Straight To Hell

I was in jail? For what, jaywalking? This had to be a joke. I grabbed the bars, pulling on them as hard as I could. They were thick as broom handles, cold and unforgiving under my clutching fingers. Rattling them was like trying to shake a bus.

Beyond the bars was nothing but an empty hallway. “Hey!” I shouted. “I was just hit by a car! Hello? I need medical attention!”

Sweat oiled my fingers, and my cell phone slipped from my hand. I’d forgotten all about it. Picking it up, I attempted to dial, but there was no service. As I shoved the thing back into my pocket, I realized that I was entitled to one call.

That thought steadied me. Yes, I was entitled to a phone call. That and a lawyer, too. And Miranda rights! I’d been jailed without having been read my rights! My fear gave way to outrage. I was the victim of an auto accident, yet instead of being taken to a hospital, I’d been carted off to prison. This was Detroit, for God’s sake, not some third-world dictatorship!

I glared at the hallway beyond the bars. When the guard came, I’d let him have it! Though I was no longer married to Dr. Ted Dempsey, the most sought-after orthodontist in the metro Detroit area, I still had connections. My stepfather a lawyer, and I had plenty of friends in the judicial system. I even knew the county sheriff who had once slipped me some tongue at a New Year’s Eve party. Just wait and see whose career went into the toilet because they arrested Lilith Straight!

I smoothed my sweater, then combed my fingers through my hair, dislodging a myriad of tiny pebbles that rattled onto the floor. Stunned, I picked one up. It was a fragment of glass, probably from the windshield of the car that had hit me. I frowned at it. If I’d been hit hard enough to get glass in my hair, how on earth was I standing upright now?

Puzzled, I re-examined my surroundings. There were prison bars here, but also an expensive leather couch with an oil painting hanging above it. Not one of those cheesy ‘starving artist’ things, but a genuine work of art. In addition, there were brass lamps, rugs, and a bookcase full of leather-bound books. In the corner stood a water dispenser alongside a coffee maker. Three sides of the space looked like a waiting room in a plastic surgeon’s office, yet the fourth had the steel bars of a prison.

Although the books and coffee maker seemed out of place in this jail, my cellmate did not. She sat with her legs apart, and her elbows braced on her knees. She had the shoulders of a linebacker, and her feet were clad in boots with thick, crepe soles. Looking at her gave me the same, uneasy shiver as the steel bars. This woman could eat me in two bites.

As if hearing my thoughts, the woman lifted her head. I pressed my back against the bars, not daring to meet her eyes. Instead, I took in the white T-shirt with the cut-off sleeves, the thick leather wristband, and the enormous chain that went from her front belt loop to her back pocket. She was a bruiser who would make me her bitch.

When a full thirty seconds passed without her speaking, however, I risked meeting her eyes. What I saw stunned me. Her expression was a bottomless well of loneliness and despair. Concerned in spite of myself, I let go of the bars and took a cautious step towards her.

She finally spoke. “If I’d known this was gonna happen, I never would have said those things to my brother.” Her lower lip trembled. “I should have kept my big mouth shut. He probably thinks I hate him.” Her brown eyes looked into mine, pleading.

Unable to bear her misery, I said, “I think your brother understands.”

Instead of looking relieved, however, she sadly shook her head.

I risked coming closer. I started to pat her shoulder, then thought better of it. “I’m sure he knows that you care about him.”

She pressed her lips tightly together.

“Lilith Straight!”

I jumped as if I’d been goosed by a shank. Standing at the cell door was a small woman whose iron-gray hair matched her uniform. “Get over here!”

Relieved, I hurried to the door which slid open with a metallic clank. “Let’s go,” the woman said.

“Am I free to leave?”

The woman’s eyebrows drew down in puzzlement. “Of course not.”

“No?” I paused, shocked. “What am I being arrested for?”

“I’m taking you to someone who will explain all of that.”

I hoped that someone was an attorney. I followed her into the hallway, but before the door closed, the woman glanced at my cellmate. “Hey, hon.” Her voice softened so that she sounded more like a nurse than a prison matron. “You want to leave now?”

The woman on the couch shook her head sadly.

A little bit of high school English crept back into my mind. Hawthorne, I think. The saddest prison of all, he’d said, is the human heart. Looking at my former cellmate, I knew exactly what he meant.

