Tales of the Apprentice 01 Ch. 01

The room vanished around her as her Vision overtook her.

Before her mind's Eye she saw Galen, positioned on a training bench. She saw herself, kneeling before him, her lips around his hard, pulsing cock, and his hips shuddered as he let go, emptying himself into her mouth.

Before she could see more, the image wavered and was replaced with another one. Her younger self, kneeling on a low bench, Galen behind her, both of them naked. He was taking her from behind, his large, thick cock sliding in and out of her with slow, long, deep, well-controlled yet lustful and passionate strokes. There didn't seem to be any trace of magic other than the flow of energies between them. Part of a training, then, and not an attempt at a major magical working. An initiation, perhaps?

Again the Vision changed. A green field, a spread blanket, Galen on his back. Her younger self, straddling his hips, impaling herself on him as they both shook and shuddered in their mutual release. This time the air around them was thick with magic, the energies of their union swirling and billowing to a magnitude she had never seen before.

A new Vision overlaid the previous one: a large room full of people, copulating in just about every manner and position she knew. Galen standing in front of them, naked, her younger self behind him, holding him, steadying him, one arm around his chest, her other hand holding his erect cock. He raised his arms, and the frenzy before them increased as the participants in the orgy let go all at once, and the massive explosion of their combined orgasmic power hit him full in the chest. He staggered with the force of its impact, and she leaned into his back to steady him. He grunted, and his hard cock pulsed in her hand, a thick, powerful blast of his cum erupting from it with more force and volume that any ordinary man could ever have been capable of. He absorbed the blue-white explosion of Energy, bundled it, reshaped it and finally sent it upward and outward through the roof and walls of the building as he continued to ejaculate with great force, her hand still holding his spurting cock.

The image disappeared, and for a moment her Vision was clouded. Then it cleared to reveal a dark citadel rising up before her. An aura of blackness surrounded it, a cold emanated from it until a feeling of terrible dread and an icy, menacing evil found its way into her stomach...

With a shudder she opened her eyes. Shivering with the aftereffects of that final Vision she looked around her, reassured by the familiar safety of her bedroom as the world slowly returned to normal. The candle had burned down to a stump, and the force of her orgasm had pushed the dildo out of her. She took a deep breath to steady herself and took the glass rod from where it lay between her legs. The bedding under her was soaked.

"Great Mother..." she whispered to herself.

The answers she had sought were now clear, and they could not be denied, no matter how much she might have wished otherwise. She had wondered whether or not Galen would return. She had wanted to know if she would have to take him on as her apprentice, with all that entailed, or if she could could send him on his way instead without any harm done. She had wanted to know if he had the potential to learn what she had to teach him. She had wanted to know what the future would hold for her. She had needed to know if the Great Mother had indeed spoken to her today.

Now she did.

Yes, she would have to take him on as her apprentice, and he would learn. He would learn well, and develop his powers beside her.

Because her Vision had shown that Galen had the potential to become a Channeler.

There had been only a few Channelers in history. All of them had been extremely powerful sex mages. Far more importantly than that, though, Channelers had the extremely rare ability to receive, absorb, bundle and redirect the sexual energies of other sex mages working simultaneously, multiplying the strength and force of their powers by many orders of magnitude, thus enabling them to function not as individuals but as a single entity, and so to harness a magic that could rival even the sorcery of old.

Channelers didn't just appear. Each and every time the Great Mother had sent one, it had been when she or he was most needed.

Which meant not only that she would train Galen and support him in every way possible, but that she absolutely had to, because there was a Purpose that he had been sent to serve.

She sighed, feeling more than a little overwhelmed with the magnitude of the task before her. But there was no doubt in her mind that she would do it, or even that she could do it. The Great Mother would not have sent Galen to her it it were otherwise. In fact She would not have sent a Channeler at all, unless a time of great need was at hand.

At other times Serana would have given herself a few more good orgasms, simply for pleasure and as a reward. But what she had just learned had badly shaken her, and both her arousal and her mood had evaporated. She rolled over on the bed until she got clear of the large wet patch she had created. Then she relaxed, and within moments the rich, soft velvet cloak of sleep enveloped her. She let herself sink into the blissful darkness.

