Mania and the Hopeful Celestial

Mania walks down a metal staircase from a metropolitan apartment complex. She takes a gold-color electronic cigarette from her purse and inhales deeply, and she reexamines the contract for her latest client. It doesn't taste like any fucking fruit to her, but this kind of product of nicotine hasn't completely worn off effectiveness on her yet. It would soon.

She tears through the contract with her fingernails. Four robot vacuum cleaners the size and shape of hockey pucks swarm in to suck in the pieces on the sidewalk. All but one then immediately disperse: Mania put her heel on it.

Maddie fades into existence in a soft glow of light a few feet away from Mania, standing in the street on her left.

"Seems a bit rude to take out your anger on a cleaner. What's got you so worked up? Did you mess up a contract?"

The angel walks up to her, watching the robots flee with the collected scraps of paper.

"I don't mess up," She says. She wiggles the vape, offering it for the angel. She's frowning. "No, it's nothing. This lady got her just desserts. Let's go to my office."

She steps away, and the vacuum she trapped leaves too. A fine mist leads into a pelting rain in a matter of seconds, and Mania in her drenched suit looks at Maddie expectantly.

Maddie follows, taking a hit of the vape. She barely feels any effects of it due to her angelic nature, but she entertains Mania and does it out of politeness rather than desire.

"Who are you screwing over this time? This isn't going to end like that poor man who fell into a sawmill, right? That was a bit grisly. I had to reach in and pull out his soul."

Maddie manifests an umbrella, the top looking like Jeremy's crystalline eye. She holds it over herself and the demon, keeping them dry.

She stashes the device away. She stays in arm's length from Maddie under the umbrella.

"Ms. Edith. She was unusually hopeless. I didn't bother to give her wealth directly. I knew she'd squander it before she even felt the consequences. I didn't feel like changing her pathetic little attitude either. So, when I showed up to her call, I altered things so that she married one of my already wealthy, bastard clients. That would have been enough misery for her greed."

"That's unusually cruel for you, isn't it. Forced marriages were globally outlawed almost 50 years ago by this point!"

Despite this, Maddie gives Mania a peck on the cheek, a habit she had started recently.

"Sorry it's not going well. Actually I'm... not sorry? I'm supposed to be stopping you from doing well in that regard. But it's nice to see you! What exactly is so bad about this though. Seems fairly average for you."

"She agreed to the marriage in the contract's fine print. Anyway, though, I underestimated Paulo. Asshole doesn't keep his damn hands off of her. He's threatened her with more than just his finances."

She closes her eyes.

"It's pretty much average, yes... I just didn't expect it. You don't have to be sorry—I don't really care, Maddie. You've barely ever stopped me, either."

"Oh come on. We both know the fine print is unknowable bullshit. And I know you know I'm not allowed to just go and vaporize the man. You're just... oddly worked up about this. It's not like you. You never feel bad for your victims."

She wraps an arm around Mania's shoulder, trying to calm her down.

She politely slips away from her arm.

"I don't feel fucking bad for her. She was worthless, and now she's—well, punished for her wants without any real work ethic. I just was surprised. Can't I be surprised?"

She furrows her eyebrows and avoids looking at Maddie's divine gaze. Mania's aura flickers as it did a long time ago.

Maddie gives her a quizzical stare.

"What were you possibly surprised by? You wrote the contract to ruin her life, and it did. It went exactly as expected. I think you feel bad about this, don't you..."

Maddie notices the aura flicker and, for a moment, sees Mania for who she really was—in her divine sight, for a fleeting moment. Or possibly who she still is. A scared human woman, terrified at losing the things she had worked so hard to gain, gone mad with fear and her own success. Then the demon is back, with only traces of humanity. Perhaps Maddie simply was seeing what she had wanted to see.

Mania stops walking, and she grabs the umbrella handle. They're sort of holding hands.

"Just teleport me to my office. I'm in a bad mood, twat. Everyone has those days."

Mania has been enjoying Maddie's little blue officewear even if little else between them is in common. She's been toying with granting Maddie some kind of position in her company's hierarchy—one impossible to fuck up. The demon huffs her vape again.

"There's been rumors in Hell that human suffering reached a new low. I'd be willing to wager your working hours are fucking measly lately."

"Isn't it wonderful! Humans are going so far, I'm extremely proud of them. World hunger looks like it'll be solved in the next fifty years! It's been great to not have to bring hundreds of dead children per day. World peace has been great."

