"Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb." Who: Belial and Sonneillon, closed narrative. What: Celebrating Good Friday~ When: BACKDATED to Friday night Where: A whorehouse in Manhattan Warnings: Sex and violence, yay! :D
It had started, as many good ideas and terrible outcomes, with the Internet. A suggestion from Lilith had turned some shockingly rusty wheels in Sonja's head, which brought her to calling her demon king at ten o'clock on Thursday night.
A long silence had followed her suggestion. "Sonja, have I ever told you how competent and beautiful and evil you are?"
"Only if you tell me again tomorrow with blood on your face," the woman had smirked back.
The next day had found Sonny meeting Belial at the other demon's studio, dressed as a middle-class businessman, a few minutes after six. The dusk already smelled of sulfur and promises as they exchanged quiet smirks and walked, taking turn after turn into successively darker streets. Manhattan was an island torn asunder, worlds within worlds that never crossed paths in the legitimate light of day. Who among the swollen elite would admit to the existence of that downtrodden slum sharing land in their city of cities?
Reaching the brothel was something akin to seeing the distant lights of Disneyland: filth and worthlessness, resentment and exploitation seething within nondescript walls that the locals liked to pretend was just another building. It was rolling off the brick and plaster in waves, curling and saturating the air like invisible swathes of smoke. The demons didn't falter in their step, entering the building as if on official business, out of place and yet exactly at home.
They paid up front, two girls if you please, opening their slim leather briefcases to reveal a small sum of bills in rubber bands. Always cash, never checks. No need to complicate things.
"You get to pick your girl," said the woman at the desk, leading them into the lobby, motioning towards a few grimy sofas where the other customers were indulging in a little waiting foreplay. Several women were already draped over them, one moving her hips ever-so-slightly against a nondescript male lap, one trailing fingers over a jean-clad thigh, all of them with smiles that looked forced, even the men -- Sonny could tell they couldn't care less about this, only wanted to fuck and get out, get what they came for.
Most human men didn't mind paying for sex, didn't mind paying to put their dick into a professional so long as it was better than what their wives were willing to do. Didn't care about the repercussions. Whatever scum of the earth you are, setting foot into a brothel wipes your mind of the consequences -- always secondary to immediate pleasure -- the thought of sex and domination so distinct that it pushes the shame down into denial until it's packed hard as diamond.
He smiled delicately, extending a tendril of charm and wrapping it around the room, an invitation to the most aggressive woman there -- the younger the better. Belial remained standing, watching, preferring to prowl around the backs of the couches and seek his prey. Sonny's target came to him.
Hers was a rebellious smile, white teeth and perfectly coifed hair. The jealousy of the other girls flooded Sonny's system as she closed in on him, working up in his personal space, and he let himself take her in, let himself revel in the background noise of irritation while she basked in what she thought was victory. She'd got the young, handsome business executive. Not them. Tonight, she could ask for a higher price, and a fuck someone less soul-destroying than the groping old men who wanted to use and abuse someone.
Sonny indulged her. Belial watched them go, eyes flickering, basking in an atmosphere that ticked away like a bomb. Oh, he could feel the insignificance, ready to be exploited, ready to burst.
And what better way to induce a feeling of worthlessness than to screw your paying man into the mattress, sofa, hardwood floor and leave him feeling like he didn't deserve it in the first place? Brothels were for the weak-minded, weak-souled. Nothing to live for but sex and an ever-aching search for fulfillment and happiness, which neither party ever achieved, lost in birth control and punctured condoms and I have to get back before she realizes and did you see that fat bastard, I thought he was going to crush me and nobody ever, ever got what they really wanted.
Sex was animal; so were humans. Forgetting polite, fake society and fucking just to make a living was almost poetic.
She was the attractive side of homely, roots showing through the died cornsilk of her hair, as well-kept as her skin. It was obvious that she took care of herself to the best of her ability -- Hell, in this profession, you would do well to. She was curved, not toned, skin slightly loose, lips fire-engine red, clean, despite the rest of the place. Only minutes ago, Belial had leaned towards her in the lobby, pushed away her hair, smelled her neck, slightly scented with sweat and cheap knockoff perfume. Under the skin, A faint thrum of excitement; not often did one get attractive clients. He'd asked her age. She'd lied.
She had taken his hand with both of hers, led him down the grimy hallway with a light step and giggle crafted to make her seem younger than her thirty years. Some men liked that -- no shortage of young girls in this place, but Belial hadn't wanted one. He could sense her initial fear of doing this had worn off years ago, and now she was blunt, used to it. The fringes her mind were worn and deadened to the experience of survival and submission, so tired of it all, just barely living. So close to giving up, only going on because of some warped sense of self-preservation, some easy-to-break morals. A younger woman would have been harder to influence. No, this one would snap with a push and a kiss.
