Mine...Yours Pt. 08

Jemima sighed as she saw Lucretia's expression. "How about this cupcake...? We watch the movies, have some girly time, eat until we can't move...then if you still have questions? We will answer as many of them as we can before "daddy" over there comes to pick you up and take you home...okay?"

Lucretia nodded, then giggled. "He doesn't like being called daddy!"

"So what do you call him then?" Gwen asked.

I coughed loudly getting their attention.

"HE..." I said a little loudly. "...would like to be called when you girls are done so I can walk Lucretia home. He also doesn't like to be talked about like he isn't there while in the same room!"

Jemima nodded and I could see the tip of her tongue poke out her cheek while she considered me.

"You probably call him..." Jemima began to say it but I put my fingers in my ears and hummed to myself with a smirk on my face.

"Sorry! Can't hear you." I took my fingers away and walked up to Lucretia giving her a hug.

"Have fun, be good. I will be back to pick you up and walk you home. Any questions before I go?" I asked. Okay, I was being a little sneaky here.

I noticed Lucretia gets this...jealousy thing...with me around other females of any kind...even with Nancy! I like to reassure her. So usually it means I give her hugs and my scent gets on her, and she can smell her own scent on me. For some reason it seems to calm her, don't ask me why, I don't fully understand it myself. Kind of like how she still doesn't like seat belts. She tolerates it and after explaining in greater detail how they work she understands why she has to wear one. Though she still complains saying that she can't get hurt, and I have a body shield so we don't need to wear one.

"No questions Greg. I will stay and watch...whatever they were talking about." She finished.

"It's a movie....you're going to be watching a movie." I explained.

"Oh...movie? It moves?" she asked.

"Yeah. Humans like to shortenize stuff. Movie stands for "Moving Pictures." It basically is a whole bunch of pictures that moves rapidly so people can see the film." I attempted to explain, but with no frame of reference for her to understand...I don't think I did very well. .

She still looked confused, but Gwen put a plate of food in her hand and directed her to the couch.

"If we try to explain everything to you Lucretia, it loses its fun. Let's just watch the films and let Greg go out for some guy time...okay?"

I left, but wasn't too worried. I hadn't gone shopping for music in a long time. There were all sorts of things from Indie music which made me think of Indiana Jones and was something completely different! Then there's the alternative pop/rock/ballad/bagpipe music? Then the oldies, the gold/platinum/ceramic editions. Then techno, electronic, trance, dance, and industrial....

Sigh!

I decided to take Lucretia with me next time and forget the whole thing. I meandered around a while, just killing time, and then thought about going back home to relax and...my right hand trembled.

Normally, that's not a big thing, but then I felt a rush of anger, followed by extreme sadness and then frustration and more anger!

What in the world? I looked around and could see nothing that would make me feel like...it hit again and I almost felt like snarling!

Something was wrong with Lucretia!

I pulled out my phone and dialed Gwen's number. She picked up on the first ring.

"Everything's fine Greg." Gwen said quickly.

"Bullshit!" I spat into the mouth piece. An older woman gave me a look of disdain, which I returned with a look of fury making her back up a step from the heat of my glare.

"Put her on the phone right now!" I demanded.

I heard Gwen saying something and an answering snarl in return.

"Lucretia?" I asked loudly, then heard the phone clatter. I heard footsteps and Gwen picked up the phone.

"I don't think she knows how to use a phone and she's..."Gwen's voice trailed off and she sounded almost in shock. I felt my eyes tearing up and growled in my throat a bit.

"I don't believe it..." Gwen said in a soft voice.

"What? I don't like being kept in the dark here Gwen!" I tried not to shout into the phone.

"Lucretia...she's...crying! I am seeing a succubus cry!" Gwen sounded like she was witnessing a pig with wings pulling aerial acrobatics!

"I'll be right there! Stay with her, please." I said quickly.

"It's alright Greg, she's...she is alright, take your time." Gwen said quietly, with a trace of wonder in her voice.

Alright? ALRIGHT?

My roommate is crying her eyes out and it's alright? I'll make Gwen eat her entire card deck and Jemima can snort her hair products if Lucretia is...

The feelings were changing.

