A Witch in Time Page 5
Darragha Foster
Dedication
Thanks to April, Lady Vampire for the title idea: Spell-Crafted for Pleasure. Damn, it’s nice to have readers with fabulous ideas!
Spell-Crafted for Pleasure
Salem placed a hand over her pounding heart. She couldn’t catch a full breath in the wake of her last powerful orgasm.
She realized how sweaty she was and hoped her sticky body bore a sensual perspiration glow as opposed to locker-room stink. Not that Kane was any better off than she. He’d gone south of her belly button and stayed there for quite awhile. An oral ívking—an adventure in Viking terminology—between her legs. Plunder, pillage, ravish. Right fucking on, man. This Norseman certainly knew how to come ashore!
He’d collapsed after getting her off for the third time.
She reached her other hand out to touch his soft reddish-black hair as his tight curls cascaded across her naked thighs. His breathing told her that he, too, was exhausted. As odd a time as it was to think of Martin Luther King’s famous speech, the words “Free at last! Free at last!” rang in her head. Kane was free. And his blood-brother, well, he’d be kept busy in his long confinement.
Pinioned under his weight and tangled in a confused mess of jeans and undergarments, she figured until she could catch her breath, she’d just stay where she was. On the floor of her shop. With the front door unlocked and within view of the window. If someone walked in or glanced through the window in passing, so be it. The only folks who came into her shop were open-minded sorts, any way. Puritans certainly didn’t whip out plastic at a place like hers—at least not that they let anyone know about. Brown paper wrappers had been invented to hide the mail-order sins of the holier-than-thou. A multitude of sins. A fine collection of sins. Salem displayed her sins in a glass curio case for the curiously errant to peruse and purchase.
Salem felt fairly certain she couldn’t walk, much less rise from the floor at this point, anyway. If the ultra-moral right decided to picket her shop again, she'd just have to let them. Hell, she'd invite them in to meet the new man in her life. And such a man! Even the most uptight, anal-retentive, I-only-do-it-missionary-style with my husband kind of woman would like Kane!
She managed an exhausted “wow,” which was quickly answered by a single-word reply from Kane.
“More,” he uttered. He slid his hands between her legs.
“Oh, no. No more. I can’t,” she begged. “Kane, no more.”
Kane chuckled, the sound rising low and teasing from his throat. He slid two fingers into her swollen, sensitive vagina. “I need you,” he whispered.
“Can we at least get off the floor?” Salem asked, squirming as Kane inserted a third thin, dark finger.
“The floor is nice,” he replied. “You on the floor is nicer.”
Salem wasn’t sure she could muster the energy to command Kane to stop diddling her clit long enough for her lock the shop and move their party somewhere else.
How many orgasms could she have before noon?
Salem knew she was about to head into uncharted waters as Kane reached for the ancient whalebone dildo that for so long had been both prison and refuge to him.
“Exquisite,” he whispered.
“You do good work,” Salem replied. “For a spirituous being only recently made corporeal, you do damned fine work.”
“I’m not talking about the tool. You are the true treasure of this shop. You are exquisite. Remarkable. Thoroughly enjoyable. It's time to show you what this thing can really do.”
Salem wasn’t about to argue. One does not argue with a horny Norseman recently given a second chance at life.
With unimaginable, unearthly skill, Kane re-introduced Salem to her most interesting acquisition to date: dildo, Balaenae Eburneolus, Icelandic. She’d met Mr. Whalebone dick before, but oh, my, not quite like this…
Salem put every other thought out of her mind as climax number four came crashing in on her.
* * * *
At the end of October, when the veil between light and dark was at its thinnest, Salem’s shop received a number of unique visitors seeking celebratory items for Samhain and various winter rites. They came hooded, covered by shroud or shadow. Salem’s Fine Collection of Sins was the only occult shop for a hundred miles, and this October had been a strange, wild ride.
