I often get asked by people who don’t deal with the demonic as often as I do, “What’s the difference between a devil and a demon?” To that I always reply “As far as you’re concerned, there isn’t one. You wanna stay the hell away from both of them.”

But if we move away from practical considerations and consider the question more theoretically, the distinction can best be summarized as follows: Every devil is a demon, but not every demon is a devil.

I’ll leave the musings about the possible etymologies of the various words to my colleagues who have spent their lives with their noses in books rather than clenched between a Pleasure Devil’s arse-cheeks, and just give you the practical, usable history.

Demons are what we call the beings who cross over into our world from the Abyss. All of them. However, after the chaos of the demon wars and the great ‘Forbiddance’ as the god-botherers call it - don’t let that bit of propaganda fool you, by the way, they didn’t ‘Forbid’ anything. All they did was finally get around to fixing the huge fucking loopholes that they’d left in their own damn creation due to sloppy worksmanship - demons could no longer enter our world with the same effort it takes me to walk down to the cafe down the lane for my daily scone and tea.

That did not mean that they couldn’t get in anymore, however. They quickly discovered that as long as a native inhabitant of the world invited them in, they could go ‘around’ the veil, slipping through the plane we call ‘the Void’ and sneaking in by the back entrance, as it were.

Unfortunately, they had just spent the better part of a century systematically slaughtering and enslaving every single mortal they could get their hands on. Allies willing to simply ‘invite’ them in for tea and crumpets were rather scarce. Luckily for them, the greed of us mortals is only exceeded by our stupidity, and our memories are pathetically short. There was no shortage of dupes and stooges willing to sell out their fellow man for a scrap of the demons’ power.

Even the dumbest among them, however, could realize that once released from their bindings, there was no incentive for a summoned demon to hold up any part of its side of any deal at all. It could give you power… or it could disembowel you and watch the life fade from your eyes. Both options were all the same to it and the second one was a lot less effort, usually.

This lead to a problem for the demons: they couldn’t get in without being summoned by mortals, but mortals, for some reason, did not like being immediately slaughtered upon their arrival. So what was a resourceful demon to do?

They developed contracts!

Sign on the dotted line (in blood) and both parties were bound to its terms. This kept the demons in line, made sure all the other demons actually delivered what they offered, and provided a whole new avenue of entertainment for them as they sought to devise ever more convoluted ways to trick mortals into effectively signing their own death warrants. It let mortals who thought they were clever attempt to match wits with ancient, malign intelligences and thereby weed themselves out of the breeding population.

Everybody won!

Or it would have been, except for one more small problem. You see, by this point demons had gotten such a bad reputation for slaughtering their summoners that almost nobody with half a mind trusted these so-called ‘contracts’ they peddled.

Their solution? They rebranded. Their contract peddlers weren’t demons, oh no, they were ‘devils’. Completely different. Totally trustworthy. Definitely not going to flay your skin and weave your entrails into sausages, no sirree. Swear on their mother’s grave, strike them down where they stand if they’re lyin’.

The scariest part? It actually worked. Despite there being no fundamental differences between the two, gullible mortals practically lined up to sell their souls, firmly believing that as long as they were clever enough, they could somehow get a good deal.

So there you have it. The difference between demons and devils is that devils are a millenia old public relations stunt.

Even today that distinction exists, however. If you want to sign a contract with a being from the Abyss, it will be with a devil. Pure demons, such as the humble Taskmaster, are still around, doing their work, and they will still execute contracts just as readily as any devil, but when it comes time to set up or negotiate those contracts?

That will be with the smiling, friendly, devilish face of an expert on the subject of screwing you over.

- From the memoirs of Albricht Poppelheim, 8th High Master of the Institute of Diabolism, Grailmane

It turned out, the way you ‘did’ this summoning thing, was you sat through another lecture on the ‘ins and outs’ of contracts with mortals. Not contracts in general, that had been part of Ixxy’s onboarding course with InferTec. But rather, the ‘Grand Contract’, the one big contract to rule them all in Grailmane. It had been part of the curriculum in her training, but the full thing had been the equivalent of three thousand pages. They’d barely done more than skim the index and point out a few important and salient points before ending with the remark that smarter demons than them studied it in depth on a constant basis and that it bore InferTec’s seal of approval.

