Date with a Demon

Adam woke up late the next day and judging by how strongly the sun streamed through his window, he guessed it was slightly past noon. Good thing it was a Saturday where he had no real work to think about doing.

As much as Leila had been knocked out by his intoxicating essence, she had also drained him with that kiss, though it seemed like his tolerance against her was way higher than hers against him.

In any case, work was a far off thought considering how incredible and insane his current life situation was.

Being engaged to a demon princess was definitely way more important than any boring old reading assignment.

Leila was still in Adam's arms, but she woke up as if synchronized with him, stirring and flitting open a blood red eye to look up at him. Her tail swished from side to side as she started to wake up.

Then, as the events of the past night hit her, she sat up with a small and cute yelp, hugging herself and blushing shyly.

"I'm sorry you had to see me like that," said Leila as she looked down. "That was not very becoming of me, a royal princess of Hell."

"No worries," said Adam as he got out of bed. He smiled at her. "It got me to know you a lot better." Adam's smile became slightly mischievous. "And it made me realize what I want to do with you."

"Oh?" Leila perked up, cocking her head and looking at Adam with a lustful spark in her eyes. She leaned back on the bed, slowly crossing one bare leg across the other in inviting display. "What is it you want from me, hm, my dear husband?"

"Oh, you'll see-," said Adam as he cracked his knuckles and started to loom over her.

==

"Huh? What do I like?" Leila sat by a round coffee table in Adam's kitchen. Her chin was on her hands in bored gesture.

"Yeah, what do you like?" said Adam. This was his plan for the day: to find out what Leila liked to try and get her to experience what love, real love, was like.

He wrapped his trusty apron tight around his waist. There was a huge heart plastered on it with massive golden embroidered text reading '#1 SON'. A gift from his father when he heard that Adam wanted to get into cooking.

Adam's dad was…quite the character to say the least, but the man had good principles and Adam knew his dad appreciated him greatly. That was why he wore this apron no matter what even when more than a few people had poked fun at how tacky it was.

"You must like doing something," said Adam. "If we're going to be married, we can't just stay in bed all day, right? We should do things we like together."

"What I like? Nobody's asked me that before. Hmm…," said Leila as she cocked her head. "I guess I like to drain the essence of unworthy men until they die.

Sometimes, I like to make their dreams of ecstasy turn into pain and terror before ending them.

Oh! And I like utterly crushing anyone who tries to take anything from me."

Okay then. Adam realized if he wanted to get Leila to understand what romance was, he needed to get her to think outside the boundaries of her demonic upbringing.

Judging from what he saw so far, Leila had grown up in a pretty harsh environment.

Nobody ever praised her or appreciated her. Even now, when she said she wanted to prove to her mother she could find a husband, it felt like it was something she wanted to do to get validation, not because her mother actually appreciated her any.

Her fierce protectiveness over what was hers, including Adam, also indicated she lived in an environment full of competition where she could lose what was hers at a moment's notice.

She likely had never had the time to sit down and think about what SHE truly liked.

That meant Adam had to start simple.

"Alright, let me ask you another question because I'm about to cook for us: what flavors do you like?" said Adam.

"Flavors? The flavor of essence drained from vile men," said Leila. She licked her lips in remembrance. "The viler the man, the more degenerate he is, the more steeped in the Seven Sins he is, the more I enjoy taking his essence and life.

But that is mostly I like to rid the world of their degeneracy. It makes me feel more satisfied.

My actual favorite would be your taste, my dear." She cupped her face in her hands and her lips twisted in a wild smile. "There is nothing, absolutely nothing, that can compare with it!"

Adam was utterly unfazed by hearing that Leila had likely killed quite a few people. He might have been more shaken before, but his moral compass and sense of understanding had shifted upon becoming a half-demon himself.

Which did make Adam think more about the Power Matrix he had awakened. It was like a game system status screen, and Leila had not explained it much more, treating it as if it was something he should know all about.

To be fair, when Adam closed his eyes and thought of the matrix, he definitely did understand what all those powers and skills meant. He had an inherent grasp of them, as if they were coded into his head, and he knew how to use all of them, though actually mastering them might entail some trial and error.

Regardless, as a new half-demon, Adam felt that human lives were farther away from him, less important, though he could still feel strongly for those that he cared about.

"What does essence actually taste like? Is it savory? Sweet?" said Adam. "I'm going to make us breakfast, and I want to be sure I make my beloved something she likes."

"Oh, I don't need to eat any physical food," said Leila as she shooed the thought of eating like a human away. "Life essence is all I need."

