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“You could be a masseuse,” I said with my eyes closed.

“I don’t want to touch other men.”

I smiled at the immediate answer. Caligo’s honesty was refreshing. I’d never have to worry that he was saying one thing while meaning another. He might not look like a conventional heartthrob, but when it came to making me feel loved and secure, he had the role down pat.

“A woman-only masseuse?” I suggested.

“I don’t want to touch women. Only you.”

“My personal masseuse?”

Caligo tugged off my shirt. “I accept the role.”

Things progressed quickly after that, which meant that by two in the afternoon, I was still sprawled naked in bed, having achieved nothing more meaningful than one text conversation with Laura, a single selfie, and three orgasms.

I reached across to run my hand down the solid muscle of Caligo’s back. Wisps of shadow rose to meet my touch, winding around my wrist and caressing my skin so gently that I smiled.

“They’re like snakes,” I said. “Ones that react to me. You’re going to have to use a few of them on my my cock one day.”

“Today?”

There was no mistaking the hope in Caligo’s voice.

I patted his back. “No, not today. I’m not a machine. Just pencil it in for sometime soon.”

“I don’t have a pencil.”

I laughed. “I’ll get you one. A gold one that you can hang around your neck.” I struggled upright. “I’m going to shower, and then I should really do something productive.”

Something productive turned out to be tackling the pile of Tyler’s stuff that still lingered in the corner of my newly converted art studio. He’d kept messaging me about it, and I’d taken great delight in ignoring every one. What was so important about a few clothes and boxes, anyway?

However, it had reached the point where the irritation of seeing his things every day surpassed any pleasure I got from annoying him. It was time to stop being petty and cut him out of my life once and for all. Grabbing a black bin bag—because he wasn’t going to get to keep a suitcase or one of my bags—I set about shovelling all the clothes inside without folding them.

So much for not being petty.

But then what were a few creases between exes? He was lucky I wasn’t taking a pair of scissors to everything. For a moment, I considered it. Either that or I could set everything alight and send him the video.

I played the scenario out in my head—knowing I wouldn’t actually do it but enjoying it nevertheless—while I dumped the bin bag of clothes by the front door and went back for the first of three boxes. I transported the first two without a hitch. The third, however, must have been the most poorly constructed box known to man. It made it as far as the foot of the stairs before the bottom gave way, spilling its contents all over the floor. Something small rolled under the cupboard in the hallway.

“Fuck!”

“Any time,” Caligo shouted from the living room, where he’d switched on the TV.

“Not an offer,” I shouted back.

“That’s a shame.”

Rather than repairing the box, I got another bin bag and started throwing everything into it. If Tyler complained, I’d tell him to go fuck himself. “I’ve decided you’re not a shadow demon.”

“No?”

“You’re a sex demon.”

“I have centuries of never having done it to make up for.”

“Jesus! That’s a scary thought. My poor arse.”

“Not poor. Pretty. Very pretty. And tasty, too.”