Incubus Ch. 02

A small voice peeped through the fog of confusion: Get up, you sad excuse of a woman. C'mon. Get your ass in gear.

The voice grew louder and more insistent. You have things to do.

Britt closed her eyes tightly and concentrated.

She had long ago perfected the ability to take whatever it was that caused confusion, anger, or sadness and lock it in a box for later examination. Often the cause went away of its own accord. Often the cause looked entirely different in the light of a new day. Either way, this box allowed her to get on with her life when she would otherwise be crippled. Some would call it denial. Britt called it sensible.

With some effort, she stuffed the incubus in the box.

Unfortunately, the residual headache from the night before couldn't be dealt with in the same way. Britt got up, put her hair in a ponytail, and donned her jogging gear. Hangover cure number one: eight ounces of orange juice, four miles of pavement, one shower, and voila: good as new.

The crisp, autumnal air invigorated her. She jogged from her apartment to the university campus where she toiled as a graduate student. She found an easy rhythm as she jogged up and around the various residence buildings and past the sports fields. Her long legs easily ate up distance as she ran around a lake and its parklands. Finally, she sprinted the home stretch.

By the time Britt returned, panting and lathered in sweat, her head was clear. She bent and studied the lock of her front door and could see no sign of tampering. Okay, no obvious break and enter.

She showered, lingering under the punishingly hot stream, allowing her muscles to relax and her stress to drain away. After she dried herself, she examined her new nipple ring more closely. She pulled and twisted it, turned it within the hole, but no break revealed itself. She considered cutting it off, but the notion of hacking at something so close to her tender breast left her cold. Besides, the ring did add a certain something to an otherwise firm and shapely breast. Something a little rebellious. Too bad its twin had nothing. She might have to look into that. Maybe.

Moving from the gleaming ring, she took stock of herself. If her former boyfriends and occasional admirers were to be believed, she was somewhere between pretty and absolutely ravishing. She knew that the earnestness of these assertions depended largely on how motivated they were to get into her pants or how susceptible they thought she was to compliments. Many tried, but seldom did she allow herself to be manipulated. If she went down that road with anyone, she did so with eyes open and with certain expectations.

Britt's might not be ravishing, but she did qualify as pretty. The mirror showed light brown hair that cascaded in damp waves to her shoulders, framing a face with high arching eyebrows, green eyes, fine nose, an expressive mouth with full lips and the straightest teeth orthodontic coverage could buy. Defined cheekbones. Firm jaw. Perhaps she was a little more than pretty.

Regular exercise had ensured that she'd avoided the freshman fifteen as an undergrad. She'd maintained a lean figure through those years, aided as much by poverty as discipline. Recent years had added some attractive volume to the curves men found so appealing.

Perhaps it was no accident that demonboy had sought her out.

Britt donned an oversized t-shirt and nothing else. The incubus sat in his box, occasionally stomping around, but Britt managed to ignore it. With a steaming mug of coffee, she settled onto the sofa and regarded the thick Victorian novel on her lap. She had to make some serious headway with her reading list. Her professors would have little patience for an unprepared graduate student.

The phone rang. The call display showed that it was Mike. She let the call go through to voice mail.

She settled more comfortably on the sofa and opened the book. The Victorians were nothing if not long-winded. She flipped to the back of the book. Over 800 pages. Good God.

Britt eyed her laptop on the dining room table.

She tossed the book aside and started the laptop. She typed "incubus" in the search engine. She disregarded the band of that name and scanned the pertinent sites and articles with increasing disappointment. Incubi, it seemed, were either a convenient myth to explain away rape, incest, and nymphomania or actual living, breathing demons. Her own experience notwithstanding, those that claimed the latter seemed to be card-carrying members of the tin foil hat brigade.

There had to be another explanation.

She closed the computer in disgust and returned to her novel, consigning the whole issue to her box. She hefted the volume and wondered if the Victorians had ever suffered from chafed pussies and mysteriously pierced nipples. If they did, they certainly didn't write about it.

There were minutes, perhaps an hour at a stretch, when Britt completely forgot the incubus. Then she would catch herself in the mirror and discern the thick ring that pressed against the fabric of her t-shirt. Or she would adjust herself on the sofa and feel the tingling rawness between her legs. At those times her mind would turn inexorably to the incubus, their improbable meeting, the heat of his breath on her pussy and the feeling of his tongue on her clit.

