Having walked her way into numerous dreams, the roleplay wasn’t new to her. Plenty of marks fantasized about having someone come home to them. But in the majority of those scenarios, the door was unlocked. Most fantasies flashed her straight into bed or out to an open beach. The only scenario that Riley could think of was a person that wanted someone to break in. It wasn’t a popular fantasy, but it did exist. Usually those profiles were flagged, however, and she hadn’t noticed any special notes about this particular mark. She rattled the door once more to confirm her initial assessment. Still locked.
She didn’t want to break into the home, not with the heels she had on, so she opted for looking for a spare key. After checking beneath a few rocks and potted plants, she found a key hiding under a welcome mat. She smiled to herself. Despite centuries of evolution, humans were still predictable. The key fit in its designated slot and the door swung open without protest. She entered quietly and shut the door behind her.
Before moving farther into the house, Riley stood in front of a hallway mirror and used the reflection to adjust her outfit and makeup. It was dark inside; a dim blue hue filtered into the hallway from the moon through the house’s windows.
“So, you’re a simple romantic,” she stated quietly to herself. She had a knack for memorizing Trusics profiles but also her patrons’ unstated desires. “The love, the care, the tender touches.” She grinned at her reflection. “Game on.”
Riley had no problem meeting her monthly energy quota with her four current clients, but Trusics was particular about company policies and regulations. Each active agent was mandated to have a portfolio of at least five marks. None of the company-suggested members had struck her as particularly interesting, but of the user profiles that Josh had acquired, one had stood out. The woman had not provided a photograph, but Riley had been intrigued and found it endearing how she had answered each recommended profile question.
Riley gingerly crept toward the end of the hallway to a lit opening. “Hello?” she called out. “Is anyone ho—”
Her words were cut short when a messenger bag swung around the hallway corner and struck her in the face. She stumbled backward in her stilettos.
“Holy fuck!” Her hands immediately flew to her stinging nose. “I think you broke me.”
“Eat it, you demonic asshole!” came a feminine snarl.
Riley ducked and dodged as the messenger bag continued to attack. She retreated through the hallway until she reached the front door. She grabbed an umbrella from its stand in hopes to ward off her attacker.
“What the hell is your problem?” Riley demanded, umbrella raised to shield her from further attack.
The woman in front of Riley lowered the messenger bag and cocked a hip to one side. Her positioning was more an offensive stance than a feminine pose. “Intruders are my problem. And since you seem to be one, you’re my problem.”
Riley blinked a few times and shook her head. “Something’s wrong here. This isn’t a fantasy.”
“No, really?” The woman narrowed her eyes. “I’m guessing that not too many people would fantasize about beating someone with a messenger bag and then sleeping with them. However, I could be wrong.” Her eyes flashed. “Care to try me, Demon?”
Riley stepped backwards, umbrella still raised, and fumbled for the door handle of the front door. “This is crazy.”
Riley threw herself outside and stumbled down the concrete front stoop. She’d never had problems in high heels before, but her new mark had left her completely disoriented. Although she should have flashed out of the dream realm, Riley instead followed a row of glowing streetlamps until she reached a small, abandoned park at the end of the street. She paced back and forth on the concrete, her heels clicking on the sidewalk as she stole glances at the darkened home.
“Think,” Riley said to herself, mindlessly tossing the umbrella away. “What just happened?” Minutes passed as she thought back to her training and employee manual. “You were assaulted by a client and, to add insult to injury, turned down,” she admitted to no one in particular. “This can’t be a fantasy. No one in their right mind would think a bag to the face is foreplay. Right?”
She stopped pacing and ran her hands through her loose brunette hair. “No. You go back in there and show her the time of her life,” she ordered herself. Realizing that her body had a slight tremble, Riley took a few calming breaths before turning on her heel and storming back to the home. “In your decades of work, this will be your best mark. Yes,” she said with a nod of finality.
The front door was as far as she got before she came to a stop. Her hand never quite reached the door knob. “If you go back in there, she might have upgraded her weapon.” She tested the bridge of her nose, still tender from the mark’s assault. In all her decades of being a succubus, she’d never been attacked. A little light BDSM wasn’t unusual, but it had never taken the form of a bag to the face.
Her hand hovered over the doorknob. The hesitation came again. “Screw it.” She relented and pressed a combination into her wristwatch. Within a few seconds she flashed out of the dream realm.
Back in her apartment, Riley found herself in her bed, back where she was supposed to be. She groaned and rubbed her face, flinching at the soreness of her nose. Glancing at the blue digital numbers of her alarm clock, she could at least be grateful the damage hadn’t been worse.
• • •
New York City, 1990
Rillea squinted her eyes and picked at a patch of rough skin on her right knee. She raked her short nails over the dry bits of torn-up skin and frowned. Sleeping through her alarm had made the morning a rushed one. In her scurrying around to get ready, she’d scraped her knee against the corner of a drawer in her apartment.
She chewed on her bottom lip as she brushed at the flakes of skin.
“Rillea Schroder,” came a stern voice. She snapped her eyes away from her bruising knee and in the direction of the male tone. One of Trusics’s instructors stood at the front of the classroom, glaring in her direction.
