Post by Devanus Zeller on Jul 11, 2012 1:59:01 GMT -6
[Author's Note: This is very much an adult-oriented story. There will not be any explicit sex in it, but it definitely refers to sexual matters, and there is plenty of strong language, which this site unfortunately will censor automatically. In any case, I'll be posting this as I write it. Feel free to send me PMs with comments or questions or things.]
Much is made of the old adage: be careful what you wish for. Countless books and plays and movies have detailed exactly how disastrously things can go wrong when people’s desires are met or exceeded. Yet, we never stop wanting and we never stop wishing. We always think that those disasters couldn’t possibly happen to us, and besides, it’s not like we’re ever going to get what we want anyway. What is the harm in the evil that lurks in our hearts? The harm, it seems, is that we are not alone in this world, and the secrets of our souls are open books to those against whom we have built no defenses.
The first time I saw her (or him, or it, or them) was in my bedroom. I had just come home from work, and was looking forward to taking some time to myself in the evening. I suppose I could have made plans with a friend, but after a long week, all I really wanted to do was lie down. I had just crossed the threshold into my room and was in the process of shrugging my bag off of my shoulder when I saw her. She was lying on my bed for the entire world to see. At first, I thought her a woman, but it was only the reaching of a stunned mind grabbing on the nearest label to hand. She was certainly humanoid in shape; two arms, two legs, a torso and a head where one might have expected one. She had wide hips and narrow legs, each ending in a foot with five little toes. There, however, the similarities ended. Most prominently, her skin was not a shade that any human would have called flesh-colour. It was a brilliantly deep crimson, a luscious red that matched the lipstick of that creepy aunt we all seem to share. Even as I stared at her, my feet stuck to the floor and my arm halfway to lowering my bag to the ground, it seemed to radiate into the air around her, giving her the ripple effect normally associated with intense heat.
Like her skin, her breasts were nothing a human would ever duplicate without extensive surgery. They were so large, I doubted that bra companies had a letter code for her size; I could barely see her stomach underneath them. They were firm and tight, unnaturally so, and my eyes were drawn to the rest of her; even from across the room I could see the toughness of her skin. There was certainly plenty of it to see, as all she was wearing was the flimsiest of white cloths, drawn across where her nipples and pubic regions presumably were. They did not seem to be attached in any way, and were holding in place in utter defiance of the laws of physics.
Her face was where I looked last, but where I lingered longest. It had all of the attributes that I was expecting to see, but still it was not quite right. Her hair, jet black and impossibly shiny, fanned out on the pillow – my pillow – behind her, framing her head perfectly as the tips rested on her shoulders. Her mouth was large, with plush ebony lips, which she licked as I my eyes flicked over them. Her tongue was the same dark colour, nearly invisible against the moist flesh. More than anything else, however, it was her eyes that drew my attention, and cemented in my mind that I was not looking at a human woman. It was not the colour, though the fiery red, brighter than her skin but no less heated, would have been unusual indeed on one of my species. Nor was it the intense look of hunger that lurked behind them; I had seen that before. Nor even was it the lack of whiteness around the edges, replaced instead by utter dark, only bringing out the reds of the irises more. It was her stare. I had felt piercing gazes before, I understood what it was like for someone to look through me. She was not looking through me; she was looking into me. I felt, as my eyes alighted on hers, that she knew the depths of my soul that even I had not dared to plumb. That my every secret, my every indiscretion, my every desire was laid bare before her. That I could sever the connection but it would already be too late. And worst of all, when I tried to look past her eyes, to repay the favour as much as I could; I knew that I was only seeing what she was allowing me to see.
“Hello, Alan.” Her voice shook me back to reality with an audible thud; my arms had gone limp, dropping my bag with my work laptop in it to the floor. My legs wanted to move, to turn, to run, to get away from this thing, whatever it was. They did not. I did not. I could not. I could only keep staring, waiting until my brain caught up with all the information it was being forced to process. I was helpless, paralyzed by my own need to understand and utter inability to do so.
“Oh, good, you’re not running. That will make things easier.” She spoke again, her voice honey in my ears. I could see her sitting ten feet away and yet her words echoed like her chin was on my shoulder and her lips at my earlobe. I felt the most pleasant shudder creep up my spine and then run right back down again. The phrase should have terrified me – did terrify me – but her voice was rooting my feet to the floor. It was all I could do not to beg her to say something, anything, so that I could feel that again.
