by Lori Selke
Joyce blindfolded Rina one night, and frightened her and hurt her and pleasured her, and Rina at last admitted that she really wanted to be a bottom, and at last they started having good SM-sex. And if Joyce chose not to use a single lash, or to do cuttings, why no one thought it odd—she was, after all, a highly respected top in all other areas.
But there are nights when she goes out alone, and even her lovely slave Rina can’t tell you where she goes. But it is true that in the darkened clubs and alleys where the polite leatherfolk never go, there is a new Lady on the prowl, an expert at cutting you down with her whip or her tongue. They say she has a taste for blood—but no one can really say, because no one speaks of her who has actually met her.
~ ~ ~
Elise’s Gift—Deborah Teramis Christian
If a succubus wants vengeance, what’s to stop her? Deborah Teramis Christian presents a succubus who can take on the seeming of a human and shift dimensions at will—and she’s been nursing a grudge for a long, long time.
Teramis has written science fiction and fantasy novels published by Tor Books and a Tiptree Award-nominated short story, “Live Fire,” appearing in the No Man’s Land military science fiction anthology. Her current work in progress is a departure from her norm: a Victorian paranormal called Queen Victoria’s Transmogrifier. “Elise’s Gift” features two characters from that novel, albeit 10 years before the events related in that book. This prequel story reveals the early relationship between two of the novel’s main characters and a succubus who will not stop until one of them is dead.
Elise’s Gift
Vivian pinned Elise against the wall of the dormitory, fingers twined in the hair at the back of her neck, her torso pressing against that of her willing victim. Elise felt her heart race. She could not move, did not dare try, while the raven-haired beauty came in close for a kiss. Her lips hovered, her face so near Elise could see only her eyes, those startling green pools of color, black-lashed and shadowed, holding her gaze as a predator fascinates its prey.
There was no sound but the hiss of the gaslight and the distant peal of a woman’s good-natured laugh from the stairwell. They were alone at that moment, and no sudden intruder could give Elise the excuse to break away from the woman’s grasp.
She came in closer yet, but still she did not consummate the kiss. Elise stood frozen in her grip, tense but unresisting. Vivian scented the air where it was warmed by her skin. At the hollow where neck met shoulder; to the other side, where jaw met neck: her green-eyed seductress drank in her scent as if it it were fine wine.
With her free hand, Vivian’s fingers stroked her throat, the edges of her nails setting Elise’s skin ablaze, firing a line of desire straight to her womanhood. Her lips parted, inviting the kiss she dreaded, and she shifted against the wall. Crinoline and petticoats rustled as Vivian moved with her, the hoops of her skirt frame keeping her from pressing against Elise where she most wished to be touched. Caught in dishabille in her dressing gown, Elise wished for a moment that this new sister were dressed the same. She inhaled shakily and caught the seductress’s scent: spice, musk, a wild tang like heather, and something nearly feral underneath it all.
She should feel threatened. She felt only sacrificial, wishing to be taken like a man would take her, wishing to do things she’d only secretly dreamed of with this forward woman whose caresses were so unexpected.
A knowing smile tugged one corner of Vivian’s lips and she gave a small nod to herself. And then, as suddenly as she had cornered Elise, she took a step back to stand at a nearly proper distance from her acquaintance.
“I see how it is,” she said in a bedroom tone of voice. She reached out with one finger, traced it down the side of Elise’s cheek, along her jawline. Elise shuddered with an involuntary thrill of pleasure. “We’ll continue this conversation…later.”
And like that, the woman was gone, sweeping through the door with a rustle of skirts, not so much as a single glance cast back over her shoulder.
Elise stood non-nonplussed against the wall. The dampness between her legs told her what her body wanted, if she still needed any illustration of that fact. Yet her mind failed to grasp the encounter, and she could only stare after Vivian’s departing figure like a foolish schoolgirl.
