The Sentimental Succubus

What was it that had so taken his interest? I looked down at the paper and stepped back in shock.

The paper was covered in drawings - drawings of me.

I was unmistakable: my small curved horns; my wild, always unmanageable blue-black hair; my large eyes with their cat irises. I looked closer. There were more than just portraits. He'd also drawn me full length. I admired the skilful way he'd so flatteringly portrayed my long, slender body. My wings were especially well-drawn, right down to their hooked talons.

I glanced across at the sleeping lump on the bed. So he'd seen me in his dreams. It was a common enough occurrence. And there was the time, too, when he'd glimpsed me on the point of waking. Perhaps that explained the detail with which he was able to recall my features.

I drew a claw along the edge of the paper. My chest grew warm. I looked so beautiful. Every detail had been painstakingly rendered. Why had he spent so much time on drawing me? Was I really so interesting to him, a fleeting erotic dream?

I pulled myself away from the drawings with difficulty and floated across to his bed. I slid the bedclothes off him. I'd grown especially hungry. Was it from all the waiting I had done, the orgone I'd expended remaining a shadow while watching him draw?

Perhaps it was something more than that.

Having revealed his body I drew my claws along his sides. He murmured. I peeled his shirt up and placed a palm on his stomach and stroked downwards, towards his abdomen. He gasped and turned his head so his cheek rested against the pillow. I slipped my hand into his pyjama bottoms and tantalised his sleeping member. He groaned and his face flushed. I was delighted by the reaction and soon got him hard with my delicate ministrations.

This time I wanted to take things slow with him. Perhaps I'd been flattered by the drawings he'd made of me and wished to reward him. There was nothing in the demonic protocols about not being permitted to please the humans you harvest. After all, a pleased human often emits stronger orgone. It's for this reason that succubi spend so much time training in the many different techniques of fornication.

But fornication was the wrong word for what I was doing to him now. I was teasing him. I pulled his pants down just far enough to release his now rampant organ. I kissed the head and flicked my tongue underneath it. All human males delight in that and he was no exception. A bead of moisture appeared at the tips and I dug it out with my eager tongue. Then I slipped his whole length into my mouth. A combination of stroking the length with my hand and lapping with my tongue soon had him crying out. He bucked his hips up off the mattress and I did my best to accommodate his eager thrusts with my throat. Soon he gasped and came, his ejaculate filling my mouth to overflowing. I greedily drank it all. I fell back on my bottom at the foot of the bed and scraped the overflow of his semen into my mouth. He tasted different, sweeter and thicker.

Once again I'd let myself get distracted. I didn't notice that he'd woken up until he sat up and smiled at me.

"So you are real," he said.

I dissolved at once into shadow and fled out through the ventilation. I flew back down into Hell in a panic. I knew of course that I should've reported the incident, should've never returned to this same human again, but something prevented me. That warmth, that alien warmth that had taken hold of me.

That warmth would not let me.

I knew then that I was ill, or cursed. It was the only explanation. Perhaps I'd come in contact with some holy object, flown over some sanctified place by mistake? There had to be some explanation for my increasingly bizarre behaviour.

"So you are real." His voice echoed in my memory. He had not been afraid of me. No screaming, no fear. Just four simple words.

He'd sounded so happy!

His words haunted me. And yet it was several days before I had the courage to revisit him. But until I found that courage - or perhaps it was desperation that drove me? - I didn't harvest any other humans. It seemed... it seemed wrong somehow, as if I was betraying him.

Worried about betrayal? A demoness? Truly, I was ill.

I convinced myself that I needed to return to his room, to discovering the source of this malady consuming me. I went at night, terrified I might find him awake. I didn't want that smile flashed in my direction again. I knew... ah, I knew that my nerves would not take it.

It was late at night. The darkness was filled with other demonic spirits as I rose up through the earth. I lingered outside his room, placed my face through the wall until I could view the inside in shadowy relief.

A hump in his bed. So he was asleep.

Emboldened, I passed through the wall and padded into his room. Somehow, it seemed tidier than before. The wrappers that had littered the floor were gone and the empty cans of soda were stacked with something resembling neatness. His desk was wholly free of all that rubbish I'd seen before. Instead, it was covered with drawing paper.

