First Time Ever I saw Your Face (when Fergus met Lilith)
The first time ever, that Fergus MacLeod saw Lilith's face, he'd been hunched over using twisted strands of his own hair to thread a needle made of a sliver of bone, a bone which had come from his own foot.
He'd extricated said bone, painstakingly planed it down and sharpened it to a point by rubbing it over and over on the floor of his cell.
The agonising and grizzly task had been part of a desperate ploy, whereby he offered to make the rack-demon, tasked to torment him, a coat made using the only thing he had available. His own flayed skin, hair and bone.
He'd appealed to the rack-demon's vanity and ego, by offering it that unique trophy which would, he assured, make it the envy of all who saw.
Banked on the observation that as well as being materialistic, jellous creatures, demons as a whole were a lazy lot; and that few of the damned had landed themselves in Hell because of an excess of conscientiousness; himself included.
Demons were vainglorious, liked short cuts, and a soul willing to torment itself … Well, that cut out the need for the rack-demon to expend effort.
As he'd hoped, a deal like that was too good for the infernal creature to refuse.
So, as long as he was careful, the do-it-yourself torment, hurting and harming himself of his own violation, gave him a modicom of control, some kind of choice, and moments of something close to respite. Things he'd never have been afforded on the racks.
Perhaps a better man would have rebelled against doing something to benifit his tormenter, wouldn't have willingly mutilated and bartered himself in an effort to kowtow to a literal monster from Hell.
But, Fergus MacLeod was not a good, or better man.
He'd sold his eternal soul in a drunken pique, after some two bit whore had mocked the size of his todger.
Besides, he was no stranger to working for the enemy.
In life he'd been a Scottish tailor, who'd also been an informant, to the British redcoats.
He'd betrayed and sold the secrets of his own countrymen, for coin, without qualms; and shed no tears when his more patriotic country men had ended up dangling on the end of a hangman's rope, or imprisoned.
One of the men he'd sold out had been his own father-in-law. Father of his dead wife, doting grandfather to his only child. A patriotic, god fearing tailor, who'd taken Fergus in as a penniless orphan from the workhouse. Taught him a trade, and allowed him to marry and bed his only daughter.
He'd betrayed the kindness, of a man who had arguably treated him better than any of his own relatives, for coin; and to hurry along his inevitable inheritance of said father-in-law's business.
The way Fergus saw it, those life choices would have led him to Hell, regardless. So selling his soul for a handful of extra inches to his manhood; ensuring no poxy whore ever laughed at his Willy again. That was a deal he couldn't truly regret.
Not until he met Lilith.
Fergus was sat in his cell, doing his level best to create tiny even stitches, as his brutalised fingers cramped and ached endlessly from the task.
Holding that tacky, blood slicked fragment of bone, forcing it through his own flaccid, quivering flesh over and over again.
For all his scheming, Fergus still suffered.
The frustration and despair near crushed him every time he pulled too hard and made the flimsy strands of hair unravel or snap. Strung taut with dread, fearfully aware of the demon in the corner of his cell, perhaps ignoring him, perhaps not, as he stitched away.
Knowing his quasi-respite could end at any moment, and then he'd be back up on the rack.
Lilith must have been promenading through the pit, taking in the ambiance of the racks, looking for a new game to play; when she'd seen him at work, and paused.
Asked what he was doing in her sweet little girl voice.
He'd been in hell long enough, by that point, to be shocked by any attention not involving agony, and more than a little panicked by the sight of an unsupervised child loose in the bowels of Hell.
Glancing up furtively, he'd shushed the little blonde girl, who appeared blind, her eyes queer and milky looking.
Fearfully begged her to flee and hide elsewhere.
But, to his great alarm, the child had continued to ply him with questions, risked attracting the notice of the rack-demon.
Reluctantly, he'd been forced to try and explain his task, using vocal chords more accustomed to moans and shrieks of agony, than actual words.
Fergus might have been a thoroughly debased man, but at that point of his tenure in hell he'd still had enough humanity to want to spare a child from what a rack-demon would do to her if she were to be caught.
Barely daring to glance up at the child or pause his task, terrorfied of alerting the rack demon to the girls presence, he told her what he was doing and why.
Foolish Fergus, he'd felt a wane flicker of pride as he whispered his tale to the girl. Trying to sensor the worst horrors for her supposedly innocent ears. He'd explained how he'd talked his way down off the rack; by suggesting, that the garment would make his tormentor the envy of any other demon in that particular section of Hell. And how, by choosing to hurt himself, he'd garnered a small sliver of control and a few moments of respite for himself.
