Avernus Academy

Note: This novel is not episodic. The chapters do not work as stand-alone stories. This chapter will not make sense without reading the Prologue and prior chapters.

Chapter 3: Jaleh Breaks, Technically

Jaleh had conflicting feelings about what Carmelita had become. On the one hand, Jaleh had now talked with Carmelita more than she had ever talked with anyone in their life, and while Carmelita had a naive attachment to empathy and altruism, she also had common sense and a quiet strength that Jaleh admired. Seeing Carmelita cynical with a broken spirit allowing herself to be used as a demon's plaything was truly disturbing and depressing to Jaleh. On the other hand, Carmelita had also become a deliciously hot cum slut with succulent tits and a juicy ass willing to spread her pussy for anything with a dick, and Jaleh desperately wanted a piece of her sweet cunt.

"Anything with a dick" was not a metaphor. To begin, Carmelita had become Molroman's fuck toy. He would ask if he could fuck her (he always asked, rape would be a form of torture), she would say yes and ask how he wanted it, he would give his requests, then she would do or let him do whatever he asked. Sometimes he would call her over to his couch and either fuck her from behind in one hole or the other, or have her blow him, all while he watched porn. When he was done with her, she would go back to whatever she was doing before, which was usually reading. But it wasn't just Molroman.

Molroman must have put the word out that there was a hot piece of ass willing to fuck anything with a dick because other demons kept showing up to ask Carmelita if they could fuck her and she usually shrugged her shoulders and said, "Sure." Weird demons. The red tentacle dude returned a couple of times, but there was also a werewolf looking demon, one with hooves and a goat head, one made of onyx, one made of ice, and some humanoid plant thing that fucked her with vines. Vines that shot out cum, so they apparently counted as having a dick.

But everytime Jaleh hit on Carmelita, she shot them down. She would a fuck plant demon with vine dicks but not a human with a pussy. Jaleh would never permanently trade their pussy for a dick, they had too much fun with their pussy and with multiple orgasms to make such a switch. But it would be awesome to be able to have one when they wanted one. Now would be a great time to have one.

At least, Jaleh's vagina was the first reason Carmelita gave for not fucking them. The second issue that Carmelita raised was that Jaleh had already told her many times how little respect they had for the women they fucked, and Carmelita was not going to give herself to someone who thought so low of her. Jaleh countered that Carmelita had told them stories from back in her wild days of letting guys fuck her who just hit on her because they heard she was a slut, which is also presumably why these strange demons keep showing up. ("Letting guys fuck her", or "letting guys have sex with her", or "letting guys use her" was always the way Carmelita described it. She didn't fuck guys, she let guys fuck her.) Carmelita would respond that those guys were strangers or acquaintances, so she didn't care what they thought of her, but now she had gotten to know Jaleh well, and she did care what they thought of her. Jaleh wondered if maybe they should start talking about their past lovers more nicely around Suzie, in case the demons gave Suzie her award-winning body back.

At least, due to the lack of privacy, Jaleh could watch Carmelita getting fucked. This made masturbating incalculably better. The only masturbatory aids they had before the dance were the visual of Molroman masturbating and the sounds from his porn. These were just adequate aids at best. Sounds were never as good as a visual, and the sounds from Molroman's porn were often more disturbing than arousing. And as for Molroman himself, well, he really was not their type. He was objectively good looking, arguably even hot, but not for Jaleh. His fit but svelte body was too boyish, too androgynous, too... well, too much like Jaleh themself. Jaleh knew they were hot, but like most straight cis hot people, an appreciation for their own hotness did not translate to an attraction to people with bodies like theirs. Jaleh was bi, but not pan. If only they could see the Molroman that Carmelita claimed to see. Jaleh could really get their rocks off to that.

And now Carmelita had a body Jaleh could really get their rocks off to. And they did. Carmelita's passive love making style was pornographic art. Erotic. No, "passive" was the wrong word. "Submissive" was better. But still not right. "Responsive", that was it. Carmelita was a passionately responsive lover. She never initiated anything unless asked, and she always let her partner take the lead. But her body, breath, and voice acknowledged every touch, every kiss, and every thrust. She actively mirrors or compliments her partners' moves in ways that suggest other places for them to lead. It was an erotic performance from an erotic body and it never failed to help Jaleh give themself multiple orgasms. Sometimes Jaleh could get themself off just staring at Carmelita when she wasn't even having sex. Suzie found this behavior abhorrent on Carmelita's behalf, but Carmelita said she did not care.

