Suddenly A Succubus

Vee collapsed on Amara’s couch with a heavy sigh, happily closing her eyes as she sank into the warm embrace of the cushions. She grabbed a nearby throw pillow, hugging it tightly to her chest as she tried to ignore the unusual aches and pains that plagued her body, a result of all the sleep she’d lost the last few days. Relatively speaking, the physical discomfort was nothing in the face of all the other physical trauma she’d experienced over the last few months. The most disquieting fact about this pain was that it existed at all; in all the preceding years of her life, her angelic heritage had given her inhuman levels of resilience to simple mortal annoyances. Now? Now she struggled to sleep at night, her body protested even light physical activity, and worst of all, Amara’s apartment smelled painfully normal.

Demons were supposed to smell like sulfur, an unavoidable remnant of their demonic origins in Hell, but for whatever reason, Amara’s natural sulfuric musk somehow didn’t affect Vee. Instead, Vee always smelled hints of cinnamon and patchouli when around her girlfriend, and the smell often permeated her things as well. Here on the couch, as she lamented her weakened state, she failed to smell anything at all.

Well, anything supernatural. As Vee relaxed on the couch, Amara shuffled around the kitchen as she prepared lunch for the two of them. In time, Vee caught whiffs of fresh deli meat and bacon, and she tried to take refuge in the simple joy of spending time with the love of her life.

Lunch itself was amazing, and even helped to dispel a few of Vee’s dull aches. This was most likely a result of her skipping breakfast this morning, opting to simply pour herself an extra strong cup of coffee. She’d heard stories that other people got headaches when hungry, but it wasn’t something she’d experienced herself until just a few days ago.

Coincidentally, around the same time her powers had started failing her.

Each bite, on top of being absolutely delicious, made Vee feel just a little bit better. She happily listened to Amara recount her day, talking about her various classes and the humorous things she’d noticed in other people’s auras. She’d also found several new influencer trends on social media, and was excitedly talking about how she wanted to incorporate them into her photoshoots, while also participating in the trends themselves, of course. Vee didn’t fully understand the appeal of the infinitely spinning wheel of social media content, but seeing Amara bubbling with excitement over a new dance or challenge always brought a smile to her face.

After the two of them finished lunch, Vee returned to her spot on the couch. Amara didn’t quite join her, she was in the middle of testing out ideas for her newest post, and she wanted Vee’s assistance in picking something out.

“Okay, what about this?” Amara asked, her clothes magically shifting from comfortable daily wear to an outfit halfway between a bikini and lingerie.

“Hm… I mean, I want to say it looks amazing on you, but that’s perhaps the least helpful thing I could say. Turn around for a second?” Vee asked. Her eyes carefully raced up and down Amara’s perfect body, and she did her best to focus on the spirit of the question, judging the clothes on their own merits rather than how much of her girlfriend they showed off.

Of course, isn’t showing off Amara part of the point of these challenges? Wait, was this one a dance or something else? Ugh, way to go, Vee, ignoring your girlfriend as she talks about her passions.

“What do you think? I could alter the straps to sit higher on my waist, maybe?” Amara asked.

“Doesn’t Instagram have rules about how much skin can be showing? I can see most of your ass, and I seem to recall them being jerks about that last time.”

“It’s all in the presentation,” Amara said, striking a few poses as she continued talking. “See, if I’m sideways like this, but I kinda shimmy back and forth, I can show off my ass without getting into trouble with their TOS. The trick is to wear an outfit that’s obviously revealing, but hiding just enough to get people thinking that they can see more if they buy my stuff.”

“Gotcha,” Vee said, trying to commit these rules to memory. “So if you were to start twerking at the camera with nothing but a thong on, they’d count that as nudity and shadow ban you again?”

Amara nodded. “Yup! And I’d really like to avoid that; my numbers took a huge dip last time. Of course, so long as I don’t post anything to them directly, there’s no reason I can’t, say, give you a little dance of your own…” Amara walked closer, seductively moving her hips side to side before turning to face away from Vee. She spread her legs, one at a time, then sat down in Vee’s lap with practiced precision. Her nearly naked ass pressed against Vee’s body, and Vee immediately clocked what Amara was hoping for.

