Work Text:
Where earth grows cold,
And the shadows fold,
Waste not prayer
Waste not bells;
For in that lair,
The Devil dwells.
So the poem went, about the Devil of Charnel Street.
The poem's Devil had no name, but the villagers knew he was there. They knew where he lived, too, at the end of Charnel Street, which wound from Townhall Square all the way to the settlement's fringe. There, on the crest of the hill, the Devil called a rotting mansion his home. Marked by the skeleton of a gnarled oak and a clattering fence, it was a towering ruin, a monument of ivy-shrouded decay that no one dared to claim, because a demon lurked in those folded shadows.
He had once cared to build, to restore. But there was no point in it. Everything would come apart again, and only he would remain.
The town he had chosen to settle in was teeming with sinners, and he watched over them. Not out of goodwill, but out of envy—and hatred. They knew his shadow like their own, when he passed down the darkened alleys on moonless nights, when his sulfurous gaze gleamed from the shattered windows of the mansion. He stalked the woods, the fields, deemed the source of all Evil, the curse upon every person's lips. He was a reaper, an ill omen to whoever crossed his wretched path.
Sometimes, children came to his home, goading each other into dares. He would scare them away.
Sometimes, men came to his home, carrying weaponry in their hands and bloodlust in their hearts. He would kill them.
If a woman ever were to come to his home… He didn't know what he would do.
Tonight, the icy and merciless gown of a snowless winter lay upon the land, and he dragged his boots up the hill from the forest to the mansion. Blades of dry, rime-covered grass brushed against his calves, hair blown away from his ghoulish skull by a gust of wind. The stars gleamed cold and distant above the undead Creature, tauntingly roaming the heavens that were denied to him.
Cold, self-acting fingers went to the familiar shape slung around his neck, softly twiddling the memento he had taken from Elizabeth's corpse over two decades ago. The cross' red paint had mostly faded from the assault of his thumb and forefinger, yet he could not keep himself from it. If not this, he felt that he would suckle on his thumb.
Coat pockets filled with a meager amount of roots and nuts, the Creature stepped upon the mansion's back porch, avoiding mold-rotten and broken planks. Pushing the door to the kitchen open and advancing into the living room on soft soles, he knew at once that something was not as it ought to be. The air flowed differently around the place, the gentle rush breaking against an unfamiliar obstacle. He tensed, a low growl ringing from the pit of his lungs.
Woe to the fool who entered the Devil's domain.
A subtle trace of soap and perfume curled from the corner of the room, and as his eyes adjusted, the intruder's shape became clear among the shadows of old, ruined furniture. A woman, it seemed, under that cloak and hood. With shock, he sized up her figure, and the frightened face that peeked at him from behind the fabric's rim. The Creature recognized her.
"I know you," he rumbled with the voice of a wolf, carefully enunciating every word. "You are… the thief. I have seen what need looks like, and you don't need the things you steal. "
The intruder seemed surprised to hear him speak. Or surprised to learn how much he knew, how much he saw.
"I can't help it," she relinquished with a faint tremor, her breath condensed in the winter air. Several shattered windows perturbed the insulation of the massive mansion walls.
"So, is that why you are here? You have come to steal from the Devil?" He ventured closer, rotting floorboards creaking beneath his weight. "What could you possibly steal from the Devil?"
"H-Hah, what d-do you have?" She said through chattering teeth.
The Creature rumbled. He had little to give, except for his rage and his hunger. His hands drifted aimlessly on either side of his body, long fingers submerged in contemplation.
"I have what you see here."
"I was j-joking, I am sorry, I will leave at once, I'm—"
"You walk into my home… and expect to leave unscathed?"
Her figure stilled, frozen in the deep blue darkness of the mansion as the Devil's enormous shadow encroached hers. Aged reliefs and stucco the color of bones watched from the edges of their vision, dusted in cobwebs.
"Please…" She stood still as a mouse, knowing with every awakened sense of her lively body that she would not make it to the door if she ran. The Monster would be upon her, dragging her back to his lair by the hood of her coat.
"You've heard the tales of what happens to those who disturb my peace?"
"You've m-murdered many townsfolk in here…"
"Men," he corrected her. "And I've frightened children, yes."
"So what will you do to me?"
She looked afraid of him, which was a shame. It always was, but it was never a surprise. She ought to be afraid of the Devil.
