The Succubus

The most dangerous creature nobody ever warned you about.

I don’t think this will be popular. This isn’t something I even want to write about.

The muse has called on me to discuss the Succubus.

The mythical female creature that lures men into a sticky trap of thinking the Succubus is impossibly desirable before it swallows their souls?

That’s the one.

Mythical? I would say so except I’ve met at least 10 of them, and heard a few more over the phone.

If you’ve ever known a Succubus you know, because your strongest feeling about them will be wishing you never met them. If you're a man and you’ve met a Succubus you will probably also admit that you totally would have had sex with it, you know, if you needed to perform sexually to save your life or something.

Succubus are almost always hot. The way the succubus math works out, if they are an 8, they don’t date higher than a 5. They want the power dynamic where they are desirable to others outside the relationship, and you are not. They want to be sure that they are your only option. They convince you that they are all you will ever be with. They are stuck with you forever, and their entire job is to drag you down. They will spend way more money than they are bringing in to the relationship. Often their only income will be child support and alimony from previous baby daddies. A Succubus is an expert manipulator. They are not going to kill you, but they will make you feel the shame of a mistake you made years ago. They will not get you arrested, but they will call the police once per month to establish your record as a criminal. A Succubus will not file for divorce, but they will cheat on you blatantly in a small town with no secrets. They won’t attack you, but they will poke at your imperfections; they use shame, guilt, and lust to perfect their trap.

You know if your friends are dating a Succubus. The room gets colder when she walks in. The vibe is off. She is entertaining and fun, as if playing a character that everybody likes. He is a prisoner. A shell of himself. He walks on eggshells, wondering what will set her off. Your friend disappears. He stops showing up. He says everything is fine. He sinks into the hole that the Succubus made him dig for himself. He climbs in willingly. He has no other choice. He’d do anything for her. She knows she can push him as far as she wants. She tears apart his finances, she tears apart his friendships, she creates space in his family with secrets and rumors and lies. She knows how to sink him in the deep end. She pushes in a knife and twists, not a fatal wound, she just wants to watch his blood splatter on the floor. She cheats. He takes her back. She kicks him out. He comes back. She moves out, he begs her to stay. She has him wrapped around her finger.

After our first deployment, all of us soldiers joked that we were deployment-rich. You don’t actually make that much money in the Army, but accruing 15 months of paychecks with nothing to spend them on is a healthy move for your savings account. I think I had $12,000 in the bank, which feels pretty good at 23. My driver Steve checked his account when he got back, and he thought it said there was nothing. Steve was dating a local girl near the base and decided to get married before he deployed. We took him to the house where they lived. She had moved out, and someone else was living there. We verified Steve’s bank account; it was not empty. His account was in the red. The last rent check on the house had put his account into the negative. Steve had no possessions. No clothes, no furniture, no money. It was all gone. Steve had married a Succubus and she left him with nothing but debt.

My brother was less of himself each time I saw him for the last 10 years of his life. His smile a little dimmer. He spoke less surely of himself. He showed up to events late and mumbled excuses. He stopped telling any of his family about the inner workings of his relationship. We knew it was bad but nobody knew how to help him. He knew he needed to get away from the Succubus but her pull was too strong for him. She took him out into the deep end and watched him drown himself. She cheated on him; everybody knew. She made it embarrassing for him to live in the small town where he grew up. She secluded him until his best friend was alcohol. She pushed him past his limit and waited for him to explode.

I watched a good friend escape the grasp of a very powerful Succubus. She was there for the money, but she played the part perfectly. She was the best host. She was the best storyteller. She was gorgeous and hilarious. She had a degree from a respectable university. She found out that she was not able to access his trust fund and bolted straight into the bed of a rich married guy who she worked with. She left my friend. He was devastated. On the way out, we found out that she did not have a college degree, and her career was fraudulent. Most of her stories were not real. She was a fraud. A beautiful, fun, easy-going, best-friend-type Succubus.

She left him, he survived, and fell straight into the arms of another Succubus. He couldn’t survive the second.

She pushes him too far, and he’s gone.

You can blame it on the whiskey.

I know it was the Succubus.