Wild Thing

Content warning: paranormal/demons, free use, coercion, reluctance

--

"... a strange madness came upon him. He crept away and fled to the woods, unwilling that any should see his going. Into the forest he went, glad to lie hidden beneath the ash trees. He watched the wild creatures grazing on the pasture of the glades. Sometimes he would follow them, sometimes pass them in his course. He made use of the roots of plants and of grasses, of fruit from trees and of the blackberries in the thicket. He became a Man of the Woods, as if dedicated to the woods... He stayed hidden in the woods, discovered by none, forgetful of himself and of his own, lurking like a wild thing."

- Geoffrey of Monmouth, Vita Merlini

--

The change from highway to the smaller roads at the base of the mountain was drastic. The smooth asphalt was nearly soothing along with the murmur of the radio and if Elsie closed her eyes, she could imagine she was just a kid, sitting in the back seat of the family car going on a road trip. But they made a turn onto roads that weren't obsessively shoveled and salted, the unevenly packed snow jostling everyone in the van around such that she bumped shoulders with the two men sitting on either sides of her. A rude awakening - she didn't know either of these men.

Two more men sat at the front. The only one she knew out of the four was the one sitting in the front passenger seat and they had spoken for a grand total of five minutes. He introduced himself as Donner - a name she had no doubt was fake. The words exchanged were formalities. None of them wanted to get to know her. It was probably for the best. The vehicle jostled again and her elbow nudged into something hard and solid against the side of one of the men.

A gun.

She would bet all her money that all four of them were packing heat. That bet would mean nothing; as of last month she couldn't afford rent anymore. Elsie wondered for the thousandth time how stupid she was for doing what she was doing but the thought of having to look at her empty bank account again stopped the thought. It was either this or starving.

"If Mr. Myrra needs something from you, simply try your best to accommodate him," Donner said as they excruciatingly made their way up smaller and smaller roads at the base of the mountain.

"What if he wants me to 'accommodate' him without asking?" Elsie said.

Donner turned in his seat to look back at her, smiling. He wasn't a bad looking man, with deep brown eyes and a strong chin. The athletic jacket he wore stretched over wide shoulders and she could see that Donner and the three other men were physically fit. She liked looking at fit, attractive men like any other person but none of this information pleased her. If she ran, they would catch her. They weren't fit for any other purpose but to make her do what they wanted her to do. "Mr. Myrra is not a violent or abusive man. If you refuse something, he will listen..."

Elsie noticed his smile didn't quite reach his eyes. Donner turned back in his seat, then added:

"... most of the time."

She narrowed her eyes. "Mr. Myrra can come down from the mountain and join society. Lotsa people would do crazy shit for money... and he is paying. He can get all the escorts he wants for the cash he has."

"You're not here to comment on Mr. Myrra's lifestyle, you're here to be his companion," Donner quipped back. "And you are not an escort, you are here as punishment. Learn the difference."

Elsie let out a long breath - at least she's less scared now that she's pissed. Even in her mid-twenties she had to be treated like a child, having her hand slapped for taking too many cookies. Except this was nothing like having one's hand slapped.

She was almost relieved when the van came to a stop and they made her get out. All the swaying and jostling made her sick and puking in the car in front of all of them would just be further humiliation. Cold mountain air filled her lungs, pushing out the stifling warm air of the van.

The four men watched her put on the backpack Donner provided for her. It contained a huge bottle of water and maybe a handful of granola bars. The strap of the backpack had a small compass attached to it - Donner reached out to tap it. Elsie had to stop herself from flinching away from his hand.

"Follow this compass north," he said. "We stopped at the right spot so it's straightforward for you. Keep hiking north and in a few hours you'll get to a cabin. Hopefully there's a fire going and you'll see some smoke."

"I just... fucking hike? Through the forest?" Elsie tried to keep the panic from her voice. "What if I can't stay north? Like I don't get a path, or if there's too much sno - "

"Then get climbing," Donner shrugged. "Or start screaming. I don't know, figure something out. He's out there and you need to find him."

What a piece of shit. Of all her dumb decisions, it would probably be dumbest to start cussing this guy out - they were in the middle of nowhere and none of them seemed to care if she lived or died. At least her temper would keep her warm for a bit, she was already sweating in her jacket.

"Oh, and don't even think about trying to return the way we came," Donner said casually as she turned towards the snowy forest. "There's only one path back and we'll be waiting at the end of it. If we see you before the agreed time, we'll kill you."

Of course they will. Elsie chanted 'don't do it, don't say anything' to herself in her head as she trudged between the pine trees. She slipped and scrabbled back to her feet. When she got up, she could see the four of them still standing there beside the van, watching her while smirking. Donner gave her a mocking wave and her fury bubbled over at that point.

"GO! FUCK! YOURSELVES!," she screeched as loud as she could, then ran.

--

Running honestly only lasted about ten minutes before she was completely out of breath. The snow reached mid-shin at times, 'running' through the snow probably wasn't exactly fast. If they wanted to shoot her, they probably would have. She did this whole zig-zag pattern and tried to weave through the trees and imagined the whole sequence like an action movie but as she's gripping the trunk of a tree and trying not to puke from the exertion, she knew she wasn't cool at all.

How much worse could this get?

The only thing she could do was keep going North. Elsie stubbornly marched through the thick layer of snow and hauled herself as far as she could before collapsing on a large boulder exposed above the snow line. It killed her having to drink the water with the bottle they provided, but she reprimanded herself for making a big deal out of it. Her whole get-up was provided by those guys, right down to her panties. The socks, the boots, the snow pants, the jacket, the sweater, the backpack and its contents - all of it was brand new. She was forced to wear them so that they knew she wasn't sneaking anything up the mountain. They were probably a step away from doing a body cavity search, she just knew it.

Staring at the trees and the stark white snow, Elsie took another swig of water, carefully capped the lid back on the bottle and gathered up the willpower to keep going. She diligently kept checking the compass and tried her best to keep hiking north.

The silence in the woods at the dead of winter was suffocating. It was like the trees were holding their breaths as she walked by, not making a single sound. It would probably be terrifying to be stuck in a storm out here, but all Elsie could think about was that at least in a storm, there would be some sort of sound besides the pathetic rasp of her breath. Where were the squirrels? The crows? The raccoons? A deer maybe? At some point close to noon after hours of hiking in silence, Elsie would trade anything to run into a bear. The silence, the overwhelming silence of absolutely nothing but snow and trees made her angrier than those four douche bags that brought her here. It made her mad enough to cry.

It wasn't supposed to end like this. Two years in the polished offices of BioLive never foretold any kind of future of her trudging through remote mountains on her own. Elsie was used to the life of high heels against tiled floors, the familiar tap of fingers against a touch screen, and the smell of coffee that was too expensive for what was in it. There were lots of people jealous of her job as a receptionist at a huge biotech firm; it's the appeal of being a part of that aesthetic of pencil skirts and polite smiles. The feeling of being rich adjacent, of bureaucracy with a futuristic sheen painted on it. Elsie was used to the feeling of pretending to be a part of progress when in reality she just checked people in and out of a building.

She was supposed to be enamored with a job that was all glitter and no gold. There was no doubt if she was a person who cared about what other people thought, she would have felt right at home. But she was better than that. Where was the intrigue? The innovation? The money? No, she refused to be a poor, pencil pushing, email sending robot for the rest of her days.

Exhausted both physically and by the memories that still plagued her, Elsie found a snow-free place to sit again (this time on the trunk of a toppled tree). They had also given her a watch - a digital watch that couldn't do more than give the time and date. It was almost three in the afternoon. Unfortunately she didn't have much time left before night fell. Her backpack also had a small flashlight strapped to it, but she would much rather not have to wander through the dark, especially now with her legs feeling like jelly.

She drank more water, ate a granola bar and kept going. Her feet hurt. She tried to ignore it. The new boots chafed her feet and several parts of her heel were painful as she kept walking. Another hour in and she made extremely slow progress. Her muscles were spasming at the hours of use - Elsie was used to a light jog on a treadmill at the gym at most, or some time on the yoga mat. Her legs screamed in protest at the hours of trudging through the snow at a steep uphill angle.

After four o'clock the sky started to rapidly get dark. It got dark so fast it scared her. She lost her footing with her weak legs and crumpled down into the snow. Her legs started shaking and she couldn't help but squeeze her painful thighs. Helplessly, she stared at the darkening skies, breath coming out in a stream of vapor.

Was she really going to have to do it? Did she really have to cry for help?

She didn't want to. She told her parents back when she was eighteen she wasn't going to ever ask them or anyone else for help. Elsie curled her cold hands into fists in her gloves, trying to feel that resolve she once felt when she was younger. She wasn't supposed to end up like this, she was supposed to make it by herself. She stiffly got up and made herself walk some more.

Go north. Keep going.

There wasn't a single trace of a cabin anywhere. There weren't any signs that anyone lived on these mountains. It's quite possible she'd missed it entirely. Also quite possible Donner and those fuck heads back at the van lied about the cabin and they sent her here to die by herself. She was going to fucking haunt them if that was the case.

It got darker and darker, colder and colder. Elsie was wrong: things could definitely get worse. How blue did her toes look in her boots? How frost bitten were her fingers? Where was that fucking cabin? She was forced to use the flashlight. It was so much worse going through the forest in the dark.

At one point she saw something that looked like lights and she desperately moved towards it, limping now from blisters and sore muscles. She was hoping for some pathway towards a magical cabin, maybe some candy cane signs pointing towards Santa's secret winter cottage in the buttfuck middle of nowhere. She felt like she had hiked all the way up the North Pole.

But the lights stayed at a far distance even as she walked towards it. Her flashlight revealed that she had reached some sort of naturally made platform off the side of the mountain that gave a view of the town far, far away at the base of the mountain. It was the edge of the cliff - she was careful not to get too close.

Devastated, she collapsed back on the ground. No cabin, no Santa. No warmth, no sounds, just nothing. She had tried to make something of herself, she took risks and this is where it got her. Elsie still refused to call out for help - god help her, she was gonna die a stubborn bitch. Instead she cried as self pity bubbled up within her.

"I'm here," she said pathetically out to the distant town below, sobbing. "I'm right here."

She wanted to say it, she wanted to hear the words even though she felt like she was the only person left in the world. She wanted someone to know that she was there, even when she knew she was very, very much alone. A blast of icy wind crashed into her, making her cry out. She scrambled back from the edge of the cliff and huddled up to a tree, back against the wind.

Her limbs felt frozen in that position. She clutched her backpack to her, shivering. Was she going to die here? Elsie didn't know how long she spent huddled there next to the tree, she just knew she was cold. So... so very cold, limbs frozen stiff.

So much so that she couldn't reach for the flashlight when she heard the crunch of footsteps on snow approaching her.

