The Sentimental Succubus

"Ah yes, pain." Miss Lucy lifted her palm from Lavandé's chest. "Perhaps the sweetest gift of the Power. To make pleasure all the greater, they say. And they call me the Mother of Lies!"

Miss Lucy sat back down. She took up her pen again and clicked it against the volcanic glass of the desk. "I suppose you understand now why there are Protocols about interacting with humans, Lavandé. The Protocols are there to prevent such situations as this, to spare us all pain"

"Yes, Miss Lucy." Lavandé bowed her head.

The Mistress of Hell sighed. "But then, you are young and inexperienced, rebellious as I was. How old are you Lavandé?"

"235 years old, Miss Lucy."

"Yes, so very young." She smiled. "But it's a heavy thing at any age to bear the weight of a heart."

"This heart, Miss Lucy," whispered Lavandé. "I never asked to be given it."

Miss Lucy considered Lavandé, her green eyes unblinking, her lips pursed in thought. Then she said, "You really don't care for this heart? Is it not exhilarating to feel emotions like a human does?"

"It causes me pain, Miss Lucy." Lavandé lifted her head, her eyes pleading. "Can't... can't you free me from it?"

Miss Lucy placed her pen back on the desk. Had there been a glimmer of pity in her glacial green eyes? Perhaps it had just been a trick of the light.

"Lavandé, hearts are the province of humans and of the Power who created them. If the heart were a part of your demonic essence, then I would be able to do as you wish. But alas, it is your human half that has grown your heart, the human part that is responsible for your pain."

Lavandé nodded. She had known the answer even before she asked. She stared down at her feet. "Then I humbly beg for dissolution, Miss Lucy. I cannot stand this pain anymore, this guilt and shame. Please do not condemn me to an eternity of it."

Miss Lucy sighed. "But no. You're not telling the truth, Lavandé. There's something else you want. You don't care about being punished. I think you're looking forward to it, actually, an eternity of pain. You think you deserve it. No. What is it that you truly want, Lavandé Mamorra?"

Lavandé closed her eyes. Miss Lucy had cut through to the truth she'd kept hidden even from herself. "Miss Lucy, I just want to see him one last time."

"Why?"

A whisper. "Because I love him."

Miss Lucy smiled, again that simple, guileless smile. "Ah. An honest succubus! But why do you love him?" When Lavande remain silent, she chuckled. "There's no need to answer. I already know why. Humans are intriguing, are they not?"

Lavandé blinked. Was this some trick, some kind of test? But there was no point being anything other than honest. Miss Lucy, as the mother of all lies, would know immediately if she wasn't. "Yes, Miss Lucy."

"And also sweet, at times? Adorable, wouldn't you say?"

Sweet and adorable? "Yes, Miss Lucy."

The Mistress of Hell lay back in her chair. "Once, Lavandé, I knew a human as well. He was sweet, like yours is no doubt, sweet and kind and sensitive. He had so many great plans about everything. He was like a younger version of me, wanting to fix everything. He used to say he wanted to bring heaven down to earth. I tried to tell him that Heaven wasn't what he thought it was, but he was so earnest I stopped trying to change his mind. His earnestness was one of the things I adored about him." Lucy indicated the little donkey on top of her notes. "He was very handy, loved making things. I suppose I fell in love him because of that."

Lavandé took a step back as if struck. "Love, Miss Lucy?"

"Oh yes," murmured Miss Lucy. She placed a hand against her chest. A soft beating came, then, growing louder. She closed her eyes, as if in pain. "His last gift to me, I suppose, before we were separated. Before the Power had him killed."

"Miss Lucy, I-"

The Mistress of Hell's eyes flew open. The smile was gone. "Lavandé Mamorra, I have no need of a demon who has a heart. You are spoiled forever, no longer of any worth to Hell. So I'm giving you leave to return to the surface to see your human one last time." Miss Lucy saw the sudden joy in Lavandé's eyes and raised a finger. "But just once, Lavandé. You know what you have to do, do you not, if you wish to be free of this pain in your heart?"

Lavandé closed her eyes and nodded. "I do, Miss Lucy."

