‘How? I can’t love!’
‘Kharon.’ Lucifer became serious for a second. ‘We’ve concluded the deal. We are honest guys. The girl sacrificed her soul for your embraces. Be more affectionate with her, can you?’
Kharon looked at his friend, at his Lord and tried so much to understand what he was wanted.
‘I am not informed very well of human relationship and romanticism. I do not understand what she wants… How did she manage to get you? What did she do? Milliards of people try to give you their souls, but you are deaf to their asks.’
Lucifer smirked. He stirred his coffee, looked into the appeared vortex and said quietly:
‘I got into the game some time ago… In the café… It was the first time when I saw incubus be slapped in a serious way… I was interested in that girl. I started watching her, how she was falling in love with you. You couldn’t imagine but every evening she was sat, holding a razor blade near her veins and text, getting ready to call you. Then she gave the idea, crying for god’s penalty. They she tried to tie you to her. It didn’t work. She found the hole: to call me. The poor girl couldn’t understand that all spells, made-up by people, could not make me come. I was silently observing how the rituals and spells were being changed, books and attributes were bought, which guaranteed my coming. It was useless. Later my heart had mercy on her. I moved a witch up to her who was dying and ready to give her gift to someone. Thank to it, Victoria managed to conclude the deal. Be careful Kharon, she is a real witch. She’s not able to do serious harm, I hope, but she can make you be nervous. Victoria doesn’t know that she has the strongest power and I’m absolutely sure, she doesn’t know what to do with it.’
Kharon lowered his eyes, looked at his friend and didn’t know if he had to be glad or to be horrified.
‘So, you did really shake up the dull days,’ the demon said in a low voice. ‘You moved a witch up to me, Lucifer!’
‘I did,’ he laughed. ‘I’m sure you will be having two funny years. Now you’re not going to be bored, my friend. As to romanticism and other feelings, I advise you to go for a walk across the city. Watch people. I’m sure that you will find another way to see them. You’ll see men be in reality and how it’s difficult to charm a girl who is liked.’
‘Do you mean you have organized a two-year excursion in people’s word and gave a witch as a guide?’ Kharon smirked. ‘Well, now I got why people sometimes give not a very good feedback about us.’
‘My dear friend, I have to go, business isn’t going to wait. I’ll be waiting for you to drop me a line about your life among people. Rent a flat, work, if you want, go in for Victoria as a woman, have a rest from variety of faces in dreams… And yes, I know that Sunshine refused you again, burning with the desire. Win the ma’am’s favour without penetrating her subconsciousness.’
‘Sunshine?’ Kharon surprised.
‘You saw her red hair with gold particles. Freckles. Gold eyelashes. She’s like the Sun. See you, my friend. Pay for my coffee, you’re now something like… a human.’
Lucifer clasped his shoulder slightly and disappeared. Kharon was left alone, looking at the bill, the waiter had brought to him.
He still didn’t understand if Lucifer exiled him or he really wanted him to be destructed from his many-thousand-years routine. One could go mad because of it. Kharon appreciated his Lord worrying about his friend.
As he was ordered, the demon paid for the coffee and went to study Moscow and everything that it could give him, being supported with only one thought – to try to be a human…
‘Vic, go to shop, please, coffee is done.’ Olga Vladimirovna hardly opened her eyes after hard night work. ‘I’m going to work for 24 hours again. I’m at home tomorrow and the whole weekends. Now I can think of coffee only. Will you?’
‘Sure’ Vic nodded, putting on the gym shoes. ‘Shall we go somewhere at the weekends? To have dinner?’
‘No problem, I’ll try to survive till the weekends.’
Vic smiled and closed the door behind her.
The girl ran into the street and dead air rushed to her nose. The sun and heat were not ashamed of September. Despite that it was 3 pm, there weren’t a lot of people. It was the middle of the week.
Victoria came into the shop, greeted the acquaintance seller, glanced over a woman staying near him and asked for a tin of coffee.
‘How’s your mum?’ the seller asked while he was waiting for the bill.
‘She’s fine. She’s come from work in the morning, now she’s going to work again. As usual there’s much work to do.’ She smiled.
‘Give my best greets to her. Your bill. Your coffee.’ The seller gave the goods to the girl.
‘Thank you. Is this a new seller?’ Vic nodded at the woman staying near the man. ‘Good luck in future.’
The girl left the shop and bumped into Kharon at once. She fell with a plop on the road and blinked in surprise.
‘I am sorry,’ the demon was confused, giving her his hand.
Victoria stood up, picked the tin and stared at the unexpected guest with eyes full of love.
‘What’re you doing here?’ she asked, feeling her cheeks getting burnt with red fire.
‘I have bought a computer…ok, laptop, cell. What else? SIM-cards and I need your help. How shall I use these all?’
