The Devil's Lover Read online

  Now, we’re both out of the window. Both us levitate on the air, holding each other’s hands tightly. He laughs the moment he realizes that he is floating. I bet that’s the first time he ever feels so happy. I laugh along with him too. This time, everything is genuinely displayed on his face. Happiness radiates through his formerly sad, sad blue eyes. “Peter, I’m flying!” Wendy shrieked in excitement.

  “Hmm. For now,” I said with a nonchalant smile. It took a while for him to realize that I no longer have that warm and friendly smile on my face. That I am now looking at him with a steady uncaring gaze. That my eyes are no longer smiling despite of a smile pursed on my lips. A look of a psychopath.

  He looks back at me in confusion. “Peter?”

  “Wendy, welcome to Neverland.” I let go of his hands. The moment that I do, gravity took a hold on him and he falls fast to the ground. The sound of his screams fills my ears. I laugh at the sound. It’s so beautiful. It’s so wonderful. Everything is right. Now, on the ground, his sleeping garment is in the color of red.

  He will be young forever. He will always be happy. He can play all day and he will never have to dwell with any responsibilities of an adulthood that he’ll never have. He can be all that in death.

  That is what humans are all like. Pure yet so tainted.

  7. NUMBER TWO BY THE ROPE

  As the cool evening air pierces his skin, Bob jogs through the path that is lit by an afternoon glow. The path is clearly lit at this hour. He needs to lose some weight. And he needs to finish this lap before it gets dark. He does this every day after school. He’s been dying to get some attention from Simone, the hottest girl in school. He thought that maybe by losing some weight, he might get a chance. He thinks to himself that he is actually not quite bad-looking. Therefore, he is determined to exercise regularly.

  Out in the distance, on his usual path ahead, he thinks he saw two figures standing in the darkened part of the woods. As he gets closer to the figures, he notices that one of them is very familiar to him. So he halts, wearing a smile on his face towards the persona in front of him and slightly waves his hand at him. Initially, he wonders if he should just keep on going on the path or should he back off as he got a little spooked by the presence of the other persona. I’m being silly. It’s nothing, he thought. So he keeps going on the same path, thinking that he doesn’t wanna stop and say hi. He should be home before dark so he should finish this lap in time. As he passes by the two figures, memories float through his mind…

  ֍֎֍

  ~1 year and 8 months ago~

  Bob catches up to Trance who’s been walking to class in a hurry. “Hey, how about that assignment?” He asked.

  “Oh, I’ve done it,” Trance said, handing Bob a piece of paper that he took out from one of his books in his hand. Bob had lied to Trance that his father is sick and he could not finish his assignment on time.

  “Thanks, man. You’re the best!” Bob said, grinning happily while giving a single congratulatory pat on Trance’s shoulder.

  “It’s okay. I’m glad I can help you. How’s your father?” Trance asked.

  “Um?” For a while there, Bob has forgotten about the lie but then he quickly remembered. “Oh. That. Yes, he’s getting better,” Bob lied. It was an awkward lie that normal people could see right through but knowing Trance, he is sure as hell Trance would not notice that. Trance is naïve. He’s like a child. Easily lied to and used.

  “That’s good news. Okay, see you,” Trance said as he paces up into the classroom he was about to enter from before, leaving Bob behind checking the assignment.

  “Hey, Bob.” Bob turns around at the greetings, seeing Peter and Noah walking towards him. “What’s up with you and that nerd?” Peter asked suspiciously. An aura of ridicule written all over his smirk of a face. If Bob answers wrongly, he will be in the same team of being bullied as Trance so he must choose his answers carefully.

  “Oh… He was helping me with my assignment. Well, you know. He said he wanted to go out with me, you know. I decline. But he’s been very nice to me and helps me out with this. Maybe he was hoping I would fuck him,” Bob made up a story. A story only suited to Peter and Noah’s hearings. The three of them laugh out hard at the last remark. Phew! He was saved.

