mortal, and that’s why you can’t remember everything clearly?”
“Maybe… it would also explain why I’m not trying to murder everything and everyone. Not that I was a total murderer in Hell. At least, I don’t think I was—and that’s probably it. I only remember pieces of who I was, and none of what I felt, so I get to make my own choices up here based on how I feel in the moment, and not because I’ve been angry in Hell for… a long fucking time.”
“I think the same thing happened to us. None of us have really clear memories of Heaven, and only some of us are still holding onto old grudges. I mean, when you got here, we were fighting each other, not demons.”
“True… I think that’s a good thing. It levels the playing field.”
“Levels it?”
“Well, did you ever think you’d be snuggling up to a demon in a motel?”
Arael paused. “I mean, I can’t say I’d never fantasized about it.”
I turned my eyes up at him again. “Excuse me?”
“Sure. Why not?”
I sat upright a little. “Wait a second, you’re telling me you have had that fantasy?”
A smirk crossed Arael’s lips. “Why are you so surprised?”
“I don’t know. Aren’t angels supposed to be pure and good?”
“Some of us are total assholes, but sure. Although I have been on Earth for what feels like years, and in that time, I’ve been disconnected from all that mandatory purity. My mind’s drifted on occasion.” He pointed at his horns. “These are proof of that, don’t you think?”
I returned the smirk. “Okay… so, how am I doing?”
“Doing?”
“You’ve fantasized about this, so, on a scale of one to ten, how accurate is reality?”
Arael’s eyes brightened and darkened at the same time, a playful eyebrow arching. “Four out of ten?”
“Four?!” I shrieked. “I refuse to accept that.”
“I don’t know what to tell you.”
“You could take that back and give me a higher number. You’ll hurt my feelings.”
“I don’t think so.”
“No? Is that because you think I don’t have feelings to hurt?”
He shook his head. “I know you have feelings. You probably feel things way more intensely than I do—than any of us do.”
“So? What do you mean?”
“I mean I think you like a challenge. If I’d have said ten out of ten, what kind of reaction would I have gotten?” He cocked an eyebrow, his eyes glimmering against the light from the TV screen. “More importantly, what kind of message does that send?”
“Uh, it sends me the message that you think I’m awesome, and I am everything you fantasized about?”
His playful eyebrow waggled a little. “Well… you’re not everything I fantasized about.”
I realized then I hadn’t lifted my hand from his chest. I found myself staring at it, at the tattoos on his skin. Then I looked up at his eyes again, catching a little of my own reflection swimming inside of them.
“I see…” I said, making my fingers stand on their ends. “And what exactly do you mean by that?”
“You need to be very careful with what you do with that hand, is what I mean.”
I turned my eyes up at the ceiling and screwed up my face. “You know what? I don’t know what that means either. I seem to not know anything at all.”
“Maybe I should educate you.”
“Maybe you should.” I locked eyes with him again, my fingers gliding along his skin toward his abdomen. “I don’t like being a four.”
“Don’t you?”
I could see his heartrate steadily starting to rise, the muscle pumping so hard it made his chest bounce. “I hate it, in fact. Especially coming from someone like you.”
“Why me?”
“Because… look at you.” My fingers reached his abdomen, then dipped a little lower to graze the soft fur near his belly button. I remembered having done this once before, and the memory made my own heart start to race. “You look like you were hand sculpted, and you probably were. God was a horny bitch.”
He let out a hearty laugh. “Horny bitch,” he said, “I’ve heard a thousand people say a thousand things about God, but never has she been called that.”
“Well, it’s true.”
“You do realize God is like… mom, right?”
“I’m paying you a compliment. Don’t make it weird.”
“I’m not.”
“Good…” I took a silent breath as my fingers dared venture a little further, stopping just short of the line of his grey sweatpants and hooking lightly under the fabric. “Because I might.”
Arael’s eyes were fixed on my hand, then he turned them up at me. “Are you sure?”
A cold