Demimondaine Read online

  “But…” Nico replied. She clonked her head back against the mirror, and her knees cocked outwards as she sunk into the sink basin. “I only had like… one drink.”

  Selar tilted her head, itching at the side of her nose. “Huh.” After a moment’s reflection, she deployed her professional opinion. “Then you should probably have some more?”

  “You think?” Nico asked, eyes glassy and starstruck.

  “The fuck do I know, I’m not a scientist.” Selar asked, her breath alcoholic and moist, but smelling softly of juniper berries, in their closeness. “Do you want me to kiss you?”

  Nico hardly needed to nod.

  Tongue thrusted past her teeth, depressing her own, claiming it. A moan popped Nico’s lips, transferred into Selar’s, and Nico groped downwards, fingers scrabbling a hold into Selar’s sides. Selar kissed with passionate envy, grinding forward, implacable kind of advance, just like her music. Power without coordination, raw energy made to fill holes.

  Selar’s tail coiled around her leg, rippling encouragement against her calf and stilling the ticklish kicks of Nico’s boot against her side. Nico groaned as Selar took a fist full of her hair, peppered her neck with eager kisses. Clunky boots clung around Selar’s ass, pinning her forward into the sink. She kept apologizing, every time Selar’s lips and teeth suckled a fresh bruise out of her neck, and she burst into giggles. “I’m sorry!” She cackled, blushing. “I’m sensitive.”

  “Please.” Her hands in Selar’s short, dark hair, gripping it like a bridle. She moistened her lips. “Do it again?”

  Nico’s tail wasn’t exactly made for gripping, but it was great for slinking up the back of Selar’s shirt and tickling along her spine.

  Selar, quite naturally, complied. Her fingers groped over the curve of Nico’s ear, inadvertently dislodging a cheap clip-on cuff Nico had set there, sending it clattering to the tile. Ugh! Nico inwardly moaned. Why was she such a coward about piercings?

  Then, she outwardly moaned. Nico had a lot of neck, if you measured it in area(-for-potential-hickeys)-squared.

  A couple or scenesters burst through the door, all giggles until they saw the two of them. The blonde wrinkled her nose, realization coming in real-time, slo-mo on the tip of her tongue. “Aren’t you…”

  “Nope.” Selar drew a somatic circle in the air, stabbed through it with her tail, and paralyzed the pair in runic meshes—Nico recognized then enchantment, probably about last about thirty seconds, simple novitiate stuff, nothing compared to Marigold’s—before they could rebuff her. With a attention-grabbing pinch at Nico’s ear, Selar asked, “Ever been in a green room?”

  ***

  The green room was actually yellow, and it stunk of artificial lemon bullshit. Nico would’ve recognized even if it weren’t for the mass of bright green and white cans cluttering every square inch of the coffee table like a colony of rapidly reproducing aluminum fungus.

  Shandy, ugh, the Teenage Tryhard of alcoholic drinks.

  Dropping herself into an armchair, Selar disrupted enough of the artificial-fruit-flavor colony for boot space on the table while fishing around in her pockets, and soon produced a joint so dented and kinked that she must’ve cashed in a favor from some minor goddess to keep it intact. She sparked it with a pink Bic and indicated the catty-corner couch after a drag. “What? Nobody taught you how to sit?” She flipped the joint around, as Nico practically dashed into her seat. “You smoke?”

  Nico had always hated the process of getting high (the coughing, mostly) more than she craved the effects, which kept her experience to a minimum. Besides which, one time she’d taken two and a half drags too many—

  However, staring into the deadpan eyes of a succubus, burning low and lazy as smoldering embers, dispassionate to their own demise, how could she say no?

  She couldn’t believe her luck. Sure, she’d bled all over her favorite shirt, and her psychosomatic issues were convincing her the spreading ache in her backside was probably definitely absolute a broken tailbone, but now she was being waited on hand and foot by a musician. No, a goddess of music! She perched atop the couch like a gargoyle, devouring every nanosecond of SelarLet’s stories of traveling, the open road, the shows she’d done (and the people she’d done at them).

  It was a lot better than musing over the fact that she was pretty sure the girl from the bathroom—not the blonde, the mousey beside her—was an ex from Nico’s ill-fated experimental phase.

