3 - Too Close For Comfort

“It’s me,” a familiar voice answered as a silhouette stepped out from the shadows.

I relaxed slightly when I saw that it was Levi. “Oh. Great,” I said dryly. “And here, I thought you were some sick pervert stalker.”

“For your information, I don’t like this situation any more than you do,” he told me, sighing tiredly. “You’re not exactly the most interesting of humans, you know.”

“Then why do you keep following me?”

“I don’t want to. I told you - it’s the spell.”

“Still sticking to that story, huh?”

He started to say something else, but was interrupted as a bunch of guys hollered and hooted at us from nearby. They were lounging on someone’s porch steps, beers in hand as they eyeballed me. They weren't even bothering to be subtle about it.

“Hey, baby, wanna have some fun??” one of them spouted, accompanied by a bunch of other lewd crap from his friends.

“Well, they’re creative - I’ll give them that,” I muttered.

“Does this happen to you a lot?”

“If by ‘a lot’, you mean every day, then yeah.”

“So annoying…” Levi complained. Abruptly, he turned around, marching towards the group.

“What the - ? Hey, what are you doing?? Levi, get back here!”

He ignored me, not stopping. I watched nervously, but soon came to a realization. The men weren’t acknowledging Levi’s presence at all. In fact, they were looking right through him as they continued to ogle me, which had to mean that he’d gone invisible again.

Invisible...but not intangible.

I watched as Levi kicked one of the boys off his perch, causing him to stumble noisily into some trash cans. That made his buddies burst into laughter, their attention taken off me.

“Hey, who pushed me??” the guy yelled angrily as he stood back up, covered in trash.

“Nobody! You’re the clumsy one, moron!”

While they laughed it up, Levi came trotting back up to me. “Humans are the worst.”

He started forward again, but I didn’t move from my spot, so he kind of bumped into me. He stopped, staring expectantly at me.

“You’re really not human,” I whispered, shaking my head up at him. “If you’re not human and you’re not a ghost...what are you?”

“I told you. I’m a demon.”

I looked him over carefully. “But you don’t look like a demon...other than your weird eyes.”

“And you don’t look like a witch, but that’s what you are.”

“I’m not a witch.”

“Denying it doesn’t change the fact, Olivia.”

“I think I’d know if I was a witch, thank you very much. I’d have put it on my driver’s license and everything.”

“Humor. Another waste of time invented by humans.”

“What kind of a demon are you?” I wanted to know. “The demon of stalking? The demon of invisibility? Or maybe the demon of being a rude asshole?”

“I’m an incubus.”

That shut me up for a good long moment. Levi watched me out of the corner of one blue eye for a moment, seeming curious as to what my reaction would be.

When I still didn’t say anything, he started, “I need to feed off sexual energy in order to - ”

“Yes, I know what an incubus is.” I took a step back, looking away as I remembered the things he’d done to me the first time we’d met. “Is that why you...?”

“What?”

“Is that why you tried to rape me?” I wanted to know, hating the way I sounded. Like a victim. Weak and pathetic.

Levi blinked for a moment, but then went right back to his usual cold demeanor. “Call it what you want. I simply needed a warm body, and you caught my eye. That’s all it was.”

“‘That’s all it was’?” I repeated sourly. I punched him a few times in the chest with my fists, but he didn’t even flinch. I must have looked like a right lunatic to the guys drinking their beer, punching the air, but I didn’t care. “You bastard.” I spun on my heel, marching towards home.

“You don’t have to worry about that sort of thing anymore,” Levi called as he strode easily after me on his long legs.

“Oh, really?” I answered in a skeptical tone.

“You being a witch changes things. I don't want to take any more chances.” He hurried forward, walking backwards in front of me so that he could meet my gaze. “But you have to find a way to undo this spell.”

“Aw, geez. Alright...for argument’s sake, let’s say I really did cast a spell on you.”

“You did.”

