemed to have become a staple in Alastor’s cheeks darkened; he understood the innuendo.

“Well, I just lost my appetite,” Husk grumbled. “Permanently.”

"Yeah … and I think I don't wanna go to Karaoke tonight, either. Or ever again, for that matter,” griped Vaggie.

“What?!” Charlie cried. She pouted. “C’mon, you guys! Please? I promise it’ll be fun!”

“Oh, suck it up, chucklefucks.” Kofax shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest. “Anyway, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: grow the fuck up and revel in their happiness.”

Grace blinked in surprise. It sure looked like Alastor did the same. “Um, excuse me, what?” Grace asked her. “You’ve said that before?”

Kofax eyed Alastor warily. His surprise was spiraling rapidly into fury. “I think we should go to the karaoke bar.” When nobody moved, she snapped, “Now.”

With all eyes on Alastor’s narrowing, radio-dialed gaze, everyone promptly agreed with Kofax and jumped up from their seats.

Grace forced a smile at Alastor once they were alone in the common area.

She stared at him with that forced smile.

He dropped her gaze, rising to his feet and striding by her without a word. She jumped up from her seat and followed, struggling to keep up with him. “Alastor! I—I was just—I thought—”

He paused, glancing at her.

“I wanted to—”

Alastor resumed his brisk pace, obviously heading to his bedroom. And yet when she trailed not too far behind him, he didn’t send her away.

“—to pleasure you—” Grace finally managed to articulate on a winded, weak voice.

He flung open the bedroom door, stood at the threshold for a few moments with the edge of the door in his grip. His head snapped toward her even though he didn’t turn his body with it.

Grace shrunk away until her back hit the hallway wall across from his bedroom door and she stared at him in wide-eyed, horrified silence.

“Beg,” Alastor spat.

“Wh—what?” She swallowed hard.

“If you’re so desperate to pleasure me, then you’ll beg me for that privilege!”

He didn’t wait for her to answer before turning his head the proper direction for his body and heading toward the swamp portion of his room. 

“I—” It took a moment before she followed, and, again, she struggled to keep up with him. “Please—”

“That wasn’t a very convincing request.” He reached the side of his bed before turning to face her—body and head together, this time. Tucking his arms behind his back, Alastor sneered down his nose at her. “On your knees, you filthy, feral little whore!”

Her eyes widened, jaw falling open with a quiet gasp. That had such venom behind it; he meant every word. That was how he now thought of her.

In stunned silence, Grace dropped to her knees about a yard from his bed. 

“Grovel!” he demanded, crescent horns expanding into a small rack of antlers.

With barely a whisper of a voice left in her, Grace said, “Please, Alastor?”

His smile became a smirk. “What favor will you do for me if I grant your request?”

She didn’t think before blurting, “Anything! I’d do anything you tell me to!”

Alastor raised an eyebrow at her. “Anything. Really.”

Grace nodded emphatically.

“Would you kill someone?”

She was stunned and horrified at his request, unable to answer for several moments as she tried to sort through her myriad of thoughts and emotions. And then she heard it; the voice that sounded suspiciously like her own softly stuttering something she never in a million afterlives thought she could: “Y—yes.” And then with more conviction, “Yes, I would.” 

Grace was certain that if the conversation had progressed or if the idiots hadn’t let them continue on their way, she may well have killed those jackasses in front of the Victoria’s Secret. Oh my god, I really would, wouldn’t I?! 

The longer she sat with that epiphany, the more her lips twisted into a wicked smile. She held his gaze and said, “I'd do it with the most dazzling smile, too. I’d kill them slowly. Painfully. With a brutality matched only by you.” 

Oh, holy shit! What the fuck! I mean that! 

She lowered her voice to purr, “And all while singing your praises, Radio Demon.”

If Grace wasn't mistaken, there was a twitch of interest in his trousers in response to that declaration.

Alastor studied her for a moment before demanding, “Kiss my feet.”

She blinked, unsure she’d even heard his request correctly. “Excuse me?”

“Kiss my feet, you little demonic deviant!” he growled through clenched teeth.

“Of course,” Grace breathed as she made her way on her knees closer to him. “My Overlord.” 

She reached toward him to remove his shoe, taking the opportunity to slip her hands up the bottom hem of his pant leg, caressing as much of his skin as she could reach. 

