Satan’s Whore – Chapter 3

Daniel couldn’t believe his good fortune— to have uncovered a succubus in his own adopted city.

There was little doubt for Daniel that the woman who bore such a striking resemblance to Katarina von Regensburg was indeed a succubus. It seemed incredible… hell, it was incredible. Yet everything in her reaction to him suggested that he had indeed stumbled upon an agent of the devil.

He had long known that evil walked among the unsuspecting. Indeed, that was the primary reason for his theological studies. To wage war against the forces of chaos was, in his mind, the highest calling. That he should encounter on such force in the flesh was in itself a sign from God that he had been chosen to take up the fight.

After he’d recovered from his encounter with Katarina, he hurried to the residence. He would study and research, redoubling his efforts to understand those who had come before him and those who currently fought the war. And it was a war. Not the kind of war written about in the history books, but a real war, a secret war, with heroes unknown to the innocent masses. The Vatican’s current chief exorcist, Father Gabriele Amwroth, had, on the heels of the avalanche of sex abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic church, just months ago stated that the Devil was at work at the Vatican. What an admission! He’d spoken of the smoke of Satan in the holy rooms. And now Daniel had caught a whiff of that smoke himself. He had, if not proof, then strong evidence that the agents of evil were living among the unsuspecting citizens of Heidelberg.

Yes, he would study and commit to memory the ancient rites. He would pray for strength for the battle that was to be waged. Perhaps it was the sin of pride, but he felt himself chosen to lay low this demon. Everything pointed to this interpretation, for had not God revealed the demon to him?

He debated whether to bring the matter up to Father Schmidt, his advisor on this academic exchange. In the end, he decided against it. Father Schmidt did not appear to possess that spiritual gravitas that suggested receptiveness to what Daniel might have told him. In matters of biblical interpretation, not all members of the clergy were of the same mind as Father Amwroth.

In the end, Daniel decided that the best course for now was to organize the information that he had on Katarina von Regensburg. He returned to the archives and paused to study the portrait that had launched him on this path. Again, he was startled by the likeness between the figure in the portrait and the woman he’d approached in the street. It was unmistakable. But there were things he hadn’t noticed before. The artist had done a remarkable job in capturing the smoldering depths of Katarina’s eyes. The light caught the knowing half-smile and the full, sweet redness her lips. She wore an off-the-shoulder dress that hinted at the fullness of her breasts, with tantalizing shadows that suggested a deep cleft between them. A corseted waist flared into shapely hips, almost lost in the volume of satin that cascaded to the floor. Clever shadows in the fabric hinted at the dark delta that lay hidden beneath it.

There was no doubt that she was beautiful.

The painted image merged with his recollection of the succubus as his mind drifted back to the afternoon. Those same breasts had pressed against his chest. He could feel their yielding softness still. And the warmth of her. And the hand that had touched his cheek. It could have been the touch of a lover had her eyes not betrayed such burning anger. Her scent came to him, almost as though she were standing right there in the room, looking at her own portrait over his shoulder.

Nervously, he looked around. He was alone.

He shook his head and then noticed with alarm that an erection pressed against the fabric of his trousers now as it did then.

“God help me,” he muttered to himself.

He took a couple of deep breaths to steady himself and tore his eyes away from the portrait.

He reached for a book that contained the history Heidelberg and the Palatinate-Neuburg line that had ruled it until the late 1700s.

He scanned the text, looking for any mention of Katarina von Regensburg. There were very few references. She had, by all accounts, insinuated herself into the Heidelberg aristocracy as a lady in waiting for Anna Maria Luisa de’ Medici, second wife of Johann Wilhelm II. The latter soon took her as a mistress. Strangely, it was Katarina who influenced Johann to proclaim religious tolerance.

Later in life, Katarina married and was banished from the court by Johann Wilhelm’s successor, Charles III Philip, who believed that Katarina’s continued presence in the court dishonored Johann’s memory. She lived out the rest of her life in poverty.

Daniel wondered whether it was Johann’s successor who had defaced the portrait. It certainly fit with the fact that he’d been a cleric.

There was much to know. Unfortunately, the details that would have added color to the known facts had been lost in the passage of time.

