A word (or few) about the conversation toward the end of this chapter:

Asexuality is a spectrum and every asexual person experiences it differently.

Writers will often write as a part of self-discovery.

(Can you see where this is going?)

Maybe someday I'll go into depth on this topic but for now, I'll leave it at this: I described Alastor's asexuality similarly to my own.

If you, too, are an ace in the hole, the discussion may resonate with you. Equal chances, it may not.

If you're allosexual, it'll almost certainly baffle you. That's ok. Try to enjoy the story, anyway. 😊

Chapter 7: Happy Anniversary, Hazbin Hotel!

They danced and drank and were generally merry as they celebrated the hotel’s anniversary into the wee hours of the following morning. At every opportunity to retire to bed, Grace elected instead to continue socializing with whoever was still partying.

Going to bed, being alone again with Alastor was unusually nerve-wracking—even with his threat to make her pay for her so-called indiscretions. Especially with that threat.

Shortly before sunrise, the last of the revelers—Angel Dust and Husk—called it a night, leaving Grace little choice but to do the same, herself. She wordlessly followed Alastor to his room. Whereas he headed toward his bed, she stopped abruptly at the threshold; her legs seemed uninterested in carrying her any farther.

He turned, his gaze sweeping up and down her frame in that neutral way that seemed more like he was trying to figure her out and less like he was ogling her. 

Grace’s anxiety reached fever-pitch.

“It’s impolite to lurk in doorways,” Alastor remarked, “you temptingly soft little monster.” There it was again: the disgust dripping in his tone. 

What the fuck is that about?

He held out his hand to her in invitation. “Are you coming to bed?”

“No.”

Alastor’s eyes darkened. “Come to bed, Grace,” he growled.

I don’t wanna. Which wasn’t exactly true. Why should I? Which wouldn’t yield any kind of response she knew she’d be pleased with. So rather than saying anything at all, Grace dutifully lowered her head and followed. Because what other fucking choice do you leave me, Alastor?

“I don’t have anything to wear to bed,” she remarked, which was a problem she’d encountered nightly with this arrangement she’d wanted so desperately. Sleeping in her daywear had sufficed but was not something particularly comfortable or hygienic. This, however, was the first she’d voiced of this problem.

To nobody’s surprise, Alastor completely ignored her comment and said something entirely out of left field: “You were absolutely delectable today. I could just eat you up.”

Grace silently looked around, her eyes wide.

Alastor beckoned to her wordlessly and against her better judgment, she approached.

“Do you like this dress?” he asked as he led her to his bed and prompted her to sit on the edge of the mattress.

She blinked. “Huh?”

“How eloquent,” he replied wryly before repeating with markedly less patience, “Do you like this dress?”

“I don’t understand why you ask.”

He snarled, “Would you just answer me already, Grace!”

She flinched. What’s with him?!

The dress was beautiful. It flattered. It felt like silken clouds that whispered sinful secrets against her skin with every movement she made. But it was not any style she would elect to wear if not for the theme of the evening—and in hopes of striking some sort of favorable chord with her Demon Overlord. “Yeah … it's okay, I guess. Why?”

“Hmm,” he thought aloud as his eyes darkened. He then snapped his fingers to conjure the chain that tethered her soul to his for eternity. 

Despite Grace’s feelings for Alastor, that collar around her neck always panicked her. This time was no different, her fingers immediately groping it for a release that she knew all too well by now didn’t exist.

Alastor yanked her hands away from it to wind the chain around her wrists, then looping the excess around bedposts Grace was certain had not existed until now, effectively forcing her down onto her back on the mattress.

She jerked against the chain to no avail, tried to sit upright without success.

“Grace,” Alastor cooed her name, as if savoring the sound of it as it crossed his tongue. “It’s such fun to frighten you.” He loomed over her, that crazed look in his eye as he grew in stature—to not as big as Grace knew he could get, but big enough that it worried her what his intentions were while in that gargantuan state. His tongue snaked out of his mouth, licking his lips in anticipation.

“Oh my dear god,” she exhaled.

He smirked. “What did you call me?”

Grace frowned. “I—I didn’t call you anything—?”

“What did you say just now?”

It took a moment for it to register what he’d asked. “Oh,” Grace breathed, “my deer god.”

“Yes.” Alastor chuckled wickedly. “I am your deer god. And don’t you forget it.”

He encroached, extending his index finger and dragging the tip of his claw from the cupid bow of her lips down her chin, along the center of her neck. And then with an aggressive jerk of his arm, ripped clean down the center of her dress. 

Grace yelped in surprise and trembled, recoiling as much as she could. There was nowhere to go and her bound wrists left her unable to defend herself.