“What...what are you?” Four words; my brain could manage that much, but no more. She laughed and my knees went weak; I felt like every teenage heroine in every shitty romance novel ever written. Except that this was not love; lust would have been more accurate but still wrong. I didn’t just want her; I could feel her making me want her. She was in my head, playing with my emotions and my body’s reactions like a puppeteer. I took a breath and tried to focus on my anger at how she was toying with me, and then she laughed again and it was gone. I knew I had to be angry, I should have been angry, scared, confused, and upset, but her voice spread over all of those emotions, nullifying them until there was nothing left but desire.
“What do you think I am?” Too late, I realized my mistake in encouraging her to keep talking. Balling my hands into fists at my sides, I tried to breathe, to take advantage of the reprieve that silence brought me. With every ounce of will I had, I forced my eyes to squeeze shut, but God, she was still there. I couldn’t see or hear her, but I could feel the heat radiating off of my bed and her scent filled my nostrils, defying categorization and consuming my thoughts all the more. I had to get control back, and I was pretty sure that started with answering her question and not standing there any longer like a fool.
However, that meant I had to figure out exactly what I thought she was. She wasn’t human, that much was plain, but that left infinite possibilities. In all likelihood, she was something that myth hadn’t thought of yet, but that was all I had to rely on, so I grabbed at the nearest tools to hand. Lust was a fairly common weapon, but one word immediately sprung to mind. “A siren,” I opened my eyes as I spoke, forcing myself to look at her and stand still. True, she was not singing, but that laughter of hers had made me want to do whatever it took to hear it again; that was close enough for me. I got my wish, too, as my answer caused her to curl up into a fit of giggles. The noise washed over me, pushing me backwards into the door. Sweat beaded on my brow as my hand grabbed for the door frame, needing something to hold onto in case my legs decided they were no longer interested in supporting my weight.
“Don’t be silly, Alan,” she was still giggling in between words, and I found myself staring at the ceiling and the walls; anything but make eye contact with her again. “Sirens led men to their doom. I’m here to help you.”
“Help…me?” My breath was laboured now and my weight was almost entirely on the door. If she said another word I was not going to be able to stand any longer. I needed to get away from her and her influence, but my legs did not have the strength to hold me upright, let alone run away. “How is this helping me?”
“Oh this?” Fuck, why did I keep encouraging her to talk? My knees could perform no longer and I slumped to the ground, eyes fixed on the foot of my bed, partially to avoid seeing her, but mostly because my neck lacked the energy to lift my head any higher. I was so hot that I was almost surprised to look at my hands and find them not catching on fire. I could smell her even breathing through my mouth now, and each gasp was more ragged than the last. “No, this is just to show you what I can do; what I can do for you.”
“Could...you...stop?” I was quickly losing the ability to talk. My mouth was dry; my tongue made a valiant effort, but I was losing moisture far too quickly. My shirt was already soaked with my sweat, and it was running down into my eyes from my hair, which was plastered to my head like I had just dunked myself in a lake. I honestly did not know if I was going to be able to stay conscious if this kept up; breathing was becoming a chore, and I had to focus on it to make sure that I didn’t forget to try.
Then, all at once, it was gone. Her voice no longer rang in my head, her scent no longer dominated my air, and the heat was washed away on a breeze from the window. I was still as I had been – a wreck by the door – but now my breathing was becoming steadier, not shakier, and I could raise my head again. I did, and to my relief, when she laughed at my expression, I found that it did not erase all the thoughts in my head. “All you had to do was ask.”
“So, what are you?” Now that I could think again, I could remember that she had not answered the question, and I would be damned if I was going to waste this moment of sanity on recovery. I couldn’t stand, but I could function mentally, and that was really all that was necessary. There was no sense in running from her now.
“I’m your guardian angel, Alan; sworn to watch over you all the days of your life.” I did not know what I had been expecting, but that was definitely not it.
“You’re my what?”
“Your guardian angel,” the response came patiently. “I am in your service from conception until death. I have been at your side for the last twenty-four years. You can think of me as your ethereal butler, if you like; your eternal servant.” The last word stuck in my mind, as she knew it would, I was certain. She had placed the slightest of stresses on it, and like a trained dog, my mind pounced on it. It seemed she was not done with manipulating me, even if she wasn’t being as overt about it now.
“That wasn’t nice. I would have thought an angel would have been a little kinder.” Now that she was not plucking my emotions like harp strings, I could let the anger dominate, and with it came a wave of calmness and clarity. I was riding that perfect crest of balance; just angry enough not to hold back, but not so angry that it washed away all my logic in a sea of blind rage. She laughed again, but I was unfazed this time.
