Fiona leaned her head against the hardwood elevator door and sighed. She’d trapped herself alone in the elevator. She chastised herself—she should’ve been more careful.

As the elevator rose Fiona scanned the room. She couldn’t sit and mope, she needed to regroup with her team. She tapped the button for the next floor, and when the door opened she ran into the dark hallway. Behind her the elevator closed.

Fiona groaned at the stairway: boarded up with wooden planks. She couldn’t regroup with her team that way. Either the stairs were broken or something wanted to lead her away from the team. She hoped the others were safe. She pressed the elevator call down button and sat against the wall. Best thing was to wait, either for the elevator or the others. None of them knew what they would find in the hotel; better to explore as a group.

Fiona remembered the heart pendant in her hand. It glistened pink like a cherry blossom, a red heart at the center. Maybe it belonged to one of the missing persons. Her heart panged at the thought that its owner might be gone forever. She’d keep it on hand for when her team found them.

Fiona heard a sliding scrape and looked down the hall. A familiar, warm memory of close hugs sprang from that sound, but in that dark, lonely hotel, an alarm coated the thought. Fiona pocketed the pendant and crept down the hall, each step on the plush carpeting releasing musty dust.

In both hands she held her mythology book. Worse came to worst she could at least swing the heavy book as a makeshift weapon.

Fiona peered around the corner and gasped. Beyond the hallway hung a tube body thick as her own torso, squishing so softly in its curl as to make the hardwood halls look like rock. Covered in red scales with a rosy pink heart pattern and a lighter pink underside, the scaly slithering body stood out in the drab, dusty hallway like cherry candy in a concrete factory. It lolled like an inviting swing.

She knew that slithering scrape sounded familiar. This was a serpent.

She crept closer to examine the snake’s glistening tail. The muscles flexed as it slithered in a stroll. Fiona figured it the widest snake body she’d seen in a long time, if ever, and she stared at the bulges, the shifting weight where the tail curled and squeezed. Any snake that size must be beyond the natural—or a lamia, which was practically the same thing.

Fiona recalled Cira had detected a big life sign in the hotel, and she wondered if this snake had caused the disappearances. She told herself to be careful, even as she stared fascinated at the beautiful specimen.

She ducked under the tail and into the taller crossing hallway. The tail hung from a balcony as if daring her to climb it to the next floor. The red and pink scales glimmered like a Valentine’s Day wreath, and the heart pattern positively glowed. Fiona found herself gazing after each heart. A yearning pulled her to touch the supple scales, but she knew better than to make her presence known.

Fiona considered her experience working with lamias. None of them had been inherently sinister. Sometimes dangerous, but those were predators—the carnal kind—who didn’t know any other way, or they were hurt and as scared of humans as humans of them. She’d rehabilitated enough lamias to know not to fear them. They could be reasoned with and calmed down. They didn’t want to hurt anyone.

Her chaotic team, however, would provoke this snake, or snake person, into more of a dangerous fright. Fiona decided to find the head before her team and ascertain the possibility of a peaceful solution.

She watched the body slither before her, thoughts lost in the heart pattern. She stepped forward to climb and follow the tail on the higher floor, but she backed away. Alerting it to her presence would be a bad idea, lest it did turn out to be sinister. She glanced down the halls and found a stroke of luck: an even thicker portion of the tail slithered across the hallway through two hotel rooms.

She peeked into the rooms. She couldn’t enter without touching the tail, but it slithered into a hole in the far wall. She followed the tail’s direction down the hall in hopes of finding a door to the room it slithered into.

At the end of the hall she opened a pair of doors and stared agape at a room so big that it disappeared into darkness. Tables filled the room, each covered in wide cloths and upside-down chairs. A dining room? Fiona shivered. If that snake found her before she found it she could be dinner. She had to stay alert. She peeked through the doors in the near wall and found pungent boxes and barrels but no snake. She shut the doors and sighed. That snake had to be around there somewhere.

Fiona gripped the cold rail surrounding the dining area. Too many tables to count, and her snake could hide behind any. She peered at them, dreading a wearying search among the tables.

No, that seemed unlikely. She needed to find the room she saw the tail slithering into. That would point her in the right direction.

