Witch's Cat Read online

  “Pile those pillows up in the center of the bed and take your clothes off,” Georgia ordered.

  It was cruel, Anita thought. Cruel to make her prepare the stage for her own punishment. But she obeyed because she already knew what the alternative would be. The alternative would be Georgia sweeping all preparatory measures aside and heading straight into the punishment without any warm up at all. Anita had already learned that lesson and learned it well. So she piled four fluffy pillows into the center of the downy white coverlet and then undressed. It did not take long. First her cardigan slipped to the floor and it was quickly followed by the blue summer dress. She was not wearing any underwear. It got in the way of ritual, so she thought.

  She stood in their bedroom with the sun's rays streaming through the lead light. They fell on her naked skin, her slim body, her small breasts. Her hips flared beautifully, making way for a full, rounded bottom and generous thighs that some would have said were out of place on her small frame. Anita was proud of her body. She might be short, she might not be well endowed in the breast region, but when her clothes came off there was no denying her femininity.

  “Pretty witch,” Georgia purred. She'd not shed her own clothing, not yet. She liked to make Anita feel the effects of her nudity, the vulnerability of it. “Over the bed.”

  It was Anita's cue to crawl forwards and lay over the pillows, her hips raised. Her bottom jutted skyward like a sacrifice. Georgia stepped forward and ran her hand over the rolling mound of flesh. “You know I love you, my little witchling?”

  “Yes,” Anita spoke into the coverlet, her words muffled. There was never any doubt of that. She felt Georgia's love as a sheltering cloak wrapped around her. No matter what happened between them, it was always there, reassuring her.

  “As this is a domestic punishment, I think I'll use a domestic tool.”

  Anita knew what she meant. The cane carpet beater. Georgia had threatened to use it several times, but this time she was actually going to go through with it. It was a long handled implement with four intersecting 'petals' it looked like a flower, almost pretty, but when Anita saw it in Georgia's hand, she trembled with pure fear.

  “Please Georgia, I'm sorry.” She tried to plead for clemency once more.

  “What are you sorry for?”

  “I'm sorry for being rude to you.”

  “And?”

  “I'm sorry for playing magic tricks.”

  Georgia's laugh was dry. “Tricks? Is that what you call the power plays? The attempts to wrest control from me by magical means?”

  She sounded mad to Anita's ears. No, maybe not mad. Indignant. Definitely indignant. “I didn't know you had the gift,” she said in her defense, squirming as Georgia's fingernails dug ever so slightly into the flesh of her bare bottom.

  “All the more reason not to use yours so selfishly.”

  “Why didn't you say something then? Why let me get away with it for so long?”

  “I have my reasons for not flashing power about as you do. Keep in mind you never really tested me, Anita. You might have thought you were getting away with this and that, but you never defied me. You respected me enough to listen to me. Until today.”

  “Defying you bothers you more than me sneaking magic on you?”

  Georgia dealt a quick slap to Anita's left cheek. “Yes.” She did not elaborate as to why.

  “Well I am sorry,” Anita tried squirming forward, but it didn't help her situation all that much. “It's not as if I was defying you just to annoy you. I was under the impression that I was a free, independent woman capable of making her own choices.” It was difficult to say something like that and not sound like a snotty little brat, but Anita tried her best.

  “You haven't been free since your little binding spell,” Georgia smirked. She was enjoying their exchange.

  “Fine,” Anita sighed, giving up her attempts to save herself. She let her body go loose and floppy on the bed. “Then just beat me. Enjoy your grand triumph.”

  “Are you going to get snotty with me, witchling?”

  “Yeah,” Anita said, lifting her head just enough to be understood. “You're going to thrash me for not being honest with you, but guess what, you weren't honest with me either. So I hope you're ready to go over this bed next.”

  There was utter silence for a moment, then she heard Georgia chuckle. “You make a good point.”

  “I know,” Anita said sullenly.

  Georgia smoothed her hand over Anita's bottom, caressing the pretty curves. “Do you think that we are perhaps even?”

  “More than even,” Anita said, lifting her hips almost imperceptibly towards Georgia's hand.

  “Hm, perhaps you are correct.” The bed sank as Georgia crawled onto it. Her lips nuzzled along the side of Anita's neck, sending pulses of bliss shooting throughout her small frame. “I could punish you anyway,” she purred.

  “You could,” Anita admitted. “But you'd only be doing it for your pleasure.”

  Georgia smiled a wicked, wide smile. “It would be my pleasure indeed,” she said, laying down beside Anita and trailing her fingertips gently from the back of Anita's neck down her spine to her bottom. “I love marking this bottom.”

  “A sadistic witch, that's just what the world needs now,” Anita teased.

