Meeting My Succubus

This could fit in various sections. I have chosen to put it in sci-fi and fantasy, but it could also go into non-human and underneath it all I see it as the beginning of a romance, albeit an unconventional one.

I have always enjoyed stories that tackle fantasy themes such as vampires or magic, but do so by imagining how they could work in the real world. This is my attempt to do the same with the concept of the succubus. There is sex, but you'll have to work your way through a bit of the story to get there. Feedback is welcome, and of course if you liked it please vote! I have not decided whether to leave it as a one-off or to continue the tale.

It goes without saying that all the characters engaged in sexual activities are over eighteen (in one case by several centuries), this is of course a work of fiction, and the copyright is reserved by me, N. S. Carter, and I forbid its use, in whole or in part, without my explicit permission.

*

If you were choosing a time and place for a life-changing event, one that divides your life neatly into 'before' and 'after', then midnight in a graveyard would be hard to beat, though I guess it is open to accusations of being somewhat clichéd. However, that is exactly when and where it happened; at midnight in a graveyard. I should mention, just to reassure you, that it was not foggy and there was no sound of owls hooting nearby that I can recall, the moon was not gibbous, and the atmosphere was not particularly eldritch.

In that first moment, when the crazed priest turned to face me, clasping an ornate but wickedly sharp-looking dagger and saying in a curiously nasal voice, rather whiny for such a large man, "Get thee gone, I am engaged in the Lord's work", what struck me was the strong possibility that the only 'after' that might be involved was going to be personal research on my part into the nature of the afterlife, if there was one. Oddly, the inscription on one of the tombs nearby that had often caught my eye came to my mind, 'In the Sure and Certain Hope of the Resurrection'. I had the wry thought that the only thing I could be sure of was that they would not inscribe that on my grave, unless they were taking the piss. And bizarrely I also noted that this was the first time I could remember being addressed as 'thee'.

To make this narrative a little more coherent I should explain a few things. The little-used path through the graveyard at the local church, St. Mary Magdalene, happened to be the shortest route between the bus stop where I would alight after work, and my flat. A while before this event I had realised that once it got dark, I would take the long way round to get home, which was hardly rational behaviour for a convinced atheist, and all the more so for a scientist running a successful biotech company. So as a point of principle I always forced myself to walk through the graveyard if I left work after dark (which was often) and the therapy had worked; after the first few times I completely lost my fear of the place.

This is why, on the night in question, I was lost in thought over the latest knotty problem that had kept me in work until gone eleven, concerning the mechanism for how, just occasionally, traumatic experiences seem to be passed on at a genetic level to the next generation and then for some reason not obvious to me the famous quote had just bubbled up in my mind, 'the sleep of reason produces monsters'.

I was roused from my intellectual reverie by a high-pitched cry from just ahead of me, and in the dirty yellow light of the distant streetlight I could see a slight young woman backed up against one of the over-the-top Victorian era white marble tombs by a menacing figure in a black robe. For a moment it looked like a scene from one of those old silent movies; the gestures wildly exaggerated, the villain almost a caricature and the shadows seeming to be characters in their own right.

In the interests of honesty I have to admit that my intervention was driven not by pure altruism but by an immediate sense that I would not be able to live with myself if I didn't try to help, even though I had no idea what to do. So, I intervened with what is probably not going to go down in history as one of the immortal battle cries.

"Hey. What's going on here?"

Clearly not overly impressed, the man in the robe turned to me, holding his dagger in a way that signalled that he intended to use it and said (as I mentioned earlier),

"Get thee gone, I am engaged in the Lord's work".

The bizarre language, together with the fact that he was obviously a priest, left me at a loss for words, and actions. He continued,

"This foul hell-spawn is ..." and at that point his speech was cut short by the said 'hell-spawn' hitting him over the head with a heavy cut-glass vase she had taken from the tomb next to her and which still had in it some wilted flowers and brackish dirty water. Contrary to the laws of narrative convention the vase failed to shatter, but he did go down in quite a satisfactory manner, not fully unconscious but on his hands and knees and clearly groggy.

