I DON'T REMEMBER
Editor's note: This story is full of Mature Content. Reader Discretion Is Strongly Advised.
I repeat: Reader Discretion Is Strongly Advised.
This is not a Caskett story. No major character death takes place.
One Chapter Only
"I heard you were opening a flower store so I thought I would pitch in." Rick offered up the vase of flowers that he had brought to brighten her room.
"I hear that you tried to save me," Kate told him.
"Yeah, I was… You heard?" Was she telling the truth or was she telling him something? "You don't remember me tackling you?"
"I don't remember much of anything. I remember standing at the podium and then everything just goes black," Kate told him. She had a boyfriend and she wasn't close to being ready to discuss with him what she remembered. What he told her.
"There are just some things better not being remembered," Kate added and wondered if he got what she was trying to tell him.
"Every time I close my eyes I see him. I see Montgomery on the floor. You should have let me go in there, Castle." He might still be alive with answers she needed. Instead he was dead, and she still had nothing.
"They would have killed you." Rick was sure of that.
"You don't know that," Kate retorted.
"Four hired killers against two cops? Yes, I do know that," Rick countered.
"I'm really tired, Castle." She was done talking to him.
"Of course. We can talk tomorrow," Rick said and got up to leave.
"Do you mind if we don't? I just need some time," Kate told him.
"Sure. How much time?" His last question for her.
"I'll call you."
"Sure. Goodbye, Beckett." Rick got the message loud and clear. Kate didn't talk, and this time was no different. He told her that he loved her and her answer was to not talk about it. Message received.
~ ][ ~
"You're sure this is the right thing? This is what you really want to do?" Alexis asked one more time before he signed that paper. The house in the Hamptons was already gone. It was amazing just how fast it sold. He signed this paper and they wouldn't have a home to live in within a month's time.
"I'm sure. Three long years and this is what I get." Rick started to sign only to have Alexis stop him again.
"You're certain you heard right? I mean, I like the idea of Oxford, I like it a lot, actually. But you don't have to do this, Dad. You do still have friends here. People you know." Alexis tried one more time.
"I heard right. I told her that I loved her and her answer was to tell me that it was best if she didn't remember. You get to go to Oxford and I get away from Beckett before she said something she didn't actually mean to draw me back in and hope for better.
"There isn't going to be any better, Alexis. I've been dreaming. I don't know where yet, but I'll find something. Give you a place to retreat to if you feel like it.
"You know, being an adult really does suck. Stupid emotions." Rick really did like not being this adult. Maybe that's why he was twice divorced. He signed and just like that, in one month, none of them had a place to live.
From the sale of the house in the Hamptons and this building, as well as both cars including his beloved Ferrari, he was a lot richer now. That was in addition to his actual cash and all the money he had in investments. Alexis and Martha already had their money in trusts for later if he died. She needed money for college and living and his mother needed her money back that her husband stole from her.
~ ][ ~
Kate stepped out onto the homicide floor and for a moment went unnoticed by anyone. A couple of steps later toward her desk and where her mother's elephants sat was when she was finally noticed. That was when the clapping began.
She felt happy and embarrassed that she was missed this much. However, as she rounded the corner she spotted Espo and Ryan still sitting at their desks. Kate chose to ignore them both for now and dropped off her stuff at her desk. Still, Espo and Ryan hadn't moved any.
Kate went over to them. "Guys?"
Espo raised an eyebrow. "So you're not dead?"
"No, I left the hospital alive. Why would you think I was dead?" Espo didn't usually sound like that. Not to her especially.
"Over three months, almost four, actually, and not one word from you. No phone call, not even a single text. So why would we think that you're alive?" Espo questioned her.
"I did get shot if you'll recall," Kate said, thinking that was enough of a reason.
"Yeah, we do seem to recall that happening," Espo answered.
Kate overlooked his attitude for now. "Where are we on my shooting?"
"Nowhere. The guy's a ghost. We haven't worked on that case for weeks, months, really," Espo told her.
"Why?" She got shot at a funeral surrounded by cops. It should be the only case this precinct, if not the entire city, was working on.
"No new leads. The new captain took us off of it. New cases kept coming in. She took us all off yours and onto the new ones," Ryan told her. "We've got nothing, Beckett."
~ ][ ~
Kate had met the new captain and hated her immediately. Her very first case and Gates insulted her ability to do her job. Like she was supposed to solve it the second she got it.
Then it got worse. "What have you got, Lanie?" It was the first time she had seen or spoken to Lanie in almost four months.
