Drained: The Lucid

by E. L. Blaisdell

  A flying baseball bat swung out of a doorway and slammed against Riley’s shield. She could feel the impact shudder down the length of her arms and rattle her teeth. “Hah!” she cheered when the vibrating stopped. “I bet you weren’t expecting tha—”

  Her words were cut short when a slippered boot, connected to a long, lean leg collided with the metal slab. Startled, the second attack sent Riley backwards and flat on her back. “That’s probably another bruise.” She groaned beneath the heavy weight of the shield. Her breath caught in her throat as she pushed the metal burden off her body. “Eff me.”

  She looked up to see her mark, Morgan. The brunette woman glared down at her, hazel-green eyes pinning Riley in place.

  “Therein lies your problem,” Morgan taunted and discarded the latest weapon of choice to the floor. It landed with a thud next to Riley’s head, causing her to flinch. “Because there will be no effing anyone. Ever.” Morgan stepped over the prone woman and headed down the hall.

  Riley sat up and winced. She threaded her fingers through her hair to rub the back of her head, feeling for telltale lumps. “You’re crazy,” she called after the retreating brunette. “You know what, I don’t even know why I came back here. Drab rooms, awful lighting, wood panel walls,” she ticked off. “It’s a horrible dream retreat if you ask me. Also, a home reflects its owner. Just putting it out there.”

  Echoing down the empty hallway, Riley heard Morgan’s voice. “Flattery will get you nowhere.”

  Riley pushed herself off the floor and brushed at her backside. The woman was right. Losing her composure would get her nowhere with the new mark. With a sigh, she followed the sound of Morgan’s voice and found her in a back kitchen, filling a teapot with water.

  The kitchen was far from impressive. No stainless steel appliances, no fancy backsplash, no upgraded marble tile floors. The refrigerator was an unattractive yellow with black trim; a motif matched throughout the rest of the room. A solitary vase had been placed on a built-in shelving unit. Absent was a flower arrangement, but not because they didn’t exist here. The back window above the double porcelain sink overlooked a modest backyard overrun with wildflowers. It didn’t look like the product of neglect, but rather an eccentric taste in gardens.

  The setting made little sense to Riley. Then again, nothing about this assignment really made sense to her. Dreamers could send themselves anywhere, real or imagined. These were fantasies, thoughts that people shamelessly indulged in during their most private moments. One of the many perks of the position, besides agelessness, was the opportunity to travel without the pesky hassle of airport security. If you’d always wanted a trip to see the Eiffel Tower, you found yourself a French resident or some hopeless romantic. With the wonders of technology, finding the specific desires and wishes of individuals was an increasingly easy task. Of course, Riley rarely saw the outside of bedrooms, even in the most exotic of locations, unless her client had a thing for exhibitionism.

  “You used to live here?” Riley’s eyes bounced throughout the home; it was quaint.

  Morgan turned from the sink to an older gas range. The pilot clicked four times before the flame roared to life. “A long time ago.” She spun and faced Riley. Leaning back, she placed her elbows on the counter behind her. “Why are you here again?”

  Riley’s eyes narrowed as she observed the woman before her. She shook her head as if to ward off some of the more outlandish remarks she had for that question. Nothing had ever prepared her for the situation. A lucid dreamer with the ability to resist charm and cause physical harm was not a scenario most entertained.

  She considered the question. “Well, I couldn’t visit you if you hadn’t given me permission.”

  “I don’t recall ever agreeing to this,” Morgan countered.

  Riley bit her tongue. She couldn’t tell her any more details without revealing the true nature of her job or Trusics. A million questions plagued her mind, but she settled on one. “How are you capable of asking these questions?” she inquired. “This is your dream, your fantasy. We’re supposed to be gettin’ it on, doin’ the deed … you’re supposed to be getting lucky.” Her words were almost rhetorical. “Something mindless, fun, and sex related.”

  “Don’t your other victims talk?”

  “Mostly groans, the names of deities, and many unintelligible words, but they don’t ask real questions.” Riley frowned as a particular word sunk in. “And they’re not victims.”

