Chapter 2
Michael
When we arrived at the party, the festivities were in full swing. We caught the end of Hellion’s rousing speech about having fun and giving the bachelor couple hell and after that the crowd immediately dispersed into small groups of old friends catching up or new friends being made, everybody finding their little corner of the club. We did our rounds too, chit-chatting about nothing. It was so nice and boring, so perfectly normal, I was lulled into a false sense of security.
“Don’t think that I have forgotten about your punishment,” Lucifer leaned down to whisper into my ear.
Who was I kidding? Of course, he wouldn’t forget.
“I don’t know what you mean,” I tried to play dumb.
I did know what he meant. After all, I had already agreed to the punishment, whatever it may be. Lucifer just grinned at me like a shark, and as much as I loved that expression, it was pretty terrifying to have it aimed at me.
“It seems I have to remind you, then. Very well, I wanted to do this later… but you have forced my hand. Come,” he said.
I followed after him like a scolded puppy as he brought us into one of the more secluded corners. My heart beat quickly at the thought of all the delicious punishments he could bestow upon my trembling body. In such a well-equipped place as the Steel Velvet there were many possible choices. What was it going to be? A whip? A blindfold? Maybe some ice cubes? He could torment me in so many ways.
Lucifer pulled out a pack of colorful markers.
I blinked at him in astonishment.
“What’s this? Are you going to make me write lines like a misbehaving child?” I asked carefully.
“That’s not a bad idea. But no, I have something else in mind. You see, I don’t want you to repeat your mistakes. This lesson is going to stick or help me God. As such, I have decided to forgo the usual corporal punishment because you would enjoy it too much. Instead, I will give you a dose of public humiliation.”
“Public humiliation? Hell no, hold on. Lucifer, I am an Archangel, an important figure. You can’t publicly humiliate me—”
“Yes, I can.”
The words left me speechless in my frustration. I just stood there for a moment, gesticulating feebly at Lucifer, while he kept his stone cold calm, waiting me out. Waiting for me to just roll over and accept his plan.
“You don’t even know how exactly I want to punish you, and yet you are already trying hard to escape your due. This only proves that I have chosen wisely, and this punishment will fulfill its role. Maybe next time you will have enough self perseverance not to spend three days straight at your office doing work any of your minions could do.”
I winced, hearing the fury hiding under his calm voice. Well, maybe staying in the office for half a week straight wasn’t the best choice I had ever made, but I knew I would be able to finish the paperwork quicker than any of my so-called ‘minions’. I just kinda got into the zone and forgot to sleep or eat… or message Lucifer.
“I won’t do it again?” Was my feeble try at salvaging the situation.
“After I’m done with you… no, you won’t,” Lucifer said with a terrifying surety.
I’m so fucked, I thought, my shoulders slumping.
“What are the markers for?” I decided to be brave and rip the bandaid off.
“Well, I’m glad you asked,” Lucifer said cheerfully, uncapping one of the markers. A black one. Then he took my hand in his and started writing on it.
WORK ADDICT, the words on my skin said when he was done. I was too stunned to stop him before he finished. I didn’t want such a label on my skin!
“Lucifer!” I whined, making him laugh, the cruel bastard. “So, this is my punishment? Parading around with those words on display. What I did wrong visible to anyone? Are you going to regale everyone with the story as well?”
“Oh, certainly,” Lucifer responded, “Because they will all wonder what did you do for me to let them write on you.”
“I’m sorry. I must have misheard. Or do you really mean you will let others write things on me?!”
“That’s right, everyone here will get the chance to write anything they want on your skin. An insult, a grocery shopping list, whatever they want,” Lucifer explained.
I covered my face with my hands, already living in the world of future embarrassment.
“No wonder humans treat you as the epitome of evil,” I muttered, resigned to my fate.
I was so entangled with Lucifer, the only way to get out of this situation would involve chewing off my leg like some desperate wolf caught in a trap. It would be easier to just bear it.
“Alright,” I said, trying to psych myself up. “Let’s just get it over and done. It will be better that way.”
“I’m glad you have seen reason, darling. Come then.” Lucifer paused in his step. “Oh, no, wait, I forgot. There’s one more thing,” his tone oozed with fake nonchalance. I gulped. “How are people supposed to draw on you if they can’t see your skin? Strip.”
“Only the top of my clothes?” I bargained.
“Not enough surface area for them to write on. Strip. Everything.”
“Everything?” I asked quietly.
Lucifer tilted his head, looking as if he was indulging a pet.
