Chapter 4
Chris looked at him. “How can I do that?” he asked.
“You can continue to take care of me as you did when I was in that pathetic furry form,” Azzandar told him. “I will make it worth your while.”
“Worth my…while? What do you mean?”
To his shock, Azzandar’s yellow eyes raked over him. “In return for your care, I will see to your bodily needs,” he explained in a low, growly sort of voice that made Chris’ stomach muscles tighten involuntarily. “It has been some time since I have been with any of my concubines. This will work out for both of us.”
Chris tried to get his fuddled mind to work, which wasn’t easy at all under these circumstances. “Are you saying…that if I feed you and everything, you’ll…sleep with me?” he asked, to clarify.
Azzandar shrugged. “Yes,” he replied coolly.
Chris felt outrage rise up in him, despite his attraction to his former cat’s human form. He’d never paid for a prostitute in his life, and this smacked of prostitution to him. “I’ll let you stay here,” he said angrily, “But I won’t accept sex for giving you room and board.”
Azzandar gave him a puzzled, haughty look. He didn’t understand why the human seemed so upset about his proposition. It seemed a perfectly viable solution to him. He frowned as he considered the fact that the human might not find him attractive. That was a blow to his vast ego. His yellow eyes narrowed, and took on an angry glint. He would seduce this pathetic human if it was the last thing that he ever did! Humans had not spoken in awe about demon lovers down through the ages for nothing. Chris would discover the skills that he possessed, and Azzandar would make him scream in pain and pleasure such as he had never known in his entire miserable life…
Chris wondered why his former cat was looking at him like that. It made him feel distinctly uneasy. But at last the cat turned (almost) human seemed to shake off whatever he was thinking. He stirred, looking around. “Do you have any more of that thing that you used to feed me?” he asked imperiously. “I’m hungry.”
“Thing?” Chris repeated. “You mean cat food?”
“No,” Azzandar replied impatiently. “The smelly, flaky grey stuff.”
“Oh! You mean tuna!” Chris cried in understanding. “Yeah, I have some more. But maybe it would be better if I made you some sandwiches. You might like those better in this form.”
“Whatever you think best,” Azzandar told him indifferently.
Chris found his eyes straying back to the perfect, lithely-muscular body that the former cat (and demon, apparently) was sporting, especially down between its legs…Wow. He tried not to look, but he just couldn’t help himself! It was pretty hard to miss something that was as thick and long as a baby’s arm. He gulped heavily, feeling himself breaking out in a fine sweat. “Umm…maybe you could get dressed, too?” he managed to croak in a hoarse voice.
Azzandar glanced down at himself. “I suppose so. That is what you miserable creatures do, isn’t it? Cover yourself with fabric or hides? That is not something that demons have ever had to do – our Realm is always very warm.”
“Yes, but here in the human world that isn’t true,” Chris told him earnestly. “You could get pretty cold running around without any clothes on. Besides, if you tried that people are bound to see how…odd you look. The tail would be pretty noticeable, for one thing,” he said, looking at the furry length curled up on the floor next to Azzandar’s thigh.
A disgusted snort. “Very well. Have you any garments that will fit me? We don’t seem to be the same size,” he added, his yellow eyes running over Chris rather contemptuously.
He found his own eyes dropping into Azzandar’s lap again. “No, we’re not,” he agreed in an odd tone of voice. “Uh, no. I’ll have to go out and buy you some stuff later. For now though…” he got up and hurried into the bedroom, returning with a folded sheet in his hands. “Why don’t you wrap this around your waist?” he told Azzandar as he handed it to the cat/man.
Azzandar looked at it dubiously. Chris felt that weird fluttering in his abdomen again as he realized that he’d have to help the former demon figure out how to wear the sheet as a garment. He swallowed thickly, and reached out to take it from Azzandar’s clawed fingers. He unfolded the sheet and held it in his hands, finally reaching out with it spread between them. Azzandar just stood there and waited for him to do whatever he was going to, not bothering to try to help him. Chris found that he had to step closer to the naked ‘man’ to wrap the sheet fully around his hips, and his breath shuddered in his chest as he did so. He tried not to touch any of that beautiful naked skin, but he wasn’t totally successful. He became aware that yellow eyes were narrowed and watching his face intently, and his cheeks turned pink as he secured the sheet at Azzandar’s waist with a heavy knot.
“There!” he cried, skipping backward with a feeling of relief coursing through him. “That should hold you until I can buy you some clothes. I’ll just…uhhh…go make some food!” he bolted into the kitchen, while Azzandar frowned behind him.
The former demon stared at the human’s turned back as Chris got several cans of tuna down from the cupboard and retrieved a can opener from a drawer. What had him so spooked? Azzandar wondered silently. It didn’t seem like fear anymore; although Chris had seemed nervous as he’d tied the length of cloth around Azzandar’s waist. Was he afraid that the former demon would do something to harm him? He needn’t fear that; he knew he needed Chris. Besides, he owed the human a debt, whether he wanted to admit it or not. Chris had taken him in and seen to all of his needs, with very little return. While he found such generosity idiotic, he couldn’t deny that Chris had been very good to him. And it wasn’t as though he had any other allies either in this realm or in the Dark Realm. It was best to work with what he had.
Chris had opened the cans, and his nostrils flared at the tantalizing smell of the tuna. He began to salivate a little as that odor brought out a Pavlovian response in him. Impatient to eat, Azzandar walked into the kitchen and hovered over Chris’ shoulder. Finally the human halted in his efforts and looked over his shoulder at Azzandar. “Could you please sit down?” he asked, pointing at the small table nearby. “I’m having a hard time finishing this with you looming over me.”
Azzandar felt rather offended about the ‘looming’ comment, but at last he only sat down without a word and folded his arms over his chest. He wanted food more than he wanted to punish the insolent human right now. But there would be time enough for that later, oh yes…
Chris turned back to the tuna, mixing mayo and a little bit of pepper and salt into it. He was grateful that Azzandar had done as he’d asked, as having the gorgeous cat/man hovering over him had not been good for his concentration AT ALL. He pulled out some slices of white bread and began to spoon the tuna salad onto them. His thoughts were moving independently of his hands, and at last he said: “Hey, umm, Azzandar?”
“What is it, human?” he heard the cat/man’s voice say from behind him.
Chris sighed. “First of all, could you please call me ‘Chris’ and not ‘human’? Please?”
Silence. Then: “As you wish, hu…Chris. Was there anything else?”
