Love Potion Number Six

Marshal bristled. "I don't think you really can love her the way I do," he said, his voice rising. "That's what I can provide. And I don't think—"

Then there was a woman's voice: "Boys, boys, boys. Are you going to argue all night? Or are you going to listen to me tell you how to solve your problem?"

Both of them turned to the woman in the rocking chair. "How?" they said at the same time. Finnian added: "You owe us. Me particularly."

Eimhear heard footsteps on the cottage's old floorboards—coming toward the window! She ducked again, even pulling up the hood on her cloak, but the owl flew down and shrieked, giving her away. Traitor bird!

The woman appeared in the doorway. She looked strange, but in a way that was hard to place: She wasn't old, but she wasn't young. She wasn't pretty, but she wasn't ugly. She just was. She saw Eimhear right away and Eimhear froze, waiting for some horrible thing to happen. But all that the woman did was put a hand out to invite her inside.

The boys stood up straight as she entered. Marshal seemed nearly to panic; Finnian appeared almost angry. The woman (the witch, Eimhear reminded herself) hung Eimhear's cloak on the wall and led her further into the room. "What we really need," the witch said. "Is a woman's opinion."

They all stood in semi-panicked silence for a moment. Marshal was the first to speak up: "I...this isn't how it looks," he said.

"I'm not sure how it looks..." said Eimhear, glancing from one man to another. The first inklings of anger stirred in her, but she hadn't yet given them direction. Principally, though, she felt unaccounted and unwanted desire, and it was all she could do not to let it propel her toward both of them.

For a fortnight, every time she'd closed her eyes in bed she'd seen both of these men's faces, heard both of their voices, imagined both of their bodies. And now here they both were, in the same place at the same time, as if by some sinful miracle, and all three of them as far away from everyone else they knew as they could dare imagine.

They both began talking at once: apologies, protestations, cringing explanations of things she didn't understand, and every sixth word a jab at one another. Eimhear took a step back and looked at the witch.

The other woman rolled her eyes and then, so quick that almost no one could see her do it, she dipped one hand into a bowl full of a steaming substance on the sideboard and, without warning, flicked it into the faces of both men, first one and then the other.

Marshal blinked, surprised, and then suddenly he shut his mouth and stared in a glazed way. Finnian sputtered and his brow knit in a look of utter contempt, but then, in a blink, all expression melted away for him too.

Both boys were now silent and seemingly unaware of what was happening. When the witch took them both by the hand and sat them by the fire, they complied without remark. Eimhear watched with a mingling of horror and fascination. "Now that's better," Branwen said.

"What did you do them?" Eimhear said, kneeling to look one of the boys in the eye.

"Nothing much, I was just tired of their commotion. I've been keeping them occupied all night while we waited for you. They didn't know you were coming, of course. I just told them that a solution to their problem was on the way."

"And what is their problem?"

"That's a much bigger question than you probably meant to ask. But for now, don't you have matters you want to attend to?"

Eimhear edged away. "What do you mean?" she said, although the truth was that she was very much afraid she already knew. Branwen brought her to the fireside, where Marshal and Finnian sat opposite each other on top of a thick, soft, animal hide laid out in front of the hearth.

"They're both yours now," the witch whispered. "Do whatever you want. They can't say no—and even if they could, they wouldn't."

The unnatural feelings that had haunted Eimhear all week now turned over and purred inside of her, and her knees weakened. She forced herself upright anyway.

"That's awful," she said (trying her best to muster all of the force and sincerity she could). "I can't...that is, I just couldn't."

"You want to."

"Yes, but—"

"No one's around. These two won't remember a thing. Nobody would ever have to know but us."

"Why should I trust you? I don't even know you."

"You wouldn't have come all this way if you didn't trust me."

Eimhear let Branwen push her to her knees with both men. They looked at her with completely naïve, helpful, unpresupposing expressions. Eimhear let feelings she'd been trying to tamp down all this time bubble up, and when they finally bubbled over she reached out and, after a moment's consideration, pulled Marshal in for a kiss first.

She tasted his lips, soft and easy, and when she pressed harder he responded exactly the same, but stopped the instant she did. Curious, she drew him out with long, slow, sweet kisses, and then harder, hotter, faster ones, with tongues stabbing and probing. They both came up sweating and a bit breathless. The fire in the hearth seemed to burn a bit hotter.

More curious still, she took off her riding boots and put his hand on her bare ankle. His hard fingers caressed her as softly as they were able. She led his hand higher, up the smooth back of her calf, as high as the knee, her skirts sliding away underneath his palm. With a little urging, he squeezed harder.

