Azael says he wants me to document my seduction, take him through the process of how I lost my soul. He says my story is valuable, because I dragged it out for so long.

He says most men who become demon thralls fall in one night, as part of one catastrophic bad decision. Lydia said the easiest way to get a thrall is to keep an eye on a powerful man, and wait for him to have a low point, right after he’s lost a wife or lost a job or had some kind of falling out with his family.

She says most thralls are made during holidays and birthdays, when men are most likely to despair over being alone. So, if you’re a lonely billionaire, or just a guy working the late shift, watching over something demons want, never let yourself spend Christmas or your birthday alone.

Azael wants me to share practical advice for avoiding demons, so here it is. If your life is starting to feel like an improbable fantasy from erotic fiction; if you’ve been having weird chance encounters with beautiful strangers who seem way too hot and way too forward in daily life, you may just have a target on your back. Especially if you have money, power, or a security clearance.

You may think you’re not worth seducing, but it doesn’t have to be your money, your power, or your security clearance. If you have access to one of these things, and you catch yourself feeling lost and alone, be very careful about who you take home from the club, the bookstore or the coffee shop, because the best night of your life can quickly become the worst.

Azael is fascinated by my seduction because I stretched it out over weeks, fully aware of what I was submitting to and what it was gonna cost me. He wants me to document the slow process of a smart man talking himself into embracing evil, and in my case, it started with a sandwich.

* * *

I hated the idea of leaving Lydia alone in my house, but I finally got hungry enough to risk it. It seemed stupid to just sit there and stay hungry when I knew I had a free sandwich waiting for me a couple blocks over.

I came back with a hot plastic bag and spread the contents out on my desk. My points were only good for a sandwich, but I came there so often, they threw in olives, chips, and a pickle.

I sat down to eat at my desk like I always did, and Lydia was right there.

“I actually did see tits this week, so technically I didn’t earn this.” I looked up at Lydia, “They were your tits, you wanna split it?”

“You’re offering me food?”

“Am I not supposed to do that? Do you even eat? I mean, can you eat, if you want to?”

“Yes. Demon bodies are simpler than yours, but I can eat; it just burns.”

“So, have a sandwich, I’ll get you a chair.” She hesitated, so I said, “Come on, it’s just nice having someone to eat with, even if it’s you.”

I got the extra chair from my bedroom and pulled it up on the opposite side of my desk.

Lydia stepped down. “Would it be all right if I changed my clothes? I feel silly eating a normal dinner while looking like this.”

I shrugged, grabbing plates and two bottles of water. “Sure.”

A brief flicker of magic, and Lydia turned into a perfectly normal, human version of herself. No horns, no tail. I don’t know what I was expecting, but she was wearing jeans and a sweater. The outfit was obviously from the wrong era, but not absurdly so.

“Is this okay?” Lydia said. “Do women still dress like this?”

I had to smile. “Sure. It’s a nice change, actually.”

Lydia gave a little bow and sat down. I put half the sandwich on a plate and pushed it over to her.

She was studying me again. “You really got this sandwich as a reward for some kind of monk ritual, depriving yourself?”

“It’s kind of stupid to still be doing it after all this time, but the whole anti-porn thing started when a bunch of the guys I used to work with started dating strippers. These were college dropouts who were suddenly making big boy money, but they were working terrible hours, and they were all hopeless with women. So, of course, they became regulars at a strip club.

“And it turns out, if you throw thousands of dollars at a girl and pretend to be fascinated by every word that comes out of her mouth, one of them will eventually come home with you. And once one of them realizes you have a bunch of extra bedrooms, word gets around, and suddenly you’ve got four or five of her friends hanging around, crashing at the big empty house you’re paying too much rent for.

“They only took me to the club one time, to try and ‘get me over’ Judy. They spent like six hundred dollars for this redheaded amazon to take me in the back room, but I couldn’t keep it up for a woman somebody paid money for. I looked in her eyes and it wasn’t… desire, you know? There was something bored and angry in her eyes that didn’t match the look on her face. Killed the whole thing for me. All the other guys left the club strutting and slapping each other on the back, but I felt like a bigger loser on my way home than I did on my way there.

“It turned into a whole lifestyle for these guys, but they had no idea what to do with women like this. These were computer geeks from shitty families, thinking they had found some kind of cheat code that let them get laid any time they wanted.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“They started showing up late for work, and a couple of them started using drugs as a substitute for sleep, custom-tailored productivity drugs that didn’t even have street names yet. It was all just fun and games, with a rotating cast of ‘girlfriends,’ until their real boyfriends found out and decided the party was over.

“The house got robbed and two of my friends ended up in the hospital. The whole group swore off strippers after that. Two of them went Christian and got really political about porn. They installed these public shaming apps and got most of the office to do it. I lost touch with those guys a couple years ago, but I just kept doing it, I guess, as a reminder of when I had friends.”

“And you failed your challenge, because of me?”

“Yeah.”

Lydia looked at her sandwich, then at mine. “Give me your half and I’ll let you see them again.”

It hit me just right. I started laughing and I could not stop. Then she started laughing because I was laughing and then neither one of us could stop. I remember this because Lydia was a tough room, and this was the first time I really made her laugh.

And then we were both just laughing a little bit, but our eyes locked, and I wasn’t sure how that happened, and I wanted to jump across that desk and tear those clothes off more than anything I had ever wanted in my life.

I jumped out of my chair and turned away, “Dammit!”

