Old World Magic Ch. 18

"No reason?!" He yelled and then his eyes narrowed as he began to pull his own mental magic into play. It was an odd sensation, I knew that he was dominating my mind, that his own will was smashing through my defenses, breaking down any magical barriers to that type of magic, but yet, I felt that in a way I was safe. My intellect half staggered under the awesome power of a several hundred year old mentalist as Adam brought his magic into crushing power.

Now was my chance. I'd expected this to happen, and I turned off the TV, turned off the feed to the outside. I couldn't pay attention to what Adam and I were doing right now, I'd only get one chance at this. I began casting my own spells of domination, targeted at Adam. He was so focused on attack, and dominating me, that he'd never even suspect a psychic attack to come in at him. More so, I wasn't going to simply slam his defenses down with brute force. He was too powerful and too strong for that. But because he wasn't expecting an attack, I sent out a tiny probe of magic, and slid in between the chinks in his mental armor.

His mind was rage and betrayal as he punished me, I knew not how. I couldn't focus on that however or I'd risk getting drawn into whatever was happening between my intellect and him. Instead, like a fish flitting through a vast ocean, I slid through his mind, flitting quickly through the dark waters. Finally I found what I was looking for. A memory, a simple memory. I opened it and smiled at the secret I found within. A single simple thing, but one that would mean so much to me.

I knew I should leave, I should exit this dark and dangerous place before I was discovered. I had no idea how long I'd been in here, nor what types of wrath my intellect was accuring. But I couldn't help but leave one little gift for him. A tiny bow wrapped around a box containing a suggestion. I left it with the memory I'd viewed, knowing the next time he recalled that memory, his subconscious would find the gift. Then with the right prodding, he'd open it and the suggestion would go live.

Then as quickly as I could I swam out. Back the way I'd come through the vast and dangerous ocean of my mentor's mind. But the gap I'd come through was gone. I was trapped inside his head, my hands beating against the black glass of his mind, that which kept in his power. I felt panic well up inside of me, I needed to get out, these spells were draining my mana, and I had no idea what would happen if part of my consciousness was stuck inside someone else's head when the spell which sent me there failed.

I flailed and beat my hands against the black surface of his mental shielding, and felt as if I could not draw breath. Of course it was all symbolic, there was no actual air here, but I was emotion, willpower, mana, force, persona, I could not reason with myself as my intellect was separated and running my body right now. I realized that the sensation of holding my breath was a symbolic representation of my body running out of mana. If it ran out and I could no longer power my spells...

I slid along the smooth shielding searching for anything, any crack, no matter how small, that I could squeeze through. Smooth, flawless, perfect... I was doomed. My vision began to close in, blackness edging my vision... It was hopeless, I was lost, I despaired. Then with the last thought, I found it, a gap in the shielding. With every bit of power I had I thrust myself into that crack and felt myself pulled back into my own head as if yanked violently by a bungee cord that had reached it's maximum point.

Then everything went black and I lost all sensation, I know not for how long.

- - -

I groaned and awoke to the soft and wet feel of two lips sliding up and down my cock. The gentle slurping noise was one designed to arouse, and the skill of the oral ministrations were obvious. I opened my eyes to see a mass of black hair atop a dark caramel skinned body. Cheyenne was in my bedroom and I was laying back as she sucked my cock slowly and wetly.

"What..." I managed to ask, my voice cracking as if I hadn't used it in a while.

Cheyenne looked up at me and smiled. She continued to jerk my spittle covered cock with one hand as she explained. "Adam said he had to discipline you, and that you agreed not to leave, but that in his punishment, you passed out. He said to tell you that you shouldn't spend all your energy trying to resist him, you'll always lose." She grinned and then added, "But honestly I don't mind as long as this is how he tells me I have to wake you up. Now sit back and enjoy."