It was not how a sister of the Temple should behave. And her own reaction was not how an admiral’s wife should respond.
She was in deep water, suddenly, and didn’t know how to swim.
* * *
Vivian grinned a savage, hungry grin. To be again in human form on the material plane brought a world of pleasure with it. The smells, the tastes, the sensations—there was nothing like it in all the spheres of existence but here, in the realm of physical form. And now, once more able to walk among the sheep, she could mingle with her chosen prey before ever her night-time visitations began: cultivating this one, dismissing that one, settling on just the right flavor to please her palate. The succubus was a gourmand choosing toothsome delights for her nourishment.
And there was so much to feast upon here in the Temple of Isis, where so many delectables gathered under one roof. Elise would make a succulent morsel, maybe one best savored over time. But should she be aperitif, or dessert? Vivian was undecided, for she had not yet determined how to deal with the main course: Julia Lamont Hammond, her reason for infiltrating this sisterhood of deluded women in the first place.
Her grin turned to a snarl before she could school her expression to a neutral semblance of humanity. Lamonts were the bane of her existence. Long ago, she’d been cast from the bed of her Lamont prey by his angry wife, unexpectedly wielding a spell of banishment. A decade past, she’d chanced to cross paths with another of that breed when Julia’s brother Edmund had interfered with her hunting.
She’d settled on revenge, then, and had her way with her Lamont persecutor for a time. But that had ended badly, and she was forced to retreat to another plane, licking her wounds, learning more about her craft and art before venturing upon another earthly sojourn.
Now here she was again. And Edmund, damn him, was beyond her grasp, come into his own as an Exorcist with the Church of England. An Exorcist! They were few and far between these days. She was not a demon in the manner the Anglicans imagined—not created by Satan nor dwelling in Hell—but she was not of this material plane, either, and their magick could still affect her, though they misunderstood the mechanisms of how it did so.
These English churchmen had no insight into real metaphysics, and still less into lust and desire. But their zealotry could ward and guard them from her wiles—especially with one who’d met and bested her before.
The hell, then, with Edmund Lamont. His sister would do very well instead.
How Edmund would be mortified to learn of Julia’s fate, when her dead, dried husk was found, spent and aged before its time. Vivian smiled at the thought. But that would come later, after she had taken her pleasure and reaped all the glorious sensations she could from the living woman first.
The succubus tripped lightly down the wooden staircase, corset and crinoline posing little hindrance to her movement. She’d worn so many fashions in so many times and places that humanity inhabited, she could not remember them all. What mattered was that she fit in, and her innate magic and personal skill accomplished that neatly. She could take whatever seeming suited her purpose, within limits—all the better to pursue the physical pleasures that drew her so irresistibly to the earthly plane.
Well, that, and a lust for revenge upon the Lamonts.
The wooden staircase gave way to the grand marble stairs and the workrooms on the first floor. She nodded to Mrs. Holman, the housemother keeping attendance at the door, and entered the lecture room. She took her place among the novices in the morning class, sitting in the front where she would be directly in the line of sight of her quarry.
Julia would be on about the history of the Temple of Isis today, a lecture Vivian intended to ignore. She had more important things to focus on.
A succubus does not need to touch her victim, if her aura is carefully in play. She needed only to concentrate, to radiate that magnetism and charisma and smoldering desire that was her is-ness, and nature could very well do the rest.
Julia stepped into the room, and Vivian prepared to be radiant.
Julia looked over the eager faces before her, a dozen ladies ranging in age from 19 to 43. All had spent the night in the dormitory of this building known as the Charité—ostensibly a hospice built at the start of the last century, though not used for that purpose as long as local memory could recall. Only the cognoscenti knew the place as the Temple of Isis, and now these prospective sisters were beginning their introductory week of orientation there.
All were fresh-faced and groomed in an assortment of morning dresses, every lady eager to discover the truth behind the Temple’s existence. Today, though, they would learn merely a fiction concocted of half-truths, one calculated to maintain the general state of misinformation about the Temple and its sisterhood.
