Page 58 of Succubus

My heart folds in, gasping, flailing.

And then, in a single instant, he breaks. He scoops me up, my legs around his waist, as though he barely feels my weight, and now we’re on the exam table and he’s yanking his clothes off and shoving me down at the same time, somehow. I can feel the strength in his hands, and it’s too much, it must be part of the magic.

He’s already inside me, everything is all at once. My body is greedy, I am a carnivorous plant, I am a predator, I am devouring and devouring.

My hands are on his back, now in his hair, where I submerge them in the dense soft thicket of his curls. My phone is stuck underneath me. My fingers are addicted to everything they touch, my skin is obsessed.

He is wearing a pendant on a thin chain—a simple gold Star of David in a circle that hits me in the face as I curl forward under him. I know this particular star, but the knowledge is distant now, like a flashlight through a forest. It was Adam’s.

I can’t seem to stop moving. I’m trying to kiss him, and he is turning his face, his teeth bared. I’m hauling on his shoulders, climbing up to him to press our chests together, but he’s too strong, holding himself above me, his arms like pillars I can’t shift. I run my hands over his thick biceps, his heavy shoulders; I cry out and his hand clamps over my mouth. I bite it, but it won’t relent. I give up and touch myself—this won’t last long. Everything is fire, is volcanic, is velvet, frantic, is the dark ocean closing over me. His hand releases, I throw my head back.

I feel him fighting to maintain a small space between us, but at the last second he turns his head and presses his face into my hair, his urgent sounds muffled.

I lose myself.

I am everywhere.

I no longer exist.

I don’t know how long it goes on, afterward, when no one moves. We are bound together, the relentless light in the ceiling staring down. My brain goes flat and blank with a deep, compulsive satisfaction that borders alarmingly on joy. I want, for a mistaken second, to stay like this. Maybe permanently. I want nothing else to be true.

“Oh my God,” he says, hoarse, stunned.

He wrenches himself off and out of me, his hair wild, a glory. I go up on my elbows to look at him, torn paper crinkling primly under me. He’s already dragging his pants on, snatching his glasses off the floor. They seem unbroken. He won’t look at me, at his sweat glistening on my stomach and breasts where he finally fell against me. He pulls his shirt on, the white coat, grabs the clipboard, reconstructing himself, transforming back into a doctor who does not fuck his patients in the exam room.

I can tell he’s just going to leave. I sit all the way up, and his eyes flick toward me, but he won’t look. He opens the door.

“Joel,” I say.

He’s gone.

* * *

As I walk through the waiting room toward the exit, I feel my knees trying to liquefy.

Am I hurt?

Maybe his power is still working in me. Maybe, without any warning, my heart will settle, shut off. Maybe I will die in the car, at home.

But I don’t think so.

I don’t think so at all.

The receptionist calls out to me, and I jerk back guiltily. “Did you get a chance to pay yet, hon?”

I breathe out in relief and go to her window. She’s chewing gum, chatty. “How’s your fall going? I’m already in holiday mode. Did we process your insurance yet?”

The receptionist who checked me in has gone home already.

I take a breath. “Yeah, uh, there was a mistake with the name on my chart—some kind of mix-up.” I would sound worse at this lie if I wasn’t in my current state of mind, which is basically the state of no longer having access to a mind. I manage to pull my insurance and ID out of my wallet without losing a finger to the knife, which I forgot to refold. I hand the cards to her, and she takes them and starts typing, unfazed.

“Sorry about that mix-up! Super strange! I hope you’re doing something fun after this! That’ll be sixty-five, please.”

I hand her my credit card, looking over my shoulder like he might, at any moment, come barreling through the door after me.

“Did you have a good appointment with Doctor Tav? Good first time?”

I look up with something in my face that confuses her.