My Close Shave With Jezebel

Richard Imhoagene
August 9, 2014.

...I'm in love with a Demon

It was like a scene from a scary movie, except that I played both audience and actor. My heart stopped for a moment- my breath wriggled in disproportionate velocity. I thought Nightmares were scary, but now I wished this was a nightmare. a lump of thick suffocating phlegm hung in my throat, undecided as though it had a choice to either plunge in and suppress the fears within or if I had to spit it out with all of my troubles.

Nothing seemed real anymore, as though the moon could rise at mid-day or the ocean could be set on fire. I felt lost in my own world- every sense of reason seems to have been submerged by the mighty rushing ocean of anxiety. If I ever thought I was a man, this was the time to prove it. I shut out of my misery when Folake tapped my right arm- I had probably gone to Jupiter and back.

"She mentioned some names" uttered Folake, further plunging me into deeper misery. I could not help but think about those careless nights of momentary pleasure, her stream-lined neck were a delight to plant my lips. Nothing else mattered those nights- my blood-shot eyes like those of an angry demon seeking whom to devour. "No" she would say, "I can't do this. In time you'll understand." I remember those words that always kept the doors of her bosom shut.

"Steve!" Folake called impatiently. "We have to go now if you still want to meet her there." So far, she had not called my name- asking Folake would be selling myself out. But maybe there was no need to be worried; all we did was foreplay- there was never outright s€x. We kissed and touched, and kissed again. I always wanted more, but those gentle words of Shade always held me back. Now, I am glad she didn't let me.

It took me some time to put myself together. I followed Folake in sheepish anxiety, and within minutes, we were at Shade's house. The next thing I saw challenged the reality of life itself. Shade laid on the bare floor of the sitting-room, her clothes torn to shreds. Two men, that I recognize to be Pastors of a near-by Pentecostal church, stood on either side speaking in tongues. Her fear-gripped parents stood at a corner of the room. That was Shade, my Shade, rolling "half-cladded" on the floor. She was half-human, half-monster. Her skin was scaly, her eyes had turned all white- Shade was a Demon.

My mind drifted to when we first met. She was the finest fresher in the entire faculty that year. Nobody thought I had a chance, I didn't think I did. But she liked me. With all the cultists, rich dudes and "professional students" flocking around her, she simply liked me. She was the prettiest thing I had seen in a long time. Her golden-brown waist-length hair was the envy of all. Her slim, fleshy, hour-glass kind of figure can be likened to the descriptions in Songs of Solomon.

The toughest task for me was speaking with her. I thought I had all the words to make a girl's head spin in degrees until I met Shade. Her exotic look simply rendered one speechless. Fate smiled on me when I met her stranded at a Cyber Cafe trying to upload some documents on her portal. My whiz came to play and our love story began. She was the simple definition of perfection- loving, caring, beautiful, "God-fearing" or so I thought, and of course, "pocket-friendly."

Putting the pieces together is a Herculean task. How could light suddenly become darkness? How could my gentle, kind, cannot-hurt-a-fly looking Shade become a monster all of a sudden? I needed explanation, but my head was shut to any kind of cognition. I could neither understand it nor could I explain it. These two persons were like two sides of a coin- Shade seemed perfect to me. She wasn't anything like what now laid before me. I moved closer to be sure it was really her.

Her mother let out a loud scream when Shade mentioned the name of her tenth victim- it was her uncle, her mother's brother. She was responsible for his death. They had s€x and she killed him afterwards. I swallowed a lump of saliva. I suddenly realized what I had gotten myself into. I tried to console myself with the thought that there was no "blood exchange" between us, when she suddenly, rather violently, turned towards me and said, in a rather paradoxical manner, "You are lucky I liked you." Then within a split second she was gone.

Shade was dead- with all of her victims. I still tried to understand how she could be this "demon." She practically radiated peace. I stood still not knowing whether to be happy I was still alive, or to mourn the girl who my heart once beat for. My confusion lied in the fact that I felt like I had lost something. Even when I had found out she was a demon, I felt I had lost someone special to me. Could I be in love with a demon, or am I a demon myself?

About Author / Additional Info:
Richard Imhoagene wrote his first literature, a poem, at age 4. He's still disappointed at how terrible the piece was. That first bold step was the start of a passion that has changed his life forever. To him, art is life. "Everything you see around you has some form of artistic value or another.