Not being an action hero and lacking previous experience of dealing with dagger-wielding clergy, I was only starting to consider next moves, such as phoning for the police and possibly an ambulance, when the young woman sprang into action, kicking the knife he had dropped away from his hand which was already groping for it and into the long grass nearby. She then grabbed my arm and started to pull me away.

"Shouldn't we ..." was my next impressive utterance, cut short decisively by her saying,

"No, we shouldn't. Your job is to finish rescuing the maiden".

Even in this fraught situation I couldn't help but notice that she seemed to be mocking me slightly, which felt unfair, even if in truth my only contribution so far had been to distract her would-be assailant. But she gave me no time to cultivate a grievance, as she followed up with,

"I suggest you take me home. You do live near here, don't you?"

Once more derailed, I could only answer lamely.

"Yes, my flat is just down the road".

Oddly enough I thought 'how does she know I don't have a wife or live-in girlfriend who might object to me bringing home a pretty girl after midnight?' And then I remember being annoyed for myself for thinking like that.

Once we had reached the street the light was stronger, and I could see her better. She appeared young, perhaps in her early twenties. From the way she was dressed, with army-type boots and distressed jeans and a hoodie a couple of sizes too large for her diminutive build, my guess was that she was a student at the nearby university. I was a bit puzzled by her appearance: initially when she was backed up against the tomb I had the impression of long blonde hair, but now it was clear that it was dark, in fact raven-black and so as far from blonde as could be, and no more than shoulder length.

Her skin was pale, and I was a little shocked at myself, given the circumstances, for thinking how much I would like to caress her smooth cheek. Her paleness was accentuated by the carnal red shade of her lipstick on a mouth that was just a little too wide to be conventionally beautiful, but which looked eminently kissable. In the artificial light it was hard to tell what colour her eyes were, other than dark, but they seemed larger than would be usual for the size of her heart-shaped face.

It goes without saying that she was gorgeous, and in a way that was very definitely sexy, or at least got my mind thinking of sex, which I guess has to be the definition of sexy.

Her voice also seemed subtly different to when I first heard it, when she had sounded quite 'street'; what my mother would have termed 'common' (which always amused me since she had grown up in Battersea and so could hardly claim to be aristocracy). Then again none of us are at our best when facing an imminent knife thrust. Now her modulated tones brought to mind suggestions of private education and the home counties, in other words 'posh', and as a state-educated kid with socialist leanings from a working-class background (although as you can probably tell I have travelled a long way from there) I am a little ashamed that it is exactly this kind of voice I find turns me on.

Wanting to take back the conversational initiative, and hoping to counter the impression she might have gained so far, I asked,

"So, are you a student?"

She paused and answered me in a considered manner.

"Well, I suppose you might call me a student of life, and the amorous arts, but I am not at 'uni' if that is what you mean."

And then for neither the first nor last time she went on to completely floor me by saying, in much the same tones that you could imagine someone telling you that she is in marketing or works in a call centre,

"Actually, I am a succubus, and technically you have just saved my life, so I guess that means I am yours now."

This was all the more peculiar for being said in a rather matter-of-fact tone, except for what I felt was an unnecessary (and slightly insulting) stress on the word 'technically'.

I really was not able to come up with any response to that. Then again would you have done any better in my place? The events of that evening were reassembling themselves in my mind: one of those trick pictures that can be seen as one of two completely different things, like that one of the old hag or the beautiful woman. What I had stumbled on in the graveyard was in fact one maniac attacking another crazy person. Questions began to form in my mind. 'Is she dangerous? Should I call someone?'

Perhaps looking to humour her, or at least find out something useful, I said,

"I'm Adam, What's your name?"

Now you would have thought that this had limited potential for going off-piste, so to speak, but if you did think that then you would be very wrong.

"That's a good question. What do you think would be a good name for me? For someone who looks and sounds like me?"