“You’ve got a lot to learn about angels, Alan. Like this body, for instance.” She paused, cupping her breasts in her hands, at least as much as she could. “You like these? Of course you don’t; I’m not your type, am I? But this is what you expected to see when something supernatural shows up in your bed isn’t it? Big tits, a firm ass, long legs. I did get the classic succubus down, didn’t I?”
I followed, and yet I didn’t. If she knew that this body was not appealing to me, why had she chosen it? Either my confusion showed on my face, or she was in my head, because she laughed yet again and shook her head. “The reason, Alan, that I chose this body is because you would know what it represented. If I wanted to seduce you, perhaps I could have looked a little more like this?” In some part of my brain, I knew what was coming when she snapped her fingers, but I still couldn’t stop myself from looking. A second’s glance was all I needed to confirm before I tore my eyes away, throwing a hand up to block the vision that was laying on my bed. This new body of hers was not some caricature of fiction, nor was it any woman from my fantasies. No, the flesh she had assumed was one that I was familiar with; I knew every freckle, every scar, every square inch of skin on it.
“It hurts, doesn’t it? Would it make you feel better to know that it was really just a trick all this time? That she was never real?” I thanked whatever god was listening that she had not stolen the voice that belonged to that body; it was the only thing that was letting me keep any sort of sanity. Just seeing it again after having finally settled with myself that it would never happen had hit me like a truck; I would have rather endured her heat and the full force of her laughter than deal with this. This was real emotion; my lust, my love. She was right, too; as much as the idea itself was torture, it would have felt better to know it was all some sort of cosmic prank. I was pretty sure I could live with that, except that it wasn’t true.
“Go back...please.” I could not look at her, could not see her in my bed like that.
“Whatever you say, Alan,” I could hear the glee in her voice at her phrasing, but true to her word, when I looked up, she had gone back to the succubus body. Breathing a sigh of relief, I rested my head back against the door.
“So what part of the guardian angel job descriptions says you’re supposed to torture me?”
“I wouldn’t say there’s much of a description. A few rules, guidelines really, but that’s about it.”
“So, what, this is just how you get your kicks, then?”
“No, Alan, this was to prove a point. You’re a skeptic. You don’t believe in God, or magic, or unicorns, or anything else that you don’t have evidence for. You talk about souls sometimes, but you don’t really believe they exist; you just think they’re some sort of manifestation of your consciousness. If I had just shown up and claimed to be your guardian angel, you’d have freaked out or called the police or your parents or something. And since no one can see or hear me but you, you would have just gotten yourself committed for your trouble. I didn’t want that; it’s dreadfully boring to watch over someone that spends their time in an asylum all day.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but closed it swiftly. I couldn’t deny that she was right on every count; her antics, though brutal, had done exactly what she had intended them to do. I was now willing to believe whatever she told me, within reason, because she had already demonstrated incredible power that no human could wield. The only possible reason other than something supernatural, was that I was under the influence of a powerful psychotic; an option I was not going to reject out of hand, but it was becoming increasingly more unlikely the longer the conversation went on. “Okay, I’m listening. Why are you here? I somehow doubt that angels make regular habits of appearing to their charges. Unless that’s what people mean when they say they can hear God.”
“You’re thinking, and that’s good, but if we’re going to have a relationship, you need to understand that everything you think you know about me is probably wrong.” She was patronizing me, but in a patient way. While I was looking the other way, she had shuffled forward, and was now sitting on the edge of my bed, those impossibly long legs resting on the floor barely a foot away from my own. “First thing to learn is that not everyone has a guardian angel. Some people do, most people don’t. You happened to luck out and now you’ve got me. So don’t think of yourself as special or anything. Sometimes we pick out specific babies, but for the most part, it’s pretty much drawing names out of a hat.” I kept my mouth shut now; I had no idea if any of this was true, but I was going to give her the benefit of the doubt at this point. I really didn’t lose anything by believing her; at least so long as she didn’t tell me I was destined to be the next emperor of the universe or something, and by the sound of it, I was anything but.
“Second, to save us some time later, I’m going to tell you a few rules about our relationship. You like rules, don’t you? Keeps everything organized. Rule one, as I said, no one but you can see or hear me. That’s because I’m not actually here. I’ve made you ‘see’ me, but I can’t actually manifest in your reality. That also means that I can’t physically interact with anything, you included. Kind of kicks the succubus thing in the head, doesn’t it?” The last sentence had been my exact thought, and I was somewhat annoyed that she had stolen it, but still said nothing. She was feeding me information now, and I wanted anything I could get. “You’ll like the other rule. As your angel, I’m bound to obey you. This means that I can’t lie to you, and if you tell me to do something, I have to do it unless it’s beyond my abilities. Isn’t that wonderful?” I could only glare at her. As objectively appealing as the idea might have been, she was playing with my emotions again, and I did not appreciate it. I decided that I might as well test that condition; if I was going to have to deal with her tugging on my heartstrings, I wanted something back.
