Same As It Ever Was

Content Warning

dubious consent via mind control, humiliation

Tzella sat on a bench, watching the trickle of people braving the early morning winter chill. Aside from the elderly protesters on the corner, there was the occasional girl walking alone towards the smaller college campus at the other end of the street, sleepy and sore from both dancing at the bar crawls and the subsequent illicit encounters the night before. Somewhat less frequently, a guy also performed the walk of shame in the opposite direction, slouching towards the state university, head and body hurting from overindulgence.

Not what she needed that morning.

Eyes and sight were fun to play with, but were intensely limiting. Tzella closed hers, casting a wider net than what was in front of her. Within said net, people around her in the street and in the nearby cafes and apartments lit up like stars. Most were distracted and stressed, their lights dim. A few were a bit brighter. Several binary stars twirled around each other, bright enough, but very focused on each other’s gravitational pulls. Much to her amusement, there was a very bright cluster of five somewhere nearby.

Off in a corner of her awareness, she could sense the ball of bright yellow sunshine that was Vin.

Tzella sighed, doing her best to ignore it. Being around him was difficult, not only for the sheer need radiating from him that any succubus would have found intoxicating. What threw her off was the awkward sweetness tangled in it. Another in her place would have ignored that aspect of it and simply manipulated the need until it became impossible to ignore or resist, amplifying it to the point of agony. Desire, pain, the hot spill of release once finally allowed, all would keep someone like her going for weeks. But taking away another’s will was not usually to Tzella’s taste; she far preferred voluntary surrender to her charms as opposed to forcing one, and even temporarily enslaving Vin to his own desires would feel far too much like kicking a small, cute creature into the sun.

Well. Most of the time she preferred the surrender to be voluntary. There were always certain individuals on whom she did not feel obligated to waste kindness, and she wasn’t above occasionally indulging in a spicier, crueller meal.

Speaking of which. There.

Not far away, maybe around the corner and down the street a little. Not a bright yellow star like Vin, but the deep red smolder of a glowing coal. A guy, roughly the age with Vin, but with a distinctively meaner personality. Where Vin had a genuine earnestness underneath the sarcastic surface, something vicious lay coiled at the center of this light.

He will do.

She opened her eyes and stood up from the bench, tucking her hands into the pockets of her jeans and making a face at the sting of January wind on her bare arms before sauntering towards and around the corner. In the space of time it took to walk there, the tall, tawny, goth Vin would have recognized had been replaced by a paler, sharper-faced woman. Where Vin’s Tzella had been curves over strength, this version was angles and the taught grace of either a professional dancer or a large cat. Even the wild thundercloud of curls, while still black, had loosened into a long curtain of pin-straight hair.

It had been a very long time since she had hunted in the human world, but some things remained the same as they ever were. Humans were still intensely preoccupied creatures, and it never failed to amuse her that she could shift her appearance completely while walking among them and rarely be noticed while doing so. Even on the odd occasion when someone had been looking at her, they often rationalized away what they saw. After all, people could not just randomly change into other people. It seemed even easier now, as many of the people she passed on her way seemed to have their attention at least partially focused on palm-sized flat televisions they carried in their hands. At any rate, almost no one had been looking at her before, and her shift raised no alarms.

Her target was inside the one hive of business open early on a Sunday: a coffee shop under a theater marquee which seemed to be operating less like the coffee emporiums she remembered and more like a fancy cocktail bar that served coffee. Nevertheless the smell of fresh roasted and ground beans and buttery baked goods wrapped around her like a warm blanket when she stepped inside. Despite being packed to the gills, an almost reverent hush had settled over the place. Conversations were held at low volume, occasionally disrupted by laughter or the whir of an industrial grinder behind the U-shaped counter in the center of the room.

Her target sat to one side of the counter, attention absorbed by a shockingly thin portable computer, a saucer containing the final few crumbles of a scone next to him along with a small, empty cup. Tall, with the unnaturally triangular build of a gym rat, under clothes specifically chosen to look both shabby, yet expensive — dark, well worn jeans, a gray button up shirt made of something shiny yet soft, a black cashmere sweater. Old enough to have the bare beginning of crows feet at the corners of his eyes, but not so old that the gelled swoop of dark hair contained any colors other than deep dark brown. It was a nice contrast to eyes so colorless and cold they might as well have been carved from ice. His mouth was so used to contemptuously smirking that a slight shadow of one remained permanently etched in one corner.

Very handsome, in a nasty, self-absorbed sort of way.

Conveniently, the only free seat in the entire shop was next to him.

“Do you mind if I sit?” she asked, turning a smile on her target that would have been soft on the face she wore 10 minutes ago, but was faintly predatory on this one.