It was where I'd seen those beautiful sketches of myself. I turned my face away and swept past. There was no need to look again on those frivolous scribbles! They were a foolish distraction from my duty. Of course a human would draw something he saw in a dream, especially such a strange and striking demoness as myself. His curiosity was only natural.

And yet, the exquisite tenderness of those lines! He'd made me look so beautiful.

"So you are real." The joy bubbling in those words!

I stopped. I knew that what I was doing was a symptom of my illness, and yet the compulsion would not let go of me. I drew my claws across the papers, separating them so I could see what he'd been drawing.

And there I saw myself again. But this time..."

Lavandé fell silent. Her face had turned red.

"Please, Your Horror!" cried Forneus in alarm. "The defendant is blushing! Must we really put up with such lewdness in this courtroom?"

Onoskelis nodded. He kept his eyes discretely trained on the space just above Lavandé's head and said, "Miss Mamorra, if you would be so kind as to keep your conduct within the realms of decency?"

"I'm afraid blushing seems to be a symptom of my illness and comes upon me involuntarily, Your Horror. I'll try to control it."

Murmuring from the jury. Abraxas rubbed his claws together under his cowl. No doubt this was playing very well into an insanity defence, thought Lavandé.

She swallowed and continued. "And so, as I was saying, Your Horror, I saw that he'd drawn me again. But this time I was wearing clothes, human clothes which covered up almost all my skin."

A moan of horror undulated through the jury. Lavandé stared down at the table and hid her deepening blush with her hands.

"We would ask that the defendant describe these 'clothes' more fully," said Forneus with barely-contained glee.

Lavandé grimaced. Of course, prejudice the jury against her! Even though they were just imaginary pictures a deranged human had created of her. And yet...

"It was a dress," said Lavandé at last. "A garment which covers the body from the upper chest, above the breasts, hanging from straps on the shoulders to fall just below the knees. I believe it was of the kind called a sun-dress."

"So your breasts and genitals and buttocks and thighs were completely covered," asked Forneus.

"In the picture, yes," Lavandé said, turning to the jury. "Don't forget, this was all in a picture the human had drawn."

"And the pattern on this dress?"

"Flowers," said Lavandé, dropping her gaze. "There was also a hat, a straw one for keeping off the sun."

The jury muttered.

"This was not the worst picture. I saw others. I was dressed in different sorts of human clothes, portrayed in different poses: laughing, picking flowers, sitting under a tree reading. And yet in all of them I retained my demonic characteristics. The human wasn't disturbed by them, and had skilfully executed every detail of my horns and tail and wings.

I knew he'd enjoyed making the pictures. There were so many of them!

I left them behind and crept up to him. Having not visited him for many days, his orgone flashed bright. I knew he must have forgone any sexual acts since I'd last been there. The thought of him keeping himself for me pleased me and warmth flushed through my chest. I almost forgave him for the lewdness of the pictures he'd drawn.

My hunger rising, I stripped the bedclothes away to find a delicious erection already waiting for me. Was he deep in some erotic dream? Had the mere scent of my body elicited such a swift and lusty response? The sight delights me and after a few eager mouthings of his member I climbed on top of him.

It had been a long time. The drought broke as I rolled my hips and bounced upon him, ecstasy pouring through me with each upward piercing of his erection into me. He continued to sleep, but murmured and sighed as I took my fill of delicious orgone from him.

I was nearing climax. The act of fornication had barely begun and I was already filled to overflowing. I felt his member grow harder still inside me and delirious with pleasure, my lower half melting into liquid, I came just as he started to spurt his semen inside me. I cried out in the throes of my passion, then, for the first time in my existence. A succubus is to remain as silent as possible during harvesting so that the human does not awake, but the intensity of the moment drove all my training from me.

Then I felt his hands grab my waist as he delivered a series of hard thrusts into me with his still spurting member.

I was shocked, of course... and yet I was so out of my mind with pleasure that I rationalised it. He'd just made an involuntary, instinctive movement: such things are known to happen.

And even if he was awake, I knew I couldn't stop. I needed his orgone, needed his member, needed him. A grotesque compulsion that shames me, now, to utter it.

He opened his eyes.

Again that smile!

