Witches of Lust Ch. 06

I stepped out of my apartment and waved down to her from the balcony. She looked up at me and smiled, and then headed up the stairs. I greeted her outside the door and she moved straight in for a kiss, then reached down to grab my ass.

"Ooh! Good to see you too, babe! Love this look!"

"Thank you, I hardly ever get to wear this stuff," she replied. "Always going back and forth from the gym. Thanks for inviting me over to your place,"

"Oh this place, it's nothing, so embarrassing! Compared to yours-"

"Don't compare-" she reassured me, but I had to cut her off.

"Hey, I forgot to mention this because she came on such short notice, but my friend Lucille is here. I'd like to introduce her. Please, come in."

"Your friend?" she asked apprehensively. Her face lit up somewhat at the sight of Lucille, but I thought I sensed a surge of jealousy as well.

"Hi!" Lucille got to her feet, stretching her curvy body a little before turning to offer her hand. "You must be Karina."

The brunette tossed her hair back and obligingly took the offered hand in a feminine shake. I took Karina's coat, played hostess with drinks, Lucille turned up the volume on the movie, which was playing on my 42" flat screen.

Lucille sat on my right, and Karina was on my left. Karina seemed to be a little taken aback by the situation. In fact, I had the distinct feeling that she was bored with the movie and wanted some privacy with me. However, she made a surprisingly good effort at being sociable.

"So, how do you know Lucille? She's beautiful! Don't tell me, another girlfriend?" She punched my shoulder playfully.

"She's a good friend, but not that way,"

"Wow, you're lucky to have such pretty friends. My girlfriends tend to get all catty and competitive. You know." She made a cat's claw pantomime with one hand.

"Really? We're not in high school anymore," Lucille said.

"Yeah, well, my girlfriends seem to come and go. The ones who stayed, and were confident about their looks, didn't exactly like having me around when they were with their husbands and boyfriends, because their boyfriends would look at me, and before they knew it, they were dragging my friends to the gym and trying to get them into the squat rack." She sighed. "Or trying to get them under a plastic surgeon's knife," she muttered.

"Oh, that's just too bad," Lucille sighed, sounding bored.

"You're into girls too, aren't you?" I asked.

"Yes, but none like you," Karina replied. She looked at me and took a deep breath, exhaling tremulously. "I was curious, what is your gender called exactly? You're a hermaphrodite?"

I hesitated, since Lucille had told me that might not be the right way to answer.

"She's intersex, I think that's the proper term for us these days," Lucille broke in.

"Us? You too?" Karina said with a start.

"Yup! It's called congenital adrenal hyperplasia, although that medical term actually covers all sorts of different symptoms and syndromes. Our cases were rather different. I grew up with everyone thinking I was a boy, but I had health problems, I was skinny and fragile and dehydrated. Classic CAH stuff for boys. My parents took me to one doctor after another until they found one who knew what it was. She put me on hormone therapy and now I'm fit as a fiddle. Except for one thing of course."

"You still have male parts?"

"Exactly. No vag either, unlike Jeanie here who has both. Of course, she was diagnosed right at birth. Luckily these days doctors don't just go chopping things off that don't look like they belong."

"Uh, yeah, I'm glad they left me intact!" I laughed nervously.

"Me too," Karina said. "I was reading up on your condition and it sounded extremely rare. Also, I read somewhere that you don't produce sperm?"

"Oh, right, well, in even rarer cases we do, uh, I do, um," I tried to explain.

"Well, like, not to pry or anything-"

"What about you, Karina?" Lucille asked. "We both try to stay in shape but you put us to shame. How do you stay motivated?"

"Yeah, and how long did it take you to get so buff?" I added.

"It started four years ago," she said, looking off into the corner of the room. On screen, Forrest was rescuing Jenny from a cabaret where she was performing. He was punching and pummeling some customer.

I realized the question had struck a nerve with Karina. Whatever the answer to that question was, something terrible and bloody had taken place and she didn't want to talk about it. I didn't know how or why I sensed that, or if it was just the violence on screen, but I felt it strongly. I didn't suspect anything magic yet, even though I was repeatedly reading my friend's emotions. I merely thought my uncanny empathy was a combination of my cleverness and the rapport I was developing with those whom I was more intimate with.

"Look, if you don't want to talk about it-" I offered.

