This chapter contains a remark made by Alastor that was originally stated by my husband twenty-seven-odd years ago, which changed the trajectory of our relationship/lives.

Grace's reply here is much funnier than mine was to my hubby.

I hope you enjoy when fourth-walls are broken. This happens a number of times throughout this story, one instance of which is in this chapter. After all, if we can't laugh at ourselves ..., right?

Chapter 2: A Hellish Walk of Shame

Grace paused just outside the room where Charlie was conducting today’s exercise. That morning’s humiliation was a bit too fresh to be able to face the whole group of them—even if she didn’t actively participate—so she elected to visit the hotel’s library instead.

The first time Grace had gone in there, the collection was paltry at best. A few well-worn tomes set on shelves haphazardly and in no order, including the copy of Dante’s Inferno Grace had read while recovering from the groin injury Alastor had inflicted upon her the first time they had sex.

In the weeks and months since, the repository had expanded considerably. Grace allowed herself to believe it was the result of her influence since the rest of them—save Alastor, who had his own little library of mostly morbid works—didn’t seem especially interested in reading.

Each bookcase had been marked as either fiction or non-fiction and then each shelf hosted a different genre, the books lined up in alphabetical order by title.

Grace would have organized alphabetically by author, but she was just glad to have a decent selection from which to choose her text-based entertainment without leaving the property.

Lovecraft’s The Necronomicon had, disturbingly, been placed on one of the non-fiction bookcases. Grace considered moving it just so that its placement and the implications of said placement upset her less. 

Adventures of Rush Revere. 

See, I Told You So. 

Atlas Shrugged. 

1984.

Grace recoiled. She wasn’t sure she’d ever be able to read 1984 again after her experience at Vee Tower.

In Trump We Trust. 

Ew! Grace cringed physically. Why the fuck would we do that?!

Godless.

She scoffed. Making some impressive assumptions there, are we, Ann Coulter?

Live Free or Die. 

Propaganda Wars: How the Global Elite Control What You See, Think, and Feel.

Yeesh, Grace thought. Got enough words in that title? Leave some for your manuscript.

Killing Jesus.

“Oh, my god,” she groaned under her breath. Maybe Charlie deserved a small bitching-out over the hellish library she’d curated. After all, they were in Hell and already being punished; this was just adding literary insult to injury.

Unable to take any more perusal of so-called non-fiction titles, she moved on to fiction.

Unlanguage. 

The Divinity Student. 

Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius. 

Burnt Offerings. 

Gone to See the River Man. 

A Certain Hunger.

The Chestnut Man. 

Horrorstör. 

Verity.

Grace pulled that last title from the shelf and read its back-cover blurb. She couldn’t shelve it fast enough with a hissed, “What the fuck! And I thought I was messed up!”

And, because she was in Hell, there was the full sparkling vampire book series as well as its fanfiction-turned-viral-‘Mommy-Porn’ adaptation.

Grapes of Wrath.

Moby Dick. 

The Complete Unabridged Shakespeare Collection.

Grace let her head drop back with a heavy sigh. Charlie? Why do you hate me so much? It’s Middle and High School English and Lit class all over again up in here!

Pirate’s Promise. 

Catcher in the Rye. 

The Scarlet Letter.

“Okay, that’s just offensive to have under the same roof as me.” She stuck her tongue out at it and moved on.

Well Met. 

A Natural History of Dragons. 

Carnival.

Grace took a closer look at that title. Oh, my bad. Caraval. The cat? Wait, no, that’s caracal.

Her gaze then landed upon a book with a white rectangle framed by a larger, thick red border on the front cover. The Shining Girls.

In Depression-era Chicago, Harper Curtis finds a key to a house that opens on to other times. But it comes at a cost. He has to kill the shining girls: bright young women, burning with potential. Curtis stalks them through their lives across different eras until, in 1989, one of his victims, Kirby Mazrachi, survives and starts hunting him back. Working with a former homicide reporter who is falling for her, Kirby races against time and reason to unravel an impossible mystery.

That was the one she deemed worthy of her attention and so she took the paperback out into the common area to read. If Alastor found her there with her face buried in a book, she could feign the preoccupation to ignore him and pretend like he hadn’t hurt her feelings so badly that morning.

Angel Dust wandered over when Grace had gotten two chapters deep into that book and settled in the seat across from her.

She could feel him staring.

Grace turned a page, read a few paragraphs.

Still, he stared in silence.

She sighed a long suffering sigh. “What, Angel.”

“Hey! You used to like talkin’ to me!”

Grace glanced up from the book to see him pouting at her. 

