We changed into our bath robes and retreated to the shower - well, I was in Helena's, but it was only for the trip down the hall, so I hoped she didn't mind. A little Nat & Cass 'shower time' was a longstanding tradition from the very first time we'd done the deed a few days into our shared tenure at St. Circe's. Everybody knew about it because we didn't keep things very quiet. I couldn't keep things very quiet. One of the many subtle changes that I'd undergone (on top of, obviously, the host of subtle-as-a-charging-rhino changes) was that I was very sensitive and the pathway between my pleasure centers and my vocal cords ran completely around any inhibitory control. And, though I couldn't project quite like Harmony Yeung could, my voice was not quiet. Hell, I was about as far from a meek and humble 'little' as an (almost) 4' 10" teenager could be.
The Advanced dormitory had fifteen regular-sized shower stalls in the one bathroom and four luxury-sized shower stalls in the other, done up like a Roman bathhouse. While I doubt slippery sapphic romance had been on the minds of the architect, it was a pretty obvious use if you were at all inclined in that direction. Which we, very emphatically, were.
We started, as we usually did, with a little mutual soaping. That was a good way to ease into things. I'd start with Cassie's back and hair, which took a little tiptoe action and careful maneuvering on my part to get. We had to start that way because, if we didn't, those bits might never get finished. Those cascading brown waves streaked through with an otherworldly, metallic blue color, thick and glossy, her back firm and rippling beneath my small fingers. Then taut calves and firm, smooth thighs. Those glorious fucking thighs. We had to start with those, because once I got to her just-as-glorious ass, it was guaranteed to be game over. Once I got handsy, as was inevitable, running my hands over those firm, swollen globes and delving down (just for a second!) to stroke my soapy little fingers against her sex, Cassie would groan out in pleasure, turn around, and do whatever she was inclined to do. There wasn't much I could do to stop her… and why in the everliving fuck would I want to?
"I missed you so much," Cassie said, her breath hot in my ear, her thumbs thrumming over my nipples as warm water cascaded over us. "I can't live two and a half weeks without your body."
"Me, either," I said, and we both giggled at the double-entendre.
Cassie grabbed a handful of hair and pulled my head back, drawing me into a kiss. That was how to pull hair properly. Not cruelly, not suddenly, not painfully… firmly and with the conviction that whatever you want to do is absolutely right for you and your playmate. The water was hot, her lips were hotter, and my pussy was a burning cauldron. And when I went to touch myself, Cassie tsk'ed and gathered my hands above my head, pinning me with one arm and her body weight while her other hand touched what I was, apparently, not allowed to. She pulled away from our kiss, giving my lip a little nibble.
"Who needs fuzzy handcuffs?" Cassie said. Good question - she certainly didn't.
"Moremoremoremore… fuck me, Cassie, fuck me," I whined into her ear.
Cassie thrummed her fingers along my vulva, applying just the right pressure around my clit as she rubbed forward… the finesse of a true virtuoso. And, when my breaths became shallow and sharp, she'd move her hand northward along my firm little belly and up to my breasts, bringing me from a roiling froth to a sizzle. She was teasing me! I wormed a wrist out from her grip and, immediately, Cassie pressed her body against me, pinning me gently but powerfully. She whispered in my ear:
"If that hand goes south of the border, Naughty Natalie gets a spanking."
Never tell a brat what she's not allowed to do. As soon as Cassie let up the pressure, my hand shot straight south to her pussy - it surprised her so much she almost slipped. Instead, she widened her stance to give me access and then pushed my head down… down… down with firm insistence. I was face to face with her arousal, her lips swollen, the slightest bit of slick pink visible from her vagina. As her fingers lathered up my hair, I clamped around her and licked, suds and hot water streaming all around me, Cassie quivering in front of me, loud moans reverberating through the stall, one firm arm leaning on the shower bar as her legs threatened to give out. Eventually, she came, bucking and quivering, and her legs did give out, albeit gradually. Cassie slid downward, her legs spreading outward, her whole body relaxing with a delighted sigh. And then I felt strong arms repositioning me…
Smack! "Ow!" I squealed. I was positioned across Cassie's lap and, as slippery as I was, her grip remained firm.
