"My name is Samuel. In my tale, I was, and still am, an extremely capable, high level Warrior in a party with just a Paladin. (The Paladin and I have parted ways since but remain on good terms.) I was, and still am Lawful Neutral; my trusted Paladin companion, of course, was Lawful Good. I and my ally agreed to scout out in two different directions in the dungeon we were exploring, the Fiend Pits, so as to cover more ground."
"I came across a room filled with Orcish necromancers and their summoned minions, and easily dispatched them with an élan and skill that had been hard earned, both in training and later on in the field, where I had learned the hard way not to pull my punches, so to speak. There was a woman of most uncommon beauty tied up in the room. Ever eager to help a damsel in distress, I said, "I will escort you to the entrance of the dungeon if you wish, or if you would prefer travel with you to the nearest town. I would not advise travelling with me deeper into the dungeon – you could get hurt." She replied, "I would be happy for you to escort me to the entrance of the dungeon, my brave hero, and it would please me if you would give me a kiss as a token of our meeting.""
"My lass, while I would love to give you a kiss, a seasoned adventurer like myself knows the uses of caution. Demons such as Succubae and Incubi are known to haunt these ruins, and while, of course, I am sure you are not one such it would ease my heart and my mind considerably if you were to meet up with my Paladin companion so he can cast Detect Evil on you, so all doubt may flee my mind."
"Not all beautiful women are Succubae, surely? I was abducted and tied up! They were going to make me a skeleton, or a zombie, or some other such beastly undead! Surely you can see that!" To my shame, she began to cry.
"Please don't cry, lass. But please also understand MY fears - with a Succubus, all it takes is one act of passion to bring you under their spell! There was an archer I fought with a few years back, he took a kiss in a situation very similar to this one, and was totally under her thrall! It took us a while to realise the lady in question was a Succubus, but she unwisely displayed her true form when she thought they were alone, and then we slew her – against his wishes. When she was destroyed he quickly thanked us for freeing us from her thrall though."
"Did the succubus harm him? If she did then they are truly dangerous and I understand your concerns."
"The succubus treated him like property and seemed to have a vested interest in keeping him well and safe, but we believe that this was purely out of self interest. It must be said that they chose to have sex - or she chose, rather, and in his dominated state he complied with that – every time we stopped for camp."
"Surely a kiss would do no harm of that kind! I positively demand a kiss - and for saving me you have surely earned one."
"Lass, if you meet up with my Paladin ally so he can check you're not a Succubus, I'll give you all the kisses you want. I give you my word on that." I was speaking the truth; she was comely, and, well, you never knew your luck – it could go beyond kissing.
"Then we have a problem. I am evil, but not a succubus. And I still want a kiss. Tell me, would you let your Paladin ally kill a defenceless maiden just on the grounds of her alignment?"
Here Samuel paused to take a deep draught of ale. His listener said, "Go on, and continue the story! Was she a succubus? What did you do?"
"I told her that I was neutral and therefore equally at home in Good or Evil company, but tended to rely on the Good like my Paladin ally out of pragmatism – Good allies, and especially Lawful Good allies made the most reliable travelling companions, unlike Chaotics who I frankly find unsettlingly unpredictable and Evil allies who tend to follow their own agendas rather than working together. "And that's why", I finished explaining. "As a neutral person I would encourage my Paladin ally to let you go and not harm you, pointing out that killing the defenceless is exactly what Paladins SHOULDN'T do. He is an honourable being who sees past alignment, though he would probably want an opportunity to redeem you in exchange for letting you go.""
"I want you to promise me this. If you genuinely believe that your paladin ally will kill me... Give me a kiss before he does."
"By this point I was pretty convinced the lass was a Succubus to be honest. I mean, most women would respect an adventurer's concerns, right? It is possible that she was a particularly forward woman and I was trying to give her the benefit of the doubt but I was growing extremely concerned for my safety. If she was a Succubus and her plan to seduce me failed, would she react violently? I decided that I needed to draw her out if she was, and so formulated a plan to do so. Here is what I said."
"Lass, while I am aware it is possible to have friendly contact with an evil outsider - which, and I beg you not to be offended, I now have strong reason to suspect you of being - that would hardly apply to a contact where the outsider in question is in disguise. I challenge you: If you are a succubus in truth, assume your true form, and then I will decide what to do if you will make this a friendly contact."
Samuel falls silent, apparently deep in thought. His listener, growing impatient, cries, "And then what happened, Samuel? Then what happened?"
"Her true form was beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. She had wings spreading out behind her... A veritable fallen angel. She looked into my eyes, deep into my eyes, and said, "I have trusted you. Now will you trust me and give me my kiss?""
"I want you to understand that I have never been a strong willed character. The Paladin I was working with - now HE is strong willed. He would have resisted, I am certain. More, he would have slain her, unless she was more powerful than I would have thought – in battle my Paladin ally was a death machine. But I just got lost in her eyes, and felt all vestiges of will and resistance fall away."
"We kissed, and much more than just kissed. I trust I do not have to draw you a picture. She later told me that that first time lasted for just half an hour, but it felt like hours. And it was... heaven. I have been with women before but the experience with this being was out and away much better than any such experiences I had ever had. I felt drained, slightly weakened afterwards."
"She told me, "Do not be concerned at your feeling of draining and weakness. I am a Succubus, and that means I feed off the energy of sexual encounters. That energy came from you. You were not harmed by this. It is very important to me that you understand you were not harmed by this. You will easily recover the sexual energy I took from you over time.""
