Catholic Guilt and the Joy of Hating Men - By Regan Wolfrom Page 0,1
just like Amy Adams, and Juanessa, who had a lispy Puerto Rican accent and told me that I had the sexiest elbows she’d ever seen. The comments generally got weirder from there, but all of the girls were warm and welcoming, and they made it clear that they were very much interested in having me join them.
But I wasn’t sure what it was I’d be joining, or what kind of group enjoys being naked on the only state beach in America where there’s a one in ten chance of being shot in the parking lot.
“What do you guys do?” I asked.
“We’re succubi,” Maggie said.
“That church that Madonna goes to?”
Maggie laughed. “I’m a succubus, a sex demon.”
“I find that hard to believe.”
“It’s more of a metaphorical thing. I’m not a real demon, obviously, but I have some kind of power over men...” She gave me a crooked smile and a little wink. “And quite a few women, too.”
I believed her, particularly since with Maggie’s arm wrapped around me I felt a little like I did when I’d first watched Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger in 9½ weeks. My eighth-grade social studies teacher got fired for showing it to us; I’d later sent him flowers and a tasteful thank-you card.
“So... you’re a sex goddess?” I asked, trying not to sound too interested.
“Yeah... but it makes more sense to call me a succubus... you know, because I suck the life out of people.”
“Oh.”
“Not really,” Maggie said. “I leave my lovers drained but happy.”
I could see the scene clearly in my mind, me lying on what I imagine would be Maggie’s four-poster bed, a white sheet draped over me, my body exhausted but my heart soaring. Imagining it I felt my pulse racing, my palms sweating... I felt like I did the day when my high school volleyball coach finally got up the nerve to ask me to prom.
I could feel the warmth of Maggie’s breath as she leaned in and whispered into my ear. “I’m not going to lie to you, Heather,” she said. “Sometimes we do eat people...” She exhaled against my cheek. “But only the bad ones.”
I wasn’t sure if she was joking, but it didn’t take me long to realize that I didn’t really care.
Maggie and I talked a while longer by the fire, not just about seduction and exotic dishes but about our childhoods and old movies and about how we’d both gone through life getting by on our looks, as though everyone around us just couldn’t say no, or “I’m married”, or “can’t it wait until after my mother’s funeral”.
We had a lot in common, but I could see that she’d moved on past my world of bad boyfriends and cheap wine. She knew far more about life and happiness than I could ever imagine.
I felt overwhelmed, and I lost track of myself after the cops kicked us off the beach at ten and we all got dressed and went out for fish tacos. We had a few laughs and more than a few jelly shots, and someone passed around some red and yellow pills to munch on...
I did a lot of things I didn’t usually do, before morning found me naked and hungover in Maggie’s bed. I’d felt a little dirty taking some of Maggie’s spare change for the tolls, but once she kissed me goodbye that all went away.
My first kill came less than a week later.
Maggie and I took a drive in her gleaming white Roadster over to Little Armenia to do some hunting. Maggie tried her best to explain the location, saying that the Armenians weren’t to blame for the neighborhood being the best place in LA County to find self-absorbed douches who no one would miss; she blamed it on Orange County Republicans and the mortgage crisis. I didn’t analyze it... it didn’t matter as long as she kept her right hand resting on my thigh as she drove.
We went to a tiki bar on Sunset and it didn’t take long to meet some guys; we giggled like we were tipsy, and I swear to god a lineup formed, and then we had to figure out who the biggest douche was out of all of them. One guy in his early thirties stood out, not only from his Ed Hardy shirt but from his twice-mentioned affinity for Jägerbombs. Once he brought up the latest issue of Maxim magazine both Maggie and I knew he was the guy for us.