Fiona turned back the way she came. Halfway to the door a thickly squeezing rope whipped around her shirt, and she jumped and squealed. Before she could pull away, the heart-patterned snake tail lifted her to an upper floor of the dining area with only ten or so tables, surrounded by a shoulder-height railing.

“Hello, my pretty. Would you care to join me in the private section?”

Fiona found herself facing a lamia with piercing hot pink eyes, sprawled back in a plush red armchair adorned with glittering hearts. The other chairs would have probably snapped under the girth of her snake body. The lamia lowered Fiona into a rigid dining chair across from her at a table lit only by a few sweet candles. Fiona blinked as the lamia smiled to her, swishing a bubbly liquid in a wine glass.

“Oh! Hello,” Fiona said. “I’ve been looking for you.” The lamia laughed.

“Of course you have.”

Her long, rosy pink and scarlet twin-tailed hair and clothes matched her tail. Her round breasts and hips bulged in her midriff top and tube shorts, which along with her tight arm gloves gave an impression of squeezing, that she squeezed herself into the tight clothes like she might squeeze people into her tight coils. Only the collars around her arms and neck looked loose, easy to slide off.

Fiona realized the lamia’s tail blanketed the floor, shifting around her like sand. The relaxed coils around Fiona idly slithered, always stirring like the rest of her tail.

“Would you like a drink?” the lamia asked. “There’s quite a variety on tap.” Fiona glanced away.

“No, thank you, miss . . . What’s your name?” Fiona smiled and leaned forward to look friendly. “Mine’s Fiona.” The lamia chuckled.

“I’m normally referred to by title, but,” she leaned forward, hand on her chin, “I think we’ll become friends, Fiona.” Her voice rolled as she spoke, as if swirling through Fiona’s ears. Her accent sounded like a Romance language—French or Italian. “So you can call me by my name—Jb.”

“Yeeb?” Fiona asked. Jb laughed.

“Jb.”

Fiona tried the strange pronunciation. It sounded familiar. She lifted her mythology book onto the table and asked Jb how she spelled her name. Jb smirked.

“An avid reader, are you?”

“Yeah, sorry,” said Fiona as she flipped through the book, “it’s just— Here it is!” She found the word in the Egyptian glossary. “That’s an ancient Egyptian word.” She looked at Jb’s tail. “Heart.”

“Or mind,” Jb said. “Or will.” Her tail squeezed and Fiona gasped. “Or appetite.”

“Um.” Fiona cleared her throat. This lamia didn’t seem hurt or afraid. She seemed in total control. Maybe too in control. Fiona needed to make a judgment quick. Jb said they could become friends? Maybe she wanted an exchange, maybe the team could bargain with her. The way she reclined in her squashed seat gave the impression of lavish royalty, and the way her tail snaked everywhere gave her the air of owning her own world. Fiona decided best not to play around—try the direct approach.

“So not to jump to business, but I’m here with a team,” she said. “We’re investigating some missing people. Do you know anything about that?”

Jb chuckled and sipped her drink.

“I might. Are you here to rescue them?”

“I’ve worked with lamias,” Fiona said. “I’ve worked in a clinic to help them. If there’s anything you need, or if we can help you with something, let me know. We can resolve this peacefully. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

Jb grinned. She leaned her elbows on the table, the glowing hearts on her shoulder bulbs facing Fiona, distracting, captivating. Jb propped her head in her hands.

“Anything I need?” The tip of her tail stroked Fiona’s chin. As the scales brushed her skin Fiona’s senses focused on her chin, her mind drawn to Jb’s scales. She blinked and shook her head.

“All I need is you, Fiona.”

Fiona frowned. “What?” She tensed up. Was Jb about to make a move for her?

“You said you’ve worked with lamias, yes?” Jb examined the red hearts on her pink fingernails. Fiona’s chair shuddered as something soft and heavy slithered over her shoes. “I imagine you’ve had a few tussles with them?”

“I usually don’t do the physical restraining,” Fiona said as she pushed away from her feet what she assumed was Jb’s body.

“Of the lamia, or of you?” Jb laughed as Fiona blushed and looked away. “You must be so familiar with the tails and scales of snakes, hmm?”