"I promised you a spanking… and I wouldn't want to be accused of lying," Cassie said. Smack! "Natalie Bryce still has a rule book at St. Circe's… Rule 1: I will obey Cassie during sexy time."
She'd smacked me just enough to draw passion. A delicious stinging pain rather than a deep, bruising hurt. She brought her hand up again and waited, one… two… Smack!
"I'll obey Cassie during shower time!" I moaned.
"During sexy time - not just in the shower." Smack!
"Ah! Okay, I'll obey Cassie during sexy time!"
"Good. That's it. That's the rule," Cassie said. She released her grip and we helped one another up. "It's a very short rule book. Now… most of my front has been sadly neglected. Suds me up, witch!"
Cassie commanded, I obeyed. Achievement Unlocked: Bratty Sub Kink.
+++++
"She's not really your sister," Cassie said.
"She's sort-of my sister," I replied.
After our shower session and a little mutual cuddling, I tracked down Simone to tell her I was safe and, as soon as I got her to stop crying, the three of us made our way to the Junior girls' dormitory. It was inching toward five in the afternoon, the sun low and golden yellow in the sky, the air the same perfect eighty degrees as always, but soon to cool for the evening. Junior girls filed back in their gym clothes - white tennis shoes with whatever color laces the girl wanted, blue gym shorts, and gray tee-shirts with the St. Circe's crest, most of them sweaty and still rambunctious from whatever afternoon activity they'd had. Where the older girls in Beginner and Advanced had all sorts of extracurricular activities, most of the Junior girls engaged in structured school activities for an extra hour or two after classes. Usually, they had an hour of something very school-y (like 'language club') followed by an hour and change of physical education. Then they had about two hours to shower, study, and relax before supper.
"Why did you see Cassie first?" Simone said, still dabbing at her eyes. "Don't you know that I've been anxious, like, all the time? Ever since you went missing."
"I'm sorry. We had… relationship stuff to talk about."
"Uh…" Simone said. She stopped in her tracks and looked back and forth between us. "I know you didn't break up, because I'm the only one crying right now."
"We didn't," Cassie confirmed. She kissed the top of my head. She gave my hair a sniff. "Babe, you need to show me whatever trick you did to your conditioner… it smells amazing."
That was a SyphoPharm trick I'd picked up, patent pending - better living through witchcraft. The three of us continued into the dorm. I wanted to speak with Amanda Bryce privately, but Cassie and Simone were so glad to have me back that I didn't have the heart to send them off. Plus, I think Amanda got a thrill at being one of the 'big girls' after slumming it with the Junior girls all day long. She had the memories and personality of a twenty-one year-old in a twelve year-old's body, and Lily couldn't advance her to the Beginner girls (or she might skip right to Advanced) until the day of her official 14th birthday.
Mrs. Glace, the night matron for the Junior girls, wouldn't be in for another few hours, and so Michelle and Lorelei Waters were holding down the fort, studying on the big couch in the lounge. The two stars of the school's gymnastics team, they didn't look especially out of place among the Juniors, despite being years older - Lorelei was sixteen and Michelle was seventeen (though, due to some fiddling with her behavior plan, she was actually twelve and not a magically de-developed seventeen). Both had the slight and slim but powerfully-compact bodies of gymnasts, but mostly set themselves apart from the Junior girls by wearing the tartan skirts and blue blazers of Advanced students.
"Holy shit, it's Natalie!" Michelle shouted. Some of the younger girls laughed at her cursing. Michelle had an anti-cursing package built into her behavior plan (something I'd convinced her would be helpful), but apparently it wasn't entirely effective yet. She sprinted over (and she could sprint quickly) and embraced me in a hug. "I'm captain of the gymnastics team now!"