“Uh, yeah. I don’t know that I’ll be able to take care of both of us by myself. Not physically, but I’m just not sure that I can afford to feed and clothe both you and me. It was different when you were a cat, but…”
A low sound. “I see. How do you acquire food and clothing and other things?”
“Oh, we use money,” Chris told him, glancing briefly over his shoulder. “I get it for doing a job. That’s why I go to work. I get money, and I buy things with it.”
Azzandar frowned, tapping a claw on the tabletop. “Must I do the same?” he asked warily.
He sighed. “I don’t think so, not with the way you look. Besides, any employer is going to need stuff that you don’t have and that I can’t get you – like a birth certificate, a social security card, a driver’s license…that sort of thing. I don’t really know how to get us more money besides working, though, unless we rob a bank or something…”
“What is a bank? And how shall we rob it?” Azzandar asked with great interest.
Chris felt sweat forming on his brow. “No! I don’t mean that we should actually rob a bank!” he said hurriedly. “I don’t think that you’d like prison, and I KNOW I wouldn’t!”
“Then how do you intend that we get more of this ‘money’ that we need to buy ‘stuff’?” Azzandar asked him impatiently.
Chris didn’t know. Now he wished that he’d never brought the subject up, even though they would need more money soon if he were to feed two people. His few live-in boyfriends had mostly had their own jobs – although one of them definitely hadn’t, which was one of the reasons that he’d chucked out the dead-beat in the first place. His job simply didn’t pay enough for two people to live comfortably on his salary. What to do? He didn’t have anything to pawn or sell…
“Uh,” he began uncertainly. “There is one thing that you could do…”
“And what is that?” Azzandar asked suspiciously. He was not going to do anything menial; he was not a servant.
Chris turned around. He wriggled a little in embarrassment as he said slowly: “There’s this place. A club. One of my boyfriends used to work there under the table…”
Azzandar frowned. “He labored under a table? How is that possible?”
Chris shook his head. “I’m not going to try to explain that one to you,” he said. “It’d be impossible. Let’s just say that you could work there without needing any of the papers that you normally need to hold a job. And you have all of the job qualifications,” he added, looking Azzandar over. “You’re good-looking, well-built, sexy, well-hung…” he cleared his throat over that last ‘attribute’. “And the eyes and tail…everybody would think it was a costume. I’d bet that you’ll do really well there.”
“And what would I be doing, exactly?” Azzandar asked.
Chris’ eyes dropped to the linoleum floor under his feet. “You’d be a…stripper,” he said softly.
Azzandar’s ears were good enough to catch what he said anyway. “What is a stripper?” he demanded.
Chris’ shoulders rose a bit. “A stripper is somebody who…err…dances around and takes off their clothes for a living,” he said, his face reddening.
“Ahh,” Azzandar said in sudden understanding. Actually, the Dark Realms had an equivalent to a ‘stripper’. He’d often been entertained by the most seductive and talented of the succubae and incubi who lived in his Realm. He’d thoroughly enjoyed their shows, and thinking about it he decided that he wouldn’t at all mind doing it himself. Not with this body, which was a fine specimen(for a human), and had the added exotic curiosities in the tail and the cat-like eyes. He could imagine seducing these wretched humans with his grace and power, taunting them with what they could not have or even touch if he chose not to let them. Ah, that would be like being a demon again, even if just in a minor way!
“I will be a ‘stripper’,” he decided. “You will take me to this place.”
Chris had brightened up at his decisive tone of voice, and the fact that he didn’t seem upset over the idea. “Okay, but not today,” he told Azzandar. “We’ll wait until my next days off. For now, let’s eat,” he turned back to grab the two plates with the tuna sandwiches on them. He carried them over to the table and set one down in front of Azzandar.
Azzandar watched him for a moment to see how to eat the white triangle on his plate. When Chris picked his up and took a bite out of it, the former King of Demons imitated him. He chewed thoughtfully, enjoying the many flavors in the food that Chris had given him. The tuna was the best part, of course; but there were other parts that he enjoyed as well. “Do you like it?” Chris asked him.
He nodded imperiously. “The grey flaky food goes quite well with these other things,” he said rather condescendingly. “You have done well, Chris.”
Chris’ lips twitched a bit to be talked to as though he were a slave who’d pleased his master. He suspected that he could expect this kind of behavior from now on, since Azzandar had once been a demon. Not only a regular demon, either, but the King of all Demons! He could barely take that in. If Azzandar wasn’t sitting there in all of his half-naked splendor, devouring a tuna sandwich with great gusto, he wouldn’t have believed it at all. But how could he not, looking at the pointed, fur-edged ears, the cat-slit yellow eyes, and the long claws on the ends of the cat/man’s fingertips? Besides, that collar around Azzandar’s neck was the exact same as the one that Rusty had worn. There couldn’t be two such collars like that, could there? And unless he’d been hallucinating, he’d seen an actual demon not an hour ago. It was horrifying to think that Azzandar had once looked just like that.
Chris finished his own sandwich without tasting it. He was thinking about the logistics of living with a half-man, half-cat who had once been a demon, and moreover one that had already offered to have sex with him. This, he concluded, was going to be one HELL of a strange roommate!
Azzandar was learning the joys of taking a shower; as a cat, he had not been in the least interested in dumping tons of hot water onto his head. But as a (semi) human he found this indulgence quite nice and satisfying. A slightly blushing Chris had shown him how to use the shower, before bolting out of the bathroom with a squeaked excuse about purchasing him some clothes and other personal items. The former demon had been highly amused by his host’s behavior, and was planning other ways to fluster Chris on a regular basis already. It would be quite entertaining - at least for HIM, which is all that mattered anyway.
He sniffed at the bottle of shampoo that Chris had shown him how to open. The human had said that he should rub some of the stuff into his hair, and then rinse off under the pray of water. His nose wrinkled at the smell of flowers, and other sweetly-scented things. He sniffed, but finally squeezed some of the stinky stuff onto his palm and quickly rubbed it into the hair atop his head. Grimacing, he stepped under the water as quickly as he could to wash the horrible stuff off. He was a demon with a cat’s sense of smell, after all; such treacly perfumed odors frankly turned his stomach.
He ran a hand down his own belly thoughtfully, taking in the lithe muscles there. The wretched demon wizard had at least left him with a well-made and attractive humanoid body. Arriving at the human organ lying between his thighs, he lifted it in his hand and studied it. Not as big as it once had been, of course; but an adequate size for one of these puny humans. Out of curiosity, he stroked it with his hand and was rewarded by a twitch and a slight thickening. Hmm. He tried that maneuver again, getting even more of a response. It didn’t take him long to learn how to masturbate properly, and he enjoyed the sensations as he stood under the warm running water of the shower.
