Liliah needed coffee badly.

Sans eye make-up and wearing sweats, she strolled into the shabby-looking mall single-mindedly yearning for a taste of java. Sure, she had coffee at home. She had lots of nothing at home, too.

A caffeine headache closing in on her temples with vise-grip precision, Liliah passed a twenty to the barista, murmuring as few words as possible. “Breve. Big.” She paused, closed her eyes against the pain, and added, “And a brownie.”

“Of course!” the jubilant barista responded.

Liliah wanted to slap her. This woman was way too happy. She watched the clerk reach into the display case and suppressed the desire to do her bodily harm. The bubbly clerk removed a decadent, shiny, dark-chocolate piece of heaven from the case. She placed it ceremoniously before Liliah on a small Dixie plate. Salvation was at hand.

The whir of the espresso machine, clinking of the grounds cup, hiss of the steam and smell of brewing espresso was more potent a narcotic than any pain reliever to Liliah’s pounding temples.

She gratefully accepted the drink. Today, coffee and chocolate were a matter of life-and-death.

Sometimes just holding a steaming mug could dispel any residual darkness from dreams best unrecalled. Passion-filled dreams. Vivid dreams in which her personal moral foundations shattered and crumbled away to dust. Dreams wherein she was a bad girl--a bad girl having indiscriminant sex and enjoying the hell out of it.

For nine nights she’d had the same dream. They were exhausting, these somnambular romps with a man whose touch both chilled and ignited her. She could never quite make out his face--yet knew every inch of him intimately.

He was incredibly good in bed. They were good together. She cavorted through the dreams joyfully satisfied. Until, of course, she awakened to face the challenges of her life swaddled in an aura of magnificent sexual tension.

She’d taken lovers before--though not many. She could count the number of men she’d slept with on one hand.

Liliah giggled. Slept with was right. Sex with her dream companion was anything but sleeping. She was the spitted lamb and he the rotisserie grill, turning her over hot coals, prodding her from all directions.

Creative lovemaking wasn’t the half of it. Her dream lover was startling, innovated and persistent. Very, very persistent. His relentless sex drive had left Liliah’s mind and body primed for wakeful sexual activity when none was on the radar screen.

She wanted a man even worse than she wanted the coffee in her hands. And that was saying a lot. Liliah tried to ease into the eerie sense of calm seducing her by way of scent and taste. Coffee. Chocolate. All she needed was sex. Sure, a relationship to go with the sex would be ideal--but at this point--and after nine nights of phantom orgasms and cold sweats--sexual satisfaction was all she craved.

Liliah deposited a buck in the tip jar. “Thank you.”

She slid onto a stool facing the mall’s main entrance.

The first sip of coffee was pure bliss. “Oh, God,” she sighed. It was that good. Nearly orgasmic. There’s something wrong with me if I look forward this much to a cup of coffee. She took a second, longer draught through the plastic lid. The heat and steam of her beverage was both uplifting and soothing. It helped her put all things in perspective.

I need to get laid. Plain and simple. Nearly a year has passed since Donovan and I split up. I need love, baby! I need someone to come along and sweep me off my bloody feet, toss me onto one of these plastic tables and do me until I scream. After I can think straight, I’ll start putting feelers out for husband material. After all, a bit of rapturous sex never hurt anyone. She shook her head. Like that will ever happen. I’ve never had a one-night stand and am way too conservative to have anonymous sex--no matter how much I want to.

The daily parade of mall-walkers had commenced. Elderly ladies sporting fresh lipstick, weighted shoes and velour jogging suits strolled by the coffee bar and into the abyss of just-opening shops. Their husbands waved their good-byes and sat at tables closest the mall entrance, newspapers and magazines folded politely until their better halves had power-walked away from the food court.

Liliah felt like a vulture, hovering above them, waiting for one to drop. Well-aged meat. Raw is good. Liliah need meat! She consciously tried to soften the frown she wore. I’m going to scare away customers. Lighten up, Liliah!