  “With romantic charm like that,” Morgan shot back, “how could anyone resist?”

  Riley fiddled with the watch clasped around her wrist. “I can’t believe I’m doing this, but give me a chance. I’m not that bad in bed. In fact, I’ve been told I’m rather good at it.”

  Morgan rolled her eyes. “Everyone thinks they’re a good lover.”

  The succubus hummed. “At least I can rule out a fantasy where you’d like for someone to beg to sleep with you.”

  “I would have thought my greeting last time would have been enough to keep you away.” Morgan’s eyes narrowed. “Your kind never stops do they?”

  Riley flashed a dimpled grin. “You mean the sexy, sensitive, playful, be-whatever-you-want-me-to-be kind?”

  “Horndogs,” Morgan said under her breath. “All of you. Guys. Girls. All the same.”

  “What do you mean ‘all of you?’”

  “Don’t play dumb,” Morgan said, shaking her head. “I mean demons.”

  “There you go again, casually throwing the word ‘demon’ around.” Riley blinked, offended and a bit dumbfounded. “That’s where you’re wrong.”

  “So you’re not a demon trying to drain my sexual energy until I become a lifeless corpse?”

  “Well …” Riley hesitated. “I am, but not the corpse part, and not the demon bit either. I’m a hundred percent human … ish.” As the words continued to escape her mouth, Riley inwardly cringed at how she must have sounded to the other woman. “It’s not like I have horns and a tail.”

  “Well, invading people’s dreams and stealing their energy seems pretty demon-ish to me,” Morgan countered stubbornly.

  “When you put it that way, it doesn’t sound great,” Riley admitted, her voice tapering.

  Morgan spread her hands. “So put it in a good light then.”

  “Um.” Riley’s brain spun and churned. “That’s not the point.”

  “Right …”

  “Jesus Christ.” Riley shook her head in frustration. “Who are you, and how do you know what I am?”

  “I’m Morgan. But you probably already knew that about me, demon,” she drawled the last word on purpose.

  “You know, Morgan,” Riley mimicked the same tone, “for someone who went to an Ivy League school, you could sure use some more research before you start spouting nonsense.”

  Morgan pursed her lips. “Hey, insulting me won’t get you any closer to this,” she noted, gesturing to her body.

  At the suggestion, Riley took in the slender curves of Morgan’s silhouette. She’d been unable to appreciate her figure the first time she’d visited her in the realm, getting physically beaten and all. Riley swallowed down a primal impulse. A lithe waist and subtle flare of hips hid beneath an oversized grey cardigan that nearly touched the tops of her thighs. In spite of Morgan’s attractive physique, the clothes were all wrong: grey cardigan, pale lilac camisole, and black yoga tights. Most of Riley’s clients dressed in high-end labels or nothing at all. In comparison, the woman seemed dressed for a day in with a book, not a passionate tryst with an ideal lover.

  Morgan snapped her fingers, pulling Riley out of her admiring stare.

  “This is the most twisted fantasy I’ve ever been in,” Riley muttered to herself.

  “You’re hardly my fantasy.”

  Riley lifted a perfectly manicured eyebrow. “Oh really? How do you want me then?” Her clothing morphed before the other woman’s eyes. Instead of her sheer babydoll, she now wore a short pleated skirt, white knee-high socks, and a ti
ght blouse tied just beneath her pert breasts. “Maybe you’d prefer me sweet, innocent, and a little naïve? Perhaps I’m a student in need of help on an assignment.”

  Riley took a cautionary step closer to her mark as her clothing shifted again. She knew she was wasting her energy, but the frustration had begun to cloud her mind. The more control a succubus had over a dream, the more energy it depleted. For more energy efficient sessions, a mark’s imagination had to do all the work. But without a little give, there wasn’t a take. And that take was more than worth the trouble if the experience exceeded expectations. Morgan had Riley’s interest, and it would be a lie to say that the challenge didn’t turn her on. Her schoolgirl outfit melted away and re-formed as a skintight, crimson, leather body suit. Loosened hair turned ten shades lighter as it pulled back into a high ponytail. A harsh zipper split the tight material between her breasts, revealing a startling amount of cleavage. The pants tapered down her long legs, and she stood confidently on four-inch black platforms.

