Succubs on Top

grating buzzing in the air, made me lightheaded. 'Is the rest of the gang out there?'

'Waiting with bated breath,' I promised. I cocked my head at him. 'Shouldn't you be a little more nervous than this?'

'Sure. If I had anything to be nervous about. Which I don't.'

I felt just as astonished now as I had at work. Doug knew his own talent, but I'd seen him before shows in the past. While always joking and in a good mood, there had been a nervousness to him before, a private sort of ruminating while he mentally braced himself to put on the best show he could. I knew he'd said the band had hit some sort of peak recently, but the change was dramatic, to say the least.

After a few more jokes and sexual innuendoes, I finally left them. Just like that, the discordant feeling disappeared as soon as I cleared the door. It was like breathing fresh air after a sandstorm. Glancing behind me, I stared into the room, trying to find any indication of what had just happened. Nothing revealed itself. The band had forgotten me already. They were laughing at something else, drinking their beer or pop or whatever, and roughhousing in what must have been some male tension-reliever. Puzzled, I walked away.

Seth had joined the others when I finally made my way back to the main floor. I felt a smile creeping up on me in spite of my concerns. His hair was as unkempt as ever, and he wore a Thundercats shirt.

'Hey,' I said when I saw him, conscious that everyone was watching us, apparently waiting for me to pull out my handcuffs.

'Hey,' he returned, hands casually in his pockets, posture relaxed and easy like always.

'You know, Doug's wearing a shirt very similar to that.'

'I know. I lent it to him.'

We all shared a good laugh over that, and Beth turned to me. 'You saw Doug? Is he ready for this?'

'The question, actually,' I told them with a small frown, 'is 'Is the world ready for Doug?''

A half hour later, they saw what I meant. Nocturnal Admission burst onto the stage, and suddenly all that pent-up energy and enthusiasm was channeled into their music. Like I'd told Doug, I'd long been a fan of the group. Their style combined hard rock with a bit of ska, and the fusion always hooked me. After centuries filled with repetition, innovation was a treat. They regularly performed with flair and passion, making them as much fun to watch as to listen to. My biased affection for Doug didn't hurt either.

Tonight was unbelievable. All of their songs were new; I'd never heard any of them before. And Christ, what songs they were. Amazing. Incredible. Ten times better than the old ones—which I'd hitherto found hard to beat. I wondered when Doug had had time to compose these. He wrote most of their stuff, and I'd last seen them perform about a month and a half ago. He must have had help to write all of those in so short a time. I knew he usually took a while to compose one, refining lyrics over and over. He never treated the process lightly.

And the performance itself…Well, Doug was always flamboyant; it was his trademark. Tonight, I swear, he never stopped moving. Pure energy in human form. He danced, he sauntered, he did cartwheels. His between-song monologues were hilarious. His singing voice surpassed anything I'd ever heard from him, rich and deep. It resonated in my body. The audience couldn't get enough. They loved him, and I understood why. No one, even the people who worked there, could take their eyes off the stage.

Except one.

There, along the far edges of the crowd, was a man casually making his way toward the exit. By his stride and apparent lack of interest, he didn't find Nocturnal Admission as compelling as the rest of us. While this was intriguing enough to draw my own gaze from the band, his attire struck me even more strongly.

If GQ magazine had been around in the days of Victorian poets, he would have been their cover model. He wore beautifully tailored black slacks paired with a long, black coat, the tails of which almost touched the backs of his knees. Underneath the coat was a gorgeous, billowing white shirt that might have been silk. Whatever it was, it made me want to touch it and see how soft it was. Unlike Horatio, whose demonic wear had simply been out-of-date, this guy had taken the past and made it his own. His own hot historic couture. The kind the modern day 'goth' movement so longed to achieve. He'd opened the first few buttons to reveal smooth, tanned skin. That skin tone paired with the glossy black hair that flowed halfway down his back made me think he must be of Middle Eastern or Indian descent.

