Succubus Summoning 208

Cέrμləa was and wasn't in the classroom when Phil walked in for another extra lesson. There was a young woman sitting on the teacher's desk with her legs casually swinging underneath. She was dressed in outdated fashions—a twenties flapper if Phil had to guess, and he was only going from period movies he'd seen. Wide bright eyes peered out from beneath an indigo bonnet. The fringe of hair poking out from underneath was lighter blue in colour. She wore a dark blue dress cut to just above the knees and a black scarf. Also around her neck was a long string of pearls. Thinking no one was watching, the young woman pulled out a shiny metal hip flask and took a surreptitious swig.

"Cέrμləa?"

Phil hadn't seen Cέrμləa take this form before, but as the girl had sparkling red eyes and cornflower-blue hair he thought it might be her. The hair and eyes had been common features of all of Cέrμləa's forms.

"Oh there you are, bunny," Cέrμləa—if it was her—said before jumping down off the teacher's desk.

Teacher looked a little worse for wear, Phil thought. He wondered how many surreptitious swigs she'd taken. Cέrμləa normally had half her mind in cloud cuckoo land anyway; a little alcohol in the mix wasn't likely to make much difference.

He hoped.

"I remembered you as being hunkier," Cέrμləa said, giving his bicep a cheeky squeeze.

"What's the lesson today?" Phil asked.

Ideally one that didn't end up with him being fucked by a creature dredged up from the depths of hell.

"Lessons?" Cέrμləa said, her pretty face twisting up in an expression of disgust. "Don't be a flat tire. You're taking me out to dinner."

"Dinner?" This wasn't the extra tuition on the topography of hell Phil had been expecting.

"Yes, dinner. Now don't stand there like a dud. Ain't you ever taken a flap out for grubstake before?"

She looked Phil up and down. His new robes were only moderately less tatty than his last robes.

"No, don't answer that."

She took his hand and marched him back out of the door.

"Where are we going to dinner?" Phil asked.

As far as he knew, outside of the castle was Verdé's garden and beyond that the great forest. And from Phil's experience that was a place where they were more likely to

be

dinner than have it.

"Why Mr G's of course," Cέrμləa answered. "Everyone knows his grub is the cat's particulars."

Phil had no idea who Mr G was. Maybe he was the unseen cook that prepared the meals left outside Phil's door. He still hadn't seen any castle staff -- no maids, cooks, or anything like that. Someone had to be doing the work and he doubted it was the succubi.

Cέrμləa—if it was Cέrμləa, she was behaving even more oddly than usual—led him down a couple of corridors and down a spiral staircase. Phil thought they were supposed to be going out, but instead they seemed to be heading deeper into the castle. Cέrμləa dragged him into a squarish room with plain stone walls and two exits.

Phil recognised the room. It was some kind of storeroom. Nÿte had sent him down here to retrieve a particularly horrifying-looking torture device. He didn't ask her what it was for. He was just relieved she hadn't been planning to use it on him.

"Mr G makes the scrummiest grub in all of hell," Cέrμləa said.

That might be, but Phil was wondering if Cέrμləa had got her directions screwed up. He wondered how inebriated she was.

"Um, isn't that a cupboard," he said as she stopped outside a plain wooden door.

He was pretty sure it was a cupboard. Behind it were shelves full of—

Cέrμləa opened the door onto a featureless brown plain that stretched away into the distance. Yeah, he probably shouldn't be surprised by that now.

"Silly goof," Cέrμləa said. "Of course it isn't a cupboard."

Nope. It was a door right at the heart of a big stone castle that somehow managed to open out onto a flat landscape that stretched in all directions as far as the eye could see. The floor was muddy brown in colour and resembled freshly ploughed clay. The sky was the colour of boiled ham and empty. Phil saw no clouds, nor any celestial bodies.

Nope. Nothing unusual about this at all, he thought.

"Where's this?" Phil asked. He wondered if '

which universe?

' might be more appropriate.

"Mr G," Cέrμləa said.

She grabbed his hand and dragged him over the threshold. It was warm on the other side. And close. It felt how Phil imagined a dense tropical swamp or jungle would feel in the mercifully cool mid-morning hours before the sun dialled it up to sweltering. The brown floor felt a little squishy beneath his shoes. It could be mud, but there was a disconcerting give to it, as though he'd stepped onto a surface of living tissue. There was a spark of yellow light on the horizon and it was towards this that Cέrμləa headed.