* * *

"You're later than I thought you would be," Serana said, more than a week after she had last spoken with her would-be apprentice. "You haven't changed your mind, have you?"

Galen shook his head, trying to read the expression on Serana's face.

"No, he said. "I haven't. You?"

The look she gave him was one of resignation.

"I wasn't planning on any of this, Galen. I didn't really want any of it, and I think you know that. But that doesn't matter anymore. The Great Mother has brought you to me, and I have a duty to Her. It's that simple."

"I really don't want to be a problem..." Galen began.

"You're not. I don't resent your coming to me, Galen. I may wish it could have been someone else, anyone but me, but that choice is neither yours nor mine to make. It never was. You are welcome here."

"Thank you," he said simply.

"Oh, don't thank me yet, Galen. You are going to have to work hard for what you came here to learn. It's not going to be easy. In fact, think of the hardest thing you've ever done in your life, multiplied by ten, or a hundred, and you'll be closer to what awaits you."

He shrugged.

"Nothing really worthwhile is ever easy."

She nodded.

"You're right at that. Well, come in. You'll be staying here for quite a while, I imagine, so we've got some arrangements to make. And we need to start preparing you for your training. Why are you so late, anyway?"

"I found some work in the village," he explained as he followed her into the kitchen. "I reasoned that if I'm going to stay here for a while, I could use a spare hose and tunic and some other things. So I made a deal with the tailor there. I took care of his yard for him and he paid me in clothing. It just took a little longer than I thought it would."

"Good. I'm glad you came prepared," she said. "You can put your things there in the corner for the moment."

He did so, walking past the fireplace on which a small kettle bubbled and steamed.

"Great gods," he said as he smelled the pungent vapors coming off it. "What on earth are you cooking there?"

"That, my young apprentice, is a potion for you."

"But I feel fine."

"It's not meant to cure illness, Galen. I'll explain later. We've got a lot to do. But first things first. You look hot and thirsty. Here's some water. From now on, you will drink at least one cup of water every hour or so. Understood?"

He nodded and drank.

"Hydration is very important," she continued. "It balances not just the fluids in the body, but also the energies within you. You will have to look after yourself properly if you want to get any results out of your studies."

"I'll make a point of it," he promised.

"Good. I'll show you where you can sleep. I don't have a spare bedroom at the moment, but we'll see to that later. For the moment you'll have to make do with some space in the store room, I'm afraid. We'll have to clean it out first."

"No problem. I've slept in worse places."

"You can tell me about all that later. Let me show you what has to be done."

The took the kettle off the fire as she walked past the fireplace, using a cloth against the hot metal of the handle. As she put the kettle on the grate next to the fireplace to let it cool down, Galen suddenly realizing something.

"You had this ready," he said. "You knew I would come back. And you knew exactly when."

She nodded.

"Yes. The Great Mother showed me. Come, and I will show you what you must do."

He followed her through the door leading into the house. A small living room held a rocking chair by the fireplace, and a table with ta simple bench on either side of it. There was a small carpet on the floor and an antique-looking tapestry on one of the walls. A large wooden chest stood in the corner opposite from the table, a candle and several books on top of it.

"My bedroom is through there," she said, pointing at the door. "You will never enter it unless I tell you to. I need some privacy every now and then, and that is my sanctuary. Understood?"

He nodded.

"Good. Here is the room where you will sleep. Don't worry, it'll be quite habitable once we're done."

The door she opened gave access to a musty darkness and the smell of dust. She stepped inside and he heard her made her way past whatever was in the room. Suddenly there was light as she opened the shutters on the window, revealing the room to be filled with a few bulky objects, quite large, all covered with a variety of cloths.

