“Thank you for your submission. Unfortunately, having carefully considered your proposal, we don’t feel we are in a position to proceed with it at this time. ”

Catherine let the paper fall from her fingers and slide onto the kitchen table. She picked up the next envelope.

“Thank you for your novel proposal. We regret that at the moment we are not accepting any unsolicited work.”

She opened the final letter.

“Thank you for contacting me about your work. Unfortunately, I don’t think it’s quite a fit for our publishing house.”

That made it thirteen rejection letters this week. ‘Fuck it, she thought. I need a drink.’

------

She pulled herself onto the barstool and ordered a gin and tonic. 

“Gunpowder gin, if you have it,” she asked as she saw the barman heading for the green Gordon’s bottle.

“Good choice. I like your taste.”

She turned at the sound of the distinctive Irish accent and saw a tall woman with flaming red hair and the greenest eyes she’d ever encountered.

“I’ll have the same,” the woman told the barman, sliding a twenty-pound note across the bar. “Take for both, please.”

“Slainte,” the woman smiled as she raised her glass.

“Cheers,” Catherine replied, slightly flustered at who this woman was.

“I’m Leanan, you look like you’ve had a rough day.”

“You wouldn’t believe it,” Catherine sighed as she placed the empty glass back on the bar.

Over the next hour and with a couple of gins loosening her tongue, Catherine found herself telling Leanan all about the breakup of her long term relationship. How she had found her girlfriend in bed with a man, how the book she had been working on for the past year had been rejected by every publisher she could find, how her dreams of being a published author after leaving college were being dashed and how she felt her creativity had been drained from her.

Leanan ran her fingers through her hair as she arched her back and stretched, almost cat-like. Catherine surreptitiously ran her eyes over the woman. She wore a dark green crushed velvet dress which accentuated her curves. She looked to be in her mid-30s with a body that ticked all Catherine’s boxes. 

“Perhaps you just need to find yourself a Muse,” Leanan suggested, as she leant forward and ran her fingers through the younger woman's blonde hair. “Someone who will unleash your creativity. Someone who will offer you inspiration.”

As Leanan spoke, Catherine felt herself being drawn towards her. She gazed into the woman’s eyes, she saw Leanan’s lips move, dark red lipstick smeared across full luscious lips, but she was no longer listening. As the woman leant closer, her lips brushed Catherine’s neck, the words flowed into Catherine’s ear, lodging themself deep in her brain.

Catherine felt her nipples hardening, swelling and poking through the lacy bralette. She felt Leanan place her hand on Catherine’s thigh, felt the heat of her hand through the denim material. She tilted her head slightly, cheek brushed cheek and then, as her lips brushed against Leanan, they kissed.

She looked into Leanan’s eyes and felt as if a pact was being offered. She kissed her again as if to say “yes, I agree” and gasped as if a weight was being lifted.

Catherine slid off the stool, grinning at Leanan as she took her hand.

“Come on, my flat is just around the corner.”

As soon as the door closed, Leanan pushed Catherine against the wall, kissing her neck, her fingers unfastening the diaphanous silk blouse. It seemed to float away as Leanan’s fingers caressed her little boobs through the green lacey bralette. Catherine whimpered as Leanan’s fingers unfastened her jeans and suddenly found herself virtually naked on her bed.

Catherine bit her lip, watching nervously as Leanan peeled off the velvet dress. Leanan climbed onto the bed and crawled, predator-like towards her. As Leanan bent her head and ran her cheek up Catherine’s calf, Catherine felt her legs open almost involuntarily. She knew there was a damp patch visible on her lacy panties

She lay, propped up on her elbows as the Irish woman moved her lips up her thigh. Catherine groaned as Leanan’s lips brushed across the damp crotch of her panties. Leanan gazed up, her green eyes sparkling.

“Please,” Catherine whispered and threw her head back, back arched high as the woman’s fingers curled around the knicker elastic and dragged the damp material down her legs.

------

Catherine lay in the darkness. She could hear Leanan breathing beside her. As she listened, she watched the woman's breasts gently rise and fall. She felt the remnants of a dream swirling around in the ether. She paused, knowing if she snatched too soon it would evaporate. Slowly, as she listened to Leanan breathing, the idea crystallised, almost as if the words were carried on her breath. 