Daniel looked at the clock and saw that he had missed supper. In fact, it was now quite late. Not only that, but he had missed evening prayer.

“Damn,” he muttered to himself.

Alas, such were the sacrifices he had to make.

xxxxx

 

Sleep evaded Daniel for many hours. His head swam with visions of Katarina von Regensburg and the battle in which he had no doubt he would play a central role. He would bask in the glory of God and the accolades of his brethren. His name would be spoken in hushed whispers in the halls of the Vatican. It would be a difficult battle, but with the God on his side, how could good not triumph over the forces of evil?

When sleep finally did come, daylight was a mere few hours away. It was a fitful sleep with unrelated thoughts chasing each other about in his mind.

Daniel would later not be sure of what woke him — whether it was a whiff of fragrance or the unmistakable sense of a presence in his modest bedroom.

He scanned the room, peering in the dark corners, trying to separate the familiar shadows from a darkness that didn’t belong.

Something was there. He could feel it.

As his eyes became accustomed to the gloom, he could make out what looked like a figure, standing against the dresser just beneath the crucifix that hung on the wall.

The figure approached, taking a tentative step into the moonlight that illuminated a small patch on the opposite wall.

Daniel’s breath caught.

There stood Katarina von Regensburg, looking unlike the portrait or the woman he’d met on the street, for this incarnation of the woman, the succubus, stood naked and proud and flawless, arms crossed beneath ample breasts.

It seemed impossible that something so unspeakably beautiful could be evil. Her presence within the room far surpassed her physical size. She stood perhaps five and a half feet, yet she seemed to fill the space, as though everything in it bent towards her. She inclined her head to him, her shimmering black hair framing features that were cast in delicious contrast by the faint moonlight that illuminated them. With a slow, seductive wink and an enervating smile, she stretched her arms out from her sides, palms up, slender fingers slightly curled in a blasphemous parody of a crucifixion.

Here I am, she seemed to say. This could be yours.

He realized with alarm that her offer did not fill him with horror.

Her nipples stood puckered and erect on those voluptuous breasts. Against his will, his eyes raked the slender shape of her waist to her full hips and then down her impossibly long, muscular legs. She spread them slightly, resting her weight on one, thrusting out a hip, accentuating the curvaceous geography of her body. In the shadows between her legs, he could just make out the tender ripples of her labia. She began to turn, a lazy pirouette on the ball of one foot. Something golden glinted between her legs. No dancer on this earth could surpass her grace. Her pubic mound disappeared from view, replaced by a firm, shapely buttocks. The circle continued until she faced him again.

Daniel realized that he was growing aroused.

Again that smile quirked the edges of her mouth. A dimple played on one cheek. Her hands came together before her as though in prayer, coming to rest just beneath her breasts, slender fingers extended in the valley between them. She raised her hands then, lifting those tender orbs on her wrists and then her forearms, the shape of them swelling with the pressure exerted on them. Her nipples disappeared beneath her arms. So yielding. So soft and welcoming. Her hands rose higher still, passing in front of her face. Unsupported now, her breasts fell to their previous position, bouncing and swaying ever so slightly.

Daniel’s throat constricted.

The hands continued up, pointing towards heaven. Katarina threw her head back then, revealing the line of her neck and the vulnerability of her throat.

Daniel fought the urge to leap from his bed and place his lips there, against the silken skin of her neck. It was then that he noticed that his sheets were now tented by an erection that was already threatening to erupt.

His heart ached. Here was a woman, indescribably beautiful and unspeakably dangerous.

He could feel that familiar tingle in his loins, the building of pressure. This isn’t how a soldier of God is expected to react, he thought as he ejaculated.

Daniel woke with a start. The morning light streamed through his window. He rolled over and recoiled as his hip landed upon the chilly wetness that must have deposited there.

A dream, he thought. It must have been a dream. He inhaled and could imagine that he could catch the scent of Katarina. Either her or the smoke of Satan.

xxxxx

 

Daniel dragged himself to his practical theology class, exhausted and more than a little distracted. He couldn’t help but to think that the battle had begun before he’d been able to marshal his forces.

