Interview with a Succubus

**CHAPTER 1: THE PITCH**

Tim Jones stared at the open email in a combination of disbelief and anger. Someone was pranking him, and more upsettingly, wasting his time.

"WANTED: FREELANCE JOURNALIST," read the email title. Innocuous enough, though the email hadn't come from any editor he was familiar with. He had clicked in, and had been met with... this mess.

"A cisgender, hetero- or bisexual male freelance reporter is needed to interview a special subject in-person for an upcoming issue of Occult Quarterly. Must be okay with having sex multiple times during interview session. Occult Quarterly will pay for travel, hotel and rental car accommodations and provide a per-diem of $150. Base rate (negotiable): $3000. Please respond by 12/12/202x."

The email was practically stuffed full of red flags. First of all, the pay was too high to take seriously. And what outlet gave out per-diem pay or paid for travel? Then, there was this clause: "Must be okay with having sex multiple times?" Fuck off. Tim had covered war zones. His work had reached the front pages of major newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic. He did good, consequential work. And some horny teens running a fanzine were trying to fuck around with him.

Right as he made to delete the message from his inbox, his email client chimed again. Another email from the same sender.

"FOLLOW UP: FREELANCE JOURNALIST."

Tim sighed and opened this new message. He was surprised to see it wasn't just a carbon copy of the first email.

"Dear Mr. Jones," the message began. "My name is Aloysius Brigham. I am the owner and operator of Occult Quarterly, a small publication of little renown devoted to the supernatural. On behalf of my editorial staff, I must apologise" - Tim noted the British spelling - "for the message you received a few hours ago. It was sent to you in clear error and those responsible have been dealt with accordingly."

Interesting. Tim scratched his stubbly chin. So it had been a prank. The message continued: "In lieu of that erroneous email, I do have a proposal for you to consider."

...Or maybe this was just another element of the scam. He sighed again and kept reading.

"An art collector has agreed to meet with us in three days concerning a very special artefact relating to the world of the supernatural. She has asked for us to bring in an outside reporter to go over documents concerning this artefact and its journey over much of Europe. The goal is to spend a weekend determining if the artefact is fake.

"Unlike other publications concerned with worlds beyond our own reckoning, Occult Quarterly is equally interested in exposing the charlatans and griftmongers who peddle false entrypoints into those worlds. We are reaching out to you because of your work in the Guardian a few years back exposing the criminal fraud ring that was hawking those Van Goghs."

Hmmm. It could still be a scam, but this at least had something to sink one's teeth into.

"We of course would pay for your accommodations and travel and provide you with a per-diem, in addition to payment for the story. Our going rate is $1500 for stories of 2000 words or longer, though we do have room to negotiate. Please respond with your answer by 5:00 PM Eastern time today, as this story does need to move with some urgency.

"Yours,

A. Brigham

Occult Quarterly"

Tim looked at the clock. This guy was looking for an answer in two hours.

Everything still seemed too good to be true. There was just no way an obscure outlet like... whatever this was had the cash to fly him to Europe, put him up in some fancy digs, chauffeur him around whatever austere shithole he was being asked to go to, *and* pay for his work. But at least it didn't have the cadence of a child who just learned how to prank people asking him if his fridge was running.

"Dear Aloysius," he started his response. "I'm interested, but I do have some questions and some things I need you to prove first..."

***Four days later***

Tim stepped out of customs and into the throng of people coming to and fro at Charles-de-Gaulle Airport, looking for his contact. A tall, austere man holding a sign that said "Occult Quarterly" walked up to him and asked in a heavily accented English, "Timothy Jones?" Tim looked up at the man and nodded. "That's me," he said.

"Right this way. I am Chenault."

Tim followed Chenault through the busy airport to baggage claims and then into the equally rushed thrum of Paris. He looked around, trying to regain his bearings.

"Right this way, sir, please." Chenault was holding the rear door open on a fancy black sedan. Tim threw his luggage in the trunk and piled in. The last few days had been crazy. Aloysius - "Just call me Al, if you find that easier" - had made good on each of his promises, had passed every one of Tim's safety checks. Occult Quarterly was obscure, but legit, and had been around for at least a few decades. It had been started by Al's great grandfather and passed down as a family business. Al had spent a decade bringing it back from the brink of bankruptcy and now apparently had the capital to pursue real investigative work.

