Page 63 of Succubus

I have put the phone down, and I’m holding a book instead now. One from the stack on my dresser. A sweet love story I’ve read several times.

The woman can fix people’s problems by cooking them magical food. She has long, lustrous hair, of course. The man is brokenhearted from his wife’s tragic death. There is a scene where they finally have sex outside in her herb garden, and the flowers all start blooming even though it’s nighttime. It’s very hot, and the whole point of the hotness is that they love each other desperately. That they will end up together.

I take a step toward the hall, the stairs.

No.

I’m nauseous.

I’m furious.

I drop the book. I kick it under the bed.

I hurry to the bathroom, try to shut the door quietly behind me. I crouch, heaving, over the fishy breath of the toilet’s open mouth, clutching the cold porcelain in the dim of the night-light plugged into the outlet above the sink. But I can’t bring anything up.

I’m doing what I said I would do, I tell myself. I am killing him.

I will kill him.

It will just take a few more times.

Especially now that I am actively using my power. He’s much stronger than Adam, and Adam lasted five times, I remind myself again. And then my stomach curls like a fist. I am picturing Adam above me in his bed: his dark hair falling in his face, the old-world scent of his apartment in the Tudor building with the ivy growing up it, the way he whispered to me, “Tell me what you want.” I’ve let myself forget. I’ve needed to forget.

Joel seems so sure that I killed Adam.

How can he be so sure?

If I did, though. And his mother died of a broken heart. And then I kill Joel. I will have killed most of an entire family.

I gag.

But it has to be.

A few more times.

A few more times.

CHAPTER 21

I am meditating, finally, and it has taken me what might be twenty minutes to let my mind settle, to leave the pesky little thoughts water-bugging on the surface as I sink into a clearer deep. My phone buzzes and I jerk out of the zone. It’s 7:02 AM and Joel is texting me. Are you on birth control of any kind?

I bare my teeth at the phone.

Why would I be? I write back. I never have any sex.

Actually, I have an IUD to regulate my aggressive period, but I’m not about to reassure him.

So funny, he writes. I can practically feel him there, only blocks away, holding his phone in those wide, warm hands. I can practically feel him thinking, typing.

Does he really believe I’ve been killing men right and left?

Yes.

And also left and right.

I’m pregnant with your monster baby, I write. I’m going to raise it to be just like me. I send that. Then I tack on a vindictive purple devil’s face for good measure.

Last night I was crying, sick to my stomach, but today I woke up stronger.