"She continued, "I offer you a gift, as a token of our meeting. Take this ring. You can use this ring to summon me at any time, though I am at liberty to refuse the summons. I am willing to be summoned to aid you in battle, so long as this does not conflict – or preferentially so long as it aids – my goals. If you are in grave danger at the hands of my allies, I will intervene as a mediator between you and my allies, but am extremely unlikely to take arms against my brethren, especially other Succubae and Incubi and those Evil forces allied with my cause. I hope you will summon me for sexual purposes often. The ring carries an enchantment that will allow me to monitor your health and welfare at all times, and in accepting this ring you will accept my protection. When I actually am ready and want to be summoned you will feel the ring grow warm.""
"My will was in tatters at this point, but I had just enough left to ask one question about the ring. I asked, "Does the ring give you power over me in any way?""
"She replied, "Yes, it does. It creates a telepathic link - a one way telepathic link. It will let me read your every thought so as to better know you. The link is one way partly to avoid overwhelming you with my thoughts, which I imagine would be unpleasant for you, and partly because there are frankly some thoughts which I would wish to keep private from you."
"She looked deeply into my eyes once again and told me, "You know I could have dominated you, and I chose not to. Your trust was rewarded. Accept my gift and your trust will be rewarded again.""
"I was not without doubts but I chose to accept her ring, gave her a goodbye kiss, and in the following years she saved my life in battle many times, and enlivened my nights many times."
Samuel finished his drink and called to the bartender for another. "So that is my tale so far, traveller, and it is nearly fully told. Would you hear it to its conclusion?"
His listener said, "While I fear for your soul and your welfare, I have nothing better to do this evening than listen to your tale. Speak freely."
Samuel nodded. "Some years later the Succubus asked to be summoned through the ring while I was travelling, and I obliged, glad of the company. She confessed that she had slept with many men to keep herself well - I had by then learned that Succubae actually need sex like we need food - but that she had fallen in love with me and wanted sex with me to the exclusion of others, and that this would mean she would have to have sex with me regularly from then on. She said if I refused her sex over the long term she would have to find other partners. She said, "I love you and want to be yours, and very much want you to be mine. It will mean a lot of sex over a long term period. Will you trust me not to drain you too badly if you let me have you exclusively?""
"I agreed. And so I had sex with her most nights, sometimes in the day too. For her part, she agreed to never have sex with me to the point where it would do me harm; and she kept to that agreement. For my part, whenever the ring was warm I summoned her. And the more I lay with her the stronger she became, until she outmatched me in combat".
Samuel paused to take a sip of ale, and added, "It should be noted that sex with a Succubus - if my experience is anything to go by – is incredible; far better than sex with a mortal could ever be. So I was very, very seldom going to say no to her – and yes, I did say no sometimes, and she did respect that."
"Anyway, at one time a couple of years ago, she asked for me to commit to her in a special way, and as part of that she asked for my trust. She asked my permission - as a symbol of our commitment - to cast a spell on the ring that would cause it to contract around my finger each time we had sex, until it could not be removed, and until eventually it would magically contract around my finger and actually sink beneath the skin to wrap around the bone underneath. She promised that the whole process and its results would be totally painless and this would ensure that the ring would never be lost."
"Now this posed a dilemma to me. The Succubus, on the one hand, had displayed a great deal of trust in me, had saved my life on numerous occasions, and was – if she was to be believed – deeply in love with me. There have been cases of Succubae falling in love with mortal men, and often these cases include the Succubus and the mortal in question living happily in the afterlife as well. On the other hand, in accepting this I was ensuring the only way to avoid being under her influence was to lose a finger. And she wanted me to trust her."
"Well, it was a hard decision, but in the end I agreed to the spell. Indeed, looking back I agreed to everything she asked of me save one thing."
"And this was?" asked Samuel's listener.
"She has asked – many times – to be allowed to enchant the ring to allow her to summon herself to my location at will. I trust her in most things, but something in me – maybe the last vestiges of my tattered will, perhaps a smattering of good sense – causes me to balk at the idea. But I can feel my resistance to the idea eroding, and there is a decent chance that, one day, if I choose not to do this, I will be in a desperate situation where quick thinking is essential and she is my trump card, so to speak, allowing me victory. I do not know. I suspect one day I may allow her this. All I know is that is not today.
Samuel displays a finger to the listener, with a noticeable ring-shaped bulge under the skin. "And here is the proof of my tale – the ring under my skin that she gave to me, all those years ago. Proof that this is not another tall tale. What do you make of that, my friend?"
His listener turned white, and said, "If what you have told me is true I beg you, seek help! I know a marvellous surgeon – he could have that finger off without you feeling a thing! Or perhaps a wizard to remove the spells! I WILL HELP YOU, IF YOU ALLOW IT!"
Samuel smiled, and said, "I did mention, didn't I, that she can hear my thoughts through this ring? I don't want to think of how she would feel if I were to seriously contemplate such matters. I have no intentions of doing such things."
"Then I ask you to leave this town and never return. We don't need evil here."
"Hark – the ring goes warm! She may want to meet you. No, don't worry, she won't seduce you; I'm the only one she wants for that. And she knows better than to assume her true form in a crowded tavern. No? You don't want to see further proof of my tale? Then I will retire to my room here. Good night to you."
/
AUTHOR'S NOTE:
I have no intention of revisiting this tale and setting at this time, and this tale is, to all intents and purposes, a one-off. If you have an interest in using this story for any purpose beyond reading it and sharing it, I would consider it good manners to ask first. If you want to create a sequel to this story, permission is given CONDITIONAL TO YOU NOT CREATING GRAPHIC SEXUAL PROSE AS PART OF IT. Keep it tasteful please.
If I receive an overwhelmingly positive response to this tale, I may create a sequel myself. However, at present I have no intention of doing so.