Succubi

by Edward Lee

  So who were the baby boys? Were they relatives’ children?

  Before Ann closed the drawer, she noticed a different colored folder in the very back. It possessed no heading. Ann picked it up, opened it.

  Stared.

  Several sheets of old paper. A typed list. MALE BIRTHS, the top of the sheet read.

  She thumbed down the list of chronological dates.

  FOST, MAEDEEN, MC 1-12-80, relinquished for adoption 1-23-80.

  MC? Ann thought. Male child? It had to be.

  She put the boy up for adoption, she realized. Why?

  But that was not all. She found Milly’s name. GODWIN, MILLICENT, MC 6-15-82, relinquished for adoption 6-22-82.

  My God, Ann thought.

  The list went back fifteen years, women she’d never known or heard of. Each had an MC typed behind the name, a date of birth, and a date of adoption.

  No wonder I haven’t seen any boys in town, Ann came to the bizarre conclusion. Their mothers put them all up for adoption.

  —

  Chapter 24

  Scierors tied the figures down, laying open abdomens in single swipes. The helots still twitched as their organs were systematically removed. Heads were lopped off with great machetelike blades which whirred in the firelight. Genitals were sliced off groins. Some were thrown onto the fire whole, others were filleted first, the choice meats added to the boiling chettles of blood. Females, fattened for weeks on corn mash, were hauled screaming from the pens. Wreccans expertly flensed them alive as they thrashed, peeling off sheets of skin…

  Erik shivered in the dark. These weren’t just visions, they were memories. They were the feks he’d watched in his past. And he’d seen it all again, in his mind, the instant he’d stepped back into the cirice.

  He’d been lucky. Zack’s pickax had nailed his hand to the door. He’d reached the shotgun in time; fortunately, there’d been a round in the chamber. Zack’s knife had flashed. Just as it would’ve sunk hilt-deep into his solar plexus, Erik had squeezed the trigger. The 12-gauge blast knocked a hole into Zack’s chest, blowing him six feet across the room.

  Gunsmoke rose, and a static silence. Erik dislodged the pick from his hand, bandaged himself, and entered the cirice.

  Its darkness greeted him like an old friend, and its smell. The smell was always the same, like pork roast. The heat lingered in the air; embers still glowed from the great cooking pit.

  The memories held him in numb stasis. He panned the flashlight through the nave, more pieces of his grim past. The chettles, the irons, carving knives, stokers, and the stone dolmen. Blood streaked the cinder-block wall, where they’d decapitated countless hüsls, and there were the iron hooks, from which they’d been hung upside down. Erik stared at all this for a length of time he could not determine. Last, he found himself gazing upon the back wall of the nave, at the uneven double-orbed sheet of gray stone, the—

  “Night-mirror,” he muttered.

  Leave, he thought. Leave this evil place and never come back. But he couldn’t do that, he knew he couldn’t. Who else would stop them? There’s only me, he realized.

  Suddenly, he felt engulfed in rage. He broke, throwing things. He cleared the racks of utensils, kicked over the candelabra. The smaller chettles he picked up and threw, cracking them. The larger ones he could only tip over. Next, he grabbed a sledgehammer—which they used for cracking open heads—and attacked the dolmen with it. He banged and banged, but the thick granite wouldn’t break. With two-by-fours, then, he managed to lever the slab itself off its seat and slide it off the twin plinths. His rage roiled, carried him, and next he was slamming the sledgehammer against the face of the nihtmir. He slammed at it for minutes, almost mindlessly. When he stopped and looked at the slight damage he’d done, he thought: No, no, not good enough. But—

  Of course. The maintenance shed, outside. Lawn equipment and… Gas, he thought.

  He dashed back outside, around the side of the church. He was giddy with excitement. What a perfect way to announce his homecoming: burning the entire church to the ground. The studs in the basement would carry to the ceiling, then everything would go. He rummaged through the shed where they kept the mowers, and there it was, shiny red. A five-gallon gas can. It was almost full.

  The pinkened moon followed him back to the stairs. It made him feel watched. Protect me, God, protect me, he thought, or prayed. When he was back in the cirice, he looked for the best way. Yeah, perfect, he thought. A full cord of wood lay neatly stacked against one wall. It would catch the studs, leading the flame to the wood rafters above. By the time the fire truck got here, the whole church would be in flames.

