A succubus visits Marc Summers each night. He knows her only as Why. For hours at a time, she writhes atop him, her long hair curtaining her face like black corn fleece, saying, “Why, Why, Why.” Only stopping once he reaches orgasm, an act that requires a willing forfeiture of his soul. 

He hasn’t slept more than four hours this week, and all four of those came between tapings. In his makeup chair, snoring, the fear of Why’s return permeates even the most insensate of snoozes such that he wakes sweating and screaming, “Why, Why, Why.” The makeup team rushes in with foundation at the ready, a bottle of cold water, a mug of hot coffee, a bowl of room-temp oatmeal.

Just today, faces have begun to change. They all look the same or everyone looks like nobody. He eats only oatmeal. Everything else comes up instantly. The PA rushes him onto the soundstage, hands him his cards and his microphone. He coifs his hair and looks out across the studio audience. They are here to remind him of Why. 

The cameras are on and Marc reads from the cards. Two families battling for bragging rights from the great state of Ohio right here in sunny Los Angeles. The Jensen family from Lima wearing red, the Waters family from Toledo wearing blue. Are we ready to have some wild fun? Today’s game: Baby Bird. Dad will suck slime from a garden hose and pass it to Mom without using hands. Mom will ferry a mouthful of slime to Child, on the other side of the stage, and carefully but quickly spit it into their open mouth. Child will mouth the slime to the top of the Booger Pyramid and spit the contents into the Nasal Chalice. First team to fill the chalice adds a hundred dollars to their score. 

Protective eyewear is distributed. Marc Summers fades into the background as the fathers suck slime, veins in their forehead slithering. The studio audience cheers but beneath their cheering lies a univocal chant, a woman’s timbre. “Why, Why, Why.” He shakes his head like a dog to get it out. 

The Lima Beings are way ahead of Toledo TNT. Toledo mother is having misgivings about spitting into her daughter’s mouth. Toledo father shouts, aggressively, from the other side of the stage. Curse words are spoken and then shouted. There’ll be hell to pay in the editing bay later, but by then Marc will be home with a glass of chilled white wine and a palmful of caffeine pills that drum his heart into a laugh track. They won’t keep her away forever, but that’s not the point. The point is to buy some time.

The days are getting longer and it will be light outside yet. Light enough to see the smoke from a northern wildfire crawl down the hills. He’ll kiss his children’s heads and pray these walls are thick. But his children are not why. He’s offered them before, but the succubus shook her head as she grinded atop him. Wrong answer, try again. If there is a reward at the end of this, he’d be shocked.

He watches The Brady Bunch and wakes to the succubus atop him, saying, “Why, Why, Why.” He answers with almost everything he knows—the names of National Parks, World Series winners since 1973, his mother’s favorite hymns—but she shakes her head and continues until he orgasms. He convulses like a salted snail, gripping the leather arms of the recliner, only opening his eyes once he’s finished in whimpering victory. She’s gone. But she leaves a trace. The smell of a rotting orchard, the sense of having misplaced something. The semen drips down his thigh and he believes, for a moment, The Brady Bunch closing theme to be her humming. One day, he will not be able to orgasm and Why will kill him. It’s beginning to feel as preferable as it does unthinkable.

T.J. Martinson is the author of The Reign of the Kingfisher (Macmillan, 2019), Her New Eyes (Clash Books, May 2025), and Blood River Witch (Counterpoint Press, June 2026). His shorter work has appeared in Passages North, Lithub, CRAFT, [PANK], JMWW, The Offing, LIT Magazine, Permafrost Magazine, Heavy Feather Review, Pithead Chapel, and others. He is an assistant professor of English at Murray State University.