“Of course, dear.” A wizened old woman waved Josh inside, then he reappeared a minute later.
“Thanks, Mrs. Friple. You’re the best,” Josh said.
“Anytime, dear.”
Josh rubbed his hands together. “Okay. Let’s see if we can figure out what happened.”
“Could it be something Alimeina did?” Leanne asked.
“I’d put money on it. She said her sink was clogged, right? And Harry was going to help.” Josh sighed. “I bet she was dumping her magical hair dye down the sink again. That stuff is banned on twelve planes of reality for a reason.” He rubbed his temples. “The woman is a menace.”
“Do you think they’re okay?”
“Leanne, she’s a fae and he’s a super werewolf. They’ll be fine. I’m more worried about my house, honestly.”
Leanne was still staring at the empty space where the house had been. Stupid Harry. He can’t be just a normal werewolf, he has to be “super” one. Can’t he stop overachieving just once in his life?
“Where do you think they are?” she asked.
“They’re probably somewhere in Fairy. Sooner or later, someone will notice the house and send them back here.”
“Why?”
“Because they don’t want to deal with Alimeina.”
“We should go after them,” Leanne said. She sort of hoped that Josh would tell her that it was impossible, that all they could do was wait, and she could feel noble because she’d at least put on a show of trying.
Instead, he squared his shoulders and said, “I guess you’re right.” He smiled down at her. “Getting dinner first wasn’t a very noble impulse, and I’m sorry. It’s just been a long time since I’ve had a date, and I didn’t want to let anything mess it up.”
He looked so…heroic. Leanne’s heart fluttered. “Don’t worry. We’re going together, right? So it’ll be like a date, but with added adventure. And we can look forward to dinner when we get back.”
“I’m really excited about those brownies,” Josh twined his fingers through hers. “Let’s do this.”
LEANNE RETCHED, AGAIN. Josh held her hair and rubbed her back, carefully keeping his shoes out of range. “This sucks,” Leanne moaned.
“Interplanar travel just doesn’t agree with some people,” Josh said.
This is all Harry’s fault. “I think I might be dying.”
“It’ll pass in a few minutes,” Josh said.
“That’s what you said a few minutes ago.”
“I guess it’s a good thing that we didn’t eat first.”
“Oh, please don’t mention food.” Leanne’s tongue felt like the inside of a used athletic shoe.
Josh handed her a bottle of water, and she took a cautious sip.
He stood up on his tiptoes and looked around. “I can see the house from here. We’ll go and check on your brother and see if we can get him back home.”
The house appeared unharmed, but it looked out of place in the middle of a flower-filled clearing. Butterflies fluttered through the air, and bees buzzed lazily around the blossoms.
Josh knocked on the downstairs door. “Alimeina? Harry?” After a moment, he pushed the door open. “Is anyone there?”
The house was oddly quiet. Then a crash broke the silence. Leanne nearly had a heart attack, and Josh rushed toward the sound, shouldering his crossbow. He kicked open a door, then grabbed it and slammed it shut again. He leaned against it. His cheeks were dark. “They’re fine.”
Leanne blinked. “They’re having sex, aren’t they?” We’re in Fairy. Maybe I can light Harry on fire with my mind.
“Yep.”
“Let’s get out of here.”
“Good idea.” They stood on the porch and watched the butterflies for a minute.
“So, if he changes into a werewolf, will Alimeina be okay?” Leanne asked.
“I don’t think night comes to this field,” Josh said.
Then there was another muffled sound from inside, and they both bolted into the field. Leanne glanced over at Josh. He was still blushing. I bet this is the worst first date he’s ever had.
He reached out and took her hand. “Come on. There’s something I want to show you.”
They hiked in silence for a while. Josh’s hand got a little sweaty, but Leanne didn’t mind.
They emerged into another clearing. This one was lit by moonlight. “When did it get to be dark?” Leanne asked.
Josh shrugged. “Fairy. Things don’t have to make sense. Look.”