"Hmmm," he contemplated slowly, fingers curling idly as he pondered. His heart thumped within his chest, and he briefly wondered if she could hear it. "You will not leave. Until I have stolen something from you."
"From me?" She squeaked.
"Yes… Make me an offer, or I will take what I want." Raising his face, one damaged eye captured the distant starlight, bouncing it back to her with a lurid flash of yellow. Her breath stumbled.
Gloved, trembling fingers reached into the pocket of her coat and offered a pouch of coins. The Creature accepted it with fluttering fingers, his hand dwarfing hers, and weighed the pouch in his large palm. It was heavy, but worthless to him.
Slowly, he glanced towards his sleeping spot, comprised of patchy furs laid out before the cold fireplace. Neither the bare bed frame upstairs nor the moth-eaten sofa could fit his proportions.
There was a thing he wanted. A creature-feeling in the pit of his abdomen that occasionally surged, dumbing him, urging him to rut into his own hand until all was spilled and spent, and he—empty. Never did it truly please him. Always did he feel that something was amiss. If he could steal some of her warmth for himself…
A deal between a thief and the Devil seemed like his only chance to ever quench the need that clamored within the vestiges of his humanity, for a prized thing called intimacy.
He would descend upon her and fuck her like a beast, because a beast was what he had come to be, and all he ever had been. He had long stopped trying to convince his neighbors—mankind—that he was not a monster. It was much easier to convince himself that he was.
And if he humiliated himself, he could simply kill her and the embarrassment with her… Yes. That ought to comfort him for the time being. Although he had never killed a woman before.
The Creature passed the pouch of coin back to her, seeking for the right words to preface his demand.
"Do you believe in God?"
The thief hesitated, staring at the towering silhouette of the rag- and fur-covered Devil who had scorned her stolen currency.
"I… I'm afraid what will become of me, upon my end. I swear I meant it, I cannot help myself, I steal and I steal… So, if He sees everything…" Envisioning God's judgment, she shuddered.
The Creature circled her with slow, lumbering footsteps and she backed away from the hallway entrance, easily crowded towards the center of the living room.
"I don't know about God, but I know about the Devil, and He sees everything. I see everything… I am here to make you humble~ To make you see your faults."
"Do I have a choice?"
He hesitated. She had the choice to scream and cry and retch, and he could hardly imagine himself wanting to force himself upon her then. He would let her go, and loathe himself all the more. But what he said was—
"No."
She seemed to have expected as much.
"And you want… what I think it is that you want?" She, too, looked towards his sleeping place, the large but sorry heap of furs. He hesitated, inching closer. Excitement had begun to throb deep behind his ribs, pooling lower.
"Yes."
This thief was neither screaming, nor crying, nor retching. She was just trembling—and pondering. That realization sufficed to make a flame lick along his groin, cock stiffening and filling out his trousers. The Creature's chest rose and fell with rugged breaths.
"And after, you will let me leave?"
"Yes."
"Then, I s-suppose I can offer you that."
A bargain had been struck, and somehow he was still surprised.
A tiny ah escaped his rattling lungs, hairless brows twitching towards his deep trident scars. With realization, want burst along every feeling vein of him, pulling his thundering footsteps across the floorboards to cross the remaining distance. The woman's smaller frame turned out to be much easier to manhandle than he had anticipated, so she went down on the furs with a yelp and he on top of her, his thighs and hips wedged between hers. She stared up at him, her eyes blown wide.
This was how it was done. The male on top succumbing the female to his will. He had seen it many times, so it had to be the way of nature.
The Creature's hair half obscured his vision as he reached under her coat and skirt. Even through the fabric of her smallclothes, the flesh of her legs seemed unbearably supple, forbidden to touch for a Devil like himself. Briefly, he allowed himself the luxury to knead her thighs, gripping a handful of muscle and meat. The woman whimpered, her limbs stiff and shaking. Surely, she was afraid.
Large hands awkwardly encroached on her center, obstructed by cloth. His eyes and fingers danced, driven by curiosity, but he decided it was simply easier to rip the garment along the center seam to reap what had been agreed on. The fabric came apart with ease, and one hand went down his trousers, releasing his cock. The heavy organ shuddered in his grasp, overly hard and weeping pearlescence at the tip. Without looking or waiting, he pressed the thick, blunt crown to the woman's center.
"W-Wa-ait, I'm not wet, wait!"
