“To do that, I had to give you a few hints, nudge you in the direction

I wanted you to go. I will not apologize for my actions," she said bluntly. "And I think, on the whole, I have not done you any harm.”

“Direction?” said Rachel blankly, her mind whirling.

“What direction?"

She thought of the whispering voice she had heard in her mind over the last several days. The voice that was always urging her to Let go, to relax, to savor the joys of the flesh.

The voice that was eerily similar to Althea's own.

“Succubi get their strength, their physical and mental powers, from sexual pleasure. Preferably that of others, although our own will do in a pinch. A lover, or someone who we are in close contact with. A friend. A neighbor. The closer the bond, the more power we receive. An orgasm, a climax, is as sustaining to us as a good meal is for you.”

Her eyes closed and a ripple of remembered pleasure coursed down her body, making the flesh quiver enticingly. "So I spoke to you silently, tried to remove a few of your inhibitions." Her face was sympathetic.

“Took away those things which were making you so terribly unhappy.

“Tell me, Rachel," she said in response to her shell-shocked silence.

“If someone had suggested, two weeks ago, that you would screw your intern as a farewell gift, would that have seemed in any way plausible?

Would you have offered your maid a full-time job, but only on the condition that she dress in such a way as to sexually excite you? Would you have kissed her in the middle of your house, where your children could walk in at any time?

“Would you have attempted a reconciliation with Josh, a man who has driven you to screaming rages in the past due to his refusal to conform in his art and his life? Would you have allowed Alex and Sarah to choose their own careers, or would you have kept to your rigid insistence they follow the paths you Laid out for them, regardless of their happiness?"

Rachel blinked slowly. When taken in a lump Like that, Althea's story was frighteningly credible. Her knees began to shake. She covered her face with her hands, horrified.

“You're...in my head?" she whispered.

“So where are we now?"

Althea smiled and shrugged. "Just a Little home I've made for myself here," she said.

“It was disturbing to float around in your mind, completely disembodied. I needed a template to work from. Don't worry.

It didn't take more than a few hundred million of your neurons. You weren't using them anyway."

Rachel fell to a heap on the grass, her legs suddenly strengthless.