Jack Newman checked the house number against the address on the card. It was the third time he'd done it since climbing the small flight of steps that led up to the front door. He knew it was nerves. He'd never done this before; had never even considered it.

He reached up to push the doorbell and his finger stopped just before pressing the button.

He checked the address on the card again. Just to make sure.

He looked up and down the street. There was no one around. Bridgwater was a quiet residential area, a little way out from the centre of town. The row of immaculate town houses extended up the hill in an unbroken terrace. It was a nice neighbourhood. Jack had considered buying a house here for his daughter once she graduated from university.

He reached for the bell again. Once again his finger stopped just before the button.

Come on. This was ridiculous.

He jabbed his finger forward. He heard the far off chimes of a bell somewhere deep inside the house.

Now he'd done it. Too late to back out now.

"Don't you think you were a little harsh on Susan back there?" Kimberly Yeovil said as they walked along a corridor in the Houses of Parliament. "Her heart is in the right place."

"Her suggestion was impractical," Jack replied. "People don't need dreams and idealism; they need to be given the means to improve their own lives."

"I know, but you didn't have to cut her down so forcefully."

No he didn't, Jack thought. Susan was one of his junior assistants. She was young, eager and very intelligent. Jack just hated to see talent wasted in woolly pie-in-the-sky thinking. The smaller policies might not catch the headlines, but they stood a better chance of positively impacting people's lives.

"Could I have a quiet word?" Kimberly said once they reached his office.

"Of course," Jack replied.

He followed the Deputy Chief Whip into his office. Kimberly closed the door after him

"You're a good man and a fine MP Jack, but I worry about you," Kimberly said, sitting down behind his desk. "We all have needs whether we realise it or not. What happened was tragic and I can understand why you'd want to lose yourself in your work, but I've seen the results of too many good people denying their basic natures. They become irritable and isolated, or they take reckless risks and get found out and destroyed by the tabloids."

He reached over and handed Jack a small white card. Jack read it and looked up at Kimberly in surprise.

"Are you serious?" he asked. "Isn't this one of your reckless risks? What if the papers found out? They'd have a field day."

"They won't. She's very discreet."

Jack stared at Kimberly, looking for the slightest trace that this was a joke. There was none.

"She's special. Have fun."

Jack fidgeted nervously on the doorstep. This was a mistake. He shouldn't be here. What if someone saw and recognised him?

Jack was about to bolt when the door swung open in front of him. Revealed in the doorway was a strikingly beautiful girl. Her black hair was cut short in a stylish bob, framing an elegant, enigmatic face. She was very attractive, but also aloof, like she'd been carved from marble by a master artisan. She was wrapped in a white fur coat and inexplicably was wearing large black sunglasses even though it was night time. She reminded Jack of chic actresses from French movies.

"Nicole?" Jack asked.

"Yes, and you must be Mr Newman. Please come in."

Jack entered and Nicole closed the door behind him. As she took his coat she came close enough for Jack to smell her perfume. He hadn't encountered this fragrance before. It was exotic, yet subtle enough to tantalise rather than overpower him.

"Would you like a drink?" Nicole asked. Her voice held the faint trace of a foreign accent. Not French though, maybe Eastern European.

His mouth did feel a little dry. "I wouldn't say no to a glass of red wine, as long as it's not too much trouble."

"No trouble at all," Nicole said. She smiled and beckoned him to follow.

Jack was a little surprised at how ordinary her house looked. It was well-kept and not that much different from most other houses he'd visited. They entered a spacious, modern kitchen and Nicole poured him a glass of wine. He took the first gulp a little too fast and it felt like a hard pebble in his dry throat.

"You're not drinking?" he asked, noticing she hadn't poured herself a glass.

Nicole shook her head. "I don't drink wine," she said.

Jack took another swallow of wine, this time a sip. The wine was better than he expected. It was sweet and had a slightly fragrant bouquet that made him think of leaves falling in autumn.

"So what ... er ... happens now?" he said.

Nicole smiled. Her moist red lips parted slightly to reveal her white teeth.

"Whatever you wish," she said, "within reason."

Jack took another sip. He nervously dabbed his lips with his tongue. A host of different emotions and desires were charging back and forth across his body.

"We don't have to get started right away," Nicole said. "We can talk for a while if it would make you feel more comfortable. I don't believe in running a meter."

"Yes ... thanks..." Jack said. "I'm sorry. I haven't done this before."

"That's okay," Nicole smiled warmly. "It's the first time for a lot of my new clients. Think of this as harmless fun between consenting adults and those nerves will go away in no time."

"I wish I could," Jack said. "The guilt keeps getting in the way."

"A conscience, in a politician, I would have thought that was a liability."

"We're not all as bad as the papers try to make out," Jack said.

"So who's footing the bill for this evening's fun?" Nicole asked playfully.

"Me," Jack replied. "I don't use taxpayer's money for my own personal entertainment."

