(About two weeks later.)

Once again, Jenni finds herself in a dark wood. This time, she’s naked and prone on the leaf-littered forest floor. She feels insect life against her skin and that she’s not repulsed lets her know she’s dreaming once again. When something with too many legs makes its way across her body, she realizes she’s just part of nature, so nothing to fear. Thick roots cage her and they are warm and living, making her part of the old-growth tree as if she’s being absorbed like a second soul. She senses something large and mammalian close by, but nothing could get at her in this protection; the earth has pushed her down hard and pulled her close with its tentacles.

Her brain has that itchy feeling like there must be something she’s forgetting as pieces of the dream world fall out and the waking one comes into focus. Oh. That’s her men. Her husband and his have her trapped in heavy, sleeping limbs that only tighten when she stirs. It’s bliss.

She remembers what it is: Her baby. She could stay like this forever, but the poor little one might need something. She tries to get free and Freddy mutters in Dutch, as he does. He holds her tighter, tangles his leg in a way that’s trickier to escape.

“Mark? You awake?” she asks, hoping.

Her husband responds in his new sleep-talk that started to happen since the Goddess took him for her own. Freddy the polyglot thinks it could be Summerian.

Mark had been sent home from work for a rest after falling off a ladder, then saying a bunch of nonsense that indicated a concussion. The art museum didn’t want a lawsuit, paperwork was filed. “Go take some time,” was how they’d left it.

It seems Inanna doesn’t need Freddy’s land to appear now that she’s chosen Mark. A few days after Halloween she appeared to him when he was fixing a high window that was leaking rain into one of the galleries. A woman standing at her full height of fifteen feet right next to him had startled him enough to lose his balance. He fell back without injury but wasn’t making sense after his landing that was softer than anyone knew. Jenni is not sure if that means he’s in danger or the opposite.

She did pray to the only one she knows who can help her. “Leitayin, please, if you are listening, if you are in me, even, help him. Please… if you ever loved being inside me, help him. I’m scared. I’ll do anything…”

* * * * *

Her entreaty just near broke my heart. Demons do have hearts. I’ve been doing my best to guide her dreams… but Inanna’s wants are hers alone. I have no sway there.

Let the boys sleep. There is one thing I’ve been wanting to do, and I can do this, at least. “Hello, baby… I’m one of your fathers… oh, that’s right. See, I know things…”

I carry him to his changing table and diaper him. I’ve been alive for thousands of years, so I know how to do this. It’s easier than with one of ours: No tail to work around. Besides, we need a moment together and this is it. I take off the used diaper and clean him up with the baby wipes (humans have really come a long way!), then I go to put the “Butt Paste” on him and decide I can do better. I spit on his little bum and rub it in to protect his delicate skin. He smiles, for the first time, and it’s up at me.

Just as I wipe a tear because his human mother might never get to see that, she’s beside me, seeing me in my real form. She strokes my hirsute body like she knows me well as we peer down at her son.

“He can smile. Why is he mute?”

“Perhaps he’s guarding a secret,” I say.

“Huh. Perhaps.” Lucien does seem like one of those babies who was born knowing things from the other side that he hasn’t forgotten yet. “He looks so happy for the first time.”

“Oh, he is, but not for the first time. Your Daddy is going to be happy, too.”

“What do you mean?”

I can smell that she’s bleeding for the first time since her pregnancy. “He’s been hungry for this. Now he gets his treat.”

“Really. How do you…” she starts to ask, then realizes it’s a silly question for me. Though I don’t know his mind as intimately as hers, the sexual desires of a man like Mark broadcast loudly to my kind. “I knew he didn’t mind it, but I didn’t know it was a thing for him.”

“It might not have been. He’s changing, because of Her, in part. Why don’t you go find out? I’ll watch the baby.”

The mother understandably looks concerned as I lift him up, taking care with my claws. Lu still smiles and paws at my face. “You are so cute I could just eat you!”

“Jerk,” she says to me. She can tell I was making a bad joke. We don’t eat children.

“But speaking of which, do you think he’s hungry?” I ask.

“I’m sure he is. He’s always hungry when he wakes up.”

“I can do it, ” I tell her when she goes to the kitchen to make up his bottle. “I mean, I’ve seen you do it before.”

“Oh. I guess you have. Well, okay,” she says, still hesitant. “You really want to babysit?”

“We should spend some time together. I’m kind of his godfather, you realize. We’ll be just fine, won’t we, Lucien?”

She izmir escort must believe me because she does leave us to it. She fetches a black towel, which she folds in half and smoothes down before climbing into their luxurious bedclothes.