Finally, she plucked up the courage and slipped out of bed. The temperature had plummeted and the cold caused her nipples to instantly harden. As she fumbled in the dark, her fingers scrabbled on the floor to find her nightie. She pulled the tee-shirt over her head and slipped out the bedroom door. 

After having a pee, she retrieved her handbag from the hall where she had dropped it hours earlier. She pulled her notebook and pen from it and sat at the kitchen table, scribbling down the remnants of the idea that had circulated around her as she lay in bed. 

She looked up as Leanan wandered into the kitchen. 

"Oh, I like your tee-shirt," she giggled. 

Catherine glanced down. It was an old Siouxsie and the Banshees tee shirt that her ex had worn as a nightshirt. When she had walked out, Catherine had kept the tee-shirt.

“You know the Banshee has a terrible press.”

“The band?” Catherine questioned.

“No, the Banshee.” Leanan smiled. “I blame Walt Disney and Darby O’Gill and the Little People. The banshee doesn’t cause death, she just foretells it, but then the Americans turned her into this crazed killer.”

She stopped, looking at Catherine and shrugged. “Well, anyway. There’s a lot of truth in the old Irish legends.”

She stepped closer and kissed Catherine softly on the lips. As Leanan gazed into her eyes, Catherine felt a thousand story fragments swirl around her brain. As the women kissed, hands sliding over their curves, Catherine felt the story crystalising in her head.

Leanan broke the kiss, licking her lips she informed Catherine that she had to go to work.

Perhaps you’d like to meet for a drink after work. Same bar, same time?” Catherine offered.

“That’d be lovely,” Leanan whispered as she kissed Catherine on the neck. “Make sure you get your story finished. See you at six.” And with that, she was gone.

Catherine sat at the table, scribbling furiously as she chased the germ of the story, writing phrases, sentences, even paragraphs. The words flowed seamlessly through her pen onto the cool crisp sheets of her notebook.

By lunchtime, she was happy. She flicked through the pages, reading it almost as if it had been written by somebody else. She pulled her battered laptop onto the table and began transcribing her notes. Her ex had always laughed at her for writing everything in longhand first but Catherine found that trying to write on the computer meant she was constantly editing, deleting, erasing as she went and was then left with nothing to go back and reread and reform and reuse.

At 5 o’clock, the short story was finished. 6000 words just like that. She couldn’t remember a story being finished so seamlessly and so easily. She hit send and watched it disappear into the digital ether.

She sat at the bar, a gin waiting for Leanan, nervously looking up every time the door opened. Suddenly Leanan appeared at her side.

“Well, did you send it in?” she asked after taking a large sip of the gin and tonic.

“Yep” Catherine replied, slightly thrown by how she hadn’t noticed her arrival. She was just about to say something else when her phone pinged.

“Oh my god,” she squealed, dancing about the bar before grabbing Leanan and kissing her passionately on the mouth.

“The editor has just replied to say they would be publishing it in the next edition.” 

Catherine beamed. The adrenaline rush was already spiking through her veins. Leanan took Catherine’s face in her hands and kissed her, her tongue swirled in the young woman’s mouth.

Leanan’s eyes sparkled as she fed off the young girl’s happiness and excitement.

"Let's go home," Catherine giggled.

Leanan kissed her way down Catherine’s stomach, her tongue flickering, tasting as she slid the triangle of damp cotton down Catherine’s thighs. 

Catherine arched her hips, thrusting her mound towards Leanan, her damp curls glistening in the moonlight streaming in the bedroom window. Leanan’s eyes sparkled as she gazed up at Catherine, her mouth open, tongue snaking out as she slowly ran the flat of her tongue along the length of Catherine’s pussy.

Leanan lapped at the entrance to her pussy, her tongue rolled into a tube and pushed into her wet velvet. Catherine whimpered, begged, moaned and pleaded as Leanan brought her to the edge.

“Please,” Catherine whimpered, her head rolling from side to side as Leanan pressed her mouth to her pussy. Her nose rubbed Catherine’s clit as pushed her tongue inside her, french kissing her pussy and sending Catherine over the edge.

Finally, Leanan raised her head, grinning at Catherine lying whimpering on the bed. Her face shone, covered in Catherine’s juices as she slowly crawled up the bed to kiss her lover.

“You taste so delicious” she murmured into the girl’s ear as Catherine slowly drifted off to sleep, story ideas already swirling through her subconscious.

