by N. P. Martin
And then she spoke, breaking the spell somewhat. "Come," she said in a soft voice that still carried the hint of desire in it. "Follow me to the cottage. I will fix those ribs of yours." She smiled, light dancing in her eyes as I continued to look into them like I didn't have a choice. "Then we can talk."
That last sentence felt as if it contained a hidden promise. A promise of what, though, I wasn't sure.
But I knew I would soon find out.
14
Bewitched
The inside of the cottage was even more quaint than the outside if that was possible. The rooms were cozy yet spacious, with dark wooden beams everywhere and slightly yellowed walls of traditional lime plaster. Scents of herbs and what smelled like game cooking filled the place, a scent that tickled my taste buds as I walked into the kitchen behind Margot Celeste.
By that stage, my reasons for being there had all but slipped to the back of my mind somewhere. I knew they were there, but they were just like vaguely distracting thoughts that were unimportant when compared to the thoughts inspired by Margot Celeste's natural beauty and almost breathtaking spirit. Every time she looked at me with those mysterious gray eyes of hers, I found myself pulled in by her stare and intensely interested in the experiences that had given her eyes such mystery and depth.
Margot Celeste had clearly been through a lot in her life. She had experienced great pain and suffering, of that I had no doubt. Speaking as one who had endured such things myself over the years, I could always spot a fellow lost soul. One who still questions their place in the universe, despite everything they have seen and been through that demonstrated they probably didn't have a place at all, and that the universe didn't give two shits about them. In fact, the universe had bluntly demonstrated through means of pain and suffering that nothing really meant anything, and that shit just happened. Yet people like myself and Margot Celeste still chose to cling to the notion that there was some meaning behind their existence, something that would eventually bring true peace. Apart from death, that is.
"I can hear your thoughts," Margot said as she gestured for me to sit down at a table that looked like it had been carved from the trunk of an ancient tree, and which I noticed had many Glyphs inscribed into it. "You think we are the same."
I gave a small laugh as I sat down in a chair with a back made of woven reeds. "Not exactly the same. I'm not wanted by an Underworld demon for a start."
She smiled as she brought two glasses and what looked like a bottle of whiskey to the table, setting them down as she took a seat. Then she proceeded to half fill the two glasses. "And now we get to your real reason for being here. Baal sent you. Tell me." She pushed one of the glasses towards me and then lifted her own. "What did you do to end up in his service?"
"I summoned him." Lifting the glass, I downed the contents in one without even considering that it might be poisoned.
Margot shook her head like she wasn't that surprised. "Of course you did."
"I had my reasons."
She snorted slightly as she refilled my glass. "Of course you did."
A frown suddenly crept over my face as I realized something. "Why haven't you killed me yet?" I said it casually as if it was some inane question like, "Where did you get that dress?"
Her eyes focused on me a moment. Then she looked away. "I haven't killed anything in a long time."
It was my turn to stare as things were not adding up in my mind. It almost felt like I was on drugs, and that I was subtly mind controlled. "Did you drug me? Or spell me?"
She formed a tight smile before answering. "In a way. I've warded this place against feelings of anger or aggression. You may want to try and take me away, but you won't be able to. I wouldn't advise it anyway. At least not without your magick, which you don't have access to in here. Is that what you planned on doing? Forcibly taking me to Baal so he could take me to the Underworld with him?"
I thought for a moment, then shrugged like none of it mattered. "Truthfully, I didn't have a plan. I figured something would present itself when I found you. I wasn't expecting any of this. I wasn't expecting...you."
"You thought I would be some vicious old hag? Or cold hearted bitch?"
"I can see you are neither of those things. Which is disconcerting to me because now I'm even more confused as to why Baal wants you so badly."
"I think the better question is, why do you want me so badly?"
I almost blushed, which isn't like me. But she was so overpoweringly captivating that I couldn't help it. "It's a case of my soul or yours. Simple math."