"Very interesting..." Eimhear said.

All the while, Finnian watched on without comment. She looked at him out the corner of her eye but didn't approach, instead directing Marshal:

"Kiss me here," she said, pointing to the side of her neck. She felt the touch of his lips and the tickling tip of his tongue against those sinews and sighed.

"Here," she said, pointing lower, and his warm mouth slid down.

"Here..." she said again, pulling her dress down and giving one bare shoulder to him. "Oh...oh my..." She ran her fingers through his hair and pushed him into her some more. Eimhear sighed and then wilted. She grabbed one of his hands and thrust it to her breasts.

"Now here," she said, whispering into a hot, open-mouthed kiss. "Harder." The fabric of her dress bunched beneath his fingers as his big hands fondled her. A tight, warm feeling crept between her legs and she half-sprawled on the rug, pulling him down. He was a big man; for a moment she felt trapped by his body, but then remembered he could do nothing if not for her.

She remembered Finnian, still sitting nearby and watching, passive. She grabbed one of his hands and pushed it down her dress. "You too," she said. "Touch me. All over."

She threw herself on the floor and let both men grope and fondle, falling out of her dress and then kicking it down and off of her. Their pressing fingers slid beneath her underclothes, bare hands seeking bare flesh. Eimhear blushed all over—not from embarrassment but from excitement. It felt so good to be touched. She wanted more.

She sat up and pulled Finnian in, kissing him with a thrusting tongue and comparing it to kissing Marshal. His face and lips were smaller and finer but somehow not so soft. It took a minute of getting used to, but she soon found she liked it. She tugged at the laces of his shirt.

"Off," she murmured, then added: "Now."

Eimhear had seen men with their shirts off when working, but never like this. Finnian's bare chest was pale and beautiful, turned a golden color by the glow of the fire. She kissed his body and found it not at all like she'd expected: smoother, easier, less potent than it had been in her mind.

But before long the tingling, salty taste of perspiration danced across her tongue. She laid him out on the floor, trapping him between her thighs as she perched over him while Marshal obediently embraced her from behind with both hands clasped to her bare breasts. Oh yes, she thought, just like that...

In a few minutes she stripped both of them down nothing. She spent a long time fondling Marshal's hard, strong body with petite fondness. He was musky and pungent compared to Finnian's boyish, perfumed body. She bit one of his purpled nipples with her small white teeth and tugged, but although he winced and writhed he didn't object.

"More," he said, the word directed at no one and referencing nothing in particular. Eimhear pulled both men alongside her so that she could be surrounded and embraced from both sides. Their long, hard pricks pressed against her, front and back, back and front, and she wriggled her hips, comparing the feel of one to the other.

She supposed that all men must be a little bit different down there. She took one in each hand, testing them, rubbing her fingers around the shining bulge at the head and tracing a line all the way back along the underside of each, to where the hot, hairy, beastly testicles hung underneath.

These she touched too, fondling them as much out of curiosity as desire, again finding everything not at all like she'd expected, but sometimes better.

She spread her thighs, took one of the boys in hand, and brought him right up against her. He looked at her adoringly and dutifully as she rubbed against him, testing the entire feeling of his prick from one end to the other with the warm, sensitive lips at the middle of her legs.

Which one first? She found she was now actually only dimly aware of the difference between the two. Both had blurred together into a kind of medley of feelings, one giant, loyal beast of naked flesh.

At her command, the first entered her very slowly, slipping in and easing her all the way down him. She gaped and buried her face against his bare shoulder, raising her legs into the air and rocking up into him.

The soft pelt of the rug caressed her bare back as she rocked against the man's body, instructing him how to do it and how hard and how fast with by pushing and twisting her own hips upward again and again.

Eimhear's eyes rolled back in her head and, blindly, she reached out for the second boy, rolling over a bit so that her fingers could wander across him. She saw him and recognized him but had forgotten his name and everything about him except that he was here and he would do anything she wanted, and what she wanted.

"You too," she said. "Here. From behind."

They pressed her between them and her eyes went wide with shock for a moment, but then melted again, going soft and hot all over, running at the edges, precisely as she'd dreamed night in and night out for weeks.

The room, the fire, the men, and even her own body boiled down and mixed together into a red hot crucible of want, feeling, and gratification. When one of them came inside of her she wasn't expecting it. The sudden, hot spurt gave her tingles, even as she was mildly put off by the wet, dribbling feeling between her thighs.

