Story Discussion: Jan 4, 2008. "A Succubus for Christmas" by manyeyedhydra

Hi, this is more a continuation of the themes about darkness and morality raised during the recent discussion of Black Shanglan's "Scold's Bridle"

I thought I'd offer up my own effort, "A succubus for christmas", which is certainly dark (always good to ambush people during the Christmas competition ) and features a fair dollop of morality.

The link:

http://www.literotica.com/stories/showstory.php?id=338347

I'm interested in what people thought of the story.

Is the ending dark enough / too dark?

Do you empathise enough with the characters to care what happens to them?

How do the moral themes work out? Are they too heavy-handed?

Is the succubus's transition from living sex toy to rapacious demon effective?

Thanks

Many-Eyed Hydra

First of all, let me introduce myself. I'm Dr Mabeuse, and I'm very glad to meet you. I enjoyed your comments on Shang's story very much so it's good to make your acquaintance.

Now, I think we have a very nice little horror story here, especially at the end, and reading it on the heels of Black Shanglan's offering I was reminded of just how mythic horror is. This is a succubus story, and a succubus is a very mythic character, by which I mean it has much meaning and resonance, equating the qualities of sex and violation and occult and evil and dreams. It hits us in a very deep place. We expect a succubus story to touch a lot of bases.

Let me answer the questions first:

Is the ending dark enough / too dark?

It's about what we expect in a story like this. The succubus steals your soul for the sin of sex with her. It's almost the standard contract, although this succubus seems a bit more aggressive than most. I think of the succubus as being more haunting than aggressive, more a projection of the victim's own guilt, but I'll talk about that later.

I especially liked the mechanics of her soul-stealing though, the way the soul seemed to be a membrane that was attached to him with ligaments that she snapped. That gave it a nasty, surgical, crunchy quality

Do you empathise enough with the characters to care what happens to them?

Here's really where I felt the story's main weakness was. As we said in the discussion of Shang's story, all horror is really about human evil, and what did Ennis's evil come down to? That he couldn't stop fucking the succubus. First of all, it's kind of hard for me to believe that you couldn't stop fucking some piece of ass if you knew it was killing your best friend, no matter how good she was (I mean, it's not like they were in wildly in love or anything; he was just hot for her body and her pussy), and secondly, Ennis's character is not developed enough for me to really make his obsession with the succubus believable. He's not an evil or selfish person, not that greedy for success. He's kind of an innocent bystander who gets lucky.

I have to say too, I wondered why Garth even had a girlfriend. Wouldn't the drama have been higher had Ennis and Garth had been best friends and bandmates from the start and Garth been the only person Ennis really loved? It would have had more emotional symmetry.

How do the moral themes work out? Are they too heavy-handed?

No, I don't think heavy handed is the problem. Unbalanced, and unexpected maybe. See below.

Is the succubus's transition from living sex toy to rapacious demon effective?

It was unexpected, for me, at least. By that point in the story, I thought she was going to fuck Ennis to death, the more usual way of death-by-succubus. To justify her sudden transformation, I really think we needed or deserved some foreshadowing. It came as too much of a surprise, too unexpected. We should have known from the start there were strings attached, and not just from being told, but from seeing for ourselves. I think the "laws of fiction" require that Ennis really should have been forewarned.

As a mythic creature, the succubus represents man's guilt and fear of women and sex. Is she draining my life force? Is she enslaving me? Stealing my soul? So the usual battle with the succubus comes down to a battle between a desire for the woman and a desire for freedom. We don't have that here. You've rewritten the story so the battle is between Ennis's lust and his regard for Garth. But his concern for Garth never seems to concern him very much. Then bang! she reveals she's after him, and he suddenly wants out but by then it's too late. Show's over.

The critical scene for me is Ennis's first meeting the succubus. It was a charming scene, and I think you pulled it off beautifully, but here was your chance to show us just what kind of man Ennis was, what his motivations were, what he wanted for himself, and how he planned to use this extraordinary power that was given him. Instead he just dropped his pants and dove right in, which made the story almost seem like it was going to be comic. Sex is danger. Sex is always danger, especially with a girl with no pupils and batwings.

All this is pretty nit-picky though. A lot of what I list as defects can also be seen as positives. Her sudden transformation is frightening. Ennis's pettiness is horrifying. Trading his friend's life for a piece of ass could, I suppose, be the very acid test of hell-worthiness. And as I said, I thought the ending was exquisite.

Edited To Add: We have a different kind of horror here than we do in Scold's Bridle. In that story we were working with an implement that was a manifestation of subconscious human desire, an object which tortured and raped a woman for the sin of pride, and maybe that's something we expect from all horror--or at least I do--that it be an expression of a human desire. In Succubus for Christmas we miss that link. The succubus is apparently not an extension of Ennis's desires, and I think that's rather what I'm complaining about in my review, which is unfair to the story and the author. I was maybe too quick to apply the wrong standards to this story, but I'll let the comments stand for what they're worth.

--Zoot

Salutations, Hydra! I was very grateful for your insightful commentary on my own story, and so of course I was keen to return the favor. I see, however, that the favor is still all yours - what a delightful story! I enjoyed it immensely. The last line had me howling with laughter despite a deep appreciation of both the moral and physical horror - right up there with the best dark humor I've read, that joining of grim damnation and a delightfully silly little caprice. All in all, it's been a great pleasure to meet you.

I've popped up Dr. M's comments to read through as I respond, so that I don't repeat things and so that I can crib his insights and pretend I'm clever. I'll quote from his post.

dr_mabeuse said:

Is the ending dark enough / too dark?

It's about what we expect in a story like this. The succubus steals your soul for the sin of sex with her. It's almost the standard contract, although this succubus seems a bit more aggressive than most. I think of the succubus as being more haunting than aggressive, more a projection of the victim's own guilt, but I'll talk about that later.

I especially liked the mechanics of her soul-stealing though, the way the soul seemed to be a membrane that was attached to him with ligaments that she snapped. That gave it a nasty, surgical, crunchy quality

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I thought that the ending was perfect. I particularly liked the clean nicety and careful precision with which you identified the real, actual sin here. It's not wanting to have sex with the hot prehensile-tailed babe (and may I say that the tail is just a delicious thing in this story! You put it to wonderful use); it's being willing to sacrifice his best friend to continue that pleasure. I like that very much.

It reminds me of Faust's bargain with the devil. What damns him isn't actually the contract saying he's sold his soul; it's his willingness to do evil with the power he's given, his willingness to sacrifice anything to keep the power, and his refusal to repent and accept that God can forgive him. In your story, for me, that depth of complicity in one's own damnation was echoed in Steven's gradually deepening involvement with the succubus, abandoning his band members, elevating his own ego, and eventually selling out his friends (both Garth and Denise). That lovely growing sense of his moral ruin makes the ending perfect - dark, but necessarily so. I also like the way in which the succubus transforms suddenly when he's past the point of no return; the gloves are clearly off, and the cute little Santa hat from the opening becomes a mocking last laugh.

I absolutely loved the humor throughout this piece, by the way. I am very bad at humor myself most of the time, just grimly, grimly serious about sex, and you're so delightfully spritely and sly and quick here, and in the right ways. It never derails the peice; it provides a perfect counterpoint to the horror and helps us see how he's lured so easily into it.

Dr. M said:

Do you empathise enough with the characters to care what happens to them?

Here's really where I felt the story's main weakness was. As we said in the discussion of Shang's story, all horror is really about human evil, and what did Ennis's evil come down to? That he couldn't stop fucking the succubus. First of all, it's kind of hard for me to believe that you couldn't stop fucking some piece of ass if you knew it was killing your best friend, no matter how good she was (I mean, it's not like they were in wildly in love or anything; he was just hot for her body and her pussy), and secondly, Ennis's character is not developed enough for me to really make his obsession with the succubus believable. He's not an evil or selfish person, not that greedy for success. He's kind of an innocent bystander who gets lucky.

I have to say too, I wondered why Garth even had a girlfriend. Wouldn't the drama have been higher had Ennis and Garth had been best friends and bandmates from the start and Garth been the only person Ennis really loved? It would have had more emotional symmetry.

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I always feel a little uncertain disagreeing with Dr. M, like I'm stepping out onto a little crust of ice over an endless depth of sucking mud. But I'm a brave horsey today and shall. *laugh* At least, in some limited ways.

I do think that Steven could stand a bit more development, both on his own and in his relationship to the other characters. Some of the characters seemed a little distracting because they caught our attention and didn't do much; John Delano is there briefly, just long enough to give his first and last name (tiny point but for some reason I found the last names a little distracting, possibly because I have no memory for them), while Jamie Moore is never there but needs a mention and a dark hint at his madness that ultimately didn't seem to connect very well to the plot of the story.

