Free Succubus in the City by Nina Harper Page A

was from New Jersey. Twenty-six years old. A gold MasterCard with a NASCAR sticker filled out the rest of the contents of his billfold. No pictures, no business cards, not any he had collected or any of his own. Not even a phone number written in pencil on a cocktail napkin.
    His jeans and boxers were soaking, so I laid them over the shower rail to dry. I’d give everything to Vincent to take to Lighthouse International, the store for the sight-challenged on East Fifty-ninth Street. No rush on this, and I am careful to rotate charity shops. I wasn’t expecting company for a day or two at the least. I’d leave the wallet without the cash on the seat of the cab that I took in the morning.
    By the time I’d finished these little chores my hair was ready for a touch-up with the blow dryer. Then I settled into my soft luxury sheets, blissfully alone.

 
    chapter
EIGHT
    Desi was sobbing so hard that I was having trouble making out her words. I caught “Steve” and “Satan” and “museum” but I could have been wrong about any of them. Maybe I really should change carriers again, I thought, as I asked her to repeat herself for the twentieth time. Or buy a phone separate from the Treo. The Raz-r is really cute in an edgy kind of way. I wondered if it worked any better.
    “Argggh, eeee, Steveeeee, rrrrrr, glbglb,” came through the handset.
    “Cafeteria,” I shouted, twice. “Cafeteria. At one.”
    I hoped no one in the office could hear me. The door was closed, but the walls are thin. I wish she’d called on the landline, but Desi is nothing if not addicted to her speed dial. Since it was Friday and 11:30, a fair number of the staff were already starting on lunch, and most of the rest of the office were on their phones finalizing their weekend plans. I hoped.
    There were a few more incoherent noises before there was nothing. I hoped she’d heard me. Just to be sure, I sent an e-mail to her work address. Not that she would be sitting in front of her computer at the moment, given the condition she was in.
    Since Cafeteria at one was one of our usuals, I hoped at worst she’d opt for the default. Oh, what the hell. I picked up my office landline and looked up her office phone. When she didn’t pick up I left a voice mail. “Look, Desi, I think you need a shoulder. Cafeteria at one for lunch, I’ll see you there.” Then I hung up and hoped she could make it through the next hour and a half.
    Desi is a desire demon. I had once understood that to mean that she created unquenchable desire in her prey. They adored her, they could not exist without her, and she got them to sign a contract with Hell for their souls in return for having their desires, or at least some of them, fulfilled. They want her so badly that they don’t even hold out for a demon contract; no, they sign their souls over to eternal torment just to have whatever she will provide.
    Eros and Sybil work the same way, delivery by contract. Which rates more highly because it is ostensibly willing. Ostensibly only because my friends inspire such desire, lust, or greed in their prey that their prey are only too happy to sign. The very best of their recruits (though only about one percent) are eligible to become demons, though that has to be bargained and in the contract in advance. Almost none of their victims even realizes this alternative is possible, and we don’t advertise. If they don’t ask for it, in writing, in full legal format in all six of the appropriate paragraphs, they don’t get it. And since we’ve got all the best lawyers, we can usually get contracts interpreted the way we want them.
    In reality, it appears to me that Desi feels as much desire for her current object as he feels for her. She angsts, she despairs, she gets all giddy and loses her sense. And she is constantly in this state because this is her position. Embodying desire for others means that she experiences it herself in far greater measure, and a whole lot more