Sebastian lay on the bed, rubbing his temples. His head really hurt from all of the music and talking and wine. He knew that he was expected to do certain things with Eleanora on this night, but he wasn't feeling up to it at the moment. And he knew that she would do many things to avoid sleeping with him at any given moment.

It was odd to forget one's wife. Remembering her was kind of like reading dialogue from a book: no form, no face; just blank, expressionless words. He wondered (for the seventy hundredth time) what she looked like. Was she pretty? He remembered that she didn't think that she was pretty. But one couldn't trust women on the subject of beauty; the prettiest ones were convinced that they were hideous and the ugly ones thought that they rivaled Helen of Troy. Then again, Sebastian thought that all women were ugly, save for his mother and his aunts.

He remembered when he was younger. His mother occasionally talked to him about marriage. He smiled when he remembered what he used to say:

"I'm not going to marry anyone who's not as pretty as you, Mommy!"

And his mother would laugh and say back,

"One day, my darling, you're going to find someone who you're going to think is the most beautiful person in the four worlds. And it won't matter if they're not as pretty as me—not to your eyes anyway."

Sebastian remembered doubting that. His mother had been a professional beauty queen. She still competed every now and then. He remembered that he always thought that he would also marry some kind of beauty queen. Some shy, quiet demon girl from a rich, noble family—someone nondescript and pleasantly boring who loved him undyingly and unconditionally while he would cheerfully ignore her and go about his business.

Sebastian had always thought that he would never fall in love, really. When he was younger, he would read fairy tales and sigh over the happy endings. But as he grew older, he realized just how few true princesses that was out there.

All of the beautiful, rich, young noble ladies—no matter which species they were—did everything they could to please him. They giggled, they batted their eyelashes, they agreed with everything he said…They were all unbearably dull. He couldn't stand being in their company for more than an hour. They were all the same. They said the same things, they behaved the same way; even their faces mirrored each other. Always following the same fashion trends, always reading the same cheap romance novels, always assuming that they were somehow unique in their conformity.

They were not princess, but they all thought that Sebastian was their Prince Charming.

They all thought that he would fall in love with them and sweep them off their feet. Write poetry. Play lovelorn ballads on the guitar. Visit them in the middle of the night by climbing into their windows using ivy. Absolutely none of that happened, and then it was somehow his fault. Several nobles had complained to his parents because he had apparently "broken their daughter's fragile heart." How had he broken it?...By not loving her.

He was somehow expected to fall in love with every pretty face but remain loyal to each one. He had to spend his hours pining over them, wasting away, while still being that cool, confident businessman. He had to be gentle, but only to the "woman of his dreams;" he had to treat everyone else like less than nothing. It was absolutely ridiculous and absolutely unrealistic.

Human women were exactly the same as the unholy ones. It was so odd how humans could change, but the women—no matter where they came from—were always the same. Every now and then he would meet a woman who seemed different from the others: one who didn't immediately adore his looks and then expect a character to match. Every now and then he would meet a woman who seemed genuinely interested in his personality and realized that just because he had the face of a Prince Charming didn't mean that he had the attitude of one. They were refreshing at first, but they were always so few and far-between. And then they would just become like all the other women he had met.

The first sign was jealousy. Women who got familiar with him almost always turned jealous at some point. They wanted to know where he was, who he had been with, and they didn't accept his answers.

"I had to stay late to clean up after a dinner party."

"Liar! You were flirting with that maid."

One would think that, if a woman knew him, she would also know that he had absolutely no interest in flirting with anyone, pretty or ugly, maid or master.

Then they became clingy. They always wanted to go everywhere with him; do everything with him. They claimed that it was because they wanted to spend more time with him, but he knew that they just wanted to spy on him. See what he was up to. If a woman he vaguely knew greeted him, the woman that he was with would immediately sling her arm through his and glare at the other woman and loudly announce at any point some outrageous lie:

"I'm his woman."

"I'm his girl."

"I'm his fiancée."

And when he would call her out on it—later, of course—she would immediately burst into tears and wail about how he didn't love her anymore, to which he always replied that he had never loved her to begin with. Then the usual mess would start up: screaming, crying, wailing, demanding…

Sebastian had learned to avoid the sex as a whole. Always keep them at a distance. Never get too intimate with one. He was tired of always having to play the Prince Charming for a frog. He had figured that he would never get married, never fall in love. That prospect had always been appealing to him.

