The Fern Tender (9 page)

     The endorphins pumping through Lillian’s blood supply making her wounds and their trickles of blood even more pleasant. "Snap! Snap!" She could hear sound of the whip then the crush of the leather now falling onto her thighs. "There goes swimming at the river anytime in the next month," She said to herself. Loving every snap he kept up a nasty pace. This is why she came here, to experience the intersection of pain and joy.

     Suddenly the whipping stopped. The room was quiet except for the quartet still gracefully supplying their dark soundtrack. She could feel herself being jostled, each strap coming off then he broke her fall with his shoulder as she plunged down off the cross. She flopped down onto the rough cold stones that lined the basement floor. Still blindfolded she could sense him walking away letting her rest. She didn’t want to stop, didn’t want to come down from the bursts of euphoric pain. He knew this. He wanted the real pain to return before he started again.

      Coming back into the reality that she had been whipped by a stranger and was groveling along the floor asking for water, for a split second Lillian almost lost her grip and panicked. But she knew, that panicking was the quickest way to get bent.

     A wooden pail was slammed down next to her and she took the opportunity to duck her whole head into the cold water and drank it down like an animal. Quickly he grabbed her and began lashing her to the St. Andrew’s cross, the X shaped one.

     First he tied her arms and legs splaying her body into an X. Her pussy settled into the crux of the X. Her breasts pitched outwards between the X’s top V. She struggled to keep her head up as all her limbs were tied to the 4 points of the X.  She  had to use her neck muscles to balance her head in space.

     “Whip me!, Whip me!, now you Bastard! Come on whip me!” she exclaimed.  Her wounds were hurting and the only antidote was more pain. She needed the rush again both to stop the pain and also to feel the joy.

     She could hear him circling her round and round the X like a lion moving in on a wounded animal. “Whip me! Fucking whip me! Fuck! Do it! Whip me!”

     He paid no attention to what she wanted and kept circling. Finally she felt the crack of the riding crop across her breast. A lighter touch than before. Then again, and again.

     “Harder! Harder!” she commanded. The whisp of the horse whip lashing at her breasts was not hard enough for her. It was not putting her back into her zone. The more she pleaded the lighter he touched until finally he just began rubbing the crop over her body taunting her.

     Needing to get out of this torture, she switched gears and pushed her mind further, “You’re just a little boy with that shit, you can’t even hit me, you little cocksucker.” The result was an even lighter tough. He was playing with her, torturing her. She needed him to step on the gas, but with every insult she sent his way he just played more and more. The pain began to be overshadowed by her need. She needed her drug of pleasure and this was not doing it.

      Finally, she took a deep breath, focused on herself instead of him, and with a whiff of clarity regained control of the magic. She moved her eyes up the chain to the rafter again. Here she could see her Andrew this time, naked. His full chest and muscular ass shimmering in the light, his cock hanging half erect, engorged with blood. Fondling the whip Andrew began to strike. “Snap snap snap” the significant backhanded bursts of the leather smacked against her ass. Again and again he snapped her backhanded with each strike landing at a 45 degree angle forming a large hash tag of red and purple lines.

     After a few minutes of watching Andrew take control of her she was reaching her peak and began to drift into a deep ecstasy of pleasure. The figure was struggling to get her back and the magic back. Andrew kept up a brisk pace. She was now screaming for more reaching orgasm after orgasm.

     She loved the feeling of climaxing with no hands, beautiful sensations of her pussy cumming uncontrollably. As soon as she felt one begin to rise, she focused on her hands, trying to moving them, struggling to try and get them free. Knowing this was futile and her hands were truly tied, there was no swooping in with her index finger to rub out the last step to a climax. Her bondage only increased the feeling of pleasure when they came to her without her hands controlling its flow.

     She had all the magic now, with even the quartet crescendoing at exactly the right time for the next orgasim. Then the orgasms began to pulse like clockwork back up and down, up and down her body. These mixed with the pain her Andrew was supplying sending her into a frenzy of pleasure.