In that opening section, I found myself thinking that I would love to hear a bit more of Steven's past experiences with the satanists in dialogue (which helps bring him into the action and foreground his voice). I loved the humorous observations on the nature of recreational satanism and would hate to lose it, but did wonder if Jamie needed to be mentioned as prominently or at all. Possibly giving a bit more about Garth, Denise, and Steven instead ("Hey, remember that time we ...?" or what have you) would help to build a sense of their characters and attachment to each other while still giving you a vehicle to present all of the comments on Satanism. If those three would laugh over some shared memories instead of having Steven lock his away in isolated mental asides, I think they'd all become more human and more sympathetic to me. I'd feel the betrayal of Garth more, as well.

With that said, I liked the character of Denise. Her presence made me really feel the double betrayal Steven engages in; he looks into the eyes of the soon-to-be-widow, then goes home and fucks her husband to death anyway. Very cold, and it hits hard. The scene worked well for me, and I would hate to see her cut.

I also liked the fact that Steven didn't begin as a ruthless or ambitious person. That made his matter-of-fact acceptance of cold decisions later feel like reasonable and yet disturbing changes in his character as the succubus got to work on his mind. His inflating sense of his own ability and his disregard for others seemed to me to be good and appropriate signs of her affect on him. Possibly the story could use a little more flesh in those sections, letting it unfold just a touch more slowly and gently, but I didn't feel badly derailed. I just wondered if a trace of anger or resentment seeping in - say, a flash of uncontrolled rage when the band plays badly in front of the talent scout - might be built to as well, as part of the development, or some other scene or two to slow the pace of transformation a little and give us just one or two more signs posted on the road to damnation.

That, to me, would give an extra nudge to what to me was pretty fairly there by the end - a sense of why he would choose the succubus over Garth. My reading of the story was that he didn't so much make a calm, rational, informed choice to sacrifice Garth as he succumbed to the increasing pressure of the selfish, egoistic, and immediately-gratification-oriented qualtities that the succubus had been encouraging in him for some time. As I saw it, it wasn't that he could never have resisted making that very bad choice, but that by the time he has to make it, he is a morally eroded man. He's let self-gratification slip by too many times, and when he turns to the strength of character he assumes he has in order to save Garth, he finds it is no longer there.

If that's what you're going for, it could be given a little noodge upward into consciousness by, say, having the succubus a little more directly draw Steven from things that take strength of character - why spend all of that tedious time practicing guitar when you can just rely on me for inspiration, why devote time to working on problems with the drummer when you can just sack him and hire someone worthy of your talents - and have more time for sex with me, etc. Again, just a thought.

Dr. M said:

How do the moral themes work out? Are they too heavy-handed?

No, I don't think heavy handed is the problem. Unbalanced, and unexpected maybe. See below.

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For me, they worked pretty well. Possibly you might, as I did, be suffering a little tiny bit from going too much the other way, i.e., trying so hard not to preach that you undo some of your own message. I think that a few more early hints at the succubus's corroding nature (couched, of course, in happy sexy Santa-hat babydoll-ness until it's too late) would help the message feel a bit more balanced and smooth without being too heavy-handed.

A hint of what's coming is part of the joy of horror. I loved the coy little bat wings and cute red tail and Santa hat combined with the absolutely black eyes. 90% of her suggest that this could end up a comedy; the eyes tell us clearly otherwise. We might try to find a way around those eyes and try to give the cute little body and outfit a chance, but in our hearts we can't forget the black, empty abyss, and we (or at least I) love the ending all the more because I've been trying, like Steven, not to look too closely at it and focus instead on the yummy bits - knowing all the while that it's there.

I'd say, work with that and give it a few more little hints. As long as she does it in that cute, pouting, sexy-little-girl pose, I think it will still strike that delightful balance of enticingly sexy and yet, deep underneath, clear about where it's headed.

Dr. M said:

Is the succubus's transition from living sex toy to rapacious demon effective?

It was unexpected, for me, at least. By that point in the story, I thought she was going to fuck Ennis to death, the more usual way of death-by-succubus. To justify her sudden transformation, I really think we needed or deserved some foreshadowing. It came as too much of a surprise, too unexpected. We should have known from the start there were strings attached, and not just from being told, but from seeing for ourselves. I think the "laws of fiction" require that Ennis really should have been forewarned.

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I felt that I had good signs (notably persistent mention of Garth's tiredness) that she was definitely the evil her eyes suggested. I was a little uncertain about the role of the stone tablet, however, and the logic by which Garth became her first victim. I wasn't surprised that she turned into a rapacious demon, as her actions fit that role all along despite the cute exterior. However, I couldn't work out what gave her the power to drain Garth or the connection to him, and I couldn't find a way to fit the stone tablet into that picture either. I found myself wondering if this was some sort of curse that you could only get rid of by passing it on to someone else, or something like that. When Garth turned out to have no real moral / ethical connection to the demon, I did feel a bit let down; that part of the story didn't seem, to me, to wholly fit together.

Steven, on the other hand, I thought was forewarned. He saw her eyes, he saw Garth's deterioration, he knew that a succubus is a demon and should be draining someone, and he was becoming a more selfish and demanding person with his band. That part worked for me.

As a mythic creature, the succubus represents man's guilt and fear of women and sex. Is she draining my life force? Is she enslaving me? Stealing my soul? So the usual battle with the succubus comes down to a battle between a desire for the woman and a desire for freedom. We don't have that here. You've rewritten the story so the battle is between Ennis's lust and his regard for Garth. But his concern for Garth never seems to concern him very much. Then bang! she reveals she's after him, and he suddenly wants out but by then it's too late. Show's over.

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I saw Steven as being rather cleverly misled. As I read it, he only thought that the succubus was chiefly about sex - the thing he associated with satanism from the start and the thing that he chiefly desired from her. He's fatally unconcerned with what he does know is the real nature of the succubus. She's a demon, first and foremost, and she wants his soul. That's the nature of a demon. By trying to convince himself that she just wants sex and that sexual excess is just a sort of harmless "Satanism Lite," he blinds himself to her real agenda, which really he ought to know. She's in it for his soul from the start; the sex is just a handy and very effective distraction from and aid to the things that will really destroy him (greed, selfishness, lack of self control, etc.).

I do agree with Dr. M. that the relationship with Garth is a bit thin. I can see that it's tricky, though, because if Steven shows much real concern about Garth, we're bound to smack him and say, "DUH! Demon. He's dying. See the connection?" It's a tough puzzle to know how to show him more concerned with Garth without making it impossible to believe that he doesn't recognize that the succubus has something to do with it. Possibly it might help to make him more concerned and involved with Garth early on (when there's not much seriously wrong) and then distance him from Garth later as he becomes too busy and wrapped up in his chances for advancement / fame / gratification to listen to pay proper attention to his friend. I got some of that from the story as it stands, but the middle section is the part I think could most use a bit more fleshing out.

The critical scene for me is Ennis's first meeting the succubus. It was a charming scene, and I think you pulled it off beautifully, but here was your chance to show us just what kind of man Ennis was, what his motivations were, what he wanted for himself, and how he planned to use this extraordinary power that was given him. Instead he just dropped his pants and dove right in, which made the story almost seem like it was going to be comic. Sex is danger. Sex is always danger, especially with a girl with no pupils and batwings.

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Now see, this is exactly what I liked in the story. *laugh* Poor Hydra, we're giving such conflicting responses. But it's true. I liked that Steven began as a sort of amiable Satanic stoner who, when presented with a sexy naked girl in a Santa cap and bat wings, just dove right in. I liked that he wasn't a calculating, ambitious person to begin with, and that Satanism had really just been a sort of goofy goth thing he did in high school for attention and some sex. That, to me, made him both a sympathetic character (I was laughing over the description of the "new coven" - loved it!) and yet someone who was a good choice of prey for the succubus - easy to lure in, but not accustomed to taking things seriously.

I liked that both the succubus and the story itself seemed quite plausibly capable of ending as a comedy about the man who keeps a succubus in a cute little Santa hat at home and has happy careless sex with her. That plausibility charmed me in the story just as it charmed Steven in the succubus, despite both of us having clear warnings that this would not have a happy ending. I quite liked the coy, killing sweetness of it.

Edited To Add: We have a different kind of horror here than we do in Scold's Bridle. In that story we were working with an implement that was a manifestation of subconscious human desire, an object which tortured and raped a woman for the sin of pride, and maybe that's something we expect from all horror--or at least I do--that it be an expression of a human desire. In Succubus for Christmas we miss that link. The succubus is apparently not an extension of Ennis's desires, and I think that's rather what I'm complaining about in my review, which is unfair to the story and the author. I was maybe too quick to apply the wrong standards to this story, but I'll let the comments stand for what they're worth.