He was a tall man with wavy, sandy-colored hair. His profile was strong and he had one of those butt chins that people paid plastic surgeons thousands of dollars to acquire. Rillea wasn’t sure if this man’s was his birthright or manmade, however. During her meeting with Human Resources, the HR contact had repeatedly noted the availability of cosmetic procedures for long-time employees. Rillea wasn’t sure if the HR woman was being thorough or if she was hinting that she would benefit from a little nip-and-tuck.
“Rillea,” the man barked again.
“I’m sorry?”
“I asked you a question.” He growled impatiently and tapped his foot. “What is the protocol for reporting an abusive mark? We’re all waiting.”
Rillea cursed under her breath. As much as she’d tried to go above and beyond to be a perfect trainee, this man did not like her. She had been a succubus since the mid-1960s, but her employment with Trusics had only just begun. She knew full well how to be a succubus; she’d survived this long on her own, hadn’t she? But now there were new rules and procedures to learn to be a part of the growing Trusics family.
She glanced down at her notebook and tapped her pen against the pages. “Uh, in case of a client who becomes violent, we’re to phase out immediately and report him—”
“Or her,” the trainer jumped in.
Rillea resisted the urge to roll her eyes. “Or her, to the Human Resources and Security departments.”
“And what happens next?” The trainer looked annoyed as if she should have anticipated him wanting that information.
“Then the case is reviewed and if the mark is found in violation, they’re blacklisted. And the accusing incubus or succubus,” she quickly added, sensing the trainer was waiting for the opportunity to interrupt her again, “is awarded a stipend of energy to offset the misuse of his or her time.”
The trainer looked displeased as if smelling a rotting scent. “Yes,” he confirmed in a tight voic
e. He spun on his heels and returned to the chalkboard at the front of the room. “Now, if you’ll all turn to page forty-seven of your handbook, we’ll next discuss the exception to this rule, situations where a little bit of controlled violence is actually a good thing—what are known as code blue clients.”
“Awesome!” a dread-headed youth chirped from his seat adjacent to Rillea. “I’ve been waiting for the twisted sex perverts.”
The trainer turned away from the board to face his students. “Yes. As I said before: code blue clients.”
Rillea packed up her handbook and the notes she’d taken as her Protocol class came to an end. She looked at her watch to note the exact time. The watch had been a present from her father on her sixteenth birthday, and she’d continued using it well past her second decade. If all went well, in a few short weeks she’d “graduate,” become a probationary employee, and get a new watch from Trusics.
The watch set company employees apart from other incubi and succubi. It was a symbol of belonging to an elite community, and it did so much more than tell time. Disguised as an accessory for the convenience of wearers, it was a specialized mechanism developed internally to make work efficient and safe. From what she had learned over the past month of rigorous training, the timepiece granted immediate access to the dream realm. It also stored and provided the sexual energy that was the heartbeat of the cubare.
She had half an hour before the start of her next class, Seduction Studies. It was her favorite of the long day, not because of the hands-on structure of the course, but because she had proven herself to be an apt student of the discipline. Her trainers had repeatedly praised her ability to tease out a partner’s most provocative desires.
On her way out of the classroom, she noticed a man standing near the classroom exit. She didn’t recognize him as one of her classmates or any of the trainers she knew. She smiled at the man on her way out the door.
“Don’t let him get to you,” the man noted as she passed him. “He hates everyone.”
Rillea paused her exit. “He does seem to have it out for me.”
The man pushed himself off the doorjamb. “You’ll find most of the training staff will be knowledgeable and helpful,” he noted, “but I think he’s bitter about not being an active agent.”
“They never told us; how do trainers get their positions?”
“Studs put out to pasture.” The man shrugged meekly. “Incubi and succubi who want the benefits Trusics provides, but balk at having a monthly energy quota to meet. They get paid just enough energy to keep up their standard of living.”
“They don’t age?”
“Not as long as they honor their contract,” the man confirmed. “Their age remains preserved like a typical agent, but they’re not allowed to access the dream realm without company permission.”
Rillea hazarded a glance at the trainer, who still commanded the front of the classroom. She noticed for the first time the peppering at his temples and the beginnings of crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. Wrinkles and grey hair were virtually unheard of in the cubare community unless they had been sired or recruited later on in life.
Her grey-green eyes looked back at the informative stranger. “Are you a trainer, too?” she asked carefully, not wanting to offend the man either way.
He chuckled and shook his head. “Naw. They’ll never get rid of me. I know too many company secrets.”
Rillea found herself smiling. The man’s gentle energy had settled her nerves.
“By the way,” he said, offering his outstretched hand, “I’m James.”
• • •
Los Angeles, July 2012
Riley walked across the Trusics parking lot for the second time in the span of a couple weeks. It was an unusual circumstance for the succubus and she didn’t care for it much. The beauty of being a “Customer Satisfaction Account Executive” was the ability to work from home. Having to go to the office reminded her of going to school.