“Why do you enjoy talking to me like that so much?”
“Alan, Alan, Alan. Aren’t you the same way? Don’t you just love poking at people’s vulnerable spots and watching them squirm? Especially when it’s a mess that they got themselves into despite being warned against it?”
“So this is punishment then?”
The angel grinned, “You can think of it like that if you like.” I was now beginning to see that her inability to lie to me was not as advantageous as it had appeared. She was not, evidently, obligated to give the truth in as much detail as I wanted to hear, if she was really forced not to lie at all. It might very well have been a cunning way to get me to trust what she was saying.
“Oh, come on, Alan, stop being so paranoid. I mean, really, you’ve just found out that you’ve got an angel bound to you for the rest of your life, and you’re sulking because she’s not what you wanted. It’s a little ungrateful if you ask me.”
“I didn’t ask you,” I could feel the anger dam caving in now, and was running out of reasons not to let it loose. “What, exactly, have you done for me lately? Because right now, all having a guardian angel has gotten me are some unpleasant flashbacks and a wet shirt.”
“I’ve been there, you just haven’t noticed me. I was doing my job properly back then. You’re not supposed to suspect that there’s someone watching over you. Kind of ruins the whole thing.” I wanted to ask why she had then shown herself now, but she went on before I could. “Do you remember being a teenager? Remember that night? You were alone, you were bored, and you decided to start a conversation with someone you didn’t know?”
I nodded; even with that vague description, I knew exactly what she was talking about. In many ways, that decision had defined my life from then onwards. She was not done. “Or what about that time that you got between your best friend and the girl he wanted to seduce?” Again, there was no question. Even though that latter case had not worked out as well as I might have liked, it was still doubtless the right thing to have done, and until now, I could not explain why I had had the urge to do it at all. I was beginning to get the picture of exactly where I had felt her presence in my life before. Now, with that, I could ask the next question.
“Why have you shown yourself?”
“Boredom, mostly,” there came the giggling again. “Also politics, but I won’t bore you with those. That is, heavenly politics; I didn’t expose myself so that you could become prime minister.”
“So what good are you then? You can’t interact with anything, so what could I possibly tell you to do anyway?” It was my suspicion that she had hoped I wouldn’t ask that particular question. She was toying with me, giving me the illusion of power over her whilst simultaneously making me feel helpless next to her. I would not give her the satisfaction of wondering what it was I could do.
“Oh, Alan, do you have no imagination? Is all you can think of physical? I mean, I guess I can’t blame you when these knockers are in front of you, but still. I’m disappointed.” She felt herself up again to emphasize the point, but I was beyond caring. For the first time since seeing her, my legs felt strong enough to stand, and so I did, enjoying the fact that I was now taller than she was, sitting on the bed. I didn’t dare attempt to walk, but I at least felt more assertive now.
“You’ve done nothing but screw with my head since you got here; if I can’t think of anything imaginative, I would say that is entirely your fault. Now, answer the question.”
More infernal giggling, complete with the curling of her legs and the wiggling of her arms in delight, preceded her answer. “Oh, I do so love it when you take charge; big, strong, intimidating Alan. What are you going to do if I don’t answer? Spank me?” She rolled over onto her stomach, giving herself a slap on the ass to drive her point further. My bluff thus called, I raised a hand to my face instead, rubbing my palm over my skin in exasperation.
“Unless your intention was to exasperate me to the point of suicide in an attempt to be bound to a new human, I don’t see why you would show yourself to me and not give me a reason to care.”
“Alan, Alan, Alan, I think you may have been a little bit spoiled.” The laughter was gone now, and I felt I must have imagined it, but I detected a note of concern. “What I’m doing, why I’m here, what power you hold over me; I could tell you, but wouldn’t you much rather figure it out for yourself?”
Annoyance flooded over me, another wave in the ocean really, but it was very quickly replaced by something else. She was right, of course, but that was hardly the point. She knew me; knew every thought, every impulse, every secret, and every wild fetish in my mind. Hell, it was probably her fault that some of them were there to begin with. I had been wanting the answers because it seemed as if there was no way for me to figure them out for myself, but that was not true. The fact that she had posed that challenge proved it. It was within my power to find the answers I wanted; I just needed the extra step of finding out how to do that.