"Not that simple. Aren't you forgetting your girlfriend?" She focused on me a second as she read my mind again. "Leona. Leona Lawson."
It shamed me to say that I had completely forgotten about Leona since entering into the witch's kingdom. I will hold up my hands, however, and say that Margot Celeste didn't leave me much choice. Whether she meant to or not, she had me completely bewitched. And without magick to counter her enchantments, there wasn't much I could do about it.
I bit my bottom lip and looked at the floor for a moment. "Leona is the main reason I'm here."
She seemed to look into me again, and then her mouth dropped open slightly, and she looked away, picking up her whiskey glass and holding it there. "Your love for her is powerful," she said, before emptying her glass.
For the first time, I saw some level of bitterness in her that was deep-seated and which obviously had a powerful hold on her, despite her obvious attempts to mask it with all those layers of peace and serenity that she had created around herself. I felt sorry for her then because she had obviously been wronged in the past by someone. Maybe not Baal, but someone else. Something had happened to her that she had never been able to get over. Which was something I knew a little about of course, what with the slaughter of my family all those years ago. "Leona is probably more than I deserve," I said eventually, hinting to Margot that I had some sense of her pain. "I'm lucky to have her in my life."
"But she's not around, is she?" It was a slightly loaded question, maybe designed to piss me off or get at me on some level, I don't know. Her eyes narrowed, and I saw something in her that was dark and formidable, devious and cold-hearted. "She doesn't love you as much as you love her, does she?"
I shook my head. "Why would you say that? Not that it's any of your concern."
She stared hard at me for a second and then smiled, the darkness now gone from her face, the mask of serenity having been slipped back on. "Forget it," she said.
Which of course, I couldn't. There was no doubt she had hit a nerve in me, stirred up my insecurities. Or maybe that was the point. It was hard to tell.
An uncomfortable silence descended in the room. When I looked out the window, I saw it was dark outside. "You did that?" I said, nodding at the window.
She looked almost embarrassed. "I've seen enough sun for one day."
I sighed as I sat back in my chair. "So," I said. "I'm here. You're here. What are we going to do? Obviously, I can't take you to Baal, which means you now have to help me figure out a way to take him off the board before he chops the head of my queen."
She shook her head at my sloppy chess analogy. "Against my better judgment, I find myself liking you, Creed."
"I have that effect on people."
"That's bullshit, of course."
I couldn't help smiling. "And you're right, of course. I'm just good at being a pain in the ass until I get what I want."
"And what is it you want now?"
Our eyes met, and we held each other's stares for a long moment, during which all sorts of delicious desires were stirred up in me. If the situation didn't happen to be so life and death (for Leona especially, you know, the woman I love), I would have found it near impossible to resist her. On her part, she was just being her naturally attractive self. I also suspected she hadn't seen anyone in a long time, at least no one she wanted to fuck. Witch or not, she was still human. As was I and my semi-erect cock. "I think maybe you know the answer to that q
uestion," I said. "And I think you also know that I--"
She raised a hand, and my words were cut short, though not through my own volition. "Stand up," she ordered, and I found myself doing exactly as she commanded, totally against my will.
"What are you--"
She raised her hand again as she stood up and then came towards me, her eyes on me as she started brushing her unpainted lips over mine. Her breath, the feel, and smell of her skin was overwhelming as I closed my eyes for a second, still unable to speak.
Is she really doing this? I thought. She can't do this to me. It's unfair and its--
I could barely think anymore as my desire and a tingling warmth settled inside me, blocking everything else out.
"Turn around," she said in a husky commanding tone. "Walk to the bedroom."
Again, I had no way to resist her, either through words or actions. She had complete control over me. Worse still, I found myself liking the fact that she had total control over me. I couldn't deny the perverse sort of pleasure I was getting from the situation as I turned around and began walking out of the kitchen and down the hallway to where I assumed the bedroom was.
"Turn left." Her voice was close to my ear, still with the slightly urgent sounding husky tones.