Wet?
The Creature shuddered and paused. Yes, he supposed that description matched what he had gleamed, peeking through curtains and dirty windows; some sort of glistening sheen that bedewed a woman's nethers during the act of lovemaking. Not always, though…
"Please, Devil, not like this…"
"Not like this," he echoed, his voice quiet and thick. "How, then?"
That left her stunned and struggling for words, though a breath of relief passed through her lungs.
"Do I repulse you?" He asked, tilting his head, one ghostly pupil reflecting the pale light.
"I'm… I am afraid."
"Do I repulse you?"
"I c-can't say. I can barely see you."
The Devil, releasing his member from his grip, shrugged out of his musty coat, more rags than garment, and let the shirt follow suit, both pieces of fabric shredded by bullets and sickles and every other metallic tool of mankind's hatred for his monstrosity.
Cold winter air stung the stitches of his bare torso. With slow fingers, he pushed strands of hair behind both of his ears, white and maroon falling down to his mid chest. Only the faded, red cross remained between his clavicles, the matching pearls on the string aged and weathered.
The woman's eyes gauged the proportions of him, racing up and down discolored scars and the unlikely piece of jewelry just below the fleshly cross that scarred his Adam's apple.
"You will warm me," the Creature declared with a low rumble. "Undress."
"I c-can't warm you, I'm cold!" She blinked towards the dark fireplace.
"I cannot light it," he sighed. "Men might come… and I would have to kill them."
The thief squeaked, turning her eyes back to his grisly visage. He considered it a mercy, to keep the flames out and spare her the horror of beholding his face and flesh in bright firelight.
"Devil…" she pleaded as his large hand hovered above her clothed body, uncertain where to settle.
"Undress," he murmured again. "Lest you want me to tear those garments to shreds and leave you with the predicament to return home as a wreckage. There would be no doubt that you've become a plaything for the Devil."
He licked his lips as the layers of her clothing came undone, coat, hood, gloves, dress, stays, smallclothes, awkwardly stripped piece by piece and discarded on the floor. By the end of it, she only wore her boots and stockings, and his mouth felt parched.
Gooseflesh pricked at every inch of her skin, cast in the blue, reflected gleam of the night and the shadows of his towering figure. She was a painting, come to life by the horrid brush strokes of the deal she'd struck with the Devil. Hungrily, he leeched onto the forbidden sight of swells and curves in unfamiliar places, every part of her sublime to his demonic eyes.
She closed her lids when his large palm settled on her bare sternum. Perhaps she imagined him to be someone else. He could live with that. Her tightly sealed eyes allowed him the freedom to roam her skin and glance between her legs without fear of humiliating himself. Her thighs twitched when blue fingertips trailed across the thatch of hair—missing on his own anatomy—and lower, coming across the peculiar texture of the skin that resided there.
It all seemed so small, yet convoluted, and for a fraction he felt panic surge, having no clue at all how and where to enter her until his fingers slipped and her nethers miraculously gave way to him, revealing a hidden channel that quite easily sucked two of his digits in. A strange noise escaped her lips.
Could this be considered wet already? It certainly felt so, although he had no idea what could have possibly made her so.
She had lied. She was warm. Right there.
Angling his stitched wrist, the Creature's fingers dipped, astonished how deep he could go, enthralled by the way her body shuddered when he pulled out and sunk back in. Starting slow, he ogled the glistening sheen wrapped around his emerging fingers, sliding back and forth with less and less resistance.
She held her quaking knees before her breasts, as though to hide herself behind them. The Creature's free hand drifted from her abdomen to her chest, coaxing her thigh away with his corded forearm. Fingertips darkened by permanent frostbite roved over supple skin, brushing over one of her hardened peaks. He only had one of those. The woman squeaked, face flipping to the side—because his hands were cold, he presumed.
The heavy organ between his legs throbbed with neglect. He had little idea about the appropriate amount of time needed to make a woman wet. Would half an hour suffice? He'd meant to get it over with to release her from his clutches sooner, but now he found himself wanting to draw it out. As his digits eased back and forth, slowly quickening their pace, her gooseflesh began to dissipate and the tremors in her knees eased as her thighs fell open wide.
A deep and needy sound lifted itself from the pit of his lungs unwillingly. A sheen of saliva had gathered on his parted lips and he wondered what a sight he must be, hulking over her, bare-chested and drooling, wrist snapping against her cunt.