Maddie shifts her hand on the umbrella handle to put it over Mania's, enjoying the feeling of her warm skin.

"My hours have been lower, I suppose from a human standpoint. Not really an issue because there aren't wages or anything. You just get whatever you need and want, after all. It gives me more time to spend with you!"

With that, Maddie gives Mania a quick peck on the cheek.

It'll be too easy to usher the strange angel into answering phone calls as a secretary, Mania decides. And a simple gesture would always guide her to Mania's bedroom for the duty not written in ink. So, Mania digs into her purse for her usual enchanted materials. And she shows her a new contract. The text is stable, legible, and boring.

"All this human progress is really hurting our big industries, to spoil you on the fucking truth, but I digress. Allow me to offer you something charitable for a change—an opportunity for further work. I'll be your boss. Do you have any questions for me?"

Maddie glances over it, noting the honesty and lack of tricks. She chuckles, then takes it from her.

"Sure, why not. It's a nice excuse to spend more time with you. You don't need to pay me or anything, by the way. Well, maybe pay me with a kiss every now and then."

She signs the contract, putting a little smiley face cat next to her signature, and passes it back to Mania.

"That's great. I was already planning to rely on your fine interest in me instead of financial compensation. I'm not paying those damn imps either, as you're aware."

She laughs in her obnoxious, endearing way. The contract slides into her black binder, and they continue after all into the nearest elevator. The digital prompts on the control screen are overridden by Mania's touch, instead replaced by a red error message and their familiar plummet into Hell. She smiles oddly. She's pleased like someone would be after meditation, not in the way a vigilante is from successfully robbing a bank.

Maddie steps out of the elevator and then takes a seat on the couch. She gives one of the imps a smile and a small wave, and in return they scowl and scurry away.

"So, what are you even going to work on now? You seem to still be getting quite a few clients nowadays. I can help you say hi to one if you like!"

Maddie smiles at her cheerfully, knowing that the last thing the demon wants is for Maddie to ruin her chances at tricking someone into taking a bad deal.

Mania grabs the end of Maddie's tail and plucks it from the cushions. She points at her desk on the ceiling, stuffed in its square of a cubicle.

"Quite funny to envision in our imaginations, but no. You'll just answer office phone calls, the email, and the fax machine while I'm away from Ulterior Inc. for my business appointments. Sort the important requests for me. Do you think you can handle that, or is the virtuous little voice in your head going to disrupt things?"

Mania presses two fingernails into Maddie's forehead.

Maddie lets out a surprised meow when her tail is yanked, jumping up a little.

"But it's on the ceiling! How am I supposed to help you up there? All of the blood will rush to my head!

Maddie feigns panic and then gives a playful smile as she flips herself upside down and attaches to the ceiling.

"I'm sure it'll be fine. After all, helping you out is bringing you closer to salvation! Where do you want me to sit? Should I just use yours?"

"Yeah, whatever. Maybe someday I'll retire at this desk and let polite and pretty grunts like you do all the dirty work for me. That's salvation right there."

Mania puts her middle finger between her own lips, and then she sits on her office chair beside Maddie. She pats on the top of the catgirl's head. She then pushes it lower, forcing Maddie to bend over and sit on her knees.

"It's that time again. I want you under the damn desk. Prove you're good at taking some orders from me."

In a needlessly overkill display of her power, Maddie appears next to Mania in a flash of golden light. She gives Mania a quick smooch on the cheek and then teleports back under the desk, wearing a significantly more revealing outfit now.

"Oh, I was waiting for you to get desperate again. I looked at some human outfits and thought this one was cute. Do you like the cat shaped window in the bra?"

Maddie smiles at her, her double-ended tail wagging in anticipation as she looks up at the demon.

--------------------

Mania lies beside Maddie on the mattress on her private bedroom floor. She sips from an expensive, artificially barrel-aged whiskey in a slim glass. And the television is showing something they have seen nine times already from the primitive age of subscription streaming services.

"Have you been keeping track of what time it is again, or is it time you order yourself a stupid paper planner?"

She pats Maddie's head.

Maddie lays her head into Mania's lap, eyes half closed. She purrs softly at the pats, enjoying the cuddling.

"I'm sure I have some time right now. I think you're worrying too much. I have it all planned out, anyways. I haven't missed a day of work since two weeks after I manifested."

"What the Hell happened two weeks after that? There's no chance you felt like fucking slacking off that day."