“I still do. But in case it wasn’t super obvious to you—” She held up the open book in demonstration. “—I’m trying to read here. So whatever’s on your mind, spit it out already.”

“Did you have to, like, teach him where to put his dick?”

Grace’s mouth fell open. “Who the fuck starts a conversation like that?”

Angel Dust regarded her with impressive deadpan.

Grace stared.

“Is he gentle? Rough? A missionary man? Spontaneous? Schedules your sexual encounters on a calendar and sets an alarm to start and end at specific times? Never during the week and only with the lights off?”

As mad as she was with Alastor, these assumptions felt entirely unfair. “If you have such disparaging opinions about how he performs in the sack, why did you wanna fuck him so badly, yourself?”

Angel Dust’s eyes popped open. All fifty thousand of them or however many the spider demon actually had. He laughed it off. “Oh, I was just teasin’ him. It’s fun—and way too easy—to make him uncomfortable.”

“Mmm.” Sure, Jan. “In the interests of stopping this filthy interrogation … He’s like … Cinderella’s shoe size.”

“… Four and a half? Four and a half what? Inches? Minutes?” 

“Okay first of all, how do you know Cinderella’s shoe size off the top of your head? And further, no! Four and a half is neither an accurate measurement of his size nor of his stamina. I meant, ‘just right,’ you raging perv. Cinderella’s shoe size was supposed to be ‘just right’ so that any little girl could insert herself into that happily-ever-after with her Prince Charming.”

Angel grinned wickedly. “You could call yours Prince Harming.”

She couldn’t resist a small laugh before regaining her composure.

Husk walked by just then, clearly trying to ignore their conversation. He took his spot at the bar, busying himself with some light cleaning.

“Yeah …” Angel Dust shrugged. “‘Cept ‘just right’ isn’t the least bit gratifying.”

Grace glanced down the hallway toward Alastor’s bedroom with a wistful sigh. And one word slipped out: “… Although …”

Angel Dust leaned in, rapt.

“I suppose I wouldn’t object if he was sometimes a little more gentle and sweet than he’s predisposed to.”

“Well have you told him that?”

She burst out laughing, a genuine gut-aching belly laugh. “Fuck no!”

“Does his lazy eye ever creep you out?”

Grace blinked, leaning away from him. “Huh?!”

Angel made a gesture with his hands in front of his eyes, keeping his left index finger stationary while his right drifted further right.

Frowning, she replied, “I can honestly say I’ve never noticed that. Does it creep you out? Are you a pussy or something?”

Angel dropped his hands into his lap and fell silent for a few moments. Then, out of the blue: “Was he gentle at least for your first time together?” The nosy Porn Demon paused.

"Oh wow," gasped Angel. "I suppose that was his first-first time. Holy shit, Grace! Did you take the old man’s virginity?”

Husk made a noise indicating that even if he’d been minding his own business, he couldn’t avoid overhearing Angel Dust’s little outburst.

Grace cringed. Violently. “I try really hard not to think about that, thanks so much. And … no, he wasn’t gentle nor did I ‘take’ his virginity. If he was still a virgin by that point, then he was quite insistent upon … throwing? it? at me?” for lack of a better way to explain that?

“Tell me everything!” Angel Dust bounced in his chair, his eyes lighting up. “Is he romantic with you? What’s his dirty talk like? Does he snuggle after? No—what’s his favorite position? No, no, wait! First things first: tell me how his foreplay game is!”

Grace just stared in silence.

“Who initiated that first time? You? Him? It was you, wasn’t it! Is he like super horny all the time now that you primed his pump?”

Her skin prickled and she noticed an eerie green glow emanating from the pads of her fingers against the paperback she held. She slammed it shut and tucked her hands beneath her thighs, letting the book fall to the floor at her hooves. “I’m done with this conversation!”

“What? Why!? It was just gettin’ good!”

Grace gave Angel Dust a hard, pointed stare, mouthing to him—hoping he could read lips—Alastor has entered the chat.

He grinned. “No problem. Text me!”

“Not on your afterlife, sister.” She lowered her voice. “And by-the-way? His foreplay game is the best I’ve ever had and you wouldn’t even be able to fathom how great it is.” 

Probably because it takes him that long to get aroused if he has no actual sexual desire …

Alastor kept walking right on by them, though Grace caught one ear flicking toward her. He stepped up to the bar, leaning in to speak quietly with Husk.

“What that tongue do?”

“Angel!” she cried in exasperation.

Alastor and Husk both turned to look at the pair.

Her facial expression in that moment—whatever it revealed—prompted Angel Dust to ask, “Trouble in paradise?”