Fiona steeled herself and placed a hand on the table, ready to spin out of Jb’s grasp if necessary.

“I’ve had plenty of practice with clingy snakes,” she said. “I’ve learned how to escape coils–”

Jb’s hefty tail settled over Fiona’s shoulders, and she forgot what she was saying, her words melting into a moan. A single touch, a brush of Jb’s scales over her skin, and Fiona’s thoughts melted. Jb’s tail merely quivered but it felt like a massage, deeper and stronger as her tail nestled against Fiona’s shoulders and neck. Fiona sank into the chair and coils.

“You feel so tense,” Jb purred. “Let me massage away your concerns.”

Fiona clenched her eyes and shook her head. She wasn’t there for a massage. Jb had her. She had to push her away. She lifted her heavy arms, but Jb slithered over them and they dropped like stones from the bolt of soft, silky, scaly pleasure.

“Now don’t you worry about a thing, my pretty,” Jb said. “I’m interested in settling this peacefully as well.”

“Oh, good, I . . .” Fiona pushed to stand, but Jb held her in the chair, which curled under her butt in a slithering loop.

Wait, is that the chair?

Fiona tried to organize her thoughts as the chair wrapped around her hips. No, that was Jb’s tail squeezing around her. Fiona gasped as Jb’s silky squeezing scales slithered over the skin of her legs. Her thoughts scattered and her eyes rolled back as Jb’s scales struck pleasure through her body.

“Now, now, don’t get up,” Jb said. “Just relax.” Jb’s words cut through the silent hotel and through Fiona’s thoughts.

“But I,” Fiona said, voice slurred and shaking, “I really should find . . .” She needed to find someone, but her thoughts orbited Jb. The lamia’s tail cast a glow of hearts surrounding her. She felt soft fingers caress her face and focused to see Jb next to her, supple lips curled in a smile and deep pink eyes watching her. Jb twisted a finger through Fiona’s curly hair.

“You’ve found all you need right here,” Jb said. “Oh, and so have I.” She reached into Fiona’s pants—into her pocket—and pulled out the heart pendant, after which her thick coils squeezed over Fiona’s hips, drawing her line of thought ever deeper into Jb’s silky slithering tail. “Thank you so much for finding my heart pendulum.”

“Your . . .” Fiona remembered finding it in the elevator. Then the elevator had closed on her. It had brought her to Jb’s floor. Did Jb plan—

Fiona gasped as Jb’s tail slithered under her shirt and around her back, and her train of thought derailed into a massaging scaly void. Jb squeezed all around Fiona with thick, heavy, gripping coils, pressing against her chest and back, arms squeezed inward, shoulders pressed down, legs gripped up. As Fiona sank into the growing pile of slithering coils she realized she now sat on more shifting coils, her butt sinking into Jb’s soft, tight grip, Jb the only thing she could feel, or see, or hear—all her senses were held by Jb. A thought at the back of her head nagged to escape, but Jb’s supple tail squeezed that thought away.

“Yes,” Jb said, hanging the heart pendant before Fiona. “It’s very pretty, isn’t it? The light makes it glimmer so nicely, it’s just so pleasing to stare at it. The heart at the center draws your attention to it, almost as if it’s pulsating.”

“Yes, it’s very pretty,” Fiona said in a soft sigh, head lolling as she tried to understand her muddled thoughts. “Don’t I need to . . .?”

“No, you don’t,” said Jb, smiling as if Fiona had said something silly. She swung the heart pendant in front of her. “You just need to relax. Focus on the pretty heart, please.”

“Relax,” Fiona mumbled, following the pendulum as her eyelids drooped heavier and heavier. Her awareness narrowed to only thoughts suggested by Jb.

Jb wrapped heftier coils around Fiona, thick enough to swallow her with but a few loops. She weighed Fiona’s legs down and squeezed her arms against her sides, wrapping around her chest to hold her immobilized. Fiona could only move her head, which Jb hooked by her heart pendulum into its sway.

“You’re right where you need to be,” Jb said, her rich voice echoing to fill the silent world. “You’re right where you want to be.”

