Losing My Religion

Part 2, Chapter 6

Lily

Sophia and I strode down the stairs to the entryway. I felt uncomfortable the whole way, missing Sophia’s hand in mine, still ruminating on our conversation. Could I really leave my father for good? Is there really no hope for him changing his mind?

Halfway down the steps we could see the porch from above through a window, where two people were waiting for us.

“Shoot, that doesn’t look good…” Sophia said.

I shook my head. “Not really…” Outside there were two people, a man and a woman, both wearing a white button-up and holding a bible. They looked every bit like normal Jehovah's witness types, but the fact that my father wanted me to meet them suggested there was something more at play. 

We both turned around on the stairs without a word when we heard my father’s steps echoing from the hall between the kitchen to the entryway. 

Back at the top I stared at her, whispering. “What now? Going down there seems like a really bad idea…”

She grabbed my hand and pulled me out of view of the lower floor. “Got any windows to jump out of?”

I pointed her up the stairs one more floor, where the master bedroom, and more importantly, its balcony were. I pulled my magic to the front of my mind, trying to feel out if I could use something to help us get down uninjured. 

By the time we’d made it out onto the landing, we could hear my father’s voice searching for me behind us. 

This is it, where I finally decide who I want to be.

I glanced back in the direction of my father, through the walls of the house between us, thinking about the years I’d spent here, years spent miserable and repressed. I thought of my mother, of the grave I’d seen, the implications of the image, of the holes in the story my father told me about her.

I turned to Sophia, “Kiss me,” I told her, transforming to my true form and manifesting a short black gothic dress, the lace almost completely see through, exposing most of my skin.

She stared at me for a moment, confused, and then grabbed my face between her hands and brought her lips down to mine. The kiss was hot and heavy, quick and dirty, but tempered by the way our hands moved together, finding each other’s and interlacing our fingertips together. Her body pushed into mine, pressing my back against the railing and letting my hair dangle out over the backyard.

Intimacy was a strange concept, even after all of my experience gathering energy. The feelings I associated with it were relatively easy to identify – a warmth in my chest, a fluttering in my stomach, a peace of mind – but anticipating it? Not as easy.

I couldn’t have told you before experiencing it how much energy Sophia’s kiss would give me. Logic would’ve pulled me in several conflicting directions, pointing out how long we’d known each other, that we still didn’t really know each other, that I wasn’t sure I was ready to let someone in again, that I already had. 

All of that was to say that when our hands clasped and an overwhelming rush of energy filled me, it was somehow unsurprisingly surprising – or maybe surprisingly unsurprising. My brain melted, taking away my capacity for coherent sentences, but not my ability to take action. I broke off our kiss, lifted Sophia in a princess carry, climbed over the railing, and jumped off the balcony, sprouting massive black leathery wings on the way down. 

She giggled into my collarbone, clasping her hands around my neck and staring at me with joy and mirth in her eyes. “Take me away, my dashing princess.”

My wings slowed our descent with a few flaps, a loud thump of air resounding each time, propelling us over the neighbor’s fence and out over the sidewalk. As much as I wanted to fly all the way to her bedroom – or mine – I’d rather not get reports about people seeing a demon flying around town.

I instead took us to the ground, transforming back to my human body and running alongside Sophia, hand-in-hand.

Maybe I’m not as alone as I thought…

Amber

I glanced at Chris. “She’s taking a long time…”

“Maybe she’s just really low on energy?” Despite his apparent optimism his mouth was twisting back and forth.

“Maybe she doesn’t want to see me…”

He laughed. “I’m sure she doesn’t.”

I shot him a glare. 

“But she’d come talk to you anyway, I think. Even when she was avoiding you it wasn’t that she wouldn’t talk to you, it was that she was putting it off, because she didn’t want to deal with it.”

“Maybe.” 

Or maybe I fucked up so bad this time that I ruined everything.

I slapped my cheeks, reinvigorating myself. “Fuck this,” I said, walking through the still-open door. 

“Hell yeah!” Chris followed me, sniffing the air, looking for traces of Lily. “Upstairs, I think.”

I nodded, smiling at his unintentional pun and running up the stairs, towards the yells of Lily’s father calling for her.  

We reached where he was, what was apparently her bedroom, but she was gone.

Why would she leave now of all times, right when we came to get her… 

I turned to Chris. I couldn’t see my own illusion, a downside of the spell, but he could. “What do we look like…?”