My concerns for my former cellmate lasted only as far as the first set of security doors, however. As I followed the prison matron down the long, windowless hall, the reality of my situation took shape. Like expert witnesses in a trial, the facts began to present themselves one-by-one, leading me to a verdict that I couldn’t bear to think about.

First, there was my body. I had no injuries. Not so much as a bruise or a scrape. In fact, other than the glass in my hair, there was no evidence that I’d been hit by a car.

“Keep moving,” the prison matron ordered.

I obliged, but walked slowly as I continued to ponder the evidence. Besides my physical proof, there was the strange jail cell and the fact that I’d been allowed to keep my cell phone and purse. In a real prison, I would have been fingerprinted, posed for a mug shot, and had my belongings confiscated. Lastly, there was the hallway I was now walking. Not only was it the longest corridor I’d ever seen, my tired legs told me that I was travelling steadily downhill.

This place I was in, this anonymous bureaucratic building, was nothing like the terrifying images of damnation that the nuns had conjured up when I’d been in Catholic school, but I sure as hell wasn’t in Heaven.

Panicked, I stopped walking again. Fear locked my joints like rigor mortis. I pressed myself against the wall and started to cry.

I was in Hell! The realm where the damned were punished. A place worse than the strange jail cell with the bruiser cellmate. Far worse. I swore I could already feel the Devil’s pitchforks under my fingernails, and his fire blistering the soles of my feet.

“Please,” I begged my guard. My stomach pitched, and I was sure I’d throw up all over that polished linoleum floor. “Don’t make me go.” I was shaking now, violently. My teeth rattled together in my mouth. “I can’t go through with this!”

The guard was slack-jawed with amazement. “What is wrong with you?”

Beyond shame, I dropped to my knees and grabbed her around the legs. “Please, take me back.”

A door opened. “What’s going on out there?” a woman’s voice asked.

“She says she doesn’t want to go.” The guard tried to pry me off her legs, but I clung to her like a toddler who’s had a nightmare.

“Lilith Straight, get in here. Right now! We don’t have time for your silliness.” The owner of the voice stepped into the hallway. She was older than me by about three decades, but her forties-era film-star elegance would have turned a lot of heads. She was like Katharine Hepburn, maybe. Or Grace Kelly. The kind of woman who could wear pearls with a cardigan and look elegant, not prissy. Her hair and makeup were old school – short, permed curls, deep red lipstick and heavy eyebrows – but it worked for her. She was graceful and poised, sexy and chic. In short, she was not the Devil’s torturer.

I let go of the guard’s legs.

“That’s better,” the older woman said. “I’m Miss Spry, your supervisor. Now come along, and I’ll make you a nice cup of tea.” She held out a be-ringed hand which I took. She may have looked sixty-something, but her firm grip marked her as a younger woman.

She led me to the door, but I balked, still not convinced that I wasn’t heading for the iron maiden or the rack.

“Come along, Lilith.” She tugged on my hand.

Bracing myself, I stepped through. Instead of finding myself amid the fiery pits of Hell, I entered an office. Not a government bureaucrat-type office with filing cabinets and computers, but a gentlewoman’s study. A delicate writing desk stood in front a pair of French doors overlooking a well-manicured garden. An enormous, potted palm sat near a painted silk screen, and a Persian carpet covered the floor. If this was Hell, then the nuns had gotten it all wrong.

Miss Spry guided me to a chintz-covered chair while she sat behind her desk. She put on a pair of steel-rimmed reading glasses. “Ms. Straight, I will get right to the point. You were hit by a car earlier, but you are not dead. Not quite.”

I felt my mood lift the tiniest bit. Not dead? Was I just in a coma? Or, better yet, drugged up and dreaming? I held my breath, waiting.

“You’re, let us say, in between realms.” She pushed a sheet of monogrammed note paper towards me and drew three dots. “This,” she said, pointing to one, “is where you came from. Call it ‘life’ if you want. This,” she pointed to another, “is where you would have ended up if I hadn’t prevented it. You can think of it as ‘death’.” She drew a line connecting all three dots, making a triangle. “Right now, you’re in the middle.”

“What’s that third one?” I pointed to the dot she hadn’t named.

“Don’t worry about that.”

Not worrying was the last thing I was capable of right now. I just had to know. “But what is it?”

