Drained: The Lucid (4 page)

Riley followed behind his long strides and entered the office. She quietly closed the door behind her before speaking. “I’m fine, thanks.”

“Do make yourself comfortable,” Hyrum instructed, gesturing to one of the vacant chairs opposite his desk. He walked from around the formidable office furniture to cross the room to a modest, but efficient wet bar. “Do you want anything?” he offered. “Let’s get you something,” he answered for her. He opened the door to a mini-fridge and removed a chilled bottle of sparkling water.

“What did you need to talk to me about?” Riley asked, accepting the bottle of water. The empty paper cup that was in her hands was removed and promptly tossed in a small recycling bin.

“Nothing you should worry about,” Hyrum assured his star employee. “You should be excited because glory comes your way. I spoke to Niall a week ago; he’s thinking of giving you a raise.”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Don’t say anything. Just keep doing what you’re doing. For whatever reason, you were blessed with a gift to fulfill the desires of others. You have the stuff I wish I could bottle up and sell.” He shook his head and chuckled.

Riley cleared her throat. She knew she was good at what she did, but compliments had never sat well with her. “Thanks?”

Hyrum turned his back and looked out the vast windows he was afforded in his corner office. The expanse of Los Angeles bustled away on the streetscape below. “Riley, I know you’re relatively new to this life compared to some of us. I want you to always remember not to take for granted the stability and rewards that come along with this job. Before Trusics, our world was a mess—a chaotic free-for-all for our kind. But now that we’re organized and with the technology available, everyone can be recognized for their good work. Anyway,” he said, shaking his head and looking amused by something unstated, “I simply called you in to tell you to keep it up.” He turned back to his desk and pulled out a single drawer. “I picked this out for you. I hope you like it.”

He handed Riley a small box, which held a beautiful platinum and diamond watch. The band width and clock face were sized for a woman’s wrist, but it wasn’t so feminine to not be Riley’s style. It was noticeably different from the standard black and silver options the company normally provided.

At its basic form, Trusics-issued timepieces were two-fold in purpose. They held all the energy a wearer drew from marks, and they gave a specific daily allotment of energy to keep agents satisfied and youthful. But Riley had seen a few models upgraded with phone-sync technology, versions only higher ups were given.    

Riley fluttered her fingertips over the blinding flash of metal and gems. “I can’t. Honestly, it’s too much.”

“Don’t worry about the sticker price. It’s yours for when you’re on the job. I think Josh retrofitted it with our latest technology and it’s been spelled properly.” Hyrum shut his desk drawer as if to say the matter was closed.

Riley gave her supervisor a smile nearly as brilliant as the diamonds on her new watch.

Hyrum folded his hands behind his back. “Well, that’s all. I wanted to say you’re doing very well and give you the gift.”

“Okay then, if that’s all.” Riley bobbed her head and moved toward Hyrum’s office door.

“Oh, and Riley?”

Riley paused her exit. “Yes?”

“I took the liberty of raising the limit on your company card. Spend some money, okay? Take a vacation, live comfortably. I’ve seen your apartment,” he tisked good-naturedly. “There are cardboard homes that have more life to them.”  

Riley found herself uncharacteristically speechless.

“You’re an anomaly among our kind. A succubus like you is a shining example for the rest of us. Don’t forget that, but don’t let it get to your ego either.”

Riley ducked her head. “Sure thing, boss.”  

Riley was lost to her thoughts on the way to the company stairwell.  

“Hey, hey! Slow down there,” a familiar voice called after her.

Riley stopped at the entrance door.

Josh appeared, breaking her thoughts over Hyrum’s praise and words of caution.

“I see there’s a smile plastered to your face. I
told
you it was good news.” Josh shifted his weight from one foot to the next. “So you know, I might get in trouble for this, but I nabbed these from an old database for you. I was cleaning house and came across them.” He furtively glanced around before pressing a thin stack of folded paper into her hands.

“What are they?” Riley asked before sifting through the printouts.

