Her screen name was Nahemah.

It rang some distant bell in Don�s mind, some deep recess that held information he found at least interesting, if not useful. Her request for chat sat before him on the screen, and it was welcome, yet a certain nervousness bubbled deep in his stomach. Women in his experience tended to be quite bold on the web, yet often with that boldness came a certain instability-a certain lacking, sometimes.

Of course he preyed on that lack-confronted he would have denied it, but in his heart of hearts he full well knew he sought his assignations on the web because people lacking a certain amount of self-regard tended to respond to his overtures. If he was lucky they were hot, insecure or no, but he fucked the fat ones too. The only one he�d ever turned down was a woman named Jenny who turned out to be 48, a good 20 years his senior and not aging well, either.

He responded to Nahemah.

When they were done he sat in his comfortable leather desk chair, his sweaty ass sticking to the seat, his cum drying on the carpet beneath the desk and his inner thigh.

Who ever the hell Nahemah was, she was brilliant at cybering-not even in some fantastic webcam experiences with women who were his ideal of pierced and tattooed borderline disordered sexuality had he been so fully charged, his orgasms so intense. Nahemah seemed to type faster than reason and somehow had a mainline into his sexual pathways. He�d felt behind in his responses, but she�d not minded.

Now they were casually chatting, the undertone still charged with sensuality, but more intimate and relaxed.

Nahemah: �.so, you haven�t told me your real name�
Cybernova: well you haven�t asked.
Nahemah: ?
Cybernova: Don.
Nahemah: As in juan? Don Juan?
Cybernova: lol! No-Don-Don Roche. What about you, Mystery Lady?
Nahemah: This IS my name. Really.

For some reason he believed her.

From downstairs Don heard his wife calling. It was past midnight and she might head up the steps. He rapidly signed off with Nahemah, promising to return the next day, and headed to bed.

That night Don dreamed of an awful singing.

Not bad, as in out of tune or grating�awful in beauty. A woman�s voice-it trilled over him. He was standing in the window of his bedroom. The moon was a pewter spotlight spilling across the large, well-manicured front lawn. The gorgeous Japanese maple his wife spent so much of her free time pruning shifted as if in conflicting winds-leaves twirled across his view. He felt frightened. Frightened of the vivid normalcy of the vision, but moreover of the singing. An opera singer going mad. Where was she?

The wind picked up in his dream. There was no sound but the woman�s voice-climbing a slow half-note scale, seemingly in no need of breath. As he watched, his vision now fixed on a point just in front of him where the leaves were accelerating into a whirlwind, a form began to take shape.

An improbably tall shape, as tall as the young Japanese maple-the whirlwind was clothing her in the maple�s crimson leaves. Her hair was forming from the golden maple leaves blown down from the side of the house. Her face was the silvered white of the full moon.

He realized he was looking into her eyes-twin holes of black in a long, beautifully shaped face-the song was coming from her mouth. As he stood, horror rising up over him like an unstoppable tide, that mouth dropped further, and further, till it was impossibly long and deep-singing, then wailing�

The wail became Don�s own as he realized he was in bed. The night outside was still, no wind. His wife still slept peacefull beside him. The green digits on the clock read 3:15 a.m.

�A dream�� he said to himself in a whisper. �Just a dream.�

�A really awful dream.�

The next day he was home from work early. He figured none of his usual contacts were about so he began trolling the web idly. Don had a passing interest in the paranormal and after the terrible dream of the night before he knew there was something he had to find on the web. The word kept eluding him. In a search engine he put �female spirit�-and received thousands of hits on women�s empowerment sites. Following that he typed �female ghost�.

These hits were closer to home. He was ready to try a new term when he saw the word that had been on the tip of his brain all day-banshee. A spirit from Northern European Mythology, especially Irish myth, who appeared before a death in the family to wail outside the house in the night.

Why the hell had he dreamed of a banshee? So horribly of a banshee?

Don felt goose pimples on his forearms and pushed himself away from the computer table.

Just then a little tone sounded from his chat program and there was an invitation from someone named Lilin to chat.

To his eye it sounded a lot like Lilith, which could be a rather dark reference; but Don realized a lot of these girls who sought or participated in anonymous cyber sex or real sex felt empowered by adopting such dark personas. He didn�t mind playing along at all. So he began to chat with Lilin.