With a gentleness dissimilar to how he tore the dress open, Alastor peeled the separated halves of fabric covering her chest away from each other as if reveling in the action. Like he was unwrapping a long-anticipated gift.

Was she grateful or remorseful that she’d worn no undergarments with this dress? Grace couldn’t decide, especially not when he looked at her breasts as if—

As if—?

She couldn’t discern what that look was in his eyes.

“I want you to scream my name,” he demanded.

Holding his gaze in silent challenge, she jerked pointedly against her restraints. How silly she was to believe her altruism with the night’s party theme would have been met in kind—or even in some small fraction—from him. 

But was it truly altruism if she’d hoped for some considerate returns?

Grace glared at him through her tears. “Fuck you,” she sneered. “No!”

“Scream my name!”

And then he pounced, sinking his teeth deeply into her right breast.

Grace shrieked something akin to his name, squirming beneath him and trying everything in her power to free herself of him; there couldn’t have been a more perfect literal analogy for her contract with this deranged soul.

Alastor lifted his head to reveal his mouth drenched in red. He grinned, her blood dribbling down his chin from between his fangs.

She glanced down; that was a substantial wound he’d left her to heal. Worse than the usual. Her stomach churned violently. Holy shit that hurts! 

“You’re wasting my blood, asshole!”

Alastor’s eyebrows pulled together in visible confusion. He remained poised above her, studying her in silence. His voice low, he replied, “Well now, we mustn’t be wasteful.”

Grace braced herself for his worst, clenching her jaw while trying her damndest to coalesce into the mattress beneath her.

Alastor lowered his head, drawing his tongue up along the underside of her wounded breast, over her nipple, licking away every last drop of blood as if it were a delicacy served on a gilded platter.

And may all the angels have damned her; Grace moaned, arching her back off the very mattress she’d hoped only seconds prior would envelop her. 

He then turned his attention to her left breast, holding her stare as he opened his mouth and closed his teeth lightly around her nipple.

Grace’s breath hitched and her eyes went wide. Shaking her head, she implored, “Please—no. Not that!”

His smile widened, teeth going a touch deeper but still without piercing her delicate skin. “No?” he taunted.

“Please, Alastor! No! I beg you, not that!” she sobbed.

He closed his lips around it, teasing it with his tongue into a tight, cold little peak. In return, she adjusted herself beneath him, raising her leg and glancing his crotch with her thigh.

Despite all her willpower, more tears fell when she found Alastor completely flaccid.

None of any of this had been sexual for him; when he said he could eat her up, he’d meant that literally. That somehow made the physical pain he’d inflicted on her hurt that much worse. Made her feel that much more twisted for having been even remotely aroused by any of it.

His breath caught in his throat loudly enough that Grace heard it.

He didn’t recoil so she continued rubbing her thigh against his nuts through his pants. If nothing else, they felt so good to touch, however she was able to make contact with them.

“I think I’ll never understand how a soul can be so interminably soft and so wretched at the same time,” Alastor spat. “Damn you, Grace!”

“What?” she replied, genuinely baffled.

He didn’t answer. Naturally he didn’t answer; instead, his right hand fumbled with lowering his trousers zipper.

Grace craned her neck to follow the motion. I aroused him and he’s pissed about it.

Fucking figures; none of this was meant to be foreplay. He’s just snacking on me!

Alastor mounted her, close as he ever really got—which wasn’t especially intimate—and thrust into her. It was only then that she realized despite being to some degree aroused by this mistreatment, she was still dry as Death Valley during a record draught.

After that single movement, he paused, his gaze darting around, as if trying to figure out what was different now from every other of the not-very-many-times he’d done this.

With his entry, a sound escaped Grace unlike any she’d ever made before; a high-pitched whistle through her nose reminiscent of a squeak-toy. Her cheeks blossomed with heat. She suspected this was her equivalent of the bleat she’d heard once from him.

She was humiliated by it; he, on the other hand, seemed enthralled, like he recognized it was a sound of distress. 

After that brief hesitation of ‘what-the-fuck-is-this-feeling?!’ and despite Grace’s pussy feeling like the vaginal equivalent of 40-grit sandpaper, he resumed the hard thrusting.

In his silence, Grace grunted with every powerful thrust, her eyes providing the moisture her pussy lacked—at least, initially.

Thankfully for her—because really, who even gave a single shit about Alastor at that point? Certainly not Grace—it didn’t take long for her to go from Death Valley to Niagara Falls. And as much as it seemed like he was actively trying to hurt her while fucking her, maybe in retaliation for arousing him, he couldn’t do so anymore when she was that wet.

