v2 CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: (18+) In which moments of solitude effect long-delayed releases.

As the train stopped and the doors opened, Bernard pressed her hands between his, clasping them in friendship. “Thank you Una, or whoever you are, for reminding an old man of something he knew already, but needed to be told.” Then he patted Paisley on the shoulder and stepped off the train.

Before the doors closed, an angry yell came from the other end of the car. “You fucking freaks! You’re all demon-loving traitors!” Ronnie leaned in the door, preventing it from closing. “Wait until that demon bitch sucks your souls out! I bet you’ll be sorry then!” He laughed, and spat in Paisley’s direction, before the doors slid shut. The train jerked into motion, and Ronnie disappeared, replaced by the lights of the tunnel rushing by.

Una sat back next to Paisley, feeling even more exhausted than before. “Thanks for everything.”

“You all right, lil demon?” The orc glanced over at her without turning their head.

She smirked. “In these boots I’m taller than you, Paisley.” She paused for a moment, thinking. “I’m fine, just drained. And I really want a cigarette, which is strange considering I’ve never smoked in my life.” She hesitated. “Well, not in my life. It’s hard to explain.”

Paisley nodded. “I get it. But you’re going to be okay. You handled yourself very well; that was some speech at the end. You, uh... throw some magic in there?”

Una blinked. “I didn’t think so, but maybe it’s possible? I don’t have full control of my powers yet.” She tried to remember; she’d just wanted to speak a few words of comfort, but almost shifted to automatic, unconscious of her words or the force she might have put behind them.

Before Paisley could respond, an anxious-looking woman in a black suit and a ponytail raised a finger and approach their bench.

“Do you need me to contact... the police?” She pointed at her phone, speaking with exaggerated slowness. “I’m getting off at the next stop and can call them!” Una stared at the lady—obviously well-meaning, but she seemed to think the demon and the orc in front of her couldn’t speak English.

“That’s quite all right, ma’am,” Paisley replied, affecting a posh accent. “Everything seems to have been handled without incident.” The orc turned to Una. “Perhaps it’s prudent to put this whole matter behind us. What say you, Lady Una?”

Lady Una nodded. “Just as you say, Duchess.” The businesswoman looked at them with confusion, but then the younger woman who’d brandished the camera leaned in, her long braids swinging.

“Do you need me to send you the recording? I got the whole thing! Like, if you need evidence?” She looked to be barely out of her teens, and her demeanor had shifted noticeably from a stern scowl to an excited grin.

Una shook her head. “No, that’s not necessary. Thank you, though.” She paused. “And thank you for making it clear you were recording. I think it made a difference.”

The young woman nodded happily. “Hey do you care if I put it online? The whole thing was kind of... epic, I think!” Una and Paisley looked at each other, and the girl sighed in resignation. “Fine, I know... privacy and all that.”

Before she realized it, they’d arrived at her stop. To her surprise, Paisley also got off the train, slinging the bass drum case easily over one shoulder. Outside, they found the silence that settles over even the largest cities late at night, with just a few cars humming along the wide avenue next to them.

“Which direction are you headed?” the orc asked. “I’m walking north.”

Una looked at Paisley and shrugged. “Opposite direction, I’m afraid. I live in a former factory closer to the park.”

Paisley raised an eyebrow. “Sure you’re all right after what happened? You’re welcome to come to my place. The crew won’t mind someone crashing on the couch.”

Una smiled. “Thanks, but I’ll be fine. And I kind of want to sleep in my own bed. No, I really want to. I’ve been away for a while.”

“I hear that. Look, you did well tonight. I don’t know if you’ve ever dealt with that kind of crap before, but you seemed to handle it with grace.” Paisley grinned. “Do demons have grace?”

“Something like it, at least.” Una tilted her head, regarding them. “Suppose I can tell you I haven’t looked like this very long. I’m not used to being... so noticeable.”

Paisley nodded. “Harassment comes with the territory, green skin or red. I mean, I’m an orc. Most of the locals here don’t want to mess with us. But even where I come from, there’s always someone wants to pick a fight. We just have to stand together and keep walking.”