And then he had met Eleanora.

Eleanora Black—the bitter, distrustful maid. She was like him—the opposite sex had never impressed her, never did anything to help her; always harming her. Like him, she had kept her distance. Like him, she refused to let anyone get close to her. It could have been perfect—a man and a woman, blissfully staying out of each other's way.

And now they were married. Permanently. Forever. Till death do them part.

Sebastian groaned and pressed a pillow over his face. Eleanora had spent the last half-hour in the bathroom, taking off the wedding dress and bathing. He wondered (for the seventy-first hundredth time) what she looked like.

And then she stepped out of the bathroom and he saw her for the first time, for the second time…If that made any sense.

She was wearing a thin black lingerie dress. She was thin too—skeletal, almost. Her skin was too white, almost like a vampire's. Her black hair reached down to the small of her back, curling slightly. Her mouth was small; her nose was pointy; her blue eyes were too big for her face, and they only looked bigger because of her long black eyelashes. She looked like a doll out of a horror opera.

She looked absolutely beautiful.

For several minutes, Sebastian just lay there, staring at her from underneath his pillow. She shifted uncomfortably and awkwardly played with a lock of her hair. Sebastian vaguely remembered how she looked when she was walking down the aisle towards him. She had looked beautiful then, too, but not nearly as lovely as she looked now.

He slowly stood up and approached her.

"You look…" he said and cleared his throat. "You look…"

She forced a small laugh and tossed her head. Her hair smelled like roses.

"You don't have to say anything," she said. "I know. You're disappointed."

Her looks were harsh, but she had a pleasantly musical voice. Not unnaturally sing-songily ditzy or annoying or anything; just slightly lilting.

Everything was coming back to him now—her face, her voice, her movements…The dialogue-thing in his memories was slowly filling back out into a real person.

She thought that she was disappointing. He was rather surprised. Then he was surprised at him being surprised. This whole situation was like meeting her for the first time again. It was strange.

She forced another laugh and then scooted by him, moving to the bed. Sebastian continued staring. She had a nice walk—some hip movement, not too exaggerated. Nice long legs. Her rear didn't stick out.

She turned to look at him and he immediately averted his eyes. He felt a bit hot. He glanced at himself in a mirror and was ashamed to find that he was blushing.

"It's just a shock," he told himself. "It's just a shock. By the morning, you'll remember everything about her and then it'll just be like before. You don't like her. You're just a bit shocked. That's it. That's all. Everything will be back to normal in the morning."

Already he was remembering how much he had hated her. Then she cleared her throat and he turned to look at her and then he forgot again.

"Well?" she asked, pushing her hair behind her ear. "What now?"

"Now? Now I suppose that we…uh…sleep?"

Sebastian no longer felt tired. His demonic instincts had woken up within him, and now he felt eerily awake and energized. His eyesight was sharper; his mind was clearer; his head no longer hurt. He felt that he should suppress them, as usual, but for some reason, he didn't really want to.

"What—you mean in the same bed?"

"Why not?" he said and sat down on the edge. "Which side do you want?"

"The…right."

"Certainly."

Eleanora lay down and covered herself up with the blankets. Sebastian lay down next to her and tried to calm down his urges.

"Eleanora?" he finally said.

"What?"

"It's our wedding night, isn't it?"

"I suppose…"

"So…don't you think that we should do…something? Just to…commemorate…the occasion?"

He found her leg underneath the blankets and began stroking it. Mmm, she had nice skin…

She slapped his hand away.

"Touch me and I'll shove this pillow down your throat and give you a third lung."

Ah, yes. Eleanora had been fond of threats. But while her tone was hard and while she was glaring, there was a noticeable look of fear in her big blue eyes. The instincts died down enough for Sebastian to apologize and scoot away a bit regretfully.

"Just go to sleep," he told himself. "Just go to sleep. It'll all be better in the morning. You hate this woman, remember? You hate all women. You hate everyone! Especially humans."

He told himself this over and over again. But his demonic urges still didn't die down and he didn't fall asleep for three hours.