It was like a blanket contract that governed all demon behaviour. The runes that Ixxy had encountered when passing through the Obsidian Gate were part of it, and any demon that passed through was subject to its rules. Unlike a normal contract, it required no action on a demon’s part. It acted more like a framework, providing restrictions on what could be traded in contracts and with who, as well as a set of baseline restrictions that applied to demons when they were not otherwise on contracts.

It did things like outright ban any contracts with minors - a phrase appropriately defined according to species - set restrictions on interactions with mortals outside the context of contracts, as well as provide a set of stringent rules under which its individual baseline restrictions could be overridden. In general, it provided a safety net for mortals, who would generally find themselves at a severe disadvantage when dealing with highly intelligent and well resourced devils.

It was through the salient points of this extensive, fiendishly complex document that Sazka took Ixxy over the next thirty minutes or so, followed by a brief primer on the summoning itself as she lead her along a hallway inside the compound.

In ages past, diabolists had to summon all the way from the Abyss. This took time, knowledge and copious amounts of power. Human sacrifices were not unheard of, just to get the damned ritual off the ground.

But times had changed. Nowadays, demons arrived through the Obsidian Gate and summonings were little more than short hops from one point to another inside the same city. It was so simple, even a neophyte could do it. In fact, with the brass ritual-engraved plates sold by the Diabolists, you didn’t even need to have a single magical bone in your body to be able to perform the summoning. Just put it down on a flat surface and apply blood. It was that simple.

It wasn’t even the blood that was important. All that was necessary was the Sanguine Essence that the blood of all living creatures was saturated with to power the summoning and that you could buy in bulk from any of the specialist essence shops scattered throughout the city. Thanks to the meat industry, there was no shortage of the stuff going around.

They reached the summoning room in short order. It was little more than a dead-end corridor with a set of four large alcoves on each side.

The floor of each alcove was filled from wall to wall with large, circular, brass plates, each engraved with an intricate ritual circle of tangled lines and small, squiggly runic characters squeezed into the open spaces in between. It all looked horribly complex to Ixxy.

“Mortals still haven’t figured out how to do proper runic teleportation themselves,” Sazka remarked, a faint smirk on her face, “despite us literally giving them these inscription plates.”

“They can’t use these?” Ixxy asked as she carefully stepped onto the brass plate of the first alcove. The etched lines beneath her feet immediately started lighting up with a soft, red glow.

Sazka shook her head. “No. These rituals are specific to our nature and the way our bodies are constructed. A mortal that tried to force the teleportation on one of these would only suffer a messy end.”

“Do the mortals have any teleportation?” Ixxy asked as she took the indicated position in the middle of the complex scrawl of lines and glowing magical runes.

“Yes,” Sazka replied, “some, but all far more complex and power-intensive than these. Theirs aren’t even essence-type independent, can you believe it? In many ways, they are so very primitive when it comes to magic. Now, are you ready?”

Ixxy took a deep breath. This was it. Moment of truth. She cast her mind out, drawing in every scrap of knowledge on seduction that it had been pre-loaded with. It was all so exciting! She was finally going to experience sex!

But she was also a little nervous. What if the client didn’t like her? What if she screwed it up? No! Positive thoughts! She was going to do great and absolutely get her mind blown!

Oh yeah. And blow the client’s mind. That too.

“How do I look?” she asked, twisting from side to side. “Is my butt too big? Should I make it a little smaller? Do you think my hair is too long? Maybe I should do a pixie cut and go for that action-chick look?”

Sazka only grinned response. “Have fun, Ixilis. Don’t screw it up.”

Then she tapped the brass with a foot and suddenly Ixxy found herself falling.

Ixxy was falling. Or perhaps falling wasn’t the right word… sinking? Yeah, she was sinking. Sinking through a deep, dark ocean, the only source of light the glowing lines of the ritual circle that she had just been standing on far above.

In a way, it felt like she was back in the Void. There was nothing in every direction as far as the eye could see, which wasn’t very far, thanks to the lack of light.

Somehow, the world felt thicker than it had in the Void, though. More viscous. Kind of like floating in water, actually. Perhaps even thicker than that.

