We went to a tiki bar on Sunset and it didn’t take long to meet some guys; we giggled like we were tipsy, and I swear to god a lineup formed, and then we had to figure out who the biggest douche was out of all of them. One guy in his early thirties stood out, not only from his Ed Hardy shirt but from his twice-mentioned affinity for Jägerbombs. Once he brought up the latest issue of Maxim magazine both Maggie and I knew he was the guy for us.
Just like skydiving, Maggie strapped herself in with me for the first jump. The guy turned out to be a romantic at heart, wanting to make love to both Maggie and I on a musty sleeping bag he’d spread out in the back of his Range Rover. It worked out well for us considering how many places there are in the hills to ditch a burnt-out douchemobile.
I had a couple of nibbles, but Maggie ate most of him; to be honest, it was not as bad as I’d expected, and while I certainly felt an urge to brush my teeth, I was left with a feeling of power that I’d never gotten from my summer internship as a dominatrix for war amputees.
I felt like centuries of manmade oppression were being swept away, tossed aside like a meat-stripped shin bone by two women who were building enough confidence to stand up for themselves.
The strangest thing about that night was that after we had done the deed, we never once felt like we’d be caught. They hadn’t even mentioned the missing douchebag or the torched car on the news, and since Juanessa was a detective at Robbery-Homicide, she let us know that no one in the LAPD was spending much time looking into it.
“It’s not some kind of morality play,” Maggie explained a few days later while we waited for our waffles at IHOP. “We eat the bad ones and leave the good boys and girls to rest up for next time, simply because no one cares if the douches die. Half the time the family thinks the guy’s just run off with a new mistress, or that he was into so much illegal shit it’s pretty much a given he’d disappear eventually.”
“Have any of you come close to being caught?” I asked.
“I’ve had a few close calls, but none of us has ever been arrested or anything. We’re too pretty to get into trouble… you know that.”
“That’s true,” I said. As far as the justice system was concerned we were all too cute to execute.
I changed the topic to Prop 8 as our Fresh ‘N Fruities arrived. Maggie then gave probably the best impression of closeted Mormon missionary boys making out that I’ve seen so far, so funny that I even blew a little bit of syrup out my nose.
I was really starting to fall for Maggie… big time.
And the best part was that I was pretty sure she was falling for me.
The best indication I had that I was now one of the succubus sisters was when Mia asked me to make a contribution for an upcoming bake sale, to benefit the teenaged victims of paranormal romances.
At first it was awkward as I tried to figure out just what kind of baking was expected, as I generally don’t consider any kind of raw flesh to be good in cookies or cakes, but Mia soon specified that chocolate was the most popular flavor among their buyers. I knew right then that I had the perfect recipe.
I rushed over to my dealer to get started.
I baked four dozen chocolate chip cookies, going pretty light on the pot butter just in case any kids would be buying. I was pretty well-known for my cookies back home in Bakersfield, having been in charge of the snack tent for the Police Officers Association’s Relay for Life three years in a row. I would have done it for a fourth, but by then the Hell’s Angels had taken control of most of the charity racket in the Central Valley.
The secret is to boil out all of the green and then strain it through an old Kenny Loggins t-shirt before you mix it in with the butter. Then you bake it, no pun intended, and you cover it in saran wrap and use a little bit of ribbon to make an attractive little bow. A big part of it is the presentation.
I sampled one, just a bite, and I knew I hadn’t lost my touch. My cookies would be a hit.
And I just couldn’t wait to share them with Maggie.
She was surprisingly drunk for ten in the morning, but since it was a Sunday I didn’t judge. She invited me into her apartment and after a quick session of doing what succubi do best, we sat together on her white leather couch watching the weekend forest fire smoke drift in from the southeast.
She’d put fresh white lilies into the long-necked crystal vase she kept on her side table. I leaned in and gave them a sniff.
“They’re beautiful,” I said.
“Everything in my life is beautiful,” Maggie said. “Especially you.”
I blushed.
I took a bag of my cookies out from my My Little Pony backpack, opened it up, and then I passed one over to her. She thanked me and took a bite, and I watched as a few crumbs tumbled delicately onto her spotless white carpet.
She chewed a little, then smiled, and then a little more before she swallowed. She smiled again.
But then she stopped smiling.
“Heather,” Maggie said, “I need you to be honest with me.”
“Sure.”
“Is there something funny in these cookies?”
“Nothing funny,” I said, “just some ganja.”
She jumped up from the couch and threw the cookie onto the floor. “Are you kidding me?” she said, her cute little nostrils flaring.
“What’s the problem?”
“You just fed me dope and didn’t even warn me. Did you think that I would just go along with something like this?”
“What do you mean?”
“Don’t tell me you were planning on selling these marijuana cookies at our bake sale!”
I took her hand and tried to nudge her back onto the couch but she pulled back.
And then she kicked me in the shin.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “We don’t have to sell them. I don’t see why you’re so upset with me.”
“Mia was right about you. I should have known you were trouble, but you’re just so goddamned pretty.” She turned her back to me. “I’ve lost control… perspective. You’ve starting sucking up so much of me I’m not sure what’s left.”
I smiled and shrugged. “That’s pretty much what love is.”
“I didn’t want that.” She looked back at me and slowly shook her head. “I feel so stupid. Goddamn you, Heather Smith.”
“It’s Smythe,” I said. “Please… don’t ask me to go.”
“I’m asking,” she said.
She looked so sad now, and it made me ashamed. She was once so strong, that warrior woman from the drive thru, the one who knew her way around an aggravated assault. But now she loved me and it showed, and she was standing in front of me like a little lost puppy.
I couldn’t leave her like that.
The other girls were worried about Maggie, wondering why she’d left without saying goodbye, but they all seemed to feel a little bit better as my special cookies became the hit of the bake sale, bringing in twenty dollars for a net gain of approximately thirty-eight cents.
I think Mia was suspicious, so I took her out for dinner on a quiet stretch of beach off Pacific Coast Highway. I laid out a feast of scallops and white wine on a set of Maggie’s porcelain dishes and Riedel crystal, all sprawled out on the sand atop a white linen tablecloth.
I knew after that there would be questions from Juanessa, so I brought her out to a picnic lunch in the scenic wilderness just off Tuna Canyon Road. The tree-covered hills there make you feel like you’re hours away from the city, and I chose a place for us with a view of where the rugged landscape meets the endlessness of the ocean and the blue sky above. I think she knew what I was planning but she didn’t seem to mind.