With black-and-white images, of almost cinematographic quality, of very close dancing. The dancers were partnered properly, male with female, and all of them were impossibly beautiful.

A few seconds into the tape, the impossibly beautiful creatures began to turn toward the camera, to beckon the viewer in, to all but make love through the lens.

Then the Europop dance track stopped, and the screen went black. White capitals appeared on the black background: EVERYTHING YOU'VE HEARD IS TRUE.

[Kurt tried hard to catch my eye. I ignored him, intent on Jenner, who continued to watch the screen. He was in the catatonic phase of his depressive cycle that day, or at least for the moment.]

The Europop resumed, the lettering vanished, and a moving image bled through the black. Then another. Then others. A man with a man; a woman with a woman; a man with two women; three men with two men. An androgynous couple, silhouetted against a bright light, moved into kiss range, both mouths open. At the critical moment, the screen went black again.

THE SNAKE REALLY DOES HAVE ALL THE LINES, the white capitals proclaimed.

Consummated kiss, with a flicker of tongue.

AT LEAST, ON THE DANCE FLOOR.

["Jesus on the dashboard," Chip whispered. Jenner continued to watch the screen.]

When the music and movement started again, something shadowy was happening--something sexual, clearly, but not clearly enough. It looked like...could not be, on American television, but really looked like...

TEMPTED?, the white capitals asked.

Two seconds of silence, followed by the Rumours logo and phone number in blazing red on the black. The end.

Absolute silence fell over the conference room. Jenner remained fixed on the screen, which was now showing only static. He neither moved nor gave any indication that he would, ever. At the back of the room, someone coughed significantly.

Say something, I silently told Jenner. Nobody's going to say a word until you do.

The back of his expensively styled gray head didn't respond.

"Yes," Jenner said.

Around me, everyone breathed. Having known the man longer than most of them, I waited.

"This is 30 seconds, Miss Devlin?"

He was speaking to the screen, so I spoke to the back of his head. "Twenty-eight-five, sir. We left in some margin so we could give or take on the titles or..."

"Give me one-five more in the second segment. Leave the titles alone. What about the 15?"

"Most of the cut's off the top. Six seconds there, three in the middle, a couple..."

"I'll see it in my office."

"Yes, sir."

Quiet again. Finally, Jenner stood, turned, smoothed his pinstripes, and nodded at Jack, who was grinning like a cat.

"We're going to have lawyer trouble, Harper," Jenner told him. "I'll see you in my office. Bring the tape."

"Right behind you, sir," Jack said happily.

I was standing in Jenner's path to the door, but he didn't acknowledge me in the slightest as he went by. Neither did Jack. Not until the door closed behind them did anyone else move.

Then they were all moving in all directions at once, asking pointless questions. How much had it cost? Who directed, and where? How were we going to do this campaign on radio? Weren't homoerotic fantasies supposed to be out of my range?

I left the room without a word.

I could sleep now without chemical help, though, if I tried hard enough; Monica hadn't troubled my dreams for a month. Not since the night she'd appeared in my bed had I even seen her--not so much as a pair of glittering red eyes in the rear-view mirror. She was gone as though she'd never come.

Maybe that was best. I'd had a month now to grapple with the probable truth: She'd been an elaborate hallucination. I'd pulled a Pygmalion on myself and fallen for something that didn't even exist.

Probably that was why I couldn't write anymore. I'd channeled all my creative energy into creating her and had simply tapped it out. There was nowhere for the hallucination to go after I'd put her in my bed. I'd shot my bolt. I'd used her up.

Or vice versa.

Listless, I pulled the car into the garage, unlocked the inside door of the condo, and walked in...

...through what should have been the greatroom door, but straight into the vampire bedroom, which should have been upstairs if it should have been there at all. There wasn't time to worry about the physics of the situation, though: Monica was lying in the big mahogany bed, wearing a black silk robe open over the X-rated lace. Her smile was all sex, and her eyes were glowing like coals.

There's nothing worse than a derivative hallucination.

"At last. Welcome home," the hallucination said. "Can I tempt you?"

"What do you want?"

"You might be surprised. Come here and find out."

