“I am only here to kill you. Don’t be afraid.”

“Lady, get lost. My wallet’s on the kitchen table. Take it and get out.”

It was about three in the morning when Luca was awakened by a whooshing sound and shuffling noises somewhere in the house. Luca followed the sounds. In the living room, he met the darkened figure of a woman, about fifteen cm shorter than he, and apparently carrying a whip. He did not know whether she had a gun, and he took a few steps back. Then they had the “kill/wallet” exchange that opened this tale.

“You have nothing to fear,” the image said in a deep, smooth voice. “I am a succubus.”

Oh great, Luca thought, I had a burglar, and now I’ve got a crazy burglar. "Lady, for chrissakes, take the wallet and go. And get some help.”

"Oh, baby, you are going to feel so good."

"What?" Feel good? A moment ago, she said she would kill me, he thought. Batshit crazy broad.

"Just what I said,” she replied. She took several steps toward him. The last step brought her into the moonlight. She had shoulder-length black hair, brown eyes, bright red lips, and an angelic face. She wore a shiny black bodysuit that covered her hands and feet.

"Hello, Luca, I am Naamah."

“How did you know my name?” asked Luca, assuming she had already looked through his wallet.

“I have been wandering around your dreams for some months now. You are quite the prize.”

“Meaning what?”

“Allow me to show you.” Naamahh turned and revealed her tail, which Luca had understood as a whip. “See?” The color drained from Luca’s face. He stepped backward. Her tail was about as long as her waist to the floor. The tail began at the end of her spine and tapered to approximately 3 cm in diameter. It was covered with short black fur.

“And that,” Naamah waved the end of her tail in front of his face, “is my nuptial rose,” she said. The nuptial rose was a heart-shaped appendage at the end of her tail, about as big as Naamah‘s hand. “I am going to use my rose to make you a happy man.”

“W-w-what happened to a dead man?”

"That, too,” she said brightly. “Lie down on the sofa.”

I don’t know who or what this woman is, but she is one nutty bitch, Luca thought to himself. He lay down.

Naamah stepped toward him. She held her nuptial rose to his face. She blossomed the rose. "Now take a nice, deep breath," she said.

Luca was immediately intoxicated. The aroma filled his head; it seemed to replace reality. Gradually, the sight of his ordinary world passed from view, and he walked in a new world of skin, orgies, breasts, erections, lips, nipples, vaginas, and testicles. A man called out to welcome him. He felt wonderful.

On his real erection, Luca felt a hand, then a pair of lips. The lips danced along the length of his cock, and enveloped his aching balls. The lips returned to the tip, and Naamah’s tongue settled into a rhythmic stroking of his frenulum.

He began to cum. It seemed as though his orgasm would never finish. When his ejaculation finally ended, he felt that he had been cumming for half an hour.

"Nineteen seconds!" His semen dripped from Naamah’s mouth as she swallowed and smiled. "A nineteen-second cum! And a thick and luscious nineteen-second cum. I knew I picked a good one!"

"You know," Naamah said, stroking his face with her hand, "the Otherworld record for making mortal men cum is only seventeen seconds. And you weighed in at nineteen. What a proud addition you are going to be.

"I should explain. First, I am going to drain all your mana. Mana is the mortal’s spiritual energy force, which is expressed in men as semen. Draining all of yours is going to take another two or three days, at least. Then you will come to live with us, forever. To your mortal relatives and friends, you will have died. They will wonder why you died with a smile on your face. The reason for your smile is that you will have permanently entered the Otherworld, where you were a few minutes ago. Life there is eternal, it is one long orgasm, and you will have an endless supply of beautiful women."

"You- You’re crazy."

"Am I? Look at your hand."

He raised his hand above his face. His hand was considerably withered. If he had to guess his age based solely on his hand, he would have guessed sixty-five. And he would not see sixty-five for a few decades. "Oh, my god," he said.

"See you tomorrow night,” she said enthusiastically.

