Disclaimer: Imposter syndrome, internalized transphobia, adult language
Beneath the wine cellar near Brooklyn Bridge there was a manor. Bea was not sure how she ended up here but all of Nyssa’s dolls ended up here. And Bea felt a narrow pang as she wanted to be so much more than a doll to the woman that had stolen her away.
Nyssa took good care of her dolls; sometimes she made them dumber or wiser because they asked for it, sometimes she changed their shape to whatever they wished. Sometimes she sobbed by the bridge when no one could hear her alone.
She called her dolls her ladies and she knew all of their names. She took their jealousy from them all and turned it into lust, all of them except for Bea.
Bea had everything she could ever want here and yet it was still not enough. The ennui settled in her stomach and stripped away any desire she had of imagining anything outside of the manor. There were no maids.
Every enby or woman cleaned after themselves, most of them anyways; sometimes there was depression and it settled in the bones like roiling waves. Lilis had mentioned that. But Bea wondered how that was possible when she had everything she could have ever wanted. And yet sometimes she was jealous. Nyssa could pick up on it and it was like a game to her!
Trying to coax it out of her. She wasn’t even sure she liked Nyssa! The sex was good, more than good and she seemed to be enraptured with her, and waited on her hand and feet. Sometimes even worship her like a queen.
And yet it still wasn’t enough. The fact that she wanted too much scared her. And yet she wasn’t even sure what she wanted.
The smell of tobacco-honey spread through the room as Nyssa gave a lazy grin as she stepped through the mirror, knocking Bea’s makeup tablet off of her vanity.
“What the hells?” she seethed. “What in the actual fuck!”
“New trick,” Nyssa waggled her eyebrows. “I can get you a new one.” Powder spread everywhere, all over the carpet.
“That’s not the—” Bea’s heartbeat was certainly tearing its way out of her chest.
Nyssa leaned in close and there was another scent too, thinly masked but still there. Oh how she wanted her.
“Bea, darling Lilith, and Lilith and Emily want to have dinner with me tonight but I want to go out,” the succubus whined. “I want to take you out to sea, no a cruise, and ravish you right on the deck until you can’t see straight. It’s been too long since you’ve been my pet.”
Bea felt a tinge of arousal but bit on her lip.
“I can tell you like that idea. And I so do too. Couldn’t we have a night out?”
“There’s an invitation for you,” Bea choked out. “I think your wanted in the hells.” Bea tried not to look at the low-cut dress or Nyssa’s lovely assets. Goddess sometimes she wished she were that big or even bigger, but she never voiced it. Nyssa would make that a reality in a heartbeat. Maybe for tonight…all boobs no brain…no…stay focused.
Nyssa fluffed her pink hair as those strands fell around the small of her back and then her face twitched. “Who…have you been stealing my mail?”
“You hadn’t opened it, and I thought it was from Selene.”
“You in the habit of opening other people’s mail, Bea. So devious. Perhaps I should punish you for it.” A wicked gleam came into her eye and that thinly layered scent grew thicker. “You’re so delectable,” Nyssa said.
“You say that to all the others?” Nyssa chuckled.
“Can you remove my jealousy, make me lust for them as well.”
Nyssa’s eyes flickered over her. “I could do anything. I could make you emotionally dependent on them, could make it so you can’t stop thinking of them as much as you can’t stop thinking about me.”
Nyssa spread her legs and sat on Bea’s thigh no doubt staining her dress. She found it hard to swallow as she found it very hard to concentrate. Nyssa glanced at her eyes. “I could make you so horny for them, that you entirely stop thinking about ever leaving, but I’ve never done that before. I would never do that.”
Bea wasn’t sure if she believed the succubus, as she cupped her chin, the other hand, she guided to her panties.
“You’re so hot for me, aren’t you Bea?”
“Always,” and a flush crept up her face. “Did you make it that way?”
“Maybe I’m just your type.”
“Definitely,” Bea whined, as Nyssa parted her lips.
“Or maybe,” she whispered and it seemed to take up the entire room. “You’re mine. Smart, girl.”
Nyssa continued to stare into her eyes, pumping her fingers in and out of her and then withdrew them, until Bea suckled her fingers, never breaking eye contact. Nyssa shuddered and Bea realized her tail was buried between her own lips.
“You’re so sexy, Bea,” Nyssa whined. “Let me worship you.”