The sadness was changing into, I don't know, a sort of melancholy and then resignation. As I got into my truck I felt it shift again and even felt a twinge of hope, like a little tiny sparkler all by its lonesome on the fourth of July. It grew, and I could almost feel myself smiling along with the gaiety I felt in my chest. I pulled up in front of my neighbors and I heard...trumpets?

I knocked on the front door and then just opened it since no one was answering it. I heard oldies band music playing and turned into the living room to a bizarre sight.

Gwen, Jemima and Lucretia were all in 1920's flapper dresses with head-bands and feathers and the whole nine yards. They were grooving to "The Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy from Company B!" Lucretia was dancing and prancing and Jemima was strutting and posing and Gwen was shaking and bouncing! There was a bottle of root beer imbedded in the dry wall and cookies and food launched all over the floor. A pizza box was upside down on the table leaking sauce on the heavily varnished wood.

The girls were laughing and singing along to the song, and then it came to the end.

"Alright Lucky! You liked that one. Let's get some Louis Armstrong from back when...Hey Greg!" Jemima said as she took the old vinyl out from under the phonograph needle and reached for another sleeve.

"I can't believe this girl! Luce here can dance like I have never seen! She's the bee's knees!"

Lucretia spotted me and skipped over to wrap her arms around me in a tight hug pressing her face to my chest, her long feather from her head band poking me in the nose!

"Master I am having so much fun! Jemmy has so much good music to listen to and it makes me..." Her voice trailed off as a lone trumpet sang out from the speakers and I swear my roommate's eyes rolled back into her head as she began to twirl and sway to the golden sounds of Louis Armstrong.

Gwen came over to me as Jemima (Jemmy? Really?) and Lucretia (Lucky? REALLY?) swayed about the open floor of the living room.

"What the hell happened Gwen? One minute I feel Lucretia angry enough to chew through a tent stake and I come here and she's dancing and happy as...I don't know...something happy! What gives?"

Gwen shrugged.

"We were about halfway, maybe three quarters the way through the first movie. Lucretia had been getting more and more tense as she watched. Finally she threw her drink at the wall and starting tossing the food and screaming at the TV telling them how they were idiots and didn't know anything. She changed back to her, succubus form, I guess you would call it and hid her face in her hands and wouldn't look at us. Jemima tried to talk to her but Lucretia just walked over to the corner of the room and folded her wings around herself and wouldn't respond to us. You called and I think she might 'of heard your voice.

I tried to hand her the phone, but I don't think she understood what it was because she knocked it away from me which set Jemima off and she grabbed a hold of her to keep her from moving. Then after I picked up the phone from the floor I turned to see Jemima looking surprised as Lucretia hugged her and began...she began too..." Gwen's voice trailed off.

"She cried...right? That's what you told me." I offered. Gwen nodded and still looked a little shell-shocked.

"Well she seems better now, what did you do to help her? I usually just stay near her and hold her hand when she gets that way." I said.

Gwen watched me carefully and spoke slowly. "Greg...Succubae don't cry. They don't feel sadness or remorse. All they feel are the basic needs and wants, maybe a little curiosity, but they CAN'T feel those other things!"

I looked back at her startled a little myself, "Are you trying to tell me that Lucretia isn't a succubus?"

Gwen huffed in exasperation. "Of course not! Lucky...Lucretia is a succubus. To be born of a succubus no matter what it sleeps with, its offspring will be a succubus! What I am saying, Greg, is that succubae don't feel sad, they don't feel remorse or pity."

She faced me straight on. "When Jemima and I heard you talking to her about forgiveness and trying to explain it all, we were both laughing inside, because a succubus would never understand or want to understand what you were talking about."

She looked back at "Jemmy" and "Lucky" who had linked elbows to dance side by side.

"She was holding Jemima, thinking Jemima had been trying to give her a hug and not restrain her. She was sobbing about the show. We had to explain to her it wasn't real, that it was just a story, a made up one at that." Gwen swallowed.

"Somehow...I don't know how...you really did allow her so much more than just free will Greg. You are letting her feel the world that we live in as we do!"