Dawn brightened the room. Luca lay on the sofa, exhausted and weak. After an hour or so, he gathered his strength and sat on the edge of the sofa. He could not yet walk. By lunchtime, hunger drove him into the kitchen.

Luca sat and ate. He knew that Naamah would return and that there was nothing he could do about it. He began to prepare for his mortal death. He wrote notes of friendship and love to those whom he thought would be the first to find his remains. He went online and prepared a will.

In the course of his preparations for mortal death, Luca thought about the trade-off between life and its pains, and death and its eternal pleasures. He daydreamed that it would be nice to have a woman as pretty as Naamah as a girlfriend in this life.

A dog’s bark yanked him back to reality and back to the serious matter at hand.

Online, he also researched what, if anything, a mortal could do to defend himself against a succubus. He found one website that recommended clean living in general, and a meat-free diet in particular. He figured that his life alone was as clean as it could possibly get, given that he had never had a girlfriend, and that a meat-free diet was easy, especially if starting the diet would help get rid of Naamah. On the theory that too much is enough, he began researching a vegan diet.

Night fell. Around two in the morning, he heard a soft whooshing sound. Naamah got right to the heart of the matter. “Ready for round two?” she asked.

Luca walked with Naamah toward the bedroom. He was nervous about the confrontation about to take place. Suddenly, there was an explosion of thunder, and smoke filled the living room. When the smoke cleared, a man wearing a tuxedo stood in the room.

“Lilu! You horrid incubus! What are you doing here?” Naamah barked at him.

Luca stepped backward. Who’s this? he thought.

“Word is that you got a good one, with lots of mana,” Lilu said. “There must be plenty to go around. How’s about you share a little of that?”

“How’s about you go back to Hell where you came from?” Naamah realized that she should not have mentioned Luca to her younger sister Eisheth, who was a blabbermouth. But it was too late now.

“Now, Naamah, is that any way to treat a fellow citizen of the Otherworld?"

“I found him,” Naamah said. “I spent the time scouting him out. He’s mine.”

“Is that any way to share? I am willing to share what I’ve got with you.” From under the back vent of his tuxedo, he showed his tail. At the end of the tail, there was a phallic rod about 25 cm long.

“Lilu, no.”

“It’s all in the spirit of sharing, my dear. As they say, the nuptial scepter opens the nuptial rose.” He waved his scepter before her face. “A manly aroma, not so?”

“Lilu, please. He’s mine.”

The scepter changed shape continually. It began as a series of connected balls about two cm in diameter, then became a cylinder with a bump which rose and fell where Naamah’s G-spot would be. At the base of the scepter, a single large testicle grew, turning alternately red and purple.

“Naamah, take off your bodysuit.”

Naamah did not take her eyes off the scepter. Wordlessly, she undressed.

“Get on the floor.”

She got on the floor.

“Spread your legs.”

She spread her legs.

“Tell me how badly you want my scepter.”

“I want your scepter more than eternal life itself," Naamah said. Luca listened to her monotone and winced. Naamah continued. ”I want your scepter between my legs, forever.”

“And?”

She was silent.

More forcefully, he said, “And?”

She was silent.

“And you want to share your load of mana with me.”

At this, Luca stepped up to Lilu. “Maybe she doesn’t,” Luca said.

“What? Are you the pile of shared mana?”

“Yeah, like that. Buddy, get lost. I’m standing between you and her.”

“Oh, yeah! Spell broken!” Naamah came to and thrust her fist in the air.

“And,” Luca paused, “I am a vegan.”

Lilu smiled. “A what?”

“A vegan.”

“So you’re going to defeat me by being insufferable?"

“No. But I plan to stay pure of heart and body.”

Lilu doubled over laughing. “Right, pal.” He touched Luca on the shoulder. “Feel that? Didn’t stop me, did it? Well, I am going to come back tomorrow with my mates, and they can watch while I pull that arm, and the other one, right out of their stupid sockets. By the way, pal, when I kill a mortal, they die. For real. None of this stuff like 'you-get-to-orgasm-forever.' You don’t even go to Hell. First, my spells will make Naamah a happy woman in front of you. Then I’ll take the rest of your mana. Then, mercifully, you will simply cease to exist. See you tomorrow.” With a roar of thunder and a cloud of smoke, he was gone.