"Co-captain!" Lorelei called after her. "Hi, Natalie!"
I waved back - Lorelei was a nice girl, but we didn't know one another too well. The four of us proceeded back toward Amanda's room, past the bathroom, awash with giggling and the hiss of the showers. Whenever the door opened, plumes of steam puffed out and into the hallway.
"Are you here to see me?" Michelle asked.
I nodded, but that was an absolute lie. I hadn't known she was even on Junior girls duty. "You and my sister," I said. "I thought you might be worried about my disappearing and everything."
"I heard you got stuck as a dude. Gross…"
"I used to be a 'dude' full-time," I said.
"Still gross."
"Touché. And yes, I got cursed by some Gangling Men…"
"Who?" Michelle asked.
"Creepy fucks," Simone said. "Tall pale-as-hell white dudes in all black with, like, Amish hats. We saw a few of them at the Winter Festival."
"Oh yeah," Michelle shivered, the golden tresses of her pigtails jangling about. "Well I'm glad you got out of the curse. I wouldn't want anything to do with those guys. Are you going to stick around? You still look pretty in-shape… maybe we could work on a routine?"
I was not going to work on a gymnastics routine with Michelle. I had neither the time nor the inclination - I'd been taking adults-only gymnastics classes three times a week and was, by a wide margin, the best in my class… but I was barely advanced by St. Circe's standards, and Lorelei or Michelle could flip circles around me, probably in tandem. "Maybe," I allowed, offering a hopeful smile. "But I'm meeting with Lily at six fifteen, and I don't know if I'll be around after that… we'll earmark it, maybe?"
Michelle mimed dog-earing a page. "It's earmarked, bookmarked, and dog-tagged! I'm finally learning magic, too! I'm really good at lumieh."
Simone rolled her eyes - lumieh was the easiest of the witching symbols, basically a straight line slanting up (or down) through many dimensions. She'd gotten harder symbols right on her first try and could ace little, linear lumieh in her sleep with a quart of Benadryl in her system. Two peas in a pod, Simone and me.
We'd arrived at room thirty-three of the Junior dorm - Amanda's room. I gave the door, already slightly-ajar, a little knock.
"Come in," Amanda said. Her blue eyes wheeled up from her Historical & Comparative Linguistics textbook (not casual fare for most twelve year-olds, even at St. Circe's) and she broke into a smile - I was getting a very fine reception at St. Circe's, indeed! "Natalie! And, uh, friends…" this second part was less emphatic. "What's the occasion?"
My friends finally got the hint and wandered back out to the lounge so the two of us could have a sisterly chat. Amanda rolled off of her bed and padded across her room. She was growing like kudzu and was just about even with me with my heels on - she was going to be a tall gal, no doubt. But I was still her older sister.
"You know I was missing, right?"
"Yeah," Amanda said. "I assumed it had something to do with my father… our father. But I guess it didn't? When he took you away in his car, I thought you were capital-D Done. But during my two weeks at home… shoot me in the fucking head, Natalie… he would not. Stop. Obsessing over you… grumbling about how you 'unmanned' some friend of his… and I can only guess what that means."
"Literally. With a letter opener."
"Nice." She lifted her hand and we did a fist bump - Bryce sisters represent. "Christ was dad pissed off… and Lucian, too. And do you know what? That asshole kept on rubbing in how I was only eleven - I guess he forgot about my twelfth birthday, because of course he did - and that meant he was going to inherit the Bryce estate, and I swear I think he wanted me to find out that I'd had a decade of my life erased just so he could rub it in. Not that they were shiny happy people before-hand, but you really lit the fire under their asses, Natalie."