------

“I have to go back to Ireland for a few days,” Leanan announced one evening. “For a funeral.”

“Oh.” Catherine’s heart sank. She couldn’t recall a day in the last two months when she hadn’t seen Leanan.

“Don’t worry darling,” Leanan whispered in her ear. “I’ll be back before you know it.”

“Do you have to go now?” Catherine stuttered.

“Yes, the flight leaves tonight.”

Leanan finished her drink, kissed Catherine goodbye and left the bar.

Catherine watched the door swing closed behind her. She felt a hollowness, an emptiness in her heart. She felt lightheaded, dizzy, the room started to spin and she clutched at the bar rail for support.

“It’s only for a few days,” she told herself. 

Catherine went back to her empty flat. She wandered from room to room, the silence echoing around, following her. She sat and tried to write but nothing came to her. She flicked through her notebook seeking inspiration. The cursor flashed on the empty page. Each flash seeming to coincide with the beating of her heart.

She curled up in a ball, hugging her knees. “Please come back, please come back,” she whispered. Fear started to grip her. “What if she didn’t come back?”

For three days, Catherine remained alone, the blank pages mocking her every time she looked at them. At first, she thought the knocking on her door was her imagination, but when she heard the letterbox flap open and Leanan’s voice call out of her, she leapt out of bed and flung open the door.

“Never leave me,” she begged as she wrapped her arms tightly around Leanan. “I can’t write, I can’t live, I can’t breathe without you,” Catherine whispered as she hugged and kissed her.

Leanan smiled as she guided the girl back into her flat.

“Now I am back, you can write wonderful things.”

Catherine felt like her clothes were dissolved as she writhed on the bed. The three days apart had turned Leanan into an insatiable dervish. Leanan’s fingers gripped Catherine’s knees, spreading her wide open. Her slit glistened with juices as Leanan leant in and dragged the flat of her tongue along Catherine from perineum to clit. As Leanan crossed her fingers like a corkscrew and slowly screwed her way inside Catherine’s wet velvet walls, Catherine arched her back and gasped, her fingers gripping Leanan’s hair. 

Leanan sucked Catherine’s clit between her teeth as she pushed her fingers deeper inside Catherine. Her tongue flicking the throbbing pearl as she felt her fingers being gripped by Catherine’s pussy. Leanan took Catherine like a woman possessed. Catherine howled, impaled on Leanan’s hand as the orgasm ripped through her, her thighs clamped to Leanan’s head. She shuddered and spasmed before finally collapsing, spent on the bed.

Leanan got up and walked naked from the bedroom, returning with a bottle and two glasses. Standing by the side of the bed, she opened the bottle, twisting the corkscrew as she watched Catherine.

“Now, tell me what you have been up to?” Leanan demanded as she poured the wine. 

Catherine looked at her, her breath slowly returning to normal after the countless orgasms had ravaged her body.

“Nothing,” Catherine whispered. “I couldn’t function without you. I need you,” she blushed.

Leanan smiled as she handed Catherine the glass. “That seems a fair exchange. I give you ideas and you give me love.”

She climbed onto the bed, raising her glass to Catherine. “Deal?” she inquired.

“Deal!” Catherine agreed, clinking her glass against Leanan’s.

Catherine rested her head on her lover’s breast until Leanan’s breathing slowed and got deeper, signalling she was fast asleep. Catherine slipped out of the bed, the story almost fully formed in her head.

------

Six months later, Catherine and Leanan stood in the publisher’s office as they gathered together to open the first delivery of Catherine’s book. Catherine gazed around the room at the small group of people watching as she excitedly tore open the box.

She picked up the top copy, holding it to her nose, inhaling the scent of her freshly printed and bound words. The dark red cover with the cartoon punk girl staring defiantly out at her with the title ‘Teenage Banshee’ scrawled below was just how she’d imagined it during the endless design meetings. Writing the book had been the easy part. Catherine was just so thankful that Leanan had been with her every step of the way. Leanan always seemed to know what was best. 

The pop of a champagne cork woke her from her reverie. She smiled as she watched her friends, her publisher and her lover pick up copies and read the blurb, the quotes from the advance copies. The buzz about the book was already building. The Guardian reviewer had given it five stars and said it was “decidedly modern without being flippant and simple without being forgetful” and while Catherine wasn’t exactly sure what he’d meant, she was booked to appear on Radio Four’s Woman’s Hour to be interviewed about it in the morning and her publicist was planning a book tour that would take up most of the next month.