This time I didn't flee right away. Drunk with orgone and still shivering with those last waves of delicious pleasure, I stared down at him, my eyes wide in horror. He raised his hand to my face.

My lips curled in a defensive scowl. Biting his hand would have been melodramatic, ridiculous. I shied away instead, but not before the tips of his fingers had scored across my cheek.

"I missed you," he said.

The horror contained in those words! I melted away, then, dissolving into shadow and flowing down through the floor.

But I returned to him the following night. Shame-faced and silent, I returned, and the night after that one, too.

I continued to harvest him every night. Sometimes he'd wake just before he came inside me. His eyes would flash open, those beautiful timid eyes, and he'd try and hold my gaze as we reached our peak of pleasure together. I always turned my face away. I didn't want him to see the flush that so readily came to it now. Also, I couldn't endure what I glimpsed in those eyes."

"And what did you see?" asked Forneus. She turned to the Judge. "Your Horror, the defendant is being evasive."

Onoskelis directed his sternest gaze at Lavandé. "Please tell us exactly what you saw in his eyes, Miss Mamorra."

Lavandé smiled. "Love, Your Horror."

Stunned silence in the courtroom, and then uproar. The jury erupted into howls of shock and indignation. Forneus's red face went deathly pale. Abraxas fell from his stool. Onoskelis sat paralysed, but as the court further descended into chaos, he began to bang his gavel, over and over, until sparks of incandescence flew up to the high ceiling. Lavandé watched the disorder, a thin smile on her face.

"Order! Order in this court!" The old demon's aura turned crimson with rage.

The court at last settled down into a disturbed murmuring.

Onoskelis pointed his gavel at Lavandé. "Miss Mamorra! Any further blasphemy and I will have this court cleared and hold you in contempt. From now on, if you must reference that... that concept, please use a circumlocution such as 'the L-word.'"

Lavandé lowered her eyes and smiled to herself. "I understand, Your Horror. It won't happen again.

"Despite what I had seen in his eyes, I continued to visit him, as I said. My illness had taken total control of me. The pain in my chest was ever present now, and alongside it a hollowness demanding to be filled.

And yet, as full of orgone as I became, it was never, ever enough.

He would leave pictures of me on the table. There were never any pictures of us fornicating and I began to worry whether I was really giving him pleasure. But surely the copious orgone that would invariably flow from him was evidence enough of his delight in my body, wasn't it?

Why was I so worried about how he felt about me? As my disorder worsened, I found myself more and more obsessed with such sentimental concerns.

I started to appear the same time very night, contrary to all my training, and so the day finally came when I arrived while he was still awake.

He was sitting on the bed, his back to me. I knew I should turn and leave, but instead I hovered in a dark corner as a shadow, watching him.

"You're here, aren't you?" he said after a while. "I can feel you."

I made no reply. I'd never spoken to him, I realised then.

"Can you speak?" he asked.

I panicked, but I didn't flee. Instead I answered him.

"Yes, I can speak."

His shoulders relaxed. "Your voice is beautiful too," he said.

Beautiful.

I knew, then, that the heat I'd started to feel on my face sometimes was a blush. The blush spread across my face and lingered there.

"You're a demon, aren't you?"

"Yes," I replied. "A succubus."

A pause. Then: "Why me?"

"You're very full of orgone," I replied at last, knowing full well he wouldn't understand the word.

"Orgone?"

"Sexual energy," I replied. Of course, I could have said that before, but I'd begun to enjoy this conversation. Yes, it was a conversation, now. Not just a few words calling to me as I fled from him. His voice was low and gentle and it made my blood surge to have him speak to me.

He laughed. The sound shocked me. There is not much laughter down here in Hell, and even in the upper world it's becoming less common. His laugh was neither cruel nor derisive, but gently mocking.

"Figures," he says. "They said you'd become a wizard if you stayed a virgin for long enough. I guess I must have become one and summoned a succubus."

"No," I corrected him. "You didn't summon me. I came here myself."

"For my orgone?"

I remained silent. I should have answered yes, and yet I couldn't. It smacked of a lie and I was finding it harder and harder to lie now.

"What's your name?" the human asked me.

"Lavandé," I said without thinking.

"Lavandé," he repeated. Repeated in his voice my name sounded beautiful to my ears for the first time. "It means lavender in French, isn't it?"