Chapter One: Strange Bedfellows
Much is made of the old adage: be careful what you wish for. Countless books and plays and movies have detailed exactly how disastrously things can go wrong when people’s desires are met or exceeded. Yet, we never stop wanting and we never stop wishing. We always think that those disasters couldn’t possibly happen to us, and besides, it’s not like we’re ever going to get what we want anyway. What is the harm in the evil that lurks in our hearts? The harm, it seems, is that we are not alone in this world, and the secrets of our souls are open books to those against whom we have built no defenses.
The first time I saw her (or him, or it, or them) was in my bedroom. I had just come home from work, and was looking forward to taking some time to myself in the evening. I suppose I could have made plans with a friend, but after a long week, all I really wanted to do was lie down. I had just crossed the threshold into my room and was in the process of shrugging my bag off of my shoulder when I saw her. She was lying on my bed for the entire world to see. At first, I thought her a woman, but it was only the reaching of a stunned mind grabbing on the nearest label to hand. She was certainly humanoid in shape; two arms, two legs, a torso and a head where one might have expected one. She had wide hips and narrow legs, each ending in a foot with five little toes. There, however, the similarities ended. Most prominently, her skin was not a shade that any human would have called flesh-colour. It was a brilliantly deep crimson, a luscious red that matched the lipstick of that creepy aunt we all seem to share. Even as I stared at her, my feet stuck to the floor and my arm halfway to lowering my bag to the ground, it seemed to radiate into the air around her, giving her the ripple effect normally associated with intense heat.
Like her skin, her breasts were nothing a human would ever duplicate without extensive surgery. They were so large, I doubted that bra companies had a letter code for her size; I could barely see her stomach underneath them. They were firm and tight, unnaturally so, and my eyes were drawn to the rest of her; even from across the room I could see the toughness of her skin. There was certainly plenty of it to see, as all she was wearing was the flimsiest of white cloths, drawn across where her nipples and pubic regions presumably were. They did not seem to be attached in any way, and were holding in place in utter defiance of the laws of physics.
Her face was where I looked last, but where I lingered longest. It had all of the attributes that I was expecting to see, but still it was not quite right. Her hair, jet black and impossibly shiny, fanned out on the pillow – my pillow – behind her, framing her head perfectly as the tips rested on her shoulders. Her mouth was large, with plush ebony lips, which she licked as I my eyes flicked over them. Her tongue was the same dark colour, nearly invisible against the moist flesh. More than anything else, however, it was her eyes that drew my attention, and cemented in my mind that I was not looking at a human woman. It was not the colour, though the fiery red, brighter than her skin but no less heated, would have been unusual indeed on one of my species. Nor was it the intense look of hunger that lurked behind them; I had seen that before. Nor even was it the lack of whiteness around the edges, replaced instead by utter dark, only bringing out the reds of the irises more. It was her stare. I had felt piercing gazes before, I understood what it was like for someone to look through me. She was not looking through me; she was looking into me. I felt, as my eyes alighted on hers, that she knew the depths of my soul that even I had not dared to plumb. That my every secret, my every indiscretion, my every desire was laid bare before her. That I could sever the connection but it would already be too late. And worst of all, when I tried to look past her eyes, to repay the favour as much as I could; I knew that I was only seeing what she was allowing me to see.
“Hello, Alan.” Her voice shook me back to reality with an audible thud; my arms had gone limp, dropping my bag with my work laptop in it to the floor. My legs wanted to move, to turn, to run, to get away from this thing, whatever it was. They did not. I did not. I could not. I could only keep staring, waiting until my brain caught up with all the information it was being forced to process. I was helpless, paralyzed by my own need to understand and utter inability to do so.
“Oh, good, you’re not running. That will make things easier.” She spoke again, her voice honey in my ears. I could see her sitting ten feet away and yet her words echoed like her chin was on my shoulder and her lips at my earlobe. I felt the most pleasant shudder creep up my spine and then run right back down again. The phrase should have terrified me – did terrify me – but her voice was rooting my feet to the floor. It was all I could do not to beg her to say something, anything, so that I could feel that again.