Luca sat on the floor next to Naamah.

“Are you alright?” Luca asked.

“What exactly were you trying to do, Luca? That incubus can squash you like a bug,” Naamah said.

“Naamah, you know that whole vegan thing a moment ago?”

“I had a front-row seat.”

“That was intended to ward you off.”

“Me?” she protested. “But I want you to live forever in sexual ecstasy.”

“That’s just it. Naamah, I don’t feel like dying, even for a reward like that. I was hoping for a way to persuade you to forget this whole death thing and to stay in my world.”

“Ain’t gonna happen, babe.” Naamah took his arm and laid her head on his shoulder. “I am a succubus.” It occurred to Luca that a naked woman had taken his arm and placed her head on his shoulder. He liked that idea. “Luca, you didn’t have to stand up to Lilu. But you did. And for that I thank you.” Naamah kissed his shoulder.

Naamah began to put her bodysuit back on. Luca got up and walked toward the kitchen. At the doorway, he stopped, folded his arms, put on his best set of bedroom eyes, looked straight at her, and leaned back against the door frame.

He missed the door frame and fell over backward. Naamah, who only saw his leg go up in the air, burst out laughing. She rushed to his side. “Whatever were you thinking?”

“I want you.”

“Oh, Luca, do you know how old I am?”

“Well, no.”

“Remember the guy in the orgy last night who said welcome?"

“Yeah.”

“The day before I captured him, he had killed a saber-toothed tiger. And I am a lot older than that. My point is that you and I just wouldn’t work.”

Luca noticed that the front of her bodysuit was open halfway down her torso. He smiled to himself.

“Salt, Luca.”

“What?”

“You want to get rid of Lilu?”

“Of course I do.”

“Use salt. Otherworlders hate salt. I detest salt. It makes my eyes water something awful.”

The sun rose. Luca waited until the stores opened and returned home with two twenty-five kg bags of rock salt.

Luca got some sleep during the day. Naamah showed up around midnight.

“What are you doing here already?” Luca asked.

“I want nothing to do with Lilu and his stupid spells. And that means protecting you, Mr. Mana. And that means some preparation is necessary.”

“Okay. I bought lots of salt. Now what?”

On her instructions, Luca made a salt wall, which was a circle of salt a few cm high around his living room. Naamah walked around the wall four times, looking for gaps. She found none. Luca and Naamah sat on the sofa and waited.

Sometime during the wee hours of the morning, a thunderous roar announced the entrance of Lilu. His realization about the wall was immediate. “Okay, pal, time’s up. Oh! You built a salt wall!”

With Lilu were five demon friends. Lilu first sent one of the friends on a careful patrol of the wall. Two circuits of the wall showed no gaps.

“I will get you, and I will take away your girlfriend,” Lilu growled. He turned to one of his friends. Very gingerly, the friend picked up the edge of a throw rug that the salt wall crossed. He shook the throw rug.

The salt spilled all over, leaving a flattened wall of salt half a meter wide, where previously the wall had been only a few cm wide. So shaking the rug did not work.

“I’m not done with you and Naamah yet.” Lilu turned to his entourage. “Where do you suppose he keeps his vacuum cleaner?” All of the friends began rummaging through Luca’s closets. One of them soon found the vacuum.

Lilu began running the vacuum cleaner across the salt wall.

“Good-bye, punk,” was all he said to Luca.

Naamah saw all this. She leaned over the salt wall. Her eyes began to water immediately.

“Naamah! Don’t hurt yourself!” Luca said. “I’m just going to die for being stupid.”

She rubbed the tears from her eyes with her hands, which were still covered by her bodysuit. Naamah leaned over the salt wall a second time, as an ocean of tears spilled from her eyes.

“Naamah! Stop!” Luca yelled.

She rubbed her eyes again with her gloves, front and back. Then Naamah plunged both her gloved fists into the salt wall. At that moment, Lilu reached Luca and grabbed Luca’s arm near the shoulder.

