Mine...Yours Pt. 05

Author's Note: I appreciate so much the comments I have received. I hope that you all who read this are enjoying the story thus far, and will continue to read what I write. I would like to thank my editor End of Story for help with my improper use of words. Also thanks to the rest of those people, you know who you are. Yes, I would name them, but you want to read a story, not my notes.

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Chapter 15: Kitchen

I awoke to the sounds of...clattering? No, not clattering... Rattling? Clanging? Clinking? I give up. Sounds woke me up! I rolled over and looked at the alarm clock. The red digital display was proudly showing the time, it said, "12pm." Joy. Six hours sleep may be enough for some, but getting home that early in the morning and realizing I had forgotten to buy sheets for Lucretia's bed made me cranky. That's why normal people make lists, so their poor overworked brains don't have to deal with that crap! The...sounds continued, and seemed to be coming from the kitchen.

I got up and started to run in place lightly for a minute or two to get warmed up then began to stretch. I thought about what happened last night while doing this. I hated the fact that my friends and I had that standoff. I went over it again in my mind and saw several ways I could have gone about things differently, but I knew that was pointless. Normally we go over our mistakes to learn from them. I didn't see much I could learn from that situation last night. Then again, I'm not the brightest bulb in the box, so maybe I missed something that could help. I need to talk to William; he would probably get one hell of a shock meeting my new roommate! I went downstairs, walking past the kitchen to get to the basement and poked my head through the doorway to see what was making the noise.

What the heck?

I saw my succubus, sitting at the kitchen table, sorting through gold coins. No, sorting is the wrong word. She was stacking them in little towers to see how far up she could get them before they fell over! Even as I was watching, one of the towers started to lean, and then tipped to the table making that odd sound I was hearing upstairs. Her tail seemed to lash in minor frustration as she promptly pushed the coins aside, clearing a space in front of her. Then she selected one of them, looked it over, and swallowed it!

"Hey!" I shouted, stepping into the room. She started in her chair, knocking another tower over causing some of the coins to roll onto the floor. She looked up in surprise as I loomed over her and grabbed her chin. She started to struggle but I held on determinedly as I started prying her mouth open. "Don't you eat those, gold is not good for you! Trying to poison yourself?" She began growling as I hooked my fingers behind her jawbone and pulled.

"Let go!" she snarled.

"Open wide and say Ah." I replied.

"I'll bite you again!"

"Don't you dare you jumped up excuse for a fruit bat." I muttered.

I fished around in her mouth and...there! I found it just to the back of her tongue near her uvula. I got two fingers on it and pulled it out, her saliva dripped from it like clear syrup...EW!

"What was that about Greg?" She asked hotly. I wiped off the coin on the corner of my sleep shirt and set it back on the table. I looked at the pile of gold and then it hit me. There was a lot there! I remember showing Mother the jug and saying I wanted the value of it. She must have misunderstood, or she purposefully misunderstood. I only met her once but that sounds like her. I had maybe, $500 or so, in change in that milk jug I showed her. I think she took the value to mean the WEIGHT of the jug. I was now looking at a plastic milk jug filled with gold coins shaped like quarters, nickels, dimes, and no pennies. Huh. I guess golden pennies were too much to ask for.

"This is my gold right?" I asked.

"Obviously." Lucretia replied in a huff.

"Then shouldn't you ask my permission before eating my gold?"

She thought about it, and I saw her black eyes narrow. Then a sheepish expression crossed her features. Her tongue extended towards the table and I had a moment of shock. It was long, pink and pointed, probably as long as my hand and wrist. It was also very thick; I wondered how it fit in her mouth! A moment later her throat started making convulsions and several more gold coins fell out on the table! This was followed by a few odd looking rocks and what looked like a white agate of some sort. Lucretia quickly picked up the rocks and the white agate and swallowed them again.

"What the hell was that?" I asked, feeling a little green around the gills.

"The contents of my crop." She said plainly.

"The what of the what?" I asked faintly.

"I use stones and such to help grind the food I eat. It fits in my crop." She patted the lower part of her neck with a clawed hand. "I looked at some of the stones here, but most are too brittle. I tried one of the coins and it seems to work well."

