She Who Fucks Satan

By Yuting Zhao

Copyright ©2026

They say the devil feeds on love and fear. Human beings madly adore what terrifies them—that’s precisely what makes them so deliciously irresistible to the devil. Satan, Death, Count Dracula, even the Phantom of the Opera—they feast upon us, especially upon women, right there from the stage. It’s always a consensual transaction: surrender, self-destruction, death. The world has taught women to crave these things. 

The doorbell rang. I hadn’t left the apartment in a week. Reluctantly, I got up from my half-finished lunch. Something warm and furry brushed against my calf—it was a massive black cat. He jumped onto my dining table, sniffing the plate with half-eaten sausage and gnocchi. I ignored him and stared out the door (if a distracted gaze can even be called “staring”), because I knew—

He was finally here.

Professor Woland—Satan himself—stood exactly as he does in the novel, head held high, dressed in a white suit, hands resting on his cane. Yes, he appeared suddenly, not walking in, nor sprouting wings to fly over under the cover of night. It was broad daylight now, but he wore heavy smoky eye makeup, his lips thin and expressionless. That cold indifference caused a subtle, strange ache inside me. The pain crept through my veins like needles bursting through skin, tugging my body toward him—and yet I couldn’t move a step. Everything before my eyes started to blur, like the first time you saw a celebrity in person on stage. I felt myself slipping into a dissociative state. Just then, I remembered I had once again forgotten to salt the gnocchi today.

“Мессир.” I should have said something, but barely moved my lips and mumbled, afraid to hear my own unfamiliar voice, “You’re here.”

He pressed his lips together and raised an eyebrow. “No. YOU’re here.”

A beam of light struck my eyes, music erupted from nowhere, and the room began to spin—we were on a stage, a rotating platform shifting scenes like theater magic. My apartment room vanished, replaced by a hall filled with smoke and crossing red and blue lights. The stage was rimmed with chandeliers fashioned from human skulls, each topped with a flickering white candle.

Of course. The Devil wouldn’t come to me—I had come to him. So, at last, was I to become a witch? The world I never belonged in—that excruciating twelve-hour stretch of daylight, of painful lucidity—was it finally releasing me?

He simply stood there, and already night had fallen. A grand performance was beginning. My familiar world—sofa, dining table, the trees outside my window—was gone. Now, there were only two beings: a woman and a devil. Where were the other guests of this infernal ball? I knew—I had willed them away. I wanted only him.

Woland. Мессир. I dared not speak his name—not out of fear of damnation, but because the name itself was too sacred. He was no longer in his suit but in a crimson robe, with a black velvet collar open down past his chest. This man, barefoot, two meters tall, looked down at me from above. Invisible threads pulled me toward him—what were they? Worship? Lust? Love? Fear? I wanted to throw myself against his warmth, to press against that burning body, but not his bare skin, just the cloth, just close enough to hear the deep, powerful heartbeat of Hell. 

Dangerous! Dangerous! Alarms ringing! Fascination with authority is fatal. I knew well what happens when women are drawn to men like this. But he was like the night itself, possessing infinite power beyond all humanity. He stood there like a vase holding my emptiness, but that flesh and blood was so real. Warm. Touchable. A body I could wrap my hands around and press closely against.

He gave a polite nod to me. A padded chair appeared behind him. He sat, and the lights cut out. The damp air smelled of leather. His black collar shimmered faintly; his eyes, moist like a mortal’s, blinked quietly. 

What is this? Мессир—this is love. I love you, madly. This phrase alone filled my heart—a laughable line teenagers once believed. No promises, no responsibilities, no devotion—yet my heart was full of love. I was obsessed with the idea of love. I can give it no other good name. It made me strong, like a plant newly soaked in rain, standing straight at last. 

Come, embrace me. Don’t put your hands under my clothes. Don’t whisper practiced seductions. I just want to merge with you, to clearly know we are one—without being used, humiliated, or taken advantage of.

He leaned back in the chair, saying nothing. But I knew—he was watching. Waiting. This was a ball. I had to dance.

Why are devils so obsessed with dances? I didn’t know how. My limbs were stiff, never coordinated.

The Lord of Hell snapped his fingers, and the lights came back on. His sharp eyes forced me like a spring pressed into a corner, squeezing me until I could only explode, flooding the stage. He was pushing me to the extreme; he knew my fear, and how much I loved that fear.

A dissonant melody. A slow, ominous drumbeat. Fire encircled the stage. I closed my eyes, raised my head, and tried to move my body. I let my arms sway like branches in the wind. My chest rolled in slow circles. My hips and legs followed, snakelike. I dropped to the floor, arched my back, opened my mouth, and roared like an unknown beast. My eyes snapped open like stage lights, seeing him sitting in the chair looking down at me, expressionless, but I knew it was approval. Proudly, I raised my head, leapt like a leopard, and pounced on him, cupping his face. I wanted to claw it open, tear at his throat with my bare hands.

The tango music started. I kissed him like devouring food. His lips weren’t the icy mirror I imagined—they were warm, just like mine. Our tongues exchanged tasteless saliva. I couldn’t tell where his lips ended and mine began. He didn’t need to speak or move. I unbuckled his belt, lifted my skirt, and sat on him, fitting key into lock, moving up and down. My vagina had been starving. She devoured him, gnawed at this male vessel the Devil had possessed. Satan had borrowed Woland’s body to present this container of desire—and made me fill it with my own fear. I laughed, kissing him, pressing every inch of myself against him until the climax carried me upward, from groin to skull. Then I collapsed against his shoulder like a corpse.

What would be the price?

In the silence, I could finally see clearly.

Would my head be chopped off and used as a drinking cup at the next banquet? Or had I forged an eternal link with the Lord of Hell, —alive or dead, destined to be dragged by him, tortured forever by longing? 

Or would I wake to find this was just a story I had written—passed around, mocked, ridiculed? A feminist, a self-proclaimed resister of patriarchy, secretly lusting after this figure of absolute power and fatherly dominance. She couldn’t escape her own desire; she would be awakened by a stone pressing on her chest as she lay flat in bed.

Woland said nothing. His eyes remained blank. And then—I felt a chill at my back.

A mirror standing there, frosted over, reflecting none of the raging flames in the hall. I wanted to see our dressed and intertwined bodies in the mirror, but all there was an icy wasteland.

Empty—complete.The scale of love and fear had stopped swinging.

About the author:

Yuting Zhao is bilingual writer living in China. She received her MA in Writing from the University of Warwick, UK. Her fictions can be found on The Brussels Review, Beijing Literature, Troblemaker Firestarter, and many other journals.