"Detective Beckett. You can address me as Dr. Parish since that's my title," Lanie answered coldly.
"What the hell, Lanie? We're friends." Kate didn't understand her attitude.
"Friends? You want to know what I call a friend?" Lanie stood up and confronted her. "You got shot. You flat-lined in the ambulance. Flat-lined again on the gurney from the ambulance to the operating room, and you flat-lined once more on the operating table.
"I did chest compressions on you in the ambulance and again on the gurney. I got left behind covered in your blood. Castle and I watched you roll away, not sure if we would ever see you alive again.
"And what did any of your friends get in return for trying to save your life? We got nothing! Not a damn thing! Didn't know if the person that had tried to kill you had tried again and failed or succeeded this time.
"No phone call, not so much as one little text. We counted you as a friend. We were obviously wrong. I think you'll find that you don't have any friends any longer. You take but you give nothing.
"We're done giving and getting nothing in return. Now, is there something you would like to know, Detective?" Lanie questioned her.
"I'm sorry, Lanie. It was a lot of pain." Granted, not so much for the last month as at the beginning, but no, she knew she hadn't talked to anyone. Only her dad, and that was mostly because he drove out with supplies once a week.
"It's Dr. Parish to you, Detective," Lanie corrected her. "I don't believe you have any friends."
Kate was still hurt. Lanie was her best friend and she was treating her like this. Friends didn't treat her like that. "No, Doctor, I'll read your report at my desk." Kate was left standing there hurt, and she watched as Lanie walked away to talk to Espo and Ryan. They didn't really talk to her either.
~ ][ ~
Talking to her dad hadn't helped. He was siding with her supposed friends. He had reminded her that he had tried to get her to call her friends. Starting with Castle. Yes, she had heard from her dad that Josh had started a fight with Castle in the hospital. The second she had heard that, she'd dumped Josh and hadn't talked to him since then.
She just hadn't wanted to talk. She was hurting, and she still didn't know how to deal with Castle telling her that he loved her. Will had told her that, too, and look what he had done. Her mother told her that she loved her and she was dead.
It took her two long months to finally break down and go see Castle. He wasn't answering her phone calls and not responding to her numerous texts.
Kate knew Gates didn't want him in HER precinct. Castle was unwanted no matter how helpful he might have been. Or that he was her partner. He was unwelcome.
So here she was walking to the front door of the building the loft was in.
"Detective Beckett. Are you here to see someone?" This building had a doorman and he had stopped her.
"Just to talk to Castle, like always," Kate told Eduardo and reached for the door.
"The Castle family no longer lives here. Mr. Castle sold the building. He gave me an unbreakable contract with a raise to keep working here. But the Castles have moved out, Detective." It wasn't Eduardo's job to question why she didn't know that given what he knew about those two. It wasn't his place.
"Moved!?" Kate felt like she had just been punched in the gut. Castle wouldn't move and not tell her. He wouldn't do that. Not to her. "When did they move?"
"Mr. Castle left almost two months ago. Ms. Rodgers moved out about a month later. Ms. Alexis moved out about one or two days after Ms. Rodgers. She took it upon herself to make sure the new owner had all the keys," Eduardo informed her.
"Moved where?" Surely he was still in the city. He would never leave New York City. This was his city, much like this city was her city.
"That I don't know, Detective. I do know that only a small number of boxes along with suitcases ever left here. I believe the loft was sold completely furnished along with the building itself."
"I see." He had left. Hadn't told her. Hadn't even told the doorman. He wasn't answering her calls or her texts.
~ ][ ~
"What am I going to do, Dad?" He was all she had left. Lanie hated her and wouldn't talk to her. Kevin and Javi were cold to her. Gates was still insulting her ability to do her job. She was solving her cases, but that didn't seem to satisfy Gates.
"Katie, I love you, but you don't just disappear from your friends and expect things to be exactly like you left them. You were shot. According to the doctor in charge, you died three times. The last one was in the operating room.
"You abandoned them. Told them nothing. They may still be friends to you, but your actions told them that you weren't a friend of theirs.
"I told you to call them, Katie. To tell them something. You said you would…later. It sounds like later turned into never. Did you even check your phone to see how many times they'd called you?" Jim questioned her.
Kate knew she had listened to all her voicemails and read all of her texts, but she hadn't responded to any of them. She was in pain and didn't want to talk.
"Castle has even moved away, Dad. Without telling me. I'm his partner." Kate was still hurt over that as well.
"I know you don't want to hear this, but I did tell you to call him. That you were only fooling yourself. People have limits, Katie. It sounds like you found his along with everyone else's.
