but the intensity became painful. Honest orgasms with real fleshy cocks did not feel that way. Only the electric orgasms sometimes hurt with too much pleasure. The Roman faded. She flipped the switch on her dildo and the hum faded. Her glittering orgasm faded. The light outside the window faded, and she felt like her whole life was fading away.
She tossed the dildo and it bounced once on her blankets and lay there looking silly like a cock without a man attached. She sighed. She wanted the man. Not the cock. It wasn’t just the sex.
This thought wasn’t any more comforting. She realized she wanted a dead man. Impossible. She knew a few widows. Like Michael Brand’s wife. She remembered her from the office parties. And her mother’s friend Martha who lost her husband to cancer. Those men were not coming home to their wives.
But the wives weren’t going to the Netherworld to see them either. Victoria sat up. I found him once. I can do it again. I have to figure out how to stay there. She didn’t know why she left the Roman at the moment she was supposed to be reviving him. She glanced at the clock. “Albert Magnus” she said loudly and looked at her phone.
Sure enough, it buzzed and vibrated on the little table top.
“Mr. Magnus!” she said. “Don’t hang up until I have asked you everything!”
She heard a soft laugh from her phone. “Is that possible? To be asked everything?”
“Yes. Everything for now, anyway.” She told him about the harpy and about Jasper. She told him about the battle and about Marcus. “How can I make sure I don’t get whisked back to my bed before I am ready?” There was silence on the other end. “Mr. Magnus?”
“I am here. I am thinking of how to answer you. Did you say that Jasper told you to kiss him?”
“Yes.”
“And you did.”
“Yes, but then I was back in my bed.”
“Don’t kiss him next time.”
Victoria grimaced. “Well.”
“Listen, it was not the kiss per se. He didn’t want you to be there. He is the one who sent you back.”
That had not occurred to her. It had never occurred to her that he didn’t want her anymore. Not once did that thought cross her mind. After all, he was the one who started this whole thing. Tears dripped down her nose. Even a dead man didn’t want her. She broke into sobs; the phone fell to her lap. She coughed and choked and cried and made terrible noises in her throat. She played all the old boyfriends in her mind and all the failed relationships. She flogged herself with every pound she gained and every bad hair day at the office. She made up reasons why she did not have a man and replayed all the times her mother had asked when there would be a husband and children and grandchildren. She had been replacing men with books and a humming dildo.
Vaguely she could hear Mr. Magnus’s tinny voice coming from her phone’s speaker. “Victoria? Victoria?”
She sniffed and picked up the phone. “Never mind,” she croaked and pushed the end button. A dead lover was breaking up with her by sending her back to Earth from Hell. She started to laugh hysterically but it wasn’t funny.
Her phone rang. She sniffed again and picked it up.
“Victoria?”
“Yes, I am fine,” she lied. “I am just so confused.”
Mr. Magnus sounded concerned. “I am in Nebraska or I would meet you for coffee. Listen to me, Victoria. You can go back. You must go back. But you can’t let him push you around. You have to find your courage, Victoria.”
She sniffed.
“Once you can stand on your own, he can’t control you anymore. He loves you. He needs you. You have to help him.”
Victoria wadded up her tissue and frowned. “How do you know he loves me?”
“Jasper told me.” Then the light blinked and his call was gone.
Chapter Eleven
Victoria lit another candle. This time she was wearing her thick leather boots and jeans. She had on one of her long sleeved cotton blouses and her sheepskin vest. Just in case. It seems Hell can be both hot and cold. She pointed at her fresh chalk circle and at the moment her digital clock flashed 12:00 she said, “Jasper!”
He seemed glad to see her. “Victoria.” His little demon eyes glanced at her closet. She had cleverly left the door open and lined up her most outrageous shoes. In front were the red pumps with