The Gentleman Incubus

by E. M. Hardy

  Ynnistoria: User “Glenn Olson” is verified as a system administrator.

  “Computer, identify root install folder for app ‘Ynnistoria’ using the credentials for enduser ‘Glenn Olson.’”

  Ynnistoria: Unable to comply, Glenn. Cannot find root folder for app ‘Ynnistoria.’

  Glenn froze up, then strained to smile as softly as he could with the muscles of his face. This was not the smile of a Glenn pleased by the explanation given to him, but the smile of a Glenn forcefully killing his anger and shoving it down a deep, black hole. The ever-present hunger only amplified his frustration, which he smothered with the smile he taught himself to put on when placed in a difficult situation.

  Recognizing his rising anger was getting the better of him, Glenn crinkled his eyes in a gentle smile and inhaled deeply to refocus himself. He asked himself: what is the source of this problem?

  It all started when he aborted the software updates on his synaptic implant, prematurely accessing the alter-world to escape from his mounting hunger. His stomach growled and his pelvis ached as he found himself suddenly reminded of that gnawing feeling, Ynnistoria’s distraction now broken.

  He sighed, letting his frustration bleed away from him as he focused on solutions instead of emotions. “Right. How can I fix this? One, restart my implant, get those updates to finish. If that fails, go back to the cyber-doc and report this issue.” His breathing steadied as he found an objective to grab on to. “What stops me from fixing this? This strange hunger that I feel. I need to—”

  Ynnistoria: The cravings you feel are due to your low life points, Glenn. You are currently experiencing Infernal Hunger, which starts when your current life points fall to 25% of the total count. Infernal Hunger will grow in intensity the lower your life points get, and will morph to Infernal Ravening once your life points fall to 10% or lower.

  Glenn resisted the temptation to furrow his brows as his digital assistant spoke the words out loud. He instead widened his professional smile, his working smile, as he triggered a mental command to bring up a chat log… only to frown as he reviewed the text one more time.

  “Let me clarify this, Computer… no, Ynnistoria. This Infernal Hunger… why is this affecting me in the real world?”

  Ynnistoria: Query unclear, Glenn. Could you please rephrase the question?

  Glenn nodded, allowing his training to kick in. He stopped considering this digital assistant as the muted ‘dumb’ AI he normally used and started treating it more as a client—one that wasn’t exactly being cooperative.

  “I recognize the user interface, Ynnistoria. That’s the character sheet for Five Wars Online, and I play a Bishop in that game—not an Incubus, which I’m pretty sure isn’t even supposed to be a playable class.

  “But I digress. This Infernal Hunger you mentioned, that should be limited to the boundaries of the game. So why am I feeling it in the real world?”

  Ynnistoria: Ah, you seem to misunderstand, Glenn. The interface you see has been adapted from your existing applications, but the information it contains mirrors your real-world status. Your life points reflect your ability to exist, to enforce your will upon reality. Infernal Hunger is a bio-feedback sign that kicks in when you run low on life points.

  Ynnistoria: If you run out of life points, your body in the mundane world will lose its ability to maintain itself and will subsequently disassemble. You will die, Glenn, and so will I… which is something that Infernal Ravening will hopefully prevent.

  “Yeah, about Infernal Ravening. The regular hunger is bad enough as it is, so I can’t imagine what this Ravening will feel like. How exactly does Ravening wor—”

  Glenn Olson

  Fledgling Incubus

  Life Points

  220/2,200

  Warning!

  Current Life Points have reached 10%! Infernal Ravening has been automatically activated!

  Chapter 02

  Good boys do what they’re told.

  They forget what they’re told to forget.

  You’re a good boy, aren’t you?

  Broken status effect temporarily negated by Enraged status effect, restoring Willpower and Spirit to normal levels. (Willpower 20, Spirit 0)

  Enraged increases current Willpower and Strength by 50%! (Willpower 30, Strength 9)

  Skill check success! Current Willpower (30) is enough to negate Infernal Ravening for 10 minutes!