“Oh, goodbye, my Naamah, goodbye,” said Luca.

Naamah smashed Lilu in the face with her gloved and salted fist as hard as she could. Lilu cried out, and, using his tuxedo’s pocket square, he held his cheek and mouth. He let go of Luca. His clear, watery blood was falling all around him. Naamah hit Lilu in the face again, and he fell to the floor.

Naamah turned toward the demons in the entourage. She held up her fists. “Who else wants a mouthful of salt?” All five demons backed away.

“My body is mine! Screw your spells!” Naamah shouted triumphantly.

Naamah looked at Luca and said softly, “This man is mine, and I am his. Never in all the eons has a living mortal man shown me such love.”

Lilu crawled through the opening in the perimeter of the salt wall. The five helped him stand up. The six began to leave, and Naamah followed close behind with both fists clenched. Luca stayed at the salt wall, standing and watching.

“Grab her nuptial rose!” Lilu shouted suddenly. Two of the companion demons, who were wearing gloves, held her hands. Naamah struggled and whipped her tail around. Luca ran to her, but it was too late. The five had overpowered her. One of them had yanked off the nuptial rose, to the screams and tears of Naamah.

“Vengeance!” Lilu shouted. “Her rose! Almost as good as her virginity.” Thunder struck, smoke filled the room, and Lilu and his companions vanished.

Naamah and Luca sat together on the living room sofa. “I hope I have made it clear that I will love you forever,” Luca said. “I am overjoyed that you love me. But if you want time to mourn the loss of your nuptial rose, feel free to take all the time you need.”

“Thank you, but I will mourn the loss of my rose for the rest of my very short life.”

“You’re not going to live forever?”

“The nuptial rose was my badge of immortality. I am now," she sighed, “as mortal as you are.”

“During this very short life,” Luca said, “I will try my best to give you pleasure. But here is my fair warning: I’m nowhere near as experienced as you are.”

“That’s what every mortal thinks. Actually, succubi are only hostesses to the eternal orgy.”

“So, are you saying that after supervising eons of orgies in the Otherworld, you have never actually had sex?”

Naamah hung her head and blushed a deep red. “That is what I am saying.”

“If you blush like that, you are certainly mortal.”

“So be gentle with me, okay?” Naamah said.

“Actually, I was thinking the other way around,” Luca replied.

“No!” Naamah exclaimed.

It was Luca’s turn to hang his head.

“You mean the first time you would have had sex was after your mortal death?”

“Well, yes.”

“Oh, yuck!” said Naamah. “Every mortal who comes to the eternal orgy has at least some experience.”

“But you sucked me off,” Luca said. “You must have learned that somewhere.”

“I used to walk around in the dreams of Catherine the Great of Russia when she had her lovers. And those active in the eternal orgy can be wildly graphic.” Naamah kissed him on the cheek. “Let me show you what I brought to the party.”

Naamah began to undress. As she removed the top of her bodysuit, her breasts seemed to expand.

“Those are very nice.” Luca said. "May I ask how big?”

"90 cm. H cup. I made them for the eternal orgy. I just kept them when I came back here tonight.”

“Why did you bother if you knew I was going to die and then have sex only with other people for the next seventeen gazillion years?” he asked.

“Well, I got to kind of like you.”

“When did this happen?”

“When Mr. Bedroom Eyes missed the door frame,” Naamah said, smiling.

“How did that make you like me? I felt like an idiot.”

“You made me laugh, you fool,” Naamah replied. “I just melted. So I figured I’d have something nice ready for when the big moment finally arrived. Last night, you did not have to stand up to Lilu. If you truly wanted to get rid of me, all you had to do was nothing. Tonight, you ran to help me as those thugs stole my nuptial rose. All that says love. Love as in 'the big moment has arrived.' Now take off all your clothes.”

“My scepter will open your rose,” Luca said, smiling and unbuttoning his shirt.

Naamah smiled back and whispered tenderly, “Shut up and fuck me, lover.”