--Zoot

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Well, let me just shove my neck the rest of the way through the noose, since I'm so nearly there already, and argue with Zoot. I thought that this story touched sweetly on a basic human desire, and what I really liked about it was that it wasn't the one we expected. The succubus / demon motif offers us two obvious paths to damnation: sexual excess and selling one's soul to a demon. We're accustomed to those; we're ready for those. Even Steven is probably a little leery that one of them is coming. But she's so cute! She's so sweet! And she never asks him to sign anything that looks like a contract, or to give her his life-force when they have sex, or drink her blood, or anything obviously demonic like that. All she asks him to do is enjoy the fun free sex and not question it, and he's happy to do that.

And that, to me, is a basic human desire: to just be allowed to enjoy our impulses without thinking about all of the tedious motives and ramifications and consequences. Damnit, why can't we just have fun and not question where it's coming from? My trash TV of choice is often "Cops," and one sees it over and over: someone doing something blatantly illegal and dangerous, like driving drunk or beating up a spouse, gives the "I was just trying to" excuse. "I was just trying to go home and get some sleep." "I was just trying to get some peace and quiet and a decent dinner." I was just trying to get some simple, harmless-sounding thing that I want without having to be bothered with what that meant to anyone else. I was just trying to focus on the small little desire and not the big, tedious, complicated consequences attached to it, however destructive they might be to other people.

That's what I love best about this story. The succubus appears as exactly what Steven wants and is most vulnerable to: a wild, kinky, demonically inspired lover, but apparently cute, harmless and without any menace or potential threat. It's wearing a Santa hat, for heaven's sake! It offers him the one great human desire that he can't resist, the chance to have wild amazing fun absolutely for free with no consequences to himself and no need to think about anything. By the time he realizes that that prize itself is what will destroy him - the endless free ride eating away all of his discipline and strength and character - it's too late. He's got nothing left to resist her with.

Or so I read it. Possibly not at all what Hydra intended! But even if it's not, I enjoyed it immensely. And Dr. M, really, I owe you for some of the pleasure of that read as well. Your comments on the other thread about morality and horror prepped me going in, and so I had the most wonderful time threading the morality, horror, comedy and eroticism in and out of each other. Beautiful work, Hydra, and shown in a beautiful light, Dr. M.

Oh, and does anyone feel, after reading this post of mine, that they'd just like a little bit ... more?

Hi Hydra,

Thanks for sharing your story with us!

Do you empathise enough with the characters to care what happens to them?
No, so much so I would have mentioned this first even had you not asked. Ennis may have lost big points with certain saggy, middle-aged readers at an early point. I'm not saying it's an inappropriate moment because Ennis turns out to be super shallow, but did you really intend for me to loathe him so soon? If so, good job!

When Ennis first meets the demon, I found his reaction difficult to believe. Had the succubus initially appeared to be a normal girl and slowly turned into a demon while draining Garth, I think her seduction of Ennis would have been easier to believe. The way it is, Ennis finds a monster in his bed and he's like, "Groovy. Let's fuck! What possible consequences can there be? Heck, I probably don't even need a condom."

This may be exactly what Ennis would think, but it's so far from how I would react that I couldn't even begin to go there with him. I'd have probably broken my neck trying to dial 911 while running down the stairs screaming at the top of my lungs. I think experiencing his desire is kinda important because otherwise the reader is audience rather than participant when the moment of truth arrives. Denise and Garth are a bit more sympathetic, but I never got to know them, so I didn't really share her loss either.

What's with the other characters in the story? And the backstory too, for that matter?

Is the ending dark enough / too dark? How do the moral themes work out?
If you mean, is the fate Ennis suffers appropriate, that depends on how you feel about eternal damnation and letting one's friend perish. The sin is hardly minor, but does anyone truly deserve to suffer forever? If you're asking about Denise and Garth, yeah, death seems just about right for giving a really crappy Christmas gift when chocolate is so affordable!

Are they too heavy-handed?
There were certainly no big surprises and occasionally I felt as if a point was being belabored, like everyone commenting about whether the stone might actually work, but it was never a big issue.

Is the succubus's transition from living sex toy to rapacious demon effective?
Yes. Most of your descriptions, including the demon's transition from vixen to monster, are truly exquisite. They're so good they make the sprinkling of weak moments, like She looked like she was about to burst into tears and Denise flashed him a look of complete venom., really stand out in contrast.

Overall, it's a good story with some impressive narration, but I never quite felt involved enough to be aroused or frightened.

Take Care,
Penny



P.S.

Dr.M said:

I have to say too, I wondered why Garth even had a girlfriend. Wouldn't the drama have been higher had Ennis and Garth had been best friends and bandmates from the start and Garth been the only person Ennis really loved? It would have had more emotional symmetry.

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Oh! Kind of like the old rockers in Love, Actually?

Dr.M said:

I especially liked the mechanics of her soul-stealing...

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Me too.

Dr.M said:

It was unexpected, for me, at least. By that point in the story, I thought she was going to fuck Ennis to death, the more usual way of death-by-succubus. To justify her sudden transformation, I really think we needed or deserved some foreshadowing. It came as too much of a surprise, too unexpected. We should have known from the start there were strings attached, and not just from being told, but from seeing for ourselves. I think the "laws of fiction" require that Ennis really should have been forewarned.

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So it's against the literary rules for the demon to deceive Ennis about her ultimate intent? I expected she'd turn into a real monster at some point, and how could it not be after Garth dies?

Shanglan said:

I was a little uncertain about the role of the stone tablet, however, and the logic by which Garth became her first victim.

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I thought about this a bit too and decided Garth was her victim because he gave the stone to Ennis. I didn't expect there to be a second victim, though I guess that could have been creepy too. "Welcome home, lover? What, did the funeral depress you? I can take care of that. Soon you'll know better than to attend those morbid affairs."

Shanglan said:

In that opening section, I found myself thinking that I would love to hear a bit more of Steven's past experiences with the satanists in dialogue (which helps bring him into the action and foreground his voice). I loved the humorous observations on the nature of recreational satanism and would hate to lose it, but did wonder if Jamie needed to be mentioned as prominently or at all.

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I agree, a conversation about the 'good old days' would have been such a lively way to bring their history to the reader. Does anyone else think the opening scene has a bit of a first-draft feel to it?

Shanglan said:

Oh, and does anyone feel, after reading this post of mine, that they'd just like a little bit ... more?

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You mean a slower pace and a chance to get to know the characters better? Guilty.

Originally Posted by Shanglan
Oh, and does anyone feel, after reading this post of mine, that they'd just like a little bit ... more?

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You mean a slower pace and a chance to get to know the characters better? Guilty.

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Ah, sorry to add confusion. I was actually just spoofing myself for the ridiculous length of my post.

Hi, thanks for the comments.

It sounds like I fell into the classic horror movie trap of blowing all the budget on the monster, but then filling out the cast with wooden people who can't act

I found the conflicting comments on Ennis the most interesting as that indicates to me I didn't get his character to come across right.

My intention was to initially present him as someone to sympathise with (Alone for Christmas, aw) and then as the story progressed the reader would realise there was a good reason for him being alone, namely he's vain, shallow and narcissistic. Exactly how shallow becomes apparent when the succubus gives him a choice of her or his friend. When he chooses his own pleasure his selfishness tips over from a character flaw to something monstrous, especially as he can see the consequences to his friend Garth.

From the comments it seems like Penelope had him nailed as a rat right off, Dr M as an innocent bystander (making his choice to doom his own friend unrealistic) and Shang as a normal guy whose bad traits are drawn out through the corrupting influence of the succubus. This tells me I definitely need to draw the character more clearly!

Shang is right in that I wanted this to be a more Faustian type story than the traditional death-by-succubus story. She's fishing for a nice crunchy soul, but to get it requires a greater sin than just having sex with her.

This puts Ennis's character on a fine line. If I make him too shallow, there's no surprise when he sells out his friend and the horror of his ultimate damnation is lessoned because he's a rat and got what was coming to him. On the other hand if I make him too sympathetic then the decision to sell out his friend is too unrealistic. Worse, it implies the succubus's seductive powers are all powerful and that none of her victims can resist. In that case it's a different story as whatever the characters do doesn't matter.

I think I probably need to get it across more clearly that Ennis is basically an okay guy, but with a few character flaws. Then there would be a sense that he was given a choice and his own weakness damned him.

Poor old Garth is still a prop rather than a character though. There isn't really any justification for what the succubus does to him other than he bought a strange little tablet and gave it to a friend for a christmas present.

I'm not averse to letting the odd innocent character here and there have bad things happen to them. It gives a horror tale some teeth and stops it getting too comfortable. However Garth's role here is just to die so we can see exactly how much of an asshole Ennis is and I think that was quite rightly brought up as a weakness. It's sort of like the disposable sidekick in old cop movies whose only purpose is to die just to make Clint Eastwood REALLY mad. They just feel like convenient props to move the main story along rather than characters in their own right.

I think this echoes some of the points Shang made for his story about Bridget being dragged in and having horrible things happen to her just so that Richard can be punished.