  “You are in a better mood already,” Georgia dropped a delicate kiss on Anita's nose. “I think I will give you a taste.” Her hand was molding itself to Anita's cheeks, squeezing, teasing. The slight dipping, thrusting motions of Anita's hips was enough to telegraph her arousal.

  “You're going to beat me anyway?” Anita arched her back and looked over her shoulder as Georgia stood up from the bed. She watched Georgia pick up the carpet beater and swing it back and forth experimentally.

  “I'm going to give you a taste, now put that pretty face down and lift that bottom up for me.”

  Anita obeyed, feeling a thrill run through her body. She did not want to be beaten, did not want to feel pain, but there was something delicious about lying entirely naked before Georgia, open and vulnerable before a woman she knew was going to bring her pain. It was a helpless position, but some dark part of her reveled in that helplessness.

  There was a swish as the carpet beater cut through the air and a meaty 'smack' as it made contact with her bare bottom. It was an implement designed to get the maximum impact with the minimum of surface area, and it certainly worked. Anita squealed and scrambled away immediately, clutching at her bottom. It was like being caned with multiple canes at the same time. Her entire bottom had erupted into heat and pain. She tried to ease it by rubbing, but it was still too raw for that. She hissed as her hand's touched the red striped skin.

  “Well that is pretty,” Georgia said, ignoring Anita's discomfort. Her eyes were predatory, locked on Anita's reddened cheeks which now bore the mark of the carpet beater in looping red lines.

  “No more!” Anita pleaded.

  Georgia's grin was dark. “Perhaps not now, but I will certainly keep this in mind for the future.”

  “Sadist,” Anita accused.

  Georgia didn't deny it but she laid the carpet beater down and covered Anita's body with her own. Soon Anita was far too caught up in the caress and thrust of their lovemaking to concern herself with the red lines that curled so prettily over her hindquarters.

  The sex had always been good between them, but with Georgia's power out of the closet, it was closer to mind blowing. There was more than hands and a mouth on her body, there was a warm sweep of power that explored her just as thoroughly and thrust deep inside her, exploring parts of her body and soul that had not been touched before.

  Just as Georgia had brought pain, she brought pleasure to Anita's wanton arching body. Pleasure that rolled in waves, pleasure that tingled through her spine and curled in the bottom of her belly. Pleasure that exploded in a great crescendo of orgasm and took her into the darkness of slumber very well sated indeed.

  Chapter Two

  Anita huddl
ed into her cardigan and spooned clotted cream onto her scone and into her tea. Outside the little tea house the sky was overcast, which wasn't at all unusual. The sky was overcast most days. It was drizzling, which was also not all that unusual. There were sunnier, drier places in the world to live, but she had chosen to live in Broadbean, a little village halfway between Liphook and Lickfold, which were both real places you could look up on a map. It was a quiet, sheltered nook about an hour's drive away from Stonehenge, which suited Anita's needs rather perfectly. In an unlikely twist of events, she'd met Georgia, her life partner here three years ago and they'd settled down to raise chickens, which were a poor substitute for a family but were frankly all either of them could be bothered with.

  She was not on speaking terms with Georgia at that moment, and not just because of the magical surprise Georgia had pulled the other day, but for much more mundane reasons. Georgia was on a health kick so it was all carrot sticks and hummus at home. That meant it would have been a distinctly unpleasant time whether they'd been embroiled in a power struggle or not. Georgia needed her meat. Her attempts at fasting with vegetable matter never went well. She got cranky and anemic within days, yet she would not listen to common sense and just 'have a sausage' as Anita had suggested. She'd made some pretty frightful threats when she'd discovered Anita trying to grate some meat into the hummus, so Anita had scurried out to the furthermost of the two coffee shops in Broadbean for respite. Georgia wouldn't be pleased that Anita was off spooning cream into her face, but Anita wasn't much pleased with Georgia either. They were in a Mexican stand-off of displeasure.

  Thinking of Georgia as a witch in her own right was a difficult adjustment for Anita. Accepting Georgia not only as a witch, but as a much more powerful witch than she was made it even more difficult. In all her thirty three years, nothing had defined Anita more than her witchcraft. Now, just like that, it was nothing special. In fact, it had never been special. Whilst she'd preened herself over little achievements, Georgia had been sitting on a whole pile of power without saying a thing.

  Frowning to herself as she slurped her creamy tea, Anita tried to puzzle out a future. She'd been deposed from her position and that left her somewhat lost. Sure she could still gather herbs and make potions and salves, but what was the point? Georgia could do it better.

