A week passed. Stan had come to meet our new room neighbor Friday evening, which provided a great amount of stress to both Marie and I, but Astarte had acted…quite natural. He was taken aback by her teeth and apparent age, and gave us strange looks all evening, but it went well.

Stan’s parents were the ones who sold the apartment to Astarte, indirectly, through the building agency offering them suddenly a more than great offer.

Stan had been furious at first, but he had calmed down when given a new apartment with the money, as his parents had actually invested most of it for his new flat.

We teased him about it extensively, as he was now living with his girlfriend in one of those “high class” apartments. By high class it meant fifty square meters, it was still student standards of living, after all.

Astarte had been more than accommodating during this last week, which had surprised me.

Marie only comment on the subject had been: “It’s harder to say no to a friend.” She seemed to like the fake teenager though, as she was always taken in by her crazy stories.

Right now, the fall of Carthage was my personal favorite.

That and they played videogames together.

My girlfriend and the scary deified being were playing some sort of far west game together, taking turns, as it was apparently solo.

I didn’t really see the point, and the excessive violence bothered me, but as long as she was happy, I was too.

Two days after Stan’s visit, Marie informed me of another stress-inducing evening in the making.

“Natasha is coming tonight.” She was looking at her phone inside what was more and more becoming our bed. I hadn’t slept in my room for ages, and it was just becoming my painting studio. On that note, contrary to my fears, Astarte hadn’t bothered me at all and had even given me tips about color gradients.

She apparently worked in a textile factory during the 19th century.

“Natasha? That’s sudden. Did she decide on her own or asked you first?” I asked, still sleepy. The clock showed six in the morning.

“She asked, I just accepted.”

“When did she send you the message? I don’t see her as the early jogger type.”

“Five in the morning, probably end of the night for her. She’s not answering, so she must be sleeping right now.”

“Why the visit? You think something happened with her boss?”

“It’s nice of you to worry about my friend. No, she’s fine, I asked her if anything weird happened, but apparently, except an old god coming to drink inside the club, nothing.”

“Wait, what?”

“Yeah, can’t tell you about it, I didn’t want to know.”

“She’s way too calm.” I seemingly changed subjects.

“Who?”

“Our roommate.”

“Definitely. Can we do something about it?”

“Nope.”

She raised her arms in the air. “Nothing to worry about then.”

“What a great life philosophy.”

Marie pinched my nose. “No cynicism allowed on these premises.”

I grinned.

“So, Natasha, why is she coming then?”

“She wants to get closer to you, definitely, and she understands you won’t be coming to the club regularly, as I told her you didn’t like those places much.”

Marie had gone to the club once this past week, without me. I didn’t mind it at all. She asked me if I wanted to come, and I had refused. She always sent me messages the whole night so I never worried. Cute and thoughtful.

“Why accept the sexual predator then?” It was my attempt at a nickname for the demoness.

“Because you’re way worse a predator than she is, and because it’s not the only reason. She wants to check up on me, she’s worried by me being suddenly in a serious relationship.”

“She told you that?”

“Nope.”

But Marie knew, nonetheless. I scratched the back of her spine.

“Stop that, it tickles.”

“I’ll be happy to have her for dinner, but what about Astarte?”

“Don’t have my friend for dinner.” It’s not what I meant, and Marie knew it, but the pun made her grin. “Arte is busy tonight.”

“Oh?”

“She smiled when she was talking about it.” Marie gave me a bothered look.

“Let’s never ask about it then.”

“My reaction exactly.”

“It could be a gaming convention, you never know.”

Marie laughed softly.

Natasha was thirty minutes late, the clock showed seven-thirty PM.

“Is that normal…?” I asked Marie.

“Oh, she’ll be there soon now, this late is her personal minimum.”

My nose tingled, and perfume I recognized filled my nostrils.

“She’s downstairs.”

“You heard her?”

“No, too much noise at this hour, her smell though, is easy to spot.”

“Creep.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Five minutes later, the sound of heels echoed in the exterior corridor.

“Yup, that’s her.” Marie heard the footsteps as well.

She opened the door before Natasha could ring the bell.

“Nat, come in.”

“I’m finally invited in your den, how nice.”

“You did it first, I felt obligated.”

“Is Igris there? I’m only ten minutes late so…”

“You’re forty minutes late.”

“Oh.”

I watched the two women enter the living room, still trying my best in rolling the sushi.

“Igris! I’m happy to see you again.”

“Sure…” I had to stop as I got a full view of what she was wearing. It was skimpy at the club, but well, it was the club. I was expecting something less revealing.