He didn’t seem to notice, only glancing up from his computer with irritation, before double-taking. “Sure,” he said, scooting a few inches to the side to make room.

Tzella nodded her thanks, then focused on the narrow blackboard above their heads. “What is good here?” she asked, seeing the man’s eyes doing a slow pitch down her body. “You look like a regular.”

“Only if being here four times a week counts,” the man joked. “The espresso is great.”

She caught the barista’s eye and smiled, putting a tiny tendril of power into it. The barista, a diminutive college-aged girl with a messy ponytail, a tag bearing the name “Crys,” and a faintly annoyed expression, instantly blushed and smiled back, upgrading an otherwise wan and tired-looking face into a flustered prettiness.

“A double shot, please.”

“In ceramic,” Tzella’s target piped in.

She quirked an eyebrow at the interjection, but gave Crys a nod, consenting to the addition before settling back into the open seat. The gentle poke at the barista had been a test; as she shifted her focus to her seatmate, she finally dropped most of the self-imposed constraints on her essence, feeling it stretching luxuriously before locking onto him. “Thank you for the suggestion.”

“No problem. Nice to see a lady who appreciates a good cup of coffee,” her target responded, subtly twisting in his seat to hide her effect on the fit of his jeans before letting the perma-smirk unfold into a practiced, perfect smile. “Josh,” he introduced himself.

Tzella smiled back, ignoring the offered handshake. “Nice to meet you,” she replied, noting the subtle frown that flickered across his face before vanishing beneath the amiable mask. Sloppy, she thought. An invitation to touch him and a prompt to give him a name simultaneously. Both rejected.

He recovered quickly, settling back in his chair and flicking his eyes down to her chest and back up to her face. “So what’s a beautiful stranger like you doing in a lame-ass college town like this? Especially with such a fascinating accent?”

Tzella heard both the positive or negative bait and took neither, tipping her head curiously. “I have an accent?”

“Um, well.” A brief flicker of a frown again. “You’re clearly not from the Valley.”

“True.” Tzella shrugged. “I have been told I have an unusual way of speaking before. I also tend to mimic the pronunciation of my conversation partners fairly closely, so I am wondering what made you quantify that as an accent?”

Josh laughed, a little uncomfortably. “Maybe it’s the seven dollar vocabulary. You sound a little like characters from books they made me read in college.”

“Thank you,” Tzella preened, the delight in her tone less from the back-handed compliment and more because bless his heart, he was trying so hard to find an exploitable vulnerability in her, and was clearly unused to being this thoroughly stonewalled. “To answer your earlier question, I am here for research.”

“Oh? On?”

She smiled again, knowing that a few too many of her teeth were on display when she did. “Human behavior.”

“Ah.” Josh’s eyes had widened a little at her expression, but the practiced smile returned to his face after hearing her answer. “So you’re in one of the soft sciences.”

She frowned a little at this, noting Josh beginning to puff up a bit at having scored what he thought was a hit. “I am not sure how tactile impression plays into this. I mean, I have a friend in polymer science who is developing sustainable textiles. Considering one of the qualifying aspects of his work is softness…”

Deflation. “Heh. I suppose that is a valid point.”

Poor thing. Tzella thought. She had already figured him to be the sort grown too used to relying on certain scripts to successfully manipulate his way into sexual encounters. Not much of a challenge for her once the tells were recognized, and though it irritated her that this sort of male still existed and thrived more or less unchanged after centuries, she did enjoy the easy guiltless feed they provided.

She bestowed another bewitching smile on Crys as her delightfully tiny espresso cup arrived. “Might I trouble you for a couple of cubes of sugar, dear?”

Josh, not yet understanding how much trouble he was in, seized on this. “Are you really going to sugar your espresso?”

“I am,” Tzella answered as Crys set a tiny bowl heaped with pristine sugar cubes next to her espresso cup. “Thank you.”

“Of course,” Crys answered. The barista was biting her lip, clearly holding back a laugh, and Tzella wondered how many conquests the poor girl had borne witness to, if Josh indeed haunted the café as often as he’d said. She placed two sugar cubes on the edge of her teaspoon and carefully dunked them into the creamy brown liquid in her cup until they were soaked through and dissolving.

Josh let out a derisive scoff, to which Tzella arched an eyebrow. “Are you always this concerned about the coffee consumption habits of perfect strangers? Or just the ones you are interested in fucking?”

Crys clapped a hand over her mouth and bolted for the kitchen.

Josh blinked twice, his entire body stiffening. Just for a moment the mask slid, revealing an ugly expression, before he caught himself. 