She drew the cover off the one nearest the door, careful to stir up as little dust as she could. Underneath the cloth was something that appeared to be a curiously shaped piece of furniture. It looked almost like a rack of torture, but the straps that might be used to restrain some hapless victim were made of soft cloth, and a rack wouldn't be fitted with the comfortable-looking padding that covered the exquisitely polished and lacquered wood in several places. It had various attachments of an unclear purpose, apparently adjustable with the aid of various hinges and latches.

"What is that thing, Serana?"

She smiled mysteriously.

"You'll find out," she promised. "This one can stay here. We'll put it in the corner over there. Now, this one... Help me to take that cloth off, will you? I think we'll put that one in the shed at the back of the house for now. We won't need it yet. It should be alright in there if we wrap it carefully."

Galen looked dubiously at the contraption that had been hidden underneath the cloth. It almost looked like a painter's easel, but it was much larger, fitted with several straps and brackets and even more padding than the first whatever-it-was.

"All right," he said. "And what about that one?"

The next object, when she removed the cloth covering it, turned out to be a curiously shaped chair. It was all curves and no straight lines, and it appeared to have been made from one single, thin sheet of wood that had been folded and bent into an almost organic shape. The back rest (if it was a back rest) reclined at an angle before curving down to the floor, and the front legs were much wider than the seat in the middle, which was shaped almost like a horseman's saddle, except that it was much flatter than that. It was strangely beautiful.

"That one..." Serana said, thinking for a moment. "Let's put that one in the corner of the living room for the moment. It might be a little in the way, but it won't have to be there for very long."

It took Galen several hours with broom, mop and bucket to clean up the room, which had obviously been closed for quite some time and contained more than its fair share of dust and cobwebs. At one point she handed him a cup of water, looking at him rather pointedly.

"You should have thought of this yourself," she admonished him. "I'm not your mother. Forget your instructions again, and I'll have your guts for garters. Look after yourself, Galen. If you want to become a mage, you will be dependent on a proper balance of the energies within your body more than anything else, and bodily fluids are important when it comes to that. So learn to pay attention to them."

"Sorry," he said, drinking the water she had handed him.

"Don't be sorry; just don't do it again."

"It tastes... different."

She nodded.

"I added some of the tonic I prepared for you. I'll give you the vial later. From now on you'll put three drops in your hourly cup of water. It smells worse than it tastes, as I'm sure you'll have noticed."

"It's not too bad," he agreed. "So what is it for?"

"You're a young, strong lad, Galen. You're what, about twenty years old? A man at your age is quite virile. Still, you'll need to have erections and orgasms frequently and you'll be ejaculating quite a lot from now on, and even at your age a little help to keep your strength up won't hurt. This way we can expect you to always rise to the occasion, so to speak, when you need to."

The glint in her eyes added whole ranges of new meaning to her words. He blushed furiously.

"Does that make you uncomfortable, Galen? It shouldn't. This is the stuff of sex magic. It's what a sex mage works with. The sooner you get used to it, the better."

When the sun began to set the room was clean, aired out and quite pleasant. There was no bed, but one of the cloths, now free of dust, padded with some straw and supplemented with the bedroll Galen had been using on the road would do for now.

"There's a laundry at the back of the house," she told him. "It has its own fireplace, and there's a kettle of water on there already. It should be close to boiling by now. You'll find a tub there. I knew we'd be busy once you arrived, so I filled it this morning. After tonight, you will be the one getting water from the stream, but for now all you have to do is add the hot water to the tub. You'll also find soap and a razor there."

She looked at him sternly.

"From now on you will take a bath at the end of every day, without fail. I don't care how tired you might be or how cold it gets outside; you will bathe no matter what. You will also shave daily. And when I say 'shave' I don't mean just your face, but also your chest and especially your groin. I want you to keep yourself smooth down there, Galen. Not only is hairless skin much more sensitive, but hair tends to get in the way of lips and tongue during sex."

Once again his face turned bright red.

"Don't be embarrassed," she chided him. "Pleasure is the source of sex magic, and one's lips and tongue are some of the best tools when it comes to inducing it. Speaking of tools, from now on you will keep yours meticulously clean. I want it clean enough so I can put it in my mouth and not smell or taste anything funny. You're not circumcised, are you?"