I was still trying to wrap my head around the whole "crop" thing, but then the original thought came back to my head. "Gold is poison to us, like lead. I take it it's not poisonous to you?"

"Nope." She looked down, then scratched at the base of one of her horns and wouldn't meet my eyes. "Sorry about taking your things Greg. I thought you wouldn't mind."

"Really?" I sounded unconvinced.

I was quiet, waiting for her to say something. She squirmed in her seat. Silence, wonderful weapon commonly used by wives, angry mothers, and smart schoolteachers! The silence grew, and I knew she had to be feeling uncomfortable with it. Finally...

"Okay! I didn't even think and just did it all right? Are you happy now?" she grumbled.

I chuckled in my throat and then slid the coins back over to her. "Thanks for asking, you can put those back in your crop, or whatever you call it." I watched in queasy fascination as she took the handful of gold coins and swallowed them in a gulp. That's just...weird! I wonder if she has to actually chew her food before she...

Ah well, that's a thought for another time. I started to head down the stairs.

"Where are you going Greg?" She asked. I turned to see her standing behind me, her wings folded tightly with the claws on the arches around her throat, made her look like she was wearing a weird bat cape. I suddenly had a picture of her in my mind hiding her face behind it and saying, "I'm BATMAN!" I tried not to laugh, but a little of it came out any way and she cocked her head to the side questioningly.

"Never mind that, I'm just going down stairs to work out a bit before I have a shower." I told her.

"May I come?" she asked. An innocent question to be sure, but... This area was my inner sanctum as it were. I didn't like to train in front of other people; it made me feel self-conscious. Maybe it's a sign of insecurity? I think more it's that I didn't like people watching me, studying my moves. Some of them were a little brutal. Oh whom am I kidding? There were a lot of moves that were brutal. For example, everyone sees in a fight someone getting punched in the face, the guy takes it and then after a pause comes back swinging. Now, take that same individual and have them get a quick fingertip jab to the throat...what happens? You guessed it, well maybe you did. The man goes down! No it doesn't collapse his windpipe; it takes a lot more pressure to do that than you would think. It does make him choke and gasp for a while and he has to rethink his whole fight strategy. Usually by that time I am hoofing it and I am far away by the time my attacker is back on his feet. Better than pepper spray.

I am a paradox. I absolutely LOVE to fight. The rush, even the pain is all-secondary to the feeling of fighting. It is pitting your self against another person or persons and finding out who is better at it. It is a primal calling that all males have. Some females too but generally speaking males have it the most. If you don't believe me, listen to this. Close friend of my family was against getting her sons any sort of weapons, or toy weapons. The kids weren't even teenagers yet and had no self-control. It makes sense, Mom's love to protect their children. So she gave them stuffed animals, and Legos and so forth. She came home the other day to her rug rats in the back yard running around the backyard squeezing round after round from their teddy bears legs at each other with the appropriate machine gun sounds effect coming from their mouths. This was followed by bags of Lego "grenades" tossed at each other.

Boys will be boys.

Back to the point, I love to fight I just don't like hurting people. There it is, my paradox. To fight you have to 1. Be willing to hurt someone. 2. Give yourself permission to hurt someone. That means I am stuck. I don't like hurting someone and I am not allowed to hurt people. Well, I am, but things will go really bad for me if the cops are ever called! Me being a sex offender, they come down really hard on anyone with that label. It would almost be better to take the beating and hope you live through it, then call the cops so your attackers can do thirty days in jail. Of course then they get out and come after you again.

This is why I train, by myself. I don't want anyone to know what I can do. I don't want anyone, who knows me to know what these hands can do, and have done. There is a fear in peoples eyes that won't go away when they know that you've...yeah. I think you get the point, and it's depressing as hell to talk about.

"Not today, Lucretia. Tomorrow, I think would be better. You gonna be alright up here?" I asked. She looked like she wanted to say something, but then stopped and reached out to touch me, but I didn't want to be touched right then and moved back. Stupid depressing thoughts making me all moody and crap! She moved again closer and I held up my hands.

"What are you doing?" I asked. She blinked.

"What you did for me yesterday." She replied.