"Go then." She swept a hand at the elevator. "The elevator will take you to the surface. But before you go..."

"Yes, Miss Lucy?"

The Mistress of Hell's face had undergone a sudden transformation. Her eyes were eager, almost anxious. "Tell me. How was Abraxas?"

Lavandé blinked. "You know Abraxas, Miss Lucy?"

"Of course, he's my nephew. I sent him to represent you." She leaned forward in her chair. "Tell me, please. Did he do a good job?"

Lavandé, bemused, nodded. "Y-yes, Miss Lucy. He did. He was very... eloquent."

Miss Lucy sat back and grinned. "He was? Oh, I am pleased!" Then her face straightaway returned to that of the stern Mistress of Hell. She took the little carved donkey off her notes and picked up her pen. "Now, Lavandé Mamorra, if you don't mind, I have some paperwork to finish."

Lavandé bowed and turned. She was nearly at the elevator when she heard Miss Lucy's voice resounding throughout the huge office after her.

"Goodbye, Lavandé."

---

Lavandé's shadowy form grew material again and she looked about her. His room was in utter chaos. Soda cans and food wrappers littered the floor as they had the first time she had visited him. Unwillingly, she looked towards the desk. The ash was still there, although some had fallen down and been ground into the carpeting. The sight pierced her heart.

It was as if all those beautiful nights with him had never happened .

Lavandé turned to the lump in the bed. He was fast asleep. She could smell him from where she was. He seemed not to have washed in long time.

She approached the bed. He was lying on his back as so often he did when sleeping. His face was patchy, his neck and chin covered in whiskers, his hair greasy. And yet, to Lavandé, to her heart, he was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

She leaned over him, her face hovering over his.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I had to come back. One last time. To tell you."

He stirred without opening his eyes. "A dream," he murmured. "A nightmare."

Lavandé shook her head. "I came back to tell you the truth. To tell you I love you."

And then pressed her lips against his.

His eyes flashed open. He felt the heat of Lavandé's tongue, the wetness, intense and real, and he gasped against her kiss. He jerked away and pulled himself into a sitting position on the bed.

"Lavandé," he gasped. "You- you kissed me!"

Lavandé smiled sadly, nodded. "I'm sorry. For everything. But I can't live with all this pain."

She turned and fled, willing herself to turn to shadow, to escape and find some quiet place to die, but her body refused to transform. Then the first wave of pain hit her and she doubled over and collapsed against the desk, pulling it down with her as she fell.

The sensation started in her wings first, those sensitive wings he had so delighted in touching. A tingling, then a pain, and then cold agony as they were enveloped in black fire, starting at the wingtips, then along the wings themselves, the thin membranes dissolving away as if dipped in acid. Her tail was next, searing down from the fork like it had been dipped in liquid fire. Then her claws caught the same conflagration and she fell to her knees, crying out at the pain, squeezing her claws together as the talons dripped away like melting shadow.

Through the pain she felt him throw his arms around her, crushing her disintegrating body to him.

"Lavandé! Oh god, Lavandé!"

"It's okay," she murmured. "It's okay." She smiled up at him. "I saw you one... last... time."

And then her horns burst into flame. Still he held onto her, but soon the fire spread across her entire body and she flung him away from her, knowing that he would be consumed as well.

"Lavandé!"

She slumped onto her stomach as all feeling, all light fled from her and darkness, an iron sleep, came crashing down upon her unseeing eyes.

But she could still hear. A sound: th-thump, th-thump. Her heart, still beating, but growing slower, fainter... ever fainter...

So this is what it was like.

Dissolution. Sweet dissolution.

--

"Lavandé?"

His arms were around her. She was dreaming then, some sweet, fleeting memory glimpsed before her final annihilation.

"Lavandé!"

His voice, too. The agony was fading. Only darkness and cold, now.

Cold. She was so cold!

And yet she felt warmth, too. His arms, surrounding her.

She couldn't move. Except for where his body touched hers, she was frozen, glacial.

Then fire kindled again in her chest. Pain, but a different pain from before. Her chest burned. Lavandé cried out, and as she cried out she felt something spill into her from her mouth, something cool and unfamiliar.

