One #2
“So you want ravishment, not violation. Fearplay without harm.” He produced a parchment from the inside of his suit jacket. “This makes it possible. A contract that safeguards your limits. This gives you exactly what you crave while also offering you safety and control.”
She stared at the words, the ink somehow still wet and unsmeared. She hadn’t seen him write anything.
When did he draft this? The words swam before her eyes. Professional. Precise. Rules that were defined and clear.
The parchment radiated warmth as if it were alive, pulsing like a beating heart.
Celia read the terms with the same careful attention she gave ancient texts in the university archives.
Each clause spelled out precisely what would happen, what wouldn’t, and the boundaries that would remain sacred even in surrender.
This is madness. You’re going to sign a contract with... with what? A stranger? A demon? A hallucination?
Her academic mind cataloged all the reasons to run. Her body remembered all the years of denial.
“What exactly would I be agreeing to?” Her voice sounded strange to her own ears, husky and wanting.
Asmodeus traced one slender finger along the edge of the contract, not touching her but close enough that she felt the heat of him.
“The contract ensures no harm can come to you beyond that which you desire, and that I cannot keep you beyond our agreed timeframe.” His smile was a crescent moon on a cloudless night.
“If you sign this contract, you agree to be hunted, palomita. To feel the exquisite terror of prey. And I ensure you will be caught and taken by the thing you secretly desire... all while respecting whatever boundaries you set.”
The thing you secretly desire. “What I want to chase me,” she said, “you can’t give me. It isn’t real. It’s just—”
“A myth?” he asked. His luscious lips drank another slow sip of his blood-red wine while he stared at her. She felt as if his golden eyes were drinking her in with every moment. “I make myths real.”
Celia’s academic mind screamed warnings about deals with devils, while the carnal darkness she kept locked in a cage within herself rattled its bars.
It’s just a consent form. This is like signing a waiver before skydiving.
But she knew that whatever this was, it felt a hell of a lot riskier than skydiving.
Asmodeus’s voice reached into her heart and tugged as he said, “You will receive exactly what you have denied yourself, pequena profesora. The chase. The capture. The sweet surrender that your mind craves but your pride rejects.”
“And what will you receive?” The professor in her surfaced, analytical even now.
His laugh wrapped around her like silk sheets.
“I feed on desire, palomita. On the moment when shame dissolves into honesty. On the pleasure that follows truth. And,” he pointed to the bottom of the contract with a slender finger, “that is my final payment, which you will render upon fulfillment of your fantasy.”
She read the line he pointed to, her brow furrowing. What in the hell? “I don’t understand. You want a memory of mine?”
“Si. A trifle thing. And I would not be taking it away from you, palomita. I would simply make a copy of it for myself.”
Celia’s throat tightened. She’d spent her entire adult life building walls between her mind and body; between her public self and private hungers.
It had taken years to curate the careful, precise professor who analyzed desire and sexuality in Gothic art, but who never admitted to experiencing it herself.
For some reason, she thought of her apartment: meticulously organized books, color-coded closet, a life built around control and predictability.
She thought of all the nights alone with her erotic novels, her fingers between her thighs, imagining what it would feel like to be pursued, overwhelmed, taken.
“You already know what you want,” Asmodeus said, his honeyed voice sending warmth to her core. “The only question is whether you will finally allow yourself to have it.”
What would your colleagues think? What would your students say if they knew?
But here, in this place where candlelight kissed skin and secrets hung in the air like perfume, those questions felt hollow. No one here knew Dr. Campbell, the shy and silent professor nearing her forties. No one here cared about her publications or her professional reputation.
Her fingers trembled on the parchment. “I’m afraid.”
“Of course you are, palomita.” His voice softened. “Fear and desire live in the same house. They share the same bed.”
“Let’s say I do sign it, but then I change my mind?” The question tumbled out before she could stop it.
“That is what this is for.” His finger traced her wrist, drawing lines of crimson fire across her skin. Where he touched, a rune appeared. It was luminous and warm. “Your emergency rune. Simply wish for it to activate, and you’ll return here instantly. No matter how deep in the fantasy you fall.”
The mark pulsed once, then settled into her skin as if it had always been there.
Do it, coward. We came here for this.
An ornate pen appeared in Asmodeus’s hand, the nib gleaming gold. He offered it to her like a gift or a challenge.
“Your signature gives permission only to yourself, Celia. To be the woman who lives behind your eyes when you are alone in the dark.”
She took the pen. Its weight felt right, felt inevitable.
“Chase me,” she whispered, and signed her name.