Trials (Entry 23 | Divination 3 | Brain Trust)

Entry 23 of a modern-day witch’s recorded journey chronicling a special discovery.

Waking up after a day like yesterday was a real bitch. Getting out of bed, the same sore points are still sore. Sitting at the edge of the bed, I want to touch them, to check myself in the mirror, but I’m afraid to see or feel bruises. Part of it is my skin not used to having blemishes, but a bigger part is my pride not used to having blemishes either. I’m so tempted to do a yoga pose straight out of bed, I almost make one as I stretch my back to feel flesh elasticity being tested in a way it doesn’t like, and now I’m groaning like a little girl that doesn’t want to get up early for the physical activity she foolishly signed up for in the afternoon, knowing how it’d fuck up her lazy mornings.

My hands are rubbing my temples for the headache I woke up with, or dreamed about that manifested itself. Or both. Probably the latter as the dream was about…expanded horizons, I guess? That’s the word for it as things felt like they were being forcibly pulled away from awareness, but connectivity remained and I had to bear the unnatural change. I’d call it a nightmare, but I got pretty turned on as it was happening, and I swear I edged towards an orgasm, distracting me from the the pain that didn’t last long in the dream; the remaining pain came up with me this morning. It’s slowly going away, and stroking my temples is helping, but I bet it’s to do with reflecting my new witchy regimen.

I don’t even dare look for the clock or my phone to tell the time, cause I really can’t care. Looking outside through half-open eyes, I’m guessing it’s still morning, which means I probably get yelled at less by my teachers. It would be so nice to have them make me care, and make them sexually regret it, but the firepower they threw at me yesterday means I’ll be the one spanked.

One kinky thought leads to another right away, and I reflexively throw myself back onto the bed and move my hand down to caress my thigh, giving myself a little one-player foreplay to work myself up. Honestly I’m surprised I’m doing this as my pride and my libido often feed off of one another, but the pride misalignment keeps me from being in an enthusiastic mood. And yet, that doesn’t keep my hand from working on my body, answering to a stimuli-deprived libido. That need to get off is still growing, in a scary way, like everything going on makes my engine perpetually purr and roar, even when the rest of me has had enough. I sense I could be severely dehydrated and the only liquids it could care about are the ones draining out of it when I bend to her wishes. I’m not under the covers for long as frustration hits; part of my training involves holding her back, denying her for constructive reasons. It takes that promise plus the fear of her demonstrative hold over all priorities.

My loud, jungle cat yawn wakes me up a little more, shaking my wild hair around, loving how free it is. I stretch again, pain be damned. I want to roar like the proud jungle cat, if I wasn’t pussy enough to be concerned that I’d wake up some hunters, who mysteriously were nowhere to be found. Before I could look for them, or look for my first cup of coffee that morning, I find an old picture of a very young me, Ma, and Aunt Maggie together. It was one of the few I had around my apartment, and my most cherished one. I think I was happiest with both of them in my life, as evident by the wide smile of my goofy kid face, and Ma and Maggie’s face looked happy together, but both of them looking down on me with pride; the pride in their smiles only seemed evident when I got older. I wonder if they knew their pride would lead me to do something great, and I wonder if whoever put the picture there wanted that pride to be reached through G-magic.

And now I realize that this pic is supposed to be back at the apartment with jeremy, and I’m at Esther’s place. I’m about to call out for them when I see Connie across the street, or more accurately on the rooftop of the two-story building across the street, levitating a few feet above it in a cross-legged meditative posture to be eye-level with me. It’s then when that brain pain fades as I let whatever I’m sensing in my head, allowing it to work as intended. Turning my head at two different angles, I sense Esther and Esmeraude somewhere else too, at the same height, meditating the same way, facilitating the connection. Someone says something, something to do with telekinesis, and suddenly I’m frozen, staring across the street at Connie who disappears, and reappears in-front of me in the bedroom a second later.

“Do you feel it?”

