The Succubus In My Closet

Erick Blight was a thirty-five-year-old pessimist who had long concluded that romance was an elaborate scam that was designed by nature to drain a person’s time and sanity.

He was living proof. Throughout his twenties and early thirties, he had put in the effort. He had dressed well, showered every day and listened attentively, hoping that his good deeds would eventually lead him to the right person. But the universe had other plans. Every time he thought he had built a genuine connection with a woman, reality opened a nasty can of worms.

 He had courted Selene for three months before discovering she had a husband who worked overseas. The second attempt, the sweet and timid Tara, had conveniently neglected to mention her fiancé until Erick bumped into them at the mall. By the time he hit thirty-two, Erick had stepped off the carousel entirely. He locked his heart behind an iron wall and tossed away the key.

Erick managed to buy a modest single-bedroom apartment on the third floor of a cheap complex, choosing to focus on his drab work as a data archivist, where the only thing that was interesting was going home.

He was still a virgin. And in the modern world, confessing purity was deemed a cardinal sin.

“Blight!” his desk neighbor, Robert, called out, leaning over the low divider between their cubicles. Robert was the polar opposite of Erick. He was loud, confident and optimistic to the edge of being cocky, which made Erick feel a strong urge to stab him with a pen every time he spoke. “There is the company anniversary this Saturday. The boss man has hired Flores Gardens for the event, and he said we can bring family over.”

Erick paused his typing, adjusting his wire-rimmed glasses. “Interesting…”

Robert frowned. “You don’t sound that interested. Wife problems?”

Erick chuckled humorlessly. “I wish.”

“Dude, you’re missing out. Five more years and you will be in menopause. Tell me you’re seeing someone at least.”

Erick sighed, staring at his monitor. He hated it when people probed at his personal life.

“Love is not for everyone, Rob. I have tried to ‘see people’ before. It never ends well. Consider yourself lucky if you found a woman with less than a thousand skeletons in her closet. Not all of us are that fortunate.”

Robert’s expression softened to something close to pity. He stepped around the partition, glanced left and right to ensure the aisle was empty, and pulled a plain, off-white card from his wallet. He set it squarely on Erick’s keyboard.

“I know that exact look,” Robert said quietly. “And I know exactly what you need. I was once in your situation. I was recommended to this doctor, and she fixed whatever broken frequency I was broadcasting.”

Erick picked up the card. It bore no name, no credentials, only an address in the city’s older district and an embossed crescent motif. “A therapist?”

“Something like that,” Robert whispered, giving him a meaningful nod. “Don’t ask questions. Just go. What do you have to lose?”

The card sat beneath Erick’s keys on his entryway table for the whole week. Every evening, he glanced at it with sneering skepticism. A frequency? Mental fixes for loneliness? Pure nonsense.

Yet, on Saturday morning, as he opened his windows, seeing a young couple walking with their daughter stirred something in his heart. He felt like he was looking at a future fate had denied him. Desperation won. An aching desire of finding someone waiting for him on the other side drove him to act. He dressed in a casual button-down, got into his sedan (bless the good old loyal engine), and drove toward the older edge of town where brick storefronts leaned into narrow alleys.

The address led him to a nondescript doorway wedged between a dry cleaner and a dusty antique bookstore. A small brass plaque read: Consultations by Appointment.

Erick knocked. The door immediately swung inward, revealing a small, sunlit parlor lined with floor-to-ceiling apothecary cabinets of dark wood and smelling faintly of dried lavender and burnt honey. Sitting behind an antique mahogany desk was a young woman who couldn’t have been older than twenty-five. She wore an oversized wool cardigan, round spectacles perched on a dainty nose, and her hair was gathered into a loose, messy chestnut bun. Erick found himself subconsciously matching her appearance to that of an owl.

“Erick Blight,” the woman said in a neutral tone, folding her hands over a leather-bound ledger. “To what do I owe the pleasure of this early visit?”

“I uh…” Erick murmured, hovering by the threshold before stepping inside. Had Robert arranged this? “I am not sure if it’s the right place...”

“I can assure you it is,” the woman said, “Come in, come in. Love does not wait for men who dally.”

Erick took the upholstered armchair across from her. The woman introduced herself as “the Doctor”. She asked him uncomfortable questions about his childhood, his career, and his romantic life. The ordeal lasted for about an hour, and Erick found himself spilling details he had never thought he’d tell another living soul.

“Yours is not a case that can be solved by talk,” the Doctor mused, leaning back and studying him with eyes that seemed far too piercing for her youthful face. “Let me put it this way. You’re like a lamp that attracts moths, which is good, except that you’re supposed to be a flower that attracts bees. Tell me the truth, Mr. Blight. Have you ever laid with a woman? Have you ever shared flesh with another?”

Erick felt the blood rush to his ears, heat burning his cheeks. He looked down at his shoes. “No.”

The Doctor’s eyes shifted slightly, a calculating spark igniting in her gaze. “Well. That changes things.”

She rose from her seat. She was tall and effortlessly regal, and Erick noticed she looked a lot older once he saw her full, athletic stature. She walked to one of the cabinets and opened a locked drawer with a tiny silver key. She retrieved a thick stick of chalk that looked as dark and dense as slate, along with a brittle, yellowed piece of calfskin parchment. The parchment was roughly torn, covered in jagged geometric runes that seemed to shift slightly when Erick wasn’t looking at them directly.

“What is that?” Erick asked, his skepticism flaring back up.

“The fix,” she replied, placing the chalk and parchment on the desk before him. “When you return to your home tonight, clear the center of your floor. Grind the tip of this chalk with your blood, and draw a continuous circle around yourself. Stand in the center, hold this codex page, and read the words written upon it.”

“Tell me this is not a blood ritual,” Erick scoffed, glancing at the bizarre angular script. “I don’t read ancient hieroglyphs.”

“You won’t have to,” she countered. “The script will read your blood, and your blood will translate the words to your tongue. But it will only work on one condition: your desire to find a genuine connection must be honest. No half-measures. No cynicism.”

Erick shifted in his chair. He had not come to make pacts with the devil. He just wanted one faithful damsel to share his miserable existence with. Was that too much to ask?

“I will not attempt to convince you,” the Doctor said dismissively. “You are free to leave.”

“Is this… safe?” Erick asked nervously. “I mean, for me. What will happen after I do this… ritual?”

“You will encounter something,” the doctor replied with carefully concealed impatience. “It will fix your spiritual constitution. What you choose to do after that will be completely up to you. If I wanted to harm you in any way, I could have done so in a more efficient way than going through all this trouble.”

Erick stared at the parchment, his heart throbbing with a mixture of curiosity and fear. “How much do I owe you for… whatever this is?”

The young woman smiled, a sharp, enigmatic expression that sent a momentary shiver down his spine. “I don’t take money up front. If it fails, I’ve wasted your afternoon. If it succeeds, you can show your gratitude afterwards.”