I tried to make a distinction between the succubus just killing someone (she's a big cat, so that's anyone unfortunate to come into her claws) and being able to claim their soul (she can only do this if certain conditions are met), but this is still a little rough on Garth. It's a bit like the old barbaric witch test. "Well done dear, you passed by drowning to death."

Does anyone have any thoughts about how to use an innocent supporting character in this sort of role without them coming across as just a prop?

As pointed out, a stronger beginning with the characters directly reminiscing about the times they played at being satanists might overcome some of this.

The one thing I was a bit uncertain about was how long the middle section should be. I remember reading Dracula ages back and finding the middle section where Lucy gradually gets more and more ill interminably boring, but I think this is probably because of familiarity with the plot through the countless film adaptations. I know she's going to die so just get on with it

I think I might have tried to push things through too quickly and lost an opportunity to allow the reader to sympathise with the plight of Garth and Denise.

Many thanks for the constructive criticism. It's certainly given me plenty to think about in terms of improving the characters I use in my twisted little tales

Many-Eyed Hydra

That gives me a better appreciation for what you were trying to do with Ennis now, MEH, and why he came across as kind of thin at the start. I too felt a bit cheated that we didn't get to hear more about their early satanic days, and I wonder if maybe the key to a successful and more powerful and meaningful relationship between Garth and Ennis might not be hidden back there in them bad old days. Maybe they forged some kind of blood-brother pact or had eyes for the same lady or maybe even were lovers (?).

That might come out as a little surprise towards the end of Garth's sickness, when Ennis asks the Imp about Garth and she tells him that she knows nothing about Garth but of course, she has to take a life force from somewhere and she's taking it from some old lover of his but she doesn't really know who, and Ennis suddenly realizes that it's his old lover Garth, an affair he's put homophobically out of mind. (Okay. A little blue-skying on my part)

But the way to keep Garth from being just a Mr. Body is to give him emotional worth to Ennis. Thinking it over, I agree that his wife provided a tragic foil for his demise, but, you know, Ennis himself could have been that foil as well. It would have made him a much deeper character because it would have given him significant internal conflict, but it would have added anguish to a horror story that was rather thin in the anguish department.

Another idea that comes to mind is that Garth is the best friend who takes Ennis's girlfriend. Not steals her away--it's all very painful but inevitable and for the best, Ennis realizing that music is his real wife and that he can't give GF what she really deserves and she'd be better off with Garth, and Garth and GF very concerned and parental towards Ennis. But then you'd get the succubus acting as a kind of monster from the id on Ennis's part. He'd half know he was killing Garth and be unable or unwilling to stop. (Could do some marvelous things with the Imp mimicking his ex as well. Maybe even a scene where the GF somehow figures it out and offers herself to Ennis if he'll just stop screwing the Imp)

Just ideas.

Reading Shanglan and Penny's reviews reminded me of a bunch of other things I didn't mention. Shang stressed the humor in the piece, and yes, I saw that too and neglected to comment, but I appreciated it. A devilish sense of humor.

Your strategy to initially present Ennis as someone to sympathtize with and then to reveal his less likeable sides--I'm not sure about that. I'm not sure if you can do that in a short story, where the tendency is to make up our minds about a character when we first meet him. When we first meet Ennis, he's alone (mateless), and after that he had my sympathy throughout. I'll admit, I'm a notoriously sloppy reader and so maybe I missed the cues as to his boorishness, but I really saw him as a dedicated musician and a hopeless innocent.

The entire band business, in fact, was a little hazy to me and could stand to be developed, I think. Ennis didn't seem to relish his newly-acquired greatness as much as he should have; it really didn't seem that important to him, and though he talked about firing his less competent band-mates, nothing was ever done. He seemed content to scrape along with the same squalid group. There was no sense of his increasing power or grandeur. I think the band gives you your best vehicle for handling the passage of time there. (In fact, I was never sure: was Garth in the band or not?)

And speaking of being a sloppy reader, I just went back and read it again, and saw something I'd forgotten to mention: What's the key event that finally allows the succubus to take his soul? At the first reading I thought she did it when he came back from the funeral, but now I see that's not true. It was several days later. It seems like there must be some trigger for such a momentous event. Was this just the first time he decided to have sex with her again after Garth's death? I think there has to be some threshold he crosses, some decision he makes that leads to his final destruction, most likely his decision to get rid of her for once and for all.

Hydra said:

It sounds like I fell into the classic horror movie trap of blowing all the budget on the monster, but then filling out the cast with wooden people who can't act.

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If that's true, at least you got your money's worth on your monster!

Hydra said:

From the comments it seems like Penelope had him nailed as a rat right off

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That one line is really what did it for me. I'm curious if anyone else had the same reaction to it.

Hydra said:

Shang is right in that I wanted this to be a more Faustian type story than the traditional death-by-succubus story.

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Ok, I had to look Faustian up:

Wikipedia said:

Faustian may be:
* A work of fiction, or a fictional character, may be cited as being "Faustian" if it involves a literal or proverbial "deal with the devil", such as that portrayed in the story of Faust. Such dealings are often referred to as "Faustian deals", and as such there is usually short term gain (e.g. fame, fortune, knowledge) for long term pain (i.e. the person's soul).

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So this story is meant to be a situation where a character makes a deal with the devil, or in this case a demon? If this was the goal, then I must agree with Dr. M's earlier comment about Ennis not being forewarned. He never understands what the 'deal' actually is until he's already made the deal, right?

Hydra said:

This puts Ennis's character on a fine line. If I make him too shallow, there's no surprise when he sells out his friend and the horror of his ultimate damnation is lessened because he's a rat and got what was coming to him. On the other hand if I make him too sympathetic then the decision to sell out his friend is too unrealistic. Worse, it implies the succubus's seductive powers are all powerful and that none of her victims can resist. In that case it's a different story as whatever the characters do doesn't matter.

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You're correct, that is quite the writerly dilemma.

Hydra said:

Poor old Garth is still a prop rather than a character though. There isn't really any justification for what the succubus does to him other than he bought a strange little tablet and gave it to a friend for a Christmas present.

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If we're meant to sympathize with Denise and Garth, the story could be told from their perspective. In this case, we might not see the demon until after Ennis and Garth are both dead- or maybe not at all.

Hydra said:

Does anyone have any thoughts about how to use an innocent supporting character in this sort of role without them coming across as just a prop?

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I think the only thing an author can do is to give the character enough dimension so that it feels like someone other than a stranger has died. I know, easier said than done.

Hydra said:

The one thing I was a bit uncertain about was how long the middle section should be. I remember reading Dracula ages back and finding the middle section where Lucy gradually gets more and more ill interminably boring, but I think this is probably because of familiarity with the plot through the countless film adaptations. I know she's going to die so just get on with it.

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True, there was little point in prolonging Garth's death once the reader understands what's happening, and no point after Ennis understands what's happening.

Dr.M said:

Reading Shanglan and Penny's reviews reminded me of a bunch of other things I didn't mention. Shang stressed the humor in the piece, and yes, I saw that too and neglected to comment, but I appreciated it. A devilish sense of humor.

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I guess I totally missed the humorous aspect. What was funny?

Dr.M said:

The entire band business, in fact, was a little hazy to me and could stand to be developed, I think. Ennis didn't seem to relish his newly-acquired greatness as much as he should have; it really didn't seem that important to him, and though he talked about firing his less competent band-mates, nothing was ever done. He seemed content to scrape along with the same squalid group. There was no sense of his increasing power or grandeur. I think the band gives you your best vehicle for handling the passage of time there. (In fact, I was never sure: was Garth in the band or not?)

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That's a great idea! If after Ennis's meeting with the demon, his focus, and therefore the story's, is upon his newfound greatness and where his band is going and not so much on Garth, then the reader might not latch so quickly onto the connection between the demon's appearance and Garth's lingering demise.

Dr.M said:

What's the key event that finally allows the succubus to take his soul?

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I believe the moment is when she asks him for the last time if he will dismiss her. After that, he can't dismiss her, though he doesn't understand that. She doesn't take Ennis immediately because she either has to finish Garth or just wants to- it doesn't really matter which.

Penelope Street said:

That one line is really what did it for me. I'm curious if anyone else had the same reaction to it.

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This line?:

"Screwing goth chicks on tombstones was cool, but when the women were middle-aged and saggy and you had to watch out in case their husbands tried to slide their cock in your ass, it no longer seemed quite so appealing."

I intended it to be humourous. It's inspired by a Peter James book where the main villain comes from a satanist background where the coven would indulge in open orgies which were good or bad for him depending on which girls he got to screw and whether or not one of the more powerful men got to bugger him. The book (I think it was "alchemist") had very little to do with the occult and I think the villain's main evil came from abuse of both science and corporate power. I think James wanted to puncture the mythology of satanism by showing it as a slightly more debauched variation on a middle-aged swingers party.

