Succubi Short Story: Chapter 2

“It’s not you. It’s me.”

Monotone.
Rehearsed.
An honest lie.

The thought scab he won’t stop scratching.

Christopher Robbin can’t get past Lacey Dorn —
two-year pursuit,
two-month romp,
now “friends.”

Chris will say it was the best time of his life.
Everyone else, not so much.

They’re part of the same social six.
Fresh university graduates.
Drifting into adulthood like new borns, only with accountants.

“Look. See? Told you I could get that meat puppet to dance,”Trevor Hale says,
sliding a black-market operator remote into his jacket pocket.

Self-appointed leader.
Self-appointed everything.

Across the street, a worker drudge in a dirty yellow happy mask
jerks upright,
arms flailing like clumsy marionette work,
and staggers into fast traffic.

San Francisco’s Victualing District.
Freight purrs. Neon smugness. Burnt sugar and battery acid.

One transport swerves — misses.
Another doesn’t.

Impact.
The drudge pops like rotten fruit.

Red. Black. Mechanical. Biological.
Unsorted.

People scream.
Transports collide.
An elderly couple are baptized in catastrophe.

Trevor laughs until he wheezes.
His friends — blasé.

Two Onsite Control Officers turn serious.

Normally — immediate arrest.

Insta-trial. Faster sentence.

Trevor flashes the family name.
Not enough.

Judgment tablets come out.
Trevor doubles down — internship at Olson Apex Strategies.

Occupation code check.

They hesitate.

Then back off.

Trevor smirks like the world works for him.

The truth:
it’s a relic internship. Name only.
Paper moving. Dust shepherding.
A favor owed to his father.

Everyone else in the social six knows.
No one says it.

“Knew you could do it, Trev,” Lacey says,
smiling in a way that begs for attention.
She touches his arm.
He ignores her.

Chris’s stomach lurches.
He suspects Trevor slept with Lacey.

He did.
Not anymore.
Except after the breakup.
And twice before it.

Lacey wants Trevor.
Trevor wants Rick Olson — the never-been prodigal son of the Olson empire.

Rick wants for nothing and more.

Everyone is hungry for the wrong thing.

“I’ve got an image session in an hour and makeup takes forever,” Madison Brannigan sighs.
Child-model turned synth-stream icon.
Health-obsessed for beauty and educated enough to weaponize it.
“We doing this last party or what?”

“I told you. I’ve got it.”
Trevor’s eyes on his mobile-comm,
news feeds chattering about Dominic Gordon’s “car accident.”

Reports of freak incident.

SUV transport auto ran, from top of adjacent storage tower — right into Dominic’s bedroom.
“Meet at the structure code I sent. Entry card for 8:33 p.m.”

“Not that shit-hole invite again,”
Victoria Beckham murmurs,
pinging the family driver.
Late-afternoon board interview for the family company.

This time, it’s for a real job.

“Not a shit-hole,” Trevor corrects.
“Shit part of the city. Inside — golden.”

“Why 8:33?” Brad “Bhodi” Lane asks.

“Why not?”

“Elaborate for just a party.”

“When you’re upper echelon like I am,
meaning is everything.”

“So what does it mean?”

Trevor grins.

“Power, bitch. You in or out?”

Bhodi shrugs.

“In, I guess.”

——–

Victoria’s driver takes her, Lacey and Madison.
Trevor arrives in his new sports transport.
Bhodi rides with Chris — his dad’s old luxury transport, but still in style.

Instructions were precise.

Park in the lot adjacent to the condemned warehouse.
Walk 111 meters toward the sign reading QUARRY.
Find the drudge in the pristine white tuxedo
with the glistening white happy mask.
In its hands — the card reader.
Use only at the designated time.

The social six file through the carcass of the warehouse.

Victoria complains.
Madison tells her to stop, but then does the same.
Lacey mediates.
Chris pretends to help.
Trevor mocks them.
Lacey tries to laugh along. He still doesn’t notice.
Bhodi wonders what the warehouse used to be.

The white-tuxedo drudge waits by an old work elevator.
Too clean for the world it’s in.

8:33 p.m.

Trevor’s invite card chimes.
Not a beep — a series of notes.
A symbol glows:
a red crescent moon with a trailing tail.

Everyone is impressed.
Trevor is more in love with himself.

He inserts the card.
Processing.
Nothing.

Seconds stretch into consequences.

Trevor stole the card.
Adrian Pike’s invite.
Adrian — an actual Olson Apex intern, also Trevor’s classmate.
Rival and a meritocracy that guilts him.

Just as the worry is about to make him sweat, the drudge suddenly slams the call button.

Everyone jumps.

The lift elevator groans upward,
doors opening like a joke landing late.

Tensions ease, Trevor breathes relief.

Music seeps upward as the lift descends.
Laughter. Bodies. Heat.
A different climate.

At the bottom:
a long hallway.
Double doors dripping light from their seams.

A side door opens.

Four people approach —
two women, two men —
unreasonably beautiful.

