“No, I mean it. Lorelei, you’re so far beyond any woman I ever met. You don’t have to worry about me cheating on you.”
Lorelei snickered, and then laughed. She pushed him over to lie on top of him, casually demonstrating her physical strength. “Master,” she grinned teasingly, “your inexperience makes you far too quick to commit. I know everything about your lusts. You want other women. You would want many other women if you could have them, and I am telling you that you can. You won’t be cheating on me. You’ll renew my power and share the pleasure you receive with me.
“Your realistic aspirations are for monogamous love, but in your private fantasies, you want a harem,” Lorelei grinned with a softer, wickedly affectionate tone. “Don’t be shy about it. You’re not the first man with such fantasies. There is no jealousy here. I wouldn’t be remotely bothered. I might enjoy helping in your trysts.”
“I wouldn’t want you having sex with other guys,” he said. “How fair is that?”
Her naked shoulders shrugged. “Your feelings on such things may change after I’ve had a few years to prove my loyalty,” she smiled tauntingly, “but it’s nothing to concern yourself with. I prefer quality over quantity, and my perspectives have changed tonight. Still, I hope you don’t mind if I might flirt a bit now and again. It might be useful to us both.”
“I never thought of myself as the jealous type,” Alex thought out slowly, “but I don’t want to share you with other men.”
“Then don’t. Everyone has boundaries. I can easily accept this if you pay me plenty of attention.” Her hip nudged against his. A new smile spread across her face. “But don’t you dare tell me you don’t want me to play with other women. We both know you better than that.”
“As long as you’ll share,” Alex grinned back before he kissed her.
She trembled in pleasure, lying against him. “As you wish, master.”
“Wow,” he breathed again, stroking her hair and her back. “I barely know you.”
“You need only know so much,” she shrugged.
“Yeah, but… I mean, where are you from? How old are you? What makes you happy besides sex? Hurts you? Anything.”
Lorelei’s expression grew thoughtful. “There are things mortals are not meant to know,” she began. “I would tell you, but the knowledge would endanger you spiritually. Despite all you have already seen, precious little about the actual nature of the divine or…otherworldly matters has been shown to you. Your faith, for instance, is still a matter of faith. If I told you that God and the Devil exist, you would still be taking my word for it. You might be surprised how little relevance formal religion has in the grand scheme of things. But it means I can only tell you so much about myself,” she shrugged.
Alex nodded. “Whatever you can tell.”
“You may not like it all. Many things in my past you would find ugly, even horrifying. I do not fret over my past and I make no apologies, but I take pride from precious little of it.”
“Then we’ll call it the past and move on. And I can’t imagine being any more inclined to blow off things that bother me than right here and now,” he grinned. “You’re awfully beautiful and naked and pleasantly positioned.”
“I suppose I can appreciate that,” she chuckled. “I am…old. I was centuries old even as I watched the Romans demolish the Second Temple in Jerusalem.”
“Wow.”
Distant thoughts clouded her eyes, but she banished them a moment later. “It was a memorable day. I have not always been in this world, but of anything else I cannot tell you much. I have spoken many languages, been to many lands. I have brought down peasants and popes, shoguns, celebrities, kings and queens.”
“Queens?” Alex raised an eyebrow.
“Yes. More men than women, but many women. None of them nice people, mind you,” she added. “The world does not miss them, or would not if the truth about them was known.”
“Oh. I guess I should’ve thought of this before,” Alex said sheepishly. He had somehow disregarded this before now. Naturally, now that it was too late, he was a little scared. “Should I be, um, wearing a condom?”
Laughter erupted from his companion. “No, Alex, no,” she managed finally. “Though yes, it’s a bit late to ask now. No. As I said, you may enjoy me freely. You need not worry about me carrying disease or becoming with child. In fact,” she added with a sultry tone, “as long as you’re regularly having me, you can forget about such concerns with other women as well. Nor will they likely worry about such details.” She let that sink in, then leaned forward to kiss him lightly before continuing the discussion.
“There are many sorts of demons. Most are made to torment or to corrupt. I am born to punish and enact retribution. That does not make me especially nice, but part of Hell’s purpose is to ensure that the wicked eventually suffer. You will spread neither disease nor unwanted children while you are with me. A succubus is meant to bring a prey’s earthly sins to an end, not to spread them further. We may encourage selfish decisions, but not to create a legacy that lives on to harm the innocent. That would provoke Heaven to respond.
“You ask what pleases me. Obviously I hunger endlessly for sex. But I’ve never had a partner I genuinely liked. It’s pleasant. I’m rather coming to enjoy…friendship, as well.”
The admission hung in the air. Finally, Alex broke the silence. “At least I know who to ask for help with my history assignments now.”
“You wish. There are matters of which I know much, but for most of history humanity’s perspective has been rather narrow. I was never in more than one place at a time. I remember well the politicking of certain Medici sons, but don’t ask me to tell you what occurred in Russia at the time. It was irrelevant to me. It’s only in recent decades that I have become more broadly educated.”
“But you speak Russian?”
“Da.”
“Russian women are hot,” he teased.
“Many of them.”
“You said shoguns? You’ve been to Japan?”
“Hai,” Lorelei smiled.
“That wasn’t weird? You could claim a lot of different ancestry, but I’m not sure I’d believe you were Japanese.”
“I can change my appearance rather dramatically, though it costs me power. Before last night, it would have been no problem. Tonight I could manage it once, perhaps twice now that your lusts have restored a small measure of power. But I have a long way to go before I am what I was before.”
“I think I’m going to enjoy helping you recover.”
“We both will. That I can promise. I know my appearance pleases you greatly…or even immensely,” she said with just enough arrogance to be charming, “but if you’d like me to look differently…?”
“No. Hell no. I want this face and this body to stay.”
“Done,” Lorelei nodded.
“What I don’t understand is…why sex?”
Lorelei tilted her head curiously. “I’m sorry?”
“You said you only sleep with men who are already damned, right?”
“Well,” the succubus grinned playfully, tracing a finger down his chest, “in the past tense, yes. Not now.”
“But you’re so incredible. I guess what I don’t understand is that if someone is so awful, why’s he get to die while in bed with you? Shouldn’t it be a rougher end?”
“Ah. Unfortunately, this gets to those issues that mortals are not entirely meant to understand. But I suppose I could make at least some sense of this for you,” Lorelei mused thoughtfully, considering her words.
“For most mortals, sin and virtue come and go. Very few people are entirely good or entirely bad. Even you. Yet redemption can be found even for the gravely wicked, given opportunity and motivation. The mortals that I am set upon are already several steps along the way to Hell for their misdeeds. Yet they might turn from that path, so Hell would prefer to adjust the odds in its favor. I lay with mortals to ensure that they meet that final punishment. Some deaths are simply a matter of nature-disease, accidents. Other deaths are something of a statement on who a person truly is. Dying with me typically states nothing but selfishness.