He hissed in pleasure when the feelings grew most intense, and a spray of white fluid jetted out of the tip of the human penis. So, that was what human sexual release felt like. While perhaps not as intense as a demon’s, it was definitely serviceable. He’d have to seduce Chris as soon as possible, so that he could discover what it was like to experience this feeling while buried inside of a warm, wriggling body. His smile was glittery and tooth-filled as he turned under the water to wash his torso clean of spattered white droplets.
He finally stepped out of the shower when the water began to turn cool. Chris had shown him where the towels were, and he pulled one off of the rack to wipe himself down with. His eyes found his reflection in the mirror over the sink, and Azzandar studied himself from every angle. He took in the frill of hair decorating each pointed ear, the sharp little fangs at the front of the mouth, and the slitted yellow eyes. His skin was not pale like Chris’ was - instead, it was a light brown with reddish undertones. Except for the exotic eyes and ears, in fact, Azzandar could have stepped off of an Indian reservation. The hair on his head was a darker brown with even more pronounced reddish tones, and there were in fact Native American people born with hair that color, rather than the more ubiquitous black or very dark brown. His high cheekbones and the cast of his features would have added to the illusion that he was an Indian, in fact. That’s what most people would assume anyway when they saw him, for who would jump to the less obvious conclusion that he was a half-cat/half-man?
Azzandar ran a finger over one cheekbone, then shook his head and walked out into the bedroom in all of his splendid, naked magnificence. He left the towel behind, not caring about modesty in the least. That was a concept that no demon would ever understand, anyway. They were more of the ’if you’ve got it, flaunt it’, mindset. He padded through the bedroom and out into the living room, his tail lashing a little in the air behind him. He whipped it back and forth sharply to slap the water out of it as he glanced around. He finally decided to watch the TV while he waited for Chris to return. He found human television fascinating.
Azzandar walked over and found the remote, which he’d watched Chris use often. He peered at the buttons, and it didn’t take him long to find the one labeled ON. He punched this with his claw, and the TV screen came alive. He smirked in triumph as he sat down on the couch, and stretched his bare legs out so that his feet were propped on the coffee table. He’d seen that loser human Rick do this pretty often while he’d been staying here, and the pose had looked quite comfortable. He looked at the TV screen, but quickly decided that he didn’t want to watch this channel. It was the one where humans sold gaudy trinkets, and other useless objects, to other humans for exorbitant prices. A little experimenting, and he managed to find the arrow buttons that changed the channel. He indulged in some channel surfing, before deciding on a violent action movie.
He watched with lidded eyes as the humans on the screen blew each other up and shot one another in sprays of gore. Now, this was more like it! His demon soul approved of such activities. The only thing that detracted from his enjoyment was the fact that he suspected that this was all play acting on the humans’ part, since he’d seen several of these people on other shows and they hadn’t been dead or even scarred from their experiences. That thought made his lip curl slightly in disgust. Humans! If you were going to go in for bloodshed and mayhem, you should actually do it! Not stand around and pretend that you were doing it for entertainment’s sake. Ridiculous creatures.
The apartment door opened about an hour later, and Chris entered with bags over his arms. He came to a sudden halt as he spied the naked cat-man sprawled on his couch watching his television. Azzandar glanced up at him impatiently. “Its about time that you returned,” he growled.
Chris shook his head a little as though to clear it. “Umm…Did you take a shower?” he asked as he carried the bags over to the couch.
“Yes, I stood under the running water as you said I should. Can you not see how clean this body is?” Azzandar asked, waving a clawed hand down at his own nakedness.
Chris’ eyes skittered to his body, then darted away. “Sure, yeah,” he said rather breathlessly. “That’s good. I brought you some clothes,” he added hurriedly, rummaging in one of the bags. “I hope they fit. I had to guess about your size. And I don’t really know what to do about your…err…tail…” he went on, looking doubtfully at the furry length coiled up near Azzandar’s thigh on the couch. “I guess we could cut a hole for it or something…”
“As a demon, I wore a short kilt that opened in the back to make room for my tail,” Azzandar told him.
“Uh, yeah. That’s not gonna work here,” Chris told him. “Guys don’t wear skirts or kilts regularly in this world. We just have to figure something out with pants.”
Azzandar sniffed at such stupidity, and reached out to accept the shirt that Chris handed him. He pulled it on over his head, having seen both Chris and Rick do this same thing many times. Demons didn’t wear shirts, having no need for them in the overly-warm climes that they came from. Chris had a good eye, and it fit well over his torso. And it was red, which he liked. But when the human held out a pair of pants, these got a more doubtful look. They didn’t seem very comfortable.
“Please just try them on,” Chris begged. “I’ve got a pair of baggy shorts you can wear around the house, but if you’re going to go outside you have to wear something more substantial. Otherwise you’ll freeze. You don’t have fur to protect you anymore.” he reminded the disgruntled demon.
Azzandar snarled a little, but stood up and took the pants from his hand. “Very well,” he hissed.
He stepped into the pants and began to wriggle them up his legs, complaining under his breath the entire time. Chris tried to look elsewhere, but couldn’t stop his eyes from being drawn back to the dark fabric sliding up powerful, muscular legs and thighs. And of course, there was the groin area…he swallowed as he caught a glimpse of that magnificent organ dangling between Azzandar’s legs. Cripes! It made him feel rather faint just to look at it, and he tried hard to curb his imagination from taking it any further than that. Otherwise, he might pass out from blood loss to his head.
Azzandar managed to get the pants halfway up his thighs, but then he encountered the roadblock of his tail. He lashed it furiously as he glared at Chris. “Here, turn around,” the human said hurriedly.
He did so stiffly, outrage in every movement. Chris pulled some things from one bag and walked over to him. One was a measuring tape, which he used on the tail to measure its circumference. It was soft and silky under his fingers, and he had the strongest urge to just pet it - or maybe pull it playfully. Instead, he used some special chalk he’d bought at a fabric shop to mark an x on the seat of the pants where the tail would have to go. “You can take them off for now,” he told Azzandar.
The cat-man snorted but yanked the pants off of his legs and tossed them at Chris, who grabbed the tangle of fabric tightly. He went to retrieve the baggy shorts instead. “You can sort of thread your tail down one leg of these,” he explained to Azzandar.
Another look of outrage. “Why can I not wear a kilt?!” He demanded furiously.