As I suspected, Mark’s marvelous eyes light up at the sight of the black towel. He rolls onto her and pins her, then disappears beneath the covers.

My sharp hearing picks up her soft voice: “Where are you going, Daddy?”

“Down!” he announces, muffled.

* * * * *

Freddy awakens to the sounds of Jenni’s continuous moans that grow gradually louder like a Zen alarm clock. When she pushes down the duvet, he can see the top of his husband’s bedhead as his face is buried deep between the girl’s thighs.

He is almost repulsed and seduced when Mark comes up for air. Those straight, finely formed lips are now painted ruby red. There is gore in his slight beard. It shines in his dark hair. The color contrast does bring out the blue of his eyes appealingly.

Freddy is shocked, but only momentarily. Though he’s the nature-loving witch in their relationship, he’s known for a while that Mark is the wilder of the two. He often reminds him of an animal, but never quite like this. He must be under Inanna’s influence. It makes sense that a goddess of fertility and war might encourage her devotee to cunnilinguate a bleeding girl.

Jenni groans and clutches at the scar from where Lu had entered the world. It’s unclear if that’s an approaching orgasm or a bad cramp. Mark slides his fingers inside to caress her gory cunny and when she cries out, Freddy can almost vicariously feel her open inside and give herself to him anew. This too makes sense. Mark was changing all the time, rapidly lately, so his subs had reason to rededicate themselves to their Dom as he grew.

She sobs through an intense release of pleasure and a gout of blood. Mark rumbles happily and withdraws his fingers to pull out a large glob of what looks like black jelly. To his husband’s horror, he slurps it from his fingertips, rolls it on his tongue, and swallows before returning his face to the source as if hungry for more.

Freddy’s stomach lurches and he wonders how it is that Mark can consume human blood without making himself ill. This, too, had to be something the Goddess has done to her chosen boy. Again, Freddy is fine with not being her favorite. He gets up to see about some breakfast to settle his queasy stomach. Maybe some toast, minus the strawberry preserves today. “I’ll check on the baby,” he offers. Mark grunts distractedly.

* * * * *

Mark finishes and crawls up be face to face with his satiated mate. She smiles up at him, then turns her head away, holding her breath. The oenomel of period blood and last night’s unwashed sex is a little disgusting, even for her, not the most hygienic of people. Her Dom looks genuinely surprised she won’t revel in it with him.

“Fine, I’ll go wash,” he drawls, but not before stealing a quick kiss.

“Daddy!” she squeals and he chuckles.

Mark pads off to the loft’s one sink in the kitchen. He’s aroused and eager to get back to bed with his wife, so doesn’t want a full bath. It’s there he finds his husband, also naked, standing there eating a bowl of Cheerios. He’s not alone.

Mark looks Leitayin up and down, horns to cloven feet. It’s perhaps rude, but understandable. So far, no one has screamed, so the demon considers that a positive reaction. “Freddy,” Mark asks in a low, measured tone, “are you seein’ this, too?”

“Yes, Sir. You aren’t hallucinating.”

“Well, that’s good. Oh, my god, Lu’s smiling!”

“Yes, he’s happy with his godfather,” Freddy agrees.

Mark isn’t sure quite what to say to Leitayin. He’s not hideous, but humanoid much more than human. His large yellow eyes have the rectangular pupils of a goat and are hypnotic. His face is long and hircine, too, with a well-groomed brown beard. He raises a clawed hand in greeting. The tail seems to have a life of its own, making graceful patterns in the air until it finds its way up for Lucien to grab. The baby pops the pointy tip in his mouth.

Mark needs a moment to take this in. He rubs his eyes with the heels of his bloody hands, then washes his face in the utility sink.

“I think you missed a spot,” Leitayin says when he’s finished. That voice is familiar even when he’s not using his wife’s vocal cords.

“Why… why are ya here? Not to be unwelcoming, but I didn’t think you could arrive like this,” Mark says.

“Jenni invited me. I thought I’d better come to check on things. And I want my little friend here to know me. Also, I do have a standing promise to Bastiaan to protect his little brother,” he says, smiling up at Mark’s giant boy. Freddy smirks.

“So, you’re like our guardian angel?” Mark asks.

Leitayin unfolds one featherless wing. “Something like that. Jenni worries your new Patroness plays too rough. There’s really nothing I can do about that, but I thought I’d answer the call anyway, so to speak.”

“Hmm. I still don’t adana escort understand what she wants from me,” Mark says. “I like how she makes me feel, though. I think I want to be for her what she wants me to become, whatever that is.”

