A short story for mature readers.

“A fantastical tale of a succubus and her new victim is not what it seems.”

---

A Long Time Ago, in an Age when middle income families couldn’t afford cell phones and elementary school computer labs housed Macintosh 128ks, there lived a Boy. This wasn’t a young man but a grown Boy who still worked at a labour-intensive warehouse picking orders into his thirties. He was bearded and bright-eyed and you could trace his Germanic roots all the way back to the time of the Vikings; if he wanted more from life then he was given, all he had to do was reach out and take it and it would be his. This was his family’s Gift. But the Boy didn’t feel the pleasure of youth he once used to and was frightened of the responsibility; and his own callous nature towards the Gift. He had a good life. A complicated one, but whose life didn’t have its share? And this Boy lived peacefully in a basement suite with his girlfriend of ten years, who loved him very much: so much that she still took him back after he had cheated on her. She had convinced him that life without her was unfruitful and he made the commitment that in the New Year he would be a better boyfriend: he would cut back on the drink; and he would stop stepping out with girls who fell outside the Rule Of Sevens.

But it wasn’t to be easy for this Boy, as working the same shift as him was a Girl. And this was no ordinary Girl, but a middle-aged Italian who played the role of the inscrutable object to a tee. From a distance she could look like the cover of a fashion magazine: all sharp features and wide, expressive brown eyes; skin with a creamy, coffee quality to it. But when you approached her, if you had The Power To See – as the Boy did – then the dry, brittle pieces of her own dead adolescence would peel off her face like dandruff, betraying what was really inside. She was pushing forty. She had to have been: the Boy didn’t start working for the company until she had already exhausted her twenties. But he never really knew for sure: this was all hearsay. Second-hand news. It seemed like all the other women who worked the same shift knew this Girl and her business. One morning, about a week after she bragged at a Women’s Only brunch that she was pregnant, she came in to work and cried in the arms of her supportive friends. But remember, this was all just assumption for the Boy, because he would have liked to have thought he didn’t care about the personal business of the people he worked with; and especially not the women. Not anymore. This was a new Boy. One who would be at peace with his choices and who would go into the New Year with a clean slate. And he had never really ever spoken to this Girl before, either. She just happened to work across from him about an aisle away: far enough that she still looked like an angel under her mask. Enough that his loins were lit from the sight of her. But all those times she looked up from her work, back at him, and he noticed? It couldn’t have meant what he thought it to. She couldn’t have been interested too, could she? Women don’t make the kind of effort men have to, do they? If he wanted to he wouldn’t have had to make any effort at all.

So when she caught up to him one morning in the New Year while they were leaving the building and started chatting him up about his resolutions, he was undeniably scared. Women didn’t just approach him like this. Maybe the shine he saw reflected in her pupils wasn’t just rendition. Maybe there was a kindling there after all. Shit. What about his promise to himself? To his girlfriend? So he humoured her and told her that he wanted to eat better and when he got in his car later he realized that wasn’t such a bad idea and that he really should quit eating those corner store hot dogs after work every day. So much going on. A whirlwind. It was nice to have something that was only his and this hot dog was the ticket; drizzled in industrial chili and cheese. He lit up on the drive home and just as he was starting to forget his troubles he almost got into a head-on collision when he turned left too soon at a four-way stop. His vision widened and his heart raced and then he started thinking about the Girl. He remembered the time he had heard someone congratulate her on her engagement. She blushed and thanked the person but seemed thrown aback, like she wasn’t prepared to answer. The Boy was so close to her then that he could smell the fruity shampoo she used on her luscious black locks that fell into curls that snapped like a scorpion’s tail at their ends. Italian women always seemed to have such nice hair. She was engaged? Was it her fiancee’s baby? Did something happen to the baby? Was that why she was sad? The Boy fit the parts together in his head like a toddler smashing puzzle pieces together the wrong way. If he didn’t care, then why did he think about her so much? A car honked behind him and woke him up and he made it through the light without any more mishaps.

Dude! What kind of story is this?

Yeah, where is this going?

It’s going where it’s going, okay? Just

It’s supposed to be a campfire story, it’s not supposed to be like every phone call I’ve ever had from you.

That’s funny.

What do you mean?

Where you call us in some theoretical doldrum and you need a sounding board for your pessimistic sexual desires.

Well maybe reality makes good fiction?

Whatever man.

Hey, you had your turn, it’s my turn now, okay? No one complained when you told us about the little girl with split ends that haunts a Japanese estate, okay? Like every horror movie ever. It’s my story, okay? I know where it’s going, okay? It’s going to get good.

We believe you.

Okay, so, skipping a whole bunch of stuff then, the Boy and the Girl ended up together and the Boy went back on his word to his girlfriend; like most ordinary people’s New Year resolutions. And the sex was amazing: with the lights off, the Boy didn’t notice the scars on her face that seemed to twist around the back of her neck and down the base of her spine. Her outer layer had completely shed and his fingers could trace the dips and curves and hair that physical distance denies. It felt like they were giving each other their all. And I’m talking passionate, ferocious lovemaking: licking each other’s assholes; fucking each other with their fingers and then sticking the fingers in each other’s mouths

Fuck!