  ֍֎֍

  Deranged, Bob feels a presence closing in behind him. It’s strange. He was jogging but the guy behind him is obviously walking but how can a guy walks that fast? The evening is closing in. It’s almost night-time now. How did the day get to be dark so soon? Bob wonders. Then suddenly, as quick as the breath he takes, everything turns black. He stops in his track, taking in his surroundings. He sees nothing but black. The guy is still walking behind him. He panics. So, with adrenaline rushes to his brain, he starts to sprint. He runs as fast as he could. But every time he turns around to take a look, the guy who’s walking steadily behind him is still closing in on him. And at that, he’s smiling evilly.

  Bob no longer knows where he’s running to. The darkness doesn’t seem to have an end. He can’t see anything but black. No signs of light at any corner. Everything is black. No trees, no jogging path, no houses on the street. He quits running when his legs finally tired of the act and he kneels down to the ground, huffing, trying to catch his breath. He senses another presence walking towards him from his front this time. As he looks up, he sees Trance. The guy who was walking / chasing after him from before is now standing behind him. He feels like he’s being cornered by the two. “Trance, what do you want?” Bob asked among his tired breath. This is his last defense. Playing innocent is a skill of his.

  “William knows what I want. Why don’t you ask him?” Trance only looks into Bob’s eyes with a wicked smile. Bob is confused. The malevolence of Trance’s spoken words. He had never been cornered like this. He never knew Trance, out of all people, could corner him like this. He trembles in fear a little. Not knowing of his fate. Not knowing of what to do. He turns to look at the guy standing behind him.

  Without warning, the guy squats next to him and touches his cheek with a force so strong that it feels like his heart is being ripped out. The touch was cold. So cold that it chills him down to the bone. It was like he was being pierced by ice and his body got frozen from limb to limb. Bob lets out a high-pitched scream of pain. Yes. In that moment, at the touch, he is reliving the pain and suffering that Trance had gone through. It lasted for only a few seconds by the looks of the touch but to Bob, time passes by in his head like the whole miserable years of Trance’s experiences. The sufferings, the fatal blow, the thrusts, the insults, the punches, the piercing of a needle.

  When William’s done, Bob’s eyes went blank like in a state of daze. The streets, trees, and houses are back into view to him. But his body is no longer his. William whispers into Bob’s ears; “there’s a rope in your trunk, correct? Take it. Hang yourself at the highest tree in the forest.”

  William leaves the woods with Trance by his side as Bob, on the other hand, gets up and walks slowly to his car like a zombie. He then opens his trunk. He takes the rope. He walks back into the woods. He looks at an old oak tree in the woods emotionlessly. The tree is a popular site among the teens in the town. It’s where they held gatherings and party out of their parents’ knowledge. Now, this place will hold a new event for Bob. Bob climbs the tree. He ties the rope strongly to the tree’s branch. He makes a loop and wears it around his neck. Like a necklace. A necklace of death. And without hesitation or regrets, he pulls the necklace to fit the size of his neck. How can he even hesitate or feel regret? He is screaming on the inside but no sounds come out from his mouth. His body is not his. Not his. Not anymore. He had signed a one-way ticket to hell. The show must go on. Alas, he jumps down. The rope stretches bearing the weight of his body. The show has come to an end. The genre, as it seems, is a tragedy.

  8. ANOTHER PAYMENT

  Trance can hear Bob’s grunting from being choked by the rope from a near distance. He thought he could hear the neck snapped as
well. He smiles slightly at the sound, amused by the pleasure of doing something evil. Of inflicting pain and suffering on another. All his life, pain and suffering were inflicted on him, but this time, it is his turn. Right or wrong. It no longer matters. Morality is a lost cause. But only soon after the smile, his body trembles just a little. And he starts to question his morality. A lost cause as it may. Morality stands there for a reason. “Am I doing the right thing, William?” He asked.

  William wears his same old carefree face. His lips curve into a devilish smile at the question offered to him by Trance. “Hey, that’s nice Trance’s asking. The new Trance had no soul, remember?” He reminded Trance.

  Trance shivers a little to the answer. It is not what he wanted to hear. Just give him yes or no. William never gives him a straight answer. He then gets a bit angry. All William do is play games. Trance is not in the mood for games. This life of his, this vengeance of his are no games for him. “It’s your fault! You are carrying around my soul that whenever I’m near you, I come to feel again,” Trance hissed, putting the blame on his old soul. His soul, his kindness, his morality that he had loathed so much. “Just get rid of it! I hate it!”

