Lover's Choice by Stephen B. Pearl

Short Story

A modern day, paranormal-romance erotica (romantica) story

Rated NC17 - Adult content.

     She danced across the stage, naked and unashamed. Her curly, auburn hair falling around her small, firm breasts and forming a neat triangle over her mons Veneris. Her reed, slender form moving, with catlike grace, to the notes of The Power of Love. Sensuously, she traced her body with her hands, causing every man who saw her to dream. I was already caught up in her spell. I had opened my shields to her gentle magic because I knew and trusted this enchantress.

     I watched her move in a way that promised a thousand delights, and a smile filled her deceptively innocent face. With an effort I shifted my attention to the audience. The orange energy of lust poured from them towards the stage. The dancer's spell took that energy, cleansed it of anger and guilt, then fed it back to them. Their passion became a pure thing, a way of expressing love and their joy in life. For many, their wives and girlfriends would be the beneficiaries of that gentle loving that binds couples together. For those who were alone, they would dream of the dancer and so find relief from their loneliness.

     The dancer shifted her enchantment, weaving the energy into a cloak of orange, glowing light, which she pulled about herself. To most in the bar she was simply a beautiful woman, naked upon the stage. To me she was now dressed in a garment of shining lust.

     I sighed as I looked at her. Cathy or, as she calls herself on stage, Cat and I are friends and occasional lovers. I say friends because on those occasions that we share our passions it is more an affirmation of the deep warmth and respect we hold for each other. Neither of us looks to the other to be a life partner. We are also Wizard Priest and Priestess of kindred gods, which was why I was catching her act that night.

     Cat continued to dance, adding ever more energy to the cloak of lust. As the song finished, she stretched towards the ceiling and crumpled to the floor in a provocative pose. The applause was thunderous. The announcer came on plugging table dances and announcing that Nyx was next on stage, then the between dancers' song began to play. Several men left the bar, undoubtedly going home to their lovers. I waited, nursing my beer. A minute later I felt a soft hand on my shoulder and turned to look into Cathy's deep, emerald eyes.

     "She's next up, Ray. I appreciate you coming out. She's too powerful for me to handle without ritual, and I can't do that here," said Cathy.

     "Comes with the job, with great power comes great responsibility, and all that Spiderman stuff. Are you sure we have to get so complicated with this though?"

     "You haven't seen her. Lady Bast protect me, she is frightening. I better go now. If I'm lucky I can get a couple of table dances in before you need me. With tuition going up, I need all the cash I can get."

     As Cathy spoke, I felt the cloak she had woven slip from her shoulders and surround me, overlaying my aura and shield. To any with the sight I would appear to have an orange aura, suggesting passion and possibly sexual obsession. The perfect victim for what I had come hunting. I took a moment to comb my short, dark hair, and examine my handsomeish features in the bar's wall mirror. I was bait and hook and I wanted the bait to be as attractive as possible.

     The intermission ended and a girl, clad in a black, spandex dress that showed off a figure suitable for playboy at its best, came on stage. Her legs were firm muscle, covered by stockings held up with garter belts visible below her dress' hem. Her stunning face was framed by ink-black hair that fell straight to the middle of her back. Everything about her screamed sex, with an undercurrent of danger. She began to dance to a heavy-metal tune that nearly deafened me. She strutted across the stage, haughty and challenging. Reaching towards her audience then pulling back, promising then breaking that promise. When the first song ended, she gracelessly stripped off her dress, exposing her large, firm breasts. The spell had already begun. The men in the audience were enthralled, every eye turned towards her. She danced to the second song, undulating across the stage and the sorcery began in earnest. Like with Cat, the energy of lust flowed from the audience, but this time the dancer perverted it with red and black energies, harsh and glaring to my eyes. The lust she returned to her audience was not of love and life, but the lust that drives the rapist and the spouse abuser. This was a sickly lust that sought to own the object of its desire.

     I allowed a little energy to leak onto the stage from the cloak Cathy had draped me in. I couldn't help but respond to the dancer's movements. A Wizard I may be, but I am also a man, and she spoke to an animal within me. As she danced a veil of red and black grew about her, coalescing into wings of smoke. She stretched back as if in the throws of orgasm. The energy she stole from the audience increased. She was beautiful and terrible. A sculpture in ice given life, promising the warmth of passion but freezing to the touch. My flesh responded. I had to let the edge of the spell affect me or lose control of my camouflaging energy cloak and reveal myself to my foe.

     The final song began as the dancer collected a blanket from the back of the stage. Spreading the blanket she removed her panties and lay upon it, writhing like a fly caught in a spider's web. Only Cathy and I could see that she was the spider. I knew her kind, had fought them before. Succubus, a demon tied to the fear and hatred of lust. She looked directly at me and our eyes met. She licked her lips seductively at the sight of my false aura, and I felt her spell embrace me. My mouth was dry with desire, but I knew my danger. I fed her energy only from the cloak. The song ended and finishing my beer I adjusted what was needful and moved to the edge of the stage.