You might imagine that she was just having a bit of fun with me, but I felt that her question was actually seriously intended. Which should have been more worrying than if she had been taking the piss, but strangely wasn't. So instead of responding with something along the lines of 'What the hell are you playing at?' I rather gave it some serious thought and came up with,

"Clara. I think you could be a Clara." I had no idea where that came from.

Her response was immediate and had the enthusiasm of a woman trying on the seventeenth dress in a shop and finally deciding she would buy this one.

"OK. I like that. I'm Clara".

Then I saw her shiver and I realised she was wet. Drenched in fact. This was odd given that there had been no rain for days, so I mentioned it.

"You're soaking. What happened, Clara?"

I was proud of myself for using the name: I assumed this would be standard protocol for pacifying a possibly deranged young women.

"That cretin threw a whole bottle of holy water over me," was her response in a slightly exasperated tone. She went on,

"It doesn't work of course. Not unless you are working with a long-term strategy of giving me pneumonia."

I think that this time I might actually have managed something like "Oh" in response, but still a long way from suave and sophisticated.

Clara continued,

"Long sharp daggers will do the trick every time. The inscribed holy symbols are an optional extra though."

At that point we'd come to my flat's entrance, so I did not have to produce a response, which was just as well. I inserted my key into the lock, opened the door and walked in, expecting her to follow, but she just stood on the doorstep, looking up at me expectantly with those unsettling large dark eyes.

After a pause she said,

"Well, aren't you going to invite me in?"

I had kind of taken that for granted, and was now beginning to be a bit exasperated with all this game-playing, and so I said with exaggerated emphasis on the key words and a hint of sarcasm and that seemed completely lost on her,

"Welcome to my humble abode, Clara. Please do come in and make yourself at home".

And she did.

Her first words on entering were, said with an amused smile, "It's bigger on the inside," which is kind of true because seen from the front the building seems quite narrow and it is not clear that it actually goes back quite a long way from the road. It was also obvious to me that the allusion to Doctor Who's Tardis was deliberate, and it struck me that I had probably dredged up the name Clara from a character in a TV show who I'd had a bit of a crush on when younger, and who she bore some resemblance to.

Suddenly a little uncertain, off-balance in the presence of a really attractive woman, I asked her,

"Can I get you something to eat ... or drink?"

This time it was my question that was a bit daft, and her response the bit that made more sense.

"Actually, I could do with getting out of these wet clothes. Where is your bathroom?"

I told her and she headed that way, turning back for a moment to add,

"I will feed afterwards."

Though I was beginning to get used to her saying odd things, in this case the word 'feed' had the effect of making me instantly aroused, giving me a semi-erection.

I was in the kitchen looking at what my options were for putting together some kind of meal, and discovering that they were, to say the least, limited, when she returned, rather quicker than I had expected from my previous experience of women in bathrooms.

Now, assuming that you are a bloke, and one with aspirations to be a decent human being, you've probably had the experience of going on a date and finding that a woman wants to go back to your place, and then you were unsure what that means.

As in what happens next? Does she want to sleep with you? Do you need to get more explicit consent from her, or will that kill the mood? And so on. And if you are a woman then you could have probably skipped this bit without loss. Anyway, it can be hard to know what the rules are for a much more conventional situation, so it is that much harder when it comes to working out the protocol for bringing home possibly crazy but very attractive women after rescuing them from knife-wielding priests in graveyards at midnight.

In other words, to put it simply, is it OK to fuck her in this situation?

This shows you my tendency to overthink things. Probably a good quality in a scientist but not so much when it comes to romantic relationships. So, anyway, you now have an insight into my state of mind at that moment.