Bea nodded, still numb as Nyssa removed her slick from Bea’s dress and licked her lips as she kneeled below Bea’s legs. “You have such lovely thighs and even a lovelier pussy.” Nyssa inhaled her scent and Bea’s eyes fluttered. This is not how the conversation was supposed to go but all thoughts left her as Nyssa’s forked tongue began to encircle her clit. Bea let out a moan and Nyssa lapped at a steadier pace, hitting all the good spots. Sweat beaded at her breast as the succubus continued to make eye contact with her. Bea stroked Nyssa’s hair as the succubus lapped at her folds. Barely drawing breath, and then suckling her clit.
“Nyssa—” the words left her.
“Say my name darling.”
And Bea did as the succubus’s name was engraved on her soul, and she shivered as Nyssa held her on the edge. She might have said her name a hundred times and she still didn’t climax. Nyssa chuckled and Bea felt the vibration thrum through her. The warmth pooling in her stomach as she licked faster and faster, and then she heard screaming and realized she was the one when the climax washed over her.
And there was a small refractory period where she could breathe again, before Nyssa continued to lick. And she wondered how it was that she was so wet, so wet for this succubus who would surely suck her soul out from between her legs and act like it was just a casual conversation!
Bea’s thighs trembled as the succubus caressed them with her trail, and then wrapping around her as if to say hey it’s okay, my lovely. You’re okay. That thought alone made her climax once more and then Nyssa licked again and again and again.
Bea was not sure when the last climax broke through her and Nyssa carried her over to her bed. For a second she might have imagined it but they had walked through that mirror, and Nyssa had laid her down, pressing her lips to her forehead, licking away the sweat that was sheened on her neck until she could hardly breathe still thick with the headiness of it all. For a second she wondered if Nyssa could sense it and she would worship her once more, but Nyssa lingered, her pink hair blanketing over her, and like the wind Bea could feel the whispers echoing in her ears, as if to say that will teach you to read my mail.
And then she took a sharp breath, and before Bea could respond, she lazily traced her thumb over her navel. “An invitation it seems. To the hells,” as if reading her mind or seeing what she had stolen. “How fun,” she said without mirth yet still lavishing attention on Bea’s stomach. It was soothing and yet an angry thought tore through Bea’s mind. What happens when I stop being her prized possession. What if she just finds me as another doll. Jealousy, it could be dangerous.
Nyssa pressed her lips to her thighs, still tracing circles around her stomach.
“I don’t want to go on a cruise,” Bea forced out and Nyssa blinked. “I want to go with you. To the hells. To meet your sister.”
“You’ve already met my sister,” Nyssa said, not dismissing her, just absent minded. Her voice cut, but not sharpened.
“I want to meet Lila,” Bea said. “She seems important to you.” Nyssa froze. For a second Bea wondered if she had gone too far.
“It’s Lila’s gala. She’s been…planning it for months. Parties are boring, darling. Crowds are even worse, especially amongst the hells elites. Boom, you’re talking to a drauger and then its jaw falls off and you can’t hear the end of the joke even if it wasn’t a good one to begin with.”
“Nyssa.”
She sighed. “Or worse, you run into an ex and she suddenly wants to wrap you around her even if it reminds you of the good times, but not that good, or your other sister who you left behind. Or maybe you left behind all of them because you fled to a big city and you didn’t know how to fit in so you just—”
“Nyssa.”
“What?”
The succubus barely noticed that Bea had tossed a blanket around her and was borderline swaddling her. “I’m sorry I brought it up. We don’t have to go. I—it was none of my business. I shouldn’t have read that letter.”
Nyssa looked at the blanket swaddling her and then to Bea who she lightly flicked on the nose. “I—” she stared down at her feet. “I must be going. Maybe the cruise will have to be for another night.”
Nyssa flung off the blanket and shut the door; she was still shaking when she left the room, and Bea wondered if she would ever come back.
Bea gave her time, more than enough time. It had been almost a day before she left her room. She crept out into the hall and each door looked like the rest, each hallways the same, elongated and liminal as if it were the Overlook Hotel. She felt silly chasing her through hall after hall, passing door after door, moan after moan. What if Nyssa was in all of them? What if she was only in some of them? Bea tried not to let the jealousy burn through her. If only she had let Nyssa take it away from her.
The moans seemed to grow louder as she rounded the next corridor. How many dolls did Nyssa have? How could she ever be one that stood— a slim girl who was very naked, eating a slice of pie bumped into her as she was rounding and the pie went flying, scattering around the carpet.