“Well, I can make you one. But for now, you’ll just have to wear these shorts. Please?” Chris pleaded desperately.
Azzandar scowled at him, but finally took the shorts and put them on. He carefully stuffed his twitching tail down one leg, and it dangled out of the hole obscenely. Chris had to close his teeth over a giggle, because he was pretty sure that if he laughed at Azzandar at this juncture the former demon would rip his balls off and feed them to him. “Okay,” he managed to say in a steady voice, “That’s good for now. I’ll have to modify all of the pants, and I’ll make you some kilts you can wear around the house. I bought you a long jacket, a hat, and a scarf to hide your tail and ears, and some dark glasses for your eyes. We can tell people that you have weak eyes that don’t handle any kind of light well, if they wonder why you’re wearing sunglasses at night.”
Azzandar wasn’t sure that he liked the idea of using ‘weak’ as an excuse for his hiding his unusual eyes. He frowned. Seeing his expression, Chris decided to divert his attention. Quickly he said: “I bought some stuff at the store, too. More food, including lots of cans of tuna,” he said, holding up a plastic bag temptingly. “Oh, and I bought some salmon, too. I thought you might like to try it.”
Intrigued about what salmon might be, Azzandar forgot his outrage for the present. Seeing that he’d accomplished his aim, Chris walked into the kitchen to start cooking dinner. It wasn’t going to be easy, living with a creature that had once been a demon. But he supposed that he should just treat Azzandar as he always had when he’d still been a cat - because as far as Chris could see, there wasn’t much difference between a demon and a cat anyway. Not much at all.
“Azzandar!” a frazzled Chris snapped. “Stand still! I’ve almost got it finished!”
The former demon snarled impatiently: “Finish soon, Chris. I will not tolerate much more of this.”
Chris sighed and rolled his eyes behind Azzandar’s back, as he made the final adjustments to the tight pair of pants that he’d made Azzandar don for the evening. They were going to the strip club tonight to see if Chris’ friend Carlos would hire Azzandar as a dancer under the table. Chris wanted him to look as sexy as possible, and Azzandar hadn’t objected, until he’d had to stay still for a long time while Chris fiddled with the pants and the hole in the back where the tail went. It wasn’t a great shock to him that a man who had once been a cat(and a demon before that) had no patience.
He tried hard not to think about certain things, like how close his fingers were to a muscular ass clad only in some tight pleather material that fit it like a glove. The last few days, Azzandar had taken great delight in tormenting poor Chris. He walked around the apartment nude; lounged on the couch and gave Chris sultry, ‘come-hither’ looks while blatantly touching himself; and the first night he’d tried to crawl into Chris’ bed with him before being banished(pouting and snarling) to the couch to sleep. The frazzled human was being driven crazy by his roommate, especially since he was VERY attracted to Azzandar’s new body.
He supposed that he could just give in and sleep with his former pet, but somehow that didn’t seem like a good idea. Azzandar was already a double handful of trouble; once they were sleeping together it was bound to get worse. Much worse. Plus, it sort of weirded him out to think about getting it on with his CAT! Okay, Azzandar wasn’t really a cat anymore, but he still sort of was…he had Rusty’s eyes, and his tail, and his sharp nails…The whole thing just felt too strange to him.
He finally finished his task with a sigh of relief, and rose to his feet. “Okay, wear this,” he told Azzandar, handing the former demon a long black overcoat. “It will hide the tail. And here’s a hat to cover your ears, and sunglasses for your eyes…” he bustled around getting all of the camouflage necessary for Azzandar to wear when he went outside.
Azzandar looked disgusted, but put on all of the clothes that Chris handed him. He was eager to get out of the small apartment and see the world outside, and he saw the sense in covering up all of his physical oddities so that he didn’t have to deal with nosy questions and pushy humans. He might not be able to control his temper, and knew that killing or maiming one of these creatures would be a very bad idea in this world.
“Okay, that looks good,” Chris said when he was finished.
A low growl trickled from between Azzandar’s lips, but he said nothing. Chris shook his head and retrieved his own coat from the hook by the door. “Let’s go,” he said, and Azzandar walked with him out of the apartment and down the hallway to the sitars. He often took the stairs rather than the elevator anyway, because it was good exercise. And Azzandar was in perfect shape, of course; lithely-muscular, strong, perfectly-formed - Stop that, Chris!
It was evening, and only a few people were in the lobby. Chris greeted them and smiled, and most returned his greeting because almost everybody in the building liked Chris. A few threw curious looks at his companion, but since everybody knew that Chris was gay they just assumed that this was his new boyfriend. They might have wondered why he was bundled up so heavily, but nobody asked. And then they were outside, headed for the parking lot. Chris blew out a breath of relief at having walked the first gauntlet successfully.
He told Azzandar to get into his car, and the former demon did so. Chris got behind the wheel and started it up. He threw Azzandar an anxious look. “You should put on your seat belt,” he remarked.
“I should rip your throat out and feed on your blood, too; but you don’t see me doing that, either,” Azzandar replied silkily.
Chris gulped. “Okay then,” he said. “Let’s go.”
The drive to the nightclub was done mostly in silence. Azzandar was clearly in somewhat of a bad mood, and Chris didn’t want to aggravate him further. He was glad when they found a parking space a few blocks away from the club. He stopped the car, and turned to look at Azzandar. “Please let me do all of the talking at first,” he begged.
Azzandar sniffed audibly. “As you wish,” he said, and his tone of voice made Chris feel incredibly apprehensive.
They got out of the car and walked toward the club, the street lights casting a yellowish glow at the discreet sign above the door. All of the wild, raucous things happened inside of the building; Carlos didn’t like to advertise to all of the yahoos on the street, since he only wanted to attract a certain kind of clientele. The doorman/bouncer was a huge guy named Rufus, and he nodded to Chris as they approached. “Hey there, Chris,” he said in his deep rumble of a voice. “How ya been?”
“Pretty good, Rufus,” he lied, since he definitely wasn’t going into any details about what his life had been like for the past few months. “And you?”
“I can’t complain,” the big man said. “You wantin’ to see Carlos?”
“Yeah. I have to talk to him about something,” Chris replied.
“Who’s this?” the big man eyed Azzandar’s coat-wrapped form warily.
“Just a friend. I want to introduce him to Carlos,” Chris explained.
“Uh huh. Well, okay. Go on in, but if your…friend…causes any trouble I’m not gonna be happy.”
“I understand. Thanks, Rufus,” Chris stepped past him with Azzandar at his heels, the former demon standing tensely and warily as he stopped just behind Chris inside the club.