Tim pinched the bridge of his nose, resisting the jet lagged headache he felt coming on. As much as he wanted to go straight to the hotel and sleep, he knew that Aloysius - and this mysterious art dealer, or collector, or whatever - was operating on a tight timeframe. This was no pleasure trip.

Confirming his suspicions, Chenault said, "We must drop luggage at Hotel Astoria, Mr. Jones. You will need to meet with our contact post-haste."

"Not even time to shower," Tim grumbled slightly. He pulled a bottle of cologne out of his backpack's front pocket and squirted himself a few times with it. It'd have to do.

"Where are we meeting the contact?" Tim asked Chenault. "We have rented private room at Musee de la Tapisserie de Bayeux," the driver said. "We must drive tré vite to get there by this evening."

A three-hour drive to the north coast of France to meet with a random art collector to talk about a macguffin that may or may not even exist. What a life. Tim grumbled further and then took the opportunity to catch up on his ruined sleep.

When he woke up, the sun was lower in the sky, casting a soft orange glow over the countryside. He cleared his throat and sat up in his seat.

"Ah, good, you are awake." Chenault barely glanced at him. "We arrive within the hour."

"So Chenault, maybe you can answer this question for me," Tim said. He saw Chenault's eyes meet his through the rearview mirror. The driver said nothing, just regarded him with striking steel-gray eyes. "Er, who is this contact? All Aloysius told me was they're some kind of prominent art dealer or collector."

Chenault's eyebrows furrowed, but he maintained eye contact with Tim for a little bit longer before returning his gaze to the road. "She is a woman of, how do you say, high society," he finally said. "Very proper. Very discerning. It is unheard of for her to entertain guests this way or to meet them in field as she works."

"So you're familiar with her?" Tim probed.

"No," Chenault said flatly. "I have never met her, and with luck, I never will."

Wait, what? "Can you elaborate?"

"Her, eh, reputation. It precedes her. That's all."

"So she's in high society but you don't want to meet her, is that about right?"

Chenault's eyes returned to their glaring position meeting his own in the rearview. The man said nothing else.

Red flags were starting to reappear in Tim's mind. Al had been similarly cagey about this contact, repeatedly and maybe intentionally failing to mention who it was or what they looked like.

"We have arrived at the Musee de la Tapisserie de Bayeux." Chenault got out of the car and opened Tim's door. Tim got out and looked around. 21 All. des Augustines, a tiny, quiet street with nothing but a decorative gate and sign notifying you of the existence of this museum. It was humble. It hardly seemed like the kind of place someone from extreme high society would ever deign to descend upon, if Chenault's description was remotely correct. As Tim regarded the building and surrounds, the driver got back in his car and drove away.

All of the signs were in both French and English. While Tim knew a little bit of French, it wasn't good enough to be conversant, so he was glad for the consideration. He made his way to the museum entrance where he was greeted by a bored-looking teenager at the front desk. She was looking at her phone and didn't even look up when he walked in. "Bienvenue au Musée de la Tapisserie de Bayeux. Les informations sur les visites guidées se trouvent dans le couloir sur votre gauche et la boutique de cadeaux se trouve dans le couloir sur votre droite," she said in one breath.

"Uh, er..."

"Oh, tu es américain. Welcome to the Bayeux Tapestry Museum. Tour information is in the hallway on your left and the gift shop is in the hallway on your right." Tim was amazed that this girl had switched to almost perfect, dialect-free English so quickly.

"I'm an undergrad student from Quebec," she said, still not looking at him.

"You must get this a lot," he said sheepishly.

"All the time. Was there something other than tour information or the gift shop that you needed, or...?"

"Oh, er, yes. I'm meeting someone in a private meeting room, reserved by Occult Quarterly."

For the first time, the teen's eyes glanced at him, then to a monitor on the desk. "Room 13, take the left hallway all the way down." Tim thought he heard a hint of judgment in her voice.

As Tim walked the hall, a pang of anxiety started to form in his chest. He knew nothing about the person he was meeting. No one would tell him anything. All he had gotten from Chenault was that they were apparently a "she." And that "she" was in "high society," but not the area of high society you'd really want anything to do with. What even did that mean? He cleared his throat and shook his head, still a bit groggy from the nap on the way over. The last time he'd been this nervous for what was essentially an interview and document review, he'd been in college, almost two full decades ago.

