OK, it might not have been the solar plexus. It was definitely that place just a fist-length below the curve of the ribcage (the sternum?) where if you’re hit hard, you feel like the breath is knocked out of you. I read it in a book. (And it makes me ask, is there a lunar plexus? Yes, these kinds of questions are what give me time to shake off the weirdness of wherever I am. It’s a defense mechanism that might just save my life someday.)

Pants. Shoes. Milk, bread, butter, and kicking the fellow in the eggs. Demon in the generating sacs. Something like that.

Look, when something wears a human form, it’s for a reason. It doesn’t have to look human if it’s aetheric. The incubus is generally the mature form of the succubus, meaning it has taken in reproductive fluids and turned them demonic to share with its hosts. (I’ve heard it’s a little more complicated than that, but I’m not a demonologist. I think you have to have an act of will and a level of ability for the magical conception to take place, but for all I know, it has something to do with DemoNA.)

So even though it hurt me to do, one square kick in the seat of where it should have been wearing pants was a possibility. And it’s hitting the beast where it hurts twice; once because, duh, and the second because if it was doing its job, I couldn’t have done that. Maggie and its ensnared should protect it at the very least.

Look, yes, I needed to get laid. Badly. I wasn’t really caring by who or what, but the -cubi didn’t have to get my ex- involved. My most recent reminder of why the bed was so cold and empty at night. I wasn’t horny, I was mad.

Lonely.

Whatever.

Bleepin’ demons.

[OK, in some alternate world I shoved Maggie out of the way and was the one insisting on taking the taste of him. She then does what I just did, glares the succubus down with Real Human Woman Sex Appeal, and tah-dah, saves the day. This is not the yaoi you are looking for.]

The creature made a noise of pain, and Maggie smiled. Sadist. She put her hands on its swollen member and then began to twist in a way that looked singularly uncomfortable. “Remember why we’re here?” she said in such a normal voice that it was a hundred times more effective than a shout.

Not to mention, I wasn’t going to watch. My residual desire shrieked and curled up on the inside saying, “Don’t let her touch me!”

Meanwhile, those around us were jolted slightly as the incubus suffered pain. See, endorphins work both ways, but -cubi don’t. You have to work at endorphins, and desire doesn’t want to be continually bombarded with nerve signals that say, “Ow. Ow. OWWWW.” You can push pain into pleasure, but it can also stay pain.

And pain can ruin the mood.

I began a chant of opening, as I casually started looking for my shoes and stepping on people’s toes and fingers. If we made it a good opportunity to go home, here as the night becomes darker, they might run for it. The demons, that is. I turned up lights. I hit the beeping thing on an alarm clock I found. I opened windows. I switched a radio up as loud as it went and made it mostly static.

What once was impressive was becoming pitiful. Here’s a cheap shot at the ex- I’ll skip because while she took things directly in hand (so to speak) she had let me lead. She trusted me to fix this.

I nudged the succubus who was trying to keep the interest going, while the humans were passing out, no longer possessed to test the limits of their indulgence. I mean, endurance. She gave me a little hip roll and an expression of hopefulness. I remembered not to focus on her too much for fear she’d become more than she was. A fantasy.

I shook my head. Return temptress to whence you came. Get thee behind me and don’t let the metaphysical door hit you on the way out.

They began to fade, just as my fear started to reach me. In the light, they looked so sad.

Maggie found her pants. Maybe they weren’t the only things looking sad.

“You know,” I mentioned off-handedly, “they really messed these people up.”

Maggie shook her head. “Get out.” She started closing the windows and turning off the radio that had me on edge.

I found my shoes. “You mean you’re going to do something definitely gray edging to black to make it all better? Ends justify the means?”

She sighed. “What do you want me to say?”

“I think I just said it.” No, I wouldn’t want to wake up naked, covered with sex, not understanding, not knowing.

“Close the door on your way out.”

“I’ll wait in the car,” I offered. But yes, I closed the door. Lots of them.

I hope she planted in some suggestions of getting tested for STDs. I worried too much. I was too responsible. I was way too grown up. And tired. And if she drove me home, she might still take me to bed and tuck a blanket under my chin.

But I knew something was going to come of this, pun unavoidable. A hostile environment is not the same as an exorcism. I didn’t actually know if Maggie could pull off this much of a jedi mind trick. I still had questions, like who was the one with the kind of focus to bring not just one, but two formed entities?

I still had stupid feelings about my ex-girlfriend that this wasn’t going to make easier to get over. Stupid feelings. Bleepin’ demons.

Long night. I almost felt safe enough to fall asleep in the car.