  “Or maybe you need me to whip some sense into you,” Riley purred. Her eyes narrowed, and she tapped a thin riding crop against the palm of her hand. “Maybe you’ve been pining for someone to tell you what to do. I think you need a break from always being in charge, always being the head of everything you do. Must be tiring.”

  “Still not your type?” The red leather outfit shifted and fell away to reveal a black string bikini whose material barely contained her firm flesh. She wore leather straps around her ankles. Her taut hair fell out of its ponytail and blonde roots sprouted from her scalp until her entire thick mane was platinum in color. “Maybe all this hesitation is an act,” Riley continued as the distance between them closed. She shook her wrists and the metal bondage rings jangled. A small, black collar materialized around her neck, dangling from a shiny d-ring was the leash. “Maybe you’re always the take-charge type and you’d rather I not call the shots.” She batted her thick lashes. Her demeanor didn’t miss a beat; she could change her tempo as fast as the outfits.

  Morgan looked visibly flustered. Riley wondered if she had unknowingly tapped into a secret fantasy, but assumed that woman’s academic, left-sided brain was working overtime from watching her transformations.

  “How did you do that?” Morgan’s fingers grazed over the material of the leash. “It—it feels so real. I can practically smell the leather,” she thought out loud.

  “It feels real, because it is real,” Riley replied. She watched Morgan’s hesitant touch, a mixture of fear and curiosity, continue down the lead.

  “Can you change into another person?” Morgan asked. “Or can you just change your clothing and hair color?”

  “Don’t you know?” Riley said smugly. She could only hope that her poker face would hold. But under the wandering eyes and examining touches, she felt insecure. She was a specimen under a microscope. “You seem to be the expert on what I am.”

  Behind them on the stovetop, the teapot shrieked to life. Morgan blinked and shook her head. She turned her back on Riley and pulled the kettle from the gas burner. The shrill cry faded as the silver kettle cooled.

  Morgan pulled a ceramic jar from a ceiling cabinet. “Would you like some tea?” she offered.

  Riley stood stunned for a moment, and her outfit defaulted to her original babydoll. It wasn’t that she’d never been offered food or drink on an assignment before—although generally she was licking said food and drink off of someone’s body. She was stunned by the young woman’s ability to turn and control the situation. One minute she was hitting Riley with a baseball bat, the next she was offering the succubus hospitality.

  “Not that I’m complaining about the offer, but you’re puzzling,” Riley voiced her thoughts. “I mean, you were holding batting practice with my head minutes ago.”

  Morgan poured hot water into two cups, each with their own tea bag floating to the top. “I guess I don’t care for baseball all that much,” she said with a slight shrug. “Anyway, I didn’t think you’d complain over my lack of aggression.” She brought the two steaming cups over to a small kitchen table that sat three as it was situated against a wall. “We can go back to that if you’d like. I’m accommodating.”

  “No thanks.” Riley lifted a hand.

  Morgan smirked at the simple gesture. “People can have a change of heart.”

  “Not that quickly they don’t,” Riley pointed out. “You could be schizophrenic.”

  “For a seductress, you’re doing a bang-up job,” Morgan retorted, sitting down in one chair. “Between the insults and tea, I don’t know how we’ll have time to have sex.”

  Riley stared at the cup of tea offered before her. Hot wisps of steam filtered from the dark liquid. “You didn’t poison this, did you?” Dream poison, in theory, wouldn’t have been threatening to her life, but with the mark’s unknown capabilities, she wasn’t so sure.

  Morgan stared at Riley from across the top of her ceramic mug. Her expression was unreadable. “That depends. If you die in my dream, do you die in real life? Do you even exist in real life? Or do you just hop from one victim’s dream to the next?”

  Riley cringed. “They’re not victims,” she repeated. “It’s not like I’m draining their blood in some dark alleyway like a creepy vampire.”