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Chris looked at him. “How can I do that?” he asked.
“You can continue to take care of me as you did when I was in that pathetic furry form,” Azzandar told him. “I will make it worth your while.”
“Worth my…while? What do you mean?”
To his shock, Azzandar’s yellow eyes raked over him. “In return for your care, I will see to your bodily needs,” he explained in a low, growly sort of voice that made Chris’ stomach muscles tighten involuntarily. “It has been some time since I have been with any of my concubines. This will work out for both of us.”
Chris tried to get his fuddled mind to work, which wasn’t easy at all under these circumstances. “Are you saying…that if I feed you and everything, you’ll…sleep with me?” he asked, to clarify.
Azzandar shrugged. “Yes,” he replied coolly.
Chris felt outrage rise up in him, despite his attraction to his former cat’s human form. He’d never paid for a prostitute in his life, and this smacked of prostitution to him. “I’ll let you stay here,” he said angrily, “But I won’t accept sex for giving you room and board.”
Azzandar gave him a puzzled, haughty look. He didn’t understand why the human seemed so upset about his proposition. It seemed a perfectly viable solution to him. He frowned as he considered the fact that the human might not find him attractive. That was a blow to his vast ego. His yellow eyes narrowed, and took on an angry glint. He would seduce this pathetic human if it was the last thing that he ever did! Humans had not spoken in awe about demon lovers down through the ages for nothing. Chris would discover the skills that he possessed, and Azzandar would make him scream in pain and pleasure such as he had never known in his entire miserable life…
Chris wondered why his former cat was looking at him like that. It made him feel distinctly uneasy. But at last the cat turned (almost) human seemed to shake off whatever he was thinking. He stirred, looking around. “Do you have any more of that thing that you used to feed me?” he asked imperiously. “I’m hungry.”
“Thing?” Chris repeated. “You mean cat food?”
“No,” Azzandar replied impatiently. “The smelly, flaky grey stuff.”
“Oh! You mean tuna!” Chris cried in understanding. “Yeah, I have some more. But maybe it would be better if I made you some sandwiches. You might like those better in this form.”
“Whatever you think best,” Azzandar told him indifferently.
Chris found his eyes straying back to the perfect, lithely-muscular body that the former cat (and demon, apparently) was sporting, especially down between its legs…Wow. He tried not to look, but he just couldn’t help himself! It was pretty hard to miss something that was as thick and long as a baby’s arm. He gulped heavily, feeling himself breaking out in a fine sweat. “Umm…maybe you could get dressed, too?” he managed to croak in a hoarse voice.
Azzandar glanced down at himself. “I suppose so. That is what you miserable creatures do, isn’t it? Cover yourself with fabric or hides? That is not something that demons have ever had to do – our Realm is always very warm.”
“Yes, but here in the human world that isn’t true,” Chris told him earnestly. “You could get pretty cold running around without any clothes on. Besides, if you tried that people are bound to see how…odd you look. The tail would be pretty noticeable, for one thing,” he said, looking at the furry length curled up on the floor next to Azzandar’s thigh.
A disgusted snort. “Very well. Have you any garments that will fit me? We don’t seem to be the same size,” he added, his yellow eyes running over Chris rather contemptuously.
He found his own eyes dropping into Azzandar’s lap again. “No, we’re not,” he agreed in an odd tone of voice. “Uh, no. I’ll have to go out and buy you some stuff later. For now though…” he got up and hurried into the bedroom, returning with a folded sheet in his hands. “Why don’t you wrap this around your waist?” he told Azzandar as he handed it to the cat/man.
Azzandar looked at it dubiously. Chris felt that weird fluttering in his abdomen again as he realized that he’d have to help the former demon figure out how to wear the sheet as a garment. He swallowed thickly, and reached out to take it from Azzandar’s clawed fingers. He unfolded the sheet and held it in his hands, finally reaching out with it spread between them. Azzandar just stood there and waited for him to do whatever he was going to, not bothering to try to help him. Chris found that he had to step closer to the naked ‘man’ to wrap the sheet fully around his hips, and his breath shuddered in his chest as he did so. He tried not to touch any of that beautiful naked skin, but he wasn’t totally successful. He became aware that yellow eyes were narrowed and watching his face intently, and his cheeks turned pink as he secured the sheet at Azzandar’s waist with a heavy knot.
“There!” he cried, skipping backward with a feeling of relief coursing through him. “That should hold you until I can buy you some clothes. I’ll just…uhhh…go make some food!” he bolted into the kitchen, while Azzandar frowned behind him.
The former demon stared at the human’s turned back as Chris got several cans of tuna down from the cupboard and retrieved a can opener from a drawer. What had him so spooked? Azzandar wondered silently. It didn’t seem like fear anymore; although Chris had seemed nervous as he’d tied the length of cloth around Azzandar’s waist. Was he afraid that the former demon would do something to harm him? He needn’t fear that; he knew he needed Chris. Besides, he owed the human a debt, whether he wanted to admit it or not. Chris had taken him in and seen to all of his needs, with very little return. While he found such generosity idiotic, he couldn’t deny that Chris had been very good to him. And it wasn’t as though he had any other allies either in this realm or in the Dark Realm. It was best to work with what he had.
Chris had opened the cans, and his nostrils flared at the tantalizing smell of the tuna. He began to salivate a little as that odor brought out a Pavlovian response in him. Impatient to eat, Azzandar walked into the kitchen and hovered over Chris’ shoulder. Finally the human halted in his efforts and looked over his shoulder at Azzandar. “Could you please sit down?” he asked, pointing at the small table nearby. “I’m having a hard time finishing this with you looming over me.”
Azzandar felt rather offended about the ‘looming’ comment, but at last he only sat down without a word and folded his arms over his chest. He wanted food more than he wanted to punish the insolent human right now. But there would be time enough for that later, oh yes…
Chris turned back to the tuna, mixing mayo and a little bit of pepper and salt into it. He was grateful that Azzandar had done as he’d asked, as having the gorgeous cat/man hovering over him had not been good for his concentration AT ALL. He pulled out some slices of white bread and began to spoon the tuna salad onto them. His thoughts were moving independently of his hands, and at last he said: “Hey, umm, Azzandar?”
“What is it, human?” he heard the cat/man’s voice say from behind him.
Chris sighed. “First of all, could you please call me ‘Chris’ and not ‘human’? Please?”
Silence. Then: “As you wish, hu…Chris. Was there anything else?”
