Steve didn’t know what woke him. He felt like a weight was pressing on his whole body, holding him down. Like being buried under a pile of sandbags.

His eyes widened.

Someone else was breathing.

In his room.

In the middle of the night.

He tried to sit up, but his body refused to respond. There was no movement from the neck down. Cold sweat trickled down one side of his head.

Someone was standing in his doorway. Definitely a woman. Even half-asleep, even in the dim light, no one could mistake her for a man.

Even if they were blind.

All she wore were faint blue flames, like a gas fire, in the shape of horns, wings, and a tail. At the edges they flickered, yellow from the lack of oxygen.

The hairs on his arms stood on end.

Her hips swayed as she moved across the room towards him. The air shifted as she approached, carrying the scent of warm, melting chocolate. Unable to move, he could only stare. He held his breath as she approached, certain his lungs would burst before she reached him…

Until she tripped over his jeans and crashed to the floor, with all the grace of a tonne of bricks falling off the back of a lorry.

The pressure lifted from his chest as she hit the floor.

He sat up and switched on his bedside lamp.

His mouth hung open, his brain refusing to accept what was happening.

He blinked. Shook his head. Tried to take in what he was seeing.

She was sitting in a huddle on the floor, rubbing her knee, shoulders shaking as she cried.

In his twenty-seven years, no one had ever taught him the etiquette for when a naked brunette with fiery demonic appendages appears in your bedroom in the middle of the night and collapses on the floor in a flood of tears.

His education had clearly been lacking in such areas.

“I’m so pathetic – I’ve made a complete mess of this!” Her voice was muffled, her face buried in her arms.

Steve stood up and tried to edge around her without attracting her attention. His heart was still pounding. She had horns. Actual horns. Made of fire.

He’d made it as far as the doorway, wondering if it was safe to run for the front door.

But she was weeping like a child. And the end of her tail was a cute heart shape. Whoever she was, whatever she was, he couldn’t just leave a crying woman like that, in such distress.

With a shaky breath, he moved towards her with all the reverence of a bomb technician approaching a piece of recently uncovered World War II ordnance.

This was either the bravest or stupidest thing he’d ever done.

Which actually wasn’t saying much, now that he thought about it.

He lowered himself to sit beside her on the carpet. His hand moved closer to her, slowly. It passed through the fiery wing as though it was mist. The flame didn’t even feel warm, like it wasn’t really there. He stopped, so close he could feel the body heat radiating from her skin.

But she was crying.

His arm went around her, tentatively.

Conscious of touching her bare arm.

She sniffed and turned her head to wipe her nose on his pyjama top.

Should he get a box of tissues? He had one on the table, but then he’d have to stand up. And she’d stopped crying when he put his arm around her. If he moved now, she might start again. He glanced downwards, conscious of not disturbing the neighbours.

“I’m supposed to seduce you – fat lot of good I am!”

“Um…” Every muscle in his body was tense. He didn’t know her, or even what she was. She was naked. His arm was around her. Her skin felt much softer and smoother than his – was that normal?

He tried to keep his eyes fixed on a point on the wall… with some success.

But now wasn’t the right time to suggest that she try again. Or for him to be thinking about it. She was clearly not in that sort of mood. Even if she had turned up to seduce him.

“I never asked to be a succubus – I wanted to be a hairdresser!” Her head tilted downwards again. “And now I’m going to have to go and find someone else to seduce.”

 “Um… why don’t you just be a hairdresser, if that’s what you want?”

Why did I say that?! It’s like that nightmare, when I’m driving and not in control of the car.

 “But I can’t stop being a succubus. That’s what I am!”

Rubbing his eyes, he tried to kick his brain into action.

 “Can’t you just not seduce men and cut hair instead?”

She stared at him, eyes wide. “But… I can’t, I don’t know how to live as a human!”

“So you can learn.”

“Really, you’d teach me?”

“Err…”

Am I insane? Offering to teach a succubus to be human?

But would it be even crazier to go back to the way things were? The empty flat, evenings watching Netflix alone? I’d always wonder what would have happened if I’d said yes. And – I can’t help wondering – whether she might still be open to… you know.

Steve took in her small, round face for the first time properly. Her soft hazel eyes, so full of hope, framed by the dark wavy hair cascading down her back. She was so tiny. So vulnerable.

How could a succubus be so naïve and innocent? He should probably be terrified of her, but when he tried to put that image together with the girl in front of him, the two pictures wouldn’t even overlap. It was difficult to fear someone you felt so sorry for.

He let out a deep sigh.

“Yes, okay.”

“Wow, thank you so much!”

She put her arms around him. He went rigid, arms sticking out like branches. Her tail formed a neat bow shape.

“Yglkm…” He struggled to regain control of his vocal cords. “You’re welcome.”

She let go of him and sat back a little. He quickly pulled his eyes back up to her face, feeling uncomfortably warm.

“Although… actually, you could become a hairdresser and still do the succubus thing as a… side-hustle. I mean, if you want to get better at it, I don’t mind helping you practice? I don’t want you to get in trouble for not doing your job or anything?”

He noticed the cute dimples in her cheeks. And wondered whether his FitBit would register a cardiac event.

“That’s sweet of you, but I don’t know what it would do to you. I don’t want to kill you or steal your soul or something.”

He held her gaze, wondering if a soul was a bit like an appendix.

“What if I think it’s a risk worth taking?”

“It would still be on my conscience!”

“That didn’t seem to bother you a few minutes ago!” He shouted, then was suddenly conscious of the thin wall between his flat and his neighbour’s.

Her face fell. So did her tail.

“I’m sorry. I…I didn’t understand what I was doing then.”

He looked at the floor. “Look, I’m sorry for shouting. I… I feel like I’m getting conflicting messages.”