Then with that her lips again descended on my cock. I groaned in pleasure and let my head fall back onto the pillow. I took stock of my situation as the native american beauty expertly fellated me. I felt drained and dry, thin mentally. I felt like burnt toast that had been scraped free of carbon and eagerly awaited butter. I knew what it meant, I'd burned through every last ounce of my mana and then some. I don't know where the extra energy had come from to keep my spells active as long as I'd needed them. Maybe from some other world, the world of Elder Creaklimb and Brookesbend. Maybe from inside me, I'd used some power of my own soul that I wasn't aware of. But the one thing I did know was that as Cheyenne's lips slathered up and down my turgid shaft, as she worked my cock and balls with one hand, as she oh so expertly brought me closer and closer to my orgasm, I could feel the erotic primal energy seeping back into me, slowly returning the mana that I needed.

With a groan of pleasure, I released. My hot spunk firing into Cheyenne's mouth as she closed her lips around my cock head and stroked my shaft with her hand. Spurt after spurt coated the back of her throat, and she eagerly swallowed. Just as I filled her mouth with my cum, so too did I feel the erotic energy that was produced fill my body with burst after burst of magical power.

But it would take more than one blowjob to restore my mana reserves. So once I was done, and Cheyenne stood up, wiping her hand backwards across her lips, I shook my head no at her. "Oh, I'm not done with you yet," I told her. She smiled down at me and saw how my cock still stood at attention. Then she reached up to begin unbuttoning her blouse, a pleased look upon her face.

- - -

The next few days around the brothel were tense. Adam watched me like a hawk, and while he didn't need to repeat his discipline, he made no secret of the fact that he would not hesitate to do so if needed. I do not know what it was that he did to punish me while my focus was split, but a large part of me decided I was happier not knowing. I let my intellect keep that part of my memory locked away. Still I felt the secret, I felt the knowledge of something bad, something that could only be described as a violation, hidden away in a locked memory. The knowledge of that, but kept hidden, only spurred me on to go forwards with the plan I was putting in place, the plan to leave Ruby's Hideaway and to get out from under Adam Sak's thumb.

As the days turned into weeks, and I maintained the illusion of the perfect student, Adam's guard began to slip. Life at the brothel returned to much as it had been before my birthday trip to Las Vegas. Exercising, learning whatever magic that Adam chose to teach, copious amounts of sex, rigorous exercise, and working at the bar to the brothel. I played the role of the dutiful student, doing whatever was asked of me with no hesitation, no reason for Adam to distrust me. Things seemed to be moving forwards very slowly with Cheyenne. She spent most days sleeping in my bed now, not her own. Though we were understandably not exclusive to each other sexually. I was unwilling to do so, and she, by nature of her job as a prostitute, was unable too.

I prepared, subtly and secretly, to make my escape from my mentor who was in some aspects my captor. I bought a nice laptop and began preparing it with my plans. I was impressed that a simple mail order laptop could come with a biometric fingerprint lock, but was pleased that there was an extra layer of security. I bought a car as well, a cadillac sedan. Malik, the brothel's bouncer, laughed when he saw it, "I thought only old white men and rappers bought Cadillacs," he joked. I had no response of course. How can you tell someone that you actually are twice as old as your appearance, and are closer to forty than your twenty something face appears?

Things were going along, smoothly, and I was avoiding causing any waves, making my plans. Things were going exactly as I planned right up until I got a phone call one day.

"Mike?" The woman's voice asked quietly over the phone.

"Yes? I responded, not recognizing the voice which was soft and barely audible. "This is Mike, who is this?"

There was a long pause before she spoke again, "This is Erin. I want to talk with you," She hesitated and added, "About my father's death."

Adam seemed hesitant to let me go. But I'd been behaving, in his eyes, for weeks. I told him most of the truth; That I wanted to go to Lake Havasu for a day, possibly two, to talk to a woman that I'd met in Vegas. I made up a story about how she'd seen me use magic, but since she was drunk at the time, hadn't really understood what she'd seen. But now, she was in AA and recalling the night in question, was beginning to question the events. I sold the story to Adam that I needed to go speak with her to dominate her and make her remember things in a better light.

Adam agreed on the condition that if I couldn't use my powers to change her mind, that I come back and report to him immediately. He had faith that he would be able to succeed if I failed.

