The bed was indeed comfortable, and Kaito couldn't tell what the mattress was made of, but it certainly wasn't full of feathers like he was used to. After the bad surprise of the breakfast, he wondered if he wanted to know. He was content enough to lay on it to read and nap through the day, grateful for the upgrade.

The only one that disturbed him was Anya, that woke him up for lunch in the kitchen. He asked her about her cooking, where did the meat come from, but she answered that she had been forbidden by Gakupo to talk about it. Kaito didn't dare ask anything else after that and consumed his portion in silence as she walked around the first floor, seemingly cleaning.

Arin and Gakupo being out, he used the time he had after his meal to explore the rooms he had not seen before. He tried to sneak to the first floor but was caught by the housemaid, that told him that if he went in there mister would smell him on his stuff and would know. This terrified him, so he kept his adventures limited to the first floor; there was enough to see there already.

He had seen most of the rooms already, save for one. He had no memory of seeing its door open but it was unlocked when he checked it. It was quite vast and entirely dark, yet it didn't smell like it was unused. There were curtains in front of the window and many richly ornate couches and pillows, as well as what appeared to be a small stage with a pole. He looked around, unable to figure out what the room was for until he made the connection with Gakupo's job was made. This was the place where he received clients.

His first thought was to leave the place behind in disgust. He still wasn't comfortable with the thought that Gakupo slept with other men even after having seen it for himself. Yet he stayed. It was like staring at a train wreck, he simply couldn't tear his eyes away.

He stepped on the small stage. There was a wooden pole there, and he wondered what it was for. When he grabbed it and shook it, it didn't budge, as it seemed to be secured in the ceiling and in the ground itself. If that stage was used for some sort of seduction dance, wouldn't this get in the way? How strange. He stepped away.

There was some sort of machine there as well, that he discovered behind the curtains. It was a box with a big brass flower on top of it, he didn't know any other way how to describe it, and next to it was a pile of cardboard envelops with large back disks inside.

"Don't touch those, they are fragile," said Anya.

Surprised, he almost dropped the one he had been holding. She chuckled.

"Those are music records. Want to hear?" she asked.

"Music?" He repeated. "How?"

"Yeah. Let me..."

She approached him and grabbed one, putting in on top of the box, before delicately placing a needle over it. She then did something that seemed like she was using magic: she placed her hand on the side of the box and, after she had breathed in deeply, the disk started to turn and music came out of the flower!

Startled, Kaito took a couple of steps back, looking at the machine as if it was about to pounce on him. This made the demoness laugh.

"You've never head about a gramophone?" she said. "You must have been quite poor as a human."

"That's what it is?" Asked Kaito, squinting at the devilry suspiciously. "I was rich, but I never saw something like that."

"Oh, it's one of those things that don't exist yet in your world, isn't it?" She nodded in understanding. "I didn't know. How come were you rich?"

He blinked a couple of time as her as she stopped the machine and put the disk back in its protective envelope. He didn't understand why she would ask him that.

"Did you steal mister Venomania's wealth or something?" she asked. "I always thought you were some marauder or bandit that had killed him. Murderers are usually poor, from what I can tell when I meet them in Hell."

"He never told you about how he died?" Kaito frowned. It made sense that he wouldn't. He was probably ashamed of his crimes, assumed the human. "He was a woman's thief, he gathered them all in his basement and he had sex with them. I killed him because he had taken the woman I loved."

She rose a brow. "I know that and I don't really care, you know, so don't try and make me dislike him because I won't. You're not answering my question. Did you steal from him or didn't you?"

"I wouldn't!" protected Kaito. "I was rich before. I was of the nobility."

"Oh, all right. So you killed him for a woman huh?" She seemed to think about something for a bit. "Did she love you back, at least?"

Kaito opened his mouth to answer that she did before he recalled that she left him one day without so much of a warning with his children, and never came back. "When you are a human noble, love doesn't matter. It's about continuing the line."

She looked at him, her green eyes piercing through him, before snorting at him in disdain. "So it was all about owning her. What a sad reason to go to hell."

"I'd rather have that than being sent to hell because I made a pact with the devil and enchanted women to do my bidding."

