Life was good, damn good.
Six months ago, he was on academic probation, struggling in every class, a social loser living in dump that could have been called a flop house in the thirties when it was new and spiffy.
Today it was little more than a bed bug breeder and every tenant knew the sorry electrical wiring might mean they return after class only to learn the whole place burned down.
His former neighbors were stuck there but he was moving out.
He was moving on.
Osmosis: Learning Doesn't Have To Be Hard.
That's what the business card he found in a study cubicle in the library basement said.
Osmosis: Learning Doesn't Have To Be Hard.
He called the number on the card -- mainly because he had no other options.
A man answered. A man with a deep, velvety voice. He explained he had an office on the opposite side of campus, behind his home.
Ben attempted to raise the issue of cost but the man dismissed him.
The way Ginger, the hot redhead, had dismissed him.
Now he was headed off to a condo, his condo.
Life had gotten better.
And it really wasn't that hard.
Not hard at all.
Like the card said.
Osmoso was a man whose skin the sun seemed never to have touched.
A man whose deep set, blue-black eyes grabbed you, pulled you in, commanded you.
Payment?
Riches would flow to Ben.
And he didn't have to open his wallet.
It was that way at the new condo too. No sooner had he carried his belongings into the unfurnished space then couches, chairs, all the necessary items began to show up.
And Ben showered and shaved then sauntered into the bedroom sleek and wet wearing a towel.
He gave his newly muscled bod a lingering once over in the full-length mirror as he spiked the hair on his head with hair product. Then gave a look of dismay.
Osmoso lounged across the water bed, studying his protege.
He raised an eyebrow in question as Ben looked at him via the mirror.
"Thing is," Ben explained, "Ginger said all of her other boyfriends had chest hair."
Osmoso twitched his lips and a forest of hair fanned out across Ben's previously smooth pecs.
"Nice," nodded Ben as he tugged on a few strands while staring at his chest in the mirror.
Osmoso made things happen.
Like the tutoring.
It was so easy.
Sitting across from Osmoso, Ben had just suddenly known things, suddenly understood courses which had previously confused him.
And the cost?
There was no negotiation, no figures dickered over.
Ben just suddenly knew the man wanted to hear "yes."
Yes, for everything.
Yes, to everything.
In exchange for what he wanted, yes, he would give up something as unnecessary and unneeded as a soul.
"I will have what I want."
That is the reply Ben felt after he gave Osmoso his "yes."
"Yes," Ben had thought, "I will have what I want."
And he did.
He was acing classes, he was left a condo by a stranger he'd never met, his old boss had not only accepted his resignation but given him the Lotos Sport as a going away gift.
And Ginger?
Just as he'd sprouted hair across his chest today, he'd sprouted four inches earlier because he knew Ginger loved tall men and his sunken chest and thin arms had swelled and swollen leaving him big and beefy.
"You're so good to me," Ginger said, taking the flowers from Ben and kissing him on the cheek.
"Why are you so good to me?" she wondered.
Ben just laughed.
A deep throaty laugh.
And, thanks to the gifts of Osmoso, this counted as foreplay.
They were quickly on her bed.
He was in her, pumping away, sweat soaking their bodies, moans filling the room, her fingernails scratching his down his back, up his butt cheeks.
He was so close . . .
He grabbed her face with both hands and planted a kiss.
His hands slid down the sides of her face to her neck.
He began choking.
She looked startled.
He felt a chill running down his spine.
His hands tightened around her neck.
He shook his head "no" and tried to pull his hands away.
He couldn't.
Ginger was making choking sounds and beating her hands against him.
His grip just tightened
"No!" Ben screamed as he was unable to stop choking and as Ginger's eyes bulged.
He kept screaming.
While she died.
After she died.
When the police arrived, after a disturbing the peace call over the noisy screaming, Ben was found still naked, still on top of her and his hands still gripped around Ginger's neck.
They told him to remove his hands.
He said he couldn't.
Between the two of them, the officers pulled him off Ginger.
He was tossed his pair of boxers, he was put in cuffs, he was put in the back of the car, he was finger printed and had his mug shot only to then be tossed in a cell.
He'd kept screaming "no" throughout most of it.
Finally, the "no" became a whispered cry.
Then there was nothing but silence.
Around four in the morning, outside his cell, Osmoso appeared.
Osmoso was here!
Osmoso would fix everything.
The way he always did.
"I will have what I want."
Ben knew that. He'd heard it. And now, thanks to Osmoso, Ben would have what he wanted and what he wanted most of all was to be free.
"Free to do what?" Osmoso asked him, eyes twinkling. "Free to leave? For you will leave."
Ben felt confused which only made a grin spread across Osmoso's face. As the lips twitched, Ben saw the bars on the cell wiggle and then vanish.
He wanted to step out, to step to freedom. But he was immobilized, unable to move his feet or any other part of his body.
His eyes were locked with Osmoso's eyes.
"Did you think you got all you wanted because you deserved it?" Osmoso asked in a mocking voice. "Because you were special? You got what you wanted because I wanted it."
Osmoso's eyes began to glow and an orange glint appeared in the corners.
Black wings sprouted on Osmoso's shoulders.
"I am the demon who feeds on the euphoria of dreams and desires."
Already stunned by Osmoso sprouting wings, Ben gasped as Osmoso's hands became claws.
"You were so close to all you wanted and the rush was to be mine."
The middle finger -- or what would have been fingers -- the middle claw on each of Osmoso's hands had a pronounced dagger-like claw.
Ben tried to scream, tried to force a scream.
But no sound would come forth.
Osmoso claws came closer.
"When you heard 'I will have what I want,' you heard me, not yourself."
Osmoso's claws began ripping into Ben's chest, tearing off first the hairy skin, then removing organs.
Two hours later, a guard would pass by Ben's cell and discover what appeared to be a de-boned carcass rotting on the floor.