“Uh, yeah. I don’t know that I’ll be able to take care of both of us by myself. Not physically, but I’m just not sure that I can afford to feed and clothe both you and me. It was different when you were a cat, but…”
A low sound. “I see. How do you acquire food and clothing and other things?”
“Oh, we use money,” Chris told him, glancing briefly over his shoulder. “I get it for doing a job. That’s why I go to work. I get money, and I buy things with it.”
Azzandar frowned, tapping a claw on the tabletop. “Must I do the same?” he asked warily.
He sighed. “I don’t think so, not with the way you look. Besides, any employer is going to need stuff that you don’t have and that I can’t get you – like a birth certificate, a social security card, a driver’s license…that sort of thing. I don’t really know how to get us more money besides working, though, unless we rob a bank or something…”
“What is a bank? And how shall we rob it?” Azzandar asked with great interest.
Chris felt sweat forming on his brow. “No! I don’t mean that we should actually rob a bank!” he said hurriedly. “I don’t think that you’d like prison, and I KNOW I wouldn’t!”
“Then how do you intend that we get more of this ‘money’ that we need to buy ‘stuff’?” Azzandar asked him impatiently.
Chris didn’t know. Now he wished that he’d never brought the subject up, even though they would need more money soon if he were to feed two people. His few live-in boyfriends had mostly had their own jobs – although one of them definitely hadn’t, which was one of the reasons that he’d chucked out the dead-beat in the first place. His job simply didn’t pay enough for two people to live comfortably on his salary. What to do? He didn’t have anything to pawn or sell…
“Uh,” he began uncertainly. “There is one thing that you could do…”
“And what is that?” Azzandar asked suspiciously. He was not going to do anything menial; he was not a servant.
Chris turned around. He wriggled a little in embarrassment as he said slowly: “There’s this place. A club. One of my boyfriends used to work there under the table…”
Azzandar frowned. “He labored under a table? How is that possible?”
Chris shook his head. “I’m not going to try to explain that one to you,” he said. “It’d be impossible. Let’s just say that you could work there without needing any of the papers that you normally need to hold a job. And you have all of the job qualifications,” he added, looking Azzandar over. “You’re good-looking, well-built, sexy, well-hung…” he cleared his throat over that last ‘attribute’. “And the eyes and tail…everybody would think it was a costume. I’d bet that you’ll do really well there.”
“And what would I be doing, exactly?” Azzandar asked.
Chris’ eyes dropped to the linoleum floor under his feet. “You’d be a…stripper,” he said softly.
Azzandar’s ears were good enough to catch what he said anyway. “What is a stripper?” he demanded.
Chris’ shoulders rose a bit. “A stripper is somebody who…err…dances around and takes off their clothes for a living,” he said, his face reddening.
“Ahh,” Azzandar said in sudden understanding. Actually, the Dark Realms had an equivalent to a ‘stripper’. He’d often been entertained by the most seductive and talented of the succubae and incubi who lived in his Realm. He’d thoroughly enjoyed their shows, and thinking about it he decided that he wouldn’t at all mind doing it himself. Not with this body, which was a fine specimen(for a human), and had the added exotic curiosities in the tail and the cat-like eyes. He could imagine seducing these wretched humans with his grace and power, taunting them with what they could not have or even touch if he chose not to let them. Ah, that would be like being a demon again, even if just in a minor way!
“I will be a ‘stripper’,” he decided. “You will take me to this place.”
Chris had brightened up at his decisive tone of voice, and the fact that he didn’t seem upset over the idea. “Okay, but not today,” he told Azzandar. “We’ll wait until my next days off. For now, let’s eat,” he turned back to grab the two plates with the tuna sandwiches on them. He carried them over to the table and set one down in front of Azzandar.
Azzandar watched him for a moment to see how to eat the white triangle on his plate. When Chris picked his up and took a bite out of it, the former King of Demons imitated him. He chewed thoughtfully, enjoying the many flavors in the food that Chris had given him. The tuna was the best part, of course; but there were other parts that he enjoyed as well. “Do you like it?” Chris asked him.
He nodded imperiously. “The grey flaky food goes quite well with these other things,” he said rather condescendingly. “You have done well, Chris.”
Chris’ lips twitched a bit to be talked to as though he were a slave who’d pleased his master. He suspected that he could expect this kind of behavior from now on, since Azzandar had once been a demon. Not only a regular demon, either, but the King of all Demons! He could barely take that in. If Azzandar wasn’t sitting there in all of his half-naked splendor, devouring a tuna sandwich with great gusto, he wouldn’t have believed it at all. But how could he not, looking at the pointed, fur-edged ears, the cat-slit yellow eyes, and the long claws on the ends of the cat/man’s fingertips? Besides, that collar around Azzandar’s neck was the exact same as the one that Rusty had worn. There couldn’t be two such collars like that, could there? And unless he’d been hallucinating, he’d seen an actual demon not an hour ago. It was horrifying to think that Azzandar had once looked just like that.
Chris finished his own sandwich without tasting it. He was thinking about the logistics of living with a half-man, half-cat who had once been a demon, and moreover one that had already offered to have sex with him. This, he concluded, was going to be one HELL of a strange roommate!
Azzandar was learning the joys of taking a shower; as a cat, he had not been in the least interested in dumping tons of hot water onto his head. But as a (semi) human he found this indulgence quite nice and satisfying. A slightly blushing Chris had shown him how to use the shower, before bolting out of the bathroom with a squeaked excuse about purchasing him some clothes and other personal items. The former demon had been highly amused by his host’s behavior, and was planning other ways to fluster Chris on a regular basis already. It would be quite entertaining - at least for HIM, which is all that mattered anyway.
He sniffed at the bottle of shampoo that Chris had shown him how to open. The human had said that he should rub some of the stuff into his hair, and then rinse off under the pray of water. His nose wrinkled at the smell of flowers, and other sweetly-scented things. He sniffed, but finally squeezed some of the stinky stuff onto his palm and quickly rubbed it into the hair atop his head. Grimacing, he stepped under the water as quickly as he could to wash the horrible stuff off. He was a demon with a cat’s sense of smell, after all; such treacly perfumed odors frankly turned his stomach.
He ran a hand down his own belly thoughtfully, taking in the lithe muscles there. The wretched demon wizard had at least left him with a well-made and attractive humanoid body. Arriving at the human organ lying between his thighs, he lifted it in his hand and studied it. Not as big as it once had been, of course; but an adequate size for one of these puny humans. Out of curiosity, he stroked it with his hand and was rewarded by a twitch and a slight thickening. Hmm. He tried that maneuver again, getting even more of a response. It didn’t take him long to learn how to masturbate properly, and he enjoyed the sensations as he stood under the warm running water of the shower.
