Succubus

*Sebastian's POV*

After helping Andy pip back as he was supposed to be and get him fully established as a human, Penemue and I sent him back to his bedroom to keep an eye on the restroom door. Neither one of us had to say a thing: Andy had said it all.

Penemue and I were both pretty darned old men. If there was one thing we both could recognize, it was that weird, inexplicable power that seemingly came out of nowhere, at times, where females would unite against their menfolk, often over some imagined slight. Both of us had seen it, through the centuries. Call it ‘girl power,’ ‘female bonding,’ and suchlike, the title wasn’t what mattered. I suspected it was hormonally mediated.

Poor Andy was just a kid, and blind as a pumpkin. He couldn’t see that the lack of screaming and cat fighting was a clear indicator that Juliet and Oona were forming some kind of bond of sisterhood, and we, as men, all needed to be wary. In fact, Andy, as their mutual man and object of contention, needed to watch his balls.

As soon as Andy had gone back in the room, Penemue and I had sat next to each other and agreed that we needed to watch Andy’s back, lest his romantic interests turn on him and decide to castrate him in some feminist bid for vengeance. Andy was too innocent and trusting. I’d known Oona for centuries, and Juliet seemed like a reasonable person, but we’d both seen what good women could do, given the encouragement of others of their kind.

Crow and Femme weren’t convinced. I wondered if perhaps it was because they lacked sex hormones? Either way, the important thing was that Crow was likely safe from any retribution against men, as he had already been castrated. Ultimately, both cats dubiously agreed to help protect Andy from any outright attacks made by either Oona or Juliet, though they insisted that we were overthinking. As a resident of the Underworld, I could attest that there was definitely no fury there that could match the scorn of a really pissed off sisterhood of supernatural women!

Oona came barreling out of the bedroom, and stood before Penemue and I, looking… excited? I looked at Penemue, apprehensive. Were we too late? Had she lost her mind in her grief and killed either Juliet or Andy already?

“Sebastian! It was you who told me what it was to take a mate. I need you to focus.” I nodded. Oona didn't look bloody, and I hadn't heard any screams... Oona started pacing, which was most definitely unlike her. Bizarre! “Firstly: can an incubus have more than one mate?”

Penemue made the most horrified face, as though he had just smelled a corpse, I couldn’t help chuckling. I would have laughed louder, but I didn’t want to completely ruin our fragile alliance, for Andy’s sake. ‘Mue shot me a dirty look.

I thought about it. At first, I thought I really didn’t know. To feel love at all for our kind was uncommon, taking it that step further was almost unheard of, especially in modern times. The odds of truly wanting to do that more than once, for a lust demon, were very low. But, then again, Andy was packing a lot more than incubus in his gene pool.

As I mused, I recalled that, in fact, there were a few, very, very, old, textbook examples of quasi-historical figures who had more than one mate, at least for a time. “Yes, I believe so, but to say that it’s beyond rare is an understatement, Oona.”

She forged ahead, still pacing, and I couldn’t help but start to grin as Penemue’s expression turned sour. “Juliet is an energy vampire. Her master was an incubus before he was bitten. Juliet can manipulate energy, though very differently. What if Juliet could be taught to make a seed, as a succubus does, and infuse it with love- give it to Andy? What if Andy could make one for Juliet? Would they be mated?! What I mean is, would the bonding be the same, would they have the same connection of emotions and thoughts?”

Whoa! Mating with another species!?! “Uh…” I looked at Penemue, just in case he had some input to offer. He shrugged, clearly too embarrassed at being as clueless as I was to muster up his usual prudish disapproval. I glanced at the cats and both shook their heads.

It was then that I noticed both Andy and Juliet had been standing at the entrance to the living room. Andy looked totally stoked, and I knew I had to say something fast, lest Andy put his foot in his mouth, sounding like a selfish bastard that wanted his own personal harem. That would surely bring the sisterhood’s wrath down upon him! Juliet was harder to read, I could only tell the thought hadn’t occurred to her previously. Damn! I had to say something vaguely intelligent-sounding!

“I imagine I’ll have to do some research to investigate the plausibility of such a thing. I’ve honestly never heard of lust demons being mated to members of other species. Now, granted that neither Andy nor Juliet is truly a ‘lust demon,’ per se, but that bonding process has really only been used between members of my kind, to my knowledge, prior to, er, Oona’s mishap. But I can investigate, perhaps in the libraries of Dis. I’m there often, looking for solutions to transferring energies to your Grammy, Andy, it’s unlikely to rouse suspicion if I’m careful.” I was proud of myself for having put forward a potential plan of action, while having left it open for discussion. All right, Open Season, time to see where debate took it from there. I had to make an effort not to preen, didn’t want to piss off ‘Mue.

