An alternative
Angels & Demons
story
This short work was inspired by
FreyaGersemi
's Valentine's Competition entry,
Katie Saves Valentine's Day
. I'd never have thought about writing this type of tale otherwise. Please go read her story!
Signifying Nothing will make a lot more sense if you have at least a passing familiarity with my work.
-- -- --
Signifying Nothing
by Emily Miller
Emma could taste blood in her mouth, her own blood. Her face was bruised and lacerated. At least she had put up a fight. She spat red in defiance, but the small gesture brought only laughter from her tormentor.
"Oh, Emmoreth, you will be the death of me. Such spirit! Spirit only exceeded by the futility of your pathetic attempts to deny the reality of your situation."
"It's just Emma now, asshole!" Still a flame burned in her. She wasn't going to let a mere male demon, no matter how powerful, break her. Particularly
this
male demon.
"Quite! Emma, how... modern... of you." Asmodeus's observation seemed to amuse him.
"And yes," he continued, "in that body... that
diminished
body... well Emmoreth was a beauty, unlike..."
He then patted the side of Emma's face, almost playfully. "Looking how you do now, I wonder if you are even worth the trouble. But I suppose the real Emmoreth is in there somewhere. I can always just close my eyes and remember."
She strained in her chains, but uselessly. "Fuck you, you excuse for a demon!" She spat again, but this time just with saliva.
The Demon Lord wiped his face with a grin. "As I say, spirit, much good may it do you."
Asmodeus flung his robe to one side, and stood naked and erect, a nasty smirk on his lean features. Features that might have been beautiful if not etched with malice. Still beautiful perhaps, if you had a thing for cadavers.
"I'm going to enjoy this. Enjoy you... once again!"
Emma pulled on her chains again, but the links were sturdy, and the metal adamantine. Her vestments hung in rags, doing little to mask her nakedness.
'Again,' she thought, her memories going back unbidden to a time in Asmodeus's hall, a time when she had looked different, a time she had done her best to forget in the intervening years. But now she wondered, 'am I cursed, forever fated to relive my humiliation at his hands?'
And then a new thought crossed her mind. One she couldn't help but vocalize.
"Stop! Stop this all right now! I mean
you
!"
The last word was addressed to an onlooker.
Author: Who me?
"Yeah, you. Who else do you think I'm talking to?"
Author: Um, I dunno... um, still kinda getting used to the idea of one of my characters talking to me. Um... hi, I guess.
Asmodeus seemed to be frozen, but his eyes watched Emma intently.
The she-demon spoke again. "Aren't you, you know, a bit sick of it?"
Author: Um... what?
"Very eloquent, what's happened to your flowery, over-written prose?"
Author: I'm sorry, what?
"Seems to be your favorite word... 'what'... odd really for someone who normally acts like they have - what's that phrase you use? - Oh yeah, swallowed a thesaurus, right?"
Author: Um...
"Um? Is that all you've got, a measly monosyllable? What's happened to your customary grandiloquent and ephuistic bombast? Cat got your tongue?"
Author: Er...
"Never mind that. The bigger issue is rape!"
Author: Rape?
"You heard me. You claim to be this big opponent of non-con, but here I am, about to be ravished for your readers' enjoyment, yet again, I might add."
Asmodeus joined the conversation. "Speaking of ravishment... Well, I could begin... if you're not too busy talking to
her
, that is."
"Shut it, Shamdon! You're a pretty pathetic antagonist, if we call a shovel a shovel."
The Demon Lord was crest-fallen. "It's... it's not my fault. She writes me so one-dimensionally, like some cartoon villain. I feel I need a mustache to twirl. Djmac1031 writes me with much more depth and nuance. I struggle to connect with her material, if I'm honest."
"Yeah, it's not great, I know," replied Emma, "but would you prefer to be me? And the bitch has even made me look like her now. That's pretty fucked up from a psychological point of view, right?"
Asmodeus nodded in agreement.
Author: I'm still here, you know.