I’m puzzled as hell at first, looking around at the trinity staring at me, their positioning putting me at the center of a triangle. Okay, I think I’ve got it, and tapping a bit into the extra-sensory, I sense…something. I touch my temples, and that reflexive withdraw of my fingers afraid to bring back pain feel something before my fingertips even make contact. I can feel a sense of them, somewhat, like telepathy, but their essence as well, what their thoughts won’t tell me. It feels like the information is being broadcast and shared between us, as they’re probably reading me too.

“No, Mistress. Do you feel this?” Connie asks pointedly again, bringing her hand up to make mine move under magical puppetry. My manipulated hands slips down my chest, down between my legs, and the G-Magic sends ripples through the connection, and the ripple back to me, as I can easily feel a boost of power, fingertips twitching, ready to unleash more power than before.

“Holy shit,” I say and think. They all say something in unison, and a new ripple flows in every direction all of a sudden, a gust of wind blowing things off the cabinets and dressers in-effect.

I pick up Gretel to find the page to where I last made an entry in her, but my eyes bulge as I see text being written down on a new page out of thin air; crazier-still, I see….I’m seeing the thoughts I’m thinking being written down in real-time. I’m looking at my thoughts being written down the moment I’m thinking them, in my handwriting. It looks like it’s being written in ink instead of laser-printed with technology, so the ink itself is a magical manifestation. I’d stop to look at the opposite side of the page to see if an impression is being made on the other end, but I’m still too caught in watching my own thoughts becoming a novella. And looking back to read, I wonder why some of the text seems like the tense is wrong, or some of my earlier thoughts since I’ve woken up were probably more felt than thought.

“That’s how the spell works,” Connie is telling me, reading my thoughts like she was hold Gretel instead of me.

“What spell, I’ve never even heard of one like this.”

“Most will not have thought of this, because it takes a special kind of cultivation through power, experience, and creativity to make this happen. Your power, our experience, and all of us thinking of the importance of your record keeping with Gretel.”

“Gretel is important to you?”

“To all of us, because Gretel is important to you.”

Drawing my eyes back to the developing text on the page, with magic that knows some semblance of quotation and probably-proper grammar, or it’s just co-opting it from my brain, I have to wonder how quickly this stream-of-consciousness writing will fill up a single journal, and how many Gretels I’ll need to keep a thorough record. Maybe too thorough though.

“Can this writing be shut on-and-off at will?”

“Yes…like so.”

—Entry 23/Divination 3/Brain Trust—

Dear Gretel,

Holy shit.

That is all.

Or I wish it was just for the sake of having time to process all of this. I’m back to writing with an actual pen in you this time, noticing the subtle differences between manual and magical penmanship with how it’s pressing into the page, and even on the unwritten page, still scary in a doppelganger sense how perfectly my handwriting comes across as I can’t tell the difference in each penmanship. I so, so very want to treat this entry as a Trial and mess around with the possibilities, but this one is definitely more Divination. For a matter of recording fresh thoughts, I will say the magical penmanship seemed as automatic as breathing to me, if not more; the fact that I didn’t know I was doing it until it happened is crazy. The way the page turned to the new writing had to be something the trinity pulled off. Right now I think it took them initiating something in me to create the stream of written consciousness, but hopefully they’ll teach me how to do it on my own, as there are a lot of fun possibilities with this.

And of course, while we’re at it, the writing epiphany seems a small part of this brain trust that they’ve constructed. Just when I thought G-magic was enough of a boost to my witchcraft, it’s taken to the next step with this genius initiative. But looking over at my golden girls, watching me with consideration, waiting patiently for me to finish writing. The looks on their faces don’t at all suggest this new magic (which I’m tentatively calling it T-magic for now) is enough to overwhelm the opposition to come, or simply evening the odds. Maybe they’re trying to keep me humble and grounded while I ascend, or maybe I’m underestimating what’s coming.

