Here it is, the last chapter of Consequences of Magic! If you're not already following me on SH, please do so you don't miss the announcement when I start publishing chapters to A Princess of Alfheim here. And please, please, please comment below! The more feedback I have about the sorts of things you want to read, the more I can cater my writing to your interests! And sometimes your keen insight helps me tweak the story to be better for everybody!
-Ovid
Chapter Twenty-One: Like Family
"Magnus! I love you!" I shouted.
People were giving me dirty looks, which was a pretty common thing for me in audiences - when my friends and/or lovers were the center of attention, I tended to get a bit too worked up. I wasn't only getting dirty looks… I also got lots of lascivious looks, which was also a pretty common thing for me in audiences. I wasn't exactly dressed down, but my sundress showed off my toned shoulders, my fiery hair cascading in loose braids around it, and twice as much cleavage as any woman with my frame and fitness level ought to have. Thanks to Physical Conditioning, li'l Natalie knew how to work it. It also didn't hurt that I had Cassie sitting next to me and screaming just as much.
"Magnus! Woooo!" she shouted.
He glanced in our direction, flashed a brilliant smile, and lofted his diploma in the air. A small contingent of girls behind us cheered, as well (albeit with more reservation than Cassie or me). That was fine - they could enjoy the sights as long as they didn't get touchy.
It was graduation day for the boys of St. Lovelock's… two days before had been the first ever graduating class for the School of Starlight, the replacement for the old and unmade St. Circe's. Simone and Natalie had walked, along with a handful of my other friends. Michelle, Helena, and Emilia still had another year to go, and Amanda was getting fast-tracked to Advanced, even though she'd barely be thirteen, physically-speaking, when the school year started. There'd been much grumbling with the switch-over to the new order at the new school… Helena's father, for instance, had been apoplectic to learn that none of the draconian changes he'd insisted on for his daughter were to be implemented. Lily, having seen the light, now outright refused to institute any plans without a girl's enthusiastic consent and, if Mr. Gomez refused to contribute another cent toward his daughter's education, Lily would just have to put her on scholarship. Good luck appealing a coven ruling through the courts. But that had been two days ago, and today was for the boys of St. Lovelock's.
"Liam! Liam! I love you!" I shouted. More angry and/or lascivious looks from the well-heeled warlock families in attendance. Oh well. They’d just have to deal.
Simone was a few seats down, acting like a civilized person, politely applauding and clapping only a bit more vigorously when Wyatt accepted his diploma. She hadn't wanted to talk about how things had one with her family - her father was a famous televangelist (yes, that Reverend Clayton) who'd sent Simone to St. Circe's as punishment for being obese and outspokenly feminist, neither of which he could abide. By dint of magical force she'd slimmed way down… but if she wasn't as loud-mouthed as Cassie or me, it wasn't because she was meek and mild or afraid to voice her opinions. Oh well - if Al Clayton wound up disowning his daughter, Simone wouldn't want for opportunities in the witching community.
After handing out diplomas to all of the graduating boys, Headmaster Hurt gave a little parting speech in which he apologized for the substantial changes the school had undergone (without actually taking blame for any of them). There were no more thralls at St. Lovelock's, though most of the boys were still there.
Magnus and Liam weren't brilliant warlocks in the way Cassie and I were brilliant witches, but they were pretty clever, especially when they conspired with one another, which they had plenty of time to do back in the boys' dormitory, behind the concealing fug of body spray fumes. They'd quickly discovered that the thrall contracts were very boilerplate. So boilerplate, in fact, that they were able to put every contract in the headmaster's drawer in sympathy and then muddle them into an unenforceable knot of randomly joined contract clauses. The problem, then, wasn't that the contracts had terminated, but that nobody knew what would happen when they terminated or how to bring that about - the muddled stack of them was bizarrely complex and didn't follow regular contractual logic. At that point, the headmaster had two options: summon all of the signatories - usually families indebted or indentured to the warlocks who'd been coerced into signing over their sons to thralldom - at once to unravel the mess. Or offer terms to the suddenly-unbound thralls to renegotiate the now-collective contract into something sensible. The headmaster had opted for the latter, and then passed the ensuing shitstorm off as the result of the business with the downfall of the Gangling Men. Most people bought it, but I knew the truth: my beautiful, brave boys had followed my order and brought down the institution of magical slavery at their school. Instead, the former thralls would be offered work study at the school - essentially the less debasing parts of their former duties - for ten or twelve hours a week in exchange for real enrollment at the prestigious school and the opportunity to learn real magic.
