Shadow Girl (19 page)

‘“But I want to learn more,” I would say. “I want to be your best student. Your star pupil. I want to be your right arm and your left. I want to learn the dark stuff too.”

‘And then I would let the gentle midday breeze part my dress and, with absent eyes, trace little figures upon my thigh, higher and higher, feigning a sudden need to practise some runes I'd learned. He resisted as much as he could. “Not the black magic,” he would say. “That is not for you. You know enough. You know too much.” And he'd bring his lips close to my neck and try to kiss me but I would hold him off with a sigh and skip away with a saucy look and a roll of my hips. And I would ask him again the next day. “Teach me the spells to enslave and kill.” Still he'd resist, so every day I'd draw up my dress a little higher. Reveal a little more cleavage. Toss my hair a little more rakishly.

‘And then late one sunny afternoon I asked him to unlace me. I was too hot, I said, and needed a dip in the cool waters of the lake. I could feel his fingers trembling as he fumbled for the laces at my back. And when at last my dress dropped to my feet, I gave him my most impish, flirtatious smile and made my way to the water.

‘“I know what you're doing,” he said, his eyes planted on my rear. “Do not think I do not know what you're doing.”

‘“Of course you do, my lord,” I replied, looking back from the water's edge. “You once told me you could see through a woman's wiles and I'm sure you've seen through mine from the start. But I think you're enjoying this. I think you want me to keep weaving my web. To keep binding you with my looks and my whispers and my fluid curves. And I think you've gone too far to save yourself.”

‘He looked away. At that instant, I knew for sure he was mine. Mine to lead by the tip of his beard like a slavish old fool. Mine to twist like a wheat stalk around each of my fingers in turn. I could plunder his mind as I wished. I could bleed him dry, squeeze every last drop of magic from him. He could not refuse me anything. He could not deny me the dark arts. He was hooked, not quite fair and not quite square, but hey, who cared? And so, he began to teach me the forbidden lore. I was ecstatic. I had won. I would become as powerful as he was. More powerful, since I had him eating out of my hand. Every day, with a flutter of my lashes and a promise of something more, I would coax another black-as-soot sortilege from him — how to speak the raven tongue, how to get wolves to do your bidding, how to change into a snake or kill a man in his sleep, how to turn a lover into a gibbering mess.

‘But as he parted with his sorcery, something strange was happening. It was hardly noticeable at first. Just a deep crack in his cheek that seemed to have softened. Crow's feet around his eyes that appeared to have mellowed. And then I could not doubt it anymore. His beard was getting shorter, his hair darker, his skin tighter, his nose firmer. He was getting younger and more vibrant by the day. And far, far better-looking. Soon, he had no beard, his stoop had gone and his chest filled out. Somehow by giving up his tricks he was turning back time.

‘I do not know to this day what magic this was. Was it his doing? The effect of his black disclosures? And the truth is, I was not immune to this. The younger he became, the more captivated I was by those deep, inscrutable eyes. Before the next full moon, I too was drowning in his vibes. I hated it. I tried to fight it. I tried to ignore it. I tried sitting with my back to him, clutching my head in both hands and focusing on the spells. But all I could see was his eyes. His eyes, weaving their own enchantment.

‘By the time he had changed back to his thirties, I could not look upon him without my legs turning to wool. Without my pulse racing. Without my brain scrambling. My plan was going off track. I had to act fast if I wanted to stay in charge. I had to cut short my learning curve. But there was one charm I still needed, one hex. I had to know how to entrap him for good. How to bind him forever in a tower of air. For I now understood I could not live in the shadow of the great Merlin. My time had come.'

She pauses and signals to André again. This time, he brings her a small steaming towel and she dabs the corners of her mouth to remove biscuit dust. André resumes his post behind Sandra and pours her another cup.

Sandra has lost count of how many refills she has had. Her thirst is long gone and she is finding it hard to keep going. Her inner world is groaning from those wet demands. But André's strong hand keeps guiding hers, making sure she spills nothing.

Viviane pursues her tale.