The only thing not hot about Carmelita was her damn smoking. Health considerations were irrelevant now, but it smelled awful and Jaleh knew from experience that Frenching a smoker was disgusting. Where was she even getting cigarettes? How was she lighting them? What happened to all of the ashes and butts? Whenever Jaleh or Suzie would ask Carmelita these questions, Carmelita would just shrug.

Virtually all personal conversations between the three of them had ceased since Carmelita danced with the devils. Jaleh and Suzie had never spoken much anyway. For a short while after the dance, Suzie spent considerable time spewing insults at Carmelita, calling her disgusting, a disgrace, a whore, a slut, and a traitor to God. Sometimes she would include Jaleh in these insults. Carmelita would nearly always reply by saying flatly, "Yes, I am." Eventually Suzie stopped the insults, and no longer seemed to have anything to say to Carmelita. Carmelita's agreeing with her insults shut Suzie up much faster than Jaleh's arguing or ignoring ever had.

Jaleh and Carmelita could no longer have a real conversation with each other. Each was focused on trying to get something from the other. Jaleh wanted to fuck Carmelita. Carmelita wanted Jaleh to let Molroman fuck them. Carmelita pressed her case to Jaleh just as much as Jaleh hit on her. Carmelita made a few attempts to get Suzie to give Molroman his requested blow job, but Suzie's reaction demonstrated why it made sense to focus on Jaleh at first. Jaleh understood. If they were in Carmelita's place,they would have considered Jaleh to be the low hanging fruit as well.

"I really don't get what your objection to this is," said Carmelita. "You don't believe that there is anything immoral about casual sex. Why not just let Molroman have his way with you and be done with it?"

"Because *I'm* the one on top," said Jaleh.

"Well, sure," said Carmelita, "I get that you have your personal preferences, but when the situation calls..."

"That's not what I mean," said Jaleh. "The sex positions are symbolic. I'm not going to let them win. *I'm* the one who wins."

"'Win?' I'm talking about sex. There's no "winning" in sex. There may be some domination and submission at times, but no "winning" or "losing". What are you talking about?"

"Oh, there's definitely winning and losing. You might act like you don't know what I'm talking about, but you know I'm right. And I've told you about my policies."

"Right," said Carmelita sounding unconvinced, "your policies."

Jaleh had gotten frustrated trying to explain her policies of ghosting men before sex and women after sex to Carmelita. The frustration was not that Carmelita disagreed with their policies, of course a nun would disagree with them, it was that Carmelita appeared to not understand the reasons for the policies. They could not tell if she really did not understand, or if she subconsciously avoided understanding because understanding them would force her to realize that she was a loser.

Jaleh's reasons were based on two nearly universally acknowledged truths about sex: Men want sex, and women use sex to get stuff they want. With prostitutes, this is acknowledged openly, and there is a fair exchange. With all other relationships, the universally acknowledged truths are universally denied to be taking place within any specific relationship, with the result being a silent game where the goal on one side is to get as much pussy as possible while giving up the least amount of stuff, and the goal on the other side was to get as much stuff as possible while giving up as little pussy as possible. Thus Jaleh's policies: they ghosted women after getting pussy as cheaply as possible, and they ghosted men after getting as much stuff as they could before giving up any pussy. This made Jaleh the universal winner on both sides. What Carmelita's psychological defense mechanisms prevented her from admitting to herself was that by giving up pussy to any guy who wanted it, Carmelita was a universal loser. That was why she had to become a nun. The only way she knew how to stop losing the game was to quit playing.

When they had discussed this back when Carmelita still had her old wrinkly body, she had two objections. Well, maybe not objections, her main objection was of course that she thought the policies were immoral, but she had major, let us call them "confused reactions" to Jaleh's reasoning behind their policies.