“Some old profiles that got lost in our system. It happens. Anyway, they haven’t been added back into the database yet. I left these as ‘needed to be approved by administration.’”

Riley looked up from the profiles. “Isn’t there a rule against favoritism?”

“Semantics,” Josh brushed off. “You’d eventually get to see them. No worries, they’ve all been cleared to be reactivated.” He stood a little taller and puffed out his chest. “Besides, I’m now head of web development.”

“What? When did this happen?”

Josh’s gaze flicked down to the blue corporate carpeting. “It was a few weeks ago,” he mumbled. “No big deal.”

Riley wrapped her arms around her modest friend. “You should have told me. Congrats!”

Josh wiggled out of the hug. “Well, I called you, but you were busy that week. I didn’t want to take up your time.”

“Aww.” Riley playfully slugged his shoulder. “I would have gone out and celebrated with you.”

Josh’s lips twisted. “I didn’t need you to do that.”

“It’s no sweat,” Riley insisted. “This week, we’ll get some beers, and we’ll pick up some arm candy for you.”

“You know that’s not my scene or my style,” Josh squeaked, adjusting his thin tie. “Anyway, are you sure about the bar thing?”

“It’s one beer, two max,” Riley teased. “Besides, what’s the point of being immortal if you don’t have a little fun with it?”

“I’m immortal, but not like you.”

Riley quirked an eyebrow, unsure what Josh’s comment was supposed to mean. They were both without age, although Josh and other Trusics employees in his position were still technically human. Riley didn’t know if she should take offense to the reference of her other-worldliness.

“Sorry. Video games, computers … that’s my thing. I’m not good with people.”

Riley offered a small smile. “It takes a little practice and the right wingman.”

Josh laughed and raked his fingers through his mop of hair. “A succubus as a wingman.” He chuckled to himself. “My fifteen-year-old self wants to high five me for how our life turned out. I’m so not stuck in my parents’ basement.”

“We’ll go out,” Riley offered, “and if it’s not fun, we’ll go back to your place after picking up some actual candy.”

Josh pumped his fist in the air. “Zombie shooting time. Sweet.”

A female voice called out from behind them for Josh’s tech expertise; it was probably the culprit who had originally beckoned him to the twenty-third floor. “I’ll call you, okay?” Riley said, as she pushed open the stairwell door.

Josh gave her a wave. “Sounds good.”

The heavy metal slab closed behind her, but not before Riley heard Josh’s parting words:  “Those zombies are going down.”

It was dark inside of Riley’s two-bedroom apartment even though there was still a hint of sunlight outside. She cast off her jacket and tossed her keys onto the narrow table in the entryway that served as a catch-all for mail.

She padded into the galley kitchen and routinely opened her refrigerator door. The digital clock on her microwave reminded her it was dinner time, but she wasn’t too hungry. She picked up the white takeout box of Chinese food, leftovers from a recent meal with Amber, and inspected its contents before tossing it back into the fridge. It would probably go bad before she ever got around to eating it. As a succubus, Riley technically could survive without much physical nourishment so long as she maintained her sexual energy quota, but she and her closest friends still clung to human conventions like having weekly brunch.

She waited for her single-serving coffee maker to finish brewing her drink. The machine should have made her feel lonely, like a microwavable TV dinner, but after so many decades, she was used to being alone and was instead grateful for the convenience. Pouring out an unfinished pot of coffee felt like a cardinal sin. The caffeine, like food, was unnecessary, but she liked the taste and the warmth the coffee provided in the otherwise sterile home. She spent time in her apartment—it was the space where she slept most nights and where she phased in and out of the dream realm—but she didn’t really
live
there. Absent were the personal touches, the framed photographs, or the knickknacks that left a fingerprint of the person who rented the space. Even her bookshelves were relatively empty, minus the mandatory reading provided by her employer.

While she waited for her laptop to reboot, she sipped her coffee, which predictably tasted better than anything the café she frequented produced, and inspected the watch Hyrum had presented her with earlier in the day. It was a significant upgrade from the standard-issue watch most of her colleagues utilized. As the company’s technologies advanced, they could access everything needed for successful job performance. The allotted toys also kept them perpetually connected to their employer. It was a trade-off most Trusics employees had grown accustomed to over time.