- - -

Erin approached me as I sat, waiting in the park she'd directed me to. I waited patiently on the bench, looking at the redheaded beauty as she walked towards me, uncertainty painted across her face. She looked as pretty as I remembered, fresh faced, young, fair skinned with a spray of light freckles across her face. But there was also a difference to her, a look of weariness, a look that said she was tired. She stopped in front of me, but I gestured to the park bench next to me and said, "Good to see you again Erin. Won't you sit?"

She bit her lip, torn, and one part of me honestly expected her to take off, to run, to fly away from me. I knew not why she was so scared of me, but I had a good idea. I was directly responsible for her father's suicide, and she'd probably figured out a part of that somehow, but I wasn't sure how. But after a moment she did sit. The sunlight glinted off her light red hair and sparkled in her green eyes. I had become mostly a night owl, and wasn't used to the bright early afternoon light, so I squinted, blinded by her beauty as much as the bright sun as I took off my sunglasses and smiled at her. She smiled back and said, "It's good to see you again Mike."

"You too Erin," I admitted honestly.

"I thought maybe," she started then hesitated, looking away.

"What?" I asked wondering where this was going.

"Well, I don't know, you're going to just think I'm some stupid whore..." she said softly.

"No, Erin, no." I said forcefully. "I don't care about that kind of thing. I don't make those judgements on people. Hell, you know I live at the brothel, I live with working girls all day long. Just say what's on your mind."

"I thought... I thought that maybe there was something more between us than just a girl and her client." Erin spit out. "I know you wanted a G.F.E. for a week." She hesitated, and I thought about how the week with Erin had been a pleasant girlfriend experience. "But I don't know, Mike, I felt like there was really something there between us, there was really something there. I don't know was I wrong? Was I just a paid hooker for the week?"

I shook my head. I forced this woman's abusive father to commit suicide because I came to care for her. There was no way she was only a working girl, she was special in her own way. "No Erin, not just a working girl. But I don't know what you want from me."

She turned and looked at me again and her eyes were wet. She wasn't crying, but the tears were close, were barely held in check. "So why didn't you call me Mike? You knew that my father died, you knew I ..." She shook her head and her face grew angry. "What happened between you and my father Mike?"

My face showed no shock. I knew something like this was coming. She saw it, saw that I wasn't surprised by her accusation. Her pretty eyes narrowed even further, "I spoke with some of my father's co workers the day of his funeral. They said a man came to see him the last day he showed up for work. They described him and I didn't want to believe that it was you. But I knew it was, somehow, you went and saw my father, confronted him didn't you?

I nodded. "Why Mike? I spent years denying what he did to me, to my mother. Then I vowed I would confront him, I would make him pay. But I never had the courage. For more than two years I worked as an escort in Vegas, mentally preparing to confront him. He used to visit your brothel you know."

I nodded my head as she continued. "I was going to work at Ruby's Hideaway..." I didn't have the nerve to contradict her on that. Ruby wasn't especially enamored of Erin's work as a prostitute, felt the woman too slight and inexperienced. But that didn't matter to Erin's story, so I stayed silent as she continued. "...I was going to confront my father there, in the brothel as a prostitute. I was going to show him what his little girl had become. Show him that the little girl he called a worthless whore had become exactly what he wanted."

I stayed silent. This wasn't a conversation, this was a monologue, one she'd practiced several times in the dark of the night. One she'd thought about and imagined saying to me any times. It would have been wrong for me to interrupt her. "But you ruined that didn't you Mike?" She said her voice laced with vehemence. "You confronted my father, you scared him, or forced him or something. Because of you, he took the cowards way out and killed himself before I could get my revenge. I don't know how you found out about him, about my past, or what you said to him. But you took my revenge from me, you stole it away from me. Why would you do that?"

I smiled and took her hand in mine, "You're wrong Erin, I didn't take anything from you. My intention wasn't to steal from you, it was to save you. There was... is something between us. I couldn't let you throw that away on the piece of shit that you wanted revenge on. I've seen it before, I've seen people waste their time, waste their lives, on revenge, and it only ends up destroying them in the process."