  “Woah, nuts,” Nico nodded appreciatively, can of disgusting (yet blessedly alcoholic) Shandycrackling beneath her gripping fingers as Selar pointed to a long-healed split in her bottom lip, where electricity from a poorly grounded mic had arched and split it. “For real?”

  Well, not really an ex, since they hadn’t really dated. Thinking about it, Nico wasn’t entirely sure if she had dated anyone. Not in the sense that people on TV or in novels or even fan-fiction about TV or novels did. Y’know, like, with the going on actual dates part of it, and such.

  “Real as these,” Selar replied, hoisting her tits with a bawdy grope.

  Nico caught a bit of fuzz under Selar’s arms, and just hint of bra through the arm holes of her tank top. Embarrassed, even with the memory of Selar’s kiss still fresh on her lips, and the fluffy mental insulation of a head-full of what she imagined was some primo weed, she looked away, fidgeting with the tab on her beer, marveling at how the the lacy purple trim of Selar’s black bra seemed imprinted on her vision no matter where she looked.

  Nico suddenly felt really weird, realizing she understood dating about as well (or less) as teenagers who mashed anime characters together like lego pieces.

  “So,” said Selar, big eyelashes kissing each other as she blinked, slow and steady, from the weed. She ground her lower lip beneath her front teeth, then popped it with a suction sound, and her tongue seemed rather large, and very red, between her fangs. “I’ve been staring at that wall of bloody gore you call a shirt for like the past hour and thinking—since it’s indirectly my fault you ruined it and all…” She hopped to her feet, striding towards the make-up mirrors at the back of the room, and yanked open a cardboard box. “What are you, a small?”

  Nico liked to think she could fill out a medium pretty well, depending on the manufacturer…

  Spares of various sizes rained across the room until she came upon one. Red on black, a talon-nailed middle finger springing off a scaled fist bursting through a pentagram. Selar spread it wide, and it seemed to whip the air, like the crap of a flag unfurling in a dusty sirocco. “Cool, right? I drew it myself.”

  “It’s awesome.” By now, Nico’s jaw moved like melted lead. Her tail swayed behind her in lazy loops, conducting an invisible, unheard orchestra. “Shit.” She patted her jacket pockets, finding that her wallet hadn’t magically reappeared after Marigold had gone off to grab herself that second cocktail—which is something Marigold could do, she was just too self-centered to actually bother. “There’s no way I have the cash for it.” Fucking Marigold and her shitty cocktails. Nico’d like to rematerialize her fist in that Nekomata’s—

  “Here.” Selar chucked it over. “On the house.”

  “No way. I couldn’t!”

  “C’mon, nobody buys this shit anyway. They’re not here to see us, we’re the fucking opening act. We’re not even the second fucking opening act.”

  Nico blinked, devoid of guile or sense, speaking softly, and kneading the cheap poly-cotton between her fingers like the last loaf of precious bread on god’s green earth. “I… came to see you.”

  At the moment, she couldn’t even remember the headliner’s name.

  Selar grinned, and cleared her messy hair from her eyes with a roguish flick of her fingers. She took a measured step forward. “No shit?”

  As if afraid of the gift being reneged, Nico shucked her current, bloodied shirt like it was on fire, fidgeting out of it and throwing it to the ground, and not particularly concerned if a wayward Living Chasm should pass by and swallow it up
. Toxic Flux Impact, who even likes them, right? Their whole thing was so played out. Talk about a couple of cornballs—

  Selar reached out, evoking a shudder from Nico as she passed over her bare shoulder, dug a nail under the strap of her sports bra, and snapped the elastic against her sensitive skin. “What’s this about? Got a marathon coming up?”

  “Huh? No. I—” Nico’s tongue flicked out over her lips, and she ducked her head. Selar’s fingers followed the motion, stroking languidly along the side of her neck, as Nico said, softly, canting her head to match the angle of Selar’s touch. “It’s just what feels right…”

  “How about this?” Selar’s thumb ground gently into soft spot at the corner of Nico’s jaw. “Does this feel right?”

  It had been so long. So long.

  “Can I?” Nico coughed, writhing a bit. She was suddenly aware of the tension ache of the sports bra digging into her skin, and the shallow tremor of her stomach with her breathing. “Can I like… put the shirt on first?”

