“Oh, no, no. That’s fine. You-you don’t need to change anything. It’s not a problem.” Harper wondered if it was possible to catch fire from embarrassment. Her entire head felt as if she’d just pulled it from an oven, her palms were sweaty, and if the Brackenbridge home had come equipped with a handy dandy hole in the floor, she would have jumped, no questions asked, content to fall directly through the earth.
“I just . . I wanted to make sure it was a possibility and that I wasn’t going crazy.”I just wanted to make sure it’s normal to be horny all the time.Harper laughed in embarrassment, but Ladybug only smiled understandingly.
“Increased blood flow, SSRIs, and decreased stress response. Stronger arousal and faster sexual response. I’d be more surprised if youhadn’texperienced a difference. If you don’t have a partner, there’s a shop over by the commerce park that sells a huge range of toys. You might need one.”
Get a vibrator is the official diagnosis.
Rationally, Harper understood that the chemical imbalances that caused clinical depression also contributed to a lack of sexual response and arousal. It stood to reason, therefore, that the opposite would be true.
The easing of her symptoms had always left her horny, but nothing like this. She was wet day and night. The slightest bit of stimuli against her crotch had her arching, desperate for more. She and her sister had gone to lunch the previous weekend at a brasserie in town, slipping the electronic disc the hostess handed her into the front pocket of her bag. Her cross body bag, that rested on her hip, but at that moment, had been sandwiched between her upper thigh and the counter she leaned on as they waited for their table. When the vibration went off, an indication it was time for them to be seated, Harper almost came right then and there.
If you don’t have a partner, there’s a toy shop in town to help you get your rocks off.
The problem was shedidhave a partner, one who seemed to enjoy watching her solo play, which only turned her on more.
She hadn’t gone to the tea shop that afternoon after lunch with her sister. Instead, she had gone straight home, undressing until she was naked from the waist down. When Azathé slipped from the shadows in her bedroom, having come to her house in search of her that evening, they found her in the same position — eyes squeezed shut, teeth gnashing, desperate moans pulling from her throat as she held a vibrator to her throbbing clit. She had already come several times since arriving home that day, and felt as if she needed to come several more just to be able to close her eyes and sleep.
Azathé was the most giving shadow partner she could ask for, and was more than willing to assist her . . . but first they wanted to watch her pleasure herself.
“What was it you said aboutThe Devotion of the Volantines,witchling? That it wasinstructional? Forgive me, but I find this performancemostinstructional. I hope you’ll indulge me.”
She had indulged them. They watched her come with the aid of the vibrator, the swirling mass of shadows inches away from her pulsing pussy, a front row seat to her contractions. They watched her straddle her dildo — a strange shaped thing consisting of three fat spheres of descending size, connected on its underside with a thick line of ridges and a curious shaped head. She had bought it years earlier from a shop off campus, and still had no idea what species it was meant to emulate. It didn’t matter, for it felt amazing sinking down on each of the spheres, and they had watched that as well, closely examining the way the lips of her sex stretched around the girth, as her breath hitched and her body shook.
When they finally solidified before her to offer her relief, Harper had begged to be taken on her hands and knees, hard and fast and deep, positive the act of actually having sex with someone else would finally cool the fire beneath her skin. The cock they created had the same shape as the dildo, proof that they were an excellent study and that the experiment had, in fact, been quite instructive.
“Do you have any other concerns? Any side effects you want to discuss?”
You mean other than being so horny I feel like a cat girl in heat?She was relieved to hear it was the supplements. Harper understood the science behind it. Granted, she’d never experienced an increase in her libido when she had been on traditional medicine, but the herbal concoction created by the adorably awkward witch had her kitty purring day and night.As long as it’s normal and not a sign you’re going to start needing professional intervention in the way of an entire Ketterling team.
Ladybug was thrilled that Harper was experiencing improvement in her depressive symptoms. “So, uh, obviously I’d like to keep taking it. What do I need to do from here to set up a standing prescription? Or order, whatever you call it?” She followed the other witch, circling the staircase to a rounded parlor, her invoices kept in a small antique secretary desk. As she wrote up the slip, Harper walked around the room. There were photos on all of the walls, all featuring different Brackenbridge witches through the ages, she assumed.
Eyeing an oval portrait of a robust woman with a steel gray updo and a ferocious attitude that Harper was able to discern even through the photograph, she read the inscription on a small brass plaque.
Authricia Brackenbridge
High Crone ~ Cambric Creek Coven
“This is the former high crone! I-I didn’t realize you were related. I’ve heard people talk about her, she sounds amazing.” Harper faltered. “Is-is she the witch Holt belonged to?”
Ladybug looked up in surprise, eyes widening. “Holt? Oh, no. No, he belonged to my Aunt Willow. They’re just over here . . .”
Rising from her little seat, she led Harper further down the wall, gesturing to a collection of photos. The woman was a beautiful, ethereal blonde, with icy gray eyes and a serene expression. Her fairness made Holt’s inhuman spikiness and jet black hair stand out, making him seem even moreotherin the few photos in which he appeared.
The remaining photos were of the same witch, smiling, arm in arm with another woman. Identical features, with darker hair. As Harper moved down the wall, the blonde witch’s beautiful platinum hair was replaced with a silk turban, her eyebrows and eyelashes showing the effects of the chemotherapy the head covering hid.
A little girl appeared in a number of the photos, gap-toothed smiles and shining eyes, her mousy brown hair a frizz of loose curls. In one of the photos, the two women sat side-by-side in front of a large cake with candles, the little girl between them. The three of them wore identical silk turbans, and Harper could discern birthday decorations in the background.
“Is this your mother?”
Ladybug nodded, her lips pressed tightly together. “It is,” she said after a moment, and Harper wondered if she, too, needed to pull her composure together enough to be able to answer.
It never stops hurting. That’s another universal truth.Grief was a bruise on her heart, and it would hurt whenever it was poked. She had a feeling she already knew the answer to the question she asked next.
“Is she –”
“Dead.” Another fast nod, lips pressed in a tight line. “They all are. I’m the only one left.”
Someday, she would be able to control her emotional responses, perhaps. Someday, but not that day. Harper’s eyes overflowed.
