His smile glowed. “She is. Absolutely wonderful.” He gently flapped his wings a couple times before letting them settle. “I befriended the Damall through Yosepha. She’d run into Romakus several years ago, and he hinted that the council has been ignoring some strange things happening in Hell. Remnants escaping and wandering the Hellscape. Hellbeasts active outside twilight. Strange weather.”
“You mean the sky isn’t always on fire?”
He laughed. God damn, it was such a perfect laugh, too.
“It is, but fire tornadoes ripping apart entire sections of provinces, those are new.”
“Yeesh.”
“The longer we spoke with the Damall, the more we realized they were correct. We brought up the issues with the council, and they ignored us. Then the unmarked started appearing. So…” He gestured around them at the cave. “Here I am.” Nodding, he brought a giant wing in front of him and stroked his feathers, straightening them with the same casualness Mia sometimes combed her hair.
“And, being gabriem? What’s that like? Yosepha told me a bit, but only a bit.” A white lie. Yosepha had shared some pretty tasty details.
“Angels and demons are born with innate desires, the same as creatures on the surface. Angels desire nothing more than to protect and serve the worthy souls of Heaven, and for us gabriem, that includes treating wounds and providing pleasure.”
“That’s what she told me, yeah.”
“Imagine myself, sitting on a beach of glistening sand of gold and silver, while a woman sits next to me. Her life was cruel. Men and women took advantage of her, sometimes physically. Her husband abandoned her. Her children died of polio. She died of old age, alone in a hospital bed.”
Mia shrank in on herself with every word. It wasn’t just the description, but his inflections and tone, each note of his voice hammering home the reality of what he described. It was something he’d experienced.
“Heaven gave her a new, youthful body, a prime body, but Heaven’s waters could do little to soothe the damage to her soul. Only by speaking of her pain could she find peace.”
“That’s… so painful. Did she meet her children again?”
“No. They were young, and the young do not stay in Heaven long, seeking rebirth earlier than most. She died many decades after them.” Somehow, despite how horrible the story was, Galon continued to smile. “She and I spent many months on that beach, speaking. And when she rediscovered a spark for joy, she asked to be treated physically. We spent many more months on that beach, enjoying each other’s bodies.”
“Oh my.”
“She found a zest for life–well, the afterlife. Soon she’d found other men and women to enjoy her newfound sexuality with, and last I spoke with her, she still enjoyed orgies with a half dozen other souls, others who’d died of old age.”
“That… sounds awesome! I always figured old people would fuck like rabbits if they ever got new bodies.”
“They do..”
This was fun. Much as Mia liked Yosepha a lot, the girl was clearly a hardass. Galon was a smooth guy, someone who liked talking, liked being listened to, but also liked listening.
Mia inched a little closer.
“What sorta… sexy things have you done, in Heaven. Like, the noteworthy stuff.”
His smile turned playful, and he switched which wings he pruned.
“Yosepha did have time to warn me you are one of the most sexually obsessed souls she has ever met, by the way.”
Mia blushed, head to toe.
“That’s… I mean…” Groaning, she gestured to herself. “Look what my rune dressed me in!” Look, he did, and she blushed more. “I have a large, healthy sex drive. Apparently my potram knows that, too.”
“So Yulia tells me. Though she also tells me you’ve been hesitant to join the demons in their usual sexual antics.”
“I mean, I don’t really wanna just fuck anyone and everyone. I want romance!”
“Ah.” He nodded, adopting a super serious expression that was clearly an exaggeration. “You might find that difficult to find, here in Hell. Demons are very much a ‘I could die any time, enjoy the now’ sort of species.”
“So I’ve noticed.”
“Yulia also tells me you and Vinicius also have a strange relationship. And at least on one occasion, a sexual one.”
Mental note: kill Yulia later.
“I uh, I mean Zel forced me to… pleasure him.”
A short, quiet moment was long enough for Galon to internalize her words, come to a conclusion, and continue. He really was good at talking to people, in a way that almost made him dangerous.
“And since then?”
“Just once!”
He nodded, smile warm, and… unjudging. “I’m glad your first sexual encounter with him didn’t leave a scar on you, then.”
“It wasn’t like that. It was…” Sighing, she scooted a little closer. “But it doesn’t matter. Whatever weird quirk about my body that’s making me a walking, talking sex drug for everyone nearby, I have it under control.”
“I can literally feel your aura right now, Mia.”
“Yeah but it’s tiny! I’m muting the strings.”
“Strings?”
“It’s… a long story. Don’t worry about it.”
“Well, either way, I understand what you’re saying, but you might want to reconsider.”
She gasped, exaggerating too. “You… don’t think I should look for romance?”
“Ha. I think you should, just understand that demons don’t fuck because of it.”
“I gathered that much.”
It was his turn to sigh, and he held out his closer wing against the wall. Without even thinking about it, she scooted in closer again so he could put it around her shoulders. Why was she giving into him so easily? She felt like some young girl, falling in love with her therapist because she didn’t know any fucking better, didn’t know herself, didn’t have any confidence, and was throwing herself at the first person who listened and talked to her like she was an adult.