Her eyes pierce through the back of Maddie's head. She reaches for her phone and closes the message from a prospective client. Then, she digs her nails into Maddie's neck.

"I got you something, secretary. What I was trying to tell you is that it's been almost two hundred years since you unkindly forced yourself into my afterlife. That's this year. I checked."

"Oh, did you bake me a cake? I like cake."

Maddie's tail wags, thumping against the mattress as she stares at Mania expectantly.

"It's like our anniversary! Do you want a kiss?"

"No. The abandoned break room does not count as a kitchen just because it has a microwave, idiot."

Mania slips from the bed and opens a seldom-used closet. She takes from it a six-pack of silver cans, and she returns to Maddie.

"Just bought these cheap-ass hard seltzers for you while shopping for my own liquor. Against my better judgment. They were on a sale, and I—thought I should?"

She shrugs. "You kiss me an awful lot, Maddie. I get it, I'm sexy."

Maddie looks at the cans with slight concern.

"Well, alcohol doesn't usually work for me. Come to think of it, I've never had any outside of Heaven. I don't know if it's suppressed by heaven or by the fact that I'm an angel. Guess now is the time to find out!"

Before Mania can hand her a can, Maddie gives her a deep kiss and then pulls away smiling.

"Happy anniversary! I'll get you out of here soon enough."

"I sincerely doubt you'd be allowed to have any fun with mortal drugs. Although sex, on the other hand, has been considered a kind of drug by some great thinkers, some real philosophers. What do I know?"

She returns the smile and snaps the can off from the biodegradable, sea-life friendly, membrane rings.

"Drink and shut up, little angel. We're so privileged here. Don't you like working with the wealthiest person of all history? I'm nothing without my company, I already told you. Just a poor little woman from 1813."

Maddie takes a can and pops it open. She takes a couple sips.

"Why do you even run the company still? It's not like you're actually making money or anything. You're actually accomplishing nothing by working! You're pretty much failing at running a business while benefitting the higher-ups of Hell by causing more suffering."

She takes another sip, although it looks like she's only drinking out of politeness.

"Without the company, you aren't nothing! For starters, you're my friend! That means something, right?"

Maddie smiles at her from over the can, tail waving gently.

Mania swigs from her slim glass of whiskey. She wants it to do anything for her, but it doesn't.

"This business is the business of mortal suffering. That's what makes the damn money. I'm rewarded for my commitment with riches apparently beyond your comprehension—and I'm my own boss. Fuck these other higher ups. I do my job, and it's like they don't even exist! Imagine that, a woman with a big man's company and a big man's salary and a big man's fucking respect."

She tosses her empty glass aside and does jazz hands. She soon sits her chin on her palm and watches the television flicker. The fiber optics couldn't prevent new problems from emerging.

"Maddie. What I'm getting at is that I have a lot to lose and that I've been working hard to prevent that. Let's just be friends without tacking on a bankruptcy, yeah?"

"Who are you even getting the respect of? No one in the mortal world knows about you. To them you're just some lady who died in the 1800s. The demons clearly don't respect you much or you'd have a higher position in the operations of hell."

Maddie finishes her glass and fidgets with the television a bit, and the flickering stops.

"It's the worst mistake the Demons of Fate make, not appointing me to their status."

She places an arm across Maddie's lower back.

"I know my clients and the other demons hate me. I don't fucking care. I love me. That's an image I enjoy and respect—mine! Isn't self-love one of the virtues?"

She grabs the angel's thigh.

Maddie blushes a bit when Mania starts touching her.

"You seem to be loving a bit more than just yourself right now, dear. Do you want to do it right now..? I don't mind..."

She lowers herself onto the bed, the TV once again flickering in the background. It hadn't started working any better since moving it to the bedroom, either. She lies down, unbuttoning her blouse as Mania continues to touch her.

"I'm not horny now, no. I'm just running my hands on you and seeing you squirm like a little, white roach under my damn self."

She clambers over her chest and then squeezes her skin again in two places. She glides her nails along the surface. Her knees press against Maddie's calves.

"Look who respects me."

Maddie's blush intensifies, her face turning bright red.

"You want me to squirm? Wh-why... and I do respect you, as a partner. Just because you've done some awful things doesn't mean you aren't a person, and I respect you a lot..."

She whimpers a bit as Mania touches across her body, trembling slightly. However, she enjoys every moment of this.