There is no mistaking that short blue hair.
I'm frozen in place, not sure what to do or say. My delusion is driving my car. She pats the passenger seat, but I turn to see the nurse that'd wheeled me out is staring at her.
"You see her too?" I ask, almost afraid of the answer.
"Man, if that's your girl, you're one lucky bastard!"
I have my answer.
I have to use a crutch to make it to the car, and it takes me a second to get the thing into my cramped little car. I take a deep breath, before slipping onto the passenger seat, and closing my door.
"I don't think we've been properly introduced," she tells me in her soft voice. She sticks a slender hand in front of me and says, "My name is Angela, and I'm a succubus."
Okay, so I know that I really probably shouldn't do it, but I can't help myself. I burst out laughing. It feels so good to laugh after so long, and I laugh at just having the pleasant feeling of laughing. It takes me a couple minutes to calm down and quit laughing. I even have to wipe tears out of my eyes to clear them, and there is a new pain in my side from laughing so hard. The laughter dies, though, as I turn back to her.
She is deadly serious. I don't mean that she was serious in a stern sort of way, oh no! I mean, there are real flames burning behind her hazel eyes. I can actually feel the heat washing over me, and I notice that she's not watching the road, but easily swerves around a car going slow in the fast lane. Actually, as I glance at the speedometer, I see she's got the needle buried. I didn't even know the Orange Bubble could go this fast.
"Okay, okay, you're a succubus. I'm sorry for laughing," I try to backpedal. "I thought you all had bat wings, and sucked the life out of people when you had sex with them?"
The fires in her wide eyes dim slightly, and then vanish as she blinks. "I thought my wings might scare you. . . again," she smiles at me, but it doesn't quite touch her eyes. "As far as the sex, it really is our choice. Personally, I prefer to help people out when I can, giving them fantasies, or even healing their injuries." She gives me a serious look. "That's why you healed so quickly. My talents aren't as strong while in your dreams, but now that you've been released. . ." She lets that hang in air, and this time the look of lust in her eyes is genuine and strong. Despite my growing concern with my own sanity, there is a corresponding, growing bulge in my pants.
"Wha—what do you want from me?" I ask, picturing myself as a dried up husk, with only my manhood still alive.
She still hasn't looked at the road, as she contemplates my question.
"You pique my curiosity," she tells me, and then finally looks at the road. I do to, and realize that I have no idea where we are. Tall buildings surround us, and it looks like we're downtown, but that's almost an hour's drive away from the hospital. She slows and pulls into a parking garage, and then moves my car into a stall marked 'Reserved.'
I get ready to bolt, picturing this gorgeous, punked out babe screwing me to death, and while that sounds like a fine way to go, I'm not ready to go.
"Would you relax?" she demands. "If I'd wanted you dead, I would have let you die in that accident, instead of spending a shit-ton of energy keeping you alive." I look back at her, and feel myself getting drawn in by her eyes, but shake myself, and look away. "Alright, here's the deal. You can see and hear me, when no one else can, and when I don't want you to. When no one should be able to see or hear me. I don't understand why, or even how, but I'm curious. You're a mystery to me, and I love mysteries. After being alive for over 400 years, it's nice to come across something that I don't understand."
"F-four hundred?" I sputter.
"Yeah, I know. I'm still really young by succubae standards." Really young? "Besides, as I'd told you earlier, I like to help people, and you looked like you were really hating your life behind that desk. Also, I really do think you're kinda cute. Especially now that we got rid of your glasses."
My glasses? Reaching up to my nose, I realize my face is naked. Not only that, but I'm seeing perfectly fine. Nothing is blurry. In fact, everything looks sharper and more defined than it was with my glasses. When did I. . .? Thinking back, I don't remember having them since after the accident. I've been able to see just fine, and somehow never noticed their lack.
"Did you. . .?"
"Of course," she replies, as though it's a foolish question. "I can't be seen in the company of someone with such an obvious physical flaw."
"Seen in. . ." For some reason, I have a hard time finishing sentences. I'm not sure when it happened, but at some point I've decided not to flee. "I thought you were invisible to other people." No, that can't be right. The nurse at the hospital had seen her. "Or, you can be seen when you want to be."