“Thanks for the advice,” Una said. “It helps just to know I’m not the only one dealing with this.”

“Listen.” The orc regarded her seriously. “You can’t hide that skin, but you might want to cover up a bit more if you don’t want to attract attention. Sleeves, sunglasses, a hat? I mean, don’t look like a revenant trying to hide decomposing limbs, or anything like that, but... do you get my drift?”

Una nodded. “I think so. You want me to dress more modestly, like a good girl.” She batted her eyelashes and put the tip of one finger in her mouth. “I’m sorry, Paisley.”

The orc threw up their hands in protest. “No—no, that’s not what I meant at all! You should still--” and then Una laughed and punched them playfully in the shoulder.

“Gotcha! Believe me, I understand. I went to the drugstore last night wearing a trench coat and an enormous sun hat.” She sighed. “I didn’t think I’d have to take public transit today.”

Paisley shook their head with a grin. “You had me going there, succubus. Listen, you’ve got my number. Call me sometime when you’ve got your phone back, or catch one of our shows!”

Una felt a genuine surge of warmth for the orc. “I will. Soon. Until then... I’ll do my best to blend in?” She waved and headed south.

“Never stop being who you are, Una!” Paisley called after her, then set off in the opposite direction, singing phrases from “Ballroom Blitz,” slightly off-key. “And the man in the back is ready to crack as he raises his hands to the sky; and the girl in the corner...”

Una walked fast, and without incident; she crossed wide Atlantic Avenue and walked west towards Prospect Park. Before long, she caught sight of the disused factory where she’d stayed in the weeks just before her former employers at the Catholic Church wrecked her life. The loft was on the third floor of a four-story brick building, with a warehouse space and a garage entrance on the ground floor. Una stepped over the chain across the garage, then hopped up onto the loading dock. She unzipped the tiny hip pocket where she’d secreted a padlock key and used it to unlock the freight elevator.

Inside the elevator, security was a little more elaborate. Una entered a code into the keypad and looked into the camera mounted discretely in the corner. She didn’t know what it was scanning or recording, but a mechanism clicked, and the light on the keypad went green: she could ascend.

After moments of elevation, the loft’s living room came into view. The entire third floor had been renovated into a suite of rooms, with this area as the largest. Still, dark air hung heavy and silent between the rows of steel-framed industrial windows. Una stepped out of the elevator and flipped a light switch, flooding the room with illumination from two vintage chandeliers.

The furniture was as minimal and expensive as she remembered; a large leather sofa and an electric blue chaise lounge sat near a claw-footed coffee table. A television the size of a small window hung from another wall, surrounded by sleek black speakers, while the supporting pillars throughout the space were home to a gallery of framed, abstract paintings. Beyond, lights flickered on in a well-appointed kitchen full of appliances.

The chaise lounge was turned towards a windowless wall where an antique mirror hung. Una’s gaze drifted towards a long crack in the center of that mirror. She’d made that crack with her horns—no, Yael had, with phantasmal horns, manifested on the far side of the mirror—when Yael and Micki had quarreled.

That fight... that was the last time I set foot in here, she realized. Nothing’s changed. It’s as if I traveled in time and returned home to find everything the way I left it. I left the elevator gate open and unlocked weeks ago. There’s my favorite black lace dress, in a heap by the clothes hamper. A magazine lay crumpled near one pillar, the very issue she’d thrown—that Micki had thrown—during the argument.

The surreality of the experience hit her: she stood in the same place where her two halves had warred, each desperate to claim her body. The loft was unchanged, as if time had stopped, preserving her conflict for her to revisit like an adult reliving a childhood fairy tale. She was the element that had changed, the one thing that didn’t fit anymore. Una, the full-blown succubus, was not the Micki who’d lived in this loft. And I never will be again.

Una wandered over to the coffee table and its contents. She’d stacked too many books of theology, occult studies, and transgender theory there. She was happy to see her books, though her attempts to understand herself felt oddly outdated now. A dried patina of cappuccino foam lined the inside of the large mug she’d been drinking from that day. And her rosary lay in a small dish, like an offering.