Catherine turned to find Leanan standing beside her, a glass of champagne in both hands. She handed one to Catherine as she raised her glass.

“Here’s to you. I always knew you’d write that one fantastic novel, one that will take the world by storm. Greater even than The Bell Jar, or Black Beauty or Wuthering Heights. It will be our greatest triumph.”

Catherine drank the glass of champagne but something felt wrong. A thought was gnawing at the back of her mind. There was something odd about that collection of authors.

She excused herself and stepped outside onto the balcony. The cool air caused her to wrap her cardigan closer around her as she lit a cigarette and gazed out at the London skyline. She leaned on the railings and looked down at the street three floors below. She opened her phone and turned to google to satisfy her curiosity about those books.

“Emily Brontë died the year after her only novel Wuthering Heights first appeared in print.”

She searched again.

“Anna Sewell died shortly after she published her only novel, Black Beauty.”

She felt the coldness wrapping itself around her heart as she typed in the last search request.

“Sylvia Plath’s only novel, The Bell Jar was published in 1963, just before her suicide.”

Three women, three authors, all dead immediately after their first novel was published. 

She stepped back into the publishing house, picking up a copy that lay on the desk. She turned it over in her hands. Was this really her book. Was this to be her only book? Leanan’s words came back to her, “It will be our greatest triumph.”

Who was Leanan? Catherine realised she still knew nothing about this woman. Every question she’d ever asked about her family, background, what she did for a living, even where she lived were brushed aside in such a way that Catherine had felt she was being churlish to continue prying.

With shaking hands, she typed ‘Leanan’ into google, hoping Leanan’s unusual name might flag up something about her. 

“According to W.B. Yeats, in Irish folklore, the Leanan Sidhe is the Dark Muse, an artistic succubus, giving creative gifts in exchange for the artist's life.”

“No, no, no,” Catherine whispered. She gasped as she felt Leanan’s fingers caressing her hand.

“You are missing your party, darling. It’s your big night”

Catherine stared into Leanan’s eyes. “Who are you?” she whispered.

She felt Leanan taking her phone from her. I am your lover, your Muse,” she whispered, “Yeats was a twat, he knew nothing.” She bent her head to kiss Catherine on the lips.

“Get away from me,” Catherine cried, stepping back onto the balcony. “I don’t know what you are but leave me alone.”

Leanan stepped closer. The wind whipping around her black shawl. The wind making it look like a nest of snakes was in her hair. Leanan’s eyes blazed as she stepped closer, her hand outstretched.

“It’s ours, Catherine,” she whispered. “This moment belongs to us, embrace it, savour it. I made you, Catherine. You are mine.”

Catherine shook her head. “No it’s not true, It isn’t,” she begged.

“You didn’t really think it was your talent that suddenly made those editors want your work. It was us.” Leanan stepped closer.  “It’s always been us. I am your Muse.”

Catherine stepped back, climbing up onto the balustrade surrounding the balcony to get farther away. Leanan took another step closer. Her heels clicking on the tiles as she slowly stalked towards her young lover. Catherine could see a crowd was gathering at the doors to the balcony, watching her as she stood up on the wall. Catherine looked into Leanan’s eyes one last time as if pleading for reassurance.

“Catherine. Don’t!” 

The scream from her publisher was shouted out to warn her, but as she turned to look at him, her foot slipped and she plummeted downwards.

Leanan leaned over the side, her fingers gripping the stonework. She stood with her eyes closed, inhaling the scream as it rose from the street below. She smiled, satiated. 

------------

Leanan read the obituaries. “The new voice of a generation” according to the Guardian. “Debut novel posthumously tops Best Seller chart” lamented the Telegraph. “Tragic end of a blossoming career” mourned the Times. She tossed them onto the pile. At least the dumb slut got more recognition than poor Mary Shelley she thought to herself.

She stood up, taking the copy of Catherine’s novel and placing it on her bookshelf. She ran her fingers over the novels. Every one a first edition. She looked at the author’s photograph of Catherine one last time before sliding the book into place.

With a sigh, she picked up the free local paper. She smiled as an advert caught her eye. A Creative Writing class. Just the place for her next project.