--

Elsie tried to force sound out of her chattering teeth as her face unceremoniously smacked against a back covered by a jacket. A shoulder dug into her stomach as the man carrying her like a sack of potatoes walked through the snow as if it didn't exist.

She was being kidnapped by some kind of sasquatch. She had a glimpse of the face of the... thing that appeared and it looked to be 90% hair. But did sasquatches wear jackets? She was clearly going crazy. It felt like she hung over a shoulder forever, miserably jostling around while in muscle pain and cold.

Elsie blinked and found herself no longer in the dark but surrounded by warm golden light. The world spun and she was sitting on a rug with a huge man crouched before her, pulling her clothes off.

"You're still shivering, that's good," the man rumbled. Elsie couldn't protest as her gloves were discarded, her jacket unzipped and stashed on the floor next to her. A thick fleece blanket was wrapped around her and she clutched it close around her as the man undid the laces of her boots. She winced as he tried to pull them off.

"Hurts," she croaked.

The man studied her face and for the first time Elsie was really able to look at him. A thick, dark beard covered most of his face while a mass of unkept hair descended down to cover more of it. Thick eyebrows furrow over steely blue eyes as he tried to pull off one of her boots again, this time more slowly. He hissed out a curse when the light gray socks she had on in the boots were revealed to be spotted with blood. Big hands carefully peeled off the socks as well and he gingerly inspected her disgusting feet.

Muttering to himself, the man got up and puttered around the cabin. He knelt at the fireplace that was dark and devoid of fire and carefully set up logs and tinder and lit it with what looked like a small blowtorch. Soon there was a roaring fire next to Elsie, the warmth soothing her entire body. She wasn't going to die, at least not by freezing.

Thawed enough to at least move a little, Elsie scooted back so she could lean against the worn little couch. She actually wanted to sit on the couch, but she also wanted to be as close to the fire as possible. Besides, sitting on the couch made her feel like it was less obvious she was watching the strange man still muttering to himself around the cabin. He had yet to take off his own jacket but she could already make out his bulky arms and wide shoulders. The edges of his beard and parts of hair lightened to almost a brown and some of it was streaked with gray.

Was this Mr. Myrra? Elsie cast a glance around the wooden cabin. He must be. But she wasn't supposed to know that; for a while she was worried it would be obvious in recognizing him but that worry was ill founded. "W-who are you?" she managed to say.

He cast a glance over his shoulder, but then turned back to rummaging for something in a drawer at a table on the other side of the cabin. "Your good fortune, apparently," he snorted. "What were you doing out there, girl?"

Girl. Elsie tried not to roll her eyes. "Taking a walk," she said dryly. "What were you doing out there?"

"Thought I heard a stray cat yowling in distress."

"I was not yowling," Elsie said indignantly.

The man grunted and pulled out a first aid kit. He went back to her side and pulled a stool over, although he didn't sit on it. "Well you've certainly recovered from the cold quick enough. Sit on the couch and put your feet up on this."

She did just that, almost sighing in pleasure at the softness of the couch. Elsie tried not to flush as the man started disinfecting her feet and putting band-aids over ripped blisters.

"You're not gonna be able to walk back down the mountain this way," he said gravely.

"Good thing you can carry me down, right?"

The man stilled, his blue eyes trailing up her body to settle on hers. She could see the lines on his face, the most prominent one a wrinkle between his brows. In all the pictures of Mr. Myrra back within the polished walls of BioLive, he looked younger than his 40 years of age. But then again, all pictures of Mr. Myrra had him clean-shaven and dressed in an expensive suit. Elsie had to squint to see remnants of that well dressed man in the pictures in the man crouched before her now. "I cannot do that," he finally said.

"You were fine with hauling me here," she pointed out.

"Carrying your frozen ass isn't the issue," he said. "I can't leave the mountain."

"Why not? We haven't had a good bigfoot sighting in a while."

Everyone knew the CEO of BioLive disappeared every winter and nobody knew the full details. The formal explanation was that Mr. Myrra worked very hard the rest of the year and wintered in a cottage somewhere as a way to de-stress. Not a single employee of BioLive nor anyone who gave a shit about the company believed that for a second. People who worked at that level of power and prestige were always glued to their jobs. All the higher ups at BioLive were notoriously good at keeping the secret and so the lack of information simply bred a whole list of conspiracy theories, down to the ridiculous one that Mr. Myrra was Santa Claus and worked in the North Pole around the Christmas season. Elsie would happily believe something like that if the man wasn't right here, looking nothing like the big jolly man.

"Why don't you tell me why you were wandering the mountains in the dark, alone," the mountain man version of Mr. Myrra shot back, ignoring her joke.

Even as she's with the man himself, right in his 'secret winter hideaway,' she had no clue what he was doing here instead of attending meetings and running a multi million dollar company. Such well kept secrets weren't privy to her. But she had to give him answers in case he distrusted her enough to kick her back outside.

"I was looking for something," she finally said, settling on a vague, half-truth. The best lies had the truth in it.

He stared at her for a long time, dark brows drawn together. Elsie fought the urge to fidget and squirm. Did he already find out the truth just by looking at her? What would Donner do if Mr. Myra found out that they planted her there? "Did you find it?" he asked.

"No," she replied. His expression was hard to read behind the tangle of hair but she thought he looked disappointed at her answer. Could it be that he was looking for something as well? Was it why he locked himself away from civilization every winter?

"I'm sorry," he said, gathering the unused first aid supplies back into the box. He then got up to stow it away again. "We'll patch your feet up, I'll try to send you back down as soon as possible."

He obviously didn't want her there but she had some time to figure out how to stay. Donner had told her the agreement was at least one week. Could she make her blisters seem severe enough to stay that amount of time?

"In the meantime, I'll heat us some soup, girl."

Her face pinched in annoyance. "My name is Elsie. Don't call me girl."

He seemed to ignore her as he finally took off his jacket and started taking cutlery and pots out to start cooking. The kitchen had a wood stove he had to light a fire, just like he did for the fireplace Elsie had to strain to turn in her seat on the couch to glare at his back.

"Aren't you going to tell me your name?" Elsie prodded. "Or do you prefer me to call you bigfoot?"

He paused for a second, his big body stopping in the middle of opening a can. Then he unfroze and continued with his cooking. "My name is Dante," he replied.

Dante Myrra. Elsie knew what his name was, but everyone called him Mr. Myrra, to the point she had expected him to introduce himself as such. But of course he didn't.

She really couldn't help but see them as two different men. The aloof, suited, clean-shaven CEO of BioLive was back behind polished walls of the biotech company, haunting some mahogany desk in a ridiculously large and empty office with gold pens and leather seats. This man here was the hairy, flannel wearing mountain man cooking canned soup over a wood stove.

--

For a brief moment, she worried about saying and doing the right things just to stay in the cabin. Elsie soon realized she had much more pressing matters on hand. First was that her muscles felt like they were on fire. She had prided herself on being relatively fit, although in retrospect she had the company culture to thank for her brief obsession with yoga. It was a whole level of pretentious to be able to bring your rolled up yoga mat and parade it around during lunch time. If she's learned anything from the last 24 hours was that an hour of yoga every two days wasn't enough and god, she's such a dumbass for thinking otherwise.

Second of all she really had to pee. While they were winding down for bed, she couldn't do much more than watch Dante fuss around his cabin. He was pulling sheets and blankets out, cleaning the kitchen, adding more fuel to the fires; after all that he went in and out of the cabin a few times. It was after he grunted about how he was going to get some sleep and crawled into his bed at the far end of the cabin when Elsie realized the cabin had no bathroom nor running water. Dante had probably left the cabin to go to an outhouse.

Of course there was no plumbing. There was barely any electricity, but Elsie did notice a few lights around the cabin. They were subsequently turned off for sleep, but they were most definitely LED lights, which meant he had some electricity but probably from a solar panel. Elsie wondered if it was enough to charge her phone with it before her bladder gave a spasm.

God she had to pee. For the first time that whole miserable day, Elsie wasn't even thinking about how a bunch of strange men brought her to a secluded mountain to meet up with another strange man. She frantically tried to consider her bathroom options. The notion of just holding it until her one week was over briefly crossed her mind, as absurd as it was, but the very idea gave her bladder a stab of pain. No, that will lead to a bladder explosion. Maybe if she peed in a cup? How about the fireplace? Christ, just fucking get up, she hissed at herself. Get up and find that outhouse, you moron.

Taking a deep breath, she forced herself to get up and made excruciating steps to the door. Her muscles spasmed and her feet objected to be walked on. She tried to lift her feet to shove them into her boots but disaster struck.

"Oh fuck," she blurted out. "Oh fuck!"

She pulled the door open and flung herself out into the snow just as her bladder completely gave up. The snow she managed to crash into was at knee height but she barely felt the cold with the heat of humiliation along with the warmth seeping out her pants. Dante appeared at the door; when she saw him standing there with a bewildered look on his face, she burst into tears.

A car full of armed men threatening to shoot her in the face and almost dying alone on a mountain wasn't enough to break her, but utter mortification was. Fuck her life. She started full body sobs. Dante continued to stand there staring at her like she was crazy. She sobbed harder, realizing she'll have to suffer more humiliation in telling him what happened. Instead of delaying it, she decided to just tell him because she was about to die of shame anyway.

"My life fucking sucks and I've wet myself," she choked out. She covered her face with snow covered hands. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." Her breathing rose to hysterics, hot vapor rising past her face.

"Get up." Dante said loudly over her crying. He stepped out and gently pulled her out of the snow. "We'll get you changed."

"Stop, I smell bad," she wailed.

"Yeah, so you need to get changed," Dante said. "Or do you intend to freeze to death in your own piss?"

Elsie tried not to look at the stain she left behind in the snow and shuffled into the cabin. She stood shivering in the corner as Dante moved around the cabin pulling stuff out from shelves and cabinets.

"Clothes here. They're not gonna fit but they're clean." Dante patted the pile of clothes he set on the couch within her reach. A jug of water was poured into a basin and also placed within her reach along with a washcloth. If she didn't feel so miserable she would be impressed at how he was magicking out all these items. Then he dragged out a large plastic wash bin. "Dirty clothes here. We'll deal with them tomorrow. Clean up the best you can. I'll be outside, knock when you're done."

He then pulled on a jacket and left with a shovel in hand before she could respond. Sounds of him shoveling around made another wave of humiliation wash over her again - he was cleaning up her pee stain.

Miserably, painfully, she stripped off her clothes and tossed them in the plastic basin, careful to cover the urine soaked track pants with her shirt to keep the smell down. It was when she was buck naked in the cabin that she had a brief moment of panic that Dante would creep on her, but she heard the shoveling sounds continue and relaxed slightly. She cleaned herself with the washcloth - the water wasn't freezing but it was still very cold. Shivering, she moved as fast as she could to put on the huge sweatpants and shirt that were obviously Dante's. The drawstring had to be pulled tight so they stayed on. She tried not to think about the lack of underwear.