The only way to describe how Clara walked when she came into the kitchen, wearing my bathrobe -- and only my bathrobe - was the verb 'to slink'. The small part of my brain that was not acting like one of those cartoon characters, you know the one with his jaw on the floor and his tongue hanging out, wondered at how she looked so well-groomed and seemed to have reapplied make-up, given that she had no handbag and I did not exactly keep that kind of thing in my flat. Also, she had a scent that could only be described as intoxicating -- an unusual response for me as most perfumes seem to me either floral ones that remind me of visits from maiden aunts as a child, or overblown scents that assault the senses and send any thoughts of sex running for cover. This one was the aromatic equivalent of saying 'why have you still got your clothes on?', and I certainly responded to it. My previous erection, which had only just begun to subside, returning in full force.

I really am a scientist. It is part of my deepest nature and, in me at least, it manifests in there being two of me: the part that does, acts and even kisses and fucks, and the part that stands back and observes, analyses, considers and occasionally either tells me to stop doing something it considers dodgy, or even more rarely urges me on. I mention this to explain some of what follows, and why I might be a little different from most guys without being able to claim that this makes me somehow noble or virtuous.

But I am digressing just as I suspect things are getting interesting from your point of view.

Clara did not hesitate at any point but came right up to me, invading my personal space, though truth be told this was not an unwelcome invasion, and looking up into my eyes said,

"I'm going to kiss you."

This is where that other me, the observer, intervened.

Lots of people have kinks. They can be as standard and acceptable as stockings, high heels and the like, or they can be rather more peculiar, including women urinating on them or having tattoos of goats for example. My kink is consent, or rather the idea that I need to be sure a woman is with me or doing things with me because she really wants to. In this case I was both worried that she might be acting out of gratitude, or worse that she might be deranged and so incapable of meaningful consent.

"You know you don't have to do this".

Funnily enough this was the first time I had spoken with conviction since I had encountered her. This was the real me, for good or ill.

Clara looked at me with an expression that suggested puzzled amusement and after a moment responded.

"No. We are going to kiss because I want to kiss you, Adam, and I am pretty sure you want to kiss me."

Then she added,

"It isn't gratitude for your heroism you know, because I don't recall you being all that heroic; I just want to kiss you."

The observer accepted this as being faultless logic and nodded approval to the rest of me.

Clara was a wonderful kisser. Many women aren't in my experience. Especially those that are highly attractive. They allow you to kiss them and you are so happy that they do, and you enjoy the experience so much that you conclude that they are experts, if you think about it at all, without any evidence to support the proposition.

Being kissed by Clara, and she definitely was the active party, was a revelation. Slow, making me feel every bit of my lips in contact with hers, feeling each of the fingers of her left hand as it curled round the back of my neck, both firm and gentle at the same time. She was in no hurry to introduce tongues into the mix, but when she did, it was with a delicacy and sensuousness on her part that was like nothing I had ever known. In truth kissing Clara was truly more of an erotic experience than 'going all the way' had been with my previous lovers.

When she pulled away, I resisted the urge to say something along the lines of "wow", feeling it might not exactly come across as cool.

She looked at me, considering, and said,

"Hmmm. You really are different, Adam. I think I'm going to enjoy you".

Again, we were back into the territory of her saying things that left me struggling for a response. But she didn't give me time to come up with one anyway.

"Get undressed." She commanded.

I looked at her a bit quizzically, and she answered as though explaining for the chronically slow of thinking,

"How else am I going to suck your cock?"

The other me came back into the game, and weirdly chose as its premise something I completely did not believe in.

"But Clara, if you are a succubus, won't you consume my soul if you do that?"

Various bits of me were interrogating other bits and saying the equivalent of 'What the fuck?' at the line I was taking.

"Don't be silly, Adam. You don't believe in souls, do you?"

Which was completely true and again left me at a loss for what to say next. But I made an effort,

"So, what's with the succubus thing?"

She stood back from me, sighed, and looked at me, as if contemplating what to tell me, or perhaps how much to tell me. And then when she did speak things again set off at ninety degrees to my take on reality.

"You know, Adam, I've gone a very long time, a hundred years at least, without ever telling someone that I am a succubus, and now I have done it twice in one night, and as you saw the first time did not exactly go well. I don't know what has come over me.