Not only was he unable to hurt Grace, but despite her own wishes, her orgasm built rapidly.

Climax was imminent when Alastor’s thrusts slowed, and then he withdrew.

“Alastor!” Grace panted, only then aware she was drenched in sweat. “Why’d you stop? I was so close!”

He repositioned himself slightly, resting his hard cock now dripping with her copious excitement against the inside of her thigh. With his lips against her collarbone, he murmured something that sounded suspiciously like, “I know.”

Grace was certain he couldn’t know, though. That would imply he’d been paying attention. And if he’d been paying attention, that meant it mattered to him. And that was just entirely impossible. Unless he’d learned her tells specifically to deny her release. She swallowed a groan at the thought. That was it; that was the only rational explanation.

Alastor lazily licked the base of her throat, drawing his tongue up along the side. It occurred to her that he was savoring her sweat.

And then bit by bit, he kissed, licked, and nibbled his way down her torso, past her belly button. He kept going until his tongue swept her clit and she took a loud, staggering gasp, arching off the bed and bucking against his mouth hard enough to dislodge a fang or two.

In a gesture that stunned Grace into silence, Alastor pressed himself against the mattress like the predator he was at his black heart, his tongue surging up into her pussy. His arm stretched out above himself, palming her tit—bite and all—and squeezing it as if again trying to elicit that little squeak-toy sound from her. Blood from the bite wound oozed between his fingers.

She cried out, a combination of pain and ecstasy, still bound and unable to stop him from doing with her body as he damn well pleased.

After the third time Alastor brought her to the precipice of euphoria and retreated, she snapped between heaved breaths, “You insufferable prick! Let me come already!”

“Rude, rude, rude.” Alastor clucked his tongue in disdain as he got back to his knees between her thighs, his cock standing at attention between his own. “You’re not in any position to make such demands, Grace. Besides: what’s your rush?” He tipped his head inquisitively, ears flopping to that side with the motion. “Did you have something more important to do than me?”

Her eyes popped open at the innuendo and she panted, “I suppose you’ve got me there.”

“Indeed, I have you here, Grace Bedgood. I so love frustrating you. It’s such delicious fun and you make it just as easy as it is to frighten you.”

She whined, arching her back off the bed as if the restraints had magically disappeared. To her chagrin, they only seemed to tighten against her resistance. “Why are you so damn evil?”

“Why do you enjoy it so much?” He fell silent and repositioned himself before entering her again.

Grace groaned with his force, gritting her teeth. “God, I wish I knew! Maybe—” She struggled to finish between his forceful thrusts as tears spilled down her cheeks, “I’m—defective—”

He paused. Again, right when she was on the verge of climax. 

“Why won’t you let me come?” she sobbed.

“I enjoy denying you what you want most.”

“Bastard!”

The ethereal chain binding them for eternity vanished in favor of Alastor’s hand clamping down on her wind pipe. Not in the cute, fun way that made Grace all hot and bothered but in a way that brought to mind that was how he likely killed people in life. “Tell me, Grace,” he said through clenched teeth, “do you want release?”

“Yes!” she gasped. “Dear god, please!”

“What god were you addressing?”

“Deer god! Please! Let me come!”

Alastor traded her throat for her hands, threading his fingers between hers. He squeezed them and pressed them over her head into the mattress as he resumed fucking her. But this time, finally, he didn’t stop for anything.

Grace lost all control of herself, sinking her teeth into her right bicep in a sorry attempt to muffle her moans and screams through wave after wave of orgasmic bliss. Her hips rose to meet his and at once he stilled, his hands crushing hers and pushing them so hard into the mattress that he damn near dislocated her shoulders.

Her ears rang and she was sure with how hard she breathed that she would black out before long.

Alastor stared down at her before shaking his head in disdain and saying between his own heavy breaths, “Such undignified, indecorous noises you make.”

Grace’s eyes widened. So that’s why he’s always silent! 

His gaze flickered then between her hands where he pinned them above her head and he blinked, as if for the first time really seeing what he’d done. He released her left hand, then the right, withdrawing from her with a quiet hiss and leaning back onto his heels, holding his still-coming cock gingerly.

He stared at her in silence, his mouth closed into a crooked little smile. Like he had no idea what to do with her now.

There was no pillow talk that would make sense after an experience like that.

She propped herself up and scooted away from him until her back was against the headboard, drawing her knees to her wounded chest and watching him wordlessly. She had no idea what to do with him now, either.

That experience had been—

something.

Something that, analogous to their relationship, transcended labels.

