Prologue
Even after all these years, she didn't really know what she was or why she did the things she did. She was like a programmed machine -- programmed to do one thing, and she did it damned well. She knew there were others out there like her, but she had never met them. At least not in a conscious state.
Legend had it that succubae and incubi came to people in their dreams. For her it was the opposite. She came to people in real life. It was in her dreams that she and her kind met each other, getting flashes of each other's pleasure. Vivid, all-encompassing visions that did not fade on awakening, but stayed in the mind, ensuring that the act of waking was usually accompanied by some solo or mutual pleasure.
She had almost lost count of how many personas she'd had. She had been Brooke Landry now for over almost twenty-five years and it had been one of the most enjoyable times she could remember. From those heady college days in San Diego to her current gentle, small-town life in the English countryside. She was a respectable, beautiful, mid-forties American woman with a fictional early life. And as with every life she had lived, the reality was almost more incredible than the fiction.
This was the eighth town in which she had lived since arriving in England. She had left her mark on all the others and intended to do so here. Once-repressed women and men had been liberated and now lived sexually fulfilling lives, with only a vague memory of the mysterious woman who had once been in their midst and changed them forever.
It was a conscious decision to live a quieter life. The Twentieth Century had mainly been a turbulent and violent time - as had many eras in her lives. Some of her lives had come to an end naturally and quietly. Others had ended suddenly, a few quite dramatically.
Her time as Annie, a flapper girl in 1920's New York had been exhilarating - the sheer excitement of Prohibition, the bootleggers and the Speakeasys. The thrill of life on the edge of the gang culture that grew up around it all. Then the sudden end, as she and another girl worked on a prominent gang leader and their loving labours were curtailed; not as expected in a hail of his usually explosive largesse, but in a hail of machine-gun fire.
Her incarnation as a Keiko the Geisha in pre-war Nagasaki was also an exciting time, but the terrible, abrupt way that hers and so many other lives had ended there still meant that on occasions, her dreams were not so sweet. She had forced herself to revisit the city early into her time as Brooke, but the catharsis she had hoped for did not materialise.
Her favourite time of the Twentieth Century had been the Sixties. Those heady years in San Francisco and Los Angeles; the drugs, the sex, the music. She had started by playing folk songs in local bars and graduated to playing flute and singing in a fledgling psychedelic band. There were the gigs at the Whisky and the Troubadour; the nights of sheer bliss as she became a well-known and sought-after Groupie. She had chosen an exotic name to match the times and the list of Juniper Rimbeau's conquests read like a Who's Who -- a veritable Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She still felt a thrill when she heard the music today, usually accompanied by a frisson of sadness. Especially the songs that she knew were written for her - her own little secrets from a time that for her surpassed all others but ended all too soon.
It was always the bracelet that gave the game away. Usually it lasted for thirty, forty years before the crystal began to dim. Sometimes it lasted a mere five years. There was a direct correlation to how hard she lived -- she had no control over it.
In 1971 when, after only six years, the crystal began to dim, she was distraught. She had partied and had just as full a sex life on many occasions before. In the end she put it down to the drugs and vowed never again. It was coming to an end far too soon. Then she realised that so too was the era in which she was living. It was burning itself out as fast as she was. She thought of fading away with it, then decided on one last, dramatic gesture to put a full stop on it.
She was twenty-seven. Given the great friends she had lost at that same age, it seemed appropriate. She had smoked the stuff before but never injected it. She didn't know what a safe amount was, but she certainly knew what constituted an overdose. It was only the second time she had ever taken her own life.
When it ended violently or suddenly, it took a long time for her to be reborn. She was never in control of who she would be or where she would reappear as she would if it were a natural transition.
Other than her first life, she always came into the world fully-fledged; usually in her late teens or early twenties. The first time was for real -- she was born as a mewling, puking infant into the cold, hard world of the steppes of Russia sometime before what is now known as the Common Era. She had a hard childhood, but it was her only one.
Way back then, it had been easy -- no documents required, just a new girl in a new town ready to take the place by storm. For centuries she had relied on her quick wits and her innate gift, but over the last few hundred years she'd had to become an expert forger and now she had to be an accomplished computer hacker as well.
Back in the mid-1990's, Brooke's latest life had taken her a few days to create, but the skills to do it were natural to her. The new persona, as all her others had been, was flawless - from her official documentation to her back-story.
She had decided on a quiet period after a time of fast living in Monaco and the south of France in the 80's and 90's. That had been one of her rare times living as a male, and it had felt strange at first but she had soon come to terms with it and embraced the lifestyle with gusto. Jean-Claude was a fine specimen and much in demand on the international party-scene. His prowess had led to offers of movie work and Brooke still never tired of watching her former self in action.
When the crystal began to dim in 1996, she had been in control of that transition and had chosen her new look and location carefully. She wanted a gentler time away from the music and porn scenes and hopefully from the violent ends she seemed to have met all too regularly for over a century. She became a fun-loving college girl in San Diego with a back-story of early life in Vermont. The memories came fully created and she could picture her childhood and adolescence in New England with crystal clarity; the loss of her virginity to Mason Oliver by the lakeside at sixteen, the nights in the barn with Patty Cummins and Jodie O'Keefe as they explored each other.
And of course there was the thing with her teacher, Mr. Owens. Sometimes, no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't restrain herself and had to add in something just a little bit naughty - just for the sheer hell of it.
All those memories were real and precious to her, just as every other persona had memories to cherish.
She had hoped that her current persona would last a long time. She was content and she had made a lot of ordinary people very happy indeed. No stardom, no glitz or glamour -- just a beautiful woman using her sexuality to bring a little happiness into the lives of others. Probably no different to what she had been doing since time immemorial, but on a smaller scale.
She was loving life. Her collection of Jean-Claude's movies was almost complete, the songs from the Sixties written about her a reminder of more turbulent times.
She was in a new town and she loved the peace and tranquillity of it. She had a new project in progress -- the girl she had in mind was utterly gorgeous and she was desperate to make out with her. She knew that with her skills it was only a matter of time. And there were a few other characters where the girl worked that would be perfect to bring into the little scenario she had planned.
It was going to be so much fun. As she lay back and worked out the finer details of the storyboard in her head, she poured herself a glass of Merlot and put on one of Jean-Claude's orgy scenes. There were a few toys on the bed for a little later.