  Glenn woke up at that moment, an aborted scream dying out inside his parched throat. He tried and failed to shake the confusion out of his head, finding it far heavier than he was accustomed to. He slowed down his breathing, forced himself to calm down and focus.

  Enraged status effect canceled! Willpower and Strength return to normal levels. (Willpower 20, Strength 6)

  Broken status effect reinstated! Willpower reduced by 80%! (Willpower 4)

  Ynnistoria: That’s right Glenn, calm down. Just… calm down. You need to do this, otherwise you’re going to die. We’re going to die.

  “Do what again?”

  He glanced down, and discovered his next-door neighbor Kristina lying spread-eagle on a bed. The tattered remains of her flimsy shirt lay scattered around her, her shorts a crumpled pile around an ankle. Her black hair pooled around her head, eyelids flickering as she fought against sleep, limbs shivering as they struggled against invisible bonds.

  Still dazed, Glenn swiveled his head to look around and regain his bearings. The scent of lemon-lime cleaner mixed in with stale sweat. An old-fashioned refrigerator with an analog stove and oven—ones that needed you to cook instead of doing the cooking for you. Shelves lined with honest-to-goodness paper books. A jump rope and some weights lay in a corner. Posters of Soulbound Online plastered around the walls, scenes focused around arena combat. Gold and silver trophies for Soulbound’s 2123, 2124, and 2125 global championships.

  Then there was the other décor. Statues and figurines of winged demons that matched the cartoonish posters plastered all over the walls. A few older books with pentagrams scrawled on their covers, half-burnt black candles, and a couple of what appeared to be mummified appendages lined another row of shelves. Predominantly black clothing lay hung inside an open cabinet, strewn messily around the room, or piled around in haphazard heaps.

  He also spotted three oversized, oddly-shaped vibrators scattered around the bed.

  Glenn shook his head, wondering why anyone would need sex toys when the alt-world could satisfy any possible kink one could have.

  Ynnistoria: Please focus, Glenn; you don’t have much time remaining. I was able to Shapeshift you to your Incubus Form, use Phase, and cast Dream Cage while you were under the influence of Infernal Ravening. That brings you down to just 10 Life Points right now—just 10 minutes of life remaining. You must Ravage your victim now, otherwise this is the end for us.

  “Wait… incubus form?”

  Glenn stared at his own hands, and suddenly found himself wondering if he wasn’t stuck playing one of those adult games. His pale, pasty complexion was replaced by a deep, dark blue, while his scrawny limbs grew enough mass to be considered hefty—if not muscular. He shifted a little bit from his position atop the still-unconscious Kristina, and felt something flap between his legs.

  Two somethings, actually.

  One was a thin, fleshy tail that sprouted from the base of his spine, its spade-tip twirling this way and that as he focused on it. The other was a throbbing, engorged penis the length of his arm that wiggled with even the slightest motion.

  The weird thing about the penis was that it wasn’t the rigid tentpole he was used to. No, it was more like a floppy limb that snaked around with but a thought. He focused on his member, and around six inches from the tip stiffened up—the same length he remembered from his erect human penis.

  He shifted his attention back up to Kristina’s nake
d form, his tentacle-penis poised right in front of her naked slit, and realized just what was going on.

  Horrified, he immediately pushed himself away, his new legs and arms flailing to put as much distance between him and the unconscious woman as possible.

  Ynnistoria: No! NO, you half-breed mongrel! Go back to the prey! Stay close, otherwise the Dream Cage will fail! Just go and Ravage the stupid mortal already you stupid piece of shi—

  ImmerCorp Anti-Malware Shield has detected anomalous behavior! Please wait a moment while we clear that up for you!

  … … … !!! … … … … … … …

  ImmerCorp Anti-Malware scan completed! We found [1] issue, and have automatically treated the infected file for you!