"Yeah," I said. "I kind of figured as much. Because your brother… our brother, I guess, tried to kill me. He and some of his goon friends tracked me down in San Francisco… I was back in my old body at the time and, long story short, I was cursed but now I'm not. They tracked me down, tied me up, and took turns shooting magical lightning bolts at me. And when they got tired of that, they let me try to escape, and then Lucian tackled me and started magically-tasering me to the neck, and he definitely would have killed me…"
"Well you obviously aren't dead, so I'm sensing a but…"
I nodded. "But, he weakened my curse a bit with his torture magic and then I mega-raged myself the rest of the way out of it, and then… well, no use beating around the bush… I think I might have done something horrible to him."
"You think?"
"I legit blacked out. Call it a magical overload. When I woke up, he wasn't there… and if I'd just passed out with Lucian a-ok and standing next to me, do you think I'd be here talking to you?"
"I hope he's okay," Amanda said quietly. She put her hand on top of mine. "Whatever happened to him, I don't blame you, Natalie. But… Lucian was a pretty normal kid. A snotty little brother, sure, but normal. No torturing small animals or mutilating Barbie dolls or anything, and then he got less and less okay, twisted by our father. If one of the Bryce siblings needed a hard reset, it was him. But no, he was the golden boy, destined to be a great warlock…"
"For what it's worth, he's a shit warlock."
"Good."
+++++
After our sister-to-sister, I had about thirty minutes before my rendezvous with Lily, so I made a run for the school wardrobe… and everybody came. Even Amanda. Michelle used her authority as dormitory assistant, limited though that was, to sign her out from the dormitory.
"If you're not back when Mrs. Glace gets in, I am not covering for you," Lorelei called after us.
"Just say she ran out trying to stop me from taking my sister," I said.
"Girl, please," Simone laughed. "Nobody stops Natalie Bryce." Fair point.
The wardrobe occupied the back room of the school chapel, which was about as big as the chapel itself. Not many St. Circe's girls availed themselves of clerical services, so the chapel wasn't especially large, and the wardrobe room behind it was far more popular and far more packed, nine or ten long racks jam-packed with every manner of clothes imaginable and a tiny changing booth, should a girl wish to try them on in relative privacy (most of us didn't care). The rule was that Junior and Beginner girls could choose three outfits and Advanced girls got four. You could swap outfits as frequently as you liked but, unless you could magically size them yourself or were good friends with somebody who could (or, I suppose, had a very common size - I certainly didn't), it might be a week before the staff had time to humor your wardrobe request.
Twenty-seven minutes isn't a very long time to try on outfits, but that's how long I had - favored protégé or no, one didn't show up late for a meeting with Bethany Lily. Amanda, who'd never been to the wardrobe - there were few reasons for the Junior girls to ever go there - was ecstatic to learn that we could adjust any outfit to fit her frame, and she kept on distracting Simone for help magically resizing different outfits. Naturally, Michelle was in the same boat, desperate to wear something that might make her look more mature, except she barely knew enough magic to try the trick herself and kept distracting Cassie to ask what she was doing wrong. So I got exactly one piece of expert wardrobe advice from my girlfriend.
I found a velvety green dress, long-sleeved and barely-daring, like something an Irish folk dancer might wear, and sized it to myself. Only, when sized to myself, it wasn't exactly barely-daring.
"What do you think?" I tugged on Cassie's sleeve.
She took one look and chuckled. "Unless you're trying to seduce Lily or land aircraft on those puppies, I'd keep looking," she said.
And one look in the mirror confirmed it: that dress might have been cute on Amanda but, when sized to my dimensions, had a hugely plunging neckline that stopped about an inch above my nipples. If I wanted something to drive Magnus into grunting man-lust, it might work, but it wasn't for everyday wear. So I played it safe and picked a floral print summer dress that was, incidentally, almost identical to the one Simone had picked for herself (though mine had a lavender base and hers was peach). She looked me up and down, and I did likewise to her.
"Twin powers activate," we both said.
"Why are my friends all dorks?" Michelle sighed.
"Shit… what time is it?"
