Part 4
Break Me Gently

Bilariel

Even as I stand here with tears running down my cheeks, I can barely believe it. She left me, she actually left me and I love her anyway. I want to run after her and beg her to stay. I want her to let me comfort her even now as she scolds herself for what she has done to me. Because she did it on purpose. She broke my heart on purpose.

Aimee was my lover and she was beautiful. Maybe not by your standards but by mine she was perfect. She had pale skin, lively blue eyes, and reddish brown hair that fell just past her shoulder blades. Beautiful.

All she needed was a little love and kindness. Just a little encouragement and someone who understood her.

She was one of those girls that was never popular in school and had never wanted to be in that defiantly brave way that teenagers develop to protect themselves. It hadn't helped that her father had left her mother before she was born. And it hadn't helped that she would always be a little weird by society's standards. But she grew into a lovely woman all the same.

When I found her, she had been single for a long time. Alone and struggling to be as comfortable with herself as her mother had always been all those years that she had raised Aimee on her own. But she wasn't succeeding.

And then I showed up and showered her with love and attention. I told her that I adored her and I patiently accepted her outbursts of fear and self-doubt. I took all she had to give and I gave my love in return. I knew her, I understood her, and I loved her.

But in the end it wasn't enough. In the end, she punished me for the sins of all the men that came before. And I didn't even get a chance to tell her my secret.

I should have expected this. I should have known. But it is hard to see clearly when you are consumed with love and compassion.

My name is Bilarel but you can call me Bill. Everyone does. It's an angelic joke actually because I don't look anything like a Bill or any other human name. I'm just a Bilarel. But I'm from one of the lower choirs and so teasing is one of the things I just have to put up with in Hell.

Getting pushed around is another lovely benefit of being a subordinate fallen angel. And by getting pushed around, I mean being the incorporeal punching bag for any fallen angel strong enough and anguished enough to use me for release. So I have always jumped at the chance to get out and cause a little mischief of my own.

And so it was that I followed Lucifer to your world one average afternoon looking to get in on some wicked plan of his or perhaps get some leverage over him, some protection. Instead I found myself again and at first I didn't know whether that was a good thing or a bad thing but now…

I'll start at the beginning, shall I?

Lucifer, El Capitan, the Head Honcho, the Big Cheese is secretly seeing a woman. And not in a why-don't-you-sell-your-soul-to-the-Devil kind of way. He's. . . well, they are lovers. Very kinky lovers. I won't get into the details but I will say that I would never have suspected that after all the torture he has meted out over the centuries that he would ever allow someone to - oh, I can't even put it into words!

I'm very squeamish. I've never been good at the physical stuff. I'm more of a finesse guy myself.

But on that afternoon, I followed him to a typical house in California. I watched him knock on the door and be let in. I watched an ordinary looking woman take him to her bedroom. And then I watched her hurt him and he did nothing to defend himself. He relaxed in his bonds as if the restraint were comforting and his body welcomed every sensation instead of going taut in defiance. He was not the Lord of Hell there. He was something else entirely.

And afterwards, he was so gentle with her. The contrast between what he did to her, the soft caresses and tender kisses, and the violence she had visited on his body was breathtaking. It was beautiful. He made it worship.

Leave it to Lucifer to find a way to worship again that is so bizarre! It was a pale shadow to what occurs in Heaven and it was completely blasphemous but I recognized it for what it was.

And as I watched their bodies moving together something changed inside of me. My heart swelled and something in my mind that had been clenched tight suddenly loosened. All at once, I felt in my very being why he was keeping this woman hidden from us. My little gift had come roaring through me like a freight train. I haven't felt empathy in a way that was not perverted by malice in a very long time.

Lucifer had convinced himself that we would laugh if we found out, that we would think less of him, but I knew that if he would just show us we would stand in awe. And we would understand. He had forgotten that we all know him. He used to call us all to worship before he whipped us into states of frenzied hatred and let us loose on the world. So, yes, we would understand why he sought this piece of home even if we had never understood how he had been capable of existing as he had in Heaven.

Lucifer used to be Love's Surrender. He used to stand before the throne and gaze with unshielded eyes at the glory of God. He let it consume him. He let it possess him. And those of us behind him were touched by the shards of light that burst out from around him. Those rays of glory bathed us in a gentler form of God's love. They gave us each a specific purpose as the myriad blessings of the Lord infused us. These purposes only became clear to us after your world was created but by then it was too late for those of us who had followed Lucifer's example.

He fell and us with him. He became Hate's Vengeance

I was Kind Compassion before I was twisted into Cruel Indifference. I am the selfishness that makes you care only for yourself. Especially when someone really needs you.

I continued to watch them and I saw Lucifer tuck his lover's sated body close to his and mold himself against her. He wrapped himself around her and then he just lay there holding her as if she were a treasure beyond words and he were not the fiendish and unrepentant Devil we all know and fear.

As this tender scene played out before me, I felt a new emotion emanating from Lucifer. It was then that it began to dawn on me that she was what had made Lucifer a royal pain in the ass for the last few months. More than anything, more than any concern that we might chuckle at him, he was afraid.

