Tristessa: a Succubus in Love

They'd thrown me into a cell, a level or two down from the main room. It was dank and dark and generally uncomfortable, with not even a bed or a cot or chair. I thought about Marjorie and Charlotte, and I cried a lot. There were some other cells, as best I could make out in the dim light, but they didn't seem to have anyone in them. Time passed. I couldn't tell how much, but judging from my growing hunger, it was days. Maybe a week. No one came. Nothing happened. I grew weaker. Sleep came fitfully when it came at all, and my dreams became more frightening and less distinguishable from reality. A man was thrown into my cell. Grabbing the bars and rattling the door to the cell, screaming for help, wondering what the hell was going on. At my touch he wheeled around in panic. Into his ear I whispered words to calm him, and sucked his earlobe into my mouth, my hands already undoing his pants, wrapping around his rapidly-stiffening cock, squeezing it, my tongue now finding his and wrestling with it with a wet slurping sound, my starved body seeking nourishment from his saliva and finding, of course, none. I dragged him slowly to the ground and mounted him, unsure if the gasps I heard were his or mine. Grinding my hips, I rode him gently, enjoying every inch of his manhood pressed up inside me, feeling the contours of my vagina stretch around him, growing warmer, wetter, moving faster until the familiar waves of pleasure began to pulse outward from my clitoris. And then the hot spurts of his soul blasting into me, overflowing, slicking the ground, and I knew now it was no dream.

"Feel better?" A familiar voice. Whose? A woman. I could just make out a figure in the darkness, but there were no details to it. "Almost three weeks without eating. I can't imagine." From the recesses of my memory the voice took shape. My sister, whom I hadn't seen since 1526.

"Alana," I said, my own voice sounding foreign to me.

"No, dear. That man you just took. He had a wife, three children. Adorable little creatures. A very happy family, he confided in me. And he ran a food bank. A good man all around. He certainly didn't deserve the fate he just suffered at your hands. At least he died happy, right?" She moved closer to the bars, as did I. Her arm came through, and suddenly grabbed the back of my head, a fistful of hair, and pulled my face toward her. Her lips met mine, her tongue forcing itself into my mouth. She tasted faintly of sugar and tea. Roughly, she broke the kiss and pushed me back in one swift movement. A match was struck, and a torch sconce lit. My eyes reeled from the brightness of it. The voice continued. I could not look in its direction.

"You didn't tell me how wonderful this is, Tristessa. My god! The orgasms alone are out of this world, and that look in their eyes. The most abject fear, a little oh-god-what-is-happening-to-me, and all the while they don't even really care because they feel so damn good. It's intoxicating! I haven't been able to get enough of it."

As she spoke, my eyes still shielded from the light, the identity of her voice slowly dawned on me, and yet I could not -- would not -- believe it. Slowly, I turned my head toward her, knowing what I would see, unsure if I was horrified or elated. She was mostly a silhouette, framed by flowing golden tresses through which the light of the torch filtered, appearing almost as a halo. Are you angel or devil?

"We have such powers! Embrace them! Humans are weak. They exist for us to use!"

You've probably figured out by now that it was Charlotte. Karsten hadn't killed her. He had turned her. She was like me now, a succubus.

"I'm very glad you're alive," I said, my voice breaking with emotion. "I told you your stupid plan wouldn't work."

"It worked out just fine from where I'm standing."

"I wouldn't have wished this for you," I said.

"Why not? It's fucking amazing! Why are you ashamed of who you are?"

"I'm not. I enjoy feeding as much as you. I'm just...pickier."

"You're just a pussy is what you are. Hell, what we give our prey is the greatest gift imaginable."

"A moment of pleasure, no matter how intense, is no substitute for a life well lived."

"Tell that to him," she said, gesturing to the corpse on the floor behind me.

"I didn't choose him."

"No, I did. Did you enjoy it any less?"

"I was starving to death," I said.

"Yes, well...don't expect another anytime soon. I've had a hell of a time convincing Karsten to let you live. I've assured him that I -- that only I -- can break you of your little moral inhibitions. Because you love me so much." She said the last part with a vicious little sting of mockery.

"You're right, Charlotte, that what we have is a gift. But cruelty needn't be a part of it. Thank you for keeping me alive. But I'd rather be dead than be someone I'm not."

