Succubus

by Brandon Varnell

  A stray thought occurred to her. Whenever men stared at her, Lilith always felt a deep sense of fear and loathing. She felt dirty, unclean, and tainted, as if a layer of filth and grease covered her body. Yet when Christian had stared at her last night, she had felt attractive and warm and wanted and, well, sexy. In spite of her looks, Lilith had never felt like that before. Ever.

  But why? she wondered. Why did she feel like this when Christian looked at her, but not when other men looked at her? Did it have something to do with Christian? Because he wasn’t affected by her? Or did it have something to do with her? Because something about him affected her?

  These questions and more passed through her head. Stray thoughts with no answers. There was no way for her to know the answers to these questions. It wasn’t like a manual on romance existed, and as much as she loved reading light novels, she knew they did not have the answers she sought either.

  Fiction never was good for solving life’s problems.

  “Hello… Earth to Lilith. Come in, Lilith.”

  “Oh!” Lilith shook herself from her stupor and tossed Janice an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry. You were saying something?”

  Janice shook her head, the smile on her face growing wider. “Ah, to be young and in love again.”

  Lilith felt the blush appear, tiny spots of warmth on her cheeks. She didn’t deny Janice’s assumption, however, which she supposed was an improvement from the last few times that someone—Maria—had mentioned that she was in love.

  “Ms. Lilith!” one of the children called out. “Can you help me find the wight color for my dwawing?”

  “I’ll be right there, Alex.” Lilith looked at Janice, who made a shooing motion. Nodding, she stood up, and made her way over to where Alex sat, making a mess of the table with several markers.

  The class assignment that day was creating artwork they could take home. All the children sat at the round tables spread around the room. Most were busy concentrating on their work, either scribbling over a sheet of paper, or using a pair of safety scissors to cut out shapes. As Lilith knelt down next to Alex and helped him choose a color for his drawing, she wondered how many of these boys would be giving her proposals of love and marriage that day.

  I’m afraid all these boys are bound for heartbreak. The thought filtered through her mind, making her smile. And for some reason, that doesn’t bother me.

  ***

  As it turned out, by the end of class Lilith received no less than five proposals of love and ten of marriage. She hadn’t broken her highest record of ten and ten, but she honestly felt like that was a good thing. These crushes may have just been the passing phase of young children, but she didn’t want them to get their hopes up, and then have those same hopes crushed.

  Once all the children left, Lilith tidied up the room. Because the children were, well, children, they left a big mess whenever they did arts and crafts. Cut up paper lay scattered about the floor, and several marker spots marred the tables. While she cleaned, Lilith’s thoughts turned toward Christian.

  It hadn’t been that long since their first disastrous meeting, and yet, within just a little over a week, he had become one of the most important people in her life. She could no longer imagine a day where they did not sit down in The Crema Café and talk, or sit under the shade tree and read together. The idea of him possibly leaving her was something that she could no longer fathom.

  Considering that Christian was a man, and she still feared men, that really said something about how special the enigmatic male was. Only someone truly special could invoke this kind of feeling within her, despite how she feared every other member of the same sex.

  As she cleaned off a particularly stubborn mark on the table, Lilith thought about everything she knew about Christian who had, dare she say it, claimed her heart. Truth be told, it wasn’t much. She knew very little about Christian’s past. She didn’t know what his job was or even where he came from.

  Lilith had the distinct feeling that Christian was hiding things from her. Whenever she asked about what he did for a living, or anything relating to his past, he would become uncomfortable and clam up. She didn’t want to lose him because she was nosy, so she often changed the subject when this happened, but she still desired to know more about him.

  She did know a few things, though. He wasn’t completely closed off to her. Christian had told her about how he had been orphaned at the age of six, when a large fire ravaged the small town that he lived in. He’d shared how he had been saved by members of the Catholic Church and raised in a Catholic orphanage.

  That explained why Christian was such a devout follower of the Catholic faith. If there was one thing that she had learned about him, it was that despite not always acting like it, Christian was a faithful Catholic. He believed wholly in the existence of God, even if his beliefs in the Bible were a little flexible.

  Lilith didn’t know how to feel about that part of him. She wasn’t religious, but she supposed it was his right to believe in whatever he wanted, and it wasn’t like she couldn’t understand why he believed in God. If the Church had saved her like they had Christian, then she might well have been religious, too.

  The door to her classroom clicked open. The sound startled Lilith from her contemplation.

  Janice stood in the doorway. “Your young man is here,” she said.

  “All right,” she said. “Please tell him that I’ll be out soon. I just need to finish cleaning this room.”

  “How about I clean the room, while you go out and tend to your man? You know that men get awfully needy if you’re not constantly there to look after them.” Lilith opened her mouth to protest, but Janice cut her off. “I’ll be fine finishing up here. You should go and enjoy your time with your beau. You’re only young once, you know.”

  “Thank you.” Lilith smiled warmly at Janice, then went to her desk and grabbed her bag. A short walk down the hall took her to the preschool’s entrance, where she found Christian waiting for her.