I was now confused, but then she came closer and hugged me! What the heck? She bared her throat to me and tilted her head to the side. I hugged her back, kinda quickly with a little pat on the back and tried to step away.

"Bite me. You'll feel better." She said, holding me tighter.

"Uhm...what?" I said smartly.

"You let me yesterday, you showed me trust, you were open. I want to show you trust."

"I don't want to bite you!"

"But you feel sad, and scared?" She said, drawing back to look me in the eye.

"I always feel sad, and scared...how do you know that though?"

She held up her right hand and showed me the scar, then took my right hand and closed them together, our scars touching on our palms. I hissed my breath out in surprise, the same time she murmured in satisfaction.

"I feel what you feel, Greg. I don't know why you feel the way you do right now, but I don't like it."

I heard what she said but was still, wow! This explained a bit to me of why I was thinking the way I was last night...or early this morning. Depends on your viewpoint of the time frame I guess. I was probably picking up on what she was feeling as well in the middle of her fracas with Hilda. I thought about it some more. I didn't make much headway though since I had a naked woman, uh, succubae pressed to me. She wasn't doing the whole body press that we had talked about yesterday. It was almost a companionable embrace. I know saying that makes me seem like a connosuier of fine hugs, which is silly. I do have my standards though.

Lots of people see kissing or sex as the most intimate thing you can do with someone, and they are right. It is a sharing of bodily fluids and a joining of souls as it were. Think about this though, a hug is an enormous expression of trust. Someone, who is not you, is putting arms around your torso or neck. Do you have any idea what a person could do to you in that position? I see both women and men who are "huggers." They just hug every person they meet like it was a handshake. It makes me shudder to see them do it, and to know I used to be like that before...yeah, no more depressing thoughts today.

Lucretia was still holding my hand in hers and was now watching me quizzically.

"Your emotions really move quickly." She observed.

"That's me. Gregory Brooks, the emotional yo-yo." I shot back.

"What's a yo-yo?" Lucretia asked.

"A child's toy. I'll get you one, you might like it"

I moved in suddenly tilting my head to the side and gently clamped my teeth on the right side of her neck. She gasped, her hand squeezing mine sharply and her wings fluttered for a moment. Looking over her shoulder I could see her tail arc, shiver and then go limp. A smell that was both sweet and slightly tangy, like tangerine peels came to my nostrils. I wondered what it was, mentally shrugged it off. I let go with my mouth and gently licked the spot I had bitten to sooth it. When I pulled back I saw Lucretia's eyes were large, and her mouth was parted and she was panting slightly.

"You okay?" I asked, arching my eyebrow at her.

"Never better." She murmured faintly.

"Good, I will be back after I finish working out and take a shower. Then I can show you how to bake cookies." I told her. She nodded an affirmative and I went down the stairs to my basement.

I pushed myself pretty hard in my work out, at least with the weight-training portion. I am always careful pushing too hard with the isometrics. They put a huge strain on the body, so it's no good to push hard in that and blow out a muscle group. Just what I need, getting a "flat" when I really need to get some work done!

I finished and ran in place for a bit, shaking my arms, when I felt eyes watching me again. I did a slow turn and saw nothing out of the ordinary. Was it my imagination running wild again? Was it...?

"Lucretia!" I shouted. I heard her answer from the doorway. Was she waiting for me there?

"Yes, Greg?"

"You actually can help me, come on down here!" I called up. I kept scanning the room, even engaged my Sight. I saw nothing, but could still feel eyes watching me. Lucretia came down stairs and I asked her to hold one of the heavy bags so it would not move. I wrapped a couple towels around my fists and began warming up with basic three and four punch combos. She shifted into her larger form and held the bag rock steady.

"How many forms do you have?" I asked out of the blue. I was trading feet, back and forth kicking about the level of my thighs near the bottom of the bag.

"I usually switch between this one, and my human form." She replied. I thought about it, asked another question.

"So what is that third form of yours? This one seems like the one you use for combat."

"Correct. That third form, is uh, what I look like on the other side, in my world." She sounded almost bashful telling me that. I had no idea why she would sound shy, I mean, I don't have a picture or anything to show you all, and I am not going to spend a thousand words describing her. She was beautiful, not in any one way or...I really am not good at describing it. I know I have done it earlier to a certain extent, so you can reference back to that if you want. I just know that I saw her and thought she was exotic, scary and a whole bunch of other words to define pretty! Being all, bashful, like that I suppose I should say something.