She had short hair, nearly a job, and faded blue eyes that searched her. She was so pale she might have been a ghost.
“My pie,” she said.
“It’s my fault,” Bea said picking the remains off the floor as if that would piece it back together.
“No worries! We can get more. I’m—”
“Lilith,” Bea blurted out a guess.
“Ryan,” she bowed, and gave her the you must be new here look even though embarrassingly she had been cooped up in her room for some time.
“Ryan’s a pretty name.”
“Mmhmm. It’s all me!”
“I was trying to find…eh it doesn’t matter.”
Ryan nodded as if understanding her. “I haven’t seen Nyssa either. Sometimes I think we’re too much for her.”
No the Lady, my Lady, mistress. Just Nyssa.
“I could see that.” A lot of moaning.
“Do you want to go grab a drink, maybe some wine. She might be at the bar, you never know.”
Did Bea feel comfortable following this spectre? It was better than standing out here in Hotel California bullshit. “I could use a drink honestly.”
Nyssa was at the bar but she didn’t so much glance at either Ryan nor Bea. Bea tried not to look her way, but she was drinking her usual. Gin and tonic with a spritz of lemon. Bea settled with a long island ice tea and Ryan was sipping on a cuba libre. There was no bartender. Just a sign that said help yourself. It all seemed so vacant, and dull, and Bea wondered if this was why Nyssa had been crying, her knees pressed to her chest.
And Bea stupidly had asked for, no demanded an invitation to her sister’s gala! What a smart move. Maybe she was better off as a brainless bimbo. She seethed as drank faster until she felt a hand on her shoulder.
“It’s not a shot, you can enjoy it,” Ryan said.
“I don’t know what I’m doing. Not sure why I’m here.” Soon I’ll fade into the background. Just like every bit of my life.
“How did you meet Nyssa?” Ryan asked. Yep, this was definitely a cult.
“She snuck into my room while I was trying to break my phone in half. Then she…um… that was that. You?” Bea could not spare the embarrassing details or how Nyssa had leaned into her fetish as if she had known what it was, she wanted right then and there.
“We attended the same art school,” Ryan said. “She was a sculpture and I was jealous of her. I couldn’t keep up so I was wounded when she asked me out. Pity date.”
“No, you’re beautiful,” Bea blurted out. Fucking impulse control, and the alcohol was certainly NOT helping. And Bea realized she had said the wrong thing as the artist shrunk into herself. “I’m not. But I could never keep up. She just never looked beyond skin deep, or so I thought. Thought she would sculpt me you know generically, not to sound rude, but she didn’t…treated me like I was hers, like she was interested in knowing me. And I wanted to like her, I really did. She even offered to change my sexuality,” Ryan snorted. “And I’ve dated a lot of shitty men, not always bad ones, and I couldn’t get myself to change for her. Too stubborn.” Ryan put a hand on hers. “I’m sorry, I’m being too forward. We only just met.”
“Then why stay?”
Ryan drank deeper from her glass, parsing her lips. “I saw the way she loved her girls. I think I wanted to be a part of that.”
“Did you she…rob you of your jealousy?”
“What? No,” Ryan snorted. “My talent is my own. I’m less insecure about it, but I would never ask her to take that from me. It’s mine. And if I’m not jealous how could I not paint out of spite.”
She wasn’t a sculptor.
“Does being here help you paint?” Being all cooped up.
“I paint all of Nyssa’s girls. Relax it’s not the Titanic.” She nudged me slightly. “And you’re not much different.”
“Rude.”
“No…I didn’t mean it like that. It’s just you’re just as nervous as the rest of them.”
“I’m not sure I feel comfortable being part of a harem.” Bea said. “It’s so odd. Half of me think it’s a cult and the other half thinks I’m not meant to be here. And a small part of me,” and Ryan eyed me eagerly. “That I want to steal her away from here.”
Ryan sighed. “She would never agree to it.”
“I know. I’m just not sure this is where I’m supposed to be. It all feels a bit too aimless if you ask me.”
Ryan nodded.
“But I don’t want to lose her. I’m afraid if I walked out that door, she wouldn’t even blink. She would just let me go.”
“And you wouldn’t be the first.”
“Why did that sound like a threat.”
“I didn’t mean it like that! It’s…I can feel it’s weighing on you. And even if you walked out that door, maybe she would follow.”