He hissed in pleasure when the feelings grew most intense, and a spray of white fluid jetted out of the tip of the human penis. So, that was what human sexual release felt like. While perhaps not as intense as a demon’s, it was definitely serviceable. He’d have to seduce Chris as soon as possible, so that he could discover what it was like to experience this feeling while buried inside of a warm, wriggling body. His smile was glittery and tooth-filled as he turned under the water to wash his torso clean of spattered white droplets.
He finally stepped out of the shower when the water began to turn cool. Chris had shown him where the towels were, and he pulled one off of the rack to wipe himself down with. His eyes found his reflection in the mirror over the sink, and Azzandar studied himself from every angle. He took in the frill of hair decorating each pointed ear, the sharp little fangs at the front of the mouth, and the slitted yellow eyes. His skin was not pale like Chris’ was - instead, it was a light brown with reddish undertones. Except for the exotic eyes and ears, in fact, Azzandar could have stepped off of an Indian reservation. The hair on his head was a darker brown with even more pronounced reddish tones, and there were in fact Native American people born with hair that color, rather than the more ubiquitous black or very dark brown. His high cheekbones and the cast of his features would have added to the illusion that he was an Indian, in fact. That’s what most people would assume anyway when they saw him, for who would jump to the less obvious conclusion that he was a half-cat/half-man?
Azzandar ran a finger over one cheekbone, then shook his head and walked out into the bedroom in all of his splendid, naked magnificence. He left the towel behind, not caring about modesty in the least. That was a concept that no demon would ever understand, anyway. They were more of the ’if you’ve got it, flaunt it’, mindset. He padded through the bedroom and out into the living room, his tail lashing a little in the air behind him. He whipped it back and forth sharply to slap the water out of it as he glanced around. He finally decided to watch the TV while he waited for Chris to return. He found human television fascinating.
Azzandar walked over and found the remote, which he’d watched Chris use often. He peered at the buttons, and it didn’t take him long to find the one labeled ON. He punched this with his claw, and the TV screen came alive. He smirked in triumph as he sat down on the couch, and stretched his bare legs out so that his feet were propped on the coffee table. He’d seen that loser human Rick do this pretty often while he’d been staying here, and the pose had looked quite comfortable. He looked at the TV screen, but quickly decided that he didn’t want to watch this channel. It was the one where humans sold gaudy trinkets, and other useless objects, to other humans for exorbitant prices. A little experimenting, and he managed to find the arrow buttons that changed the channel. He indulged in some channel surfing, before deciding on a violent action movie.
He watched with lidded eyes as the humans on the screen blew each other up and shot one another in sprays of gore. Now, this was more like it! His demon soul approved of such activities. The only thing that detracted from his enjoyment was the fact that he suspected that this was all play acting on the humans’ part, since he’d seen several of these people on other shows and they hadn’t been dead or even scarred from their experiences. That thought made his lip curl slightly in disgust. Humans! If you were going to go in for bloodshed and mayhem, you should actually do it! Not stand around and pretend that you were doing it for entertainment’s sake. Ridiculous creatures.
The apartment door opened about an hour later, and Chris entered with bags over his arms. He came to a sudden halt as he spied the naked cat-man sprawled on his couch watching his television. Azzandar glanced up at him impatiently. “Its about time that you returned,” he growled.
Chris shook his head a little as though to clear it. “Umm…Did you take a shower?” he asked as he carried the bags over to the couch.
“Yes, I stood under the running water as you said I should. Can you not see how clean this body is?” Azzandar asked, waving a clawed hand down at his own nakedness.
Chris’ eyes skittered to his body, then darted away. “Sure, yeah,” he said rather breathlessly. “That’s good. I brought you some clothes,” he added hurriedly, rummaging in one of the bags. “I hope they fit. I had to guess about your size. And I don’t really know what to do about your…err…tail…” he went on, looking doubtfully at the furry length coiled up near Azzandar’s thigh on the couch. “I guess we could cut a hole for it or something…”
“As a demon, I wore a short kilt that opened in the back to make room for my tail,” Azzandar told him.
“Uh, yeah. That’s not gonna work here,” Chris told him. “Guys don’t wear skirts or kilts regularly in this world. We just have to figure something out with pants.”
Azzandar sniffed at such stupidity, and reached out to accept the shirt that Chris handed him. He pulled it on over his head, having seen both Chris and Rick do this same thing many times. Demons didn’t wear shirts, having no need for them in the overly-warm climes that they came from. Chris had a good eye, and it fit well over his torso. And it was red, which he liked. But when the human held out a pair of pants, these got a more doubtful look. They didn’t seem very comfortable.
“Please just try them on,” Chris begged. “I’ve got a pair of baggy shorts you can wear around the house, but if you’re going to go outside you have to wear something more substantial. Otherwise you’ll freeze. You don’t have fur to protect you anymore.” he reminded the disgruntled demon.
Azzandar snarled a little, but stood up and took the pants from his hand. “Very well,” he hissed.
He stepped into the pants and began to wriggle them up his legs, complaining under his breath the entire time. Chris tried to look elsewhere, but couldn’t stop his eyes from being drawn back to the dark fabric sliding up powerful, muscular legs and thighs. And of course, there was the groin area…he swallowed as he caught a glimpse of that magnificent organ dangling between Azzandar’s legs. Cripes! It made him feel rather faint just to look at it, and he tried hard to curb his imagination from taking it any further than that. Otherwise, he might pass out from blood loss to his head.
Azzandar managed to get the pants halfway up his thighs, but then he encountered the roadblock of his tail. He lashed it furiously as he glared at Chris. “Here, turn around,” the human said hurriedly.
He did so stiffly, outrage in every movement. Chris pulled some things from one bag and walked over to him. One was a measuring tape, which he used on the tail to measure its circumference. It was soft and silky under his fingers, and he had the strongest urge to just pet it - or maybe pull it playfully. Instead, he used some special chalk he’d bought at a fabric shop to mark an x on the seat of the pants where the tail would have to go. “You can take them off for now,” he told Azzandar.
The cat-man snorted but yanked the pants off of his legs and tossed them at Chris, who grabbed the tangle of fabric tightly. He went to retrieve the baggy shorts instead. “You can sort of thread your tail down one leg of these,” he explained to Azzandar.
Another look of outrage. “Why can I not wear a kilt?!” He demanded furiously.