She nods and gets out of the car. Stunned at the direction my life has suddenly turned; I get out of the other side, and pull out my crutch. I don't notice my keys flying at me, until they hit my face.
Bending over to pick them up, I catch a glance at the underside of the Orange Bubble, and gasp. The usual series of pipes, cables, and shocks are gone, replaced with a single, smooth plate of metal. What happened to my car?
Standing back up, with keys in hand, I look at Angela, to my car, and back again.
"Oh yeah. Do you like?" She nearly bounces as she asks me that, and starts walking towards a doorway close to her parking spot. Sometimes she really does act like a twenty year old girl, rather than a four-hundred year old succubus. "It was completely totaled after you ran it into that light pole, but I got a couple of Cyclops buddies of mine to work on it, and now it's better than new.
I had started to follow her, but when she mentions 'Cyclops' I freeze. "Cyclops?" Will I ever stop getting surprised by things? What kind of world have I stumbled into?
Angela only laughs, as she steps lightly through the door, and I have to hobble to catch up. I meet back up with her in time to enter an elevator, and she slides a keycard into a slot, and the elevator starts up on its own.
"Do you live here?" I ask, as the metal box seems to keep climbing forever.
"In the building? No." There is a strange look in her eyes, and I decide not to ask further questions.
When the doors finally open, I follow her out, and once again, I'm confronted by something my mind doesn't want to accept.
For as far as I can see, there are fields of flowers and grass, and even an orchard off in the distance. I turn around just in time to see the bark of a massive oak tree knit itself back together.
"Where are the buildings?" I ask, and even I can hear the edge of insanity as it starts to creep into my voice.
"This is where I live," she tells me easily, then takes my free hand, and I use my crutch with the other to walk beside her. I notice the same scent of vanilla and flowers in the air, which I'd noticed on her in the hospital.
Looking over to the young woman with the blue hair and punk clothes--this time it's a blue or purple slashed summer dress that barely covers her hips--I can't see this being where she lives. It just doesn't match her. "A punk girl like you, lives in a field of flowers?"
She laughs happily, and I notice a tension that had been in her before is now gone. She seems happier and a lot more relaxed. "I can look like anything I want to. When you first saw me, I'd decided to take on the appearance of that old man's fantasy. Even I've forgotten what I looked like when I was still mortal."
There's so much there, that I don't know where to start. Thomas had been having a fantasy about a punk girl? She can see our fantasies? Okay, that one's a dumb question; she's a succubus after all, didn't she say she can create fantasies? When she was mortal?
"You weren't born as a succubus?" I ask in awe.
Her eyes sparkle as she turns and smiles at me. "So, you finally begin to believe me?"
I nod. "Yeah, it's kind of hard not to anymore."
She suddenly moves very close to me, and I feel the lightest touch of her lips on mine; before she pulls away, laughing and even dancing through the flowers.
My lips tingle from where she'd barely kissed me, and I bring my hand up to touch the spot. I chase after her as best as I can, my crutch slowing me down.
I finally reach her, as she is lying under the shade of a weeping willow.
"Isn't it always grand to come home after a long time away?" she asks me as I loom over her.
"How long have you been gone?" I ask.
"Since the day you saw me. I couldn't leave you as things were. And like I said, I like a mystery." She reaches a hand up to me, and I take it, as she pulls me down.
Lying next to her, I can feel her warmth, and her pleasant scent fills my nose.
"Taking care of me really wore you out, didn't it?" I ask her, but already know the answer.
"Yes. There are only two ways to recoup the energy. One is to come here, but time acts funny when here. The other way is obviously sex."
"Obviously? Right, because of the whole succubus thing." I say. I snort a quick laugh before I ask, "I don't even feel funny asking you this, but you really did visit me in my dreams, didn't you?"
"I already told you I did. That was how I was able to transfer enough energy to you, to allow you to heal quickly and fix your eyesight." She gives my hand another squeeze, before she adds, "And other than the energy drain, it really was no hardship."
I smile at the compliment, and I don't know if it's the atmosphere of the place, her presence, or what, but the question is out of my mouth before I can think better of it.
"What about sex while you're here?"