It was six twelve… three minutes to get to the administration building. I tossed my green evening dress into the wash bin - Julie's dress would be a fine addition to the wardrobe - and jogged to the administration building. I hurried between the chapel and the administration building, summer dress swooshing about, my still-damp hair flopping everywhere, and jiggling aplenty… and made it to the front exit thirty seconds after the quarter-hour.
"You're late," Lily said.
"It's still six fifteen," I gasped.
"It's not. It's six fifteen and… forty-three seconds," Lily said with a glance to her black and silver watch. "Timeliness is respect, Natalie. You respect me, don't you?"
I rolled my eyes. "Yes, of course. But you said, and I quote, around six fifteen. Can we please not make a big deal out of this?"
"Very well. A point of future consideration for both of us. Shall we?"
With a wave of her hand, Lily's car eased along the one and only proper road St. Circe's had, stopping in front of us, the doors swinging open of their own accord. The road didn't actually go anywhere, unless you had a transport ritual to connect the road to somewhere off campus. As far as any of us could tell, St. Circe's was located somewhere in the back woods of eastern Kentucky, but getting there by tromping through the wild woods was about as likely to get you to the Grand Canyon as it was to get you to campus. However, the staff members had some way to zap whole vehicles through, presumably through some sort of subtle ritual preset within the car and ready to go at a moment's notice. In Lily's case, there was a button on the steering wheel she had to push within a second or so of hitting the ley.
"We're going back to your place?" I asked.
She nodded. "We're going back to my place. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, dear, but you certainly cannot stay at St. Circe's. I made an allowance today, on account of very extenuating circumstances, but you've already got multiple people whining to Prudence about you. You had poor Marie von Schurr sobbing in the doctor's office… what ever did you do to her?"
"I made her move Asha Pierce out of the way. Magically, I mean. I may have overreacted to their shitty attitudes."
"Yes, well… now I'm going to have to deal with the fallout, thank you. You aren't a St. Circe's student anymore, Natalie, and you have to rise above these puerile little games. I'm going to see what I can do about getting you visitor's access… but, in the meantime, you'll have to stay at my sanctuary, and you'll come and go by my leave because… unless I'm mistaken… I do not see my Black Lily upon your slim finger."
I wiggled my pointer finger, definitely ring-free. Lily had given me a ring, silvery chrome with a glittering onyx stone, to transport myself to her sanctuary whenever I needed help. You cannot take a magical item off of a witch unless she allows you to - attempting to do so is akin to dissolving a pact, its power proportionate to the power vested in the magical item. In the case of an expertly-made sanctuary ring, that was probably the equivalent of a decently-strong blood pact, and one did not bring the weight of such pacts upon themselves lightly. But the Gangling Men had seemingly taken it from me, either by accepting the burden of the curse or through the technicality of my no longer being bound to the ring as Martin Warner… my guess was the latter, as magic is all about technicalities.
"They must have taken it off of me."
Lily nodded. She punched the steering wheel button to transport us to her sanctuary. "That appears to be the case. I'd hoped it would pop back on your finger when you changed back, but that seems not to be the case. We're going to need to get that back, and sooner rather than later. The Gangling Men, if they're in possession of my ring and reasonably innovative, can use it to find the location of this sanctuary. And if they're very clever and can figure out how to release my bond from the ring, they can use it to transport themselves here without my permission. Goodbye sanctuary."
"Shit. That sounds pretty bad."
"It is pretty bad," Lily agreed. Her face shifted away from its St. Circe's appearance, years erasing from her face, the severe bun of her hair tumbling free. "And, since you'll have lots of time to think things through, I'd like for you to think about how we're going to get it back. And, I must stress, if you leave my sanctuary, you will be unable to get back without myself or Miss Petersen present. If you leave, Natalie, you may be on your own for quite a while."
Leave it to Lily not to pull her punches. For the time being, I was a ward of her sanctuary.
Thanks for the chapters
Thanks for reading!
Hmm, I wonder if Lucien actually is ok. If he's just stuck somewhere, maybe finding and retrieving him might do something to convince him that she's not a terrible person... Probably not with it though I guess.