Witch's Cat Read online

  Witch's Cat

  by Loki Renard

  Published by Sappho's Brats

  http://sapphosbrats.com

  Copyright © 2011 Loki Renard. All Rights Reserved.

  Chapter One

  “No.”

  “What do you mean, no?”

  “I mean no.”

  “You can't tell me what to do.”

  “I just did.”

  Anita's jaw dropped and her milky brown eyes filled with despair. “You can't be serious.”

  “You're not going.” Georgia asserted, folding her arms over her chest.

  Paused halfway through the door, Anita glanced out towards freedom. Cars streamed through the village filled with people off doing things. People who didn't answer to their partners the way she did. Lucky people. “Georgia, come on.” She pulled off the floppy crocheted hat that covered her mousy hair and tossed it on the floor in a show of pique. Georgia seemed unimpressed. Then again, Georgia was rarely impressed by any of Anita's displays of temper.

  Georgia was Anita's antithesis. Where Anita was short and petite with choppy brown hair that scraped her shoulders and always threatened to fall into her eyes, Georgia was taller and her slick blonde hair would never have thought to cross her in that way. Even now it fell around her face in long, ponderous waves that perfectly framed her features. Her deep blue eyes were fixed on Anita with long suffering determination.

  “Come inside and have a cup of tea,” Georgia said. If anyone else had said that, it would have been a polite invitation. With Georgia it was a warning shot fired over the bows of a recalcitrant girlfriend. Georgia had the blood of pirates flowing in her veins, or so she said. Anita believed her. It explained the light olive tone of her skin, which should have been pale in keeping with the naturally blonde hair and blue eyes. Instead it was Anita who was pale, it was she who burned the moment the sun reached its zenith, even on a cloudy day. Georgia could spend as much time in the sun as she pleased. On holidays her skin became so tanned it was almost golden. Lucky Georgia.

  It was easy to tell at a distance who wore the pants in their relationship. Georgia was tall, assured. She moved through the world like she owned it. By her side diminutive Anita looked even smaller in contrast. People thought Anita was soft, delicate. They were wrong. She was tired of proving that. She was especially tired of proving it to Georgia.

  “You're denying me the expression of my religious freedom,” Anita growled, pushing the door shut behind her with more force than was strictly necessary. She followed behind Georgia, glowering at the taller woman's back.

  “Your expression of religious freedom is the reason we've had more exorcisms than most people have had hot dinners,” Georgia replied dryly, entirely unconcerned by the human rights violation she was allegedly committing.

  “You have no proof that had anything to do with me. It's probably because you insist on living in the oldest shack you can find.” The harsh words spilled out of Anita vehemently. She was getting angry. There wasn't a lot of her to contain her anger, so she tended to buzz with it, a little ball of temper.

  One of Georgia's perfectly plucked brows rose as she rolled up the sleeves of her white blouse and put the kettle on. “You love this house.”

  It was true. Anita had fallen in love with the place the moment she'd seen it. It was a little Tudor cottage with white walls criss-crossed with dark support beams, lead light windows and a thatched roof. It was a house built just for someone her size too. Georgia sometimes had to stoop, but everything was made perfectly to Anita scale.

  Anita threw herself into one of the wooden chairs around the circular dining table and put her head in her hands. Georgia leaned down and dropped a kiss on top of her head. The affectionate gesture was received with a grunt of anger.

  “You might want to consider getting that temper of yours under control,” Georgia suggested mildly as the kettle started to whistle, well on its way to boiling already. That was because they'd only just had a cup of tea five minutes ago. It was supposed to be the last cup of tea before Anita caught a train for a weekend of ritual. She'd miss the train now. Bloody Georgia.

  “You might want to stop interfering in my life. So bloody controlling,” Anita swore.

  “We agreed it was best that way, did we not?”

  Anita shrugged stubbornly. She didn't care what she'd agreed to. She wanted to go away for the weekend. She'd been looking forward to this for a very long time and now Georgia, stupid Georgia, was getting in the way of things.

  “I think my little witch is forgetting her place. Do you need a reminder?”

  “I need a lift to the station so I don't miss my train, that's what I need.”

  Georgia's laugh was humorless. Her blue eyes had hardened and her lips were drawing thinner by the moment. “Oh I don't think so, Anita. I think you're going to spend the weekend remembering what your place is and why.”

  The air around Anita almost crackled. She narrowed her eyes at Georgia and when she spoke her voice had an uncharacteristic low note in it, a hint of gravel that seemed out of place coming from such a delicate woman. “You cannot force me to do what you want me to.”