Wordlessly he shook his head, taken aback by her brutal frankness.

"Good. I've never understood why some people do that. It's a stupid custom that rarely serves any good purpose, and a man loses far too much sensitivity that way. The inside of the foreskin is almost as sensitive as the part it normally covers, and when you expose that area by retracting your foreskin it can give you much pleasure. But I'm sure you have noticed that yourself."

"Ehm..."

"No matter. I'll show you. But you do need you keep yourself clean under your foreskin at all times, so whenever you bathe you will pull it back all the way, clean yourself thoroughly there, and you will keep it retracted until the head of your cock is completely dry. Understood?"

He nodded.

"Alright. Also, from now on you will masturbate twice a day. No more, no less; once when you wake up in the morning, and once in the evening before you go to sleep."

"Eh?"

"Yes, Galen. Masturbate. Popularly known as jerking off or wanking, as I'm sure you're aware. You've done it many times, so let's not pretend you don't know exactly what I'm talking about. We both know you do."

He nodded wordlessly.

"I'm so glad," she said somewhat sarcastically. "But this time there's an important purpose to it, so I want you to masturbate in a very specific way. Have you ever used oil or something like that during masturbation?"

He shook his head. This was all coming a little fast for him, but she plowed on as if she was completely unaware of how shaken he was by her business-like attitude toward things he'd always considered very private.

"Well then, you're in for a treat, young man. I'll give you some oil before you go to bed tonight. Here's what I want you to do: instead of just stroking yourself until you come, as I expect you have been doing, you're going to take your time from now on. Instead of fantasizing about whatever it is that may tickle your pickle, you're going to focus completely on the feeling. You pull your foreskin back and once you're hard, you apply some oil to the head of your cock with one hand, but keep the shaft dry. Stroke the head with your thumb and fingers, and concentrate on the crown and the area just below it. With your other hand, the dry one, you keep the the skin pulled down around your shaft to expose the inside of your foreskin, and you stroke yourself there and across the crown; that's the ridge around the head of your cock. That will give you some of the most intense stimulation you've ever had so far. But here's the challenge: instead of letting yourself cum as soon as you're ready, you're going to back off whenever you feel yourself getting close to orgasm. Wait for it to subside, then continue. Do that as many times as you can, for as long as you can. At first you will lose control quickly and you'll cum almost immediately, but you'll get better at it before you know it. Have you got all that?"

It took a moment before Galen found his voice again.

"I, ehm... Yes... I think so," he finally managed.

"Good. When you masturbate like that, you will feel a certain pressure begin to build within you. It's that pressure we're after. At first it will feel strange, even unpleasant. Your first urge will be to discharge that pressure by giving yourself an orgasm. But whatever you do, you must resist that urge. Try to give yourself release only when you feel you really can't contain the pressure any longer. That is the most important thing."

"Why?" Galen asked.

"That pressure is a manifestation of the energies that a sex mage harnesses and works with," she explained. "You'll learn more about it as we go along. This is just the very beginning. And there are rewards as well. The more pressure you manage to build up before you release it, the more intense your orgasm will be. You'll see. Now go bathe and shave. Oh, and whatever you do, don't masturbate in the tub. Ever. I'll know when you do, and if you do that, I'll--"

"Have my guts for garters," he finished with a faint smile. "I know."

Supper, that evening, was a simple but tasty stew. They ate at the kitchen table by the flickering light of the fire. Galen cleaned his plate with obvious gusto, and she smiled.

"It's been a while since I've cooked for someone else," she said. "I'm glad you enjoy it."

"I do. Thank you."

"My pleasure. Can you cook?"

"Some. Not much." He shrugged. "I never had much opportunity to learn."

"Don't worry," she said. "I'll teach you. The sooner you can help with the cooking, the better. Now tell me about yourself, Galen. If I'm to help you to get where you need to go, I first have to know where you've come from. So tell me who you are and how you got here."

Galen put down his spoon and took a sip of water, more to gather his thoughts than because he was genuinely thirsty.