Y'know, sometimes? So does not pay to get out of bed.

Here's the QT: local demon, ripping parts off the working girls. Just what I needed to cure the funk. Track, trap -- yeah, I can play the part, y'know? Nothing fancy, slice and dice job, and boy did I need a good slice and dice. Very satisfying, even if it did leave me drenched head to toe in demon guts.

So I'm in the shower, trying to scrape the gunk off, when the buzz hits. Me, I'm always good for some steamy after a good hacking, but this wasn't the usual. Definitely not right.

Didn't think it was a good idea to go cruising, but hey, a girl knows how to take care of business, right?

Wrong. Not this time. Thought about it, knew I was in deep shit. So who the hell am I going to go to for info? Every idea worse than the last.

Finally decide on a "yo, Wes." At least he can keep a secret.

I give him the playlist, he does his thing.

Fuck. The damned demon's an aphrodisiac. Good news: only lasts seventy-two hours. Bad news: clock doesn't start until you scratch the itch.

Correction: have someone else scratch it. Wes gives me the ins and outs, some pheromone thing. Can't do it myself, has to be someone I haven't spent time with. Well, that doesn't rule out a lot.

Wes asks what he can do, but that's hit my limit. Time to go somewhere I won't run into anyone I know.

Waterbury, Connecticut. I doll up and hit this leather club called "Corpses." Don'tcha love it? It’s a rough kind of place – that’s why I picked it. If the guy who gets grabby doesn’t smell right, at least I can get a good brawl in.

Pheromones? Good stuff, I gotta say. Dark and crowded and sweaty and I'm breathing it all in. I've spent worse weekends. Hit the dance floor, check out the action. I decide to go showy, draw ‘em in, see who floats my boat. Not that it took any fancy moves – apparently this demon goo works both ways. They crowd me, but it’s all good, sweat and muscle against my skin. I’m working up a good bead, got my heart pumping, getting all tingly and breathless. And I’m running the numbers. I have a room upstairs, but a faceless crowd, all softcore, that could work. I’m already getting slick, working the Kegels. Not like an orgasm on the dance floor is too lowbrow for this dump.

I’ve gotten all hazy and dreamy, and it feels like I’m flushed to my eyelids, feverish. Then I feel a tightness in my throat and come out of it. Dude with a leather whip’s cleared the others out, and I’ve got welts on my thigh and didn’t even notice he was doing it. He’s got it wrapped around my throat and a hand down my pants. I grab the whip as I’m elbowing his nose, break his wrist between my thighs, and he gets the message.

This is deeply fucked. I’m gasping, shaking, holding this whip and snarling, and still feel like I’m creaming so hard it’s dripping down my legs. Gotta regroup, new plan, cause this one? No way. Of course, it’s not like anyone’s gonna try to stop me. Just get up to my room and try to think.

And I see her watching me. No, strike that. I catch her scent before I even see her. A little shorter than me, a little rounder, bit of a baby face, pale green eyes. Kinky dark hair, down to her nipples, with colored streaks of red and gold. Leather pants and crop top.

That pheromone stuff? All the sweat and shit? Tip of the iceberg. This is The One. I can’t look away from her bare midriff and there’s all kinds of wrong here. Hey, the state I’m in now? Green eyes won’t be alive in three days if I get my hands on her.

I head for the stairs, forcing myself not to look at her. Feel stiff, forcing myself not to move a muscle. Just before I hit the stairs a twitch forces its way out, just a slight twist of my head, my chin snapping just slightly up and to the right. Nothing, right? She couldn’t make anything of that.

But she’s following. I start up the stairs, moving on autopilot. Guy matching steps with me starts crowding me against the bannister. He won’t be walking up stairs for a while. Example for the others, right?

Chick waiting at the first landing leans in, breathes on my neck, warm moist breath that makes me drop my shoulders, but I know it has to be green eyes, looking up at me from the steps below. Another time, hey, the more the merrier, but I don’t trust myself. Bad enough risking green eyes’ neck, but I don’t have a choice. So I turn my face towards that warm moist breath and say, “another time.” Her voice is still breathy but not at all friendly. “I say now.” I turn away, and she gets grabby. She’ll have to grab with her other hand next time.

Reach my room. Green eyes’ footsteps don’t make a sound, but I don’t need to hear her to know she’s close behind. I try to close the door on her, but my hands are just gripping the wood ‘til my knuckles are white, refusing to push. Green eyes slides on in, and then I close the door.

Don’t want to turn, don’t want to look at her. I try to speak but my throat’s parched, nothing but a hoarse whispered groan. So I turn around. She’s sitting on the bed, her legs crossed at the ankles and swinging, her head cocked to one side as she watches me. She watches my eyes on her, my face. She decides to take off her top, one fluid motion, but it reads to me as natural grace, not a practiced seduction move.

Whatever control I had left is going up in smoke. I walk slowly to the bed, my eyes locked on a strand of untinted hair just brushing against her left nipple. Want to feel that hair brushing my cheek while I taste her skin. Taste? Right. Devour is more like it. Or at least suck ‘til it hurts.

I’ve blanked again. Suddenly I realize I’m on the bed, sprawled across her, sucking her teat like there’s no tomorrow. She tastes, I don’t know, pure or something. Not like virginal pure, like she’s got just one flavor, one note, nothing cluttering the sensation. Just one. Just her.

She wraps her fingers in my hair as I work my tongue down her belly, but she quickly abandons any attempt to drag me back to her tits. I slide her pants down her hips. Nice hips, a perfect roundness to ‘em. Her wet bush smells like her skin tastes, that one pure her-ness. I start in on her, tongue and fingers teasing her open, teasing out her clit, and I go to town on her.

I’m lightheaded, spinning like I can’t hold my booze, and a voice in the back of my head suddenly pieces things together. Christ, she’s a newbie. Just what I need. Crap.

But my impulse to call it quits ain’t gonna cut it. No stopping now.

And suddenly I find myself curled up tightly in a ball, but it’s not a blackout this time. Every muscle clenched. I force my head up and snarl at her. “What the fuck was that?”

She’s as stunned by it as I am. Almost.

“Sorry … It was an accident.”

“What kind of freak are you?”

Not apologetic now. Livid.

“Fuck off, bitch.”

She starts to get off the bed. I grab her leg and find myself half embedded in the desk. I grab a hunk of wood and swat her back onto the bed. No shock this time.

“Not so fast. First you tell me what you had planned for me.”

“Seemed like you were the one with the plans.”

“Yeah, well I wasn’t planning to eat your head afterwards.”

“I don’t know, you seemed pretty good at it.”

“That’s cause I am. I’m also pretty handy with a piece of wood. But I’m happy to find out what kills you by trial and error.”

She’s on her feet, sizing up an escape plan. “So much for true colors.”

I don’t let her make her move. She’s fast, agile, but she’s no Slayer. I keep her off balance, anyway, until I’ve got her back on the bed, pinned by the business end of my stake against her chest. Just enough to draw blood. She gets the point.

“And you call me a freak.”

“Never said I wasn’t one, green eyes. I’m just sussing out whether you’re the good kind or the bad kind.”

“And which one are you?”

I chuckle. “Good point. I’ve been around. But no one ever called me a demon.”

“I’m as human as you are, and frankly, I’ve met demons I like better.”

“Then you’d better call ‘em, girl.”

“I don’t need Angel to fight my battles.”

Angel?

Fuck.

End.