Demoncember writing prompt — Demon who is so submissive, they can’t even do their job
“Hi, Huji,” Axklinn says brightly, and Hujizam — slouched in a chair staring at her outstretched feet — unhappily mumbles something that might be hi in return. “Hey, don’t look so down! Everybody struggles with something in training! If they didn’t, I’d be out of a job!”
Huji flicks a glance up, before returning to looking at her feet.
“Ooookay,” Axklinn says, rubbing the spot between her eyebrows. She had to sit in a management meeting this morning, and Jamdaggu gives her a headache. He’s hands down better than Mawgull, but — it’s not like reporting to a fellow succubus. You know where you are, with succubi. “Okay. In case you didnt know, I’m Axklinn, I’m the senior Temptations of Lust staff trainer. Your class instructor Svaaxil asked me to come over here and chat to you about the training you’ve been doing, because your written test results are fantastic but every time she gets your class to do a Dealing With Clients roleplay you, uh....”
Hujo mutters something dismal towards her toes.
“Svax thinks it’s nerves,” Axklinn says. “And that’s fine, really it is. Lots of people get nerves about dealing with clients. I’ve helped thousands of trainees through it and successfully into the job. We’ll have another run at it in a bit, but first—” because Axklinn has had a look at this kid’s file, and she’s got a feeling about this one— “we’re gonna have a nice chill time, let you decompress. It’s demoralising, when you’ve gotta do the same bit of training over and over and it feels like you’re just failing, isn’t it? So I’m gonna do my rounds, you’re gonna be my assistant for the afternoon, and we’ll get to know each other a bit.”
“Okay,” Huji says glumly, shoulders hunched so much she’s practically vanishing into a little knot of stressed-out succubus.
“People have different reasons for joining Lust,” Axklinn observes brightly, as they pass the field where Skandaxxu is playing chase with the department mascot. (Or at least, the giant rooster is chasing her, and Skandi doesn’t seem to be screaming about it all that seriously.) “But at heart, it’s all about the people for most of us. Succubi are very social, although we’re definitely not exclusionary about hiring other kinds of demon. You like people, Huji?”
“I guess,” Huji says quietly to her feet.
Aklinn nods and smiles and silently counts to ten. Svaaxil had sounded upset on the phone — She’s so bright, Ax, she should be a fucking natural, but she’s just freezing up no matter how much I softball the client roleplay scenarios — fucking roleplay scenarios, not even actual people! — and I’m just watching her shut down and give up in front of me and I don’t know what to do—
“Why Lust?” she says softly. “It’s not the clients, for everybody. Succubi are social. A lot of us are here for us, you know?”
“Dunno,” Huji says to her feet.
“Oh, Axklinn,” Jamdaggu says, popping out of his office wearing an innocuous smile. “Are you busy?”
“Yes, actually, boss,” Axklinn says sweetly. “This is Huji, she’s one of our latest trainee intake. She’s shadowing me today, and we’ve got a pretty full slate.”
Jamdaggu ratchets up his best I Am An Idiot beam. (He isn’t, but he plays one very well.) “Welcome to the department!” he says to Huji.
Axklinn waits until they round a corner away from him and whatever he’s looking to pawn off on someone before muttering, “If he ever shakes your hand, count your fingers afterwards.”
Huji nods, fleetingly wearing a familiar expression of succubus solidarity. It disappears again, head dipping, gaze on her feet.
Axklinn has lunch at her desk, sandwiches. She puts one down halfway through eating it.
“I know Svax said you’re freezing from nerves,” she says, carefully not looking at Huji, “but how would you describe what’s happening?”
“I dunno,” Huji says, staring into her cup noodle. She drops the spoon into it, as if her appetite’s suddenly gone.
“I can’t begin to help,” Axklinn says gently. “I don’t know what the issue is. I can’t guess — it’s not going to help you if I get it wrong, and I don’t understand because you’re clammed up tight and upset, so. Anything I guessed would be revealing more about my own issues than yours.” She picks the sandwich back up, pauses. “Atrocity is within some departments’ remit; not ours,” she says quietly. “Part of my job, very occasionally, is saying no, we’re not taking you, you don’t belong in Lust. When someone, in my professional judgement, can’t be trusted with our clients. That’s not what your problem is. Those are bad days. Those I have feelings about. You, I am not going to judge.”
“I dont know,” Huji says in a very small voice.
“Walk me through what happens in your training exercises,” Axklinn says gently. “Walk me up to the point it goes wrong.”
“It — it doesn’t go wrong,” Huji says wretchedly. “I mean, it does, obviously it does, or I wouldn’t be in trouble—”
“You’re not in trouble.”
“I’m so in trouble.”
“You’d know if you were in trouble,” Axklinn says. “This is not trouble. This is people doing their best for you; me doing my best for you, because you came to Lust, and that makes you already one of ours. Tell me why you can’t do the client exercise.”
Huji makes a whiny noise, rubs at her face. “I tried,” she says. “I just — I know it all, on paper. Clients want things from us, we want things from them, and they try to get something for nothing, all the time, and we just have to say no. And I know that. And I go into the exercise and it’s time to just say no and the person roleplaying the client tells me to say yes and I just — I don’t know what happens—”
“You say yes?” Axklinn says, and puts her sandwich down.
Huji whines again.
“Huh,” Axklinn says, and bites into her sandwich in vindicated satisfaction. “The average succubus is switchier than a telephone exchange,” she says, with her mouth full. “I think you’re just not, Huji.”
Huji stares into her noodles, expression wounded. “I can do it,” she says stiffly. “I can — you don’t have to send me away.”
“Nobody’s sending you away,” Axklinn says. “Sweetie, it’s fine. We can put you on group calls with a buddy to do the talking, or prenegotiated ones where the client wants you gagged all the way through, or just make ‘em sign to say that you don’t have the authority to renegotiate and nothing they get you say is binding. You’re not the first, Huji, we can accommodate you.” She pauses, stretches out a careful foot, and nudges Huji’s ankle. “Succubi are here for succubi,” she adds, warm and gentle, and grins to herself at Huji’s shy, spreading blush. “Now eat your lunch, and then we’ll go see Penny in 442; we don’t exactly have a dedicated Submissives division, but she’s the one to talk to—”