When I had used Andy’s name, Oona had realized Andy had arrived in the living room, and surfaced from her self-absorbed pacing. She sat down in a chair and looked at Juliet. “I feel what occurs from here really is at the discretion of Juliet and Andy.”

All eyes turned to them both. Penemue spoke for us all, “Please, if you need more time for conversation, by all means-“

I watched Juliet, and she looked at Oona. I saw Juliet's eyes soften, and she seemed to come to some sort of decision. I figured it had to do with their female bonding, and was on my guard to defend Andy, if needed, just in case. Women could get very emotional during moments of extreme stress.

“No, no, I need to get some sleep. I… I’m tired of all this really dramatic shit and I really, really need some time to process all this.” Juliet sat down and she gestured around at all of us. “Look, Oona, I’m not angry with you. I think Andy was kind of a moron, but I've made some serious fucking mistakes too. Shit, we didn’t even get to talk about that, babe, but I am just so done for right now, ok?”

Andy sat next to Juliet and took her hand, smiling. “It’s ok, we’ll talk later.”

Juliet sighed, and she sounded exhausted. “Look, I know how Oona’s seed is going to work, okay? Not the mating part, the regular part. I know that, um…” She paused, looking at the ceiling. Oh damn, was she having an emotional female moment? Should we get tissues for her? I was terrible at that sort of thing!

Thank the devil’s underwear, Penemue had a handkerchief and offered it to her! “I know that, until Oona is, eh, well, until the process is done, Andy, you won’t want anybody else anyway, you… you can’t even, um, I just know how it works. If you even try to stay away from Oona, Andy, you’ll just get unhappy, which means you could manifest-“

Andy was frowning, clearly conflicted. “-But Jules-“

Juliet scowled. “-No, let me finish! This is hard enough to say as it is! If Oona tries to stay away from you, she’ll be absolutely fucking miserable, and then you’ll sense it and probably just do some stupid shit like you did before, when you were dreaming, and go tearing ass after her into Hell, probably as an angel, because you’re a dumbass. You'll just end up with both of you starting some bullshit war, we'll have to come rescue you, it'll be a mess! Besides, you'll probably end up fucking anyways!” She poked Andy in the side, making him chuckle, and she smiled as she dabbed her eyes. I couldn’t help but frown when Juliet said ‘Hell.’ How rude! That just wasn’t done! Hmph!

“So, here’s what I propose: Oona has thirteen days. Sebastian, you go ahead and find out about mating, everything you can. Whether it can be done across species, with more than one partner, if you can stop a ceremony in the middle, the works. Penemue, it sounds like you are very skilled with spy cantrips and monitoring, you keep your ear to the ground. Crow, Femme- I need you to stay here. You know me, help Andy and Oona, Please?” We all nodded, her plan sounded as good as any alternatives we had to offer.

“I’ll feed off of both Oona and Andy before I go, until you guys are looking pretty haggard. I’ll coax out as much of the angelic energy as I can, and stay separate from Andy for at least a week, I should metabolize it pretty quickly.

“Andy. You’ve said that you think you want to have Oona as a mate. If that’s true, then that’s what you should do, and that’s what I want you to do. It will save her life. I want you to work on learning to manipulate energy and making a seed. Get in touch with the parts of you that I didn’t tell you about. Oona and Penemue can help you with that.

“If it does turn out that, maybe, one day, we become mates too, then being able to make a seed will come in handy, but right now, that’s irrelevant. If your heart tells you that taking Oona as your mate is the right thing to do, than you have to listen to it, Andy.” Juliet dabbed at her eyes, and I looked at my shoes, acutely uncomfortable as they hugged.

It seemed that either the machinations of the mysterious bond between females had just grown incredibly complex, or perhaps I had misunderstood it. Time would tell, I supposed.

What followed was one of the weirder things I’ve seen. Juliet fed from Oona. Now, I’ve seen just about everything, and I just don’t get aroused by your average faux-lesbo porno smooch. But Oona, a bloody friend of mine, my grandson’s, uh, something-or-other, looked so rapturous, it was like some kind of classical painting. It was really hard not to watch! It went on for a quite some time, and I twiddled my thumbs, again, feeling rather awkward. I peeked over at Andy, and wasn’t surprised to see he was, err, obviously stimulated.