Lilin had a webcam. She sent him the link, and his first thought after clicking the link was her cam was down. Then it seemed to focus and her face came into view.

For some reason he felt a little startled-there was something strange and familiar about her face. High, sculpted cheekbones, deep eyes of a color he couldn�t determine, framed by slightly messy, sexy blonde hair. She was wearing a tight black bodice laced up the front. Lilin�s mouth was the most exquisite part-it was full in a natural way, pouting. As he watched she smiled, revealing teeth that were perfectly even and unnaturally white.

Don liked what he saw. They continued.

Twice, in unusually rapid succession, he�d jacked off chatting with and watching her. She undressed for him, revealing a pale white and perfect body-high youthful breasts and long sculpted legs. The second time she�d begun to masturbate and that was too much for him to bear. He�d felt the orgasm come from his toes. Incredibly her hips on the webcam were bucking too-amazing timing-much like Nahemah of the night before seemed to have.

When he was done the second time he wrote what was truly at the forefront of his mind.

Cybernova: We�ve got to meet. Do you live locally?
Lilin: eager boy�yes, I live very close by.
Cybernova: When?
Lilin: How about tonight?

Don paused, a little stunned. Too good to be true. Damn. How? He�d certainly done it before-he could make all the right excuses, he was sure of that�something made him hesitate a little. The fact was you didn�t know if she might have a straight razor tucked in her waistband and maybe you�d leave the meeting a eunuch.

He was typing his eager response agreeing when the power went out.

It was just more than a flicker, and it happened often-but he couldn�t help but think karma had something to do with the timing.

He rebooted the computer, signed back on the internet.

For an hour, until he heard his wife coming in the door downstairs, he tried to re-message Lilin.

No luck.

Later that night after his wife had settled in to watch her evening shows he crept back into the computer room and tried again.

This time the message client returned the startling response �There is no profile for this username.�

Don looked at that error message for a very long time.

He decided he wouldn�t sweat it. It was just sex, after all. There were tons of other fish in the sea. He sat for a while pondering before he decided to try Nahemah.

�There is no profile for this username.�

Don stared at the bright screen, sitting in the dark computer room. This shit made no sense whatsoever. The way that client worked you couldn�t just delete your profile that fast. He knew-he�d tried it with an old profile and still received angry IM�s from a certain Julia Shad whom he�d fucked at a rest stop and then promptly tried to forget. How did both Nahemah and Lilin do that?

His suspicion naturally now was heightened.

After a few moments� thought he decided he�d search those usernames. He didn�t know why it had not occurred to him before.

In the box on the home page for the search engine he typed �Nahemah�-then after another moment of thought he typed +�Lilin�.

He clicked search.

And the power went out again. �FUCK!� he shouted to the empty dark room.

From downstairs he heard his wife calling-�Don?�

�I�m sure it will come back on baby!� He responded.

There was a pause. �This freaks me out a little, hon, can you come down?�

Don stood in the dark. That wasn�t like his wife. In fact, normally she�d be asleep by now on the couch, her mouth open slightly. Maybe she�d heard something that bugged her. He knew he had to make his way downstairs.

He tucked the mystery of the two women with the exotic and ever-so-slightly familiar names into one corner of mind and mentally marked them for later examination. Carefully he picked his way downstairs.

His wife was sitting up on the couch when he got to the entrance to the den. The moonlight coming through the dining room window was behind her, her face was in silhouette. �What�s wrong, babe?� he asked, solicitous.

�I don�t know-I just got nervous when it looked like the lights weren�t coming back on. Then I thought I just wanted to snuggle.�

Inwardly Don winced. That might mean sex. He loved her in his way, and his wife was an attractive woman-but since they�d gotten the internet hookup over a year ago sex with her was just too�vanilla. Sometimes now it was more like he lived with his sister.

He crossed the room and sat, and she climbed across the big sofa and lay her head in his lap. Absently he began to stroke her hair.

�Did you do something different?� he asked.

�How?�

�Your hair-it feels different. Longer, smoother. I don�t know.�

She reached up and touched his hand. Her touch was firm but soft and sent a surprising shiver through him. �How long has it been?� she asked.