The girl, had laughed at his cleverness, clapping her small hands. Ignored all his warnings about the need for quiet and to avoid alerting the rack-demon, on pain of discovery and … pain.
The girls outburst alerted the rack-demon to the child's presence, just as he'd warned.
But to Fergus's shock, things hadn't proceeded as he expected.
The demon had near fainted in abject terror. Scrambled to it's feet and stood ramrod straight in front of the child; who merely giggled at it's aghast reaction and began skipping to and fro before it interrogating the creature.
The repellent thing had folded to the ground, and grovelled at the little girl's feet, snivelling. Replied to all her questions with the fearful simperings of a sycophant.
Meanwhile, he could only observe in dumbfounded bewilderment, feeling a dawning moment of traitorous hope.
Lilith, (for that was the name the rack demon kept repeating,) had been most interested in how he had managed to talk his way down off the rack. But also intrigued and delighted by the concept of a damned man willingly taking up the task of torturing himself.
In life, Fergus had been a masochist.
Before his death he wasn't truely cognoscente of the fact, nor the term itself; Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, the German novelist, was yet to be born when Fergus had lived and died, thus wouldn't originate the term for another 163 years.
Freud, Jung, Pavlov, Adler, and the whole concept of psychology, were likewise yet to suckle their mothers teat, when, Fergus, a failed Scottish tailor had carked it; days before he'd been scheduled to fall under a hellhound's teeth and claws. Instead, choking to death on his own drunken vomit, in the bottom of a frozen, muddy ditch, (just as his abdicated, witch bitch of a mother had once prophesied.)
In life Fergus MacLeod had been a man infinitely acquainted with self sabotage. After his formative years of abuse then abandonment by his mother, he'd turned his anger towards the world inwards. Gleaned a certain grim satisfaction, and justification from the resulting afflictions he wrought upon himself.
Yet, for all the inherent selfdefeat in his nature, he'd still, foolishly, entertained a hope that Lilith's enterance into the situation might signal some kind of miraculous reprieve.
The monsterous child, Lilith, soon dashed all such hopes, however; by demanding that Fergus modify the unfinished garment to fit her. Tailor the monstrosity made of his own skin and hair into a 'pretty' dress, adorned with a bow, created from the flayed skin of his own demon deal augmented manhood.
She insisted he flay the skin for the bow himself, while she watched. Using only the shoddy needle made of his own foot-bone, (Skinning his bone with his bone.) and basked in his horror, that a child would demand such a ghastly perverted thing.
It had taken him a long time to cede to her demands, and Lilith had just sat, watching him avidly with those queer milky eyes, for the whole endless eternity of his humiliation and agony, drinking it all up.
Later, he was never sure whether the agony, humiliation and horror were greater in performing the act, or being watched while doing so, by a child, who seemed to enjoy every bitten off moan and shudder he emitted. Her little rosebud mouth curved up into a salacious smile, tiny hands clapping in glee; evidently excited by his agonised screams and stinging torrents of tears. While he slowly, painstakingly peeled that soft, fragile skin for her ghastly bow.
When finally, the dress was done, Lilith donned it's suppurating, flaccid folds, and twirled on the spot in evident delight, letting loose peels of silvery childlike laughter.
Then, she'd flung herself into his flayed arms, ignoring his bitten off curses of pain. To wrap him in a bone crushing embrace and declaring the dress to be her. "Very favouritist thing in the whole wide world," and showered his raw, bloody cheeks with biting little kisses; in a sick parody of childlike exuberance.
He learned later that Lilith had never been a child; baring that she was Lucifer's first born, and liked to play at the role of being Daddies little girl.
She'd been a full grown woman, when Lucifer turned her into the first of his demonic children.
Her child-meatsuit that day, had been just another pretty dress for her to play in.
She revelled in the depravity of appearing as something small, vulnerable and innocent looking as a child. Claimed the juxtaposition between actuality and expectations enhanced the savor of her atrocities.
Lilith had honed her mastery of psychological torture long before man had conceived of creating such words.
He'd learned all that later on, in bits and pieces, from a procession of rack-demons that came to pound, cut upon and flay his soul lose from his mangled spirit.
After that one chance encounter, Lilith developed a minor interest in him.
She came back to play with him again and again, over his endless blood soaked tenure on the rack.
Later, after he had graduated into demonhood, he learned Lilith had earmarked him as hers that first day, to be trained and diverted towards the crossroads.