A gaggle of young, fresh-faced, teenaged girls burst into the mall with an explosion of energy that sent a strong tailwind to the backs of the mall-walkers. Five girls. Five variations on a theme, fashion-wise. Liliah shook her head. Even as an adult she didn’t feel comfortable wearing belly shirts and ultra low-rise jeans in public. Where are these girls’ mothers? Are they not concerned with their daughters’ open display of blossoming sexuality?

Liliah secretly praised and admired the poor woman at the coffee stand as the girls shouted out their orders, holding daddy’s credit cards aloft like victory banners. Watching the gaggle was like being forced to watch nothing but Disney-channel “teen” shows for a week. Mind-numbing, saccharine. Cloyingly sweet things, with their all-too-innocent perky bodies, the girls were poised at the edge of no return on the brink of womanhood. One step forward, and innocence would head south. Way south. They were too vapid not to be swayed by some pimple-faced, eager-for-love schoolboy at their first high school football game.

Liliah held her brownie up to her lips. Chocolate. Sacred chocolate. It was her Eucharist. Her rescuer. Her drug of choice. She closed her eyes. She willed the fat and carbs of the decadent treat to vanish. She stopped herself from wishing the calories onto the heinies of the girls. Karmic retribution could be painful.

Pushing aside thoughts of fattening up the girls, Liliah touched the tip of her tongue to the glossy ganache frosting atop the moist, chewy fudge brownie square. The taste of the chocolate cascaded through her body like an electrical jolt. Her nipples tingled and hardened. She raked her tongue across the frosting, enjoying the rich, satisfying, silken texture. Washed in a bath of tryptophan and phenylethylamine, chocolate’s feel-good chemicals, her headache and mood improved.

That’s when she saw him. He entered the mall like a superstar entering an arena of adoring fans. The sight of him took her breath away.

An icy chill enveloped her from head to toes. Her spine tingled. Her unused and neglected womanly attributes awakened. Pressure, desire and need attacked her nether regions. She squeezed her legs together.

She couldn’t take her eyes off of him. He was simply beautiful. He had the tall, athletic build of a super-athlete, but moved with the grace of a dancer. Liliah realized her mouth was hanging open. Embarrassed and hoping no one had noticed, she locked her lips together. The man was literally jaw-dropping gorgeous.

Her arms suddenly began to throb with an ache that she knew could only be cured by wrapping them around his neck. Her hands tingled. She wanted to shake them out by kneading his powerful shoulders. And as for that dire, empty sensation between her legs ... well ... she knew what she needed there, too. Him.

The man’s pace was even and fluid. He nodded a greeting at the elderly gentlemen sipping coffees near the mall entrance. He smiled at the owner of the Tandoori chicken stand grinding spices for the day’s offerings. He waved his hand faintly at the uniformed mall janitor pushing a broom around the theater entrance. He strolled by as if they were his subjects and he, their king.

Dressed simply, he made a flannel shirt and Levi’s look good. His walk accentuated the tightness of his faded blue jeans. His thigh muscles were clearly defined. So was his package.

He must have a Hickory Farms Beef Log stuffed in his shorts. Damn! Liliah set her brownie aside. He’s walking this way! And he’s sizing me up! Jeez--I hope it’s me he’s looking at so intently.

Hers was not the only female attention he garnered. The silence of the teen girls and the absence of whirring noise from the barista’s espresso machine proved that. Liliah glanced over to the coffee bar. The girls were huddled together, trembling--gazing at the man like cows staring into the headlights of an oncoming train.

The barista’s face had gone ashen.

Liliah snapped back to the real world as hot coffee dribbled onto her hand and lap. “Dammit.” She slipped off her stool to retrieve some napkins.

Approaching the barista, she whispered, “He’s a babe, huh?”

The coffee bar attendant nodded. “I’ve never seen such a handsome man before in my life. God, I hope he buys a coffee.”

Liliah nodded, whispering, “He walks as if he owns the mall and everyone in it. He knows we’re looking at him. I’ll bet he’s counting on it. He’s a bad boy. He’s the kind of guy that accepts nothing less than total adoration.”

The barista smoothed her apron. “I could use a bad boy about now.”

Liliah turned to face her. “Get in line, honey.”