"I think this ought to suffice," the thief said through gritted teeth, fingers clenched into the furs.
"Does it?" He cocked his head, curling his digits again, as deep as they could reach.
"Why are you taunting me when I'm inviting you to proceed?"
He hadn't meant to.
"Very well, I will proceed."
Removing his fingers from the confines of her sheath with a squelch, he momentarily fought the near overwhelming urge to lave his tongue across the shiny coat that marked his digits like an animal. Gooey wetness shimmered along his discolored skin, gathering at the thick suture that connected his index finger to his hand. The digit that had once belonged to a different man strayed away from its cousins.
Stifling his fascination, the Creature gripped his cock, squeezing the thick shaft in his palm as he angled himself against the soft, squishy place he had stretched and opened on his fingers. Still, everything seemed too small to fit him, but her petals had been parted by his earlier touch and so he had an idea where he was going.
The first touch of hot, sodden sensation licked along his cock head, and all it took was one guttural snarl and a roll of his hips to drive the thick crown into her channel. Warmth engulfed him, squeezing him from every angle. His lips hung open, knees shuffling on either side of the woman's naked hips. The creature-feeling sank into his bones, drawing his hips back and forth in short but quickening thrusts. His drifting hands settled somewhere on top of her, searching for a place to cling to.
"You are… very big." Her breath shuddered, airy and strained.
For a moment, he was confused, because why mention it now? Until he realized that she was not addressing his overall anatomy, but the size of his member that stretched her out.
"Am I?"
"Yes, Devil." She squirmed under him, struggling to accommodate his proportions.
"Does it… hurt?"
His hips rolled, one hand clamping around her waist, the other braced against the furs next to her head. The stringy shadows of his hair whisked across her bare flesh, rippling in tandem with his thrusts and the cross below his neck. She sunk her teeth into her bottom lip, stifling whatever noises of what he presumed had to be pain.
The floorboards creaked. He tried to go slow, but his hips slammed down, drawn in by the promise of all the intimacy he could reap. Her skin wasn't warm, but warmer than his, and their combined breath fogged up the wintry air.
Grunting, he gorged on the sublime softness of her body, the heat of her cunt, and found himself craving her more and more. How many would come to try and kill him if he simply kept this one here? Spread out on the furs, wet and warm and lovely. He might even fix the windows, find clean covers for the pillows and harvest the plumpest berries from the forest just for her.
With a demonic growl, he banished the wickedly domestic thought.
"I could squash your skull, like a fruit." The Creature's hand spanned her head, then fell to her throat, encircling it with cold, cadaverous fingers. "And snap your neck like a twig…"
This ought to frighten her. In his long, arduous life he had heard countless cries of fear and terror, but this one was entirely new. The woman gasped, her pulse jumping softly against his palm. Her sheath where he was buried constricted around him, and he found himself fighting back a grunt. Uncertainly, his fingers flexed around her throat, eliciting another clench of those velvet walls that throttled him so.
"Don't you dare judge me, Devil," she rasped defiantly and it became clear that this reaction wasn't normal. Her eyes gleamed at him from beneath lowered lashes.
"You want to be defiled," he concluded, brushing his thumb up and down her thrumming pulse. "Then I will defile you."
Clenching his fist, air staunched against the applied pressure and her mouth flew open wide, leaving her gasping for breath. His hips slammed down deep, splitting her open on the girth of his cock. Her body must ache from this, yet she slung her legs around his waist, urging him deeper, or perhaps that's just what he wanted to think of her soft calves on his lower back.
"You believe you deserve it, don't you?"
She whimpered, openly meeting his ghoulish gaze. Perhaps she'd come not to steal, but for absolution. He would gladly play the role for her.
The motion of his hips came naturally to the memory of his ancient muscles, driving himself deeper and faster. Her flesh moved and jiggled under the forceful impacts, cushioned by the furs, her channel tight around his cock.
When her eyes rolled, he released her fragile throat, let her gasp for precious air. She seemed to find something in his gaze that made her walls constrict even without the strangulating pressure of his enormous grip, so he settled on one forearm and clamped one hand around her hip, spanning it from bone to cheek.
Enthralled, he grunted like the bear whose flayed pelt lay underneath their bodies.
"Stop…!" She pleaded, squirming against his chest. "It feels… good…"
"Then I will not stop."