Now it’s the demon’s turn to look him up and down with those bright, alien eyes. “I think I can understand her interest,” he flirts. Mark scoffs.

“Um, you want some coffee?” he asks the demon.

“I’d love some. It’s one of my favorite parts of visiting your world. That and the S E X,” he spells out because of the infant present.

Mark starts the coffee, letting his hard-on soften. First things first. Now he was entertaining the demonic branch of the family, it seems. He’d have to wait a little while to fuck his baby girl.

“Jenni!” he hollers. “You wanna c’mere? Don’t put nothin’ in though — you’re supposed to bleed natural,” he commands. It was one of his strange decrees his subs weren’t quite sure were his instructions from the deity or his own idiosyncrasy.

Jenni enters the kitchen area with the black towel wrapped around her waist, still topless. She looks elegant, almost. A few of her Dom’s bloody fingerprints remain on her pale torso.

“Look at us… all together. It’s like Thanksgiving’s come early,” she jokes.

“Well, we’re not all together,” Freddy sighs. “Not for a while.”

“Sorry, baby,” Mark says, knowing the holidays will be bittersweet for him with Angel still incarcerated.

“I’m going to see her today,” he states.

Mark’s eyes snap to the tall windows. Rain pelts down from a threatening gray sky. “Not if this don’t let up, you ain’t.”

“But she’s expecting me, Sir.”

“She’s not expecting ya to risk your life. Baby, you can’t drive out there in this. It’s too dangerous.”

“But she’ll be so sad if I don’t show up. She’s all alone in there. Please…”

Mark knows that tone and that expression on his face. It means he’s about to cry. As a dachryphiliac, there are times it gets him hot, but times like this, it breaks his heart.

“Okay. It’s early yet. Can ya wait and see if it lets up? For me, baby?”

“Yes, Sir.”

Mark pours the coffee and they all move to the living area to enjoy each other’s company and wait for the rainstorm to pass. They all hope it will because it seems Freddy’s going to disobey orders and go anyway. He’ll at least struggle more than with any other command. Either way, he’ll let somebody down and hate himself, which nobody wants to see.

Jenni sits at Mark’s feet with Freddy by his side. Leitayin sits across from him, still content to hold the baby, who looks unusually pleased by this, too. He pulls the long fur on the demon’s forearms and legs. His upper body is only sparsely hairy and looks like a young human male who spends hours at the gym. Leitayin lets the coffee cool before attempting to sip it while holding the active little fellow. The parents quietly appreciate this.

“I bet he’ll like this,” Leitayin says. He makes a circle with his thumb and index finger, then blows through it. A phosphorescent bubble appears and hangs in the air to the baby’s (and adults’) amazement. Lucien swipes at it, then it’s two before drifting back together. It’s certainly an impressive trick, but no more so than everything else about him and the fact he’s there in their home at all.

A thought occurs to Jenni. “Do we have cameras on?” They frequently do.

“Oh my,” Mark says. “This will lead to some interesting messages.”

“Sadly, or maybe luckily, I can’t be filmed. It will just look like you blurred my identity.”

“If you’re really here, why can’t the camera see you?” Mark asks.

“Well, how to put this… I’m really here. My presence is, my essential being is. However, you’re not seeing me with your eyes. I’m not in your world the way you are. This is more of an approximation of how I look, but Freddy was right, you’re not hallucinating. The image just doesn’t depend on light hitting my body.”

“Can I ask you something?” Jenni asks.

“Sure.”

“Your wings… does that mean you can fly?”

“No, we’ve never been able to fly, though the little ones can glide, which is a charming sight. That is, until the unhappy day they try it and land with a thud. We all remember that day. No, the wings serve a different purpose,” he says with a sly smile. He watches his human friends try to figure out what wings are for if not for flight.

“I can give you a hint: Why does a human company put wings on nearly naked women to sell bras?”

“Because it’s sexy,” Freddy answers. “It makes them more desirable.”

“We think that’s what they’re for. There are some designs in nature that only exist to be beautiful. Of course, that leads to more mating, which helps the species.”

Freddy gazes out at the sheets of rain with a sigh. “I’m aware of this. So if demons are real, and they are, obviously, what about angels?”

“Only yours,” Leitayin replies to the smitten man. “There are good demons and bad, but no white wings and harps and haloes. When one of adıyaman escort us does good, people call us an angel, but we’re all just regular demons.”

“Sorry,” Mark says sheepishly. “I didn’t know.”

