Incubus Dreams

“It’s a term for a woman who can ejaculate.”

I took in a lot of air and let it out slowly. “Can we not talk about this?”

“Why are you mad?”

That was a fair question. Why was I mad? I had to think about it to be honest even with myself. I got the spare T-shirt from the bottom drawer and dried off with it. So much for extra clothes. I slipped my underwear back on, and felt better. I always felt better dressed. Why was I mad?

I sat down in my chair, getting out the spare hose that I also kept in a drawer. I went through a lot of hose in my line of work.

They just weren’t meant to be worn to animal sacrifices, bad guy chases, or vampire slayings. Nope, nylons were just not made for my lifestyle. I started unzipping my boots so I could take off the hose we’d shredded struggling on the carpet.

“Why am I mad?” I said, almost to myself. My fingertips hurt, a sharp immediate pain as the last of the endorphins left. I’d torn off half my nails down to bloody quick. Once I saw the blood it hurt worse. Why did it always hurt worse when you saw the blood?

He stood up and zipped himself back into the dress slacks. There were stains on the legs of the trousers that weren’t going to be fixed by baby wipes and a T-shirt. I didn’t have extra clothes for Nathaniel. “Yes,” he said, when he got himself safely inside, still hard, still thick, still ready. “Why are you mad?”

“You didn’t go,” I said, and started peeling off the hose. It gave me something useful to do instead of meet his eyes.

“You’re mad because I didn’t go?”

“I’m mad because if you’d gone we’d have that barrier crossed, and now we don’t.”

“And?” he said.

I sighed. “And, if we’d crossed it, it would be easier to cross it again. But doing it this way, makes it more…”

“Important,” he said.

I nodded. “Yes.”

He came around the desk and went to his knees at my feet. “I want it to be important to you, Anita. I don’t just want to be someone you take because you have to take someone, anyone. I want you to want me.”

“You said that before.”

He touched my hands where they held the new hose, and he moved them gently out of my hands and laid them on the desk. He took both my hands in his, and there was such a serious look in his eyes that I was afraid. Afraid of what he’d say. “You loved me before today. You loved me without sex. No one’s ever loved me, or even wanted me, without fucking me first. No one since my mother died and… Nicholas…” He bowed his head for a second, and I squeezed his hands. I’d seen that memory, and I didn’t want him thinking about it. So horrible, and he’d been so little. I wanted to protect him from things like that. I wanted to keep him safe.

He smiled up at me. “Gabriel and Raina taught me that I could be worth something, but that worth was all about my body, the way I looked, and how good I could fuck.” He squeezed my hands tighter. “You taught me that I was worth more than just fucking. You taught me that I was worth more than just being used.”

I started to say something, but he put his fingertips against my lips. “I know what you’re going to say. You think you use me with theardeur, because I’m yourpomme de sang. You don’t know what using somebody is, Anita. You just don’t know.”

There was that look in his eyes that he got sometimes that made his eyes look so much older than he was. A look of murdered hopes and more pain than anyone his age should have had to experience.

I kissed his fingers, then rested my face against his hand.

“Someday I want you to stop getting that look in your eyes. I want there to be enough good in your life to balance that out.”

He smiled, and there was a tenderness in his eyes that made me have to look away. “See, Anita, you think you’re hard, and that you use people, but you aren’t, and you don’t.”

I pulled away a little. “I can be hard when I need to be.”

“But not to me, and not to Micah. Not to anyone that will let you be nice to them. If they’re shitty, you’re shitty back, but you give them the chance first.”

I shook my head. “I’m not that good a person, Nathaniel.”

He smiled and touched my face where Barbara Brown had scratched me. I winced.

“Yes, you are, you just don’t like admitting it.”

“We better get dressed and out there before someone calls the cops.”

“Bert won’t call the police, he’s too afraid of bad publicity.”

I laughed. “You haven’t met Bert often enough to know him that well.”

“I’ve known a lot of people like Bert. He’s not as bad as they were, but it’s the same… kind of thinking. He wants his moneymaker to keep on making money more than he wants anyone to be safe or happy.”

I looked into that terribly young face, and there was no one young looking back at me. As much as I’d seen of life, Nathaniel had seen things that would have broken me. Or at least bent me all to hell. I cupped his face in my hands, and said, “What am I going to do with you?”

“I want you to make love to me,” his voice was soft, but oh, so serious.

I tried to make a joke of it. “Not right now, I hope.”

He gave me his gentle smile, the one that said he wasn’t going to let me get away with it. “No, not right now, but soon.”

I drew back from him, and I was almost afraid of him, afraid in a way that guns can’t help with. “Why are you making this so hard?”

“Love should be hard, Anita, or what is it worth? You taught me that all these months in your bed, with your body against mine and no release. You taught me how hard love can be.”

“I’m sorry,” I said, “I didn’t understand until yesterday.”

He leaned up on his knees and got close enough to kiss my mouth.

“Don’t be sorry, make love to me.”

My voice was shaky as I said, “Not right now.”

“No,” and he breathed against my lips, “but soon.” He kissed me, one chaste touch of lips, then he stood and moved away to give me some room.

I watched him move across the room toward the door. “I’ll tell them we’re alright.”

I nodded, because I didn’t trust my voice. He’d given me room, physically, but emotionally, emotionally, he was giving me no room at all. I waited for the panic to set in, but it didn’t. What came was the memory of him inside my body and the thought of what it might be like to have him spill himself inside me.