Catholic Guilt and the Joy of Hating Men (2 page)

She waved to me as I approached, as did a few of the spectators, one of whom shouted out his heartfelt wish that I show him my tits.

“I made you a present,” Maggie said to me, dangling a hand-woven pink and gold bracelet from her right hand. “So take off your clothes and stay awhile.”

“Isn’t this against the law?” I asked as I accepted her gift.

“The park provides the firepits.”

“I mean the naked bit.”

“I don’t think anyone’s going to lodge a complaint about my naked bits,” Maggie said with a smile. She took a quick glance down my front. “Yours are doing pretty fine, too.”

I didn’t sign up for naked, so I simply smiled and shook my head, not sure of what to say.

“Don’t be modest,” Maggie said.

“I really don’t feel comfortable --”

“Don’t let me down, Heather.” She gave me a little pout; it was very cute. “You took the bracelet, so now you have to strip. It’s like Mardi Gras, but for sober people with self respect.”

I giggled a little, and didn’t try to stop Maggie as she pulled off my shirt. Then came my shorts, and before I knew it I was naked and receiving a standing ovation from an eager public. I doubt Sister O’Hannan would have approved, but I’m sure that weird old nun would have taken a peek.

Maggie took me around the fire and introduced me to everyone. There was Mia, who looked a little like a cat and told me I looked just like Amy Adams, and Juanessa, who had a lispy Puerto Rican accent and told me that I had the sexiest elbows she’d ever seen. The comments generally got weirder from there, but all of the girls were warm and welcoming, and they made it clear that they were very much interested in having me join them.

But I wasn’t sure what it was I’d be joining, or what kind of group enjoys being naked on the only state beach in America where there’s a one in ten chance of being shot in the parking lot.

“What do you guys do?” I asked.

“We’re succubi,” Maggie said.

“That church that Madonna goes to?”

Maggie laughed. “I’m a succubus, a sex demon.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

“It’s more of a metaphorical thing. I’m not a real demon, obviously, but I have some kind of power over men...” She gave me a crooked smile and a little wink. “And quite a few women, too.”

I believed her, particularly since with Maggie’s arm wrapped around me I felt a little like I did when I’d first watched Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger in 9½ weeks. My eighth-grade social studies teacher got fired for showing it to us; I’d later sent him flowers and a tasteful thank-you card.

“So... you’re a sex goddess?” I asked, trying not to sound too interested.

“Yeah... but it makes more sense to call me a succubus... you know, because I suck the life out of people.”

“Oh.”

“Not really,” Maggie said. “I leave my lovers drained but happy.”

I could see the scene clearly in my mind, me lying on what I imagine would be Maggie’s four-poster bed, a white sheet draped over me, my body exhausted but my heart soaring. Imagining it I felt my pulse racing, my palms sweating... I felt like I did the day when my high school volleyball coach finally got up the nerve to ask me to prom.

I could feel the warmth of Maggie’s breath as she leaned in and whispered into my ear. “I’m not going to lie to you, Heather,” she said. “Sometimes we do eat people...” She exhaled against my cheek. “But only the bad ones.”

I wasn’t sure if she was joking, but it didn’t take me long to realize that I didn’t really care.

Maggie and I talked a while longer by the fire, not just about seduction and exotic dishes but about our childhoods and old movies and about how we’d both gone through life getting by on our looks, as though everyone around us just couldn’t say no, or “I’m married”, or “can’t it wait until after my mother’s funeral”.

We had a lot in common, but I could see that she’d moved on past my world of bad boyfriends and cheap wine. She knew far more about life and happiness than I could ever imagine.

I felt overwhelmed, and I lost track of myself after the cops kicked us off the beach at ten and we all got dressed and went out for fish tacos. We had a few laughs and more than a few jelly shots, and someone passed around some red and yellow pills to munch on...

I did a lot of things I didn’t usually do, before morning found me naked and hungover in Maggie’s bed. I’d felt a little dirty taking some of Maggie’s spare change for the tolls, but once she kissed me goodbye that all went away.

My first kill came less than a week later.

Maggie and I took a drive in her gleaming white Roadster over to Little Armenia to do some hunting. Maggie tried her best to explain the location, saying that the Armenians weren’t to blame for the neighborhood being the best place in LA County to find self-absorbed douches who no one would miss; she blamed it on Orange County Republicans and the mortgage crisis. I didn’t analyze it... it didn’t matter as long as she kept her right hand resting on my thigh as she drove.

We went to a tiki bar on Sunset and it didn’t take long to meet some guys; we giggled like we were tipsy, and I swear to god a lineup formed, and then we had to figure out who the biggest douche was out of all of them. One guy in his early thirties stood out, not only from his Ed Hardy shirt but from his twice-mentioned affinity for Jägerbombs. Once he brought up the latest issue of Maxim magazine both Maggie and I knew he was the guy for us.