“It’s not an offensive term, just a fictitious concept. It does make a pretty name. This one’s a little angel, aren’t you, Lucien?” The baby gazes up with his new little smile. His eyes are growing sleepy again. His belly’s full and he’s content in strong demonic arms. Jenni cuddles against Mark’s bare leg at the sight of it. He rests his hand heavily on her head the way she likes.

“You’ll be able to have more soon, if you want to,” Leitayin continues.

“More babies?” Jenni asks.

“Yes. Give it thirteen days. You’ll be pregnant by the solstice.”

“If Daddy wants that, I do. We were thinking Freddy could be the father this time, if he still wants that.”

Freddy’s gone to get dressed. They can all feel his restlessness to get on the treacherous road. He can be stubborn when he sets his mind to something, but that’s part of what makes him skillful at many things.

“I think he has to ask his woman about that,” Mark says without judgment. “It’s true he’s mine to own, but I couldn’t love him like I do if he didn’t care about other people’s feelings.”

His boy returns wearing a green cashmere sweater that’s Mark’s favorite on him because of the way it sets off his unique eye and hair colors. His hair is neatly combed but he’s left the stubble on his chin. Either he’s in a rush to get going or Angel prefers it. He does look like the boyfriend any woman would be happy to see show up to visit her behind bars.

He looks nervous to have this confrontation with his husband. “It looks a little better out,” he says in a forced light tone. Mark just stares at him in disbelief. There had been no perceptible change in the weather.

Mark stands up and goes to him. “How is your car in the rain?”

“It’s fine. I have new tires for winter, Sir.”

Mark sighs and grips his shoulders. “If anything happened to ya I would NOT be okay, understand?”

“I know. Nothing will happen. I’ll be back by dinner time, Sir.”

“What if I go with him?” Leitayin offers.

“Uh, can you prevent car accidents?” Mark asks.

“I have a certain amount of influence. There are things I can do in emergencies. He’ll be appropriately careful, I’m sure.”

“It ain’t him not bein’ careful I’m worried about. Yeah, I don’t know why, but it makes me feel better you’ll be with him. Okay. Thanks.”

Leitayin hands Lu to Mark and the intrepid travelers depart. “Um, Leitayin?” Jenni calls when they’re at the door.

“Yes, little one?”

“Should you maybe put on pants?”

He laughs. “If anyone does see me, my private parts are the last thing they’ll notice.”

They depart. Mark lays Lu down for his first nap.

Jenni goes to him to hold him close. “Are you all right, Daddy?”

“I have a good feeling about him comin’ home safe. Still, I need ya to distract me. When my mind’s troubled you’re always what I need, girl.”

“What can I do?” she breathes.

“Get back in bed right now.”

* * * * *

The demon and Freddy make it to the car unnoticed. “Even if anyone was out in this, they’d think I was in a costume. The sight of me isn’t proof of the Otherworld.”

It’s a little more than a costume with all its living, moving parts, but Freddy trusts his experience. It seems he’s moved through their world before without a human disguise.

They make their way carefully through the city to the highway. The rain falls so heavily it seems to travel in reverse when it hits the standing water on the asphalt. They begin to pass accidents that don’t look too serious, just enough to make the passing drivers extra-cautious. The flow of traffic is too slow for anyone to get hurt. Freddy finds it excessively so and huffs in frustration.

“This is good. People are driving safely,” Leitayin says in a calming tone.

“I know. It’s just visiting hours… I can’t let her think I’d stand her up. I see her every Saturday.”

“I’m sure she must look forward to that all week.”

“She does. I don’t mean to sound conceited, but she told me she does. That must sound ridiculous to you.”

“Why?”

“What is one week to a demon?”

“Nothing. But I do understand what a long time is. It’s all relative.”

“Oh dear. And what do we do about this?”

They’re approaching a roadblock, but the cops aren’t stopping people, just ensuring they keep going slowly. “There is no law against having a weird-looking passenger, you know,” Leitayin quips. “May I or do you need to concentrate?” he asks about the radio.

“Go ahead.” It’s set to the classical station as always and Leitayin leaves it. “This is the music most similar to my world’s. Not metal,” he says. His companionship is keeping Freddy’s anxiety at bay.

They arrive at the prison. “I’ll wait for you here. Take your time.”

Freddy runs through the downpour. At first, he’s panicked because there is no line to get through security. At his look of confusion, the guard tells him that the buses many people take got canceled and other people just stayed home due to the weather, but that he didn’t miss visiting hours. “You must really like someone in here,” he says.