And that was not the only difference; unlike in the Void, she still had her body.

It wasn’t cold, or hot for that matter, in fact she couldn’t feel the ‘water’ at all. She had no trouble breathing, either, though she doubted there was any air here. Most likely, just like the Void, this wasn’t a real place.

She experimentally moved her fingers in front of her face, watching the muscles expand and contract, feeling a slight resistance to the movement. Then she tried pinching her arm. Yep, it all felt perfectly normal.

This was likely some kind of… under-space or sub-space of the normal, physical world far above. Like maybe a shadow realm? A dark world? Mirror-verse?

Then the currents seemed to shift and her descent halted. She began to drift sideways and out of the beam of light shining from her portal far above. She moved slowly at first, but quickly began rapidly accelerating until she was hurtling through the dark, empty world at breakneck pace, leaving her ritual circle far behind.

The only light came from a thin glowing line trailing out behind her, it’s light only visible due to the complete darkness she found herself in.

She experimentally waved a hand, passing right through it. Then it clicked. That was her tether, connecting her back to the ritual circle. The one that would yank her back after her summoning ran out.

In this case, an hour. She hoped that was enough.

Ixxy felt rather than saw her trajectory slowly begin to curve upwards before spotting a glowing dot in the distance ahead of her.

Her heart began beating faster. There it was! Her destination! She was so excited she could scarcely contain herself.

Was he going to be hot? Or her? Ixxy didn’t mind. Either worked. Or maybe multiple people, all at once? Truthfully she hoped it wasn’t that. Not for her first contract at least. It sounded complicated and messy and she would prefer to just have a nice, simple, straightforward job to get her feet wet. Among other things.

The light slowly grew larger as she approached.

What was she even going to say? Was there some standard greeting? Shit, she should have asked Sazka while she had the chance. Well, too late now. She was just going to have to wing it. She was going to have to sound sexy and sultry and seductive and other words starting with ‘s’ that she couldn’t think of right now.

By now, she was heading directly for the glowing light. Hmm, she didn’t seem to have started to slow down yet. Also, the light seemed rather… small. Nothing like the big sigil that she had entered by.

Okay, no reason to panic. This was probably working exactly as intended. Demons got summoned dozens of times every single day. This was probably just how it worked.

She could make out the light now. It was disk-shaped, just like the one that she had entered by, though much smaller. Actually, it appeared to be barely big enough for her to fit through.

Unfortunately, she was approaching it almost edge on, and the ‘disk’ looked more like a discus coming right at her. And she was still moving at an incredible speed. In fact… was she accelerating?

Oh shit, maybe now was the time to panic. Something had gone wrong. The summoner had fucked it up and he was going to smear her painfully across three city blocks.

The light was getting blinding. She had seconds before she was going to hit.

Ixxy did the only thing she could.

She curled into a ball and braced herself.

Suddenly she was sitting on something cold, knees pressed to her chest and arms wrapped around them, still curled into a ball.

The air smelled a little stale and musky, with just a hint of sulfur. Her butt was resting on something metal. Some kind of brass plate, a ritual circle etched into it. It was smaller and simpler than the one she had left from, but it was unmistakable.

She’d made it. Somehow. She had no idea how, she’d managed to make it though the portal in one piece.

Wait, was she in one piece? Had all of her made it?

She did a mental tally of limbs and such as she waited for her racing heart to steady. Yes, it seemed that she was all here. She had indeed made it.

Now it was time for her to make her first move. The most crucial move. It was important that she seemed sensual and in control, yet subservient so as not to scare off a timid client. She had to hint at what she had to offer without crassly shoving it in her client’s face. She had to be the very epitome of class and style, yet promise a darker side of reckless abandon with delights beyond mortal comprehension.

And all of that inside the space of two sentences, according to her brain.

Right. No pressure.

Okay. Deep breath. She could do this.

She slowly lifted her head.

She was in what appeared to be some kind of small, rectangular dorm room, with a single bed against one wall and a small desk against the other at the far end of the rectangle in front of her.

Standing in the narrow space between them stood the person she assumed was responsible for summoning her.