It would take less than that to break Sonny’s whore, a tender young thing whose childhood was something from a twisted Chick tract. In their filthy room, barely the size of a single-wide’s smallest bedroom, the girl who was barely seventeen turned dead eyes to the demon, running her hands up his sides mechanically.
“What do you like, honey?”
He gave her his hungriest stare, sparking with Hellfire and false scrubbed-raw emotion. “I just want to forget.”
There it was, her barely-swallowed sneer papered with a sympathetic look. Sonneillon drank in her judgement, her disdain for such a pathetic man doing such a pathetic thing, and what kind of stupid woman would divorce this guy anyway? When they were both naked the girl shivered, though she didn’t know why, as the temperature in the dirty room went up a few degrees. He was even kind enough to take his time with her, playing out some mechanical foreplay, fingers caressing her smooth skin the way a man might touch his wife.
Despite herself, the teenage whore sighed and actually started to enjoy it, hating herself all the more. It was disgusting, that she ever came like this- not that that happened more than once a day- disgusting and repulsive that she had ever come here, fuck, and this one hadn’t even asked for her name. He probably treated his wife like a whore too, didn’t he, no wonder someone so young and handsome had to pay to get pussy.
She may have thought her canned moans and practiced movements were making him hard, but it was raw loathing that he drank in, with every lick to her salty skin. Sonny fed off of it, the amount of resentment and exploitation saturating the walls and thickening the air, a coppery tang that teased of blood. The two demons were on a high today, on this Christian holiday that had every good follower murmuring about a dead man’s descent into Hell.
With a sigh that the girl took as pleasure Sonny extended himself, letting Hellfire ripple out invisibly, power curling into the air around them. Reaching seeking tendrils, until, yes! It found a like force, and sparked. Belial was upstairs, working his influence on every mind in the place, an answering push of something deeper, darker.
It was hardly the girls that mattered anymore; the whorehouse was thrumming with unseen energy, demonic, the thinnest top layer to a crust of previous sin. It vibrated like the skin of a drum, just the tiniest bit, mirrored in the hums of a woman's mouth around a cock, coaxing and teasing impending orgasm out into open air where it would be spun like thread into tangible, oppressive atmosphere. The hate and the despair condensed, heavy in the place, heavy in the quick movements of sex, in the placement of a hand or the tightening grip of the thighs. Every gesture was filled with them both, until, quite suddenly, they split, and hate and worthlessness flooded through every human there -- a man downstairs who detested this useless, pathetic little whore, who did she think she was to try and control his pleasure like that? No, she deserved to be on her knees, a backhand for good measure -- and when she sobbed, oh yes, with the pain of knowing her unimportance in the face of his fury -- she knew her place now, didn't she? Didn't deserve a second chance, deserved her throat fucked, deserved his hands around it, worthless bitch --
The woman on the second floor, sick and fucking tired of all these men taking advantage of her, this guy pounding into her like some toy to be fucked dry and left to rot on the side of the road. She was in control of her life, she decided what she wanted, and she didn't want this worthless bastard coming where he had no privilege being -- he'd earned those five deep scratches, furrowed into his sides as he howled and cried, because yes, he did deserve this, didn't he, for being such a horrible husband, for leaving his children just to sleep with a woman far braver than he, surviving in a world where he had no place living in.
In seconds, it turned vicious.
The combined influence of the two demons had pulled and pushed harshly at these men and women, dragged these already tainted souls into the dust until Sonneillon thrust into his whore one more time with a dirtied cry. A final gasp, pushing hate over the edge into wrath, and Hell broke loose in the brothel.
Spanks turned to slaps, turned to bloodthirsty closed-fist blows against pretty, well-abused faces. Legs spread kicked out ruthlessly, crushing sensitive body parts so their owners saw red with rage. It was almost instant slaughter. Every room, every occupant turned nasty and hateful, lashing out against the person they would have sworn was the cause of all their problems. Already chauvinist johns attacking the women, sending them flying across the rooms, heads slamming into walls and cracking the plaster. Bloodcurdling screams began to erupt all over the building, but the two demons finished their women in relative peace: holding them down in their fear, letting them struggle to escape whatever riot or raid was happening outside, their minds running black with Hellfire as hot hands pressed against windpipes.
Belial's aging whore died gasping for air and confused, not knowing how or why this fate had befallen her, after all her years of hard survival. Gurgling in pain, choking on regurgitated blood, eyes wide with horror. Downstairs, Sonneillon elected to tighten his belt around her throat just until she could breathe gaspingly, but not speak. When her hands flew to her throat to free herself, he took her hands in his gently, and crushed her bones. It was a poetic sight: scrambling, trying to scream like a damsel in a silent film. His old knife was heavy in his hand when the blade cut through her stomach, slicing up until it stopped at her rib cage.
