This is how the devil comes courting. Not with red skin and black horns, but fair and in a murderous suit with a constant, thin, smile, and hair that hangs like clusters of grapes.
You know they’re dangerous - built like a predator - but not a single alarm bell is ringing. They show zero interest in getting into your pants and far too much interest in your favorite vices and indulgences. You can tell that they’re genuinely processing every word you say, and there is a tickle in your heart that says you’re the most fascinating person they’ve ever met.
They smell like Oud, leather, champaca, and wet leaves. You don’t even know what fuckin’ Oud is, but the word comes into your head and won’t leave. One day they show up and their hair is wet from the rain and dripping everywhere and all you can think about is how you’d literally, quite literally, kill to feel those droplets on your skin.
Another time it starts as a thought about what that suit is hiding, and then it turns to something else. You want to taste and touch everything so carefully hidden. But that’s not right either - you want to put your teeth around their neck and feel bones crunch. Is that … is that normal? Fuck normal. You’ve never felt so free.
The world starts to seem very small. You find that other people’s problems seem dim, distant, and frankly banal. You’re worrying about the dreams where you’re chasing something (or something is chasing you) and you never want to wake up. Some days you miss work, others days you miss days.
The first time you see them out of the suit it’s in illegally fitted jeans and a t-shirt that looks older than they are. When you tell them so they laugh, stick out their chest and say “feel it” and boy… you feel it. They smile at the suddenly-hungry look in your eyes. You smile knowing they don’t even know the half of it.
You can still taste smoke, ash and rotting fruit when they whisper the truth. Hearing it sends a thrill up and down your spine. It’s so quiet and quick, no monologue and not a hint of a grandstand. When they ask you what you desire you say: “Everything.” You run together like wolves, chasing and being chased.
The whole world is yours now, as it should be. You stretch your jaws around it, settling carnassials you didn’t used to have into verdant valleys and man-made lakes. Your tongue cradles oceans and the cry for mercy tastes so sweet. It does nothing to stop your bite.
This is how the devil comes courting and what a lovely match you make.