She snorted derisively, "Oh yeah, you're so wise Mike. You must have seen so much in your twenty one years, right?" My mouth opened to correct her and tell her I was almost forty, but then I remembered that for all appearances, I was only twenty one. I was flummoxed by how to approach it, but Erin continued into the pause, "So what, you're going to play the heroic white knight? You're going to ride in on your white horse and save the poor damsel in distress? Incase you hadn't noticed Mike, I'm no princess, I'm a whore. I didn't ask for you to save me, and I didn't want it."

I shrugged my shoulders, "I don't care what you do for a living, I had feelings for you and I thought you were worth saving."

That set her back. The idea that a man she might have feelings for might reciprocate them and might be willing to try to save her. She turned away from me for a few moments and I leaned back on the bench, giving her some privacy. When she turned back her anger was gone and she asked inquisitively, "How did you know? How did you know about him, what he did?"

I smirked and lied quickly and smoothly, "I'm a keen judge of character and you talk in your sleep." She did mutter in her sleep sometimes, but nothing very distinct. It didn't matter anyways, she was just looking for a reason, an excuse. "As for finding your father, it wasn't anything difficult that someone with an internet connection couldn't do in only a few minutes. Especially since your Arizona state drivers license has your full name and hometown on it." I smiled at her, "You still have Lake Havasu listed as your permanent address huh? I'm guessing that's your mom's house?"

She muttered quietly, "She forwards my mail to me wherever I'm living."

But I continued, "But there's more to it Erin. Francis Solaris was a very bad man. He did a lot of bad things, and not just the things he did to you as a child. He had another daughter," Erin bit her lip and nodded, of course she'd have known, "He was doing bad things to her as well. But more than that he was wrapped up with some really bad people. The kind of people you don't get involved with, not if you're smart. But he was stealing from them, it was only a matter of time till they figured it out and came for him."

Erin looked startled, "Are they going to come looking for the money he left us then?" I wasn't sure how to answer that. "He left me a sizeable chunk of inheritance Mike. Do I have to worry about someone knocking on my door and looking for it?" My mouth opened and closed a few times. I wanted to reassure her, tell her that she was going to be safe. But honestly, I didn't know. My silence must have spoken more to her than anything else because her face dropped. "What aren't you telling me Mike?"

I visibly slumped. My powers, magical abilities, the knack for reading other people's minds, for forcing my will upon them. What good were they? Here was a woman who was half my age, just a normal girl, one who'd lived and experienced a lot certainly, but she was reading me. She could see that I was holding secrets far more easily than I could weave a net of mana and cast it into the sea of other people's minds.

Her piercing gaze bored into me, it reached into me. I felt that deep ancient spell that all women, especially beautiful ones like Erin, knew how to cast instinctively. There was no mana involved with her magic, no spell, no mysticism. Yet every man who'd ever lived, lusted, loved, knew it's power. I was powerless against it. "I was beginning to feel for you," I started, "and you spoke in your sleep." It was a lie, but easier than explaining my magical powers. "I figured out what your father had done to you as a child. So I did some research and found out that he was local to Vegas. I paid him a visit, not even knowing why or what I was going to do. But after meeting with him, I found exactly what kind of monster he was. He hurt you, scarred you, forever."

Erin opened her mouth to say something but I held up a hand, "No, let me finish." She drew another breath to protest and I cut her off again, "Erin, if you don't let me finish this all, I'll never say it and that's it for us." Her mouth closed, her lips pinching tightly shut as she nodded slightly. "What I found that really was the worst however wasn't that he'd permanently marked you, forever imprinted on your being... but then I found out about your half sister. His daughter from his second marriage. He was beginning the cycle of abuse again. He was going to hurt her, the way he hurt you, hurt your mother, or maybe even worse. I could see it in his eyes, they were dead eyes, monster's eyes."

I paused and considered how I'd spin this next lie. In my previous life before I was a mage, I was a school teacher. I knew how sensitive and vulnerable children could be, of any age. Anyone who hurt a child was the scum of the earth in my eyes. I cast a spell of suggestion on her father, one that ultimately led to him taking his own life. But I couldn't come out and say that, so instead I said, "So I threatened him. I wanted to scare him, maybe get him to run out on his family. See, he was stealing from a very powerful family from New York City."