We ignored the confused yells of Mr. Taylor as he stormed off, looking for his daughter.

“We look like well-dressed religious people, like holding a book or whatever?”

My palm slapped to my forehead, and I pulled Chris back towards outside, scampering down the stairs as fast as we could. This is why we’re supposed to plan!

“She probably thought we were conversion camp people or something and ran off!”

When we got out to the sidewalk, Chris stopped us for a moment, sniffing, and then inched down the street. “I’ve got a lead,“ He said, “We won’t catch up while she’s moving, but once she stops we’ll find her.”

Lily

Sophia ended up wanting to stop by her dorm before going to mine. Hers was kind of on the way – if you took a circular path around town, more than doubling the distance – but I needed to go to mine as well, needing to catch up on my studies if I wanted to continue attending college.

On the way over I’d been preparing to confront Amber, to explain myself better to her, to finally put my foot down, settle our differences and firmly establish what our relationship would be, but she just wasn’t there. 

It made me anxious, the prospect that she could be back at any moment. But… Amber could also not come back, and I needed a week's worth of rest. 

Sophia sat on my bed and watched as I got changed, chatting with me all the while.

We talked about her college – she went to a different local college and studied Biology – and how there were no supernatural people there – at least none that weren’t hiding well. Apparently, I’d ended up at the school for halloween monsters, at least within the region, and the administration had some kind of ties to Hell, although I still didn’t understand what or where Hell was.

I talked about the events that led me to my father’s house, blushing all the way through explaining how I felt – how I had felt for Amber. She gave me a sad, compassionate smile at my correction. We both knew I still had feelings for Amber, regardless of the situation between us, and that wouldn’t be changing anytime soon.

Once I’d finished getting dressed in some sweats, a sports bra, and an oversized t-shirt, I sat in my desk chair, staying across the room from Sophia. I didn’t feel any need to get closer, even if it would give me more energy.

But maybe I wanted to get closer, not because I was a succubus, but because I liked her, because Sophia had been there for me in a way that no one else had. For as much as I’d changed, as bold as I’d gotten, I’d always had the excuse of ‘I’m just getting energy’ when having sex, as flimsy as it was.

Now, however, I wanted to express to Sophia how much she meant to me – I wanted to take things slow and enjoy every moment. 

Shoot, I have no idea what I’m doing…

Sophia was smiling at me, a bright thing that I didn’t want to interrupt.

I went for it anyway. “So Sophia, you know how you said that thing before?”

She giggled, shaking her head, eyes full of mirth.

I had a feeling that she did somehow know, despite my poor phrasing, but she wanted me to say it anyway. Well I’m not going to give her the satisfaction. I know how to take charge too.

I stood, walked over to her, remaining in my human form for now, and sat across her lap, wrapping my arms behind her neck. “Sophia, it means a lot – how much you’ve supported me when I wasn’t supporting myself.” Tears formed in my eyes. 

Stupid succubus, you’re supposed to be horny right now, not sappy…

She brought her hand up to cup my cheek, brushing her thumb across my smooth skin and staring into my eyes. 

My insides turned into warm goo. I stared at her lips, opening and closing my mouth, trying to find the right words to ask for permission.

“Kiss me,” She said, smile still on her face.

I opted for listening to her instead of taking the time to insist that I could take charge.

Our lips met, pressing together in a slow dance, and I just started weeping.

Tears poured out of me in long streams as Sophia pulled me into her chest, dirtying her neat mustard blouse with my snot.

I’m even a failure at being a succubus… 

I had no idea where it had all come from, the rush of overwhelming ineptitude, the buildup of feeling like I hadn’t lived up to any of what I was supposed to be on any front. There was also this acute emotional sensitivity, the feeling that not only was I in a state that was easily hurt, but so fragile as to make my calm untenable. I’d just collapsed under the feeling of existing, the sheer reality of my life being too much to handle in that moment.

Sobs shook my body as I clung to her, my chest aching with inexplicable grief. 

Sophia, bless her heart, took it all in stride, shifting from kissing me to comforting me, rolling us on to my bed, me laying her in her arms, face in her chest while she stroked my back.

Thankfully, likely because of the sheer volume of my tears, they dried up quickly, leaving me with a mundane exhaustion – and dimly registered embarrassment – that lulled me towards sleep.

Because of my outburst, neither of us heard the front door open.