“I’m sorry,” Lydia said. “You were being so nice, and I ruined it. Please sit down. Eat your dinner. I’m sorry. I promise I won’t tease you again. Please sit down.”

I sat down and let out a ragged breath. Looking at the sandwich seemed to center me. I looked at her again and asked, “How much can I get for chips and a pickle?” And we were both laughing again. But this time I stopped it. “You really haven’t had Earth food in all this time?”

She shook her head.

“Okay, if it’s really been that long, I’ve got to see this. I have to see your reaction. Just take a bite.”

Lydia bit into the sandwich and I saw the first one hundred percent honest reaction I can remember from her, the first thing that didn’t seem planned or calculated or part of some elaborate setup to turn me on.

She was absolutely disgusted. She forced herself to swallow and grabbed the bottle of water to try and wash the taste out of her mouth.

I couldn’t stop laughing. “You hate it! You haven’t had Earth food in seventy years, and you still hate it! That’s hilarious!”

Lydia swallowed and made an “Ugh” noise. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m ruining this again, but the meat in this thing— I don’t think these animals were healthy. Is this really what you eat? Please tell me you’re not living on free sandwiches.”

But I wasn’t done with this experiment. “Okay, if the sandwich was too salty, you’re gonna hate the chips. I wonder if… okay, open your mouth.”

She stared at me for a moment, like she was giving me a chance to take it back.

“It’s fine, I used to be good at this. Open your mouth.”

Lydia opened her mouth and I tried to throw an olive in it. It wasn’t a great throw, but Lydia can move her head really fast. She caught it and started to chew.

“Oh! This is an olive! This is good! Nice to know they haven’t ruined everything.”

* * *

Lydia had been staying out of the bedroom, but she came to the door this time.

“Is that why you’re resisting me?” she asked. “You think I’m a vulture or a predator, like one of these dancers?”

“I’m not sure what you are, but I’m pretty sure I can’t afford you.”

Lydia sighed, looking unusually sad and tired, like she had dealt with this a hundred times and was annoyed that she had to do it again.

“My presence in your life is conditional, but my affection is not. I hope you’ll come to believe that, once you know me better.”

I expected her to leave on that line, but Lydia came around to my nightstand and sat on her knees, maybe a foot from my face as I was lying in bed.

I sighed. “Oh shit, here it comes.”

“How long do you think you can keep this up?” she asked. “Pretending you don’t want the power, pretending you don’t want me?”

I turned on my side and propped my head up to face her. “Is it time for the hard sell? Am I finally gonna see some real succubus shit?”

“You think you’re mocking me, but there’s a thrill to that, isn’t there? Waiting for a demon to take the choice away from you, to cut through all your excuses and give you what you need? I know what you think I am. I know the folklore better than you do, and if they had sent some random succubus here, you’d be right. My sisters compete with each other to see who can best live down to the stereotype.

“Most assignments start with exactly the kind of erotic hit and run you’re expecting. Ambush a lonely man who hates his wife or just lost one and overwhelm him in bed, granting every desire he’s ashamed of until he’s addicted to you. Promise him everything he’s ever dreamed of, just long enough for him to steal something or sign something or kill someone, then throw him away. Succubus 101. But I don’t do short-term assignments.

“Think it through. If I gave you what you’re expecting; if I tricked you into giving permission, if I touched you in just the right way and used all the right words to drive you insane tonight, how would you feel in the morning? Waking up next to the demon who humiliated you? Even if you enjoyed it, and you would enjoy it, you would hate me, and you would never trust me again.

“And that, is the opposite of what I am trying to do. I need you to trust me, so when you’re on the ground bleeding, on the edge of death, you’ll trust me to come and heal you. When you’re fighting a superior opponent and you run out of magic, you need to trust that I’ll be there to lend you my strength. And when my Master sends you to do something that makes you hate yourself, you need to trust that I’ll be there to hold you, until it’s time for the next one.

“I need to prove you can trust me, so let me start tonight. I won’t touch you but let me stay with you. You’ve got plenty of room in this bed. I’ll stay on my side and watch over you. I won’t even move. Maybe you ignore me. Maybe you get closer and let me keep you warm. Or maybe your body will ask for more than your soul is ready for, and I’ll have to draw the line for you.

“You need to believe I can do that. You need to see I am not like my sisters. I’m not here to test your limits. I’m not here to break you. I’m here to keep you sane, and healthy, and working, no matter what my Master requires of us. Let me start tonight.”

When I didn’t answer, Lydia came around the other side and laid down with me, leaving plenty of space between us. I didn’t reach for her. I didn’t move closer. I never turned around to look at her, and I never said a word. I just laid there, and listened to her breathing in the dark, remembering all the nights with Judy. All the nights I reached for her, and all the nights she turned away.

Lydia never laid a hand on me, but that was her first real victory; the first time I was too weak to say no, and it all started with that fucking sandwich.

* * *

I woke up beside her the next morning and stood up without looking back.

“Timothy, nothing happened, but you can’t even look at me?”

“I’m an idiot for trusting you,” I said, still not looking back. “I can usually feel when something is bad for me, even if I decide to do it anyway. I had to ignore a hundred red flags to stay with Judy, but you? No matter how much I tell myself what you are, something inside me wants to trust you; something inside me has trusted you from the moment I saw you.

“It doesn’t feel like temptation, it’s just… trust. And it makes no sense at all. I thought it might be some kind of demon thing, but I think I would feel it if you were using magic on me. Whatever it is, every time I let my guard down, something inside me wants to trust you, embrace you, learn magic, and get to work.”