The shoveling sounds stopped. Flushing, she timidly made two painful steps forward to reach the door and knocked, then tried to draw back sheepishly from the door like a child who's in trouble.

Dante returned and put the shovel in another bin that would catch the melting snow from it. He turned and caught sight of her in his clothes and froze briefly as if he'd forgotten he had asked her to wear them. Then he turned to pick up the basin full of water Elsie used.

"I - I can do that," she said hastily. This man has interacted with her pee enough. He just grunted and ignored her, pouring the used water into the plastic wash basin with her soiled clothing then tossing the wash cloth after it. Elsie promptly shut her mouth when she realized this both kept the smell down better and reserved water.

Dante went to the 'sink' and washed his hands while eyeing her. "Are you feeling better?" he asked in a gruff voice.

"Yeah." Elsie faltered for more words. "Sorry again."

"If you need to use the bathroom, tell me," Dante said. "If you need anything, tell me."

"R-right."

"Now get some sleep," Dante said, nodding to the couch. Elsie tried to move and nearly fell again. Putting on the pants was a kind of torture already but she was fueled by the power of intense embarrassment. Now the shame had ebbed away and her unfit body and ripped open feet complained loudly about moving. Before she could say anything, she was hoisted into the air. Dante had scooped her up and carefully deposited her onto the couch. He even fished out a fresh pair of socks and carefully pulled them over her feet.

"I... Thank you," she squeaked out.

"God, you're really not going to make it down the mountain," Dante muttered. "Not like this."

"Believe me, if I could, I would have left. Like twenty minutes ago," Elsie grumbled.

Dante sat down on the couch next to her. "Are you going to finally tell me why you're here? Like the real reason," he said suddenly. It caught her off guard, both the timing and lack of accusation from his voice. He had been treating her exceptionally well... he didn't even make a face over her peeing all over herself.

For a brief moment, she considered just fucking telling him. She had lost everything over the past day, including her dignity. There really was nothing left to lose. So what if Donner found out? One shot, point blank actually sounded pretty good right now.

Despite the deluge of doomer thoughts, Elsie couldn't do it. She had to try and fulfill this stupid mission and try to cling to life, try to cling for the one single chance she had at fixing it.

"I told you," she said. "I'm looking for something."

Dante just sighed and turned to crawl back into his bed. "Fine. We can talk about it in the morning. Go to sleep."

Elsie gratefully relaxed into the couch, sinking in the cushions and the oversized clothes that smelled like laundry soap and Dante. The crackling fire lulled her to sleep. Step one accomplished. Day one survived. Now for six more days of this...

--

She woke up to clanking noises and accompanying stabbing pain in her leg. Her whole body ached but it was the worst in her legs: the muscles felt petrified and screamed at her when she tried to move.

"You'll need to stretch," a low voice rumbled down at her. She blearily opened her eyes to look up at Dante's hairy face. It turned out she had squawked aloud when she tried to move. "The longer you don't, the longer it's going to hurt."

He disappeared from her view over the back of the couch and sounds of cooking resumed. Elsie managed to pull herself up to a sitting position with sheer determination and gritted teeth.

"I don't have much animal protein to help rebuild muscle," Dante said without turning around. "But I do have beans. You're gonna have to eat."

"You know, the world down from the mountain has something called a grocery store with all sorts of food," Elsie said. He cast her an irritated look.

"Staying here for four weeks means canned food and that's all I have."

Four weeks? She pulled a face when he gave her just a bowl with reheated beans. "I mean you could bring other stuff up. They have lots of crazy stuff in cans these days. And you basically have a giant fridge outside."

"It's a pain to cook here," Dante shrugged, gesturing at essentially a single burner and a tiny pot. "And I'm not here for leisure. I don't need to eat like a king."

Elsie grumbled internally but she ate the beans. He was sharing his rations with her after all, and after a few spoonfuls, they weren't bad at all since she was hungry. She slyly studied him eating his own bowl on the couch next to her. Top dog at Biolive eating beans from a can... she didn't know what to make of that.

After they both cleaned off their bowls, Dante collected the dishes and washed everything with quick efficiency and then wordlessly turned to the wash bin with her soaking clothes. Elsie hastily tried to stand and insist that she handle it, but she just flopped back down and gripped her thighs in agony. Dante didn't even acknowledge her trying to stand and proceeded to slosh her clothes around and took it somewhere outside to drain the water. Fresh water replenished the basin and he scrubbed her clothes with a bar of soap.

"When I'm done, I'll carry you to the outhouse," he said without looking up. She seemed to see a lot of his back even when he was talking directly to her. "Then we'll look at your feet."

Elsie just murmured an agreement and leaned back in defeat, a fresh wave of embarrassment and pain washing over her. Her legs were killing her. She peeked over the back of the couch just as Dante started washing her underwear. He did it efficiently as if it was just a washcloth.

If Mr. Myra requires something from you, you should accommodate him.

Elsie massaged her thigh angrily. What was that Donner going about anyway? All Mr. Myrra wanted from her was to get the hell off his mountain. Was she supposed to seduce him? How the hell was she going to do that when he washed her pee soaked clothes??

Her hand stopped dead mid-massage. What if she was wrong in assuming she was sent as 'plaything' for the CEO? Her mind ran wild. Dante saying 'animal protein' came up and she tried not to panic. What if... what if she was the animal protein??

"I'm picking you up," Dante grunted. She squeaked when he suddenly appeared next to her. Without further warning, he picked her up and marched right to the door. "Boots," he said, almost depositing her right into them. Then he lifted her again and went outside without jackets on either of them.

"Coats?" she asked as she huddled close to him for warmth against the blast of cold air.

"No, so you hurry up," he replied.

She was set down in front of the tiny shack. Dante was right, she was so cold and trying to work her legs properly to actually sit on the thing that she neither worried about the strange man overhearing her pee or had qualms about using an outhouse. When she managed to shuffle outside, Dante picked her up again.

"I hadn't washed my hands," she nearly whispered to him to warn him against touching her filthy body. He gave her a look.

"You can wash them inside," he said with exaggerated patience. He brought her to the sink, then picked her up again to set her back onto the couch. She wanted to complain about feeling like a sack of potatoes, but he was treating her exceptionally well.

Honestly he was treating her suspiciously well. Elsie returned to massaging her thighs miserably while eyeing Dante. He pulled out a first aid kit he had used on her the night before. "Why are you treating me so well?" she finally asked.

"Would you rather me not treat you well?" Again, with exaggerated patience. He took one of her legs. "I'm putting your feet up so I can look at the blisters."

He pulled off the socks, peeled off the bandaids and started applying some ointment on her blisters. They didn't sting as much when he did this. She quietly watched him, thinking about how not a single man had ever touched her feet like this, much less treat gaping wounds.

"Are you going to eat me?" she asked in a small voice.

Dante froze and looked up in bewilderment. "What are you talking about?"

"C-cannibalism," she stuttered. "Eating me. For protein. I don't know!"

"Why the hell would I feed you if I wanted to eat you?"

"Maybe to fatten me up?" Elsie furiously massaged her leg, the words now sounding ridiculous in her head. She could never stop her fat mouth from getting her into trouble. Here he was, treating her like a princess and she's calling him the witch from Hansel and Gretel.

Dante let out a long sigh. "Well, if it gets you down this mountain, then yes. I'm going to cannibalize you," he said. "So heal faster."

Elsie smacked her head miserably against the back of the couch. "I wish I could leave."

"Can I touch your thigh?" Dante asked hesitantly.

Oh, so the groping was going to start now. Well, apparently that was what she was here for. "You've already threatened to eat me so why not?" she retorted. She tried not to look too scared.

He reached out and clamped a hand over the top part of her knee, right where it hurt the most. She writhed in agony, just stopping the most pathetic sounds from escaping her. "I'm sorry, just bear with it for a bit. I don't have any ibuprofen to help," he muttered, steadily working her muscles. "This and some easy movements will probably get you walking in a day or two."

Tears sprang to her eyes, fighting the urge to kick him away. Elsie prayed to some fitness god to make the pain stop. I swear I'll go on the treadmill and do squats every day for the rest of my life, she thought as he worked her other leg, fresh torture wracking her body. I'll be a protein shake gym bro. Chicken breast and broccoli kinda gal. Oh god please make it stop.

She was so in pain she didn't notice till hours later that Dante didn't once touch her above mid thigh.

--

The next two days followed the same pattern. Dante helped massage her leg three times a day. That, along with the slow movements he guided her through helped with the pain immensely. His hands were always nice and warm and felt really good on her leg but Elsie thought she should definitely keep that to herself.

Near the end of the third day, Elsie found she was able to stand and put on her boots by herself albeit a bit stiffly. Dante wasn't there to witness this discovery as he said he was checking on some wiring outside the little wooden cabin and since she didn't see him on the way to the outhouse, it must have been on the other side of the cabin. She was so excited to be able to go to the outhouse all by herself she didn't think to tell Dante she was leaving the cabin.

When she walked back in, she found him standing there by the empty couch. He swung around to look at her when he heard her come in, a wild look in his eyes.

"Is there something wrong?" she asked, startled.

He stared at her for a few long seconds. "No," he replied shortly. His eyes dropped to her snow covered boots.

"I went to the bathroom. The outhouse," she said, feeling sheepish. She was so used to being carried around everywhere that doing something by herself felt like a transgression.

"You can walk by yourself."

"Yeah."

He nodded then looked around the cabin. Her personal clothes (or rather, the clothes she turned up in) were hung on clotheslines around the cabin to dry and they had been dry for a while now. He gestured to them. "It means you can get outta here tomorrow. Yes, that's good. It's a good thing." He said the last part as if to himself.

Elsie felt her mouth gape open and closed it helplessly. Why was she such an idiot? She was so happy to be able to move by herself that she forgot she was supposed to stay here as long as possible.

"But my feet still hurt." It came out whiny and annoying but it wasn't untrue, her blisters were still half healed.

"It'll be easier doing a downhill trek," Dante said without looking out from sorting the firewood. "And I'll make sure your foot is bound up to prevent chafing."

Fuck. Dante must have caught the look on her face because he rose and crossed his arms, studying her face with narrowed eyes.

"I thought you wanted to go back home?"

"I do," Elsie insisted. "I'm simply not keen on getting lost on this mountain again. And I don't understand why you won't come down with me."

"And I don't understand why you're here in the first place. We don't always get to know the things we want to know," he shot back.

Elsie moved stiffly to plop back onto the couch. "Fine. I'll tell you why I'm really here. If I do that will you tell me why you refuse to leave Hermit Peak?"

Dante glared at her for the mocking name but nodded.