Finishing with a grunt, that one pulled away, but she grabbed him and pulled him right back. "Not yet," she said. "More."

The boy paused. Now here was a dilemma: The spirit had no choice but to be living, but the flesh always had its limits.

Eimhear would have none of it. She grabbed him below and squeezed, stroking his cock while looking into his eyes and whispering, softly but firmly, that she wanted him to do it again.

Gradually, a bit at a time, he came back, and once he was standing firm she pressed herself between both bodies once more, making them push and thrust and drive into her, the panting and groaning of all three punctuated now and again by the hard, sharp, throttled cry of another orgasm, after which things would abate only long enough for Eimhear to set them going again.

Eventually they all fell asleep, exhausted, before the embers of the fire, with Eimhear tucked between the pair. Branwen stood over the three sleeping figures. "Well this is a pretty picture, isn't it?" she said.

She straightened the room up a bit; young people always had to throw themselves about like that. Then, with the help of a fine-haired brush, she took a drop of sweat from Eimhear's naked breast—just one drop—and added it to a brew she had stowed in a phial.

Tipping the sleeping girl's head back she poured its contents onto her lips, and Eimhear snapped awake almost at once. Disentangling herself from her two lovers' embraces, she wrapped her own arms around her body and looked at Branwen with something like alarm.

"They tried to bewitch me," she said after a moment. "Both of them." The realization came to her all at once, as wakefulness banished the waking dream she'd wandered in for weeks. "And you helped," she added.

"But I helped you too," said Branwen, putting an arm around the girl's shoulder and leading her away. "And I'll help you even more now. What do you think we ought to do with the pair of them?"

Eimhear looked at the sleeping men. "Well. What CAN we do?"

"I could leave them like this if you want," Branwen continued. "They could both be yours, to do with as you please. Or do you really fancy one over the other? Say the word and I'll put that one in your power forever and send the other off to never bother you again. You get to decide whatever you like. So what will it be?"

The girl studied each man's sleeping face in turn and then let her eyes roam over their bodies, considering. The owl sat on the mantle, watching her just as closely, sizing her up as she did the same to the boys.

Then, speaking each word very thoughtfully, she said:

"To be honest...I'm not sure I really like either of them."

The owl ruffled its feathers in approval.

"You know Eimhear," said Branwen, "you remind me of myself at your age."

"Do I?"

"Yes. Men used to tell me that I was born with gifts. Have you ever heard of the Six Gifts of Womanhood?"

Eimhear shook her head.

"You know the sorts of things they like: good looks, a sweet voice, a chaste demeanor, pretty words that flatter a man's ear, being good with a needle, and good sense.

"But one day I decided that I'd be willing to give that all up if it meant I could have a new gift, one that I chose for myself. And it's a gift I'll give you, if you're willing.

"You'll have to meet my Master, and make him your Master too. But once you pledge yourself to him he becomes the servant in all things, and chains himself to duty while you walk free. It's a strange life, but you'll find that no one will have power over you ever again, except for what you want to give them."

Eimhear petted the owl while she thought. Eventually, the only answer she gave was a small nod, but it was enough.

"Then it seems we have a journey to make," said Branwen. "But we'll have help. You two! Up!"

Marshal and Finnian clamored to their feet, although they still didn't seem aware of what was happening. They stumbled out of the cottage like sleepwalkers, and there, in the open field under the stars, Branwen whispered something into each man's ear. Then she flicked a few drops of her brew into each man's eyes again, and something happened so strange that Eimhear couldn't be sure what she was seeing until it was already over.

In a few seconds both boys were gone, and in their places stood a pair of beautiful young colts, whinnying and pawing the ground under the moonlight, one of them brown and the other one white, and each with big blue eyes deeper and more knowing than those of any natural horse.

"What a pair of beauties you turned out to be," Branwen said, stroking their flanks. Then she said, "Now don't look at me like that. I had half a mind to make you both jackasses instead. Come on, girl, we have a ride ahead of us to the Sabbat."

Eimhear ran her hands over the smooth, beautiful hide of one of the beasts and then clamored naked onto its back, knotting her fingers into its mane and pressing her bare legs against its sides, where its animal sweat mingled with her own. They'd only ridden a few steps before a thought occurred to her.

"We're not going to leave them like this, are we?"

"Not unless you want to," said Branwen, smiling in the dark.

And then they were riding so hard and so fast that saying anything more was impossible. But Eimhear already knew the answer to every question she might have asked anyway: She could do as she liked.

So she did.