by Lori Selke
I graduated that night, made Succubus (Apprentice, Grade 3). And Ridgewood won the game the next day when Will Markowitz, the star quarterback, didn’t show. People wondered why he’d disappeared. No body was ever found.
I hadn’t cared about Will, except he was my graduate ticket. I did hear later, through a friend’s Facebook page, that Jason hadn’t returned to school and spent the rest of the year watching TV in his mother’s basement, and it was rich revenge indeed. I had stripped him of what he held most dear—his connection to the school and the team. He knew that I had been responsible for Will’s disappearance and the subsequent loss. He knew in some vague and incoherent way that he was to blame. He could no longer care about anything and his twisted little soul was already forfeit on my account.
After all, as Debbie said, there are different kinds of succubae, and we destroy in different ways. “And you, sweet girl, can do two different forms of destruction at once! We haven’t seen this kind of talent in ages!”
So I graduated at the top of my class, having destroyed two souls with one touch. I was assigned to apprentice in London (London! Only the very best graduates get to apprentice in such a desirable city!) with Samantha (Satan’s own BFF, don’t you know!) and the next year I was accepted at Oxford.
And I plan to never return to New Jersey again. I had already had my homecoming.
~ ~ ~
Lily in Bloom—Lori Selke
Lori’s short stories cover a lot of terrain, from science fiction in the pages of Asimov’s to hot queer erotica in dozens of anthologies. In this tale, she examines one way succubi might cope with the unusual challenges presented by their nature.
The succubus of legend preys on the energy of a human victim, but beyond that basic function, the how and the why of it vary from story to story. Even less talked about is how the succubus herself feels about what she does. What is her relationship not only to her victim, but to the behavior that her nature compels her to?
This is a question that several authors in this anthology have engaged with. In “Lily in Bloom,” Lori gives us a self-help practice adapted to the unique needs of succubi and a sisterhood brought together by a shared difficulty. All this, and vigilante justice like only a succubus can wreak. What’s not to love?
Lily in Bloom
Lily was bound to the bed, not with neckties or silken scarves, nor with rope—white, taupe or dyed; hempen, cotton, nylon or otherwise; tied in knots intricate or plain. Not with lengths of chain and heavy locks. With pantyhose, and not her own. Lily never wore pantyhose. She knew of no one who still did these days.
The man who had bound her to the bed was not her lover, although she imagined he would like to be. He also imagined, or at least she supposed, that he would never have a chance with her. Maybe he didn’t really want a chance with her, not in the normal way. Maybe he wanted to take his chance by force. Maybe that’s why he had concocted this scenario, with Lily tied spreadeagled to the bed, still in her street clothes—gray pencil skirt now ruched around her hips, plum silk blouse, matching bra and panty set edged in lace, black strappy heels. He imagined she’d never speak to him without the knots in the pantyhose. But now she was at his mercy and she had to listen, and he could take what he wanted from her. Sex. Her life. Both.
Lily was supposed to be scared. She knew she was not playing her part right. She knew her breathing was too calm, her face too placid. It enraged him, and he struggled not to show it as he fussed with his tools, just out of the line of her sight. She imagined the tools were sharp and plentiful. He was not the type to stint or to rush.
He hadn’t gagged her, and that made her curious. But still she didn’t speak to him. She simply waited. She knew it made him furious. It amused her to watch his reactions, the muscles knotting in his neck and back, the sweat stains forming beneath his armpits and around his collar. More dampness glistened on his upper lip. She was the one supposed to be sweating, squirming, begging for mercy. Instead, she just stretched out like a cat along the cheap nylon bedspread beneath her.
Finally he turned to face her. She waited, let him speak.
“You’re all whores,” he said through gritted teeth. “All of you.”
Lily suppressed a smile. She dampened too the urge to tell him how many times she had heard that sentiment before, and from whom. She’d even been an official whore once, in a brothel in Bologna. Lily considered it as respectable a profession as any other. And she liked the bluntness of the word. “Courtesan” was snobbish and “concubine” inaccurate, as was its modern-day counterpart “escort.” She preferred the words that thumped like blunt instruments: bawd, strumpet, tramp. Or the aspirated ones, that sounded as if your breath was being sucked out as you spoke. Harlot. Hooker. Hussy. Whore.
