Magical Mistress Alexandra

"Which would be...?"

"My cock and the freedom to use it."

"What do you offer in return?"

Jim hesitated only a fraction of a second.

"Pain," he said.

On cue, Alexandra raised the whip and brought it down on his naked back, leaving an angry line of red from shoulder to hip.

"And blood," he said, through clenched teeth.

Alexandra struck again, the whip whistling loudly through the air on its way to impact.

Jim sucked in a sharp breath, but there was no blood yet. The sheath of wet wool covering the whip's wooden core gave it an almost cruel amount of cushioning for this particular purpose. It would hurt, but it wouldn't cut him, no matter how hard she hit. She was going to have to beat the skin raw to draw a few red beads from it.

Calling upon the part of herself that thought it served him right, Alexandra took ruthless aim at the tender stripe of skin where the last hit had landed, and swung.

Jim gripped the chains of the handcuffs, knuckles turning white.

Thankfully, the spell's script grew more flexible here, with an open-ended prompt to do whatever was necessary to keep the subject's mind focused on the intended result.

Alexandra suspected this would be easier than Jim's last failed adventure in mental discipline.

"Tell me about what you'll do when it's safe to unlock you," she said, and hit again.

"What?" Jim asked, voice a little shaky.

Alexandra repeated both the question and the blow.

"Well, it's fairly obvious," said Jim.

The task of stringing multiple words together seemed to help ground him. He managed to continue his next sentence across multiple hits, with only small gasps for each time the whip landed.

"I'm going to stay on my knees" - gasp - "long enough to thank you" - gasp - "and beg for that key, and then" - gasp - "I'm going to head straight for the nearest scrap of privacy" - gasp - "that I can find."

"Is that really the best-case scenario you can think of?" Alexandra asked, finding her playfulness.

Jim turned his head to glance at her, and then quickly remembered to turn it forward again, to minimize the risk of being hit in the eye by mistake.

"Did you have a" - gasp - "better idea?" he asked.

"It's your ideal destiny to design," Alexandra reminded him. "But if your plans are reasonable, I might allow you to involve me in them."

A smile crept into Jim's voice, strong enough to stand up to the work of the whip.

"I doubt I can give you my usual stamina" - gasp - "right now. At least not" - gasp - "on a first round."

"How would you spend that very brief first round of freedom, if you could pick anything you wanted?" Alexandra asked.

Jim thought for the space of two blows, but did not lose the thread.

"I'd spend it" - gasp - "in your mouth," he said, the sound of his smile growing sharper. "I'd try to hold out" - gasp - "long enough for you to remind me how" - gasp - "gentle you can be when you want to." His next gasp was replaced by a sharp laugh. "But almost as soon as your tongue" - gasp - "touches me, you'll taste" - gasp - "all the hours I've spent" - gasp - "thinking of you."

"And then?" Alexandra prompted.

"And then, after a quick pause to" - gasp - "catch my breath, I'd ask if you wouldn't mind taking off that nightie, and lying" - gasp - "naked on the bed, with your hips right at the edge."

"And if I did?"

"I'd stand with both feet on the ground for" - gasp - "leverage, and remind you why some folk call this thing a tool" - laugh - "by using it on you like that 'magic wand' in your drawer."

"You could use that wand on me as you are now," Alexandra teased. "Why do you need your dick back for that?"

"For me, of course," Jim replied shamelessly. "We're talking about my ideal destiny" - gasp - "aren't we? But don't worry, you'll" - gasp - "love it, when I'm rubbing my densest cluster of nerve endings right against yours, so that I can" - gasp - "almost feel for myself what I'm doing to you, while I'm" - gasp - "doing it. You'll be looking up at me, knowing that I can" - moan - "feel it, but that I'm pacing myself just for you. Dipping the head inside you just long enough to" - moaning gasp - "keep it slick before sliding it back up to your clit. And then" - whimper - "Christ, how am I not bleeding yet?"

Alexandra paused a few extra seconds to let him collect himself, then forced her vindictive streak to lend a little more of its strength. She wound up and hit harder, searching for those first few drops of blood and still not finding them.

"Stay with me," she told Jim.

