So each brother took his turn, giving her pleasures she had not imagined the body capable of reaching. She lay there in the morning, stretching and feeling the aches in places that she did not realize she had muscles to react. But the brothers were gone. She was brokenhearted, but kept the night of wanton love her secret until she missed a couple of her monthly turns. She finally told her mother about the man who had loved her so many times in one night.
* * * *
The witch had gone to the location and, using magic, had grown angrier and angrier as she heard about four brothers waiting their turns outside the bedroom door. When her daughter heard that she had been taken by four men, not one, she was devastated. The witch and her daughter made the trip to the shire stone stronghold of the father to confront him.
The large stonewalls were covered by leaning, rough-hewn buildings, as locals had found safe lodging under the protection of the soldiers of the Lord of the Shire. Soldiers walked the wide walls constantly, looking outward at the fields and the distant forest. Many years ago, a wise head had removed the shield of the trees a measure to ensure the enemy could not come close undetected. The muddy road that led to the wide and tall opening in the high wall was protected by alert guards even though many local tradespeople were coming and going.
Everyone stepped aside for the witch and her barefoot daughter. The witch’s necklaces of herbs and magic stones marked her for what she was. The fact was she dressed as a witch, a ragged scarf not quite holding back her scraggly grey hair, layers of dirty skirts over mismatched shoes, and a blouse that might have been white once was now spotted brown. In opposition was the barefoot daughter. She was pretty and clean with a laced up bustier and white blouse with very little dirt, worn over a full skirt that swirled around her hips that drew smiles from all the men.
The witch came to the steps leading to the main entrance of the manor and requested a speaking with the Lord. The two women stood and waited as a servant hustled inside. It was not long before he was back to take them into the presence of the head of this shire.
The witch entered with head held high and a frown that quieted the great room full of many people eating and an equal number of servants, looking only at the man at the far end of the room. Her daughter was a different story.
* * * *
The young maid was all eyes as she looked around at what to her eyes was more wealth than she had ever seen. Long tables covered with food, some of which she could not even name. Large tankards of ale at the hands of each man. Some of the tankards even looked to be of silver or gold with inlaid jewels. The floor was covered with clean rushes and felt comfortable to her feet after the cold from outside.
Her eyes shown with interest to see the long flags hanging against the high stone walls keeping the heat from the large fireplace built into one wall. The room was so large the entire building that held the little pub where she had worked could fit into it. She returned a smile to one of the soldiers at a side table, but straightened up when her mother cleared her throat. She hurried to stand beside her mother, looking up at the large handsome older man sitting above them.
She was frightened enough to sink to the floor, but since her mother stood tall and began to talk to the Lord, she remained on shaky legs and waited to find her fate.
* * * *
With a smirk on his face, the Lord of the Shire sat on his heavy carved chair and said. “I will give the girl a large dowry and find her a husband from among our local farmers. Will that satisfy you?”
The witch looked at him, seeing not shame, but actual pride. “Do that, and after my daughter is married and settled, I will return and have a short private meeting with your sons. Then the debt will be complete.”
* * * *
He agreed, thinking his sons could stand to be lectured by the angry old witch. So the young woman was married, and a local farmer was satisfied to have a pregnant wife. With her dowry, he had plenty of money for many crops for the next years to come and with a child on the way, he had a worker already started. The witch returned to talk to his sons, so he arranged a quiet room and made sure his errant sons were present.
* * * *
The witch looked at the four handsome young men with a scowl. “You four have done nothing good in your lives except to please yourselves. So I am going to make sure that you finally do something good for someone else. I am going to put a charm on each of you, and it will stay in place until you do something entirely selfless and good for someone else.” The last part of her words was said with heat and vengeance.
They looked at each other and then smiled at her. What the hell was she talking about? Some type of charm, okay, so dogs would bite or bark at them until they helped an old guy get up and fix his chair. They could do this to please this silly old witch.
She pulled out a knife. They all looked at it, as it was the most beautiful knife they all had ever seen. It looked to be gold, and the handle had a design on it with tiny gems. She looked around and walked over to pick up a cup and came to each man and told him to let her cut his thumb. She caught a few drops of each man’s blood in the cup, cut her own thumb and added her blood.
She then said something in another language and came to each man and, taking her cut thumb, she dipped it into the small amount of blood in the bottom of the cup. To the first man, she put a thumbprint on his palm and said, “Smoke.” She repeated the step to the next brother and said, “Moisture,” to the next she said, “Heat,” and to the last she said, “Cold.”
Aaron would always remember that thumbprint on his palm. He would remember her words. “You do something entirely selfless and good for someone else.” He remembered her word for him,
smoke
. Afterwards, long afterwards, he finally understood the curse. How can you do something good if you can only observe?
She put the cup down, put the knife away, and turned to leave. As she reached the door, she turned and looked at them. “May you learn.” Then she was gone.
Aaron thought, as he floated in a wisp of smoke, across the world, that he had learned so much. But he had not learned how to make smoke help someone else. Still, he remembered that first night and that first morning.
They had gone and joined their father after the old crone left, telling him what had happened. They all had a good time, eating and drinking and even wrestling in the middle of the floor before servants helped them to bed. This was a normal evening for them, too much food, too much drink and often a female for their bed from among the willing maids. This one night, he did not take a woman to bed.