I complied, but stopped a couple of feet from the bed.

"Closer," Monica urged.

"No. I can see you just fine from here."

"But you can't touch me, and you know you want to. You've been thinking about me all day. All month, really. So here I am. I'm all yours. Tonight's the night."

"Tonight's Tuesday," I pointed out. "People don't have sex in Greenville on Tuesday. It's a town ordinance."

She laughed. "Touchy. Maybe even a little hostile. Well, we know what causes that, don't we? Come here. You'll feel better when I'm through with you."

"You're already through with me. You got what you wanted when you wrote that ad for me. Didn't you?"

"Let's just say that I inspired it."

"So now you're going to try to get me to act on it, and you'll disappear again the minute I try to. No, thanks. I'm not that big a fool."

"You're a much bigger fool than you know. Now come here. You've kept me waiting long enough."

"For what? My soul? Are you going to bite a hole in me somewhere? Do you get the soul out that way?"

Monica got out of bed and slipped her arms around me. "There are easier ways. Tell me you want me."

"I don't want you."

"Liar." She bent down, took my top shirt button between her teeth, and bit it off.

I didn't react.

She put the tip of her tongue in my ear and unbuttoned the next button down.

Again, I didn't react. But it took all my control. I hoped that she didn't know that.

Suddenly, she pulled back. She studied me for a second--and then smiled, the fangs slowly growing longer and sharper in her red mouth.

My reaction this time was an immediate stab of fear. The next instant, Monica was on me, fangs bristling, pushing me down into the bed.

"Hate me," she demanded.

"What are you doing?"

"Hate me." She ripped my shirt open, showering buttons all over the room. "I'll ruin you. You'll lose your job. You'll lose your friends. You'll be through in this town. But you can't live without me anymore, and you know it." She slashed my chinos to ribbons with her fingernails and began to tear away the strips.

"You're insane!"

"You're insane. You need me. How dare you deny me?"

I tried to sit up, but she pinned me with her body. "You coward. You conformist." She began to rip my shirt apart. "Hate me. I'm evil. I'm everything that they lie to you about. Do you hate me? Do you want me?"

I did. By then, absolutely, I did. So I pulled her down and kissed her with purpose. She responded wildly. Her mood was contagious; as I unrobed her, the silk somehow tore to shreds.

"I hate you," I whispered. "I hate you."

Monica wrapped herself around me, and we rolled through the bed, which seemed to be the size of the world.

"I hate..." I started to say. But she was stuffing the end of a ribbon into my mouth.

"Now," she directed.

I pulled, and spat the ribbon out...

And that was the beginning of the end of my celibacy.

I knew from feng shui that I shouldn't be lying with my head in that direction. But a person who'd just spent the night with a demon had specifically Western problems at the moment.

Damn. I was hers now body and soul, if she wanted, and was willing to say so. Out loud. Emphatically. I could still feel every second of the night on my whole body, and the pain was nothing compared with the pleasure. It seemed that I was human after all.

I stretched, carefully, to see whether everything still worked, and felt something silk wadded up near my head: another black robe, scented with her perfume and still warm. A wave of longing swept over me, so strong that it would literally have knocked me down had I been standing. Whoever she was, whatever she was, I wanted this woman, and I...

Wait. This woman. I'd just spent the night with a woman. And if I'd

done that with her, what did that make me?

I was in trouble, because all of a sudden, I didn't care.

Kurt's door was open, so I stopped in to say hello. He seemed to be astonished, too.

"Something wrong, boss?"

"Wrong? Don't talk crazy. What would be wrong?"

Mistrustful, he buzzed the front desk. "Page Cassie Wolfe. Tell her..."

"I already heard," Cassie said from the doorway, "and now I see. What happened?"

"No clue," Kurt told her. "It might be a pod person."

Frowning, Cassie stepped up to get a closer look. "Are you feeling all right, Devvy?"

"Terrific. Never better. You? How about the Pig & Whistle after work?"

She told me to go away and let her think. So I left.

Through the open door, I heard Cassie mutter, "If I didn't know better, I'd say she got laid."

I threw back my head and laughed.

(c) 1999, ROCFanKat

Continued - Part 9