Her poor little familiars, pet white rats Dax and Pheelyx, were exhausted from identifying shadow from flesh. The veil must have been stretched pretty darn taut, as the chirps and squeaks from the girls had been nonstop. Seems every earth-bound shade, spirit, wraith and demon needed something she had to offer. They tried to act human. They really did, bless their decaying hearts.
In the business of ritual supplies and erotic antiquities for a solid nine years, Salem Grier catered to practitioners of the dark arts, both living and not-quite-living, novice Wiccan practitioners looking for their first grimoire, and seasoned dark witches on the prowl for new acolytes. Her shop was community and kindred spirit to all those seeking magic and mayhem. As long as she was paid in cash or credit (no checks, please), Salem didn’t care if her customers smelled like an open grave or Chanel No5.
Dark souls milling about society sometimes wanted in, but she’d set her grid of spells so deep that those aligned to the foul side of magic couldn’t enter her shop. At least not yet.
She recognized that she might be too well protected. She hadn’t had sex in months—much less a date of any kind. Seems spells meant to keep out bad’uns kept out potential lovers, too.
She’d lifted the spells once. Accidentally.
That had been a big mistake. Big, big mistake.
Previewing new spell books aloud without having safeties in place had brought things right out of the woodwork that wanted to bump her in the night.
She’d found that her building was infested by horny Revenants—restless spirits leftover from the days when the structure had connected to a Boomtown-era cathouse. The Revenants, soiled doves with a no doubt colorful past, just wanted to go about their business, with her as their first customer in, oh, maybe a hundred years. Salem politely declined the offer of two rouge-tinted doxies and set her barriers up again.
She’d had a passion for Norse mythology since childhood and used protective symbols from that mythos as guardians for her shop and tidy little upstairs flat. She figured the Norse Gods were the patron saints of her shop. Business had been brisk. The Gods were pleased.
After catering to beings living on both sides of the veil, very little surprised her any longer. She felt she was too young to be cynical—but when less-than-human customers paid for their purchase with platinum American Express cards, she just accepted the fact that even dead things and demi-gods had better credit that she did. She didn’t qualify for a platinum American Express card. But that sacred piece of plastic was the card of choice for deities and specters in need of anointing oils and smudge sticks. Karl Malden would be so proud. American Express and Godly influences—don’t leave home without them.
With no lover in sight, her collection of vintage and historical objets pour réjouir les sens was looking pretty darn tempting. A little time with a toy might be just the ticket!
Salem unpacked each shipment and carefully cataloged the items to include as much information as she could about each piece. It wasn’t enough to say this leather sheath was worn by a Scottish lord at the turn of the century. No, her patrons wanted to know whose penis had graced said sheath. Whose blue-blooded sperm had filled it? Whose vagina it had penetrated? That is, if it had ever been used vaginally. Salem knew that buggery was commonplace in more noble circles, and there was a good chance that her vintage penile sheaths and highly polished, splinter-free ebony dildos had come a knocking on someone’s back door in years past. To avoid one’s contracting the clap, you know.
Research was often painstaking.
She’d recently managed to procure two Italian dilettos, dating from the late sixteen hundreds. Delicately fashioned, and oh, so very valuable
with a distinct aroma of olive oil still permeating their smooth wooden surfaces, these were naughty, naughty little toys. One diletto was smaller in girth and length than the other. Dual plugs for play or display. She scanned the accompanying packing slip for the authentication and historical data. Belonged to the second wife of Visconte Vincenzo Alighieri of Roma, Ano Domini Sixteen-Hundred Ninety-Seven. All right, what’s the history of the second wife? Why did she need dilettos when she was married to an Italian stallion? Salem rifled around the manila envelope containing the customs declaration and other documentation. Of course! The Visconte had a nasty case of syphilis and did not want his wife to suffer as his dick rotted off. Nice story. That should allow for a couple hundred bucks markup. The caring husband commissions toys for his wife. How thoughtful.
Salem carefully set the dilettos aside and opened the next box. “And what lovely item did my hard-earned money buy here?” She held her breath as she clipped the strapping tape and air-filled packing materials. Oh, my God. Did he get it? Is this it?