It was a small class of a dozen students. A number of these were exchange students from the Princeton Theological Seminary and schools throughout Europe. He smiled wanly at a student from London, an earnest girl with whom he’s chatted a few times and for whom he secretly and futilely lusted. She returned his smile, all innocence and freshness, and bent to retrieve her books from her backpack.

The question foremost in his mind was whether last night’s apparition had been real or a product of his own mind. It would almost be easier to accept the former. Infinitely more troubling was the thought that such manifestations of carnality could be produced by him alone.

Either way, he wasn’t equipped for this, he realized. How could he do battle with the forces of evil when his unconscious mind and body turned traitor and embraced the enemy?

He glanced at the girl as the professor entered the room and wondered what she looked like naked. He was aghast at the thought and struggled to suppress it, even as he imagined her on his bed with her legs pointed heavenward.

The professor began his lecture. Daniel concentrated on the words. His German was fairly good, but following along in the classroom was always a challenge. His mind soon drifted, floating on the cadence of the professor’s oratory. He struggled to keep up, to write his notes, but other thoughts intruded and pulled him from the present.

“Daniel?”

He heard his name as from a distance. He looked at his notebook. His hand held a pencil that was shading in the nipple of a breast. His eyes bugged out. Also in the margins were fairly realistic sketches of a hairless vagina, legs, and yet more breasts.

“Daniel!”

He quickly closed the notebook, but not before the girl from London had seen the images. She gasped and quickly averted her eyes.

“Sorry, Herr Professor.”

“You look pale.”

“I am feeling unwell.”

“In that case, perhaps you would like to excuse yourself.”

“Yes. Thank you.”

He glanced at the girl. She studiously avoided his gaze and he could feel aversion from her. Damn. Daniel hurriedly packed his things and rushed out into the relative peace of the hallway.

xxxxx

 

The dreams or visitations — Daniel didn’t know which — came unbidden every night.

He turned from religious treatises on demonic possession to secular accounts and scanned the internet for anything that approximated his own experiences. Most were the fevered imaginings of diseased minds. There were desperate people seeking advice on how to attract succubi and equally desperate people describing patently deluded episodes with those same demons. Daniel was further surprised at the sheer number of stories in which demons featured as the protagonists. He couldn’t believe it. It was proof of what the Vatican’s chief exorcist maintained — that the worship and idolatry of the devil was all indicative of the spread of evil.

He slogged through these anecdotes and stories, growing more frustrated by the hour. His notes boiled down to the following:

Succubi likely, but not necessarily, came to their victims in dreams.

Succubi either seduced their victims or forced them into sexual acts.

Succubi were either energy-sucking demons or benevolent if immaterial sex partners.

Succubi were attracted by men who masturbated or viewed pornography.

If this last was the case, then it was remarkable that anyone didn’t have a succubus.

Daniel shook his head and shut down his laptop. After hours of fruitless research, he was no closer to knowing whether he was actually being visited or was just dreaming with disheartening realism.

For the next days, Daniel tried to avoid sleep entirely. He was largely unsuccessful. No sooner would he close his eyes than visions would come to him. It was impossible to know whether these were dreams or actual visitations. Either way, he was exhausted and harassed and hardly thinking clearly when he decided to pay a personal visit to Father Schmidt.

After some banal pleasantries, Daniel blurted out, “I am tormented.”

Father Schmidt’s bushy eyebrows rose up. “Yes?”

“By… by matters of the flesh.”

The priest smiled, perhaps a little sadly, possibly remembering his own similar torments. “It’s not unusual for a young man to be so afflicted.”

“But…”

But what could Daniel say? But he felt that he was being tormented by a demon. But she was beautiful, and aside from the guilt that he felt, he didn’t find it wholly terrible that a beautiful woman should visit him in his dormitory room. But he was kind of in crisis and he was finding it really hard to reconcile his calling with the other thing that was calling him.

“If I might suggest some passages in the bible? I recall that they were of great succor to me when I was your age.”