The phone rang at six and again half an hour later. Mike both times. Britt picked up the second time.

"Where've you been?" he asked without preamble.

"Home."

"I've been calling you."

"I know."

"Well?"

"I've got to get through Middlemarch."

"Middle what?"

"March. It's a novel."

"Oh."

"You got me drunk last night, by the way."

"Fat lot of good it did me."

Asshole.

"Huh?"

Crap. That had been out loud. "I stubbed my toe."

Britt heard the snap of a beer being uncapped. "Doing anything tonight?"

"Middlemarch."

"What?"

Didn't he listen? "The novel."

"Right. Tomorrow night, maybe?"

"Maybe."

"Great."

"Bye, Mike."

Britt hung up and wondered what she'd seen in him. She'd have to do something soon.

Britt turned off the lights and fell to bed, exhausted. The events of the previous night already felt distant. She reviewed the whole incident as dispassionately as she could. The big question remained: could he be who he claimed to be? Britt possessed an analytical mind, and the notion that she's been entertained by a demon was positively beyond all reason. True, he had entered a locked apartment with no sign of forced entry. It was nothing a skilled criminal couldn't do. He had revealed horns. It was nothing that couldn't be faked by some mean-spirited drama student to fool someone drunk and sleepy and gullible. She'd met the first two conditions. Perhaps she met the third too.

The fact of the ring remained—a thick hoop with no beginning and no end. A piercing that had appeared overnight. A piercing that should have taken weeks to heal, but had left no wound and no discomfort. A hoop that grew warm when she thought of him....

She tossed. The ring was difficult to reconcile.

Would he appear again tonight?

She toyed with the ring.

It was really was impossible that it could have healed so soon.

The ring warmed perceptibly in her fingers. Her other hand snaked down her abdomen.

She wished he would appear....

***

Monday morning. Britt sat in class and tried to pay attention. A fitful sleep, filled with odd visions and lascivious dreams, had left her exhausted and distracted. The professor paced back and forth, lecturing enthusiastically on some Romantic poet. On any other day, Britt would have been carried away by the passion of the words. Instead, her thoughts, spurred by the insistent heat of the ring that impaled her nipple, returned to the passion she had shared with her nocturnal visitor two nights before.

Britt's awareness of the ring had grown from the moment she awoke. It had started with a pleasant warmth, a comforting reminder of a remarkable night. For that memory alone she would cherish the ring always. She thought of him and of what he had given when he could easily have taken. So unlike certain selfish boyfriends. She considered her own inexplicable submission to this stranger and counted herself lucky that it had ended as it had.

She sat in class and realized that she was thinking of him in the past tense. She leaned forward and pressed her tingling breast to her forearm. It came to her that she did want to see him again, if only to determine once and for all who and what he really was. The ring vibrated. Come to think of it, she needed to see him again. She couldn't bear the thought that their meeting had been pure chance, never to be repeated. It left too many unanswered questions, too many possibilities unexplored.

She squirmed on the hard wooden chair, discomfited by the vibration that extended now from the ring to her loins.

She needed to see him again. The thought that such magic, such intensity, could not be repeated was unbearable.

Her body was alive, thrumming to a frequency beyond the ken of others. She wondered absently how her classmates could be indifferent to her growing agitation and arousal.

Britt started when the scraping of chairs announced the end of the lecture. She looked at her notes, gasped, and quickly closed the binder, hoping that no one had seen the page. Doodles filled the page—rings with horns, entwined limbs, sexual organs. The sketches overlapped, one bleeding into another. An orgy.

* * *

Britt numbly followed the students filing out of the lecture hall. A hand grabbed her vice-like around the upper arm and tore her from the chattering exodus.

She whirled at her assailant. "Hey! What are you doing?"

It was demonboy, looking as tired as Britt felt. His grip was tight and there would be a bruise on her arm in the morning. At his touch, the ring shot a wave of heat through her body that nearly buckled her knees.

"I should ask you the same thing," said the incubus tightly, similarly staggered by the searing waves that suddenly enveloped them. "Why are you summoning me now?"