He jerked from her grasp with a snapped, “Don’t! I didn’t give you permission to touch me like that. I told you to kiss my feet, not grope me. Apologize and do what I told you to do the first time!”

“I’m sorry!” yelped Grace. With trembling hands, she removed his right shoe—careful not to make any contact with his skin— before bowing her head and pressing her lips to the top of his hoof, silently praying to deities she doubted existed that he wouldn’t ask her to kiss the parts he walked on. Because she would if he did, hygienic or otherwise.

Alastor made an indecipherable, gruff little noise.

Grace removed the other shoe and did the same thing to his left hoof.

“Now tell me I'm lovable.”

Her heart skipped a beat or three. “Of course you are!” she blurted, gazing up at him from her submissive position at his hooves.

“Say it, Grace!” he snapped. “Say those words! ‘You’re lovable, Alastor!’”

Panic welled in her throat and she choked on it. That was so close to saying ‘I love you.’ Uncomfortably close to it. Frighteningly close to it. Just too fucking close to saying ‘I love you,’ for Grace’s comfort.

More panic filled her chest when she realized how much scarier this was than the proposition of actually killing someone at his request. 

“You're lovable,” whispered Grace, practically gagging on the words.

He corrected her: “‘You’re lovable, Alastor.’”

“You’re … l-lovable … Alastor.”

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!! 

Her inner voice screamed itself hoarse on her outer voice’s behalf because she wouldn’t—couldn’t—let on what those words actually meant to her.

He stared down at her, literally salivating as he watched. “Now: on your hands and knees.”

Grace obeyed silently.

“Stay there like that.” He retreated to his bed and semi-reclined against the stack of pillows. “Do you wish to strip me of my clothing?”

Her heart pounded at the mere suggestion that he’d grant her that opportunity. “Oh, my god! Yes!” she gasped.

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, please!”

He was blatantly infuriated now. “‘Yes please,’ who, Grace!”

“Yes, please, my Overlord,” hoping desperately that was the form of address he was hunting for. What the fuck is with him right now?

“Well tough shit.” Alastor gritted his teeth and snapped his clothes from existence; without fabric to conceal it, she could clearly see how much dominating her had excited him.

He spread his legs lazily, stroking his arousal, pulling upward on his cock enough that the skin between it and his nuts stretched slightly. Grace guessed he did this for no other reason than to taunt her with it. I can touch this and you can’t.

She whimpered, letting drool slip from between her slightly parted lips as she watched him slide his foreskin down his shaft and then back up over his coronal ridge.

“You want this?” he asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Yes! That looks so tasty!” she breathed.

“Then crawl to me.”

She obliged without hesitation but paused at the foot of his bed, realizing it might behoove her to expressly ask to come up. “May I join you on your bed, my Overlord?”

His smile quirked upward further and after a brief pause, he conceded. “Yes.”

Grace climbed up the foot of his bed, stretching out and lying on her chest between his thighs. The ultra-polite, ultra-submissive approach seemed to have worked well for her so she continued with it. “Please, Alastor, have I at last earned the honor of savoring your magnificent cock?” that I love so much?

Alastor eyed her for a few moments. With an indifferent sigh and an aloof shrug, he replied, “I suppose so.”

Grace began by fondling, kissing, licking, and gently suckling on his nuts, lightly caressing the insides of his thighs nearest them.

“That’s—not—” Alastor struggled to bite out, “—not my—cock. Grace!”

Despite his trouble articulating his reprimand, he lay there with all the poise of a Greek marble statue that had just taken a Cialis.

The level of control he maintained over his behavior suggested a staggering degree of insecurity she longed to somehow rehabilitate. But in the meantime, he was being super, extra Alastor-y right now.

Grace wrapped her hand around the tip of his member, shifting it toward his stomach so she had unobstructed access to the root, which she then kissed, licked, and ever so gently grazed with the edge of a fang.

She drew her tongue up along the underside of his shaft with a laziness that matched his indifference toward the act, then repositioned herself onto her elbows to take the length of him past her lips.

Grace had no place else to go, nothing else to do, and nobody else to see, so she took her time doting on him. Knowing his stamina, this could easily drag out into an all-night engagement.

She was not so distracted by his cock as to miss when his claws grazed her skin. They skimmed her shoulders and then past them, caressing her back with a startlingly gentle touch of his palm. He stroked his way down to her ass, which he fondled with the same light touch that made Grace pause with her mouth at the tip of his cock, her wide gaze locked on his.