"But you can eat normal food, right?" said Adam. He realized that Leila had probably never eaten human food.

"I suppose so." Leila nodded casually at first, but when she saw how intently Adam stared at her, she started to blush a little. She glanced at Adam with a shy side-eye. "But…if my beloved wants to make me something, even asking me what I like, then I very well cannot refuse you, no?"

"Thanks for giving me a chance. Sweet, huh. Got it. I guarantee you," said Adam as he took in a deep breath, channeling the cooking skills he had cultivated to seduce girls that he had never been able to use before until now. "I won't disappoint."

==

"Ahh! So, so good!" moaned Leila, her voice ringing through the kitchen.

She rested her hand on her cheek as she closed her eyes in bliss, licking white cream from her lips.

Adam clenched his fist in victory and relief as he saw Leila eat up his recipe for the morning.

At first glance, it was just a simple French toast, but Adam's desperation to woo girls was so pronounced that when he tried sharpening his cooking skills to impress women, he had eventually gotten good enough to the point where he started cooking to try and impress himself.

"Glad you like it," said Adam as he nodded and mentally gave thanks to the half-eaten French toast dish in front of him.

It was made of a homemade, soft, buttery brioche loaf cut down the middle and stuffed with a spread of cream cheese, vanilla, and a mixture strawberry and blueberry preserves.

A syrup sauce infused with strawberry and banana was sprinkled atop the neatly toasted golden bread along with a smattering of powdered sugar. Slices of strawberry lined the top of the bread, and they gleamed a bright red and pink from the syrup glazing them.

The sweetness of the bread was almost overpowering, but it was cut down neatly by the tartness of the strawberry elements, giving the dish a wonderfully coherent balance.

Leila took her fork and stuffed in another bite of toast, making sure to swish it around the plate to gather as much syrup and fruit as possible.

Adam almost shed a tear that his cooking skills had not gone to waste and finally had a chance to shine with someone other than his dad.

"I didn't know human food was this good!" exclaimed Leila. "So sweet! Mmm!"

Adam crossed his muscular arms together and took up a smug expression of victory. "Oh, not all human food is this good. I consider myself quite the cook, you see."

"What type of magic did you use?" said Leila wonderingly.

"Magic?" Adam thought about this for a moment. "Nothing, really. But I do hear that when you eat food from someone you love, it tastes a lot better."

"No wonder then!" said Leila. "Darling's love is magical! It makes everything he does taste good!"

She then finished the dish in hyperspeed, using her inhuman agility to completely dismantle the poor toast and devour it in seconds.

"Say, Leila, I'm a little curious. What do you think love is? What do you think a husband and wife should be like?" said Adam.

"Love? That is quite simple. Love is simply a form of the Lust Sin, one of the great Sins from which Hell Demons like me find nourishment," said Leila simply as she happily swayed her head from side to side, still reveling in the pleasure of satisfying her sweet tooth. "And a husband and wife?"

Leila cocked her head to the side cutely for a second, getting her thoughts in order. "Well, the wife is meant to make her darling completely beholden to her. To make him fall for her so hopelessly and deeply that without her, his life, his existence, becomes meaningless."

"That's not a husband, that's a slave," pointed out Adam.

"But mother said men liked that," said Leila. "She told me if I ever found someone worthy, to make them mine so that the only thing they could ever think about was me. That way, they will never leave you."

Well then, thought Adam. Considering he was bound to be married to Leila, his meeting with her mother would be...interesting to say the least.

"With how amazingly pretty you are, it really isn't hard for me to always think about you," said Adam. He tilted his head up and thought about things as Leila blushed at his words, looking away from him. "And there's more to love than that.

That settles it.

This is what we're going to do: we're going to have a proper date."

Adam stood up with energy, prompting Leila to react.

"A date? What kind of position is that?" said Leila as she licked her lips expectantly.

"You'll see," said Adam.

==

Adam walked with Leila out in the shopping district of the city, both of them shifting their forms to conceal their demonic traits. It had taken Adam a good couple of seconds to will his red eyes and sharp teeth to human normalcy in front of the mirror, but Leila had assured him that it would get easier quickly over time.

Using his new powers felt kind of like exercising a muscle he had never worked before. He could use them, but that did not mean he was intimately familiar with them.

And as for the date through the city itself -

Rockhold City, Adam's home town, on its own was a sleepy, uneventful little place on the east coast of the United States.

There was nothing special about it other than Belford University, a prestigious institution that the city almost completely revolved around as both its number one tourist attraction and greatest pride.

As a result, there were plenty of date spots meant for young college couples.