     "Excuse me. Are you available for table dances?" I asked and allowed my face to flush red with embarrassment. Succubi feed on and cultivate our negative feelings about sex, not the energy of sex itself.

     "You bet. What's your name?"

     "Ray. You're very beautiful. I enjoyed your dance."

     "Thank you. Come on, we should go to the lounge. It's more private!"

     "OK."

     She took my hand and led me to the lounge area at the back of the bar. Cathy was there dancing for a balding, middle aged man. I had to push down a surge of jealousy.

     "I'll start with the next song." Nyx seated me in an armchair and took a seat across from me.

     "OK." I could feel her tendrils of energy touch the auric cloak I wore, polluting it even as they aroused me.

     A few inconsequentialities passed between us as we waited, then the song began. She danced, stripping off her clothing, not eight inches in front of me, but I had to focus past that. Heart pounding and mouth dry I inspected the cloak of energy surrounding me. It was shifting from orange to black and red, as the beast before me danced. I focussed my attention on the Isis pendent I wore and the Ra signet on the ring about my finger and remembered why I was there. Holding the orange energy before me like a shield, I directed my attention to my heart and mind energies. Unbeknownst to the succubus a web of blue and gold began to form around her. The dance continued. I stared at a woman straight from my teen-age fantasies and forced myself to see the beast within. Black wings, like icy satin, enveloped me, almost touching my shields. The web of blue and gold solidified into a sphere of energy encompassing the dancer and me. I increased the energy of the sphere as the song ended.

     "You were a good boy for that. Would you like another?" asked the seductress before me.

     The animal within screamed yes, but the spirit and the mind still controlled, though with the twisted energies of Cathy's ruined cloak urging me on it was a close thing.

     "No thank you. I have to be going," I replied and the smile left the dancer's face.

     "Are you sure? If its money we could maybe meet later," she offered, in her unending hunger, breaking the rules of protocol for the bar.

     "No thank you."

     She moved back stopping when she touched my sphere of blue and gold.

     "Let me go!" she hissed.

     I folded my hands across my chest and smiled at her. "I'm not even touching you, how can I be holding you? Are you feeling all right?"

     I saw Cathy, from the corner of my eye, leave her client and move closer to my position.

     "Don't play the fool with me. It is obvious what you are now. Let me go, wizard! That is unless you wish me to leave with you. You didn't have to entrap me for that. I haven't been with a sorcerer for a long time, but I remember them as being quite sweet." My foe began to salivate.

     I shifted position. Staring at the beauty before me and knowing what she offered. It was tempting, but I knew the price she demanded. The price was a piece of my soul that I could never retrieve. Besides, I have a rule about whom I will lay with. She must be at least a close friend and friendship asks only friendship in return.

     "What are you talking about? Are you on something? How can I be keeping you from leaving? I'm not even touching you."

     A well dressed man with the build of a gorilla stepped into the lounge and moved to the side of my chair.

     "Is there a problem here?" he asked.

     "The young lady says I have to let her go, but I'm not touching her," I blurted before Nyx could say anything.

     "LET ME GO!" screamed the succubus and all eyes turned to her.

     "You see," I remarked to the bouncer.

     "Come on, Nyx. Maybe we should go to the dressing room and relax," suggested Cathy.

     "You! You're to blame for this. You witch. I'll have your eyes for this! There were enough for both of us, but you had to interfere." As she spoke a cloud of black and red oozed out of the succubus and moved towards Cathy. It struck my containment sphere, which, for a moment, I feared might rupture.

     Frowning Cathy touched the cat pendent about her neck, and I felt her energies combine with mine, re-enforcing the containment sphere.

     "Maybe I should leave," I remarked to the bouncer and stood up.

     "No! Don't go. We, I mean, I can take a break and we can talk. You're very handsome," offered the beauty before me.

     "Sorry, I don't date druggies." I took a step away.

     Screeching the succubus launched herself at me, driving her painted fingernails into my neck. The bouncer grabbed her and pulled her off. Screaming, she fought him but then she reached the globe of energy encasing us. A pitiful wail escaped her throat, and then the dancer's body fell limp. Cathy rushed to the girl's side and took her pulse. She nodded at me as I moved towards the door. The first half of the task was accomplished.

     The succubus still faced me within the globe of energy. She was still beautiful, still seductive, still dangerous, only now her wings were fully visible and small fangs protruded from her mouth. Only those with the sight could see her, but that did me little good.