Esmeraude especially as something very pleading in her eyes, or maybe this brain trust makes it way easier to sense her feelings than before. So for now, I’m pausing the writing for now. Or at least the manual; I just notice a flicker of something in my head, and look to Connie’s face for a smile confirming turning the conscious writing back on.

She is smiling, so this will resume momentarily.

Divination 3.1 T-writing

“We are happy that you are enjoying this new spell thus far, Mistress,” Connie is telling me as we’re all sitting cross-legged in another triangle on the bedroom floor. Connie is facing me, while I have to turn my head to see Esther and Esmeraude over my shoulders.

“How did you all come up with it?” I ask them, figuring the inspiration had come from an earlier entry (Entry 19 upon reflection).

“The connective energies you used with your G-Concilium inspired us. We used what’s considered an ancient spell in the community, something that would only make sense for a considerable amount of power, and a cooperative group making up a coven; these are things we believe most current covens lack.”

“Yes, most of them are about fashions, pontificating in coteries, and dominating small ponds instead of enriching the oceans,” Esther contributed with a smile.

“Don’t be so sure we won’t do the same,” Purring over my shoulder makes my brunette flush a little, even though she’s trying to maintain herself. I flip my brunette hair like a starlet seducing the audience. “Who attempts to do those things might make all the difference, because I think if I whispered something in your ear, you might have a change of heart, and love dressing up for me, pontificating in our majestic coterie, dominating other small ponds in order to enrich the oceans, just for me…” My voice grows so soft, Esther is having to lean forward to hear me better, making her bend to give me a good look at her cleavage in her nightie. Biting her lip gets stifled a little as Connie clears her throat.

“Speaking of, with this connection we’ve made, we’re now aware more than ever of your libido, and how it thirsts to be driven to that climax. It is a strange means of fueling your powers.”

“Not one I intended.”

“But still one that serves as much a fortification for your bewitching as much as it serves as a liability. The need it instills in you now may have a compromising effect on you if, one that we would humbly ask that you limit for now.”

“Limit by how much?”

The silence is filling the room with an answer they don’t want to say out loud, because they know it won’t please me who won’t be pleasing them. I’m surprised their asking me as I’ve agreed to set the curriculum, but I’m glad they recognize it’s a big ask.

“In the following days, you will spend time with each of us, honing and sharpening your skills, sometimes with your G-magic, sometimes without, but up to the standards expected of a witch being tested for her trials. For the success of your training, it would have to be left up to us when you are allowed release.”

Thinking about the training to come, I have a lot of questions, many of which probably won’t get answered despite curiosity, but all I really care about is “release which will become a rarity in short order?”

“Yes Mistress,” Connie bows her head as my crotch starts salivating at the stimulation it knows it won’t get for the foreseeable future, as if it’s trying to persuade me to listen to her rather than them. I can tell they feel it too, as something I sense from multiple directions feels like pleasurable twitching similar to mine.

“And since G-magic mainly requires stimulation rather than orgasming, I suppose I’ll be edging a lot?”

“I suspect you won’t be the only one edging,” Esmeraude guesses over my other shoulder, hoping for mercy.

“But the power you get in return will be worth the sacrifice,” Connie is telling me as she levitates herself up to kiss me. I feel soft lips caress mine at first, and that makes me dive in for a deeper kiss. A gust of wind blows past my lips after she pulls away, and I bring those lips back to mine, though they’re kissing a little different than before.

“Sacrifice has always been needed to achieve greatness, and greatness often borne from patience.” Arms holding me out of reach give me a minute to realize I’d gone from kissing Connie to kissing Esther. Opening my eyes, a smug smile off my brunette makes me want to kiss her hard, after I look to confirm my trinity is using Transmutation to seamlessly switch places, seamless like it’s easy and not a dangerous task most witches aren’t skilled or stupid enough to try; but most witches don’t have a brain trust like we do, of course. Excitement grows in me with this being possible, leaning in to kiss Esther hard. That kiss lasts longer before she comes up for air, and I let it pause, opening my eyes to see the shift from Esther, turn into Esmeraude in the blink of an eye.