"I'm not. I didn't."

"I felt you."

"I was just thinking of you."

"Don't. It's distracting."

Britt fought to recover her equilibrium. Her heart leapt at seeing him again and at the notion that she could distract an incubus. She took a deep steadying breath and studied him. For a demon, he was certainly a dish. None of that sneering gargoyle hideousness. Hell, he was the type of guy a mother would swoon over. In the light of day, Britt could fully appreciate his ruggedly good looks and his aura of strength. His chiselled features, perfectly proportioned, were crowned by a full head of wavy brown hair. Healthy laugh lines bracketed smoky grey eyes. Firm lips. Strong chin with the hint of dark stubble. His weathered face suggested time spent outdoors with no concern for the elements. If Britt had to guess, she would have pegged his age to be in the mid-thirties. She caught his eye again and noted a depth and knowingness in his gaze and had to admit the possibility that he was older.

He wore a scuffed leather bomber jacket over a tight white t-shirt, jeans, and heavy black boots. In the halls of academia, he was a man among boys, a wolf among sheep. Britt's stomach flipped.

The incubus let go of her arm and leaned against the wall.

"What's wrong?" asked Britt.

The incubus answered with a weariness that was tinged with anger. "Ordinarily, a summons comes at night. Understand? Daytime is when I sleep."

"Like a vampire."

"Not like a vampire. Vampires aren't real."

Britt almost laughed. Professional jealousy? "Of course," she said.

"But you can't seem to shut up."

"I've barely said anything," said Britt, bristling.

"That's not what I mean. Ever since we met, you've been summoning me, without words, day and night."

"I do?" Britt wondered if he could read her thoughts.

"I've heard of people like you," he continued, "People who can call unconsciously at all times or at will, but I've never experienced them, not in all of my ... years."

"So I've been interrupting your sleep? I'm glad I'm not the only one."

Damian didn't smile. "We need to talk. We should go somewhere."

"My office?" suggested Britt.

"Since when do they give students offices?"

"When they're grad students. I'm a teaching assistant."

"Lead on then."

They weaved through students in the hall, exited the building, and crossed a lawn.

"I'm Britt, by the way."

"I know."

"Do incubi have names? I've been calling you demonboy."

"Damian."

"Pleased to meet you, Damian." She turned to shake his hand but thought better of it. Shaking hands seemed superfluous after having your pussy mauled.

They entered the liberal arts building.

"What happened to the horns?" whispered Britt.

"It wouldn't do to flash them here. It takes some effort to suppress them, though. Especially when you're tired." He frowned at her accusingly.

The halls were deserted. It was noon and students and faculty were out for lunch or lingering outside, enjoying the fading warmth of autumn before winter claimed the campus.

When the office door closed behind them, Damian threw the lock.

The office was a disaster of sagging bookshelves, stacks of essays, and a desiccated spider plant.

Damian turned to Britt. "So you didn't summon me on purpose?"

"How do I know? I hadn't summoned anything except pizza before last weekend. And even then, it's not like I tried. You just appeared. And just so you know, this hasn't been easy on me either. First you break into my place and surprise the crap out of me. Then you give me a tongue-lashing and leave me with a body mod I didn't ask for. Finally you disappear without giving me your name or a phone number or anything. Believe me, buddy, you're not the only one who's lost sleep."

Damian appeared momentarily nonplussed. "What have you been doing in the past hour? What were you thinking?"

"I was just daydreaming."

"About what, exactly?"

Britt blushed. "About you."

Damian waited.

"I was thinking that it was too bad that you didn't let me return the favor that night. I felt like I cheated you."

He stared at her hard. "You can't cheat me," he said flatly.

God, he looked good. Britt swallowed and approached him, placing trembling hands on his firm chest.

"Then maybe you cheated me."

Her mouth spoke the words but Britt could not believe her ears. What the hell was she saying?

Damian closed his eyes. "You don't know what you're dealing with, girl."

Right, thought Britt. She didn't know what she was dealing with. Britt's hands shook as slid down his lean torso, tracing the ripples of his abdomen until they reached the buckle of his belt. Here, she hesitated. Part of her was horrified. Why was she doing this?

The other part of her said, "I can learn."

