Page 53 of Succubus

Stop.

My phone rings and I gasp. It’s the pharmacy, no doubt an update on Dee’s prescription status. I ignore it. Wait, he’s texting!

I didn’t know he was your brother, he has written, a bit belatedly. Is that real?

And then, I would never hurt Ella. You know that.

I do know that. But why should I believe him? I don’t know anything except you killed my brother.

And this is the end of our exchange. I stare at my phone for a long time while an Amazon van blocks my view of the house. Finally, it moves. Am I supposed to sit here all day? I’m hungry.

And then someone is walking purposefully up the sidewalk. I stiffen.

They turn in to the front garden and walk right up to the porch. Up the steps. A woman in a baseball cap. Carrying something.

The demon is a woman?

I shouldn’t be sexist.

I’m half out of the car when I recognize her.

Alice, in a yellow tank top, her intricate botanical and insect specimen tattoos on display. She’s carrying her toddler, Bo. It’s Thursday morning, the time she always stops by after dropping Henry, her eldest, at a nearby class. Which I managed, in the midst of my frantic new reality, to totally forget until this moment.

She knocks on the door.

I strain forward, ready to—what? Charge to her rescue?

She waits. She pulls out her phone and texts while holding Bo.

My phone buzzes. Where are you? WHERE IS MY COFFEE. Am I seriously supposed to get through thurs without you and your famous coffee? did you guys go to the park?

My coffee is not actually deserving of fame; Dee bought a fancy espresso machine.

I wish we had gone to the park. I stand there, three-quarters of a block away, partially hidden by a neighbor’s landscaping, and stare back into my previous, disconcertingly recent life. The life where I could never have sex again, where I was dividing my reading time between stories of tender romance and the fourth book in a series called Alien Love Addicts, set in the distant future on a spacecraft called a Grimorthean trawler, where the crew is really horny and meets a lot of similarly inclined aliens. A life where I was always going to be a little bit sad, but I also had a lot to be happy about. A life where I was not in imminent danger. Where I could have coffee with Alice. I look down at her text. My thumbs quiver. Should I tell her to leave? What if the demon shows up?

To my horror, she plunks down on the porch bench and starts nursing Bo.

She’s on her phone.

I’m literally just chillin on your porch boobing the little boob monster. Sooooo jealous of this porch. I would trade like half my house for this.

I try to imagine what a pain demon might look like. Nothing comes immediately to mind.

I can’t go up to her—I’d have to explain why Ella isn’t with me. I’d have to explain why I look like I’m really scared. Why I’m hesitating to enter my own house. I can’t think what to text her. So I just wait.

Alice sits for a while, scrolling on her phone while Bo nurses happily away. Some people walking by do a double take at his size and her exposed breast. She gives them a friendly wave.

I wish I could walk closer. I miss Alice as I spy on her. I miss the friendship we’re supposed to have. The one where I could tell her who I really am, what I’m really going through.

She only pried a little about Joel after our run-in at the Malaysian restaurant. She’s sensitive—she could tell I didn’t want to talk.

What she couldn’t tell is just how much I do want to talk.

What she couldn’t tell is that I can’t.

I pull up Dick Face’s number, hit Call.

“This number is no longer in service,” I am told.