I was trying to aim for a similar vibe. Something along the lines of "Yeah, we dressed in black and rebelled as scary satanists when we were younger. But then our slightly unhinged friend kept dragging us to meetings with these weird old people and it wasn't as much fun anymore."

I hadn't considered the insulting aspect of the line, which is shame on me and a slap on a wrist.
It does help to present Ennis as shallow, but I don't think his thoughts would be any different from any random group of teenagers (or early 20's) going to a club and finding all the women were over 40. Prejudices of youth sadly.

Penelope Street said:

So this story is meant to be a situation where a character makes a deal with the devil, or in this case a demon? If this was the goal, then I must agree with Dr. M's earlier comment about Ennis not being forewarned. He never understands what the 'deal' actually is until he's already made the deal, right?

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Yeah it's not quite so clear cut. The deal is: "I'll keep giving you great sex if you let me take the life of your friend".

I was going to argue the initial sex could be seen as a free 'sample' but the deal only becomes explicit when he questions her directly. What happens if he's really stupid and doesn't put 2 and 2 together?

But we also know the deal in reality is: "If you sell out your friend I get to eat your soul."

According to that logic I imagine the succubus would drag out Garth's demise until the point her true victim actually figured out there was a link.

This presents interesting possibilities if the victim is so stupid they never spot the link. What does our soul-hungry succubus do then?

Penelope Street said:

That's a great idea! If after Ennis's meeting with the demon, his focus, and therefore the story's, is upon his newfound greatness and where his band is going and not so much on Garth, then the reader might not latch so quickly onto the connection between the demon's appearance and Garth's lingering demise.

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dr_mabeuse said:

The entire band business, in fact, was a little hazy to me and could stand to be developed, I think. Ennis didn't seem to relish his newly-acquired greatness as much as he should have; it really didn't seem that important to him, and though he talked about firing his less competent band-mates, nothing was ever done. He seemed content to scrape along with the same squalid group. There was no sense of his increasing power or grandeur. I think the band gives you your best vehicle for handling the passage of time there. (In fact, I was never sure: was Garth in the band or not?)

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This was actually an error on my part in defining Ennis's character properly. The band sections were there to highlight his own narcissism (he's the star of the band in his mind) and to foreshadow the selling out of his friend (he'd quite happily ditch his bandmates if it gave him a greater chance of success).

The succubus doesn't make him any better (other than presumably the boost to his confidence by having sex with a beautiful girl every night) although after re-reading I can see the lines that might have given the impression she was.

I can see there are plenty of ways this could be played though.

The succubus could give him greatness, but then I'd worry that she'd cease being a succubus and instead become a metaphor for the devil in a traditional Faustian-type tale.

I think I could definitely use this to flesh out a more ruthless side to Ennis that would foreshadow his eventual selling out of his friend. Publicly driving out one of the band members after a poor performance would set that up nicely I think.

dr_mabeuse said:

And speaking of being a sloppy reader, I just went back and read it again, and saw something I'd forgotten to mention: What's the key event that finally allows the succubus to take his soul? At the first reading I thought she did it when he came back from the funeral, but now I see that's not true. It was several days later. It seems like there must be some trigger for such a momentous event. Was this just the first time he decided to have sex with her again after Garth's death? I think there has to be some threshold he crosses, some decision he makes that leads to his final destruction, most likely his decision to get rid of her for once and for all.

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I think that's more me being a sloppy writer. I wanted the funeral scene to really drive home the horror of what his selfishness had done.

I hadn't thought of an exact trigger at the time I was writing and you're right to flag this as lacking. When he fails to dismiss her and sells out his friend his soul his forfeit according to the internal rules the succubus appears to be operating by. Why would she wait?

Thinking about this and the idea I've got for a sequel of sorts made me think about the moral consequences of this type of tale. I think there is a horror in seeing a character make a poor moral choice, but the story becomes much more powerful if we see the character become fully aware of the consequences of their actions.

I thought that might make the best trigger. It's only when they actually realise the consequences of their actions that their soul is then exposed for the succubus to take.

Sadly I didn't consider this when I was writing the story as I should have made it much clearer that it's only at the funeral when the enormity of what he's done finally hits Ennis. That would have provided a clear and effective trigger.

But then i could just be steering a course into excessive melodrama.

Damnit, I'm still pulling for not forewarning Steven! Throw rocks at me if you like. *laugh*

I really do love that element, because to me, that's the nature of evil. People who would never dream of committing a dramatically evil "instant damnation" act will sell their souls out a dime at a time slapping their spouses and selling past-date meat to the school cafeteria. As C. S. Lewis points out in The Screwtape Letters, we'd rather think of evil and Satan in terms of red pajamas, pitchforks, and cackling stage villains twirling their mustaches - and that's all to the Tempter's benefit. That's why he wins so often. We want to think that the only way to lose our souls is to stand in a glowering brimstone cloud and sign a scroll in blood, and he knows that all we need to do is lie to and cheat on our loved ones and kick the dog whenever we're feeling irritated. It will bring us to him in good time.

manyeyedhydra said:

This puts Ennis's character on a fine line. If I make him too shallow, there's no surprise when he sells out his friend and the horror of his ultimate damnation is lessoned because he's a rat and got what was coming to him. On the other hand if I make him too sympathetic then the decision to sell out his friend is too unrealistic. Worse, it implies the succubus's seductive powers are all powerful and that none of her victims can resist. In that case it's a different story as whatever the characters do doesn't matter.

I think I probably need to get it across more clearly that Ennis is basically an okay guy, but with a few character flaws. Then there would be a sense that he was given a choice and his own weakness damned him.

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I was headed toward seeing him that way, I think, although I saw it more as a progression - probably because precisely the same line that made Penelope hate Steven made me laugh (God, I'm as shallow as he is!). That laugh came, I realize now that I think of it, for personal reasons; it just reminded me cruelly but painfully accurately of an acquaintance or two. Thus I didn't see him as unsympathetic from the first - shallow, perhaps, but more in an "oh, I just don't like to think about things very hard" way rather than the "materially ambitious but spiritually empty" sense.

Just as a thought, I liked the idea of a progression and change in his behavior. I didn't see him as someone without flaws who was helplessly doomed by the succubus's power; I did see that the flaws were all there to start with. I didn't think her success indicated that no one could resist her and that therefore her victims really had little moral complicity (which, you're right, would make it all seem pointless). Rather, I saw her as cunningly choosing a strategy that appealed to the flaws already in him and used them to hollow him out to the point of moral collapse.

Personally, I like that structure because it both allows for the character to develop rather than remaining static (also solving the "How can I make him a rat at the end without it being too obvious from the start?" problem) and also deepens the moral message by having his own shallow, lazy nature be what destroys him - not because he begins as someone so worthless as to sacrifice his friend for sex, but because he begins as someone shallow and lazy enough not to bother asking questions when he's having a good time.

It's very difficult, as I think your concerns about how "ratty" to make Steven show, to create a realistic character who begins a story as a normal person, but is also willing to kill his friend to get some wild sex. On the other hand, I think it's quite believable to suggest that a relatively normal person could be selfish and shallow enough to make a series of bad choices that gradually get him in over his head while also deepening his flaws through constant encouragement. Othello, after all, doesn't begin the play capable of killing Desdemona. He begins so sweetly tender toward her that we're moved, and the fact that he's hardly able to believe that she loves him seems touching. It's the constant provocation and fanning of his worst characteristics by Iago that turns him into the man he is at the end. His grief is as much for what he's made of himself as for what he's done to her.

Following that rationale, I like the idea of Steven beginning the story as someone who is shallow and lazy, but who does care for his friends and isn't a total waste of space. When someone identifies and cleverly plays on the weakest points of his character, though, encouraging him to become ever more selfish, careless, and lazy, he does eventually lose his soul - not because the succubus is impossible to resist, but because he's let himself become the sort of person who doesn't and eventually can't resist gratifying his own whims.

Just me. *laugh* Do forgive the long ramble. It's a very round-about way of saying that intended or not, I saw something that I quite love in this story, and now I'm all attached to it and want it to stay!

Poor old Garth is still a prop rather than a character though. There isn't really any justification for what the succubus does to him other than he bought a strange little tablet and gave it to a friend for a christmas present.

I'm not averse to letting the odd innocent character here and there have bad things happen to them. It gives a horror tale some teeth and stops it getting too comfortable. However Garth's role here is just to die so we can see exactly how much of an asshole Ennis is and I think that was quite rightly brought up as a weakness. It's sort of like the disposable sidekick in old cop movies whose only purpose is to die just to make Clint Eastwood REALLY mad. They just feel like convenient props to move the main story along rather than characters in their own right.

I think this echoes some of the points Shang made for his story about Bridget being dragged in and having horrible things happen to her just so that Richard can be punished.

I tried to make a distinction between the succubus just killing someone (she's a big cat, so that's anyone unfortunate to come into her claws) and being able to claim their soul (she can only do this if certain conditions are met), but this is still a little rough on Garth. It's a bit like the old barbaric witch test. "Well done dear, you passed by drowning to death."