"No, it's okay. I, well, he is someone we can all be better for knowing. His name is Eli Zemanek, and he's my ex-husband. We got married before he deployed to Iraq." She swallowed hard. "He lost his legs there when his truck ran over an IED. Took some shrapnel while he was lying unconscious. Lots of scars, thankfully he still sees out of one eye." She took a deep breath. "He told me he didn't want me to stick around. Threatened to kill himself if I didn't sign divorce papers. He was depressed, angry, drinking constantly."

"He had PTSD," Lucille observed.

"Yeah, that too. I wanted to find some way to help him, but I was afraid he might really do it. You know, blow his brains out."

"Oh my goodness. That's terrible," I said.

"He always did his best, out there," Karina said, now crying. "I thought I'd try to show him that I was going to keep doing my best. I knew he thought I was beautiful, and I didn't want him to get jealous, so I promised that I would swear off men. I'd date him again as soon as he was able to bench 225." She giggled and sniffled. "He's almost at 285 now, but he says he still won't date me. It's just as well, I guess, but at least he's conquered his depression."

"Man, that's rough. What unit was he in?" Lucille asked.

"Um, 720th Special Forces, out of Hurlburt," she said. "Now he lives in East Brewton."

"Oh that's a ways away," I said.

"Yup. Alabama."

At this point in the movie, Forrest was flying into Vietnam with Creedence's "Fortunate Son" blaring over the din of the helicopter rotors. Presently, Forrest and Bubba saluted Lieutenan Dan.

"When is the last time you've seen him?" I asked.

"Months ago. Hold on, can I just watch this part?" Karina said. "I haven't seen this movie since I was a kid. Eli told me he was a big fan of Lieutenant Dan, um, what's his name, Gary Sinise!"

"Yeah, he's awesome," Lucille agreed.

We watched in silence for a while then, and Lucille turned up the volume. Forrest kept up his stupid commentary, but the girls beside me seemed transported to the war zone. Eventually all hell broke loose, and there was Forrest rescuing everyone, even Lieutenant Dan and Bubba, while sporadic gunfire chattered through the jungle. I heard a sniffle to my left, and saw Lucille not even watching the screen. Tears were flowing down her face. To my right, Karina was watching the movie, using a kerchief to mop her leaking eyes. I didn't know exactly what moved them so much, but thought I was going to cry just sitting between the two of them.

Then it hit me. I wanted to heal Eli. Fuck the explanations, I'd tell him Jesus came down and made him a new set of legs. Wait, he was probably Jewish so maybe I'd have to say Elijah did it, or we'd call it divine intervention from Yahweh Himself. It didn't matter, he was getting his legs back, he was getting his life back. Fuck it if he wasn't getting Karina back too. I could deal with that. It was time for an intervention. Fuck the assholes that sent him off to war for oil or whatever their real reason, I'd probably deal with them next. Mercilessly. I blinked, and tears rolled down my face.

The spell was broken when Forrest made some comment about a million dollar wound, and suddenly the tone of the movie went right back to the familiar, goofy, quasi-insightful perspective that it is so well known for. Then once again, there was Lieutenant Dan, both of his ruined legs amputated, angry at the world and at God.

"Why the fuck does it have to be this way?" I asked, thinking aloud about how Medina wanted to stifle magic.

"The VA sucks," Lucille replied. "Did Eli get prosthetics?"

"They were backlogged for a while, and they said his stumps needed to heal. He needed a fitting from mid-thigh down, which is harder too, and they're both custom, so it took two years before he could even start practice walking with them. He's doing a lot of physical therapy."

After healing Eli, I am going to the VA up on Eglin and I am healing every vet I see. If Medina crosses me, I'm going to shoot that bitch in the face!

On screen, Tom Hanks was playing ping pong. It helped soothe the intense feelings we were feeling, but I remembered how much I wanted to help. My thoughts drifted to how I would get around Medina, and Morgana as well, who seemed to buy in to the whole idea of keeping magic a secret.

After that moment, we just started to calm down and relax. It seemed obvious that Karina had met with Lucille's approval, but she stuck around to chaperone until my dad showed up. In fact, when we started ignoring the movie and going over the plan, Lucille was actually appreciative. The plan, of course, was to get Cheryl to meet my dad under innocent circumstances, and if possible, to get them alone. Karina had already briefed Cheryl on the plan, after filling us in on how Cheryl reacted to it, we felt pretty good about our chances.

As four o'clock approached, it was time for the girls to disappear. Karina was going to pose as a downstairs neighbor, so she didn't really need to go far. I recommended a nearby French café which made great soup where she could hang out. Lucille didn't need to return, so she climbed into her glorified SUV and headed back to Morgana's place.