Fireflies twinkled from among the trees and in the tall grass. It was lovely. Then a unicorn sauntered into the field. It glowed in the moonlight. Leanne’s breath caught. “Wow,” she whispered. “That’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
Josh brushed a stray hair away from Leanne’s cheek. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” He kissed her.
That was smooth, Leanne thought as his lips covered hers. It was a very good kiss.
The unicorn whickered and muttered, “Get a room.”
Leanne laughed till she couldn’t breathe.
They ended up having dinner at Leanne’s place. Josh’s house didn’t reappear for almost a week. Harry missed Thanksgiving. Leanne’s mom was furious with him, and her dad really liked Josh. It was the best holiday ever.
ONE-HAND TANTRA
Ferrett Steinmetz
“The path of most wizards is solitary,” Loefwyn’s father had told him when his power had first manifested itself. “Your path, my dearest and only child, is more solitary still.”
To this day, Loefwyn wished he had never become a masturbatician.
As his father had promised, Loefwyn’s singular sex magic had given him a decent living. He’d just scraped up enough cash to build the obligatory wizard’s tower, a ribbed rock column jutting up to advertise his unique talents. Masturbaticians were rare, effective ones even more so…and both Loefwyn and his spells were potent indeed. Intrigued merchants dropped by to witness the town’s newest oddity—even as they hesitated to shake his hand.
Now, royalty—minor, vicious royalty, but royalty still—had hired him. Enspell Griselda the One-Eyed, and Loefwyn’s success was all but guaranteed.
Loefwyn prepared the tubs of raw oysters and ground rhino horns, trying to muster enthusiasm for this assignment. For all its power, he thought, masturbancy was a life devoid of a woman’s touch. Or a man’s touch. Or even—a disturbing remnant from an assignment Loefwyn had tried very hard to forget—an elephant’s touch. His onanistic power allowed him to plant seeds of ideas in any person’s mind—as long as they were in his thoughts at the moment of climax, his thoughts would be in them.
He didn’t like inflicting desires upon others; sometimes people were driven mad by the thoughts he implanted in them. And today’s spell would be the greatest test of his talents, upon an innocent woman.
Masturbancy was a young man’s game, yet even the horniest teenager would be hard-pressed to fantasize about Griselda the One-Eyed: wealthy merchant, well-beloved socialite, ugly as a manure-spreader’s boot. No one was quite sure of her age, but her wrinkled jowls made everyone certain she wasn’t long for this world. A local baron was willing to pay Loefwyn handsomely for implanting the idea that he was worthy of her inheritance.
Loefwyn didn’t like Baron Gustavo much. The man stank of war, smoke, and blood. Whereas Loefwyn had been invited to Lady Griselda’s house, once, and found her an absolutely amazing woman trapped in a horrid body. The lady was aware of her unformed eyeball’s unsettling pucker, and so wore a veil to keep guests at ease—though her hairy chins, white and bristly as maggots, spilled out from underneath the veil in flabby waves.
She’d sat by his side as though he were a fellow nobleman, asking all sorts of intelligent questions about his magic, never embarrassed by his answers. She made him feel not like a freak on display, but a man with marvelous talents to be envied. She was clever, and witty, and despite her ghastly features he’d have gladly sat by
her side any night.
He wished Griselda had hired him…but the baron had offered first. And if a masturbatician couldn’t be discreet, who could?
With a sigh, Loefwyn settled into the cushions, reaching for his warming unguents. He squinted at the many engravings of Griselda’s hideous face, tacked all along his walls, Griselda’s toothless smile beamed down upon him encouragingly—he began to work his power…
The door slammed open.
“Is that really the grip for the task?” his father asked, sandwich in hand. “I know, I know, your job, your choice—but that finger configuration completely ignores the glans. I’m telling you, son: perfect the circle-and-thumb technique, and you’re in heaven in a heartbeat.”
Loefwyn covered himself with a loofah. “I’ve told you a thousand times, Dad, you can’t just walk in when I’m doing sorcery…”
Dad flicked his fingers dismissively. “And I’ve told you a thousand times, if me in the room throws you off your game, you’re not worthy of the name ‘onanist.’”