  He unscrewed the cap, was about to douse the pile of wood with gas, when he stopped. Had he heard something? No, he felt something. He felt…

  He set the can down, turned. Erik, Erik, he heard, but not in his ears, in his head. He stepped forward. Now a faint glow seemed to rise in the cirice, from the nave. Light like mist, like luminous fog. The fog seemed pink…

  Erik. Brygorwreccan. Come.

  “No,” he croaked in his ruined voice.

  He was standing before the nihtmir. Its dead gray stone seemed to glow. Yes, he could see it, could see into it.

  Something moved there, in the pinkened depths.

  A face. A—

  Her face, he thought, staring.

  He couldn’t take his eyes away.

  Protect me, God. Protect me.

  The face smiled at him, a great maw jammed with teeth.

  Hello, Erik, it said.

  The smile lengthened, drawing up.

  Erik screamed. He ran out of the cirice, up the stairs, and into the woods, his fear propelling him like a missile, away, away from that hideous unholy visage.

  «« — »»

  He lay awake now in the front seat of the van. He was staring up through the trees at the moon. The moon was pink. “Protect me, God,” he whispered. “Protect me.” But in his desperate prayer, he didn’t see God. All he saw was the perverse pinkish moon, and suffused in its sphere, the memory of her horrid face remained. Grinning at him.

  —

  Chapter 25

  It was a dream. Of course it was.

  It had to be.

  Milly was unwrapping her warm legs from Ann’s face. Ann had no breath. “That wasn’t bad,” Milly said. “You’re learning.”

  Milly’s naked body shined pale white in the lamplight. Excitement filled her nipples. Ann sat up, wiped her mouth off on her wrist. Where am I? she thought. She was sitting on a carpet. When she looked up, she gasped. She saw a bed, but why was she on the floor? Then she heard grim, steady beeping. This wasn’t Milly’s room at all. It was her father’s.

  “Let’s see if I can find it,” Milly said. She was bending over one of the dresser drawers, looking for something.

  But Ann was aghast. Her father’s pallid form lay still in the bed, his face sunken. Needles jammed in his arm led up to inverted IV bottles on wheeled stands. Suddenly, his old mouth popped open, and he groaned.

  “You seemed to like the black one a lot last night,” Milly was commenting. Was that a bottle of milk on the dresser? “Ah, here it is. I think you’ll like this one even more.”

  Ann wanted to scream when she saw what Milly was talking about. From the drawer, the nude nurse had extracted another strap-on phallus. But this one was flesh-colored, longer, and much thicker. Milly was on her knees now, calm as she strapped the grotesque apparatus onto her hips. She turned, still kneeling. The rubber prong pointed at Ann. “Suck it awhile,” Milly said. “Pretend it’s a real cock, and suck it.”

  Ann felt shrinking. Her will tore like frayed fabric. She was repulsed, but she could not disobey.

  As instructed, she commenced. Milly tittered. She leaned her groin forward, hands on hips, grinning. “That’s it, that’s a good little cocksucker.”

  Ann, eyes squeezed shut, could barely get it in her mouth. She could feel the hideous molded veins. Against her tongue she cou
ld feel the hole centered in the bulblike glans.

  “This one’s got balls too,” Milly said.

  Ann remembered the molded rubber testicles of last night’s phallus. This one, though, was different. She brought her hand beneath it and felt a rubber bag of some kind, filled with some warm fluid. Then she saw the rest, a tube leading out, attached to a rubber squeezeball, a pump.

  “Keep sucking,” Milly ordered. “Suck me like you do Martin.” She was sighing now, as though she really felt something. Ann was mortified, at Milly, and at herself for doing this. Why couldn’t she stop, get up, leave?

  “Yeah, I wish I had a real cock,” Milly was saying, “just for tonight. A great big long real cock to fuck you with, to come all over your face with.”

  Ann tried to perform her task more intently, for she knew when Milly tired of this, she’d want to put the monstrous thing somewhere else.

  “Almost real, huh?” Milly was grinning. Then she pushed Ann’s mouth off. “Hold still,” she said. She began to stroke the rubber penis in front of Ann’s face.