‘I knew my last request was a tall ask. Even for a smitten man. So I skipped the subtleties. Took the direct approach. I enticed him into the forest and we sat by a hawthorn bush. “My lord,” I whispered in his ear, “I need this spell.” I began to probe him with my tongue, gently, while my hand parted his coat and crept into his pants. I felt his whole body shudder under my velour touch. “You know this is really what you want,” I husked. “You know you enjoy the hold I have over you far too much to resist me. You thrive on it. You have become addicted to me. You have no defence against my charms. The enchantment will not take more from you, for you are already, and utterly, under my spell.”

‘And all the while my hand was keeping him on a slow burn. “The sacred words, my lord. Give me the words.” Under his cloth, my fingers started to lace irresistible little patterns I had learned from one of the bewitching psalms, and he collapsed on the grass with a gasp. Then I released his cock and got a bit of a shock. The size, you see. And such erectile zest! I had never made love before — let alone blown a man — though I had heard rather confusing accounts of the deed from an eccentric fairy that had set up home with a woodcutter. But that is by the by. To be frank, I expected the worst when I took the first nibbles.

‘I was, however, most pleasantly surprised. He tasted of spring dew and deer musk and oak leaves all at once. A heady, deadly combination, and it was all I could do not to come down on him like a banshee. But I kept my cool and kept it light and slow, to tantalise him. He was writhing like a stag caught in a trap. And between gasps and groans, he gave me what I wanted. Word by word. The whole flipping mantra.

‘By now, I was so aroused I wanted all of him. I disrobed rather more quickly than a girl's modesty should allow and swiftly lowered myself onto him. Too fast, as it turned out, and it hurt some and a bit. But I didn't give a wood mouse's squeak. My nose, my brain, were full of his scent. My senses were dancing a merry jig. And though a virgin, I knew all the moves through my ill-gotten spells. I rocked and humped, twisted and squeezed. I rolled those hips like a champion belly dancer.

‘After a while I lost all control. Something bucked in me and I went berserk. I rode him like a top jockey. Faster, harder. You might say I raced him' — Viviane gives a kittenish smile — ‘through the lush prairies of my fantasies and the rough rivers of my wettest dreams. I pushed him long into the night. This was crazy. So freakishly good. I moaned. I groaned. I rasped. I convulsed. I don't know how many times I came. How many times I collapsed on his chest to recover my breath. Then my pussy would ask for more and I would give it more, and thrust against my man to revive him. To his credit, it took no time to whip him back to life. His stamina was — how else to put it? — Merlinesque. I had his outbursts leaking out of me in great big dollops. He begged me to ease my pace but I was enjoying this far too much. So still I rode him, still I pushed him, like a thoroughbred I had to get over a finish line that never got closer.

‘Come morning, we both lay spent by our hawthorn bush. I was the first to wake up when the lark piped up. I held this wondrous lover in my arms, looked upon his sleeping face and uttered the spell. The binding charm. He opened his eyes as I was speaking the final words.

‘“Please, don't,” he pleaded, as the air around us began to pulse, raising a curtain of mist between the forest and our hawthorn bush. “You do not know what you are doing.”

‘He was wrong. I knew full well. “Do not despair, my lord,” I said. “I will not abandon you. Every full moon, I will return to this misty tower to lie in your arms. And, when I absent myself, I will leave behind a live memory of me to comfort you.” This was, you understand, but a small concession. I was hooked on the guy, and though a part of me hated this dependence, for it had almost capsized my plans, the other part loved it. Besides, I reasoned to myself, I had the best of both worlds. I would be queen of the magical world and still get my fill of the man I'd deposed. Could I honestly ask for more?'

There is a momentary silence. Viviane is sporting a complacent smile.

‘More tea for our guest, André.'

‘I'm pleased to see I'm not the only talkative one around here,' says Jenny.

Sandra's concentration has dipped. In fact, it is wavering like palm leaves in the wind, for the tale of Viviane's racy past has started preying on her imagination. Her barely dormant beast has once more awoken. And she is feeling the full brunt of her enforced tea binge.

