Demon in My Mind

As Joanna and I arrived in the residence assistant's bathroom, I was surprised to find myself desiring her company and conversation far more than my initial purpose in speaking to her. That was new. Aquademonis were supposed to desire fertility and to have no real connection to the humans who were our prey. Yet, Joanna had somehow not only captured my taste and desire...but she had gotten my attention. When I had asked her to act naturally, I had never once anticipated that her natural state of being and her happy-go-lucky demeanor would catch my attention so much. Honestly, the fact that I no longer desired a taste, but that I longed to get to know her better confused me. That was far from normal.

Even so, I figured that conversation would hurt nothing. If anything, it could build a trust and trust could help my endeavors of tempting Joanna's soul to hell. Honestly, if I could connect with Joanna, I was sure that I could find in her a much more agreeable subject. She wouldn't just be another fleshy body and tasty soul, but a human being who could easily find herself willing to submit to any wish I had for her, not because I asked her to but because she wanted to. That was a concept that excited me, despite how unfamiliar it was to me.

Honestly, I could not quite understand my feelings. Never before had I wanted to speak to those I considered my victims and prey. I had always wanted to use them as needed and move on. THAT is what I had been taught to do. Yet here I was longing to get to know Joanna and to know more than just her sweet soul. I wanted to know HER. It was maddening, yet true all the same.

"Did I do well?" Three simple words caused me to turn my head and look at the beautiful girl before me. Her eyes were returning to their former glassy and vacant state now that we were alone. Her bouncy, upbeat demeanor was slowly disappearing as she looked upon me. I frowned. I had liked seeing the happy girl I had captivated. I liked seeing her act more naturally, even if I didn't quite understand why.

"You did wonderful, Joanna. I have another favor to ask of you." I assumed that I would need to ask her to act naturally once more, if I wanted to keep my bubbly, bouncy Joanna with me and not the shell she was under my full control.

"Anything, Damien."

"I want you to keep acting like yourself. I want you to keep smiling and acting as if none of this were happening...as if this were natural." I told her, looking into her eyes and breathing a sigh of relief as life began returning to those beautiful orbs I loved.

"I can do that, Damien!" Joanna's words were chipper once more and she giggled when she finished speaking, a blush coming to her face as she looked at me. That was something I never understood. Why did girls always seem to blush when speaking about guys they liked or when in the presence of good looking men. I had seen it throughout the school. I had seen Joanna blush when speaking of her "dream" to her friend. However, I still didn't understand it.

"Joanna, can I ask you a question?"

She nodded, smiling at me. "Can we sit down, though? I feel a bit....lightheaded."

"Oh...of course." I knew that the lightheaded feeling she was experiencing was likely due to my entrancement, the feeling of not being fully in control of her body. However, I wanted to make her comfortable, so I moved with her to a bench near the shower. The bench was there to hold towels, but it served our purpose well right now.

"What did you want to ask, Damien?"

I was distracted from my question as I looked at Joanna. She was smiling up at me, her smile effervescent and almost tangible. That smile froze me in place and sent a shiver down my spine. I wanted to touch her once more, and yet a part of me wanted to kiss her and not the soul snatching kiss of an aquademonis but the humanistic, gentle kisses I'd seen the teenagers at the school sharing. It didn't make sense to me and yet nothing had since I met Joanna. Without even knowing it, she was confusing me and turning my world upside down.

"Damien?" Her green eyes were looking up into mine imploringly and it was only then that I realized I had yet to answer her question.

"Uh...sorry, I forgot for a moment."

"You're kinda cute when you get all flustered." Joanna reached out to playfully pat my cheek and I found myself blinking at her, unsure what she meant by that. I had never been flustered. I didn't even know what that meant, as demons did not get flustered...whatever that was.

"What do you mean? What is flustered?"

"You can't be serious..." Joanna laughed as she looked at me. Then, her eyes seemed to widen as she realized that I was, in fact, serious. Her laughter ceased and her mouth hung open in surprise. I didn't quite understand what had been so funny in the first place, but clearly Joanna had thought it was funny, so I had chuckled lightly as I looked at her but as she went silent, so too did my laughter.

"Uh...." I wasn't really sure what to say in response to this. How was I supposed to explain to her that I didn't understand when to her demons were nonexistent beings and I was sure that if I tried to tell her I was one, I'd lose any semblance of control I had to laughter or fear. Then, any chance of Joanna acting as she was now and making me feel so warm and strange, a good strange I established, would be gone.

"How do you not know what that means? Are you not from here or something?"

"Well...yes." That wasn't a lie. I wasn't from Earth. I wasn't from here. I knew she probably meant the state or even country the school was located in, but I knew that if I kept my answers vague, I could be honest without ousting myself. Typically, honesty would not matter to me but I had to be strategic here if I hoped to keep Joanna happy and make her desire me as much as I desired her.

"Oh...well, I guess that kinda makes sense. Uh...you get flustered when you're nervous or excited and can't really think straight. Sometimes you get all red-faced and blush when you're flustered too. So...I just think you're kinda cute when you get flustered."