“Thank you father,” said Daniel. For I have sinned, he continued to himself. And the bible likely won’t be of much use.

xxxxx

 

If there had been a hair shirt at his disposal, he would have worn it. As a late teen, he’d fashioned a crude spiked loop that he wore around his thigh. A string extended from the loop through a hole in his pocket. At the first sign of an impure thought, he would tug at the string, causing the tines to bite into the tender flesh of his thigh. He’d heard that mortifying the flesh would subdue impure thoughts, but of course the opposite happened. The pain that would lance through him served only to remind him of what he was trying to suppress. It was hopeless.

Nonetheless, he had to do something.

He lit a candle and watched the flame flicker and wave. He didn’t dare sleep. If his waking moments were difficult, fraught with unexpected visions of Katarina, his nights were torture. At night, he was helpless. At night, whatever floated just below the surface rose up and demanded attention.

There was no not thinking about Kat. Although he dreaded sleep, a part of him longed for it, not for the rest but for the opportunity to gaze upon her once again.

The candle’s flame resolved itself into the tapered waist and full hips of the succubus. It danced in unseen currents of air.

He tore his eyes away from the flame and gazed instead at the crucifix on the wall.

“Give me strength,” he muttered.

The crucifix merely reminded him of the position that the succubus had assumed in that first dream. Fingers curled. Arms extended. Those full breasts, crowned with puckered nipples that bespoke arousal — or perhaps a cold room, he conceded. Whether aroused or cold, he still longed to kiss them, to feel that tender button of flesh between his lips.

Was there nowhere he could rest his eyes without being reminded of her?

The flame on his desk danced. Daniel raised his hand, palm down above the candle. He winced as the heat kissed his skin.

He felt her behind him and refused to dignify her presence by acknowledging it. The hairs on the back of his neck rose and he felt that familiar tingle between his legs. He felt curiously self-conscious, knowing that the object of his penitence stood watching him, sharing with him the evidence of his weakness.

He finally turned and saw that the room was empty. She wasn’t there.

He laughed. He was losing it. His hand trembled. The pain was searing now.

“Give me the courage.” If he could withstand this, he could withstand anything. Hadn’t his savior suffered for him? This suffering was nothing in comparison.

His universe contracted into a small red dot of agony. There was nothing but pain and tortured flesh.

I’m doing this because of her, he thought. And thus the succubus insinuated herself in the purity of his suffering. One could not be without the other, because one was the cause of the other. The two belonged together like the faces of a coin.

***

He looked up from the desk. His hand ached.

The succubus extended her wings and arms and stretched, as though she had been waiting for a long while.

She smiled and took a step forward. The feathers of her extended wings brushed the walls of the room.

Oh, God. Here she was, in demon form no less!

“Nunquan suade mihi varna!”

It didn’t work. Never tempt me with your vanities. Bullshit. His words rang empty. The whispered prayer of a coward. He was tempted. Sorely tempted.

She stood at the foot of his bed. She tucked her wings behind her, framing her body against the delicate, white backdrop. She was flawless and irresistible.

“You want this.” It was a statement rather than a question — simple, direct, and true. He did want this.

Daniel couldn’t help but to rake his gaze over the flowing, sinuous geography of her body. There was a world to explore in the shadows.

“You want this,” the succubus said again.

“Yes.” The word came out as a whisper from a suddenly dry mouth.

“You want me to be your dark angel.”

It seemed impossible that something so beautiful could be dark, yet he knew it was so. “Yes.”

Her wings vanished and she stood there, small and vulnerable at the foot of the bed. She raised her arms to him. “Come to me then.”

Daniel rose and approached. He stood before her, to all appearances bigger and stronger than his tormentor. His heart hammered in his chest in fear and desire. This was a step he willed himself not to take even as he took it. For once let me be strong, he begged himself. This was the most dangerous and fatal of all steps, yet he was powerless to resist. He placed the backs of his fingers on the side of her neck, the spot that he had dreamed of kissing. He felt the smoothness and warmth of the delicate skin, felt the heartbeat, and his being thrilled at the sensation. She tilted her head in invitation.

He placed his lips on the spot and was suffused with her smell and vitality.

She turned from his embrace. “You are conspicuously overdressed,” she said with a shy smile.

This must be a dream, he thought. Let me wake before I’m lost.

Almost of their own volition, his hands grasped the bottom of his t-shirt.