“What...what are you?” Four words; my brain could manage that much, but no more. She laughed and my knees went weak; I felt like every teenage heroine in every shitty romance novel ever written. Except that this was not love; lust would have been more accurate but still wrong. I didn’t just want her; I could feel her making me want her. She was in my head, playing with my emotions and my body’s reactions like a puppeteer. I took a breath and tried to focus on my anger at how she was toying with me, and then she laughed again and it was gone. I knew I had to be angry, I should have been angry, scared, confused, and upset, but her voice spread over all of those emotions, nullifying them until there was nothing left but desire.
“What do you think I am?” Too late, I realized my mistake in encouraging her to keep talking. Balling my hands into fists at my sides, I tried to breathe, to take advantage of the reprieve that silence brought me. With every ounce of will I had, I forced my eyes to squeeze shut, but God, she was still there. I couldn’t see or hear her, but I could feel the heat radiating off of my bed and her scent filled my nostrils, defying categorization and consuming my thoughts all the more. I had to get control back, and I was pretty sure that started with answering her question and not standing there any longer like a fool.
However, that meant I had to figure out exactly what I thought she was. She wasn’t human, that much was plain, but that left infinite possibilities. In all likelihood, she was something that myth hadn’t thought of yet, but that was all I had to rely on, so I grabbed at the nearest tools to hand. Lust was a fairly common weapon, but one word immediately sprung to mind. “A siren,” I opened my eyes as I spoke, forcing myself to look at her and stand still. True, she was not singing, but that laughter of hers had made me want to do whatever it took to hear it again; that was close enough for me. I got my wish, too, as my answer caused her to curl up into a fit of giggles. The noise washed over me, pushing me backwards into the door. Sweat beaded on my brow as my hand grabbed for the door frame, needing something to hold onto in case my legs decided they were no longer interested in supporting my weight.
“Don’t be silly, Alan,” she was still giggling in between words, and I found myself staring at the ceiling and the walls; anything but make eye contact with her again. “Sirens led men to their doom. I’m here to help you.”
“Help…me?” My breath was laboured now and my weight was almost entirely on the door. If she said another word I was not going to be able to stand any longer. I needed to get away from her and her influence, but my legs did not have the strength to hold me upright, let alone run away. “How is this helping me?”
“Oh this?” Fuck, why did I keep encouraging her to talk? My knees could perform no longer and I slumped to the ground, eyes fixed on the foot of my bed, partially to avoid seeing her, but mostly because my neck lacked the energy to lift my head any higher. I was so hot that I was almost surprised to look at my hands and find them not catching on fire. I could smell her even breathing through my mouth now, and each gasp was more ragged than the last. “No, this is just to show you what I can do; what I can do for you.”
“Could...you...stop?” I was quickly losing the ability to talk. My mouth was dry; my tongue made a valiant effort, but I was losing moisture far too quickly. My shirt was already soaked with my sweat, and it was running down into my eyes from my hair, which was plastered to my head like I had just dunked myself in a lake. I honestly did not know if I was going to be able to stay conscious if this kept up; breathing was becoming a chore, and I had to focus on it to make sure that I didn’t forget to try.
Then, all at once, it was gone. Her voice no longer rang in my head, her scent no longer dominated my air, and the heat was washed away on a breeze from the window. I was still as I had been – a wreck by the door – but now my breathing was becoming steadier, not shakier, and I could raise my head again. I did, and to my relief, when she laughed at my expression, I found that it did not erase all the thoughts in my head. “All you had to do was ask.”
“So, what are you?” Now that I could think again, I could remember that she had not answered the question, and I would be damned if I was going to waste this moment of sanity on recovery. I couldn’t stand, but I could function mentally, and that was really all that was necessary. There was no sense in running from her now.
“I’m your guardian angel, Alan; sworn to watch over you all the days of your life.” I did not know what I had been expecting, but that was definitely not it.
“You’re my what?”
“Your guardian angel,” the response came patiently. “I am in your service from conception until death. I have been at your side for the last twenty-four years. You can think of me as your ethereal butler, if you like; your eternal servant.” The last word stuck in my mind, as she knew it would, I was certain. She had placed the slightest of stresses on it, and like a trained dog, my mind pounced on it. It seemed she was not done with manipulating me, even if she wasn’t being as overt about it now.
“That wasn’t nice. I would have thought an angel would have been a little kinder.” Now that she was not plucking my emotions like harp strings, I could let the anger dominate, and with it came a wave of calmness and clarity. I was riding that perfect crest of balance; just angry enough not to hold back, but not so angry that it washed away all my logic in a sea of blind rage. She laughed again, but I was unfazed this time.