  “I—” Ann queried. “What are you—”

  “Lean up.” The odd pale pendant lay between Milly’s breasts. “I’m going to come in your face.” Her other hand began to squeeze the rubber ball.

  Ann flinched, closed her eyes. With each squeeze, the phallus squirted a jet of warm milk into Ann’s face.

  “There. You like that?”

  Ann could not respond. More milk jetted from the artificial glans. One spurt went right into Ann’s mouth. The rest ran down her breasts and legs.

  Why is she doing this? Ann wondered in turmoil. Milk dribbled from her lips. Why can’t I leave?

  That was certain. The more she wanted to flee from this perverse masquerade, the more she knew she couldn’t.

  It’s a dream, she assured herself. Just a dream.

  “Hands and knees,” Milly ordered.

  “Milly, please. Don’t—”

  Milly slapped her face. “Just do it.”

  Milk dripped off Ann’s nipples. She shut her eyes, humiliated. Milly knelt right up behind her and inserted the rubberized phallus into Ann’s sex.

  She nearly yelped. The thing was huge, it bulged her. She almost fainted when she felt how deeply the prosthetic probed her. Her mind seemed like a jigsaw, throwing pieces. Part of her thought, Thank God Dad’s unconscious, thank God he can’t see this, while another part continued to reassure, Don’t worry, it’s just a dream. It’s not real.

  She gritted her teeth as the thing slid hugely in and out. Each thrust nudged the bulb of her cervix. “You like it, right?” Milly asked.

  “Please, Milly, I—”

  She slapped Ann’s right buttock hard as she could, like wet leather snapping. “Right?” she demanded.

  “Yes, yes,” Ann replied. The slap print buzzed on her rump. But a forbidden inkling drifted up. Part of her did like it.

  “Close your eyes and look,” Milly ordered next.

  Ann didn’t understand. “Wha—”

  Milly grabbed the back of her hair, pushed Ann’s face into the carpet.

  “Look!”

  Ann squeezed shut her eyes. Most of her mouth was pressed to the floor.

  “Do you see?”

  “See what?” Ann muffled.

  “Her! Do you see her!”

  Ann didn’t see anything but her own disgrace. Her hands and knees felt bolted to the floor.

  “What have we here?” a voice asked from above. Maedeen walked in. She began taking off her clothes. “You’re breaking her in well, sweoster. Mind if I join in?”

  Milly chuckled, pumping steadily. Maedeen sat down right in front of Ann, spreading her legs. She too had one of the little pale pendants about her neck. It looked shapeless, a little stone. She pulled Ann’s face to her crotch. “Eat it, yeah, that’s right.” Ann felt helpless; she lapped frantically at the musky flesh. She was crying, gasping for breath. “I fucked your precious Martin the other night,” Maedeen remarked. “Five or six times. I’ll fuck him anytime I want. He’s a good little peow. I’m already pregnant.”

  “Oh, Maedeen,” Milly congratulated, grasping Ann’s hips. “That’s wonderful.”

  “And you know what he’s doing now? Your precious Martin?” Milly laughed along with Maedeen. “He’s watching your daughter take a shower through a hole in the wall. He’s jerking off. But don’t worry, he wouldn’t dare touch her, he knows never to do that.”

  “Melanie’s quite a beautiful girl, Ann,” Milly added. “And she’s a virgin.”

  “She’s just what we need for the doefolmon.”

  Ann could make nothing of this madness. She brought her face up long enough to plead, “Why are you doing this to me?”

  “We’re initiating you,” Milly said, thrusting deeper.

  Maedeen fingered the pendant between her smallish, big-nippled breasts. “We’re making you holy. For the doefolmon.”

  “Ready, Annie?” Milly asked. She pulled Ann’s hips back, to effect maximum penetration. Ann squirmed; she felt skewered. “Come in her now,” Maedeen said, and pushed Ann’s face back down, and Milly was squeezing the rubber ball again, pumping. Ann felt the warm spurts of milk launch into her sex. She whined in anguish.

  The tiniest sigh of relief escaped her throat when Milly withdrew and began to take off the phallus. Thank God it’s over… But then Maedeen said, “Now let’s get her off.”

