Chapter 6: Solution
The problem revealed itself over the next three days.
It was subtle at first. Harry would return from his shift at the library to find Demona pacing. Not the languid, predatory pacing of a creature of temptation, but the frantic, caged pacing of something starving. The apartment was spotless—she’d alphabetized his spices, for God’s sake—but her eyes held a frantic gleam.
“You are late,” she’d accuse, launching herself at him the moment the door closed. Her kisses were less seductive and more desperate, like she was trying to suck the life out of him through his lips. She’d drain him twice before he could even take his shoes off, leaving him slumped and dizzy on the couch while she buzzed with temporary energy, organizing his sock drawer by fiber content.
By the third day, the evidence was physical. A hairline crack in the bathroom mirror from where she’d leaned too heavily, her strength waning. A faint, almost imperceptible tremor in her hands as she tried to braid her own hair. She was a battery running down, and his daily deposits weren’t enough to sustain her through the long, empty hours of his absence.
“It’s not enough, Harry,” she confessed that evening, her head in his lap. She sounded miserable, not demanding. “The echo fades. By midday, I am… hollow. I stare at the walls. I count the threads in the carpet. I crave.” She looked up at him, her violet eyes wide and unsettlingly vulnerable. “I need that cock so bad, baby. All the time.”
The solution, when it arrived in his mind, was so absurd he almost dismissed it. But the sight of her, this ancient, powerful entity listlessly folding his underwear into perfect squares, decided him.
“What if,” he began, his voice hesitant, “there was a… substitute? For when I’m not here?”
Demona sat up, suspicion narrowing her eyes. “A substitute? A mortal plaything? I would drain some puny human in seconds and we would have policeman problems.”
“No, not a person. A… thing. A machine.”
Her look of disgust was profound. “A cold, dead thing? You insult me.”
“It wouldn’t be for… for you,” he fumbled, his face heating. “It would be for the energy. The physical… stimulation. To tide you over. Like a snack.”
The following Saturday found them in a part of town Harry usually avoided. The neon sign of ‘Velvet Embrace’ buzzed like an angry insect. He pushed through the door, a bell jingling overhead, with Demona clinging to his arm, her presence turning heads instantly. She was wearing his oversized denim jacket over nothing else, and the effect was paralysing.
The clerk, a pimpled young man named Chad according to his nametag, dropped a box of edible underwear.
“We need a machine,” Harry blurted, wanting to be anywhere else. “A fucking machine. And a… a compatible attachment. Large. Very, very large.”
Chad’s gaze slid from Harry’s terrified face to Demona’s smirking, impossible figure. Understanding, and envy, dawned. “Right. Uh. Over here. Our premium line.”
The purchase was financially devastating. The machine was a sleek, black contraption with a silent hydraulic drive and variable settings. The attachment they selected, after a hushed, mortifying consultation, was a monstrous thing of dual-density silicone, a near-lifelike replica of obscene proportions. Demona poked it experimentally.
“It lacks your… aura,” she pronounced, unimpressed.
“It’s not supposed to have my aura, it’s supposed to keep you from eating the neighbors,” Harry hissed, swiping his card with a feeling of impending doom.
Back at the apartment, assembling the thing on the cleared floor of the living room felt like building a piece of alien artillery. Demona watched, curious, as Harry plugged it in. A soft, powerful hum filled the room.
“How does it…?”
“You just… lie here. And it… goes.” He positioned the silicone behemoth. The sight of it, jutting from the sleek machine, was surreal. Demona tilted her head, then shrugged out of the denim jacket. She arranged herself on the floor, guiding the tip to her entrance.
“Set it for… a long time,” she purred, a familiar spark of mischief returning. “I wish to get drunk.”
He set the timer for four hours and the speed to a slow, relentless rhythm. He hit ‘start’.
The machine came to life with a quiet, mechanical purr. Demona’s breath hitched as it pressed forward, filling her. Her back arched off the floor. “Oh! It is… persistent.”
Harry couldn’t watch. “I’m going to the store. For actual food.”
When he returned two hours later, the sound greeted him in the hallway. Not the machine’s hum, but Demona. A continuous, bubbling stream of pleasure-soaked nonsense, punctuated by wet, rhythmic slaps. He opened the door.
The scene was one of profound decadence. Demona was exactly where he’d left her, but transformed. Her skin glowed with a light sheen of sweat. Her hair was a dark halo on the carpet. Her legs were splayed wide, knees trembling with each mechanical thrust. The machine worked with inhuman precision, pounding into her with the same steady pace as when he left.
She was utterly, gloriously wrecked.
Her eyes were glazed, unfocused. She giggled as the machine hit a particular depth, her hands roaming over her own breasts and stomach. “Yes… yes, you stupid… clever thing… more…” She sounded slurred, intoxicated. Empty Chinese food containers were scattered around her; she’d apparently raided the fridge in a blissful haze.
She noticed him. Her head lolled to the side. A slow, loopy smile spread across her absurd lips. “Harrrrry. You’re back. Look. It’s still going. It never gets tired. It’s so… funny.”
She was drunk on it. Drunk on the relentless, simulated fucking, the constant barrage of sensation that fed the shallow, needy part of her hunger. The machine whirred, pushing her thighs apart again and again.
He walked over, crouched down. Her scent was overwhelming—sex, sweat, and that peculiar ozone-like energy she emitted when sated. She reached for him, her coordination off. “My Harry. You bought me a good toy. A thirsty toy. I am… I am full of its nothing. It is a pleasant nothing.”
The timer finally beeped. The machine withdrew with a final, slick sound and went silent. Demona whimpered at the sudden emptiness, then pushed herself up on wobbly elbows. She looked at the machine with something like affection, then at Harry with blurry, overwhelming devotion.
“Now,” she sighed, her voice thick. “Now I want the real thing. I want to feel you… under me. Not moving. Just there. Warm. Heavy.” She crawled to him, nuzzling his thigh. “Take me to bed. Just let me lie on it. Let me hold it inside while I sleep. No more bouncing. Just… belonging.”
He helped her up. She leaned into him, her body loose and pliant, humming with a contented, synthetic buzz. In the bedroom, she fumbled with his pants, her movements clumsy. She sheathed him with a sigh of profound relief, then collapsed atop him, her full weight a warm, smothering blanket. She wriggled until she was comfortable, his body fully engulfed by hers.
“There,” she mumbled into his neck, already half-asleep. Her lips found his skin in a series of soft, wet, unfocused kisses. “Mine. My anchor. My real thing.” Her breathing deepened, slowed. Within minutes, she was out, a deep, purring sleep emanating from her chest.
Harry lay pinned, staring at the ceiling. The machine sat in the living room, a silent, plastic sentinel. Demona snuffled in her sleep, squeezed him internally even in unconsciousness, and planted another soft, sloppy kiss on his collarbone.
He was trapped in the best and worst way imaginable. The problem was solved. For now. He closed his eyes, the rhythm of her breath becoming his own, and wondered what the hell his life had become.