“You’ve got a lot to learn about angels, Alan. Like this body, for instance.” She paused, cupping her breasts in her hands, at least as much as she could. “You like these? Of course you don’t; I’m not your type, am I? But this is what you expected to see when something supernatural shows up in your bed isn’t it? Big tits, a firm ass, long legs. I did get the classic succubus down, didn’t I?”
I followed, and yet I didn’t. If she knew that this body was not appealing to me, why had she chosen it? Either my confusion showed on my face, or she was in my head, because she laughed yet again and shook her head. “The reason, Alan, that I chose this body is because you would know what it represented. If I wanted to seduce you, perhaps I could have looked a little more like this?” In some part of my brain, I knew what was coming when she snapped her fingers, but I still couldn’t stop myself from looking. A second’s glance was all I needed to confirm before I tore my eyes away, throwing a hand up to block the vision that was laying on my bed. This new body of hers was not some caricature of fiction, nor was it any woman from my fantasies. No, the flesh she had assumed was one that I was familiar with; I knew every freckle, every scar, every square inch of skin on it.
“It hurts, doesn’t it? Would it make you feel better to know that it was really just a trick all this time? That she was never real?” I thanked whatever god was listening that she had not stolen the voice that belonged to that body; it was the only thing that was letting me keep any sort of sanity. Just seeing it again after having finally settled with myself that it would never happen had hit me like a truck; I would have rather endured her heat and the full force of her laughter than deal with this. This was real emotion; my lust, my love. She was right, too; as much as the idea itself was torture, it would have felt better to know it was all some sort of cosmic prank. I was pretty sure I could live with that, except that it wasn’t true.
“Go back...please.” I could not look at her, could not see her in my bed like that.
“Whatever you say, Alan,” I could hear the glee in her voice at her phrasing, but true to her word, when I looked up, she had gone back to the succubus body. Breathing a sigh of relief, I rested my head back against the door.
“So what part of the guardian angel job descriptions says you’re supposed to torture me?”
“I wouldn’t say there’s much of a description. A few rules, guidelines really, but that’s about it.”
“So, what, this is just how you get your kicks, then?”
“No, Alan, this was to prove a point. You’re a skeptic. You don’t believe in God, or magic, or unicorns, or anything else that you don’t have evidence for. You talk about souls sometimes, but you don’t really believe they exist; you just think they’re some sort of manifestation of your consciousness. If I had just shown up and claimed to be your guardian angel, you’d have freaked out or called the police or your parents or something. And since no one can see or hear me but you, you would have just gotten yourself committed for your trouble. I didn’t want that; it’s dreadfully boring to watch over someone that spends their time in an asylum all day.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but closed it swiftly. I couldn’t deny that she was right on every count; her antics, though brutal, had done exactly what she had intended them to do. I was now willing to believe whatever she told me, within reason, because she had already demonstrated incredible power that no human could wield. The only possible reason other than something supernatural, was that I was under the influence of a powerful psychotic; an option I was not going to reject out of hand, but it was becoming increasingly more unlikely the longer the conversation went on. “Okay, I’m listening. Why are you here? I somehow doubt that angels make regular habits of appearing to their charges. Unless that’s what people mean when they say they can hear God.”
“You’re thinking, and that’s good, but if we’re going to have a relationship, you need to understand that everything you think you know about me is probably wrong.” She was patronizing me, but in a patient way. While I was looking the other way, she had shuffled forward, and was now sitting on the edge of my bed, those impossibly long legs resting on the floor barely a foot away from my own. “First thing to learn is that not everyone has a guardian angel. Some people do, most people don’t. You happened to luck out and now you’ve got me. So don’t think of yourself as special or anything. Sometimes we pick out specific babies, but for the most part, it’s pretty much drawing names out of a hat.” I kept my mouth shut now; I had no idea if any of this was true, but I was going to give her the benefit of the doubt at this point. I really didn’t lose anything by believing her; at least so long as she didn’t tell me I was destined to be the next emperor of the universe or something, and by the sound of it, I was anything but.
“Second, to save us some time later, I’m going to tell you a few rules about our relationship. You like rules, don’t you? Keeps everything organized. Rule one, as I said, no one but you can see or hear me. That’s because I’m not actually here. I’ve made you ‘see’ me, but I can’t actually manifest in your reality. That also means that I can’t physically interact with anything, you included. Kind of kicks the succubus thing in the head, doesn’t it?” The last sentence had been my exact thought, and I was somewhat annoyed that she had stolen it, but still said nothing. She was feeding me information now, and I wanted anything I could get. “You’ll like the other rule. As your angel, I’m bound to obey you. This means that I can’t lie to you, and if you tell me to do something, I have to do it unless it’s beyond my abilities. Isn’t that wonderful?” I could only glare at her. As objectively appealing as the idea might have been, she was playing with my emotions again, and I did not appreciate it. I decided that I might as well test that condition; if I was going to have to deal with her tugging on my heartstrings, I wanted something back.