The door to Room 13 was closed. He tried the handle; it was locked. He knocked. Thought he heard faint rustling.

"Hello?" a sultry voice wafted through the doors like perfume. "Timothy Jones, I presume?"

Every word hit his brain like a sledgehammer. "Y-yes, it is," he managed to croak out.

A giggle. Machine-gun fire to his frontal lobe. He felt his heart flutter. Other parts as well.

"You may come in, Mr. Jones." One last bayonet to the skull. The door unlocked and opened by itself, seemingly by no one on the other side. He gulped, then walked in, knees shaking - was it fear or anticipation? Or both?

The large meeting room was moodily lit and full of archived documents related to the tapestries that called this museum home. A large table sat in the center of the room with two computers and several boxes of assorted papers. These seemed unrelated to tapestries at a glance, but Tim couldn't be sure.

At the opposite end of the room, in a large, ornate chair, sat a woman. Tim almost fainted as his brain tried to process her. Jet-black hair done up tastefully. Tan skin that suggested she spent more of her time at the beach than in dusty archival rooms like this one. A face that at once belied the utmost kindness and utter cruelty in equal measure. The plumpest lips he had ever seen. A perfectly aquiline nose. Blue eyes that seemed to glow in the soft light and pierce his soul. A body of rippling muscle; the biggest breasts he had ever seen on anyone, even in porn; impossibly wide hips and an ass so fat it hardly fit in the chair. She was either eight solid feet tall or he was simply hallucinating. She was wearing a pantsuit, but it was clear the clothes were losing the battle of staying on her. Every seam strained to contain her curves. If she so much as flexed, everything would shred to bits instantly.

She laughed softly as Tim's slovenly reaction played out in real time. Her eyes never left him as he attempted to regain composure. Specifically, they never left his bulging crotch. Tim could feel some kind of heat in that area as he became more aroused than he had ever been in his life. This was going exceedingly poorly.

"Uh, er, e-excuse me," Tim stuttered as he struggled to keep his erection from being too visible. "H-hello, I-I'm Tim, the j-journalist you requested."

"Hi, Tim," the ethereal woman said, still smiling. Every syllable was incomprehensible music to his ears. "My name is Keres." *Keres. The Greek goddess of death?*

"W-what a lovely n-name," he stammered. He felt like she was bombarding him with some kind of chemical weapon.

"Why thank you, Tim," she said. She stood up. Her head almost touched the ceiling. She began to walk over to him and as if heeding some animal instinct, he took a step backwards. For the first time, her smile - or maybe it was a smirk? - faltered, ever so slightly.

"You have no need to be afraid of me, Tim," she said. "I will not harm you, nor allow you to come to harm, while you are in my company." The music in her voice changed key, and suddenly, the room felt less cloying.

He shook his head, and it was like a fog had begun to clear - not completely, but just enough for him to regain some steel in his spine. He stood up a bit straighter and cleared his throat once. "Yes, I-I'm sorry about that. It's a pleasure to meet you, Keres."

"The pleasure is mine," she said, not untruthfully. "What do you know about me? About our... situation?"

Tim laid out what Al had told him earlier in the week. It took about 15 minutes to cover everything. At the end, Keres looked at him and smiled once more. "It sounds to me like my familiar covered just the facts with you, as instructed," she said. "Good."

Tim paused at the word "familiar." "Wait, what?" he said.

"Oh, he's just a partner of mine under a special agreement," she said nonchalantly. "You will be as well, while we work together." She pulled out a cigarette and got up from her chair, moving to the window which she seemed to open with a flick of her finger. She regarded Tim from her advantageous position and said, "In order to move forward, some new threads in the story need to be pulled on and fully... examined. Like me."

Tim sat silently, almost holding his breath. He wasn't sure what Keres meant. Wait, had she given a last name? No... weird. His erection had been standing firm the whole time and with a new pang of desire it made itself known again.

"Yes... for things to progress to the next stage you must know what I am and why I am asking this thing of you," Keres said. She dragged on the cigarette, slowly exhaled. The smoke arranged itself in strange, almost eldritch shapes before flowing out the window.

