One of the things that’s different on the smartphone rather than on an old-fashioned telephone is that there can be hesitation, a definite pause. It used to be as soon as you started dialing the tone would get all snippity at you if you paused for any dramatic reason. You could hang up before it even began to ring if you were quick. On a smartphone, sometimes even that much is registered.

Oh, and on those old phones, the only person you ever butt-dialed was the operator. Don’t bother the operator. Not even to save your game. Plus, you generally call those 411 wannabes now.

I find myself often with a finger pressed over the button, reconsidering what I was going to say even before I thought of it. (That’s an awkward place in your head, a kind of proactive censoring: “You don’t want to say that.” “But I don’t know what it was you just deleted.” “Just trust me. Don’t let your id come to play in a superego discussion.” “Is that sort of like not bringing a knife to a gunfight?” “Uh… kinda?”)

I had to fight the little demon of procrastination (probably not literal – might have been a gremlin, anyway) that said, “If you put it off long enough it will cease to be a problem.” Which is true, yes, (that probably puts them into the “definitely a demon” camp – if you believe only ex-angels like to play with truth like that) but not necessarily resulting in what I wanted to happen. Not taking the fork in the road is just as much of a choice as taking the fork. Which, unless you were battling the Giant Spaghetti Monster, might not be as useful as you’d like.

There is no spoon.

“Hey,” I said. I rounded out the vowels, making it a lot longer than a three letter world usually is in my language. I defeated procrastination and she had picked up on the first ring. I tried to decide that that wasn’t a bad thing.

“Hi,” Sylvia chirped. She sounded a little breathy. Maybe she’d grabbed the phone in a hurry.

I realized a little deja vu from the day before, except then I sounded a lot more desperate for female attention. Or something like that. It’s amazing how much someone loving you a little can change your entire perspective.

“So?” I made it sound like a question. After all, she’d called me, right?

“I kinda wanted to apologize for last night, this morning, you know.”

“Nothing to apologize for,” I said, magnaminously. “You were probably pretty shock-y.”

“Yeah. Um. Look. I don’t know really what happened. The only things that make sense is that I was talking to you and then you were at the door. Things got kind of crazy after that and I remember this gorgeous golden lady giving everyone a blessing against the darkness, like a goddess. Then you and Maggie were bickering like a married couple and I met your friend Ed, all that stuff I got straight.”

I was a little bewildered with her recounting. “Maggie sort any of that out for you?” I asked carefully. Really, I trusted that Maggie would give a pretty honest description of what happened.

“We, uh, had a fight, so, no, not really.”

Ah, gossip. “Should I ask?” I gave just enough hesitation to it that I felt like the gay boyfriend in the movies. You know, the one who gets the good lines because apparently gay men are allowed to be coy. It just looks snarky from women in the Hollywood world. Snarky is attractive for women in my world, but apparently I don’t live in Hollywood.

“Well, it was kind of about you.” So she wanted to talk about it. “She said you’d brought some kind of demon and the goddess had struck it down but then accused our coven of being the tools by which you summoned it. Short version.”

“Uh, that’s, like, total–” I began to defend myself (and reality as I knew it) when Sylvie interrupted.

“Totally not true.” She sounded, if anything, more annoyed than I felt. “I know. The creature that stole your form, well, that didn’t have anything to do with us.”

Wait, that was almost accusatory. Well, yeah, and true, but still. I was about to pipe up when she intervened again.

“Maggie had her whole holier-than-thou aura going, and when I say thou, I mean you. You really get under her skin for some reason. Anyway. I said to her that whatever my boyfriend might be involved in, and don’t get hung up on the word because I just used it to shut her up, it wasn’t dragging us in to some kind of coven war because she was feeling jealous. She looked pretty angry but it got her to leave.”

“It wasn’t a goddess,” I finally managed.

“It wasn’t The Goddess,” she didn’t really make it a question.

“It wasn’t a goddess. It was a succubus. Maybe a controller. Bumped up in intensity by a Power that had possessed you by your own request.”

“What?” she didn’t quite shriek.

“You admitted to having made a deal.” I didn’t mean to push her, but that was somewhat important.

“Why do you say that? That’s not funny. That’s monstrous. Quit kidding me, E.”

I was kind of at a loss. “I wouldn’t joke about something like that,” I said, quietly. “But I’m willing to believe you. Why would you say something like that?”

“I wouldn’t. This is some kind of sick joke? I don’t… I don’t deal with powers. I’m not high enough up in the coven, and I barely believe in the powers anyway. I haven’t even found who I will be working with, my spiritual consort if you would.”

“I’d recommend staying away from succubi,” I said, wryly. I don’t know why I said it, but part of me just didn’t believe her. I found the thing that was inhabiting her to be slightly more realistic.

That’s another thing you miss from the old phones – the dial tone when someone hangs up.