Salem had herself a lovely little pigeon of a Dutchman who scoured the European countryside, various auction houses, and estate sales to buy everything he could of fine naughty sensibilities, and then ship it to her for twenty percent, plus expenses. He had a penchant for the macabre and the twisted. If anyone could have found this particular item, it was he.
She exhaled and attempted to calm her inner level of jubilation to that of mere excitement as she unwrapped the soft, butter-colored piece of antique erotica. “He got it. He got the Viking’s Member for me!”
Long, hard, and decorated with scrimshaw-depicting scenes from Norse mythology—scenes of love between the Gods, both male and female—it was by far the most intricate piece in her collection.
Salem circled her fingers around the girth of the thing, feeling its heavy, sensual weight. “Oy vey, and to think this once pleasured some Viking wench while her man was away burning English coastal churches! Lord, from the fury of the Norsemen save us—and from the sex drive of their women with their whalebone peckers, preserve our souls.” She laughed at her own joke. Longfellow had nothing on her.
She touched her lips to the head of the dildo and gave the cold bone a pleased kiss. “Hello, gorgeous,” she whispered.
The contrast of bone to flesh, warmth to lifelessness, heartbeat to etched memories sent a shockwave through the air. She didn’t feel it. She couldn’t see it. However, the spirits of the Viking Member awakened as the cascading surge of life force passed them. They reached out, trying desperately to ride the wave. It was but a teasing taste of freedom. It would take more than a simple kiss to set them free. It wouldn’t be long now, as a woman finally held the Viking Member again.
When sweet release came to her, it would be subsequently shared by them. The stronger of the two spirits encased in the carved bone managed a split-second sending of consciousness into the world. He’d had a plan for centuries. He quickly adapted it to this new era, and dug in like a tick into the vulnerable mind of a well-heeled passerby harboring her own fine collection of sins as she strolled past Salem’s shop, her heart closed to love, but her mind frighteningly open to suggestion.
*
The bell on her door chimed. Salem carefully set the whalebone piece back in its packing materials and dashed to the storefront, her mind still wrapping around thoughts of Vikings and their toys. “Hi, can I help you?”
“Santeria supplies?” the woman asked.
“Yes, of course. May I show you?” Salem replied.
“I need sal negre,” the woman continued. “Bad neighbor. He really needs to go away.”
“I carry sal negre. Black salt. I have it.”
“I need dove’s blood ink and a quill, as well.”
“I don’t carry true blood items. What I sell is made from various herbs and spices.”
“City regulation?” the customer asked. “No animal products?”
Salem nodded. Ink infused with blood—human or otherwise—technically fell under the umbrella of religious goods, but she’d chosen not to carry any modern-era animal by-products in her shop. Her quills weren’t even plucked. They were shed by happy geese.
“Let me show you,” Salem offered, leading the customer to her mini-botanica section of Santeria candles, spells, and other ritual supplies. Not the best-selling items in the store, though occasionally she’d have a very good day Voodoo-wise.
“Sal negre. Good. Good. Is this the largest size you carry?” the woman asked.
“I have a large container in the back. How bad of a neighbor do you have? A little sal negre combined with the right spell should be enough to send the worst of demons packing.”
The woman looked sharply at Salem. “I’ve separated from my husband and he will not move out of our townhouse. He’s making it impossible for me to carry on…well, let’s say he’s making things difficult. And it’s not because he wants or needs the house or me. He’s just being stubborn. I’ll take as much black salt as you have.”
“I have five pounds. That should dispel even the vilest of future ex-husbands,” Salem replied.
“I’ll take two quills as well,” the woman replied in a rather commanding manner that told Salem it was check-out time.
“I’ll be right back with the salt. Go ahead and bring your quills to the counter. No ink?” Salem asked.
The woman shook her head. “I’ll stop at the park on the way home.”
Salem didn’t ask any more questions. Creepy, creepy, creepy.
Her customer paid with that all-elusive Platinum American Express. The rings on her fingers flashed like lightning against the reflective, well-lit glass display case under the register.