“Mr. Trevor Hale of Olson Apex Strategies — welcome.”
The slightly more beautiful woman smiles.
“Ms. Victoria Beckham, heir of Sine Industries.
Ms. Madison Brannigan, synth-stream icon.
Welcome. You may call me Pearl.”

She pauses and then says, “Regality.”

A word like velvet with teeth.

“A pinnacle privilege reserved for you three.”

Trevor is already salivating.

He starts to speak.

“Yes, Mr. Hale — Richard Olson was here,” Pearl continues,
before the thought finishes forming.
“He left. Don’t be disappointed. The night is young.”

Victoria and Madison are all smiles.
The male escorts charm them to follow.
They do.

The other woman gives Trevor a look - a call without words.

He follows and then, turns at the last moment.

“See you on the other side!”

The door closes.

Lacey’s frustration fills the hallway like water.
Chris is drowning in it.
Bhodi chuckles to himself.

Pearl turns to them.

“No sadness here, Ms. Dorn.”

Lacey looks up, caught.

“Yes, we know you.
Christopher Robbin.
Bradley Lane.”

“Prefer Bhodi,” he says.

Pearl smiles.

“Bhodi it is.”

The double doors at the end of the hall open.

Light.
Color.
Sound like perfume.

They don’t walk in.
They are taken.

The room is an explosion of sensational awes.

Pleasure refracted through music and indescribable hues.
Joy without remorse.
Sin with a concierge service.

At the center:
the echo-opera.

Two singers, male and female, wired together:
lungs, nerves, minds.
He oscillates bass to baritone.
She climbs from soprano to impossible alto.

Organism of melody.
Song as architecture.

A new human experience on display.

The attendees, men and women -mostly young,
move in orbits around heat and possibility.

Some wear crimson pins —
crescent moon with a tail.

They whisper.
The unpinned follow them through surrounding doors.

Electric air.
Fire wrapped in etiquette.
Desire with a dress code.

Bhodi drifts toward the echo chamber,
as if the music has hands.

Chris and Lacey look at each other.

Something opens.
Soft. Bright. Familiar.
Home, but better than it ever was.

He moves in, kisses her.
She kisses him back with like intention.

For the first time in weeks,
they smile like themselves.

A man wearing the pin touches Lacey’s shoulder.
Exquisite. Handsome in a way that defies logic.
He kisses her.

She ignites.

The eruption is instant —
a dam breaking in a cathedral.

He whispers something - distant, barely audible.

Lacey smiles. He extends his hand.

She doesn’t look back and just — goes.

Chris breaks in half.

Suddenly, two more women arrive.
Both wearing pins.
Both unreal with beauty that shatters.

Their names enter his mind.

Like he’s been acquainted with them for years.

Talia, the brunette, and Skye, the blonde.

Skye kisses away the grief.
Talia’s lips replace it with arousal so profound
it feels like a new organ in his body.

“Just say yes,” she whispers.

“Yes,” he breathes,
“Oh, fuck — yes.”

They take him to a room.

Bhodi watches. Smirks. Unaffected.

A red-head woman with a pin hands him a drink.
Her touch lingers.

She leans, when he lifts the glass to his lips — blocking the kiss she wanted.

Bhodi winks.

Turns back to watching the singers instead.

———

The room is old, but fresh.

Like it’s been kept alive past its prime.

Skye and Talia strip Chris gently.
Mouths. Hands. Heat.

Every touch is a graduated pleasure.
A staircase to something he can’t name.

Skye throws him on the bed.
Old wood. Four posts. A canopy.
Antique restraint pretending to be romance.

Talia slides off his pants.
He’s suddenly embarrassed by his body.

She isn’t.

Her mouth erases the thought.

Euphoria floods him.
Not ecstasy — absolution.

“I’m first,” Skye says.

Talia, grinds her teeth, but yields.
Skye climbs on top
and lowers herself onto him.

The world opens.

Abyss. Darkness that frightens.

Flashes of teeth, horns, black nails and wings.
Then light - peace, comfort and an indescribable serenity.

Skye is impossible now —
a holy, devastating beauty.

Feelings of sublimity redefined.

So good it transforms

“I think I love you,” he whispers,
tear slipping from the corner of his eye.

She smiles. A soft hum rises.

“We love you, Christopher.
Give us yourself. Completely.”

He loses control.
Moves like he’s being pulled by tides.
Kicks against one of the bed posts.

The orgasm builds.
Vast. Consuming. Religious.

He kicks again —
trying for leverage.

Crack.

The canopy collapses.

A metal beam spears the back of Skye’s skull
and exits through her mouth.

The light dies.
The abyss slams shut.
Full presence fall back into the room.

Skye is dead on him.

Beautiful seconds ago.
Ruined now.
A horror sculpture he helped make.

Talia stares.
First at Skye. Then at him.

Murder in her eyes.
Ancient. Hungry. Personal.

Chris, eyes go wide.

“Oh,” he says softly.

“Shit.”