I tried to process that. I always knew that Lucretia was a stranger in a strange land, but this, I think...went way beyond that. Lucretia is basically over 200 years old, and never felt a ton of emotions and feelings that we as people from this plane do. At least, that is what Gwen was telling me, as I understood it. Now, on top of being in a brand new place, Lucretia is also now feeling...well, feelings! It must be like what a blind man feels if he had never been able to see and now all of a sudden he can, but even more extreme than that. Gwen was looking at me like she was waiting for me to say something.

Of course my mouth opened before I really thought of what to say!

"So you're basically telling me I made an Outsider into an Insider?" I asked.

Gwen shook her head and clenched her little fists at her side while giving me a gimlet glare. The effect was spoiled by her flapper dress and long necklace. She looked a little like a child in her mother's clothes, but I would never say that.

What...? Piss off a witch? That's just crazy!

"Don't treat this lightly!" Gwen admonished me. "We have an Outsider who for all intents and purposes is...is...Native!" Gwen rubbed her forehead and looked down with a sigh.

"Jemima had asked Lucretia if she had liked anything about the movie at all, you know, trying to have her focus on something that didn't make her sad or upset." Gwen then looked me dead in the eye.

"Music!" Gwen spat out! I raised my eyebrows in question.

"Yeah...music...everyone likes music, I was going out to try to find some for her when..." I started to tell her when Gwen grabbed my arm to get my attention.

"My point exactly! Succubae don't give a crap about that sort of thing! Jemima started pulling out her old records and playing that big band music and she started smiling! Then when looking at the cover of the album she wondered about the clothing...the CLOTHING!" Gwen said as if thunderstruck.

I shrugged, sure Lucretia liked that stuff, we had talked about it before. She wanted different clothing and so we went shopping again for her to make copies of stuff she liked. I drew the line at skinny jeans...I don't care what anyone says...I hate designer skinny jeans!

Jemima pulled out some of her old clothes from the flapper era and then Lucretia made copies of them and then we were all..." Gwen's voice trailed off. She smiled and her eyes grew warm. "Your succubus is different, it made me think and I did a little research...even consulted the cards." Gwen stepped closer and started whispering to me.

"In all of our histories among my people and we DO know our history! There has been only one other confirmed joining of an Outsider to a being from our Plane. It wasn't to a human either." Gwen said quietly.

Obvious question, had to ask it. "Who or what was it with?"

Just as Gwen was about to tell me Lucretia snaked her arm through mine and began to pull on me.

"Dance with me Greg!" she told me, and my stomach clenched a bit.

Nope, not afraid of dancing...I actually enjoy it. I like to waltz and swing as much as most people...maybe more...okay... a lot more! I just hadn't done it in a while and the last time I did it was with a woman who...yep. Dark thoughts all over again.

Sigh...I have a lot of issues don't I?

Lucretia seemed to feel that, probably the same way as I felt her earlier. She began to pull away but I stopped her with my hands on her hips and pulled her closer, leaving about a six-inch gap between us.

"I would l...enjoy dancing with you!" I said through a stutter. I have been having more of those lately! I placed my right hand on her waist, pinky finger brushing the dress material over her hip. My left took her right hand in mine and I looked at Jemima.

"Moon River?" I asked. She nodded and I quietly told Lucretia how we are going to dance, and how I would lead. I can't do that cool, hip, freestyle "Shake your booty to the music!" type of thing. I do know how to dance with a woman though...it's simple. All you have to do is picture yourself as a stand that holds something precious and lovely and you want other people to see how special it is. Once that thought is firmly in your mind, follow the steps you know by heart and it will happen. What will happen you ask?

Your partner will shine!

The sweet gentle song played and I swayed my succubus across the carpet. Her brown human eyes were on mine. I could smell her, that soft vanilla tangerine scent that her body always seemed to produce. Her left hand on my shoulder every now and then squeezing as she would give a little giggle or a small smile of pleasure. I felt...so good! The fear of something wrong when I first showed up had dissipated, and this felt so right, being with her like this. When the song was done I leaned over and kissed her, deeply, right in front of Gwen and Jemima who both gasped.

Oh right...that is one of the ways succubae feed! I pulled back and planted a small kiss on top of her head through her hair.