Then he smacked her left cheek hard enough it would certainly leave a mark. She couldn’t withhold a pained whimper. He chuckled in satisfaction.

A single claw traced up her spine lazily until he threaded his fingers in the hair at the nape of her neck. He massaged the back of her head, leaving the lightest scratches on her scalp. Then without warning, Alastor shoved her head all the way down his cock until she gagged loudly around it. He controlled her movements up and down his shaft aggressively several times while bucking his hips off the mattress before yanking her head up to glower at her.

His breathing ragged, he growled, “You were torturing me, you horrible little thing!” 

“Good! I’m glad!” Grace ground her teeth together, leveling an impressive glare right back at him. “You’ve been immeasurably cruel to me lately!”

“You started it!” He pulled harder on her hair, lifting her head more while spitting her words back at her: “‘Hot Mic!’”

Grace blinked, taken aback. “Did that embarrass you?” 

He didn’t dignify that with an answer but the red in his cheeks did so on his behalf.

“Well then.” A wicked little smile played at her lips. “Let me make it up to you.”

“And how do you propose to do that?”

She replied with actions rather than words, continuing to lavish attention on his cock with her mouth while fondling his balls, bit by bit maneuvering her hand beneath them. Ideally she’d slip a finger up into his ass and give him an orgasm he’d not soon forget—if he remained conscious through it—but figured he’d be unfavorable to such intimate probing, so she settled for external prostate stimulation, instead. Grace pressed a couple fingertips against his perineum as she sucked his cock faster, tightening her lips around it. When he got harder yet, she dragged her tongue along his shaft from root to corona, flicking it back and forth across his frenulum as she wrapped the base of it with her hand and squeezed.

Alastor’s head jerked back into his pillow, hands spasming into tight fists, his claws shredding the blanket he gripped as he came in several explosive spurts all across his torso and chest with intense, full-body convulsions Grace delighted in watching. 

“Oh, my,” chuckled Grace as she got to her knees and admired her handiwork. Alastor was the most disheveled she’d ever seen him. “That, Radio Demon, is how you milk nuts.” With a smirk, she said, “Tsk, tsk! Such a big mess you’ve made! Look at how you lost control of yourself. How humiliated you must be!”

Through heaving breaths that shook his frame, Alastor glanced down at himself and then back at her with unadulterated rage flaring in his eyes. “How dare y—”

She silenced him by cleaning the cum from his skin with her tongue, feeling the contraction of his muscles chase her up along his torso. When she reached his neck, she met his gaze, making a spectacular display of how much she enjoyed licking him and swallowing the copious fruits of her labor.

His eyes were wide, pupils enormous as he stared at her wordlessly. Whatever anger there had been dissipated in an instant. In its place—well, that was anyone’s guess.

Grace could only speculate on what was going through his head.

“Thank you, my Overlord,” she whispered in his continued silence. “That was all I wanted.”

Words seemed to want to come to him but couldn’t leave his tongue. Instead, he bent forward slightly, pressing a soft kiss to her forehead. She’d have preferred a kiss on the lips but he was rarely inclined to kiss her there anyway, and she figured he would be even less inclined to do that after her mouth had been all over his feet and genitals, and her tongue bore a healthy coating of his cum.

“You don’t really think I’m a horrible little thing, do you?” Grace asked with a pout. She didn’t want to admit that had hurt her feelings. Quite a lot, actually.

“No, no, not at all,” Alastor murmured through heavy static as he shook his head. “You’re a good girl, my little fawn. The very best little fawn there is.”

She dissolved into his embrace against his sticky chest, his still-coming cock steadily relaxing and softening against her belly.

He held her in silence, and in his silence, Grace listened to his heartbeat.

Bit by bit, his arms tightened around her, his muscles hardening and his pulse quickening.

Odd. That should be slowing. She attempted to shift within his grasp to catch his gaze but he held her so tightly, the only thing that was really left for her to do was just to enjoy being so close to him.

Grace started dozing before Alastor did. In her waning tendrils of consciousness, she was certain she heard him whisper with the filter off his voice as he stroked her back tenderly.

“Goodnight, my darling little fawn. Rest well. I’ll most likely devour you in the morning.”

See you back here Sunday, deer friends!