I was clearly wrong.

The opened leather jacket was the only normal piece of clothing, she had a transparent red fishnet shirt and a velvet, dark, bra underneath. The leggings were also in leather, with chains on the side, and very form-fitting. Her noisy boots with heels were the stereotypical goth footwear. I gave a glance towards Marie.

‘When you said she was coming here to seduce me, were you not joking?’ I tried to send out mentally.

She stared at me back, clearly not answering my question, because her answer was more like: ‘What were you just looking at?!’

“Wait, you live here?” Natasha suddenly asked me.

“Yes?” I responded, almost pointing at my paint-filled t-shirt only acceptable indoors. Should I have worn something better to welcome our host? Definitely, but I only prepared with a 48h notice.

“Didn’t we tell you last time we met?” Marie said.

“Maybe. Too much happened that day, I must have forgotten. Are you making your own sushi?”

“Yes, it's nothing special, it’s cheaper to do them yourself, it just takes time to prepare the rice. Nothing close to the real ones, though.”

“They look professionally made.” Natasha complimented.

“You can sit at the table, I need to roll and cut two more batches and we can eat.”

“That’s a lot of sushi.”

“I eat a lot.” I explained.

“Only muscles though.”

My clothes revealed my bare arms, but the rest was rather loose-fitted, so she couldn’t know about my six-pack. Probably for the better.

I continued my kitchen work, while letting Marie catch up with her friend.

“Hannah is single now.”

“Oh, really? What happened with Yue?”

“Cheated on her.”

“Dang, I’m not close to Hannah, but that sucks.”

“I may be the one at fault.”

“You didn’t.”

“I did not fuck Yue, but well…” Natasha was scratching the back of her head. “I did a ritual, you know, for magic last week, and sometimes, the energy goes a bit awry, and hits other people.”

“Oh? What happens then?” Whenever anyone talked about magic, I could almost imagine Marie’s ears perking up like a cute pup.

“Well, they go sexy time.”

Marie facepalmed.

“Nat…”

“It feels good to be able to tell someone, I feel really bad about it. Could you help me get them back together somehow?”

“I’m not a counselor!”

“I’m not asking you that, just…you know…help me find a way to explain to Hannah it wasn’t Yue’s fault?”

“It’s done.” I announced, cutting the conversation short.

“Perfect!” Natasha watched as I deposited plates of sushi, sashimi and maki sushi in front of her.

“We’ll talk about it another time.” Marie finished talking and broke the one-use wooden chopsticks into two pieces.

Dinner went well, and Natasha talked about her magic and some mishaps of her past. Some were quite funny. Some were frankly disgusting.

“That last one was horrible, Nat.” Marie noted. “I’m not hungry anymore.”

“My master plan worked; I have more sushi for myself!” Her chopsticks fell towards the plate of salmon, but I was faster.

“Hey!” She looked at the piece of salmon she had gone for disappearing in my mouth. “You already ate three times what Marie and I did combined!”

“I like fresh fish.” I answered honestly.

“Where did you find it, by the way?”

“Marie and I made a friend who fishes as a hobby.”

“That’s cool, you’ll have to introduce me sometimes.”

“It’s Diamond Shell.” Marie said like it was nothing.

“Haha, good one.” Natasha reacted, but as she looked at Marie her smile faltered. “Wait, really?”

My girlfriend only raised her shoulders, not saying anything else.

“I hate it when you do that.”

Marie blew her a kiss.

“Hey, those are mine, give it back.” I said with fake anger.

“Come and get it.” Teased the sex witch with a wink.

“Nat…”

“What! He started it. No, you did!”

“It was just a warning.”

“Good. By the way, no connection in any way, but I got you your magic lessons!”

“Fuck yeah!!!” Marie exclaimed, sending some sticky rice in the air with her suddenly raised hands. “Sorry Gray…”

“My ear is bleeding.”

Natasha looked at us with questions in her eyes but asked nothing.

“Both of you free Tuesday morning?” She said instead.

“I am, but you’ve got lessons, no?” I asked Marie.

“They are cancelled.”

“Since when?”

“Since now.”

“Are those not the super important ones you can’t skip?”

“I’ll be deadly sick.”

“Uh, uh.” So, me transforming into Igris wasn’t good enough to skip them, but magic lessons were. Interesting, interesting.

“Where and when?” Marie ignored me.

I sighed.

“Thanks for the evening. Igris, the food was delicious” and before Marie could intervene, she kissed my cheek.

“Nat!”

“Tally Ho!” The ‘demon’ tried to flee.