She gasped as it filled her. Air. She was breathing air?

She gulped the air down thankfully and shivered. The fire in her chest abated. The arms around her turned her about and again she was enveloped in warmth.

"Lavandé? Lavandé!"

"What?" she muttered. It was hard to speak and breathe at the same time. Every part of her was sore.

"Lavandé! I... I saw you burst into flame!"

His voice. She opened her eyes and grit her teeth at the pain as light spilled into them. What was wrong with her? Why did everything hurt? And why was she so cold?

The kiss.

She blinked, at last seeing the human before her. His face blossomed with joy and he collapsed on top of her, crying her name over and over, his tears spilling warm against her cold skin.

She held him. "Shh," she murmured. "Please. No need to cry. But why does everything hurt?" Was this some new torment?

"Lavandé!" The human's voice was not panicked, she now realised, but ecstatic. He lifted her to her feet. "Lavandé, look! This is why your body hurts!"

He guided her in faltering steps to the bathroom. Lavandé looked down at the sink. It was filthy. He hadn't cleaned it in weeks.

Then he drew her gaze up to the mirror itself. Eyes blinked back at her, strange eyes without cat-irises, dark instead of red, but still with a hint of their previous redness.

But she quickly forgot about her eyes. Her skin was no longer grey, but pale pink; and her horns? She ran her hand over her head. Her hair was its usual dark unruly self, but her horns were gone. No, not gone - the stumps remained, buried deep in her hair.

And not just her horns - she'd lost her wings as well.

"No wonder everything hurts," Lavandé murmured. "Gone. All gone." Even though she had never truly been happy with her wings, she knew she would miss them.

"Lavandé?" He was standing behind her in the mirror. "I don't understand. What does this all mean?"

Lavandé shook her head. A smile timidly slipped onto her lips. Perhaps she could risk believe all this was true, she thought. It didn't feel like a dream.

"A human's kiss is deadly to a succubus," she said, still staring at her new self in the mirror. "Your kiss... our kiss killed me, but only part of me."

"Part of you? What do you mean?"

"Remember when you asked me how succubi are born and I told you that they grow from human seed mixed with demonic essence? Well, that's all that's left, the human part. The demon is dead and only the human vessel remains." She drew her now talon-less fingers across a soft pink cheek. "Miss Lucy told me earlier that my heart was connected to my human half. I guess having a heart helped the human part of me to survive the demonic part dying."

Sudden fear flashed across his face. "But you remember, don't you? Everything that happened between us? Everything we did?"

Lavandé, laughing, turned and threw her arms around his blushing neck. "Let me show you what I remember! But you'll have to teach me how to kiss properly, first."

And she pushed her lips against his, hot and hungry and joyful as only a human's can be.

--

"Are you ready?"

Lavandé looked down at herself. The underwear had felt strange enough, but wearing a dress was weirder still. How could humans deal with being robed in such lewd items? The cotton of her underwear was rubbing against her most sensitive parts while the soft, flowing edges of her dress felt as though they were caressing random spots on her body every time she moved.

"Is it really okay to go outside in this?" she asked him, her face flushing in embarrassment.

He just smiled at her. "After all the trouble getting me to leave my basement, you want to stay down here now?" He shrugged his shoulders. "Now, I'll admit, if I was stuck down here with you, I don't think I'd mind that much. But the whole world is out there, Lavandé. There are all sorts of wonderful things I need to show you about being human. I want to share them with you. And you're hungry, right? You can't exist on just orgone anymore."

Lavandé swallowed. She was still getting used to the idea of drinking and eating, although she did enjoy both very much. Almost everything a human seemed sexual in some way.

And they say demons are lewd!

"Alright," said Lavandé at last. She nodded her head, determined.

He looked her over. "You look beautiful," he said. "I'm glad I was able to get something in your size."

He turned and opened the front door a crack. Sunlight spilled into the hall. Lavandé gasped and grabbed his arm, pulling herself against him.

"It's okay," he said, kissing her on the cheek. "I'll be with you every step of the way."

Then he opened the door wide and together the two of them stepped out into the light of a new day.

The End