“And in moments of patience will you find a great deal of greatness. You teach us that lesson so very often as we anticipate your control, hoping it will be instilled slowly, letting the moment, the manipulation we’ve come to love from you last as long as it can.” Esmeraude shifting into Mesmeraude isn’t instant, and it aids in the point she’s making, as my redhead is taking it slow in taking me under. It feels so natural to let it happen, I just can’t refuse her. I refuse to even try in this moment.

“The growing connection you build is like slowly letting a flower come to bloom, made possible by what we are, and what you provide to show us who we should be for you. Savor this moment, as we savor you; allow it to extend with time. Allow time to extend in this way with witchcraft. Allow me to help you extend things…”

I can feel Mesmeraude’s words surging through me in that Concilium way, it’s a caress on my mind that shackles me into meditation, that draws me into bringing up Concilium from my own essence, to turn it on myself. Helpless to resist my slave, I allow a gathered sense of Concilium to bathe in my insides instead of extend out of me, and I float in a void of myself. Meditative states and the occasional practice of self-hypnosis aren’t unheard of in my life, but turning Concilium on myself is new, and the longer it lasts on me, depending on how long time runs in my own void with G-magic slowing an already warped altered perception of time down, the more rousing it becomes to that now-limited part of me. But it’s less of an ache in the darkness, and more of a train on an endless track that theoretically could reach a destination, but no one on the train would ever mind if there wasn’t one.

I can feel this…it’s a well of power in me. But the more I explore it, the more I feel I might be misjudging the comparative landscape. The well could be at the top of a tall hill, but the more I explore, it could become an active volcano in depth if I continue. As I’m deep into myself, I wonder where my trinity is, if they are invisibly-watching, or if they might as well be a million miles away. I can’t tell, even though I feel their guiding energy in some sense; I know my physical body is being well-taken care of, which makes things a lot easier on me. In this endless darkness, I wonder if this is what the great beyond is supposed to be, where all witches go, and if there’s a soul to be transported to another plane, or if we just retreat to within our own minds that extend for the eternity some would call heaven. A sense of the afterlife starts really coming to me as I suddenly feel I’m not alone.

“Good…” someone says.

“…….” finding I have a mouth to say something, I say nothing, wondering if I’m hallucinating in myself.

“What you’re doing is good. Continue…”

I still don’t know what to say to this voice. Could it be an echo of my own conscience, giving self-praise for the whole? As logical as that sounds, I just know the answer is “no”.

“Who…” comes from me for sure, asking “who are you” as best I can.

“Who has been watching you…from the start…”

The words make me gasp in a way that shocks me to air existing inside me.

I don’t want to get my hopes up in my two sublime guesses, but I hope anyway.

“…Ma…Maggie?”

I get no response, just the sense of a smile. And that’s all I get as the self-Concilium meditation ends.

***

It’s nearly sunset by the time I come back to myself, and I smell food cooking, ready for all of us to feast. A little drunk from my first self-Concilium, I go over to you Gretel, and find everything written down, even as I was under. I read the T-writing over and over and over, a witch mystified by the recently-explored mysteries of a new world for me to plant my flag, and probably an empire while I’m at it.

And the voice I communicated with…my heart holds out hope while my soul feels vast and my mind addled. I never thought I could speak to…who I think I may have spoken to, but I’m shaking off the idea of tears before I let any of my biddies see it; not that I refuse to show them weakness or emotion, but more that it’s a private moment that I want to remain private for now. As deep as I went, I can only assume they wouldn’t know. A drawback of this brain trust is that my thoughts and inner-self might be more transparent than I want them to be at any given moment, even as a mind-controlling mistress. But I’ll burn and rebuild that bridging memory when I get to it.

I can tell I’m going to be doing a lot more of this, and now I’m actually excited for my continuing education to come. I have no idea what kind of Cherish I’ll be before it’s all over, but now I feel like sprinting towards the future to find out.

For now, good night Gretel.