An aura of sexual tension swelled out from the approaching man with the unstoppable force of an incoming tide. The young girls giggled nervously. He was the kind of guy their mothers had warned them about--a man who could smell their innocence and taste their virginity. He was forbidden fruit. It frightened and titillated them. They were going to remember him. Fantasize about him. See his face instead of their boyfriends’ when doing it in the backseat of daddy’s car for the first time.

Liliah knew the type. As a Professor of Comparative Religions and Scandinavian Studies--she often compared people in her environment to the various gods and demons she lectured about. This man was the walking incarnation of her favorite metaphorical Buddhist deity. He was the Devil King of the Sixth Heaven. Desire. Passion. Hunger. Fire and heat in tight jeans.

“Ladies,” he whispered, nodding his head toward the girls as he stepped up to the coffee bar. The girls, vacant-eyed and jaws dropped, made no reply. They didn’t really need to. Their catatonic state of amazement said it all. Liliah hoped her face revealed less--although she wanted him, too. And unlike the girls, if she had him, she’d know what to do with him.

He landed next to Liliah, sidling up to the padded rim of the coffee bar like a magnet to steel. She felt vulnerable away from the safety of her stool. The coffee bar suddenly seemed like a dangerous, fragile precipice.

She shivered. An uncomfortable free-fall sensation hit the pit of her stomach as the light aroma of the man’s aftershave tickled her nose. His body cast an icy-heat. Hot. Cold. Soothing like an analgesic balm, yet as painful as a dry-ice burn. It encircled her. Closed in on her. Like delicate tendrils of a fast-growing vine, his heat tickled the root of her womanhood. She realized her hand was poised over the napkin dispenser, dripping with foam.

The barista cleared her throat before addressing the handsome stranger. “What can I get for you?”

Liliah deliberately kept her eyes downcast as the cliché phrase “coffee, tea or me?” entered her mind. She knew she would blush if he engaged her face-to-face--if their eyes met.

“Hello,” he said softly tilting his head in the direction of Liliah’s to catch her attention--as if he didn’t already have it. “What are you having?”

She glanced up. Their eyes met. His fiery brown blazed like trees caught in a forest fire. He had the wily smile of a satyr about to pounce and ravish.

Fighting a deep blush without much success, Liliah replied, “It’s a Breve.”

He addressed the barista. “I’ll have the same. And a brownie.” He turned to Liliah again. “They’re good, aren’t they? The brownies? There’s nothing quite like chocolate.”

Liliah looked over to the relative safety of her empty bar stool. She quickly pulled a stack of napkins from the counter dispenser and wiped her hand. “Yes, they’re very good.”

She forced herself to return to her seat. Six feet away from him, and she could still feel his heat.

The barista handed the man his drink and brownie, then offered him a business card. “It’s happy hour,” she said with a hint of seduction in her voice. “You can have a freebie if you want,” she continued in her low, sultry, come-hither tone.

He looked at the back of the card. “Ah, Karen. Thank you. I’ll be in touch.”

Liliah fumed. She’d given him her phone number! Damn!

Balancing his coffee and brownie, the man approached the seating area. “May I join you? The food court is so empty this morning. I hate to eat chocolate alone,” he said.

Liliah smiled. He had such a smooth voice! “Of course.” Please don’t let him be weird or gay or married.

He set his coffee down and pulled a stool close to Liliah’s. Closer than a stranger should. But not as close as Liliah wanted.

Smiling, he held out his hand. The web between his thumb and index finger was tattooed. “I’m Lodur.”

Liliah extended her hand, clasping Lodur’s. As they shook hands, she turned his hand to examine the tattoo. “I’m Liliah. This is a lovely runic tattoo. Nicely done.”

“I knew you would recognize it. A teacher of Scandinavian Studies should recognize runes,” Lodur replied.

Liliah smiled. He hadn’t let go of her hand. “I can’t eat my brownie if you don’t give my hand back, Lodur. And how do you know I teach a section of Scan Studies?”

“Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve been waiting for a chance to speak with you.”