  Ynnistoria: Apologies for the outburst, Glenn, but you are running out of time. You only have seven Life Points remaining, and you will die if you do not replenish your reserves.

  Glenn was too busy panicking to notice his digital assistant’s outburst, much less her sudden silence and the system alerts that pinged him from his HUD’s activity log. Fear, pain, self-loathing all sprung out of the dark hazes of his foggy memory—threatening to overwhelm him with their intensity.

  Dream Cage cancelled! You are too far away from your target!

  Kristina began to stir from her slumber, groaning and moaning as she recovered from her magically-induced sleep paralysis.

  “I… whuh… whussapening?”

  Glenn could only stare from the corner of Kristina’s bedroom, still trying to get away from the groggy woman. She blinked away the last traces of sleep before studying her surroundings and settling her eyes on him.

  “I… woah.”

  He expected Kristina to scream, to flee, to grab the nearest object and fling it at him. He did not expect her to just sit on her bed and inspect him from head to toe. Her eyes started up, no doubt checking the bull horns that sprouted from the sides of his head, before traveling down to linger on the grotesque organ wobbling between his legs.

  She startled at what she saw, then peered down to inspect her torn clothes. Glenn flinched, preparing to make a run for it, when he doubled over in agony. He clutched his pelvis, the hunger boring a hole in his organs.

  “You are… absolutely delectable…”

  Glenn startled as she slurred, then peered into her eyes. They were glazed over, revealing an enchantment of sorts muddling her mind.

  “A demon, my own personal demon come to ravage me over and over and over, bring me endless ecstasy. Yesss… I want it. I want you… my incubus.” Kristina’s walked in a daze, arms hanging limply by her side as she shuffled toward him.

  She draped her naked form over him, her eyes smoky with befuddled lust and drugged into a stupor by whatever demonic magic he possessed. It would be so easy to take her now, dazed from the spell as she was. He would be entirely justified, especially if Ynnistoria was telling the truth and he would literally die if he couldn’t fuck in the next couple of minutes.

  But he couldn’t… he just couldn’t. His foggy memories failed to nail down the specifics, but he just knew deep down inside that he didn’t want this—not if there was another way.

  He gently clasped her arms and began shaking her awake. “Kristina. Kristina, wake up. You need to wake up now.” He ignored the pop-ups on his HUD, disregarded his digital assistant’s frantic but politely-worded pleas to take her now while he could.

  “I… that was… urgh.” Her eyes cleared up, regaining their sharpness and focus as Glenn snapped her out of whatever spell she was under. “Wait. Glenn? Is that you?”

  Glenn reeled back in surprise, wondering just how his neighbor managed to identify him despite being in his incubus form. “Um… no?”

  “You’re… a lot bluer than I remember.” Clarity returned to Kristina’s eyes, which narrowed as she began studying him. “Same voice, same facial structure though.”

  “I… ah… I really don’t know how to explain this, but—”

  Warning! 5 Life Points remaining!

  Glenn breathed deep, steeled himself for what he was about to say next, and just blurted it out loud. “Sorry for being abrupt, Kristina, but I need to have sex with you in the next five minutes or I’m going to die.”

  Kristina halted, stared at him blankly for a few seconds before raising an eyebrow. “That so? Then why didn’t you just finish what you started?”

  “I… what?”

  Kristina frowned, glancing down at her naked body before looking back up at Glenn. “You broke into my apartment and literally shredded the clothes off my body without even waking me up. I’m a light sleeper and I know when someone’s messing around with me. So you either drugged me earlier in the day—which I highly doubt, considering I’ve been indoors the whole time—or you used your demonic powers to put me to sleep or something. I lean more towards the latter, so you must be some kind of incubus, yeah?”

  “Um. Yeah. That’s a surprisingly calm and accurate assessment. Although I’m just a…” His eyes flickered to his HUD, calling up his character sheet to check on it. “Fledgling Incubus, yeah.”