She shifts on the couch, tilting her hips and arching back, trying to ease the pressure. Again, her needs have merged insidiously, deliciously. She is horny as hell's hot pools. And although she is trying damn hard to rein in the flow, she is of course losing the fight and exuding some of her wet excitement.

She closes her eyes in the hope of softening her visions. Delay the inevitable. For a part of her would like to hear more. But her hand does not care a bit about the past and glides up her thighs — to her sumptuously swollen folds.

‘Hands off yourself,' commands Viviane.

Sandra almost jumps at the words and pulls her trembling fingers away. Then breaks into a pathetic whimper. She wants this so much she could cry. But she must wait. She knows she must wait on the goodwill of her host. Obey her as she would Jenny.

‘Poor you,' teases Viviane, ‘I can read you like a kinky sex manual. Already falling hard through the cracks of your fantasies. Fine then. Let's make it easier for you to resist the temptation.'

She turns to Jenny.

‘Would you be so good as to tie Sandra's hands behind her back?'

Jenny seems most happy to oblige. The stud-in-waiting hands her a leather strap and she busies herself behind Sandra. Her task performed, she throws in a few extras. Pulls down Sandra's tunic to her waist, lets her fingers float around her nipples and then, eyes smiling, baits her earlobe with a devilish tongue.

Sandra gasps in heavenly shock, her hair roots electrified. She feels her breasts blooming with desire, her laced urges flaring up within her. She strains back against the couch.

‘And just to be on the safe side,' tweets Viviane, ‘I'll make it impossible for you to hit the high-water mark. For now. Hope you don't mind.'

She mumbles a few enigmatic words.

‘I want you to hear what I've got planned, you understand. I'm a little vain in that way. I like to keep my audience squirming on my every word. Or if not on my words, at least squirming.'

Another cup is brought to Sandra's lips.

‘Please, none-more,' begs Sandra. But André's hand is insistent and she must yield. For a moment, the bittersweet taste of the tea in her mouth takes her mind off her terrible randiness. But the relief is all too brief. She has to drain the cup and add to her ordeal.

‘I suppose you know why Viviane has been telling you all this,' says Jenny.

Sandra remains silent. She can only think of the wetness swamping her, effusing like liquid honey. Can only think of touching herself. Having someone touch her. Her thoughts fly to the gorgeous tea man behind her. To his warrior pecs and Spartan butt. To his fingers wiping the drops off her chin. His fingers that could do things to her. Diabolic things.

‘Can't you put two and two together?'

‘Sorry,' sighs Sandra, fidgeting on the couch. She is thinking she would like to be licked by that scrumptious tea man. Can already feel his mouth making her gag on her pleasure.

‘It's all . . . It's all very mental-boogling,' she says lamely. Yes, mindboggling. As is the thought of the tea man's clever moves on her clit. Fuck. She doesn't know. Doesn't know how long she can last like this, hanging on her tenterhooks.

‘I just thought you might like to know who Yaouen really is,' says Viviane.

Sandra stares through her liquefaction, then understanding finally dawns. She should have guessed, but the hot scenes preying on her mind are far too befuddling.

‘Are you saying that Yaouen and Merlin . . . ?' She trails off.

‘Precisely. Merlin is being coquettish. Using his old Breton name.'

‘But I thought you trap-caught him forever?' She shifts again on her seat, thinking how that tea man could insert one curled finger into her. How he could unleash his tongue on her pleasure spots. Milk her of her richness, teasing suck by teasing suck.

‘Is there such a thing as forever?' sighs Viviane. ‘Mountains rise and fall, like civilisations. An inevitable cycle. But Merlin did manage to escape more quickly than I had anticipated. We'll come to that in a minute. The point is that he is back in the picture. Which, you might be surprised to hear, is not all bad, as far as I'm concerned.'

Sandra is not surprised. She is not unsurprised. She is agonising. Agonising on the tea man's wicked finger. On his lips that seem to have flipped all her lubricious switches again. Pushed the art of clit tease to its aching limits. She would like to explode but the spell is holding her back. Condemning her to her slow, tortured seep.

Her throat splits in a raspy moan.

‘Now who's the naughty girl? Who's not paying attention?' husks Jenny in her ear, before reaching casually for her breast to twiddle with an erect nipple — and then give it a sharp nip.