  Ignoring the show of power, Georgia poured hot water into the ceramic tea pot. Anita was a witch, had been born a witch. Seventh daughter of a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter. Outside this house, amongst others of her kind, she was respected, sometimes even feared. Inside the house, in Georgia's domain, she was loved but never feared.

  “They will be expecting me,” Anita tried another approach. “I made a commitment.” Georgia was big on honoring commitments.

  “You made a commitment to me too, remember?”

  Anita frowned, puzzled. “What?”

  “You promised to take care of yourself, to submit to my guidance. You are doing neither.” Another woman might have said that in a snarky tone. Another woman might have been irritated. Georgia spoke quite calmly, matter of fact. In spite of having less spirituality than a pile of old tires, Georgia was one of the most grounded people Anita knew. She very rarely lost her temper, she was too single minded for that, too certain that she would prevail in the end.

  “How am I not taking care of myself?”

  Georgia counted the ways on her long elegant fingers. “You're tired. You've been up the past week until five o'clock in the morning. When you go to these things you come back in a worse than you left. You don't sleep, you don't eat properly.”

  She was right, to a certain extent. Ritual took it out of you, but that was the nature of ritual. What was the point of tearing off one's clothing and dancing beneath the moon if one didn't put one's all into it? “I've been up until five o'clock preparing for this. If you don't let me go, it's all been wasted.”

  “You're getting in too deep.”

  “How would you know? You don't understand it. You don't understand anything.” Anita flung the accusations violently.

  “I know you,” Georgia said simply.

  Anita sat sullenly in her seat. Georgia wasn't going to let this go. Wasn't going to change her mind. Georgia never changed her mind once it was made up. Not about things like this. “Fine,” Anita said, scrabbling about in her pocket for her phone. She wrenched it out and dumped it on the table. “You call everyone and tell them I can't come because my girlfriend thinks I'm a big baby.”

  Georgia was pouring two cups of tea. She added a lump of sugar to Anita's cup, then milk to both. Without responding to Anita's sullen taunts she carried the tea to the table and seated herself as if she were entirely immune to Anita's temper. She took a sip of her tea, then placed the cup down carefully before she spoke. “When we are done here, you are going to go to the bedroom and stand in the corner.”

  “No!” Anita slammed her hand down on the table
. Like the rest of her, her hand was on the small and slim side, but that didn't matter in the slightest. It shook the table hard enough to make her tea slop over the side of her mug. “You are not going to punish me for this! This is your fault!”

  “Think very carefully about what you're doing,” Georgia cautioned her. It was part of Georgia's technique. You got warnings. Lots of warnings actually. If you heeded them, things went okay. If you blew by them all, you ended up paying for it. Anita knew that all too well. She'd been with Georgia for three years, lived with her for two. This wasn't their first showdown, not by a long shot. But it was different this time. Anita had been looking forward to this weekend for months. She'd been meditating, practicing her skills. Her throat was raw from chanting and she'd tied more little bows around little vials of this that and the other thing than she could count. Her bag was full of potions she wanted to experiment with around others of her kind. Georgia couldn't possibly understand. So Anita did something unthinkable. She defied Georgia.

  “I'm leaving now,” she said determinedly. “I will see you Monday.” Without another word she got up, turned on her heel and walked back to the front door where her bags and discarded hat awaited her.

  “Anita.”

  One word. One word was all it took. Anita reached for the front door handle, but she found that she couldn't move her arm. She tried to step forward, but her feet felt like lead. Fear trickled down her spine, a type of fear she'd not felt before. She tried to shuffle back and discovered that she could. It was only when she went for the door that her body became heavy and movement was almost impossible.

  She turned around to gawp at Georgia. She could see her quite clearly down the hall, she hadn't moved, she was still having a cup of tea quite calmly. The only thing that had changed was the glimmer of amusement in those deep blue eyes.

  “How...” Anita was more cautious now as she returned to the kitchen. She hovered by the doorway, as if that would afford her some kind of escape if she needed to get away from Georgia quickly. “How did you do that?”

  Georgia placed her cup of tea gently on the table and stood up. It was all Anita could do not to back away as Georgia moved across the room. She was different somehow, transformed in a way Anita could not explain. She still looked the same outwardly, same white blouse, same long brown hemp skirt, but something had changed. There was an aura of power about her. Anita would not have thought it was possible, but she had felt it with her own body.

  Georgia reached out and caressed Anita's cheek gently. A sensation of tingling pins and needles radiated from the spot she'd touched. Anita gasped and pulled away. She'd never felt such power before. This was what she'd read of, what she'd dreamed of, what she'd aspired to for many years. Seventh daughter of a seventh daughter of a seventh daughter and still her magic was a mere trickle compared to what Georgia was showing her.