"The question you have to answer is do you care what your friends think? What they think of how you treated them. You got shot, yes, but they're scared. You did die three times. Knowing Lanie, she's aware of that. They almost lost you and your answer was to avoid them.
"So the question is do you want your friends back or do you want to just try and find new ones? It might help if you started with Castle. That man does like you, Katie. Maybe if you can convince him, he can help you convince the others," Jim suggested.
"You don't hate me," Kate pointed out, so why should she have to try? She was the one that got shot.
"I'm your father, Katie. Of course, I don't hate you. Even if you turned yourself into a female Jeffrey Dahmer, I would still be your father. I would be seriously disappointed in you, naturally.
"I'm pretty disappointed in you. I thought your mother and I taught you better. If you want your friends back, then I suggest apologizing and going back to being a dependable friend. Someone they can count on," Jim offered.
"I don't even know where Castle is." Kate had no idea.
"You're a detective, so detect. Where's Martha? Where's Alexis? Go ask Mayor Weldon. Rick used the mayor to follow you around in the first place. I doubt Rick would do what you did to him and the others.
"If you want them all back, then you have a lot of explaining to do to everyone," Jim told her.
~ ][ ~
Kate was using her one week suspension that Gates had handed out. Kate had called Gates out for telling the mayor that they had their vigilante, Lone Vengeance, in custody. What she had was a stupid kid, not a killer. So she was just leaving the mayor's office after getting an address. Kate wouldn't say she had bowed and scraped and demeaned herself by groveling. No, she hadn't done that. But she did have an address.
London, England, W8 5RF United Kingdom
37 Victoria Road
~ ][ ~
It was right on the corner. An all white building that was three floors tall. There was a gate for cars, but the gate was open and it didn't look like it had a garage. Not much of a front yard save for concrete. There was what looked like a brand new Aston Martin sitting next to the stairs.
The front door was actually on the second floor. She had come this far and hoped she still had the courage to talk to him. To explain.
When the door opened, there he was. Richard Castle. Just like she remembered him. It had been just a fraction over five months since she had last seen him.
"Detective Beckett? A little outside of your jurisdiction, aren't you?" Rick asked her.
"Hi, Castle. You're not easy to track down," Kate told him.
"New York City no longer held any interest for me. The few people I know there I can just CALL and talk to them," Rick told her.
"Yeah." Call them. Something she hadn't done which got her into his mess. "Can we talk?" Kate left off that she had come a long ways to talk to him. That was obvious, she thought.
"Talk? Us? What a novel concept," Rick stated and Kate could hear it in his voice. He was different. His face didn't look nearly as soft as she remembered it. She was betting he was mad at her as well as everyone else. She sighed. In addition, she'd left her suitcase in her hotel room. "Sure, say your peace and go home." Rick stepped aside to let her enter.
Kate followed him and saw a large dining room that seated twelve to her right. And there was a large kitchen to her left. It was all white with orange accents. Down a set of stairs next to a set that went up. Past a half bath on her right. Through a set of doors and into a living room.
There were wood floors in a herring bone pattern. Two white sofas, two white chairs, a fireplace with a TV over it. Two lovely chandeliers, one wall of glass that led out onto an outdoor patio.
Rick sat in a chair forcing her to sit on a sofa so she could see him while she talked.
"So what's on your mind, Detective?" Rick questioned her.
That told Kate she already had trouble. She wasn't even Beckett, let alone Kate. She was Detective. However, before she could start to explain the front door opened and she could hear heels on the hardwood floors going down the stairs.
In walked a woman. She was lovely. She was around 5'-6" tall, very thin, nearly flat-chested. She was dressed in a strapless red dress that showed off her long legs. Short blonde hair, small full lips.
"Sorry I'm late, babe. They just wouldn't stop talking." She finally noticed Kate. "…Oh, we have company."
Rick got up and greeted her by kissing her soundly. Seeing that had Kate raising an eyebrow. Kate saw his face soften into a loving look when he spotted her.
"Allow me to introduce Detective Kate Beckett of the NYPD. This is Leah Simmons, my fiancée."
"Fiancée?" Kate's mouth dropped open. Rick had moved to London and already found someone to marry?
"You're the infamous Nikki Heat. How interesting. This is the woman who you told that you loved, and her answer to that was to up and disappear for four months. Very interesting. So why is she here?" Leah asked him. "This is London." The last she knew, this woman should still be on the other side of the pond.
"My mistake." Kate got up to leave. She'd been replaced. Castle had someone and it wasn't her. It was obvious that getting him to come back to the precinct was clearly out of the question now.
