Succubus Dreams Page 0,22

imp glared at me. "Or go work at a strip club. It's about the easiest thing a succubus can do. Hang out at the bar after your number, and they'll come to you. A stripper's a hot commodity, particularly when a lot of those guys'll think you're a prostitute anyway."

"I don't know. It still sounds degrading."

"You're going to be fucking to sustain your existence for the rest of eternity! Get off your high horse. You wait much longer, and your first-one's-free energy stash will dry up. Stripping's easy. And fun. And you get to wear pretty costumes. Trust me, it's a good racket."

"I guess," she said at last. She exhaled heavily, the motion pushing her breasts out even further than usual.

"Georgina's a pro," said Hugh, reaching over to give her a comforting pat. Considering he really wasn't a warm and fuzzy kind of guy, I suspected he just wanted to brush her breasts. "Or so I hear. I guess I'll never find out." He gave me a bitter glance.

"If that's true," Tawny said, "then how come her own boyfriend blew her off?"

The guys let out a collective "ooh" and glanced eagerly between the two of us, apparently in anticipation of the catfight they'd long predicted. All of my earlier fury resurfaced, fueled now by alcohol and Tawny's incompetence.

Grabbing my glass, I strode up to the bar to get a refill in person. Hanging out with my friends was rapidly losing its charm. A newbie succubus didn't have any right to mock me about my dating difficulties, particularly when she couldn't land one guy. I could have landed a dozen if I'd wanted to tonight. At the same time.

And, glancing over beside me, I realized I might very well have an easy score right here.

The guy from the bookstore, the one with the fetish books, stood at the bar, talking to the bartender. He didn't appear to be with a group. Hastily, I turned away so he wouldn't recognize me. After I got my drink, I set it on my friends' table and retreated to the bathroom without another word to them. I'd had to use bathrooms as shape-shifting hideouts for years, but there was nothing to be done for it in these situations. Inside a stall, I changed into a long, graceful body with flowing gold hair - not unlike some of the ballerinas I'd seen tonight. I'd show Tawny how to do blond right.

Walking back out, I caught Cody's eye. My friends could recognize me in any shape, of course, and he gave me a puzzled look as I strode back to the bar. Standing beside the guy from the bookstore again, I ordered another drink. This time, he turned and caught sight of me. I smiled.

"That any good?" I asked, nodding to the red concoction he was drinking.

"I guess." He lifted up the glass and peered at it. "It's a pomegranate cosmo. I think. Kind of girly, honestly - no offense."

"None taken."

The bartender slid my whiskey on the rocks to me. The guy beside me laughed.

"I suddenly feel emasculated," he said.

I grinned and extended my hand, speaking the first name that came to mind. "I'm Clara."

"Jude."

"Hey, Jude."

He sighed.

"Sorry," I said. "Couldn't resist."

"You and everyone else."

"You here alone?" I asked.

He looked embarrassed and absentmindedly rubbed the empty finger his wedding ring had been on the last time I saw him. "Yeah."

"Me too."

He looked me over, attempting covertness and not doing a good job. "I find that hard to believe."

"Well..." I looked down at my drink, playing with its edge. "It's kind of a long story..."

And slowly, skillfully, I crafted a tale about how I'd come here to meet a guy and how he'd stood me up. He was supposed to go to a sex club with me, though I didn't come right out and say that immediately. That would have been too much for someone like Jude, someone who was intrigued but still nervous about the whole idea of exotic sexuality. So, I spoke vaguely at first, using innuendoes, hinting at my own interest in exhibitionism, how I just wanted to go see what a place like that was all about.

As I concluded, I used the same line he'd used in the bookstore. "I feel like such a pervert. Honestly...I don't know why I'm telling you this. I don't even know you. It's just..." I looked up at him with big blue eyes. "You're easy to talk to."

A long silence followed as Jude held my gaze. "I don't think...I