The Devil Is Beautiful

By Shana Renee Myers

Magdalena (Maggie for short) has always been insecure, never feeling good enough. She meets David, the new security guard at the strip club where she works. David is everything Maggie dreams of, the guy every girl wants but he only wants her. It isn’t long before Maggie’s fantasy man becomes a living nightmare.
Addicted to David like human heroin, Magdalena goes deep down a pathological rabbit hole to hold on to the fantasy the couple have co-created. When David does the unthinkable, it still isn’t enough for Maggie to walk away. Just how much will she sacrifice to remain “the chosen one”?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Apr 23, 2024
• ISBN: 9781304436290

Book preview

THE DEVIL IS BEAUTIFUL

Copyright © 2024 Shana Renee Myers

All rights reserved. ISBN: 9781304436290

It’s 3 o’ clock in the morning. I’m sweating, nearly sick from the withdrawals. It’s only been two days and I don’t know how much more I can take before I give in. I didn’t know it would be this bad. I wanted this. It was my choice but now that I’m here, I’m second guessing myself. Drugs are a powerful thing. Trust me, I’ve done my share but there’s no drug quite like this one.

The first time I saw him, I didn’t think he was anything special. In the dressing room of the strip club where I worked, my friend and coworker who we called China, asked me Have you seen the new bouncer? Oh my God he is so cute!! I hadn’t even noticed him. I looked out of the dressing room to have a look. I didn’t see what the fuss was about.

I was known as the Pole Queen for all the acrobatic tricks I had taught myself to do. I wore it as a badge of honor. Showing off was my favorite past time and the club was the perfect environment for my hobby. I was much too self-absorbed to pay much attention to the new bouncer everyone seemed to be obsessed over.

Everyone called the new security guard Davie. Weeks went by as all the other girls were constantly vying for his attention while I walked around oblivious. I only spoke to him in passing when I tipped him at the end of the night. One night as I walked by, he stepped into my path and said Hey, Annika! He called me by my stage name and then he smiled. I was instantly caught off guard and couldn’t help but smile back. I had never seen him smile prior to that and it was surprisingly enticing. You know what they say. The Devil is beautiful.

That night we ended up talking a lot. I told him my real name, Magdalena. He told me Davie was short for David but that he didn’t like being called by his full name. I insisted on calling him David anyway. I had never liked cutting names short besides I didn’t want to call him what everyone else did. Only my mom calls me David. He told me. I didn’t care. To me he was David.

He told me he was from California, the place I’d always dreamed of going. As a teenager I had wanted to attend UCLA to become the doctor my father wanted me to be. That didn’t go to plan. Davie shared a name with my second born son who was named after my father. He made me laugh and impressed me with his Arnold Swartzanegger and Rocky Balboa impersonations which were scary good. When I told him I was exploring Wicca he told me he was a Shaman, a medicine man. He had a mohawk ponytail, Native American tattoos everywhere, and a hulking muscular build to match. He spoke Spanish fluently as well as a Native American dialect, and he had traveled many places. He was like a character out of a movie.

By the end of the night, he had given me his number rather than ask for mine, leaving the ball in my court. Such a gentleman, I thought. He mentioned his baby's mama which brought me to question his relationship status. He told me they were married but separated. I didn't hesitate to offer up the fact that my husband at the time was always out of town working and basically living his own life. I had pretty much been living life as a single woman over the last year.

We discovered we had the same exact green eyes and that we were both products of mixed-race couples. I, Native American, black and white. He was half white and half Native American. He was that guy, the one everyone wanted. The one I could never have in high school. Suddenly that old desire in me to be the chosen one flared up like fireworks in the sky. Always the one looked over for the prettier one, the cooler one or the popular one.

In middle school I met my best friend, Kiara and her sister, Yasmine. She was what they call light skin with long legs, perfect curly hair, and the cutest dimples. She had a shy smile and big perky boobs. We did everything together and I did everything I could to be just like her. I was obsessed. I loved her and hated her simultaneously. All the boys wanted her, and she didn’t even have to try. Unlike me, who always did everything I could to gain their attention. Still, they always overlooked me for her.

Once we were at the movies when we saw a group of guys. They started talking to us and I had my eye on a particular one. The next thing you know he asked for Kiara’s number. A week later they were dating. I couldn’t be mad at her but on the inside, I was seething.

One day Kiara, Yasmine, a few of our other friends and I were out in the neighborhood playing hand games and dancing in the street when a guy our age approached. We must’ve been about 13 at the time. He walked up to me and asked if I wanted to take a walk with him. I thought he was super cute, and I lapped up the attention. By the end of the day, we were kissing and holding hands. He asked me to be his girlfriend. For a whole week I was in paradise.

On a sunny afternoon he invited me to his house. We lay on his bed making out when suddenly he asked about Yasmine, my best friend’s sister.

Why do you want to know about her? I asked puzzled.

Well, I was wondering if you could talk to her for me. She’s so pretty.

My heart sank and I began crying uncontrollably. He had strategically gotten close to me to have a connection to my friend. I couldn’t get my head around it. Why would anyone do such a thing? I felt dirty, used and even more insecure than I already was. Why am I not good enough for you?! I screamed at him in agony. All he could do was keep saying how sorry he was, but it didn’t stop him from continuing to insist that I help him get with my friend. Finally, I left. I never did tell Yasmine what he said. I was much too ashamed and embarrassed.

David and I talked every day, and we began spending time together during dinner breaks and in his car after work. He never once tried to make a move on me. I kissed him first. Three weeks after we started talking, it was my idea to get a hotel room for a little while on our night off. We made love for the first time that night after finishing a small bag of coke that I purchased from my own family member for a friend.

I had never experienced sex like that before. It was in the way he spoke to me during. It wasn’t dirty talk. He looked me in the eyes and had a deep conversation and told me how beautiful I was. He never asked for it or even tried. After a long session of kissing, I had looked at him and said, I want you. He asked if I was sure to which I assured him I was.

Days after that first time, he informed me that the mother of his child, who was also still his legal wife, had moved back into his house because she had nowhere to go with the kids. He told me that she and her new boyfriend had been in a fight and that she needed a place to stay for a while. It was a little questionable, but I gave him the benefit of the doubt. Even my friends encouraged me to give him a chance. After all we were the it couple.

The second time we were intimate was the night I fell in love with him. We had gone to a movie and had dinner, then to a motel afterwards since of course his ex and their kids were at his house which would have been awkward to say the least. My husband still technically lived with me, so this was the best option. We talked and talked.  When the night was over, we walked outside and magically it was snowing only over the spot we were standing as we kissed goodbye. Snow wasn’t falling anywhere else outside in the parking lot. Right then and there I was a goner. Things like that only happened in movies. It had to be a sign!

After work one night, it was snowing and ice falling. I wasn’t going to be able to drive home. Instead, I got a hotel room near the club rather than brave the weather. David came by before going home. He wanted to make love. I informed him that I was on my period. He told me that it was okay and that his choice to enter me while bleeding would be a voluntary contract, a binding by blood. He told me that he had never done that before with anyone else. This warmed my heart and so we proceeded to make the pact through our flesh.

That winter was harsh. The snow and ice kept me from going in to work on this particular night. It was a rare occasion because my husband, Tommy, was home from his job on the road. I went out to the car to grab something from the glove compartment when I noticed a box of