"Nonsense. Please sit. Rick and I need to talk. We'll be right back." Leah took his arm and pulled him back up the stairs.
That left Kate trapped. The front door was that way and save for the patio off to one side, she didn't see another way out.
"What are you thinking, my love?" Rick asked her. "I didn't invite her here. I don't really know how she found me. Though she is a detective."
"I'm sure you didn't, babe. You would never do that to me. I trust you. However, we do have four empty bedrooms and an empty staff bedroom since we don't have any staff," Leah reminded him.
Rick raised an eyebrow at that, assuming he was thinking what she was thinking. He placed a hand on her cheek. "If you convert her, my love, it may be up to me to provide her with Cum. I suppose you could bleed me and feed it to her. Just know that she means nothing to me any longer."
"I know what I'm asking, babe. It's a big house and we could use some help. If I convert her we don't need to hide who we are," Leah told him. "I love you and trust you. The only one in your heart is me." She kissed him to reinforce her point.
"I'll be upstairs in my study if you need me." Rick kissed her and left her to it. He knew as a Succubus, Beckett didn't stand a chance of stopping her.
He had run across Leah by accident. Dated her for an entire four weeks before she introduced him to an Incubus who had converted him into an Incubus. Since then they'd been inseparable. She gave him what he needed to live and he gave her what she needed to live. Two months later, they were in love and had been living in this house for nearly a month.
~ ][ ~
As Leah talked to Kate, a strange scent of musky sweetness was filling the air. Unconsciously, Kate began breathing deeply, filling her lungs with the pheromone-tainted air in the room. Falling into a daze, her eyes became glassy, and she began to pant as her body responded to the pheromones.
Her vagina began to moisten and a burning need began to grow in her groin. She became hyperaware of Leah's warm body and the press of her flat breasts as every inch of her skin began to tingle.
"What…what's happening?" Confusion and disgust began to fill her mind; how could she feel this way about a woman, let alone Leah? Her cheeks began to burn red with shame as Kate tried to deal with these immoral and unexpected feelings while she involuntarily rubbed her thighs together. Leah leaned forward and kissed her.
Kate's eyes widened in shock when Leah's tongue separated her lips and forced itself into her mouth. That shook her from her trance, and Kate stiffened. She tried to push Leah away only to find that her arms had locked around her with the strength of steel bars. She fought helplessly against Leah's irresistible grip and copious amounts of sweet saliva flowed from her mouth into her own. Reflexively, she swallowed the sweet sticky fluid. Suddenly she found herself relaxing while a calming warmth came from within her belly, and a tingling sensation began to spread throughout her body.
Leah drew back from the kiss, leaving their mouths connected by a thread of sticky saliva, and looked directly into her amber eyes. There Leah found the glassy-eyed arousal she was looking for, bringing an evil smile to her face. Catching her stare, Leah's eyes bored into hers with a sudden intensity, riveting the aroused woman's attention with a gaze Kate couldn't avoid.
Distantly Kate noted that golden sparkles seemed to dance and play in Leah's green eyes. She felt like she was falling into them; they were so very deep that she could drown in their unwavering look. As the almost subliminal sparkle continued to pulse and swirl, she felt herself slowly relax, surrendering to the dreamy feeling her eyes instilled in her.
"Take off your clothes." Leah was quickly and efficiently removing her own clothes. After her perfect body was exposed, the Succubus noticed that Kate was sitting frozen on the sofa as her expression alternated between guilt and hunger.
"I said take off your clothes." Leah stared deeply into her eyes, riveting her with an unwavering gaze until a captivated Kate could only obey, succumbing to her growing arousal and the strange influence Leah seemed to possess. Kate quickly stripped, exposing her fit body.
Climbing onto the sofa, Leah swiftly displayed her dominance. She pushed her onto her back and climbed on top, straddling the hapless woman. Leah placed Kate's hands on her breasts and used them to massage the firm orbs. When she dropped her hands, Kate continued to squeeze and caress the shapely mounds. That left Leah's hands free to explore every inch of her body, stroking and caressing as she drove Kate's arousal to new heights until she was almost sobbing with need. Kate dropped her right hand from Leah's breast and began frantically touching and stroking herself in a futile attempt to lessen the burning need she felt.