Just thinking about how they'd pulled it off got me riled up, and I was rubbing myself against Cassie and making bedroom eyes at the boys by the time the graduation ceremony was over and we were given leave to go off and celebrate. Cassie laughed and pushed me to arm's length.
"Down, girl! It's time to celebrate!"
I didn't want to celebrate. Or at least I wanted a much less-public sort of celebration. But we had our social obligations to see to, so I leapt at the boys, kissed them both as deeply as I could without violating public decency, and then made Magnus carry me to our waiting limo.
"Can I at least change out of my graduation robes first?"
"No," I said.
"I need to give my mom and sister the address…"
"I guess you'd better carry me on over, then."
Magnus accepted kisses from his mother and sister… it took a bit of work for them to work around me, but I'd already made up my mind about being carried to the limo. If I let Magnus shirk his duty, what kind of example would I be making? Magnus's father was in attendance somewhere, apparently, but nobody was on speaking terms with him anymore after he'd transformed his daughter and sent his now-son for training at St. Lovelock's. Magnus couldn't complain about the current state of things, but neither was he ready to forgive his father for foisting it on him - and I didn't blame him a bit. The rest of his family seemed like good people, though - bright-eyed and happy with adorable Scandinavian accents.
"It's nice to meet you," I said primly. "We'll see you at the party in a bit?"
"Of course!" Magnus's mom kissed me on the cheek. "You've made Magnus very happy, you know. When he says to me, 'mum, I am dating a teacher', I had a very strange reaction. I tried to keep a straight face, but I was expecting something very different."
"That's good?"
She nodded vigorously. "Very good! Now let's go - mother needs wine!"
From there, we drove through the nearest ley to San Francisco, the sun skipping back in the sky three hours to early afternoon, and the humidity mostly disappearing from the air. Our after-party - the party for Magnus, Liam, Wyatt, and another seven or eight boys in their social circle, was being held at the grand concourse in Avogadro Plaza, which was owned by Ambrose Nicht. He'd been immensely grateful after I'd rescued his daughter (along with over six hundred other magic users) from the clutches of the Gangling Men. Hyacinth was enrolled in the School of Starlight now, but the school policy said that any girl who could work a portal could visit home on her day off, which Hyacinth often used to visit Nicht Tower to be with her father. She already spent plenty of time with Lily at school. And… this isn't yet public knowledge (so: shh!)… but I'm almost certain that Lily and Ambrose have rekindled their old flame. Lily certainly didn't get the iPhone X she thinks she's been hiding from me from her catalog. It was a gift from her lover, Silicon Valley's own tech mage. Ambrose was grateful that I rescued his daughter and helped him restart things with Lily, but his gratefulness to me then ticked up into reverence when he learned about the method I'd used to discover new magical symbols (and that still occasionally spat out a new one, though it had slowed down to one every few weeks). He laughed at the audacity when he saw our setup and then offered me an absurd sum to join his company. I said no, but I felt honored enough that I had no reservations about asking for permission to use Avogadro Plaza. He'd given our celebration the green light with no questions asked.
The venue was more suited for tech expos and way too big for a 70-ish person graduation party like we had, but that just gave us more space to work with. We had class pictures playing on shuffle on the huge screens (with at least a few semi-racy pictures of Cassie and me inserted in there). We had tables set up for dining with the caterers stationed over at the back of the hall, a big dance floor in front of the stage, and a few other things that we thought might be fun. I'd splurged for a huge ball pit, a highly-regarded Led Zeppelin cover band that usually played 1000-person venues (apparently, the duchess, Magnus's mom, and Wyatt's dad were all big Zeppelin fans, so I'd decided to humor them), and a machine where you could mix 'n match liquors to make your own jello shots. This was immensely popular, and we mostly used it to come up with the grossest possible combinations to dare one another into drinking. Cassie and I prettied ourselves in the dressing room like divas, running through the various tricks in our witch beauty repertoire - piercings, hair, cosmetics, perfume, and then custom-fitting our undies and dresses. Or, in my case, just the dress.
Cassie nuzzled against my neck. "Are you really going out in that?"
"Is that a problem?" I took in her own ensemble… dark red with sequins of every color of the rainbow, silky and daring, with a V-neck that plunged all the way past her navel.
