“A lot of food,” Christina agreed, bumping fists with the succubus.
I shook my head. “I don’t get it. What the fuck is going on here? Are you some kind of VIP to the local college crowd, Christina?”
Before she could respond, the saloon doors swung open. I wouldn’t have thought it possible for a diner like this to move so fast—Maddie must have lit a fire under whoever worked in the kitchen. She carried a tray of heavy plates to our table, giving me what an old girlfriend of mine euphemistically referred to as ‘bedroom eyes’ the whole walk over.
“Here you go,” she said, placing the nachos and tostadas before Christina and Mareth. She also uncorked a bottle of wine and set it down, along with two glasses. “And this is for you…”
My jaw dropped open. Once, at her request, I’d taken a girl to a date at a sushi restaurant. I’d expected small, demure pieces of fish with balls of rice stuck to the underside, the way I saw in supermarkets. Instead, the girl had ordered something called a ‘sushi boat’—an entire platter of fish, stuck to every available surface of a wooden boat like some kind of crazy ocean liner. She’d eaten it all—and stuck me with the bill.
What Maddie unveiled reminded me of that boat. Only instead of raw fish, the oversized platter held a little of everything—chicken wings, a t-bone steak, scrambled eggs. It was a veritable cornucopia of food—and it looked like it served four, at the very least.
“Enjoy,” the waitress said, licking her lips and winking. “Oh, I almost forgot.”
She set a massive mug of beer down next to me, the glass frosty with foam. Then, next to it, a shot of some dark, heady liquor.
“I ordered water,” I said mildly.
The waitress gestured over her shoulder. “They ordered it for you,” she purred, indicating a table across the room. A half-dozen sorority sisters sat there, and all of them were staring at me. “By the way, another patron will be paying for your food as well, this evening. You won’t even need to bother with a bill.”
“That’s...wow.” I should have argued, but the moment the smell of food hit my nostrils, I felt like a beast. I needed to eat. “Uh, tell them I’m very grateful…”
“I will.” The waitress put a hand on my shoulder. “And we’re very grateful to have you here,” she whispered huskily, sliding my hand between her legs.
Holy fucking shit.
“Thanks,” I said again, pulling my hand away with great reluctance. “We’ll let you know if we need anything else.”
“Please do.” The waitress turned away and left. Only after she’d gone did I realize she’d barely spoken a word to Christina and Mareth.
“Fuck,” I said, turning to the girls. “That was wild…”
“He doesn’t get it yet,” Mareth said, sharing a grin with Christina. “He’s so cute when he’s failing to understand something.”
“Get what?” I asked, glancing back across the crowded diner at the table full of co-eds. “I don’t understand.”
Mareth drummed her nails on the table. “You eat for free,” the succubus purred, licking her lips. “All you have to do is walk into a room and you become everyone’s favorite person. They’ll buy you drinks, pay for your meal—and those waitresses? Totally into you.” She wiggled her eyebrows. “Try hitting on one, you’ll see.”
I started to understand. “They’ll give me their number, will they?”
Christina chuckled darkly. “Luke—they’ll give you their panties if you ask.”
“It doesn’t even matter if they’re married or not,” Mareth said, getting into it now. “Shit, the ring probably makes it even hotter. You could drag that girl who just brought our appetizers into the bathroom, get her on her knees—she’ll do whatever you want. Even shit she’s never done for her husband!”
“Anal,” Christina said, nibbling at the edge of a nacho. “Or a threesome with another waitress…”
The possibilities left me dizzy. “Look, I’m not doing anything like that,” I said. Not tonight, I mentally amended. “Right now, there’s only two girls I’m focused on. And they’re both sitting right across from me.”
Both Christina and Mareth looked gratified at the compliment. “You’d better dig in,” Mareth said. “Otherwise your food is going to get cold…”
It most certainly will, I thought, my stomach giving another undignified rumble. Only I don’t really think I’d care…
For a few minutes, the conversation around the table ceased. At first, I tried to apply some manners and grace to the way I ate the massive plate of food—but soon, I gave up. At least I managed to hold onto my utensils, even if they were mostly used for shoving bits of steak and macaroni and cheese into my mouth.
The massive hunger inside of me flared after a few bites, then faded once I’d torn through about a third of the platter. By the time it was half done I’d begun eating normally, able to carry on a conversation between bites.
As I looked up from the half-finished meal, I noticed the atmosphere in the diner had thickened considerably. Most of the waitresses had unbuttoned their blouses and hiked up their skirts, showing nearly as much skin as strip club hostesses. At a table near where the co-eds lounged, two students made out hot and heavy, pawing at each other as if they were alone in a hotel room and not in public.
“Alright,” I said, looking over at Christina and Mareth. “I can increase the level of lust in the general vicinity, and stoke it within mortals.” I held out a single finger. “I can force lesser demons to serve me.” I added a second finger.
