On the dating app called Gotcha, the tag line reads connecting the unusual, but the mechanics are the same as Tinder or Raya or Grindr. You swipe right for yes, left for no, send winks and pokes and pics. The app has a map thingy that helps you echolocate your date like a bat when you’re matched. This is what Nate did the night he met Peta, following a green line along Des Moines Avenue, all the way to Charlie’s Kitchen, where his destiny awaited.
In the section marked Philosophy, Peta’s said better the Devil you don’t know. In her bio, she wrote about how she loved extreme cat vids. Quotes to live by was from Ephesians 5:12 in The Bible, “It is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.” Nate worried that this meant she was religious, but his room-mate Vaughn reassured him it was a commonly understood reference to anal.
“If your date tanks, give her my number.” Vaughn gazed down at Peta’s profile pic. “She has a demonic glint.”
“My date won’t tank.” Nate flung his messenger bag over his shoulder.
Vaughn’s buddies cracked up laughing because Nate’s dates always tanked. Then they went back to getting high and watching the game and eating cold pizza, a Sunday ritual Nate was never part of.
Charlie’s Kitchen was a typical college bar—dark, dirty, a quick stumble of steps from a White Hen Pantry. Huddled over a pitcher of Sam Adams in a corner booth, Nate and Peta shot the shit about their majors. Four beers down, Nate slid his arm around Peta’s shoulders. Rather than object, she put her face up to be kissed. They’d rounded second base and were tumbling towards third by the time the bar closed.
“Back to mine?” That glint of the eyes.
“Sure.” Nate was questioning how easy this felt, but she was undeniably hot.
“One word of warning,” she smiled over her shoulder. “If we run into my housemate, do not speak to him. Like, literally. Do not.”
“Um… sure,” said Nate. That wasn’t sounding awesome. But, whatever, he didn’t have to stay the night.
***
The house was a clapped-out colonial in Porter Square, haphazardly divvied into student apartments. Inside, the place was a little basic. They didn’t spend too much time on the tour, though, because Peta yanked him into her room and shoved him down on the bed, where the warnings of Ephesians 5:12 became fleshly reality.
Nate woke with a jolt at 3:45, when it was both too late and too early to leave. Desperate for a piss and some water, he satisfied first one bodily function, then the other, chugging from the faucet. Either he’d drunk way more than he thought, or those unnatural acts with Peta had dehydrated him.
A blue glow flickered from the den. He padded across the linoleum, bare feet velcroing the sticky floor. Some dude sprawled on the beat-up couch, bong in hand, glued to a college basketball game. Nate loitered in the background, remembering Peta’s warning. But the game and the bong called to him, he who was never invited to bro down with Vaughn.
“I’m Nate.” He perched on the empty side of the couch.
“Ur,” the guy coughed through a mouthful of smoke. “That’s my name. Ur. King of the Underworld. Want a hit?”
“Don’t mind if I do,” Nate laughed.
***
Nate became a fixture at the clapped-out colonial. He’d meet Peta for beer, then they’d head back to hers to ignore the warnings of Ephesians. In the small hours, when Peta was curled on her side, Nate would go in search of Ur.
If that even was his name. Nate didn’t care. He’d never dreamt of befriending anyone as cool as Ur. This was a guy who only ate cold pizza and never wore more than boxers and a Nirvana shirt. He loved basketball, but he didn’t get mad if Duke lost. He just chilled on the couch, passing his bong to Nate at generous intervals. Whatever stripe of hash was in that tube was dynamite. Every time a player sunk a solid hoop, Ur slapped the couch, or clapped Nate on the thigh, like guys do.
As for Peta, she was DTF every date and hated spooning. Plus, she went Dutch. Honestly, though, that was all they were doing. Beer. Food. Ephesians. Some nights another Old Testament heavy hitter. There just wasn’t much connection. But with Ur… he didn’t say much. He didn’t have to. When Nate was sitting with him on the couch, smoking, laughing, he felt he’d come home.
Which is why what happened next hurt. One night—and Nate would always regret this—he told Peta he had a headache.