Grace looked down at her breast before covering the bite with her palm to start the healing process in earnest, wincing at the contact. I hope he doesn’t have rabies, Jesus Christ!

Her gaze flickered to him; he watched her with his head tipped to the side and brows furrowed, his smile practically a ghost on his face.

“What?” she snapped, a staggering dislike of how vulnerable she felt at the moment. She curled up even smaller against the headboard because, as usual, her sense of self-preservation insisted she do the exact opposite of what would be logical.

Alastor blinked.

“Say something!”

To her surprise, he acquiesced to the impolite command: “I want to hold you close.” It was a statement that went up at the end just like a question.

What Grace wanted to respond with was, What in the sub-zero fuck is your deal, you psychopath? Supposing, however, that that was the closest thing to requesting consent she’d ever get from Alastor, she instead told him, “Okay,” her voice wavering more than she preferred.

Alastor first shed the remainder of his clothing and turned his back on her to nudge the remnants of her dress from the bed for the bog floor to sort out. 

“You have spots.” They were scattered like deer freckles all across his shoulder blades. She really didn’t want to see anything cute about him right now.

Thankfully, he didn’t acknowledge her observation, instead burrowing beneath the covers, drawing her down to the mattress on her back, and covering the both of them up.

Grace failed to hide the flinch of pain when the blanket met the still-open bite on her breast and she was certain, then, his eyes were frowning. She ignored it, attempting to roll onto her side so that her back was to his chest.

He wouldn’t let her, pressing his forehead to her cheek as she remained supine.

Since he refused to let her lie the way she wished to, she retaliated by refusing to initiate any conversation, thus ensuring there would be none. Nothing especially unusual there. Fall asleep, you creep, just the way you always do after you use me.

Oh.

Blink.

Shit.

Blink, blink.

I’m pissed.

She swallowed hard, deciding she’d sneak out of his bed to sleep in her old hotel room tonight. All she needed to do was outlast his consciousness, which she knew from experience wouldn’t take long.

Just when she thought she could make her escape, Alastor shifted against her, running his palm along the outside of her thigh to her hip, waist, then grazing her left breast with a tenderness Grace resented.

His voice quiet and unfiltered, Alastor said, “Do you know how often I study the swoops and swells of your body and abhor myself because I know it should arouse me and yet it does nothing of the sort?”

Grace’s eyes widened and she picked a random bald cypress to focus on. “Could you be … y’know … gay?”

“Could I be happy?”

She snorted despite herself. Right. Right. 1930s era gentleman, if you can call him that. “Could you be into guys?” It felt awful to say this but she clarified as clearly as she could: “Homosexual?”

“Men repulse me.” He’d never said anything with more disgust. 

“Good to know,” Grace mumbled. The answer was reassuring. Unless, of course, he was in denial. She didn’t know what else to say so she said nothing at all.

Alastor whispered in her continued silence, “Your curves serve as a constant reminder that I’m inherently broken inside.”

After a heated internal debate, she turned her head and met his gaze. “That’s what reminds you you’re broken inside?” 

To no surprise, he didn’t dignify that with a response, leaving her with a metric shit-ton to unpack. 

Torturing, deliberately hurting, and killing people—he viewed that behavior as ordinary. 

Being an amphibicidal devourer of human souls? Normal and reasonable.

Not seeing someone as sexually desirable was what was wrong with him? He actually sees himself that way? Because of me? Oh, that is so much worse than thinking other women looked at his asexuality as dysfunction!

Grace was unaware she’d been crying until he lifted his hand to her cheek and wiped a tear away gently. To her dismay, he didn’t lick the tear from his fingertip.

She sniffled. Knowing he wouldn’t answer her, Grace inquired, regardless: “Why did you seek me out for sex that first time?”

Alastor looked at her with an impressive smiling deadpan. “You really have to ask.”

“I genuinely have no idea what was in it for you if this—” she gestured at herself “—does nothing for you.”

Alastor hesitated. He hesitated so long, in fact, that it made Grace think he may have actually been ashamed of the answer. 

“I did it for the same reason a young boy might mutilate small animals. For the same reason a man would kill another man. For the same reason a demon would want to become an Overlord.”

Grace said it in unison with him: “Power. Control. Boredom.”

She thought back to that first time he fucked her. And all the subsequent times. Never once had he sought her consent. Grace blinked, a spectacular numbness washing over her. Thoughts attempted surfacing that she immediately shoved to the back of her mind about what that implied regarding his intent. What may have happened if she hadn’t been interested in having sex with him. “Oh.”

“Plus …”

“‘Plus?’” echoed Grace.