“How may I s…,” she began, her voice a husky whisper, only to stutter halfway as she took in her summoner.

She really shouldn’t have been surprised. Statistically, her brain shoved in her face, ninety-two percent of all humans willing to summon a Pleasure Devil to get their rocks off were in the bottom half of the beauty spectrum.

Now, considering that, he wasn’t too bad, she supposed. He was a gangly young man, with skinny limbs and was dressed in what would have been a fancy, formal robe if it didn’t hang on his frame like a sack on a scarecrow. His nose was slightly too big, his skin pasty from lack of sunlight and his ears… they were like little wings glued to the sides of his head. At any moment she expected him to start flapping them and lift off.

“…serve you, Master?” Ixxy finished, hoping he hadn’t noticed the slight hitch in her voice. The client was the sexiest thing alive. That was the rule, her brain supplied, if you wanted them to remain a client.

“Oh, thank the gods it worked,” her summoner mumbled in a reedy voice, sagging in relief. Huh. She hadn’t thought he could sag any further. “When it took so long for the summoning to complete I thought it had failed and I was going to have to go out and find another flask of pig-blood and there was no way…”

Tsk. She really hoped he was over the age of consent. It would suck to have to lose out on her first customer because some kid had managed to get his hands on a summoning ritual plate.

Slowly, with sinuous movements, Ixxy shifted her weight onto her feet and rose to a standing pose, ‘casually’ bringing her arm up so that it covered her chest and turning her hips slightly in the process, giving only brief, enticing glimpses of her most tender places.

It was supposed to make her seem shy and vulnerable, yet showed off her nude body to the maximum effect. Judging from her summoner’s mid-sentence freeze and the way his eyes darted up and down her slim frame, it was working.

In the process, she used her movements to hide a surreptitious glance around the room she found herself in. The etched brass plate she was standing on was in the middle of the only piece of open floor space in the room, next to a large closet at the foot of the bed. Various knick-knacks and thick tomes scattered among the shelves along the walls revealed that this, unsurprisingly, was the abode of a mage.

The only door out was behind her. He’d summoned her between himself and the only exit. Brave little shit.

“Why have I been summoned, Master? Is there something I can… help you with?” she purred lasciviously.

Licking her lips sensually, she tried taking a step closer to him, only for her foot to bounce off some kind of invisible barrier. Suppressing a scowl, she glanced down.

The fucker had put a containment circle around the summoning ritual plate! Just painted it right onto the tiled floor! Who even did that? It wasn’t like she was allowed to hurt him! The runes in her head, the Grand Contract, made sure of that! Forget brave, this guy was as chicken-shit as they came.

No matter. She’d just have to change tack.

Ixxy gave her best apologetic pout. “I’m sorry, Master, did I do something wrong? Are you angry at me?”

“Ah… no! No, no, no, it’s not… ah…” he finally seemed to snap out of his daze. He cleared his throat, seeming to draw some form of composure from the act. “I just… have some additional requirements that we need to discuss before we get down to… um… business.”

Oh? A hidden kink? A secret fetish? Perhaps the little twerp had something interesting to him after all. Oooh, she hoped it was scandalous!

“Of course, Master,” she said, giving him a salacious smile. “I am sure I can accomodate whatever your… tastes might be.”

Ixxy flicked her wrist and a single page contract appeared in her hand, covered in tiny, neat script. It was written in ink; InferTec market research had found that contracts in blood had an unsettling effect that far outweighed their forbidden alure.

Of course, blood contracts were still available for certain… select clientèle.

“Now just tell me what you had in mind and I will happily amend our contract, if it pleases you, Master,” she purred with a wicked smile, the piece of paper dangling casually from her fingers and just barely hiding one of her nipples from his sight.

The young man swallowed nervously. “Ah, that’s the… um… the thing. I have my own contract and I would like that we use it, rather than, um, yours.” He patted a stack of papers lying next to him on the desk. “No offense,” he added weakly.

For a moment, Ixxy’s smile became decidedly wooden.

“Are you sure, Master? Contracts can be awfully complicated and I cannot just accept any old piece of paper. There are certain requirements and concepts…” she began in a voice as sweet as honey, oozing with sultry innocence, but the young man cut her off.

