Page 100 of Lust

“It’s so unfair.” She threw her hands up in the air, frustrated by her husband’s lackluster reactions. “He’s making the girls in his classroom unwelcome because of his archaic views, and there isn’t a thing I can do to help.” She pouted, though there were now traces of the real sadness she harbored. She looked over at their daughter, playing with her building blocks in the nearby playpen. “I can’t imagine any of her opportunities getting taken away.”

The man with the large scar looked from his young wife to his daughter. The tiny human with mounds of curly hair raised her hand to wave to her doting parents, who smiled brightly in turn.They had named her Sarah Ash Marcolf based on a tradition the girl’s family followed. Sometimes, Asmodeus liked to imagine that the middle name was a namesake to him, a reminder of their past.

It was unlikely.

They never truly believed in Asmodeus’ presence in their lives. After the entire ordeal the couple had supposedly endured, no one could confirm what actually happened to them. If he had to guess, the couple didn’t understand it, either. Everything that happened was based on hearsay and a gut feeling. A murmur in their ear.

Asmodeus might have learned to tolerate them, but they were puny mortals, after all. Their hearts weren’t open enough to accept such possibilities without physical evidence, and they had accepted their past as an unexplainable phenomenon of life.

The man took his wife’s hand and kissed her knuckles. “What if we drive by this professor’s place tonight and TP his house?”

Mischief twinkled in the girl’s eyes. She squealed before taking her husband into a hug, glad that he had finally seen the light.

Asmodeus wondered if he should also pay this professor a visit and toy with him. He had become protective of this duo and felt annoyed by this development that troubled them.

The man happily embraced his wife, eyes closed as if fearful this warmth might get taken away from him. It appeared that even after all these years, she managed to leave him utterly breathless.

This was generally how their arguments ended.

As the years went by, Asmodeus spent his time between his kingdom and roaming the mortal realm. Every day, he returned to this park and watched the man with the large scar and the girl with the crystal eyes for an uninterrupted moment. Asmodeus liked to imagine that, unbeknownst to them, they felt the same pull toward an unknown manifestation. That’s why they returned daily, to give him glimpses of hope and humanity and happiness.

Eternity might be a long time, but it was suddenly not so unbearable when you had a family to watch over.

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