Shards of mixed sensations go flying through Sandra.

‘You wouldn't want to displease me, would you?' Jenny's tone is a blend of sweetness and steel.

‘
Non
. . .
Non
. . .' whispers Sandra. She must obey. Drag herself away from her promiscuous thoughts.

‘Good. So focus then.'

‘Merlin and I have had a complicated relationship,' proceeds Viviane, eyes twinkling at the spectacle of Sandra's syrup-coated trials. ‘The cunning old bastard is sexy, clever and powerful and in spite of myself I love him to death. But I have my pride and I am ambitious, and I will not play second fiddle. So I tricked him in a way that some would see as unpardonable. That
he
probably sees as unforgiveable. A terrible breach of his trust. But then he knew perfectly well what he was letting himself in for when he started spilling his magic beans, which means he has mostly himself to blame for his downfall, as well as his lust for girls a quarter his age. He is aware of that of course, and though he probably wants his revenge, how much and in what form is a moot point. Especially since, in spite of everything, he also loves me to death.'

She looks at Sandra. ‘As I said, a complicated relationship. Which appears to have got even more intertwined now you're here.'

Sandra is failing dismally
not
to think of that tea man rousing her to distracted heights.
Not
to think of how expertly he could leech her wet swell with his fiendish lips.

God, oh God. A short while ago she might have cared about her complicated relationship. Might have wondered where indeed that left her. Falling for a guy who really loved another her. Who shagged her silly but raced like a hare from commitment. Who gleefully screwed up her life in Sydney, maybe because he was out to get the other her for what she did to him.

Yes, she might have cared.

But it all seems so distant now. Irrelevant. She has been thrown in the thrall of other masters. Become a pawn in the hands of Jenny. Of this other her. Of her own distended needs. All she wants is to be fucked. Toyed with. Taken advantage of. And right this second, all that makes sense is to be sweet-leeched by that spunky guy behind her.

Perhaps she has gone insane. Or perhaps she was always meant to be just that. To become that. A toy. A fantasy. A gorgeous illusion. For she cannot remember this other life. Her alleged past. She cannot remember all this magic. Just a vague image of herself by a lake, getting vaguer with each passing moment.

‘Jenny tells me Merlin doesn't have a clue there are two of us,' Viviane is saying. ‘He might figure it out soon, but by then it'll be too late for him to stop me. And to eschew the role I have lined up for him.'

She leans over conspiratorially, like she was sharing a secret with her best friend.

‘You see, Other Me, I'm out to give this good old world a makeover.'

‘Viviane is keen to put the triple A back into Absolute All-out Ambition,' says Jenny, pinching Sandra's nipple hard again to ensure some measure of attention.

‘And the triple G into Gritty Go-Getter,' confirms Viviane. ‘Some time ago, I started looking at the bigger picture. It wasn't just about me, I realised. It was time
we
took charge — with me at the helm, obviously.'

‘By we, Viviane means women.'

‘Indeed. Men have been swaggering at the top of the food chain for far too long. And they've screwed up in a mega big way. Even a single-brain-cell organism could see that. The wars, the famines, the genocides. And don't even start me on how they're effing up the planet — excuse my French — with fossil fuels and the rest.'

A frown is darkening her pretty face.

‘We need to restore some balance to all this. Give nature back its voice. But that can't happen as long as the boys are calling the shots. So I had to think of a way to change that. Make them hand over the sceptre.'

She casts her guards what could be called a matronising look.

‘Now, killing them is not an option, tempting as it may be. Too bloody, too gross.'

‘Plus there is a danger you might break your nails,' adds Jenny.

‘And that would defeat the purpose,' continues Viviane. ‘Turn us into the very things that are the root of our problems. I am at heart a protector of life, though I've cut a few corners. So I'm going for the softer option. Men make perfect servants, with a few benefits.'

She snaps her fingers and André leaves his post behind the couch to pick up hers and Jenny's empty cups. She slaps him playfully on his yummy backside as he bends over.