‘What? You’ve bought?’ she couldn’t help smiling. ‘Wait a second. I’ll give coffee to my mum and come down to you. Will you be waiting for me here?’
‘You don’t want to acquaint me with your mum, do you?’
‘Kharon!’ Victoria exclaimed in confusion. ‘Before it we have to make up a weepy story about your appearance in my life. That’s why I’d like to have a walk across the city…to communicate with you.’
‘I am waiting.’ The man answered humbly.
He followed the girl with his eyes when she came into the entrance hall, he watched the wind disarranged her hair, the dark entrance side hid her out of his sight.
In an hour they were sitting in a café, Victoria was looking into the demon’s cell.
‘So, this is your phone number. That’s mine. You can find them in your contacts. You can text. Here. You have to open your messages. Then find a necessary phone number, text here and send…’
The demon was listening, examining the device and rarely smirked. What a strange device! Demons communicated with each other by means of thoughts! And if you put it like that then they weren’t very talkative guys. They absolutely didn’t need cells for connection.
‘It’s a little bit difficult with your laptop,’ Victoria took a sigh, opening the lap, ‘Why do you need this one, by the way?’
‘I saw the same on your table. I don’t need this?’ Kharon asked sadly.
‘I don’t know. Actually, if you work and study, then you do, of course, any laptop… Let me tell you in shorts how to use it. We’re gonna create your e-mail account…’
‘Could you sit closer to me?’ Kharon put his arm around the nervous girl.
‘Closer?’
‘I need to feel your warmth, constantly…your human warmth…’
Victoria sat closer and…that’s all. She couldn’t think of any laptop. She was slowly going sexually mad because of his hand on her waist, playful fingers gently touching her. Her breathing was getting faster, the heart was beating like a drum, her thoughts were gone. His hot lips sank down on her cheek. His hands squeezed her stronger.
‘Kharon…’ the girl begged. ‘We’re in a public place… and you’re making me lose my mind.’
‘What’s about public places?’ the demon was surprised, for a minute he stopped kissing the girl burning with passion.
‘Such behaviour is unacceptable in public places. It’s a kind of intimacy.’
‘Oh, really?’ Kharon smiled. ‘I’ve seen lots of kissing couples in streets. They didn’t look antisocial.’
He fixed his lips in hers again, strongly embracing her body.
‘Excuse me!’ an unwanted waiter appeared from nowhere and broke the passion kiss. There was another man near him. ‘Should I bring the bill, or you would like anything else?’
Kharon was staring at Victoria’s lips, in her turn she was staring the waiter, trying to recognize him as a saviour or a cuckoo in the nest.
‘May I have a coffee with a syrup… any one? Cappuccino.’ She said, holding firmly the demon’s hand. ‘Are they auditing?’ Vic asked herself, watching the waiter and the man walking away.
‘What auditing?’ Kharon asked understanding nothing.
‘You know, people sometimes come to check how other people work. Do you see our waiter being followed by a man? He looks like he’s not satisfied with the waiter’s work already.’
‘Why? It’s possible…’ Kharon said aloofly, looking at the lone figure of the waiter. ‘Auditing…’
‘There’re lots of people here…and you wanna kiss!’ Victoria smiled, pressing herself to Kharon who was deep in his thoughts.
In five minutes, the waiter came back with the same man nearby, put the coffee and left.
‘He doesn’t even look how the waiter is working!’ the girl surprised. ‘He was looking into my eyes! Have you seen that? How can he see the people’s work in proper perspective?’
Victoria was indignant at the auditor’s behaviour and Kharon was getting gloomier with her every word that she said.
‘Whom are you speaking about?’ he asked, having deflected his attention away from his thoughts.
‘About that guy!’ Vic showed at the empty space near the waiter.
Kharon shifted his gaze at Victoria, then back at the empty place and suddenly he started getting what was going on and his gloomy thought was being confirmed.
‘Ah, okay…’ he pretended, ‘I see. Let’s go for a walk.’
Vic smiled, having said that first of all she’d like to finish her coffee. All that time Kharon was on pins and needles, being afraid of that Victoria would notice that she was the only one who could see the “auditor”.
Fortunately, everything went smoothly until the girl went outside.
They were walking, holding hands, suddenly a couple appeared before them: a guy and a girl.
The young man was sad, hiding his hands in his pockets, looking at the road under his feet. The girl had glassy eyes and walked right into Victoria.
‘Damn!’ Vic jumped away trying to dodge away and bumped into another man.
‘What?’ Kharon caught the girl into his arms.
‘Have you seen?’ Vic exclaimed offensively. ‘She was gonna bump right into me! If I’d not got away, she’d have been hit me… Nothing new is in this city…’
Kharon frowned, shot a look at guy, who was lonely walking away. The demon didn’t know what to do that’s why he just kissed the girl and, embracing her, kept on going.