Behind them the door stood alone on the flat brown plain. It was just a frame, unconnected to anything. On the far side of the door frame the brown plain rolled away towards a seemingly endless horizon. Through the doorway Phil saw the same storeroom within the succubi's castle, a room that shouldn't be there in the same way this vast featureless brown plain could not be contained within the castle walls.

"A little walk will be perfect for whetting the appetite," Cέrμləa said. She took out her hip flask and took a swig. "As is a little bootleg."

She offered the flask to Phil. He took a sip and instantly regretted it as a burning liquid set fire to his tongue and throat.

"Strong," he hacked out between coughs. Certainly stronger and rougher than any other spirit he'd tried.

"My dinky little coffin varnish?" Cέrμləa said. "Never mind, you'll get used to it."

They walked across the vast plain. The yellow dot of light grew bigger and resolved into an old-fashioned street lamp decorated with curls of wrought iron. Beneath it stood a short, portly moustachioed man dressed as if he was the head waiter of a fancy French restaurant. Or maybe the parody of a head waiter of a fancy restaurant. His stance was a little queer—a little too forced, a little too motionless. He resembled a caricature of a pompous French waiter, yet stood to attention as though he was one of the Queen's Guard.

"Mr G," Cέrμləa said.

The

maitre d'

responded with professional courtesy.

"Good evening, mademoiselle. Table for two?"

"That's right, Mr G. A table for me and my goof here."

She wrapped an arm around Phil and gave him a boozy squeeze.

Phil gave the portly man with the moustache a nervous smile. The waiter unnerved him. Most people in authority tended to unsettle him, but this was something else, more than just the haughty demeanour. The man gave off a vibe that intimidated Phil at a visceral level.

"Right this way, mademoiselle."

The waiter led them to a table that seemed more part of a stage set than a room in a restaurant. There were no walls. A door stood alone with its frame beyond the table. Some way apart from that was an antique chest of drawers. Phil also saw a hat stand and a couple of potted ferns. The furniture was positioned as if present within an invisible room. There wasn't even a carpet. Beneath their feet was more of the same glistening brown surface they'd walked on to get here.

The table itself was a massive antique. It was long and rectangular and looked like a prop from a period drama—a dining table for wealthy families to entertain equally wealthy guests. Giggling, Cέrμləa took a seat at one end while Phil took a seat at the other end.

This was surreal, Phil thought as he looked around. They were completely exposed to the elements, assuming this plane had any.

"What would be your pleasure, mademoiselle?"

Cέrμləa batted her eyelids with a vulgarity that was out of keeping with their surroundings.

"Why the usual, please Mr G."

"As you wish, mademoiselle."

The portly waiter opened the entirely superfluous door and walked through.

Phil had no idea what the

usual

was. As usual no-one had told him what it was or even if he wanted it. Cέrμləa smiled at him from the other side of the table and put her thumb and forefinger together to give him the A-ok.

"Mr G's is the bee's knees," she said.

Mr G's restaurant seemed to be lacking in some essentials, like walls and a roof for starters, Phil thought. There was something not right about that waiter either. He couldn't put his finger on it, but it made his skin crawl to look at him.

The waiter returned with a gleaming silver trolley loaded with dishes. So many dishes. This looked an awful lot of food for two people, Phil thought. Were others coming later? Rosa? Verdé? Cέrμləa hadn't said anything about the others, but this form of hers did seem a little more scatterbrained than usual.

She took another not-quite-so surreptitious swig from her hip flask.

The waiter started placing dishes on the table and immediately Phil's mouth started to water as the air filled with delicious aromas. It was all of Phil's favourite foods. The waiter lit burners on the table and placed a variety of bubbling Indian dishes—succulent chunks of meat surrounded in various mouth-watering sauces—on them. In front of that he placed a plate piled high with naan breads, their surfaces shiny with a thin glaze of butter. He followed with not one but three separate bowls of rice—creamy boiled rice, spicy yellow pilau rice, and fried rice containing egg and herbs.

This wasn't all. The waiter placed another burner onto the table and this time placed Chinese dishes onto it. Phil saw orange chicken, strips of tender beef in black bean sauce, and pork and cashew nuts. As the waiter continued to add more dishes to the table it looked as though someone had ordered the entire menus of the best Indian and Chinese restaurants in Britain. Phil didn't know where to start.