“You forget your place,” the man continued. His mouse-brown hair had begun to droop limp wet strands into his face. He wore an evergreen cotton polo, some generic brand, and khakis. His eyes kept darting to the corners of the room, away from her gaze. His own gaze slid off her body as if she was made of ice. “You’re just trash, and I’m the garbage man.” Suddenly he looked directly at her for what seemed like the first time. The irises of his eyes shivered as if with repressed tension. “So what if I scavenge through the bins a little before I clean them out?” His thin lips stretched across his teeth, a cross between a smile and something more aggressive. He turned back to his trays of implements.
As he worked, Lily daydreamed. She wondered what he might taste like. Burnt sugar, perhaps, with some tropical notes—vanilla, banana, guava? Or more earthy? A hint of pepper or herbaceousness?
A glint of metal in the corner of her eye brought Lily’s focus back to the present. The nondescript little man in the evergreen shirt was approaching her with a tiny blade—possibly a scalpel, possibly an exacto knife, possibly simply a cheap box cutter. He took slow, deliberate steps toward the bed, no longer looking at her face, fixated instead on her torso.
He did not notice, therefore, when Lily twisted her wrist out of her bonds with a boneless, serpentine flourish. The second wrist soon followed, slithering past the tight knots with a whisper of a sound. The susurration was enough to make the man pause and squint through his glasses. He tightened the grip on his blade as she sat up on the bed, rubbing her arms.
“Lie down,” he ordered her. “I’m not done with you yet. Lie down or I’ll cut you.”
“You intend to cut me anyway,” she replied smoothly.
“That’s right.” He tensed his jaw and tensed his grip on the blade. “But it will be easier on you if you lie down.” He took one step forward.
Lily started to unbutton her blouse. He froze. She glanced up at him and smiled. “Where do you want to cut me?” she said. Her voice changed from light and frothy to something thicker, still honeyed but with a low rumble, almost imperceptible, like a purr or a growl. She slipped the blouse off her shoulders. Her bra was black lace and cupped her generous breasts perfectly.
He took another step forward. She could smell the tang of his sweat.
She lifted her chin, stretching out her neck. “Tell me where you want to enter me first,” she said huskily. “The throat? The chest? Between the ribs? Lower? Do you want me to take you in my mouth? Will you stab and thrust, or will you tear and slash? Tell me. I want to know.” From the corner of her eye she could see his hand start to tremble. Would he drop the blade, or swing it toward her flesh? She would know in a moment.
Lily’s bra clasped in front. Slowly, deliberately, she popped the first hook free. “Take what you want,” she said, just above a whisper now. “Come closer. Take it.”
He brought the knife up in a high arc toward her face. It was a wild, uncoordinated slash rather than a considered attack. Lily easily caught the man’s wrist in her own grip. A flick of her thumb disarmed him. She allowed her full smile to bloom now. It suffused her whole face with an almost angelic light. The blood drained from the man’s face and he began to tremble, not just his hands now but his whole bo
dy, his spine shivering like a sapling in a thunderstorm.
Lily brought her other hand up to his face and stroked his cheek. She let her fingers trail down his shirt and rest at the waistband of his pants. Then her wrist bent again in that boneless way and her hand slid beneath the waistband to cup the bulge beneath.
“I just need to touch you,” she whispered in his ear as he shuddered, could not stop shuddering, vibrated, hummed like a tuning fork. “I can take what I need from anywhere on your skin.” She squeezed lightly. “But it’s more fun for me this way. I’m sure you understand.” And she leaned in, extended her tongue—preternaturally flexible like her wrist and somehow a touch too long, too red—and slowly licked upwards along his cheek. The man’s eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed onto her like a wet sack. His breathing, which had been shallow and quick from the moment Lily slipped her bonds, was slow now, slowing to a whisper, then a final sigh.
He tasted earthy, almost musty, like lentils and onions. His finish, however, was strangely sweet, like brown sugar and cinnamon. How surprising, for a man like this to have such sweetness in him.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t make this last longer,” she said to his inert form. “It would have been so much more fun for both of us. But I’m afraid I am late for an appointment.” Lily eased him off her shoulder and onto the mattress. She withdrew her hand and wiped it on his pants leg. She took a moment in the bathroom to freshen up, and she left the door to the hotel room ajar when she left.