"I don't know," I said. "My older sisters have often told me that I was given the name because of the lightness of my complexion."

I was babbling nonsense now. The human turned. Forgetful of where I was, distracted by our conversation, I'd become material. His smiling eyes considered my form.

"Yes, I can see that," he said. Then he blushed and turned away. "Are you always naked, down there?"

I blinked at him. "Down where?"

"Uh, in Hell, I mean."

"It's very hot," I replied. "And this form is more pleasing to human males bare."

He cleared his throat. "Uh, it is very pleasing. But you know, I think maybe you'd look good in clothes as well."

"You're referring to those pictures you drew." I grew angry, my tail whipping back and forth. "Why did you draw me dressed in those things?"

He turned back to me. Shame lit his face. "I'm sorry," he murmured. "I've offended you, haven't I? I won't draw you anymore."

"No," I said. It was answer to both the things he had said. "Your drawings don't matter to me. Only your orgone."

"Are you going to take my orgone tonight?" he asked. His voice was soft, child-like in its tentativeness.

Of course. He'd mentioned earlier he was a virgin. Or had been a virgin, before I'd come and...

I gazed at his aura. Orgone was flowing from him in waves. He was experiencing desire. Hunger gripped my entire body, but with it came a strange, new sensation.

Shame.

Flustered, I replied, "I have to go."

"I understand," he said. His voice was matter-of-fact but tinged with disappointment. "Will you come back again?"

"I don't know," I lied, dissolving away into shadow.

------

Our conversation had unsettled me. I didn't immediately return to harvest him. I went days without a taste of orgone and grew steadily weaker. One night I was driven by hunger to again rise to the upper world. I detected a source of orgone, a different one, far from the habitation of that particular human who so haunted me.

I hungrily fell on the male as he slept with his female beside him. I pressed shivering fingers against his body and when I felt his skin, so different from the skin of the other human, I pulled my hands away, repulsed.

Even wracked by this overpowering hunger I couldn't go through with it. Fornicating with another felt wrong.

This sickness was going to destroy me, I knew then. I was going to fade away from a lack of orgone, growing steadily weaker until I suffered total dissolution. I was doomed.

But instead of accepting that fate I found myself flying to the human's habitation. The agony of my hunger had forced me out into the human world far earlier than usual that evening, and I knew from before that the human would still be awake.

And yet still I went.

I grew stronger as I came closer. When I saw the light in the basement I shivered in excitement. I slipped through the wall, a sheet of shadow.

The human was indeed still awake. He was sitting at his desk, focussed on the paper in front of him. His hands, those graceful, tender hands, swept back and forth, scratching the paper with lines. He was drawing.

Still shadow, I floated over his shoulder and looked down.

I saw a picture of myself, as before, in that same floral dress with the straw hat. I was in a field of flowers. A beaming smile graced my face as my hand reached out from the perspective of the paper and held another's hand, clearly intended to represent that of the viewer..."

The courtroom gasped.

Lavandé shrugged. "I apologise for the graphicness of my description, Your Horror. But that's what I saw."

"Please continue Miss Mamorra," said Onoskelis with a wave of a talon, clearly exhausted from the previous uproar.

"He finished shading the viewer's hand and returned to my tail. He seemed unhappy with the shape of the fork and redrew it. It looked much better, then. My tail was high in the air, as often it is when I'm filled with pleasure."

So he'd noticed such a detail! I blushed, and as I did I grew material and floated down to the floor.

He stopped drawing and looked behind him. I took a step back. A look of delight burst onto his face, as always. I took two more steps back. His face suddenly switched to one of panic. He raised a hand, his eyes desperate.

"Please, no. Lavandé, don't go," he said. "I promise I won't touch you. I... I just want to talk to you."

"Talk?" I glared haughtily at him. For all my hunger, my need to see him, finally having him before me filled me with rage. He was the source of this illness, this hideous compulsion. Talk? Rather I should kill him! I flexed the claws of one hand. It would be a simple task to incinerate him.

Fire blossomed, its yellow tongues flicking from the palm of my hand. The human's eyes went wide and he cowered back against his desk.

Perhaps part of me had come to kill him. But as I looked at his horrified face I extinguished the flames and lowered my hand.