My Grandmother told a tale about the devil in disguise. He loved to dance with beautiful women at parties and his true darkness was masked by his charismatic lure. No one ever looked down at his hooves because his gaze was hypnotic. His eyes looped like the cycle of birth and death. The chemistry between Satan and the woman became so noxiously intoxicating that even if she knew his truth, she wouldn't pull away. Her primitive animal instincts were silenced, after all, he was a great dancer.

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I am a five-foot-tall brunette in Doc Martens, and he was drunk again. He is 6 '3 and I swear the sun didn't exist until I met him, and I wasn't born until he saw me. I wasn't born until he looked at me. After that first glance, I understood why domesticated dogs howl at a moon that does recognize them. It was the yearning. It was a Friday night and I found myself in a restroom stall covered with an obscene amount of faded vinyl stickers. I looked down at my pantyhose, they had a tear. The sink didn't have any soap but instead a bottle of hand sanitizer that smelled just like tequila, or maybe I smelled like tequila. I didn't think the swap was very fair either way. Bathroom mirrors always have the worst graffiti etched into them. Anything to blur my reflection.

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When I returned to him, he probably had three shots of Rumpz while I was in the stall. I blamed myself for being gone just a little too long. He smiled at me. With one smile he was forgiven. One smile always covered a multitude of sins. His wicked charm had me in a state of frantic dependency. The rising cortisol levels had me bouncing like a red rubber ball on its wooden paddle. The hit pushed me away, only to feel myself getting pulled back at an even quicker speed. I was on a string. It wasn't like being a marionette, it was like a staple keeping me from launching into oblivion. But, not tonight. I could make tonight a good night.  

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Everything appeared glistening, everyone loved us together. I lost my fingers in his curls as my lips blossomed in his. The shitty bar was playing Interpol. He loved to pull me to his chest and sing to me. I would cover my face to hide my beam. I lived on his lap and in his denim jacket. We always closed out the bar and around this hour I would always notice the light leave his eyes. When we got in the car, I tried to hold his hand. He pulled away like I had something infectious. I noticed caked powder in his right nostril and said nothing. It wasn't worth it tonight. The car was silent, and I just stared down at my boots. I couldn't look at my phone because I knew he would just throw it out the window. I saw a smashed skunk on the side of the highway, I couldn't utter a word. The white lines ran on infinitely.

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When we got back to our dimly lit apartment, he went on a drunken rant about why my mother never hugged me. I was unlovable, he said. I loved the attention. I stared at an old cardboard pizza box, and he grabbed both sides of my arms until they turned blue. I was lifted to eye level, to make sure I couldn't escape his stare. Then he dropped me like I was covered in hot tin foil. I held myself in a fetal position and didn't register the stiff kick to the middle of my back until it was over. I was a master of floating elsewhere.

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The worst part was that he never remembered anything in the morning. That's what he used to say at least. It was my own personal altercation with a ghost. Maybe, I wasn't really there either. After a few hours I noticed soft blue light entering through warped window blinds. I laid on cheap ceramic tile and remembered my grandmother's tale. At that moment, I realized that maybe we didn’t know we’d danced with the devil until after the fact. You can always see their hooves from the ground.