She chortled. "Maybe that would make sense for a human to say that but, for a demon, it's far more interesting to have a story like mister Venomania's than yours. No matter how good you used to be when you were a human, people will forget you eventually. And then what's left? The assurance that you have done the better thing? In the eyes of who? It's over you know, you've been judged and found guilty of murder. At least my master has a fantastic story to tell at dinners."

"But it does matter! I did... I am more in the right. I only killed one man."

"Gakupo didn't kill anyone." She turned around and started to walk to the door, but paused as she was going to pass it just to look back at him. "Let me give you some piece of advice out of the goodness of my heart, human. You need to stop thinking in terms of right or wrong. That only mattered when you were among humans because it's humans that came up with this system in the first place."

"That's ridiculous. Humans didn't invent heaven and hell. That proves that the notions of right and wrong matter."

"Oh yeah?" She turned to him fully, smirking like someone that knew they were in the right. "Then explain to me why there isn't a heaven and a hell for dogs?"

Kaito frowned and opened his mouth, but found no explanation.

"In the beginning," she continued, "God told us angels and demons to listen to you guys and do as you wished. You wanted those that wronged you to be punished, you dreamed of continuing as you were after your death, so we made it so for you. But we don't actually care about what you think is right and wrong. We are demons, we follow our impulses and decide what is fair according to what pleases us. We admire those that put on a great show and those that are stronger than us. We adore them! And we despise goody-two-shoes that think they are better than us, when in fact we all share the same longings. People like you make me sick, Kaito. It's the last time I will tolerate you telling me that you are better than mister Venomania. Understood?"

He didn't know what to say, so he simply nodded.

"Good," she continued. "You can keep looking through this room, by the way. Just don't break anything."

She left him there without expecting an answer.

When Gakupo came back, it was late in the afternoon. Kaito had drifted to sleep on his new bed but was awoken with a start when his tormentor's voice reached his dreams, only to realize that he wasn't even on the same floor as him.

He listened to the voices of the demons downstairs. Gakupo spoke the loudest, of course, crying out orders from his room to Anya or Arin, and sometimes Kaito could hear the muffled replies of the servants. The words, in his half-sleeping state, were jumbled and made no sense. He realized only after a while that they were all speaking Latin.

Not wanting to spend the entire day in bed, he stood up and tried to recall where was the point he left off in his book before he remembered that he had finished it - that was why he had allowed himself a nap in the first place. He smelled of sweat, so he went to the bathroom and managed to figure out how to make this shower machine work. He quickly understood why Arin would be upset if there was no more hot water for him: it was delightful.

He dried himself with a soft doe leather hide, that had been given to him after Arin had washed him, and got dressed again. He was done with all the human books now, and all that was left for him to read were the one that spoke of the demon world. He felt sad about it, as if he was shredding another shimmer of his old life. But he had nothing else to do.

He was surprised by Gakupo as he was going down the stairs.

They both stopped in their tracks and looked at each other, and Kaito couldn't help but stare at the courtesan.

He was breathtaking. His long hair was tied back in an intricate braid, his chest bare save for the array of gold necklaces that hung from the alabaster column of his neck, his face painted with brilliant colors. He also had gold bracelets on his arms and ankles, that clinked with each of his gracious movements. He wore pants that were tight at the crotch but loose around the calves. He looked like a harem flower straight out of an oriental painting, if there had been such things as male concubines for sultans.

Of course, Kaito's gawking certainly didn't slide pass Gakupo, that smirked and posed. "You like my outfit?" he asked, before turning around. His pants clung tightly to his backside and he hit it lightly as a taunt. "Of course you do. Sadly it's not for you."

Kaito turned bright red and ran away, chased down the stairs by Gakupo's laugh. He hid in the living room, on the couch, and waited for his heart to calm down. He was so stupid! He should have ignored the brute and walked past him!

Right when the danger of popping an erection seemed to have dissipated, there was a ring at the door.

"It's lord Araden, I'll get it!" cried Gakupo from upstairs. Kaito listened to the sound of the demon's bare feet as he rushed down the stairs and through the hallway without noticing him. The front door was opened - he even heard the distant rumor of the street at night. There was some talking in Latin.