"I'm not trying to make you someone you're not. I'm trying to get you to see who you really are." With that she turned and slipped silently into the shadows, followed by the clang of a metal door. The torch burned down a few hours later, returning me to darkness, and then to another cycle of uncounted days, fitful sleep, fevered dreams, weakness and hunger and hopelessness. Every few weeks, I supposed, another man would be pushed into my cell, the previous and by then well-rotted corpse dragged away. I tried to stay awake, to be ready for when the door opened, but each time I was caught unawares. Even if I hadn't been, I was too weak to do anything anyway, anything but use what little strength I had to drain the life from my short-lived cellmates. And after each feeding, as my mind returned to clarity, Charlotte would describe in detail how good each of these man had been, how they had loved and cared for their families, how they had spent their lives helping others less fortunate than they had been. And though I knew it was coming with every new victim, Charlotte let me get so hungry that I didn't care. I would take them, she knew, and continue to live.

I don't know how many it was, in the end. I lost count at 23, but it was surely many more than that. As I climbed off the last of them, the warm mixture of soul-semen and my own juices running down my inner thighs, I prepared myself for Charlotte's cruelty once more. But she had something else to tell me this time.

"I'm leaving London," she said matter-of-factly. "Time's up. Karsten thinks he's won. But I know you'll do the right thing. If you want to stay alive." She swung the cell door open. I stepped out into the brighter light of the corridor. I'd long since shed the tattered rags of what remained of my clothing. Always pale-complexioned, I was shocked by the whiteness of my skin, and even more so by how gaunt and bony I was. I knew I had lost weight but I wasn't prepared for what I saw. My once-full breasts were droopy and withered, my sleek, muscular limbs reduced to little more than skin-encased bones, my hips and ribcage protruding as if about to burst through their thin sheath.

As though she were reading my thoughts, Charlotte said, "You'll be back to your old self in a few months. You'll just need to be a bit more...aggressive about feeding." Her smile was still the same as it had been when I'd fallen in love with her. She pushed my limp frame against the cold stone of the wall and slid two fingers into my still-wet cunt, curling them roughly forward once they were inside, pulling me toward her. "I hope you'll come find me once you're feeling up to it. I think we could have some real fun together." I couldn't tell if she was being sincere or mocking me. I wanted to have some sort of emotion about it. Disgust. Anger. Hatred. Even love. But I felt nothing. Maybe she had broken me. She rapped quietly on the outer door of the dungeon and it opened to reveal two of Karsten's strapping incubae minions.

They trundled me upstairs into Karsten's great hall, a goodly sized crowd gathered around. Standing all in a row was a group of young men -- little more than boys, really. Karsten's voice boomed across the room.

"Tristessa of Prague! So good to see you again after all these years." Years? He smiled cruelly. "Yes, four years you've been my guest, and I must say, the time has not been kind to you. Our Charlotte -- quite the wonder, I might add, and thanks again for bringing her to us -- is convinced she's cured you of your little quirk of morality. I, on the other hand, look forward to proving her wrong, at which point I shall be happy to finally free you from the misery which your life has become. In, of course, the most painful way I can imagine. And, when it comes to pain, my imagination is nearly unlimited. Charlotte! Please begin."

Charlotte, now naked herself, was walking slowly up and down the line of men. "My dear," she said, "we have here eighteen of England's best and brightest. Dedicated scholars all and active in the church, too. They were on their way, in fact, to Africa for a two-month stint of charitable undertakings. Building houses or some such thing, wasn't it, darling?" she asked, turning to one of them, gently caressing his cheek. He nodded, his face flushed at her touch. "Such good boys," she continued. "No black marks on their disciplinary records. Model citizens. Really just wonderful young men. Their parents must be so proud. Aren't you proud, parents?" she asked, her voice rising in volume. Pushed forward from the crowd of Karsten's minions were suddenly eighteen couples, fear etched on their faces.

"I said, aren't you proud of your sons?" Charlotte continued, louder still. The parents murmured assent, their keepers standing menacingly behind them. It was quite a production they'd put together for me.

"Wonderful. You should be," Charlotte went on. "You'll be happy to know that they're going to die very, very pleasurably. As will you. Well, the fathers, at least." Now she turned to me.

"Tristessa, you are going to fuck each of these young men, ending their lives, of course, in the process. And then you will provide the same service to each of their fathers. But first, just to prove to us all how cruel you really are, how free of your little false morality you've become, you're going to disembowel their mothers. And once you're done with all that, you're free to go." She snapped her fingers and one of the incubae stepped forward, proffering to me a velvet cushion on which rested a short, scimitar-like sword. My eyes moved back and forth between Charlotte and Karsten on his throne some thirty feet away. I could feel their eyes meeting, as I could feel the palpable fear of the young men and their parents and the bloodlust that emanated from the demons around me, all of it filling the room with an almost delicious sort of tension that I remembered from when I was much, much younger. My hand moved slowly, of its own accord, my fingers wrapping around the cool wooden handle of the sword. I picked it up, feeling its heft, its perfect balance. I nodded to Charlotte, and with an imperceptible signal, the first of the mothers was pushed forward and held trembling in front of me.