And still the waiter hadn't finished. He trundled the silver trolley back through the door only to return moments later laden with fresh steaming plates. He placed a huge platter piled high with succulent sausages, crisp bacon and fried eggs onto the table. This was followed with another plate piled high with cheeseburgers that looked even tastier than the misleading pictures fast food restaurants used to entice customers.

"This is too much," Phil said. "We'll never be able to eat all of it."

"Shh," Cέrμləa said. "You'll hurt Mr G's feelings. He's very sensitive about his cooking."

The waiter returned and placed a third load of dishes—roast duck, roast chicken, spare ribs coated in glistening barbeque sauce—onto the table. Phil gave the man a weak smile. What was he going to do when they left most of this delicious-but-way-too-much food—fly into a berserk rage?

Cέrμləa picked one of the dishes and placed a tiny spoonful at the centre of her pristine white plate.

"What?" she said, noticing Phil's incredulous stare. "A flap's gotta watch her weight."

Phil could see Cέrμləa wasn't going to be much help with this. At least the waiter had stopped bringing in more dishes. Phil wasn't sure if that was because he was out of food or because there was no more space left on the table. His mouth watered as he looked over the appetising feast. It all looked delicious and yet he'd only be able to sample less than a fifth of it, if that.

And then the waiter would probably batter them to death in a blind fit of rage.

He started by tearing off a small chunk of naan bread and scooping up a chunk of meat and sauce. Wow, that was the best chicken madras he'd ever tasted. The meat was so tender it practically melted in his mouth and the sauce was the perfect blend of aromatic flavours and hot spice. It was so tasty Phil was tempted to eat only the madras. Then he tried a mouthful of beef in black bean sauce and thought it was just as good. The Singapore noodles were the same. And the succulent sausages that burst between his teeth with strong savoury flavour. It didn't matter which dish Phil sampled, it was the best version of that dish he'd ever tasted.

"Mr G is just the best, isn't he," Cέrμləa said.

Phil nodded. That was all he could manage as his mouth was currently full and savouring another delicious morsel. He saw Cέrμləa still had that same tiny portion of food sitting in the centre of her plate. She'd barely touched it.

Then he noticed that some of the plates on her side of the table had been emptied. A roast chicken had been picked clean. A whole rack of lamb had been reduced to bone and gristle. Who'd eaten them? Phil thought.

He took a mouthful of tangy orange chicken and when he looked up he saw two more dishes on Cέrμləa's side of the table had been demolished. Cέrμləa herself was still playing with the tiny portion on her plate.

Phil glanced away to look for a new dish to sample. As he did he caught a blur of blue movement in the corner of his eye. It must have been a mirage as when he looked back Cέrμləa was still sitting in her seat and nudging her little blob of food around her plate. Then he noticed a bowl that had been full of jambalaya a few moments ago was now empty aside from a couple of grains of rice. And while he looked at that bowl an entire 18oz steak vanished. Cέrμləa continued to push her tiny morsel of food around her plate as if nothing untoward was happening at all.

"Hey, it's rude to stare at a gal while she's eating."

Cέrμləa flung an olive at Phil. It pinged off his temple and while he reflexively closed his eyes another dish was completely devoured.

Just another day of weirdness in the succubi's universe, Phil thought. He ignored it and sampled as many dishes as his stomach would allow. Cέrμləa continued to push her miniscule portion of food around her plate.

"Hmm, that was scrummy," Cέrμləa said after finally scooping up her meagre portion and putting it into her mouth.

Phil looked around and his eyes widened. The food was gone. All of it. Every dish was empty. It had all been eaten. But how? There'd been enough food to fill two entire rugby teams, and probably their wives and children as well.

Cέrμləa let out a hearty belch, and then put a hand to her mouth as she blushed with embarrassment.

"Was it to mademoiselle's liking?"

"Scrumptious, as always," Cέrμləa said.

"Thank you, it was delicious," Phil added. "The best I've ever tasted."

The moustachioed waiter turned to Phil as if noticing him for the first time.

"Why thank you, young master," he said. His haughty demeanour thawed. "Your compliment brings a warm glow to my belly."

He even rubbed the large expanse of his stomach for emphasis.

"I'm ready for dessert," Cέrμləa said. "How about you, darling?"

Phil stared at her incredulously. He'd already eaten so much it felt like a heavy bowling ball was lying in his guts. If he tried to take another mouthful he feared he'd burst open like that character in the old Monty Python film. Phil was sure he couldn't eat another mouthful, but he remembered what Cέrμləa had said about Mr G and he didn't want to offend him.