Jb squeezed Fiona’s arms and legs tight, restricting her body to her control. The tip of her tail she slithered under Fiona’s shirt and shorts to increase the contact of scales on her skin. The mere touch of her scales radiated dreamy pleasure through Fiona’s body, and Jb’s squeezing massage drove that pleasure deeper, swamping her mind with bliss and leaving her unable to form her own thoughts.

Fiona forgot where she was, her every thought focused on the swinging heart before her and the crushing massage around her. Jb sneaked a thicker grasp of tail under Fiona’s clothes to squeeze her closer, heavier, while the tip of her tail slithered down crevices under her arms and legs. Fiona’s swimming mind wondered if she had wandered into a spa. All she could see anymore was a growing tide of slithering red scales with glowing pink hearts swarming around her. She felt like she had fallen into a dimension of scaly massages.

Jb squeezed her tail around Fiona’s neck, and she gulped, the pressure too tight to breathe for a moment. Fiona’s eyes drooped; the heavy, scaly pressure rose up her body, around her chest, up her arms, around her neck, up her head. Jb swallowed her in coils, and gaps in Fiona’s vision and gaps in her consciousness swirled through her mind as Jb’s scales radiated hypnotic pleasure through her. Her head pulsed to the rhythm of Jb’s rolling coils as the scales dissolved her thoughts. The back of her mind warned of danger, but Jb’s hypnotic coils massaged smothering pleasure through her, and her mind slipped away from any sense of peril.

As Jb gripped Fiona’s head in her tail, Fiona’s eyes strained to follow the heart pendulum. Jb flipped the pendant into her hand and leaned closer to Fiona, eyes pulsating with endless hearts.

“Now, dear Fiona,” Jb purred, “please look into my eyes for me.” She slithered a second loop around Fiona’s neck and squeezed. Fiona gulped from the pressure and her eyes popped open, staring into hypnotic hearts. “Look into my eyes and tell me what you see.”

Fiona could only mumble, her chin pressed against Jb’s tail, tight coils pressed against her too closely for her to speak. With a hungry grin Jb leaned closer until their noses touched.

“What do you see?” she demanded.

Hearts flashed in Fiona’s eyes, pulsing out from around her pupils. Every heart squeezed Fiona’s pupils smaller and squeezed her mind into submission, ordering her thoughts into obedience. The hearts streamed from the center of her eyes, mirroring Jb’s eyes, mirroring Jb’s soul. Her pupils shrank until they too were hearts.

“Love,” Fiona choked out. “Jb.” The glowing hearts swirling around her filled the world, pulsing hearts all she could see. Jb became everything, the master of the universe, a goddess. She squeezed her coils tighter, forcing Fiona to gulp again as she pressed her under her coils into submission.

“Oh, little Fiona,” Jb said with a low, wistful smile, curling her fingers through her hair, “I’ve changed my mind. You shouldn’t call me by my name. You simply must call me by my correct title.”

Fiona gurgled, too drunk on Jb’s hypnotic control and wrapped too tight for anything more. Jb slithered her tail along Fiona’s skin under her coils, rubbing her scales against her arms, around her hips, and against her chest. She squeezed her thighs, and once she slipped a hefty section of her tail between Fiona’s legs, the mythology researcher squeaked out Jb’s title.

“Goddess.”

A drunken grin spread over Fiona’s face, eyes shifting between wobbly drooping and wide-open. Jb chuckled.

“Yessss,” she hissed, long tongue grazing Fiona’s face as she grinned with hungry glee. “I am a love goddess.” She caressed her fingers over Fiona’s face. “And I can be your love goddess.”

“L-Love . . . g-goddess . . .”

“You just have to do one obvious thing I know you very much want to,” Jb said. Her coils and hypnotic spell squeezed tighter to break Fiona, body and mind.

“One . . . thing . . .”

“You must worship your love goddess, my slave.”

“Worship . . . my love goddess . . .”

With one more squeeze around her legs, her chest, and her neck, Fiona gulped and her eyes opened wide; her thoughts and memories dropped inaccessibly lost to her. She only knew her love goddess now. She only felt her love goddess. She wanted to worship her love goddess, and sink endlessly into her hypnotic control and sea of coils.

She fell to the love goddess.