Predictable. Too easy, even, but Tzella had admitted her laziness to Vin earlier. She had no doubts that were he not completely compelled by her hold on him to stay put, he’d have stormed from the shop, likely while cursing her out. Had she only been toying with him, she would have let him. Unfortunately for him, she was hungry.

She flashed a smile that looked apologetic at first glance but did nothing to hide the mischievous triumph in her eyes. “Not that I am disinterested in fucking you,” she added, putting an extra jab of power into her voice that not only overrode Josh’s few remaining impulses to leave, but, judging by the increasingly unsubtle squirming, amplified the discomfort within his jeans as well. She left him to it, swirling the spoon through the coffee a few times before sticking it in her mouth. Allowing her smile to settle into a smirk, she locked her gaze to his, flipped the spoon face down against her tongue, and drew it excruciatingly slowly back out between her lips, her cheeks hollowing as she sucked it clean of the remaining coffee-soaked sugar.

Come for me.

Josh’s gasp was barely audible over the noise of the coffee shop. Even less perceptible was the sound of fingernails biting into wood as his grip on the side of his chair tightened with the hot pulsing rush radiating from his groin. Thankfully the dark navy jeans he’d chosen that morning disguised the slowly spreading damp of his release, rendering it nearly invisible in the dim coffee shop; he could not do much about the deep red flush staining his skin from collar to hairline.

Tzella downed her espresso in three swallows, making sure Josh had a full view of her throat working, before setting her cup daintily down on her plate. “Not quite how you expected this to go, was it, Casanova?”

He bristled angrily but couldn’t bring himself to meet her eyes.

She dropped her voice, hitting a sultry register that tugged at Josh’s temporarily and unsatisfactorily slaked desire. “It felt good though, did it not?” Her hand hovered above his knee, pulling away before making contact. “I have yet to even touch you. Now imagine if I had.”

Josh looked up finally, and Tzella smiled at the dilated pupils contradicting the absolute rage elsewhere on his face. “Who even are you?” he demanded through clenched teeth.

“Clearly someone you would very much like to touch. And to touch you.” She shrugged. “I would ask if this was correct, but it tells me enough that merely having your usual tricks shut down, paired with a fairly mild insult, had you creaming your trousers like an overexcited teenager… unless that was meant as part of the seduction attempt.” She raised an eyebrow. “Do these jejune tactics truly succeed on other women?”

Josh scowled. “Most of the time.”

“Incredible.” Tzella knew she was twisting the knife, but couldn’t quite stop herself. “Well. I suppose I must ask instead of assume — would you, in fact, like to spend the remainder of your Sunday with your dick buried in whichever of my orifices takes your fancy? Or would you rather run home and nurse your wounded ego until a less perceptive opportunity presents herself?”

Josh swallowed hard, suddenly conscious of how warm it was in the coffee shop, and how hard it was to look anywhere but into Tzella’s dark eyes. “You actually want to? Seriously?”

“Is that what you want?”

He gaped at her for a moment before regaining control of his face, closing his mouth with an audible snap.

“Here is what will happen, then.” She dropped her eyes, and Josh inhaled sharply, as if a slowly tightening rope around his neck had gone slack. “I am going to the ladies’ room. While I am in there, you will handle your check and mine while giving Crys at least a 30% tip for repeatedly putting up with your bullshit, after which you will pack up and meet me outside.”

Josh frowned, clearly thinking it over. “Any orifice?”

Tzella didn’t bother suppressing her eyeroll this time. “I would discourage the nose or ears, seeing as that would be uncomfortable. For you, at least. I doubt you care much about my discomfort.”

His mouth twisted, clearly unsure if laughing was the correct move.

“Regardless. I have stated my terms. Take them or leave them, loverboy.” She stood, turning to head towards the washrooms at the back of the café and pausing to throw both a withering look and an unnecessary jolt of power over her shoulder at Josh, both of which flooded him with a need so acute he actually winced.

Too easy. The cruel ones always were.

“Asshole,” she hissed between her teeth, quietly enough that only he heard it.

Another wince, for entirely different reasons. Josh reached up to his ears, plugging them closed in an attempt to ease the stinging sensation in both. “What did you say?”

“Nothing,” Tzella sighed. “Five minutes.” She left him to it, heading for the back of the café.

He would be outside when she returned. They always were.

---

Crys returned to her post a few moments later after laughing herself silly in the kitchen, getting more than a few weird looks from the back of house staff in the process. She was disappointed to find the strange lady gone, though relieved to find Josh had also departed. Not being her favorite customer, it had been a lovely change to see him thoroughly taken down several pegs instead of having to watch him neg his way under yet another skirt.

Shoved under the pair of spent coffee cups was enough cash to cover both the espressos, Josh’s earlier scone, and a 50% tip.