She stilled them. “No. Let me.”

He watched as her delicate fingers traced down his torso and raised the bottom of his t-shirt up and finally over his head. The cool air in the room lapped at his flesh and he shuddered.

A fingernail traced a line from nipple to nipple and then from throat to navel, coming to rest on the waistband of his underwear. She pulled it down around his erection and past his knees. She held his gaze all the while, finishing the movement with a slight arching of her eyebrows.

“You want me and you are mine,” she said.

He nodded. He couldn’t speak. Any thought of resistance now was far away.

She cupped his testicles in her hand, suffusing the area with a thrumming energy. He moaned and it sounded to him like the whimper of a small animal. It seemed impossible, but he grew harder. She lowered herself and her other hand encircled his shaft. Long fingernails pressed against its top and the thumb against its underside, five sharp points of exquisite pleasure.

The crown was purple with engorgement. He watched in fascination and expectation as her mouth approached it. Her tongue slipped out from between her lips and licked the tip. The breath he’d been holding rushed out of him and he fought to remain standing. Her tongue snaked around the circumference of his head, leaving it wet and glistening in the moonlight.

“Good?”

Daniel nodded again, not trusting himself to speak.

The succubus smiled up at him, dark eyes flashing between dark lashes. His cock rested on the soft, pink bed of her tongue.

She closed her eyes and parted her lips and slid his length upon her tongue into the confines of her mouth. She clamped her lips around him and he felt her tongue undulating wetly along the underside of his length.

How long had he dreamed of this? he thought. How long had he imagined just this, without even coming close to how impossibly good it could feel?

He placed his hands on her head and wrapped his fingers in the shimmering coils of her hair. She moved her head slowly back and forth. More and more of him disappeared into her warm, moist mouth until his entire length rested there. The succubus hummed in satisfaction and an exquisite vibration extended to him.

The hand that held his balls insinuated itself between his legs. Fingers buried themselves between his cheeks and she pulled him towards her until her lips pressed against his abdomen. It seemed impossible, but she’d taken all of him. Unseen muscles within her throat clenched around him in a delicious embrace. Her tongue fluttered beneath him, butterfly-light.

How many times had he denied himself this pleasure? he wondered absently. And for what?

The succubus withdrew and smiled at him.

“Please,” he whispered.

“I like it when you say that.”

She descended on him again, running his entire length against the exquisite hardness of her bared teeth.

A low moan sounded in the small room and it took him a while to recognize that it had come from him.

Between his legs, fingers pressed his perineum and anus. He wanted to squirm away, but it felt too good.

He felt strangely disembodied. He looked down at the woman who crouched before him and, though he felt it all, couldn’t bring himself to fully believe that the cock that slid so easily into her mouth could be his. But he felt it — the tongue, the teeth, and the delicate hand that stroked him. And he saw the breasts that swayed with her movements and the curve of her waist and the fullness of her ass.

Her hand now moved forcefully along him and her lips exerted a most delicious pressure on the crown of his cock.

With every stroke he felt himself losing it.

With every movement of the silken tongue on him, his resolve drifted away.

He was lost, all too glad to surrender.

He exploded within her, spurting his seed deep in her throat. One spasm followed the other in rapid succession.

He woke. He didn’t recall having fallen asleep. Perhaps he’d passed out. He rubbed his eyes, wincing as his fingers closed around the angry red burn on his palm.

He’d fallen asleep at his desk. The candle guttered feebly, half extinguished in its own wax. How fitting, he thought. He blew it out, putting it out of its misery. A tendril of smoke rose from the charred wick.

He sat still for a moment, listening for others who might have had their sleep disturbed b whatever noises he’d been making. But the residence was quiet, unlike his mind.

This was the sixth consecutive night in which his sleep had been interrupted by visions of the succubus. He was fairly certain now that he was either a very sick young man or that Katarina was actively pursuing him.

Either way, he was powerless to resist. His prayers had accomplished nothing.

His defenses were useless.

He closed his eyes and something clicked. In the absence of a defense, perhaps he should go on the offensive.

He smiled. He knew what he had to do.

THE END OF CHAPTER THREE