I struggled to temper the pride that surged in me, to rein it in with something more measured.Do not get ahead of yourself, Alessandro. You are still just a man.
But would I remain such when this ritual was done?
Voices came next, accompanying these flashing scenes.
One whispered, voice broken,"I gave it everything. But it was not enough."
Another, their face half-devoured by their own greed, sobbed,"I wanted more. I always wanted more."
A third stared at me with hollow eyes, empty and used,"It tired of me."
A new kind of fear bloomed in me. Was Asmodeus so fickle? Would I be cast aside once I had been thoroughly used, once there was nothing left in me that it hadn’t tasted? What would it see when centuries passed, when my body wasno longer novel, and it had done everything it could imagine to me?
Would the fire die out?
What then?The thought rose like prey sensing a predator.What will happen to me then?
And still, I burned.
I opened my eyes, struggling to look past the flames. The pain had evolved, though I cannot find the words to describe it. It went beyond anything I could comprehend, and thus burned away much of my mental faculties. I was no longerthinking—there was none of the usual structure to my thoughts or my actions. Somehow, even in that hollowed state, I looked to Asmodeus, though I can’t articulate what I hoped for. It looked back at me. For the briefest flicker of a moment, I saw myself through its eyes.
I was suspended in the throes of fear and pain. I felt Asmodeus react to this, a curious amalgamate of lust and what might have been concern. And I saw again those almost-fellows that had gone through the trials put before them by Asmodeus, and I saw one by one how they failed. Not as they had described–no! Asmodeus allowed me to see beyond the stories they told themselves.
"I gave it everything. But it was not enough.”
The first had given herself, but never fully. She offered her body, yes—but not without hesitation. Her hands reached out, but her heart held back. Each act of pleasure was shadowed by guilt, as though she believed herself filthy for wanting at all. What she gave, she hoped would redeem her. She wanted to be healed, not consumed. She wanted absolution dressed up as desire.
“I wanted more. I always wanted more."
The second gave and gave—but only to be adored in return. He surrendered not out of devotion, but as a transaction,until every moan, every open mouth, every bruise became a wager. If he gave enough of himself, he hoped to feel a type of power: that Asmodeus, the demon, the Prince of Lust, a King of Hell, would adore him. He thought himself able to change Asmodeus’ very nature! Of course, he felt starved; he wanted to control a demon! Asmodeus would not be made into a mirror, reflecting back that which the man wanted.
"It tired of me."
The third had been welcomed gently, held carefully, touched with something approaching reverence. But he could not bear to be loved. Every time Asmodeus praised him, he flinched. He expected only cruelty, as I had done, and could not bear to evolve beyond it. He could not accept his own pleasure at the expense of others. Asmodeus had tired, yes–of his inability to evolve.
They were not simply cast aside—they had failed. They had sought to possess Asmodeus, or to bend Lust itself into something it was not. And Asmodeus had abandoned them because they did not understand what it meant to give oneself without condition. They did not understand that shame was their greatest undoing. When a body closes itself again out of fear, lust has no place there. Asmodeus could not stay to nurture those who would not let themselves be changed.
That is not why I am here,I thought. And I knew this was the final test, in a way. At the very core of this burning, purifying fire, was that very question: do you feel you are worthy of being changed?
How easy it had been to accept Asmodeus’ cruelty, and the lust of other demons at the expense of mine own pleasure. How troubling it had been to take my pleasure from demons, and then from my darling Oliviero. How difficult it was now to think Iwasmore than a simple, stumblinghuman. Was it really hubris to think myself different when I was the only man to ever make it this far?
I was being transformed. That meant something. I had earned my place here. I deserved it all.
This final acceptance unlocked something in my core. Pain fell away rapidly, and pleasure rolled in; an unexpected orgasm, that rapt and sudden intensity that leaves one half blind. I cried out as the fire shifted and visions dissolved around me, and when the latent pain and pleasure had ebbed away, I was left collapsed in the circle of sigils.
A shadow had fallen over me. It was my Lord, surveying me. I needn’t have looked to know: the knowledge settled in my blood, the way a dog knows its owner's scent. Though the heat of the ground remained, it no longer burned my flesh, and when I pushed up slightly, tilting my head to meet Asmodeus’ gaze, I was surprised by the dazzling smile that had split its lips apart.
The demon’s eye was a rolling fire, a bright unnatural red. I felt its presence move through me as it assessed me and wondered what it saw now. Had I changed? Did it like what it saw?
“You endured,” it said softly, and its voice sounded closer to reverence than I had ever heard from those lips. My eyes fell to them, and a pure, concentrated lust filled my core. Oh, how I wanted Asmodeus to kiss me then. I imagined it cupping my cheeks, I imagined leaning against the perfect pressure of its palm. I thought how it might press that warm tongue into my mouth and moan into me until I answered with a sighing moan of my own.
The flame around me dimmed, but the sigils beneath my feet stayed alive, pulsing like a second heartbeat. I shivered, pulling myself from my fantasy. But then Asmodeus–myLord–reached out a hand to me. A hand to help me stand.
It had done it before, and I had denied it. But I mustpause here. I must emphasise to you how grand that gesture was. A king of Hell, the entity I had pledged myself to, offered me itshand. Can you comprehend the gravity of the action? Like God descending to fold your laundry, it was, this demon king offering to help me stand. It seemed beneath Asmodeus, such a mundane and gentle thing it was, and I blanched at the hand for a second before I remembered what I had endured, and what I was now. I had, rightly, denied it before: back then, I was a half-mortal soul trapped in a limbo of existence. But now? After that scalding, purifying fire?
I was Alessandro, Consort to the Prince of Lust.
And I could feel the mark of Asmodeus written into my very blood. I felt a pulsing sensation, and when I closed my eyes and concentrated, I could sense the outline of a knot in my core, a tether that ran directly to the demon. It was a kind of formal binding, far stronger than the pull that had lured me through Hell. That had been like a compass and just as gentle, for all the guiding had been, really, through mine own will. What I felt now had a compulsive gravity to it. A proper anchor; a confirmation that I belonged to Asmodeus.