Does anyone have any thoughts about how to use an innocent supporting character in this sort of role without them coming across as just a prop?

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Here's my thought: it's not the morals of the actions that bothered me, but the logic of the magic. Magic should have rules, and often we do tend to imagine moral ones. I don't mind if they're moral ones, though, so long as they make sense. What bothered me was that I couldn't see the logic for the magical life-draining forces getting attached to Garth. True, he bought the tablet, but if just buying it was enough to fix its powers on him, then he should have found the succubus as well. Dr. M.'s idea strikes me as one good possibility: if Steven and Garth were lovers, and if the succubus gave a few little hints here and there, I could see a certain logic in a sex demon destroying him because both sexual jealousy and demonic hatred of human love would make him a tempting target.

I think that there are any number of other ways to come at it as well. The chief stumbling block to me, though, is not so much that Garth is innocent and nonetheless suffers as that there's no clear reason why Garth should be the suffering innocent any more than Denise or a band member or anyone else. I think that the victim needs some connection with the magic or the nature of the succubus - either someone who's done something that puts him or her in its power, or something that makes the victim so completely and diametrically opposed to the nature of the succubus that s/he logically attracts it. Even then, it feels like the succubus ought to have some sort of personal or physical interaction with that person - some point at which the connection is clearly established?

(Side note - it suddenly strikes me that a shy, embarassed virgin friend would somehow seem right to me for succubus prey. I suppose it's that diametrical opposition thing again.)

The one thing I was a bit uncertain about was how long the middle section should be. I remember reading Dracula ages back and finding the middle section where Lucy gradually gets more and more ill interminably boring, but I think this is probably because of familiarity with the plot through the countless film adaptations. I know she's going to die so just get on with it

I think I might have tried to push things through too quickly and lost an opportunity to allow the reader to sympathise with the plight of Garth and Denise.

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Oh, lord yes! You just want to take Van Helsing and Seward and crack their thick, thick heads together, don't you? I always have to keep reminding myself that Stoker's readers hadn't seen vampire movies from childhood and probably thought it a baffling and scary mystery. Or so I hope.

But yes, I think you're right - it felt to me like your passion for brevity was fulfilled, but perhaps a little too strongly. I would like to see more development in the middle section. Of course, take that with a grain of salt; I know that my desire for a progressively developing damnation in Steven plays into that. If you would rather have him closer to his ruin to begin with, I think that a terser mid-section would work if the beginning were re-targeted a bit.

Still love it.

Shanglan

manyeyedhydra said:

I hadn't thought of an exact trigger [for when Steven loses his soul--dr.M.] at the time I was writing and you're right to flag this as lacking. When he fails to dismiss her and sells out his friend his soul his forfeit according to the internal rules the succubus appears to be operating by. Why would she wait?

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Well, don't give me too much credit for an intelligent question I didn't ask. What I was really asking was: What was it that triggered the succubus to suddenly transform into her malign aspect and dig her claws into her soul. I know it was his refusal to give her up to save Garth's life that damned him, but what was it that finally made the shit hit the fan? Why just then, 3 days after the funeral or whenever, a day like any other? Did she just figure, "Well, now's as good a time as any?" Or was that the first time since the funeral he'd decided to have sex with her?

Black Shanglan said:

Damnit, I'm still pulling for not forewarning Steven! Throw rocks at me if you like. *laugh*

I really do love that element, because to me, that's the nature of evil. People who would never dream of committing a dramatically evil "instant damnation" act will sell their souls out a dime at a time slapping their spouses and selling past-date meat to the school cafeteria. As C. S. Lewis points out in The Screwtape Letters, we'd rather think of evil and Satan in terms of red pajamas, pitchforks, and cackling stage villains twirling their mustaches - and that's all to the Tempter's benefit. That's why he wins so often. We want to think that the only way to lose our souls is to stand in a glowering brimstone cloud and sign a scroll in blood, and he knows that all we need to do is lie to and cheat on our loved ones and kick the dog whenever we're feeling irritated. It will bring us to him in good time.

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Yes, but if Ennis isn't forewarned that he's trading in evil with the Succ, then just what is his sin? Fornication? He's being damned for fornicating. Or okay, I guess it could be dealing with an unclean spirit, if he's Catholic. But if he's some modern secularist, which he seems to be, he probably doesn't believe in unclean spirits, and she's just some supernatural lay to him so that's not even a sin in his book. By the time she tells him about her connection to Garth, he might not have enough time to even believe her. (Here's another reason why knowing about their occult history would have been most illuminating. Just how much and how strongly did they believe in what they were doing?) That's why we're saying he needs a tighter connection to Garth or some evil foreshadowing or something to make this succubus-Garth connection more tangible, more believable. It seems very tenuous and so his sin seems very tenuous as well, as if he found a stray puppy that turned out to be the Hound of Satan. It's just doesn't seem fair.

dr_mabeuse said:

Yes, but if Ennis isn't forewarned that he's trading in evil with the Succ, then just what is his sin? Fornication? He's being damned for fornicating. Or okay, I guess it could be dealing with an unclean spirit, if he's Catholic. But if he's some modern secularist, which he seems to be, he probably doesn't believe in unclean spirits, and she's just some supernatural lay to him so that's not even a sin in his book. By the time she tells him about her connection to Garth, he might not have enough time to even believe her. (Here's another reason why knowing about their occult history would have been most illuminating. Just how much and how strongly did they believe in what they were doing?) That's why we're saying he needs a tighter connection to Garth or some evil foreshadowing or something to make this succubus-Garth connection more tangible, more believable. It seems very tenuous and so his sin seems very tenuous as well, as if he found a stray puppy that turned out to be the Hound of Satan. It's just doesn't seem fair.

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To me, what I like is that his sin wouldn't be the obvious ones - fornication or selling his soul - but a subtler one that, because simpler and subtler, is also much more common and realistic: lazy selfishness and refusal to examine any of the ramifications of an action if he likes the short-term results. Not many people are really likely to end up in a bargain with a demon, but I suspect that nearly all of us are familiar with the temptation of looking only at the most immediate consequences of actions that get us what we want. It's so easy to push away that tedious, silly work of questioning our own actions and decisions. Hey, the demon's here, I'm having fun, and no one is screaming in my ear "Stop! Stop!", so why ask questions?

That, to me, is the sin. Putting on blinders and ignoring any serious questions because you're getting what you want, like a Nike exec who's getting soccer balls delivered for a labor cost of five cents each. Why go through all the tedious work of asking how that's possible? I've got what I want. It must all be good.

I think that if you do that long enough, you become capable of ignoring more and more - and you become less and less able to make a stand.

Hi again, manyeyedhydra.

Another dark, juicy little story. Good, creepy fun.

I've avoided looking at what others have said, so as not to skew my read. I'll give you my response, then go check out the rest of the discussion.

First, some nitpicky things I noticed as I read:

For some reason, the full names bugged me. Introducing the members of a close-knit group of friends, it felt out of place and cumbersome, and as it never seems to come up again or be pertinent, I'd go with just first names.

As far as creating tension and mood, most of the time you do a lovely job. Here and there, though, things feel a bit cold, almost clinical. Here's one example:

"Don't worry Denise." Ennis put reassuring hands on the shoulders of the crying girl. "I'm sure the doctors will find an answer."

Something about that phrasing just feels distant. Compare it with:

“Don't worry Denise.” Trying to reassure her, Ennis put his hands on her shoulders, shaking with sobs.”

The wording could be better, but I'm getting away from Ennis's presumption that his touch is reassuring (since he's the POV character) and the cold designation of “the crying girl,” which you use, I'm guessing, to avoid the redundancy of using Denise's name twice in quick succession, but which sound callous from Ennis's POV. If you cared to make the effort, this particular moment could really be capitalized upon to play on the contrast between this very real moment where Ennis touches Denise, a real friend, her real suffering, and the superficial lust of the succubus, which is the cause of Denise's suffering.

She sat back down upon him, drawing his cock back into her hot warmth.

“Hot warmth” is redundant.

Ennis went off like a bomb inside her. He spurted and spurted and spurted and spurted hot cum into her in an orgasm that never seemed to end. He felt the sucking muscles of her vagina milk every last drop of sperm from his balls. Purest rapture fizzed through his veins and crackled across his brain. He lay there and let the pleasure crash through his body.

"He won't suffer," the succubus whispered softly in his ear.

*****

The funeral fucking sucked.

That's a fabulous transition/bit of juxtaposition—both Ennis's pleasure juxtaposed with Garth's death, and the succubus's promise juxtaposed with the reality of the death of Ennis's friend.

She had grown more aggressive over the last few nights, but this was something else, something... feral.

She ripped open his shirt and then turned her attentions to his trousers, pulling them apart so forcefully the button popped.

Somehow the “popped” doesn't measure up to the feral intensity of the scene.