“Whatever,” she grunted, rolling on her side.
But she must not have meant it, or maybe she never fell into that deep coma that overtook as soon as they’d boned. Later, Nate was in his usual spot on the couch, Ur cracking up at some Heisman moment of the game, when she padded into the den. Her hair stuck out every which way and she was wearing Nate’s Adventure Time t-shirt. There was something so… sad… about the way she looked first at Nate, then at Ur.
Her voice shook. “Didn’t I tell you?”
A wild thing happened. Her brown eyes, brim-full of tears, turned blinding white. Searchlights strafing the room, settling on Nate. Her lips shuddered out words Nate didn’t understand. Ur’s head turned slowly towards her, a stone lid moving from the top of a well. He answered her in ancient-sounding, guttural noises. His deep voice, that had always been easy, was harsh.
Ur’s head swivelled back to Nate. “This demon claims you disobeyed her command,” he shrugged, speaking in his normal dude-bro voice.
“I… I guess…”
“She says she must now burn you to an ash pile, as is her eternal right.” Ur said this gently, like a doctor breaking bad news.
“But… you’re my friend?” It was a Hail Mary, for sure. He could have gone with she’s my girlfriend, and maybe everything would have ended differently.
Ur nodded sagely. “You speak truth. I, eternally lonely on this plane, have taken solace in your friendship. Yet Ereshkigal speaks truth, too. A law has been broken and amends must be made.”
Nate’s blood froze. He wanted to be tough, but he found himself squeezing his eyes tight shut and pissing himself a little. In the black space of his paralysing fear, he felt the tremor of an earthquake, heard a bang, like lightning striking a tree, smelled the stench of burned hair.
When he opened his eyes, Ur still sat beside him, as calm as ever. Nate’s bare thighs still sprawled on the couch in front of him and his sweaty palms stuck to the fake leather like a couple of tongues. In the corner by the TV lay a smoking pile of ash.
“Fuck,” Nate gasped. “Is that…?”
“Ereshkigal broke the laws of our realm and so she was punished.” Ur flicked the wheel of his Bic lighter against the bong and breathed deep. Bubbles rumbled in the murky bong water and this time Nate could swear he heard the shrieking of a billion hell-trapped souls.
“As for you human, I have spared you. But you must depart to your own realm, never to return.” Ur gave a baleful look, then snapped his fingers, neatly depositing Nate in his apartment.
***
Nate slept for about a week after that and was crazy thirsty. When he was on his own, he cried a lot. Some of it was for Peta, what happened to her because of him. Honestly, though, most of it was for Ur. He must have looked super bummed, because Vaughn started letting him in on pizza nights.
After a few weeks, he didn’t cry, but he didn’t show up for work or school either. He was too busy wandering around Porter Square, hunting for that clapped out colonial that had been so easy to find in the dark when Peta was pulling him along by the hand. When he wasn’t wasting his time on that one, he was browsing on Gotcha, peering into the eyes of every halfway-hot woman on there. If one of them had a demonic look, then maybe he could find his way back somehow.
None ever did. So, he’d throw down his phone and bend the pillow round his head to muffle the sound of Vaughn and whatever girl he’d just matched with, and that girl’s loud, fake screams. And he would stare at a hair-fine, jagged crack that ran along the ceiling up above him and wonder what had changed and why he felt so empty all the time now, even more than before. Had he learned something important? No, he hadn’t. He definitely hadn’t at all.
———–
Kate Horsley’s first novel was shortlisted for the Saltire Award. Her second was published by William Morrow. Both have been optioned for film. Her short fiction has appeared in magazines like The Cincinnati Review; The Citron Review; Fictive Dream; BULL; Paragraph Planet; Blood+Honey; Tiny Molecules; Flash Fiction Online; SEXTET; Ink, Sweat, & Tears; Fish Barrel Review; Cake; and Strix, and placed in competitions including Bath, Bournemouth, Bridport, Oxford, and Smokelong. She’s a creative writing lecturer.