3. Gabriel

Gabe shouldn't have been surprised by Grams, yet somehow he still was. He was kinda pissed too, he had to admit. He loved Grams with all his heart, but sometimes her meddling was a little over the top. He couldn't believe she'd summoned a lust demon. Of all the insane, moronic, stupid… he couldn't even.

He took a deep breath and tried not to look at the cocky demon sitting in the circle. He kept waiting for the guy to get up and come over and start trying to sex him up. He was not looking forward to having to fend off demon sexual advances.

And it wasn't fair of Grams to call him a monk. He dated. He did. He was on the apps. It wasn't his fault that he found so few people interesting, or their interests didn't align, or they were just too busy to get together regularly. And okay, maybe he hadn't been making much effort in the dating department, but he had a full life. He stayed busy, he loved his work, he had hobbies and friends and family, and he really didn't feel like he was missing anything.

And he'd had sex. He enjoyed orgasms. He enjoyed masturbating. He did it often. So maybe he'd only had sex with a handful of people. Okay, maybe less than a handful. Like maybe only two people. But he'd had great sexual experiences with both of them.

He loved all the labels for sexuality now; they hadn't had that when he was in high school, at least not that he knew of, and he'd always felt like a total misfit because of it. All his friends were always talking about some girl's tits and pussy (guys were animals in high school), and there he was, sort of playing along but not feeling any desire to "bang" or "turn out" some random girl he didn't even know. He thought girls were beautiful, and once it was pointed out, he could admire someone's looks. But he just kind of didn't notice them on his own.

High school had been a really confusing time for him. He just didn't see people as sexual beings. Girls would flirt with him, and he missed the signals. His friends would ask why he didn't hit that, and he'd realize that yes, the girl had been coming onto him, and he totally hadn't even seen it. He'd hooked up with girls, but he'd mostly faked his enthusiasm. He worried about whose tongue was supposed to go where and whether he was supposed to be touching her and where and what she would expect to happen next. It was stressful, not fun.

So then he'd thought he might be gay. Only he didn't feel any desire to sleep with random men either. He didn't look at guys and get turned on. He'd decided to try experimenting with porn. He'd watch straight and gay porn, and he'd been stuck wondering about the logistics of the sex acts or laughing at the improbability of the weird scenarios people play acted. So no answers there. One memorable night he'd gone to a gay bar that only checked IDs when you ordered drinks, so he'd gotten a soda and hooked up with a guy who he had objectively thought was attractive. And it was exactly the same as with girls—nerves and logistics and worrying. It probably wasn't normal to be cataloging the differences between kissing men and women in your head and making a comparison chart in the middle of the actual kissing. Either way, he hadn't been turned on.

But he did enjoy masturbating; it felt good and he liked orgasming. And he often imagined people having sex while he did it, and that turned him on, but he didn't picture himself in his fantasies. Maybe that was weird; he didn't know. Then he'd stumbled onto sex stories. There were plenty of sites with pornographic stories, and he'd found that some of them really turned him on. He'd read straight and gay porn, and things only got more confusing from there, because he'd gotten off to both. He'd be reading, and not all stories did it for him, but sometimes he'd just suddenly be really horny. It didn't seem to matter what gender the people in the stories were. And mostly that was him using his imagination—they weren't actual people.

So he had been stumped about his own sexuality.

It was Greg that sort of shed some light on things. They'd been roommates freshman year of college, and they'd gotten unbelievably close. They did everything together; they had classes together, they ate meals together, they watched TV and went to parties and hung out with the same group of friends. They joked around and laughed and shared about their lives. Gabe had thought of him as his best friend, but he hadn't thought about him sexually. It just didn't occur to him.

Until Greg had kissed him. They'd been drinking at a party and had gone back to their dorm room, and they'd been laying together watching a show that had sex scenes, and Gabe hadn't even been turned on, and then Greg had been kissing him, and suddenly he was hard as a rock and frantically kissing Greg back.

They'd had a brief affair. They had never told anyone. Greg considered himself straight, and Gabe hadn't known what to consider himself. All he knew was that he suddenly couldn't get enough of Greg, and the feeling seemed to be mutual. The sex had been phenomenal. He hadn't been worried about logistics or who was doing what or thinking of it as an anatomy lesson. It had been wild and fun.

But one day Greg had come in and said he just couldn't do it anymore. He'd been crying, and Gabe had hugged him and said then they wouldn't do it anymore, and that didn't change that Greg was his best friend. And yeah, it had been awkward for a bit, but they had settled back into their friendship, and somehow Greg slipped back into the friendzone in Gabe's head, and he stopped thinking about him sexually.

When Greg started dating a girl, it hadn't even phased Gabe. One drunk night Greg had asked him if he was jealous, and Gabe had been sort of confused by the whole thing. Why would he be jealous? At which point Greg had said he was "not normal, man," which had kind of hurt, but Gabe figured he was probably right.

His musings were interrupted by the lust demon. Az, the demon had said his name was. Az was still sitting there, but he had cleared his throat, and he was staring at Gabe.

"I've told you my name, and you don't appear any closer to sending me back, so perhaps I can get yours? Or should I just call you Gabey?" the demon joked.

Gabe really didn't like this one. Maybe that wasn't fair, but he was just so cocky. He reminded Gabe of some of his more annoying students, the ones who were always used to getting their way and who thought they could charm their way out of bad grades. Newsflash—that never worked with Gabe.

"Gabe," he retorted. And he figured that was enough introspection on his sexuality since he wasn't planning on keeping the lust demon around. "And I need your full name," he added.

"Asmodeus. But it still won't work," the demon responded.

Whatever. He'd be gone soon enough. Gabe had the Latin memorized, so he used the revocation spell they'd all been taught before they were even old enough to read. He spoke the Latin clearly, using the demon's name where required, and on the final word, he watched for the disappearance of the annoying smirk and the demon it belonged to.

Only nothing happened. Az smiled more broadly. Gabe frowned.

"What the fuck?" he asked. "That always works."

"Not with me," the demon chortled. He was way too gleeful.

"You're stuck here," Gabe said sourly. "Demons don't like to be summoned. Why are you so freaking happy? You should want to get out of here."

The thought occurred to Gabe, and he asked, "Did you not give me your true name?" It had felt like the demon's true name. While other kids took art or music lessons, Grams had given them lessons on summonings, revocations, and figuring out a true name from a false name.

"It's my true name. Would you like my full title? Perhaps that would help?" the demon asked, and his air of innocence immediately set Gabe on edge. He dealt with teenagers, parents, and administration every day. He knew that self-satisfied, innocent act never produced anything good.

"Sure," Gabe sighed, resigned to something troubling.

"Asmodeus, Lord of the Nines, Prince of Lust, Infernal King of the Underworld," the demon pronounced, and for just a moment, Gabe thought he saw the outline of large, black, bat-like wings, horns, and a thick, long, black tail on the demon, but when he blinked, Asmodeus was back to looking like a normal human.

Well, shit. How the fuck had Grams summoned an Infernal King of Hell? And what the heck was Gabe supposed to do with him?

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