"It's a stupid reason. It's why I didn't want to tell you," Elsie said bitterly. "I got fired from my job. My very nice job. I did something dumb and selfish. I thought... I thought if I climbed this mountain, I'll accomplish something and get over this rut. Maybe even get over my complete failure at life." She paused, chewing her lip. "That's all I got, the amazing reason why I'm here: to maybe get a second chance at life. It isn't a story with any amazing life lessons or morals. Now your turn."

Dante gave her a long look before speaking. "I came here to avoid people because I can't stand being around them this time of year," he said. Elsie couldn't tell if he was lying or not, but he was speaking very carefully.

"This time of year? You mean Christmas?" Elsie said incredulously.

"Sure."

"That's ridiculous."

"I didn't say it was ridiculous for you to climb a mountain to find self worth," Dante rumbled back at her.

"Okay, fine. But you don't need to 'be around people' by climbing down the mountain with me, at least to the edge of the nearby town. Or let me stay a few more days," she quickly added. Evidently she thought if she made a sound logical argument, that would win him over. His gaze just turned more icy.

"Maybe the lesson of your story is that you don't learn from your mistakes. You continue to do dumb and selfish things. Why would I abandon my 'Hermit's Peak' just because you're a shit hiker?"

"My life is on the line," Elsie shot back. She stopped short from elaborating how exactly her life is in danger so she just ended up sounding overly dramatic.

"Your life isn't in danger," Dante shot back expectedly. "You just need to go down the mountain and follow the road back to town."

Except if she did that, Donner and his men would shoot her. Elsie scrubbed her face with her hands, thinking frantically what to say next. "Just my luck," she muttered. "That you're Ebenezer Scrooge... I love Christmas. I shouldn't even be here."

Dante gave a loud snort at that. "That part I completely agree with."

That was that.

The very next day Dante fed her a hearty serving of beans. Then he wrapped her feet nice and tight with bandages, gave her nice plush socks, then meticulously instructed her on how to lace her boots up better so they wouldn't chafe.

"You got a compass on your backpack strap, did you know that? Follow it south and you'll get to a road and follow it back down," he said, echoing the exact words Donner gave her a few days ago.

"How about you come with me at least to the road?" she begged. Maybe those goons won't shoot her in front of their beloved CEO. "I might get lost before that - "

"No." There was an air of finality in that one word.

"I need to give you your socks back," she babbled. "So you should come down and - "

"I don't need them back. You're not going to convince me, so get going. You need to make it back before dark."

Elsie thought of at least five more things she could try, three of which involved crying except she was all cried out. "You don't get it, you really need to come down with me," she finally blurted out.

"And you don't get how you really need to leave. Now."

Suddenly, Elsie really looked at him. She was so caught up in the desperation of trying to stay she missed how peaky and pale he looked, like he was hung over or falling ill. Except there wasn't a drop of alcohol in that cabin of his and he showed no sign of sickness yesterday. It threw her so off guard that he managed to push her out the door and shut it in her face, leaving her standing there like an idiot.

What was she going to do? Maybe if she just hung out long enough... he has to come out eventually for the outhouse or something and she can try to barge back in. He'll probably just pick her up and toss her back out. But if she does nothing, it'll get dark. Would he really just let her freeze to death at his doorstep?

Elsie shifted nervously on her feet. Would Donner actually shoot her if she went down the mountain by herself before the agreed time? It really came down to figuring out which man would actually kill her. She let out a frustrated sound then started walking through the snow. After a few minutes, she paused to glance back, hoping to see him come out. That would be a sign that she had a chance to worm her way back into the cabin.

Except she just stood there in the silence of the forest. Nothing happened. She continued a few steps almost mechanically as her mind scrambled for another plan... A plan that will work, dammit!!

But it was her scheming mind that got her into this mess in the first place. She kicked at some snow in frustration. It wasn't like BioLive was going to miss those couple thousand dollars anyway. Why is it that the uber rich could scrape profits off the poor and squeeze the market for every last drop of capital and it's called "smart business sense" but when she needed some extra cash to make rent it's called "stealing"?

Any virtues that Elsie thought Dante possessed suddenly vanished with a surge of anger. He's just another selfish, narcissistic, egotistical CEO that can take some fancy mountain vacation for four weeks every year while cosplaying poverty. And he gets women catered up to him, apparently! Well, one woman. One he evidently couldn't wait to get rid of.

Elsie stopped and looked back. She'd wandered so far she could no longer see the cabin, just the footprints she left behind in the snow. He really did bind her feet up so well that she didn't feel the blisters and nothing chafed. Her legs were still stiff but it wasn't painful to walk anymore. He'd patiently massaged them for her every day. Damn him. Maybe Dante would be sympathetic enough to let her return. Maybe Donner and his men were bluffing about shooting her. Goddamn it all.

Freeze to death or get shot? Which was more likely to happen? Why the fuck did she have to gamble with her life like this?

--

So if you were going to murder someone, would it be easier to shoot them in the face or to just shut a door and ignore them until they died? Elsie decided that the former would be more difficult, especially when she decided she would try to stare straight into Donner's eyes if he tried to shoot her and cause some permanent psychological damage. With renewed, angry vigor, she marched in the southern direction. She was going to go down to the start of the road and dare them to kill her; she was going to haunt the shit out of every last one of them. She was -

Panting, she stopped. Was this how her life ended? The amazing reason why I'm here: to maybe get a second chance at life, she told Dante. Was this how her 'second chance' was going to end?

Dante had then accused her of not learning her life lessons. The problem with life lessons was that there's never a curriculum to follow or an outline of what you're supposed to learn. Nor a schedule of when you're going to learn it or how exactly you're supposed to act afterwards. Life was a shit teacher, just inexplicably teaching you the lessons and punishing you again and again until you get it.

She was honest about getting a second chance. It wasn't the whole truth but it was thematically true. Just getting to Dante and his hermit cabin was a miracle enough, she couldn't give up now. No, she couldn't let this be a failure too. She had agreed to Donner's sick little deal and done this crazy thing and hiked up a mountain and nearly froze to death, she couldn't just give up and let this go. Elsie turned right around and climbed back up. Dante was right - it was a lot easier to go down that climb up. She just followed her footsteps back and soon the cabin reappeared.

Nothing changed during her short time away. The silence that permeated the forest continued here, making everything seem eerily frozen in time.

"Dante?" she called out. She hesitated then knocked on the door, bracing for a scowling face and words berating her for coming back. Nobody answered. Looking down at the handle of the door, she saw that there was a lock but recalled that Dante never used it - even when she used the outhouse, she never unlocked anything. She seized the handle and pushed open the door.

"No..." A hollow voice drifted out from within. It was dark inside, the blinds to the tiny windows drawn and none of the LED lights turned on, even the fireplace extinguished. Her eyes adjusted and then saw the floor and every surface covered with tendrils of darkness, root-like in appearance but also slightly hazy, as if her eyes couldn't focus properly on it. In the middle of the cabin crouched a shirtless man with twigs sticking out from a tangled mess of hair. His back was turned and the skin on his bare back was this strange gray-green color. Elsie recognized the pants the man was wearing - they were the same pair Dante was wearing when she left.

Slowly, the creature lifted and turned his head to look at her. Elsie felt the hair on the back of her neck stand on end as two luminous orbs in place of eyes stared at her. Hair and twigs wove together to form a strange face, leaving two sunken sockets for the orb-like eyes. The nose disappeared for a long snout that ended with two narrow slits for nostrils - they flared when Elsie met its eyes.

"You... shouldn't... be... here..." the hollow voice rose from the creature like smoke.

"Dante?" she whispered.

The creature turned away sharply and took great heaving breaths. "Go... now..." His voice changed to be more human and Elsie could hear Dante's voice. It was him.

"What's happened to you?" she asked. She took one step into the cabin and Dante was suddenly right in front of her. His misshapen face loomed over her as she was pushed out of the cabin. She fell in shock and landed right in the snow on her back, Dante's new strange form standing over her. The dark tendrils followed them out and swirled around Dante like an angry storm cloud. He snarled something and his face twisted grotesquely with the sound. He reached out to try to touch her and she saw his hands were gnarled and rough, like they were roughly shaped by sticks and leaves. The hand scraped her face and throat with bark-like roughness. It took hold of the front of her jacket and suddenly she was being dragged back into the cabin.

"Dante!" she cried. "Please, what's happening?"

He snarled something else but his face was so misshapen that he couldn't form words properly. He crawled over her, branch-like hands on either side of her head, terrifying head bent hovering an inch from her face. The sticks in his hair formed a pattern and looked more like horns when she looked at him straight on. The black cloud swirled around them.

Elsie recoiled as his lower body pressed down on hers and his erection nudged her pubic bone. She felt it through their layers of clothing and her jacket. Squirming just made her rub up against him and he bore down on her harder to hump her. "N-no," she choked out. In horror, she started to understand what Donner really meant in the van that day. Dante didn't stop and continued to press against her, clear what he intended to do to her. "I'm sorry," she sobbed. What the fuck was she apologizing for? Probably to the universe for another screw up. Another life lesson dealt to her. Another punishment, another humiliating defeat. He humped her harder and she involuntarily let out a terrified whimper.

Dante's glowing eyes widened, the black tendrils swirling agitatedly and he wrenched himself off her with a loud snarl. She blinked up at the ceiling at the sudden absence of his weight then jumped at the sound of the door slamming against the wall behind it. Dante in beast form had thrown himself out the door. Elsie dragged her shaking body up and away from the door, afraid that the glowing eyes would appear just around the door frame and drag her under it again.

Several long minutes and the strange, gnarled beast didn't return. The open door stayed open as if telling her to leave, but Elsie was paranoid. Surely it was a trap. Surely that thing was waiting outside for her. It was still so silent, her ragged breathing seemed excruciatingly loud. She tried to silence her pants and strained to listen, but the deathly silence still blanketed the area. Did the animals of the forest know this would happen? Did they sense it? Did they all know about Dante Myrra's grotesque secret? It's obvious now why he refused to leave the mountain.

But Elsie's dilemma still remained: how exactly did she want to die? Except now it was updated with a third absurd option of being killed by some creature of the forest. Her stomach lurched with dread at the sudden thought that the chances of Donner actually shooting her just went up significantly - if he was willing to serve her up to this demon as some... human sacrifice, he was probably willing to do a little murder. And obviously they didn't want this bombshell of a secret about their CEO going out.

Oh yeah, she was a dead woman walking.

A howl ripped through the dead silence - probably that thing Dante turned into. Elsie froze but then ascertained it was some distance away. That gave her enough courage to peek out the door. Crazed and scrambled tracks led away from the cabin and through the trees deep into the forest.

Did he get away from the cabin so she could escape? Was it even possible that when he seemed so out of control, so crazed with this transformation, he was still trying to save her? Another howl rang out, a pained and furious cry, not human in any way. A new thought occurred to Elsie: what if this transformation was a danger to him and Dante fucking died? Surely Donner would shoot her over that as well and that would be the end for her.