“Blessed be,” Salem offered as her customer departed the shop, her fabulous heels and heavy jewels carrying her toward the salty demise of her marriage.
She glanced at her watch. Nearly time to close, grab a bite from the deli next door and retreat to the comfort of her apartment with slippers and a glass of wine.
She retreated into the backroom to further inspect her new shipment. She pulled her price guide off a stool. Going rate for the only other known Viking Member was one-hundred—and-sixty thousand dollars, sold at auction.
She handled the whalebone penis carefully, stroking it as if it were the real thing. Gloves. She needed to put on white cotton gloves. “Screw it,” she swore. Her gloves were put away. She liked the way the engravings circumnavigating the bone tickled her palm. She pulled her spectacles off her head and laid them on the bridge of her nose. She slipped a hair band off her wrist and pulled her hair into a ponytail.
The character depictions were as crisp as the day they’d been inscribed. Whalebone was like that. Someone had loved this thing. Kept it well-oiled and out of harm’s way for a thousand years.
She rifled through the box, looking for the authentication papers. “Unearthed by a farmer searching for the remains of lost lambs buried in several feet of purple moss, Berserker’s Lava Field, Iceland, 1943. Sold by farmer Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson to the National Museum for ten ewes, 1945. Obtained by Prithan Auction House, 1997. Authenticated by University of Aberdeen, Scotland, 1998. Record of subsequent sales confidential,” Salem read.
Salem continued searching through the packing materials. Her hand touched something round, hard and cold. A fourth dildo perhaps?
Her tone changed from one of elation to one of surprise quite quickly. “What the Hell is this?”
She removed a spherical stone with a perfectly round hole chiseled through its center. The stone had one slightly flat side, allowing it to stand upright. It weighed a ton. “I bet this is Icelandic palagonite.” A flash of writing on a slip of paper in the box caught her eye.
It read simply “Odin Stone. Icelandic Palagonite. Naturally occurring center hole formed by volcanic gasses and magma cooling quickly in glacial waters. Once believed to be sacred to the God, Odin. Used in oath-taking and as a tool to discern fidelity between lovers and brothers.” Salem smiled
. She wondered if the whalebone dick and the Odin Stone had had a fling during shipping.
She shook off the myriad jokes and sexually-oriented displays she could make about the two artifacts. They weren’t talking to her, anyway. Obsession and heavy concentration on a single subject made her personal grid of defenses weaken. The moment that occurred, her immunity to the wild memories contained in the various antique sex toys in her possession would come flying at her like a dust storm. Each one had a tale and each one wanted Salem’s undivided attention. It was her seventh sense…I hear horny people.
She had always heard voices emanating from objects around her. Disney said it best when he had his nubile young Pocahontas sing to John Smith, “I know every rock and tree and creature, has a life, has a spirit, has a name.” But Disney never mentioned that every sex toy ever to grace a snatch or bum had a story, too. Her objets wanted her to record their experiences. Hello, madam! I am the leather sheath of the former Duke of Bourgeois, worn by him as a marital aid. The poor man suffered from an obnoxious case of premature ejaculation and I lessened his untimely outbursts with my thick, rough interior so that the Duchess would not have to resort to a succession of young lovers to keep herself amused sexually. Followed by maniacal laughter that clearly meant the Duchess had screwed everyone while her husband, the Duke, had tried desperately to achieve an erection for more than thirty seconds. Someday, she was going to stick around and listen to the stories. Her, a bottle of wine, and a dozen antique sex toys. She needed to get a life.
* * * *
Salem snuck in the service entrance and through the kitchen of the Kosher Pickle Deli, helping herself to a delicious greasy potato latke as she made her way to the dining area.
“Hey, Miss Grier. Good day in the sex trade?” Misha, the Russian deli-owner, called as Salem pulled up a stool at the kitchen’s stainless prep counter. “Don’t worry about the latke. For you, it’s on the house. Your Reuben is ready and I put a surprise in the box. Something you’ll like very much.”
Salem smiled. “Thanks, Misha.”