We went home shortly after the dance, actually, I take that back. We went home after we helped clean up the mess and worked hard at cleaning the stains out of the carpets. I never knew that Lucretia's ability to replicate stuff could be tweaked to remove marinara sauce from cloth! Interesting possibilities. I may never have to dry clean again.

Back in our house I was getting ready for bed and Lucretia in her winged form was already in it. When she asked me something as I was taking off my pants.

"Greg...am I a monster?"

I stopped as I considered her question. My initial response was anger, how dare she call herself a monster! But I had to temper that reaction with logic. The more I thought about it, the more I didn't like the answer. I sighed and finished taking off my pants and socks and lay down on the mattress next to her.

After that one time of lying next to each other, I found I wanted her there, so while she did have a bedroom, she would sleep with me in mine. If I wasn't there though, she was not allowed in my room, I do need some privacy now and then. That being said though...I had forgotten how much I had missed a body next to me while I slept.

"Technically...yes. You are considered a monster." I said gently. I rolled over on my side to face her. She had a faraway look that was kind of sad and anxious at the same time.

"Technically...I am a monster as well." I told her in the same tone of voice. Her eyes lost the faraway look and returned back to examine me.

"Because you are a mage and different from most humans?" she questioned.

"No, because I am seen as someone who harms others." I clarified.

She thought about this and placed a clawed hand on my chest, her fingers sliding over the little bit of chest hair I had in an absentminded way.

"You are seen as a monster because of this woman who told others you had hurt her when you didn't." She stated. I nodded my head, not really wanting to talk about it. I watched her mull over whatever she was thinking and then give a half nod.

"I am a monster because not only am I different from humans I also prey upon them." She stated and her voice trembled once in the middle of her sentence. I didn't say anything, but took her hand that was laying on my chest and held it tighter against me. She watched our hands touching and smiled then it gradually disappeared as her eyes rose to mine again. Her expression turned incredibly serious, like she needed to...I don't know, confess or something.

"When I came back here with Mother I wanted to kill you, very badly, and very painfully." She said quietly. I said nothing but I am sure she felt my heart beating faster.

"It was strange how you responded to both Mother and me. I felt fear from you, and many other emotions, then you invited us inside to eat. You cooked and served us, and ate with us." Her voice had turned a little incredulous at the end as she stared at me.

"When Mother told me we would be bound I began to panic. I had been down that path before, and it was very unpleasant. I did not want to be bound to someone who hated me, and who I hated! I did not want to be bound to you." Her voice grew quiet, but her eyes never left mine. I waited to see what she would say next. A minute passed. Then two minutes, the only thing moving on her was her nictating membrane that was under her eyelid. It would flick out every now and then to moisten her shiny black eyes. I did not have that luxury, so I would have to blink, or clear my throat, but I kept eye contact with her as we lay there in my bed.

"You were kind to me..." she said suddenly and it almost made me jolt in bed a little. "You were kind to me even when you were scared. Mother and I could feel the hurt coming off of you." She swallowed hard and her eyes got wider.

"Greg, the reason we know you are not a...sex offender? Yes, that is the word. The reason we know is that you do not have that...taste about you. You do not succumb quickly to us, they are broken people and are easy to influence, you are not. You are very hurt and do not trust easily. You are also very..." Her voice trailed off and she snuggled closer to me, my arms went around her automatically.

I wished she hadn't stopped talking! It felt like there was something important that she was going to tell me! Then I heard her voice.

"I don't want you to die..." it was so quiet that I could barely hear her. My eyes began to tear up.

"Well, Lucretia...It's only a matter of time until I do."

I felt her nose rub against my sternum as she shook her head at me.

"I have decided to use my free will to disobey you if it ever comes up, Master." Lucretia said quietly. I immediately wanted to jump on that and ask what she was talking about. However, being quiet so far had seemed to be a good idea. I kept on shutting up!

"I told you once before that I would never kill you unless you really wanted me to...remember?" She asked.

How could I forget! I could hardly get to sleep that night, and I still had no idea what she was talking about! I said nothing and just gave an "MmmHmmm" of acknowledgement.

"I have decided that even if you asked me to kill you...I will disobey you." She said finally.

Enough of this! I need to talk, to say...something!

I pulled back a little, but Lucretia wouldn't look up at me.