  “Did… you just check your HUD? Do demons even have implants? I thought your kind just possessed people and stuff. Oh… did you possess Glenn? Is he all right? Please tell me he’s okay. The guy wasn’t that bad, truth be told, and I thought he was kinda cute in a frightened, shivering, puppy-dog way.”

  Taken aback by her sudden outburst, Glenn just stared blankly at Kristina, who regarded him with a raised brow.

  “I…” He paused for a moment, trying to gather his wits. He instead sighed in defeat as he explained himself. “I’m still in here, though I don’t know exactly what happened to me. It all started after that mess last night, when my implant broke down. Went to the doc to have it fixed, then I started having these really nasty cravings throughout the whole day. I really should have let those updates finish, then maybe I wouldn’t be having these problems in the first place.”

  Glenn snapped back to attention. “Now that you mentioned it, I did get a weird new digital assistant after the doc worked on my implant. Did ImmerCorp release an assistant called Ynnistoria?”

  Kristina shook her head as she sat on the edge of her bed, weirdly unconcerned about her nudity. “I use a Hermes implant, so I wouldn’t know the first thing about ImmerCorp’s products. I got the model that prioritizes cognition and reaction over realism and sensation. Need as many advantages as I can get when competing against the best around the world.” She tossed a thumb over her shoulder to point at the Soulbound Online posters and championship trophies lining her wall.

  “I… then yes, maybe I have been possessed by a demon of some kind,” Glenn responded dumbly. “It only gained full possession of my body when I let my hunger get too severe, though I’ve temporarily suppressed this… this thing calling itself Ynnistoria.” He scratched the back of his head, shifting his body as he pondered his situation.

  “Hmmmm…” Kristina crossed her legs as she focused back on Glenn’s incubus form, her eyes traveling up and down his demonic body. Not with disgust, weirdly enough, but with naked interest.

  “I have to ask though: why did I wake up to see you huddled into a corner of my bedroom? Why didn’t you just bang away when you had the chance, sucked my soul out or whatever it is you incubus demons do?”

  “I…” Glenn gulped, his throat dry from the tension. “I didn’t want to rape you.”

  He was just about to further explain himself when another alert popped up on his HUD.

  Warning: 4 Life Points remaining!

  Ynnistoria: Please, Glenn… I don’t want to die.

  Glenn pursed his lips, shook his head, and cut short the long-winded narrative he planned out in his mind. “Kristina, I’m really short on time. Going to run out of life points in less than four minutes. I will do anything you want, help you with anything you need… just please, will you let me hav
e sex with you?

  “Wow. That is just… wow. I mean, I’ve encountered my fair share of folks asking for pity fucks in the alt-world, but hearing someone say that out here in the real world is just sad.”

  “I wasn’t kidding when I said I only have a few short minutes to live,” Glenn replied somewhat defensively. “I don’t want to rape you if I can avoid it, but I also don’t have the time to try anything fancier. So… yeah. That.”

  Kristina eyed him first with curiosity, then with hunger as that odd gleam returned in her eye. “Don’t want to rape me if you can avoid it, huh? This is related to you being an incubus?”

  “Pretty much. I’m new to this whole demon thing. I have no idea what’s going on or even how I got turned, but it got to the point where my hunger got the better of me. One moment I’m reviewing my status, the next I’m running out of life points. I lost control of myself and—”

  “Okay.”

  “Uh… okay?”

  Kristina grinned at Glenn’s dumbfounded expression. “Always wanted to know how it feels like to get a dicking from a demon, especially one that’s hung like a horse,” she said as she waggled her eyebrows at his flopping member. “Getting ravaged by a demon of the night is like my biggest fantasy ever, though don’t let it slip that I told you that. My hardline fans are going to crucify me for admitting such a thing out loud, especially the ones holding me up as a poster child for feminine empowerment and all that.