"And then," he gritted onward, "the question will be whether I go all the way in to fuck you right after you cum" - gasp - "or right before."

Gasp.

"We got it!" Alexandra announced, dropping the whip and gently touching her bare fingertips to Jim's bruised and blistered back, along his right shoulder blade, where a single bead of blood had finally managed to seep out.

She held her hand out next to his face to show him.

"Oh, thank bleeding hell." Jim keeled to the side in relief, hanging from his cuffs and taking long, slow breaths.

After a few moments, he asked, "Is there a closing ceremony?"

"Only the most basic," Alexandra said, double-checking the book. "We give thanks to the forces of the universe and recall our shield magic."

She uncuffed his hands so that he could bring them together in a little prayer to the fates. With another synchronized breath, the shield dome separated and contracted into two auras, before disappearing under their skins altogether.

"What are we supposed to do to present the blood to the fates?" Jim asked.

"Nothing," Alexandra answered with a sinking feeling. "The spell should have taken effect the moment it spilled. Did it... not?"

Jim turned around to face her, leaning his back against the foot of the bed.

Between his legs, the caged creature went on choking on its metal bit, drooling pre-ejaculate faster than ever.

"Oh fuck," Jim said, slumping forward and resting his head in his hands. "Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck."

"It should have worked," Alexandra said, uncomprehending. "I'll... I'll get you something for your back."

She set the book down on her way to the door, and Jim grabbed it, desperately paging through for any explanation.

#

Alexandra was on her way back to the suite, with an extra towel and a fresh bucket of ice, when she recognized the flaw in her assumptions.

"I think I know what went wrong," she said when she stepped back into the bedroom.

"Grand timing for that," Jim said, though he couldn't help looking up from the book to her, following the most likely source of help. "Really terrific."

"Don't give me that," Alexandra told him sharply. "It was your fault. Can you guess why?"

"I have no idea," said Jim, closing the book and holding it in front of him like a shield. "As far as I can tell, we did it perfectly."

"We did," Alexandra confirmed and shook the ice bucket at him. "Get back in the tub. I don't want you dripping all over the carpet."

Jim followed her to the bathroom, lay facedown in the tub, and let her pour the ice over his bruises.

"Did you mean it, when you said you wished you could take it back?" Alexandra asked. "Walking out on me?"

"Of course I did," said Jim.

"And now here you are, back in my home," Alexandra pointed out. "With your last partner not talking to you, and what's left of your dick locked up with the key in my magic strongbox. Suffering from an affliction so dangerous, so tailored to my expertise, that I can't help feeling responsible for you. We couldn't be more stuck together if you'd found a way to cram our souls into the same body."

Jim's shoulders rose sheepishly, confirming the last of Alexandra's suspicions.

"You knew," she said. "You knew this didn't happen because of a stray thought about a kink you never really wanted to play out for real. It happened because you wished me back into your life."

"The visualizations are only a guide for the fates," Jim explained, speaking quickly and shifting away from her in the tub. "They're not expected to come true exactly as-is. But you have to be honest about what a good destiny means to you. And I couldn't... I couldn't pretend my perfect future didn't have you in it!"

"You might as well have cast a love spell, you asshole!" Alexandra shouted, scooping up a handful of ice and throwing it at Jim's head. "And you talked me into cracking the whip, to what, make me feel sorry for you?"

"No!" said Jim. "I told you the absolute truth about why I wanted you to perform the spell." He turned on his side to grab the cage. "This didn't exactly turn out the way I was imagining!"

"I'll bet," Alexandra laughed. "But there was no way a correction spell was going to be able to 'fix' the one you cast with that burrower, because nothing went wrong with it in the first place." She couldn't stop laughing. "Welcome to your best possible destiny."

"Wait," Jim called out as she straightened up and turned to go. "I know you're angry. I understand. But you're not really saying I'm stuck like this. You wouldn't give up on me like this, Lex. Lex, please!"

"Oh, would you just let me have this for five minutes?" Alexandra sighed. "It's the least you can do after what you've pulled."

She wiped her eyes and looked back at him seriously from the doorway.

"Of course I'm going to find another way to get you your dick back. But it won't be anywhere near that simple. Enjoy your ice. I'll be enjoying my magic wand after all."