  Ann was flipped over on her back. She hissed through her teeth when two metal clips were quickly applied to her nipples; her back arched at the bitelike pain. Then Milly straddled her face and simultaneously gave the clips a twist. “Stick your tongue all the way in,” she ordered. The pain at Ann’s nipples soon began to radiate into something sharply pleasurable; her sex began to drench. Just as she wondered how Maedeen would participate, four fingers wriggling in her vagina answered the question. Then the shock of thought exploded—No!—when she realized what exactly was being done.

  “I’ll bet the little prude’s never been fisted before,” Milly said.

  “Probably right. She’s real tight.”

  Ann’s bare heels thumped the floor as Maedeen slipped her whole hand in, and she gagged when the hand pulled into a fist within the confines of her vaginal vault. Maedeen cooed as she pushed her hand deeper, and when she was in several inches past the wrist, she began to pull back and forth, all the while the fist gently revolving. The violation appalled Ann…but she came explosively, her disgust tremoring with the orgasm.

  “Feel good?” Milly unstraddled Ann’s face, and when Maedeen withdrew her hand, Ann’s entire body flinched. Suddenly, a groan sounded from above. In panic, Ann looked up. Her father, conscious now, was leaning out of the convalescent bed, his jaundiced eyes huge on the scene below. Ann shrieked. Her father’s face looked like a bad wax mask. His withered finger shook, pointing down at her.

  “That’s right, peow,” Milly said. “We’re fucking your daughter…”

  Ann’s father was shaking, murmuring in bursts. Eventually, his twisted mouth formed words. “Guo the wifhands,” he croaked. An IV line tore from his arm. “Guo the Fulluht-Loc…”

  “Listen to him.” Maedeen chuckled. “He can’t even talk right anymore, the stupid helot.”

  “Uor mut go!”

  Ann tried to get up, to go to him, but she couldn’t move.

  “He didn’t really have a stroke, Ann,” Maedeen said, licking her fingers. “Dr. Heyd gave him something to fuck up his brain.”

  “Doefolmon!” the old man shouted as best he could. “Uor mut—”

  Maedeen and Milly got up. Ann pleaded, “Help him!”

  “Oh, we’ll help him, all right,” Milly assured. She was standing by the night table now. Maedeen leaned over the bed.

  “Es unwi! Es dwola!”

  “Shut up, you old fuck,” Maedeen said. “Or we might decide to kill you right now.”

  “I don’t know why we don’t,” Milly commented. She was preparing an injection. A
nn screamed at her but still couldn’t budge against whatever power kept her on the floor.

  “The wifmunuc wants him alive for a while longer,” Maedeen said. “To keep Ann here.”

  What were they talking about? What were they doing?

  “Huro liloc!” Ann’s father grated. “Huro succubi!”

  Maedeen climbed on the bed. Her pendant swayed as she squatted over the old man’s face. “Peow, thane,” she said. She began to urinate. “Wîhan,” she said, glaring down.

  “What are you doing!” Ann wailed. “He’s a sick old man!”

  “He’s a peow,” Milly corrected. “And we piss on peows.”

  Now the old man was gagging, coughing urine as Maedeen pissed in his mouth. “That should quiet him down a little.”

  Milly jammed a needle into his arm. “Dother to Dother,” he gurgled. Then he fell limp in the sheets.

  Ann continued to scream at them, but they only laughed at her outrage. Now Milly was refilling the phallus with milk. “My turn,” Maedeen said. The two naked women exchanged grins. Then Maedeen strapped on the device.

  Ann looked up in horror. “Wha—what are you going to do?”

  Milly laughed. Maedeen was smearing Vaseline over the shining, veined phallus.

  “Guess,” she answered.

  «« — »»

  Ann awoke screaming. She jerked up in the dark, glanced frantically about, then screamed once more. Martin was not in bed with her. Her sex felt sore. Pinkish moonlight eddied through the gap in the curtains. Her nightgown billowed as she flew out of the room and down the hall. Her father lay unconscious in the bed, the heart monitor beeping steadily. Milly was not here. Ann leaned over her father’s sunken face. The face was dry, the pillow clean. Then she scampered to the other end of the house. Her mother’s room was empty, the bed unslept in. Nor did she find Melanie in her own room. Confusion infuriated her. She checked the house top to bottom.