Takeshi pulled Daisuke into his arms, the taller boy pinning the shorter into a corner, their eyes meeting with a burning passion. 

But then what? How do I make this interesting without a stupid fade to black moment after they kiss? God this is harder than usual.

I scratched my head at my conundrum, the itchiness of my wool sweater drawing attention to the length of time I had been sitting here writing. This was the fourth day in a row I had been working without stopping, and I just felt so dirty all of a sudden. It didn’t help that I had to pee now.

Determined to clean myself as a way to clear my mind, I hoisted myself up and made my way to the bathroom of my one bedroom apartment. I shucked off my sweater, itching my underarm as I did, and then undid the tie of my sweatpants. I basically walked out of my pants as I got to the bathroom and turned to look at the mirror I had above the sink.

I, Lizette Kamia, would be what you might call a plain Jane. I sit at five foot two inches, have mid-length black hair and dark eyes. My skin tone could be called caramel, and my over all features lean more toward my Hispanic heritage than my Japanese side. All in all, I didn’t really stick out when I was back in southern California, but I do a little more now that I’ve moved to the great white north. That might be more a case of how I rarely leave the apartment than my features, all things considered.

I took my glasses off and splashed some cold water on my face before I started up my bath. I live in an older building here in Toronto, so it takes a few minutes for the water to hit a warm enough temperature to warrant dropping my skivvies and slipping into the tub. I drop a bath bomb in before I dip myself, no reason not to spoil myself after several days of hard work… if you could call writing two full length novels and a major chunk of a light novel in four days work. I do, and it pays the bills, so I like to let myself enjoy the little things.

As I sat myself down in the tub I let the hot water wash over me, my mind drifting to the last few days of non-stop typing and a few carpel tunnel moments as I raced toward my current deadlines. At twenty-six years old, I’ve managed to knock out just short of 100 full books in the US and Canada, and about double that in light novels for my publisher in Japan. I have four pseudonyms through six publishing houses, and I’ve worked on the stories for eight AAA video games as a freelancer. It helps that my brothers and sisters all work in creative environments, otherwise I don’t think I would be as successful as I am… then again, I might not be a shut in too.

It took me a moment, coming back from navel gazing in the tub, to realize I was no longer alone in the bathroom. I looked over, through the steam and the haze of my short sightedness, and could barely make out the strange looking girl seated on my toilet. I blinked a few times, her features becoming the clearest thing in the room even without my glasses on. This all seemed surreal, so I assumed I had fallen asleep in the bath, but at the same time…

“Oh, you’re finally paying attention? Well, that’s great.” Said the girl, a sleek black tail swinging out behind her, ending in a spade.

“I dunno who you are, but I’m kinda taking a bath. Would you mind coming back at a later time?” I asked, going with the flow.

She shook her head, small blue horns becoming apparent as her deep purple hair parted.

“I wish I could, but I need directions. I’m looking for one Terrance Long, big time author and potentially crazy horny dude. I heard he lives in this building, but…” she muttered, rubbing her arm.

I slid into the tub further and made bubbles with the water as I thought things over. Do I tell this hallucination that Terrance Long is one of my aliases, or do I keep quiet… wait, if she’s a hallucination, shouldn’t she know what I know?

“Who are you exactly?” I asked, coming back up for some air.

She touched a finger to her face, making a pondering face before answering.

“You could call me Ameilia, if you must. My real name is really difficult for humans to understand, so don’t worry about it.” She sniffed the air as she finished up, a distracted look coming over her face.

She stood up and walked out of the room, looking like she was following her nose to find something. So instead of getting out of the tub and following, I let the hallucination go about her business and relaxed again. Or I would have, had Ameilia not came bursting back into the room.

“Oh snap, you have the manuscript for the next book in the Hunted series? How did you get this? You have to know Terrance Long if you have the manuscript!” She shouted exuberantly, waving the most recent printed copy of yesterday’s project. “You have to tell me where he is, I have to drain that dude of his… stuff.”