As I turned left, I tried very hard to resist going into that bedroom. Despite my overwhelming desires, a part of me was still shouting out the wrongness of what was about to happen, of what was happening.
But my resistance was pointless because the situation was happening whether I wanted it to or not. And if I'm honest, I wanted it to.
I go on intuition a lot. Sometimes I know things have to play out in a certain way, even if it doesn't make much sense to me at the time, or if the situation seems wrong, but feels right. This was one of those times. My mind was screaming it was all wrong, but a more powerful force continued to guide me into it because it was somehow also the right thing to do. If I wanted the witch's help in taking down Baal (and saving Leona), she had to get what she wanted first.
And what she wanted right then was me.
As I walked into the bedroom, I heard her close the door behind her. The bed was large with an intricately carved headboard and white silk sheets. The light was on in the room, dimmed to a low level. Margot stood leaning against the door for a moment as she stared at me with a kind of playful hunger in her eyes, which now seemed much darker in the low light. "Take off your clothes," she said.
I proceeded to do as she asked as I was still under her influence. As I took my trench coat off and threw it on the floor, I wondered if she were using magick on me because she was worried I wouldn't play with her. I still wasn't sure myself what I would do if she suddenly released me from her spell. Would I gather my clothes up and walk out of the bedroom? Or would I stay?
A moment later, I was standing completely naked in front of her. Walking slowly forwards, she seemed to take in every square inch of me. "Like what you see?" I asked, surprised I could speak.
She came close to me and started running her hands over my chest, tracing her fingers around the edges of my tattoos, feeling the scars she came across. The carnal delight was evident in her smile. "Your body tells of many stories."
I barely nodded as I couldn't help staring at her face. At the beauty of it, and the mystery that lay beneath. I wanted her so bad it hurt.
Then she started to plant gentle kisses on me, moving across my chest, looking up at me as she moved lower down my abdomen, her fingernails raking lightly across my lower back, then grabbing my buttocks as she dropped lower, planting her kisses around the tops of my thighs, her soft blonde hair tickling my skin as she did so.
A shuttering breath left me as her lips made contact with my throbbing cock. There was no turning back now, even if I'd wanted to. Which I didn't by that point. Absolutely fucking not.
Margot spent long moments running her deliciously soft lips all over my cock, occasionally licking me with her tongue which would invariably cause me to gasp with overwhelming pleasure.
When she finally stood up again, she smiled before kissing me, not fully committing, but teasingly. "Take off my dress," she whispered as she turned around.
With slightly shaking hands, I unzipped the dress she was wearing and then watched it slide down over her pale skin and onto the floor, delighted to see that she was wearing nothing underneath. She took a few steps forward then, and my eyes took in the exquisite curve of her lower back and her perfectly shaped ass. Then she turned around slowly, completely comfortable with her nakedness. "You like what you see, Creed?"
"You know I do."
She smiled and came forward again, her hands pushing against my chest as she moved me back onto the bed and then stood over me as she started swaying slightly from side to side, rubbing her hands over perfectly formed breasts, which looked bigger and fuller than they did when she wore the dress. Surprisingly for a witch, she had no tattoos, unless she had removed them at some stage. There were scars, though, the biggest of which was across her flat stomach. It looked like a sharp blade had cut into her once.
I was about to ask about the scar when she came forward and leaned over me with her hands on the bed. Again, she started to kiss her way down my body, but more hungrily than before until she finally grabbed my cock and engulfed it in her mouth. "Oh, Jesus!" I gasped, closing my eyes and tilting my head back against the pillow.
Then I felt her kiss me on the mouth, which I instantly responded to for a few seconds before I realized what was happening was impossible as I could still feel her between my legs. When the kissing stopped, I opened my eyes to see her standing over me smiling. But she was also still going down on me with increasing passion. "What the...how are--"
The Margot nearest to me put a finger to my lips to stop me talking. "Don't think," she whispered as the light danced in her eyes. "Just feel."