Kate cried out in disappointment when Leah climbed off of her. Leah ignored her complaints and moved so that she sat facing her. After placing her right leg over Kate's left and vice versa, the Succubus scooted forward until their vaginas kissed, and Leah began rocking back and forth, grinding her wet slit against her. Her tainted juices only aroused Kate more, and she could only whimper pitifully in pleasure as one shuddering orgasm after another ran through her body until she lay exhausted but still twitching in pleasure. They strained together for nearly fifteen minutes before Leah decided it was time.
Leah gritted her teeth and pushed, smiling as a Conversion Module slid from her between her lower lips and nudged its way into Kate's waiting slit. The module was black, about four inches long, and an inch wide. It was tipped with short, writhing, motile tendrils to draw itself into a host and had a segmented body which narrowed at the end. Right now, it took advantage of its segmented body to twist so that it unerringly found Kate's entrance.
For a moment, Kate stiffened, looking down in horror at the thing crawling into her body. The moment passed and her eyes rolled up in her head. Her uterus contracted again and again as the motile tentacles caressed and probed at the sensitive walls of her birth canal. It drew itself into her waiting womb, overloading her nervous system with pleasure in the process. As the last of the module drew itself inside Kate's body Leah disengaged their union and stood up.
The Conversion Module now nestled securely in Kate's womb. It was a tiny biological factory whose first intention was to control a human female host, and then to convert her to most effectively serve the Succubus Race.
~ ][ ~
Leah joined Rick in his study and stood behind him. She ran her hands down his chest as she hadn't yet changed back to Human. Rick was effectively her mate and she, his. They just needed to get married to make it official. She would officially be Leah Simmons – Castle. They just needed to make plans for their wedding.
"She will be a Succubus by morning, babe," Leah informed him.
"She'll make a good addition to our Demon family. We're going to have to be dominant over her or her Demon personality will display itself," Rick warned her.
"My thought exactly, but I have a thought about that, babe. If we work together it should work. It might take a month or so to break her mind, but I think we can do it.
"In a way it seems fitting. She's all about herself. Now she's our servant." Leah kissed his head. "How's your next book coming?" About half of their money was what he made.
"It's almost halfway done. If Gina doesn't like it she can go screw herself," Rick said as he shrugged.
"There's the Demon I love." Leah kissed his head again. Leah knew she had chosen wisely when she had met him that first time. She did love him and knew Rick actually loved her. They were perfect for each other now.
~ ][ ~
One year later
Leah found Kate in the kitchen cleaning. As humans they did need to eat a little something. Kate, though, hadn't been a human since her conversion. She was a naked Succubus twenty-four hours a day. She never left the house, so no one ever saw her.
Kate was the staff for this house. Her room came with a bedroom, closet, kitchenette, and a bathroom. As staff it was her job to keep the house clean and do laundry.
"How are you this morning, Slut?" Leah questioned her.
"I'm fine, Mistress. The kitchen needs a small amount of cleaning. From here I will tend to the Spa and Gym area and check the pool and add chemicals as necessary.
"Do you require anything, Mistress?" Kate looked at her. She would do anything she told her to do. Let her suck on her nipples, eat her pussy, or eat the Mistress's pussy. Anything she asked of her.
"Not at the moment, Slut. When were you last fed, Slut?" Leah asked her.
"The Master fucked my pussy yesterday, Mistress," Kate told her. Not that her name was Kate any longer. In fact, the name Katherine Houghton Beckett, or simply Kate, or Kate Beckett no longer meant anything to her. Her name was Slut now.
Her life revolved around serving her Master and Mistress and maintaining this house. It was all she knew now. This was her life. On very rare occasions, meaning only twice in the last year, did the three of them fuck each other in a three person orgy.
Back in New York City, she had simply vanished. She had been suspended at the time, so no one knew exactly where she had gone. She had taken a suitcase with her.
Gates, however, was happy. Kate had beaten her by six weeks. With her gone she would never eclipse any of her other records, ever. As a result she had no real reason to search for her missing detective.
Flight records showed that she had flown to London, but her hotel room was empty.
The house was under the name of Leah Simmons, not Richard Castle. Gina only knew his typed manuscripts arrived via FedEx from Oxford, England where Alexis Castle attended college.
Rick's present contract didn't call for any book signings, so Gina got his book when it was done and that was all. She had no contact information for him, so she couldn't harass him like she used to do for chapters. Her calls and texts went unanswered.
Gina suspected that Alexis knew where her father was located, but she refused to tell anyone. Alexis was so happy that her dad had finally, after all this time, found someone to love and who would love him back. She might only see her dad and Leah on occasion and never saw Kate as a Succubus or human. She was just glad her dad was finally happy and she had Leah to thank for that. So she wasn't doing anything to ruin that.