My Demon Girlfriend

“You didn’t think I’d stay forever, did you?”

Nora shifted in her pink slippers that were more scuff than fluff. Her Pink Floyd T-shirt hung like a spiderweb, the hem brushing bare thighs. “No. I ain’t stupid,” she mumbled.

“Coulda fooled me,” said Akuma. She grinned with her teeth and stuffed her hands into her leather jacket.

They stood there together in the autumn chill, saying nothing. It wasn’t quite a silence—at least, not the kind Nora was used to. Long days mowing the grass around the graves, pruning the ragged hedges near the highway, and talking to folks with tears in their eyes as they lay flowers down by shiny new headstones. There was something about their grief that drew her to them. She lived next to the graveyard in the last caretaker’s house, so she saw them all the time. They were hard to miss, honestly, even though everyone in graveyards seemed to hover, no matter how big or tall or angry they were.

Eventually, Akuma slipped on her biker gloves. The leather was worn and cracked, the sharp studs sparkling in the dim predawn light. She mounted the motorcycle that held itself upright. No need for a kickstand. Akuma’s eyes flared red, and she grew a mountainous set of black horns. They were heavily scarred but lovingly polished, glowing sunset as the engine roared and backfired.

“I’ll see you again,” said Nora.

Akuma smiled. Her teeth were hellishly sharp, triple rows on top and bottom. “Yeah, probably,” she said. “‘Less you hide in Jesus’ coattails. But then again, I might getcha anyway.”

“Yeah.” The word was hardly more than a puff of air, spilling from a throat so tight nothing could be said nor held back. Nora wished Akuma would stay another day or just another hour even or another measly tiny little minute. Second. God, she’d take a fucking second.

Something about the way Akuma’s red eyes danced like a witch’s bonfire told Nora the demoness knew what she was thinking. It should have been embarrassing, but Nora only tilted her head and sighed heavily.

“So why a graveyard?” Akuma said over the idling engine.

Now, it was Nora’s turn to smile, but she didn’t have rows of teeth to make it menacing. “Humans can’t see their own noses, did you know that? It’s right in front of them, and their brains ignore it.”

“A nose metaphor,” said Akuma. Her teeth were elegant, and that tongue that slithered between them was less so but just as magnificent.

Nora shivered. “A nose metaphor.”

“Classic.”

It was the last thing Akuma said before she took off, kicking up a dust cloud as big as a nuclear mushroom. She was gone before Nora could feel the sting of grit in her eyes.

Nora went inside and turned on the TV. The weatherman predicted a light afternoon rain shower and partly cloudy skies until sundown at 6:58 PM. Another rain shower, heavier this time, at 2 AM or thereabouts. A tumbleweed crossed open plains and nestled in the short shadow of the shed out back. It was a Sunday morning, meaning nobody would come to the graveyard until after church. People who visited graveyards were usually creatures of habit, and it was easier to pick the ones who weren’t. Often, they came when nobody would notice they’d gone missing.

Nora sipped her coffee. She wasn’t wearing anything underneath her T-shirt, and the counter was cold, and her body was empty, and she was sad. Sad sad sad. Just like those folks at the graveyard. Sad sad sad.

She wouldn’t have cared if she wasn’t helping anybody feel better, but she was. They were sad. You couldn’t be sad when you were dead or being butchered on an old table covered in plastic wrap or stacked neatly in a freezer. Sad sad sad.

She smiled. Just for Akuma. Her torturer, her sweet demoness.

“One day,” she said to the rising sun, “I’ll finally go to hell.”