Habit drove Vee’s hands to Amara’s luscious hips, and Amara eagerly leaned back to show off her cleavage. As much as Vee wanted to meet Amara halfway, however, she just didn’t have it in her.

“Love, as much as I’d want to have some fun today,” Vee said, almost tripping over her words slightly, “I don’t think I’m really feeling it. Is that okay?”

The mood of their interaction shifted, and Amara immediately turned to her side to take a better look at Vee. “Of course, Vee. You know I’d never try to push that on you if you weren’t in the mood. Classes kicking your butt today?” After kissing Vee on the cheek, Amara jumped to her feet to change her outfit one last time, now wearing fluffy pajamas and an oversized tee shirt.

“A little bit, yeah,” Vee admitted. “I don’t think I slept all that well last night, either.”

Sitting next to Vee on the couch, Amara paused for a moment. Vee looked over and caught her in the middle of her thinking face, her expression slightly scrunched as she chewed on the inside of her lip. “Is, um… is everything okay? I understand if you don’t want to talk about it right now, but… I don’t know, it seems like you’ve been a little off recently. You’re not sleeping well, you’re complaining about headaches, and you’ve been a bit distracted the last few days.”

I should’ve known she would notice. God, I love her so much.

Vee hesitated, taking a deep breath as she tried to find the words she needed. Before she said anything, she reached out and grabbed Amara’s hand, squeezing it tight for support. Even thinking about speaking made her shake with apprehension, and her face flushed with heat as she prepared to admit something she hadn’t even fully accepted herself yet.

Remember, Vee, the problem isn’t you, and it’s not her. The problem is the problem, and the best chance of beating it is to work together.

“I…” Vee stammered.

Amara squeezed her hand back, likely starting to understand the gravity of whatever it was Vee was about to say. “You know you can tell me anything, right? I’ll love you no matter what.”

Nodding slowly, Vee failed to meet Amara’s gaze as she finally mustered the strength to speak. “I-I think I’m losing my powers.”

Amara gasped, then immediately pulled Vee into a hug. Even without her angelic senses, without the comforting aroma of cinnamon that she loved so much, it was impossible not to get lost in Amara’s warmth. The two of them said nothing, instead hugging each other more and more tightly as Vee surrendered to her feelings, finally accepting the truth of her situation.

“I haven’t been able to summon my sword; I can barely even make light anymore! I’m having trouble paying attention in class, I’m sleeping like shit, and I’m constantly fighting mortal aches and pains that I’ve never felt before! And I don’t know why it’s happening but I’m terrified it means that my Patron is mad at me and I don’t know what will happen if I lose my powers entirely! I’m scared of losing myself, and I’m scared of losing you, and I just don’t know what to do about it!” A flood of words left her mouth, a torrent of fear that had built up over the last few days that Vee no longer cared to stem. She buried her face in Amara’s shoulder, her tears smothering the illusory fabric as she hugged her girlfriend as tightly as she could, eventually losing the strength to speak entirely.

Several minutes passed in relative silence, only punctuated by the occasional twitches of emotion as Vee squeezed Amara’s waist. At some point Amara had laid down, pulling Vee with her to comfort her as best she could, though Vee honestly couldn’t remember when that had happened. Eventually, as the tears subsided and Vee blew her nose in an illusory tissue, she looked up at Amara and meekly whispered, “I-I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have—”

“Don’t you dare. We’re in this together, love,” Amara said, cutting her off. A moment later, after a brief pause to think, she then added, “Do you think this is because of us?”

Vee shifted so that she was lying on her side and pushed her fingers between Amara’s to take comfort in her grasp. “It has to be, right? But, as much as I want to believe that, I don’t know what happens if… if angels fall. There are stories, obviously, the most famous being the Fall of the Morningstar, but that was before the nature of angels changed. Can we still fall? What happens if we’re stripped of our powers? Why isn’t my Patron telling me anything?!” She fought the temptation to grow angry, knowing it wouldn’t help anything, but it wasn’t a battle she had the strength to win.