�How long, what?�

�Since we made love?�

He let that hang there, not sure of how to answer. His paranoia, always near the surface was suddenly in full bloom. He kept his voice level. �Weeks?�

�Seems longer.� In her voice there was a note of longing. Her tone was throaty and he had to admit, sexy. Her hand ran up the inside of this thigh. He shivered and his cock stirred. This was a welcome surprise, he admitted to himself. Don couldn�t recall the last time his wife came on to him. Part of him hoped the power stayed off-for some reason he willed this darkness to stay.

She was sitting up now and her lips brushed the nape of his neck. A carefully placed move that sent another sensual buzz down his spine. His wife was surprising him, in the best possible way. He felt her hand in his crotch, gently massaging his hard-on through his sweatpants. Then she kissed him, her tongue greedily probing for his. An explosion of lust overcame him and they lay down, suddenly entwined in one another like eager animals.

The webcam women, even Lilin, or the more mysterious Nahemah, were gone as he and his wife began to explore each other in the dark. He lost objectivity quickly under the ministrations of her mouth and hands. He had only one removed thought as she mounted him, lowering her wet slit to his mouth, her lips wrapping the head of his dick, hand firmly around the base-where had she learned this aggression? Then her tongue was firmly sliding up the base of his cock and he was lapping up the wetness flowing from her, and such thoughts were moot.

The lights had not come on. The sex, given his past experience with his wife, should have been quick and fierce, but it was extended and exhausting. In the end, for the first time in his memory, they came together. She collapsed abruptly on his chest as he lay winded, feeling almost faint from the exertions. They did not, could not speak. Soon he sensed a steadiness in her breathing. Not long after that his own evened out and he was asleep.

The singing awakened him. She sat astride him again, bucking hard. �Oh, God, babe�� he moaned. Where was that singing coming from? It was the same as the other night. Yet he felt so awake, so hard, as his wife in her newfound insatiability rhythmically pumped away. He wondered if he was having some sort of half-awake dream.

�Babe�� she had a very fast rhythm going, and was working herself toward orgasm-he could tell by her breathing. He felt his own muscles tense and waves of pleasure mounting. He wondered how long he�d been asleep as she fucked him this way. But that singing�it wasn�t dissipating, fading. �Babe�what-�

She responded with a soft �shhhh�.� As if her were disturbing her concentration. The voice trilled away. In spite of the urgency of his body and the intensity of her passion he saw in his mind�s eye the vision from his nightmare-the horribly tall wraith clothed in whirling leaves.

�No-� he rasped-

�Shhhh�.� She laid a finger across his lips, her rhythm unbroken.

�Ah-Ahhhhh�.�

As if he had no control over his own body he came again, hard-she firmly dug fingertips into his shoulders and her hips commenced their own arrhythmic bucking, thrumming with what seemed to be a protracted, powerful orgasm.

The singing climbed up a strange, occidental scale and seemed to reach a climax of it�s own.

She fell again to his chest, but this time he sensed in the dark a pulsing wakefulness in her.

�Didn�t�� he gasped, ��you hear that?�

There was a long silence. She pushed herself up-the dark was so thick here in this part of the house he could just make out the planes of her face. The high cheekbones, finely wrought nose� �Yes, I hear it.�

Something inside Don shrank horribly. He had thought for a moment that the singing was gone. Now he realized it was only at a lull. �Who��

�You could call me Nahemah. Or Lilin.� She hissed. The high cheekbones, barely visible in the dark, were not his wife�s. �Men have called me many things.�

He wanted to scream, to hurl her off of him and run. But he could not move. As if stung by a great spider, and now paralyzed in her web.

�Some call me the succubus�.�

Don heard another sound-a low, dying moan. It was coming from his throat. It seemed very distant, removed from him.

�And that beautiful singing you hear, love�that�s my sister.�

The sharp-nailed hands on his shoulders dug in, sending hideous red spikes of pain through him. A tinier version of himself deep within retreated further and further from what was happening. He opened his mouth but only a hiss of air escaped.

�I recall from reading one of your profiles that you always wanted to do a three way.�

The most horrible realizations were his last. The singing had grown much louder now-his eyes saw these things; the eyes of the creature astride his hips had begun to glow a swamp gas green�.and in his vision, upside down, above him, there was the face of the banshee.

It was lowering toward his, the horrible unearthly trilling seeming to obliterate all thought. It was lowering slowly, and with each inch, the hideous long mouth widened�until all was the deepest black imaginable.

Until all was pain.