Page 5 of The Bairwick Witches
Schuyler gazed up at the moon with a smile a mile wide and thanked the beautiful rock, his body still humming, his cock still aching. Both spent and replenished simultaneously, lingering in between, desiring more but wanting sleep.
The rapturous sound of orgasms being achieved sounded off around them and drifted through the air.
He laughed to himself:Now, this is witchcraft.
Chapter Two
Midday in the sunroom found Schuyler stretched out on the circular sofa like a cat. Sunlight beamed through the glass, feeding the plants and creating a comfortable, alluring warmth under which he languished. The rays felt delicious against Schuyler’s shirtless torso, still exhausted from an intense round of cardio and yoga. His free hand absentmindedly rubbed his chest, fingers curling the thick fur as he scrolled mindlessly through dating apps. Seeing profiles but not truly paying attention to them. Riding a high since the ritual, and despite not feeling a hundred percent back to his old self, he juggled the idea of getting back out there. Unsure if he was ready, if he felt confident in himself enough just yet.
Zach’s easy dismissal of their relationship fucked with him more than even he acknowledged. He carried himself as if the breakup meant nothing, that he was over it. Internally, the whole ordeal upturned his equilibrium and erased his confidence, which he had not realized would be so hard to reclaim. The ritual had cleansed and reinvigorated him, but the blow of having to accept that his husband hadn’t wanted him couldn’t be ignored.
“You know I could whip up somethin’ up for all that extra weight you’re stressing about; you can pee it all out overnight. Might ruin them sheets, though.”
These lulls in our conversation are get shorter and shorter.
Schuyler sighed and scooted his hand away from his belly. “Go back to your mixing.” He heard the huff from Beau behind him, where he was working on mixing salves and ointments for their shop on the room’s work tables. “I’m good, thanks. I’ll deal with it sans magic.” He rolled onto his side, away from Beau’s eyes.
Beau scoffed softly, “You don’t have anything to be ashamed of. Flaunt every damn inch. You’re a handsome young man.”
“You’re contractually obligated to say that to me. And I’m hardly young.”
“Hogwash, I’d tell you if you were ugly. I told Aunt Eileen she looked like a haggard sow at Nan’s funeral. I told your mama the day she brought you home, you were ugly. Thank the Goddesses you grew up handsome. You’d think the other night confirmed all of this for you.”
“I still don’t know what all that was.”
“I’ve seen it before. You were an amber color, right? That’s ‘cause you needed healing. And they were called to heal, purely to satisfy.Youdidn’t even lift a finger, did you, lazy-ass homosexual?”
Sky conceded, he hadn’t.
“And you weren’t supposed to. Let that remind you when you start spiraling out in that head of yours as you doomscroll.”
“I’m not doomscrolling, I’m lookin’ at the apps. Seeing who’s around,” Schuyler revealed, and instantly regretted the admission.
“Men! My fav-o-rite subject.” Beau exclaimed, exaggerating his southern drawl. Without looking up from the potion he worked on, Beau extended his right hand, flicked his middle finger, and spoke the command, “Misete.”
Before Schuyler could counter, the image on his phone projected in the space above his head, refracted through the moisture in the air, hanging above them. “Dammit, Beau. Boundaries.”
“Are for weaker families than ours. You can always use your power and stop me, but you won’t…oh, he’s cute; the dark-eyed one in the corner. Hispanic?”
Schuyler, still resolved not to engage in magic, scrolled down, his every move mirrored on the spectral screen. “Um… no, possessed,” he confirmed, “Love passionate oral, mutual jerk-off sessions, and consuming the unworthy of their gift. No smokers.’Shame, cute ones are always possessed.”
“Sex would be good, though,” Beau pointed out.
“Really?” Schuyler perked up, “So… worth a tap?”
“He’s going to make you duel afterwards though,” he added, “classic sex for power-dark witchcraft-switch-a-roo. You’re all spent, sloppy bottom ass up on the floor, and he’s juiced up with your seed–and wham-o! Challenges you to a duel off guard, and you spend the next year recharging.”
“Ugh, how do you know if sex is even duel-worthy? Next,” he announced, moving along, stopping every so often to let Beau voice his opinion on this one’s features or that one’s ethnicity. Beau instilled in him the joy of sexual diversity.
“How about that one?” He selected a ginger-haired cutie.
“He’s 22, that’s too young.” Schuyler swiped past.
“For what? Sex? No, sir. That’s ripe.”
“To have something in common with. I already had to learn what fucking Pokémon were for Zach. What’s next? Frankly, I’m too tired to keep re-introducing all my favorite shit to new people. Or having to explain where my references come from. And vice versa, I don’t need someone throwing out slang and rephrasing words like gang signs and then having to stop and explain them to me like I’m a drugged-up geriatric waiting out my final days. And I can’t be assed to spend another minute feigning interest in their inevitable twenty-something nonsense, their drama, their friends’ drama. I don’t know how that makes me sound-”
“Like a grumpy old cunt.”