  He looked the same as always. A pair of blue jeans rode comfortably on his hips. The dark-blue long-sleeved shirt that he wore was hidden by the black leather jacket that he had taken to wearing. She wondered why he wore something like that with such warm weather, but figured it was just some kind of fashion statement. Surprising, since she knew that Christian didn’t know a thing about fashion.

  “Christian.” As she called his name, Christian turned around. He smiled at her, but she immediately noticed how strained it appeared, as if he was simply smiling for her sake. She slowed to a stop as she reached him, and gazed at him in concern. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes, I’m fine. Just thinking about… things.”

  Christian’s answer didn’t convince her, but she knew him well enough by now to know that he would clam up faster than she could say his name if she pressed too hard.

  “So are you all ready to go?” he asked, no doubt his attempt at changing the subject.

  “Yes.”

  Her arms wove around his right arm and clutched it close to her chest. It was strange how, not even a month ago, Lilith would have laughed if someone told her that she would enjoy being this close, this physical with a man. Now she could barely imagine life without this closeness that she and Christian shared.

  Christian shifted again, but didn’t make any attempts at forcing her to desist in her actions. He relaxed in her grip, and his smile became more genuine. Good. Lilith didn’t like his fake smiles.

  “All right then,” he said. “Let’s go.”

  ***

  As had become their custom, they took a leisurely walk to The Crema Café. The place was bustling with activity. A cacophony of voices rose over the din as dozens of different conversations took place. More than half the tables were full, as both tourists and locals sat down with friends and family and spoke of the usual topics.

  Christian and Lilith stood in line, waiting for their turn to place their orders. Lilith’s arms were still wrapped around Christ
ian’s right arm, but now her head also rested on his shoulder. She appeared so content, so happy, that Christian didn’t have the heart to tell her how uncomfortable her close proximity made him.

  He peered down at Lilith, her face alight with a content smile. She appeared oblivious to everything around her. She didn’t even notice how every man in the room stared at her. She didn’t even notice when one passing man tried to cop a feel, though Christian did, and that man nearly suffered a broken hand when he grabbed it and squeezed.

  “What was that noise?” Lilith asked.

  “What noise?” Christian played innocent. Lilith’s face scrunched up in confusion.

  “I’m not sure. It sounded kind of like someone was screaming.”

  “Well, it is pretty noisy in here.”

  “I… I guess it is,” Lilith murmured as her eyes peered around the room. Christian felt guilty when he saw the uncomfortable look on her face, the way her body almost unconsciously moved closer to him, as if doing so would protect her from the leering eyes of men.

  “Don’t worry.” Christian pulled his arm from her grip and wrapped it around her shoulder, drawing her close. He ignored his own feelings, the ones screaming about how wrong this was, and instead focused on comforting Lilith. “I won’t let anything happen to you.”

  “I know.”

  Lilith snuggled into their new position, and Christian knew that she had forgotten about the stares. Mission accomplished.

  Their turn soon arrived, and they stepped up to the register. Auntie Kay smiled at them, her eyes almost glowing when she saw Lilith.

  “What’ll you two have?”

  “I’ll have the Crema burger and a small iced tea, please, and Lilith will have the Bananas Foster crepes,” Christian ordered without thinking. Auntie Kay’s lips twitched.

  “Look at you, young man. You’ve only known Lilith for a week and already know what her favorite food is.”

  Christian looked away. “W-well, it’s not hard. She orders the same thing every time.”

  “I do not,” Lilith muttered, then squirmed in Christian’s grasp when both he and Auntie Kay stared at her. “… Okay, so maybe I do. In my defense, the Bananas Foster crepes are the best.”

  “Right.”

  “They are!”

  “And I believe you.”

  “Are you making fun of me?”

  “Of course not.” Christian’s gentle smile made Lilith bury her face in his shoulder.

  “You’d better not be,” her muffled voice said.

  Aunty Kay chuckled as she rang them up. After ringing sliding Christian’s credit card through the card reader, she said. “Your order will probably take a little while. Just find yourself a seat, and I’ll have someone bring your food to you.”

  “Thank you,” they said in unison.

  They walked out of the line and made room for the next customer. After looking for a place to sit, they eventually decided on an empty table near the entrance. Christian directed Lilith toward a chair, pulling it out for her. The smile she bestowed on him made him feel like a million hummingbirds had taken up residence inside of him. He didn’t much care for the feeling, so he ignored it.

  Conversation was sparse as they waited for their food, which didn’t take long to arrive. Upon receiving their meal to-go, they stood up and quickly left the café.

  As they were leaving, Christian stopped and turned to look back at the bustling bakery. He frowned when he saw something on the roof. The shadows seemed to waver, almost like … but no, it must be the clouds blocking the sun overhead.

  “Is something wrong?” Lilith asked.

  “No,” Christian said at last. “Nothing’s wrong.”

  While strolling to their destination, they made conversation. Despite having spoken with each other every day since Maria’s fateful decision to push Lilith in Christian’s direction, they had yet to run out of topics to discuss. Today, they spoke of the differences between tropes used in Japanese stories and those used in American stories.