It was true. Masturbancy meant becoming aroused by the unthinkable: pockmarked dukes, wives gone to seed, tragically inbred heirs. You had to lose yourself in the fantasy, shutting all else out. Once, in an assassination plot to remove an evil nobleman, Loefwyn had managed to pleasure himself to a war elephant—though for months afterwards, he was tormented by thoughts of wet, snuffling snouts.
“I can masturbate in the presence of an army,” Loefwyn said stiffly. “That does not make it normal.”
“You’re in this business and hoping for normal? Look down, son! That’s the world you hold in the palm of your hand! Back in my day, merchants handed me carpets, castles, spices. Why wait for men to hire you? You could have—well, anything you wanted.”
“I want to leave people’s lives intact!”
His father had given up the pink to sire a son—father had always wanted an heir to carry on the family tradition—but then he pissed away his fortune, and without magic he had no way to regain it. Loefwyn had grown up in the wreckage of the towns his father had ruined, hearing variants on the same sad tales: the weaver who’d devoted three years to a magnificent tapestry, and didn’t even know the name of the man he’d given it to. The spice merchant who’d sold his life’s wares for a penny, and now begged for coin next to Loefwyn.
Loefwyn had failed at every career: barrelmaking, blacksmithery, vintner. Masturbation was all he’d excelled at; it was that or starve. So he had vowed to use his powers, but only in the service of others—he would be nothing more than an arrow, fired from an expensive bow.
An arrow aimed straight at Griselda’s kindness.
Father winced as he examined Griselda’s portraits. “You can’t keep your hands clean in this line of work. But whatever. Ignore the man with decades of experience. Though whoo—you are gonna need every bit of help with that. Her face is like a rotting jack-o’-lantern.”
“She’s nice, Dad.”
“They usually are.” He bit into his sandwich. “So what’s your strategy here? Me, I’d think about those toothless gums. I always say, if the face would scare gargoyles, then think about the top of their head as they work on—well, you know. Though, guh, that bald spot’s a wilt-maker…”
“I’ll be concentrating on her personality.”
Father clapped him on the shoulder. “Now that’s a gutsy tactic only a kid could pull off! Oh, back when I was young and cocky, I could fire off six, seven spells a day. I was the quickest spell-slinger in history! I’d use timers. The bell would ring, and two minutes later, that girl was ensorcelled. Once, I even got the job done in fifty-four seconds…”
Ever since dad had given up power, he’d become obsessed with recounting his glory days. Loefwyn pushed him towards the exit. “And this spell is something I need to do alone.”
“Okay, but don’t get distracted!” his father yelled as Loefwyn barred the door. “Remember the baron!”
Loefwyn laid down, closing his eyes; how could he forget the baron? The local nobility gossiped voraciously. Fail at this task, and he’d never work in this town again.
As he slathered his body in ointments, Loefwyn envisioned Lady Griselda.
He tried to think of her hands upon him, but was distracted by memories of her liver spots. He thought of her mouth, but the two rotting teeth dangling in her gums made him shudder.
So he concentrated on her voice.
Griselda’s voice was raspy, aged—but confident. He envisioned Griselda, next to him on the cushions, telling him what body parts he should stroke next. He pictured himself working at her command, every slippery touch on his body at her direction, and found the magic swelling inside him.
He writhed on the soft cushions. He’d touched himself a thousand times to thoughts of others pleasuring him, but this giving of himself? Was new. And he felt himself unable to stop as he envisioned Lady Griselda mirroring his movements, pleased by his magic and not revulsed like all the others. He imagined orders interrupted by soft moans.
He knew he should say something. Something about the baron. But all he could cry at the moment of climax was “Oh, baby, do it for me, do it for me!”
When he was done, he was shamed. Losing yourself in pleasure was a novitiate’s error—and dad had warned him not to get distracted.
He could always cast another spell. But, he thought, going limp, he would not cast again today.
Loefwyn snored blissfully, deep in sleep.
“IT’S BEEN TWO WEEKS since I hired you, and you’re getting a manicure?” the baron thundered.