"I suppose so," he lied.

Cέrμləa put a finger to her lips in thought. "I don't suppose there's time for a giant bowl of jello," she asked the waiter. "That's always a blast."

The waiter checked an antique pocket watch. He rubbed his other hand against his expansive belly. "I fear that would be cutting things perilously fine," he said.

"A pity," Cέrμləa said. "Then I suppose it would have been a little too similar to our last lot of fun and we can't have that or our readers will get bored."

"Indeed, mademoiselle," the waiter said. "Variety is the most important flavour of all."

"True, G, very true."

"If mademoiselle would permit me to make a suggestion," the waiter said. "How about a deluxe selection of chocolate and cream?"

"Ooo yes. Scrummy chocolate. It's like you read my mind, G. But no honey, we've had quite enough of that already."

"As you wish, mademoiselle," the waiter said. He loaded the trolley up with empty plates and took them away through the superfluous door.

"Mmm. Chocolate and cream. How dreamy," Cέrμləa said.

Phil leaned across the table to whisper. "I don't think I can eat any more."

Cέrμləa ignored him. Her eyes were focused far away and she licked her tongue against her lips as if already savouring a delectable dessert.

"Will he—"

Phil paused as the waiter returned with a trolley piled high with an exotic range of desserts. Phil had never been much of a pudding person. He didn't even recognise most of the elaborate confections of fruit, chocolate and fluffy cream the waiter placed onto the table. His eyes widened at a cavalcade of delights fit for a decadent feast. His mouth longed to taste all of them. His stomach—already stuffed to capacity—growled no.

"He's not going to take offense if we leave most of it?" Phil hissed to Cέrμləa after the waiter had pushed the trolley back through the door.

Cέrμləa didn't answer. She dipped a finger into a swirling melange of coloured ice creams and sucked on it suggestively.

Suggestive

was also a word that could be applied to the cake the waiter wheeled out last, although

blatant

might have been more appropriate. The cake was so gigantic the silver trolley teetered under its weight. The surface was decorated with a magnificent swirl of pink icing . . . in the shape of a vagina.

Phil gave the vaguely intimidating waiter a smile while wondering how he was going to eat any of it without throwing it straight back up. Under the waiter's watchful gaze he scooped up a spoonful of frosted sorbet and dolloped it into his bowl. He could manage this. Maybe. It was just frozen fruit juice after all. Under direction from his stomach, the muscles of his throat downed tools and picketed his oesophagus. The waiter stood by the door and watched Phil as he pushed a melting blob of sorbet around his bowl.

"I don't think I can eat any more," Phil whispered across the table to Cέrμləa.

"Who said we were

eating

dessert," Cέrμləa said.

She took her clothes off and climbed up onto the table. Compared to the other succubi—and Cέrμləa's other adult form—this incarnation of Cέrμləa had a more normally-proportioned body. Her breasts were small and perky, and she was skinnier—more a sexy waif than a curvaceous glamour pin-up.

An extremely sexy waif. What she had she made full use of as she performed an erotic burlesque routine on top of the table that mostly involved pouring molten chocolate down her naked front. She followed up with a pitcher of whipped cream. She danced wantonly, pouring more cream directly onto her sex as she thrust her pelvis forwards. Her naked feet came down on top of exotic pastries, squirting fresh cream onto the table.

Phil kept glancing over at the waiter, wondering what he made of all this wanton vandalism. The waiter remained impassive, even when Cέrμləa slipped and fell right into the enormous cake. Giggling hysterically, she sat amongst the ruin of sponge, icing and cream.

"Don't sit there like a lemon," she called out to Phil. "Help a gal up."

It was an obvious trick and Phil cursed himself for being sucker enough to fall for it. He climbed up onto the table and offered Cέrμləa his hand. She yanked down, pulling him off balance. Phil's back foot slipped on a blob of cream and toppled over onto Cέrμləa amidst the wreckage of the cake. She put a hand behind his head and pulled him down until their lips met in a kiss. Phil tasted mint cream on her lips and strong liqueur. He would have enjoyed it more had he not been terrified of the waiter's reaction, especially as they'd just completely demolished his fancy cake without so much as taking a bite out of it.

Phil was able to pull his head up enough to determine the waiter wasn't currently advancing on them with murderous rage. Instead the portly man seemed completely unconcerned by the mess Cέrμləa had made of the table.