      Then with the next snap of the crop, it all began to fade. First gently, then just as fast as the magic had come to her it was snatched back. She could feel the figure untying her then laying her back down to the cold floor.

     Still wanting more, she yelled at him “Put me on the next one! Put me on St. Peter’s now! Put me up on the St. Peter’s cross!”

     “No”, the dark figure replied in a deep growling voice. She knew she took too much. The magic was fickle and she held it for too long owning it and using it. She knew the figure or the channel that the black magic came through didn’t like her taking more than she gave and now the game was over.

     When she was back in the kitchen recovering, Miranda came through the door with a warm red towel. “Here Lillian, put this under your backside. Sit, and I’ll get you a cup of hot coffee and T-shirt. The bleeding should stop in a few minutes.” Lillian was spent and complied.

     Still thinking about wanting the next cross, she knew to drop the thought. It was better to take a break to regain her strength for the next room.

     “Lillian, we were watching you down there. You’re amazing, taking my magic like that using it. I love it. When are you going to give up the woodsy fairy magic crap and come be with me here. What do you say, pool our resources, take over the world?” Ellen asked only half joking.

     “You know I love being the Fern Tender, it’s just very stressful right now,” remarked Lillian.

In her motherly voice, Ellen replied,“I know dear, the world needs you. I liked parts of the job too. You’re doing fine, you are just very gifted. Very few are ever allowed NOT to finish my stages of the cross if you know what I mean. You’re special girl."

     Wanting to change the subject and slightly embarrassed at how Lillian had just manhandled her magic, Ellen asked, “How’s your daughter Lillian? School, her classes all going well?”

      Lillian answered, “She’s wonderful and getting more and more beautiful. Plenty of sass in her too.” Lillian answered flatly.

     Ellen scratched at her brow commented, “Aah, sounds like her mother. And David?”

     Fidgeting slightly Lillian responded “He’s fine, I still get frustrated with him like we all do with our husbands.”

     Ellen added and tapped her forehead, “Yes, not much going on up there when it comes to Colony men that’s for sure. But plenty going on below.  I miss my well hung Colony man. The few men I’ve ever let in here are less than overwhelming in that department. No wonder so many of their wives come here to us, I would too if I had to sit on those pathetic excuses for cocks.”

     Cracking a smile and secretly appreciating what they both had had in common, Lillian began to lighten up a little, and decided to join the volley of small talk. She asked Ellen, “And how’s AJ?”

     Happy to have the question, Ellen answered quickly, “Stubborn as usual, distant, but somehow we manage to have a relationship. He comes around for Christmas and Easter of all things. I can’t get him to be with us here on Samhain. And why not come drink a glass of wine with us on the Winter Solstice? He knows we don’t give a crap about Christmas or Easter.”

     Finally managing a small giggle, Lillian laughed out loud then motioned to the photograph near the spice rack of a very handsome man in his dressed blues marine uniform, “Is that a picture of him?”

     Ellen responded, “No, that’s his uncle in his prime. His deadbeat Dad’s brother, a good man. Thank God for Uncle Will doing all the little league, soccer crap that I just couldn't handle. I still don’t have a good photo of AJ in his dressed blues or any other outfit. He’s always in such a rush when he’s here. I love him dearly though and he’s turned out to be a lovely man, even if he is hard-headed and never listens to his mother.”

     Ellen continued, “He did finish his degree last Spring. Philosophy of all things, and still I suspect he spends way more time reading nutty thoughts from dead Austrian men than he does looking for real work. He does have his pension from his couple years in the Marines, so he’ll always be reasonably stable as long as he doesn’t do the drugs he dabbles in selling to the idiots in the ghetto he likes to live in. He doesn’t have to live there or sell crack. And he wasn’t raised around that stuff either. He can be strange. His choices. I suspect he likes the adventure. He sure did like it in the Marines, a little too much I think, volunteering for a tour of duty in a reconnaissance patrol then getting shot in foot of all things. Really though he’s also a good man and who am I to judge anyway. Giving birth to him a year after leaving the Colony was a big reason I settled here on this line of magic. I might have done things differently if his Dad was around or I waited a few more years, but I didn’t and he doesn't see his childhood the way I do.”