As her muscular tongue wrapped his cock in its coils and squeezed he felt blood surge into his rising erection.

A juicy, visceral image, there. However, I'd lose “he felt.” It adds no meaning, and interrupts the immediacy of your imagery.

Hissing in triumph she got on top and mounted him. Ennis gasped as he entered her...

Instead of “he entered her,” which makes him sound active, something like, “as she enveloped him,” keeping us in mind of her power and his virtual helplessness at this moment.

The sense of Ennis's swelling egocentrism builds nicely; had you gone straight for the dilemma between keeping the succubus and saving his friend, it wouldn't have worked nearly as well. That we first see Ennis thinking of cutting the bassist loose from the band, then pondering ditching the band altogether provides a necessary bit of foreshadowing/character reveal.

He was shocked as he felt her tail first probe then force its way inside his ass.

Here, please do more than tell us he's shocked. At this moment, he's effectively being raped; if you let us feel more of his physical sensations, and more of an emotional play-by-play, the horror of it will come through better. As it is, the scene feels a tad too cool and distant.

Alright, on to the more substantive discussion...

I found the ending appropriately dark. Ennis has made a devil's bargain—perhaps in accepting the succubus and certainly in sacrificing his friend to keep her—and he's paid the price. I'm not at all versed in the mythology of succubi, and as a naïve reader I find it intriguing that Garth suffers and dies, while Denise does not, though she participated in the acquisition and gifting of the tablet. Since Denise also participated in the satanic rituals of their youth, this suggests that the succubus is punishing male lust, and holding the one female in the group harmless.

Adding to the darkness, thematically, is the juxtaposition of the happy couple, who seem to share genuine love—Garth and Denise—versus the relationship between Ennis and the succubus.

As to whether the moral themes were too heavy handed... I don't think so. However, I found it hard to believe in Ennis's choice not to dismiss the succubus at the point he learned not doing so would mean Garth's death. Even if, on a rational level, I'm skeptical that any degree of physical pleasure is that compelling, I do believe you can make it believable within a story. But I never felt Ennis's need enough to suspend disbelief at that juncture, despite the nice build-up you gave with him gradually pulling away from other facets of his life in his eagerness to return home to reunite with his succubus.

I thought the succubus's transition was effective.

Did I empathize enough with the characters to care? In Garth's and Denise's cases, yes. The brief glimpses we got of his decline, her worry, his horrific wilting, and finally her grief were pathetic and, because we know Ennis has the power to stop it, tragic. It had the awfullness of a wasting illness, and put across that terrible, helpless feeling of watching someone waste away, while being powerless to help them.

Ennis, on the other hand, was not at all sympathetic and at the point the succubus started tearing into him, I was happy at the thought of seeing justice served. This was quite different from my response to the MC's fate in “Wrapdance.” There, I felt that the succubus had really trapped the man in a pleasure so great that, even knowing he would die, he could not resist succumbing. Here, Ennis felt more greedy—he was willing to let Garth die so he would not have to give up the succubus, but was desperately crying “I release you!” when his own life was in peril.

Overall, the story was entertaining, at times arousing, and had the satisfying reward of coming around full circle.

Alright, I'm off to see what the other's have said.

I don't usually post here... all this deep, intelligent discussion is a bit intimidating. But since I read the story (and I truly haven't read much lately), I thought I might as well comment.


Is the ending dark enough / too dark?

Considering the story is in Erotic Horror, I thought the ending was quite fitting. Even though I don't usually enjoy reading erotic horror, I thought it could maybe have been just a bit darker. I wasn't very fond of the humor, especially in the last paragraph. But then again, that may just be my personal taste. To me, something is either scary or humorous. I can't chuckle while freaking out. So the second to last paragraph painted quite the dark picture, but all that was erased in the last paragraph, and instead of finishing the story with a shiver, I felt a bit let down.

Do you empathise enough with the characters to care what happens to them?

As previously mentioned by other reviewers, I really never got around to liking the main character. He was kind of an ass from the very start, and it only got worse from there. This is, I think, where I found the story lacking the most - while the buildup was nicely creepy, it was also very predictable. So I pretty much knew what would happen, and I didn't particularly dread it happening, because I didn't empathize with the main character enough to be bothered by what's happening to him. While it was still creepy, it didn't stir any deeper emotions, just resignation because the main character "had it coming".

I think maybe it would have been more effective if there was more of a slippery slope for the main character to slide down - he starts of a little bit more good and moral than he's coming across right now, then becomes corrupted. But I know this has been discussed already

How do the moral themes work out? Are they too heavy-handed?

Not for a horror story, no. I think this part was done quite effectively. Mhhh... nothing else to add, for right now, anyway.

Is the succubus's transition from living sex toy to rapacious demon effective?

Yes, I think that it was, overall. I can't find it now, but I agree with whoever said that it might have been nice if you'd fleshed out his reaction to her - he's not even really concerned with the fact that there's a demon sitting there, but he just goes and fucks her. Her behavior later is very nicely described, and I did like the end, where it takes him a while to notice that something is wrong before she takes his soul. That part was well done.

dr_mabeuse said:

Here's really where I felt the story's main weakness was. As we said in the discussion of Shang's story, all horror is really about human evil, and what did Ennis's evil come down to? That he couldn't stop fucking the succubus. First of all, it's kind of hard for me to believe that you couldn't stop fucking some piece of ass if you knew it was killing your best friend, no matter how good she was (I mean, it's not like they were in wildly in love or anything; he was just hot for her body and her pussy), and secondly, Ennis's character is not developed enough for me to really make his obsession with the succubus believable. He's not an evil or selfish person, not that greedy for success. He's kind of an innocent bystander who gets lucky.

I have to say too, I wondered why Garth even had a girlfriend. Wouldn't the drama have been higher had Ennis and Garth had been best friends and bandmates from the start and Garth been the only person Ennis really loved? It would have had more emotional symmetry.

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This captures something important, which I fear I failed to get across in my earlier post. Ennis and Garth both seem pretty innocent, at least until the point at which Ennis chooses hot sex over the life of his friend, and as I mentioned, that he does that doesn't quite hold up as believable. As Dr. M suggests, that level of betrayal, of self-absorption is believable when deeper passion comes into play--people do murder out of jealousy, but that kind of jealousy runs deeper than a fabulous orgasm.

I love Dr. M's suggestion re: the love between Ennis and Garth. As things are now, though, I do see a raison d'etre for Denise. tAt the story's opening, there were a lot of moments where we're made aware that Ennis is lonely. Not just horny, lonely. He envies Garth's relationship with Denise, and regrets the loss of the three women he's been close to--women he let go, essentially, to pursue his music career. Denise is a point of jealousy, and also serves to highlight Ennis's loneliness.

I think there is the hinge on which Ennis's sins can really hang--a self-centered drive for fame and fortune, and a deep jealousy over his friend's fulfillment in an area where he's failing--love. Find a way to tease out those deeper themes or sins, and I think the story would have a gravitas that isn't there, yet.

Hi, Hydra,

A deliciously fun little piece you got there. I have to admit I was a bit wary of anything with Xmas in the title, yet your story charmed me fast and held my interest till the end.

What I hold to be its strongest point is that it's excellent in conception and structure. We're in the business of nitpicking here, so of course I noticed bits and pieces that could use some trimming here and some expanding there, but they don't take away from the fact that your story has the head, the tail, and everything in between.

A clever balancing between the familiar (the genre tropes and their determinism) and the unique (your particular solutions of the well-known equations) gave your story a narrative pull that kept me interested without a pause. By relying on moral and archetypal inevitabilities, the events gained a mythical quality that made me feel as though I'd read the story many times before, yet I was never allowed to guess what was about to happen in the next step. The pacing, impeccable for the most part, added to my impression of a quick and entertaining read as well.

The problematic bits, or what I considered as such, I'll address in a moment, but I'd like to voice two general concerns first:

One, I found the quality of writing to vary greatly, and two, I'm not entirely sure about the humor.

The former likely occurred due to your rush to meet the deadlines, but it did result in a number of rough places that gave your prose an uneven feel. Some awkward constructions and clichés, little leaps of thought, inappropriate or trite word choices—the kind of thing Varian identified in her review—call for a revision that would provide delightfully fresh expressions and images like that of the snapping soul the good company they deserve.

As for humor, the differences between critics demonstrate how much it depends on personal tastes, and I feel a bit like Ms. Gloomy in saying that I could have done with less. Still, I found your treatment of the comic, unlike that of the moral, a bit heavy-handed.

In general, the inherent tragicomedy of the situation lent itself well to a farcical spin, and I appreciated it as a dark little commentary on both the human nature and the genres—the erotic and the horror alike. The word "uneven" comes to mind once again, though, since the humorous didn't appear equally well measured out across the piece. In the opening scene it was almost entirely absent; in the first succubus scene it struck me as so unexpected and leeringly overdone as to snap my suspense of disbelief, and only later did it settle, more or less, in subtler levels I was able to enjoy.