Kaito laid down and listened to the distant conversation. He had no idea what was being said, but he could still pay attention to the tone of his tormentor's voice, how it mellowed out and danced enticingly. The accents of the unknown language made him even more exotic and alluring. Kaito could close his eyes and see him say those words, the image of him etched on his retina. No wonder he was so rich from sleeping with people, he was good at his job.

They moved through the hallway. There was the wet sound of kissing and heavy panting, then Gakupo said something in a teasing tone before they entered the room Kaito had visited earlier and their voices became muffled. Music from the strange machine came on.

Kaito sighed and rubbed his eyes. He was going insane. There was no other way he could explain how he was attracted to a man that despised him, controlled him and toyed with him. A nasty little voice whispered to him about indulging himself but he chased the Spider back to the darkest corner of his mind.

Anya found him there and brought him back to the kitchen to feed him, before telling him that she had some washing to do and left him there. Arin was nowhere in sight. The music waffled from the room, along with other sounds of passion, and Kaito had nothing to distract himself from it.

He should have known not to listen to his impulses after the last incident with the coat. Yet, when he saw that the door to the room was not entirely closed, that thin ray of light that cut through the dark hallway like a knife, he didn't think. He crept closer to look. He wasn't deceived.

One one of the couches, glorious in the light of the magical crystals on the ceiling, was Gakupo and his client, a demon with black skin and large bat wings. Kaito's tormentor was on top, bare, in his fully demonic form. Kaito blinked when he looked at lord Araden. The client's belly was full, but that wasn't grease for the rest of his figure was slender. What was that about?

Kaito couldn't tear himself away. After watching for a while, the spy reached down and adjusted his pants, vaguely aware that this arousal was supposed to be wrong and unable to bring himself to care.

Arin cleared his throat.

Kaito jumped so violently it was a miracle he didn't cry out. The butler stood on the stairs, his rapier at his hip, one brow raised, his hand in front of his mouth as in contemplation. Shame flooded Kaito as he quickly stepped back and looked at the ground.

Arin, seeing that the human wasn't going to move, came down to him, grabbed his arm and pulled him away. They ascended into the house in silence. Kaito wanted to tell that there was a misunderstanding, that he wasn't really looking into the room at them having sex, but came with no excuse that was good enough. He didn't even know why he had done it himself - or rather, he didn't want to admit it to himself.

The butler pushed him in his room and closed the door behind them.

"You are not to disturb the master as he is working," he said in a stern voice. "You already got your human smell all over the room this morning and Anya had to clean after you, don't you think you've caused him enough trouble like that?"

"Please don't tell him that you saw me," said Kaito.

Arin rose both of his brows and looked at him down his nose. "You've got guts to ask that from me, Kaito Shion. However, even if I did obey you, he already knows you lust after him."

"I don't like men," blurted Kaito as a reflex.

Unlike Gakupo, he saw Arin coming. He simply didn't have the fraction of the strength needed to stop him. The demon pressed him against his closet, chest against chest. Kaito gasped, his powerlessness getting to him.

"Say that again?" said Arin in his ear.

Kaito croaked and looked ahead. He was so deeply ashamed of how aroused the entire situation made him.

"I am so, so tempted to prove you wrong," said the demon. "You and your noble's way of walking around like you're so much better than anyone else... I'd make you my bitch. You don't deserve anything better than being a cum sock, you little brat." His hand stroked up Kaito's torso. "The only thing holding me back right now is that mister Venomania would be livid if he found out I took your virginity before he could."

Arin stepped away and Kaito's legs gave out from under him. He fell on his knees and looked up to the butler. He wanted... needed something. Arin's eyes were dark and full of lust when he looked down at him.

"Fuck you, Kaito Shion," he hissed. He whipped around and slammed the door behind him.

The abandoned human felt too hot between his legs and too cold everywhere else. His hands were shaking. For a second, he wished for someone to scoop him in their arms and tell him everything was going to be all right. He realized that he wanted them to be Gakupo and cursed himself under his breath. He hated them all, all the demons in hell, all the people that would know of him and do nothing to save him, but most of all he hated himself.