I stand and stare at the building across the street. It’s kind of gaudy, I think. I mean, it looks gaudy compared to Erada’s shop, at least. Maybe Erada’s shop is actually muted for a witch? She’s the only witch I really have experience with, after all.

I’ve been dating her for a while now, and I’ve gotten good and telling her moods. She’s good at hiding them under a casual, pleasant demeanor, but I can tell when she’s hiding a sour mood, and she’s been hiding one for a while.

Business has been slow. She didn’t want me to worry—she said she could handle it—but I wanted her to know I was here to help her talk it out. I want to help.

There’s a new witch shop in town, and she did a little scrying over the city and figured out it got a lot of customers. A lot of her customers, in fact.

Of course, scrying into private lives to determine peoples’ movements and their shopping habits wasn’t a breach of privacy. Not for a witch, anyway. It’s not like she was an ad company or a cop.

Anyway, she said she’d handle it. She didn’t want me to get involved. She wasn’t sure what this new witch was selling to get so many customers but she didn’t want me to put myself in any danger.

She said that like she wasn’t dangerous. I’m with her all the time. I’ve learned how to navigate the perils of dealing with a witch. She couldn’t just waltz right up to this shop and investigate on her own, but I can. I’ll just pop in, browse a bit, see what they’re doing differently and how their customers act, and be out with no one the wiser.

I enter the building and immediately have an idea of what they’re doing differently.

Don’t get me wrong, Erada’s far from modest. Her sweater might be tight, but she covers her whole body. Even when she’s selling sex or kink potions, it’s not her she wants the customers to be thinking about. She’s selling her potions, not her body.

The owner of this shop seems to have no such quarrel. Every witch I see working there practically has visible undergarments. More of their arms are covered with lacy gloves than their bodies, low-cut collars, bare midriffs, tight stockings—their outfits are probably all tighter than Erada’s sweater.

I mean, sex sells, I guess. There’s also more witches—Erada is a one-witch operation—so maybe it’s just a bigger operation, but that kind of makes it worse. For all I know there’s just one guy at the top profiting off and getting off on them.

If this is a corporate chain, maybe their products are faster to make but inferior. I start glancing over the shelves. There’s not really a way for me to tell. I can make assumptions, but I can’t really learn what’s going on here for sure.

I didn’t want to have to talk to anyone, though.

“Well, hello, Sweetie. Can I help you find something?”

I flinch back. I didn’t even hear her approach. She looks much like the other witches there; maybe a shop policy for them to all look alike? They have a few differences, but only enough that they could be variations on a central model. This one has long red hair tinted violet, her outfit mostly blue.

“No, thank you,” I mumble. “I’m just browsing.”

“Aw, don’t be shy.” She steps closer. I step back, but into a corner, surrounded by the glowing potions. “We’re discreet. Whatever you need, we won’t tell a soul.”

“No, really,” I say, “I really don’t—don’t even know what I’d ask for.”

“I can help you decide the perfect potion,” she says. She drifts a few past my face, all glowing, all scented like burning candles. “Something to help your love life? Something to spice up your love life?” She whispers, “Something to attain a love life?”

“I don’t—” I narrow my eyes and despite myself ask, “Is all you sell here just sex potions?”

She chuckles. Her pink fingernails graze my face.

“Isn’t that all there is, Sweetie?”

Her nails are a tad too long, too sharp. I feel like they could hook into someone and draw them in. She’s so close now I get a good look at her eyes. Pink. Too pink. Maybe they’re contact lenses, but something seems wrong about them.

“Sorry,” I say, finally ducking away from her, “I just wanted to glance inside—I really have to go.”

Her hand shoots out in front of me before I can get away, holding a jar she jiggles. I can hear the liquid splash inside, I can smell the—it smells like—like too much—memories bubbling in my head with one whiff.

“At least take a free sample,” she says. “Just one taste and I promise you’ll be ours for life.”

“I—I don’t really—”

I can’t get these memories out of my head, memories of lustful moments. I wonder if they’re even mine. I feel her sharp nails as she squeezes my chin and pulls me to her eyes, open wide as they pulse with glowing pink. I stare, feeling the glow shimmer through my mind. Her grin is sharp. Her teeth look pointed, but it’s hard to notice anything but her eyes. The rest of the shop fades, everything not lit by her glowing eyes dark.

“And the product up front isn’t even the best stuff,” she whispers. Her voice drowns out the rest of the world. She pulls me close. I can feel her skin against mine. Why is she so cold? Her gloves, her top, her stockings—why do they all feel like skin? “Our most premium, blissful product is in the back. It won’t cost you a cent, either—we have much better ways for you to pay.”

Her nails dig into the skin of my arm. My legs are moving on their own as she tugs me along. My thoughts swirl in my mind as they try to stay above the rising, numbing sea flooding my senses. A thought speaks that this was why I was warned, but I can’t remember who warned me. I’m not even sure what the warning was.

Her eyes are everything. She is everything. The shop gets darker, and I feel silken strands wrap around me, bind my arms and, as I’m pushed down into a padded seat, my legs.

My mouth hangs open as I stare into her eyes, and it’s trivial for her to shove a bottle into my mouth and pour a liquid down my throat that melts melts my mind into a hazy mist of swampy lust.

And she cackles, cackles in my twitchy grinning face, melted smile matching my melted mind, her sweet breath through teeth sharp enough to bite a hole in me washing over my senses, her hair binding me like tentacles. She speaks, but I cannot comprehend the words, only the luxurious, candy-cream voice.

“Did that witch really send her toy to spy on me? I’ve been gone so long, she must be slipping. Now that I have you, I can steal everything from her.” She grips my face, nails sinking into my flesh. “I’ll drain you dry and have my revenge on that spoilsport.

“No, it’s not enough to force witches to remain in the shadows. They chased us succubi into the shadows, so we chased them into the shadows, but I will chase that twerp until she’s lost in the shadows!”