Her eyes went hot. That’s the only word I can think of to describe it. An enraged fire blazed behind them, making it perfectly clear that no matter how much this Miss Spry looked like Katharine Hepburn, she was not. Her unearthly rage instantly rekindled my fears about demons and pitchforks and hellfire. The room, despite its French doors and view of the garden, was not a safe place. I shrank back in my chair.

“We don’t talk about that one,” she said, clearly enunciating each word. I nodded quickly, eager to show her that I did understand.

“Now you are in the center of all this.” She put a little X in the middle of the triangle. Her temper had blown over in an instant, and I breathed a sigh of relief.

“Not living, not dead. Right.” So what did that make me? A zombie? A vampire?

Miss Spry smiled slightly, as if guessing my thoughts. “My dear, you are a succubus.”

My jaw went slack. A succubus?

There was a knock at the door, then the prison guard entered pushing a tea tray. Miss Spry thanked her and began pouring tea from a china pot. She offered me a cookie from a silver tray.

A succubus? In college, I’d taken a course on mythology and remembered that a succubus was a female demon with insatiable sexual desires who slept with men before sucking out their souls. And now I was supposed to be one of these creatures? Was this woman kidding me?

“I’m an elementary school teacher,” I told her.

“I know.”

“I haven’t had sex in over a year.”

She pursed her lips. “Let’s just keep that to ourselves, shall we?”

“Look at me,” I insisted. I stood up to give her the full view. Since the divorce, I’d added several extra pounds. I also hadn’t had the money to visit a salon so my roots showed under the dye job and highlights. My nails, once perfectly manicured, were bitten to the quick. “I’m a soccer mom, not a super model.” I had a thought. “Maybe you’re confusing me with my stepsister Jasmine?”

“No, you’re the one,” she said firmly. “My dear, it’s what’s in here that counts.” She tapped the side of her head.

“What’s in here?” My voice was climbing octaves, making me shrill. “What’s in here is trying to make sure that my daughter has clean underwear every day, and that she’s done her homework. And that my niece, Ariel, isn’t going to burn down the house again. And that my sister doesn’t get a hold of my credit cards. And that there’s enough cat litter in the house so that the cat won’t start peeing in the plants…”

“Ms. Straight.”

“And then there’s my ex-husband. Don’t even get me started on him…”

“Ms. Straight!”

I was pacing now, too aggravated to sit still. “And my job. My stupid job. You’d think the school district would want to hire a woman with a master’s degree in women’s studies, but no! How am I supposed to pay bills on a substitute teaching job?”

“Sit down!” The eyes behind Miss Spry’s steel-rimmed glasses glowed hotly.

I sat.

“Now drink your tea, and listen.”

I took the cup with a trembling hand and took a careful sip. After years of living with my stepfather, the tea expert, I consider myself quite an authority, yet I’d never tasted tea like this. It was strong but not bitter. Its rich flavor reminded me of fall leaves, the smell of the first frost, and honey.

“How much do you know about your family?” Miss Spry asked. When I shrugged, she said. “Did you know that your mother was a succubus?”

My mother, the ex-hippie, who claimed that she’d traveled (and slept) with every rock-n-roll legend who’d ever tuned a guitar at Woodstock. My mother who would willingly tell anyone (her hairdresser, her gynecologist, the paper boy) about the time she’d spent with Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters aboard their psychedelic bus. My mother whose freak flag could have been the official banner of Haight-Ashbury. My open-yourself-to-all-experiences mother was a succubus.

At last, something that made sense.

She continued. “Your grandmother, too, was a succubus.”

My grandmother? I’d never met my grandmother – she’d long died before I was born – but I still couldn’t imagine it.

“As was her mother and her mother and so on. It’s a line of women extending back to Sarah Goodswain.”

Sarah Goodswain? I’d never heard of her. My mother wasn’t one for genealogies, and I wondered if she even knew this information.

“Sarah was born in Salem, Massachusetts in 1723 and, in 1744, she was arrested for being a witch.” Miss Spry smiled slightly. “She wasn’t a witch, of course; none of those young women were. But Sarah was a clever girl. She realized that the only way to escape hanging was to do exactly what she’d been accused of and make a deal.”