I submerged myself for a moment, allowing time to process, and then came back up. Everything started to fall into place, but not as neatly as I had hoped.

“You’re a succubus. So I must be dreaming, right?” I asked, fixing her with my gaze.

She shivered, “I thought humans were supposed to be easily tricked… ANSWER MY QUESTION!”

I stood up, got out of my tub, and started to dry off. “Look, if you’re really a succubus, could I ask a favour?”

I walked past her, taking my manuscript from her as I did, and made my way to my desk. I quickly logged back into my computer and started typing after I set my manuscript back on the pile of finished work to be handed in. “Could you make sure that the writing I do here transfers when I wake up? I know dreams distort time, so I’d like to finish this while my body is getting some rest.”

I think my reaction, or maybe lack thereof, irritated Ameilia. She dashed into the room and whipped my chair around to face her. I finally got a good look at her face; very pale skin, deep red eyes, and her teeth were serrated like a shark when she opened her mouth.

“Look. Here. You. Little. Cur. I’m on a deadline. I need to find the jerk who writes these books, drain him, and go. If I don’t, there’s going to be trouble.”

I blinked, poked her nose, and giggled. “You’re screwed then, kitty cat. Terrance Long doesn’t exist. Not in the sense you think, anyway.”

I pointed toward my bed, “Look under there. You’ll find Terrance.”

I turned myself back around as she started rifling around under my bed, hunting for a person… until I heard her bang her head and start cursing as she figured out what I had actually meant. Stomped back over to my chair and forced me to look at her again.

“There’s no way that Terrance Long is that… thing!” She all but screamed at me, pointing at the object peeking out from under the covers.

She then looked past me and saw what I was writing. The pieces started to put themselves together in her head as she saw my almost finished story. Then she looked at me, glanced back to the screen, and then back to me. She shoved my chair out of the way and navigated to my desktop, finding the writing folders that I set up by author name, and opened up the Terrance Long folder.

She popped open the “prep work” file I keep for each book, glanced back to the manuscript, and then stepped away from the computer. “You… are either their greatest stalker. Or you ARE Terrance Long. And Johannes Florian. And Ami Ootori. And Lucy Grimmsdottr. What the crap?”

I scooted back toward the desk, slapping her on the butt, and started typing again. “Bingo, bango. Get outta the way, ho.”

She pulled me away once more from my work to force us to meet eyes. “Do you realize how screwed I am? I barely get by working the local skeezballs, I needed this score!”

I pushed her back a little, taking a breath, and thought things out. “Do you need to drain… stuff.. from a guy to live? Could you… I dunno, drain the stuff from a dream person? Like if I sleep, and you make me have a dream like this, and I create a person for you to… do your thing with?”

“I… haven’t really tried that… These books you write seem really hot and steamy, enough to make some of the more experienced succubi… well, you know. So, maybe if we infuse the dream men you create with your overpowering natural lust, it might work?” She pondered aloud, answering my question as best she could.

I smiled. “How about you let me finish my current novel, I’ll let you do the deed with the lead from any one of my books you want, and then you transfer my work over to the real world.”

She patted my head, “One little issue. Assuming this works, what’s to stop another succubus from swooping in and doing the same until you keel over”

Ok, then... that was a decent point. I didn’t know if Ameilia would keep her trap shut.

“I know. Let’s do this. You stay around to keep me safe from other threats that might try to harm me. In exchange, I will do this for you on a regular basis. Though… if you’ve been around for a while, maybe you could share some stories and I could get those published under a new moniker…”

Ameilia leaned in and whispered in my ear, “Seal that deal with a kiss, huh babe?”

Next thing I know I’m waking up in my bath tub again. I get out of the cold water, dry myself off, make my way to my bedroom, and I look at my computer screen. I saw work had been done since I had went to the bath, and at the bottom in what looked like a red hand written scrawl was the phrase “It’s a promise.” with a big red heart at the end. Since it looked nothing like my writing, I could only come to one conclusion: That dream really happened.

“Surprise.” Came a whisper behind me.