Carmelita's first confused reaction was that she thought it was weird that a non-binary, bisexual atheist would have what Carmelita described as an "old-fashioned, gendered, and heterosexist" view of sex and relationships. Jaleh responded that as an atheist, they just see and describe reality the way it is, and the way they described sex and relationships is the way nearly everyone, deep down, recognizes sex to be. Few people will admit it privately and fewer still will admit it publicly. But when you really interrogate how most people think and behave about sex, you will find that, intuitively at least, they agree with Jaleh. Carmelita replied by claiming that the reason most people believed this stuff deep down is because that was how society programed them to think, the same way that society programed people to think that gender is binary and that homosexual behavior is unnatural. Jaleh countered Carmelita by claiming that deep down Carmelita also agreed with them, as evidenced by the way she always described sex as something she gave to men or she let men do to her. Carmelita answered this by stating that she does not defend her sinful past and that she never claimed to be free of social programming herself. To that, Jaleh could only respond by stating that they are just calling things the way they see them, and by wondering what the hell kind of nun scolds a non-binary, bisexual atheist for being too conservative about sexuality.

Carmelita's second confused reaction had lead to this conversation:

"Are you really bisexual?" Carmelita had asked. "Do you actually like sex with men? Are you actually attracted to them?"

"Of course," said Jaleh, "men are hot. Well, not all men obviously, but I've certainly spent evenings alone watching Thor movies with the sound off."

"Yes," said Carmelita, "but that's still... How can I put this? Thor movies are not X-rated, or even R-rated. You might think Thor is..."

"Are you asking me if I like dick?" asked Jaleh.

"Yes," said Carmelita, sounding somewhat relieved.

"Of course," said Jaleh, "I love dicks. They're on the bisexual menu. Why wouldn't I?"

"Well, Suzie's straight, and she thinks penises are disgusting. And your policies allow you to do anything and everything with every part of a woman, and they seem to let you do anything with a man as long as it doesn't involve his penis. So it does seem like you find penises disgusting."

"Oh no, a solid cock is a work of art," said Jaleh. "I fucked three or four dicks before I made my policy, and they felt really good. And even after I made the policy, it only applied to dating. If the sex was transactional or part of a con I would take the dick. Honestly, getting a chance to fuck and suck a cock was part of the incentive for running some cons."

"Transactional?" asked Carmelita, "you were a prostitute?"

"Well, technically I suppose," said Jaleh. "I mean, I never fucked a guy for cash. Not that I wouldn't for the right price, of course, but I never got a good enough offer. I did, however, exchange sex for, let's see... a job, two promotions, avoiding an arrest, false identity papers, and a Toyota Corolla. Although the false identity papers don't count because the forger was a dyke."

"Okay," said Carmelita after a pause, "but if you enjoy the sex with a man, why not have sex with a guy a couple of times before you ghost him? You said reason not to have sex with a guy you are dating is that he will give you more stuff trying to get you in bed than he will after you give it up. But once you have decided that you have bled him dry and it is time to ghost him, why not have sex with him first, then ghost him?"

"Because then he would win," said Jaleh.

"But no, he's not," said Carmelita, "I am talking about after you have gotten all the stuff from him you can, or at least when the trickle of stuff stops being worth your time. Your way, you only got stuff. My way, you would have gotten stuff and sex. If you like the sex, why not take it before you go?"

"Because," said Jaleh like she was speaking to a five-year-old, "Sex is the prize he was after. If I give him the sex before I leave him, he will think he won."

"So what?" asked Carmelita. "You're planning to never see him again anyway. Why does it matter what he thinks?"

"Because *I* want to win the relationship," said Jaleh. That had left Carmelita speechless. Jaleh had won the argument, but Carmelita continued to act like she did not understand.

And now that Carmelita was a hot slut again, she still seemed like she did not understand.

"I thought your policies were about 'winning' and 'losing' dating relationships. This has nothing to do with dating or relationships or romance. It's just sex."

"First of all, everything Molroman wants to do to me is about dominating me, degrading me, and causing me pain, with no pleasure for me."

"The... Wait. Causing you pain? The domination is obvious, and cumming on your face is the degrading part, but why are you saying no pleasure for you? And where is the pain?"