What was she supposed to do??

Elsie looked down at the tracks in the snow. They were already abnormal tracks but they were also obviously one of something in distress. There were spots where Dante fell and scrambled back up, other parts where he seemed to have crawled on his hands and legs. Wisps and lashings made in the surrounding snow, presumably from those strange dark tendrils that followed him around. Letting out a frustrated noise, Elsie was following the tracks deeper into the forest before the fear stopped her.

It didn't take long to reach a clearing among the dense trees. She could hear Dante's labored breathing before she could see him. The black tendrils filled the clearing like an alien cloud, framing Dante at the center of it. He knelt in the snow but leaned back. Elsie saw his pants had been ripped apart and he was fully naked now. A huge erection jutted up from his crotch, curved and pointing angrily up at the sky.

The strangely shaped head made of woven sticks and hair looked both elk-like and wolf-like in shape with its long snout. It opened its mouth to let out another agonized cry, trailing into tortured groans. Hot vapor streamed out into a dense cloud from his mouth with the noises. His hands splayed out behind him to prop his upper body up were still gnarled and branch-like. His hips jerked in the air, erection bobbing slightly.

Elsie covered her mouth with her hand while staring at the painfully erect cock. It was obvious every part of this beast was concentrated on this one part, every focus honed in on this monstrosity between his legs, every action begging for something to touch it. What if...

"Dante," she whispered. The beast snapped his head to stare at her. A predator catching sight of his prey.

"No... no..." Dante groaned, turning his head with great effort. "Leave... go..."

"I'm supposed to help you," Elsie said. "Please don't hurt me. I'm going to get closer."

"No!" Dante thrashed as if to lurch towards her but he pulled himself back last minute, his body shaking. Elsie tried not to flinch.

"Just stay still, okay? I'll help you."

Dante looked a hair trigger away from tackling her but he managed to stay still enough even when she knelt beside him. He was radiating heat, so much so that he melted the snow around him.

"I-I'm going to touch now, okay? It's going to be alright."

His breaths were shaky, tortured. Huge glowing eyes watched her every move. His dick twitched when she took her gloves off and strained towards her hand when she reached for it. Elsie took a breath and carefully grasped his cock.

Dante made an inhuman sound and his hips jerked up, his head lolling back. Elsie gasped at how incredibly warm he felt and how hard it was - so hard it almost felt fake. His hips kept jerking up and down to pump his erection eagerly through her grip. It was obvious what he needed. Heart pounding in her chest, Elsie started a firm but gentle stroke up and down the painfully hard flesh. Strangely, although the rest of his body went through this strange transformation, this one part of Dante felt and looked entirely human except for how hot it felt.

It didn't take long. Elsie watched, transfixed, as the beast morphed slightly back into man as she stroked his cock. The dark tendrils snaked around and disappeared into the snowy ground. Dante let out a very human moan as she stroked him faster. She felt his dick surge in her hand and semen shot out like a fountain into the cold winter air, spraying into the snow and all over his body. Six, seven, eight jets of cum later, he let out a huge satisfied breath, letting out more clouds of vapor into the atmosphere. His face even pulled back into what Elsie recognized.

However his hands and hair didn't fully turn back. Also, despite the explosive orgasm, his cock didn't deflate at all.

"It's not finished," Dante said. He was finally able to speak normally now that his face was humanoid again, but it still contained a strange timbre, as if his chest was hollow and his voice reverberated in it. "I need..."

Before he could finish, the dark tendrils swarmed them. Elsie cried out in alarm as the alarmingly warm darkness wrapped around both of them and lifted her. Dante reached out to her and pulled her against his naked body. She felt less disoriented when he held her, but she could tell they were being carried around by tendrils. When the tendrils subsided, Dante set her down to a familiar wooden floor. They had been spirited back into the cabin, the door shut behind them.

"Take your clothes off," Dante panted down at her.

Elsie hesitated but then again... she did promise to help him. She took off her boots as quickly as she could, unzipped her jacket and peeled off her sweater then the sports bra. His gnarled hand stopped her before she could wiggle out of her pants, the roughness cupping her face to make her look at him. She thought he was going to kiss her and her heart flopped in her chest. Elsie was unsure if it was out of fear or excitement. Instead he just bent his head to nuzzle her face gently.

"That's good. Don't go further," he muttered. She could feel him shaking as he pressed his dick against her again, although this time she wasn't scared. Elsie reached out and circled her arms around his neck. Dante moaned and his hands moved as if wanting to feel her naked torso but his hands were still rough and bark-like so he just settled them on her hips and pressed her close against him. Normally, Elsie would be mortified about how sweaty she was but all things considered, being sweaty was the least of her worries.

"Tell me what you need me to do," she said. "Do you need to cum again?"

"Yes. Can I - May I use your mouth?" he whispered hoarsely.

Elsie unwound her arms from around his neck and knelt down in front of him, grasping his dick in her hand once again. Looking up, she saw his face morphed back slightly, sticks protruding out to a snout and his eyes glowing with some strange light. "Let me set the pace," she said. As amazing as his dick was, she didn't want it just shoved down her throat, especially when Dante looked like he wanted to do just that.

She experimentally sucked the tip. It strangely tasted of the outside winter air. Dante was almost completely turned back to that beast alter ego of his and was unable to speak normally, only make animalistic sounds. It was possible that he turned when he was uncontrollably turned on. Elsie thought she heard semblances to words in the sounds he made: faster, suck harder, go deeper, please! She pretended that's what he was trying to say and complied, carefully taking as much as she could in his mouth while relaxing her throat.

A gnarled hand gently rested on her head, not forcing her to do anything but just touched her. A warning. Elsie kept at it until his dick gave one warning twitch and she quickly swallowed anything shot into the back of her throat. The grunts turned into long moans, the hand on her head suddenly turned flesh. She looked up and Dante was fully human again. He watched as she slid him out of her mouth, wiping her spit covered lips with the back of her hand.

"Did I hurt you?" he asked, his voice shaking a little.

"No," Elsie said. "You scared me lots and my jaw aches, but you didn't hurt me."

Dante pulled her up and set his warm, human hands onto the sides of her face. It took a moment for her to realize he was trying to soothe her jaw. "I'm sorry," he said after a moment. "For all of this."

"You told me to leave. I didn't listen," Elsie said.

He closed his eyes and took a deep shuddering breath. "I'm really glad you didn't leave," he said. He opened his eyes and studied her face. "Some of my men sent you here, didn't they?"

"Yeah. Donner," Elsie said. The time for subterfuge was over. "He said he was going to shoot me if I left before our agreed upon time."

"Christ," Dante muttered. "It's why you didn't want to leave."

Elsie leaned into his hands, enjoying his touch on her face. "What exactly happened to you?"

"I wish I fucking knew." Dante ran his thumbs over the tops of her cheeks. "You really need to put a shirt on or I'll turn again."

She widened her eyes and glanced down, surprised to see him sporting a semi. Her clothing was left on a heap on the floor and she hastily pulled her top back on. "Will you turn again?" she asked. "Into that thing? You're back to normal now."

"I alwaysturn into that thing," Dante said. He took the time to find a fresh pair of sweats and pulled them on too. "It happens when I'm turned on."

"And it resolves after an orgasm?"

"It's not that simple," Dante said bitterly. "Not anymore."

"I was gonna say you could just jerk off, but then your hands...," Elsie paused, looking at his hands. To be turned into a monster when you're horny but have your hands be rough tree branches so you can't masturbate. "It sounds almost like a curse."

"It is," Dante said. He passed his hands miserably over his face. "And you're apparently here to help me break it."

--

"I was a spoiled little shit back in the day. Guess I still am." The two of them sat next to the revived fireplace and ate soup while Dante spoke. "Ran with a bunch of other guys at school, all of them from important families. Didn't like any of them but that was the way things were, you had to make friends with the right people. There was this one kid in our school that wasn't from an important family, this guy who was sponsored somehow to go to a private school. You can guess how that turned out."

"He was probably singled out," Elsie offered.

"Yeah. Poor kid. I was no saint, I ignored him for the most part. I didn't care to torment him or help him. But I ended up doing some project with him and found I liked him more than any of the shitheads that went to the school. We talked about games for the most part," Dante chuckled slightly at that. "We looked at gaming magazines together. People eased up on picking on him when he started hanging out with me but they probably still did it when I wasn't looking."

"What was his name?"

Dante stared at her slightly before answering. "Peter. We were friends through middle school. I learned he was sponsored by his dad's friend who was independently wealthy. He didn't talk much about his dad but it was some touchy subject. Then in high school we all had to pretend we were all going to grow up to be big important people that made a lot of money. Peter wasn't going to be one of those people." He seemed unable to continue.

"You guys fell out of touch," Elsie offered tentatively.

"No, I was a piece of shit to him," Dante said. "Always have been. Always lording over him how much better off I was, being friends with him out of pity. I - I..."

"What happened?"

"We had a fight. Never fought before that. He accused me of all the things that I was: stuck up, entitled, condescending. I wouldn't have it, just told him he was jealous. But that didn't work because I knew he wasn't jealous of any of us. He didn't care about our important families or fancy vacations. Maybe that's why so many of us couldn't stand him sometimes. He seemed above it all, even as a kid. So I picked the one thing I knew would hurt him, the one thing I learned about him that was an open sore of a topic. I told him his dad was crazy and that he was going to be crazy like him. I'd found out through other people talking shit about Peter that his dad thought himself to be some kind of wizard and was admitted to some institution.

"I'll never forget the look in his eyes when I threw that into his face. Peter then said his dad was a druid and taught him a thing or two. He said he'll curse me so I'll learn what it feels like to want something for once, instead of just having everything on a silver platter. That's when it started. I felt all tingly for days and I thought Peter had someone drug me or something but nothing immediate happened. Then I got horny one day and found myself turned into this... monster."

Elsie sat in silence with him, listening to the crackling fire. She was unsure how much of it to believe, except she's seen with her own eyes what he turns into.

"It happens every time I get turned on. I was lucky to not have anyone see it. I haven't had a relationship since I was a teenager, before this happened," Dante said heavily. "And I can't jerk off as you can probably tell. It's... some kind of sex curse, even though I don't want to call it that. It's the best way of describing it."

"You can use toys and sleeves," Elsie said.

"I've bought every sex toy on the market," Dante retorted. "Believe me. It worked for a grand total of two months because for some reason, 'the curse' realized I was fucking silicone and it stopped working. As in I would orgasm and remain in that form. The only way I could turn back is if I stop being horny, ejaculate inside a person or have a hands free orgasm. The second option is the most effective. I've had about two decades to figure this out, like some messed up sex experiment.