My dad showed up and I rushed down the stairs to meet him. He and I always hugged nowadays, although I'll admit there was a time in my teenage years when I didn't hug him and just took for granted how he was there for me. I'm not sure that this is the forum to vent my frustrations about how things went between him and my mom. At any rate, he was past that and now he was just happy to see me and not have to stop and help me with my homework.

"Hey pumpkin! I came straight by from work," he said.

"Thanks for coming by," I said as I hugged him and placed my cheek against his chest. "Please do come inside, it's freezing out!" I led him up the stairs.

I didn't feel bad about plotting behind his back. The thought never entered my mind. I felt like I was doing an extraordinarily good deed, maybe even enough to repay him for his years of sacrifice. I suggested we drink some piping hot Darjeeling tea and get straight to talking about the incident at work.

A funny thing happened then. It entered my mind that somehow, while at lunch he had managed to drip some sauce on his pants. He was embarrassed by the stain. As soon as we sat down, I glanced down and sure enough, there was a stain on his trousers, exactly where I had envisioned it.

He must have seen the confused look on my face as I tried to remember what had happened first, my seeing the stain or my envisioning of how he got it.

"Are you okay, pumpkin?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," I muttered. "Here, let me get the tea."

"You know, I normally don't even drink tea but it's getting a bit late for coffee."

I had a feeling he would say that, try to fill the void.

"Yeah. Tea helps me relax. I mean, I have a little egg nogg too."

"Oh?"

"It's the good stuff, home made by a friend of mine. It's, um, it's pretty strong."

"I don't think I like the idea of my little girl drinking already. Just remember to keep it in moderation. Sugar and alcohol will give you a hangover in no time flat."

I knew he was going to say that, every last word!

"Come on, I'm responsible, don't worry! I also have wine if you'd prefer."

Just don't get drunk around guys. He's gonna say it.

"Tea is fine for me, but I don't want you drinking around guys."

Well, that was uncanny, but it didn't prove to me anything yet. I knew I had some natural empathy, but I was starting to wonder if I was developing supernatural empathy. The thing is, I was too distracted by the situation to really focus on testing it.

"So, tell me about work. What happened, anyway?" he asked.

I told him then, and while his responses were predictable, I just tried to tell him the story as honestly as I could without discussing how witchcraft was involved. My desire to prove myself had made me instigate the whole fracas, but he didn't need to know that. Since he was going to be furious when he found out what my boss had done, I told him the story backwards, starting with the harassment settlement, how I kicked my boss squarely in the balls, and then what he did. I knew I had made my daddy proud.

Right before six, I once again offered him some egg nog.

"No thanks, pumpkin. Gotta drive home soon."

"Okay, but I'll have just a nip if you don't mind." I drank some but it was non-alcoholic, straight from a carton, but he didn't see that. It was to be my rock solid excuse not to drive.

Around six o'clock Karina rang the doorbell with Cheryl in tow.

"Hello? It's me, Kari," came a worried voice at the door.

"Jeez it's cold!" Karina complained, stepping right into the apartment, now wearing a hoodie and sweats. "Jeanie, um, this is my friend Cheryl. Cheryl, Jeanie. Ooh sorry for letting in a draft!"

"It's quite alright," I said. "That's just Robert, my dad."

He waved and made to stand.

"Oh don't bother! I'm SO sorry! Jeanie! Cheryl was just over here to drop off some groceries for me, and I went to unload them, I locked her keys in her car like an idiot! Oh man, oh man! She only came by with the shopping because my car's in the garage right now. I'd hate to have her pay for a cab all the way to Niceville. They'd go all the way around base and charge her extra besides!"

"Oh, I see. Well, I had my dad visiting right now, but-"

"Oh! I'm so sorry!" Karina hammed it up, covering her mouth at first, then patting my arm as she turned directly to my dad to apologize to him. "We didn't mean to interrupt, Mr. Carter! I'm new to this apartment and most of the neighbors keep to themselves. Jeanie is the only one I know here, and she's really been a lifesaver with my car in the garage for the second week in a row."

"Maybe I should just call a cab," Cheryl said.

"Oh okay, that makes sense," Karina nodded fretfully.

"I would totally give her a ride, but, I just had something to drink to be honest."

"I could drive you up and back, although I'm sure you had other plans tonight," Cheryl said.

"With evening traffic, it would easily take an hour and a half, but, um, my dad is actually headed back more or less in that direction, and I was just about to see him off."