Too, the humorous lens created an emotional buffer between the characters and me, which I felt the most and regretted the most in the sex scenes. I don't know how much you wanted the story to work as arousing, but I couldn't help but notice, especially in the soul-selling scene, how close you were to achieving that goal.

In that scene, as well as on a few occasions before, I wished the humor were allowed to retreat in the background just for a little while, just for long enough for the protag's feelings to truly reach and affect the reader. As devilishly hard as it is to balance just two of the ingredients you worked with—sex, comedy, and horror—the full effect of all of the three evaded you by mere nuances and a dash of intimacy with your protagonist.

Taking the story from the beginning now, I'll reiterate some of the points made by others, if only to throw another weight on the scale of opinions:

As Shanglan pointed out, the opening scene would do better without the ominous mention of a friend who lost his mind. The tablet itself is as ominous as you could ever want, so there's no need to belabor the point, especially not by introducing a thread that serves no other purpose in the story. While we're there, the saggy remark Penny noticed would be best excised as well, not only because it shows the protag in an unfavorable light too soon, but also because it appeared, to me at least, as a complete non sequitur. Generally, I'd favor a trimmer, not more elaborate opening scene, with the proviso, of course, that all the necessary introductions are made.

I believe the current scene does this well, in that it provides a hook and sketches out the characters and their relations just well enough. With the exception of the surpluses I just mentioned and that bit of clumsiness around the colleague who was only there to hear the back-story—a legitimate device in everything but the way you drew attention on him by using his full name—it shouldn't be significantly changed. The only case in which I'd consider giving it a more than cosmetic revision would be if you decided to implement the ideas Doc offered here:

dr_mabeuse said:

I wonder if maybe the key to a successful and more powerful and meaningful relationship between Garth and Ennis might not be hidden back there in them bad old days. Maybe they forged some kind of blood-brother pact or had eyes for the same lady or maybe even were lovers (?).

That might come out as a little surprise towards the end of Garth's sickness, when Ennis asks the Imp about Garth and she tells him that she knows nothing about Garth but of course, she has to take a life force from somewhere and she's taking it from some old lover of his but she doesn't really know who, and Ennis suddenly realizes that it's his old lover Garth, an affair he's put homophobically out of mind.

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I have to say: I thought this brilliant.

Just like Shanglan, I was bothered by the lack of explanation for the mechanism of Garth's connection to the tablet, and I wanted to suggest some brief, hand-waving rationale, just so as to shut up those of us who simply have to know the whys and the wherefores. Doc's idea, however, ties this loose end elegantly while simultaneously taking the story to a very satisfying new level of complexity, and the best part is that it doesn't seem difficult to employ.

The scene in the direst need of revision comes, in my opinion, with the first appearance of the succubus. Responses seem to be divided on this one, but I'm definitely in the camp of those who couldn't buy Ennis' reactions. I grasped desperately for any smallest clue that would explain his utter lack of surprise and failed to find it. If the story hadn't made me curious enough before—for which I'm glad, as I am for what followed—I would have been tempted to give up then and there.

For now, I have to cut this short and hope I answered at least some of your questions. If something more occurs to me, I'll add a couple words another time and read in more detail what others have said. All in all, thank you for sharing a fun yet dark piece!

Best of luck,

Verdad

a line from the story said:

Screwing goth chicks on tombstones was cool, but when the women were middle-aged and saggy and you had to watch out in case their husbands tried to slide their cock in your ass, it no longer seemed quite so appealing.

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Yes, that's the line. I took it to mean that an older Ennis still imagined he not only could, but should, attract a svelte young girl instead of someone his own age. I was less sure about the second part, but decided Ennis might be flattering himself by imagining he's attractive to men too. So I didn't actually find it insulting, nor did I hate Ennis, but I did get out my little red 'SHALLOW' stamp. Whether or not the line's a keeper depends on what you were trying to achieve. If it was meant to humorous, I totally missed it.

Hydra said:

Yeah it's not quite so clear cut. The deal is: "I'll keep giving you great sex if you let me take the life of your friend".

...

But we also know the deal in reality is: "If you sell out your friend I get to eat your soul."

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Do we? Ennis clearly believes the deal is confined to "I'll keep giving you great sex if you let me take the life of your friend". This is only an issue if it's not what you intended. I don't have a problem with a demon lying, I mean, hello- she's a demon!

Hydra said:

This presents interesting possibilities if the victim is so stupid they never spot the link. What does our soul-hungry succubus do then?

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Trick him into giving the magic rock to someone else?

fieryjen said:

... all this deep, intelligent discussion is a bit intimidating.

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Thanks for joining us! Most of us feel the same way at first, at least I did, but eventually I understood everyone's opinion has value.

Verdad said:

One, I found the quality of writing to vary greatly, and two, I'm not entirely sure about the humor.

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I agree about the varying quality. I'm not entirely sure about the humor either. Help me- what's supposed to be funny?

Shanglan said:

Here's my thought: it's not the morals of the actions that bothered me, but the logic of the magic. Magic should have rules, and often we do tend to imagine moral ones.

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This may not quite be what you meant by 'Magic should have rules', but I'd have liked it if Ennis had to actively do something to summon the demon, even if it's just put the magic rock under his pillow and shout, "Succubi suck slimy souls swiftly," three times fast.

Shanglan said:

The chief stumbling block to me, though, is not so much that Garth is innocent and nonetheless suffers as that there's no clear reason why Garth should be the suffering innocent any more than Denise or a band member or anyone else.

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Interesting. Who suffers more, Denise or Garth?

Many thanks for all the comments. It's given me a lot to think about.

These were the points that got me thinking.

<b>Humour</b>

This was polarizing by the looks of things. Some liked it, some felt it got in the way. I knew I wanted to make the succubus as unthreatening as possible to start with and. A lot of the other stuff just seeped out. It's a bad habit of mine

Humour in horror does interest me. I think it makes a nice weapon, although I wasn't aiming for that here.

I always think of the Michael Madsen scene in reservoir dogs. He ties a hostage cop to the chair and then does a silly dance to a song on the radio. It's quite funny. Then he leans forward and cuts the guy's ear off. All of a sudden the audience feels like they've been punched in the gut. Worse, they're made complicit in the violence by chuckling along to his silly dance.

It's something that's interested me.

I liked Shang's comments about the story almost looking like it could have developed into a sex farce about a boy and his succubus, but the eyes tell you it's going to end badly. I could possibly play up to this and write a lighter beginning, but with enough signposts to indicate that something nasty is on the horizon.

<b>Rules</b>

This was also raised. It did make me think about why rules are so important when a story involves magic or the supernatural. I suppose it's because there has to be some limiting factor otherwise there's no way for the human characters to fight back against more powerful supernatural enemies.

I'm a bit mixed about this. I don't like to stick rigidly to rules as I'm always more afraid of predictability. I love the bleakness at the heart of Lovecraft's work, but he was sensible enough to use it as a backdrop. I've seen enough bad horror films to know the invincible monster is very yawnsome

I'm kicking myself that I didn't spot a good trick by working out exactly what conditions were required for the succubus to claim her soul.

I think we may have mentioned it one of the other threads, but seeing the consequences of evil is an important theme for horror. On an instinctive level I knew it wasn't enough for Ennis to sell his friend and then get eaten, he had to see and understand the consequences of his decision. And then get eaten. That's stronger i think.

It gives a nice trigger to the succubus. She offers them some easy fun, but sooner or later they're going to crash into what all the great sex really means and then she gets another crunchy soul.

I think what might have got me into trouble was introducing themes we normally expect to have rules into the story and then revealing there isn't really a connection at all.

There's a haunted stone tablet, a demon offering bargains for souls and a strong moral theme. Then there's Garth. He doesn't own the cursed stone, he hasn't done anything morally wrong, has no real connection to the succubus and yet she kills him. I've mentioned before that innocence shouldn't be an invulnerability shield in horror, but I'm wondering that the reason his involvement sticks out so awkwardly here is because the rest of the tale is so concerned with morality.

Anyway I think I've gone a bit heavier than I intended

I'm such a horror junkie I keep forgetting this is an erotic fiction site so apologies for wandering off into the dark depths

I should also be asking if the eroticism worked The main complaint seemed to be Ennis diving right in without the succubus really needing to use any dirty tricks like magic on him. That would be the simple fix, but if she has that much control over him then the whole morality aspect of the story is completely blown as he doesn't have any choice in the matter.

Gagh, it's like wandering in a maze.

thanks for taking the time to comment on my story. It's good to get some of those flaws in both writing and plotting out in the open so I can exterminate them for good

You can't use HTML in your posts, dear. (That's what all the funky icons above the text field are for )

fieryjen said:

You can't use HTML in your posts, dear. (That's what all the funky icons above the text field are for )

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oopsies