  “Damn.” As if preening, Selar drew her sweaty hair back and stood up to full height. “This is the first time a girl’s asked to put her shirt on before we made out.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that!” Nico protested, even as she struggled the shirt over her head and writhed in a futile attempt at pulling her head through the left sleeve hole. Blind, she squealed in surprise when a leg hooked around her calf, denying her and she collapsed, together with Selar, onto the couch. The sound pitched upward into a shriek of glee as Selar yanked Nico’s head through the proper hole, Nico atop her, and then let gravity and momentum ram their mouths together.

  They kissed for a while, sweet smacking of lips, and Nico marveling at how firm Selar could touch her, through the coarse material of her new most prized possession. Almost as much as she enjoyed the dense mesh of freckles that sat atop Selar’s high cheekbones. It was cute, that a actual, factual rock star had freckles. Who’da thought?

  Deep suction against her neck, and the squealing enjoyment of purpling flesh, and Selar was getting to her knees on the couch, and opening Nico’s legs, burying her back into the deep, threadbare cushions with a palm against her sternum when…

  “Don’t—”

  “Don’t?” Casually, Selar’s tail touched Nico’s cheek, and guided her gaze back to her. Her eyebrows were low—half smoldering interest, half tenderized concern. Still, she licked her lips.

  “Would it be okay if…” Nico closed her legs, and pinched her hands between her thighs to quell their shaking. “I’d rather… do…”

  The flat of Selar’s tail-tip thawped affectionately against Nico’s cheek, and Nico flinched with the strike-reddening welt. Bouncing to her feet, Selar turned and spread her arms, and stage-dove backwards into the couch beside Nico. She grinned, looking over, her tits still jiggling from the impact. “Praise be to the doers.”

  Selar braced herself with a triplicate swig of beer while Nico’s quaking fingers yanked the skin-tight pleather of her mini-skirt up far enough to wrench her legs open.

  “Sweet mother, you smell good.” Nico groaned, nails flexing against the sodden lace of cheap underwear, impatient, tugging them to the side, and revealing…

  “That’s the energy of the crowd, babe.” Taking a fistful of Nico’s hair, and her left ear, with a squeeze.

  “Yeah right…” Nico murmured, blushing with the thrill of Selar’s forwardness.

  Well, it might have been. Nico knew a lot about Succubus Incarnates—a handful ran in Marigold’s circles, but they tended to find Demimondaines like Nico more or less interchangeable—but Succubus Inchoates, pre-chrysalis, like Selar? Maybe they did suck up the energy of the crowd like that. Nico had always thought they required a more direct connection…

  Like the nose of an eager cat running through the sweaty jungle of their bush.

  Bragging or not, self-aggrandizing or not, if the energy of the crowd didn’t run through Selar in a literal way, it certainly seemed to in the metaphorical. Her thighs were drenched, her lips spread, pink flesh blooming and ready for the curious strokes of Nico’s tongue. Licking a Succubus, one that that had even a single genuine mote of interest in you, anyway, was like riding a live wire with your tongue. It was electric, but safe. Kind of like how you’d run your tongue over a 9 volt, just to try it. But with Incarnates, it was primed, focused. If she’d thought about it for two seconds, she would’ve remembered Marigold’s lecture on the difference between Succubus Inchoate and Succubus Incarnate. They were like a shotgun versus a guided missile.

  The stab of her tongue, inside Selar, and the pelvic thrust of Selar that threatened to grind her face into dust.

  A cast net versus a fishing pole…

  As she drank deep of Selar, Selar’s hands massaged into her hair, her tail stroking over Nico’s nape and down. Nico groaned, worrying one of her small fangs into the crinkle of Selar’s full lips. A nip. It was so soft, the aimless stroke of Selar’s tail between her shoulder blades. Just the slightest hint of pressure. Like the promise of a massage, before the fingers really start digging in. And Nico knew a thing or two about massages, given how Marigold would cry and mewl for after every seance, or ritual, or ceremony, or whatever.

  Or like fishing with…

  Dynamite.