“Alright then, I will be magnanimous. You can keep your underwear. That’s it. Now, strip.”
I stripped.
The beautiful coat, the white shirt with white sleeves, and the blue pants got folded and left on the table in the corner. I felt a little exposed, to be honest. It wasn’t as if I was prudish, but I didn’t make it a fashion statement to have my tits out like so many of the demons did. I preferred the armor of finery to the vulnerability of being naked in front of a crowd.
When we stepped back into the main area, it felt like all the eyes suddenly turned to me. It was Aurelius who was supposed to be the star here! Look at him! I pleaded silently.
“Wait, no. I take it back. Do not look at Aurelius,” I muttered to myself.
The young demon was coming to greet me.
“When I said everyone is expected to dress nicely, I didn’t expect to see you in underwear. But I suppose that brand you’re wearing is high-end enough,” Aurelius remarked with a smirk.
“He did come here in pretty clothes,” Lucifer said. “He’s just not allowed to wear them at the moment.”
“Oh, there’s a story there,” the demon rubbed his hands together.
“Michael overworked himself again, and he’s being punished,” Lucifer explained simply. “And the state of his dress is only the beginning of the punishment. Would you like to take part in reminding him to take care of himself?”
“And how do I do that?” the blonde squinted at us suspiciously.
Lucifer brandished a golden pen.
“Take this. And write whatever you want. On Michael.”
“Write whatever I want… can I draw something?” the blonde asked.
“No. I fear that if I allow you all to draw, many of you will be tempted to actually produce beautiful work. I don’t want Michael to end up with a masterpiece on his back. That would be a reward and not a punishment.”
“Fair enough,” Aurelius said, but his eyes sparkled mischievously. “I have an idea what to write.”
The blonde took the pen and fluttered about, trying to find a perfect spot for his writing. In the end, he chose my upper arm and created a circular design, written in a beautiful font. That was probably as close to art as he could get with text. I didn’t actually know what kind of language it was, but the universal power of an angel meant I could understand what was written.
One to rule them all? Was that some reference to my high status as an Archangel? That didn’t seem so bad. So why several people around me were in stitches and laughter spread around the room?
“That’s a good one,” Kreshadon cackled.
“What is it?” I asked.
“Three Rings for the Elven-kings under the sky…” Hellion started reciting some weird prose, making me frown even harder, as he didn’t explain anything.
“Will someone put him out of his misery?” Lucifer asked, even if it was obvious he was enjoying my obliviousness.
“It’s a reference to Lord of the Rings. There’s a powerful ring that’s used for evil, and it has this inscription written on the side of it. It’s pretty funny to have that line on an angel,” Hellion explained with a shrug.
“If I have been given the power to rule them all, then I command you to desist attempting to write on me,” I tried but judging by the laughter it did not work that way.
“There’s no escape, angel,” Beelzebub said as he stepped up and grabbed a red pen. He circled around me, enjoying playing with his food, making me tense and bristle. “Anything, you say?”
He stopped behind my back, and I was pretty sure he was locked in a staring contest with Lucifer, if my lover’s displeased expression was anything to go by.
As the pen touched my skin, I had to suppress a flinch. I knew how much of a dangerous creature Beelzebub was, so having him touching such a vulnerable part of myself was awful. He used big letters to spell a word on my back, but I was too distracted to puzzle out what it was from feeling alone.
Someone in the crowd whistled.
How bad was what Beelzebub wrote? Judging by the stares… pretty bad.
“What did he write?!” I had to ask.
I scanned the crowd for a person most likely to spill the beans, and my eyes landed on Tirael. But when I met his gaze and lifted my brow expectantly, the angel squeaked and hid behind Jaheel. The burly angel snorted.
“You will know when it’s time,” Jaheel drawled.
So the word on my back remained a mystery while others lined up to fill my skin with their own writing. Anael wrote an Egyptian proverb (‘A beautiful thing is never perfect’) and Jaheel a fragment of his favorite song titled Sleeping Sun. Serena, frustrated and not willing to offend me, penned in her beautiful calligraphy a generic word ‘angel’. Those were pretty tame, but others went to town with their chance to make me sweat.