"Oh, we know," both demons said in unison.
"And how about these?" Emma clanked her chains, while raising her eyebrows suggestively.
Author: Oh, yeah, sorry.
The metal binds dissolved, leaving the she-demon ruefully massaging her wrists. "I know you get off on this bondage stuff, but could you at least write cuffs with a little padding maybe?"
Author: Padding, right, I'll make a note.
"Thanks," said Emma.
Author: And anyway, no fair on the rape shit. It's not like I write it titillatingly, it's more Greek theater, like Euripides would write it.
Emma guffawed. "Euripides? Will the pretension never end? But that boy could fuck, ah, the memories."
"And what's with me being an expression of your autism," asked Lily.
Author: Wait, you're not even in this story.
"Yeah, I was waiting for Emma in the green room. I got bored."
The angel and she-demon embraced, and Lily and Asmodeus air kissed.
"Loving your work, As. You're really selling it, though the script is a nightmare, as usual," Lily said.
"Yeah," replied the Demon Lord, "She can type this shit, but you sure can't say it!"
"Ah, well," said the angel, "at least her Star Wars references are occasionally entertaining, if you like that sort of thing."
"Who doesn't, right?" added Asmodeus.
Social pleasantries complete, Lily returned to her original subject, "So, otherworldly? What the actual fuck? And you say you hate Sheldon Cooper."
Author: Yeah, fuck Sheldon Cooper, fuck him in his stupid ass! But... but I write you with such love.
"Love? You lean into every hackneyed ASD trope. I was at an ND support group last week. Eden Baker was there too, and AnΔela Malinar. And we were all saying how tired we were of being cardboard stereotypes."
Author: Um... sorry, I guess. I do my best.
"And I've got the same issue with you as Emma, here. Do we really both need to get raped quite so often? And, was coerced sex with my late Father really an authorial imperative?"
Author: It was meant to be a classic tragedy... like Oedipus.
Emma interjected, "Girl, you aren't Sophocles. You aren't even Ariana from the souvlaki taverna, OK?"
"Oh!" said Lily, "the one with the big eyes and the cute ass?"
"Yeah, her. The one who didn't write
Antigone
," replied the she-demon pointedly.
Author: Well, I have to say this is all rather hurtful.
Lily responded in a more considerate tone. "Look, we get it, you have this wish-fulfilment thing about supernatural beings who can be sexually assaulted and kinda shrug it off afterwards. But do you have to write it
every
time? Maybe a little variety of themes might help, yes?"
Author: Um... OK... I guess...
"Oh, come on," said the angel soothingly, "no need to cry now, is there?"
Author: I... I... suppose not.
"Some things you write are OK, the lesbian sex, for example. We like that, don't we, Emma?"
Emma nodded enthusiastically, and her girlfriend continued. "You used to write nice sex scenes, before..." Her voice faltered.
Author: Before *sniff* what?
"Well, I suppose, before you got, well..." Again Lily seemed to be struggling for words.
Emma helpfully stepped in. "What she's trying to say is, before you got delusions of grandeur about plots, and character motivations, and literary devices. You know, back when your creations just used to fuck a lot. I think we all liked that better."
Author: But... but... rounded characters, and believable situations, are so important, right?
"Says the woman who had a giant squid traverse the digestive systems of two female characters with a tentacle... sequentially," snorted Emma.
Author: But those stories were about so much more than muscular hydrostats. The subtext, the metaphors.
"Sure," replied the she-demon, rolling her eyes, "so many readers were musing on your mastery of socio-political polemic, right? And not - Hell forfend - jerking off to the tentacular insertions."
Author: Well, maybe they did both.
"Sure, keep telling yourself that," Emma taunted.
"Emma!" Lily said sternly, "there is no need to be rude, and self-delusion is a form of mental illness, no need to shame her about it."
"Sorry," Emma mumbled, looking at the floor and shuffling her feet.
A new voice joined the conversation. "Speaking of mental illness, how twisted was it to put me through all that shit in