"I like it," she said, squeezing my rump through the dress. "It's just… there are parents here. I'm worried you're going to give somebody a heart attack."
"We'll burn that bridge when we come to it," I replied. My dress was probably the tightest dress I'd ever worn, black and slightly sequined, translucent and filmy in parts… and I didn't have a damn thing on underneath it. For my top, this was especially obvious… especially when I thought about being naked underneath the shimmering dress, because it got me hot and my erect nipples were clearly visible through the taut fabric, my areolae barely covered by the plunging neckline. If Cassie was daring, I was Evel Knievel. With Cassie's hand on my butt and my hand on hers, we wandered out to the party.
I sure got my share of attention, jiggling around the concourse, shrieking and jumping around the ball pit as Cassie wrestled me into the mother of all French kisses, giggling with Magnus as we downed Jolly Rancher, licorice, and Kalua shots (very gross), and arguing with Wyatt's DILF-y dad about Belgian ales as he valiantly tried (and failed) to keep his eyes off my impossible tits. Then Cassie pulled me away and announced that the party was over. I was tipsy and tired when our foursome retired to the deluxe suite for after-after-party shenanigans, but I didn't stay that way for long.
+++++
"I can walk myself into the room!" I giggled and squirmed against Liam's grip.
"You can't," he insisted. "You're too drunk!"
"You're drunk, too!"
"Yes, well… in that case, I invite you to carry me around the place giving everybody peeks aplenty up my skirt."
"What?" I squirmed some more. How many people had seen? "I'm not wearing panties!"
"It had not escaped my attention," Liam said.
"Or anybody's," Cassie added. "And Miss Bryce looks ready for action."
"I'm so embarrassed," I moaned, at which point Liam deposited me upon the sofa. I was embarrassed and immensely turned on. Something about getting my sub kink and my exhibition kink stroked just right. I wondered at my incredible luck at getting set up with three people whose kinks aligned perfectly with mine… and, of course, there's no coincidence in magic.
Liam could have teleported my dress off me, but he didn't. He reached for the hem and lifted it slowly, peeling it off my body as I squirmed in anticipation. And, gloriously nude, I looked up at my three lovers, all of them witches or warlocks, all of them looking on in awe at my small, sexy body as I undulated on the oversized couch. Eyes lidded with delirious desire, my legs slowly spread, the scent of my arousal hitting my own nostrils, the pulse of rutting libido pulsing through my inflamed pussy.
"Who's going to fuck me first?"
"One of our graduate warlocks," Cassie whispered in my ear. "But you're going to have to guess which one." She slid a dark, silk blindfold over my eyes.
Suddenly, I started to panic. "Wait… stop!" I said, blinking back tears.
Cassie did, giving me an odd look and then glancing to the blindfold, dangling limp in her hand. "Oh… oh, Natalie…" she pulled me into a hug and kissed me all over my face. "I wasn't even thinking."
And I realized what had triggered me - that the blindfold reminded me of being bound and helpless by the Gangling Men, of feeling utterly forlorn and defeated as my enemies gloated. Cassie must have experienced the same thing. She held the blindfold in her hands and incinerated it with tried-and-true fire magic. "No blindfolds, not ever," she said. "Okay?"
I nodded and spun onto my belly, arching my ass skyward. "Witch's honor - I promise I won't look!" I said.
And I could tell who went first - it was Cassie, her greedy tongue lapping patterns across my snatch while I howled like a banshee. Then came Magnus, girthy and with undeniable power, shaking pleasure to my core, and then Liam with his connubial tricks, drawing pleasure out of my body even as my head swam, still tipsy and now overwhelmed with tsunamis of bliss.
I curled up on the bed with them, feeling safe and loved and sated, Cassie's hair against my cheek and Magnus's strong hand against my abdomen, where he'd once gifted me with a tattoo.
Hmmm. I started to miss the delicious s*x during the whole serious, world-trembling ruckus
Given how libidinous Natalie is, you just can't keep s*x out of it for long! Only true, world-threatening desperation can keep her mind completely off of it.
Boundaries set. Exploration is important to getting these things rooted out. These kinds of this are the secrets that hurt in the long run, and as much as they look and feel like weaknesses, they open the door for bonds, and lay foundations of trust the likes of apocalypse cannot deny. Consent, patience and honesty. Between them fills the holy grail.