* * *
Lily stumbled into the Demonic Ladies Knitting and Archery Society meeting almost ten minutes late. The other girls had already arranged their chairs in a circle and were busy catching up with each other. There was exactly one open chair waiting for her. She slipped into it silently, blushing.
The name of the club had started as a joke. The group had needed something to put on the rental application for the library. Then Tia had taken up knitting, about a year ago now. “It makes me feel so domestic,” she confessed in a titter to the group. And there she was, needles clacking, at the head of the circle, smiling contentedly.
None of the members had taken up archery yet, as far as Lily knew at least.
“I’m sorry I’m late,” Lily mumbled and smoothed her skirt. Next to her, Abrahel wrinkled her pert little nose. “No offense,” she said as she turned to face Lily, “but you stink.” She sniffed the air again. “Like sugar cookies,” she pronounced.
Maternal Tia set down her knitting. These days, Tia liked to manifest as a large woman, rolls of fat pillowing her form beneath a knit top and leggings or, as today, an empire-waisted maxi-dress with a black halter top and blue floral print skirt. She’d been doing this sort of thing for several decades now. It seemed to amuse her.
“Lily,” Tia said, gently. “Did you…” she paused, searching for the appropriately delicate turn of phrase. “Did you have an encounter recently?”
Lily’s blush deepened. “Don’t be mad at me,” she said to the circle at large.
“Shame has no place in healing,” Tia pronounced. “And confession is good for the soul.”
Abrahel swallowed a giggle and whispered to herself, “Not that we have souls.” Sybille, sitting next to her, elbowed her in the ribs. Tia didn’t even bother to glance over. Instead she fixed Lily with a gentle but stern gaze.
Lily took a deep breath. “OK. Yes. Just before I got here, in fact. It’s why I was late. I wasn’t planning on it,” she said. She was starting to rush her words. “But he asked me out to coffee. I shouldn’t have said yes, but I thought, what harm can it do if I don’t go home with him? He was very shy in person. It was charming. He bought me a hot chocolate and told me how beautiful I was.” At this, Abrahel rolled her eyes but smiled sympathetically at Lily nonetheless. “I was unlocking my car when he grabbed me from behind. He kidnapped me and took me to a motel room he’d rented. I swear I’m telling the truth!”
“We believe you, Lily,” said Tia in her warm and even voice.
“And, OK, I figured, would it be so awful if I just took him? All of him? Left nothing behind? So he couldn’t hurt anyone else, anyone who couldn’t fight back. Surely he’s done this before, and he’d do it again, I don’t have any doubt.”
Some of the other demonesses in the circle began to look between Tia and Lily, as if they were watching an invisible tennis match, even though Tia remained placidly silent as Lily talked.
“It would have been different if I’d been hunting,” Lily said. “Right? But he came to me.”
“They always come to us,” Tia said quietly. “They can’t help it.”
“But not all of them are killers,” Lily replied. “Not all of them throw women in the back of their own car and stuff a rag soaked with—with, I don’t even know, something bitter that stung my nostrils. It would probably knock a human girl cold.”
Sybille said, “Ooh, this is a tough one.” Several of the other girls nodded.
“I agree,” Tia said. Everyone looked at her. “We’re predators,” she stated. “It’s never immoral for a predator to eat. We have no immortal souls to jeopardize through our choices. And unlike some humans, we don’t prey on our own kind.”
“But we’re also addicts,” she said firmly. “We need to be considered and restrained in our choices. It’s not a moral thing, obviously,” and at that some of the younger girls tittered behind their hands. “But it’s nonetheless important. We can’t go around attracting attention, and banishments, and exorcisms, and all that messy business. We need to be discreet—we have our orders. We need to sip instead of gorge. If we slip up, we could lose our outside privileges.”
“And who wants to go back to being a receptionist in Hell?” Abrahel added.
Tia nodded sharply, once. “That’s why we have these meetings. We check in, we discuss, we support each other and guide our sisters on the path.” Tia sighed. “I can’t say you made the wrong choice, Lily. But are you sure he found you? You didn’t seek out his company in any way?”