When he reached the door leading out, he paused and turned toward the stage, watching the band for a few moments. A small, pleased smile played along his lips, and then he was gone.

Weird, I thought. I wondered who he was. Prospective agent maybe? Or perhaps just someone who didn't get down to this type of music. He had looked like the kind of guy who owned Chopin's complete works, after all.

I considered the man for a few more moments, then turned back toward the stage. The group was taking a momentary reprieve from their new stash and doing a cover of one of my favorite Nine Inch Nails songs. Nothing like hearing Trent Reznor's lyrics paired with a saxophone.

'I can't believe this,' I told Seth later, moving to the back of our group so I could stand near him. Our friends were so hypnotized by what was onstage that Seth and I could actually talk without drawing attention. 'It's… unbelievable.'

'That it is,' he agreed. 'I take it this isn't the norm then?'

'No. Absolutely not. But I hope it becomes the norm. Jesus.'

We fell silent then, our eyes and ears drawn back to the band. As we watched, however, Seth rested his hand on my back in a friendly, innocent gesture that made me promptly lose interest in the music. And that was saying something. The shirt I wore was hardly a shirt at all. It was a glittering tunic type thing that covered the front of me only, then tied behind my neck and once below my shoulder blades, thus letting his fingers stroke bare, exposed skin.

Less than a week ago, I'd been in a hotel room with a guy who'd massaged scented oil all over my body and then gone down on me in a way that left me gasping. And yet, I swear that didn't do as much for me as Seth's fingers on my bare skin did now. The rest of my body jolted to life, suddenly ravenous for more of him. When he trailed his fingertips down to my lower back, I could perfectly discern every place he had touched me and every place he hadn't, as though his fingers left scorch marks in my flesh. Magic fingers. Seductive fingers. My nerves pulsed hungrily, demanding I take action and give them more.

When his hand finally came to rest by my tailbone, right at the edge of my jeans, I murmured, 'You can go lower if you want. '

'No,' he returned. His voice seemed huskier than usual, holding an unfamiliar intensity. But it was laced with wistfulness too. 'I really can't.'

The audience whooped and demanded an encore when the show ended, which the band was only too happy to give— multiple times. Talk about stamina.

As I watched them wrap up the song and make their bows, an idea suddenly struck me. Excusing myself for the bathroom, I headed back in the direction of the dressing room. Once out of any passerby's eyesight, I turned invisible and slipped back into that room, still perplexed about that burning, crawling sensation.

It was gone. Everything felt perfectly normal in the room. Jackets and instrument cases lay in unceremonious heaps on the floor, and empty red plastic cups vied with overflowing ashtrays to cover up other flat surfaces. I paced around slowly, peering in corners, looking for something—anything—that would explain what I had felt. And again, I came up empty-handed. All was quiet and still. No person or creature waited to leap out, though I was pretty sure what I'd felt hadn't come from anything living. Yet, it also hadn't resembled any charm or enchanted object I knew of either. If anything, that tingle had felt like something in the middle: half sentient, half not. But that made no sense.

Returning to my friends, I saw them making preparations to leave. None of us could stop talking about the show. We separated and met up again at Doug's place for a post-show party he'd invited us to. I'd been to similar gigs of his but saw more people here than ever before. They packed the place. Alcohol and pot flowed like milk and honey, but I stopped after a couple shots since I had to open at work in the morning.

Through the smoky, decadent haze, the band worked the crowd like they'd done this sort of PR all their lives. They talked to everyone, charismatic and outgoing, though never too proud or conceited.

As this went on, Seth and I kept a respectable distance from each other in order to maintain the illusion we were nothing but friends. While I still believed that was a good idea, it sort of seemed like rubbing salt into open wounds. Bad enough we couldn't touch each other; now we couldn't talk either.

Alec found me at some point, attempting to resume the conversation we'd been having when Doug spirited