“Maybe.”
Bea retired to her bed chambers, shrinking underneath the covers and wondered how long she had been here. The nightmares reminded her that this still was not her home.
At least she no longer had her phone. Goddess she wanted Nyssa to come knock on her door and slide under the covers with her. Maybe if she went into the hells Nyssa would chase her. Oh how she needed to the get the succubus off her mind before she ended up in her dreams. She stared at the spot where the powder had spread all over the floor and she realized she had never gotten her pie.
Her dreams were not plagued by the succubus slipping beneath her sheets, undressing her and having her way with her, but of herself, in her old body running away down those endless halls, her movements growing sluggish as her body no longer was her own. She tried to slip into one of the doors but something was chasing her, something she knew she shouldn’t turn around to face.
And yet her movements were growing slower and slower until the hallways wrapped around her like a lamia’s tale and sucked her down beneath the carpet threads, suffocating her until she could barely breathe. Only to see Nyssa looking down on her. How her roommates had survived her whimpers when she woke, sweat ladened and screaming, she swore that a pair of lilac eyes were looking down on her from the ceiling and blinked again when it was the tapestry of stars Nyssa had put up for her.
She groaned and turned over checking her hands first, her thighs, breasts and then between her legs. Still there. Still there. She breathed heavily as bottom dysphoria crept up so much into her throat that she dug her fingernails into the sheets. Crying.
She didn’t even bother doing her makeup as she kicked her makeup pallet aside letting more of the powder stain the carpet. Looking how she felt was important. Especially when she was left a mess.
She tumbled out of bed, with only a sheet wrapped around her, the same sheet she had swaddled Nyssa with and stumbled out into the hall, nearly as naked as Ryan had been. Her eyes red, her hair all over the place, and a hint of peach fuzz under her lip, she must have looked like a bog witch and she reveled in it.
She was not going to be another one of Nyssa’s dolls. Yep, she was going to be the pinnacle of womanhood.
She sat alone after ordering a fried egg, hash browns and toast. She sat at the back of the room, away from Nyssa’s gaze, eating in silence until Ryan, this time clothed and two other women sat next to her.
“I’m Pamela,” the curly haired one stretched out her hand and Bea took it. “Ryan has talked my ear off about you. Bea right?”
Bea wrapped the blanket tighter around her, while the other woman who looked like a stereotypical ‘mean girl’ eyed her over. Fake lashes (not that, that was a bad thing. Bea was insanely jealous). Not ‘mean girl’ she shrugged the stereotype. “Put together to a ‘t’ And those nails. Done with small flowers, red and sharp. They almost looked metaliic.
“Rachel,” she said, as she removed her head, and plopped a strand of bacon in it. Dullahan. Cool. The head stared up at her, and then blew a strand out of her face. “You have pretty eyes.”
Bea blushed.
“From one blonde to another.”
Was it still blonde? Bea could scarecely remember her old hair color.
And then she stood. She didn’t care if she was making a scene, but just the thought tore through her. She strode up to Nyssa, and hissed. “Change it back.”
Nyssa barely looked at her.
“Change my hair color back, Nyssa.”
The girls, there were so many turned and stared. It was as if they were on an assembly line, and she hated how that thought bombarded her, swept through her, and suddenly intense fear overtook her, and she bolted away, the blanket caught around her legs and she fell. And Nyssa was there to catch her.
Bea shook her off, shaking. “Don’t. Please. Just don’t.”
And she fled the hall, leaving the blanket on the ground, unsure of where she was going or where, but she had to get out.
And Nyssa would let her go. She would just be one of her discarded dolls. Tears started to enter her eye and she was at the door. She pushed through and Nyssa was there.
“Don’t.” Her voice was raw, nearly wrecked. “Don’t,” she repeated, pleading. “Stay.”
“Come with me.”
“I…can’t.”
“Take away my jealousy.” Bea stamped her foot. “Make me one of them. Make me vacant, and…” She did not care how childish she sounded, how insufferable, no this was her fighting for herself.
“I won’t….and they are not vacant either.”