“I have but two tools of my trade.” Loefwyn lifted his fingers briefly from the bowl of softening gel to demonstrate. Next to him, an hourglass counted down the minutes until he was to remove his hand. “It is in my best interests to keep this one baby-smooth.”
The baron glowered, his guards standing behind him. He’d come to power in a series of bloody battles; his fingers twitched with fury.
“You should be working on entrancing Lady G—“ One of his guards coughed conspicuously, glancing towards Loefwyn’s manicurist and her assistants. “On our target. Not lying around like a woman, with whores tending your hands.”
“I have been working,” Loefwyn protested. “Every night, I’ve been…spellcasting.” He kept losing control, forgetting to mutter the words “The baron is your perfect heir” at the moment of climax. There was something about Griselda’s voice that was driving him mad, far madder than the elephant ever had…
“No wonder you’ve accomplished nothing!” The baron grabbed the bowl and flung it at the wall, causing the manicurists to squeal and hide in the corners. “You’re more concerned with hiring strumpets than working magic!”
Loefwyn squeezed his manicurist’s shoulder. “Marjoram, would you excuse us?” She scurried from the room gladly, taking her assistants with her.
“All right,” Loefwyn said, bristling. “First off, you do not call Marjoram a whore. She’s a friend of mine.”
The baron shrugged. “She tends to your hands. I assume she also tends to your other needs. Which would explain your dawdling…”
“You don’t know much about masturbancy, do you?”
“I’ve never needed to explore myself. The ladies do that for me.” His guards guffawed.
“Because if you knew the art,” Loefwyn continued, “You’d know the first time I couple with a woman is my last time. I get one orgasm with someone else. Afterwards…a lifetime of impotency.” Which explains why Father has become so obsessed with my work, Loefwyn thought guiltily.
The Baron guffawed. “So you’re a virgin?”
Loefwyn blushed. “Yes.”
The baron rolled his eyes, “Oh, what a fine mage I have hired! Look, fistomancer, I don’t care about the details of your craft. I care about my debts. She needs to name me heir, and soon, so my other operatives can do their work.”
“What work?”
“Don’t be foolish,” the baron scoffed. “She looks half-rotted alre
ady, but only a dolt would think that old bitch would go easily.”
“So you’re going to kill her?”
“The less you know, mage, the better.”
“I know I don’t want to be responsible for her death.”
The baron snorted. “Take him.”
The two guards grabbed Loefwyn’s arms. The baron punched him hard in the stomach.
“Should she die without naming me heir,” the baron growled, “I will own nothing but the loyalty of my personal guard…the remainder of which I will march upon your pitiful keep. I will slit your father’s throat and make you watch as my men do things to that slit. Do you understand?”
Loefwyn trembled. “I understand.”
The baron nodded. His guards released Loefwyn, rubbing their hands in disgust on the manicurist’s towels. “I expect to see Griselda courting my favor by the end of today.”
Loefwyn shrugged off his robe. “Why wait that long, Sire?”
“…what are you doing?” the baron asked, wrinkling his nose.
Loefwyn chuckled as he turned the hourglass over. “Surely, a strong lord like you isn’t afraid to watch a little magic. Don’t you want to see Lady Griselda’s downfall yourself?”
“I don’t need to see your…magic.”
“Quite understandable,” Loefwyn replied, lathering up before taking a firm grip. “Many mortals are afraid to witness spellcraft, uh…first-hand.”
“I am not—”
“Particularly my specialty,” Loefwyn continued. “Many uncertain men quake in terror of watching my rituals, lest they question their love of women. It’s common, I assure you.” He began to work in earnest, his gaze set challengingly upon the baron.
“Don’t you look at me.” The Baron motioned his guards to stay. Then, whispering: “If he fails, cut his head off.”
Grinning, his men inched their swords from their scabbards. Loefwyn mirrored the motion.
“Oh, yes,” he moaned. “Haul out those big, thick swords. Show me how badly you’ll screw me over. Oh, yes, your spite feels so good…”
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