“I swear by everything unholy,” Lily said, squaring her shoulders as she spoke.
“Swear by the Devil’s pizzle,” Abrahel said, and the younger ones in the group dissolved into laughter.
“All right, that’s enough,” said Tia. “Just to be sure, someone should buddy up with Lily for a few weeks. Is there a volunteer, or should I appoint someone?”
“I’ll do it,” said Sybille. She leaned around Abrahel to smile warmly at Lily. She was wearing a simple white T-shirt with a man’s vest over her slim sienna chest. Her dreadlocks were swept back into a messy knot at the nape of her neck. “If you don’t mind, I mean?” Sybille’s blue eyes were as wide as a puppy’s.
“Thank you,” Lily said simply. “Perfect,” pronounced Tia. She pressed her hands together. “Now, does anyone else have something they wanted to discuss?”
* * *
After the meeting, they all retired to a nearby dive bar. Tia revered its outdoor patio and Abrahel said it reminded of previous pleasant centuries spent carousing in German beer gardens. The demonesses colonized a weathered picnic bench in the back and sent Sybille and Lily to place drink orders. Mixed drinks were not the bar’s strong point, but Lily ordered a Bloody Mary nonetheless. She liked to have something to chew on. It helped her relax.
Sybille was practically glued to Lily’s hip, now that she’d volunteered to be Lily’s buddy, as it were.
“I just made up a joke,” Sybille said. “I’m practicing my sense of humor. Want to hear it?”
“Sure,” said Lily politely. Sybille grinned.
“A succubus walks into a bar. She orders a Bloody Mary. The bartender looks her up and down and says, ‘I didn’t know you were a lesbian.’“ She threw her head back and laughed, white teeth shining in the low gloom of the bar. “What do you think?”
The bartender, black ink tattoos traced up and down her arms, glanced at both of them as she set down a dark brown beer for Sybille and the cocktail for Lily. “The rest of yo
ur drinks will be up in a minute,” she said, making eye contact with Lily. She turned to the back of the bar but glanced over her shoulder to see if Lily was still watching. She was.
A snack couldn’t hurt, Lily thought to herself. She’d stop after a bite or two. She could stop whenever she wanted to. Any time at all.
~ ~ ~
Blood for Bone—Talitha Kalago
Talitha Kalago is a new voice, an Australian with a gift for bringing emotions and textures of life alive on the page. I first met Talitha through Live Journal, where I was impressed by her writing and her creative spirit. At the date of this publication she has various works in the pipeline with Carina Press, so there will soon be much more of her work in print.
Her unusual storytelling perspective resonates in her tale “Blood For Bone.” In this short story we meet Lucy, a woman whose initial talent for self-deception might be exceeded only by her cooking skills. Until, that is, a new friend and a bargain reshape her self, her relationship, and her life. This story leaps off the page with sensuous food, tactile experiences, and an earthy succubus who bargains for more than she’s letting on.
As for Lucy? If you ask what she’s serving up next, she might say, “Just desserts.”
Blood for Bone
Lucy loved the feeling of dough between her fingers, sticky and soft. The heady smell of the yeast brought her back to her mother’s kitchen, where everything was baked from scratch with eggs from Mrs. Palmer next door. It had bothered Lucy when she was a child—all the other mothers got their cakes from packet mixes and bought their bread at the store. She felt it made them look poor and had resented the other children with their perfectly square, sliced sandwiches.
Now cooking and baking was a luxury for Lucy, and she liked to think she understood her mother a little better. She’d been dead six years now, but it always seemed like she was here when the oven came on.
Lucy had already rested the dough twice, so it was ready to cook. Fresh basil, ground beef, bacon, two types of salami, red onions, olives from the delicatessen, tomato paste, a tub of mozzarella in brine, fresh grated Parmesan and crushed garlic were all on standby—already the rich tang of the garlic and salami were filling the kitchen, making her belly growl. The pizza was a special surprise for her husband, Kathe. Not for any special occasion, but because they didn’t do anything together anymore. Kathe was always staying late at work or going in on weekends. When he got home, he was so tired all he wanted to do was lie on the couch, eyes glazed over as he stared at the TV.