"I try my best to abstain but for some reason it's extra difficult at the end of the year. It's why I need a few weeks alone in December to work it out." Dante looked stricken. "Every year it gets more difficult. I've had to resort to hands free orgasms."

She thought of him, transformed, kneeling in the snow with his erection pointing desperately up in the air.

"How do you ejaculate in another person if nobody's seen you in that form?" Elsie asked. "Except me, now."

"Some of my men know about this, obviously, and they help me find someone. It's a... glory hole set up," he said, flushing slightly behind his beard. "But it's not ideal either because I make, uh, noises."

"Can't one of your guys... deal with it, since they already know?"

"I would if I could. I honestly tried."

"Hm, the curse of being straight as an arrow," Elsie snorted. "Donner's not half bad looking, you're missing out."

"You just told me he threatened to kill you," Dante said, glowering.

"That doesn't mean he can't be hot." Elsie rolled her eyes. "And I'm not implying I want to fuck him, I'm suggesting you fuck him."

"Even if I did swing that way, I wouldn't. He's on my payroll," Dante said. "I couldn't do that to him. Even if I hired a woman, same thing."

"Paying for sex is a thing. You probably already did that with the whole glory hole thing," Elsie pointed out.

"That's not the problem, it's the fact that he works for me. He didn't sign up to be my sexual partner."

Elsie bit her lip - Dante saw and he swore under his breath.

"Do not tell me you work at BioLive."

"Oh, great news. I don't work at BioLive," Elsie said cheerfully. "I used to work for BioLive. I got fired, remember?"

"That's how Donner found you and got you here" Dante groaned, connecting the dots.

"Well, a few more things happened for him to 'get me here,'" Elsie said. She bit her lip again. "Like they caught me stealing. I guess I was technically stealing from you. This is my punishment, apparently."

"What did you steal?" His voice wasn't accusatory.

"A whole whopping two grand. If I knew this was going to happen I would have taken a lot more," Elsie grumbled. "I just needed to make rent, I swear."

"You don't need to explain yourself, it doesn't matter how much you took and for what reason," Dante rumbled. "You shouldn't be here like this."

"Well, I don't have a choice anymore. And we're stuck here until we figure something out." Elsie put her empty bowl down. "Will having sex with me break your curse?"

Dante looked pained. "I don't know."

"Will you - can you still change now?"

As if on cue, dark tendrils rose out from the cabin ground and Dante's hands turned slightly gnarled, as if branches crept up from his shoulders to his fingers. Curse obviously not broken. Elsie caught her heart flip flopping again - was he so easily turned on because she was here next to him? She internally shook her head. This was a man abstaining from any sexual pleasure all year. Him being some horny beast around her was just a natural result of that. Dante closed his eyes and seemed to get it back under control, the tendrils receded and he looked wholly human again.

"So... did you want to try having sex?" Elsie asked, suddenly awkward.

"I would do anything to have sex with you," Dante muttered. Elsie tried not to feel too pleased with that.

"Well, actually there is something you can do for me," she said. "Can you shave your beard somehow? At least trim it?"

"Why?" Dante self-consciously ran a hand down his beard.

She leaned to him and tugged on his thick facial hair teasingly. Dante froze and stared at her. "So I can see your face. And so I can kiss you."

His blue eyes glittered and he stood to wordlessly find his clippers.

--

The face of the man staring at her from the bed was now very painfully that of Mr. Myrra. It would have made her incredibly awkward to have a sponge bath in front of him if it he wasn't both shirtless and still looking like the untamed yeti she had grown to know as Dante due to his unkept hair.

"You should take your pants off before your hands turn," she said lightly. "And it's only fair, you should be naked too."

Dante visibly swallowed and did just that. She watched his almost fully erect penis jostle with his movements. When he looked back up at her, his face was half changed. Too bad, she wanted to kiss him but it'll have to wait till after.

"How many people have you had sex with?" she asked while drying off with the clean towel he gave her.

"I've ejaculated inside someone five times in the past, in total," Dante said. It seemed difficult for him to speak. "Twice orally, twice vaginally, once anally. Your mouth... makes six."

Elsie winced at how clinically he was speaking. She nodded and climbed onto the small bed next to him.

"But if you're asking how many times I've spent time with someone like this... none," he muttered. She looked at the half beast half man sitting in the corner. His face and eyes looked entirely non-human but she still thought he looked lonely. He had lived through half his life like this. Suddenly she didn't want to wait until he turned back human to kiss him so she leaned forward and gently pressed her mouth on the gray-green skin of his chest. Elsie looked up to meet his bright eyes. His chest heaved with desperate breaths.

"You can touch me if you want."

"I can't... don't want... to scratch..."

"Okay." Elsie smiled at him. "You can touch after." The monster came out fully to watch her climb on his lap but made no lunge at her even as his dick curved up eagerly to her. He made loud groans when she pressed herself against his dick rubbing the underside of it with her slit. His hands now fully turned into branches were buried into the thin mattress behind him and so Elsie elected to take his cock and press it against her clit herself. She was turned on surprisingly fast, gratified at how horny he was for her. The dark clouds swirled excitedly around them when she fitted him carefully at her entrance and gingerly slid his thick cockhead in. "Oh my god," she moaned at the intrusion.

Branch-like horns sprouted out as he bottomed out inside her. Hot glowing eyes devoured the sight of her stretching back to show him how he was deep inside her. An animal growl escaped him when she lifted herself slightly and pushed herself back down. Elsie couldn't believe she was riding this forest demon inside a cabin in the woods. She lifted herself up and worked back down, the movement easier as she was getting wetter. Her fingers worked her clit as she rode him slowly, then she braced her hands against his shoulders to pick up the pace. Dante snarled something and his hips twitched up to meet her strokes and she cried out. He fucked up into her in two, three brutal strokes and she came sharply around his girth. To her surprise, Dante transformed back to human the moment he came, his warm hands clutching her ass hard as he groaned out her name.

Heart pounding, she gently kissed his face and Dante turned his head and crushed her mouth to his. His dick was still wedged in her; he turned so she was half under him and kissed her until she forgot where she was. By the time he was done, he was hard inside her again. They hastily rearranged themselves until she was splayed out under him and he thrust eagerly into her, fucking like he's hadn't just done so. The mouth moaning against hers as he did this was soft and fully human almost the entire time. Only when she dug her heels into the back of his thighs and urged him to cum in her again when his face flashed momentarily into that of glowing eyes and branches. His hips slapped into her and she clawed his back as his huge dick pummeled her into the small bed. She thought she'd squeeze him tight enough to hurt him but he eagerly buried himself deep inside her and gave long satisfied groans with each twitch of his dick emptying his balls.

They must have passed out. When Elsie opened her eyes, she was crowded against the wall on the bed with Dante wrapped around her, deeply asleep. It was completely dark with the fireplace having gone. She curled back into his warmth under the covers Dante must have drawn over them and fell asleep again.

The next time she woke was to a warm hand caressing her torso. She dozed, feeling the hand on her belly, then her ribs. They passed between her breasts and fingers ran along her collarbone and then the base of her neck then back down between her breasts to her belly. After a long while, the hand finally palmed her breasts one at a time, slowly cupping them, running a thumb along the side then over each nipple. She kept her eyes closed and stayed still, enjoying his roaming hand. Gradually, Dante's breaths grew ragged in her ear and a warm kiss was pressed to her temples.

"I know you're awake," he murmured. "I can smell your arousal."

His hand dipped down lower and fingered her, rubbing a finger to her aching clit then pressing it into her where her slickness let him in. "Hm. You should do something about it," Elsie murmured back groggily. Dante might have turned as the growl he let out didn't sound human, but she was busy kissing his neck to see properly. He rolled on top of her to pin her legs apart and thrust into her again.

--

"If we're going to keep going, two things need to happen," Elsie said, scraping up the last of her soup.

"Anything you want," Dante said readily. Elsie fought the urge to laugh at the ill hidden hunger in his eyes.

"Well, first you're going to have to accept I won't cum every time," Elsie said. "You're a fucking demon, almost literally. I'll go crazy if I have to keep up with you."

"I've already accepted that," Dante said. They had fucked two more times before the sun came up and while Elsie was turned on, she was all wrung out while Dante kept at it. She thought it would bother her but it was technically why she was here: for him to use her.

"I mean you don't have to hold back. It's what I signed up for, technically. And I trust you."

His eyes flew to hers. "I won't hurt you," he promised.

"Second thing, can we keep some warm washing water?" Elsie said. "I think I need to regularly, uh, clean my crotch." She winced at the memory of all the half-dried fluids she had slough off after getting out of bed then at the ice cold water she had to use to wipe everything down.

Dante immediately put out a big pot and poured some clean water in it and set it on the metal plate over the fireplace. A ladle was set aside for them to scoop out water into the smaller basin to warm up the cold water in it.

"Do you think you're getting better?" Elsie asked as he set up their washing station. "I think the last few times you barely changed."

"Yes. I think briefly it happened when I got really distracted, but I stayed human for the most part," Dante agreed.

"Do you think we should see how distracted you need to get to trigger it?" she forced herself to sound deadly serious. Dante was actually thinking about it quite solemnly until she lifted her shirt (actually his shirt that she stole again) and flashed him. Immediately his eyes took on the shape of glowing orbs and a tendril of darkness shot out and toppled an empty bowl, sending it clattering to the ground. Elsie dissolved into laughter, then squealed in delight when Dante lunged at her and kissed her hard on the couch.

--

"How about this?" Elsie asked, panting with exertion. Dante was sprawled on the couch and she was between his legs, facing away from him, waist and knees bent so she could work herself up and down his cock. She braced herself on his knees.

"I'm beginning to think you're purposely trying to make me turn," Dante said hoarsely behind her.

"I'm trying to fix a debilitating problem you have," Elsie retorted, her voice shaking with every thrust. She moaned when he reached around and rubbed her slick clit and plunged into her again.

"It sounds more like you're just enjoying yourself."

"Not as much as you're enjoying yourself." Elsie sank down so he was fully into her. Dante pulled his hands away as they turned into the twisted branches at that moment.

"God, your ass," he snarled out. "Fuck!"

She found herself propelled forward and suddenly she was on her hands and knees on the floor, crying out as Dante pounded her from behind. "Okay, so that position isn't good to keep you human," Elsie said breathlessly when he finally detached from her. He hauled her back on the couch and she lay there with his cum leaking out of her pussy.

"I think all the other times with other women were basically that position," Dante said. He took a swig of water. "I... I don't know why this is happening."

"Maybe you're just not used to it with me." Impishly, she turned onto her knees and offered her ass to him again. "Wanna try again?"

Not long later, Dante was enthusiastically rutting into her, smacking her ass with his hips. When she craned her head back to look at him, she only saw his lust filled expression as he pounded into her. He met her gaze and gathered her up to kiss her shoulder while still balls deep in her from behind. She slipped out of his grip and bent at the waist again, pushing back against him.