  As the day wore on, the budding couple found themselves sitting under what Lilith had jokingly referred to as their tree. It was the same one where Christian had reimbursed her for breakfast, the same one they sat under during their first day out together. No novel was situated between them this time. Lilith leaned against Christian, her head on his shoulder, her eyes closed, and a content smile playing on her lips. Even though Christian knew it was wrong, he didn’t stop her. Maybe he couldn’t stop her. Or perhaps he just didn’t want to stop her.

  “Christian?” she murmured.

  “Yes?”

  “Could you tell me a little about yourself? I know so very little about you. I’d really like to know more.”

  Christian remained silent for several moments. When he did speak, his voice was much softer than usual.

  “I think I already told you about how I was orphaned when a fire destroyed my hometown, and that I had been taken to live in an orphanage owned by the Catholic Church.” Lilith nodded against his shoulder, and Christian gathered his thoughts before continuing. “Life at the orphanage was hard. There wasn’t a lot of room, and so ten or more of us would often have to sleep in a room that was meant for five. Our mornings were spent praying, and the rest of the day was usually spent doing chores. I guess they wanted to teach us responsibility.”

  Lilith scooted closer to Christian until her arms wrapped around his torso. He stiffened as his mind and body were bombarded with so many sensations and emotions that he didn’t know what to do with them. After a moment, however, he relaxed into her embrace, as a strange warmth engulfed him, starting from his chest and spreading to the rest of his body.

  “It must have been tough,” Lilith murmured.

  Almost without thinking about it, Christian closed his eyes and rested his cheek against the crown of Lilith’s head. The scent of vanilla ticked his nose, overwhelming his senses. He’d always loved this particular scent. It reminded him of home, of safety and security, of when his mother used to bake vanilla brownies and then scold him when he tried eating one before dinner. Some small part of him longed for those simpler times.

  “It was, but I think I turned out better for it. It taught me the meaning of hard work, and I learned how to take care of myself.”

  Christian paused again, this time in confusion. What was he doing? Why was he telling her so much about himself? Why was he sharing his past with her? He didn’t understand how this young woman, who he should have never gotten so close to, could pry this much information out of him. Not even Samantha could make him talk about his past, but all Lilith needed to do was ask and he felt like spilling some of his darkest secrets. It was maddening.

  “That’s not to say we didn’t have problems,” he added after a moment. “Not every child who lived there subscribed to the teachings of the Church, and not all of those children were benevolent.”

  That was an understatement if he ever heard one. Children as a whole were greedy and selfish. It was part of being a kid. They never thought about how much their next meal cost, or how expensive that blanket was. They wanted what they wanted and didn’t think about what others went through to get them that favorite toy or buy that expensive new play set.

  This wasn’t a slight against children, just a natural part of their maturation. He’d been no different. Christian didn’t learn about how difficult their caretakers truly had it until he’d grown older and more mature.

  “Were you bullied?” Lilith asked.

  “I wasn’t, but my… my friend was.” Christian grimaced. Much as he didn’t want to admit that he and Tristin were friends, he really had to. The slightly older man had stuck with him through thick and thin, in spite of Christian’s many attempts at pushing him away. “He wasn’t very well-liked because he was different.”

  “Different how?”

  “I’m not sure, to be honest,” Christian admitted. “Tristin has always been a bit of an oddball. It isn’t just in the way he acts. When you’re with
him, you just feel like there’s something off about him. I always feel like he’s hiding some great secret that he’s not sharing with anyone. Anyway, because he wasn’t liked very much by the other kids for being different, they would often pick on him.”

  “And you were the one who stood up for him.” It wasn’t a question.

  “Yes, I stuck up for him.” Christian’s eyes had closed by this point. His body was beginning to feel heavy for some reason. “Even if he hadn’t been my friend, I would have still stuck up for him, I think. It’s hard to say, but I never liked it when people picked on others just because they were different.”

  “So what happened? To those boys, I mean, and you. Did you get in trouble?”

  “I did get reprimanded, at least at first.”

  “At first?”

  “Mmm. Because the fight was in the defense of someone else I got off with a warning. The other boys didn’t. I remember they were given kitchen duty, and one of them, the oldest boy who lived in the orphanage, was kicked out when the nuns tried to make him work and he cursed them out… at least, that’s what I had heard,” Christian added, almost as an afterthought. “I wasn’t there when it happened.”

  “Oh.”

  Silence reigned as the conversation came to a halt. It was a comfortable silence, nothing at all like the awkward and stifling stillness that had been prevalent during their first day out together.

  Lilith was sitting perpendicular to him, her legs resting over his lap. Her arms around his waist had gone slack. Deep breaths escaped her parted lips, and her shoulders and chest rose and fell in time with her breathing.

  She was asleep.

  Christian’s eyes opened and he looked down at her radiant blond hair. He knew that he should extricate himself from this position. She was too close, getting too physical. This was the kind of intimacy that the Church had forbidden Executioners from having.

  But he couldn’t bring himself to make her get off him. Or maybe he just didn’t want to. His mind felt fuzzy, as if a fog had filtered into his head, addling his mind and dulling his senses. All he wanted to do right then was pull Lilith into his arms, hold her tight, and fall asleep.