Raphael pointedly wrote, ‘Rest is good’ on my arm. The text was positioned in such a way that I could read it from my perspective. Nathaniel stretched the definition of writing, so I ended up with a bunch of weird text emoticons, which he called kaomoji, on one of my legs. Kreshadon wrote COAL on my stomach and, when questioned, murmured something about hearing of an old tradition where Santa would bring coal instead of gifts to children who had been naughty. I resented the implication of being immature. Hellion wrote the word IDIOT, each of the letters sporting a different color. Zachariel went with number 42—at least that was a literary reference I knew; the answertolife,theuniverse, and everything. Abaddon made a careful rendition of the word ‘true’ on my palm and I quickly discovered when I turned my hand upside down the same word spelled ‘false’ now. A neat trick. In the end, Tirael remained the only person who didn’t have a go at me.
“Oh no, I can’t, how could I possibly…” Tirael muttered, but the others pounced on him and encouraged his participation with bizarre requests. Surprisingly, it was Hellion who put an end to the bullying.
“Leave him alone. We have other things to do. How about we raise the stakes? May I present to you the first game: Truth or Dare!”
My luck being what it was, Lucifer volunteered us. And while the Ascended Club participants besides Zachariel had decided to skip the game to catch up with each other, forming their own group, the others joined the free entertainment. Even Tirael took part, though I suspected Hellion used the leverage of having protected him from the bullying to draw him into the game. Kreshadon produced an empty bottle for us and we all took some of the myriad of decorative pillows strewn around to sit down on the floor in a loose circle.
Hellion gestured to the bachelor couple to start and Aurelius eagerly accepted the invitation, spinning the bottle until it landed on Lucifer.
“Truth or dare?”
“Truth.”
Aurelius clapped his hands. “Is it true you wrote multiple songs for Michael?”
“Oh,” Lucifer glared at Aurelius and then Abaddon, the likely source of the information. “Yes,” he said simply, leaving me with my mouth open. Why didn’t I know about that? If he wrote multiple songs for me then they were all mine. I wanted them! But the game progressed already to the next person, so I decided to give it a rest… for now. I promised myself to address the matter later.
The next victim turned out to be Hellion.
“Dare.”
“Act out the balcony scene from Romeo and Juliet with Zachariel.”
“And what if I don’t know it?” Hellion grumbled at Lucifer.
“I saw you at the theater, watching several plays, when Shakespeare was still alive and all the rage, don’t even try to pretend.”
Hellion blushed. From what I had noticed, the demon liked to project an image of being an uncouth hooligan, but in fact he seemed to have superb knowledge about culture, especially movies, music, and apparently theater as well.
Zachariel stood up and made his way up to the second open floor overlooking our position.
He leaned on the railing expectantly
“O Romeo, Romeo! Wherefore art thou Romeo?”
We watched as they performed the famous scene. It was entertaining. I could get behind dares like this. My hand squeezed Lucifer’s leg in a silent gesture of appreciation.
Hellion’s next target turned out to be Raphael, and he had to spill the beans about getting scared when he watched horror movies.
After that, it was Zachariel’s turn. He had to stand in a silly position and make animal noises for a minute while his boyfriend recorded him shamelessly. When Zachariel’s bottle pointed at me I was afraid he was going to take his frustration out on me, but he just asked which of the writings on my body I liked the best.
“The words of the song are interesting,” I said. “I have never listened to those particular lyrics, but the poetic phrases make me think I would like to.For my dreams I hold my lifeFor wishes I behold my nightThe truth at the end of timeLosing faith makes a crime…”
“I will send you a link to it later,” Jaheel said gruffly, but I could tell he was pleased.
Next turn, and it was Hellion at the end of the bottle once more. He chose truth as fearlessly as he chose the dare.
“What was the best pickup line you had ever used?”
Hellion lit up like a Christmas tree and told us all one of the worst pickup lines I have ever heard.
“Really?” Lucifer said doubtfully. “How in the world is ‘Are you a parking ticket? Cause you’ve got ‘fine’ written all over you’ your best pickup line?”
“It truly is the best,” Hellion said smugly. “Because it landed me this guy,” he proudly pointed at Zachariel.
“I never said I had the best taste,” Zachariel shrugged. “But yeah, I’m kinda fond of this line.”
The game continued with Tirael being Hellion’s victim. The angel couldn’t decide between choices of truth or dare. In the end, he choose a dare, probably afraid Hellion would use truth to publicly ask him about what he did to Zachariel.
“I dare you to write something on Michael’s leg.”
I groaned, while a few people around me cheered. So this was why Hellion saved Tirael and made him play the game. Well done, demon, well played. Tirael was still reluctant to mark me, but it didn’t seem like he had a choice now. He took a green pen and wrote on my side: ‘Note to myself: never play games with Hellion.’
Peals of laughter followed the surprisingly bold action and I thought… maybe my punishment wasn’t so bad after all.