Grace ground her teeth together. “We’re in Hell, Angel.” Which was an odd string of words to say but what wasn’t odd here? She stood and gestured to Angel Dust. “Sit. Stay. Good spider.”

Angel Dust’s eyes narrowed and he growled quietly but remained rooted in his seat.

Grace approached the bar, flashing Alastor a big, sexy, flirtatious smile that, for starters, he wouldn’t recognize as being either of those things, and in addition, wouldn’t know what to do with it even if he did realize that’s what that look meant. Maintaining Alastor’s gaze, she said, “Two glasses of whiskey, Husk. Please and thank you!”

Alastor’s smile went utterly enthralled. He—and his slightly wonky eye alignment that Grace noticed now that Angel drew her attention to it—looked so unbelievably happy.

With a disapproving frown, Husk delivered the requested drinks.

“Grace? What have you been saying about me?” Alastor said as he reached for one of the two glasses.

Moving the glass away from his hand, Grace replied, “Nothing that concerns you.” She stuck out her tongue and blew raspberries at him before excusing herself from the bar.

She could feel the heat of Alastor’s fury radiating off his body as she made a big production out of giving Angel Dust the glass he’d reached for. Grace then grabbed Angel by two of his nearest arms and dragged him outside to the hotel’s pool deck.

Plopping down into a rattan recliner at the poolside, Angel warned, “Creepy-Fancy-Voice is gonna tear you to pieces and broadcast your screams, you know.”

Grace smirked. “Yeah … that would be the stupidest possible thing he could do with me. Don’t worry; he won’t.”

“I can’t decide if that’s audacity or innocence.” Angel raised an eyebrow at her, sipping his whiskey. “So what’s the deal then? What was that look for?” 

“I screwed up,” she confessed. “I got into this situation and have no idea what it is, how to classify it, what the end-game is. Where do we go from here? I mean what am I gonna do? Ask him ‘are we boyfriend/girlfriend?’ Does the institution of marriage even exist in Hell?” 

“It’s Hell, ain’t it?”

“Don’t make me laugh. I’m being serious!”

“So was I,” said Angel through his laughter. “Just ask him to go steady.”

“Would he even know what that means? Did that phrase exist when he was still alive?!”

Angel shrugged. “Call him your beau and see what happens.”

“I’d kill me if he didn’t beat me to it.”

“Oh, oh! Ask him if you’re sparking!”

Grace gaped wordlessly for a while before blurting, “No!”

“Look: if you want answers, I’m not the sinner you should be asking.”

“D’ya think Rosie would know?”

Angel sat up, giving her a stern look. “Grace. Get over yourself, grow the fuck up, and talk to Alastor about the nature of your relationship.”

“I’d rather die all over again.”

“Well then? I guess you’d rather never have the answer to that question.”

“Super helpful,” Grace mumbled. “Thanks.” She heaved a heavy sigh. “I know what he is to me.” He’s my everything. “But I think … all I am and ever will be to him is a dedicated target for psychological and emotional abuse, and sadistic entertainment.”

His guarantee of immortality.

“Husk and I warned you. I can’t imagine a bigger red flag than an egomaniacal demon who literally wears it on his sleeve. And jacket. And shirt. And shoes. And hair.”

Grace glowered at him but said nothing.

“You’re real cute but kind of an idiot, you know.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” she snapped.

“I’m afraid you’re on your own to figure this out, kiddo.”

“Oh … just … fuck you!”

“Yeeeeeah …” Angel laughed hard. “Whatever your deal with the Radio Demon is? I don’t think he’d want you ’n’ me doing that.”

“And I’m willing to bet I could screw every sinner in every circle of Hell—twice!—and I truly don’t think he’d give a shit. In fact, he’d probably feel like that alleviates him of the burden of doing that with me.”

“I dunno, Grace … I think you’ve gotten under his skin more than you give yourself credit for. You’re totally his waifu!”

“No, I’m not!” Grace paused. “And also, what the fuck is waifu?”

Angel Dust continued without acknowledging her question, “He was pretty pissed about what you did at the bar. Did you see his face?!”

“You saw me turn my back and walk away from him; you know I didn’t.”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “There were antlers. A lot of ‘em.”

Yeah, that’s because I blew him off in front of another soul he’s in possession of, not because he’s jealous I got a drink for another man. “Good.” Grace raised her glass in a toast. “To quote Chicago, ‘He had it coming.’”

Chapter 4: From Leeches to Lightning Bugs and Every French Delicacy in Between

See you next Sunday, deer friends!