One of them being the Shopping District where every couple went at least once.

Not to mention that Leila desperately needed new clothes because she definitely could not be walking around wearing her typical revealing get up.

Adam, too, needed new clothes because with his new body, none of his old clothes fit him properly anymore.

He was dressed casually, too casual for a date, in baggy sweatpants and a loose t-shirt, and Leila too wore a similar getup from Adam's closet, though because of how pretty she was, it really did not matter what she wore.

She still looked amazing.

Adam's shirt and pants were definitely loose on her, but instead of looking messy, they just looked like a trendy oversized fit.

It really was true, huh, that saying that if you looked good, it did not matter what you wore, it would still look good.

Because Adam's car had been utterly trashed from an unfortunate werewolf collision (and on that note, Leila said she had had to burn down his car to ashes to minimize attention to them), he had to take the bus around, and already, he felt self-conscious.

Most of the people on the buses were fellow students, and they all stared at Adam and Leila.

It was a good thing that Adam was not all that popular, or else he definitely would have had familiar faces gawking at him.

The men stared at Adam with blatant envy or open admiration for Leila, and even the women took lingering glances at Leila, recognizing her otherworldly beauty.

Adam felt both uncomfortable and supremely happy.

Finally, he had a girlfriend, no, a fiancée, but this much attention was something he was wholly unused to.

It made him realize what an ordinary guy would feel when their girlfriend was a supermodel or someone famous: as if all the eyes on her would naturally gravitate to him as well, but where those eyes admired the woman, they would question the man's worth.

That is to say, though, Adam could not care less about his worthiness for Leila. She had said he was, and that was enough for him.

It was just the constant attention that bothered him. Mostly, though, as long as Adam ignored the stares, nobody was crazy or bored enough to come up to him.

Throughout the trip, Leila had been uncharacteristically quiet and shy, holding a deep blush, and Adam did not pry, thinking Leila was just unused to being out in the open, especially visibly in front of humans like this.

But now, walking down the sidewalk of the Shopping District, Leila finally could not contain herself.

"W-w-why are we doing this!?" she asked, her face beet red.

"Hm? To get you some new clothes and to spend time together," said Adam. "That's all normal, isn't it?"

"N-no, I get that, I meant this…," Leila flitted her eyes down to her hand. Adam was holding it.

To be more specific, Adam had been holding it this whole time. He had guided her by her hand out of his dorm and led her through it this whole time. Why not, though?

Wasn't it natural to hold the hand of his girlfriend, no, his fiancee?

Which made Adam realize that it was not just his body that had changed. His confidence was skyrocketing too.

Or maybe this was how he always had been but he just never had a chance to be in a relationship to show this side of himself.

Rejection truly had been Adam's biggest limiter.

"This is what normal couples do," said Adam. He gave Leila a comforting smile. "If you aren't comfortable with it, I could stop-,"

"No!" said Leila, raising her voice and causing a few heads from strangers to turn their way. She held Adam's hand tighter. "No, I…I like it. I-I just don't get it. You are holding my hand, and yet, you aren't holding it to pin me down and take me.

You hold it firm, but also gently, and you don't use it to push me down, no, you use it to guide me.

I-I don't get the purpose of this...this hand holding."

"I'm holding your hand to be close to you," said Adam. "To let you know I'm right here with you, walking by your side, and that no matter what kind of new or strange situation you find yourself in, that you can always have my hand to squeeze."

Leila's blush deepened almost impossibly, and Adam realized that it was not just a blush: her original form had red skin, and when she got embarrassed, her control over her shapeshifting faltered a little, revealing it.

Thankfully, though, it seemed that control only broke enough to give Leila a noticeable blush.

"Th-this makes me feel so warm inside, but it's strange…it…the warmth feels wrong," said Leila. She blinked. "It feels…perverted. Depraved."

Perverted? Adam glanced at Leila, and she looked away as if she was committing a crime.

Well, he figured that perversion was all relative. Maybe to a succubus, holding hands like this was actually something perverted, especially considering she might not have shared wholly human values.

"You like it, though, don't you?" said Adam, asking the only question that really mattered.

"It feels wrong...but it also feels right," agreed Leila.

"If you like it, then there's no reason to stop yourself from enjoying yourself. Just be yourself, and I'll support you no matter what," said Adam. "It doesn't matter what others think."

"Be myself…," repeated Leila, as if it was something she had never heard before.

Adam held Leila's hand tighter as he spotted the store he was looking for. In reaction, Leila, unprepared as she was, let out a cute little yelp.

"We're here!" said Adam. "Come on, let's get you dressed up."