Only initiates of the inner circle knew the Temple’s real purpose: to guard ancient knowledge and arcane powers from a time long past. Secrecy cloaked their work, and the Isians were dismissed by other esoteric groups as yet one more feeble imitation of Masonic rites and rituals. Temple leaders were content that it be so: where the sisters were discounted, their true purpose would not be suspected.
But spiritualism was all the rage these days; it was said that even Queen Victoria held seances in Buckingham Palace. Women with curiosity and time on their hands developed fervid interests in arcane subjects, and some of the serious-minded among them found their way to the Temple of Isis. Those invited to pass through the doors of the Charité all had two things in common: potential Talent, and an inquisitive bent of mind that made them possible candidates for sisterhood.
Julia’s Aunt Lucretia, the dowager Comtesse de Montrond, was headmistress of the Temple, and her niece the newest inductee into the inner circle of the sisterhood. Julia was being groomed for a leadership role, and it fell to her to present their selective history to this newest group of potential recruits.
“Let me tell you the story of Isis,” she began. “The goddess who inspired the founding of this temple and our arcane knowledge.” Julia cloaked the misleading words with a pleasant smile and lectured from memory. Her first goal here was to relate a slanted version of the Temple’s history—a tale that would keep their secrets safe when gossips retold it, as they surely would.
Beyond that necessary deceit, the routine lecture was actually the first step in winnowing the wheat from the chaff. Along the way, someone in this group might prove to be Talented, and would be cultivated further. For the rest—well, most of these women sought a pass-time to dispel the boredom of their idle, well-to-do lives. Should they join the cadre of Isian lay sisters, they would learn a little about tarot cards and astrology and the metaphysics behind those tools—the lowest levels of practical dabbling—and thus help maintain the Temple’s facade as dilettantes on the fringe of esoteric studies. It was the camouflage of necessity.
Yet even while she spoke the oft-practiced words, she was distracted by that one in front who watched her so intently. Vivian seemed to study her as much as she studied the newcomers. That woman never questioned, seldom commented, but took it all in. This morning her interest seemed especially sharp, attentive to the speaker herself. There was something about her…
Julia, always the picture of composure, felt herself blush. Her lecture faltered and she grasped for words, tongue-tied for a moment as she tried to recover the thread of her thoughts.
“‘Egyptian traditions’,” prompted Vivian.
“Pardon me?”
“You were saying how Egyptian traditions were preserved in the temple schools in other lands.” An enigmatic smile crossed the woman’s full lips and Julia found herself staring at them, thinking suddenly outrageous thoughts.
“Thank you. Yes.” She tore her eyes away and made herself look elsewhere among her small class. “As I was saying…”
She avoided Vivian’s gaze for the rest of the hour and left rather quickly when class was over, leaving the group in Mrs. Holman’s capable hands.
Julia marshaled herself and did not let the frisson of a chance attraction distract her. What she really wanted to be doing right now was to be working with Elise—a desire easily fulfilled, for it was nearly time for their daily appointment. She turned her feet towards their private workroom.
The truth was that she looked forward to these sessions far more than she ought. Elise was a diamond in the rough, come to them six months back, her latent Talent so vibrant that nearly all the full Sisters could sense it in her. Of them all, it was Julia whom Aunt Lucy had assigned to work with her, to develop her abilities—much to the younger woman’s consternation.
“But I’ve never mentored a student before!” she’d protested. “How do you even know I can teach?”
“I know,” came Lucretia’s haughty reply.
“I mean, teach someone to develop a Talent?”
“You’ll learn by doing. It’s the only way.”
Julia spluttered. “But—but she’s the Lord Admiral’s wife!”
“And you are the Baroness Lansdowne,” sniffed Lucretia. “Surely you will be on level footing with Lady Anson. True, she outranks you, but she is younger than you by some years, and you both have or had military husbands. You’ve much in common, and you seem to be friends. It should all even out.”