Sandra flinches with envy. Before André has stood back up, she is swept off by the promise of his firm arse. Is already writhing in mindless abandon as she gets nailed on the floor. Oh hell. She is
that
close to spilling a couple of good hard moans. But she mustn't. Jenny said so.

The tea man vanishes with the empty cups.

‘And the best way to achieve that,' resumes Viviane, ‘is to hit them in the balls, metaphorically speaking. So I'm creating a new sisterhood of sexually adventurous women.'

‘What Viviane means,' says Jenny, ‘is women who can prey on men. Like succubi.'

‘Succuboobies?' whispers Sandra, floundering in her sea of raunchy visions.

‘Yes, that's the general idea, but more fetching. No bat wings, no horns, no forked tails, no weird fangs or spine-chilling claws for hands. Just a healthy lupine appetite. And with more discriminatory powers. They don't shrivel you to death. Just suck out the will and leave all the good bits intact.'

‘You'd be amazed,' says Viviane, ‘what black magic can achieve if carefully applied. And my horny girls can also make converts. Very useful when you try to take over the world. You need the viral effect.'

Horny. The word echoes in Sandra's mind. Horny like her. Desperate like her. Horny and desperate like the creature licking and snapping at her heels, at her toes, her ankles, waiting for its chance. Her salacious demon, kept in dripping suspense by Viviane's spell.

She whimpers ever so slightly at the prospect of surrendering to its grasp. Ever so slightly, for she must not antagonise Jenny. She must please her. Obey her. She squirms again, angling back her hips as much as she can, arching into the couch.

Viviane continues, smiling mockingly at Sandra's torment.

‘Now you may be wondering why you and I, and why Jenny, have kept such a wholesome glow after more than a thousand years. You may be wondering if we are immortal. Let me put your hopes to rest. We are not. Naturally, like all sorcerers and fae people, we have our little ways of slowing down time. And some of us can shapeshift at will or get a magical nip and tuck. But this would not have been enough to see us through the distance. Perhaps your good friend Jennifer can enlighten you on that point. She knows that part well.'

‘I do,' confirms Jenny. She looks at Sandra. ‘You
are
paying attention, honey, aren't you? I wouldn't want such a lovely tale to go to waste.'

Sandra nods weakly and muzzles another whimper.

‘Perfect.' Jenny clears her throat. ‘Remember I told you how I ended up with a fish tail when my city went down?'

Sandra only has strength for a vague assent.

‘Trouble is, I don't like smelling of fish. Not the sexiest scent, you'll agree. Though some say that's what a pussy smells like. But clearly those detractors have never been anywhere within a mile of one.'

‘Ahes, please, get to the point,' tuts Viviane.

‘Sure. So I just had to find a way to lose the tail. That's when I thought of Merlin. I'd heard through a dishy young baron I had seduced that he was held captive in Brocéliande. And I knew that if anyone could counter a mermaid charm and turn me back into my old self, he was the one.'

‘Why on earth didn't you think of me?' asks Viviane, looking a tiny bit offended.

‘Well, I'd also heard he'd been trapped before you could learn all his magic from him. So he seemed like a safer bet.'

‘You see,' says Viviane to the squirming Sandra, ‘this is precisely why we need to take over the world. Until we do, a woman will never be trusted to do a tough job as well as a man.'

‘My apologies, my queen,' says Jenny, before continuing. ‘Like all Mari Morgans, I could not leave the coast and estuaries. Unless I was airborne. Not many mermaids are aware of this loophole. So I sent word to my father that if he had the slightest compassion left in his heart, he could maybe come over on his flying horse to pick me up at a fishing village of his choosing. Or if his heart was still set against me, could he perhaps send me the horse alone? He just sent the horse — which suited me fine. I managed to hoist myself up on Morvarc'h — a tricky move owing to my tail — and hung on to his mane for dear life as he soared up in the sky. We flew above Brocéliande for three days and three nights. And then Morvarc'h sensed something, though all I could see was a shimmer in the air. He swooped and took us deep into the forest. Soon, I was staring through the mist at a handsome wizard. His face was faint, like in a dream, and I knew I could not get closer. Somehow the mist was keeping me out.