When she made her way inside the building, she reflexively removed the sunglasses perched on her nose. The sting she had forgotten about shot a sharp pain through her sinus area. She pulled out her compact mirror and inspected her nose. The swelling had gone down since morning, but it was beginning to change color. She could see the faint purple bruising under the fluorescent lighting.
Luckily for Riley’s face and her reputation, the second trip into work landed her in the slums of the building, the nickname that some of the succubi and incubi had dubbed the single-digit floors. On this trip, she only had to trek up to level five and seven, which allowed her to avoid many of her peers.
She hadn’t been on the fifth floor since her introductory tour of the LA office. The layout was relatively open compared to the other levels, but it still held the same aesthetics as the rest of the building. Glass offices were scattered throughout the open layout and desks were pushed into clusters without cubicle walls to divide them. Computer monitors sat on every desk and in every corner. Almost everyone in sight had on a security uniform or black slacks and a button up. On their hips were guns and walkie-talkies.
Riley approached the front desk and was greeted by a perky receptionist. His toothy smile and loud welcome was bordering on manic. But in a building that was heavily guarded, visitors weren’t a frequent occurrence, and internal guests were a welcome sight for many, but not all, employees.
“How can I help you today?” His eyes lit up in excitement and in an instant, several binders were laid out on the high counter top. “Real-life security requests, report forms on threats, dream realm incidences …”
“I need a form for a realm-related incident.”
“Do you need a form for user evaluation, too?” he pressed, leaning forward into the counter. “So, did you get someone that was extra handsie, maybe a creep that’s into ungodly things?”
Riley’s brow furrowed; she didn’t know how to respond. She couldn’t decipher if his line of questioning would lead to the proper forms or if the man was simply being a gossip.
“Maybe you could give me the stack of paperwork.” Riley looked at the binder he had referenced to as being realm related. “I could go through and fill out what I need as I go along. The rest I’ll keep on hand for future use.”
The receptionist’s perkiness deflated when he didn’t get any more details. Stories from the dream realm were the fuel that burned the fire for some of the employees at the office. They lived for the scandalous adventures of some of their co-workers. And if information landed in the hands of the wrong person, any incident, trash talk, or hook-up would be known throughout the entire building within three to four business days.
Word spread in a timely manner within the establishment, and the same could be said about any of the other global branches. When Heather and James had become an official couple, the entire Sydney branch had found out within three hours by way of pager. Granted, the office count had been smaller a decade ago, and Seven’s big mouth was partially to blame for the speed at which that particular piece of gossip had spread.
The light dimmed from the receptionist’s eyes. A few official forms were slid across the counter, and the binders were returned to an area out of sight.
“I’m going to fill this out at home.” Riley backed her way out of the uncomfortable stare. “Thank you for your help.”
His interest in her was gone, and he waved her off. The warm welcome she had received upon entering was nowhere in sight.
Riley climbed up two more levels. She needed to make one last stop at Human Resources, and then she would be home free. Unlike the security department, Riley had been to the seventh level on a few occasions. The Human Resources floor reminded her of a cross between a teacher’s lounge and a dank doctor’s office. It was eerily quiet and sun eluded the floor because every window blind was shut. If it had been her home, Riley would have done the same, but in a public setting, and especially on a floor dedicated to human resources, the sun would have been appropriate to brighten t
hings up. The entire floor was dedicated to a team of only around ten people. With so much space and so small a staff spread across the level, it felt like there wasn’t a single soul occupying the area. Riley approached the front desk and hoped that the noise from her feet would be enough to alert someone to her presence.
Behind her, the clang of the elevator doors sounded and a few people stepped off. Ophelia Blackwell was among that group. She wasn’t employed in HR; she was exactly what Riley was, only on a rival team. She had proven herself a cutthroat competitor, and if Riley could admit there was someone who could command the same attention as Heather, it would be Ophelia. When she walked into a room, heads turned and people gawked. She wore high-end power outfits—second skins that clung to the dips of each voluptuous curve—to every company function, formal and informal. Ophelia was ready to do business. Riley thought she owned a reasonable wardrobe for someone in their field, but she imagined her associate had a revolving closet in her own home. She envisioned entire rooms converted into clothing storage, each remote controlled and assigned to a specific type of attire. A home where entire walls would be dedicated to heels, none under two inches in height and each costing a few hundred dollars a pair. With shoes came mountains of purses and accessories, a specific room dedicated to each of those as well.
It took Ophelia a moment to notice Riley’s presence. She was busy talking to a few of the employees from the department.
“Hello, stranger,” Ophelia said with a low drawl. “Funny seeing you here. From the way your numbers keep climbing, I thought you lived in the realm.”
Riley ignored the bait. “Do you know where the front desk person is?” She looked around the open office which appeared empty aside from themselves.
A trim woman in a short-sleeved sweater and long skirt padded towards the receptionist area from a back room, tottering on kitten heels that looked still too steep for her comfort. If the crumbs attached to the bosom of her sweater were any indication, she’d just finished her lunch. Her appearance saved Riley the headache of continuing to converse with Ophelia. She knew better than to tangle with the imposing succubus, especially when she was on her own.
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