It was all a comfort, somehow. She was both Micki and Yael now, even with her memories as Micki on the surface; or maybe she was neither of them. But at least her human self had left a trail behind, like a snail leaving a moist, glistening track through the woods.

She picked up the rosary; its cool beads were slightly oily to the touch. This was the rosary she’d inherited from Reverend Mother Elizabeth, a beloved mentor from Michael’s seminary days. Suddenly, Una felt overcome with fatigue, and sank into the soft leather of the sofa, thumbing the beads absently as she buried her face in an old afghan she’d brought from the rectory of St. Andrew’s. The blanket smelled of mothballs and incense, but underneath that scent Una caught a whiff of Michael’s musk, all sweat and routine and nervous tension.

Her custom boots and leather bike suit felt constricting now, so she kicked the boots off, letting her hooves protrude from the pants, then peeling the pants away too. The top of the suit still hung around her neck; she tugged that over her horns, her breasts emerging from the suit’s thin, tight cups, and tossed it aside. Una nestled the afghan against her nose again, inhaling the smell of her former body and self, then let it drop, regarding her naked body in the mirror. How long has it been since I was alone like this? Alone to muse on the changes I’ve been through, she thought.

Her reflection stared back, a crimson beauty limned by the chandelier light. She cupped her breasts, heavy and full as ripe mangoes, their tips puckered with desire, and slid a hand down her flat stomach, then her sides, which flared to meet the curve of her hips and buttocks. Una turned around to see her tail, and the cheeks of her ass, pert and rounded, with a hint of the slick wetness of her pussy between the bottom curves of her buttocks.

Her calves, smooth and powerful, tapered to her hooves, each one tapering to a cloven tip and covered with downy black fur, finer than velvet. Una crouched on all fours, stroking her thighs and the length of her tail, tracing the crack of her ass, then moving to her face and the horns that curved back from her forehead.

She prowled close to the mirror, looking into its depths. Yael was not there; only Una gazed back. Una, whose face resembled no one’s more than Micki’s—angular jaw, swoop of bobbed ebony hair, high cheekbones, wide-set golden eyes with their goat-like pupils and slightly aquiline nose, but with a hint of Yael’s mischievous nature in her full lips and the way her eyelashes curled. Una’s gaze was older, somehow, as if Micki’s youthful euphoria had been tempered by her trials, like a sword reforged after being shattered.

Like a cat, Una curled up on the tufted rug at the couch’s foot and buried her face once more in the afghan, inhaling its familiar scent. Then she began to sob.

Great, heaving breaths shook her body. All the loneliness, anger, and fear she’d held in, the loss and grief and confusion, flowed out in hot, salty tears, trickling over her nose and mouth to soak into the blanket or trickle to the floor. She’d bottled enough pain to dry a river of sorrows, and now that she’d cracked the seal, she felt as if she could cry for the rest of the night, and beyond.

Una let herself think of Thomas Spencer, of how he’d twisted her mind and forced her to forget her identity, how he’d ordered her to become his and the Church’s tool. Her hands clenched and unclenched; her hooves clacked angrily on the bare floor. She thought of the mold Spencer had forced her into, that of his perfect boy, Father Mick, an incubus lad who never stepped out of line and only thought of serving while he fought and fucked and fed. And then Una screamed, wordless and raw, into the blanket, not caring if her cries echoed through the loft or off the neighboring buildings.

She’d never planned to become a woman or a succubus, but when plot and circumstance and Michael’s own inertia had forced that, she’d fought it before embracing it. She’d embraced it, quickly realizing how much her new gender resonated with her true self. Una had never asked to become a demon, either, but she’d learned to embrace that too, to make her body her own. Hani-you-toa.

In response, Spencer had stripped all of that away, wrapping her around his finger, and forcing her back into a male shell. She couldn’t forget the horror of his domination, and the way his control had threatened to break her mind. I escaped, she told herself. I’m here, I got out, we all did. Except James Kincaid. But I never reckoned on how much it would still hurt.