  “Tch tch tch…,” William hushed Trance. “Be patience, my dear. Where’s the fun in that?” William asked, making Trance even more annoyed. “I want you to feel when you’re around me,” William indicated as he eases in closer to Trance. He moves like he was one with wind. Like he is gliding in the dark. A swift and careless but thoughtful movement.

  “The hell is that supposed to mean?!” Trance asked William angrily, shooting him a glance fill with despise and disgust.

  “By Hell, you are damn cute when you’re angry, Trance. You know that you can’t even be this angry to others. Look what your soul can do to you. It can make you fill yourself up with emotions. That. Is. The most. Beautiful thing about humans,” William commented lengthily. “And why bother knowing of what is right? Or wrong? How can anything in this humans’ world be right or wrong? Right or wrong is given to you. It was taught to you. It was told to you. It was instructed on you. It was placed upon you.” As he descends closer to Trance’s height, he allows his cold lips touch the tip of one of Trance’s ears and whispers; “nothing is right. And nothing is wrong, dear Trance.”

  Trance looks at William quizzically. A shiver runs through his spine. There are wants. There are desires. There’s hatred. But there’s also curiosity. “Then it will all be for nothing. If there are no right and wrong in this world, then we have lived all this while for nothing.” Trance pointed out. His heart is pierced deep with sadness. Such a sad, sad life humans have to live. Abiding invisible forces. Being obedient to invisible rules. Hoping to receive love and acceptance from an invisible God.

  “If you haven’t lived for more than an epoch, I guess you wouldn’t understand,” William calculated and then he quickly places his thumb on Trance’s chin. “Just pay me,” he ordered and forcibly kisses Trance impatiently. He pushes Trance to lean his back against a tree. He explores Trance’s mouth with his tongue sending pleasurable tingle to every spot. Trance can feel himself getting even chiller to the bone. William always makes him nervous. The kind of nervous where you wish for more, to be closer yet also wish you could run farther away with loathe to every touch.

  William then breaks the kiss slowly, leaving Trance somehow gasping for air. The kiss makes him breathless. The nervousness makes his heart beat faster. It was like he almost had a heart attack. What the hell? Trance thought silently to himself. He shouldn’t be this nervous. This wasn’t the first time he kisses another man and this surely wasn’t the first time he and William kiss. Maybe the surroundings of the woods that made him nervous instead of the persona in front of him. The coldness of the night air and the darkness of the area… The bitterness he feels towards the world, towards humanity, towards the meaning of one’s existence.

  In a jolt of surprise, Trance moans a little as he feels William’s cold tongue suddenly trailing the skin of his neck. He clutches at William’s shirt, trying to hold his balance. His body feels like it was floating on air. William is clearly excited by the sound of the moan. “There’s a nice ring to your moan,” William complimented.

  That compliment makes Trance quickly engulfed in embarrassment and so he covers it up by being angry. “Shut up!” He hissed. “Are we going to do it here?” He asked.

  “Do what?” William asked, teasing Trance.

  “Don’t pretend like you don’t understand.”

  “Seriously, do what, Trance?”

  Trance sighs. William sometimes can get him on his nerve. Never a straight answer. Evil smile with a charm. All-knowing eyes. Intimidating aura like he can tell what everyone else is thinking. And also the fact that he carries himself with such steps that portray he is of a higher standard than the rest of them. Out of place. Yet exactly where he should be all the same. “Okay. Are you going to fuck me here?” He asked, stressing the word ‘fuck’.

  William grins like a child winning a candy bar for free. “Yup,” he answered shortly. The short answer makes Trance feels like the question he threw was a waste of time. Trance sighs again. “Take your pants off and hold on to the tree,” William then ordered. Trance doesn’t want to waste anymore time. Being with William makes him feel restless enough. So he quickly abides to his order. As he holds on to the tree, he feels his opening is being push open by William’s harden dick. In a few second of forethoughts, he wonders what is William’s true form? Does he even have a true form? Will he ever find out? He closes his eyes as he endures the pain and the whispering from William’s lips which are brushing against his ear, “I love you.”