They could feel every death happening around them, every spark of Hell-bound life extinguished in that bloody chaos. And they were happening: the humans fueled by Hellfire had no limits, and more than a few hookers lay dead in the rooms above, the life choked out of them or their faces bashed in. Somewhere, gunfire was going off- the owners of the place trying to restore order, or defend themselves against the rabid hookers tearing at their flesh. It was all soundtrack when Sonneillon finally twisted the knife-blade in the girl's throat, covering himself with a vivid spray of blood. He panted slightly, glancing at the red coating his clothing, and flung open the briefcase to pull out some red flannel and a pair of dirty jeans. The businessman was shed, the new clothes sticking to his wet skin, and he shoved the crumpled corpse out of the way to open the door.
It was utter pandemonium, a full-scale riot. Upstairs, Belial was lighting his corpse on fire and making efficient use of the fire escape, but Sonneillon lacked the professionalism befitting a demon king. He ran down the hall, shoving injured and bloody people aside, screaming girls and fleeing men before coming to an abrupt stop.
A hand had grabbed the denim of his jeans, tugging weakly with a cry of, "Help me, please."
The demon leaned down, blood sticking his hair to his forehead, and gazed into the man's eyes. His left arm had a large gash in it, and the sleeve pinned to his right shoulder was empty. It was the easiest thing, to look deeper: sifting through his mind like grains of sand to find the motive, the path that brought him here. Fallujah, amputation, depression, beer. Sonny's lips quirked into a cruel smile and he brought a hand to the veteran's face.
"I'll get you out of here, man." His thumb drove swiftly into the man's eye socket, his fingers into his neck, and the man screamed once before dying.
Suddenly mindful of his surroundings, of the sirens in the distance, Sonny shook the dead man off his hand and made for the fire escape. When his feet finally touched ground, he shook his hair out of his eyes with a triumphant smile and looked to his king, sweat, blood, and aqueous humor slicking his hair.
Belial gave him a dark, appraising look. His suit was nearly pristine, save for a few tell-tale droplets and swipes on his collar that spoke of severed arteries and broken fingernails. He smelled of Sulfur, thick and dark; both of them stank of Hellfire. "Look who decided to show up."
"Didn't want to miss the fun." Sonny ran his tongue over his upper lip, swiping the spicy-copper tang until it snuck down his throat. He hadn't wanted to leave, not that soon. Not with so much left to watch.
They both looked up as the sirens blared closer; flames were licking out of the fourth floor and the sound of screams had cut, abruptly, as the last bloodcurdling voice died. Belial opened his mouth as if to say something -- then the two demons paused, heaving breaths into the stale air, and ran.
They collapsed side-by-side in a narrow alley the light didn't reach, the sound of dripping pipes hitting puddles of filth as they hit their backs against the brick and slid down. Suddenly, they were laughing, hoarse chuckles with the background noise of traffic not too far away. Belial let his head rest back on the brick and turned to watch Sonny begin to rapturously lick his fingers clean of blood and fluids; long, flat swipes of the tongue, his eyes closed to slits and dark with the aftershocks of physical and demonic power.
Belial growled deep in his throat, tore his gaze away. He dug into the inside pockets of the singed businessman's jacket and drew out pack of cigarettes and the lighter he'd used to set fire to the whore's flesh, jamming one between his lips and offering one to Sonny. He paused, captivated, at the sight of his second-in-command's body twisting in on itself, smooth muscle shrinking and giving way to a lithe, curved body that seemed to swim in her men's clothes.
Lazily, Sonja reached out to take it. He offered the lighter up to the cig, watching how her lips wrapped around it, eyes lidded and blissed-out. The light flickered and caught the pupils of her eyes, nearly eclipsing the irises.
Belial thought of the masses stepping from their cars, conservative heels and Oxford shoes treading into the lobby of a nameless church, walking into the aisle and sliding into the pews. A young girl fidgeting next to her mommy, all dressed up nice; the older women near the pulpit and lectern, staunchly attentive. The mothers and fathers who love this part, love this place; the preacher man with his hands on the bible.
Vaguely, he could hear Sonja, all smoke and drying blood. "Was it as good for you as it was for me?"
Goodwill and ritual pervading the air. Words of the Lord their God sliding along the edges of their minds on the night of Good Friday, voices raised in a song and praise, Love and hope, worship, belief.
And while the Father spoke, a whorehouse burned in Manhattan.