Re: Second Class; Theater smoking room
The devil stared back into that straight gaze and did not wilt, only looked, fascinated, and looked a little more. He wanted to understand the celluloid man, to get to know him. His shoulders, light from lack of fear, could bear the weight of knowing someone, and given the opportunity he grasped desperately through the sudden opening, like light shining on a man in an airless prison. "Sinful things," he said. "Things people know they shouldn't do." Sin didn't concern him much, never had done, but he thought about it every once in a while, contrary to what people might think. "Things their God has told them not to do. Or not told them," he added, with a dash of humor, a first for the conversation, peeling his attention from that vulnerable need for just a half second. "God doesn't talk much to people, unless they're crazy."
At the soothing touch of grayscale hand to his shoulder, the devil looked down. His white skin was warm to the touch, and it warmed a little more when he took another drag from his cigarette. Smoke filtered slowly out from behind sharp teeth and wreathed his head, across his open eyes and past, but he didn't flinch, nor did his eyes water or narrow. "Nothing?" asked the devil, his voice confessional quiet and absolving, and then a pulse went through the horns on his head and into the hand of the film star. It was a pulse of the sin he was made of. He couldn't resist the urge to do it. What had he been made for, after all, if not this? The pulse was warm, tingling, licking with pleasure of the moment and promising pleasure to come as tactile as the skin under the film star's fingers. Whatever it was, whatever bad habits the film star professed not to have, there they would be, tempting as fruit hanging just out of reach. Sweeter than honey from the rock, stronger than man-rejoicing wine -
Unless the nature of celluloid was too static to be really touched, in which case, the devil would be thankful later. Come and see. In the moment, it simply felt really fucking good. Pressure he hadn't even noticed was there was released, and he felt perfectly content and perfectly right, acting as what he was, avatar of temptation and destruction, wide-eyed, unknowing, disastrous. Come buy, come buy.