"An honest politician as well, I do appear to have come across a rare breed. What makes an honest man want to enter a career as disreputable as politics?"

"I wanted to do some good," Jack said. "I started my own business, got lucky and made my money. Now I feel like it's time to give something back."

Jack took another sip of wine and smiled. "Sounds corny doesn't it."

Nicole laughed. "No. It's sweet."

"I like it," Jack said. "I used to be a problem solver for things that didn't matter. Now I can use the same skills to actually help people's lives.

"What about you?" He asked. "How did you come to be in this..." He realised what he was saying. "No. Forget I asked. It's none of my business."

Nicole laughed even louder at his discomfort. "It's okay. I don't mind," she said. "I do it because I like sex and the money is good. Don't pay too much attention to what the moral crusaders say. We're not all victims."

It was good to hear that, but Jack did wonder if she was saying it for his benefit. Those sunglasses preyed on his mind a little. He did wonder what they might be hiding. He doubted her profession was a bed of roses, even at the top.

"So what brings an honourable servant of the people to my highly disreputable little house?" She rolled her tongue over 'disreputable' like it was an organ to be pleasured and Jack felt a little erotic shiver slither down his spine and nest in his balls.

It had been so long since he'd enjoyed the company of a woman.

"A friend recommended you. He knew I was lonely and he said you were very discreet."

"I imagine that was a hard sell," Nicole said.

"You could say that," Jack laughed. "It's not every day a respected colleague suggests engaging the services of a 'Professional Relaxation Therapist'."

"That's a nice title," Nicole said. "The old words have such a stigma attached to them."

"I think I know which words the tabloids would use if they found out," Jack said. "I've watched those rags tear apart too many lives over a minor moment of weakness."

"And yet you're still here," Nicole said.

"Yes," Jack said. "I don't know why."

He must be insane to take such a ludicrous risk with his career. There was an urge within him though, he tried to ignore it, but it nudged him nevertheless, nudged him all the way into the house of a ... he couldn't even bring himself to whisper the word in the confines of his own mind. This was not him.

"I do," Nicole replied. "It's an animal need. Your body needs it as much as it needs to eat or breathe and the body always overrules the brain."

She noticed Jack's discomfort.

"It's been a long time hasn't it?"

"Over five years," Jack admitted truthfully. "My wife died. Cancer," he added. "There's been no one since. I don't think anyone could ever replace her in my heart."

"Oh, I am so sorry to hear that," Nicole said.

An image of Geneviève entered his mind. It was the time they went sailing off the Isle of Wight. Her auburn hair was blowing in the wind as the sea sprayed behind her.

"I'm sorry," Jack said. "I don't think I should do this. I'll leave the money and go."

A warm hand touched his and electricity crackled with her touch.

"Please stay," she said, looking up at him. "You need this."

Jack's heart raced in his chest. It had been so long. He knew he should leave, but his feet didn't move.

"My friend said you were special," Jack said.

Nicole smiled.

"Did your friend say anything else about me?" she asked.

"No," Jack said, a little puzzled. "Should he have?"

Nicole turned away and carefully took off her sunglasses. "Please excuse me Mr Newman. I'm afraid this will be quite a shock to you."

Shock? What was she talking ... then Nicole turned back to him and Jack fell back in horror.

She had no eyes. Where were her eyes? Jack stared into two empty black pools. It was like looking through two windows into the void.

The horror didn't end. Two wings, black and leathery like those of a giant bat, erupted from her back and sent shadows skittering over the pristine surfaces of the kitchen.

She was on him before he even had a chance to draw breath to scream. Two hands gripped either side of his face and her soft lips crushed against his in a kiss. He took a breath and his lungs filled with a strong musky perfume that sent his heart pounding and his senses spinning. His cry was smothered in her hot mouth and dancing tongue. Her wings blotted out the light as they wrapped around him and crushed his body against hers in a tight embrace.

She held him like that, breathless in her kiss, until fires ignited in his veins and drove the fear away. The passion was too much. Pure naked desire surged through his body like a wildfire out of control. Too much. It was overwhelming him. He was falling. He was fall-.

Jack opened his eyes. He was naked and lying on a large, soft bed. Black silk sheets felt luxuriously smooth against his exposed skin. He looked around and realised the bed was perfectly round. Beyond it stood a ring of black candles. They suffused the room with an intimate glow and filled the air with aromatic smoke.

Nicole sat at the foot of the bed, revealed now in her true form. Her eyes were two windows into the abyss. Small jet-black horns protruded from each temple. Her naked flesh, pale almost to the point of being white, was covered in an intricate series of lines and whorls, as if a master alchemist had run out of blackboard space and had continued to scrawl across her body instead. She sat with her knees tucked up against her breasts and her wings partially folded around her like a cloak.

She was the most beautiful thing Jack had ever seen in his life.

No, that wasn't quite right. Beauty was too abstract a concept. She was the most desirable thing Jack had ever seen in his life.

Nicole gently wafted her wings and a warm, perfumed breeze passed over Jack's body, causing his skin to tingle.