“You will find that this contract is… is adequate,” he stuttered, doing his best to project an air of confidence.

Ixxy shrugged, a slow, graceful movement that just happened to, for a moment, fully reveal her beautifully shaped breasts, and gave a put-upon sigh. She held out her hand towards her summoner, who managed to stumble over his own feet as he handed her the stack of papers.

The moment she touched them, she knew she wasn’t going to have an easy out. The contract was valid, at least according to the runes in her head. That didn’t mean it was fair, mind you, just that it met the minimum threshold requirements to be considered binding and didn’t break any of the Grand Contract’s various restrictive clauses. Rats.

She quickly glanced at the first few lines. Her own contract - not that she’d written it herself, mind you, it was simply a template drawn up by the InferTec legal department that she had access to - had a blank space for her client’s name to be added. This one obviously had it already filled in.

Timothy. Timothy Emelia Doncen.

She had to suppress a snort as her body’s stored memories filled her in that ‘Emelia’ was, in fact, a girl’s name. No wonder this guy had to summon a Pleasure Devil to get laid.

“Master Timothy,” she began, reasoning that it sounded better than either of the other two options, poor fellow, “before I can agree to this contract, I am going to have to study it very, very closely, which is going to take quite a bit of our very limited time together. Time I would much rather spend studying you very, very closely, if you know what I mean, Master. Are you sure we have to go through all this effort rather than just using my little, itty bitty contract? It’s really very standard, I assure you. You really have nothing to be afraid of…”

“Nevertheless, I must insist,” he stated firmly, finally appearing to have found his confidence.

Ixxy sighed. “You understand that you’re not going to get a better rate by using your own contract, right?” she said, all the sensuality in her voice now replaced by wearied acceptance. “On the contrary…”

“I understand. That doesn’t matter.”

Ixxy sighed again. Well, she’d tried. “Could I at least… sit down while I peruse this lovely reading material you’ve given me?” she asked. “I was serious when I said this could take a while. Your contract is significantly longer than mine.”

“Uh, of course! Of course. Have a seat!” Timothy replied, gesturing towards the desk.

Ixxy pointedly tapped against the barrier that was still surrounding her. “If you would be so kind…?”

“Oh, right… uh… you may step across the threshold!” he intoned with more ceremony than was probably strictly necessary.

Immediately, her finger passed straight through where the barrier used to be.

For a brief moment, the thought of rushing forward and ripping him to pieces began taking form in her head, before the barriers of the Grand Contract slammed down, smothering it before it could complete. Ah well.

“Thank you,” she stated and stepped up to Timothy, smirking to herself at how he suddenly tensed. Then she pulled out the desk chair, before pointedly sitting down on the bed, resting her back against the wall and propping her feet up on the chair. Then she began flipping through the contents of the contract in her hands.

“Well? Are you just going to awkwardly stand there?” she asked when Timothy made no further move.

“I uh… you kind of blocked me in here,” Timothy replied, gesturing towards where her beautiful, shapely and entirely naked legs stretched across the little passage next to his bed to reach the chair.

Ixxy gently patted the bed next to her without looking up from the contract.

“Right,” was all he said before awkwardly sitting down next to her.

She suppressed a smile. Sometimes you had to make your own fun.

Timothy’s contract was surprisingly complex. Whether the guy was obsessed with detail or just paranoid, she didn’t know, but he’d carefully defined every little concept and covered every single eventuality she could see. Heck, the section that covered what she should do in the case where someone walked in on them was an entire page!

The part that described the actual sex was especially hilarious. It was so dry that it could have been copied straight out of a biology textbook, yet so vague that… well, it was no vaguer than her own, she supposed. Too many constraints smothered spontaneity. And the Grand Contract did specify that the spirit of the contract had to be taken into account, not just the letter, so it was fine even if she were inclined to monkey’s paw him.

Which she wasn’t. Unhappy customers were not repeat customers, as the old saying went.

Nevertheless, Ixxy found herself regularly having to flick back and forth through the complicated and often redundant sections of the contract to check a definition or reference. Honestly, it was hard to believe that the awkward, fidgeting young man next to her had written the damn thing on his own. If he even had.