“That’s not what I meant.” Julia bit back her words while she thought furiously. “She is twenty-four; her husband very much older. If he were not appointed for life he’d be in his dotage on his country estates by now.”
“Julia!”
“Well, it’s true. Theirs is a marriage of politics and money, but she does quite get on with her Neddy. Who knows what she confides to him as a father figure? Or grandfatherly figure?”
It was disingenuous, but a valid concern. She’d told her own late husband Rufus everything during the short time they were married.
“Pish posh.” Lucretia waved a hand. “We’ll know if she’s discreet. We always do.” With that the headmistress dismissed her reservations, leaving Julia to stew in private discomfort.
The truth of the matter was that Julia had foolishly had a little too much to drink at an Admiralty House dinner party and in a fit of good-natured spirits had invited Elise to the Temple herself. In the sober light of day, she was unsettled that someone she knew socially should set foot regularly in the Temple—might even, God forfend, become a full sister. She was too used to compartmentalizing her life, keeping her doings secret from others. She let people know only what she wanted them to know.
And the one thing Elise did not need to know was that Julia was quite smitten by her.
There it was: her secret obsession, the real reason she did not want to be Elise’s teacher. Sentenced to be close to her daily, but never to touch—for it would never do for her to seduce this beautiful woman, who would surely be scandalized should she try.
But not to try seemed just as impossible.
It was taxing to be with Elise in close association, to have to pretend that her mind was only on the business of the sisterhood. Julia was no stranger to the demimonde, where she was known under the incognito of ‘Alexandria’. Teaching, talking dry metaphysics and meditation techniques was testing her, when all she really wanted to do were indecencies that Alex would be perfectly at home with.
I mustn’t let it fluster me, Julia chastised herself. Elise is just a friend. There’s no need for more.
It was pallid reassurance, and she felt nervous butterflies in her stomach as she approached the workroom. Since when did her self ever listen to her Self? It was Julia’s blessing or curse that she learned best by doing: for good or ill, it was the lived experience that taught her what she needed to know. Cautionary thoughts had never done much to hold her back once she’d settled on a direction. Still, she argued with hersel
f. As a mentor she had a certain decorum to maintain.
She opened the door to find Elise lighting incense, a singular ray of morning sunlight through the near window catching the tall blonde’s profile and setting it a-glow in the otherwise dim room.
Beauty With Taper. A Vignette.
Julia paused on the threshold, struck by the vision that was her friend, and realized her course was already set.
Elise controlled a slow out-breath, her eyes closed, concentrating on the energy gathering in her third chakra. It was easy to assume the attentive yet relaxed pose required by these exercises: she sat in the rigid embrace of her corset, spine upright, perched closer to the edge of her seat than not to accommodate the hoops of her skirt cage. The scent of sandalwood lingered in the air, relaxing and helping the chakras to open. She inhaled again and felt something shift in her aura. Her hands became warm.
Learning about the energy centers of the body had been a revelation, but this work to master the flow of power within herself—that was another matter entirely. She’d take all the help she could get: Sandalwood. The meditation mantra that ran through the back of her mind. Julia coaching her through it.
Her hands grew hot now, and she shifted them on her lap so palm faced palm. It felt like something glowing and sphere-like rested there, pulsing in time to her heart beat, radiant waves of heat against her skin.
Elise felt a shimmer of relief. This was harder than it seemed, to summon coherent energy. She had power at her fingertips—literally—could she but hang on to it and learn to wield it. She’d doubted at first, but the Sisters seemed so certain. And now there was this mass of…something…resting weightless in her lap, but heating her body, pushing against the cage of her hands like it wanted to fly away from her.
She exhaled and cracked her eyelids open, glancing down at her lap. The ball of energy, hot and radiant, was nowhere to be seen. Her senses were fooling her again.