Just like skydiving, Maggie strapped herself in with me for the first jump. The guy turned out to be a romantic at heart, wanting to make love to both Maggie and I on a musty sleeping bag he’d spread out in the back of his Range Rover. It worked out well for us considering how many places there are in the hills to ditch a burnt-out douchemobile.

I had a couple of nibbles, but Maggie ate most of him; to be honest, it was not as bad as I’d expected, and while I certainly felt an urge to brush my teeth, I was left with a feeling of power that I’d never gotten from my summer internship as a dominatrix for war amputees.

I felt like centuries of manmade oppression were being swept away, tossed aside like a meat-stripped shin bone by two women who were building enough confidence to stand up for themselves.

The strangest thing about that night was that after we had done the deed, we never once felt like we’d be caught. They hadn’t even mentioned the missing douchebag or the torched car on the news, and since Juanessa was a detective at Robbery-Homicide, she let us know that no one in the LAPD was spending much time looking into it.

“It’s not some kind of morality play,” Maggie explained a few days later while we waited for our waffles at IHOP. “We eat the bad ones and leave the good boys and girls to rest up for next time, simply because no one cares if the douches die. Half the time the family thinks the guy’s just run off with a new mistress, or that he was into so much illegal shit it’s pretty much a given he’d disappear eventually.”

“Have any of you come close to being caught?” I asked.

“I’ve had a few close calls, but none of us has ever been arrested or anything. We’re too pretty to get into trouble... you know that.”

“That’s true,” I said. As far as the justice system was concerned we were all too cute to execute.

I changed the topic to Prop 8 as our Fresh ‘N Fruities arrived. Maggie then gave probably the best impression of closeted Mormon missionary boys making out that I’ve seen so far, so funny that I even blew a little bit of syrup out my nose.

I was really starting to fall for Maggie... big time.

And the best part was that I was pretty sure she was falling for me.

The best indication I had that I was now one of the succubus sisters was when Mia asked me to make a contribution for an upcoming bake sale, to benefit the teenaged victims of paranormal romances.

At first it was awkward as I tried to figure out just what kind of baking was expected, as I generally don’t consider any kind of raw flesh to be good in cookies or cakes, but Mia soon specified that chocolate was the most popular flavor among their buyers. I knew right then that I had the perfect recipe.

I rushed over to my dealer to get started.

I baked four dozen chocolate chip cookies, going pretty light on the pot butter just in case any kids would be buying. I was pretty well-known for my cookies back home in Bakersfield, having been in charge of the snack tent for the Police Officers Association’s Relay for Life three years in a row. I would have done it for a fourth, but by then the Hell’s Angels had taken control of most of the charity racket in the Central Valley.

The secret is to boil out all of the green and then strain it through an old Kenny Loggins t-shirt before you mix it in with the butter. Then you bake it, no pun intended, and you cover it in saran wrap and use a little bit of ribbon to make an attractive little bow. A big part of it is the presentation.

I sampled one, just a bite, and I knew I hadn’t lost my touch. My cookies would be a hit.

And I just couldn’t wait to share them with Maggie.

She was surprisingly drunk for ten in the morning, but since it was a Sunday I didn’t judge. She invited me into her apartment and after a quick session of doing what succubi do best, we sat together on her white leather couch watching the weekend forest fire smoke drift in from the southeast.

She’d put fresh white lilies into the long-necked crystal vase she kept on her side table. I leaned in and gave them a sniff.

“They’re beautiful,” I said.

“Everything in my life is beautiful,” Maggie said. “Especially you.”

I blushed.

I took a bag of my cookies out from my My Little Pony backpack, opened it up, and then I passed one over to her. She thanked me and took a bite, and I watched as a few crumbs tumbled delicately onto her spotless white carpet.

She chewed a little, then smiled, and then a little more before she swallowed. She smiled again.

But then she stopped smiling.

“Heather,” Maggie said, “I need you to be honest with me.”

“Sure.”

“Is there something funny in these cookies?”

“Nothing funny,” I said, “just some ganja.”

She jumped up from the couch and threw the cookie onto the floor. “Are you kidding me?” she said, her cute little nostrils flaring.

“What’s the problem?”

“You just fed me dope and didn’t even warn me. Did you think that I would just go along with something like this?”

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t tell me you were planning on selling these marijuana cookies at our bake sale!”

I took her hand and tried to nudge her back onto the couch but she pulled back.

And then she kicked me in the shin.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “We don’t have to sell them. I don’t see why you’re so upset with me.”

“Mia was right about you. I should have known you were trouble, but you’re just so goddamned pretty.” She turned her back to me. “I’ve lost control... perspective. You’ve starting sucking up so much of me I’m not sure what’s left.”

I smiled and shrugged. “That’s pretty much what love is.”

“I didn’t want that.” She looked back at me and slowly shook her head. “I feel so stupid. Goddamn you, Heather Smith.”

“It’s Smythe,” I said. “Please... don’t ask me to go.”