Una’s sobs slowed as she thought of Susan, who’d been the first to recognize the spark slumbering within Michael Belmont, and whose desire for Micki bloomed into full devotion and passion. She thought of John, whose unwavering faith in her goodness had kept her sane during her ordeal and solaced her at night, in the safety of his arms. And she thought of Maria, how much they shared in transformation, and Cassandra’s resolute courage.

Finally, her thoughts settled on Paisley, Bernard and the subway girl who’d recorded her harassers. Those strangers had given her the space to speak her truth. Her breathing came easier as she summed all the goodness sent her way, the friends and comforts and moments of laughter.

In a last effort, Una struggled to her feet, pulling the afghan with her, and shuffled to the bedroom, where she collapsed onto the downy coverlet of the king-size bed. She hugged the afghan close and buried her head under the pillow, drifting to sleep in the dark of the loft.

Una slept and dreamed. In her dream, she was again the Micki who’d lived here, returning home after a night of drinks with Susan at SUBMISSION. Micki entered the elevator, unlocked the loft, and took the shoes off her very human feet, ready to turn in for the night. But as Micki approached the bed, she realized that someone was already under the sheets.

Micki leaned down to see... her own face, with Yael’s red skin, hooves and wings. Then the face shifted, and Yael gazed at Micki with a predatory grin. Micki remembered the sensation of their bodies entwining, the way the demon’s fingers felt sliding inside her, the thrill of being devoured.

“Kiddo,” Yael said, sliding a slender tail around Micki’s waist, “Don’t forget, there’s a reason succubae can shapeshift. You can leave one life behind if you like, start another.”

“But I don’t want to leave my life,” she protested. “I love Susan, and John, and I have so much to do, I can’t just--”

“Or you could just say fuck it, move on and find something else?” Yael leaned back, her eyes shining in the darkness.

Micki was about to reply, but Yael interrupted. “At the very least, I know you want to change forms enough to pass as human, don’t you? Do you think I seduced mortals for centuries looking like this?” Yael ran her hands lasciviously across her horns, then down to her hips, where she swung her tail in a lazy circle.

“Well, of course,” Micki said. “It would be a lot easier to get around. But I haven’t figured out how! All I can do is make my wings vanish.” She looked down at herself. In the dream, her skin was human and smooth, her legs straight.

Yael sighed. “Wings are easy, pet. They take too much energy to maintain. You must be holding on tight to everything else. Maybe you feel a need to look like a demon, to scare the normals.” Yael shrugged. “But there’s a simple trick to shapeshifting, to becoming what you really want: you have to become what someone else wants.”

“Is that what you meant by riding on the desire of another? I never got the chance to ask you...”

The elder succubus smirked. “You have so many questions... I hope some knowledge leaks from my side of our consciousness into yours, but I don’t have high hopes. But yes, it’s just like your bad habit of changing others, except inwardly focused.”

Micki wrinkled her forehead. “I have to have sex with someone, and then ask them who they fantasize about, or what they’d like better about me?”

Yael leaned forward and rapped her on the forehead. “Think about it, dummy. That’s how John changed your voice. And you did it multiple times while you were stuck as that douche, Mick, because his programming was all about outward sexual focus. You’ll figure it out.”

The succubus turned away, and Micki cried out. “Wait! Where are you going?”

Yael’s voice was fainter now. “I’m diving back under, into my history and memories... it’s so deep down there, and I have so much to remember. Maybe more than I’ve ever forgotten.” She swam into the covers like a diver slipping beneath the waves. “You have so much to remember, too. Let yourself relax, kiddo.”

Micki dove after Yael, but suddenly it felt as if she were falling. She tumbled off the bed and was suddenly awake. Light streamed in through the loft windows, and her body was once more Una’s—red and demonic, her feet cloven, her horns tangled in her bedhead hair. Blinking, she saw a familiar oblong on the bedside table: her phone, the battery dead after weeks of abandonment. Una plugged it in, realizing with a guilty start that Susan was probably wondering if she’d gotten home safely.