“Why do you enjoy talking to me like that so much?”
“Alan, Alan, Alan. Aren’t you the same way? Don’t you just love poking at people’s vulnerable spots and watching them squirm? Especially when it’s a mess that they got themselves into despite being warned against it?”
“So this is punishment then?”
The angel grinned, “You can think of it like that if you like.” I was now beginning to see that her inability to lie to me was not as advantageous as it had appeared. She was not, evidently, obligated to give the truth in as much detail as I wanted to hear, if she was really forced not to lie at all. It might very well have been a cunning way to get me to trust what she was saying.
“Oh, come on, Alan, stop being so paranoid. I mean, really, you’ve just found out that you’ve got an angel bound to you for the rest of your life, and you’re sulking because she’s not what you wanted. It’s a little ungrateful if you ask me.”
“I didn’t ask you,” I could feel the anger dam caving in now, and was running out of reasons not to let it loose. “What, exactly, have you done for me lately? Because right now, all having a guardian angel has gotten me are some unpleasant flashbacks and a wet shirt.”
“I’ve been there, you just haven’t noticed me. I was doing my job properly back then. You’re not supposed to suspect that there’s someone watching over you. Kind of ruins the whole thing.” I wanted to ask why she had then shown herself now, but she went on before I could. “Do you remember being a teenager? Remember that night? You were alone, you were bored, and you decided to start a conversation with someone you didn’t know?”
I nodded; even with that vague description, I knew exactly what she was talking about. In many ways, that decision had defined my life from then onwards. She was not done. “Or what about that time that you got between your best friend and the girl he wanted to seduce?” Again, there was no question. Even though that latter case had not worked out as well as I might have liked, it was still doubtless the right thing to have done, and until now, I could not explain why I had had the urge to do it at all. I was beginning to get the picture of exactly where I had felt her presence in my life before. Now, with that, I could ask the next question.
“Why have you shown yourself?”
“Boredom, mostly,” there came the giggling again. “Also politics, but I won’t bore you with those. That is, heavenly politics; I didn’t expose myself so that you could become prime minister.”
“So what good are you then? You can’t interact with anything, so what could I possibly tell you to do anyway?” It was my suspicion that she had hoped I wouldn’t ask that particular question. She was toying with me, giving me the illusion of power over her whilst simultaneously making me feel helpless next to her. I would not give her the satisfaction of wondering what it was I could do.
“Oh, Alan, do you have no imagination? Is all you can think of physical? I mean, I guess I can’t blame you when these knockers are in front of you, but still. I’m disappointed.” She felt herself up again to emphasize the point, but I was beyond caring. For the first time since seeing her, my legs felt strong enough to stand, and so I did, enjoying the fact that I was now taller than she was, sitting on the bed. I didn’t dare attempt to walk, but I at least felt more assertive now.
“You’ve done nothing but screw with my head since you got here; if I can’t think of anything imaginative, I would say that is entirely your fault. Now, answer the question.”
More infernal giggling, complete with the curling of her legs and the wiggling of her arms in delight, preceded her answer. “Oh, I do so love it when you take charge; big, strong, intimidating Alan. What are you going to do if I don’t answer? Spank me?” She rolled over onto her stomach, giving herself a slap on the ass to drive her point further. My bluff thus called, I raised a hand to my face instead, rubbing my palm over my skin in exasperation.
“Unless your intention was to exasperate me to the point of suicide in an attempt to be bound to a new human, I don’t see why you would show yourself to me and not give me a reason to care.”
“Alan, Alan, Alan, I think you may have been a little bit spoiled.” The laughter was gone now, and I felt I must have imagined it, but I detected a note of concern. “What I’m doing, why I’m here, what power you hold over me; I could tell you, but wouldn’t you much rather figure it out for yourself?”
Annoyance flooded over me, another wave in the ocean really, but it was very quickly replaced by something else. She was right, of course, but that was hardly the point. She knew me; knew every thought, every impulse, every secret, and every wild fetish in my mind. Hell, it was probably her fault that some of them were there to begin with. I had been wanting the answers because it seemed as if there was no way for me to figure them out for myself, but that was not true. The fact that she had posed that challenge proved it. It was within my power to find the answers I wanted; I just needed the extra step of finding out how to do that.