"In the ass," said Jaleh, "the anal sex. That's all pain and no pleasure for me. What part of his plan for me is supposed to result in any pleasure for me?"

Carmelita looked very confused. "The anal... So you don't know... how... Okay, well, domination, degradation, and some pain are actually fairly common elements of sex play for a lot of people. And I know you're okay with transactional sex, so why can't a little bondage and S&M be part of the transaction?"

"This is *NOT* a transaction," said Jaleh.

Carmelita took a drag on her cigarette. "Of course it's a transaction," she said, "That's why I did it. For a chance to get out of here."

"But you're still here, aren't you? You didn't even get the chance. This is not an offer. It is an offer for an offer. There is no guarantee that the actual offer will be reasonable. The demons probably came up with an offer worse than being here just to break us without actually giving us anything. And I'll have to wait for Suzie to suck a demon's dick before I get it. No, Carmelita, this is not a transaction. This is a con. And I run cons, I don't get conned. *I* am the one who wins."

Jaleh figured out early that winning is the only thing there is in life. They grew up in an urban Muslim immigrant enclave and went to a public grade school with significant numbers of Muslim immigrants, Indian Hindu immigrants, black Protestants, and Latin Catholics. Jaleh's family was even odd in this environment, since all of the other Muslims in their school were Sunni.

In third grade, Jaleh's social studies class did a section on comparative religions. The children were taught the basic tenets and beliefs of the major world religions. What the liberal educators who designed and taught the curriculum intended to teach the children was that all religions were equally valid and that the children should respect each other's beliefs. The lesson that eight-year-old Jaleh took away from the curriculum was that if everyone has wildly different beliefs about something none of them can actually see, they are probably all wrong.

It would take over ten years for Jaleh to be able to intelligently articulate the implications of all religions being wrong, but they intuitively understood those implications almost immediately.

When they were old enough to articulate the lesson properly, it went something like this: If people just made up religion, then everything that was not literally made of molecules was just made up. Morality was just made up. Money was just made up. Governments were just made up. Aesthetics was just made up. Race was just made up. Gender was just made up.

That last one was difficult even for some atheists to understand. Yes, it was true that nearly half the population had different anatomy from nearly half of the rest of the population for the purpose of maintaining genetic diversity. But everything else, all other differences between men and women - clothing, responsibilities, behavior, entertainment genre preferences, pronouns, etc. - all of that was just made up.

The mistake made by most people who do realize that some or all of these things are made up is to think that because they are made up, they are not "real". No, they are not "real" in the same way that a rock is "real". But for all practical purposes, they are real. Property might be made up, but you still cannot start farming on Bill Gates' lawn.

By the time they were a junior in high school, Jaleh had realized that everything made up was under the omnipotent control of the winners of that thing. Religious leaders made up religious beliefs. The stock market and the banks were controlled by the rich. The laws that define the government are made by government leaders. White people made up the concept of race. Strict gender rules were made up by men. Great artists got to declare what art is great.

Again, most people who realize this come to the wrong conclusion. They think that the response should be to destroy the oppressive system. But trying to achieve this causes people to waste their entire lives, it rarely works, and when it does, one system of winners and losers just gets replaced by another. America got rid of the nobility and created a system run by corporate overlords. Russia got rid of the nobility and capitalism and created a totalitarian oligarchy.

No, the right conclusion was that the only thing you can do is to make sure that you are one of the winners. And realizing that the system is real but entirely made up gives one a huge advantage. It allows you to operate within the system without constraining *yourself* with its rules.

When Jaleh came to this last revelation, their parents thought that they had won a lottery. Jaleh's junior year in high school had just started when their angry, disrespectful, and trouble-making daughter suddenly, and for no apparent reason, became the perfect Muslim daughter. "She" started wearing the hijab, going to the mosque, and saying "her" daily prayers. "She" started wearing dresses and stopped "her" bizarre insistence on being called "they". "Her" grades improved significantly. In "her" senior year, "she" started fundraising to pay to be part of a group pilgrimage to Mecca the summer before college, sponsored by a national Muslim organization. "She" raised the twelve thousand "she" needed to pay for the trip plus another three thousand in spending cash, mostly from family, friends, and members of the mosque, as well as from a web page "she" created.