  She slid with a practiced grace to sit in a chair across the intimate kitchen table. Her hands wrapped around the spare mug and she blew across the steaming liquid. Riley could tell Morgan’s eyes were drawn to her mouth—she’d purposefully pursed her plush lips as she cooled the scalding tea. The aroma from the steam filled her lungs before she gently placed the hot mug back down. She brushed an errant strand of hair away from her face. The healthy mane had returned to its more natural color—chestnut with a hint of California sun-kissed highlights.

  “Are vampires real?” Morgan blurted out. There was a hint of excitement that flashed in her eyes.

  “I don’t know,” Riley answered honestly. She dipped the tip of her finger into the tea and brought the flavor up to her lips. “For as long as I’ve been doing this, I’ve never met one. However if you’re into that sort of thing, think of me as a kind of vampire.”

  “So you’re a soulless demon that drinks blood?”

  Riley’s emotions faded from her face. “Of course you only wanted to confirm their existence. That would have been too easy if you had a vamp fetish,” she whispered to herself. “You seem to have a knack for looking at things in a negative way.” Her eyes narrowed. “Just so we’re on the same page, I have a soul, and I don’t drink blood. What I do is less messy and way more pleasurable.”

  Morgan nodded and they fell into an awkward silence.

  “How old are you?” Morgan asked.

  “Don’t you know that’s not polite?” Riley deflected.

  “You can go any time, you know,” Morgan muttered, playing with her coffee mug.

  “Actually, no I can’t.” It was a lie—she could jump in and out of dreams as effortlessly as she could shed someone’s clothing. “I am officially stuck with you for the next six months, give or take a couple dreams.” The last bit of information, however, was the truth. It was company policy to limit the time a mark could be visited.

  “Fantastic,” Morgan said with a scowl.

  The woman seated across from her offered a challenge. Riley had never been denied before, neither by man nor by woman, and certainly not two dreams in a row. She’d encountered hesitance and reluctance from clients before, but that had always been part of their fantasy. Especially for women flirting with same-sex intimacy, the seduction was part of the master plan, and it made the energy Riley received even sweeter.

  Morgan was different, however. She truly didn’t want Riley there. Her refusal was not part of an elaborate cat-and-mouse charade. Riley was perplexed. Why was she having tea with the woman instead of having her?

  Riley pushed the cup around on top of the table. “But really … did you poison this?” She chewed on her lower lip.

  Morga
n genuinely smiled, laughed, and let out a light sigh. “No. I didn’t. Even if I wanted to, I’m not that sly.”

  Riley was shocked at the laugh, but relaxed in her chair. “Does that mean if you were that sly you’d off me just like that?” She snapped her fingers.

  Morgan offered the other woman a weak smile. “No. I didn’t mean it like that.”

  Riley cocked her head to one side. “Then why the change of heart?”

  Morgan dropped her eyes to her coffee cup and played with its handle. “Maybe … maybe it’s because I don’t exactly think you’re here to hurt me. Call it a gut feeling.”

  “Not to be rude, but haven’t I been pretty harmless this entire time? For God’s sake, look at what I’m wearing.” She pushed her chair back from the table and gestured to her outfit. She pulled at the small frills that lined the bottom of her sheer babydoll. “Did you honestly have concerns about me attacking you with what … my stilettos?”

  Morgan shook her head. “I’m not too keen on the idea that someone is invading my dreams and taking my energy.”

  Riley sighed deeply, blowing a few stubborn strands out of her face. “It’s really a fair trade if you think about it. A great trade in fact. Mind-blowing sex that beats anything you get in real life, and the trade is a little bit of measly energy.”

  Morgan smirked. “If it’s ‘measly energy,’ then why don’t you give up the sex without the energy stealing?”

  Riley opened her mouth to refute Morgan’s accusation, but found herself at a loss of words. She closed her mouth and frowned. “Fine.” She called Morgan’s bluff. “Let’s do it.”

  Morgan’s hazel eyes widened. “What?”

  “You heard me. Let’s go.” She grabbed Morgan’s wrists across the table, nearly spoiling the tea cups. “C’mon,” she said firmly. “We’re going to your bed.”