Page 66 of Prayer of the Damned
What can I answer? Damn, I screwed up.
The sound of an apple hitting the ground breaks the tension as it rolls to my feet. I pick it up and look right at Belle. A beautiful demoness stands in the splendor of her nakedness by an apple tree, and she’s crying. Has God decided to toy with me? The irony is clear. I remove my coat, walk to her and place it on her shoulders. She pulls it tight against her as if seeking to protect her exposed body, and I pull her into the barn.
“I’m sorry.” I accompany her to the haystack in the barn.
“It doesn’t matter anymore, Bar,” she says, disappointed.
“It matters to me.”
“Why?”
I really have no idea. The presence of her body close to mine is clouding my thoughts. I can’t understand why I react this way every time I’m around her.
“Maybe it’s God’s way of testing me, seeing whether sanctity can exist in me even when I give myself to Hell.”
“How do you see it, Hell?” She rests her head on her knees, drawing them close to her body in an effort to hide her shame.
“A place where sinners revel without restraint, naked, sweaty from the hellfire around them.”
“That’s a bit cliché, Bar,” she giggles.
“That amuses you?” I bump into her with my shoulder and she almost trips and exposes herself to me. I quickly look away as she rearranges her position.
God, this is some torment.
“I guess I’ve discovered there’s some truth in every folklore tale, but I wonder what’s so awful about that. It feels like freedom.” I contort my face. That’s ridiculous. “Then what’s Heaven?” she asks.
“A return to blindness. The human body in its purity, without feeling lust. Enjoying the bounties of nature gifted to us by the King of Kings, living in modesty.”
“Is lust a sin?” she wrinkles her brow.
“Is lust not the source of hellfire itself?”
“Maybe, it could be… but there’s also love. When love is involved, it’s called ‘lovemaking’. Maybe that’s totally different from fucking.”
“And what do you know of fucking?” She’s only a child, for God’s sake.
“Not a thing.” She bites her lip.
I want to bite that lip. Now. “Not a thing,” I repeat after her. “Isn’t that what you wanted to experience in your last hours of life?”
“I guess that’s what we’ll have to do eventually, but I’d like to feel that someone sees me, for a change. Me, Belle. Not Lilith.”
Dozens of smutty scenarios flash through my mind and I feel my blood bubbling in my veins. Lust ignites hellfire, and the person holding the torch is Bellcolor herself – and I can’t not walk right towards it and accept it willingly.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Bellcolor
Bar said that lust is a sin and passion is the source of hellfire, but as his mesmerizing eyes stare at me, piercing straight into me, all I can see in the blue and green is fire. Does he really and truly believe that? Because if so, I can see his system of beliefs collapsing one piece at a time.
I wasn’t lying, I wanted to feel that I mattered for a change. My whole life, every decision was made for me, every fucking day of my life was run by a schedule that wasn’t mine, and from the moment I took my own life I’ve felt that I ceased to exist. There was just the expectation that I’d evaporate and clear my pitiful existence away to make room for Lilith. The only times I felt that someone was seeing me was when Bar looked at me. He may despise me, I know I’m nothing more than damned to him, a purpose to fulfill, but recognition was and is still there. In his eyes, his body, the hot air his lips exhale.
“If you see me, then take me.”
“It’s forbidden. You’re my forbidden fruit. It would be fatal.” I see him deliberating. My blood’s boiling as his eyes wander over me. “Then taste me. Just a little harmless taste…”
His eyes flash. Embers ignite. I take off his coat. His pupils expand with anticipation. I slowly spread my legs and lean back.