"Cum in me," she gasped. "Please, give me your cum."

"Fuck, baby," Dante moaned and surged deep inside her. His voice changed as he grunted with his thrusts but everything gripping her felt human. He stilled, stiffened, and his dick jerked again inside her and didn't withdraw until he'd spent fully in her.

"You must have put a gallon of cum in me already," Elsie said breathlessly, flopping on her back. He offered the cup of water for her which she drained and he poured more for himself, his blue eyes studying her naked form over the brim of the cup. Elsie stretched and grimaced at how wet she was between her legs, the latest batch of semen already leaking out. "I should clean it up before it dries."

But Dante intercepted her access to the washing bin, pulling her in for a kiss before pushing her back onto the couch.

"Let me clean first," Elsie complained, then squeaked when he jostled her legs apart and knelt in front of her.

"I'll clean you," he murmured and gave a long slow lick along her slit. She felt his stubble along the inside of her thighs, then his tongue slipping between the wet lips.

"You're so fucking freaky," Elsie moaned as his tongue went inside her.

"I've had way too much time to think about this," he huffed back at her. Then he went back to tonguing her until her legs shook. He took it as a cue to latch on to her swollen clit and her humped his face until a back breaking orgasm wracked her body. She was all limp and satiated, drowsily watching Dante get up to notch the tip of his dick at her pussy.

"You'll have to clean me up again," she said thickly.

He only gave a grunt in affirmative and leaned down to kiss her as he pushed into her. They remained obsessed with each other for the rest of the day and well into the night. Maybe she should have felt ashamed or degraded at just being used like that but she never did with the way he looked at her and touched her. Like she was the only thing that mattered, the only thing he wanted. She found that he liked kissing and touching as much as the main event, often holding her tight when their lips were together as if he didn't want her to leave his side.

"It's Christmas day," she said sleepily as they nestled together under the blankets. She'd lost count how many times they coupled.

"It is." She heard his voice from his chest with her ear pressed to his dark hair there.

"It doesn't feel like Christmas," she admitted. "Usually the mall and the streets are bombarded with decorations and carols. We get all festive up to our eyebrows."

"Hm. I wouldn't know. I've forgotten what it's like. I'm usually here on Christmas day."

"Aw, does Santa not give you a present up here?" Elsie grinned up at him. "Maybe your boys try to gun him down if he gets too close."

Dante snorted and pulled her closer to his body, gently stroking her hip with a big hand. They were silent for a minute. "What kind of present do you want?" he asked suddenly. "For Christmas."

Elsie looked up at him from his chest, resting her cheek against the rough hair there. There was a thought... but she dismissed it and replaced it with one that was easier to say. "The best present right now would be a coffee," she said.

"It's two in the morning," Dante said huskily.

"Fine, a coffee in the morning. It's not like you can get me one anyway."

"We'll see about that."

"Seriously?" Elsie lifted her head. "You had coffee all this time and you didn't tell me?"

"You didn't ask," Dante said. "And it's instant hotel stuff, don't get your hopes up."

But the news of coffee - even shitty coffee - made her ridiculously happy. She nestled back against his side. "If you get better, you can go see all the Christmas stuff during this time," she said. "All the lights and the songs they'll blast on repeat in the stores and restaurants. And people will give you presents too." She lifted her head again and smiled at him mischievously. "What kind of present do you want?"

She was honestly thinking of some freaky sex position he's always wanted to try, but Dante froze momentarily, then drew her close into a bear hug. It startled her even though they'd been tangled together for the past two days.

"I've already gotten my present," he said roughly. "You... you're the best thing that's ever happened to me."

--

Try as she may, the beast didn't come out on Christmas day. Even after she edged Dante for most of an hour and then rode him on the couch, his blue eyes watching her tits bounce as she went up and down his dick, he stayed human the entire time.

"I think it's gone," Elsie said, breathing heavily when she finally let him cum. He had done so enthusiastically, loudly, but wholly human - even his voice didn't take on the demonic timbre.

"Let's double check," Dante said, giving her a rare half-smile. "And triple check." Elsie laughed but didn't stop him from pulling her into a deep kiss.

And so they checked and each time, Dante remained human. They made love slowly and lazily, then quickly and desperately. By evening, they wordlessly came to the realization that their time together would soon come to an end. The air inside the cabin changed from that of need to that of want. He became even more intense, constantly kissing her as if the right amount of kisses would stop time. The only time they spent apart was when either needed to use the outhouse.

Then their time was up. Elsie went to do her business in the outhouse; when she came back she nearly screamed when she saw Donner and another man standing in the cabin over Dante's unconscious body.

"What did you do to him?" she demanded, trying to reach Dante's side but Donner grabbed her arm and stopped her with a steely grip.

"I'm following his instructions," Donner said. "You've survived the week, you've won the jackpot."

The jackpot? She stared at Dante just lying there as if in deep sleep. They must have tranquilized him. It seemed... barbaric. She didn't feel like she won the jackpot. "Right, that was the deal," she whispered. "One week."

Donner gave her a critical look. "Did you fix him?" he asked bluntly.

At first, she was pissed, wanting to insist that there wasn't anything to fix. But that wasn't true at all. Dante was suffering and he needed someone and she was that person for a few days. She's fixed it because he was willing to pay for it. The reality sank in when she saw Donner stand next to his boss. Dante's obsession with her was just years of pent up frustration from the curse and now that he's all better... He was Mr. Myrra, CEO of BioLive. She was little more than a paid companion. Now that he could be with other women without turning into some forest demon, he would soon realize this too. Once he wasn't trapped here in this tiny cabin with just her, once he sees there's an entire world of eligible women out there who aren't poor and didn't steal from him, then it'll be obvious he didn't need her anymore.

Donner might as well have shot her. All the thoughts ran through her like a live current and she thought her heart might burst. Still, she made herself say it. "I did," she said. "He won't turn into that thing anymore. He hasn't for the past two days."

Donner nodded. "You can go home, then."

"I don't have a home," Elsie said. She would have lost her apartment by now.

"We've arranged for a place for you as part of the compensation."

"Oh, somewhere under your control so you can keep an eye on me," Elsie said dryly.

"Of course. You know a lot about Mr. Myrra. We have to be certain of your discretion." Donner made a gesture at the other man and made Elsie put on her coat and pulled her out the door. It was all she could do to not cast one last glance at Dante's unconscious form. It was just her and Donner walking down the mountain, the other man stayed behind. They walked in awkward silence for a few moments. "What cured him?" Donner finally asked.

Elsie bristled. "My magic pussy," she said sarcastically. "Consistently and firmly applied to his dick."

Donner coughed, his ears hot.

"Don't fucking ask if you can't handle the answer," she spat. "Also it's literally what you sent me up here to do. You don't get to be embarrassed."

"He's had intercourse before. It's never cured it," Donner said reluctantly.

"Well then maybe it's the amount. I don't know. You seem to know more about this curse than I do."

They settled on awkward silence between them again. Over the crunch of snow was the cheerful singing of birds. Elsie looked up in surprise. The last time she noticed, the forest was dead quiet, but now it had come alive. "He won't know where your new place of residence is if you don't want him to know," Donner finally said.

Elsie stopped in her tracks to stare at him. It occurred to her that Donner didn't exactly know what transpired in the last few days and believed that she was a reluctant participant in all of this until the very end. Any rational woman would want to get as far away as possible from this man/forest demon that used her as a sex toy. Donner was providing her an out.

Apparently she wasn't a rational woman. What would Donner think if she begged to go back? She blinked at the snow covered ground. What was she thinking? How could she even entertain the thought of clinging on to Dante like some lovesick idiot? How humiliating it would be to think he wanted her when he finally had his life back. Better to cut it off now. Take the money and live the rest of her life not thinking of mountains or secluded cabins or forest demons or big warm hands around her waist -

"Elsie?" Donner startled her out of her thoughts.

"I think that would be best," she said. "If Mr. Myrra and I stay out of each other's lives from now on."

Donner's face was unreadable, but he nodded and led her the rest of the way down the mountain.

--

Elsie didn't suspect anything all year. To be fair, she was busy trying to live a normal life after spending a week with a forest demon. Her sense of 'normal' was a little out of whack.

Donner showed her this nice new apartment way out on the other side of town and she even got a new job. Nothing as glitzy as the polished halls of BioLive but still required her to wear business attire and a polite smile. By the time spring rolled around, she could imagine her past life at BioLive was just a fever dream and it never happened. Except Donner occasionally showed up to check on her, about once a month.

At first she just accepted this. She did, in fact, hold a massive secret and Donner was responsible for keeping it under wraps. He was just doing his job. But around the fifth or sixth time he popped up suddenly, she grew annoyed. "I mean you hold a pretty big sway over me," she said in June, when he insisted on sitting with her on her lunch break at her favorite spot near her office. The glaring face that was the motif for the Green Man cafe matched her expression at him. "And it's not like anyone would even believe me if I told them. I'm a nobody."

"I know," was his infuriating reply.

"Do you? You clearly don't trust me if you're still checking up on me."

"I do trust you to keep your mouth shut."

"Then why are you here?" Elsie said, chewing on the straw to her iced coffee.

"The boss wants me to check up on you. A compromise since I won't tell him where you are."

Elsie stared at him. She was under the impression that Donner would doggedly follow Mr Myrra's every word. Mind-blowing to know he kept his promise to her to not tell Dante where she was. How was Dante doing? Did he find someone else already? Was he still turning into that monster? Her lips itched to ask but she stopped herself. She wouldn't like any of the answers. "Well, you can tell him I won't say anything."

"That's not why he wants me to check on you," Donner said.

She cast her eyes down to her half eaten sandwich. "What we had wasn't normal," she said quietly. "It was... out of necessity. He should find something normal for himself. I don't want to stop him from finding someone better because he feels guilty or obligated or whatever."

"Is that what you want me to convey to him?"

"You don't have to tell him anything, just say I'm doing fine." Elsie made a face. "Is that what you're here for? To be our messenger?"

"Yeah." Donner leaned back in his chair. "It's my punishment for threatening to kill you. I got yelled at for that."

"Good. You deserve it."

"Also, he thinks you have a crush on me. He said you called me hot."

Elsie choked on her coffee and had a hacking cough for about two minutes until she could breathe properly. "You're not my type," she croaked out haughtily when she could speak again.

"And you're not mine," Donner said with a dry smile. "It's a trap for me. If I did try and see how magical your pussy is, Dante would do much more than yell at me. So don't worry, my visits are purely professional."

Donner left before her that day. Elsie decided to treat herself to another coffee and caught the scowl on the cafe owner's face when she paid for it. She assumed it was the owner since only one guy ever worked at the Green Man. "Was that man bothering you, miss?" he said while he poured out her second iced coffee.

"Oh, no, not really," Elsie said. "Well, sort of but it's not that serious."