Damian exhaled loudly.

She pulled at his belt.

"This is one kind of education you'll never stop paying for."

Britt failed to catch the note of despair in Damian's voice. The blood rushed in her ears and the ring sang its pleasure. She swallowed again and nodded. She undid his pants and lowered herself to her knees, drawing the pants down with her.

* * *

Britt knelt before him and put her hands together, as if in prayer. She reached for him, palms together, her fingers spread in a vee to cradle him. Nestled between her fingers, she stroked him, gently and without haste.

He leaned against the desk.

Her fingers closed around him and locked into each other. Britt squeezed gently and thick veins stood out from the shaft—serpentine, pulsing, and vital.

She released him and ran her fingernails slowly along the underside of his erection, from the base to the head and back.

Britt adjusted herself. Grasping him firmly in one hand, she leaned into him. She pursed her lips and pressed him against them, kissing him gently. Her tongue slipped out from between parted lips and tasted him, triggering an vague echo of recollection.

She moved forward, inviting him into her mouth. Her lips slid slowly over the corona, tongue exploring the glans. She tightened her lips around his circumference and pressed her teeth against the neck of the glans, eliciting a muted groan from Damian. She ran her tongue in teasing circles around his head, the surface of which grew firm and taut under the pressure of increased engorgement.

Slowly, she pressed further into him. She could barely manage half of him. His width filled her. The head, smooth and hard, pressed insistently against her palate. Its coolness, in sharp contrast to the heat that emanated from the rest of his body, soothed her.

Britt willed herself beyond comfort and suppressed reflex. With a tilt of her head and a flattening of her tongue, she pressed forward. He slipped beneath the palate and advanced further within her. Her hands pulled his hips toward her until her nose touched flesh.

She held him fully within her for several long moments, savoring him and a personal victory, for never before had she claimed a man in this way.

His entire length pressed within her, alive and marble-hard. She extended her tongue and pressed against his entire length. She rolled her tongue in undulating waves, a motion that communicated her desire to draw him in more deeply.

She gently bit the base of his cock. He grasped the sides of her head, clutched her hair, but didn't interfere with the exquisite play of mouth and tongue.

Britt pressed her face more firmly against him, revelling in his aroma and a closeness so profound that it seemed to breach her core.

He had no more to give. His entire length impaled her.

He placed a hand behind her head and pulled.

The muscles of her throat closed tightly over him.

She wanted him. She wanted to ingest him.

The spell broke with a sharp crack of something hard striking her back. The point of impact flared painfully. Britt caught movement out of the corner of her eye as a whiplike object retreated behind Damian.

A tail? Impossible.

Damian slowly disengaged himself and Britt mourned his absence. He grasped Britt under the arms and lifted her effortlessly to the desktop. Books and papers fell to the floor.

Britt's eyes widened, clouded now with the first wisps of fear.

His horns were larger that they'd been the night before. They rose at least eight inches from the crown of his head, twin obsidian spires angled slightly outward with an elegant backward curve. His shoulders and chest too appeared wider, and thick veins pulsed in his muscular arms. His skin had adopted a reddish hue.

Any lingering hope that he was human evaporated.

"It's too late for that," he growled.

"What?"

"Fear."

His eyes glowed like embers and Britt cursed herself for having teased a demon.

He grasped her roughly behind her neck and pulled her face violently toward him. "I tried to warn you."

He kissed her then, violently, hungrily. Britt was terrified but found herself responding to Damian in spite of it. His teeth nipped her lower lip, drawing a bead of blood. His tongue snaked out and licked the spot.

Britt's eyes widened as his other hand insinuated itself beneath her skirt and forced itself between her legs. With a strong movement, the thong lay torn on the floor.

He pushed up her skirt and Britt spread her legs. She cursed her body for blindly obeying its own imperatives before her mind could fully evaluate the consequences. And there could be no good consequences to this. It was too fast, a reckless intimacy without precedent. Yet here she was, willingly exposing her most tender and vulnerable parts to a demon. In spite of that, it felt right, this unconscious invitation.

Her labia, pink and fluted, glistened.

She couldn't have ended it now. Despite the fear and the prospect of danger, she wanted him with an intensity she could not understand.