She rubbed the bridge of her nose. Ugh, this was not how she had been planning to spend her first summoning, with her nose buried in a contract, basically doing legal work. She’d much rather wanted it buried in…

Actually, why was the guy so nervous?

She glanced over at the young man who’d summoned her. He was tapping his foot on the ground, unable to keep his leg still as he pointedly looked everywhere but at her. Originally she’d thought it awkwardness at being aroused in the presence of a beautiful, naked woman, but no. There was no tell-tale bulge in his pants and while his hands were in his lap, they were making no attempt to conceal anything. It was like he’d forgotten she was there.

Yet he was sweating buckets. Hmm.

Ixxy flicked back to the last page and reread the second clause. Something about it bothered her, but she wasn’t sure… aha! The little fucker! So this was what his play was. She could admire the balls in trying to contract-cheat a devil, but there was no way she was going to let him get away with it.

“Sweetie, nuh-uh. I’m afraid this clause doesn’t work for me,” she stated calmly, gently tapping the offending paragraph with one finger.

“What? Which one?” Timothy snapped, nearly grabbing the contract out of her hand in his rush to see what she was pointing at. His eyes rapidly scanned the offending piece of text.

Well. He was either genuinely upset that there was something wrong with his contract or a really good actor.

“The escape clause? Why?” he flicked through the pages, quickly finding a related section.

“You see, Sweetheart…” Ixxy started, before Timothy cut her off.

“Oh, I see! Because of the way I defined ‘permission’ here, I could technically end the contract prematurely at any time, even after I… umm… finished and only pay the minimal soul-essence fee,” he exclaimed, understanding dawning on his face.

“Exactly. Thereby cheating me out of my very well deserved payment. And you would have known exactly how well deserved if only you had been a little more… flexible,” she sighed, wiggling her posterior suggestively as she got up.

It was a shame, really. With his ploy exposed, he was probably going to send her back. No sex for Ixxy this time, it seemed. At least she got to have a bit of fun teasing the little cheapskate. And she got to keep the summoning fee, even if that was just Sanguine, ugh.

“Look, I’m terribly sorry. I honestly hadn’t even considered that, which, I agree is completely my own fault,” he admitted. “Can you change it?”

Ixxy paused mid-step, before slowly turning around.

“Hold on,” she said, puzzled. “You insisted we use your contract, and now you’re okay with me just changing it?”

She could change it, of course. The same way she could change her own contract. A simple application of contract magic, a translation of will to words.

But only as long as it was unsigned, mind you. The Grand Contract did not look kindly upon changes to already signed contracts. That was what an addendum was for.

“Sure, I’ve already lost the marks. What do you propose?” he asked.

Not quite understanding, Ixxy decided to let that odd remark slide as she plopped herself back down next to the young summoner. Taking the contract from his grip, she waved her hand over the offending paragraph and willed a change.

Before their eyes, the letters shifted and twisted until it formed a new paragraph written in a decidedly more diabolical handwriting.

“There. What do you think?” she asked smugly.

She could have tried to screw the young man over, figuratively speaking. But that might have resulted in less screwing him over, literally speaking. Besides, she didn’t seriously expect him to go for a fair contract and she was quite curious what trick he was going to use to weasel out of this one.

“’… until satisfaction is achieved by the party…’ Wait,” he paused his reading. “This isn’t an escape clause. There is no escape here.”

“Of course not. It’s a satisfaction clause. Your satisfaction,” Ixxy purred, leaning in closer.

“Ugh… but… but… the term ‘satisfaction’ isn’t defined… you could be locking yourself in…” he stammered, awkwardly trying to lean away from her sudden predatory smile.

“I think I’ll manage,” she chuckled. Now that she was this close, the poor man looked halfway to ‘satisfaction’ already. She was going to have to hurry if she wanted to get any fun in.

“Besides,” she added in a sultry whisper, tapping the new paragraph, “that’s why I adjusted when payment is due.”

Timothy immediately buried his face back in the contract, his bright red cheeks making her giggle in delight.

“’…at the end of the time that has been made available for the fulfillment of the contract as part of the summoning of party B’?” he read aloud.

“Before I go. No matter what does or does not happen,” Ixxy translated for him. A cast-iron guarantee that she was not going to get cheated out of what was rightfully hers.