She rose, walking naked to the bathroom. By the angle of the sun, it was already late in the morning. She turned on the shower to its hottest setting and stepped in, rubbing the coldness from her limbs. The water was almost too hot, but her skin warmed to it. As the room filled with steam, she reached for a sponge and started scrubbing the last vestiges of the night’s crying jag from her skin.

The hot water on her smooth, scarlet flesh made Una feel almost languid, or like she could at least relax some muscles where she’d held tension in iron bands. She leaned against the tiles, feeling their coolness on her back, and spread her legs apart, letting the water patter off the ends of her breasts and trickle over her thighs. The rivulets slid along her labia, a delicious feeling that made Una press her thighs together, savoring the sensation.

The dream had roused her libido. Una massaged the soap bar over her chest, gently squeezing her breasts and teasing her nipples, imagining them in someone else’s hands. Yael’s? No, not anymore. Susan’s? It was John’s large, masculine hands she pictured, his broad chest and narrow hips, his manhood rising from a bush of chestnut curls. Una’s tail, now out of the shower’s spray, curled and coiled as she ran her fingers over her stomach and the sensitive spot between her legs.

She made a decision and pulled the shower head down from its bracket, leaning against the outer glass wall of the stall and angling her hips so that she could direct the spray against her mound. Una pressed the pulsing jet against her clit and moaned with pleasure. The water, even at the highest temperature, felt like nothing next to the heat of her cunt, which grew hotter each time she waved the shower head over her labia and her hardening clitoris.

With her free hand, Una massaged one breast, then the other, and as the sudsy water ran over her chest, she imagined John’s mouth closing over her nipples, his lips and teeth tugging at them until she writhed, pushing her breasts against his face.

Una allowed her tail to roam over her thighs and tease her asshole, the tip probing her tight pucker and pressing slightly in. As the pleasure mounted, she switched the shower head from one hand to the other, letting the warm spray rinse away the soap while she stroked her thighs and her labia, her fingertips spreading her slit open to touch her clitoris directly.

As Una imagined John’s hands on her body, she pushed her ass up against the slick glass wall and slid her tail fully inside herself. She began fucking her hole with it, the tip wriggling with the movements of her hips, while she stroked her clitoris and teased it with a soapy fingertip. Feeling instinct take hold, she lowered herself down the wall, picturing her body sinking onto John’s cock as he lay beneath her, until she squatted on her haunches, legs spread and ass stretched wide, pumping her tail into her dripping pussy.

Una moaned in delight as her tail pressed against the inner wall of her cunt, rubbing a sensitive spot just beyond the tightness of her ring. She brought the shower head back to her clitoris, alternating the pulse and pressure as if John were moving his hips under her, her tail mimicking his rhythm. Una’s eyes rolled back as she pictured herself astride John, his body hard with desire, and she shuddered as she felt an orgasm approaching.

As her hips bucked and her body quaked, one corner of her attention noticed something. The shapes and colors of the bathroom outside the steam-fogged glass looked different somehow—but then her climax exploded, and the rest of the world faded away. Una’s tail squirmed like a serpent inside her, and her cunt squeezed it as her clit pulsed, waves of pleasure radiating out from between her legs. It was good, so good to let go, with nobody but herself to satisfy.

As her orgasm subsided, Una tried to remember what had caught her notice before, and squinted through her haze of pleasure and aftershocks. A shape stood there, in front of the bathroom mirror, dark and oblong. Then it moved. Una bit back a yelp of surprise and quietly wiped away some condensation. Now there was no doubt about it: someone was outside the shower stall.

Una froze, letting the water run and considering her next move. Memories surfaced unbidden: men grabbing her in the park, forcing her down; men strapping her into restraints, into a van; Thomas Spencer easing her into a straitjacket, groggy; the assholes from the subway, leaning into her face and screaming. Before she could think further, her body acted: Una shoved the shower door aside, water sloshing over the tiles, and lunged.

The dark figure barely had a chance to raise its arms before a naked, red succubus hurled out of the shower and crashed into it.