"He could drop me off, and in the morning I'll ride to work with a friend and pick my car up here on the way."

"Is that okay dad? Ugh, me and my dumb ideas, drinking before eight! I'll be fine to drive in an hour or so, maybe-"

"Jeanie! You'd better not!" Robert warned.

I fought to keep my grin from ruining my look of chagrin. We had goaded him hard enough, now he just needed to take the bait.

"Sorry daddy! I just wanted to help!"

"That's fine, but as I have been trying to explain if I could just get a word in here edge-wise, I'd be delighted to help. As he looked to me for approval, we all grinned with surprise. It was easier than we had expected!

"Oh, would you?" Karina jumped in. "She lives up in Niceville, I know it's far but-"

"It's not that far, I live farther than that after all, and it's on the way. Would any of you be accompanying us?" He swiveled to look straight at me.

"Actually, um, I'm feeling a little sick," I said, faking a hiccup. "I drank too fast."

"Well I warned you about egg nog."

"Yes daddy, I'm still learning about alcohol, don't get on my case so much, sheesh."

"I'm sure I'm in good hands," Cheryl said, getting us back on script. "Robert seems like a very decent man."

"Oh, he's very straight-laced," I agreed. That line had been my idea, and it was Karina's cue.

"Oh, thank you very much Mr. Carter!" Karina added. "It's really all my fault, I'll have to make it up to you someday." That last, outrageously flirty line had not been in the script, and made both me and my dad nervous, and he started blushing, but Cheryl seemed to approve. It seemed that line had been her idea.

After a few more pleasantries, we reminded Robert that Cheryl had to hurry home. Karina and I saw them off at last, waving and smiling in the parking lot.

"We did it!" she said, bouncing up and down. "You don't think he suspects, do you?"

"I'm a terrible daughter for tricking him, but no! I think he totally fell for it! You! Why did you flirt with him like that?!"

"Don't look at me, it was Cheryl's idea."I knew it!

"Why would she do that?"

To tempt him and see how he responds to that. She's going to use it against him later to test him.

"She wanted me to tempt him. She's going to test him later, when they're talking in the car. You know, she wants to make sure he isn't a player."

I was surprised at the way her words were tracking my thoughts, so much so that I just sort of spaced out for a moment.

"Uh, Jeanie?"

"Hmm? Oh, my dad's not a player. He's got about as much game as Elmer Fudd!" I rolled my eyes and tried to act natural, but I really wanted to tell Karina what was going on. I was pretty sure I was reading her mind.

"It's in Cheryl's hands then. What do you think they're going to do?" she asked.

"I'd rather not know!" I chuckled.

"She already told me she plans to sidetrack him into shopping at the supermarket, figure out if he cooks, find out if he's finicky," she said.

"That sounds nice," I said.

"What about us?" Karina asked, drawing closer as we spoke. She pressed her body against me. "Aren't you going to invite me in from the cold?"

"You're wearing those sweats over your leather pants, aren't you?" I asked.

"Yep! So what's your point, that I'm not cold?" Her hands came up, and rested on my hips.

"Listen, Kari," I began, nuzzling her chin, "I'm chomping at the bit to bring you upstairs. The thing is, Iri made me promise not to, unless she was here. Unfortunately, she's not."

"So what do we do?" Karina asked, pushing against me with flirty insistence. She bared her teeth and then licked them in an overt display of animal lust.

"Well, I can't just break her trust. Can we just simmer down, and go inside where it's warm, call her, and figure out what to do from there? You aren't busy later tonight?"

"I've got nothing else going on," she said, pressing her chest against me to accentuate her point.

"Well, follow me," I told her. "Just try to keep your hands to yourself." I could tell Karina thought I was just being coy. "I'm not kidding!"

Despite my intentions, the fact was I was bringing a very aroused and eager Karina into my apartment, and I didn't know how long I could fend her off. She wasn't groping me yet, but she had her arm around me as we walked back to the staircase. A part of me wished she would simply overpower me, I knew she was strong enough. Maybe she could tie me up, or grapple me somehow.

Thinking of ways for Karina to take advantage of me really got my engine going. I couldn't believe how active my sexual imagination was, but it had my cock so hard I could barely get up the stairs. I extracted my phone from my jeans as I climbed the stairs sideways. Karina still clung to me, taking every step with me while reveling in my obvious arousal. I was going to call Irina but decided instead to wait until we got out of the cold and breezy night air.