“After you two met, Rosie suggested to me that you had feelings for me and I …” He paused. “The kiss and everything that came from that … that seemed the natural progression of events. That’s the way things are supposed to go when someone’s developed feelings for you, right?”

“So … you didn’t want to kiss me. I knew it—wait a minute. Rosie told you I had feelings for you? What the fuck! She told me you’re asexual!”

It was Alastor’s turn to blink in confusion. “I’m what now? What's that even mean?”

“Hell if I know! I just assumed it meant you didn't like sex and would never have it. Maybe … she was wrong about you? Or maybe I don't understand it, either.”

Alastor exhaled hard. “Sex wasn’t really anything that ever crossed my mind. I always just assumed it was something I'd want to do when I found the right person but … the right person never came along.”

The right person never came along. 

Grace swallowed hard but said softly, “Oh.”

“What? What's that look for? You're sad.”

“So then … you’re not attracted to me. No wonder you couldn't answer me when I asked if you thought I was pretty.”

Alastor recoiled in his spot. “You're gorgeous, darling!  You’ve the radiance of a star-filled sky. Your scent intoxicates like the deep, musky smell of an umbel of jasmine. Your voice is melodious like Beethoven's Moonlight Sonata, your skin like the finest silk. You taste better than the best gumbo I’ve ever had. I don't desire sex with any of those things but that makes them no less lovely in their ways.”

And why, still, did Grace’s eyes well with tears? The was the kindest, most beautiful rejection she’d ever gotten.

“Intercourse is and always has been the last thing on my mind.”

“Then why do you initiate our encounters? I probably shouldn’t admit this, but you do realize if you didn’t pursue me, you wouldn’t have to … have the … the burden of doing it.” She faltered, correcting herself wryly: “Doing me.”

“There seems to be something that moves the activity from the last thing on my mind to the first thing on my mind. Sometimes even the only thing on my mind. And every time I follow those urges, I’m reminded that your skin feels like silk.” Alastor brushed the side of his hand down the length of her forearm. “And you always—you have some remarkable, infuriating way of making me feel good. In addition, you clearly enjoy it and I … I think I enjoy making you enjoy things. I can tell that being in my arms makes you happy and I enjoy—” he ended the sentence as more of a question: “—making you happy.”

Despite all that, Grace’s heart ached. She couldn’t understand. To conceal it all, she teased him, “Say ‘enjoy’ again.”

She successfully flustered him. But he said, his cheeks a darker red than his favored jacket, “And in the end, it feels nice.”

“‘Nice,’” she echoed. 

Not amazing. 

Not mind-blowing. 

Not even great. 

Alastor chuckled. “Very nice in the end.”

The sex was serviceable. It earned the fucking equivalent of a passing grade for a no-credit college course. Así así. Meh. It’s alright, I guess. 

If he had to choose between a cold, two-day-old vegan pizza and sex, he’d probably opt for the pizza. I mean yeah, it’s like … he does it, but could just as readily do anything and everything else or nothing else whatsoever. Fuck this pretty demon who’s throwing herself at me and permits me to mistreat her every which way from Sunday or sit and watch grass grow and paint dry? Either/or, they’re equally as entertaining.

Oh, way to go, Grace. Hurt your own feelings, why don’t you?

Alastor was silent so long, again, Grace was certain he’d dozed. She attempted to sneak out from his embrace but his arm tightened around her.

Shit.

“The one time you aroused me that didn’t end … enjoyably … was terribly unpleasant,” he admitted at random.

She twisted in his embrace to meet his gaze. “Excuse me? When did I actually arouse you and we didn’t have sex?”

He took her hand in silence, guiding it gently to his chest where the Angelic Steel wound had been.

“Oh—oh … oh my god! Is that why you fled the radio tower after I healed you?”

Alastor nodded slightly, the red in his cheeks spreading across his adorable little pointed nose.

“So then … you don’t enjoy jerking off?” There went a number of fun ideas she’d had over the past many months.

He returned a sour look. “I didn’t.”

“You didn’t enjoy it?”

“No, Grace. I didn’t do that.”

Her hand went to her mouth with a quiet gasp of recognition. “Ohhh, shiiiit. I gave you blue balls? I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to—”

“I know that wasn’t your intent.” Alastor studied her in silence for a few moments, dropping her gaze. “I think I might not sleep tonight unless you’re with me. So … Please, Little Fawn … don’t … don’t leave my bed tonight.” He sighed. “I know you’ve been trying to.”

Please don’t tug my heart strings like that. You’re already on the verge of breaking them. She squeezed her eyes shut and said on a long sigh, “I won’t.”

Return next Sunday, deer friends, for some delicious nuclear-level fall-out.