"Let me know if you need me to kick him out," the owner said.

Elsie smiled gratefully at the owner and tipped generously. It's why she liked going to that cafe. Pity it was secreted away at the edge of town. It would be really popular at the heart of the city and it'll be one of those trendy hipster places young people flock to. Or maybe because the Green Man had regulars, it was so enduring. She realized she didn't know the owner's name, thought to ask for it but then promptly forgot. At around the end of August, she overheard two women leaving the cafe sighing about how 'Peter knows his way around a latte.'

It couldn't be the same Peter. Elsie tried to covertly study him the next few times she visited the Green Man - he was possibly the same age as Dante. What would a person that could cast a curse look like? She chickened out asking the owner for months. How would one even ask?

Hey are you old school friends with this wealthy CEO and did you happen to cast a curse on him? Oh, not some normal curse but a sex curse! Are you a wizard??

But the days crept closer to December again and Elsie couldn't help but keep thinking about it. The snow fell, blanketing the city with white; sometimes when she walked outside in the cold, she could close her eyes and picture herself back in the mountains. She'll go back inside the cabin and Dante will be there waiting for her. Would he be waiting for her? Donner actually decreased his visits. Elsie should be happy about that but she wasn't and she didn't want to know why.

Then December hit along with the avalanche of candy cane decorations and good holiday cheer. Mariah Carey was set free from her frozen confines and 'All I Want for Christmas' was blasting on every speaker. It was actually playing on the radio Peter keeps on at the cafe when she finally had the balls to question him. It was a Thursday afternoon and the shop was empty.

"Do you know Dante Myrra?"

The question was met with a hard stare over Mariah bursting into the chorus. Peter turned down the volume and scratched his head, then went to the door and turned the sign over to 'closed'. "I do," Peter finally said. "Did that Donner fellow tell you about me?"

He made another coffee and handed it to her without her asking, waving away her attempt to pay for it. "No, Dante told me about you. So you are that friend he made back at school."

"He must have told you what an evil witch I am," Peter snorted.

"He did say you cursed him."

Peter studied her. "Did I?"

"Are you saying you didn't?" Elsie asked, a little indignantly. "I saw what Dante becomes when he... loses control of himself."

"Oh, so you've seen it," Peter said. "It explains why you're sequestered here. My theory is that this is where Donner puts all the people Dante needs to keep track of but can't meet."

"So you're saying you didn't do that to him?" Elsie pressed. It sounded like Peter knew exactly what she was talking about.

"Tell me what he turns into," Peter said, ignoring her question. "In detail. That Donner doesn't tell me anything."

Elsie described it the best she could: the gnarled arms that looked to be made of branches and bark, the mess of sticks that morph and sculpt his face into some animal visage, the horns that come out of his hair. She tamped down her embarrassment and even told him of what alleviated the symptoms.

"So you're telling me you were basically a paid companion for him," Peter said critically. "God... rich people!"

"It's more complicated than that," Elsie said. "I, er, I kinda owed him one."

"I doubt anything you did warranted that kind of debt," Peter said.

"And I doubt anything insulting Dante could have said back when you were kids warranted this kind of curse," Elsie shot back. "He... it really messed with his life. I know you don't care because he's rich or because of his wealthy family or whatever but..." Elsie's voice trailed. God, she really sounded like some simpering fan girl.

"I do admit I cursed him when I was a teenager," Peter said, crossing his arms. "But that was over thirty years ago. It would be incredible if I still held some power over him over all these years, especially one that forces him to transform into something so elaborate. I never had any formal training and my dad certainly never taught me to cast curses. I was just a dumb, petty teenager."

"Then why - how was he still like that?" Elsie asked, confused. "No, you must be better at it than you think."

"Really? If I had that kind of power, a kind that wrecks a grown man's life for three decades, wouldn't you think I would be much more of a menace?" Peter asked. "I could rule the world with that kind of power."

"Then what happened to Dante? I saw it with my own eyes. What he turns into isn't normal and it isn't some trick of the light. You must know something. If you don't then I don't think anyone can help him if this goes on."

"From what you told me, you helped him," Peter shrugged. He looked thoughtful. "As to why Dante suffered for so long... Well, let me put it this way. Do you know what a psychosomatic disorder is? I think it's like that."

"So you think Dante was doing all this to himself? A manifestation of his mental state?" Elsie asked slowly. "He cursed himself?"

"Partially. Back then I was pissed that Dante always got what he wanted. They all did, all those rich kids. But at least Dante tried to be nice, I'll give him that. Then I think he got sick of being nice to me and I got really mad; I felt betrayed. So I told Dante that I wished he knew what it was like to want something and not get it." Peter smiled sardonically. "I think it makes sense in hindsight that he'll interpret it in terms of sex, us being horny teenagers and all. Even if I did successfully 'curse' him back then, he'd convinced himself years after that it still stuck."

"So he basically cursed himself to decades of sexual dissatisfaction?" Elsie asked. "But he's had sex. There was a lot of subterfuge, as I hear it, but he's gotten his rocks off and that didn't break the curse."

"No, because maybe Dante realized deep down that what he actually wanted wasn't just sex," Peter shrugged. He paused and gave her a long look. "And he finally let himself free when someone offered it to him."

Elsie sat there for a long time. At first, she was just annoyed that Peter was basically disavowing himself from the whole thing. But then all the memories of Dante she'd kept at bay came crashing down.

If you're asking how many times I've spent time with someone like this... none.

The gnawing feeling in her stomach rose to her chest, constricting her breathing. "He regrets it, you know," Elsie said thickly. "The things he said to you. He hates himself for it."

"I see that now. I think I saw that years ago too when I got some mysterious sponsor to open this cafe. Although... he's failed to apologize in person so I'll refrain from thinking too highly of him," Peter said lightly.

"You should go see him or tell him where you are. He'll apologize to you. He doesn't know you're here, right?"

"Somehow it doesn't make me feel any better to have Dante's pretty little girlfriend try to mend our relationship," Peter grumbled.

"I'm not his girlfriend. I'm just his paid companion, remember?"

"Yeah, one that cares an awful lot about some decades old drama. And you know what, for someone who knows so much about his past, you're incredibly dense about Dante. Even though I haven't looked at his dumb mug for thirty years, I know for a fact that you're not just a paid companion and I think you know that too."

You... you're the best thing that's ever happened to me.

The pain in her chest spasmed and she burst into tears.

"Oh shit. Sorry. Holy fuck you need to stop crying," Peter said, sounding panicked. "If Donner sees this I'm fucked. You want hot chocolate? A cookie?"

His frantic tries to get her to stop crying was actually hilarious to her but some wires got crossed and it just made her cry harder. The hot tears wrenched something apart in her, something she tried to hide from herself all year, something she worked hard at burying deep inside her.

She really, really missed him.

--

It was Christmas week at the heart of downtown. The streets were thick with string lights, tinsel and wreaths lined every shop window. It was an explosion of color and warmth, infections with its cheer to the people walking down the streets.

Elsie spotted him amidst all of the decoration chaos. Her tall, dark stranger with the somber black coat. His hair was professionally styled and no longer the tangled mess that she remembered. The fact that he was here mingling with the crowd at this time of year answered the question of his condition: he was no longer bothered by the forest demon. She wondered what he thought about all the lights and colors he usually missed out on. He was stopped in front of a shop and was staring at something.

She craned her head slightly to try and figure out what Dante stopped in front when Donner elbowed her rather painfully. "I didn't bring you out here for you to stalk him," he said.

"You don't need to stay," she said, giving him a dirty look.

"I'm making sure you don't chicken out."

"I'm not going to chicken out. Remember the last time you served me up as a human sacrifice? I climbed a fucking mountain alone."

He snorted at her. "Well, no mountains here. You just need to cross the street. Go on, Ms. Human Sacrifice."

That's all she needed to do: cross a street and walk down a block. The light turned and she ran across before she proved Donner right and chickened out. Her heart pounded in her chest as she approached him, but his back was still turned and he didn't notice her since the streets were full of people. She could finally see what he was looking at: he was standing right in front of a coffee shop.

"You forgot to get me that coffee you promised me," she said standing right behind him.

He didn't react for a few seconds, standing as still as a statue. Then he whirled around, eyes wide and wild. She smiled slightly up at him - he was now every inch Mr. Myrra, the one she sees in the pictures. She thought he looked a little thinner and quite tired.

When he didn't say anything, she added: "... as my present, remember? Although the gross instant stuff won't cut it - "

Suddenly he grabbed her and pulled into one of his bear hugs. His coat muffled her squeak of surprise. "You're here," he whispered in her ear. "You're real."

She took a deep breath of him. He still smelled the same. It was Dante. "I am," she said in reply to both those things.

"Please stay with me," he murmured, pulling her impossibly tight. "I can't... Please don't leave my side."

"Only if you give me my present." Elsie pulled back slightly and gave a mocking pout. "I told you Christmas is my favorite time of year so I want my present."

His blue eyes stared down at her. "The coffee?"

"That too, but that is actually the second thing I want, both back then and now," she said.

"What's the first?"

"You," she said, smiling. "I want you."

--

Epilogue

"W-well, I guess we know now that you're t-totally cured," Elsie said unevenly as Dante swirled his tongue over her clit. He spent Christmas at her apartment, mostly between her legs. She grabbed his dark hair and moaned, her spread legs quaking. "Oh god I'm cumming."

He just gave a satisfied grunt and didn't stop as she humped his face, his mouth sucking on her sensitive nub. A hand crept up to her chest and thumbed a nipple, then pinched it and it sent her over the edge. Before she fully recovered, he hoisted her legs so they wrapped around his hips and he sank into her eagerly, replacing pinching fingers with his mouth on her nipple. It's moments like these when Elsie was a little unsure if Dante was actually cured. He still fucks like they were back in that cabin. He desperately kissed her as he bottomed out and moaned wildly, then quickly drew out and stood over her to spray her with his ejaculation while his hand fisted his dick. His blue eyes burned as he watched her panting body get covered but they didn't turn into glowing orbs. Then he knelt and roughly entered her again, thrusting the last of his orgasm out inside her.

"Merry Christmas," Elsie murmured sleepily as they nestled together on her bed much later.

He kissed her gently on the temples. "I'll get you a coffee tomorrow morning," he replied. "Your second present."

Elsie laughed because he's bought her so many coffees since their reunion. Then she brightened with an idea and looked up at him. "Actually," she said. "I think I'll get you one. I'll show you my favorite coffee spot. It's called the Green Man."

Dante hummed in agreement, his eyes drooping. "I'll go wherever you go."

End.

--

A/N: that's right, while getting into the holiday spirit, the first story I could think of to celebrate the festive season involved jerking off a forest demon. YOU'RE WELCOME. I'll have you know, that hand job was canonically necessary in saving Dante's life.