“How would I go about fixing it so I could get you out of my hair?”

“I don’t know. Maybe ask another witch?”

“Oh, right. Why didn’t I think of that?” I quipped.

We got to the entrance of my building, where I struggled to fish my keys from my purse. “Shoot!” I went as it slipped out of my fingers, causing me to flail as I tried to catch it.

In a quick, smooth motion, Levi grabbed the keys out of the air, holding them out to me.

Blushing, I took the keys back but didn’t open the door right away. “OK, you need to leave now.”

“I can’t do that.”

“I’m not asking here.”

“Hey, you’re the one who made it so that I’m stuck here.”

“But does that mean you have to follow me around 24/7?”

“You’re my only hope of getting home. And besides, I haven’t been around you 24/7 so stop exaggerating.”

I shook my head angrily, not satisfied.

“Alright, fine,” he said with a shrug. He turned, starting down the walk. “Maybe I’ll find some other drunk girl just like you nearby…”

“Wait, what??”

He paused, glancing over his shoulder at me. “I could do with a little pick-me-up.”

“Y-you mean, you’re going to attack someone else??”

“Might as well. What else is there for me to do?”

“Wait!” I ran after him, grabbing his upper arm - which I couldn’t help noticing was all pure, hard muscle, by the way. Levi stopped, peering down at me in surprise. I let go quickly then, feeling embarrassed for some reason. “I won’t let you.”

“You won’t let me?” he sounded incredulous.

“Look, you can come up, alright?? But don’t take that as an invitation for you to do what you normally do.”

“Please.”

I ignored that, opening the main door.

Being the gentleman that he was, Levi pushed right past me to get inside. Grumpily, I trotted after him, pressing the button for the elevator. We got on, and I tried to push down the sense of panic at being trapped in a small, confined space with my very own would-be attacker.

Finally, we got to my apartment, and I let us in, turning on the lights hastily as if my life depended on it.

“You look a little edge on there,” Levi commented.

“Not at all,” I lied.

“So, I take it this means I can stay?” he mused, waltzing across the living room and dropping down on the couch as if he owned the place.

I paused, taking a deep breath. Marching over, I stood in front of him and said, “I’ll let you stay so long as you promise not to hurt anyone else.”

“And in turn, you’ll work on reversing the spell?”

That seemed about as likely as me living on the moon, but to placate him, I said, “Yes.”

“How long do you think you’ll take?”

“I don’t know, but I would think that the more peace and quiet I get, the more helpful that would be.”

“Fine by me,” he said, leaning back and stretching out on the couch. “Could you get me something to drink?”

“Get it yourself,” I shot back. “I’m going to go take a shower.”

I saw a spark in his eye at my words. I decided not to give him a chance to answer. I scuttled off to my bedroom, making sure to lock the door behind me. But with the way Levi seemed to have a knack for showing up wherever he liked, I doubted it would do much good.

After coming out of my shower, I made out sounds from the TV outside. I opened my door a crack, taking a peek.

Levi was going through the TV channels one by one, seemingly not happy with any of them. Great. I now had a demon couch potato on my hands.

Am I really going to have to live with him? For how long, though?

If only I could go to someone about this…

But who can help me? I can't even make anyone see that he exists.

I shut the door again, doing my best to put such thoughts out of my mind. I put on a nightdress, getting out my laptop. Time for a little Googling. I looked up ‘incubus’, ‘witches’ and ‘spells’ in turn, poring over page after page in search of something that might give me a little insight.

But the only thing all that reading seemed to do was put me in a tense mood. This was hardly the stuff I should be looking at before going to sleep.

Finally, I gave up, turning off the light and burrowing under my blanket. In spite of the fact that there was a stranger in the house, I was pretty drained, so it didn’t take me long to drift off.

Seconds before I passed out, I thought I felt someone’s warm breath on my cheek. But I was too tired to care, surrendering to sweet sleep.