My Personal Demon

15:22*

*mild sexual content ahead

I rewind the recorder, hitting play to hear his voice again.

Sometimes, when his ideas came hot and fast, pen and paper couldn't keep up with his mind. That's when he'd speak into the recorder, talking about his characters and acting out scenes. In those moments, he transcended reality, disappearing into the dark crevices of his subconscious as the imaginary came to life.

I did the same, except I never retreated into myself when I painted. I poured myself out, spilling my essence into slow methodical strokes on the canvas. I was every curve and line that came with the flick of my wrist.

It was the opposite when I was at the tattoo shop. There, I was a conduit for whatever the client wanted. Every etch on the tattoo pen was an extension of their will.

Charles never understood that. His writing was only ever for himself. He was lucky that other people liked it as well, but I know he would've carried on writing and starving even if he had no readers.

There were times when we'd get drunk to stay warm during the winter and he'd accuse me of being a sellout. He would call me a fake, a hack who only knew how to make things that pleased other people. He even went as far as to say that my art had no soul.

I think that was a breaking point in our relationship. I didn't speak to him for days after he said that to me, filling our home with an icy silence. Eventually, I forgave him, but not without reminding him that it was my work that paid the bills on the table.

Indeed, if I didn't make my "soulless" pieces, we'd both be starving. I don't think wanting to survive made me a sellout. There was nothing romantic about suffering, at least the kind that made my skin and muscles hang from my bones.

Suffering could make good art, but not all good art was made from suffering.

He knew that, but everything he made had his pain woven into it. I could hear it in his voice as I hit replay on the recording for what must have been the hundredth time. Behind his quiet reserved exterior was a little boy nursing traumas that have been stuck around for years.

I always told him that he needed to cry. He was proud that he rarely got upset over anything, but if he could only see just how close he was to falling apart, I wondered if he would still feel the same. Pain locked up behind years of flesh and blood festers. Anyone would be horrified at the rot.

He refused to cry. He would only write, pressing his blue pen against the pages just a little harder than normal. Were we really married if he kept his feelings hidden like a family heirloom?

I suddenly feel like the last person that should be deciding the ending to his unfinished story. But who else was close to him like I was?

I was his best friend and lover, the other half of his soul. At one point, I was everything to him. What I don't understand is when that wasn't enough anymore.

We shared an entire universe in the galaxies of our minds. I memorized the constellations of his thoughts like they were my own. He was the only person I was capable of saving from himself. Funny how that turned out. In the end, I had been a stranger all along.

I hit pause on the recorder, unable to listen to his voice anymore. His words were crashing into each other, leaving an incoherent mess in my ears. I had degraded his art into meaningless noise without knowing it. I imagine his ghost looking over my shoulder horrified and I don't feel the shame I'm supposed to.

He did worse to me with his words anyway.

I tried to paint him. It wasn't the first time I wrangled his essence into a physical form. When he was alive, I would often make him sit for portraits. It was a challenge trying to get him to hold still. He didn't like being observed, telling me it made him feel like a zoo animal. Even if he did end up appreciating the paintings in the end, the entire process made him squirm. Because of this, there's only one portrait of him that I ever completed with him sitting across from me the whole time. The rest of the canvases would have remained unfinished if I hadn't filled in the blanks of his form with my memory.

That's how well I knew him. Or at least I thought I did.

But when I sit in front of the canvas, my hands move with a mind of their own. I attempt to picture Charles sitting in front of me, hunched over his writing. I see his hands scribbling madly and his brows knit with concentration. He's almost alive again, warm to the touch if I get up to place my hand on his shoulder. I spend hours painting him in his favorite hues of blue.

When I finish, I find Jesper's face on the canvas taunting me with an azure smirk.

I've made him softer this time, without the intensity of the violent man among the roses. He doesn't have horns, but his eyes still glow through the paint as if to say that he was still a demon. The blue doesn't suit him, dampening his usual playfulness, but then again, it wasn't him that I was trying to paint.

"I like this one," he said, suddenly appearing next to me. I drop my paintbrush, startled by his voice.

"It wasn't supposed to be you," I replied, regaining my composure.

"Is there another devilishly handsome demon that you've been seeing? If so, he looks an awful lot like me." His arms snake around my waist, pulling me from my stool.

He buries his face into my neck, teasing me with wet kisses. His hands wander to the drawstrings of my pants and my breathing quickens. I place my hand on his inner thigh, slowly drawing circles.

Two can play that game.

As I slide my hand up, I hear him make a noise of surprise. I grin like the Cheshire cat. It wasn't easy to catch him off guard.

I stroke him through his pants, finding him already hard beneath the fabric. Despite the fact that he's eaten me out already, I didn't know what he felt like much less what his dick looked like. It wasn't that I had no interest, but more so that he was always so intent on exploring me.

I unzipped his pants and his hands found their way beneath my underwear, attempting to tease me to distraction. I hold his length in my hands, blinking rapidly. He was bigger than I expected, or more accurately, bigger than I was used to. I gently spit on my hand, rubbing the fluid up and down his length.

His breath catches as I squeeze him, precum forming at the tip. I wonder how long it's been since someone pleasured him.

He slips a finger inside in retaliation. I gasp at the unfamiliar intrusion and he adds another finger. He grabs a fistful of my chest, steadying himself as I increase the pace of my hands.

I wondered who would cum first, me or him.

"Slow down," he whispered, rolling my clit between his fingers. I twitch in his arms, trying to keep pace.

He knew how to make me helpless. With Charles, I was always in control. I had to be if either of us wanted even a single neuron of pleasure. But Jesper was always determined to have me on my back whimpering for more of him.

I'd be embarrassed if I didn't like him so much.

I lean back into his chest, feeling warmer than usual. I feel the cadence of his breathing and I'm convinced that we're more in sync than ever. I wanted to be his undoing even more than he wanted to be mine.

He sinks his teeth into my shoulder, slowly increasing the force of his bite. For some inexplicable reason, that only builds more pleasure in my abdomen. There was nothing ever repulsive about his touch. He never needed guidance for where to put his hands. It was like he knew intuitively how to use me as he pleased.

I finish a second before he does, falling apart instantly. We lie there on the studio floor, breathing together in our post-coital bliss. He holds me close, licking the bite mark he left on my shoulder. I shiver, still coming off my high.

"I'd eat you if I could," he said.

"I wouldn't let you."

"You'd let me do obscene things to you. I'd hurt you and make you like it."

His words don't unsettle me as much as they should. "You don't want to do anything bad to me. It's against your nature."

He laughs, the sound echoing on the walls of the studio. "And what would you know about my nature?"

"I know that you like me too much."

He grows quiet. After a moment passes, he finally speaks.

"Then you already know half my story."