Welcome to Incubus Tales: A Thousand Words by Hushicho. In Noctemberg, it is always night. Dhiar, proprietor and gay incubus, welcomes you to Phantasies, a very special shop. Sensuality is more than just Dhiar’s stock in trade, it is his raison d’être. NSFW.

A new chapter appears every Thursdays. This week is Chapter Two.

2nd Night—Your Disco Needs You

The music thumped at a steady beat. This wasn’t the kind of club where you felt it, though, instead of hearing it. The words lingered in the air and the minds of the dancers, the musical accompaniment managing to be more than just background noise. This was a good band, a good club.

The dancers on the floor all moved like they knew how. Each and every one of them writhed with confidence, their forms animated by the stimulus of love, desire, and loss chronicled in the unfurling song around them all. It gave them something in common, when nothing else managed: this common ground, this common song, the sweat moistening the air.

As the last lingering strains of electric guitar faded, Dhiar was already halfway to the bar. He slipped onto a stool, leaning his arms onto the bar’s surface.

“A glass of water and a raspberry daiquiri, please.” The Incubus called politely, if firmly, to the man behind all of the glasses and napkin holders.

Dhiar ran his fingers through his hair, but those hematite-black curls bounced all around and into much the same places as they had been before. To have done so much, so furiously pushed his body for so long, he barely shimmered with the glow of perspiration. He suspected that his desires for water merely imitated the actual need for it, because of his constant dallying with humans.

Perhaps, he reflected, it was their dallying with him.

Either way, he felt parched. But as he twisted around on the stool’s seat once more, his eyes caught on a lad, surely no older than twenty, hair wild and thick and a spectrum of colours. His left eyebrow sported three piercings, on his lower lip a single spike jutting out underneath. Normally Dhiar would not have given him a second glance, but this time, this time…

Something was different about him. He seemed entirely unlike the type most would presume. The piercings actually worked, for one. They accented his looks, rather than managed to be the entirety of his allure.

Before the bartender could go to him, Dhiar snatched the man’s sleeve and whispered into his ear.

Maybe it was a cliché, he didn’t care. Buying drinks usually led to conversation, or at least a look. And when one is an Incubus, a look is all that is needed…

Beer! He got a bottle of beer! A grin crossed the young man’s face as he lifted it in Dhiar’s direction, a sort of salute. Dhiar, in return, raised his drink and then nodded his head back, beckoning casually. His eyes sparkled, looking distinctly luminous in the darkened club full of strobes and coloured laser lights.

“Hey.”

Dhiar tried not to shiver obviously. This boy’s voice was sweet and rough at the same time, probably sweet naturally and rough from the cigarettes he could smell. They weren’t cheap cigarettes, not by any means. Not what one might expect. “Hey. Enjoying yourself tonight?”

“Even more now that I’m getting free drinks! I’m Evvin, what do they call you?”

The Incubus grinned at once. “Dhiar.” He extended his hand to take Evvin’s, squeezing it and then releasing it. He fought his urge to kiss it. “I’m sure I’ve not seen you here before, and I come here pretty often. Is this your first time?”

“Ooh.” Evvin caught the little double-entendre, leaning closer. Even with the rest of the ambient scents in the room, mostly fresh sweat and arousal all around the dance floor, Dhiar could smell him. It was a delicious scent, delightful, masculine… he could smell interest, piquant and insouciant. “I guess you could say that. I got bored just hanging around the clubs uptown. It’s all kinda…”

“Hoity-toity,” Dhiar offered.

“Yeah!” Evvin started to laugh, leaning sidelong against the bar. “That’s exactly what it is! Especially Angel-town.”

The Incubus made a sour face. It wasn’t that he had anything to do with angels, especially not in the way that most might assume. Demons and angels weren’t opposites, or working for opposing teams by default. Some of them clashed, of course, because angels were messengers, sometimes free agents and sometimes engaged by certain beings, and demons were ever free agents, fiercely independent and following their own joy.

Angel-town was the part of the city that was a sort of ghetto for the more high-minded of the angels. Although there were plenty of them who comported themselves with the dignity of independent messengers—as they more or less all were, in Noctemburg—there were a distinct and influential few who marred the experience by furthering the stereotypes and making it a point to be elitist, and especially unkind to demons.

“You won’t find any of that here.” Dhiar set his glass down after another sip from it. “I have a little shop not far from here. Phantasies. Have you been yet? You might like it… it’s definitely nothing you’d find in Angel-town!”

“Really! Well…” Evvin took another gulp of his beer. “Why don’t you lead the way? I think my drink’s portable enough.”

The Incubus needed no further invitation. Finishing as much of his daiquiri as possible, he set the glass on the bar and tossed a wave to the bartender, walking for the door without looking back. Either he’d be followed, or he wouldn’t. He was beyond the Orpheus Syndrome leaving clubs. He no longer had time for that kind of game.

Fingers, a bit clammy from holding a frosty bottle, found his hand and wove with his own fingers. Dhiar turned his head to see Evvin, looking sheepish, boyish really, swinging his hand in the demon’s. No words were exchanged. They didn’t need to be.

The streets were all but deserted, aside from the occasional milling of pedestrians up and down in the darkness. Noctemburg never really had a “day” to speak of, being underground as the city was. But it was currently in the cycle commonly regarded as night. A Wednesday night. Who goes out on a Wednesday? Besides himself, the Incubus could only think of…the gorgeous man holding his hand and sipping a beer, walking along beside him.

He took in a slow breath, closing his eyes for a moment and then opening them again, half-expecting Evvin to have vanished, just a dream or a hallucination or some side-effect of drinking. But, as if reading his thoughts, Evvin squeezed his hand, grinning again to him. It was an encouraging gesture, unquestionably affectionate.

Dhiar stopped himself, turning his head the other way. “Oh… oh! Here we are!”

The neon sign reading “Phantasies” glowed in cherry-red through the darkness, the lights inside turned down and the sign on the door reading “Gone out—back in a bit!”

Stepping to the door, Dhiar simply reached out and pushed. It swung inward, and he glanced over his shoulder, pulling the other man inside by his hand. “Here we are,” he called back. “Home sweet home!”

* * *

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About the author: From an early age, Hushicho held a special passion for storytelling. Throughout his life, he has worked in numerous media and various places in the world. He is the author of the long-running Incubus Tales webcomic, upon which this serial is based.
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