"*What* you are, ma'am?"

She nodded. Looked out the window into the museum courtyard. Tourists and bored locals milled around. Looked back at Tim. Tim felt her vibrant eyes reach into parts of him he'd left locked for years.

"Let us talk about your assignment, Tim Jones."

**CHAPTER 2: THE CONTRACT**

"I have already told you my name," Keres said to him in a voice he hadn't yet heard before. Cold, no sultriness at all. A verbal cold shower. His erection instantly deflated. All sense of horniness he had felt leading up to this moment evaporated like her cigarette's smoke. "It is not my true name, nor will you learn my true name during our time working together."

She continued:

Your assignment is as follows. You are going to spend two weeks here with me primarily serving two functions: you will interview me, and you will assist me in locating the artifact my familiar Aloysius Brigham informed you of. You will spend your days alternating between these two tasks, starting tomorrow. During the interview period, you are allowed to ask me or anyone else I have presented for you any questions, and we must provide you with truthful answers, aside from the contents of my true name. The rest of the time will be spent going over the documents I have here, plus another shipment of them I'm having delivered next week. When your day is finished, we will depart from the Museum together. I have already arranged transportation for the fortnight. We will retire to the chateau I have rented for the month. Are we clear so far?

--Tim felt like he was being hypnotized. He nodded his head. "I need verbal confirmation for this to work, Tim," she said.

"Yes, we're clear so far," he replied. She nodded, taking that as good enough confirmation for her purposes.

--The reason you are interviewing me is because of what I am and what I represent. The purpose of this interview is twofold: to show the world that me and mine are no threat to anyone, and to empower those of us who are either hidden or do not know their true nature to finally come out into the sunlight. Retrieving the artifact is vital to this secondary goal.

During our adorable little introductions, Tim, you noted that the name I gave you is shared with a Greek goddess of death. There is a reason for this choice, though again, I must stress: it isn't my actual name. We enjoy symbolism as much as anyone, and I can command a bit of a fearsome presence, so I picked Keres as a small... joke.

In order for me to tell you the whole story, Tim, I must first show you. Do not be afraid.

--Once again Tim fell out of the trance-like state that her words induced in him. She gestured, as if to say "keep your eyes on me," and Tim obliged. She then closed her eyes, and her brow furrowed, as if she was undergoing some kind of exertion. Just as Tim had imagined, she flexed down and her clothing exploded around her.

And then it happened in earnest. First, her tan darkened, then changed hues to a deep red. Some of her jet-black hair in front of her face began to whip up, coalescing on her forehead as two relatively large goat's horns. Her feet slowly melted together into recognizably cloven hooves. Her fingernails sharpened and jutted out, turning into jet-black talons. Her musculature remained unchanged, as did her breasts, hips and ass, but as this demon transformed before Tim's very eyes, the look of exertion on her face didn't relax. There was one more thing to see, one last aspect to make the transformation complete.

A loud "crack" emanated through the room, coming from her. It sounded like she was being split in half. She moaned, a sound that could have been a sign of pain and pleasure equally, and her body contorted in impossible ways as the cracking noises continued with increasing frequency. After several prolonged seconds of struggle, her transformation was complete: two black bat's wings jutted out from between her shoulder blades. Blood slowly flowed from the exit wounds the new appendages made, but only momentarily. Keres slowly stretched her wings out, then carefully brought them back in, mindful of the contents of this archival room, and sighed as if she'd just awoken from a brisk nap.

"Ah, that feels good," she purred.

Tim felt his boner returning to his pants despite his utter terror at what he'd just witnessed. He stood, back to an opposite corner of the room, speechless, mouth agape.

"Hello, Tim," she said, sultry notes fully returning to her voice. "I'm Keres, and I am... a succubus." As she finished her sentence, Tim felt a pulse run through his penis, the familiar pre-orgasm tightening of his balls, and then - all faded to black.

"Shit," Keres said casually, as all sound drained out of Tim's world.

***

An indeterminate amount of time later, Tim came to. He was no longer in a cramped archival room at a French tapestry museum, as evidenced by the very big bed he was in. His clothes were folded neatly - seemingly pressed and cleaned, as well - on the nightstand, and there was a note on top of them: "Join me for dinner in the main dining room tonight when you've awoken, would you? --K"