     "You separated me from my host, human. You shall pay for that! She was a perfect host. So young, so supple. Men fell at my feet without enchantment, what I could do with it is beyond your imaginings. Now you will learn the strength of my magic, and when I'm done with you, I'll teach that slut at the bar not to interfere," threatened the succubus.

     I strengthened my mystic shields as I raced to my car. I could feel the succubus marshalling its energies. The twisted forces at its command gnawed at my personal shields forcing me to constantly replenish them.

     "How long do you think you can resist me?" demanded my foe, as I turned the key in my car's ignition.

     "As long as I must. You are nothing without the energies of others to feed upon. Now that you are separated from your host; you have no anchor to my world."

     "I still have the energies I have absorbed over years of living amongst your kind. Do not think that is a small thing. The minds of men are like unto mine. They embrace my darkness."

     "Darkness lives in us all, but to paraphrase good old James T. Kirk, 'I will not kill today'," I countered as I drove towards my apartment. Driving was difficult because it took most of my concentration to keep my shields from failing.

     "You are a fool. I am of the demonic hierarchy. All I need do is call upon my demonic master and you shall be crushed," threatened the succubus.

     I laughed at that, and the sound of it was like daggers to my enemy. The clouds of red and black in my sphere dissipated a bit, driven out by the gold of laughter.

     "Try it. I am a son of Ra and Isis, you cannot call on your hoarded wealth of sexual guilt and hate against me. Your personal power is all the power you have. By all means, if you wish, call on Lady Bast or Hathor, but I think you won't find their energy of passion to your liking."

     For the first time in the battle I saw doubt cloud my foe's countenance. I braced myself for her next ploy.

     "You know, Cat. That is how you heard about me. She will never be yours, but I could bring her to you and others as well. Is there a woman you want? Any woman? Think of it. It is not uncommon for sorcerers to have a demonic familiar. Why not me? Think of the pleasures that could be yours if you release me."

     "Thinking of being enslaved isn't pleasurable to me," I replied as I pulled into by apartment's parking lot.

     I stopped the car just as the succubus drove her energies hard against the retaining sphere. It blossomed out like a weak spot on a balloon, but the fibres held. I focussed my thoughts and re-enforced the sphere, only to have energy driven against my shield. The face and form before me were no longer beautiful but demonic. The seductive mouth was lined with pointed, reptilian teeth. My foe's eyes bulged out and shone with an unholy, red light, while shaggy fur sprouted all over her body. Her manicured nails transformed into curved, rending claws and her noise became a sharp-edged beak. I ran to my apartment and burst into my living room. The ritual circle was set, with candles burning in the quarters and the altar lain. A triangle stood just beyond the circle's confines.

     The succubus fought, lurching one way then another. My shield began to buckle. I felt sickened and aroused at the same time. I stepped into the circle and rising the crook and flail sealed it. The succubus screeched and stopped fighting, drawing its remaining energies tight about itself, trying to wall out the consecrated energies of the circle. Opening the sphere I let the foul energies it held escape. My foe was still then she raced towards the circle's perimeter and slammed against it.

     "I command you demon to enter the triangle of evocation and take thee a form without noise or terror, a form comely to the eye. I so do conjure thee," I spoke and gestured with the flail.

     "Don't send me back. It's awful there. Hunger and thirst. Don't send me back," pleaded the succubus from the triangle. She was once again the form of a beautiful, seductive woman, with fangs and black, satin wings.

     "You spread corruption wherever you go. You must leave this plane," I replied, though I still desired her. "There is another way out of the lower astral hell you call your own. Elevate your vibration. Find the seeds of good within you and nurture them. The higher planes always await you."

     "Don't preach to me, human," spat the succubus. I began the ritual of banishing.

     When the succubus was gone, I closed my circle, cleansed myself of the lingering taint of her energy and returned to the bar.

     I watched Cathy dance her last set of the evening and hardly noticed that no announcement about table dancing followed. After her set she joined me at my table.

     "Is it done?" she asked.

     "Yes. I understand why you needed my help. She was powerful. How is the host?"

     "Fine. The last thing she remembers is a party two years ago, she took angel dust. That must have been what opened her up to the succubus. I enhanced her forgetfulness but sooner or later she'll start to remember the last two years. I hope she can forgive herself?"

     "Not our job to grant her absolution. She's the only one who can do that."

     "Too true. I'm done for the night, could you drive me home?"

     "Sure."

     As we walked to the door Cathy took my hand and I felt another cloak of erotic energy, this one pure and loving, settle onto my shoulders. Pausing I looked at Cathy. She smiled at me then kissed my lips.

     "I thought you might be tired, and I know you'll need a boost tonight," she said and I smiled back.

     Though the temples be abandoned and the ancient lore be held in contempt, some still stand on guard over our weary world and the gods still find ways to reward us.

     However you perceive the divine, may it walk with you and keep you safe from the dangers of the night.