     DJ sounded so different than the men in the Colony, intrigued and interested Lillian asked Ellen, “So what is his magic? You know growing up here having all your meals in this kitchen seeing the stuff he’s seen. What’s his superpower?”

     Ellen smiled and shrugged her shoulders. “I have no idea, he never seemed interested in my magic when he was here. He loved science and history. He certainly knows the basics of my magic, but whether or not he wields it I don’t know. I do know he lost his virginity to Miranda here, maybe she knows his secrets? Miranda?”

     The question was rhetorical, Miranda knew Ellen could care less about her taking her son’s virginity. She finished her thought, “Well, he’s more than a mystery to his own mother and that’s saying something to a woman who owns a crystal ball.”

     There was a long pause. Lillian almost felt a sorry for Ellen. She was so powerful and so in control of her world, it was strange to think of Ellen as human or as a parent with normal fears and worries about her child.

     Miranda took the opportunity in the silence that followed Ellen’s response to inquire, “Lillian how are you feeling? And let’s take a look at your wounds. Stand up for a second.” Running hot water over a clean dish rag, she peered back at Lillian's backside. “Good the bleeding stopped. Here, let me dab at those for a second and make sure you’re healed up.”

     Ellen now returning to form remarked, “See Lillian, all healed up, I can’t do anything about the scarring, but another fringe benefit of black magic is the healing powers. When are you going to come around?”

     Lillian rolled her eyes so that Ellen could fully see the gesture,  and shot back “When you come back to the Colony and help me with the ferns and wheel.”

     Ellen smiled, “Ha, ha! no chance lady. I’m very happy here in my realm.”

     The good natured conversation almost made it feel as if the Black Magic had receded, but it hadn’t. It was very much still in the air. One of the hallmarks of the dark side was how it sensed the sincerity of conversation and thoughts. The banter and chit chat in the kitchen was genuine and that made the good feelings they had for each other even stronger. Lillian and Ellen knew this and were happy to have the quick break before their minds began to fill with with deeper thoughts.

     Lillian stretched briefly and finished a glass of cold water, “OK. I’m ready. I’d like to go the witches lair please.”

     Ellen looked back at Miranda and nodded to Lillian then called out to what seemed like the kitchen floor, “Veronica! She’s ready!”

     Keeping witches in the temple was an important part of Black Magic, but it was also very dangerous. The ancient rule of three, was deeply embedded in the darker side of magic too. The trinity of ferns, jaguars, and wheel from the Colony was nothing like the unholy trinity she was about to face. Three of a kind in cards beat most hands, three of a kind in the world of dark magic meant pure power.

     The particular witches living at Ellen’s were all from Eastern Europe, slavic gypsy women. The were beautiful misfits in their own communities. They had come to the Capitol and then on to to the temple as boarders at different times. Recognizing their gifts with the supernatural, and especially in summoning the dead, Ellen kept them on. She provided them a full salary and in return they were to strengthen Ellen’s magic. They also serviced a few women a month, women like Lillian. It was a reasonable deal they all liked most times. Ellen’s rules could be a handful and quite demanding for a fully independent practicing witch. But with their own ideas about magic, the witches could be just challenging for a sorceress like Ellen.

     Without moving a muscle at the call of Veronica, Lillian was immediately snatched from her chair, lifted up and propelled at mach speed down the corridor. She was now flying on her own at a reckless speed down flights of stairs, up other stairs, and shooting through a labyrinth of hallways and doors. Completely disoriented, her hair pasted behind her head, and tear drops forming in the corner of eyes from the G forces, she was now not even sure how she could still be in Ellen’s Temple’s.  Her thoughts began to race and grapple with the Black Magic. She began to worry that there might have been a mistake and she was now in some unfamiliar foreign place.