Disclaimer: Mild transphobia
Amelia heard soft snoring and realized she was still being held. Selene pressed up against her, holding her, tracing her fingers across her stomach. And was that a tail that snaked around her thigh? It pulsed against her skin, a trail of slow warmth rising in her stomach. She might have moved, but Selene’s leg was entangled within her own. Selene stirred as she mumbled, and leaned back with a sigh, her tail wrapped around her. In bed with a woman she barely knew. She gritted her teeth and tried to sit up but that tail was preventing her. I wonder. Her fingers traced over the tail, wondering what it would be like to…to…she yelped as it wrapped around her and pulled her back into Selene’s arms. Great. Looks like I’m not getting out anytime soon. She sighed and Selene’s own echoed hers, as she closed her eyes and tried to sleep.
When she was sixteen, she tried to take home a stray cat who would not stop crying out in the middle of the night. She couldn’t remember all the details but she remembered telling her therapist that her neighbor was going to shoot the thing and her mother was all for it. Every night for the next three weeks (might have three-and-a-half) she had gone outside. At first, it was her mother’s jewelry. Anything glimmering or shimmery that might attract the attention of her tiny yet demon-screaming nightly visitor.
Silver earrings, rhinestone hoops, and jelly bracelets. Then it was the neighbor’s windchimes whom the neighbor blamed on the cat, and finally it was the Swarovski frame that her mother kept with a picture of her best friend from college. Amelia upon removing the picture, had realized a letter well…it might have been a letter had been tucked behind the picture. It was scrawled so quickly it could barely be made out and there were no hearts but her mother’s birth stone tucked within it. And she thought she had been clever when she had slipped it back in, after the cat eventually left (the cat had definitely left), but she had caught her mother crying herself to sleep one too many times, the picture frame empty in the hallway, her mother with the letter on her desk next to a wedding invitation, and her birthstone on the nightstand.
Later Amelia would use this story to her advantage, say that this was a sign –her mother’s unrequited love with her college roommate had made her realize that it was never too late to come out. That in recognizing her mother’s pain should have emerged that slow realization that she could be an out and proud woman herself. Of course her mother not ready to navigate the landscape of being an out and proud gay woman (her therapist liked when she listened), reminded her that it was never too late to be herself. But that wasn’t entirely the truth (at least what the therapist wanted to hear—something about being born in the wrong body and how since she was a child she somehow recognized a term for herself that wouldn’t come into being years later), but you had to pretend to an extent that you had always known otherwise you weren’t going to fit the script, probably not going to get on those hormones, Fem-n-Ms, titty skittles, or the one that made Amelia gag Her/She’s kisses. Still, she found it odd that her therapist expected her to recognized the language for a deep and unsettling pain that would define your entire existence and sit in your stomach, telling you that a lot of things were wrong when it was perfectly okay and your feelings in wanting to be a girl (that pounded away in your ear sockets till you couldn’t forget them) weren’t just a pipe dream, weren’t wrong, were pretty common with some people experiencing the same things as you—and all those things that should have made you realize you could transition were nudging at you, like a cat eager to be fed. The therapist didn’t like that part, only the prewritten script. Neither did the cat.
Amelia let the water trickle around her, hoping the water was loud enough. Maybe she’ll take it as a sign to leave. She took care to clean out the hair trap. Her ex never wanted to get near it, but it wasn’t too bad. A little messy, but always quick. Enough to distract herself that there was a woman with horns that had stayed the night, not slipping out in the middle of the night or early in the morning, not asking where she kept the key so they could lock the door behind them (that happened more than a few times. Yes it didn’t make sense) and a few who tried to go out through the window thinking that every building in New York had a fire escape. How in the fuck had Selene gone in through her window. She disentangled her hair—that part took forever—and wondered how she would spend the rest of her day without her. What if she stayed. A small voice pressed at her, different from her dysphoria that was equally spitting in her ear you’re not enough to have her stay. She’ll just go back out the window, and you’ll never have to see her again.
Her fingers pressed into her wrist, as she tried to anchor herself, breathing slowly. Then why did you go looking for her. “I take and I give,” she remembered Selene’s words, as she opened the door, towel wrapped around her. Preparing, no needing that window to be open.
She had stayed. Selene tried to avert her eyes, a slow blush captured on her cheeks. Her hair messy. Gone were her horns and tail. Amelia tried to look away also, a heat building in her stomach, her face flushed as she imagined herself under Selene, coaxing murmuring as she teased her entrance with that lovely tail of hers. I need air.
Selene held back a blanket and it took everything not to climb in next to her.
“I’m not going to be your next meal, since you obviously think you can take and give whatever that means.” What the fuck, Amelia. One, she didn’t mean to come off like that, and two she didn’t care if the bar was low. The last girl that had visited had left because she had expected her to top. “Let me rephrase. I don’t care that you’re feeding on me. You made that very clear that I was an easy target, but can I at least eat first before you get your fill.”
The succubus pouted. Actually pouted. Dimples peaking out. Eyebrows slightly narrowed. A bit of a grin on her face. How can someone so dangerous be so irresistible. Amelia thought she might lecture her, tell her that she had low self-worth or that she was being careless. Some older girls were like that, telling her to be careful trying to be motherly and still wanting to fuck her.
“Fair enough,” the succubus pouted and then parted her lips with her tail, patting the bed once more. “I won’t stop you.”
Amelia rolled her eyes, but dropped the towel, wondering why a succubus didn’t shave.