Category: (Philia - Friendship Love)
Nickname: Kyttan
When Gaia first kissed me, slipping her sweet little Bee between my lips, broken and battered in a field of flames and flowers, I could not have anticipated the shenanigans to follow…
It was a Kami, bound to a demon clan, who delivered me unto that bath house in Kaidan. It was that same Kami that would barter for my unconscious body with the only thing she thought a demon would value: my blood.
Inbeda…the ever sly and slick line-quoting leader of his motley crew. Tiger print bathrobe that every pimp would envy, and a tongue that elicited images of blushing french whores and a booming OnlyFans page…he had a taste for my blood, it was true, but his real love was the psycho in the blue dress…and ladies unmentionables.
The first was made apparent when I woke to the smell of ramen with a metallic tang. They were a ‘civilized’ demon clan, here to Make Profit, Not War. The blood of a Bee, mixed with what I was before Gaia’s kiss, made straight-up Demon-Nip. Like LSD and MDMA had a baby that suckled on Shrooms while listening to Amy Winehouse sing…well, anything…she’s f@cking amazing.
The ramen was fortified with Iron, the Kami made it for the collared crew of the bath house. The demons called her Bloody Sun, but to me, she was just Niko. The quiet, golden-skinned servant of Inbeda with glowing suns for eyes and a talent for herding cats…if those cats had horns and fangs and a penchant for dressing mannequins in silk and lace.
My blood was smeared across Inbeda’s face, that foot long tongue swiping against his scales as he watched me, his new, favorite treat…and oddly, at least to those who waited for me to scream and start pleading, I found my lips bending , flashing teeth, more feral than friendly, in a greeting that would become commonplace between us.
“Blood for the Blood God.” Inbeda murmured in a language I doubt he thought I’d understand, but I wasn’t human, I never had been.
“Skulls for the Skull Throne…though I saw you as more of a Horatio Caine…but serving a chaos god seems applicable at the moment.” I offered, teeth still displayed as I looked down at my form lying supine on an extremely plush futon.
Lifting my left hand, the Hand for Taking, my gaze lilted over my long-fingers with their deceptively delicate bone structure to focus on the blacks and blues that danced across my moon-pale skin like a mosh pit at a Social D concert. The colors were loud, and ugly…and glorious.
“Is this from you gnawing on me while I slept, or from my bloody revel while sending that Light-licking sycophant back to their maker?” ‘This’ was made obvious when I raised my hand and wiggled my fingers, setting the blacks and blues dancing across my skin for a cat’s blink, before my limb became annoyingly heavy, and I lowered it back to my side.
“My clan would never bruise you, Petal. Bloody Sun brought you to us. Bartered for your sanctuary. A vile of your sanguine juju each sunrise…but you know what they say, ‘You lie down with the Devil, you wake up in Hell.”
Inbeda cackled and I huffed a laugh while Niko simply blinked her glowing sun eyes. I had heard of Bloody Sun…who in the Eleven Dimensions hadn’t? But how she became indentured to Inbeda wasn’t a tale I was familiar with, and it would be rude to ask.
Road Names for a Biker or Nicknames for a Kami, asking about either could get you on the wrong end of a bat or a blade, and I was colorful enough at the moment to wrangle my curious nature and leave it bound and broken for another day.
“Agreed.” I didn’t need to say the words, Inbeda not-bleeding as he finished off the last of his psychedelic treat was testament enough to my approval.
I didn’t leave the upstairs apartment for three days…until I blew it to s#!t when the flames of Shiva started pouring off my skin…and not in a fun way. Paper walls burned, demons and servants screamed, the sanctuary of my futon became a nest of flames…and like a Phoenix, I rose, bloody and beautiful into the air, before Inbeda shoved my ass down into the pools.
Sacred waters, blessed by a Kami, the surface shimmering in demon sp^nk and a floating sex doll that looked as surprised to find me there as I did, greeted me while I flailed to my feet.
“Inbeda! What the hells!” My roar echoed off the rocks, cherry blossom petals adding their color to the mix as I swiped it from my skin.
“Don’t go all St. Polycarp in my bath house!” Inbeda replied at equal volume, before grumbling something that the golden mask on his forehead shushed him for.
The flames were smothered. The screaming…also smothered…but humans dumb enough to bind their mortal coils to a demon clan were already up for the Darwin Award in my opinion, and my wet, naked ass could only find the gumption to glare at an approaching demon before I flopped onto the warm tiles beside the pool…and passed out.
When I woke, the first thing I noted were the mannequins crowding around my near-naked body. The second thing, more an afterthought, was the massive oil painting of aforementioned psycho in a blue dress, lounging on a fainting couch.
“My moon…my sun…my starlit sky…” Inbeda murmured as he gazed, covetous, at that painting, before his epic tongue swiped across his face, slipping a little action to the mask, who groaned in protest.
“No means No, Inbeda.” Free Will wasn’t just for Humans, that’s where the books got it wrong.
Glancing down at the moonglow perfection that was once more my skin, I slow-blinked at the black teddy covering my pink bits before looking around for Niko to thank her.
“That is one of my favorites. If you ash it, you owe me another.” Inbeda grumbled before he turned and walked away, back toward his perch by the sacred waters, glistening with demon sp^nk and cherry blossoms.
I did not ‘ash’ it, but I did buy him another. This was mine. The first gift I had ever been given.
I would spend the next three years calling the Bath House home. After a time, only rolling my eyes when I returned to my panty drawer being pilfered, my intimates gracing the mannequins downstairs as the demons cackled in glee. Even Inbeda would grow on me, my Capitalist Cujo with the trillion dollar tongue. His mask made me snort sake in laughter more than a time or three, and Niko, Bloody Sun, who whispered long forgotten stories when sleep eluded me…who made me an Aunt, a multitude of times, and allowed me to tell them stories of the Red Ninja who left presents beneath the Yule tree.
Monsters like me, do not get Happily Ever Afters…but even a Monster can love…and every time I walk into the Bath House and hear their snarls and growls of greeting, sake in one hand, a few vials of blood in the other, a crooked smile lifts my lips, ruining the created perfection of my face, and making it, truly mine.
I have heard that Love is patient…that Love is kind…but that is not the Love I have for these creatures, this band of outcasts and rebels that call to my smile. My Love for them is Fierce and Visceral, it calls to the darkest parts of me to protect them…in truth, I think I may be more the Monster now for my Love, but Gaia must have known this. She chose me, sweetling.