Who was I to argue?
15
The Making Of A Witch
The sex seemed to last an eternity. It was incredible. At one point, there was six Margot's around me, all devouring my body at once like a pack of hungry wolves. I had never felt anything like it. By the end, when I was moving on top of her, there was just one of her, and she screamed and dug her fingernails into my back as she came for the umpteenth time. After that, we fell asleep in each other's arms.
When I next awoke, I found her gone, but she soon returned, still naked, bearing a tray containing bowls of fresh fruit and, I was glad to see, coffee. The serene smile never left her face as she placed the tray on my lap and slid into bed again beside me. "This looks great," I said. "Thank you."
Margot turned on her side and leaned her head against her hand as she picked at the fruit with her other hand. She said nothing for a while as she just seemed to watch me sip at the coffee in between eating pieces of fruit. I was as relaxed as I'd been in a long while like the outside world didn't matter anymore.
"Thank you," Margot said after a while, her eyes sparkling.
"What for?" I asked. "There were six of you at one point, only one of me. I think I got the better end of the deal there. Neat trick, by the way."
She laughed softly. "I'm thanking you because it's been a long time since I lay with anyone."
I realized then that she was lonely. That she had always been lonely, even before hiding herself away inside the little kingdom she had built for herself. A silence soon settled between us for a while, and I inevitably began to think about the outside world again, and all the problems that came along with it.
And Leona, who was probably in New York wondering why she couldn't get a hold of me.
If she was trying to call me at all.
A bit unfair of me to think perhaps. She was just busy doing her job after all.
"You're conflicted," Margot said.
I nodded. "You blame me?"
She sat up then. "You don't have to be."
Shaking my head, I couldn't help laughing at my situation, and at the way, things had turned out. "Jesus,"
I said. "Things were not supposed to work out like this. This isn't..."
"How you envisioned things going? Come on, Creed. Surely you aren't that naive. Nothing ever goes to plan, does it? Things work out the way they are supposed to, not the way you want them to."
"So tell me." I pushed the tray down to the bottom of the bed but kept the coffee in my hand. "Do you think your situation has worked out the way it was supposed to? Are you happy hiding out here in these woods, inside this little kingdom you've constructed with your magick?"
Something dark flashed in Margot Celeste's eyes as she stared at me. "I'm just surviving," she said eventually as she looked away. "Like you, Creed. Like everyone. What else is there?"
"Maybe, but you don't have to be alone while you do it. Believe me, I know."
"Baal has left me no choice."
"There's always a choice, Margot."
Her chest heaved as she snorted. "How right you are. There is always a choice, isn't there?"
I could detect the bitterness in her voice as she pulled the sheets up over herself, covering her nakedness. Which I was partly glad for because I found it to be very distracting indeed. "Alright," I said, reaching over to a little bedside table and setting my empty coffee cup there before turning back to her. "I think it's time you told me how you ended up here. Then maybe we can figure a way out of it."
She seemed to consider for a moment, then sighed. "Okay. I'll tell you how I got here. But I'm telling you now there's no way I'm going anywhere. And for that matter, neither are you, Creed. Not if you're smart."
"We'll see about that," I said. "Just start talking."
Margot ended up talking for a good few hours, pouring out most of her life story, which as I suspected, was pretty harrowing stuff at times. I'll do my best to give you the short version here.
Margot Celeste was born in Blackham City and was orphaned at a young age when both her parents were killed in a freak car accident. No one knew what happened at the time. Her parent's car seemed to go off the road for no reason, hitting a tree and killing both her parents stone dead. Margot was five years old when this happened. She had no family on her father's side, and her aunt on her mother's side refused to take Margot in for reasons that Margot didn't go into, except to say that her Aunt was a total bitch and she hated her. She also intimated that said Aunt got what was coming to her years later, though again Margot didn't go into detail on this. I guessed, though that Margot used her later powers as a witch to take revenge on the woman.