He did not wake up in his bed, and he had not slept in a bed for centuries since. In all that time, learning what he could do and what he could not do, he had been unable to contact his brothers. He had gone back to his home to find it in rubble. Obviously, he had not found something entirely selfless and good that he could do for someone else. Oh, a few times he had done some good. He had also resisted doing some
bad
. Well, he had not resisted all the bad. But he was not sure exactly what the act of doing something entirely selfless and good might be.
Chapter Two
Asa wandered through the rooms of the old beach home. She had looked at it carefully before she bought it and knew it needed a lot of restoration. Her inspector had told her that the foundation and the walls and studs were in good shape, so she was looking forward to working on the house. Of course, he had also advised her against purchasing the cottage for a number of reasons. There would be a high cost for insurance since this was in a flood plain zone. He warned her that the fact that the location was close to seawater, the cottage would have to be refinished almost every year.
She was also warned about the seclusion. The house was on a point by itself since the big hurricane of a couple of years ago had pretty much either destroyed or scared off the few Texans who lived in this remote beach area. New regulations had prevented rebuilding. It made the cost of the property cheap and had left her a reasonable amount of her liquid cash to fix up the house to suit herself. This was what she needed. Someplace where she could relax and a project to keep her mind and hands busy.
The first thing she did was research the area to make sure she really did understand where she was going to live. Besides being out on an isolated point with only one road, she was pleased to discover that within a short drive, there was a small town that drew tourists. She would be able to buy food and necessities at a close location at reasonable prices. Then within a standard drive inland was a larger town built around a college. College towns offered everything anyone needed from used good stores to high priced clothing stores. College kids and their parents bought everything in all price ranges.
She was far enough from the big cities that she could still get to them, but she could forget her previous life. All of it, from the time since she had started to become a woman as a pre-teen.
So she looked forward to her new home, stopping first to pick up some last minute items. She laughed at the storeowner who helped load her boxes into her Jeep. When he found out where she was going, it left the opening he needed to come on to her. Like most men she met, he was soon hitting on her, and she shut him down fast. His comment was
he could not understand how such a beautiful, desirable woman would want to live out here by herself
. She told him about her self-defense training as well as her two guns that she kept with her. This led her to mention her training by the Austin policeman she dated on how to use them. He finally got the hint, but he did suggest the body needed other things. Little did he know, there was a time when she would have taken him up on his unsubtle offer. For most of her life, she had loved sex, enjoyed it more than most of the girls she grew up with or knew. It was that enjoyment that had put a wedge between her and any girlfriends or, face it, any male friends.
Asa really could have told him that for now she had all she wanted and needed for the body. She had been introduced at the age of fourteen, quite pleasantly, by a neighbor, to what the body could enjoy and, from then on, she felt she would never grow tired of sex. She was wrong. She had sex for years. She had it any way you could imagine. She had started out in the normal manner after the neighbor. There was a boyfriend, then a friend, and then the two of them and another girl.
Then she moved to the big city and needed money and a guy offered money if she would work in his house. Fortunately, he was a fairly good guy as pimps went, and he ran a house that was clean. He had nice girls, and they went out to local hotels. Unfortunately, there was a raid, but she got off by fucking a bunch of cops, so her record was clear.
Somewhere in there, she had an epiphany. If she were a painting, people would look at it hanging on a wall and everyone would say, “My God, what a beautiful woman.” She was not thinking this because of ego alone. She knew what great movie stars looked like, she knew who was picked the most beautiful women each year, and looking in the mirror and seeing her smiles in photos let her accept that she was beautiful. But there was something about her that drew people to her for something else. Sex.
At first, when she was young, she thought it was because she passed on a vibe that said she was easy. She began to play games, trading partners, black rooms, masks, using different perfumes and smells. She borrowed worn clothes that had the smell of others still on them. She changed the color of her hair and used makeup to change her skin color. She tanned and then bleached. She changed her eye colors so many times she lost track of how many pairs of contact lenses she had. She did not need glasses, so she had to go to special effects shops to get the contacts.
Once she had money, she paid women and eventually also some men to join in a game. A man could enter the room and look over the line up and be told that he could have sex with only one, but it would be free. Every time, she was picked. She tried it in police stations behind the line up glass. She tried it by making the girls the best looking possible and her looks disguised. They all tried different tactics to the game. The guy could win a big prize if he would take the right girl out on a date. Then the guy asked
the
question
. “Can I have sex with her?” If they said no, he picked her. If they said yes, he picked her. When asked why he picked her when the answer to sex had been no, he would reply that he hoped he could talk her into sex later.
She soon discovered that it was women also. Men and women of all ages wanted to fuck her. At first, that was good. But eventually she came to realize no one saw her as a person. They did not really see her beauty or her personality or the woman inside.
She had danced in men’s clubs, and, because she was so popular, the boss had to have a bodyguard when she was on stage. Eventually, she had met a woman who ran a BDSM club, and she went to it several times. The woman hired her to wear leather and flog men. In the BDSM world, there was the interest of Doms in both male and female roles. But to have a Dominatrix that was unusually beautiful, and petite with eyes and lips that drew all the men and women that walked into the club, well, that added up to a very popular and always in demand lady.
So she flogged men until they climaxed. She took the thin whips to women who could afford her, and she brought them to ecstatic climaxes. In the meantime, for huge prices that got bigger and bigger, she had been fucked in every way women could with as many men as could get around her. Sometimes there were women involved, and she often returned the favors for both the men and the women. She had always felt that there was the upside and the downside. She liked sex better than most, and she regretted that no one wanted more from her than sex.