Liliah had completely lost interest in her Breve and brownie. The man sitting next to her was more delicious than either. “Do we know each other?”

“I’ve seen you at the community college,” Lodur replied.

“Are you a student?” Liliah asked. “I don’t recall meeting you.”

Lodur held his cup to his lips. “I do observations.”

“Of teachers of Scandinavian Studies?”

“I only observe teachers who give instruction in Scandinavian Studies and Comparative Religions. It’s my assignment, so to speak. I’ve sat in on your Scan class. I was particularly taken with your interpretation of the Flyting of Loki. Comparing him to beings from other ideologies and mythologies was brilliant.”

Liliah smiled. “Thanks. Since I teach Comparative Religions, too--it’s kind of easy for me to tweak my curriculums a bit. Loki belongs in either subject. I don’t recall seeing you, however. I’m usually forewarned when an observer is present.”

Lodur leaned in, again testing Liliah’s personal boundaries. “I stayed in the back. I thought I might be a distraction, so I kept a low profile. A true observer does not interact until the crucial moment.”

You would certainly have distracted me! “Is this my crucial moment?” Liliah paused.

Lodur’s smoky eyes gleamed. “You tell me--is this your crucial moment?”

Liliah smiled. “I think we’re on dangerous ground here, Lodur.”

“Too close to the truth?” Lodur asked.

“My crucial moments are none of your concern.”

Lodur cast an amazing glance her way. “Tell me about Loki, then. He is a safe subject, is he not?”

Liliah nodded. Teacher-mode. My safety zone. “Loki is my favorite Norse god. Although, he’s not exactly a true god. He is both sides of a single coin. Darkness and light. Chaos and control. He can be good or evil. He is the bringer of treasures and sorrows. He is a rich and colorful character. He’s like the Devil King of the Sixth Heaven in Buddhist mythology. A bringer of passion and pain that catapults one from Rapture to Hell to Buddhahood and back again. The Devil King is representative of one’s own fundamental darkness. He helps balance the scales, so to speak. Loki is fundamental darkness--only he hides in broad daylight. And as for this being my crucial moment, well, it must be, because you are an observer, and you have blown your cover.”

“Intelligent women stimulate me. I love conversation.” Lodur paused to lick the foam off the lid of his cup. “Loki is my favorite, too. I think he’d appreciate your comparisons. As I understand Buddhist philosophy, even the Devil King literally represents ‘a heavenly being who makes free use of others.’ He controls by giving affection to those who long for it. Loki did the same thing. He created problems for the gods and handed them the solution just when they thought all hope had abandoned them.”

Liliah took a sip. She realized her body language was going “teacher”--a bit too authoritarian and professional--when she had consciously been trying to look “available” without ripping off her clothing and shouting, take me now!

“Ah, but even the Devil King has the seed of enlightenment planted in his black heart. His minions suffer under him, but use that suffering to spring forward and out of his control. Loki was unrepentant. Even bound to jagged rocks by the entrails of his own son, he swore vengeance.”

“Two sides of the same coin,” Lodur replied.

“Yes,” Liliah agreed. “So, Lodur--for whom do you observe? The Learning Network? You do look familiar, now that I think about it.” She wished she’d worn eye-make up and something other than a t-shirt and sweats. Go figure a guy like this would show up at the mall before ten o’clock in the morning.

“I’m an independent contractor. I report to a higher power, you might say.”

“I see. You could tell me but you’d have to kill me, right?”

“Something like that,” Lodur replied. “But killing you would be against purposes.”

Liliah smiled. “Another subject I shall not broach for now.” She took a sip of her coffee. Hoping to keep the conversation going, she said, “So what brings you to the mall?”

Lodur’s eyes flashed. “I needed something sweet.” He cast a smile at Liliah that sent shivers down her spine.

She shook off the chill. “Well, the brownie should do it,” Liliah replied, feeling an electrical surge cascade through her loins with such force she had to squeeze her thighs together to keep her balance. She toyed with a drop of coffee on the lid of her cup.

Lodur raised his right eyebrow and smirked. “The brownie will only whet my appetite. I need something more substantial.”