  Her fingers dug beneath Selar’s kneecaps. She leaned into her effort like a hungry wolf. Her ass lifted off the ground, as Selar’s tail stroked under her shirt, gliding over the ridges of her spine like a snake in the hunt. Nico’s rump raised to meet it. Her tongue smeared out, slavering over Selar’s clit. Selar’s tail goaded its way underneath the waistband of her jeans, slick along the crack of her ass, and…

  Nico moistened her lips, throat shuddering with an abrupt swallow. She came up for air, gasping, glistening with Selar’s wet. Dazed, and lip trembling, unable confirm or deny her desire. At least not with words.

  Selar’s eyes were glossy with a capricious glint, framed by lingering streaks of fully mussed mascara. Her tail spread its tail, testing Nico’s resistance. With her knees cocked open, and her aimless hand styling her drenched pubic hair into slick patterns, and her sagging tits hanging low and lewd, she looked like a barbarian queen on her throne, as she asked: “Do you want me to?”

  A bead of Selar’s dew, mingled with her spit, rolled from Nico’s lips, over her chin, and down the hollow of her neck.

  “I haven’t…” Nico whispered, beet red. “Done it… Done that.” She gulped. “That many times…”

  “What, get tail fucked?”

  “What??” Nico’s eyes went wide. “Of course not! Never!” She coughed. “Or I mean not never, but I mean like had something in or…” Her face was on fire. On literal fire. This was horrible. She was going to die. “I mean of course I’ve thought about it with tails but…” Not just die, she was going to self-immolate. When Marigold found her, she was going to have to cart her ashes out of here in a decorative urn.

  Which, wow, good thing her hands had a mind of their own, then. Given how they’d just yanked her shorts right down to her knees without her asking.

  “I-I just—”

  “It’s cool, babe…” Selar hushed her with a whisper of air past plump lips, smiling beneficently, cradling her cheek and tilting her head ever so slightly as the spade tip of her tail caressed Nico’s entrance. “I’m gonna start really…” The sharp pinch of entry evoked a stultified gasp from Nico. “Really…” As the spade tip spread her slowly wide, the gasp transmogrified into a shuddering moan. “Really…” Already, it was filling her. “Slow…”

  Nico’s shoulders were rigid, stocked with potential energy. Her own tail swayed and stroked in the air, in pale mimicry. Her sharp nails stripped new gashes into Selar’s shirt.

  Selar didn’t seem to mind, about the shirt, or about the striped red lines blooming on her flesh beneath. Violet eyes went to feline slits. “How’s that feel babe?”

  “Shu… shuuuu…”

  “Shuuuu?” Selar asked, one hand cradling
Nico’s cheek, the other tending to the clit Nico had thoughtlessly abandoned. Nico caught a glimpse of chipped black polish, and the continuing slow, absentminded rub even as Selar’s fingernails elongated into claws.

  Nico coughed, blinking, feeling as if she were blind. Like some fundamental part of a software chip hidden in her brain had just short circuited—her pleasure circuit, overloaded. “Just guh-give me a sec…”

  A ripple of muscle forced a blurted contraction from Nico’s inside.

  “Nyah!” Nico’s ears flicked bolt upright, and she cried out, surprised by the pleasure of her inadvertent riposte. “W-what the heck! I said…”

  Selar was all flashy-toothed grin. “Sorry. Didn’t mean it.”

  Nico responded with a suspicious mrrr of breath, eyes gone to slits. The Type A part of her personality was spooling up for a PROPER lecture on how to—

  “Hhhhhuh…” She wheezed out, instead, as the flex of Selar’s tail inside her became her entire world.

  “Shit.” Nico groaned. Her tongue was dry, overlarge, and lonely, as it numbly passed her lips. She groped for Selar’s ears, pulling her close. “G-gimme.”

  Selar dragged her onto the couch, and mounting her, thigh to thigh and nose to nose. The half-moons of Selar’s breasts eclipsed Nico’s, and Nico shuttered, lifting her hips in blunt offering, feeling the fine hairs rise in the back of Selar’s neck as if they were her own, even as her fingers stoked them to interest with the rough rub of nails.

  Sensuality overflowed from Selar as the aether spread between them, and her now-clawed fingers groped lecherously at her own neck as it twisted and rolled, her chin inclining, her tongue flicking out. “But I haven’t tasted something like you in eons. Or it feels like eons. Does it feel like eons to you, babe?”

  Drunk on extruded lust, Nico swept her tongue over numb lips, responding with a gauzy nod. She saw the eras stretch out before her, in the creases of Selar’s smile.