She moaned, whined, and this time he was certain that they were sounds of pleasure, all reaped by him.
The town and forest lay silent. No one would come—with guns and fire and pitchforks—to save her from the jaws of the Devil.
This little thief was all his.
Intuitively, he added a downwards grind against her mound whenever he snapped into her, finding he quite enjoyed the way her channel clenched whenever he did so. The heels of her boots dug into his lower back.
"What are you doing?" She blabbered, nails clawing lines into his thick shoulders. "You're doing something to me~"
"Yes," he growled. He was certainly doing something. "I'm cursing you." Chapped, blue lips peeled back from his teeth in a motion that he distantly remembered as a grin.
His hips rolled deep and hard, undulating almost as he stuffed her on the monstrous length and girth of his cock.
"Devil," she cried, spine arching so that her soft chest met his sternum. "Devil, wait, stop—!"
He did not. That eerie grin spread wider across his patchwork cheeks, uncomfortably stretching his stitches. Something seemed to take hold of her body, driving her spine towards his chest, head thrashing left and right. Her nails speared into the sutures of his shoulders, drawing beads of blood, and then—
Some sort of release sputtered around the base of his cock, drenching the furs below and the fabric of his trousers that hung around his thighs. Her channel clenched, spasmed, with a quick and fierce rhythm that nearly milked him dry if not for the surprise that stalled his own climax. The Creature—growling through his teeth—maintained the rhythm exactly as it was, fascinated with each spurt that he fucked out of her until there was nothing left and her forearms hung limply over his back.
"What was that?" The woman slurred, and he gave no answer because he had none. Maybe he truly had cursed her.
Her limbs were boneless, her countenance glowing… She almost seemed content, which hardly struck him like a curse. Her sheath was now utterly sodden, squishy almost, with how easily it accepted him, even when he thrust deep and hard.
Soft lips parted, moaned his name, over and over—Devil, Devil—as he pounded into the groaning floorboards. Pressure built behind his abdomen, making his sac pull taut against his pelvis, and a famished need surged along his nerves, to press his lips to hers and take his first kiss from her too. A string of drool dribbled to the furs, briefly missing her ear as he turned his face away from the temptation.
He was close, rutting with heavy thrusts like a ravenous monster would. Upper lip curled into a guttural snarl, he pushed himself to the summit, muscles clenching along his thighs and glutes. Slamming down deep, ropes of unholy seed were expelled from his throbbing cock, wrenched from him in stuttering waves.
Two strings of tears tracked down from marbled eyes, dampening the hollows of his cheeks. Gravity pulled him down to the woman's chest before he could know whether she'd glimpsed his tears or not. His grunting breaths spilled into the furs by her ear, where his drool was.
The entirety of his body quaked, grafted muscles and sinews throbbing from the unfamiliar strain, and his cock still made itself known with an occasional pulse, enveloped by a concoction of sticky seed. Shocked, he discovered the thief's fingertips roaming across his back, tentatively exploring the expanse of his scars. Not daring to breathe, he remained still, until she softly declared that she couldn't breathe either.
At once, he removed his weight from her softer, smaller body and sat on the lower end of the furs, knees snapped together.
"You're a man, aren't you?" She shuffled upright. He avoided her gaze. "What happened to you?"
"No, I am a Devil." With finality, he wrenched his trousers back over his pale hips. "My evil heart's fire cannot be quenched, nor my hunger. I cannot change my nature."
"And neither can I… Like I said, I cannot help it."
The Devil remained silent, training his gaze to one of the shattered windows while she dressed. The process took a surprising amount of time. He would have thought she'd flee straight through the door, yet she carefully donned her gloves and buttoned her coat.
"You're… letting me go?"
"As promised."
He barred his sadness behind the conviction that solitude was all he knew. Familiar and comforting. He'd reaped what he wanted, stolen the experience and made himself richer. But then why did he feel poorer as soon as she whispered, "Goodbye, Devil," and closed the front door after her?
Minutes passed. The marks of her nails had healed, the furs gone cold, and only the memory of her remained. The Creature's fingers went to the space between his clavicles, seeking solace.
The treasured necklace, however, was gone.
He roared.
Crows scattered from the mansion's roof, bursting into the black winter sky, and the branches of the oak trembled from the echo of his rage, shedding their remaining shriveled leaves.
He swore his revenge would be delivered, and it would be terrible.