A deal? With whom, the Devil? Could people actually do that? Then again, I was hardly an expert on religion. Yes, I’d gone to Catholic school, but that place had taught me only two things: (1) everything I did was a sin and (2) I hated God as much as he hated me. When Grace went through a religious phase and asked me about God, I acted like he was a bad boyfriend. “You’re better off without him. Trust me,” was all I’d said.

“So you’re telling me that my great-great something grandmother made a deal with the Devil?”

“We don’t use that word here,” Miss Spry said tartly. “Let’s just say that Sarah made a deal with someone who could get her out of prison and away from Cotton Mather and his father. She promised that she would do the Master’s bidding in return for her freedom. But the Master is clever, too, and he drives a hard bargain.” Miss Spry’s eyes twinkled. Clearly she admired this Master person. “He made Sarah agree that every female descendent in her line would follow her path and become a succubus. And that path, Ms. Straight, has finally led to you.”

I shoved my cup aside, slopping tea over Miss Spry’s spotless desk. “Don’t I get a say in all of this? I mean, a succubus? A demon that sleeps with strange men? No. Way.”

“First of all, you are not a demon. You house a demon. The same demon that your mother and grandmother had. In fact, the same demon that Sarah herself had. You are essentially still human, but now a demon shares space inside of you, and gifts you with its powers.”

I started to object, but she held up her hand. “Secondly, a succubus is a seducer, Lilith, not a slut. It isn’t so bad.”

“It’s not so bad! Are you kidding me?” I leaned forward in my chair. “What if I refuse?” I might have acted brave, but my legs trembled and my mouth was bone dry.

I expected the older woman’s eyes to go hot again, but instead she smiled. “You may choose not to become a succubus if you wish.”

There was an unspoken ‘but’ at the end of that sentence. I just knew it.

Miss Spry didn’t disappoint me. “But then, of course, you’ll remain here.” She hesitated just a moment. “Dead.”

Dead. The word hit like a jab to the solar plexus, and I sank backwards in my seat. “I can’t be dead! I know I was hit by a car, but still.” I stood up. “I mean, look at me! I look fine. I feel fine.” I spun in a little circle. “No injuries. No scars.”

She shrugged. “Believe me. You are dead. In fact right now, your broken body is crumpled on the road, and a stray dog is lapping up your blood. But don’t worry. The funeral director will do a fine job of covering up the damage, so your young daughter won’t have to witness the gruesome condition of your corpse. Of course, it won’t prevent her from becoming hysterical when she sees you lying in your coffin.”

Miss Spry’s cunning little smile lit a fire inside me. “You can’t do this!” I lunged across the desk. Miss Spry lifted her hand in defense, throwing me across the room. I hit the wall so hard that all the air in my lungs expelled in a single gasp. My chest ached as I sucked wind.

Miss Spry left her desk to stand over me. Her face was hard; her eyes hot. “You either become a succubus, or you die and the next female takes your place. Either way, the line will continue unbroken. There are no exceptions.”

Die now or allow the Devil to take my soul. It wasn’t much of a choice. Still, I didn’t have to think it over. My mother had abandoned me when I was a child, and I wouldn’t do that to my own daughter. When my lungs reached equilibrium, I gasped, “Fine. I’ll do it.”

Miss Spry nodded. “Good. I’ll return you to your world, and you can resume your life. When I need you, you’ll be summoned. And you will come.” I’d spent maybe half an hour with this woman, but I already knew that tone and that expression. Miss Spry would not be crossed. If she said come, I came.

As it turned out, I hadn’t been wrong about what would happen to me in that place; I was just wrong about who would be owning me. It wasn’t the woman in the prison cell after all. No, I was Miss Spry’s bitch.

When I came back to reality, I was standing on the same sidewalk where, seemingly ages ago, I’d been texting Jasmine. My hip ached, either from the impact of the car hitting me or the impact of Miss Spry throwing me against the wall. I couldn’t be sure.

In fact, I couldn’t be sure about any of it. I still had my purse, and my cell phone was in my pocket. Yet, at the same time, I was missing a shoe, my watch was broken, and tire tracks climbed up the side of my slacks. Feeling sick and disoriented, I heaved up my guts all over the clean sidewalk in one of the nicest suburbs in the city.

It was my guess that succubi generally don’t do this as it’s not very attractive.