"I think you're really cute." Cute? Yeah Greg, that's a good word. Especially telling it to an Amazon like that. Still it made her smile, if she didn't have those shark teeth in her mouth it might even be a nice smile! She could probably strip all the flesh off a steak with one pass through those jaws!

"You think so?" she asked.

"Yeah, I do."

"Then why won't you let me sleep in your bed with you?"

I was just starting a kick when she asked that and somehow I tripped over my own foot and fell against the bag, which in her current state she held easily.

"Excuse me...what now?" I gasped.

"Why won't you let me sleep with you, in your bed?" She said again. "Since you are my Mas...Greg. My Greg." She amended after seeing my expression change. "I don't understand why you won't take me to your bed. I thought it was a dream of most men...and women to have one of us sexually. I thought you just didn't find me attractive." She saw I wasn't kicking the bag, so changed back to her smaller winged state. She moved from behind the bag and posed herself.

"You tell me I am too, no, that's not the wording. "WAAY too damn sexual!" That I need to tone it down." Her hands slowly slid over her body. "Do you not want me?" She asked.

My mouth went dry. It had been such a long time for me, and the feelings of affection, of possession filled my chest. She was Mine! All Mine! Did I not pay the price? Had I not bound her, exposed her to some of the deepest parts of what made me who I am? If anyone had a claim to sample and taste those lips, to lose myself in her body it was ME!

Then my head got back in the game and it tamed my raging hormones with a bullwhip and a cattle prod! At least, the mental equivalent of them at any rate.

"Do you really want to talk about this now? We still have food to prepare and guests coming over? This may be a long conversation." I said quietly. She crossed her arms and tapped a sharp black claw on her dark grey lips in thought.

"Tell me some now so I can think on it, and we will talk tonight?" She offered.

That seemed fair enough.

"I am worried about you draining me dry if I let myself be exposed to you like that. I also don't think it would be good for us to enter into a sexual relationship with you being a student and me being a teacher." Though I had to admit I'd had a few fantasies about that when I was younger. There was this one teacher I had in High School, man she was hot to trot with legs...uh...ahem. Never mind!

"Let's not forget, I don't have the best track record with women. My "girlfriend picker" seems to be broken in the old noggin and I usually pick the worst ones possible for me to date. Oh, and another thing. This one is probably the most important one of them all and I should have listed it first. I don't know you very well. We only met like, what, two days ago? I don't know about you but I am not fond of just jumping in the sack with someone until I get to know them better."

Her mouth opened in surprise at that one and she started to speak, but I held up my hand to forestall her. "There you have it, now, think on what I said. Save your questions and comments until after our guests leave, okay?" Her mouth bobbed open like a fish a few times, then she nodded and we went back upstairs. I wasn't looking forward to the conversation we were going to have later, but on the plus side, after Lucretia came down I hadn't felt the eyes on me anymore!

Chapter 16: Cooking

Shopping with a succubus was a fairly normal occurrence. Not too much different than shopping with a woman, except you didn't have to hold her purse while she tries on a bunch of clothing that she doesn't buy. Of course I used to do that too. I liked nice clothing, the way the cut of a shirt lay on my collar and side. Even choosing my T-shirts carefully to fit my frame so I looked good. Now, if it says my size on the tag I just don't care as long as it is in a plain color.

Cooking with a Succubus is a totally different experience! I told her eggs were food when I set them out. She picked one up and ate the whole thing shell and all. What's worse, she LOVED it and proceeded to empty the carton as fast as she could! I was able to salvage half a dozen while she happily munched and scarfed the rest. Then she got into the butterscotch chips while I was creaming the sugars together. Then she dropped the oatmeal on the floor so I had to get a new container of it and had her sweep the mess up for Mrs. Rat in the back shed. Then she got her finger stuck in the blender, which didn't do much damage to her, but bent the blade on my mixer. A few tweaks with my multi-tool got it working again, but now the blades clacked a bit at high speeds. The crowning moment was when she found my dates.