"Welcome to my bedroom," she whispered, her words dripping with honeyed sin. "Please forgive the manner in which I brought you here. I find it the best way to get my first time clients over the shock of what I really am."

"What are you?" Jack asked. He thought he should be afraid, but he didn't feel any fear. Instead he felt relaxed and — something he never thought he'd experience again, not since Geneviève had died — pleasantly aroused.

"Your word for me is demon," Nicole said. "More exactly, succubus. There is no need to be afraid though, I will not harm you."

Demon? She did look like a demon, he supposed, she even had a slender black demon's tail. It curled around her slender ankles like a snake. But demons weren't real. They didn't exist ... did they?

"This is all a little difficult to take in," Jack said.

"Then don't," the demon, Nicole said. "Think of me as nothing more than your personal Professional Relaxation Therapist."

Smiling, she crawled up to Jack on all fours, as lithe and as graceful as a cat, until her ripe breasts were just above his knees. "Turn over," she said, playfully slapping him on the side of his buttocks.

He did as he was ordered. There was a dreamlike quality to what was happening. His hairs had pricked up, as if a light electric charge was running across his skin. He felt a soft pressure pushing down on him as Nicole sat astride the small of his back.

"Before we begin there are some rules you must follow, for your own safety." The tone of her voice indicated these rules were not up for debate.

"First. When I say we stop. We stop.

"Second. During the act of intercourse you must not struggle or fight against me. We can fight during foreplay, if that's what you'd like, but once we start having sex you relax and let me take control. I don't want to hurt you, but if you trigger my feeding response I may not be able to control myself."

Jack didn't know what she meant by a feeding response. He suspected he didn't want to know.

"Third," she bent over his body, close enough for him to feel the heat spilling from her. "Relax," she whispered in his ear. "I have centuries of experience. You're going to enjoy this."

Skilled hands began to gently knead the muscles of his neck and shoulders and Jack felt his doubts melt away.

"People pay you to fight them?" he asked.

"Not exactly fight," Nicole replied, her hands moving down to smooth the muscles between his shoulder blades. "They pay me to overpower them. Their guilt doesn't allow them to fully enjoy the pleasure. It's easier for them if they can pretend to be unwilling."

Jack understood. She'd brought him to the bed and taken off his clothes without him ever having a chance for second thoughts. Now he was here it was easier to just relax and let her do her job.

"Don't worry," Nicole said, kissing him lightly on the back of his neck. "I know you don't want any rough stuff. You want me to pamper you thoroughly."

"How?" Jack asked, puzzled.

"I read it on your lips when we kissed," she said. "Your breath whispered it in my ear. And your skin screams it to me now. It's so hungry for contact. It's been a long time since you allowed anyone to touch you."

It had, Jack thought sadly. Her soft hands kneading away his aches were like water to a man lost in a desert.

"It's a special talent of my kind," the succubus said. "The only pleasure we feel is that which we instil in others."

"You don't feel your own pleasure?" Jack said. "That sounds sad."

"It isn't," Nicole said, walking down his spine on feather-light fingers. "The pleasure you feel now, I feel it too and I can raise it to peaks you never thought possible to climb. If I wanted to be really naughty I could even take you beyond the limits of what your body can withstand."

She lightly blew on his back and Jack's muscles unwound as he felt the warm air flow over his skin.

"You like your back being massaged," Nicole said. "Your erogenous zones are lit up to me. I can see them glowing. I know exactly where to touch..."

She gently applied her thumbs to points between Jack's neck and shoulders and began to loosen the muscles underneath.

" ... where to kiss..."

Her soft lips pressed down against a sensitive spot on his neck.

" ... where to rub."

She lay flat on him and he felt her firm breasts push against his back. Jack relaxed and murmured his contentment as her nipples moved across a receptive patch of skin in slow, circular motions. He was melting beneath her.

Nicole used all of her body to massage, squeeze and knead every knotted muscle in Jack's back and shoulders. It felt heavenly. It had been so so long. She knew exactly which spot and how much force to apply to cause the maximum amount of pleasure. Beneath her attentions Jack melted into a warm, blissful puddle.

She stopped and lay languidly on top of his body, her heat seeping into him. She murmured contentedly while lazily running her fingers through his hair.

"Shall we fuck?" she whispered in his ear, her words dripping with delicious sin.

Jack needed no encouragement. He rolled over, revelling in the sensation as he slid against the luxurious silk sheets. His eagerness dampened a little as he looked up at her and was reminded again of the horns, the tail, the wings, the skin far too pale to be human and the eyes, those empty black eyes like windows into the abyss. It had been easy to put it all out of mind when he'd been lying on his front and wallowing in the sensation of her warm curves sliding over him. Now his doubts returned to the surface. She sat astride him, her black wings partially unfurled like a bird of prey or carrion feeder, as he lay on a black bed surrounded by a ring of black candles. Was he her lover or her sacrifice?