Page 2 of Succubus

Maybe it was because he was blind, I thought. Maybe there was something in the curse that required me to be seen. Or I’d aged out. Somewhere around thirty the curse might have run its course. Or I’d broken it with my impressive willpower. I hadn’t done more than flirt with a man in ten years.

That’s a whole decade, by the way. I had atoned.

Oh, Adam.

Adam Tav.

He was out of my league. He was my last chance at salvation.

“Titi,” says Ella from the back seat. “Can we hear the one where Aladdin is running away from the guards again?”

I hit Back on the touchscreen so we can hear the song for the fortieth time. “Almost there. Look, sumac! Very red, right? Do you remember if it’s a native or nonnative species?” It’s mid-September and we’ve been trying to observe which plants and trees are changing color.

“No,” says Ella. “Do you think they’ll have those gluten-free cinnamon muffins again?”

“I love those,” I say. “But your mom said we need to do less sugar.”

“How about only a little bit less?” she suggests optimistically. We crack up.

Ella is seven and a half. She is not, in fact, an optimist. Typically, she assumes things will turn out to be scary. Her official diagnosis is childhood anxiety disorder. Dee thinks she probably has ADHD, too. And there are some sensory issues. The kid will not wear socks. Ever. That was one of the reasons school didn’t work for her. Not even the expensive private one Dee put her in after a year of torture at the cute public school down the street.

Now it’s mostly just Ella and me during the day, plus some playdates with kids from Blossom and Twig, our homeschool group. When I’m filling out the “Parent or Guardian” section of all the kid-related forms, there isn’t a checkable box for me. No pediatrician’s office has ever suggested:

a. homeschool aunt

b. minorly employed expert in breathing techniques during labor

c. spontaneous editor of children’s chapter books, specializing in real-time removal of any hint of “meanness”

d. murderer (but who would ever believe it?)

e. demon, maybe

f. succubus (that’s probably the best term for it, though it’s not, in fact, a term for anything real—except me)

Speaking of which, at thirty-three years old I’m responsibly celibate again. And I read a lot of romance. Mostly contemporary happily-ever-afters, but also, let’s be real, jacked blue aliens and the tiny human women who love them. A steely-jawed fae warlord with the biggest sword in the Kingdom of Shadow, the literal God of Death (also jacked) kidnapping some twenty-year-old with a spunky attitude and a talent for multiple orgasms. The kind of stuff I can’t leave lying around, in case the kid whose education I’m responsible for decides at some point to actually start reading.

I keep meaning to get back into meditation, but then I keep not getting around to it. I’m no longer in immediate danger of being swallowed by the hungry dark of my despair, but I’ll never be completely free of it, either. How could I be?

My shoulder and back ache as I pull into the Trader Joe’s parking lot. The longer I go without having sex/committing involuntary manslaughter, the worse I feel: my body aging ahead of itself, a weakness like anemia slackening my muscles. I park, facing the cluttered highway with its infinite, interchangeable gas stations and gray strip malls. Personal injury lawyers smile smarmily from their billboards, promising NO WIN, NO FEE. I’ve lived in prettier places, but my soul was roadkill then. I was flattened by the grotesque power lurking inside me, and for a long time I couldn’t even masturbate without hating myself.

Everything is better now.

My phone is ringing. It’s always on when I have a client near her due date.

“Crap,” I say. “Sweetie, that’s Izzy.” (My high-risk client— two days before her scheduled induction, but she never calls.) “I don’t think we have time for the muffins today after all. I’m sorry.”

“Does that mean you were going to get them?” Ella says sadly.

* * *

Eight hours later, I am at the hospital watching Izzy—Isobel Lopez—have a seizure. Her blood pressure spiked almost immediately after she delivered the placenta, and the baby has been whisked away to the NICU. This is now an emergency.

And that is when I see him.

CHAPTER 2

For the record: Birth isn’t usually an emergency. That’s just TV. TV is also always teaching a lesson to the woman who wants to “do everything the natural way.” She starts out with a playlist of soothing cello music, practicing her mantras, and ends up screaming, “Give me the fucking drugs!” as soon as the first contraction hits. But I’ve attended plenty of births where the playlist stays on, and the mantras get chanted, and everything is (painful but) fine. This is not one of those births.