But eventually I started to notice the lustre to Oona’s skin had gone, and her hair had gone flat. Her lips became less full, chips flaked off of her horns, I even saw cellulite. Whoa! Her hair became duller, thinner, and her skin took on an oily sheen. When Oona’s breasts began to sag, I started to worry, but Juliet pulled away, looking nauseated. She quickly pulled out her jar, and regurgitated seven boluses of energy, one of which was lighter in color. She grabbed that one back out of the jar, and swallowed it back up again. Ugh! How foul!

I glanced at Penemue, whose eyes were open quite wide. Andy looked profoundly disturbed. “Baby, is that what you do to me?” Juliet nodded as she gently led Oona to a seat in an armchair.

“Yeah. You stay pretty out of it for about 15 minutes or so too. It’s so that you don’t remember.” Andy’s eyes widened a little as he nodded, processing the image. “Ok, your turn, Rabbit.”

“Now I know it’s coming, I’m scared!” Andy fussed a little as he stood up.

Juliet smiled. “You know I could make you do it, I have seductive powers.” She winked .“But aren’t you interested? Now that you know? It doesn’t hurt, babe. And with your sexy-time skills, and what I know damned well you’ll be up to, you’ll be back to normal in no time. I’m trying to drain you, to buy you a day or two, so you can leave the house to go buy groceries. You need more toilet paper. Ok?”

“Can I have a normal kiss first? While I’ll remember it, before you go?” Juliet nodded, and they smooched. Ah, young love. “All right, go for it, sweetie-poops.”

Juliet fed from Andy a little further, and it was alarming. He got circles under his eyes, lost all of his muscle tone, his hair grew limp, his lips became chapped, his skin got really dry and he got a random rash, then he broke out with pimples. Dang! Juliet sat him down in another armchair, then bid Penemue and I goodnight before heading out via an electric socket.

Penemue and I looked at each other, yet again. I glanced at the cats. They seemed to have gone to sleep, satisfied that a plan was made, and wanting no part in the canoodling aspect. “I say we tuck Oona and Andy into bed and get the blazes out of here. How about you?”

Penemue considered our options. “Agreed.” He took the still very dazed Andy by his hand and guided him down the hall, and I did the same to Oona. About five minutes later, they were, more or less, safely put to bed.

I looked at Penemue. “You can keep an eye on them?” He nodded. “Good. I’ll be in Dis, hitting the books. I’ll take a mirror if any of you need me.” I paused, almost gritting my teeth. “Good save, earlier, by the way. When Juliet first arrived. Didn’t get a chance to thank you.”

Penemue brightened. “Thank you, Sebastian. Safe travels.” Whoa! He was really taking this new alliance to heart, wasn’t he?

Notes

as i mentioned on another story of mine, i had a funny dream the other night:

i dreamt real-life Andy Biersack and real-life CC were like, 'anathema, why have you not updated your stories? we want you to update more often!'

i was like, 'dudes, seriously? you read them, i wasn't really expecting that! but it hasn't been that long-

them: 'it has, it's been a zillion days, why don't you update?'

me: 'guys, i've got two sick leopard geckos, i'm job hunting, and i had to drive hours and hours to go see cradle of filth, ne obliviscaris, and the butcher babies, it was a super awesome show-'

them: '-so will you update soon?'

me: 'shit dudes, i'll see what i can do, i'm sorry, i didn't know you cared'

me- i woke myself up literally talking to myself, apologizing to dream-versions of Andy and CC for not updating fanfiction frequently enough. weirdly, i couldn't shake the guilty feeling, like 'i told them i would, i'd better get writing and editing.' what the fuck is up with that?

*shifty eyes* if any of you dudes are sending me bvb members in my dreams to get me to update more, that's hilarious! ;o) but stop that! i update as often as i can, and it makes me question what on earth is wrong with my psyche that i've started dreaming not only about my fan fiction, but my inadequacies in that department. haha!

side note- check out the videos i took at aforementioned cradle of filth concert:
Cradle of Filth play 'Nymphetamine' at the Showbox in Seattle on 2/23/2016
Short clip of the Butcher Babies playing 'Igniter' at the Showbox in Seattle on 2/23/2016