Stifling an involuntary yawn, he checked his watch. 3:37am. “Okay… so… what happens now?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you just disappear again?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think so.”

“Err… so, what now then?”

She gave an apologetic shrug.

Mrs Chakraborty from Flat 12 was up all hours of the night and often opened her front door to see what was going on. She was always warm and friendly — but what would she think if she saw a naked girl leaving his flat? He couldn’t really kick her out, anyway. No clothes, no money, presumably no one to call?

“Do you have anywhere to stay?”

“No… I don’t want to be a burden, but I don’t have anywhere to go.”

He glanced at the door.

Oh well, it might be nice to have some company for a change. And maybe…

“Right, I’ll show you where the spare room is.”

“Thank you. You’re so kind. I’m really sorry for waking you up.”

“That’s okay,” he responded with instinctive politeness.

They both stood up, and the gap between them widened as she walked towards the doorway.

“Err…” He was feeling very warm again. “Do you want to borrow some pyjamas?” His gaze was fixed on a random point at the top of his bookshelf, trying to ignore the gentle swaying of her tail.

“No, I’m fine if you’ve got a duvet or blankets.”

“O…kay.”

The spare room was next to his. He knew the way with his eyes shut. But he still managed to bang his shoulder on the doorframe. And it wasn’t because he was half asleep.

She climbed into the spare bed. Back in his room, he shut the door and sagged against it, finally letting the tension drain from his shoulders.

Lying in his bed, he couldn’t take his mind off the strange girl in the next room.

He was finally beginning to drift back to sleep when he heard movement from the next room. Seconds later the handle turned.

She stood in the doorway again.

“I’m sorry, I’m scared. I’ve never slept alone.”

Before he had a chance to gather his thoughts, she padded across the room.

She climbed into his bed without asking, tucking herself under the duvet next to him.

He froze.

She snuggled up next to him, her arm across his chest.

This was so wrong. He didn’t even know her name! But she was warm and soft, and it was strangely comforting — a kind of comfort he hadn’t felt in years.

He closed his eyes and relaxed for the first time since she had appeared, enjoying the warmth, the weight of her arm.

Just imagining this was real, that a real girl wanted him this way.

But his mind wouldn’t settle. He should object, push her away. It felt cruel, though. She was scared and alone, and she wanted comfort too.

He turned it over in his mind, trying to work out some sort of compromise.

He could bring her mattress in here and sleep on the floor, and she could have his bed. She wouldn’t be alone, but they wouldn’t be in the same bed.

He started to sit up, intending to put his plan into action, when he heard her snoring softly.

Probably safest not to move her arm – he lay back down.

He glanced down. The edge of a wing and her tail were coming through the top of the duvet. He still couldn’t feel it, but the tail was curled across both of them. The heart-shaped tip bobbed gently as she breathed in and out.

In the circumstances, perhaps it was best to let sleeping demons lie?

He gradually became conscious that a supernatural being was pressed up against him. The fear might have accounted for his heart rate, if that had been all that had increased.

He bit his lip and tried to focus on the crack in the ceiling. Tried to avoid thinking about other, more pressing issues. There was only one other time as an adult that he’d been so close to a woman…

It’d been four years since he’d first visited his parents after they moved to Spain. On the flight to Malaga, he sat next to a beautiful girl wearing a very tight, very thin t-shirt – Sofia. Her English was excellent. She was Spanish, a couple of years younger than him.

They spent most of the flight chatting. It was fun and easy, in a way that chatting to a girl had never been before or since. She was a mathematician, he was an engineer. But somehow, they spent very little of the time talking about either.

They met up again by the luggage carousels. Hers came through first. She pulled out the handle, ready to wheel it off. And bit her lip.

“Um… I’m back in Manchester next month to sort out my PhD place. I don’t know anyone in Manchester.”

“Oh.”

She looked at him. “You’ll have to show me around sometime.”

His brain locked up. “Oh, right…”

“Well… goodbye then. See you.”

She walked away hesitantly, glancing back over her shoulder.

It was only later that he realised he should have asked for her number. He’d thrown away his chance with the one girl who seemed to like him because his stupid brain wouldn’t work when he needed it most.

And that was the closest he’d ever come. He’d tried bars, clubs, dating apps, websites, bookshops, libraries, even supermarkets… never even a single date. After that, he started staying in, retreating from friends, from life.

Maybe that was why he’d said yes to this girl. Not just because she needed his help, but because he needed an excuse to say yes again…

BEEP BEEP BEEP. 7:45am.

He reached over and turned off the alarm clock.

The… strange girl wasn’t there anymore. Not in his bed. Not in the room. Had it just been a nightmare? Maybe he wouldn’t be stuck demonsitting for the foreseeable future?

He got out of bed and checked the bathroom. No-one in the shower.

Had he imagined it all? Was it a dream? Did he want it to have been a dream?

Out into the corridor, he peeped around the spare room door. No one there either, the duvet was smooth. Had she smoothed it down, or was it how he had left it months earlier when he last changed it? He stepped back into the corridor, starting to relax.

Until he heard sounds coming from the kitchen.

She was standing over the hob, frying something, by the sound of it. The translucent horns, wings and tail weren’t visible now. But everything else was.

Had he just dreamt her strange, fiery appendages? Could she just be a normal human girl, perhaps a drunk nudist who had somehow accidentally found her way into his flat… through his locked front door?

She hadn’t noticed him yet. He tried to stay focused on taking a quick inventory. Somehow, he kept losing track of where he was up to, despite there not being very much to check. Eventually, he managed to stop holding his breath.

Just a normal girl. With no tail. Quick double-check – yes, definitely no tail.

Then she picked the frying pan up straight from the flame by the metal rim.

Without flinching.