Belief – Tales of Lilith

The priest moaned softly, turning to his side. He stirred involuntarily from a dream, one of sweet release. She was desirable, alluring in some strange, enchanting way. He did not know her and had never seen her outside this dream, but in his dream he was completely lost in her. He realized he had an erection and offered a silent prayer for it to leave him, and to forget this dream.

He felt himself cold, uncovered, and reached into the darkness of his solitary bed, pulling the discarded cover over his body, holding it close under his chin.

“I love the morning after. I love to watch them lying still, sated, but empty. Impossibly hungry.”

The voice startled him. He sprang to sitting in the bed, his back against the large ornate headboard. There was a figure, a person, lingering in the darkness of his room, at the foot of his bed. A woman.

“Not all my mornings have this pleasure. Only a few. And in the vast space of time I inhabit, not enough.”

He fumbled frantically for the knob switch to his nightstand lamp.

“I crave this conquest. It is my eternal torment. Insatiable. Sweet.”

Finally, a small light came forth, feebly illuminating the space around him.

“The books you have read are wrong.”

It was she, the woman from his dream. She stood naked, impossibly beautiful.

“What? What are you doing here? You have to leave.” The priest said to his dream.

She moved quickly along the side of his bed, leaning down as if she would enter the bed with him. The priest pushed himself into the headboard, grasping his covers in both hands at his chest.

“I do not care for your embrace. I have no desire for your intercourse. There is no pleasure, no satisfaction, from my carnal life. It is necessary, just as you must eat. Or sleep. Or breathe.”

She drew up to her height, so close to him. The priest moaned and tried to look away. He could not.

“I love this moment too, the fear in your eyes, the disbelief. You have been told about me, my kind, the succubus, but you refused to believe. You placed me among the medieval relics you have chosen to discard. There, with the monsters and demons that could not possibly exist.”

She paused, fully relishing the terror and lust in his eyes.

“We are too scary to actually exist. Aren’t we? Oh Priest, I will enjoy receiving your soul. You will hand it to me. Freely. Desperate. Hopeless.”

With her look she held the priest’s eyes to hers.

“I am telling you these things because I want you to understand. I want you to resist. I want you to flee. Because starting tonight, now that you have seen me, you will not be rid of me. When I leave here tonight, you will not stop thinking about me. My image will haunt you.”

She drew her hand down the length of her torso, from her breasts to the dark hair between her legs.

“Now, I am just playing with you. I will not touch you and you will not touch me, although you want to touch me. You ache for it. Even now, in all your fear, you want to reach out with your hand just to feel my skin.”

She feigned to move closer to receive his touch. He reached his trembling hand.

“Will I come closer? No. Not now. Only see, hope. Writhe in the pain caused by your own desire.”

The priest pulled the cover to his face, not covering his eyes. His look, his anguish, implored her to come to him. Just one touch. Shame tore his heart. Silent tears found his eyes and fell down his face.

“For now, you will be my witness. I will not infect you. I will not take you. When you close your eyes you will see me there, but I will not be looking back, until I choose. When behind closed eyes you see mine looking back, I will come to you, we will be together."

She turned and walked slowly along the bed, touching the bed coverings with one casual, provocative hand as she did.

“Good-bye Priest. I will be near. I’ll stop by to see you. I will feed from those in your church. You will see whom I choose, and you will watch them wither. You might try to stop me. Maybe.”

“Oh, who are you nightmare woman? This cannot be real.” The priest managed to utter, barely above his breath.

Lilith turned and approached the priest, smiling, leaning forward to bring her face level with his. He lay frozen, wide-eyed in terrible realization. Her eyes told him, he understood everything.

“Lilith,” she whispered into his ear, her hot breathe entering. Dark passions stirred unwanted. The priest was aware again of an erection.

Lilith backed away.

“No Priest, this is not a dream. I am very real. Your faith is weak. You do not believe in the darkness, only the light. But darkness absorbs the light.”

She looked deep into the eyes of the terrified man lying before her.

“Go to sleep. I will leave you something to remember me. This is your nightmare.”

He slept, that deep, empty sleep that can be found in overwhelming terror.

Lilith moved next to the human who was breathing beneath her gaze, she peered into the trembling essence, his soul, shinning within.

She peeled away the sheet covering his chest, careful not to touch him. She leaned closer, her mouth just above the exposed skin that shielded the beating heart.

Her lips parted a small space and she drew a slow breath. The skin below her lips quivered in rippling spasms. Shiny, silver filaments erupted through the rolling skin, burning where they were forced out. Two, fifty, hundreds. The body below her squirmed, the back arched, seeking her lips. She stopped and exhaled. Crimson filaments issued from her mouth and bored into the scorched skin, each seeking to rejoin the whole, pushing through the miniscule openings from which they had earlier come. Lilith stood as they disappeared into the flesh of the priest.

His body slumped back against the headboard. A small, irregular patch, red and painful, marked the place where Lilith tasted his essence, and returned it, vital, and altered.

“You’re very special now my Priest. You may come to know great things. If I don’t kill you.”