Seriously? Did you two do that?

What if we did?

Well it’s kind of gross.

Yeah, I’m not cool with the direction this story has taken.

Hey, if I’m the one-in-three, that’s okay. You guys will know what I’m talking about when you find someone who makes you glad you know the taste of your own asshole.

Okay okay okay done, I’m done.

Hey where are you going?

I’m done, I’m too stoned anyway. I should lie down.

It was just a joke, man. Come on.

Nah I’m dizzy and I’m tired, I’m done. It’s not you. Good night.

Good night.

Good night. So what do we do now? I have a whole ending mapped out.

I know you’re just kidding but you need to be a little less uncouth. Some people aren’t interested in hearing the scatological stuff.

Okay. Are WE cool?

Yeah WE’RE cool, man. Don’t worry about Dustin, he’ll be a virgin the rest of his life. And I’ll hear the rest of your story.

Great.

But pick it up after the gratuitous sex, okay?

Okay, skipping the butt stuff. And the Boy never questioned her about her engagement or her pregnancy, and she never spoke about those things to him either, even though he would meet her at her suspiciously-empty apartment to get it on. He was to notify her at least fifteen-minutes before he arrived, so she could step in to the hot shower and shed. She would turn off each light and double-checked not to miss a single one. He would knock and she would call out when she was ready. He would let himself in.

One night she invites him over, and she has made a fantastic candlelit spread. He grew to admire her scales in the blackness and with just the right amount of light now he found her ugliness charming and, dare he thunk it, unique. All his favourite dishes were on display on the Girl’s antique dining room table, and the scents mixed in the air as their steam danced and weaved to the music of their mutual fascination. He was exalted by the effort she showed: the willingness to please. Such things felt lost in what little spark was worth salvaging in his current situation. He, too, felt like the weight of time was pressing against him; on-top of him; straddling him. She knew he didn’t like that. No, the Girl always took her time and his seduction was paramount. The Boy liked this. It made him feel young again. His father took him on a trip to the fjords when he was five and he was struck by the majesty of his ancestry. Of its culpability. He visited the Holy Temple of his forebearers and felt the psychic connection between himself and all living things. Of his immense power to manipulate it to his will. Was he manipulating this Girl? He didn’t know. He didn’t feel like he was: at least not how it normally felt to bend reality. A kind of split in time, only for a moment and then it was gone. He noticed no such abnormalities when he was around the Girl: only a conscious awareness of her that blotted out everything else. Her vulnerability reached him now on the other end of the table. His animalistic instincts took over and he lifted her tiny, four-foot-eight-inch body out of her seat and to the bedroom where he fucked her for hours and hours without a condom. Just fucking banging til she accepted all of his seed.

Yep.

But now here’s the really fucked-up part. Turns out, these particular mythical creatures who the Girl was, were as cunning as the Ferengi. Succubi, even. All the times she uttered something about herself she made sure she was within earshot of the Boy. Because she knew his power. And HER power to see HIS power superseded HIS ability in sheer measure. She knew of his trepidation any time his thirst for knowledge could be quenched by little bits here and there. And any time a story had run its course

Okay I think I know where this is going. She cuts off his wiener, or something.

How did you know?

Dude I know you. Obviously it’s going to have something to do with sex or violence or someone’s wiener getting chopped off and used as a dildo. Am I wrong?

No, you’re not wrong. But that’s Artistic License.

No, that’s Porn. You should stop watching so much Porn. Maybe you would really make some creative progress.

Fair enough.

Was I right though? She cuts off his wiener?

Well now you won’t know, because you ruined it.

Don’t be butthurt, man.

I’m not, I’m just playing around.

Was that it though?

I was thinking the Girl ties him to a chair and rapes him so she can have his baby. And the Boy could be screaming, “HOLY SHIT YOU REALLY ARE FUCKING CRAZY!”

Wasn’t the Boy capable of some magic power or something?

Yes. He had The Gift.

AND he had The Power To See.

Yes. It was a twofer.

So couldn’t he just will her to get him go? And then he could like, fight her for his chastity or whatever? Or will his girlfriend to let him bang whoever he wants and then will all the ladies to do whatever? I know that the POINT is his trying to do good without using his power but if it’s so good for him then why does he deny those feelings for himself? He could just leave his girlfriend and then do whatever he wants.

Good point. So I shouldn’t use this as my next student film submission, should I?

I can’t tell you what to do, man. I wonder if in caveman times, it was rarer to find a woman who clubbed a dude, and dragged him back to HER lair, then the other way around?

Well it’s rare NOW. So with population growth being as it is, it could SEEM lower but statistically still be the same.

Fair enough.

//jf 2.5.2020

---