None of these people were getting out of here alive, regardless of what I chose to do. I knew that much. It wasn't my fault, and I couldn't save them. The world is full of bad luck. I plunged the blade into the woman's side, the screams of the other soon-to-be victims falling on my ears as if from very far away. The sharp blade slid effortlessly across her torso, blood and gore falling from the massive incision. The woman remained silent, the look of terror on her face communicating more than any verbalizations could have. The incubus released his grip on her and she fell to her knees, her arms flailing in a hopeless effort to keep her insides inside. I saw Charlotte's tongue running across her teeth, her mouth held open slightly. All eyes were focused on the unfortunate soul who was rapidly crumpling at my feet, almost as if she were melting, pooling up into the puddle of her own blood.

I stepped once quickly with my right leg, swinging my arm in a backhand motion as I did so, the sword whirling flat along a perfect plane across the room. Karsten's throat did nothing to stop it. His spine did, after it was about halfway through that. His head toppled backward as if on a hinge, blood spurting up from his neck. There was only silence now. His body slumped back into the carved stone upon which he sat.

I looked over at Charlotte. "I told you I'd kill him for you," I said. I knew two things at that moment. One, with her sire dead, the demon inside her was dead as well. She was human again. Two, his minions were bound by law and tradition to respect any who could slay their master. Sure, they could have killed Charlotte. I was hoping, given her apparent role of some importance within their organization, or whatever it was, that they wouldn't. The other humans, I knew, wouldn't receive the same consideration. I wasn't even thinking about them.

She had tried to break me, but now it was Charlotte that was broken. In an instant she had been confronted with full knowledge of both the cruelties she had embraced as well as the gifts she had misused and now lost. I put my arm around her shoulder and guided her out of the still-silent room. I realized I knew one other thing -- I still loved her.

Months passed; I left her side as rarely as she spoke. We'd walk in the park, or sit by the fire on colder days, each reading silently or me reading aloud to her, a pot of tea between us, my body and her mind slowly returning to normalcy. I secretly thrilled at the slightest signs from her; glances, casual touches. One day, strolling through Hyde Park, she reached over and slipped her hand over mine, intertwining our fingers. As I gently squeezed her hand, I saw the faintest flicker of a smile dance across her lips. Some weeks later we kissed, not, as I had to remind myself, for the first time, but it felt like the first time that mattered.

We'd shared a room all those months, although not a bed. I was in no hurry. I knew she needed time, and the wait made it all the sweeter when, one chilly night just before Christmas I woke to feel her warm flesh pressing up against me, her chin nuzzled into my shoulder, her arm draped over me. I took her hand and pulled her arm up between my breasts. That was all. We just stayed like that. As her breath deepened into the rhythms of sleep, I felt a wave of contentment unlike anything I'd ever experienced. Snow fell in the night. We awoke to a blanket of white covering the rooftops, and then, finally, we made love.

She's been dead for more than three hundred years now, but I can still pull from my memory the sound of her gentle cries as she climaxed at my touch for the first time. Hers was a life well-lived, and mine the richer for having been a part of it. Her grave is on a hillside, overlooking the little town in Provence where we'd lived for most of the 57 years we shared together. I put flowers on it each Christmas Eve morning. I don't know if I'll ever love anyone again. I got by fine without it for the first 1200 years I'd been alive. I suppose if it happens, it happens, and there's not much you can do about it.

"I wish I wasn't dying," Johann said, looking out over the Baltic. "I think I'm in love with you."

"No you're not," I said.

"I could be, if I had more time. I want to know love like that. My marriage was, well, is, I guess, fine. I love my wife. But I don't love her like that. And she doesn't love me like that."

"I was very lucky," I said.

"Thank you for telling me about her."

"Thanks for listening. I've never told anyone that story before."

"Are you sure it doesn't hurt, Tristessa?"

I thought for a second he was asking about me. "No, it doesn't hurt. It's ecstasy. You can't even imagine." I dropped to my knees and undid the sash on his robe. At my touch his member sprang to its fullness and I took him deep into my mouth. He was a good man. The world is full of bad luck.