“Wait. Nat?” I stopped her.

“Yup? Want that three…”

“No!” Shouted my girlfriend.

“No, that’s not it.” I smiled. “Did you have any problems with your boss recently?”

“Oh, don’t worry, he’s super busy lately, I only heard from him once this month. He wanted to know about old myths, things like that.”

Marie and I gave away the exact same forced smile, with clenched teeth and anxious laugh.

She looked at us both. “Seriously, what the hell is happening here. What kind of mess are you two…”

As she said mess, a ding sound was heard and Astarte, with five or six bags filled on the brim in goodies, star-shaped sunglasses on her nose, and a t-shirt where “I love Star-Wars” was written on, got out of the opening elevator doors.

The was blood all over the dark t-shirt, invisible to the eye, but the smell very easily recognizable.

We all gave her a shocked look, but Natasha’s was clearly also terrorized.

“Uhm.”

“Oh, you’re Natasha, right? The succubus?” Astarte gave her the usual sharkish smile.

Natasha immediately bowed down. “Yes.”

“Pshh, don’t do that, you’re Marie’s friend, right?”

“Yes.” Natasha stood back up, and then stopped moving completely, trying her best to imitate a frozen statue.

“You seem nice. But I guess you’re the one taking my spot in the line.”

Natasha looked at us, then back at Astarte, confused a small word considering her face.

“Natasha, meet our new roommate.” Marie said, the most naturally possible. “Who apparently went to a…Star Wars convention?”

“Yes! How fun it was, such chaos! Such violence! Never seen it since the Great Fear in 1789! And they didn’t even take LSD beforehand!”

“Uh uh?” I was still focused on the blood. There was a lot of it but coming from multiple sources. What the hell happened?

“Guess you were right about the gaming convention…somewhat.” Marie said out loud.

She couldn’t see the blood. Was Astarte such a big fan she had killed everyone there to steal their goodies? No, there was not that much blood, and only on her t-shirt.

“Can I pass?” Astarte asked us, as we were blocking the passageway.

“Of course.” In her hurry, Natasha almost passed over the new temporary railing.

I caught her by her fishnet and let Astarte through.

“Want to play tonight?” Astarte asked Marie as she went inside.

“No, thanks I’ve eaten too much, I want to zone out with Gray.”

“Pfuh, wait I smell raw fish. Sushi?”

“There is some for you, but you have to make them, I thought…” I began.

“Did you follow my instructions?”

“Yes.” I may have asked the millennia monster cooking advices, but who would remember that very vain part of myself?

“It was good then. I’ll make myself some.”

And she disappeared inside.

“What…the…FUCK!” Natasha shouted.

I winced. And Astarte could still hear us, I was sure of it, so Natasha shouldn’t have lowered her guard already.

“That’s why we wanted to end the evening early.” Marie explained.

“You don’t understand. That, that’s…!!!”

“You’ve got a preview of our mess now.” I told her.

“Oh my god. I thought I had a good idea of what was going on. Shit Marie, just…”

“I’m fine, she’s been nice until now. She was the one who taught Gray to make sushi.”

Hey! Don’t remember that!

“Gray.” Natasha repeated the word. “Not Igris. You call Ray Gray as well. How do you distinguish, Marie?”

“It’s complicated.” I answered instead of my best friend.

“Oh, no, it’s ok. I don’t want to know more, I’m still unreliable.”

“No worries, it doesn’t even matter anymore. But, I’m not telling you because it’s not my secret to share.” Marie told her.

“I got it, I got it. No worries. I’ll be going now. Don’t piss the old god off, please. I want to fuck both of…”

“Piss off!” Marie kicked her gently on the butt.

And Natasha fled.

“Such bad influence on your language, this young lady is.” I said in a posh British accent.

“Would you ever forgive me, grandfather?” Marie answered in a way worse rendition than mine.

“No, you shall be punished.”

“Oooh.” She said with a dramatic hand in front of her eyes.

“Let’s make sure Astarte didn’t kill anyone first though.” I continued in a more serious tone.

“It was a Star Wars convention.”

“I’m not sure what’s that supposed to mean.” I conceded.

“You don’t know the Star Wars community, then.”

I gave her a confused look.

As we entered back inside, Astarte was cutting sushi at unimaginable speed.

“Cook your rice for twenty more seconds and rinse it with less water next time.” She commented while her eyes were focused on the task at hand.

“Got it…did you kill someone?”

“Plenty. Not today though. With time, I’ve gotten tired of endings.”

I didn’t want to bother the being of old any more, and Marie and I went back to her/our room.