Maybe I should’ve felt nervous going into a basement with him, but I just… didn’t. His vibe was completely non-threatening—dorky and shy and seemingly lacking the dominant trait that was rumoured to exist in all demiurgus. But then again, I’d had a pretty sheltered life, all things considered. Maybe I wasn’t as good at reading people as I thought I was.
Still, I was already in his house. It wasn’t like the basement was technically any more of a threat than the rest of the place. I followed him down and stopped at the bottom of the stairs when I realised the basement had been converted into a home gym. There was a stationary bike, treadmill and weight bench, with a set of dumbbells stacked neatly in their holder. A big TV dominated one wall, which all the equipment faced. My mouth twitched.
“You’re free to use it whenever you want,” Greid told me, crossing his arms and looking at the room with disinterest. “I used to work out a lot more, but”—he shrugged—“can’t be bothered much anymore.”
I chuckled, glancing at his long, lanky frame. “Well, you seem to still be in pretty good shape,” I said cheerfully, aiming for a platonic, friendly tone and not one that would make him feel uncomfortable.
He grunted. “Super high metabolism. A demiurgus thing.”
“I’ll probably use it,” I said, back to admiring the high-spec equipment. “I sometimes ducked out of our mandatory daily exercise sessions at the compound, but I like working out fairly often.”
I also liked food, and used to sneak a lot of snacks into my room, which was why I wasn’t as svelte or slim as all the others in the cult. But I was healthy—almost irritatingly healthy thanks to the cult’s strict diet—and I loved my body. It was soft and comfortable and mine. I liked my soft belly and wide hips. Life was far too fucking short to deny yourself things for the sake of someone else’s warped, singular idea of beauty.
Besides, it was no one’s fucking business what I looked like but my own. Aunt Violet had drilled that into me when I was a teenager, after one of the cult members made a sly comment about my “healthy appetite”. It was one of the few times I could remember seeing my aunt get truly angry. She’d yelled at the member, told me I was perfect, and had been tense and nervous in the days that followed, like she’d been waiting for the high priest to kick us both out.
“Well, you’ll get more use out of it than I do these days.” Greid turned for the stairs, so I followed him back up and out of the narrow corridor to the main hallway.
From there, he led me into the kitchen, which was as dark and cluttered as the rest of what I’d seen, but he flicked on the spotlights to illuminate the gleaming black marble countertops and copper fixtures. A huge silver fridge-freezer hummed in the corner, and a big butcher’s block dominated the centre of the space, the chopping board on its surface pitted with knife cuts.
Off the kitchen was the laundry room and a tiny downstairs bathroom. After Greid dutifully showed me both, we crossed the hall to the living room, which I immediately fell in love with. It was dark and cosy and full of interesting stuff, with a huge squishy sofa covered in blankets directly opposite an enormous wall-mounted flat-screen TV. The guy really loved his TVs.
A stained-glass window—slightly larger than some of the others—sent splashes of colour across the dark wooden floors and faded rug. Tucked right in the corner was some kind of enclosure. It looked like a little cubby, the entrance covered by a heavy burgundy curtain.
Before I could ask what it was, Greid cleared his throat and said, “Sorry, I meant to put some lamps in here yesterday but I, uh… I got distracted.”
“It’s okay.” I shrugged. “If you don’t like lamps, I’ll be fine.”
Subconsciously, I knew I was being as amenable as possible so he didn’t start regretting this. But at the same time, I didn’t want him to have to completely change his way of life for my benefit. And it wasn’t like people hadn’t read and done other things by candlelight for centuries.
“No, I’ll put some in here later.” Greid slipped past me back into the hall.
He gestured at a closed door opposite and coughed awkwardly. “That’s my bedroom in there.”
“Oh, okay.”
He didn’t move to open the door and show me, and I didn’t ask. After a few seconds of awkward silence, he blurted, “Sorry, it’s just… a total mess at the moment. But, uh, if you want to see, I can show you after I’ve cleaned up—”
“No, it’s okay.” I smiled up at him. “I don’t need to see it. It’s your space.”
Ducking his head, he walked back toward the stairs and up to the second floor. He showed me the guest bathroom and another unused bedroom, then sighed and opened a door to reveal an artist’s studio.
I stepped inside and looked around with interest at the deep-blue velvet chaise longue beneath the window, the empty easel and pottery wheel and the half-finished sculpture resting on a big wooden workbench.
“Is this where you work?” I asked, frowning when I couldn’t see any jewellery or equipment that he’d surely need.
“No.” He made a little grumbling sound, shifting in place, then huffed. “It was my ex’s studio.”
Oof. I subtly side-eyed him, expecting to see bitter resentment or desperate yearning twisting his features. But there was neither—just mild disdain as he gazed at the half-finished bust of a demiurgus with long, flowy hair.
“Oh, right,” I said carefully, then cleared my throat. “They uh, they were really talented.”
“Yeah,” he grumbled. “She was alright, I guess.”
Snorting a laugh, I turned to face him and couldn’t stop myself from asking, “Didn’t end well?”
“We wanted different things.” His face spikes twitched with embarrassment. “She said I was too introverted and boring and… yeah.”
“She called you boring?” I frowned. “That’s mean.”
“Okay, fine, maybe she didn’t use those exact words, but she implied it.” Greid sighed and shrugged. “Honestly, she wasn’t wrong. We didn’t fit. We tried to fit, but we just… didn’t. For various reasons.”
I nodded and stayed quiet, not wanting to pry any further. After a pause, Greid shifted again and gestured at the studio.
“I don’t keep it like this as, like, a shrine to her or anything. I just don’t need the room and I really can’t be fucked to clean it all up.”
When I glanced up at him with a wry smile, I could tell he was being honest. I’d only known him a very short time, but I was already pretty certain that Greid made a point of doing as little as possible. In all things. I was sure laziness would annoy a lot of people, but I found it kind of endearing, mainly because he was just being himself and not really putting up any kind of front. And it wasn’t like his not bothering to empty this room affected me in any way.
Nor was it my business if he actually, secretly wasn’t totally over his ex.
“Next room?” I asked cheerfully, turning for the door.
Greid followed me out and up the stairs to the third floor, where my bedroom was located. He showed me the linen closet, then walked right past another closed door to hurry up the stairs.
“Wait.” He froze as I pointed at the door. “What about that room?”
His yellow eyes swung over to it before he cringed. “Just another closet,” he said quickly, then turned to keep going up the staircase.
I eyed the door as I slowly followed him. Okay, now I was ridiculously curious, and a little bit nervous, but I couldn’t demand he show me, and I wasn’t going to invade his privacy by sneaking a look later when he wasn’t around. I wasn’t.