  Is he hearing things right? Trance has no idea nor the bravery to believe in the words. But as William moves inside of him, with his soul attached to William, he decides to believe it for a while. Just for that little while of their temporary intimacy. He heard of similar words before from lips of a liar… and a traitor… He is not going to be a fool again. To believe is to become a fool. He is not going to be nice again. He had given all of him to that person and got to be crushed by the person who professed the word ‘love’ like a religion as if he was a mere bug. No. he’s not going back there. That’s it. I’m sorry but I’m all out of nice, he monologues a conversation to himself, to assure himself that he’s not who he was. Not anymore. Tears run down his cheeks as he thought of that person and he drowns himself in the pain of pleasure from William. To endure pain is to know you’re alive. Forgiveness is weakness. Love is weakness. Love should not exist in his heart. Love should not exist at all.

  ֍֎֍

  Trance pierces the tree’s trunk with his nails as William thrusts in and out of him from behind. He disregards the pain on his nails against the hard trunk. He can feel blood seeping out from in between his nails and the skin beneath it. Strangely… he likes the pain. Maybe he was accustomed to it.

  He strokes his own dick as he savors the pleasure being thrust by William. He likes to hear William’s panting and loves the feel of William’s hot breath near his ear. The tingles it sent. He moans, closes his eyes and let himself go with the flow. When he finally reaches his peak, he lets his dick ejaculate the sticky white liquid out. He can feel the man behind him smirks shortly before he starts to move faster in him.

  They both moan in the pleasure that hold them close. It’s always a wonder of how much pain can give you pleasure and how much sin can give you satisfaction. It’s a rush that’s hard to be explained with words. A rush you know you’ll feel only when you feel it. A feeling that will be forgotten once it is over… Forgetting it is what makes it have some sort of control over you. An irresistible charm. Because you would want to have the taste of it all over again… That’s what makes sex addictive, isn’t so?

  William moans louder and finally spurts his semen inside of Trance. Human’s body is strange to him… though this is not the first time he uses a human’s form, it’s just different when he is with Trance. It’s like ho
lding something in him for so long and finally only be able to release it. It still is… a dark secret he meant to keep. He smiles slightly to himself. No one will ever know…his deep dark secret. A secret he has kept for centuries.

  9. NUMBER THREE ON A RAILWAY TRACK

  A beautiful day it is. The weather is warm. The wind is blowing strongly. Who would have thought that a day such as this will be stained with blood? Mark places his head on the railway track. He hears the sound of the train coming. He didn't want to do this. But the guy who came with Trance told him to do it. He had lost control of his own body. It just moves on its own. He knows he's going to die but he can't get up. He knows he will face an unbearable pain as his neck will be ripped open by the train’s wheels. But he can’t stop that from happening. He can't even blink his eyes. He just looks at the train as it gets bigger and bigger in his view. He can feel his heart is beating faster. There's no stopping to it. He can't even close his eyes as the train approaches, running over his head. The blood spills all over the trail. The flesh and bones scatter across the ground.

  ... Mark is dead.

  ֍֎֍

  ~1 year and 7 months ago~

  Trance was pushed back to the wall. Mark gave him another punch to the face. Trance couldn’t even see it coming as his glasses had already fallen to the floor. Mark only laughed as Trance also fell down to the floor after the hit right next to his glasses. "You know. I hate faggots like you..." Mark said as he gave Trance another kick in the stomach. He then looked at Trance's glasses with disgust on the floor as if projecting the owner of the glasses onto it and he steps on it until the glass smashed into pieces. He laughed again and left Trance lying there wounded on the cold floor, unattended to, fill with shame and humiliation.

  ֍֎֍

  Trance wakes up abruptly from his deep slumber and after a few moments of adjusting his eyes to the dimly lit room, taking in his surroundings, he gets up from the bed slowly. It's 9 p.m. He is still at William's house. He must head home now. He had been coming home late daily these days that his parents had started questioning him things he couldn’t even bother to answer. They are obviously worried about him. He never answered them of where he went and of what he did. Every time, he just walked into his room like he could not hear them. Perfect ignorance coupled with perfect indifference. They all think that he's still in his post-traumatic state as it appears. They didn't know that he just plainly doesn't care. He couldn't care. How can he? He has no soul to begin with.