A hand found Vee’s hair, gently tucking it behind her ear before Amara whispered, “When’s the last time you heard from your Patron?”

“It was… back when you first started transforming. I got a bunch of visions of some nebulous demonic woman attacking the campus, engraving a circle into the quad for an unexplained reason. They were terrible nightmares that prevented me from sleeping, and they were horribly vague,” Vee said.

“Which is why you started looking into things, and how we… yeah, I think I remember you mentioning that before.” Amara leaned forward and kissed Vee’s forehead as they cuddled on the couch. “Is this something you can ask the Church about?”

“And say what? ‘Hey, I’m fucking a demon, do you think that’s something Heaven would take issue with?’”

“Okay, well, perhaps you could phrase it slightly differently,” Amara said with a hint of sincerity and playfulness. “Maybe you’ve found hints of some unusual activity, and you suspect a fallen angel might be operating near campus? Or maybe there’s a sinister force on campus trying to take away your powers, and you need to understand how angels can be depowered so that you can thwart their evil schemes?”

“I dunno… maybe. I’ve never been a very powerful angel, and I’d be worried they might read too much into any requests I make for that kind of information. For obvious reasons, they’re incredibly protective of all information regarding angels.”

“It’s going to be okay, love,” Amara whispered again, gently caressing the side of Vee’s face. “We’ll figure this out. Together.”

“But what about us?” Vee asked, turning to look up at Amara. “How am I supposed to keep you fed when I feel like absolute shit? I don’t want this to be the thing that drives us apart!”

“Hey, no need to jump to conclusions. We talked about this kind of thing, right?” Amara said. “You said that, in the event of an emergency, I can sleep with other people. Now, if you feel this qualifies, that solves the issue of my demonic needs. However, I completely understand if you don’t want me doing something like that while we figure this out. I can go find some parties this weekend, I can go back to the gym, I have a bunch of options to keep myself going.”

“Are you sure? You won’t be, like, mad that I’m holding you back from having sex?”

“We’ve been going at it like rabbits ever since we started dating, Vee,” Amara said, her tail gently rubbing Vee’s back. “I didn’t expect that to last forever, so this is hardly that big of an inconvenience. What’s important is figuring out what’s going on with you, so how about we focus on that.”

Vee nodded, then happily buried her face in Amara’s shoulder again. “I don’t even know what to do about it. If this is truly my Patron taking away my powers, I doubt there’s anything I can do about it.”

“Do you…” Amara paused, and Vee felt her take a deep breath, likely scared of the question she was about to ask. “Do you actually think that you need your powers to live?”

Another quake of emotion rattled Vee’s body, and she clung to Amara for support. “I… don’t know. It’s never something the Church has mentioned one way or another. Initially, that was kinda my assumption, but I’ve learned so much recently about how many things the Church doesn’t know. They didn’t know about the reapers in Purgatory, they don’t know that demons are capable of changing, and even the visions I got from my Patron proved to be mostly incorrect. Even if I go to them for answers, how can I trust anything they tell me?”

“Oh! What about my mom?” Amara asked excitedly. “She’s been around for ages, I’ll bet she might know something!”

“That’s… honestly a really good idea. Amara, you’re a genius!” Vee kissed Amara over and over, then found the strength to sit up and take a deep breath. “Of everyone we could possibly ask, I think I trust her the most. Do you think we could reach out now?”

“Absolutely!” Amara said, readjusting until she sat next to Vee. She pulled out her phone and started drafting a message. “Let me just… Huh. That’s weird.”

Before she could ask what Amara meant, Vee felt her own phone go off. Curious, she pulled it out and checked her messages, only to find an emergency email from the school itself. “Um, did you just—”

“Get an email from the school? Yeah, I did. What does yours say?” Amara asked.

Vee scanned the email as quickly as she could, her stomach dropping as she finished. “It’s asking me to come to the Dean’s office for a meeting. It starts in half an hour!”

“Shit,” Amara whispered. “Mine says the same thing.”

The two girls looked at each other, then clasped hands briefly before standing up and preparing to head out.