Up front would have been nice too, and would serve him right, but taking a chunk of a man’s soul might not be very conducive to proper performance in the bedroom, based on the rumours she’d heard. And she fully expected that the little dork was going to need every bit of assistance he could get to satisfy her in the next… oh… twenty-five minutes that was left of their allotted time.

Not that she expected him to actually take the contract. Any moment now he was going to make an issue of this as an excuse to weasel out of…

“Okay. You’re right, this is much better. For a moment I thought this meant you could just twiddle your thumbs without doing anything, but that’s what the satisfaction clause is for, I see. Yeah, it makes sense. You have a deal.”

For a moment, Ixxy just stared at him stunned. After all of this it was going to be that easy? What was his game?

“I have one more condition,” she added quickly. “I want to know why we just spent thirty minutes only to basically agree to an unnecessarily complicated version of this.” She tapped her own contract which was suddenly in her hand again.

Timothy eyed her warily for a moment. “Deal. WAIT!” he shouted as she moved to add the clause to his contract.

She paused, hand halfway there. “Yes?”

“One condition, we don’t add it to the contract. We keep it a verbal contract.”

Ixxy laughed, patting him on the leg. Scrawny, but he would do. “Oh sweetie, verbal contracts aren’t worth the paper they’re written on.”

“Then a seperate contract. An addendum. Or a pre-dendum, whatever. In exchange for us both signing the contract, I will tell you why I was so insistent on using my own contract. You can change that one,” he said, pointing at her old contract that she’d forgotten she was still holding.

Eh, why not? It cost her nothing and the curiosity was driving her nuts.

She flicked her wrist, and held the updated contract in front of his face. “This work for you?” She’d changed the wording to a single sentence that matched exactly what he’d just said.

“Perfect.”

“Good. Then all that’s left is a quick credit check and then we sign,” she replied smugly.

Without waiting for a response, she slipped a hand inside his robe and underneath his shirt.

“Aghh! What are you…?” he exclaimed, freezing in place.

“Shhh. Credit check,” she whispered back.

A finger would actually have sufficed, anywhere she could feel a pulse, really, but by this point she was having far too much fun winding the awkward young man up.

Yes, perfect. Untouched soul, and well mature, actually. He’d likely never gone for a soul-deal before in his life. And he was certainly over the age of consent. He was definitely good for her fee.

Lovely. It looked like Ixxy was going to be getting laid after all.

Several signatures followed in what was a surprisingly anti-climactic affair after all of the back and forth that they’d just had. As soon as she finished the final signature on the contract, Timothy seemed to deflate like a sail on a windless day. It looked as if a massive load had been lifted off his shoulders.

Ixxy stared at the goofy grin he was now sporting, staring off into space. Strange. According to her brain’s preinstalled memories, that was supposed to happen after sex, not before. Had she done something wrong?

“Hey…”

Timothy jolted upright, as if he’d forgotten that she was even there. “Oh! Right! I owe you an explanation!”

“That wasn’t actually… you know what? Nevermind. Go ahead. I’m curious.”

He cleared his throat and straightened his back as if he was going to deliver a grand speech for the ages. “I,” he paused, “am a final year Contract Magic student with a Minor in Diabolism. And this,” he gestured at the stack of signed contract papers now lying on his desk, “was my final year practical assignment. And unless I’ve just accidentally signed away my soul to some dark, ineffable power, you’ve just graded me with at least a B minus!”

Ixxy looked at Timothy. Then she looked at the contract. Then back at Timothy. Her brain churned, trying to make sense of it, before finally just giving up.

“B minus?” she repeated.

“Yep! Single paragraph replaced before acceptance, B minus at the minimum. And depending on how strict the professor is, I might even get my A!”

She stared wordlessly at him. Then she burst out laughing. A deep, honest belly-laugh that nearly had her falling off the bed.

“Timothy Emelia Doncen…” she chuckled as the man in question groaned with dismay, “… I thank you for making my first ever contract truly memorable.”

Timothy jerked upright. “Wait, your first ever…?”

“Too late! You signed! Now we fuck!”

And with that, Ixxy leapt at him.