By some strange miracle, she is exactly what he needs. Their love play is not a game to her. She does not dream up imaginary offenses in order to punish him and she does not give him tasks to fail at so that she can discipline him. She does what she wants with him because he is hers. He belongs to her and she allows him to feel her unhappiness just as intimately as she shares her joy with him in bed. Some part of her understands that this experience fulfills him. And that the surrender that he gives needs no reason. Reason would ruin it.

But will she understand when he tells her what he is?

And he must try, I knew that for certain almost immediately. He is consumed and conflicted by a desire to give her what he is, what he really is. Completely. To end his existence as a creature of pain and rage, he could lay himself at her feet and let her voice command him.

As strange as that may sound, it makes perfect sense if you are a fallen angel. If you have gifts but no purpose. If you have love but no one to give it to. That is our torment. That is our curse.

And so Lucifer yearns. He yearns because he had never abandoned all hope. But now that he has been presented with a way to stop the pain, fear grips him. Fear of rejection, fear that she will not understand, fear of losing even the small piece of love that he has found.

And he is right to fear.

I don't know what she will do if he tells what he is her but not telling her is having severe effects in the spiritual realm as well as his heart. The time he has to spend away from her was tearing him apart. He has begun to rage in Hell with an unholy fury that frightens even his most loyal lieutenants. Slinking around has been come our new past time because if he notices you . . .

He cannot destroy us but he can make us wish we no longer existed. Then he sends us out into the world to ease our pain by corrupting you. And he watches us and laughs. It is a laugh that would send chills up your spine. It is the sound of insanity. And that's not a good thing for anybody.

So, I had to tell him. My purpose, my newly rediscovered reason for being demanded that I show him the path that would ease his suffering.

When I went before Lucifer and confessed that I had followed him and told him what I had seen, I thought that he would hurt me. The naked rage in his eyes threatened a depth of pain that you cannot imagine. I shuddered and watched him fight the urge to throttle me.

"How dare you!" he whispered, breathless with rage, trembling to hold himself back. He showed a lot of restraint for someone so used to acting without remorse or fear of retribution.

I was in the middle of wondering why he had not immediately punished me for my insolence when I felt his internal struggle change. It was no longer about me. Mentioning his lover there in Hell, that had been a terrible a mistake. I should have realized before but I hadn't. In our realm of pain and torment, there were times when he wanted to hurt her, he wanted to squash the person who made existing here so much more painful, he wanted to lash out and destroy the source of his conflict. But he fought himself because he knew, some were deep inside, that he loved her.

"You have to tell her!" I blurted out. It is never a good idea to tell Lucifer what to do but I was being ridden hard by the foolish need to exercise compassion. Compassion was my gift and was also soon to be my downfall.

Lucifer's trembling stopped and he froze. His eyes glazed over and then unexpectedly he opened his mouth and sang in that lovely voice of his:

"… Like a pawn on the eternal board

Who's never quite sure what he's moved towards…"

I knew that song. It is a good song, a beautiful song. It is about a man abandoning himself to the pain of love. A man knowing that he will be hurt again and again and yet he will not stop pursing it.

Those poignant words hung in the air between us and I just stood there staring at him for what seemed like hours. He sat on his self-made throne and looked at nothing. Then, as quickly as his rage had stopped, he refocused his eyes on me and gave me a wickedly conspiratorial grin.

"Do you know what you are going to do for me, little angel?"

I shook my head and he chuckled, a deep rumbling sound that was both fatherly and menacing.

"You are going to go out into that big, wide world and you are going to find a lover of your own. You are going to court her and get attached to her and then, my dear, you are going to tell her, do you understand? You are the guinea pig, you are my scientific experiment, and if she accepts you, if she forgives you your sins, then I will consider it, but until then, my boy, my relationship is confidential."

I nodded furiously. It was crazy, sure, but what was I going to do about it. I had my orders and to disobey. . .

But I didn't move to leave so Lucifer rolled his eyes at me, at my fear of him, at my continued presence and then another unwelcome comment burst forth from my lips.

"You welcome the pain. You embrace it. Like when you stood before the throne in Heaven. How can you do that?"

I really thought that this time he would rip me to pieces but instead he leaned forward, put his lips to my ear and whispered, "God never gives you more than you can handle."

Those words still haunt me. Those words of trust and acceptance. Believing something like that can break you. I know because I watched it break Lucifer all those years ago. Being cast out of Heaven was the one thing he could not accept. It was the one thing he could not endure in trusting patience. It was the incomprehensible anguish of his loss that twisted him, that turned him into the Devil. It was not pride.

But Lucifer has held on to a glimmer of hope all of this time and he is beginning to believe again. Unfortunately, I was the one who was about to put this delicate hope to the test.

And so I went out into the world and did as I was told. But now I have failed. Aimee has left me and I have to go back to Lucifer and tell him. He will see that I am heartbroken and I can only hope that he will laugh. Because if he doesn't find my pain amusing, he will recognize in me the despair he will feel if he is rejected.

And if hate loses all hope, we will all feel his vengeance.

A/N: The song Lucifer sings is "The Bottom Line" by Depeche Mode.

I have decided to update this story so please stay tuned!