“Well, I can make you one. But for now, you’ll just have to wear these shorts. Please?” Chris pleaded desperately.
Azzandar scowled at him, but finally took the shorts and put them on. He carefully stuffed his twitching tail down one leg, and it dangled out of the hole obscenely. Chris had to close his teeth over a giggle, because he was pretty sure that if he laughed at Azzandar at this juncture the former demon would rip his balls off and feed them to him. “Okay,” he managed to say in a steady voice, “That’s good for now. I’ll have to modify all of the pants, and I’ll make you some kilts you can wear around the house. I bought you a long jacket, a hat, and a scarf to hide your tail and ears, and some dark glasses for your eyes. We can tell people that you have weak eyes that don’t handle any kind of light well, if they wonder why you’re wearing sunglasses at night.”
Azzandar wasn’t sure that he liked the idea of using ‘weak’ as an excuse for his hiding his unusual eyes. He frowned. Seeing his expression, Chris decided to divert his attention. Quickly he said: “I bought some stuff at the store, too. More food, including lots of cans of tuna,” he said, holding up a plastic bag temptingly. “Oh, and I bought some salmon, too. I thought you might like to try it.”
Intrigued about what salmon might be, Azzandar forgot his outrage for the present. Seeing that he’d accomplished his aim, Chris walked into the kitchen to start cooking dinner. It wasn’t going to be easy, living with a creature that had once been a demon. But he supposed that he should just treat Azzandar as he always had when he’d still been a cat - because as far as Chris could see, there wasn’t much difference between a demon and a cat anyway. Not much at all.
“Azzandar!” a frazzled Chris snapped. “Stand still! I’ve almost got it finished!”
The former demon snarled impatiently: “Finish soon, Chris. I will not tolerate much more of this.”
Chris sighed and rolled his eyes behind Azzandar’s back, as he made the final adjustments to the tight pair of pants that he’d made Azzandar don for the evening. They were going to the strip club tonight to see if Chris’ friend Carlos would hire Azzandar as a dancer under the table. Chris wanted him to look as sexy as possible, and Azzandar hadn’t objected, until he’d had to stay still for a long time while Chris fiddled with the pants and the hole in the back where the tail went. It wasn’t a great shock to him that a man who had once been a cat(and a demon before that) had no patience.
He tried hard not to think about certain things, like how close his fingers were to a muscular ass clad only in some tight pleather material that fit it like a glove. The last few days, Azzandar had taken great delight in tormenting poor Chris. He walked around the apartment nude; lounged on the couch and gave Chris sultry, ‘come-hither’ looks while blatantly touching himself; and the first night he’d tried to crawl into Chris’ bed with him before being banished(pouting and snarling) to the couch to sleep. The frazzled human was being driven crazy by his roommate, especially since he was VERY attracted to Azzandar’s new body.
He supposed that he could just give in and sleep with his former pet, but somehow that didn’t seem like a good idea. Azzandar was already a double handful of trouble; once they were sleeping together it was bound to get worse. Much worse. Plus, it sort of weirded him out to think about getting it on with his CAT! Okay, Azzandar wasn’t really a cat anymore, but he still sort of was…he had Rusty’s eyes, and his tail, and his sharp nails…The whole thing just felt too strange to him.
He finally finished his task with a sigh of relief, and rose to his feet. “Okay, wear this,” he told Azzandar, handing the former demon a long black overcoat. “It will hide the tail. And here’s a hat to cover your ears, and sunglasses for your eyes…” he bustled around getting all of the camouflage necessary for Azzandar to wear when he went outside.
Azzandar looked disgusted, but put on all of the clothes that Chris handed him. He was eager to get out of the small apartment and see the world outside, and he saw the sense in covering up all of his physical oddities so that he didn’t have to deal with nosy questions and pushy humans. He might not be able to control his temper, and knew that killing or maiming one of these creatures would be a very bad idea in this world.
“Okay, that looks good,” Chris said when he was finished.
A low growl trickled from between Azzandar’s lips, but he said nothing. Chris shook his head and retrieved his own coat from the hook by the door. “Let’s go,” he said, and Azzandar walked with him out of the apartment and down the hallway to the sitars. He often took the stairs rather than the elevator anyway, because it was good exercise. And Azzandar was in perfect shape, of course; lithely-muscular, strong, perfectly-formed - Stop that, Chris!
It was evening, and only a few people were in the lobby. Chris greeted them and smiled, and most returned his greeting because almost everybody in the building liked Chris. A few threw curious looks at his companion, but since everybody knew that Chris was gay they just assumed that this was his new boyfriend. They might have wondered why he was bundled up so heavily, but nobody asked. And then they were outside, headed for the parking lot. Chris blew out a breath of relief at having walked the first gauntlet successfully.
He told Azzandar to get into his car, and the former demon did so. Chris got behind the wheel and started it up. He threw Azzandar an anxious look. “You should put on your seat belt,” he remarked.
“I should rip your throat out and feed on your blood, too; but you don’t see me doing that, either,” Azzandar replied silkily.
Chris gulped. “Okay then,” he said. “Let’s go.”
The drive to the nightclub was done mostly in silence. Azzandar was clearly in somewhat of a bad mood, and Chris didn’t want to aggravate him further. He was glad when they found a parking space a few blocks away from the club. He stopped the car, and turned to look at Azzandar. “Please let me do all of the talking at first,” he begged.
Azzandar sniffed audibly. “As you wish,” he said, and his tone of voice made Chris feel incredibly apprehensive.
They got out of the car and walked toward the club, the street lights casting a yellowish glow at the discreet sign above the door. All of the wild, raucous things happened inside of the building; Carlos didn’t like to advertise to all of the yahoos on the street, since he only wanted to attract a certain kind of clientele. The doorman/bouncer was a huge guy named Rufus, and he nodded to Chris as they approached. “Hey there, Chris,” he said in his deep rumble of a voice. “How ya been?”
“Pretty good, Rufus,” he lied, since he definitely wasn’t going into any details about what his life had been like for the past few months. “And you?”
“I can’t complain,” the big man said. “You wantin’ to see Carlos?”
“Yeah. I have to talk to him about something,” Chris replied.
“Who’s this?” the big man eyed Azzandar’s coat-wrapped form warily.
“Just a friend. I want to introduce him to Carlos,” Chris explained.
“Uh huh. Well, okay. Go on in, but if your…friend…causes any trouble I’m not gonna be happy.”
“I understand. Thanks, Rufus,” Chris stepped past him with Azzandar at his heels, the former demon standing tensely and warily as he stopped just behind Chris inside the club.
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