‘Are all people so heedless?’ he tried to shunt the conversation on another topic.
‘Mostly yes, they are.’ Victoria calmed down. ‘Where are you gonna live? Have you decided?’
‘Yes, I’ve found a flat in the centre of the city. It’s not far from Teatralnaya. Is there such station?’
‘Right, there is! Teatralnaya?’ Vic surprised. ‘It’d cost too much…’
The demon looked at her with a blank stare. She explained him that to live in the centre of Moscow was a very costly affair and often beyond means. After that Victoria understood that Kharon had nothing in common with people but only his appearance.
Nevertheless, his appearance was like an angel’s face. The girl had never ever seen such beauty…unnatural.
‘Forget about it!’ she smiled, pressing herself to him.
He was so hot, and his warmth was streaming through the young veins like hot chocolate; his hands were so strong that Victoria wanted those two years to be eternal. She was a naïve stupid girl not a complete idiot. She didn’t believe in in fairy tales.
‘Tell me what you felt for Daniel?’ Kharon wandered suddenly. ‘Did you love him?’
‘Why are you asking?’
‘Your relationship lasted not so long…You broke up with him because of that hot blonde, didn’t you?’
‘I still don’t get why you’re asking about it. Well if you’re so interested… I loved him. I loved him too much when we started dating. He was older than I, a presentable young man with hopeful perspective. What else did I need? Then I got that I needed long and eternal love. My love was killed by him. He was a man of a strong character and his disadvantages were opened one by one. Then you appeared and I… Jesus, I lost my mind. His hot blonde became a perfect reason to break up with no true explanation.’
‘Do you think you love me?’ the man stopped and stared into her eyes. ‘Tell me the truth, Victoria. What do you feel for me?’
‘What I feel for you is stronger than that I felt about Daniel. I want to live with you, live your life, I want you to be always near you, feel your hotness, strong hands, I want to be able to look in your eyes, where another universe is shining… I am lost in my own feelings.’
‘Do people call it love?’
‘No, I call it love. Love can’t be the same for different people.’
‘Yeah?’ Kharon pondered. ‘It’s strange, at least, women, whom I spent their nights, had the same end.’
‘You confuse love and passion.’ Victoria smiled.
‘Oh, dear, I think it’s you who confuse them, that’s why you have Lucifer’s mark on your shoulder.’
‘So that’s what you think…’ Vic looked in his eyes.
‘I’ve just supposed you to confuse them. What if it was thoughtless action?’
‘I have nothing to feel sorry about.’
Kharon went behind her. He watched her back, curvy red hair, T-shirt tight-fitting her waist, scent… That was not the same scent which France gave to the whole world. It was her natural scent which could be smelled by only the incubus, walking behind. There was something about that girl. Lucifer called her Sunshine for some reason. Victoria really radiated light associations. You would want to look at her and smile. That was what Kharon did.
The only one bad thing was that Kharon didn’t compassion. Every woman made a declaration of love for him, after having had sex with him. All of them suffered. The demon got used to his admirers. The only thing about Victoria made him be surprised: she didn’t make love with him, she just foolishly fell in love with him…. He was afraid of thinking about what would happen when the first most impetuous sex happened.
It was about midnight. Victoria was in her room, Kharon was in front of her. They both kept silence. The girl was just gazing at him and couldn’t take her eyes off him. Kharon didn’t know how to act. He was a first-class love maker. None of other incubus could be compared with his skills. But Kharon wasn’t able just to communicate.
‘Have you ever loved?’ Vic asked.
‘What?’ he asked in surprise.
‘Nothing. Nothing.’ Victoria smiled. ‘You know, thanks to this day I’ve spent with you, that kind part of day and the evening, I got that you’re not so scary. I’m not afraid of you anymore.’
‘Victoria…’ Kharon bowed his head. ‘I’m a demonic essence. There are no any definitions of some virtues in me. I’m, of course, never notable for cruelty as some of my compatriots, but not to be afraid of a demon is thoughtlessly. On no account I call you to be afraid, but there’s a due apprehension. I wonder why I’m telling this to you…’
Kharon smiled and sat near the girl. She got nervous immediately, getting her cheeks red, trifled hair tips.
‘I don’t understand your confusion, dear.’ Kharon took her hand. ‘Why is it? What are you feeling now?’
‘Desire…’ Victoria gave a deep sigh.
‘Desire?’ Kharon smiled, touching her shoulder with his lips. ‘Why are you resisting it? Why are you repulsing my endearment?’
‘You can’t make human relationship in such way.’ Victoria ran her hands over his cheek.
‘So, you chose a demon to make a human relationship?’ the man was surprised, undoing his upper button.
Victoria seemed to herself to be about to faint because of indescribable pictures.
‘No…Love did, not me. I’ve been still praying for God’s mercy, but it seems to be senselessly.’