Nyssa’s hands were around her shoulders, not worry in her eyes but fear, no Nyssa was terrified. Terrified of her leaving her. And for a second Bea wanted to see what she would be like if she left, if she went through those doors. What Nyssa would do, and then she shrank into herself. She wasn’t that girl. She couldn’t do that to Nyssa, and she fell into Nyssa’s arms clinging to her. No tears. Just anger at herself, for not being able to walk out those doors. To let go, and Bea was extraordinarily bad at letting go. She’d begged her dad to stuff her hamster when it had passed. Her first relationship she still kept all of her cds including their mix tape with Britney on it, the ones that they had made fun of together, and then cried together about later. Her best friend who never talked to her again, and made it clear that she couldn’t accept her ‘lifestyle’ and yet she still stared at her phone (at least when she had it) months after she stopped talking to her. Bea was bad at letting go and she couldn’t let go of Nyssa.
In a perfect world Nyssa might have swept her off her feet and princess carried her out that door. Instead, Nyssa gave her a kiss on the cheek, and whispered. “Stay.” As if that trick had worked a hundred times or more. In an instant Nyssa pulled the blanket around her, held her hand and stepped through the door with her.
Instead of heading towards the cistern, she passed through the walls, Bea in toll until they reached a garden. Nyssa guided her to a bench where she rested Bea’s head on her lap, stroking her hair.
“What’s on your mind, Beatrice.”
She could not remember the last time she had heard her name on her lips. Had it been days, months? That she had not felt like a possession, or maybe she was likely most definitely overthinking it again. And so Bea sighed and told her everything and hoped Nyssa heard it all. And Nyssa listened to every word, murmuring into her ear that if she needed to go, she could, but she was well aware that it would destroy Nyssa.
Finally, Nyssa spoke.
“I can’t take you with me to the hells. I…they would tear you apart. OR worse take you away from me. And I could not live with that. They do not see humans as equals, but as a taint on our world. But not all humans are like the ones they’ve met. Not that it matters. I want to take you. I could risk disguising you. But it would have to be perfect.” And there was that raw emotion that she had never heard from her lover, almost as if she was afraid of showing it. “Beatrice, I can’t lose you. I can’t. I won’t. Nor will I ever change you. You are perfect in my eyes.”
Beatrice shut her eyes as the succubus stroked her hair, and Bea felt like she could stay forever like this.
“I can’t go back in there, Nyssa. It’s….suffocating. I don’t feel like a person in there.”
“But the girls are so nice,” Nyssa pouted. She sighed. “I understand. I can get you an apartment close to the manor. Or a boat.”
“A boat.”
“A luxury boat for my darling.”
“Nothing too fancy. I…if I were to go back with you. Could I be closer to you.”
Nyssa let out a chuckle. “Does my Beatrice, want to share a room with me? I thought you said it was suffocating.”
“It is…I don’t have the answer, Nyssa. I want to be closer to you, but I know you spend your time where you will and I don’t want to interfere.”
Nyssa snorted. “You’re never interfering. You know, most girls after a few months find their polycule but if that isn’t for you, then…”
“You’ll never choose me over everyone though.”
“It’s not in my nature. I know that sounds harsh, but I can’t be exclusive.”
Bea looked at the atrium above her and the curling vines. Could she live with that? Non-monogamy. She had never tried it before, but Nyssa, oh Nyssa was different. And going back in there, made her stomach clench. For a second Bea imagined herself with Ryan and Nyssa. How would that look? And yet it was stupid. She hardly knew Ryan. Had only spoken to her for a day. And the Dullahan was cool, but…she sighed, rubbing her temples. Nyssa caught her hand and kissed it.
“When you cry out for me I will come no matter what.”
“You didn’t. Promise no matter how angry you are with me, you’ll never give me the cold shoulder like that again.”
“I was never angry with you, Beatrice. I was angry with myself. Angry that I can’t give you what you want.”
“So you thought iceing me out would what convince me to leave.”
“No, never.” And her hand halted. “I was…scared. It sounds stupid, but I was terrified. Of not knowing how to tell you all these things, and yet I should have gone to you…I should have gone.”
Bea kissed Nyssa’s hand as it skimmed her cheek.
“You were afraid of me?”
“Afraid I would mess everything up, but I just made things worse.”
Bea pushed her head against Nyssa’s stomach.
“Then we’ll have to work on that. I’m just as guilty if not more. I’m a terrible communicator.”
Nyssa sighed, and Bea swore she could almost hear her heartbeat. Smooth, slow, calming.
“Okay, Bea. Okay. We’ll work on it.”
Nyssa grabbed her hand, her nails curling around her as if she could shelter her from her own thoughts. "My Beatrice."