  “How is this possible?” Anita breathed. Her fear was quickly giving way to curiosity.

  “You're mine,” Georgia purred. “You've been bound to me for nine months, but you've yet to really scratch the surface of what I am.”

  Anita remembered the binding ceremony. She'd prepared and conducted it herself. It was supposed to give her a little more power over Georgia. She was the magical one after all, she was the witch. At the time she'd taken Georgia's smirk as she performed the ritual for an expression of cynicism. Now she realized it was something else entirely. She'd thought she was cementing their relationship, but what she'd actually done was start a process that subjugated her all the more. She'd tied herself to a much greater power than her own without knowing it.

  “Three years and you never suspected a thing, my little witch,'” Georgia's voice was whisper soft.

  “You hid this from me.” Anita bit back a sob.

  Georgia tipped her head to the side. “Did I?”

  “You didn't tell me you had powers.”

  “One doesn't go around announcing these things,” Georgia replied, her brows drawing together as she contemplated the possibility of such a crass breach of etiquette.

  “One doesn't go around using them for one's personal gain either,” Anita reminded her.

  A slow smirk crept across Georgia's face. “Who told you that? Your little Wiccan books?”

  “It's the law.”

  “What law?”

  “The law,” Anita said lamely.

  “All these meetings. All these gatherings. All these potions and charms and still you subscribe to a two bit theory someone scribbled on some forsaken web page.” There was more than a hint of derision in Georgia's voice and Anita recoiled from it. “Didn't you ever wonder why you were drawn to me? Why you ever agreed to submit to me when the very idea makes you tremble? Why I was never concerned by your little tricks?”

  “No,” Anita said softly.

  “Of course not. You were too consumed with your own sense of power.” Again, Georgia's fingertips brushed across Anita's cheek, but this time there was no tingling, it was a soft caress and Anita found herself longing to melt into it. “My arrogant little witchling.”

  “You weren't going to tell me.”

  “I knew you would discover it one way or another when the time was right. A lesson is best learned under one's own steam.” She took a step back and leaned against the kitchen table, seeming almost normal again. Almost. “Now, you can go to the bedroom and stand in the corner.”

  Anita's eyes widened. “You're still going to punish me?”

  “Most definitely,” Georgia nodded. “Defiance will not be tolerated.”

  “You don't own m...” The sentence was almost fully out of Anita's mouth before she realized how untrue it was. Georgia did own her in a sense. The binding ceremony was designed to bind a lesser being to a witch. Anita had assumed that she was the witch, Georgia the lesser being. It had been a sneaky trap forged in a moment of fear and desperation when she thought Georgia might leave her. It was a way of making sure she could keep Georgia no matter what. Now she was thoroughly hoist by her petard.

  Georgia's smile grew wider as the horror of what had happened spread over Anita's face. “Yes my little witchling. I know. I know all the little tricks you've played. All the times you've tried to influence me. All the times you've tried to pull the wool over my eyes.”

  “But you let me! Why?”

  It was Georgia's turn to shrug. “It was somewhat necessary to do so. It also amused me.”

  “You've been playing with me this whole time,” Anita accused her, flaring hot with temper.

  “You mean the whole time you've been trying to manipulate me? That whole time?” There was a triumphant smirk plastered across Georgia's face. Whatever Anita accused her of, she had a defense for. It wasn't fair.

  Anita raised wide brown eyes to Georgia. “What are you going to do?”

  “I'm going to punish you, little witchling.”

  Punishment. That usually meant laying over Georgia's lap and being spanked or paddled. Georgia had a penchant for old forms of discipline. Spankings had always been part of their relationship one way or another. At first they were purely for erotic purposes, but over time they'd evolved into a form of dominance and submission play. At least, Anita thought it was play. She was no longer sure.

  “Please, Georgia, I'm sorry.” She tried to appeal to Georgia's sense of mercy.

  “Oh I bet you are,” Georgia said as she stepped forward and took Anita by the shoulder. “I bet you're very sorry indeed.” She leaned down and whispered into Anita's ear. “And you're going to be a whole lot sorrier when I'm done with you.”

  Anita trembled in Georgia's grasp. She didn't struggle as she was lead to the bedroom they shared. She knew there would be no point. Even before Georgia had revealed her power she'd always had a way of making things happen the way she wanted them to. It all made sense now of course, she was subtly manipulating things, strengthening and weakening desire as she saw fit.