Riley’s laptop finished loading and her inbox pinged with the arrival of new e-mails to both her personal and company address. Eager, she set her coffee to the side and rubbed her hands together. “Okay,” she said, talking to herself, “five million new e-mails to deal with. Yay …”

Her brow furrowed when she saw a flood of new spam messages had made it through the office filters. “Male enhancement pills,” she mumbled. “How to have a better time in bed.
Really?
” She’d have to talk to Josh about the filter even though mundane things like e-mail duty were beneath his new job description. Aside from the spam, retail newsletters that she had been subscribed to also monopolized the inbox. Her fingers ghosted over the trackpad and she deleted the majority of messages, leaving only three e-mails unread.  

A work-related e-mail had been buried between the spam and “sale” subject lines. She opened up the message and read:
The network has found twenty new leads for you. Please log in to find their profiles.
She frowned when she realized the e-mail was over a week old. “Shit. What day is it?”

She clicked on the next e-mail, also from work:
Urgent, final notice. We hope that you received the previous warning. Two of your matches have had their membership status placed on hold until next year. They are no longer accessible within the network. If you would like to reserve them for the future, do so immediately. In seven days, their waitlist will be available to other Account Executives. Please view our database for new matches. You are currently below the minimum of five clients.

When she saw the name attached to the final e-mail, she wrinkled her nose. “Sean,” she muttered. She moved the message to the junk mail folder. “I definitely need a better spam filter.”

Riley shut the lid of her laptop and sighed. She still had hours to kill before her first mark of the evening. Maybe Amber was free and could come over for a quickie. Even though she would spend the bulk of her night having sex with her regulars, that didn’t mean she couldn’t have fun in the waking world.

She dug through her purse, looking for her cellphone with the intention of calling her girlfriend. She rarely invited Amber over, but perhaps that night she’d make an exception. Riley entertained the thought, but she had to be honest with herself, there were too many unorthodox indicators of an alternative life. The bookshelf full of Trusics employee manuals was only the tip of the iceberg. The guest bedroom that served as a closet for her extensive collection of sex paraphernalia was the most evident. Rather than un-succubusing her apartment every time Amber came over, it was far easier for Riley to invite herself over or to meet at a neutral location.  

Amber hadn’t complained yet in their few months as a couple, for which Riley was thankful. She knew it was only a matter of time, however, before her girlfriend started demanding more of her time and her space. But until that happened, she wanted to enjoy the fleeting feeling of belonging to something or someone not associated with work.

Instead of finding her phone at the bottom of her bag, she found the member profiles Josh had printed out for her.

Now that she had time, she looked more thoroughly through the papers and stopped when she reached one particular profile. There was no picture, but the user had been thorough enough to fill out every field in the company questionnaire. A slow smile crossed Riley’s face.

• • •

Shopping had never been on Riley’s list of favorite things to do. She didn’t hate it, but unlike some of her companions, she could live without buying a new outfit on a weekly basis,
daily
for some of her more proactive, plastic-swiping friends. It was during the trips she took on her own or with Heather that she enjoyed the experience the most. They both could manage to shop from the comforts of their homes rather than navigate the jungle of brick and mortar shops in person, but on the rare occasion, the convenience of immediate gratification was needed. And Riley, for the most part, was happy to tag along to help her friend.

They had cleared over a half dozen shops looking for new lingerie. Heather needed something new to wear and none of the previous selections had met her standards. The experience could have been particularly tedious and painful, but it wasn’t. Had it been anyone else, the shopping trip would have taken a couple of hours. With Heather, Riley guessed it had been less than forty-five minutes. Riley admired the focused nature of her company that evening, the way Heather could scan the room and hone in on specifically what she needed. Distracting promotions and sales-driven employees could never make her waver. Heather was a decisive person. She knew what she wanted and that made her effective in pursuing her goals. It was the way she approached every aspect of her life; shopping was no exception.