  “Well good afternoon.” A deep voice rumbled somewhere above her. She looked up and into the twinkling eyes of Athelstan, the witch who had initiated her into the coven. He also happened to be the High Priest. He was of average height for a man, but he seemed taller thanks to the bushy beard and wild long hair he cultivated. There were streaks of grey through the black mass which usually gave him a wild appearance but today he'd scraped his hair back into a pony tail and tied his beard down. He looked almost dapper as a result.

  “Hey Ath,” Anita moped.

  Athelstan leaned against the gnarled staff he walked with. There was nothing wrong with his legs, it was an affectation.“Where were you the other day?” Was there a hint of reproach in his tone? Probably. You were supposed to inform the others if you couldn't make it, especially if you were a second degree witch like Anita.

  “Georgia wouldn't let me come.”

  “Oh?” A thick brow wrinkled at her. Anita wondered whether or not she should tell Athelstan what she knew. Georgia hadn't said she couldn't tell. “What's wrong, Anita?”

  “Georgia has power.”

  It seemed as though he knew what she meant immediately. “Does she?” He nodded, his large head ponderous. “That makes sense.”

  “I mean she has real power, Ath.” Anita lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “The kind you can do things with.”

  “All power can be worked with,” he began, slipping into his preachy mode.

  “No, Ath. Real power.” Athelstan looked at her blankly and it suddenly occurred to Anita that maybe he didn't actually believe in real power. Sure he was a third degree Alexandrian witch, but to a lot of people the craft was all ritual and chanting and hope and prayer. It was a nebulous concept, not an energy that could be grasped and channeled. “Never mind,” she muttered into her tea. “Sorry I couldn't make it.”

  “No problem, just call next time, okay?” Athelstan wandered off to order whatever it was he'd come to order and Anita sat and sulked in silence. There went her chance of finding anyone to commiserate with. Even other witches didn't understand what she'd come up against in Georgia. Real power was almost unheard of.

  Most Wiccans are not magically talented. They may be spiritual, they may have belief, but in truth they have little grasp of the threads of power that can be tangled and woven together to create change in the universe. Oh there are tales of course, there have always been tales of witches who could call the elements or fly on the raven's wing, but nobody actually ever seems to know such a witch personally. Unlike many of her ilk, Anita had always known that magic was real. She felt it as a tingling in her fingers and spine, sometimes like a wave washing over her. It could be played with, molded into a shield or directed like a laser. Most of the time it was best left to flow freely. Playing in power was a pleasant sensation, like standing under a warm waterfall.

  She'd always prided herself on her grasp of magic, but the moment she'd felt Georgia's power for the first time she'd known that her own little skerrick of influence was miniscule in comparison. Of course nobody actually 'had' power, usually not much anyway. The most powerful magic was done when you acted as a conduit for the natural energies around you. Had Georgia been channeling some natural source Anita wasn't aware of? Or was she naturally just that powerful?

  Holding Georgia in her mind, Anita puzzled at the question. There in the coffee shop she slipped into a meditative state, her head bowed over her half eaten scone. Georgia. Georgia the golden one. That was how Anita had always thought of her, though she'd never expressed the thought aloud. She had always known that there was something leonine about Georgia. Something about the wide-set eyes, the slightly flattened nose Georgia attributed to the interbreeding of her pirate ancestors who had cheerfully pillaged their way around the world, meeting and breeding with indigenous populations with admirable vigor.

  Breathing out, Anita relaxed and let wisdom fill her. Sometimes, if you held a question in your mind in silence, you would find the answer. In her mind's eye the image of Georgia transformed into the shape of a lioness. No mane, but beautiful golden planes of fur. Animal magic. Or something more than that?

  As Anita breathed in the image faded slowly. She opened her eyes and looked down at her scone. “Mmm scone,” she whispered to herself.

  “Anita.” Ath was back, and now he looked pissed. There were traces of crumbs under his bottom lip, trapped in the hair of his beard. That was the problem with beards, they were very difficult to keep clean.

  “Yeah?”

  “Not in the cafe.”

  She cocked her head to the side. “No scones in the cafe?”

  He glowered at her. That was different. Athelstan didn't glower at anyone. He was the most even tempered guy Anita knew. But he was definitely glowering now. All the signs were there. The drawn eyebrows, the intense gaze, the hard set mouth. Yes. Definitely glowering. She gave him her best confused look. She was confused. What could he possibly have a problem with?

  “You're buzzing,” he frowned the word.

  “Buzzing?” She looked around and saw that Athelstan was not the only one paying attention to her. More than a few customers were giving her sidelong looks of confusion and mild disapproval.

  He leaned down, placing his big hand on the table in front of her. “Keep the magic for the circle,” he said softly so that nobody else would be able to hear him.

  “I swear I'm not...” Anita's denial fell on deaf ears.