There was that warm feeling again and this time it wasn't just inside of me. This time, I felt warmth spreading across my face, all the way to my ears. Was that what blushing was? I had never blushed, just as I had never felt flustered. However, her explanation made sense. In looking at Joanna, I had forgotten what I was trying to say and I had somehow gotten nervous. Flustered was a good word for it. Now, I was also blushing, just as Joanna explained. It seemed like right now she was controlling me just as much as I was controlling her, yet she didn't even have the magic to do it.

"Do you remember what you wanted to ask me yet?"

"No..." The truth was, I couldn't. Whatever this strange feeling in the pit of my stomach was, whatever this warm feeling was, and whatever was making my face so warm and red...it had distracted me and I could no longer remember what it is I had wanted to ask Joanna.

"Well, can I ask you a question then, Damien?"

I could only nod, finding it harder to speak as I took in Joanna's beauty and tried to process all of these strange feelings I was experiencing. I had never gotten flustered before. I had never blushed before. It was all very new and very foreign to me. I couldn't quite understand why it was happening. However, I also couldn't say I disliked it. Even so, I knew that I was losing track of my goal...the goal to take Joanna's soul and to use her innocent fertility to assist me. Yet whenever I looked at Joanna, the goal seemed impossible. I couldn't think straight with her so bright and bubbly before me, but I also could not bring myself to make her into the vacant and submissive subject I had initially planned on.

"Okay...well, this is gonna sound crazy but...do you believe in fate?"

"I..." I didn't quite know what to say as fate was not a concept I'd heard of. I didn't know what she was talking about. However, she already seemed to think I was odd, I didn't need her to think me even more strange. I wanted to keep her with me, not scare her away with my enigmatic confusion over what she felt were normal human emotions.

"You don't know what fate is...do you?" Joanna smiled and I swear I could have felt my heart beat faster, even if I still didn't know why. She looked even prettier when she smiled like that, especially when it was directed at me.

"I...no, I don't." I admitted, feeling the redness creeping up to my face once more.

"Fate is when you feel that everything happens for a reason and that when something happens...uh, for example, when you dream of someone and then they appear....that, well, that it's meant to happen that way." Joanna explained.

I raised my eyebrows, still not quite understanding what she meant. If she was referring to dreaming of me...I knew that had been no dream, even if she didn't know it. So, if that was her definition of fate, I was completely lost. Was I supposed to make her dream that? What did she mean when she mentioned dreaming of what is supposed to happen? I was baffled and I knew that the look on my face gave it away.

"Okay...maybe that was a bad example, you still look all adorably confused." She reached up and touched my cheek gently, patting it in a rather playful manner before twisting one of her curls around her finger.

"I am confused...I still have no idea what you are talking about." I told her, honestly, touching my cheek where her soft hand had but moments before touched it as well.

"Fate is....fate is when something is meant to happen and it can't be stopped. Some people say that they were fated to meet their best friend or that they were fated to inspire others, though I don't know if that's true...you can't just inspire others, not unless the other people WANT to be inspired. But...basically if you believed in fate, you could believe that WE were supposed to meet, that it was always in the plans."

I blinked. Maybe we were fated to be together. I knew that Joanna had been my pick from the moment I met her. I planned to have her to myself from that first day. Yet, here I was talking to her instead of savoring her soul and impregnating her like I had been trained to do. Humans were useless, outside of feasting and impregnating. That was what my lessons had been based around for years and years. However, the more I looked at Joanna, the harder it was to believe. She was easy to manipulate, I knew that. However, I could not imagine taking her soul and giving her my eggs without even knowing her and understanding the path she had begun to lay out for me. Somehow, she had made an impression and I still could not bring myself to take the life from her eyes, the life I had fallen for in a way that was confusing and caused a tumultuous flow of emotions to course through my body. None of it made sense.

"Well...I guess I believe in fate then..." I muttered, pursing my lips, my brows knit together in confusion still.

Joanna laughed, that musical laugh that continued to create the warm and fuzzy feelings within my body, in my very core. It was strange and yet I was beginning to think I liked it. That scared me though, as it was a foreign and unfamiliar concept and something that I did not feel was supposed to happen. I was not supposed to see Joanna as likable. I was not supposed to see her as someone worth keeping. She was supposed to be a usable and disposable human to me...nothing more. This was an uncomfortable turn of events and I stepped back, knowing I had to clear my head...this wasn't how things were supposed to go.

"Is something wrong?" Joanna picked up on my movement and the sheer look of confusion and turmoil upon my face and of course, as she had all day so far, she surprised me with her tender compassion...something else I did not expect to see from a human.

"I have to go..." I muttered, not giving her a chance to respond before heading in the opposite direction down the hallway.

I heard Joanna calling after me. I was also aware of the footsteps rushing after me, Joanna's, no doubt. However, I ignored it. I ignored all of it and quickly retreated down the hall, pushing past other students and eventually losing Joanna in the chaos of it all. My mind was a turbulent mess that needed to be sorted out before I could even be here, among the humans once more.