My head felt strangely empty, like I needed to remember something important. The jail cell, the conversation with Miss Spry, even the taste of the tea…all of these things were pieces to a puzzle I couldn’t solve. I drove numbly, obeying all of the traffic laws out of habit, but not really paying attention to what I was doing.

By the time I got home, it was fully dark, and every light in the townhouse blazed. I sat in the car for several minutes, trying to think of how to explain the missing shoe, the tire tracks up my pant leg, and the fact that I had borrowed Jas’s purse without her permission. At last, I simply gave up and went inside, figuring whatever happened, happened.

Grace, her face tear-stained, met me in the doorway and hugged me so tightly that my injured hip protested. “Mommy! Where were you?” I was instantly on alert; she hasn’t called me ‘mommy’ in years.

Behind her stood a very worried-looking Ariel and a mournful Jasmine who was leaning against the hairless wonder who, seemingly years ago, had been sleeping on my couch. I felt a glow in my chest. They loved me! They were worried about me! “I’m okay,” I assured them. “I wasn’t that hurt.”

“Hurt? What are you talking about? Who’s hurt?” Jas looked offended, as if I was trying to upstage whatever she had going on.

Before I could make my big announcement – that I’d been hit by a car, killed, sent to Hell and survived the trip thank-you-very-much – Grace pressed her face into my side. “She’s dead, mommy. Gramma’s dead.”

The puzzle pieces finally fell together. I’d been made a succubus because my mother had died, and someone needed to take her place. Like Miss Spry had told me, one generation must always follow another.

Chapter Three

The next morning, before my eyes had fully opened, I remembered three important things: my mother was dead, I’d been hit by a car, and I was now a succubus who worked for the Devil.

At least one of those things seemed very unlikely.

I investigated myself in the mirror. My face looked as it always did: green eyes, pert nose, rosebud mouth. The weariness in my eyes and faint wrinkles on my forehead didn’t result from any near-death experience. No, I blamed those on the divorce, the fire, and the fact that I could no longer afford my favorite Estée Lauder moisturizer.

Surely, if I’d been turned into a demon, I’d look different. I examined my scalp for demon-style horns and glanced over my shoulder expecting a red, forked tail. Seeing neither, I undressed and took a good look at myself. My body was just as I remembered: a waistline I wished would grow smaller, breasts I wished would grow larger, and an ass that was still nice and firm.

Yesterday’s run-in with the Volvo had left no bruises, scratches, sprains, or broken bones. How could I have been hit by a car, yet escape without injuries? Now, it wasn’t only the trip to Hell that I questioned. The accident, too, seemed unlikely.

As I showered, I tried to explain away my memories. A seizure, perhaps? A hallucination? Or maybe the stress of the past twelve months had reached critical mass, and I was fully insane.

After pulling on a pair of jeans and a sweater, I decided to experiment. Gathering my courage, I called, “Miss Spry? Are you there?”

Nothing answered.

“Hello? Demon overlord?”

Still nothing.

Yesterday, the bars in the waiting room, the endless gray corridor, and the terrible woman with the hot eyes had seemed so real. Now, those memories held the haziness of a dream. I shook my head as I left my bedroom. A succubus! Of all the stupid things to imagine. Real life was tough enough. The last thing I needed was drama from the spiritual realm.

To my surprise, I wasn’t the first one awake. Tommy, Jasmine’s friend, sat at the kitchen table drinking coffee and eating a peanut butter sandwich. The night before, Jas had begged me to let him stay over. Since I’d been too overwhelmed to worry about the rules, I’d allowed it providing that he slept on the couch.

Seeing me, he frowned and tilted his head in a way that made me paranoid. Did he sense something different about me? Something that I hadn’t discovered myself? Then, to my relief, his face smoothed and he smiled.

“Coffee?” he asked, rising.

I nodded and sank into a chair. “You’re up early.”

“My job starts at seven.”

Job? Jasmine finally found a guy who was employed? Hallelujah and pass the ketchup! “What do you do?”

“I’m a mechanic. Mostly, I work on transmissions.” He set a mug in front of me and reclaimed his seat. “It’s not glamorous, but it’s steady work.” He sipped his coffee. “What about you? Are you an early riser, too, or couldn’t you sleep?”

I shrugged. “A little of both.”

“I’m sorry about your mother.”

“Thanks.” The news of my mother’s death had yet to sink in. It seemed as distant as a dream.