Page 119 of Devil Inside

We share these sensations with one another. Offer up succulence. Grapes and cheese. Honey and bread. We rest on a blanket, outspread across a patch of grass.

He picked this particular patch of land. It is not a park, per se, but a small island of grass surrounded by asphalt. At the very center of this island is a monument to some man.

A dead general. He sits on a horse, arm held out. The entirety of the statue, including its pillar, is laced in graffiti. Spray-painted words overwhelm the concrete base, like ivy.

“Who was he?”

“Him?” Jordan looks up to the statue, taking him in. “Robert E. Lee.”

“A hero of yours?”

“Hardly.” Jordan laughs. “Just another dead Confederate. They’re everywhere in this city.”

The sun warms our skin. Already we feel the wine easing into our bloodstream, relaxing us. Unraveling us. My grip on this body slips, losing my control.

Who are we today?

Larissa offered up her body to me. Such an accommodating host. I found her working at the market where we purchased our picnic items. A light strawberry wine to match her strawberry-blond hair. A smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. She starts off sweet with a light refreshing finish. Just what we wanted for our date today.

Jordan’s not so sure, though. We can tell. Larissa is not someone from Jordan’s life. They’ve never met, perfect strangers. There’s a reticence within him, we can sense it.

“Is everything okay?” we ask.

He nods. “Just getting used to the new you.”

“Do you like?” We present our flesh, holding out our limbs, to him.

“Sure.”

“Do you want us to change? Switch into someone else?” I’m not about to change myself. What’s on the inside. I am who I am. I’ve never put much stock in who we are on the outside, though. Not when it’s ever come to being with someone else.

I have never done anything like this before. Who am I supposed to be?

“No, no,” Jordan struggles, “it’s not that...”

“What is it then?”

“Nothing.” It’s a lie. The word is all hollow. It holds no truth, no conviction.

What about his body? Which parts of Jordan appeal to us on the outside?

His eyes. His lips. His scars. That map sketched across his chest. The wounds on display against his flesh. The routes we take when we are with him, dictated by his skin.

And on the inside?

His emptiness. The caverns he’s created for himself, full of shadows.

Nothing.

I could live in there. Make a home for myself. Could I? Is that what I want?

With him?

If I don’t, something else will. Once Jordan crossed over, that aperture only widened within him, all those fissures breaking, cracking him open. He’ll be seeing more demons behind my back soon enough. They’ll all come crawling for him. What if another demon calls and he answers? What if he finds another that he likes more than me?

Get in while the getting’s good, they say.

His darkness calls to us even now. We find his pain compelling. His scars are beautiful ornamentation to a body that we’ve grown fond of, but there’s more to him. Why are we so drawn to him? Why do we return, like moths to a flame? Why do we get burned?